Invisibility has Gotten out of Hand

[ASP.8093]

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:

@ASP.8093 said:

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:Preventing stealth stomps in WvW should be the first thing ,its an offensive action and shouldn`t permit a player to remain stealthed esp that bovine scat teleport stealth stomp.Prevent players stealthing if taking damage , cut durations, limit the times you can stealth within a 15 second time frame , prevent revealed players stripping that reveal

Love this idea that a player blowing a bunch of initiative and their highest-value cooldown to make a pretty floaty unicorn pop out of your dead body is also OP now.

It prevents people interrupting the stomp doesn

t it , you can

t even ATTEMPT to prevent it , so yes it is ' OP ' as you put it.

If they Shadow Step away but don't pop stealth,

• You can hit them with a ranged interrupt very easily (at least mesmer, ranger, ele, necro have this pretty well covered).
• Or ranged DPS. Pew-pew Rapid Fire.

If they pop stealth but don't Shadow Step away,

• You can dump area CC or just pure damage.

If they do either OR BOTH,

• Illusion of Life or Glyph of Renewal is faster than a stomp in all circumstances.
• Stealth application from Shadow Refuge, Mass Invis, Sneak Gyro, or blasting a smoke field will prevent a stomp from actually finishing the down.
• Dumping nasty CC near the down before the thief starts the stomp can still easily ruin their day: if they Shadow Step to stun break, they either can't initiate the stomp or can't move away; if they don't stun break, then they're just stuck.
• Several people rubbing, or possibly just one person with Mercy runes, can "race" a stomp you can't stop.
• If the enemy has downs already, killing them will rally your ally.
• Transfusion necros can teleport downed players out of stomp range.

All in all the "safest" possible thief stomp is not any better than Elixir S or Distortion.

[Balkarrie Legacy.9175]

Explain how you do all that downed .... > @ASP.8093 said:

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:

@ASP.8093 said:

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:Preventing stealth stomps in WvW should be the first thing ,its an offensive action and shouldn`t permit a player to remain stealthed esp that bovine scat teleport stealth stomp.Prevent players stealthing if taking damage , cut durations, limit the times you can stealth within a 15 second time frame , prevent revealed players stripping that reveal

Love this idea that a player blowing a bunch of initiative and their highest-value cooldown to make a pretty floaty unicorn pop out of your dead body is also OP now.

It prevents people interrupting the stomp doesn

t it , you can

t even ATTEMPT to prevent it , so yes it is ' OP ' as you put it.

If they Shadow Step away but don't pop stealth,

• You can hit them with a ranged interrupt very easily (at least mesmer, ranger, ele, necro have this pretty well covered).
• Or ranged DPS. Pew-pew Rapid Fire.

If they pop stealth but don't Shadow Step away,

• You can dump area CC or just pure damage.

If they do either OR BOTH,

• Illusion of Life or Glyph of Renewal is faster than a stomp in all circumstances.
• Stealth application from Shadow Refuge, Mass Invis, Sneak Gyro, or blasting a smoke field will prevent a stomp from actually finishing the down.
• Dumping nasty CC near the down
  before
  the thief starts the stomp can still easily ruin their day: if they Shadow Step to stun break, they either can't initiate the stomp or can't move away; if they don't stun break, then they're just stuck.
• Several people rubbing, or possibly just one person with Mercy runes, can "race" a stomp you can't stop.
• If the enemy has downs already, killing them will rally your ally.
• Transfusion necros can teleport downed players out of stomp range.

All in all the "safest" possible thief stomp is not any better than Elixir S or Distortion.

Explain how you do all that downed ... come on i`ll wait , not holding my breath though

[ASP.8093]

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:Explain how you do all that downed ... come on i`ll wait , not holding my breath though

Buddy, I don't know how to break it to you, but if you're downed 1-on-1, you've already lost that fight. It doesn't matter how they finish you. An uplevel in white gear could just plink you to death from range.

The whole point of safe-stomp techniques for any class is to secure downs in a team fight.

[Balkarrie Legacy.9175]

@ASP.8093 said:

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:Explain how you do all that downed ... come on i`ll wait , not holding my breath though

Buddy, I don't know how to break it to you, but if you're downed 1-on-1, you've already lost that fight. It doesn't matter how they finish you. An uplevel in white gear could just plink you to death from range.

The whole point of safe-stomp techniques for any class is to secure downs in a team fight.

no you haven`t always , provided you can still deal with the other player

[ASP.8093]

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:

@ASP.8093 said:

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:Explain how you do all that downed ... come on i`ll wait , not holding my breath though

Buddy, I don't know how to break it to you, but if you're downed 1-on-1, you've already lost that fight. It doesn't matter how they finish you. An uplevel in white gear could just plink you to death from range.

