This sounds more like an exploit than anything, unless its the rendering issue. If he was “perma-stealthed” then there was no way he was downing people left and right unless he hacked. I’m calling cheats on this one.
No, people are just bad and obviously don’t know profession mechanics. If he was only using C&D and not anything else then yea it’s pretty laughable that he downed anyone, but if they are fighting a camp boss and he just assists the huge hammer dude then maybe..
I’ve done this myself but I just take the beating every 3 seconds to use pistol opener. C&D with all stealth utilities on a bunker build. If no one has any lock-downs slotted you can do this all day with vs bunch of under-leveled, under-geared and/or bads.
The problem is people don’t think they are under-leveled under-geared or bad. Ever.
First post, I came here to check if there was a new exploit out after coming across a thief today. I’m a level 80 warrior with full exotics, thieves generally beat me but it’s close, I can deal with that. Today I was with two guildies on their 80 exotic’d thieves.
We came across a thief could easily 1v5, I think he even 1v7 at one point and was downing people as well. The only time he wasnt stealthed he was spinning (unsure the name of ability).
I asked my thieves what was up with that, and they both said what he was doing was not something thieves can do. That cloak and dagger is meant to have a cool down.
It just seemed like an exploit and I’d hate to see legit thieves get nerfed over people doing this.
I looked at my combat logs, and he never it me for more than 2k a hit and there was no backstabs.
Sorry to say but your Thief friends don’t know their own profession.
That would reduce the dmg of a pistol main hand by about 1/3 and no one is complaining that does too much dmg as an opener. Thief complaints are 50% L2P and 50% everyone always whines about the stealth class. Throw some culling in there are you have massive QQ.
I destroy every glass cannon thief I meet, they are so easy to counter.
It’s kind of interesting how if a MMO tried to do a socialistic style economy where everyone just evenly splits everyone’s earnings each week it would get low subs/players yet some people thinks it’s such a great and fair way to go irl.
I guess it would be one way to get people to stop hitting anti bot code doing events.. who the hell would do that stuff if all the gold/karma they got were evenly distributed to the server’s population?
@Stiv the problem with the Hard to Catch trait is that it procs from Fear and Daze.
I would give my left hand for those 2 things to go away from the proc list.
Yea I agree. It would be a much better ability if those weren’t included but even so it’s amazing. Take someone using Daze in 1v1 as it’s meant to be used or instance. They will do it right before they feel you are going to heal and then try to burst you. Being ported away on the daze screws that all up. In WvW when you are just fighting a bunch of scrubbies it sucks that it procs off those though.
I play P/D and D/D on swap. I use P/V/T armor and P/V/C everything else. Puts me at highest possible vit and a good amount of toughness (with traits) which alone is a counter. I run 10/0/30/30/0.
My anti thief is simply the acrobats 30 point passive and blinding powder. If they are a cheese pistol whip thief or they use any sort of CC poison as a back-stab glass cannon the 30pt acro trait will trigger and completely blow their opener. Then they are easy to melt down.
If that’s down then instantly using blinding powder as soon as they attack is a good counter. Puts you on the offensive and usually they will have blown their opener since BS thieves need to use like 4 CD’s at once and pre-cast them.
Not sure why you would think it’s not for WvW. Can solo supply camps easy with it and even kill players in the middle of a supply camp who think they are safe with all their NPCs.
You can take on superior numbers and slowly kill them all if you slot haste to finish or are just patient and kill your targets 3x over to finally get the finish in.
Obviously against good players who know how to fight you it’s a lot harder. Especially other bunker types. You will end up in a 10 minute fight that ends in one of you getting run over by the opposing zerg.
People don’t try to kite this build enough. Not like that’s easy though with dancing dagger and whatever weapon swap you have but the more they kite the less dmg you can do.
Still, in the current state of WvW this set is really good.
You can solo supply camps pretty easily on every thief build. All classes can, really. That doesn’t mean it’s good.
In zergs, you’re not going to have enough time to get your conditions’ full duration out. Since you’re also stuck at 900 range, you’re cannon fodder to anyone at 1200 range. Sure, in small skirmishes, it’s good. But every thief build is in small skirmishes. That’s what thief excels at.
