Guild Wars 2

darres.8203:

Sekai.2987:

darres.8203:

I got no problem going up against higher divison players
i can handle 1 or 2, no big deal

Edit: If they haven´t changed it, when queuing in team matchmaking still depends on the highest division in your team. So it doesn´t matter that you were sapphire cause being in a team with ruby.
but when u put all the kittenters on 1 team

I cry

pretty kittening obvious you’re stacking it, anet
how is this “OK” conceptually?

first screen: you are 13pis away from diamond and as far as i remember the range of the ppl you can play against/with goes up to 15pips, that means that the diamond players were propably all new diamond or had only one or two pips

second screen: you are in a party with ruby players , that means the system sees you as a ruby player too,or to be exact, it puts you in the same division as the highest ranked player in your party and the reason you play against diamond is propably the same as i explained for screen one

yes, I understand how it works
and like i’ve stated before
I have no problem facing diamond league players
the problem I have is why do they always stack them on one side?
the system they created is artificial
a lie
an insult
they are not giving their players a fair shot
they are manipulating the MM

EDIT: crap I had another picture, forgot where i put it

Ok, Its kinda getting absurd with the complains…
Why they seem to stack on the other side? Well, on the pictures you had:
1 – two duoq ruby AND a dia (yeah, you got one, too)
2 – one duoq and one tripleq

If you team up with other players your mmr increases and you get enemies you probably wouldn´t get if queuing alone. Pretty simple.
Besides that you are in the second half of ruby, so its normal to fight dias.
Saying division = skill is like saying points made in match = skill, complete nonsense.

iZakari.1076:

Anomaly.7612:

Calaereth.6720:

Hi guys, I know thief often gets a bad rep and whilst this is not true in all cases, I was wondering whether the 2016 update has given back the thief profession a bit more power again to contend with other classes.

Thanks very much.

They underperform to Engi’s/DH/Rev/Necro by a big amount. The changes have helped a little, but it’s still a gamble to have one on your team, or to play one for that matter.

Okay I’m legit curious. Why do so many thieves find it difficult to fight reapers? I understand the others are a bit difficult but I would never consider reapers as a problem. Dodge through marks, kite out the shroud, use steal skill for interrupts and pi damage.. Pretty simple imo.

I think he was talking about how classes perform in PvP where these 4 classes a far easier to play then thief —> easier to have an impact in the match. A well played thief is devastating though.

Reaper are definitly doable in 1vs1, but it could not worth the amount of time/utilities it needs. A good necro is noticeable and when he has full shroud it becomes very difficult. Using dash over bound helps a lot here (bound is great to +1 a necro).
If you make mistakes it can be over quickly and if you die in that duel it gets your team in a worse situation.

Wait a second…
As an example you show a picture with 3 soloplayers (ruby) 2 teamplayers (ruby/sapphire) VS 5 soloplayers (3 sapphire/2 ruby) and call that an example for bad matchmaking?
Thats hilarious…
Something like 5 dias against 5 ambers would be different but still lacking background-information.
Maybe every ruby-player had a loss-streak before —> matching against lower-ranked enemies
sapphire-players had a winstreak —> matching against higher-ranked enemies
ruby-players were still low ruby-division / sapphire high sapphire-divisions
Your team-mates were successful in last matches…

You see there are so many different reasons why things work out like that.
And I would definitly call that match on the picture well balanced when looking at it. But I don´t know how good/bad everyone played, so…

Has anyone claimed legues to show skill? Anyone can reach legendary if he plays enough.

Agemnon.4608:

It’s actually the best weapon set because you can dodge, strip boon, and attack all with the same move. You also get stealth and the ability to daze a target if you keep on them, with decent damage too. As if that wasn’t enough you get an extra shadowstep preparing an escape or gap close.

It can evade into a team fight and lay down heavy burst cleave.

Staff is a fine weapon and seems to have decent sync with dagger/pistol (stealth comba plus weapon swap to staff stealth 1) and good weakness application, but lacks some of the tools that makes sword/dagger so great.

Its far from being the best one. Best one is D/P, followed by staff.
“dodge, strip boon, and attack all with the same move” – no, you need at least 2 moves for that and the frist one has to hit the enemy to grant access for the other one. Flanking strike isn´t as reliable it once was and damage is low. Larcenious not that much damage when you think about how telegraphed the skill actually is. The one boonsteal is mediocre. C&D has still the problem of being problematic to land against any capable player, dancing dagger is ok but not great either. AA got aftercasts decreased and precasts increased (by a smaller amount though), so not that much damage increase compared to how much staff and daggers do. Sword still lack heavily of damage.
Btw the daze on sneak attack is shorter in PvP xD

Well, partly they are doing that for years.
For example on thief:
-revealed 4sec insetad of 3
-daze from sneak attack sword is shorter in PvP
-pistol-whip 6 initiative instead of 5
-confusion 33% more damage in PvE
-retaliation is different
-cloak and dagger was different but got changed again to be more or less the same in damage.

They are not very consistent with it though.

Fay.2357:

Jana.6831:

Fay.2357:

Jana.6831:

Fay.2357:

Jana.6831:

I’m sorry but I didn’t understand a word
I did test blind and condi remove today (although I already knew) by running into a wvw camp (the vets basically spam blind). I might try it with my necro. But what do venoms have to do with that?

As was already mentioned, you’re just wrong. Blind is a condition, can be removed like any other condition.

Then try it, please.

I’ve been playing this game since open beta, and I’ve cleared blind with condition removals more times than I could possibly count. You’re obviously testing wrong.

I capped ~15k camps, 10k of it solo – I have never been able to remove the blind.

Probably because you’ve been standing in the pulsing blind field the scouts drop. It’s invisible, but acts like the black powder smoke field.

Blind is a completely normal condition… and can be cleansed like any of them.
I don´t get it that there is even a discussion about that.
I remember you (Jana) seems to like playing with SA, where it is another story, because Shadow Embrace only clears specific conditions. Thing is, except non-Hot-players, no one plays with SA currently. Trickster and Escapist absolution can both clear any condition including blind.

Btw have they fixed the bug with the scout-black powder-fields? They acted like the ore-nerfed one (higher blind uptime). I´m not playing much WvW anymore, so I don´t know. The thief-NPC in Hotm still has the pre-nerfed-version.

StickerHappy.8052:

Paulie.6215:

Agrios.9071:

Reason why you see more thiefs is simply because all the thief players could not play their main profession during the season because it was so weak compared to others there.

Thieves have been in the toilet for months. No one can deny that.

NOW they’re competitive and all the crying begins.

Sad that people are complaining instead of L’ing2P.

People who are saying thief is in the toilet are bad thieves since beta. Thieves are always playing the victim.

Thieves were in a good spot as a class, its just that we had the bunker meta thats why they felt inefficient.

But again, there are like 90% bad thieves in the gw2 population which you see a lot on the forums.

1: Playing thief wasn´t that much fun for the last 1 1/2 year cause of one “role”, having one viable weaponset (S/D got destroyed) and only being able to kill someone in a +1 (some were possible, but to time-consuming and depending on outplaying the opponent). Yes, thieves were used until june/HoT in teams, but more difficult in soloq (most people having no idea how to play with a thief in their team). No, we are not always playing the victim. To completely shutting down mesmers before june wasn´t ok. Being mostly useless in the season now either (I still played my thief, but mostly with 1 or 2 friends). Brutal nerfs to weaponsets liek S/D is what kittens off most thieves. S/Ds weird aftercasts on AA-CHAIN were terrible and clunky. venoms being mostly useless and not fun since beta. scorpion-wire worse than magnet-pull from engi…
Thief wasn´t fun with SA-build after june either. Mirror-duels from SA-thieves are lame as kitten. Against PU-mesmer it was the same. Not playing victim more wanting to have fun with thieves being a viable choice with different playstyles and that involves every class to be viable, too. I don´t remember anyone who wanted the damage-buff on daggers. The changes on sword were right-though – fixing weird aftercasts and AA-usefulness (hitting third strike was very difficult on sword without dying in the process) and for a part the damage-aspect, too. I think anyone agrees that the whole amount of nerfs to Mesmer is to much. The only ones playing victims are the ones who prefer to complain on the forum instead of improving in the game. I see a lot of that type of Mesmer in the forum now. Same for ele.

2: I agree mostly on that part. But many problems existed before and now → usless weapon-sets, useless uitilities and traits, etc. Like any other class I would say.

