Thief Stealth is Truly OP As You Can Get [Merged]

[Axelteas.7192]

16 hours ago, Ferus.3165 said:

if you lose to a wb as a thief you suck. Simple as that. Thief hardcounters wb.

I'f seen your posts in this thread and you're truely trolling. A thief when is revealed has no place to hide and also cannot escape due the excessive mobility of WB.

In fact I've been persecuting a WB with my teleports and shortbow 5 and couldnt hunt him. Looks like if WB used hacks but without using it.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Axelteas.7192

[Zacchary.6183]

On 11/18/2023 at 4:18 PM, Caffynated.5713 said:

They're thieves. Anything with a tiny amount of complexity confuses and terrifies them. That's why they play thief. 

Lol! Nothing is more mindless than rotating through skills like every other profession. The only exception being ele and moreso weaver. Button off CD? Press it.

[Ferus.3165]

1 hour ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

I'f seen your posts in this thread and you're truely trolling. A thief when is revealed has no place to hide and also cannot escape due the excessive mobility of WB.

In fact I've been persecuting a WB with my teleports and shortbow 5 and couldnt hunt him. Looks like if WB used hacks but without using it.

got to admit you made me lol with that bs reply :D. Expert troll at work.

[Caffynated.5713]

2 hours ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

Lol! Nothing is more mindless than rotating through skills like every other profession. The only exception being ele and moreso weaver. Button off CD? Press it.

Smashing buttons off CD can certainly be mindless. Now imagine how much more mindless it is to smash buttons that have no CD.

[kash.9213]

3 hours ago, Caffynated.5713 said:

Smashing buttons off CD can certainly be mindless. Now imagine how much more mindless it is to smash buttons that have no CD.

Be careful rolling your mitts over the high-cost Initiative skills. Anet likes to mess around with the resource budget instead of balancing an actual skill pretty often. Bonus if you hit all of the skills you shouldn't have and maybe hurdled yourself off a cliff before Initiative runs out. The main thief mitigation is use of space since it can still get hit nearly any time, so there are some skills like Death Blossom or Flanking Strike that can land you in a bad spot pretty quickly. 

. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by kash.9213

[nuggetjr.6571]

As a former long time thief, I'd characterize thief as very low skill floor and one of the higher skill ceilings. Good luck playing as well as sindrener or yama. I think what is annoying is the crutch stealth is for low skill players. They can escape easily, just wait for numbers, or reset and try again.

People don't talk about it much but part of the issue is the constant detargeting. Some specs require a target for any substantial effect and so you really need to outplay the thief. Other things like tools holo doesn't care as much with more aoe and reveals.

In spvp, thieves can just +1, do almost nothing of value, and still escape to decap or threaten decap. That is the low skill floor in action. 

[Burial.1958]

37 minutes ago, nuggetjr.6571 said:

As a former long time thief, I'd characterize thief as very low skill floor and one of the higher skill ceilings. Good luck playing as well as sindrener or yama. I think what is annoying is the crutch stealth is for low skill players. They can escape easily, just wait for numbers, or reset and try again.

People don't talk about it much but part of the issue is the constant detargeting. Some specs require a target for any substantial effect and so you really need to outplay the thief. Other things like tools holo doesn't care as much with more aoe and reveals.

In spvp, thieves can just +1, do almost nothing of value, and still escape to decap or threaten decap. That is the low skill floor in action. 

Escaping is not a Thief exclusive. There are several classes & Specs which can do that on a same level. It looks like we get soon another Class with high mobility xD Overall thief is by nature (squishy) a harder class to play.

The detargeting is because u could easily channel the skills then and hit thief all the time when in invis. 

 

For me the only thing Anet should really look at is bound thief. This is truly pretty broken and stupid because u can't interrupt it really. Dash D/P thief is okay. 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Since anything I say here won't help anyone, I'll keep it simple. 

If you want thieves to play stealth light, advocate for buffing their low stealth options. Right now, all of them suck.

If you want thieves to not decap+1, advocate for their mitigation so they can teamfight. Right now, they can't do that very well.

If you dont want either of the above and also want stealth removed, cope. Those that came before you had these arguments, decided thief should be relegated to decapping +1 because they were the fastest class in the game, then got their wish. 

You can't kill thieves (that is, advocate for them being balanced in a way that prevents them from being effective. ) The devs are smart enough to not allow this to happen, so pick which way you want them to fight.

1 hour ago, Burial.1958 said:

For me the only thing Anet should really look at is bound thief. This is truly pretty broken and stupid because u can't interrupt it really. Dash D/P thief is okay. 

Why can't you interrupt it? 

If its broken, why is it not high in the meta rating?

Edited November 21, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

20 hours ago, Caffynated.5713 said:

Smashing buttons off CD can certainly be mindless. Now imagine how much more mindless it is to smash buttons that have no CD.

If you press two buttons on thief, all your weapon skills, including those on your swapped weapon, have a cd.

Just because they don't have a cd on the label doesn't mean they don't have an effective one. 

Thieves often can't afford to press a single button outside of when they need it. 

