Guild Wars 2

Don’t come complaining to the forums when a thief destroys you. Most solo thieves are running some form of backstab which quite frankly is insanely easy to counter if you know what you are doing. Ways to stop backstab:

1. Stunbreaker
2. Moving around so the thief has a hard time maximizing backstab damage
3. Aegis

I wont discuss how to counter other thiefs like S/D since no one really seems to complain about them. (except in Spvp which i could care less about)

Also for those people who think stealth is OP let me take a minute to laugh at you. Stealth is not OP. Stealth/ (decent)regeneration is the only survivability thiefs have. Sure it is really easy to disengage a fight as a thief and run away. Not OP, working as intended and perfectly balanced. Now if thiefs had the same base defensive stats as say necros then with the addition of stealth thieves would be way overpowered.

Tldr: You can counter thiefs. You shouldn’t be roaming solo if you are complete squish. Stealth is not OP. Thiefs are hard to kill big deal.

Said better than me:

If they are DD you control when they C&D… learn the animation and you can dodge that.

If they are DP you watch for when they raise their pistol. Avoid that blind shot, then cc them. The heartseeker leap finisher won’t finish and they won’t gain stealth.

In both cases they lose a lot of ini. That’s the lifeblood of a thief. A thief with less ini can do less. A thief with no ini is a dead thief.

If they do stealth then you control the fight by your own movement. Make it hard for them to backstab you and you’ll know where they are from that alone.

Stealth isn’t invuln… you can still hit them when they are stealthed (watch your mele auto chain).

I have no problem predicting them on my eng… who only has the toolkit for mele… because I understand the thief class well having plaid one before.

You just need to learn what thieves do and how to act/react in that given situation. there is prediction involved, but I control what’s going on even when they are stealthed (unless they just run away).

There is only no risk to the thief if you act like grazing cattle once they try to stealth (which is what far too many people do).

The thief can disengage when they want to… but that’s part of the class design. In fact… they NEED to disengage and re-engage frequently. They lack staying power. That’s the same reason why they aren’t often wanted for group compositions.

The trick to killing a thief is to make him over commit and try to disengage when it’s already too late.

Even if they do get away… so what. What is that solo roaming gank thief really going to do that matters in WvW?

Unless you are squishy (or not running solo), you have a snowball’s chance in hell of bursting me down before I stealth again and run away if things go wrong.

And

Sure it is really easy to disengage a fight as a thief and run away. Not OP, working as intended and perfectly balanced.

Yeah sure, okay. I guess we all play Thieves to roam then.

Sunflowers.1729:

Unless you are squishy (or not running solo), you have a snowball’s chance in hell of bursting me down before I stealth again and run away if things go wrong.

So what? In an objective based game type (WvW), sending the enemy running with their tail between their legs is a win.

Surbrus.6942:

Sunflowers.1729:

Unless you are squishy (or not running solo), you have a snowball’s chance in hell of bursting me down before I stealth again and run away if things go wrong.

So what? In an objective based game type (WvW), sending the enemy running with their tail between their legs is a win.

But I’m just saying that unless you are squishy (which the OP is saying not to do), then you will never beat me.

Doesn’t have anything to do with objective-based games or anything – that’s a different topic, and the Thief forum has already shown me that they respond to all arguments with ‘L2P noob’ and insults. So I will not bother with arguing this point.

Sunflowers.1729:

Doesn’t have anything to do with objective-based games or anything – that’s a different topic, and the Thief forum has already shown me that they respond to all arguments with ‘L2P noob’ and insults. So I will not bother with arguing this point.

Since when is running away in fear of your foe not a defeat? It is everything to do with objective based games because the topic is WvW.

A Thief attacks me while I’m taking a camp, I make him run away, I take the camp… move onto the next camp, killing the yak on the way, that same Thief attacks again and masterfully runs away again, I rack up the objectives and associated personal and server rewards.

Sure, you are a master of fleeing from a fight, so what?

[insert French military joke here]

Imo, stats like Zerker have no place in WvW, if you’re squishy in a zerg you’re a liability to the zerg, if you’re zerker for roaming you have less consequences, but Soldiers or Rabid can do just as well as you.

If you don’t think d/p thieves are overpowered in the roaming game, you don’t have any business telling people what is or isn’t overpowered.

dreztina.4820:

If you don’t think d/p thieves are overpowered in the roaming game, you don’t have any business telling people what is or isn’t overpowered.

Perhaps you should enlighten the unenlightened. Are you referring to stealth?.. if so maybe explain how that is overpowered for roamers.

you sound like you play onlyusemethief and leave the 4 other character spaces empty.

counter a backstab with a stunbreaker what logic is that?? i dont know if you noticed but not every class has access to aegis and moving around only slightly helps since thieves are still the fastest class and most of the time you have to blow both evades.

before you start telling everybody else to L2P you yourself need to L2P

Play a thief for a while and you’ll get an instinct for when a thief is about to backstab you. It makes it counterable by every class in the game.

