Guild Wars 2

Mrbig.8019:

I know magic toker plays S/P and does fine with it, but in EU nobody plays it for a reason ( i would say usually thieves here reroll, shad is the most glaring example, unless playing acro thief).

I play S/P since january, and I’m EU tPvP player. Don’t generalize too much.

Ye I know who Caed is, but when I checked I got to a guy called silvermember. Hence the confusion cause he was opting for a thief nerf :P

Cynz.9437:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Cynz.9437:

this post was made by one of the best thieves out there
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Backstab-1/page/2#post3235603

Isn’t that guy an elementalist? …

Caed? no

Your link goes to a guy called silvermember for me

Agreed, what is this source of information? I can’t find any leaked patched notes..

Cynz.9437:

this post was made by one of the best thieves out there
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Backstab-1/page/2#post3235603

Isn’t that guy an elementalist? …

Actually combat damage do appear. Just open a log with only combat information and you’ll see them pop up when you’re hitting

Aza.2105:

Thief would not be losing their stealth mechanic, it would remain the way it is now. With the exception that more classes have the options (via traits or utilities) to bring thief out stealth. The only thing that changes is that the thief player would have be more aware and cautious of when and how they use stealth. Meaning you would have to adjust your tactics accordingly.

I can’t stress enough how counterplay is needed to keep the competitive scene healthy.

Right now, in any match where the thief is forced to stay and continue the fight, having hard counters to stealth against any stealth-heavy builds (heck, even to my own build that is a low-stealth build) will be a major hindrance. Introducing a hard counter that isn’t preventive without compensating it, will be a major nerf to those builds.

I’m not asking for “no counterplay”, I’m asking for a fitting compensation to keep the thief competitive. We already don’t have a lot of place in PvP (real pvp, not hotjoin griefers) because of us dying so fast when trying to protect a node while being bombed. Just like how killing a mesmer clones is a “tactic”, their destruction still give you conditions. Being able to remove stealth should be used with care and not just because you didn’t like him being stealthed.

1) Your second list isn’t preventing though, it’s primarily wasting or overpowering. You don’t prevent protection by doing more damage, that’s compensating
2) Stability is a prevention then, not a counter
3) Prevention is superior to a counter, at least for stealth.
Besides all that, I admit my fault and that what I said are more prevention than countering

More on to the topic
Giving us reveal is going to hurt thieves a lot. Although it’s not our only survival mechanic, it is tied with survival. We don’t have anything that reduces damage on us. No boons, no blocks. All our surviving revolves around 1 thing: Avoiding damage. Blinding, dodging, shadowstepping out of range. Stealth helps with this since it lowers the chances you’ll hit correct. But unlike other classes, if we ARE hit, we are hit with full damage. This is the big trade-off we have for our mechanic. We die if we’re caught.

Hard counters will have to be compensated though: Higher vigor, lower cooldown on shadowstep are the ones that are more mechanic based, otherwise we’ll need things like protection boons that lower the damage we get or more condi clearing since the biggest condi clear we have is stealth based. Preventive tips that I gave are just a matter of skills and thus don’t need compensation from arenanet.

The only “counter” I’ve read up to now that I can agree with, is corrupting boons but it has some intrinsic problems. If the enemy only has 1 boon (in case of thief, we hardly ever have more than 2 boons) it’ll be so easy to rip their stealth from them. I mean AoE targetting a place to rip boons is very easy if you know how stealthed ppl usually work around. I for example hit a stealthed target 8 out of 10 times with c&d (thief stealth skill on dagger offhand) which has a very very small range both in length and width. This has to be compensated.

One compensation I can think of immedaitely right now would be to change Last refuge (a trait most thieves don’t like or at least don’t care for since it’s a minor) to give boon on LEAVING stealth. So even if we lose our stealth, we at least have something to get instead.

