Guild Wars 2

Heinel.6548:

===

And to those who argue about thieves not being top tier in sPvP. Do realize that stealth has in fact taken a nerf to it’s effectiveness by 100% as far as sPvP objectives are concerned. You cannot cap a point in stealth. It was the biggest nerf in GW2 history. If you really think WvW is comparable to sPvP on this, they’ll have to implement a comparable solution to WvW as well, and I think few of us actually want to see stealth completely removed from WvW, as it’s already been trivialized both in sPvP and now PvE too.

If you truly enjoy the stealth gameplay and want it to stay, you better start thinking creatively about solutions that the majority of the players can agree with. The “nyar-nyar-L2P” comments gets you nowhere other than the biggest nerf hammer that’s already swung twice.

Thought stealth capping in spvp went out in beta.
It was removed from www a lot later, but it was removed.

Enjoyable vid. as always.

I do feel almost obliged to be the first to call for a nerf to rangers though

Lighter.5631:

Roysten.3456:

Lighter.5631:

Sorry, but that match my experience. with a newly made thief, without the knowledge of most of it’s skills, i managed to do as good as with my lv80 warrior and some times i do better.

In spvp? hotjoining and h/s spamming works up to a point but after that point you actualy do need to learn what to do.

In www if you are owning the field on an upleveled thief not understanding your skills then I humbly bow to your innate ability and pity your opposing servers.

Because that “learn what to do” for thief is so easy. no more excuse. spvp wvw both. my opposing servers? you mean that server with almost double of our points?

O.k. I might have been unfair to you.
As an exercise though ask yourself how you would counter your thief on your warrior? Its a question that has been asked many times before and a lot of players have come up with answers.
After this assume the next warrior you attack will use this same counter that you have thought through for your thief. So its time to think of a way to attack a warrior in a way that gets round this counter. This might involve an entirely different way of playing your thief.
Repeat until your head spins a bit.

With the trite example of H/s spamming it will work on players that have never worked out the counter to it. In www there are a lot more than spvp. If you want to have more success though you need to assume that the opponant you face will counter it. This means throwing that whole easy play style away and learning how to do something different.
This is what I meant by learning what to do.

The debate about stealth is more about whether there is a level of play with it that simply can’t be countered.
I personally don’t think there is but I do accept that it might be a pain to counter and that it can end up bending builds a bit out of shape to do it.
For me this needs small changes not hyperbole or claims that a class is easy requiring no skill.

Lighter.5631:

Roysten.3456:

Columba.9730:

Stiv.1820:

killimandros.5087:

The thieves who doesnt think so, blame it on lack of skill for all who cant cope with thieves, which is, it seems the majority of the playerbase, which leads me to conclude the essence of the discussion is indeed, if you dont roll a thief, you need to L2P…basically

The reason it’s a L2P issue is new players in both WvW and sPvP hotjoin get rickrolled by GC thieves left and right. They come here to vent with suggestions like “dots shouldn’t allow stelath” and “Damage should break stealth”. Things that show a complete lack of understanding of this game’s stealth mechanics.

In all honestly, if you don’t at least try every class in sPvP or level it to 40 in PvE or so for more gated learning of the profession (so you can read every utility and trait and fully understand them) you are nerfing yourself in any form of PvP in this game. Most people who have thieves and play them regularly also play other professions. This game is very alt friendly (at least until every ascended item is out). The reason players who have 80 Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves is because they know the mechanics. It’s the same with every other prof it’s just that the Thief is the most different (resource based instead of CD, stealth and steal) relative to other profs and very noob vs noob friendly. It’s not until higher skill levels that the Thief is more balanced.

We’ve tried thieves in Spvp. It’s obvious how opd the class is. Thieves don’t have trouble being thieves because both are opd, and someone has to win. Lol, circular argument.

Not sure I entirely follow you, but I think you are echoing the op in saying that thieves require no skill because they are op.
I have tried to suggest that this doesn’t match my experience of playing one, particularly as the playerbase get better and better at countering thieves. In spvp it might feel like they are op and easy but as you hit higher levels of skilled oponents it suddenly turns out they aren’t.

To what someone else was saying about the ltp comments. Its worth remembering that the op starts by saying stealth is overpowered and requires no skill. This is supported by videos.
It is perfectly legitimate to say that the opposition in those videos play poorly if this is what is being used to support the original suggestion. Also it is legitimate to analyse the play style and build the op is using if it is designed to minimise risk and maximise survival. This type of thief play might require low skill and be hard to kill, but it isn’t very good at getting kills. The types of thief that is going out getting player kills are nothing like this. The experience of playing or facing one of these builds is nothing like this.
Is what the op achieves by harassing and slowing groups legitimate or broken. I say its legitimate.
There have been some solid suggestions about changes to stealth but they will probably get drowned out in the call of op, or perma, or other equally common but misinformed comments.

Sorry, but that match my experience. with a newly made thief, without the knowledge of most of it’s skills, i managed to do as good as with my lv80 warrior and some times i do better.

In spvp? hotjoining and h/s spamming works up to a point but after that point you actualy do need to learn what to do.

In www if you are owning the field on an upleveled thief not understanding your skills then I humbly bow to your innate ability and pity your opposing servers.

