Guild Wars 2

I do think teams should be seeded, but only according to a score they would attain by weekly tournaments that lead up to the big tournament (as acandis said, not based on being “known”). In it’s current state the seeding was not fair to other teams.

I also think the entire tournament should have been Best of 5. Having Best of 1 in the opening stages punishes teams that may have a bad start. Especially when they’re seeded unfairly.

Additionally, a disqualification should occur if you choose to withdraw or not play a game. Or if you choose to abuse known bugs.

Solstice.1097:

i should add that this question is regarding the current meta which I am relating to tPvP at high levels. i’m not really thinking of soloq as part of this discussion.

Solo q is run by condi’s. Engy kitten s there.

Roxx.8713:

apocom.3172:

So you have copied Sizers build. GZ.

It isnt sizers build

Amonatory played it before it goes meta

Every build, every where has been played before. Sizer popularized it, so it’s his build.

Latinkuro.9420:

Thanks to this VID-OP for giving us a perfect example of all that is wrong with stealth and chain stealth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QVy_C-Z0-k

Also this is not just a sPVP problem, the problem is a lot more compounded in WvW as you can see in the video.

Now, a.net has a blueprint as to how to approach it, probably, maybe, finally fix this broken mechanic.

Or….

Maybe provide proper counterplay, just a thought.

Or you know learn to play. Shadow art’s thieves are a joke. Put some distance between you and them, dagger off hand users, especially in wvw, typically only carry shadowstep as a gap closer and don’t have the low cooldown on steal. Distance won’t let them CnD you without blowing cooldowns. You should be able to outkite a dagger off hand thief no problem.

This is no way permastealth. Its bad players who don’t know how to count 123 and do something to cause the thief to miss CnD.

Angel you know I’m always down to play, just super busy until the semester is over.

Black Teagan.9215:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Black Teagan.9215:

Acrobatic has 3 Stealthtraits:

-Descent of Shadows
-Fleet Shadow
-Assassin’s Equilibrium

Descent of Shadows is fine, but fits better in SA

Fleet Shadow and Assassin’s Equilibrium need stealth to work, but not every build or thief use stealth and their effects are weak.

Thieves have no traitlines, which support stealthless builds and the whole acrobatic traitline is worse, than the T1 traits in SA.
Feline Grace is the only reason for Acrobatic.

Oh I thought you meant skills that give stealth. But yes acro needs buffs.

Black Teagan.9215:

Yes this trait need a buff.
HtC could have a stunbreaker, short stability of 2 or 3 secs and maybe a bigger range, but pls no stealth.

Acrobatic have already too much stealthtraits and dont need more.

Acrobatics has 1 stealth skill… and its a falling damage trait. If Anet is insistent on this skill teleporting it should give stealth so they can’t immediately jump on you. Giving something like vigor would be bad because the trait line already has enough. Stability is also required just because of the amount of stuns in this game. I can’t recall the amount of times I use my stun break to get out of a fear only to be chain feared after that. Or use it to get out of a hammer CC chain only to get cc’d again.

Can we please buff this? We’re the only class without a good skill that makes us immune to a stun. With the loss of stability from Lyssa nerf we need this even more.

At least fix the kitten bugs that are associated with it.

Current problems:

1. DOESN’T BREAK THE STUN
2. Triggers even if you have stab.

Suggestions:

1. BREAK THE STUN
2. Give stealth so they can’t get right back on top of you.
3. 5 seconds of stability so you don’t just get chain stunned?

I’ve still been using classic s/d acro. But I’ve switched to using air/generosity sigils instead of fire/force. I think generosity makes up the 5% difference from force while clearing condis. Also since generosity is taking over condi clear I dropped Pain Response and have been experimenting with Power of Inertia/Hard to Catch instead. Only if HtC wasn’t terrible…. I think I’ll just end up going back to pain response.

Its so broken. It puts auto-attack on cool down. Puts thieves skills on cool down. Interrupt larcenous strike and flanking strike will be on cool down.

For S/D without the on demand stability/aegis from lyssa, I’ve been experimenting with a might stacking build.

