For those having trouble with flanking strike hitting still, I would recommend turning off melee attack assist. While it doesn’t make FS 100% reliable, it seems to hit more often than not now.
Changing mug is quite often suggested and it always comes back around to the same line, it would affect the other classes’ damage output much more so than the D/D build.
No it doesn’t, reducing, for instance Mug’s damage, or even replacing the trait would not have any effect on other classes. I never suggested making it interrupt the current action (such a change could have terrible effects on everyone).
There really is no single part of the chain that is too powerful, just a good combination of skills.
Yet other parts of the chain were nerfed because the whole chain was strong, making thieves that used those parts, but not the chain, performance lacking, basically pushing them into using that chain.
Steal and it’s traits being fragile is no reason to not look at it at all.
I apologize for not being clear on this part. It has been said on several other threads that steal should interrupt actions and I’m sorry my poor wording misrepresented what you were saying. As to mug’s damage, I think reducing out would have unintended ripples throughout the rest of the profession as did changing the damage of some of the other abilities. I would rather see the very end of the chain (backstab) addressed. That is not to say that steal/mug can’t be looked at, but even seemingly small changes can affect much more than the intended target. Something as simple as reducing the range on steal so people can see it coming might do more to affect change than changing any number within the chain. This would also cause more of a tradeoff though as people might be forced to finally use long reach. As for backstab, I would like to see it inflict deep wound from gw1. Such matters would be better discussed within the thief, and its gameplay though.
Changing mug is quite often suggested and it always comes back around to the same line, it would affect the other classes’ damage output much more so than the D/D build.
It really, really wouldn’t. With a 45s CD Mug doesn’t affect any build’s damage in the long run. Mug’s current implementation isn’t tied to D/D as much as it is tied to a 1-3 second burst period. Remove its ability to apply all of its damage instantly within that period, and it remains equal across most builds but its situational strengths will change.
Mug is the primary thing that sets the thief’s ambush glass cannon attack apart from other professions. Remove that, and TTK falls into the same realm as other professions’ tactics.
It would affect the finisher of builds that’s that had a much more consistent less burst oriented build, such kitten D, which need that burst towards the end of the fight against an opponent that was basing their heal on the DPS of the auto attack. With the reduction in damage that the offhand dagger,it is becoming increasingly difficult to run a non burst direct damage build.
If you infiltrators strike and get stunned/interrupted immediately after teleport, shadow return doesn’t replace it even though the starting/return ring is left on the ground.
Changing mug is quite often suggested and it always comes back around to the same line, it would affect the other classes’ damage output much more so than the D/D build. It has been suggested that it be moved to a master trait which would mean that it would deal more damage as people had to trait farther into this line to get it without affecting the 30/30///* build whatsoever. it had been suggested that it knockdown,but this would essentially make it as powerful as the grandmaster trait in trickery. Changing it to a condition would make the P/D build even stronger. Changing the timing so that it interrupts would cause a discontinuity between this and the way the other teleports function. There really is no single part of the chain that is too powerful, just a good combination of skills.
If you want to stay in close combat with the thief, try a pistol offhand. This will lay down a nice little blind field with 5 that will somewhat make up for the small health pool and low armor. While dagger is great for single target damage, the sword is much better for taking on groups. If you jump into combat with 2 it allows for a temporary root ( very helpful when playing a support role withothers). 2 also allows you to leave combat,break stun, and cure a condition which is extremely powerful when it comes to survivability. S/D vs S/P boils down to preference. Try out both.
An example of someone who did l2p.
i would especially point to the part where he baits the thief.
Started playing S/D thief a while ago because D/D lacks utility (at least within the BS setup). S/D rolls the D/D thief almost everytime because of the control it can dish out which can root and render the D/D build useless. This isn’t to say I don’t occasionally get exploded by a D/D thief, but especially once you begin to expect them, they become fairly easy to counter.
Thanks again for the answer.
I finally found a group for CoF, and the run goes pretty well.
I have only some questions about Dungeons in general:
1. I will always get the reward at the end of the dungeon, or there’s some sort of ID like WoW?
2. I can get the reward of the dungeon daily?
I believe that there are diminishing returns if you run the same path multiple times , but you can run all 3 paths per day without having to worry about this.
A question out of line with the current state of this thread, but infusion of shadows seems to far outshine patience. What is the point of this ability since it seems like stacking both abilities would be redundant.
No, I use both. It ensures that I have full initiative when I’m using my Dagger 1/Dagger 5 melee combo. Getting refunded 2 initiative with CnD (or gaining it when I use any stealthing utility) is incredibly useful, for my build at least, since I sacrifice my toughness and HP pool for the ability to heal in stealth while still being able to hit hard. (I have about 13k HP when I trait Practiced Tolerance, about 11.5k without it.)
I use a 0/30/30/0/10 stealthy build, and without both Infusion of Shadows and Patience, I would be in serious trouble. I’ve tried playing with different traits in that line, but my survivability plummets. For my playstyle that involves frequent stealthing when the stealth debuff ends, if I didn’t use both of those traits I would run out of initiative really fast.
And as any thief should know, when you run out of initiative you die.
Fair enough since you use both, but if you choose 1, it seems that infusion of shadow will always be superior. I guess the real issue I have is that I always ends up picking multiple tier 1 traits because the second tier seems weak by comparison. It would be nice if patience did something in addition to one initiative after 3 seconds to put it on par with the front loaded 2 initiative of infusion of shadow. I understand that these 2 can’t trade places since you need to be traited into 4 second stealth for it to work. Look at the acrobatics line though, you get 2 initiative every 10 seconds which is what you would get if you used patience optimally ( stealth, wait 3 seconds, attack, restealth at the 6 second mark after revealed is gone, wait till the 9 second mark and attack again). That’s 6 seconds of downtime where pressure is off the opponent in which the acrobatics traitline could at least be autoattacking, and while traited 30 into critical strikes like you are, have about a 10% chance per hit of regaining that initiative or more depending on their critical chance. I guess redundant wasn’t the right word for me to use, maybe underwhelming would have been better.