Columba.9730:

Stiv.1820:

killimandros.5087:

The thieves who doesnt think so, blame it on lack of skill for all who cant cope with thieves, which is, it seems the majority of the playerbase, which leads me to conclude the essence of the discussion is indeed, if you dont roll a thief, you need to L2P…basically

The reason it’s a L2P issue is new players in both WvW and sPvP hotjoin get rickrolled by GC thieves left and right. They come here to vent with suggestions like “dots shouldn’t allow stelath” and “Damage should break stealth”. Things that show a complete lack of understanding of this game’s stealth mechanics.

In all honestly, if you don’t at least try every class in sPvP or level it to 40 in PvE or so for more gated learning of the profession (so you can read every utility and trait and fully understand them) you are nerfing yourself in any form of PvP in this game. Most people who have thieves and play them regularly also play other professions. This game is very alt friendly (at least until every ascended item is out). The reason players who have 80 Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves is because they know the mechanics. It’s the same with every other prof it’s just that the Thief is the most different (resource based instead of CD, stealth and steal) relative to other profs and very noob vs noob friendly. It’s not until higher skill levels that the Thief is more balanced.

We’ve tried thieves in Spvp. It’s obvious how opd the class is. Thieves don’t have trouble being thieves because both are opd, and someone has to win. Lol, circular argument.

Not sure I entirely follow you, but I think you are echoing the op in saying that thieves require no skill because they are op.
I have tried to suggest that this doesn’t match my experience of playing one, particularly as the playerbase get better and better at countering thieves. In spvp it might feel like they are op and easy but as you hit higher levels of skilled oponents it suddenly turns out they aren’t.

To what someone else was saying about the ltp comments. Its worth remembering that the op starts by saying stealth is overpowered and requires no skill. This is supported by videos.
It is perfectly legitimate to say that the opposition in those videos play poorly if this is what is being used to support the original suggestion. Also it is legitimate to analyse the play style and build the op is using if it is designed to minimise risk and maximise survival. This type of thief play might require low skill and be hard to kill, but it isn’t very good at getting kills. The types of thief that is going out getting player kills are nothing like this. The experience of playing or facing one of these builds is nothing like this.
Is what the op achieves by harassing and slowing groups legitimate or broken. I say its legitimate.
There have been some solid suggestions about changes to stealth but they will probably get drowned out in the call of op, or perma, or other equally common but misinformed comments.

jportell.2197:

Roysten.3456:

I was fighting a mesmer 1v1 on my thief, when one of his clones turned traitor.

A clone of me popped up I think from his scepter 1. It proceeded to attack him with the scepter pink blob attack no weapons equipped.

I was on a sylvari they were asura, no question it was a clone of me. fully rendered not placeholder.

Ended up standing stock still and watching the turncoat instead of fighting as well.
It died I think to an attack rather than shatter or replace, can’t be sure.

Does a thief have a reflect ability? If so “Ether Clone” the third attack in scepter chain can create a clone of the blocker to attack the mesmer. This is most def not a bug and is quite funny when it happens.

Only dagger storm. I did have it on my bar. Don’t remember using it before hand. Possible though, I was properly discombobulated by the clone ally.
Will remember that for future reference, probably the answer.

I was fighting a mesmer 1v1 on my thief, when one of his clones turned traitor.

A clone of me popped up I think from his scepter 1. It proceeded to attack him with the scepter pink blob attack no weapons equipped.

I was on a sylvari they were asura, no question it was a clone of me. fully rendered not placeholder.

Ended up standing stock still and watching the turncoat instead of fighting as well.
It died I think to an attack rather than shatter or replace, can’t be sure.

jportell.2197:

Roysten.3456:

jportell.2197:

1) Anet should remove one of these perks from being stealthed
a) Condi removal for every three seconds while stealth (combined
with heals it competes with ele’s condi removal)
b) Regen while stealthed… yeah w/o healing power it isn’t all that great…
But it is still one of the little things that is causing big problems
c) 50% faster while stealthed… Seriously aside from stealth bombers when was the
last time sneaky=fast? How many sneaky fast navy seals are there? I know its
a game and all but seriously this is just a ridiculous trait that costs too little
d) stealth SHOULD break on a block… Invuln/evades yeah i’ll give that to you
but you are still hitting something when its blocked whether it be that shield/
off hand sword its basically guaranteeing a free HUGE hit to thieves when they
stay stealthed and their first attack was blocked… Not really fair to someone
that was not being a baddie/noob and could predict the attack change.
If someone blocks my shatters on my Mesmer I don’t get an immediate free
redo on the burst and no other class does when their attacks are blocked
except thieves
e) finally Caltrops and choking gas should break stealth… I don’t care how you want
to justify it, these skills do damage and therefore should suffer the revealed debuff…
If a Mesmer pops a shatter from stealth they get revealed… Why? The clones blew up
not the Mesmer they shouldn’t be revealed! But they are, same concept applies to
thieves. This would also make thieves consider things like taking the trait that drops
caltrops on a dodge… It would make them choose something either/stealth heavy or
mobility…
My 2 cents… on things that would help with thieves (erm,,, stealth) in WvW. Any one of these minor changes would prolly make a lot more people happy and the only thieves that would be ticked would be the ones that can’t adapt… Every class has had to adapt to nerfs to some of their core mechanics (generalization I know of a few specific ones.) These changes would not break the thief class in any way

D and e fine.
A, b and c are traits. You can’t take them all regen is a 30 pt trait. This isn’t free stealth goodies, the condi removal possibly could take an internal cd though.

