Guild Wars 2

Clark Skinner.4902:

Elemental Attunement moved to Master tier.

Most eles use this trait. You said you wanted to discourage putting points into arcane, but every ele who only had 10 points will now have to jump up to 20.

Every ele player I know that has just 10 points in arcana use renewing stamina, not elemental attunement.

“•Explosives V – Incendiary Powder. Moved to Master tier.”

Thank you for nerfing engi’s DPS… we just dont have any problem getting more dps! ._."

Dear Jon, and Balance Devs.
I hope you will also look into the feedback upon ranger traits, and perhaps make some more changes. The initial suggestion to rangers are, upon second review, fair. However some more pressing restructuring are needed within marksmanship and skirmishing, but also in the other traitlines.

A: Merge http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alpha_Training and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Opening_Strike
Reason: Given that the profession is depending on the pet, whether the player likes it or not, the pet should obviously be given opening strike together with the player. Player and pet is supposed to work as one entity. The more the player and pet is separated in terms of function, the less engaging and natural the gameplay gets.

B: Move either http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Piercing_Arrows OR http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Eagle_Eye to Master Minor.
Optional: Merge http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Piercing_Arrows and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quick_Draw
Reason: to fully utilize the power of our bows, one must choose both. This severely limits build diversity alongside functionality. I dare suggest, that loosing out on either trait can reduce the large scale encounter value of rangers by as much as 30%. In WvW they will have issues taking down siege without Eagle Eye, on the contrary, they have massive issues taking down large groups without spotter.

C: Switch http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_the_Beastmaster to Grandmaster Minor and merge http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Precise_Strike with http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Remorseless
Reason: The fact that rangers is the ONLY profession that must invest into grandmaster traits to make signets work are just, wrong. Every other profession can fully utilize their signets at full capacity, while the ranger profession has 4 utility skills at 50% efficiency. This severely cripples build diversity in power builds. Allowing to both trait for remorseless and for signets would open up powerbuilds for rangers once more.

D: Add a new grandmaster trait to marksmanship that increases movement speed by 7% while wielding bows.
Reason: This would make bow wielding rangers a whole lot more useful. Not only in general, but it would also slightly reduce the loss of endurance regen, which affects bow users heavily.

E: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Primal_Reflexes Changing this trait to grant X% Endurance regeneration while wielding a shortbow.
Reason: It would open up the shortbow for competitive PvP/WvW once more. At this point, there is few incentives other then condition builds, to run with a shortbow. Once again, it would increase build diversity, and least by not last, the utility of the weapon itself.

F: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evasive_Purity Reduce internal Cooldown to reflect the reduced number of dodges.
Reason: With reduced number of dodges, this skill will become more situational and less functional. An idea would be for it to also remove immobilize, which rangers has no reliable active way to remove.

G: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_the_Wild Increase and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Natural_Healing the Healing Power->HP/sec efficiency.
Reason: Most other professions have very strong healing at this point. The ranger, being a more direct approach profession, are in need of strong healing as the profession does not rely on extra healthbars (DS) or illusions to mitigate the damage.
A reasonable suggestion would be to up the ratio on the signet from 0.06 to 0.15 for players, and 0.25 to 0.33 for pets. And the trait from 125/s for pets to 215/s. Player healing from natural regeneration should be buffed to 173/3s, if only to make it more viable. The pet buff is needed to counteract the heavy damage pets receive in end game content such as dungeons, living story events and WvW. While pets may be able to survive the first blow, they cannot survive the second one. It would also help a long way to secure the pets AOE survival.

H: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empathic_Bond
Change the effect from 3 conditions every 10 seconds, to a passive 50% reduced condition duration for both pet and player.
Reason: In this condition heavy meta, this trait is destroying ranger play. A necromancer/spirit ranger/engineer/longbow warrior can kill our pet in 1 second when their conditions gets transfered. My pet does a large chunk of my DPS, but it does not do so while dead. Giving rangers a passive duration decrease, would not offset the efficiency completely, but it would open up for higher reliability towards the pet. This again would add to pet functionality.

Cheers, and have a good weekend.

Ranger only Longbow and Greatsword buff?
Why not sword? Hope you guys finally gonna fix the autoattack of the rangersword, these jumping moves are really stupid because you cant dogge if ur in an attack.

And im bagging you please remove the symbol of the autoattack of the hammer
its so useless because its a light kombofield and is uncontrolable…it destrory every other kombofield like water or fire. Why shoudl the hammer have an kombofield on the autoattack? No other weapon in gw or class cant do this so please remove it!
And make skill 5 of the hammer to an offical light kombofield, it is one but its no in its descripion.

“One of the issues we are working on for thieves this patch is the dependence on the traits which boost initiative.”

Hm… i dont know why you reduce the initiative overall recovery to fix this problem.
The reason why thiefs use so much initiative is the problem about the skills.
To high initiative cost AND/OR to less dmg so the thief must spam this skills.
Another problem is the no CD from the skills itself.
If you havent a CD on the skills you choose everytime the best protect and dmg skill.
So you have just Autoatack and two other skills = 3 skills(wich thief build use more than 3?). So we need more skills to choose AND/OR skills with equal effectivity.

If you reduce the initiavie is the problem not fixed, we still need the initiative because
of the reasons i allready mentioned.
And why in pve too? I dont hear about a OP thief in dungeons… and WvW is just a mass fight(biger army wins)

" We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves…
…This prevents these thieves from evading too much and too easily dealing with being disabled"
If i remember right than have the thief the least defence and live ingame and the least heal/protect possibility than other classes.
I am not a fan from invisibility because the hole build must fixing on it and the thief got only protect during the stealth and during the stealth is the dmg output equal zero. And all other people hate it, i dont know why because i havent problems vs stealth thiefs but ok.
And if the thief dont use stealth they use doge bacause they havent much skills to block, aoe stun, heal full each 9 secs, self reanimate, stability…
So if i see it right, after the patch it gives more stealth thiefs. Stealth thief got nerf a bit, yes, but without perma vigor and the lesser initiative recovery, is a good defance with dodging, impossible.

Hm… the thief needs other changes. Changes that fix the problems that i allready mentioned.

glhf

Korosukuma

JonPeters.5630:

Warrior:
We also reduced the damage on the hammer’s burst skill to separate the control from the damage. We don’t mind warriors doing massive damage, or doing great area of effect control, but we’re trying to prevent them from easily doing both.

Well but I have seen no replacement for the damage removed from Earthshaker and Staggering Blow. Are you suggesting hammer warriors somehow have supreme AoE damage outside Earthshaker? It really was their only AoE damage dealer.
Can you reply to this concern of mine?

There are a lot of great changes in here, but please make sure to separate pve skills more from pvp. Nothing is more frustrating to have a pve build destroyed / heavily nerfed for pvp balance even when said build wasn’t even considered top tier to begin with.

The #1 issue I have with pve at the moment is how condition stacking works. It makes absolutely no sense that having 1 berserker mesmer in your group completely nullifies another condition class. If condition damage caps were based on a per character basis pve would be a much more diverse environment for class builds.