Try it. Go press black powder twice by accident then try to do anything else.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 11/17/2023 at 5:05 PM, Jitters.9401 said:

 

(1) Every 3.2 seconds I can hit you for 5k damage. I am only visible for a fraction of a second and almost nothing you can do about it. I say 3.2 seconds as a guestimate, But I can time my hit so I am visible for just a blip on your screen and you take a 5k hit The best thieves you fight do this.

(2) Thieves can hit you AND be in stealth. No Reveal for any amount of time. It is actually part of the game mechanics. No exploit needed. It is a 1 time action though. Any additional attack will reveal the thief, but the original one... The thief stays in stealth. Not a Cloak and Dagger hit. Something much quicker and deadlier to use. They just do not want you to know about it.

(3) Those stealth thieves trait so they actually can stay near 100% initiative.  I can hit you you for 5k+, and repeat every few seconds, stay at near full to full initiative, and stay in stealth so much, that I am only a blip on the screen. How many  people can take that much damage in such a short intervals?

Right now I am on EBG running glass. Less than 14k hitpoints. If I get attacked by a group, I can and will easily escape. If I get into a 1v1 fight, 100% guarantee I will not die. I should win easy enough, but on that rare occasion it looks bad, I can just escape. Even Rangers will stealth more than I will. That is how OP I find it, that I will only use it rarely.

What build allows you to do this?

Can you build it here?

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Quote

"Thief being good at punishing solo roam in wvw is OP"

Thieves being menaces to lone travelers in WvW is nothing new. They trade their group fight utility for roaming and picking off stragglers by design. If you don't want to get bullied by a thief, don't travel alone, travel near structures, or build to counter them with a class that uses reveal. 

If you want them to be less good at beating up people running around in wvw not in groups, then their teamfight ability needs to be improved. 

Otherwise, F.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

20 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Since anything I say here won't help anyone, I'll keep it simple. 

If you want thieves to play stealth light, advocate for buffing their low stealth options. Right now, all of them suck.

If you want thieves to not decap+1, advocate for their mitigation so they can teamfight. Right now, they can't do that very well.

If you dont want either of the above and also want stealth removed, cope. Those that came before you had these arguments, decided thief should be relegated to decapping +1 because they were the fastest class in the game, then got their wish. 

You can't kill thieves (that is, advocate for them being balanced in a way that prevents them from being effective. ) The devs are smart enough to not allow this to happen, so pick which way you want them to fight.

Why can't you interrupt it? 

If its broken, why is it not high in the meta rating?

S/D is pretty good. Of course you need actual "hands" to play it since the risk is higher than D/P.
S/P pistol whip could use a buff tho.

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

29 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Since anything I say here won't help anyone, I'll keep it simple. 

If you want thieves to play stealth light, advocate for buffing their low stealth options. Right now, all of them suck.

If you want thieves to not decap+1, advocate for their mitigation so they can teamfight. Right now, they can't do that very well.

If you dont want either of the above and also want stealth removed, cope. Those that came before you had these arguments, decided thief should be relegated to decapping +1 because they were the fastest class in the game, then got their wish. 

You can't kill thieves (that is, advocate for them being balanced in a way that prevents them from being effective. ) The devs are smart enough to not allow this to happen, so pick which way you want them to fight.

Why can't you interrupt it? 

If its broken, why is it not high in the meta rating?

Ironically, Teefs having the most access to Stealth, wud be why they got nerfed so hard in every department except 1v1/1vX.
If we suddenly took away Stealth, Rangers/Mesmers will suffer a little, but Teefs wud be basically deleted.
Their greatest strength has became their greatest weakness (cuz it gets them nerfs), as you said, theres needs to be a balance.
And it starts with stripping away the Stealth and giving them other utility.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

37 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

S/P pistol whip could use a buff tho.

Sounds good to me. It did get nerfed largely in part due to sindrener playing it, so I don't believe the people upset with thief will be any happier, but its good to know there are exceptions.

Quote

S/D is pretty good. Of course you need actual "hands" to play it since the risk is higher than D/P.

It has nothing to do with hands, 3 is an unblockable evade. The risk is higher because the stealth access is a high cost short range attack, and so the situations you'd use s/d  in are narrower. You need to attack someone with aoes on them? Good luck, you have to kite while they try to range you until they expire instead of being able to reposition and avoid projectiles with stealth. 

That's not hands, that's tactics. There's less room for tactics with no mitigation nowadays because everyone is too busy vomiting fields and autotrack projectiles, and chaining all their invulns together to accomodate just some guy popping in and out of 1200 range.

29 minutes ago, MercurialKuroSludge.8974 said:

Ironically, Teefs having the most access to Stealth, wud be why they got nerfed so hard in every department except 1v1/1vX.
If we suddenly took away Stealth, Rangers/Mesmers will suffer a little, but Teefs wud be basically deleted.
Their greatest strength has became their greatest weakness (cuz it gets them nerfs), as you said, theres needs to be a balance.
And it starts with stripping away the Stealth and giving them other utility.

