Guild Wars 2

I figured that this would be a bit bigger…. cuz its a desert, ya know? Instead its a hole in the ground.

YES! A GOOD ANTI-STEALTH IDEA!

you get my +1

Bows are for elves.
Elves are suck.
Therefore bows are suck.
Stop sucking, be a man and grab a sword.

infynity.5284:

6) RIfles on thiefs

Half agree with you on this because I like the idea of rifle thieves too… only its not very stealth-like, nor would it be very fair in my opinion. Stealth + Kill Shot = ROFLSAUCE

Solution: Shortbow Trait, +5% dmg and 300 range. Engineer gets one, why cant we?

Peace

Why do people assume that it is going to be like kill shot or a long ranged backstab? It isn’t. Do the math.

Neptune.2570:

Couldn’t agree more OP!
Also sometimes when I burst, thieves just dodge it, making my attack useless. So I suggest making thieves unable to dodge, evade or move whenever a warrior attacks.

100b should apply 1s immobilizes for the duration of the channel so the thief doesn’t move.

Don’t listen to the angry mob. Listen to someone who has theorycrafted the profession for almost 2 years. :P

I’ll start with some basic information to get you started, mainly on the basic themes of the weapon sets. You can choose your play style but the best thing to do is understand all of the weaponsets’ capabilities.

S/D – This is a great dueling build since it comes with plenty of neat tools for you to use. There are 5 skills but you actually have access to 7. Infiltrator’s Strike (#2) turns into Infiltrator’s return which is good to quickly move yourself out of AoE while removing a condition in the process. Flanking Strike (#3) is an evade which turns into Larcenous Strike. Both do a bit of damage and with LS you can steal a boon from your enemy as well. With C&D you can stealth but my favorite attack is Tactical Strike which Stuns from behind. Its powerful against the boon reliant.

S/P – This is your tanky weaponset. Just don’t ACTUALLY tank with it lol. The reason why I say “tanky” is because of the #3-5. In a melee weaponset, Black Powder seriously decreases the amount of hits you will take… so long as the foe stands in the tiny AoE. Head Shot also is a good interrupt because the attack is instant for immediately shutting down channeled skills. Pistol Whip shouldn’t really be used unless you know how to stop the second half. Or you can let it finish and use steal to get the most out of the attack. You are better off using the auto for damage though. You have to use this in a power build or else it’ll suck. :P

D/D – Is what I believe to be the bread and butter of the profession. It has access to stealth, AoE bleeds, gap closers and the most powerful attack the thief has access to. Its mainly meant for power, but it is possible to use it as a condition set. It is challenging to use but there are a few thieves out there who know how to use it effectively.

D/P – This is what people call the “troll” weaponset. It is due to the fact that it’s survivability relies on blind uptime and stealth but it’s real trick is the stealth that is applied after using heartseeker (#2) through black powder (#5). Now that is a pretty cool trick but the point of it is to stick to the enemy. Its main downside is that it eats initiative, so it really is something I do not like to touch.

P/D – This is your main condition set. It is “kite-tastic” and has the lowest initiative usage of every set. You can go heavy into Condition damage but I usually go Hybrid with it. In fact, I use P/D “Tri-brid” in dungeons to keep the party from dying while keeping conditions on enemies and pewpewing them to death. The main thing about this set is it’s combo attack Shadow Strike which is what keeps you away from melee enemies. It also hits a little hard.

P/P – This weaponset has the second most mobility of all the thief weaponsets. It is meant as a power weaponset simply because your auto attack’s DPS is lackluster and you’ll most likely end up using Unload alot. You do have the tankiness of pistol offhand however so you can definitely hold your own.

Shortbow – This has the most in combat mobility in my opinion. You have Disabling shot and Infiltrator’s Arrow to keep your positioning solid as well as Cluster Bomb which goes really well with Signet of Malice when fighting groups of melee players. The autoattack works well too. But it’s trick is the ability to spam blast finishers. If you are in a small group, having a Shortbow with a Fire Sigil on it and SoM equipped makes it the best AoE thief will ever get.

Hope this helps any…

Kolly.9872:

This explains how low is the pvp level in this game

It does. Its common knowledge that at least 90% of the players in WvW are bad.

Shockwave.1230:

Stealth has made a lot of people disgruntled since launch, lots of threads on it, numerous thread merges for it.

I was one of those people that didn’t like it, because my first main I made was elementalist. I had no clue how stealth worked, because I didn’t have access to it, so I couldn’t figure out what its strengths and weaknesses were. Then I started playing my thief more in PvP it made sense why it was the way it was, because stealth was balanced around the thief having low survivability.

