Guild Wars 2

@Centhis: Yeah, that guy’s doing well because he’s a pro thief. Most can’t dream of being that effective. You’ll also notice he’s very knowledgeable about his opponents and is looking for the easier targets.
Also as the thief hasn’t been nerfed and likely won’t be nerfed I think that sends a message that players should stop whining and start putting effort into improving.

This is PvP, victories aren’t supposed to be handed to players like they are in PvE. The winner is usually the one who knows more about themselves and their opponent. That’s how you get these videos of classes dominating in WvW. I’ve seen similar vids about Warriors and Eles. I can probably find similar videos about all the classes.

General

Using stealth no longer resets NPC aggression tables.

Thief

Basilisk Venom: Enemies affected by this ability will now indicate it in their boons and conditions bar.
Cloak and Dagger: The player can no longer use this ability stack stealth by attacking WvW walls.
Shadow Shot: This ability now allows the player to move while executing dagger strike portion of the ability.
Venomous Aura: Activating a venom skill with this trait equipped will now briefly display an indicator ring around the thief.
Withdraw: This ability now scales 20% better with healing power. Base healing per level has increased by 10%.
Ankle Shots: This trait now applies a full 3-second cripple.

Reduced the number of maximum of stacks of Retaliation allowed to five (was 25). Duration still stacks.

Silverkung.9127:

Kasama.8941:

The worst part about stealth is that it makes bad Thief players. Meaning that if you took the stealth away, all these Cloak and Dagger spam Thieves would be downed in a few seconds, because they have never learned how to move as a Thief.

It’s funny when people say it’s a learn to play issue, when the problem is not that the Thief is impossible to kill. The problem is that it’s way too easy to play like this, and it’s never fun to play against. It could be easily balanced by nerfing stealth, and then give the Thief a bit of defensive boons in return, like aegis and stability. But Cloak and Dagger spam Thieves would still complain, because they love the fact that it is so easy to play. This is the core of the problem.

I support this post.He speak directly reason and problem.
Am boring about somebody say L2P or AoE to kill thife.
AoE can kill you but no stupid thife stay in AoE ring got it?

Kas plays non-stealth sets. He doesn’t know how useless P/D and S/D are without frequent access to Sneak Attack and Tactical Strike respectively.
He thinks they should be turned into burst sets.
(They’re a condition set and control set with no burst capability and their main skills are thier stealth skill)

Karolis.4261:

Dual.8953:

@Xsorus: Sure stealth is an addon for D/D, but it’s an absolute requirement for S/D and P/D. They should probably just nerf Dagger Mainhand instead of making the sets that absolutely require frequent stealth to be effective, useless.

Lol what can D/D do without stealth? Spam Heartseeker ?

Utility stealth for the much loded BS combo (it’s already on a cool down) or they can the condition and dish out massive bleeds to multiple opponents with Deathblossom.
Also assuming they only increased revealed to say 10 seconds, the BS combo would still work and so would deathblossom, and S/D would have nothing that S/P could do better, and P/D would become P/P without Unload or Black Powder.

@Xsorus: Sure stealth is an addon for D/D, but it’s an absolute requirement for S/D and P/D. They should probably just nerf Dagger Mainhand instead of making the sets that absolutely require frequent stealth to be effective, useless.

@XII: Saying all stealth should drop on damage is like saying all Protection Boons and invulnerability should become Aegis. And that Aegis should lose its block.

So I was in WvW on my S/D Thief (Balanced build with 15000 HP 0/30/30/0/10) with another thief, we’re both max leveled (to add perspective we were on the ruins by south camp in the BL, and other allies had already engaged this Mesmer), and we had this Mesmer pinned against a wall and were about to finish her then Wham! We’re both instantly hit multiple times for 4500 confusion damage and downed in an instant.

I’m just wondering how I can avoid this in the future? It seemed to come out of nowhere as a flash guard.

Elnoa Esteed. Human Female

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced? HOW DARE YOU?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE

An thief killing other thieves and low lvls.
Hi , do i miss any point ?
did he even atempted to kill an lvl 80 guardian /elementarist /engenier /warrior /necro /mesmer … with double food buff, like he used ?
would he even had an chance?
How dare you

get off my thrwead unless you are going to see other evidence

By all means. Show whatever vid you like. It’ll just get picked apart. (Looks like you’re thread has been merged)

Karolis.4261:

Zelulose.8695:

TundraQualle.8204:

Despina.6970:

Ask your self, what fun it is to play against a class you cannot see most of the time. I guess if other classes could do this you would whine a lot on the forums.

I don’t think so. Mostly none thief players are complaining about thieves. My main character is a thief and I don’t have not that much trouble to fight against them in hot join PvP or WvWvW.

Just get familiar with the thief – it helps to know your opponent and his dirty tricks.

Unfortunately, if two thieves were to play this build they would simply not be able to kill each others given they can just hide at any chosen time and heal up while in perma stealth. Further more, if you do not run a similar build that allows you to perma stealth, they can hit u for up to 6k with back stab fairly consistently. Especially with a 100% crit chance in stealth.

Only build that cannot kill each other is d/p condi thiefs. Becouse of high hp pool ( as for thief) and low dmg output + condi removal on stealth. Any other build will result in 1 thief geting killed, unless 1 thief decides to run.

D/P condition? I think you mean P/D. D/P’s only damaging condition skill is a 2 second poison on the second strike in its combo. In my experience, P/D can’t kill anything that has good condition removal and recovery.