3: And I agree again. More now with many people trying out thief now. Its disgusting to see so many thieves in Hotm now. Maybe it will split after some time. A friend plays around with fresh air D/F (tempest, air, earth pala-amu) and seems to success with it. Another one tries different things with his Mesmer (his main, he didn´t played much bunker during the season, he didn´t liked it). Paladin-amu seems to be very strong on many classes. I´m trying out literally every possible combination of traits on my thief on weapons I like to play with to see what could work. There are far to many people creating thieves right now and asking in Hotm for a build. Most likely they didn´t even tried out some things on the class and want the “easy” way. Most likely like they did with the previous class they played on.

@
“Mesmer:
Well of precognition: This change is all well and good, but if it’s just pulsing aegis for 3 seconds, you should give it’s capture-point contribution back.”

If it pulses aegis and not blur/distortion <-? the thing about capture-point contribution solves itself.

@
Thief part:

Between june and HoT-release thief definitly wasn´t well balanced. There was just one specc viable and that was far to forgiving (shadow-arts). S/D got destroyed while it was already weak at that point.

Increased AA-chain is a very good change and could solve two problems at once, weird aftercasts in the chain and damage-aspect.

I´m not sure about dagger-increase. If I´m right its less increase in damage than sword. But when we think about it that a thief is very weak when autoattacking cause of lacking passive-defence its ok I guess.

Fleet Shadow changed to Instant Reflex (gain evasion for 2s when struck below the health threshold –50%, 40s CD). I don´t understand this. Fleet Shadow was wrong in that traitline and never worth taking over other stuff, but adding more passive stuff into the game? ._.
I think the changes in general are ok (for thief) and wouldn´t increase the power creep significantly. High damage mostly in melee-range (even clusterbomb is strongest in melee range ^^ ). Remember that our health randomly drops about 50% by damage not even directed at us in that bunker-meta. Cele-air overload does 1000 damage on each strike while we are in stealth. Damage just thrown into a teamfight mindlessly but still successful makes the game frustrating.
If its to much increase of damage on daggers, remove it and go on. Shouldn´t be a problem (yeah, I know).

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Coronit.9432:

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Coronit.9432:

Rome.7124:

see this thread about Basilisk venom being unblockable and each thief can share it with all the team mates:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/unblockable-bassy-venom/first#post5923105

What’s the point of playing Mesmer again? ANet really want Mesmer to be out of the meta…

Before you embarrass yourself. To share that venom it has to be traited. Then that trait is a grandmaster in shadow-arts, so you have to choose between that trait and shadow-rejuvination, a trait that is stronger and was at least used in competitive pvp (or even normal) before. If I´m correct a normal shattermesmer would have one block (2 if something got blocked) in form of the shield. Saying that this unblockable venom (charges vanish with every missed attack) defines the end of mesmer is a bit overreacting, don´t you think?

Shield block is our only actual dedicated defense skill.

Every other defense skill we have, is used offensively

On top of that, prior to HoT, thief’s natural counter was a guardian. However, thieves now have something they can target.
They can kill a guardian when they go for their heal.

What counters thief now? Reaper? Maybe.
That’s the only thing I can think of.

It’s possible that a power Ele overloading air could really threaten a thief, but I don’t think ele’s going to be too viable in this meta either.

Every other defense skill we have, is used offensively

Very similar to thief, don´t you think?
Yes, basi would go through the heal block from shelter (DHs mostly use the trap-heal currently) BUT needs charging first. Its very risky to cast it open, so its a matter of situation to cast it and reach him. There was similar discussion with the use of basilisk-venom together with choking gas. Choking gas is unblockable, so casting venom and then the gas at someone blocking would interrupt. Mostly far to complicate and situational. No its easier, but guard definitly just counters thief cause of shelter. What is now possible is beeing stealthed, cast venom and get a backstab through aegis. But thats possible now with traited steal, too. Other uses like interrupt crystal hybernation from rev. Has some uses but never OP.
Rev is very tanky and the damage-version has on demand reveal. Engis has on demand reveal, Druid is a very strong 1vs1 class. That few buffs won´t make thief king of 1vs1 again. More reduce a bit the gap.
Thief-buffs are not any problem. People were overreacting before june-patch about OP-thieves and guess what? Afterwards most people complained about PU-mesmer.
I´m curious what it will be that time.
Keeping alacrity at leat on 50% should be ok. You must admit, 40% cd reduction on everything is kitten strong. on 33% still 25% (if math on the forum was done right).
The utility from chronomance added alot of utility, which wasn´t available pre-june. Even mesmer now has passive 25% speed. Than the passive 25%-reduction of immob, chill, cripple and reduced stun-duration when moa-passive is up. I doubt it gonna be like pre-june. People that got carriend through the bunker-specc gonna have to improve through.

Edit: That cd-reduction from alacrity is on 100% uptime, right? Someone knows how much reduction is it average on a normal shatter-chrono?

“People that got carriend through the bunker-specc gonna have to improve through”

You mentioned a lot of things. Rev, thief, etc.

Allow me to ask you a fundamental question.

Why would you play mesmer over either thief or rev, if not for powerful alacrity and bunkering?

Portal? Thief and Rev are amazing at roaming without portal.

Thief already is able to cheese Chrono Shatter to death.

Rev already does more burst damage than Chrono. As well as more sustained damage.

Why would you pick Chrono over either of those?

Thats definitly the fundamental question. If alacrity-nerf is to much it needs to be buffed again immediatly. I want mesmer to be a viable choice.
Portal gets your team somewhere. Never underestimate that. Leaving portal on far binds a player there for the duration. Good portal-plays are amazing to watch.
Boon-strip with shatter is still there (I know its not as strong as it used to be :/ ).
double-moa can decide matches. Double-gravitiy still strong —> less bunkerish meta and no -quick-rezzes makes a strong-damage-CC-AOE better than now. The damage from it gets just healed in no second right now. No-durability → less boon-duration on many classes → more important to time your boon/boom-removes again?! A lot is very vague.
What do you mean with “cheese” him down? If you mean shadow-rejuvination and outstealthing I agree. PU was the same problem.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Coronit.9432:

Rome.7124:

see this thread about Basilisk venom being unblockable and each thief can share it with all the team mates:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/unblockable-bassy-venom/first#post5923105

What’s the point of playing Mesmer again? ANet really want Mesmer to be out of the meta…

Before you embarrass yourself. To share that venom it has to be traited. Then that trait is a grandmaster in shadow-arts, so you have to choose between that trait and shadow-rejuvination, a trait that is stronger and was at least used in competitive pvp (or even normal) before. If I´m correct a normal shattermesmer would have one block (2 if something got blocked) in form of the shield. Saying that this unblockable venom (charges vanish with every missed attack) defines the end of mesmer is a bit overreacting, don´t you think?

Shield block is our only actual dedicated defense skill.

Every other defense skill we have, is used offensively

On top of that, prior to HoT, thief’s natural counter was a guardian. However, thieves now have something they can target.
They can kill a guardian when they go for their heal.

What counters thief now? Reaper? Maybe.
That’s the only thing I can think of.

It’s possible that a power Ele overloading air could really threaten a thief, but I don’t think ele’s going to be too viable in this meta either.

Every other defense skill we have, is used offensively

Very similar to thief, don´t you think?
Yes, basi would go through the heal block from shelter (DHs mostly use the trap-heal currently) BUT needs charging first. Its very risky to cast it open, so its a matter of situation to cast it and reach him. There was similar discussion with the use of basilisk-venom together with choking gas. Choking gas is unblockable, so casting venom and then the gas at someone blocking would interrupt. Mostly far to complicate and situational. No its easier, but guard definitly just counters thief cause of shelter. What is now possible is beeing stealthed, cast venom and get a backstab through aegis. But thats possible now with traited steal, too. Other uses like interrupt crystal hybernation from rev. Has some uses but never OP.
Rev is very tanky and the damage-version has on demand reveal. Engis has on demand reveal, Druid is a very strong 1vs1 class. That few buffs won´t make thief king of 1vs1 again. More reduce a bit the gap.
Thief-buffs are not any problem. People were overreacting before june-patch about OP-thieves and guess what? Afterwards most people complained about PU-mesmer.
I´m curious what it will be that time.
Keeping alacrity at leat on 50% should be ok. You must admit, 40% cd reduction on everything is kitten strong. on 33% still 25% (if math on the forum was done right).
The utility from chronomance added alot of utility, which wasn´t available pre-june. Even mesmer now has passive 25% speed. Than the passive 25%-reduction of immob, chill, cripple and reduced stun-duration when moa-passive is up. I doubt it gonna be like pre-june. People that got carriend through the bunker-specc gonna have to improve through.

Edit: That cd-reduction from alacrity is on 100% uptime, right? Someone knows how much reduction is it average on a normal shatter-chrono?

