Guild Wars 2

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You may have received your reward at two, and just didn’t notice, thinking it was daily or something.

Och, i didn’t know about it, so i guess thats possible.
Problem solved it seems
Thx for the reply.

Hi
Anybody experienced this problem?
Although i have done 4 of 7 monthly categories, the progress stopped at 2/2, so i got no reward (all details on the screenshot).

Zikory.6871:

PS: Not USELESS in a zerg at all. Just cluster bomb alone makes them one of the strongest utility classes […]

… or pistols maxed + ricochet. Stand on the wall or in the backline and see the numbers: 3K dmg, 4k dmg, 5k dmg, 3k dmg… to multiple targets every 2 sec.
Theif useless in a zerg? …. mercy!!!!

I guess thieves who describe themselfs as useless in a zerg never even tried something else than d/d.

Non-polish players always had a hard time on Blacktide, but some commanders at least were TRYING to integrate the community.
Lately i see a new trend: Silent commanders from one special guild, who don’t say anything in chat.

Earlier i felt like an outsider, when there was only polish language in the chat.
Now i feel completely ignored when there are no commands at all in the chat.

Probably 60% of the zerg are players from one guild, fine. Probably they have TS or some other great communicator, great, have fun with it. But don’t you think players from other guilds, or guildless players like me, deserve the minimum of respect and the very minimum of information?
Do you think a “FOLLOW ME” order is all that you need to say when you enter the map?

This is so ridiculous, that i’m not sure anymore, if this isn’t a clever tactic, to make non-polish players leave the server, so you can have it all for yourself.
If that was your intention – you were successful. For me it’s a sign, that it’s about time to change the server.

Just because p/p doesn’t have a stealth skill it doesn’t mean that it’s worse than other weapons.
But for most thieves it’s a tragedy to be visible longer then 4 sec

Honestly, p/p isn’t that bad, like everyone tries to tell you. Under two conditions.
1) you must like range combat.
2) you must choose your second weapon set very carefully.

I like pistols very much in WvW for several reasons (however i never played p/p in spvp/tpvp).

1. Range. When you use any close range weapon it’s easy to miss when a target is moving. It’s a matter of luck if you land a backstab or not. You don’t have the problem with pistols.
2. Survivability. An enemy player can try to avoid backstabs by moving, evading, hitting the air. It’s harder to avoid sneak attack because unlike to bs, the thief will not pop up right behind your back but anywhere in a 900 m radius around you. Belive me, it’s impossible to predict where a p/p thief will appear, for the thief it makes no difference as long as it is within 900 m. The dmg is lower, but almost no risk.
3. Skills. Very good autoattack, up to 5k dmg with Unload, Black powder (blindness for 4s) and interruption with head shot. I don’t need anything else.

During the short time when i was using d/d in WvW i was able to kill unexperienced players much faster but i died every few fights. With pistols it takes more time to kill someone, but i am able to kill better players and die once in a blue moon.

I’m not trying to tell that p/p is better, because it isn’t. It’s just perfect for me

Zacchary.6183:

Oh look. Its blankverse ignoring thief advice again.

Is there something in my statement you don’t agree with?

PS. i’m not sure if you’re trolling me or you didn’t understand my intentions in the past, so i say it once again.
I started thief to learn how to counter them.
Since a few weeks i play almost only thief.
The only thing i learnt during that time is how to effectively kill other classes. Not how to counter thieves. Sad but true.
This is of course only my own private opinion, you may have yours.

Undeadkemea.4865:

[…]

You figured out some importent points and you’re basically right with many things you mentioned.
Nevertheless this is just another “how to deal with thieves”-instruction that looks good only in theory.

You forgot one thing: thieves are not bots. They learn from mistakes too. Most of them have been in all those situation dozens of times. They know that their potential victims will try to avoid their attacks and HOW they will do it.

Long story short: Every class can try to counter a thief, but a thief can counter all these attempts too. There are ways.
So in the end the Thief is always the one, who is one step ahead thanks to stealth.

Lucky.5619:

I create thieft. do you know fastest way to gain 80 lvl?

Which runes? build?

Go WvW, join a zerg, follow it. When there is a lucky strike you should be 80 after a few days.

Zacchary.6183:

You know, we tried telling everyone how to kill us multiple times. The only thing that ever came out of it was spam and flame.

Maybe because many of those hot tips and recipes “how to kill a thief” are often pure theory and don’t work so well in combat? Ever considered that?

