Guild Wars 2

Ozx.5683:

As for the screenshot this is in heart of the mists with 0 healing gear. you can easily get around +200 with ascended gear. the regen is at 749hp a second 420329

What ascended gear is going to give me an increased 700 healing power, and also not be worthless otherwise? Because that’s what it would take to add +200 health to both those skills respectively (.1x(HP) for Shadow’s Rejuvenation, .18x(HP) for Shadow Refuge)…

Count ME in!

Into the void, necro or warrior fear anywhere near the refuge is pretty much a guaranteed counter to SR.

Ozx.5683:

Also shadow refuge does around 500 hp a second by it’s self. adding in the 300-400 hp a second from shadow’s rejuvination (400 with ascended + all stats jewelry) is easily around 1k hp a second

Shadow Refuge does 355 + 0.18 (healing power) which maxes out at 300, unless you like wasting stats. That equals ~400, and only if you go 30 points into Shadow Arts. And an extra ~400 again if you go 30 into SA. 800, call it an even split. Best case scenario.

Laika.8795:

Ozx.5683:

how is it a much greater risk? if you have the trait that heals while in stealth with shadow refuge your going to be getting around 1k hp healed a second and your only able to be hit by aoe damage for 3 seconds

It’s actually only ~600 health per second.

And it is a much greater risk, because it’s broadcasting your position. AOE + melee cleave can destroy a thief quite quickly, as people don’t seem to understand.

Sure, you can dodge in the circle, but there’s a good chance you could pop yourself out and go into revealed. It’s also a big red flag screaming “FEAR HERE” or “PULL HERE” and it’s a pretty common occurrence. You get sent out of your refuge, you’re as good as dead.

Ozx.5683:

Shadow Refuge is often on a 48 second cd and with two thieves can be done over and over again

I don’t know a single thief who runs this trait…

Ozx.5683:

how is it a much greater risk? if you have the trait that heals while in stealth with shadow refuge your going to be getting around 1k hp healed a second and your only able to be hit by aoe damage for 3 seconds

It’s actually only ~600 health per second.

And it is a much greater risk, because it’s broadcasting your position. AOE + melee cleave can destroy a thief quite quickly, as people don’t seem to understand.

Sure, you can dodge in the circle, but there’s a good chance you could pop yourself out and go into revealed. It’s also a big red flag screaming “FEAR HERE” or “PULL HERE” and it’s a pretty common occurrence. You get sent out of your refuge, you’re as good as dead.

Sebrent.3625:

@Laika: I do have a Thief alt that I play around on to see wtf it is people are doing and how “hard” or “easy” it is. The hardest playstyle for me to mirror was a good sword Thief who made use of the awesome mobility given by that weapon.

I can’t help but notice you completely ignoring the very simple math I showed where in those 4 seconds you can have stealth you are regenerating 3 of the 4 initiative it took you to C&D. It’s 4 initiative because I’ve been talking about Infusion of Shadow, not Patience. That doesn’t match up with you and other people’s claims that it’s “costly” to keep using Cloak and Dagger.

Yes, in a theoretical fight where you’re C&Ding a target that is too oblivious as to what’s happening to block/dodge, the thief can stay pretty much permanently stealthed, and that is primarily a culling issue and not a mechanic issue. All it takes is one miss to bring the thief to below 50% initiative, and it doesn’t take a degree in nuclear physics to understand the rhythmic pattern of the required attacks.

Either way, do me a favor and record a video of you effortlessly slaughtering people, or zerg surfing, or 2v1ing. Zerg surfing doesn’t need exotics, right? You’re god-mode invisible, nothing’s gonna happen to you.

Maugetarr.6823:

I hope the basilisk venom comment is a joke…..

Sadly, it’s not… He’s complaining about Thieves like he’s played one intimately. In reality, he’s pen and paper theorycrafting how OP we are. On paper it sounds a lot better than it really is…

Hell, he constantly references the trait Patience (1 init for every 3 seconds in stealth) like any thief has ever used it…

He’s like Columba’s english speaking brother.

Softspoken.2410:

Decoy also puts the mesmer into stealth. Functionally the two traits are remarkably similar.

I see. However, it seems it’s a T1 selected trait, whereas ours is forced upon us, with no way to opt out if you want to run Shadow Arts. If I could pick something over Last Refuge, I promise you I would.

