Guild Wars 2

Stiv.1820:

Daecollo.9578:

Stiv.1820:

I’m new to S/D but starting to really like FS. You have time to manually aim the 2nd attack after you fire it off. It’s amazing to use on thieves who are coming in for a C&D.

Yeah, but useless against everyone else it seems like, its not like Thieves have any boons to strip.

C&D spamming shadow arts thieves usually have a few stacks of might to get rid of. It’s good for getting out of 100 blades/BF. Also to damage Engies who camp in their yardsale of awful while pooping grenades without taking much damage yourself.

You got 2 stacks of might that probably had 1-2 seconds left anyways, good job.

If you got in BC/100b you will be knocked down, you can’t use FS when your knocked down.

Grenade Engineers are pretty BA…. lol

We need evil races.

Nightmare Court/Inquest/Evil Norn/Ect Ect…

Boons tied to healing abilities and dodges unless they do something like improve what they do (Grant Regeneration when they heal.), (Grant Vigor when you dodge.) should be changed, because it does not benefit you.

For example:

GRANTS SWIFTNESS when you heal!

This almost makes healing worthless, because now you need to pretty much waste your “6” ability when you should be using it when you need it, not using it for a buff you need, this is totally stupid when other classes have things like “Gain Swiftness when you critical.” which can be used at almost any time.

GRANTS Vigor when you heal!

This is kind of “What?” because you need vigor when you dodge, not when you heal, when you heal your endurance could be full.

Honestly, traits like this should be changed to:

Grants Regeneration when you heal.
Grants Vigor when you roll.
Grants Swiftness when you critically hit.

This makes it its intended roll, and makes it a lot funner of a trait, because your benefitting from it.

Stiv.1820:

I’m new to S/D but starting to really like FS. You have time to manually aim the 2nd attack after you fire it off. It’s amazing to use on thieves who are coming in for a C&D.

Yeah, but useless against everyone else it seems like, its not like Thieves have any boons to strip.

We need it, please.

Auesis.7301:

I dislike the rooted evasion idea – it’s why I don’t like Pistol Whip. All I want is for the tracking of the skill to be 100% reliable, because repositioning around the opponent is one of the most crucial parts of my S/D fighting strategy, and Flanking Strike is perfect for it, especially when the boon strip is unblockable and the damage from both hits is fairly formidable (you can move to land the second one if you need to).

I am in favour of the boon being stolen rather than stripped, however.

Um, When did I ever say root?

Anyways I’d rather be rooted then unable to control my toon and moved around randomly like I am now.

Flanking Strike does require skill, but I believe it should not move you at all, just grant you evasion and let you control where you want to go, like whirling axe and other abilities do it.

It doesn’t need anymore damage, its damage and control is enough.

I do believe it should steal the boon though, this would bring even more skill into equation, because you have to pick which boon you want to strip and steal.

And letting the player have full control with how the ability moves instead of just leaping or tracking the target would be a fun mechanic.

Make the textures for medium armor not so different, they are all very different depending on the set, compared to Heavy/Light armor which almost shares universal textures and colors, Medium Armor is a rogue who makes making your own outfits a nightmare, because many of them simply look the same, or look too bulky.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Let’s be honest, almost anyone that plays a Thief can come up with a better ability for Flanking Strike. I would take a Vampiric Strike that steals health and has a damage modifier based on healing power (or just increases life drained).

Doesn’t matter the name honestly, just get rid of Flanking Strike.

Kind of want to steal a boon, if I want to steal life I have pistol whip and signet of malice.

Dagins.5163:

Daecollo.9578:

Well, I use the term vampire as your taking away something and giving it to yourself.

Vampires are about sucking blood and sort of life force.

Thief strike?

Okay, seriously now, the only thing which should be changed about FS, and I write it again, is this kitty delay caused by animation. I can’t dodge powerful blows properly, when animations gets queued after auto-attack. Some attacks are hard enough to dodge with a simple roll, but FS is pure lottery, in which you lose over 90% of time.

No, I will never turn off sword auto attack, because it is core damage move of S/D.

No, Vampirism is:

vampirism (?væmpa??r??z?m)

— n
1. belief in the existence of vampires
2. the actions of vampires; bloodsucking
3. the act of preying upon or exploiting others

This is mostly about ‘3’, The act of preying upon or exploiting others, your stealing someones boon, meaning your taking there buffs for yourself, that is like your sword draining there essence.

I also hate the lottery, but I also believe it should steal boons.

Binary Rain.4869:

Daecollo.9578:

Your character would be striking quickly, he would look like hes blurred while hes swinging and stabbing with shadows around him.

Example would be like: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blurred_Frenzy

I suppose. But then the skill would become terrible since it would root you in place. It will feel like pistol whip then. With the dodging mechanic, though, anet always seems to put movement into it. Like whirlwind attack, roll for intiative, serpent’s strike and many more. All are moving skills when they dodge.

Edit: I still love the idea about stealing the boon though.

Heres my idea for the animation:
A thief performing Cloak and Dagger Animation.
A thief performing Stab Animation.
The Blurring Character Particle effect from Blurred Frenzy.
The thief is blurred, but he looks like hes both these attacks at once, it almost looks like they’re are two thieves, but its just a very quick move, both of them are blurred as well.

The Evasion comes because the thief is moving so fast in one spot it looks like hes thrusting your sword and shanking you at the same time, which is why it has evasion.

However, the weakness to this is it has only 2 hits, so it has a low hit volume, unlike pistol whip, this means less procs.

Vecuu.2018:

Thieves offer:

-condition damage – Limited, Very easilly capped.
-burst damage – Limited, Unlike Warriors.
-large amounts of easy to apply AoE cripple – Melee, Vulnerable.
-AoE blinds – Ignored by AOEs in dungeons, Ignored by AOE Melee Attacks, Ignored by Scripted AOE attacks.
-evasion tanking – Limited.
-Shadow Refuge: one of the safest ways to rally an ally in the game – Ignored by AOEs in dungeons, Ignored by AOE Melee Attacks, Ignored by Scripted AOE Attacks.
-a spammable blast finisher while wielding a Short Bow – Amazing.
-Haste Rallying – What? This seems stupid to me.
-etc

I think that FS should steal the boon, I mean we are thieves.

