Guild Wars 2

There are more ways to counter stealth than you described. There are no “given” ways to counter stealth, you have to think for yourself on how to go about doing it. It requires you to think carefully and actively.

Vs thief:
If they’re d/d, dodge, block, blind, or OoR their CnD.
If they’re d/p, interrupt the heartseeker, crowd control them, hit where their powder is. There are less ways to counter stealth with d/p thieves, but it’s doable.
If they’re in stealth, predict where they will be. This is much easier if you play a thief. Think “hmm, what is the thief trying to achieve at the moment and how would he/she position him/her self to do this?” That way you can have a better chance of hitting/cc’ing them while they are in stealth.
Also to have a much better chance at avoiding damage, constantly turn your character around. They get double damage with Backstab if they hit your back. So try to get hit in the front if they hit you.

Vs Mesmer:
This is harder to counter but the stealths are shorter. They can make illusions while they are stealthed, so I would wear down the illusions until they are out of stealth. Once they are out of stealth, wear them down as quickly as possible. Rinse and repeat. Same stuff about predicting where they will be, but not as important with Mesmer.

If that’s the case, maybe the title should be called “Condition changes needed”. This is about immobilize. If you wanna talk about all the conditions make a new thread.

Solution to your problems:
Don’t die in PvE
If you’re dying in a non-dungeon pve environment then you’ve got problems

You basically just have to anticipate when its going to pop. Even then, this trait still isn’t that good. When we’re struck UNDER the 25% health pool is when it pops. That means we can still be killed before it pops if we get hit for more than what health we have, which sucks. They need to maybe make the health threshold larger, like 33% ish, and make it so that if our HEALTH FALLS below the threshold it pops. This will make it much more reliable.

Also, maybe make it so that it cant reveal or be affected by reveal so that you don’t get killed for it.

Reducing and distance of Rush and the sword’s leap by 15%, but upping the damage GS does overall could help balance it out (Sword is a condition weapon, and would be fine without any damage modifiers after the leap nerf).

Yeah, this seems like a good idea. I don’t think whirl on GS should get a damage buff but everything else on GS im fine with a slight damage buff as long as rush and sword got a lower distance. Maybe change Rush to 900 and make it like RTL, and sword about 500.

BTW sorry for not putting this in profession balance. I forget its there sometimes X_X

It’d be cool if we got a trait that allows us to immobilize for a short time when we cripple, kind of like Leg Specialist for Warrior. Would make D/D 4 a bit more useful. If this actually happened I’d put it in the Critical Strikes traitline.

First of all I play d/d… Did you even take a chance to look up the build? Next I want to address that even when I play shadow arts it’s never boring for ME. I find great joy and thrill in playing it. I don’t know about you but I’m always trying to figure out when to strike or not and at the first sign of trouble I cnd. I’m not losing health in the firsts place, which I think is your problem.

People who sit in stealth aren’t actually killing their opponents, and that’s fine, because while they regenerate, the opponent can take the chance to heal up too. There’s already not much to gain from sitting in stealth. D/p permastealthing? Okay…but they’re not killing you. D/p IS a bit much at times but that’s besides the point. We’re already being rewarded for being active in the fight because we have our good burst out of stealth, and just the few first hits can determine the outcome of the fight.

If you’re just sitting in stealth in the first place you’re doing it wrong.

Also shadow arts should be more passive than the rest of the trait lines. Problem is, acro is our only other defensive trait line…and it sucks. Buff acro and make it an active play style. More build diversity will be introduced that way.

All this time I’ve been saying why reveal yourself to get the bonuses? I’ve said before that would kind if make it revealed arts, and it’s counter productive. I’m wondering if YOUVE been following what IVE been saying, you seem to be avoiding that point. I like your goal to make thief more of an active class but this isn’t the way to go imo. And on your points about sitting in stealth for 10 sec, you can’t really do that. I don’t play like that. I use my utilities only in defense because thief lacks defense. You’re implying that I use my shadow refuge offensively, which I do not. I think the reason for this conflict is because we have different play styles and builds. Look up iammugis build, that’s what I run. In interested to see what you run.

Anyways, I don’t want this to become an argument of immature name calling and blind rage. I’m just voicing my own opinions on the ideas that have been suggested.

We should have people play test this.

What benefits? All this is doing is making it harder to survive. This punishes people for being in stealth Whig is what shadow arts is about. I was talking about conditions because the title of this article has to do with shadow arts traits in stealth, and one of them is remove condos in stealth. I’m not saying it’s a great trait, but it’s our best one in that line. I was saying that because the whole point of this is to get your heal and condos removed on reveal, and as I keep on saying, that’s being counter productive. I’m trying to see the whole scope of things, looking at each detail and how it will be applied in combat. You’re overlooking a lot of things here.

