Guild Wars 2

Stiv.1820:

Mogar.9216:

Stiv.1820:

PinCushion.7390:

I often wonder if I’m playing the same game as everyone else.

Thieves aren’t really that big a deal to me. If they spot me at low health they usually kill me. If not, they usually skip over me or fail their opener. If they land their opener I usually can get away or heal or CC them out of the fight. Either way, win or lose, they usually get creamed by someone that noticed them beating on me. If they’re really good they can occasionally get away, but their builds don’t tend to leave a lot of escapes in. Most of the time they’ve blown all their cooldowns on that one gank, and are hoping they can shortbow away.

That’s your basic glass-cannon setup that I see all over the place.

There are other builds that use stealth more, are more resilient, maybe more mobile. They’re harder to fight against, and can basically leave the fight whenever they want to. They also do way less damage. Good for them. They designed the build to be mobile and durable, and sacrificed damage to do it.

Do I, personally, find stealth to be an annoying mechanic? Yes, but that’s because it keeps me from getting easy kills. Do I think it should be nerfed/removed? No! I don’t even play a thief and I see no problems with it. It’s got sufficient limits to make it a royal PITA to use, and other players can usually do stuff to negate how effective it is.

You are playing the same game. It’s just that Anet balances around people like you and not people like the OP. They want their sPvP and tPvP to be successful so professions are balanced around the idea everyone knows how to play and knows how to counter everything else. In tPvP this is pretty much the case. In WvW, not so much, you got people like the OP running around everywhere. They think they are good but they are not. They don’t even bother to educate themselves on the abilities of other classes and choose to QQ on the forums instead.

The only legit complaint that I completely agree with that the PvP rule set should apply to WvW.

Funny thing you have no idea who I am what I play and I don’t think you even read my post. All I read from you is that OP must be a bad player who plays glass cannon . I don’t play glass cannon, I’m not qqing about dying to thief. All I’m saying is that it is not fun to fight someone whom you can’t target for 1/2 of the fight. It’s a design flaw that should be addressed.

It is exactly the design of the profession! That’s why there is only 3 seconds of revealed. Anet stated it’s part of the thief design that they are slippery and just barely slip through your fingers. You aren’t complain about a flaw, you are just complaining. No matter what class you play you have counters you are refusing to use.

If Anet meant to have a class that you can only target 1/2 of the time in a fight then they are the worst game designer ever. If stealth every 10 seconds + shadow step still isn’t enough ‘slipperiness’ for you then you are not cut out for pvp.

Stiv.1820:

I have a no stealth evade tank build ready to go for the day you QQers manage to get Anet to destroy the Thief class with a change like this. It’s so much easier than learning to combat the mechanic.

I have one of those too, it’s called an elementalist…. Come join the pigeonholed classes club, where only a few builds are viable.

But hey, you’ll still probably be able to hit things, unless they stop the auto-tracking whatever it is that makes pistol shots and arrows and daggers autohit while fireballs can simply be walked away from.

Lean to combat the mechanic? Very few people have the jedininja extrasensory connection to their computers to reliably track an independent (even sentient, on occasion) moving object which is invisible when your sole source of information is visual. Flailing wildly around, or requiring a vastly numerically superior or coordinated group to overcome a rendering (and possible over-inclusion of invisibility mechanics) issue being the counters isn’t balanced.

(Not calling for a thief nerf, rendering fixes should help a lot. But if not possible it would be another reason to separate WvW from PvE mechanically. I play a thief, stealth in PvE works fine. In WvW I can tell that my enemies hardly ever see me, even when I am visible on my own screen for several seconds, it’s obvious from their reactions. I don’t want the metagame to become stealth/rendering-wars anymore than it already is…..)

In my opinion stealth is fine. I tried a Thief and didn’t like it, because I prefer the way other MMO’s handle Stealth… but that’s just my playstyle.

It’s actually very difficult to stay in stealth, more so than in other MMOs…. so I don’t really see why people are against how stealth works in this game.

In my opinion the burst is too strong.
Trying to find the thief while in stealth is much more fun than “boom your dead”

Mogar.9216:

Funny thing you have no idea who I am what I play and I don’t think you even read my post. All I read from you is that OP must be a bad player who plays glass cannon . I don’t play glass cannon, I’m not qqing about dying to thief. All I’m saying is that it is not fun to fight someone whom you can’t target for 1/2 of the fight. It’s a design flaw that should be addressed.

Thats the thing, it isn’t a design flaw. This is how a thief is intended to be played. They are not supposed to stand there and trade blows with you. Once the rendering problem is fixed, you’ll find the “half the fight” thing trickles down to a more acceptable rate. Also, if you’re letting the thief stay stealthed then… well that’s your fault. Its not like they have an ability called “stealth” with a 3 second cooldown. They can either stock up on high-CD moves like refuge (easy as heck to counter), or spam you with C/D which again, is your fault. Its pretty simple to time your dodges so that they miss on C/D sometimes which, guess what, uses up a large chunk of init and = no stealth.

Seriously, if you HAVE to rely on targets for a “fun” fight then you simply need to get over that. Part of the tactics of fighting human players is dealing with their abilities.

