Guild Wars 2

Jinks.2057:

Giving rangers a reveal skill is a knee jerk move and completely kittens WvW thieves.

Losing all faith in anet

It only kittens glass cannon thieves that die in 5 seconds.

Halcyon.5340:

Jinks.2057:

Giving rangers a reveal skill is a knee jerk move and completely kittens WvW thieves.

Losing all faith in anet

It only kittens glass cannon thieves that die in 5 seconds.

Not to mention teleport and evasion are a massive portion of thief escapability/survivability, they wouldn’t die instantly unless they ran out of options besides stealth and that is their own fault.

Interesting engineer changes.
Turrets now targeting whatever you’re currently shooting is a good change along with increasing their health (I take it they fall under the category of pets/minions)
I would still like the elite mortar turret to be indestructible as it doesn’t do much damage (it cannot crit), it leaves you 100% immobile and defenceless to melee while manning it and it has a dead zone. The mortar receiving no aggro at all would be a good change to if indestructability is going too far.
The elixir changes are decent, although many would agree that completely getting rid of the RNG aspect of elixirs would be more desirable.
Overall it seems like a solid update for engineers. Just got to wait and find out if it’s true.

Charak.9761:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if at all possible if balance is the goal.

The revealed is similar to the hunter flare in WoW. A rogue never has perma stealth, he can only have one re-stealth every 2-3mins (pending preperation). If a hunter knows that a rogue is nearby, he can choose to flare up.

Mechanic (a): a Rogue can stealth and initiate fights to whoever he chooses
Mechanic (b): a Hunter can ‘counter’ play and gain the initation.
Mechanic ©: a Rogue can outsmart the hunter and make them pre-flare, and initiate after

Here is GW2 it can have a similar effect:

Mechanic (a): Thief wants to initiate fight, so he stealths
Mechanic (b): The ranger can pre-dodge if he knows a thief is nearby
Mechanic ©: Thief wants to re-stealth, so he has to be mindful about the rangers ‘revealed’ CD, either by juking an early CD or stealthing before the pet can ‘sic em’
Mechanic (d): The ranger either gets the lock and continues fighting, or loses target, repeating back to mechanic (a).

This is counter-play, a smart thief needs to be aware if he’s fighting a ranger and watch the pets ‘sic em’ CD. The ranger needs to know the thiefs stealth CD and know when the best time to counter.

If the thief stealths forever, then there’s no enjoyment for the hunter because he lacks the counter option available. Similar to how a sniper in an FPS racks up kills but no one knows where the sniper is, so the enjoyment for the snipees are down because they have no counter to the sniper fire.

You have to understand that stealth can’t be left ‘as is’ every mechanics needs a counter hard or soft, but it can’t just ‘be’ because that would make the thieves focus primarily on stealth mechanics.

The comparison to WoW is a bit moot as the Stealth mechanic in these 2 games are completely different beasts. What works in 1 won’t necessarily work in the other.

There is one thing in your post that I can sympathize with though: Thieves shouldn’t be able to Stealth forever.

The fact that this is possible for Thieves right now through chaining Heartseeker in BP is bad for the game and needs to be fixed. But introducing a hard counter for the Stealth mechanic is not the way to fix it.

Reduce initiative Regen from infusion of Shadow to 1 ini per Stealth, or only allow it to activate when the Thief is not already Stealthed, are both valid ways to remove perma-Stealth through fine-tuned balancing rather than by introducing a hard counter.

Once you start introducing hard-counters, the meta will become convoluted with the Rock-Paper-Scissors type gameplay that is horrible for build variety and general fairness of fights between classes.

Here are some Mesmer ideas/changes that would be nice to see. I’m sure others may have stated some of these:

Scepter – While it’s more condition damage oriented, it seems to be pigeon-holed into condition builds and doesn’t bring much to power builds; it is sometimes used in few hybrid builds though. It’s autoattack could use a condition, like maybe weakness, vulnerability, poison, or perhaps inflict a random condition similar to the Winds of Chaos from staff. Or make the first 2 autoattacks be AoE (splash or next to target). Confusing Images could have it’s “charge up” animation go a little faster. I love the torment by the way! Basically, scepter needs to be used in any build spec (same with MH sword).

Torch – Phantasmal Mage projectile speed could be buffed a bit and maybe have a little bit more direct damage so that it can also be seen in some power builds (besides condition builds). If not these, then maybe a shorter cooldown, like 5-10 secs shorter.

MH Sword – Sometimes the iLeap is a bit buggy based on elevation/terrain so it could use some fixing/rework.

Greatsword – Mind Stab could either have a bigger radius and/or make it not ground targeted and be nearby the target.

OH Sword – Seems very power oriented (unless you go clone spammer). Maybe similar to how Illusionary Counter, half damage and inflict perhaps immobilize or cripple.

In general, mesmers also need another option of granting swiftness, whether by trait or skill. A couple traits could be combined together (i.e. – Glamour Master + Temporal Enchanter) while some specific utility traits need to be moved into one trait line (i.e. – 4 glamour traits with 1 in Domination, 1 in Illusion, and 2 in Inspiration could all move into Inspiration).

PS – I’m glad to see Mantra Resolve and Concentration getting some love.

Edit: Seems I copy and paste this without checking to erase OH Sword part since it’s fine as is. Ignore that part please.

Shemsu.8721:

Xsorus.2507:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

You are correct in that stealth is not a mechanic exclusive to thieves, 4 of the 8 classes have stealth access. However stealth attacks ARE a mechanic exclusive to thieves, and are completely disabled by an enemy controlled on demand revealed. No other class can have their exclusive abilities disabled like this.

+1

Keep up the good discussion!

can you make it so that warriors can switch to a 3rd or 4th weapon set? Since we’re weapon masters and all. This should make us different to other classes. Right now nothing is more mundane than us. Thieves have stealth, Mesmers have clones, etc…

Shemsu.8721:

Xsorus.2507:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

You are correct in that stealth is not a mechanic exclusive to thieves, 4 of the 8 classes have stealth access. However stealth attacks ARE a mechanic exclusive to thieves, and are completely disabled by an enemy controlled on demand revealed. No other class can have their exclusive abilities disabled like this.

First of all thieves QQ less play a class that doesnt have stealth and see how long u last when u can’t spam ur blinds and spam stealth this is why thieves should have the stealth mechanic completely removed from them and instead something that blurrs them giving evasion for 2 or 3 seconds u cry about refuge removal if u get launched out gg learn ur class launches are easy to avoid ie banis stomp and skill 4 with hammer ranger would be most difficult but ha u just get close and spam blind on them like you do all classes that don’t aoe hard get skill thieves are thieves not assassins remove stealth completely if they wont stop QQing make the class require skill

Edit: actually all 8 professions have access to stealth via field combos but that’s a different subject

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if at all possible if balance is the goal.

