Stealth is totally fine - Offhand dagger only thief roaming

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@manu.7539 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

Step one: understand what blind does in this game and then I'm sure you can come up with something and apply condis without much of a problem "lol"

Judging by the posts like yours in this thread, I'm really awaiting people to actually start running this op blind spamming, easy condi applying off-hand only broken wvw "build". :lol: Actually do it by yourself and post the results, just make sure it's not a cherry picked compilation but some actual uncut one-after-another fights outside of catching pve builds trying to cap a camp for a daily.

guess I'll let it go again. Ur still funny

I seriously have no idea what you're talking about right now.

but I'll let u have fun with ur pve builds :p

Ayyyy, good talk.Don't forget to get that OP BROKEN WVW BUILD and post the results, don't run from it now :)

Lol, I don’t think anyone thinks the build is op xD

However there is nothing stopping someone from throwing on a nice mainhand sword or dagger and a second weaponset and actually having an effective build. Even then, it would be very much hardcountered by d/p thief, which is more self sufficient at applying stealth and can keep up permastealth with no problem.

I’m more just highlighting that constant stealth application could use a review.

What weapon skill did they use here? %D

Haha, I’m also not saying it’s the

only broken

thing in WvW. Grenade barrage is also widely known to be completely busted! xD

So stealth is as broken as 1 (!!!) skill on engi because you can kill clueless (probably undergeared) players in wvw. What an evidence. Meanwhile pvp (tournaments including) are completely dominated by guards and necros. Same goes for wvw. Yeah, sure, stealth is broken, guize. One could probably headbutt people to death as warrior and not die while we are at it. Lessgo.

Pre Feb2020 nerf patch you probably could headbutt bad players and instagib them depending on their and your gear. Now... that 12 damage sure does hurt a lot...

[Cynz.9437]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@manu.7539 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

Step one: understand what blind does in this game and then I'm sure you can come up with something and apply condis without much of a problem "lol"

Judging by the posts like yours in this thread, I'm really awaiting people to actually start running this op blind spamming, easy condi applying off-hand only broken wvw "build". :lol: Actually do it by yourself and post the results, just make sure it's not a cherry picked compilation but some actual uncut one-after-another fights outside of catching pve builds trying to cap a camp for a daily.

guess I'll let it go again. Ur still funny

I seriously have no idea what you're talking about right now.

but I'll let u have fun with ur pve builds :p

Ayyyy, good talk.Don't forget to get that OP BROKEN WVW BUILD and post the results, don't run from it now :)

Lol, I don’t think anyone thinks the build is op xD

However there is nothing stopping someone from throwing on a nice mainhand sword or dagger and a second weaponset and actually having an effective build. Even then, it would be very much hardcountered by d/p thief, which is more self sufficient at applying stealth and can keep up permastealth with no problem.

I’m more just highlighting that constant stealth application could use a review.

What weapon skill did they use here? %D

Haha, I’m also not saying it’s the

only broken

thing in WvW. Grenade barrage is also widely known to be completely busted! xD

So stealth is as broken as 1 (!!!) skill on engi because you can kill clueless (probably undergeared) players in wvw. What an evidence. Meanwhile pvp (tournaments including) are completely dominated by guards and necros. Same goes for wvw. Yeah, sure, stealth is broken, guize. One could probably headbutt people to death as warrior and not die while we are at it. Lessgo.

Pre Feb2020 nerf patch you probably could headbutt bad players and instagib them depending on their and your gear. Now... that 12 damage sure does hurt a lot...

That is the joke :|

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@manu.7539 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

Step one: understand what blind does in this game and then I'm sure you can come up with something and apply condis without much of a problem "lol"

Judging by the posts like yours in this thread, I'm really awaiting people to actually start running this op blind spamming, easy condi applying off-hand only broken wvw "build". :lol: Actually do it by yourself and post the results, just make sure it's not a cherry picked compilation but some actual uncut one-after-another fights outside of catching pve builds trying to cap a camp for a daily.

guess I'll let it go again. Ur still funny

I seriously have no idea what you're talking about right now.

but I'll let u have fun with ur pve builds :p

Ayyyy, good talk.Don't forget to get that OP BROKEN WVW BUILD and post the results, don't run from it now :)

Lol, I don’t think anyone thinks the build is op xD

However there is nothing stopping someone from throwing on a nice mainhand sword or dagger and a second weaponset and actually having an effective build. Even then, it would be very much hardcountered by d/p thief, which is more self sufficient at applying stealth and can keep up permastealth with no problem.

I’m more just highlighting that constant stealth application could use a review.

What weapon skill did they use here? %D

Haha, I’m also not saying it’s the

only broken

thing in WvW. Grenade barrage is also widely known to be completely busted! xD

So stealth is as broken as 1 (!!!) skill on engi because you can kill clueless (probably undergeared) players in wvw. What an evidence. Meanwhile pvp (tournaments including) are completely dominated by guards and necros. Same goes for wvw. Yeah, sure, stealth is broken, guize. One could probably headbutt people to death as warrior and not die while we are at it. Lessgo.

Pre Feb2020 nerf patch you probably could headbutt bad players and instagib them depending on their and your gear. Now... that 12 damage sure does hurt a lot...

That is the joke :|

I know, the Feb2020 patch was a joke.

[Kodama.6453]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@manu.7539 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

Step one: understand what blind does in this game and then I'm sure you can come up with something and apply condis without much of a problem "lol"

Judging by the posts like yours in this thread, I'm really awaiting people to actually start running this op blind spamming, easy condi applying off-hand only broken wvw "build". :lol: Actually do it by yourself and post the results, just make sure it's not a cherry picked compilation but some actual uncut one-after-another fights outside of catching pve builds trying to cap a camp for a daily.

guess I'll let it go again. Ur still funny

I seriously have no idea what you're talking about right now.

but I'll let u have fun with ur pve builds :p

Ayyyy, good talk.Don't forget to get that OP BROKEN WVW BUILD and post the results, don't run from it now :)

Lol, I don’t think anyone thinks the build is op xD

However there is nothing stopping someone from throwing on a nice mainhand sword or dagger and a second weaponset and actually having an effective build. Even then, it would be very much hardcountered by d/p thief, which is more self sufficient at applying stealth and can keep up permastealth with no problem.

I’m more just highlighting that constant stealth application could use a review.