Thief’s stealthing abilities and hard counters:
Utilities:
-Hide in Shadows (healing) —> Big blue effect that shouts: Interrupt me (just like any other healing besides instant casts like withdraw, engi’s turret, …)
-Blinding powder —> /
-Smokescreen + finisher —> Interrupt the leap or stand near it so the blast hits you, or just interrupt him
-Shadow trap (triggered) —> If you see him place it, avoid the location
-Shadow refuge —> Push, pull, fear, knockback (If he had reveal already, stack another 4s reveal with sic’em)

Weaponskills
Cloak and Dagger —> blind, block, aegis, interrupt, dodge
Blackpowder + finisher —> Interrupt, push, pull, knockback, knockdown
Steal when traited —> Honestly not sure if stealth triggers if the steal is negated … Anyone?

Traits and runes:
Stealth below 25% —> /
Stealth below 10% —> /
(Remember, chances are they are fighting you, and this trait actually gives them REVEAL instead of STEALTH)

PS: Sic’em is a HC for all of them, I didn’t put it every where though

Byron, look in here
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/arenanet-tracker/forum/2204-thief/
I haven’t found anything close to what you just said. I did find a dev stating that he didn’t had any trouble fighting a thief in PvP on his ranger.

Could you give me the source of that information then? Same with the source that you had about arenanet saying that no decent thief can be beaten?

I never said everyone is bad. Where in the wall of text did I say that? I said that everyone can beat a thief if they play their cards right. If you post even one question on how to beat a thief in the class specific forums, you’ll have tons of people giving you advice with a few certain people just whining about how godlike they are because they can’t beat them.

Easiest way to do it on a thief is to start using Pistol Whip on the location of the reviver. Mostly stealth ends with both of them downed (mostly one dead)

LordByron.8369:

Reading what you wrote you confirmed most of my points ._.

A thief dies only if he wants to….

No, it confirms that a thief only survives when he uses shadow refuge and shadowstep together. Which means he only has 1 utility to play with during our fight if he wants to assure his survival. So he’s disadvantaged and mostly likely won’t win. Decent thieves I play against use those skills offensively and don’t run with it. Cause then they’ll have to run every time and hope no one attacks them 10 seconds after cause both skill are still on 40s cd

Sounds like withdraw + 30 in shadowarts to me. High stealthing with shadow rejuvenation?

LordByron.8369:

as said because even anet said you can t kill a good thief.
its quite like winning the lottery…

even if you play thief yourself.

If he is good he will just stealth run in a random directoin before his HP runs out…and with your same mobility there is no way for you to catch him unles syou guess the random direction….that has nothing to do with skill.

1) In duels ppl don’t run, cause it’s forfait. In fights like those, thieves are beatable without counting the time since they last used their utility. Awareness of how much time you have once they used an utility is of essence though in open roaming
2) I play thief myself, I know how to catch up on a running thief in open romaing. Unless they used shadow refuge to flee they only have max 4s stealth or 7 if they burn two utilities at the same time. It’s possible to guess their starting movement and catch up. If they do use shadow refuge you’ll have to be able to guess their location inside it and burst that place. For example with a venom build: once I see the action of shadow refuge I cast basilisk venom. I hit where I guess the thief is (mostly outer edges, close to you instead of far) and immediately cast devourer’s venom (instant cast) and hit that place. This immobilizes him for 10 seconds. Throw in some condi to prevent the immob to be cleansed on stealth and you have enough time to hit him ‘till he dies.
3) If he burns shadowstep now to avoid the damage, he’ll be down to 1 utility while I still have 2 utilities. He can’t re-engage battle now anymore (even after leaving combat) because he’s disadvantaged. Mostly ppl used up shadowstep BEFORE using shadow refuge so this isn’t a problem.

You shouldn’t assume that NO ONE can beat a decent thief.

LordByron.8369:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

LordByron.8369:

the distance is not an issue..
Everything over 20 seconds for cd instead prevent ele from stay in fight range with his target….making D/D uneffective at chasing enemies… (expecially with stability etc).

I strongly disagree that stealht instead needs buffs….at least for www its alread equals to being immortal…
When was the last time you managed to KILL a decent thief?

Ppl want the nerf on stealth in pvp reverted back to 3s instead of 4s …
Also, last time I killed a decent thief was 10h ago before I went to bed? :P

You didn t in www….
I don t play pvp but i can see why there stealth is less of a problem…smaller maps and capture the point are the reason.

