Guild Wars 2

I am just gonna leave this here..

I play S/P and if you think Stealth helps s/p, you are suggesting that you nothing about the profession and you really should go roll a thief before you blabber out stupid suggestions.

SP thiefs are known to be <b>stealthless</b>… adding a stealth to BP will actually hinder me more as I enjoy more of the blind function and I will now have to someow trigger that using another skill..

it will help p/p but then other people will be complaining about P/P is OP due to stealth+range (OMG!!) and will be again nerfed to the depth of hell (since they are already on the ground they cant really go lower apart from this)

In reality, more stealth does not equal to better. If its not broken, dont fix it.

Enenion.8127:

The point of the change isn’t to remove Stealth from D/P. Stealth is an integral part of the thief class and D/P especially, which relies on Backstab for damage, so removing stealth is out of the question. The change aims to make it a bit harder for the thief to get Stealth in the first place, since there are a couple more counters to a projectile than to someone attacking the air inside a field. A deceptive style of play is still very much possible even with the proposed requirement to hit something.

I like how you assume your point was lost on me. I thought I was being pretty clear pointing out that condition removal and initiative regeneration will still be there despite the changes, so the was no point to attempt to use those traits to support your argument. It simply won’t be there out of combat, and taking away condition removal out of combat is a very, very bad, horrible and never-going-to-be-implemented idea. It would be like saying other classes can escape to heal and handle their conditions, but not thief - yet another example of "it’s fine for everyone else, but for thief it must be nerfed". You didn’t address that point in my response.

As for the deceptive style, you’re not offering any counter reasons to what I stated in my first post here. Simply contradicting me doesn’t warrant a constructive response.

As for back stab.. what’s wrong with hitting a single target for a damage with a 2.4 skill coefficient having taken the time to cast a low damaging black powder, heart seeker through it which is required to land back stabs regardless of the health the opponent is at (meaning if they are above 50% the DPS will be even lower)? Think DPS, not damage. I mean seriously, look at warrior’s axe auto attack. 0.7+1.4+1.4+1.5=5 in 3.6 seconds. On auto attack. Can’t get much easier than that. Guardian auto attack, 0.8+0.8+1.2=3.8 in 2.5 seconds. Necromancer life blast 1.4 per second i.e 4.2 in 3 seconds while eating damage with a second health pool. These are auto attacks, so while thief is using initiative, they have no cool-down related cost. Show me where thief is too strong.

I think its quite an interesting suggestion. I like it personally, because I do think d/p makes stealthing too easy because it can be done anywhere any time.

I think it would even be fair to make it so BP still caused an AoE blind when used simply because there are thieves who use it for that purpose and its a useful function of the skill.

Not sure how it would work with s/p.. I see very few thieves (none infact) running that, and dont really know how the weaponset plays.

P/P condition thieves would become even more annoying.. but what can you do. They’d still have some mobility issues.

If it did happen though, I can only imagine the rage of the thief forums when they all realised that if the shot is reflected it will stealth your opponent (done that several times with my LB…).

D/p should not be stealthing the thief if HS damages something, I’ve no real issue with these pansies playing like cowards, but leaping for stealth + damaging at the same time is just wrong.

It’s interesting to see all the attention go to the nerf it represents for D/P, yet little thought is going to the rather overpowering effect this has on P/P. While this set needs some love, the ranged stealth brings Sneak Attack into play for P/P. With the proper setup Sneak Attack and Unload combined can hit similar numbers as a CnD/Backstabs combo, but ranged. Get two of these off ….

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

frans.8092:

It’s interesting to see all the attention go to the nerf it represents for D/P, yet little thought is going to the rather overpowering effect this has on P/P. While this set needs some love, the ranged stealth brings Sneak Attack into play for P/P. With the proper setup Sneak Attack and Unload combined can hit similar numbers as a CnD/Backstabs combo, but ranged. Get two of these off ….

