Guild Wars 2

Player Character.9467:

thiagoperne.7340:

Permastealth is the stupiest excuse someone can say about thiefs. If he’s permastealth what harm can he do? Only if he attacks you, if so he’s not permastealth anymore. Even if he CD over and over you stil can see him and counter that, if you can’t you just need more practice, cuz its easy. Whiners don’t win, they whine.

Rez a mesmer in enemy keep, port in zerg.
Break any siege left unattended.

Nice strawman.

I was talking about player against another player. In your case is just so much chain for that to happen and so not often, I think its not even considered as a issue.

Johje Holan.4607:

I don’t have a problem with thieves any more. But that doesn’t mean I like them.

I think the reason you see all these anti-thief posts is because theives are annoying. Kind of like gnats or mosquitoes. Its not hard to kill a gnat or mosquito but people hate them nonetheless.

Exactly. I obviously play a thief and I’ll admit it’s probably annoying for me to stealth and run off when I decide I don’t want to die … but when I do that I haven’t killed anyone, and I’ve given my opponent time to heal/recharge. That’s not being overpowered. And yes, glass cannon thieves can kill other glass cannons quickly if they take them by surprise, but that’s all as it should be.

The OP needs to (among several other things) check out the other current thread regarding recommended classes for WvW. Aside from roaming/scouting/pissing people off, thief pretty much falls to near the bottom of most everyone’s list.

thiagoperne.7340:

Player Character.9467:

thiagoperne.7340:

Permastealth is the stupiest excuse someone can say about thiefs. If he’s permastealth what harm can he do? Only if he attacks you, if so he’s not permastealth anymore. Even if he CD over and over you stil can see him and counter that, if you can’t you just need more practice, cuz its easy. Whiners don’t win, they whine.

Rez a mesmer in enemy keep, port in zerg.
Break any siege left unattended.

Nice strawman.

I was talking about player against another player. In your case is just so much chain for that to happen and so not often, I think its not even considered as a issue.

Thing is…. It’s never actually player against player though is it? In WvW it is quite common to have thieves have been pairing up, stealthing other team members near them so they can lie in wait for unsuspecting lower parties. Then various said members instantly ambush them with mass retaliation, traps, stun etc, whack them till they have little health left and thus lose. Or the other good famous one is in a two against one scenario, where they have the back up and can flit, stealth again and again rapidly and attack with massive damage. So where is the sportsmanship in that? XD . Even player against player there is a massive unfair siding going on, attack, huge burst, hide and stealth, return more heartseekers, gain health. Where is the sportsmanship and fair kill in that? We want our meat and we want a fair fight for it, if you didn’t have all these fancy moves, thieves would not be so quick to kamikaze in zergs (as they often do) now would they? Of course its WvW, that’s the nature of the game and rightly so, but I am sure if a lot of " handouts" were taken away, I think thieves would not be so quick as to go in blindly as they do. They know what they can do and that they can evade too easily. As I said before, play another class and try do some one on one with other guildy buddies with thief classes opposing your chosen class and see what the story is. I am sure you would have a very different opinion in how others have to attempt to combat the evasive , high burst thief build. You would see its far from easy.

thiagoperne.7340:

Player Character.9467:

thiagoperne.7340:

Permastealth is the stupiest excuse someone can say about thiefs. If he’s permastealth what harm can he do? Only if he attacks you, if so he’s not permastealth anymore. Even if he CD over and over you stil can see him and counter that, if you can’t you just need more practice, cuz its easy. Whiners don’t win, they whine.

Rez a mesmer in enemy keep, port in zerg.
Break any siege left unattended.

Nice strawman.

I was talking about player against another player. In your case is just so much chain for that to happen and so not often, I think its not even considered as a issue.

this is the wvw forum, you wanna discuss pvp go to pvp…

mzt.3270:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Yeah ANet, we’re broke, fix us! P/P is really bad and could use some buffs for one, and there are a few other things I can think of offhand, but, oh, I’m sure you read the Thief forums.

Roll an engie and you will see EXACTLY what others are meaning about thieves. I highly recommend you do and you will see thieves actually get a lot more then you think. Let us know how you get on

You’re kidding right? P/P thieves have got nothing on my P/S Engie. Coated Bullets and Incidiary Powder on an HGH build is far far more devastating then anything a ranged thief can muster. That goes for most other sets too.

TyPin.9860:

We weren’t able to finish them. I am sure we several times downed one of them in stealth, but the other one easily could rez the downed one without us noticing.

When you’re getting hits, just keep smacking the same spot. I can outdamage someone reviving pretty easily while solo, especially when they’re reviving a low-HP thief. There’s no excuse for letting them revive eachother, downed or not.

