Guild Wars 2

Warrior. Not using their adrenaline, or f1 burst ability due to the increased damage per adrenaline you have if traited.

Why exactly is it, that just about every spec for every class wants swiftness or movement speed increases worked into their builds, yet no one wants mounts?

Go figure.

Rangers wish our pets were as useless as an mm’s

Just saying

Mm is ridiculous in soloq

If everyone is using them, isn’t it all relative?

Gw2 has a high skill cap. Despite what the average player thinks. People always reference games like wow ect (which I was a 3 time gladiator mind you), due to ability bloat, and number of skills, when in reality you only used a handful of them, and most rotations were 4 or so skills.

Defense in gw2 is very much “active” if you are “on the ball” and know what to avoid and when, you come across as godmode.

If you think pvp in gw2. Has a low skill cap, or is cheezy. You’re doing hot join or scrub soloq. Try playing against skilled players.p

Engineer. Nothing works “as is” everything you do has to be apart of something else to work. I.e healing yourself, bursting, cc.

People forget that when you have a trinity, it’s conducive to lazy behavior. “Someone will heal me, oh I died, it’s your fault….bad healer”…. On the boss hit me in the face, kittenty tank can’t hold aggro.

Gw2 is in a great place with the way it works. My fractal groups are incredibly organized, and nothing feels “random”

Power builds still work fine. If Youre running glass cannon and have low hp, that’s your own fault. One build can’t beat them all, balance doesn’t work like that, as much as you would like it to.

It’s not like everyone doesn’t have access to at least one cleanse. And if your running a power build you should have enough of a window if you time your cleanse right to turn the tables. Pay attention to your foes cooldowns,

And if your referring to wvw, don’t waste your time. You can’t simply balance a Zerg blob, and attempting to do so is folly.

It’s true burr, less power builds, way more condi, and longer matches

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Harper- I just want to tell you as an ele main that Dragon’s Tooth won’t hit in a 2v1 any more than it will in a 1v1 or any other teamfight for that matter. It’s not quite the same style of telegraphing as Pin Down. Compare a giant flaming rock appearing over your head for a full second with a red circle to a targeted ability that only has an animation around the caster.

I get bothered when people start saying warriors have the highest telegraphing.
Giant elemental objects with sizable delays will always take the cake.

Not that this actually has any bearing on your post.

In all fairness usually you are concentrating on the player you are fighting, so many hammer attacks are completely readable telegraphs, a dragons tooth from an “outside source” when you’re focusing on your primary target, isn’t easy to see. Especially if it’s right above you. It’s not like you have to ground target it

Engineers have always been like playing piano, just to be effective and stay alive. Who cares if they have a strong talent that works well with rune overhaul. It’s not like they haven’t a had to work their kitten off to “stay in the fight” for 2 years prior.

It might look easy or overpowered to you, but like all things engineer. There are multiple layers of difficulty you just don’t see when you’re on the opposing end,

I think most teams post patch are picking what’s comfortable for the sake of minimizing mistakes.

Some classes have become incredibly strong post patch, I.e engineer, however due to the risk of doing something “new In a tournament environment” few are playing them.

That explains why hambow ect is still prevalent.

I can’t say I blame them, if only the tournament was 4 weeks from now, Im sure you’d see a higher variety in builds and comps.

Look up post patch decap. Yields Same result just more effective.

And love those tear screenshots, delicious.

I should apologize too. Truth be told a lot of my frustration isn’t even with you fortus, you accidentally got some of the splash damage from my frustration with eloquence.

Click on that guys name that view all his posts, seriously do it. If you can find one that isn’t immature, snarky, and designed to belittle the poster, I’d be stunned.

Regardless, I do feel thieves have counters, they aren’t as brainless and easy as people think. You are always one dodge away from death, when dealing with most classes

Do I feel there’s room for balance? Sure….they do hit hard, and in another thread I’ve even suggest changes to stealth detection myself.

But I can’t agree with a blanket statement that there are no counters, because I do it daily. Easy or not.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, I was once just like you, check out this whine…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Engi-PvP/first#post413019

Then….. I learnt to play.

I’m not sure why a thief would run a weapon setup like that, but I guess it’s possible.

I didn’t “conveniently” leave out anything, I’m assuming by Shadowstep signet, you’re referring to infiltrators signet. It’s on a 30 second cooldown, which matches an untraited blink, and just a fraction less than lightning flash, which is a cantrip. So if you know your builds, you can reduce the cd on that, and make it apply boons.

