Guild Wars 2

Fortus.6175:

>Im aware the backstab build is a one trick pony, just like fresh air ele, however, they should not be put together. One is a build that has 40+ CD, has more than one skills involved, can be seen from miles away. The other one has only one skill involved, and if it were to fail, all he has to do is stealth/teleport away. Completely different.

Why do you think thieves only have a single ‘one trick pony’ build? Thieves can also be seen miles away, unless your up against a thief that blows all his/her utilities and initiative before even engaging…

Fortus.6175:

>Backstab is whats wrong, not the class. I actually believe having too many thieves in my team will lose me the game. Why? Because they are terrible in capture the point, Most thieves resort to stealth spam, and i think we cna all agree that stealth spam is both bad for the players in the sense that it lacks true coutners, and the fact that a thief who spends his time in stealth isnt winning the game.

Last i checked, stealth spam thieves were the worst thing for that game mode. btw, the 13k backstab build that you’re complaining about is a completely different build. stealth spam builds have no hope of achieving backstabs with the numbers you’re talking about.

Fortus.6175:

> All I want is all the upfront damage to be moved somewhere else. RIght now squishies are straight up pushed away from the meta almost single handlely by both thieves and condi bunkers. This needs to stop.

I thought sword/dagger (evasion) and dagger/pistol (trickery) builds were the thief meta currently? both do not spam stealth.. and both do not do 13k backstabs…

Fortus.6175:

>I want thieves to be a nice add to the team, not a one trick pony that creates frustration but lose games. Right now thieves are too binary; either they face squishies and dominate, or face tanks and get dominated No middle ground, no team utility if they cant instagib the enemy. This is my definition of toxic; it creates a situation where both sides lose.

I wasn’t aware that thieves were all binary one trick ponies… I shall now tell every thief i meet to play in this way so as to meet your expectations and bias. :>

NinjaBreadMan.8926:

What is my counterplay to backstab? Double dodge roll in the opposite direction I last saw the teef and pray he runs out of stealth? As an ele, it is extremely hard to kill a d/p teef because of the blinds and the atleast 50% stealth uptime and the window in which i can kill them is about 45 seconds before refuge comes back up. All the while I pray that backstab wont crit me and ONLY do 5k-6k damage.

Double dodging and praying isn’t a very good way to fight a thief…

As a d/d ele, don’t dodge at all. estimate how long the thief will take to reach you and turn and face them, autoattacking in air the whole time. if you manage to make them facestab you and you land 2 or so autoattacks, you will end up taking a bigger chunk out of their health than they do yours. Follow that on with air 5 -> fire 3 -> fire 4 -> etc. and burst them. if they shadowstep away, get into water and heal back up or follow them with an earth 4 -> lightening flash. D/D eles are actually a hard matchup for backstab thieves. the AOE 360 range autoattacks hurt alot and the number of soft and hard CCs you have access to…. you shouldnt be having problems with backstab thieves.

If you start running before the fight even starts, why are you surprised that you lost?

emi

I just thought it would be best to give some perspective to this discussion by showing people what one of these ‘OMG 13k BACKSTAB’ thieves sees after they manage a successful burst. (screenshot attached)

Rather, if you were being backstabbed 13k… you have less armor than a light target golem O_O

After bursting, the thief has… no utilities left, (probably) used their elite skill, professional F1 skill also on cooldown (used to gap close and gain might), with not enough initiative left to stealth even once… if thats not high risk, high reward then i quite honestly don’t know what is.

COUNTER PLAY (that i can think of off the top of my head)
1. Buddy up with 1 other player if you’re completely glass, if the thief instant downs one of you, that thief will only have enough initiative left to throw down a blind field. Auto attack the thief to death… he/she will not be able to get away & finish the kill at the same time. (please note the 14k hp and 1.9k armor…)

2. Stun/knockdown/immob the thief before he/she is able to get the burst off. In order to reach such high levels of damage, the thief will have a single signet stun breaker which he/she will use to gain might. CC that silly head if you see the signets disappear from the status bar and might stacks appear. (might stacks also do not last long, if you can delay them for around 8 seconds… you win! hard but doable)

3. Thieves do not go around in stealth for hours at a time. They will rarely stealth until AFTER they engage and only for a few seconds at a time. Hold mouse 1 and spin your camera often! Spot the thief, focus the thief, kill the thief.

If you are currently already fighting with 2~3 other players and the thief jumps in and kills you… how is that different from any other class jumping in and changing the odds? Other than the fact that the thief will land a very noticeable amount of damage… the end result often would be the same no?

