Guild Wars 2

forrae.6708:

balance for the pros/top 1%/whatever and the balance trickles down for everyone else.

simple.

This is not necessarily true as mere hotjoiners cannot fathom the order in which the top tier players press their buttons. Plus they have only 50% the finger length of tPvP players due to poor genetics and the effects of Glory-Abuse.

Seriously though… GW2 is somewhere in between WoW and games that have a high skill cap… in and of itself it’s fun, but it’s not difficult at any level including tournaments.

dreztina.4820:

A screenshot from last night: http://i.imgur.com/eMW5taK.jpg

This is just an obviously unbalanced hotjoin, and not something that happens every game by any means, but the build is definitely good. I’m not saying it’s going to be the next high level tpvp fotm and everyone should start running it immediately, but to say it’s not viable or even bad is just silly. Just because something isn’t the strongest possible doesn’t mean it’s trash.

HAHA I love /whisper you got WIN!

I have been trying to get something interesting out of these guns now for a night or two and still not working well enough for me. Keeping them as secondary though as I can drop 20 stacks of invulnerability on someone before I go banzai with daggers on them.

Sebrent.3625:

Against other Thieves I was tearing them up because Thieves don’t like being dazed and I had a closer that immobilized. Weakness and cripple are also an issue for thieves.

Sword thief is a great way to troll other thieves :-)

So it was a divisive question Seb It proves fighting thieves is a L2 kitten ue.

If the ‘class’ was inherently overpowered you should at best get a 50/50 win rate. Yet here you are on a spec that noone considers overpowered destroying thieves who use the overpowered spec… you see where I am coming from?

Had a lot of fun last night. for a single PvP bout I decided to use 22222 exclusively and always with haste. I had an AWESOME amount of trash talk coming my way, it was fantastic.

Sebrent.3625:

All I know is I was tearing it up in sPvP last night on my Sword+Dagger Norn thief.

I was playing around on my warrior, trying some solid builds I already had experience with. Had several good fights against people. Decided to switch and jump on my thief to compare the two. So I joined the same game. At least 6 of the people in the game were the same (probably more, but I’m bad with remembering names).

The performance of my Sword+Dagger Thief was ridiculous.

Flanking Strike -> Cloak & Dagger (easy, they are immob’d) -> Tactical Strike -> Auto-attack chain (all 3 hits for weakness + cripple) -> repeat starting at Cloak & Dagger

I would just do that over and over to every class and winning my 1v1s very solidly.

I was running Soldier’s amulet (can’t remember armor rune), sigil of fire and sigil of force and was 0/30/30/10/0.

Damage was solid, I could take hits, and the only time I didn’t just follow that chain was if they got extra help that could put decent pressure on me … in which case I just hit shadow return on sword, or shadowstep, or used shadow refuge.

It was cake, I enjoyed it, but it was far too easy for how effective it was. When I’m being that effective on my Mesmer, I’m working at least twice as hard and I certainly can’t escape as easily from a fight that turns when reinforcements, etc. swing a fight out of my favor.

How was your success rate versus other thieves?

12k is very unlikely – I’ve run a stupid build where you stack 18 might and have executioner and use infiltration runes (10% vs targets with less than 50% health) and I hit glass that are under 50% for 13-14k in sPvP on a BS.

Number 1 priority is anyone who is trash talking. I grief them over and over until they leave.

Thieves next, then mesmers.

Running a Lyssa based build at the moment so I love going mass boon and then stealing from a mesmer to go mass boon again right afterwards.

Guys – please record your duels. I don’t doubt you’ve nailed a rythm that works for you but I just destroy P/P thieves too easily. I carry P/P on secondary set at the moment because I got bored with SB but I use it for assisting down targets and have access to 3 forms of haste to make unload work well enough for me… not tried to fight with them as mains.

Sebrent.3625:

For those citing that Ranger Rapid Fire is good damage…

… yes, it does good damage, but over a 5 second channel.

• 5 seconds – plenty of time to line of sight, dodge roll, etc. … not to mention that damage has to be divided over those 5 seconds … warrior axe can crit for 2k per auto-attack and hit easily 5 times in 5 seconds

• channel – can be interrupted by the enemy or if the ranger needs to dodge roll, etc.

Comparing Backstab to Rapid Fire is silly since Backstab is an instant attack that does the same damage. The advantage of Rapid Fire is range. The advantage of Backstab is being instant.