There are plenty of ways to counter thief stealth and if you choose not to spec to defeat them then you will lose and/or they will mess with you and get away.

I have 25k HP and died in about 1.5 seconds to a backstab opener of 12k last night….followed by 4k, 5k and a sneeze Now I was running at the time, he was miles behind me, closed and deadski.

Who else can close, burst n be invisible.

I dont mind classes have a particular edge, its how paper, rock, scissors work….but really ….

Jeheil.2516:

I have 25k HP and died in about 1.5 seconds to a backstab opener of 12k last night….followed by 4k, 5k and a sneeze Now I was running at the time, he was miles behind me, closed and deadski.

Who else can close, burst n be invisible.

I dont mind classes have a particular edge, its how paper, rock, scissors work….but really ….

How much armor?

Kneemin.4235:

Mogar.9216:

Funny thing you have no idea who I am what I play and I don’t think you even read my post. All I read from you is that OP must be a bad player who plays glass cannon . I don’t play glass cannon, I’m not qqing about dying to thief. All I’m saying is that it is not fun to fight someone whom you can’t target for 1/2 of the fight. It’s a design flaw that should be addressed.

Thats the thing, it isn’t a design flaw. This is how a thief is intended to be played. They are not supposed to stand there and trade blows with you. Once the rendering problem is fixed, you’ll find the “half the fight” thing trickles down to a more acceptable rate. Also, if you’re letting the thief stay stealthed then… well that’s your fault. Its not like they have an ability called “stealth” with a 3 second cooldown. They can either stock up on high-CD moves like refuge (easy as heck to counter), or spam you with C/D which again, is your fault. Its pretty simple to time your dodges so that they miss on C/D sometimes which, guess what, uses up a large chunk of init and = no stealth.

Seriously, if you HAVE to rely on targets for a “fun” fight then you simply need to get over that. Part of the tactics of fighting human players is dealing with their abilities.

There are plenty of ways to counter thief stealth and if you choose not to spec to defeat them then you will lose and/or they will mess with you and get away.

Really why are you so scared of a 10 sec timer? I’m not asking for removing stealth , you really need to stealth more than once every 10 seconds?

I take it all back Stiv… all of it! wink

But seriously, there are some culling and rendering issues that still need to be addressed.

If you can survive a thieve’s initial burst chances are you will win the fight (if we are talking about the steal/C&D/BS 2xs dagger thief). My entire build now centers around crit and stun mitigation. Did my DPS take a hit… yup. But you can’t do damage if you are dead.

I went up against a dual pistol thief the other day that was wearing no chest piece, I kid you not, and the guy was rock solid. I lost twice to him… and it had absolutely nothing to do with stealth.

I’m not going in that thief debate, but I just want to say this :

Re-read OP post.

He isn’t complaining about losing to thief.

He is complaining about not being able to target the ennemy during 1/2 of the fight.

That’s two different thing, and most reply were answering with the wrong argument. What ever build you get, it won’t make you see the thief any more then before.

I don’t think Thief are OP, I think they are good but not OP. But I hate to fight them. For the duraton of the fight, I have to drum on my tab button to catch them, and at the same I have to throw my camera in every direction. How annoying is that?

It’s only my opinion, but that’s why I hate fighting thief.

Kardiamond.6952:

I’m not going in that thief debate, but I just want to say this :

Re-read OP post.

He isn’t complaining about losing to thief.

He is complaining about not being able to target the ennemy during 1/2 of the fight.

That’s two different thing, and most reply were answering with the wrong argument. What ever build you get, it won’t make you see the thief any more then before.

I don’t think Thief are OP, I think they are good but not OP. But I hate to fight them. For the duraton of the fight, I have to drum on my tab button to catch them, and at the same I have to throw my camera in every direction. How annoying is that?

It’s only my opinion, but that’s why I hate fighting thief.

Finally someone read my post.

Kardiamond.6952:

I’m not going in that thief debate, but I just want to say this :

Re-read OP post.

He isn’t complaining about losing to thief.

He is complaining about not being able to target the ennemy during 1/2 of the fight.

That’s two different thing, and most reply were answering with the wrong argument. What ever build you get, it won’t make you see the thief any more then before.

I don’t think Thief are OP, I think they are good but not OP. But I hate to fight them. All fight, I have to drum on my tab button to catch them, and at the same I have to throw my camera in every direction.

It’s only my opinion, but that’s why I hate fighting thief.

Well, that I get. Stealth is annoying. If given the option, usually I’d just not fight them at all. But I don’t really get that option, so I have to focus on winning/surviving when they decide to fight me.

On more than one occasion I’ve pretended to lose track of them when they go into their refuge just so I could do something else. But that’s just my preference. It doesn’t mean the class should be broken because I don’t like fighting it.

Isn’t he asking for a bunch of changes to the stealth mechanic because he finds it annoying? Or is he just complaining? Complaining I’m ok with. It’s everyone’s right to whine about stuff as long as they don’t expect anyone else to really care.