Surbrus.6942:

dreztina.4820:

If you don’t think d/p thieves are overpowered in the roaming game, you don’t have any business telling people what is or isn’t overpowered.

Perhaps you should enlighten the unenlightened. Are you referring to stealth?.. if so maybe explain how that is overpowered for roamers.

I’ll give my view on why I think stealth is over powered

Stealth means the player always gets to choose the fight, the optimum time, and has the most advantage at the start…. always. Stealth means the player can always open with the optimal damage and with some of the insane dps can often win the fight in first 2-3 seconds. Stealth means if something does go wrong they simply stealth away, no consequence unlike every other class. Stealth causes the opposing player to loose target and have to reaquire which is a huge advantage (not just thieves in this case).
Being able to stealth off not just your opponent, but mobs, doors, walls etc. is beyond stupid OP
Now combine the ridiculous advantage that stealth gives, combined with the multitude of other abilities thieves have, and stealth in this game is so poorly designed, it is really beyond words
But lets face it. No class will ever admit to being OP, and there is no way for ANet to make a real change without rebuilding the class, so we are stuck with it

TheAmpca.1753:

“Don’t nerf me, bro” post from a terrible thief

I keep forgetting that only thieves are allowed to spec for damage.

deracs.1762:

I’ll give my view on why I think stealth is over powered

Stealth means the player always gets to choose the fight, the optimum time, and has the most advantage at the start…. always. Stealth means the player can always open with the optimal damage and with some of the insane dps can often win the fight in first 2-3 seconds. Stealth means if something does go wrong they simply stealth away, no consequence unlike every other class. Stealth causes the opposing player to loose target and have to reaquire which is a huge advantage (not just thieves in this case).
Being able to stealth off not just your opponent, but mobs, doors, walls etc. is beyond stupid OP
Now combine the ridiculous advantage that stealth gives, combined with the multitude of other abilities thieves have, and stealth in this game is so poorly designed, it is really beyond words
But lets face it. No class will ever admit to being OP, and there is no way for ANet to make a real change without rebuilding the class, so we are stuck with it

It is true that stealth can give an advantage in initiating and escape, however it is not required to do so.

Winning the fight in 2-3 seconds is not an issue with stealth, that is an issue with the extreme spike damage. Oftentimes this is only really an issue with someone who has intentionally built their character glassy, and just got tagged by a glass cannon before they could touch the other guy… or underleveled/undergeared victims.

The target drop is annoying yes, and it is an advantage.

Stealth has advantages, I would hesitate to call them overpowered advantages though.

Personally I’d like to see the Thief’s stealth balanced better with other defensive options (whether stealth is nerffed, or Thief defences are raised in other ways), just for the sake of build variety.

Surbrus.6942:

deracs.1762:

I’ll give my view on why I think stealth is over powered

Stealth means the player always gets to choose the fight, the optimum time, and has the most advantage at the start…. always. Stealth means the player can always open with the optimal damage and with some of the insane dps can often win the fight in first 2-3 seconds. Stealth means if something does go wrong they simply stealth away, no consequence unlike every other class. Stealth causes the opposing player to loose target and have to reaquire which is a huge advantage (not just thieves in this case).
Being able to stealth off not just your opponent, but mobs, doors, walls etc. is beyond stupid OP
Now combine the ridiculous advantage that stealth gives, combined with the multitude of other abilities thieves have, and stealth in this game is so poorly designed, it is really beyond words
But lets face it. No class will ever admit to being OP, and there is no way for ANet to make a real change without rebuilding the class, so we are stuck with it

It is true that stealth can give an advantage in initiating and escape, however it is not required to do so.

Winning the fight in 2-3 seconds is not an issue with stealth, that is an issue with the extreme spike damage. Oftentimes this is only really an issue with someone who has intentionally built their character glassy, and just got tagged by a glass cannon before they could touch the other guy… or underleveled/undergeared victims.

The target drop is annoying yes, and it is an advantage.

Stealth has advantages, I would hesitate to call them overpowered advantages though.

Personally I’d like to see the Thief’s stealth balanced better with other defensive options (whether stealth is nerffed, or Thief defences are raised in other ways), just for the sake of build variety.

Hmm.. running a Berserker Ranger, I can pull out higher spike damage than a thief.. question is, if a Berserker Ranger meets a Berserker thief out in the field.. who wins?

In fact, if a Berserker thief runs into any other berserker class out there.. who will win?

