Guild Wars 2

Chicago Jack.5647:

Lol, if you play p/d, you’re bound to sit on a person for a long time – this is the reason why you don’t see p/d in high-level play. It’s not a burst spec. It’s a condition spec.

actually i am never invis more than a second at a time. and thats super high lvl play. duel if ud like to learn.

messiah.1908:

its depends what you looking for and which fight you choose

1v1 go whatever

1vX you must go more defensively as the fight will be longer
i played also carrion but took more defensive utilities and now can play full dire with full venoms utilities which can kill 1v1 in 3 seconds and can hold against 2 BS thieves longer
in wvw when you fight zergs and cannot anticipate what can come out behind you, i prefer more toughness and control than power

and i dont like shadow refuge – this skills is in some part why the community hate us

if u kill anyone in 3 secs its upleveled :P. especially cutting your dmg in half with dire gear. my p/d build beats d/p thieves 85% of the time if not more. excluding stealth i get about 26k health heal every minute from heal and 1 other skill alone (again excluding cloak/dagger and blinding power/shadows refuge etc)……. AKA 3k every 21 secs and 8500ish every 30 secs.

it doesnt happen most the time. id say about 10-15% of the time it makes sneak attack go off….. so its gotta be a bug right? this more often than not causes death…especially with 4 secs of revealed in tpvp. wvw its sometimes manageable but still deadly like last refuge.

i never lose to these specs (if im playing slow and careful) but slow and careful loses caps nodes and causes my team to be short a player. i play p/d as its only real worthy thing for WVW “and” TPVP. with my p/d im never inis longer than 1 second….very rarely do i use Shadow refuge and when i do its usually a sneak attack soon as i cast it for faster/more dmg and a nice heal (steal health field)

Reckless.6325:

As a long time condition mesmer and one who has recently started leveling a thief to play D/D in WvWvW, I can agree with your complaints about mesmers not being unstealthed by their clones. The problem is that, if you take that away there is almost no point in having a stealth mechanism on the mesmer in the first place. Why? Because every mesmer no matter what build will use illusions. Illusions will always be attacking meaning that if the mesmer goes in stealth he will pretty much immediately get revealed by his clones, meaning that going in stealth was pointless pretty much. Not every mesmer uses stealth but you get my point.

Normally a phantasm mesmer that uses phantasms to deal damage and then hides in stealth isn’t a huge problem because you can CnD of the phantasms and wear them down. Once they are all dead you can engage the mesmer without worrying about getting bursted immediately.

However, the build you mentioned actually punishes you for killing its phantasms, not to mention that a good 30-40% of the damage comes from just regular clones and their explosions when they die, not the actual phantasms themselves because no phantasm aside from the torch is condition based. When traited the pistol can be good for bleed stacking but that about it.

So how to deal with this kind of mesmer? The answer is simply reliant upon the mesmers skill level. After playing this spec on my own mesmer for so long I can safely say that I have almost never died due to being “outplayed” but rather through my own mistakes. The condi mesmer spec is literally impossible to lose with if you play it completely correctly – with the exception of another heavy condi class like engi or necro (tho usually null field can handle them).

In conclusion, if the mesmer is not so good to average skill level you will eventually win. If they are skilled you will probably die. If you are both skilled then it will likely be a draw.

Condi mes is very strong atm and definitely needs a nerf, but it needs to be gradual because the spec itself is very sensetive, take away any of its key traits and the build just won’t work.

Anyway if you want to stand a greater chance at defeating these mesmers just play a condi mes yourself and pay attention to when and what you die from

true but the problem i was stating is that playing mesmer is really really low skill lvl. just invis and stack protection/aegis and invis half the battle literally. let the clones do the work. takes no skill to do this and is VERY powerful. i dont mind the powerful part. i dont mind losing. but i do when an 10 year old can do it to a 29 year old who has pretty much perfected thief (1v1 class). know what i mean?

Ok sometimes when i play p/d and im engaged in a fight or sometimes not….ill stealth and have a person targeted or still targeted and my sneak attack goes off…without permission/pressing it.

why? not its not a user mistake… i didnt press it

no its not queued…. but it is only line of sight when i turn toward them.

i was thinking about this again the other day….and i found a fix….well….that fixes it

All you have to do…………….is……………

make last refuge take precedence over whatever you are doing (interrupt any skill being used) and ignore outgoing damage so it puts a 3 second stealth on you that cannot be removed without another attack.

yes. was in WVW yesterday and with ONE spread of bombs i was hit with poison, ice, burning and bleeds. 1 time removal of 3/4 of those with a 30 sec cooldown? stupid QQing is what this is. go away …simple l2p issue. play the game longer plz b4 u come here with sillyness.

dire gear is so defensive. the BUILD is overly defensive. why add more defense to a defensive build. you need more dmg. go carrion. period. some players like to go -%condi time. it hurts …with dire you have lik 400-475 ish sneak attack direc dmg…with carrion its 850-1150. and the normal AA is also over 100% more dmg. is it worth trading for the toughness that you already have a lot of form 300 in SA? def not…. AOE blinds….invis…healing while invis…..remove conditions while invis…. Hide in shadows is like 8500 heal. shadow refuge is a FULL heal everytime. but lets take more toughness just incase? i mean if ur a REALLY bad player or REALLY new yes do take dire. but when its time to get exotic and ascended/legendaries go for carrion or u will end up wasting your money.

