Guild Wars 2

Columba.9730:

The problem with your position is that the evidence is against you. both the videos splashed all over these forums, and our personal experience refute your assertion that permastealth while dealing damage is impossible. I agree that on paper it’s impossible, but in reality it happens all the time. I suppose bridging culling with stealth allows it. I think this is the crux of the issue. Theory says this shouldnt be possible, yet we all experience permastealth + damage from thieves all the time. If anet prevents this, I think the arguments would reduce.

Revealed mechanics, google it. How come i kill allmost every single thief i fight ? If he dont get chicken kitten and runs away. Yes u can target even if hes culled, yes there is black smoke animation everytime he leaves stealth (not culled state), yes you can damage him even if hes stealthed/culled. And yes im a thief myself. Get over it.

Columba.9730:

Well, this post and the videos posted are evidence that permastealth happens. someone even posted a video with how to permastealth in the title. So I respecfully disagree.

Disagree with what lol ? I said there is no such thing as perma stealth while doing damage, hello revealed mechanics and im right. All other is culling.

Columba.9730:

so if spamming it’s so useless, why are people arguing against preventing the ability to spam it?

Becouse it would lose its function as mobility tool. They might remove its damage alltogether and it wouldnt hurt thieves that know what they do, only HS spammers like urself would die out.

ComeAndSee.1356:

The problem I see with Heartseeker more has to do with the difficulties in regards to actually being able to Backstab players in PvP.

When I cloak and dagger people (even with 50% run speed in stealth) I find it very hard to get behind people and land a backstab because they either dodge roll, they just out run me, or I get cc’d or some crap.

Heartseeker is just so efficient because it moves you to your target.

And then you run out of initiative and die. Good game.

How many times do you need to be told ? There is no such thing as perma stealth combined with damage. There is culling that makes entire zergs ( including thiefs) invisible.

Kravick.4906:

Maugetarr.6823:

Necros need a buff, like more grab/control skills. Right now they seem to have a lack of build diversity. Eles can down more than 1 person easily. Guardians may not be able to kill people in a 1 v 3, but add in a teammate and they provide more than enough support to really turn the tide on a 2v3 or a 2v4.

We’re talking about one person soloing multiple people here, which should never happen unless you’re fighting a bunch of up leveled players. Adding a teammate changes things significantly and is not what we’re discussing.

A bunker ele does not down people “easily”. It requires effort on their part. Bunker builds lack damage output.

Only do max damage after a person is below 10%? That’s just ridiculous. So an average person with 20k health at 10% would have 2,000 health. So your saying heartseekers max damage should never really exceed 2k based on a 20k health pool.

Can’t put a cooldown on a wep ability for thieves, we go off initiative. One or the other, not both.

If someone lets a thief heartseeker them to death then they should die.

Is it spammable? Yes
Is it a cheap way to fight? Yes
Is it avoidable? Yes
Can it be evaded? Yes
Can you stun, immobilize, CC? Probably Yes

I disagree with all of these points. The balancing is seriously out of whack with this class. I don’t say this as someone who fights against thieves. I say this AS a thief. I should not be able to do what we can do against multiple foes. There is a reason so many people are complaining about us.

Heartseeker was designed to be a sort of execute skill. Everyone should be familiar with what Execute did in the game that should not be mentioned. Imagine if that skill worked at 25% instead of 10%. Now imagine it being spammable. Now also imagine that every time you used it, it automatically jumped you next to your target regardless of positioning. Now imagine that ability in the hands of that games thief class. Now imagine the outcry. Would be a lot like it is in this game, don’t you think?

Heartseeker is just way to easy to spam to victory with. I’ve done it. You’ve done it. Denying it doesn’t change the fact its so ridiculously effective. It needs its damaged toned down or a cool down added. As it is right now, its OP as all hell. It simply does to much. Especially for a paltry 3 initiative.

Strangelly I have never been able to spam my way to victory with heartseeker. Teach me 222222 master. Thief w/o initiative and out of stealth for too long = dead thief, every good thief will tell u that. As for heartseeker damage – no good thief depends on it and no good player will die to it in a fair fight, if u do u are simply bad. HS works as intended – as a gap closer and execution tool when target drops rly low ( 25 %), if you allow yourself to let yourself to waste that 3 initiative, even then backstab is a better choise. Every single of hasted HS spamming thief is a joke and a newbie that copy/pasted their gameplay from youtube.

