Guild Wars 2

Tynan.6279:

Avigrus.2871:

I think that once a thief engages a target, there should be a cooldown before they can re-enter stealth…

There is although it is way to short, it should be more similar to other popular MMO’s not needing mentioned. Make the stealth cool down after engaging longer and then give the Thiefs a 60 sec cooldown vanish utility skill again similar to the other MMO’s.

Wow, that is way too long.

Combat in this game is much much shorter than 60 secs.

Tanky builds can kill each other faster than that.

I would say 5-7 secs. IF they were to extend the reveal bug, but that serious hurts our DPS and survivability.

If they would do something like that, they would have to buff us more with defense. More base health. Maybe add something to other abilities that will allow us to tank a bit better or they would have to make our burst even stronger.

Any way you look at it, if they nerf something. Then they have to buff something in order to keep some balance and then people will be complaining about that.

Khyras.8021:

Skyro.3108:

Personally I like fighting Mesmers and Thieves, it is an interesting cat and mouse game trying to bait out certain skills. But of course you have to know what to be looking for. I think this is where most casual players find issues. They don’t go the extra mile to learn their opponent and in that case thieves and mesmers can be very frustrating to play against.

I guess their overabundance in hot join can get old pretty quickly though, but I avoid hot join unless I’m just testing a new build or something. The majority of the playerbase is in hot join though so this is where the devs have to balance catering to casuals and people who know how to play correctly.

You just called people who agree with OP a bunch of noobs who dont know how to play against thieves and mesmers.There is no way that game is actually better without cheap classes like mesmers and thieves?
Players like you are the reason why i dont like MMOs.You comment disgusts me, sir.

You are too emotionally invested in an MMO.

Yea P/D is a fun build. Very versatile and I really like it in dungeons. Did it in Arah last night and I went down once. I only went down because my team trained a mob on me lol.

Solori.6025:

Kirei.1792:

Archonis, almost all the top teams in eu have a thief. but why would you say that u would prefer a ele instead of a thief? i think most teams have both?

Backstab Thief isn’t really all that desired in TPvP unless you team is synergizing arouns it.
Thats what you said…
in eu its so desired. i really hope that NA will come to EU and feel what the difference
and thief is better roamer than elementalist lol. and a thief can kill certain things what ele can’t. having no thief in team fighting against full bunker class is not do able. but maybe na thiefs are bad (i don’t know it) but im getting the impression that they think really lowly of thiefs.

Most thief roamers that i have seen are used to kill the weakest link, help in point battles by picking off the squishy, or bursting the burst mesmers.
Bunkers I have seen can hold off 1 -2 people on a point wether it be a theif+ or an Ele+
Maybe its because of that fact people dont use theif roamers, because an ele can sit in combat and has a little more CC than a theif , while being just as mobile.

Yea, a Thief is great at fulfilling the word Roaming. He is very mobile and can get around the map fast, but when met with the slightest resistance you have to (most times) back off. With an Elementalist you can engage where a Thief cannot. There really isn’t a vice versa. So to me Elementalist is a better roamer than thief, simply because he can burst and has much better survivability without having to break combat and control a lightly defended point.

Yes they stack, but the bleed is only 1 sec for Uncatchable.

Uncatchable is best in the situation that you want to keep someone from keeping up with you. Caltrops is about the stacks and damage and Uncatchable is about the utility.

I use Uncatchable to give a couple extra stacks of bleed and when Caltrops is down it help keep my distance until I want to CnD.

I have thought about switching out to the steal buff. It really isn’t a big deal without it, but I just got used to it.

Kolly.9872:

I always kill thieves.. on my thief the majority of them suck

Troof.

There are a metric kitten ton of bad Thieves. That is why I am gob smacked at why so many people are crying OP.

Most thieves that I see are Pow/Pre Backstab thieves and I absolutely own them with my tanky thief with P/D. I love it when they stealth. I wait a couple secs, stealth. Then stack my bleeds from stealth after they pop out. Rinse repeat till the scrub Thief is dead, never hitting me with his burst at all.

Also, if you are going solo and crying about 1v1’s in WvW. Then you are bad and making worse decisions. Sorry, has to be said. WvW is about small and large groups working together dynamically to take the map. Not Rambo running around and killing the Sheriff’s Department in Hope, Washington.

Protip: going in WvW solo, you;re going to have a bad time. (especially against thieves)

Bull Rush is great against bad Thieves. It really is. I don’t think that I am the greatest at Warrior, but when I am on my Warrior alt. I have zero problems with Thieves (not sure if it comes from my experience with Thieves or there are just a lot of bad ones). Though I also don’t play glass cannon GS/Frenzy either. So that might have something to do with it.

