…Your allies are supposed to stop the enemy from stomping e.g. using knockdown, knock back, daze or other form of interrupt, but how is that supposed to work when the stomping attacker is using stealth…
By what you just said, you KNOW a Thief has downed the person, you see SR surrounding your fallen comrade. What do you honestly think is going on there? Stealth isn’t a defensive mechanic, it is an SIGHT mechanic. Use an AoE interrupt when you know a Thief is near a downed ally, and watch him fall apart.
If you guys honestly knew what you were talking about, you’d know that Shadowstep-Stomp is a VASTLY more practical method than simply stealthing. But who would expect a Thief hater to have a shred of knowledge about the class they are complaining about?
I really think the downed state should be exclusive to whatever side is currently Outmanned. I agree with OP, it is a frusterating mechanic, and only encourages poor play in groups, “cuz my teammates will pick me up!”
I realize some PvE content would be unbearable to get through without it (due to bad players getting killed by bosses and a lack of trinity), but it has no purpose in PvP other than to prolong fights.
I have a serious question: If you willingly join a competitive multiplayer game type that pits dozens upon dozens of players against each others for map domination, requiring siege weapons to raid keeps and supply points, why WOULDN’T you expect players to team up with one another?
GW2 is the only game I have ever played where the community actually hates teamwork. Call it zerg all you want, but that “zerg” is a unanimous group working towards a similar goal, using one another as is intended in WvW.
Don’t like it? Click the crossed swords at the top of the screen and stop complaining. It’s like whining that guns killed you in a first-person shooter.
I agree 100% on replacing Hundred Blades with a lighter hitting, more mobile attack. I don’t need to use Utility skills on my Thief to get my backstabs off; the weapon choices do it all for me.
People scream that Thieves, Mesmers and Guardians need a nerf (rightfully so), but I honestly think all the classes need to be brought up to their level instead.
I have to agree. I don’t have the most experience with my Warrior (only started him a few days ago, but with hours of PvP since), and being rooted/kited is no doubt one of the bigger (many) issues with the class.
Coming from a Thief to a Warrior has been quite the jump to say the least. While the Thief is right where it needs to be, the Warrior is in a huge need for some kind of rework to get him on par with just about every other class in PvP.
People say it “balances” by having Warriors some of the best PvE classes in the game, but PvE is already kitten -easy, so that really isn’t a huge claim to fame.
I was under the impression Hammer build was one of the only real viable Warrior builds there is.
Guess I was wrong. I personally don’t like hammers, which is why I stick to Greatsword. But I never really saw the Hammer in any need for a change. But again, I don’t play it, so it could just be ignorance on my part.
uhhh you don’t take banners for the static stat buff. You take 1 utility banner and the battle standard and when you reach a pve mob that takes more than 15 seconds to kill. You drop the longbow burst fire field and drop all the banners and the longbow 3 skill as fast as you can. You don’t even pick up the banner to blast because it puts your weapon switch on cooldown. But since most warriors don’t even run longbow as their secondary running banners for the static stat boost is pointless. 100blades bro duuurrrr.
100-blades is only useful in PvE. I honestly 100% wish Anet would get rid of it and replace it with a skill that serves more purpose that giving an “iwin” button to Warriors exclusive for PvE.
I love Greatswords, and want to continue using one on my Warrior, but 100-blades is so kitten boring…
I gotta agree, OP. If anything, Warriors should be some of the hardest classes to knock down. In every other game, Warriors are hampered by kiting, but make up for it in big damage and ACTUAL damage prevention. Heavy Armor, while it does offer a little protection, does not help in the grand scheme of things.
It really is at a point where I can’t see someone 1v1 and hope to live unless I’m fighting another Warrior (and for some reason Necromancers. Maybe they need a buff, too? Never played the class).
I don’t know if GW2 has diminishing returns, but it doesn’t seem like it does. And if it doesn’t, it really needs it for some conditions (obviously diminishing damage-based conditions would ruin some classes, so don’t do that). I’d even go as far to say that diminishing returns on Warriors ONLY, or make them better at it, would single handedly help even the playing field a little.
