Guild Wars 2

kurtosis.9526:

In a recent big patch, Thieves’ Revealed debuff got increased from 3s to 4s, and there was much QQ about how it broke their flow and rotations. ANet realized this was true, made the profession less fun, recanted, and set it back to 3s.

The incoming Illusionists Celerity nerf does something similar to all Mesmer builds except Illusionary Persona Shatter builds – breaks flow, makes all non-IP Shatter builds less fun, hurts Phantasm uptime.

I’m wondering if ANet can’t be persuaded this is a similar situation to the Thief Reveal nerf and un-nerf, and perhaps find a better way to nerf Mesmer dps without nerfing Illusion cooldowns, or whatever they were going for with this IC nerf.

Get the story straight please…

Reveal was nerf to 4 secs. They reverted it for PvE and WvW only.

The Reveal debuff is still 4 sec in PVP.

/thread

I understand the formula for base damage is (Power*Wpn)(Skill Coef)/(Armor).

Where does crit damage goes in the above formula? Before or after armor is taken into account?

example

((Pwr*Wpn)(Skill Coef))*Crit Damage/(Armor)

or

((Power*Wpn)(Skill Coef)/(Armor))*(Crit Damage)

Thanks

Travlane.5948:

@mirra im pretty sure thats wrong. only reason you could use shadow return instead of any other skill is bc it was a stun break. same with shadow return on SS>and removes 3 conditions. take that away and you wont. :/

Last time I checked, you can use instant cast when you’re stun. One example is Mesmer’s Staff #2 and thief’s Blinding Power. It won’t break the stun but the ability will fire. Most importantly regarding Shadow Return is the ability to port back and not necessary the break stun portion. The stun break was just the icing on the cake.

I predict Shadow Return will work similarly to Mesmer’s Staff 2; you will be stun but you can still teleport back.

Seriously, what the heck do I do when I get Moa? The only thing I can do is smash the 5 button.

Am I suppose to be a semi free kill when I get Moa?

Its legit :P

/15 character

Cannot confirm or deny if this is legit.

Signet of Air: This skill is now a stun breaker. Cooldown increased to 30s.
Lightning Flash: This skill is no longer a stun breaker. Damage increased by 50%. Cooldown reduced to 40s.
Cleansing Fire: This skill is no longer a stun breaker. Decreased recharge to 40s.
Glyph of Elemental Power: This skill is now a stun breaker.

Air Magic
Arcane Lightning: This trait now grants a non-stacking 10% bonus critical damage for 15 seconds after using an arcane utility skill.
Grounded: This trait has been merged into Tempest Defense.
Tempest Defense: Internal cooldown reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds. Damage to stunned and knocked down enemies is increased by 20%.
New grandmaster trait – Fresh Air: Critical strikes will now recharge Air Attunement. This effect can only occur once every 5 seconds.

Arcane
Windborne Dagger: Movement speed in combat is increased by 15% for the main-hand, 10% for the off-hand, with 25% total for both.

Earth
Obsidian Focus: Toughness is increased while channeling from 170 at level 80 to 300 at level 80.
Salt Stone: This trait has been merged into Stone Splinters.
Stone Splinters: Moved to Adept. This trait now deals 5% bonus damage to bleeding opponents and increases outgoing bleeding duration by 20%.
Rock Solid: This trait has been moved to the master tier.
New grandmaster trait – Diamond Skin: 10% of your total toughness is converted into condition damage.

Fire
*Lava Tomb: This trait’s internal cooldown has been reduced to 10 seconds, damage from the lava font is increased by 33%. Damage dealt while in the downed state is increased by 33%.
Persisting Flame: Updated this trait to also allow Blast finishers you do to give Fury(10s) as well as might.

Water
Bountiful Power: Damage increase per boon on the elementalist has been reduced from 2% to 1%.

Cannot confirm or deny if this is valid but some food for thoughts:

Thief changes:

Lotus Strike: Poison duration increased form 2s to 4s.
Shadow Trap: Increased recharge to 45 seconds.
Destroy Shadow Trap: This ability now teleports the thief back to the trap location when it is destroyed. Added range skill facts. This skill now breaks stuns.
Shadow Pursuit: This ability now grants fury and 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds along with stealth when used to teleport to the enemy who triggered Shadow Trap. This ability now breaks stuns.
Death Blossom: Now costs 4 initiative.
Body Shot: Aftercast reduced by .4s. Decreased Vuln duratrion to 3s. Increaased to 10 stacks fo Vuln.
Pistol Whip: Decreased the time between the sstun and the sword flurry.
Scorpion Wire: Decreased aftercast by .2 seconds. Reduced cooldown to 20s.
Signet of Malice: Increased the base heal by 33% of the passive ability.
Steal: Recharge reduced to 35.
Cluster Bomb range set to 900 from 1200.
Larcenous Strike: Initiative cost increased to 2.
Nine tail strike: 3 initiative to 5
Shadow assault: 5 initiative to 7
The ripper: 5 seconds of bleed – > 7 s of bleed
Deadly Strike: Weakness duration 4s – 5 s, damage increased from 1 to 1.2
Skale Venom: Replaced Weakness with Torment.
Dancing Dagger: Reduced initiative cost to 3.
Shadow Return (infiltrator strike toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.
Withdraw: Travel distance cut in half underwater to match the land distance.
Deadly Strike: Reduced weakness duration to 3 seconds.
Crippling Strike: This ability no long applies weakness.
Rusty Scrap Strike: Reduced weakness duration to 8 seconds.
Throw Scale: Reduced weakness duration to 6 seconds.