The whole point of safe-stomp techniques for any class is to secure downs in a team fight.

no you haven`t always , provided you can still deal with the other player

Behold, my super-elite i'm-in-no-hurry 1v1 downed-player killing build, which will effortlessly neutralize all downed players besides Rangers and Warriors: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKQAQA-e

[Baldrick.8967]

They should give every class stealth. As much as possible, then we can all wander around the maps and think 'there doesn't seem to be anyone here'...oh wait, it feels like that already most of the time!

[Jeydra.4386]

@"UNOwen.7132" said:And as usual, people complain about the wrong element of stealth and present the worst possible solutions. Yes, out of combat stealth, where you get hit by a burst from a player you didnt even know was there is an issue. Thats solved easily just by having a max duration of stealth that cant be exceeded. But in-combat stealth, aka stealthing in the middle of a fight, is already weak. And yet inexplicably the mechanic so underpowered good thieves dont use it is the one people want nerfed to ludicrous degrees.

What? I just got trolled by a Daredevil who spent roughly 50% of the time stealthed. He could aggro into me in the middle of NPCs in a camp and escape with no consequences, because during the time when he wasn't stealthed he always has dodges and ports. Meanwhile I can't leave the camp because he will flip it (+ it was a long way to run to the next objective during which he will probably kill me), and I can't even map out because I'm in combat.

And I haven't even mentioned the ability to grief 8+ players hunting you in a Keep, on a class that has ports for teammates (i.e. cannot be left alone if you want to hold the objective).

Stealth is just so stupidly broken it needs to be nerfed into oblivion. "Overpowered" is the wrong word to describe it. It's the ability to grief other players that is the problem.

[Vihar.5780]

Invisibility wasn't nerfed when DPS was nerfed. Aside from that, it isn't just invisibility, it is that there are so many skills that "do this, do that, AND stealth", with a single button what other classes only get as individual skills.

There needs to be some kind f counterplay...if a stealthed player takes damage, let the damage numbers show up. Problem solved. That single change would balance it out for all classes.

[ASP.8093]

@Vihar.5780 said:There needs to be some kind f counterplay...if a stealthed player takes damage, let the damage numbers show up. Problem solved. That single change would balance it out for all classes.

That would be a good change, imo.

You can already accomplish this by switching your chat box to the combat log, it's just really unfriendly UI when you're actually fighting, so most people don't. I see no reason not to make the information about as readable as all the other damage floaters.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Jeydra.4386 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:And as usual, people complain about the wrong element of stealth and present the

worst

possible solutions. Yes, out of combat stealth, where you get hit by a burst from a player you didnt even know was there is an issue. Thats solved easily just by having a max duration of stealth that cant be exceeded. But in-combat stealth, aka stealthing in the middle of a fight, is

already weak

. And yet inexplicably the mechanic so underpowered good thieves dont use it is the one people want nerfed to ludicrous degrees.

What? I just got trolled by a Daredevil who spent roughly 50% of the time stealthed. He could aggro into me in the middle of NPCs in a camp and escape with no consequences, because during the time when he wasn't stealthed he always has dodges and ports. Meanwhile I can't leave the camp because he will flip it (+ it was a long way to run to the next objective during which he will probably kill me), and I can't even map out because I'm in combat.

If he is a Daredevil, the only way he can stealth up consistently is Black Powder -> Heartseeker. That makes him incredibly easy to punish. When he does that, just hit him with CC and/or burst, and he gets downed really easy. And since he is D/P Daredevil, he has only the basic dodges (so fewer than most classes), and no defensive ports short of switching to shortbow 5. At which point he has to run and give up.

And I haven't even mentioned the ability to grief 8+ players hunting you in a Keep, on a class that has ports for teammates (i.e. cannot be left alone if you want to hold the objective).

Thats out of combat stealth. Different story.

Stealth is just so stupidly broken it needs to be nerfed into oblivion. "Overpowered" is the wrong word to describe it. It's the ability to grief other players that is the problem.

Yeah except its not broken at all. Out of combat stealth has its issues, but that is solved as easily as making stealth not be able to exceed 6 seconds total duration. In-combat stealth is weak and if anything, needs a buff.

[Jeydra.4386]

@"UNOwen.7132" said:

If he is a Daredevil, the only way he can stealth up consistently is Black Powder -> Heartseeker. That makes him incredibly easy to punish. When he does that, just hit him with CC and/or burst, and he gets downed really easy. And since he is D/P Daredevil, he has only the basic dodges (so fewer than most classes), and no defensive ports short of switching to shortbow 5. At which point he has to run and give up.

Are we thinking of the same thing? He doesn't stay stealthed for a long time, he just stealths every few seconds for a few seconds.

Also the thief was tanky enough to engage into NPCs and not die. So there's no such thing as "just hit him with CC and/or burst and he gets downed really easy" (don't forget they also have stunbreaks). As for "run and give up" - if you call staying out of range of NPCs but within range to put you in combat, and then moving after you if you leave the NPCs "running and giving up", then yeah, he has to run and give up. Meanwhile I'm still stuck in the camp.