62.5k backstab here on a lvl 80 warrior. (perfect conditions)

none of these builds are max dmg 0_o not even close.

Thief vs mesmer stealth. With the nerf bat swinging wildly for the fences on the ball that is the thief….. it usually comes down to one reason. Stealth. So if our stealth is the reason for all our little perks. . . lets put some perspective on it shall we?

Let me also start by saying perma invis builds that use stealth to reset fights or regen for 30 seconds at a time are dumb. i dont think infusion should be nerfed like it is…just HS entering stealth to have a 5 second cooldown or w.e.

Now, the other day i was in spvp dueling arena and fought a mesmer….a condi mesmer. she got mad bc i equipped thieves guild and i said “well they are a helluva lot weaker than your clones thats for sure and both are AI so whats the problem?” This eventually led to me realizing she was a condi spec and the clones/phants or w.e. they are called in that particular build are used for pretty much 85% of the damage. i notice she (probably a he but thats a conversation for another time) was invis probably a good 60% of the battle and kept entering and reentering stealth. I was thinking well wtf right? i have revealed why doesnt she? well what im getting is while stealthed the mesmer clones doing dmg wont release her from stealth into “revealed” and basically was a “make clones and hide” tactic which is pretty lame and pathetic. atleast thieves , even tho they use stealth, have to work VERY hard for the kill and most of the time need perfection (against a good player) in order to win. there is little room for error as we are usually dead in 2-3 seconds.

So why is a mesmer able to enter stealth and not get revealed when clones do dmg or w.e.? if our gunk that is thrown on the ground…then we enter stealth and somebody runs over it….BOOM REVEALED.

This isnt a “nerf mesmers” conversation …just to keep it in perspective how far thief is falling behind other classes. leave us alone and perhaps buff a few needed things …. like p/p and s/p and a few trait changes that have been howled forever

practice more. and thief is the worst low lvl chars. they pay off more at higher lvls.

just to put it in perspective. a thief with 0 poitns attriubuted and any other class with 0 points attributed….a thief will almost always lose. all the dmg and init gain/regen comes from allocation points. our builds/survival/dmg is fully dependent.

Qaelyn.7612:

Thief and mesmer is all I’ve played so far. And yes, mesmers are a pain in a lot of ways.

But I spar a lot with people who can absolutely tear me apart. It’s all gameplay experience. With mesmers success depends on learning to read the tells and pick the player out from among the distractions. Practice doing that by watching behavior and even spectating other fights.

BS. mesmers enter stealth and RARELY RARELY RARELY EVER get revealed. they are also in stealth a good 60% of a fight. this is a condi spec but still. bs.

even 8 seconds…. “eh”…. id rather see it knocked down to 3 stacks or somethign. just me tho. still its much much better than 30

i HATE to say this but p/p with ricochet and zerk gear is what ive been using…thats if u know the fractals well tho. i use sb as backup

i also use a s/p and SB

p/d 10 0 30 0 30 is very playable and probably the best in my opinion. lots of aoe bleeds and lots of survivability. id choose this.

ELAN i have to agree. about 33% faster.

Big Tower.5423:

Jumper.9482:

fodem.2713:

Auto attack only

Heavy armor > medium > light

Warrior is heavy, so it’s perfectly normal…

Now…. About skills…. No skill in the game could have more dmg than a backstab….

Thief is actually on the lower-end of the burst spectrum.

Well Jumper… Yes thats an fact for SPVP But soon as you think WvWvW It becomes competly diffrent a 0 30 30 10 0 spec can do Cloak->backstab->HS burst if he got bloodlust and guardkiller. and his foe is downed :P so they actually got very high burst for wvwvw together with quite good survablity. But yes for spvp they are very low on almost everything. XD

You probably think CND BS HS is really high dps right? its actually really low. what it IS though…..is high Dmg per hit but NOT high DPS.

Ok so lets look at why ok?

CnD- roughly 50% success rate
BS – Roughly 50% success rate
HS- roughly 60% success rate

between blinds – blocks – aegis – invuln – NPC mobs – dodges – etc etc these skills miss as much as they hit, even for experienced players i wouldnt give them much more that +10% average (yes there are some fights that are higher but OVERALL its bout here)

Now lets look at other factors that mitigate our DPS. or burst is ALL withing 130 range which means we need to be kitten ed close to lay it out. Not only that its all .5 second or more activation times plus another .5 to recast so about 1 second MINIMUM between hits at best scenario….. very much unlike whirl attack or 100 blades etc.