The revealed is similar to the hunter flare in WoW. A rogue never has perma stealth, he can only have one re-stealth every 2-3mins (pending preperation). If a hunter knows that a rogue is nearby, he can choose to flare up.

Mechanic (a): a Rogue can stealth and initiate fights to whoever he chooses
Mechanic (b): a Hunter can ‘counter’ play and gain the initation.
Mechanic ©: a Rogue can outsmart the hunter and make them pre-flare, and initiate after

Here is GW2 it can have a similar effect:

Mechanic (a): Thief wants to initiate fight, so he stealths
Mechanic (b): The ranger can pre-dodge if he knows a thief is nearby
Mechanic ©: Thief wants to re-stealth, so he has to be mindful about the rangers ‘revealed’ CD, either by juking an early CD or stealthing before the pet can ‘sic em’
Mechanic (d): The ranger either gets the lock and continues fighting, or loses target, repeating back to mechanic (a).

This is counter-play, a smart thief needs to be aware if he’s fighting a ranger and watch the pets ‘sic em’ CD. The ranger needs to know the thiefs stealth CD and know when the best time to counter.

If the thief stealths forever, then there’s no enjoyment for the hunter because he lacks the counter option available. Similar to how a sniper in an FPS racks up kills but no one knows where the sniper is, so the enjoyment for the snipees are down because they have no counter to the sniper fire.

You have to understand that stealth can’t be left ‘as is’ every mechanics needs a counter hard or soft, but it can’t just ‘be’ because that would make the thieves focus primarily on stealth mechanics.

The comparison to WoW is a bit moot as the Stealth mechanic in these 2 games are completely different beasts. What works in 1 won’t necessarily work in the other.

There is one thing in your post that I can sympathize with though: Thieves shouldn’t be able to Stealth forever.

The fact that this is possible for Thieves right now through chaining Heartseeker in BP is bad for the game and needs to be fixed. But introducing a hard counter for the Stealth mechanic is not the way to fix it.

Reduce initiative Regen from infusion of Shadow to 1 ini per Stealth, or only allow it to activate when the Thief is not already Stealthed, are both valid ways to remove perma-Stealth through fine-tuned balancing rather than by introducing a hard counter.

Once you start introducing hard-counters, the meta will become convoluted with the Rock-Paper-Scissors type gameplay that is horrible for build variety and general fairness of fights between classes.

There is not suppose to be any fairness in 1v1 fights, some classes are simply ‘better’ vs. certain builds/classes, that is the primary goal of an MMO. This game is not about 1v1’s and never is, it’s a game that requires teamwork and teamplay. If a class can beat any class, then people would just roll that one.

actually the best thieves i meet in wvw are the ones that dont rely on stealth. they use stealth to evade, but dont hide in perma stealth. i think anet didnt intend thieves to permastealth, but thieves to have the easiest access to it. its supposed to be a good evade and great ability to support thief builds, but i doubt it was intended to be a build.

TheJokester.4672:

Shemsu.8721:

Xsorus.2507:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

You are correct in that stealth is not a mechanic exclusive to thieves, 4 of the 8 classes have stealth access. However stealth attacks ARE a mechanic exclusive to thieves, and are completely disabled by an enemy controlled on demand revealed. No other class can have their exclusive abilities disabled like this.

First of all thieves QQ less play a class that doesnt have stealth and see how long u last when u can’t spam ur blinds and spam stealth this is why thieves should have the stealth mechanic completely removed from them and instead something that blurrs them giving evasion for 2 or 3 seconds u cry about refuge removal if u get launched out gg learn ur class launches are easy to avoid ie banis stomp and skill 4 with hammer ranger would be most difficult but ha u just get close and spam blind on them like you do all classes that don’t aoe hard get skill thieves are thieves not assassins remove stealth completely if they wont stop QQing make the class require skill

Edit: actually all 8 professions have access to stealth via field combos but that’s a different subject

Ugh… after all these adjustments to thieves, I have never QQ’ed once. Heck, I only QQ’ed due to Last Refuge.

knight.8926:

can you make it so that warriors can switch to a 3rd or 4th weapon set? Since we’re weapon masters and all. This should make us different to other classes. Right now nothing is more mundane than us. Thieves have stealth, Mesmers have clones, etc…

This I can agree and disagree mainly it would require traits to be far spread to get benifits for some of the weapons otherwise we have sum there just for aesthetic purposes rather than actual use granted it would free up inventory space because we do have what 12 different weapons we can use diverge those into the many combos that we can make with them UGHHHH 3 equipment bags full and 4 weapons in a oiled bag 18+ slots each but yea I agree warriors should have something unique to us yes rangers have dumb pets BUT you can use their skills in the downed state giving u yet another fight control to get yourselves up via kd and fear pets then “Lick my wounds” garunteed revival unless caught in a zerg then no one is save except thieves and mesmers maybe a war if they time evades right necro second health bar yea that’s totally fair “i got em I got em” —> full health fear and they keep running fight over they heal mesmer clones(cripple reflect more conditions dmg equivelent to that of other players from clones) engi master of cc and escape elixer S trait utility many many stun breaks

thieves well perma stealth skill spammability via no cooldown and traits that restore initiative guardian just look at healway practically perma vigor and swiftness/regen/protection dodge roll heals for 2-3.5k leap blinds etc etc hmm ele i mean come on mine is lvl 22 and I can get 8 boons just by swapping through my attunements lightning flash mistform rtl and skill 3 mainhand dagger attuned to fire and a weapon skill that makes u invulnerable stop qqing wars are meatshields they have mobile strikes way down the line which already means you are sacrificing damage and survivability just so u have a shot at escaping 3 or 4 people hit u with immobilize mobile strikes is useless get stopped ever few miliseconds gg i missed one I think nope so there you have it u guys QQ about wars because u don’t know how to play (they have the MOST blatant skill animations making them easy to avoid no way of hiding from enemies making them always targeted only hope we have is knowing when to back off and running faster than you so if you get killed by a war using any of the other classes might want to head back to pve and practice

Knote.2904:

Charak.9761:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if at all possible if balance is the goal.

The revealed is similar to the hunter flare in WoW. A rogue never has perma stealth, he can only have one re-stealth every 2-3mins (pending preperation). If a hunter knows that a rogue is nearby, he can choose to flare up.