I’m not saying don’t use it. I’m just saying it’s not the greatest for WvW. It’s really good in sPvP and small skirmishes, definitely. Once again, though, these are more rare in WvW unless you’re in an organized guild group running around by yourselves.
I don’t really do the zerg thing head on. For most zerg stuff I use all 3 stealth abilities and run around to the side or behind the zerg and “pull” people away to me or target people retreating to the back. They always feel so comfortable with their completely inattentive zerg right there facing the other way.
I have so much hate for the downed state in PvP. It’s the only thing I litterally hate about this game. The devs can keep it rolling in PvE so their code doesn’t go to waist IMO.
Yea even with max toughness you will still see 8-9K backstabs. Add in the Mug/C&D and a tick of poison and you are getting really close to 15K for sure. At best you are 1 follwoup from death.
Same goes for a 100 blades arsjam or soothing but I really only worry about other thieves burst personally because the other profs are less likely to hit you by surprise.
It wouldn’t be as big a deal on other classes that aren’t so bursty. The only way to counter a glass thief (and they are easily countered normally) is to react instantly with defensive cooldowns but when they don’t render you can’t kite or effectively dodge heartseekrs etc.
No he’s saying in zerg type situations the culling issue along with stealth can make them not appear for sometimes 30 seconds. I’ve been killed and stomped and then seen them move and attack another person all while not being rendered to me yet.
Main problem is on a thief with the lowest base HP pool, toughness is effectively the worst defense. You need enough vit so that you can survive a bit of burst so your toughness/healing can do it’s work. I don’t think 15K is enough health personally. Aslo from the reading I’ve done it looks like +healing isn’t worth that much. I’d replace that with vit.
My point is that there are lot off ppl who go to jumping puzzles especialy at ridiculous hours like 3am-5am just to avoid of being ganked to loot the badges because they like the skin of the gear. They dont go there to do PVP but those places are always being camped. And they just wanna make those gankers feel how it is to when they try to achieve somethink and they dont get it. Just like those ppl who are like 10sec away from chest and they get ganked. I call it revenge
This is why I don’t like the fact you can’t identify people. If I ever came across you in game I would suicide just to put you in downed state in the middle of 50 people. You are the worst type of gamer.
Its actualy best way to avoid of being ganked especialy in 3W jumping puzzles. I believe u all know how its feel to be ganked by bunch of other ppl. Now u know how its feel when group of, lets say 5 ppl chase 1 person and he just log off)
What’s your point?
That no one should be able to kill anyone? 1 person can’t kill one of the 5 because the downed state lets the other 4 rez him in an instant and 5 can’t kill 1 because he will just log off. Wheeeeeeeee!
Something is strange because I’ve had people (not even thieves) just vanish forever before they are even downed. Defiantly not infiltrator runes either.
thanks alot for the answers.
Are any of the combos really worth it, or do they just provide a little extra to the fight?
Offhand pistol (#5) is probably the most useful combo we have (for PvE, I don’t like offhand pistol in PvP personally though I’m sure #5 is still very useful). It’s spamable with inti and lets you blind a target at range while at the same time blinding everything around you if you stay in it.
Can’t you try to snare/kite with a ranged weapon? I know they can heartseeker spam to get to you but it blows all their init and snared HS is half the distance.
I’m a Thief and when I run into these guys I just kite backwards with pistol/dagger. Snare, backpeddle, roll the DB when they get close, snare, roll etc etc.
The perma invisible issue is a technical problem that Anet has to fix. If you are near the zerg then yea Thieves are just broken no doubt about it. That’s why I try to stay away from zergy stuff but sometimes it’s unavoidable.
Even runescape has a preventive measure against this… I was always woundering why some people would just disappear… I know thieves have the ability to go invisible, but I noticed other classes disappearing as well. Confused me. Now I understand. This thread is a little exaggerated, but it is still a problem.
