So why did I get hit for 13.3k backstab and you don’t even go above 6.1k in your test? I’m at about the 3,000 armor mark. Seems your backstab numbers are way off, but your CnD one is accurate with my combat log at 3k armor.
Because you’re in WvW on a server that has no orbs, likely against a server that has all 3 orbs and a ton of might buffs from other players. Also, are you sure you’re at 3k armor? It’s not shown in your pic.
The saying goes, “you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.”
I’ve never heard that saying before, but I like it. It definitely fits.
If my thief specs glass cannon and just stands there and doesn’t dodge or counter in any way against other glass cannons, I die in 1.5 seconds as well. Every class is OP depending on how you spec and play.
You are missing the point. Sure glass cannon builds can kill other glass cannon builds just as fast as the other, but it’s this issue of the thief not even showing up on their opponent’s screen until after they are dead.
There is no defense against that and you never even knew you were being attacked. At least for me that is what happens. I don’t see the steal dmg, then the CnD dmg, then the backstab, then the heartseeker or whatever. I just go from full to downed and spin my camera around 360 to look for what the heck just happened, and then moments later I see a thief render as hes either stomping me or running away.
This post should not be in thief forums, it belongs in bugs and should be labelled “rendering issue”
That is indeed a bug, but it’s not what the OP was talking about at all. He was flat out whining about thief damage.
If my thief specs glass cannon and just stands there and doesn’t dodge or counter in any way against other glass cannons, I die in 1.5 seconds as well. Every class is OP depending on how you spec and play.
It doesn’t stop incoming damage and you can’t attack without breaking stealth. Compare that to warrior or guardian oh snap abilities that completely block incoming damage and let the warrior or guardian attack through em… I’m not really sure why a discussion is even needed. Stealth is more of a positioning and combo tool than anything else.
I also used to play Thief and gave up. I was dying inside with so much easy wins. It wouldn’t be so bad if NOT EVERYONE was playing the same class. When I’m fighting a team with 5 thieves, it means something’s wrong with this game.
Or it means that everyone has been spouting so much “THIEF IS OP” nonsense propaganda that new players are more inclined to roll thief.
I’d suggest scaling the stun duration down the same amount the channel is scaled (so it’d last half as long)
Meh, making an attack less effective with increased attack speed doesn’t seem like a great idea. Pistol whip is almost useless without haste largely because the stun is over by the time you start doing damage. Scaling the stun duration with haste would make it almost as useless with haste as without. You give them less time to dodge out, I suppose, but more chances to do so. You’d be further ahead just using haste and then auto-attack since it doesn’t root you and does more damage. The problem with the pistol whip haste setup is just that the magnitude of quickness is much higher than it should be. It doubles your combat effectiveness for the duration. No other effect is that strong. Even the reviled Assassin’s Signet is only a 50% increase in damage on a single attack.
WvW is a great place to look at balance. You’re looking at a much bigger crowd size to take data from. sPvP has it’s place, but don’t go getting all high and mighty because you refuse to play WvW.
In WvW, you can solve any problem by throwing more people at it. Balancing is to be done in a controlled environment, where you can be certain of all the factors at play.
Dual pistol can be pretty good in some situations. The stealth attack on main hand pistol is great (an unload that bleeds? Yes please.) and the offhand pistol attacks are both great (ranged interrupt and PBAoE blind). The 3 skill is kind of boring. It’s good with combo fields and decent with haste, but could still use some work.
Doesn’t imba mean pretty much the same thing as OP in this context?
I’ll agree that some other weapon sets should see improvements though. Namely the sword sets, they’re just too slow and cumbersome for the thief style unless you have haste. But then again, they just gave one of them a flat 15% nerf… Maybe they WANT us to all be D/D?
There are two things that will never be nerfed: Stealth and Shadowstep. 90% of Thief players play the Thief for these 2 important traits, nerf these and you will kill the Thief.
I have my doubts on that. Hell, both of those were already hit pretty hard during beta and are a lot weaker than they once were. First time I saw someone playing a thief there was no revealed debuff and shadowsteps could easily cross gaps and go through platforms above the thief.
What people? Almost all of the people I’ve seen complaining about thieves are not tPvP players. They’re WvW players mostly, with some sPvP mixed in. Those pubstomper builds are precisely what they’re complaining about. You’re the first person I’ve heard even mention thieves being OP in tPvP.
Also: why is it that only tpvp has any importance? “Thieves are op, but hey, they are a bit less op in tournaments, so all is fine.” No, not everyone plays tournaments all the time..
Reminds me of world of warcraft arena. Everything must be balanced around arena, every other aspect of the game must be neglected, even if it ruins the game experience of other players. (not saying this is the case here, but people act like it.)
Well, if you balance around the whiners that can’t figure out how to counter a thief in sPvP and even worse in WvW, you’re going to ruin the game experience for people who play tPvP and PvE. The fact of the matter is that tPvP is the most controlled environment. You have specific team sizes that rarely fluctuate, and everyone has the same gear available. And with the rankings, you can somewhat ensure people are fighting against people of similar skill level.