Or you could get technobable from the asura if you are so inclined
I would recommend running citadel of flame. Very fast if you run with a regualr group or a PuG that knows what its doing. After that, all you have to buy/craft is jewelry.
Sounds like you need crit damage armor/accesories. In any case, tales of heartseeker have been greatly overexaggerated.
A question out of line with the current state of this thread, but infusion of shadows seems to far outshine patience. What is the point of this ability since it seems like stacking both abilities would be redundant.
As someone who mains thief and has since launch, I can say that HS is the one thing I agree needs changing.
While it is a very counterable skill for someone with the means, often HS is just too easy to use successfully. It kills noobs who can’t play, players with everything on CD and good players who simply got caught off-guard. While I think that all these players deserve to die, HS is still just too darn effective for the skill, time and initiative it takes to use. The damage, utility and effectiveness that HS brings far outweighs the three ini points and a single button press (or mash).
Glass thieves do need an effective execute, but HS in it’s current implementation still isn’t quite what it needs to be.
Well said,
I think even a small change to Heartseeker, like reducing the range and/or increasing the cost (to 4) would go a long way towards balancing Thieves a bit better.
I wouldn’t mind this either as long as they decrease the cost of dancing dagger as well so gap closing could be done on the utility side (dagger offhand) rather than on just the damage side. Someone else made these points on a different thread as well though.
Interacting with an object/chest should unstealth a stealthed Thief.
For example, me and my guildmate were fighting a champion in Orr. A Thief came running in (trailing a ton of mobs) went stealth and looted the chest (and left us to fight the extra mobs).
So next to the ability to troll other players and have a laugh, they can get free loot wherever there’s a chest. That last part is an exploit in my opinion and should be fixed as it is not intended to open chests that are guarded by powerful mobs and make off with the loot.
When you stealth and try to open a chest or something, your stealth should drop.
I thought that was part of being a thief though was to steal a champion’s loot. Run with one in a group and they can drop shadow refuge on the chest an your whole group benefits. If it weren’t intended to work that way, I would have thought that the chests wouldn’t open/appear before you defeated a champion. It seems that it was done that way to promote cooperative play insted of the ‘sin lfg’ for an hour in town that it was in GW1.
My main advice is NEEDS MOAR CRITS.
This is a pretty good video of a guy running your general style of build.
That video is pretty much exactly how it should be played. I just use the utilities I mentioned instead because I like to stealth teammates when they need it, and I like to remove conditions in stealth (instead of gaining 2 initiative since its such an initiative friendly build)
That’s almost my build. 10/30/30/0/0 works very well for me. I almost always have Shadowstep, blinding powder, and shadow refuge. For a while I used runes of the mesmer, but as they wouldn’t extend the daze long enough to finish a full autoattack chain, I switched to runes of the wurm. Anyway, using those utilities you are pretty much completely defended against control as you always have shadow return if you jumped into battle, but if a spike thief or knockdown warrior catches you off guard, you can usually turn the tables.
Edit: I usually run with berserkers with precision to vitality trait (Keeps damage and health up)
So I should spec more crit + crit dmg compared to toughness and vit?
I spec more crit (as much as possible in sPvP) . Boon removal on dagger since FS will be unblockable, occasionally you’ll rip 2 boons off a guardian. Sigil if fire I think on SB, and your preference for the sword. Executioner for CS line (forgot to mention it before). The only thing I really have trouble with is guardians.
I have been messing around with S/D for a few days now (SB off-hand), and it is growing on me.
My current build is 10/30/30/0/0, but I am not locked on that spec.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlUmCN3eS+E95Ey2jean4JuHWIS1UaFoJA;T0AA1CtowxgjAHLOOck4ssYgwpgHBTMA (copy + paste)
I like running a poison, and I prefer using Shadow Refuge for the clutch revive/stealth. The third slot has been changing. Sometimes I go with caltrops for defense or control, sometimes it’s RFI, but lately it’s been Blinding Powder for control and another stealth.My current build includes Soldier’s/Soldier’s Amulet, with Runes of the Eagle for the extra crit% and damage. Plus the extra %5 damage at 50%hp on top of Executioner.
Sitting at
2939 Attack
26% Crit 38% Crit Dmg.
2924 Armor
17245 Health.If you were trying to run as Sword/Dagger what might you change and why?
That’s almost my build. 10/30/30/0/0 works very well for me. I almost always have Shadowstep, blinding powder, and shadow refuge. For a while I used runes of the mesmer, but as they wouldn’t extend the daze long enough to finish a full autoattack chain, I switched to runes of the wurm. Anyway, using those utilities you are pretty much completely defended against control as you always have shadow return if you jumped into battle, but if a spike thief or knockdown warrior catches you off guard, you can usually turn the tables.
Edit: I usually run with berserkers with precision to vitality trait (Keeps damage and health up)
(edited by Maugetarr.6823)
I don’t understand why people argue about, or even waste time/mental capacity on the idea of future balance by nerfing output numbers. Why does everyone think the solution to everything is obviously to nerf/buff numbers?
What makes the C&D > Mug > Backstab combo so powerful is that it all happens at once. There’s no time to react. FORGET nerfing numbers. Just make Mug interrupt C&D.
People have time to counter. Problem solved. No more fretting over which skill gets nerfed into the ground. No more fretting over how it affects other builds.
