Guild Wars 2

Redscope.6215:

This thread should be stickied and locked at the top of the forums. Specifically to let all other players who glance at the thief forums see that most thief players don’t understand how powerful stealth is against human beings.

Mobs re-aquire and know exactly where you are in stealth. They just stop hitting you until its over. Stealth does nothing to confuse mobs. To people, on the other hand, it’s very powerful.

The only reason this thread exists is because thief players don’t understand that. And they probably never will. They’ll just continue to whine as the balance patches roll in. As they have been ever since release.

If you guys want to flame me for pointing out facts, go ahead. I’m happily awaiting the next patch.

I will agree with you that in some respects the thief is currently out of line with all other classes except perhaps the mesmer. but stealth isn’t part of it. stealth isn’t the be all and end all its being made out to be. it is very very very easy to fight thieves in stealth. the reason i know this is that I don’t use a lot of stealth in my playstyle and come up against thieves a lot. you just need to bring some aoe and make a logical prediction of where they will go. Shadow refuge should act as a giant aoe bullseye to you, if one dissapears infront of you just keep mashing the buttons, believe me a lot of your attacks will continue to track. utilise channeled abilities and minions against thieves and listen/look for the visual and audio cue for stealth breaking to time dodges, and other damage mitigation abilities.

Imperator totius Sylvari.9164:

Daendur.2357:

A couple of days ago I was roaming and I found a lonely person. I engaged and killed him (stomped). A few seconds after that, another one came and started to fight me. I went to stealth and he immediately turned off and he started to ress his mate. O_O
He basically said “please backstab me!” and of course I did it.
So yes, some players are less smart than AI.

This. The amount of times people start ressing when they see a thief stealth is too kitten high!

agreed I love a good res party as well for cluster bomb spam. they just keep ressing priceless.

probably a mesmer, but its down to my spec, I know its weakness are mesmers but it works so well against everyone else It doesn’t give me too much reason to care.

as for back stab glass cannon thieves. shortbow, aoe on your feet as they go into stealth, wait and then see the backstab thief on the ground when he comes out of stealth again. you can also use signet of shadow for an instant blind that you can use whilst cc’d. there is a visual and audio cue to backstab or it might be mug but when you see it and hear it just dodge and it normally negates all damage.

I play a thief but not a stealth orientated one, this effects everyone.

thieves kind of get it in the neck as we are a fairly powerful class at the moment and have the tools that take advantage of the technical issues “culling”.

There isn’t much the thieves can do about it. As i’ve said before I don’t run a d/d stealth backstab spec. I generally run in a group and there are normally 10-20 of us taking on larger numbers of 40+ we are on the bad end of culling a lot, we’ve had to adapt and it has really paid off. simple steps like stopping and backing off to let people load in or using aoe and damage numbers to sight your opponents works well. Stealth thieves emerging to hit you also have an audio cue which you can use to dodge by.

Its not ideal but its not thieves its just the culling issue.

When I roam solo I look for 3v1-5v1 matchups I like fighting groups solo and with thieves in their current state we can really catch people unawares and pull off big scalps. I agree with you on mesmers, my current build doesn’t suit fighting them at all.

Also solo I’ll take supply camps and try and hold them, maybe setup a ballista. also a good thief can hold a keep solo against 10 players for quite a while potentially even wipe them if they aren’t well organised.

in a group, heavy aoe bombing and some group buffing. I always carry shadow refuge its just too useful not to have it even when solo there is always a chance for a res on a firendly or an aoe stomp.

I don’t run a stealth spec as I usually run with my guild and find it limiting and not very group focused. we are also excellent at wiping out enemy siege be it on the walls or in the field. I’ve recently been using shadowstep more for this particularly for taking out catapults, ballistas and trebs

I still like short bow across the board. you can maintain very high consistent dps for a long time on the short bow and have access to a better range of utility from it as well. even against a single target you can rattle off numbers that are similar to a D/D spec

AOE, and that goes for any culled enemy sight people by the damage numbers.

as for thieves in general stealth there are animation and sound markers when they are about to unload on you look out for them and either dodge or mitigate at this point, you’ll soon find that backstab thieves aren’t so difficult after all.

