Guild Wars 2

Dragonax.6487:

Let say if a noob thief vs a noob of other classes. Noob thief has 99% chance of winning just for the stealth button.

If a noob thief vs an experienced other classes who know how to deal with them, noob thief has 99% chance of losing because once their stealth is countered, they are like a naked woman in a life time prison for males.

But if a skilled thief vs a skilled other classes, skilled thief has much higher chance to win… again because now they know how to use stealth better + know how to counter stealth counters, and there was no hard counter to stealth so suck it.

I cant agree more with the first 2 parts.

However i dont see where you base the third one.

1) 2 skilled players fight one hell of a battle and thief happens to win. Does that mean it was the class that won and not the player? How do you measure that? You assume both have equal skills? In the end both are human and one is bound to make a mistake.

2) A skilled thief can excape easily even vs other skilled players i can give you that. But thats quite different from winning. Running away is the same as losing.

Edit: 3 ) You only need basic knoledge to counter noob thieves which doesnt mean the class has a low skill cap, it might be easy to start with but in order to truly excel at it you need a lot of time and practice. And you also need to know the other classes and builds they are using which is easier vs a thief that only has 2 viable builds atm.

Dragonax.6487:

I suffered a lot from thiefs when I were a WvW noob, but once I figured out how to deal with them, Jesus Christ need to kill hundred crap thiefs to find a decent one. The lowest skill and dumbest class in the game in my opinion.

Lol and that proves that thief class is easy mode? quite the opposite id say. If thief class was dumb and easy mode 1v1 god etc etc then descent players would lose to new players rolling thieves. Maybe you are biased because thieves annoy you.

Im starting to see things differently after the way they implemented stealth counter to rangers. The way it was implemented it doesnt make sic em that much more appealing and stealth is handicapped in pve and tpvp (in different ways).

If i was to see stealth counters positvely it would have to come with a large scale revamp to implement other ways for theif to achieve sustain in fights. Evasion is a nice kinda subpar alternative but people have been complaining bout it as well.

Hmm different dailys and the karma reward are still there to help lvl up fracs. Sides lvl 1 and lvl 10 fractals are the same really. Any new player can lvl by spamming daily 10 in lfg.

Ok poison but torment? lol Id ask for confusion instead!

to be fair there are builds mesmer can use other than shatter. Ther is even one where you get punished for killing illusions.

I think ele has too much stomp to get stealth counter, mesmer maybe but they have decoy that even swifts the target to a clone.

Thieves prolly but i cant imagine a fight where 2 perma stealth thieves can see each other, it feels from one dead end to another. In warhammer online the assassin class had a chance to see through stealth of the opponent and it all got down to which spotted the other first. Plus the s/d build will always pawn the d/x build if they get counter.

I think they should expand on wvw anit stealth measures instead of skill counters really.

it has a chance on hit and if it opens with pistol stealth move it does multiple hits so it has almost 100% chance to confuse you i guess.

you can do that as long as one of the party memebers stays in and you are in a party with them. Just log out and log in with another char.

Here is the thing. As they implemented grinding for stats concept to a degree and since rings are obtainable mainly through fractals, i would like to see fractal lvls being unlocked to all chars in an account based on the progression you made with one char.
To me atleast its a barrier that keeps me from investing time on alts as opposed to the concept of playing different characters. I think this should be considered if there is a plan on expanding fractals and since it was stated that fractals are to be the most challenging content. Fractals should be a challenge, grinding fractal levels shouldnt.

its working well in wvw to cut off the opps escape. Its good in fractals as well in a lot of situations as an on demand immobilise with no cd. I guess in cond build it only adds another buffer to removal but you should also consider that there is a priority to cond removal so unless you keep spamming it your still gonna lose your bleed stack, and if you do spam it you are not bleeding.

im shelving my thief for iether mesmer or necro prolly the first since its closer to thief gameplay. I would defenatly consider engii though but anet hasnt given them enough attention imo.

