(edited by Sunflowers.1729)
All of the other changes in this patch, to every class, were bug fixes. Why would this change be any different?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Return_
In addition, the above skill says “returns to starting location” yet it will only teleport a maximum of 1200 range (I think..?).
The phrase ‘starting location’ obviously refers to the fact that if you are within 1200 range, it will not teleport you 1200 range in the direction you came from, but rather to where you started (whether it is 0, 600, or 1200 range away).
The Sword’s Shadow Return is worded exactly the same. I don’t see why this is anything more than a bug fix.
Alright, if you want to be pedantic, then technically it could be construed as a ‘nerf’. In that case everyone got nerfs this patch, what are you complaining about?
Edit: And if you really, really want to argue semantics, check this out
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Judge%27s_Intervention
“Teleport to your target”, “1200 range”. By all of the above arguments, this skill (and every teleport ability in the history of video games) is contradictory. Yet nobody has any problems with how it works.
The amount of complaining I see on this forum is greatly amusing. I don’t even take half of you seriously anymore.
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And..??
That’s the only thing they can do. Roaming is pretty pointless…
Roaming isn’t pointless at all. If you think it is pointless, you aren’t doing it properly.
-Kill Dolyaks
-Follow zergs
-Delay reinforcements to a siege
-Provide invaluable information to your server.
Edit: Obviously it is less influential than a 50-man zerg. But that’s 50 people, and the roamer is just one person.
as you said if you make currently thieves are strongest in 1v1 which is why you suggested they make them less strong there and stronger in a group which proves my point that at the moment they are great for 1v1 and not so great for big group
That’s what everyone is saying, but Thieves everywhere go “no we suck at roaming and in zergs” which is frankly a lie.
I don’t deny that Thieves aren’t the best zerg-versus-zerg class. But to also claim that they suck at roaming is ridiculous. Both aspects should be balanced.
Just roll with the zerg if you don’t think you can win a duel with a thief that abuses stealth.
Not all builds are supposed to be good at 1v1.
There is no non-Thief build that is better at roaming than a Thief. Nobody can disengage like a Thief can.
A thief with nerfed stealth is just a free kill in WvW.
Yeah, let’s not forget Thieves have (one of) the highest mobility in the game and has a decent amount of evading abilities
Besides, nobody is suggesting that stealth is totally removed and replaced with nothing. Obviously, stealth is the main form of a Thief’s defense (the other being able to move around like a crazed raccoon on drugs) and simply removing it would be stupid. However, the whole point of a nerf is to reduce the power of something.
And like someone above said, WvW is not the same as PvE. There are also nerfs that can be done that will affect one and not the other – such as making stealthed enemies still visible as a faint shimmer (just an example)
Thief is still undoubtedly the worst character for PvE. Noone wants them for any dungeons.
That’s not the point of this thread. GS Warriors are amazing in dungeons, but you don’t see so many of them in WvW.
WvW, sPvP, and PvE (dungeons, fractals, dynamic events.etc) all require different things so different classes are stronger in those areas. It just happens that the way that Thieves are designed favors a game mode where being able to fight/disengage at will is invaluable.
Doesn’t mean that being bad for dungeons means Thieves are bad at WvW.
Nobody else can do that, since they are still visible and you can chase them down to kill them.
He’s a mesmer, he can’t chase down the pieces of poo dolyaks drop.. They’re soooooo slow.
And that’s the problem. Nobody can catch a Thief if they lose because of stealth that is a) very strong and b) has no counters (not to mention lots of mobility while in stealth). As a roaming Thief in WvW, there are only two outcomes to an engagement:
1) I win (hooray! I must be so skilled)
2) I can’t win for whatever reason, but manage to run away and avoid any penalty.
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Okay cool, so you can respond to these and now we have an actual fight going instead of me just standing there and dying like most of these people who sit there and whine about thieves. FWIW, if I daze your hs in a smoke field, you’re dead on my build. I can immobilize, mind wrack, and blurred frenzy most thieves for 13k-14k before they even have the ability to hs again.
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. A lot of the so-called ‘counters’ to stealth is just misinformation from Thieves who are bad players, when in truth there are very few ways to actually counter Stealth.
These ‘counters’ have been repeated so many times that people think it’s true. Think about it – one of the most common ‘counters’ that people use all the time is “just hit the air he is still there”. It’s so obvious that the Thief can just change directions and avoid any more damage, but this piece of ‘advice’ keeps circulating. (Edit: It works on a Thief who is downed, I guess.)
If you daze me in the smoke field, I have no doubt that I will die if hit by your entire combo. So will any other glassy character. The difference is that if I don’t die, I just stealth and you never see me again. Nobody else can do that, since they are still visible and you can chase them down to kill them.
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Here’s a few ways to actually counter stealth:
- If your autoattack has an attack chain the chain will progress when you hit a thief in stealth.
- Stealths from non d/p thieves will always be the same duration. Look at their build and see whether they have a 3 or 4 second (traited) stealth. Time your blocks / evades accordingly.
- Stealthing as a d/p thief costs a lot of init. If you interrupt a d/p thief as they try their first heartseeker through a smoke field they have no choice but to blow a utility or sit there and die.There is one common strategy used against thieves that doesn’t counter stealth though, so make sure not to use it:
- Cry about stealth being OP on the forums and continue to use a glassy build with no stunbreakers.
How I will counter these methods as a Thief:
-If someone hits me in stealth, I change directions. Now he has to guess where I went, which is almost impossible except in very cramped areas (so, not WvW). You will get one or two hits off then flail in the air like blind person.
-Wait 4 seconds, see you waste your block/dodge, then either CnD off a random monster or use the D/P combo for a bit more stealth. Now I attack, and you just wasted your defensive ability on nothing.
-Alternatively, spam Backstab because for some reason getting blocked doesn’t take me out of stealth (seriously, why?)
