Guild Wars 2

Split this skill between PvE and PvP. That pulsing blind is one of the main facets of offensive support for PvE. It is INTEGRAL.

This is obviously a totally PvP-centric change and needs to remain as such.

Apart from this, every other change was good and I’m in support.

PvE mobs do not attack that quickly, so there is little change.

I can think of plenty of enemy types that will rip through the nerfed BP.

Auesis.7301:

I can think of plenty of enemy types that will rip through the nerfed BP.

like d/d thieves… :P

Missed what was changed?

T raw.4658:

Missed what was changed?

Black Powder’s smoke field pulses every two seconds, and the duration of the blind is two seconds.

I think it is a good change in general. Perma blind shouldn’t exist in any game mode.

Equivocat.8246:

T raw.4658:

Missed what was changed?

Black Powder’s smoke field pulses every two seconds, and the duration of the blind is two seconds.

in case you need more blind spam – Bring a Smoke Screen

I am A Okay with the less frequent blinding while in the field.

That said one of the boons of the field is that when you pull someone through it you can reliably count on a blind being applied.

I would add one addition proposal to the skill change to keep this reliable blind, and that’s to add behavior similar to ring of fire’s burning, so that when an enemy first enters the field, a blind is applied.

crochip.2389:

I think it is a good change in general. Perma blind shouldn’t exist in any game mode.

If a thief can hit you with melee, you can hit a thief with melee without touching the BP circle.

BP isn’t even big enough to “hide” from melee in – no matter where you stand in it, a melee character can move to a point where they can still hit you without standing in the circle.

Apparently, not standing in a tiny circle is too much skill to expect of anyone.

Since the skill blinds half as much as it used to, it should see a init reduction (though not by half, obviously).

crochip.2389:

I think it is a good change in general. Perma blind shouldn’t exist in any game mode.

I thought everyone was expecting this nerf anyways. What’s the upset about?

gz, now many professions can just stand in the blackpowder and nuke you down …. really wonder why you have to change the interval up 100% .
Perma-blind sucks, sure, but if ppl are to stupid to not move out of the field they should get a disadvantage.

Safestomping with a blinding field will now also be gone . ( well we have too much QQ about that in the past time i guess )

But hey, we got 1 1/2 secs of stability on a useless GM Trait which will cost ONLY 6 ini and a dagger offhand to access it and then reveal us so we can “safe”-stomp .

Eliesume.1687:

I thought everyone was expecting this nerf anyways. What’s the upset about?

Who actually stood in the BP for anything other than HS for stealth in WvW or sPvP? No decent player falls for walking into it, so it was really only used in PvE for certain challenges. It seems like a pointless nerf to me…unless you’re telling me players in sPvP are that foolish enough to step into it.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Eliesume.1687:

I thought everyone was expecting this nerf anyways. What’s the upset about?

Who actually stood in the BP for anything other than HS for stealth in WvW or sPvP? No decent player falls for walking into it, so it was really only used in PvE for certain challenges. It seems like a pointless nerf to me…unless you’re telling me players in sPvP are that foolish enough to step into it.

This should help with denying the HS leap. With fewer pulses you could run into the field and quickly use a stun/push/daze/whatever. It’s still kind of a shot in the dark but if you see the start of the animation and evade the initial ranged blind it’s possible. Seems like more of a WvW change since no good Thief uses D/P in PvP these days.

Overall this patch seems like it was about toning down some of the more obnoxious thief builds.

BurrTheKing.8571:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Eliesume.1687:

I thought everyone was expecting this nerf anyways. What’s the upset about?

Who actually stood in the BP for anything other than HS for stealth in WvW or sPvP? No decent player falls for walking into it, so it was really only used in PvE for certain challenges. It seems like a pointless nerf to me…unless you’re telling me players in sPvP are that foolish enough to step into it.

This should help with denying the HS leap. With fewer pulses you could run into the field and quickly use a stun/push/daze/whatever. It’s still kind of a shot in the dark but if you see the start of the animation and evade the initial ranged blind it’s possible. Seems like more of a WvW change since no good Thief uses D/P in PvP these days.

Overall this patch seems like it was about toning down some of the more obnoxious thief builds.

