Guild Wars 2 Video/Media

[Arelian]

By not gearing like a retard with only offensive stats and standing still (he has to get behind you before Basilisk Venom wears off, you can dodge roll out the second it wears off and get away unless he has real good positioning). I do think they need to adjust just how much burst a thief can do (but not by too much), but they only do it if they catch you with your pants on the ground and you're specced glass cannon. Not to mention sPvP isn't about kills. An organized team will likely have no issue at all with a burst thief like that, all they serve as is a minor disruption that can generally easily be recovered from.

It looks a lot like the game is taking care of positioning for him. I think with the traited steal that deals damage, it procs the venom. So he'll steal to do a touch of damage and CC you in 1 hit all while teleporting directly behind you.

[Kiarax]

The teleport he's using doesn't put him behind them, maybe there's another Thief teleport that does, if so I haven't seen it (just the annoying dagger skill that flips them over you, but it's easy to get out the way if they do it that way).

[Alderaan]

That Jinzu spec is terrible. I have those idiots trying to use that on me, a thief, in WvW. I love 3 shotting them with my vitality/toughness build that also has 45% crit and 3k attack.

[Kuishen]

Shredder set complete. 6 Runes of Dolyak for extra survivability. Aww yeah.

[Shiyo]

By not gearing like a retard with only offensive stats and standing still (he has to get behind you before Basilisk Venom wears off, you can dodge roll out the second it wears off and get away unless he has real good positioning). I do think they need to adjust just how much burst a thief can do (but not by too much), but they only do it if they catch you with your pants on the ground and you're specced glass cannon. Not to mention sPvP isn't about kills. An organized team will likely have no issue at all with a burst thief like that, all they serve as is a minor disruption that can generally easily be recovered from.

THF's shouldnt be able to kill someone unless the person they're fighting starts at ~10% hp or less or 4vs1ing the person, they shouldn't do any damage at all for how annoying they are and how much survivability they have.

The only real way to balance stealth classes in a MMO with PVP is by making them completely useless in any real fight. They need to die instantly, have 0 mobility, and do 0 damage.

This might seem insane and a huge exaggeration but it's true. Classes with stealth can pick their fights(even though non-perma stealth is a huge leap toward balancing them in GW2, they can still stealth too much and too often) and run away whenever they want. They should be relying on strategy and tactics to win, not brute force.

[Kuishen]

THF's shouldnt be able to kill someone unless the person they're fighting starts at ~10% hp or less or 4vs1ing the person, they shouldn't do any damage at all for how annoying they are and how much survivability they have.

The only real way to balance stealth classes in a MMO with PVP is by making them completely useless in any real fight. They need to die instantly, have 0 mobility, and do 0 damage.

This might seem insane and a huge exaggeration but it's true. Classes with stealth can pick their fights(even though non-perma stealth is a huge leap toward balancing them in GW2, they can still stealth too much and too often) and run away whenever they want. They should be relying on strategy and tactics to win, not brute force.

lol wat

[Alderaan]

That 3 second stealth. So OP.

I'd trade it for 5k more HP in a heartbeat.

[Belragga]

Shiyo is right. Having a stealth you can activate anytime gives you 100% control of the battle. They can come and go whenever they please. Seriously, any thf that knows what they are doing will just fight you until low HP and then run away to heal or gain initiative while you are still weakened from their shitty single ability spam (exaggerated) . Every good thf I've fought has employed this tactic and it is very unbalanced, the only answer I see to it would be to go full glass cannon and just try to surprise them with a huge burst of damage but that would leave me wide open to every other class. You're all MMO vets how can you not recognize this issue?

[Kiarax]

Whilst I find them fucking annoying to fight in WvW, they practically never kill me because they can't do shit but run away. It's annoying, but I can recover faster than they can so all they can do is harass me. If they want to stick around long enough to actually try and kill me I'm almost guaranteed to beat them. In sPvP I don't really give a shit either way, if they want to try and take point(s) they need to stick around, and if they do they die.

[Lucavi]

Eh, it -is- annoying to be retreating in PVP from whoever and have some heartseeker spamming thief catch up to you with no effort at all. Had I had a stealth, like on my mesmer, he very well may not have known which way to spam it.