Keep in mind when I refer to caltrops I refer to the skill and the trait where thy drop on dodge…. I know A,b,c are traits and they can’t all get them at once but they can get a combo at once… but thank you for your response. and Hopefully others are as constructive.

Just to say you can have the traited caltrops on dodge, its a horrible trait. Either that or force all thieves to have it with its I have dodged over here claxon and marker

jportell.2197:

1) Anet should remove one of these perks from being stealthed
a) Condi removal for every three seconds while stealth (combined
with heals it competes with ele’s condi removal)
b) Regen while stealthed… yeah w/o healing power it isn’t all that great…
But it is still one of the little things that is causing big problems
c) 50% faster while stealthed… Seriously aside from stealth bombers when was the
last time sneaky=fast? How many sneaky fast navy seals are there? I know its
a game and all but seriously this is just a ridiculous trait that costs too little
d) stealth SHOULD break on a block… Invuln/evades yeah i’ll give that to you
but you are still hitting something when its blocked whether it be that shield/
off hand sword its basically guaranteeing a free HUGE hit to thieves when they
stay stealthed and their first attack was blocked… Not really fair to someone
that was not being a baddie/noob and could predict the attack change.
If someone blocks my shatters on my Mesmer I don’t get an immediate free
redo on the burst and no other class does when their attacks are blocked
except thieves
e) finally Caltrops and choking gas should break stealth… I don’t care how you want
to justify it, these skills do damage and therefore should suffer the revealed debuff…
If a Mesmer pops a shatter from stealth they get revealed… Why? The clones blew up
not the Mesmer they shouldn’t be revealed! But they are, same concept applies to
thieves. This would also make thieves consider things like taking the trait that drops
caltrops on a dodge… It would make them choose something either/stealth heavy or
mobility…
My 2 cents… on things that would help with thieves (erm,,, stealth) in WvW. Any one of these minor changes would prolly make a lot more people happy and the only thieves that would be ticked would be the ones that can’t adapt… Every class has had to adapt to nerfs to some of their core mechanics (generalization I know of a few specific ones.) These changes would not break the thief class in any way

D and e fine.
A, b and c are traits. You can’t take them all regen is a 30 pt trait. This isn’t free stealth goodies, the condi removal possibly could take an internal cd though.

Xsorus.2507:

Art.9820:

Xsorus.2507:

Art.9820:

Xsorus.2507:

Suralin.3947:

Xsorus.2507:

Suralin.3947:

Lol @ thread.

If a thief is stealthing a lot, not just P/D, they will almost always have 30 in Shadow Arts and trait for Remove Condition every 3s and Heal in Stealth. They also will most likely have Hide In Shadows (if they don’t, then great!), Blinding Powder, and SR or SS.

Step 1: Thief runs at you. Dodge.
Step 2: Crowd Control – knockdowns/immobilize/chill/cripple. Thief stealths, removes condition, heals a little. Dodge.
Step 3: Stack on the AoE. Thief stealths more, removes condition, heals. Run around.
Step 4: Dodge/Block/Drop more AoE/Kite
Step 5: Repeat Step 2 until thief is no longer around or on the ground and dying.

The thief will eventually burn through all of his utility stealths and will be forced to use CnD, which doesn’t really do a lot of damage anyways (and if he’s hitting you, then he’s in range of anything you’ve got).

This is pretty much how you fight any thief, no matter the build (heck, this is how I fight D/D Eles). P/D thieves that CnD and then 1 are giving themselves the revealed debuff each time, so they are just as targettable even if they haven’t rendered. BS thieves need to land that first blow. Otherwise, they’ll run. And DD / SB or DD/PP condition thieves like me, well, you’re not going to have an easy time with me due to Death Blossom’s evade giving me an extra 2-3 dodges, but time your skills right and you’ll take me down just the same or I’ll run away.

Heals a little?

I’m over 600 HP/S while stealthed… If you run no healing power it’s Heals a Little.. if you run Healing Power though…

To get that, you’re sacrificing Pwr, Vit, Toughness, or Precision. You can only stay stealthed for so long, even at 3s, you’re getting 1500 HP. If you have no Vit or Toughness, straight DPS is all that’s needed with Conditions limiting your ability to heal (such as Poisons and Bleeds), and if you have no Pwr or Precision, all I’d have to do is kite. And since I main as Thief, it’s made even easier for me.

You have to Sacrifice something, In this case Power/precision/toughness (i could get toughness, and I will eventually, but Its not as good as Vit on a thief because we lack Protection)

you can see my HP in the videos, I’m not lacking on HP.

And since most of my damage is from conditions it’s not a huge deal to sacrifice power/precision

When you were playing your thief, did you contribute with something else other thank zerg kills?

Are you going to go about how I didn’t contribute points to the World vs World match?

Cause…It’s friday..

We had 550 to 600 points we were getting..

and we’re currently

289k total points vs 150k to the next closest team, and 145k to that group I was fighting..

