77 replies to this topic

[Lalnuir]

Shiren, on 11 December 2012 - 03:02 PM, said:

stuff

WvW isn't only about zerging keeps/towers. Yes they are important but running solo or in a small group doesn't make you useless.
You can solo undefended supply camps easy, do this often enough and your enemy will pull people from some where else to sit in their supply camp, those people are not attacking any of your holdings or defending their towers/keeps.

Most people do not wait in spawn to group up after they die. They just run straight back to their group meaning if you hang around the fastest path from the enemies spawn to their main group you can pick off and delay your opponents reinforcements. Five people chasing you instead of defending/attacking that keep over there? Sounds good to me.

[Yonnystarr]

mofogie, on 11 December 2012 - 04:00 AM, said:

Guild Wars 2 is part auto-aim, part twitch action based.   The best counter to anything, is having better reactions, reflexes, and anticipating what they're going to do.

this being said, the best way to stop re-stealth, is to not let them hit with Cloak n Dagger.  CnD requires a massive amount of initiative, if they miss, they will probably be unable to use it for 5-6 seconds.

To make them miss, dodgeroll, blind, or juke them, make yourself an erratic moving target.  

and if they get it, make them chase you, wasting their stealth time.  If they're a ranged stealther, then it is trickier, but at least their damage isn't as good as backstabbers.

Quoted for truth, this is solid advice.


I play tPvP and use a Pistol/Dagger thief as one of my characters. Overall I find it to be a pretty solid build; a lot of people are really thrown off by the constant re-stealthing and end up losing life quickly. Those who are experienced and prepared make the fight a bit more fun. Just some advice coming from someone who plays the spec.

Our strategy is to constantly be pelting you with our stealth skill, "Sneak Attack". This attack deals decent damage and rapidly applies 5 stacks of bleed. The plan is to cloak, Sneak Attack, avoid damage until re-cloak, repeat. The engine which makes this strategy work is Cloak and Dagger. Cloak and Dagger is a melee skill which costs 6 initiative (which is a considerable amount, since our standard total is 12 initiative) and cloaks us for 3-4 seconds upon connection. If I miss one of these I am pissed, what a huge waste of energy. If I miss two then I'm both pissed and a little worried,  I'm going to have to blow a cooldown or wait until my initiative comes back up. As someone fighting a Sneak Attack thief, you need to learn to dodge the inevitable Cloak and Dagger.

The timing for the dodge is rather simple and if done right will force the thief to mix it up a bit, since they will realize obvious CnD attacks will be dodged; this is good because less frequent Sneak Attacks mean less overall sustained damage. After a thief casts sneak attack on you, he will a.) If you are melee probably wait for you to come to him, dodge your counter-attack, and attempt CnD; b.) If you are ranged he will probably come to you within a few seconds to try to land a CnD. The 'revealed' debuff which prevents instant re-cloaking after attacking from cloak lasts around 3 seconds; thieves usually time their Cloak and Dagger to hit right as the debuff wears off, thus maximizing damage. This is the timing, 3-4 seconds after he Sneak Attacks you he's probably going to come in to hit you with a CnD - dodge it and he will be forced to make some decisions. If you are able to dodge multiple CnDs he's going to blow cool-downs to restealth and/or hide/run until he can get his initiative up again.

Another timing to be aware of is the timing involved with casting Sneak Attack from stealth. If a thief really wants to maximize his sustained DPS, he's not going to piddle around in stealth (unless he needs the passive health regen/condition removal or needs to get some serious positioning over you); to maximize dps and get you down fast, he will Sneak Attack you almost immediately after re-cloaking. Expect the attack around 1-2 seconds after he re-cloaks. I really would recommend to save dodges for CnD, but if you're confident you can dodge the majority of his Sneak Attack.

Cripple and immobilize are really annoying for this kind of build, because above all else we want positional advantage. But like others have mentioned, many of us trait to remove conditions upon entering/staying in cloak, so conditions are not really a major concern. Stuns are probably most annoying.

[Shiren]

Lalnuir, on 12 December 2012 - 04:43 AM, said:

WvW isn't only about zerging keeps/towers. Yes they are important but running solo or in a small group doesn't make you useless.
You can solo undefended supply camps easy, do this often enough and your enemy will pull people from some where else to sit in their supply camp, those people are not attacking any of your holdings or defending their towers/keeps.

