237 replies to this topic

[invivo]

How can a class do 19,000 damage in a second and not be OP?  (Don't worry, this is not a QQ or trollbait thread, I'm asking in good faith and hope for reasonable discussion.)

The setup: I was WvWing with my mesmer, saw a guy running toward me, and stood my ground.  As soon as he got to me, I hit torch #4 to stealth, and then less than 2 seconds later (probably closer to 1 second) I was downed.

Curious as to how this character managed to get through all of my hit points (it's a big number, for a mesmer), I checked the combat history.  I got hit with Steal for 4k, and the only other thing I saw was pistol whips for ~1.5k each.  Lots of them.

Now, I'm never quick to scream "imba!" when things don't go my way.  I'm not that great at this game, and I don't play PvP often enough to learn all the things that other classes can do.  So if your only response is, "L2P, noob!", then my reply is, "duh!"  After all, I'm not hearing a million other people shouting about how imba the thief is, so clearly good players have managed to counter this build.

But I'm at a loss regarding how to avoid dying against such a massive spike of damage.  Sure, if I can dodge the first strike or two, I might be fine, but I don't think that survival should rely on a single critical dodge like that.  And I think I may have become immobilized at some point during the fight, because I tried to dodge after the first couple hits (although I may have just died faster than the keystrokes could register).

I'm not upset about losing the fight.  A more skilled player should be able to beat me, and this particular thief no doubt deserved his victory.  I just want to know why the fight was over before it had even properly begun.

Cheers!

[Tenofas]

Pistol Whip with Haste is probably what hit you so hard.
Without Haste it would be extremely slow, and you can avoid it almost completely by dodging (hit key "V").
If used with Haste it becomes extremely fast.  And a little harder to dodge... but as a rule of thumb: if a thief jump on you first thing you should do is press "V"!  This way he would waste is Haste, and then Pistol Whip would become so slow and useless that you could just take your time to kill him/her.
Probably he was very low on health/toughness too, so if you had dodged he would have been an easy prey for you.

So, no, a Sword/Pistol thief it's not OP.  Not even close to be OP!

[MrForz]

I'm definately an ignorant concerning Mesmer. But you only need Confusion and a couple of escapes (or Block) to destroy a Pistol Whip Thief. Everyone will tell you that you need to dodge the initiation, and it's true. You MUST see it coming, it's not evident sometimes.

Edited by MrForz, 11 December 2012 - 11:27 AM.

[Eon Lilu]

Initiative is OP, its a broken mechanic along with stealth, no cooldowns so can just spam a skill a crap ton of times. For example with no traits as lvl 1 you can spam some skills 4-5 times....thats with no traits, no cooldowns, no extra gear, nothing as a lvl 1...

When you have all other classes with cooldowns and you give a class with alot of stealth a mechanic that allows them to spam skills with no cooldowns....

Well your just giving them a huge advantage over other classes.

Is anything counterable? Yes. Does it make it any less or more of an advantage just because you can counter it? No it's still an advantage over other classes.

Edited by Eon Lilu, 11 December 2012 - 11:39 AM.

[mofogie]

he's a glass cannon thief.  typically they're dagger rogues,  sword/pistol can work too. but it's not as bursty. Look at Jinzu's Burst Damage thread, he can backstab for 13k.  

rule of thumb in all pvp: carry an escape.  thieves have shadowstep, wars have ignore pain/ fear me, eles have mist form, you should have many tools as well.  

next thing:  glass cannon thieves rely on a 60 second cooldown, only good ones can fight when they're down.  And they're also glass cannons.  My glass spec, i only have 15k hp, and 1250 toughness.  Survivve the opener, and you may likely win, or reset the fight.

as a mesmer, your burst is on even a shorter cooldown, with illusionary leap, blurred flurry, mindwrack.  That will kill any glass cannon thief.  

run decent vit/ toughness if you're tired of being two shotted.  1600 toughness at least.  


do not let thieves restealth via cloak and dagger.  Try to avoid it, you can see the animation wind up.  If it's successful, know that the thief is still there, and try to predict where he's moving and continue to attack him.  I've killed many thieves who thought they were safe after stealthing.

[invivo]

Good responses all around.  Maybe I've been on the Internet too long, but I was expecting more snark, and less well-considered, reasoned responses.