Sebrent.3625:

Plenty of thieves use Shadow Refuge as just another quick stealth. There is no rule that says you have to stand in there. Furthermore, you can dodge roll around in it. Furthermore, I’m not talking about zerg vs zerg in all my examples. When I’m roaming, the fact that a zerg can chase a thief out of their refuge is not helpful.

Except that there is a rule that says you have to stand in there. That rule is: if you leave the circle, you are unstealthed and revealed for 3 seconds. You can dodge roll around in it, but should you accidentally pop out, you’re guaranteed dead. You can also get pulled out like, by a Mesmer, KB’d out by say a warrior… many other things too (CC’d inside to keep you from dodging) It’s an extremely risky proposition, but luckily it seems our enemies have a hard time realizing that in SR we don’t enter GODMODE REALM like Columba makes it out to be.

Sebrent.3625:

As far as Blinding Powder at 25% hp, that’s a corner case for that trait that people complain about. Many times it saves thieves butts. Mesmer has a similar trait that gives decoy at 25% so I’m aware of the issues.

I fail to see how gaining a decoy at 25% is a disadvantage for you, whereas blinding powder proccing as you C&D (or attack in general) puts you on revealed for 3 seconds and completely negates all mitigation you may have gained. I promise you, it is a curse more than it is a blessing a vast majority of the time.

Sebrent.3625:

It’s nowhere close to what a tanky build has. Simply stating numbers doesn’t mean a thing. That video shows that people are quite wrong when they say things like “Thief dies to a slight breeze” or “Thief can’t be both tough and do good damage”. The video shows both those types of statements to be wrong.

You’re right, it’s not a tanky build, but enough to mitigate damage. He’s selectively thinning the heard of weak targets, and the groups he is fighting are too stupid to understand how to counter him. If your teammate gets downed by a thief, rain aoe or autoattack over their body and it’s over. You rarely saw that in the video, and when you did, you also saw the thief run away and abandon the stomp.

Sebrent.3625:

You have admitted in other posts that clipping is an issue. It does make the Thief invis almost 100% in WvW if they so wish it. The abundance of NPCs, etc. that I’ve listed multiple times as well make it trivial as well to land a C&D.

There are so many videos that show thieves popping out of stealth for only a second and then restealthing. It isn’t “sensationalized”. It is something that there is a pile of video evidence for.

Yes, it’s also wasting 6 (4 w/ trait) initiative just to stay stealthed, procing it off things like random white con fauna that is not hurting you. Do you think it’s something you can do forever if you want to eventually engage your enemy?? Yes, you can get trolled by a thief C&D stacking on you. Gain distance and move on, or force him to engage at reduced initiative.

Eliyahu.1467:

I don’t see how “perma-stealth thieves can’t burst” is a cogent counterpoint. Lots of builds can’t burst — that doesn’t mean they can’t kill.

They can kill. They can also be killed. Fancy that.

Calae.1738:

On my Elementalist, you can see me coming because it`s a big glowing white ball charging at you. Further more, the updraft knock down is a clear visual indicator that I will switch to Fire, Burning Speed / Fire Grab you for 10k. You have plenty of time to use your stun breaker and avoid it.

Classes that front load thier damage without setup are badly designed.

I’ll be concede: I agree that much. I think Mug>C&D>BS is cheesy, and I wish mug was changed tbh, as it does way too much damage for a T1 trait. This is not how I play anyway, however, so it doesn’t really affect me…

Nevertheless, I’m just disputing the fact that it is unavoidable as I’ve done it several times because I have awareness of my surroundings, not to mention enough toughness to not get insta-gibbed…

Calae.1738:

That’s because you can anticipate it. That’s also assuming you can spot the Thief BEFORE he initiates the steal. If you’re both standing in front of each other like in the wild west waiting for the first guy to make a move; then I can understand your point.

If you don’t know where the Thief is and he has the jump on you; the combo will execute 99% of the time. Even if you survive the combo; I’d have already forced your defensive cooldowns placing me at an advantage. Now I can just roam around you like a predator in stealth and strike again when you least expect it.

I’ve been hit by thieves I was unaware of before, and still broke out. I actually find it MORE helpful when they use BV because I get a more telling visual cue as to what’s happening. It’s more tricky when it comes from behind because there’s no positioning required, but face it, EVERY burst build that takes you from behind is going to affect you in a similar way. It’s just something you have to deal with, and is not unique to thieves.