As for trolling Keeps as "out of combat stealth" - you can put them in combat, making it in combat stealth. You just can't kill them while they disengage.

I'm no expert on Thieves but it's easily the most frustrating profession out there. The class is fine until they decide to grief you, when they are the king trolls of the game, often capable of trolling multiple (3+) players for as long as they want without ever dying. They/stealth needs to be nerfed into oblivion.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Jeydra.4386 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:

If he is a Daredevil, the only way he can stealth up consistently is Black Powder -> Heartseeker. That makes him incredibly easy to punish. When he does that, just hit him with CC and/or burst, and he gets downed really easy. And since he is D/P Daredevil, he has only the basic dodges (so fewer than most classes), and no defensive ports short of switching to shortbow 5. At which point he has to run and give up.

Are we thinking of the same thing? He doesn't stay stealthed for a long time, he just stealths every few seconds for a few seconds.

Yeah thats in-combat stealth. Its weak. So weak that its generally not used at all.

Also the thief was tanky enough to engage into NPCs and not die. So there's no such thing as "just hit him with CC and/or burst and he gets downed really easy" (don't forget they also have stunbreaks). As for "run and give up" - if you call staying out of range of NPCs but within range to put you in combat, and then moving after you if you leave the NPCs "running and giving up", then yeah, he has to run and give up. Meanwhile I'm still stuck in the camp.

NPCs do not do a whole lot of damage. When I ran Glass Berserker for a bit (as a joke, really), even with Berserker mode on, unless the supervisor was still determined, Id be nowhere close to dying. But if, say, a Ranger decided to train Rapid Fire on me? Yeah Id be downed pretty much immediately. You absolutely can just him with CC and burst and down him. And sure, he has two stunbreaks. Each with a 50 second cooldown. Once you got both down, you won. He has to run, and wont be able to reengage for another half minute. And yes, if he is just wasting his own time, he has given up and run away.

As for trolling Keeps as "out of combat stealth" - you can put them in combat, making it in combat stealth. You just can't kill them while they disengage.

If you can put them in combat they port out and break combat. The trick is that they stealth while youre in no range to hit them.

I'm no expert on Thieves but it's easily the most frustrating profession out there. The class is fine until they decide to grief you, when they are the king trolls of the game, often capable of trolling multiple (3+) players for as long as they want without ever dying. They/stealth needs to be nerfed into oblivion.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Trolling multiple players? Only works against really bad players. Against good players, the thief just cuts his losses and runs. Because if he doesnt, he dies. Simple as that. So no ,stealth doesnt need to be nerfed at all (And in-combat stealth, if anything, needs to be buffed).

[kash.9213]

@Jeydra.4386 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:

If he is a Daredevil, the only way he can stealth up consistently is Black Powder -> Heartseeker. That makes him incredibly easy to punish. When he does that, just hit him with CC and/or burst, and he gets downed really easy. And since he is D/P Daredevil, he has only the basic dodges (so fewer than most classes), and no defensive ports short of switching to shortbow 5. At which point he has to run and give up.

Are we thinking of the same thing?

He doesn't stay stealthed for a long time, he just stealths every few seconds for a few seconds.

Also the thief was tanky enough to engage into NPCs and not die. So there's no such thing as "just hit him with CC and/or burst and he gets downed really easy" (don't forget they also have stunbreaks). As for "run and give up" - if you call staying out of range of NPCs but within range to put you in combat, and then moving after you if you leave the NPCs "running and giving up", then yeah, he has to run and give up. Meanwhile I'm still stuck in the camp.

As for trolling Keeps as "out of combat stealth" - you can put them in combat, making it in combat stealth. You just can't kill them while they disengage.

I'm no expert on Thieves but it's easily the most frustrating profession out there. The class is fine until they decide to grief you, when they are the king trolls of the game, often capable of trolling multiple (3+) players for as long as they want without ever dying. They/stealth needs to be nerfed into oblivion.

Kind of sounds like they're blinding through those npcs and probably why it looked like tanking. I don't know anything about your build or theirs or what the combat tab looked like though. Everything scares me so I might have hammered him from range instead since he looks like someone who knows they'll get jumped and I'll feel things out a bit while also panning camera a bit to look around. Get them to jump you instead and build thorny and have some reach for when they nope out and bonus if it punishes whatever they'll use next. Some people are just really good and alert though, I got shook by a core s/d thief who budgeted their Initiative really well last weekend and all I could do was look at my combat tab to see if I could adjust and waddle back out onto the map.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@"Balkarrie Legacy.9175" said:

So what about stomping using mist form/elixir S/stability/function gyro/stances etc? Those are ok because you can see the enemy stomping but (in most cases) do nothing about it, but stealth stomp isn't ok even though one AoE CC on the downed will stop it? Really?