Most people do not wait in spawn to group up after they die. They just run straight back to their group meaning if you hang around the fastest path from the enemies spawn to their main group you can pick off and delay your opponents reinforcements. Five people chasing you instead of defending/attacking that keep over there? Sounds good to me.

Good servers have one or two people scouting at their supply camps and around their towers (on EB) so you should never be able to solo them (and commanders should have plenty of warning to get the zerg back to them in time if a large force comes in). There are viable small group strategies that contribute a great deal, but ganking people (or counter ganking) is scrubby.

I saw the thief in this video hack a  fully upgraded tower in EB today, so it's easily possible he is using any number of exploits or hacks in his videos.

[Lalnuir]

Shiren, on 12 December 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

Good servers have one or two people scouting at their supply camps and around their towers (on EB) so you should never be able to solo them (and commanders should have plenty of warning to get the zerg back to them in time if a large force comes in). There are viable small group strategies that contribute a great deal, but ganking people (or counter ganking) is scrubby.

I guess SoS, black gate and IoJ are bad servers then as they do not have scouts in thier camps or towers all the time. EB supply camps are harder to solo than the bl ones but still possible depending on where the bulk of that servers forces are.
While everyone wants to have a scout at every camp and tower it doesn't always work that way, standing around waiting for an attack that may not come is boring so it can be hard to find people willing.

Ganking people is effective, sure killing that one under 80 up at centaurs is pointless. Killing the people running from their spawn to hills when your force is sieging it however is very useful.

[Millimidget]

Eliyahu, on 09 December 2012 - 05:53 AM, said:

Just AoE bomb the area?  What kind of AoE can 100 to 0 a 19k health target while also being able to reliably hit an invisible target?

And with no cooldown or casting delay.

Yonnystarr, on 12 December 2012 - 08:49 PM, said:

Overall I find it to be a pretty solid build; a lot of people are really thrown off by the constant re-stealthing and end up losing life quickly. Those who are experienced and prepared make the fight a bit more fun. Just some advice coming from someone who plays the spec.

That doesn't sound very much like competitive PvP.

Rendar, on 09 December 2012 - 08:41 AM, said:

Exactly.  Im not sure where these people think Pistol thieves can exit stealth with their number 1 skill, and INSTANTLY!!!! enter stealth again.

Because that's how it renders on our end. Blame anet.

Edited by Millimidget, 21 December 2012 - 07:40 AM.

[Expherious]

AYYY OHHH EEEEEE

[Ritualist]

RecentlyTaken, on 11 December 2012 - 04:05 AM, said:

Pretty much the main reason i only play sPvP now, where perma stealth builds are completely useless there.

Given the skill level of the people involved in that mode, a mechanic that makes the foe invisible for the majority of the fight really isn't what I'd call "useless".

[dynia666]

best way ? make a thief with same build looks how its works ? rly why ppls are so dump ...

when you use it yourself you will find your own weakness to this -.- and no its no that easy how its looks, you are just play horrible so you get killed easly

I don't have lot of problems with thiefs I kill them like fly with 2-3 hits

if you still not belive how easy it is

Edited by dynia666, 21 December 2012 - 12:25 PM.

[Nabuko Darayon]

try perma-block/aegis if their CoD don'thit you they can't perma stealth, also aoe blind works well

Block/Weakness/blind and CHILLED, yes chilled you lower their utility recharge time (not sure if their atatcks get a recharge with chilled, I doubt)

Edited by Nabuko Darayon, 02 January 2013 - 01:55 PM.

[stefanplc]

There is no doubt that the amount of times you can go back to stealth from C&D needs to be nerfed a little bit because at the moment you should never die vs 2-3 opponents if you also bring some stun breakers and other ways to go stealth. In the thief video posted above I'm sure he gets wrecked pretty often by opponents with high burst and stuns as he doesn't have a way to get out of them. On my thief I constantly run around with 2 stun breakers and there's just no way I can die unless I do something stupid.

Oh and how to counter this build is to keep your dodges for the burst coming out of stealth when he quickly applies a large amount of bleeds, use a ranged weapon and condition removals and you will be able to do more damage than him. The idea is to try and kite him so he can't go back to stealth again unless he catches up to you, time during which he'll take quite a bit of damage. At that point he'll either have to run away or die.

Edited by stefanplc, 21 December 2012 - 12:54 PM.

[Millimidget]

Yonnystarr, on 12 December 2012 - 08:49 PM, said:

The 'revealed' debuff which prevents instant re-cloaking after attacking from cloak lasts around 3 seconds;

Except you're still invisible for 2+ seconds of that.