Most people complaining in the forums don’t have very much experience playing as thief in PvP, or even mesmer. You can’t get superior positioning to deal ranged damage as thief, you can’t out sustain someone in a fight, you have to rely on your dodges, blinds, stealths, and evades. You also have to deal damage way faster than your opponent because they will have more sustain than you do. It’s probably the least forgiving profession to play, and that’s one of the draws of the profession in my eyes.

That all said, I totally understand why people complain about the thief, and that’s why I think it’s important to explain how to counter stealth builds. It’s something that is different than most of the other professions, and because thief is a snowflake and stands out there’s this natural psychological behavior to make the snowflake conform.

Shockwave knows. I would not be surprised if one of the regular anti-thiefs replied with a bullcrap excuse, though.

However, it isn’t so simple as trying to make a snowflake conform but to guard a demolished ego. Let me explain….

For a person to be blindsided by something they do not know anything about is enough to throw someone into a desperate panic. Being caught offguard like increases the chances that they will not recover from the initial assault and oftentimes the player winds up dead before they can properly react.

But the damage dealt to the player is two-fold. Dying in under a few seconds not only creates a feeling of being wronged but the death alone also puts a metaphorical sign above the player’s head saying “I suck” (which not alot of people care).

Now, it really isn’t that bad to die like that because there is always learning from mistakes made. In this case, the mistake made was a lack of situational awareness and timing which is something you need to maintain at all times in an open world pvp environment. Simply upping your game is enough to keep that stigma off of you.

Even if the player saw it coming and still melted, they can still reflect on the progression of the battle to determine the the causes that led to the player’s death. If the causes can’t be found through reflection, then seeing the battle from the other player’s point of view always helps.

However, that failure sticks and intensifies the more the player denies they have made a mistake. That pride is the root cause of every flame and troll generated from anti-thief threads. That pride needs to be addressed in everyone even if it takes outside sources to do so.

It starts by accepting that you failed and listening to the helpful and experienced player’s advice, not labeling their words as biased because “they are just defending their class”.

They introduced that to keep you guys quiet, just like they gave thieves a trait that halves damage while stealthed to make us stop rioting so hard.

That is your opinion.

My—race—of—choice—would—be—Golem.

No they don’t. If you actually tried, you can aim your shots by holding down the right mouse button and using your head as crosshairs.

Seriously, try it. Hold down the right mouse button and aim at something with your head. Now use the Left mouse button and move the camera slightly to the side and watch where it flies off to.

Then come back and tell me you really need a target.

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

I concur.

I switch out alot between sets but I usually use x/p and shortbow.

Head Shot would be spammed to punch through Defiant and Black Powder to keep downed players from dying too quickly. When the group was having a hard time I would try to draw aggro with stealth blasts while using clusterbomb to help me regen some health back.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Zacchary.6183:

EDIT: Secondly, why the hell are you burning skills while a thief is in stealth? Bust out your auto.

Auto only works if you’re not using weapons that have cleave. If they don’t, there’s no point because you will not hit anything.

Yes it will. If a projectile hits something in stealth, it will deal damage and disappear unless it has piercing. Then it will just keep flying. If the stealthed enemy is in front of you and you are swinging with a (let’s just say) dagger, it is going to clip him and the chain will progress.

Try it sometime.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Zacchary.6183:

All the time.

I said without.

You also said:

Nova Stiker.8396:

and be viable?

In which I replied:

Zacchary.6183:

All the time.

All the time.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

That’s not dodging any question, please reread. Your root cause issue, is that you don’t know where your target is, I provided how you know where your target is.

I also noted that players using stealth inflict a “polar opposite counter” on themselves, which is also true.

You for some reason are fixated on this concept of a polar opposite counter having to exist for your own personal use, when that’s simply not true. Invincibility has no polar opposite counter, teleporting has no polar opposite counter. Plus the polar counter does exist for stealth anyways, players just inflict it upon themselves.

Quite simply it is your opinion that this “polar opposite counter” should be readily available to you, instead of being implemented in the way that it is. Whereas it is ANet’s opionion that it should be the way that it is currently.

It is dodging the question, you avoid answering it by simply trying to shift the discussion back to your own personal thinking of what a counter is.

Fixated? Are you sure about that one? The only thing I do is continue to bring the accepted definition of what a counter is back into the discussion. Which again involves opposites, you act like I made up the definition. Maybe you should seek out the creator of it since you seem to have a problem with it.