(sPvP)

2/6/0/6/0
Deadly Arts: Mug
Critical Strikes: Signets of Power, Signet Use, Executioner
Acrobatics: Power of Inertia, Vigorous Recovery, Quick Pockets

Utilities: Withdraw, Signet of Agility, Shadow Refuge, Infiltrator’s Signet

Runes: Strength
Sigils: Genoristy/Purity on S/D to make up for lyssa and pain response loss, and Flame/Battle on SB to keep AoE cleave up and might stacks up.

Thoughts: Not sure if I should switch purity out for Battle or If I should switch Flame for Generosity to keep condi clear while in bow?

Narcarsis.5739:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Vigor on Bountiful theft has already been nerfed. The problem lies with the stolen abilities you get in a lot of match ups. You’re suggesting to split up steal into even more traits when I already take 6 for steal alone:

-Serpent’s Touch
-Mug
-Kleptomaniac
-Thrill of the Crime
-Bountiful Theft
-Sleight of Hand

D/P thief doesn’t have anywhere close to the endurance of an acrobatics thief.
The stolen skills are what causes thief to be so strong in a lot of 1v1 match ups. I’ve played the class since beta and each stolen skill is imperative to winning a 1v1.

Thrill of the crime, bountiful theft, and sleight of hand are like having 6 traits not 3. Sleight of hand is 2 grandmasters together.

D/P DOES have as much endurance regen as a acrobatics thief.

Acrobatics Vigor uptime: 6.5/15 = 43.3% PLUS 15 returned on feline grace.
D/P Trickery Vigor uptime: 10/21.5 = 46.5% PLUS 10 returned on the extremely fast autoattack.

The traitline needs to be rebalanced so you actually have to make choices. Do I want to be able to stun on steal? Or do I want an extremely low cooldown? Do I want to be offensive and steal boons so I stun? Or do I want to be defensive and survive longer?

I know Trickery is your baby but it’s for the betterment of the game.

Honestly, the problem lies in Trickery, it needs to be rebalanced. The consistent ranged teleport bursts makes it way too strong and it offers way too much (D/P trickery thief has as much endurance regen as an acrobatics thief) Most of the professions stolen skills are balanced apart from Ranger (and ele because chill effects attunements). The warrior one is a bug.

Personally I’d like to see maybe sleight of hand split into 2 traits, one for the cooldown one for the daze (and reduce the daze to 1/4 so its used as an actual interrupt) and a reduction on the vigor uptime.

Raph is Chilled.8304:

As pistolwhip is about to go down we will face the next mindless 3 smashing build (s/d).
Since thieves have the highest burst potential ingame they should be easiest to kill. Right now it is very hard to kill a good thief even if he is not attacking you and that is because of evade spamming. No other burst class can do that much damage and still be that hard to kill (take a look at eles – they die when you fart in their direction, but only the best do the damage a mediocre thief does).
I know that evading is a part of the thief mechanic therefore it should still be possible to evade on demand.
BUT there should be a punishment if it is just a “random dodge”.
My proposal is that every dodge that is on no cooldown has some frames after it where the thief is not abled to move nor abled to cancel the skill. (some sort of acd like in gw1)
It will not affect skilled players since they know when to dodge however it will affect the 3-3-3-3-3 bots.

lol wut. S/D has no where near the same amount of consistent burst as S/P or D/P. They need to go full acrobatics (THE WORST TRAIT LINE) to survive. So what the insane burst is basi + mug + flanking + larcenous (7k total if all of it crits) every 35 seconds when steal is up? Taking more evades away from S/D will only force the thieves that still use it to go D/P then you can just complain about backstab.

Coloxeus.3480:

whenever i play s/d always maxing out acrobatics for more evades and suvivability https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7moYkWLPK8&list=UU-SjU98hzx0-TdRsxXuf6kg

Haven’t seen you play in a while coloxus. But I agree 30 points in critical strikes and 30 in acrobatics is the way to go. the last 10 is really up to preference. I like mug for additional burst but some go for thrill of the crime/uncatchable.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VeF3V;1VwF_0J5V-Fd0;9;49T-T-2;017A;127B;1LNV4U;1KJG4KJG45Bx

1 initiative increase on pistolwhip…. you’ll stilil be able to spam the kitten out of it. why can’t you just remove the stun… no one rooted skill in the game stuns like that. make it take some kitten skill

Olli.6137:

Thief:
- Pistol Whip immobilize instead of stun (because of resurrection-control, to easy to force stun breaker
- Move Trait : Feline Grace (Acrobatics 15) to Master Tier (20) active trait

The stun on pistol whip should be removed and replaced with NOTHING. If you look at the other skills in the game that are a flurry/root, none of them have anything else attached to them. All of them require considerable set up or other skills to be able to land the burst.