The issue people have is with Backstab’s instant being combined with Mug’s instant and C&D (non-instant). That Instant + Non-instant + Instant makes running glassy in a Thief heavy environment quite dangerous.

… hence why I don’t do it, lol. Cavalier ftw.

Single ability to single ability comparisons only ever go in circles. Worried about 5 second execution time, bang haste. if I bang haste then I can’t do ‘x’… ah but you can do ‘y’ instead using ability 27…. etc.

Spec/class combos need to be contrasted for a better discussion… for instance the trap ranger is simply amazing in PvP… I have an 80 ranger. It is amazing because of the sum total of area denial, pet management, conditions, etc. It’s a whole package. There are many rangers that consider thieves simply food. What they mean is they can destroy burst thieves… as a whole package it is a rock to the GC thief scissors.

The only concern I have is destroying class uniqueness… it’s what killed Dark Age of Camelot. There we had a company (Mythic) completely pander to the vocal few who whined like hell rather than work it out and over time everything got watered down into DAoC light with stabilizers on and the game died a horrible death as a result.

GW2 is good. Chipping away at classes and spreading abilities round will start the rot.

Void.4239:

Faeyd.5094:

I’ve run pretty much this several times in the past and it is too tedious for me over time. It’s fine for some tpvp if you literally want to hang on to a point but it doesn’t push any buttons for me in hotjoin or WvW.

added a few newly made vids , hope you like them

NEW VIDS PART 1 & 2

hope you all like it

Void the main thing is that you (and others) have a blast playing it… any comments to the contrary are pointless because the game is about fun, and the build is totally viable.

For me personally I just don’t like playing the style… I have done it when folks specifically wanted me to hold and troll specific points but not when I wanted to smash things up and get things done. I don’t play one style for very long but right now I’m playing an Lyssa based high crit high stealth build and finding it the perfect fun spot for me for now. I want enough burst to end fights fast and enough stealth to stay in a 1vx fight without needing to go condition.

I am sure I will be condition again soon.

I’ve run pretty much this several times in the past and it is too tedious for me over time. It’s fine for some tpvp if you literally want to hang on to a point but it doesn’t push any buttons for me in hotjoin or WvW.

Sunflowers.1729:

Faeyd.5094:

Survivability on a thief is the stealth line. See the problem?

Yup, I see it. The problem is that even with no points in the stealth line, stealth is still incredibly easy to access.

That’s what you meant right?

What I meant is… the posters supposition that a thief now needs to ‘spec for defense’ is absurd as it is the defense that is being nerfed. It’s like saying ‘backstab is going to be nerfed so now thieves will have to spec backstab’.

I’ve seen folks from the same guild in hotjoin events and I know that once they are in the same instance they muck about with joining the other side until they are on the same team. But how’d they get into the first instance in the first place?

Me and buddy have tried several servers, full, deserted, partially populated and I never see him pop up in the instance.

Edenwolf.6328:

Volrath.1473:

Tbh I’m actually looking forward to these changes with some degree of expectation.
I see what they are doing and agree with it (I’m a thief myself and play with 30 in Shadow Arts). They mentioned how they want the thief to be the MOST mobile profession in game and take back that role from the ele (that has it all… mobility/dmg/bunker/healing).

BUT (there is always a but) although im exited about the upcoming changes I’m kind of afraid the “compensation” for losing stealthiness and in some degree survivability my be not enough since it it a company policy to not do drastic changes and tweak things little by little.

Punishing stealth builds by triggering Revealed every time one gets out of stealth (not only wen attacking wile in stealth) IS in fact a drastic change.

Will the “compensation” for such nerf be also drastic? or simply small tweaks here and there and we will only see some kind of compensation for this nerf after the next 3-4 patches considering the little by little policy?

Sounds to me like they may have to spec a little into survivability if they want to last longer like every other class. Being able to spec glass cannon and hide in stealth on command is a little too powerful IMO.

Survivability on a thief is the stealth line. See the problem?

nglcpyro.4906:

^ Exactly. Find a few other games (non MMO) not as fun now simply because I can’t dodge. “Bad” thieves would just stealth instead of dodge cos no need to dodge if opponent can’t see you most of the time(hyperbole) Only hurts them in the long run as dodging is an essential part of the game and everything is based on the fact it’s possible to do so.

