Guild Wars 2

Dual.8953:

How organized were you? Thieves thrive on the confusion of their opponents, they’re at their best when their opponent is too beguiled to mount a proper counter. He maybe be hard to track but if you pull together and watch each other’s backs his threat drops significantly. As for weaknesses, theives are weak to CCs and are usually susceptible conditions, and they’re fragile if you manage to nail them down.

I completely agree with the advice you provide in this comment, and I have qouted you to reinforce it’s legitimacy.

OP, I can assure you if it was in WvW (as most of these threads are) the biggest issue you were dealing with is a server-side behavior known as “Culling”. It inhibits how quickly models will render when exiting Stealth (or Mesmer portals). Unfortunately, this is a design flaw in what Anet originally intended would minimize the lag players “feel” in WvW areas (or any area where your client is registering in the proximity of, let’s say, 30 player/NPC ‘Avatars’).

Revealed (the “I just backstabbed you and I can’t restealth because you clearly know where I am now” buff) has a fixed 3s duration.
Stealth has base duration of 3s (4s with 15 into Shadow Arts).

To be perfectly honest though, it sounds like you and this group of friendlies happened upon a rare Direct Damage Unicorn. Or, in the leyman, the Culling Troll build, which admittedly, is broken in effect until Culling is fixed/changed/removed.

Good news though, Anet has already stated multiple times that they are working on Fixing culling, as it is definitely the biggest detractor from balance in WvW.

It’s not just the Thief that benefits from using Culling to their advantage, they can just use it’s effects ad absurdum due to the ease at which we can restealth.
(And before you think about it, No, making it harder to enter Stealth will not fix the Thief. We are a broken class, just not in the ways that the mass populace of this game believes we are.)

If you see the thief before they are in range of Steal (900, 1200 if traited- but no one takes it.)
Target them.
Watch your skills’ range indicator (hopefully you have at least one skill that’s 900 range if you can’t eyeball the distance.).
As they enter the 900 unit range, dodge roll.
Congratulations, the Thief has now wasted two 45s cooldowns and has done absolutely nothing. He/She is most likely also down 6 Initiative from precasting CnD, which only leaves 9 remaining in the pool.
Subtract -3 Initiative from your mental count of their pool every HS they use to close the distance, or another -6 if they manage to tag you with a second CnD.

Have fun destroying that oh-so-fearsome Burst Thief.

It’s cool, nerf the Thief.
I’ll just finish gearing my D/D Elementalist and do “BS Burst” to five people simultaneously.
sPvP = Thieves are gimmicky in hotjoin, and barely (if ever) seen in higher levels of competitive tourneys.
WvW = Is PvE and people should stop crying about what they think is imba bullkitten in the “non-structured PvP Zones”.

Ranger Stolen ability → Clusterbomb Spam = Thiefpriest

Firey Blowtorch of Death.
or
Brony Rainbow Laser Beam Launching Shortbrony.

Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

Carnagh.1687:

Not sure how many times it can be underlined and people still not get it… He was facing a Thief on the other side. He was simply better.

I like how all the haters completely ignored that fact.

Nazrielle.8620:

to Aervius.2016 /

ok, I see. I’ll prepare fun for next movie

Fo’ sho’!

Nazrielle.8620:

And 2:38~4:03 is solo kill and after others too.
you guys watched just fore video only?

Watched the whole 5min 55s that was up, I’m not saying that you’re a bad thief, I’m simply saying you didn’t really show us the skill you probably possess playing a Thief to the level of gameplay you’re at. It’s mostly an editing gripe, bro.

Otaur.9268:

Aervius.2016:

Otaur.9268:

You obviously do not understand. It says, armor/toughness does nothing to( lessen the severity of) the damage. Please at the very least learn to read before posting.

" Armor / Toughness does nothing to mitigate the damage and I know this for a fact. " -literally copy/pasted from your comment.

You obviously can’t very plainly see what was written. If you meant something else, you should have typed it. You can’t insult someone for “not reading my intended message” because they read the message you actually posted.

You actually believe armor and toughness help u versus a steal-cnd-bs combo? Please go make an ele, do not use protection, and test it yourself. I know protection works because without it I got hit for over 10k damage by backstab. Then with protection on by same thief backstab did 8001 damage, a damage reduction of 33% (protection). Now if armor/toughness scaled better, wouldn’t that damage change depending on armor? I have run 1800 armor to 3000 armor. The backstab combo does roughly the same damage. Therefore armor and toughness is not scaling well or at all versus high burst, making it pointless. At least on elementalist. Why do you think ele’s basically ignore earth for arcane and water.

That’s not what I said, but you’re proving my point.

I was pointing out that you leveled an insult against someone who read your original post, verbatim.

Also, if you’re trying to prove a point you shouldn’t put words into people’s mouths. I think the only problem here is that you’re far too personally invested into your character/it’s digital success.

But more to your comment, I wouldn’t do that-
1.) Defensive bonuses are meant to be taken as a cumulative effective, meaning simply toughness alone does nothing. However, a high Toughness + Vitality build with protection gets hit for that oh so terrifying Backstab rotation as if the Thief had replaced his daggers with wet noodles.
2.) If I’m playing an ELEMENTALIST the last thing in the world that I would rely on to counter a Backstab Thief would be passive defenses. You have access to 3 cooldowns that break stun while securing momentarily increased defensive posturing. If I wanted to roll a class that relied on passive defenses, I’d play a Warrior.