When i roam i meet different players. From newbie Invaders to Bronze xyz.

I noticed that many players expect backstabs when they see a thief. And – yes, they do their best to avoid backstabs. But as i said, i use pistols. So all i have to do is: pop up -> sneak attack ->unload ->black powder -> autoattack ->stealth ->repeat.
I don’t even try to come closer and land a backstab and the player i fight with CAN NOT forsee where i will pop up next (with almost full hp and ini).
This method doesn’t work against very tanky builds and most guardians but i can honestly say (don’t get me wrong, i’m not trying to brag, it’s a fact): only one (1!) ranger from maybe 20-30 was able to kill me.
Is it so because i am a batter player? Hell, no.
Is it so because i use some kind of clever tactic? No.
Is it so because i have access to stealth? Yes.

Fiorrello.8126:

all that aside i see the the thief community, as a whole, as a toxic community. smugly telling people to L2P doesn’t help anyone. i guess i’m glad that these people populate the thief forums, and not the warrior forums as much, but still its some pretty elitist and disrespectful stuff.

I never even entered the mesmer- or necromancer forum, but i regulary visit ranger-, engineer-, warrior-, and thief-forums. I can’t remember any hatethreads against engineers, rangers or warriors. Some complaints – yes. But not such hate like here.

When so many people, playing so many classes, have problems to fight thieves, there must be a bigger problem with balance, not with the individual abilities of those players (*). Thieves can repeat “l2p” till the world ends, but this won’t solve anything, this won’t help nobody. It’s not an answer, not an argument, not a solution, not even a fact. It’s just something, that pets a thief’s ego and makes him feel elite.

(*) Also keep in mind, that this is a game for everyone, more skilled players as well as less skilled players, very ambitous players and not so ambitious players, players with plenty of time and players who play only 1h a day or less.
It should not be that way, that ONE class can be killed only by experienced players.

I dare to say, that elite players, the ones who are skilled, experienced and don’t need any more lessons how to play, are NOT the core of the game community. They are maybe 10% of the whole playerbase, maybe even less. 90% are people who are average players. Telling them “l2p” just because they have problems with the hide and seek concept of fighting a thief is just a proof of arogance.

Azraeel.1238:

[…]

I used to play d/d, s/d, d/p etc a bit but i just like p/p more then anything else, i can’t help it, even if it’s not so effective like other combinations.

Our different opinions about stealth may have something to do with the fact, that we have completely different visions what a thief should be and what he should not be.

I already stated it in another thread – i am a bad thief, a really bad thief.
I used to play ranger since the beginning. A few weeks ago i got a bit bored with ranger though, so i switched to thief and now i mostly play thief.
So far, so good.
The only problem is, i miss something when i play thief.

When i had a good, long fight with other players on my ranger and i won, i felt satisfaction. I knew i deserved that small victory. I was the better one. Or more lucky one, whatever.
When i kill someone on my thief, i never feel such satisfaction, i never think in terms of “being better”, because i know for sure: “it has nothing do to with being better, i WON because i have STEALTH”.
So if i want stealth in it’s current form to be removed, i do it for egoistic reasons, because i want fair 1vs1 fights, which give me as much satisfaction on thief as i have on ranger.

Azraeel.1238:

So many mistakes for someone who actually plays the class:

Mistakes? No, i wouldn’t call it “mistakes”. It’s just a different point of view on the class.

Azraeel.1238:

1- CnD is not a cheap skill which you can spam, and you can easily miss it.

The basic cost is 6 ini, 4 ini if you have “infusion of shadows” traited.
4 ini isn’t that much.
Easy to miss? Like every other skill that is used in close combat.

Azraeel.1238:

2- Even if you can Spam CnD, it won’t stack, you will just reveal yourself on the second hit.

You can stack it in a different way: CnD -> Blinding Powder -> Hide in Shadows -> Shadow refuge. This gives us (with Meld with shadows) 4 + 4 + 4 + 13 (=25 seconds of non-stop stealth)
There is no reveal between these skills.

Azraeel.1238:

3- If you want to play without stealth, you will not benefit from the Shadow Arts tree.

I didn’t say a thief should play without stealth. My point was – a Thief shouldn’t have the ability to perma-stealth. I thought i said that clear.

Azraeel.1238:

4- Without stealth, you can’t perform your highest attack, backstab.