-If you interrupt me as a D/P Thief, the smoke field is still there. As long as I am still able to use Heartseeker before it fades, I can still stealth. You have to forcibly keep me from using a finisher for 4 seconds, which is longer than most CC abilities. Besides, there are lots of utility skills that give stealth, all with medium-length cooldowns. I personally use HiS, Blinding Powder, and SR and it’s nearly impossible to keep me from stealthing at any point (except when revealed, obviously)
-Strangely enough, Heartseeker can be used to damage someone and still gain stealth. Yet it is not so with the Engineer’s Acid Bomb (Elixir Gun #4). Even more oddly, even if you immobilize the Thief, Heartseeker will still grant stealth, making the most common control ability somewhat useless against the build.
Most of these ‘Thief counters’ are not actually counters if the Thief player has any idea of what to do.
(And technically they are just counters to the Thief class, not the stealth mechanic itself).
Thieves are not a problem in sPvP because (and I’m paraphrasing from a post I read not too long ago, somewhere):
-If the Thief is in stealth, he isn’t capping the point. Sure, he can keep running away, but in that time you are getting points while he is not. This doesn’t exist in WvW – I don’t get any benefits for chasing a random roaming Thief off other than a short breather before he comes back again (and again and again and again)
-sPvP is a lot smaller – for a Thief to contest a point, he has to be in a relatively small circle where I might randomly hit him. Not so in WvW with the large open fields.
-You know there is a Thief there. Thieves don’t randomly appear out of nowhere and gank you like in WvW, which lets you prepare beforehand.
This contributes to the difference in performance a lot more than a 3/4 second revealed, or CnD damage being halved.
That is also why there are so many bunkers in sPvP, but not (so many) in WvW.
“I’ll bunker on this rock with my crap mobility and hope enemy roamers fight me to the death” said nobody ever.
In other words, balancing Thief skills to match sPvP will do very little. Stealth is the problem because in WvW, it becomes infinitely better than in sPvP.
Yes I am fully aware that there are many people who don’t die to Thieves. However, do you ever kill them? When I’m on my Thief, there are obviously targets that are hard to win against, like players who out-skill me, and Guardians (because they are just hard to kill).
The broken mechanic that is stealth combined with ridiculous mobility from shortbow allows me to escape in almost all circumstances. I might not win, but I never have to lose. On the other side of the coin, chasing up and killing most other professions is not hard at all due to all the teleports.
In short, nobody can really kill me, but I can chase down almost anyone.
TLDR: While I don’t believe that Thieves are unbeatable at 1v1, being able to escape and fight at will is invaluable in a game mode that doesn’t punish you for running away.
I know a lot of Thieves will point to the quote from Anet that says “Thieves engage on their own terms” or something like that to justify the above. That’s alright, but as long as that statement holds true, the de-facto choice for WvW roaming will be a Thief. Being able to do what that quote said is just too strong.
And yes, I have a lv 80 Thief. It’s so easy. 2+ hours roaming (on a T2 WvW server, no less) without a single death.
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If you just want to roam and have fun, most classes can do it at a decent level. There are builds for every class that offer good 1v1 capability.
Don’t go glassy, find a group of like-minded players, learn when to use your soft/hard CC’s and work on some team synergy.
We mainly run teams of 2-4 players and we do quite well as a roaming team in NA tier 1. You just have to make sure you get a good understanding with your partners, communication and timing is key.
What you said is true. I’m not saying that a 5-Thief team is the best for roaming (although I would rather have a 5 Thief team than a 5-of-anything-else team) compared to a mixed group who can cover each others’ weaknesses, just that if you wanted to roam by yourself, Thieves are the best by far (OP, if you are reading this, by far x10).
If you just want to roam and have fun, most classes can do it at a decent level. There are builds for every class that offer good 1v1 capability.
However, if you want to roam and be the very best at it, don’t bother with anything but a Thief. Not only are they (we, I guess, since I have a Thief too) good at fighting in small situations (e.g. 1v1), they have
-The best escape skills. Stealth and mobility are the only things that will let you escape zergs. Thieves are the clear winners here.
-Good chasing ability. All the shadowsteps and blinks mean nobody can get away from you.
-Ability to disengage whenever you want.
-Not particularly hard to play. Thieves aren’t very hard to play at a decent level. Still not confident? Use D/P. It’s the epitome of easy-mode.
-Shortbow is a decent weapon for roaming but is still good in sieges. D/D eles or shatter mesmers (for example) can’t do crap in a siege. Thieves can just swap to a shortbow.
-The best disengage. Yes, I said this three times. Not having to run back from your waypoint every time you die (edit: not die. I mean whenever you can’t win) is invaluable.
Why do you think there are so many roaming Thieves?
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Guardians don’t get everything in one tree. Shout cooldown and shout condition removal, both of which are extremely important, are in another tree. A popular trait build for Guardians is 0/0/30/30/10. 60 trait points devoted to survivability. Of course, Thieves can build something like 0/10/30/30/0, but it’s not particularly common. Almost any trait distribution that takes some form of survivability will put 30 (or at least 20) points into SA (Edit: into SA first. It’s extremely uncommon to put points into acrobatics before SA)
are you comparing [guardian] and [thief] ?
[guardian] = [heavy] armor + [low] health pool
[thief] = [medium] armor + [low] health poolbasically,
[guardian] = boons, support, etc
[thief] = stealth, burst, etcyou cannot compare then.
it is like trying to compare apples and oranges.
Tell that to the guy who’s been comparing them the entire thread.
Edit: And all I said was that Guardians didn’t get all their survivability traits in one tree. Do you have anything against that?
Edit:
Um.. If you think that line is OP look at the Guardian one.
30 Pts:
300 Toughness, 30% Extra Damage.Aegis an attack when your health reaches 50%. (NO INTERNAL CD, YOU CAN HEAL/Block ANOTHER attack, or a tick can tick and you can block multiple hits if you stay around 50%!)
Cure a condition every 10 seconds.
Lots of good abilities
Altruistic Healing (WTF… Omg?!) This alone heals for more then every warriors healing abilities.
I didn’t see anyone have a problem with that earlier, so why now?
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Everything that is needed to survive != Everything that you can. If the Valor tree gave guardians stealth too, that would be amazing. Do they need it to survive? No.