What else to mention….oh yeah the obvious…. STEALTH! all that time in stealth wandering around for positioning and setting up for that all too famous backstab. then theres the times we enter stealth and dont get the right positioning and have to reenter stealth to try again.

See….thething is…for thief to get good DPS or even good survivability….it has to be connected to “circumstantial” requisites and factors. Yes other classes have some too but none as specific as ours and also as double edged (taking damage in stealth but dealing 0 back). our overall DPS is very low compared to most classes. and our burst is too….too much prereq for it to be solid burst.

nobody gonna nerf it. skill sux :P not worth the 4 initiative. ur better off with dancing dagger almost EVERY time.

dusanyu.4057:

WTF you loose on base numbers alone

Greatsword 1,045 – 1,155

Dagger 970 – 1,030

and warrior is not overpowered it is balanced around its job as a front line bruiser wade into combat take hits and give them.

Thief is a Rouge class your supposed to find /Week/ targets and pick them off not go toe to toe with an Abrams tank and expect to win.

100 on weapon dmg is not nearly enough to even matter in this. 50% hp left vs 0% (thief).

Im just saying that it should be closer. it should come down to skill and not who has the better base class.

TO WHOMEVER SAYS THIS IS FAIR/MAKES SENSE

by saying this you are saying

STEALTH is the trade off for having the worst HP,toughness,armor, no invulnerable no blocks no aegis no stability no protection and less total attacks per minute (base).

at this point im ready to ask to lose stealth in trade off for the things we dont have. we would be so OP with allthose things plus normal skills…….. stealth is so NOT preferable to all those losses.

ipan.4356:

Actually, because other Thief traits are lackluster – it was just sort of a default decision – and since it’s a crit based proc build, the crit sig fit, and of course move speed is always handy on a profession that is supposed to be based on movement.

I wanted to use Scorpion Wire, but it’s terrible.

The build is meant to heal through dmg, particularly by spamming DB. The initiative gain traits are for keeping up DB spam, with the occasional CnD for condition removal (not so much BS).

My biggest problem is too little dmg to be a threat.

I actually see this as a problem of gear sets more than traits – ideally, I need gear that has Healing Power (primary), Precision and Critical Dmg. (secondary).

scorp wire is AMAZING! its more of a 1 v 1 or siege tool tho. ruins heals and gap closer…absolutely owns d/p thieves and pulls people off siege.

idk…

Stealth trap
sic’ em
4 secs in pvp
cant do dmg in stealth
cant cap nodes in stealth

there are a lot of “cons” to using stealth and anti stealth gifts out there. not like there are clone traps or minion traps etc….. i think sic em is a lil much….and 2000 range? wtf

Fade.7658:

Stack some condition duration. My immobilize lasts 1.75 seconds.

if it were 3 init….OR…1.25 seconds id say ok. it takes .5 minimum for the next attack so u have to be on them for it to even matter .

Black Teagan.9215:

Travlane.5948:

Black Teagan.9215:

Sanduskel.1850:

style.6173:

Sanduskel.1850:

They haven’t ruined the game. they’ve balanced it so that all players can enjoy it. Most thieves still enjoy their thief and will continue to enjoy playing it long after the December 10th patch. As anet said, the init change is a massive buff. You should trust them.

I sometimes wonder if you even play a thief since you don’t make sense most of the time. Initiative change is a buff for certain very specific builds. It is not a massive buff for all as you say.

Anet said it was a MASSIVE buff.

Can be, but the Nerfs was more massive, so it’s equally a nerf of the class

its def not a massive buff. only 1 or arguablle 2 builds get buffed. the rest are str8 up hosed. opportunist alone makes up for the init regen. meld in shadows (2init on stealth) is WAY more than what we are getting back in regen. then theres all the other nerfs to go along with it too.

what they should do is make it so only the first WEAPON SKILL that enters you invis….gives stealth. if i have to waste shadow refuge…..i expect antoher 2 init for a 60 second cooldown. without that the trait isnt worth taking.

Opportunist is overrated. Two of my third builds dont use it and I never had problems with my ini.

with zerk builds its VERY important. its not OP…and is slightly overrated. . . but in that sense its also a huge hurt when its nerfed. the builds that dont use it dont need it bc they rely on other things.

Peow peow.2189:

Momekic.8603:

This is why there wont be anyone playing seriously on a thief anymore. They are basically becoming a huge joke as of Dec. 10. Thieves already are a joke to high toughness, high condition builds that classes like necros, mesmers, rangers and engis can spec into.

The impression Anet gives is that they don’t listen to thieves that know the class or like thieves at all, so they should pretty much just remove the class.