Now I know what you will say, but you have to invest in a non offensive tree to get those bonuses or abilities,
Well a theif who runs infiltrators signet, has to sacrifice either shadow refuge, which we need to survive Shadowstep, which we need as our only condi removal (on a 50 second cooldown) or signet of shadows (movement speed increase) since we can’t pick that up anywhere else outside runes (traveller). All completely needed skills running a backstab or melee build.

Truth be told, I don’t really understand what you mean when you say spamable teleports. There aren’t any outside D/P’s shadow strike, which can’t be used defensively, so doesn’t constitute a “teleport” yes if you took all of them together you would have access to quite a few, but you wouldn’t be able to stealth on demand without blowing your heal either.

Steal is again, only offensively used, so doesn’t constitute a teleport, but a shadow step, it’s also on a 35 second cooldown. Regardless I thought the issue was backstab from stealth? These shadow steps have a lesser range than caster range, effectively meaning you can free cast before they can Shadowstep to you.

And sword teleport, doesn’t have backstab or really rely on stealth, so I don’t see the relevance of even discussing it. It’s a different build altogether that I’m yet to hear complains about.

I really don’t know what to tell you in regards to the ele. I run a glass D/D ele in tpvp all the time, and I don’t have huge issues. Do i occasionally get annihilated by a backstab theif from the back while engaged with another target, sure. But if I had of being paying attention, or seen the theif out of steal range, could I have changed the outcome, you bet.

I’m also not sure why you would run a staff berserker ele in pvp. You may argue, you should have the option, but by that logic, I should be able to run a purely short bow build to the same effect. It’s silly.

The staff is an aoe weapon. That’s what it’s designed for, much like the short bow, which is why you don’t get similar damage with it as you do with backstab or daggers.

Now firegrab? Different story.

Also, the idea isn’t to dodge a backstab, it’s to dodge the cloak and dagger.

Lastly static shield is amazing versus thieves, mist form can be used while stunned or incapacitated (again, thieves don’t open with backstab, they steal first, hit with mug (90% of the time) then cloak and dagger, then backstab. If it’s a pistol offhand, they drop a black powder and heart seeker through it, again. Its not instant, and not invisible. Thieves in Spvp or tpvp don’t heart seeker through black powder over and over, why waste the heart seeker leap damage, when you can do it at your targets feet.?

You can mistform while blinded too. In addition to swimming in your aoes.

Personally, if I’m aware, I have very little issues fighting thieves on my elementalist. Even as a glass cannon.

I can’t tell you anymore than I have, and I’ve done so without being an kitten, like some,

If this isn’t enough for you, or you still don’t want to even entertain the thought, I’m sorry, I guess you’ll have to be frustrated then.

P.s still never posted the build you were running.

Also to make this conversation fair, and not one sided void of facts. Can you please link the build for the class you are having the most trouble with? Perhaps if you listened and opened your mind to the possibility of getting help, we might get somewhere.

If you choose not to, that’s fine, but then what exactly is the point of this thread?

You say it can’t be countered, I say it can. Does that make me a liar? Or perhaps, just maybe there’s more to learn.

Why do you keep mentioning sword when this thread and your complaint is about backstab?

And you are aware that pistol 3 isn’t a teleport, unless you have a dagger in your main hand right? If you are main handing a sword it’s pistol whip.

And for the 4th time. If you drop an aoe at your feet, no thief in their right mind will stick to you because the damage they take is too great. If your running froma theif you’re doing it wrong,

This thread is getting stupid.

I’ve personally given countless great arguments, counters, build suggestions and justifications that have been dismissed or ignored, by the original poster, fortus.

It’s clear everyone will just have to agree to disagree. This thread serves no purpose because no matter what you tell him, his childish and narrow minded mind is set.

He wants to be able to pvp with a pve build on any class and not run Into any issues with the highest single target burst damage dealer in the game (the thief)

Not only is this purely silly, it voids all of his arguments. Despite what he may think.

Glass canon thieves don’t run into a match and go 20 and 0 on kills. They die more than they kill. If you have to be running around as a glass cannon clothier and get 2 shot that’s your problem. You’ve already said that outside a thief you have no problems, so statistically you’re already doing better than the thief as a glass cannon build.