As said some thieves even put some vit and toughness just to stand in the front of enmy spawns and troll dozens of people in www….

Why do you think I didn’t in WvW? Did you stalk me the whole time?

LordByron.8369:

the distance is not an issue..
Everything over 20 seconds for cd instead prevent ele from stay in fight range with his target….making D/D uneffective at chasing enemies… (expecially with stability etc).

I strongly disagree that stealht instead needs buffs….at least for www its alread equals to being immortal…
When was the last time you managed to KILL a decent thief?

Ppl want the nerf on stealth in pvp reverted back to 3s instead of 4s …
Also, last time I killed a decent thief was 10h ago before I went to bed? :P

All the daze/stuns are centered in one setup. The other setups have acces to some daze, but it’s a weak attack so not used often. Permastealth is also centered in one setup.

That one fear is on a 26-35s cooldown and requires him to hit you with steal (can be dodged, blinded, blocked). It has a long cast time that can be interrupted which makes us lose the skill (we have to wait ’till cooldown is over, and re-steal it).

In a dungeon you’re with a team.
When you have D/D you can just use C&D to lose agro a bit and run behind the boss to backstab him.

Nornbearpig and Zhonnika, read the original post that quotes Devon Carter:
“…meaning that all NA blue worlds will fight side-by-side with each other on the blue Edge of the Mists team.”

You will always be in the same team your guild is.

7s reveal is a lot, also add an ICD that is equally long as the reveal. Otherwise we could either stack boons to infinity or stack reveal to infinity.

S/P tactics I use in TPvP
When I attack someone on a node alone (far invade) and I know from previous encounters that he’s glassy I start with: Basilisk venom, Shadowstep, infiltrator’s signet, infilator’s strike. 2 aa and then I’d start switching between PW and aa with occasional dodge. When they open up with stability I’d stop using PW since AA does more damage and doesn’t root me. [Enter random situation here: See below]

Once they drop below 50% health I’d switch to my second set: D/D with sigil of hydromancy. This causes a 1-2k damage with chill effect for 3 seconds. I suspect my enemy to dodge mostly, so I wait 1s (aa) and then c&d him to set up the backstab. Depending on the aoe’s on the floor I’d engage with backstab or use this time to recast basilisk venom. When he’s downed I’d AA ’till I actually hit him, c&d and stealth stomp.

If the enemy at start would’ve used a CC, ShS is still up, so I’d use it to stunbreak and return back in fight with a PW-Steal combo. It seems weird that I’d use a skill that ports me far away from the node, but if this is entirely in the beginning of the match, you’ll have enough time to get back in without them winning it. If the CC is used later in the fight, I’d use RFI and again pw-steal combo. Depending on what I get I’d use it immediately or wait. Example: Hambow, warrior changes to bow? I use his whirlwind axe. Necromancer’s fear I’d use immediately to fear my opponent of node and then take the fight to him outside the node. Fear doesn’t last long enough for me to capture the node, and there’s a big chance that he’ll start chainfearing me once he returns, which makes him capture the node. So I fight him outside the node, even if he starts fearing me, he still has to run back to the node. This buys some time.

Extra enemies show up. This is usual a disadvantage and I’d use PW more often now for the evade while damaging. If I know someone is coming to support the node neutralisation I’d stay on node and troll it in my downed state, otherwise I’ll try to escape with c&d.

(PS: This is assuming I invaded far which I mostly don’t .. but sometimes ppl in my team ask me to do it so that’s basically my tactic in a nutshell, might edit if I can think of more scenarios or someone ask a specific one)

^just imagine a group of 5 thieves perma evading inside an enemy keep… it’s even worse than perma stealth cause you actually see them this time.

ens.9854:

Dahkeus.8243:

The meta is so funny…almost nothing changes to make S/P better, but suddenly, everyone thinks it’s awesome now.

But pwhip just got massively buffed and is spammable now?

I’ve gotten some hilarious 1shot pwhip kills with 25/30/0/0/15 and passive assassin signet, so that’s a thing other builds can’t really do.

