Guild Wars 2

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Quadox.7834:

Ravenmoon.5318:

serenke.4806:

Ravenmoon.5318:

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

If the block has a counter (E.g. ranger gs block or warrior sword block) it does counter properly.

If it doesn’t then it doesn’t punish. Simple as that.

Also define punish. Why should someone be punished because you decided to go invulnerable? Which class actually gets punished for attacking blocking character? Every decent player auto-attacks until your block/mist is gone.

This change makes absolutely 0 sense. It won’t help you beat thieves. You’ll still die to them. If you can’t see that, you are a baddie.

Just my 2 cents.

Quite simple. Have you ever seen a movie about snipers? It’s usually about hiding and hoping that you notice the enemy before they notice you. The one who shoots reveals his location (in the movies anyhow) and the other one has an advantage. That’s how you feel when you know the thief went into stealth. If you block a thief when he is attacking from stealth he is like the sniper that gave away his location. He should be forced to hide again/switch location, but no, in our case he can just shoot again and again until he finally headshots you (you ran out of blocks). It’s not that he should be “punished” or that this would help anyone beat thieves, it just does not make sense and it eradicates any smart counterplay.

“Punish” in this case is being revealed which makes absolute sense since the thief in question attacked after all.

This is guild wars 2, not call of duty.
But using your analogy. Please enlighten me how are you going to stop a sniper bullet with a sword. This kitten is viable only in bollywood movies.

Also the thief doesn’t attack from 2 miles away. They are in your melee range and after the block popup you very well know where the said thief is.

If you don’kittens L2P issue.

They can use shortbow auto from stealth to immob (even double-immob). I can dodge three of theese om my mes, get hit by the fourth one and still die. That is why people don’t like it.

Or you could distort it and reflect it right back into his face…

Or you could realise that i said “people” not me. This applied to all.

Saiyan.1704:

babayum.1895:

Saiyan.1704:

inb4 close

Thief is fine and doesn’t need a nerf any more than they need a buff.
If you have trouble with thieves please visit your class specific thread and make a post for solutions.

A lot of people in this thread have problem with thief you think they all noob and need to l2p? No if so many people have problem its clearly because thief is very op it need massive nerf.

I hope a net fix this broken class it’s destroying pvp

A few of them, yea. Just the ones who’ve never played a thief yet scream nerf when they see a backstab land.

I guess it might be because one is a transform elite with incredibly high cooldown and that can be easily dodged, while one has much much much lower cooldown and can’t be reaction dodged.

To clarify, i don’t think it is op, but that is probably why people might say it.

Maris.3164:

Quadox.7834:

Maris.3164:

Quadox.7834:

Maris.3164:

ronpierce.2760:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Why is this thread not locked? Nine pages of ignorant kitten kissing and ad Populum not enough for a lock? I knew this thread was going to be non-constructive the moment I read the title and whaddayaknow, it got really stupid on the first page.

The OP might want some discussion but the people who agree with him don’t. lol

This thread isn’t any worse than that “Nerf Thief” thread you guys have that does nothing but direct thieves where to sabotage threads that mention thief… At least this thread has a point to it…

That thread is quite possibly the most entertaining thread on the forums. And what is the point of this thread anyway? All I see is a bunch of people who never played thief and don’t know how easy it actually is to counter one so they call for nerfs.

Okay fine, let’s remove stealth, and while we’re at it, all invulnerabilities and blocks, protection and ranger pets (because they’re annoying). Then we’ll have a bunch of professions that are all similar to one another. Fun fun.

Why? The reveal on missed stealth attack affects mesmer too, not just thief. And it is a legit concern.

What about invulnerability? Much more powerful a tool than stealth, and something the mesmer for instance has in addition to stealth.

“This thread isn’t any worse than that “Nerf Thief”

I was just answering this comment by saying this isn’t just abut thief. Invuln is indeed strong, but that doesn’t concern the subject i was talking about. Personally i think the game would have been better if the invulns from the start were desgined as for example guardian renewed focus- no attacks during it.

This thread isn’t just about thief? Then why is it labeled ‘we need more counterplay to thief stealth’? I don’t see why you people are here complaining about stealth on thief while the warriors and rangers can attack and stomp people whilst taking 0 dmg. We need invulnerability removal first, then we can discuss changes to stealth. Prioritities. There are more glaring issues in game, and imo stealth isn’t even one of them.

I know that, the op is misleading. But don’t get fooled by it, since it doesn’t matter. A change to stealth would affect ranger and especially mesmer as well, despite what the OP has laballed this particular thread.

Ravenmoon.5318:

serenke.4806:

Ravenmoon.5318:

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

If the block has a counter (E.g. ranger gs block or warrior sword block) it does counter properly.

If it doesn’t then it doesn’t punish. Simple as that.

Also define punish. Why should someone be punished because you decided to go invulnerable? Which class actually gets punished for attacking blocking character? Every decent player auto-attacks until your block/mist is gone.

This change makes absolutely 0 sense. It won’t help you beat thieves. You’ll still die to them. If you can’t see that, you are a baddie.

Just my 2 cents.