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

That’s the point though. There is still counterplay with dodging the BPS, and if you fail to dodge that you can mitigate about 80% of the following sneak attack both revealing the thief and cutting the damage. The point is though that there is more play and synergy for P/P rather than the 3 spam that currently exists. Sneak attack only has a multiplier of 1.2 which is equivalent to a frontstab or necrotic bite (necro dagger auto attack chain 3). It really wouldn’t be any more powerful than CnD considering the telegraph and flight time.

Bp 6ini , unload 5ini good luck spamming that

Additional: its Super easy to Dodge channeled skills

This is definitely a nerf to D/P. But it would be a nice buff to S/P and P/P, so I support it.

The thing is though… D/P doesn’t really need such a big nerf, it just needs to lose the perma-stealth crap.

Maugetarr.6823:

frans.8092:

It’s interesting to see all the attention go to the nerf it represents for D/P, yet little thought is going to the rather overpowering effect this has on P/P. While this set needs some love, the ranged stealth brings Sneak Attack into play for P/P. With the proper setup Sneak Attack and Unload combined can hit similar numbers as a CnD/Backstabs combo, but ranged. Get two of these off ….

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

That’s the point though. There is still counterplay with dodging the BPS, and if you fail to dodge that you can mitigate about 80% of the following sneak attack both revealing the thief and cutting the damage. The point is though that there is more play and synergy for P/P rather than the 3 spam that currently exists. Sneak attack only has a multiplier of 1.2 which is equivalent to a frontstab or necrotic bite (necro dagger auto attack chain 3). It really wouldn’t be any more powerful than CnD considering the telegraph and flight time.

C&D is very well telegraphed and Backstab and C&D can be dodged and kited and blinded and blocked and …
Adding in the condition damage Sneak Attack comes pretty close to Backstab (as back stab), even on Berserker gear and Unload matches it. Though you can still boost Backstab more then Unload and Sneak Attack.

A ranged stealth on P/P is going to make it very strong, if not OP.

frans.8092:

Maugetarr.6823:

frans.8092:

It’s interesting to see all the attention go to the nerf it represents for D/P, yet little thought is going to the rather overpowering effect this has on P/P. While this set needs some love, the ranged stealth brings Sneak Attack into play for P/P. With the proper setup Sneak Attack and Unload combined can hit similar numbers as a CnD/Backstabs combo, but ranged. Get two of these off ….

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

That’s the point though. There is still counterplay with dodging the BPS, and if you fail to dodge that you can mitigate about 80% of the following sneak attack both revealing the thief and cutting the damage. The point is though that there is more play and synergy for P/P rather than the 3 spam that currently exists. Sneak attack only has a multiplier of 1.2 which is equivalent to a frontstab or necrotic bite (necro dagger auto attack chain 3). It really wouldn’t be any more powerful than CnD considering the telegraph and flight time.

C&D is very well telegraphed and Backstab and C&D can be dodged and kited and blinded and blocked and …
Adding in the condition damage Sneak Attack comes pretty close to Backstab (as back stab), even on Berserker gear and Unload matches it. Though you can still boost Backstab more then Unload and Sneak Attack.

A ranged stealth on P/P is going to make it very strong, if not OP.

But the BPS channel would be at least as dodgeable, blindable, blockable, and reflectable on top of that. The other difference with sneak attack versus backstab is that backstab delivers it’s damage in one hit whereas you can partially dodge sneak attack’s channel, often taking only 2 to 3 hits of the 5. Also, if not specced into condi damage, the bleed damage from sneak attack is only about 1200 damage including the 25% duration boost from the DA line while the physical damage is literally half that of backstab. Don’t get me wrong, it will buff P/P, but only to a point (imo) where it has utility and damage which put it in contention with the utility of SB.

Just to reiterate the main point though: the part of BPS that would stealth you would be at least as easy to counter as CnD.

The thing I don’t get is that this complaint comes from WvW-ers who are sick of not being able to kill any bad D/P thief. If this change will be implemented (and, mind me, it will not), they would be even more mad at the new OP roaming class, P/P thieves.
There are SO many attackable objects in WvW (walls, doors, mobs, player’s AIs, siege), and unless it’s a 1v1 without anything in sight the P/P thief will keep stealthing AT RANGE without any problem, all this while unloading huge stacks of bleeding on everyone.
If you can’t deal with a D/P thief, which is EASILY counterable, I can’t imagine people dealing with this new kind of thieves.