*Edited for clarity
That might work, but they would have to change other teleport abilities to also interrupt skills. Even if they did though, this would change the time to react from 3/8 ( assuming you cast halfway through CnD) to 3/4 of a sec. It might work, it might not. Adding that little amount ous time might make no difference at all. It also might affect those people who cast steal halfway through FS to make sure the second attack hits. Also, I like to store bundles from the previous victim, cast them and then re use steal to close the gap and burst down an especially tough opponent (say with 2 rounds of whirling axe). There are no real solutions, only tradeoffs. Also, the original chain could be very closely replicated with the use of haste, which is where a lot of complaints are coming from.
I play a thief.
The risk/reward of stealth is out of whack. Too many ways to get into stealth if you miss a burst window.
The simplest solutions would be to:
a) increase revealed debuff from all stealth sources to 10 seconds, and compensate with better utilities for the group – more combo fields (adding them to things like blinding powder) and focusing on the way steal buffs allies.
b) redesign CnD to something that does not give stealth
The whole mechanic of burst/stealth/burst/stealth endlessly is not good for the overall meta, it gets dull at best and with culling it becomes very broken.
If people can’t restealth, it would push people father into a front end burst rather than a sustainable combat situation like S/D which relies on restealth for daze control.
They need to compensate of course, but restealthing over and over is the problem.
Stealth should be a powerful mechanic (and it is) but it should not allow for mistakes like it does now; its use should be sparing and meaningful, not spammy.
Think about it like this: what if guardian/warrior could block for 5 seconds every 8 seconds. It would promote skill-less and safe spamming – that is the way stealth is used now, and it severely lowers the skill floor of the class.
The guardian has access to multiple boons that protect it though along with weapon skills that block and control without postional requirements. Also that wouldn’t deter the front end burst and I’m sure everyone who doesn’t play a thief would love to see a buff to the other weapons even with less availability to stealth. Also traits would gave to be entirely reworked. As it is, the thief’s only real defense lies within stealth in which they can still be hurt.
I play a thief.
The risk/reward of stealth is out of whack. Too many ways to get into stealth if you miss a burst window.
The simplest solutions would be to:
a) increase revealed debuff from all stealth sources to 10 seconds, and compensate with better utilities for the group – more combo fields (adding them to things like blinding powder) and focusing on the way steal buffs allies.
b) redesign CnD to something that does not give stealth
The whole mechanic of burst/stealth/burst/stealth endlessly is not good for the overall meta, it gets dull at best and with culling it becomes very broken.
If people can’t restealth, it would push people father into a front end burst rather than a sustainable combat situation like S/D which relies on restealth for daze control.
Yes the usual rebuttal is:
dodge 17 times
perma spam aoe all round you and prayThief is the game breaker – its severely overpowered. Drop its burst by half and it’d still be strong. As it is now its nonsense.
(And to reverse your position – do the 1 post count and you’d have the same 5 or 6 thieves who want godmode to remain desperately fighting a rearguard don’t nerf me campaign)
No, the rebuttal is eat heartseekers while above 50%, put AoEs on yourself, and dodge heartseekers under 50%. Snare and spike, and always keep swinging. Its not as if thieves never fight each other, and if you read through the forums or ask for advice on how to take down a thief, you will find earnest advice on how to deal with the class.
And that might work if it werent for the fact that the thief then disappears at will.
So lemme see – let him knock me down to 9-10k health.
HS – dodge
HS – dodge
Note – im dodging – he’s taking no damage whilst I’m dodging
I’m out of dodges
HS – 6k
HS – deadShould I get a few lucky shots in and worry him – poof, vanish, 4-5s he’s back at full health and BAM I’m dead.
The only counter to a thief is another thief. That has to tell you something is badly wrong.
If the only counter to a thief is another thief, why do plenty of non-thief players keep posting about defeating thieves with ease? And in the scenario that you present, are you doing nothing to counter the thief? no attacks? knockdowns? invulns… anything beyond dodging?
Those would be thief players with alts running the ‘dont nerf my godmode class’ defence.
It is only easier for thieves to take down thieves because they are aware of the shortcomings of the class. You ingnored the part about rooting. In addition, any sort of CC will be very effective against a D/D thief. It really only takes a few luck hits on a thief to down them with GC thieves having a healthpool around 13k at most. A warrior’s autoattack can easily accomplish this, not to mention any real weapon skills.
If the damage of mug is nerfed too much the trait becomes worthless. Steal can be used once every ~40 seconds and it’s damage isn’t amazing considering the cooldown and the fact it takes up a trait slot. It’s only real use is as a way to increase burst damage.
The CnD+mug+backstab combo deals a lot of damage in a short time, but the actual attacks themselves are fine. Getting killed by the combo is a L2P issue imo, and I think A-net shares this view when they nerfed CnD rather than backstab. Mug and CnD are practically unavoidable unless you see it coming but there is enough time to counter the backstab portion of the chain.
In a sPvP environment I have no problem dealing with these GC thief builds and find it hard to understand why there is so much QQing over them. Just slot a utility skill to counter this combo and they’re a free kill most of the time. If my escape tools are on cooldown, they will take me out quickly, but this would occur with any burst build with some CC such as 100b frenzy warriors or shatter mesmers.
Agreed, GC are pretty easy to deal with in sPvP, the difficulty now comes with trying to take down a true bunker using S/D. Real damage output in that class has been reduced to the autoattack chain with the nerf to dancing dagger and CnD.
Yes the usual rebuttal is:
dodge 17 times
perma spam aoe all round you and prayThief is the game breaker – its severely overpowered. Drop its burst by half and it’d still be strong. As it is now its nonsense.
(And to reverse your position – do the 1 post count and you’d have the same 5 or 6 thieves who want godmode to remain desperately fighting a rearguard don’t nerf me campaign)
No, the rebuttal is eat heartseekers while above 50%, put AoEs on yourself, and dodge heartseekers under 50%. Snare and spike, and always keep swinging. Its not as if thieves never fight each other, and if you read through the forums or ask for advice on how to take down a thief, you will find earnest advice on how to deal with the class.