Before I go with my comment I would suggest you not bypass the word filter. It’ll save you some trouble.
And I completely agree with you. The problem is the recent gaming generation feels the need to dictate how one should play. This is the method that they use to inflate their ego.
This has been the way people have handled video games almost since they were created, and in conjunction with the internet. Please, put away the nostalgia goggles, gramps.
I actually wouldn’t mind that. Not a needed update, but a useful one.
Again, I am an entry level player to GW2, only recently getting into the PvP scene
That is why you make kitten posts like this.
Answer to everything you wrote is, no.
You also missed the part where I said, " I am NOT a massively experienced player, and I am fine to admit that unlike 99% of this board."
Are you sure you’re a thief player?
Also thieves aren’t really as perfect as you make it seem. While stealth may be powerful, it’s not invulnerability.
I’ve been able to down and kill 2 thieves playing together on my guard (provided they were bad players) and later another one solo, all in a row. Thieves are definately powerful but winning will still at least require some skill.
To be honest I am currently happy with the class as is.
Try engineers they are a class to be unhappy about.
I am fully aware Thieves aren’t perfect. I even stated that in the second paragraph saying how most thieves don’t feel strong enough to “finish the job”. Denying your target a decent chunk of his heals can, in an odd way, relate to DPS completely. Just not in a traditional manner.
Honestly, a lot f the ideas I have for the Thief class is a “heal-denier” as a whole through conditions or whatnot. Conditions keep players in combat, reducing their speed, obviously a -33% heal is bad news bears, and being able to do that to a mass group with a weapon other than the touchy Shortbow would be nice. This allows Thieves to be helpful to zergs, by making players easier to kill for EVERYONE due to reduced healing. All of a sudden, not having a Thief during Zerg fights is as bad as not having a Guardian to tip the scales.
As for Hide in Shadow, it is still far more useful a skill than the others in comparison. Not only is it a HUGE burst heal, but it provides stealth with no initiative cost at that. You shouldn’t be rewarded 60-70%+ of your total health AND benefit from stealth with zero drawbacks or initiative cost tied to it.
While I agree that D/D is all about bursting, it simply doesn’t burst enough to finish the job in time for someone to heal that burst away with one skill. But being able to 2-shot someone is NOT excusable either. That is why I think the Poison/Heal Deny would work wonders for the build, allowing opening burst, and preventing the target from /laughing the pain away with a click of a button. In Conjunction with more Reveal time, I’d say it is a good trade off, and people would be much happier actually SEEING who they are fighting more the not.
(I want to begin by saying I am NOT a massively experienced player, and I am fine to admit that unlike 99% of this board. But I HAVE actually played a Thief to 80, and have participated in PvP as one, which counts for more than most of the people screaming for nerfs)
It is clear that no one is happy about the class. On one end you have a lot of annoyed players who want to pull their hair out trying to fight a Thief due to the nature of the class: being annoying.
Unfortunately, that is all Thieves really strive at, leaving the other end of the spectrum not feeling powerful enough to “finish the job” without the need to run away. Now, I have only really played D/D Berserker Thief (10/30/30/0/0), but I can agree with both sides of the spectrum, which all boils down to one thing: Stealth.
I’ll start with the nerfs:
- Stealth Reveal needs to be upped to 4 seconds again. There is no denying how easy it is for a Thief to pop in and out of stealth, and it is insane to think Thieves should have one fairly easy escape button, let alone 3+ (I didn’t say guarantee, just easy). Some builds can cheese stealth to the point where it is almost impossible for even a group to kill a single thief (granted, the thief won’t be killing anyone either, but this shouldn’t be a problem for ANY group against a single class). By increasing Reveal to 4 seconds again, there is a bigger window for someone to actually pull a few hits against Thieves before he disappears. Again, you SHOULDN’T be walking away with little risk in group fights by yourself.
- 1 or 2 seconds docked off the stealth from SR. There isn’t any reason for this skill to keep someone hidden for as long as it does. Otherwise, no changes.