Ithilwen.1529:

tell that to the thieves who whine about moa with one of the longest CDs in the game. Sorry , I’m not buying it. ANET deliberately made mesmer thief food.

Think about it; major damage boost when thief could already insta kill me as a mesmer given a clear shot, sharing that major damage with any teammates present. and if I don’t die immediately, I have very poor condi cleanse so I’ll die of the poison stacks.

Y’all whine about passives? this is a 1 button automatic mesmer kill. Thanks a kitten anet.

Wtf…
Which thief would whine about moa? We love it!
I a regular match not a single decent mesmer would use moa on a thief. It gets used for bunker, quick important kills to decide a teamfight, etc.
And ya know…. the currently most used thief-build doesn´t has that much condi-cleanse, too. Shadowstep clears 2 on a 50sec cd and is the most important stunbreak.

From what you write I think you should sit down and think a bit if you maybe need to learn some stuff.

Rome.7124:

see this thread about Basilisk venom being unblockable and each thief can share it with all the team mates:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/unblockable-bassy-venom/first#post5923105

What’s the point of playing Mesmer again? ANet really want Mesmer to be out of the meta…

Before you embarrass yourself. To share that venom it has to be traited. Then that trait is a grandmaster in shadow-arts, so you have to choose between that trait and shadow-rejuvination, a trait that is stronger and was at least used in competitive pvp (or even normal) before. If I´m correct a normal shattermesmer would have one block (2 if something got blocked) in form of the shield. Saying that this unblockable venom (charges vanish with every missed attack) defines the end of mesmer is a bit overreacting, don´t you think?

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

I don’t think OP is a bad troll.

We’ve already seen what happens to a meta where thieves are good at 1v1ing: They keep every single other dps spec out of the game by virtue of being thieves.

Thieves are made for ultra mobility / chasing power and burst/dps. They don’t really have anything else, but when thieves are viable, ALL other zerker specs are NOT VIABLE (besides Guardian maybe, maybe).

And that’s the crux of the problem.

Mesmers have been out of the game for a long time simply because thieves hard countered them. Eles have never been able to go zerker fresh air because of thieves oneshotting them. Same for a lot of other classes.

As a thief I definitly don´t want mesmer pushed out from pvp again. There is to much interesting gameplays possible through them. After the change to rezz-speed through quickness, the main role of bunker mesmer is gone. Bunker-mesmer less viable (shouldn´t be deleted, too, ya know…build diversity) would result in other classes being more used in pvp. alacricity nerf isn´t really necessary a the current state of the game with the preview on balance-changes. Feels like it was mostly cause of PvE. But we already have seperated skill, so why not that one, too? Fromm 66%-33% is another thing. Why not look first how it goes and then MAYBE (if necessary) lower it to 50% and so on. Shatter-Mesmer needs to be similar to thief, so you can use both as a +1/mobile/decap class and having a choice which one to use.

The most interesting part (and I think everyone should be aware of that) is the bunch of changes mesmer got in june. Illusionary persona was a very important one. Added a lot of utility. Other defence and offensive stuff was added that made shatter less problematic. New shatter →more blind, more boon remove, more quickness, more alacrity (resulting in higher uptime of skills, offence and defence) and I´m sure I forget some stuff. Superspeed one illus is great, too. Much easier to get them quick to the target for damage, boon remove or daze, depends.
The best build for thieves right now invests almost everything into more damage at the expense of utility (executioner instead of impro, havoc instead of the weakness-trait for example). Less bunker means thieves can go more defence and less offence —> less damage. Maybe with less bunkers and more damage defence will be to important.

To ele, as I said, the access to full earth for example makes a difference and overload on air is very powerful against stealthed players.

The most important thing is that anet react on the processing. Thats the problem overall. If something doesn´t wokr after that patch or is to strong the have to fix that BEFORE the next season.

Shirlias.8104:

Talonblaze.3175:

Shirlias.8104:

style.6173:

Yes, DH needs help, but it also needs more counter to the traps. One example is that trap cooldown should start once triggered, not when it is placed.

This won’t happen, cause all “trap” skills share this mechanic.

It would be better working of “daze” fix and set em as “instant” skill, not persistent.

Shadow Trap would like a word with you.

Is the only “trap” which work like portal?
Seriously Man, try to be constructive next time.

I give you that back. Shadow-trap doesn´t work like portal or have you ever been hold back to portal cause of a stone thinks you shouldn´t go where you want? The port follows the shadowstep-mechanic.

apharma.3741:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

as far as i’m aware, thief was a mesmer’s worst nightmare to begin with as we are the only class that keep up with you.

Not just that, a lot of mesmer skills, certainly in a power shatter build, needs targets and have longish cast times. GS – auto, mirrorblade and izerker, sword – ileap, most offhand phantasms and some offhand skills. Blind and stealth absolutely cripples a mesmers ability to fight.

Same for a lot of classes with skills that need a target or long casts, they absolutely hate fighting thieves because of this and they can’t escape except to the safety of others.

What you forget here is the tracking of a lot of skills and that stealth doesn´t make someone invulnerable. Imagine mirrorblad would work like a normal shortbow-projectile… THAT would be miserable (RIP heatseeking projectiles on AA shortbow QQ).
What I consider interesting and scary at the same time is tempest fresh-air. The big disadvantage of the lightning not able to strike enemies in stealth doesn´t apply to the overload -> tracks through stealth. Together with the access to a third line like earth, more invulerable skills than before/higher uptime and less bunkers maybe (yeah, I know its not that likely but you never know :P) fresh air could have a good or at least better place in PvP.

Btw the problem with casttimes…with chronomance there is some quickness that helps with that :P

“and in part playing from a different rulebook to everyone else”

That sums it up pretty much… Thieves are supposed to play dirty. Being the +1 kitten generates a lot of hate cause how we dare to enter in a beautiful 1vs1.

The buff on sword and overhaul on acrobatic have been needed for a long time. Not sure about the damage-buff on dagger AA. But if you let a thief autoattacking you nonstop you deserve to die ^^
Most CC on thief doesn´t last long (stealth attack daze from sword is even shorter in pvp than pve). If I remember correctly the CC on Impact Strike (elite) is our longest CC.

@Warlord.9074 Mesmer deserves nothing but a well balanced PvP-enviroment like any other class. You comment goes into the same direction like "thief deserved to be pushed out from competitive teams cause being stable for a very long time. "

After all the crap in the last 7 month it will be interesting how thief-mesmer gonna work. Remember that right now no one of them uses shadowarts (pray to god that it won´t come back) or PU (same for that). Mesmer got illusionary persona baseline and some better defence-possibilites (blind on shatter is better now – 5 shatterskills = 5 blinds). Mesmer has far more elites viable now then at the beginning of last year etc.
Its a very different time now.
Imagine you start to use your shield-block while a thief is nearby. If the thief has basi-venom ready he now first has to start channeling it → first block probably over when finished. If mesmer got the sec block through blocking another player and uses it and sees the thief jumping on him you can blind the frist strike through shatter and maybe dodge the next one. Shield block isn´t the only defence. Using it when thief has the venom-icon visible is plain stupid… ^^

Well, all the descriptions are kinda wrong nowadays.
Another example:
Thieves are expert in the shadow arts. They utilize stealth and shadowstepping to surprise and to get close to their target. They’re deadly in one-on-one combat using their agility, acrobatic fighting style, and the ability to steal to overcome their enemies. They have an affinity for setting traps and using venom. As an adventurer profession, thieves wear medium armor.

Deadly in 1vs1…

At least the description for Revs is still correct:
Revenants channel the power of the Mists. As a soldier profession, revenants wear heavy armor. The revenant profession is available to players who have purchased the Heart of Thorns expansion.

rune of durability adds overall good survivability.
boon duration adds to the boons it gives (currently bugged, 25%, not 20% as it should be) —> with bountiful theft longer vigor uptime, more fury, etc.
the toughness is always nice to survive a bit longer every fight you enter. vita the same with the bonus of being very important with all the conditions flying around.
The protection come whe you get attacked, so it can save you from a burst or adds to your evade-heal-more vita and toughness-sustain. It sums up.
Anyone knows how scrapper works on AOE that is away from the source? Does the threshold work or not?
A big advantage of scrapper is the power-bonus. For me a difficult choice. I don´t play thief that much currently, so hard to determine.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Coronit.9432:

Nocta.5274:

So many words and I had to watch the video to understand the bug. Holy hell get to the point when reporting an issue.
If you report bugs this way, I’m not surprised they never get fixed lol

- Unrelenting Assault deals no damage if the revenant is affected by Slow.

