Guild Wars 2

nikki.9157:

One thing I don’t like about the pets is when we are downed by a player it takes 20 seconds before out pets come to help us get up. Most, if not all, of the other classes have more than one way to heal…

Ranger skill lick wounds takes 8 seconds from the time you are downed to be able to activate. Pet comes immediately to you once activated, at max range its possible theres a 5 second delay for it to complete its run to your body. Daze/Stun/Fear/AnyCC the pet? It will go right back to rezzing you once the cc is over. Defeat the pet while its rezzing? Half the time it will continue to rez anyway.

Guardians are the only other profession that has access to a heal other than bandage while downed, and it also takes 8 seconds from the time you are downed until you can activate it.

What game are you playing again? It’s certainly not Guild Wars 2.

Kovu.7560:

…making blanket statements which clearly aren’t accurate.

~ Kovu

Kovu.7560:

…but its more prominently required among ranger weapon skills as they generally have lower base damage and coefficients to make up for the damage their pets theoretically do.

~ Kovu

Lets stop, we’re clearly not going to see eye to eye here.

You can’t claim not cherry picking, then only pull auto attack. Auto attack is not something widely used by any any of these professions in WvW, with the exception of Power mesmer if it is in a safe position. Unless you’re zerging. However, contextually, this thread doesn’t seem to be focused there.

Kovu.7560:

No, every profession needs to set up for a combo in some respects, but its more prominently required among ranger weapon skills as they generally have lower base damage and coefficients to make up for the damage their pets theoretically do.

~ Kovu

Taking a look on the wiki and comparing GS to other professions most-used melee weapons – looks like Ranger GS skills are mostly higher base damage and their coefficients are on par or better , and with shorter cooldowns.

alchemyst.2165:

You thinking that vault is the thing that makes staff good gives me all I need to know.

Evasion is a thief’s only defense along with stealth and mobility, technically. Other classes have their defenses more spread out. The reason people see thief as a problem is because their defense is condensed, making it seem like “spam”, when honestly without this defense there’s really nothing for sustain at all on thief.

As far as damage goes, it’s not technically while evading, the only skill that technically does damage WHILE evading is staff 3, which can be punished pretty easily like death blossom. Bound can be kited or interrupted with good timing, and vault is insanely easy to just walk away from, interrupt, or dodge. Dealing with a thief’s offense is just something you have to practice like anything else.

I play this build (acro/trick/dd) the most out of all builds. You are correct that it is relatively easy to dodge vault and bound. However, it is not “insanely easy” to interrupt vault, nor is it simply…easy. Interrupting Bound is nearly impossible to do so intentionally, and interrupting Vault, while possible to do intentionally, is still pretty difficult. And doing so multiple times in a fight is even more rare.

Kovu.7560:

…for actual ranger weapon attacks to do anything noticeable to the heavy armored professions they need to run at minimum 2,300 power, 50% crit chance and 180 critical damage before might. Otherwise the heavies can simply cycle through defenses and outheal more effectively than the ranger can do damage.

~ Kovu

This isn’t ranger exclusive in the slightest, though.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Turk.5460:

Kovu.7560:

Lol @ people who die to ranger pets.
Seriously, sidestep the pet. You don’t even need to dodge.

~ Kovu

Kovu, It’s hard to sidestep smoke assault, which can do well over 10k damage in a short amount of time, even if the ranger himself doesn’t have a lick of power. And if you are a melee profession, the projectiles of bristleback’s F2 aren’t something you can sidestep – and can also do well over 10k damage in a very short timeframe, again, without the ranger having any power.

Pets need to scale to Ranger stats. So if the ranger is condi, they should choose a condi style pet (vamp up some pets to fill this role), rather than being in full dire/trailblazers, then have a bristleback/smokescale doing insane berserker-stat style bursting as well.

Maybe add healing pets that would scale off of healing power for a support role.

Excluding when Smokescale’s Smoke Assault was bugged, I have never seen it do more than 7k on a player.

Bristleback is the one that you need to watch out for, and it can be reflected. With enough Might, it’s F2 can do some nasty damage but much like Rapid Fire, it’s a channelled attack and they’re projectiles.