PinCushion.7390:

Jeheil.2516:

I have 25k HP and died in about 1.5 seconds to a backstab opener of 12k last night….followed by 4k, 5k and a sneeze Now I was running at the time, he was miles behind me, closed and deadski.

Who else can close, burst n be invisible.

I dont mind classes have a particular edge, its how paper, rock, scissors work….but really ….

How much armor?

Not enough, my gear is noob, but still, my exotic’d fully geared main couldn’t nail a naked Level 1 (80) in wvw with 3-4 shots, mind you he is a Ranger.

trying to avoid drama….impossible on forums I know lol…

“Culling issue” – in a post a few thread down a dev states it has been here since launch (and I presume in months of beta before that) and that it is difficult to address…..approaching 3 months post launch now….at what point do classes/mechanics get tuned to the game engine (and its limitations) that exists for players today, as opposed to the wishlist of a future design that may or may not ever come into being?

Columba.9730:

Stiv.1820:

FormulaX.8901:

Stiv.1820:

Like I said before. Everyone is insisting on going glass cannon. I have 21K HP and over 2500 armor. I don’t even have to stunbreak but I still slot one. I eat Glass Cannon thieves, they are my favorite to kill.

I agree with you stiv, I dont want a tanky Ranger… Id rather have a tanky warrior, I try to counter thieves with traps. It works well sometimes. And its hard to think of an elementalist as a tank build.

People forget this MMO is different from others in that you can build each class as you want them, and that there are no dedicated healers. (I used to play EQ2)

Rangers in my humble opinion have the shortest end of the stick. I was looking forward to some good ranger buffs this last patch but oh well :/

If anyone has a right to complain about balance it’s rangers in general as I feel they are weak. Their burst builds aren’t as bursty as others and their tanky builds aren’t as tanky.

Honest question. How should rangers deal with Thieves? At best, I can entangle and run away, but that sucks.

Honestly I don’t know. I haven’t played a Ranger yet. All I know is that they are the only profession I haven’t run into someone who has a spec that holds it’s own. I can tell the ones that seem much more skilled but they still have no chance vs P/D at least. I feel like they are relegated to zerg vs zerg and keep sieges and stuff.

Traps are ok vs melee thieves, but the stealth spam ones being talked about here, there is no way I don’t think to beat them as a Ranger. Only thing I’ve noticed is if the knock-back shot hits at the right time it can pop me out of SR but I don’t know if that is luck or it can be shot without a target? That’s still not all that usefull 1 on 1 as I don’t think the thief needs to use SR to beat a ranger. Half the problem is your pet and not being able to put him away. They should give you a free F-skill that you hit to make your pet evade the next attack in x seconds.

Seeing the OP elaborate on his point throughout the thread…I can see where he’s coming from. I would respect a rework/nerf of the stealth mechanic if the Thief was given the tools to function without it.

At the moment are builds that are centered around stealth in order to utilize damage/control (Sword/Dagger thieves and Pistol/Dagger thieves). Adding a 10second debuff on stealth would render builds designed around those two weapon combinations useless. At the moment I don’t use my Thief much in WvW due to culling, which needs to be addressed in the WvW environment before talk about reworking stealth should be considered imo.

you all need to stop QQ about thfs as they are getting owned in wvw now as all the GOOD players know how to kill them too bloody easy they all have the odd rotastion for them and find them a good but winable fight.. you will only find 1 of each realm on each map now roaming solo but these are the most skilled of them and they still loose half there duels only + side is they can pick there fights and yes they will go for the lower lvls. But i think they will get nerfed soon as prom players of each class are starting to roam solo and are takeing more on than a thf ever could and kill allot quicker, like big burst war that burns people down before they blink the dps gaurden that does hit run kite then hit back and uses this tactic to kill a hole group!!
me a mes and gaurd killed a zerg with it. and ofc lets not forget the pro dagger dagger kite speced ele that can kill thfs without takeing dmg its just to op for diffrence… and ofc the roaming mesmer you get one on each map the pro guy who can take on 5+.. but people dont care about these specs or even bother to look it up why they lost so easy.. but if it was a thf the pro solo guy dont matter if he has masterd his class even has a note book with every class spec rotation or w/e but wont matter if he wins and uses a stealth thats it you QQ
thfs are underpowerd but people aint noticeing and i really beleive that its not a troll
when roaming on my necro lvl 40 o killed a thf before he come out of stealth with my dots, on my war roaming close to 80 not i rooted him pounced and burnt him down really quik took me seconds felt bad. my thfs my main and yes its always going to be a thf that defends one… but if you played one you will understand im a great thf i think because im vain that i am one of the best.. but i have stop roaming solo before it was easy people didnt know my class well at launch as we was underplayed and no1 wanted to be one… so i found people easy to kill but now no i do not!! every dfuel i come across i loose or just win if they not a pants player. because of spvp everyone has learnt to play the class and has learn a counter spec on there main that is just super op towards thfs that it has made us underpowerd… we cant take on groups no more as all should have atleast 1 root in there utilitys and they rotate them and theres always 1 con speced that even if i run i end up dead down the road… anyways this is getting long!!
but my point is stop cry on forums and as your guilds class leader of your class how to beat them, and once you start to own them you can post a QQ of a diffrent class who killed you to easy in wvw and start to notice them

PinCushion.7390:

Kardiamond.6952:

I’m not going in that thief debate, but I just want to say this :

Re-read OP post.