One tree can certainly be OP but the class is not. If we took one thief build, for example 25/30/0/0/15 and (hypothetically) combined all of the traits into Critical Strikes, it would not change the overall build very much. Yet obviously that tree would become overpowered.
And as for general ’OP’ness, you define OP as “being good in* everything* they do”? 100blades Warriors suck in sPvP so I wonder why everyone takes them for dungeons. One class can certainly be OP in one area and not in another.
Please, if you want to argue semantics, do it properly or don’t do it at all.
I still don’t see any meaning in what you said. Guardians got in the valor tree line almost everything they need to survive. So does the rest of the classes depending on their mechanics. Afterall, this is what the toughness tree line is there for! It looks like you just have an issue against stealth, that is so obvious you don’t even need to admit it.
Everyone takes a warrior because most of the fight mechanics in the game are dumb tank and spank, throw in some ranged or heavy conditioned fights, and you will see less demand for warriors. So they do good damage against an NPC that just sits there, you call that OP?
I’m just pointing out that your rebuke made no logical sense. Besides, Guardians don’t get everything in one tree. Shout cooldown and shout condition removal, both of which are extremely important, are in another tree. A popular trait build for Guardians is 0/0/30/30/10. 60 trait points devoted to survivability. Of course, Thieves can build something like 0/10/30/30/0, but it’s not particularly common. Almost any trait distribution that takes some form of survivability will put 30 (or at least 20) points into SA (Edit: into SA first. It’s extremely uncommon to put points into acrobatics before SA)
Also, please tell me, how does anything I said indicate that I have an issue with stealth? And even if I do, it doesn’t make your arguments any less leaky.
Finally, I don’t have any idea what your last paragraph is saying. All that I am saying is that you cannot define “overpowered” as being “best at everything”. By that logic, we could buff Engineers to do 5000% damage to players, and since that doesn’t make them any better at doing dungeons (another aspect of the game), then it would not be ‘overpowered’. Evidently such a definition is pointless for anything because it is too simple.
I just love how people say something then contradict themselves.
I don’t know if there are any other classes that can get everything they need to survive in one single tree. It just has so much good stuff condensed into 30 points (I won’t say ‘everything you could ever need’, because it doesn’t have endurance regeneration)
Then why mention it? They have everything, but they don’t have everything!
So yes, I think the tree is OP. Before the entire forum jumps on me and says “noob L2P” or whatever, realize that the SA tree != Thief class as a whole so one trait line being amazingly good doesn’t necessarily mean the class is overpowered.
If an “OP trait line” doesn’t make a class OP, then either the trait line isn’t OP, or the class is so bad, that the “OP trait line” makes it average.
In any case, I honestly don’t believe the Thief sub-forum has any grip on what actual ‘balance’ is. Play another class for a while, see how good you have it. We aren’t even that bad in PvE.
I have 4 80s, my main is a necromancer, and I find thieves to be fine. You just have a wrong way of defining balance. As long as a class isn’t OP in everything they do and against everyone, then it is fine.
Everything that is needed to survive != Everything that you can. If the Valor tree gave guardians stealth too, that would be amazing. Do they need it to survive? No.
One tree can certainly be OP but the class is not. If we took one thief build, for example 25/30/0/0/15 and (hypothetically) combined all of the traits into Critical Strikes, it would not change the overall build very much. Yet obviously that tree would become overpowered.
And as for general ’OP’ness, you define OP as “being good in* everything* they do”? 100blades Warriors suck in sPvP so I wonder why everyone takes them for dungeons. One class can certainly be OP in one area and not in another.
Please, if you want to argue semantics, do it properly or don’t do it at all.
why not?
perhaps it would be over powered if the thief has [heavy] armor and [high] health pool but this is not the case.
given how the thief has [medium] armor and [low] health pool i would say the shadow arts traits line is not over powered.
more vitality means more health is always good against conditions though. and helps to survive lag spikes.
low health pool with high defense value (toughness + armor) will still succumb against conditions.
Look what I said in my post
realize that the SA tree != Thief class as a whole so one trait line being amazingly good doesn’t necessarily mean the class is overpowered.
In any case, I honestly don’t believe the Thief sub-forum has any grip on what actual ‘balance’ is. Play another class for a while, see how good you have it. We aren’t even that bad in PvE.
you forgot to mention that thief has medium armor and low health pool.
That doesn’t have anything to do with how good the SA tree is. Elementalists have an nice tree too (Water), and they have even lower armor, and the same health pool. Yet they are still a viable class. Their tree that gives healing even gives vitality, which (personally) I think is kind of a useless stat past a minimum level. Toughness from the SA tree is much better.
If you look akitten in a vacuum the SA tree has amazingly good synergistic traits. Compared to acrobatics, it is the obvious choice for survivability.
It has condition removal, initiative regeneration, longer stealth, health regeneration, might stacks, and an ‘oh crap’ skill (albeit one that doesn’t always work properly). You can even get all of these at the same time, which is what everyone does. The tree even gives toughness, and healing power, both of which work well with all the traits in it.
I don’t know if there are any other classes that can get everything they need to survive in one single tree. It just has so much good stuff condensed into 30 points (I won’t say ‘everything you could ever need’, because it doesn’t have endurance regeneration)
So yes, I think the tree is OP. Before the entire forum jumps on me and says “noob L2P” or whatever, realize that the SA tree != Thief class as a whole so one trait line being amazingly good doesn’t necessarily mean the class is overpowered.
(But to any Thief that thinks we are in any way underpowered for WvW right now, I would vehemently disagree and tell them to ‘L2P’)
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Alternative super generic WvW D/P build:
0/30/30/10/0 (or 10/30/30/0/0)
Berserker armor
Cavalier amulet + rings + accessories (buy from Temple of Balthazar with Karma)
Beryl orbs on everything
The aim is to spam backstab a lot with your ridiculous (>100%) crit damage and guaranteed crits.
The traits should be pretty obvious – initiative when stealthing, condition removal, 100% crit chance in stealth, and hp regen in stealth.
Edit: Your other weapon is Shortbow.