Well the allmighty heartseeker tends to miss if enemy isnt standing still. And when it comes to auto attack, you should never relly on “auto” part and allways spam it yourself.

Daecollo.9578:

Karolis.4261:

I dont see any reason why it should work with off hand skills and why would you want that.

Why wouldn’t it?

Why would it ? Im pretty sure that such traits are intended to work for mainhand skills + nr3 skills if mainhand is involved in action.

I dont see any reason why it should work with off hand skills and why would you want that.

Ok news flash for all the “skillseekers”. There is no such thing as 33 % hp marker in “skillseeker” description. That about sums up this fail QQ. Oh and I have never ever been killed by a HS spam, Im probablly doing smth wrong then

PopeUrban.2578:

Karolis.4261:

Stiv.1820:

SB has a huge edge for get away because it will port you while rooted/crippled.. and if you get stunned after it fires off it will still port you. Downside is they emeny can see the swirls of the shadowstep if you are doing it in stealth (if they know), with HS they can only hear your first couple.

Well the real downside of Infiltrators arrow is that it breakes stealth.

It actually doesn’t break stealth. This is a well known bug, but although you’ll appear on your client, and those of your allies, to have broken stealth, you’re actually still stealthed. This has been tested multiple times.

Basically, try the following:

Stealth
IA
Check out your buffs, you’ll see you’re still stealthed.

Heck, IA next to some mobs and watch as they completely ignore you.

Additionally, it you wait, you’ll see another “bamf” when stealth wears off for real.

As best as I can figure it, the “bamf” effect is coded in such a way that the effect itself alters the way the model is rendered to the player/allies, and some designer somewhere took a shortcut and reused the same “bamf” effects script for IA as was already present with stealth.

This bug is as old as release, and confusing to new thieves. Really wish they’d fix that.

Well ill be kitten I do know the issue with any shadowstep screwing up stealth animation, but for some reason i was sure that IA was actually breaking stealth ( that knowledge comes from newbie times, i dont use IA at all for escaping now, HS or CnD on random targets does the job and im still have full acess to stealth w/o 10 s cooldown). Oh well, just another rock to my garden.

Stiv.1820:

SB has a huge edge for get away because it will port you while rooted/crippled.. and if you get stunned after it fires off it will still port you. Downside is they emeny can see the swirls of the shadowstep if you are doing it in stealth (if they know), with HS they can only hear your first couple.

Well the real downside of Infiltrators arrow is that it breakes stealth.

jwburks.9735:

I feel the OP. My biggest backstab in all berserker’s gear is 4,000. On a crit.

You should read the skill desription then. Couse you are face stabbing.

jwburks.9735:

Yeah that signature comes from an ex-Anet employee’s comments, and they were speaking of upper management there. Seems to still be the case, actually.

Ahem . . . well anyway, thanks for the advice. I guess I’ll go learn how to play now. :-P

P.S. Karolis, you told another guy in another thread that this is caused by culling. Here, you say it’s because I’m noob. kitten?

I never said you’re a noob, you just said it yourself :P. I just said that you are not aware of how some thief and game elements work. And yes this is ofc coused by culling, but you can actually see when thief goes out from stealth ( black smoke) and he becomes targetable even if hes still invisible ( same as his 20 friends that just jupmed form portal )

Rayya.2591:

i don’t use it:
-condition removal
-deception reuse 20%
-blind on stealth
- steal stealth
that trait got serious competition

Allmost permanent CnD spam wins it all imo, at least for my playstyle ( siting inside a zerg that is sieging stuff and killing them 1 by 1 and making ground wet from rage tears )

jwburks.9735:

They were random people I found running around out in the mists, LOL. And learning my class won’t help me fight what I can’t see.

Well learning game might help you fighting what you cant see. There is no possible way for thief to gun down 6 competetant players who dont run around in panick. Learning thief class might help as well. Like it was stated 875456 times, u can hit what u cant see and dont have target off. And in case of a thief, those blind hits hurt him A LOT.

Dee Jay.2460:

Yeah, I’ve been reaching the same conclusion.

Infusion of Shadows allows you to practically disregard Initiative management assuming you actually hit your Cloak and Daggers. Without it you need other forms of Initiative replenishment in order to be able to use it consistently.

