Guild Wars 2

I agree with you.
Setting a mutliplyer for revealed on BlackPowder or single activation for init gain would have worked.

I really hate when they “tune” our stealth effects.
I’d much rather see them adjust init regen under BlackPowder effect or put a 1 sec delay tied to BP stealth..you could still use BP for the blind if you had to.

The init system is a headache for the devs.
It allows such a massive amount of creative dmg/effect managment it is hard to balance.
But if we had the same cooldowns as everyone else that would be a huge rework.

Time to go play..have fun.

It was probly to prevent us from resetting the fight but had unintended side effects.

Or it could be stealth research pre-stealth nerfing.

Dev1: Ok..I’m taking odds..Char thief dies in 40 seconds.
Dev2: No way..thats way to long !
Dev3: Make sure we run logs on this..guys don’t eat cornpuffs near the servers…yep we can use this ..ok..who has the cornpuffs?

Not good for us to be herded into 1 or 2 specs and weapon combos.

Go to the Heart of the Mist, change stats, traits, skills, & weapons to your desire.
Find the practice dummies & npcs.
Learn the timing on your weapons and skills.
Watch the npc attacks to anticipate what is going to happen.

KNOW what is going to happen when you push a button or what can cause it to not take effect.

If you can’t take out the practice npcs you’ll have a hard time in pvp/wvw till you learn how.

Level the mesmer..learn it.
Then do the thief..all bases are covered, PvE, WvW, SPvP.
Plus you’ll KNOW all the tricks of the two most annoying classes in the game.

The thief class can seem like a god mode class to a player who has just not “caught on” to the mechanics of GW2.

I think 80%+ players never hit the dodge key.

You can’t punish above average players for thier skill no matter what proffession they play.

I have beaten guardians without using stealth..because they didn’t know thier proffession not because of any other factor.

An up level killed me once in WvW. He was awesome..anticipated my every move, didn’t waste a single skill.
Stun breaks, dodges and evades at the right time made me loose my burst dmg.
It was a close fight and so good I wouldn’t have used permastealth if I could have.

I’d take any time BackStab dmg and non-combat one button permastealth in a heartbeat.
I’d still make players QQ..if you can’t learn to move your dead.

Show us on the doll where the lil bad thief stabby stabby you…..

Let us keep the thread civil.

No player wants to be thought of as a “Bad Player”.

Some players can’t seem to get the hang of fighting a thief but can win numerous duels against other professions.

Then we have the guys who think that all fights MUST win with the thief dead at thier feet while they /Laugh.
These guys will cry even if the thief is visable and just teleports away.

Stealth can be a blamed for the dingo’s eating my baby..lol.

GW2 thieves are slip in, rip hearts out and vanish type of profession.

If a group of game designers came up with classes:
Warrior=Damge & Tough Guy
Mage= Range Spell Caster, Healer & Party Buffer
Thief= DPS..Daggers..check..Stealth..check..

Thieves and stealth go together very well..but it is hard to balance.
Maybe we should have to spec every class for speed, stealth, healing or other OP’d ability.

Again I say..If we had another skill allowing us to control the fight..Nerf ?? it’s OP’d.
Random skills teleporting us to the rear of our enemy, some to make you drop us as target( think Messmer ), would not make the players who could still not kill you happy.

If you keyboard turn, don’t dodge, don’t cleanse or use your heals wisely, I will cripple,weaken, bleed, dodge, steal from you and auto attack you to death.
I will NOT /laugh…I just hope they get to be better at using the abilities of thier profession.

At this time we are tied to stealth to get the most out of our profession.
If it changed someway there would have to be a balance of damage and survivability added back.

Some good points have been brought up..keep’em coming guys.

Roll a warrior rifle build> go into Heart of the Mist.
Practice on the dummies and npcs, really learn its strenghts.

Roll a thief..play with the different specs.

Some of the skills you want to do will not work out as good as you think they will.

Now..above all else..Play What YOU enjoy.

I’v been away from the thread…work.

I’v killed many players and not used stealth..even a guardian.
I out played them/him.

I have died to players who used sound tactics and timing..stealth or not.
I have used BP..some..for the blind..I am D/D atm or S/d.

You can not stand in one spot and fight a thief and expect to survive.

Again..lets talk balance to stay on track..what do you think.
If stealth is nerfd/fixed/neutered.(I swear my dog just looked at me funny..lol)
What would you propose to balance it.

Good points Totalpwnage, but some traits would need to be reworked.
What is the carrot after the stick.

Some professions can easily have it all…p/t/v and make a thief look sick doing it..and from range.
But those professions don’t get any where the QQ’s of nerf.

The single most OP’d skill in WvW imho is messmer portal…it is a battle changer.
But wait..messmer has group/zerg stealth.
Game changer.
Would the proposed stealth changes affect messmers..no.
I’ll deal with it by dodging like crazy at the right time I hope.