There are many abilities across all profession that can be devastating that can be easily avoided. You just have to be familiar with them and learn your enemy. Once you do that, there is nothing to worry about.

Good burst Thieves had to learn very early to watch their opponents. Because one slip, we are worm food. If you are playing in 8v8s, then that would explain having a hard time if you are a Pow Pre Warrior. So much chaos and it is easy as a Thief to pick people off without much effort.

If you need some help against Thieve or want to practice. I have no problem meeting up with you and giving you some pointers in SPvP dueling.

Arheundel.6451:

Donedusted.9846:

Have seen a few comments lately about people going into s/tpvp matches where there are no thieves or mesmers and reporting back that it was a lot more fun.

Just wanted to say that I have recently played a few matches in a row where this also happened to me and…wow. Just wow. Suddenly instead of frustration and rage, I was having fun. The matches were all really, really close. Fights were an absolute blast. Everyone enjoyed themselves. I was killed quite a few times but the thing is…I didn’t care. When I was killed, I was killed fair and square and it always felt like I was outplayed and outskilled. When I landed a kill, it was for the same reason.

From now on, I am going to self-select my matches so I can continue to enjoy myself in pvp. If there is more than one of either class, I’m just going to leave the map and find another. It may take a while to find a map, but it’s worth it so I can enjoy the game again.

TL:DR. Hot join can be fun, you just have to do the balancing yourself. Avoid matches containing thieves and mesmers and you can start enjoying yourself in pvp again.

Fighting a mesmer is not a problem, actually it’s a welcome challenge because if you lose is because you’ve outplayed, you can see a mesmer coming and you can see through its tricks.
But thieves are something else, nothing but a bunch of cowards running around in stealth ( shadow refuge, CnD, hide in shadows etc etc), the “high rank” thieves normally sit behind a zerg and call target..then go stealth..and “take credit” for the kill after backstabbing to death the target…after that they really think to be pro..amusing.
The stealth mechanism is really broken and should be removed, substituted with something else like the shadow step from GW1.
It takes 0 skills to go stealth while wearing full berseker armour and then attacking somedoby from the back when he’s fightning somebody else ( because of course cowards will never face you when alone).
At the very least the stealth debuff should be something like 7-10s so thiefs can get punished for failing to kill a target

You know that Mesmers also use stealth, along with playing the peanut shuffle game. I find that more annoying that a short stealth with a burst that can easily be avoided with simple tactical awareness.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckMzc0zMMnbFoMMxvm9MxGGmVqcack8khG7kiO70z707khG7khf7kGW70V7owZ70m

Here is my build that I use in WvW, SPvP and PvE Dungeons. I am able to tank decently, hold and take points and almost always stop glass cannons. I get out a lot of bleeds and keep constant damage while paying attention to my surroundings. I use Shadows Refuge to help heal and give Lifesteal, also I use it to pick up people if they have mobs on them.

I get Carrion gear and put Crest of Soldier on them for the extra health and toughness (I have about 20K health in PvE and WvW along with more toughness). In PvP I use Rune of The Undead.

The build is centered around going into stealth and cleansing conditions, using the stealth attack to stack bleeds, using caltrops to add more bleeds, Roll for Initiative for a stun break and initiative regen (you could also use Shadowstep if you aren’t too worried about initiative, but I use RFI because I can do a little more DPS and it helps with SB if I need more for bleeds, mobility or trick shot spam). Depending on your fight switch out Bladestorm for Thieves guild if you are fighting one or two people. More I recommend Bladestorm (plus it adds more bleeds and snares).

If you have any other questions hit me up.

With my build you can tank. Not face tank, but you can hold aggro and keep mobs busy while you tank gets pulled up. Also take some big hits.

or you could learn how to counter them.

Rhysati.4932:

Could you post a link to a skill builder with your setup Archonis? Interested in taking a look at what traits you take in each line.

Also curious what sort of stats you go for on your gear. Do you feel your traits give you enough vita and toughness that you can focus primarily on Condition or Power on your gear?

I will post it in a bit. Currently at the family’s house for Christmas.

Kylex.5962:

Archonis.7249:

Well. I am just going to reiterate what I put on your YT vid, plus some.

First off, you created a situation that was a perfect storm for the Thief to pull this off. If this was actual gameplay in a SPvP match, then you have a lot more to worry about than a Theif doing this combo. What I mean by that is you were just standing there, doing nothing. Not on the point and from what I can tell you were built as a bunker Gaurdian, where you should of been. You weren’t panning your camera, so awareness wasn’t to be had. Also your camera was tight on your character. So to me, this is all a set up. Especially seeing that your combat log was the only thing open in conjunction to all of the above.