How does this not register with thieves? It's totally broken.

[SpelignErrir]

If you're a mesmer, you can use greatsword 5 to knock them out of their shadow refuge when they put it up.

[Shroomhead Fred]

I don't understand all the QQing over perma stealth thieves, someone please explain.

As I see it they are useless.  They can't damage you because it breaks stealth and they can't cap anything while in stealth either.

A perma stealth thief is just gimping he's own side as he's doing nothing to contribute.  SO why so many tears?

[Setima]

The tears are from WvW whiners that lose to Thieves. Nobody bitches about the Thief in sPvP / tPvP because culling is fixed in those modes and the damage a Thief can put out is a lot lower than in WvW. Culling in WvW gives a Thief a good 2 or 3 seconds of "extra" stealth, as in, the game isn't showing the model until 2 to 3 seconds (depending on connection, PC specs, etc) after the Thief has already come out of true stealth. So, if the Thief is good, the other person will almost never actually see the Thief at all, even though they can still tab target them, see their name and damage them.

In WvW there's basically only two Thief builds: Dagger/Dagger Zerker Stabber or Pistol / Dagger "Wild Bill". D/D is the "3 hits and you're dead one trick pony spec, and "Wild Bill" is the "it'll take me 5 minutes, but I'll eventually kill you" condition damage build. Both are deadly in good hands, but the whiners harp on the Zerker Stabber because they're too stupid to learn how to counter it effectively, and it's a somewhat simple, yet effective one trick pony build. Sure it's got a lot of damage, but no health at all, topping out with food at around 12k if you're full Berserker gear (by comparison, my Warrior in full Berserker gear has over 20k health WITHOUT food).

Even though Anet came right out and said that the Thief is meant to do all the pretty damage and have the best mobility, people STILL cry and moan about them, but only in WvW, where it doesn't even matter. 99% of the people who lose to the Thief in WvW are glass cannons that roam around by themselves or don't stick to the middle of the massive zergs and get kicked in the balls by a Zerker Stabber. Since the majority of PvE players play WvW for easy loot and to wax their epeens zerging over small groups of people for little effort, they're the ones most likely to get punked by good Thieves (or bad Thieves using a Zerker Stabber spec who think they're good).

[Ritualist]

Shroomhead Fred, on 26 December 2012 - 02:23 AM, said:

I don't understand all the QQing over perma stealth thieves, someone please explain.

As I see it they are useless.  They can't damage you because it breaks stealth and they can't cap anything while in stealth either.

A perma stealth thief is just gimping he's own side as he's doing nothing to contribute.  SO why so many tears?

Given how stealth skills are pretty hard hitting, it's basically down to the guy going invisible, hitting you hard, going invisible, hitting you hard, going invisible, hitting you hard and then you start dying. And then he finishes you off in stealth.
Now, since you don't normally do 1v1, that also means that he's not the only guy there that you are fighting. That means you can either guess and throw your skills at an invisible foe or you go for the foe that you can actually see and pretty much leave yourself completely open to the invisible guy.

It's just a big piece of shit of design.

[duncanmix]

I have guardian lv80 but I'm not using him in WvW, mostly I'm using him in spvp. But also I've made him different build, its mostly about protecting area. Even like that I win against some less experienced thieves 1v1. Just yesterday I had long battle against one very good thief, he downed me after maybe 2 minutes battle.

Now in WvW I'm using my warrior. Shout build (knight armors + soldier rune + mostly berserk jewels), the way I kill 95% of thieves is I just simply swing axe. Skill 1 is enough to down almost all of them. When they enter in stealth you just have to keep swinging around you and move around where he stealthed. So what happens is, or they die or they run away if they smart. I don't remember last time thief downed me 1v1 on my warrior. Only time i have problem is if they go range and start kiting me. And that's like 5% of the time. So since you're guardian I can give you advice to get many sets and keep trying them out until you get right mix of attack and defense. And obviously use gs. Skill 2 is owning them badly especially if they are in your face.

[Elysen]

Rendar, on 09 December 2012 - 04:45 AM, said:

Thief stealth, is just that, stealth.  Not immunity.

Just get 1 person to AoE bomb the area, thief is dead.  Also, conditions stick unless traited, and even then only removes one, so load up conditions on them, they stealth, and still tick away damage.