When I first started playing the game at launch I came in excited about leveling up a necromancer and going full condition spec. By the time I hit around level 60 I started to realize just how bad it was going to be for me in dungeons / events so I scrapped that idea and started playing different characters. It is really disheartening that over a year from launch this issue hasn’t been addressed yet. It pretty much breaks the game for condition spec characters in pve.

Please reconsider the ICD change on Opportunist. Pistol/Pistol thieves are generally very initiative starved, because the only skill which plays heavily into their direct damage playstyle is Unload. Opportunist is the only trait which keeps Unload builds viable.

The baseline change to Initiative is not sufficient to offset this loss, and the changes to other initiative generating abilities downright cripple Unload thieves. Here’s some supporting math:

Unload takes roughly 2 seconds and uses 5 initiative, or 2.5 initiative per second. 2.5 initiative gain per second would be what a thief needs to run this ability permanently.

Let’s assume a thief has 75% crit chance. This makes opportunist much more useful on an Unload thief, because the rapid hit succession of the ability gives it more chances to trigger.

Currently, if the thief can land the 4 Unload shots that occur in 1 second, they have a 64% chance to gain 1 initiative in 1 second of Unload Shots. This is .64 initiative per second.

The proposed trait that changes Opportunist to have an ICD of 5 seconds means that if the thief triggered this perfectly, once every 5 seconds, they could gain .2 initiative per second. That’s a loss of .44 initiative per second, which is a bigger loss than the .25 initiative gain from the baseline initiative changes. Current net loss is .19 iniative per second for Unload thieves. This may seem trivial, but that’s the net loss BEFORE you consider the compensating nerf to other initiative generating abilities that most unload thieves rely on. When those are factored in, it becomes evident that Unload thieves are severely hamstrung by this proposed change.

In the interest of not taking a currently difficult, but still viable and entertaining play style option away from Thieves, I’d like to request that your reconsider the proposed changes to Opportunist. Unload Thieves have it tough enough. Let’s not bury the hatchet on these poor guys.

Thanks for your attention.

P.S.: I have never played a Thief past level 5. Just tryin’ to keep an eye out.

Frankly, I feel like rangers need more of a buff. They’ve been really torn down over the past few patches.
The most important part I would like to point out is that rangers don’t have much of a health pool and their healing power isn’t great. Taking away their endurance regeneration makes them a lot more vulnerable.

I also appreciate the ideas for thief. Currently, they have enough skills to keep from getting killed, but not tough enough to have a fair fight. They ultimately lead to no-winner, time-wasting fights in WvW. Just my opinion.

But seriously— buff the rangers, please. (And I don’t mean just by giving them stronger pets. That doesn’t help much.)

I feel like Mesmers are getting buffed alot. Shatter mesmers really don’t need to be any more cheese than they already are. Esp with perplexity runes.

I’m digging the engineering changes; however, for us flamethrower users I’m disheartened that there were no [mentioned] reworkings to the mechanics of the flamethrower. I’m able to manage the “leading” of targets when using flame jet but at times, especially when a npc is right on you, it’s very difficult and often times you’re not even able to hit your target. This becomes exceedingly difficult to manage when you’re rooted in place. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that you all at Arena Net will seriously consider taking a look at this issue. FT engineers are more or less seen as the “black sheep” of engineers and resolving this issue may entice others to pursue use of the FT. Thanks.

Another issue too is that when using flame jet and above a target [say on a low hill that will not cause evade issues], the FT will not shoot in a downward fashion and hit the target; however, flame blast will hit the target just fine.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

a t s e.9614:

Healing signet needs NO NERF , don’t listen to the whiner . Warrior has no sustain outside of high regen . Those hammer dmg nodes nerf are perfect . But im dissapointed about thief changes honestly , S\D is the only viable build anet

The change to initiative regain baseline is a huge buff to ALL thief builds, so don’t jump so early to those conclusions!

No offence but I don’t believe that for a second.

The change to infusion with shadows to proc upon ENTERING stealth is fine, it solved a major issue with perma stealth. HOWEVER, nerfing the thief’s ability to control their initiative pool is, well, a nerf. The way I see it if this proposed change were to take affect, thief would be waiting for their initiative to regen as opposed to using a signet, or steal or stealth to quickly gain some back. Thief is all about quick decisions and positioning, all of which rely on complete control over our resource. I don’t doubt the 1 init/sec is a good thing, but it’s not the solution many whiners post about.

Perma stealth should go, or better yet have a stealth duration cap in which a player can stay in stealth (somewhere just above SR as to not nerf the skill). But we need compensation, because our best survivability traits are from entering/staying in stealth as well as evading. Both of which seem to be overshadowed by a nerf hammer with no return to “balance” it out.

There are a ton of things that could be adjusted/reworked to make thief not so dependent on stealth.

wigs.9761:

LOL! THIEF – You guys are totally going to kill this class. reducing init. gain? Gonna nerf the thief so that it doesnt evade so much, i think is what i read. Isnt the point of thief to get into battle drop some burst then get out before you get 1skilled. lol! Next your gonna limit are stealth skills and reduce um

I was just starting to learn to play my thief… you guys do realise how hard it is to play a thief, i mean good? evading hitting and hiding is our niche xD

I disagree. I think this will liberate the class from the hated permastealth crutch.

Sorry but for Rangers focused on power(i.e longbow) the preview seems really lacklusting. Only Autoattack buff? I think most of the problems playing one is that it has really poor condition removal and once somebody get’s to you, you’re dead, since dueling capabilities are near to none. In WvW all you do is stay on the back sweeping everything inside a zerg. I’d suggest a tiny swiftness buff(3-5 secs) on point blank shot, slow/snare removal on Hunter’s Shot and lightning reflexes. Casting barrage while being able to move would be interesting as well and giving troll unguent the possiblity of removing conditions with a slight cost on cooldown would also be nice.

Other than that for dps I would mix Piercing Arrows with Eagle Eyes into a Grandmaster Trait so Rangers can choose another Trait depending on the situation without seeing so selfish(i.e spotter for PvE and another for pvp/WvW), rework rapid fire(less shots but more damage) and fix the god awful pet AI(give pets 90% or total immunity to AoE effects in PvE, nobody knows why this isn’t active yet! Pets will still be useless regardless of how much HP you give to them!!!)

Clark Skinner.4902:

Elemental Attunement moved to Master tier.

Most eles use this trait. You said you wanted to discourage putting points into arcane, but every ele who only had 10 points will now have to jump up to 20.

imho,They should take “Renewing Stamina” and put it where is Zephyr’s Speed.
Renewing Stamina/Vigorous Protection(guardian)/Critical Infusion(Mesmer) will grant 5 secs of Vigor on crit with 10 sec cd.
5 secs of vigor every 10secs cd,easy and not perma-vigor up time.

Elementalist used/uses/will use “Elemental Attunement” FOREVER because it’s the best trait we have to move(swiftness) and survive(regen and protection).
They want to move it in master tier,so 20 points wasted into arcana only to get elemental attunement and then we should only spend another 10 points for Evasive Arcana, ALWAYS 30 points into arcana.