If you’re full zerkers, you’ll probably average around 7-9k without Assassin’s Signet.
Hell, I’m only 10 DA and I’m still getting 9k w/o AS. What matters the most is:
1.) That Backstab crits
2.) That you have a copious amount of bonus Critical Damage.

For the record, you can easily slot all Valkyrie jewelry if you take Hidden Killer trait over Executioner in Critical Strikes. Especially if you have over +100% critical damage bonus.

It would be nice to see a video where a Thief builds direct damage and does more than blow cooldowns in an insta-gib compilation.
Nothing personal, it’s just nothing new- regardless of your awesome gear. You aren’t exactly spec’d full glass, yet I don’t see any situations in this video where your build build makes much sense (no 1v(2+)‘s, not to mention you’re grouped up almost every kill / running with the zerg.)

A solo video as a glass cannon build is much more entertaining, and a better showcasing of your own understanding of the class- not some gimmicky, cooldown-based dps orgasm that any GW2 player older than 6 can master and employ effectively.

It would be awesome if Anet replaced “Last Refuge” minor trait in Shadow Arts with something like that.
Like +1 Initiative when attacking from Stealth.
^ At least that minor trait wouldn’t get me killed more than it saves me

Powerr.3649:

15 second deathmatches arent interesting to watch either. We got a hint of what deathmatch playing is like on the NA servers, yuck

They might not be fun to watch, but they are fun as kitten to play.
I’d at least like the option of deathmatch tPvP + Tourneys.

urinfamousr.7631:

yes how DUMB of the rest of us to not be able to target the invis thief omg why didn’t anyone else think of that !! TAB targeting does nothing if the thief is not rendered u moron u still wont see him until he is re-rendered wow how stupid r u…

Yes forget about the mechanics its all in our heads….

The big red target cursor on the ground doesn’t scream “here I am!” to you?

I’ve used it to break out of stuns and teleport to the top of a small terrain impasse near speldan clearcut in WvW. The 100B Warrior in pursuit (who just put all burst utilities on cooldown, all for me lol) lost me long enough for me to drop in behind with a full venom’d backstab rotation.

He then promptly alt-f4’d.

Edit: Basically, when you get creative with it, you’ll begin to see that it’s cooldown is a joke for what it allows you to do. Also, you can use it when stomping – especially effective when you’re stomping another Thief.

Technically speaking, (as I’ve done it too) it’s just a clever use of game mechanics.
The ability isn’t on cooldown, and you aren’t in combat- so the advantage it offers you versus what you have to do to achieve it doesn’t make it OP or broken imo.

Besides, dual-function utilities need overhauling anyway.

IMO, Green Side easily has the best central keep.
However, Blue has the easiest time setting up ambushing (lots of LOS blocking / blind corners, underground routes, etc.)
And Red has choked off pathways through it’s territory with only a very limited amount of approaches to any objective.

To summarize, Blue definitely doesn’t have the static advantages in thier side of the map, but with a proactive and highly mobile team in play, the Blue side is by far the easiest side of the map if you’re defending. You just need a lot of server wide coordination to make it work (as with any defense).

Edit: The key to dismantling Green is Jennifer’s Slough.
Once you have it, treb the hell out of Green Keep and laugh as Green can’t land counter-artillery on your trebs. (Kinda like the big hill SW of Red Overlook).

slow-building golf clap

Never thought that Edgar Allen Poe would be such an avid PvP’er.

Or alive, for that matter.
Props, sir.

Chakuna.6325:

Without nerfing (fixing) Mug, Backstab and the ability to endlessly spam Heartseeker; the Thief will have never been truly nerfed.
Guess we’ll just have to wait for the developers to get their heads out of their…

You sound like me during beta “Initiative is spammy”, and it fell on deaf ears.
Cute exaggeration with ‘endlessly’ when a Thief has to blow a cooldown or spent half of it’s global cooldown bar to get into stealth to perform Backstab.

Tulisin.6945:

drake.2135:

Try looking at Repeater and tell me that it doesn’t need a damage boost. Being a skill that requires no offhand, it really sucks when you factor in all that you lost to be able to use it, and it is not just the final two skills on your bar.

I’m all for trying to tune up all three of the X/empty #3 skills if they implement some way to have offhand stats or even skills with them. If not, they’re not worth the man-hours to try and make viable when they’re only ever going to be used during the first half hour of a new thieves’ life.

I’d be all for X/empty if it gave us baseline “Touch” skills like GW1 Assassins for the 4 and 5 slot.

Grimwolf.7163:

ROFL, look at the combat log!
Not only is he a glass-cannon Hundred Blades Warrior, but I’m pretty sure he killed the Thief after taking the full brunt of that burst XD

…And he’s the one here complaining about the Thief. I don’t think this is even a serious post.

These types are the reasons I can’t seriously listen to anyone who a.) doesn’t play a Thief and b.) complains about them.

Nemo.6295:

The better question would be how many times did we deserve to be nerfed?

BWE3 Heartseeker was pretty kitten powerful.