With all that being said, that this is a setup. The reason that I am so negative on this is because. You can make any situation look OP or imbalanced. You can make an Assault rifle look OP to a Tank. Let the tank just sit there not moving and unloaded with the flap to the driver open as the person with the assault rifle unloads it into the compartment.

This combo has been around for ages, as one person in this thread has said. To say that Thieves in general aren’t aware of Heartseeker is just hilarious. Why has it been nerfed so many times and so much? (Though as a Thief I do agree with the nerf, it was slightly OP and benefited too much from spamming) It was nerfed because Thieves consistently used it and had tons of outcry. Also to the individual that said Heartseeker was channeling, that ability is an instant. Not a channel, as soon as you hit 2 the animation and damage normaly happens within about .5 secs and under the influence of Haste, it would be .25 secs.

People need to leave their egos at the door in PvP. I know that it is hard to, but that is what separates bad players from great players.

Guess I will end this now, since I don’t want to crash the servers with all this text.

It wasn’t my vid but we was trying to create a tester situation pulled ON a bunker guardian, and if you want to think its “staged” yes… lets put this in a real situation, where somebody is already attacking the guardian with condis ect. maybe even get an ele to updraft guardian so he cant stunbreak it, and thief opens so its 2s of free dps time.

i don’t have any major problem with the damage BUT if you gave every class the ability to do this. would you call it a balanced game? “1 shot fest” just 1 shotting each others inc bunkers.

but as i said only 1 thief is able to pull this off as of now but that’s due to small community.
more players = more skilled players = more complaints of these things

Edit: Can people not post pointless things if they have no experience at current high end tpvp. its pointless hearing peoples opinions who do spvp or wvw since they have never had it happen to them.

Not sure if you are saying that it is unfair if that Bunker Guard is getting CC’d and then bursted by the Thief? IF you are, then what? Is a Bunker Guard supposed to tank and beat everyone?

In hot join 8v8, 1 shot burst seems to be the name of the game. That is what is most effective (which I think is terrible for PvP). In 5v5 and Tourneys, not so much. Balanced builds and good team composition rule the day there. If you take a 5 man Burst team into a Tourney (especially Paid), they will get destroyed. That is why a majority of PUGs get stomped in Free Tourneys.

More people does mean that you will get more skilled players, but up to 70% of those new players are going to be bad and want ANet to balance around their bad play.

I don’t know if you are directing the edit to me, but I primarily do nothing but TPvP.

Backstab Thief isn’t really all that desired in TPvP unless you team is synergizing arouns it. There are much more sturdy Burst DPS that can roam. I am not saying that Thief is useless in Tourneys, but if you had a choice. You would take an Ele roaming DPS before you would take a Thief for that role.

There are only a few stellar Thieves that you will run into in Paid tourneys. The rest including myself are alright.

I roll with a 0/0/30/20/20 P/D SB Condi build. Utilities are Caltrops, Roll for Initiative and Shadows Refuge for lifesteal and rezzing. Elite I bounce between Thieves Guild if a single boss fight and Bladestorm if a multiple boss or trash mobs.

I rarely get put in the down state and I have bleeds going all over the place. It is a very good build for dungeons. I have had quite a few people compliment me on it and were thankful that they didn’t have to babysit me in a downstate.

I have never said anything about Mesmers being overpowered. I think that I mentioned once that the Shatter bug is pretty strong and I don’t think that Anet intended that. I never call nerf on a profession. Never have and never will. I defend the Thief often because there are numerous “OMGERD THEIVEZ IZ OP!” and plenty of incorrect information about Thieves OPness.

You seem really heated over a game man. I might suggest that you take some time off and spend it with your family this holiday season.

Fynd.4890:

A+ lifetime thief apologist wall of text, will read again.

Based on your previous hyperbolic posts about Thieves. I don’t think reading this will help you understand what I am saying.

PS: Not a wall of text, I used proper sentence and paragraph structure along with punctuation and capitalization.

Nice troll attemped. I give it a 6/10 and you were a little pitchy dawg.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Archonis.7249:

70% of the players in this game have very low skill, about 20% have moderate skill, 8% have high skill and 2% are the elite. When you listen to the 70% in terms of balance, you will have a serverly imbalanced game. I hate to sound elitist, but you never hear of the higher skilled players complaining too much about balance. You always hear it from the people that are playing at a low skill level or those new to the game and finally people that are just playing FOTM builds.

Good, rational post overall, but I’m sorry—we cannot continue expecting new players to stick around long enough to learn to counter this. My personal suggestion, rather than nerfing thieves, would be to remove 8v8 hotjoin and replace it with something that’s not a glory farm for burst+mobility professions. That, coupled with tournament matchmaking, would soften the huge insult new PvPers receive when they try their first few matches.