It seems many people are arguing ‘if full glass eles can’t get away then full glass thieves should not either!!‘… but really… why are we trying to compare a full glass ele to anything. There is something inherently wrong with ele survivability outside of the bunker builds (i play an ele too). Please don’t compare any class with that. It will be a sad day if anet decides to balance the game around that standard!

disclaimer I do not play this build in pvp, rather i don’t play pvp at all. Mainly i wvw as a d/d thief, so if there is anything i said that was incorrect, please go ahead and point it out to me.

emi

Cogbyrn.7283:

Lots of stuff

Hi cogbyrn

I main a d/d thief and solo roam in wvw most of the time. Just wanted to say that power necros are one of the hardest builds for me to fight. it often doesnt matter if i land every single cnd and backstab, the power necro would most likely end up doing more damage to me (percentage wise) than i do to him/her.

on the flipside, if i mess up and let the necro chain fear on me, its over. 100% hp to down in less than 4 seconds. By no means do i build super glassy. I run around with around 19k hp most of the time (with guard stacks) and almost 2.5k armor. obviously its a LTP issue for myself, although often i still find myself tempted to bite my keyboard when i get downed after 1 or 2 mins of hard fighting with a power necro only to be downed instantly due to a single mistake.

Although you say your fed up with fighting using ‘guesswork’ against thieves and dealing with their burst, i would like to counter and say i’m fed up with losing control of my character for long durations of time and dealing with necro burst :P.

unpopular opinion i think power and condi necros have the advantage when fighting a stealth heavy d/d or d/p thief. unless the thief is running the full burst rawr rawr signet build, they would not be able to down a power necro in a single rotation. on the other hand, a power necro can down even a semi-balanced thief in one rotation.

emi

Hi oscuro!

Tried your build! lots of fun! I just have a different armor setup with a mix of pvd and berserker.

One thing i did notice was that this build’s survivability seems to be lower than the standard d/d builds i usually run. Is that normal?

Emi

AikijinX.6258:

SoulSin.5682:

AikijinX.6258:

There already is a global wide Thieves guild. The thing is you need to be highly skilled to join.

Tell me more about it

Contact: Tessa Avery in game. He will kitten you. Or contact me in game. We can do some duels. and I can do the assessing. -IGN: AikijinX

I wanna join! I’m in TC though… didn’t daddy and I duel you and one of your guildies a while back aikijin?

emi

Sanduskel.1850:

i’d still like to see the ranger reveal…sic em? no that prevents restealthing, not a reveal.

What is that status that sic em inflicts again…? oh yes! it’s called ‘revealed’… hmmmm…

Sanduskel.1850:

as I said, thieves don’t have the lowest health pool since two other classes have the same. Lowest means singular, not shared with others. among the lowest maybe. even then, thieves can equip some vitality boosts if they chose to do so. it’s a choice to be squishy, sorry.

Lowest means that there is nothing below it in value… among the lowest MAY imply that there are things even lower. Don’t mean to be a grammar kitten but… your ignorance is scary.

emi

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

reason 4 – PVP/WvW -

We have NO ESCAPES as a class, we are completely committed to every fight we engage in whether we like it or not. This is a huge drawback to the class as we have no leaps, stealths and only a weak teleport with necrotic traversal to a worm minion which is also a 1 sec cast to pull this off, not instant. – This is also very confusing since we have moves like spectral walk, that turns you into a ghostly figure. You would think that would be a stealth, only instead it leaves a giant green trail behind you ALERTING the enemy as to which way you went. Additionally death shroud also sounds like a move which should make you invisible since you enter the realm of the dead and become ethereal, and yet nope no stealth…

Additionally half our builds in wvw are condition burst and if you are doing anything in a zerg you will notice that most of our conditions are removed INSTANTLY because of mass condition removal. In addition to this there is FOOD which reduces the duration of conditions!? Why is there not food which reduces the damage taken from critical hit % which is the accompaniment stat to power/crit builds?! I guess arenanet really HATES conditions.

Since I really only play wvw, I’ll only comment on this part :>

If you mean ‘escapes’ as in being able to get away from a fight, necros might have a little less than some other classes but by no means are they helpless. Your only thinking in terms of moving your own character in order to get away but gap ‘openers’ are much more than that no? As a condition necro you have so many skills that could help you open the gap and get away. You could cripple them… when they get rid of that, freeze them… when they get rid of that… fear them… and fear them again… drop you fear wall thingy utility… and repeat non-stop until you get somewhere safe, which your huge HP pool will allow you to do. If your running around with no swiftness, no speed boosts, low hp, with all skills on cooldown…. well…

In regards to usefulness in a wvw zerg, necros are much more useful than say… thief, ranger, and engineers no? You see your conditions removed superfast by a giant blob but… physical damage being done is being healed back up just as fast. Why do you think that necro is almost always the first target in small group roaming in wvw? I can assure you its not because necros cannot ‘escape’ but rather because necros have the highest damage potential and need to be removed ASAP.