The Solution For “Elemental Attunement” should be :
Examples :
-The Boon Protection will trigger only if we have got 10 points in the Earth Trait Line.
-The Boon Regen Will trigger only if we have 10 points in Water
-The Boon Swiftness will trigger only if we have 10 points into Air
-The Boon Might will trigger only if we have 10 points in Fire(it should be 3 might stacks and not 1,i know that ele could stack till 25 mightblabla)

Doing so,they will put us in a position to spend points in every trait line to have got the boons we want for focusing on our builds :

Examples :

- I’m a staff bunker 0-0-10-30-30 so i will use my points in Arcana 30, Water 30,Earth 10:
In according of what i said this build has got no points in fire and air so when my ele will switch to air it will not get Swiftness(no escape mode) and when i switch to fire i will not get might. but When i switch to earth and water i’ll get regen and protection.

other example:
i’m a full dps so my build would be 30-30-0-0-10 (30 fire-30 air-10 arcana)
when i switch to fire i should get “3” might stack,when in air i’ll get swiftness for escaping but when i go into water and earth i DON’T get regen and protection.

other example:
i’m an hybrid so my build would be 10-20-10-20-10(10 fire-20 air-10earth-20water-10 arcana)
in this case i’ll got ALL of THE BOONS from ELEMENTAL ATTUNEMENT.

and so on with builds….

I think it should be a great idea.

And yes,Elemental Attunement “MUST HAVE TO BE” IN ADEPT TRAIT LINE BECAUSE IT’S NECESSARY FOR EVERY BUILD WE WILL MAKE ON OUR ELE from tpvp to wvw to pve. (i know “must have to be” is wrong)

The new Trait “One With Air” will be REALLY USEFULL if it gets a buff to superspeed,increasing it from 1,5 to 3,5/4secs.

ps: 2k hours spent on my ele,i know what i’m talking about.

Sanduskel.1850:

wigs.9761:

LOL! THIEF – You guys are totally going to kill this class. reducing init. gain? Gonna nerf the thief so that it doesnt evade so much, i think is what i read. Isnt the point of thief to get into battle drop some burst then get out before you get 1skilled. lol! Next your gonna limit are stealth skills and reduce um

I was just starting to learn to play my thief… you guys do realise how hard it is to play a thief, i mean good? evading hitting and hiding is our niche xD

I disagree. I think this will liberate the class from the hated permastealth crutch.

Perma stealth nerf is fine, the reduction in vigor is bad. I mean Mesmer and guardian both have traits to have a permanent upkeep on vigor, and that was untouched. I can understand anet’s hatred towards anyone with permanent vigor, but they seem to of overlooked some obvious suspects. I’m hoping they catch it soon but also that they don’t nerf vigor on thief soo harshly. We are to squishy to have our evasion capability toned down with no compensation.

BTW, wouldn’t it be nice if Conjurer (VIII) for elementalist also made it so the AA on conjure weapons didn’t count as a charge? Would be a nice spec to try out if the aa didn’t eat the charges up so quickly.

How about taking a look at Warrior Axe-Offhand? Especially Whirling Axe is dissapointing when a simple autoattack will out damage it.

To be brief, these changes to the thief although not unjust are a step in the wrong direction. Going back to the basics of what the thief was supposed to be, your policy has been that the thief was going to be the best 1v1 class from the perspective of the other classes, and as thus it’s supposed to have a high damage output, plenty of disengages while retaining some survivability outside of stealth when played to a high level. To do this, it has always been clear that the thief will be lacking in MANY aspects that other professions are not for e.g aoe damage/zerging and even in terms of what they can bring to group-play compared to the other professions.

The original thief on release, was that. However after numerous nerfs it is now a shell of its former self. Every profession although being able to play a diverse range of roles has one that it excels with. The way I understand it, the thief was always supposed to be the best at 1v1. It does not make sense therefore to base your changes on the QQing of individuals on the forums who have lost to a thief in a fight.

Stealth is very easy to deal with… Once they are revealed, you know they are there. They cannot stealth again for 3-4 seconds, and when they do they’ve either run away – which a Mesmer can do with stealth while leaving phantasms to deal with (which is why I never understand why everyone moans about thieves and not stealth mesmers); an Elementalist can do with RTL; a Warrior can do with swiftness+sword 2/gs 3+5 (sometimes all 3); a Ranger with their long evades and traps; a Guardian with their knockbacks – or they are still there trying to get a backstab in, or waiting for you to reappear if you’ve also stealthed. So either run around making it hard for them to hit you, or bomb the area with AoE…

So basically thieves are getting stealth nerfed because they are the class that is able to escape while leaving you unsure as to whether they have escaped or are still there… Forget the fact that’s what thieves and deception classes are MEANT to do. Forget about balance; it’s not just taking away their ability to escape without being seen, but also taking away the ability to effectively escape at all. At the end of the day, people don’t like losing. They don’t like feeling robbed of a kill or standing around not knowing what to expect whether that’s part of the game with regard to that class or not. Forget the fact that the escapee HAD to escape from you; forget the fact that you are taking their damage and surviving, and made them run. “Nonono they are OP not me! Don’t nerf my defence/healing, nerf their mobility so I can win!”

Nerf thieves today, the QQ will be on another mobile class tomorrow. Just like it was Elementalist before Thief.

Is no escape and no mobility the ultimate slow but sure aim of the devs for this game? Was it always intended to be Kite&Bunker Wars 2? People will always complain about another class. It doesn’t always justify nerfing it to the ground and taking away other people’s fun. After this patch, unless something changes, the ground will not be far below Thief.

JonPeters.5630:

Warrior:

• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.

I know that the hammer warrior causes lots of problems in pvp and is too strong (at least the pvp guys in my guild tell me this ), but I am playing this in pve and honestly it is tons of fun, but most of the time when playing with groups they ask me why I do this since greatsword would do more damage… So seeing this, I am not happy… I know you do not want to split to many skills in pvp/pve, but perhaps you could do this here?

Start this creating different icons for every trait.

Guardians – Symbol of Swiftness

In order to run fast, we’re supposed to stop and stand still periodically for extended periods? Don’t you see how frustrating this will be? Counter-intuitive? Harmful to quality of life? Confusing to new players?

If you really want to “normalize” this skill to make it like other symbols then (a) make the swiftness buff from staff #3 a simple AoE (like Empower), and (b) keep the damage (and light field) as a pulsing symbol.

And why doesn’t this symbol add cripple to enemies? It’s the most intuitive thing for a ground-targeted symbol.

Guardians – Balancing

I don’t agree with using boon duration Guardians as the baseline for balancing skill duration. While I understand that you have to take boon duration into account, my skills should not be sub-par just because I don’t run boon duration.

Guardians – New Runes

The answer to every Guardian balancing problem can’t be: “There’s a rune for that.” We can only run one runeset at a time. If you see an underwhelming skillset (and there are plenty on Guardian) please just fix the core skills.

Moon.7310:

JonPeters.5630:

Warrior:

• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.

I know that the hammer warrior causes lots of problems in pvp and is too strong (at least the pvp guys in my guild tell me this ), but I am playing this in pve and honestly it is tons of fun, but most of the time when playing with groups they ask me why I do this since greatsword would do more damage… So seeing this, I am not happy… I know you do not want to split to many skills in pvp/pve, but perhaps you could do this here?

