Guild Wars 2

bril.5486:

Well of course thieves are going to be strong in solo ganking situations, it offsets the fact they are nearly worthless in organized group PvP. So you can’t ask for one to be adjusted without adjusting the other.

Lol untrue. Thieves who spec to be perma stealth glass cannons perhaps. Thieves can have the same survivability as most other classes if they CHOOSE to spec appropriately. Most are bad players who enjoy three shotting enemies.

Yes, as a thief, I find three shotting very easy to do in this game.

well several of us actually agree with their latest patch. I think they made some good changes.

Kraljevo.2801:

First (virtual) world problems… Disgusting.

I for one played WvW every day in the season for about 3-4 hours each night. We had a lot of >>fun<< (yeah, some of you forgot what that is) battles and the loot was good as well.

I agree on the fact that the rewards could have been more WvW-specific, like blueprints or whatever, but I am completely fine with the current reward. Why? Because I played WvW for >>FUN<<. (Yeah, here is the word again!)

This new gamer generation is… What is this I don’t even..

dont’ stack servers next season, then you will profit from the rewards.

Pavel.8531:

Sanduskel.1850:

Having played multiple classes, I don’t think thieves have the worst defense by a long shot. I think we have one of the best defenses.

Having played a long time guardian, warrior, ele and necro, besides thief I think thieves have the worst defensive abilities from all of them. Now use a build creator, to make me a thief build, that can both be effective and have good defense. Direct damage build though.

every class has to make tough choices, lol. not just thieves.

Okaishi.8320:

Sanduskel.1850:

Yeah, I actually found wvw even easier last night after the patch. I was surprised.

Could you perhaps be so kind to upload some footage of your gameplay at some point? After reading many of your posts I realize now you must be a godly thief player, so I’m looking forward to seeing some insane thief plays completely destroying even the most skilled enemy players.

I never bragged, nor did I claim that I was a godly thief player. You misinterpret my intentions. My point is that I found it easier, not more difficult verus prior experiences, not that I destroyed anyone. I find the init baseline buff to be really helpful. Just my personal experience. I appreciate the patch. It helped several thief specs. Thank you for asking though.

Having played multiple classes, I don’t think thieves have the worst defense by a long shot. I think we have one of the best defenses.

I think relying on so called pros is extremely dangerous. You end up with horrible balance because self serving players distort the facts and because you tailor your game to a very small audience of full time gamers.

Yeah, I actually found wvw even easier last night after the patch. I was surprised.

vincecontix.1264:

Sanduskel.1850:

Thank you, Butch. The abuse term was used in the November communication and further explanations from the developers in the thief forum. Even now it has its defenders who claim that no changes were warranted.

As far as the party line, you already responded to an example of what I referenced. Because he disagrees with me, he claims, without proof, that I don’t even have a thief character. I can’t reason with that stance.

Ok its safe to say that most thiefs that participate in the forums agree that dp perma stealth was unhealthy for the game and had to be changed.
Though you keep on misquoting the devs saying they used the word abuse to describe steath when they did not.

“Infusion of Shadow
For basic use this trait’s functionality is not going to change. By many players it was being used to grant some initiative when going into stealth. However there were some abusive builds that were using this to maintain very long stealth uptime without having to use their utility skills. The problem with this is that it lets them recharge those skills while in stealth, which takes away the risk associated with using them. We are ok with thieves blowing their cooldowns to have longer stealth, and we are ok with theives bouncing in and out of stealth, but we were not ok with thieves maintaining long duration stealth through abusing a single trait.”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Dec-10th-thief-changes/first

When they used the word abuse they where referring IOS trait not stealth. Yet you have misquoted the devs a couple times like this to try and back up your statements, and this not the first time you have been called out for doing so.

I see this as semantics. They use abuse of a trait IN ORDER TO maintain long duration stealth. Long duration stealth is the outcome of abusing a trait is equivalent to abusing a game mechanic in order to achieve perma stealth. I really do not see them as different ideas.

As far as polluting threads – I’ve been respectful and objective here, using anet’s own language. So why the hate? It chalk it up to shooting the messenger. I am the victim of hate here.