But please keep posting new threads crying about how awful your experiences are. I’m starting to enjoy it.

P.S my main is an elementalist. Over 2000 hours clocked. I also play my engineer a lot more than my thief. I have zero problems with either.

Then again I don’t try to play my ele in a pve spec and or gear. I’m not stupid, or silly enough to complain when it doesn’t work.

Fortus.6175:

Raingard.9063:

I hate to jump into a discussion, but your words made this come to mind: So, what you’re implying is that everyone should build to counter thief burst? Yet, last time I checked, there were other 7 professions one could be facing to take into account.

This is exactly what he and all thief players have been demanding of everyone; to build their builds specifically adn solely for countering thieves, disregarding everyone else. He even mentioned getting Heart of Stone for a glass cannon ele, 30 points into a trait line that gives toughness and condition damage, forsaking any sort offensive traits associated with offensive trait line. It only works in earth, an attunement that has no offensive capabilities all that for the sake of lasting a little longer, while the thief sacrifices literally absolutely nothing.

They are so self absorbed in their class that they forget they are not the only ones out there and there are traits that you simply cant afford, like Stone Heart (which is really deep, 30 points, like I said, and very situational) or skills that have an insane CD (such as arcane shielding which has 75 seconds CD, wont block a single backstab, as opposed to a backstab that can ignore all forms of defense and has virtually no CD).

They will hang from any sliver of a thread they can find to justify their class.

And you believe I’m exaggerating on any of my points please someone prove me wrong on how to play a truly offensive berserker ele attuned only on earth.

You can’t have a counter to everyone all the time. That isn’t balance.

Do you think a glass theif can take down a bunker engi, warrior, guardian or ranger? Not a hope in hell on their own, unless the other player is incredibly inexperienced. But am I here whining I want more damage, because the spec I play should be able to perform the same against everyone?

You don’t want to take defensive traits that’s your choice, but then don’t complain when you get annihilated by another glass build. Glass thieves get annihilated by them all the time.

Oh a meteor shower on my head, while I’m in stealth, I’m dead and you didn’t even see me. I was too busy trying to stay alive or stick to my target that I didn’t see you cast it from above me, or behind me, or anywhere at 1200 range.

And you mention “only attuned to earth” the idea is that you switch to earth when you see a thief get within stealth range! Or after he steals, or any of the above situations I’ve described over and over again. Don’t play everything down, you come across as a simpleton. And to say “while the thief sacrifices nothing” clearly shows you haven’t been paying attention, or can’t read.

And your attitude is toxic, you generalize players by what class they play. What do you expect to get in the form of a reply when you do that? They will hang onto a sliver, they are so self absorbed….ect.

Talk about toxic.

I don’t think the backstab component is relevant. I think it’s more the relation ship between the ability and the fact that it’s usable from stealth, with no target required, no directional prerequisite either, an aoe. And it’s short cd, to trigger the kraits bonus

It pops up as an exclamation mark icon on the right of your interface after you die. Just click it.

I agree with this. It’s worsened by the fact that basilisk venom has such a short CD.

There are some classes who can build their traits quite defensively or use defensive runes, with a berserker amulet, and not be penalized a great deal for their survival or damage.

Yet a thief builds for berserker, is crushed and two shot by most, in or out of stealth, targeted or by splash damage.

Now build the thief defensively, don’t take berserker, take solider, try your best to build your traits defensively, and all you get is regen and condi removal (slowly)in stealth, the gameplay is the same from the thieves end. Now you’re just doing hardly any damage, and you still die, but now your 3 shot instead of 2 shot out of stealth.

Backstab hits for about 3k with a soldiers amulet., and a “balanced build” so it’s a scaling issue with the class. Because we can’t survive 5 seconds in combat, out of stealth, we are forced to do two things. Kill our targets fast, or stay out of sight so we aren’t intentionally hit. The latter being challenging on a node in pvp.

So to answer your question, whilst the damage side of the amulet seems like a giant perk for the thief. One would argue that why isn’t a berserker warrior, or guardian, or ranger ect penalized with a 10k health pool, and almost zero defense when running berserker? Should the offset in damage between a thief and say a berserker warrior, match the offset in health or survivability?

I’ve been hit for 15k by jump shot before, or 9k eviscerates, 6k ticks of meteor shower.
Most of a thieves defensive traits are in our stealth tree. And most perks such as condi removal, health regen, and now stability for 1 sec with the new gm trait. All require stealth. You get zero effect whilst actually fighting, where it counts.