Hopefully this is a PvP update only but since WvW is considered PvE it’s not gonna happen. They always talk about increasing build diversity but they should consider all 3 aspects of the game differently, WvW is not PvE, most people don’t have AI like NPCs (at least I hope not). In PvE there is a huge problem with build diversity, you will only see a warrior with GS and Axe/X. You will only see a mesmer with sword/focus and GS. You will only see a guard with GS or Sword/ Focus. I could go on and on but I think I proved my point.

Is hammer for warrior fun? Hell yes it is but it’s not worth taking at all in PvE because bosses have defiant and if you are using it for damage you could easily use axe or GS and do so much more damage.

Feedback by Class

Elementalist

• Burning Fire makes Fire worth putting points in and helps Dagger offhand builds be aggressive without being melted.
• I like the Earth changes. D/D is so fun to play and I can see Earth being the “D/D line” now.
• Water changes are probably needed to prevent mega sustain DPS builds from taking over the meta
• Arcane changes are probably in the same vein, making perma vigor more difficult to have.
• Faster attunement cooldowns are great for the class. I remember trying non-Arcane builds and feeling useless so this was good.

Engineer

• Incendiary Powder has needed to be more expensive it’s so strong for Condi builds
• Looks like Bomb Heals are gonna be more useful for PvP now.
• Firearms is gonna make Bomb/Nade builds even stronger haha, you put so many condis on people with that. Double check that
• Good QoL change to make it less important to swap kits for swiftness. Also like nerfing perma vigor.
• Armor Mods looks kinda scary. That’s better Aegis uptime than a Guardian O.o

Guardian

• The DPS boost is good since you really have to engage well to get the most out of the playstyle. More reward for the risk is nice.
• Symbol of Swiftness is a really good mobility change

Mesmer

• I actually like the Daze duration change, although the combination of the Mesmer rune, Domination XII, Staff, and Shatter 3 could be devastating. If I can immob a Necro in a chaos storm with this combination they will be completely useless.
• Mantras are reaching that point where they might be really good now. We’ll see though.
• Shattered Conditions is interesting, that’s a huge radius for removed condis.
• I’d suggest serious caution with the Daze buff, this has stunlock Mesmer written all over it.

Necromancer

• These look good. I like where Necro is headed, where they’re the scariest guy on the team if you let him live. I think the conversion changes make Valkyrie’s builds look really good for them with Dagger power builds.
• Slightly reducing condi pressure is probably best. If condis are destroyed then Necro becomes a lot less threatening
• I agree on mobility, Necro is too strong to be all over the map as is.

Ranger

• Finally, Ranger might actually be respectable now. It’s always been that class that nobody really likes but have to take because of evade spam on the home node.
• Storm Spirit nerf is great. One shotting anyone in melee range that doesn’t block or dodge it with low armor on a tanky build is totally ridiculous.
• Go go Power Ranger! That’s the kind of playstyle I’ve wanted from Ranger since Day 1.

Thief

• Less effective stealth and evade spam. THANK YOU.
• Some thieves are freaking out about this, but even their chart analyses show that Thieves are getting buffed not nerfed
• The haste on crit looks interesting, IAS is always strong, but especially on a class that can pop up from nowhere and gank you.

Warrior

• Nerfing Hambow is good for the game, just like nerfing perma evade S/D and Storm Spirit is.
• More predictable skull crack is good, although more of a Solo Q problem than Team Q.
• Haste at 50%?! Hehe my GS/LB warrior is salivating at this.

Overall

• Love the nerfing of evade spamming as a whole. Really important change for PvP
• If this direction of nerfing the apex builds keeps up, we might have real competition instead of build wars.

Impact.2780:

So basically thieves are getting stealth nerfed because they are the class that is able to escape while leaving you unsure as to whether they have escaped or are still there… Forget the fact that’s what thieves and deception classes are MEANT to do. Forget about balance; it’s not just taking away their ability to escape without being seen, but also taking away the ability to effectively escape at all. At the end of the day, people don’t like losing. They don’t like feeling robbed of a kill or standing around not knowing what to expect whether that’s part of the game with regard to that class or not. Forget the fact that the escapee HAD to escape from you; forget the fact that you are taking their damage and surviving, and made them run. “Nonono they are OP not me! Don’t nerf my defence/healing, nerf their mobility so I can win!”

The main problem with stealth is that there is no counter you can use to get rid of it. It’s not a boon, so it can’t be stripped, and a blocked attack doesn’t pull the one in stealth out of it. It also drops the opponent’s target and makes it impossible to see any damage done to the one in stealth or gauge location outside of a melee auto-attack (which is pointless to use since it leaves you open). This makes it ridiculously OP, and combined with the fact that stealth can easily stack to 15+ seconds, it’s way too much.

It needs counters…such as blocking the attack taking the person in stealth out of it, or certain ground set trap type skills getting rid of it when set off. This makes it so hard counters include Ranger traps, Necro marks, Thief traps, and ANY block from any class are counters. There, stealth is fixed. Then we can do what is truly necessary for Thief by buffing its stats and other abilities.

Are there any chances to give mesmers really reliable AoE? Maybe changes for skill #1 on greatsword to make it similar to guardian’s autoattack with staff.

jmatb.6307:

Overall

• Love the nerfing of evade spamming as a whole. Really important change for PvP
• If this direction of nerfing the apex builds keeps up, we might have real competition instead of build wars.

In the meantime, two classes have their perma vigour traits untouched, each one being adept minor.

Impact.2780:

Stealth is very easy to deal with… Once they are revealed, you know they are there. They cannot stealth again for 3-4 seconds, and when they do they’ve either run away – which a Mesmer can do with stealth while leaving phantasms to deal with (which is why I never understand why everyone moans about thieves and not stealth mesmers); an Elementalist can do with RTL; a Warrior can do with swiftness+sword 2/gs 3+5 (sometimes all 3); a Ranger with their long evades and traps; a Guardian with their knockbacks – or they are still there trying to get a backstab in, or waiting for you to reappear if you’ve also stealthed. So either run around making it hard for them to hit you, or bomb the area with AoE…

So basically thieves are getting stealth nerfed because they are the class that is able to escape while leaving you unsure as to whether they have escaped or are still there… Forget the fact that’s what thieves and deception classes are MEANT to do. Forget about balance; it’s not just taking away their ability to escape without being seen, but also taking away the ability to effectively escape at all. At the end of the day, people don’t like losing. They don’t like feeling robbed of a kill or standing around not knowing what to expect whether that’s part of the game with regard to that class or not. Forget the fact that the escapee HAD to escape from you; forget the fact that you are taking their damage and surviving, and made them run. “Nonono they are OP not me! Don’t nerf my defence/healing, nerf their mobility so I can win!”

Nerf thieves today, the QQ will be on another mobile class tomorrow. Just like it was Elementalist before Thief.

Is no escape and no mobility the ultimate slow but sure aim of the devs for this game? Was it always intended to be Kite&Bunker Wars 2? People will always complain about another class. It doesn’t always justify nerfing it to the ground and taking away other people’s fun. After this patch, unless something changes, the ground will not be far below Thief.

i disagree. Perma stealth ruined the game both for thieves and for others. This will now require that thieves think before they attack. I welcome these changes because it will clear out the abuse of perma stealth perma evades that were never intended.