Oh well, well see after the patch what happens. QQ will be from those who can’t adapt and if the posts in this thread are anything to go by, players who didn’t rely as much on stealth could potentially be buffed in a big way as long as the class changes don’t mess things up a lot. Nothing more terrifying than thieves who don’t rely on stealth or try instgib in 2 seconds since hey know how to play the class to its true potential.

‘Good’ thieves use everything and play every spec. Removing a playstyle and buffing another has a net effect of removing a playstyle because we already play the other anyway.

Sceinna.3561:

They should nerf every AoE stealth thief has.. but shouldn’t touch the ones that actually require you to land a hit or require you to combo. The only OP thing about stealth right now is AoE such as Shadow Refuge imo.. it angers me each time a thief manages to escape with 5% health using Shadow Refuge.

But revealed each time you get out of stealth will literally destroy all of our current builds imo.. and maybe even the purpose of playing a thief, the only complaints really come from people that don’t understand the class.. and they often hide behind the excuse of playing a thief themselves lol.

Agreed, a skillful player can archieve a lot more playing a thief than any other class, because of the stealth/survivability options thief has, this is also why I swapped my Thief over Guardian (although I am a beast on my Guardian as well lol, people that 1on1’d me would confirm, my Guardian is able to destroy any class except Ele because of the speed/healing it has ;P)

Didn’t make much sense. You said a skilled player gets most out of a thief and then stated 2 much better pvp classes. So thief is 3rd?

Rayya.2591:

your example is not good
Unload spam – number of attacks 8 – cast time 1.75 sec
3 x unload = 5.25 /2 (haste) 2.63 sec ( 2 times bas trigger ) roll for initiative spam 2 more unloads (2 sec stunned) , switch to D/D , use basilik (instant) 1.5 sec more stun, even the strongest bunker is dead

When was basilisk venom changed to instant? If you interupt it’s cast time it fails.

Sifu.6527:

oZii.2864:

Sifu.6527:

danbuter.2314:

I like the pistol/pistol thief from the rp and animations aspect, but it seems that it won’t hold up compared to other builds. Is there a recommended build for p/p?

Are there certain skills that really help it out?
thanks

P/P is awesome in duels.

It beats P/D, S/D, S/P, SB, D/D, etc you name it.

But WvW isn’t about duel and you really need a weapon set that allows you to be flexible. P/P isn’t that.

Really? if your dueling full glass when you blow the load then I can see. I never had a problem with P/P. Its so front loaded that after the initial burst is avoided they are basically naked and ripe for the taking. Just speaking from my experience against P/P thieves I always see them as free kills. Always the same openimg and dump most if not all of their damage. If it fails then Hide in shadows is almost always a certain after that.

Yes, for dueling only. There is nothing you can do vs a P/P thief in duel.

You are going to have to expand on it Sifu… I’ve dueled P/P as full glass and full condition and smashed them to bits far too easily.

I’ve noticed lately that I am getting dropped into a 1v1 map at first try when entering PvP. Then, no matter which server I select after leaving that map… the game dumps me into the same kitten map again with the same 2 players in it. Over and over.

How do I ensure I get a fresh map when I select another server without having to wait for 5 minutes between tries?

Deified.7520:

I’ve been trying to figure this out and can’t seem to figure it out as an engineer.

If I focus on downing their clones they either rush and explode on me taking half my hp or the player starts doing a ton of damage. If i focus on the player then the clones just do their abilities on me and then explode and do a ton of damage.

How are do you guys counter mesmers? Especially as an engy.

Deified, you mention it a bit later in the thread – you are thinking of rolling one…. THAT is the best way of beating a Mesmer. I was struggling with them until I played one for a while in PvP. Great players who specialize in the Mesmer will still be horrible to fight but you’ll be countering the rest before you know it.

Yes they do have to stay in SR.. For 3 seconds or so.

“no they don’t. thieves have reported that they use sr as a way to divert attention away from where they are. thieves have plenty of other ways to stay stealthed outside of sr. culling for one.”

The poster I was responding to clearly did not know that in order to gain the stealth benefit from SR the thief needs to stay in it for a while. I was correcting the assumption.

Throwing an SR over your shoulder to confuse people has nothing to do with what is required to gain stealth benefit from an SR.

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

oZii.2864:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

Rayya.2591:

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced?