Thief is the only class with no access to burn through trait or skills. But i would love to see a war going stealth with his heavy armor clanking and doing backstab using a gs XD.

On a more serious note you cant compare stealth to burning its not a fair trade to begin with. And i believe only mesmer deserves to have stealth other than thief since it has a similar concept (avoidance of dmg and mobile combat not mitigation).

I would be happy if they made one of our venoms into burn of some sort with the limit on duration stacking its not that OP even with venomous aura imo. Maybe that would make venom s more viable in non venom sharing builds who knows i for one would try it.

Edit: i think thief will prolly get burning when/if they add torch as an option. Maybe they ll add some sword of stealth to other classes as well through other weapon sets in the future , its not like they can fit everything in in one weapon set.

I play condi/zerk hybrid build with a mix of carrion rabid and rseker gear and crit strikes trait line. Weapon sets i use is d/d and p/d. I did try dire build but it was ackward in a lot of situations.

I must say its ok… but less boring than zerker d/d.
About 50% less dmg than full zerker and makes up for it with bleeds.
Its also great with adds as metioned above.

But a full cond build lacks twice as other cod builds since it only relies on bleeds and cond builds generally underperform in dungeons when put together.

I dont think thief was made to be built as pure condition anyway.

One thing i miss is sb though its the one weapon i find a use for in any situation be it extra dodge, immobilise, cluster bombing on top of a field. Its a superb utility weapon imo.

mrmadhaze.8706:

btw making a class stealth dependent and nerf stealth utility traits is indeed a great move.
Full of genius the dev team, huh?
And keep buffing warriors, they are indeed a priority!

Of course they are warrior is the most played class after all ><;

cyyrix.6105:

Haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere yet, but it looks like a major nerf inc. for Shadow’s Embrace (1 condi removed every 10s in stealth instead of every 3s). Will be interesting to see if that’s counter-buffed somehow.

(Dev hovers over the tooltip at 33:47 into the stream)

This and sword nerf are the real problems the ranger reveal is poorly implemented and will not be a problem.

So is that your answer to that im telling you its not a class mechanic and you answer with a build argument…

No its not boons are not secondery class mechanic stealth is for theif. If thats wrong to begin with thats another topic entirely.

You can also remove conditions but thats not considered counter to to necro mechanics.

@ teg.1340 : your argument is false. Is there a coutner to shouts for warriors meditation skills for guardians elixirs for engis and so on?

What is important here is what the majority wants tbh. If the majority wants this then the people who dont want this should just accept it imo. Besides nobody forces you to use it if you dont feel right about it. There are many ways to work around the lore perosnal story barrier imo. For example they can add a personal story optional step that involves some asura technology stuff to jutify it instead of just reseting your personal story. Lastly i dont accept the “too much work for the devs” argument as valid especially as i have never seen them admitting it.

Edit: i see alot of arguments about the race change not being possible or opinions from people that would not choose to change race but very few justifying why it shouldnt be an option. I ll have to assume that most people are afraid to admit that it wouldnt hurt to have that option available to them and are justifying it by saying they dont want to change race. The real argument would be the fear it would hurt lore/roleplay. So it all gets down to “I do not want the option to change race because it would affect my roleplay” and " since i dont want to change race cause im happy with my choise i dont care what other people want and i dont want them to have the option to change race either". This sounds pretty selfish to me.

kbenton.4915:

I agree. A thief is my only 80 with about 1200 hours logged on it. I played d/p about 4 months ago and had to get rid of it. There’s no way to play it without feeling like you are straight abusing a broken mechanic. Seriously, d/p players. Before u cry L2P, know I used to win 98% of fights 1v1 as d/p. Go buy another set or make another toon and attempt to fight d/p. You won’t win. You will not kill it 1v1. You may find a class that won’t die, but that’s not how this game is supposed to be played. I completely agree OP. My proposed solution would be to make black powder a slightly bigger radius and increase initiative by 2, but preferably 3.