I would just play a Thief if you want to roam around in WvW
Both classes are excellent in small encounters (good damage, high survivability.etc), however the Thief is undeniably better at running away/chasing people. If you just want to roam in WvW and be the best at it, there is no competition. Play a Thief. Not only do you die less, you can chase people down for more bags. (Source: I have both classes at 80)
Of course, the ele is better in zergs, but you will probably have to switch to a staff.
Edit: The large numbers of Thieves in WvW don’t lie. In addition neither class is particularly hard to use, especially the cheese D/P Thief build. In any case you should just pick the one that is more fun.
Engineers fit the description pretty well too.
But yes, this class is the generic ‘jack of all trades’, although I guess it depends what you really mean by that term.
“Best elementalist build”
You’re kidding me, right?
Why not? There really is only one good build, and the rest are variations on it.
30 points in Arcane (or 20)
10 points in Air (or 15 or 20)
20 points in Water (or 25 or 30)
Sure you can go something like 30 30 0 0 10 and it will do a pretty nice amount of damage, but it’s extremely easy to kill and is viable only if you can stand back and nuke things (WvW zergs, some PvE encounters).
However, this one build is very strong when used with D/D. Even though the trait points are all distributed into the healing + utility trait lines, it still maintains decent damage (for someone that tanky) with permanent fury, 2% damage per boon from 25 points in water, and might that can be stacked (somewhat). It has good condition removal, mobility, and a lot of stun breakers. The healing is not bad as well.
TLDR: We have only one build but it’s very good
It might be overpowered in sPvP according to some people (I don’t sPvP much, so no comment) but in WvW, which I usually play, D/D is nothing to write home about. The range sucks so it is only viable for roaming, in which case you might as well play a Thief.
The staff is nice for zerg-nuking, and still works with the same trait set-up, but many classes can do the same thing (staff necro, grenade engineer.etc). Staff is not amazing, but it’s alright.
Edit: Compared to other classes, D/D Elementalist isn’t completely terrible at roaming (sorry if seemed that way). It can still escape, just not amazingly well after the RTL nerf. With that being said, I have a lv 80 Thief so I stopped running around with D/D after the RTL nerf. Still fun to play though.
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http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon%27s_Tooth
This ignores line of sight. As long as I can target you and you are within range, it will hit. I’ve been told autotarget allows you to select the arrow cart even if the player cannot directly click it (but I don’t use autotarget so unsure about this).
This is why they hug walls, not to avoid line of sight, but to get closer to the AC.
It really should be fixed (along with DT itself because it sucks so much).
i have to disagree…. thieves and eles are hte 2 hardest classes to master. yes its easy to pick up any class and play…including thief….but why do some thieves die easily and others it seems like they have cheat mode on? well thats the difference between mastered and easy to play :P….anyone can go invis and seem like they are good. but u never know how bad they move with invis unless u see their video……95% of the thieves you see actually are not good….its just invis is a hard skill to duel against…
Bravo! You took the words right out of my mouth. I encourage everyone to try and play the elementalist and thief and see how “easy” it is. In my opinion, ele and thief are the two most squishy professions in the game. Its all based on knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and all around knowledge of every other profession that makes a good player. If it was as easy as people make it seem to be, why isn’t everyone playing it? I play them both to challenge myself.
Try a non-HGH Engineer – I have both an Ele and a Thief, and they are so easy in comparison to the Engi.
To all those who say thieves are OP, please roll one!!!!!!!
If you make it past level 30 without getting frustrated by the number of times you died, I’ll clap for you! If you think dungeons/fractals are easy at 80, I’ll salute you. If you think pvp in general is as simple as 1, 2 ,3…. I’ll Bow to you!
Cheers!
I did. They are ridiculous in WvW. It’s as you said, ‘simple as 1,2,3’!
Wait, I mean 5-2-1.
Edit: I don’t mean that I steamroll every roamer I come across because that would just be ridiculous. Obviously there are some builds which will not lose to me, such as bunker D/D elementalists.
However in WvW there is no penalty to running away, so I never die. Just don’t over-commit and you don’t have to die either. We have so many ways to run away that roaming is almost completely risk-free.
Oh for God sake, Dude, are you trying to be smart? You just mentioned us using 3 attacks out of 5, hurray!!! In fact, 4 and 3 are very good situational skills. The 4 will make your life easier if the guy was running away (instead of chain HS when everything else is on cooldown), and the 3 would get you out of tight situations if you were out of dodge and revealed.
Moreover, you forgot about all of the combos you could do with D/D and other weapon sets. Even if you execute them perfectly, you have a HUGE chance to mess up. For example, just missing a CnD or getting blocked costs us 6 initiatives.
Since you totally skipped the pve part (leveling/dungeons/fractals), I’ll assume you found those tough. Which leaves WvW? Just because we can slip away, doesn’t makes us OP, nor ridiculously easy to play. All it takes is one mistake and you are done for. I can’t count the times where I got pulled out of my shadows refuge then instantly immobilized to be burst down by someone else.
Did I say that Thieves are good at PvE? Does being bad doing dungeons mean that Thieves are bad at WvWing? For the record, I don’t like to sPvP so no comment there.
“All it takes is one mistake and you are done for” – This is exaggeration (as the poster above me said). I make so many mistakes when playing (e.g. trying BP+HS combo with too little initiative, using HiS when revealed.etc) and still die very little.
Of course, the D/P build is very easy to play. There is no doubt that a S/D Thief is much harder to use effectively, but my point is that with at least one weapon set, combat really is as simple as pressing 5-2-1 repeatedly.
Is that the only thing I do? Obviously not – there are so many fancy things that can be done, but the basic 5-2-1 combo is both effective and easy to pull off, as well as being hard to counter.
As a Thief I always try and invite people to tell them I’m sorry for ganking them as they were just walking around (especially if they are underleveled), but that it’s still a part of the game and I felt obligated to kill them anyway.
Nobody ever responds though, they must all think I want to gloat at them :/ If you get killed by a Thief from Tarnished Coast just accept the invitation, promise I won’t be mean or anything.