Guardian’s Zealot Defense requires you to blow a stun breaker/teleport thats on a 45 second cooldown to be able to efficiently land the burst. Or have hydromancy sigils to chill your target to be able to land the skill. Blurred frenzy is usually set up with an immobilize to be able to land the skill. 100 blades requries frenzy or another stun to be able to its full burst. Why should a thief be able to do with with 1 skill on no cool down?

The thief already has 2 instant cast teleports on lower cooldowns than everyone else (steal + infiltrator’s signet) to be able to land the pistolwhip (if it didn’t have the stun). With basilisk’s venom or instead take the immobilize venom (instead of the 2nd stunbreaker) or hydromancy sigils and the thief will still be able to land pistol whip if they are playing smart. It will take a dumb low skill spec and make it difficult but still rewarding to play.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

x/p is probably the best counter.
As mentioned above Headshot and Pistol Whip can interrupt their flow, and thus give you an window of opportunity to burst them down to low health.

But you also have to be aware of the other ways to access stealth aswell as the shadowsteps which can turn the fight around.
30 in trickery and Sleight of Hand can be used as another interrupt when they try to heal using Hide in Shadows.

yeah x/p is the best counter to d/p thieves (headshot/sleight of hand while they’re in black powder or trying to use hide in shadows).

I mainly play s/d in sPvP and it really comes down to luck when fighting a d/p trickery thief. I need to get lucky enough to dodge their instant cast daze from steal and pray i don’t get backstabbed if they get sleight of hand/basi off. Other than dodging their burst, use infiltrator’s strike/bow stealth attack to immobilize them before they can heartseeker through black powder. It’ll disrupt their flow and initiative gain.

Also make sure they have steal on cooldown before you lay your basi venom/other stun burst into them. Good thieves will steal to you and stop your burst (1 second daze) as soon as you land basi venom on them. (This is easier said then done, if steal is on cooldown they always have 2 other stun breakers if they’re playing meta)

Biggest joke NA.

Despo.2579:

I have some Ideas

One : We can add a trait in acrobatic that give you Protection and regen for X time when you succeful a dodge, that mean in combat when you dode the attack of an enemy and its writed “dodged” on your character you gain the bonus
or maybe gain +700 hp when you do a succeful dodge, that would be an alternativ at shadow rejuveneration

I think you’re going in the right direction to add nonstealth play, but s/d thief has a lot of dodges and it might be a little OP. I’d like to see a buff to assassin’s reward maybe to 100hp/s or combining it with quick pockets (as both support active play and staying in the fight, this would help thieves who want to play sustain builds and not burst)

I would start slow, and just remove the blind from the bullet and/or decrease the range (currently its 900 range blind). Anet has a history of making too big of changes and completely destroying something. Minor tweaks over time will help balance, not completely shifting metas with big changes.

They should start with removing the blind on the bullet as this would allow for more counter play to stun, immobilize, etc the thief before they can black powder. Then after that they can look at init cost changes or shorten the length of the blind field if they feel like it is still too strong.

I think this will go a long way to weed out the bad thieves and the good ones.

I tend to shortbow them. Use a way to get into stealth (heal, steal + feathers, refuge, CnD them/an animal if in wvw) immob them with surprise shot and cluster bomb them to death, in between stealths kite them with disabling shot. Usually only switch to daggers when you can get a basi + mug + cnd + backstab combo off.

Travlane.5948:

good point! did you take into consideration the radius of the players hit circle? its almost as big as blinding powder. oh yeah so that leaves like 10 range gap…. i think 130 is greater than 10 range. even if it wer 20 range. pfft.

you almost had a point there….darn. if u did have a point it would be under the premise that each player has a .0000000001 radius hit circle. cmon thats sillyl

So if everyone’kitten circle is as big as the powder radius wouldn’t that make me get blinded even further away from the circle? Increasing the gap between players. It doesn’t make sense.