Jaytee.9513:

The main problem that I see is target lock break with every stealth and shadow return, with only 3 secs of reveal most people can’t re-acquire target and use a skill other than auto attack. Melee types can’t use gap closers without target and ranged atks also require a target. I think this and the reveal not activating on a miss or blocked attack are main problems…….. you would see alot less GC thieves with these implemented.

No, no they do not. Very few attacks in GW2 require a target. Most of the complaints about thieves are because there’s a large portion of the community that still doesn’t understand that GW2 combat is not target-based, and most abilities can be (and should be, in many situations) free-aimed.

But, again, the “melee can’t close the gap” is an issue of mobility, not one of stealth. When I’m playing a profession that is more mobile than a given thief, I can and do catch them with melee.

mzt.3270:

thiagoperne.7340:

Permastealth is the stupiest excuse someone can say about thiefs. If he’s permastealth what harm can he do? Only if he attacks you, if so he’s not permastealth anymore. Even if he CD over and over you stil can see him and counter that, if you can’t you just need more practice, cuz its easy. Whiners don’t win, they whine.

It is not the harm it does, it is the unfairness of it all that is the issue. You cannot target what you cannot see, it’s the laws of nature.

You don’t need a target to kill thieves, it is “the laws of nature”. Failure to understand GW2’s combat mechanics does not an overpowered stealth make.

Take personal responsibility for your unwillingness to learn how to fight in GW2 and make the argument that “thieves require us to use a broader skill set than we’re used to” and you’ve at least got a valid point. If you want thieves nerfed on the basis of them making the game too complicated for casual players you might get more support.

I will, however, point out that complaining that thieves broke your tab-target is like coming from an MMO without dodge, refusing to learn how to dodge, and then complaining that you’re getting destroyed by everything. Ignore mechanics (like learning how to aim) at your own risk, but it isn’t the fault of the profession in question.

Thieves are fine.

Tulisin.6945:

TyPin.9860:

We weren’t able to finish them. I am sure we several times downed one of them in stealth, but the other one easily could rez the downed one without us noticing.

When you’re getting hits, just keep smacking the same spot. I can outdamage someone reviving pretty easily while solo, especially when they’re reviving a low-HP thief. There’s no excuse for letting them revive eachother, downed or not.

Jaytee.9513:

The main problem that I see is target lock break with every stealth and shadow return, with only 3 secs of reveal most people can’t re-acquire target and use a skill other than auto attack. Melee types can’t use gap closers without target and ranged atks also require a target. I think this and the reveal not activating on a miss or blocked attack are main problems…….. you would see alot less GC thieves with these implemented.

No, no they do not. Very few attacks in GW2 require a target. Most of the complaints about thieves are because there’s a large portion of the community that still doesn’t understand that GW2 combat is not target-based, and most abilities can be (and should be, in many situations) free-aimed.

But, again, the “melee can’t close the gap” is an issue of mobility, not one of stealth. When I’m playing a profession that is more mobile than a given thief, I can and do catch them with melee.

Ranged attacks do require a target, good luck manually aiming a bow at ANYTHING.

Dual.8953:

mzt.3270:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Yeah ANet, we’re broke, fix us! P/P is really bad and could use some buffs for one, and there are a few other things I can think of offhand, but, oh, I’m sure you read the Thief forums.

Roll an engie and you will see EXACTLY what others are meaning about thieves. I highly recommend you do and you will see thieves actually get a lot more then you think. Let us know how you get on

You’re kidding right? P/P thieves have got nothing on my P/S Engie. Coated Bullets and Incidiary Powder on an HGH build is far far more devastating then anything a ranged thief can muster. That goes for most other sets too.

Hehe you said it yourself, the magic word is ranged. I think the main issue is not the ranged thieves but the close ranged ones in this forum post. I myself have no problems with ranged, but like most people – the close ranged ones are the issue. I agree the HGH is a powerful skill , but its useless if you come across a well stealthy closed ranged thief. HGH is only useful if you can track someone in time before your elixir time runs out, you simply don’t have the time on a close range stealthy and super quick devil. The issue is tracking the close ranged thieves, it always has and only then when you can see them. It is the perma-steath factor that is on trial here.

Engineers have many builds, its always been one of the holy grails, as many sadly do not run engies in WvW, as they know the adventure character is “underclassed” to the others on choice. I have yet to see such a build and tactics on forums, " If its not there it never happened sort of thing". But if you can share tactics in dealing with close ranged thieves and prove your findings, I am sure many people would be interested on your findings. I deal with them in an entirely different way, sometimes it works , sometimes it fails. But yeah stick it on the engie forums and I will pass my engie vs close range thief findings, we might just between all of us to find a nice workable plan that gives all classes an idea in how best to deal with them for the time being. But I shall have a test run on your HGH theory and come up with some findings later on the engie forums. TTFN, nice to see more engies running around.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Thieves are fine.