Mechanic (a): a Rogue can stealth and initiate fights to whoever he chooses
Mechanic (b): a Hunter can ‘counter’ play and gain the initation.
Mechanic ©: a Rogue can outsmart the hunter and make them pre-flare, and initiate after

Here is GW2 it can have a similar effect:

Mechanic (a): Thief wants to initiate fight, so he stealths
Mechanic (b): The ranger can pre-dodge if he knows a thief is nearby
Mechanic ©: Thief wants to re-stealth, so he has to be mindful about the rangers ‘revealed’ CD, either by juking an early CD or stealthing before the pet can ‘sic em’
Mechanic (d): The ranger either gets the lock and continues fighting, or loses target, repeating back to mechanic (a).

This is counter-play, a smart thief needs to be aware if he’s fighting a ranger and watch the pets ‘sic em’ CD. The ranger needs to know the thiefs stealth CD and know when the best time to counter.

If the thief stealths forever, then there’s no enjoyment for the hunter because he lacks the counter option available. Similar to how a sniper in an FPS racks up kills but no one knows where the sniper is, so the enjoyment for the snipees are down because they have no counter to the sniper fire.

You have to understand that stealth can’t be left ‘as is’ every mechanics needs a counter hard or soft, but it can’t just ‘be’ because that would make the thieves focus primarily on stealth mechanics.

Yes but what he is saying is it shouldn’t be like “hit button, thief instantly gets revealed.”

And actually a better comparison to WoW would be when hunter pets would continue chasing rogues after they stealth, then bring them out of it by attacking, that becomes a soft counter.

Not to mention Flare is a completely different way to reveal since it’s just revealing in a small aoe as opposed to a targeted reveal.

If it requires the pet to hit the thief to reveal then the counterplay can be :

Ranger hits Sick ’Em. Pet now is glued to the thief regardless of stealth or visibility. Thief stealths and pet continues chasing and will reveal him if pet lands a hit. Thief dodges an attack/teleports away, or drops caltrops to kite pet and reopen on ranger.

Alternatively Ranger managed to cripple/immobilize thief before/during stealth and pet lands a hit and reveals.

Good counterplay both ways.

If the pet could actually HIT something, that’d be nice…

Specially when it’s moving, better start building a church and pray.

While I always love seeing these profession improvements, I gotta say that Cross-profession combos need help…they need some serious attention. Group event bosses should require CPC effects to be defeated, this in turn creates a purpose or simulates a trinity-like effect.

Zanthrax.6538:

liefbread.9513:

Hi, as a thief, it seems as if you’re literally removing the viability of one of our builds if you nerf flanking strike, it will lead to everyone running d/d or d/p… Doesn’t seem logical when trying to promote build variety.

If you honestly think s/d thieves and their flanking strike / larc strike combo doesnt need nerfing then your in denial. Its very strong even highly skilled thieves that play nothing but thief understand the purpose of nerfing it.

It is strong, in sPvP. It’s adequate in WvW and it’s “alright” in PVE.

sPvP should not dictate every skillset in the game.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Small balence suggestions:

Stealth
- When someone exits stealth (not reveladed, just times out) add a 1 second revealed. This will make monitoring stealth more important and prevent Cloak And Dagger spam on pets (Mesmers/Rangers/Necro’s can dodge your CnD, but our pets can’t, it gives a huge advange to offhand dagger thieves).
- If someone makes an attack in stealth and it is blocked, it procs a 1s revaled. This makes managing stealth and positioning more valuable instead of just spamming backstab.

Many agreed on a post exactly like this before on a past update and that idea was shot down and made to what it is now in sPvP which is a 4 second revealed while PvE(and wvw) is unaffected. Stealth isnt the enemy, its the attack coming from stealth which breaks the stealth that hurts, just be on guard while a thief goes stealth, because its more than likely a very hard hit, so keep the Aegies up/blocks, it will deflect the majority of the damage and then you can withstand fights longer with a thief until he/she screws their moves up…Stare them in the eye, watch for patterns, use bluffing techniques, they are not AI, they are players, and humans(i hope) and eventually, their finger will get tired/someone will make a phone call to the person sitting behind that computer…just go with the flow.

We can still get hit while in stealth…. you can see where we enter stealth… It takes a SIGNIFICANT amount of practice to time repeated C&D to Perma-stealth (this is a major skill barrier). Continuing on the subject of skill barriers, It’s not particularly easy to triple heartseeker through gunpowder either without significant practice. I get that you guys don’t like stealth, but they’ve already nerfed us into the ground as a class so that there are only 2 “real” viable builds to play, both of which focus on near perma-stealth… Stop trying to take away our ONE advantage.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Xovian.8572:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Ruggan.4102:

All this BS about stealth needing a counter… there are counters to stealth… you just need to actually learn to use them.

The problem with thieves and stealth is…well, I’ll let these quotes do the talking for me.

“You can’t hit what you can’t see.” ~Walter Johnson (In GW2 you can, its magic!)
“You cannot dodge what you cannot see!” ~Gen (Sure you can, ever used block and didnt see what caused it? Happens all the time in GW2)

But to add to this, we need some REAL hard counters to stealth, something to get it off somebody. I really hope Sic ‘Em is changed to a pet damage increase for all its attacks for a certain amount of time, with the Reveal being an AoE around the pet of 900 range. If we can start seeing at least one skill that does that on at least half of the classes, you won’t see as much complaining from players about the ‘invincible’ thief.

2 things about the stealth complaints:

1: STEALTH is NOT thief only. Quit begging for nerfs to a mechanic that 4 classes use, just because one has some more entertaining ways to “annoy” you with it. Honestly I disapprove of the change cause most games that use stealth breakers also have classes that can actually perma stealth, GW2 doesn’t. Yes I have a thief ( i troll/harass/taunt with her in WvW, she has never killed anything 1v1, she cant), but I main a mesmer, and im in ill need of more nerfs to my favorite, and most played class that is currently the least played, and least used in PvP environments.

2: Adding hard counters BEGS the question for the developers of just what other hard counters do we need, it’s gonna be a pretty long list and that’s GOING to turn into a kitten you wouldn’t believe. Tweaks, yes, “shaves” yes. Just adding out right changes (counters) to core mechanics is just a bad idea no matter how you look at it.

Let’s take the thiefs stealth, then we can take the warrior’s weapons, the mesmer’s clones, the necro’s death….. Then we can all have the same stick character wielding the same stick weapon to beat on each other with.

Nobody said anything about TAKING Stealth from thieves. Get your facts straight. They are introducing a COUNTER to Stealth, that is not REMOVING it.

If i counter Immobilize with condition removal, condition removal is a COUNTER to it, that does not make Immobilize USELESS.
If i counter Daze/Stun with Stunbreaker, Stunbreaker is a COUNTER to it, that does not make Daze/Stun USELESS.
If I counter Knockdown with Stability, Stability is a COUNTER to it, that does not make Knockdown USELESS.
If I counter Stability with boon removal, boon removal is a COUNTER to it, that does not make Stability USELESS.