I don’t use backstab. I use sneak attack. But anyway – stealth in it’s current form allows you to perform attacks from out of stealth every few seconds. Sure, i profit from it a lot, but i still think it’s too much of an advantage.
In my opinion there should be at least 10 sec reveal time between different stealth skills.
I’m very, very, very curious how all the pro stealth spammers will look like in 1vs1 with such a restriction.

Azraeel.1238:

8- Your comparison is totally wrong. If you want to compare virtue and adrenaline with anything a thief has, it would be steal. I’m pretty sure a thief can survive without using Steal.

You’re partially right here. My intention was to show, that Stealth is the main tool of every thief.
But ok, let’s have a more valid comparision – take traps from a ranger and he will still be powerful. Take minions from a necro and he still will be powerful. Take shouts or whatever from a warrior and there will be lots of good builds left. But … take stealth from a thief … and all you will hear will be “nooooo, don’t nerf us”.

9- Thieves are NOT GODMOD when they stealth.[/quote]

I didn’t say that. I said clearly – all stealth skills are ok like they are.
It’s just perma-stealth that annoys me and so many other players.

WonderfulCT.6278:

It hilarious to see people complain without any facts just stating, “Stealth OP plz nerf.”

There have been millions of reasonable arguments and explanations why “thieves are op” IN SOME SITUATIONS. You need to seperate people who are angry because they can’t handle a thief and people who play a thief and see, that something is wrong with the class.

In the end it all comes to complaining about stealth.
From my point of view there are 2 issues.

I use “hide in shadows” and “blinding power” on my p/p thief. Both skills have a 30sec/32sec cd and i think it’s fair in every 1vs1 when i stealth only 2 times. When i fight mulitple enemys i also use shadow refugee (in most cases to escape).
All these skills are fine and i wouldn’t change anything.
But that’s not all. We all know it.
There is the ability to stack stealth.
There are weapon skills like c&d.
There are combo fields.
There is the ability – the main reason why so many people complain about us/thieves – the ability to perma stealth.

All thieves love to say “l2p”. Well, my friends, now i could reply: first learn to play without stealth, then we can continue this discussion.

You can’t do that, can you?
Which brings us two issue no.2: The profession mechanic.
A guardian can do well without his three virtues.
A ranger still can be very effective without his pet.
A warrior without adrenaline still is very dangerous.
I fought several necromancers who didn’t use Death Shroud even once during the whole fight.
And so on, and so on.
But when you take stealth from thieves there is nothing left. The sad truth is: without stealth thieves are nothing.

So, on the one hand we have god mode when a thief uses stealth ALL the time.
On the other hand we have a dead thief when he doesn’t use any stealth.
I belive, what has to be done is to strike a happy medium.

Lenoir.3579:

Blankverse.4927:

German orderliness, efficiency & discipline vs Polish happy chaotic anarchy.

Well, I referred to German as a language here. And I was mentioning the fact that we speak the same language. That’s the same on every server that is dedicated to one language. All those servers have an advantage because nearly all of the players are native speakers.

It was supposed to be a joke, don’t take it too serious.

On topic: I don’t socialize much with other players, so my conclusions may be wrong and there are more english speaking people then it seems on the first look.
I’m actually curious about the nationality proportions on Blacktide. If more then 90% of the community is from Poland, the server really deserves to be renamed in Blacktide [PL], that’s all.

Lenoir.3579:

As being one of your opponents I can only say that we actually recognize your communication problems. […] Of course this our advantage because it’s obvious that we don’t have that problem on a German server.

On a less serious note:

War of stereotypes.
German orderliness, efficiency & discipline vs Polish happy chaotic anarchy.

I didn’t participate in any form of sPvP since january, and i guess i missed a lot of changes, so just a quick question:
Is the abililty to enter the spawning area of a team and killing players there – like the mesmer on the ss does – some official feature or a bug or what?

Sin.4130:

Any other language than english on chat is used for non important things.

No. Just no.
This is how map communication looks like during war on blacktide.

player 1: polish language
player 2: polish language
player 3: polish language
player 2: polish language
player 4: polish language
player 1: polish language
player 5: polish language
player 2: polish language
player 1: polish language
commander: all go to gari
player 1: polish language
player 2: polish language
player 3: polish language
player 2: polish language
player 4: polish language
player 1: polish language
player 5: polish language
player 2: polish language
player 1: polish language
commander: follow me to camp
player [etc. etc.]

