Guild Wars 2

you use another build? I sometimes go 30/30/70/30/50

I am all for account wide WXP share for the simple reason that soulbound WXP discourage you from playing alts.

LilMcGinley.3890:

Bowulf.9726:

LilMcGinley.3890:

Having Guard Stacks on a freshly made level 2 toon should not happen.

Sure, so let’s limit it to level 80’s only. Would that not fix that issue? Then you have to at least work at a class and know the class in PVE before you get the bonuses.

What if I got level 80 by crafting? Being lvl 80 doesn’t mean you know your class, build or what that class is good/bad at in WvW.

To me, character bound is a good idea. My warrior has sacrificed his life many times over to uphold the pride of my guild, why should my thief be rewarded for his bravery in the line of battle?

(whoa I went full RP there… I need help)

Because it’s not your warrior or thief playing. It’s you. I saw upleveld players with the Legend title. Why do they have it? Because they run in a Zerg pressing 1 and 1 and 1 and 1. Many (not all) player I know with a high WvW rank are zerglings and know kitten about their profession. On the other hand, one who plays multiple cahracters in WvW (I am leveling currently my 4th character for WvW) has a wider understanding of them and knows how to face other professions, for he knows it’s weaknesses and streanghts. I am mostly playing as a roamer WvW and leveling WvW ranks on my different alts is a pain, so I have given up on WvW ranks all together. Now that I don’t even know, what current WvW rank my toons have and I am not investing any points, I feel free now to play as I enjoy the game.

Up until now I heard no reasons that made any sense to me for why WXP should be soulbound. Shure, they are smth you can make your character unique, but if it takes me ages, to achieve that uniqueness, then I might as well do without it.

Nobody denied hacking (at least I am not aware of that). I guess that due to so much stuff being processed on the client side, it is easy to hack and hard to track. I am sure they are working on it though.

Easiest way is to ban hackers. And easiest way to spot them are player reports. Even if the hacker is from your server, it should be in common sense to report them and ask them to stop doing it. I remember some hackers on my server at the very beginning of the game, who I never saw again after some weeks.

I got my commander 6 months ago. Was commanding a couple of times. After I realized the stress it pulls on you, I decided that it ain’t worth it. GW2 is a game I wanna enjoy and it shouldn’t turn to a 2nd work place. So I stepped back and did not command ever since.

Otherwise I can only suggest taking a break from the game for some time. You might be surprised how many hours a day has, without having to play GW2 (or any other game for that manner).

I agree. Thiefes can pick their fights and get out of them at any time, if played right. That is due to a combination of abilities: strong healing, wide variety of stealth, very usefull utilities. But it doesn’t make them OP. The risk running a thief, if you are able to handle them right, is the lowest of all professions.

Towers can be taken solo too, though it’s hard work and only possible when the tower’s server isn’t active or recognising the attack. However, the reward system as it is, is still stupid.

The summ of rewards for the Zerg is way bigger, than for smaller groups. And, individually spoken, the Zerg had it way easier. That encourages zerging and less tactics.

IMHO holding a fortification should give rewards and you should get nothing or way less than now, when capping a tower, keep or camp. Camps should also send dollies only, when camp supply is full or reaches 100 supply or smth. So that camp flipping won’t help to get supply to your tower, but holding the camp.

Dollie escorting should give some rewards (yes I am aware of the issues with dolie escorting rewards, never the less, a reward should be given).

One shouldn’t get a gold event reward when blinking the last second into the circle for capturing the camp.

There are endless examples of rewards in the reward system, that don’t make any sense. And lowering over all drop rate in WvW just to implement a cahmpion loot box just encourages more Zerging and tower flipping, even after that has been pointed out as a problem by the community already. Looking at the state of the game after almost a year since release, I must say: This supposed to be perfect at release date game is everything but perfect, and the ANet team, asside from fixing culling, is screwing it up with each update I feel. No hopes of ever having a better thought through reward system in GW2.