What weapon skill did they use here? %D

Haha, I’m also not saying it’s the

only broken

thing in WvW. Grenade barrage is also widely known to be completely busted! xD

So stealth is as broken as 1 (!!!) skill on engi because you can kill clueless (probably undergeared) players in wvw. What an evidence. Meanwhile pvp (tournaments including) are completely dominated by guards and necros. Same goes for wvw. Yeah, sure, stealth is broken, guize. One could probably headbutt people to death as warrior and not die while we are at it. Lessgo.

Pre Feb2020 nerf patch you probably could headbutt bad players and instagib them depending on their and your gear. Now... that 12 damage sure does hurt a lot...

That is the joke :|

I know, the Feb2020 patch was a joke.

I was faithful back then, thinking that they are just making an equal starting ground for all professions with the "CC does no damage" change and then would revisit skills which are not working with that premise later.

Boy, was I wrong.Now we are stuck with CC abilities, which are just terrible since the damage was supposed to be compensation for other inherent flaws.BoB from engineer is my prime example. That skill places a big fricking barrel on the ground, indicates the coming explosion with a red circle for the enemy, takes 3 seconds until it explodes (plenty of time to get out of the area).Its probably the most telegraphed CC ability in the game. Putting damage on it was warranted, considering how hard it could be to actually hit someone with it. Now the most you can get out of it is it being a blast finisher with 20 seconds cd.

[Exzen.2976]

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Exzen.2976 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@manu.7539 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

Step one: understand what blind does in this game and then I'm sure you can come up with something and apply condis without much of a problem "lol"

Judging by the posts like yours in this thread, I'm really awaiting people to actually start running this op blind spamming, easy condi applying off-hand only broken wvw "build". :lol: Actually do it by yourself and post the results, just make sure it's not a cherry picked compilation but some actual uncut one-after-another fights outside of catching pve builds trying to cap a camp for a daily.

guess I'll let it go again. Ur still funny

I seriously have no idea what you're talking about right now.

but I'll let u have fun with ur pve builds :p

Ayyyy, good talk.Don't forget to get that OP BROKEN WVW BUILD and post the results, don't run from it now :)

Lol, I don’t think anyone thinks the build is op xD

However there is nothing stopping someone from throwing on a nice mainhand sword or dagger and a second weaponset and actually having an effective build. Even then, it would be very much hardcountered by d/p thief, which is more self sufficient at applying stealth and can keep up permastealth with no problem.

I’m more just highlighting that constant stealth application could use a review.

What weapon skill did they use here? %D

Haha, I’m also not saying it’s the

only broken

thing in WvW. Grenade barrage is also widely known to be completely busted! xD

So stealth is as broken as 1 (!!!) skill on engi because you can kill clueless (probably undergeared) players in wvw. What an evidence. Meanwhile pvp (tournaments including) are completely dominated by guards and necros. Same goes for wvw. Yeah, sure, stealth is broken, guize. One could probably headbutt people to death as warrior and not die while we are at it. Lessgo.

Yes, I would even go one step further. I would rather have stealth fixed than grenade barrage if I was given a choice. Personally I find stealth implementation more broken than a single skill with a 25s cd. I do however appreciate which one is easier to balance :)

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"DeceiverX.8361" said:It's played well but the sheer level of misplaying by those enemies is... yikes. It's so predictable and so slow to kill. That scourge in particular was... embarrassingly bad.

It also really demonstrates how important SA and Shadowstep are when you start counting stealth uptime and casts, and how significant the damage coming from on-crit sigils is; the 2-3k hits as seen throughout won't down many players in performant builds (and I recognize this is a montage video so most of the time they aren't). As soon as this drops SA and the sigils, the entire concept isn't doable, and I think this video expressly demonstrates a few general concepts wrong with the thief/game moreso than any real overpoweredness from OH dagger itself.

• Sustained stealth is a problem regardless of build. D/P is just the worst offender.The best solution is to just make stealth not stack in duration, but just override the last application. Shadow Refuge would need its base duration increased though.I actually disagree because what makes stealth so frustrating and powerful is its lack of predictability. Having it reset doesn't really impact a lot of the major offenses which things like SA and DE provide, and only minorly touches D/P; something like Steal+BP+HS+Withdraw+BliP enables the same amount of stealth uptime as it does now, just spaced out slightly more.It also then finally lets ANet reduce the revealed duration and provide better raw combat power because it forces the thief to be out of stealth more. Something like a 3s max, not extended by SA, not extended by other effects, would allow for something like a 1-2s revealed timer, because at that point you're basically just target-breaking every few seconds and rewarding the thief for hitting their target since the cost of stealth from an initiative POV is too high to try and keep upheld forever.*Note: Obviously Daredevil still needs nerfing on its own, but that's completely unrelated to stealth itself.

• Significant chunks of burst damage should not exist as an RNG passive on sigils with no visibility.More damage at the expense of other things. Its inherently balanced, but nothing stopping Anet rom putting particle effects on weapons with the sigils.

Sigil of Air has an adjusted .76 coefficient on a 3 second cooldown. This generally hits for around 2k on most builds.Sigil of Fire has an adjusted .59 coefficient on a 5s cooldown. This generally hits for around 1.2k on most builds.

For a Sigil of Force to reach just the DPS alone of the Sigil of Air alone, the player must deal approximately 13k damage per second, rownded down.For a Sigil of Force to reach just the DPS alone of the Sigil of Fire, the player must deal approximately 6k damage per second, rownded down.

Really, only the latter is even somewhat feasible. But NOBODY is hitting for 13k/second unless it's AOE totaled up. But that flame blast damage is also AOE so....Since these sigils are affected by general damage modifiers, they cancel out multiplicative gains, too, and the value of burst in PvP is way higher than sustained damage. 2k now and less later is almost always worth less now and more over a period of time when it comes to anything PvP, unless that minute difference is enough to make a fight go from infinite sustain/being ground down to winning, which is just not true for any encounter in this game, and only works in "duels math" where other players cannot be involved.

There is simply no better damaging sigil or even justification for other builds favoring sacrificing other stats for dealing raw damage in the PvP modes. Zero. Marauder with Sigil of Air and we'll assume Cleansing is almost unanimously the best possible damaging combination. Not even Bloodlust/Curlety stacked out offers the damage gains per unit of time, and those aren't even in competing slots...