Yep, you’re right, all important massages are english xD
You are really surprised that many players just turn off the chat after 5 min?

Funny, but from rangers perspective on Thief i have exact opposite impressions.
I ran a thief just to learn how to counter them on ranger. Playing a thief only confirmed how op they are in ANY 1vs1.
(i play p/p //shortbow so hitting the air doesn’t help much. Stealthed or not, i always try to keep the 800-900 distance). Also i don’t even try to come closer, cause i simply don’t use any backstabs or other melee tricks, just pure range.

Sitkaz.5463:

It’s the unofficial Polish server and there’s now more Polish than English in wvw chat, so much of the time I don’t know what people are discussing..

Yep, i’m exactly in the same situation.
I think it’s about time to rename Blacktide officialy to Blacktide [PL] to avoid situations where english speaking players end up in a server that is 95% polish.

PS. I appreciate, that some commanders do their best to make it easier for other nations. However often it doesn’t work, because everyone else ignores requests to speak english.

style.6173:

In WvW, the gameplay is all about zergs. A thief is NOT very good at that. So, what you will see are thieves roaming and looking for people who are out of place (away from their zerg) and have no clue what to do in WvW.

I disagree about the zerg-part. WvW is a pvp/pve territory with different objectives. Zergs fighting each other are a part of it. But there are also camps to capture, dolyaks to kill – tasks that can be done single players – as well as lone players or small groups exploring this world and looking for small-scale fights.
These players are also important and they have a right to play WvW the way they like, not as a part of the zerg. No clue what to do in WvW? Hell, no. They just have different preferences then the zerg-kind of players, thats all.

Sometimes i roam as a ranger, sometimes as a thief.
My ranger doesn’t have problems with 7 of 8 classes. However with my build i have extreme problems to face thives, i admit it. But do i really have to change my build which is effective against 7 classes just to be able to kill one class?

My thief is pathetic and unskilled, although while roaming i still get a satisfying number of kills. Maybe 7 of 10 1vs1 fights. Maybe more.
If my ranger was so bad like my thief is, i would win exactly 0 of 10 fights. Zero. Null. Nada.
If this isn’t a proof that this class is pretty unbalanced, than i don’t know what is.

Teamkiller.4315:

Brave thieves, who know how to play, will probably say: groups of 4-5 non-upleveled palyers who let one single thief kill them are noobs, kittens and desperately need some lessons how to play.

I would agree…

Not a thief main, even, only play thief for spvp. Guardian main. Ranger secondary. If you get killed by one thief as a group of 4 to 5 players, you’re not very good players…putting it really politely.

I won’t argue with that. But the fact remains: thieves are able to do it, i see it everyday, ever seen a necro or engineer doing it?
I haven’t.
Nevertheless my point was:
As a horrible – really absolutely horrible – thief i still can get dozens of kills everyday without any problems. Something is definitely wrong.

I expect, dozens of “l2p”-replies will follow now.
But yea, i agree with you. I play a thief too, but i find the ability to stack stealth and to repeat combos like backstab-heartseeker-cloak&dagger-backstab [and so on, and so on] totally unacceptable.

I wrote about it in other threads and i repeat it again: Stealth is ok, it’s needed. But it should be limited to a few skills with LONG cooldowns.

What i find kinda funny is – thieves tend, more than any other class, to repeat: run a thief, then you will see, how poor we are, how nerfed, how ochgodochgodochgod weak we are.
Yea sure.
How often did you see 1 ranger killing groups of 4-5 non-upleveled players? It happens, but not often.
How often did you see 1 necro killing groups of 4-5 non-upleveled players? Maybe it’s possible, but i never saw that.
How often did you see 1 engineer killing groups of 4-5 non-upleveled players? Pure science fiction for me, but maybe, hm?
etc. etc.
I see thieves doing that day by day (although i admit, that i’m not able to do that on my own thief)
Brave thieves, who know how to play, will probably say: groups of 4-5 non-upleveled palyers who let one single thief kill them are noobs, kittens and desperately need some lessons how to play.

Well, i am an absolutely horrible thief, but i still get more kills as a thief, then as a decent ranger or warrior.
Just think about it for a second.

I want Vabbi and Fissure back! I sincerely miss you.
Both of those servers had great solo roamers represented by each class. It was really fun to pvp you guys.