I'm still not convinced that the class is "balanced" (13k backstab?  That's absurd!).  But I'll respect the fact that it can be tricky to pull off, and risky to try it against someone who sees it coming.

You're right that mesmers can do a fair bit of burst too, but it's burst that has to build up by spawning clones, hoping they don't get killed, and then waiting for them to charge the enemy (and then hoping they actually hit their target).  There are a lot more opportunities to avoid at least partial damage, rather than having a single critical move to dodge.

And it doesn't help that half our abilities are bugged.  :-/

[Ritualist]

Off:

Eon Lilu, on 11 December 2012 - 11:38 AM, said:

Initiative is OP, its a broken mechanic ...

I'd love to see initiative being a game mechanic, rather than a thief mechanic: meaning that every class would have initiative instead of cooldown. Of course, that would demand a massive skill rework, with some effects completely removed from weapon skills, but given how much more potential initiative has over cooldowns, I am all for it.

[ArcherHenchman]

You reacted poorly. Your torch 4 was triggered after his steal/pistolwhip combo had begun, and pistol whip hits in an aoe. You'd have done better to dodge/distortion/blurred frenzy/etc. Thief quickness saps his endurance to 0 for a significant period of time; if you get out of the pistol stuns, he is incredibly easy to burn down.

Oddly enough, warriors could have done the exact same thing to you in an equivalent amount of time without the downside of being a joke to kill afterwards. A bursty shatter mesmer too. And before you say that you need to set things up, you use mirror image as a stunbreak if he initiates on you, then dodge and mindwrack. That's a full 4 clone mindwrack for 13k+ or so. Instantly. But if you want to be more obnoxious about it, you can just confusion stack, and use that shatter instead, because confusion deals 3x the damage it does in spvp in wvw, meaning that his hastewhips would be dealing him 2.2k damage each, and he'd have no evades to deal with your followup.

If a thief cannot demolish you in his opening salvo with that build, he loses. You have distortion on your bar. You figure it out.

[jthamind]

i'm a thief using that exact build you're talking about (and i was playing yesterday against a lot of mesmers too, so maybe it was me! lol), and i can say with 100% certainty that that build isn't OP. it's built entirely around landing a Mug + Pistol Whip + Haste + all the might stacks from signets, which means you have to blow everything at once to take the enemy down quick. the problem, though, is that as long as the enemy isn't a glass cannon, they have a chance to pop their "get out of jail free" card at the last second, heal up, and pretty much negate everything we've done. which means we've blown all out best moves on that one chance, and we have to wait for CDs. needless to say, it's nowhere near as easy to take people down without all of those CDs. because to make this build really shine, you should probably be rolling glass cannon. which means even with a shortbow to run away and Shadow Return for a quick getout, it's still very hard to survive once the shots start flying back at us. plus the fact that as somebody else pointed out, Pistol Whip is very hard to land without Haste (and a Mug right before the startup).

so basically, my main focus is to get in and kill you before you can even react, and if not, get the hell out and back off before your backup arrives and i die in seconds. lol.

Edited by jthamind, 12 December 2012 - 03:26 PM.

[Kuruptz2]

the problem aint the damage from thiefs

its that they have it every easy to escape from enemies.. :/ though might be only me with this problem?

[Vysander]

Kuruptz2, on 12 December 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:

the problem aint the damage from thiefs

its that they have it every easy to escape from enemies.. :/ though might be only me with this problem?

No, you cannot catch a thief.

[Electro Mouse]

[MrForz]

Protoss, on 12 December 2012 - 07:53 AM, said:

I'd love to see initiative being a game mechanic, rather than a thief mechanic: meaning that every class would have initiative instead of cooldown. Of course, that would demand a massive skill rework, with some effects completely removed from weapon skills, but given how much more potential initiative has over cooldowns, I am all for it.

Massive skill rework indeed. Otherwise... Initiative Engineer would like a word with you.

[ShezuTsukai]

There has already been a thread about ups and downs of initiative vs cd's. Remember Init is shared over both weapon sets. Where as cd's are not. You can rotate through both weapon sets continuously without waiting for Init to regen.

The biggest benefit to Init over cd is spamming a skill. Anet nerfed thieves' best spammable. And any good thief uses the appropriate skill for the circumstance and avoids spamming.

The number one mistake I see other players making is standing still. I used to love in GW1 when an ele would start casting a Meteor Shower. 5 sec cast root was guaranteed death. It's the same for players who root themselves and lose battlefield awareness.