Thanks for the sentiments though. Glhf to you as well.

*also – ‘in before any random “oh thieves are perfect” type post from that Sanduskel guy’

I mean put a thief with a buddy that can tank and they become very strong and in wvw the dp spec is good. But pvp pretty laughable

d/p spec only good til the init nerf. i think d/p is fine…evenWITH perma invis. i dont get why its such a big deal. bc people cant kill us if we decide to run most the time? well why do we decide to run? bc we die most the time. why do we die most the time? bc we are weak as kitten bawls. what happens if we run? you live and get the point/node/camp. who wins if we run? the other person. what else happens? we deal 0 dmg and lose caps while receiving damage most of the time which leaves our teamates/group short handed. why is this such a bad thing? its not but people are d-u-m-b. perma stealth helps opponents in 4 major ways yet they want a nerf. i dont get it. pffft. w.e.

AND PS to anet………….wtf ? why cant u just make weapon skills only give init once entering stealth? if i use Hide in shadows…(30 sec cooldown) i should still get 2 more init even if im already in stealth….. i mean its long cooldowns for stealth utils. its only like 4 init between Hide in shadows and shadow refuge. 30 sec and 60 sec. that so bad? no! thats right but what is? oh yeah BPS and HS HS HS HS. so you focus on the whole thief rather than ruining the one broken part.

Reesha.7901:

Nah. Your English is fine! It is not my native language either so I make loads of mistakes.

Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me. Much appreciated.

I really wish A-net would adjust things faster. Then if something is buffed or nerfed drastically, we wouldn’t have to worry about how many months before something that turned out to be too much or too little is changed.

i agree with the speed of their fixing. they really need 2-3 months to figure out if somethign is working/not working? lol

btw yes its you, you need to learn thief mechanics. infil return nerf coming dec 10th is unarguably the end of s/d. period. >.

i gotta say only time i use body shot is when im in a zerg chasing down 1 man. its pretty sad. other than that its not worth taking.

Black Teagan.9215:

Sanduskel.1850:

style.6173:

Sanduskel.1850:

They haven’t ruined the game. they’ve balanced it so that all players can enjoy it. Most thieves still enjoy their thief and will continue to enjoy playing it long after the December 10th patch. As anet said, the init change is a massive buff. You should trust them.

I sometimes wonder if you even play a thief since you don’t make sense most of the time. Initiative change is a buff for certain very specific builds. It is not a massive buff for all as you say.

Anet said it was a MASSIVE buff.

Can be, but the Nerfs was more massive, so it’s equally a nerf of the class

its def not a massive buff. only 1 or arguablle 2 builds get buffed. the rest are str8 up hosed. opportunist alone makes up for the init regen. meld in shadows (2init on stealth) is WAY more than what we are getting back in regen. then theres all the other nerfs to go along with it too.

what they should do is make it so only the first WEAPON SKILL that enters you invis….gives stealth. if i have to waste shadow refuge…..i expect antoher 2 init for a 60 second cooldown. without that the trait isnt worth taking.

guys, obviously more skill is involved here than just auto attack. this is a very very very primitive comparison at a very basic lvl. its just to show you on the extreme bottom end what is going on and then compare skills from there.

what thieves get for the 10 things we dont have…is stealth and about 50% more evades. the question is…. is it worth it not to be able to really WVW or be good in tpvp ?

runeblade.7514:

Travlane.5948:

Fair to lose high armor/tough/hp + blocks/invuln/aegis/stability/protection for stealth?

Should it be changed and if so how?

Discusss.

Warriors don’t have aegis and protection.

I feel that this is okay. Warriors is about getting up onto your face. Thief is moving in at the right time and get out at the signs of trouble. In this experiment, it is completely in the warrior’s favor in the first place. If the thief won, I would be upset and call for nerfs on the thief.

i didnt say they did. plz re read.

Nema Tode.5637:

Well IMO the outcome is as should be expected because greatsword warriors are supposed to be used for constantly damaging the opponent and should be capable of taking a few hits. Thieves on the other hand get their ridiculous dagger damage from the BURST skills, definitely not auto attacks. They are also meant to negate damage through evasion rather than resistance so by taking both of these away from the thief the warrior will no doubt win.

I think the conclusion we can draw from this is that a warrior when paired with a dagger thief who does not possess skills of evasion and/or bursting will probably win.

we arent talking skills. we are just relating basic dmg to hp/armor/toughness comparisons.

a thief is supposed to ahve superb dmg. at the very least it should get warrior close. if anet wants it balanced then they should be close in ALL classes. and by close i mean under 25% hp left by any winning class. in spvp its closer ill admit but still obvious that warrior has the best overall defense and skills/utilitiies. their skull crack alone is better than our basilisk venom that can be wiped clean with a blind. pfft. useless.