Follow the trend. Want more?

These are all effects that you’re removing from yourself, you’re not actively interfering with what another player is doing with these “hard counters”… (you’re comparing apples to oranges)

Brutaly.6257:

Great coommunications

Symbols for Guardians needs to be adressed. To trait them its 55 Points in two different trees.

Considering its one symbol per weapons (4 symbols) the investment is just to heavy to even bother using more than one symbol trait.

Merge all symbol traits in honor and move empowering might and elusive Power to zeal.

Or move all symbols to the staff and:

Give the healing effect and aoe damage of the orb to the third step of the hammer chain
Give empower to mace
Give line of warding to GS

I would prefer all symbols on the staff which also would give Guardians a valid ranged damage option in wvw. Someything we actually lack compared to the other professions in the game. And no scepter is only valid for duels/small groups and pve.

And for the hundred time, fix the broken buff you get from symbol of swiftness.

Disagree with most of what you wrote. I like the staff as is.

I definitely agree with the broken symbol of swiftness though. Seriously, how long does it take to fix that???

Do all guardians a favor … fix aegis !!!!!!!

This skill is useless ATM, you should find something so that it does not only block the first hit of a multie hit attack.

Thief
Venomous Aura was complete garbage, as the radius was fairly tight, and venoms are not worth using at all. We’ve now increased that radius a bit, so that it’s easier to share worthless venoms with allies without huddling closely together!

We’re also looking at Destroying Flanking Strike, so that it now only removes 1 boon instead of 2, now thieves wont even have to worry about Sword/Dagger spec.

Also, pistol main hand may see one of its skills reworked into a worthless support ability (since support thieves are epic). We have middle school graduate brazilians paid in bananas working 25 hours a day to achieve maximum support while keeping pistol main hand totally useless for anything else.

FTFY

So you guys are going to barely buff 2 terrible wep kits/specs, so that instead of being garbage that no one uses, it will be garbage that maybe 1 guy in 1000 gets tricked into using.

Then you are going to nerf the only reason ever to go s/d (stopping bunkers from stacking 10000 buffs / stripping stuff like prot off in PvE on bosses)?

What you need to fix is the kittenty meta were it doesn’t matter what spec or gear you are in the content is so easy it doesn’t matter, which actually just favors full zerk gear since instead of a 1 hour dungeon run its a 20-30 minute run.

Sure you can put on your tank/support gear and pretend you are doing something special, but when its all said and done the only thing is accomplished is wasting peoples time.

Zanthrax.6538:

again….revealed buff is 4 seconds…then you can go back into stealth again…thieves….its not even a big deal…

A thief heavily traited into shadow arts will die in 4 seconds without access to stealth…

Guardians get blocks and blinds, thieves get stealth and blinds…. Alternatively we get dodges, however that’s a separate trait line. We could trait into stealths and dodges, but then we lose our damaging trait lines. Rangers don’t get instagibbed by thieves regardless, they have a significant amount of condition damage and their LB channeling skill still hits thieves after stealth, in addition their mainhand sword attack makes it REALLY HARD to line up back stabs.

It just seems illogical to give rangers an anti-thief button.

Zepidel.5349:

Thief
Venomous Aura was complete garbage, as the radius was fairly tight, and venoms are not worth using at all. We’ve now increased that radius a bit, so that it’s easier to share worthless venoms with allies without huddling closely together!

We’re also looking at Destroying Flanking Strike, so that it now only removes 1 boon instead of 2, now thieves wont even have to worry about Sword/Dagger spec.

Also, pistol main hand may see one of its skills reworked into a worthless support ability (since support thieves are epic). We have middle school graduate brazilians paid in bananas working 25 hours a day to achieve maximum support while keeping pistol main hand totally useless for anything else.

FTFY

So you guys are going to barely buff 2 terrible wep kits/specs, so that instead of being garbage that no one uses, it will be garbage that maybe 1 guy in 1000 gets tricked into using.

Then you are going to nerf the only reason ever to go s/d (stopping bunkers from stacking 10000 buffs / stripping stuff like prot off in PvE on bosses)?

What you need to fix is the kittenty meta were it doesn’t matter what spec or gear you are in the content is so easy it doesn’t matter, which actually just favors full zerk gear since instead of a 1 hour dungeon run its a 20-30 minute run.

Sure you can put on your tank/support gear and pretend you are doing something special, but when its all said and done the only thing is accomplished is wasting peoples time.

they just have to release more difficult content

Dunno if anyone else posted this already but…for the combat log, why not just have it pop out so you can see everything with a time stamp? :o

NoTrigger.8396:

Zepidel.5349:

Thief
Venomous Aura was complete garbage, as the radius was fairly tight, and venoms are not worth using at all. We’ve now increased that radius a bit, so that it’s easier to share worthless venoms with allies without huddling closely together!

We’re also looking at Destroying Flanking Strike, so that it now only removes 1 boon instead of 2, now thieves wont even have to worry about Sword/Dagger spec.

Also, pistol main hand may see one of its skills reworked into a worthless support ability (since support thieves are epic). We have middle school graduate brazilians paid in bananas working 25 hours a day to achieve maximum support while keeping pistol main hand totally useless for anything else.

FTFY

So you guys are going to barely buff 2 terrible wep kits/specs, so that instead of being garbage that no one uses, it will be garbage that maybe 1 guy in 1000 gets tricked into using.

Then you are going to nerf the only reason ever to go s/d (stopping bunkers from stacking 10000 buffs / stripping stuff like prot off in PvE on bosses)?

What you need to fix is the kittenty meta were it doesn’t matter what spec or gear you are in the content is so easy it doesn’t matter, which actually just favors full zerk gear since instead of a 1 hour dungeon run its a 20-30 minute run.

Sure you can put on your tank/support gear and pretend you are doing something special, but when its all said and done the only thing is accomplished is wasting peoples time.

they just have to release more difficult content

Legitimately difficult new content, like unique mechanics and such.

13 pages, didn’t read.

About the #3 fast cast on mouse-up, when I mouse-down will it show the target circle? That is the only thing that interests me as a Necro staff user. Anything to speed it up and remove the 12345 and you missed one of them due to longer cast time being overridden by the next skill casting. Really hate the skill queue system in that regard.

Queue up the next skill but if it starts casting and has a long cast time, the next skill you touch overrides and cancels the previous… Elementalist staff #5, touch any other skill before it’s done and you cancel the full duration/effect and get a half-a** version of it.

Literally the only thing I want to cancel a long cast skill is movement or dodge of my character, not any other skills.