BabelFish.7234:

Kyus.3812:

I play my thief heavily in WvW and dagger storm is very very very very overpowered when compared too pretty much every other elite in the game. The duration of it needs to be shortened.

I really only play a thief main and that is it. but the thief forum has a responsibility to not just out right lie about the strength of our class. The only other class that can currently touch a good thief is a Mesmer. Dagger storm particularly in WvW is part of this and does need to be reduced down to a more balanced level.

When you see someone using dagger storm you know what you do?
You 1) stop shooting them and 2) run up and kill them.

If they did something crazy like Malice+Haste+Dagger Storm get another thief o rip stability off of them and then root them in place and GANK them…you don’t go kitten you’re doing mass damage and healing, lets run into them so they get even more heal and damage!". That’s akin to running up in a invulnerable boss, using your elite and complaining that they don’t take any damage…

I stand by my comment above the skill should have a duration reduced from maybe 8 to 6 seconds. I personally have no problem with other thieves using dagger storm

Yes you can nullify dagger storm fairly easily in a small group scenario, but when it comes down to the core strengths of the skill you are enabling a thief a crippling, aoe with missile reflection and a method of moving unencumbered by any kind of control for 8 seconds. just the ability to get stability and immunity to projectiles for 8 seconds to our class that can use that time to recover other essential cooldowns leads us into a position where we are more powerful than most other classes.

In large group pvp the ability causes an unbelievable amount of damage, this is largely the missile reflection part of it. my guild see it as one of our bread and butter methods of taking down vastly superior numbers and it would negate some of our presents tactics should it be reduced slightly in effectiveness. but the fact that I find it useful now shouldn’t change the fact that a small reduction in its duration would go a long way in bringing it in-line with other elites.

there are also plenty of skills we can link with dagger storm to get away from the perils of being targeted by melee during it such as shadowstep, signet of shadow.

the simple fact is that you can mitigate it yes but you can mitigate every other classes elites in numerous ways and that doesn’t mean ours when used effectively should be so far beyond every other elite in the game.

In regards too not balancing on WvW, we have more than one elite, there are always other options to use in sPvP and PVE and I can’t see why a 2 second duration reduction to dagger storm would have a dramatic effect overall.

I play my thief heavily in WvW and dagger storm is very very very very overpowered when compared too pretty much every other elite in the game. The duration of it needs to be shortened.

I really only play a thief main and that is it. but the thief forum has a responsibility to not just out right lie about the strength of our class. The only other class that can currently touch a good thief is a Mesmer. Dagger storm particularly in WvW is part of this and does need to be reduced down to a more balanced level.

Korgov.7645:

Kyus.3812:

jayderyu.3751:

Korgov the problem with your post is that Team C isn’t insomniacs staying up late. It’s people on another part of the planet where the time for them is 6pm to 11pm. ie their primetime hours. Tha’ts not night. unfrotunatly you are a nightcapper as you are taking their hard earned primetime work.

his suggestion isn’t taking there prime time since it would work for any low population hour all he is saying is have a more aggressive rogue npc system that will allow enemies that are neutral to capture camps if left unattended. it would be active for 24 hours a day so it would be in place for everyone. his point is to prevent a map with no one in it constantly ticking points.

i don’t think it will work as a solution but its an idea.

You nailed the point exactly, Kyus.

I was hoping some discussion why it would not work. So far only 2 people who got the point but do not feel it is a good solution for some unrevealed reason.

my opinion on why it won’t work is two fold.

1) the issue is general imbalance over a 24 hour period there is a “day squad” as well as a prime time squad and a night squad. (or american asain european gamers whatever you want to call it). So the NPC’s will always have someone willing to counter them its not like the zones stay totally empty.

the issue in low pop hours is the zones are designed for their player caps. when the cap is reduced whoever has more players gets free reign on capturing stuff. only when the caps on all servers are full is there a true sense of competition.

