Guild Wars 2

Where thieves are considered by some OP’d in PvP, they’re also considered lacking in PvE ability. Especially in the case of lacking team supporting abilities (weather or not that’s actually true), and overall squishiness.

hooma.9642:

Dual.8953:

How does lowering the standard cultivate a healthy competitive environment? How can a game be competitive if an unseasoned newplayer is on the same level as a seasoned veteran?
Top players are where they are because they overcame the challenges of the game, why should new players get a free pass up to them?
Imo, it’d be better if they made access to knowledge on how to handle certain challenging situations more accessible so new players will have more incentive to learn and improve. Maybe something like a tutorial on mechanics like stealth, clones and dodging.

so u think picking 1 of the high reward low risk classes like thief and mesmers is competitive?
u have no healthy competitive environment with 200-500 pvp players that jumps about the skillgap that is required to beat certain builds.

it all starts in hot join. even new players realize that build doesnt matter against a zerg, but they realize how often they are get killed with nearly no chance to react by certain classes so that they either play that class or leave pvp. so lowering the needed skillgap improves the competitive environment cause u has more players.
so why the opponent needs clearly more skill to kill a thief or a mesmer? should not the thief or mesmer bring the same amount of skill to kill something?
stealth and pve mobs are anoying in pvp! simple fact.

it should not be “hard to learn” it should be “easy to learn hard to master”.. atm its “hard to learn”… at this state it doesnt matter how much features spvp get, it will not attract new players if they get stomped with such classes. they leave or pick the same class. both options doesnt help spvp.

You don’t need to lower the challenge to decrease the learning curve. Just make knowledge easily accessible, educate the new players. That way, rather then hamstringing the high levels, you get stronger newbies, and don’t ruin things for the high levels.

hooma.9642:

Lucifer.3748:

hooma.9642:

Lucifer.3748:

hooma.9642:

Lucifer.3748:

Bunch of whiny hotjoin heroes in here. If anyone of you followed how tournaments been running mesmers are becoming less n less required. People opting to use classes like trappers and engis instead of mesmers. D/D eles, trappers, any farpoint melee rangers, tanky thieves ( cruuks type of build ) , ect, ect… Destroy mesmers in 1 v 1 s.

Mesmers are more balanced then you know or are willing to admit. If you’re getting destroyed you either suck or playing a warrior…

so only if tpvp teams brings a mesmer its not balanced? what a clear view of balance u have. very impressive.
and btw u know “more balanced” is not the same like balanced!!!!!!!!
troll maybe?

What in the name of god are you trying to say? There are plenty of counters to shatter mesmers. Most of the people who claim shatter mesmers are skilless prolly couldn’t beat any half skilled player with one. More then likely people kittening about mesmers are idiots sitting in aoes while playing a warrior.

I can kill a decent mesmer on my farpoint ranger with just my pets if I wanted too. If you’re playing a weak class or one that can’t fight a mesmer don’t come to the forums to cry about it. Either learn 2 play or roll a new class till it gets buffed.

ok again……………………….
“more balanced” is not equal balanced -> its still unbalanced.

the ppl fighting against mesmer still need higher skill then fight against other then mesmer… simple and irrevocable, cause u dont need to watch what 1 ppl is doing u must watch the clones/illusions 2.

interesting is the last part of ur post “roll a new class till it gets buffed”… mmh why? cause its maybe UNBALANCED?!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

it doesnt matter that certain in specific situations to strong builds beats a mesmer… oh no wait.. a backstab thief can kill a mesmer.. its balanced.
cause if odin can beat zeus its balanced… regardlesss what humans do.. they has a chance, all they need to do is become a god…

u must be joking right? troll? dev? all three of them? no ppl with normal mental activity would think that way. or not?

A: This game isn’t balance based on hotjoin. If this games wants to be “Esports” then it shouldn’t matter if there’s an entire team of mesmers or 1 mesmer in a hotjoin.

B: If class X is balanced and class Y and Z is completely kitten, then class X should not be nerfed to Y + Z’s kittenty state. Y and Z should be buffed more into viability.

C: I don’t know if it’s your logic or your grammar structuring, but you haven’t said anything remotely understandable or noteworthy. Stop thinking like a level 10 who just got rolled by other level 10s in hotjoin playing X class the running to the forums and crying about it.