Maugetarr.6823:

But the BPS channel would be at least as dodgeable, blindable, blockable, and reflectable on top of that.

And C&D is dodgeable, blindable and kiteable. There is no spec for the duration of the BPS channel so I assume it’s in the order of .5 seconds, like C&D. It is also not what people will see.

The other difference with sneak attack versus backstab is that backstab delivers it’s damage in one hit whereas you can partially dodge sneak attack’s channel, often taking only 2 to 3 hits of the 5.

And loosing the endurance to dodge the following unload

Also, if not specced into condi damage, the bleed damage from sneak attack is only about 1200 damage including the 25% duration boost from the DA line while the physical damage is literally half that of backstab.

Berserker spec sneak attack hit for almost as hard as backstab. That is purely on gear and traits, generally you would boost backstab further if you play that spec. But a P/P could divert some of that extra attention into boosting the condition damage from Sneak Attack.

Don’t get me wrong, it will buff P/P, but only to a point (imo) where it has utility and damage which put it in contention with the utility of SB.

Seriously, I’d welcome this change

Just to reiterate the main point though: the part of BPS that would stealth you would be at least as easy to counter as CnD.

You can not kite it like you can C&D, which is a quite big one.

frans.8092:

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

Did you hear? They lifted that rediculous nerf Dam im getting nostalgic over the good old GW1 days where pvp was balanced

Alright. I’m glad to see that this caused some buzz, it was my intention. I wanted to see what the community as a whole think of this idea. There looks like some people want this and some people don’t. Some of you that doesn’t looks like you don’t understand my idea here… I don’t understand why people want to harass me because this is simply an idea. I have over 2000 hours of thief play. My thief has completed all paths in every dungeon and I play high level fractals with him. He’s highly ranked in WvW and I used to play a lot of tPvP. After the reset I haven’t had time to play that much, but I’ll get back on the leader boards soon enough.

These changes are intended to raise the skill floor and ceiling by making it harder and more counterable to get stealth. The reason I say this is because I have yet to be neglected stealth with D/P. Not even in tPvP have I been interrupted while I tried to stealth. Saying that stealthing / dropping black powder in dungeons, WvW or sPvP is going to get you lonely is bullkitten. I often use it for the AoE blind (save my teammates, remember?) both in dungeons and in sPvP. I don’t always stealth but I sometimes use it to get that extra burst to finish someone off.

I still want Black Powder to be a blind field! So that won’t get nerfed, we will still have AoE blind on demand. I have played a lot of S/P, long before it got in the meta. Stealth would be a nice addition, but it will be a powerful addition, so I’m not sure what would happen there.

How often do you land CnD compared to BP+HS? I land the latter 99% (the last % because of random knockbacks in team fights). CnD isn’t nearly as easy to land. My changes to BP will level those out and make it harder to hit with it, because it can be countered much easier than the current combo. The fact that the thief can use the current combo from distance means that he will blind you from distance and then leap to get stealth, land on top of you and then position himself. You won’t have time to get rid if the blind before he stealth. With my change you will have time to see what’s happening and react accordingly.

/P sets shouldn’t have stealth, that should be /D’s domain.
While S/P and S/D have significant differences in what they bring.
D/D and D/P butt heads, and D/D without the damage advantage it used to have loses out in 2/3 formats generally. Increasing D/D’s damage further outside of Death blossom isn’t really attractive either. If D/P didn’t have stealth D/D would actually have a niche out of the D/’s to capitalize on.

Turn the blinking thing into a dark field and buff D/P afterwards from the fallout.

Aberrant.6749:

The risk is being interrupted and having spent a lot of ini in the process with no reward. Stopping a bp->hs will wreck a thief and force them to start popping utilities to make up for it. It would be more forgiving if they didn’t have to hs through the field.