Evernessince.8035:

First off it does not deny melee anything. Only an idiot would stand in the bp ring and every class has an imob, knockback, stun, or attack that can hit the thief. 100 blades can hit the entire circle and has a very quick cooldown. 5 on warrior gun will smack the thief out of the field. 4 on thief pistol will stun the thief, preventing stealth. I’m not even going to dip into any pull abilities or necro fear.

Most auto attacks have 130 range.. stand on the other side of the powder… 220 range away and you’ll never get hit. I agree stuns are very good against preventing stealth but none of them last 4 seconds. Let alone having the chance to even use the skill. Black powder can blind you from 900 range away, to get that stun off you need to move closer, use an auto attack to clear the blind, and then use your stun which probably has a cast time, all before someone can heart seeker through the field?

I still say, reduce the field to 3 seconds, reduce the initiative cost to 5 (this will at least give some gap between revealed and stealthed, while keeping the field/init ratio about the same) and possibly remove the blinding projectile.

Evilek.5690:

FeelsAlright.5860:

I think it would go a long way to reduce the duration of the blind field. 3 seconds duration, maybe even 2. (I’d prefer 2, black powder is a huge crutch)

6 initiative and 2 sec blind ? You must kidding right ?
BTW All autoattack has 130+ range and Black Powder radius is maybe 110 diameter 220, tell me where is problem ?

Its not just about the field, it gives you so much more than that. It takes away any counterplay after leaving stealth, the field lasts longer than revealed does, and it prevents any counterplay of entering stealth. It denies melee’s chances of fighting back at all. The field simultaneously gives you melee immunity and easy access to stealth (which then gives you burst and healing). So yes the duration needs to be decreased to provide smarter play, more risk for the reward. Instead of just using it whenever.

I think it would go a long way to reduce the duration of the blind field. 3 seconds duration, maybe even 2. (I’d prefer 2, black powder is a huge crutch)

They just need to balance black powder (field should last 2 seconds not 4) and Sleight of hand should be split into 2 traits (force them to take the daze or the cooldown) its way too powerful in it’s current state.

Doesn’t work. Attunement swap is still 9 seconds. Was hoping I could get to 8.

jonnis.2946:

If all the thief was doing was assaulting your base, perhaps you should have set someone purely to guarding your lord, perhaps your lord and quarry. He is hurting his teams chances as you have a 5v4 on the other three points and should win. The lord is a mechanic of this map, I think its an excellent mechanic that leads to some great crux plays. Admittedly, its a bit crap that its all this thief was trying to do, but clearly it worked, you didn’t counter it well enough

Yes he didn’t counter a bug that lets thief teleport over the walls without breaking the gates.

dat logic.

I’d honestly like to see the stats normalized across all modes. There’s so much power creep. Especially in WvW (bloodlust stacking, wvw bloodlust, wvw guard leech, wvw applied fortitude). I’d like to see the stats reduced like they are in sPvP. The amount of stats makes everything so trivial.

No, no, no, no ,no. This is not the correct way to add counterplay to the thief. IT WILL BUTCHER DAGGER MAIN HAND.

You are supposed to be punished with a back stab if you allow the thief to get stealth. Preventing a thief from stealthing is what you need to counterplay not the back stab. Preventing a thief from stealthing prevents them: regen on stealth, initiative on stealth, blind on stealth, burst, survivability.

The problem with counterplaying entering stealth is (as always) the D/P weapon set. There is no counterplay to stopping the thief from entering stealth. You can’t block a leap finisher. On a D/D thief it is much easier to evade, blind, block the Cloak and Dagger to prevent them their offense AND defense.

You can’t fix one weaponset by murdering the other.

The only thing I’d like to see is Endure pain prevent point capture. It’s literally a full heal while they CC me to death in a 1v1 on a point. I can’t kite them while they take no damage/heal because they’ll get the point. “Protect me” on ranger prevents point capture and it hinders the ranger way more than endure pain does for the warrior. The ranger loses a lot of DPS when the pet dies. I just want some consistency of skills.

I’d really like to see a buff to Fleet of foot (remove 1 condi per dodge, no icd, the icd is the dodge recharge rate), a buff to assassin’s reward (~150 hp/s) and a buff to hard to catch to give a nonstealth thief more options and more sustain in a fight.

Dustin.2793:

Sorry for the matchups like this, believe me when I say its not fun even the slightest bit. We just waited in queue for a while and after so long like ken said it just puts us against somebody.