2) people don’t like getting too much pve into their pvp. if you had an npc faction then this would be an issue for a lot of pvp’ers (not me personally but it would come up). also the current npc guards are controlled by the server that completes their DE. so the more populated server would have these NPC’s too under the current situation.

I don’t think its a silly idea, I just think that it doesn’t address the heart of the problem which is exponential increase in scores from total map control during low pop hours (a point which you agree with). I believe the problem to address is the actual method of accumulating a score. I made a lengthy post earlier about it but no one even replied so I’m clearly a crazed idiot for thinking the problem is in the scoring mechanic :-) .

still it is an interesting idea all the same even if I don’t agree.

what class are you?

jayderyu.3751:

Korgov the problem with your post is that Team C isn’t insomniacs staying up late. It’s people on another part of the planet where the time for them is 6pm to 11pm. ie their primetime hours. Tha’ts not night. unfrotunatly you are a nightcapper as you are taking their hard earned primetime work.

his suggestion isn’t taking there prime time since it would work for any low population hour all he is saying is have a more aggressive rogue npc system that will allow enemies that are neutral to capture camps if left unattended. it would be active for 24 hours a day so it would be in place for everyone. his point is to prevent a map with no one in it constantly ticking points.

i don’t think it will work as a solution but its an idea.

Korgov.7645:

Kyus.3812:

Korgov.7645:

Houdii.2563:

Why would you wanna limit WvW to certain time periods a day really?

I have not proposed limiting anyone’s play time in any way. No-one else mentioned that either in this thread. You pulled that into discussion out of nowhere.

it removes the ability to score points for anyone playing during 1/3 of a day. this isn’t the solution. the solution is normalising score over 3 daily time periods to a smaller ammount for winning during each period rather than the accumulated totals for holding keeps.

You are drawing a wrong conclusion.

Eliminating daytime (or late off peak hours or the 3rd time zone) players’ ability to gain score for their team is not what it is about. They have equal opportunity to gain score for their team as anyone else.

I misread your original statement, no idea how I drew that conclusion I am with you now.

unfortunately I think you’ll find there is a day squad on servers too its not a case of nothing changing hands or being guarded for 8 hours during the day and much of the initial burst in huge scores happen over the weekend. but yeh npcs’s that do contribute more would be great.

Korgov.7645:

Houdii.2563:

Why would you wanna limit WvW to certain time periods a day really?

I have not proposed limiting anyone’s play time in any way. No-one else mentioned that either in this thread. You pulled that into discussion out of nowhere.

it removes the ability to score points for anyone playing during 1/3 of a day. this isn’t the solution. the solution is normalising score over 3 daily time periods to a smaller ammount for winning during each period rather than the accumulated totals for holding keeps.

Asquared.4091:

@Tulisin
I know that stealth does not make them invulnerable, but with weapons that have no or limited aoe ability, like the shortbow, its near impossible to hit what you can’t see. The only option I have which I have been using, is when I see a thief getting towards low health, I swap to my warhorn and put the birds on them.

Again, this is just my opinion, but the point of the thief is high burst damage, right? So if I am able to survive a couple assaults from stealth where they take a ton of my health, I should be able to kill them. It should be a high-risk, high-reward class. Right now, it has possibly the lowest risk in the game, at least in WvW.

I play a thief and I would agree with that we are pretty over powered certainly above the intended curve right now. The thieves that defend this go pure glass and don’t put up with the negative side to their burst potential.

One thing that isn’t true though is the ability to hit us in stealth. The difference between good and bad players for me is their ability to accurately hit me when I stealthed. the bad players just stop when I stealth the good ones get up in my face where i was swinging around shooting single target using any aoe’s they have like poison volley on your shortbow.

saying that I would agree we shouldn’t stop capture in stealth.