Both of these pets can potentially hit hard, yes, but 10k is a bit of an excessive exaggeration. Smokescale isn’t even a DPS pet if you look at it’s stats, it doesn’t have strong offensive stats, it’s just hands down, the best pet at sticking to it’s target.

Just like you do with Mesmer Phantasms, you should always be paying attention to the pet during a fight as much as you are paying attention to the Ranger. As far as I’m concerned, most people hate Ranger pets because they can’t just ignore them anymore. They’re a threat now and that bothers people, but they’re still perfectly balanced. Unless you want to go back to those 32 hours where Smokescale could do upwards of 80k damage with Smoke Assault.

Yeah 10k for Smoke Assault was an exaggeration. It generally hits me, a medium armor wearer with no toughness, for 1200-1500 a hit, which is still an absurd amount for a Ranger who puts 0 power into their gear. Spike Barrage, however, I’ll reiterate – as a melee player, who must keep the ranger close, and likely has used dodges, blocks, etc earlier in the fight – it is ridiculous the amount of damage a simple F2 can do.

This would be acceptable if the ranger was in berserker-style gear with moderate crit chance, but is insane that they are able to do so while slotting things like clerics or trailblazer, or anything else that has no power/precision.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Turk.5460:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I ran traps in my condi build, but no perma stealth. I’d burst like a medi guard: heal>steal>cancel heal with weapon swap for geomancy sigil. This is pretty much dead now, which is a shame.

Don’t get me wrong, ghost thief needed to die. But the traps counting as a strike ought to have been sufficient, no?

Kawloon Fuathach.3807:

They picked the wrong solution to the issue that was at hand.

^ This. Stealth stacking was the issue.

Nope. Not being revealed while applying and maintaining lethal conditions was the issue. That is what this (poorly) fixed. Please don’t bring your misguided gripe with the core mechanic into this.

If you read my post, you’d see I said geomancy sigil, so I’d be revealed when spiking anyways. That, and my complaint was with the interaction with steal being changed due to the arm time, which makes it much harder to actually land traps, not with the traps causing reveal.

Please try to read the post before commenting next time, makes you look less silly

Just because I didn’t feel the need to snip your quote doesn’t mean I was replying to the entire post from start to finish. Please try to understand basic logic and context clues before commenting next time, makes you look less silly.

Oh. My. God.
Who the heck cares?

Aeolus.3615:

Still its not a elegant solution to deal with the traps from thieves ;\, and decent players can still do what they were doing, daze+confusion+venon player cant escape while they cant use any skils and cant move, 5 seconds is more than eneught to kill targets arround 25k hp.

What are these decent players fighting against? Large potatoes?

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I ran traps in my condi build, but no perma stealth. I’d burst like a medi guard: heal>steal>cancel heal with weapon swap for geomancy sigil. This is pretty much dead now, which is a shame.

Don’t get me wrong, ghost thief needed to die. But the traps counting as a strike ought to have been sufficient, no?

Kawloon Fuathach.3807:

They picked the wrong solution to the issue that was at hand.

^ This. Stealth stacking was the issue.

Nope. Not being revealed while applying and maintaining lethal conditions was the issue. That is what this (poorly) fixed. Please don’t bring your misguided gripe with the core mechanic into this.

Vornollo.5182:

Quickness and Slow used to affect stomping up until the balance patch prior to Season 2 of PvP.

Function Gyro is by no means a fast stomp. Function Gyro is in fact a slower stomp than a player stomping (an Engi can preserve their Function Gyro’s stomp by double-tapping ‘stomp’ so that they finish the stomp before their Gyro does). The only benefit that comes from the Function Gyro is it’s range and the fact that you can have a target stomped while focussing on something more important (like another player).
That leaves Thief’s Impact Strike. A chain of three attacks that all need to connect to a target and get timed properly in order to be effective. Impact Strike, Uppercut and Finishing Blow can all be Blocked, Blinded, Interrupted and out-ranged to counterplay.

Honestly, I don’t know what you’re on about.
Could you add some detail to your post as to what you mean by ‘exploit’ and ‘cheating’?