He isn’t complaining about losing to thief.

He is complaining about not being able to target the ennemy during 1/2 of the fight.

That’s two different thing, and most reply were answering with the wrong argument. What ever build you get, it won’t make you see the thief any more then before.

I don’t think Thief are OP, I think they are good but not OP. But I hate to fight them. All fight, I have to drum on my tab button to catch them, and at the same I have to throw my camera in every direction.

It’s only my opinion, but that’s why I hate fighting thief.

Well, that I get. Stealth is annoying. If given the option, usually I’d just not fight them at all. But I don’t really get that option, so I have to focus on winning/surviving when they decide to fight me.

On more than one occasion I’ve pretended to lose track of them when they go into their refuge just so I could do something else. But that’s just my preference. It doesn’t mean the class should be broken because I don’t like fighting it.

Isn’t he asking for a bunch of changes to the stealth mechanic because he finds it annoying? Or is he just complaining? Complaining I’m ok with. It’s everyone’s right to whine about stuff as long as they don’t expect anyone else to really care.

Really you think that 10 second re stealth timer would break the class? Also you can’t pretend to lose track of them. They are faster than you , the fight is over only when THEY chose it is over.
I give Anet pts for try to redesign stealth . As it reads stealth is meant to be part of combat, an extra dodge roll for thieves and combined with speed and port a way to get away from a fight. What people are doing now is using a combo of skills to effectively turn the 3 second stealth into a semi perma stealth. This combined with the fact that you can’t stop them from stealth and you can’t knock them out of stealth
make it way too hard to counter. This combined with random mobs all over the map in wvw and no gear limit only makes things worse. If s/tpvp maps aren’t so small and pts from conquest rather than kills only you’d have the same problem in s/tpvp.

Mogar.9216:

ok fine they can have burst, they can have speed. But can we please put a 10 sec stealth timer? I’m getting sick of fighting an opponent that you can’t target for 1/2 of the fight.

I can see how you might think a 10 second revealed debuff on a thief wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but in reality 10 seconds out of stealth is a death sentence. What would we do after our 3 dodges are gone? We’d have to reserve stealthing for running away which is great for you but goes against the professions design.

It would make all melee builds garbage and pistol/pistol, our weakest spec, would become the only marginally viable spec because it relies more on blinds and evades.

Thieves are fine. Stop nagging. By now they die so fast to me that I’m starting to feel bad.

The only thing that needs to be changed about Thief is influencing cap under stealth in WvW. Judging by the last patch, this will happen. They’ve already tried (still broken) to nerf elementalist cap under mist form.

Aeden.5896:

Mogar.9216:

ok fine they can have burst, they can have speed. But can we please put a 10 sec stealth timer? I’m getting sick of fighting an opponent that you can’t target for 1/2 of the fight.

I can see how you might think a 10 second revealed debuff on a thief wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but in reality 10 seconds out of stealth is a death sentence. What would we do after our 3 dodges are gone? We’d have to reserve stealthing for running away which is great for you but goes against the professions design.

It would make all melee builds garbage and pistol/pistol, our weakest spec, would become the only marginally viable spec because it relies more on blinds and evades.

Ok , I was wrong to think 10 sec timer was not a big deal. I would say I rather they give you guys more hp, more armor , more healing. What it come down to is that I much rather fight someone then fight with air. I can’t be the only one who feels that way.

Since this thread is in the WvW forum and not the sPvP I will address thieves from that viewpoint only.

Thieves are fine to deal with most the time but everytime I see I high spike in damage its always and I mean always from a thief. No other class ever does over 1k damage to me (I have stacked everything into toughness) except a thief who normally hits for twice as much damage as anyone else. But if I survive the burst then it becomes an interesting fight. unless…

My main gripe is when a thief is starting to lose, he pops stealth and runs away like a little girl much faster then I can (his 25% speed boost), then uses that bow ability to gain more distance and he’s gone – all while stealthed. I can’t target him to snare him because he’s stealthed and before I know it he’s half the map away.

They currently have the highest damage in the game by a mile and the best escape mechanisms, the best condition damage (if non burst spec’d), highest burst damage (at least I can see hundred blades coming)

there is a good reason why thieves are the most complained about class, and its funny listening to the people who main as a thief trying to defend their class.

Good read.
People are talking about things here that I, thief myself, am not capable of performing.
If YOU want to be noticed and your issue to be ever considered, first thing to do is to make sure that what you are saying here is true. I am talking about those mythological abilities of legendary thieves with 300 trait points and 6 slot utility bar.
There are 3 problems with thieves:
1) Culling
2) quote: “people with situational awareness of a rock”
3) Official forums
As you see, none of the problems contains “thief” or ary name of any thief ability/trait/build

Watching thieves defend their overpoweredness is like watching trust fund babies defend their undeserved wealth.

Hey guys, if you work hard enough and are dedicated enough, you could be just as good as thieves one day too!