It's also a particular problem on hit and run classes/builds like the thief or high defenses because for those 3-5 they're not dealing damage/fighting continuously. Every chip/major trade they make basically gets a 40% boost from one sigil while operating on defensive traitlines to either just not take damage, tank it, or mitigate it. Even classes with no added precision and just fury and some multi-hit abilities will get these crits pretty much immediately on cooldown when making trades.

Damage, like durability, should require investment at the cost of something else. There's too much added bonus stuff at no cost in the game and these sigils have epitomized that for nearly 10 years.

• SA is way too powerful as a traitline both in implementation and concept (unsurprising, since this happened exactly in 2013 prior to its later hard nerfs from being OP by supporting this playstyle).Just make stealth not stack then SA becomes a fair bit more balanced.Concept moreso than anything. Sustained stealth is always OP, and always has been OP, and the traitline offers a ton of huge utility for the class which is severely lacking elsewhere. Maybe redistribute is a better word, but currently, outside of multi-attacker scenarios in PvE, the traitline also deals more damage than DA in most engagements.

• Shadowstep is and always has been just way too strong of a get-out-of-jail-free ability in its ability to apply misdirection, teleport, stunbreak, and bulk cleanse. Again, all of this just isn't possible without it.Make it a targeted skill instead of ground targeted.Removing verticality isn't a good thing when that's why so many people pick it, and the recent nerfs to SB in regards to PvP.3s Reveal on cast, 1s reveal on return. Still great for misdirection and general utility, safe stomp is kept, the vertical utility is kept, but lets opponents respond to activation and forces the thief to cede its position with a safe but powerful disengage/re-engage tool.

• D/D is entirely 100% reliant on this one skill to function at all, and most of the risk and net negative (Revealed debuff) of using it comes from the "Reward" of backstab; and with its damage so low and CnD's remaining so high. It should reworked to be that CnD makes backstab deal more damage to keep D/P from doing insane burst and from CnD from being effective by chaining stealth.Its a good skill sure, does D/D need work on it? not so sure. I think most weapon sets across the classes need a refresh at this point.

D/D needs a rework on DB minimum and needs more damage for the aggressive play the kit is supposed to have (currently CnD+Heartseeker spam is better than backstab, and Shadow Shot spam is better than both), and backstab/offensive traitlines can't be buffed so long as the thief has OOC/sustained stealth in any fashion. Maybe enable bonus damage on all stealth skills for a brief moment after casting, but P/D and S/D really don't hinge on the power scaling since P/D is generally condi/dealing power on SA (which could just see the difference moved there to help P/P power builds) and S/D almost never uses the skill except to stomp, anyways.

The thief can't be balanced in a game with low damage output because the way you deal with it is just to kill it outright in a few hits and respond with well-timed turning and burning. I called this a while ago when they announced the infamous February patch, and I've been posting the same exact design problems with the same reasoning in this thread, including the sigils' damage (which already got nerfed once), literally since 2013.

People/ANet just don't learn and won't acknowledge a good chunk of the issues here are not just numbers but downright bad design.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@"DeceiverX.8361" said:

Sigil of Air has an adjusted .76 coefficient on a 3 second cooldown. This generally hits for around 2k on most builds.Sigil of Fire has an adjusted .59 coefficient on a 5s cooldown. This generally hits for around 1.2k on most builds.

For a Sigil of Force to reach just the DPS alone of the Sigil of Air alone, the player must deal approximately 13k damage per second, rownded down.For a Sigil of Force to reach just the DPS alone of the Sigil of Fire, the player must deal approximately 6k damage per second, rownded down.

Really, only the latter is even somewhat feasible. But NOBODY is hitting for 13k/second unless it's AOE totaled up. But that flame blast damage is also AOE so....Since these sigils are affected by general damage modifiers, they cancel out multiplicative gains, too, and the value of burst in PvP is way higher than sustained damage. 2k now and less later is almost always worth less now and more over a period of time when it comes to anything PvP, unless that minute difference is enough to make a fight go from infinite sustain/being ground down to winning, which is just not true for any encounter in this game, and only works in "duels math" where other players cannot be involved.

There is simply no better damaging sigil or even justification for other builds favoring sacrificing other stats for dealing raw damage in the PvP modes. Zero. Marauder with Sigil of Air and we'll assume Cleansing is almost unanimously the best possible damaging combination. Not even Bloodlust/Curlety stacked out offers the damage gains per unit of time, and those aren't even in competing slots...

Out of curiosity I double-checked the math on this one.

Full Berserker Set + Scholar Runes: 2556 powerEnemy Armor: unknown, but the golem is 2597, so we'll use that.Damage = 2556 (power) x 690.5 (weapon strength) x 1.1 (modifier) / 2597 (armor) = 748

I think you've forgotten that the sigil of air can't crit. Against a zero-toughness scholar class it rises up to 987, but it doesn't get much higher than this. So, going with my number, it does about 249 DPS, which would require 4,987 DPS to beat it for the sigil of force on average. That's feasible on a berserker/marauder/valkyrie build, before looking at circumstance.

It's still good on Soldier builds, though.

[KrHome.1920]

You pick sigil of air, if you want one specific skill to hit hard (e.g. a 1k air proc on a skill that deals 5k damage is a 20% damage improvement for that skill).You pick sigil of force, if you want to improve your dps (each individual skill is only boosted by 5%).

It's that simple.

It depends what you want to achieve. In a group fight (zerg) at 1k dps @ 5 targets force is already better than air in terms of dps, but maybe one of these 5 targets would die if it was hit by the air proc, which could lead to a win for you. A burst is harder to outheal than mediocre dps.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@"DeceiverX.8361" said:

Sigil of Air has an adjusted .76 coefficient on a 3 second cooldown. This generally hits for around 2k on most builds.Sigil of Fire has an adjusted .59 coefficient on a 5s cooldown. This generally hits for around 1.2k on most builds.

For a Sigil of Force to reach just the DPS alone of the Sigil of Air alone, the player must deal approximately 13k damage per second, rownded down.For a Sigil of Force to reach just the DPS alone of the Sigil of Fire, the player must deal approximately 6k damage per second, rownded down.

Really, only the latter is even somewhat feasible. But NOBODY is hitting for 13k/second unless it's AOE totaled up. But that flame blast damage is also AOE so....Since these sigils are affected by general damage modifiers, they cancel out multiplicative gains, too, and the value of burst in PvP is way higher than sustained damage. 2k now and less later is almost always worth less now and more over a period of time when it comes to anything PvP, unless that minute difference is enough to make a fight go from infinite sustain/being ground down to winning, which is just not true for any encounter in this game, and only works in "duels math" where other players cannot be involved.