From my experience, the players that get irritated about things like this are ones who run small (3-5man) roaming groups, all bunker. They cry something fierce when they can’t get hard-rezzed 4 seconds into down state by their group mates.

zinkz.7045:

martin.1653:

Being stealthy equating to total invisibility is perfectly realistic in this given universe.

Tracing is a broken mechanic, so it’s not realistic. Simple.

Nonsense, I mean if you want to come up with some BS reason for things in a game universe like theives use “magic” powers to become completely invisible, the you can equally apply that nonsense to ranger being able to track with rapid fire.

martin.1653:

Stealth has a lot of counters and requires investment, it doesn’t come free. Also, remember that when you’re stealthed you can’t do much in terms of offense (positioning only).

Not really, GW2 has the most ezmode, low skilled stealth system out there, in most MMOs in combat stealth is on a long cooldown and even needs to be traited for at times, other games actually require you to engage your brain when it comes to positioning because if you are stealth and walk right in front of an opponent you break stealth, even in games with lots of in combat stealth like ESO for example there are a way more counters, if I play nightblade in ESO (the “stealth” class") then damage knocks me out of stealth, every class has access to reveal skills through potions and a skill in a skill tree available to everyone, that not only reveals, but gives 50% damage reduction from stealth attacks for simply having it slotted.

martin.1653:

Thieves have stealth, other classes have stabilities and sustain.

Four classes have “stealth” (five if you want to include trapper runes on guard), it is a braindead mechanic on all of them in this game, that only really has any sort of an even token level balance in one thing – conquest PvP, outside of that “stealth” is completely broken in this game.

“EZ mode” Lol ok. Its obvious that you’ve been outmatched by various players, and are coming here to attack a mechanic that you don’t quite understand. Try playing these classes that have access to stealth against competent players for a while, then you’ll learn how it works, the cost that comes with it, and how to manage fighting against it.

Kovu.7560:

Lol @ people who die to ranger pets.
Seriously, sidestep the pet. You don’t even need to dodge.

~ Kovu

Kovu, It’s hard to sidestep smoke assault, which can do well over 10k damage in a short amount of time, even if the ranger himself doesn’t have a lick of power. And if you are a melee profession, the projectiles of bristleback’s F2 aren’t something you can sidestep – and can also do well over 10k damage in a very short timeframe, again, without the ranger having any power.

Pets need to scale to Ranger stats. So if the ranger is condi, they should choose a condi style pet (vamp up some pets to fill this role), rather than being in full dire/trailblazers, then have a bristleback/smokescale doing insane berserker-stat style bursting as well.

Maybe add healing pets that would scale off of healing power for a support role.

Kamara.4187:

Turk.5460:

Kamara.4187:

There will always be an OP build in wvw because there are too many variables to balance without one class taking a hit to make adjustments. The only way to address it would be to make it more like the pvp mode which means someone will come undone because their shinies got nerfed. I run in all ascended gear with all the bells and whistles. It wouldn’t bother me if it was changed but others continue to resist it.

Its not about the rarity of the player’s gear at all. Its about what stat combos you can make. Changing this would lock many professions into single builds, with any experimentation outside meta leaving you at an insane disadvantage. So…no.

I disagree. Builds can still be flipped around, and faster with the other system. Its all about the shinies and having an edge over other ppls gear rather than skill with the way it is now.

A person in full ascended has about a 5% stat boost/damage boost over an opponent in full exotic. I’d hardly say that constitutes a World of Gearcraft style edge. Its not nearly enough to decide the outcome of the fight, and using “ascended vs exotic” as an excuse that one lost a fight would be asinine.

Kamara.4187:

There will always be an OP build in wvw because there are too many variables to balance without one class taking a hit to make adjustments. The only way to address it would be to make it more like the pvp mode which means someone will come undone because their shinies got nerfed. I run in all ascended gear with all the bells and whistles. It wouldn’t bother me if it was changed but others continue to resist it.

Its not about the rarity of the player’s gear at all. Its about what stat combos you can make. Changing this would lock many professions into single builds, with any experimentation outside meta leaving you at an insane disadvantage. So…no.