In regards to food that reduces the potential of physical damage… theres toughness food (more defense), vitality food (more hp), healing power food, etc. Flipping your statement around, i would like to ask, why isn’t there food that increases my attack by 40%?

emi

mix n matchness!

think i spend way too much time making new sets for my peoples > x <…

Chicago Jack.5647:

Sceinna.3561:

Low risk high reward, it shouldn’t be like that.

it costs 9 init to stealth , projectile blind, aoe pulsing blind, gap close, and dmg with d/p.

PjSmyth.9724:

… What really seams wrong to me is once that player has entered combat He/She is able to hide again with-out leaving the area even whilst He/She is being hit, In my opinion that is so unrealistic and in some ways spoils what is a very good game,

There are players calling fire from the heavens, raising the dead, turning into trees, etc and this is what you point out as unrealistic..? :x

D/D thief here!

RE: OP
I’m not quite sure why your having trouble with D/D thieves. Personally i find that D/D eles are one of the hardest matchups for me. They have a hugeeee amount of point-blank AOEs spamming constantly, lots of CCs/knockdowns/freezing that are fast and very dangerous for a D/D thief, and can heal up like there’s no tomorrow. Almost all fights i have with decent D/D ele players drags on with them having the upper hand in sustainability.

Use your water 3 and thats one backstab that will never land, earth 4 and thats another… use earth 2 and the d/d thief will only be able to look at you with tears in their eyes… air 3 aura will do the job, water 4 aura will also, even fire 3 as a quick gap opener will prevent a backstab from landing. lets not forget about mistform, RTL, and lightening flash… or even armor of earth in a pitch, especially if they use basi venom on you. IF, even with the absurd amounts of counterskills you have for thieves they still manage to backstab you… heal up with your also abundant amount of healing skills x.x as for dodging… if you traited for it, dodging in air will blind the thief as well.

If you suddenly feel like you want to stop abusing this poor thief, take out your FGS and spin your way to freedom, joining your zerg to play in fun fights while the thief looks wistfully from a distance wishing they could join in too! (I play a d/d ele too)

On a side note… from a thief’s perspective! why are backline (ele and necros in particular) so hard to take down in a group environment for thieves? They have so many skills that will buy them the 10 seconds or so they need to get back into the ‘aoe no-fly-zone’ for thieves if they positioned themselves badly. Or even CREATE an aoe no-fly-zone on the spot… granted, sometimes players will use those 10 seconds to run the OTHER way while shouting FREEEDOOOOMMM and die splendidly. Just odd seeing how thieves look like they are designed to do just that (D/D in particular), punish backline squishies for being out of position.

-Emi

Omnitek.3876:

Here are 2 options
Remove leap finisher from heartseeker. Problem fixed.

you mean… d/p set fixed (sort of not really…) d/d set broken? :>

Reduce movement speed when stealthed by 30-50% (would need testing).

i’m sorry but… what? how would a thief catch up to someone let alone get behind them for a backstab? it would sorta make sense if stealth lasted like 30 seconds… you could slowly get into range, guess where they are going, and land your backstab… but in the 4 seconds that we have now? if it was 50% movement speed… counterplay to backstab just became “hold s”… really?

Hi everyone! just have a question that has been bothering me for a while now… What should a thief be doing when running around with a guild group of around 10~15 people?

My impression has always been that i should be jumping past any groups that fight us, get to their ranged aoe squishies and whack them silly with my dagger. Mainly necros and eles.

problem
Necros – I cannot seem to down them fast enough before i have to run away bravely. They are usually the most important target for me because their AOEs are one of the main sources of damage during most fights on my guildies.

Encounters tend to go abit like this… Basi -> CnD -> Steal -> BS to a necro that has moved too far from his/her group. AA combo whack whack whack. CnD -> BS again, necro at maybe 10% health? Last BS most likely missed due to dodge… AA combo again whack whack, necro does the teehee! i have an extra hp bar skill… CnD -> BS again with tears in my eyes. Runs away bravely because the necro either bursts me back during this time / manages to get within supporting distance of his/her group / group turns towards me and goes RAWWRR THIEF! / my guild group moves off and i don’t want to 1v20…

Ele – pretty much the same thing but more likely to be able to burst them down. otherwise after the first burst they mistform and get into their group.

What i’ve found to be most effective instead is to CnD -> Steal to one squishy, BS someone else, AA another person, CnD off whoever is closest. Get as many people freaked out as possible so they would play the Whack-The-Thief game, taking pressure off my guild. Otherwise i would be on my SB going 4 2 2 2 2 2 4 2 2 2 2…

It just feels like its extremely risky playing a thief but not so much rewarding.

btw, im using the cookie cutter D/D build 10 30 30, PVT on hat, armor, pants and one dagger. Berserker for everything else.