Funny how some ppl label rangers, thiefes and even warriors useless. One might wonder if those individuals have even played WvW. I love my (still upleveled, corrently lvl 36) ranger with his longbow, I can go even with many of the lvl 80 pugs of the opposing servers. I have to see, how it goes once I am lvl 80 and fully equiped with exotic and ascended. And my thief is just amazing in WvW fights and small scale raids. Shortbow, as I have mentioned elsewhere already, is one of the strongest ZvZ weapons I can think of, due to a decent dmg sustain on multiple targets, quick ability to go out of harms way due to #5 and constant blast finisher due to #2. I like my thief in ZvZ better than my heavy condtion necro (cuz thos conditions don’t stay for long, condition cleanse in ZvZ=OP^^).

Well, the easiest way would be then, if one of you would allways go with thief. So u have shadow refuge available. That should protect you enough. Or you both choose combinations where you can keep up swiftness and maybe additional some defensive boons. Otherwise I can only remind you to Korgov’s post.

Korgov.7645:

• Get run speed. Less time you spend on roads the less likely it is you bump into a thief. Constant Swiftness, teleports/leaps…

• Move with zerg. The blue badge on map shows you where to go.

• Stay close to safe zones. Run into spawn, tower/keep, off a cliff (if it kills you get no repair cost), into water (thieves hate getting wet).

• Take routes less travelled by. The maps are big enough to avoid the usual gank locations. For example each spawn area has 3 exists.

• Practice PvP. Good training opponents are warriors and rangers for their straightforward play style. Once you learn to dodge the Hundred Blades, reflect Rapid Fire, retarget after Hunter’s Shot, you are better off encountering thieves.

• Do not take defeating or forcing thief to escape as your goal yet. It will take frustratingly long time to get there.

• Wear Vitality/Toughness heavy gear.

• Select defensive utility skills/traits: Stability, condition removal, stunbreakers.

• Select control skills/traits. Crippling, knockbacks, stuns, area denial can help you escape better.

• Use invisibility if available. Invisibility is very annoying for the thieves to chase against too. Change your direction or go around a corner right after you enter invisibility.

Exactly this. You could also ask your guild for help or other ppl in the map chat of WvW. Thieves might still try to engage a big group of players, but if you’re not fighting the thief and keep running (group swiftness) and supporting yeach other, he has to give up or waste his time. Don’t listen to the “you can’t escape them anyway” posts. Thieves can be outrun effectivly, if you follow the hints given by Korgov.7645. They might get close to you, but then they will be less effective due to their low initiative. So don’t get iritaded, if a thief chases after you and reaches you, keep running and try to find save spots (like keeps, towers, etc.).

If all doesn’t work and the thief is still after you and u can’t shake him, try to invite him into your group (select him and use the party menu to invite). There is a small chance he might accept and you could ask him to leave you allone. Otherwise there is only practice. I have practice in chasing thieves for they were the most annoyence when I started WvW and therefoer I started my WvW builds focus on them, but you can get the same practice in running from them.

I yesterday annyoed one of my friends with my ranger in some sPvP duels with stealthing all the time. Yes, rangers have that too, never saw a ranger utilize that one effectivly in WvW, but when I’m lvl 80, I’ll show u how it’s done. The thief “problem” is from my standpoint not the stealth, but the insane healing they can get when fully traiting the shadow arts trait line.

From my experience any profession can be over the top, if players are good enough and the situation is the right one. I get complaints all the time. “Necro has so much CC and that annoying Condition spike”, “Mesmer Phantasm are just OP”, “kitten thiefs and their lame D/P perma stealth”.

In WvW you have often lower skill level being steam rolled by higher skill level. Pll don’t wanna accept that and say it’s because of the professions they use. And that ain’t changin’ with no balance update ever.

