Guild Wars 2

It’s possible, as other have said, to stealth again if the thief didn’t attack from stealth.

yiksing.9432:

This is not normal. I have experienced this too, a group of 5 chasing the thief while he took out a mesmer and my thief while spamming emotes. After checking combat log, we noticed he was also immune to all the aoe by the mesmer.

We have no abilities that make us immune to any damage, except for blind. So either the Mesmer were blinded or he missed all the attacks. There’s simply no possible way for the thief to be immune to any damage. So this particular event sounds like a hacker…

I actually had a fun fight in WvW the other day. We were three thieves from opposing servers (all three servers represented) that just ran into each other in one of the borderlands. It felt like a hilarious game of hide and seek, and the first one to pop out of stealth was the one getting attacked by the two other thieves. The funny thing was that all three of us were running a P/D + S/D set up with tons of survivability and nice damage.

I think we fought for about 10 minutes before some other people showed up. All just ended up sitting around, watching us fight each other. After about 15-20 minutes I left stealth and did a quick /bow, as did they. We had a small dance-off before an enemy zerg dropped by and we slipped off into the shadows, never to see each other again.

I’ve been searching endlessly on YouTube and Twitch to see if I could find someone who may have recorded the entire thing.

As for now I just hope to meet one of these thieves again and just wait until one of us would screw up and die. I’m usually at the same spot we met each day at the exact same time, so if one of you are reading this; I’ll be waiting. (Seafarer’s Rest, Vizunah Square and Desolation match up)

style.6173:

Or maybe zergs don’t need fixing. Some of us actually like fighting large scale battles. If you want small scale, try PvP.

By large scale you mean running around pressing “1”? Because that’s what almost every single zerg I’ve ever met have done. Wohoo! I’m getting free tokens for pressing “1” and following this blue icon.

Remove the AoE cap, that would force zergs to think more and spread out to avoid damage. Pushing zergs into choke points would actually matter. There is no skill what so ever in running with a zerg. ANet wanted this game to have a fluid combat system, and for that to happen they would need to remove the AoE cap. Zergs would have to actually think a bit more instead of just standing there pressing “1”, they would actually have to dodge, move out of the AoE circle and start to think PvP.

Aztex.4895:

Guys, in case you haven’t noticed, my idea it’s not about removing zergs, nor about trashing them. I’ts about giving a consequence to them as a strategy used in exageration. That’s why I said “fixing”.

Right now, it’s like this:
- the bigger the zerg, the less-to-none chance enemies have against them, no matter how confusing and unskilled players it has.
- rolfstomping everything is faster, gets more rewards and with less effort than capturing at least half of the same things in smaller groups.
- the roflstomping zerg of 60+ probably wiped out most of the smaller groups (15~20 players) along the way.
- most of the times it’s not even worth upgrading things outside the prime-time of a server, since the enemy zerg can just roflstomp many keeps and towers faster than anyone else when we don’t have an allied zerg around – which gives too much advantage to servers that have zergs 24/7.
- people talk about AC’s beeing anti-zerg right now. Well, if zergs can’t handle the damage, then smaller groups can even less.

My ideia just gives one consequence to zerg: the more people it has, the harder it gets to capture a point. It gives a sense of balancing difficulty based on the number of players participating in the event.
What’s so bad about it? Do you still want to zerg up, use skill 1, no intelligence and no skill, killing everyone while roflstomping maps easily? With no challenge at all? and still call it fun?
That’s not massive scale PVP, that’s “carebear” PVP (I’m using this expression the same way many PVP players like to use it for PVE players because “PVE is easy”)

This idea also gives a chance to smaller groups to be more effective in many ways.
In the end, if a zerg can’t take out a Keep / Tower because it was too difficult and just a small group there could wipe them, then you can say they weren’t good or organized enough and they suffered the consequence of that decision – they lost so much time while they were at it that the enemy servers captured a lot of points from them.
BUT the consequence itself gets smaller if the attacking zerg is very organized and has very few useless actions, because they know what to do as an organized group of X people.
It’s like Dungeons: if you know what to do, you can do it in 15 mins. If you don’t, you could take hours.

ArenaNet have made the entire game to a noobfest. Nothing is really hard in this game, and they’ve dumbed down every single aspect of it. They want new players to just jump in to wvw and actually accomplish something instead of learning before accomplishing.