Acrobatics
Assassin’s Retreat: This trait now grants 10 seconds of swiftness when you kill a foe. This effect has a 5 second internal cooldown.
Pain Response: This cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30.
Hard to Catch: The cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30.

Critical Strikes
Furious Retaliation: This trait now grants 10 seconds of fury when striking a target that is below 50% health. This effect can only occur once every 30 seconds.
Signets of Power: This 5 stacks of might that this trait grants has been increased to 10 seconds.

Deadly Arts
Corrosive Traps. This trait now 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds, up from 5.
Sundering strikes: Vulnerability caused by this trait has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
Panic Strike: This trait’s cooldown has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30.
Lotus Poison: Increased weakness duration to 4 seconds, but it can only apply once every 20 seconds per target.

Shadow Arts
Last Refuge: The cooldown of this trait has been reduced from 90 seconds to 60.
Slowed Pulse: The effect of this trait now occurs if you have 2 or more stacks of bleeding.
Shadow Protector: This trait has been changed to apply 10 seconds of regeneration when you stealth them. This effect will not occur if the ally already has regeneration on them.

Trickery
Merciful Ambush: This trait now grants 2 seconds of stealth to you and your ally when beginning a revive.
Long Reach: This trait now increases the range of Steal to 1500, up from 1200.
Ricochet: The chance to bounce for this trait has been increased from 25% to 50%.
Sleight of Hand: In addition to dazing your target, this trait now reduces the recharge of Steal by an additional 20%.
Instinctual Response: This trait now properly blinds enemies struck by the feathers. Increased radius from 120 to 180.

“The elementalist’s stun breakers have always been loaded up on cantrips, so we spread some out to the other categories like glyphs and signets. This way most builds have at least one viable stune breaker.”

“For example: elementalists have a new gradmaster Air trait that allows them to recharge their air attunement…”\

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-skill-and-trait-changes/
Near the end

Buffy.9246:

I have been wondering why thieves do this on any side. When I go down and the “Finish them!” option comes, all thieves must go invisible in order to do that option. Can someone tell me why? Seems kinda pointless.

If you would take the time out of your nonproductive post and spend a mingling 5 minutes to look at the thief class, you will probably understand why they stealth before they stomp.

But since you’re too lazy to do it, I will go ahead and tell you.

Thieves stealth stomp to cleanse condition, regen HP, stack might, and to secure the stomp. With this, they are ready to engage anyone that may add into the fight.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought you can’t dodge it.

It will still knock/pull (slight decrease in pull distance if dodge) you down regardless if you dodge or now.

Deniara Devious.3948:

bobross.5034:

not at all unfair, the thief is rooted in place and very vulnerable. Even stealthed an observant player will know what’s happening and can hurt/kill the thief. without stealth, thieves wouldnt be able to get stomps in (except for tp stomping).

If you roaming alone and you get downed by the very common dual thief teams, tell me how you are gonna hurt and the kill thief doing that stealth stomp?

Many professions have downed skill #2, which can interrupt just one opponent, under optimal circumstances e.g. warrior and engineer. But that requires them to actually see that opponent to target it. Thus stealth stomp is a guaranteed easy stomp. I know stability would also guarantee a stomp in those cases, but stability is much more rare for a good reason.

And if I see an ally down in the battle field e.g. from enemy siege fire, attack, whatever reason, how am I gonna stop some enemy thief doing the stealth stomp on that ally? Fear is very rare and suggesting that thieves are so squishy that they die from just one AoE is mockery. I see stealth stomps all the time in pretty much every big fight.

And they are a problem as they are by far the most common form of a guaranteed stomp. They key issues here is stealth. Stealth is broken in this game.

As an (insert class), I can do the following to stop stealth stomp.

Ele-
Updraft, Eeathquake, tornado

Guardian
GS pull, Hammer bubble, Hammer knockback, shield knockback, Sanctuary

Ranger
Pet’s fear, LB pushback

Mesmer
Focus pull, Mass stealth, daze

Necro
Fear

Warrior
100HB, F1 from Hammer, Knockback from Hammer, Quake utility

Engi
Pull, pushback, elite

Thief
Shadow refuge, blinding power, TS daze

How and when to use it is a different story…

I recently heard they’re going to nerf cantrips again for the reason that they are still too good. They are going to change at least one to be a non stunbraker. Can someone confirm this?