Beyond that, I’m not really sure why any of them were warranted.

ashleydoll.8563:

ragerant

Funny, I don’t recall Infiltrators being insanely overpowered, or Scouts, or Minstrels by themselves simply because they could stealth.

Y u putting werdz in mah mouf, mom?

It’s the fact that only Albion could Stealth an entire group of 2-hitter quitter classes coupled with speed 5, pet charming and AoE CC with the longest ranged sniper in the game (who could Stealth). If you show me the Thief that can do all that, I’ll sign the nerfbat petition, as I’m still waiting on someone to explain to me how I get this mythical 150 trait build people keep describing as reason behind begging for more Thief nerfs. (Apparently, 5 successive patches of Thief nerfs weren’t good enough for this community to figure out the problem isn’t the Thief)

You seem to assume that I was defending culling, which is the primary issue you’re having with WvW Stealth mechanics.

Get off your horse, Lady Godiva.
Don’t take replies so personally, I was highlighting the fact that aside from the Ranger and Thief (ironically) every class in this game regardless of weapon selection has multiple choices of CC to FORCE the Thief into the open.

Beyond Basilisk Venom, we can’t force our targets to do kitten.

Therefore, your entirely long-winded rant about how “annoying” Thieves are is utterly, and totally irrelevant to class balance.

It’s interesting you bring up DAoC though, because the counter to the nigh-God mode that was the “Light Tank” was (oh kitten, get this) STUN.

More to the point, with the examples listed in my original post (the one which clearly inflammed the living hell out of you somehow) I took the time to highlight the class gimick of the Thief, or shall I take the time to spell it out?

Rogues from WoW could stun-lock the living hell out of any target they happened upon, to counter what Anet apparently saw as an imbalancing feature if implemented in a game that lacks dedicated Healing classes, they apparently decided that the defensive/offensive pattern to the Thief would be intermittent periods of Stealth, which (at the Thief players’ discretion) could be used defensively or offensively, requiring a scaling sacrifice to the alternative.

If you played DAoC, that shouldn’t be that hard to understand, especially coming from someone retaliating in such a condescending manner, as if I’m the intellectually inferior individual in this conversation.

Red Falcon.8257:

I love how thief complainers only list WvW experiences as proof of OPness.
In WvW pvp nerfs are not applied, like in PvE.

Furthermore, you can Frenzy->Bull->100b and oneshot a person, OP, and that’s clearly the build you’re running; you come here saying thief is OP for 15k dmg in 3 skills when you deal 20k with 3 skills on top of your high armor and health?
Sorry but that sounds quite hypocritical.

Your signature needs to be imprinted into the minds of everyone on this forum before they are allowed to make balance suggestions.
+1

“So yes, a thief, when playing defensively, can nearly perma-stealth.”

Yes, as long as they never attack you, in which case you don’t need to worry about them because they are taking themselves out of the fight by not contributing to it. Attacking breaks Stealth, regardless of the duration of the Stealth boon remaining. This is a simple concept.

“Dodge roll in which direction? What if he is running away because he is on low health? How can you know that D/D thief is using Stealth offensively to get behind you and not defensively? Those you are proposing are only speculation, not actual counters.”

Did you even read what was typed? Because you’re only projecting more hyperbole to defend your opinion.
Of course it’s speculation, I’m not going to play your class for you, and it’d be a boring game if Anet designed it that way. These are hypothetical examples based on experience I have fighting other Thieves (i.e. Thieves do fight other Thieves, we don’t just sit there and stare at each others’ Stealthing effects) most Thief players are lulled into a sense of security in Stealth because of bad players who sit around when they lose the target lock and wait to get hit.
Stealth is purely a defensive mechanic, so all Thieves will either use Stealth to set up an attack (negating it’s defensive benefits, IMMEDIATELY), which prevents re-Stealth for 3 seconds, or sit in Stealth the full 4s and try to regen HP, drop conditions, regen initiative.
(Which are all defensive in nature, if he isn’t attacking he’s, what? Right! Defending!)

“Swiftness isn’t the only source of IMS. There is the passive signet plus some traits. Also, swiftness can be applied while in stealth (just a dodge) and, you know, you can’t see boons of a stealthed entity. Again, yours is only pure speculation.”

Clearly you’ve never played a Thief to any great length or you would notice that the passive effect of Signet of Shadows drops in combat. Meaning the Thief is no longer moving 25% faster. This and Fleet Shadow are the ONLY passive movement speed increases the Thief has access to.

Secondly, you’d have to be a piss-poor player to not be able to pressure a Thief enough while he’s Revealed not to force at least 2 dodge rolls. We only get 3 in a row with Feline Grace, and the Swiftness granted from Expeditious Dodger only lasts 2.6s if the Thief is 30 Acrobatics. Again, your reply denotes a serious misunderstanding of the capabilities of the Thief and I’m beginning to suspect intentional exaggeration on your behalf.

“Again, I see only speculations here. They can slot both traits, they aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Yeah, ArenaNet sure should nerf those 150 point Trait builds. Or do you know of a build that maintains the levels of burst damage you claim while retaining both Mug & 30 Critical + 30 Shadow & Fleet Shadow (that’d be 80 Trait points right there).