Thank you, Butch. The abuse term was used in the November communication and further explanations from the developers in the thief forum. Even now it has its defenders who claim that no changes were warranted.

As far as the party line, you already responded to an example of what I referenced. Because he disagrees with me, he claims, without proof, that I don’t even have a thief character. I can’t reason with that stance.

I spent a fair amount on gems last night. I think that ascended armor will bring additional interest to the class.

Kai.9182:

Iris.9704:

magikfox.9658:

Iris.9704:

I’m sad that SoR and JQ falling down and can’t fight againt BG alone without 2v1
cheer up SoR , JQ you can’t defeat BG alone but you still T1

Is this your way of crying about a 2v1?

nope nope i just miss strong SoR and JQ that are pretty similar power at each 3 server like before WvW season and 1 weak of season.
In your sentence, it’s my way of crying about falling down SoR and IRON leaving.
got it ???

No need to cry man it’s just a game. Do you have any friends or family who can help you through this difficult time?

I thought you bought the SOR and Jq guilds? Are you sorry about that too?

Butch.4957:

Sanduskel.1850:

The real problem is that simply to be different, this game thought it was wise to allow a class with very high dps, the ability to pop into stealth while in combat. Never done in other games and predictably a problem here. I have specced out of the perma stealth build because of the cheese factor, but it’s still very easy to kill enemies on my thief. As a thief, I agree with you, and I have recommended changes, but my fellow thieves hate me for it. I recommend that you continue to respectfully submit feedback to anet.

You know, this is probably the only post you have made in the entirety of the GW2 forum section that has made sense. I am a main thief and I agree that perma-stealth had to go. It was way overpowered and did not make it fun to play thief. Now, that said, the reason other thieves hate you is because you recommend changes that either help only you or help only a very small group of players, you insult others when they do not agree with your own opinions rather than talking to them about it and explaining the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind your opinions, and you troll forum posts that are only trying to help everyone (including Anet) make the thief class into what thieves are supposed to be.

The dictionary definition of a thief is, “One who steals, especially by stealth”, so it would only make sense to let thieves be a very stealthy class. I do not see the reasoning behind your statements in other posts that thieves should be otherwise and neither does most of the rest of the thief community.

I hope this sheds some light on why most other thieves see you as nothing more than a troll who tries to stop Anet from allowing the thief class to be what it is supposed to be.

Thank you, but my audience isn’t other thieves. Most of the thief players who populate these forums attack anyone who doesn’t tow the party line: “thieves are underpowered, thieves die to anyone, perma stealth is perfectly fine…” So, I’ve give up on any rational discussion with them. My audience are others who question whether the message track pedaled by the so called pro thieves is accurate. It isn’t. Several of us thieves are honest about the strengths and weaknesses of our class and want the game to be fair and balanced. You ought to ask why perma stealth is STILL possible even after the patch, despite Anet’s description of the abuse that they were trying to prevent. Abuse was their term for perma stealth, not mine. Be respectful. I tried perma stealth last night on my thief. Not only is it possible, but it’s viable for killing enemies.

Bredgen.6721:

VidurrRedhands.1964:

I actually play thief and dislike the abuse of IR. All I can do here is reiterate, if you think IS/IR was fine you either abused it or never fought against someone who did. No one’s mind will be changed here and none of you are devs, so you can’t change anything no matter how mad you are.

Here’s the thing. WIth the cast time, thieves are way too easy to kill – 1 stun and they are pretty much done. Without the cast time, thieves are hard to kill because you can shadow return while stunned (you are still stunned).

If you really think the way it is now is alright, then something is wrong with you. It needs a middle ground. Something like if you shadow return while stunned/launched/knocked down, the shadow return is half as effective, so you won’t return that far, so you’ll have to use it smartly.

VidurrRedhands.1964:

There are few classes that a thief is not capable of three-shotting.

There are also few classes that aren’t capable of 3 shotting thieves.

There are few classes that aren’t capable of 3 shotting ANY CLASS that specs glass cannon. Thieves aren’t disadvantaged on health unless they fail to spec properly.

where’s the scene where they rolled up all those guilds?

