Guild Wars 2

I play thief, and I have been HS spammed by thieves before, and seen many attempt to HS spam my guildies.. it makes me ‘lol’. It’s only effective if the target literally lets it happen.

I disagree however that HS needs any sort of “fix” whatsoever. Especially since necro has fear/chill/marks and also dodge’s. Chill makes HS absolutely useless. Slows the skill and cuts the range in half. If I’m chilled in any sort of AOE I can’t even HS out of it most times because I don’t leap far enough.

If you die from HS spam, it’s just bad reaction/you weren’t paying attention/caught by surprise/you already blew all your cooldowns/etc. Can’t do much about it.

I don’t HS spam.. not because it’s OP/‘broken’ etc. I just think it is more ineffective than most people think. I don’t like the feel of blowing initiative on a well telegraphed move that is actually pretty easy to counter.

HS is also glitchy for me and doesn’t always even work/go the full distance, and I’ve even had HS make me go completely backwards lol (granted, with nothing targeted). I might chain HS 2x at most but mainly its because I have a guy low who is running and my 1st HS was JUST out of range to get him.

HS spamming is effective, as long as it is not countered, but I RARELY see someone that doesn’t counter it. I have been taken down by HS spam a minimal amount of times, and my guildies the same. I have a necro guildy and I have never seen him get downed by a HS spam (and I’ve seen it happen to him a few times lol).

I think power necros are OP.. and I’ve raged about them before, as well as mes and engi, but you just got to try and find ways around their “abilities” though I do feel HS is far easier to counter than necro spam lol (but our opinions are all relative to the classes we play so).

So yes, I am a thief, I do not HS spam, but to answer your main point, this is NOT because I feel HS needs to be changed in any way.

Happened before the last few patches. Not sure when it started though but I’ve seen this on other classes as well with different animations.

Here is my thief. Also bored of human T3 but liked the vigil legs, so I did something a bit different.

Well the only reason I say that is because that since the beginning of time, long channel skills can still hit you even if they don’t cast until well after you have entered stealth. So you can stealth, and then a warrior can use rifle “Volley”, and you will get hit by it (and it will follow you if you move) even though you cannot be targeted. It’s a skill-less defect of the game.

Right now we have 0 stability, and lowest HP pool. “Perma-stealth” is going away, so I don’t see why giving stealth some evade is bad, even if it’s 1-2 seconds of it.

I do see your point, but in light of all the nerfing of thieves I’m at a point where I really DGAF about what the other classes will think is OP.

It’s our turn.

What would be great is if stealth gave “evasion” for 2-3 seconds. Assuming it works like I think you mean it works, it would stop the bullkitten stealth-deaths to after-casted channel skills.

I also agree there is now absolutely ZERO reason for Shadow Refuge to be so obviously broadcast to the enemy due to how the tripwire works. Keep the red ring on the ground or some quick visual effect, but there is zero need for the giant house icon that stays for the duration. I play both warrior and thief, and on my warrior it is brainlessly simple to absolutely F a thief over that drops Refuge.

Sanduskel.1850:

and trust anet to balance the ENTIRE game.

Nope.. I don’t.. why? Because for starters Power spam 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 necro’s and bomb/condi nuke engi’s still exist.

I’ll argue it again.. Perma Stealth is a defensive tactic.. you have to build for it and slot the skills for it. The fact is it simply kitten es people off because they don’t get a bag.

So technically we should create our own bandwagon called “Perma Run” warriors. Because with enough skills in the rotation they can perma-chain 1200 range movement skills.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

Well that’s the thing, there are ways to do it so that it wouldn’t clip… it would be a lot more work yeah… but it would look a lot better than every hat having a nonsensical flap in the back. It’s just a big shortcut to do the no-hair thing.

As a 3D character and environment artist actually in the field I can tell you that there’s no way to easily do it. They would have to completely remodel every hair mesh to allow the replacing of only certain planes, which just isn’t worth the development time. An alternative and more likely method would be modeling new hair for each helm in the game to replace the default hair mesh for each race, which again isn’t worth the development time. You just have to deal with it, because the only game who’s actually pulled off being able to keep portions of the player’s hair while having helmets is AdventureQuest Worlds, which is a flash based game and extremely simple to do due to layering. Modeling is an entirely different ball game and with the amount of helmets multiplied by 10 (5 races, 2 genders) that’s just not something you want to allocate your resources to.

That’s essentially what I was imagining would probably have to be done. Cool to hear it from someone that does the work. I know it really would be a ton of work and is basically not ever going to happen in guild wars, but it’s just so displeasing to see your female character go bald with anything on her head other than a mask lol. Thankful at least for the “hide helmet” option. :P

If you want to argue that the stealth capability from D/P was “broken” then fine, let’s go ahead and say it is.. putting that aside completely, my problem is the fact that changing this ONE trait is nerfing multiple aspects of the build and other traits that are based on stealth. No adjustments are made to these traits to at least leave them unaffected by this change. There are far more reasons for D/P 0/30/30/10/0 thief to stealth in and out while IN combat (like the example of might stacking from Hidden Assasin), then there are for one to “perma-stealth” and watch from afar.