You “see only speculations” because that’s all you want to see. You are willfully remaining ignorant of FACT and trying to supplant objective reality on the issue with your own, subjective and narrow understanding of the Thief as a class.

“You don’t get the point.
Look at the suggestions you gave. Those need an huge amount of attention to be put on just one entity to counter a broken mechanic in order to have just an unsure chance to counter it.”

The problem isn’t my suggestions or the tactics I employ to counter Thieves myself the problem is a spoiled and entitled playerbase that are largely refusing to truly analyze and assess GW2’s class capabilities and develop effective counters to the one dimensional threat the Thief poses.

“You can’t afford to put all this attention to one enemy without ignoring the others, that’s the point.”

And your insistence to hold this argument as valid is getting you killed.
Prioritize your targets by threat-level. If you’ve had any experience in any competitive environment, you’d already intuitively understand this process. I’m having a hard time believing that you are refusing to accept this as true.

The Thief is two things:
High-end damage dealer.
Very squishy.

That makes them the Rattler at your feet.
Call target and stomp that Thief ASAP, because allowing yourself to get distracted by those other people over there is all the window a decent Thief needs to make you drop.

Infiltrator’s Arrow should be 1,200 range, imo. Reasoning:
It deals no damage.
1x 5s 130 radius AoE Blind is crap.
It’s clearly not intended as a “gap-closer” but as an escape/kiting mechanic.

In WvW for 6 Initiative I can spam HS’s leap twice and cover the same distance in relatively the same time frame and actually chip into someone if I’m using it to chase. Even as an escape HS spam is better than Infiltrator’s Arrow, especially if one of the Leaps takes you through a Smoke Field.

(However, in sPvP Infiltrator’s Arrow can be far more effective if you exploit design flaws in the maps, limited effectiveness in WvW maps/structure exploits.)

ashleydoll.8563:

Braxxus.2904:

Puandro.3245:

Thiefs havent been nerfed enough, but they need buffing in other areas.

Truth.

Man it would be nice to get rid of this whole invisibility alpha strike invisible trololo playstyle and make them more thiefy. More survivability through evades, blinds, interrupts and stuff. Swashbuckler/duelist like.

People would hate them less if it wasn’t for the same tired trololostealthyburststealthystealthy crap that keeps cropping up for the ganker class in mmo’s.

If you are familiar with Dark Age of Camelot, they had a set of classes exactly like this. They were considered “light armor” classes that were in between the warrior archetypes and the assassin archetypes. They wore mid-level armor and had a focus on “dirty fighting”, but did not involve any forms of stealth or invisibility. Instead, their focus was on positional combat, they would be more effective when attacking from the sides or from behind and when confronted with direct combat, their goal was to distract or evade.

They fulfilled the role of high melee DPS, positional combat and misdirection while not relying one bit on stealth and they were a highly effective PvP class. Considering that DAoC is an 11 year old game, if Mythic was able to implement this type of class back then, there’s no reason games can’t do it today.

Except for the fact that I played Midgard Morgan Le Fay from release and DAoC was nowhere NEAR balanced AT ALL.
Minstrel/Infiltrator/Scout Stealth Zergs sound familiar?

ashleydoll.8563:

“[…] It’s just a downer in general to fight Thieves, even if you’re able to beat them every time, it is annoying and not fun at all, you don’t feel as if you’re matching wits with them or comparing tactics, you just feel like you’re fighting someone who needs constant crutches. Stealth in general removes the need to think into the future, which I feel is a problem in any game. It just allows you to sit and wait for the opening to present itself, rather than having to make the opening yourself which is what every other class in the game has to do. […]”

This is where I stopped reading.
Reason:
Classes who have access to Stun / Immobilize / Fear / Daze (see also: Death Sentence for the Burst Thief) or can “make an opening for themselves instead of waiting around like a deer in headlights waiting to get hit”.

Elementalist:
Updraft, Shocking Aura, Earthquake, Signet of Earth, Gust, Static Field, Shockwave, Gale, Comet, Air Elemental (Elite), Debris Tornado, Any Arcane Utility used in Earth Attunement if Elemental Surge is slotted. , Magnetic Surge (Earth Shield), Static Field (Lightning Hammer), Wind Blast (Lightning Hammer).

Mesmer:
Mantra of Distraction, Signet of Domination, Magic Bullet, Diversion (Shatter), Moa Morph, Illusionary Leap’s “Swap”, Temporal Curtain’s “Into The Void”, Illusionary Reposte’s “Counter Blade”.

Necromancer:
Reaper’s Mark, Doom (DS), Chilling Wind, Rigor Mortis, Dark Pact, Wail of Doom.

Warrior:
Earthshaker (Burst), Backbreaker, Staggering Blow, Bull’s Charge, Endure Pain, Throw Bolas, Kick, Stomp, “Fear Me!”, Kick (Rampage), Throw Boulder (Rampage), Stomp (Rampage), Rifle Butt, Skull Crack, Tremor, Pommel Bash, Shield Bash, Pin Down, Flurry.

Ranger:
Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Concussion Shot, Entangle, Muddy Terrain.