Furthermore, you may have wasted your defensive CD’s, but pretty much all of these burst builds don’t even HAVE defensive CD’s, so you’re on equal footing.

Sebrent, really, I don’t mind you, you seem like a rational guy (unlike some people in this thread, who remain nameless), but you’re accusing the thief of being easymode when it is abundantly obvious that you’ve never tried playing one before. Please, I implore you, roll one and check out WvW and you’ll realize it’s in no way as easy as you make it out to be. I dare you to play a thief without stealthing, or minimally stealthing, and see what that gets you, besides a one-way ticket to getting the hell out of Dodge.

Sebrent.3625:

Burst Thieves are able to kill a person within a second of initiating on them and without that person ever seeing the Thief’s avatar before being downed. This doesn’t happen to tanky builds, but it is an issue that people have to be tanky to avoid a situation where they are downed by someone before even seeing that someone. That’s not fun. If it was, give engineer back their normal mine kit, make mines invis, and let a 5 mine stack insta-gib people. We’ll see how “fun” that gets.

If you get caught not paying attention to your surroundings, that’s on you. Stupid burst happens on many classes, not just thief. You can react and avoid the BS, I’ve done so SEVERAL times before. It might require a little more reaction speed than some people seem to be capable, which is more of a l2p thing, which is why we see so much QQ. And for your Engie reference, you’ve apparently never seen a 100nades GC do their work. I PROMISE you their burst is 10x worse than a GC thief.

Sebrent.3625:

Stealth Thieves, as illustrated in the video I posted (and there are so many online, just look) is able to stealth so much that unless the player decides to fight with several abilities on cooldown (which they have a choice in), they are fine. In fact, they are able to hunt down people within a group. If the group wisens up, the Thief gets away. Other classes would die when the group wisens up. The thief merely has to bide their time or find a new target … and the Thief is fast enough that that isn’t a problem.

What you saw in that video is a group of randoms running around like chickens with their heads cut off. No communication, no cohesion, and clearly a lack of skill. Hell, he even got Moa’d and still managed to get away. F’ing ridiculous.

Sebrent.3625:

Thanks for highlighting this. You know what happens to non-thief classes when they get crowd controlled in a zerg? They die. The thief disengages and waits for a better chance.

Ok, this is just ludicrous. Apparently the thief is the only class that has means for escape. Sensationalizing your argument just makes it sound more desperate. As for disengaging and waiting for a better chance, anyone that escapes can also do that. You make it seem like they can stealth from miles away and just waltz back into the heart of the zerg. 4 seconds max on that stealth, and if the zerg is so unaware that they don’t notice his approach, they deserve it.

Sebrent.3625:

You’re not mentioning Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder nor the trait, Last Refuge, that gives you Blinding Powder when 25% hp. That’s a ton of stealth.

If you SR in a zerg, you’ll be downed in a second if anyone has ANY common sense, but you operate on a “everyone is minimally exceptional” protocol, I see. Furthermore, Last Refuge is more of a liability that it is a gift, you’ll see many thieves (including myself) wishing they could opt out of it’s effects. When you’re in a situation that your health is dropping to 25%, you’ll be desperately trying to land C&D. You’ll more often than not land that critical C&D when blinding powder procs, and thus enter revealed. Do some research, you’ll find just how unpopular that trait really is.

Sebrent.3625:

Watch the video. There are plenty of times he gets CC’d and takes quite a good number of hits and lives. There’s my evidence and he had ZERO +toughness on his gear, just a few pieces w/ Valk stats.

He had +300 in Shadow Arts trait line, and +100 from food. +400 toughness is nothing to sneeze at. So yeah, there’s my evidence you’re wrong.

Sebrent.3625:

As far as the advice to “blindly swing at the area you think the Thief is stealthed at” … how is that fun?! Against non-Thief classes, we get to see our opponent, react to each other’s skills, etc.. Against the Thief we have to guess that the thief was dumb enough not to dodge roll while stealthed and blindly swing? That’s “awesome” and it works if the thief is low on health and too dumb to take advantage of the dodge roll mechanics and their high movespeed. Dumb thieves are not the problem.