If a thief runs into any other class in bunker gear who wins?

There is a common theme here.. either:

A) They get the jump on the player via stealth which is enough to kill them before they react

B) They stealth away and rinse and repeat until the players dead..

Common theme – Stealth. It has nothing to do with spike damage, it has everything to do with stealth. I can usually survive the initial barrage of thief attacks wearing berserker gear, but there is a problem after that, they stealth away… Then they either realize it’s no contest and leave me alone, or they kill me next round.. usually the latter.

There is also a problem wearing full bunker gear, because their either:

A) hit me and realize it’s going to take too long, but may continue to try and eventually I’m dead
B) It’s not worth their effort..

Either way it’s wasted my time.

DeadlySynz.3471:

In fact, if a Berserker thief runs into any other berserker class out there.. who will win?

If a thief runs into any other class in bunker gear who wins?

It depends. Unless you’re talking about low skill levels… a zerk mesmer will wreck a zerk thief.

Again… unless you’re talking about low skill levels… a bunker guard will wreck a glass thief.

I won’t go into the other classes that I haven’t plaid for long periods in WvW… but I’ve seen many others smack down a thief trying to gank as well.

I get out-plaid by other classes far more than I do a thief. Thieves are strong at the lower skill end and get weaker as the skill levels of the two players goes up.

This game isn’t balanced based on the low end of the spectrum. That would be like street fighter being balanced around E-honda’s 100 hand slap that you just can’t seem to beat. That would be silly.

I literally can not remember any time my eng was ganked by a solo roaming thief. My eng gets plenty of loot bags from thieves that think he’s an easy kill. I don’t consider myself pro. I’m aight.

Idk why anyone would run a full zerk anything in WvW though. High damage sure… but there are ways of optimizing your gear and build to deal high damage (although not as high damage as full zerk) while gaining a lot of survivability.

Thieves are VERY predictable. Use that against them. Learn what they do in a given situation with their weapon set. I always just think to myself what would I do here? The VAST majority of the time I’m right. If I’m not sure what they are doing I know what to do defensively to make the thief’s life harder and avoid a large burst.

Aberrant.6749:

It depends. Unless you’re talking about low skill levels… a zerk mesmer will wreck a zerk thief.

Thief pop stealth to backstab, Mesmer pop stealth to evade, thief reappear, Mesmer spike thief from stealth.

Great to compare with the Mesmer, the only other class with stealth lol. Which was the entire point with the post you quoted. So no, it really doesnt depend.

Ignoring a stealth built Mesmer, only bunker builds have any chance of surviving roaming built theives, because no other class comes even close to them in that area. And the success of bunker builds often depend on the mistakes of the thief rather than their own abilities.

Dawdler.8521:

Aberrant.6749:

It depends. Unless you’re talking about low skill levels… a zerk mesmer will wreck a zerk thief.

Thief pop stealth to backstab, Mesmer pop stealth to evade, thief reappear, Mesmer spike thief from stealth.

Great to compare with the Mesmer, the only other class with stealth lol. Which was the entire point with the post you quoted. So no, it really doesnt depend.

Ignoring a stealth built Mesmer, only bunker builds have any chance of surviving roaming built theives, because no other class comes even close to them in that area. And the success of bunker builds often depend on the mistakes of the thief rather than their own abilities.

Every single class can stealth.

You don’t need to build for stealth as a mesmer to beat a thief. You have plenty of evasion and CC skills at your disposal plus phantasms that auto target the second the thief comes out of stealth and hit like trucks.

Only bunker builds have any chance against a roaming thief? Seriously? I guess I should just delete my non-bunker guardian and HgH Rampager/Rabid mixed eng that have both killed tons of thieves then.

What you may be experiencing though is that roaming builds will beat non-roaming builds 1v1. This is intended.

If you go play a thief for a short while you’ll understand them better and they shouldn’t be as big of a problem to you (just go do some hotjoin tPvP as one).

I spend 95% of time solo roaming in WvWvW. Most of my opponent are top EU servers and I very often run into enemy players with “champion xxx” or similar titles, hinting that they have pvp experience. They tend to be better than average players. Here are my observations:

1. Great majority of roamers are thieves. Most common are D/D and D/P, shortbow as off hand weapon. Almost everybody runs stealth builds and very few have evade builds. Underwater I encounter enemy rangers more than any other profession, probably because ranger is the best underwater profession. Warriors, mesmers, elementalists and guardians come second.

2. Very few enemy and people on my own server dare to run solo. Most thieves are paired with another thief, guardian, mesmer etc. Usually when you encounter a “solo” enemy player, he is actually just trying to catch his zerg and doesn’t want to engage in combat until he has number advantage. Reasons are obvious: most people hate to die and it is far easier to get more kills and WXP by following the karma train mindlessly than actually doing everything alone. The game reward mechanisms punish solo play and reward zerg play.