It’s too bad haste sucks now

PW didn’t get much buff really, it got a slight unnerf and a small buff which imo still makes current PW inferior to the original PW (or even the one prior to stunpatch)

NinjaEd.3946:

Watch out, next body shot is going to be nerfed because it has too many effects. .

I made a build that just “spammed” body shot (occasional the switch to auto with devourer’s venom or other skills for surviving while regenerating init). It sucked big time in duels, but god the laughs I had for immobilizing someone while my
team butchered him I think that if the current meta would shift to P/D and P/P, that skill will actually get nerfed while the rest of the weapon setup is still useless.

Looks to me like the common P/D trolling build.. High stealth and conditions if you actually stick around to fight him.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Bountiful Theft on its own doesn’t prioritize any boons except the last ones the opponent popped, but combined with Sleight of Hand, it produces the anomaly that Stability is the first to go so that it dazes the opponent at all costs.

Bountiful theft always prioritizes stabilit rip. Even with Sleight of hand it will rip off stability. I used to run 20 in trickery and do PW-steal combo which was a guaranteed stability rip. I’ve been doing this since february already.

Oh god SP became meta? I no longer feel unique ..
Anyway, I run D/D second set and infiltrator runes. Sigil of hydromancy can easily crit 2-3k on swap once enemy is below 50%, this also gives you acces to the backstab with +30% dmg (below 50% health).
S/P to wear ppl down to 50% and then suddenly change to a very heavy burst usually kills anyone that isn’t a bunker in 1v1. A bunker dies fast too once below the 50% but getting him there is a bit harder.

Utilities are Infiltrator’s signet, RFI and ShS
Withdraw and basilisk

Cynz.9437:

last days i found new abomination to add to the list of ai crap:
venom share thief using devourer venom + thief guild + ambush trap and yes, venom share includes pets and yes all pets stack immob on you… xD

Thieves guild is on a 180s cd though, and only lasts 30s. So it’s over in 1 fight, and then they’ll be out of serious combat for 2 more minutes. I tried this myself back before the new healing skill update. It’s far better to bring basilisk venom to the game, and share that with your allies.

Imo there should be only a cap on defensive aoes and not on offensive. If a group is outnumbered, the “extra” damage they RECEIVE will be nothing compared to the extra damage they GIVE.
If defensive aoe’s (water fields) didn’t cap either, the bigger group can just outheal them ofcourse. With a cap on only 1 type of aoe’s, it’ll be a lot more dangerous to blob up too much, but in certain circumstances still a viable tactic (hides the amount of players you have for example)

^For people unaware of how a thief gets their damage, notice him running 4 signets. He has to use all of them before attacking the enemy to get this kind of damage. This means that if you just survived that burst (dodge, block, blind) you have a thief with 0 utilities and no elite and no healing ability.
This also means that in a 2v1, he can only take down one using surprise tactic if all 3 are equally skilled.

Just for education purposes

Not sure if this is true, but maybe because the mace has a faster swinging time? Don’t test it against other weapons, test it against the same weapon. Also test it on both charr and non-charr players.

I main charr and never had this issue before.

I’d like to defend Sanduskel, I really think he wants to bring us thieves to a better/balanced level. I mean look at this post I found from him!
Also, don’t pay any attention to the fact that sanduskel and burnfall are right beneath each other. Isn’t interesting at all

Point 1) Why recruit after invader/assaulter: Invaders and assaulters aren’t “in” an army, but after showing they prowess they are invited to the army.
Point 2) Just think there are 4 armies in WvW, the normal, bronze, silver and golden army. The higher coloured army only recruits from the very best of the army colour just below them.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Thunderbrew.7034:

When will the days of “I lost to a class, I better post a nerf in the forums”
ever go away?

The flipside of your idea is “what could you have done different?”

You do a lot of assuming. lol. I’ve let go of my ele a few weeks ago and ive been playing thief nonstop. I’m destroying people …. ive got it up to 10s immob and it’s extreme cheese. It’s funny seeing engis and eles using their invuln for a pity 3s when the immob lasts 10s.

