Thief going to be extremely difficult to deal with in PvP?

[Ringsgold]

Unless the thief is pro and dodges your freezeray :D

That's what I like about the thief, it's effectiveness clearly reflects the player's skill (aka bad thief=useless, good thief=awesome)

[Shallowrain]

I have the feeling that there's going to be a general pvp shakeup after release, but after watching the thief take dirt naps on some of those play videos, I'm not too worried. Especially with elementalists and the like flinging around AoE things, warrior mobility (or even ranged attacks) that we've seen, I don't think that they're going to be the fists of god everywhere. I think that if you get tunnel vision and blitz out after one, you're likely to die, but that's standard pvp awareness and the like.

[Art]

Seems both Thief and Guardian are doing to be difficult...to spell.

Apart from that?

Carry on!

-Art

[raspberry jam]

Forget about stealth for a moment. . .What is your plan to take out a bow thief?
Even with a snare it looks like their teleport is enough to keep them out of reach

GUNZ Pistol bullets seem to have zero flight time, so they can't be dodged, not even with a teleport. Also, hopefully bow thieves will be low-damage enough for it to be possible to mostly ignore them.

The other thing that is a very big deal is having no recharge on skills

This is worse. I don't know what ANet was thinking. They know that a teleporting spiker is a bad idea for a class, yet they implement what could be the strongest version of it yet seen.

We'll have to see what the mesmer brings to the field because so far elementalist and guardian seems to only have weak counters to the thief. That's all guessing though.

[Malhavoc Adhamar]

Theres no recharge but there is a limit on how many times they can be used in a row, due to the Initiative mechanic. Overal I'm not too worried about it in PvP, no more than I was about the Witchhunter/Witch Elf in WAR. High burst ability but once that first chain of attacks is used up then they're stuck or need to get out quickly.

Until I've actually played one/fight one I'll probably treat it like an assassin in GW1, cripple it then keep out of range. If it stealth lay down some PBAoE since I'd guess damage will break stealth.

[Vana]

Initiative is a pretty brilliant concept, actually. It takes care of most problems with the usual assassin archetype because it puts a limit on spamability without either making the class slower or completely unable to cause burst damage.

With the fairly high initiative requirement of many attack skills and small initiative pool, thieves certainly aren't going to be able to shadowstep->spike->shadowstep.


On a different note, I'm in complete awe at what Anet has thought of with weapon sets and skills. Right now, I'd say that's the feature that makes me want to play GW2 the most.
(For instance, in the case of thieves, they'd be **** if they could only use daggers)

[Alaris]

Thief will be able to shadowstep=>spike=>shadowstep, but will have to pull that off a few times in a row to get a kill. Meanwhile, that gives time for the other one to fight back.

I can't wait to use weapon switching. WoW druid is fun because you can kinda do that and become rogue-like (cat form) or tank-like (bear form) or stay regular and heal or nuke. But unlike WoW, they're actually making it so that you're not gimped in your alternate form.

(yes, dual spec is in WoW now, but (1) it starts at level 30, (2) it drains all your mana, and (3) it has a long cast time).

[Vana]

Thief will be able to shadowstep=>spike=>shadowstep, but will have to pull that off a few times in a row to get a kill.

Then it's not a spike.
They'll get 3-4 attacks off at most (more likely to be 3, probably even 2, than 4) in a chain like that.

[MaximumSquid]

Art Yi Mor:

Yeah I saw it. . .

I'm not sure how to edit the title if you are even able

---

Vana:

The biggest benefit of initiative is that it cannot be tampered with. . .

Mesmer E-Drains you the moment they see you teleport?
Won't save you this time!

Even adrenaline could get hozed by a few skills
I think against thieves it's going to be skill disable or nothing when facing no recharge

[Alaris]

If you're melee, hit them hard when they teleport in. Otherwise, blind or snare, and dps away wherever they are. You can also pre-AoE the area you're in, so they teleport into damage.

So many counters. It won't be trivial, of course, but it'll be possible.