Engineer:
Overcharged Shot, Net Shot, Thumper Turret, Thump, Net Turret, Electrified Net, Net Attack, Slick Shoes, Personal Battering Ram, Supply Drop, Throw Mine, Detonate, Glue Bomb, Big Ol’ Bomb, Air Blast, Explosive Rocket, Launch Concussion Barrage (Mortar Elite), Glue Shot, Magnetic Inversion, Static Shield, Throw Shield.

Guardian:
Binding Blade, Banish, Bane Signet, Signet of Wrath, Judgement (Tome of Wrath), Zealot’s Embrace, Ring of Warding, Shield of Absorption, Chains of Light, Hammer of Wisdom ‘Command’, Pacifism (Tome of Courage).

Thief: 1/2s Stun with Pistol Whip, 1s KD from Scorpion Wire, 3s KD from Tripwire (Trap), 1/4s Daze with headshot, 2s Daze with Tactical Strike (Sword Stealth attack), Devourer Venom, Basilisk Venom, Needle Trap, Thieves Guild (Melee Thief will use Scorpion Wire on first attack).

You were saying something about waiting for an opening?
Because, by the numbers- it looks like the only class that statement would ever be true for the Ranger and the Thief. Subtract Stealth from the Thief (a self inflicted form of Crowd Control) and you’d have a subpar melee class comparable to the Ranger in melee dps.

Zgroza Czarnych.6190:

If no 1 can kill me on 20 lvl thief only different thief this is not good ?
Trust me I play ranger without armor and I have more frags then meny ppl and thief is facking shlt in GW2.

Video evidence of you on a level 20 Thief God-mode-status in WvW or you’re lying out of your kitten
Upload date must be within 11/15/2012 to Present.

I won’t wait because anyone who has played an upleveled Thief (see also, below level 80) is just as useless as a GS Ranger, and twice as squishy.

buki.3108:

Thieves are the only class that lacks counter-play. Stealth has no counter – bad design. It reduces the possible actions the opponent can use. 5 > F1 > 1 is not skill.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/balancing-for-skill

What’s really funny, is the video you linked directly shatters your own argument.
You claim that Steal>C&D>BS combo requires no skill, then you link a video that effectively supports it’s existence because in the higher tiers of STRUCTUREDPvP, Backstab Thieves are as rare as GS Warriors.

Obvious troll is obvious.

More to the point, if you think Stealth has no counters it’s clear to every Thief player in the community that you have no clue what you’re talking about.

bwillb.2165:

Good? e-sports just bring out certain whining idiots that want to nerf anything they don’t play. Look at WoW and its arena e-sports… A certain class got nerfed so much that they have to drastically buff it now, several years later, just so it stands a chance in cooperative play.

I believe they are called “sore losers”.

I’m willing to throw you a bone. Here’s a guide to countering Stealth.

“How can you actually estimate the route of an invisible entity”

We’re not invisible all the time, we have to come out of Stealth eventually and we have 3 skills total that don’t require we hit you to Stealth us. Most Thieves rely too heavily on Stealth because of people who give up trying to hit us just because you can’t see us.
Tip: The direction the Thief is heading before he/she stealths is, get this, the same direction they’re heading after Stealthing.

“How can you know if he want to disengage the fight or land a backstab behind you?”

Simple, Pistol Dagger will typically put distance (i.e. dodge roll backwards) after Stealthing.
Dagger Dagger (Sword Dagger, too) will typically close the distance or position (refer to answer one for assessing their specific heading, i.e. to your left or right) themselves to your 90-degree rear arc for the backstab damage (for the Daze if Sword Dagger).
Deductive Logic does wonders against Thieves.

“How can you know the average movement speed of the thief?”

Do you see a Swiftness icon when they dodge-roll? Yes? Anticipate. No? Average movement speed for ANY CHARACTER IN THE GAME IN COMBAT.

“How can you know if he is using the Fleet Shadow trait?”

If it’s direct damage, and Steal doesn’t hurt, they have Fleet Shadow. If they don’t hurt with Steal (i.e. Mug isn’t slotted), yet gain Might on a dodge, or Vigor after popping their heal- they don’t have it slotted.
If it’s conditions, Power of Inertia is a much better trait to slot in the Adept bracket, anyway- so if they gain Might and Swiftness for simply dodge-rolling, you know what they are using.
Pay. Attention.

“Your suggestions seems lacking in foundations and are based on hypothetical 1vs1 situation where you can give all your attention to your enemy, which is less than 10% of the actual encounters.”

(If the above is what you’re thinking after reading this, see my reply below.)

I think we found your problem.
Go back to a game where you can mentally check out in PvP and just faceroll your macro’d rotation for the win. GW2 actually requires that you pay attention to the fight, ‘anticipate and counter’.
If you aren’t doing that, you’re dead.
It’s actually not very dissimilar to actual combat in this regard.

As a side note (errata):

If you want to believe/hold the opinion that the Thief is a “cheap” class made for people who want an easy mode victory, please roll a Thief, play it to 80 AND spend at least 50 Tourney games as the Thief build you hate the most.

I promise you that you will quickly see that the Thief is only as lethal as you’ve experienced because you encountered a very good Thief player who understands the nuances of the class they are playing.

The Thief, in real-world military terms, fights with the advantage of Asymeteric Warfare (Special Forces, Guerrila Fighters, ‘Minute Men’ to name a few modern and historic examples of military units who employ AW.) and much like these examples, when properly countered or stripped of their advantages they are typically some of the weakest front-line fighting units- because that’s not what they are geared/trained/oriented to doing.