I think you have an issue with the 20 people unable to aoe down an invisible thief.. we had this yesterday it took us about 40 seconds to find and eliminate him with about 20 people.

The thing that interests me most on this post isn’t the stuff they are working on.

your top 4 points are what I think Arena Net need to comment on very soon.

"

• What are your plans and time frames to rectify the current server imbalance issues? In specific, how do you plan to combat transfers to a winning server? How do you plan to combat time-zone disparities between server populations and the group tendency for players to cluster based on their timezone, i.e. Sea of Sorrows and their Oceanic coverage? More importantly, when do you plan to implement these changes?
• Do you have any plans to modify the current scoring system? If so, what are you considering? Are these considerations attempts to mitigate the problems caused by population disparities?
• Do you have any plans to change Orb bonuses or the outmanned buff? If so, what are you considering?
• Why is the commander icon based on gold? One of the biggest problems in our community are “Credit Card Commanders” that bought the pretty icon, don’t join our voice comms, and then mislead the zerg. Do you have any plans to change these requirements?"

There are a lot of continued posts about night capping and foreign recruited guilds . This thread whilst linked to these is not a thread that points at these aspects as a problem.

Current WvW Scoring Situation
The current method of scoring, of a continuous tick for held objectives is a functional system when the maps are full. During a time of population imbalance the maps become too open during lower population hours which allows a side with a superior population to always progress and capture more objectives.

The problem with this is that with a continuous score tick the points that are accrued during hours of a lower population, rend the scores achieved during periods of full map population redundant.

Rules for a Revised Scoring System

• The system must be equal for every server at all times to accrued score
• The system must not scale based on population online to breed defending by not defending and reduce the effective possibility to score points for any player at different play times
• The system must be supportive of current ingame mechanics such as server bonuses for accrued score
• The system must respect all time zones equally and any time of play
• The system must not lock out any players for any reason and allow a map to be filled completely to the current map capacities in place by arena net (no population locks for low population hours)

A Possible Solutions

Normalise the Scoring System

Normalising the scoring system involves using the current point tick system but having a secondary bigger tick at larger intervals that awards single win points for the server with the most points scored.

So during a day there would be three 8 hour tick points, these ticks would result as a win 3 second 2 and last place 1 point scored for your server (or 2,1,0). The win is awarded based on scores accumulated during that time interval, the possession of keeps towers and camps is not reset at the end of the time interval so that even if you are losing, you have reason to compete still to make sure your next interval starts with more in your possession. It also breeds smaller competitions during specific hours of play where you can chase a win on a particular day even though you may lose the week.

The overall win for the week matchup is decided based on the bigger tick scores, by having a smaller total points available per day it is not possible to have lost the matchup in the opening weekend. with smaller points the potential for a draw is there, this could be incorporated into the match up as there is nothing wrong with a draw or any draw could be decided based on total capture points accrued over the week.

The benefits of this system is that it does not allow a server to amount an insurmountable lead on the first weekend of the change over. It also allows national bank holidays to play a smaller part in match ups and equalises points scored during different hours of play.

The above is a solution I offer, I would like to have a discussion based around the scoring model that obeys the rules I have put in place so that we can address the disparities during different time zone match ups which will lead to a more dynamic WvW ladder and hopefully better suited matchups.

Please add your own solutions that obey the rules posted above in this thread and I will hopefully update this and add to it with the good well thought out ones. keep it civil and respectful. thanks for reading

OP is right in one respect,
the scoring system is to blame, that is it.

Whilst the solution isn’t correct this is what needs to be solved.

The one rule that any new scoring system needs to obey is everyone is equal (no matter the hours that they play).

at present prime time gamers are not equal to that of night teams because the maps are designed to be played at capacity. with a continuous scoring tick those playing at night using a dedicated team in 8 hours can completely irradicate anything done in the previous 16 hours rendering most gamers contribution pointless.