Love,

Guy who ONLY plays thief.

P.S. Anet. I buy gems in bunches. :p

Edit: There are PLENTY of other “viable” specs out there for thief atm (perplexity, P/D, D/D, S/X) so the argument that this is the only good spec is ridiculous. I’ve learned “viable” in the thief forum means OP.

Seeing this i m very compelled to answer. You are playing a class called thief which anet specifically stated they want it to be slippery and get out of fights easily. Does that mean even a monkey rolling its face on the keyboard should be able to do it? Yes im afraid so. D/p is the easiest set to play with but that doesnt mean it has a low skill cap or is broken. Even if people can get away easy with it and troll around that does not mean they can win with it. Running away when your hp is low is losing either you make it out alive or not. Chasing someone away is the same as winning even if you dont kill him. And because they can d/p can run it doesnt mean they can kill something with it. Even if you win 98% of your fights as d/p (i wont comment on the legitimacy of that claim) doesnt mean scrubs can too. I played 1k+ hours as well on thief and Black podwer is usefull to me in pve and i think your suggestion is bad.

Guy who ONLY plays thief also.

Dand.8231:

I fight tons of WvW roamer and PvP thieves and I find them to be pretty balanced. Whichever of us plays better tends to win.

Thieves are only OP in their ability to deny a kill if they see they’re losing a battle. It’s really frustrating, they escape when another class probably would have died…..

But this escape ability is a direct function of their stealth mechanic, which I feel is otherwise balanced nicely. How do you take away this escape without gutting them utterly?

The answer is, you don’t really.

I’d rather lose out on a thief kill sometimes than see the entire class gutted.

This is an honest mature response to the topic imo. Something fustrating is not necessarily OP just because it kitten es you off.

Also warrios are one of the best stomp classes in wvw group fights.

Stunlock wars also suffer from blind spam. LB/hammer though are a pain.

Thief is escape artist the whole concept behind the class is the ability to break encounters. It was intended from the start by anet that is why the opted to tone down the offensive abilities of the thief that worked well with stealth. Now if you were complaining about a thief killing someone super fast while being able to escape then i would a point for discussion but that is not the case. Indeed thief is a selfish class thats all about his survival and that is why he contributes nothing to the group (almost). If you think about it it is fair that thief should be able to escape almost any situation. Compare it to the benefits of having warrior mesmer or engineer in groups and then you should see why thief can do what he does.

Also please consider the fact that if you kill everyone in a team fight and theif escapes thats a win for you. If you spot a thief ninjain a point and chase him away thats also a win for you. The only thing thats different is you dont get to dance over his dead body. Its not about being Op its about you being selfish like that.

Take away the ability to escape from the thief and all that will remain is a measly 6k-8k opener before he drops dead. Perma stealth perma evasion builds are not OP in the least not with that damage output.

Maugetarr.6823:

Burnfall.9573:

Until No-Effort=Rewards are Compltely Eliminated, once and for all.

Until “slap-on the wrist” -Nerfs" are Completely Eliminated

Until Fair Play Mechanics are Implimented and Enforced.

Until No-Risk Mechanics are Eliminated.

Until Favoritism is Eliminated.

Until Order is Re-Inforced

Until Justice is Served

Once and for all.

Look, we get it. You don’t like thieves and you can’t fight against them. If you tried one out, you know leveled it from 1 to 80 or just used the time that you spend coming here learning the class first hand, you’d find that a lot of thieves are pretty easy to take down. Really. No sarcasm. Give it a try. If you really don’t want to for whatever reason then please stop with the theatrical soapbox writing style. Even if you have valid points you’ll immediately polarize the argument and no one will listen.

In other words your issue is l2P spare us the drama.

When you look at the nerfs objectively most (certain ones are absurd like caltrops nerf) of them are justified i agree. However to me there is a problem with buffs/nerfs analogy. Nerfing OP/broken skills is only one side of balance buffing/changing underpowered useless skills/traits is the other. Listing buffs from launch untill now one can see that the majority of the buffs are… not what thief players opted for? There is a general trend that shows thief getting worse overall as concerned witht he analogy of usefull buffs/broken Op skill nerfs.