The accepted definition of a counter is a way to respond that will negate or reduce the impact of the initial action. For example, you would counter a larger force with strategies, tactics, or advanced technology like formations, flanking, or modern weapons.

You can negate the impact of stealth by doing things that I and others have suggested.

You don’t have to agree with the accepted definition, but that’s okay.

There is truth in what you are saying, but its a bit deceptive. The only reason why counter would be used in context with your example is if the strategists figured they had a equal force to oppose the larger one. It would not be a counter without the equal force.

Regardless, none of this has nothing to do with your listed counters for stealth. How would be dropping aoe in a random place be a equal force to stealth. Better yet how does it negate or lessen the effect of stealth?

On its own stealth is a debuff that also prevents you from being seen. The only postive effect is that it gives you opportunities, nothing more nothing less. So what you do is negate those opportunities via the various means that people such as myself have suggested.

It also drops target and prevents any skills that require a target to be used…which is about 60-70% of them. It’s a huge advantage to have, and it does need a hard counter. Considering everything else in this game has a hard counter except this…it’s about time it got one too. But put it on skills that people normally do not take, so it turns into a “this is useful against stealth” skill.

The only people who can really complain about that are mesmers. A great majority of the skills in this game can be activated and even aimed with by holding down the Right Mouse button while using your head as a reticle.

EDIT: Secondly, why the hell are you burning skills while a thief is in stealth? Bust out your auto.

K.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Next-Weapon-Set-Rifle/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/New-weapon-OFFHAND-SWORD/first#post4008202

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/The-Broken-problem-LONG-POST/first#post4099919

Nope. My ideas are better.

Trahearne dies. (or so you think)
Divinity’s Reach gets attacked by some random group.
Scarlet returns from the wtfbbq plane and becomes Caithe 2.0.
Braham and Rox have yo-yoing relationship issues.
<Insert Plant Dragon Champ> reveals himself. (becuz we already had a she-villain)
<Insert Plant Dragon Champ> wakes/summons/somethings plant dragon.
<Insert Plant Dragon Champ> gets killed by DE 2.0.
<Insert Plant Dragon Champ> and plant dragon mini appears in gem store.

Behellagh.1468:

Zacchary.6183:

If they really want to make money, then they need to get rid of the Gold > Gem and then start putting more desirable things on the gemstore (convenience items).

Gold to Gem funds Gem to Gold. And if you’ve ever spent time looking at the Exchange Rate charts you will see bumps up in the rates every time something highly desirable appears, reappears or goes on sale in the Gem Shop which is caused by the flood of gold to gems.

To be technical, GW2 shouldn’t have either of them. It keeps potential money from going into the store and at the same time completely destroying any prestige a Legendary has. And despite what the white knights think, it also turns a game into P2W.

Having overpriced items on the store doesn’t help either.

If they really want to make money, then they need to get rid of the Gold > Gem and then start putting more desirable things on the gemstore (convenience items).

This community understands the power of forum tears. We all crave them (eventually) because it is so abundant and everflowing. Every time some out-of-keep afking new player gets ganked in wvw, they come on here and complain about a thief’s 200k eviscerate. That is the power that draws us in and coerces us into typing something that would likely lead to an infraction.

This is a burden on us to the point where we simply give into, and sometimes embrace, our inner flaming troll. Well I have a treat for you!

I call it Tearmancy.

The way it works is whenever someone dies and complains about thieves on any chat medium, they are inflicted with Tear stacks. These tears are generated depending on the profession and severity of ignorance on the thief profession and their own. Thieves use up the Tear stacks on these players to produce a variety of effects. I shall list a few of them:

Mark of Terra Badd (40 tears)
When a marked players dies, a sign is shown above their head in proportion to how outnumbered their enemy was. If the marked player kills a player while outnumbered in combat, they are immune to Mark of Terra Badd for 24 hours per player they have killed.

Ragequit Venom (100 tears)
Foes affected by Ragequit Venom that die will be immediately downed after waypointing by a summoned thief that will perform a Backstab and then dissappear. This will randomly occur once every 1-8 minutes . Venom effect lasts one hour. Unblockable.

Flame Bubble (25 tears)
Reflect any and all rage messages aimed at you directly back at the player. Messages generated are based on profession and are in the form of 1337speak. Messages are unignorable.

Duration: 1 minute

What are your ideas on this, thief forumites?