Shemsu.8721:

Xsorus.2507:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

You are correct in that stealth is not a mechanic exclusive to thieves, 4 of the 8 classes have stealth access. However stealth attacks ARE a mechanic exclusive to thieves, and are completely disabled by an enemy controlled on demand revealed. No other class can have their exclusive abilities disabled like this.

Other then the Ranger, who can have his F2 Abilities completely disabled by the killing of his pet.

And for the guy who said damage is not a counter, It most certainly is a counter. Where you get the idea that killing a pet classes Pet isn’t a counter to them because its damage is completely mind boggling. In no MMO game is this not the counter to a Pet Class.

How did you stop a Bone dancer in DAOC? You killed his Pet

How did you Stop a hunter in WoW, You Kill his pet.

How did you stop a Necromancer in Rift, you killed his pet.

Killing the pet is the counter, In Guild Wars 2, This not only removes a large portion of the Rangers Damage, It removes passives like Empathetic Bond and Natural Healing if they spec for them. This is no different from a Thief being Revealed. Just because they’re adding an actual counter to Stealth in the game doesn’t mean you’re some how persecuted.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Thief
Venomous Aura was very difficult to use, as the radius was fairly tight. We’ve now increased that radius a bit, so that it’s easier to share venoms with allies without huddling closely together.

We’re also looking at shaving the efficiency of Flanking Strike slightly, so that it now only removes 1 b detailoon instead of 2.

Also, pistol main hand may see one of its skills reworked to better support allies. We have multiple prototypes that we’re trying out, so we’ll have to see which we settle on by the next release.

i think lowering the cost of LS to 1 ini would be a nice return to the nerf from 2 buffs stolen to 1. Why ? We still need to pay the 3 ini for IS. “Removing”, i was thinking we are stealing them to give to us. Are you guys planning to nerf it hard and rebuff it later on ? Strange way you have to balance things…

Venom Aura was described in detail by me what it needed in a previous post.
Altering conditions to 5stack max, will make it nearly useless in PvE vs dungeon boss.
you can give it 9999 range, but if it’s not worth it, no one will take it. simple.

and finally you are paying attention to LFG tool ingame … finally you guys are doing something usefull for us !!! the site was a workaround …. not perfect, not 100% up and it isn’t yours either…..do you know what happens when it is down ? LOTS of unhappy customers !
maybe i will return and play gw2 a bit more if i like the final patches

thank you for informing us heads on, i appreciate that, and that it can be discussed
(as long as i can write an opinion and you guys actually read it, i am happy, even if you might not apply it)

Well there are a lot of comments here but on simple question:
How about making the elementalist staff something else than merely a group support weapon?

You shouldn’t be at such a disadvantage in 1 vs 1 fight just because you’ve decided that you prefer playing a mage with a staff instead of dual daggers.

The casting times are just too long to be effective when another class can get you down in less than 2 second spamming the 1 key (while just 1 of your spells take 4 second to cast – it’s ridiculous).

With respect to engineer changes I am hoping that trait changes to turrets make them much more viable. One of the grandmaster turret traits gives them %15 more damage. I would like to see their damage scale with stats and no cooldown if you pick the turret up. What is the point of picking up turrets presently?

More weapon choices would be nice, hammer has been proposed as an engineer melee weapon. Less rng skills would be appreciated. Mortar skill is pretty underwhelming for an elite. A grenade auto attack would be nice.

Will the changes to condition damage lead to a removal of the condition “cap” on targets? That may make necro and engineer much viable.

Thank you much for a heads up prior to patch day. It’s good to see first source info posted to these threads, not leaking in from non-Anet sites or deciphered from data miners.

get rid of rediculous limitation you force on players with sigils not stacking and sigils wont need any more improvements.

Charak.9761:

Counter Play, every game developer needs to watch this video.
http://youtu.be/BRBcjsOt0_g

No, a hundred times no. People need to stop taking Extra Credit as some kind of game development gospel.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Class balance:
Guardian
We increased the power of many support skills which weren’t seeing much play. We reworked Purging Flames: it now removes three conditions from allies in an area effect around the guardian on cast while still burning enemies (enemies that enter or exit the flames are still burned). Once the skill has been cast, it then reduces condition duration for allies who remain in the consecration’s area. It’s hawt. Literally. All meditation utility skills are now instant, and Focused Mind now grants fury on meditation use.

I am afraid that i have to point that there had been a grave mistake there as far condition removal.
Myself as a wvw necromancer focused on conditions i find that not only conditions dont work for more than a second on wvw with the rampant cleansing, but that we also actually are dooming our own server forces because we end up buffing the enemy instead.
Add warhorn warriors to the mix and the problem becomes even larger.
What is the point of further enhancing a class that becomes unstopable the more of them you get together?
Please consider both sides of the coin and dont favor only one.

JonPeters.5630:

Just finished reading through all 12 pages. Thanks to everyone for 12 pages of positive and constructive feedback. Keep it up and keep in mind these are updates from just the skills team so try to focus on skills traits and other combat related stuff.

Jon

Awesome, alright good.

Just out of curiosity, how extensive are the trait changes going to be? Not asking for any specifics, but just like, on average, about how many traits are going to be receiving more than tooltip updates?

My personal wishful goal is around 5 traits per class, but that may be quite a bit compared to what’s needed/possible.

Even though we have now reached page 13, I will give my suggestion a shot.
Warriors might be in a “good” state because they are now used, but imo some of the their mechanics are a kitteneesy and has no counters.
Making warriors lose adrenaline on burst abilities that either miss, blocked or evaded. This way dodging the Skullcrack would actually be beneficial. Right now, you might have evaded a 3s stun, but in approximately 2 seconds (internal cooldown) he can do it again, which he will keep doing until he hits. You simply can’t avoid it.

As for Healing Signet, why not scale the healing with the percentage amount of maximum HP lost? The lower the HP, the better passive healing.
This would better allow burst/nuke builds to coordinate their dmg and kill the warrior, and still make the signet great against conditions (warriors are simply too tanky). Furthermore, it would really make the warrior choose between activating the signet or keeping the passive.

I could write 5 pages with suggestions, but to make your life easier I will just keep it short.