Guaranteed that 90% of the people who cry about mesmers come to the forums and read trash like this and assume that mesmers are unstoppable OP. Then when they lose to one (like they do to any other class it’s inevitable), they come crying that Mesmers are bullkitten because they saw other sheep whining about it on the forums.

a) so u realize there is something broken? the balance or even esport starts on the basics. it doesnt matter how tpvp handle it.. the basics count and it seems u has realized that its total different if there are more than 1 mesmers.
b) i dont say they should nerf mesmers. but mesmers and thiefs give to much reward for less then other class require. in the same time u need more skill to beat such classes, cause they are annyoing
c) if u want that game balanced and successfull pvp u should start to think like a lvl 1..

and just a tip.. stop deposit others as cryers or something. it just shows how ignorant u are.

How does lowering the standard cultivate a healthy competitive environment? How can a game be competitive if an unseasoned newplayer is on the same level as a seasoned veteran?
Top players are where they are because they overcame the challenges of the game, why should new players get a free pass up to them?
Imo, it’d be better if they made access to knowledge on how to handle certain challenging situations more accessible so new players will have more incentive to learn and improve. Maybe something like a tutorial on mechanics like stealth, clones and dodging.

Thobek.1730:

Maugetarr.6823:

Air autoattack with the scepter lasts most of the duration of stealth and will point out the location of the thief.

Is this true? Air autoattack on the scepter will still hit a stealthed thief? it hits like a wet noodle so if it actually homes in on a stealthed player that would be great but I have yet to test this out.

I have my doubts it will work though… just saying.

It works of the premise that stealthing doesn’t break channels, so if they stealth after you’ve started, the channel will follow through. Wonder if Anet would ever up the current on that attack.

Thus far I seem to have a bad habit of pulling a lot of aggro on my Mes, because I end up targetting enemies outside the battle.

Moddo.7105:

swinsk.6410:

Exactly what Dual said… If you hit someone in stealth with auto you will do a combo.

L2P maybe ?

I have ever class at 80(except Guardian) and play them all, Thief/Eng more than others
I know how to play a thief. And maybe you should L2P other classes before you ever use L2P again. Because not all classes have a combo in the auto attack chain. So to you I say L2NotoveruseL2P replies like every other poser on the forums.

They do all have combat logs though. In any case, when a melee thief stealths, his or her ideal target is your back, so common sense dictates, ready yourself to react to surprise back attacks. When a P/D stealths, be ready to evade, you’ll avoid most of the sneak attack, and then you can kite them to avoid letting them CnD again.

If you hit a thief with auto attacks you’ll start doing you melee combo instead of the first hit. Another trick is to have your chat set to combat log as it’ll update if you hit. The rest comes down to instinct and common sense.

Griswold.2054:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

stof.9341:

jan.9745:

Seems like you dont know what is 1 hit?
Ranger, mesmmer, elem, guardian, engineer, necro they can’t do a 1 hit strike. Lol
Even they are GC build.,

I can’t speak for all the classes here but do you know that the Elementalist Churning Earth spell does more damage than Backstab?

To original post, not the person i’m quoting:
Also, thieves don’t 1 hit anything. Backstab requires a setup skill. Why does everyone keeps forgetting that?

Its astonishing how much enlightenment you always get in the Thieves Forums. I was not aware of Churning Earth possibly doing more damage than Backstab.

I mean it IS surprising after all: A skill which requires just a cast time of 3 1/4s, has no aoe warning circle whatsoever, misses a unique and visible casting animation is definately unpredictable. That kitten spammable 30s cooldown skill, which on top can not be interupted or easily dogged and does not need any “setting up skill” which grants e.g. stability is indeed comparable to backstab. I seem to always forget that. kitten you Churning Earth, kitten you!

They were debating PvE where NPCs are too stupid to dodge.

Kasama.8941:

oZii.2864:

Snip

I’m sorry, but that’s just not true. The main part of the Thief is burst damage, that’s why initiative was created; to allow the Thief a better burst potential then other professions. Stealth is a part of the Thief, in the same way movement is. But that is the exact problem; players think stealth is the main factor of the Thief, because the Thief has too much of it! The Thief is not an Assassin, there’s difference there (or was at least). Stealth was originally build to be a tool that allowed the Thief to move while avoiding damage. It was not made to be a deception tool like clones are, and neither was it used like it when the Thief was first released. Problem is that ArenaNet haven’t been balancing the stealth for the Thief over time, and players have taken advantage of this, leaving us with the result we have today, where players are running around in close to permanent stealth. Stealth for the Thief needs to be pulled back to what it originally was; a movement tool.