My impressions since Blacktide fights against Dzagonur are: zergs, zergs, zergs and more zergs.
Apart from zergs i only met thieves. Thieves solo. Thives in duos. Thives in threesomes. Thieves in groups.

Tricare.2946:

Blankverse.4927:

You’re blinding the ranger, not the pet. A BM build would most likely kill the thief you’re talking about. Any P/P thief I’ve ran into was a joke. That’s probably the reason you don’t see many in wvw. (On my server at least)

On my server i didn’t see either.
To be honest, thats the main reason why i decided to play a p/p thief and not a copy&paste backstabbing d/d thief. That, and the fact, that i really hate any kind of melee combat.
I hate melee combat so much, that i’m sure, if i make a knight someday (which likely never happens), it will be a range knight xD

I’m not experienced enough on thief to tell long storys about aspects of several builds. But what i noticed so far, while using p/p, is:
It works fantastic in any 1vs1, which is actually what i’m looking for. However fighting against mulitple opponents is a problem (me jealously looks at the d/d thieves who are able to kill groups of 4-5 players xD) .

Manekk.6981:

How would you stealth after 2unloads and 1black powder? I’ll admit freely I don’t know thieves well enough to have any kind of certainty but wouldn’t you have to regain initiative also for that and swap to bow? I’m far from certain but it sounds like you’d be out in the open longer than most thieves with this setup that is usually a dead thief to me.

2x unload = 10 initiative cost.
Now i use the Blinding powder utility skill (4 sec stealth, 0 initiative cost, 30 sec cooldown)
With my traits every stealth skill gives me +2 initiative, +2 intiative every 10 sec, +faster initiative regeneration while in stealth)
So after i leave stealth and use sneak attack (which costs only 1 ini) my initiative bar is usually 80-100%.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t try to brag how good i am because i kill rangers. I die a lot from other classes, especially other thieves.

I made a thief with the thought: when i pvp lots of rangers and they kill me i will know what to do and how to improve my own tactics on my ranger.
It didn’t work. Maybe i didn’t met the REAL GOOD ONES. Sure. But so far every 1vs1 only confirmed, that even good rangers without aoe’s don’t have the tools to counter a thief who has tons of stealth AND blinding.

Zenith.7301:

Any ranger knows against a pistol variant thief to eat the autos and save the dodges for either unload, cnd or the sneak attack.

Not any ranger it seems. I’m afraid most of them don’t.

Zenith.7301:

So after his little attempt at unload spam I can guarantee you after dodging the 2 unloads with prot on dodge to top it off, the thief’s offense will drop to zero for a good while.

You don’t know much about thieves and their abilities to regen intiative fast with skills, signets and traits, do you?

Yes, after i use 2x unload i have only 2 intiative left. But … after i use stealth for 3 sec and sneak attack (only 1 intiative cost) my intiative bar is almost FULL again. So i can repeat this combo again and even add black powder when needed (i play 0/30/20/20/0, so i’m almost never run out of initiative when using p/p)

Aeri.5738:

you wont hit me with 4-5k since I have 1.8k toughness)

I have 26k hp and 2.3k toughness on my ranger and still experience backstabs for 8-9k again and again.

Aeri.5738:

If your ranger really just stands there, your are right – hes done (because hes AFK)

Noone never just stands there. Except the akitten’ers I guess, there’s still a lot for me to learn as a ranger, you may be right – that’s not the point.
Point is, that my nooby thief had no problems to kill almost every ranger i met with the tactic i described in my previous post. Running and evading helps against backstab-spamming dagger thieves, not against p/p thieves who can be immune to any attack almost all the time due to black powder.

I’m really curious – how would you fight me, if we met?

Aeri.5738:

I have 0 problems with thiefs.
Maybe you are doing something horribly wrong.
Try some defense, lighting reflexes etc. pp.

I only use powerbuilds, but against thies entangle is super fun because you can hit them stealthed ;-)

Entangle is a lottery. Most thieves will evade or get rid of the immobilize while in stealth. I have 26k hp, lots of armour etc. but … no wait, i tell you how i kill 95% of rangers as a thief and you tell me how to counter that as a ranger, ok?

1. Unload (= 4-5k dmg)
2. Unload (= 4-5k dmg)
3. Stealth with blinding powder
4. Sneak attack (=3-4k dmg +conditions)
5. Unload (= 4-5k dmg)
6. Black powder (4 sec blindess)
7. Unload (= 4-5k dmg)
8. Stealth with Hide in Shadows (if needed)
9. Sneak attack (= 3-4k dmg +conditions)
10. Unload ….
in most cases this is it. If needed repeat 8-10 once again.