I’m not Qqing, just trying my best to answer your question. I do well on my thief, and against thieves. I just dislike blanket statements like " there’s not counter" when there is…many.

Now, can we reduce thief damage? Sure, but then we have to up their survival quite a bit, because they can’t go toe to toe. Which would be fine with me. But the OP and most subsequent posts just call for nerfs, or throw “toxic” statements around.

Hell, at one point it was even suggested that the type of person who plays a thief is lazy ect ect, by the same person thanking others for their gracious and thought out input.

I don’t necessarily think things are fine as they are. I’ve never been asked, and I never thought it was relevant. All I’ve done is argue the point that there are no counters. Because there are…. Many, and they are effective.

Just because you choose to say “doesn’t work” doesn’t make it so. It works for many, myself included, I don’t just pvp on a thief.

Now if your posting on a forum, you’re opening up your thoughts to discussion’ “it doesn’t work” really isn’t a valid response.

Why doesn’t it work? Because you don’t know when or where to lay your aoes?

If that’s the case, you need a little more experience, because you can see the thief approaching, even before the steal, or the stealth. A fire ele can stand on a node and spam molten front all day when traited for reduced CDs in fire, can switch to earth attunment and be uncrittable. Or pre cast meteor shower.

A necro can stand on their marks. Including a mark that fears.

And engie can spam Bombs or grenades, relentlessly…….or use their thumper turret as the thief approaches or opens.

A guardian or warrior have effective blocks or access to retaliations, a warrior can fear a thief opening, or simply block apon steal, or before it. A thief would have to blow their heal as a stealth cover to stay in stealth to “ride it out”

A ranger can stand in their barrage, or traps….. Or take the talent to stealth themselves and apply protection apon a percentage of their health as damage.

A mesmer can stealth themselves, and receive protection, and regen, or take the talent that gives them distortion when opened up on.

Do I honestly have to suggest a dozen ways why “it doesn’t work” isn’t a valid argument?

There’s a runeset nightmare, that has a 60% chance to fear on hit for condi builds. If steal doesn’t set it off, the next hit will.

How do I know “it works” I pvp a lot on many classes, depending on what my team needs, and don’t have any issues adapting to glass cannon thieves or their stealth.

Now if you want to talk about blind spam, I’m on board. I think at the moment it’s overpowered, against melee. But that’s a different bag of tricks

Wows solution would work for me as a thief. A frontal cone, that if you get too close in stealth you can vaguely see the thief. Possibly the same glassy effect you get when you yourself enter stealth.

But if you approach from behind, it’s business as usual.

You can’t balance a game to the lowest common denominator, or for people playing on subpar connections, competitive play just doesn’t work like that.

And referencing rogues in world of Warcraft, and their combo points is moot. Because their burst is ambush, which has no warning, and requires no combo points, and with shadow dance is useable out of stealth. Even more so, rogues can sit in stealth till they choose to come out, not just from melee or steal range, for the most part like in gw2.

I’m all for a discussion, so long as the points being raised are factual, and not biased.

Quick question, how do you think thieves feel about other thieves hitting them that hard? Considering our lower health pool? We aren’t immune to it either.

Now between stealth range, steals range, seconds you can effectively spend in stealth, aoes that are ground targeted such as necro marks, or ele fronts, knock backs, blocking mechanics, traits that make you unable to take a percentage of your health in one hit, new gm traits, like the ele’s that make them uncrittable, the key bind or ability to about face, the fact that 99% of thief openers are done after the steal, and before the cloak and dagger, or after the blind powder, and after the heart seeker….

Thieves don’t run around IN stealth and open with a backstab, unless it’s some cheese build in wvw, but that’s a different thing altogether.

Yet you’re still saying there’s. NO counters. At least acknowledge or argue the ones that are brought to your attention, rather than dismiss them or ignore them completely.

“It doesn’t work” isn’t an argument. Because many non thieves disagree with you.

You are only content if someone agrees with you.

Backstab thieves run hidden killer for the guaranteed crit on backstab. Didn’t ele’s just get a trait that makes them uncrittable in earth attunment?

Seems like a counter to me.

Just a quick suggestion to areanet. It would be really nice if we were able to right click the stealth icon or something to remove it.