I’m a thief and thieves are the worst with this particular issue. You can tell when you are going to go down, so many times they won’t even wait for downed state and instead will stealth then log out to try to make you think they aren’t being a D-bag and just slipped you. It’s easy to tell when they do this as there is no heartseeker sound and no swirl of shadowstep at all, they are just gone.
Thief feels squishy in PvE when you don’t have close to level gear. You can buy blues for your level like every 5 levels or so on the cheap. Can do greens every 10 if you want to try PvP. Full even level greens when upleveld to 80 perform ok.
PvE is a joke at 80 in just rares. The level of your gear really matters in this game.
In the end it probably is since once you hit 80 you still “level” for skillpoints only so they are unlimited. I bough every skill because of this just to have them all. If you are leveling up though picking and choosing, yea skip it.
Not sure why you would think it’s not for WvW. Can solo supply camps easy with it and even kill players in the middle of a supply camp who think they are safe with all their NPCs.
You can take on superior numbers and slowly kill them all if you slot haste to finish or are just patient and kill your targets 3x over to finally get the finish in.
Obviously against good players who know how to fight you it’s a lot harder. Especially other bunker types. You will end up in a 10 minute fight that ends in one of you getting run over by the opposing zerg.
People don’t try to kite this build enough. Not like that’s easy though with dancing dagger and whatever weapon swap you have but the more they kite the less dmg you can do.
Still, in the current state of WvW this set is really good.
Its a fun build to play, and it can do great against average players, but its only damage source can be completely mitigated by condition removal.
On my thief I can remove two conditions everytime I stealth, I can also remove burn/bleed/poison when I heal, and also when I take damage under 75% hp. If for some reason I need more, I can swap shadowstep in.
I’ve never had a problem with it they just take longer to go down. This build puts on about 9-10 bleeds every 6 seconds or so. I don’t know anything that can keep up with that? Also for every condition removal skill/trait your enemy has it’s forgoing some damage option they could have had against you.
I couldn’t live without D/D or Shortbow on swap. Both have great combat movement for getting out of dodge. I personally go D/D for heartseeker chasing and running as it seems to be the best pure moment per init and aslo gives D/D#3 as an option. Inf arrow ignores roots and blinds people and stuff though so both are really good.
I’ve been in WvW almost the entire time leveling to 80 and at cap and have hardly run into this issue but then again I stay away from the blue icons on the map. Zerg less, have more fun!
You can see your projectiles hitting people in stealth. I do it all the time with pistol shots into stealth people. Combine that with seeing random dmg numbers pop up as well as the shadowstep “swirls” and chain stealth stuff like smokebomb puffs and obviously shadow refuge house and you can track people really easily in stealth. Also listen for heartseeker, if you hear that they are running so look farther out for them.
Yea I agree, I personally am building towards PvP stats on my armor (power/vit/tough) and Carrion (power/vit/condmg) on all else with 30 points in the vit/toughness/healing traits. Having vit everywhere with toughness thrown in is very noticeable.
Yea, bleed duration works very good with this build. I have 75% so I can maintain ~12 stacks with vital/opener in normal fighting and if I get really aggressive with Calatrops & weapon swaps to D/D I can get up to 20+ alone. It only takes ~6 seconds (assuming you can C&D something) to get 12 stacks back from a total bleed wipe.
Stiv, with all due respect, dropping a smoke bomb, or bursting a thief down when you are jumped from stealth and dead in an instant really isn’t much of a suggestion.
But as for your comment, I HAVE tried full defensive trait builds, with all exotic power, toughness, vitality gear and jewels. I’ve speced into inventions and alchemy, taking the major defensive traits in the process. I’ve equipped all defensive utility skills. I’ve tried pretty much everything, as I’ve been playing since BWE1.
Against a backstab D/D thief…
Not so much.
They can just stealth and rest the fight.
My current glass cannon build allows be to beat virtually every other profession and spec by outplaying them. Not so with a thief. If they touch me, I die. PERIOD.
I regularly see thieves destroy in 3-1 odds against seasoned mmo gamers. I’ve been pvping in mmos since ’99. The people I play with have also been playing at least as long. Bottom line, I know OP when I see it…
…and I’ve seen it.