Why would I bind multiple evades or stealths into a single macro? Evades don't stack so a macro would be pointless, stealth doesn't need a macro (in fact, very little in this game does) and even if it did, binding it to a macro means I'd blow everything at once and would have nothing left when it expires, meaning a quick death. This comment alone implies you have never actually played thief.

Well lets see now, supposed theres no one to apply that AoE CC .. which actually doesn

t prevent it anyway , and secondly you

d be very very wrong . Macros were banned for a reason in GW1 and originally 2 ... but some muppet at anet decided to change that because there's no way that anyone would have more than 1 skill bound into one right

Your inability to land an AoE skill on a thief when you already know where he is is not my problem, and if there is no-one to apply the CC then what the hell point is there in stealth stomping. If you go down in a 1v1 you lost the fight already, respawn and play better next time. The fact remains that there is still more counterplay to a stealth stomp than there is to an elixir S/mistform/stability stomp, a fact you conveniently glossed over.

Secondly, you missed my point. Binding evades or stealths into a macro is a dumb as binding all your stances on a warrior into a macro, what are you going to do when you just put everything you have on cooldown and the other guy isn't dead yet? Even if macros were not banned, no decent player would use them because you give up all flexibility in a fight to do something you could have done anyway with good keybinds and a little practice. You bringing up macros in the first place feels like a shoddy attempt to make thief players look like they are abusing something when in reality they're just playing the class as it exists in game. Frankly it feels dishonest because you're trying to deflect responsibility from yourself to something outside of normal gameplay that you can't control, therefore avoiding blame for the loss (it's an "I didn't lose, he cheated" mentality). Pick yourself up, stop making excuses for what happened, learn from your mistakes and grow as a person. Good luck o/

[Jeydra.4386]

@"UNOwen.7132" said:NPCs do not do a whole lot of damage. When I ran Glass Berserker for a bit (as a joke, really), even with Berserker mode on, unless the supervisor was still determined, Id be nowhere close to dying. But if, say, a Ranger decided to train Rapid Fire on me? Yeah Id be downed pretty much immediately. You absolutely can just him with CC and burst and down him. And sure, he has two stunbreaks. Each with a 50 second cooldown. Once you got both down, you won. He has to run, and wont be able to reengage for another half minute. And yes, if he is just wasting his own time, he has given up and run away.

If you can put them in combat they port out and break combat. The trick is that they stealth while youre in no range to hit them.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Trolling multiple players? Only works against really bad players. Against good players, the thief just cuts his losses and runs. Because if he doesnt, he dies. Simple as that. So no ,stealth doesnt need to be nerfed at all (And in-combat stealth, if anything, needs to be buffed).

I can't change builds or classes if I'm already in combat, so "you can absolutely just CC him and burst" does not work.

For trolling keeps: how it works doesn't matter, the point is that it works and is extraordinarily hard to counterplay.

As for not dying vs multiple players: or maybe they have builds that are countered by what the Thief has equipped. You could try it estimating it: how many good Condi Mirages does it take to kill a good thief?

By the way: if you can name a build that can kill - not just avoid dying to, but outright kill, preferably even when they're trying to run away - Thieves 1v1 in WvW, please tell me what it is. I'll go out of my way to gear it and learn it.

@"kash.9213" said:Kind of sounds like they're blinding through those npcs and probably why it looked like tanking. I don't know anything about your build or theirs or what the combat tab looked like though. Everything scares me so I might have hammered him from range instead since he looks like someone who knows they'll get jumped and I'll feel things out a bit while also panning camera a bit to look around. Get them to jump you instead and build thorny and have some reach for when they nope out and bonus if it punishes whatever they'll use next. Some people are just really good and alert though, I got shook by a core s/d thief who budgeted their Initiative really well last weekend and all I could do was look at my combat tab to see if I could adjust and waddle back out onto the map.

"Get them to jump you" is part of the problem, they are only going to jump you if they think they can win, so even if you down them the entire scenario can only arise if they made a mistake (i.e. they thought they can win when they can't). Otherwise they get to grief you forever, since you will never kill them.

[Naxos.2503]

Just give more classes an easier access to reveal. Problem solved. The main issue with stealth is that for thieves it's both an offensive and defensive bonus. Whereas kitting for Stealth reveal requires hampering most builds, and thus more people dont use it. It's basically that. Doesn't help that scrappers can no longer easily use Detection Pulse, before it was in an Elite that was objectively better than the other options (stealth obviously) and now you need to use Utility Goggles, which very few people use.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Jeydra.4386 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:NPCs do not do a whole lot of damage. When I ran Glass Berserker for a bit (as a joke, really), even with Berserker mode on, unless the supervisor was still determined, Id be nowhere close to dying. But if, say, a Ranger decided to train Rapid Fire on me? Yeah Id be downed pretty much immediately. You absolutely can just him with CC and burst and down him. And sure, he has two stunbreaks. Each with a 50 second cooldown. Once you got both down, you won. He has to run, and wont be able to reengage for another half minute. And yes, if he is just wasting his own time, he has given up and run away.