Why were you immobilizing the Engie so much?

Runiir.6425:

Unfortunately they designed the thief improperly and culling is making it worse. Any clase with stealth should have no means of increasing their speed (stealth is your defensive measure, runnign away froma fight should not be an option, stealthing and losing your pursuer should be, not flat out running). Due to culling, their initiative based stealth skills need the cost increased (8 initiative should do nicely to prevent spam of it, don’t want this touched? demand they fix culling so it is impossible to exploit).

Then there is another problem of the fact that they test their changes on a private server, not a public one. You don’t experience culling when you have a hundred employees on a private server on the level we experience when a wvw map is near full.

Sure, thieves are working fine in sPvP…there is no room to run away and no culling. In WvW there is room to run (which every thief does the moment you interupt them once) and culling causes them to have free stealth.

Honestly the best change they can do is that if anyone stealths, they cannot stealth again for 20 seconds. Make thieves use stealth more tactically rather than spamming it as most of them do now.

Yes I have a thief, P/P and SB, don’t need stealth to win my battles. People truly facepalm when they die to a thief that doesn’t touch or have a single stealth skill on their bar.

Any thief that needs stealth, or uses stealth, is using a crutch. You aren’t good at the class if you rely on a broken mechanic…any thief that doesn’t admit that stealth is broken right now is just trying to keep their ability to grief those hwo literally cannot see them due to culling. Any thief saying “well aoe spam” is also just an idiot, ANet is nerfing aoe across the board.

20 seconds is really extreme. It’d ruin Sword/Dagger and Pistol/Dagger. Both are builds that only work because of access to stealth. Sword/Dagger can’t put up a blind field like Sword/Pistol and doesn’t have access to on demand dazes without stealth, and Flanking Strike’s too slow and inaccurate to make a viable defensive skill. Pistol/Dagger also doesn’t have blind fields and isn’t worth using to without Sneak Attack.

The reason P/P and Sb work without stealth is they’re designed to work without stealth. Some sets aren’t.

40 man naked fireworks zerg parading all through Dragonbrand’s area and Stonemist

Be easier to make a guide on killing thieves on various classes then a “this is why I’m weak” video.

Sebrent.3625:

Some of the players he fights are good.

Also, I should not be screwed against you because I have a teammate that blows except in the case that he somehow gets finished while you’re downed. There isn’t another class out there where given two equally skilled players, one suddenly has an advantage because the other one has a noob join the fight on their side.

All the things mentioned about the thief class “not being OP” that people have brought up have been largely dispelled by that video. I’ll go through them again:

• Have to miss “several cloak and daggers before [you are] in trouble”
• Have several ways to reset the fight
• Can take a good amount of punishment without +toughness gear
• Damage for a stealthy, non-glass cannon can take down even tanky/evasive characters … even when they have friends nearby.
• The Thief does not have to wait 3 seconds to re-stealth.

Yeah no. Just because they were playing on the same server doesn’t make them a team. They were paying minimal attention to each other. You’ll notice that the thief was going for what he perceived as easy targets. Take a look at the sPvP boards. Thief’s been steadily dropping down most player’s tier lists.
And don’t try to punch up numbers with terminology. In that vid, the thief would take 2 misses before being out of initiative.
Also as stated above, this is an example of a good thief, displaying excellent knowledge of his limits and a generally good understanding of his opponents. Most thieves I can avoid with a level 20 character. And no thief I’ve seen can be a royal pain on a point to the degree I’ve seen other classes do.

lLobo.7960:

Deniara Devious.3948:

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

You can still hit players in stealth.
Your channeled skills still hit (provided LoS and range) even if you loose target
Thief stealth can be countered with blocks/aegis/reflects/retaliation and a series of other working game mechanics.
You can take a thief out of stealth most of the time, mesmers and engis do all the time…

All in all, you should “acquire better knowledge to improve your strategies when performing on the game”, since you dont like l2p

Yeah. In fact only a handful of skills in this game require a target to work.

All of Thief’s shared stealths are on cooldowns so they both must sustain themselves at certain points, and 3 of thief’s stealth skills show up when used, so they’d still need a place less traveled. So this trick takes planning an coordination. Both between each other and with their strike team. So long as they aren’t using an exploit hiding place this is fine.

I come here and columba and XII complain about Thieves. I go in game and my whole alliance says that Thieves are okay and say that if anything Ele and Mes are OP’d though they don’t rant about it. And it takes at least three people wailing on an ele to get them out of a camp. Seeing as they spend their time playing the game, I think they have more credibility.
Also XII. You forgot to mention why you have those escapes. If you play thief you know very well what happens when you stay engaged too long.
Why not post your build?
Also I’m sure the fact that most thief threads get directed to or merged into this thread has nothing to do with it size. Or the face that Columba probably accounts for a noticeable percent of it.

Columba.9730:

honestly, their vitality and toughness is no worse than half the classes. in addition, their mobility is better than most. so some losses in stealth aren’t breaking for thieves.

Yeah but they’re on the low end. They share HP tiers with Guardian and Elementalist. However unlike Guardian and Elementalist, they don’t have Protection, Aegis, Invulerability, Stability, Knockdown and Blowout CCs, or massive amounts of heals. They have Regen, but it’s locked up in a stealth triggered trait, and it’s a weak short weak. They do have good access to condition removal, but their best condition removal they have is locked up in another on stealth trait.