Zacchary.6183:

Nema Tode.5637:

Zacchary.6183:

Sanduskel.1850:

style.6173:

Sanduskel.1850:

They haven’t ruined the game. they’ve balanced it so that all players can enjoy it. Most thieves still enjoy their thief and will continue to enjoy playing it long after the December 10th patch. As anet said, the init change is a massive buff. You should trust them.

I sometimes wonder if you even play a thief since you don’t make sense most of the time. Initiative change is a buff for certain very specific builds. It is not a massive buff for all as you say.

Anet said it was a MASSIVE buff.

And you are foolish to believe them.

Assuming the infusion of shadow changes don’t fall under the subject of the initiative changes, then unless you use one of the few initiative supplements (such as signets of power) then this SHOULD be a pretty good buff. Anet has said they don’t want people relying on these supplements anyways: “The default rate of initiative regeneration was simply to low and was causing players to either take traits to suppliment it…This is something that has to change. What these changes intend to do is to increase the power of every single thief build that is not running these traits”

If you look at the big picture, it’s a nerf. About 60% of the traits that thieves have are situational if not a waste of a trait slot because most of the traits that are worth the slot increase initiative in some way.

Something anet DOES NOT understand is that half the time a thief chooses a trait it’s because there is nothing better to slot. Another thing that they do not understand is that when thieves run out of initiative their chance of dying skyrockets because most of a thief’s survival comes from the spamming of blinds, stealth and evades.

Initiative is what allows a thief to use skills. These skills provide damage a/o evades, blinds and stealth. No initiative means no access to those skills ergo no evades, blinds and stealth. No evades, blinds and stealth = no survivability.

Initiative is everything to a thief. If anet touches initiative it affects the entire profession, not just a few builds, and everyone would know this if they would have stopped kittening and played the profession.

i also think that them slowing down our init bursts and making about half it back in slow regen gains….will make us slow down our play. this means longer invis times to really choose our attacks well. this means less DPS….less group help in wvw….less node capping time in spvp/tpvp. HORRIBLE change. id rather see 6 second revealed times and a HUGE boost to defense. i think thats what thief needs. 15k base HP ….. higher base toughness and 6 seconds of revealed. would make a world of difference.

Warrior Greatsword Full Berserker Armor and Max Dmg Build

Thief Dagger/Dagger Full Berserker Armor and Max Dmg Build

Tested in WvW and even SPVP later.

First tests of fighting:

Rules:
1) auto attack only
2) initiate at same time
3) attack until opponent is down
4) record Hp of winner

Results of 5 fights

Warrior – 5 wins
Thief – 0 wins

Hp Range of warrior 35-50%
Normal Hp left 40-45%

How does this make you feel?

Fair to lose high armor/tough/hp + blocks/invuln/aegis/stability/protection for stealth?

Should it be changed and if so how?

Discusss.

Dahkeus.8243:

Travlane.5948:

Chicago Jack.5647:

Travlane.5948:

[…]it was close.

Lol! No it wasn’t!

Jumper had about MAYBE 40% hp..prolly less to the rangers 10% before he finished him off. the ranger was good from what im hearing. but 1 mistake would have equaled death for jumper. 1 knockdown….1 stun… blind or w.e. ….. it was a good fight and if it wasnt for BV who knows what would have happend. but 40% to 10% is still a close fight before jumper finished him

Agreed with this. Running around with the lowest health pool in the game and using a zerker amulet makes health disappear fast. Close fights with thieves are decided on evades, not on % of health.

and poorly timed evades = loss of HP. so HP aka % of health is pretty relative to how u did in a fight.

a wvw thief full zerk vs a wvw warrior full zerk…………

if both start auto attacking each other at same time warrior will win with about 50%of his HP left.

can anyone explain this to me? and yes ive tested. sometimes less but basically 45% is solid………. not sure how thats fair but ill be open to hear it.

vincecontix.1264:

Sanduskel.1850:

They haven’t ruined the game. they’ve balanced it so that all players can enjoy it. Most thieves still enjoy their thief and will continue to enjoy playing it long after the December 10th patch. As anet said, the init change is a massive buff. You should trust them.

Now Sanduskel you have been trolling the thief forums well and hard for months now, yet have nothing you to prove you are decent thief player(or even main a thief) you have posted no vids, your not high ranked in tpvp, you’ve shown the thief community nothing.

You trolling skillz are second to none I will give you that, but would you at the very lest be willing to duel someone to back you statements? I’ll tell you what ill give you 20gold if you can beat me. So lets have a duel I wont be using my thief this would be an opportunity for you to show what a great position the thief is currently in. Also I’m sure there are a few other thief that play alts that would like to duel you and see if you can back up anything you have said in the forums.