That is why we suggested reseting personal story and faction with it everything else will change as you redo your personal story. It could even be made so it throws you back to starting instance that you start off when you create a new char.

Anet should consider delevering this as its something the community wants even if it takes a bit more work.

I dont mind if i lose my cultural armor i can simply trasmute the skins to another char. That is the least of my concerns. Redoing map fractals legendery is.

They could just make something like reincarnation and make you play personal story all over again. Still beats having to create a char do personal story unlock map and reaquire everything all over again.

+1 for race change!

Its because in wvw they abuse ascended and food to stack stats as well bloodlust from regular mobs. So a thief with 25 stacks of str from stealth + bloodlust + kitten signet + foods can produce a 10k crit. Its sad tbh that people go out in wvw and waste so much time and effort just to do this a couple of times because the downtime between trolls is huge. I cant comprehend how pleasing it can be so people invest so much time and gold to do this.

Its also very sad because anyone who doesnt play thief for himself gets the wrong idea bout the class. Same as running pve dungeons with thieves that dont have so much expirience in the class. Since stealth has very little use in dungeons the skill cap for thief is considerably higher than in wvw.

Even the good stolen items can be argued to be a placeholder untill steal recharges.
As an example as what stolen items could do :

Whirling axes 40% chance to deal 10% more dmg with the next attack cd 10s
Glob of extoplasm grants a random boon every 15s
Throw gunk 50% to induce poison for 5 s when hit cd 10s
Healing seed removes a condition from you every 10s
Ice shard slab gain swiftness for 3 sec on dodge (stack with trait) cd 10s
Skull fear 30% chance to cause fear for 1sec when hit cd 15s
Blinding tuff grants vigor for 5 s on crit cd 10s
Mace head crack (cant think something for that)

So you guys think its not worth to add a passive effect while you not using the item?

For instance a 3 sec swiftness every 10-15s or vigor or a bonus 10% dmg chance like ranger spirit.

1s ? hardly enough to get me to play p/d again. Caltrops and sb immobilise is still better.

Throw gunk is ok but it cant turn the tables for you, (id rather get immobilise instead) the stab is kinda crap id rather get the staff from pve. Whirling axe is ok too if you wait to use it for reflect but the thing is i use it when i dont need/want to to free up steal/mug/shadowstep/steal boons/initiative/daze and it kinda bugs me that steal itself has more uses than the item. Since holding the item brings no benefit atm improvisation is not a trait id take even if it worked properly. The steal mechanic is a bit restrictive (not bad but compared to other classes) as it has only 2 modes steal is up and stolen item. SInce the first is traited to be used as an offensive utility by itself the second mode is sometimes the same use as a simple cd. A thief should be more rewarded for not just throwing the stolen item at something.

Edit :

Shard does a 10s chill but is melee and has a longish animation.

what is the point of this thread? -.- Bla are you a thief and think your underpowered or are you playing another class and think thief is overpowered.

To be fair necros and mesmer have stronger boon coutnerplay than thief. And thief has to spec and use specific weapons in order to boon steal. Also they neglect the fact that s/d is melee and needs initiative so spamming it leaves you vulnerable after. I think its more of " heavy class should beat melee dps" leftover mindset in the back of the players heads that drawing attention to s/d thief.

Though i can see why bunker eles can have problems with the evasion s/d provides since they rely on 2 skills for damage.

I ve noticed there are times when even though the item is quite usefull i tend to burn it just to use steal again since i find traited steal itself more usefull, even though i didnt need to use the item at that time. Wouldnt be better if stolen item had a passive effect as well as well as an active effect even if it wasnt always static but procced like guardian virtues. Think it would give motive to keep certain items longer and use them more strategically than just burning them after 30s. Also i think the whirling axe, throw gunk and ice shard stab are the less usefull items that i can steal (for me atelast) and i would rather be replaced with some other stolen items like use staff, throw net and use rifle.