In order to be able to kill a good thief with burst, you need to have a lot points to allocated to attacking power, precision etc or have so crazy condition build that even shadow’s embrace won’t help the thief. In other words you need to make your own character also quite squishy, by allocating a lot of your build into offense, not defense.

My main is engineer, but I was e.g. today running solo as a necromancer and yesterday as a warrior. I have built my characters on the border line of being squishy, yet having tons of sustainability and enough damage to kill enemy solo roamers including full bunkers, but the latter can take a really long time. Such balanced builds seem to be really rare.

If I am AFK even for a very short moment or typing I am at huge risk. Enemy roaming team or zerg might catch & CC me. Enemy thief, who runs full ascended berserker gear and 25 stacks of bloodlust + food buffs can down me in less than 5 seconds, but then on other hand if I can surprise such thief and his stun break is on recharge, he will die. Completely full glass thieves tend to be quite rare though. I would estimate that most WvWvW thieves have 15k-16k health.

I do not think this is a learn to play issue. The burst damage in WvWvW is simply way out of control (easily twice as big as in tpvp). This forces the player to go full bunker and then you can laugh at most bursts, but then you won’t be killing any of those thieves as they can always stunbreak, shadowstep away, stealth and adios. Or you go glass cannon. Then you can down almost anybody in few seconds, but you also die very easily. E.g. full zerker warrior using 100 blades. If you manage to stun, immobilize the thief and get it through, you win. If you don’t, you lose. Third choice is to run in a groups, which is another story.

In order to fix this rather broken meta, I think we would really need to rethink stealth as it is (my suggestion make stealthed players appear semi-transparent to their enemies, just like they are rendered to their enemies). The critical damage % needs to be capped to same levels as it is possible with optimal tpvp gear, thus no +110% crit , but something closer to +60 max. Note that these suggested changes would apply to all professions.

Deniara Devious.3948:

my suggestion make stealthed players appear semi-transparent to their enemies

I don’t understand why people keep suggesting this. Kind-of-visible is still visible.

Stealth is mitigation via avoidance by virtue of not being visible (although you still take damage while not visible). If a shadow/shimmer/whatever existed, there would be no avoidance. A lot of players are bad but they aren’t THAT bad. Well, maybe some.

I regard stealth as OP, not Thieves. Allow me to see bleed damage on a player in stealth and I will be happy…(also, make it so I can use Mass Invisibility without being exposed by my rune of the Mad King A-Net :p)

Xirin.8593:

Deniara Devious.3948:

my suggestion make stealthed players appear semi-transparent to their enemies

I don’t understand why people keep suggesting this. Kind-of-visible is still visible.

Stealth is mitigation via avoidance by virtue of not being visible (although you still take damage while not visible). If a shadow/shimmer/whatever existed, there would be no avoidance. A lot of players are bad but they aren’t THAT bad. Well, maybe some.

The word stealth is not same as invisibility. Currently stealth lacks hard counters, besides those clumsy anti-stealth traps, which are indeed very rare. I have also roamed as thief in WvWvW. Did I ever trigger such trap? Nope. If chat with those who play thief as their main, none lists those traps as their biggest concern as they are rare.

Instead of shooting my idea down with an opinion, I think it is the only viable fix to this problem, because:

1. Every powerful game mechanism requires either a readily accessible hard counter (traps are not that) or should be made very scarce (thief can chain stealth using combo fields and re enter stealth after 3 s of revealed). Otherwise it will be abused in a game-breaking way.

2. Adding anti-stealth skills and traits e.g. see invisibility, would require redesigning all 8 professions. Way too much work.

3. Anti-stealth traps are really bad. Denying stealth form a profession which more or less relies on it, is not fair. I am for removing such traps from the game. With my suggestion all the traits and features related to stealth would still function as they are. Thief could have better damage, faster movement speed, healing, condition removal, faster initiative gain etc. from stealth. And you couldn’t target a stealthed player.

4. The program code to render stealth like this is already there. Just render stealthed players to their enemies like they appear to their team mates. Thus minimal amount of programming as well. If Arenanet has some more programming resources this effect could be gradual e.g. every second staying in stealth gradually increase the alpha channel value of stealthed player. In other words the longer you stay in stealth, the more visible your character is rendered.

Deniara Devious.3948

The word stealth is not same as invisibility.

In GW2 it is.

Aberrant.6749:

Every single class can stealth.

I have honestly never seen say a Warrior or Guardian user their stealth skills.

But I guess you proved me wrong, every class can stealth.

Stealth could be cool if it would be Predator style. Or similar to how your character looks when stealthed. That way you have at least a chance to see them if you look really hard.