Impact.2780:

So basically thieves are getting stealth nerfed because they are the class that is able to escape while leaving you unsure as to whether they have escaped or are still there… After this patch, unless something changes, the ground will not be far below Thief.

To solve the issue of permastealth they only had to rework stealth stacking. Instead of this they have decided reworking initiative micromanagement…and touch vigor speed…
These changes generate a fuddle, just a couple of builds will survive.
P/p thieves are buried, moving assasin reward to grandmastery avoids them to use shadow rejuvenation, reward and ricochet at the same time, bread and butter of most p/p builds….
Killing options is not the way, improve the grandmastery traits in acrobacy and trickery without destroying lower traits.

Best,

Haltair, one of the Twelve Shadows

easiest solution to stealth is that revealed triggers when you loose x% of your HP. REGARDLESS.

So if you step into a trap that does, say 1000 damage, if that is sufficient to meet the “X% triggers revealed” you get revealed. Why make it such? Well, you can only get hit so hard before you scream/have to stop doing whatever you do. And thinking that all thieves are trained to withstand the most gruesome torture in complete silence till they die is just stupid.

Haltair.3062:

Impact.2780:

So basically thieves are getting stealth nerfed because they are the class that is able to escape while leaving you unsure as to whether they have escaped or are still there… After this patch, unless something changes, the ground will not be far below Thief.

To solve the issue of permastealth they only had to rework stealth stacking. Instead of this they have decided reworking initiative micromanagement…and touch vigor speed…
These changes generate a fuddle, just a couple of builds will survive.
P/p thieves are buried, moving assasin reward to grandmastery avoids them to use shadow rejuvenation, reward and ricochet at the same time, bread and butter of most p/p builds….
Killing options is not the way, improve the grandmastery traits in acrobacy and trickery without destroying lower traits.

Best,

Haltair, one of the Twelve Shadows

they already gave thieves the stupid revealed status and gave rangers a way to bring thieves out of stealth. why does everyont want thieves nerfed to the ground. as a main thief i would like all you QQers to know the thief is getting harder and harder to play in PvE and stealth is a HUGE parth of our productiveness there for defense and offense. lowering our Ini. pool control and our stealthing ablities AS WELL as our evading capabilites is gonna lead to “lfg whatever dungeon…..no thieves plz”. i really don’t like that this game is balanced around pvp and wvw whiners while pve just has to “deal with it”.

mini.6018:

@Jon Peters

When are you going to do something about conditions ?
The way they are designed right now they affect pretty terribly gameplay turning it from action mode to cast and forget mode ,beating the game’s first promotion factor wich was the action based combat system.
Right now condition damage needs only one stat to maximize dps and you also enforce it with bunker stats.Condition duration and precision are all non standing arguments since it only increases the condition dps in a fight by very little while if you go into power builds,stacking only power will give you horrible damage.Besides that conditions are to easily reaplied in comparison with condition removal and promotes easy non action combat.Conditions have only one counter wich is condition removal.

While the power counterpart forces you to stack 3 stats neglecting defence entirely and what is even worse direct damage has a lot of counters.

Range and need of constantly aplying the dps is just the first one.Biggest counter is protection and weakness wich funny enough is a condition hence negating even more the damage incoming to a condition bunker from a power source.

So we have protection,weakness,armor,kiting,dodging,blocking,blinding as a counter to one damage type wich needs to heavily invest in 3 stats to be effective while on the other hand we have only condition removal as a counter to conditions wich need only one stat to be effective

I already suggested that there should be a rework arround conditions and the main one would be drasticly decreasing any base condition durations,remove condition duration from food/runes and sigils and create a new stat combination available for example Condition damage/Precison/Condition duration to achieve the same effect as now and properly mirror the full berserker power builds are forced into to maximize dps.The next step would be to add weakness,armor and protection counterparts for condition damage.

So much wrong informations in one post…..

Conditions need precision and condition duration fort heir full potential. -> 3 stats plus condition builds need to survive longer to see the effect of their damage -> defensive stats too.

They are countered by vitality and healing power too, and blocks, invulnerability, blinds, dodges,….. and -condition duration too.

The only good thing you wrote is the stat combination and the reduce (not remove) of condi duration on runes. But again, conditions builds also need defensive stats to be effective.

Have you ever seen the damage of condition builds, compared to berserker builds? 2-3k dps is max, maybe a burst with 4k on an necro with fear and thats it. every berserker builds laughs about that numbers.

E: The only fix condition damage needs is the remove of the stack limit.

Tman.6349:

Haltair.3062:

Impact.2780:

So basically thieves are getting stealth nerfed because they are the class that is able to escape while leaving you unsure as to whether they have escaped or are still there… After this patch, unless something changes, the ground will not be far below Thief.

To solve the issue of permastealth they only had to rework stealth stacking. Instead of this they have decided reworking initiative micromanagement…and touch vigor speed…
These changes generate a fuddle, just a couple of builds will survive.
P/p thieves are buried, moving assasin reward to grandmastery avoids them to use shadow rejuvenation, reward and ricochet at the same time, bread and butter of most p/p builds….
Killing options is not the way, improve the grandmastery traits in acrobacy and trickery without destroying lower traits.

Best,

Haltair, one of the Twelve Shadows

they already gave thieves the stupid revealed status and gave rangers a way to bring thieves out of stealth. why does everyont want thieves nerfed to the ground. as a main thief i would like all you QQers to know the thief is getting harder and harder to play in PvE and stealth is a HUGE parth of our productiveness there for defense and offense. lowering our Ini. pool control and our stealthing ablities AS WELL as our evading capabilites is gonna lead to “lfg whatever dungeon…..no thieves plz”. i really don’t like that this game is balanced around pvp and wvw whiners while pve just has to “deal with it”.

Sir, whatever complaints you have regarding PvE hate, play a ranger for 1 month, and you will love your thief.

That revealed debuff rangers have is on a 40 second CD, requires the ranger to have the thief targeted and grants only 4 second revealed. It is simply a gimmic. It has no, and i mean, no real value in competitive PvP. It is also a waste of utility space as it requires the ranger to spec for anti stealth builds. And the anti stealth builds are completely useless against anything that does not use stealth. Meaning, it will destroy mesmers and thieves, and die horribly against a underleveled bunker guardian.

JonPeters.5630:

For that reason we are being conservative but normalizing all of our conversions to the follow #s for now.
Minor: 5%,7%, and 10% respectively for adept, master and grandmaster.
Major: 7%,10%, and 13% respectively for adept, master, and grandmaster.

Hi Jon, with this logic can you please buff Warrior’s grandmaster minor Stick and Move? It’s a 3% increase in damage, 3% increase for a grandmaster minor. Thief and Guardian’s equivalent skills are 10% why not this?

Devs!!!! PLz PLz PLz Plz do something with Master’s Bond!!! You want to increase rangers viability? This is a great and ez place to start. Granted the pet AI is garbage, we still have “call back” and “pet swap” to get them out of trouble AND that is where this trait is rendered useless when i could be a GREAT tool for augementing ranger/pet dps. What you’ve done here is made an incredible sounding trait with a low point investment and place it in a trait line that ENCOURAGES pet swaps, and then you have tied a stipulation to it that it will be rendered useless if you swap your pet!!! O.o
This is just crazy to even think its ok. Please change this trait. Put the stacks on the ranger and allow through swapping or lose it altogether and try something else because pet swapping is so important for keeping our pet alive as the run blindly into massive aoe spikes and whatnot. this 10 pt invest could really be great for power builds if this fundemental flaw would be removed or changed.

jmatb.6307:

Thief

• Less effective stealth and evade spam. THANK YOU.
• Some thieves are freaking out about this, but even their chart analyses show that Thieves are getting buffed not nerfed
• The haste on crit looks interesting, IAS is always strong, but especially on a class that can pop up from nowhere and gank you.