I’m assuming this was in WvW so your best bet is S/D. S/D is basically a 99% win rate vs any mesmer build but you have to play it almost perfectly.

VS Shatter; make sure you aways have Shadow Return up so you can break out of the burst. CnD off clones and daze then AA the mesmer.

VS Condition; same kittenter but watch out for the Choas Storm and condition from clones. They have high boon so knowing this CnD off clone (try to CnD the Warlock since it does decent damage) then do FS/LS if the mesmer has boons up (do not daze, stealing protection/regen/vigor from the mesmer will be better in this long term fight). If the mesmer have no boons, use TS.

VS Phast; move around so the phast have to catch up to you. CnD off phast and kill key phast when you get a chance (Izerker and Iduelist). Back off and reset fight if you see 2 Iduelists.

PS. If you’re fighting a Mesmer with a focus and you need to SF, use Dagger Storm then immediately cancel then cast SF. With this you will have stability and the mesmer cannot pull you out.

Also, if you have your dodge up, dodge twice in the SF and most likely, the curtain will not pull you far enough to reveal you.

Good Luck

WereDragon.6083:

MIrra.3604:

Rok.5260:

I mean the full on Carrion P/D Thieves…

Best counter to P/D thieves in 1v1 is to walk away while laughing.

What class are you playing because I can keep 12 stacks of bleed up consistently at 135 damage. Then spider venom on you for around 216 every 2 seconds. If I devourer’s venom you in caltrops I can easily get the bleed stacks to 20+

That’s 2,600 damage a second for my 7/8’s of bleed, not counting my pistol shots and CnD or spider venom. WTF class are you running that can shrug off that damage?

l

Hm…lets see here what class can freely get away if they really wanted to vs a P/D thief?

Thief SR, laugh then walk away.
Warrior with dogged march trait wave by to you as your immob tick for .25.
Ele D/D and Staff will cleanse it all while healing to full also says hit to you.
Mesmer with their 1200 range blink also will flip the bird at you.
Necro will just transfer the condition back on you or turn it into boons.
Engi will shrink/block all the way home.
Guardian will also cleans, heal, block all the way home

GS/S/D ranger can get out easily but other spec will have a harder time getting out.

Rok.5260:

I mean the full on Carrion P/D Thieves…

Best counter to P/D thieves in 1v1 is to walk away while laughing.

I know what you’re up to Anet so I’m going to call it out before you nerf us again.

1 – Do not move Infusion of Shadow or Shadow Embrace to the Grandmaster trait line
2 – Do not move Quick Recovery to the Grandmaster trait line
3 – Do not move Preparedness to the 25 Grandmaster line

Talk to us before you nerf us again please.

Ah just noticed you’re part of GRIM.

Not some of the best thieves…

Fought you guys before and against other thieves, it easy to pick out what spec/build quickly. We went and kill your friends and left you alone.

Took you 20 secs to kill an uplevel warrior. Therefore, I deem this build useless outside of kill super noobs.

ensoriki.5789:

I wish they would explain how thief went from 4 melee sets at launch to arguably 1.

I want my 2h Katana blade!

Or 1h Katana and offhand wakizashi.

TheGuy.3568:

Call it QQ but I keep wondering about it and have now for months. Why does the class with the possibility to have consistent access stealth, and burst have the highest mobility in the game?

To me this seems inherently bad design. If a class has a strong escape mechanism through one route who should they have it through the other also. Because one doesn’t break the other doesn’t that cause an imbalance?

And before the “this is QQ”, “you probably got beat by thief” etc. That hasn’t happened in months. I am not bitter or angry or kitten over thieves. I personally love my thief but at the same time I find it hard to WvW due to this.

I am not saying thieves should be easy to catch, but I feel that it doesn’t make sense to give a class so much capability to escape and gap closers without some sort of way to balance it vs other classes incapability to do the same.

To clarify no I do not think mobility or stealth should be nerfed. This class has seen enough nerfs. That being said I think there is a balance issue with this.

Anet, I don’t understand your logic behind the portal mechanic. I mean 25 people can bypass a 100% door and kill the lord. There’s really no counter to it unless you camp the mesmer corp or camp the tower/keep with equal numbers.

WvW isn’t fair because the game is balanced around 5v5 in a small map. To try and think logically outside of which would be illogical.

Frostedblaze.9017:

Sometimes, I love solo roaming on my Ele. I enjoy taking supply camps, setting up an arrow cart, and messing with the zerg when they try to come by. However, I really struggle with thieves, and I don’t know what to do about it. They come in and harass me 1v1, and if it looks like I’m about to kill them, they stealth and run away. No matter how much control, aoe, etc I put down on where they stealth, they still manage to get away. Then, when they’re healed up, they come back and do it all again.