And yes, engineers can do massive damage in a short period of time, but that short period is 3-5 seconds, not <1. there is time to evade, to counter, and most importantly to react.
I guess that cuts to the core of my issue: against a backstab thief, there simply is no time to react.
But thanks again for your kind response.
I don’t know what to say other than those defensive abilities work for me. Since I don’t run that spec I have to worry about them just as much.
If you look at the sPvP forum they are complaining about defensive bunker builds and the fact glass cannons can’t kill them. I run a bunker build and only die when surprised by a glass cannon while I’m already fighting someone else. Smoke bombs, teleports and my Hp/Toughness allow me to survive the burst then outlast them /shrug
I really think a lot of people are complaining about dying in a distracted or outnumbered situation as well which should be a legit death.
I love all these x-thieves that stopped playing the class because they were kicking way too much tail and come to the boards to cry nerf. I’m sure that’s exactly how it went down.
Yep. It’s that sad and easy to play. It’s truly boring easy.
I’ll start right out saying I’m being an ars here so, when you create a new character it pushes the old ones to the right? I really don’t know cause I just have one char. To me it looks like you re-rolled to Thief, not the other way around :P
I’ve been running P/D since 80 and it is defiantly one of our strongest weapon sets at the moment. You can build it offensive with lots of poison/might or defensive with Stealth/Acro (what I do).
Currently this spec set up defensive is pretty kitten dominant because 90% of people are running glass cannon builds for whatever their profession is. You can easily outlast them and you don’t have to last long vs glass cannons. This will change as people shift away from glass and go more bunker but until the player-base evolves I will enjoy the hell out of my P/D bunker build.
Stiv, Some great ideas here. But I am betting it won’t happen. Wv3 feels like an ANet afterthought. Really to bad too, because for myself and scores of others it is THE GW2 endgame.
It’s endgame for me as well. I’ve read around that Anet was surprised at how popular it is. It that’s true, maybe it will get some focus in the future.
Lots of people are simply logging out to avoid death now. Thieves and other classes as well. With short or no queues on a lot of servers they loose exactly nothing for doing it.
I love all these x-thieves that stopped playing the class because they were kicking way too much tail and come to the boards to cry nerf. I’m sure that’s exactly how it went down.
I’m not an Engineer so I’m not sure what your counters are but as a Thief to counter this I use two things (I’m sure eng has comparable stuff).
1. 30 point Acrobatics trait that instantly teleports me away whenever I am CC’d. These builds will almost always apply some sort of CC poison to their weapons to line up the Backstab. This is i-win vs them whenever it is up which is every minute or so since they need to pre-cast and blow all their cooldowns before the backstab.
2. Blinding powder. As soon as I hear their dagger I hit this. Instant AoE blind + stealth. They miss the backstab and I get to open on them.
I’m not a glass thief but both of those are hard counters to them.
The only time I can’t counter them is when I’m distracted or fighting someone else and CD’s are on cooldown. In that case I feel a glass thief is doing what they are designed to do.
I miss individual identification as well. We just have to suck it up and realize that WvW is designed to be a sort of carebear candy-land where you have a more stress free PvP environment.
That’s why there is so much QQ about everything from WvW players about OP this and that and all the “fairness” issues (nightcapping, orbs blah blah). It’s also why Anet said they are only balancing around sPvP.
sPvP has the death spam and names showing and all that. The two worlds are separate, I just prefer open world PvP so I’m still playing on that side of things despite the lack of rivalries and community building. Maybe things will change over time?
You can always create your own guild so your guild tag effectively becomes your name, but that kind of sucks.
Well I play a bunker Thief and have zero problems with glass thieves. They are actually the easiest setup to kill (if they get nerfed it won’t effect me at all)
People need to stop with the loldps specs and builds because yes those will be wrecked by other loldps and seeing as a thief’s mobility will almost always give them the first strike, it’s going to be a bad time.
Slot defensive cooldowns and gear some toughness/vit. If you don’t have a way to break a thief’s stun or root they will get a nice backstab after C&D/mug and if they are all crits, you are dead.