In the current matchup we are playing in, I won’t mention what server but basically we are coming in fighting and winning early in prime time, and the opposition guilds instantly leave. we then wander around fighting the respectable people on that specific server and eventually with little competition we have to log out. I have stayed on longer recently and have realised that those guilds that logged earlier in the day come back on as soon as they know our main alliance has logged off.

yesterday we continued to play later than intended and when they logged back on we destroyed them once again and they simply either logged off or switched borderlands. These guilds make up a large proportion of players on the server at fault and they are actively avoiding fights to win the match up, this has been observed over an entire week consistently and frankly if they want to win like this then so be it but they are just deceitful cowards who are ruining the nature of open world pvp. (I think this is my first forum rant ever)

Devildoc.6721:

Buzzcrave.6197:

Auesis.7301:

Buzzcrave.6197:

A spec which teleports to you from 900 away, stealths itself then kills you in less than 2 seconds is just not good game design whether there are counters or not.

So by your logic, even with ways to counter it, it’s still bad? Right. You see, now, because the DPS is more spread across the combo, you have a bigger window to retaliate. As soon as you get hit, you have every opportunity to hit any AoE, CC or bunker skills you have. A glass cannon backstab Thief will be instantly destroyed by any CC. Learn your class. This is coming from a Thief that specs in survivability and snaring. If I can beat a glass cannon Thief without stealth and with my pitiful HP, you can too.

Buzzcrave.6197:

Please, please don’t start fooling yourself by telling me how about those 1500 nukers… You have a kittening Sidestep skill in your phony backstab build for kitten sake.

D/D has no evade skills apart from Death Blossom, which wastes your initiative in seconds. Critical Strikes and Deadly Arts have no dodge enhancements. The only tree with dodging benefit is Acrobatics, a vitality tree with no relation to a backstab build. Your only hope is to run backwards and spam Disabling Shot with a Shortbow, and that will get you nowhere because you do pathetic damage and just make yourself an eyesore of a target.

What the kitten are you talking about?

Sidestep as in utility skill, it doesn’t take a genius to know that Sidestep is a must. Seriously do you even play this game?

There is no sidestep skill. Roll for initiative is bad if you meant that.

roll for iniative is awesome! but no idea what he meant by sidestep… flanking strike?

its a good post but lets leave the technical aspects and known exploits at the door and focus the attention on the overall game mechanics of WvW and the issues relating to mismatching (server transfers, scoring system that is biased to off peak times, commander improvements etc)

Volrath.1473:

my shorbow with quickness (proc or Time Warp, don’t use Haste) and AS melts ppl pretty bad

I think me and you are doing something very very similar Volrath.. but i tend to not use haste as without it it melts them and that way I get another utility :-)

The traps need more uses or be of an aoe nature, single activation kills most of the traps as against a single opponent they are easy to avoid, against larger numbers a single use isn’t worth the spot on the bar.

@Dual,

I understand your making purely a mathematical point.

but the way I look at it I see my cluster bombs now doing more sustained high damage too. plus before if you missed with attack 1 you gained nothing at least this way if someone dodges you still get something out of it :-). I am pulling rough numbers I see my cluster bombs do from around 4k to a maximum of 9k so six is a wvw average.

9000 + 6000 +6000 +6000 +6000 = 33,000

6900 + 6900 + 6900 + 6900 + 6900 = 34,500

agreed I’d love to see the target tracking improved if it was I’d definately run a sword dagger spec more often.

Daevara.9038:

@Kyus: Unfortunately the thief class in generally doesn’t lend itself very well to long sustained fights. We are just to squishy to jump in the fray and stay there for very long. The exception probably is a condition damage build, which can heavily invest in toughness/vit without sacrificing much damage.
The whole stealth mechanics lend themselves to jump towards an enemy, try to do as much damage as possible and jump back out.

But yes, when fighting enemy zergs in WvW shortbow is king. At the moment there really is no excuse not to use it as a secondary weapon.