TheGuy.3568:

Stillmoon.6894:

thief is a design flaw from start.
in other mmo stealth has downsides (reduced movement speed, vulnerability to damage) in gw 2 stealth gives tremendous advantage (heal, movement speed, regeneration, remove condition, power , and many more)

So you know without 30 points in SA and traits (from more thna 1 line) it literally does not heal, does reduce movement speed, remove conditions, or add power. Hide in Shadows does do some of that however it is a healing skill.

Stillmoon.6894:

in other mmo the use of stealth are really limited and the delay between skill use is long not to mention to use stealth in combat is considered an ultimate skill making the class is very hard to play and require tremendous amount of skill. in gw 2 you have too many stealth skill, no delay and you can use stealth skill in combat anytime you want making this class for kittens

Those classes generally had many evasive skills and stun lock builds. Many of those classes were additionally balanced around a RPS system when heavy beats leather, leather beats cloth, and cloth beats heavy. Thief as it is right now gains defense in 2 ways evasion and stealth. Remove one and you force the other as the passive healing, blocks, and cc afforded other classes thief simply does not have. If you want the change ask Anet for a class rework for thief from the ground up.

Stillmoon.6894:

in other mmo all jobs were given a skill to detect stealthed player. in gw2 you only have 2 options 1. stealth traps (clunky, not effective, waste of resources) 2. arrow cart skill 4 (hard to earned and useless since you rarely use this to catch thief)

True and anti stealth has been added in a bad way. I think it would be fair to add more but too much and the class becomes ineffective.

Stillmoon.6894:

i am just making a comparison between stealth class from common mmo and gw2
and despite of the staggering advantage thief is still one of the biggest dps class in game.

the point is i dont mind thief is perma stealth 90% of the time if their backstab and heartseeker only deal 2k damage (not 8k, not 12k, not 22k like someone suggested here)

As has been said many times and will likely be said many times more. Thieves that hit that hard are glass. They aren’t speced to survive long and generally do not go the full 30 into SA as they cant pull off those numbers without massive stacks of bloodlust and other food buffs. 8k possible vs glass or an uplevled. 12 and 22k are not speced in SA or have defensive utilities (ie they use signets).

Brush up on the class before coming to major assumptions. Backstabbing someone in the front (ie you miss their back) only hits about 2k with your general 30 point SA build.

No…. my thief isn’t glass and routinely hits that hard. sorry, I respectfully disagree with you.

What???? can’t really read that. At any rate, i see plenty of thieves playing tonight. Doesn’t appear to be any reduction.

I think it WAS a success. the patch is better than expected. most thieves feel great about this patch. a vocal minority, many of whom claimed that they quit their thieves, are the only ones complaining.

Righteous.4307:

Adian.8756:

@Righteous

That’s the thing though – for a lot of people voicing their opinion in this thread, WvW has not been fun. It’s been work for them. It’s been a sour experience that they had hoped would be ‘rewarding’. Especially those coming from PvE to complete the achievement. Go look at the “Was Season 1 fun?” or “Is Season 1 a disappointment?” threads. From what I gather, the majority of WvW’ers didn’t actually enjoy themselves.

So that begs the question – why play then? To which most people would probably answer “for the rewards”. And in doing so, we’re back to my original argument. Play to have fun, not for virtual materials.

This is a video game. Luckily be both fun and rewarding. The topic of the thread isn’t “Why do we play video games?” the topic is “Was the WvW Season One reward chest adaquatly rewarding?” Most people (myself included) feel that it was not. Although, I had a blast, and would have been playing WvW anyway because it is the gametype that I most enjoy in GW2. However, for the longterm health of WvW as a gametype and what a WvW season could have meant I do feel that ArenaNet dropped the ball.

Tarkus.4109:

I hear hello kitty online rewards their PvP with high tier PvE rewards maybe try that out if you want to complain getting something rather than nothing; saying something was unacceptable basically only means that you hyped up your expectations too high and they were dashed. That’s not Anets problem, it’s on the people complaining.

Remind me again… whats the logical argument for why WvW should be less rewarding than PvE?

Because huge rewards for the winning servers cause transfers and cause a snowball effect where one server dominates.