Aberrant.6749:

Thieves are strong at the lower skill end and get weaker as the skill levels of the two players goes up.

I wanted to quote this line because it is absolutely true.

As a side note, playing my Thief a lot has taught me a lot about the strategy involved in the playstyle, and just how easy it is to predict where they will be coming from at any given moment. Having played one to experience the way it really works, I can safely say that I don’t find stealth imbalanced as a player both against it or using it.

Dawdler.8521:

Aberrant.6749:

Every single class can stealth.

I have honestly never seen say a Warrior or Guardian user their stealth skills.

But I guess you proved me wrong, every class can stealth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Become_the_Snow_Leopard

Yup. They can.

Thieves aren’t really a problem anymore it seems.. nor are mesmers. I cant even remember the last time one ambushed me out in the field.. perhaps they’ve bored now with easy kills? lol

Dagraan.2854:

you sound like you play onlyusemethief and leave the 4 other character spaces empty.

counter a backstab with a stunbreaker what logic is that?? i dont know if you noticed but not every class has access to aegis and moving around only slightly helps since thieves are still the fastest class and most of the time you have to blow both evades.

before you start telling everybody else to L2P you yourself need to L2P

Stunbreaker = for basilisk venom since every backstab thief runs it
thats’s why aegis was low on the list
moving around helps tremendously as well as well timed dodge rolls you can evade backstab for the entire stealth duration quite easily.

On another note making stealth semi visible is such a kitten dumb idea. Why the hell would I go into stealth if my enemy can see me anyways. Sure it may be harder for them to see me but they can still see me as well as guess where I am and spam aoes.

Aberrant.6749:

Dawdler.8521:

Aberrant.6749:

Every single class can stealth.

I have honestly never seen say a Warrior or Guardian user their stealth skills.

But I guess you proved me wrong, every class can stealth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Become_the_Snow_Leopard

Yup. They can.

You are really grasping here.
Ok, my Human/Asura/Sylvarri/Charr Warrior and Guardian do not have native access to stealth…and don’t try to throw the karma item from the Charr noob zone as an example – it isn’t the same mechanic.

TheAmpca.1753:

Tldr: You can counter thiefs. You shouldn’t be roaming solo if you are complete squish. Stealth is not OP. Thiefs are hard to kill big deal.

It didn’t stop those thieves complaining about mesmers until our class got nerfed to the ground did it? Now it’s thieves turn, Sad but true.

Valin.4527:

You are really grasping here.
Ok, my Human/Asura/Sylvarri/Charr Warrior and Guardian do not have native access to stealth…and don’t try to throw the karma item from the Charr noob zone as an example – it isn’t the same mechanic.

If you really want to go there (including races), technically all of those classes have blast finishers, and they can blast smoke fields for area of effect stealth. They could even use leap finishers through them for personal stealth!

“Native access to stealth”
As in can stealth without outside influence.

But I think we need to break out the scapels since we’re now splitting hairs.

Colly.4073:

It didn’t stop those thieves complaining about mesmers until our class got nerfed to the ground did it? Now it’s thieves turn, Sad but true.

“Nerfed to the ground” = slightly above average in pvp and in the top 3 of pve

If they can use blast finishers in smoke fields, they arent running solo you know.

Sexy Blanket.9653:

I regard stealth as OP, not Thieves. Allow me to see bleed damage on a player in stealth and I will be happy

Did they change it so you can’t? I swear you used to see bleed damage on invisible players.

They should really display all damage done to players in stealth on screen just like they do with visible players.

Valin.4527:

Aberrant.6749:

Dawdler.8521:

Aberrant.6749:

Every single class can stealth.

I have honestly never seen say a Warrior or Guardian user their stealth skills.

But I guess you proved me wrong, every class can stealth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Become_the_Snow_Leopard

Yup. They can.

You are really grasping here.
Ok, my Human/Asura/Sylvarri/Charr Warrior and Guardian do not have native access to stealth…and don’t try to throw the karma item from the Charr noob zone as an example – it isn’t the same mechanic.

It’s not grasping at all. I just proved to you that any class can stealth.

…and apparently it’s the fault of the game that you didn’t choose a norn to be able to stealth yourself, won’t learn how to counter a thief, won’t stop running full zerk, don’t run with other people, don’t use a roaming set up… and thus thieves/stealth need a nerf?

Sillyness.

Aberrant.6749:

What you may be experiencing though is that roaming builds will beat non-roaming builds 1v1. This is intended.