I personally use shortbow in melee 1v1 I can doll out on a glass target successive 7-9k hits 1 second apart that hit in an aoe around me meaning that i don’t have to worry about melee range missing. I have two escape skills the best blast finisher in the game. I gain an immobilise and can use shadow refuge for a ranged leeching heal.

I don’t need to worry about being squishy with the correct dodging and utilities I simply don’t get hit much. against glass thieves I kill them in two hits as soon as I see them dissapear i spam aoe on myself which generally kills them, combined with 1 dodge in between which normally i time right to dodge the mug/backstab.

but the great thing is in a 1v3 1 v 5 or the other day a 1v9 the build is brilliant. and people see you with a shortbow and don’t suspect you to steal into there face and hit them 3 times in a row for anywhere between 4-9k per hit.

it offers the best return inniative:damage than any other weapon over a long period of time.

I’m quite passionate about this because the thief forum is dull with the DD… backstab mug… assassins signet…

I love seeing other thieves playing differently against me or on my side. I appreciate a lot of this forum comes from sPvP thieves and respect its a different playstyle but 1v1 dagger:dagger in WvW isn’t that progressive or useful in the long run so I’d love people to try something different.

I could go on but in short shortbow melee range is surprisingly effective

short bow or bust, not enough people use short bow as a predominant weapon, it screams to be used in WvW exclusively! shortbow is brilliant from ranged or in melee range, also it catches people out that your not one of the clone backstab d/d thiefs.

still props to the sword dagger guys i see its nice meeting an opponent in WvW who has some originality.

a WvW build should be built to fight large ammounts of enemies and sustain damage across a long fight. D/D is a ganking build that frankly against good opponents isn’t even that great.

I’m considering running two shortbows with bloodlust on one and a when switched to signet on another trust me its that good!

I run a shortbow build and the mesmer is my bogie class for sure. in fact no other class or build of a class is an issue in the slightest except for mesmers.

I find that yes backing in and out profits but making use of my shortbows imobilise from stealth is the key to victory, imboilise steal in, burst then back the hell out for a bit and stop attacking. problem is a good mesmer can regain health quickly…. I don’t normally run with much condition removal as I get most of it from roll for iniative and heal.

I think I’ve resigned to the fact that mesmers against my build and playstyle are tough to take down but since none of the other classes are a problem at all (mostly based on the fact that we are bordering on ridiculously overpowered) I actually look forward to fighting mesmers. I do however draw the line to fighting them underwater as they can basically kite you forever if they have an ounce of common sense.

/salute after a good fight or after someone who was pretty ill equipped to make a stand but did so anyway.

nothing else is necessary actually told a guy the other day to quit the /laugh as it was bad form..

Definately we are a ton stronger, I don’t D/D and with my current setup its freaking awesome!

This is a massive buff, simple reason is that for those backstabbbing the damage over 5 attacks is the same, sure you can’t kill someone in 3 but in 5 you deal the same damage additional damage so it really isn’t that bad and was neccessary.

now for the ton of other people that role a different spec this is great news it offers a utility skill that is now more versatile and even has led to me using a spec that is frankly capable of dumping the same kind of dps as a backstab spec just as quickly but for a longer sustained period.

Red Falcon.8257:

Have you guys been at home sick when they were teaching basic math in school?

Base damage = Mug 2k -> CnD 2k -> BS 10k.
With pre-nerf AS = Mug 2k -> CnD 2k -> BS 15k = 19k
With post-nerf AS = Mug 2.15k -> CnD 2.15k, ->BS 11k = 16k

It’s a 3k nerf to a burst we can only do when steal is up (every 45/40s).