One thing that would force zergs to become more organized would be to remove the AoE cap…

Incurafy.6329:

It has been like that since beta, it’s not a bug and it’s working as intended.

That being said, I do think that Aegis, invulns, blinds, blocks, and dodges should all cause revealed so that an enemy is rewarded for successfully countering a stealth attack.

Anything that the toon can feel should put us out of stealth (invulnerability and block, aegis). If we miss the attack the enemy won’t feel our presence and shouldn’t reveal.

They should revert it to three seconds and add the revealed debuff even if we don’t attack from stealth. That would help and elevate the thief skill level since we had to think more tactical before entering stealth, knowing that it’s either run or attack ^^

But it’s dumb and hopefully a bug that it doesn’t apply while in the mists..

Warriors are supposed to have more raw damage than thieves, more sustained damage. We’re supposed to have the highest burst to kill someone and then run away. That’s at least how it was meant to be, which now is nerfed..

I didn’t even know we could do that, but thank god it’s fixed then. It wasn’t intended to be there, so.

Shadow Tra kitten omething I use all the time while roaming in WvW and sPvP. It’s perfect for getting a heads up on incoming enemies or to cap two points at the same time. The only fix this trap need is for it to be a teleport. It’s redicolously bugged and it’s often stopped by simply air or a tiny rock in its path…

As for the other traps I agree with you. They’re all (except for Ambush Trap) pretty useless…

I’m running 0/30/30/10/0 and sometimes 0/25/30/15/0 for extra vigor. I didn’t really use mug, but now I’m actually considering to choose it just for the extra heal..

I have never played ranger so I can’t really speak for that profession, but I’ve played thief since beta and I feel I got pretty good knowledge of how to play one :p

Thief can be really fun, really hard and sometimes insanely frustrating in Dungeons. It all depends on how you’re building your thief. If you want to have some survivability (your team will love you if you’re not dead all the time) you should go for Carrion gear and Pistol / Dagger with Short bow as second weapon set. You will be able to apply conditions to infinity and survive most encounters. I played this kind of thief a long time, and it’s pretty awesome!

Build should be something like 20/0/30/20/0. Shadow refuge (obvious reasons), signet of malice or hide in shadows, blinding powder, any other utility you want and dagger storm.

Your goal will be to bleed, weaken and poison your enemies to death. Dagger storm is great for larger encounters with lots of enemies (signet of malice here!!).

While I played this build I was usually the last man standing in every dungeon, and my damage was pretty good too. In one dungeon people even started to bet gold on wether or not I actually would die since my entire team wiped several times and I just slipped away

Go for power and vitality until you reach 50-60ish. If you like the sneaky style of the daggers you could go for a pistol off hand and get the blind attached to it. It makes 1v1 against mobs a laugh. As a bonus you can use heartseeker while in the smoke field to get stealth and to a backstab. You can also go for S/P for a nice AoE damage and blind.

I would really recommend to have a short bow too just as a survival tool and in group fights.

We rely on avoiding damage, because that’s the only way for us to stay alive… Most necros are a nightmare for thieves, especially if they’re condition specced. They can apply more conditions than I can ever remove and they have way more hp than thieves. I recently fought a good condition necro, and we ended up just bowing to each other and walk different paths (this was WvW though).

In PvP thief is one of the weakest professions. We can’t get our damage high without sacrificing all our survivability. Lots of damage = less dodges and condition removal, and the other way around.

Because all the QQ’ers are jumping here all the time. I’d we don’t defend our class it will be completely destroyed.

Awesome! Really never thought of doing this, but this is great! Tested with a friend of mine and it was so fun. We hate Zergs, so it’s awesome to feel like we’re participating in the war ^^

I run knights armor with berserker weapons and trinkets. If you’re not getting any hp from traits I would mix in some Valkyrie too. Gives you decent damage and good survivability.

Give us a trait that make pistol shots pierce targets. Make skill #2 a leap finisher and some sort of evasive attack (dodge roll as you shoot your enemy and make them vulnerable). Those changes would make me choose p/p as one of my weapon sets.

I use that skill for one purpose only – interrupt a heal or any other dangerous attack. I don’t care about the damage, because I will never use it for dps. Interrupting a heal means target = dead.

It doesn’t need to change, it works perfect just the way it is!