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

I am sorry that not everybody share same point with you.
And please stay on topic, is related to thieves issues.
Stealth is an defence mechanism

Defense mechanism!? Umm… Let’s see, yes, but a good defense only contributes to a good offense. Considering stealth is OP and a GREAT defense, it is easily turned into and used as a GREAT offense. One in which most all other players/classes have little defense against…

The thief is encouraged to flank based on traits or weapon skills. Even the thief rune gives 10% more damage from the side or back.

I’d like to see how someone gets around the side or back of a player not invisible. My backstab hits for like 2.4k from the side on a crit and I have 75 crit damage 2.3k power.

Im in all pvt gear and only 3 zerker trinkets and runes of divinity with like 65 crit damage and iZerker on my mesmer easily clears 4k. Duelist is on average 3k.

Speaking WvW in particular:

Sure, the thief needs to be able to ‘get around’ and have the ability to attack from the rear and from the side. Though they can go in and out of stealth pretty easily. Just because a thief puts on SR doesn’t mean he’ll stay there to be hit by some luckily places AoE. That’s what it is when the thief goes stealth for most classes, it comes down to lucky AoE. Even then, Thieves can get away pretty easily.
If an opposing class is playing a bunker type build and has a high amount of toughness/hp, the thief has a lot of freedom to give up on the fight, stealth, and go for someone else.

The issue(and it’s not completely culling), is the fact that opposing classes against the thief lose target and have little if any reliable tracking of the thief when he goes into stealth. Rightly so, because it’s stealth. However, it’s very hard and almost impossible to fight something you can’t see.

Players have no clue that a 6k+ damage assault from a thief is coming, can’t defend against it, and little to no time to react to prevent the thief from going back into stealth. Defending player may be able to get a heal and get back to close full health, but then the cooldown to heal again is typically longer than the thief’s cooldown to for stealth abilities. So even after the initial strike, opposing players are forced to try to predict where the thief is, acquire target, try to land some damage and possibly dodge(depending on health at this point) all within a very short window of time before the thief goes stealth again. Stringing stealth, average to good thieves can whittle down an opponent rather quickly in a 1-1 encounter in WvW. Sure WvW isn’t 1-1, but there are many cases it happens. Besides, I’ve seen a thief take down more than 2-3 players in WvW several times who were trying to fight against the thief. They all died. They’re not terrible players either, but against a good thief, they couldn’t be very effective. It took another thief to come and kill the thief that killed them…

If you don’t take down a thief in the very small window of opportunity you typically hardly have, the thief can easily get away, recoup, and come at you again at his leisure.

I certainly don’t want the class to be nerfed to any major degree. Though, there needs to be some adjustment.

Yes they do have to stay in SR.. For 3 seconds or so.

Despina.6970:

Lofat.2406:

Some thief builds have burst but not all thieves play a busrty backstab build either. Backstab is a high risk high reward attack if you can land it. That’s how it should be.

Where is the high risk in a backstab build? If you miss it, just stealth and run away or try again a few seconds later.

Go try it.

It’s not ‘being sneaky’ it’s ‘magic’ from GW1 lore on stealth. The stealth effects are all magic based ability… real life application of copious amounts of talcum powder to disappear into didn’t work out great for real life ninjas.

Columba.9730:

From a practical standpoint, thieves are immune in stealth unless someone gets lucky with a random aoe. In most games, stealth isn’t possible while you are in combat. It’s very easy to move out of danger while in stealth.

No point trying to tone down your earlier statement about stealth=immunity when the exact opposite is true. What do you hope to achieve? Anet play the game and can see that’s horseradish.

About a 3rd of the thieves I kill are in stealth. It’s a no-brainer when they just stealthed in front of you or used refuge – easy kill – and single attacks work great.

Crille.5638:

I wonder who ever came up with the idea to let the thief be able to avoid damage while stealthed makes no sense to me, why not make it so they cant dodge or evade ground target AoE’s like marks and stuff atm thiefs are always hidden and high dps tbh they dont even need armor lol

Is this a joke?

The thief takes ALL damage while stealthed.

John Widdin.9618:

I understand it’s all he had going for him, since he ran when I was downed. but dang… That was 20k damage in the 2 seconds before he became visible, via what I assume to be use of quickness.

How did that guy do a Heartseeker right before the backstab ?