You wont get revelead for 10 seconds i dont think but as long as sic em is up (10s) i think going stealth will get you revealed again. Not quite the same thing though

By effects you dont only mean the aoe but the projectiles as well? Im up for a way to reduce the effects on screen but there always the problem in group fights dodgin and negating moves made by surrounding enemies and utilising friendly fields. I think a more complicated system is needed to reduce the effects on screen so it doesnt flash madly and drop your fps atleast in zergs.

+1 for this. No more trenccoats pls!

id rather have legendery back item added than an amulet.

Id really like rifles to be added as well. Have you posted this in suggestion box?

I know its been said already but i wouldlove to change race with total makeover kit. Im focusing oon a single char in every game and i d love being able to change everything on him. Gender hair and body makeover are great but id really like race feature as well. As for the completed personal story i dont see why it should be a problem since the story is merged after a bit just make it so if you completed story it stays as it is and only chars that have gone up to the merged story stage can change race.

Assuming the skill stays as is a not trurning into an aoe it would prolly work like this. Thief is not in stealth ranger targets uses sic-em pet runs after thief. Thief goes to stealth pet hits thief and reveals for couple of secs then goes to stealth pet hits and reveals thief again etc till the 10 secs are up. The problem on theives side are there is no animation and ability is instant and has to target pet to see the buff. On rangers side the pet has to hit the thief in order to reveal him and pets are generally unreliable.

Terrahero.9358:

Revealed on an ability that requires a visible target is no more a counter to Stealth then Stun or Daze is.
It might last a bit longer, but we dont know that yet.

As it stands there is still nothing to actively track a Thief in stealth or pull him out if it, and that is what i consider an actual counter to Stealth.

Ageed with terrahero after researching some on ranger forums the skill doesnt even work correctly to begin with. ALso the ranger has to kinda predict when you are going into stealth and time it and even if it can be activated when you arleady ons tealth without a target like search and rescue they still need to know you are there and the pet has to hit you as well. And it might not even be 3 seconds since the arrow cart has an aoe reveal ability of 2 seconds, though i guess you be able hesitant to stealth for 10 seconds since you ll get revelead again . However its the general concept the developers are going with as concerned to thief, “Its gonna get worse before it gonna get better.” forcing us away from builds rather than giving us incentive to play something else.

Parktou.4263:

Eodwen.2613:

Totally agree with you doomdesire and i believe stealth should be coutnered when used offensively like using cloack and dagger. But way i see it this is intended to take us out when using an utility to try to heal conditions and hp or run away with black powder/refuge etc. If i were a ranger i would use it when id think the thief would try to break contact. Also i dont play wvw much but i do play spvp and the revelead buff is 4 secs there, plenty of time to get stomped (see last refuge posts). I dont see why anyone should try to strive for balance based on wvw. Its spvp thats supposed to be a balanced.

SPvP is the least balanced in reality….pass whatever your smoking.

Never said spvp was balanced i said the class skills/mechanics/traits should be balanced based on how OP they are in spvp not in wvw. And that is why i said dont add this in spvp.

i also like that idea ichikittenleast it elimintaes the problem of party being out of range when casting venoms

Think basilisk venom aoe is OP? Have you seen Memers imbued diversion trait and the traits that work in conjuction with that? I dont mind if they keep the party share concept but it needs tweaking as theres big variation in effctiveness even with the range buff and the party priority buff.

You need extra coordination because the the duration stacking is being nerfed

You do realise that after patch you need extra coordination so that stacks over 5 wont go down the drain. I was talking skill in party based on that change leaving too much potential in the hands of others which is not the case with other support skills the other classes are getting. Also in pve and namely dungeons venoms dont do much in boss fights and dungeons are all bout bosses the trash mobs dont even need that much attention.