Not to mention most classes can easily counter this.
Ele = Arcane Shield / Final shielding block backstab -> burst down to 6k.
Grd = Passive Aegis / Protection -> burst down to 6k.
War = Endure Pain / Defy Pain -> burst down to 4.5k.
Rng = SoStone / Guard me -> burst down to 4.5k.
Mes = Decoy -> burst down to 5k.
Eng = Protection / Invis -> burst down to 5k.
Thf = Shadowsteap -> Burst down to 5k.
Nec = olololol I got 12 health pools who cares
Everyone = dodge

Too bad for you baddies that Anet isn’t Blizzard.
They do math properly before fixing skills, and they don’t nerf things when every single class can counter them.

this only applies to one way of playing the thief, now you have a less effective backstab build which is frankly a good thing, as it was bordering on boringly kitten before, and you now have a skill that can be utilised by other playstyles.

there are other ways of playing that are now much more deadly than a backstab spec though so we are in a lot of ways vastly more OP once people start experimenting.

I loved this change, it has unfortunately left us at the ridiculously over powered stage! assassins signet is now viable for other specs this has been a brilliant change.

I’ve never played a backstab spec… frankly I always found D/D to be a bit of a one trick pony so its nice to have a skill available to other specs, it is ridiculous with Shortbow now.

Haralin.1473:

play tournament with your guild?

or play guild sized tournaments with other guilds frankly that sounds a ton more fun! can’t wait for it to be included

or you could take one of the various side exits to the local supply camps?

remember the maps are designed to profit those who’s home borderland it is so proximity to keeps at the far end of the map are heavily biased to the home server.

you can also switch to your home borderland that is basically impossible to spawn camp.

I did like the theatricals though .

DaysOfNIght.5928:

The title of the game doesn’t refer to player guild vs guild

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars

OP has a point, it would be nice to have a look at whats on the horizon for more guild vs guild sized conflicts. it was a large part of the original guild wars. I don’t know if i’d want a guild vs guild setting in structured or in a setting with pve characters (not boosted, equal). tough call

Well done to the tactical guys at that supply camp, its nice seeing some other people stacking up and using synergy to bring the beat down to the opposition. There are too many people who think that running around with an equal number of randoms all spread out with builds that don’t assist one another properly should be entitled to free kills.

some guilds need to wise up you can’t just let your members run whatever spec possible and profit.

I personally don’t play a backstab spec,

and as to singularities comment, he’s doing the sensible thing instead of wining he’s asking thieves for feedback on what he seems an impossible situation.

I don’t play a backstab build I don’t even equip daggers in WvW. the simple reason is that 1v1 we are an OP class with a specific build and utility skills that can insta kill a lot of targets.

I have played against thieves that use this, I normally win as well, one of the key elements of this is fighting against them when they are in stealth. constantly moving and aoeing at your own location is the best form of defence, you’d be surprised how glass these guys are. Since I am a thief I simply cluster bomb at my feet, I obviously have the luxury of stealthing as well to simply counter there stealth. One other important element is when you see one vanish, dodge! they might be mugging on steal. Also look for little black puffs of smoke that indicate stealth abut to break.

In short though, yeah against this build in some situations there isn’t a lot you can do. If you dodge, avoid or negate the first attack (I use signet of shadow which allows me to blind when imbolised and shadowshot which also allows me to blind on my current location) then the thief isn’t much use and will likely skulk off. If anyone tells you this requires skill, it doesn’t its a really really easy build to setup and utilise. I did so during beta.

I will say that on the whole this backstab insta kill build is relatively useless in WvW in the grand shceme of things, it is an issue in Spvp but I don’t play that much. In WvW as a thief I prefer my shortbow but I run with a dedicated guild with a specific role.

OP try and sort through my ramblings. I’d suggest a grenade build instant quick burst aoe. these glass thieves often don’t take many blinds with them and they drop so so so fast. hope you found this constructive as I think the engi kicks kitten and isn’t a free kill like a ranger.

Balance bro! /15char

You can not lock people out of a part of the game due to opposition inactivity.

To achieve what the OP wants their are much easier simpler and community friendly steps.

1) Announce a date that server transfers will start cost from and announce the lock out of WvW timer for said transfers.

2) Begin work redesigning the scoring system to equally reflect narrow victories in comparison to land slides, to make full population play and low population play times equal in point scoring.