There is simply no better damaging sigil or even justification for other builds favoring sacrificing other stats for dealing raw damage in the PvP modes. Zero. Marauder with Sigil of Air and we'll assume Cleansing is almost unanimously the best possible damaging combination. Not even Bloodlust/Curlety stacked out offers the damage gains per unit of time, and those aren't even in competing slots...

Out of curiosity I double-checked the math on this one.

Full Berserker Set + Scholar Runes: 2556 powerEnemy Armor: unknown, but the golem is 2597, so we'll use that.Damage = 2556 (power) x 690.5 (weapon strength) x 1.1 (modifier) / 2597 (armor) = 748

I think you've forgotten that the sigil of air can't crit. Against a zero-toughness scholar class it rises up to 987, but it doesn't get much higher than this. So, going with my number, it does about 249 DPS, which would require 4,987 DPS to beat it for the sigil of force on average. That's feasible on a berserker/marauder/valkyrie build, before looking at circumstance.

It's still good on Soldier builds, though.

My bad on the crit (I think they removed this on an old patch and I just never noticed due to the boon/stat/food/damage modifier creep), though 748/that armor value is somewhat arbitrary. Heavy, Medium and Light armor in WvW base is 2271, 2118 and 1967, respectively, and coaligns with my login of hitting a few neutral creatures between 1.1k and 1.2k on the proc in a build without damage modifiers or PoK.

If anything, I wonder if that coefficient on the wiki is low just logged in to experiment by hitting neutrals in WvW on a build with no modifiers and was regularly hitting for 1.1k, without PoK or food. If I'm not mistaken, I think most neutrals are given the heavy armor value and 1.1k is extremely high over the value which would be expected in the mid-800's. But I'll take correct crit value on the base heavy armor value for the following example:

Obviously this isn't a realistic number in a vacuum either when we factor in things like damage modifiers/might and vuln which are pretty prevalent; 10 might and 10 vuln which is very conservative in terms of PvP effects jumps this value a lot (~13.5% in might and 10% mult on vuln) to about 1300 damage base). At least the 5% is pretty static comparatively (maybe up to a max 7% static added on some builds). This still puts us in a situation where the two sigils are competing for about 400/second or a match of 8k/second steady DPS to be overtaken by the Sigil of Force, and if we really get technical on the vuln and might, still around 7k/second.

7k/second is also extremely, extremely high. This is in the realm of a 17-18k Rapid Fire from a ranger level of damage, but constantly, without letoff, without dodges, negation effects, and the likes, for the entire fight. That is NOT something most builds put out on the regular, especially now. In pragmatic scenarios, even when adjusting for the non-crit number, it's just no competition between the sigils and the other damaging ones. Even taking the 2500 armor example, the damage incurred is still on the level of a full glass cannon comboing its damage almost non-stop the entire fight just to break even.

@KrHome.1920 said:You pick sigil of air, if you want one specific skill to hit hard (e.g. a 1k air proc on a skill that deals 5k damage is a 20% damage improvement for that skill).You pick sigil of force, if you want to improve your dps (each individual skill is only boosted by 5%).

It's that simple.

It depends what you want to achieve. In a group fight (zerg) at 1k dps @ 5 targets force is already better than air in terms of dps, but maybe one of these 5 targets would die if it was hit by the air proc, which could lead to a win for you. A burst is harder to outheal than mediocre dps.

In AoE absolutely, though single-target it's unquestionably Air.

The "You're dead and can't deal damage" scenario is also a major factor in PvP as a whole and a major reason why the power level of this sigil is so insane. Even if numerically balanced (As per above, it just isn't), it STILL provides an insane amount of kill-power by virtue of the instant, no-tell damage it offers over the course of a fight, and burst is always more favorable in a PvP environment where reaction time/network connectivity and the likes are such big factors.

It's why I just hate the sigils; there's never a downside to using them when opting for damaging builds except in large-scale, and that's still a maybe because every DPS getting a sigil procs (say, on 15 necros using wells) just dealt 15k extra damage on the first tick; getting unlucky and taking a third of those procs if your party is there is enough to go from dodge rolling out with 1/3 to 1/4 max health left (from the well damage actually landing) to dead AND rallying another player. That's huge. Do this on flame burst and all of a sudden the 15 necros all hit 5 targets at 400-500ish and a number of players are executed if taking a few ticks with the sigil procs and the collective damage is up 6-7k per bomb on the same players the wells are already hitting.

[noobfury.8167]

For what it's worth , I would like to offer my 2 cents as a new player since there seems to be this never ending debate over thief.

I have played different builds over the last few months on three different professions including thief. What I have discovered is that anyone trying to use pure damage or offense as defense cannot easily win encounters versus defensive tank builds. The game seems to be skewed in favor of I guess what you refer to as bunker builds although I'm not familiar with that terminology.

I have played several different thief builds and attempted to play with no stealth at all. Sadly , there isn't enough damage whether It's direct damage or conditional , to really be effective unless you catch a solo player that is really bad. The whole concept of thief having high mobility is not effective either because most players have the ability to catch you regardless of your build.

This only leaves stealth as a means to escape from players that are running these immortal builds because there simply isn't enough damage to do more than poke them and not enough mobility to outrun them. What is a solo player suppose to do versus 1-5 immortal players that they can't even scratch ? The players here that are complaining about thief must be really unskilled because I can tell you it's not easy mode at all trying to run around on a thief.

This video seems unrealistic and gives me the impression that the reason it was posted is to promote bias against stealth . I think anyone that believes thief is op should just make one and try roaming solo for a day before drawing any kind of conclusion about the profession. Or better yet, play one with no stealth and you will wonder why they don't have the damage they are suppose to have to compensate for that.

[Exzen.2976]

@noobfury.8167 said:For what it's worth , I would like to offer my 2 cents as a new player since there seems to be this never ending debate over thief.

I have played different builds over the last few months on three different professions including thief. What I have discovered is that anyone trying to use pure damage or offense as defense cannot easily win encounters versus defensive tank builds. The game seems to be skewed in favor of I guess what you refer to as bunker builds although I'm not familiar with that terminology.