As Shinjo said, this would make it a more dangerous, 2 part thing to remove conditions. And it can be pretty hard to hit people in the first place with d/d. Why should we have to hit people to get our bonuses? We get affected by blinds misses and blocks a lot more than most classes because we rely on hits already. It’s too risky to rely on hits even more. This is actually making it much harder to get bonuses. Thief is already a hard class, we don’t need more difficulty.

This just leaves thief with no defensive options, though. You would have to go full aggressive mode, risking getting tunnel visioned into dying. This would kill outnumbered fighting for thief. What happens when we try to be aggressive but the opponent I even more aggressive? There has to be balance for those who want to play aggressively and defensively. With my build 10/30/30 I can choose when I want to be aggressive and defensive because mug saves me a lot of time waiting to heal. The current system allows players to choose whether to attack or stay on the defensive.

The problem with that, deceiver, is that we melt outside of stealth . We would need more survivablilty to compensate. We would have no condi removal for that duration and we would have to waste a hide in shadows, unless you’re running withdraw.

As to evilapprentice, I like the idea of being active, I just don’t see how this is a buff defensively. I’m starting to open up to the idea more, you’re arguing this very well. But what happens when I get to about 2k health, my last refuge procs, I want to heal up but I have to reveal ourselves to get extra protection? Conditions ticking away, opponent still attacking. I suppose I could always shadow step away, but I’d rather try and win the fight than escape if possible. Plus, there’s gonna be conditions crawling all over the place. I would be dead in a few seconds unless I asked for more. There’s also people who actually know how to fight thief and predict where we are.

I tend to look at thief ideas first by defense, because we lack defense. I think the damage is fine, but survivablilty is not good. I understand you would still get the bonuses on revealed, but I just feel like that wouldn’t work. We wouldn’t get to prevent death unless we asked for the time period we usually die during.

You WOULDN’T want to get revealed to get a small heal or some condi’s cleared – you get revealed because you went for Backstab/Sneak attack/Clutch head shot interrupt/etc. It is part of the natural flow of thieves, stealth and revealed. Sitting in stealth can be advantageous at times, but it shouldn’t be the focus of a trait line.

So…I’m guessing we should rename Shadow Arts to revealed arts? Shadow arts is about patience, a game of cat and mouse, being the predator. This goes with what you were saying about waiting and sitting in stealth. You can easily play psychological games while in stealth. Cause them to blow an unessecary cooldown, making them wonder when you’re going to attack, and overall scaring them. Purposely backstabbing when they have a block up just to make them think you’re going to backstab them again, but you don’t, is a very effective tactic.

I usually don’t even wait in stealth unless im very low on hp. Even then I usually use a Mug-CnD-Backstab combo or CnD Backstab Mug to heal myself while dealing damage to the people I’m fighting. This is why I use 10/30/30/0/0 instead of 0/30/30/10/0. It’s because it gives me a heal and slight damage, so that I don’t have to waste as much time in stealth. It gives me about a 2k heal which is equivalent to about 6 or 7 seconds in stealth. I don’t find it boring to be in stealth for a few seconds. I don’t need to chain stealth as long because I have mug. If you guys think it’s boring to stealth and you’re running 0/30/30/10/0, run 10/30/30. Just mug makes you a lot more sustainable.

So, yeah, I don’t really think its boring to play mind games with people, choosing the best time to attack. Patience is very important with thief. If you don’t have a patient mindset you should be playing something else. But not everybody has that mindset, so I hope anet introduces new build opportunities to thief so that they don’t have to use Shadow Arts.

I used to hate Shadow Arts, now I’ve kind of embraced it and even like it.

I just don’t see why someone would want to reveal themselves JUST to get a small heal and maybe some condis cleared. Being revealed as a thief for prolonged periods of time is bad for your health O: But you’re not helping yourself by saying “Alright guys, I’ve regained a bit of hp and cleared my condis. Attack again now!”

There’s a new -50% damage while in stealth trait coming mid april- seems that’ll do just fine protecting yourself.

People will still take Shadow’s Rejuvenation. I think this is more of a support option for thief, or preference, but not everyone will take it. Every shadow arts builds has it and they’ve gotten used to it.