Also I wanted the tracking part to be fixed by making it a move quickly blurred and swing twice.

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

If the enemy has 20 stacks, you only steal 1 stack, so its pointless to steal might.

Except for the part where the target doesn’t have 20 stacks of might any more. Or the part where you did it for basically free while using a steal you were going to use anyway.

Daecollo.9578:

Stealth is ignored by most NPCs, if you stealth they will just go right where you are stealthed and stare at you till it goes away.

Patently untrue. .5 seconds after stealth, every mob everywhere instantly retargets something else, or if there are no targets avaliable instantly leashes or stands still. The only time where a mob even pretends to know where you are after stealth is if you have mistakenly stealthed during an attack windup, in which case the mab will complete the windup and hit with the attack if you’re still in range before forgetting all about you.

Daecollo.9578:

Shadow Refuge is ok, but 1000 healing is worthless in dungeons, thats basicly one shout heal from a warrior and thats 1/10th of what one healing banner could do, and Rangers and most classes can give everyone regeneration, and protection.

Except that shadow refuge also grants reliable and long duration stealth, instantly, to anyone in trouble. SR alone can rez a downed player, even if that player is AFK and the party is in the middle of a fight. SR with groups is the only reliable way to mid-fight rez a dead player, as it stealths as many people as enter it. Drop it and add three rezzers while the fourth guy kites to prevent HP resets…. and that dead guy is up in seconds.

Also, SR is a darkness field, a field type only otherwise avaliable to necros. Dark fields combo in to life steals. Combine that steal with the field’s innate heal, and the stealth… and you just completely fixed any bad aggro while providing healing to the people that need to keep it.

Of course, like any combo fields, its only as good as your group is smart.

Daecollo.9578:

Thief is horrible in dungeons compared to other classes, even rangers.

*Better sustained AoE cripple than any class in the game
*Better sustained AoE blind than any class in the game
*Is only class than can safely rez anyone at any time
*Can tank infinite numbers of trash, due to tanking becoming more effective with more mobs.
*Can burn defiant on bosses like hot butter.
*Spammable blast finisher

The list goes on. I’m sorry you had the misfortune of partying with lolbackstab thieves attempting to PvE. Certain builds, on every class, simply don’t work right in the harder PvE bits of the game.

Blind matters? – Most bosses ignore it.

Try Meleeing a Fractal Boss for that awesome cripple.

Safely rez anyone at anytime? Hardly, I’d bring a ranger for that, Search And Rescue.
Tank Infinite Numbers of Trash, maybe, depends on the trash, but nobody cares about trash mobs, only bosses.

Warriors also have a spammable blast finisher, why do you need two of them? Dungeons usually have about 2-3 warriors already.

Binary Rain.4869:

Highlie.7641:

Well Flanking strike is one of the best (if not) the best sword skill so i really do hope they never change it. If at this point you haven’t figured out a way to make it hit 90%. you really need to go back to the drawing board and figure it out. even when it flings you in a random direction who cares. it gives you enough time to walk into range before your second strike starts.
A dodge, Boon remover, plus 1/4 More dmg then Cnd.

Luckily for us S/D users, this skill should (don’t quote me on this though) never get nerfed with all these people crying about how bad it is. Sure, the time between the two attack could be faster and sure the path could be better too, but over all it is one of my favorite skills.

Oh, your forgot unblockable on your list. Not sure if the 2nd strike can be blocked or not though.

But as for this ‘Vampiric Strike’ idea, I feel someone has read Twilight too many times….. It would need to be called something else. And evasion without moving? I don’t get it… It would not make sense in game to dodge without even moving. I would be completely fine with the stealing boon part though.

I lose faith in people when they see vampire and think “Twilight” instead of something like “World of Darkness” or “Vampire the Masquerade.”

Your character would be striking quickly, he would look like hes blurred while hes swinging and stabbing with shadows around him.

Example would be like: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blurred_Frenzy

Kilger.5490:

Daecollo.9578:

snip

I deleted this post, I had initiative and cooldown mixed up, see above. Besides it doesnt matter, there are thieves that can keep up with RTL, swiftness, and teleport np, so this is just academic.

Those thieves sacrifice damage and runes to do such, I would not care about them.
They have to waste there HEAL and waste 12% damage and even more damage from not having points in the power tree to have it, and those thieves are kind of lulzy.

Gimmicky builds never work, a thief must focus all or nothing, you pretty much give up your “6” (healing) ability to have perma swiftness on a thief, because you have to use your heal every time its up, and not when you need to use it.

You also have to dodge as well as soon as its up, this means losing your ability to dodge when you need it.

To sum it up in one post: its not worth it, sorry.

Highlie.7641:

Well Flanking strike is one of the best (if not) the best sword skill so i really do hope they never change it. If at this point you haven’t figured out a way to make it hit 90%. you really need to go back to the drawing board and figure it out. even when it flings you in a random direction who cares. it gives you enough time to walk into range before your second strike starts.
A dodge, Boon remover, plus 1/4 More dmg then Cnd.

Yes, luckily you summed up all the problems with it in your post.

Its too hard to use for casuals and bad players like me, I obviously need to learn the secret that is “flanking strike.”

Kilger.5490:

Daecollo.9578:

Kilger.5490:

Daecollo.9578:

Heres what I read: Nerf Stealth so I can kill everything and nothing has a chance to get away from me! – signed D/D Elementalist.

Seriously, ever understand the concept of: You don’t always win the fight? you won when he ran away, chasing him across the map does nothing, hes a thief, your not going to catch him anyways, infact I say he won the fight, because he manages to keep a D/D elementalist out of it for so long.

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Most thieves keep up to me just fine on my elementalist when using RTL, swiftness and teleport. They always catch me running if I’m trying to get away from the zerg, and I’m fine with that. You are seriously saying thieves have no teleports or mobility traits??? I think you’d better look again, there are so many mobility traits I’d have to spend an hour digging them all up. Thieves are the top of the pack in mobility, though elementalists are very close behind.