I have played several different thief builds and attempted to play with no stealth at all. Sadly , there isn't enough damage whether It's direct damage or conditional , to really be effective unless you catch a solo player that is really bad. The whole concept of thief having high mobility is not effective either because most players have the ability to catch you regardless of your build.

This only leaves stealth as a means to escape from players that are running these immortal builds because there simply isn't enough damage to do more than poke them and not enough mobility to outrun them. What is a solo player suppose to do versus 1-5 immortal players that they can't even scratch ? The players here that are complaining about thief must be really unskilled because I can tell you it's not easy mode at all trying to run around on a thief.

This video seems unrealistic and gives me the impression that the reason it was posted is to promote bias against stealth . I think anyone that believes thief is op should just make one and try roaming solo for a day before drawing any kind of conclusion about the profession. Or better yet, play one with no stealth and you will wonder why they don't have the damage they are suppose to have to compensate for that.

What I think people who play thief are missing, is that if stealth was reworked so they can’t sit in stealth for as long, thief could be balanced much more towards mobility and damage. The fact that permastealth exists means that thief cannot be given any other nice things, therefore pigeonholing thief players into playing stealth builds for roaming.

I see a lot of people post that thief doesn’t have enough damage to kill players, which I find baffling. There are some bunker immortal builds in WvW which any class/build would struggle to kill (although most of them are very unlikely to kill you - especially on thief), but in all honesty thief is great at killing players 1v1.

[noobfury.8167]

@Exzen.2976

I agree with you 100%, I would like nothing better than to be able to play a thief that never touches stealth and I am finding that if I wish to continue I won't really have any choice. Don't get me wrong , Ive had success killing solo players and even 2v1 using sword ports and other mobility without using stealth but this play style is far from easy mode.

I'll give an example of what I'm talking about.

Last night , this was late when almost no one was on, I decided to put two stealth skills on my bar. I caught what I thought was a solo player flipping a guard and made my move. He was almost down when a second player arrived and started hitting me real hard. I retreated and used a combination of stealth and blink to escape but these guys were foaming at the mouth and chased me all the way into the courtyard of the keep. I was able to get inside the wall while they were fighting with several guards. I jumped on a cannon and started blasting them repeatedly at which point they eventually both died. However, with that being said, it took forever to kill them even with a cannon.

I know they were quite angry but they should have let it go once I got inside. Either way I would never have killed them with my damage. It was hard enough with a cannon.If I did not have the stealth skills at the time I would not have made it back.

[Teratus.2859]

"Thieves don't just jump in and out of stealth!! you're exaggerating!!" cry the stealth defenders in threads that claim stealth is OP and cheap..

Lol this is pretty much how most of my encounters with thief players go in WvW.Stab and stealth over and over and over.. and if the fight doesn't go well for thiefy Mc-stealth spam then they either teleport away or stealth and run away.

Extremely annoying class to fight, I wish they'd nuke the in combat stealth capability at least then we could actually justify buffing the class like it deserves to be.. as a proper scrapper not a cowardly stealth spammer.

@Dadnir.5038 said:Don't look down on the players that lose on the video, they are pretty much fighting against an invisible foe that can nonetheless hit pretty hard (even if it's just with the off-hand).

That alone gives thieves such a monumental advantage because unlike with basically every other class in the game you cannot see what attack is coming.While other classes have stealth and can use it to hide an upcoming attack etc they cannot do it with basically every attack like a thief more or less can.

It effectively makes Dodging a useless mechanic against a stealth spam build and that alone hurts a lot of builds in the game as Dodging is practically a core feature of the games combat system.. not to mention easily the most dominant mechanic for damage mitigation on every class.Thieves basically have the ability to make dodging completely irrelevant and useless as a defensive mechanic against them through stealth which in my opinion absolutely makes stealth a cheap and easily abusable mechanic, especially when thieves not only have that much access to it but also have such a huge amount of mobility/teleports to complement it.. both offensively and defensively.

@noobfury.8167 said:

@Exzen.2976

I agree with you 100%, I would like nothing better than to be able to play a thief that never touches stealth and I am finding that if I wish to continue I won't really have any choice. Don't get me wrong , Ive had success killing solo players and even 2v1 using sword ports and other mobility without using stealth but this play style is far from easy mode.

I'm right there with you, I'd love to see thief get buffed into a proper skilful scrapper class but that'll never happen so long as it has so much access to stealth and mobility in combat.

I've got a couple of thieves myself that I keep in PvE and I much prefer playing them as a Daredevil scrapper and a Sniper.Much more fun than just stealthing all the time.My favourite of the two builds actually focuses on maintaining a high level of sustain by multiple healing sources.. I heal on crits, successful dodges and initiative spent.I have to pick when to use my dodges and skills very carefully to keep my health high, it's a lot of fun.When I play good I feels very rewarding and when I play poorly it feels really punishing lolIn my mind that is exactly how a rogue class should feel to play :)

[Cynz.9437]

@Exzen.2976 said:

@noobfury.8167 said:For what it's worth , I would like to offer my 2 cents as a new player since there seems to be this never ending debate over thief.

I have played different builds over the last few months on three different professions including thief. What I have discovered is that anyone trying to use pure damage or offense as defense cannot easily win encounters versus defensive tank builds. The game seems to be skewed in favor of I guess what you refer to as bunker builds although I'm not familiar with that terminology.

I have played several different thief builds and attempted to play with no stealth at all. Sadly , there isn't enough damage whether It's direct damage or conditional , to really be effective unless you catch a solo player that is really bad. The whole concept of thief having high mobility is not effective either because most players have the ability to catch you regardless of your build.

This only leaves stealth as a means to escape from players that are running these immortal builds because there simply isn't enough damage to do more than poke them and not enough mobility to outrun them. What is a solo player suppose to do versus 1-5 immortal players that they can't even scratch ? The players here that are complaining about thief must be really unskilled because I can tell you it's not easy mode at all trying to run around on a thief.

This video seems unrealistic and gives me the impression that the reason it was posted is to promote bias against stealth . I think anyone that believes thief is op should just make one and try roaming solo for a day before drawing any kind of conclusion about the profession. Or better yet, play one with no stealth and you will wonder why they don't have the damage they are suppose to have to compensate for that.

What I think people who play thief are missing,

is that if stealth was reworked so they can’t sit in stealth for as long, thief could be balanced much more towards mobility and damage

. The fact that permastealth exists means that thief cannot be given any other nice things, therefore pigeonholing thief players into playing stealth builds for roaming.

