Guild Wars 2

So, no US servers have Balthazar uncontested?

Awesome, thanks!

Black powder stomps are pretty effective as well

That’s what I’ve been doing in spvp lately. I go 0/30/10/15/15. It’s pretty fun and allows for a lot of unload spam

“I lost to a thief because he was better than me and i need to learn to get better.”

Notus.5769:

Heck why start with backstab. All you have to do is be in range to do this:
http://i.imgur.com/O3e05.jpg

I have a fully geared 80 thief also. It’s a joke.
I went full condition spec p/d with him just to get away from doing this nonsense to other players.

“But you’re a glass cannon you’re supposed to die in .5 seconds!”
Who else can do this? All this fellow had to do was have me targeted and hit two buttons. That’s it.
The rest is instant.

How many other glass cannon classes run around right now? Very few. And they will not until they know they can actually play in WvW and not be instantly killed by one of the 100 thieves on the map at any given time doing this.

Did you even watch that Warrior sniper video?

And you’re complaining about backstab thieves? lol

I know there is a lot of posts in this thread but even if you just go up and read that last few posts i’m sure you’d learn something. I run P/D thief, a Warrior, and an Ele and I have NO problem what so ever with BS thieves. If i die against one, it’s because i did something stupid.

In Brutal honesty, the thing that would probably fix most of these builds is added some more to the ini cost of Heartseeker. All they do is burst their damage and then heartseeker spam. It’s not too bad to counter but the fact that HS is so good at what it does for such a small cost really won’t help with calming the whiners.

EasymodeX.4062:

Krathalos.3461:

Except thief doesn’t have an interruption that can reach 1500 range on any build possible. The warrior could have also been behind him, thus making an interruption impossible while immobilized.

The Warrior was at 900 range.

A thief can’t do anything in .3 seconds.

A Thief can deal 30k damage in 0.3 seconds.

Maybe against an upscaled player with no armor or a rabbit.

I’m just going to assume this is either trolling or a joke.

If it’s honestly as easy as you say it is to do “30k damage in .3 seconds”, show us.

I’d love to see you post a vid of the damage after showing us that the person you did it to has no armor or traits(Spvp) / is upscaled with no armor or traits(WvW)

Because otherwise, you know you’re exaggerating and making a complete fool of yourself.

If this is an attempt to troll, you should work on that. It’s fairly obvious

2/10 – simply for making me reply.

Awe.1096:

NightyNight.1823:

Another story and no arguments.You totaly proved your point man..thieves are soooo OP.How did it passed me.Wait thieves or BS thieves?You didn’t reffered to any in particular.
ohh so sad.. so sad..my lifes so sad..

And what is one of the most common argument thrown be thieves around here?
“You are bad. Learn to play.” Honestly, a king of all arguments.

The thing is, this is usually the truth. I made a post specifically giving you advice and informing you on the class and clearing misconceptions and instead of using that information you cried about having to change your play style.

That is showing an unwillingness to adapt to situations and feeling that your cookie cutter rotations and builds should work regardless of who or what you’re up against.

in other words, stop being bad.

bwillb.2165:

On my Warrior…
I deal 22k damage to all people in a line in 2-3 seconds from 1200 range.
I deal 20k AoE damage in 1.5s while also knocking the target down during the whole.
This while having twice my Thief’s health, a lot more armor, 8 sec invul.

Yeah, that’s a bit mindblowing. The mug/cnd/backstab burst that a few people are spamming nerf demands for maxes out at about 12k burst most of the time, if everything hits. And that’s single-target O.O

But arenanet says warriors are balanced… but nerfs thieves who are clearly subordinate to warriors…. If I were an artificial intelligence, I’d have to self-destruct.

Yup. I was just reading the bladetrail thread on the warrior forum and apparently some people are defending it saying it’s working as intended. It’s really disheartening that the few loud mouths crying nerfs are being paid so much attention.

Wreckdum.8367:

lol @ condition thieves making fun of BS thieves… Condition thief is more faceroll than backstab. You can remove everything from your screen except caltrops and your 3 key and still kill a group of people solo. ROFL

Was that sarcasm? Cause it’s not that hard to let the thief finish his 2-3 DB and wipe conditions and proceed to beat on him as he tries to stealth and wait for his initiative to go back up. Granted they don’t go down nearly as quick as Glass cannons but they clearly don’t “faceroll” like you mention.