Thieves have 1 long cool down teleport, and short bow 5, and infiltrator’s strike, they can keep up with a short distance, and then they run out of stuff, if a thief does this, he has no chance of getting away from you, or stealthing because he has no initiative, he burned it all chasing you and now he can’t run away, you might as well call this a “free kill.”

What… Mobility Traits? Your saying its a waste of time getting them? are you serious? Thieves in first place in mobility?

Thieves have little to no access to swiftness, limited teleportation and we must be hitting something to gain lots of stealth, otherwise we have to wait for 45-60 second cooldown moves that only stealth us for 4 seconds each.

Steal is also on a long cool-down as well.

Those “mobility traits.” (perma swiftness/perma vigor/endurance regeneration when you cast.) seem useless to you, but they are currently what makes D/D Elementalist freaking good.

If a thief catches you when your using burning speed and ride the lightning and perma swiftness and other things, then something is obviously wrong, you need to look at your traits.

Thief is not the best on mobility, Warrior has more mobility, elementalist facerolls us on mobility, nobody can get across the map faster then elementalist can.

Traits have nothing to do with it, I have permanent swiftness, RTL and teleport. Theres very little else that I could do to get more speed.

As far as mobility, shortbow teleport comes up every 6 seconds. Heartseeker/Shadowshot come up every 3 and 4 seconds respectively, both leaps. Really are we having this discussion? Trait or rune for perm swiftness.

This isnt even a complaint of mine even, I’m fine with thieves having more mobility, but dont say they dont please.

Wrong.

Short bow teleport comes every 9.6 seconds, Initiative recharges 1 every 1.6 seconds.
Heartseeker comes every 4.8 seconds, but thieves don’t have swiftness (33% movement speed.) unless they get thrill of the crime, and thats only 10 seconds every time I use steal, which is very little to none.

Swiftness is faster then using Heartseeker+25% Movement Speed.

Shadow Shot/Steal needs a target, so you can’t use it to run away, only attack.

And if your being chased by a thief, and hes using these to chase you… he can’t kill you.

Also, Your describing moves from 3 different weapon sets, a thief can only take 2 weapon sets, and weapon sets don’t even matter as much to a thief because we only have 1 initiative pool, it doesn’t reset when we switch weapons.

- For laughs

Well, I use the term vampire as your taking away something and giving it to yourself.

Evade and Slash and stab your foe with both weapons. First Strike steals a boon.
Damage: (x2) 756 (same damage as before, you just strike the target at once.)
Range: 170.

This skill no longer moves you, but grants you short evasion, animation is changed to just attack the target first with the sword, and then quickly stab with the dagger.

I believe this ability would help thieves a lot, and fits the name “thief.” because your literally stealing your enemies fun boons that you don’t have.

Kilger.5490:

Daecollo.9578:

Heres what I read: Nerf Stealth so I can kill everything and nothing has a chance to get away from me! – signed D/D Elementalist.

Seriously, ever understand the concept of: You don’t always win the fight? you won when he ran away, chasing him across the map does nothing, hes a thief, your not going to catch him anyways, infact I say he won the fight, because he manages to keep a D/D elementalist out of it for so long.

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Most thieves keep up to me just fine on my elementalist when using RTL, swiftness and teleport. They always catch me running if I’m trying to get away from the zerg, and I’m fine with that. You are seriously saying thieves have no teleports or mobility traits??? I think you’d better look again, there are so many mobility traits I’d have to spend an hour digging them all up. Thieves are the top of the pack in mobility, though elementalists are very close behind.

Thieves have 1 long cool down teleport, and short bow 5, and infiltrator’s strike, they can keep up with a short distance, and then they run out of stuff, if a thief does this, he has no chance of getting away from you, or stealthing because he has no initiative, he burned it all chasing you and now he can’t run away, you might as well call this a “free kill.”

What… Mobility Traits? Your saying its a waste of time getting them? are you serious? Thieves in first place in mobility?

Thieves have little to no access to swiftness, limited teleportation and we must be hitting something to gain lots of stealth, otherwise we have to wait for 45-60 second cooldown moves that only stealth us for 4 seconds each.

Steal is also on a long cool-down as well.

Those “mobility traits.” (perma swiftness/perma vigor/endurance regeneration when you cast.) seem useless to you, but they are currently what makes D/D Elementalist freaking good.

If a thief catches you when your using burning speed and ride the lightning and perma swiftness and other things, then something is obviously wrong, you need to look at your traits.

Thief is not the best on mobility, Warrior has more mobility, elementalist facerolls us on mobility, nobody can get across the map faster then elementalist can.

Sil.4560:

Stealth seriously needs some sort of fix. To me, honestly, the idea of being able to go completely invisible for long enough to retreat half a mile away and reset the fight whenever you please is just absurd. There need to be some sort of stealth revealing skills, or tracking skills, or something. I must have chased some Thief around for ten minutes last night on my Elementalist in WvW because he could just go completely invisible and run in some random direction whenever he started getting pressured.

He couldn’t do enough damage to threaten me, but I imagine against any other class that doesn’t have the same healing/mobility potential as an Elementalist, it would be even more annoying. I’ve seen them pull the same crap when they get jumped by a small group – there’s absolutely no danger to them because they can just retreat any time they like and there’s nothing anyone can do to detect them.

Going completely invisible in broad daylight in front of half a dozen people doesn’t make any sense to begin with. I thought I was fighting a Thief? Or does he have the One Ring?

Heres what I read: Nerf Stealth so I can kill everything and nothing has a chance to get away from me! – signed D/D Elementalist.

Seriously, ever understand the concept of: You don’t always win the fight? you won when he ran away, chasing him across the map does nothing, hes a thief, your not going to catch him anyways, infact I say he won the fight, because he manages to keep a D/D elementalist out of it for so long.

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Don’t fight them, run, if they chase you, lure them into an area your familiar with and out of the area they arn’t familiar with, P/D thieves will win always usually if you fight them on there turf with there rules.