Sue.4361:

Jerks.3172:

Columba.9730:

understood, but other classes are just as squishy and face similar challenges.

Other classes have superior ranged skills (1200 range) while thieves are limited to (900 range) you might say this isnt huge difference but its pretty big the fact they only can use their shortbow and when you get damaged you forced to heal right? so you take more damage while healing isnt that counter productive?

Then they should set it so thieves are revealed at 900 range and then everything is even, yeah?

No. Thieves would go down like a level 10s. No Protection boons, stability or aegis and low heals, weak armour and low vitality and toughness, dodge has it’s limits, blinds are ineffective against kiting and rapid attacks. In short, ineffective at everything and likely unable to PvE in anything above low level zones.

Sebrent.3625:

Dual.8953:

Sebrent.3625:

I had plenty of toughness, thank you.

Also, when did it become a requirement to not only have top-end gear but a specific set, otherwise someone can kill you without you even seeing them?

Warrior 100 blades, Engineer grenades, glass Ele, etc. all have one huge factor in common … you have a chance to see them coming and can dodge roll, block, etc..

With the thief, no amount of situational awareness is going to let me know that he has targeted me instead of the 10 other people there. The only indicator is suddenly being killed by an invisible opponent. <sarcasm>I guess I should have been using dodge rolls, distortion, etc. any time I so much as thought any player on the other team was looking at me…</sarcasm>

Thinking “he’s not going to hit me” and getting punished for it is your fault. Sure it was probably an indiscriminant choice on the thief’s part, but you’re the one who dropped your guard. Thief’s and his predicessor Assassin’s job has always been to target squishy supports in the enemy ranks, and to burst them down and get away.

(1) There is a difference between “Burst” and “Insta-gib” where the enemy is invis for the whole 1 sec it takes.

(2) My defenses were not down. I’m a bloody mesmer with 3 stunbreakers, distortion, blocks, etc.. Those weren’t on cooldown. Those were ready for the first person who wanted to fight me. Unfortunately, you don’t get to fight a stealth thief. They insta-gib you or constantly restealth and tear you down in chunks.

Let’s be honest, this stuff happening was why the thief got a change to their signet. However, it is still happening to even well-geared players so the fix did not work.

Your guard was down because you were on the attack with a group. You were focused on attacking instead of covering your vulnerabilities. So the thief got you purely out of opportunity. Struck you when you least expected it.
In any case you should also realize WvW is never a fair fight. The thief that got you may have been using food, could have had Ascended gear, and a bunch of other PvE goodies.
If I’m able to survive BS thieves on my level 16 Mes just by being ready to react to and threat, you’ve got no excuse. And when I got on my thief later (and for the record I run Vit/Tough/Crit, Sword/Dagger, 15000 HP) Me and another player got simultaneously insta-gibbed by an instant confusion stack from the mesmer we were skirmishing, hit for multiple hits of 4500.

Sebrent.3625:

I had plenty of toughness, thank you.

Also, when did it become a requirement to not only have top-end gear but a specific set, otherwise someone can kill you without you even seeing them?

Warrior 100 blades, Engineer grenades, glass Ele, etc. all have one huge factor in common … you have a chance to see them coming and can dodge roll, block, etc..

With the thief, no amount of situational awareness is going to let me know that he has targeted me instead of the 10 other people there. The only indicator is suddenly being killed by an invisible opponent. <sarcasm>I guess I should have been using dodge rolls, distortion, etc. any time I so much as thought any player on the other team was looking at me…</sarcasm>

Thinking “he’s not going to hit me” and getting punished for it is your fault. Sure it was probably an indiscriminant choice on the thief’s part, but you’re the one who dropped your guard. Thief’s and his predicessor Assassin’s job has always been to target squishy supports in the enemy ranks, and to burst them down and get away.

Columba.9730:

its a 360 degree arc. where should I use the aoe that anet advises we use to fight stealthers?

If you think a back attack is imminent, then behind you or around you. Personally I don’t blow my cooldowns unless I think it’s a sure shoot, instead I stay moving and swiping my auto attack (sword for the record). I generally go in a circle if I have no leads, so I’m that much more unapproachable.

Columba.9730:

Henrik.7560:

Its funny how only thieves are the ones that say we are noobs when we can’t kill them. Funny that.

their response is either learn how to read minds, run away or play a thief. if you explain that those aren’t reasonable options, then you get the l2p mantra.

You have you own mantra too. And you seem to be strictly against improving yourself. Also of course Thief players defend their class. Just as Eles defend eles, mesmers defend mesmers, rangers defend rangers and so on. (And Yes, Ranger OP threads do exist).
Why should we as players of our respective professions let laymen spread falsehoods about our classes?
Also this “mind reading” you seem to think we’re spouting is pretty much, us saying, use common sense and logical deduction to make educated guesses on what we’re doing. It’s a basic skill of any PvP game. Once you master it, you won’t just react to your opponent, you’ll be able to guess what they’re going to do next and gain access to many setup and counter strategies.

Columba.9730:

Jan – I agree with you. no other class gets thousand of complaints like this, yet the thief apologists just chant L2P. I don’t have problems with any other class, because I can see them and plan accordingly. these thieves seem to think that the answer is for us to read minds, run away or to play a thief. that’s all they can use to defend their laughably overpowered class. even many thieves admit that stealth is whacked in this game. I’ve never seen a game where one class can initiate AND continue attacks while in stealth. In addition, other games also don’t have culling bugs that can be exploited to create perma stealth.