Burning Arrows.8276:

I have seen what he is talking about and he killed two warriors in the process.
It is not uncommon to see a thief that can staff invisible as long has he wants in WvW and be able to kill anyone in the group he picks out. For example, today I had my Warrior, Toughness= 2100 Amor=3100+ Health=22000+ struck the thief with my hammer he stood there dazed for two or three seconds with my hammer smashing in his face and he walks away and kills me and the guy that was with me…

Can someone say how that happened?
Oh yea the other guy was a guardian

I don’t get it… you mean you saw a thief 1v20 and killed 2 warriors? the group of 20 can literally stand there and use absolutely no skills, wait until the thief downs someone… res the person that was downed…. then proceed to once again stare blankly at their screens contemplating life and the universe. :P

Nema Tode.5637:

*D/D on the other hand can also easily win against D/P by simply being patient. Most likely any user of D/P will at some point use heartseeker to stealth, and that is the D/D user’s window. The D/D user can simply CnD when the D/Per heartseeks, and it will hit them as long as the D/Per was locked onto the D/D user. In a less likely case though, the D/P user might detarget the opponent to heartseek, sacrificing the damage of the heartseeker in return for safety and/or chaining. If that happens, then the D/D user just needs to predict the movements of the D/Per. A D/Per will always try to backstab the opponent, and in most cases as quickly as possible. That being said, it is more than likely that the said D/Per will located behind the D/D user, so he/she can just CnD behind themselves.

D/D thief here! i have a question… how do you handle the projectile blind from black powder? if you cnd right after they heartseeker stealth towards you (if they target you) your cnd will miss due to the projectile blind no?

Personally i’ve always had problems with D/P thieves, especially the semi tanky ones. If you get hit by the ranged blind you would have to auto attack them once to get rid of the blind and then cnding right after… which is abit of a challenge while they are in stealth. Are there alternatives other than to outplay them into the ground?

Please don’t say something like “just dodge the bullet!”. The best way i’ve found so far is to burst them into silliness before they can even black power but that only works against the glassy ones. Otherwise i find myself burning my utility stealths and HiS shortly after they stealth and try to BS them that way but that involves two silly thieves in stealth wildly trying to whack each other… :x

-Emi

Depths.4051:

…blahs…

I said you were trolling because you threw the first stone for no real reason, you were the first to insinuate anything.
Thank you for rephrasing.
it’s a game mechanic that is exclusively abused by thieves, gl making ooc so easy with any other class aside from warrior. Merely frustrating, and I’m giving less and less of a kitten as I find it’s a mechanic thieves rely on and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon sadly.

Your slight failure in logic there actually illustrates quite nicely how the whole thing works. Thieves can OOC from anyone because they are the most mobile class. Warriors can OOC from anyone but thieves because they are the 2nd most mobile class… Eles can OOC from guardians because they are more mobile… Anyone can OOC from a PU mesmer because.. omg so slow :P If your built for perma swiftness then you can OOC from most people, asides from those select classes/builds that have many mobility skills.

ATM your complaining about thieves. Once that has been nerfed… will you go on the Warrior forums to complain about their mobility and ability to OOC? When does it end? When everyone has the same amount of mobility as PU mesmers? x3

btw… thieves do not ‘rely’ on their class mechanics to get away in the same way engineers do not ‘rely’ on their kits to have the ability to control an entire area. It is like saying ‘omg eles gain so much might with the sigil of battle! they can switch attunments much faster than any other class can switch weapons! totally unfair!’ These are class mechanics that are meant to be used, if using them a lot gives you a better result, then you should use them a lot x.x

The suggestion of ‘arenas’ being created when someone smacks someone else is… horrible… i can just imagine the day that gets put into the game. commander- everyone get to the keep! we need help defending it! no one comes because… everyone is stuck in imaginary boxes… 1v1ing…

The Game Slayer.7632:

Its really not a L2P issue at all, some of it is, granted but it’s all about resetting fights with such little sacrificing going on. Look, a thief is never going to kill me, but when i get any thief below 30%, they just run.

If your on the class with the lowest hp and lowest armor and a thief cannot ever kill you… then you must be built to be super super tanky (i assume). If you are, then why are you expecting to kill anything by yourself? let alone a thief x.×.

If you aren’t built to be super survivableness and thieves still cant burst you down… then thieves need a buff, not a nerf… if they cannot even burst down someone with the lowest hp and armor in the game :P

been trying to use hard to catch since the patch since its our new ‘survivablity’ trait… the tool tip should be changed to reflect reality i think. something like;

’Turns your character into a suicidal bunny. Shadowstep to the nearest edge of a cliff and gain fear when you are disabled. If a cliff is not in range or high enough to kill you, Shadowsteps you into a wall.

Fear: 12s
Radius: 600 if there is a appropriate cliff. Otherwise 10’

The trait name should also be changed into ‘Bunny with suicidal tendencies’