So what’s your excuse when you see us and fail to “react” to our C&D? This insane notion that we are invisible 100% of the time is going way too far, and you and Columba are sensationalizing a problem that is non-existent, other than a documented culling bug that is being addressed. Should you have that extra second, however, I promise you you’d still be crying, so it’s a moot point anyway. I feel like I’m arguing with a brick wall.

Calae.1738:

Jerks.3172:

No time to react? Since when did Steal CnD BS Combo time to execute become less than 1 second? it takes at least a good 2-3 seconds to execute and if you dont react after getting hit by the steal you shouldnt even be alive.

Wrong.

I have a Thief buddy. All you need are the venoms that stun or immoblize and you’re toast. We can argue all day about this. If you think 2 seconds of reaction time is enough, you’re delusional. That’s not even taking lag into account either.

I also have a thief buddy. Me.

And guess what? I avoid the backstab in a Mug>Immo>C&D>BS chain at least 80% of the time.

Guess that means it’s a l2p thing, huh?

Sebrent.3625:

The Burst Thief can down someone, cloak and dagger, and finish them and the finish is the longest part of that. They are stealthed the entire time except for a quick cloak and dagger so you see them for a split second if you’re already looking at that teammate.

Except the burst happens in stealth, putting them on a 3 second cooldown in which they are visible. So either they run around for 3 seconds and your team-mates are too dense to do anything, or they just attempt the stomp out of stealth and get squashed. That 3 seconds is plenty of time to KB, interrupt, dps down (11k health, very little armor, COME ON.) So no, I don’t buy it.

Sebrent.3625:

The Knight’s Thief does wonderful damage. Again, please see the plethora of videos on YouTube of Thieves wearing plenty of Toughness gear. You can actually survive the initial burst from these thieves, but they are quite tougher to kill thanks to the wonderful things traits give them while stealthed. So while they aren’t doing 10k backstabs, let’s say they do half, so 5k. Multiple 5k backstabs is more than enough to kill any class and the Thief is more than capable of inflicting multiple backstabs in a short amount of time thanks to the ease by which they can stealth.

You can survive the “initial burst” because there is no burst. If you let them stealth on you and get to your flank repeatedly, yes, they will keep backstabbing you. But 5k on a toughness build is maximum on a pretty glassy opponent, surprisingly like the one I can tell that you run… (Telling…) On a bunker build, you’d be lucky to get 3k, and that isn’t going to pan out in the end. Also, you over exaggerate the healing on stealth. It’s >400 every second, and every second you spend “healing” is gaining your opponent his CD’s while you’re blowing initiative. The constant stealth required for this attrition-style battle is extremely prohibitive (ESPECIALLY D/P which seems to be the new hot-button QQ) and if you take the effort to follow the rhythm and block that C&D or gain enough distance after they BP→HS into stealth, they’ve just wasted a huge chunk of their advantage.

Sebrent.3625:

Not everyone has the direct damage to get a Thief off a downed teammate by blindly auto-attacking with a melee weapon. Many of us can’t kill someone in under a second with our class and decent power the way a Thief can or are simply running condition builds. Furthermore, the really tough stealth thieves are using Knight’s armor which makes them quite capable of eating these attacks. Furthermore, the Thief is stealthed, hence healing from traits while downing the player and then able to escape after downing.

Pretty much everything you can do will hit us, as long as the ability launches. That is what people fail to understand! If we’re attempting to down something, just because you can’t target us doesn’t mean we’re not there! Melee and ranged abilities alike will hit us, and there’s nothing blind about it: you know exactly where we are! Right over your buddy, getting a stomp off. I agree that ranged classes are slightly at a loss in that category, but ranged has so many advantages otherwise I think it’s a legitimate trade-off and by no means should it dictate how stealth should play out.

Furthermore, you’re diverging a little. You talk about “not having the ability to down someone in under a second” and then go on to talk about “tough stealth thieves using knights armor” and “healing in stealth.” Well, which is it? If you lost to a toughness specc’d thief, he didn’t have much damage to speak of, and you lost the fight by getting out played (especially in a Xv1 scenario like we are discussing.) If it was a burst thief, he would die half way through the stomp with ANY attack you repeatedly lay on him, and he WILL NOT heal during the stealth duration because they do not trait for that in any capacity.

X class cannot counter Y, even though Z,P,Q,V can does not an argument make.