Until you show some evidence you can play half as good as you imply your statements mean nothing.

been this route. he willl say hes EU or if ur EU he will be NA or some excuse blah blah. seriously hes not a thief. kinda already been thru this to this conclusion

Sanduskel.1850:

Most of the melodramatic “I will quit my thief” posts don’t represent the vast thief player base who will keep playing. Most of us appreciate a non-easymode class that doesn’t rely on abusing broken mechanics (ANET’s terminology, not mine). So, not much will change other than the fact that we will have fewer scrubs playing thieves, which is wonderful.

actually it does. but alot end up staying bc of the lack of another great MMORPG of this type is yet to be released. soon as that happens gw2 is dead. they have ruined this game.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Travlane.5948:

Hawkeye.9687:

Well you can do a lot in a zerg fight. Use your AoE attacks.
Shortbow for sure and the most important,among other things, keep your Daggerstorm when you see some downed players and enter with Shadowstep (utilitie) to finish them.This can definetly turn the battle outcome.
As I said in an other thred Thieves with the guard buff are very likely to keep playing thief.
Others that are leveling one now is very difficult to keep playing one .
Always speaking about WvW incase you haven’t figured it.

Burst them down .Make them suffer
D/D – Sb FTW

PS: I already have a 80 lvl full ascended c/c warrior lvl 90 wvw rank .It’s very boring to play with…..

do a lot in a zerg fight? srry i think you somehow got misdirected to the thief forum. and if u take my joke lightly plz show a video of you being “productive” in a zerg, and i mean moreso than any other class. without stayin on the edge pickon on strays. helping the zerg and not hiding.’

I’m in the same boat as hawkeye. People don’t get that thieves have a role in ZvZ, and that’s stealthing, teleporting in and taking out back liners before they can do any harm to your own zerg while the tanky initiators and front liners are protecting them. Ever see a staff ele go down in one hit? That’s why thieves are important in zergs. Sure, we aren’t tag-o-matics like staff guardians, but we are in fact blast finisher dumps, stealth machines and burst masters. We can do things that nobody else can do without getting focus targetted first. Use that.

backliners even get u killed. unless they are REALLY back there or out there. and again thats not really that useful :P bc most of the time you dont get the stomp. no stability/blocks/aegis/invuln. we can only stop other melee types from ruining our stomp with a blind…but even that is ruined after a random swing. there are NO videos where a thief really shows himself/herself shining in wvw combat large scale. this is bc they die. i have 19k hp and even i have to stay on the edges. anything a thief does another class would fill his spot MUCH MUCH better.

engineers. AOE dmg and aoe conditions
necros. Aoe dmg and aoe conditions
guardian. Aoe heals takes dmg deals aoe dmg (hard as hell even for 10 to kill)
warrior. Lots of dmg lots of defense…amazing class for wvw (makes up 50% easily)
mesmers. vital clone/phants condi/dmg explosions and porting/hastes/pulls/pushes
rangers. even rangers AOE dmg and send in pets to mess kitten up and decent defense
Eles. Aoe heals Aoe dmg and decent survivablity plus rally revive/port key mist in

Thieves….. can…. Dagger storm and venom share? i guess you MIGHT count clusterbomb but i mean 900 range really gets you taking A LOT of damage and also useless for top of keeps/towers shooting down or up.

So yes you could survive doign dmg to one person that strays away at the edge of a fight where nobody is around….but mean while a necro can AOE fear AOE put 6-7 conditions on in 1 second….. and thousands of AOE dmg in the same move. how the hell do you pick a thief over this. and when the enemies are mostly made up of the engi/necro/warrior/guard type…. you take so much aoe dmg. if you are content with hiding on the edge of a battle looking for a wounded sheep under half hp…thats great for you. i had higher hopes. atleast before we had the power/dmg to take somebody out in 3 seconds. now its actually a fight…which is fine but that leaves us no whwere but in between a rock and hard place.

Hawkeye.9687:

Well you can do a lot in a zerg fight. Use your AoE attacks.
Shortbow for sure and the most important,among other things, keep your Daggerstorm when you see some downed players and enter with Shadowstep (utilitie) to finish them.This can definetly turn the battle outcome.
As I said in an other thred Thieves with the guard buff are very likely to keep playing thief.
Others that are leveling one now is very difficult to keep playing one .
Always speaking about WvW incase you haven’t figured it.

Burst them down .Make them suffer
D/D – Sb FTW

PS: I already have a 80 lvl full ascended c/c warrior lvl 90 wvw rank .It’s very boring to play with…..

do a lot in a zerg fight? srry i think you somehow got misdirected to the thief forum. and if u take my joke lightly plz show a video of you being “productive” in a zerg, and i mean moreso than any other class. without stayin on the edge pickon on strays. helping the zerg and not hiding.’