Pvp-perspective: After the first duel, ppl will know they just have to cleanse once the venom stacks are used. So long you don’t use the second stack, you can’t deal him damage. So to deal damage you are required to use both stacks (or all three if traited) at once.

As a thief, if you don’t run the other venoms, you have acces to only 3 damaging conditions: Bleeding, poison and torment. A devourer venom thief will probably need a hard hitting weapon, which leaves him poison and bleeding (dagger) or nothing (sword). The other conditions we thieves have are relatively hard to maintain on a target. So a simple condi cleanse that removes more than 1 condi, will remove all the immobilize you just put on.

The reason why I choose pvp over wvw perspective, is because the chance of facing the same enemy is a LOT bigger in pvp due to small map / limited enemies.

As an ele, if you can’t survive his damage in those 10 seconds, I’d recommend stopping him from dealing damage: Knockdown from earth/air, heavy aoe damage to make him have to abandon you. Oh and maybe even just use a condi clear. Just make sure you don’t get hit below 50%, if you’re unlucky and the enemy thief runs “panic strike” as grandmaster trait, he’ll put a new immob stack on you. And I don’t recommend waiting ‘till that immob is on you before cleansing cause you’ll be below 50% health, which isn’t something you want to be at against a thief … especially on dagger

Baldric.6781:

And even more people posting how to balance xD .
How many hints u need to understand that u will be ignored ? :P

Did you even read the OP? :P It’s a joke, not serious

I use leap finisher all the time when I see fields. Low skill dazing, healing, acces to stealth. But yeah, the fields are mostly placed down on an individual reasoning (static field to stun people, not to grant ability for allies to daze through them, or fire fields for burning instead of granting partywide might).
So the usage of the combo is mostly per accident. With the field being used for personal gain, while the finisher is used when allies just like to do it.

Mug should be instant-kill when the enemy doesn’t have any penny.

Just a funny fact (i’m not a S/D thief myself, but just noticed it)
This forum consensus: S/D thief needs to be nerfed more!
Thief forum consensus: No one plays S/D thief anymore cause it’s no longer viable

Something is not right here :P

Dirame, there are priorities. Bleeding is one of the top priorities I think? Not sure.
It’s the same for boon removal, some skills prioritize specific boons when removing

I actually read through all that. Please just type in normal English next time? It was really hard to not give up …

That said: CS: GO indeed has a good hot join system. However being a FPS, closed server system, it also works with ingame voice chat which helps pugs a lot. Even without actually knowing your team you can very easily set up tactics.

Euh.. My browser shows how many players there are in that specific game/which map it is unless I joined just when it changed map. Don’t know what you’re talking about at all sry.

Devourer’s venom, although venoms on their own are pretty weak, kitten immobilize can be devastating for someone who just blowed away their condi removal. Especially when it’s Xv1 or XvX. It opens a long window for target fire.

I used to run without either utilities for a while as well, but like mango above me said. You’ll need HiS to compensate the loss of condi removal. This is probably the biggest negative point for not running ShS.
SR on the other hand is imo a free to pick skill. In PvP setting it’s usually not worth it imo. While taking a node, it’s just wasted utility. In WvW/PvE it could have it’s place but for my current build not worth it and if you can see from distance that you need it, you can still just swap out.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Any backstab build should be running Hidden Killer

Not really necessary though. I agree on the rest being mostly randomly distributed, but when I ran D/D back in the time I didn’t run hidden killer at all.

I hope they never fix the bundle part honestly.. It’ll just divert the QQ to this trait, and it’ll be nerfed more than it was fixed prior…

It has a 20% chance to reset a certain set of skills (venoms, signets, blabla).

Burnfall.9573:

When you see threads like these; Thief desperately needs build diversity, How to make thieves “fair” in WvW, Building a better D/D thief, Collection of thief problems, it all make sense.

Only the first topic is a correct thread burnfall..
The second is a qq thread that in no way was meant to “improve thieves” but rather flat-out nerf them. And the third thread is just a guy theorycrafting a new build, which in no way accounts for a profession re-design.

I see you took the OP trait-build: 0/0/0/0/0 … I hope you don’t get us nerfed even more with this build!