Nothing more annoying than standing on an empty node after you’ve stomped someone waiting for stealth to fall off before you count towards a capture.

Being able to remove our own stealth would be nice

For what it’s worth, just got done in a game where a ranger was running the traits that applies protection, stealth, regen? when they take a certain percent of their health as damage, it completely negated my backstab opener even if I got the jump.

Many classes have traits like this that are overlooked. “X” kicks in, when you take “x” percentage in one hit"

I’m surprised you lot crying about no counters haven’t caught onto this yet.

Couldn’t take him down, screwed my opener, now I was out of stealth with “reveal” he was in stealth and took little to no damage, and proceeded to annihilate me.

Just saying,

To quote areanet on their last class sum up

“Thief
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”

Tldr; l2p

You needed to make another thread to essentially say the same things you’ve been saying in other threads repeatedly?

Clever thread, looks like it’s about one thing, reveals itself as another as you read,

Thief, fresh air ele, static engi are all top contenders.

You have been given countless arguments which you either

A.) combat with false truths, through lack of class knowledge

Or

B.) ignore completely

You keep comparing glass ele to glass thief, not realizing that an ele doesn’t HAVE to go glass to be effective in damage. A balanced ele will still take off 50% of a thieves health pool with a fireball which is splash damage, not to mention huge ground aoes and things like meteor shower

Apples and oranges and you can’t compare the two.

You know what a glass thief uses for condition removal? Shadowstep. You can’t use it offensively. You can’t afford to. And the cooldown between cast and return is so short, you can’t rely on it mid fight, so you just can’t use it, until it’s needed.

I’m all for having a legitimate discussion, but when you’re arguing with the blinkers on, without knowledge of the class, it’s pointless and passive aggressive.

You can argue until you’re blue in the face, but generally speaking the only people who have an issue with thieves, backstab, or stealth are new, or lower tier players.

There’s a reason why there’s a thief falloff rank 30 and above.

And it is important to note thief abilities that have a cast time. Such as basilisk, cloak and dagger, shadow refuge ect. Because when you have such low health, cast times will get you killed out of stealth.

I realize glass else can have similar health pools, however they also have the advantage of range.

A 11k hp pool, having to get into “the thick of it” to be effective, is very very different.

I’m not arguing that thieves are a terrible class that are forever pushing kitten uphill, in the right hands of a skilled player they are wonderful, but they certainly aren’t as strong, unfair, or overpowered as you claim.

So nerf a class based on its performance in open field wvw, thereby making them struggle everywhere else?

Sure…. That makes sense.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed

And out of stealth, we are two shot.

DeWolfe.2174:

He was instagibbed, there’s NO counter play when you’re DEAD!

To the OP, the dev’s are mostly PvP players and actually WANT us to be instagibbed and trolled. They want us to rage and get our blood pressure thru the roof. Why they think it’s a good idea (or healthy) is beyond me but, that’s how they designed the game. For the thieves defending the profession, of course they don’t want their special taken away. Thus, they instacry about being the poor persecuted profession on threads like yours. Meanwhile, laughing behind the monitor as they know they are getting away with murder, literally in the game.

btw… OP, use a different screenshot than one from a couple months ago.

Here’s the thing, if you nerf damage on a thief even further, to the point that glass cannon squishies can feel “comfortable” what hope in hell does a thief have to kill a warrior or guardian? Or anyone else, we sure as he’ll can’t stand toe to toe with anyone with 11kp and no mitigation outside stealth.

It’s not the thieves ruining pvp for you, it’s the dozen bunker builds, and necros with 30k hp, three times a thief,

Give and take. Works both ways,

You are aware how long the stealth off a CnD lasts right? You make it sound like you can CnD a pet, then gap close on the ranger a mile off. Not the case.

And you say if you miss you can just try again due to no cooldowns, you’re aware of the initiative cost right? And ways to regen initiative? I.e part of your auto attack chain, which if you missed your CnD, chances are you’re missing your auto attacks too.

And since when did blind stop you from blocking

So much untrue information in these posts that complain about mechanics.

Lol these babies are so melodramatic. They complain, you give them solid factual answers, and they disregard anything you’ve said, from experienced players and keep crying

Stealth isn’t broken, it has many easy counters. But keep posting month after month. But instead of writing out detailed descriptions of why you think it’s broke , it might be easier and faster just to say “hey guys, I’m really bad” because that’s all we are really thinking.