Here, ONE line. x_x

Well, I wanted to explain why exactly I post it here. I don´t want to get banned or whatever for any reason ^^
Gonna edit it to get the intention…

Post the bug first. Then post your comments.

I can tell you what happens then…no one reads… x)

Nocta.5274:

So many words and I had to watch the video to understand the bug. Holy hell get to the point when reporting an issue.
If you report bugs this way, I’m not surprised they never get fixed lol

- Unrelenting Assault deals no damage if the revenant is affected by Slow.

Here, ONE line. x_x

Well, I wanted to explain why exactly I post it here. I don´t want to get banned or whatever for any reason ^^
Gonna edit it to get the intention…

If you want, watch the video first, but if I get anyone saying something I already wrote about in the thread I gonna freak out… :P

There are some reasons why I post this here in the PvP-forum.
First, I don´t have any faith into the Bugs-forum or the ingame bug-report anymore. For example the missing 10% healing in Withdraw are still missing after 4 month (it was listed in the Game Release Notes) and not a single word about it was giving by a dev. So if this gets fixed I know that the devs have been reading that post and just ignore it purposely.

Then there is another important point that everyone should know that problem. For example in this video I give the slow on the revenant with my F2, which is completely ok. In a fight I can´t know that he will use unrelanting assault. So technically its not my fault and I can´t control it. I´m sure that “exploit” happened a lot without people even noticing it (haven´t read a single word aboout that before). You can of course try to exploit it, but at the end it relies on the revenant himself. I could try to stop using my F2 Essence Sap, but should I really stop using my class-mechanic just because something could happen IF the other one uses exactly that single skill? Btw there is either the tooltip wrong or its a bug, too, because the stolen skill applies around 4sec slow each. Now it would be possible to fix it to 1sec. I don´t like that honestly because that amount of slow is exactly doing what it should do…Giving something useful to fight against the class, what a lot of stolen skills aren´t doing right now (chill was very strong against eles if it successfully was applied, but eles got stronger and stronger against that condition). But thats another point of balance.

So if everyone knows about it, its possible to avoid it by revenants themselves. You can´t blame people that they use skills in that game so this accidently happened.
I go the way that its better to be informed than kept unknowing why your skill wasn´t doing what it should do. So if you got hit by slow as a revenant DON`T use Unrelanting Assault.

—> Imprtant stuff here!

So here we go: How to counter UA… or how to avoid it until fixed

I found it while duelling.
If anyone can´t or don´t want to look the video…Basically if you apply slow to a revenant and he uses Unrelanting Assault he won´t deal ANY DAMAGE AT ALL.

Well, I hope I won´t get banned for posting it and devs recognise the reasons why I think everyone should be aware of that “bug” (is it maybe itended counterplay? :P ).

Phaeton.9582:

Coronit.9432:

.

Still think teef is UP noc? :p

Hahaha, granted. that match was fun
Bad premade though.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

You’re missing the point.

Right now, Thieves cannot fight without adds. It isn’t fair to them to insist that because they have the option to traverse obstacles if they take a specific weapon, they should not be allowed to be a capable opponent for decapping a contested point or even defending a pre-owned one. That’s like a teacher saying that because a student can finish a quiz quickly, he has to get a set amount wrong.

You don’t punish a class’s fighting potential in a game where there are supposedly no roles by stuffing them into a role. I don’t know how the game would change if thieves could actually contest points, but it certainly isn’t entertaining or engaging for the people that play thief that are looking for action.

Thieves should have the potential to win fights against skilled players, baseline, in 1v1. being able to fight should not be a privilege that automatically is stripped if you can move quickly, at the cost of all dps, mind you. If you have a specific weapon, mind you further.

Maybe some talented players will be able to take that option of 1v1 potential and turn into complete monsters at the game, but if that skill level is reached then monstrosity is deserved, for any class. And this is 1v1 we’re talking about. Send two people to a point and the problem is resolved.

I’m mostly just thinking out loud. I don’t think Thieves should be totally unable to 1v1, but 1v1 balance is precarious, since your build could potentially devastate one class in 1v1 but fall short against another. At least, that’s how my life has been since I started playing Necro years ago.

But at this point I’m just examining the idea of a class that can:

• Regularly win 1v1s
• Back-cap points with high mobility
• Support fights to +1 with high mobility

Say the Thief back-caps a point. Knowing Thieves are strong in 1v1, can you just send 1 person to go try to contest? Probably not. So the Thief just theoretically decapped/capped a side, and forced a rotation of 2 players to contest. Given the Thief’s high mobility, once the 2 arrive, he can choose to fight for a bit, or just bounce and slam back to a different point to support. If one of the 2 who contested rotates back, the Thief can slam back to 1v1 the node, since Thieves are strong in 1v1.

Could any other class fill that niche/role as well as a Thief? It seems like an extremely important one to Conq-mode, and if not, it means every team basically needs a Thief. Is that balance?

And you can’t tell me you believe that GW2 is designed as a game with no roles. That marketing ploy was specifically targeting Tank/Healer/DPS roles in traditional MMOs. Any game mode, especially PvP, is going to develop niches that require certain attributes to succeed. You want to hold points, so you put someone tanky on the point to survive. Bunkers are born. You need to be able to kill bunkers, so theoretically, Assassins (or whatever you want to call them) are born. You probably need to rotate and support fights effectively, so Roamers are born. Some classes can potentially fill multiple roles to varying degrees, so you get middle-grounders such as Bruisers who can absorb damage but still fight without being impotent. Since each class is unique, a distribution is going to develop.

If anything, I think roles could and should be established from a design perspective so ANet can officially balance around them. Instead, everyone wants to be able to be everything, and it contributes to constant complaining/desire to avoid the role a class excels at because the player just wants to be something else. When ANet tries to balance for all of those cases, you get a wild, nebulous balance ride instead of being able to provide feedback specifically around why your class cannot fulfill the role it’s designed to fill.

In any case, I don’t really think it’s fair for a class to be completely unable to contest a point, since you can make an argument I made above in the other direction. If a Thief cannot contest a point solo, then the team with the Thief requires 2 people to rotate anyway. At that point, what good is the mobility of the Thief if you’re waiting for another to arrive to make progress? Perhaps the Thief could soften the target up a bit just in time for support to arrive, but does any team really need a Thief ever at that point? Maybe not, and that doesn’t sound good either.

I don’t know, I was bored on calls and wanted to try thinking about Thieves from various angles. Regardless, I still don’t feel sorry for the class, like I don’t feel sorry for any class.

Well, +1 for that post.
Always needed and never really needed are both wrong.
“Regardless, I still don’t feel sorry for the class, like I don’t feel sorry for any class.”
This.
It was anets job to balance stuff, create build-diversity (for every-class), alternative ways to play a class (elites) and a interesting pvp-community. While I´m sure evryone knows that a perfect balance is pretty much impossible, anet failed horribly even at the beginning >imo<.
Thieves weren´t onehotting people since a long time. It was about finishing low targets (D/P), duelling long time ago (S/D) or “oneshot” from stealth TOGETHER with mesmer. But not alone.
What I think about thieves being able (note: able and not killing everything alone) to 1vs1 I wrote in my previous post.

laquito.5269:

Quadox.7834:

snippet

Only a scrub would say things like “class x is their favourite”, do you honestly think they’ll read their posts any further or give any value to it?

I simply don’t like your whole argumentation on thief balance, as it just screams hypocrisy. Thief already had issues since 2k14, but those were still overshined by the superior mobility and stealth which basically kept them in meta. You can acknowledge that or not, denying it won’t make it any more untrue though.

Thief weaknesses didn’t come out of nowhere, they’ve had problems with sustained builds before HoT, they’ve had problems with condi overload before HoT and they’ve been squishy before HoT, the only thing that kept them viable was mobility and stealth, so how can one possibly claim that thief wasn’t struggling before, just because they were meta, it doesn’t mean that they had no problems.

Those that still believe that Thief is viable can just watch Helseth’s TCG – 55HP analysis or ask him if he’d ever play with a thief comp atm.

Not forgetting that we had vampirism-rune to cover up the low sustain. That got removed, too.

A lot of people don´t want thieves to be the best in 1vs1… We don´t want that, too…
Being able to 1vs1 eveything with high mobility isn´t good in pvp, but being bottom in that regard is completely wrong, too. Especially that we aren´t good team-fighters either. The decent chance against other classes is not equal to " being able to 1vs1 everyone and win easily".
Another point a lot of people come up with is that “thieves always were meta in pvp” and sometimes even go into “they got what they deserved”. The first one is not completely right and there was a short time were thieves had to rethink their opportunities in pvp. Furthermore being “mandatory in every competitive team” is a two-edged-sword. Exactly ONE thief was used in almost every team. Thats different to 4 eles or other stacking classes in the past. Last one is completely imbalanced as everyone knows and must change faster that what we have seen from anet. The other one is more difficult. ONE proffession ine every team for exactly ONE role. Its not about nerfing that one proffession, instead giving other classes the possibilty to to that role, too. At the same time that single proffession need at least one alternative. How everything happened now it has gone the wrong way.