Quite simple. Have you ever seen a movie about snipers? It’s usually about hiding and hoping that you notice the enemy before they notice you. The one who shoots reveals his location (in the movies anyhow) and the other one has an advantage. That’s how you feel when you know the thief went into stealth. If you block a thief when he is attacking from stealth he is like the sniper that gave away his location. He should be forced to hide again/switch location, but no, in our case he can just shoot again and again until he finally headshots you (you ran out of blocks). It’s not that he should be “punished” or that this would help anyone beat thieves, it just does not make sense and it eradicates any smart counterplay.

“Punish” in this case is being revealed which makes absolute sense since the thief in question attacked after all.

This is guild wars 2, not call of duty.
But using your analogy. Please enlighten me how are you going to stop a sniper bullet with a sword. This kitten is viable only in bollywood movies.

Also the thief doesn’t attack from 2 miles away. They are in your melee range and after the block popup you very well know where the said thief is.

If you don’kittens L2P issue.

They can use shortbow auto from stealth to immob (even double-immob). I can dodge three of theese om my mes, get hit by the fourth one and still die. That is why people don’t like it.

Tao.1234:

The only valid counterplay to Stealth would be showing the damage when hitting stealthed player.

Nothing else needs to be done to Stealth.

:)

Hm, on first thought i like it. Kinda like a fire sigil gives a visual of where a stealthed player is, normal damage could as well. Maybe.

Shadow.1345:

onevsone.2098:

The combination of Vampirism Rune + Improvisation is a little too much imho, basically a thief can do many mistakes and be carried by RNG + invulnerability and reset the fight, until he can do a good spike, mostly depending on sigils proc.

Play a thief for a week and see just how many mistakes you can make before you’re toast.

On panic strike, a surprising amount!

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

So frankly I just don’t buy that “you aren’t playing your role but he is” bs. For all intents and purposes, its turning the fight into a 4v4, meaning we are both neutered while the other 4 on each team determine who the victor will be.

And frankly I neither buy nor CARE about the “your roll is x his roll is y” crap. Its not how its played out in the pvp games I’ve been in. Its all baseless.

Heh. I’m not exactly asking you to ‘buy into’ what role classes/builds play in team fights. I’m telling you how it works. You can disagree if you want, but that doesn’t make my statements less correct.

Nor does it make what you say any MORE correct. Saying something is not the same thing as proving something.

Feel free to believe your statement is correct all you want. Unless you can PROVE it, its really baseless, and thus making it your theory, not a fact you’ve proven.

In other words, theorycrafting. You say the thief is doing his job. I say we are neutralizing each other. Either way, you CANNOT argue that what happens is it turns the game into a 4v4 from a 5v5. And that IS fact.

Not that it matters. I really had that problem of constant thief fighting exactly one time, ever. Every other time ever one or the other has won.. and more than half the time the victor has been me. So… shrug

The proof of what I’m saying is in literally every tournament match ever, just watch some.

The thief does 2 primary things. They target the enemy glass cannons to remove them from team fights. They also utilize their high mobility to decap points.

Mesmer does 2 primary things as well. They use portal to help ferry their team from one fight to the next, and they provide heavy aoe pressure in team fights.

And I’ll say it for…the third time I think. When a thief jumps on you, the thief is doing exactly what they’re on the team to do, the rest of their team depends on them to jump on you. You, however, are not doing what the rest of your team depends on you to do. Your team is depending on you to provide heavy aoe pressure, not duel a thief. The thief is doing what they’re supposed to do, you’re not.

It may be a 4v4, but your team is relying on you to help out due to how they’ve built the comp, and the thief’s team is relying on them to take you out, due to how they’ve built their comp.

You say the primary role of the thief is to take out the enemy glass cannon (mesmer, in this case). If the thief doesn’t kill the mesmer, or if the mesmer even kills the thief, the thief isn’t doing his job at all. His job is to kill key targets, he dies doing so. Since Morfedel claims he wins more than 50% of his duels versus thieves, there is no problem here. Im not saying it is smart to try duel the thieves on normal conditions or anything like it, i just had to explain why this “role” thing doesn’t apply to a case where morfedel wins.

Oh kitten i just remembered how annoying prybar will be..

The point of confusion was to make players who suffer from it hesitate before they attack. Not to simply counter rangers that spam. At least this is the way i always looked at it. Sadly it is often weak enough to ignore.

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Sebrent.3625:

Morfedel, it’s now about “can you beat a Thief”. It’s about “can you beat an equal (or better) skilled Thief?” as that is going to be the challenge in team game.

If you can’t, then there is really no reason for your team to have you as you’re a liability. As I previously stated, a Thief can already +1 faster than you due to greater mobility.

So, if you can’t when the encounters over the Thief, you aren’t providing any advantage.

Your team can still win, but the advantage won’t be coming from you. You are thief bait which makes you a liability and puts them at a disadvantage that the other 4 members have to now make up for.

First of all, I also stated I’ve beaten more thieves than I’ve lost to. But if you mean it isn’t an advantage if the thief is busy with me the entire time? Frankly, I think its neither an advantage nor a disadvantage, but rather a wash. Any time he spends with you is time he isnt spending on someone else, and if you two are locking horns for some time, like I said, it turns a 5v5 to a 4v4.