Nate Rush.6970:

Exactly, I thought it would be really clever to give the ranger and really the ranger alone a couple stealth counters, like ability to track them, or their pet hunts them down….something. It would in very least close the “stealth loop” of rock-paper-scissors.
(while simultaneously buffing the under-used ranger win/win)

Then necromancers should be given the ability to corrupt the rangers pet and fully take control of it, using it on the ranger to kill him.

Thieves should beable to steal warriors weapon and leave him helpless as the thief beats on him with it.

Guardians should beable to encase the necromancer in holy fire and leave him stunned for 10 seconds so he can’t do anything.

Mesmers should beable to trick the guardian and make all of his damage against him against his clones instead.

Warriors should be able to ignore the elementalists stuff because its for sissys and stomp em.

Elementalist should beable to light mesmers on fire and burn all there cloths off, they are so ashamed they have to stand there and try to cover themselves!

Nice Rock Paper Scissor balance, right?

Bad Players make the thief class powerful, even if everyone rolled thieves, good thieves would still beat them.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Daecollo.9578:

Snipers and Stealthers are completely different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_rXq2LYg0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBcjsOt0_g

The video you linked was all about snipers right?

I think i’d rather get killed by a thief, then safely from 1500 range.

Then nerf Kill Shot’s multi-second preparation damage requiring full adrenaline on glass cannons. I honestly don’t care. If sniping with Kill Shot is unfun, regardless of the opportunity the ability provides for blocking/absorbing/reflecting/dodging the shot, then fix it.

But you’re dodging the issue of Stealth not being fun once again.

Also, give Thieves all of the imbalanced things you spewed out just to try to avoid actually discussing the issue. That’s fine. They’d still be far more fun to fight.

You act like full adrenaline is the hardest thing ever, honestly, with the new heal they added and precision signet and the shout, I can refill the bar 4 times and use kill shot back to back every time its up.

Nate Rush.6970:

I would give thieves anything they asked for if they made fighting stealth an engaging experience.

The ability to not de-stealth when you hit your opponent, but if your hurt it destealths you.

Cogbyrn.7283:

@Dae: Do you not see how being forced to just run back to a camp of NPCs every time you encounter a P/D Thief is bad design? You aren’t having fun because you’re just running away, the P/D Thief isn’t having fun because he can’t fight you with NPCs around. If you try to fight the Thief, odds are you aren’t having fun because he whittles you down until you die.

So the Thief’s personal hell is a little area of WvW where your NPCs exist. Your personal hell is the rest of the map. What beautiful and engaging counter play mechanics.

What if they removed C&D and replaced it with something that lets you shadowstep to an opponent’s back? What would have to change to make sure Thieves were appropriately compensated? I’m guessing some damage would have to go up, condition or otherwise. It just occurred to me that having the ability to stealth on a weapon attack creates more problems than solutions.

Well, then you would have to change the sneak attack itself to work after you did such a shadow step, and then give thieves things like “protection” when they use this shadow step, and then add things like regeneration and more healing abilities, and then give thieves more access to knock downs and other things, so they can bunker down like every other class.

Also, you should also give them some group buffs too, besides the trash they have now.

You would also have to give them access to plenty of condition removal as well.

Then again, you might as well just remove the thief class and go D/D Elementalist, because that is what that is.

The thieve little area where he attacks you is his comfortable zone, if you make him leave it, he is forced to relearn the area your fighting, and learn the perils of what your dragging him into.

Snipers and Stealthers are completely different.

The video you linked was all about snipers right?

I think i’d rather get killed by a thief, then safely from 1500 range.

Nate Rush.6970:

Daecollo.9578:

Alright, then I will counter it this way, whats the point in chasing someone who is in stealth, not hurting anyone?

This isn’t always the case. Sorry to say it, but to some people, classes, or other cannon builds, a cloaked thief is still plenty of dps to take them down.

Bottom line it doesn’t matter if 5-10-100-2000 people say fun and balanced to play a stealth thief in this game. If the same number is saying how not fun it is, the design was poorly implemented.
I personally don’t give a kitten if a thief can or cannot survive x,y,z while killing 1,2,3. What I care about is the fact that swinging wildly into the air trying to hit the invisible man is simply not fun to do.
From experience its fun as hell to play a stealth-troll, trying to kill one on the other hand is really something you just pass on the opportunity. And that is the defense most are trying to make….which is even more sad.
People’s idea of defending a working mechanic is you should just ignore the cloaked thief as he doesn’t do too much damage. Does that sound right?
Is it so hard to see how incredibly wrong that statement is?

I will awnser you this truthfully and honestly.
People “want to win.” and thats why you lose.

A thief does not have the upfront dps to kill anything, they are however very good at getting away from pretty much anything, the reason many lose is because they believe that they “must” chase the thief down and win.

For example, fighting a P/D thief, has the idea ever occured to you to simply ignore him, in a zerg, he would just get destroyed, 1v1 if you stay and fight him, he will slowly wittle you down and destroy you, so before the fight even starts, and he attacks you, why fight back? you can simply walk away and avoid him, or walk towards an objective you took, if he follows you… LOL the NPCs will attack him, and you win.

The reason you lose is you let him pick the location, you let him start the fight, you let him use the area he knows he can run from, if you run from him, hes not going to beat you, P/D has no high upfront damage, they must be constantly melee attacking you with C/D to hurt you, if you run with swiftness, that is impossible.

Use your brain, this isn’t a 1v1 game.

As long as you retain your “THIS IS BROKEN I CAN’T EVER WIN WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO, ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO CATCH THE THIEF, I MUST FIGHT HIM I MUST FIGHT HIM!” you will lose, you let him pick the area, your following him to where he wants you to go, your letting him pick the fight… now put yourself in his mind, he realizes your running away, and theres nothing he can do, because if he follows you to try and kill you, he will have to wittle you down in an area of your choosing AND waste initiative and precious skills like shadowstep and shortbow 5 to chase you, rather then his choosing, your in turn making the thief make a choice, follow you into your hell or stay in his, this gives you the advantage, because now your picking the area, and it can have more of your allies or even better, npcs, because npcs don’t give a **** about stealth, they never did.