[Belragga]

In sPvP I have 2200 toughness and 19k HP. The odd times when I've actually had an uninterrupted 1v1 with a good thf, I've fought them for over 3 minutes and simply been worn down by their ability to hide while they gain intiative and recover healing cool downs. "Oh but your cool downs are recovering during that time too!" They sure are but the difference is I'm not getting to choose the most beneficial time to recover them.

[Shiyo]

Eh, it -is- annoying to be retreating in PVP from whoever and have some heartseeker spamming thief catch up to you with no effort at all. Had I had a stealth, like on my mesmer, he very well may not have known which way to spam it.

One of the main problems is how easy it is to burst someone down as a thf(33333333 or 222222 yay), and how fronloaded all their burst is. This doesn't belong on stealth classes.

That 3 second stealth. So OP.

I'd trade it for 5k more HP in a heartbeat.

What's your base HP? I think it's higher than guardian and ele's, which both don't have survivability issues OR STEALTH. Also more than ~16k hp is pretty much a waste, so you can easily get that if specced/geared properly, while having tons of survivability cooldowns and stealth. I don't see an issue.

[Lucavi]

Thf is surprisingly frontloaded; its almost as if they want thf to take 80% quickly, then stealth away to wait for cooldowns, then come back and finish the job. Its extremely easy to finish the job if someone tries to retreat, as thf has tons of ways to stay on top of someone.

[D44kpunk]

stealth is so easy to deal with in any game, there's such a small learning curve for it

[Alderaan]

I still think stealth in this game is overrated. It's right where i like it though as it's a short duration and perma-stealth doesn't exist. It's mostly used to run away and heal up which takes the pressure off your opponent and gives them a chance to recover as well. Then you have a warrior that has bigger burst, can take all your hits, and can keep pressure on you full time. I personally like fighting thieves a lot more than warriors. That may be because i am a thief and know exactly what one is doing to do but the extra HP on warriors means i have to outlast them, which is not something thieves are good at without running away.

[Belragga]

Well then it's a good thing thf can run away any time they want isn't it.

[Kuishen]

I think you are all underestimating how squishy a heartseeker spamming thief is. I did a full glass cannon build last night and went up against somebody who had specced toughness and vit and I wasn't really able to do shit against them whilst they were able to take me down pretty fucking fast comparatively.

If you're running away from somebody after you've taken damage and a heartseeker thief finds you, yeah you're probably fucked because that is how heartseeker works. But if one is chasing you and you're at full/near full health, just turn around and like 3-shot them. A well timed stun and a couple burst moves will put an end to that.

Also about the stealth argument, I get raped while in stealth all the damn time, it is not that hard to see where they were when they went into stealth and just aim shit in that general direction. Even with the trait of move 33% faster in stealth (which imo is a waste considering how short all the stealth abilities are), we still don't run very fast so if you're pointing shit in the direction of where they used to be, odds are they are still in that general vicinity.

[Shiyo]

I think you are all underestimating how squishy a heartseeker spamming thief is. I did a full glass cannon build last night and went up against somebody who had specced toughness and vit and I wasn't really able to do shit against them whilst they were able to take me down pretty fucking fast comparatively.

I personally don't assume anyone is ever specced glass cannon anything in this game. Heartseeker is also worse than death blossom unless the target is below 25% hp, but pistol whip spam is the new heartseeker 1 button DPS rotation. You also just explained why I don't assume anyone is glass cannon, cause it's horrible in almost every situation in the game.

[Kuishen]

I personally don't assume anyone is ever specced glass cannon anything in this game. Heartseeker is also worse than death blossom unless the target is below 25% hp, but pistol whip spam is the new heartseeker 1 button DPS rotation. You also just explained why I don't assume anyone is glass cannon, cause it's horrible in almost every situation in the game.

Pistol Whip is easy to dodge and even if you get hit by it the stun doesn't last the full duration of the actual attack anyways.

[Lucavi]

I personally don't assume anyone is ever specced glass cannon anything in this game. Heartseeker is also worse than death blossom unless the target is below 25% hp, but pistol whip spam is the new heartseeker 1 button DPS rotation. You also just explained why I don't assume anyone is glass cannon, cause it's horrible in almost every situation in the game.

Movement speed is why I consider heartseeker to be strong, not so much damage anymore. You gain an absurd amount of ground when using the skill, and you land so quickly that you can do it again in rapid succession.