You talk about it like it’s a “feature” then admit it’s an unintended bug. Learn 2 consistency.

Sounds like Sword/Pistol. The untouchable part should stem from your Blinds and Dazes. It’s similar to Sword/Dagger but more bursty.

@kasama: Also, what would you replace CnD with? It’d need some way to appease P/D and S/D without completely overshadowing the builds. Only set that would benefit from no matter what is D/D

Kasama.8941:

Dual.8953:

@kas: You’re running an all ranged set with access to blinds, dazes and escapes and you’re telling a melee set do what you do except without blinds, dazes and escapes, all while at point blank range. And once again, S/D isn’t a burst spec. It’s more akin to a contol spec.

What are you talking about? All weapon sets has some form of escape skill, and your utility skills and traits offers plenty of ways to avoid damage.

I’m not sure what you are replying to in your last line. Are you saying that adding a burst skill to sword/dagger makes it bad?

S/D’s defenses are CnD and shadow return. FS’s to slow to make the cut. If you nix CnD, S/D thieves will always have to initiate the act to have an escape because Shadow Return is locked behind Infiltrator’s Strike, which is like Shadow Step without ground targetting, thus if you use Infiltrator Strike beside your target, your shadow return will place you beside your target.
And sure there’s nothing wrong with making S/D a burst set in the big picture asside from making thieves completely one note. But I didn’t role a Thief in the betas to be a burster, I roled one to be an agile, tricky, shadow warrior.
Also if you trade S/D’s defense for a burst skill it’ll become completely different from what it was, becoming more attack oriented then S/P. (which is lame imo)

@henrik: Thieves are at their absolute weakest while stomping. (Only blind stomps are the exception to this and even then they’re weak to non-melee attacks) If they disappear over your downed ally, they’re likely stealth stomping, thus they are vulnerable to any attack that doesn’t need a target.
Also, about your nerf suggestion. Do you want all thieves to run cheesy BS insta-gib specs? Because that’s what those nerfs seem to be suggesting.
You’re pretty much saying “I hate dagger Main Hand thieves, so let’s nerf every other weapon set so all thieves are forced to play dagger Main Hand”
And drop stealth on hit? Are you crazy? You know Thieves don’t have and fancy protection boons high vitality or armour like other classes right? They’re either hit or they dodged; and even with full armour and vital they’re very flimsy.

@kas: You’re running an all ranged set with access to blinds, dazes and escapes and you’re telling a melee set do what you do except without blinds, dazes and escapes, all while at point blank range. And once again, S/D isn’t a burst spec. It’s more akin to a contol spec.

Kasama.8941:

Laika.8795:

Cool. And what about adjusting our abilities? Because, outside of heart seeker (highly situational) and pistol whip, NONE of our abilities are designed for damage. The whole thief dynamic is to acquire stealth and apply damage, everything else is a means to that end.

You’re suggesting a rework that requires all thieves to run GC builds to front load as much damage as we can, because otherwise we are wholly ineffective.

I feel like no one really understands the plight of the auto attack dependent thief outside of stealth.

Who cares about design, when the weapons deal plenty of damage. It’s a Thief, not an Assassin. The point is to deal consistent damage, with some burst in between, while evading attacks from your foe. Stealth skills are just a way to keep the pressure on your opponent consistent, to make up for the damage you lose while you’re in stealth. The Thief was never meant to be totally dependent on stealth, but I can see how someone could think that. The Thief is designed to rely on movement, with stealth being a tool to further improve mobility and survivability.

Dual.8953:

What do suggest for the non-burst sets that live off their stealth skills for attack and survival? Sure you can buff survival, but they’ll still lack thier ability to be offensively effective.

Well I suggest you learn to play without relying on them, of curse. Just like all other professions, the Thief has different weapon sets, for different situations. It’s mostly in the third skill. Unload is the classic burst skill, that pairs well with the vulnerability from Body Shot. But if you put in an off-hand dagger instead, you suddenly get a much more defensive weapon set, that’s meant to keep the distance to a foe. Say, if someone want’s to attack you with a melee weapon, it’s probably a good idea to have a weapon that prevents him from coming close to you. But if he has a ranged weapon instead, you have your burst weapon set to bring him down. Luckily, you can have two weapon sets, meaning you can use both options.

The problem being is P/D without condition damage lacks killing power and its only viable condition skill is sneak attack.
S/D is in a similar boat where Flanking Strike is better used for the boon strip the evading or damage dealing. FS’s evade status isn’t immediate so its defensive uses are limited and it’s less then perfectly accurate, limiting its offense. As this is the case, S/D’s only damage dealer is the basic combo, and that alone isn’t enough to be effective in encounters. Especially when you factor in PvP and dungeoning.
In short, nerfs to stealth hurt S/D and P/D tenfold compared to D/D and D/P. (if you ask me it’s dagger main hand that’s overpowered, I mean all the usually complaints are toward Dagger mainhand skills, and most arguements are assuming the thief is D/D.)

Kasama.8941:

This is what I don’t understand about the Thief:

• ArenaNet says the Thief is not problem at a higher skill level such as in paids, but is a problem for low to medium skilled players.
• No one plays a Thief in high level paids, because it offers no valuable role.
• Everyone plays a Thief in casual sPvP and WvW, because of stealth.