I really need general tips on how to kill thieves.

Not sure what this kittening is about. I mean, on my thief, I can get the majority of eles to run and when I’m about to catch up and finish him/her off I see fiery greatsword and 3 then 4 all the way to spawn point.

Thief can get away and ele can get away. Some players are just better at doing it. No reason to make a post about it.

Avariz.8241:

As the title said retaliation is neutralised by skill button #1. Press or click that auto skill #1 once and retaliation is gone for the next 30 sec. See that is how easy it is to foil retaliation.

Oooo Let me play this game too.

How to fight a thief.

If you go to character select and delete your character, you can too perma stealth and the thief will never get you.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Shadow protector and shadows rejuvenation. there you go, 500 health per second for more than 50% of the fight. thats a little more than an eles healing if that ele were to spec into one trait tree like the thief, while going full berszerker. Thief trades off one trait tree for the sustainability. with a thief being stealthed for more than 50% of the fight with an avg fight of 10-60 seconds, im sure you now can see the disparity here. I dont mind that thieves can go stealth.. sure, whatever. i dont mind that they can hit 10k in one hit.. well i do, however, you combine that with stealth and 500 health per second? thieves are un killable(almost). do the math. they stealth every 4 seconds, FOR 4 seconds, hitting as their stealth runs out to reap benefits of the regen. 4×500=2000. They are healing for 2000 health over the course of being stealthed every time they stealth. EVERY 4 SECONDS. oh and, im not even counting black powder and heartseeker combo where they can perma stealth till full health. When im fighting thieves, (mind you im a full berzerker build cause thats the only way to come close to trying to bet a thief), i always hit them with my burst and get them down to on avg 10-20%. when they stealth and come out, theyre back to 90-100% ready with another stealth to burst me down again. other than a healway guardian, im ready to call the thief one of the best at healing. (selfishly ofc). Not only that but they can 1-escape from anything, 2-permanently stealth, 3-highest burst in the game. can anyone else see the enourmous disparities here? am i the only one?

For starters, if you played a thief you would know shadows protector is on a 5-6 sec internal cooldown. So…

Second, unless a thief is running away or backing off to heal up, he/she will not stay in stealth for the full 4 sec.

Thrid, we don’t use shadow protector…

Forth, out of combat healing is so powerful. How dare you regen all your health at 3000 units away!

Fifth, guardian/ele/ranger regens is about twice as much as a thief regen in stealth. I guess you didn’t know that.

Carighan.6758:

MIrra.3604:

You seriously want an “IWIN” button every 90 secs?

No, I want an ability which is useful for another purpose than to make people cry on the forum. Because really, Moa doesn’t do anything. Sure, it moas someone. The keep is still lost. The boss is immune. The enemy team compensates because they had to assume the 1v1 might not go in their favour.

What’s the point of this ability? Looks funny, completely pointless.

I agree. So can we remove it from the game already?

Night Hawk Ix.7360:

Gj on fixing the skill 5 run skill distance on people who have been moa’d anet. However this skill still needs a few changes, for example 180 rechange time is too long imo. Currently also it can be dodged and casted even tho the target is out of range which means it doesnt cast on target and the caster has to wait 180sec for it to recharge again. It needs a fix like ‘mirrow images’ does where it wont active unless a target is selected and is in range. Also currently theifs who trait for stealth on falling damage can use this trait stealth even as a moa and on top of that if the theif has stealth available from their steal skill pre moa morphed they can still use that skill to stealth. It only lasts 10 seconds and they could get upto 6 seconds of stealth still as moa with their traits and steal.

These things need to be changed no stealth traits should work while the theif is in Moa form, and F1 (steal) should not be available to them also. That or reduce the moa morph recharge time from 180sec to 90sec pls.

I keep hearing this “counterplay” arguement on the forum. How would I counter play after I have been moa’d? Can I use stun break?

You seriously want an “IWIN” button every 90 secs?

Crawford, I suggest you close this thread as it open for others to look at exploiting IS. If you put a ticket in, then leave it at that and let Anet take care of it. Some don’t even know what the exploit (I know what the exploit is) is or how to reproduce it and this thread gives a venue to discuss such.

Awe.1096:

Just a question. I mostly think about PvP. Can you do a good build and not use this skill? I seem to have a LOT of situations where I think to myself “bah, he won only becouse of SR”. So how is it?

SR is a must in WvW.

Benefits

- Stealth Rez
- Basically another heal. With SR+heal in stealth (~700 a tick), 4-5K health regen.
- Surprise attack (stealth your other teammates before going in)
- Recover to reset Cooldowns
- Recover to reposition
- Escape

Its up to you if you want to use it or not but you will miss out on a lot of good stuff if you dont.