Hey, I don't mind playing low stealth, but I do know that most thief players that cause the salt in this thread are high execution, and that there needs to be some mitigative factor to protect thieves since they have the lowest health pool in the game, besides guard and ele, which can both go invulnerable and oneshot you if built for it. Whatever the foundation of thief, that high execution will map onto it, because you can't balance the experience of the thief players out of the game without making the class so unjustifiably punishing that new players never pick it up. And anet wont do that, because it doesn't solve any problem and creates new ones. 

Maybe I'm jaded, but I'm sure we will be back here again if the goalposts shift, and right now its just a game of how many times its justified for me to relearn my kit because nobody else wants to learn theirs once.

🫶 love yall though. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

 Nobody plays that or cares.

🥹

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Just now, Dawdler.8521 said:

🥹

I'd say "you poor soul" but I get beat up by woodstock too often to not take yall seriously. 

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

just remove stealth. Leave the rest as it is. Thieves still got good burst dmg and stupid mobility.

Just remove stealth from the game. It would remove one of the most important reasons why new people do not want to play wvw.

 

It sucks to be ganked out of stealth.

 

That simple.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

41 minutes ago, VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig. said:

just remove stealth. Leave the rest as it is. Thieves still got good burst dmg and stupid mobility.

Just remove stealth from the game. It would remove one of the most important reasons why new people do not want to play wvw.

 

It sucks to be ganked out of stealth.

 

That simple.

How will thieves access their stealth attack skills? They only become available when they're in stealth.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

52 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

 

That's not hands, that's tactics. There's less room for tactics with no mitigation nowadays because everyone is too busy vomiting fields and autotrack projectiles, and chaining all their invulns together to accomodate just some guy popping in and out of 1200 range.

 

By "hands" I metaphorically meant skill hence the " ". Same with s/d spectre, although you have shroud it needs quite some skill and a lot of going in and out.
D/P on the other hand (no "" this time) is quite cheesy and easy to pull off in comparison.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

5 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

By "hands" I metaphorically meant skill hence the " ". Same with s/d spectre, although you have shroud it needs quite some skill and a lot of going in and out.
D/P on the other hand (no "" this time) is quite cheesy and easy to pull off in comparison.

I know what you meant. People don't play it because the situation in which it can be applied is very narrow. 

And also because acrobatics/swindlers got nerfed and has yet to be a viable traitline. But yknow, mostly the first thing. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

7 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I know what you meant. People don't play it because the situation in which it can be applied is very narrow. 

And also because acrobatics/swindlers got nerfed and has yet to be a viable traitline. But yknow, mostly the first thing. 

Still see a bunch of s/d thieves on wvw, not as many as d/p but still some, in my guild alone there's a bunch.
Regarding pistol whip as far as I know only Redemeer plays it and takes a lot of of time and effort to kill someone, it's amazing how far the nerfs went.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Lincolnbeard.1735

[Caffynated.5713]

3 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Still see a bunch of s/d thieves on wvw, not as many as d/p but still some, in my guild alone there's a bunch.
Regarding pistol whip as far as I know only Redemeer plays it and takes a lot of of time and effort to kill someone, it's amazing how far the nerfs went.

Even if Pistol Whip was strong, it feels bad to use now. It's very clunky compared to how it used to be. 

[kash.9213]

4 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Still see a bunch of s/d thieves on wvw, not as many as d/p but still some, in my guild alone there's a bunch.
Regarding pistol whip as far as I know only Redemeer plays it and takes a lot of of time and effort to kill someone, it's amazing how far the nerfs went.

S/D can get neglected by the devs but it feels natural and it also handles WvW topography better than a lot of other kits. S/D skills are fluid and responsive and it's easier to move with a moving fight when most of your kit doesn't need to have a target selected. I'll probably always have it on one of my most used templates. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by kash.9213

[Invictorum.7643]

I don't think most people will ever actually sit and learn how to fight Thief, tbh. Any class built on subversion and disguising intent will inherently be one of the most frustrating to face, to the point where people will just avoid dealing with them.

1 hour ago, kash.9213 said:

S/D can get neglected by the devs but it feels natural and it also handles WvW topography better than a lot of other kits. S/D skills are fluid and responsive and it's easier to move with a moving fight when most of your kit doesn't need to have a target selected. I'll probably always have it on one of my most used templates. 

Also helps that S/D is honestly one of the most fashionable and aesthetic sets to work with, tbh. It just hits right when you have that good set and design to work with.

[solemn.9670]

22 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Maybe I'm jaded, but I'm sure we will be back here again if the goalposts shift, and right now its just a game of how many times its justified for me to relearn my kit because nobody else wants to learn theirs once.

🫶 love yall though. 

Spot on for elementalist 

Wait, you meant thief?

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

21 minutes ago, solemn.9670 said:

Spot on for elementalist 

Wait, you meant thief?

*looks at the thread title*

You lost, traveler?

Jokes aside, it's true for elementalist too. Getting a buff to signets that worked with staunch auras, then getting signets obliterated to worse than how they were is a facet of what I'm describing here. And eles still struggle to play glass, so yeah.

People dont come after your  attunements as often as they come after stealth though, and the things they -do- come after for ele are usually not innately tied to every build you can possibly conceive.  We get these threads monthly, usually ele needs to have permanent stability or barrier before it gets the hatemob with poor suggestions.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261