What would you do to Balance stealth..be fair in your assessment.
DPS removal needs dps returned somewhere, same as ecape utilities.
Those are the basics of the thief.

Bed calls..cya Sunday..barring work.

Imho it is the fact we can control the fight..that is what makes players cry.

A guardian with the right spec can do amazing things..zerg or another group shows up..game over.

A thief will still have a chance to get at least one opponent down and escape.

I would love to see a marauder style thief with traits to match..more evade and positional attacks. The closest I get is a GC build..and I still have to use stealth or I lose.

Good points guys..keep em coming.

I’d much rather have that combo field give a life leech, 25% heal, increased dodge/evade chance..after the blind timer was up of course.
Or even..aoe poison cripple.

Good points guys.

Each profession with access to a Revealed debuff in its least used trait line maybe?

If the enemy player can’t apply the debuff .. it’s not our fault.
And can be applied to messmers as well.

Players would still cry because I can escape from combat long enough for my revealed to wear off…but trust me when I say you’ll never make everyone happy.

I still like the ranger pet as a hunter..sniffing out stealthers in keeps.

Awesome effort here guys.
Thanks to everyone particpating in this disscussion.

I just don’t see how you can remove stealth completely without breaking trait lines.
Even longer revealed is problematic.

1v1 and 1v2 happens quite often.
Cutting off reinforcments is easy when they come out 1 or 2 at a time following the same route.

We attack a gate..some peaple are on watch. Not just at the keep.

Travlane you are right.
I can play my thief in a zerg..but the playstyle completely changes..and traits.
He just isn’t used to the full potential he is capable of.
Plus avoiding aoe is tiresome with our short range.
Btw I leveled my thief in WvW..died alot..learned alot.

I’v been meaning to switch my Guradian back to a more aggressive build just for kicks and do some roaming, but at character select I keep tabbing my thief.

Hah..I’m going to have to watch my spelling more..bah..it’s the internetz.

Happy Fourth of July guys..I am glad we have this game & community.

Revealed would have to be way more than 10 sec to stop the nerf crys.

By having a longer than 10 sec revealed..you just killed the Cloak & Dagger #5 attack.
Now you would have to use #3 attack,weapon swap..or just about give up off hand dagger.

Hmm..C&D..grants stealth unless under revealed debuff..if revealed it has the chance to apply on crit:

Chilled
Immoblize
Knock down
Ect..ect ect…Could be anything..but would have to be benefical to the thief to balance the loss of stealth for a longer revealed.
Btw..that just punished any non crit build thief..balancing stealth is not easy.

I still like the ideal of BackStab (any weapon) anytime for a rear attack..if you let a thief get behind you..you pay the price.
But thats just me rambling at this point.

Too much evasion is OP’d 1v1, but will not save you vs a zerg..more tears.

Me..I would not attack from stealth with a long revealed on us..I would save my stealth for a certain set of conditions and when the requirements where in place..use my stealth…more tears. Again nerf crys against thieves.

Keep em coming guys..but remember it is really our get out of jail card letting us escape that makes all the tears atm.

Lots of players will not be happy till a thief is dressed like a pinata and busted on sight.

You can use that spec.

Your best bet is to link your build and gear from one of the calculator sites, and do a lot of forum reading.

Even with the best gear..play style will affect your results.

Please try to keep the thread civil.
An active discussion is what I am after here.

Guardians are a good counter to a thief that just attacks.
I have one..laugh when they waste BackStab on my aegis.

A good thief will pop out of stealth, pop the aegis then stealth to BS if thats his thing.
Boon stripping and evasion is the most consistant way for me to whittle down guardians..even then I have lost some fights to guardians because I didn’t want to admit that the bunker build was to tough to crack.
I use to love my block>blind & burn build.

Guardians react to the thief attack..what I meant was for the ranger to be a Hunter, pro-active.

Also..tandem thieves can cause peaple to pull thier hair out..much easier to string togther some good combos. Should they be punished for using skill & teamwork?

Yngvi, try harder.
25 hitpoints..will not happen. Can you come up with a better way to balance the stealth which you so hate.

A high dmg thief is normally very good or dead with 12000 hit points or less.
The survival oriented thief has Shadow Arts which can better that number.
Deadly Arts or Critical Strikes has to take a hit.

SA gives alot of utility to the thief that practices using his stealth abilities to thier fullest. But..required to 1v1 it is not..an evasion build thief would really make you mad.

I don’t perma-stealth.
Just because I escaped dosn’t mean I am stealthed.

Burnfall…please explain your ideas on balancing a thief to your expectations.
Please remember that stealth is a key mechanic of the current thief abilites & and skills.
To change one would require some change in another area.

Perma-stealth isn’t a free lunch, you have to work at it and be aware of your surroundings. That said it can be sustained long enough for a thief to escape with a bit of luck, which goes back to my above post.