Stealth remains completely untouched. Shadow arts is changed

For a thief build, there is usually Stealth involved, and, in turn, Shadow Arts. (WvW standpoint, a lot of people don’t use 30 SA in spvp) That’s just what they were made to do. (Personally I would like to see more acro builds though) If any thief is hoping to run stealth (which most thieves have to) they use shadow arts or they’re incredibly glassy. Stealth is affected because you’re changing how people will use it. I mean, I guess stealth as a mechanic isn’t changed but thief stealth will be.

I understand your goal is to make stealth thieves more active in the fight? They already pretty much are. Thieves have to constantly watch their oponnents, think about how to approach (should I wait, or should I go for burst now), think about their own health and survivability, managing cooldowns, and if they are in a group, make sure they can res and rally properly. Plus, just sitting in stealth won’t really kill your opponent.

What do you mean by active in the fight? Do you mean button-pressing wise, movement wise, or thinking wise?

Carpboy.7145:

alchemyst.2165:

Carpboy.7145:

Idk whats funnier, the actual video or the fact the 2 above me fell for it

Didn’t fall for it, I was basically saying that anet either doesn’t care or has forgotten about how many times this trait gets us killed :P

Sure, thats what they all say after a good trolling

But I didn’t O:

/cry Q_Q

Yeah….No it isn’t. It’s worthless in PvP because you can’t contest points or contribute much to your team while just sitting in stealth, and It’s annoying in WvW because there’s nothing preventing thieves from just sitting in stealth as long as they can afford to so that they regenerate health/init/etc. My suggestion fixes both of those issues while still encouraging the thief to use stealth to its fullest.

In pvp, the role of the thief is to kill and support/roam. Other players are meant to cap while you destroy the other team. Also, with this maybe we should make mesmers able to cap while in stealth as well, if capping is the issue.
I can kind of see where you’re going with wvw, the problem is if you’re trying to stealth and escape from opponents, multiple especially, you cant really protect yourself unless you reveal yourself, which is being counter productive. Low hp, being pressured while inside a shadow refuge, conditions ticking away at your health and you can’t regenerate hp or cure conditions unless you reveal yourself and ask to get killed.

I think you’re also looking at this from a d/p permastealth build standpoint. I do think they should nerf d/p a bit imo. Not sure if you’re looking at it from a d/d or d/p standpoint or whatever but it seems like it.

Also wondering if you play thief, that can really change someone’s perspective on stealth. Lots of people who know how to fight thief can counter stealth easily.

stealth is fine the way it is.

So..why are you trying to change it?

Carpboy.7145:

Idk whats funnier, the actual video or the fact the 2 above me fell for it

Didn’t fall for it, I was basically saying that anet either doesn’t care or has forgotten about how many times this trait gets us killed :P

This would decrease the effectiveness of the thief’s stealth. In fact you would be punished for being in stealth longer. If you’re in stealth and you have a mass of conditions on you, you would have to attack the target and risk being killed for it. In fact, this would make thieves even more annoying to you guys. They would be in stealth, want to reveal themselves to you so that they get the bonuses from it, and then run away and re-engage because they don’t want to be killed. Counter-productive to what you want.
Thieves need the in-stealth bonuses of Shadow Arts to survive. Otherwise we are nothing and we melt instantly. We have no condi clear or outside healing other than SA. SA is fine as is.

What they should do is add more build diversity to thief. That way people who like stealth can use stealth and people who like dodging and being all over the place can do that.

^
Anet: Last Refuge Now working as Intended.
Date: March 2029

3 on d/d needs a full evade. Whenever I use it I NEVER evade successfully. It’s incredibly difficult to use dodging wise. They should make an aftercast so that its punishable, tho. #4 needs to be faster and cost less init, or boost the damage. #5 is fine imo.

There are several ways to counter this
Predict where the thief will be and CC or knockback
Use a ring to stop them for a while (guardians)
Counter with your own stealth
Rez faster, lol
Banner or Other res ability
Kill the thief first? Usually that’s a good idea since they CAN stealth finish, stealth rez, and overall be annoying to fight.