This is ignoring the different roles of thief and mesmer. I elaborated on this in an earlier post, but I’ll go over it again quickly.

The primary role of the mesmer is to deal heavy aoe damage in a teamfight. The primary role of a thief is to take out the enemy glass cannons.

When you’re embroiled in a 1v1 with a thief, the thief is performing his role on the team, and you are not.

This is true, if he kills you. If he doesn’t, then the opposite team are losing out on the many advantages of the thief, for example the ability to quickly decap.

Aeroxe.8140:

The real culprit to point fingers at is the panic strike build itself, and not inherent thief mechanics. A lot of the propositions mentionned would make thief too obsolete in comparison to the meta builds which already have a pretty huge advantage over thief in a skirmish or 1v1 scenario (discounting improvisation procs…again this is due to the panic strike build and not the class as a whole).

I agree. Improv and panic strike are both badly designed traits. On top of that, meta thief has a condi remove that encourages camping in stealth. The weakness trait is also really strong but not OP. This with vamp runes means thief can do many many mistakes and still live and be effective.

Maris.3164:

Quadox.7834:

Maris.3164:

ronpierce.2760:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Why is this thread not locked? Nine pages of ignorant kitten kissing and ad Populum not enough for a lock? I knew this thread was going to be non-constructive the moment I read the title and whaddayaknow, it got really stupid on the first page.

The OP might want some discussion but the people who agree with him don’t. lol

This thread isn’t any worse than that “Nerf Thief” thread you guys have that does nothing but direct thieves where to sabotage threads that mention thief… At least this thread has a point to it…

That thread is quite possibly the most entertaining thread on the forums. And what is the point of this thread anyway? All I see is a bunch of people who never played thief and don’t know how easy it actually is to counter one so they call for nerfs.

Okay fine, let’s remove stealth, and while we’re at it, all invulnerabilities and blocks, protection and ranger pets (because they’re annoying). Then we’ll have a bunch of professions that are all similar to one another. Fun fun.

Why? The reveal on missed stealth attack affects mesmer too, not just thief. And it is a legit concern.

What about invulnerability? Much more powerful a tool than stealth, and something the mesmer for instance has in addition to stealth.

“This thread isn’t any worse than that “Nerf Thief”

I was just answering this comment by saying this isn’t just abut thief. Invuln is indeed strong, but that doesn’t concern the subject i was talking about. Personally i think the game would have been better if the invulns from the start were desgined as for example guardian renewed focus- no attacks during it.

knkasa.2608:

These thread. Op was simply asking how to counter thieves and it turns into this again. I have to disagree couple things about comments that some people made above, that is, if you are playing glassy power build and you encounter a thief, one way to deal with is to disengage from the thief. While this is perfectly fine in wvw as I used to do a lot when outnumered. Just disengage, wait till the numbers are few, turn around, and engage one by one. But this isn’t obviously the way you want to play in pvp. You can’t disengage while rest of your teammates are fighting even disengage momentarily your team will be outnumbered for a short while. I don’t remember how many glassy Mesmer has discouraged me doing this but power shatter I guess tends to do this a lot while I was there fighting. Of course the opposite is also true. If I see a squishy Mesmer on enemy side, just shove couple times, not necessarily down him, then he’ll disengage and I just stay and cap, but if I see this from my team, it’s a bit discouraging.

Other thing is that it’s hard to compare builds in pvp. We can easily compare builds in other game modes like dueling for example, the build that wins a lot is superior. but in conquest mode, each build whether tanky condition, or power shatter, lockdown, or something, each build contributes little differently from one another. Condition build brings greater survivability allows you to stay fight whereas power build brings burst. I have no problem with power shatter so long as they can stay alive and fight, not disengaging.

To op, if you like power shatter , then you should play it, but try practicing in pvp without using any utility skills first and see if you can survive long. If you find yourself dying or disengaging too often, try more defensive runes or knight amulet. I’ve seen someone with knight amulet but still deal reasonable dps as well. If not working, then try condition builds. Not sure op is still following the thread, but anyway.

Practicing using less survival skills (utilities) is a good suggestion. I personally like to play without Chest and Leg armor and i always duel with 2 utilities (blink, decoy) and no elite.

Maris.3164:

ronpierce.2760:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Why is this thread not locked? Nine pages of ignorant kitten kissing and ad Populum not enough for a lock? I knew this thread was going to be non-constructive the moment I read the title and whaddayaknow, it got really stupid on the first page.

The OP might want some discussion but the people who agree with him don’t. lol

This thread isn’t any worse than that “Nerf Thief” thread you guys have that does nothing but direct thieves where to sabotage threads that mention thief… At least this thread has a point to it…

That thread is quite possibly the most entertaining thread on the forums. And what is the point of this thread anyway? All I see is a bunch of people who never played thief and don’t know how easy it actually is to counter one so they call for nerfs.

Okay fine, let’s remove stealth, and while we’re at it, all invulnerabilities and blocks, protection and ranger pets (because they’re annoying). Then we’ll have a bunch of professions that are all similar to one another. Fun fun.