Example.. If I have full initiative (12)and no traited regen (except infusion) I can drop BP + HS 3 times through it to gain 6 stacks of might and still have some initiative to fight.. With the change it will be pretty difficult to do it more than twice, so now our might is reduced from 6 to 4.. This is a side nerf and in my opinion should not happen.

BP + HS is also D/P’s quickest access to stealth, but now it’s going to eat up so much initiative.. Unless the base regen really makes things amazing, and I guess we won’t know until it’s final, I just see this build ending up much more in the negative than anything.

“Perma-stealth” might be considered by some an abuse of the mechanics, but I STILL fail to see how it actually hurts anything or anyone other than kitten ing them off because they can’t get a bag from someone that ISN’T FIGHTING THEM.

If they want to make this change, they NEED to look at the big picture. I feel they’re tunnel-visioning on the desire to slap perma-stealth trolls on the wrist and call them bad children and not considering how this affects other parts of D/P builds.

I have to ask… why do people get such mad nasty wedgies when they talk about “perma-stealth”.

I still fail to see why the infusion of shadows nerf was even necessary. It breaks so many other parts of the D/P build than simply “perma-stealth”.

For one thing it allows for less condi removal, because less initiative recycling means the BP + HS combo can’t be used as frequently, so less effectiveness for Shadow’s Embrace.

Secondly, since you will run out of initiative faster you won’t be able to use HS or clusterbomb to combo into fields as much, so you get less might stacks from the Hidden Assasin trait.

None of this was considered when making this change… there is nothing to counter balance the nerfs. They need to do something like make Infusion of Shadows return 3 init, not 2, since it only procs the FIRST time you stealth, it is hardly worth taking at 2.. 3 I would consider, but 2… meh. Also, make the might stack from Hidden Assasin 3 instead of 2 this would even it out.. since this was not a nerf that was called for, there is no reason NOT to do this.. You see? This nerf is NOT a singular nerf to D/P builds…

I also need to mention because very few seem to really understand.. “Perma-stealth” isn’t even possible when fighting thanks to the “revealed” state. Not to mention if a thief IS perma-stealthing on you, there are tons of giveaways to where a thief that’s OOC is located… but really, what is it? Is it just that you get kitten ed off because you can’t hit a guy that’s hiding and isn’t hitting you? Do yourself a favor and either play smart and interrupt his perma-stealth sequence, or don’t stand around like a pinata waiting to be smashed..

“Perma-stealth” is just a band-wagoner term to refer to a mechanic that they don’t understand. Perma-stealth is NOT achievable without using utility skills, unless you trait more initiative regen other than Infusion of Shadows.. show me a USEFUL D/P build loaded up with initiative regen that allows perma-stealth using BP + HS alone that can do enough damage and survive long enough to fight against (and WIN) against someone who isn’t terribad.

Those of us that utilize the current Infusion of Shadows for useful things are getting shafted, just because people get their knickers wadded over an annoying (not overpowered) tactic.

Thieves wouldn’t even need to perma-stealth if we had as much ranged escape ability as warriors/ranger/engi/etc. The only time I go heavily stealthed is if I need to get the heck out of a situation where I get massively overrun.. you have to stealth in the middle of it all STARTING WITH SHADOW REFUGE, and with patience, slowly make your way out, because HS, and Infiltrator’s Arrowing away not only short ranged and easily closed upon by the “nike” zoom zoom classes, but you’re also left with 0 initiative to do anything once the small gap is closed and they’re on your face again.

“Perma-stealth” is ONLY, a defensive tactic.. ever.. once you attack someone, you are on the offensive, stealth is gone immediately and cannot be re-applied until “revealed” wears off as long as you are in combat. The only way this would EVER not be true is if “Revealed” was removed from the game.

Maybe I’ll eat some of these words once the patch goes live with the initiative regen, but I’m not feeling it.. more than likely I won’t if history is any indication.. Had to voice my thoughts for the night.

In closing.. I leave you with this:

“Oh ma gawd that thief goes into stealth frequently while fighting me! That’s totally PERMA-!” <- NO!!… LEARN WORDS!

Well that’s the thing, there are ways to do it so that it wouldn’t clip… it would be a lot more work yeah… but it would look a lot better than every hat having a nonsensical flap in the back. It’s just a big shortcut to do the no-hair thing.

Hmm.. My human thief doesn’t. Just kinda sways a little.

ryan.6217:

meh, while we are talking about it, i dont like how our shortbow isn’t consistent. Sometimes we shoot hunched, and sometimes upright, even when standing still. Not an issue or anything, just something that i dont find too aesthetic

..isn’t that Warrior longbow?

No animation would make sense with out a quiver back item unless it was a bow that shoots laser beams lol.. Lots of games do that though. It’s just a development shortcut. At least there is the option to get a quiver back item, it’s just not easy..

I’m more concerned about the fact that ANET can’t make hats/helmets that don’t remove your hair lol. Every hat has some flap that covers the whole back of your head to hide the fact that your hair disappears. Pretty bad shortcut IMO. But anyways, back on topic.