I see a lot of people post that thief doesn’t have enough damage to kill players, which I find baffling. There are some bunker immortal builds in WvW which any class/build would struggle to kill (although most of them are very unlikely to kill you - especially on thief), but in all honesty thief is great at killing players 1v1.

@all posters above meWrong. It has been done in the past (see s/d or s/p evade builds, d/d condi builds, staff builds), people hated it. Yes, people hated it so much that Anet rendered those non-stealth build unplayable. Thieves will NEVER have nice things because game is balanced by devs and devs are casual players. So game is balanced for casual players hence why current meta is sooooo frigging boring and consists mainly of guards and necros.

Stealth forces enemy to use brain, evades force enemy to time their spells - that is opposite to casual gaming. The whole reason why people cry a river here about stealth is because they are just lazy and just want to farm their bags in choo choo train - here, i said, it. Prove me wrong.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Cynz.9437 said:@all posters above meWrong. It has been done in the past (see s/d or s/p evade builds, d/d condi builds, staff builds), people hated it. Yes, people hated it so much that Anet rendered those non-stealth build unplayable. Thieves will NEVER have nice things because game is balanced by devs and devs are casual players. So game is balanced for casual players hence why current meta is sooooo frigging boring and consists mainly of guards and necros.

Stealth forces enemy to use brain, evades force enemy to time their spells - that is opposite to casual gaming. The whole reason why people cry a river here about stealth is because they are just lazy and just want to farm their bags in choo choo train - here, i said, it. Prove me wrong.

You're not wrong but I'd say the reason there was "hate" in the first place is the spamability. Be it the infinite dodge/evade, infinite stealth or instant movement spam, the hate is always generated due to the ability to just spam these things.

Stealth don't force enemy to do anything, you either know that there is a stealthed foe or you don't. If you know there is a stealthed foe you use your array of counter mesure. If you don't you die. Please don't try to make people think that fighting a stealthed foe force anyone to use their brain, that's simply not true.

[kash.9213]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:@all posters above meWrong. It has been done in the past (see s/d or s/p evade builds, d/d condi builds, staff builds), people hated it. Yes, people hated it so much that Anet rendered those non-stealth build unplayable. Thieves will NEVER have nice things because game is balanced by devs and devs are casual players. So game is balanced for casual players hence why current meta is sooooo frigging boring and consists mainly of guards and necros.

Stealth forces enemy to use brain, evades force enemy to time their spells - that is opposite to casual gaming. The whole reason why people cry a river here about stealth is because they are just lazy and just want to farm their bags in choo choo train - here, i said, it. Prove me wrong.

You're not wrong but I'd say the reason there was "hate" in the first place is the spamability. Be it the infinite dodge/evade, infinite stealth or instant movement spam, the hate is always generated due to the ability to just spam these things.

Stealth don't force enemy to do anything, you either know that there is a stealthed foe or you don't. If you know there is a stealthed foe you use your array of counter mesure. If you don't you die. Please don't try to make people think that fighting a stealthed foe force anyone to use their brain, that's simply not true.

If a thief uses Initiative to use a skill twice together that gets reported in this forum as spam. If a thief has two dodges and an evade skill to stagger out like everyone else that gets reported here as spam. Utilities have cooldowns but somehow Shadowstep, Withdraw heal, and Roll for Initiative will be registered as spam to people here. Play sword/dagger or try not taking Trickery traitline and "spam" all of your skills and utilities. You don't have to think when you play a stealthed player but that's your choice, I'd rather have some idea of the distance and orientation someone will likely be around me when they stealth.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"kash.9213" said:If a thief uses Initiative to use a skill twice together that gets reported in this forum as spam. If a thief has two dodges and an evade skill to stagger out like everyone else that gets reported here as spam. Utilities have cooldowns but somehow Shadowstep, Withdraw heal, and Roll for Initiative will be registered as spam to people here. Play sword/dagger or try not taking Trickery traitline and "spam" all of your skills and utilities. You don't have to think when you play a stealthed player but that's your choice, I'd rather have some idea of the distance and orientation someone will likely be around me when they stealth.

I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here.If you think I personally "hate" spam, you're wrong, it's more that I don't really care, all professions are more or less "spamy" any way.If you think that I don't know how to face a stealthed player, you're also wrong, almost all professions have a way or another to do so.

The point is that if a thief engage you while stealthed, you got high probabilities to not know that there was a thief in the area in the first place so it hardly matter whether you've got a brain or not. Worse case you're dead in a gifi, best case you're close to death.

As for spammability it's what enable things like permasteath or repeated use of evade/dodge/movement skill. Facing repeatedly the same defensive mechanism in a short time frame easily become frustrating. A frustrated player easily become angered. And an angered player "hate". Nothing more nothing else. The initiative mechanism is uniquely designed to allow the thief to perform such feats which is one of the reason the thief receive hate.

I understand that you want to defend your favored playstyle/profession and there is greatness in the thief's playstyle. The thief playstyle is far from being a brainless one, you have to mind a lot of thing to be successfull. However, there is no point in trying to make it look like that playstyle involve great "mindgame" with your opponent when most of the time your opponent have absolutely no idea he/she is playing a "mindgame" with you.

[frareanselm.1925]

Now anet will watch your video and decide to create another "balance" for thief... I dont know why you post this, instead of keep the video in YT.

[noobfury.8167]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"kash.9213" said:If a thief uses Initiative to use a skill twice together that gets reported in this forum as spam. If a thief has two dodges and an evade skill to stagger out like everyone else that gets reported here as spam. Utilities have cooldowns but somehow Shadowstep, Withdraw heal, and Roll for Initiative will be registered as spam to people here. Play sword/dagger or try not taking Trickery traitline and "spam" all of your skills and utilities. You don't have to think when you play a stealthed player but that's your choice, I'd rather have some idea of the distance and orientation someone will likely be around me when they stealth.

I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here.If you think I personally "hate" spam, you're wrong, it's more that I don't really care, all professions are more or less "spamy" any way.If you think that I don't know how to face a stealthed player, you're also wrong, almost all professions have a way or another to do so.

The point is that if a thief engage you while stealthed, you got high probabilities to not know that there was a thief in the area in the first place so it hardly matter whether you've got a brain or not. Worse case you're dead in a gifi, best case you're close to death.