That was you? Nice. I was on a rampage, cuz 2 WSR defeated me in their camp, but I was too lazy to go up to spirits again. Sry, you were the closest targets :P

No idea what u’re talking about. I was bussy killing a group of 3 Vabbi 1h ago^^

That alliance had only sence, when both servers where at the buttom. Now it makes more sense to me, if Vabbi and WSR teamed up against us.

Face it ppl. I am the most awesomest of awesome awesomeness.

I get your point. But many players don’t admit at all, that transferring to another server might help the skill lag. If the community would finally understand that, then we would have the chance to get united through to Anet to allow guild transfers.

And transferring to lower tier servers should be free or at least cheaper than the other way arround.

Strangly, I hardly experience a skill lag… oh wait, yes I play on a low tier server…

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

TyPin.9860:

does it need a nerf?

Warrior can stack 25 on a person easily. And keep it there…

On a real thinking person (meaning any half decent player) or on some mob? I think I’ll have to go to WvW and see that for myself. Also, my necro and mesmer would return the favor and give you those stacks back :P

does it need a nerf?

That rune sounds “worse” than it is. A confusion mesmer can with some alterations now stack even more confusions. That doesn’t make confusion a better condition. And while Mesme have the most abilities to stack confusion, it is not the only one. My mesmer stacks in the first secs of a fight up to 8-12 bleeds, and while the fight goes on, I can stack bleed faster than necro.

However, while it sounds theoreticly awfull to have tons of confusions stacked on you through this rune, it still has to be done doing interrupts. I actually like the idea behind that rune, so maybe more player will focus on interrupting rather focus on big dmg numbers. Also, confusion remains a very predictable condition. If you are confused, you should avoid using skills, making it harder for your opponent to stack more confusion via interrupt. Let’s please wait some time and see how this rune turns out. I bet it won’t be such a big deal in some weeks any more.

lol, your “logic” is undenieable…

Is there, or is there not an unbalance for casual players, that favor thief? I think yes. You seem to deny that and by saying, I am a low level thief, you say I can not judge the balance between professions played out on a casual player level.

To judge casual player level balance, I don’t even have to be better than casual player level. However, you are right that judging the impact of changes in the game on higher player level, one should have experience in this regard.

We can now discuss days, if I meet the requirements for you to admit my skill is above average, or we could try to discuss the topic:

As I have stated above, I have droped my idea about stealth exhaustion. What would you say, with your huge experience and unparaleled player skill, would be the impact on the top thief player level if we removed stealth stacking (shadow refuge, as stated, excluded)?

P.S.: I couldn’t stop myself from puting some sarcasm in here I apologize^^

I didn’t fight that many condition neros myself. But I seemed to have no real issue with them. I use mirror for healing and also focus traited, so I have quite some skill to reflect their skills. Especially if they wanna use deathly swarm (that is critical, I run rampager setup [20/20/10/20/0] and apply up to 25 bleeding if the fight takes long enogh, I don’t want them to put those bleeds back on me). Works mostly like a charm^^

On the other hand, when I play my heavy condition dmg necro, I have usually no issues fighting mesmer. Except this one time, where a mesmer stunned me and threw me arround like a ball. This is maybe a good way to start, necros usually have just a few or (if it’s my nero) even no stun breaker. If I anticipate my opponent wrong with my necro, then I am mostly roast.

Torras.8406:

I think duels in sPvP is fairer than in WvW.
And you will see a real strong man on duel.

I see sPvP as honrable fair fighting in the arena, testing your skill against each other, while WvW dueling is more like the “real” world fighting, where you can use every dirty trick^^

That said, I also find the build variety in sPvP less, for you have less possibilities to build your character. I like to go arround in WvW and not use any food buffes, that makes victory over a fully buffed person so much sweater. I like to pick my duels in the heat of the battle, suprising my enemy or being suprised.

Granted, playing in sPvP would propably increase my skill level way better, but it seems just not that apealing to me. I rather fight in the dirty real world.