Yeah perma stealth was over the top. Evade is the thiefs’ only damage mitigation however no buffs outside of vigor for defense, low hp pool. Seems like it will go from a fair shooting game with moving targets to the pick up the duck and read the number.
They are freaking out about Opportunist changes. IMO an ICD is a good idea but should be 3 or 4 s instead of 5. I really dont see many of these thief changes having been actually tested.
Maybe try playing a thief… they have had the haste on crit trait forever

IMO thief already had a high skill cap since youre not only looking for skill powerups but dealing with any lag issues for the timing. If they are going to screw with positioning and evades there should be some other form of damage mitigation. Or at the very least give all thieves pompoms cuz mediocre players are gonna be sidelined.

Prysin.8542:

Tman.6349:

Haltair.3062:

Impact.2780:

So basically thieves are getting stealth nerfed because they are the class that is able to escape while leaving you unsure as to whether they have escaped or are still there… After this patch, unless something changes, the ground will not be far below Thief.

To solve the issue of permastealth they only had to rework stealth stacking. Instead of this they have decided reworking initiative micromanagement…and touch vigor speed…
These changes generate a fuddle, just a couple of builds will survive.
P/p thieves are buried, moving assasin reward to grandmastery avoids them to use shadow rejuvenation, reward and ricochet at the same time, bread and butter of most p/p builds….
Killing options is not the way, improve the grandmastery traits in acrobacy and trickery without destroying lower traits.

Best,

Haltair, one of the Twelve Shadows

they already gave thieves the stupid revealed status and gave rangers a way to bring thieves out of stealth. why does everyont want thieves nerfed to the ground. as a main thief i would like all you QQers to know the thief is getting harder and harder to play in PvE and stealth is a HUGE parth of our productiveness there for defense and offense. lowering our Ini. pool control and our stealthing ablities AS WELL as our evading capabilites is gonna lead to “lfg whatever dungeon…..no thieves plz”. i really don’t like that this game is balanced around pvp and wvw whiners while pve just has to “deal with it”.

Sir, whatever complaints you have regarding PvE hate, play a ranger for 1 month, and you will love your thief.

That revealed debuff rangers have is on a 40 second CD, requires the ranger to have the thief targeted and grants only 4 second revealed. It is simply a gimmic. It has no, and i mean, no real value in competitive PvP. It is also a waste of utility space as it requires the ranger to spec for anti stealth builds. And the anti stealth builds are completely useless against anything that does not use stealth. Meaning, it will destroy mesmers and thieves, and die horribly against a underleveled bunker guardian.

I have 8 fully geared 80s of all professions sir. And i do play my ranger daily and love it. Ranger is so incredibly powerful i can’t even believe they keep getting buffs. It’s just crazy. The problem with rangers is that closeminded ppl role them and don’t know how to build a proper ranger. My ranger does insane damage, can outtank most guardians or warriors, and can move around/dodge like a maniac and almost never has condititons. The problems with ranger is one of build diversity/vision and not fundemental profession problems like everybody screams all the time. Good sir.
*by your saying running an antistealth build and then dying against a guardian….it seems like you’re looking for a “goldylocks build” that is great against everything and still does huge damage. this is what i’m seeing a lot on this thread is “save me! do this/that to save MY BUILD that i always use w/o considering anything/anyone else” which is very sad. the fact that so many ppl run full zerker specs with very few support builds is just sad and not how the game is designed to be played which brings me back to your point that “antistealth” build DO exist at a cost, “antibunker” builds DO exist at a cost, “anticondition” builds do exist at a cost. The bottom line is that their are options if everyone didnt get their builds from stupid youtube videos and actually use their brain for whatever situation they are prepared to deal with but a “jack of all trades” build just isn’t viable and asking Devs to nerf CORE mechanics of other classes so everyone can more easily demolish them WITH their CURRENT setup is just hogwash and sad and pathetic. so tired of hearing nerf this and nerf that. how bout bringing the game up instead of toning everthing down into a trite “politically correctect” pile of crap

haviz.1340:

Clark Skinner.4902:

Elemental Attunement moved to Master tier.

Most eles use this trait. You said you wanted to discourage putting points into arcane, but every ele who only had 10 points will now have to jump up to 20.

Every ele player I know that has just 10 points in arcana use renewing stamina, not elemental attunement.

i use both

RyuDragnier.9476:

The main problem with stealth is that there is no counter you can use to get rid of it. It’s not a boon, so it can’t be stripped, and a blocked attack doesn’t pull the one in stealth out of it. It also drops the opponent’s target and makes it impossible to see any damage done to the one in stealth or gauge location outside of a melee auto-attack (which is pointless to use since it leaves you open). This makes it ridiculously OP, and combined with the fact that stealth can easily stack to 15+ seconds, it’s way too much.

It needs counters…such as blocking the attack taking the person in stealth out of it, or certain ground set trap type skills getting rid of it when set off. This makes it so hard counters include Ranger traps, Necro marks, Thief traps, and ANY block from any class are counters. There, stealth is fixed. Then we can do what is truly necessary for Thief by buffing its stats and other abilities.

Dropping AoE around you is an effective counter. A good thief will only stealth to avoid damage or to heal when they need to, and they will stay in stealth for a couple of seconds giving the other the time to cast some cast time abilities or multiple AoEs. Given that you’ve been able to do that, and they are already hurting, they either have to risk trying to kill you, run, or stack stealth until the AoE is cleared. If they wait, you get time to heal, abilities cooled down, and the fight starts over; you scored points for your team by holding the node, and the thief was useless for a while. I’m arguing against crying nerf because some bad players use the traits to get permanent stealth with doesn’t really help anyone so is pointless to cry about in the first place, while good thieves make good use of it.

I can agree with blocking taking thief out of stealth. That’s a no brainer… if someone hits you and you block it, you must know where they they are. With regard to aegis, not revealing the thief is essentially letting them boon strip it.

I just would like to have on guardian a little heal on staff’s autoattack.
Maybe something like the elementalist one… or something like the guardian mace (3hit and heal).

I’m noticing a lot of traits that give 5 percent of a stat to some other stat are getting a boost. I would ask that the developers revisit Beastmastery 25, Nature’s Wrath, with this in mind. Toughness is at base 916 without gear on. Healing power, however, starts at zero. A trait that gives 5 percent of your toughness to power, like the Defense 25 trait for warriors, is still worth something even if you don’t get defense from your gear. Nature’s Wrath, on the other hand, gives 10 percent of healing power to the ranger’s power and that is always substantially less than 5 percent your toughness (unless you go out of your way to load up on Magi gear). I would suggest Nature’s wrath give 96 power + 10 percent of healing power to make it more comperable with other similar traits of this kind. I feel that a Warrior using Toughness primary armor should get as much power from Armored Attack as a Ranger should from Nature’s Wrath using Healing Power primary armor — if not more to be rather honest about the usefullness of Healing primary items for a ranger. Comparing those traits as they are now though, the ranger looses out on 96 attack for no clearly defined reason.
Currently my Beastmaster ranger gets 30 power from Nature’s Wrath. If Nature’s Wrath were outright removed, I would still end up at a higher power following this update because of the 2 percent increase in Strength of Spirit. It may be even better to replace the Beastmaster 25 entirely.