To other thieves yes

Tulisin.6945:

mzt.3270:

thiagoperne.7340:

Permastealth is the stupiest excuse someone can say about thiefs. If he’s permastealth what harm can he do? Only if he attacks you, if so he’s not permastealth anymore. Even if he CD over and over you stil can see him and counter that, if you can’t you just need more practice, cuz its easy. Whiners don’t win, they whine.

It is not the harm it does, it is the unfairness of it all that is the issue. You cannot target what you cannot see, it’s the laws of nature.

You don’t need a target to kill thieves, it is “the laws of nature”. Failure to understand GW2’s combat mechanics does not an overpowered stealth make.

Take personal responsibility for your unwillingness to learn how to fight in GW2 and make the argument that “thieves require us to use a broader skill set than we’re used to” and you’ve at least got a valid point. If you want thieves nerfed on the basis of them making the game too complicated for casual players you might get more support.

I will, however, point out that complaining that thieves broke your tab-target is like coming from an MMO without dodge, refusing to learn how to dodge, and then complaining that you’re getting destroyed by everything. Ignore mechanics (like learning how to aim) at your own risk, but it isn’t the fault of the profession in question.

You need a target for ranged attacks. If you fight a stealthy thief amongst a bunch of skelks or other creatures that often wander in when not wanted for example or in a WVW set- up fighting a few other " and fire in wild abandon", the averages are the shots will target what it can see, not what it can’t. The other is the hits will centre on the classes that are visible – ie not stealthed. This may work in melee but in a ranged class it won’t. Even with nothing around you, ranged classes need a target to volley. Of course I could be wrong but I would like some evidence to prove otherwise – for example a stealthed thief standing doing nothing close range and a ranger firing off a bow nearby. Then we can judge in a good solid experiment if stealth can be countered on " on pot luck attacks" . If anyone would like to create that as a YT finding, that would be awesome.

mzt.3270:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Thieves are fine.

To other thieves yes

To anyone that has aquired the knowledge in their class and abilities in handling a thief.

I figured out how to deal with them with my particular build. If I can, so can others. It doesn’t take that much to be able to learn how to deal with them, just a little bit of effort.

If you don’t want to learn how, you deserve everything the thief does to you.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

mzt.3270:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Thieves are fine.

To other thieves yes

To anyone that has aquired the knowledge in their class and abilities in handling a thief.

I figured out how to deal with them with my particular build. If I can, so can others. It doesn’t take that much to be able to learn how to deal with them, just a little bit of effort.

If you don’t want to learn how, you deserve everything the thief does to you.

Maybe if you would be so kind as to place a good solid explanation and tactics to take thieves down for both melee and ranged classes. I look forward to your findings.

mzt.3270:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

mzt.3270:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Thieves are fine.

To other thieves yes

To anyone that has aquired the knowledge in their class and abilities in handling a thief.

I figured out how to deal with them with my particular build. If I can, so can others. It doesn’t take that much to be able to learn how to deal with them, just a little bit of effort.

If you don’t want to learn how, you deserve everything the thief does to you.

Maybe if you would be so kind as to place a good solid explanation and tactics to take thieves down for both melee and ranged classes. I look forward to your findings.

In all honesty, is there a textbook method to kill any class?

Tulisin.6945:

TyPin.9860:

We weren’t able to finish them. I am sure we several times downed one of them in stealth, but the other one easily could rez the downed one without us noticing.

When you’re getting hits, just keep smacking the same spot. I can outdamage someone reviving pretty easily while solo, especially when they’re reviving a low-HP thief. There’s no excuse for letting them revive eachother, downed or not.

Well, in this case the thieves were downed due to conditions, mainly from my marks, I put on the ground. I saw them hit, but the thief moved during that time. If he was downed, and I put a mark down, then it wouldn’t trigger, unless it hits a player, that isn’t downed, what would be the case, if he was being rezed (and doesn’t lie on the edge of my mark). However, they moved not very predictable I must say, so I couldn’t connect a 2nd or 3rd hit.

He bleeded out most likely, but went down on a spot, I didn’t know. And conditions are being removed, when u go down (but that is a whole different issue). However, I noticed that my teammates, as you stated earlier, stoped attacking, when they stealthed.

regarding lore, that’s just silly…everything in this game is magical, but thieves shouldn’t be? they’re like ninjas and theyy have ninja powers, which are often magical. ANet gets to set the lore in their own game, and if they decided thieves are a blend of physicality and magical stealth/teleports, it’s really up to them. And it’s hardly genre shattering.

regarding “perma” stealth. there’s no perma about it. Every form of stealth except the heal gives away the thief’s location. So chaining these together gives a rough sense of the thief’s location to anyone watching…unless the thief is very skilled at hiding, or those looking don’t know what they are doing.