I’m legitimately curious, do you guys think that thieves burst is too high or stealth is too good? Or maybe something else?

In my opinion, burst is the biggest problem. No one should die 1v1 in under 2.5s , regardless of toughness and stun breakers. It just shouldn’t happen. Obviously, having low armor and no stun breaker should put you at a serious disadvantage to a burst opener, but right now the skill required to pull it off is way out of proportion to the risk and reward.

I don’t think there’d be so many complaints about stealth if people weren’t worrying the thief was just charging his cool downs to one shot them. For example, when a Mesmer stealth’s, it’s annoying, but I’m not worried about getting suddenly bursted down out of no where.

As for running away, yes, that’s annoying, but it’s not unique to thieves. Elementalist’s are probably much better at escaping and I never see anyone complain about that. Again, I think the larger issue is that thieves can do their cheap, low skill burst and, if they fail, just run away and try again, there is clearly unbalanced risk in comparison to the reward.

Ichishi.9613:

Good read.
People are talking about things here that I, thief myself, am not capable of performing.
If YOU want to be noticed and your issue to be ever considered, first thing to do is to make sure that what you are saying here is true.

I basically run around with a thief in WvW and on mumble constantly asking him questions about how the kitten did that thief manage to do that. I agree its easier to fight thieves when you know what they can do, and its helping. Still doesn’t change the fact they have extremely high damage, much higher than any other class and rangers and elementalists can be just as squishy and do no where as near the amount of damage a thief can do (and they can’t even stealth and zip across the map unseen).

The culling is a major issue because that 3 second unstealthed debuff is now only a 1 second debuff by the time the thief actually gets rendered.

I will say that killing a thief is one of the most satisfying things in WvW. “Try backstabbing me now” as I jump up and down on their face.

Gamble.4580:

you all need to stop QQ about thfs as they are getting owned in wvw now as all the GOOD players know how to kill them too bloody easy they all have the odd rotastion for them and find them a good but winable fight.. you will only find 1 of each realm on each map now roaming solo but these are the most skilled of them and they still loose half there duels only + side is they can pick there fights and yes they will go for the lower lvls. But i think they will get nerfed soon as prom players of each class are starting to roam solo and are takeing more on than a thf ever could and kill allot quicker, like big burst war that burns people down before they blink the dps gaurden that does hit run kite then hit back and uses this tactic to kill a hole group!!
me a mes and gaurd killed a zerg with it. and ofc lets not forget the pro dagger dagger kite speced ele that can kill thfs without takeing dmg its just to op for diffrence… and ofc the roaming mesmer you get one on each map the pro guy who can take on 5+.. but people dont care about these specs or even bother to look it up why they lost so easy.. but if it was a thf the pro solo guy dont matter if he has masterd his class even has a note book with every class spec rotation or w/e but wont matter if he wins and uses a stealth thats it you QQ
thfs are underpowerd but people aint noticeing and i really beleive that its not a troll
when roaming on my necro lvl 40 o killed a thf before he come out of stealth with my dots, on my war roaming close to 80 not i rooted him pounced and burnt him down really quik took me seconds felt bad. my thfs my main and yes its always going to be a thf that defends one… but if you played one you will understand im a great thf i think because im vain that i am one of the best.. but i have stop roaming solo before it was easy people didnt know my class well at launch as we was underplayed and no1 wanted to be one… so i found people easy to kill but now no i do not!! every dfuel i come across i loose or just win if they not a pants player. because of spvp everyone has learnt to play the class and has learn a counter spec on there main that is just super op towards thfs that it has made us underpowerd… we cant take on groups no more as all should have atleast 1 root in there utilitys and they rotate them and theres always 1 con speced that even if i run i end up dead down the road… anyways this is getting long!!
but my point is stop cry on forums and as your guilds class leader of your class how to beat them, and once you start to own them you can post a QQ of a diffrent class who killed you to easy in wvw and start to notice them

Lol. thieves are not underpowered. That’s ridiculous. the culling issue favors them right now, and I don’t think they need nerfs, but they are definitely not underpowered.

thats all they got going for them is the culling system but i have only even noticed the effects of that when in a very laggy area… but hey i dont see half the zerg and walk right into them as can not see them so no biggy. and yes the back stab does amazing dmg in glass canon spec but really bloody tough to get off its just a joke but then again you only need to get 1 off on a under lvl 80 to take them right down so maybe that needs a nerf but if fighting a melee class with crit/power spec and u glass canon they only need 1 crit on you to have to kittenin your pants.. people link the dmg thfs do with there backstab but please can a thf link the dmg a war does with a crit on him as glass canon and i know you will say oh ok i drop it then

Morgar, First of yes I did read your OP and all your following posts. There is a saying I think you should take to heart. “It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
All your arguments and armchair game development attempts are only coming across as whiny and very often ignorant. Quite a few of your claims are just flat out untrue as well. Most of the time the chain stealth thieves are very very predictable. While not being able to keep them targeted is annoying nearly every ability in the game is able to be fired off without a target and will still hit the stealthed player if you are facing the right way. If this was WoW type stealth sure vanish is bad because it just interupted your skill but its not. Your skill finished casting anyway and unless the thief teleported at the same time as stealthing (burning more resources) then you just smacked him with it despite being invisible. While damage itself cant disrupt stealth the only really long term stealth cd (shadow refuge) is very easy to defeat. Wail around in the area as they can not leave that circle even for a few seconds after it vanishes. Additionally quite a few professions have untargeted attacks that can blow back any nearby thieves out of the circle revealing them.