Teleports. So AOE bombing is essentially a guessing game.

[Keaghan]

Dear sir, you are dieing because of conditions, a guardians biggest weakness.

Nothing to do here.

Edited by Keaghan, 01 January 2013 - 09:53 PM.

[Elysen]

Keaghan, on 01 January 2013 - 09:53 PM, said:

Dear sir, you are dieing because of conditions, a guardians biggest weakness.

Nothing to do here.

^Has never played Guardian, the masters of condition removal.

[RandolfRa]

Quote

Even though Anet came right out and said that the Thief is meant to do all the pretty damage and have the best mobility, people STILL cry and moan about them, but only in WvW, where it doesn't even matter. 99% of the people who lose to the Thief in WvW are glass cannons that roam around by themselves or don't stick to the middle of the massive zergs and get kicked in the balls by a Zerker Stabber. Since the majority of PvE players play WvW for easy loot and to wax their epeens zerging over small groups of people for little effort, they're the ones most likely to get punked by good Thieves (or bad Thieves using a Zerker Stabber spec who think they're good).

That line proves you don't know what you are talking about. You don't get any loot from wvw and nobody plays it for the loot. I have had exactly 2 exotic drops and less than 10 rare drops in all my time in wvw.

Edited by RandolfRa, 02 January 2013 - 01:32 PM.

[Impmon]

Symbiont, on 09 December 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

[TSym] yes i've seen you guys before, you are in this video.
and yes, TSym are dying against a single thief with a build as you described.



perhaps watching this you can learn and pick up a few tricks to fight against it.

All he does is stealth & spam 1  

Awesome skill there !  No way is it overpowered at all when you can spam one skill and kill mutiple people.  Not overpowered and clearly working as intended !

btw this guy is hopefully banned he was exploiting to get into keeps.  I posted about week or so ago.

Edited by Impmon, 02 January 2013 - 01:45 PM.

[Symbiont]

Impmon, on 02 January 2013 - 01:44 PM, said:

All he does is stealth & spam 1  

Awesome skill there !  No way is it overpowered at all when you can spam one skill and kill mutiple people.  Not overpowered and clearly working as intended !

btw this guy is hopefully banned he was exploiting to get into keeps.  I posted about week or so ago.

one of his video actually explains that he wants the exploit fixed. one way to make arenanet notice it more is to exploit the crap out of it so they rush for a patch. and yes, the thief build works as intended and not overpower at all, get over it

Edited by Symbiont, 02 January 2013 - 02:31 PM.

[Impmon]

Symbiont, on 02 January 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

one of his video actually explains that he wants the exploit fixed. one way to make arenanet notice it more is to exploit the crap out of it so they rush for a patch. and yes, the thief build works as intended and not overpower at all, get over it

Nothing to really get over.  I wouldn't be posting bragging videos showing me repeatedly hitting #1 lol...  to say thats working as intended is even more laughable.  That and saying "Oh I'm only exploiting to show how bad it is so it gets fixed,"  is probably about the stupidest thing I've ever seen.

This individual was getting into keeps that were intact and solo cap'n while telling other players how to do it & doing it repeatedly.  I understand it might look cool to the uneducated but to everyone else its extremely lame.  I hope you don't attempt to copy his actions, but please do so you can get banned as well that is if you aren't Wild Bill and not his caddy.  If the latter you need to run back and get his golf bag.

Besides he's pretty inconsequential to daily wvw.  As someone else mentioned he only picks fights he can win and if he picks a fight he can't win quickly he stealths and runs away or alt-f4's.  Those are obviously left out of his many lame videos.

[Mursie]

RandolfRa, on 02 January 2013 - 01:32 PM, said:

That line proves you don't know what you are talking about. You don't get any loot from wvw and nobody plays it for the loot. I have had exactly 2 exotic drops and less than 10 rare drops in all my time in wvw.

this is not surprising randolfra.  you have to actually kill ppl in wvw to get loot.  preferably lots of ppl... precursors and exotics do drop...but when you spend your time chopping trees, killing wasps, and beating on doors.. you won't figure this kind of information out.  He really should have specified that he meant "epic loot drops from doing actual pvp (and by pvp i mean player versus player) in wvw".

[Shatteredz]

Xephenon, on 01 January 2013 - 09:28 PM, said:

Teleports. So AOE bombing is essentially a guessing game.

If they teleport out of shadow's refuge before it is over they are instantly unstealthed again.  Either they go out and become visable or they stay inside and are invisable for a good amount of time.