They also lose out on the c&d damage (doesn’t apply in sPvP where c&d needs a buff to make up for the higher risk though).

I’m very much behind this.
To those of you saying it’s too hard to stop the combo, the Thief lays down a loud, distinctive, red-circled AoE blind before using Heartseeker. Is that not a good enough visual and audio clue? And it’s a slow skill/combo. From what I’ve noticed, people just can’t be bothered to use their interrupts more wisely (don’t worry if you’re a Warrior since you can spam your stuns and win).

Black Powder + Heartseeker costs a whooping 9 initiative. 7 with Infusion of Shadow. Each additional stack of stealth costs 3 more.

Anyway, I’m not saying it’s super easy to stop it. But if you keep a presence of mind, it’s not that hard either.

Geiir.7603:

I got a discussion going in the thief forum about stealth, you can read more about it here. During the discussions someone threw out an idea for Black Powder (pistol off-hand 5). He proposed to change the combo field to Dark instead of Smoke and let the projectile it fires grant stealth if it connects (in the same fashion as Ranger Longbow 3).

Changes to Black Powder;

• Projectile grant stealth if it connects
• Change combo field to Dark
• Add a small cast time after the field drops and until the shot is fired. The same as Cloak and Dagger.

Why do I think this is a good idea?

• It would fix the problem with D/P stealth stacking
• It would provide stealth too P/P and S/P. Dual pistol really need help, and this would help a lot.
• It add real counter play to the D/P stealth combo. You could just evade, block, blind, etc the projectile to negate the thief stealth. This is also in the same fashion as Cloak and Dagger.
• The cast time would really help with the counter play as people will have a chance to evade or block it.

This change would help people counter the D/P weapon set and it would help the other two sets that use pistol off-hand a lot! This change was originally proposed by Maugetarr.

The only Thief build that takes advantage of stealth stacking is the one that invests in Shadow Arts. So if you want to get rid of that please nerf the root of the evil and don´t destroy every other build that uses D/P.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infusion_of_Shadow
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Patience
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meld_with_Shadows

The combination of Black Powder and Heartseeker feels right. It´s exactly the tool that you need to knock out S/D and S/P Thiefs. You get stealth without needing to hit someone whats a big plus because they evade 75% of the time they engage in combat.
And then you got 3 seconds to squeeze your Backstab into them during their evade frames and force them to retreat for a while.

So please keep the number 5 as it is. There are way more other things that need a rework. Pistol number 5 does it´s job.

To get rid of permastealthing you need to get rid of all the initiative regain traits and make it the same for every build.

Sword/Pistol with permanent access to stealth is way over the top.

P/P has other problems … no identity … is it condition or is it power based … is it both?

Could have sworn P/P’s thing is single target ranged burst. That’s what it wants to excel at and finds itself impractical at. Defensive options aren’t great and offensive presence is lacking.

hihey.1075:

The thing I don’t get is that this complaint comes from WvW-ers who are sick of not being able to kill any bad D/P thief. If this change will be implemented (and, mind me, it will not), they would be even more mad at the new OP roaming class, P/P thieves.
There are SO many attackable objects in WvW (walls, doors, mobs, player’s AIs, siege), and unless it’s a 1v1 without anything in sight the P/P thief will keep stealthing AT RANGE without any problem, all this while unloading huge stacks of bleeding on everyone.
If you can’t deal with a D/P thief, which is EASILY counterable, I can’t imagine people dealing with this new kind of thieves.

First of all, D/P isn’t easily counterable. It’s like a fish jumping up from the surface of the water and you need to catch it in that 1 sec window. If you do manage to catch it in that one second window, it may glip out of your hands (HiS, Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge).

I do agree #5 connect stealth method is a very nice idea but it’ll bring a lot of problems.
The way you suggest it, it’s basically like x/d but you can stealth at range, that’s.. not a good solution imo. Although very original.

This is an interesting idea. I think it could use a bit more tweaking, but it’d go a huge way towards making P/P a viable build. Overall, the idea is great, and wouldn’t necessarily be a buff or a nerf, per se.