If you have something you can pop the instant they mug you, you can avoid the backstab. If you survive at all with any amount of health, you should be able to destroy them in a few seconds.
Sometimes you have to slot things just for whatever is bothering you. I hate the downed state so I slot quickness to stomp faster most of the time. Just change your utilities a bit to counter what your biggest problem is at the moment. Whatever class you are playing I’m sure has a counter to a glass thief’s opener.
Couple things I don’t think will ever change. That’s the anonymity and the “power plateau”. I don’t have a problem with everyone being equal with easily accessible end game gear at all but I miss the individual enemy rivalries.
Given that those things are pretty core to WvW I came up with a system that should work for both types of people (aside from those like mcl in that thread who are just on a high horse holier than thou type)
Every class can do fine vs a Thief. They are just the best class for stomping on bads and people who don’t understand mechanics, which happens to be the vast majority of WvW players.
mcl you gave a perfect example with CoutnerStrike.
“One of the longest-running games with sustained popularity is CounterStrike. There’s ZERO progression in that game. Everyone is on a level playing field.”
I’ve played for years and still do on occasion (not since Guild wars for sure). It’s an amazing game on it’s own right but it has a couple things that make it ever better
Those stats for my server broke down by everything. Guns, maps, players. Everything. There is also tons of name recognition in CS. This keeps people playing the game and making friends and enemies.
Did I like stat kittens on our server that played a cretin way to get a better K/D or whatever? Not really, but it was a hell of a lot of fun killing them.
The system i propose would have goals for all types of players. Team players and soloists. Why is massive team play the only way? Because you deem it so? Sentries, yaks and supply camps exist for solos and smaller groups. Can they only be taken down if the “command chain” deems it worthy?
If there is a soloist out there who is killing yaks for a dumb title isn’t that helping?
Everything you said basically translated in my mind to “People will stop zerging and focus on other goals in WvW”. Sounds good to me. I’d love to run across some dude trying to wrack up solo kills. I’d love if some groups broke from the zerg to get some group/squad based rewards for taking supply camps.
This is a video game after all.
Last night a buddy and I build a Golem. Just the two of us for no reason other than to do it. We walked around with it and had a great time until it eventually got zerged down. Did we help the team? I don’t know, maybe by distracting more than our numbers for a time? Maybe not because we wasted 100 supply (that probably got taken by the other side before being used). Either way we had fun. Fun is fun and this system would make the game a lot for fun for a lot of people.
Why in your mind is bettering yourself as a player and attaining cosmetic and title based progression (already in game) mutually exclusive? I can only do one or the other? I cannot contribute to my team if stats are being recorded behind the scenes?
How about this. It’s would easy enough to code. Add an option to disable all titles and skins for your client. It just makes everything default. You can effectively opt out of any of this “annoying” stuff. Or is it still not ok because other people would be enjoying this system that you aren’t apart of?
That’s not argumentation inconsistency. That’s you going, “Hey, this one example of a bad idea is already in the game; let’s use that as an excuse to add a boatload more!”
You assume I am okay with and like the legendary weapon system currently in place. While it’s cute and good for a giggle or two (“Hey! A bow that shoots unicorns with rainbow trails!”), that gets old after about the first 10 seconds of seeing it in use, and becomes nothing more than an on-screen annoyance.
The fact that people are complaining about how hard they are to get (a month after release, when these are things that shouldn’t even be achievable in a year’s time, and yet several people already have them) is testament to the fact that people these days want everything and they want it right now.
Add cosmetic progression to WvWvW, and you’ll have people focused on grinding that progression, rather than the purpose of WvWvW: To win. Which means ignoring your personal goals to support the team effort.
Ok, then you are the fish out of water here. You are playing a game that is based around visual progression. The entire business model of this game relies on it. I can spend $$ and kill you with a cow! Or buy a dapper chestpiece to not impress you with.
You are indicating that you do not like how this entire endgame is designed and detest the type of person it attracts because it offends your social/philosophical sensibilities.
You can wonder why people want this stuff all day and I will wonder why you are playing Guild Wars?
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