Durzlla.6295:

Geiir.7603:

The Spiral King.2483:

Obsidian.1328:

Rafahil.2857:

foofad.5162:

Rafahil.2857:

Wanderer.3248:

Daecollo.9578:

So my thief just downed a ranger.

After almost downing it, the rangers pet interrupts me, then starts chasing me around as I try and kill it. Then downs me with a 6k hit.

Then it proceeds to rez the downed ranger, then they both destroy me.

Fun fun fun!

What kind of thief doesn’t use shadow refuge before stomp?

Edit: and follow up with dance.

Who wastes a utility to just stomp someone?

You’re joking, right? Do you PvP?

I’ll C&D or Black Powder to get the stomp in, but no way will I use shadow refuge to do that. It’s a crutch for subpar players and only really needed when you are being swarmed.

He’s right though. I honestly can’t remember the last time a thief spiked me when not stealthed. It’s got to be weeks ago, and I play like 3 hours of W3 everyday.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a thief even try to spike without first stealthing. Stealth is readily available for them, and it makes spiking a triviality.

I spike all the time with my sword without relying on stealth, but I have to agree that it’s a rare sight. But then again, Anet designed the thief to rely on stealth to get any burst, so it’s not that weird that you don’t see thieves spiking without stealth.

To the OP:
I love to fight rangers! Why didn’t you just stealth and stomp as we do most of the time? Now you got a lesson from a ranger that obviously knew what he was doing. Learn from loss – it’s the only way to get better

That only works against sub par rangers, we can still daze you while you’re stealthed with our 2, and fear you with our wolfs F2, and if you’re using a drake event hit you with the drake breathe if you stealth by our corpse…

Indeed. Good rangers are a pain to finish off… I’m not sure about this, but if I blind and stealth I think you will miss that daze? At least the rangers have failed to daze me since they’re lying in my blinding powder :p

The Spiral King.2483:

Obsidian.1328:

Rafahil.2857:

foofad.5162:

Rafahil.2857:

Wanderer.3248:

Daecollo.9578:

So my thief just downed a ranger.

After almost downing it, the rangers pet interrupts me, then starts chasing me around as I try and kill it. Then downs me with a 6k hit.

Then it proceeds to rez the downed ranger, then they both destroy me.

Fun fun fun!

What kind of thief doesn’t use shadow refuge before stomp?

Edit: and follow up with dance.

Who wastes a utility to just stomp someone?

You’re joking, right? Do you PvP?

I’ll C&D or Black Powder to get the stomp in, but no way will I use shadow refuge to do that. It’s a crutch for subpar players and only really needed when you are being swarmed.

He’s right though. I honestly can’t remember the last time a thief spiked me when not stealthed. It’s got to be weeks ago, and I play like 3 hours of W3 everyday.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a thief even try to spike without first stealthing. Stealth is readily available for them, and it makes spiking a triviality.

I spike all the time with my sword without relying on stealth, but I have to agree that it’s a rare sight. But then again, Anet designed the thief to rely on stealth to get any burst, so it’s not that weird that you don’t see thieves spiking without stealth.

To the OP:
I love to fight rangers! Why didn’t you just stealth and stomp as we do most of the time? Now you got a lesson from a ranger that obviously knew what he was doing. Learn from loss – it’s the only way to get better

On behalf of my fellow thieves I apologize for the behavior of that thief. I’ve never seen anyone complain about rangers having their pet heal them (although I have to agree it is a bit annoying) and hopefully I won’t see it.

We (thieves) know how you feel. Even if we’re not running D/D and we down someone we are called heartseeker spamming noobs, so yeah :p

I remember one of the devs (think it was Jonathan Sharp) saying in the SotG from March 14th that they want you to be able to go from one part of the game to another without having to adapt too much. There’s only one problem; why did they revert the revealed from 4 to 3 seconds only on PvE and WvW? That’s is a huge difference and it’ll make the flow you’re used to from WvW feel clunky and weird in sPvP.

I just can’t see the logic behind this. They’re constantly saying one thing and then doing the completely opposite. And on the other hand is thief pretty useless in sPvP. They’re only good in hot joins where there’s tons of baddies and free kills…

There’s no honor among thieves. We’re survivors that use any means necessary to win a fight.

LovefulfillsAll.4870:

Somebody please explain to me, how you deal and decent amount of pressure in a S/D Build.