Ryan.8367:

Actually thieves have more group and zerg utility than alot of other classes have, people just don’t use their thief at all in those situations ever because it’s easier to go roam 1on1 and kill people left and right.

The fact is though you have group stealth which alone changes battles, that ALONE is a unique battle changing skill.

Nevermind shortbow’s #2 to blast finish to oblivion giving your teamates 20+ might by simply standing still.

Nevermind the fact that you can create poison fields and spam aoe weakness on entire groups of people.

Nevermind the fact that you can produce a plethora of smoke fields which bring excellent combo finishers to a group situation.

The hell are these people talking about that thieves suck in zergs or group play?

That’s pure bullkitten and they need to learn how to play the thief class in group situations if that’s the case.

Thieves are great in zergs and groups when played right.

Stealth – I would take a mesmer’s mass stealth over a thief stealth any day in a zerg vs zerg fight. Thief BP only affects 5 people within melee range of him/her. SF requires you to stand in a small hut, affects 5 players. Mesmer’s mass stealth is on the move stealth. Do I even need to mention veil?

Blast Finisher – Agree with you that the SB is awesome for prefight blast finishers.

Posion field and aoe weakness – Bring a necro…

Smoke field – 130 radius smoke field that cost 6 init. /shrug

Don’t get me wrong, thief is great in 1v1 1vx and small 5v5. But in zerg vs zerg, they’re more of a liability and they don’t bring anything other than a few extra blast finishers.

VaaCrow.3076:

DirtyBird.6093:

Anyone who thinks Thieves are overpowered are either extremely bad, or braindead.

Lets consider this:
pve – potentially the worst class in the game
pvp – very little play and good at ganking people who are glass cannon-ish or bad
wvw – pretty much roamers and scouts. This is the majority of my gameplay as a thief, I also have an 80 warrior, ele, guardian, and mesmer.

Guardian – super tanky and can achieve decent dps with amazing survivability, blast finishers, and group support. Also can roflstomp a thief in 1v1 1 handed while sipping a kittentail and chatting with your mother on the phone depending on their weapon selection (traits don’t even matter if you know what you’re doing).
Mesmer – the only class in the game that has probably seen the nerf bat as bad if not worse than the thief. at least they have good group utility with time warp portal null field and feedback. Still feel bad for my mesmer friends
Warrior – extremely vanilla but can still stomp a thief like nobodies business, especially if your pvt.
Ele – D/D got nerfed but rightfully so, do-it-all builds that are THAT strong need a nerf. Staff ele still has amazing group support via combo fields, heals, siege situations, and general gameplay, just kinda boring imo.

Thieves are forced to be either 1 of 2 things in wvw – a super scout with massive survivability and mobility where you get no bags and feel like some 8 yearold birthday party clown, and/or pistol dagger sleepfest, or you go massive burst, sacrifice EVERYTHING to do so, and fail 1/2 the time at what you’ve worked so hard to get, and get CRUSHED in zerg fights

Enough of this bs crying about stealth. Thieves are slippery? It ran away? Great. your still alive and just mildly frustrated. Deal with it. roll a necro and be the flavor of the month op wvw class like everybody else or gtfo. Thief was DESIGNED by their trait line to obtain massive dps through raw crit chance and overall damage buffs, and were nerfed according to people who play these classes so badly that if a thief were to play say pvt gear or knights or any survivable set, they would be doing far less dps than other classes that don’t have the lowest health pool and medium armor AND still have no group synergy. Class is bad as it stands. Play one before you kitten, learn their weaknesses and youll never have a problem with them in wvw.

TL:DR – If you think thieves are OP you don’t play one or you’re bad at the game. Thanks.

Scared our troll class might be fixed? lel. Seriously i play thief ask anyone on underworld, As my op pic proves. Its op as kitten in wvw, no challenge to play, i’m not saying i’m amazing, but i like to think i’m pretty good, and my opponents arent scaled nubs, they know how to play. all i want is for anet to make the class hard to play.. make it so we can be de-stealthed by aoe (but no reveal buff) or something, nerf our damage a little, i really don’t mind, just make the class a kitten challenge to both play and fight against.

tl;dr thief is not challenging to play. (1k hours on one, i know)
ITT thieves crying that one of their own admits its kitten op in wvw.
Seriously..

Hiya!

What server are you on? Can we duel a few times and show me how easy it is to play? I mean, I have over 1500 hours but at least to me it is not easy at all. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.

So, please let me know what server you’re on and I’ll transfer and we can duel. How about a small wager of 250g for best 2 out of 3?

LoneWolfie.1852:

I’m just boggled by how many non-thieves come in here and complain about LS. By the fact that you even ask for a nerf on FS/LS, and claim “4-5k damage” because your enemies/yourself is using a spanking berserker amulet, just makes me want to bang my head.