Too bad that doesn’t stop the blinding shot part of the Black Powder move from preventing you from hitting the thief anyway. And tone down Choking Gas? The move only gave poison, it did nothing outside of that. Now it can’t be used in WvW due to the fact that now it gives revealed, AND it will proc retaliation from people.

lvis.3824:

gz, now many professions can just stand in the blackpowder and nuke you down …. really wonder why you have to change the interval up 100% .
Perma-blind sucks, sure, but if ppl are to stupid to not move out of the field they should get a disadvantage.

Safestomping with a blinding field will now also be gone . ( well we have too much QQ about that in the past time i guess )

But hey, we got 1 1/2 secs of stability on a useless GM Trait which will cost ONLY 6 ini and a dagger offhand to access it and then reveal us so we can “safe”-stomp .

This is true, this is especially bad for the Ranger v Thief matchup. I’m worried that if we get stuck in reveal after a backstab to down a ranger that we’ll go down to pet + ranger down state attacks, plus they can guarentee themselves the interrupt.

We’ll be more likely to be on lower health with the ranger buffs incoming.

Warrior, Guardian and Engi will also present similar issues as they’ll all be able to land their knock skills.

This might be a deal breaker for my original stance.

Shockwave.1230:

This might be a deal breaker for my original stance.

It’s a pretty poor change. Just lazy. If they want to have an easier time for the thief to get interrupted, then remove the projectile finisher on BP. Stand out of the field, then interrupt them when they jump.

Shockwave.1230:

I am A Okay with the less frequent blinding while in the field.

That said one of the boons of the field is that when you pull someone through it you can reliably count on a blind being applied.

I would add one addition proposal to the skill change to keep this reliable blind, and that’s to add behavior similar to ring of fire’s burning, so that when an enemy first enters the field, a blind is applied.

+1
This sounds like an entirely reasonable and overall good idea. Entering the field should blind you, staying in the field should re-blind you at a low frequency.

Something I wonder about; think there’ll be changes to Well of Darkness and Blinding Plague?

Sarrs.4831:

Something I wonder about; think there’ll be changes to Well of Darkness and Blinding Plague?

There is a very key difference here: Black Powder is an ability with 0 CD that allows you to secure a stomp on demand every single fight, whereas WoD is a fairly long CD (for a worse field as far as comboing goes, and only 2s longer duration, but larger), and Plague is a massive CD. Its not really easy to compare something that can guarantee a stomp every single time someone goes down to abilities with very significant drawbacks to their use.

Bhawb.7408:

Sarrs.4831:

Something I wonder about; think there’ll be changes to Well of Darkness and Blinding Plague?

There is a very key difference here: Black Powder is an ability with 0 CD that allows you to secure a stomp on demand every single fight, whereas WoD is a fairly long CD (for a worse field as far as comboing goes, and only 2s longer duration, but larger), and Plague is a massive CD. Its not really easy to compare something that can guarantee a stomp every single time someone goes down to abilities with very significant drawbacks to their use.

I rarely see any thief stomp after setting a black powder. Most use Shadowstep since it’s easier to start the animation, Shadowstep away, and then immediately Shadow Return for a guaranteed stomp. And if they really wanted to do away with that problem for downed state, wouldn’t it be easier to just make it so people in downed state are immune to blind?

We’re talking about ANet here, let’s not get too fancy.

Shockwave.1230:

lvis.3824:

gz, now many professions can just stand in the blackpowder and nuke you down …. really wonder why you have to change the interval up 100% .
Perma-blind sucks, sure, but if ppl are to stupid to not move out of the field they should get a disadvantage.

Safestomping with a blinding field will now also be gone . ( well we have too much QQ about that in the past time i guess )

But hey, we got 1 1/2 secs of stability on a useless GM Trait which will cost ONLY 6 ini and a dagger offhand to access it and then reveal us so we can “safe”-stomp .

This is true, this is especially bad for the Ranger v Thief matchup. I’m worried that if we get stuck in reveal after a backstab to down a ranger that we’ll go down to pet + ranger down state attacks, plus they can guarentee themselves the interrupt.

We’ll be more likely to be on lower health with the ranger buffs incoming.

Warrior, Guardian and Engi will also present similar issues as they’ll all be able to land their knock skills.

This might be a deal breaker for my original stance.

I had forgotten about that aspect. This seems rather fair from someone who isn’t a Thief (I have one and have played it but I just don’t enjoy it). It’s pretty BS that you get a reliable free stomp against pretty much half the classes in the game. As someone who plays primarily Engi, Guard, and War it’s really frustrating to be able to do NOTHING to delay the stomp. It wasn’t skillful either, press 5 and done. It has no CD as well.