I do fully agree to this statement – like it or not stealth is part of the WvW meta, build with that in mind. Don’t go wandering around the map in your zerg tweaked build solo – chances are you’ll wander into a permastealth 1vX spec’ed thief who’s sole purpose is to find you, kill you and eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

Aberrant.6749:

…And that’s the fault of the game that you didn’t choose a norn, won’t learn how to counter a thief, won’t stop running full zerk… and thus thieves/stealth need a nerf? Sillyness.

Not arguing that aspect, see my last post, was arguing the “every class can stealth” but that is neither here nor there at this point.

Aberrant.6749:

Valin.4527:

Aberrant.6749:

Dawdler.8521:

Aberrant.6749:

Every single class can stealth.

I have honestly never seen say a Warrior or Guardian user their stealth skills.

But I guess you proved me wrong, every class can stealth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Become_the_Snow_Leopard

Yup. They can.

You are really grasping here.
Ok, my Human/Asura/Sylvarri/Charr Warrior and Guardian do not have native access to stealth…and don’t try to throw the karma item from the Charr noob zone as an example – it isn’t the same mechanic.

It’s not grasping at all. I just proved to you that any class can stealth.

…and apparently it’s the fault of the game that you didn’t choose a norn to be able to stealth yourself, won’t learn how to counter a thief, won’t stop running full zerk, don’t run with other people, don’t use a roaming set up… and thus thieves/stealth need a nerf?

Sillyness.

weak arguments like this is the silly part. generalizations and assumptions. Judging by your signature, Mesmer/thief….. stealth, I am guessing there is nothing that would sway your opinion, fortunately we can sift through others responses

DeadlySynz.3471:

(zerker getting killed by a zerker Thief)

I don’t think that is a fair comparison, as your build is weak to the stealth ed Thief’s strengths. I use an evasion build for my Thief, I don’t complain about condition Necros, I just know that my build is terribly weak to that one play style of that one class.

Saying that your zerker (any class) is weak against a zerker who gets the jump on you is an obvious statement, as a general rule of WvW, zerker states are absolutely horrible and you deserve every death you get when wearing that gear. If someone focused their entire build to get the jump and maximize an initial burst, it is almost laughable that the optimal target for them would complain. If you are a glass cannon, and another glass cannon’s build specializes in getting the first hit, of course you are at a terribly disadvantage. If you don’t like that, improve your build, or just be a lot more aware of your surroundings.

As for the suggestion about making stealthed enemies actually viable, that entirely nullifies the purpose of stealth in GW2, where you can simply aim the vast majority of your attacks. If the game play was different, if you actually needed to select your target then an outline on the “stealthed” enemy is fine, as that stealth will still give defensive benefits (immunity to being attacked)… the only immunity to being attacked that GW2 stealth gives is in the extremely low skill bracket… where players can almost seem like they have the memory of a goldfish once their enemy turns invisible.

Stealth Traps: those are for countering the Mesmer’s Veil in large scale fights, of course they are useless against a lone roamer.

Aberrant.6749:

Dawdler.8521:

Aberrant.6749:

It depends. Unless you’re talking about low skill levels… a zerk mesmer will wreck a zerk thief.

Thief pop stealth to backstab, Mesmer pop stealth to evade, thief reappear, Mesmer spike thief from stealth.

Great to compare with the Mesmer, the only other class with stealth lol. Which was the entire point with the post you quoted. So no, it really doesnt depend.

Ignoring a stealth built Mesmer, only bunker builds have any chance of surviving roaming built theives, because no other class comes even close to them in that area. And the success of bunker builds often depend on the mistakes of the thief rather than their own abilities.

Every single class can stealth.

You don’t need to build for stealth as a mesmer to beat a thief. You have plenty of evasion and CC skills at your disposal plus phantasms that auto target the second the thief comes out of stealth and hit like trucks.

Only bunker builds have any chance against a roaming thief? Seriously? I guess I should just delete my non-bunker guardian and HgH Rampager/Rabid mixed eng that have both killed tons of thieves then.

What you may be experiencing though is that roaming builds will beat non-roaming builds 1v1. This is intended.

If you go play a thief for a short while you’ll understand them better and they shouldn’t be as big of a problem to you (just go do some hotjoin tPvP as one).

Are you…. are you kittening kidding me? EVERY SINGLE CLASS CAN STEALTH? What kind of bloody bollocks is this?

The issue is Thief simply has control:
They choose when to strike
They choose when to bail
They choose when to rinse and repeat

Dey be stealthin, I be losin my target, and I literally mean I lose my target, both visibility wise and game play wise. Den dey reappear, and when dey got their hindquarters spanked, dey be stealthin and runnin

Considering that many skills require target to function properly, the fact that stealth removes targeting is already ridiculously advantageous. Add in the fact that you literally can’t see them, and the fact that they can not only stealth themselves, but others too, and you have a TrollTastic tm class with TrollMechanics tm game play built in for OptimusTroll tm experience.