Helios.3598:

plasmacutter.2709:

The fact remains that, even if the combo is on cooldown, you have access to a combo that:

1 – the target cannot see coming – at all – (this is to contrast with quickness + 100B)

2 – will reliably kill or put unto death’s door anything but a 100% pure bunker build in approximately 1 second (if caught unaware without boons up, it will also kill 100% pure bunker eles because of their low base hp)

This approaches the absolute ceiling of human reaction time, and is absurdly unfair, especially coupled with the many “get out of being squished free cards” thieves get.

Mesmers you can see coming, and can only do this because of a bug causing +100% mind wrack damage.

Warriors you can see coming, and once the one-trick is gone they can’t escape.

Thieves do have many weaknesses when not doing this, they have serious mechanic issues and weapon and weapon set viability issues due to ill-advised nerfs and design choices in specific sets, but THIS combo needs to go.

Either a hard-block needs to be put in place to prevent the mug-c&d-steal-backstab combo, or the damage of one or more of these needs to be toned down significantly.

NOBODY has a right to an IWIN button, even on a long cooldown, if you want instakills the FPS world is that way

This.
Let’s make pvp fun for everyone again, not just thieves.

Since when is the goal killing your opponent, that is not the goal, this isn’t an FPS.

There is no Iwin buttons, not even moa morph, which isn’t even a thief skill.

Arcing Slice should be an animation that jumps at the target, dealing high damage and gaining stability.

NightyNight.1823:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I’m implying that while a Thief is in stealth, even if he/she goes into stealth directly in front of me, everything I do when the Thief is in stealth is a complete guessing game. Even if I guess properly and land hits, they’re blind and I have almost no idea I’m landing hits. If the 1 attack is chaining through, I’m landing hits, but why a Thief would allow more than one to ever land is an insane thought to me.

You can go ahead and put the C&D card back in the deck. Not only is it one of several different triggers for stealth, I’m a melee warrior. You want to know what strong attack broadcast is? Basically everything I do:

Earthshaker
Backbreaker
Staggering Blow
Bull’s Charge
Fierce Blow
Bladetrail

Every single one of those abilities has a longer cast animation than C&D, and for all intents and purposes, pastes a message on your screen saying “Hey, dodge now, because the Warrior is about to maybe land an ability”.

When a Thief is standing still, C&D broadcasts fairly nicely, with a large step back (at least on humans from my quick test). However, while moving, it’s a subtle arm move, and then the cast finishes in .5 seconds. Combined with being able to Steal in the middle of the cast, what I have to do is completely anticipate the ability. The counter for me is to run into melee range, and immediately dodge, hoping that the Thief just uses C&D.

And yes, I’ve heard of CC. I use a Hammer. Have you heard of the Thief trait that blinds on stealth? Are we done wasting time ignoring the discussion at hand with boring mudslinging?

Most Thieves I fight are also terribads. I trash them more times than not, but that doesn’t mean stealth isn’t poorly designed. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be rewarded if I anticipate a Thief’s position properly. The fact that I still do damage is incredible shallow, because it would be insane to think a Thief couldn’t be damaged while in stealth.

Also, Dae, I’m still waiting for your answer to the enjoyable counter play regarding Thief stealth. If you think it’s enjoyable to force a Thief to stealth so you can cap a point, then I suppose our roles in the conversation will be to argue different perspectives, because we simply disagree.

You have no right to complain lol.Specialy as a Warrior.5 seconds invulnerability stun break.Enough said.
You can easily wreck a thief in that period or any proffesion for that matter.I would know since I play a Warrior too.You have tones of Block abilities and offensive ,specialy offensive.A whirl from greatsword is enough to destroy any of those cheesy BS thieves in WvW regardless if they are stealth or not.How is being able to deal damage to stealted thieves shallow rofl.Considering most of them have 900 toughness and 10k hp they go down in a few normal hits .And you know where they are lol.Close to you since they are trying to hit you.
If you think you don’t have any interesting counters to stealth its probaly your proffesion.I sugest you play an elementalist if you find Warrior boring.

As a player of both an 80 thief and warrior, I usually destroy thieves by using hammer, it has such a huge aoe range on the f1 ability and if I hit with it, I know because I will lose adrenaline, even if the thief is stealthed, he is stunned, meaning he can’t move from that area, thats when I either switch to greatsword and 100b the area hes stunned or use my hammers ‘5’ ability to knock down whoever I stunned and interrupted from F1, that usually destealths the thief seeing as he was stealthed for too long, its all done in a matter of seconds, and after that he usually destealths, thats when I whirl into him and finish him.

If I miss Hammers F1, it has a short CD (10 seconds.) and I know I missed because I didn’t lose adrenaline, so I know the thief is not there and must be behind me, but i’ve limited his hiding places by almost half.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Daecollo.9578:

Alright, then I will counter it this way, whats the point in chasing someone who is in stealth, not hurting anyone? (sure they destealth and pebble some poor low level, but to anyone who is 80, they simply cannot even hurt them!)

If you’re in a fight with a Thief, and he stealths, you’re still in a fight. Won’t a good Thief use stealth in a fight not just to escape, but to evade/gain an advantage? Isn’t that the mechanic? Shouldn’t I be rewarded if I counter that with proper anticipating? Shouldn’t a Thief be punished for stealthing inappropriately and being countered by my play?

Shouldn’t Thieves be buffed to compensate for a fun stealth mechanic instead of left with the current mechanic as a crutch because their weapon sets are inferior?

When do we get to have an honest conversation about Thief stealth? Is it never?

A thief is punished for stealthing innapropriately, especially against a warrior, one spin attack, even if it grazes me, can almost kill me if i’m full glass cannon, if your autoattack hits me, there goes 1/4 my health!

Thieves have less sustained damage, less burst damage, and 8k less hp and less armor and less boons then a Warrior, there is no way a thief will be able to stand toe to toe to a warrior and win without using dirty tricks like stealthing to not be seen so the thief can trick the warrior into swinging the wrong way.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I’m implying that while a Thief is in stealth, even if he/she goes into stealth directly in front of me, everything I do when the Thief is in stealth is a complete guessing game. Even if I guess properly and land hits, they’re blind and I have almost no idea I’m landing hits. If the 1 attack is chaining through, I’m landing hits, but why a Thief would allow more than one to ever land is an insane thought to me.