If you can put them in combat they port out and break combat. The trick is that they stealth while youre in no range to hit them.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Trolling multiple players? Only works against really bad players. Against good players, the thief just cuts his losses and runs. Because if he doesnt, he dies. Simple as that. So no ,stealth doesnt need to be nerfed at all (And in-combat stealth, if anything, needs to be buffed).

I can't change builds or classes if I'm already in combat, so "you can absolutely just CC him and burst" does not work.

If your class can not CC, or burst, then the problem is your build. If you cant do either of those, you wont be able to kill anyone.

For trolling keeps: how it works doesn't matter, the point is that it works and is extraordinarily hard to counterplay.

And its an easy solution. Max 6 seconds total duration in stealth. Next.

As for not dying vs multiple players: or maybe they have builds that are countered by what the Thief has equipped. You could try it estimating it: how many good Condi Mirages does it take to kill a good thief?

If the thief is stupid enough to try and stealth up mid-combat, 1. If he runs away, youre not killing him.

By the way: if you can name a build that can kill - not just avoid dying to, but outright kill, preferably even when they're trying to run away - Thieves 1v1 in WvW, please tell me what it is. I'll go out of my way to gear it and learn it.

Unless youre on flat ground, no one can catch up to a thief when theyre running away. Thats the one thing theyre good at. So you wont kill them there. On the other hand, kill them if they dont run away? Every build. DH, Firebrand, core guardian, Warrior, Berserker, Spellbreaker, Renegade, Herald, Core Revenant, other thieves (duh), Ranger, Druid, Soulbeast, Engineer, Holo, Scrapper, etc. etc..

@"kash.9213" said:Kind of sounds like they're blinding through those npcs and probably why it looked like tanking. I don't know anything about your build or theirs or what the combat tab looked like though. Everything scares me so I might have hammered him from range instead since he looks like someone who knows they'll get jumped and I'll feel things out a bit while also panning camera a bit to look around. Get them to jump you instead and build thorny and have some reach for when they nope out and bonus if it punishes whatever they'll use next. Some people are just really good and alert though, I got shook by a core s/d thief who budgeted their Initiative really well last weekend and all I could do was look at my combat tab to see if I could adjust and waddle back out onto the map.

"Get them to jump you" is part of the problem, they are only going to jump you if they think they can win, so even if you down them the entire scenario can only arise if they made a mistake (i.e. they thought they can win when they can't). Otherwise they get to grief you forever, since you will never kill them.

Which means if they dont think they can win (i.e. if youre not a bad player), theyre not going to jump you. That means they wont "grief" you either. They will just run away and look for bad players elsewhere.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Naxos.2503 said:Just give more classes an easier access to reveal. Problem solved. The main issue with stealth is that for thieves it's both an offensive and defensive bonus. Whereas kitting for Stealth reveal requires hampering most builds, and thus more people dont use it. It's basically that. Doesn't help that scrappers can no longer easily use Detection Pulse, before it was in an Elite that was objectively better than the other options (stealth obviously) and now you need to use Utility Goggles, which very few people use.

That doesnt solve anything. The issue is out of combat stealth, where reveal is useless. Reveal only works on in-combat stealth, which is arleady weak. Stealth is not at all a defensive bonus. Its bad at being defensive. Its pretty much just something you use to engage a fight, and thats it.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:

@ASP.8093 said:

@Balkarrie Legacy.9175 said:Explain how you do all that downed ... come on i`ll wait , not holding my breath though

Buddy, I don't know how to break it to you, but if you're downed 1-on-1, you've already lost that fight. It doesn't matter how they finish you. An uplevel in white gear could just plink you to death from range.

The whole point of safe-stomp techniques for any class is to secure downs in a team fight.

no you haven`t always , provided you can still deal with the other player

Lmao if u expect to be in downstates, stop a stomp and end up not at spawn in a 1v1 I would hate to see what a balanced downstate is in ur opinion lol

[Jeydra.4386]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Jeydra.4386 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:NPCs do not do a whole lot of damage. When I ran Glass Berserker for a bit (as a joke, really), even with Berserker mode on, unless the supervisor was still determined, Id be nowhere close to dying. But if, say, a Ranger decided to train Rapid Fire on me? Yeah Id be downed pretty much immediately. You absolutely can just him with CC and burst and down him. And sure, he has two stunbreaks. Each with a 50 second cooldown. Once you got both down, you won. He has to run, and wont be able to reengage for another half minute. And yes, if he is just wasting his own time, he has given up and run away.