Too much AoE and passive mechanics for such small scale fights. I enjoy fighting as a Thief. I don’t enjoy priming a calculated backstab on a low target, and getting 60% of my hp taken away as I steal for the engage. All the while no enemies even knew I was there, nor were targeting me.

It felt good to successfully upgrade your structures under the old system. But at the same time, it promoted a lot of siege wars 2 gameplay, which quite a large percentage of players seem to disagree with. IE: Yak’s Bend name being thrown around whenever someone mentions the words “Arrow Cart”

I’m in T2 NA and exclusively solo/small scale roam. I see way more power builds than condi builds. The only professions I see that are almost always condi specced are necros and mesmers.

Not to say there arent condi rangers/warriors/thieves/guardians, but they are so vastly outnumbered by the amount of power variants of those professions that this is a non-issue in small scale roaming. Haven’t seen a condi rev or engie in weeks.

Decado.9304:

zinkz.7045:

It is pretty pointless considering the small thing when it changes nothing (and could in fact exacerbate the balance disparity), unless the big thing, the actual problem is addressed, it is like changing a punctured tyre on a car with no engine and there is no prospect of the car getting an engine, pointless.

except this is Anet and fixing the small problems with band-aid solutions is what they do rather than addressing the main issues like population balance. Given the choice i’d rather be stuck with DBL and have population spread fixed without a doubt but without that being done I think 3 alpine is a much preferably situation

I don’t get the mentality of “Anet needs to fix population.”

How is population anywhere remotely Anet’s fault? Players choose their server. Players choose to transfer servers. Players choose what time of day/night they primarily play. Players choose if they want to change their play schedule.

I applaud Anet for even trying to help with the population. The introduction of linked servers was great! Before that, BL’s were empty during primetime, except for duelers and on reset.

I don’t understand why it hasn’t been unblockable since the first HoT balance patch came out.

OriOri.8724:

The Game Slayer.7632:

Straegen.2938:

The Game Slayer.7632:

Stealth is fine when you are forced to reveal yourself to actually kill your opponent. This ghost thief build is 100% stealth and can still kill you. That’s absurdly broken.

I disagree. A 3s window to kill an attacker with a host of evades and teleports before they go back into stealth for long periods of time is not a well balanced mechanic. Stealth stacking should be removed. At least then stealth builds would have to “come up for air” every few seconds allowing some counter play. It also eliminates the Ghost Thief.

You’re completely assuming that you can get right back into stealth every 3s after you leave it. Any form of CC will obliterate most thieves. If you take stealth stacking out of the game, you alter and change so much more than what needs to be changed. It’s like demolishing your home to fix a termite problem. It’s far from prudent.

No, its extremely prudent. Thieves need a lot of changes made to them so that they aren’t reliant on these cheese mechanics.

Oh absolutely, however nobody ever suggests other changes in conjunction with a change to stealth stacking. Its just “NERF STEALTH STACKING” and that’s pretty much it. Which leaves us to respond with a laugh, as in order for a change to stealth stacking, many various other buffs would need to be made, and nobody wants to think about buffing a profession that they’re peeved about, even though it clearly would need some after the nerf they are requesting.

gebrechen.5643:

Fun thing is that there is 10 times more thieves than DH in wvw and everyone knows why.

Is it because they’re 10 times harder to play than DH? I’m just going to assume that’s the “why.” We love fighting those uphill battles!

How’d you even get downed underwater? Just gotta rotate spear 5 and dodges until their zerg gets bored and leaves you alone!

Pinko.2076:

Desert BL is bad and anyone who thinks the vote was good (accurate) or mattered needs to get a better argument. If you really think game design by Reddit Democacy is how MMO’s should be done, I don’t even know how to make a case that can appeal to reality that warped.

It’s subjectively, by the opinions of most WvW’ers (not reddit people that have sympathy kittens for this dev team), a bad map. It’s is objectively not a fun map to the vast majority that log on to WvW. There’s been how many thread citing actual numbers about how little people enjoy playing that map? a dozen? The numbers don’t lie, it’s just not fun.