Anet can’t sustain a top-balanced game that’s only fun after you’ve spent ~10 hours improving your reaction time (call it L2P—reflexes are all it is).

Thanks.

I agree that 8v8 should be removed. I was opposed to them in beta and still am. It doesn’t help newbies to GW2 how to appropriately PvP and is actually a detriment to them when starting tourneys.

In 8v8 like you said, it is all about the burst. There isn’t a team element going on, it is people going after the glory. Not learning their build, not learning how their build works together with others and not being able to learn from their opponents. Most times in 8v8, you have to study your combat log to find out why your butthole just got shot through your mouth in less than 1 sec because of all the chaos.

I am not really saying L2P in an offensive sense. I am saying learn how to play as in take the time to understand your profession, your role and how you fit in a team and not to play against it and expect to succeed.

Well. I am just going to reiterate what I put on your YT vid, plus some.

First off, you created a situation that was a perfect storm for the Thief to pull this off. If this was actual gameplay in a SPvP match, then you have a lot more to worry about than a Theif doing this combo. What I mean by that is you were just standing there, doing nothing. Not on the point and from what I can tell you were built as a bunker Gaurdian, where you should of been. You weren’t panning your camera, so awareness wasn’t to be had. Also your camera was tight on your character. So to me, this is all a set up. Especially seeing that your combat log was the only thing open in conjunction to all of the above.

With all that being said, that this is a setup. The reason that I am so negative on this is because. You can make any situation look OP or imbalanced. You can make an Assault rifle look OP to a Tank. Let the tank just sit there not moving and unloaded with the flap to the driver open as the person with the assault rifle unloads it into the compartment.

This combo has been around for ages, as one person in this thread has said. To say that Thieves in general aren’t aware of Heartseeker is just hilarious. Why has it been nerfed so many times and so much? (Though as a Thief I do agree with the nerf, it was slightly OP and benefited too much from spamming) It was nerfed because Thieves consistently used it and had tons of outcry. Also to the individual that said Heartseeker was channeling, that ability is an instant. Not a channel, as soon as you hit 2 the animation and damage normaly happens within about .5 secs and under the influence of Haste, it would be .25 secs.

Now after that TLDR that I made. I will get to the heart of this issue. What I think happened here (talking about the combo itself) is that every ability sans the Stealth animation was affected by haste. If the Stealth animation was tied into the haste, then you would of seen the Thief completely as he Heartseekered you and got you with the Coupe de Grace that put you in the down state.

Now, even more important. That fact that you couldn’t see the Thief because of the Stealth animation running at normal speed, didn’t mean that you were going to be any less dead. You were dead as soon as you got hit with the Basilisk Venom. The haste just sped that up is all. If the Thief didn’t use haste, then you could of easily avoided that opener. I personally think that Haste is the worst ability that they have in the game to be honest. I think that the ability makes strong openers too strong and it should be removed. After all that, even with the Thief using Haste. You could of still avoided this burst opener, simply by being aware of your surroundings and play more defensively. You have to make the Thief waste his burst (as a Gaurdian it is pretty easy) and if he has Haste, he has 0 endurance and you can follow up with a burst opener on him and 99% of the time kill him.

So many people play their builds outside of their roles and don’t take the time to understand thier builds strengths and weaknesses. They see a youtube video or see someone posting a build that they are really successful with and people copy/paste it to their character and expect the build to carry them without any thought of the meta involved. Also there is a lot of players that create the uber deeps and uber tank builds and get destroyed, because they are fighting their hard counters. Those people need to learn that composition of a team and also making a balanced build is much more important in PvP. This is prevelant in all professions.

70% of the players in this game have very low skill, about 20% have moderate skill, 8% have high skill and 2% are the elite. When you listen to the 70% in terms of balance, you will have a serverly imbalanced game. I hate to sound elitist, but you never hear of the higher skilled players complaining too much about balance. You always hear it from the people that are playing at a low skill level or those new to the game and finally people that are just playing FOTM builds.

People need to take the time and learn from their mistakes and look critically at themselves before posting on the forums about this or that being OP. When I get beat. I look at what I did and then what the opponent did and see what I could of done differently to win. I check did I dodge effectively? Did I manage my initiative properly? Did I land abilities at crucial times? Is my build tight enough to help me deal with situations that I am weak against? If I am fine in all of those areas, then I come hear and constructively create a thread about it and either there is a bug or someone tips me off to something I didn’t know.

People need to leave their egos at the door in PvP. I know that it is hard to, but that is what separates bad players from great players.

Guess I will end this now, since I don’t want to crash the servers with all this text.

I in general agree with you, but this clone bug with Mesmers is for the birds. That is over the top in terms of DPS and I really don’t think that the devs intended it to be that way.