The only issue I see with thief stealth has more to do with the culling issue. If the player appeared as soon as stealth broke to their opponent peekaboo thieves wouldn’t even remotely be a challenge to any build that isn’t a glass cannon. Better that they fix that problem as it impacts far more than just thief stealth than to listen to an armchair developer wannabe and nerf thieves only to have to rebuff them later when they fix the root problem.

Thobek.1730:

Since this thread is in the WvW forum and not the sPvP I will address thieves from that viewpoint only.

Thieves are fine to deal with most the time but everytime I see I high spike in damage its always and I mean always from a thief. No other class ever does over 1k damage to me (I have stacked everything into toughness) except a thief who normally hits for twice as much damage as anyone else. But if I survive the burst then it becomes an interesting fight. unless…

My main gripe is when a thief is starting to lose, he pops stealth and runs away like a little girl much faster then I can (his 25% speed boost), then uses that bow ability to gain more distance and he’s gone – all while stealthed. I can’t target him to snare him because he’s stealthed and before I know it he’s half the map away.

They currently have the highest damage in the game by a mile and the best escape mechanisms, the best condition damage (if non burst spec’d), highest burst damage (at least I can see hundred blades coming)

there is a good reason why thieves are the most complained about class, and its funny listening to the people who main as a thief trying to defend their class.

I second this. The thief is counterable and can be killed. But currently they require a lot more luck, and much more specific builds to counter than any other classes. And even if you do manage to counter them, a good thief will just leave with the option of resetting the fight.

As the poster said the thief currently is one of the most mobile classes, has the best escape mechanic, one of the best condition damages with bleeds and arguably the best burst damage with only the easily dodged and long channel timed hundred blades comparing. On top of that the way their initiative system works they have more flexibility in combat because unlike a mesmer, for example, their stealths don’t run out because of long recast timers.

As a Ranger, and one that doesn’t use traps, I have determined that I have only one option when jumped by a thief: Alt-F4. Unfortunately I’m dead before I can hit that “skill”.. …and no I’m not a glass cannon with hp of 22k.

Stiv.1820:

Galantis.3267:

So everyone has to use build to counter thieves to play WvW. Why must everyone change play because of one class? Sorry WvW is not one on one making stealth stupid OP without any class having a stealth counter. The fact that thieves are the most play class tells right there they are OP period and Anet to stupid too see that.

So your build counters everything but one profession’s build? You want that one profession nerfed to not counter your build?

This game is full of hard choices. Do you slot a stun break to deal with stun/burst or use something more “fun”? It’s up to you. I would think if the Thief profession gives you the most trouble, you would consider trying to counter it but that’s just me.

Don’t play Spvp, i play WvW, your arguments don’t work at all for WvW.

Fix the culling issues, then continue from there if needed.

PinCushion.7390:

Mogar.9216:

You can’t knock back or pull something you have no target on. Unless you have ground targeted ae which few class have or use

Which class doesn’t have an AoE attack that doesn’t require a target?

I can’t think of one.

Dealing with stealth isn’t necessarily easy, but it isn’t all that hard either. Add to that, most players get tunnel vision and are easily baited. Just do something stupid looking, wait for the smoke puff near you, and dodge/pop a defensive cooldown.

If you see the little house icon AoE the crud out of it (this includes sword swings, etc.) You’ll usually see the thief dodge out the other side of his house and you can click on them again.

mesmer

Read the second post to this thread. They are aware, and they are working on a fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Can-you-fix-it-culling

Columba.9730:

Stiv.1820:

FormulaX.8901:

Stiv.1820:

Like I said before. Everyone is insisting on going glass cannon. I have 21K HP and over 2500 armor. I don’t even have to stunbreak but I still slot one. I eat Glass Cannon thieves, they are my favorite to kill.

I agree with you stiv, I dont want a tanky Ranger… Id rather have a tanky warrior, I try to counter thieves with traps. It works well sometimes. And its hard to think of an elementalist as a tank build.

People forget this MMO is different from others in that you can build each class as you want them, and that there are no dedicated healers. (I used to play EQ2)

Rangers in my humble opinion have the shortest end of the stick. I was looking forward to some good ranger buffs this last patch but oh well :/

If anyone has a right to complain about balance it’s rangers in general as I feel they are weak. Their burst builds aren’t as bursty as others and their tanky builds aren’t as tanky.

Honest question. How should rangers deal with Thieves? At best, I can entangle and run away, but that sucks.

That is a Ranger issue not a thief issue. Let’s nerf thieves down so a crappy class like ranger can kill them is not a good idea. Ranger needs serious work on pet. And when pets actually are viable rangers are going to be overpowered.

Thieves are all played by 15 year old trolls. Just delete the profession.