Oh, Rashagar! Here’s a prime example of one of those people doing mental gymnastics to try to prove that their opinion (which lost a majority vote) is absolute! But no…we’re the ones with a warped sense of reality…

Aphs.9528:

People keep saying oh we voted for desert bl but the people who voted for it are no where to be seen and that’s because the majority who voted for it only go EOTM , PVE and people who only enter WvW for dailies . Just to a revote and exclude people who hardly enter WvW .

Here is what a real WvW vote looks like since majority players who voted for it are WvW players

http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=585d28afe4b09017a83c32d8

I almost exclusively play WvW, entering PvE only for crafting armor/legendaries. Never seen this poll. Am I not a WvW player?

Are those 250 votes really enough to justify calling this a “real” vote?
The answer is...no.

I love roaming in the DBL. I think its a great map, and I don’t have to deal with blobs unless I band together with other roamers and attack a keep. DBL is fine, and I hope they make a third map that is just as detailed.

anduriell.6280:

in any case thief is broken beyond believe, anet kept buffing the damage and the defenses now it’s a joke class.

coming from stealth to do massive damage and stealth again or teleport miles away is not a gameplay that is fun to play against. Somebody at anet should have eyes to see it.

lol

Straegen.2938:

Unload is almost completely useless in full Trailblazer. Head Shot (with a bunch of traits) and the AA are the only things that can really proc condi outside of a Venom. Outside of an interrupt build, P/P is a very poor choice when running full Trailblazer.

He means he was in trailblazer, and someone else used [unload] on him.

Sly Cooper. He will always remain best thief.

Azukas.1426:

Actually it’s not acceptable. With how MM works you can be paired with plat and leg players while in silver league. So if you are silver league on your main class what do you think you are on a thief if you are practicing it? That’s not fair to the 4 other ppl on your team that you are making carry your dead weight.

Ranked season play is where you play to win. Playing a class that requires so much skill just to practice it in those games is NOT trying to win. It’s almost to the point that I’d support players unable to play the class without at least 2k hrs on thief

Actually, it is acceptable. If Anet didn’t think it was, there would be means to prevent that, such as needing a certain amount of unranked games played as that profession. But until something changes, you personally disagreeing, does not make it unacceptable. What is unacceptable is players like yourself who throw salt at the poor learning player, which discourages them, hurts your team more, and will lower the pool of players to make matches with.

Chaba.5410:

Swamurabi.7890:

I’d answer but I don’t even know what is required for a WvW daily.

And you probably finish them most days without even looking but just by playing.

Jekkies actively tries to avoid doing dailies out of spite. That’ll teach those chests who’s boss.

How did that DH do 8k on a ToF, while having higher than 16k hp??

Azukas.1426:

Maybe you should reread my posts and not jump to conclusions. I never said I only get queue’d with bad players. I only stated my actions when I have bad thieves on my team. I also stated the majority of thieves aren’t good and they should practice the class in unranked, dueling servers, and WvW.

I thank you for your reply and hope you have a nice day.

It is perfectly acceptable for players to use ranked for practice. That is why there is a matchmaking rating. Once they fare better, they will move up, if not, they will stay near the bottom. As long as they are at least trying, they are welcome in ranked.

Thanks, hope you have a nice day, too!

Azukas.1426:

See you say you are good. I have to go on your word, but everyone also says they are good. In many cases is not true. I personally have been told i’m good watching my play on some pro league player’s stream and those were his comments not mine. Are you good? Idk i’ve never played/watched you play. Are you correct in the assessment that good thieves get kitten on verbally by bad teams when they all lose? Hell yes, and I’m the first one to tell the rest of the team to kitten or call say GG thief too bad your team wasn’t up to snuff, etc.

Now when I get a bad thief on my team I politely tell them to stop playing thief in ranked matches, and to practice in unranked, dueling servers, and wvw. The rage I get in return then evokes a more critical assessment of their lack of skills and that they should prolly delete that character all together. See the truth of the matter is there should never be a bad thief in a ranked season game. Everyone should be trying to win and working together. I’ve switched off main my mesmer to play my other classes based on the comp I queue into. I especially do this if I know the mesmer on my team is better than me.

I expect the same in return.

If you are consistently getting queued with people you say are bad, maybe its time to realize you are not as skilled as you may think you are.