Sorry for the length of this post, there is some raging, so skip it if that bothers you :P

It really honestly just baffles me how one can look at most of the other classes and be like “yo, you need to be an epic swiss-army knife of awesomeness and have ALL the things to counter everything!”… and then they look at thief and go… “you win too much, you’re OP.” they nerf, some less coordinated or less skilled players quit, other determined players adapt through skill, maybe still manage ok, and then the cycle repeats, but it’s to the point where there will be less and less room to adapt. Then you only have amazingly elite players that play it well enough to win. Thief is basically the class that really suffers the most from the slightest error and because every class is being given a counter to everything thief has either by buffs to themselves or nerfs to thief (which have all been mentioned already) it is only going to get worse.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that thief takes skill, and I am by no means an incredibly awesome thief player but I am learning and also learning to adapt with the changes but it’s frustrating when you see how easy some of these builds for other classes are and how hard they are to counter without IMPECCABLE timing in a lot of cases.

Things that make thieves mad (not all of us I’m sure, but I can’t be the only one thinking some of this):

Using necro as an example, because I know people who have stopped playing necro because they themselves say it is too easy.. I just don’t understand how one can go as a necro into WvW, wear full zerker gear, have 20k+ HP, deathshroud on top of that for an extra barrier, ability to consume conditions, plague form with stability, and absolutely reap people with power and wells. HOW is this not “OP”? Oh but thief is the one that needs nerfs because they can go invisible, even though you can still die easily while invisible with even a sloppily timed channel skill. That is IF you don’t get pushed/pulled/feared/launched out of Shadow Refuge which strips stealth immediately.

Since we aren’t allowed to have stability, to me it would make more sense if Shadow Refuge didn’t have a tripwire on it, and that you would still maintain stealth for the length of the duration you stood in it while it pulsed, that way you don’t get doubly penalized for getting CC’ed out of it while being a sitting duck with your face on the ground, AND visible immediately while also under “revealed state”. It is SO easy for anyone to knock a thief out of Shadow Refuge with close to no skill, with the ONE exception being another thief…

A few other things I have to get off my chest… some already mentioned.

Why does warrior get the 25% run speed trait and we must waste a utility slot for a signet that is arguably useless in combat. Why do they ALSO have so many chainable 1200 meter dashes on top of that?

Why does engi get what is literally perma-swiftness, something that is being made EASIER on Dec 10th. Why is perma-swiftness not seen as OP but perma stealth is? I won’t even mention engi access to CC, condi’s and healing.

Why do thieves have NO stability other than daggerstorm which half the time doesn’t actually HIT anything?

Why is Sick Em on Ranger not dodge-able (anti stealth bias), but Steal (thief signature “skill”) is dodge/block/evade-able which puts it on cooldown?

Also, why on earth does heartseeker have such a wide hit zone? I heartseeked PAST a rabbit that had to be a full 5 steps to my right and POW.. rabbit ate it despite not being targeted, AND dagger not having cleave. This is unbelievably stupid as you can have someone targeted and go to HS to them, only to have HS catch some random garbage that was not in your immediate path and slow you down.

So anyways.. There have been TONS of great suggestions by a lot of people that would lift thief back up to be on par with where the other classes are right now but I feel like none of them ever get considered, except for the initiative regen which people have been begging for I DO applaud ANET for finally doing! Thank you for at least boosting this! Maybe some of the things I ask are outlandish, but some of the things that other classes can already do now are already outlandish!

And finally the point still stands as others have said, many of these changes that they make are making traits useless.. I sincerely doubt I will still even run infusion of shadows on my D/P thief after Dec 10th. The only time I “perma stealth” is if I am avoiding a zerg trying to res my havoc squad or something of the sort but even still, I cannot achieve “perma stealth” with my build without using Shadow Refuge, AND blinding powder and even my heal more than once depending on the length of time I am trying to remain hidden, and SR is by no means low profile.. “Perma stealth” requires more “skill” and timing than most people realize. It’s not just “place face on keyboard… achieve perma stealth”..

I think what he meant by “so pretty much everyone” was when you said:

Once you “get it” it becomes really flowy and can pretty much down any class 1v1 EXCEPT (lists most common builds encountered in WvW).

lol

Warrior: "No, it’s not fair, you should just insta-die! gets backstabbed by thief "OH S***! Rush + Whirlwind Attack + Bulls Rush + Charge + Savage Leap /laugh /laugh /laugh

Yeah..

Unless thief gets some serious attention, and gets some reworks/improvements instead of nerfs, yes, our health pool is too low. Since we have no stability and infusion of shadows is getting nerfed and all other classes have superior healing or barriers to hide behind. I would however rather they actually make useful improvements instead of just boosting HP.

A lot of posts and suggestions have gone around that would actually make some nice improvements to thieves but I feel like when it comes to that getting translated to the devs it ends in a “Well if we did that you might be able to kill a power/deathshroud necro! We can’t have that!” or “You propose that you should be able to catch a Nike Warrior? Pah! Preposterous! You’re a ninja, everyone knows ninjas are supposed to be slower than everything!”

Rin.1046:

You know, the more I think about some of these changes and people’s responses the more I am starting to think Anet has done the right thing. But, not completely I’d like to add.