A) To even hit that high amount of 4-5k damage, you’re basically equipping berserker armor/traiting damage.
B) Spamming that basically means tactical strike is non-functioning.
C) Some builds without boons can’t be beaten with S/D.

To be completely honest, it’s almost impossible to pair S/D with any other weapon builds (swap weapons). If you want condition, you can’t have “4-5k damage”. If you want burst damage from D/D (which heavily relies on SA to work), you can’t spam your inits 33333 from S/D.

So it kitten es me off to see how many “thieves” who doesn’t know what they are talking about. If you’re extremely skilled with the profession, you should already know that superman elementalists/guardians one on one can’t be taken down, and if it’s a group fight, superman elementalist can run away, while guardian holds down the fort for a long enough time.

There’s a HUGE problem with thief pvp. I can’t build any build I want to satisfactorily and reasonably make it work. The only few builds are conditional P/D, Burst D/D, survival P/D.

S/D is imo the worst set that has the most awkward mechanics. It demands initiative, controls only a single target (mostly), and yet is unable to take down the majority of the builds out there 1v1. That nerf in pvp is ridiculous (both tactical strike and Backstab damage), and that so called buff FS/LS remains nothing more than a niche campaign thus far. It does nothing against non-boon users, thank you very much. While I proposed my own buffs, anet better consult a brilliant thief user and ask him what problems S/D has, and not some random guy saying “Oh, FS needs nerfing.”

• ….. Bangs head.*

Wow, you know jack kitten about thieves outside of Spvp. Obviously, you only play sPvP and do not or rarely play WvW. I can hit for upwards of 6K with LS on my 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0 build. I have 50% crit chance, 270% crit damage (150% base), and close to 4K attack. 4K crits is the norm and 5+K crits if target is below 50%.

I run HIS for heals and blinding powder so tactical strike is aways available if the situation calls for it. In WvW, there is no build that will win 1v1 against a good S/D thief. The most they can do is run for their life. The closest would be either a trap ranger or phast mesmer, but in WvW, that is almost a none issue since you’re fighting in an open area and not a 600 radius capture point.

Stop speaking as if PvP doesn’t happens outside of Spvp. /shrug

swinsk.6410:

Flanking strike is not overpowered. It’s only useful against classes with lots of boons. Moving on.

And that’s fine. FS was buffed to counter classes with a lot of boons. I get that. Instead of just making FS more reliable with better boon removal, they added:

-FS does not need to hit to activate LS
-Unblockable
-High Damage (4-5 K crit is a bit high for a spammable unblockable boon removing attack)

They just need to tone down the damage and not make it unblockable. Bottom line is, for 1 init, this skill is kittening awesome.

Can you tell me why it makes sense to have Charr as a playable race? I mean, the humans killed our great leader, Khan-Ur, stole our homeland, and forced us to flee.

Anet can blame the Flame Legion all they want but all leaders of the High Legions; Ash, Flame, Iron, and Blood, are decendants of Khan-ur. Shouldn’t we hate the human?

Kicast.1459:

Well,

I would like to thank you for the tips that some of you gave. Particularly Alchemist for the open-minded and constructive feedback.
Some of them were kitten however.
I particularly appreciated the flow of L2P and last but not least one:

“Wait until you see the blinding powder, then use focus to pull him. This should pull him out of stealth at which time gives your thief buddy an opportunity to burst.”

Well it seems that counter to thief is to play with a thief. What a good mechanic.

PS: When I say I belong to top EU server does not mean I am a good player. I am not and I know it. I am just trying to know what I could do if I were a good one. However I have been playing with very good guilds players. They are in the same situation than me: even in Zerg they feel unable to organize counter scouting on harrassing thiefs without … thiefs team.

I saw Osicat vids…pretty kitten good mesmer. I see him win 1v1 duels. While playing close to perfectly with a very good anticipation, he is always about to die and I had the feeling that the thief could have run away whenever he wanted. The thief however played the game of the duel and did not wait for complete CDs return.

And for the advice of rolling a thief…well I did it in sPvP. For the moment 5 games won out of 6. I am tempted to try leveling one in wvw
I was, I am sure, pretty lucky and didn’t play in tournaments. WvW is not tournament though.

Oh sorry, I thought you were running in a group with another thief. My bad.

With that being said, I stand behind my previous comment – L2P. Here’s another tip, you see the blinding powder? Teleport right in the middle of it.

Kicast.1459:

Dear Arenanet and thief community,
Me as a mesmer feel lost while roaming alone or in group once me and my teamates encounter a perma stealthed thief.
What can I do against a perma stealthed thief ?
I have been reading plenty of Arenanet dev claiming that we have to learn to play against this profession.
I am on the top EU server since beginning. Me and my teamates still do not understand.
Do you feel perma stealth against a 10 men group is not broken ?
What are the counter ?
Now that mesmer are not valuable anymore in zergs whith confusion / time warp nerfs…what can mesmer do while roaming and being chained agressed by untuchable thief ?
Ignore him ? What if the thief does not ignore me ?
Is thief the only class able to roam without risk at all ?
Thanks for your help.