Why? The reveal on missed stealth attack affects mesmer too, not just thief. And it is a legit concern.

This spot specifically shouldn’t be a place where you can port. It is actually one of the few places where a mesmer has a chance to beat a thief. However, if you mean that your blink went on cooldown, that is indeed a bug that happens and should be fixed!

Evasive mirror might be strong, but certainly not as fun as Masterful Reflection is!

Ravenmoon.5318:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, basilisk venom piercing stability, phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

Learn to play or make a thief before jumping into conclusions.
The only reason basilisk venom pierces your stability is because the thief was savvy enough to strip you of your stability. Yeah, its the first boon you lose when the thief Steals from you. There is a boon priority, Aegis and stability are the first in line.

Also, since you seem to know jack about thieves – Larcenous Strike steals your might with priority. So you better off not stacking it. Its the #1 reason all D/D cele eles cry from S/D thieves. They give them might stacks throughout the fight. No blame from me though, its the build that uses the same skill rotation vs any other opponent.

Also if only 1 thief managed to beat you “in months”, then by logic thief is fine no? Clearly your “skill” gives you the upper hand.

And that boon priority doesnt work like that on mesmer or necro, which is pretty whack.

Stealth ends when blocked or blinded should be a thing. Aegis then becomes a good counterplay to stealth. Remember this affects mes and ranger too.

Naix.8156:

…

…

Best advice so far, i didn’t have time to write this so props to you!

For OP:
Pair this up with some mechanical advice from some players, and you’re good to go. Forums are more a place to find links, videos, guides than actual solid advice.

Sebrent.3625:

@cyrrix:
The plausibility of your “Solution 2” is what has been drawn into question. Most believe that given equal skill level, the Thief will beat the standard Power Shatter spec’d mesmer.

You either agree or disagree with this.

Everyone agrees with this. Luckily (or something), the mmr isn’t that good / too few players.

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Ross Biddle.2367:

silentnight warrior.2714:

The main problem with mesmer imo is the ability to interrupt the enemy at the same time it can remove stability.
No build should be able to remove stability and have a good amount of CC. Thats is not balanced at all.

You realize you just described Thief, right? Only for thief it’s insta cast with zero setup, has a 20s cd, a minimum range of 900, and doesn’t just strip but steals the stabos. And that’s not even the half of what will happen.

you forgot to add that a thief dedicates a full traitline to do it

Thief needs 1 trait to steal the stab. Then they can use headshot.

Med needs 1 trait to remove the stab. Then they can use diversion.

Windwalker.7421:

I think we’re all splitting hairs a bit, but I can’t help siding with Pyro on this one. Every thing he’s said were the exact thoughts running through my head.

I love when people are trying to tell me what advice to give another player given a situation we’ve probably all been in. Spurting off that you’re “useless” to your team in another build is just ridiculous and unhelpful. Do you know when I’m truly useless to my team? When I’m spending 75% of the match in downed/dead state or running back to the action.

Every other claim of being “useless” to you team, including PU/Condie I might add, are HUGE exaggerations; based entirely on hyperbole. False! Horse poop! Rubbish! Being dead and waiting on the release timer, that’s when you’re truly useless to your team.

The reason I advise the OP to try a new build is because:

1) I’ve been there and done that, and through experience have found that playing a different build is the only way I can enjoy pug matches. (Usually inundated with Thieves.)

2) Due to #1, I feel the OPs frustration, and feel I must share my experiences and give him the advice needed to have more fun in those non-peeling pug matches.

3) I also want to educate the OP that Thieves are not actually a true hard counter to Mesmers as a whole, but rather only to Zerker/GC Mesmers and most specifically Power Shatter.

4) I do not share the sentiment that all other builds make you useless to your team. My experiences do not match that hyperbole.

I could go on with more reasons why I am allowed to give the advice that has worked for me, and will defend that advice as being sound. When asked for help that didn’t specifically say “how can I play p-shatter better vs. thieves in pugs” then he’s going to get the “change your build” advice from me every time.

It worked for me and it’s worked for many others. I do not play MSL or top-tier organized PvP, nor do I care to.

The realization to play another build didn’t come to me based on “forum elitists” pushing their leftist propaganda against P-Shatter builds, but rather by the absolute fact that in my games, I was feeling very useless to my team as a p-shatter Mesmer being dead all the time. Not just to Thieves, but being a glass cannon with little/no Condie removal makes you susceptible to many other situations as well. (Especially since you’re forced to shatter at melee range in paper-tissue armor.)

There is no other profession/build that has an easier time killing me 1v1 in any of these alternative builds. There are simply a couple more “stand-off” cases where I can’t kill them, maybe, but they also can’t kill me! The Thief is literally the only one that has a good chance to keep me from disengaging a fight. All others I can either win 1v1 or disengage at will…mostly win I might add.

• In a team which’s composition & skill-level I can not know ahead of time, this is absolutely the safest way to ensure a fun time for me.

It’s a matter of flexibility over specificity. Always being able to do the best with whatever kind of a team I get, over praying that I’m able to perform the one function I’m great at. Medium risk with medium reward over high risk and high reward.

" Do you know when I’m truly useless to my team? When I’m spending 75% of the match in downed/dead state or running back to the action."