Every skill type should have access to condi-removal and stun breakers regardless of which type would have the best, that way players are not forced to pick up certain utility types to get them. And it would be more viable if they were tied to skills rather than traits since you wouldn’t have to specialize to make them useful.
The whole point is to force players to make a choice between surviving (condition removal and stun breakers), more damage (Assassin’s signet.etc), and more utility (venoms, traps)
By adding condi-removal and stun breakers to venoms and traps, it means there is no need to make this decision.
Poisons do need a buff but adding these kinds of effects to them isn’t the right way to implement a buff.
To all those who say thieves are OP, please roll one!!!!!!!
If you make it past level 30 without getting frustrated by the number of times you died, I’ll clap for you! If you think dungeons/fractals are easy at 80, I’ll salute you. If you think pvp in general is as simple as 1, 2 ,3…. I’ll Bow to you!
Cheers!
I did. They are ridiculous in WvW. It’s as you said, ‘simple as 1,2,3’!
Wait, I mean 5-2-1.
Edit: I don’t mean that I steamroll every roamer I come across because that would just be ridiculous. Obviously there are some builds which will not lose to me, such as bunker D/D elementalists.
However in WvW there is no penalty to running away, so I never die. Just don’t over-commit and you don’t have to die either. We have so many ways to run away that roaming is almost completely risk-free.
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Snow leopard form is better than refuge, and open to all classes (just roll a norn). Did you miss my posts about it? Basically you roll a norn, set snowleopard, and now when you want to run away you simply pop it, hit 5, then hold down 4. In less than 3 seconds you are now far enough away to break combat and they have no idea where you went.
I saw your posts about it. It’s still a bad reason because
1) Not everyone wants to have a Norn character
2) Some people already have non-Norn characters and cannot change
And most importantly
3) This is like saying “roll a Thief to roam”, but you just replaced ‘Thief’ with ‘Norn’. It means only certain players, due to a choice made at the character creation screen, are allowed to roam with much less risk.
If we all had to play Norn characters to roam around in WvW, why not just go one step further and just tell everyone to play Thieves? Sure, you can argue that your character’s race has little effect on the play style, but it all boils down to the same thing:
Certain characters (Thieves, and Norn to a lesser extent) have a massive advantage in roaming not because they are more skilled, but because they have an ability to get out whenever they want. When (if ever) Anet releases free race changes then this is not as strong of an argument since everyone will be on an even footing, but your argument is just “If everyone can do X, then there is no need to balance it”.
-“If everyone can play a Norn, there is no need to balance escape abilities”
leads to
-“If everyone can play a Thief, there is no need to balance escape abilities”
From your reasoning there is no need for balance, in any game, anywhere. If we can all play Mesmers (and we can), then even if Mesmers can burst any other class from 100 to 0 by pressing 1 button, that is balanced. Obviously there is a problem here with your logic.
Besides, if we all do what you said and ‘play a Norn character’ is there any difference to just giving everyone Shadow Refuge?
None of your arguments make sense at all.
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Don’t rely on your gear to reduce damage. In PvE, dodging is the best tool to reduce damage, and against players (whether it be WvW or sPvP) stealth can be abused to no end. Traits are what makes a Thief ‘bunker’, so if you want to survive more I would look at that first.
In short, just build enough vitality and toughness to not die instantly and you should be fine. And don’t use Sentinel gear because then you will have horrible damage. Not only does it only have one offensive stat, it isn’t even the main stat like for normal P/V/T gear.
Edit: I only have 14k hp, and that is more than enough for most encounters in PvE or WvW. A large health pool is overrated, especially if you cannot maintain it. If you absolutely want to stack defensive stats I would just go for toughness with a bit of vitality somewhere, but don’t use Sentinels (use Soldier’s gear as power is the main stat). Knight (P/P/T) or Cavalier (P/Critdmg/T) is okay too.
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-Run away (contrary to popular Thief opinion, I don’t consider this ‘losing’. It’s a draw)
A thief running away is a victory for the opponents because its the thief admitting they cant win.
I can’t agree with this at all. Does the opponent get badges, WXP, or loot if the Thief ‘loses’? Does the Thief have to run all the way back from the waypoint? Every other class has to.
According to your argument, why not give everyone the ability to use Shadow Refuge (with certain caveats, to prevent abuse)? Then we can all roam with the same impunity as Thieves. It doesn’t make anyone better at anything except running away, and it doesn’t hurt Thieves either. All it does is let everyone avoid death when they lose. And before anyone says to make your character a Norn, give me a free race change and I will do just that.
I cannot agree with your mindset of “Thieves lose if they run away” at all. And even if you insist that it is ‘losing’, why is the penalty for losing so much less for Thieves (and to a lesser extent people who can run away really fast)?
Edit: And speaking from the viewpoint of my lv 80 D/P Thief, it is very hard to actually kill me. I do run into people who force me to back off, and that’s completely fine, except that they rarely get that stomp unless it’s a 1v3+ situation. So I can go hours without dying, when roaming in WvW.
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In order to kill a really good thief in 1-vs-1 you need to:
1) Either build your character also having so high burst that you can down the thief fast while you know his location / while he is visible. The duel between two glass cannons is more or less lottery, who timed their dodges perfect.
2) Play weak at the start of the match. Let him stab down your health to dangerously low levels. This triggers bloodlust in the mind set of some good thief players. Then you gotta heal up and dodge perfect (you better have lots of heals, protection and/or blocking ready). And then kill the thief, while he has used up his initiative.
This applies to all Thieves who have any idea how to play the class.
I’m a pretty average Thief player, but unless you can burst me down in between all of my dodges/stealths, it is practically impossible to kill me 1v1. Even so, if you somehow mess up and leave me alive with 1% hp, I will stealth away and you won’t ever see me again (Good luck spamming area attacks when I will dodge roll in stealth then Infiltrator’s Arrow in some random direction).
It’s not as overpowered as some people make it out to be, since there are certain builds that are very hard to kill – bunker Guardians/Eles/Rangers are the most common example, and against them I have no choice but to run away. However, it’s a bit boring because I either
-Run away (contrary to popular Thief opinion, I don’t consider this ‘losing’. It’s a draw)
-Kill the opponent (hooray, I win!)