Look at what other classes have to do to stomp. They either have to use high CD and strippable Stability (I’ve been running Throw Mine on Engi recently and it’s really good for saving teammates) or something like timing a blind/Aegis mind stomp which requires some semblance of skill. I think Invuln stomps shouldn’t be a thing either. There is simply no way to counter it but even then most skills like that also have high CDs.

It’s not like you can’t still stealth stomp/shadowstep against half the classes anyways.

I think we all knew that this nerf would come one day.
Blind every second is just too good, whether it be PvE or PvP.

A blind every second is too good, but its only for 3 seconds and has a 6 ini cost, which does not make perma blind. All this nerf is doing is making the BP a smoke field combo only. BP was the only defensive trait a theif has access to with the d/p weaponset. My main problem however is that they are allowing pistol to have a longer range with a master trait. This is weakening yet again d/p and reinforcing this condi meta which Anet says they want to remove…

RyuDragnier.9476:

And tone down Choking Gas? The move only gave poison, it did nothing outside of that. Now it can’t be used in WvW due to the fact that now it gives revealed, AND it will proc retaliation from people.

The issue with Choking Gas was that you could use it while in stealth without getting revealed.

Choking Gas has poison and a field which you can blast for AoE weakness. I don’t see how Choking Gas revealing you if you are in stealth is such a big deal. It’s not like it puts Revealed on you if you’re not in stealth.

Olba.5376:

The issue with Choking Gas was that you could use it while in stealth without getting revealed.

So? Mesmers can summon phantasms in stealth which can be potentially more devastating than anything a poison field can do. Seems like a double standard like the nerf Ele got to RtL while leaving skills like Rush on Warrior as-is.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Bhawb.7408:

Sarrs.4831:

Something I wonder about; think there’ll be changes to Well of Darkness and Blinding Plague?

There is a very key difference here: Black Powder is an ability with 0 CD that allows you to secure a stomp on demand every single fight, whereas WoD is a fairly long CD (for a worse field as far as comboing goes, and only 2s longer duration, but larger), and Plague is a massive CD. Its not really easy to compare something that can guarantee a stomp every single time someone goes down to abilities with very significant drawbacks to their use.

I rarely see any thief stomp after setting a black powder. Most use Shadowstep since it’s easier to start the animation, Shadowstep away, and then immediately Shadow Return for a guaranteed stomp. And if they really wanted to do away with that problem for downed state, wouldn’t it be easier to just make it so people in downed state are immune to blind?

Well timed #2 skills can still hit them. I’ve done it on my guardian and I’ve had it done to me from a guardian. Necro is the same, engi would have to rely on the #3 since the #2 isn’t instant. Bottom line blind stomping is far more reliable than SS stomping.

Olba.5376:

RyuDragnier.9476:

And tone down Choking Gas? The move only gave poison, it did nothing outside of that. Now it can’t be used in WvW due to the fact that now it gives revealed, AND it will proc retaliation from people.

The issue with Choking Gas was that you could use it while in stealth without getting revealed.

Choking Gas has poison and a field which you can blast for AoE weakness. I don’t see how Choking Gas revealing you if you are in stealth is such a big deal. It’s not like it puts Revealed on you if you’re not in stealth.

Except now there’s no reason to use the shortbow in WvW. It was already hanging on a thread due to the low survivability of thieves from all the zergs and groups running around, and now we can’t use it at all. Nobody used it in sPvP from what I saw, and in PvE you’re really only using it for Clusterbomb. The weapon is now dead, there’s no point to taking it.

Please guys, stop talking about SB in here, this thread is about BlackPowder…

BurrTheKing.8571:

I had forgotten about that aspect. This seems rather fair from someone who isn’t a Thief (I have one and have played it but I just don’t enjoy it). It’s pretty BS that you get a reliable free stomp against pretty much half the classes in the game. As someone who plays primarily Engi, Guard, and War it’s really frustrating to be able to do NOTHING to delay the stomp. It wasn’t skillful either, press 5 and done. It has no CD as well.