To all who are qqing about thieves get “No risk high reward” and all of that:
First of all, it IS fairly high risk fairly high reward. In fact, this comes into play EVERY time a thief uses CnD. All that needs to happen for a thief to literally crumble and be ruined for the rest of the fight is a missed/avoided/blocked CnD. Have you noticed that a lot of times when you’re fighting a thief and you’re not being aggressive they ONLY use their weapon skills? That’s because thieves need defensive utilities so that they can get away. You guys are mistaking this for something overpowered when really we do need these, or else we melt. Shadowstep allows us to escape or reset, no offensive use really, who would waste it just to disorient the opponent? Shadow refuge can be easily countered, it’s our salvation. If we didn’t have this we wouldn’t be able to escape a lot of the times.
Thieves are meant to be escape artists and damage dealers. This can easily be dealt with by being aggressive. If you’re aggressive they will not be aggressive back, they will use more defensive tactics and use their utilities. But if they do this, they’re not killing you, they’re just being annoying. Don’t let yourself be distracted. This is why people constantly complain about thief. They don’t know how the class works and how to fight it. If they spam HS use protection, LoS, OoR, Block, Blind, CC…I could go on. They can spam all they want but they’ll end up wasting their defensive utilities.

McFribble.2349:

alchemyst.2165:

I play lots of classes in spvp, including warrior. Insane fun. Good dmg, survivability…hammer CC :P but ive noticed that its really easy to either engage really fast or disengage with warrior because of their insane amounts of mobility. Coming from a multi-class player, I can say that this needs to be toned down. All you really need to escape is a greatsword or sword mainhand. It is incredibly cheesy (I feel kind of bad when I do this myself Lol) when a warrior is about to die and they use 3 —-> 5 GS, and/or 2 on sword to escape. Pretty much every warrior melee skill has some sort of “leap” or “rush” involved. Maybe the range or effectiveness of these abilities needs reworked or changed. Just something to think about.

If a Warrior is running GS or Sword, they are hindering their DPS like crazy. Only condition Warriors benefit from sword, and GS isn’t so much a PvP weapon as it is a mobility weapon for WvW. If they are using both, you shouldn’t even be complaining, because at that point the Warrior isn’t even running the cheesy Ham/Bow (which eliminates 90% of the cries for Warriors being OP).

Even despite all of that mobility, Thieves and staff Eles can STILL catch them before they take off and stick to them like glue. So all in all, your cries are falling on deaf ears.

I’m talking WvW and SPvP, and yeah in wvw its very hard to catch warriors if they’re running greatsword, especially since they have swiftness. 1200 range on Greatsword 5 X_X Maybe put that to 900 or 1000. Not everything has to be either 600, 900, or 1200 I don’t see why it cant be somewhere in between.
Oh well, just trying to get input and I think ive got it. Thanks for the feedback

Well, for one thing, Warriors being incredibly mobile just doesn’t make sense. Heavy classes should be slower, with their heavy clanky gear weighing them down. Not really trying to qq here, because a lot of the times I can kill a warrior on my main (thief) just takes a long time to do so because they are either very tanky, have a mobile weapon, or both.

I play lots of classes in spvp, including warrior. Insane fun. Good dmg, survivability…hammer CC :P but ive noticed that its really easy to either engage really fast or disengage with warrior because of their insane amounts of mobility. Coming from a multi-class player, I can say that this needs to be toned down. All you really need to escape is a greatsword or sword mainhand. It is incredibly cheesy (I feel kind of bad when I do this myself Lol) when a warrior is about to die and they use 3 —-> 5 GS, and/or 2 on sword to escape. Pretty much every warrior melee skill has some sort of “leap” or “rush” involved. Maybe the range or effectiveness of these abilities needs reworked or changed. Just something to think about.

I was excited about the trait in SA where we could take 50% less damage while in stealth…but then I realized…
First off you would have to give up the heal while in stealth. Plus, this trait wont really be useful unless ur immobilized and multiple people are on u and u save yourself with a CnD or blinding powder. That’s one of the FEW scenarios this would be useful in. People wont really attack you while you’re in stealth, they would be more worried about preventing a backstab. Even if they could hit you its most likely a low hitter.
Imo they should have made this into the Last Refuge trait. Blinding powder and take 50% less damage for 3 (4) seconds…that sounds nice.

Zerk and cav mix is really good. I would go for around 2.65 to 2.7k armor. That toughness really helps, and u keep precious crit dmg.

I play warrior a bit in spvp, and let me just say yes there are a few builds that are op. (I’ve played them) I think warrior itself is maybe on the verge of being op. An example of this is their INSANE amount of mobility…like wtf? Their stunlocks are very annoying too, but usually I can avoid those.
A lot of times when I see a warrior I can win the fight (in wvw) because as a thief I have to constantly think about what im doing, and most warriors just think hurr hurr im just gonna immobilize then hb problem solved. But there are skilled warriors that make the class seem a bit op.
I think some aspects of the warrior could use some toning down, but I don’t think they’re horribly op.

urdriel.8496:

Viking Jorun.5413:

urdriel.8496:

Zacchary.6183:

urdriel.8496:

Sry, but if in a MMORPG a mechanic doesnt have counter is broken, something broken is unbalanced, something unbalanced is bad designed.