So isn’t the obvious solution to remove some of the stealth, to make the casual and WvW players happy, and then give the Thief some more protection and support in return, to make it more valuable in paids?

Less stealth + more protection and support = a lot of happy players!

What do suggest for the non-burst sets that live off their stealth skills for attack and survival? Sure you can buff survival, but they’ll still lack thier ability to be offensively effective.

Mister Mustard.7203:

frans.8092:

Sebrent.3625:

…D/D Thieves are quite similar in that they use #1 #2 -or- #3 depending on power/cond build, and #5 and are very effective.

You forget the number 4 to cripple and catch fleeing opponents. Thats … all 5?

Sebrent.3625:

P/D is Pistol w/ Offhand Dagger so #5 is Cloak and Dagger which gives stealth. They then use the pistol stealth attack (Sneak Attack) which has decent direct damage, applies 5 bleeds, and uses 0 initiative

It’s direct damage is quite poor, to use effective you should really focus on the bleeds (+duration, +condition damage), which rules out power based weapons (just about everything else)

… Yes, in some the zergs are horrible, but in others you see people try to chain CCs but they are evaded and the thief stealths …

Blind and CC is the way to go, if a zerg fails to catch a thief it’s really their fault. There’s only a limited amount of endurance and stun breaking. It’s more the zerg’s hive-mind that let’s them escape.

What are you talking about with what type of damage sneak attack is? Whether it’s condition damage or power, it still hurts. There are plenty of videos of P/D thieves trolling about nigh invincible. You can bury your head in the sand and pretend they don’t exist, but don’t make pointless arguments to defend it if so.

Also, how does being in a group help anyone catch up to an escaping thief? Between stealth utilities, blinds, swiftness on dodge, SB 5 / Dagger 2, a thief can run from 50 players as well as 1. If you get caught by the zerg, you probably die, but you still have to get caught.

No point in complaining about P/D thieves. Sure they’re hard to catch, but good condition removal practically nullifies their effectiveness to the point that you can almost ignore them.

Visionary.5681:

I hate to reference WoW but….

Alpha strike classes. You break stealth when you choose to. When you break it, you best make sure you picked your time, place and target well. If you did, you killed them with high alpha strike and burst. If you didnt, your either dead or burnt a long cd to escape.

GW2 Version is ;

Alpha strike with high initial burst. You messed it up? Who cares, instant reset and try again. Messed it up again? Ow well , have another free escape. There is no penalty to failure as a thief.

If Thieves kept their burst, kept their speed and ability to roam, but were punished for poor decisions. No one would moan.

People cite the lack of thieves in top level tpvp. That isnt because the class hasnt got imbalanced in certain areas that make it insanely strong. Its because through dedicated teamwork and communication , you can almost always know the position of the theif, even if you cant see them. That type of teamwork will never, ever be available in hotjoin pvp, or pug-tournaments. If the class isnt balanced in a majority of gameplay, it isnt balanced.

This is like the people who say the counter to d/d ele is to run more d/d ele…… which is inanely circular. Its not a solution, its fixing symptoms of a fault , without ever addressing the cause.

I also know that people hear nerf and expect to have their class turned into a spork, but Anet seems intent of small changes and tweaks to try and achieve a balance.

This then opens the question ; Why arent more thieves open to stealth or burst nerfs? It can be compensated by stronger play elsewhere, it would also mean you had a chance to display skill instead of facemash. Why arent more d/d ele’s open to nerfs to that single spec? If the nerf was spec specific, then it would allow buffs to be made to other areas of the class…

It seems to me people find an OP spec, and want to cling onto it with constant posts of ‘l2p’ all day on the forums. Surely there are Elementalists out there who would prefer the ability to choose other specs? No? Surely? If there is, why do none speak up? All i hear is Ele’s arent overpowered in this single spec…. erm….. go look at X-Class, it’s all their fault, not ours…

I’m willing to hear possible nerfs out but, as an S/D thief (which is a burstless set) I rely on CnD for frequent access to Stealth, which gives me Dazes which allows me the uptime, which I need to overcome my lack luster damage. P/D thieves are even more stealth reliant then S/D because all their attacks, save for thier stealth skill are weak.
I’m traited for blind on stealth, condition removal in stealth, and granting stealthed allies Regen so it’s pretty obvious, most of my survival is from stealth. The blind on stealth is probably my greatest asset in dungeons. Stealth keeps me from being ripped to shreads in Orre. So it’s easy to see why I’m rather defensive of stealth.

Get rid of stealth and imo, thief becomes a weaker version of a warrior, rather then its own class.

It’s official. Mobs have better survival skills then some WvW players =_=
That rifle warrior stood out to me. “Something’s hitting me? Oh well.” -heals and gets back to shooting-

YojimboJones.6243:

I think what alot of people are missing, which is the core point of this thread, is that the burst of those abilities (and auguably, all burst) is too high to make pvp enjoyable for casual-mid level players.

Hardcore players will not complain as much because by nature they learn to adapt to whatever game it is they have chosen to master. Also because they likely play on 5v5 teams that include a burst element so they are in effect using this “overpowered” aspect to their advantage.

But ask yourself this. If Guild Wars 2 is to continue to succeed as a tier 1 MMORPG, do you think it’s PVP will fare well if a new player goes into a hotjoin with his default pvp build and dies in less than 1 second to a theif? Or to a warrior with frenzy/100b?