Like at all.
I can get over burst being gone, but seriously. You just flank spam and auto attack to death?

Removing boon is an awesome utility but, that also does not win the game anymore than running all.

Really though, somebody explain to me how you deal damage in sPvP.

I run knight amulet btw, because I do not like dieing in 2 hits. (although it still happens)

The damage from this set comes from the sword aotu attack and occasionally use of flanking strike. It’s all about keeping a high pressure on the enemy and avoid being attacked using shadowsteps, immobilizes and cripples to keep control of the fight. You can also deal decent amount of damage from CnD and do a quick daze on the target for more control. I would put in some critical damage and keep the critical chance to about 50% and have some toughness and vitality.

Elmuerto.9840:

I supposed it could be used as a stealth skill now you mention it, as it provides the longest stealth outside of SR.

I often use it as a stealth too. If I’m fighting someone and finding myself free of initiative and my enemy on low hp and that my traps isn’t placed somewhere else, then I’ll drop it. It got a pretty short cast time and it places you for an immideate backstab. The enemy will see you start running and run straight in the trap and poof I’m gone and he is downed

One more thing is people isn’t used to traps. Most thieves doesn’t use them, and this give a pretty good chance of having the element of surprise. Start running after a thief and suddenly you’re knocked down on the ground and the thief is nowhere to be seen until you died from his final backstab.

Wiser with Age.3714:

Dumb question:

What weapon set is Larcenous Strike part of? I was looking on the Wiki and I couldn’t find it.

Sword Dagger skill #3

As a d/p and s/d thief I love this patch! Improved flanking strike, steal two boons (the entire stack too) and the projectile from Shadow Shot can’t be blocked! I love this!

But they said in a SotG that they want people to be able to switch easily between PvE and PvP without having to adjust anything. How can they say that and still keep 4 seconds in PvP?! That’s a huge difference and flow to every weapon set that rely on stealth. They just keep going against their own words…

BlueprintLFE.2358:

I have used it a couple times, but unless you are actively staring at your utility bar, it’s really easy to miss the shadow trap Icon rotate over, I messed with it in SPVP for possible TPVP reasons and I was always missing the change over while fighting.

I had some trouble with that while I started using it, but that’s something you get used to. I usually look at my skill bar and boons / conditions a lot to keep track of when to cleanse conditions, stealth debuff and how kind my shadow return got left. And after a few hours of play you just notice that something changed on the skill bar :p

I can’t find any good reason to use this trap in PvE since it’s meant as an ambush tool. But in sPvP and WvW it’s just awesome. Let me explain.

In sPvP you could place the trap in a location you’re sure the enemy will walk through to get to a point you just capped. In the meantime you could go cap another point or just kill some other player. When you see the trap got activated you just shadowstep there, get positioned for a backstab and gain five seconds of stealth. Awesome.

In WvW me and a friend used it the other day to protect the supply camp south of the ruins. I placed the trap on the bridge and we capped the camp. Then we were just roaming the area near it and killing people coming in from other angles. As soon as my trap triggered and my friend had everything under control I activated it and jumped the guy who were just approaching. Again, awesome.

This trap has a 10,000 range, it gives you five seconds of stealth and positions you for a backstab. If it was a Zerg that arrived or a large enough group for you to not engage you can just run away. I use it as an offensive tool as much as a defensive tool. But be aware: the shadowstep can really big out and it won’t work. I really hope they fix this soon since I really love this trap and would like to make it a permanent skill on one of my utility slots.

In the first screen you were fighting an up leveled player, so that’s irrelevant. I guess that applies to the second too.

I have never seen, felt or dealt any crits even close to that with Mug on a lvl 80 player. Never. But I agree on the change the devs have done. It suits my style too and it makes it less dangerous for burst builds. For me it’s perfect becausee I usually use Steal in the middle of a fight, and now I’ll get a heal from it too

Dude, we can get swiftness from dodging, and with more traits we can dodge almost infinitely. We can also get 50% movement speed in stealth, so I really doesn’t see the problem here. But I would really like some more mobility though..

I run DP and SD. For me DP beats DD because of the more on-demand stealth. The blind makes it so easy to take supply camps and take on stronger targets. I have the 50% movement speed trait which I utilize for hunting small groups of players and just roam around the battlegrounds. In my eyes it’s superior, just be carefull against ranged targets. That would be when I change to SD to close the gap and have som fun, especially against rangers since their pet goes kitten every time I shadow step :p

Deamhan.9538:

Jinks.2057

I’ve done this solo, and quite frankly it isn’t a crutch/OP thing.