On the ini regen rate and people’s comments about taking ini gain out of the player’s hands. This is not strikely true. You say the ini regain is on your control, but it’s not. It’s just another passive part of the build. If you build to regain ini from stealth, you’ll gain more ini when using stealth. And as stealth builds will be using stealth all the time, it is just part and parcel of the build that you gain more ini. Now that has been reduced or removed, it is in the players hands to manage their ini effectively again. It’s not about controlling how much ini you gain, it;s about how much you use.

The thief is suposed to choose when to use ini and how much, if you provide a way for a thief to build for a near infinite supply of on demand ini, then there is no choice to make, you will always have it available. Now you do not, and that was (if I remember correctly) the point of initiative.

I think part of the problem is perception of the thief and what its role is. And lets not be fooled, each profession was given a role to play in the game, by the devs. They removed the trinity but added their own class specific roles. For example, the warrior is supposed to be the front line soldier, who can charge into battle, taking and dishing out damage. This is not the thief’s role. The thief’s role is being sneaky, taking out lone stragglers and roaming. The problem is, other professions can now do just as good a job as the thief at those things. The thief is no longer the king of his role. They were also supposed to be the kings of the 1v1 combat scenerio (the thief’s description on the official site even said they were deadly in 1 on 1 combat, but strangely enough this has now changed). It seems to me that the thief’s role has changed somewhat from it’s original purpose, but they have not given us a clear definition of what they are supposed to be good at now, other than being stealthy and evasive. And both of those things have been nerfed (in some cases rightly so though).

So what I would like to know from the dev’s is, ‘What is the thief’s role now, if it is no longer to be the best 1v1 combatant?’ and ‘Now our main defense has been reduced, will we have any kind of compensation in other areas (such as direct access to more defensive boons like protection)?’. If you are going to remove the trinity and say to players that they can build their favourite profession to fill any role, we really need to be able to compete with other professions in all roles. At the moment, we cannot do that.

To be honest, I am still very happy with my thief, and I am looking forward to the ini regen change. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will effect my play. But I do think we are not getting enough buffs to compensate the nerfs. On a side note, I would also REEEEALLY like to see more weapon options for the thief, it is high time we had more options available to us (sword off-hand and rifle would be a good start ).

^Pretty much all of that.

Another thing I would like to see on thief, is the “move 50% faster while stealthed” trait changed to “move 25% faster” much like warrior has because the former trait doesn’t really seem to do squat while in combat, and stealth duration is so short other than Shadow Refuge that the “moving 50% faster” is barely useful. Thieves should be able to run fast without wasting a utility on a useless signet or putting overpriced runes on armor that severely lower DPS. There is no reason thief of all classes should not have this.

Also, since infusion of shadows is getting nerfed, why not change infiltrator’s signet, infiltrator’s strike, and infiltrator’s arrow to 1200 range? Why can thief not move as far as warrior?

Faceroll

Background: when someone alleges a class is either A.) very simple to play, requiring no attention to dps rotation or B.) has a hugely overpowered ability that comprises an unfair % of their DPS done.

In those situations, you, the alleged simpleton, would then keybind your entire keyboard to one or two abilities, carefully place left cheekbone on the W key, and while maintaining consistent pressure between your face and keyboard, roll your lips, nose, right cheekbone to about the L key, and then backwards to the W key, and then repeat.

Faceroll

a faceroll is when playing a video game, to use one’s face on the keyboard to play the game instead of using one’s hands.

You cannot stealth combo by facerolling.. it is completely and physically impossible. You’d spend more time in combat and “revealed” than stealthed.

(Credit to urban dict with minor edits, lol..)

Perma stealth thief are the same as runaway warriors. You can’t trait perma stealth on thief without blowing traits for init-regen which screws up the DPS your build can do. Mostly all you are good for is running/hiding. In fact in combat perma stealth is not even remotely possible thanks to Revealed.

Devs just needs to stop fricking TRYING to nerf anything on thief. The amount of condi-spam, cc spam, blast healing, tankiness and face-flaying DPS that other classes can do with little sacrifice is ridiculous but they only get more and more every patch.

Survivability of other classes = cc spam, blast water heals/deathshroud and the like, speedrun capability, PLUS normal heal.

Survivability of thief = stealth. Anything other than Shadow Refuge doesn’t even give us enough stealth to get away in many cases, and SR has such a stupid mechanic that a lot of the time it doesn’t even work because HELLO HERE I AM! SEE MY GIANT HOUSE ICON?! THIS MEANS I AM LOCKED INTO THIS CIRCLE OR I GET THE REVEALED DEBUFF SO COME KILL ME OR KNOCK ME OUT OF THE RING!… on top of that, if you stealth to save your butt when about to go down, you still have to make sure you saved a dodge because even though you can’t be seen or targeted WATCH OUT FOR THE CHANNEL-SKILL SPAM that can still hit you AFTER you’ve been stealthed for 2-3 full seconds. Oh but not that it matters since when your dodge finishes the channel will still be going and you will still eat it.

Just stop handing out faceroll buttons.

Yeah I’m raging and I am kitten ed off because OP classes still cry about thieves which inspires nerfs that shouldn’t happen.. Maybe it’s just time for thieves to QQ hard! This isn’t even specifically tied to this most recent patch. I’ve watched it gradually happen with each patch. “Here’s your candy everyone!! Wait! Not you thief! Don’t even think about it! Go to your room you sad disgrace to humanity, you disgust me!”