So yea..Maybe I should of done more for the War effort since I think we’re going to lose grin

Yes, it’s friday, maybe you should have done something for WvW but who cares when reset is almost here no? but I don’t get where your request about stealth relies, I mean, yes you killed X of ppl in a zerg, you farmed a lot of badges and you can tell me everything you want, but I think if you’re a complaining about a mechaninc that it’s screwing with WvW then you should be actually talking about it, don’t you think?

By the way I’m not here to be condescendat with you lol, I understand why you’re so defensive thought, after reading this thread it’s kinda obvious but I’m just trying to understand your point

Because I don’t believe 1 person should be able to attack a large group of people, possibly down and kill one, and get away whenever they want..

It requires no skill to play the class.

That is unfair, it requires a little skill to do what you are doing.
There are other ways of playing p/d that require more skill.
Playing d/d spamming 2 requires little skill but there are skilful ways of playing d/d.
S/d the boring one, now that is positively tricky to play well.

To be fair Xsorius you state that you are not great at being a thief.
The way you are playing concentrating on sb and trops built for maximum escape and survival can only nibble at players.
You are tanky and you are annoying zergs. This has a place in www.
What is unfair is to claim stealth is op because you aren’t dying.
Play aggressively p/d trying to keep pistol bleed stacks up and dying will very quickly enter the equation both for opponents and yourself.

Xsorus.2507:

Suralin.3947:

Lol @ thread.

If a thief is stealthing a lot, not just P/D, they will almost always have 30 in Shadow Arts and trait for Remove Condition every 3s and Heal in Stealth. They also will most likely have Hide In Shadows (if they don’t, then great!), Blinding Powder, and SR or SS.

Step 1: Thief runs at you. Dodge.
Step 2: Crowd Control – knockdowns/immobilize/chill/cripple. Thief stealths, removes condition, heals a little. Dodge.
Step 3: Stack on the AoE. Thief stealths more, removes condition, heals. Run around.
Step 4: Dodge/Block/Drop more AoE/Kite
Step 5: Repeat Step 2 until thief is no longer around or on the ground and dying.

The thief will eventually burn through all of his utility stealths and will be forced to use CnD, which doesn’t really do a lot of damage anyways (and if he’s hitting you, then he’s in range of anything you’ve got).

This is pretty much how you fight any thief, no matter the build (heck, this is how I fight D/D Eles). P/D thieves that CnD and then 1 are giving themselves the revealed debuff each time, so they are just as targettable even if they haven’t rendered. BS thieves need to land that first blow. Otherwise, they’ll run. And DD / SB or DD/PP condition thieves like me, well, you’re not going to have an easy time with me due to Death Blossom’s evade giving me an extra 2-3 dodges, but time your skills right and you’ll take me down just the same or I’ll run away.

Heals a little?

I’m over 600 HP/S while stealthed… If you run no healing power it’s Heals a Little.. if you run Healing Power though…

All about survival again, no excuse for having healing power, you shouldn’t be in stealth long enough to get enough reward out of it. Harass and survive, legitimate but still all about not dying not about attack.

Xsorus.2507:

Roysten.3456:

Xsorus.2507:

Roysten.3456:

Xsorus.2507:

Stiv.1820:

The only change that is actually needed is a 1 point DD added to Poison Arrow and maybe Trops utility (fix culling too but that’s just a noob crutch excuse, it won’t matter much). A thief should not be able to initiate damage and remain stealthed. Even if the people who die to this are god awful. Trops are so easy to avoid though it’s hard to justify, even PvE players should know to stay out of red circles…

Other than that, showing videos of a thief trolling bads in WvW proves nothing but how terrible a large portion of the WvW player-base is. You can troll a zerg all day but then you run into 2-5 guided decent PvPers and treat them like the masses and they will roll you hard. I wonder if that’s happened to you yet on your Thief OP?

rofl, the population is just bad, so nerf to stealth isn’t needed grin

And no it’s not happened yet… know why?

Because if i get trouble I can teleport away..

Watched your second vid and while entertaining you achieve nothing. At no point do you actualy go for it and start popping sneak attack properly putting yourself in danger.
Likewise if you meet anyone good you teleport away, achieving nothing.
Your argument seems to be stealth needs a nerf because it allows you to scout and slow a group not dying.
The players you are tagging like that would be better off just totally ignoring you. They are in no danger at all while you are fussing with shortbow or hoping they will stand in the trops.

Sometimes it’s not just about killing people to win a fight, sometimes its just about delaying people.

They could probably ignore me, I’d kill straggler’s like you see in the video (few of them do ignore me)

That sounds like a legitimate thing to be doing in www. It might even help with objectives. So it should be nerffed because?

You don’t see a problem with a class attacking a zerg and getting way 99% of the time?

Its not how I play, I actually like to engage the enemy and pay the repair bill. If someone is harassing and slowing a zerg concentrating on survival and reporting movement, I have no problem with that.