I remember when it used to interrupt you. Like when stomping or rezzing for example.

Ventrilo was always filled with expletives by me when that happened in SPvP.

Ron.4920:

Kurow, now this post will probably get locked as well.

Kurow’s right. Columba cannot understand that the problem that he has, is due to culling. Not stealth and calling on nerfing stealth because of it, is not balance.

Fix culling and people shouldn’t have an issue, though I surmise that they will still complain about thieves. It has been that way since before BWE1.

There are a lot of people that don’t know that thief used to have a longer stealth. Like 30 secs long, but that was removed and given a 3 sec stealth on our heal.

Columba.9730:

what’s irrational about linking culling to stealth? stealth classes get the most advantages from stealth. I don’t understand your argument.

Let me slow it down for ya…

You are asking for stealth to be nerfed because of culling, not asking for culling to work more efficiently. If culling works more efficiently, then you wouldn’t have the issue with stealth that comes from culling.

The issue with culling isn’t only stealth related. You can run into a zerg and die before you even know that they are even there.

You are asking to nerf a profession main ability to survive. We don’t have access to utilities that grant us physical defense. We only have things that stealth us or help us be more mobile and gtfo town.

STOP ASKING FOR STEALTH TO GET NERFED WHEN THE ISSUE IS WITH CULLING.

I played 5 tourneys this evening and every group had Mesmers exploiting this.

It was hilarious how much damage it does. On my backstab build I can’t do that kind of damage.

Arsenic.8259:

Columba.9730:

Actually most classes don’t have that kind of burst potential.

D/D Ele, Warriors, Guardians, and Mesmers.
Mesmers and Warriors can/have higher burst then us.

Truth.

Have condition removal and AOE. Also dodge when he stealth attacks. That minimizes the bleed stacks.

Columba.9730:

oneleggedpony.8531:

@Mechanix; with all due respect you can actually perma stealth. I saw this thread and went away to test it out. It is fairly easy to maintain as long as you have a mix of certain traits.

Ideally you need a minimum of 20pts in shadow arts to get the following:

Adept trait ( I ) Master of Deception – 20% reduction on deception skills CD
Adept trait ( V ) Infusion of Shadow – 2 intiative on skills that stealth you

15pt minor trait – Meld with shadows – stealth lasts 1 sec longer

Utility skills:

Blinding Powder – (traited – 32 sec CD )
Shadow Refuge – ( traited – 48 sec CD )
Hide in Shadows – 30 sec CD

With D/P weapon setup you do the following;

1. blinding powder
2. heartseeker x3 – through Smoke field

from here if you have the initiative to do it again then go for it, you’ll actually get the 2 initiative from comboing heartseeker and blinding powder each time you pass through – giving you initiatve for the 2 additional heartseekers through the first field.

this should give about 9 secs of stealth.

you use that to wait out intitative regen and if you’ve enough Initiative you do it again.
if youre missing just a few you can pop blinding powder for 3 more secs to wait out for more intitative.

when youre back to full intiatiuve you blinding powder heartseeker x3 again until intiative runs out.

at this point either or both Hide in shadows and blinding powder will be on CD so you can use shadow refuge to regen stealth and initiative.

Shadow refuge actually provides alot more intiative regen than just the 2 as each 3 second tick in the Shadow refuge field counts as a stealth action so you’ll regen intiative really really quickly.

you can then heartseeker x3 through blinding powder on pistol again – by this time hide in shadows and blinding powder are off CD and you keep going.

you can also use smoke screen as an additional utility to make it even easier to stay perma stealth but i like running signet of shadows – a good solid blind and move increase is awesome.

If the 50% move speed in stealth ever worked right – i’d move my 10pts in deadly arts to acrobatics for kittens and giggles.

I’m sure there must be a few more ways to keep going – you could always get Hidden thief – but i prefer the stealth regen.

BIG BUT! -

whilst this is fun to see how long you can keep it up – in combat it is impractical. You want to deal damage and keep up pressure.

Giving your opponent breathing space is just asking for 2-3 of his mates to come along and help the player you’re playing against shank you whilst you’re prancing around being clever.

As for the burst – you can still get a reasonable 6K -7K backstab out of a build even if you’ve got 30 pts in Shadow arts and only 10 pts in deadly arts.

great thing about D/P is you can blind an opponent like a mad man giving alot of survivability without having to stack defensive stats to a level that’s harmful to your damage output.

@OP In order to deal damage to you we have to hit you – hitting you from stealth gives us reveal debuff unless we wait for the stealth to fall off – in which case we’re not doing our big stealth openers on you.