You can go ahead and put the C&D card back in the deck. Not only is it one of several different triggers for stealth, I’m a melee warrior. You want to know what strong attack broadcast is? Basically everything I do:

Earthshaker
Backbreaker
Staggering Blow
Bull’s Charge
Fierce Blow
Bladetrail

Every single one of those abilities has a longer cast animation than C&D, and for all intents and purposes, pastes a message on your screen saying “Hey, dodge now, because the Warrior is about to maybe land an ability”.

When a Thief is standing still, C&D broadcasts fairly nicely, with a large step back (at least on humans from my quick test). However, while moving, it’s a subtle arm move, and then the cast finishes in .5 seconds. Combined with being able to Steal in the middle of the cast, what I have to do is completely anticipate the ability. The counter for me is to run into melee range, and immediately dodge, hoping that the Thief just uses C&D.

And yes, I’ve heard of CC. I use a Hammer. Have you heard of the Thief trait that blinds on stealth? Are we done wasting time ignoring the discussion at hand with boring mudslinging?

Most Thieves I fight are also terribads. I trash them more times than not, but that doesn’t mean stealth isn’t poorly designed. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be rewarded if I anticipate a Thief’s position properly. The fact that I still do damage is incredible shallow, because it would be insane to think a Thief couldn’t be damaged while in stealth.

Also, Dae, I’m still waiting for your answer to the enjoyable counter play regarding Thief stealth. If you think it’s enjoyable to force a Thief to stealth so you can cap a point, then I suppose our roles in the conversation will be to argue different perspectives, because we simply disagree.

Alright, then I will counter it this way, whats the point in chasing someone who is in stealth, not hurting anyone? (sure they destealth and pebble some poor low level, but to anyone who is 80, they simply cannot even hurt them!)

I actually think it should be in the critical strikes tree, just because it has such good traits.

D/D would want Executioner or Stealth 100% Criticals, but for other non-stealth type weapons like P/P and S/P this would be awesome, and really, we need more help for these builds.

Clovis.7386:

Yes, you’ve done an excellent job of explaining why SoM’s non-active damage mitigation mainly takes place prior to activating and the other two healing skill’s non-active damage mitigation takes place after activating the skill, but not why this is a bad thing.

But, you just alluded to the problem in your own post?

one of our healing skills helps mitigate damage constantly as long as you’re aggressive but the passive mitigation stops after dropping the burst.

Why would you ever need to drop your burst unless the damage you were being dealt was larger than your regeneration? You wouldn’t.

So the only time you would need the active heal in combat is a scenario where you are heavily damaged. Following? NOW, as a thief you have a few options in this scenario, you could stealth to break aggro, dodge to get out of aoe, or use condition removal. A combination of those options are represented in the other two healing skills. So what is SoM left with?

A burst of healing. Which is great! Sometimes you can go a long way with that extra 3000 health. One problem. While you are casting this heal you are left completely vulnerable to knock down, fear, daze, interrupt, pull, spike damage, etc. FOR 1.25 SECONDS. Your thief literally raises his hand and signals “pleas hit me!". And even if you manage to activate SoM, the healing is so low(which only receives 50% from Healing Power) that if you are disengaging from combat because your passive heal is being out damaged, chances are you would lose 3000 damage in the time it took you to activate SoM.

So in all rational thought, it makes more sense to just use dodge/stealth with utilities and hope you can be removed from combat. THEREFORE, making SoM only useful outside of combat. Wait? 2+2= a bad activation time left over from beta that didn’t update with the skill change. SO, how do we fix this without making the skill overpowered?

Oh! Oh! I have an idea! Why don’t you just reduce the activation time so you can receive your healing more reliably when you need it? Like you know, how it’s supposed to work.

Hmmmmm, it’s almost like I’ve heard this all before on a first post somewhere… oh well, waste of time on deaf ears.

The thing is, by the time it takes you to use SoM, you usually are taking 3 times the damage you needed to heal, because the heal amount is literally 2-3 times less then the other heals, with almost a bigger cast time.

Wait, so a 20% chance to bounce is good! I only have to spend 20 points in trickery (condition specced!) to get it when its only really good in Sword/Pistol spec.

If you used it in D/P, the pistol attack would bounce and destealth you, so not good at all for D/P!

P/P? Nobody uses P/P because P/P sucks.

10% more damage? so the 87 damage (lolpathetic) attack (x2 less damage then PISTOL autoattack.) is now 95 damage!

Oh yeah, black powder can cripple foes, because people would spent 6 initiative (half of it.) to cripple the foe for 3 seconds!

Wait.. why am I arguing this, making it have a low chance to cripple, a low chance to bounce, and deal 10% extra damage is completely worthless.

Albane.8367:

How about adding a Trait for thieves, similar to what an Elementalist has, Written in Stone? Keep the passive effects of the signets, even while they are on cooldown.

Put this trait deep in the Critical Strikes tree, so that you have to build for it, and it isn’t a freebie.

That would be great because of all our other traits, most of them are nerfed anyways.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Topher.1684:

Ok, I’ll bite. Balance in this game will never be around WvW play. WvW, as it stands right now is, should be renamed Zerg VS Zerg. You can’t balance anything that revolves around 50 people button mashing vs another 50 people, at least not in a way that makes everyone have 50 million HP with abilities hitting for 50 damage.

Stealth does have “Counter Play” in this game when you are in s/tPvP. When you stealth, you loose your ability to cap points. A Thiefs defense is conceding any point he is trying to defend. By forcing him to stealth, he is effectively giving up ground. Maybe this isn’t as much “Counter Play” as you would like, but posts and links like these don’t do much other then to try and prove a flawed point you are trying to make.

