Guild Wars 2

Not here to whine about thieves or to argue about them; so please read and leave and comments/thoughts/suggestions you think would add to the post.

Just getting tired of thieves with their near perma-stealth, and huge burst damage. It’s almost to the point if I see a thief I just go the other way rather than wasting my time with them. Even if I better them in a fight, they have the stealth AND speed to easily out distance me. I’ve read through a lot of posts about them, and besides conditions and pure tanks, I don’t see much that can handle a well played thief.

I would just like people to look at the balance of the class in WvW. Yes, I know that they have to sacrifice a substantial amount of survivability to have such high burst damage, and that would be perfectly fine, if I could attack them. With the near perma-stealth of a well played thief, it’s nearly impossible to ever get a lock on them long enough to do any substantial damage. Even if I do enough damage to the point of killing them, then they simply stealth and run. It’s pretty hard to keep up with a thief, especially when you can’t see them to know which direction they’re going.

I know aoe’s and conditions deal with thieves pretty well, but I’m a Mesmer; with confusion cut in half and not really any other viable condition builds, its pretty difficult to do much. Regardless of that, anet seems to be so focused on the balance of classes as they continue to buff/debuff skills; but what other class can avoid/take as much damage as a thief, while still being able to put out the enormous burst damage as one.

As far as the argument for my gear being to blame, and I’m just whining because I can’t roll full zerker. I have 2.6k armor, 20.3k hp, and about a 6-8k heal depending on clones. Sure it’s not a face-tank build, but it holds its own. I can survive a burst attack from a thief, but by the third come at me, I’m hard pressed to keep it up. No other class has caused me so much trouble, and I’m pretty confident in any other 1v1 or 1v2 situation, as long as a thief isn’t present.

It just seems to me that Anet is relying on people’s lack of ability to balance the thief class out. As it does take considerable skill to be able to play the style necessary to keep the perma-stealth and keep the damage output peaked.

Please keep comments civil, this is not a post to beg for a thief debuff; I would just like to see other’s thoughts on the class, and possibly help me to better myself against them.