Don’t touch hotjoin please. It’s where you roll a glass canon and go smash faces for stress relief. It’s awesome. Sometimes I don’t want to hop into TS and play at medieval navy seals. I just want to have my own thoughts while I smush people.

The tournament and hotjoin games are completely different and require completely different mentalities and skills. It’s fine having two different PvP games.

These new changes look awesome though. Should bring a lot more people in.

nerva.7940:

yeah, spvp is back. thanks.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/big-changes-to-pvp-paid-tournaments-replaced-by-free-tournaments/

will 8v8 hotjoin be removed? please say it will.

I freaking love 8v8 hotjoin…. it’s utter pandemonium.

Despina.6970:

LOCO.1785:

It’s funny how opinions vary isn’t it?

Every time I face a thief, I think:

Is the damage too high?

No, it’s just right. The main meta I come across is the gimmicky glass cannon/burst build. They sacrifice all their defense to hit you with that one burst. Most people expect this when facing thieves, it’s also one reason I always carry a stun break (bulls rush+frenzy+100 blades combo is the other reason). I never lose to this fotm cookie cutter build, the result is usually a dead thief or if they get lucky they escape my grasp and run for their life. If they miss their burst, they’re toast, plain & simple.

Is the mobility too high?

Nope. Thief is squishy and needs abilites to get away. Jumping up walls, ledges is lame if it were possible and it sounds like you haven’t had much experience using this yourself. You can only get to elevated areas that your toon is capable of running up ie. you can’t run up walls.

Is the stealth ok?

Absolutely. It’s the thieves main source of offense/defense. Without stealth, thieves are sitting targets. They can trait for dodging, but that will only get you so far and would cut down even more on viable builds. Thieves already have the 3 sec revealed debuff after stealthing, so it’s not something they can keep spamming straight away. They’re also not unkillable gods when they enter stealth, they’re still just as weak as when they’re unstealthed, you just cannot see them. Either spam the area with AoE or do what I do and auto attack where you think they are, I can tell I’m hitting the thief when my auto attack combo registers. It really is not rocket science… If a thief pops shadow refuge, guess where you will find him, that’s right within the refuge radius. If a thief hits you with C&D it’s a safe bet he will also go for a backstab.

Culling is an issue currently, but this is no cause to nerf the thief unjustly.

In most cases, these complaints are just L2P issues. Sorry if that hurts anyones egos, but that’s what it comes down to.

Let me guess, you play a thief? Of course nothing seems op to you. Perhaps you can explain me one thing: Why are there always 50% or more thieves in every spvp match? Is it because they are so hard to play? Is it because they are so underpowered and everyone loves a real challenge? Is it because 50% of all players always play stealth classes (don’t think so). I guess the real reason is, that thieves are the most stupid class in the game. Today I got 10000 dam with the bs combo on 3300 armor in 1 sec. Thats just silly.

That’s a big BS against that armor. To ensure I get to land something like that I have to run a terrible set of skills and traits and runes (all geared to badly hurting someone with less than 50% health) and then hit Bas venom → Signet 1 → signet 2 → signet 3 (for 15 stacks of might total) → C&D → Steal → Backstab.

It’s a 7 key combo. Then you can imagine what happens if you had hit the block or dodge key. Not much left in the bank.

IDarko.4709:

honestly, any class that gets beaten by a Backstab thief. I main a thief and it’s insane how much trakittenalk you get for instagibbin’ people.

I noticed people ragequitting as well now and then.

HAHA totally this. If I am playing thief and I decide to play some backstab… you get a comment or two EVERY bout.

“Enjoy the nerf”
“effing thieves”
“222222”
“L2P”

Best way of dealing with it from then on is to grief the living daylights out of the bigmouth. They will quit.

Sebrent.3625:

Forcing the thief to stealth is the same as moving them off. Hence, due to the Thief’s dependence (as described by so many of you) on stealth, it isn’t hard to move them off a point.

Also, if you actually listened to the top sPvP players, Thieves can be good roamers, but with the current power of the Elementalist, especially due to not needing stealth and having massive amounts of AOE, the Elementalist is the prime class to have as a roamer.

As far as the “unseeable” and “massive DPS killing machine” … as I’ve said many times before, those are two different thief specs.

The unseeable is an issue in that they still do good enough damage to kill you while spending a ridiculously low amount of time out of stealth.