And that is why i gave tips on how to fight thieves from a shatter mesmer’s perspective (assuming OP plays shatter!).

I might make a video some time if this question ever arises again (which it will lol)

StickerHappy.8052:

Quadox.7834:

Fay.2357:

Quadox.7834:

They just want you to play builds that require more skill than phant builds do. Which is a good thing.

As usual, you’re confusing skill floor and skill ceiling. Since you’re obviously unaware of the difference between those two terms, allow me to explain them for you in a simple way.

A skill floor is the minimum amount of skill it takes to do something. You can be more skillful than the skill floor of an activity and do it better, but the skill floor defines the lowest amount of skill you can have and still actually do that activity.

A skill ceiling is the highest amount of skill that an activity will benefit from. Having more skill than the skill ceiling will produce no further gains for that activity.

A phantasm build has a lower skill floor than a shatter build. This means that it takes more skill to make a shatter build work at all than it does to make a phantasm build work. However, both builds have an effectively unobtainable skill ceiling. This means that no matter how good you are, it’s still possible to improve and play that build better.

In the future, when you’re trying to insult people and builds by calling them ‘no-skill’ and ‘low-skill’ builds or players, please remember your vocabulary and apply a little bit of brainpower before speaking.

Wowowow. That made no sense. You agree that shatter has a higher skill floor, but you don’t agree that shatter requires more skill? It REQUIRES more skill, ie it needs more skill to work, ie higher skill floor. I am fully aware of the definitions of skill floor and cap, and i know you are too.

With “they want you to” i actually meant “you” as in people in general rather than a specific person. For example “You should never put a fork in a microwave”. If that wasn’t clear in my sentence i am sorry for that. By the way, if i am ever “agressive” or anything similar towards you it is because you always seem so quick to yell people from the posts i’ve seen by you.

Skill floor and Skill cap are different.

Please don’t bring this up again. I said that they want us to play builds that REQUIRE more skill. I can be even more clear and say “They want us to play builds that have higher skill floors.”If it REQUIRES more skill to play, it has a higher skill floor- you need to have more skill in order to play it (effectively).

I know fully well what the two simple terms mean. I hope everyone here does, since “cap” and “floor” are two fairly easily understood words!

Ross Biddle.2367:

silentnight warrior.2714:

The main problem with mesmer imo is the ability to interrupt the enemy at the same time it can remove stability.
No build should be able to remove stability and have a good amount of CC. Thats is not balanced at all.

You realize you just described Thief, right? Only for thief it’s insta cast with zero setup, has a 20s cd, a minimum range of 900, and doesn’t just strip but steals the stabos. And that’s not even the half of what will happen.

It even prioritizes stab!

Mrbig.8019:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Coulter.2315:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

ens.9854:

On crit sigils aren’t random at all that’s the problem. They never miss by design unlike doom/leeching (much like incendiary powder, chill of death, and panic strike) giving them 0 counter-play. They are just BIS for dps in pvp.

If you play a build that they actually are random (soldier) they simply aren’t worth slotting at all because the payoff when they do proc isn’t worth it.

I might be confused.

Isnt

(crit) -> (Sigil doesnt proc) -> (normal crit dps) = considered a miss by design?

because as long as that happens its like you dont have sigils on.

I can guarantee my sigil of doom will hit if I have a stun skill, count dodges, and/or have burned opponents evades.

You’re thinking of it the wrong way, with other skills a “Miss” puts the skill on CD meaning it CANNOT hit for the next Xsecs, this is not how proc sigils work.

True. Hmm. so should fire and air work like that? Show a little token on the hotbar saying (I have fire proc lol) and if it misses, put it on CD?

Could be nice. If those tokens come up at the same time as their normal sigil CD’s though, you’d just be guaranteeing damage again.

Even if they had some visual it wouldn make them counterable but still broken.

it’s still free added damage, and the proof is how strong geo-doom /hydro-leech are ( although most of it is due to the damage part of those sigils, proccing all the kitten).

Game would be way better with no runes and sigila at all, mostly cuz they’re way too strong ans broken.

I agree

Look, the OP states that hos teammates never peel for him. That most likely means that he isn’t in the top mmr. This in turn means that he probably doesn’t face top thieves ie Levin/toker/whatever. Thieves that aren’t “top thieves” can be dealt with. Yes, it is annoying, but they can most defintely be killed. Therefore the most logical thing to do is to either give the OP a different build or give him tips vs thieves (assuming he plays shatter).

The problem with playing a different build (pu, condi) is that you will be close to useless in teamfight. PU cant even hold a point correctly. Therefore, it is a better option to give tips vs thieves, which i’ve done already. I can give other tips i guess tho, if you want? =)

Terrorsquad.2349:

xDudisx.5914:

Quadox.7834:

xDudisx.5914:

Yes mesmer GS is the most broken weapon in the game. One of the few ranged weapons that is not a projectile on autoatck. Has unblockable skills on a very short cd.

That’s probably why mesmers in the past always used staff-sword and no greatsword, for half the game’s life. Thief shortbow and warrior longbow says hello.