I start to tend to this too. I droped my stealth exhausion idea already. It created more confusion than it could contribute. Also I admit that it would propably hurt the higher skill levels more, because casual players wouldn’t propably even realize that there is smth shimering^^. So what does the theif community think about not stacking stealth, without my stealth exhausion idea?

As far as I see it, you can still remain for long time stealthed, it is just not that easy any more for P/D to chain stealth with BP and 3 times HS through it. To chain stealth, you would need to time your stealth better, meaning, when it is about to run out, you would reaply new stealth either replacing the old stealth or just simply (as it is with mesmers) would have now 2 stealth buffs next to each other as long as the first stealth didn’t run out.

@Travlane.5948
Why are you insisting of us dueling? And how could I show you video evidence, when I am talking about a skill level below mine? There is no point in that to serve the purpose of this discussion. What I put out are suggestions, that can’t even be shown as of now…

About CnD:

Also, CnD was __hit (filter -.-) hard by the blind buff. You have to get near to the opponent and actually waste an attack on them (potentially getting blinded again) to be able to get your CnD off. I miss 2 CnD and i have to run for my life.

He clearly talks about chaining CnD. If he wanna use steal, he could say so, but he doesn’t.

swinsk.6410
You will be ignored now, for you seem not to read my post. Also your useing a 2nd time the l2p troll phrase labels u a troll imho.

Stealth exhausion
Besides the many trolls here I see that stealth exhaustion might connected with too many issues as it seems.

Stealth Stacking
Still I believe that should not happen. Stealth doesn’t need to stack and would especially effect lower skilled theif players, I think. The comparison to mesmer is valid. They have allways available one evade (up to 4 sec if tratied and shattering 3 illusions) on long cd and a 2nd arround 2sec with sword. They don’t have invul. But also those evade skills don’t stack.

Why is there the need for theives to stack stealth and for mesmer not?

And another question to those: “I play onyl Thief”-guys. If you have only played thief, how can u tell actually if there is a balance? You could not know how easy or hard it is for others to deal with you. You might be a realy bad player and could only win, cuz thief is imba (not that I believe that is the case, but how can u know that?). I believe one has to play many professions to judge if there is a balance or not.

@Travlane.5948
Your bragging about how good you are(n’t) doesn’t help the discussion. Again (I start to believe ppl don’t read the whole of my posts), I want to see balance for casual level players, where the stealth is giving thieves an advantage, that other casual players can not deal with, even if the thief is a casual player himself. You might be way out of my league, or I might eat you allife. Doesn’t matter for this discussion for the level of play, I am talking about, is below both our skill levels.

And I still can not understand the claims, that theif can not contribute to group or zerg fights. I with my thief can strangly. Pre and mid fight combo finisher, multiple hits with shortbow one, shadow refuge for multiple applications with organized group, picking of to far extended foes, dagger storm and more (and I am mainly talking about shrotbow here, not counting in main hand pistol theives, who could put great preassure on a single target). Hell, I can not count how many guys I have stoped entering their tower with stealth and shortbow #1, so that my Zerg can pick’em off. I don’t like throwing the l2p phrase arround, but it seems that some thieves should improve their group fighting. I agree that 900 range is a bit short, but as far as my experienve goes, it is enough.

@Iavra.8510:
I don’t understand your argument. CnD can not be chained for you will be revealed. If you mean you reapply it in the very right moment, then stealth exhaustion will not come into play, for one time using CnD will cloak you 3-4 seconds, stealth exhausion would only apply if you cloak for >4 seconds. But multiple stealth with CnD require you to pop out of stealth (even just for a blink of an eye) before you reapply it, making stealth exhaustion no issue for you.