As for spammability it's what enable things like permasteath or repeated use of evade/dodge/movement skill. Facing repeatedly the same defensive mechanism in a short time frame easily become frustrating. A frustrated player easily become angered. And an angered player "hate". Nothing more nothing else. The initiative mechanism is uniquely designed to allow the thief to perform such feats which is one of the reason the thief receive hate.

I understand that you want to defend your favored playstyle/profession and there is greatness in the thief's playstyle. The thief playstyle is far from being a brainless one, you have to mind a lot of thing to be successfull. However, there is no point in trying to make it look like that playstyle involve great "mindgame" with your opponent when most of the time your opponent have absolutely no idea he/she is playing a "mindgame" with you.

Not to sound rude but if a thief can't evade within a short amount of time what should they do to survive ? Stand there and tank damage against professions that have the best of both worlds ? Should everyone just play high damage dealing immortal tank classes because they don't want to deal with stealth or evasion. No wonder people are bored with the current meta.

[kash.9213]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"kash.9213" said:If a thief uses Initiative to use a skill twice together that gets reported in this forum as spam. If a thief has two dodges and an evade skill to stagger out like everyone else that gets reported here as spam. Utilities have cooldowns but somehow Shadowstep, Withdraw heal, and Roll for Initiative will be registered as spam to people here. Play sword/dagger or try not taking Trickery traitline and "spam" all of your skills and utilities. You don't have to think when you play a stealthed player but that's your choice, I'd rather have some idea of the distance and orientation someone will likely be around me when they stealth.

I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here.If you think I personally "hate" spam, you're wrong, it's more that I don't really care, all professions are more or less "spamy" any way.If you think that I don't know how to face a stealthed player, you're also wrong, almost all professions have a way or another to do so.

The point is that if a thief engage you while stealthed, you got high probabilities to not know that there was a thief in the area in the first place so it hardly matter whether you've got a brain or not. Worse case you're dead in a gifi, best case you're close to death.

As for spammability it's what enable things like permasteath or repeated use of evade/dodge/movement skill. Facing repeatedly the same defensive mechanism in a short time frame easily become frustrating. A frustrated player easily become angered. And an angered player "hate". Nothing more nothing else. The initiative mechanism is uniquely designed to allow the thief to perform such feats which is one of the reason the thief receive hate.

I understand that you want to defend your favored playstyle/profession and there is greatness in the thief's playstyle. The thief playstyle is far from being a brainless one, you have to mind a lot of thing to be successfull. However, there is no point in trying to make it look like that playstyle involve great "mindgame" with your opponent when most of the time your opponent have absolutely no idea he/she is playing a "mindgame" with you.

Still not spam. You're talking about resource management and some people are better at staggering their resource pools than others and might also be better at than people can can react. There shouldn't be traits that extend stealth duration, dagger/pistol shouldn't be so stacked, and stealth attacks shouldn't be hot for more than a few seconds. What will likely happen instead is people will continue to blame Initiative and thief will get hit there again while the problems still remain.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"kash.9213" said:Still not spam. You're talking about resource management and some people are better at staggering their resource pools than others and might also be better at than people can can react.

I'm talking about how it's perceived on the other end, not how it's perceived/done from the thief's end. Ultimately it's how it "look" that lead to the "hate" not whether it's complicated or not to do. The "other end" could careless what process is in action, all they see is that their foe seem to annoyingly spam again and again the same things and that delay the victory that they think they deserve (in case of dodge/evade).

As for stealth, the "other end" simply don't see you since with precise timing you can basicaly stay stealthed (or almost, based on the ping of your foe), not triggering the reveal debuff (like the op does). From the "other end" you basicaly have someone using a stealth hack.

There shouldn't be traits that extend stealth duration, dagger/pistol shouldn't be so stacked, and stealth attacks shouldn't be hot for more than a few seconds. What will likely happen instead is people will continue to blame Initiative and thief will get hit there again while the problems still remain.

I think the issue with stealth is more than "stealth duration" and I think initiative is also a flawed mechanism.

Stealth in this game is just poorly designed. There is simply no drawback to stealth, and this is even more true when thief use the shadow art traitline. Usualy, stealth come with penalities like reduced movement speed and/or being unavailable while in combat. That's where the problem lie, in GW2 it's basically a buff gained almost freely.

As for the initiative system, even if the card of the ressource management is drawn, the important point is that more often than not you can use the same skill two, three or even four time in a row. The thief's thematic tools being what they are and the fact that they are available through initiative lead to the perceived issue.

I'm not saying that you ain't right to be worried that ANet's answer would be a dumb initiative cost nerf. In fact you are right. However, fact is that the initiative mechanism (as a whole) is a problem child in itself in this game, just like stealth's design and it's lack of drawback is. When both are coupled like it's showcased in the OP's video, it show how flawed thief's design is.

[kash.9213]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"kash.9213" said:Still not spam. You're talking about resource management and some people are better at staggering their resource pools than others and might also be better at than people can can react.

I'm talking about how it's perceived on the other end, not how it's perceived/done from the thief's end. Ultimately it's how it "look" that lead to the "hate" not whether it's complicated or not to do. The "other end" could careless what process is in action, all they see is that their foe seem to annoyingly spam again and again the same things and that delay the victory that they think they deserve (in case of dodge/evade).

As for stealth, the "other end" simply don't see you since with precise timing you can basicaly stay stealthed (or almost, based on the ping of your foe), not triggering the reveal debuff (like the op does). From the "other end" you basicaly have someone using a stealth hack.

There shouldn't be traits that extend stealth duration, dagger/pistol shouldn't be so stacked, and stealth attacks shouldn't be hot for more than a few seconds. What will likely happen instead is people will continue to blame Initiative and thief will get hit there again while the problems still remain.

I think the issue with stealth is more than "stealth duration" and I think initiative is also a flawed mechanism.

Stealth in this game is just poorly designed. There is simply no drawback to stealth, and this is even more true when thief use the shadow art traitline. Usualy, stealth come with penalities like reduced movement speed and/or being unavailable while in combat. That's where the problem lie, in GW2 it's basically a buff gained almost freely.

As for the initiative system, even if the card of the ressource management is drawn, the important point is that more often than not you can use the same skill two, three or even four time in a row. The thief's thematic tools being what they are and the fact that they are available through initiative lead to the perceived issue.