Thief ideology: Learn to play only one weapon set that sort of doesn’t emphasize the shackles we’ve put on you.

Other class ideology: Do whatever you want because you aren’t limited by shackles!

Maybe I am biased but I feel like those who play thieves are the only ones forced to rationalize changes by convincing themselves they are “OP” and should just adapt and accept that what we have going against us is somehow justified by some means.

/rant

insert curse filled rage

Well holy F at least THAT was a mistake.. Thanks for pointing that out.

Old
“Remove one condition every 3 seconds while stealthed”.

New
“Remove conditions periodically while in stealth.”

-Conditions removed: 1
-Interval: 10 seconds

Sanduskel.1850:

Calm down, it wasn’t nerfed.

Explain?

And what the kitten is with the non-documented nerf to Shadow’s Embrace? Remove 1 condition every TEN seconds instead of 3? Forget to put that in the patch notes on purpose?

So now we have even less condi-removal, then essentially the none (unless traited for shadow’s embrace) we had before. So we get condi-spammed by necro/ele/engi and can’t stealth to heal up because shadow refuge is such a hilarious telegraph that you just blast, swing, or necro-well the area and we die anyways because of our hilariously low HP pool. Stealth wears off long before ANY conditions will.. oh and on top of that, yeah, we can still get channeled while in stealth too, remember that?

All I see are thieves giving giving giving up elements that made the class work, and every other class getting getting getting more and more and more. Why don’t devs use the same thought process they use for thieves when “updating” other classes instead of handing them everything like candy.

ANET is in love with casters. Seriously, reading the patch notes was a joke. OP classes get more OP buffs, added range on runaways, more power and healing, etc etc but the things that give thief an edge get toned down… For the love of God someone ball up and stop listening to QQ’ers who whine that thief is OP. Thief is pretty much the only class that isn’t a skill-less faceroll now.

deepkumar.1230:

ok LS was op

No, the problem is it wasn’t.. Compare us with every other class.

I’ve never seen harder failing at class balance before in my life.

Maximillian Greil.1965:

FA’s killed him twice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-K2v9UzNYQ&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABDsjfZXZg8&feature=player_embedded

lol in the second video at 46 seconds you can see an Anet tag near Silo’s! They witnessed it! AAAAAWWW YYYEEEEAAHH!

You guys are already there by the time I spawn into the borderlands at night so I never have the chance to be the guy to run lol… granted, it’s not massive groups of you, more like 5 of you at a time (with some other pugs). At which time as I said FA is outnumbered on the maps and we usually don’t have more than 3-5 coming out of spawn at most.

But the oPP players I have observed do not simply chase, kill and retreat. Every time I see them/you, they’re standing there, not near the tower, but closer to the choke point killing anyone who trickles out of spawn. When everyone dies, they wait for more.. It goes on for quite a while, until a bigger force of us hits the map and you get pushed back, but once our presence dies down it happens again.

Don’t take offense to this, I’m just stating what it looks like, but considering that it’s usually a group of (at least 3 or 4) thieves I see running stealth/backstab.. it looks to me like a troll group that just want’s to be kitten-baggy and spawncamp to kitten people off when they know there is minimal resistance at the spawn. I run a D/P thief so I know getting hit by 1 sucks.. getting hit by 2, 3, or 4 at the same time is rage enducing lol.

I’m not strictly singling you guys out either, I’m sure you aren’t terrible people, I just know whenever I have seen it happen, oPP has always been part of it, but there have been other Blackgate players present from other guilds as well (bandwagon perhaps).

Does oPP spawncamp FA spawn on Blue and Green BL every night? I’ve seen them multiple days this week, mostly thieves.. so pro yo.. lulz..

And if you manage to catch a warrior/ranger/ele/(engi too even?) that doesn’t want to be caught, they were lagging… lol…

Realistically though, adjusting infiltrator’s arrow is probably the best suggestion that would give us an actual benefit.

Marduh.4603:

Just make the Infiltrator’s Arrow rate like all other teleports. Warriors leaps run faster than this arrow. While flying arrow I run a third of the distance teleport.

Good point actually… I did notice that a few days ago that the arrow flies so slow that while running you don’t actually teleport the full range. Infiltrator’s Arrow should fly faster, especially for the initiative cost.

Instead of buffing thief movement skills, perhaps other classes need to have the distance/range reduced of those dash/leap skills, at least in WvW.. I’ve seen Warriors/Rangers/Eles all spam movement skills to go from in the middle of the fray to 5000 meters away and counting. The only “useful” gap closers thieves have are utilities, which means IF we catch the target we’ve already blown cooldowns, unless you want to spam HS and Infiltrator’s Arrow on top of those, but then you have blown cooldowns and no initiative by the time you catch them, which means they either turn to fight you with you at a disadvantage, or they just rocket away knowing you can’t catch them.

In WvW, since you really only ever see people use said skills for running away, it sort of does make sense to bring the range down a bit or up the cooldowns or do SOME sort of adjustment to make them primarily useful for combat first, run away second. Thoughts?

Excalibur.9748:

I don’t have any explanation for this one. I just casted shadow refuge over the downed mesmer, I went ahead to stomp him. My stomp got interrupted. Is that even possible in this scenario?