Yes, a ranger can use lighting reflexes to run away, but he won’t kill me as long as i keep spamming black powder.
Really, i love playing ranger and hate thives, but no ranger even was close to winning when i used this tactic in 1vs1.

Ranger is my main and favourite char. I play it from the very beginning, although since january i focus on wvw.

I have tried several possibilities, but mostly i use a 10/0/30/30/0 shortbow/heavy condition damage build, which works great against all foes that can be selected.
And here we come to thives.

I always had problems to defeat thiefs without traps. Lack of traps = no aoe’s. No aoe’s = impossible to face stealth.
Ok, i must have been doing something wrong, right?

So i made a thief out of pure curiosity, trained a bit in spvp, leveled it up while running with the zerg for a couple of days and here we go …

Ach, before i continue, let me confess – i am a horrible thief. I don’t use daggers, no backstabs, no ambushes, no cloak and dagger. I run a pistol/pistol & shortbow build.
Yea, i die a lot. From eles, from other thieves. From necros and mesmers of course.
But not from rangers. Strange, isn’t it?
The only ranger who killed me was a trapper. All other rangers, the ones who don’t have aoe’s, just don’t have the tools to kill a thief.

When i play ranger the way i like (no traps) i have no problems with most classes, except thieves. When i play thief i have problems with many classes, but rangers are easiest to face.
And, belive me – this is no false modesty – i really suck on thief.

I play wvw since 4 months. A lot. Almost 95% of my game activity. On 3 chars. During the last months i dropped maybe 3-4 yellow items.
Today i found a 80 lvl exotic item in the chest when i reached a new rank. I hope this wasn’t a miracle but a sign, that things are turning better.

A thief without any stealth and his pathetic low hp pool would be dead meat, even with his high damage. A thief with perma stealth is a god in the hands of a player, who knows what he is doing.

Fact is that there are only 3 or 4 skills that guarantee stealth. Most of the utility skills have 30-50 sec cooldowns, the weapon skills have high initiative costs.
It wouldn’t be so hard to face a hard hitting thief if he had to rely only on the mentioned skills. The time between the cooldowns, when the thief cannot re-stealth, should be enough for every class to kill him.

The real problem are specific combo fields and combinations that make permanent stealth possible. And here is the real controversy of that class that should be reworked.

Dosed stealth is ok. Just a mechanic.
The possiblility to abuse perma-stealth should be absolutely inandmissible.

PS. Just to avoid “l2p”-arguments: I am a thief.

Thanks for the replies.
There were no mobs directly involved in the fight, but Okaishis scenario seems to be the answer for my question.

Maybe this thread belongs in the thief section, but since it happened in WvW i post it here.

A few hours ago i was pvp’ing a thief on my warrior. With some luck i got him to downed state with a kill shot and used salve to finally kill him. His downed-state-hp was almost 10-20% when he suddenly got up on his feet with full hp and killed me.
Just for the record i mention, that there was noone else around who reviewed him. Just the two of us.
So … what exactly happened here?
As far as i know Revive Orbs can not and never could be used in WvW, or did that change lately?
Some ideas?

Evilek.5690:

Thief:
Weakest healing in the game

This was a joke, wasn’t it?

Ever heared of the Shadow’s Rejuvenation trait? It guarantees large hp regeneration everytime a thief uses stealth. The effect is: each stealth skill becomes a healing skill and since 95% of thieves use perma-stelath builds, most of them also theoretically can have perma-regeneration.
But hey, why am i writing this. The part about the weakest healing was supposed to be a joke for sure.

Everytime someone says “nerf thieves”, i hear thieves saying: “run a thief”, “learn to play”, “we are already sooo nerfed” etc, etc.

I am a thief (i made one out of pure curiosity 2 months ago and started playing it due to its op’ness) – not on my main char – but i guess i know a lot about this class and i totally understand people who complain about us.