The key skill in perma-stealth is black powder, which drops a red circle on the ground, that the thief has to heartseeker through multiple times if they want long term stealth. aoe the circle and you make the thief run out of initiative and lose stealth, run away, or hurt himself. Stand in the circle, and the hs will hit you causing the thief to be revealed.

shadow refuge gives a long stealth, but is a clear tell. big aoe dots on the shadow refuge hurt. put one down covering 3/4 of the sr and you can guess where the thief is. pull/push the thief out before sr is done, and he becomes instantly visible.

really, there are so many ways to handle thieves. so it really breaks down like this: noob thieves can annoy/gank noob players if they’re not careful. good players can kill noob thieves. good thieves can kill some good players if they make mistakes or build too glassy. good players can also force good thieves to run away. Good thieves are mostly not dying, because they know when to run, and have the tools to do it. When good thieves make mistakes with awareness, they can get cc’d and die.

On our server we now have thief groups. So, you have zergs lead by a hammer train which feature a few Ele’s for their combo fields and Mesmers for their utilities, but no real role for the other classes.

I feel WvW can be balanced out by giving Rangers, Necros and Engis anti-stealth skills. Rangers should have a trap, Engis can have a turret and Necros a Mark that has an anti-stealth mechanic and WvW as a whole will be much more balanced. …and don’t tell me they should buy traps, because that will not balance WvW classwise.

Right…Shadow Refuge up to 11 secs by itself, smoke bomb 3 sec, get it hit by aoe? Use the heal that stealth’s you 3 more secs, miles away when you UN stealth. You can use this scenario when killing solo, harassing a grp, etc. I play a Thief and understand the frustration playing against them. OP most of the neg responses are from Thieves who do not want their precious taken down a notch, they need to be, and those folks know it too.

Whats the point of going into a zerg if you cant kill any of them and if you cant be killed either? Your just wasting your time. Sooner or later if that thief is having fun hiding in your zerg and following you, hes going to get stunned snared and AoE’ed.

Bodhisattva.6578:

On our server we now have thief groups. So, you have zergs lead by a hammer train which feature a few Ele’s for their combo fields and Mesmers for their utilities, but no real role for the other classes.

I feel WvW can be balanced out by giving Rangers, Necros and Engis anti-stealth skills. Rangers should have a trap, Engis can have a turret and Necros a Mark that has an anti-stealth mechanic and WvW as a whole will be much more balanced. …and don’t tell me they should buy traps, because that will not balance WvW classwise.

Dunno if Engies need it. I’ve Thief v Engie’d from both sides and I always feel the battle’s more in the Engie’s favour. Engies are loaded to the teeth with Conditions (And are capable of maintaining 2-3 different dots at all times), CC, Defenses and Recoveries, and other utilities. Battles usually end with the Thief running off, having barely ruffled the Engie’s feathers.

From my experience (from an oceanic point of view), when fighting a thief, I spend most of my time chasing thin air. They only appear for less than a second before they vanish again.

Kinda reminds me of those games that are heavy on stuns where you are hanging around waiting to actually do something as you see your character melt.

I like how people are actually trying to defend this kind of kittened up game design. I wonder how many players have fun fighting thieves that go into stealth every few seconds(not people who can kill them, people who have fun fighting heavy stealth thieves.). The devs themselves said they weren’t supposed to be stealth dependent (for very good reason), yet look how that turned out. I don’t care that they have burst but burst plus the kind of constant access they have to this godawful GW2 stealth is just stupid(stealth has zero downside in this game — absolutely none). Guessing where to swipe the air and drop AoEs isn’t skillful play, its bullkitten and is cause for Anet’s future products to get the side eye from me.

gennyt.3428:

I wonder how many players have fun fighting thieves that go into stealth every few seconds
(not people …. who have fun fighting heavy stealth thieves*.). .

Well, considering the requirements you ask .. no one .. cause if you exclude ppl who have fun against them, you don’t have anyone left to wonder about…

Gwalchgwn.1659:

gennyt.3428:

I wonder how many players have fun fighting thieves that go into stealth every few seconds
(not people …. who have fun fighting heavy stealth thieves*.). .

Well, considering the requirements you ask .. no one .. cause if you exclude ppl who have fun against them, you don’t have anyone left to wonder about…

“(not people who can kill them, people who have fun fighting heavy stealth thieves.)” Are you a tabloid “journalist” or something?