- Healing from Stealth needs to be toned down (healing in general needs a nerf across the board). Why Hide in Shadow is the best healing ability a Thief has is still beyond me, and all the other healing abilities seem useless in comparison. Hide in Shadow needs slightly less healing done upon activation (I’d say roughly 10%). If a Thief wan’t fat heals, he needs to trait for them.
Buffs:
- Since the Thief no longer has a “burst” heal, the trait that allows Thieves to heal while in stealth should get buffed to compensate. Increase each tick by 10%
- Weapon SKill 3. Give the Thief the choice between the Dual Weapons Skill, or the Primary Weapon Skill if he would wield only a main-hand weapon. Nothing in dire need of attention, but could open up some new builds.
- Dagger Main Hand: INCREASE Poison time to 3-4 Seconds, keeping the damage the same. This will reduce healing on the target for longer, allowing the less bursty Thieves that we currently have still able to still go toe-to-toe with his target, preventing them from healing through all the damage dealt. Since the Thief won’t be popping back into stealth as often, this will help remedy that lost DPS as a result.
Again, I am an entry level player to GW2, only recently getting into the PvP scene. I do honestly think turning D/D Thieves into a DPS/Heal Denying class can make it viable again outside of UPlevel ganks. I know Thieves are basically useless without Stealth, and they fear being nerfed into oblivion. Just know, as a fellow Thief, my intentions are not to make us an easy kill. But I do have little experience with other builds, so please let me know if these suggestions harm (fairly) other playstyles.
I think his point is if you are doing nothing but using everything you have to counter backstab then that doesn’t prove backstabs effectiveness or lack thereof.
Well, I bring up a new point. If a thieve is changes to be revealed on a failed backstab attempt, what is stopping people from doing everything in their power to counter backstab by avoiding it at all costs (like people SHOULD be doing now), rendering the Thief completely useless?
Just like stunbreakers render bull rush useless?
If you’ve ever fought a good warrior, you’ll know that he has more disables than you have snare/stunbreakers. And he’s going to wait for you to waste them all before he sets up on you.
So what does a thief do?
Anyways, I don’t think missing a backstab should apply revealed. Maybe take them out of stealth, but boost backstab damage in compensation.
And again, you are missing the point.
Backstab Thieves rely on backstabbing. Period. You take a thief out os stealth on a missed attack, you change the meta so that EVERYONE tries to avoid the backstab, rendering said build near useless.
It isn’t going to fix anything other than making fights against Thieves that much more laughably easy with little compensation in return.
So that would only make BACKSTAB thieves useless, oh why didn’t you say so? I didn’t realize every thief ran Dagger MH backstab builds 100% of the time you know.
Anyways I’ve been more moderate around this issue because I don’t have a stance on it but your opinions are ridiculous. You think this nerf to one sneak attack on one weapon set that is used in one specific manner will render an ENTIRE CLASS useless. The only thing I can say is L2P, I haven’t backstabbed a single time in the last 20 hours I’ve been on thief.
Besides, it’s not as easy as you think to avoid a backstab from a 4s stealthed thief. Evades only last .75 seconds and recharge every 10 seconds. D/P thief can regen enough initiative to backstab again every 7 or so seconds. C&D thieves can do it in 5 if they land their C&D.
So you’re suggesting a nerf with no return? Of course it would render backstab thieves useless, seeing as how they’re build is based completely around stealth attacks. Yes, there are thieves who DON’T use daggers, but those Thieves also don’t rely on stealth as a mechanic nearly as much. This nerf to Thieves is a direct attack on burst specs, which basically means Dagger MH, seeing as how ranged attacks never actually “miss” their locked-on target. No idea why you are so shocked about this, as it was obviously the only build that CAN be effected by it.
Did I not say “boost backstab damage to compensate” or did you not read that?
Also, I’m not shocked. You said the thief class will be useless after such a nerf, which I disagree with, because thieves don’t run dagger MH for backstabbing 100% of the time, obviously.
So what you are suggesting is actually an OP buff that will only target thieves for more QQnerfs.
Stealth is fine as is.
Backstab is fine as is.
Thief may not be fine as is, but it sure a hell doesn’t need a bunch of WvW whiners who have never touched the class before try and make (de)constructive suggestions to help THEMSELVES get an easy win in fights.