On a related note, I would want to suggest that the haste given by Zephyr’s Speed to the pet start when the pet next makes an attack. Particularly melee pets will waste most of this haste just in movement. I would suggest giving the pet a longer haste (say 5 seconds) and as soon as the pet begins to use a skill with a cast time the haste duration remaining be reduced to 3 seconds.

1) I don’t see how Ele’s still won’t be locked into Water/Arcana in order to be viable at higher levels of play. Ele’s didn’t just pick Arcana for the faster attunements, they picked it for Evasive Arcana. Water wasn’t just chosen for cleanses, it’s because it helped boost our tiny health pool and went well with Arcane. Playing a glass Ele still involves getting killed in ~1 second so it’s pretty much go Arcane/Water or go home.

2) Love Blasting Staff getting moved to Adept, but overall Staff is still miserable compared to Scepter/Dagger of Scepter/Focus due to it’s very design and abilities – the only way Staff works is if the targets are kept immobilized/stunned in Lava Fonts and Meteor Shower. The moment anyone actually notices the Ele and goes for him, the Ele will die beacuse staff has very few tools to deal with incoming enemies/damage not to mention it’s all locked-down into attunement cooldowns.

3) 13 sec CD baseline between attunements is still too long considering my Engineer has on-demand access to his full range of abilities – mh/oh abilities, Toolkit, Grenade Kit, that’s 15 abilities right there with no cooldowns separating them! But despite that they are not overpowered, very balanced. So it’s fine for Engi to have instant access to so many abilities but not fine for Ele’s, a class that is DEPENDENT on rapidly switching between attunements in order to be effective? What gives? It’s utterly pointless to have a double-layered cooldown system like that considering the class revolves around 20 abilities + 4 attunements and is just a button-mash-fest.

Mark of Blood

The reason I always thought it was powerful was that it had to make up for the poor staff 1 attack. Other classes can spam their auto attacks for large amounts of aoe damage, but necrotic grasp is still kitten in comparison. If it applied bleed on auto attack, then it would make more sense to take off the bleed from mark of blood.

Some things that I believe thief really could use and why.

Venoms
-Merge Quick venoms into Venomous Strength (IV).
-Add new trait “Infused Venoms”(VIII) -Transfer 1 condition on successful venom strikes.
-Bump the chill duration for ice drake venom to 1.5 seconds per strike. I’d prefer 2 seconds but wouldn’t we all ^^ Anyways small steps, no drastic changes.
-Slightly bump the baseline for leeching venoms or bump its healing power scale. It’s not bad but its not good, especially considering the investment needed to make it at all viable (you lose a lot of utility/dmg). Imo it should be a type of thief bunker build who uses this to sustain, hopefully using spider venom (most strikes).

Weapons
-Sword: change LS back to 1 initiative cost (steals 1 boon now), or change how the skill behaves. By nature thief is rather selfish, maybe it could steal 1 boon and share it with nearby allies? Or perhaps FS can remove 1 boon and LS steals 1 boon, effectively keeping its intended purpose (to counter builds that rely on boons).
-SB: speed up #5 and #2 just a tad bit. Nothing serious but both of them seem rather lacking. Besides no one really uses #2 at long range unless its against a structure, sooo easy to spot and avoid.
-Pistol: I generally stay away from pistol MH, because its so slow. The amount of work needed to keep the bleed stacks up is tiresome, especially against builds who can remove conditions like its nobody’s business. I’m not sure if the aa just needs to be quicker or the bleed needs to be slightly bumped. Again I don’t use it all the time so maybe I’m wrong.

Stealth The big fish
-Hidden assassin, work on allies you stealth as well. More party love for thief?
-Shadow’s protector, add an ICD of 10 seconds. This will work for each unique player you stealth, remove the “does not trigger if your ally already has regeneration.” part.
-Revealed, occurs if you start to finish someone because I agree, it is rather unfair. HOWEVER, finishing while invulnerable should also be looked at (engi/ele). TBH invuln finishing is more unfair, because you actually watch them laugh and kick you in the face.
-Stealth duration, cap at 20 seconds. After 20 seconds you exit stealth revealed. W/o the reveal it really isn’t 20 seconds now is it? Anyway 20 seconds is over SR and more than enough for a thief to decide, “am I staying, or am I fleeing?”. The goal being, there will be no such thing as perma stealth. Eventually you will see them, so just keep those eyes peeled for a hooded figure.
-Hide in Shadows, bump stealth duration by 1 second. It has a cast time and a long cd with a not so high heal. Sure the condi removal is neat but not every fight is going to apply burn poison and bleed on you, its mostly situational imo, and doesn’t work too well at healing against DD builds who can usually interrupt your heal.
-Allow meld with shadows to work on Leap skills through smoke fields. The perma stealth nerf is nice but I believe this is a justified return to not harm the utility of d/p combos too much.
-Patience, really not as strong as other traits. Even with the infusion of shadow’s change, I still won’t use it because there are much stronger substitutes that don’t require a heavy investment. Perhaps change to “Shadow Shield”, reduce incoming damage while in stealth (10%? or a scaled value of toughness) It is a master trait, and in a defensive trait line. Numbers can always been tweaked, but its just a thought.

Traps

-Merge Master Trapper(V) into Corrosive traps(II). Mainly because the amount of trap related traits are very few on thief, and standing alone are rather weak for their long cd. Also traps don’t seem to have much attention aside from shadow and ambush. Add new trait in Acrobatics ,“Powder traps”, traps create a smoke field when triggered. Field duration 3 seconds, 3s blind per pulse (1.5 seconds per pulse resulting in a max of 2 hits miss).
-Swap Combined Training(X) with Potent Poison(V). Change Potent poison to “Diseased Traps”, Traps spread the conditions of the foe that triggers it to their allies. (occurs immediately after it is triggered, to apply the trap conditions as well). Along the lines of epidemic, the goal being to make aoe conditions on thief more rewarding, the bleed on sb is rather weak and caltrops can be avoided quite easily or even ignored in larger groups.