First of all, congratulations and big GG for this communication, this is awesome ! Finally what players have been asking for months happen, hope it won’t be the only time it happens !
Generally speaking, very good content and ideas. Now to the specifics :
- Very good for tooltips, finally useful tooltipis incoming ?
- Tab targetting : cool bye petzoos !
- Good for condition damage, though it’s funny to have tons of floaters, it’s not very clear
- Ground targetting, if I understood right, “Release the button to cast” it means that as long as I hold the key, the circle to aim appears and I use the skill if I release, which means you can just hit the key to have the same effect as before with fast ground targetting, or hold for better accuracy ? If so, awesome
- Cool for split of pet HP though it should also be split between pve and WvW (or damage reduction in PvE)

- Warrior : cool changes imo. Not much to do since it’s getting pretty good. Warhorn could use a buff maybe. Since the stun is gonna be fixed with the stun duration sigil, should be fine.
- Guardian : nice. Purging Flames promises to be interesting. I feared at first that it could be OP (like it’s a counter to the main counter of guardian, the necro) but guardian already has so many great utilites, he’ll have to give up one for this so I guess it should be fine.
Very good change for meditation, finally a way to reliably play guardian else than bunker ? It could however be borderline OP with the recent buff to heal on meditation use, so might have to reduce that a bit. Very good idea anyway since guardians were lagging behind as to killing people :P
- Ranger : I still feel Sick’Em will remain utterly useless and not used but good idea. Waiting to see changes to weapons but GS should be fine if leaked patchnotes were accurate. Sword could use some help too (root). Maybe a slight buff to axe MH too.
- Thief : cool to see boons stealed reduced to 1.
- Engineer : pretty dangerous changes. Bunker engineers were already very good while spamming conditions, giving them stealth and/or stability could make them OP (and will probably do if there’s no change elsewhere). Waiting to see what QoL changes are : autoattack on grenades ? (yeah I know, I can dream since it’s used pretty often) cool for bombs if leaked patchnotes are right. Good for turrets but still not enough I think.
- Elementalist : I like the ideas but still think it won’t be enough to play staff. Buff velocity could be a better solution. Good for conjures. Focus (especially fire) and scepter (water) deserve some love too.
- Mesmer : Cool changes to mantra though stability one will still be useless I think (high CD, low duration). It NEEDS a change to Illusionist Celerity back or take a look at clone summoning skillls CD seriously …
Also, scepter #1 is still garbage, as well as Torch’s phantasm (stop buffing scepter #2 and 3, issue is #1, same for torch, buff phantasm and not prestige …)
- Necromancer : can’t really comment on it but I don’t see how the condition spike could be countered in the new meta.

Cool for other incoming changes.
Keep up the good work !

Since this update will have many QoL updates I thought I might as well try to bring my suggestions in.

Option to disable other players combat effects
Guess anyone who plays melee and had an Ele’s, Guards or Mesmer in his group knows that it just sucks to be punished for not seeing the enemy under all the effects.

After over a year without being able to see a thing in melee (with certain classes in a group), please Anet, please add this

I really much apriciate the Ranger Pet Changes if they come true:)

I rely on my pet strongly as its my Melee and In’m a stubborn Pet-player, not using either traps or spirits more than for spacial needs. Without a reliable pet I become crippled;)

Some other Ideas for the Mesmer:

Make the “Dodge-Clone” (Duelling X Trait) when he appears for ~1s invulnerable.
At the Moment, some effects (for example this one Royal Champion which becomes vulnerable if his whirl attack misses) are triggered “on hit” and if you do a well timed dodge with your Mes, those Things still get triggered, as they hit the clone.
In my opinions this shouldn’t be possible.

Mesmer Offhand-Sword-Skill 4: Could you maybe make the “Counter” Skill faster? It always feel, that you are able to block 1 Hit, but therefore you get the 2nd hit guaranteed, du to the long Animation.

Another thing regarding sPvP: Correct me if I am wrong, but if you are in downed mode, some Skills (i believe the “launch”-Skills) are able to move you, will other Skills (Pushs / pulls) don’t work.
Is this intendet to be so?
Or does it maybe get “fixed” by Stunbreakers working on “launch”-skills?

About sigils…. As it is today if u have 2 stacking (sigil of bloodlust and sigil of…. the one that increases Condi dmg) sigils, one on each bow that I wield. How come only one of them stack (the first one I start using)…..

Kaon.7192:

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Does any other class have a low-cooldown panic button that can be pressed essentially at any time to get out of a bad situation unpunished, again and again, with pretty much no player-skill necessary?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the logic that there needs to be a counter to stealth. I don’t have the slightest problem with the ability of a thief to sneak in undetected and to hit very hard, maybe even finishing off an unwary player in less than 2 seconds. But it drives me crazy that if the thief made a bad decision she may just pop invisibility, disengage, heal, and try again, leaving me with almost no chance to give a bad player a well deserved beating.

I am very happy that ANet will finally introduce the missing counter to stealth (other than AoEing blindly).

~MRA

village idiot.1436:

What is the point of picking up turrets presently?

If I am not mistaken: a slightly reduced cool-down.

~MRA

I’ve seen the upcoming “prepared” patchnotes and I want to share with you Anet my thoughts and I want to tell you first, that the things I think about your changes aren’t “good”, so be prepared.

I strongly believe, what you doing here is balancing the game more and more slowly to death, not knowing what you do, just mindlessly changing certain numbers or effects cause of thinking, it might be cool, or it might be helpful to “improve” something of the overall situation for a class.
But what you do in the end (again this time) is just adding lots of skill facts or removing some, fixing bugs (whats always ok), but buffing mostly always more the already way to powerful classes like Mesmers, Elementalists, Warriors and Necromancers, but doing nearly nothing for really in comparement for Rangers and especially Thiefs.

For the sake of GW2, stop finally please with these tiny changes and grab finally the classes that really need it by their “game mechanics” and greatly improve these first over making a tons of minor changes (90% buffs) to just only utility skills and weapon skills, from which very oftenly the thiefs seemed to be totally excluded from, when you see, how many things of all classes have been buffed within the last like 3-5 updates and how the thief has been forgotten every time either or just been nerfed and now you really want to nerf them more, by decreasing their ability to strip boons???

Really??? Anet, THIS IS RIDICULOUS and I say this with as much respect as like with frustration towards you that I’m able to express.

Don’t you see, that the game is already ruled only by certain way too powerful meta builds within specific classes.

Take for example the typical “Bunker Build D/D Ele” which are really a pain in the * to kill, because they have way too good self heal abilities, too strong defense and way too much damage power all in 1 build. This build is basically halfgod mode, because when played good, they are nearly unstoppable and absolutely unbeatable in 1v1 situations, especially together when using Food/Potion Buffs in WvW.