@swinsk.6410
I have no issues fighting thieves. Your l2p comment serves nothing and shows you didn’t understand the intention I have, or u just wanted to add some insult in the end, serving no value in a disussion. Yes there are traps, but they are a bad desing. Why should any1 be forced to use supply (and if it has to be used often money) to coutner stealth. But countering stealth is not what is intended anyway and as I said, on a high level of player skill, stealth is not an issue any more. I wish to have a balance on a lower skill level. Casual thiev against any other casual profession. But that balance doesn’t exist. On casual levels theives have an advantage. And using CnD and HIS together would still be possible. You first would have to time your skills, for the stealth wouldn’t stack. And if you time it good enough, you would drop out of stealth for a mini second after CnD and reaply new stealth again with HIS and stealth exhaustion would even come into play, but you would be seen for a blink of an eye (depending on your timing). A minor effect imho. As a mesmer, I use that strategy all the time (cuz as mentioned, many mesmer stealth skills don’t steack stealth) and it works fine with some pratice. I might test that in real fight situations with theif and see if it affects play.

If you are against my suggestions, do you have others how to balance thief on casual level? Or does every player have to l2p just to defeat even casual thief players?

@Iavra.8510
With stealth exhaustion implemented, it would nerf perma stealth already. And traiting Stealth Focus (to prevent stealth exhaustion) would cause the theif to drop either health gain in stealth or condition remove in stealth. Leading still to a nerf of the build.

Alternative: remove stealth stacking only
On the other hand, if we drop the stealth exhaustion idea and would remove stealth stacking over all (except for shadow refuge, cuz that skill would be useless then), could be a solution also. Thieves would then need to time their stealthing skills and it would be esaier to implement in the game.

GW2 promised all the stars in heaven, and in the beginning, like all new relationships, it was exciting and new. But after some time, when the passion is gone, you start seeing, what’s really there.

GW2 was a nice affair, and I might hook up with that game once or twice again. But the stars that were promised are still far away. The passion is gone.

I am talking about WvW. But you are assuning wrong. I play my thief not that often as my mesmer, agreed, but I didn’t play it just for some hours. I zerged with thief and I roamed with it. Actually zerging with thief is absolutely awesome (and I play also a necro, who is rediculously strong in Zerg fights). All who say thief can not Zerg are plainly wrong. Shortbow is one of the strongest Zerg weapons I have ever seen. I am the one stacking might on my team, or heals together with the players placing the right AoE combo fields on the ground. And short bow can be used as condition, direct dmg or hybrid dmg weapon. It is widely underestimated.

You also seem to missunderstand my stealth exhaustion idea or I didn’t explain it well enough. The exhaustion would only start after some seconds in stealth. Let’s say 4 seconds and will last for 3 after you left stealth. So the usual CnD and attack or hide in shadows wouldn’t even be effected. Only if you chain up stealth, you would get the shimering (what they might have to make a bit less seeable, I admit, for the purpose of balance). So both, the stacking of stealth (or the non stacking) and the stealth exhaustion do effect only players, who wanna go for a long period of stealth. Mesmer for example have to deal with non stacking stealth since the beginning, for many of their cloak skills do not stack with each other.

I allways saw thief as balanced, before I played them myself. Now that I started playing thief, I realized how easy they have it. It is rediculously easy. I play as S/D and D/P thief and with both I am just wining constantly.

The balance about thief is in many cases a l2p issue, I agree with that. However, it is mostly a l2p issue for the non theives, while the thieves have it very easy from the start. You can not balance a game only on the high levels of player skill, you have to think also about casual players. And here the casual thieves have a significant advantage.

Again, I personally have no problem with theives, I just eat them allive^^, but I consider myself not as a casual player. If theives would start admitting this, we could start talking about some real balancing, that would effect casual players more than the more skilled ones, who usually have more awareness about waht’s happening as the casual ones.

Domey.9804:

fyi: your idea would also affect d/d , s/d builds very much, which are not as easy to play as d/p and have no access to permastealth.

In what way. My S/D thief would not be effected by that. My stealth would trigger the same. Neither stealth axhaustion, nor stealth stacking would be an issue for my S/D thief, except for shadow refuge.