I'm not saying that you ain't right to be worried that ANet's answer would be a dumb initiative cost nerf. In fact you are right. However, fact is that the initiative mechanism (as a whole) is a problem child in itself in this game, just like stealth's design and it's lack of drawback is. When both are coupled like it's showcased in the OP's video, it show how flawed thief's design is.

• We're talking about the same perspective.
• Using Initiative combinations and budgeting that resource is easier than one button cooldowns and passives?
• Of course, you went for Initiative, that's a real let down and just lazy. There's not a lot of drawback to sustained and passive buffs but you can still be hit while in stealth.
• The whole point of Initiative is to be able to use the same skill as much as you can budget for. Are you joking with this argument?
• Initiative is fine. There are problem skills, kits, and traits which of course you ignore even when put right in front of you because why fix the few problems when we can trash a whole class?

Stealth in this game is actually designed really well given how interactive it is with other combat mechanics. The same few problems that make stealth a problem with like one lame build are always ignored and continue to ruin peoples day apparently but they'll keep raging on this forum about Initiative and endless "spammable" everything that somehow fits into one magical build. I feel like people barely put enough thought into their own build choice for their game mode but feel like demanding class breaking changes for other professions.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@"Teratus.2859" said:"Thieves don't just jump in and out of stealth!! you're exaggerating!!" cry the stealth defenders in threads that claim stealth is OP and cheap..

Lol this is pretty much how most of my encounters with thief players go in WvW.Stab and stealth over and over and over.. and if the fight doesn't go well for thiefy Mc-stealth spam then they either teleport away or stealth and run away.

Extremely annoying class to fight, I wish they'd nuke the in combat stealth capability at least then we could actually justify buffing the class like it deserves to be.. as a proper scrapper not a cowardly stealth spammer.

@Dadnir.5038 said:Don't look down on the players that lose on the video, they are pretty much fighting against an invisible foe that can nonetheless hit pretty hard (even if it's just with the off-hand).

That alone gives thieves such a monumental advantage because unlike with basically every other class in the game you cannot see what attack is coming.While other classes have stealth and can use it to hide an upcoming attack etc they cannot do it with basically every attack like a thief more or less can.

It effectively makes Dodging a useless mechanic against a stealth spam build and that alone hurts a lot of builds in the game as Dodging is practically a core feature of the games combat system.. not to mention easily the most dominant mechanic for damage mitigation on every class.Thieves basically have the ability to make dodging completely irrelevant and useless as a defensive mechanic against them through stealth which in my opinion absolutely makes stealth a cheap and easily abusable mechanic, especially when thieves not only have that much access to it but also have such a huge amount of mobility/teleports to complement it.. both offensively and defensively.

@noobfury.8167 said:

@Exzen.2976

I agree with you 100%, I would like nothing better than to be able to play a thief that never touches stealth and I am finding that if I wish to continue I won't really have any choice. Don't get me wrong , Ive had success killing solo players and even 2v1 using sword ports and other mobility without using stealth but this play style is far from easy mode.

I'm right there with you, I'd love to see thief get buffed into a proper skilful scrapper class but that'll never happen so long as it has so much access to stealth and mobility in combat.

I've got a couple of thieves myself that I keep in PvE and I much prefer playing them as a Daredevil scrapper and a Sniper.Much more fun than just stealthing all the time.My favourite of the two builds actually focuses on maintaining a high level of sustain by multiple healing sources.. I heal on crits, successful dodges and initiative spent.I have to pick when to use my dodges and skills very carefully to keep my health high, it's a lot of fun.When I play good I feels very rewarding and when I play poorly it feels really punishing lolIn my mind that is exactly how a rogue class should feel to play :)

What u guys are saying is true but its also a pipe dream. If they nuked stealth I 100% guarantee either thief wouldn't see any compensation in the way of damage or in fight sustain OR it would be far to little to make a difference and the moment it does the community would rally to get it nerf hammered. That said yeah best case scenario would be a cap on stealth and access to it be for ambushing and escaping a fight and not that constant in fight in and out access it has to stealth currently.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@noobfury.8167 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"kash.9213" said:If a thief uses Initiative to use a skill twice together that gets reported in this forum as spam. If a thief has two dodges and an evade skill to stagger out like everyone else that gets reported here as spam. Utilities have cooldowns but somehow Shadowstep, Withdraw heal, and Roll for Initiative will be registered as spam to people here. Play sword/dagger or try not taking Trickery traitline and "spam" all of your skills and utilities. You don't have to think when you play a stealthed player but that's your choice, I'd rather have some idea of the distance and orientation someone will likely be around me when they stealth.

I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here.If you think I personally "hate" spam, you're wrong, it's more that I don't really care, all professions are more or less "spamy" any way.If you think that I don't know how to face a stealthed player, you're also wrong, almost all professions have a way or another to do so.

The point is that if a thief engage you while stealthed, you got high probabilities to not know that there was a thief in the area in the first place so it hardly matter whether you've got a brain or not. Worse case you're dead in a gifi, best case you're close to death.

As for spammability it's what enable things like permasteath or repeated use of evade/dodge/movement skill. Facing repeatedly the same defensive mechanism in a short time frame easily become frustrating. A frustrated player easily become angered. And an angered player "hate". Nothing more nothing else. The initiative mechanism is uniquely designed to allow the thief to perform such feats which is one of the reason the thief receive hate.

I understand that you want to defend your favored playstyle/profession and there is greatness in the thief's playstyle. The thief playstyle is far from being a brainless one, you have to mind a lot of thing to be successfull. However, there is no point in trying to make it look like that playstyle involve great "mindgame" with your opponent when most of the time your opponent have absolutely no idea he/she is playing a "mindgame" with you.

Not to sound rude but if a thief can't evade within a short amount of time what should they do to survive ? Stand there and tank damage against professions that have the best of both worlds ? Should everyone just play high damage dealing immortal tank classes because they don't want to deal with stealth or evasion. No wonder people are bored with the current meta.

this^ currently burst classes/specs have had their burst damage normalized with tank/bruiser classes who also have great mobility,atleast most do so why would anyone roll thief right now instead of a bruiser/tank build? Burst specs are supposed to exist to at high risk deal with these tank/bruiser builds and pay the price if they fail but currently a thief can land its bursts 3x over and the bruiser/tank builds just resustain and laugh at the thief while returning equal bursts.Anet really needs to actually think whymost mmos use the triad system and design archetypes as such.