(edited by Maugetarr.6823)
Your point is mostly that Backstab itself should be changed, as opposed to C&D or Mug, and I agree.
Which should have been done originally instead of the change to CnD which dispropotionately affected the damage output of the other classes using dagger offhand (at least in sPvP).
I understand thieves have stealth. What I don’t understand is how many stealths they get and how long they can get them to last. Poping in and out of combat at will, taking no damage while stealthed, being able to stay in stealth and still do damage. There has to be a give and take. Thieves shouldn’t be able to get stealth whenever they want and still do large amounts of damage at the same time. Might as well give them permanant invis while in combat because thats what they are getting anyway.
Thieves work on initiative for their weapon skills. These skills have no cooldown, but each cost a certain amount of initiative. A dagger offhand uses cloak and dagger which uses a melee attack which stealths the thief if they hit succesfully, but costs half of the thief’s initiative. With a D/P weapon combo, a thief can put down a combo field that they can leap through and stealth themselves. This costs 3/4 of the thief’s base initiative. There are 2 utility skills that directly stealth the thief, blinding powder which is on a 40 second cooldown, and shadow refuge which is an area stealth on a 60 second cooldown. Stealth lasts for 3 seconds untraited, and 4 seconds when traited. If a thief makes a successful attack from stealth, they becom revealed for 3 seconds in which they cannot restealth. There are a few traits that only work while stealthed, one grants regen for 5 seconds, one cures a condition every 3 seconds, one gives health every second while in stealth. Stealth does not make you invincible, but stacking the aforementioned traits can sometimes make it seem like they are not getting hit, especially because shadow refuge also heals, and stacks multiple instances of stealth on the thief. Finally there is a Healing utility that cures burning poison and bleeding while stealthing the thief. To effectively counter the thief, the best thing you can do is block or dodge the CnD attack so that the thief will have to blow a cooldown. If you root a thief and they stealth, continue to attack the place where you rooted them, and you have a decent chance of downing them. I hope this has cleared up any questions about the availability of stealth to a thief.
I would recommend S/* for leveling. D offhand is great for crippling mobs(u know its not a great damage spike anymore though) and the allowing you to jump back out of combat with the second half of infiltrators strike. P offhand allows you to stay in hand to hand very easily. Sword mainhand also has the advantage of hitting multiple targets pretty hard and causing weakness on the end of it too. I always trait 30 into shadow arts so I would recommend going that way first, but its a matter of preferance for playstyle.
If damage broke stealth the thief would never stealth in combat again as the swing of a sword would break it as soon as they were in it or the ability would finish channeling and break them out of it. As it is, the thief is only in stealth for 3 (4 if traited) seconds at a time. There is only 1 weapon ability that allows them to enter stealth (excluding combo fields). Block, blind, or dodge this and you force them to use an ability on CD. If thieves can’t stealth as they do now, it would force anyone using a control or condition build to switch to a burst build since they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves in extended combat situation. If thieves were actually based around non combat stealth roaming the countryside invisible then it would be a good idea to have a way to negate it, but for such a short duration, there really is no point in being able to break it.
Edit: if you guys want, we could go back to the critical defenses and flashing blades of guild wars 1 and really be annoying when you could see us and not be able to hit us. Add the dodging which didn’t exist then and it really would be untouchable.
(edited by Maugetarr.6823)
All I got have to say to the dev team is PLEASE do not give in to all the people crying for nerfs on thieves.
I played a thief and I want them to be nerfed. Thieves are killing this game.
do we hit hard?yes.
is it unavoidable?no.
no need to nerf.
Heartseeker is unavoidable. Once Dodge bar is empty. And since you can spam it 4-6 times depending on build, I say ‘it IS unavoidable’. Mesmer have daze and Knockback that can be time to interrupt.
The only way to beat thief is to interrupt him. Loosing endurance or hp = win for thief. Cause he gets so close to an ‘easy burst target’ down, that you can’t do a kitten against it. Interrupt works because it EATS the iniative, without the thief making progress (removing endurance/hp). Ele got one knockback every 40 secs. Apart from that you have full freedom to spam heartseeker down on our throat.
95% Unavoidable on non interrupt professions.
Spamming it 4 to 6 times means they are using nothing else. Above 50% health, at least is sPvP, heartseeker isn’t doing much. As for 95% unblockable, engineer has a knockback and root, rangers have roots and cripples, necros have multiple healthbars and chill fields, warriors have blocks and knockbacks, guardians have blocks and protection, eles have reactive stuns and blocks to combat this. Any sort of slowing condition hits a heartseeker thief hard.
Have a feeling they’re going to do something to mug, change it to master or nerf it
If they would do either of these, they would probably just nerf it. Changing it to master would just assure that only GC would use it causing it to hit harder. This might cause it to not be used as strategically as a finishing burst on a lower damage build. As it stands now virtually all builds can have access to mug if they want it, but without traiting heavily into power, its damage is not out of line with what you would expect on a 45 second cooldown.
Explain to me why someone who ALREADY spammed 4x heartseeker, used cloack heal (had to be, he used over 12 ini on Heartseeker), He used shadow refuge, and for a miracle i managed to force him to reveal himself out of it (aoeing heavely inside it). So he came out. This means heal cloack cooldown, shadow refuge cooldown.
At that point he could have used CnD. But i was away from him, cause i knew he would use it, and CnD only works if it hits. (PvE learned me that quite fast).
Out of nowhere he cloacks and is NEVER seen again. Combat logs, didn’t add any new cloack and dagger. He just was gone.
Really revealing does nothing.