Norr.7680:

Right…Shadow Refuge up to 11 secs by itself, smoke bomb 3 sec, get it hit by aoe? Use the heal that stealth’s you 3 more secs, miles away when you UN stealth. You can use this scenario when killing solo, harassing a grp, etc. I play a Thief and understand the frustration playing against them. OP most of the neg responses are from Thieves who do not want their precious taken down a notch, they need to be, and those folks know it too.

hehe yup, that’s my sentiments exactly, I played one & I know just how fortunate the hack is. It’s the OP negative responses that make me laugh, they know what they got and will defend the longevity of the hack and try and push a defence and reduce it to being a point of poor gamplay which is bullkitten. Anet already has said the perm- stealth was not a mechanic they anticipated. Maybe they will sort it out soon and perhaps a dev will be good enough to answer all the points made on these posts clearly to solve a “debate”.

As for the lore being silly, its far from silly and by contrast I give a good example. Yes we live in a magical environment but invisibility " notice I say invisibility and not stealth there "and stealth of that magnitude is insane. Example- Engies have technology yet they have have low powered golem suits that last 2 minutes if you are lucky, turrets that are made from matchsticks ( or appear to be with its poor hit points. You would think that Azure engineer tech would have near on par if not better stealth capabilities as thieves , possibly more realistically considering the tech advancement and good anti- stealth counter- measures as well. But they don’t have it, just a poor 4 sec tool belt elixir with a massive cooldown and even that is a random effect. So where does any lore stand on that very advanced race when a thief can take on the might of a superior technological race with a couple of daggers. So yeah the lore is patchy at best. I am not saying A-nets vision is all bad, its not but some things were clearly not thought out.

What might sort it out is if Engies were given heavy armor, the scholar professions hiked up to medium and thieves pushed down to light. After all with all the perma—steath you guys seem to be in, you don’t really need armor to show off come to think of it :P

In addition to the post about textbook battle play, I agree there would never be one. GW changes a lot via updates it would be impossible to set in tablets of stone. However there is a lot of counter flaming going on, accusing others who are making a point that they are poor players which is nonsense. If you have a point to say thieves can be dealt with say so and more importantly how this is achieved, otherwise its just looking like a counter QQ with little empirical evidence to the contrary , so they can place a protest in-case Anet don’t start taking the scissors to the potteresque Cloak of Invisibility. It’s gotta be sorted, there are plenty good players out there stating the perm -stealth ability is just wrong. Burst skills are fine, just give us a chance to know when we can dodge them is all we ask.

Asudementio.8526:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Time for my mandatory post I make in every one of these threads.

The only thing making the thief OP is how stealth itself works. If you block an attack from the one in stealth or dodge their attack, they are not instantly forced out of stealth and given reveal. Due to this, this can fall back and try again. Give them the reveal the second their attack is blocked or dodged however, and suddenly we’ll see less problems with the class in WvW.

This could be a fix but we’ll either need some mobility or survivability to compensate

I agree with that addition. Or at least up the toughness/vitality a bit more to make up for it.

8 out of 10 1v1 fights i have are against stealhtspam thieves.
Most 1vs2 i have are against 2 thives at once.
So either this game is unbalanced or its just not fun.

I know ~6 people in real live that stopped playing months ago because of this.
Im close to it because im forced to run specific builds and specifig gear just to counter 1 single class. Against every other professions its skill that decides the outcome of the battle. Against this one its gear and build.

Kontrolle.3514:

8 out of 10 1v1 fights i have are against stealhtspam thieves.
Most 1vs2 i have are against 2 thives at once.
So either this game is unbalanced or its just not fun.

I know ~6 people in real live that stopped playing months ago because of this.
Im close to it because im forced to run specific builds and specifig gear just to counter 1 single class. Against every other professions its skill that decides the outcome of the battle. Against this one its gear and build.

Why not just leave roaming to the roaming specialists aka thieves, and do the thing your professions is good at, for example zerging and group play?

Trolling?

na not worth a response, seeya maybe next month again.

Thieves are broken for the most part. They Reduced the dmg on so many skills because of haste and never bothered to fix them after they changed haste.
Then they broke the pathing on shadow steps. (example: you could ALWAYs Infi arrow up the ruin island wall since release [now you can’t] the same goes for all those ramps on the borderlands.
shadow return used to be bugged for 2500 return. now that may sound OP, but when you jump into a zerg, dagger storm and then return. The Leading people of that zerg are all in range to use a fast travel ability. (seen it thousands of times)

Now the only place i think thieves are stacked is the trait line Shadow arts. That cheesy line is what you all should be complaining about. extra stealth time, heal in stealth clear conditions in stealth, while giving you Toughness and +healing.
Bad choice to put them all in one line.
Give us back are damage and mobility, and take away thieves ability to heal while in stealth. you would hear less whining.