[Symbiont]

Impmon, on 02 January 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

Nothing to really get over.  I wouldn't be posting bragging videos showing me repeatedly hitting #1 lol...  to say thats working as intended is even more laughable.  That and saying "Oh I'm only exploiting to show how bad it is so it gets fixed,"  is probably about the stupidest thing I've ever seen.

This individual was getting into keeps that were intact and solo cap'n while telling other players how to do it & doing it repeatedly.  I understand it might look cool to the uneducated but to everyone else its extremely lame.  I hope you don't attempt to copy his actions, but please do so you can get banned as well that is if you aren't Wild Bill and not his caddy.  If the latter you need to run back and get his golf bag.

Besides he's pretty inconsequential to daily wvw.  As someone else mentioned he only picks fights he can win and if he picks a fight he can't win quickly he stealths and runs away or alt-f4's.  Those are obviously left out of his many lame videos.

if you think this build is as easily as just spamming #1, you are in for a surprise, so get wrecked trying.
and why isn't it working as intended, perhaps you're unable to kill someone who plays like this? you can't kill him so the build must be overpowered/broken right? wrong. here is a reminder that this all happened in WvW, where everything is unbalanced anyway.
many more professions other than the thief are able to take advantage of their skills in WvW.

and this wall-exploit, it better get fixed or get abused by masses. also i've seen players using speedcheat like they can't be caught and so far it keeps happening. so yea, either fix the exploits or keep the doors open to turn the game into a shit pile-hole invested with cheaters.
so long these things can be abused, it will be abused by players.

also, i'm not that guy in the video, like i said before. i do find it very entertaining to watch how a bunch of these scrubs players on these popular servers get slaughtered by a single thief. pure entertainment right there.

i'll refrain myself from going into further discussion with you because it will probably lead to more of the same b.s., as i find that your post is probably the most butt-hurt post in this entire thread.

Edited by Symbiont, 02 January 2013 - 08:06 PM.

[MrForz]

Symbiont, on 02 January 2013 - 08:01 PM, said:

i'll refrain myself from going into further discussion with you because it will probably lead to more of the same b.s., as i find that your post is probably the most butt-hurt post in this entire thread.

I actually understand the butt-hurt part, I kind of feel the same, not about the damage output or combos but the mobility. You'd be a fool to not admit that a decent Thief can escape from almost every situation no matter how hairy it is.

I am a solo roaming Engineer, I'm more than prepared to receive Thieves under all my builds as I pretty much only see that roaming around, I have the upper hand against them, yet it's nearly impossible for me to catch a fleeing one unless I manage to force them to use Shadowstep in combat.
From there, if they're escaping with a stealth feature other than SR, I need to guess where to land that Net Shot or get an Eventual Net Tower to work right.
If hiding under a Shadow Refuge, I still need to give a prayer in hope that the Grenade Barrage / Wrench-Rang + Magnet does enough to stop the escape procedure and most of the time they don't need to take all the stealth the Shadow Refuge has to offer, only 2 or 3 seconds and Infiltrator Shot away from the mess.

It takes alot of guessing to attempt to fight a character with stealth mechanics that aren't really punishable if done slightly wrong.

Edited by MrForz, 07 January 2013 - 08:56 PM.

[Shroomhead Fred]

MrForz, on 07 January 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

Snip

I know how you feel.  I have the same trouble with bunker eles.

[Symbiont]

Shroomhead Fred, on 07 January 2013 - 09:52 PM, said:

I know how you feel.  I have the same trouble with bunker eles.

oh yea, as a thief i feel the same way.

[Scizzor]

As a thief, the best advice I would say is avoid cloak and dagger. If you avoid it, they lose a serious amt of initiative, and can't enter stealth. They will have to resort to a heal/utility to stealth then. After the thief bursts from stealth, they will usually run towards you for the CnD.

Dodge the attack!!!! lol

I played S/D thief vs a P/D one and it was a longish fight, but in the end my daze lock was boss .

I feel like P/D thieves are just trolls (i played one before and I felt like one). There was one from SoS who trolled a group of 3-4 SBI for at least 15 minutes a couple days ago. I didn't even enter the fight... it was pitifully to watch lol. I think at one point they did manage to kill him, but only after he got a few kills. He then literally showed up a few mins later to the same spot and trolled again >.>

Edited by Scizzor, 08 January 2013 - 01:23 PM.