Thief shorbow is only 900 range. Cluster bomb is incredible slow moving projectile and the other 4 skills do almost no dmg. Has 0 unblockable skills.

Wrong.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Choking_Gas
Please don’t speak for a class you dont know.

Exactly. Also, i think you might have skipped the fact that thief SB has an amazing targeted teleport on a weapon skill.
(you as in the first poster)

serenke.4806:

Nyx.7342:

Laraley.7695:

NeXeD.3042:

Laraley.7695:

NeXeD.3042:

Skeletor.9360:

I agree completely! That is why everyone is a mesmer!

Wait…um no they are not and actually there are not that many….

nuff said.

I beleive we had established no one plays a mesmer because a thief eats mesmers. The competitive players have mostly abandoned mesmer because there is almost always a theif. You see some still compete in tourneys. Helseth looked pretty good today but helseth is well… helseth.

Yes, mesmers are horrible, that’s why one is going to WTS.

I’m not saying mesmers aren’t good…

You’re just suggesting no one plays them. It’s not like the class is not viable, it is.

Its viable but its one of the hardest classes, if not the hardest class to play. Which is why not that many people play it competitively. Helseth plays like almost no one else which is why he can handle it in WTS

There were matches where he spent most of his time downed/running from base… Let’s not bring top tier stuff into the discussion.

If that is indeed true, then it is surely a good proof that mesmer is not OP. no?

Curunen.8729:

Jurica.1742:

@Chaos, sw/t is better against thieves than staff because you’ve got stealth and more invulns vs staff which, yes, has more constant pressure from clones which hurts no matter if were in a zerk build or no, but you are an easier target.

Yea this is the key.

Trouble is Sword/Torch => easier time vs thieves but harder time vs some other classes (ie guardians)
Staff => harder time vs thieves but easier time vs other things

Swings and roundabouts.

In a pug/unorganised/soloq definitely take something like mantra of resolve because you can’t rely on anyone else to help you with conditions.

Quadox.7834:

Personally, i love fighting good thieves in soloq (red levin, chosen, panda, whatever). The game gets really boring if there is no thief in the other team.

SD thief is excluded from this, i hate them.

I agree with the sentiment that fighting thieves as power shatter is one of the most fun things in the game – a game of high mobility, evasion, teleports, and high damage. Yolo, but in this case it’s totally worth it.

But please add P/D perplexity kittens to that list of things I hate (sure a wvw thing) – they’re no fun at all, like mosquitos…

Condi remove is not necessary in this meta especially if you run Generosity sigil. If the opponent has a thief + necro condi + engi + condition warrior or something, then you can definately take condition mantra!

Sebrent.3625:

Using terrain depends on the Thief.

If you’re fighting a Sword Thief, terrain is more likely to benefit them more than you since they can LOS you, teleport to you with Infiltrator’s (doesn’t require LOS) and then teleport back to LOSing you again to avoid whatever you try to hit them with.

It gets even worse given how our phantasms get themselves all in a tizzy trying to deal with a target that does this.

It actually depend on the terrain moreso than the thief. S/D can be really annoying but that begin said, there are many spots to where a thief simply CANNOT teleport (neither can a mesmer). There you can stand and spam greatsword skills and siftstep back and forth to avoid any eventual thief shortbow autos! :P

Ross Biddle.2367:

You know, every time I read this thread title I just want to respond with the renaming of it

“New skill trees heavily favor shatter”

to

“New skill trees actually incorporate class mechanic”

Doesn’t it just seem so darn sensible?

It does, and it is awesome!

Fay.2357:

Quadox.7834:

They just want you to play builds that require more skill than phant builds do. Which is a good thing.

As usual, you’re confusing skill floor and skill ceiling. Since you’re obviously unaware of the difference between those two terms, allow me to explain them for you in a simple way.

A skill floor is the minimum amount of skill it takes to do something. You can be more skillful than the skill floor of an activity and do it better, but the skill floor defines the lowest amount of skill you can have and still actually do that activity.

A skill ceiling is the highest amount of skill that an activity will benefit from. Having more skill than the skill ceiling will produce no further gains for that activity.

A phantasm build has a lower skill floor than a shatter build. This means that it takes more skill to make a shatter build work at all than it does to make a phantasm build work. However, both builds have an effectively unobtainable skill ceiling. This means that no matter how good you are, it’s still possible to improve and play that build better.

In the future, when you’re trying to insult people and builds by calling them ‘no-skill’ and ‘low-skill’ builds or players, please remember your vocabulary and apply a little bit of brainpower before speaking.

Wowowow. That made no sense. You agree that shatter has a higher skill floor, but you don’t agree that shatter requires more skill? It REQUIRES more skill, ie it needs more skill to work, ie higher skill floor. I am fully aware of the definitions of skill floor and cap, and i know you are too.

With “they want you to” i actually meant “you” as in people in general rather than a specific person. For example “You should never put a fork in a microwave”. If that wasn’t clear in my sentence i am sorry for that. By the way, if i am ever “agressive” or anything similar towards you it is because you always seem so quick to yell people from the posts i’ve seen by you.