And lastly, if this still doesn’t sit well with you- know that OBL probably shares your sentiment of AW (just instead of Thieves, he’s QQ’ing about DEVGRU.)

Otaur.9268:

You obviously do not understand. It says, armor/toughness does nothing to( lessen the severity of) the damage. Please at the very least learn to read before posting.

" Armor / Toughness does nothing to mitigate the damage and I know this for a fact. " -literally copy/pasted from your comment.

You obviously can’t very plainly see what was written. If you meant something else, you should have typed it. You can’t insult someone for “not reading my intended message” because they read the message you actually posted.

Bren Ranger.3725:

Thankyou for the detailed reply. I dont know why i didn’t just fall back to this. I used to run this very build, granted a few traits options we’re different and it really is an amazing build.

Thanks again, happy hunting.

Edit: Though when i ran it i was using Valkyrie armor for some added Vitality. It will be interesting to see how the full zerker goes.

Going from Valk to Zerk, you’ll notice a massive increase in critical hit occurance (and spikes from Sigil of Fire) but you’ll also notice that this build is far less forgiving and you’ll have to plan your ambushes in advance. Hitting a group with more than 2 heavy armor classes is almost guaranteed to end poorly.

sorrow.2364:

So, let’s get straight.
How can you actually estimate the route of an invisible entity? How can you know if he want to disengage the fight or land a backstab behind you? How can you know, if he want to leave, in which direction did he lead to? How can you know the average movement speed of the thief? How can you know if he is using the Fleet Shadow trait?
Your suggestions seems lacking in foundations and are based on hypothetical 1vs1 situation where you can give all your attention to your enemy, which is less than 10% of the actual encounters.

So, no. Stealth hasn’t a real counter without considering luck.

“How can you actually estimate the route of an invisible entity”

-We’re not invisible all the time, we have to come out of Stealth eventually and we have 3 skills total that don’t require we hit you to Stealth us. Most Thieves rely too heavily on Stealth because of people who give up trying to hit us just because you can’t see us.
Tip: The direction the Thief is heading before he/she stealths is, get this, the same direction they’re heading after Stealthing.

“How can you know if he want to disengage the fight or land a backstab behind you?”

Simple, Pistol Dagger will typically put distance (i.e. dodge roll backwards) after Stealthing.
Dagger Dagger (Sword Dagger, too) will typically close the distance or position (refer to answer one for assessing their specific heading, i.e. to your left or right) themselves to your 90-degree rear arc for the backstab damage (for the Daze if Sword Dagger).
Deductive Logic does wonders against Thieves.

“How can you know the average movement speed of the thief?”

Do you see a Swiftness icon when they dodge-roll? Yes? Anticipate. No? Average movement speed for ANY CHARACTER IN THE GAME IN COMBAT.

“How can you know if he is using the Fleet Shadow trait?”
If it’s direct damage, and Steal doesn’t hurt, they have Fleet Shadow. If they don’t hurt with Steal (i.e. Mug isn’t slotted), yet gain Might on a dodge, or Vigor after popping their heal- they don’t have it slotted.
If it’s conditions, Power of Inertia is a much better trait to slot in the Adept bracket, anyway- so if they gain Might and Swiftness for simply dodge-rolling, you know what they are using.
Pay. Attention.

“Your suggestions seems lacking in foundations and are based on hypothetical 1vs1 situation where you can give all your attention to your enemy, which is less than 10% of the actual encounters.”

And I think we found your problem.
Go back to a game where you can mentally check out in PvP and just faceroll your macro’d rotation for the win. GW2 actually requires that you pay attention to the fight, ‘anticipate and counter’.
If you aren’t doing that, you’re dead.
It’s actually not very dissimilar to actual combat in this regard.

-Body Shot:
Damage now scales based on target’s current HP pool, dealing more damage the less health the target has.
> 50%: 9,000
< 50%: 19,000
< 25%: Lolgetstomped.

Head Shot: (PvE version)
This skill will now be instant cast, and is now a 2s Daze if used while Flanking.
4 Initiative

Black Powder: (PvE version)
This skill has been redesigned to allow off-hand Pistol builds more access to initiative based Stealthing mechanics, and will no longer cause a Projectile Finisher, but a Blast Finisher the triggers immediately after Smoke Field creation. This effect will still combo with itself. Granting Area Stealth.

Avigrus.2871:

Tulisin.6945:

Clark Skinner.4902:

I have asked on here about how to deal with stealth thieves before and all people said was “use AoE”.

Either read their stealth and track/kill them,

Lol, good luck with that stealth reading…

Never played ‘Battleship’, did you?

This is what I usually rock for WvW.
(Full Zerker exotic armor/weapons/jewelry)

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=Vc33V-FGSwkZ0J5VOFd0;9;49TT;02;029B45A;45Nl0-Nl6G3G3G3G35BFR

Con’s:
-Low HP (11.5k)
-Low(ish) Armor (2.2k)
-No AoE aside from Cluster Bomb spam
-12 Initiative “pool”.