I have some ideas for some adjustment to thieves. The reason I would like to see some changes is the following. If you exclude the ability to get out of a fight, the thief is quite balanced on the top level of player skill. A good player should be able to face any thief at any time and give that dude still a challange. But on the lower level of the game, thieves are defenetly favoured compared to the other professions imho.

With my thief I win almost any engagments in WvW, because I can choose my engagments and when to engage. Hell I can make my opponent waste their utilities, before I even really comitted to the attack.

However, I have 2 alterations in mind. the 1st would force the thief to skill 30 points in stealth, if he wants to rely on stealth, even on higher skill level. The other one would make stealth less effective on the lower skill level:

• New trait Stealth Focus (Grandmaster major stealth trait):
  This trait comes with another change to stealth itself. If not traited, stealt would basicly work as we know it, but would come with a stealth exhaustion buff (the buff icon would not be visible for opponent, only applies after some seconds in stealth). This stealth exaustion onle fades, if the thief doesn’t stealth for some short time (maybe for 3 secs, so applying only if you attempt to permastealth). If traited Stealth Focus, this stealth exhaustion wouldn’t happen. What stealth exhaustion does: it creates a slight shimer, where the thiev is (similar to how stealth looks like to the theif itself and allies), still granting the chance to see the thief and attack him with AoE. But he can not be targeted directly still. This mechenaic would force the thief to trait that skill and he would’t be able to trait for health regen in stealth, condition remove in stealth and initiative for stealth skill in the same time, so basicly perma stealth would be nerved a bit one or the other way.
• no stealth stacking
  Equal to the many mesmer stealth abilities, the stealth from different sources would not stack (combo finisher counting as the same source). As far as I can see it, the gameplay doesn’t change dramitcly but significantly enough to make theif lass strong on the lower skill levels, creating some balance there.

What do you think? As far as I can see it, higher skill level thieves would be able to somewhat coutneract those changes and still be effective, while lower skilled thieves would suffer a bit giving other low skill players a better chance.

But they don’t call it statisitcs, they call it achievment. It creates by default player frustration, when they put smth in the game, call it achievment and make it virtually unachievable.

speak for yourself, I do other things in WvW

Bah, why u are so many. I can deal with 3 of you, but with 30?

I had the same problem. After the 3rd try it worked. I changed my password afterwards, cuz u never know^^

There was once a commander on FoW who was like a big … you know, he was not a nice guy. I won’t say a name. Players who were arround at the time he was in our server know, who I’m talking about. He could be very nice, if all went very good, but the moment we lost momentum, or didn’t even gain any, he went berserk in the chat, insulting the whole server in the worst manner sometimes.

But he moved to another server (maybe you encountered him now^^) because we were to bad for him… now most of the time FoW map chat is nice and all about friendly WvWing (friendly to us, not to our opponents^^)

I agree with you that it takes too much time until we see an effort to fix the problem. I remember at the release that I phase retreated with my mesmer under the earth constantly. I wrote propably like 20 bug reports on this issue allone until it was fixed.

The question is, if ppl, who complain here in the forum, write bug reports in game. Just a vague description in the forum is just not enough. On the other hand, the bug report system in GW2 doesn’t give you the feeling that your report will be looked at. You could send those reports into the void and would have the same feeling about it’s effects.

And what do u do, when u have only vague describtions? You try to recreate the error yourself with the information you have. However, the time it takes from first encountering the issue until you see an recognizable effort from ANet is just plainly too long.

The ppl claiming character bound WXP has a reason to be there should list those reasons (or did I overread a post where this was done?). I find no point in making them character bound for the reasons already said several time before me.

Mainly the problem is that you punish players with multiple alts (as I am one of those players). The different build argument is wierd, for a player who only play with one character has all the WXP on that character instead of having them spread arround, making him able to have all the different “builds” on one character.

urak.4863:

Would love to see Bronze Assaulter commander uplevelled running around… Lol.