You are not a game designer though.

can I only have a opinion about a game if i’m a game designer?
can I only have a opinion about a NBA player if i’m a NBA Player?
can I only have a opinion about a TV Serie if i’m an actor or a director?

A not punishing mechanic as initiative system, is result of a bad design.

PD:You can use your best skill each 4-6 sec (if you have your init pool empty ), all other classes must wait 20 sec or more.

The difference is that you’re stating your opinion as a fact and backing it with non-arguments and hollow statements. Other classes must wait 20 seconds for far more powerful skills. I’d love to have a 1200 range chill with 3 boons removed that hits for 7k on average every 16 seconds.

Far more powerful skills? ahahahahahahah, more powerful than a backstab ? or than a CnD(high damage + stealth) ??? and if you missed the first time you can use it one more time, or two or three times…..

in 16 secs thief will gain 16 init, 3 high burst skill…….

Actually, a thief can only use 2 CnD’s in a row. I’m pretty sure 99.99% of the people that complain about thief DO NOT have a level 80 thief as their main and use it in wvw. Maybe pvp. Thieves in pvp are different than thieves in wvw. Thieves in pvp don’t need toughness or much defense because they can better count on their allies in tpvp, that’s what a comp is for. in wvw thieves are pretty crap. You need to be good because most of the time 2.7k armor won’t cut it. (I use some cav gear with shadow arts) You still have the lowest hp in the game and you need to be incredibly careful not to die.
People complain about thief because they are annoying. I can understand that, but that’s what thieves are meant for. Thieves are annoying because of the blinds, stealth, fairly high burst damage, and shadowsteps/evades. But actually, a lot of this can be countered if you have half a brain.

Want to take away the stealth mechanics? Aight cool, lets take away guardian virtues, warrior burst skills, Ranger pets…
See what im getting at? Stealth is a class mechanic. If people spent the amount of time trying to counter as they did complaining about it, they wouldn’t get backstabbed or condi bursted like they do now. With thief, they NEED stealth. 1. that’s what the class is about and was meant for. 2. They can’t do decent damage without stealth. 3. They simply cannot survive out of stealth. Mesmers don’t need it as much, and while I don’t play Mesmer really, I think I see that they need it to “deceive” their enemy. It helps them keep control over the fight.
Why don’t we amass an army of people and hate on warriors and guardians now?

I think thief could do with a rifle. (If bandits get it why don’t thieves xD) And I REALLY want offhand sword as a tanky weapon.

The reason people complain about thief is because they don’t know how to counter it. Thief is pretty unique, so they just expect that if they complain, they will get thieves to be nerfed (which has happened) Thief is bottom tier. It’s incredibly hard to play. Unless you’re just strafing and not actively fighting the thief, you’ll get backstabbed over and over again. All it takes to fight a thief is common sense, really. The only thing thief is remotely good at is 1v1 fighting, but against a warrior of the same skill level, the warrior usually wins. Thief needs buffed, tbh. But I don’t think it needs buffed TOO much. I just think it needs more defense. I still want a bit of a challenge while playing thief, I want it to be a little difficult, but not this much. Where’s the fun in playing a class if all u have to do is 12345 switch 12345? :P

So no, thief does NOT need nerf. Good day. Learn to fight the class.

Kadin.2356:

alchemyst.2165:

So, more times than not, us thieves get screwed because Last Refuge puts us in revealed. Plus, our health pool is horrible so often times it pops when we go down. This is a potential idea that could fix this.
Last Refuge- at 33% health, gain a buff called Last Refuge, putting you into stealth and making you invulnerable for the duration of the buff You cannot be revealed, but cannot deal damage or conditions for the duration of the buff. Conditions applied before the Last Refuge buff will still tick. Lasts 3 seconds.
Also, this would mean that the last refuge buff would not stack with stealth, so that you could stack more stealth possibly and then re engage if you wanted to. If anybody else has ideas leave them here Feel free to agree or disagree.

That could be just as bad. Consider you were just about to finish someone and instead you have to sit there for 3 seconds and watch while he gets a heal off. My suggestion would be for it just to drop a smoke field at your feet.

That’s a good point. I just want it to not get us killed when it procs. Thing is, if it were so that we COULD deal damage, we would be called op, yet warriors get the same thing. Personally I think smoke field sucks but to each his own. Maybe it could, like, reset the CD on a stealth skill and give regeneration and/or vigor or something. All I want is for this trait to not get us killed, cus a lot of the times it does.