If you can put them in combat they port out and break combat. The trick is that they stealth while youre in no range to hit them.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Trolling multiple players? Only works against really bad players. Against good players, the thief just cuts his losses and runs. Because if he doesnt, he dies. Simple as that. So no ,stealth doesnt need to be nerfed at all (And in-combat stealth, if anything, needs to be buffed).

I can't change builds or classes if I'm already in combat, so "you can absolutely just CC him and burst" does not work.

If your class can not CC, or burst, then the problem is your build. If you cant do either of those, you wont be able to kill

anyone

.

For trolling keeps: how it works doesn't matter, the point is that it works and is extraordinarily hard to counterplay.

And its an easy solution. Max 6 seconds total duration in stealth. Next.

As for not dying vs multiple players: or maybe they have builds that are countered by what the Thief has equipped. You could try it estimating it: how many good Condi Mirages does it take to kill a good thief?

If the thief is stupid enough to try and stealth up mid-combat, 1. If he runs away, youre not killing him.

By the way: if you can name a build that can kill - not just avoid dying to, but outright kill, preferably even when they're trying to run away - Thieves 1v1 in WvW, please tell me what it is. I'll go out of my way to gear it and learn it.

Unless youre on flat ground, no one can catch up to a thief when theyre running away. Thats the one thing theyre good at. So you wont kill them there. On the other hand, kill them if they

dont

run away? Every build. DH, Firebrand, core guardian, Warrior, Berserker, Spellbreaker, Renegade, Herald, Core Revenant, other thieves (duh), Ranger, Druid, Soulbeast, Engineer, Holo, Scrapper, etc. etc..

@"kash.9213" said:Kind of sounds like they're blinding through those npcs and probably why it looked like tanking. I don't know anything about your build or theirs or what the combat tab looked like though. Everything scares me so I might have hammered him from range instead since he looks like someone who knows they'll get jumped and I'll feel things out a bit while also panning camera a bit to look around. Get them to jump you instead and build thorny and have some reach for when they nope out and bonus if it punishes whatever they'll use next. Some people are just really good and alert though, I got shook by a core s/d thief who budgeted their Initiative really well last weekend and all I could do was look at my combat tab to see if I could adjust and waddle back out onto the map.

"Get them to jump you" is part of the problem, they are only going to jump you if they think they can win, so even if you down them the entire scenario can only arise if they made a mistake (i.e. they thought they can win when they can't). Otherwise they get to grief you forever, since you will never kill them.

Which means if they dont think they can win (i.e. if youre not a bad player), theyre not going to jump you. That means they wont "grief" you either. They will just run away and look for bad players elsewhere.

Again, don't say "the problem is your build" because once you are in combat you cannot switch. For many classes, you actually have to disengage, equip a revealed skill, and then go back hoping the Thief is still there.

Condi Mirage vs. thief: have you actually tried this? The Thief skill that grants all boons is effectively unbeatable. They have Resistance when they're not stealthed, tons of target breaks, ports, etc, maybe even remove conditions on dodging. Equal skill they cannot die 1v1 (heck I'd venture that even with a big skill disadvantage, they cannot die 1v1, because they will disengage before they actually die).

"Unless youre on flat ground, no one can catch up to a thief when theyre running away." - which is a BIG part of the problem. You have a class that cannot be killed unless they take risks. Literally NOBODY can kill a Thief if they don't want to be killed. Hell, several players might still not be enough to kill a Thief if they don't want to be killed. Which means they can do things like tap Keeps forever, and they don't even need to be in the Keep to do it. Just an hour or so ago we were defending our Hills on an Alpine borderland. We killed most of the invaders, sans one Deadeye. We had six people trying to kill him. Didn't manage. He stealthed and disengaged against SIX players, in spite of being surrounded on a cliff. No other class can do this. Thankfully he didn't stick around trolling the Keep, because otherwise we might've wound up pulling our hair out.

As for "they won't grief you they will run away and look for bad players elsewhere" - how do you know they won't? Because I've certainly encountered Thieves who will. They can't kill you, but they keep you in combat. Like, say I get to a Camp which the Thief is trying to flip. I attack him with enough damage that any other class will die, but it's a Thief, he stealths and disengages. Then he hits me a bit, stealths again, hits a bit, I'm clearly not going to die especially with NPCs, but he stays nearby. Now what? No class can actually kill him. I could leave, but then he'll flip the camp (and I can't even leave if he doesn't want me to). What CAN I do? Suggest something.

tl; dr: Thieves are silly and need to be nerfed into oblivion.

[ASP.8093]

@Jeydra.4386 said:I attack him with enough damage that any other class will die, but it's a Thief, he stealths and disengages.

Then the thief would also be dead, in this case.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Jeydra.4386 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Jeydra.4386 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:NPCs do not do a whole lot of damage. When I ran Glass Berserker for a bit (as a joke, really), even with Berserker mode on, unless the supervisor was still determined, Id be nowhere close to dying. But if, say, a Ranger decided to train Rapid Fire on me? Yeah Id be downed pretty much immediately. You absolutely can just him with CC and burst and down him. And sure, he has two stunbreaks. Each with a 50 second cooldown. Once you got both down, you won. He has to run, and wont be able to reengage for another half minute. And yes, if he is just wasting his own time, he has given up and run away.