Sebrent.3625:

How hard is it for a thief to get off a stomp in WvW? With cloak and dagger it’s trivial.

Yes, 1v1 it is easy. But in reality, ANY class that downs you 1v1 will stomp you, end of story. You can delay it for mere seconds, but it’s inevitable, and you know it.

How hard is it for a thief to get a stomp off 2v1 (or more)? It’s neigh impossible if you’re fighting someone who is competent. If you see a thief down someone and go into stealth over them, just an interrupt in the general area or straight up auto attacking will most likely down the thief in the process, or cause them to run away.

Stealth is a means of damage mitigation due to one of two factors: subterfuge and ignorance. If you stealth over a corpse, and your buddies sit there and do nothing about it, other than try and get you up, there was no subterfuge involved because it was blatantly obvious what was taking place. Ignorance prevails, and surprisingly more often than you think.

We have the lowest health pool, typically pretty low armor rating, and to attempt a stomp in the open is suicide; many thieves could be downed by downed state attacks due to damage sustained in the fight + low armor/health.

Columba.9730:

slowly until perma stealthing via culling is eliminated. hey there are thieves in my guild calling for automatic reveals anytime a thief attacks. I am not going that far at least. not yet.

Columba, you talk so much about these thieves in your guild, will they be willing to show a video of how they would play in the case you outlined above? I’m quite sure this is all in your head.

I’m honestly asking for video proof of people claiming thieves are so OP playing a thief and being as lethal as they say they are. Unedited footage of WvW roaming, 2v1s on non-green^’s. Until then, I and just about everyone else will just chalk it up to bads being bad, and looking for the easy way out.

Is that really too much to ask?

Columba.9730:

the wvw nerfs were trivial.

Spot on, 50% damage reduction on dancing dagger is like a drop in the bucket.

Columba.9730:

based on the length of this thread, they clearly weren’t enough.

1/3 of this thread is you repeating the same falsehoods, like saying them over and over again will make them true.

Columba.9730:

…I think that anet should adjust stealth first. it’s the game breaker in wvw right now.

Because wvw revolves around 1v1, where you seem to be having the most trouble, right? If thief is as easy as you make it out to be, I still want to see the video where you do it. You are leading the charge on the QQ-Crew, I’m sure you’re quite familiar with the class!

Sebrent.3625:

The problem with the constant stealth is that now people have, at best, a very small window (~1-2 sec) window to exchange hits with the thief from the time they become visible to the time they re-stealth…

Ok, so the stealth is automagic/garunteed? Oh, you’re just neglecting the personal responsibility to which the onus is on you for not dodging the c&d (unless they blew a long cd stealth). Cool, bro.

Sebrent.3625:

Due to the design of these attacks to be high damage, singularly Backstab…

Fixed that for you, buddy.

Sebrent.3625:

Inconsistency:

• Shadow Refuge stacks stealth
  • If you have stealth, shadow refuge will give you more stealth
  • Allows you to sit in shadow refuge and stack stealth duration
    …
• Mesmer Veil does not stack with any other form of stealth
  • If you have stealth from anything, running through it gives you nothing
  • Prevents you from running back and forth through it to stack stealth

Mesmer Veil does not give you the reveal debuff when you leave the casting area, Shadow Refuge does. Comparing apples to oranges doesn’t make sense, FYI.

My “clones” are on a 180sec timer, think I should get one every time I dodge.

Henrik.7560:

…And don’t say we suck. There were 2 of our thieves, a guardian, a warrior, a mesmer and a ranger trying to stop him but he got us down and took us out with the “Finisher move in stealth” thing which is STILL not fixed, and we can’t get to the player and res him intime in 3 seconds for a finisher in stealth.

Oh wow, how do I frame this in a way that doesn’t end in an infraction…

You just proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was you getting out played. If thief is OP, and you have 2 (+more), and lose to one thief… Do you get what I’m saying? The numbers don’t lie.

Furthermore, you seem to have no group cohesion here. 5 people, yet unable to stop a stomp? Stealth or no stealth, if someone goes down in your group and a thief is setting up a stealth stomp, you walk over and attack. That’s right, get this: he’s still there, and it’s obvious what he’s doing. If all four people attacked the area where the fifth was downed, the thief would have been downed in a fraction of a second. Even if you were to be too naive to think that the thief was invulnerable at that juncture and there was nothing you can do, ressing is a lot faster than a stomp, and even faster when multiple people are doing so. How were you working as a group when you were all too far away to help the downed individual?