Advent.6193:

Well, phaeris:
Ironically, the class numbers released ~2 months back show Mesmer as one of the game’s least played classes. As for the strength of PU, I’d call it less of a Mesmer = OP thing, and more of every bleeding class in game needs to have good Grandmaster Traits. I mean, let’s be realistic here. For any GM Trait, you’re plopping almost half of your char’s available Traits … ergo, the reward should be darned good.

And, no, it’s not just Thieves getting shafted there. Most classes have GM Traits that are either:

• poorly placed.
  or
• not nearly powerful enough for the point cost.

As such, I would honestly like for the Devs to apply some form of logic to point burn vs. reward, as a concept entire. I’m personally convinced that the reason some Mesmer GM Traits are so relatively “great” is because – as the last class officially leaked -
the code-jockeys actually happened upon some darned good ideas. And that is what the game needs more, not trying to dumb everything down toward uselessness.

link to those stats plz?

Chicago Jack.5647:

Travlane.5948:

[…]it was close.

Lol! No it wasn’t!

Jumper had about MAYBE 40% hp..prolly less to the rangers 10% before he finished him off. the ranger was good from what im hearing. but 1 mistake would have equaled death for jumper. 1 knockdown….1 stun… blind or w.e. ….. it was a good fight and if it wasnt for BV who knows what would have happend. but 40% to 10% is still a close fight before jumper finished him

Walker.3056:

Travlane.5948:

Jumper.9482:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SgWmA2IIw0

This is an example of what I mean when you should have to play well to do well with S/D.
The point at which you dodge predict and bait each dodge from your opponent.
Don’t get me wrong, Folly is a great player. I just counterplayed his counterplays to near perfection in that instance baiting out every single one of his dodges.
This was when Beastmasters were considered near godmode 1v1.
Given, this was before the +1init and -1Boonsteal nerfs, but still..
At the moment you can get away with random 3 spam without even thinking about what your opponent is doing and reacting. What it should be more about is the above.
S/D does probably deserve more nerfs when played to this degree. But to kill it completely in this way is just sad.

all that fancy work…nice and all but in a 3 v 3 your are dead. u barely won that fight and this was BEFORE the LS nerf. if this ranger had a stun break might have been different. good play and you really have a good point. this video really exemplifies the fact that thief shouldnt be nerfed ever again in any fashion. we barely get by as is.

You forgot this fight was when BM rangers were like INVENCIBLE and i mean it, it was so kittenng op they are not the same now…

i played p/d and noticed the being strong but never truly a problem. but i did hear about it on s/d d/p yeap.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Travlane.5948:

all that fancy work…nice and all but in a 3 v 3 your are dead. u barely won that fight and this was BEFORE the LS nerf. if this ranger had a stun break might have been different. good play and you really have a good point. this video really exemplifies the fact that thief shouldnt be nerfed ever again in any fashion. we barely get by as is.

wtf are you talking about? Jumper has a good point and posted a good vid. Less spam 3, more actual thinking about what you have to do – this is a good thing. The last thing we want is to have the thief be a brain-dead warrior class. People should actually have to be good at the class they are playing. You should actually have to think about what the opponent is doing.

wtf are YOU talking about. i said it was good play and he played PERFECTLY and still was a close match. my point is that even tho he played PERFECTLY or darn close…. it was close. so here we are at the dawn of another HUGE thief nerf when we are at the brink of being unviable in many formats. wvw is a joke for us. pve we are the bottom 2. spvp/tpvp we can be good…conditional….in the sense if its only 1 v 1 or 2 v 2….. and ive seen all if not most of jumpers videos. without stealth he can only do 1 v 1. and even with stealth its 1 v1 2 v 1 3 v 1 and mostly mediocre players. now that doesnt mean hes a bad player, hes good. but what it DOES express is the fact thieves are at the edge of extinction and being the butt of every joke. to take a thief is to make your team weaker than i could potentially be….even now before dec 10th

kbenton.4915:

Cynz.9437:

OP, did they pay you to post this?

Lol no. Why? Do you think I should have tried to get some $???

But all joking aside, d/p is not “balanced”. Stealth should be hard(er) to achieve than having a simple combo field that doesn’t require you to hit anything. Stealth is the source for all complaining with the thief, and this is by far the easiest and most consistent way of achieving it through a weapon set.

it is very conditional. 1.5 seconds of stealth for 9 initiative? is that so OP? for it to give perma stealth…..NOBODY must be near you….so they must be dumb enough to stay away….