Pro’s:
-#1 slot chain usually totals for 6-7k.
-7-8k backstabs, 9-10k+ if Fire procs.
-BP is an awesome emergency Stealth.
-SR is a Might stacking machine + Group Stealth/Heal/Stomp-Stopper.
-Cloak and Dagger returns 2 Initiative when it Stealths you.
-Whenever you gain the Stealth buff:
—You blind enemies near you (240 Radius, 5s Blind).
—You gain roughly ~302hp/sec while Stealthed with only 300 Compassion from traits.
—You gain 2x 15s Might when you enter Stealth.
—You gain +2 Initiative.
(These effects compound when 2 Thieves sharing this build run a “Wolfpack”, as all the benefits are universal upon gaining Stealth. The source of the Stealth you gain is irrelevant.)

With the Rejuv effect from Stealth plus high-end burst damage, this build can easily 1v4/5 against equally geared/leveled opponents (assuming it isn’t a premade team w/ voice comms. If you’re good/lucky it’s still doable, but you have enough Stealth escapes that if you can’t beat them- you can safely bug-out or shadow them for a more opportune moment to strike.)

It’s still glass, but the excessive Stealth makes your survivability skyrocket. You could probably replace a lot of the Zerker gear for Knights and retain similar effectiveness, but with the 4s of Stealth and free Blinding Powder Blind every time I stealth, I’m not really getting focused enough to warrant any additional toughness.

However, if you are facing a lot of Condition-oriented builds, swap Cloaked in Shadow for Shadow’s Embrace.

Auesis.7301:

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

Auesis.7301:

buki.3108:

So… if you all say there is a counter to stealth, can you even name one?

See where he stealthed? Keep swinging. Thief dies. You win.

I can go ahead and assume by that response that you sit idly and wait for your death the moment the Thief disappears. I see that way too often, and it saddens me.

See tho, when I play my thief I tend to stay away from the kitten swinging his/her sword…. Just sayin, you can’t treat the thief as a piece of wood, they can think and move out of the way much easier than you can swing your sword in the right direction.

But honestly, the easiest way to kill a thief with half a brain is to immobilize or knock’em down then lay into him. (More important against P/D thieves with more health than D/D lolz builds)

That’s not exactly what I meant. You saw where he stealthed – now take in to account your positioning and either swing away where you think he will try and move, or just aoe the kitten out of yourself after waiting for half a second or so. Thief vs Thief, if someone stealths against me, I just Cluster Bomb the floor and they’re usually dead before they’ve even landed a stealth hit. Failing that, just immobilise/CC them immediately, and they’re already sitting ducks.

Exactly.

1.) Thief is raising it’s right hand into the air.
2.) Note direction and average movement speed of Thief.
3.) Estimate projected travel route.
4.) Spam auto-attack, watch to see if your AA Chain progresses to the next attacks.
5.) Profit.

It’s like people forgot how to play ‘Battleship’. I know I get a certain smug satisfaction when I land a Backstab on another Thief who ran into their Shadow Refuge.
Stealth really isn’t crap when you know how to counter it.

Zgroza Czarnych.6190:

buki.3108:

The thief class is basically the noobtube of this game. It is designed for less skilled players to feel like they can compete and have fun with more experienced players. The class won’t be nerfed – it’s a marketing tool to include all players, even noobs, in PvP.

Absolutly true.

If by true, you in fact mean, “I refuse to adjust my presuppositions about this game to adapt to the battlefield conditions and deal with the opponents as Anet designed them” – then yes, that’s true.

Zgroza Czarnych.6190:

Sang.3641:

Air.6452:

The whole point of a thief is to be stealthy…. I really am saddened by peoples response to this…

kitten it, if we want to make classes more fair then lets make all the classes even:

- Remove stealth on thief
- Remove clones on mesmer
- Remove 100 swords (Or whatever its called) from Warriors
- Remove full heals and barriers from Guardian
- Remove minions from necro
- Remove attunements from elementalists

Seriously, the class is fine. Latency issues exist, sure, but that has nothing to do with the class. Stealth makes thieves who they are, without it, they are a pointless class.

Im sad as a Ranger we have nothing you felt worth listing

On topic, if a thief is hit in stealth it should drag him out to allow people who see a thief coming or are fighting a thief have a chance to counter stealth by using an AoE or swinging their weapon.

If thief cant kill and other char in 2-3 sec it is noob thief.
And more if AN do nothing with Stealth on end 2012 Y. I stop playing in GW2.

Let me be the first to say, “Aufedersein”

Kurow.6973:

Shizzlenit.7648:

I call BS.

Welcome to the thief sub-forum…where it’s non-stop BS and exaggeration.

QFT’d

Doomdesire.9365:

Braxxus.2904:

About 1/10th of the times thieves should have been nerfed.
At least until culling is fixed, then balance is restored.

Though the whole “lol I R invisible and gank you with bursty burst then vanish and run away if I get in trouble” playstyle as a whole should stop being put in games. It will never be liked except by the people who like to abuse it and the QQ will always exist about it because it’s just lame to play against in every game that’s had a thief/rogue/assassin class since the dawn of time.

Warrior – endure pain, absorb backstab

Was that too hard to think of?