GW2 already has one of the worst stealth mechanics I have ever witness in an MMO. The difference between GW2 and other MMOs is that despite having more powerful stealth mechanics, players in other MMOs can actually learn to adapt to a classes mechanic and fight against it. Clearly an unheard of concept around these parts.
I think his point is if you are doing nothing but using everything you have to counter backstab then that doesn’t prove backstabs effectiveness or lack thereof.
Well, I bring up a new point. If a thieve is changes to be revealed on a failed backstab attempt, what is stopping people from doing everything in their power to counter backstab by avoiding it at all costs (like people SHOULD be doing now), rendering the Thief completely useless?
Just like stunbreakers render bull rush useless?
If you’ve ever fought a good warrior, you’ll know that he has more disables than you have snare/stunbreakers. And he’s going to wait for you to waste them all before he sets up on you.
So what does a thief do?
Anyways, I don’t think missing a backstab should apply revealed. Maybe take them out of stealth, but boost backstab damage in compensation.
And again, you are missing the point.
Backstab Thieves rely on backstabbing. Period. You take a thief out os stealth on a missed attack, you change the meta so that EVERYONE tries to avoid the backstab, rendering said build near useless.
It isn’t going to fix anything other than making fights against Thieves that much more laughably easy with little compensation in return.
So that would only make BACKSTAB thieves useless, oh why didn’t you say so? I didn’t realize every thief ran Dagger MH backstab builds 100% of the time you know.
Anyways I’ve been more moderate around this issue because I don’t have a stance on it but your opinions are ridiculous. You think this nerf to one sneak attack on one weapon set that is used in one specific manner will render an ENTIRE CLASS useless. The only thing I can say is L2P, I haven’t backstabbed a single time in the last 20 hours I’ve been on thief.
Besides, it’s not as easy as you think to avoid a backstab from a 4s stealthed thief. Evades only last .75 seconds and recharge every 10 seconds. D/P thief can regen enough initiative to backstab again every 7 or so seconds. C&D thieves can do it in 5 if they land their C&D.
So you’re suggesting a nerf with no return? Of course it would render backstab thieves useless, seeing as how they’re build is based completely around stealth attacks. Yes, there are thieves who DON’T use daggers, but those Thieves also don’t rely on stealth as a mechanic nearly as much. This nerf to Thieves is a direct attack on burst specs, which basically means Dagger MH, seeing as how ranged attacks never actually “miss” their locked-on target. No idea why you are so shocked about this, as it was obviously the only build that CAN be effected by it.
I think his point is if you are doing nothing but using everything you have to counter backstab then that doesn’t prove backstabs effectiveness or lack thereof.
Well, I bring up a new point. If a thieve is changes to be revealed on a failed backstab attempt, what is stopping people from doing everything in their power to counter backstab by avoiding it at all costs (like people SHOULD be doing now), rendering the Thief completely useless?
Just like stunbreakers render bull rush useless?
If you’ve ever fought a good warrior, you’ll know that he has more disables than you have snare/stunbreakers. And he’s going to wait for you to waste them all before he sets up on you.
So what does a thief do?
Anyways, I don’t think missing a backstab should apply revealed. Maybe take them out of stealth, but boost backstab damage in compensation.
And again, you are missing the point.
Backstab Thieves rely on backstabbing. Period. You take a thief out os stealth on a missed attack, you change the meta so that EVERYONE tries to avoid the backstab, rendering said build near useless.
It isn’t going to fix anything other than making fights against Thieves that much more laughably easy with little compensation in return.
Title says it all. Looking for a somewhat decent S/D build for Thief.
I think his point is if you are doing nothing but using everything you have to counter backstab then that doesn’t prove backstabs effectiveness or lack thereof.
Well, I bring up a new point. If a thieve is changes to be revealed on a failed backstab attempt, what is stopping people from doing everything in their power to counter backstab by avoiding it at all costs (like people SHOULD be doing now), rendering the Thief completely useless?