I swear, you people… You people…

Kasama.8941:

Less stealth + more protection and support = a lot of happy players!

Cool. And what about adjusting our abilities? Because, outside of heart seeker (highly situational) and pistol whip, NONE of our abilities are designed for damage. The whole thief dynamic is to acquire stealth and apply damage, everything else is a means to that end.

You’re suggesting a rework that requires all thieves to run GC builds to front load as much damage as we can, because otherwise we are wholly ineffective.

I feel like no one really understands the plight of the auto attack dependent thief outside of stealth.

Kasama.8941:

Dual.8953:

Nice Kas. Now explain what P/D and S/D are supposed to do with their bread and butter attack skill locked away in their stealth slot? I’m certainly not going to Flanking Strike someone to death. And P/D’s completely up a creek without regular access to Sneak Attack.

Oh oh oh, and neither of them have burst capabilities.

The weapon sets you mention are really more about movement then burst. They are more comparable to the shortbow, then they are to d/d, p/p, or s/p. A solution could be to change Cloak and Dagger into a burst skill. E.g. “rapidly strike your foe five times, dealing 5 seconds weakness on the first hit”. You still have access to stealth skills from three utilities and Steal (if you trait for it of curse). You also still have venoms to improve your condition damage. Removing the stealth from Cloak and Dagger simply just means that you’d have to rely on your utility skills more, just like all other professions.

So your idea to balance thieves is to give them less access to stealth than a Mesmer based on a bunch of traits available that are rarely taken, and give us another spamable burst skill that can also be used by D/D? Oh, and I’m sure P/D condition builds would be thrilled to have a burst ability on their hot bar! I don’t think you understand how bad of an idea that is.

You certainly embellish the usefulness of some of the stealth traits, I think purposely, to prove a point. But I guess that’s what you have to do to get your way.

Vitu.3580:

frans.8092:

Combined the two will refund 3 initiative in a 3 second stealth, or about 1/4, adding the natural regeneration (~2 init) that is less then half, not 3/4. Looks like a lie on your part.

Ah, you are correct on that issue. I wasn’t paying attention, but when I entered stealth I usually had 2-3 Initiative already, so by the time I reappeared i had about 7-8 Initiative. Almost 75% of my total Initiative, still enough to get 2-3 Heartseekers in before I go stealth again

So from out of stealth, you plan to blow 3 heart seekers and stealth again via utility cooldown? I’m not sure you know quite how a thief works, sir… If your goal is to maintain stealth while doing negligible damage, mission accomplished.

I really wish everyone complaining would actually try thief before turning on the waterworks. Yeah, you can maintain stealth with very low downtime. At the cost of being very unproductive…

Nerfing stealth promotes more burst builds, plain and simple.

brunohstein.9038:

Just to clarify, players would not be able to see enemies in stealth all the time, only when they come near you (100-160 radius) and they would appear as an ally in stealth.

This is such a great idea, lets incentivize the play style of the most notorious culling-abusing style of thief-play: P/D! They would essentially be unaffected by this change, while counting as a nerf (again) for melee players. And then when there’s too much of that nonsense going on, we’ll see yet again more QQ.

All of these suggestions are being made by over dramatic glass cannons that got spiked down by one too many a thief. Get over it.

brunohstein.9038:

My main and only is a thief. I don’t have any problems in saying that the current stealth is a little cheap. I just want a fair and fun game. Having to avoid enemies while in stealth would be a good addition to the class.

I forgot we were invulnerable while in stealth.

Could you do me a favor and post a video of you being OP and stomping everyone, requiring a ridiculous nerf like this? I only ask because I don’t believe you. Just run wvwvw with a recorder running and show us your 3v1 OPness. I don’t think you’ll do that, but whatever…

The only issue people seem to be coming up with is burst (l2p) and not being able to kill the thief. Culling is the problem there. You people seem to have no idea what it is actually like to play a thief, and I think it is hilarious…

jan.9745:

Please watch this video from 5:14 -7:35 look how hard to kill thief and how long to kill thief., that is 2 vs 1 and the last sec it become 3 vs 1 from 5:14 -7:35, and remember it is x1 fast forward., imagine that how long you gonna kill the thief, while a thief can kill you in 2,3-4 sec? How bad is that? http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EprbnVM8FWc ., and how many times the ranger down?