[Coren]

I sometimes run into such thieves when I roll an engineer and I tend to down them, after a memorable battle, thanks to turrets (supply drop) and CC and conditions. I don't know what the master thieves have to say to this, and would probably shoot me down for suggesting such a thing, but I follow the same rule with my mesmer. Helps if you either stun or distort with a sacrificial clone then use phantasms to dish it out. As a rule of thumb, let the thieves open up first and dodge, then CC.

My two cents worth of a casual pvp player.

[Alzun]

invivo, on 11 December 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

How can a class do 19,000 damage in a second and not be OP?  (Don't worry, this is not a QQ or trollbait thread, I'm asking in good faith and hope for reasonable discussion.)

The setup: I was WvWing with my mesmer, saw a guy running toward me, and stood my ground.  As soon as he got to me, I hit torch #4 to stealth, and then less than 2 seconds later (probably closer to 1 second) I was downed.

Curious as to how this character managed to get through all of my hit points (it's a big number, for a mesmer), I checked the combat history.  I got hit with Steal for 4k, and the only other thing I saw was pistol whips for ~1.5k each.  Lots of them.

Now, I'm never quick to scream "imba!" when things don't go my way.  I'm not that great at this game, and I don't play PvP often enough to learn all the things that other classes can do.  So if your only response is, "L2P, noob!", then my reply is, "duh!"  After all, I'm not hearing a million other people shouting about how imba the thief is, so clearly good players have managed to counter this build.

But I'm at a loss regarding how to avoid dying against such a massive spike of damage.  Sure, if I can dodge the first strike or two, I might be fine, but I don't think that survival should rely on a single critical dodge like that.  And I think I may have become immobilized at some point during the fight, because I tried to dodge after the first couple hits (although I may have just died faster than the keystrokes could register).

I'm not upset about losing the fight.  A more skilled player should be able to beat me, and this particular thief no doubt deserved his victory.  I just want to know why the fight was over before it had even properly begun.

Cheers!

This is a S/P Thief that used PistolWhip-Steal-then Haste to burst you down.  PW has a mini stun attached to it, but with Haste you're almost stunlocked (use a stunbreaker or something to get the heck out of there).  Or, just press F4 if you have Illusionary Persona or a few Illusions up (well, Diversion and then dodge out of the way, so his next PW won't hit you).
Just one last note; are you level 80 yet and fully geared in exocits? If not, you're going to be dying a lot.

[Vence]

invivo, on 11 December 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

I'm not upset about losing the fight.  A more skilled player should be able to beat me, and this particular thief no doubt deserved his victory.  I just want to know why the fight was over before it had even properly begun.

From now on, if you notice a thief, especially one with dual dagger or sword pistol running towards you, keep your finger ready for a stun breaker. I mean it, you'll often get no more than half a sec to react so hit that stunbreaker/tele as soon as the first hit lands. After that it's up to you my friend.

Edited by Vence, 13 December 2012 - 09:08 AM.

[Sinnacle]

You should know what other classes can do to you.  Also you popped torch invis which is bad you needed to save torch invis.

I have a 80 mesmer and a 80 thief I main the thief now as I like the playstyle more.

As a thief now in WvW I can recognize mesmers so easily also a thief can use CnD on your clones/phantasms something I didn't know until I rolled a thief.  You also learn how much confusion hurts thieves something you don't really worry about as a mesmer since alot gets wasted on your clones.  Honestly when you roll another class after playing mesmer you realize how much the clones do for you when it comes to wasted cd's, and defensive skills like burns on blocks that you never really faced because your clones do so much for you.  

In short tough you needed distortion for opening or sword 2.  Then the fight is reset  also I know alot of mesmers are rolling with invis alot more in WvW but it kind of really doesn't help you since you have free CnD's out there for the thief with your clones and phantasms so they can restealth.  You need to shatter more often against a thief also watch for the heal that stealths when they blow that its a big one and they are either bad and popped it to early or on their last leg.  Thats the invis where they glow and then disappear.

So if they pop hide in the shadow (heal that stealths) they are going to try to take you down with a big burst again or get out of dodge.  Now if you chase them and die thats your fault because they are probably all reset on cd's and can wind up again to take you down.

Edited by Sinnacle, 14 December 2012 - 08:16 PM.