Quick guide:

-Use sword

-Use terrain, there are many spots where steal won’t work

-Try to predict thief and also practice 1v1 vs theives to learn timings

-Daze Heartseeker in black powder

-Use terrain some more

-Try to get Panic strike proc on a clone intead of you

-Use generosity sigil on sword, try to send back weakness or poison

-Use terrain. I mean it, it is so so important.

-Don’t vote for legacy map

If all else fails:
Run to teammates, maybe an engi or a guard
__________________
Personally, i love fighting good thieves in soloq (red levin, chosen, panda, whatever). The game gets really boring if there is no thief in the other team.

SD thief is excluded from this, i hate them.

Exciton.8942:

Jurica.1742:

Vapour.7348:

what counters mesmer – thieves and condi pressure

most thieves are bad and it’s not rare to see mesmers outsmart them.
thanks to ele and warrior cleansing, condi builds are played much less.

mesmers counter:

shout warriors – meta
dps guards – meta
power necros
power rangers
cele rifle engie – meta
turret engie
d/d ele – meta
fresh air ele
staff ele

mesmers arent the best at holding points and their mobility is crap. but the poor mobility is somewhat compensated by their portal.

I used to queue with a good thief and together we’d prevent anyone from reaching our points held by downing them in less than 5 sec.

Out of everything on that list, mesmer really only counters the celestial classes, meaning no DPS guard, no sf ele, no power necro, no power ranger, turret engi ok but that isn’t played much anymore.

Even against cele class, it is only a soft counter since you can remove their boons in team fight. But that is it. It is not advisable to waste your time 1v1ing a cele ele or cele warrior. A good cele ele and warrior have about equal chance to beat mesmer as well. I can probably even beat a lot of similar skill level mesmer on my shoutbow.

That list is kinda hilarious to begin with. DPS guard counters mesmers. How can it be the other way around? SF Ele and power ranger are about equal depends on LOS.

The only 1v1 a shatter mesmer is likely to take is probably against cele engi.

Yeah, and even that is dangerous. A single nade or prybar and the mes is almost dead for certain. It isn’t uncommon for helseth to lose vs good engis like texbi, zan and so on for example. This is for sword mesmer, btw. I don’t know how he/she can think mesmer counters all of these builds.

Exciton.8942:

voteforwinners.9576:

Except mesmer loses vs thief, ranger (condi especially), dps guard, shoutwarrior (unless perfect plays from the mesmer) and more.

If we’re really talking about 1v1 then DPS guard (if you know when they are going to use gap closers) burns down fast, and you have so many options when it comes to shattering the ranger (illusion IV is especially hepful).

shoutwarrior? XD

the only one I can agree with is condi ranger, the axe flies everywhere

the whole thread made my day

He was right. There is no way a good mesmer should engage into any of those matchups 1v1. You are the one making others laugh.

Exactly. A staff mesmer CAN win vs dpsguard. For sword mesmer, is it almost impossible, as in, you have to be about 50 times better than the guardian. A staff mesmer with strength runes can beat shoutbow. As soon as you equip traveler or use a sword, it becomes very very hard. Anyone who thinks differently can ask some good/known mesmers that you might trust more than me.

Laraley.7695:

Yeah, half of this is not true.

I don’t think you should compare counters class wise but rather build wise. While d/d ele will have a better time fighting a med guard, fresh air will have issues with that. Dps guardians basically have an advantage over any zerker specs and any celestial build will have an advantage over a dps spec because they will just outsustain you. This applies if we talk about 1v1’s obviously.

And then you have those typical hard counters, but there are only two in the game at the moment: Mesmer and thief and necromancer and engi. It should be noted that the necromancer and engi hard counter applied only when most necros and engis were condi, this is not really true that much anymore. While I don’t think these hard counters are bad for the game if your spec has an advantage over one other as long as both classes are viable, I think it’s pretty bad when your class can counter many and many specs such as cele and dps.

I really don’t think the rest is a hard counter, you could have a slight edge in the fight, but it’s far from what you stated.

I don’t know much about the condi ranger vs warrior matchup, but asking someone to duel a top player to prove a point seems rather silly.

All true. Thief does hardcounter mesmer and condi necro vs condi engi. Cele engi however is not hardcountered by necro. So apart from Thief>mesmer the only arguably hard counter atm is power ranger vs necro and even that is questionable

“mesmer has more hp than thief and ele”-
Thief has more armor and ele has heals and protection.

“mesmer is the apex predator of 1v1s”
Except mesmer loses vs thief, ranger (condi especially), dps guard, shoutwarrior (unless perfect plays from the mesmer) and more.

So much smh at this thred o.0

But i like discussions, so keep it up ^^

Vapour.7348:

what counters mesmer – thieves and condi pressure

most thieves are bad and it’s not rare to see mesmers outsmart them.
thanks to ele and warrior cleansing, condi builds are played much less.

mesmers counter:

shout warriors – meta
dps guards – meta
power necros
power rangers
cele rifle engie – meta
turret engie
d/d ele – meta
fresh air ele
staff ele

mesmers arent the best at holding points and their mobility is crap. but the poor mobility is somewhat compensated by their portal.

I used to queue with a good thief and together we’d prevent anyone from reaching our points held by downing them in less than 5 sec.