Xsorus.2507:

Roysten.3456:

Xsorus.2507:

Stiv.1820:

The only change that is actually needed is a 1 point DD added to Poison Arrow and maybe Trops utility (fix culling too but that’s just a noob crutch excuse, it won’t matter much). A thief should not be able to initiate damage and remain stealthed. Even if the people who die to this are god awful. Trops are so easy to avoid though it’s hard to justify, even PvE players should know to stay out of red circles…

Other than that, showing videos of a thief trolling bads in WvW proves nothing but how terrible a large portion of the WvW player-base is. You can troll a zerg all day but then you run into 2-5 guided decent PvPers and treat them like the masses and they will roll you hard. I wonder if that’s happened to you yet on your Thief OP?

rofl, the population is just bad, so nerf to stealth isn’t needed grin

And no it’s not happened yet… know why?

Because if i get trouble I can teleport away..

Watched your second vid and while entertaining you achieve nothing. At no point do you actualy go for it and start popping sneak attack properly putting yourself in danger.
Likewise if you meet anyone good you teleport away, achieving nothing.
Your argument seems to be stealth needs a nerf because it allows you to scout and slow a group not dying.
The players you are tagging like that would be better off just totally ignoring you. They are in no danger at all while you are fussing with shortbow or hoping they will stand in the trops.

Sometimes it’s not just about killing people to win a fight, sometimes its just about delaying people.

They could probably ignore me, I’d kill straggler’s like you see in the video (few of them do ignore me)

That sounds like a legitimate thing to be doing in www. It might even help with objectives. So it should be nerffed because?

Xsorus.2507:

Stiv.1820:

The only change that is actually needed is a 1 point DD added to Poison Arrow and maybe Trops utility (fix culling too but that’s just a noob crutch excuse, it won’t matter much). A thief should not be able to initiate damage and remain stealthed. Even if the people who die to this are god awful. Trops are so easy to avoid though it’s hard to justify, even PvE players should know to stay out of red circles…

Other than that, showing videos of a thief trolling bads in WvW proves nothing but how terrible a large portion of the WvW player-base is. You can troll a zerg all day but then you run into 2-5 guided decent PvPers and treat them like the masses and they will roll you hard. I wonder if that’s happened to you yet on your Thief OP?

rofl, the population is just bad, so nerf to stealth isn’t needed grin

And no it’s not happened yet… know why?

Because if i get trouble I can teleport away..

Watched your second vid and while entertaining you achieve nothing. At no point do you actualy go for it and start popping sneak attack properly putting yourself in danger.
Likewise if you meet anyone good you teleport away, achieving nothing.
Your argument seems to be stealth needs a nerf because it allows you to scout and slow a group not dying.
The players you are tagging like that would be better off just totally ignoring you. They are in no danger at all while you are fussing with shortbow or hoping they will stand in the trops.

At least this has moved to being a specific problem with p/d thieves.
So a p/d thief needs to use stealth from c&d to fire sneak attack to get a worthwhile bleed stack.
Actual time in stealth from the c&d is minimal. They are a ranged class that has to live in melee to land c&d every 3 seconds. The whole play style revolves around getting stealth and dropping it straight away.
Either keep them at range or cc in melee.
Yes they can run away and reset. Reset works both ways.
If they don’t reset all they are doing is letting bleeds fall off.
Still no problem with caltrops and poison cloud breaking stealth, wouldn’t change much but reasonable.

Culling , never see them, etc. Well 5 players is not a zerg. When I am on my ranger, grd, or necro I have no problem seeing stealthers outside a zerg. When I am on my thief players that seem aware of their surrounding are targeting me the second I drop stealth and are aoe, cleave & ccing while I’m in it.

The progress chugs along without ticking the boxes. just play for a bit, tick what’s completed then look at what’s left and aim at what you fancy.
Find it much better than forcing myself to jump in a pond for an age.
Actually got the aquatic slayer by just playing normally for one of the new ones.

The dread 30/30/30/30/30 Thieves. These threads throw them up a lot.

P/d condition don’t burst anyone. Glass cannon Backstab are one trick ponies that players seem to at last have worked out (3 months after spvp). Stealth backstab hybrids are slow and burst about 6k. S/d are shadowstepping half the time which is mistaken for stealth. None of them are perma stealth 1 shotting tanks that drown you in conditions with massive speed around the map. They can all be countered.

The reason you can make www vids of thieves owning the field is the same as the reason for vids of other classes doing the same. There are a lot of badly built, badly geared, badly played characters in www.

Xsorus.2507:

Roysten.3456:

Xsorus.2507:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy96IsNrMa0

Example of my thief abusing the crap out of stealth.

Looked for the abuse, couldn’t see it. Saw a group of players being seriously outplayed by their own pets, lots of green arrows and lots of npc clutter.
You think that being able to beat people who stand in caltrops, don’t cc, range attack into a reflect, and are upleveled means that stealth is op? The ele. and mesmer at least target you not the npcs showing that you are rendering just fine.
Maybe you are right though and they did deserve to win that fight by just auto attacking because there were more of them.

If I would of been on my Ranger, i would of been dead in the first 3 minutes of that fight.

the very fact that I can stealth and “reset” the fight whenever i want or move behind their ranks and still escape the fight after 8 minutes of screwing with them is just silly.

The very fact that I can poison field people and drop caltrops on people WHILE remaining stealthed is silly.

I do actually agree about poison field and caltrops from stealth, but this is the first time I have read a complaint about it (backstab backstab backstab all I ever hear).
Stealth doesn’t reset the fight though, escaping does and the reset works both ways. I find it a waste of time. Better to get some kills grab the bags and pay the repair bill if they get you.