Arena net has stated in interviews that they want to take steps to further educate players in pvp how to counter common strategies, but as long as the ability to insta-gib players exisits, it will always be an issue. It is my personal opinion that no mmorpg should have burst as high as this in a pvp system built from the ground up with the intent to be fair and balanced. In the mmos I have played, wow, gw1, sto, Aion, I’ve never died in less than 2 seconds from an opponent at the same level/gearing as me.

This isn’t Call of Duty, you should at least have a fighting chance even if an opponent gets a jump on you. Regardless of how “glass” your build is.

As things stand currently, insta-gib can’t be cut and dry removed, least in thief’s case. Thief has a lot of good tricks at his disposal, unfortunately, all but one of them are useless in a point control game.
Unfortunately the one useful trick is the much hated burst. And even with burst, as OP’d as it is, it only barely keeps thieves viable.
So if they nerf the burst, it’s imperative that they buff something else in return. And not just anything, something useful to point control.
(This it the reason why many thief players defend burst, it’s not that they want to be OP’d, it’s that they don’t want to be useless)

Kasama.8941:

The game shouldn’t just be balance for a higher skill level minority, it should be fair for everyone, regardless of game mode. This whole idea that Thieves are fine, as long as you’re playing on a higher skill level, is just ignorant. Most players will never have the skill level of someone who plays in paid, but that doesn’t mean their experience with the game is less important.

Games that at the low tier seem balanced are almost always either unbalanced at the high tier (Smash Bros is a prime example, having gone so far as to ban Metaknight from tournament play) or lacks depth at which bores those that reach the skill cap, or worse, puts fresh newbies on the same level as veterans.
I can’t think of any game with depth, that has achieved balance at all levels of play.

LyzeUH.1398:

Dual.8953:

I’m still new to dungeons, but a 0/30/30/10/0 on my S/D, SB has been working rather well. My utilities are Withdraw, Blind Powder, Shadow Refuge, Smoke Wall/misc, Daggerstorm/Thief’s Guild.
I favour this for the abundance of Blinds, Dazes, Regen, Blast Finishers and Condition Removal.
That said, against bosses with a lot of AoE, you’re best off managing your initiative sparingly, you may need to use SB3 a lot.

Instead of SB consider P/P for those single-target encounters where you’re unsure of melee’ing .

If I did that, I’d keep P/P in a change out. Disabling shot has gotten me out of a lot of jams and overall SB has better utility.

I’m still new to dungeons, but a 0/30/30/10/0 on my S/D, SB has been working rather well. My utilities are Withdraw, Blind Powder, Shadow Refuge, Smoke Wall/misc, Daggerstorm/Thief’s Guild.
I favour this for the abundance of Blinds, Dazes, Regen, Blast Finishers and Condition Removal.
That said, against bosses with a lot of AoE, you’re best off managing your initiative sparingly, you may need to use SB3 a lot.

bhagwad.4281:

Dual.8953:

bhagwad.4281:

I think if a bunker engineer were to sacrifice all of their damage to increase survivability they should be able to hold out indefinitely against a single glass cannon. A thief sacrificing all their damage should be able to stealth, annoy, and escape one player.

But never two or more. I don’t believe a bunker guardian or engineer or ele should ever be able to hold off two players at the same time.

Why don’t you head on to the Ele board and tell them they shouldn’t be able to 3v1 and win.
If you want to make it so one can never beat two, good luck with that, you’d first need to get rid of all the AoE in the game. All damage would have to be single target. You’d also need to dumb the game down to the point that skill in combat wouldn’t matter. Two fresh players could take a single veteran because there’s more of them.

1vXing is the result of skill difference, not class balance.

When I say 1 should never beat 2, I’m talking about comparably skilled players naturally. Then it becomes an issue solely of class balance.

That’s relative too. Say the 2 skilled players focus on condition damage and they come against an equally skilled player who’s specced with strong condition removal and crits. Who should win?
In any case, why are you saying classes shouldn’t be able to 1v2 in the board of the class that’s iconic for 1v1 mastery?

bhagwad.4281:

Yuujin.1067:

bhagwad.4281:

Maugetarr.6823:

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

If that’s what it takes, then yes. Two players should always beat one player with ease in every possible way. A glass cannon should never be able to dish out enough damage to kill two people. A bunker should never have enough health to outlast two people.

A glass cannon should dish out more than a balanced player – enough to kill them. A bunker should be able to hold out against one player.

But never against two. No matter what profession, race, weapon set or traits, two (or more than two) people should never be troubled by one player in any way.

That’s quite the design philosophy but I completely disagree with you.

If a bunker Engineer sacrafices his ability to deal damage to increase his survivability, he should be able to hold out against multiple opponents for an extended period of time.

If a thief sacrifices her ability to deal damage or have useful utility to extend the duration of her stealth to occupy the attention of a handful of players and distract them away from an objective she should be able to do that.

I don’t think anyone here is suggesting a vanish thief or bunker engineer should be able to 2v1 someone in a fight and win.

This is the thief, not the warrior forum.

(I kid, I kid.)

What amazes me about this thread is it was supposed to be a discussion about making thieves more enjoyable to play. Instead it has turned into a choir of people calling for nerfs on an already boring class that lacks variety.

Take away our damage and stealth and thieves are left with literally nothing.

Nothing.

I think if a bunker engineer were to sacrifice all of their damage to increase survivability they should be able to hold out indefinitely against a single glass cannon. A thief sacrificing all their damage should be able to stealth, annoy, and escape one player.