If a mesmer “outsmarts” a thief the thief has to be soooo much worse, so this really is not a legit thing.

I don’t know if you are talking about 1v1 here but mesmer actually counters few of the classes you mention. Power ranger and guardian are actually really annoying vs mesmer. Tell me if i misunderstood your post, but if not, it is full of misconceptions. ^^

glock.6590:

Lordsicky you made a QQ post about every class at this point about how it takes no skill and its overpowered. Is there something that takes skill and that isn’t overpowered to you? I’m just curious.

condition necro i think

They just want you to play builds that require more skill than phant builds do. Which is a good thing.

Jurica.1742:

Thats a bad thing to do though.. You are out of position then and any decent player will kill you very easily if you just stay on point. Then what will happen
Your team will be 4v5 for 20 seconds which could result in a snowball and a 3 cap or in most cases, a very strong 2 cap.
You will lose the node
You will give them 5 points because you died.

While if you fight off point you will maybe get the point decapped, you will win the fight so then you are 4v5 for 20ish seconds, you got 5 kill points and you get to keep the node.
Either way you really shouldnt 1v1 as a mesmer in PvP you should +1 fights and be in teamfights. Though yes, you do get into those situations.

Remember though that he doesn’t play shatter generally, but lockdown that is more 1v1 focused. Still true however.

xDudisx.5914:

Yes mesmer GS is the most broken weapon in the game. One of the few ranged weapons that is not a projectile on autoatck. Has unblockable skills on a very short cd.

That’s probably why mesmers in the past always used staff-sword and no greatsword, for half the game’s life. Thief shortbow and warrior longbow says hello.

“These days” what a naive thing to say. Please look back at Guild Wars 1. Nuff’ said =D

Tyreal.5230:

Exedore.6320:

Quadox.7834:

Did anyone who is defending this topic play the game before the sigil changes?

Yes

How come noone complained this much about fire / air sigil back then?

Before the changes, sigil internal cooldowns (ICD) were shared. When one sigil proc’ed, it would put all other sigils on cooldown for the proc’ing sigil’s ICD. Air + Fire wasn’t a thing. Also, the on-crit sigils only had a 30% chance to trigger on crit, so it was less likely that they would go off in one or two attacks.

Jesiah.2457:

I honestly find it amusing that sigil of geomancy was put on scale of being incredibly powerful like crit sigils which have zero counter play, where as swap sigils, especially one like geomancy do have counterplay.

Haha, NO. So you know exactly when an elementalist is going to swap an attunement or an engi will equip a kit and you’re tracking when it’s been 9 seconds since they last triggered the sigil?

Typically an ele starts in Air(almost regardless of what weapon set he uses. but let’s say D/D). He either RtL or LF to you followed by Updraft with shocking aura. Switch to Fire right after(if you dodged his updraft you should be out of range of any sigil procs ^^), burning speed to ring of fire, roll into earth attunement evasive arcana(would be out of range if you dodged that burning speed and didnt stand in place while he casted ring of fire and dodged. LOL). Magnetic grasp followed by earthquake then 2nd stage of magentic grasp to jump to you and switch to water + Frozen burst when he reaches you ( oh wait, if you dodged that magnetic grasp it wouldn’t matter). Then switch back to air and repeat.

Yes, I can predict when an ele is going to switch attunements.

And counting how many seconds are between specific skills that hit very hard or at least knowing the cooldown is something commonplace for those who wish to better themselves when it comes to pvp.

Only a bad ele will follow that pattern. On a certain level and above it becomes exponentially harder to predict. A bad warrior wil be easy to predict the geo doom swap for, but a good one will wait and then do it after a dodge for example. ^^

Exedore.6320:

Before the changes, sigil internal cooldowns (ICD) were shared. When one sigil proc’ed, it would put all other sigils on cooldown for the proc’ing sigil’s ICD. Air + Fire wasn’t a thing. Also, the on-crit sigils only had a 30% chance to trigger on crit, so it was less likely that they would go off in one or two attacks.

I know that, it was a question i want people to answer themselves. The sigils are op and that is why there are SO many players complaining about them, compared to how many complained at how the sigils worked before the patch. ^^

PLEASE make this happen Arenanet! Please please please! it is so incredibly annoying vs some classes when it essentially becomes impossible to see any animations at all. I’ve been looking for a way to do this for over a year.

Jasher.6580:

1) Make PvP (Heart of the Mists) Free to Play.

Free to Play = Anybody can download it and play it, like LoL and soon to be Wildstar.

2) ????

3) Profit
-
You’re welcome.

I’ll send my consultancy invoice in the mail ArenaNet.

“Heart of the Mists” Now in your local stores!

This thread confirmes that the players are the most hindering factor for guild wars 2 to improve, since many of them are actually against improvement. Did anyone who is defending this topic play the game before the sigil changes? How come noone complained this much about fire / air sigil back then? It is bad for the game, Figure it out.

stop defending something so obviously stupid. it doesn’t kitteng matter if op tanked a mirror blade or guard hammer #2, just open your eyes and look at the damage sources.

It should probably be 0,6 or something. Then again, so should probably mesmer knockback.