naphack.9346:

guys, in all your talk about less initiative this, less initiative that, you forgot that you actually have to hit something for opportunist to work and even then need to have a high(as in berserker gear high) crit chance for the new trait to be worse than the old one.
Now, what will happen in a fight, where people will block, invuln, dodge, blind, stun or daze you or simply walk out of range, moving on the edge of your attack range?
Exactly, you won’t get any initiative from opportunist.
Sure, under optimized conditions(multi hit ability, 100% crit chance, stacked up opponents standing at one spot and taking the hits), the current opportunist is far more potent, but in reality, you might have some valkyrie or soldiers parts mixed in, you might miss some attacks, you might get blinded, blocked, etc.
Let’s keep one thing in mind: opportunist is a minor trait, and as such, should be universally applicable, showing similar reward for any build, you slap it on.
What this change actually does: It makes opportunist more reliable. In fights against bunkers, you only need to land a couple solid hits for it to trigger. It will make the initiative gain more baseline and cut off both the upper and the lower ends of the curve. This may be bad for big group fights and dungeon speedruns, where you stack up at one place and spam till your target is down, but it will actually benefit small scale pvp fights(mainly) and tough PvE encounters, which you can’t defeat by stacking, cause you have to keep dodging.

u r 100% wrong. if u were right it would not have been changed in the first place. the whole premise of your perception is wrong.

to add bleed/burn/poison all on the same attack for AOE plus a few thousand in dmg is disgusting. they obviously have to prolly trait up for it but still. going invis is the worst thing bc then they deal dmg to u and u dont do anything. u ahve to be on full attack…use stuns blinds etc. even blinds are no good bc each b omb sets off 1 blind….so 1 might miss but 3 others hit u.

swinsk.6410:

Arcuss.6457:

swinsk.6410:

Stompy.1387:

I don’t see why people think D/P is going to be dead. Sure, you won’t be able to really perma stealth anymore, but if you are going to be actively fighting somebody, I doubt you would anyways

9 init, 7 if traited to stealth vs. 5 init or 3 if traited.

I will try to use D/P after patch, but if it doesn’t work I quit because D/D is even more broken.

D/P wasn’t made for constant stealth, It’s more for blind. I personally played D/P very effectively (PvE/WvW) without ever even knowing about the stealth exploit. You just have to play with the traits. I run D/D now, and I don’t know how you think it’s more broken. The stealth is achieved by contact with the enemy and can miss very easily. There is no risk with D/P exploit.

D/D is more broken because it lacks blinds, good gap close, and #3 and #4 skill are useless in a power build. The synergy just isn’t there with D/D and you need to run valk gear or something else to cope with no blinds or you have to give up condi removal. D/P is the best weaponset we have, not sure why you wouldn’t use it.

swinks is 100% right. p/d is the only other set thats reeally good. and even that doesnt have the synergy d/p has. d/p is the most balanced set. period. p/d is arguablly a better build but thats due to traits/gear etc etc. P/D might be the best synergy in game dare i say. to bad anet cant get the rest right

yeah seriously. so hard against guards necros engies and warrios right now. the other classes we have a fair shot agins.t

and if it helps ive done 63k dmg in WVW under the right conditions in a 1 hit backstab. doesnt mean its practical or used. its pure suicide.

Clumsy.6257:

and thats why i have to facepalm every time i hear thief is bad in pve, think about it, the only difference between your damage and his damage is stats, traits, runes, and food

thief is bad. this th ief is a 1 hit kill in pve at any and every boss. not only that he has the lowest possible HP in game plus the lowest possible toughness and lowest possible defense in game . that right there is the single worst build in the game. a downed player could kill him in 5 seconds if he didnt move lol. its bad. its a true max dmg signet build. again another person here pointing out somethign thats not true about thieves bc u dont play one. thanks u really help

Doxie.4037:

That is crazy damage. I am so far below that it’s insane, and I didn’t even realize how low I was (although the 39k backstab is with assassins signet popped, under 50%) that is still insane. His normals were hitting for 10k.

not really. its a PVE mob…for one….so thats alot more dmg right there. plus the 25% extra dmg from vulnerability that was on the mob. plz PERFECT conditions…. he prolly had 40% extra dmg under 50% hp and 15% from assassins signet. then he had +1125 power from 25 stacks of bloodlust and 25 stacks of might from a signet build which had NO defense. its a useless build and a total joke. might be entertaining “just for fun” in some easy areas in pve….but nothing more than a 5 sec window gimmick build. i used to run a TRUE max dmg thief build in wvw and i would die alot but ganking in 1-2 hits was always fun. some of the time if i didnt invis i would get from 100% down under 50% before i finished the stomp just from a player attacking. thats how bad it is. so its good to keep it in context. POTENTIALLY thief is the highest dmging class. but in reality its like 3rd or possibly 4th if u count 1 v 1 and dead last in large fighting. goign by DPS standards anyway. invis time plus evades plus dodging plus running. all that lowers DPS incredibly. hope this dose of daily reality helped

i agree. i quite s/d after the -1 boon nerf. most boons dont last long enough to really matter. thieves are dodging and backing up and evading so much that they really only get to use prolly about 15% effectivness from most boons. a fact that seems to evade the anet team bc they obv dont have any theif players. and i dont mean the 1 or 2 hour a week thieve players.