-Die, if I overcommit. Just try not to do that unless you think it’s an acceptable risk. This rarely happens, and only against multiple enemies.
The D/P build that I use is pretty good at 1v1ing others and is decent in large fights with the Shortbow, but I wouldn’t say that it requires much nerfing. The damage is pretty good, and so is the sustain and condition removal and survivability, but there are builds on other classes that can do this too (e.g. D/D ele)
What does warrant a nerf is how much better Thieves are at running away compared to, for example, Engineers (I’m leveling an alt now and die so much).
Just give everyone Shadow Refuge and we can all be happy. No reason why only one class should be able to run away so easily.
Edit: And give Thieves something to do in zergs because spamming cluster bomb, while effective, is pretty boring.
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Look at all this whining. I guess all the glass cannon power thieves and permainvis thieves are going to finally be afraid of something, just like other players have been afraid of them since launch day.
The fact that those players need a “Your spec is invalid for 30s” button to win is a pretty sad commentary on WvW.
The fact that these thieves needed a “Your spec is invalid for half the fight” is a pretty sad commentary on thieves. Let’s be quite honest here. When going stealth, the player loses the thief as a target. This invalidates half their skills right there. Not having a clue where the thief could be pretty much invalidates the rest.
Your inability or unwillingness to learn to counterplay a thief is not the same as invalidation. Your skills still work, you just don’t know how to use them properly.
The fact that thieves still appear to be some mythical menace in WvW, yet in TPvP people have no issue with them is an example of the skill and experience gap between the 2 game types.
Don’t bring everyone down to your level, aspire to rise to theirs.
This is probably the 10th time that I’ve said this – do not compare WvW to sPvP (or tPvP).
-Crit damage is capped
-Damage (in general) is less
-Stealth stops point capping. This is enormous
-Running away serves no purpose in sPvP. In WvW it stops a very long walk back and you can go do other things like kill dolyaks. In PvP if you run away then you just lose the point.
It doesn’t have anything to do with the relative ‘skill levels’. If you want to talk about ‘skill levels’ didn’t the recent SOAC tournament conclude with the 5-Thief team winning?
Seriously, stop bringing up this argument. It’s completely un-related. (And by this point I’ve all but given up hope that this forum knows what ‘balance’ is. Seems like Anet does though, somewhat).
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So far I have only used them on thieves while scouting and roaming. They are quite effective to have placed and used to kite them in the area. Waste of supply because supply has a limited amount is also untrue. If you have a objective with full supply, thats a waste of supply (debatable depending on upgrades for keeps and towers) As for full camps taking 10 supply to lay a trap is not a waste considering the supply will refresh and you gain a tool to help you defend.
Even if it is not a waste of supply, you are still using 15 badges for a chance to possibly get a badge or two from a Thief you may or may not kill. Unless people are really that stupid, in a few weeks the novelty will wear off and nobody will bother using these traps on Thieves
And again again, it’s not about the actual cost/application effectiveness of the trap – I’m not a fan of Anet introducing any effect that effectively invalidates an entire traitline, some traits outside that line, multiple utilities, and more for any class. It sets a poor precedent
The trap could have simply pulsed a 3s reveal every second for 10s in the same radius. That would effectively counter cloaked mesmer portal runs and veil rushes without kittening up an SA thieves day. It’s either lazy design or was intended to specifically kitten over a thief.
It is probably lazy design, and most likely will be changed (along with not allowing people to set traps in stealth).
In fact, the high cost suggests to me that it was specifically designed to not be spammable, which would screw Thieves over. If it cost 5 silver to buy a trap then I would agree with what you said, but with the high cost it is unlikely that these traps are aimed at us.
If I were to make an anti-Thief trap it wouldn’t even be a trap. It would be a flare gun that immediately revealed everything in a 1200 radius. That’s anti-Thief.
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So far I have only used them on thieves while scouting and roaming. They are quite effective to have placed and used to kite them in the area. Waste of supply because supply has a limited amount is also untrue. If you have a objective with full supply, thats a waste of supply (debatable depending on upgrades for keeps and towers) As for full camps taking 10 supply to lay a trap is not a waste considering the supply will refresh and you gain a tool to help you defend.
Even if it is not a waste of supply, you are still using 15 badges for a chance to possibly get a badge or two from a Thief you may or may not kill. Unless people are really that stupid, in a few weeks the novelty will wear off and nobody will bother using these traps on Thieves
As for Mesmers blinking over the trap, why not just set up two traps, or set them before your wall/gate is destroyed so they don’t know where it is? You can argue that “isn’t this the same for Thieves?” but the fact remains that using this trap on one single person is a waste. When Thieves can set portals then I’ll agree that it is a pretty big nerf to us as well, but until then, no.
Well if you are really have so many badges, go ahead and spam them. You know what works better? Setting up a ballista. It counters everyone and can be used repeatedly.
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To be fair, the Guardian is the most melee-dependent class. Their ranged weapon can’t even hit anything that moves (although Anet said it will be fixed, eventually). Warriors can only do damage, and not much else (maybe correct me on this, because I don’t have a warrior)
Although I do agree that the scepter is kind of weird to use and is basically a melee-ranged option because nobody is going to be hit by anything but the lightning attacks if they are far away. It could be better but at least it isn’t completely terrible.
The nerf affects Mesmers more than Thieves. Do you think anyone is going to put down a trap just to catch one single Thief? Waste 15 badges for a chance to get 2 badges? Makes no sense.
Conversely, stealth already didn’t do anything in zergs. With all the spells being thrown around nobody cares if you are in stealth or not. Go ahead, press stealth in a large zerg fight. it doesn’t do anything (and you should be shooting from a distance anyway).
Stealth didn’t make any difference in zerg fights so the lack of stealth doesn’t make any difference now.
In 1 week everyone will realize that nothing has changed except veil/portal bombs are much harder to pull off. These traps are expensive enough that they will only be used on large numbers of people, and so it is much more of a nerf to the utility of Mesmers.