Wow, really L2P.

Ask your thief buddy to prepare to burst the other thief when he comes out of stealth.

Wait until you see the blinding powder, then use focus to pull him. This should pull him out of stealth at which time gives your thief buddy an opportunity to burst.

Gellor.6497:

MIrra.3604:

I usually do not post in this thread but I have a question and hopefully someone will have an answer for me.

I was duoing with a buddy last night in Eternal Battleground. At one point, we were running away from a TC guild zerg (I think the tag was EA/EB/Esomething/these guys like to spawn camp and such). We got away but they decided to hide behind a wall. I thought they were going to take the tower behind us but they sent in a mesmer instead and tried to portal bomb us.

Now, I’m fine with people using portal to bomb but in this case what for? 2 people? With 25 people? I’m not mad, angry or whatever. Actually, I thought it was quite funny because they failed to killed us with 2 portal bombs. I just confused as to why they would portal bomb 2 people.

Either Entertainment

or

They thought you were scouts, which the zerg was where you were hiding.

I’m on FA. First portal bomb was infront of OW, the second was right outside Overlook. Highly doubt they did it because they thought we were a scout. Probably for entertainment.

I usually do not post in this thread but I have a question and hopefully someone will have an answer for me.

I was duoing with a buddy last night in Eternal Battleground. At one point, we were running away from a TC guild zerg (I think the tag was EA/EB/Esomething/these guys like to spawn camp and such). We got away but they decided to hide behind a wall. I thought they were going to take the tower behind us but they sent in a mesmer instead and tried to portal bomb us.

Now, I’m fine with people using portal to bomb but in this case what for? 2 people? With 25 people? I’m not mad, angry or whatever. Actually, I thought it was quite funny because they failed to killed us with 2 portal bombs. I just confused as to why they would portal bomb 2 people.

Sin.4130:

@Evilek.5690
Main purpose is to kill your opponent, and here all chances should be equal. I m sure thief will be nerfed but ANet can’t learn from others in business and this will cost them lot.

NO. The main purpose in WvW is to take objectives (towers/keeps). Albeit, you have to kill your enemies and break down the door however I highly doubt a solo person dying to a thief vastly alter the outcome of a WvW match.

Evilek.5690:

Sifu.6527:

Lightsbane.9012:

the shadow return on infiltrators strike has at least twice the range it says in the tooltip, is this a bug?

3 – The daze is 2 second but with the para sigil, it is increased to 3 second even though it is only a 15% increase.

All stun,daze,fear etc effect rounded up

Stun effect: 1 sec +15% signet = 2 sec beacose 1.15 —> 2 sec
1 sec +15% signet + 33% runes = 2 sec beacose 1.48 --> 2sec
In the case that we will have increase stun duration on 99% = 1 sec +99% = 2 sec beacose 1.99 —> 2 sec. but 101% increase stun druation increase the stun on 3 sec beacose 2.1 --> 3sec

What about 2 para sigil + Mesmer runes?

2 second daze + 15% 15%33% will not = 4 sec daze.

Rok.5260:

So I’ve been reading people here saying that people won’t use a stealth trap on thieves for 1v1. But less than 15 minutes ago I was outside Briar tower, a warrior laughed at me so I went and killed him. He was revived and then he just kept beckoning and laughing at me so I went to kill him again and I did not expect a stealth trap! Luckily I was able to get away with Shadowstep and Heartseeker spam. I know I should’ve expected it, but man it really scared the heck out me haha.
:o

I was fighting another thief outside SCM wall. Half way through the fight I thought “what the heck, let me try one of these traps.”

I started to deploy the trap (4 sec cast), shadow step away so he couldn’t hit me, then shadow step back to finish the deploy.

The trap instantly went off. I proceed to auto attack him with my sword. He used Blinding powder, his heal, and at 25% health last refuge proc’d, then at 10% health shadow refuge. None of those worked. I downed him and left him to bleed to death as I stood there laughing at him/her.

Why was the new anti stealth trap added? Did you do any testing on potential impact on the thief class? Will we see other traps in the future such as; anti pet trap, anti clone trap, anti boons trap, etc?

Your reply would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Meridian.8730:

Anyone care to venture a guess? Will it be…

1. Reduce base damage
2. Reduce base hp
3. Reduce stealth healing/other stealth benefits
4. Make thief incapable of ever critting above 4k
5. Make infiltrator strike cost 4 initiative instead of 3
6. Reduce mug damage by 50% and increase healing by 25%
7. Reduce heartseeker damage by 25%
8. Reduce backstab damage by 25%
9. Reduce sword damage by 50%
10. Make pistol whip have even longer cast time and reduce damage by 25%
11. Call the next nerf a buff

Any other guesses?