Lets say 8 teams with thieves in a tournament before june-patch: 8 from 40 are thieves = 20% were thieves. Was that good? Of course not.

Now 1 thief from 8 teams/40 people, 2,5% were thieves, Optimal would be around 10% (yeah, not exactly :P .

I´m well aware that it didn´t looked much better for ranger/necro in the past (necro was in top-team NA the whole year ^^ ), but that is definitly not a reason that thieves would deserve the state we are now.
I was hoping to get to a more or less balanced state before leagues, what failed horribly.
People saying thieves deserve that state are apparently not interested in balance and shouldn´t post here.

To another people saying the grammar from some people is terribly… we are not all english-speaking from mother tongue but at least try. Please respect that. You are welcome to come over into the german forum and write in german… (don´t expect an answer, german forum is dead).

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s nothing. I found a legendary unicorn.

Nope, rangers are common. They are like rabbits, everywhere, but you are happy when you see one.

The only time I ever saw devs playing thieves, were in a fractal-demonstration (the second wave). There were even two of them, one mostlyon double-pistol, the other one sb if I remember correctly. Imagine how that went…

eleshazar.6902:

SlayerSixx.5763:

eleshazar.6902:

SlayerSixx.5763:

It isn’t that he thinks they need an adjustment. He just wants to suggest changes that won’t break him when the nerfs do come.

So you think taking the cc off of these doesn’t make a huge difference? The main complaint against DH is that it hits hard and it’s too difficult to dodge out of it between the daze and the initial burst. The comparison always comes back to ranger traps and how you can move out of them easily.

So toning down the CC makes a huge difference. Also without trapper runes you wouldn’t have to deal with guard disappearing constantly.

My points I’m trying to make is that your approach to balance shouldn’t be just hit cooldowns and damage. Because when you do that you are left with skills that no one wants. You can nerf things without making them useless. You want to bring them in line with other things. I think your problem is that you just want to completely obliterate traps because they make you salty. The point is to make them fair, not to make them useless. Guards already have enough useless skills to their names that Anet refuses to reinvigorate.

Woah, idk if you looked into my post history, but I agree with toning CC down (or limiting it entirely to maw, as far as traps go).

I’m more pointing out the fact that you were attacking me by claiming that I’m only suggesting changes that won’t break “my build”. Hence why I was defending my proposed changes.

I know it’s going to happen anyway because anet has the soft touch of a rampaging gorilla when it comes to nerfing, but I really just don’t want to see them nerf the damage. The traps don’t really provide utility, they are meant as dps boost skills (which guard has very few of without traps). Nerfing the damage or cooldowns will just make these skills not worth taking anymore. Guard already has too many “not worth taking skills” to add more to the mix. I’m tired of always running the same 3-6 skills because the others are so bad.

Uhm, welcome in the world of thieves? Except that “ghost-trapper-troll-build” traps weren’t viable even once in 3 years. Trip-wire has a 30sec cd and is a knockback… That all…can be completely negated by dodging and not just activated. Even the rangers one are better. The only trap with some utility, the stealth one, fails all the time cause of stones in your way.
Bad utilities? Take scorpion-wire and watch it failing 90% (you can negate the effect by just jumping…).
Elites…basilisk vanom 3 years long. Maybe the new one can change that.
Haste was terrible and not used since the pistol-whip time long ago and still isn’t any good. Daggerstorm on 90sec cd (72 if traited), bugged for ages (doesn’t reflect all, workd best when standing still) and the projectiles act weird, too.
Using venoms you give up anything of survival and fail from everything.
Guards can complain about some things, but definitly not about being forced into same utilities, meditations, shouts, traps are very good and some of the other onesare seen here and there, too. In the last month there were bunker, damage and condi-builds meta. Guess what was with thief in the last hole year?

Run as fast as possible…
Furthermore try to learn the new animation, what you should dodge, when to kite (reaper), try stuff, think about reroll or pray to god for changes in favor of thieves.

Narcarsis.5739:

Using Daredevil runes for the Intelligence Proc and not so much for raw stats. However runes are largely choice as I think there are a lot of good options. Scholar and Pack are two more that do well.

Yep, I like DrD-runes with D/P as well. Dodging and getting a guaranteed crit with maybe heartseeker, shadowshot or backstab in some situations is really nice. Bad side is that you have to be infight, but whatever. Stats are great together with the bonus of 6. effect. Power > Precision > Ferocity, so…
I´m not sure about DrD or Pack though.
Furthermore the uestion about sigill of fire/blood. Blood gives definitly better sustain (think about it like that —> I does mostly like 630 on normal D/P-build —> making around 1200 difference of health each time —> advantage) . The fact that fire scales with +X% is very interesting as well.

I´m very happy about that post. It gives a lot information to other thieves (I know a hell lot about “thief” in general, but I´m always happy to learn new things.
Still experimenting with D/P, S/D and staff.
SD has some stupid aftercasts, weird animation cause of all the nerfs happended. Larcenious should definitly do more damage and steal 2 boons again.
staff is a two-edged-sword again. A lot of people still can´t dodge vault, while its very vulnerable to intterrupts or AOE in the end of the animation.
Dash is great in skirmishing. Going into fights and disengage often. Bound is great if used correctly. I´m not sure wich is better. Having the effect with normal animation would be much more efficient. Funny that we have to fight against our grandmaster-traits (the distance of dash can be great of course, but not when you fight).

Another huge point is bountiful theft vs trickster. I think bountiful theft is generally better then trickster, but in your staff-build you definitly need some condi-clear. I hate that decision. Trickster should clear 2 conditions imo to make it really on par and a “good decision” and not a decision that has to be made because of crappy alternatives for condi-clear.

Khael.7325:

I stopped reading when you started complaining about heartseaker spam.

Yeah, same here and I normally read the entire post. When you get killed by a heartseeker-spamming thief the problem is definitly a different one…

And because some people will maybe never get it:
>Initiative is ANOTHER kind of cd<
but still a cd….

Burtnik.5218:

MarauderShields.6830:

Sylent.3165:

4. How to beat UA. Retaliation works wonders, as does blocks, and a simple double dodge will make nearly all a revenants damage go bye bye. You then have 12 seconds to take them down, watch for there heal, lay off for 3 seconds and finish them.

Whenever someone tells you to double-dodge an attack that has a 12 sec cooldown you know he’s full of …

How you dodge rapid fire in open field? And what else you really have to dodge from revenant?

Rapid fire? LoS, reflect, interrupt…
To clear out, I´m not saying anything is OP. I just think backstab should be a bit tronger again, because of the risk —> Melee range and flanking, (main damage from D/D —> D/D not viable at all ) but thats another story.
UA can be interrupted btw.

meepeY.2867:

Zodryn.4216:

I like the build, but what is the point of CiS when both sets have blind access? SRej would be so much more useful.

You don’t really spend too long in stealth. It just gives steal an extra blind in case they’ve got stability going. You can use both – it doesn’t make a massive difference.

Srej is generally more useful. But you should never underestimate CiS on D/P. Like meepeY said it triggers blind when you gain stealth through hidden thief. Furthermore when you get the pulses in refuge and, what is very interesting, with black powder + heartseeker – combo.
Lets say you lay down your black powder and blind the enemy the first time. He tries to stay out of the field and attacks you —> getting rid of the first blind. Now you heartseeker through it into him to make damage AND blind him again. Amazing if used correctly.
While its strong I think it definitly should go back to master ^^

Nocta.5274:

Shirk.6421:

Gabriell.4856:

Nocta.5274:

I think a damage buff to Backstab and Larcenous Strike would be a good start to put the power thief build into a better spot.

Increase the front damage to 2.4 coef and the backstab to 4.8. Also, revert Mug back so it can crit. Revert CnD and Dancing Dagger damage to what it was at release.

This won’t address the sustain issue but it will address the 1v1 issue. It also bring back D/D.

Jesus, what did you smoke? You’re already taking half of a player’s health with one backstab, do you want to oneshot everything or what?

Backstab does between 4k and 6k crits in sPvP, if you have 12k health, you might want to switch out of Berzerker amulet.

Although, 4.8 coef would be too much. I was thinking a 20 to 30% buff, not 100%. That’s crazy talk.