AikijinX.6258:

msalakka.4653:

glass.3245:

Thief is designed to be a solo roaming class – if you go one on one with a good thief in WvW you should expect to die.

They don’t need to be good. Therein lies the problem.

Seems as though you’ve been best’ed by a Thief, Therein lies the problem with that post. If you believe playing a Thief is as easy as you make it out to be then I tip my hat off to you sir.

^

Hello,

I recently Tome/Proof of Heroic’d a tempest to waste some time on in solo/small group roaming. I didn’t want to spend too much money, so everything is dire or as close to that as I can (lack of easy to obtain backpiece/amulet/trinkets/rings turned those into things like rabid). The goal was a character to fool around with condis, particularly burning. I want this character to mosey around a fight applying burning as much as he can.

I have had a little fun so far, but would appreciate any input on how I should play/rotate/manage attacks. I’m not familiar with the skill names just yet, and I’m at work so I can’t recall exactly what traits I threw together (definitely earth, water, tempest) What I’ve used so far: Scepter/Focus, condi-clear pulse heal, cleansing flames, teleport, stab-armor, rebound.

I’d like to stay with scepter, as I enjoy the 900 range burning on the auto attack, but am open to suggestion.

Aury.1367:

You can also farm NPCs in WvW to get bloodlust stacks. If you would be able to read my text again, I mentioned it should be the same like kills: 1 for NPC, 5 for players.

If you would be able to read your own text again, it in fact, does not mention that.

Aury.1367:

Killing an NPC grants 1 stack of bloodlust sigil, killing a player grants 5.
Why not also grant 5 stacks for each successfully ressed player? Would maybe make ressing for few people more attractive than just letting teammates die. (Talking about a pugblob now).

Couldn’t this be a thing?

OriOri.8724:

@Turk – You keep deflecting

I’m not sure you fully understand what deflecting an argument is. The conversation moved to cover unblockables, I argued directly against your previous post regarding that, keeping on topic. You posting the above is a deflection in itself. Please try to stay on topic, or don’t bother quoting or directing your next argument at me.

OriOri.8724:

Every single class has access to unblockable weapon attacks, as well as 4 classes have traits that make attacks unblockable. Even if you want to count DH trap (though really? So now the “counter” to a ghost thief is to stand completely still? What next?), that’s still only 3 classes out of 9 that have access to AoE reveal. 3 out of 9.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unblockable#Weapon_skills_that_are_unblockable
How many of these are used? Be serious, how many of these skills do you see used in the combat scale that this thread is referring to? Since you like to not count valid options, then shadow shot does not count, since the only unblockable portion is the blind, and Larcenous Strike does not count, since in order to get to that attack, the first portion needs to hit, which IS blockable.

I was never speaking out about ghost thief, so please don’t base your argument against my argument with that as a focal point. To refresh, I’m arguing about stealth stacking as a power thief, as context clues may point out.

I used the word “akin” because you are right, you can’t directly compare stealth to any other sort of defense. And guess what, you’re not supposed to, the mechanics are nowhere near related. However, people keep trying to compare stealth to other game mechanics/abilities, both offensive and defensive, so its only natural to cater to those people and attempt to make vague comparisons to non-comparable skills in a devil’s advocate style.

How about this: You say blocks have counters via unblockable attacks. OK, not everyone has unblockable attacks/abilities. And those that do may not have them slotted or traited as its not optimal for their build/playstyle.

Stealth has counters via reveals. Not everyone has reveal attacks/abilities. And those that do may not have them slotted or traited as its not optimal for their build/playstyle. DH trap absolutely counts, as relying on a thief walking through the trap means….drumroll …stand on your trap – thief not wanting to walk into the trap? OK cool, now your cooldowns are ticking back.

Stealth stacking- when talking about thieves specifically – counters itself by consuming utility cooldowns, endurance, and/or initiative. Think of your preferred non-thief profession – lets say you go into stealth, now you want to attack, but you now only have 1 bar of endurance, 3 skills and a utility on cooldown. Is this an optimal way to engage your target?

Again, as stated above, this is a vague comparison, because you cannot make a direct comparison, but it gets the job done and outlines the risk that people think has magically disappeared.