Bumpity

There is no such thing as a friendly environment when you have players who feel they are entitled to a free kill.

This and every other thief related thread in this subforum needs to get dumped into the thief forums where they belong. All they are for is to get sympathy from equally bad players so they all can make loud noises.

ShakeyStorm.7180:

Xter summarised it pretty clearly. Fighting a P/D thief in WvWvW is naturally hard.

L2P. Just run away.

Or you can get on an engi and spam grenades. That works too.

I should go get a bunch of likeminded people to report this thread, since this is another thread where every inexperienced player wants an “I win button” for a whole profession.

You mean 1v3 bad players?

Johje Holan.4607:

7. Remove all traits and skills and anything else that increases damage when attacking from stealth.

SUGGESTION IMPLIMENTED!

There never was any.

ShakeyStorm.7180:

Correction anti-stealth. And I am not for removing or providing a “one button” counter for stealth. Just toning it down a bit.

Just so happens thief abuses Stealth to the point that it becomes obvious that without stealth, they do not know how to play.

Warriors have been in worse situations but we try different builds. Even the most laughable ones sometimes results in something good.

Perhaps it is time that the Thief players L2P without depending on Stealth too much.

Like how warriors abuse passives to the point they just don’t know how to play? Alright.

Why should I have to do anything beyond disregarding it’s validity? Its apparent that you are inexperienced and just recently got your kitten handed to you by a thief, hence your spree of anti-thief comments (looking at your post history).

And what’s worse is you are a warrior. Your profession is the golden child of this game with the most viability in every game mode. It could be argued that the counter to a warrior is another warrior because the proffession can fulfill all roles in combat and do them well. So you are calling the kettle black if there was a kettle in the first place.

All of them (sept d/p).

It doesn’t matter if this is just a stealth thread. Stealth is one of three survival mechanic that thieves have to rely on so simply talking about stealth puts the thief profession into question.

Yeah, Mesmers and Rangers have access as well but their professions doesn’t really need it to survive in a fight. Thieves do because their condition clear and stunbreaks suck so so flat out avoiding everything is the better option.

If you really want stealth to become lackluster, then provide some compensation instead of following the footsteps of every other anti-thief.

Good job taking my statement out of context.

Five points to you.

ShakeyStorm.7180:

MidoriMarch.8067:

Zacchary.6183:

@ unlucky

If thieves are so OP, why aren’t you playing one?

isnt it obvious because if they play thief they suck at it and if others play thief they get owned and they QQ nerf QQ

So are you implying that all the Thief players who say L2P are actually giving useless advise because of a very real possibility that not all can play Thief properly?

You don’t have to play thief properly to play against a thief properly. You just simply have to understand what the capabilities of the profession are. That is why experienced thieves spam L2P.

Oh look, another anti-stealth thread with no reasonable suggestions.

@ unlucky

If thieves are so OP, why aren’t you playing one?

moar bumpity

Bumpity.

soistheman.7208:

the best anti-thief suggestion!

fixed*

That’s what you guys REALLY want.

Its like they are trying to find things on the thief to nerf.

Morale Destroying Trap – Places a debuff that posts demoralizing comments on the player’s chat that questions their ability to play. The messages cannot be blocked or ignored and can generate anything from leetspeak to insults based on their profession.

Go to one of the few players that have precursors fall in their lap every month and make them your friend. Free precursor.

No. That chilled idea is horrible. That 66% reduction essentially triples universal cooldown.

You are asking for a hardcounter to the whole profession. Look at your skills, multiply your skill CDs by 3. Now think about how badly that sucks.

You guys are still mad she won the election. Lol.

This is a nice depiction of what happens to people who afk outside a keep.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Zacchary.6183:

Stealth becomes extremely powerful against players when said players rely on their skills more than their skill.

Seems like an odd thing to say when a thief, for example, has multiple skills that give them instant stealth. Particularly in the context of thieves that rely on stealth.

It is odd that after 2 years the same players have not learned anything from their experiences with thieves. Using 1 out of 3 survival mechanics on a profession that allows it isn’t odd.

Johje Holan.4607:

I have succumbed. I switched my thief to a stealth thief. I feel so dirty. But Anets bad design/balancing has forced me to do it.

Good. Maybe you’ll learn something.

Kukchi.6173:

Ghostwolf.9863:

Nurf warrior.

Proof.

No valid argument. This thread is about thieves not warriors. Please leave this thread with your troll arguments.

This thread is a troll. You main a warrior. Unless you are literally using your face to play you should have zero problems with a thief.