[RandolfRa]

Like most fights in this game, Mesmer vs. Thief is a trivial one. You try to press either 2 or f4 at the right time. If you do, you win. If you don't, you lose.

[Ragnadaam]

Thieves in general are not OP imo, but some of the things they can do are. Just yesterday I was in Forest and was taking the Henge, when out of nowhere there was suddenly an enemy player on screen, and before I could even move I was dead. Damage breakdown? 10,777 Backstab, 5,941 Steal, 2,229 Lightning Strike, 2895 Heartseeker, 591 Double Strike; I died nearly instantly. At the time I was messing about with a glass cannon build so I only had like 980 toughness and 21k HP, but still, that's bullshit; had I somehow lived and reacted perfectly, playing amazingly, it still wouldn't have mattered since he still would have had things like Thieves Guild to blow, etc.

Edited by Ragnadaam, 16 December 2012 - 09:47 PM.

[ArcherHenchman]

Ragnadaam, on 16 December 2012 - 09:43 PM, said:

Thieves in general are not OP imo, but some of the things they can do are. Just yesterday I was in Forest and was taking the Henge, when out of nowhere there was suddenly an enemy player on screen, and before I could even move I was dead. Damage breakdown? 10,777 Backstab, 5,941 Steal, 2,229 Lightning Strike, 2895 Heartseeker, 591 Double Strike; I died nearly instantly. At the time I was messing about with a glass cannon build so I only had like 980 toughness and 21k HP, but still, that's bullshit; had I somehow lived and reacted perfectly, playing amazingly, it still wouldn't have mattered since he still would have had things like Thieves Guild to blow, etc.

Despite making every possible mistake, I deserved to have an opportunity to win!

[Ragnadaam]

ArcherHenchman, on 17 December 2012 - 02:22 AM, said:

Despite making every possible mistake, I deserved to have an opportunity to win!

A lack of wit most clearly demonstrates itself when the person is so very bold in their statements that they do not realize how they verbally walk into a wall of their own vapid effluvia. Thank you for showing everyone here your intellectual caliber.

Please, all mighty guru of GW2 pvp, please tell me all that I did wrong while capping the henge (an area that is enclosed by hills and pillars, and so therefore easy to approach unseen by anyone, let alone a stealth class) with not a soul around that I could see at the time. Tell me how I made a mistake by being killed in literally as much time as it took the Thief in question to press 3 buttons, please enlighten me. The best part of all this is, I even said that I do not think Thieves are OP in general, and I didn't use the word nerf once, but no, that's not enough for your sensitive ego; hell you don't even know what profession I was playing or anything, you just knee jerk white knighted and made yourself look quite daft. I forgive you though, now I'll wait for your response; given the quality of intellect and reasoning you displayed in your first post, I'm absolutely quivering with excitement to see your follow up. I'll even give you some help by playing devils advocate against myself and say that maybe I shouldn't have looked away from the screen for 2 seconds to grab my coffee cup, I should have known that at any moment I could be very nearly instantly killed, and therefore ready for anything, right? I'm betting that's your reasoning, because in the mind of a white knight when it comes to class balance in mmos, any out is a good one. But even if I hadn't looked away and dodged instantly after the first hit, I'd still be down 18kish hp out of 21k, since Mug- -> Backstab is so fast it might as well be one move; throw in the Sigil of Air proc for free. But wait, silly me, I shouldn't have been playing a glass cannon build myself, what was I thinking, right? I can do this too, find 100 different reasons why the other person *ed up terribly, because my class is fine. I've been playing mmos since 2000, I've seen all the rationalizations in the book friend.

Edited by Ragnadaam, 17 December 2012 - 04:47 AM.

[Wanna Go To heaven]

Ragnadaam, on 16 December 2012 - 09:43 PM, said:

Thieves in general are not OP imo, but some of the things they can do are. Just yesterday I was in Forest and was taking the Henge, when out of nowhere there was suddenly an enemy player on screen, and before I could even move I was dead. Damage breakdown? 10,777 Backstab, 5,941 Steal, 2,229 Lightning Strike, 2895 Heartseeker, 591 Double Strike; I died nearly instantly. At the time I was messing about with a glass cannon build so I only had like 980 toughness and 21k HP, but still, that's bullshit; had I somehow lived and reacted perfectly, playing amazingly, it still wouldn't have mattered since he still would have had things like Thieves Guild to blow, etc.