Had that happen to me too.. Was there anyone else around? I believe “throw bolas” on warrior can “channel” into stealth and have the same effect as what we are discussing. I know I have gotten "bola"d while in stealth before.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Also understand that ranged weapons without AOE skills have no other way to hit a stealthed player than by precasting channels.

Well, this is what I mean though.. That statement right there is exactly why I see it as a problem. Why should you be able to continue channeling something that you can’t see? BUT on the other hand, why should a stealthed target limit some classes straight up 1v1 when the opponent only has (or mostly has) single target range skills. In theory, it could be said that they would never win. BUT the 3rd argument, is… should they be able to be skilled enough to kill targets while they are under the 4 second revealed state? In a sense it feels like it’s easy mode for ranged classes vs stealthed targets.

I’m trying to think of it from both sides. My intention was never to QQ or anything lol. I think it is just the nature of the game. If it was an FPS obviously you could just spray and pray (much like a melee can run around flailing and probably still hit me if they happen across my path while I am stealthed). But the game requires targets to effectively hit with ranged.. It just seems like that statement shouldn’t be true.

It’s still illogical, but like I said, I can totally see how due to the nature of the ranged combat design, the game would be way more broken with this changed from how it is. (unless a valid argument would be “get good enough to kill us while under revealed state”.. I’m not the greatest at stealth or maintaining perma stealth so I really don’t know how much validity that would have vs a much more experienced thief than I.)

Side Note:

Non-channeled ranged weapon skills require a target to hit even if you’re lined up and shooting someone point blank in the face.

Not saying this is even effective (because it’s not an acceptable solution for ranged classes) but are you sure this is true? Pretty sure I’ve hit things with my shortbow that have run up in my face, without having them targeted.. maybe not though I’ll have to try after work.

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll try to pay more attention and do that next time.. I tend to panic, and think “hurry up and stealth to avoid getting CC’d” if a big group comes after me.. That usually doesn’t even work anyways because you can still be AOE CC’d while stealthed. Survivability is definitely affected by thought process. True believer in L2P lol. I’ve gotten so much better with everybody’s suggestions here.

xmtrcv.5236:

You are referencing “channeled” skills.

THANK YOU! That is the word I was looking for.. (edited topic title)

Excalibur.9748:

wait it out, then go into stealth.

The problem is I usually don’t see it coming lol.. Sure sometimes it happens in 1v1, which is annoying but usually I just shrug it off… The main issue is if things go south and I try to GTFO I run, stealth, take a few more steps and all of a sudden (not looking behind me) I get PEW PEW PEW PEW KAMEEHAMEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAA ZERK KAPOW GRRRRRRKKK (3 or 4 ranged focus at same time while I’m still invisible) BLARGH… dead.

It IS just an odd fine line because I can totally see how stealth completely dropping the skill activation would be OP, unless it was placed on a 0 cooldown when this happens (but how that would specifically be coded I don’t know).. But on the other hand it’s just so illogical that it causes feelings of rage sometimes (sadface).

One of those things that is overall better for the rest of the world the way it is I suppose? But still disappointing when it is the sole cause of death when you could have otherwise escaped lol..

Just generally curious on opinions here..

Skills that cast for a “duration” (pardon my limited knowledge of skill names) such as the mesmer GS beam, the rapid fire ranger shot (NPC’s in WvW have it too), Volley (warrior rifle) and other similar skills, when cast, if you stealth while enemies trigger the mentioned skills, but their skill is still in precast time, can still home in and murder you even though you can no longer be targeted and are “invisible”.

Granted, it usually only becomes an issue when getting focused by more than 1 high DPS enemy but my issue with it is that it just doesn’t make any logical sense.

I guess on one hand I could see that the homing effect might be some form of purposeful effect to make certain classes still be able to hit thieves that can stealth rapidly (but I thought that was the point of the “revealed” debuff), however – apart from it making no logical sense (how can you pew pew arrows that home into something you can’t actually see) it seems to put melee classes at a general disadvantage since they still have to have an idea where the thief is in order to do damage, whereas one of these ranged skills is just sit back and watch your skill trail home in. Most of these skills apply damage for as long as a quick stealth so not only are you getting focused while stealthed, but the constant damage being applied is negating any in-stealth regen or healing you do, and then your stealth runs out and you are more vulnerable than you should be, with your heal on cooldown.

Reminder: This happens when someone hits a skill (like the ones mentioned above), the skill is in precast, and you stealth BEFORE actually taking any damage.. the skill will still home in on you, and do the full amount of damage. I have gotten hit by rapid fire/focus beams as much as 1-2 seconds (full count) into stealth (meaning I have already been stealthed for that long and all of a sudden something is homing in on my behind lol).

With that said:

What are other thieves opinions on this? Does anybody know if this is some sort of “balancing”, or just an after effect of the mechanics of the game that cannot/will not be fixed/changed?

Apologies if this topic has been beaten before.

I ran this with 3 friends yesterday, and honestly the only thing that burned us out was the rapids.. by the time we made it to the zone with all the ninjas (zone 2) everyone was tired and gave up.