You cannot compare single abilities from professions with other professions abilities.
This will always produce stupid statements…

I could also say, well thief will lose ANY downstate fight with any other profession..
The downstate abilities are not balanced for all professions, some are weaker and some are better.
Thief downstate is weak in comparison, have skills like guard,. ranger or engineer are really good.
And it adds a little bit depth that a thiefs BP could somewhat counter them , if he was running /P and
wants to move in there to secure the stomp.

And ofc its not “skillfull” to press#5 but it costs 6 initiative + you have to play pistol offhand.
But is it more skillfull to use an immunity / stability skill or utility ?

BurrTheKing.8571:

Look at what other classes have to do to stomp. They either have to use high CD and strippable Stability (I’ve been running Throw Mine on Engi recently and it’s really good for saving teammates) or something like timing a blind/Aegis mind stomp which requires some semblance of skill. I think Invuln stomps shouldn’t be a thing either. There is simply no way to counter it but even then most skills like that also have high CDs.

It’s not like you can’t still stealth stomp/shadowstep against half the classes anyways.

Again, “look what other professions have (todo)” is not a valid / usefull argument.
And while you state it, EVERY other profession has more support for teammates than a thief has.
Since you started with NG, engi has sooo much to ress / or deny a ress on teammates an enemies.

And you often cannot stealth stomp or shadowstep stomp as easily as ppl tend to write here.

The thing is, and i already wrote in my first post, ppl QQ about BP / stealth stomps since day one.
But safe stomps with Stability / immunity are not a problem for them.

BP is one of the two options thiefs have to support teamfights/mates.
And Anet nerfs it.

They made very good changes to NG and Ranger, they BUFFED underused abilities / traits but for thief and warrior
they nerf utilis and abiilites, but forget to buff underused ones.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Look at what other classes have to do to stomp. They either have to use high CD and strippable Stability (I’ve been running Throw Mine on Engi recently and it’s really good for saving teammates) or something like timing a blind/Aegis mind stomp which requires some semblance of skill. I think Invuln stomps shouldn’t be a thing either. There is simply no way to counter it but even then most skills like that also have high CDs.

It’s not like you can’t still stealth stomp/shadowstep against half the classes anyways.

None of the other classes in the game have their defenses based almost entirely on avoiding attacks all together. Standing still for 4 seconds can get a thief killed in a heartbeat in a group fight. Hell, even solo – go roll a zerker thief, down a zerker warrior, and see just how much damage they do to you while down – it can easily be 40-50% of your health (with 30 points in vit tree).

I’m not familiar with any class that can strip stability while downed – group fights are of course another story.

Stealth stomps lose points when you’re the only player contesting.

Stability does more to guarantee a stomp in a group fight than BP does (since CC originating from more than 90’ from you still won’t affect you)

I’d honestly be fine with the shadowstep stomp (Seeing as the CD is roughly similar to what other classes have to invest to safe stomp), but since it doubles as a PvP thief’s only viable condition removal, you’re suddenly sacrificing a stunbreaker and your only response to a condi bomb just for a stomp. That’s something other classes don’t have to sacrifice for a safe stomp.

The argument can be made that 100% 1 on 1 safe stomping for half a standard init bar against 3/8 classes might have been a little over the top, but halving the pulse rate was not the right call either, especially considering how it effected the skill in other ways.

If they are reducing pulses and duration of the blinds they should at least reduce the initiative cost of black powder.

Maliel.8362:

If they are reducing pulses and duration of the blinds they should at least reduce the initiative cost of black powder.

this^^

fun part this change will affect pp and sp thieves more than dp… because you know, pp is soooo OP…..(eyesroll)

Shockwave.1230:

lvis.3824:

gz, now many professions can just stand in the blackpowder and nuke you down …. really wonder why you have to change the interval up 100% .
Perma-blind sucks, sure, but if ppl are to stupid to not move out of the field they should get a disadvantage.

Safestomping with a blinding field will now also be gone . ( well we have too much QQ about that in the past time i guess )

But hey, we got 1 1/2 secs of stability on a useless GM Trait which will cost ONLY 6 ini and a dagger offhand to access it and then reveal us so we can “safe”-stomp .

This is true, this is especially bad for the Ranger v Thief matchup. I’m worried that if we get stuck in reveal after a backstab to down a ranger that we’ll go down to pet + ranger down state attacks, plus they can guarentee themselves the interrupt.

We’ll be more likely to be on lower health with the ranger buffs incoming.