Is stealth 100% balanced atm? Well, depends on what you are talking about. In s/tPvP it sure is. All you need to do to see this is get away from bunny lv. Thieves almost literally disappear. Does this mean stealth somehow changes at this lv? Nope. What it does show is 1 of 2 things. Either all thieves are horrible players and are unable to play in lvs higher then bunny, or players actually learn how to counter/shut down thieves. In WvW, yes it’s OP, but as has been said over and over, this is largely due to the thief gaining up to an additional 2+ seconds of “stealth” before they become “visible”

As someone in another thread somewhere mentioned, WvW actually focuses much more on Players vs Player encounters than tPvP. Perhaps the mechanic has some minor drawbacks in a tournament setting, but balancing solely on capture the point 5v5 is so insanely lazy.

Would it really be so difficult to add a dash of counter-play for the fight between players?

Are we submitting to the game being in such an awful state that we have to justify a mechanic that ruins the experience of the fight for the opposing player because Thief stealth simply can’t contribute towards capping/decapping points?

Even if a Thief showed up immediately after stealth finished in WvW, where’s the rewarding counter-play?

No, I would say that taking points in WvWvW is MUCH more important then Spvp, if you go stealth, your effectively giving up your ability to take camps and keeps, mostly camps since I can solo them if I take time to do it and kill each npcs one at a time.

If i’m fighting someone and stealthing, I’m effectively giving up my ability to capture that point, since stealthed opponents arn’t counted against it anymore, I can’t keep a point from being captured either.

NightyNight.1823:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Daecollo.9578:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Daecollo.9578:

Your almost dead? Switch to heal kit, heal for full, repeat, he will eventually have to run away.

At least you admit that the Thief won’t actually die. I suppose the next step is getting you to acknowledge that having a class with high damage that’s impossible to actually kill is a pretty glaring design flaw.

And no, not everyone cares about “capture the point” scenarios. Getting a Thief to run in WvWvW is a very shallow victory, and odds are it just means the Thief will reappear. Except now you don’t have cooldowns.

Explain to me why this is OK for a class/spec or two to have, but no one else?

WvWvW is about capturing points.
Spvp is about capturing points.

What pvp game are you speaking of?

Point systems be kitten I enjoy the thrill of the fight. Is there a legitimate reason why individual fight mechanics must be compromised to serve the point systems you’re hiding behind in an attempt to stalemate the argument?

If you don’t want to have an actual conversation, I’ll go ahead and stop now. However, if you could, watch the video Nate Rush posted, and please tell us all how Stealth has interesting counter-play that creates an enjoyable and rewarding environment for both the Thief and the Thief’s opponent.

I’ll wait.

If thief is such a Godly proffesion ,instant win, how about you roll one and try it on me on any of my alts.I’ll even let you choose.
The other guy stood me up ,maybe you have some bawlls. Or any other guy here that claims Thief is OP.
Lets test that theory.
You’ve got nothing to worry about right? Nothing can kill you if you play a Thief.After all , you can mother kittening STEALTH , for an eternity of 3 seconds.And no one can touch you because you’re invulnerable.And even if you do get hit ,you’ll just instant heal everything back up.Then 1 shot me.
Pfuahahaha I’d pay to see you do it.Hey ,I’ll even bet you on it.100g to any thief here that can instagib me like these whiners here complain.

Your making us look worse. You can actually do all that, it just isn’t good, because you can’t really hurt your opponent, just troll them to death.

Docherty.8372:

frans.8092:

Ranger and Engineer have traits that grant them +50% endurance. It’s not Vigor, so I guess it stacks with Vigor, which they can get from traits like Vigorous Renewal.

Ranger heals have longer cooldowns, hence lower Vigor uptime, and overall lower total endurance regen than Thief. Engineer, as far as I know has no way to give himself vigor – if he does I’ll require enlightening.

frans.8092:

It’s Guildwars, not D&D.

No duh?

Everything about GW2 and effectively all other fantasy MMOs/games is a bootleg rip-off of systems and archetypes developed before most GW players were but a twinkle in their daddy’s eye.

Respect the O.G. – it has lessons to teach these pretenders to the throne.

frans.8092:

Docherty.8372:

So does Mesmer – but neither don’t get a trait which doubles their base endurance regen at the same time, like Thief.

Which one is that? The vigor-on-healing trait does require a heal skill activated (rather then being permanently on or crit-proc) which basically ties you into Withdraw as healing skill to make it useful.

Feline Grace returns 50% of endurance used post-roll, effectively doubling your regen, and Withdraw is my choice of Thief healing skill, because it’s kittening great even without being a particularly effective heal.

66% of the time (10 seconds vigor activated every 15 seconds) your base endurance regen is 200%, the other 33% of the time a miserly 100%. Only the Ranger comes close, and ultimately it’s 25% less efficient at it than Thief.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Primal_Reflexes
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vigorous_Renewal

For Rangers:
Grants vigor for 5 seconds when using “Heal as One or Troll Unguent, and for 3 seconds on every tick of Healing Spring.” – Every Tick…
Grants 5 seconds of vigor when you critical hit, 15 second cooldown.
50% Endurance Regeneration added on top of that.
Gain Protection WHEN you dodge…

For Thieves:
Feline Grace returns 15 endurance out of 50 NOT 25.

Withdraw is a dangerous skill, because it pushes me AWAY from where I need to be 90% of the time, most of the time when you use Withdraw, you have to use another ability to re-close the gap you lost.

And even still, your wrong…

Elementalist beats Thief and Ranger hands down.
Vigorous Scepter – Endurance recharges faster while wielding a Scepter.
Zephyr’s Focus – Your endurance regenerates 100% faster while channeling skills.
Arcane Energy – Your arcane and signet skills restore 25% endurance when used.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renewing_Stamina (Perma Vigor.)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soothing_Disruption (Moar Vigor! Just for good measure!)

Elementalist can use dodge more then any other class in the game, if specced correctly, compared to this, thieves pale in comparison.

Nate Rush.6970:

Are you going to increase guardian symbols or necro marks while you are at it? Or is this post specifically for another “thing” the thief needs to beat all classes.

There are already traits that double the size of marks and symbols…

Writ of Exaltation – Symbols are larger.
Greater Marks – Increases area of marks and marks become unblockable.