The massive DPS killing machine does damage just like any other glass cannon. However, the difference is the lack of animations. We see elementalists ride the lighting, burning speed, etc.. We see warriors bull’s charge, bola, 100 blades, eviscerate, etc.. We do not see the stealth thief and their backstab.

Your first sentence is the important bit. Thieves can’t stay on point nor move a bunker off… so no point being there. Why is it these heroic bunkers and point attackers have no probs with thieves? Decent build and have learnt to play.

Holding points is a big part of it. So is being able to move people off or kill them. You’d think that the un-seeable massive DPS killing machine would be mandatory right?

No.

Class tier list – PvP community:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/sPvP-Class-Tier-List/first

See why nerfs are tricky here? PvP players have the thief already down the list and we know the PvE problems aleady.

MrForz.1953:

Caltrops are Nails from the Tool Kit, the Gunk is probably the Acid Bomb from the Elixir Gun, the Gear Shield comes from the Tool Kit and the ‘disk’ is his own offhand shield thrown at you.

An Engineer is very prepared to receive aggressions of that kind, but unless it’s a glass cannon Rifle user, you’ll escape him fairly easily assuming you actually know what the class is capable of.

For the engaging issues… Well. The first time a Thief meets me he won’t think about any possible defense and will waste his Steal + Basilisk Venom + CnD on my Gear Shield or anyone’s class related block/immunity.

Problem is when a Thief gets to know that. A good one will trick me into using the Gear Shield, and the eventual dodges, then strike. It turns into a huge mind game where the Thief has one hell of an advantage. Now don’t get me wrong, lots of people can burst. The main problem is just the ability to reset fights if it doesn’t feel right.

100Nades the thief. If he is GC – he is dead.

“However, I do not have this feeling when it comes to Thieves playing those 2 builds as forcing people to blindly swipe at air constantly throughout a fight or forcing them to play a tanky build or be insta-gibbed by an invisible enemy are not good fights.”

Seb, isn’t this really a case of you having problems on your Ranger and Mesmer with these two thief builds?

Every rock build has a paper build to fight in this game somewhere. That’s actually a good thing.. there should be no uber build or uber class. You should get smashed by stuff that exploits your weakness… your Mesmer needs time or a visible target to do it’s stuff.. the thief fulfills the roles of fast killer or heavy stealthier, ergo, it’s not fun for you to fight these two builds because you can’t make your toon do what allows you to win.

Did you die to auto attack? What exactly was spammed?

I love the Ambush trap guy – although on an asura he has a helmet like a dork… Anet could fix that.

In most of the WvW vids I have seen – there are thieves on the other side being splattered by the guy with the camera. That’s pretty much the same right?

Calae.1738:

Stealth has always been a problem in any MMO. Any damage that you output upfront without time to setup, gives no warning to the victim. It’s too easy. Any noob can do it. Luckly, the Thief doesn’t have much control skills or else it would be a lot worse.

When you design a class that insta kills another player without giving enough time for that player to react; its a problem with the class not the player. It’s not fun for the person getting killed and it’s not fun for the person doing the killing either.

It’s completely stupid.

Instagibbing is cheap and annoying but isn’t a thief only thing… plenty of classes can do the instagib.

I haven’t run with SR for a few weeks now and it is one of those abilities you do really miss but I’ve gotten used to it now.

Columba.9730:

Well said XII. My guild has dozens of pvp veterans and we just shake our heads at how poorly anet has handled stealth in this game. We’ve never seen anything remotely this overpowering in 15 years of pvp games. Perma stealth coupled with the best burst dps and high mobility all rolled into one class is bad design, and unfortunately it’s sullying anet’s reputation.

Sure you’ve seen more overpowering stuff… from what I recall of previous campaigns.. Left Axe, Animist Shrooms, DAoC stealth, shield stun and probably several 100 other things.

And you mean WvW. PvP is all about the elementalists and mesmers.

Columba.9730:

No I don’t see the problem. Are you claiming that any minor change would decimate thieves? Why can other classes live with minor changes, but somehow thieves can’t?

You aren’t going to get it until you play it. It’s not a glib statement… it’s the same for every class… I only played an engineer because one instagibbed me and I was impressed.

Sebrent.3625:

Here we have my Mesmer get killed before the Thief even becomes visible on the screen. 11k just from the backstab and I’m wearing full exotics with ascended pieces.