TL: DR, to make it brief… please consider makinng finally these changes, to greatly improve the general game balance (posted in list form)attention, longer post

Thats Posting 1

Posting 2:

1) Change completely the Game Mechanics of the Thief, the whoel class needs a complete redesign including these changes:

• Stealing becomes a % rated automatic effect on melee critical hits now and thiefs can now steal maximum up to 3 items. Stealing is now no Shadow Step anymore
• All Venom Utility Skills get removed from the game and change their place now to F1 by pressing F1 opens up a little window that lets us choose 1 Venom out of 5 completely new designed ones that have influence now on the effects of weapon skilsl and change the weapon skilsl based on which venom you’ve chosen to increase massively the thief’s skill diversity and group support ability by massively concentratign the thief gameplay more on venoms and making stealing a mechanic, that automatically can occur if you hit critically in mele range.
• Change the Shadow Step mechanic completely from a Warp Mechanic into a Dodge Mechanic kind of Mode, that while shadow stepping it allows thiefs to dodge attacks without having to actually use a dodge that costs endurance and give Shadow Step a better cooler looking animation so that you can see the difference, once a thief goes into its shadow stepping mode (look and compare shadow stepping animations from Blades & Soul’s Assassins for that)

• improve instead of nerf greatly the thiefs traits and skills to be morev efficient in stealing boons from enemies. This is really one of the real great things that could make the thief class much more fun to play and unique/special and it would also help greatly in balancing the game against these horrible overpowered bunker builds when there would be thiefs, that can quickly strip off their bunch of boons like aegis, regeneration, protection and especially retaliation. Mainly daggers, swords and shortbow should profitate from this, like for example letting Trick Shot remove boons when their shots hit critical or Dancing Daggers should remove also boons, 1 per hit. if hit critical.

• Merge the following Utility Skills of Thiefs and put some new useful utility Skilsl to the Thief to refill the gaps:

Assassin’s Signet + Signet of Shadows = Signet of Shadows that increases Power and movement speed together passively and actively puts the thief into a 5 second stealth that lets the next hit become 100% critical with 15% increased critical damage

New Skill: Signet of Venoms
Passive: Increases Venom Effects and Ranges by 20%
Active: The next attack will apply to the enemy also Poison, Blindness and Vulnerability, while making yourself for 5 seconds invulnerable to these 3 conditions

Infiltrator’s Signet + Signet of Agility = Signet of Agility that passively increases precision and the initiative gain of +1 every 10 seconds
Active: Cures 1 condition, refills endurance by 50% and sets you for 3 seconds into shadow stepping mode

New Skill: Signet of Quickness
Passive: Adds a chance of giving Quickness to the thief every 30 seconds for 5 seconds
Active: Stun Breaks, adds Vigor and Stability to the Thief for 5 seconds

Thats Posting 1

Remove Haste and replace it with the New Skill Fast & Furious
Effect: Sets you for 3 seconds into shadow stepping mode, increases for that time your movement and attack speed by 50% and adds Fury to you for 3 seconds

Roll for Initative + Scorpion Wire = Chameleon Tongue
Effect: Lets you jump backwards and go into stealth gaining some Initiative back, while pulling an targeted enemy to your old position. The damage dealt will be given to the thief as a heal and if the hit was critical, it will strip 1 boon (if traited for that)

New Skill: Decepting Exchange
Effect: Exchanges you with a chunk of wood that absorbs all incoming damage the
next moment you get hit letting you avoid the incoming damage and puts the thief for 3 seconds into stealth. Cures up to 2 conditions also from you and stun breaks

Shadow Step + Smoke Screen = Smoke Bombs
Scatters 3 Smoke Bombs in front of you at a 45° angle that create blindness combo fields and sets you into shadow stepping mode for 3 seconds, the blindness fields of the bombs block projectile attacks for up to 8 seconds that blind foes also.

Ambush gets moved to Deceptions now.

New Skill: Scrapnel Trap
A Trap that causes Vulnerability, Weakness and Torment when you run into them.

2) Change all Trap Skills of Rangers/Thiefs for underwater combat into Mines so that they work there too.

Posting 3:

3) Change the following Skills for Thiefs in underwater combat to these effects:

Shadow Refuge > Shadow Sphere
Just the same effect under water in a sphere like field around you…

Blinding Powder > Blinding Oil
Just the same effect

Smoke Bombs > Soap Bombs
Same effect just with a foam effect that creates lots of soap bubbles

Ambush >* Helpful Deception*
Changes the effect of that skill for underwater into the effect of Decepting Exchange, just with the difference, that instead of a wood of chunk a thief minion appears that blocks the attack and helps you for 20 seconds then …

Needle/Shadow Trap > Needle/Shadow Mine
same effects

Caltrops > Acid Capsules
Changes the effect into leaving Acid Capsules (capsule skin disappears with contact on water and releases the acid that way) behind you that turn a small aea of effect into a field that causes bleedings and cripple per second if you swim through…

Tripwire > Liquid Plumb Capsules
Effect: Sinks enemies and interrupts them, if they swim through the field of the liquid plumb.

Dagger Storm > Dagger Whirl
just let it work under water with the same effect and the animation of the warrior attack that lets them whirl around thermself forwards…

Thief Guild > Just let them work under water too, its a darn shame, that you let us have to use under water only this lousy Basilisk Venom >.< Just let in underwater combat appear 1 with spear and 1 with speargun… done

4) Add to Elementalist Attunements a preparation Time, so that Elementalists aren’t able anymore to spam their 20 seconds through in a matter of 5 seconds!!
This Preparation of changing the Element, call it a “Channeling” will take 2-3 seconds.
Also tzhe recharge times of Attunements should get increased to make it harder to change back into the last element and to break the skill spam cycle that makes bunker build eles so extremly overpowered. Changing an element should be for an elementalist player an important decision, and nt something that you quickly change on the fly to spam through skills as fast as possible to pressure enemies fast down with tons of AoE skills and and massive condition damage from too high bleeding stacks and burning.

5) Reduce the healing power of the auto regeneration skilsl from Eles, Warriors and Guardians, as this makes these classes way too hard to kill, when these auto regenerations basically can outheal all of your damage when playing defensive and avoiding damage with skilsl that block damage or make you invulnerable for a few seconds. Yes, these skills should make it harder to kill these classes, but not basically impossible!! Auto Regenerations should not replace completely the usage of the self heal skill and they are another reason, why those bunker builds are so heavily overpowered and annoying.

awesome kitten

Posting 4:

6) Raise the Stealth duration of the Thiefs Self Heal Hide in Shadows also to 5 seconds too, if you raise the stealth duration of a silly engineer skill to 5 seconds and let this skill also remove torment and confusion…

7) Let Signet of Malice’s heal effect scale with Power to increase the healing effects slightly.

8) Add to Withdraw the shadow stepping mode and let thiefs regain like the old roll for initiative some initiative …

9) Change the underwater Skills of the Thief’s Spear/Spear Gun completely!