Yes i pressed ‘select closest target’ all the time. But i select a stupid wall or monster instead of the thief with that. I must tab tab tab until the reveal is over and he cloacks all over again.
And lol at evading suggestion. You guys think it’s this easy? We have only 2 dodge bars. If we have to use them to avoid first combo’s, we have zero defence, zero retreat. The thiefs comes at us, BANG 4x teleported Heartseeker that overrules moving in any way by the opposite profession. You can only dodge heartseeker. Or interrupt it. But that is hard with my ground targeted spells since you jump safely into the air while using your HS.
With 3-5 dodge bars I may be able to beat a thief. As it stands now, meh. All their skills overrule dodging to easely. Steal = teleport (dodge useless), Backstab, unseen, uncoutered, free 20-30% hitpoints of enemy down. What comes then you may dodge, but ONLY TWO. Vigor restores to slowly to have a third dodge ,when someone spams heartseeker.
I think you guys are to used to thief itself, wich has more dodge then any other profession while Ironically, need them the least of all with cloacking mechanism.
First of all, he probably burned his last utility blinding powder or simply logged out. Second, as long as you’re above 50% health, you should eat the heartseeker as it’s pretty weak(but only above 50).
Third, as many others have stated, the stealth doesn’t protect us from damage and doesn’t break abilities in the process of channeling, necessetating copious amounts of dodges and evades (certainly not the most though…engineer comes to mind). I would also like to point out we lack boons that block, reduce incoming damage, or redirect damage.
I run with S/D and SB mainly, and run either 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0. This may or may not work for you, and its a build that will keep you on your toes, and sometimes in that Cliffside one with the giant you can get one shotted by the guy holding the hammer.If you pay close attention though, you can jump in and out of combat swiching your wepon sets when you start getting hit too much. I always go for the regen in stealth trait to support the team, as that extra health from shadow refuge or blinding powder can get people up faster. Try to always combo a light field with the shortbow 2 as well. The short area retaliation can really help.
With all the talk about how the thief can get away if things go awry for them, I would like to know when retreat became a form of victory in people’s minds. So you didn’t get the 10 points in PvP or the chance for badge drops in WvW, but if you force a thief to retreat, you have won.
Because no repair cost, no loot for enemy, and you don’t have to waypoint. 3 reasons.
I’ll repeat it again, a good builded thief, cannot die, and somehow always has hp/iniative left (even after consta-spamming them over 40 secs with maybe 4-5 secs pause max). This should not be possible.
Warrior is a joke compared to thiefs. CC the warrior and he’s dead, can’t do anything. CC a thief, he cloacks, gets away.
I saw 20 thiefs use Shadow Refuge today. Some with very low hp (almost dead). Having played thief myself in wvw (lvl 53) I know aoe’s inside Shadow refuge field can easely kill thief. I did all my aoe’s (over 8k damage, and many dots), thief had low hp when he used it. And he STILL ESCAPED. you read this? Still. I’m all out of creativity, on how to catch and kill a thief. They always escape, always, unless they are noobs, who rarely cloack.
So no loot for the thief either, and no repair cost for you, however you now control the point you were trying to take or defend. Also if you lasted 45 seconds then forced the thief to retreat, that sounds like a rather balanced fight to me. As arena net keeps stating through words and small buffs to speed, thieves are supposed to be the most mobile, and they are on par with an elementalist. And imagine that, thieves using their most useful utility.
When the thief kills you, you are forced to resurrect at home. It will be more than 5 minutes before you can fight in the front line again. And you also need to repair your armour.
When you beat the thief and he escapes, he can be back in action at the front line within 1 minute. That means he can join any new fights nearby. He also doesn’t need to repair his armour.
How is this considered fair?
I would point to the above statements (if you stalemate/cause the thief to run you don’t have to waypoint back or repair your armor). If you are taking or defending a point, you are the frontline. It sounds to me though as if you think thieves never die which is not the case.
I would recommend using barrage or poison volley over the spot as well as dropping spike trap or flame trap on the spot. Maybe autoattack won’t be as effective, but such is the tradeoff for using 2 ranged weapons instead of 1 ranged and one close combat.
have you used barrage? Rangers can only barrage in a small area and by the time the cool down is up, the ranger will be eating dirt. Barrage is useless sorry.
I thought we were talking about a small area focused on your downed teamate in order to try to drive off a thief before they stealth stomp. I have used barrage a little but I did not continue to level the ranger (nothing against rangers, I just didn’t find them as fun as a thief). I have been hit enough to know though that it can deal a decent enough amount of damage to scare off a thief. It may not be a huge area, but we are not talking about guessing a location but rather proactively driving a thief off of a downed teammate. If the thief still manages to stomp the player, they will come out of stealth very soon after and furthermore be crippled. No this may not be perfect, but it is just suggestions with things that have happened to me. Eles, warriors, mesmers, and guardians may be more effective at preventing a teammate from getting stomped, but it still stands that instead of trying to res the person immediately, you would do better to attack the area of your teammate in an effort to drive them off.
Have you used classes with AOES? AOE’s have a cast time and typically deal their damage over time. You are not going to AOE a thief on a downed ally before he stomps him, you’d have to pre-emptively AOE your ally and pray the damage was enough to make him not stomp your ally and the LOLroll away. This of course isn’t even accounting for server latency and reaction time.
This is provided of course that your AOE is best used as a low % chance attempt to save a downed ally in the middle of a WvW fight.
There are only a few skills that can stop a thief about to stomp mostly reliably. Those are things like focus pulls. Even then if you are slow your ally is dead anyways.
This is the same reason it’s difficult to kill a thief in a shadow refuge circle with AOE. By the time your AOE actually starts to hit the thief is halfway through it’s pulse duration. They can already run away safely and eat zero damage or choose to stay and grab the full duration.