But never two or more. I don’t believe a bunker guardian or engineer or ele should ever be able to hold off two players at the same time.

Why don’t you head on to the Ele board and tell them they shouldn’t be able to 3v1 and win.
If you want to make it so one can never beat two, good luck with that, you’d first need to get rid of all the AoE in the game. All damage would have to be single target. You’d also need to dumb the game down to the point that skill in combat wouldn’t matter. Two fresh players could take a single veteran because there’s more of them.

1vXing is the result of skill difference, not class balance.

bhagwad.4281:

Dee Jay.2460:

I’m not even going to attempt to justify such damage.

I’ve been saying that Mug needs a nerf and this is just further proof.

Vgman.4019:

Engis you can see coming, engis you can prepare for, engis you can preempt. Already stealth thieves? Your dead before theirs a chance to react.

To be fair, and already stealthed Thief can’t hit you like that. Mug would apply Revealed to him which would ruin his consecutive Cloak and Dagger + Backstab.

An already stealthed Thief can only hit you with Backstab.

A big problem with the “instant-gib” combo is that it is instant and almost completely untelegraphed. Steal has no animation and the Cloak and Dagger is a very subtle melee attack too, let alone that it is pre-cast most of the time.

If I’m not mistaken, the trait known as hidden thief overrides the reveal on steal.

You’d be wrong there.
And it’s a Master trait in the Shadow Arts tree. Thieves looking to do the BS combo won’t touch it.

jokitten390:

Dual.8953:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Razor.6392:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Razor.6392:

No other class requires such an extensive amount of counterplay in order to stand a chance against them.

Mesmers really need to be reworked or deleted. There’s no other way around it. Extremely unfun class to face.

I would say Thief are ALOT worse thanks to the game mechanic that is Stealth and the Culling issue. I play a Mesmer alt and i dont have that much trouble fighting them, i know what to look out for and know the most important skills and know that AoE is deadly against them

Not alot you can do against a Perma-stealthing Thief that can kill you before the culling effect ends showing you where they are. Just a few hits before they show and unless you are a bunker you are either dead or near enough there

At least it’s a technical issue that will get eventually fixed.

Mesmers don’t need bugs to be overpowered.

EVENTUALLY…You sure about that? How long as the Culling issue been in the game? its an engine issue from what i heard i dont think their is a fix or surely they would have done it by now.

Mesmer’s are strong yes, but they have clear weaknesses cough Conditions cough They are far from the godlike modes that were the Guardian Bunker, Eel Bunker or Thief anything builds.

I rarely have any issue with Mesmers, i have played them enough to know what to look out for, AoE is a killer against the, conditions are a killer as well

Compare that to a thief that can just attack you while being in stealth (thanks culling!) and before you know anything 2-3 hits and that could be as much as 15k+ damage you are either dead or just about to die.

Dude, you’re realize you’re not in the WvW board right? Culling’s been fixed for the most part in SPvP. That and of the classes you’ve mentioned, only Guardian and Mesmer are considered must haves in high level TPvP.

Nope it’s not. On haste you can still make like 4 attacks until you’re really visible… That means about 15kdmg w/o a chance to dodge

Key phrase here is “with haste”.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Razor.6392:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Razor.6392:

No other class requires such an extensive amount of counterplay in order to stand a chance against them.

Mesmers really need to be reworked or deleted. There’s no other way around it. Extremely unfun class to face.

I would say Thief are ALOT worse thanks to the game mechanic that is Stealth and the Culling issue. I play a Mesmer alt and i dont have that much trouble fighting them, i know what to look out for and know the most important skills and know that AoE is deadly against them

Not alot you can do against a Perma-stealthing Thief that can kill you before the culling effect ends showing you where they are. Just a few hits before they show and unless you are a bunker you are either dead or near enough there

At least it’s a technical issue that will get eventually fixed.

Mesmers don’t need bugs to be overpowered.

EVENTUALLY…You sure about that? How long as the Culling issue been in the game? its an engine issue from what i heard i dont think their is a fix or surely they would have done it by now.

Mesmer’s are strong yes, but they have clear weaknesses cough Conditions cough They are far from the godlike modes that were the Guardian Bunker, Eel Bunker or Thief anything builds.

I rarely have any issue with Mesmers, i have played them enough to know what to look out for, AoE is a killer against the, conditions are a killer as well

Compare that to a thief that can just attack you while being in stealth (thanks culling!) and before you know anything 2-3 hits and that could be as much as 15k+ damage you are either dead or just about to die.

Dude, you’re realize you’re not in the WvW board right? Culling’s been fixed for the most part in SPvP. That and of the classes you’ve mentioned, only Guardian and Mesmer are considered must haves in high level TPvP.

tagnut.8621:

Daendur.2357:

tagnut.8621:

Thieves are still jaw droppingly overpowered and very very easy to play – a bad combination.

They need stealth to be less of a get out of jail free card. Fewer routes in to stealth, a greater revealed time and damage breaking stealth.

Steal is a utility skill – utility skills should not do 4-5k damage. That needs reducing.

Cloak and dagger is a restealth skill – decide if that is offense or defense and adjust the damage/utility accordingly. 5-6k damage is too much in its current state.

Backstab – far too high on damage when used with the above. This needs reducing.

Heartseeker – mobility, damage and a finisher all in one spammable ability? This needs adjustment – remove the bonus damage at sub 50% and decide if its a gap closer or a damage ability and adjust accordingly – one has to go.