If you can put them in combat they port out and break combat. The trick is that they stealth while youre in no range to hit them.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Trolling multiple players? Only works against really bad players. Against good players, the thief just cuts his losses and runs. Because if he doesnt, he dies. Simple as that. So no ,stealth doesnt need to be nerfed at all (And in-combat stealth, if anything, needs to be buffed).

I can't change builds or classes if I'm already in combat, so "you can absolutely just CC him and burst" does not work.

If your class can not CC, or burst, then the problem is your build. If you cant do either of those, you wont be able to kill

anyone

.

For trolling keeps: how it works doesn't matter, the point is that it works and is extraordinarily hard to counterplay.

And its an easy solution. Max 6 seconds total duration in stealth. Next.

As for not dying vs multiple players: or maybe they have builds that are countered by what the Thief has equipped. You could try it estimating it: how many good Condi Mirages does it take to kill a good thief?

If the thief is stupid enough to try and stealth up mid-combat, 1. If he runs away, youre not killing him.

By the way: if you can name a build that can kill - not just avoid dying to, but outright kill, preferably even when they're trying to run away - Thieves 1v1 in WvW, please tell me what it is. I'll go out of my way to gear it and learn it.

Unless youre on flat ground, no one can catch up to a thief when theyre running away. Thats the one thing theyre good at. So you wont kill them there. On the other hand, kill them if they

dont

run away? Every build. DH, Firebrand, core guardian, Warrior, Berserker, Spellbreaker, Renegade, Herald, Core Revenant, other thieves (duh), Ranger, Druid, Soulbeast, Engineer, Holo, Scrapper, etc. etc..

@"kash.9213" said:Kind of sounds like they're blinding through those npcs and probably why it looked like tanking. I don't know anything about your build or theirs or what the combat tab looked like though. Everything scares me so I might have hammered him from range instead since he looks like someone who knows they'll get jumped and I'll feel things out a bit while also panning camera a bit to look around. Get them to jump you instead and build thorny and have some reach for when they nope out and bonus if it punishes whatever they'll use next. Some people are just really good and alert though, I got shook by a core s/d thief who budgeted their Initiative really well last weekend and all I could do was look at my combat tab to see if I could adjust and waddle back out onto the map.

"Get them to jump you" is part of the problem, they are only going to jump you if they think they can win, so even if you down them the entire scenario can only arise if they made a mistake (i.e. they thought they can win when they can't). Otherwise they get to grief you forever, since you will never kill them.

Which means if they dont think they can win (i.e. if youre not a bad player), theyre not going to jump you. That means they wont "grief" you either. They will just run away and look for bad players elsewhere.

Again, don't say "the problem is your build" because once you are in combat you cannot switch. For many classes, you actually have to disengage, equip a revealed skill, and then go back hoping the Thief is still there.

The problem is that your build is evidently not good enough to face anything. Thief is the least of your worry.

Condi Mirage vs. thief: have you actually tried this? The Thief skill that grants all boons is effectively unbeatable. They have Resistance when they're not stealthed, tons of target breaks, ports, etc, maybe even remove conditions on dodging. Equal skill they cannot die 1v1 (heck I'd venture that even with a big skill disadvantage, they cannot die 1v1, because they will disengage before they actually die).

If he is stupid enough to stealth up, that skill wont save him. You CC him and kill him. Cant use Ecto while CCd, after all. He has no target breaks at all. Thats a Mesmer thing, not a thief thing. Even Stealth doesnt break targets immediately. And the condi clear on dodge, besides not being used because its not very good, fails to clear a burst. Youre right that the thief wont die 1v1 because he will run away. But if the thief is stupid enough to not run, and if he is even more stupid and tries to stealth up in the middle of the fight, then he will absolutely die.

"Unless youre on flat ground, no one can catch up to a thief when theyre running away." - which is a BIG part of the problem. You have a class that cannot be killed unless they take risks. Literally NOBODY can kill a Thief if they don't want to be killed. Hell, several players might still not be enough to kill a Thief if they don't want to be killed. Which means they can do things like tap Keeps forever, and they don't even need to be in the Keep to do it. Just an hour or so ago we were defending our Hills on an Alpine borderland. We killed most of the invaders, sans one Deadeye. We had six people trying to kill him. Didn't manage. He stealthed and disengaged against SIX players, in spite of being surrounded on a cliff. No other class can do this. Thankfully he didn't stick around trolling the Keep, because otherwise we might've wound up pulling our hair out.