While playing Pistol/Dagger with 15 Initiative I could get by without Infusion of Shadows. But missing a Cloak and Dagger was painful.

The thing with Infusion of Shadows is however that it forces you to pick between either “Blind on Stealth” or “Condition Removal in Stealth”, both of which are really, really valuable.

Yea … the “blind on stealth” or “Condi removal on stealth” issue is making me cry sometimes. I just cant afford losing Infusion of Shadows or healing in stealth… Most of the time I end up running “Blind on stealth” and change it to condi removal only if i rly need it, like facing DB thief for example.

Maugetarr.6823:

Do you know what weapon set they were using? A 0/15/30/25/0 D/P thief has reliable access to stealth that doesn’t depend on the enemy.

I believe in www offhand dagger is way better then d/p for overall performance. manouvering inside zerg with D/P might be tricky and will suck out all of ur initiative eventually, no matter the traits. And in www there are plenty targets to CnD on.

Well u see, there is the difference between you playing thief and that guy that killed you and 5 other guys. He knows his kitten, u and your 5 friends obviously dont (no offence intended). There are few of builds that can do this, but they have one thing in common – 30 in shadow arts.

Lol this is awesome. “I killed 3 thiefs solo, but what they OP”.

Happens a lot at walls/gates in www. The bomb simply disapears , but the triger skill is still ready.

GZ for not geting HS happy. But music hurt my ears((

I run same combination of gear and 0/30/30/10/0 build. IF u will get jumped by basilisk GC thief or 100b warrior you will die if you dont use shadowstep or you’re a clicker. Other than that i find such combination of gear and traits ( if u pick right ones and if u play it right, since this isnt typical gc " I blow all my ini and im fked" build) very survivable for a thief.

Pentalic.5409:

Karolis.4261:

Pentalic.5409:

I’ve always been one to stand by the “Play your own way” motto. Hence, I play with:
W: move forward
A: Strafe left
S: Move back
D: Strafe right
Q: Turn camera left
E: Turn camera right

I usually use the mouse to turn the camera, but dungeons and PvE content sometimes makes me go keyboard crazy

And you lose Q and E buttons which could ( and should) be used for skills/utilities.

I have a friend who plays SOLELY with the keyboard and he is one of the best Guardians I’ve met, so I don’t think any keys SHOULD be used for certain things. I also know of many people using the keyboard number pad for their weapon skills and they switch back and forth between the mouse and keyboard very fast.

Wasd or any other combination + skill keybinds around it + mouse turning is simply faster. Noone can deny it.

Selcaro.2584:

Lately I have been trying something a bit less conventional but instead of unbinding just Q and E, I have also unbound my S (Backwards) Button(s). The reasoning for this is moving backwards only hinders your character and strafing to the side + turning 90 degrees will always be faster. It takes a little getting used to but in the end I think it is a fast setup.

So as follows:
S – Move Forward
A – Strafe Left
D – Strafe Right

I have been running this setup for about 2-3 weeks now and find myself getting very used to it and I am able to engage targets a lot easier. It helps keep a mindset to always face in to the target while engaging and turning around when you actually have to get out. Then obviously I turn with right mouse button.

Well… while in WoW backpedaling was a huge NO NO, in gw2 its even nessesary in some situations.

Pentalic.5409:

I’ve always been one to stand by the “Play your own way” motto. Hence, I play with:
W: move forward
A: Strafe left
S: Move back
D: Strafe right
Q: Turn camera left
E: Turn camera right

I usually use the mouse to turn the camera, but dungeons and PvE content sometimes makes me go keyboard crazy

And you lose Q and E buttons which could ( and should) be used for skills/utilities.

W – forward
S – backward
Q and E unbind.
A- strafe left
D – strafe right.
All the turning and looking around done with mouse and wasd combination. U rly shouldnt push A and D to turn your character around

Thief op, thief noob, nurf thief 2222222.

This thief wasnt p/p, u have no idea what are u talking about. He was p/d. Welcome to gw2 and its culling.

Yes after last patch that kitten happens even in non zerg situation. Many times I bump into single players that were invisible.

transtemporal.2158:

I’m glad I’m not the only one. Movement is ok but skills are “queueing” up then activating all at once 30sec-1min later. What the hell is going on?

Movement would look ok even if you were allready disconected form server.

Ressurection speed should not be increased by ammount of ppl ressing someone, that would fix things up a bit.

okay … why all the keybinds if u still click most of the time … ?