3) continue working (as they are already) on the invisible opposition bug.

4) reward support roles more in WvW

You will never make this fair, but arena net can address those 4 issues and as a result provide open world pvp, where you can login for any ammount of time contribute and have fun.

If someone wants to recruit a super server and play 24/7 they have a greater chance of winning but I would argue they deserve to but it certainly isn’t my style.

despite the invisible opposition WvW is a blast, I have no idea what everyone else wants from it.

It seems that people are too worried about the score. Ignore that ticking counter its a load of rubbish anyway, look at what keeps you have when your guild goes into the lake. look at what you have when you guys leave and smile to yourself at having had a fun night.

Night capping is not a problem.

The scoring system is the problem the community needs to take some responsibility and think before they post.

At present more points are accumulated off peak as the maps are designed to function at full capacity. when the capacity is lowered a side with a numbers advantage can physically take objectives faster with no chance of defending.

A server that plays 24/7 deserves to play 24/7 irregardless of their reasoning. What has to change is the fact that the scoring system benefits the landsliding capping over night to a degree that the points scored when at full server capacity are irrelevant.

What I don’t mean by this is population based scoring as you should not be able to defend by not defending. Instead the scoring system needs to be reduced to stop huge continual ticking of scores and to make the difference in objectives captured less of a factor.

our main source of survivability is from increased ability to dodge, stealth, or blinds.

all of these are total damage avoidance techniques. Toughness on a thief is a safety net, if you do everything right you shouldn’t take much damage anyway. If you want to survive Vitality is a better choice, but the class does suit being glass cannon more so than any other.

definately fair game :-) I don’t play a stealth build. realistically though with a fair few people just some aoe spamming should be enough to locate them and take them down.

The problem with this thread and pretty much every post in it is the need to start the post of your opinions with the perspective its coming from SPvP or WvW

backstab nerf is not a big deal to WvW players but to structured its a massive topic of conversation.

Same again with dagger storm which is lethal in WvW but in SPvP it functions with a nice damage to cool down ratio and the additional utility of being unstoppable.

My only concern with the thief nerfs is haste and also quickness in the game in general. longer fights are better fights. Whilst glass cannon specs have their place quickness and potent quickness skills like haste do contribute to the dumbing down of combat to a certain degree.

As for backstab crits, you can do a lot to get these really high numbers but you sacrifice so much for it. I don’t play enough SPvP to comment indepth about it but their is a sacrifice from the thief to be able to do this and speaking from my WvW experience the backstab build is fairly easy to counter.

you’d be surprised how effective burst aoe popping in and out of the postern door is. so many people aoe and fight from the battlement but against only 25 people as few kitten people could effectively successfully defend a keep. If the opponents are an orgasnised guild though then yeah you’ll struggle. siege is your best bet.

try quickly nipping out and dropping some aoe close quarters and getting back inside to heal up, fighting on the walls invites a lot of unwanted attention but popping in and out of the door can reward a much more devestating and surprising outcome.

Whilst I completely agree with you the element that is missing off of the WvW posts regarding “night capping” (hate that term) and WvW Scores, Winning etc; is that the current scoring system is inadequate for a 24 hour matchup style of gameplay. It is far too easy to make competitive fighting redundant by encouraging and recruiting members for wvw in less populated hours.

I couldn’t care less about that number tick at the top of the screen from a personal note, but it would be nice to have a scoring system that is more reflective of what is actually going on when the fighting is at its thickest.

I feel absolutely no need for 1200 range on my thief, with the range of stealth ,shadowstep and speed increase traits, utilities and weaponskills. a 1200 range instaed of 900 would just feel way to overpowered.

They are disabled in WvW.

If yours is working it is a bug.

There is a good chance you have picked up regeneration from some other source

Arena net need to change the scoring to something, that builds more regular close run competitions. whilst a week overall winner is great it would be nice to win a time period and get points based on that rather than a constant tick. that way you can take some pride in winning during the interval you play without having to worry about the downtime.