Kontrolle.3514:

Thief is aleady gamebreaking. I know a couple of persons that already stopped to play this game because of that. It ruins the fun for everyone except the thiefplayer and almost 50% of them accept that something needs to be done, actually its quite alot because this stupid kiddy-profession is full of cheesy abillitys.

To be honest it should never have been implemented, like in every other game of this type…

i do quite well against them except the lolol ~15-20k backstab combo. Which has literally no way to counter it.

I hate to fight against them even if i win. I never had the feeling of having a good fight, i just stomped some baddy that plays an oped class.
I hate to play with them i hate to see them and i hate the fact that 50% of the game population plays them.

This post makes it seem like you know nothing about the mechanics in this game, much less the thief.

I’ve made posts and points that clearly you either ignored or just don’t bother to read because you seemed to have typed this out of your kitten Where is the data that shows 50% of the game pop is Thief? How about the 50% of people that feel something needs to be done? Are you saying half the game plays theif and the other half cries about them being OP?

I think this is the case of what is called the “Vocal Minority”. The same people crying over and over because they don’t want to try.

racecase.1378:

The simple fact that a lot of people play (and win tounrys with) a thief runs counter to your arguments that thiefs are underpowered, easily countered by a dodge or 20 other skills you list, have low HP, dont bring anything to a team fight etc etc. If that were the case all you thief players wouldnt be playing a thief.

It is not just back stab alone that is the problem, although it does hit for the most. It is as other have said; steal with or without traits (mug/venoms etc) into a cloak and dagger into a back stab followed by a heartseeker. That combo will kill anyone and is very very hard to avoid and happens within seconds, specifically the steal—>cloak and dagger—>back stab part.

Even if that chain is broken the thief has several options, they can stealth and hit you with another back stab into heartseeker, they can dance around you with shortbow skills or dancing dagger both of which put out absurd damage for the utility they bring, or the thief can just run.

You bring up all these points. That’s great. Now the same can be done with counters and other classes that have NUMEROUS options on what to do in these situations.

Also, not ALL thieves play BS builds. I bounce between P/P Venom share or P/D Condition build.

On my Ele, i run dual daggers. it has PLENTY of CC to deal with a glass cannon thief.

I don’t know why i keep bothering by posting all these counters and ways of dealing with thieves when hardly anyone reads it because they don’t want to learn how to deal with them, they just want thieves to be useless so they can go ignore them in PVP and whine about the next class they have trouble with.

The funny thing is there is nothing about this on the warrior forums as far as i can tell…

unless it has been moved to the bug thread or something lol.

@Phaeris

It’s funny, it was mentioned a few posts up that just because you can’t see the person doesn’t mean they are INVINCIBLE. You can still hit. you can still swing. Most abilities still hit whatever is near by / in front of you regardless of having something targeted. Stealth =/= Immune or invincible.

The utility caltrops is very strong, the dodge caltrops aren’t though. I would definitely save your condition removal for the utility (which has an animation, easy to tell).

Also, i’m curious which kinds of initiative regen are you referring to. Only so i can further clarify.

I’m not trying to start a fight here, i’m just trying to educate people and clear misconceptions.

Knowing is half the battle, right?

No way dude. Warriors are in “a good place”.

If anything they need buffs.

LOCO.1785:

Thief is fine.

It’s just the usual suspects here, spewing the same garbage over n over. They won’t be happy until the thief is useless.

In all my hours played in WvW, I’ve only ever been killed by the Basilisk/C&D/Steal/BS once… ONCE!!! Only because I was typing when the thief attacked.

Usually when these glass cannons try this on me, they end up dead or fleeing.

I don’t even know why I bother posting here anymore to be honest, this sub forum should just be called the whingers corner. The complainers never listen to good advice and continue begging for nerfs. The developers eventually cave, the class gets weaker and people call it quits cause they’ve had enough. Then the complainers move onto the next ability they can’t deal with and the cycle continues.

Poor form.