So yes, you should reroll a Mesmer. Then be like “ohh so that’s what the nerf was for”.
Edit:
And before the same old argument of “we have more stealth skills than mesmers” pops up, realize that is a completely pointless argument. But eventually, someone is gonna mention it and be like “see we suck”. So read this:
-Traps are expensive and not worth it to use on small numbers of people
-They can only be effectively used for a chokepoint (if anyone tries to circle a supply camp with them, be my guest. It will take more supply than the camp itself has)
-Nobody is going to use them on Thieves because it is a complete and utter waste of supply. It doesn’t matter how many badges or how much karma you have. Your server has a limited amount of supply.
-They are only good for
1) Stopping veil bombs
2) Stopping an invisible Mesmer from portaling the entire zerg in.
It doesn’t have anything to do with how many stealth skills this class has because nobody is going to use it on one Thief. Do people build arrow carts in fields to counter random roamers? Didn’t think so. Arrow carts (like these traps) are only used at strategic locations and not everywhere people feel like fighting.
Stop with all the complaints already – if anything, Mesmers should be left wondering why Anet keeps nerfing their utility.
TLDR:
-Nobody is going to use it on random roaming Thieves
-It will only be used in zerg fights and at choke points.
-Stealth doesn’t even do anything in large fights – before the patch did you see Thieves run straight into the enemy zerg while stealthed?
-Stop complaining about this already. Mesmers had a 50% confusion nerf and now this, and you don’t see them complaining as much.
And if they do use it on a random Thief, they just wasted 10 supply and 15 badges for one kill. So when you step on that trap, you’ve denied them 1/3 of an arrow cart.
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also all u have to do to beat an arrow cart is get withing like 900 range :P they dont go very far. if u think it doesnt kill roaming…..then ur saying d/p or d/d or p/d dont need invis to play? where does dmg come from ? auto attack? HS wont help…ull never get em under half hp unless they are glassy. i chalenge you to a duel. ill place my trap against ur thief. i guaratee you wont win. under the given that ur not gearing up to go full 100% anti stealth. u will lose 99/ 100 times.
You are missing the point. It’s not that setting up a trap doesn’t counter roaming Thieves – obviously it does. It is that wasting 10 supply, karma, and badges just to counter one person is a waste, just like how setting up a ballista in the middle of an open field to counter roamers is a waste.
I know the trap makes it hard to fight if the Thief’s build depends on stealth. What I’m saying is that nobody is going to put it in random places because it costs too much and is awkward to set up. You will only see it outside of castles, which means that as long as the Thief doesn’t fight next to them (and with patrolling guards, I doubt anyone did that), it doesn’t affect roaming very much.
@sunflowers. lets pretend ur a ranger for a moment. you have 10supply+ stealth trap. you are alone and found a thief coming at you from afar starting invis. what would you do? try place trap? or pray you are better than the thief and fight to risk running aaaaaaaaaallll the way back if /when you die. if i were the ranger, i would personally use a quick invulnerability and drop a trap leaving 1 sec of free hitting. usually dodged. wasted a trap/10 supply but ur alive and theres a dead thief or running thief.
not just this scenario….but a thief can abuse it……….shadow refuge + set stealth trap wherever. nobody would know. amazing in thief v thief or thief v mes
If I am a Thief I will see that he is placing a trap and not fight him there. It’s like if someone runs to an supply camp I won’t fight him there either, because of all the guards.
i fight people in supply camps but depends on build. anyway point is. IF YOU FIGHT….its a loss tothe thief and a WIN for whever placed it…..if they DONT fight you…you still win by not dying / waiting for backup. either way its auto win / auto life. its a game changer.
point of the game is not to run in a 1 v 1 ……or in a 5 v 5. its to fight.
Are you serious? Think what happens if they use the trap:
Roamer uses 10 supply
Thief chooses not to fight at that area
Roamer wastes 10 supply.How does anyone not see this?
Actually it’ll be a stalemate, while you’re all like “uh uh I ain’t goin over there”
They’ll be like “uh uh, I ain’t leavin here”
<.<
>.>
The place where I can go is everywhere but that little rectangle
The place where they can go is everywhere inside that little rectangle, not to mention they wasted 10 supply on it.
I doubt anyone will use it on roaming Thieves.
@sunflowers. lets pretend ur a ranger for a moment. you have 10supply+ stealth trap. you are alone and found a thief coming at you from afar starting invis. what would you do? try place trap? or pray you are better than the thief and fight to risk running aaaaaaaaaallll the way back if /when you die. if i were the ranger, i would personally use a quick invulnerability and drop a trap leaving 1 sec of free hitting. usually dodged. wasted a trap/10 supply but ur alive and theres a dead thief or running thief.
not just this scenario….but a thief can abuse it……….shadow refuge + set stealth trap wherever. nobody would know. amazing in thief v thief or thief v mes
If I am a Thief I will see that he is placing a trap and not fight him there. It’s like if someone runs to an supply camp I won’t fight him there either, because of all the guards.
i fight people in supply camps but depends on build. anyway point is. IF YOU FIGHT….its a loss tothe thief and a WIN for whever placed it…..if they DONT fight you…you still win by not dying / waiting for backup. either way its auto win / auto life. its a game changer.
point of the game is not to run in a 1 v 1 ……or in a 5 v 5. its to fight.
Are you serious? Think what happens if they use the trap:
Roamer uses 10 supply
Thief chooses not to fight at that area
Roamer wastes 10 supply.
How does anyone not see this?
@sunflowers. lets pretend ur a ranger for a moment. you have 10supply+ stealth trap. you are alone and found a thief coming at you from afar starting invis. what would you do? try place trap? or pray you are better than the thief and fight to risk running aaaaaaaaaallll the way back if /when you die. if i were the ranger, i would personally use a quick invulnerability and drop a trap leaving 1 sec of free hitting. usually dodged. wasted a trap/10 supply but ur alive and theres a dead thief or running thief.
not just this scenario….but a thief can abuse it……….shadow refuge + set stealth trap wherever. nobody would know. amazing in thief v thief or thief v mes
If I am a Thief I will see that he is placing a trap and not fight him there. It’s like if someone runs to an supply camp I won’t fight him there either, because of all the guards.
you have a point about the supply in the middle of nowhere….but if they roamer that is attacked by a roaming thief is going to die and have to start from waypoint anyway….dont u think he would use it for a trap real quick?