“Another warrior I couldn’t beat”
Lol you already lost the argument.
But seriously warriors are fairly easy to fight, since a lot of them have little to no skill. Even against a fairly skilled warrior I can still kill them. U just got to keep blinds, poison, and pressure on them. They’re fairly easy fights for a thief.

Even as a thief that’s ridiculous. Now we’re probably going to be nerfed because of the gear that anet themselves is giving us. Don’t hate us cus we’re beautiful! Nerf the gear..? Idk.

Player.8373:

alchemyst.2165:

So, more times than not, us thieves get screwed because Last Refuge puts us in revealed. Plus, our health pool is horrible so often times it pops when we go down. This is a potential idea that could fix this.
Last Refuge- at 33% health, gain a buff called Last Refuge, putting you into stealth and making you invulnerable for the duration of the buff You cannot be revealed, but cannot deal damage or conditions for the duration of the buff. Conditions applied before the Last Refuge buff will still tick. Lasts 3 seconds.
Also, this would mean that the last refuge buff would not stack with stealth, so that you could stack more stealth possibly and then re engage if you wanted to. If anybody else has ideas leave them here Feel free to agree or disagree.

Disagree, why; making you invulnerable . This basicly means you can run away.

That’s kind of the point… Thieves are masters of 1v1 and escape by the class’s definition. Besides you cant deal damage during it, and also its only a few seconds. Warriors get a trait like this so its not that far fetched. It would allow you to turn the tide a bit or run away.

Travlane.5948:

d/p doesnt need tuning DOWN…i think they should INCREASE the aoe circle from BPS by 60 radius….POSSIBLY turn it down to 3 secs and 5 init isntead. that way the thief can actually use the BP rather than get beat tohell inside it. right now its almost useless against good players.

Actually, I’m a thief, and I really don’t think it needs a radius increase. Then no one would be able to melee you….60 radius is a big change from like, what, 120? The diameter of it is 240, so you’re adding another 120 on to it. Also, you can easily position yourself so that people can’t melee you. Just go to the edge of the powder.

So, more times than not, us thieves get screwed because Last Refuge puts us in revealed. Plus, our health pool is horrible so often times it pops when we go down. This is a potential idea that could fix this.
Last Refuge- at 33% health, gain a buff called Last Refuge, putting you into stealth and making you invulnerable for the duration of the buff You cannot be revealed, but cannot deal damage or conditions for the duration of the buff. Conditions applied before the Last Refuge buff will still tick. Lasts 3 seconds.
Also, this would mean that the last refuge buff would not stack with stealth, so that you could stack more stealth possibly and then re engage if you wanted to. If anybody else has ideas leave them here Feel free to agree or disagree.

Assuming you’re talking WvW, it’s very hard to counter d/p as a d/d thief since you have to not be blinded to land your stealth…I would try playing keep away with shortbow and trying to burst them down with that…Then once they are around 50% go for the stun backstab combo with basilisk venom. If you find that it is hard to play with them using shortbow try just being very patient with them. also, once they are standing in a blind field, waste the first blind by using autoattack, then get JUST outside of the circle so that you can cloak and dagger safely, then backstab. D/p fights are a game of patience and timing.

Yeah. Anet please… First of all you’re not giving us anythinggggg????? All you’re doing is making a practically useless poison even more useless. The only reason I use it is for the weakness, and even THAT is pretty bad.
Give us good stuff now! Im done with all the frivolous nerfs!

We should take all the people who hate on thieves, and push them somewhere else!
(Patrick Star quote)

NinjaEd.3946:

This almost seems like bending the laws of physics tbh. Common MMO (and by common I mean don’t fix what ain’t broke common) ways don’t let you use a skill if you don’t have the resource to support it or if its on cooldown. That’s why those things are there, for you to manage them. Letting someone slip away off any less than that seems like cheating imo. Would it be nice to CnD off 1 initiative if you REALLY needed it? Yes, but then it adds a whole new field of resource management and people would often get themselves killed than saved.

It would just further the good and the bad, which isn’t healthy for bringing in new comers. Thief needs some restructure but I don’t believe initiative is any part of that.

I agree. While it would bring some nice things, the pain suffered from it would be even worse. Initiative doesn’t really need reworked

RedSpectrum.1975:

alchemyst.2165:

Also I see your point but its basically that if I have utilities and I think I can defeat the opponent I will stay on them, because I know my utilities will buy me enough time to do a slight reset on the fight. If I have nothing left it’s hard for me to run away.