Issue no1:
Stealth is always op, in every mmo.
But perma-stealth like we know in GW2 isn’t op, it’s god mode in 1vs1.
I play WvW only and honestly, killing people 1vs1 is almost too easy, which brings me to issue no2:
Thief is the only class i play – my others are ranger, engineer and warrior – that doesn’t suffer consequences from a glass cannon build. They simply don’t need tons of toughness and vitality, because they can always stealth, heal, run away, whatever. I use full berserker with limited hp and unlike on my other chars i don’t see any cons.
The player i fight is too strong? Too experienced? No problem, i stealth and run away.
The group is too big? No problem, stealth, run away.
Hp is getting low? No problem, stealth, run away.
Wanna get into a tower under siege? No problem, stealth, get inside.
I could multiply examples.

I guess most thiefes who play that class from the beginning have some kind of god-complex. They want have everything. Absurd crit dmg, stealth, mobility – it’s not enough, they want be immortal.

The funniest thing is – i’m not even a good thief. I’m a better ranger and warrior, but still i get most kills as a thief. Irony or … what?

TurboGolom.1329:

are you using traps to even burst more with your condition dmg or you just focus on bleed with shortbow ?

I occasionaly use traps with this build when i join a zerg, but usually i go without. I used to run a seperate build focused on traps, but it was less effective against all classes except thieves.
When i roam solo or with a small group i switch between shortbow/axe&horn and use the following skills: “signet of the hunt” and “lightning reflexes” almost always. “Sun spirit” also works great with a condition build (3k+ fire dmg in 2-3 sec).

TurboGolom.1329:

Which options are left for me?
I like beeing tanky enough to stay a bit into the zerg but also deal a good amount of Dmg for getting some bags.

I like my 10/0/30/30/0 shortbow condition/vitality build very much. It guarantees a very big condition dmg output and a high survivability, which makes it easy to fight 7 out of 8 gw2 classes, the only con is, that this build doesn’t offer any effective aoe’s to face stealth spamming thieves.

Paul.2745:

Maybe this game isn’t for me, because I don’t like dying in under 5 seconds. […]

When you come to a PvP/WvW map with PvE experience you can not expect to be good, because we are talking about two completely different things.
Strategies and builds which were fine in PvE are totally useless when it comes to fight another player.
I’m sure you will do fine, just gather some experience and try some alternative builds with toughness and vitality (btw min. yellow gear is a must).

When i first visited the borderlands 3 months ago i was a pure glass cannon and surprised, that i find myself dead everytime i meet something red. Now i win 70-80% of 1vs1. Just stop to think in terms of PvE.

PS. If you are in a guild or have some buddies on your friendlist ask some friends to train with you in spvp. It really helps, belive me.

I play on Blacktide (currently vs Fissure of Woe&Vabbi) and i’m absolutely satisfied with the amount of daily 1vs1 and 1vs2 encounters. However it was much better when our oppentents were Ruins of Surmia and Whiteside Ridge last month.

SaruTen.9531:

Once, i did a 1v1 versus a thief, he killed me after long fight, but leave me heal me when down, after we /bow and we walk away. It was a Piken one

That. Something similar happened to me. I (Blacktide) pvp’ed a Ruins of Surmia Guardian on my ranger. After a long fight i won. A minute later he came back for revange and we started to fight again. When i was down he let me get back on my feet and when he was down i did the same. After 10 min we both did a respectful salute and went each in his direction. I’m deeply convinced situations like that say a lot about our nature irl

On Topic: I think some kind of code is important for both, roamers and zergs.
When i roam across the borderlands i do it because i want to kill, so i turn off any morality …
… however:
1) when i see a player who’s trying desperately to avoid a pvp, a player who runs away or simply stands and waves to me, i don’t attack him.
2) When i really enjoyed a 1vs1 i don’t kill that player. Just /bow or /salute when he is downed
3) When i see a player from enemy realm X being attacked by more players from enemy realm Y i try to help that player. It’s a pity, in most cases it ends fatal for both of us

Esprit Dumort.3109:

[…]Realm Avenger: 7+ years for a semi-hardcore WvW and that’s the fastest title.

The rest of those at 1% in six months and 2% in a year, would equal 50 years! That is literally a lifetime achievement.

Only under the condition that you join zergs as often as you can. For a small server roamer like me the WvW titles are unreachable even in 1000 years.

After 2 months of WvW i reached the 3 tier of the Realm Avanger Achievment, but 95% of my kills come from 1vs1 or small group fights. When i see a zerg – my own, or the enemy’s, it doesn’t matter – i turn the other way. 250k kills needed for the Ultimate Dominator title is pure science fiction.