What’s sad is that whenever you fight a thief who rarely uses his stealth, you actually see more skill from them than ones that spam stealth. Every fight I’ve had with such thieves usually ends up with both of us on the ground, spamming 1 in hopes of surviving. And I always consider it impressive when a single player who has no adds or is not using stealth can take me down when I’m on my ranger (who happens to have full exotic armor and all the ascended gear).

Tulisin.6945:

mzt.3270:

thiagoperne.7340:

Permastealth is the stupiest excuse someone can say about thiefs. If he’s permastealth what harm can he do? Only if he attacks you, if so he’s not permastealth anymore. Even if he CD over and over you stil can see him and counter that, if you can’t you just need more practice, cuz its easy. Whiners don’t win, they whine.

It is not the harm it does, it is the unfairness of it all that is the issue. You cannot target what you cannot see, it’s the laws of nature.

You don’t need a target to kill thieves, it is “the laws of nature”. Failure to understand GW2’s combat mechanics does not an overpowered stealth make.

Take personal responsibility for your unwillingness to learn how to fight in GW2 and make the argument that “thieves require us to use a broader skill set than we’re used to” and you’ve at least got a valid point. If you want thieves nerfed on the basis of them making the game too complicated for casual players you might get more support.

I will, however, point out that complaining that thieves broke your tab-target is like coming from an MMO without dodge, refusing to learn how to dodge, and then complaining that you’re getting destroyed by everything. Ignore mechanics (like learning how to aim) at your own risk, but it isn’t the fault of the profession in question.

Uh yes… no counter with a reasonable distance/cooldown is exactly what makes stealth OP.

I bet you if we gave Engineers skills to make them invulnerable 90% of the time you and the rest of the thieves in this game would be crying like babies. And that’s not even as useful because at least you can still see and crowd control the Engineer.

Every single thing in this game has multiple counters – except stealth. And for a long while there literally was no counter. Not a single one.

Leger.3724:

Every single thing in this game has multiple counters – except stealth. And for a long while there literally was no counter. Not a single one.

Stealth is pretty much it’s own counter. If I stealth to run away it is no different than if you chased me away. If I try to damage you from stealth I’m no longer stealthed. I can still be AoE’d and stunned to oblivion while in stealth … just because you can’t figure out how to do that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. I trait to heal while in stealth but it’s slow and while I’m doing so I typically watch my opponent heal faster unless he’s also a thief.

The best (worst) thing you can say about stealth is that it lets me decide whether I want to continue the fight or not. It doesn’t make me any more likely to win against a good opponent if I decide to stay.

Highlie.7641:

Thieves are broken for the most part. They Reduced the dmg on so many skills because of haste and never bothered to fix them after they changed haste.
Then they broke the pathing on shadow steps. (example: you could ALWAYs Infi arrow up the ruin island wall since release [now you can’t] the same goes for all those ramps on the borderlands.
shadow return used to be bugged for 2500 return. now that may sound OP, but when you jump into a zerg, dagger storm and then return. The Leading people of that zerg are all in range to use a fast travel ability. (seen it thousands of times)

Now the only place i think thieves are stacked is the trait line Shadow arts. That cheesy line is what you all should be complaining about. extra stealth time, heal in stealth clear conditions in stealth, while giving you Toughness and +healing.
Bad choice to put them all in one line.
Give us back are damage and mobility, and take away thieves ability to heal while in stealth. you would hear less whining.

Should we talk about the list of bugged/useless mesmer ability’s? You’ll get your list x5 then.

Give back your damage and mobility? There’s no class that has higher or even comes close to the ability of the thief. Escaping as thief is already easy enough, and you want to be able to port on every single hill? Give back what damage? the 15-20k backstabs and 6-8k heartseekers? Please, no.

Aaruhn.7049:

fix it. No reason that a class should have so much mitigation (i.e. stealth) in it and damage burst. No way a class should be able to go into a 20 man zerg without fear of dying. Get in trouble? Go into stealth and run.

mitigation

1. the act of mitigating, or lessening the force or intensity of something unpleasant, as wrath, pain, grief, or extreme circumstances
2. the act of making a condition or consequence less severe
3. the process of becoming milder, gentler, or less severe.

Thief does not have any mitigation through stealth. Thief takes just as much damage from attacks whether stealthed or not. You just don’t see the numbers because it’d give away the player’s location.

What Thief does have from stealth is deception/trickery/confusion, and I don’t mean the in game terms.

As for the 20 man zerg comment… yeah I’m sure that happens all the time. A 20 man zerg that lets a Thief get away is a 20 man zerg that doesn’t know what they’re doing or is dreadfully all spec’d and gear’d in the same unfortunate way.

I do agree that the d/p stealth build is very cheese though.