This is simply not one of those 20 ppl using CC. In a 1v1 fight a good mesmer/ele/warrior/guard/engi/necro will abuse thieves with CC. How can someone beat that same thief 1v1 if 20 players can not? If those thieves were so OP to be able to take on 20 players…..a single player should stand absolutely NO chance right?

Problem is skill level. Those thieves completely and utterly outplayed every single 1 of you. Solo you yourself had zero chance of beating even one of those thieves, because you yourself were not as good as them.

Not trying to flame you, but I’m only here helping you understand what happened. Roll a thief and try to do what those thieves did. After dying horribly a few times you’ll understand what i mean.

p.s. Most new thieves nowadays tend to find a mentor type thief to help them learn to play the class. I personally on many occasions have taught thieves on a opposing servers how to play after dumping them repeatedly. Those are the players who understand what I’m saying and eventually become 1 of those 2 thieves you had problems with.

I read the whole thing but should’ve stopped with the bolded part. You sir are beyond ignorant if you think that 20+ people consisting of every profession did not use CC. I alone, used both crippling shot and concussion shot and switched to my GS for Swoop to close the distance quick and follow it up with hilt bash. CD’s permitting of course. Then there are my pets which I bring for CC above all else as I like to kite with my SB over using the GS.

Since plenty of CC was used and didn’t counter it, I ask again. What is the counter?

Unless you were fighting a S/D thief they would probably have two or less stun breakers, so a simple stun and AoE the crap out of the area should have been enough. We just have a few stun breakers, so if the thief got stunned and then stealth we you should have attacked the area the thief were in and the area close. That would have killed them in 1 second…

To the OP:
Yes, I get harassed a lot. Even if I’m running S/P and not even stealthing once I’ll get told that I’m a HS spamming noob. People just hate us.

The other day I was playing my D/D Elementalist and the opposing team were calling me a HS spamming noob and say that thieves are OP. Looks to me like any class wielding daggers and kill other players are thieves in other players eyes…

Scootabuser.4915:

It’s ok, maybe better then truffle steak, but it isn’t anywhere near as good as http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Butternut_Squash_Soup

I used to eat that, but I figured it didn’t do much with my overall damage. I already got a decent critical chance and damage. The Seaweed Salad will affect my damage much more in the long run than the Squash Soup. I’m sort of a survival thief with focus on drawing a fight out and keep up sustained damage instead of incredibly high bursts.

True. Most people like the idea of just having a permanent boost… If and (hopefully) when they fix this food it’ll become more popular. It’s pretty much a permanent 10% boost if you move around a lot, and that’s exactly what thieves do – at least I do

I figured I wanted some extra damage and I came across this food: Bowl of Seaweed Salad. I really like the concept of this food as Thieves tend to always move around while fighting. This means that I’ll get a pretty much permanent 10% damage boost.

After doing some math I figured that 10% damage while moving is giving me more damage than 100 in power from the Plate of Truffle Steak. Is this Seaweed food something that have been completely ignored by the community because it’s useless or have it just doesn’t been explored yet?

Anyone have some thoughts on this food and if it’s viable for Thief gameplay?

Really enjoyed watching that! Well played by both of you. I love to fight people like that, and the fact that the first one to screw up are going to die. I run a similar setup like the one you got, and I dare say it’s freakin awesome ^^

Well. Most rangers tend to stay outside of the group and most of you are pretty squishy. This is exactly those kind of targets any good thief are looking for. But hey! Rangers aren’t my first target: Thieves are. If there are no thieves around I’ll go for the Ranger.

Just try to bring a melee weapon and you’ll have much more fun fighting thieves. We’re pretty weak when first CC’d and in melee range.

bhagwad.4281:

Seryi.7936:

or in full glass.

Being in glass doesn’t justify downing in half a second. It’s happened many times in sPvP. 3 seconds I can understand. Less than one? No way.

But this isn’t about ridiculous burst damage. It’s about stealth allowing thieves to reset fights where they should have rightly died.

It’s also about being able to solo 5 people (even if they’re bad players). No other class can do that. Noone should be able to do that. 5 people should always always be able to beat a single player no matter how talented.