Eloquence.5207:

Bowflex.4502:

Klonko.8341:

As a main ranger, i find really frustrating that cloak and dagger works on pets… its like a free stealth mechanism on top of the already OP F1 they get when stealing from ranger.

Is it only me or it is a problem for everyone?

You can’t be serious right. Why the kitten shouldn’t we be able to CnD your pet. This whole thread is absurd.

If your pets able to attack me and be targeted I should be able to use any skill I want on it. This thread HAS to be a troll. No one can possibly be this kittened.

Oh…yeah
Your pet shouldn’t be able to keep attacking me after I stealth.

You are serious right? Why shouldn’t pets be able to attack you after you stealth? A well-trained war hound can detect your stinky butt in stealth

Oh yeah… troll/defensive response from Thief #420

Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of stealth entirely?

Supreme.4051:

come back next year and find out backstab has been ‘nerfed’ to 12.5k hit.

stealth is a passive mechanic that is bad by nature in active combat which gw2 is trying to achieve… can’t believe people are actually trying to defend it.

Stealth is a passive mechanic? Clearly someone doesn’t play thief, and has zero experience.

Landing and CnD mid fight is tough, shadow refuge has a cast time, and if you have any form of situational awareness it’s pretty easy to spot and prepare an aoe or knock back.

Blinding powder / heart seeker combo is a 2 stage prep and easily spotted. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen thieves kittened out of it due to a block ect.

Fighting as a thief, stealth is hardly passive, and it doesn’t make you immune to cc or damage.

High end pvpers don’t have an issue with this, only poor players who prefer to blame a class rather than themselves.

For every 10 of you whining, there’s a great player with zero issues

If anything thieves should be whining, we got the short end of the stick and it’s never been harder to compete high end as a thief,

Hate to say it, but anyone who disagrees, is just showing their inexperience as a player.

Edit, and quit saying you can’t see it coming, you can. Thieves don’t run around in stealth across the map like a rogue in wow. Mostly they don’t even enter stealth until after the steal, which has a limited range. If you didn’t see the thief approaching into steal range, that’s your lack of awareness.

Klonko.8341:

As a main ranger, i find really frustrating that cloak and dagger works on pets… its like a free stealth mechanism on top of the already OP F1 they get when stealing from ranger.

Is it only me or it is a problem for everyone?

You can’t be serious right. Why the kitten shouldn’t we be able to CnD your pet. This whole thread is absurd.

If your pets able to attack me and be targeted I should be able to use any skill I want on it. This thread HAS to be a troll. No one can possibly be this kittened.

Oh…yeah
Your pet shouldn’t be able to keep attacking me after I stealth.

Pvp for sure. If you can survive and land kills there, you can do it anywhere.

Most of what makes a good thief is really two things, being able to read telegraphs from your opponents, and dodging. If you can avoid the damage, you prolong your death.

This is why a lot of the top top players still run d/d, for death blossom. It’s an extra dodge versus a hammer warrior ect.

Secondly, knowing what you can and can’t do with your initiative. Being able to know how much you’ve used without looking,

These two things, will set you on the right path.

Fortus.6175:

Bowflex.4502:

The OP is nuts. 13k backstab. One in a million

You know something taht gets on my nerves easily?

I tell people that im getting hit by 10k+ backstabs, nobody believes me. Everyone throw their highest backstabs and give it for granted thats the highest it can go (eg 4k, 5k etc). I show them proof of otherwise, and I get hell.

I tell them I was getting hit 11k-13k backstabs ALL GAME around, on several games from different people, and nobody believes me. Apparently I have to fill my pictures folder with 10k+ backstab screen shots to prove my point. And even then I beckon someone, somewhere, will find a way to turn a blind eye on it, nitpick on some other detail and then give me hell for it.

There is just no winning here. Apparently it has to take everyone playing a squishy build and playing enough PvP to know just how frustrating it is. Sure, since everyone plays bunkers and/or condi builds, you get to know nothing.

Thieves ARE pushing away GC builds, and you people are so unconsciously afraid of it that you dont even dare to play them anymore, and give it for granted that thieves were meant to push away all those builds, and even go as far as to justify it !! Shame, it is truly shameful.

The only way to hit those numbers with backstab is to be running a might stacking build, be full berserker glass cannon, and running executioner (no guaranteed backstab crits because you didn’t take hidden killer) AND running the +15% damage signet.