Btw, to all newbies who think thieves are OP… I think I actually figured out a 100% guaranteed counter to that thief you can’t kill. It’s a pretty complicated combat maneuver, but bear with me:
Spend more time on the forums whining instead of in the game learning how to play.
Yeah, that’s already been proven to be completely effective a couple times.
No. It should be prohibitive. If you can just get tons of gold for a tiny bit of cash, it defeats the whole in-game economy and causes severe inflation.
One thing I really didn’t get was what A-Net had to say about the PW nerf… that it promoted a 1 button gameplay… yeah, fair enough, but when PW is the single damage ability (with the exception of the auto attack ) for that weapon set while others are more debuff/utility, how the hell do you expect players not to abuse it especially considering you play a hit and run class with high damage and low survivability.
That bit was especially funny because in order to be even slightly competitive, pistol whip needs a second button, a skill that is very poorly designed and what caused all the whining to begin with: Haste.
Just seems flat out odd that it’s not an option and that they seem against it so much.
It was the same with Guild Wars 1, there were lots of incredibly stupid design decisions that community complained about, but ANet stood their ground (changed most of them eventually). I guess it’s just how they work. What surprises me is that they haven’t learned a thing.
What surprises me more is that we didn’t see this coming. As the great George W. Bush said, “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
What build and/or abilities are you using that make you nigh indestructible in WvW when we see you spinning around in circles laying waste to groups of individuals?
How many times can you do such a move within a 60 second time-span?
Do you heal when you do this spin as well as damage?
How often can you go invisible/stealth within a 60 second time-span?
What can I do to counter these things and drive you off or kill you?
1. There are two abilities. One is an elite, and one is stolen from warriors, which mimics a warrior ability.
2. the elite has 90 second cooldown, steal is half that (but we require a warrior nearby to steal from)
3. With signet of malice, every attack heals a tiny amount. But we sacrifice large burst healing by taking this ability.
4. That depends largely on utility skills and traits. Anywhere from 0 to 4 or 5.
5. Well, if you’ve got a guardian around, trap the thief in a bubble. You can then kill him in about 1 second. Also, confusion and retaliation are great against the spin tactics. The elite one reflects projectiles, so you’ll drastically reduce its effectiveness if you stop attacking. Just keep your distance, wait for it to end, then swoop in. Barring bubbles, your best bet to defeat a thief is to adapt thief tactics.
The class can essentially go full glass cannon with little draw backs because stealth is so powerful. Along with high mobility, crazy ridiculous damage, it is difficult to get a hit in before dying. A warrior that goes class cannon will die before he reaches his target. A thief can kitten around all day and just waltz away if things get sticky.
Nope.
Warrior has Endure Pain and Defy Pain, you gotta be a really really terrible Warrior to die before you reach your target.
Heck just go Engineer and you can get the same burst – at 1200 range – without sacrificing defense.
I think thief is fine aside from the nerf on P/W. The only things that might need to seriously be tweaked is Quickness and perhaps the Assassination Signet.
That’s the truth of it. Quickness and Assassin’s Signet take mediocre attacks and make them seem OP. The signet isn’t too bad, it only lasts for one attack and is only a 50% increase. But Quickness is a 100% increase that lasts for several seconds, and affects more than just raw damage.
It’s come to my attention that almost no guardians realize they can use their bubbles for anything other than personal shields. Shame. No wonder people think thieves are unstoppable.
@VictorTroska, Endure Pain says hi. If you are playing a glass cannon warrior and not using Endure Pain, I don’t know what to say.
You are… I have no word for it. If I was thief and warrior pops endure pain, I just stealth and wait for 4-5 sec. Thieves can do that you know, or didnt you get memo?
I believe the word you are looking for but cannot find is “correct”.
While I know this game gives the player a lot of wiggle room to play as they wish, and that the notion of a hard counter is a bit silly, I still am left wondering if there are certain classes that have natural effectiveness to thieves.
I ask cause, personally, I feel that given WvW or sPvP, I more or less have the hardest time against mesmers, and the mass amount of illusions they spawn with the con damage they can do.
Any thoughts on that?
definitely guardians. Those bubbles will stop a thief dead in their tracks. And if a thief is stopped, they’re dead.
I honestly say that this game would be much better without “You failed to see, you die lol” style of play. Failing to see thief or any other burst class should punish you yes. But it should drop you dead instantly, specially not when you wear 2k toughness.
The last picture you posted showed you taking two heartseeker hits after the backstab burst… that means a good 2 seconds at least, probably more when you factor in initiative costs, where you could have reacted after the burst, not even counting the ability to preemptively stop the burst. That’s not dropping you instantly. Guild Wars 2 pvp is a very fast paced game no matter what you play or play against (other than guardian… those kittens live forever) and you just need to work on quicker reactions. If you had reacted in time, stopped the burst, healed yourself, then went to town on the thief, it would have been like shooting fish in a barrel.