You were faster.
Just testing again against light golems in HotM Light Golem.
So 2180 armor and 14.000 health. Backstab was around 4500-5500 crits in that case (meta-build). So even the highest would never get half of your HP, you need to be melee and on the side/back of your enemy. Automatic cooldown through revealed, needs stealth.
Now YOU come here and ask us what we smoke? Wth! First get your knowledge up to date and then play thief some time against competent enemies (PVP, not WvW).
A lot of skills have a similar “cooldown” like backstab while being ranged, higher damage, tracking, etc. Normally backstab is only the opener on thief on the metabuild, while most damage comes through autoattack and shadowshot.

Its one of the better made hardcounters to stealth they introduced, because it makes you think when to use it. You need to have the thief in your target and activate it while the thief is still visible. So when you pressure him and he wants to go into stealth to clear condis, regenerate health, etc, you can deny that for some time, giving you time to finish him. Timing it correctly can screw any thief and sometimes mesmer.
Other uses:

-thief uses black powder in order to stealth with heartseeker through it —> activate sic Em so the combo wont work

-mesmer wants to use mass invis (long casting time). —> sic em completely negates the elite

-thief runs to a downed target to get them both stealthed and rezz him. Use sic em for easier targeting, no health regeneration and no damage reduction.

Think ahead when to use it and it makes it far to easy against thieves.

Why not make shadow refuge an elite? I wouldn´t have any problem with that actually :P
Saying sneak gyro is terrible because of being an elite and the other ones on engi are better isn´t really valid. They have better or great options? Thats fine. I would take a lot of utilities as elite on thief. Basilisk venom is ok, but I could live without it and take refuge instead. Thief guild wasn´t used in competitive pvp for long time (was it ever?), dagger storm sometimes, but not really that much to be a valid option. The new elite is interesting bu very situational and fails easily. ^^

thegreatbronk.6890:

Hi, as someone who has run S/D forever, I could not disagree with the post above more. SA is NOT greater than Acro for defense at all. Especially for S/D. SA offers very little in-fact. Adds a bit of stealth time, cures some condis, and you regain health in stealth which is not needed. SA hinders more than it helps a good thief. Acro is way better and I’m glad you realize this as you want to build your S/D thief around said traitline. Conditions are not an issue with my build as long as you use SS, HiS and Infil Return correctly. If the opponent is full blown condi then well…skip them…they’re not even worth the time.

Acro by all means offers MORE in it’s current state than the previous version ever did. You now have a stunbreaker with Hard To Catch (Plus 100% Endurance Refill) and are basically immune to Chill/Cripple with Don’t Stop. These things will kill a thief more often than condi’s from my experience so it’s such a plus to have traits that counter this. The old Acro sucked, simple as that. Feline Grace was nerfed, but if you only ran Acro for that reason alone…it’s likely you were bad at dodging…just saying…. the current Feline Grace is JUST fine and in some cases it needed a nerf because the dodges were ridiculous. With vigorous recovery and dodging well, you have enough endurance for any fight.

Dare Devil is meh…pretty lame imo. Not viable with S/D really. I see S/P and P/P having a good chance with it though. But I see no reason to use DD over the other much better traitlines unless you’re looking to add some stealth game to your S/P or P/P action.

My build is focused on Stunbreaks and Stuns. I can lock people down if I want with 4/5 stuns, and I can escape pretty much anything with my 3 stunbreaks. It is a very good roaming build as you will see. It is built for sustain. Damage over time. Valk Armor/Zerk everything else with pack runes. Sustain for the longer tanky fights, plenty of burst to take down people quickly. Especially those that are squishy

By all means, check out my Build on YouTube as well as my roaming videos using it. I posted it the day of the June 23rd Patch when everyone said Acro was no longer good and how I was dumb for making my build Acro based. Almost anyone who has watched my video and tried my build for themselves have changed their mind. Let me know what you think

Build;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkfvePTjBjI

Roaming;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ULl62omaHw

While I´m running D/P mostly (cause of PvP) I sometime just for fun go with S/D.
SA actually can work good with S/D (was running with it far over a year ago), its just a little bit different how you have to play it.
Acro could have more endurance regeneration with vigor to compete with SA, but whatever.
If pain response would cleanse torment and confusion as well I would maybe try it out. But how its now its not that useful. Definitly needs some work.
At least they adjusted the old boonduration for vigorous recovery, so one point has been fixed ^^
DrD can be interesting, gonna have to try it out with latest changes. Adept weakness-trait and the damage one are nice, condiremoval on dodge should be minor instead of the heal (that one is interesting on S/D and sb —> kiting and dodging correctly lets you survive a lot until cd´s are ready again).
Dash and bounding dodger are strong if used correctly as well. With dash you are more mobil on flat ground without shadowsteps (except when you want to be near your target -_-) and the bound drives soem people crazy, especially mesmer.
What gives me sleepless nights is the synergy between PP really hardhitting now and the access to easy stealth with bound. Gonna be a nightmare. Its like rapidfire LB ranger with shorter range and more stealth…

To your build:
Why sigil of force? If I´m right it does less damage overall than air/blood and most damage comes from the “burst” in connection to hard hitting attacks and sigil-procs.
I think there was someone doing the math for it.
I could be wrong though.
Same problems with sb. I just can´t get off from air/fire. Adds some burst to shortbow. I don´t think that force is usefull on shortbow. A lot of low hitting attacks (when you detonate the clusters) so proc-sigils are more useful imo.
Bloodlust is just…I don´t know…after some time you have the advantage of being fullstacked with guard-stacks and bloodlust and meet players without them. I can´t enjoy these fights then.
HiS? I´m not really a fan of it. While it provides stealth ad condiremove the cast time is terrible against good players. Together with the long cd and using vigorous recovery I would definitly stay with withdraw.
Sigil of infiltrator or agility is about what someone prefers. But I prefer last one atm. You have another stunbreak on 30sec cd through hard to catch and enough shadowsteap with S/D and sb.
Adding more valkyrie to the armor is a good move if you need or just want it. Was thinking about that myself, because my goal were always 50% and I´m far over it. Still sticking with full zerker though. To lazy to craft new things and it still works in WvW. ^^
I think I agree to the remaining.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Tabootrinket.2631:

Among the propositions that would make it a unique weapon there’s :
the dark field on #4 -> It will provide blindness without the stealth bonus. Instead, it will synergize with the whirl as a combo to provide sustain while being visible.

what’s with people’s obsession with giving dust strike a dark field? it won’t make its primary function of blinding the opponents any better, and weakening charge is too short of a whirl to create enough bolts to make it a useful combo. seriously, has no one used whirl finishers before? their benefits are minimal, the bolts are inaccurate, and short whirls (hi death blossom) don’t produce nearly enough bolts to make up for the previous two shortcomings.

Black Powder + Whirling Axe...
whirl finishers not beneficial?
Its all about making up synergy so it works.

glaphen.5230:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Man… It’s really sad to see how much of the player base agrees that conditions are “OP.” I’m glad that only a fraction of the players in the game use the forums because I’d hate to see how many more might agree.

The ones that are smart know that conditions don’t need to be nerfed. Drarnor gets it but he’s also apparently too stubborn to realize arguing with you guys is fruitless.

Power damage is like a gun to the head, condition damage is like cancer. You get shot in the head and it’s game over. You get diagnosed with cancer and you go through the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining and depression but you skip the acceptance and instead go back to anger.

Good thing you can dodge bullets in this game.

Especially Headshot... QQ
And just that the “Burn-cancer” goes from “Recognize” —> “death” :P

BlackBeard.2873:

T raw.4658:

Lucky counter burst on a,class that has instant 1200 range stuns…..

Landing a counter burst requires the IQ level of being brain dead.

I was speaking from the perspective of a burst ele (s/f fresh air) vs any stealth class, not just thief. There are more classes than just thief and mesmer, but those are the only ones that can truly play the burst role effectively. The fight is incredibly 1-sided b/c you don’t have the instant stuns, and your defenses are all on long CD’s, making it quite easy to simply exhaust them then destroy you.

Funny that you came up with fresh air…
Isn´t exactly THAT build the best example for a burst which is instant and without counter without randomly dodging after your way of thinking? Its fast enough to abuse aftercasts on S/D and D/P being out of stealth. Yes, stealth gives the advantage that you can´t damage him with fresh air, but that isn´t your only source of damage, right? After all it about watching signs and getting to know WHEN a fresh-air ele gonna spike. Its very similar to D/P thieves. That you can´t see him doesn´t mean you can´t know what he will do, would do or possibly wont do. So many thieves steal when I want to stealth through blackpowder. So what can I do? Blackpowder, dodge right, dodge left and blinding powder into black powder for a good duration of stealth. It ends up baiting the enemy steal. Its so much about mindgame that make the game interesting imo.
Have you played a thief actually? Sry that I ask, but thats the biggets problem in all of that kind of threads.