Its nbd I knew it would be a tough game going in. Especially because I’ve played against you in solo q and have had a tough time with the sword #2 nerf. Would’ve helped if we didn’t pick up 2 people either.

cymerdown.4103:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

wow why zero score? O_O

Just out classed lol

but … 0 points !!!
what happened?

i.e.
1 went home, got killed by their far point assault before capping home? O_O
4 went mid, got killed by 3 mid fighters? O_O
then they split up and camped both entrances? O_O

i mean what happened during the 4 minutes? O_O

They played 3 points off the bat, sending 1 or 2 to far, 1 home, rest mid. They won all fights and triple capped, then they watched spawns and counted how many went to each point. They rotate the same number to wherever you try to go and win each of those fights for the rest of the match.

Happy Kid with the mad BM, as usual. :P

I was a little tipsy but sounds about right. Our backpoint lost to wakky so I tried to rotate home I think and Toker focused me like he always does. I think around the 200 or 250 point we stopped really playing and let them have boss.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

wow why zero score? O_O

Just out classed lol

Then this happened..

Liza.2758:

the class is probably one of the hardest one to play but it doesn’t make it bad if you can master it …

There are a lot of good ele outside spvp as well. WvW solo roamers. {RIOT} , {oPP} from my server

they steam like every day, you should check it out

WvW is completely different….. There are so many more stats. An ele can afford to go into the defensive trees because they have just that many more stats for damage. Xunleashed’s celestial build for wvw has like 85% crit damage with 30% crit chance with high fury uptime. There is literally no reason to go the other 20 points into air for the extra 20% crit damage. Which frees these 20 points to go into water or arcana to help the ele survive in wvw. In sPvP you’re basically forced into wearing soldiers amulet with berserker rune and going 30 into air for fresh air and the crit damage/crit chance. This leaves the ele with 30% crit chance + low fury uptime and 35% crit damage.

tl;dr stats.

ronpierce.2760:

FeelsAlright.5860:

ronpierce.2760:

That is actually pretty stupid. Endure pain isn’t an unvuln, its a 4 sec ward off 1 type, same with zerker stance. It takes 3 utilities at once to have a pseudo-invuln that allows holding/capping a point but heres the thing. If someone pops all 3 stances just to remain on a point for 5-6 seconds with ease, you should definitely be able to kill him afterwards.

On the otherhand, they are “stances” I could see stances being limited to 1 on at a time, but they’d had to increase some of the durations to make that nerf not overshoot its goal…

So what’s the difference between Protect Me (Ranger utility that makes you take 0 damage) and endure pain? Protect me stops point capture why shouldn’t endure pain?

I don’t know much about “protect me” but tbh if its that similar, EP shouldn’t be nerfed, Protect me should just allow cap holding… The game starts to feel clunky with all the “cant hold a cap when defending yourself” rules. The onlything that I’ve ever supported was stealth stopping it, but that should be pretty obvious why.

I don’t care either way, I just want consistency through out the game.

ronpierce.2760:

That is actually pretty stupid. Endure pain isn’t an unvuln, its a 4 sec ward off 1 type, same with zerker stance. It takes 3 utilities at once to have a pseudo-invuln that allows holding/capping a point but heres the thing. If someone pops all 3 stances just to remain on a point for 5-6 seconds with ease, you should definitely be able to kill him afterwards.

On the otherhand, they are “stances” I could see stances being limited to 1 on at a time, but they’d had to increase some of the durations to make that nerf not overshoot its goal…

So what’s the difference between Protect Me (Ranger utility that makes you take 0 damage) and endure pain? Protect me stops point capture why shouldn’t endure pain?

Shar.3402:

Ferik.3127:

okay, just want to jump right in and ask a question?

WHEN EXACTLY did ele start being weak? I main necromancer, guardian and warrior in PvP and ele is the class I almost never played since 2012 (the only few times I played a healer in Dec. 2012). What changed that made the once-utterly-OP D/D build disappear? Staff? S/D?