The issue with the rapids is as people are saying. When you land in water you do get randomly teleported. I landed right next to a rock once and could have saved myself but then POOF I got teleported backwards and to the middle of the water which sent me flying to my doom (more than once) lol.

That’s probably the absolute bottom line thing that I consider “wrong” with SAB 2. Most of the other stuff becomes a non issue when you learn the course and don’t just try to jumpjumpjumpjump speedrun your way through.

Other than that… I’m giving it another try when I get out of work! XD

Use your weapon 1 skill.. you know how the animation usually has a 3 hit sequence? If you’re hitting a stealthed enemy, the sequence will play out.. if you miss, you will only repeat the first sequence.

Furajir.3815:

My ranger can kill 5 people at once without stealth, nerf me?

I have a buddy that would love to know your build! LOL! (seriously)

I find it both amusing and strange that you have a lvl 80 thief, yet you are complaining about the one very thing that makes the class different from the rest.

I fail to understand the point of this thread.. Are you raging because stealth makes you too awesome and OP that you kill everything and are bored because you lack a challenge?

Do you hate stealth so much that you play a non-stealth thief and get killed by everything?

Or do you just not know how to utilize stealth in the same fashion as the enemy thieves you meet?

I feel your original post to be illogical and simply lazy at best. Right now I main a thief in WvW. I’ve killed thieves, and I’ve also been killed BY thieves. Learn the class and learn how to fight it. You are not invulnerable while stealthed. Root/stun/daze etc. them when they pop out of stealth. Even if they stealth if you KNOW you CC’d them, keep hitting the spot, you WILL hit them and it WILL hurt. When a thief stealths, swing with your 1 skill repeatedly, if you hit them your auto attack animation will play out. If you stop hitting them your animation will repeat the first stage.

Yesterday I had a thief on me running the same setup as I. He was stealthing in and out and poking me.. I activated basilisk venom and waited for him to reappear. Once he did so, I targeted, and just before he stealthed again, I dropped blinding powder, shadowstepped and backstabbed, he was now turned to stone and unable to stealth, and after a few more 1,1,1, auto hits, he was down and stomped.

Other classes have high armor/toughness, massive regen/heal (warrior/guardian), blast their own combo heals and make you slow as hell with chill/cripple etc. (ele and engi), and one class even gets an extra HP bar which blankets them AND gives them better damage (necro [deathshroud]).

Learn to play around the strengths of the classes you fight. Sure I’ve wanted to rage about things other classes can do too, but if you practice it becomes less of an issue.

evilapprentice.6379:

I wasn’t aware anyone used Patience.

That’s not me being a prick, but isn’t it sort of useless? I can’t recall if it was bugged, or the boosted regen was so minor that 2 init on stealth was considered almost always better.

Probably… I got rid of it because it DID feel like it was useless lol. (goes back to when I just started thief and I felt I needed every possible init regen)

Condition removal in stealth makes a much bigger (positive) impact.

Forz.1725:

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

Recently I swapped the “regain initiative faster while in stealth” for the “gain 2 stacks of might when using a skill that stealths you” trait and after about half an hour I wasn’t having problems with the lack of initiative gain.

The trait that gives might stacks is a minor trait after specing 25 points into the SA tree, you can’t swap it, so I am not sure what you are talking about here.

Yeah sorry… I am at work while I am typing this (was on the phone).. I had a feeling I got that wrong lol. I swapped that trait out for something, but since you pointed that out I couldn’t remember what for lol. (at the same time I went from 0/30/15/25/0 to 0/30/30/10/0 so I was confused). Now that I am looking at the wiki – My correct statement is I swapped Patience for Shadow’s Embrace.

The only initiative trait I seem to “need” with D/P is the one where you gain 2 initiative when you stealth, mainly because of the black powder + heartseeker combo you use to stealth up. Otherwise by the time you stack stealth you have no initiative to do anything other than 1, 1, 1, 1, 1… I used to need just about any initiative regen trait there was until I learned how to rely mostly on stealth, backstab, 1, 1, 1, and only use 2-4 strategically. I do however think you are right that most are taking at least 1 trait that in some way helps with initiative gain. I also happen to be using infiltrators signet but for the active effect over the initiative regen.

I do think it would be nice to add a trait or 2 that gives a small boost to initiative regen AND some other effect. I think though too that it is possible to pace yourself better so that you don’t need as much initiative regen as you think you need. One thing that’s easy to forget is thief has no skill cooldowns on 1-5. If you buff the initiative regen TOO much then thief will be firing off 2-5 way faster than any other class can. Sure it will be nice for us but not so nice when a more “pro” thief is on our behind.. :P

Recently I swapped the “regain initiative faster while in stealth” for the “gain 2 stacks of might when using a skill that stealths you” trait and after about half an hour I wasn’t having problems with the lack of initiative gain.

There are times where I still overachieve and I drop a black powder to follow with HS, but am left sitting in the middle of my powder field with 0-1 initiative left, and have to sit there like a vulnerable fool without any means of escape lol… It doesn’t happen often, mostly only in sustained fights or if I am being focused hard and have already put my heal and blinding powder on cooldown. I am still learning, but my point is I think if you try it for a while, be OK with screwing up a few times and dying and you’ll probably realize you can adapt pretty well.