First, note how I said "unless youre on flat ground". Yeah turns out on flat ground, there is one class that can catch up to thief, and outruns literally everyone. If they dont want to be killed, they will also never be killed. Actually, there are 2 classes. Ranger, and Warrior. The difference is, Ranger and Warrior can kill enemies. Thief cannot. They can also keep a keep tapped. And again, that is easily solved. 6 second max total duration on stealth.

As for "they won't grief you they will run away and look for bad players elsewhere" - how do you know they won't? Because I've certainly encountered Thieves who will. They can't kill you, but they keep you in combat. Like, say I get to a Camp which the Thief is trying to flip. I attack him with enough damage that any other class will die, but it's a Thief, he stealths and disengages. Then he hits me a bit, stealths again, hits a bit, I'm clearly not going to die especially with NPCs, but he stays nearby. Now what? No class can actually kill him. I could leave, but then he'll flip the camp (and I can't even leave if he doesn't want me to). What CAN I do? Suggest something.

Because they cant keep you in combat. Lets fix your chain of events. "Like, say I get to a Camp which the Thief is trying to flip. I attack him with enough damage that any other class will die, but it's a Thief, he stealths and disengages makes the stupid mistake of trying to stealth up. You immediately kill him as a result of that mistake. The story ends here.". Now lets assume the thief wasnt bad, and instead did the correct thing. He switches to shortbow, and uses shortbow 5 to disengage. Now, he is safe, but he wont be able to keep you in combat. If you try to run and he chases, he dies, because his initiative is depleted.

Now you are right, if you run he might just flip the camp. So his presence can force you to stay there. But here is the funny thing: I can do the exact same thing with Engineer. All I have to do is sit on a mount, and wait. You wont be able to kill me. The mount ensures that. And if you run, Ill flip the camp. What can you do? Not a whole lot, but thats WvW for you.

tl; dr: Thieves are silly and need to be nerfed into oblivion.

Yeah except they arent and they dont. The only thing that needs to change is for stealths total duration to be capped (I suggest 6 seconds). After that, thief is arguably just weak, and we could talk about increasing their damage a bit.

[ASP.8093]

Condi Mesmer's scepter has both a channel and a low-cooldown block, and the Mirage spec lets you counterattack freely while defending

You've also got your own stealth and instant-speed mobility.

Not sayin' it's always going to be easy for you, but think about the tools you do have here.

Most condi builds are bad at chasing down enemies who don't stick around, though.

[kash.9213]

@Jeydra.4386 said:

@"kash.9213" said:Kind of sounds like they're blinding through those npcs and probably why it looked like tanking. I don't know anything about your build or theirs or what the combat tab looked like though. Everything scares me so I might have hammered him from range instead since he looks like someone who knows they'll get jumped and I'll feel things out a bit while also panning camera a bit to look around. Get them to jump you instead and build thorny and have some reach for when they nope out and bonus if it punishes whatever they'll use next. Some people are just really good and alert though, I got shook by a core s/d thief who budgeted their Initiative really well last weekend and all I could do was look at my combat tab to see if I could adjust and waddle back out onto the map.

"Get them to jump you" is part of the problem,

they are only going to jump you if they think they can win, so even if you down them the entire scenario can only arise if they made a mistake (i.e. they thought they can win when they can't)

. Otherwise they get to grief you forever, since you will never kill them.

That sounds like a good plan. If you're at range they might think they'll need to catch you slipping and close distance on you before you get more ranged help. That's why I mentioned building thorny.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Question; how often do you kill/survive vs a thief that jumps you when roaming? Score it x out of 10. Don't count any losses when you're on group/zerg builds, because if you're expecting to win 1v1 vs a roamer on a zerg build you are no better than the players bringing rangers and thieves to a zerg. Build templates and mounts are a thing, so there's really no excuse for getting caught out 1v1 on a zerg build. So what kind of number are we thinking?

If you are thinking 8 or 9 times out of 10, there is no problem because you are obviously countering them most of the time, and even if they run they aren't getting the kill. No changes needed.

If you are thinking 4, 5 or 6 times out of 10, again, the matchup is evidently pretty balanced, neither you nor the thief has a clear advantage assuming equal skill. No changes needed.

Only if you are thinking 1 or 2 times out of 10 is there a potential problem, which leads to a second question; are you playing a class/build that is weak to thief, did you make a mistake that the thief capitalised on, or are you losing because you don't know how to counter them? If you're thinking you need to go OOC to equip a reveal skill or change skills so you're more/less tanky, see paragraph 1, you're not on the right build. If you're playing a zerker build, you will get killed as fast as you kill, you agree to that risk when you decide to build that way. If you're playing a reaper, DPS ele or glassy mesmer, nothing wrong there, every class has counters and thief is yours (although if you play well you can still win). If you're playing anything else, you need to consider working on your build or your playstyle, because every other 1v1/roaming class/build can delete a thief given you know the counters your class has and you don't make a mistake.