What is hilarious is that medi-guards are/were considered the main counters to thieves while not being a stealth-burst class…

Another question… if a mesmer uses mirror blade or a thief goes in with shadowshot from stealth, do you even dodge that one? While evading the blind on shadowshot is difficult, the damage can be evaded easily. Stealth doesn´t make anything impossible, but more interesting. If people try to spike me from stealth its always a great time, considering it can go horribly wrong. For example mesmer/thief from team A try to burst a player from team B at the beginning. That player knows that (who doesn´t know about stealth engages?), predicts/bait it and now the mesmer/thief are open for counterburst, letting the rest of the team in a dangerous situation. Mostly they will escape that counterburst thorugh invuln/port, etc, losing important cd´s, which the enemies still have ready. If the counterburst was hard enough to proc vamp-runes they maybe have to disenagege or take time to regenerate.

And stop blaming thieves to be guilty for the “burst-meta” at the start of every bigger balance/change-patch. It happens because people want to try out highest numbers, highest bursts, etc, before going back to old ones. Thieves are kinda the ideal class for such situations because you just want to have exactly one in your party. Maybe that makes him almost the most balanced one off all? And other classes have to be tuned down?

Kolly.9872:

This shows that stealth is OP vs noobs

Well, it isn´t even about noobs, just a matter of disengage…
Had one of that “ghost thieves” lately when I was actually in WvW again, the thief wasn´t able to down me or my friend (mesmer with 0 condi-remove), after some tome we just left (thief was around sm, when he got pressured he run into it). Its not worth it and just boring. Nice from OP to actually kill someone. I would be bored and going away after 1min. I´m not saying that he doesn´t know how to use that build. but it is just lame, not anywhere about a risk/reward gameplay that, at the end, got the thief nerfed for the last 3 years.
I can´t understand people complaining a lot about P/D in wvw, its easy to counter and I do it every day, even on warrior (not really played for 9 month), but playing kittenlike is just, well… I said it…

Narcarsis.5739:

TheGuy.3568:

Sigh… he meant that you can interrupt hs to deny stealth. If it had an evade frame than that wouldn’t be possible. I doubt he was trolling just pointing out a legit issue that would lead to more thief hate if it was added to the game.

It’s oki, some things go over people’s heads.

Yep, evade on heartseeker shouldn´t ever happen ^^
What I would like to see aren´t more evades on skills, instead fixing the kitten aftercasts on S/D 3, SB 3 and I think staff 3 has an aftercast to, right? That aftercast is a very important point why S/D is inferior to D/P (not the only one, but its really nasty).
While bad players doesn´t know this mostly, playing against good players having an eye on them gets you punished hard

Here we go again to clarify the "initiative makes thief to not have cd on weaponskills. Because that assumption drives me crazy.
Initiative is another form of cooldown. You can use every skill as long as you have the initative for it. But every skill that uses initiative is basically putting all your weaponskills on both weapons on a “delayed global” cooldown. If you want you can use headshot all the time, but that would dran you initiative and you have to wait until having enough initiative restored for another skill —> again on 0-1 initiative. 12-15sec cd to be full again.
The other defensive stuff isn’t unique to thief, but I have to agree that sometime it is forgotten. They are mostly active and have to be used accordingly though.

Amante.8109:

Coronit.9432:

I was[n’t?] able to enjoy the new dodges with 500 ping… That is really frustrating. Normal dodges still show the annimatin instantly, while the endurance drains a little bit later (at that time the real dodge happens. Elite dodges not being real dodges? Weird, right?

For what it’s worth, that’s the one and only thing we can count on getting fixed. The animations are going to get even more bland and generic to do it, but the DD dodges should be very reliable come HoT release.

Yep, I just meant that what everyone was feeling with the dodges, I had it like 5-times stronger cause of the high ping —> was looking funny at least tbh ^^

Was there any update how exactly the dodges are simpler? Will it be like warrior-dodge trait (normal dodge + damage), just that our dodge is a combo-finisher, too? Dash was declared to still be some different move.

The Wizland.8435:

Actually, I’ve played thief for 37 hours. Anyways, you seem to be completely ignoring my point, so I guess I’ll just leave since apparently no one here wants to be constructive. Overly negative forums (such as this one) are extremely predictable, boring, and no fun, not to mention no help to anyone.

I have 5500h on my thieves, so I’m sorry that doesn’t impress me :P
What have I won? ^^
Like some people said, there are/were a hell lot of suggestions and constructive feedback always around. Yes, right now, too. There is a lot of frustration on the forum and fo r some parts I can understand it —> I never wanted to have to go back to full shadow-arts line and since the patch its a must (last 3 years a lot of suggestions to change SA were made a d what happens? CiS gets grandmaster wtf) – feline grace nerfed (S/D wasn’t even in meta before) and we get a elite-spec with more dodges… Well, in short there happened some things that were very frustrating.
For my part I couldn’t play PvP the last month, so I’m mostly watching and correcting some things. For example that the “buff” for vigorous recovery (vigor on heal) 5sec vigor to 7sec vigor actually isn’t a buff. It was on that time BEFORE the patch in juni cause of boon-duration in acro, which we havn’t got after the duration got removed.

I was able to enjoy the new dodges with 500 ping… That is really frustrating. Normal dodges still show the annimatin instantly, while the endurance drains a little bit later (at that time the real dodge happens. Elite dodges not being real dodges? Weird, right?

At the end… You defenitly should read through all the posts, there were some really interesting discussions going on.

Little experience from CHINA… —> normally playing EU in Germany with around 20-30 ping.

I was the last 6 weeks in china visiting family. Cause of so much to do and higher Ping and bad internet I refused to play PvP —> not that bad tbh, more time for other things

I was still looking into the game to speak to friends, a daily here and there, looking a bit into beta-weekend, etc.
At the beginning I had always around 350-500 ping with some (like every few min) spikes reaching interesting numbers. But I blame the internet here (living in a Diplomatic Resident Compound —> still better connections than most)
After I saw the post here in the Forum I wanted to observe the development and I really had a positive conclusion. Mostly the ping were around 250-300 with definitly smoother and more reactive skill-triggering.
While I´m glad that I will be back in Germany next week, I think that information could be interesting

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

babazhook.6805:

At the same time were SBS mobility diffused to other sets no one would have reason to use SB and would warrant changes to that weapon.

I think that changes to this weapon are exactly what is needed.

Jana.6831:

I use it to “travel” but also to cap camps, weaken those with healing signets, evading necros and keeping the downed downed.

But you admit that the main purpose of this weapon is for I-Arrow.

I wouldn’t say so. Of course I use I-arrow a lot, but I use kinda everything sb offers: range cleave, short-distance-AOE/blast finisher, evade if needed, poison on downs and surprise shot for CC/projectile finisher, etc —> great feeling when you got TWO surprise shots up, slow arrow-speed ftw.
Its a alternative weapon if you need stay ranged, want to give support through the blast finisher….
I love the combo: surprise shot → gunk (stolen) → maybe more gunk →blast finisher for damage and chaos-armor → lot of fun
Shortbow is mostly great in mobility cause of z-axis (is that the correct word?) teleports. I,m not sure how it would be on flat ground against other classes.
I think a year ago someone wanted to see what is faster, heartseeker or I-arrow. Somethings changed since then, but the result was just a small advantage on I-arrow. (Everything normal for speedwas used → swiftness, etc)

And no, I don’t think there are changes needed. Taking away some utility and improving damage wouldn’t be great. —> damage outside of bouncing and clusters still very low., while utility-nerfs would harm the weapon a lot.

Quadox.7834:

Oh no what horrible thief nerfs! (Oh wait, nothing was actually nerfed on thief)

Well, this notes aren´t final, am I right? Still plenty of time to think about nerfs. :P

- Thief Pistol getting damage buffs – 20%+
- Potent Poison – Poison damage increase going from 10% to 33%.
- Vigorous Recovery – Vigor duration going from 5s to 7s.
- Expeditious Dodger – Getting a 100% duration buff from 2s of swiftness to 4s

First one is a buff, but P/P is still worthless in PvP (not that I care, I don´t like pistols in that game —> using smallest pistol available ingame). Damage isn´t the problem here. But I have to add that daredevil actually brings interesting stuff to P/P —> Pistol # 5 —> dodge to gain stealth —> sneak attack + unload + unload —> Pistol #5
That actually doesn´t sound great. Gonna have a lot of Unload-pew-pew-pew-heroes running around.