As we have it now we have a large population of thieves many relying on a steal/cnd/BS macro to one button down any target.

ANET wake up and listen – yes warriors have too much damage, and mesmers are a little OTT but 90% of the class complaints on your forums are about 1 class – thieves.

You remember me of Silvio Berlusconi. You spread out lies and make black propaganda; or maybe you are just ignorant and don’t know anything about this profession.
So please refrain from making this kind of posts.

The main flaw however with your retort is everything I said was true. Thieves are grossly overpowered and simplistic to play – thats a bad combo. They need significant nerfs to burst, stealth and utility.

They’ll need signifcant buffs to compensate. Thief’s defenses are very binary. Either they’re hit or they aren’t. No softening the blows with armour and boons. And they don’t have enough dodges or blinds to make up for it.

style.6173:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Gotta laugh at all the thiefs here who think that “reacting” or “aoe” is the right way to counter a thief attack. Makes me wonder if they play their own class.
Now, when a thief combo is done the right way, both mug and cloack & dagger land immeditately from stealth. This cannot be avoided without thinking pre-hand, no matter how fast your reflexes are. To beat a thief, you must be one step ahead of them.
As for Aoe, it is generally very weak in any small scale encounter. Why would it magically be more powerful against invisible targets?
Control conditions, confusion and good burst are what truly work against thiefs.

The only “nerf” that I suggest is that the stealth attacks should go to a 5 second cooldown when they are negated by a defensive ability such as block. Currently their mechanics are way too hand helding (read noob-friendly).

Sigh, gotta laugh at people who said AOE isn’t relevant because of ONE thief spec.

That said, I agree with a longer cool down on cloak n dagger only. That’s the skill that allows for permastealth. I’d actually go as far as to say it should be increased to 8 seconds. As compensation, I would increase the damage of cloak and dagger by 50%. That way, thieves hit harder, but you see them at least 50% of the time. Given they are the squishiest class, that would make them more fun to fight against.

You’d need to buff the hell out of pistol too otherwise you’ve destroyed P/D. S/D would need a buff too.

style.6173:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Gotta laugh at all the thiefs here who think that “reacting” or “aoe” is the right way to counter a thief attack. Makes me wonder if they play their own class.
Now, when a thief combo is done the right way, both mug and cloack & dagger land immeditately from stealth. This cannot be avoided without thinking pre-hand, no matter how fast your reflexes are. To beat a thief, you must be one step ahead of them.
As for Aoe, it is generally very weak in any small scale encounter. Why would it magically be more powerful against invisible targets?
Control conditions, confusion and good burst are what truly work against thiefs.

The only “nerf” that I suggest is that the stealth attacks should go to a 5 second cooldown when they are negated by a defensive ability such as block. Currently their mechanics are way too hand helding (read noob-friendly).

Sigh, gotta laugh at people who said AOE isn’t relevant because of ONE thief spec.

That said, I agree with a longer cool down on cloak n dagger only. That’s the skill that allows for permastealth. I’d actually go as far as to say it should be increased to 8 seconds. As compensation, I would increase the damage of cloak and dagger by 50%. That way, thieves hit harder, but you see them at least 50% of the time. Given they are the squishiest class, that would make them more fun to fight against.

You’d need the buff the hell out of pistol too otherwise you’ve destroyed P/D. S/D would need a buff too.

Funny. The PvE players say all the content goes to PvP, and the PvP players say all the content goes to PvE.

Anyways, these new selectable dailys sound interesting. As with the guild events and I’m wondering if there will be a climax to the Frost and Flame story.

This is annoying. Nerfing the revealed debuff screws over S/D and P/D, both builds without bursts that require a lot of uptime to be effective. Thieves would be forced to go D/D burst because all thier sets would become high risk, but only D/D builds have the high reward to compensate. I really don’t want to see S/D buffed into a burst spec. Dunno what they’d be able to do to P/D cause without its frequent access to Sneak Attack, it becomes a failure of a condition spec, and it’s Power/Crit is worse then P/P, so they’d be pretty much up a creek.

hooma.9642:

the bad system of hot join clearly show that there is a problem with mesmer and thiefs regardless what tpvp ppl think or do.. lowering the learning curve does not hamstringing high levels.

so even if u would implement all ur suggestions the problem still exist.. high reward low risk…
the whole problem is stealht and npcs.

i dont want to know how much high levels mesmers and thiefs are actualy “newbs” and only play on tourney carried by team and unbalanced class/build. a mesmer or thief need to bring the same amount of skill to kill something. they need to sacrifice the defense if the go berzerk.. what mesmers and thiefs because classmechanic dont do.

i already has suggest to implement a castbar.. but that would “harmstringing high levels” lol

Considering thieves in top level get through because they have a nice burst and nothing else, weakening that would certainly hamstring top level thieves. Stealth isn’t a problem at high level, especially considering they can’t cap with it or hold points in stealth. Thieves make use of it because even going full tank they’re squishy, yet they have the offense of a bunker (in other words, mediocre defense and low attack, not really an equivalent trade off) so stealth helps them avoid being focused down.
And stealth isn’t the reason Mesmers are where they are either (that honour goes to Time warp and Portal). Stealth is just a trick to bewilder opponents and eventually players learn to see through that (at least most of them).

As for NPCs, they’re bonus objectives that reward teams for exploiting them. No different from NPCs in LoL.