Warrior, Guardian and Engi will also present similar issues as they’ll all be able to land their knock skills.

This might be a deal breaker for my original stance.

Thinking this through, one additional change I’d make to black powder besides the 2 second interval and blind upon first entering the field is to reduce the cost to 4 initiative.

This is because the skill will be weaker, and not viable for stomping, which is especially impactful in 2v2 and 1v1 scenarios.

At a cost of 4 initiative, we can spend 8 to double cast it and still land our stomps, we may have to wait a moment to doublecast it, but at least we wouldn’t be finished off everytime we’re low on health.

The stomp aspect of this skill is important. If every profession is able to clear their blind and and interrupt our stomp, then just like team fights, we may not have a viable way to land a stomp with pistol offhand. The reason thief would lose the opportunity to stomp is because of how squishy it is. Ranger, Guardian, Engi, and Warrior would all potentially be able to finish bringing us down if we attempt to stomp, and since most offhand dagger thieves run HiS, which is on a 30 second cooldown, it’s unlikely to be ready as a stomp utility.

Not being able to stomp in at least 2v2s and 1v1s would be unfortunate in my opinion, it’s already not viable in team fights, I like seeing my finishers land.

Although my spec was actual buffed (probably the only thief spec that got buffed) I believe that the few buffs are not enough when compared with the ridiculous amount of nerfs…

TBH I was expecting a couple of things like mug being able to crit again, dancing daggers init cost reduced and reveled back to 3 sec in PvP since more professions can apply reveled and for longer periods of time, and a direct nerf to thieves via other professions, we should get a buff to compensate for this but as always a-net has no love whatsoever for thieves, we are the black sheep of this game and will NEVER be treated the same way as warriors for example.

In this ready up you can see that the warrior dishes out a lot more dmg with ALL they’re weapon sets that the thief regardless of the weapon. Not to mention warriors can do MORE dmg in tanking spec then a thief in full GC spec…

GJ

Cynz.9437:

Maliel.8362:

If they are reducing pulses and duration of the blinds they should at least reduce the initiative cost of black powder.

this^^

fun part this change will affect pp and sp thieves more than dp… because you know, pp is soooo OP…..(eyesroll)

As far as I know, p/p thieves won’t really be affected much at all by this change, as the blinds are mostly dealt through projectile finishers. The smoke field will remain consistent; the only thing changing is how often the blind pulses while you’re inside it.

you know…even with a dagger, you still have a good amount of range to reach into the
powder field with out being blinded…just saying

lvis.3824:

Please guys, stop talking about SB in here, this thread is about BlackPowder…

BurrTheKing.8571:

I had forgotten about that aspect. This seems rather fair from someone who isn’t a Thief (I have one and have played it but I just don’t enjoy it). It’s pretty BS that you get a reliable free stomp against pretty much half the classes in the game. As someone who plays primarily Engi, Guard, and War it’s really frustrating to be able to do NOTHING to delay the stomp. It wasn’t skillful either, press 5 and done. It has no CD as well.

You cannot compare single abilities from professions with other professions abilities.
This will always produce stupid statements…

I could also say, well thief will lose ANY downstate fight with any other profession..
The downstate abilities are not balanced for all professions, some are weaker and some are better.
Thief downstate is weak in comparison, have skills like guard,. ranger or engineer are really good.
And it adds a little bit depth that a thiefs BP could somewhat counter them , if he was running /P and
wants to move in there to secure the stomp.

And ofc its not “skillfull” to press#5 but it costs 6 initiative + you have to play pistol offhand.
But is it more skillfull to use an immunity / stability skill or utility ?

BurrTheKing.8571:

Look at what other classes have to do to stomp. They either have to use high CD and strippable Stability (I’ve been running Throw Mine on Engi recently and it’s really good for saving teammates) or something like timing a blind/Aegis mind stomp which requires some semblance of skill. I think Invuln stomps shouldn’t be a thing either. There is simply no way to counter it but even then most skills like that also have high CDs.

It’s not like you can’t still stealth stomp/shadowstep against half the classes anyways.

Again, “look what other professions have (todo)” is not a valid / usefull argument.
And while you state it, EVERY other profession has more support for teammates than a thief has.
Since you started with NG, engi has sooo much to ress / or deny a ress on teammates an enemies.

And you often cannot stealth stomp or shadowstep stomp as easily as ppl tend to write here.