Toggles.1783:

Aaruhn.7049:

fix it. No reason that a class should have so much mitigation (i.e. stealth) in it and damage burst. No way a class should be able to go into a 20 man zerg without fear of dying. Get in trouble? Go into stealth and run.

mitigation

1. the act of mitigating, or lessening the force or intensity of something unpleasant, as wrath, pain, grief, or extreme circumstances
2. the act of making a condition or consequence less severe
3. the process of becoming milder, gentler, or less severe.

Thief does not have any mitigation through stealth. Thief takes just as much damage from attacks whether stealthed or not. You just don’t see the numbers because it’d give away the player’s location.

What Thief does have from stealth is deception/trickery/confusion, and I don’t mean the in game terms.

As for the 20 man zerg comment… yeah I’m sure that happens all the time. A 20 man zerg that lets a Thief get away is a 20 man zerg that doesn’t know what they’re doing or is dreadfully all spec’d and gear’d in the same unfortunate way.

I do agree that the d/p stealth build is very cheese though.

Just stand inside the black powder and reveal them when they heartseeker into you.

Cactus.2710:

Leger.3724:

Every single thing in this game has multiple counters – except stealth. And for a long while there literally was no counter. Not a single one.

Stealth is pretty much it’s own counter. If I stealth to run away it is no different than if you chased me away. If I try to damage you from stealth I’m no longer stealthed. I can still be AoE’d and stunned to oblivion while in stealth … just because you can’t figure out how to do that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. I trait to heal while in stealth but it’s slow and while I’m doing so I typically watch my opponent heal faster unless he’s also a thief.

The best (worst) thing you can say about stealth is that it lets me decide whether I want to continue the fight or not. It doesn’t make me any more likely to win against a good opponent if I decide to stay.

Fighting thieves until you know their every move is not a counter to stealth, its a workaround. The fact that you can damage someone in stealth is not a counter. You can damage players with a retaliation boon, but it is not a counter for it. The fact that you have to leave stealth to attack is not a counter, its the devs throwing bone to hungry dogs. Stealth is not the only skill in this game which doesn’t have a counter mind you. The problem is not that thieves can go into stealth and run away. The problem is that some thieves have a lot of access to stealth, and some classes (not builds, classes) don’t have access to a lot of aoes to deal with them.

As for “It doesn’t make me any more likely to win against a good opponent if I decide to stay”, believe it or not, some builds/classes need to burn cooldowns to survive against a thief. So you can stay there in stealth while these players use their skills just to stay alive, and you can try again when they are on cooldown.

Show us on the doll where the thief touched you..

The main problem with the thief class is that it is simply not enjoyable to fight against an enemy who can vanish, teleport, run away and reset fights at will. They aren’t necessarily OP so much as a constant annoyance that detracts from fun. Larcenous strike is really the only thing about thieves that is blatantly overpowered imo.

fishergrip.4082:

The main problem with the thief class is that it is simply not enjoyable to fight against an enemy who can vanish, teleport, run away and reset fights at will. They aren’t necessarily OP so much as a constant annoyance that detracts from fun. Larcenous strike is really the only thing about thieves that is blatantly overpowered imo.

But if you nerf larsenous strike then every single thief will be forced to abuse stealth just to stay alive. As is, larsenous strike is the only move that lets thief kill without relying on stealth.

nagymbear.5280:

Fighting thieves until you know their every move is not a counter to stealth, its a workaround. The fact that you can damage someone in stealth is not a counter. You can damage players with a retaliation boon, but it is not a counter for it. The fact that you have to leave stealth to attack is not a counter, its the devs throwing bone to hungry dogs. Stealth is not the only skill in this game which doesn’t have a counter mind you. The problem is not that thieves can go into stealth and run away. The problem is that some thieves have a lot of access to stealth, and some classes (not builds, classes) don’t have access to a lot of aoes to deal with them.

As for “It doesn’t make me any more likely to win against a good opponent if I decide to stay”, believe it or not, some builds/classes need to burn cooldowns to survive against a thief. So you can stay there in stealth while these players use their skills just to stay alive, and you can try again when they are on cooldown.

Agreed. I’ve tried explaining this before and I don’t see how people can defend current thief mechanics. Take a good hard look at the Shadow Arts trait line. And yes, what about the classes that can’t throw out AoEs all willy nilly? And even if they can, should they pigeon hole themselves into certain setups just to fight thieves?

Then some will say “play a thief and you’ll learn how to kill them”, that’s hogwash too, getting over the fact that the person might have little to no interest in playing a thief, it’s also horrific logic to suggest that someone spend their gaming time playing a class just to be somewhat effective at dealing with their gimmicky mechanic and it still boils down to “spray and pray”. Plus I don’t see anyone suggesting players do this for Guards, Rangers, Necros, Engineers etc etc and I wonder why. There is always a lowest common denominator class but they went overkill with the thieves. Moving around unhindered and unseen is intrinsically powerful and Anet knows this.