Merendel.7128:

Morgar, First of yes I did read your OP and all your following posts. There is a saying I think you should take to heart. “It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
All your arguments and armchair game development attempts are only coming across as whiny and very often ignorant. Quite a few of your claims are just flat out untrue as well. Most of the time the chain stealth thieves are very very predictable. While not being able to keep them targeted is annoying nearly every ability in the game is able to be fired off without a target and will still hit the stealthed player if you are facing the right way. If this was WoW type stealth sure vanish is bad because it just interupted your skill but its not. Your skill finished casting anyway and unless the thief teleported at the same time as stealthing (burning more resources) then you just smacked him with it despite being invisible. While damage itself cant disrupt stealth the only really long term stealth cd (shadow refuge) is very easy to defeat. Wail around in the area as they can not leave that circle even for a few seconds after it vanishes. Additionally quite a few professions have untargeted attacks that can blow back any nearby thieves out of the circle revealing them.

The only issue I see with thief stealth has more to do with the culling issue. If the player appeared as soon as stealth broke to their opponent peekaboo thieves wouldn’t even remotely be a challenge to any build that isn’t a glass cannon. Better that they fix that problem as it impacts far more than just thief stealth than to listen to an armchair developer wannabe and nerf thieves only to have to rebuff them later when they fix the root problem.

Are you saying because the one ability I casted as they stealth will land somehow makes stealth not an issue? Or are you saying you are a thief who doesn’t know better to weapon swap and port as soon as you stealth so you don’t get hit by an ae? Or is it that you are saying thieve use their utility to re stealth rather than any time attack? So who is fool here? I like the line about how “Most of the time the chain stealth thieves are very very predictable”. I would say any one with iq of more than 1 would think a visible thief is 100x more predictable than one you can’t see or target…..

hint : burned stealthy character will stay burned. you can see the flame moving. guardian can easily fight stealthy thief.

Moddo.7105:

Columba.9730:

Stiv.1820:

FormulaX.8901:

Stiv.1820:

Like I said before. Everyone is insisting on going glass cannon. I have 21K HP and over 2500 armor. I don’t even have to stunbreak but I still slot one. I eat Glass Cannon thieves, they are my favorite to kill.

I agree with you stiv, I dont want a tanky Ranger… Id rather have a tanky warrior, I try to counter thieves with traps. It works well sometimes. And its hard to think of an elementalist as a tank build.

People forget this MMO is different from others in that you can build each class as you want them, and that there are no dedicated healers. (I used to play EQ2)

Rangers in my humble opinion have the shortest end of the stick. I was looking forward to some good ranger buffs this last patch but oh well :/

If anyone has a right to complain about balance it’s rangers in general as I feel they are weak. Their burst builds aren’t as bursty as others and their tanky builds aren’t as tanky.

Honest question. How should rangers deal with Thieves? At best, I can entangle and run away, but that sucks.

That is a Ranger issue not a thief issue. Let’s nerf thieves down so a crappy class like ranger can kill them is not a good idea. Ranger needs serious work on pet. And when pets actually are viable rangers are going to be overpowered.

Did I ever say nerf thieves because rangers suck? Read again.

Fine with thieves being 90% of the fight in stealth.
Fine with thieves poping out 8k hits in 1 seconds.

But not fine that thair stealth makes them able to run away whenever they get to low hp.

Too annoying to get a thief to 20% hp 5 times for just see him put a stealth bubble and vanish in nowhere.

Tips: for stealth pistol/dagger theif, immolize and then burst, they are a dead meat. The stealth build lacks stun breaker. high damage aoe is also your friend.

Typical response:

“I use to QQ about thieves like you, until I rolled a thief.”

So the only way to beat a thief is to be a thief? That’s cool…

Scyntrus.2458:

Typical response:

“I use to QQ about thieves like you, until I rolled a thief.”

So the only way to beat a thief is to be a thief? That’s cool…

No. It means that playing a thief will give you insight into the mechanics of the thief class and with that understanding you can better face them on other classes. Or you could just take everything out of context and make it seem like your post is relevant.

Raehvyn.4530:

Scyntrus.2458:

Typical response:

“I use to QQ about thieves like you, until I rolled a thief.”

So the only way to beat a thief is to be a thief? That’s cool…

No. It means that playing a thief will give you insight into the mechanics of the thief class and with that understanding you can better face them on other classes. Or you could just take everything out of context and make it seem like your post is relevant.

Rolled a thief. Played it in sPvP and WvWvW, the class is by far the easiest and most broken class in the game. I couldn’t stand it. Haste/Pistol Whip along with almost unlimited stealth is so broken. High Burst and great survivability should not be in the same sentence.

Aevic.9675:

Raehvyn.4530:

Scyntrus.2458:

Typical response:

“I use to QQ about thieves like you, until I rolled a thief.”

So the only way to beat a thief is to be a thief? That’s cool…

No. It means that playing a thief will give you insight into the mechanics of the thief class and with that understanding you can better face them on other classes. Or you could just take everything out of context and make it seem like your post is relevant.