TL;DR
Thief is OP in WvW but…
Honestly, can someone explain to me why a Thief is considered OP in WvW that doesn’t relate to 1v1’s, running away (real helpful), or ninja capping areas from a blind enemy team?
I should really set up a youtube account. That way I can record just how often I see a 5 man try to hunt down and kill a thief, unsuccessfully. The only other class I’ve seen stand up to a group like that is the mesmer.
So Thieves are OP because they are good at running away from groups/zergs without bringing anything to the table while IN one? Sorry, but you and I have two VERY different opinions on what makes something over-powered. Running away isn’t one of them.
Not like my thief can jump into a 30 man zerg first and always survive by daggerstorming with malice signet on.
your thief however can spam Cluster bombs poison and stealth to run away from the zerg .
Running away is NOT a positive…I don’t see why so many people think being only able to run from a zerg somehow translates to a good thing, while Guardians can tank through zergs with ease.
One is fighting and helping out their team. The other is trying not to die.
I also think that things like dodging, casting caltrops, casting other certain abilities, and stomping should all break stealth. But that’s just me. I am perfectly happy stealth staking people for now.
And once stealth gets buffed to keep a thief in stealth until attacking or hurt, then that will fly. Until then, we have 10 seconds of stealth max for one skill, and dramatically less for all others.
Yes, there are ways to cheese huge stealth times, just like how every class has some sort of mechanic they can cheese as well with a specific build.
And of coarse I’d add that while in stealth your doing NO damage. But everyone should know this by now. Stealth spammers contribute NOTHING, ZIP, ZERO.
In less your just trolling a group for the hell of it. At some point you will have to attack and get revealed.
That’s exactly my point. While in stealth, you aren’t doing anything. By knocking someone out of stealth for taking damage will basically mean a Thief in WvW will NEVER be able to stealth and sustain it. Just barely touching the mass of AoE being thrown everywhere will make sure of that.
Now, if a Thief could sustain stealth indefinitely until attacking or attacked, then they could safely get within melee range to attack by going AROUND the fight. But this isn’t going to happen, and neither will damage breaking stealth. Anet has put the Thief in a bad spot, and the GW2 community is clearly too…uninformed to know that stealth isn’t an EZWIN button. I honestly wish Anet would get rid of it, and redesign Thieves from the ground up. No matter how many times Thieves are QQnerfed, players will still be too “uninformed” to adapt to stealth as a mechanic without actually PLAYING the thief to see first hand how many drawbacks the class comes with.
I also think that things like dodging, casting caltrops, casting other certain abilities, and stomping should all break stealth. But that’s just me. I am perfectly happy stealth staking people for now.
And once stealth gets buffed to keep a thief in stealth until attacking or hurt, then that will fly. Until then, we have 10 seconds of stealth max for one skill, and dramatically less for all others.
Yes, there are ways to cheese huge stealth times, just like how every class has some sort of mechanic they can cheese as well with a specific build.
TL;DR
Thief is OP in WvW but…
Honestly, can someone explain to me why a Thief is considered OP in WvW that doesn’t relate to 1v1’s, running away (real helpful), or ninja capping areas from a blind enemy team?
Strengths:
- Much more freedom when roaming zones, inside or out of PvP
- Can run away easily
- Good against UPlvled players
- Great support when rezzing players
- Can 1v1 well against Light Armor builds
Weaknesses:
- Bad burst damage compared to other burst classes
- Melee focused builds are too dangerous to play, and Ranged builds are too weak
- Zero help in WvW zergs
- Little help in tPvP
- Cannot 1v1 well against most Heavy Armor builds
In a nutshell, Thieves have strengths that don’t mean jack in a MULTIPLAYER based game, and have weaknesses to pretty much everything that involves bosses or enemy players of equal skill or gear.
All I can say is that I just got done with a 2v1 fight against a Guardian.
Me and another Thief, full Zerker. She wouldn’t die. Period.
Against a Warrior. 2v1. We just BARELY managed to down him.
Thieves damage is good for literally a second, then it does down the crapper. Burst Thieves are a nightmare to play against equally geared opponents. I can’t speak for Sword Thieves, but I sure hope they have a better time against armored opponents than D/D.