I have dabbled in ele, guardian, engineer, ranger, mesmer, and have leveled a warrior and thief to 80, which is why I mentioned that eles, warriors, mesmers, and guardians would be more effective at this. I have also played against a fair number of these and I am telling you what stops me from stomping a player. I will tell you though that having the thief as my main I try to prevent my teammates from getting stomped by throwing down SR on top of them or using blinding powder over them. You can’t save every teammate from people attempting to stomp them especially warriors with stability, eles in mist form, or engineers with elixir S, but comparatively speaking, stealth is a weak stomp. I would like to point out that a guardian’s downstate knockback, an ele’s mistform (for escaping to a teamate), an engineer’s explosive ability, and a ranger’s interrupt will all affect a thief in stealth. Above everything else, if you have a melee chain ability I would recommend using as you’ll see the chain advance and know you are hitting the correct spot. As for server latency or slow reaction time, your teammate would be dead whether the thief is invisible or not.
Not sure if its been mentioned,
But Stealth finishing also has to be done away with.
Shouldnt even try and revive someone downed by a thief because the thief will finish him before you can even bring him up.
So please look into this, it is quite tedious.Stealth finishing is the weakest of the “special” finishers and easiest to counter. Just kill/interrupt the thief, both of those options aren’t even available with most special finishing moves.
Problem lies here, how do I or many around me kill or interrupt the thief if we cant see him?
I don’t feel we should have to Aoe everywhere randomly just to see thieves, then only after that try to kill him. (Which is more a problem with stealth in general)
By “Special” finishers you mean Stability, and that is not so much a problem because you can shoot at the person (doing the finishing) while he tries to finish someone and kill him. With a thief you can’t even do that (because you can’t even see him).Agreed. when they are perma stealthed, then how exactly should we aoe them? Lol.
If you are talking about AoEing a Thief trying to stomp a teammate, put the AOE on your teammate and autoattack the spot.
If i’m on my Shortbow/Longbow Ranger, how do I autoattack the thief? I cant because I cant shoot something i cant aim at.
I refuse to carry a greatsword in the chance this occurs…
And AoEing a thief is easier said than done. (By that i mean he can see my AoE rings on the floor and just wait it out)I would recommend using barrage or poison volley over the spot as well as dropping spike trap or flame trap on the spot. Maybe autoattack won’t be as effective, but such is the tradeoff for using 2 ranged weapons instead of 1 ranged and one close combat.
have you used barrage? Rangers can only barrage in a small area and by the time the cool down is up, the ranger will be eating dirt. Barrage is useless sorry.
I thought we were talking about a small area focused on your downed teamate in order to try to drive off a thief before they stealth stomp. I have used barrage a little but I did not continue to level the ranger (nothing against rangers, I just didn’t find them as fun as a thief). I have been hit enough to know though that it can deal a decent enough amount of damage to scare off a thief. It may not be a huge area, but we are not talking about guessing a location but rather proactively driving a thief off of a downed teammate. If the thief still manages to stomp the player, they will come out of stealth very soon after and furthermore be crippled. No this may not be perfect, but it is just suggestions with things that have happened to me. Eles, warriors, mesmers, and guardians may be more effective at preventing a teammate from getting stomped, but it still stands that instead of trying to res the person immediately, you would do better to attack the area of your teammate in an effort to drive them off.
Not sure if its been mentioned,
But Stealth finishing also has to be done away with.
Shouldnt even try and revive someone downed by a thief because the thief will finish him before you can even bring him up.
So please look into this, it is quite tedious.Stealth finishing is the weakest of the “special” finishers and easiest to counter. Just kill/interrupt the thief, both of those options aren’t even available with most special finishing moves.
Problem lies here, how do I or many around me kill or interrupt the thief if we cant see him?
I don’t feel we should have to Aoe everywhere randomly just to see thieves, then only after that try to kill him. (Which is more a problem with stealth in general)
By “Special” finishers you mean Stability, and that is not so much a problem because you can shoot at the person (doing the finishing) while he tries to finish someone and kill him. With a thief you can’t even do that (because you can’t even see him).Agreed. when they are perma stealthed, then how exactly should we aoe them? Lol.
If you are talking about AoEing a Thief trying to stomp a teammate, put the AOE on your teammate and autoattack the spot.
If i’m on my Shortbow/Longbow Ranger, how do I autoattack the thief? I cant because I cant shoot something i cant aim at.
I refuse to carry a greatsword in the chance this occurs…
And AoEing a thief is easier said than done. (By that i mean he can see my AoE rings on the floor and just wait it out)
I would recommend using barrage or poison volley over the spot as well as dropping spike trap or flame trap on the spot. Maybe autoattack won’t be as effective, but such is the tradeoff for using 2 ranged weapons instead of 1 ranged and one close combat.
Not sure if its been mentioned,
But Stealth finishing also has to be done away with.
Shouldnt even try and revive someone downed by a thief because the thief will finish him before you can even bring him up.
So please look into this, it is quite tedious.Stealth finishing is the weakest of the “special” finishers and easiest to counter. Just kill/interrupt the thief, both of those options aren’t even available with most special finishing moves.
Problem lies here, how do I or many around me kill or interrupt the thief if we cant see him?
I don’t feel we should have to Aoe everywhere randomly just to see thieves, then only after that try to kill him. (Which is more a problem with stealth in general)
By “Special” finishers you mean Stability, and that is not so much a problem because you can shoot at the person (doing the finishing) while he tries to finish someone and kill him. With a thief you can’t even do that (because you can’t even see him).Agreed. when they are perma stealthed, then how exactly should we aoe them? Lol.
If you are talking about AoEing a Thief trying to stomp a teammate, put the AOE on your teammate and autoattack the spot.
Hit for 9968 damage in under a second in the opening attack.