Ok, still surprised that no one commented on this… He’s complaining that it took so long for a SB auto attack spamming thief and a ranger to take on a cheese-ridden p/d thief. If thief is so op, why didn’t the thief this ranger was grouped with insta-gib that other thief? P/d takes no skill and is boring, but I think this was just something we could chalk up to bad play.

Wise.8025:

I have several times blinked away from a heartseeker spamming thief only to have them fly to my location since they were in mid-air when I blinked allowing them to travel a range of 900 and still successfully hit me.

While I agree the leap on heart seeker is a little excessive, it is not the only ability that reacts to a port like that…

Karolis.4261:

Leuca.5732:

Pretty much the only thing I would “nerf” on thieves is the stealth spam accessibility vs reward for stealthing vs punishment for bad stealth usage. For instance, how Cloak and Dagger rewards the thief with stealth and aoe blind (if traited) even if you are blocked…

CnD will not put you in stealth if it gets blocked.

This +1,000,000. Please people, I beg you, stop making suggestions when you have absolutely no idea how the mechanic works…

Tulisin.6945:

This could be one of a few things:
1. Dropping another stealth ability before the first one wears off or shortly after.
2. Moving out beyond visible range during the duration of stealth and/or moving out far enough to fast-travel due to losing combat state.
3. Breaking LoS, so even if they’re not vastly out of range they’re not visible when they reappear because they’re behind a rock or ledge.
4. Letting a thief stand in a SR for full duration, the only way to pull “long” (13~ seconds) of stealth out of a single skill.

I think the most likely scenario would be that he popped stealth and used a non-damage ability (ie inf arrow) that doesn’t break stealth upon use. Even the ever awkward windward heart seeker will do the job, so long as no critters get in the way.

Topher.1684:

Laika.8795:

Topher.1684:

Steal will go on a CD with no target, but it’s not the standard 45 sec CD (it’s reduced to a fraction of that). And without a target, you won’t get any buffs.

It does go off, and I’m not sure of the circumstances, with no target and give the full CD, as I’ve experienced several times. Perhaps it’s a bug, but it frustrates the hell out of me.

Do you have auto target on? It might be targeting a bug or something near you… I haven’t had auto target turned on for a while now. Auto target might also be trying to steal from someone you can’t reach if you have auto target turned on (someone behind a wall or on a different elevation or something). The only time I ever encountered this was vs bosses (purple rings, some gold) where steal goes on cd, i get the buffs, but don’t steal anything. If you don’t have auto target on, then I’m not sure what’s causing this, as I’ve not experienced it (other then when I mentioned).

I do have auto target on. Perhaps this is the cause, but steal (on such a ridiculous timer) should really have checks and balances for this kind of stuff. :\

This thread isn’t doing anything. It’s just a wakened husk brought back to life by the occult.

Sever the head or destroy the brain.

daydream.2938:

something had to be done. is this a permanent fix? who knows

Oh my dear god, do you read?

Topher.1684:

Steal will go on a CD with no target, but it’s not the standard 45 sec CD (it’s reduced to a fraction of that). And without a target, you won’t get any buffs.

It does go off, and I’m not sure of the circumstances, with no target and give the full CD, as I’ve experienced several times. Perhaps it’s a bug, but it frustrates the hell out of me.

Tub.4560:

I wish this was a temporary fix until the proper fix makes its way through QA, but there’s no official word whether or not that’s the case.

None whatsoever, except maybe this…

JonPeters.5630:

ilJumperMT.4871:

Can you kindly confirm that the .25 second GCD is temporary and will be removed when you fix the exploit?

That was the plan but fixing it for real is going to take some time so no timeframe right now.

Jon

Tulisin.6945:

ZLE.8293:

.If leap attacks doesn’t qualify as target requiring i don’t know what does.

For thieves? Infiltrator’s Strike is a good example. It cannot be manually aimed, it requires a target if you want it to hit something. Same with Steal and Infiltrator’s Signet.

Technically, this is false. You can very well hit your target with IS, should it be in the sword’s AOE cone. You will obviously not teleport forward, but IS is a sword AOE attack just like everything else, so if you used it near a stealthed player they would be immobilized and sustain it’s paltry damage. Not saying you benefit much from this, but it happens.