Many a thief would exclaim “But… but.. dat be our only survivability yo!”. That’s NOT survivability, that’s trollability. Stealth needs to be revamped, period. Gradual visibility like suggested would work pretty well. 20% visibility during the first second, then add 20% every second after that

deracs.1762:

Aberrant.6749:

Valin.4527:

Aberrant.6749:

Dawdler.8521:

Aberrant.6749:

Every single class can stealth.

I have honestly never seen say a Warrior or Guardian user their stealth skills.

But I guess you proved me wrong, every class can stealth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Become_the_Snow_Leopard

Yup. They can.

You are really grasping here.
Ok, my Human/Asura/Sylvarri/Charr Warrior and Guardian do not have native access to stealth…and don’t try to throw the karma item from the Charr noob zone as an example – it isn’t the same mechanic.

It’s not grasping at all. I just proved to you that any class can stealth.

…and apparently it’s the fault of the game that you didn’t choose a norn to be able to stealth yourself, won’t learn how to counter a thief, won’t stop running full zerk, don’t run with other people, don’t use a roaming set up… and thus thieves/stealth need a nerf?

Sillyness.

weak arguments like this is the silly part. generalizations and assumptions. Judging by your signature, Mesmer/thief….. stealth, I am guessing there is nothing that would sway your opinion, fortunately we can sift through others responses

Mes and thief are the classes I play the least… on my non-thief classes I don’t have problems with stealth. I see it from both sides. I find that most of the people you see complaining only see it through the pov of one.

The weak argument is that one should be ignored simply because of the classes they play btw…

Raestloz.7134:

Are you…. are you kittening kidding me? EVERY SINGLE CLASS CAN STEALTH? What kind of bloody bollocks is this?

It’s the truth…

Other than when the thief tries to disengage you can control the fight. That part is down to how you act/react. If you stand there like a grazing cow when they are stealthed you’re doing it wrong and allowing them to control the fight.

Also my eng/guard/mes survive as well as my thief does. In large battles when simply not just running away they survive better. Thief has issues staying in the fight. That’s part of why it’s not so great in group fights. Yes… my thief can disengage easier… but all of my characters can do it. It’s all in how you set up and play your character.

I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one thinking that running away and stealthing away are two entirely different concept? Because when my ele run away, every single enemy can see where I’m going, while a thief can stealth and for all you know, he probably is still behind you. I tried, I couldn’t find “Smoke Field” skill on my ele.

No, you don’t have control. What you do have is a chance to fight the thief. Everything else: when to engage, when to disengage, is left to the Thief. You can try to run away, that much is certain, but whether you can fight the thief or not is solely on the Thief’s discretion. You can’t chase the Thief: if they don’t want you to fight them, you cannot fight them.

Ergo, all the rewards without a lick of risk.

Raestloz.7134:

I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one thinking that running away and stealthing away are two entirely different concept? Because when my ele run away, every single enemy can see where I’m going, while a thief can stealth and for all you know, he probably is still behind you. I tried, I couldn’t find “Smoke Field” skill on my ele.

No, you don’t have control. What you do have is a chance to fight the thief. Everything else: when to engage, when to disengage, is left to the Thief. You can try to run away, that much is certain, but whether you can fight the thief or not is solely on the Thief’s discretion. You can’t chase the Thief: if they don’t want you to fight them, you cannot fight them.

Ergo, all the rewards without a lick of risk.

If they are DD you control when they C&D… learn the animation and you can dodge that.

If they are DP you watch for when they raise their pistol. Avoid that blind shot, then cc them. The heartseeker leap finisher won’t finish and they won’t gain stealth.

In both cases they lose a lot of ini. That’s the lifeblood of a thief. A thief with less ini can do less. A thief with no ini is a dead thief.

If they do stealth then you control the fight by your own movement. Make it hard for them to backstab you and you’ll know where they are from that alone.

Stealth isn’t invuln… you can still hit them when they are stealthed (watch your mele auto chain).

I have no problem predicting them on my eng… who only has the toolkit for mele… because I understand the thief class well having plaid one before.

You just need to learn what thieves do and how to act/react in that given situation. there is prediction involved, but I control what’s going on even when they are stealthed (unless they just run away).

There is only no risk to the thief if you act like grazing cattle once they try to stealth (which is what far too many people do).

The thief can disengage when they want to… but that’s part of the class design. In fact… they NEED to disengage and re-engage frequently. They lack staying power. That’s the same reason why they aren’t often wanted for group compositions.

The trick to killing a thief is to make him over commit and try to disengage when it’s already too late.

Even if they do get away… so what. What is that solo roaming gank thief really going to do that matters in WvW?