How about leveling up and stop qqing? Sounds like legit option to me.

frans.8092:

Karolis.4261:

Ofc MY workaround works perfectlly. You can keep dots on it 24/7 by mixing caltrops with spider venom.

The duration is not enough for the cooldown, so 24/7 is not going to happen, but it should go long ways, mixed in with some weapon dot here and there.

You dont do single challange 24/7.
btw spider venom – 30s poison on 45 s cooldown, caltrops 14 s on 30 s coldown, looks like perfect 24/7 to me.

Well that what happens when every zerglovingbandvagoner transfers to top tier servers.

Incurafy.6329:

Karolis.4261:

Incurafy.6329:

Karolis.4261:

OK I didnt read this to the end, but you allso didnt think at all about this problem you have with mobs reseting. When u stealth, mob resets becouse there is noone around to kill and noone is killing him, why shouldnt he then ? Drop some caltrops or use spider venom to keep dots ticking when u stealthed. So yes its working as fking intended. Mobs reset when there is noone to fight with.

Lofat.2406:

Just keep damage going. Bleeds, poisons, etc… The minute there isn’t anyone targeted and they aren’t taking any damage, they reset. An easy way to do that is to switch to SB while your in stealth and drop a poison (#4) on them. You will stay in stealth, they will keep taking damage, and they won’t reset.

Just because there’s a workaround for it doesn’t mean that it’s not an issue that should just be addressed… seriously… I’m really getting tired of seeing these kinds of replies.

To the OP: I’ve never seen this myself (and played a Thief for 450+ hours), have you noticed it on multiple champs or just the Lich?

No theres no issue. And why wouldnt you want to use these “workarounds” if it adds additional dps to boss ?

No, you’re wrong, there is an issue if the OP is correct and if that’s the case then it needs to be addressed.

As for your “question”, someone who is using a Power/Crit build isn’t likely to bring near-useless venom utilities for some minor damage increase/stun on a long cooldown or Caltrops for an AoE bleed + cripple when their bleeds aren’t going to tick for much damage at all.

Statements like yours are just plain ignorant, and I’m sorry if you think otherwise, but being required to do something that you shouldn’t in order to get around what is a potentially unintended/bugged mechanic isn’t a legitimate solution.

And thats exactly what i did when leveling my thief with power/crit gear, I took some DoT utilities before engaging skill challanges. Its not so hard to swap utilities on the go. Speaking of caltrops its a huge damage, no matter 50 damage ticks or 100.
And what stun do you speak about… ? Dont answer this…

Why would u want to use it on pve ?

Rogues?
Message Body length must at least be 15.

Columba.9730:

kazi.6438:

Columba.9730:

well, 900 heal, 1800 tough, 2800 armor here, and I still die to thieves in a few seconds without ever seeing them. I dodge within 2 seconds of them stealthing, i use aoes, I have my pets protect me, I constantly move, I don’t knowingly expose my back to them. all to no avail.

easy to say it’s a l2p issue if you are a thief.

I play engineer and mesmer. Engineer is arguably the weakest class in WvW, and yet I kill thieves reliably. Playing mesmer is a complete glass-cannon roflstomp. Honestly, best solution against thieves is having stunbreaks and a “panic-button” skill that either completely disables them or makes you invulnerable somehow.

It honestly amazes me how many people don’t bring stunbreak skills to WvW. A 1 to 2 second stun is usually enough of an opening to completely destroy someone with your nastiest skills.

Also, level 80 characters with decent (rare or better) equipment and a good build will walk all over seriously upleveled (level-70 or below) characters. It’s an unfortunate fact of WvW. No way around it given the current game mechanics.

plenty of panic buttons, all level 80 exotics. 2 stun breakers. thanks though.

Well then in this case your kungfu sucks.

Incurafy.6329:

Karolis.4261:

OK I didnt read this to the end, but you allso didnt think at all about this problem you have with mobs reseting. When u stealth, mob resets becouse there is noone around to kill and noone is killing him, why shouldnt he then ? Drop some caltrops or use spider venom to keep dots ticking when u stealthed. So yes its working as fking intended. Mobs reset when there is noone to fight with.