I saw upleveled generals already in WvW… karma train gets u anywhere apearently.

I completely agree with the OP.

Rookni.2469:

All the reports so far from players have been like

“Hey Anet. Towers are bugged. Can glitch through doors using leaps, smashes, teleports etc. Please fix”

And Anet have been all like

“Nope, not really sure. This is vague. Not sure What they mean with glitch through the door to get inside tower”

Then one of the devs glitch through the door

“Aaaaaah so this is what they ment by glitching through the door”

Aaaand this is why we only get Catapult Mastery

This report is very vague indeed. Were you hugging the gate or not? Was some siege arround? Were you attacking it all by urself? Which skill did u use, making u end up on the other side? With what professions are you experiencing this? Which towers are you talking about, just a few or all of them? And so on. Also talking about your connection and if you experience lags and so on (could be a communication error between server and client)…

Player reports are very vague and looking at what needs to be done in programming to understand some of the glitches require more, than you say ppl admitted. Instead of many ppl just trashing down a 2 liner on the bug, a bug report needs to include a bit more for the programmer to make sense.

This said, I agree that the delay between the first reports on this issue and the time you see a ANet guy investigating it is quite long…

Lol, some ppl are funny. Sometimes I spend all evening on dolly escorting and camp retaking + supply upgrade. That allone (is expensive, if done on regular bases, but) helps out my server a lot, to keep defending that one keep or be able to upgrade it and siege it up.

Trolling this one 5 man team with my thief also has stoped it from achieveing anything else. Again, I do not win smth here, but my server does.

There are so many on my server with much much more WXP (espellially when my WXP are spread over 3 characters), but I dare to say that I am one of the best of my server in matters of backround work and roaming or as some say backlining.

Backlining can be done in several ways:

• baiting the enemy Zerg into your own
• securing supply income
• scouting
• intercepting other backlinign teams
• … [add more if youn wish, the list ain’t complete]

Every1 saying small groups and roamers can not contribute to their server is plainly simply wrong. Especially if all your server is trying to defend SM and you and your friend are the only ones taking care, that SM has supply income.

My salutes to this BT engeneer (at least I believe it was an engie, it happened all so quickly) in EB with the [vvv]-tag, who killed my mesmer super quickly. Granted, I am a bit out of practive with my mesmer, but it was a hell of a burst you put out there. Looking forward to take you on in another 1v1 (killing you in the Zerg gave me a kind of sadisfaction, but it has a bad taste after all^^).

I roam on necro, mesmer and thief and I find they have their up and downsides. Thief has the best escape ebilities and can easier then the other 2 professions take on mutliple opponents on the same time. On the other hand, capping camps is harder with my thief. With my necro I can easily take on any 1v1 and even 1v2 (depending on skill level on coordination of those 2). Capping camps is super fast and easy and taking care of mercenarries in EB is super quickly done. Most thieves are one of the easiest targets of my necro. My mesmer has a middle thing of both, having some good escape abilities (and lately I am trying out a manipulation and reflection build) also has some nice tankieness. Also taking camps and mercenarries is quite easy and I can take on 1v1 till 1v3 even.

So my concusion is, that all professions I have some experience with (necro, mesmer, thief) have potential to roam solo, each one with their own strengths and weaknesses. The one but who plays WvW for the badges and the WXP/Karma/silver, will find thieves the worst. The onw, who is a tue WvW player, not caring about those things but the enjoyment of WvW itself will find no real issue with them. I myself am looking out for thieves, to fight them for they are supposed to be the worst, not emntioning that a engenier yesterday killed me within seconds and I still don’t know how he did it^^ I killed him later in a Zerg fight (teleported behind the front line and focused him down, then I ran as hell) and got my revange^^

Aether McLoud.1975:

Mogar.9216:

ditch the zerg and learn to roam. Zerg is boring , roaming is not rewarding if you are after wxp but fun.

Only on thieves.