Also, I’ll accidentally tap steal from time to time, and it’ll go off to it’s good ’ol 45 second cooldown with absolutely no benefit. Just saying, it can be used (if only for buffs from TotC) without a target.

EnRohbi.2187:

But what they’ve actually gone and done is make the shatter build much less viable, as it is now much more dangerous for us to be anywhere near our enemy. That .25 seconds is all it takes for a thief to stun and burst us to kitten.

God forbid! I feel for you, I really do…

dkel.1928:

Iohanna.4863:

Heartseekers are now stealths!

^^
I’m definitely on the newer side so please forgive my ignorance. I’m not following how this is the case.

She means if you use Black Powder and then cast heartseeker in the radius, your heartseeker grants stealth. At the prohibitive cost of 9 (7 traited) initiative.

Like every other guild in this game, I’m sure it’s quite dead. As was this thread, until the wicked powers of necromancy were instilled into it.

Jinks.2057:

You all can disagree and post w/e you want, but the truth is the truth.

Done and done.

Stiv.1820:

Maybe people would just be happy if they saw damage numbers when they hit. I don’t think it would hurt that much and add some fun in for people. Currently I don’t even think hits on stealth people show up in the combat log on the attacker’s side.

I agree, but the QQ won’t stop there. People don’t understand the mechanics of the thief as well as they claim, and that’s the real problem.

swinsk.6410:

I have never experienced the culling problem with another thief, only massive zergs.

It is there, a particularly quick thief (especially a desperate P/D thief) can tick away C&Ds as fast as to only be visible for about a second. But should this be fixed, there is nothing wrong other than the complete lack of visual cues to where your enemy is.

I propose they add that in, and do away with the nonsensical channeling through stealth that is currently in place, which conceptually makes no sense.

Chessrook.8643:

S/D I like because of the shadowstep ability and the ability to hit multiple foes, and flanking strike is a nice confusing evade.

The only confusing thing about it is why it hasn’t been fixed yet. And it certainly isn’t nice.

Kilger.5490:

You’re exaggerating, its challenging but you can get the odd hit in. Just not enough to make a difference at present. You’re advocating having the game broken for everyone, not just thieves.

No. You’re exaggerating, because you assume you’re not hitting the thief because no big flashy numbers are popping up. We get hit a lot in stealth, AoE and otherwise, especially since a lot of us require to be…get this…in melee range to benefit. Not to mention, we still get locked on by channeling skills, which would absolutely negate stealth altogether. If they did flash numbers on damage, you could make a mental trajectory of where they’re going (presumably your rear) and compensate. That’s all that needs to happen.

Dropping the thief out of stealth negates everything thief has going for him. We have low HP, medium armor, no protective boons, nothing. Try playing one, it’s not as easy as you make it out to be.

Albane.8367:

Why isn’t everyone using Omnomberry Pies with a build like this? 66% chance on crit for a 400 damage lifetap with no cooldown.

I am…

Why should stealth break on damage if it’s as impossible to damage the thief in stealth as you make it out to be?

Just because you don’t see numbers (or something), and I propose you should, doesn’t mean it’s not happening, and this is what everyone fails to see.

So no, it’s not an “interesting idea” it’s a class destroying idea, and if you played a thief you could get your bearings straight and perhaps have a clue, rather than blindly calling for nerfs.

Iohanna.4863:

Stiv, it’s Amy.

0/20/30/20/0 works far better with S/D + D/P (although this compels you to get a pistol, if money is an issue). D/D is kind of redundant together with S/D, as they both rely on C&D for stealth. C&D is not as reliable as Black Powder + Heartseeker.

C&D is as reliable as you make it. BP + HS is extremely initiative exhausting (9 init, 3/4 our bar!), and not worth it in the least bit.

The reason I run up into the 30pts in Crit Strikes, I open with IS→C&D→Tac Strike, whack on them until they are around 50%, switch to D/D Mug→C&D→BS for an unexpected spike.

Stiv.1820:

I was under the impression that post nerf, that sigil had rounding issues? Even if it doesn’t I prefer straight damage. It is in use for every single ability. The 2 second daze is still great for when you think someone is going to pop a CD.

Yeah, they botched it in SPvP, but it’s still viable in WvW. It’s all good, all a matter of personal preference anyway, still the pairing that no one expects.