So you’re basically saying what’s the point? Either way I’m screwed. In that case I’d imagine it’s situational. You and Karolis are giving different examples of it being implemented though, or rather, he’s thinking of it more in an offensive fashion and you are thinking of it in a defensive fashion.
Offensively, it seems it would allow more damage to be done at the cost of a longer wait to do anything else

Defensively, if you had no utilites to follow up, it would seem worthless and potentially ruin you as you won’t have a CnD to chain stealth to wait off a CD, if I understood you correctly?

Yes. I understand offensively this would potentially give thieves faster killing speed, but for one thing it can tunnel vision you into doing reckless things if the real priority is saving your HP. However, defensively it won’t be good, and I think that’s what thief needs improvement on. Thief offense is fairly good if you play it patiently. Defense is lacking. Once you’re out of initiative you have pretty much no options because of these reasons.
1. With no initiative you can’t create distance.
2. If you try to regenerate initiative when you can’t stealth it creates an awkward situation where you’re trying to run for your life but you get caught in a burst.
3.even if you do manage to get initiative, you still have to bide your time waiting for utilities if you wish to reset.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Interceptor.2653:

This is a really convoluted buff to Thief, and a theoretical penalty to people who don’t manage initiative properly. It’s the worst kind of change, since it makes the good Thieves better, and the bad Thieves worse. Not a great idea.

Travlane.5948:

half of the thief community already rerolled if not much more.

Oh really? Can’t wait to see the source data for this one.

This is actually a complete 180, which makes it questionable in a different way than I originally thought

panicbutton.1053:

Red,

You presented a change to the thief class(even though you disagree with it ). You got a full proof response to it, to which you have yet to address. Nay? The original argument for this was in regards to spamming of skills. That argument was smashed, nay?

THIS is how constructive ideas emerge, but you’re just crying veteran thief and not actually addressing responses.

@Karo, he didn’t know that…He presented it as a limiter on our ability to reuse skills. If in the case it benefits our class, then we can negate the whole post. However its original intent was to limit, or nerf the thief in a mild way. Congrads on finding a corner case though :]

Wait what? You made it seem like I ignored Interceptor. I didn’t even respond to any post after his. And as you’ve seen I do respond, to constructive feedback. Interceptor did what Trav didn’t said it wasn’t a good idea, that’s it, no backlash or anything. And I did see it as a limiter, correct, but how it was implemented seemed different. If you were disciplined, than this shouldn’t hit you hard. Karolis even pointed out that it was a hidden buff.

alchemyst.2165:

I don’t really agree with this change. Being a thief since release, I know initiative is hard to manage, especially with dagger/dagger, and ESPECIALLY without at least 15 in trickery, which, in WvW for a burst thief I believe you could use that for a different tree. While this negative initiative idea may seem like a buff, I see it as a nerf.
Let me explain. (This is mostly a WvW standpoint) Thieves MUST preserve cooldowns to survive. If you run out of cooldowns, you’re stuck with 2 CnD’s, and then you die after the use. Here’s where the negative initiative comes in. Let’s say you have very low initiative and you CnD. You’re making it so that you have to use your utilities to stay alive and stealth, because us thieves are very squishy and stealth is our salvation. After we use our utilities, we have nothing but CnD, which takes half our initiative right there. So after you CnD, you CnD again, which will leave you with close to none initiative, even with initiative regen. So you use negative initiative to stealth one last time. You can’t stealth again, and you’re screwed. A thief out of stealth is an incredibly easy target, especially without utilities.
Plus, I think this is basically just adding more initiative if you really think about it. But this is just my opinion, you guys feel free to agree or disagree.

I see your point, which was my frame of thinking, but to be the devil’s advocate, if you were out of everything and had one CnD left, why would you keep fighting? If the opponent got you to a point where you used everything and that still wasn’t enough, normally you’d be trying to reset.

Also I see your point but its basically that if I have utilities and I think I can defeat the opponent I will stay on them, because I know my utilities will buy me enough time to do a slight reset on the fight. If I have nothing left it’s hard for me to run away.