They double the size of the area pretty much…

I’m tired of this crap, I’m asking for something thats not overpowered, infact very underpowered in pvp and in some cases pve to be buffed to be reasonable, Black Powder isn’t overpowered, its a very fair attack, infact its a bit underpowered, the reason is, you can stand out of it and still hit people with melee attacks, which is stupid.

Asking it to be buffed to 240 meter field is completely reasonable.

frans.8092:

Docherty.8372:

I wouldn’t call potential 66% Vigor up-time pitiful. Considering you (can if you want) get Feline Grace as well, does any other class get faster/more endurance regen? Not that I know of.

Ranger and Engineer have traits that grant them +50% endurance. It’s not Vigor, so I guess it stacks with Vigor, which they can get from traits like Vigorous Renewal.

Achetypically (I’m thinking D&D

It’s Guildwars, not D&D.

Docherty.8372:

So does Mesmer – but neither don’t get a trait which doubles their base endurance regen at the same time, like Thief.

Which one is that? The vigor-on-healing trait does require a heal skill activated (rather then being permanently on or crit-proc) which basically ties you into Withdraw as healing skill to make it useful.

The problem with buffs being tied to a heal, is you never need to dodge when you need to heal, and you usually need to dodge when you can’t heal.

Getting Vigor is nice, but you usually need to heal when you don’t need to dodge, and you usually need to dodge when you don’t need to heal, having both on a single action kind of kills the concept.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Black Powder is incredibly useful. Just ignore the initial “blind radius” and remember that any projectile finisher you use while standing in it will also cause blindness, even if the enemy is outside of the field radius. For example: pistol and short bow auto-attacks will cause blindness. You can also use Heartseeker as a leap finisher through it for insta-stealth (useful if you’re running D/P).

If anything, traps need a larger radius. That rectangle target is just crap when necros get a nice big radius for their marks.

The problem is, nobody uses P/P, they would be using S/P or D/P.

And … about the stealth thing, why would it matter if the field was bigger then? it does not effect that style of game-play a single bit.

evilapprentice.6379:

100% agree. It’s easy for anyone with a bit of experience to stand outside the field and still hit you.

As far as I can tell, it also doesn’t block projectiles like it should. I recall a number of instances where ranger arrows flew right through it and tagged me on the other side.

Probably because the areas so small.

But I don’t think it blocks projectiles.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Daecollo.9578:

Your almost dead? Switch to heal kit, heal for full, repeat, he will eventually have to run away.

At least you admit that the Thief won’t actually die. I suppose the next step is getting you to acknowledge that having a class with high damage that’s impossible to actually kill is a pretty glaring design flaw.

And no, not everyone cares about “capture the point” scenarios. Getting a Thief to run in WvWvW is a very shallow victory, and odds are it just means the Thief will reappear. Except now you don’t have cooldowns.

Explain to me why this is OK for a class/spec or two to have, but no one else?

WvWvW is about capturing points.
Spvp is about capturing points.

What pvp game are you speaking of?

Nate Rush.6970:

Docherty.8372:

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions (if they are specced in to stealth at all).

That shows what you know I guess, Thief can be built to break stuns and remove conditions all day long (certainly more than any of the other four classes I play), no stealth required.

Infiltrator’s Strike breaks stun and removes a condition, no C/D at all. And that’s just one skill, add Shadowstep, Withdraw, Roll for Intitiative, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator’s Signet etc – you can fill your hotbar with stun breakers and condition removal – and all those skills add other utility on the side – evasion, improved precision, initiative regen, teleports etc. Get the drift?

This is more or less true. I mean he is naming a lot of stuff that clearly can’t be put on the bar at same time and things of that nature, but you can’t say that thieves are ONLY slippery because of stealth. Stealth is just easier, and its broken, hence why you see it more than evasive thieves been played as intended.

I actually think evasive thieves are more broken then stealth ones, depending on your opponent that is, I just wish I had a way to switch gear sets/traits out of combat, I would love a second gear and trait tab.

Docherty.8372:

Daecollo.9578:

Docherty.8372:

Rayya.2591:

So over all kill shot is not an win button

Even worse – if you come up against a good player with a reflection skill it’s a one-way ticket to self-pawnsville.

Or you could just simply stand up and not use kill shot when you see reflection skill activate, its not like kill shot is slow or anything

You’re not wrong – this is a good example of counterplay which makes combat exciting. The BS Thief runs no such risk.

The thief risks being in melee range, depending on what your fighting, thats a huge risk.

Docherty.8372:

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions (if they are specced in to stealth at all).

That shows what you know I guess, Thief can be built to break stuns and remove conditions all day long (certainly more than any of the other four classes I play), no stealth required.

Infiltrator’s Strike breaks stun and removes a condition, no C/D at all. And that’s just one skill, add Shadowstep, Withdraw, Roll for Intitiative, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator’s Signet etc – you can fill your hotbar with stun breakers and condition removal – and all those skills add other utility on the side – evasion, improved precision, initiative regen, teleports etc. Get the drift?

He would be pretty terrible, thieves actually need initiative to hurt you…
Also he pretty much needs signet of shadows…
Shadowstep is usually saved for running away, not breaking a stun…
Roll for Initiative is ok, but stupid long CD, and you miss getting AOE stealth field.
Withdraw means i’m gone a stealth heal…

CriSPeH.8512:

yeah its in the extensive bugs lists.

Skill #1 – The damage cone is actually where your camera is pointing not always where the flame animation is so it takes some practice to figure is out.

Skill #2 – You only get the explosion damage at max range, and if there is really anything in front of you, like a blade of grass even, it will usually get obstructed. If you aim your camera at the sky before you fire you will have better results.

Skill #3 – if you try and use #2 right after the blowback it will almost always get obstructed. If you wait untill #3 icon stops flashing after you use it and the CD numbers come up then #2 will actually work.

tip for mobs – after using the blowback, dodge back once, then use Skill #2 and you will get better results and it will make up for how the mobs charge right back at you.

Flamethrower should be unblockable and have a huge damage range, its a flamethrower.