Perma stealth is still easily doable, lol. It didn’t really get nerfed, despite how annoying it is. I tried to spec for it last night, and I found it was pretty easy to do. Back to the fun!

Actually every class doesn’t have multiple stun breakers, and even the ones who do have to make tough choices to spec for them. Secondly, you only have a low health pool if you spec that way. I don’t choose a fragile spec and don’t feel disadvantaged by my health pool.

INI not as bad as I had feared, and I see a lot of improvements. Let’s hope that we don’t get nerfed due to the level of buffs.

Played for a few hours today. Not nearly as bad as it looked on paper. Some areas improved.

Really happy that they stuck to their guns on the cheese specs. Underwhelmed by the initiative performance. Worse than was led to believe.

Tibstrike.2974:

Sanduskel.1850:

aspirine.6852:

Assassin X.8573:

Daoc stealth system was best. Perma stealth but once you put yourself into combat or you took damage from an aoe, you were removed from stealth and I believe there was a 45 second timer at minimum before you could re-stealth. So the stealth system would be better if it modelled daoc system. Perma and only reenter once you are out of combat ei when you can swap skills.

That would be such a nerf to thief. Because many of them are dead meat if they cannot stealth anymore. It would require a skill change because lots of the d/d damage is from hitting in stealth :/

Yet it worked well in daoc……

Probably because the class wasn’t completely built around being able to stealth and/or evade. Thieves and Guardians both have the lowest base health pool yet are both in-your-face fighters for the most part. They survive by stealth and evades for thieves and boons and virtues for guardians. Take away a guardians boons or virtues and you are left with a walking loot bag. Take away a thief’s stealth and while they can certainly survive and fight well, they are severely limited in terms of when they can engage and disengage.

Then again, I have no idea what DoAC was like.

Actually, thieves only have low health pools if they spec that way. I’ve gotten decent health when I don’t spec glass cannon. In other words, thieves have to make choices like everyone else.

aspirine.6852:

Assassin X.8573:

Daoc stealth system was best. Perma stealth but once you put yourself into combat or you took damage from an aoe, you were removed from stealth and I believe there was a 45 second timer at minimum before you could re-stealth. So the stealth system would be better if it modelled daoc system. Perma and only reenter once you are out of combat ei when you can swap skills.

That would be such a nerf to thief. Because many of them are dead meat if they cannot stealth anymore. It would require a skill change because lots of the d/d damage is from hitting in stealth :/

Yet it worked well in daoc……

LordByron.8369:

once again..
A bad player is predictable

A stealthed player in order to be predictable has to be incredibly bad.

Stealth makes you TOTALLY unpredictable with no effort and that is why its totally OP as a skill….

NB talking about stealth…

I wonder how players can say L2P and ignore a basic concept of any pvp game….

Lol, I agree. As a thief, once I stealth, 99% of the time, enemies won’t hit me. That includes multiple enemies. While it can be entertaining to watch them flail, I feel kind of dirty for abusing the mechanic this way. Btw Anet called it abuse- not my language. I hope they balance us soon so that we can get some fixes. The way thieves are now, anet should not fix us or the balance will be even worse.

Thief. Can kill any other class in 1v1 or 1 v2

Actually, I would willingly buy the Mats. It’s the vial of essence I refuse to farm because I hate fractals and rng.

The real problem is that simply to be different, this game thought it was wise to allow a class with very high dps, the ability to pop into stealth while in combat. Never done in other games and predictably a problem here. I have specced out of the perma stealth build because of the cheese factor, but it’s still very easy to kill enemies on my thief. As a thief, I agree with you, and I have recommended changes, but my fellow thieves hate me for it. I recommend that you continue to respectfully submit feedback to anet.

D/D as I’ve been for a while. works well.

I really wish that Anet would separate Spvp from wvw balancing too. The games are quite different.

Thanks for the response. Can you also clarify whether the inability to make quivers of 1000 arrows with bloodstone dust is a bug as well? I cannot find the post on that bug.. I bought a bunch of mats but I cannot craft the back piece.