The Thief has shadow stepping (free on steal) and superior movement, which means distance is not a problem at all. If you gave the Thief 1200 range, on top of all the shadow stepping and stealth, it would be completely overpowered. Dagger Storm gives the Thief stability (perfect to use when you are low on initiative), movement in a combination with stealth is all the invulnerability you need as a Thief (beats the hell out of distortion), the shortbow has better AoE then the Mesmer could ever hope to have (just the #1 skill alone kills clones ridiculously fast), the Mesmer doesn’t have any protection skills other then Chaos Storm (which is random).

Okay, so let’s get all the stealth down:

Mesmer: The Prestige (weapon 3s), Decoy (utility 3s), Veil (utility 3s), Mass Invisibility (elite 5s), Desperate Decoy (trait 3s)

Thief: Cloak and Dagger (weapon 3s, or 6s if you use it twice), Hide in Shadows (healing 3s), Blinding Powder (utility 3s), Shadow Refuge (utility 10s), Shadow Trap (utility 5s), Blinding Tuft (stolen skill 3s), Hidden Thief (trait 3s), Instinctual Response (trait 3s), Smoke Screen (utility blast/leap combo 10s/3s), Black Powder (weapon blast/leap combo 10s/3s)

And here’s the benefits the Thief and Mesmer get from going/being in stealth:

Mesmer: Prismatic Understanding (stealth last 1 second longer, gain a protective boon)

Thief: Meld with Shadows (stealth last 1 second longer), Fleet Shadow (move 50% faster while in stealth), Hidden Assassin (gain might), Hidden Killer (100% crit chance while stealthed), Shadow Protector (grant targets of your stealth skills regeneration), Infusion of Shadow (gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths), Patience (regain initiative faster), Shadow’s Embrace (remove one condition every three seconds), Shadow’s Rejuvenation (regenerate health)

It’s pretty clear that if you removed stealth from weapon and healing skills, which would balance stealth a great deal, the Thief would still have superior stealth to the Mesmer. It’s not even close.

Nice Kas. Now explain what P/D and S/D are supposed to do with their bread and butter attack skill locked away in their stealth slot? I’m certainly not going to Flanking Strike someone to death. And P/D’s completely up a creek without regular access to Sneak Attack.

Oh oh oh, and neither of them have burst capabilities.

Royce.6835:

kostbabis.8791:

^yeah..Anet what are you doing??clones seriously?
Quick change every class core mechanic to a stupid burst skill that builds up with some kind of energy.Then give them a big sword to swing to each other and see the interesting gameplay that develops afterwards ..
hehe :P

Every other game, even guild wars 1, managed to create classes without clones or excess number of “pets” and were very successful.

Thing is, they tried to create something fun and innovative and didn’t realize that something fun for pve could be terribly terribly wrong for pvp

Necromancers in GW1 could go around with up to 12 minions, though I’ll admit it was significantly harder to manage that feet in PvP due to lack of corpses.

In any case clones are far from perfect and all it should take is on missed step to give away the mesmer, at least to the trained eye. Also the game has at least 3 methods of targetting,

jan.9745:

Doomdesire.9365:

Magiofdeath.2745:

My observations:

I am farming some mobs in frostgorge and saw a thief kill a lvl 80 mob in 1 hit with backstab. So I asked him if he does that in WvW and his reply was all the time. Screenshot attached for proof of this. Sure, he could just be saying that, but I’ve seen the exact same thing happen in WvW. Maybe not 1 hit, but I’ve seen them kill in 2. The fact that they can stealth from what roughly seems every 5 seconds is also slightly ridiculous. A thief without any support set can solo a supply camp as well. If you’re any other class, you will most likely need some support equipment to take a supply camp yourself.

I’m sure I’m going to get flamed for this, but this is just my observations.

Maybe its just because I’m a condition build, but I wish I could kill a lvl 80 as a ranger in 1 hit.

A warrior can kill a frostforge mob just as fast. So can a ranger, guardian, elementalist, engineer, and mesmer with the right glass cannon setup.