Spear

1)) Piranha Slash > Shark Rush > Dolphin Strike
Piranha Slash > Bleeds foes and makes them vulnerable per hit.
Shark Rush > Rushes quick forward. Bleeds foes more and heals you for every stack of bleedign the foe has.
Dolphin Strike > Evades an enemy attack, stuns foes and torments them, if they break out of the stun.

Stealth: Octopus Assault
Attacks the enemy, blinds them and hits the foe 8 times and puts you for 3 seconds into shadow stepping mode leaving a trail of blinding ink when you swim around

2)) Ninetail Strike
Blocking an attack results in a multi hit counter attack.
Breaking the Block results in getting back some initiative and receiving a randomous boon for 9 seconds. The skill blocks now as long attacks as the channeling bar is filling up and the button gets holded. The counter attack will now only occur, if the bar filled either up fully automaticall,y or once the player releases the skill button to enable the player to block more attacks than just only 1. Additional blocks after the first cost 1 initiative every 2 seconds.

3)) Flanking Shadows
Effect: Sets you into a quick shadow stepping mode auto flanking to the enemy multiple times and giving you for some time protection and regeneration.

4)) Fisherman’s Net
Immobilizes and sinks an enemy while pulling you to the target. The skill doesn’t interrupt you self anymore (I think this is anyways a bug of tow line and not intended)

5)) Impaler
You rush to the enemy very fast and pierce through all enemies in a line of sight.
Deals high stacks of torment and vulnerability. While using this skill you evade attacks.

Speargun

1)) Piercing Shot > Crippling Shot > Poison Shot
Just fuse together Piercing Shot, Disablign Shot and Escape into 1 multi stage auto attack to make place for better new skills here !!

Stealth: Sniping Shot
Poisons and Torments a target with increased damage so lesser health the enemy has left. Kills downed enemies instantly to balance the massive overpowered self heal abilities here of rangers in their downed state and if not instant kill, then should this skill at least double the health loss per second on downed state, when being hit by it to make it harder to rally

2)) Storm Shot (rename the skill simple, deluge is such a stupid unfitting name)
Add a chance of stunning enemies with this, if the hits are critical, like 20% chance that a hit of it may stun an enemy…

3)) Decepting Decoy
Summons a Decoy Thief that is very efficient in taking aggro from minions away like turrets, undeads or clones for some time, takes no damage from these things, but from the normal enemy they take normal damage, but it takes a while to destroy them, what would be just doable in a group fight, before their duration run s out normally… If theres no minions, then these decoy behave like normal thief summons and help fighting

4)) Ink Shot
same effetc like now, just decreased initiative from 5 to 3

5)) Wave Stream Shot
A strong shot, that creates a strong water stream that pushes enemies away.
Pushes enemies wider away so nerer they were to the thief up to a maximum range of 1500.

Posting 5

10) Changes to downed skills

Smoke Bomb renamed to > Smoke Capsule
increased stealth duration from basically 2 seconds to 5 seconds and it regenerates in that time your health to help a bit to rally… decrease the recharge time to 15 seconds and that of Shadow escape down to 10 seconds.

Shadow Escape:
increase the range of this skill by 100%, this skill is no escape, if you can’t get with it even out of a range from a skill AoE skill or out of sight from an enemy >.<

Vanish to the Deep: decrease the recharge from 20 to 15 and increase the stealth duration from basically 2 seconds to 5 seconds.
————
Some great changes, that should bring the thief game mechanic wise onto the same epic level of all the other op classes which got their traits in overall improved, merged ect. over the last months.

Trait Changes:

Corrosive Traps > Confusing Traps
Change the effect from vulnerability to Confusion

Venomous Strength + Potent Poison = merge both effects under Potent Poison

New IV Trait: Tormenting Dodges
Adds a small AoE Torment Effect to your Dodges that gets applied to foes at the end of the dodge roll where the thief dodges to.

Dagger Training: increased from 5% to 10%, Adds 10% of your Weapon Power to Precision

Improvisation: changed effect to: Gives you every 10 seconds a randomous Steal Item Skill if you have none at the moment and a randomous boon when you use a steal item skill that normally gives no boons, like for example that Axe Whirl attack.
Also recharges utility skills when using an Steal Item Skill as increasing your damage by 3,3% per unused steal item skill (as it has been increased to 3 like I suggest, this adds up to 9,9%) Currently that trait boostzs damage by 10%, so nealy no change at this, just addign a random boon effect and random steal item adding every 10 seconds to improve the steal item feature and making builds around that more interesting.

Residual Venoms: gets changed due to the suggested changes about the venom system as all venoms for the new system will be duration based, not attack number based. Increases the duration time of venoms now so that players can use longer the changed weapon skills based on the applied venoms on your weapon.

Panic Strike: change the effect to Fear instead of immobilize. Just makes the name of the trait FITTING, because when you are panicking, then you fear something!!

Combined Training > Increase from 5% to 15% for Daggers, 10 % for if a pistols is used. Adds to Death Blossom 2 more hits, thus 2 stacks of bleeding more.
Unload gets 5% more chance to hit critical.
Pistol Whip will hit 2 times more.
Shadow Shot: will increase the shadow stepping mode for 1,5 seconds and incrases the crit chance by 3%

Dual skills need more importance, they are one of the less unique mechanics of the thief that need improvements that you clearly feel a difference of using this trait, or not!

Xsorus.2507:

Shemsu.8721:

Xsorus.2507:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

You are correct in that stealth is not a mechanic exclusive to thieves, 4 of the 8 classes have stealth access. However stealth attacks ARE a mechanic exclusive to thieves, and are completely disabled by an enemy controlled on demand revealed. No other class can have their exclusive abilities disabled like this.

Other then the Ranger, who can have his F2 Abilities completely disabled by the killing of his pet.

And for the guy who said damage is not a counter, It most certainly is a counter. Where you get the idea that killing a pet classes Pet isn’t a counter to them because its damage is completely mind boggling. In no MMO game is this not the counter to a Pet Class.

How did you stop a Bone dancer in DAOC? You killed his Pet

How did you Stop a hunter in WoW, You Kill his pet.

How did you stop a Necromancer in Rift, you killed his pet.

Killing the pet is the counter, In Guild Wars 2, This not only removes a large portion of the Rangers Damage, It removes passives like Empathetic Bond and Natural Healing if they spec for them. This is no different from a Thief being Revealed. Just because they’re adding an actual counter to Stealth in the game doesn’t mean you’re some how persecuted.

So attacking a rangers pet (that can be made invulnerable by the ranger) is the counter to rangers pet mechanics, but damaging and killing a thief in stealth is not a counter? It goes both ways, if damage is enough of a counter against rangers/pets, its enough of a counter against stealth.