This means you have time to react to our actions. If we re- stealth, either prepare to dodge or block the attack coming or get ready to drop a stun/daze/knock down/ knock back.

thats 6 options right there -

if you got spanked hard from stealth chances are the thief used a stealth opener which means you have 3 seconds to do something before the thief can re stealth because of reveal.

3 seconds is a good amount of time to do one of those 6 things.

TL;DR

We thieves can perma stealth, it’s fun to see how long you can keep it up for before you get bored – however it’s not worth it as you kinda want to deal butt loads of damage rather than hide forever and draw out a fight.

With culling bugs you can get the same permastealth benefits and higher dps. that’s a balance issue. you can’t deny the facts. This gentleman shows them here, and the culling bug makes it even easier. I am sorry but facts are facts. How about the thief apologists trying to get the game balanced in the right way so that your class isn’t ruined vs. denying facts? I’d like to see the class balanced not ruined.

Culling is the issue, not Thieves. Sure Stealth is benefiting from culling, but in the end it is the culling. Zergs benefit from culling and so do Mesmers.

If you are keeping yourself perma-stealthed as a Thief, then you are not doing very much or any damage to your opponent.

Culling is allowing the Thief to benefit from both, but it IS NOT a balance issue with the Thief. It is an issue with Server Mechanics.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Archonis.7249:

He has a valid point about dodging. Just dodge out of the Caltrops and then kite. That is how you beat a condition thief.

I can’t always dodge out of the caltrops. You can’t leave point sometimes in tourneys where the game is close, and if I dodge out of caltrops that’s one dodge used to just avoid a static Aoe, that’s doesn’t even count trying to dodge the thieves attacks. I have to save my dodges for dodging attacks that are needed, not necessarily dodging just to move, as I don’t get Feline Grace with my class ^^ it doesn’t matter if I get out of the caltrops that’s not even half of the fight, it’s putting enough damage on a constantly evading (spamming DB, then dodges) thief to down him while I’m taking serious bleed damage. If I dodge out of caltrops, then how am I going to continuously dodge cloak and dagger like suggested here, or dodge Treb while fighting if I need to. It’s not just as simple as dodge out of his caltrops otherwise I would not have posted here. Fighting the thief and actually having a chance to down him while constantly evading and stealthing is the problem, that is why I came to the thief forums to ask for help instead of just crying to the SPVP forums stating nerf this. I want to improve my gameplay so I’m seeking information.

I gave you the information. Dodge out of the caltrops and then kite him.

I understand that it will take you off of the point, but if you aren’t built to be a bunker and have a decent amount of condition removal. It is better to get off the point and live and damage him with ranged attacks until backup arrives, than die and give the team 5 more points and assure that the theif holds the point giving them more points.

I am glad you are in here asking how to beat us and trying to take advice instead of crying “NERF!”, but what is the point if you don’t want to listen or dismiss what I and others have said?

I would also make this thread in your profession forums, as that would probably be where you would get the better answer to your question.

Mechanix.5719:

Hey at least he wasn’t “perma stealth” and tbh that deer did alot of damage but in all honestly that was just a GC thief you would have died anyway since you pretty much charged a zerg but one thing you did wrong was running away from the thief NEVER run away you give him the best chance to Back stab and tbh if you gonna go toughness go full tank since in this game there isnt really a in between

You can run away from us, but always be aware where the thief stealthed and not run towards it like this guardian did.

He has a valid point about dodging. Just dodge out of the Caltrops and then kite. That is how you beat a condition thief.

nerva.7940:

thief instagibbing needs to end soon. Too many scrubs thinking they are “highly skilled”

Either a Warrior or just kidding?

Recently.1043:

style.6173:

Warriors are NOT weak. That said they could use buffs in some areas and nerfs to things like killshot.

Buddy, if your getting hit by killshot in spvp i don’t even know where to start……

Even the best players can get hit by killshot, if you aren’t playing against a scrub.

You hide yourself like any respectable glass cannon and then fire your killshot at someone that isn’t looking or paying attention at things 1200 away.

Glass cannon is in the game so Warriors can complain about their survivability in it when getting bursted to 0% health in 3 secs.

bettadenu.5483:

I’m opening up the discussion on ’’Steal’’ again, the one profession class special ability that makes no sense to use on it’s own whatsoever.

Is a ’’rock’’ really justified to have once every 45 seconds or so?

Stop stealing from Earth Elementals then lol.

They ARE made of rocks btw.

Rich, you are aware that the point of the clones is to confuse you. That is why they SHOULD have nameplates and guild etc.