Xsorus.2507:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy96IsNrMa0

Example of my thief abusing the crap out of stealth.

Looked for the abuse, couldn’t see it. Saw a group of players being seriously outplayed by their own pets, lots of green arrows and lots of npc clutter.
You think that being able to beat people who stand in caltrops, don’t cc, range attack into a reflect, and are upleveled means that stealth is op? The ele. and mesmer at least target you not the npcs showing that you are rendering just fine.
Maybe you are right though and they did deserve to win that fight by just auto attacking because there were more of them.

So ask for mass stealth to be removed from www.

killimandros.5087:

oZii.2864:

killimandros.5087:

Sifu.6527:

killimandros.5087:

Sifu; you need 3 thieves, 13 players of whatever class with their brains connected to their spine. You make 3 SR, people enter and can attack unseen. 15 people stealthed. You have 4 thieves. You have 5 thieves…see the problem? SR last so long with the culling and a handy mesmer a huge group can attack unseen and fight unseen 15-20 seconds. I have a thief, as I pointed out. Its not hard to make a puzerg stand under the hut, add swiftness on them and finally memser stealth line. Culling takes care of the rest. The bigger group, the longer culling. Hence its a problem in WvW not pve or spvp.

Take a look at how some of the most known guild groups abuse this. A couple of weeks ago, we fought RG. Most of the time we were running around without seeing them. If stealth makes this possible, be it thieves, mesmers, its a huge impact to wvw. It is THE biggest problem, because it ONLY gives huge groups benefits. The bigger the grooup, the more effective the stealth.
and Sifu, I just noticed your last 50 posts are all about defending thieves abilities, so Im not going to argue anymore with you :-) (apart from the one where you challenge anyone to fight your p/d build, which is the same one I use, its neat)

What are you suggesting to fix this?

Are you suggesting abuse of culling doesnt exist? I was merely pointing out how I personally (and if you didnt know about it, I cant help you) experience culling abuse, both from the receiving and giving point of view. How to fix it? As gamebreaking as it is, stealth timers must be ended immediately on damage in wvw. At the same time reduce stealth timers in general to make up for the culling. Personally id like stealth to be removed, added with something like camouflage on non movement, but I doubt many would agree with me on that, so im not gonna discuss it, its just my personal preference as I believe fighting something you see (especially when fighting classes who initially CANT stealth) is more entertaining than the current state. And please dont give me any infractions for this that Im writing. If you feel offended go out and breathe.

Its obvious from your suggestion that you want stealth removed. Yea adjust stealth timers and reduce stealth timers. Or just have the mesmer in your zerg run mass invis maybe? I am sure there is a mesmer in every zerg. Its not like Red server has access to mass invis but blue and green don’t. Everyone is affected by culling so while it sucks its not like 1 server doesn’t get culling and the other doesn’t.

Just make the argument to fix culling instead of trying to adjust class abilities for a bug that everyone gets.

Oh its obvious I want stealth removed, hehe. You read my post, have a cookie. Btw, did you really complain about rangers birds? hm. But, that was my personal opinion, yes I play a thief and yes Id like stealth removed until culling is fixed. I also suggested as a more moderate approach to reduce stealth timers and make stealth break on damage (so you can actually see the warrior getting ready to charge or 10k blade you and respond by dodging). I know by your posts you dont want changes to stealth, so we can agree to disagree. I also said I have both been on the receiving and giving end of culling abuse.

If group stealth effecting culling in an unspecified way is the real issue why not ask for shadow refuge, blinding powder, mass stealth and glamour veil to be removed why ask for stealth to be completely neutered?

Tried out the stealth heavy d/d build the other day and found out a couple of things.

It is slow and actually quite tricky to get a clean engagement.

The amount of players that are glass cannons was shocking. You don’t feel it playing conditions so it was a surprise how fast players dropped. These builds hit hard but not that hard.

It is very effective against bad players and almost suicidal against experienced players.

Its dull to play and against anyone who isn’t glass not that effective.

Culling pfft outside of big zerg fights it only seems to effect the players that stand stock still utterly unaware of their surroundings .

Back to p/d and conditions for me. Much more fun and effective to play.

P/d, and S/d(stun) are the builds that thrive on stealth traits and are the ones that would be nerfed. They aren’t the ones generally complained about. They might even be o.p. but all I read about is backstab backed up more often than not with videos of dreadful glass players dying to it.

kidbs.8920:

There are lots thieves that are using dagger/dagger and pistol/dagger that are speccing for survivability (condition removal and regen in stealth). I actually see more of them than glass cannons these days. Let me tell you that they lose very little of their damage and gain a whole lot of of survivability. These are the thieves that will wreck your face consistently and are hell to kill.

The op wanted to know about backstabs thieves and they are the burst monsters that many people assume all thieves are.
I have been on both sides of a p/d necro fight and the most deadly threat is one of the players dying of boredom.
A d/d specced 30 pts in shadow for the cleanse regen will have a fraction of the damage of a backstabber. A frustrating fight but maintaining a gap with chill/cripple after utility stealths are used will neutralise their c&d. You might get one or more resets but in the end its about who makes the first mistake.
A necro is a horrible target for a thief.

kidbs.8920:

The problem is that thieves can regen crazy amounts of HP in stealth and heal back up faster than you can, so they can take recovery breaks and then come back to finish the job.