You know…I"ve spent over 80 hours playing PvE in this game…I really wish PvE game you at least a LITTLE bit of glory. I hate going into PvP and thinking “Man, all these other people have all this glory, but I have nothing because I’m spending all my time in PvE”. It’s frustrating. Why can’t PvE give me some glory?
In all seriousness…they are sticking to a system they had in GW1 which, in my opinion, works well. There is a competitive, non-level and non-gear based PvP system and then a SEPARATE game where there is PvE and PvP (WvWvW). Think of them as two separate games. I’m really glad for you that you are rank 30 in PvP (I have no idea what that means, because I’ve never done a single sPVP match), but that doesn’t earn you any PvE accolades, just like I wouldn’t expect any “glory” for doing PvE.
If they were sticking to a system like GW1 there would be something similar to ZKeys, which- in case you didn’t play -had a huge effect on the PvE side of things.
Also, you should know what the differences are between glory and EXP, but in case you don’t I’ll quickly outline them for you:
- EXP has a cap, where as glory doesn’t.
- the amount of EXP you have restricts you from accessing certain content, while glory doesn’t.
- and most importantly, glory is a currency, while EXP isn’t.
You should know that 2/3 of the differences you list don’t exist. EXP does NOT have a cap. Once you hit 80, you continue to gain EXP which builds skill points. And skill points ARE a currency.
Once you get your high level gear, what do you do them?
Here are some other ideas you might agree with.
*High level recipes should include some low level crafting mats
*High level drops for downscaled players need to happen more often
Make karma vendors also collector vendors
*Offers rewards if you bring them what they want.
*If for a silver fee would make it a cash sink.
*Npc asks for: items + fee to make it a cash sink.
*Should be unlocked
*Some might require items more than one zone.
*Collector NPC ask for trophies
I could get behind the first two things there. Not sure about collector vendors, as those tend to promote farming which is something that arenanet is trying to prevent (or so they said).
In any case, that’s another thread, as it doesn’t have much to do with this one.
People are stuck in this mindset that they must get to endgame content and only play end game content. But this game is not designed for that. It’s designed for the whole game to be played at level 80. But people look at this stupid level number and think they should only be in those areas.
People stick to high level areas not because they have a high level number, but because they offer better reward. The level number has little or nothing to do with it.
And how would you do that? Make you reset your traits every time you go to a new zone?
The point is to one day have a game without level. Where you play for fun and not to grind for exotic gear that does not improve your character much.
Okay, but hidden level and no level are completely different things. And I can tell you this game isn’t ever going to be a no-level game. There is no way it ever feasibly could. They would have to redesign almost the entire game from scratch. So if you want a game without levels, quite frankly, Guild Wars 2 is not the game for you. As I pointed out in your first thread, you may want to try Ultima Online.
Not having high enough pvp rank does not bar you from any content also it’s the status quo except for this game to get exp from pvp and I would say so far it’s not working with guild wars 2 system. You wonder why some people have hard times finding dungeon groups? This is part of it.
But those other games that give xp in pvp generally have levels carry over to pvp, so you need that xp to stay competitive.
I found that I’m able to avoid the instant kill now, but the reality is that killing a d/d thief is still extremely difficult because, well let’s be honest, a good thief can reset virtually any 1v1 fight.
Well, the counter to that is to not allow the thief a 1v1 fight. You’ve got a team, use them. The game was never meant to be balanced in 1v1, that’s why there is no dueling option.
Oh god I would love that. You mean I actually have to explore?
Unfortunately, everybody would then just wiki…type ‘this map’…ah, that’s where everything is.
Honestly though, an MMO with no level (or at least hidden) would be amazing. Maybe show it once you hit 80 just so all the people who only care about being the best can still feel that way…but leave the rest of the game with a strong…adventurer feel. I hate to bring Skyrim up, and I know it has a level system, but it was built in such a way that, at least for me, level didn’t matter. I was able to just explore, and play without giving a kitten where I was or what level I was.
You should check out Ultima Online. It has a skill system similar to what you see in Skyrim, without the level system. You just have a maximum number of skillpoints you can develop at any given time. And you can set skills to decrease if you want to level up something else in its place.
If you give it a try, I recommend playing on a pre-UOR private shard, as the current official servers have way too much nonsense that they added to try to compete with Everquest/WoW style MMOs.
I’m all for removing downed state from PvP. It’s not very well balanced at all and is annoying to use for some classes. When I go down, I’d often much rather be dead than sit there fighting the terrible downed camera and spamming my useless 1 ability while I wait to die. Just give everyone slightly more health across the board to balance out its removal.
So when thieves are popping sin sig in stealth, hitting 1, and winning, seeing as how that’s a “3-button-wonder”, I would assume one of those buttons is getting a nerf.
You’ve completely neglected the positional requirement to get decent damage there. Backstab from the front, without any traits, does 50% of its full damage. When you factor in traits that increase damage from behind, its an even bigger gap. And if that thief doesn’t get their one shot backstab from behind, they’re left with everything on cooldown and no initiative. Everything they have went into that one hit. Now they are sitting ducks. Fish in a barrel. Dead within seconds if you’re paying attention enough to launch a counter attack.