Others
-Slowed pulse, change to apply 10s regeneration if you take 10% of your max health in condition damage. ICD of 15 seconds.
-Improvisation, transfer 1 condition you are suffering from to your foe when you steal along with its current effects. Take away the full rng effect of this skill, and thief doesn’t use bundles.. so sorry to break it to you.
-Power shots, also add increased range to sb and Harpoon gun. 100 just so we can spec to be long range, closer to being on par with other professions, who get 1200 range on land.
-Merge Fleet shadow (VI) into Fleet of Foot(VII). Change Fleet of foot to remove 1 condition when you evade an attack with an ICD of 8 seconds. More options to remove conditions outside of stealth using the next best tool thief has to survive, dodging. Perhaps it can have no ICD but swap places with Hard to catch (useless skill atm). It would be rather strong at that point and Should require a heavy investment but pay off for non-stealth builds.
-Hard to catch, change to break stun and grant stability for 1 second on incoming disable. Same ICD. Whether it moves down or stays in grandmaster, the random teleport WHICH btw proc’s even if you have stability, is just horrendous considering the errors shadow stepping runs into across uneven terrain.
-Merge Long reach (VI) into Bountiful Theft (VII). Long reach is NEVER taken over the numerous other major traits that by far exceed its use.
-New trait “Refreshing signet” signet’s maintain their passive effects for a short while after being used. (5 seconds?). This mainly ties into SoM, and justifying its active but also works well on Assassin’s signet, since 15% bonus dmg is actually incorrect in its own way, because you lose the power it grants.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Impact.2780:

So basically thieves are getting stealth nerfed because they are the class that is able to escape while leaving you unsure as to whether they have escaped or are still there… Forget the fact that’s what thieves and deception classes are MEANT to do. Forget about balance; it’s not just taking away their ability to escape without being seen, but also taking away the ability to effectively escape at all. At the end of the day, people don’t like losing. They don’t like feeling robbed of a kill or standing around not knowing what to expect whether that’s part of the game with regard to that class or not. Forget the fact that the escapee HAD to escape from you; forget the fact that you are taking their damage and surviving, and made them run. “Nonono they are OP not me! Don’t nerf my defence/healing, nerf their mobility so I can win!”

The main problem with stealth is that there is no counter you can use to get rid of it. It’s not a boon, so it can’t be stripped, and a blocked attack doesn’t pull the one in stealth out of it. It also drops the opponent’s target and makes it impossible to see any damage done to the one in stealth or gauge location outside of a melee auto-attack (which is pointless to use since it leaves you open). This makes it ridiculously OP, and combined with the fact that stealth can easily stack to 15+ seconds, it’s way too much.

It needs counters…such as blocking the attack taking the person in stealth out of it, or certain ground set trap type skills getting rid of it when set off. This makes it so hard counters include Ranger traps, Necro marks, Thief traps, and ANY block from any class are counters. There, stealth is fixed. Then we can do what is truly necessary for Thief by buffing its stats and other abilities.

What you fail to realize here is that with those 15+ (not really but whatever) secons of stealth a thief can’t do anything but run or stand/reposition. As soon as the attack they break that stealth and leaves themselves vuln WITH NO OTHER DEFENSE for 4 secs. Granted the peramstealthing idea is fine to do away with i agree but this is going way beyond that. High damage thieves are extremely fragile and can be taken out in one or two hits with their low hp pool and defense. Stealthing and evade is all we have for viable builds. The real problem is the player community abusing profession mechanics but b/c of them all other thieves that run “normal” builds are gonna suffer a lot with this patch and that’s for certain. I run pistols and use stealth to get away from melee and repostion myself. I don’t use permastealth tactics at all and i use evade in between my “revealed” debuff to stay alive (hopefully). The most important thing i have to deal with is initiative management in order to have any productivity as every pistol attack has a very high initiative cost and doesn’t do a whole lot of damage. This ini./sec “buff” is trash compared to the amount of ini. that pistols drain in about 4 secs and w/o stealth/evade i’ll be standing around taking damage to the face wishing i could attack or do anything really. Pve players don’t get 20+ zergs in dungeons etc and this is gonna make thief the “SR past these guys” class with little other production.

Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.

What’s with all the immunity to condition stuff that are popping out here and there? If Anet wants to give something similar to Automated Response to Elementalists, this is the worst way to do it. Even though AR was quite strong against condition classes, the Engineer had to monitor their health really closely in order to make the best use of this trait not to mention that maintaining their health under the 25% threshold always puts them under the risk of dying from normal attacks.
Having to maintain your health above 90% in a vs condition fight is a whole different story. Probably the idea is for the elementalist to have to maintain their health above 90% but considering how little raw damage heavy-condition builds do, a bunker elementalist can easily heal through them and not ever drop under 90% without the help of raw damage classes.

If the current condition bursts are deemed too powerful, the solution is to reduce their burstiness (which I believe the update to the necro is a good step in that direction) not introduce more immunity to conditions and/or buff condition removals as that further destroys the non-burst condition builds.

NinjaEd.3946:

Traps

-Merge Master Trapper(V) into Corrosive traps(II). Mainly because the amount of trap related traits are very few on thief, and standing alone are rather weak for their long cd. Also traps don’t seem to have much attention aside from shadow and ambush. Add new trait in Acrobatics ,“Powder traps”, traps create a smoke field when triggered. Field duration 3 seconds, 3s blind per pulse (1.5 seconds per pulse resulting in a max of 2 hits miss).
-Swap Combined Training(X) with Potent Poison(V). Change Potent poison to “Diseased Traps”, Traps spread the conditions of the foe that triggers it to their allies. (occurs immediately after it is triggered, to apply the trap conditions as well). Along the lines of epidemic, the goal being to make aoe conditions on thief more rewarding, the bleed on sb is rather weak and caltrops can be avoided quite easily or even ignored in larger groups.

Others
-Slowed pulse, change to apply 10s regeneration if you take 10% of your max health in condition damage. ICD of 15 seconds.
-Improvisation, transfer 1 condition you are suffering from to your foe when you steal along with its current effects. Take away the full rng effect of this skill, and thief doesn’t use bundles.. so sorry to break it to you.
-Power shots, also add increased range to sb and Harpoon gun. 100 just so we can spec to be long range, closer to being on par with other professions, who get 1200 range on land.
-Merge Fleet shadow (VI) into Fleet of Foot(VII). Change Fleet of foot to remove 1 condition when you evade an attack with an ICD of 8 seconds. More options to remove conditions outside of stealth using the next best tool thief has to survive, dodging. Perhaps it can have no ICD but swap places with Hard to catch (useless skill atm). It would be rather strong at that point and Should require a heavy investment but pay off for non-stealth builds.
-Hard to catch, change to break stun and grant stability for 1 second on incoming disable. Same ICD. Whether it moves down or stays in grandmaster, the random teleport WHICH btw proc’s even if you have stability, is just horrendous considering the errors shadow stepping runs into across uneven terrain.
-Merge Long reach (VI) into Bountiful Theft (VII). Long reach is NEVER taken over the numerous other major traits that by far exceed its use.
-New trait “Refreshing signet” signet’s maintain their passive effects for a short while after being used. (5 seconds?). This mainly ties into SoM, and justifying its active but also works well on Assassin’s signet, since 15% bonus dmg is actually incorrect in its own way, because you lose the power it grants.

yes the pistol MH is kinda garbage and PP thieves don’t use it for damage, we use unload and only auto while we wait for our HUGE ini. expenditure to regenerate. ALL pistol skills have crazy ini. costs in comparison to the damage that they do but that’s exactly the thing i’m worried about with this patch is stealing and meld with shadows are my main two ways of being able to keep up with the redic amount of ini. that pistols drain. with this nerf i will be able to attack 4 times LESS a minute and i’m not OP by any means already. i guess we can just throw the baby out with the bathwater and hopefully one day we’ll just scrap PP altogether