The thing is, and i already wrote in my first post, ppl QQ about BP / stealth stomps since day one.
But safe stomps with Stability / immunity are not a problem for them.

BP is one of the two options thiefs have to support teamfights/mates.
And Anet nerfs it.

They made very good changes to NG and Ranger, they BUFFED underused abilities / traits but for thief and warrior
they nerf utilis and abiilites, but forget to buff underused ones.

My whole point is that NO CLASS should be able to get a reliable stomp with such a low investment. There is little to nothing that Wars, Guards, Engis, or Rangers can do to counter it. I don’t have a huge problem with Shadowstep because it is a relatively high CD skill. The whole point is that you should have to either time something in order to get a stomp or use something with a fairly high CD.

You CAN counter a Stab stomp, not as the guy getting downed but your team can strip it off and CC. Often you can do this in one motion, like with Throw Mine or Corrupt Boon. I’m NOT OK with immunity stomps, there’s no counterplay to it except to revive the player before the stomp lands.

I was not comparing class mechanics, I’m just pointing out how much lower the risk of using BP is compared to shadow step. If you get CC’d from range while using a BP stomp, oh well. You didn’t lose a high CD stability or Shadowstep and may even have enough time to try again.

With these changes you have a chance to clear the blind and then use your 2 skill to temporarily deny the stomp. YOu no longer are forced to go “well, nothing I can do now” the second the BP lands.

Long story short, you should have to either use a long CD skill, time a blind (Flamethrower/Virtue of Justice traited), or use a Aegis/Block (which generally both have high CDs as well) to get a “easy” stomp. I don’t care what class you are. Just pressing 5 and losing a bit of initiative (that will regen during the stomp) is not a high enough investment. Also, it’s not like you can’t do a stealth stomp, which will work against all but Guard. You also still get that really annoying ranged blind, so denying the leap for the blind is still going to be tricky.

And less team support? Last I looked stealing boons and giving them to your team and soon giving your team heaps of venoms seems like pretty great team support to me.

BurrTheKing.8571:

You CAN counter a Stab stomp, not as the guy getting downed but your team can strip it off and CC. Often you can do this in one motion, like with Throw Mine or Corrupt Boon. I’m NOT OK with immunity stomps, there’s no counterplay to it except to revive the player before the stomp lands.

How is that any different from a teammate of yours cc’ing the thief while they blind stomp? Or your teammate killing the thief before they can get the stomp off?

People running x/p aren’t tanky, you should tell your team to use their noggin if they can’t figure out how to counter a localized blind field that can be safely cleaved on the outside with melee.

Smoke field =/= immunity

NinjaEd.3946:

BurrTheKing.8571:

You CAN counter a Stab stomp, not as the guy getting downed but your team can strip it off and CC. Often you can do this in one motion, like with Throw Mine or Corrupt Boon. I’m NOT OK with immunity stomps, there’s no counterplay to it except to revive the player before the stomp lands.

How is that any different from a teammate of yours cc’ing the thief while they blind stomp? Or your teammate killing the thief before they can get the stomp off?

People running x/p aren’t tanky, you should tell your team to use their noggin if they can’t figure out how to counter a localized blind field that can be safely cleaved on the outside with melee.

Smoke field =/= immunity

You can just reuse BP again. If you pop Stability and got it stripped, chances are you don’t have any more access to it without a Guard (maybe Engi) giving it to you. You lost something significant. In they time you’re stomping most of the cost for BP regens. Some builds have the stun on Steal so if you get CC’d by just 1 person then you can interrupt the heal and bind both of them and try again.

I think that the relative cost for a free stomp should be as close to equal across all class. In PvP and WvW getting that stomp is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART of a fight, and being able to do it easily isn’t OK whether it’s perma blind or invuln.

eh, i’m fine with the change. i hope the NPCs that use it (Veteran Scouts, i’m looking at you) get the same nerf.

for PvE, the 2s pulse is fine.

for stomping with D/P, just heartseeker through the field and stealth stomp.

for stomping with S/P, you’re better off using pistol whip to cleave any silly people trying to rez the downed guy (with the added bonus of stunning the healer, making a rez even harder).

for stomping with P/P… why are you playing P/P? go home, thief, you’re drunk.