This only applies to Pistol/dagger thieves and they definitely don’t like to pick fights with necros. If a dagger/dagger thief is doing this then they aren’t a backstab build which is all or nothing. Half hearted d/d builds can be fought the same way as a heartseeker spammer, just expect it to take a bit longer.

Just to explain why Chill is so bad for a Glass Cannon backstabber.
They can’t remove it unless they have shadow step on their bar which is unlikely for the bursters.
It doesn’t slow their initiative burners so they often don’t know they have a chill until empty and with a slowed auto attack.
It removes their mobility and dodges.
If they don’t kill you with the c&d/steal/Bs hs hs they are pretty much dead in the water.
Looking at things from their view a Necro is a bad target, not as bad a a Guardian with Aegis up, but a close second.

The steal-bs doesn’t start in stealth, so keep your camara panning and always be moving.
A glasscannon backstabber is dead meat if you land a chill on them.
To land the chill you need to stun break and dodge. If they are using the immobilise venom Ds fear.
If they restealth after a failed burst (most often because they can’t get behind you fast enough) you have 45 seconds to go about your business.

It could be more worthless if you removed the damage avoidance, soft cc,hard cc that can be used while cced, and the aoe channel that can can cause multiple crit procs.

The thing is though DS is damage avoidance.
Some vigour would be nice, but on the flip side a chill does the same job.
A Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew can keep the dodges flowing while stacking a bit of might.
This mechanic sounds fun but it would be a tad god mode.

The difference between light armour and heavy armour is about 300 toughness. I can never understand why armour comes into these (admittedly pointless) class comparisons.

Try another class, take a few for a spin in the mists, level something else up get a feel for it.
I found with a necro. it was much easier to appreciate what it can do and what its strengths are after playing other classes for a long time.
All the classes I have played require a different playstyle its just a question of using it and not forcing the alt to go against its grain.
Warrior or a melee focused Ranger might fit better to what you liked in wow.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Slan.5496:

You can bring a stun breaker. So what? Maybe the thief hits you with the fear, then uses basilisk’s venom after you blow your stunbreaker. .

Do stunbreakers even work on Basalisk venom? It isn’t a normal stun (bypasses defiant, for one).

Stunbreakers do work on Basalisk venom. I don’t think it bypasses defiant either, it will show the stone colour but not cause cc. Devourers venom is far more effective because immobilises need to be cleansed and most players go for a stunbreak instead.

CHIPS.6018:

BTW this thief was patient enough to wait till I use my DS3 (I got to use that eventually to interrupt his attacks), so that’s out of the question. Once my DS3 is gone, it was sure death for me.

This would be the key part of the fight. You use your best escape and will not take a second one.
Its pretty hard to come up with a build that couldn’t offload chill, cripple, or another fear on the thief.
You are simply being outplayed.

Just re-reading The First Law Trilogy, and had the overwhelming urge to make a Norn Thief called Dogman.
The name ofc had gone, which was a shame.

Just a thought but it might be worth a mod moving this to the thief forum where the sneaky choir can embrace it and extinguish the flames.

Julie Yann.5379:

I don’t care what anyone says but the Thief is definitely broken and it is ruining WvWvW. I see thieves take on 5 or more players and win on a regular basis which is ridiculous. 1v1 sure, 1v2 why not, 1v3 if you are a way better player than the other 3, but 1v5 or more makes it obvious that there is something wrong. And because any noob can roll a thief and get easy kills they are proliferating like rodents which is turning WvW into a backstabbing splurgefest. It is definitely OP at the moment and you thief defenders can disagree all you want. You are free to be wrong if you want to.

Might have been worth watching the actual vid.

One thing that chimed with my experience with running p/d (play&build it quite differently) is when he fights other stealth classes in most of his fights. Culling isn’t a problem.
Watching it I also noticed the opponents who weren’t keyboard turning seemed to have no problem getting a target when stealth dropped.

I have seen culling drop an extra 20 players in a zerg on me but I’ve never really noticed it in a small fight even against stealth. This isnt just on my thief but on ranger and ele as well.

Culling is becoming the new lag. Some folks wont admit they lost any fight unless they lagged out, except if its a thief then it was culling that got them.

Edit: my apologies to Julie Yann. The comments on culling were meant to be more general and not addressed to you specifically. I formatted poorly. The first line was just to emphesise that in the vid they neither backstab or face more than 3 players it is mostly 1v1.

salluks.6017:

That would be vabbi.. Check thier thread..very similar reports.

Looks like the same suspects causing havoc. Feel pretty bad for BT getting their rep dragged through the mud by some guilds which have no loyalty to them.

First time I have ever felt the need to have stern words with ANET but they need to get much, much better in game gm response to this sort of thing.

This could result in 6 servers having their match up “ruined” (I can see BT being left in chaos by this). All this could be caused by as few as 2 people directly using Improper Ingame Behavior. The people doing this shouldn’t be dealt with by the same protocols as botters. They are having a direct impact on hundreds of players who might stop throwing money at ANET. They are also impacting the www bonuses that effect thousands of players.

My tuppence.

Edit: To provide context. Many posts with evidence of improper gameplay in them have been removed quite correctly by vigilant mods.