1 second? I take it you run full glass cannon, and that would be the explanation of it.

How can you say that no class should be able to do it? Any good player can easily kill 10 up leveled and bad / new players. If you’re good at something and others just joined or doesn’t understand the game, shouldn’t you be able to do that then?

On the other hand I’ve seen elementalists tear apart 10 or more people without even reaching 50% health. I’ve seen guardians jump into Zergs, splitting them up and chasing down one by one. I’ve seen mesmers kill 5-10 man groups with skill. I’ve seen about every single class (some in game and some on YouTube) tear apart small groups of 2-10 players. They are just better players.

One more thing I’d like to mention: 90% of the thief videos out there are before the patch, which means that there was still a culling problem. Most of the enemy players in those videos will see the thief for just one second, now they got four seconds, and that should be plenty of time to kill a thief. I rip other thieves limb by limb with my guardian. I laugh at other thieves with my thief and my Mesmer just stands there, wondering when she will ever meet a thief that can out play her

I watched this from the beginning and thought; Interesting, this is the exact same build that all super bursty back stabber thieves are using.

Then we came to the point where he said: Assassin’s Signet → Basilisk Venom → HS → Steal → HS until death.

And I was like: ROFL! Seriously?! How do you even kill people? Dodge, dodge and hey, you just lost. Heatseeking may work against NPC’s in the Mists, but not against real players with half a brain. You’re not even using the full potential of the pistol off-hand. You have a gap-closer with blind attached. Blind field that can give you stealth if HS through it (also giving you backstab). An interrupt which is perfect to use against heals or channeled attacks.

You are just using Heartseeker. Wow.

Beautiful. We needed someone to write this. And no, I don’t think the devs even remotely used their heads for anything else than derping randomly around the keyboard while doing this change.

They ruined tons of builds and rotations and really made the profession seem awkward and strange. It’s just not right.

This change didn’t affect my build as much since I use stealth very rarely, but I really feel for you guys who got your builds and rotations ruined…

True. A really balanced thief is hard to kill, like mine

But the fact is that the majority if thieves are squishy zerkers, which are pretty easy to counter.

Auesis.7301:

Kitcat.1739:

Elmuerto.9840:

I got called a noob heartseeking spammer today. Which was impressive with my sword, pistol and shortbow.

Here’s another one for you: My team took a rookie with us into tpvp for a few matches; the guy spent most of his time typing complaints in team chat, and he definitely had a chip on his shoulder about heartseeker.

The last match we go into, he starts complaining about heartseeker spamming….thing is, I look at the teams list and THERE’S NOT EVEN A THIEF ON THE OTHER TEAM.

I got accused of spamming Heartseeker…while on my Ele. /eyetwitch

Every time someone get downed it must be a thief around. Maybe that’s the reason for all the QQ in these forums about thieves! :p Well, we’re obviously doing some thing right if people think we are the only one able to down people ^^

Cygnus.6903:

Geiir.7603:

Third: crying about damage. I’ve seen a warrior crit for over 30k in one hit. That’s three times a thieves health pool…

Although I agree with you that people complaining about thief damage need to stop whining, this is a bit off. The warrior does NOT have a single attack that can hit as hard as the backstab from the back. Closest to this is killshot, evis is even lower then that (and like 10% less strong then BS). In fact, to my knowledge, Backstab from the back is the hardest hitting single attack in the game that isn’t an elite.

Unless your talking about hundred blades, which isn’t one hit.

Overall, comparing warrior burst to Thief burst isn’t really useful, as they do it in completely different ways. Thieves can do burst in PvP much better, whereas warriors can do the single adrenaline burst then have to recharge it (and/or wait for 10 seconds CD), or use a hard to get lucky combo to land HB, which, again, isn’t a single hit.

You’re right that backstab is the strongest attack without any cool down. But thieves that go for those insane backstabs usually have no defense at all. They’ll get downed if someone just give them a nice pat on the back. My thief build is made for sustained damage and pressure while the burst comes after my enemy reach 50% hp. And my strongest backstab so far I think have been about 6k. With a bs build you can get 12k, but you won’t have much other than that backstab and heart seeker.

Mesmers can stack confusion, and for a thief that’s deadly. We attack fast and many thieves pop haste right before their burst. Having 3 stacks of confusion equals downed thief if times right.