Seems like you have a problem with glass cannon builds, not the thief.

Seems like you dont know what is 1 hit?
Ranger, mesmmer, elem, guardian, engineer, necro they can’t do a 1 hit strike. Lol
Even they are GC build.,

Contrary to what you seem to believe, a GC Thief can’t one shot everything, or many things for that matter in end game. BSing a Champion or a great deal of Veterans is a bad idea as a glass cannon. BS an enemy in the middle of a mob is also a bad idea. Why? You won’t kill the Vet or Champion, and then you’d aggro them. You may kill the normal mob, but you’ll aggro its group.

Oglaf.1074:

Please.

What do these three Professions have in common?

Cheap escapes. They can tank just as well, if not muuuuch better, than a Warrior/Guardian by simply jumping in and out of an enemy zerg unmolested.

You missed his point. You can’t get all evasive when manning a Ram of any siege so if your caught you’re defenseless.

Ragnarox.9601:

DanH.5879:

dude, i have to melee with med armor and lowest hp pool, wtf….

you have stealth 90% of the time so don’t complain
lowest have guardian.

Guardians have Protection/Aegis/Stability/Reflect/Heavy Armour or a mixture of them at pretty much all times. Thieves have the ability to not be targeted directly, but no damage mitigation.

silvershadez.8421:

You don’t need stealth to stay alive. I could beat a warrior with ease without stealth at any day. Just pick a D/D condi spec and time your evasive moves right. Theres nothing the warrior can do about it.

My thief is my tankiest character. No he can’t take a beating (like my guardian) he just avoids them with superior mobility and all those cool evasive moves.

My previous post was just pointing out why people might tend to hate thieves.

What if I don’t want to leave my S/D control/support build?
The more I look at it the more it seems apparent to me, Dagger Mainhand is the most hated weapon is GW2. It has the Backstab, it has the Heartseeker, it has Death Blossom which can apply stacks of bleeds to multiple enemys while evading.

downwithdragons.8291:

Rogues, scoundrels, WvW griefiers.. thieves. Sorry if I misused the class name in my initial post. It was late and I was irritated.

I understand stealth is not THE thief class mechanic, and other classes have limited access to it.. but we all know, thieves utilize it the most.

Culling (Yes, it is still there) plus stealth in WvW is very frustrating.

Stealth stomping (thief or no thief) is unbalanced, as the downed player and his allies have no way to know its coming, especially in a zerg-like situation. Throw in culling, which is extending stealths beyond their correct durations, and it makes the situation worse.

I understand stealth isn’t supposed to make you invulnerable. But when you combine high mobility and stealth with the culling issues, it sure makes it seem that way.

I gotta stop you there. If you see a Shadow Refuge over your downed teammate, they’re most likely stealth stomping. If you see a theif disappear near your downed teammate, they are likely stealth stomping.

In those situations you can definitely do something about it. Heck if your gut tells you, give the area melee swing. If the thief is stealth stomping and you know he/she’s doing it, you can prevent it. CC them, preferably with a knockdown, or attack the area with Melee Attacks or AoE. The thief will either abandon the stomp, take massive damage, -or if CC’d- waste his/her stealth.
Also, if you’re downed as a Guardian, you can CC a stealth stomp with Wave of Light.

Yeah-no. I see the SR go up over the downed player, I know the thief is there and completely vulnerable. If the thief doesn’t bug out, there’s potential for getting the finish plus downing the Thief.

Slamz.5376:

The problem is that thieves are both the ultimate DPS and the ultimate tanks.

Their WvW tankiness comes from the fact that you can’t consistently hit them. It makes them the hardest to kill class. It’s harder to down a thief than it is to down a bunker elementalist. Honestly, bunker elementalists don’t even stand out in most fights because once 10 people focus on them, they go down very fast anyway. When 10 people turn on a thief it can still take several minutes to down him, if you ever can, as he flits in and out of stealth and avoids just about all roots, conditions and hits by simply vanishing over and over.

I also don’t get why Daggerstorm is one of the most effective elites in the game with one of the shortest cooldowns (and why must it also reflect all projectiles AND give stability??)

Thief is a ridiculous class and more and more people are flocking to it.