The thief uses the well-known combination of:

• Cast cloak and dagger
• Steal right before it finishes the cast so both hit instantly and they are stealthed
• Backstab

I was in the middle of fighting at a tower when suddenly just dead. No thief was visible until 2 seconds after I was down and then only long enough to cloak and dagger to stealth again to down me.

5.3k, 5.1k, and then 11.3k and I never got to see him and it happened in a second at most.

Tonight, from the gear, you can see I was more glassy than when on my tanky ranger, but even then I should at least have the chance to pop distortion, blink, etc.. A chance to actually see my opponent and react.

On my ranger, who can always be found in full exotic with lots of toughness (knights) and with 30 wilderness survival (300 more toughness) loses at least half his hp to this combination and then the thief continues stealthing and backstabbing. With a ranger pet, the stealth is even worse. Often it only takes the initial combo plus 1 to 2 more stealths and he’s down. Perhaps they are just lucky when hitting my tanky character :-/ Lol

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Combat in GW2 was advertised as being able to actually fight your opponent and watch each other’s animations to do so. This is broken when you fight a non-baddie thief.

Furthermore, the ways you counter the thief’s burst are on longer cooldowns than the thief’s initiative regenerates and they have the stealth, mobility, and ability to shed conditions (via stealth) to reset the fight quite easily.

Being instagibbed is no fun and should not be in the game, but I assure you that with your gear and setup, I would have done the same 1 second kill to you on an Engi (100nades), warrior (100blades), Elementalist (GC burst) and Guardian (GC burst). I know this because I play them all in PvP on instagib builds.

The big problem with making adjustments to ensure no instagibbing is that it would inconvenience some classes but gut the thief entirely. Fiddle with stealth and the class needs a total rework… remove the instagib damage and the class needs a total rework. Switch off GC capabilities of engis, guardians and elementalists and I think we can all agree they just move to better specs. See the problem?

The biggest killer in PvP is lack of situational awareness and no instagib chain is initiated from stealth (well apart from the engi if you want to be that big a kitten about it).

I play the build from time to time. When it works it feels good to be on my engineer… when it doesn’t work I want to be on something that can then get the hell out of there

I mainly play thief… but the engi 100 nades, ele burst, warrior burst and even guardian burst all get a dusting off from time to time because it is fun to smash someone down form 100 to 0 in a second or two.

Henrik.7560:

Thieves are overpowered. Only thieves say they aren’t. A high DPS one can’t be killed because it stealths with combo fields every 3 seconds when revealed debuff is off.
All you need is, your house skill, unstopable escape from battle ability, can’t aoe the house enough to kill them in time (house is 4 seconds only), blinding powder (stealth and blind) Dagger/Pistol #5 and #2 for stealth, Pistol/Dagger, #5 for stealth. Trait for more initiative, more stealth duration, and thats it. Stealth, hit, Stealth, hit, Stealth, hit, Stealth, hit. And don’t say we suck. There were 2 of our thieves, a guardian, a warrior, a mesmer and a ranger trying to stop him but he got us down and took us out with the “Finisher move in stealth” thing which is STILL not fixed, and we can’t get to the player and res him intime in 3 seconds for a finisher in stealth.

Fix:
Combo field stealths
Double thief stealth cooldowns
Increase house stay-inside duration
Make it that you cant finish off someone in stealth or mist form
Reveal stealthed players when they are hit

These are top most bugs, or just plain stupid things which aren’t STILL noticed.
Anet, I hope you fix this in the next major patch, at least some of them anyways.

If there were two thieves in your group you have just single handedly ended this entire thread and proven it is a learn to play issue.

It’s hard in PvP – not so rare in WvW.

25 stacks of bloodlust and having might stacked too helps a lot.

Everyone with experience in PvP will be running enough defense to withstand an instagib. I played D/D last night for the first time in weeks just to troll around a bit and had the most fun executing folks from the periphery of a fight.

Release your inner vulture and finish people off rather than start them off.

odd thread – smallest character models have always been best in PvP environments in all games… nothing new.

I actually have the converse of this complaint too – I have the biggest fattest Mesmer you can possibly have and fill your screen with fatness. Anyone on my team is basically invisible after that.

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Vid of gameplay would be awesome – it’s too radical for me to try it out of the blue without seeing it work