Liquid.9672:

Yeah, as Jayne pointed out, as of the last patch you can obtain an Ascended Back item without stepping foot in a single Fractal. The mats will run you about 100g assuming you have none on hand, and you should be overflowing with Bloodstone Dust just from running WvW unless all you do is roam and kill other players.

You cannot make the quiver of 1000 arrows with bloodstone dust. No word if that is working as intended.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Maladon.5760:

Are they nerfing the “I started a fight that I can’t finish” spec in this update?

Any glass cannon has that dysfunction.

Warriors are about the only other class that gets this benefit though. They definitely can exit a fight they cannot win.

VomitSpit.6843:

Astralporing.1957:

You do realize, that thieves can also plan their attacks and predict your movements, right? And in the predicting/planning game thieves have an advantage due to being able to see their enemies (while the enemies must guess everything).

Yes, but due to the thief’s low health pool and low toughness we are at a disadvantage when revealed. High risk/High reward.

Even then, like the OP has stated in the title. Stealth is not invincibility. Thieves can still get hurt while in stealth.

Every class could be at a low health pool and low toughness if they choose. Thieves only have low survivability if they spec that way. My thief can get decent survivability because I don’t spec glass cannon.

Yeah, I agree that pushing thieves to venom isn’t a good solution. Lets hope that they rethink,

Fun fights in Jq bl last night!

Thieves are fine in the right hands, and anet will make them better this month. I look forward to the changes.

How is your warrior? Can you prove you have warrior experience?

My thief can escape anyone. Easy as heck.

The mistake anet made was to allow us to stealth while in combat. No other game does that. I find it really easy to attack, stealth, get away, reset the fight then come back. In every other game, once I attack, I must finish the fight, not slink away.

You could play a warrior. Hmm didn’t you claim that you left your thief to play a warrior? Maybe the thief class just isn’t for you?

Spec D/D and don’t listen to the negative nancies. the class is great in wvw and going to get better in a week. if you rely on cheesy perma stealth builds too bad though.

gotta watch it again, I think I missed the main transaction.

Watched it. Lol, I didn’t see the key activity that I had expected.

Dee Jay.2460:

Arganthium.5638:

Dee Jay.2460:

Imagi.4561:

Sanduskel.1850:

his math was…..flawed.

If the math is flawed, then by all means redo it and post your calculations. I’d be very interested to see them.

The math may be correct, but it doesn’t relate to game-play.

Most theorycrafting assume some sort of tank and spank scenario because real game-play has too many variables. But guess what, more so than in any other MMO you are constantly moving and dodging in GW2.

Especially in PvP which seems to be the biggest concern for most. And that’s where we will end up with equal or more Initiative to blow. And for every Dodge we lose because of the Vigor nerf we gain an extra Lancerous Strike.

So it’s really not as a cut & dry as people are making it out to be.

So you’re one of those people.

My first request would be for you to identify one of the “too many variables” that you identified, and then justify how theorycrafting cannot practically identify its effects.

Quite simple.

Someone calculates that we have less effective Initative now, due to the “Initiative on Crit” nerf. This is assuming we are standing still and constantly attacking a target.

Thus they conclude this is a nerf.

In practice however a S/D Thief for example might only have 50% DPS time on a target, maybe even less. The rest of the time is spent dodging, shadowstepping and stealthing.

Even in PvE I never sit and hit for longer than a few seconds at a time. So the theorycrafting doesn’t really apply. It’s not that it’s wrong, it just makes too broad assumptions.

I’m convinced we will have a much more comfortable Initiative cushion, especially in sPvP, than prior. In PvE it will be slightly less noticeable and probably feel more or less the same.

I don’t think we will actually find ourselves with less Initiative, exception being D/P.

I agree. this was an excellent way to nerf that hated perma stealth spec without wrecking all other specs.

My thief has never lost to a ranger. their pets are laughable.

Kreen.3925:

Can you all take the MERC topic somewhere else? Us bystanders get that there is some kitten hurt folks on both sides but really just play the game no matter what server you are on. Move on from it kitten .

If folks want to go their separate ways then that’s their perogative. BG hardly got left in the lurch unless of course winning season 1 was just some bizarre gardening accident.

Please keep discussing Merc. I never liked them anyway. ganking solo players was their claim to fame, lol.