Lofat.2406:

Just keep damage going. Bleeds, poisons, etc… The minute there isn’t anyone targeted and they aren’t taking any damage, they reset. An easy way to do that is to switch to SB while your in stealth and drop a poison (#4) on them. You will stay in stealth, they will keep taking damage, and they won’t reset.

Just because there’s a workaround for it doesn’t mean that it’s not an issue that should just be addressed… seriously… I’m really getting tired of seeing these kinds of replies.

To the OP: I’ve never seen this myself (and played a Thief for 450+ hours), have you noticed it on multiple champs or just the Lich?

No theres no issue. And why wouldnt you want to use these “workarounds” if it adds additional dps to boss ?

frans.8092:

None of the workarounds these actually work, weaponswap is on a 10 second cooldown. caltrops even longer. Mobs should simply not reset in 2 seconds, timer could easily be set to 5 or even 10 seconds.

Ofc MY workaround works perfectlly. You can keep dots on it 24/7 by mixing caltrops with spider venom.

OK I didnt read this to the end, but you allso didnt think at all about this problem you have with mobs reseting. When u stealth, mob resets becouse there is noone around to kill and noone is killing him, why shouldnt he then ? Drop some caltrops or use spider venom to keep dots ticking when u stealthed. So yes its working as fking intended. Mobs reset when there is noone to fight with.

LionZero.3479:

That last example is wrong using shadowstep after refuge goes down will break stealth again. so you don’t have 10s stealth after you use a step.

What does work is using shadowstep dropping refuge then porting back after refuge goes down that doesn’t break stealth, the other example does.

Now how the hell would shadowstep break stealth in any of your given example ?
You sit in refuge for 4 seconds, stack up stealth, house drops and you can step all over the place.

TNoD.8143:

The problem is that they “lock-on”. Stealth shouldn’t interrupt but they should keep shotting/chanelling where you were last seen.

I don’t see why using STEALTH, allows a ranger to keep shooting in my direction x10. Defeats the purpose of stealth.

I’ll ask you this. Do you have any problems fighting Longbow ranger BECOUSE of this “omgthisisbrokengamemechanics” ? Well I dont. Stealth is OK even if chanelled abilities follow you.

Slazarian CZE.9874:

Cannons:
Lol for your sarcasm. Its obvious what is the solution BUT what is the point to have an option to JOIN A PARTY MEMBER in PVP with this issue.

The point is to fight on one side. And there is no issue here.

Piteous.4165:

How do you know he left if he is using stealth?

Most ppl are not aware that they play in map full orf random mobs nad critters, that can be used to roam stealthed effectivelly.

SilverWF.4789:

Snoxx.7943:

And btw, in any other game, stealth has a movement speed penalty

Wow, really? What game?

He is refering to wow. Well wow 10 years back, becouse now rogues in wow have speed increased during stealth by A LOT. Nerfing s[peed in stealth makes no sence at all, makes backstabs and tactical strikes impossible to land and just contributes to Basilisk+Cnd+mug+bs+hshshshshshs playstyle.

Xenth.2408:

Nice vids and editing. I watched the last 5 you uploaded.

Thief has been my main for a long time but I like glass cannon for PVE/Dungeons. I’m only up to around 4k kills in wvw so not super experienced compared to a lot.

I’m working on an alt thief now. I got sick of either being squishy in wvw or having to deal with trait/equipment changes. I may try a build like yours. I can see having a high crit chance from gear isn’t as important as long as you have 100% crit chance from stealth for backstabs. The valk armor is actually great for your playstyle.

Whether I go this type of build or a condition build, I definitely won’t go squishy build. I’d rather not be a one hit wonder GC – take out one or two people then run for your life screaming for momma…

If they ever fix culling you’re going to have a harder time against the numbers you were sticking around to fight, but I’m sure you’ll adapt.

Honestly thats not a big drop in crit chance. By swapping your zerker armor to valkyrie you drop to 40 % crit chance w/o food from 50-55 %. You still crit a lot. And with the right foods you can buff your crit chance back to zerker levels.

Why using class mechanics is called abusing of something lol ? And speaking in spvp…just turn all the chat off lol. Every time I use HS to close gap or finish someone when they at 25% and fleeing like little kittens i see this “222222” . Good thing i dont play spvp much. Strangelly, few nights back i have created S/D full bunker bunker thief and i got flamed couse of beeing too slippery and lame by an actual 25/30/0/0/15 2222222 spamming thief and a gc warrior who had bad time speaking english o,o