- Ride the Lightning CD incresed from 15s to 40s (20s if it hits the target, good luck with all the dodge spam). Also, its range got nerfed from 1550 to 1200
- Regen/Vigor duration nerfed to 6s from 10s on Soothing Disruption
- Fury/Swiftness duration halved when using Shocking Aura with Zephyr’s Boon (this is actually a bugfix, but still)
- Signet of Restoration nerfed and fixed (no longer procs multiple times when using dagger air autoattack or dodge rolling with evasive arcana, for example)
- Blast finishers removed from all Evasive Arcana spells, except the Earth one
- Evasive Arcana Cleansing Wave nerfed by 50% in PvP
- Bountiful Power nerfed to 1%/boon from 2%/boon

All in all, it wouldn’t even be so bad, if other classes, that are currently apex predators, didn’t get buffed like kitten at the same time.
Of course, you could still play the good old standard 0/20/0/20/30 S/D build, as it hasn’t been touched by too many nerfs, but it is kinda outperformed by everything…and melts to condis.

The RTL nerf was so dumb.

Warrior greatsword Rush (GS #5) is 1,200 range on a 20 second cooldown doesn’t matter if it hits someone or not. Combined with whirlwind (GS #3)1,800 range without target and a total of 30 seconds of cooldown.

Warrior Savage Leap (Sword #2) 600 range and 8 second cooldown. 1,200 distance in 16 seconds with no target.

Ranger Swoop (GS #3) 1,100 range on a 12 second cooldown, again doesn’t matter if it hits a target.

Ranger Hornet String + Monarch’s Leap (Sword #2) 730 range and 8 second cooldown. 1,460 range in 16 seconds. Again doesn’t matter if it hits a target.

Thief heart seeker (dagger #2) 450 leap every 3 initiative (3 seconds) 1,350 range in 9 seconds. Again doesn’t matter if it hits a target.

I could probably go on but you get the point.

Thorp.7982:

From a WvW perspective, I used to stay around 40-45% critical chance with a Hidden Killer build, but honestly even that’s too high. I believe you can go as low as around 25-30% as long as you pick up Furious Retaliation (I) in the Critical Strikes trait line.

I have no Berserker pieces, just Valkyrie/Soldier/Berserker+Valkyrie ascended, and one Cavalier piece being the back item. With a 10/30/30/0/0 build I’m hitting at best around 10k Backstabs on glassy 80’s and up to 12k Backstabs on up-leveled characters all while having 17k health before Guard Stacks and 2700 armor. It’s definitely worth the drop in critical chance because you can easily make that up with traits.

I like to run 0/30/30/0/10 after i get my guard stacks. I can run thrill of the crime and furious retaliation for like 75% fury up time. With valk gear + fury its 70% crit chance.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Me and my friends did this last night… the 5th was a minion master necro on home point. It was stupid dumb and we never died. We all never played warrior before last night.

Son of a b… Did you guys play legacy of foefire and tell the other team that was the first time you guys played warrior?(wait the group we played, they did die after long kitten battles. We ended up losing though. We had 2 bad teammates on our side)

YES that was us hahaha. My warrior was W N D R. and when i say we never died. “never died” compared to how much i die on my thief

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Sabastian.7126:

5 warriors

/15char

Played against a 4 warrior team, they all ran war banner…. 3 of them were tanky condi warrios, and one was a hambow. The revives and fire fields were utterly stupid..

Me and my friends did this last night… the 5th was a minion master necro on home point. It was stupid dumb and we never died. We all never played warrior before last night.

Why doesn’t endure pain prevent point capture? “protect me” shout on ranger does. Invuln on guardian does. Stealth does. Stupid.

Fishbones.6914:

Jesse.4631:

Fishbones.6914:

Thought i would share the DS build I’ve been using its purty strong and I am still undefeated with it in duels, I honestly think its one of the strongest dueling builds in the game atm.

I do not like liars. I transfered to HoD for a week and whipped this ele! If you go back to his video he only fights the same 3 people cause he knows he can beat them! There were like 20 people there! Liars will lie. Scrub ele.

worst theif NA

I agree l2p.

and deez. 480p??? come on bro.