Players get really upset that a thief can escape if the fight goes sour.

I personally think messmers are OP’d with certain spec’s. Let each clone/phantasim they make reduce thier hit points by 1000/500hp or so in wvw/spvp.
I don’t QQ about it..just work harder to counter them.

Rifle Warriors can give you a nasty surprise..but shouldn’t a ranger be more deadly?
I’ll jump the ranger..easier fight.

Elemantalist have some awesome builds..I have to be very careful in open field fights with them. Line of sight is my friend.

No class should dominate all others..without escape abilites the thief would need a major rework.

If GW2 comes out with an anti-stealth class simalar to the Reaver from Dark age of Camelot I’d roll one. I had some great times hunting stealthers in that game, even though I had multiple lvl50’s including an Infiltraitor & Hunter.

Imho Anet should make the ranger beastmaster line a stealth hunter line.
Give the pets the ability to actively seek out and break/apply revealed as a upper level trait, 600 range or so, only works if the ranger is withing 400 range of the pet..ect.
Right now pets are low dmg fire and forget missiles in pvp.

I’m not picking a fight..just discussing personal opinions.

Aoe makes me cry….AOE is OP’d by anyone but me..nerf AOE.

Really though..chaining abilities/skills to escape/attack is the thief design.

But a thief played to full potential requires much more effort and skill than my guardian(to agree with Travalane) which can stand in one spot..do a rotation, never dodge ..auto attack(I go get a beverage)go back to rotation..collect loot/badges.

I leveled a guardian first..got bored and did a thief.

I wish I had done the thief first, even with the current state of the thief hate.

P.S. Glad I’m not a ranger..imho they really need some love.

We are not hated for our damage so much as the fact we can mangage our abilities to control the fight.

I have other lvl80s that are ok to play..but in WvW give me my thief.

Just the sheer enjoyment of Steal>CnD> BackStab…insert other dmg..dropping a foe in the middle of a hostile supply camp & escaping is more rewarding than zerging on my other 80s.

But..steal must work right..no blade of grass to trip my *teleport up.
No revealed defuff..it’s been 5 seconds +…hmmm, why can’t I restealth. Dang..it still blew my cool downs on my skills..dodge>dodge>..hope for evades..

I’v had friends over at my house watching me do the “thief” thing.
The most common comment is about how finicky some of my skills can be.
The second is “Dude…they need to just AOE instead running around doing nuthin”

Within the next month they get a thief to 80..call me and say..“This is to much work, I’m gonna run my (insert) and run with the zerg.”

As a thief we don’t fight our enemies battles..we choose to be patient and strike at a time of our choosing even if it’s just do distract the zerg to give our guys time to deploy.

Players get mad if you give them the slip..understandably..even though they didn’t die ..no meat taste sweeter than roasted thief..except maybe messmer kabobs (imho).

If a stealth “fix” came into effect would Anet..buff another area or two of thief abilities.
ie:
One minute revealed..but we get a BackStab buff of huge damage or BackStab ANYTIME we are behind an enemy.

Or more teleports tied into attacks..to steal a trick of messmers your enemies also drop target..

Or true Permenant stealth..on till you attack..no “tricks or skill combos”..lazy mode stealth..man that would be nice.

The tears of QQs would be tasty as they eat crow.

Thieves are not the WvW gods you make us out to be, we are more like the devil feeding you lies to make you think we are.

But with a lil bit’o love by Anet to appease the tears of QQ’s …we could be.

I second this.

It seems to be normal..then when you get more than 1 enemy on the screen you get a a .5 to 1 second chance of lag spikes.

I didn’t have this problem till they did the big patch with the torment stuff.

OMG..its a stealth thief nerf~

Artistic or creative license..which ever way you want to bend it.

Also may be another type of hull..splined or ribs compressed by a type of cloth/leather/other material? (silk?) into a certain form.
A leather covering over a wooden skelton frame like canoe.

Btw…ships with benefits..lol…awesome.

Changes on the client side can be applied somewhat server side.
Many other games have dealt with this problem far more successfully.

WoW’s key to successe was it ran fine on a so so computer.
Maybe we need more options/load client side, this game never taxes my current rig which isn’t cutting edge by any means.

Better graphics when applicable. Down scaling and clip range when large fights are in progress.

Release the STICKMESSMERS…lol.

Better clip plane options might help. Players, armour details and enviorment.
Even in DAoC with a hot system I scaled detail back for performance when heavy RvR was eminent.

What it really is…cost vs performance.
With no monthly subscription Anet relys on a less than ideal income base.
Debugging, updating and coding expansions are more prioritized based upon funds and time. Which is easiest?

I would prefer more rewardimg and SOLID PvP/WvW over new content for at least a year in the future.
Don’t add more broken content or problems to fix without repairing the old problems.

~Bait and switch tactics are to keep you distracted from the old problems.