Mister Mustard.7203:

Maugetarr.6823:

People keep complaining about spamming 2 with D/* as a finisher, but what would the alternative be? Autoattack? Deathblossom is decent for a condition build, DD is pitiful for real damage output now, and CnD would just put you back in stealth assuming you aren’t revealed. Other classes would use this opportunity to weapon swap, but due to our global cool down this wouldn’t do any good unless traited to 30 in acrobatics. So if you do switch and want to stay in close combat, you have the choice of sword and, oh yeah, sword. On sword you have auto attack, a gap closer, and either FS or PW depending on your offhand. Being able to spam HS is the trade-off for the lack of other abilities and being tied to a global cooldown.

Err. Uh. Every class (except Engineers) have the exact same constraints. Except that all the other classes are also constrained by the ability itself going on cooldown.

Thief is only limited by Initiative, hence the relative encouragement to spam abilities.

So Mister Mustard, what profession is it that you play? I am curious seeing how you are so adamant about railing against the Thief.

Shukran.4851:

let’s make a deal:
every thief can not stompe while in stealth, but..when thief stomp he is vulnerable ONLY to CCs. thief take NO damage while stomping.

ok?

because you know, a thief which is stomping infront of enemy can be downed by downed autoattacks, opponent’s teammates attacks, cc, conditions..and every thief is supposed to play cannon glass .
if you can’t mengae to be stomped by a stealthed thief, let’s see how can u deal with this idea.
let me guess…QQ rage spike in 3..2…

Yea, tell me about it lol.

As a glass cannon thief, you lose over half of your health trying to stomp anyone. That is only damage coming from the downed person. Stealth stomp is the only way we can really stomp and a lot of times I am still taking damage lol.

Zeldain.5710:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/19/where-guild-wars-2-goes-wrong/

I think this is an excellent basis for the foundational problems with the game. Try and read it objectively and see if you agree.

I don’t agree with any of it.

First thing you did wrong was link a Massively article. Those kitten wouldn’t know quality if it hit them square in the face.

Massively exists off of nepotism and poor journalism, also ad revenue of anyone that will pay for it and most of those games are considered “good” by their standards.

Adwila.1392:

That’s not about TP, he linked that simply to show how a full shatter kills a non-glass char in 2 seconds because you made ONE mistake and didn’t dodge the daze+immobilize shatter 0.5 window frame.

It’s bullkitten that if you make ONE mistake you drop dead, no other class can do this…oh wait, Thieves, and you would say Warriors aswell to some extent right? Wrong, under 100b you see the dmg coming to you because it scales up, therefore giving you more than 0.5 seconds to react, and even if you get a full 100b you don’t get 20k+ dmg with 3k armor.

You can if you weapon swap to Eviscerate sweetcheeks.

Sol.4310:

Its really funny how thief’s try there hardest to justify there broken class, stop telling everyone how to play and face facts.

@Manos.5486 Hit the nail on the head.

The only real players who stand chance against thief’s are geared lvl 80’s with a solid build, low-lvls are more less doomed they stand no chance as there is 99% chance they are dead in 2 hits. Thief’s are only class who can pull this off using 1 key over and over.

What I would like to see is Anet break your stealth to work in our favour for few weeks while they try to fix it and then maybe thief’s will finally see how broken there class really is.

Just an FYI, don’t base any balance changes off of WvW because there are too many disparities to properly account for balance.

Use SPvP and Tourneys.

Also, stop being a kitten Ranger.

Yoda.9428:

Btw i’m wondering how many above people really play a thief. Or Just trolling for their other characters?

Believe it or not, there are just as many dumb thieves as there are dumb warriors and elementalists that believe thief is OP or imbalanced.

Sadly most of the smart and good players don’t waste their time on the forums because of all the whining. They instead play and adapt and become better players. While the dregs come in here and cry, “This profession killed me, so it must be OP!”.

The only reason I am on the forums is:

1. Entertainment for my long and boring workday. (Some of these people have me laughing in my office, so much so. My co-workers think I am insane.)

2. To see what else people can complain about.

3. Help people that ACTUALLY want to listen and get better.

Vilar.2680:

Liewec.2896:

alot of things about thief really annoy me (deathblossom builds are at the top of the list)
IMHO downed is a big waste of time, i’d want to just respawn and get it over with.
so stealth stomping does’nt bother me,
plus all classes have mechanics that make stomping trivial:
engineer – invul / stability / stealth
ele – stability /mist form
warrior – stability / quickness
mesmer – stealth / stability
thief – stealth / quickness
guardian – stability
necro – DS stability
ranger – quickness / stability

all of these could be used in the fight to help down the player, or saved until the player is downed for an easy finish.

Ds stability? sure? you need 30 points on a trait to get that, and you can’t stomp during shroud so you need to shorud and stomp almost at the same time, and half of the time it doesn’t work.

even if i’m doing something wrong, and you can always get shroud stomp 100% of the time, you still have to compromise half of you traits to get it, don’t tell me that is fair.