My suggestion is to make a title already at tier 4 or at least 5. Something like:
tier 1: -
tier 2: -
tier 3: -
tier 4: Dominator
tier 5: Experienced Dominator
tier 6: Ultimate Dominator

Ragnar.4257:

As it is, they’re a nice little boost, but not neccesary.

They are so nice and little, that you don’t even notice them.
5% more damage or 5% less damage is within the limits of a statistical error.

Don’t get me wrong – i like the whole wvw-abilities idea, but it seems to me, that most of these abilities – at least in their current shape – only have a placebo-effect, nothing more.

Ok, this is just a raw theory, so feel free to correct me if i am wrong.

I’ve been testing different builds and skills in different situations and when it came to pet damage the upper limit was +/- 2,5k.
However some attacks are double attacks. What i see on the screen is, for example: 2x 1800. Now the problem is, that i can’t see the damage done by the pet in the battle-log. Is it possible that it is summed up? That what i see as 2×1800 the attacked player sees as 3600? This would explain everything.

Thx for the replies guys. It was very helpful.
Automated response – yess, indeed, i was expecting that ALL conditions will disappear when i reach 25%. Of course that didn’t happen and i was confused.

I was on my noob engi roaming through the borderlands with a 3-4 group of random players when we met this ranger. OMG. Really impressive. Hell, to say he was good is not enough. He killed us all while his hp still was above 75%.
My main char is a ranger so i checked the log to see what exactly he was doing and to my surprise i saw that his pet (eagle or raven, i’m not sure, but it was a bird) was attacking me for 3-4,5k. The lowest hit was 2k. (btw i have +/-1700 taughness and +/-2200 armor)

I don’t know what build this guy was using, but i tried to “reproduce” it on my own ranger with pathetic results. My pet’s damage is not even close to 3k (4,5k is pure abstraction). In the best case it causes 2k-2,5k a few times in a row with Beastmastery 30 and Master’s Bond.

Any idea how to make a pet hit so high?

Hi
I put my ranger aside for a while and try to experiment with engi builds a bit.
The first thing i tried was some kind of vitality/condition-build reproduction that works very well on my ranger.
So i tried different traits, which sound really cool in theory, but… they seem not to work as intended.

Here are two examples:
- Cloaking device (you become invisible when immobilized – that’s the whole description). Well, sounds great, but i provoked some dozens of fights with players in WvW as well as Veterans, became immobilzed 20 times in a row and was visible all the time. It didn’t work even once.

-Automated response (become immune to conditions when health is below 25%). Another cool skill. Theoretically.
I have 26500 hp. So below 6625 hp i should be immune to conditions. Am i right?
But i am not. During each fight i watched my hp bar very carefully. From 6625 till 0 hp i still had TONS of different conditions on me.

So what’s going on? Are these traits bugged? Are the descriptions wrong?

roachsrealm.9284:

….. seeing the problem here yet?

Bad comparison. You’re talking about fighting, i’m talking about being able to run away.

When i meet a warrior or guardian and i am better – i get the kill.
When i meet a necro, mesmer or ele and i am better – i get the kill.
When i meet a ranger or engi etc etc.
But:
When i meet a thief and i am better – he probably will use stealth and … i won’t get the kill.
Seeing the problem here?

Mournsorrow.5271:

So yeah stealthing before you die and running away is pretty much the only option if you wish to survive. Also there is the simple fact that this is exactly what the thief class is built for/role is hit and run tactics and if a thief is doing so then he’s simply doing his/her job.

You’re basically right with everything. All classes try to run away in some situations and you can chase them or not, it’s up to you. Sometimes they have luck. Sometimes not. But when the thief is smart, he stealths, hides somewhere and you never see him again. That’s the difference.
Ok. I got used to it. I can live with that. But i still say, that other classes need some kind of short-time reveal spell with long cd. Just to have a chance to finish the fight like it should be done.
Ofc it’s just my opinion. Belive me or not, but i understand why all thieves will disagree :-)

Neksis Syxx.6983:

My point is that, just because a person has difficulty fighting a particular class, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s over-powered.

I don’t think that thieves are overpowered in combat, but noone can deny, that they are the best escapists in GW2. Each class can be caught. Thieves can not.

I don’t want PvE players to be nerfed. Hell no. But i don’t think that neverending stealth-spamming when things get worse is fair in pvp.

Anyway – i just read in another thread, that thieves are going to be nerfed with the 26-update, so let’s wait and see, time will tell.