Can be exploited using neutral monsters/guards/fall damage to stack stats – basically creating a sigil that permanently increases your chosen stat with no actual game-mode effort.

OriOri.8724:

Turk.5460:

Me stacking stealth after attempting a backstab (which is often thwarted by the enemy simply standing there laughing, due to passive defenses), is akin to a warrior GS burtsting, then hitting endure pain, then blocking with a shield, then blocking with a mace, rinse repeat.

No, it actually isn’t akin that at all. Once endure pain ends, you can still attack the warrior with unblockable attacks. You can’t hit someone that is in stealth unless you just get lucky.

Unblockable attacks? As in …multiple?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Stand
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balanced_Stance

I think this is significant enough to counter thieves one unblockable 30s cooldown, with a long activation time, which is nullified by a single dodge or even an /obstruction/.

How does any of this have anything to do with not being able to chase/kill the person who is tapping your keep? Even if you killed the person every single time they tapped, if the player is dedicated to tapping your keep, they can respawn and run back in time to tap the keep again – and die again.

This is a non-issue, contesting a keep to prevent waypoint usage is a valid tactic that has been around for years. The fact that it inconveniences you since you have to run slightly further to get to your destination – means that this tactic is working.

“Only point I’ll bother arguing” – chooses the most ridiculously L2P one to complain about. The counter-play being "k lets walk in the other direction and make the thief spend CD’s, initiative, and/or endurance to catch up, while my Signet of Stone (passive, lazy, low-risk ability – see above), leisurely counts down on the cooldown.

For someone who has the most hours of any of their professions as Thief, you sure don’t know how they work very well, do you “broseiden, god of the brocean”

All these people whining and crying about low-risk on thief have obviously never played one.

If a thief resets a fight, you are also reset, they did not win, you did not lose. This argument is null.

Constantly stealthing and re-appearing, or even stealth stacking is a result of extremely active playing. They didn’t just press f3 for a uninterruptable, incredibly long team block. They didn’t just hit a utility for non-removable immunity to direct damage, nor did they use a heal that heals them for 100% of the damage they received – or force their opponent to stop attacking while retaining their full offensive power.

The list goes on, enjoy your incredibly passive gameplay, while arguing that the profession that requires the most active gameplay is too much for you to handle…

Digikid.7230:

Honestly, whether the build is actually good or not is irrelevant to the discussion which is the only argument that I’ve seen in this thread against getting rid of it, is there anyone here that can actually defend ghost thief as a build that should exist in this game gameplay wise?

Oh absolutely not, its incredibly boring – both to use and to fight against. I don’t defend the build itself, but merely the basic logic and reasoning that should come into play when encountering an enemy you aren’t sure how to defeat or defend against. Too many people constantly cry that X build is super OP, nerf it now, yet X build has plenty of ways to defeat or even simply defend against.

Straegen.2938:

You can try and pigeonhole my suggestions for making the game better as general QQ but at least I come to the table with some suggestions rather than just tear down others ideas.

That’s the thing, I don’t suggest anything regarding these two topics because nothing needs to be done about them. Ones personal inability to react to the anxiety caused by a constantly stealthing target does not make it bad design. In fact, its designed to do exactly that, cause chaos, break your “rotations” etc…

Stacking stealth for the lengths that people seem to be complaining about, especially regarding “waiting out cooldowns” does nothing but leave the thief with little to no initiative, and low endurance, both of which he would need to survive a re-engagement with any less-than-competent player.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Is there really a 5 page thread of a build that does nothing buy annoyance or troll people? Come on there are far greater things in wvw that needs to be looked at and people cry at this. It does nothing game breaking, it can’t do anything apart from kill people with no stun breaks/condi clear. I managed to run away from 2 of them on my power reaper.

The ones who don’t understand complain the loudest. Its a classic “vocal minority” thing. The players who actually know how to adapt, strategize, understand the basic gw2 mechanics, use critical thinking skills, know not to stand still pressing 1, etc., don’t bother to come to the forums and complain about a minor annoyance.

I’ve yet to see any person who complains about X profession or Y build actually record themselves playing said profession or build, and show that a novice such as them can perform well. And until they do, all they’re doing is blowing smoke.

Rune of the Dragonhunter.