Cynz.9437:

the problem with thieves is that their entire mechanic is based on stealth (outside of s/d which got destroyed by last pacth) however stealth works only on noob players, hence why thieves look so weak vs any half decent players playing other classes

majority of the players however are pve’ers (aka noobs to pvp) or too lazy to learn, so the QQ about stealth will continue, thieves will keep getting nerfed, while good players will wash the floor with thieves in pvp heh

I agree with a lot of this. I think that Anet balances the class around back stab as well and not all of the weaponsets. Every other build suffers because anet doesn’t give us access to things that regular weaponsets need.

dDuff.3860:

Ways thief can remove conditions:
-Shadowstep (stunbreak also) – 3 conditions
-Signet of agility – 1 condition (also refill endurance)
-Shadow return – 1 condition (also cast time)
-Shadow’s embrace – major adept trait – 1 condition per 3 seconds of stealth
-Pain responese – major master trait – remove bleed/burn/poison under 75% hp every 30 seconds

I’m not taking into consideration hide in shadows and withdraw as they are both remove particular conditions;
Now compare these to any class condition removal and you’ll fing that Lyssa runes is actually almost only one viable choice for thief to stay active in a combat.
Thats how the game designed.

eh Idk man. Most of those are pretty lack luster (with the amount of conditions that fly around) which is why in sPvP we choose to run lyssa.

Shadowstep has a long cooldown which equates to 1 condition every 20 seconds. Most of us run this for the stun break. I’d like to see it clear the condis on the first teleport not the second as well.

Signet of agility is in a good spot.

Shadow return is kind of meh and only works well when you have < 3 condi’s on you.

Shadow’s embrace is by far our strongest condition removal but not everyone plays stealth.

Pain response can trigger even when you don’t have those conditions on you.

Mrbig.8019:

Reikou.7068:

Travlane.5948:

Arganthium.5638:

Actually, if you look at his games, many of his opponents seem to have that “flight” idea programmed into their minds mixed with a half-hearted attempt to fight back. Many of them also seem to ignore targeting him completely, and their combat skills are relatively lackluster. Furthermore, his build seems extremely suspect, which, presumably, means that he’s even luckier with his opponents than was implied before.

i hate to be the one to say “bad opponents” on a video as it makes me feel like a hater…. but he is right here. seen some of his live play…i keep saying WTF is that other thief/player doing. really? why did he do that…wow. but thats me. idk.

Perhaps so. I’ve never really watched him play, so I can’t comment too much on that. Perhaps its true, perhaps its not.

I’m simply saying that if Sizer is able to pull it off, other thieves should be able to do so as well. and even if Sizer is “an outlier in the statistic,” it doesn’t mean that the build is bad. It just means that everyone else needs to L2P.

If the day comes that S/D Evasion can really no longer be played at top level, then I will rephrase my statement.

FeelsAlright.5860:

Except NO other class is balanced in that way. It’s all balanced by the general population. Why should thief be any different?

No other class is balanced this way has more to do with the fact that anet’s balance team is incredibly incompetent and doesn’t know how they want to balance the game, than it being a good game-balance philosophy.

Sizer is nothing special.

He used to get crushed by good players BEFORE and still will be right now ( surely not because he’s a bad player, but because the thief profession, and in particular S/D, was nothing special from the beginning).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3o2fB_ADjc

for a reference

Cheese mode is simply sticking to their old comp because they don’t want to adapt again, and because, right now, there’s no competition even in EU ( and i dunno if it’s ever going to be again).

Thief sucks balls right now, worst prof right after ele.

Even burst S/P is better than S/D now, D/P too, and they both sucks.

Thief should lose vs condi necro. We have no condi clears…

rjinx.1378:

Problem:
There are major issues with this trait that most of the thieves are already aware of, I believe one of the larger problems is that Anet is not looking at this trait the same way we are.
What anet wants:
They want it to simply move the thief out of harms way once stunned/dazed.

What thieves want from it:
Break the stun! while being less disorienting

as it stands, the issues are globally bad:
DAZED: bad in spvp, a thief headshot sends you flying away
FEARED: you shadow step away, gain swiftness, and run even FASTER away.
LAUNCHED/KNOCKED DOWN/KNOCKED BACK: 50% chance are you do an instant shadow step in place that is not even noticeable. 50% chance you shadow step away BEFORE the launch, and land even further away bouncing.
SINK/FLOAT: still does not break the SINK/FLOAT, and usually shadow steps toward the target.

solution:

1. Remove swiftness, shadow step away, BREAK THE STUN, and grant 5 seconds of stability.
   or
2. Remove swiftness, shadow step away while giving stealth for the thief for 3 seconds.

Still teleports you which is the worst part about the trait. This is bad. It needs to just pop immune, give stabilility/vigor.