From what I’ve been reading on these forums since release, “yes”.
LOL

Kaizer.7135:

Zgroza Czarnych.6190:

miringains.8653:

They should delete the thief class in this game, as they have done such a bad job making it worth playing, not enough beta tests I guess. Nerf the class to the ground like in SWTOR and then loose most players, this game will be truly f2p in no time.

Its true this is stupid 1 thief like from different game.

Dude you cry about every single thing, I bet if you uploaded a video of you playing it’d be funny as hell because you’d be so bad. I usually don’t say this but, Learn To Play.

If backstab gets nerfed and NOTHING else gets buffed, this class will only have P/D condition thief to run because of the lack of options ANet gives for other builds.

My guess is that he’s a clicker.
The irony is that he’s calling other people ‘noobs’ for learning the playstyle of their class or at least having the humility to mimic successful Thieves.

I swear man, I really need to find one of those 5 weapon sets, 150 trait point builds and be as easy mode as all these Thieves people are complaining about.

Elthurien.8356:

Braxxus.2904:

Puandro.3245:

Thiefs havent been nerfed enough, but they need buffing in other areas.

Truth.

Man it would be nice to get rid of this whole invisibility alpha strike invisible trololo playstyle and make them more thiefy. More survivability through evades, blinds, interrupts and stuff. Swashbuckler/duelist like.

People would hate them less if it wasn’t for the same tired trololostealthyburststealthystealthy crap that keeps cropping up for the ganker class in mmo’s.

I would love this. Get rid of Stealth, Shadowsteps, Venoms and Traps and replace with thief abilities not assassin abilities.

Why not just roll a warrior instead of destroying a class that Anet designed for this game.

Kaizer.7135:

Wow. and you failed to kill him even though you have a KD, Invulnerability and Haste? If you did kill him, you have no right to complain.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed the massive amount of irony in this post when it’s a HB+BC+Frenzy warrior who’s complaining.

‘Endure Pain’ 90s Cooldown
Breaks Stun
You take no damage from incoming attacks.
5s Duration

^ If you sat through a Basilisk Venom waiting for the Backstab you deserved it, especially with that as one of your utilities.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Doomdesire.9365:

Dodging CnD is a thief killer. 5 ini down the drain. You cannot fully recover from that unless you pack blinding powder/shadow refuge. Also, immobilize, daze, stun, knockdown…us thieves hate all of those really bad

Backstab thief

Necro : External armor – absorb backstab
ele – mist form, absorb backstab
Warrior – endure pain, absorb backstab
Mesmer – invulnerability, absorb backstab
Guardian – aegis, absorb backstab
Thief – blind, stealth
Engineer – Place turrets to daze, immobilize
Ranger – I think they also have an invulnerability, not sure. If not, knockdown, aoes cripple, traps

Did I miss anything?

Ranger’s Protect Me. Makes the pet take the damage instead. Quite useful for that sort of thing when it’s not on cooldown.

Not to mention Beastmaster’s Signet + Signet of Stone = Ranger + Pet ‘Endure Pain’.

Alex.6940:

If a thief is dealing a lot of damage then they’re also going to die quickly if you can hit them. Try to use some stun or immobilise them them burst them down if you can. They should have some sort of stun breaker, such as shadow step, so you may have to try and CC them a few times. When they are in stealth then just use aoe attacks.

Some builds rely on pulling off stealth attacks like backstab. Their damage outside of these attacks is generally quite manageable. Try and create some distance if you think a thief is going to backstab you or some aoe CC, such as updraft. Just moving and turning around so the thief may hit you from the front will half the damage of backstab. Apart from shadow refuge, all the stealths a thief can use only last a few seconds.

I would recommend trying a glass cannon build and just see how people counter it and the difficulties in pulling off some of the stealth attacks. Once you know how to deal with it they’re generally as easy to handle as 100b warriors.

Oh. My.
God.

Did I really just read what I think I did?
An Elementalist who knows that Thieves aren’t OP at all, but that they just require a specific set of tactics to easily dismiss?
Alex, I commend you on your perceptiveness and situational awareness.
+1 for you, sir. From a Backstab Thief.

Endure Pain > Backstab.
All day, err’ day.

klarkc.3754:

A question comes in my Mind,

I wanna play with sword, because I am in the half way of my Legendary.

So Sword + dagger is really viable in a condition dmg build? Sword does not have any bleed hability. And Pistol Whip seems to be not feasible.

Edit: SRy, I didn’t saw you advice about S/D.

So Sword is not good in any tanking/stealth build… Sad.. It’s very weird cause sword have a lot of control skills oO

Oh no, don’t get me wrong:
Sword Dagger is an awesome weapon combo, it’s playstyle is very different from the one you originally said you wanted to fill is all.

In my experience, Sword+Dagger is more or less about completely locking down a single opponent with the Daze from Tactical Strike and the utility skills taken for that build are meant to then supplement that strength. Usually something like this:
(Copy + Paste if it gives you the ‘Bad Link’ error)
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cF3V-FGSw-c0J5VOFd0;9;49TT;02;025A45A;4CNl8;2DsV2DsV28BM

Sword + Dagger is typically something to that effect, meant to just completely debilitate your opponent. (Plays a lot like Stun-Locking Rogues from WoW.) But it is not a condition damage based build at all. Sword is purely direct damage.