Daggerstorm? That skill’s only as effective as the enemy makes it. Don’t shoot at it and the damage is neglegible. Focus the user with AoE and Melee and they’ll be forced to cancel it early or die. Honestly, Thieves’ Guild is usually the better in most situations.

@OP: All the time. Invest a lot in shadow arts and I can go just about anywhere. Pretty easy once you learn to daze lock.

Are the 5 Laurel gear packages (ie 2 Thief Gear) worth it? Or are the chances of getting level 80 exotics from them really low?

Kurow.6973:

Dual.8953:

Last I checked Scorpion Wires usually works in idea situations, it’s just that it aims for the lower torso so it’s hard to use it in a lot of situations where is would shine. ie. pulling people off walls.

That’s not the main issue with SW.

The fact that it’s obstructed by thin air, pulls enemies half-way, or simply doesn’t pull at all, yet causes a KD at the enemy’s location are the major issues of SW.

Then it was like that last I tried it. Like 50/50.

Last I checked Scorpion Wires usually works in ideal situations, it’s just that it aims for the lower torso so it’s hard to use it in a lot of situations where is would shine. ie. pulling people off walls.

Kakeru.2873:

Dual.8953:

Coming from a game where this happens: http://youtu.be/hczMNyLr0ek and stun breaks are uncommon, I think GW2 handles CCs fine.
I don’t get this mentality that you need access to all your skills at all times.

Great job comparing a side scrolling action game. Hey i might aswell compare Tekken to this game if your going to use that as an example.

I agree with OP, but really there’s no point in even stating where the problem is at anymore SO MANY PEOPLE have gone over what the problems are but A-net just don’t seem to care at ALL and with that most of there players have lost interest and so have I. You stop giving a kitten about one part of your game that players want to enjoy and those players will just stop caring and stop playing.

Actually it’s a 3d brawler. And was in the WCG (World Cyber Games) more then once, advertised along side SC2 in Korea. I know it’s not an Rpg but even in Gw1 they proved you don’t need an insane amount of action buttons to have depth.

Coming from a game where this happens: http://youtu.be/hczMNyLr0ek and stun breaks are uncommon, I think GW2 handles CCs fine.
I don’t get this mentality that you need access to all your skills at all times.

Rengaru.4730:

Dual.8953:

they both utilize their stealth skills to deal passable damage.

Sorry thats not entirely true.

Thief Sword autoattack is one of the strongest in the game and the stealth skill deals less damage than any skill in the chain (don’t trust the tooltip, try it for yourself).

But pistol by itself is not exactly the best weapon, thats right.

Dual.8953:

So if you make those set unusable that only leaves S/P (still feeling the effects of its nerf) D/P (just because BS does that much damage), and both D/D specs just because neither really needs a lot of stealth.

Again, I did not suggest anything, neither a nerf or a buff, I play a thief myself since launch and I know what weapons thief can use and how.

(Also, of course the standard D/D Mug-CnD-Backstab needs stealth a lot)

Nah. D/D BS is all about the scoring the big hit. For that they only need to stealth once.
As for S/D, the usual combat style is scoring free hits off the tactical strike’s daze. It trades the weapon skill blinds and dazes of S/P for stealth making S/D much more in tune with the Shadow Arts trait-line then S/P, more tilted to defense then offense.

Rengaru.4730:

Maugetarr.6823:

Please don’t suggest sweeping changes because you don’t play that way our because there are other ways like the DB spam.

I did not suggest any changes at all.
I have learned not to suggest anything in the thief subforum, someone will always hate you for it.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Any x/D setups will be gimped when cloak and dagger is nerfed. Not because we’re bandwagoners, but because that’s the only reason for getting dagger offhand.

Im not saying you are. If you use dagger just for CnD thats good for you, if you would quit the class if it was nerfed you never enjoyed thief but just one single skill.

I don’t know you though, so ask yourself if you could still enjoy your class after a nerf.

Here’s the thing about CnD. It’s how Sword/Dagger and Pistol/Dagger operate because both builds rely on frequent access to their stealth skills. If stealth was nerfed in any way that gives them less access to stealth the builds would lose effectiveness in proportion to how much stealth is nerfed because they both utilize their stealth skills to deal passable damage.
So if you make those set unusable that only leaves S/P (still feeling the effects of its nerf) D/P (just because BS does that much damage), and both D/D specs just because neither really needs a lot of stealth.