Pretty much this. I had a decent post a few pages back on certain ways of countering this silly one trick pony build and even explained some details as to how stealth / revealed works proving that the combo isn’t done from “out of no where” and can be prepared for with a little awareness and what happened?

Someone (named Awe) posts about how they shouldn’t have to play a bunker (which i never even mentioned in my post but he assumed it) and they shouldn’t have carry a stun breaker or invulnerability.

I pretty much gave him advice on how to counter / what to do against something he was complaining about and he pretty much threw it in my face. Practically saying that he shouldn’t have to change the way he plays because someone beat him. In essence, he wanted to keep playing the same way expecting a different result.

People don’t want to change their build/adapt to something they have trouble with. Instead, they want to come on here and kitten so the Anet will nerf and they can go on doing the same thing and not have to adapt because that’s too hard for the typical baddie that plays this game.

Although i can imagine it’d be funny spanking someone in WvW with that gun…

Not a weapon for me though. I find it ridiculous how biased things are towards Warriors sometimes…

Awe.1096:

So pretty much you are saying that everyone should be sporting a full bunker build from the sole reason that there thieves in this game? My playstyle is an extremely careful approach. I play a ranged class and to be honest I die rarely becouse I tend to avoid putting myself in the harms way. Of course this also means less effective offense since I am not going to risk myself into chasing someone when I do not feel confident about it. Some can call this a chicken playstyle, I say better safe than sorry. In sPvP I tend to die from different things becouse area is very confined and sometimes its just either you or them. But for example in WvW I would say that around 90% of all my deaths is when I get jumped by the thief. The only scenario when, if executed properly by a thief, a have absolutely no response to. People telling me to L2P when I just get wtfstomped in 2 seconds by an unknown entity which appears out from stealth when I am already either dead or lingering at 10% are just thief players who are affraid that ANet will nerf their ability to dominate other people and feel as superior human beings becouse of that.

Perfect example of the whining nerf baddie. I specifically informed how a thief won’t initiate in stealth because of revealed and told him one example of countering and he just retorts how he shouldn’t have to Bunker to combat against an enemy.

News flash, it’s called adapting to a situation. If you glass cannon with no stun breakers,invulns, or dodging,guess what? You’re going to get rocked.

I think culling should really be fixed before addressing more “Balance” issues. Most of these complaints are that thieves “pop out of stealth and facerape” This is a misconception considering that they would have revealed debuff and wouldn’t be able to go into stealth for a bit for a backstab.

That and people really are terrible at this game. I’ve spanked thieves with both my Ele and as a thief (P/P and Shortbow) so i don’t see what the issue is with this type of build. It’s REALLY easy to tell what they are going to do. It’s incredibly predictable. You target and notice the basilisk venom has been applied, get ready to try and dodge / have your stunbreak up and push their kitten in when they’ve blown their Cooldowns and try to “HS spam” you to death while having a decent amount of health.

OH NOES BUT THEY WENT INVIS!

Just because they went invis doesn’t mean they are invuln. Keep moving / dodging. don’t let them get behind you. You don’t have to see them to know they are trying to get to your back. Also, don’t freaking MOVE backwards (as in pressing “s”) because it’s slow as hell. Dodge backwards/ use sporadic movements/ use defensive cooldowns (Arcade shield / Mistform come to mind in terms of Stunbreak / Defensive cooldowns.) It really isn’t that bad. It’s as easy to predict as the Warrior’s instagib 100b combo. Just gotta be a little smart and realize that just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean you can’t beat the crap out of them.

People have trouble dealing with things they cants see, even if it is for a few seconds. The whole reason Anet didn’t put perma stealth in was to counter whining and to allow people to prepare for a thief. Problem: people don’t know jack about the thief. I dont know how many times I have explained to guildies and party members on various thief mechanics. People are completely oblivious to how stealth even works.

tl;dr: bads gonna bad

I’m glad they addressed the problem instead of nerfing backstab. I have a bit of faith now. AS was the problem with Backstab gibbing kitten unable to dodge. Kudos to Anet.

Time to mess around and see how this new AS could be applied / added to create new builds.

This is all a joke right?