Ps> stability is not half as safe as stealh, during stabilty you can get feard (boon corruption)or killed, during stealth, if no one has some sort of AoE cc you are safe.

You aren’t safe in stealth. You just can’t be targeted. You can still be hit with direct damage, CC’d and AOE’d.

I would suggest playing a Thief and maybe you can see what I am talking about.

Mister Mustard.7203:

Archonis.7249:

People hate thieves because they don’t want to have to think to hard when fighting them. They are only concerned with how their profession performs. [] Here in lies the problem, people don’t want to actually learn how to deal with a thief. Instead it is easier to complain about them.

Archonis.7249:

I am simply astonished at how many people never dodge or read their opponent.

Some professions are more forgiving with it, because they have innately more health and armor. As a Thief, you have the lowest and you have to learn how to read your opponent. Otherwise Thieves will come into the forums crying about how OP Warriors etc are because you got one shot with full endurance.

Again with this argument.

All the fast-twitch, super skilled, genius ninjas who play blindfolded in yoga positions and anticipate your every move, ALL ROLLED THIEF. Meanwhile, every other class is populated by the mouth-breathing idiots of the general populous. AMAZING HOW THAT HAPPENED, WHAT ARE THE CHANCES??!?

I play Warrior, Engineer, Elementalist and Ranger too. Guess what. I have no issues against Thieves or any other professions, so your point is stillborn.

I anticipate, dodge and use my utilities and elite. I would suggest that others do the same.

lol. I love hearing Teldo cry.

TP in my opinion are not as good as they or anyone else claims they are. I was in a PUG and beat the TP team in Beta.

Mrbig.8019:

Jefzor.7145:

I don’t think we have any reason to complain.

What an asinine comment.

We don’t have any reason TO NOT complain.

S/D is sub par
D/P is sub par
P/P is subpar

The only way to play the thief in competitive environment is D/D or P/D loltrops/venom share and S/P or D/D glass cannon.

Basically, 3/7 of our weapon sets are totally worthless, and overall we have something like 2-3 viable builds , with only 3 viable playstyles.

We have inherent design flaws in traits ( too much scaling on 1st-2nd tier traits making our viable builds too strong, and any other build too weak, bad traits everywhere), skills ( shadow shot, flanking strike, vital strike being slower than it should, body shot etc etc ), utilities ( traps and some signets) and EVEN THE DESIGN PHYLOSOPHY ( “thieves are masters of burst”, making basically any other set meant for direct damage unviable in high end PvP, because it would not “benefit” thief design).

We have one of the most bland “mechanic” in game ( Steal), untraited, while by simply putting 10 traits into Deadly arts you obtain one of the most OP thing ever seen in MMO history ( istant 900 range gap closer, can be used mid-cast, 4-5 k istant damage against 2-2.3 k armor).

Should i go on ?

If you like to be pigeon holed into 2 ways to play your profession, and are happy with it, maybe you should start to think that there are other players who’d like to have a more versatile profession, capable to do something more than simply “lol instagibbing” and “lulz caltropz evrywer”.

But I like Caltrops. I help keep cobblers in business. That is a dying profession btw, someone needs to help and Obama isn’t.

I will take my thanks in the forum of Gold to my character.

Vilar.2680:

Stop this thing of 5 warriors, please ! Don’t give people bad ideias… i don’t want to run into five mesmers!

=D

Five Thieves are fun (especially BS) when you communicate and pick targets, but you will get wreck in serious PvP though.

Warrior’s have that equal Burst and better Sustained DPS, along with more health, better armor and more survivability Utilities.

I do better in TPvP and SPvP on my warrior. So easy mode compared to the Thief. I laugh at Thieves that attack me.

LOL and people complain about Thieves.

All Warriors team beat balanced team, nerf Thief.

I definitely want to see some videos man. Link your YT page so I can follow it.

Jefzor.7145:

I don’t think we have any reason to complain.

Yea, I agree. I think that Thieves are fine right now and you shouldn’t see a thief complain, unless it is about potential nerfs that the herd is whining about.

I would however like to see some other builds get more of a buff in order to create some build diversity, but our foundation is perfectly fine and people just need to learn to play their professions before crying nerf nerf nerf.

Archaon.6245:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Honestly, stealth rezzing is more OP than stealth stomping.

Stealth/hasted rezzing makes thief probably the second best rezzer after guardian…too bad the majority of thieves are crazy glass cannons, and they’re going to die before rezzing someone xD

I love being a tanky thief, so fun. I drop that Shadow Refuge or Blinding Powder and rez rez rez or stomp stomp stomp.

BTW I innately hate you because your name is too close to mine. :P