Karolis.4261:

alchemyst.2165:

I don’t really agree with this change. Being a thief since release, I know initiative is hard to manage, especially with dagger/dagger, and ESPECIALLY without at least 15 in trickery, which, in WvW for a burst thief I believe you could use that for a different tree. While this negative initiative idea may seem like a buff, I see it as a nerf.
Let me explain. (This is mostly a WvW standpoint) Thieves MUST preserve cooldowns to survive. If you run out of cooldowns, you’re stuck with 2 CnD’s, and then you die after the use. Here’s where the negative initiative comes in. Let’s say you have very low initiative and you CnD. You’re making it so that you have to use your utilities to stay alive and stealth, because us thieves are very squishy and stealth is our salvation. After we use our utilities, we have nothing but CnD, which takes half our initiative right there. So after you CnD, you CnD again, which will leave you with close to none initiative, even with initiative regen. So you use negative initiative to stealth one last time. You can’t stealth again, and you’re screwed. A thief out of stealth is an incredibly easy target, especially without utilities.
Plus, I think this is basically just adding more initiative if you really think about it. But this is just my opinion, you guys feel free to agree or disagree.

If you have to chose between having 0 initiative and dieing because of it ( lets assume your utilities are already used) and you are sitting (running) duck like it is right now and having that ability to “borrow” extra initiative to survive, why in kittens name wouldn’t you do that. You will have to use your stealth utilities when u don’t have enough initiative to stealth anyway. With this change you would simply get more breathing space knowing that even if u will fk up and leave yourself with not enough initiative, you will still be able to stealth using borrowed ini.
And its not a “hidden buff”, its OBVIOUS buff. I have no clue how would someone present it as a nerf.

At that point you are already screwed. In a 1v1 or small 1vX you either have to STAY ON the opponent to CnD or run away, which, with no utility, is practically impossible. But if you stay on your opponent to CnD, once you’re out of stealth, you’re basically just bracing yourself for imminent death. (Unless you’re fighting a tank.) But CnD chains with no utility are very dangerous because you are staying on your opponent to survive, and if you mess up (or ONCE you mess up) you’re basically just giving yourself to your opponent’s burst. I see your point with the borrowed initiative, but this is just my thoughts. I think negative init is a creative idea I just don’t see it really having much positive effect on thief. One extra last chance stealth won’t save you. Plus, you wouldn’t really need to borrow initiative if you manage cooldowns effectively. Being a thief, your first priority shouldn’t be to kill, but to be tactical and weigh your options.

I don’t really agree with this change. Being a thief since release, I know initiative is hard to manage, especially with dagger/dagger, and ESPECIALLY without at least 15 in trickery, which, in WvW for a burst thief I believe you could use that for a different tree. While this negative initiative idea may seem like a buff, I see it as a nerf.
Let me explain. (This is mostly a WvW standpoint) Thieves MUST preserve cooldowns to survive. If you run out of cooldowns, you’re stuck with 2 CnD’s, and then you die after the use. Here’s where the negative initiative comes in. Let’s say you have very low initiative and you CnD. You’re making it so that you have to use your utilities to stay alive and stealth, because us thieves are very squishy and stealth is our salvation. After we use our utilities, we have nothing but CnD, which takes half our initiative right there. So after you CnD, you CnD again, which will leave you with close to none initiative, even with initiative regen. So you use negative initiative to stealth one last time. You can’t stealth again, and you’re screwed. A thief out of stealth is an incredibly easy target, especially without utilities.
Plus, I think this is basically just adding more initiative if you really think about it. But this is just my opinion, you guys feel free to agree or disagree.

I like the grenth hood paired with the duelist coat plus magitech shoulders. Im using abyss dyes cus im a pimp

My thief, Alchemyst (Yes, with a “Y”) Most of this is transmuted: whispers mask, Berserker’s duelist coat, Krytan armor gloves, Honed leather shoes, rawhide pants. This is a work in progress, more pics to come!

Thanks. I forgot to mention I used Roll for Initiative and Withdraw for my 2 other skills. By that point if my opponent was dead I would try to bait their retaliation by dodging them with the rolls. But usually I failed xD

Hello, I don’t think any of you have seen me on the forums lately, but I have a post to make. I have been playing Thief since early acess, and even some stress tests. I think I’m pretty knowledgable when it comes to Thief gameplay. Lately I’ve been trying out several builds, and I’ve come across a build like this: 30/30/0/0/10. The main thing I would do is use haste, basilisk venom, assassin’s signet, then steal. The steal would hit the opponent which would turn them to stone. I would then do a few heartseekers, a couple of auto attacks, and really, just go crazy. Usually I would blind the opponent or use a daze so he couldn’t immediately retaliate. But I find it extremely difficult to survive. Yes, that is to be expected as a pure dps thief, but I use D/P, and I have blinds and dazes. Shouldn’t I be able to use these to my advantage better? Black Powder seems almost useless at times because the radius of it is so small, and I usually used it just for the Black Powder + Heartseeker = Stealth combo. Any good thieves have some tips for dueling with this build?