Even if you are full glass cannon, running utility skills, rather than the signet you cap out at around 7 – 8k. On top of all this, you also really need to be backstabbing another glass cannon.

This is fact. Said thief now has zero survivability, around 11k health, and is a one shot wonder.

You know the worst part? Thieves are forced to run glass cannon builds in pvp now if they choose to spec for power and not condition, because due to so many nerfs, our damage scales horribly otherwise, and with already being so squishy, if we can’t kill our target fast, we die, even if you accidentally hit us.

It’s not like the players have a choice. If you nerf our damage or scaling further, you’ll have to buff our survivability,

That’s the annoying part, any decent thief will tell you, we have to go almost full zerker. We have no choice. We can trait and gear super defensively and still die in seconds, but now we can’t kill anyone either.

We sort of have to go all or nothing, because we are going to die fast and easy either way.

The counterplay is how easily thieves are taken out once revealed….. Or a meteor shower >.<

Oh and to clear up some stealth myths, unless your running d/p and flip through your pistol field with heart seeker three times, stealth doesn’t last that long. In fact, unless your running stealth on steal trait, which due to the range of steal, you see coming….

We have two options for preemptive stealth. Blow our only heal to stealth before we engage, or drop our blinding power, which only provides 4 seconds.

Outside that you can cloak and dagger, in melee range, right before a backstab.

So saying you can’t see it coming, at all is stupid.

If your running that stupid skill that you can combo field with your short bow, you can stack a bit of stealth, but your hardly going to do it in the heat of a match

Less bullkitten facts flying around, and more truths is needed in this discussion.

That’s very nice and all, but are you aware of just how hard it is to land a backstab mid fight?

With 10-12k hp, and a lot of damage flying around, if you miss….. It’s not inconsequential, you need to get the kitten out.

Between huge ele aoes that hit like a truck, explosions, grenades, bombs, phantasmagoria and pets that continue to attack us in stealth, ranger barrage. 10k hp don’t last long.

You realize we take damage in stealth right?

Mid fight, if you cloak and dagger, backstab and miss, you don’t have enough initiative to try again. Because like other games, misses aren’t refunded.

If I don’t kill you in a very short amount of time, I’m dead….and you don’t even have to target me.

So sure, nerf backstab, nerf stealth. But then give us 20k hp pools, better or reliable access to aegis, protection or stability. Then see who complains.

You think a 10k or so crit on a 20k health pool is rough? Try a 4 or 5k crit on a 10k health pool. It’s all relative.

I’ve been one shot by power engis jump shot for 12k while I was still in stealth.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

If there are thieves in the pvp match half or all of my deaths will be due to a thief.

Why? Well that’s because I main elementalist and thieves are a hard counter to elementalist. When I pvp with my necro I can easily kill any and all thief that comes my way in mere seconds. High armor so the 6k backstabs only amount to 1/5th of my total hp (including death shroud). But as an elementalist with light armor its 8-12k backstabs killing me instantly or allowing some room for me to get killed by the auto attack.

I just think that backstab and only backstab needs a slight nerf. For the rest the thief is fine or might even need a buff.

You can easily kill any and all thieves on your necro due to your higher health pool. By that logic so can all other classes besides your elementalist. And you want backstabbing nerfed so your one class can beat them easily? Thereby kittening thieves even worse on your necro?

Yeah, that makes sense,

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you had a trait that allowed you to switch to earth attainment and not be critically hit, thereby completely destroying the hidden kller talent a thief relies on for backstabbing damage? …oh wait

I did exactly that, rolled a thief. Didn’t read anything about thieves from thieves so I made a build based on my own noobie thief judgement.

Result: 20+ kills every single match and that was without me even knowing about the backstab all that I knew beforehand was that thieves lurk around and one-shot me (elementalist 1500 hours). With elementalist I rarely ever get more than 12 kills even when I go full zerker. I also die around 3 times every match. With the thief I didn’t die once for several hours.

You are so full of kitten. Did Everyone else cringe at this? Heh pvp for several hours on the most squishy class in the game, that is so unforgiving, and didn’t die once? Hahaha.

This kid is great.

When there’s two gameplay meta’s power, and condi. And condi is already the default meta choice…..

Why the hell would you nerf power, and leave condi alone? Stupid move is stupid.