I’ve never played much warrior, but what I can get from them is that warriors have damage, and lost of it. They are able to keep a sustained high damage while most thieves have a 3 second burst. If they fail that burst they have to run away pretty fast.

And no, I was not talking about 100 blades. This attack was a critical hit with 25 stacks of bloodlust and might while the opponent had 25 stacks of vulnerability. But even with all that I’ve never seen a thief dish out 30k in one hit. Even 12k is rare for a thief to achieve.

Agreed. I use it to stealth or as a finisher (D/P build). Those thieves thinking it will work spamming hearseekers in my blind fields are just too easy, really…

knight.8926:

I’m guessing they kill you at the same rate you kill them? I think what the people want is an anti-thief build that demolishes all kinds of thief builds…especially the burst spec

It’s more about me knowing the thief I know what’s going to happen and I counter it. I’ll just watch him burn all his initiative on thin air and then I’m dropping my burst. Before he even realized he didn’t take much health from me he’s downed and soon to be dead

But you’re right. People want burst proof builds. Even those builds will require you to counter a glass cannon burst. If you’re just standing there like a piece of paper – then the thief will rip that paper in thousand pieces.

My main is a thief, and I’ve played that profession since first beta weekends, so I like to say that I got an above average good understanding of how we think and fight. I’ve tried almost every single build you can find in these forums and made a few my self The last months I’ve been playing Mesmer, and I find the Mesmer far more superior in damage and survivability. Thieves have a better chance of running, but hey, that’s a win for me since I’m not dead.

First of all: a thief dishing out 22k damage in a few seconds isn’t uncommon so this is something every one should be aware of and ready to counter. Many here have said that you should use your blocks, teleports, dodges and flurry – and I agree. The best way would be to gain distance and let him burn his initiative (a thief with no initiative is a dead thief).

Second: a full shatter combo with 6-7 shatters about the same damage in the same amount of time. He was probably full zerker, which means a one trick pony. He either kill you in two seconds or he’ll die if you as much as sneeze on him.

Third: crying about damage. I’ve seen a warrior crit for over 30k in one hit. That’s three times a thieves health pool…

My best advice for you is to duel thieves in your guild. Adjust your build to counter them and they’ll run like small school girls when they figure out that they can’t kill you. My Mesmer build is glassy but tons of mobility. I laugh when I duel a thief

WereDragon.6083:

I never realized how truly amazing this ability was, with the recent revealed change I wanted to pull just a tiny bit of stealth off my build. After looking around for a bit someone made an interesting point about withdraw so I decided to give it a try.

For defensive mobility it’s amazing, a free dodge roll that triggers vigor from the acro trait line.

It breaks the things that kill us, being locked down.

Can be used twice in the time it takes for Hide in Shadows. meaning more overall healing.

and the best part NO CAST TIME…

Honestly I guess you really gotta get out there and play with some of the abilities you don’t often use, but after a 15 minute straight fight with me vs an ele and a thief I was sold, it saved me AT LEAST 8 times that fight.

I fell in love with this skill a few months ago, and holy kitten it’s amazing! Removes your cripple, chilled and immobilize as well as it’s a dodge and a heal – with no cast time! Other heals are often getting interrupted, but this cant be, it just happens.

My experience while using Withdraw is that you have to pay even more attention to your environments (in the beginning I threw myself off cliffs all the time, just to die…) and therefore have more control of the battlefield. Top it off with some Vigor upon healing (Vigorous Recovery) and you’ll have 8 seconds of Vigor every 15 seconds (or more if you have +boon duration), which means almost infinite evades.

Low cool-down. No cast time. Removes crippled, chilled and immobilized. Decent heal.

What is there not to like about this skill?

The tier 3 Asuran cultural armor was what settled it for me. Along with animations and the race in general. I now have 3 lvl 80 Asura, and they’re just hilarious!

But if you want to surprise people, go for a Charr Mesmer. A pink charr with butterfly effects on it. Rolling on floor ^^,

stof.9341:

You say “Just stealth again” as if it was initiative free. At this point, I’m usually kind of low of that precious resource.

After the usual CnD → Steal → Backstab combo you should have at least 6 initiative left. This means another try without any penalty. I’d much rather have three seconds even if I fail to attack than 4 seconds after I attack.