On thief I run D/P with SB as alt… I find I only use shortbow when I stealth, go for a backstab, and finger-kitten hit the Tilde key instead of 1 by accident… followed by rage!!

lol.. but seriously though.. I only use SB in like 5v5 fights or larger because of the 10 second weapon swap cooldown or to range siege on walls in WvW. The whole point of The Dreamer is to run around pew-pewing that ridiculous looking rainbow unicorn effect that brings shame to anybody that gets killed by it.. for me personally, putting it on MY thief would be a waste of that potential.

Alternatively, you could always sell it and use that money to buy a different legendary that might suit you better. At least all your work wouldn’t be a complete waste.

I run D/P. I find that if you can surprise a necro it isn’t that hard.. however, like some say a GOOD necro is difficult to beat 1v1. I’ve gotten the drop on some necro’s with Stealth + Basilisk venom backstab (make sure they aren’t in deathshroud)… get as many dagger 1 in as you can while they are stone. Usually when they break out of stone, they’ll try and pop a heal and if you pay attention you can headshot them to interrupt, then pressure them with rapid 1-1-1-1, then black powder + heartseeker them to stealth, and backstab again which drops them.

If you’re D/D you won’t have the pistol 5 + dagger 2 combo to stealth but like Jayw said, you can employ basilisk venom, a cloak and dagger + gap closer (steal or infiltrators signet) followed by immediate backstab to essentially get the same opening effect. I really think he has the best info.

I’m nowhere near pro yet, and good necro’s in 1v1 usually cause me to run away, but I’ve been learning to at least make it that far instead of dying lol.

bryandres.6390:

Excalibur.9748:

what do you mean by blind invulnerability? would that be passive or active effect?

Active ofc 5 secs of blind invul,like engis skill .
Well i use SoS Since launch i’ll never drop it. i like the stomp utility.

Since I run D/P I just drop a Black Powder field on opponents. Most of the time stealth stomp isn’t even necessary.

SoS is only on my bar when running with my squad… I use infiltrators signet in combat. I run small group havoc and the gap closer IMO works better than running 25% faster because in combat it makes little difference. Infiltrators signet + HS + shadowshot basilisk venom pew pew die die. Plus I like it for setting up basilisk backstabs on people too far to steal off of. If I need to run I’m traited 50% run speed in stealth anyways.

Quite good fun! Last night I got the soldiers gear (except the ring.. vendor was contested and didn’t have enough laurels for ascended). Did a 3 v 4 (we were the 3) at a tower near enemy’s citadel.. we killed 2 that waypointed and came back for more.. they killed 1 of ours, so then it was 2v4. Me and a guardian vs a tanky warrior/DPS mes/and 2 others (don’t remember what they were cause they weren’t as good lol). But I could already tell my survivability was SO much better. They downed me once, but the guardian rallied me off a spike. Then they were focusing the guardian and downed him 2 or 3 times and I trololo’d them each time refuge ressing him. The battle was about 5 mins before they finally stabili-stomped the guard and I had to run. It was tough cause every kill, they waypointed and ran back to us.

I totally would have died much faster before re-gearing. Thanks again for the tips. Just gotta tighten up my skill usage and work on patience. (I timed a good headshot on a stunlock mace/shield-hundred blades warrior that made them run back into their tower to reset the fight LOL.)

Well… um… I THINK it makes sense, and don’t take that the wrong way… it’s been a long time since I thought about math like this lol… but I really appreciate you taking the time to explain all that as I’m sure you’ve done it before.

/super basic attempt at stating what I think I learned…
Instead of having “too much” of something as is actually useful (power) reduce it, and add other things (toughness = survivability) but with more precision (crit chance) and the way the calculations actually work (the whole diminishing returns thing), DPS evens out or is actually higher than before. /brain is fried after work today

Kind of like a kid who takes too many AP/Honors classes and ends up with a lower GPA than another kid who took one or two less (regular/no AP or Honors) classes who got the same grades.. right?

I think I’m going to read up on diminishing returns too just to make sure I do understand that part haha.

Well I’ve already got zerk and valk sets… so what the kitten … time to spend some badges and get some soldiers.

So… wish, if this isn’t too much of a bother could you look at these:

My current build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoaVlUmiO3ey5E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlT1UdFwKA-j0yAYLBRCCIZBiKAk+IyYTgQthioxqewUlkittenA5NWWtMA6bB-w

The same build with your armor suggestion:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoaVlUmiO3ey5E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlT1UdFwKA-j0yAYLBRCCIZBiKAk8UWzeCithioxqewUlkittenA5NWWtMA6bB-w

I didn’t add skills because I run none that affect stats (sigils) but the only difference between the 2 sets is the armor.

The main thing I do not understand is the crit damage bonus. You seem to say that slightly higher power and 5%+ less crit dmg does more DPS than slightly less power with more crit dmg. If I knew how that translated, it would totally make sense lol.

I do not understand the logic behind thief + greatsword…

Polearms is interesting… or some sort of melee staff weapon like you say, almost like an AOE/CC melee type weapon for thief. Daze/knockback/whirls.. That would be cool..

Honestly I don’t even get why ranger gets GS, as opposed to say… rifle???