—Cut—
Should we talk about the list of bugged/useless mesmer ability’s? You’ll get your list x5 then.

Give back your damage and mobility? There’s no class that has higher or even comes close to the ability of the thief. Escaping as thief is already easy enough, and you want to be able to port on every single hill? Give back what damage? the 15-20k backstabs and 6-8k heartseekers? Please, no.
[/quote]

It wasn’t every single hill. it was certain places you could walk too. and only if you had the right angle. (Mesmers Could also port btw ) that was a good thing it keep some thieves from spamming stealth while using initiative.
The damage on pistol whip, unload, Repeater, The ones that where nerf’d because of haste….
Mesmers do have a counter for shadow return btw. its stun/daze/interrupt (can’t remember which one atm) which forces a cancel on shadow return…

Excalibur.9748:

But if you nerf larsenous strike then every single thief will be forced to abuse stealth just to stay alive. As is, larsenous strike is the only move that lets thief kill without relying on stealth.

If larc strike stole 1 boon it would still be good without being able to completely shut down any boon-oriented build. There should not be a single skill that makes entire builds worthless. I can agree they need to give thieves more viable options other than stealth, but that doesn’t mean larc strike isn’t a bit out of hand atm.

fishergrip.4082:

Excalibur.9748:

But if you nerf larsenous strike then every single thief will be forced to abuse stealth just to stay alive. As is, larsenous strike is the only move that lets thief kill without relying on stealth.

If larc strike stole 1 boon it would still be good without being able to completely shut down any boon-oriented build. There should not be a single skill that makes entire builds worthless. I can agree they need to give thieves more viable options other than stealth, but that doesn’t mean larc strike isn’t a bit out of hand atm.

Well they could buff us first, then nerf instead of nerfing and then never buffing….

What if they nerf thiefs and yet you stil can’t deal with them? Isn’t that more humiliation? Don’t ask for things to get worst when it can get better by your own hands.

thiagoperne.7340:

What if they nerf thiefs and yet you stil can’t deal with them? Isn’t that more humiliation? Don’t ask for things to get worst when it can get better by your own hands.

I don’t even…..

/facepalm

There are two types of Thieves.

The Troll: This Thief will mess with you and/or your group all freaking day. He is the “permastealth” Thief. You can’t kill him, but he can’t kill you, either. He can, however, kill your dolyaks and get away without a scratch on ‘im. He’s annoying as heck, but he’s not “OP.”

The Average Thief: This Thief is just your average Thief. He’s a fighter. He doesn’t permastealth, because he knows that he won’t be able to take you down if he doesn’t keep pressure on you. You’ll win some and you’ll lose some. If he catches you off guard, he’ll probably win it. But whose fault is that? Yours! Who wins all depends on how skilled you are and how skilled he is. If you’re both equally skilled, he’s not going to win every single time.

The frustration over the trolling Thieves is totally understandable. They’re just annoying, and most of the time, you can’t do kitten about it! Other than that, a lot of it is a learn2play issue. If you’re always losing to a Thief 1v1, it’s not that the Thief is OP! You just need to work out your own issues!

That said, people who are claiming that the Thief is “weak” are ridiculous. The Thief may not be overpowered, but it’s certainly not underpowered, either.

Aaruhn.7049:

fix it. No reason that a class should have so much mitigation (i.e. stealth) in it and damage burst. No way a class should be able to go into a 20 man zerg without fear of dying. Get in trouble? Go into stealth and run.

Mitigation =! Stealth

OP doesn’t know what mitigation is therefore I can’t take his thread seriously.

mzt.3270:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

mzt.3270:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Thieves are fine.

To other thieves yes

To anyone that has aquired the knowledge in their class and abilities in handling a thief.

I figured out how to deal with them with my particular build. If I can, so can others. It doesn’t take that much to be able to learn how to deal with them, just a little bit of effort.

If you don’t want to learn how, you deserve everything the thief does to you.

Maybe if you would be so kind as to place a good solid explanation and tactics to take thieves down for both melee and ranged classes. I look forward to your findings.

I stated I learned how in relation to my particular build. I cannot teach you everything because there are so many different variation out there among all the classes. One way does not work for everyone, nor should it.

Even still, there have been pleny of posts stating how others have been able to learn how to deal with them and I would say they were specific to their build.

If you all can’t learn from all the many other posts on how to deal with thieves, why should I waste my time here doing the same again? If you didn’t want to learn in the first place, you won’t learn now and instead we will see these nerf threads because you all didn’t want to learn in the first place.