Potent Poison: We got that from rangers, right? It was 50% when they had it… Have I more to say? First nerfed, now partly buffed.

Vigorous Recovery: We had that before through boon-duration. I was wondering about it at the beginning. A lot of classes (everyone? >not thieves at laest<) got some boon-duration on their traits.

Expeditious Dodger: Mostly the same thing as vigorous recovery, but I think its a bit more then it was back prior to the patch. Gonna look how it is then with Pack-runes, less dodges, but now some more swiftness.
Acrobatic still lackluster though… ^^

Headshot: “1/4s daze for 4 inititiative is just ridiculously bad and not worth using unless you can interrupt something completely catastrophic to your entire team with it.”

What?! In PvP this skill is perfect. You have to look out, be careful when to use it (stabi, block, invuln, etc), but if used in the right moment it can be a game-changing component —> interrupting banner twice, someone rezzing/stomping, etc. 4 ini are worth it and secure that it wont be spammed. Don´t use it mindless. Spamming it should be punished (as its now).

Don´t know exactly how it is in PvE-enviroment, but to get some defiance-stacks down it works, too.
Damage from stuff like unload of course should be weeker, its channeled, more attacks (favoring sigil-procs, trait-procs, etc) and ranged. Backstab is melee, from behind and you have to be in stealth. In the right hands even P/P can be very powerful, but still lacking things that make us important in PvP —> mobility.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I get the feeling that a lot of people are being overly paranoid. When the devs say “you can’t dodge it all”, I think they just mean the standard dodges that come base on every class.

Thief and Daredevil dodging are on a whole other level.

#1: We have weapon dodges, which is one dodge every 4 seconds going by initiative cost.
#2: We have 50% vigor uptime with either trickery or lolcrabatics.
#3: We have skill dodges in Withdraw and Roll for Initiative
#4: Signet of Agility’s active is 2 more dodges every 30/24 seconds.
#5: We have movement skills that move us out of danger zones.
#6: Now starting with daredevil, we get an additional dodge.
#7: Daredevils have the best endurance regen in the game, especially with brawlers tenacity. All physical skills give 10 endurance, including the 12 second block in bandits defense. That endurance is all worth about 4 seconds of vigor.
#8: Renewed Vigor gives up to 85 endurance every 16 seconds.
#9: Steal gives 50 endurance every 30/20 seconds.
#10: Daredevil dodges aren’t like other dodges. Other classes dodge to avoid damage, and don’t do damage while dodging. But with Bounding Dodge and Lotus Training, our dodge skills maintain damage, costing us relatively little.
#11: If we go defensive, the combination of escapists absolution and Unhindered Combatant menas we can’t be soft CCed into a damage patch.
#12: Staff Mastery can regen 2 endurance per initiative, which while miniscule still contributes.
#13: Our greater dodge bar means we have more endurance capacitance. Any “burn phase” or damage-less downtime has the ability to benefit the daredevil 50% more than any other class.
#14: This isn’t pertinent to dodging, but don’t forget that stealth is the best aggro management tool in the game. Should we ever want to stop focus fire on ourselves, we just blink out of existence.

Thief and daredevil dodging isn’t just “better” than other classes. It is exponentially better than other classes. It also isn’t the only survival tool we have.

Well, we can´t know yet what they mean with “you can’t dodge it all”. Maybe just undodgable or you need more dodges. Thats still in the stars.
Thanks for summarize that stuff, but what lacks there is a view over synergy. You can´t have everything. For example you could use daredevil, trickery and acrobatic for a lot of dodges but not really damage —> maybe bunker (pls don´t create a bunker-build as another “viable” build. I don´t like bunkering ^^ —> while dodge-bunkering sounds nice). But DA,acrobatic, daredevil would lack trickery which is important and difficult to give up. Daredevil and acrobatic could work well together, but DA and trickery provide very important utility.

Other stuff depend on the situation. You most likely wont use agility signet exactly every 30sec. If you are full of endurance you don´t activate it or you may still want the passiv-bonus.
Bonus on steal require steal to actually hit (what every good thief aims for), making up for skillful plays (baiting steal with counting cd of steal, etc). A lot of people accused steal to be a “no-brainer” and “win-button”, forgetting that missing one single steal is huge. Learning aftercasts and situations to safely get you steal on is very important for thieves. It was important to play against S/D thieves, too. The aftercast on S/D 3 can be heavily exploited.
If you use DA,trickery,daredevil with last one focused on endurance-gain you will lack condi-remove (you can´t dodge everything). If you give up traits like bountiful theft for trickster to gain some removal you give up vigor on steal and boon-steal —> less dodges. You can´t have it all

1. isn´t correct…
   Warrior can deal damage through dodge —> “reckless dodge” (adept minor)
   Ele gain very important things with “evasive arcana” (grandmaster)
   Other classes gain stuff through >dodging< without actually having to >evade< something. (ranger – protection on dodge/ Stop, drop and roll, etc)
   I don´t mean that they should have that condition, cause they maybe lack some other things, but thieves have a lot of that stuff.
   Mesmer gets a clone, being a very important trait since release.

I think thats it for now.
Never forget to look at the big picture

I´m sorry to dissapoint you, but PvP-rank is definitly not a good indicator of PvP-Experience. Reaching Rank 80 is very easy (got mine in like 2-3 month with casual playing) and while you at least understood the easiest mechanics there is still a hell lot to learn. Playing thief as main myself I not just need to know how to play thief, but also rotations and the other classes. Furthermore you need to play a lot to gain the experience about certain situtions, how to handle them, etc.
Rank 80 on the old System would worth a lot more (no one reached it until the change )
For me an approximate threshold would be like 2000 games on your class with a decent Win/Lose ratio.
And of course played a lot lately to be up tp date.

Edit: Yeah, forgot the Rankfarm-servers… Explains everything, right?

Morfedel.4165:

I’m seeing a lot of people complaining about other classes gaining access to reveal, and want thieves immune to reveal, or reduce it, or remove it from skills, esp sneak gyro.

If you havent fought against a permastealth thief yourself though, you have no idea how frustrating it can be, simply swinging in the air and trying to guess where that thief is. Especially if its a zerker build, as are you, and he can literally one shot you with backstab.

So, no. Stealth has to have some kind of real counterplay. If the thief is too fragile without stealth, than something ELSE needs to be done about it, but stealth has to have some counterplay of some kind… and not just because of thieves, but because of mesmers too.

((frankly, I think stealth should have a counterplay that isn’t built into skills but built into the game engine itself, but I suspect that won’t be happening anytime soon))

First again, perma stealth? So how you knew he was there? :P
Then, from your other post, if he stealthed and attacked for example with backstab he CAN´T immediatly restealth —> 3sec revealed in wvw/4sec revealed in pvp.
C&D? really? From all our stealth sources this is one of our easiest ones to counter. The animation is clear so dodge and he waisted 6 initiative for nothing except standing near you.

“If you haven´t fought against a permastealth thief yourself though”
Guess what? I fought so many of them with my thief,ranger,necro,warrior,ele,guardian and mesmer. I even fought a bit against thieves with my engi. He´s my least played class.
And I´m definitly not frustrated in and after these fights. If he´s really permastealthing you just don´t care and move along or he´s a normal thief and you fight him. I LOVE that guessing game. With experience its less guessing and more knowing exactly what the thief is doing.
So I give you that question back, have you ever played thief by yourself? Thats the crucial point in every post someone makes about another class. If he haven´t played the class, his statements are not really useful.
Counters to stealth are in the game since release:
The normal reveal-debuff
Negating >access< to stealth by negating skill to gain stealth —> interrupting D/P 5 + 2 combo/ dodging or interrupting C&D
AOE on the last position the thief was or probably is (very important if he used refuge —> bomb the circel or if the 5 + 2 combo got through, you see the direction the heartseeker goes – some stealth more with more heartseekers —>go inside the black powder circel, he hits you and gets revealed for 3 or 4sec – don´t tell me thats to much damage, I do that with my own thief a lot) with more experience you better know where to deal damage on the thief, you can still hit them in stealth.
As a conlusion, reveal is the counter that is built into the game-engine itself, the others are counters you learn when learning the game, there is even dodge training in every first map in PvE now :P
Have you asked a good theif to practice with you?

Last thing…backstab can oneshot you? What are you, a bandit in queensdale?
If he really oneshots you, you are squishy as hell and he was build as a extreme glasscannon. After such a damagespike he sits there with nothing.
A normal thief will never oneshot you. Our backstabs in PvP are around 4k-6k regulary.
What can oneshot you are a thief and mesmer together.