I would bother posting and trying to help this person understand but…

Well, as the old saying goes, You can drag a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it.

Zsymon.8457:

The problem is, that there is no way to counter this.. there’s no way anyone can react against a mug, precasted C&D and BS.. it happens instantly and there is nothing in this game that any class can do to counter this. So this issue is not a case of L2P or of finding a way to counter, since there is no counter.. you cannot dodge something that happens instantly and without any kind of graphical warning and from 1200 range. Often times the thief won’t even render on your screen at that range.

The problem with this statement is that all three of those skills happen in about the span of 1.5-2 seconds.

Last time i checked, the average human reaction time is less than a second (about half a second i think, maybe a little less). That’s why 1.5-2 second stuns feel like forever.

Thing is, the key point to these “instagib” builds is that it requires them to keep you in place to make the whole backstab process quick and efficient.

If you anticipate and notice a basilisk or devourer venom you know they are getting ready to pounce.

Dodge or invuln if you can. If you don’t and they manage to get that first mug and snare / stone, Use that handy stun break of yours and THEN use your survival utilities.

I’m not saying that our class shouldn’t be nerfed. I’m just saying that the whining is a bit exaggerated. Anyone can look OP if they go up against someone that doesn’t bother to adapt and try to consider what he’s up against.

I’ve said it a million times the things that need to be tweaked / nerfed are quickness and Assassin’s Signet.

Redscope.6215:

Honestly the best part about the moaning thieves on these forums is when they say “X didn’t need a nerf, why, I don’t even use X and I’m an awesome player!”

Alright…so what are you whining about? Go be awesome somewhere…

Thieves are taking hits in the damage department because Anet has underestimated the defensive capabilities of stealth and shadowstep. No matter how you build, you still have high mobility and confusion that work in your favor as a thief…so why not go easymode DPS as much as possible?

The better thieves are the ones that don’t come here and cry every time there’s a nerf to an OP skill, because they understand and properly take advantage of stealth and shadowstep instead of using them as a crutch for a glass cannon.

Hell I remember tons of bads calling for perma-stealth and talking about how steal sucks. Where’s all that gone? The bads have all focused on the nerfing going on.

I don’t use S/P in PvP, only in PvE. It’s really silly that my 3 ability has absolutely no use what so ever. I could simply use my 5 to evade hits like i would with my 3 and just auto attack and save initiative since auto attack does the same, if not, MORE damage.

How can you justify that damage nerf when, clearly, it wasn’t the problem to begin with?

We’re not saying to leave our class alone, what most people are saying is to take a look at what SHOULD be nerfed / tweaked instead of blindly slapping heavy handed nerfs that don’t solve the problem.

I love using condition damage. People will probably say it’s underpowered because they don’t see cute big numbers.

Granted, Conditions can be cleansed but that’s why you just keep stacking.

They both have their pros and cons. Toughness, and good timing will screw up high burst glass cannons.

Of course they can have higher survivability, my point is hit for hit.

That being said, an Ele could potentially take more hits with the right utilities and such but where does that leave the elementalist compared to the warrior in a fight? That warrior may not have as many invulns as the ele might be loaded with in during the fight but you can be sure as hell the warrior doesn’t need it cause that elementalist isn’t going to be doing jack to him.

Yeah it’s sad.

Thieves have the “HURP kitten OP I DUN KNO HOW TO DODGE HS SPAM/BS/PW/STEALTH” threads.

Necros have a few “buff us” or “Fix this” threads… which i feel sad about cause they really do have a lot of stuff that needs fixing..

This one is riddled with people that want to be able to just faceroll and realize they need to actually be paying attention and learn their class to get stuff done.

I’m actually surprised i don’t see much crying on the Warrior forums… i wonder why…

Not sure about that. Ele’s being more durable by any comparison is a ridiculous claim. Sure they both have invulns but, hit for hit, that Ele is going to feel it and the warrior will nine times out of ten just shrug it off.

You don’t exactly have to be viewed as a threat to still be a target.

From what i notice, there’s PLENTY of DPS specced players. I’ll run with the intention of using combo fields, sharing snare and basilisk venoms, running refuge to provide lifesteal / regen on stealth / revives…

It may not be the type of gameplay that most people are looking for but i’m sure that’s why DPS specs are something that is always available as opposed to tanks / supports.