Maugetarr.6823:

Svarty.8019:

How do we counter their stealth with area effects or large stacks of conditions when we can’t see the thief to do so?

Stand in your own AoE/trap and use a block or swing a melee weapon.

Also, don’t use your condition removals too early, a small stack of bleeding isn’t worth a CD so save it for then they get out of hand. Try to manage your energy so you’re able to evade their Sneak Attack/Death Blossom in a way that they’re wasting their attack.
Battles against condition builds are attrition battles. They’re all about managing your sustainability.

Rayya.2591:

1. Q: can an high -end Ranger 1 vs 5 low lvl ?
2. Q: can an high -end Eng 1 vs 5 low lvl ?
3. Q: can an high -end Warrior ….

1- 7 A: No
Result : thieves are pro’s and skilled, rest are bad

You forgot Eles can do 1v5 (possibly more, seen one do 8 once)

Kasama: Did you try all the weapon sets before the change? I’m curious how S/D and P/D operated back then, because now they require frequent access to stealth to be effective. Especially since the dagger OH nerf.

Ashanor.5319:

Dual.8953:

Not sure that glory should be how you get a legendary. Maybe if they changed up the way they award glory to actually reward players for contributing to their team, instead of rewarding them for trying to kill everything in sight with no regards for the objectives or teamplay.

/sarcasm I know right. It requires so much skill to grind legendary weapons in PvE, why should those PvP’ers get anything for free? /end sarcasm

Is this a joke? I mean basically the only requirement to getting a PvE legendary is an extraordinary grind. Why should it be anything different for PvP? As a matter of fact, it would take much less time to get a legendary in PvE than it would to get 750,000 to 1,000,000 glory. If anything the cost is too high. As for the person that said rank 100 is where they will likely implement legendary weapons for PvP. Do you realize how long it would take to get to a rank 100 in this game? You could have made 5 PvE legendary weapons in that time.. if not more. Just to get to rank 29 it took over 900 games and the higher rank you go the worse it gets. Let’s just average those 900 games at 10 minutes a piece for a total of 9000 minutes, or 150 hours of nothing but sPvP. I have heard estimates of it taking something like 3000 hours of sPvP just to reach the current max rank. Let’s be conservative and say it took only half of that at 1500 hours. It would take you a full year of playing 4 hours of sPvP every single day. If we went with the 3000 hour estimate you are looking at 8 hours every single day for a year.

How long do you think it takes to get a PvE legendary? I can tell you this, it isn’t anything close to 1500 hours. If it was it means the only people that have legendary weapons are people who have spent 10 hours a day playing (approx.), every day, since release. Sorry but that just isn’t the case. It definitely isn’t 3000 hours or we are looking at 20 hours a day, every day, since release. The grind to get a PvP legendary weapon should be no more of a grind than the PvE versions, end of story.

I say that because it’ll just promote people to zerg/glory farm instead of actually trying to play properly. And I know sPvP’s already a mess as it is, that doesn’t mean one should make it worse.
It’d be cool if the winning team got a big glory bonus or something, that’d be a happy medium imo.

I’m not sure if “irony” is the word but I find it funny how most of the suggestions people make you nerf the backstab build, if implemented would only force more thieves to go Backstab.

Hope this fixes culling. The complaining on the thief boards is getting grating.

Not sure that glory should be how you get a legendary. Maybe if they changed up the way they award glory to actually reward players for contributing to their team, instead of rewarding them for trying to kill everything in sight with no regards for the objectives or teamplay.

Zipping across the map at breakneck speeds while making things explode.

Lunar Corporation.5720:

Honestly, I have no problem with the damage end to thieves. You play by the sword, you die by the sword. I’m sorry for thieves that may face further nerfs in the damage aspect, but hard to say in general, its a class that can be played many ways. Not sure.

However. I do think stealth is broken. Some people have argued for a change in the initiative system for a different pay off, more combos for what HS is worth and what not. I dont think the initiative system is a problem. Anet created an awesome thief class. But I haven’t played a game where thieves/assassins have had so many opportunities to return to stealth while fighting as is present in this game. Stealth is shinkansen clockwork right now. would be great if there was some more cds there.