Shockwave.1230:

Shockwave.1230:

lvis.3824:

gz, now many professions can just stand in the blackpowder and nuke you down …. really wonder why you have to change the interval up 100% .
Perma-blind sucks, sure, but if ppl are to stupid to not move out of the field they should get a disadvantage.

Safestomping with a blinding field will now also be gone . ( well we have too much QQ about that in the past time i guess )

But hey, we got 1 1/2 secs of stability on a useless GM Trait which will cost ONLY 6 ini and a dagger offhand to access it and then reveal us so we can “safe”-stomp .

This is true, this is especially bad for the Ranger v Thief matchup. I’m worried that if we get stuck in reveal after a backstab to down a ranger that we’ll go down to pet + ranger down state attacks, plus they can guarentee themselves the interrupt.

We’ll be more likely to be on lower health with the ranger buffs incoming.

Warrior, Guardian and Engi will also present similar issues as they’ll all be able to land their knock skills.

This might be a deal breaker for my original stance.

Thinking this through, one additional change I’d make to black powder besides the 2 second interval and blind upon first entering the field is to reduce the cost to 4 initiative.

This is because the skill will be weaker, and not viable for stomping, which is especially impactful in 2v2 and 1v1 scenarios.

At a cost of 4 initiative, we can spend 8 to double cast it and still land our stomps, we may have to wait a moment to doublecast it, but at least we wouldn’t be finished off everytime we’re low on health.

The stomp aspect of this skill is important. If every profession is able to clear their blind and and interrupt our stomp, then just like team fights, we may not have a viable way to land a stomp with pistol offhand. The reason thief would lose the opportunity to stomp is because of how squishy it is. Ranger, Guardian, Engi, and Warrior would all potentially be able to finish bringing us down if we attempt to stomp, and since most offhand dagger thieves run HiS, which is on a 30 second cooldown, it’s unlikely to be ready as a stomp utility.

Not being able to stomp in at least 2v2s and 1v1s would be unfortunate in my opinion, it’s already not viable in team fights, I like seeing my finishers land.

Something else to think about that I thought of, with the high initiative cost of 9 initiative (smoke field + leap finisher) to land a stomp, thieves will feel compelled to be at least 3 into trickery. This prevents thieves from being able to pick two grandmasters trait lines besides trickery and one other.

Also regarding the weakening of black powder and my suggestions, I think dropping the initiative to 4 is likely too low a cost. A cost of 5 with the blind upon crossing the field seems better.

BurrTheKing.8571:

NinjaEd.3946:

BurrTheKing.8571:

You CAN counter a Stab stomp, not as the guy getting downed but your team can strip it off and CC. Often you can do this in one motion, like with Throw Mine or Corrupt Boon. I’m NOT OK with immunity stomps, there’s no counterplay to it except to revive the player before the stomp lands.

How is that any different from a teammate of yours cc’ing the thief while they blind stomp? Or your teammate killing the thief before they can get the stomp off?

People running x/p aren’t tanky, you should tell your team to use their noggin if they can’t figure out how to counter a localized blind field that can be safely cleaved on the outside with melee.

Smoke field =/= immunity

You can just reuse BP again. If you pop Stability and got it stripped, chances are you don’t have any more access to it without a Guard (maybe Engi) giving it to you. You lost something significant. In they time you’re stomping most of the cost for BP regens. Some builds have the stun on Steal so if you get CC’d by just 1 person then you can interrupt the heal and bind both of them and try again.

I think that the relative cost for a free stomp should be as close to equal across all class. In PvP and WvW getting that stomp is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART of a fight, and being able to do it easily isn’t OK whether it’s perma blind or invuln.

There are zero methods of boon stripping while you are downed, so if the argument is that allies should be able to rescue you if you’re trapped in the downed state within a BPS then it is no different from stability or invuln stomping. Sure those effects have longer cooldowns but it still comes down to your teammates reaction.

Also a thief is meant to pick off the back line, they can’t sit in an AoE cluster and swing hap hazardly. Having the ability to smite and finish off an enemy is what they excel at, but others can do it too if they’re set up to do so.

Regardless, the downed mechanic is a joke with only a select few having any chance of rallying, they should look into balancing this out before looking for ways to nerf finishers. BPS will still be used for this purpose though, just you’ll have a better shot at interrupting them now.

Blind powder was never a problem, only the players, who are just too stupid and stay in the field.