.
If a Thief can’t recognize an obvious 4 second cast time and avoid the area, I don’t know what to say. Maybe he will die like if he played any other class.
oh no no no. u read it wrong man. i used the trap while under shadow refuge. couldnt see me use it at all. was already placed. no chance :P
So what if I’m not a Thief (or Mesmer, I suppose)? Against 3/4 of classes the setup of the stealth trap will be there for the Thief to see.
Besides, if the target is gonna die who cares if the Thief has a 30 second reveal? Not like a dead person cares whether the Thief is revealed or not.
im sorry i made a point about thieves using it in stealth and bc of that making it an auto win. i apologize again not trying to argue but im not following what you are meaning when you say " 3/4 of classes the setup of the stealth trap will be there for the thief to see." etc etc. can u plz try to explain this another way as i dont really see what ur saying.
For classes who cannot stealth, it will be immediately obvious what he or she is doing. Standing there for 4 seconds, without moving? Most likely setting up a trap.
All the Thief has to do is move the fight away from the location, and the enemy will have wasted a trap.
you have a point about the supply in the middle of nowhere….but if they roamer that is attacked by a roaming thief is going to die and have to start from waypoint anyway….dont u think he would use it for a trap real quick?
.
If a Thief can’t recognize an obvious 4 second cast time and avoid the area, I don’t know what to say. Maybe he will die like if he played any other class.
oh no no no. u read it wrong man. i used the trap while under shadow refuge. couldnt see me use it at all. was already placed. no chance :P
So what if I’m not a Thief (or Mesmer, I suppose)? Against 3/4 of classes the setup of the stealth trap will be there for the Thief to see.
Besides, if the target is gonna die who cares if the Thief has a 30 second reveal? Not like a dead person cares whether the Thief is revealed or not.
you have a point about the supply in the middle of nowhere….but if they roamer that is attacked by a roaming thief is going to die and have to start from waypoint anyway….dont u think he would use it for a trap real quick?
.
If a Thief can’t recognize an obvious 4 second cast time and avoid the area, I don’t know what to say. Maybe he will die like if he played any other class.
I don’t believe these trap will have much of an effect on roaming Thieves
-They cost a lot (10 supply for a trap is 10 less supply for an Arrow Cart)
-Nobody is going to put one in the middle of nowhere, and they will all be next to castles
-Thieves can still escape with a shortbow. We still have the best mobility (or at least, one of the best) so even if you accidentally walk too close to a keep, you’re not gonna die
Of course, there will still be the odd chance that someone places a stealth trap in an open field, in which case that’s just a small risk. Right now our roaming is very safe so something like this is fine.
It’s implemented in a bit of an odd way, however, because it stops backstabs and stealth stuff. However this just means Thieves will have to retreat for 30 seconds then come in again.
Doesn’t really make any difference to me at all – and of course I’ll keep testing to see how big a difference it really makes in the long term.
As for the comment “people are sheep” – that’s what I see in this thread. No reasoning, no analysis of the problem, just a knee jerk response of “oh Thieves suck now”.
Edit: I’m a bit tempted to say this trap is our fault, but that would be a bit mean. For months, Thieves have been saying that since we should be allowed to get off scot-free when roaming in WvW (“noobs can’t counter stealth.etc.etc”), instead of admitting that even though Stealth is used for offense, it’s extremely potent at avoiding damage and just running away.
Now that an anti-stealth mechanic has finally been included and it has unfortunate side effects of affecting both our offense and defense, there isn’t really anything I can say
We have the best WvW defense mechanism in the game (stealth), so obviously when it gets nerfed, we will be affected. Instead of arguing that stealth is a stupid mechanic and we shouldn’t be tied to it (although there are some posters who recognize this, and they should be commended), everyone just said “l2 counter stealth”.
So this happened. Seems like the Thief community’s fault, huh?
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It is because you are lv 46.
Just get to lv 80, get exotic gear and 70 trait points, then you won’t die so much, and do more damage.
1. Because it’s the only class with anything even approaching that much AOE capability, much less from range. AOE damage of significant degrees, alot of AOE CC, AOE healing. No other class even comes close to the amount of AOE ele’s have.
Grenade Engineers have more area damage from a greater range. They can poison, blind, bleed, and chill from 1500 distance. Now I’m not saying that they are OP, but since grenades work against single players at a shorter range too, why can’t the staff be like that?
Edit: Of course, it leads to what you said – giving the staff more 1v1 power will eventually lead to it becoming overpowered. However, it just sucks at 1v1 (or smaller fights) right now. Most of the heavy hitting spells like Earth, Fire, and Water #2 can be avoided by simply walking out. The CC skills, while all area effects, have long cooldowns and do not really do very much.
It is only effective in zergs because there are so many people that nobody bothers to avoid your attacks. A buff here or there would not make it overpowered.
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They should make heartseeker cost more initiative since the huge amount of damage it deals + you can spam it heaps of times.
@OP, #4 is impossible since warriors, guardians and engineers can easilly crit above 4k
It’s COMPLETELY possible, and I cite recent example as follows: Mug is the first and only skill ever limited by the feature “cannot critically hit.” With precedents like that set aside just for thief, anything is possible.
Don’t you think this is reading too much into the nerf? Evidently Elementalists’ Arcane skills are overpowered since they always crit. Oh wait, nobody uses more than one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige_
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Prestige
The rabbit in the uncategorized fractal is probably a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
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it will have something to do with limiting the amount of times you can stealth and for how long.
Infusion of Shadow – This trait now works as stated, and will only grant 2 initiative upon entering stealth.
I dunno, it seems like a pretty likely nerf.
Edit: Okay, the skill description can be read both ways. Still, it is a possible nerf.
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