These were probably posted here in the incorrect belief that this was the place to highlight such behaviour and engender a reaction to such behaviour from Anet.

Instead they should have course been emailed to the special address.
I cant remember the address and perhaps someone from Anet could provide it here.

My comments relating to the impact of Improper in game behaviour I stand by though I have edited a correction to the word more normaly used for this.

graverr.6473:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LbhdsF4oEI8

Pure demonstration recreated by some good folk that want this ended.Funny when u run into this several times in WvW.

Bad link.. its a video of a spvp backstab combo setup to show with haste that attacks land faster than unstealthing animation. A 1.5 second kill.
It is a set up with the guardian not even having aegis up but the makers don’t pretend otherwise. Culling is not happening in it.

The attack doesn’t start in stealth, and doesn’t finish in stealth. The thief will be so glass that the stomp will represent a real problem.

You won’t be suffering this unless you make a habit of wandering around solo while not checking around you, and standing stock still every now and then. A d/d ele or any other burster can kill you if you do that, it might take 2.5 seconds though.

You might be getting killed by thieves a few times but I will bet they aren’t doing this.

I have been trying to debunk these thief threads but they seem to have evolved into the level of self perpetuating myth.

I do wonder what people wandering about getting jumped by these dread thieves are doing? Jumping puzzles, points of interest, vistas, skill points and other such pvp staples?

Koralun.6214:

Icy.8041:

Koralun.6214:

Epic fight at deso borderlands Hill. we nearly got ya but than ur zerg got 1 mesmer in o.O.

Yup, a cheating one.

I personaly doubt that

Glad to hear it.
Speaking as one of the huge pile of corpses you made on the floor, I suspect they did the usual distortion evasion with a hint of invis. Thought it was a darn impressive last stand you nearly pulled off.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about thieves.

The attack that people seem to hate is the backstab burst combo. This cannot start in stealth, you have to allow the thief to get the jump on you. Culling is a none issue unless they are jumping from a zerg or they are suicideing into one.

Backstab already had its nerfs, it can be countered and if it gets as flavour as it was in spvp, set yourself up to counter it (as a bonus this will also stop d/d ele opening burst).

Heartseeker spammers can open from stealth but its pretty basic stuff which will probably rely on on a utility to restealth after blowing initiative on Hs. It already got nerfed and is as foo as 100 blades, just learn how to fight it.

P/d uses stealth the most by miles and is all about condition damage. Its not been nerfed but then it has zero burst and all people complain about is burst. Nerf stealth and you stop condition thieves and make them play burst probably backstab.

Another issue is people mistaking shadowsteps for stealth, not all vanishing acts are stealth.

As for culling I think its being greatly overstated as a problem, occasionaly I see the swirl of a thief unstealthing before they render but I can target and attack that. The vast majority of the time they render just fine. When the screen is full culling issues are cross profession.

( I play d/d ele, melee ranger, p/d thief)

I have been killed a few times on my ranger by back stab thieves.

I am pretty much certian Culling was not the issue, these were 1v1 or at most me and a couple of allies. The problem was that I let them get the jump on me. I should have seen them but I didn’t, entirely my fault.

On my thief I use P/D condition. Its a battle of attrition with one of these, traited stealth is essential to survival and dropping the dots. Honestly in the fights I pick never once noticed culling but with no burst it shouldn’t be a problem.

I have noticed that some people fight my p/d thief as if he was a backstabber or a 2222 and it makes me wonder if folks think thieves can trait 30/30/30/30/30.

If they look like kiteing after a great sword 3&5 just weapon swap, it doesn’t matter what you have equipped it will solve your problem.

Main hand axe melee? Rifle? Sounds very much like a warrior.

I play a gsword, sword/torch melee ranger because its fun. If I was going all optimal then I would go ranged and fit an axe mainhand (900) in somewhere.

Yep I did have a static ip address. SPI seems to be the cause, which is a shame because there is no way that I am switching it off.

At least I have ropey wireless on a separate router to get by with.

Same problem with Netgear D6300.

Black screen after a short amount of play. Spvp is by far the fastest way to trigger it.

Upgraded router to d6300, had no problem with old router netgear dg834gt.
I have 2 internet connections from seperate providers. 1 wireless & 1 wired.
swapping routers between them, can confirm. d6300 gets black screen after a short time. dg834gt never gets blackscreen.

Have tried port forwarding gw2 on d6300 still get blackscreen.
Only advice can find on internet is to disable spi on router. This is not an option on the d6300. Even if it was an option it would not be one I would take.

Firmware for d6300 is up to date, initial release in september is still the latest firmware.

Would be nice to be able to play the game wired through d6300 on high speed connection. Instead play wirelessly through the old router with the performance hit that involves.

All in favour of locking this stuff out.

For me it is an issue of enjoyment. I hate fighting with the UI, I can just about be bothered with swapping in a speed boosting weapon out of the gate.

Before a round starts while the opposition comp. is on show seems like the time to be mucking around with your load out. What else is the wait time for except bios?

On the fly the whole process is annoying, unintuitive and gets in the way of actually enjoying the game. It feels like its not intended gameplay, unlike swapping out a utility skill which is simple and built into the UI. Macros could make it all simple but if it was intended why not have it built into the hotbar.