5217 from steal alone.
Full exotic toughness armor and weapons engineer. Full exotic vitality jewelry.Health pool is 21382 so almost half my health dropped in the opening attack. And no..no elixir U used =).
So basically I started the fight with half my health gone. So much for toughness/vitality countering the thief’s ‘nerfed’ DPS.
Pic attached.
So you started the fight with right around the thief’s healthpool? Sounds like he started the fight off by evening the odds.
No..I started the fight with the same health pool of a glass cannon who has more dps than me based on his build and gear.
I started the fight with the same health pool as the thief who can stealth to get away from being focused.
So..no..it wasn’t evening the odds..it was using a broken class. Good try, though! (not..)So in essence..your punished for using toughness/vitality gear and your punished for using glass cannon gear. i.e. What thief players depend on.
Its entertaining seeing how thief players argue and defend the broken mechanics. Reminds me of someone drowning who will grab unto anything =D .
Please fix the handicap mode class..how many pages in this thread do we need ?
Well assuming your screenshot was using the same build, after supply crate was dropped, they would be stunned, then immobilized by the net turret. then you could further immobilize them with the glue shot. Assuming they ever got to you after you loaded them up with every condition, they would then be hurt by confusion, not to mention access to blind and knockback on the flamethrower, plus at least 2 dodges, and then even after all that, elixer s which would negate the last few heartseekers of a thief probably desperately hitting 2 since you’ve blown through most of his 13000 health with no condition removal if he truly was a glass cannon. it is very hard for a snared D/D thief to do much.
That would be a nice rosy world where you actually compete fairly against the thief class!
so:
A.Why should My class start the fight against a thief class with half my health gone.
B.I should have thought of all of that..I mean I have it all set up and stuff..I bet you I could have unloaded all of that in less than a second and dropped the thief’s health to half or zero if he was a glass cannon. Sadly..I can’t do that much DPS in a second.Blink blink and your dead..welcome to Thief wars 2~!
If your CCed or hit during stealth you should pop out right away..period. Its ridiculous to stay stealthed. ANY action should break stealth. There should be a balance to the stealth ability.
The balance to stealth is that stealth does nothing to prevent damage or cc or condition damage (unless traited which is normally not the case for a glass cannon), just visual and active targeting. The setup I mentioned does not need to happen in a 1 second setup, it is simply what has happened to me playing against engineers that have defeated me. If you survive the initial burst, a D/D thief has fairly limited utility against control, possibly shadowstep which is once every 60 seconds unless also traited. Bathing the area of a snared thief, visible or not, with a flamethrower would have done more than enough to balance the fight in your direction once again.
Furthermore, if a GC thief cant do that sort of (unsustainable) burst, why should he have to constantly start the fight with 2/3 of your health?
EDIT:redundant last sentence
(edited by Maugetarr.6823)
Hit for 9968 damage in under a second in the opening attack.
5217 from steal alone.
Full exotic toughness armor and weapons engineer. Full exotic vitality jewelry.Health pool is 21382 so almost half my health dropped in the opening attack. And no..no elixir U used =).
So basically I started the fight with half my health gone. So much for toughness/vitality countering the thief’s ‘nerfed’ DPS.
Pic attached.
So you started the fight with right around the thief’s healthpool? Sounds like he started the fight off by evening the odds.
No..I started the fight with the same health pool of a glass cannon who has more dps than me based on his build and gear.
I started the fight with the same health pool as the thief who can stealth to get away from being focused.
So..no..it wasn’t evening the odds..it was using a broken class. Good try, though! (not..)So in essence..your punished for using toughness/vitality gear and your punished for using glass cannon gear. i.e. What thief players depend on.
Its entertaining seeing how thief players argue and defend the broken mechanics. Reminds me of someone drowning who will grab unto anything =D .
Please fix the handicap mode class..how many pages in this thread do we need ?
Well assuming your screenshot was using the same build, after supply crate was dropped, they would be stunned, then immobilized by the net turret. then you could further immobilize them with the glue shot. Assuming they ever got to you after you loaded them up with every condition, they would then be hurt by confusion, not to mention access to blind and knockback on the flamethrower, plus at least 2 dodges, and then even after all that, elixer s which would negate the last few heartseekers of a thief probably desperately hitting 2 since you’ve blown through most of his 13000 health with no condition removal if he truly was a glass cannon. it is very hard for a snared D/D thief to do much.
With all the talk about how the thief can get away if things go awry for them, I would like to know when retreat became a form of victory in people’s minds. So you didn’t get the 10 points in PvP or the chance for badge drops in WvW, but if you force a thief to retreat, you have won.
Because no repair cost, no loot for enemy, and you don’t have to waypoint. 3 reasons.
I’ll repeat it again, a good builded thief, cannot die, and somehow always has hp/iniative left (even after consta-spamming them over 40 secs with maybe 4-5 secs pause max). This should not be possible.
Warrior is a joke compared to thiefs. CC the warrior and he’s dead, can’t do anything. CC a thief, he cloacks, gets away.
I saw 20 thiefs use Shadow Refuge today. Some with very low hp (almost dead). Having played thief myself in wvw (lvl 53) I know aoe’s inside Shadow refuge field can easely kill thief. I did all my aoe’s (over 8k damage, and many dots), thief had low hp when he used it. And he STILL ESCAPED. you read this? Still. I’m all out of creativity, on how to catch and kill a thief. They always escape, always, unless they are noobs, who rarely cloack.
So no loot for the thief either, and no repair cost for you, however you now control the point you were trying to take or defend. Also if you lasted 45 seconds then forced the thief to retreat, that sounds like a rather balanced fight to me. As arena net keeps stating through words and small buffs to speed, thieves are supposed to be the most mobile, and they are on par with an elementalist. And imagine that, thieves using their most useful utility.