BurrTheKing.8571:

lvis.3824:

Please guys, stop talking about SB in here, this thread is about BlackPowder…

BurrTheKing.8571:

I had forgotten about that aspect. This seems rather fair from someone who isn’t a Thief (I have one and have played it but I just don’t enjoy it). It’s pretty BS that you get a reliable free stomp against pretty much half the classes in the game. As someone who plays primarily Engi, Guard, and War it’s really frustrating to be able to do NOTHING to delay the stomp. It wasn’t skillful either, press 5 and done. It has no CD as well.

You cannot compare single abilities from professions with other professions abilities.
This will always produce stupid statements…

I could also say, well thief will lose ANY downstate fight with any other profession..
The downstate abilities are not balanced for all professions, some are weaker and some are better.
Thief downstate is weak in comparison, have skills like guard,. ranger or engineer are really good.
And it adds a little bit depth that a thiefs BP could somewhat counter them , if he was running /P and
wants to move in there to secure the stomp.

And ofc its not “skillfull” to press#5 but it costs 6 initiative + you have to play pistol offhand.
But is it more skillfull to use an immunity / stability skill or utility ?

BurrTheKing.8571:

Look at what other classes have to do to stomp. They either have to use high CD and strippable Stability (I’ve been running Throw Mine on Engi recently and it’s really good for saving teammates) or something like timing a blind/Aegis mind stomp which requires some semblance of skill. I think Invuln stomps shouldn’t be a thing either. There is simply no way to counter it but even then most skills like that also have high CDs.

It’s not like you can’t still stealth stomp/shadowstep against half the classes anyways.

Again, “look what other professions have (todo)” is not a valid / usefull argument.
And while you state it, EVERY other profession has more support for teammates than a thief has.
Since you started with NG, engi has sooo much to ress / or deny a ress on teammates an enemies.

And you often cannot stealth stomp or shadowstep stomp as easily as ppl tend to write here.

The thing is, and i already wrote in my first post, ppl QQ about BP / stealth stomps since day one.
But safe stomps with Stability / immunity are not a problem for them.

BP is one of the two options thiefs have to support teamfights/mates.
And Anet nerfs it.

They made very good changes to NG and Ranger, they BUFFED underused abilities / traits but for thief and warrior
they nerf utilis and abiilites, but forget to buff underused ones.

My whole point is that NO CLASS should be able to get a reliable stomp with such a low investment. There is little to nothing that Wars, Guards, Engis, or Rangers can do to counter it. I don’t have a huge problem with Shadowstep because it is a relatively high CD skill. The whole point is that you should have to either time something in order to get a stomp or use something with a fairly high CD.

You CAN counter a Stab stomp, not as the guy getting downed but your team can strip it off and CC. Often you can do this in one motion, like with Throw Mine or Corrupt Boon. I’m NOT OK with immunity stomps, there’s no counterplay to it except to revive the player before the stomp lands.

I was not comparing class mechanics, I’m just pointing out how much lower the risk of using BP is compared to shadow step. If you get CC’d from range while using a BP stomp, oh well. You didn’t lose a high CD stability or Shadowstep and may even have enough time to try again.

With these changes you have a chance to clear the blind and then use your 2 skill to temporarily deny the stomp. YOu no longer are forced to go “well, nothing I can do now” the second the BP lands.

Long story short, you should have to either use a long CD skill, time a blind (Flamethrower/Virtue of Justice traited), or use a Aegis/Block (which generally both have high CDs as well) to get a “easy” stomp. I don’t care what class you are. Just pressing 5 and losing a bit of initiative (that will regen during the stomp) is not a high enough investment. Also, it’s not like you can’t do a stealth stomp, which will work against all but Guard. You also still get that really annoying ranged blind, so denying the leap for the blind is still going to be tricky.

And less team support? Last I looked stealing boons and giving them to your team and soon giving your team heaps of venoms seems like pretty great team support to me.

In team play stoping a thief doing a black power stomp is so much easier than trying to stop someone doing a stability stomp. Also if you talking about 1v1 situation who the hells cares.

The Black Powder change is completely uncalled for. I’ve fought plenty of D/P thieves and never felt like the blinds from BP were unfair… If I don’t want to be blinded, I don’t stand in a blind field (duh)… Why make a change that allows people to just ignore black powder and still land powerful attacks (sometimes)? It’s going to be ridiculously unreliable. With this change it will be EASY to run directly through the center of the field without getting blinded.