I like it that you focus only “how to fight a thief” and not “how ridiculous the concept of stealth is”. Guess what? My highlight is the latter. In case you haven’t driven the point home and gave her your number.

Everyone can fight a thief, that much is certain. Whether they’re good at it or not is entirely different matter. The whole problem I highlight is the fact that you never get to choose when to fight a thief AND can follow through with it. If the Thief decides they don’t want you to fight them, they stealth away with literally no way to actively stop them short of clairvoyant level of stealth trap positioning. They simply stealth and you lose every progress. They can stay in the fight, or they can just run away; you never know until THEY reveal themselves.

You can’t chase them, you don’t even know where they are. Eles can run with Fiery GS, Engineer have Perma swift, guardian can Shout and run with stability, but you know where they are and can generally give chase. The same cannot be said to thief. How are you going to chase something that you don’t know the location to begin with?

Raestloz.7134:

I like it that you focus only “how to fight a thief” and not “how ridiculous the concept of stealth is”. Guess what? My highlight is the latter.

Ok… so you don’t like stealth regardless that you can beat some one using it… yet you chose a game where any class can stealth & leap away… and now are asking for a change to make the game like how YOU want it to be? Wat?

Sorry that I assumed you were asking for ways to fight some one using stealth. I won’t waste any more of my time with this then ^^

Dual.8953:

Imo, stats like Zerker have no place in WvW, if you’re squishy in a zerg you’re a liability to the zerg, if you’re zerker for roaming you have less consequences, but Soldiers or Rabid can do just as well as you.

I prefer it… cause damage, damage, damage. And AoE. It is fun. I want to do damage against the others and especially if they all use higher defensive stats it won’t work without good amount of power. Still I’m not fully berzerker but I use a lot of power(I don’t like conditions and I rarely die to conditions in zerg fighting… just to many others helping). Power more reliable. Can’t be cleansed.

Also I die less often than most others in zerg fighting… cause I just throw AoE and run away ha ha. Of course the others following the enemy to get killed… they are stupid. High defensive stats won’t help there if you run to the legendary defenders at their spawn or if your main zerg stays and 10 run to follow 1 guy around the whole map and running into some other enemy zerg.

Thief… I never do 1 vs. 1. If he gets lucky and 1st hit then losing. If not I can make him run away… but they often get lucky – so running away after he hits. Killing a good thief can almost be impossible. If you just come with 10 to kill him you waste time and they just run away. Ignoring them is better… only if they attack Dolyaks but then you just stay and defend them all the time(killing thief – even if it works – then moving away… won’t help they just come back and kill Dolyak you need to stay there).

Luthan.5236:

Dual.8953:

Imo, stats like Zerker have no place in WvW, if you’re squishy in a zerg you’re a liability to the zerg, if you’re zerker for roaming you have less consequences, but Soldiers or Rabid can do just as well as you.

I prefer it… cause damage, damage, damage. And AoE. It is fun. I want to do damage against the others and especially if they all use higher defensive stats it won’t work without good amount of power. Still I’m not fully berzerker but I use a lot of power(I don’t like conditions and I rarely die to conditions in zerg fighting… just to many others helping). Power more reliable. Can’t be cleansed.

Also I die less often than most others in zerg fighting… cause I just throw AoE and run away ha ha. Of course the others following the enemy to get killed… they are stupid. High defensive stats won’t help there if you run to the legendary defenders at their spawn or if your main zerg stays and 10 run to follow 1 guy around the whole map and running into some other enemy zerg.

Thief… I never do 1 vs. 1. If he gets lucky and 1st hit then losing. If not I can make him run away… but they often get lucky – so running away after he hits. Killing a good thief can almost be impossible. If you just come with 10 to kill him you waste time and they just run away. Ignoring them is better… only if they attack Dolyaks but then you just stay and defend them all the time(killing thief – even if it works – then moving away… won’t help they just come back and kill Dolyak you need to stay there).

I’ve run with a Soldier’s zerg, we kept tight and ate every other zerg in EB, bigger or smaller, with little to no losses.

My problem with thieves is that I can burst them down to almost nothing and then they go lolstealth and just run away. I mean the most stealth I have on my mesmer is 2 seconds on a 40s cooldown, or an ELITE which gives 5 seconds and a 90s cooldown, but these thieves can just endlessly spam it. People cry about mesmers, but AOEs can easily melt the clones/phantasms, retaliation makes blurred frenzy painful to use, plus illusions have barely any HP anyway so you can kill them quite easily.

Stealth … well there’s no real counter to that.

Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait Wait WAit WAIt WAIT , this is a topic where thiefs teach other classes how to play them ? Recorded in calendar , apocalypse tomorrow !