Increasing stealth cooldowns will just force more thieves to go BS burst. A lot of balanced builds rely on stealth to access thier stealth skills, which is usually the lynch pin of their playstyle. Particularly Sword/Dagger which needs requires frequent access to tactical strike to land dazes to maximize the builds up-time with auto-attacks, and pistol/dagger which requires the user to stack bleeds with Sneak Attack in order to be effective. Both S/D’s and P/D’s 2-5 skills aren’t damage focused, P/D’s auto-attack is too slow to be effective so both builds rely on their stealth attacks to be effective.

I’d prefer more evade time and sped up over more damage. Don’t want FS to become S/D’s heartseeker.

Won’t lowering the number of teams in tournies make them quicker to start and less of a time sink?

In my experince, even a blip on the minimap is enough for stealth to be rendered useless. Thieves stealth so the enemy won’t know where to swing, if the enemy did know then stealth would need a buff to compensate, something like a passive evasion stat, because it and thief with it, would lose 90% of there already poor defensive capabilities.

It kind of feels like this was made with the intent to only use stealth as an escape because when you stealth offensively, you’re stealthed for the shortest time possible so you can get of your stealth skill right away. If you deliberately wait the whole duration, you’re just giving your opponent more time to heal and prepare, erasing any progress you’ve made on them.
The more I think about it the more I notice, the only sets that will benefit from this are the ones that never had stealth to begin with, S/P now sporting 3 accessible dazes and access to stealth would completely overshadow S/D. P/P, SB, Spear and Harpoon would become much stronger, all the land melee sets would become weaker; and BS insta-gib would feel the smallest nerf.

Can you point out where we get more survivability from this? And what would you propose for Flanking Strike? The skill is currently “use as needed” so it’s not used for dps. (and I don’t think we need another “Heartseeker”) And Tactical Strike pretty much the best S/D can muster in combat, as the build requires you to score as many hits as possible to be effective.

Peccavi.2978:

my suggestions, dont balance a class solely based on cry babies in pvp. Also I would like to see a second stealth where its toggled, for scouting purposes and you can not attack from this particular version of stealth. Considering thats the point of a thief/ rogue/ assassin based class, or profession as they are called here.

That’d make things too easy imo.
I could trapes around everywhere in PvE, get communing skill points and contested resource nodes with no issue what so ever.
We can already out run most zergs provided an ele isn’t obsessed with catching us. Hard to call it OP’d if it has no combat ability but it would definitely make traversing the map way too easy. (I could see it used to set up a gank from an enemy flank that was otherwise inaccessible, too which seems too strong, tactics wise.)

XiL.4318:

daydream.2938:

Right mr.big, im not saying burst couldnt use a second look, i’m just saying it needs a comprehensive look, because some classes, most notably thief, bring pretty much nothing to the table BUT burst, so if you nerf that, the more rounded classes like Ele become even more dominant ( and they are considered stronger than thiefs right now, even despite the burst thiefs have).
So, holding everything equal, any nerfs to thiefs will make them useless in high end play. I dont oppose burst being looked at, i oppose a specific isolated nerf to thief burst, that would essentially cripple the class and take them out of the end game.

Burst should be useless in high end play. Burst mechanics are for r1 – 10 so those players feel like they contribute even though they know nothing about the mechanics. At top competitive levels burst should come as the result of focus targeting and synergy. A thief running burst and no team utilities is a detriment to a top level synergy dependent team.

So nerfing the easy mode burst would only serve to help Thief become more competitive by forcing them into a synergy roll instead of being Rambo the Roaming Bowtard.

The question is can they thrive in that role at top level play.

Mungrul.9358:

I’ve made the same point before, highlighting the fact that ArenaNet considered stealth twice before in the first game and abandoned it both times after reaching the conclusion that it’s overpowered as a mechanic (in GW1 beta, Ranger had a stealth stat, and Shadowstepping was developed for Assassins in Factions as a viable alternative).

But you’ll get a lot of noise on the forums from players defending the mechanic.
Deep down, everyone knows it’s overpowered to the point of being broken, but that’s why they defend it. They don’t want their most powerful tool taken away.

Combining both shadowstepping and stealth to create the Thief profession was one of the worst decisions I’ve seen ArenaNet make. I can only assume that those people who actively avoided implementing it in the first game must no longer work for the company.