I think thief is fine aside from the nerf on P/W. The only things that might need to seriously be tweaked is Quickness and perhaps the Assassination Signet.

@edamber – What do you mean by fix condition?

I think your gear isn’t really something that needs to be specced to counter thieves as much as your utilities. Also, the choice in your utilities should also not be specced into countering thieves specifically but for the situation. If you’re dying a lot (be it thief or any other class) switch out some of those damage utilities for some survivability / stunbreaks.

Stunbreaks / dodges / Invulns will throw a wrench into any glass cannon’s burst rotation…

Notice how i mentioned glass cannon… not just Thieves.

bwillb.2165:

Thief is more fun IMO, but Warrior is stronger. Warrior also has the added benefit of being immune to major nerfs.

Pretty much this. You can do way more damage than a thief and will never have to worry from a nerf bat because Warriors’ are apparently in a good place right now.

Thief range is capped at 900. Warriors have things other than signets, like banners. Dem banners dude, they are awesome.

Regardless, 100b won’t get nerfed cause a certain someone feels that warrior is in a good place right now.

Quickness should really get hit hard or be taken off the map entirely.

ZLE.8293:

Pistol/Dagger condition is OP?
That’s new one.So i guess i(running D/D and P/D condition) am OP as well.
After 1150 games with similar build i can tell you at least 50 tricks&tips how to counter
P/D condition thief to the point of making him laughable.But i won’t off course.
Play the game,learn from your own mistakes.

You could outright WRITE OUT how to counter it, it won’t make a difference. People are here to post and complain, not read and learn. If they were willing to learn how to counter they wouldn’t be kittenposting in the first place.

It’s unfortunate but the fact of the matter is gamers nowadays are spoiled brats that want instant gratification. When they don’t get it, they whine and cry like those little children at the supermarket.

Aside from the fact that HS spamming isn’t gonna get anything done, there’s plenty of ways to play Thief.

First off, don’t bother with Spvp. It really is terrible. I roll a support thief ( Shared and leeching venoms +stealth/regen/allied healing) with d/p or p/d +sb. I run shortbow to apply group weakness (poison field +clusterbomb finisher), poisons, and bleeds and throw down my Refuge during fights for lifesteal.

You aren’t going to be seeing huge numbers but you sure as hell are helpful with the control and regen/healing.

Someone’s got a grudge against thieves.

Anyway, there’s a decent amount of ways to play thief, although not as numerous as some other classes. Plus WvW isn’t really our strong suit unless you’re going around taking sentries / Supply camps. We’re made more for small skirmishes, not so much for the zerg fests.

Arcalas.9368:

People People. Haste has one drawback to it. It uses all of the thiefs energy meaning they cant dodge after using haste. Pistol whip needed a damage nerf so ppl wouldnt always go for sword/pistol all the time but the real question is why they didnt nerf 100 blades from warriors.

That’s obvious. The dude clearly doesn’t hide his favoritism towards warriors.

Of course people are still going to use it. The problem wasn’t with the Pistol whip but with the haste. People are still going to haste and stack as much boons to Assassinate squishies too ignorant to counter it.

Kintari.4172:

SblatHUN.6025:

And where is the Dagger nerf on thief?
This is kinda useless cause 75% of the thief is using dagger.

Hopefully, they are fixing the stealth / rendering issues first before addressing backstab / stealth builds. Because that would be the sensible order to go about things. We’ll see.

Just like we’d hope they would do the sensible thing and adjust Quickness instead of hastily nerfing P/W?

I doubt it. I don’t even use S/P outside of PvE. The nerf is stupid, plain and simple. Us thieves aren’t crying because we got nerfed, we’re upset because instead of fixing the problem, (Quickness / haste) they slapped a band-aid on something that isn’t cut.

Kudos! It takes a lot for a person to take a step back and realize that sometimes they’re the ones that need readjustment, not everything else. It takes even more for someone to own up and apologize. Much respect.

the 10k-15k is coming from the Stolen skill from the warrior. That’s what i saw anyway.