Rolled a thief. Played it in sPvP and WvWvW, the class is by far the easiest and most broken class in the game. I couldn’t stand it. Haste/Pistol Whip along with almost unlimited stealth is so broken. High Burst and great survivability should not be in the same sentence.

I played a warrior first and thought, “This class is crazy easy.” Then I played a ranger and was like, “This is easy but not as easy as my warrior”. I rolled a guardian and was like, “Beats ranger and warriors.” Then I rolled a thief and I don’t find the class that easy at all. I run sword/pistol. Popping haste and pistol whipping will churn out high numbers. Great survivability? I don’t know about you but the majority of the thieves that I see are downed rather quickly with anything resembling focused fire.

You have to choose vitality or crit damage I believe so you either live longer with less boom or more boom and less life. If I focus on a single target I can drop a player quickly because that is the design of the class. I then have to either fight someone else quite quickly or back out and throw myself in the fray on my own terms.

I am not even a good thief and I am able to overtake people easily because of things they do wrong. Straying too far out from the herd, trying to keep a range on me while I am sword/pistol despite being locked up in melee is horrible for me because I have chosen to go the route of more power less health.

Quite frankly, the thieves being able to single handedly prevent caps is the only broken mechanic. Play a thief, watch a video of a thief playing, get some ideas on how to counter and stop edging for a nerf. I plan on playing all classes so it isnt even a plea for Anet to not nerf my class since I have several 80s already.

Skilled players should win also.

Aevic.9675:

Rolled a thief. Played it in sPvP and WvWvW, the class is by far the easiest and most broken class in the game. I couldn’t stand it. Haste/Pistol Whip along with almost unlimited stealth is so broken. High Burst and great survivability should not be in the same sentence.

This is why I find I cannot take a single word people say about thieves at face value. If someone has haste and pistol whip, they have limited stealth, if they have stealth at all.. So do you actually play a thief or just yet another troll saying he does to make a point, that turns out is incorrect?

I am totally fine with folks pointing out issues with the class. Some I will agree with, others I may not, but I will read it and pay attention. Just post in an informed manner, or ask questions to be informed.

Polaritie.4851:

Stiv.1820:

Thorgrum.4679:

Kneemin.4235:

The only thing that needs ‘changed’ at all is that the rendering issues need fixed.

^This. Thieves are fine, maybe a little OP but in most games stealth classes are harder to catch for a reason. We get the rendering issue set and I suspect there will be less QQ about theives.

The OP isn’t complaining about rendering though. He’s QQing about x/D builds and/or a D/P build that if traited for perma stealth does terrible damage and is only good at killing uplevled or bads and trolling supply camps.

Basically this. Sitting on the camp with 10 people, one thief blocks the capture for twenty minutes. We killed a number of Dolyaks, the group that came to try and push us off (twice), but we couldn’t get the capture bar past 1/5 because a single thief was able to permastealth and line of sight around buildings until the group finally gave up. It’s beyond stupid. The capture circle is large enough that you can’t smoke the thief out with AoEs, and any group of enough size to not get pushed off easy has so many targets for Cloak and Dagger that the thief doesn’t get caught. Even landing stuns isn’t enough.

lol every time I run into this kind of opponent who can’t fight but just loves to run around and hold nodes from switching, even when no back up is coming… I hope the nerd is listening to some really cool music and feeling “pro” about his toon while doing it, but they never survive more than 60s and if a thief solo is keeping you up that long in a group…. well I have some bad news for you . lol

Niim.9260:

Aevic.9675:

Rolled a thief. Played it in sPvP and WvWvW, the class is by far the easiest and most broken class in the game. I couldn’t stand it. Haste/Pistol Whip along with almost unlimited stealth is so broken. High Burst and great survivability should not be in the same sentence.

This is why I find I cannot take a single word people say about thieves at face value. If someone has haste and pistol whip, they have limited stealth, if they have stealth at all.. So do you actually play a thief or just yet another troll saying he does to make a point, that turns out is incorrect?

I am totally fine with folks pointing out issues with the class. Some I will agree with, others I may not, but I will read it and pay attention. Just post in an informed manner, or ask questions to be informed.

So every person that disagrees with you is a troll?

Scyntrus.2458:

Niim.9260:

Aevic.9675:

Rolled a thief. Played it in sPvP and WvWvW, the class is by far the easiest and most broken class in the game. I couldn’t stand it. Haste/Pistol Whip along with almost unlimited stealth is so broken. High Burst and great survivability should not be in the same sentence.

This is why I find I cannot take a single word people say about thieves at face value. If someone has haste and pistol whip, they have limited stealth, if they have stealth at all.. So do you actually play a thief or just yet another troll saying he does to make a point, that turns out is incorrect?

I am totally fine with folks pointing out issues with the class. Some I will agree with, others I may not, but I will read it and pay attention. Just post in an informed manner, or ask questions to be informed.

So every person that disagrees with you is a troll?

His point is obvious. It isn’t anyone who disagrees that is a troll. It is people who say things like this which are mechanically impossible but wile the crowd up with hyperbole. It is people stating untrue statements as if they were facts to rally others to a cause that is built upon fraudulent charges.