HS is a stupid skill,that was made to this long time ago.
HS mobility is great.It’s damage isn’t. In my opinion it should be changed as following:
100%-25%—> the damage of the present 100%-50% range
25%-0%—>no change.
Also any quickness skills removed from the game,PW damage restored,Dancing Dagger partialy restored,C&D damage restored,Mug damage nerfed instead and voila…
The only problem with nerfing the mug side of the damage is that for S/D, sometimes you need that little extra damage on the end to burst them down. If they buffed the CnD side of it again, people would start to complain that stealth is still to easily accessable andit deals real damage again. Better to leave the damage on the once every 45 second side. I would like to see the DD initiative cost reduced by 1 if damage is to stay as is. AN would then basically making the statement that offhand dagger is utility.
With all the talk about how the thief can get away if things go awry for them, I would like to know when retreat became a form of victory in people’s minds. So you didn’t get the 10 points in PvP or the chance for badge drops in WvW, but if you force a thief to retreat, you have won.
Hit for 9968 damage in under a second in the opening attack.
5217 from steal alone.
Full exotic toughness armor and weapons engineer. Full exotic vitality jewelry.Health pool is 21382 so almost half my health dropped in the opening attack. And no..no elixir U used =).
So basically I started the fight with half my health gone. So much for toughness/vitality countering the thief’s ‘nerfed’ DPS.
Pic attached.
So you started the fight with right around the thief’s healthpool? Sounds like he started the fight off by evening the odds.
People keep complaining about spamming 2 with D/* as a finisher, but what would the alternative be? Autoattack? Deathblossom is decent for a condition build, DD is pitiful for real damage output now, and CnD would just put you back in stealth assuming you aren’t revealed. Other classes would use this opportunity to weapon swap, but due to our global cool down this wouldn’t do any good unless traited to 30 in acrobatics. So if you do switch and want to stay in close combat, you have the choice of sword and, oh yeah, sword. On sword you have auto attack, a gap closer, and either FS or PW depending on your offhand. Being able to spam HS is the trade-off for the lack of other abilities and being tied to a global cooldown.
Err. Uh. Every class (except Engineers) have the exact same constraints. Except that all the other classes are also constrained by the ability itself going on cooldown.
Thief is only limited by Initiative, hence the relative encouragement to spam abilities.
Except ele cycling through 20 weapon skills, or A/A +GS warriors, or engineers cycling through weapon kits, or necros switching between 2 distinct ranged weapons or short ranged weapons, or guardian switching between multiple close combat weapons. But to my point, other professions can blow through their whole skill bar, swap, and have a whole new set of abilities ready and blow through all of them, whereas a thief gains no benefit from the swich if he has burned through his initiative. Other classes may not be able to spam the same ability but certainly can still spam just as much.
People keep complaining about spamming 2 with D/* as a finisher, but what would the alternative be? Autoattack? Deathblossom is decent for a condition build, DD is pitiful for real damage output now, and CnD would just put you back in stealth assuming you aren’t revealed. Other classes would use this opportunity to weapon swap, but due to our global cool down this wouldn’t do any good unless traited to 30 in acrobatics. So if you do switch and want to stay in close combat, you have the choice of sword and, oh yeah, sword. On sword you have auto attack, a gap closer, and either FS or PW depending on your offhand. Being able to spam HS is the trade-off for the lack of other abilities and being tied to a global cooldown.
Give S/D a try. Not as bursty as others but highly mobile with good condition removal and rips off boons pretty well. A much more control oriented thief.
I think the fleet shadow got changed because it was redundant before. In the same traitline you could get 2 seconds of swiftness on evade… and stealthing usually involved rolling behind the character or rolling away and running…so now there is a reason to take fleet shadow. If you read their thoughts behind balancing they said that the thief is supposed to have the highest mobility and single target burst. As for the pistols, this is probably just the first increment as they said that they don’t like to make huge sweeping changes that they have to fix later, so maybe there will be a buff to damage or greater chance for bouncing in the next patch.
a Thief can remain stealthed … and avoid any damage they might have taken.
Stealth only works this way against NPCs and really bad players. Thieves don’t take damage during stealth because people don’t try to attack them, not because stealth is good at preventing damage.
You’re wrong.
You can not target us while we are in stealth, and NO ONE but new players gets hit by AoEs. There is no possible way to die to AoEs in this game, unless you just stand there. Because of this, if you go back to reread my previous posts, thieves have the best defense in the game with steatlh, especially when you factor in DODGES, which are even better once you make a greater use of Vigor, and 40% Endurance Regen Food.
So yes, Steatlh prevents all single target damage that requires a target. The benefits of dodge prvents all other forms of damage, and the fact that a red circle shows on the ground for most AoEs, it is extremely hard to do damage to us. I die maybe once in 500 kills, and that is only because I was playing tired, or drunk, and I made a massive mistake.
The only way your post would make sense is if we couldn’t move once we went stealth.
I think he was referring to the fact that NPCs will stop attacking the area when you stealth, whereas a decent player will keep spamming the area will auto attack waiting for the chain to advance to indicate a hit. Also if all AoEs are so ineffective, I guess we should just tell all the other classes to not even use them. If you’re continually on defense while in stealth, you’re taking pressue off your opponent, letting their abilities cool down, so while they might be missing you with the AoE, they are at least rendering you useless. While you’re spending all this time dodging too, your time in stealth is dwindling, allowing them to once again use single target abilities once you reappear without any endurance left. Not to mention any sort of CC can still stop you in your tracks.
Wow, now the S/D pairing is OP? It probably felt like 2 seconds due to the tactical strike dazing you, but if we’re now complaining about one of the least used builds (at least that I’ve encountered in spvp) what weapon combo will be left?