To be honest, this is my nerf wish list.

Larcenous strike
-Should only be available if FS hits
-Damage is too high for an unblockable 1 init attack that strips up to two boons. Either make it cost 2 init or reduce the damage.

D/P Build
-I get more counter play vs a D/D thief chaining cnd off of a mob.
-Not sure what can be done to this. On one hand, if they nerf it, it will probably destroy the build. Keep as is, thief can infinite stealth whenever and where ever.

Tek.4083:

MIrra.3604:

Tek.4083:

Watch his utility bar, im noticing he rarely does more than 2 of the cooldowns at once. Im seeing this as a major flaw in my gameplay. Ive been playin S/D and i have a buddy that does d/p and its only then that i do well. We ended up taking about 15 guys on yesterday, killing about 8 and escaping. But when i play solo, i cant get that extra pressure, so i try to stay in stealth and blow cooldowns. Only screwin myself later on in the fight.

So the videos are really an eye opener for me. I come from mesmer, and i shouldve known -.- saving my stealth is very important.

Edit: errpp he plays p/d >.<

Your first problem is expectation. It seems from your post, you want to take on or pressure 15 players as a solo thief. I’m sorry but that is unrealistic.

Oh no im not talking 15 players, 7-8 maybe. 15 players with my buddy. Playing carefully. Even if i did get one down, i can never stomp anywho.

7-8 (assuming all lvl 80 in gear and decent to good players) is till too high IMO.

Tek.4083:

Watch his utility bar, im noticing he rarely does more than 2 of the cooldowns at once. Im seeing this as a major flaw in my gameplay. Ive been playin S/D and i have a buddy that does d/p and its only then that i do well. We ended up taking about 15 guys on yesterday, killing about 8 and escaping. But when i play solo, i cant get that extra pressure, so i try to stay in stealth and blow cooldowns. Only screwin myself later on in the fight.

So the videos are really an eye opener for me. I come from mesmer, and i shouldve known -.- saving my stealth is very important.

Edit: errpp he plays p/d >.<

Your first problem is expectation. It seems from your post, you want to take on or pressure 15 players as a solo thief. I’m sorry but that is unrealistic.

selan.8354:

Jinks.2057:

WTF are you doing in those 3 seconds to allow that “16k” damage to happen?

3 secs is an extremely long period of time

2 seconds stunned, 1 second trying to heal and phase retreat back…phase worked, heal failed… backstab heartseeker,heartseeker,heartseeker shadowstab heart seeker

No blink or decoy? No daze or dist? No BF? You’re a bad mesmer…

Xunleashed.5271:

hi again guys, a new video is up.
This time again with my teammate Overdoze, roaming duo looking for outnumbered and intense fights. Both pugs and organized groups as targets!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqfSfBKs8NU

Enjoy!

P.S. about last patch:
Before you ask me… This patch is a “blow below the belt” by ANET, but did not destroy my gameplay. Don’t start balance discussions here pls, thank you!

It didn’t destroy the build just made it harder to play. Sorry, I didn’t start the balancing discussion, you did.

Is this really working as intended? The new trait gives warriors 98% reduce duration on immob/cripple/chill etc when they combine it with Lemongrass+Melandru Runes. This is a 10 POINT TRAIT yet it is over the top when fighting warrior with this setup.

Discordia.7293:

Wiser with Age.3714:

Thief

•Revealed effect: Reverted duration to 3 seconds in PvE.

this will work in wvw?

At work so I can’t check. Can someone confirm if this is PvE only?

Gallrvaghn.4921:

I can never fully understand this change. I mean seriously? The last thing we needed in pvp was a horde of Shorbow auto-attack spamming/kiting ranger that spams bleeds so fast, even Chuck Norris can’t keep up. Add to that an annoying hard to kill pet which now has improved HP and toughness and improved abilities that follows you like a twitter fanboy.

After the massive hit on eles, expect rangers to be dominating every match. Mark my words.

I’m no QQer but for the love of God, why the buff on pets?!?! Buff on spirits, yeah they sure needed it. But pets?! They needed to be toned down actually.

What? You don’t like PvE changes in your PvP? It goes both ways.

Araito.5869:

Does anyone know if thief is faster than ele when it comes to travel? I think even before this patch that changed RTL thieves were still slightly faster than d/d ele with movement. Now they are gonna be really really tough to catch up to in wvw…

In terms of traveling, here is the ranking. (this is long distance straightline traveling)

1 – Thief (was/is/now/in the future/no kittening body is faster than a thief when they spec for it)
2 – Warrior (GS +Sword)
3 – Rangers (GS + Sword)
4 – Ele (D/D)

Puru.4217:

In before ADADADADAD > shortbow.

Huge nerf to the shortbow….