Thieves defend steath because their only other option is face tanking, and a lot of the more balanced builds (Such as Sword/Dagger, which has zero burst) require stealth to operate. And thieves are the very worst class in the game at face-tanking.

PolishSausage.1279:

I just want to point out how hilariously ignorant the people saying Thieves are fine sound. They’re probably the ones that spam the near perma-stealth bull and take cheap shots on people, then run like scared children at the slightest hint of any real danger.

Fact of the matter is, stealth needs to be nerfed so that they actually have to COMMIT to a fight, instead of having an easy escape tool that they can spam whenever. Just increase the time period that they can’t stealth to a more reasonable frame. I mean, one of my friends plays a Thief, and even he agrees that they’re a broken class simply because they have a spammable Get Out of Jail Free card. It should not take five people just to make sure one Thief doesn’t get away.

In before kitten Thieves try to deride everything I just said.

What weapon set does your friend play? Obviously not S/D or P/D, both of with require stealth to maximize their main features. (Control on S/D and Condition on P/D)
The only thief builds that don’t need heavy use of stealth are the burst builds.

I’m probably not the first one of mention it here but the best way to deal with downed state is to embrace it. Like if I see someone rezzing, I CC or pressure them off before the stomp. Or should I say “finish” cause I don’t use my stomp as the sole way to kill.

In any case if you look around there’s vids of smaller forces winning out over large ones, one’s on the front page of this board currently. It’s all about organization an strategy. (If you have neither of those, Siege is a nice equalizer too)

I’m an S/D thief so I’m generally fine with the stealth trait and my 2 in a pinch.

1) Yes, no more waiting around and easier to solo.
2) Don’t feel the need, there’s other ways to support.
3) Well enough. I akin GW2 to more a brawler then an RPG.

Good luck with Swtor. Its free-to-play model is severely gutted.

Stiv.1820:

Defiantly not intended. There is a cap on stealth so it’s not very practical normally but for hiding in an enemy keep to rez a dead Mesmer it’s pretty bad. That’s about it.

This, and Anet will probably patch it in due time.

I prefer:
-Two bases, Two Flags.
-5v5 or 8v8
-Flag barers cannot stealth
-Flag barers cannot use portals
-Flag barer cannot access thier normal skill, only flag skills.
-Both flags are required to score
-Possibly the ability to aquire base upgrades and team buffs

I think CTF would be easier to balance then conquest, especially if they add a rhe things like upgrades and buffs. At least on the class end.

stof.9341:

Engels.8537:

A nice change would simply be,

1) Thieves cannot heal and remove conditions under stealth,

With that much drawbacks to stealth, I’d want at least the ability to hit people without breaking it :o

That change would pressure thieves into burst specs. The traits that allow that are in Master and GrandMaster of Shadow Arts and Burst specs usually go at least 55 points in Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes which doesn’t give them access to those traits. There is ally stealth regen in Shadow Arts Adept but regens not going to be strong on a burst spec. Their only other ways to achieve healing stealth are their basic heal, Hide in Shadow, which removes Bleed and Poison and has twice the CD of the other skills and Shadow Refuge which doesn’t heal for much and paints where the thief is while it heals.

All this rage at the burst specs and all these suggestions to rail road thieves into burst specs.

SchuMidas.4782:

Ninya.3942:

SchuMidas.4782:

fix stealth to reappear after getting hit will solve most problem

and this fixed with how OP Thief/Assassins class was in ALL MMOs
even the invisible well on EB’s Jumping Puzzle have this feature

So since most of the dmg in this game is a PBAoE and/or channeled attacks that continue to do damage even after a thief, mesmer, ranger or others enter invisibility…they should automatically be removed from it? Don’t know if you know this but most thieves (even mine wearing full PVT gear) would get smashed in an even shorter period of time than I already am when out of stealth.

and how many PBAoE they need to kill you ?
this comes from my experience where camps being ninjaed by 2 perma stealth thief and they took 10 of our player just to guard the camp
and in EB JP you will or you have experience how OP when it comes to 1 vs 3 you can still kitten your opponent and laugh on thier bodies

Depends on the attack and who fired it. I run a tankier spec myself and even I went down from a couple Whirlwind Attacks. (A couple warriors hid when we took Dreambay and jumped me from behind.)

@Columba: Need I bring up how GW2 doesn’t have a passive evade stat again?