And on my necro, and on my mesmer… and I am sure others can add their professions too…

Lol, I see a commander tag and I know where I shouldn’t go^^ The experience of the OP is totally different to mine.

After some days my impression is the following:

Thieves have one advantage over all the other professions. They can choose their fights and when to fight. This gives the thief, especially when roaming, a strong advantage. Just a little example to illustrate:

Ty Pin (blue server) roams in the eternal battle grounds on the side of green. There she encounters a Zerg of maybe 20+ green Zerglings. Knowing she can get away she spies on the Zerg in plain sight reporting it’s movements to her allies. Soon 5 Green Zerglings break of the Zerg and advance on Ty Pin. This is when she decides to leave the scenery. Passing through the Hylek Camp, what is currently in the hand of green, she looks back and sees the 5 players still following her. Just for the challange she waits on the other side of the Hylek Camp to engage the 5 green Zerglings. But during the battle she makes some huge mistakes and ends up revealed in within the enemy group. She hacks away on one of the greenlings, evades and evades until she can stealth again. Here another group of 3 blues approaches the battle field while Ty Pin hides in a shadow refuge. One of the greenling retreats in the Hylek Camp, while the others choose to stay and fight. And their chances seemed good, until Ty Pin decides to pop out of stleaht and start a Dagger Storm right in front of one of their rangers. The moment the greenlings realized that, 2 of them were downed and the blue team can finish them of with ease leaving the other 2 to flee.

This is just one example of behaviour I encounter in WvW every day. All players were lvl 80. Granted, it is not the highest level of personal gameplay, but the strenghts of a thief are very very strong and favor the thief on an average players skill level.

Now I don’t wanna say, thief is OP. Taking camps solo for example on my necro is way way easier. But to roam arround is ridiculously easy.

@Sieg:
I find the shadow arts trait line very usefull. There are so many helpful traits helping you to survive. Other that that I like to use many steal-traits with my S/D build. Especially stealth and interrupt on steal is amazing. Combined with a well played S/D thief and increase in stun duration (and the mesmer runes for daze duration) you can keep one opponent most of the time doing nothing and it plays bsaicly like a variation of GW1 mesmer, who could make one target do nothing as well^^

I played a little more with my thief. It is actually rly easy to confuse ppl and throw them off. Once you get the hang of it, many ppl maneuver themselfes in a rly bad position. And you can finish them off. I guess with no other profession it is that easy to take on 3+ opponents and have a fairly good chance to win.

However, we are talking about balance. One has to consider, when thinking about balance, that there is a balance for casual players and one for very dedicated ones.

Casual Player Balance
In the casual level thieves are fairly strong. Here it is way easier through stealth to confuse and assault the opponent than it is to predict movements and attack patterns of the thief.

Dedicated Player Balance
Here the thief loses his advantage. Opponents know the most common builds and strategies of most professions. They either have played or fought most professions and builds and got their experience with them. So in result, they can anticipate the thieves behaviour or react fast enough to be able to defend against them.

So one has to consider the balance in both player levels when thinking about the strength of thieves…

I heared all the fuz about thieves so I decided to finally level my thief and equip her. I run a mix of Valkyrie and Berserker armor and use currently a D/P or a S/D build (depending on my mood^^). And I must say thief playes amazing. In Zerg or roaming thief can be a huge contribution and it was never so easy to fight 1v5 and have a chance to win

Unfortunatly I still lost this one 1v5, but that’s only because I got greedy and didn’t stealth early enough again^^ People rly stop attacking, once you entered stealth. Hell, they even stop moving, so it’s even easier to backstab them^^

My necro’s name is Rumple Stilts Skin, cuz my little mean Asura necro did experiments on babies^^

Ppl wanna see high dmg numbers. Therefor ppl go glass cannon (and therefor are just paper on the battle field) without rly having the reaction time or the battle field awareness to fight even an average thief. Therefor they say thieves are OP, because they get trolled and steam rolled by them, That’s my guess…