You were lucky.
I've ran builds with 1.9k toughness and got hit for 10k backstabs....
The damage is retarded most of the time, but I guess you're supposed to have all cd's up 24/7 to be able to counter them (and even then stealth and rinse repeat)

[mofogie]

complaining bout getting 2shotted when you're a glass cannon ... really?

i frequently play a glass cannon thief in WvW.  bout 1250 toughness, 15k hp. How do you think i beat so many other glass cannon thieves, even when they get the first hit?  It's called anticipation.  Shadowstep immediately when you cant move, and you wont get backstabbed.

or if you time it, dodgeroll perfectly on the steal.  It's not hard to time it if the thief is obvious in his intentions.

This is all on you, you need better situational awareness, and faster reflexes.

[Sinnacle]

click on thief see the gray tail with green outline or see thief raise and lower arm.  Thats bask venom meaning enter at your own risk.    I run p/d when I see a d/d thief pop bask I pop refuge and most of the time they run away.  They wanna dump everything into that burst.      Thats not all thieves but alot won't engage unless they have bask up if they are fighting another thief.

[Invoky]

My main is thf and I have made alt war/necro/ranger/mesmer/guardian for pvp. Any of the class I list above has multiple way to counter BS thf. I know because I played and tested against plenty of BS thf.

When you get jumpped by thf, were u tunneling vision while fighting someone else? Or did you used up your CD already? In both cases, you would die to any other class anyway. Without any CD/dodge, how can you survive 100b war? How about blury/shatter mesmer? What about any haste2win class? There is plenty of combo that you cant survive, its not just BS thf.

If you die to a thf while still having all the CD up... than maybe you should roll a thf to learn the class.

[Tenofas]

Ragnadaam, on 17 December 2012 - 04:10 AM, said:

Please, all mighty guru of GW2 pvp, please tell me all that I did wrong while capping the henge (an area that is enclosed by hills and pillars, and so therefore easy to approach unseen by anyone, let alone a stealth class) with not a soul around that I could see at the time.

Uhmmm... you answered yourself pretty clearly.  You, with a glass cannon build, were capping an area easy to approach unseen by anyone.   It could work the other way around, with a glasscannon thief trying to cap that area and you approaching him unseen.

[Reisa]

How are thieves not crazy op?  It's simple.  Because thief players tell us they aren't.

But seriously, regardless of their overpoweredness or lack thereof, most thief builds are manageable.

PS If you're a glass cannon in PvP, prepare to get thief ganked because half the players in PvP at any given time are, you guessed it, thieves.

[Ragnadaam]

Tenofas, on 17 December 2012 - 04:49 PM, said:

Uhmmm... you answered yourself pretty clearly.  You, with a glass cannon build, were capping an area easy to approach unseen by anyone.   It could work the other way around, with a glasscannon thief trying to cap that area and you approaching him unseen.

I know WHY what happened, happened the way it did. Why do you think I didn't come in here saying "zomg Thieves are OP, NERF THEM!!", all I was doing was venting a little and chiming in with the OP to say he isn't the only one that has been killed nearly instantly. The reason why I responded the way that I did to ArcherHenchman was because he is quite clearly being a smartass (in a manner that wasn't clever at all) while also doing the typical shit of foisting 100% of the blame on the other person, because there is no possible way at all his class could have something ridiculous about it, at all, of course; there never ever is with the defenders of every single class/spec, of every mmo I've ever played. Hell, people used to defend Icy Touch spam DK's in Season 5 of WoW, if they can do that, they'll stick up for anything.

Edited by Ragnadaam, 17 December 2012 - 11:54 PM.

[mofogie]

it's a bit hard to compare ridiculousness though, because Guild WArs is on a more even playing field.  Gear difference is not as big an issue, (none at all in spvp), and every class is well rounded.  

those DKs you mentioned, yea EZmode, if you had the gear.  what bout the 90% that don't have it?   that's why you get such different perspectives on things.

as far as dying so quickly, many other classes can do the same.  Greatsword warrior, you're dead in 1 second without an escape.  fire Ele with arcane power, you're dead litreally instantly if you don't escape signet of earth.  Or how bout 12k killshots from rifle warriors.  Or is it fair necros can DoT hordes of enemies requiring little skill or combos...  

The point is, GW has been good at giving every class means to counter every other class.  There are definitely some changes that i'd like to see too, but i'm not for taking away the instant kill playstyle.