Guild Wars 2

I posted this in the theif section to see what my fellow thief players think (I play thief and mesmer @ 80 wvwvw but only ele in spvp). I am posting it here to also see what non thief players think. Keep in mind this redesign will remove most but not all of the burst the thief currently has and most build around (The 1 trick pony/1 hit wonders)

WARNING: LONG READ

With all of the complaint threads about thief, and screenshots of some insane amount of damage always saying it was done in 1 second etc, and never able to show any other circumstances (orb buffs, vulnerability stacks) then you add on to the fact A-nets horrible reputation (they are going to beat SWTOR devs at this rate) for nerfing the wrong ability (HS and PW). I think we might as well request a redesign. If their current “balance” adjustments continue in the same direction Thief players are not only going to have zero use in competitive play but even less use in wvwvw environments.
Personally I would have no problem if they redesigned the entire thief class’ damage to be based around condition damage instead of front loaded. Now this would probably require them to either A. improve condition damage scaling, or B. increase Vulnerability viability and have it effect conditions as well.

Lets start off with dual skills. I think dual skills should be the staple of each weapon combination. All the other abilities should have a way to streamline and create fluidity with said dual skill. Lets use death blossom as an example; It’s most upfront power is the ability to apply bleeds. Well all the other d/d abilities are really streamlined for a Burst damage build, save maybe the cripple on Dancing dagger (Im not going to count Lotus strike because lets face it it requires to hit 3 in a chain plus poison is lackluster as it is)

So with this redesign I could see D/D Each hit in the #1 chain does a specific condition,like double strike applies poison, wild strike applies bleeding, and lotus strike applies burning . Heartseeker could still do front loaded damage, and be a finisher, but all of it’s front loaded damage would be based around a bonus (like 5% for each stack of bleeding and 10% for all other conditions and requires target to be below 30% hp and obviously the base damage would have to be altered)… Also if the possible damage is made to be very very high, it could always consume the conditions after a successful hit, like a drawback. Of course there is always the way of changing it from a finisher to just a decent front loaded damage hit for the now condition thief while still having its damage based on number of conditions, (which makes even more sense in the initiative design), where you can apply your conditions and choose to spend init on an attack with front loaded burst depending on how many conditions/stacks you have on the target, with the counter being the target uses a condition remover and you just blew initiative and did tickle damage.

Then we move on to backstab, keep the positional, just have it do a plethora of conditions if you hit from the front, and another front loaded hit based on how many conditions you have on the target when you strike from behind (this actually works really well on paper because it shuns away from 1 hit wonder and now requires actual out of stealth preparation like applying conditions or doing a front backstab before doing a back one)…. I am sure cloak and dagger could remain the same but if I were to change it in this redesign I would just have it not require a hit to stealth since it still takes initiative hit or miss.

Note: In my head, with the improvement to condition damage scaling, I am seeing something like 1k condition damage stat on a thief achieving maybe a 10% gain per tick of bleed damage for example over having 1400 condition damage currently.
Now you could say, “What would the use be for crit or crit damage now?”
Answer: Well with the attacks that still do front loaded damage with bonuses based on condition amount/stacks, those will still be able to crit. Also this change would require an obvious rework of a lot of talents, probably more talents in the critical strikes field that give things like “% to Bleed on crits”, " % to Chill on crits", “% to poison on crits” or “100% chance to cause Random condition on crit”

For other weapon choices, we could have Sword attacks be changed to heavily favor locking down an opponent but keeping mobility ; no more bugged self root on PW.. (thats just lol for a mobility based class). All #1 sword chain attacks could do conditions like daze, OR chill, and maybe an increased duration cripple. Pistol whip will no longer make the thief invulnerable during the duration, but will no longer self root, still stuns and only does 1 hit of a damaging attack (no longer a channel).

Then you could ask" With the sword set now based on lock down conditions and not damage, how do you kill the target?"
Answer: They will still do naturally more on hit damage then dagger, have the sweeping aoe function, and Pistol whip would have a bonus of it’s own and its only real source of damage. I was thinking something like: If the target has 1 condition the target gains 1 stack of burning. If the target has 2 conditions the target gains 1 stack of burning (at longer duration) and 10 stacks of bleeding . If the target has 3 conditions the target gains 1 stack of burning (at even longer duration) and 10 stacks of bleeding (at longer duration) and the target is knocked down for 1 second. The burning duration will also probably be around 5-8 seconds base. See Pistol/Pistol to see the offhand changes

Now we move on to Pistol/Pistol.
This will now be our staple mobility set and group function set to compete with shortbow. Pistol ranges increased to 1200 via a new talent
Pistol #1 Vital shot attack now applies 1 random condition on the target and a very short duration swiftness on the thief. Body shot will no longer have an after cast, and will cause the same vulnerability and now drain 25% of the target’s endurance but still do very little damage. Unload will still do it’s front loaded damage BUT each shot will bounce a number of times depending on the number of conditions the target has. Headshot will still daze, but the daze duration is now increased based on the number of conditions the target has (Ex: from a base 1/4s duration. duration is doubled for each condition on the target)

Black Powder will now place the standard smoke radius around the thief but will also place a connecting smoke line all the way to the target blinding it as well. EX: (o)====x where o= thief and x=target. This is a small change that now makes it a viable use of initiative for Pistol/Pistol builds keeping at range without really breaking it (the target will still have to be in the smoke line similar to the width of smoke screen to be pulsed with the blind).

Now onto Sword/Dagger’s Flanking strike. Due to main hand swords new natural lockdown and shadow step+return, and off hand daggers remaining stealth and cripple feel this will still remain the most tanky spec for thief. Flanking strike will have it’s pathing to no longer move the thief around the target. It will now have the thief jump up, over to right behind the target facing it as well in one quick motion. It will dodge during the entire animation, and when the thief lands he will stab the target in the back twice (this is all if the target doesn’t dodge ofc), each hit now turns the boons into conditions and grants the thief 5s of regen and vigor if the target has no boons.

I am sorry if this is a long read, but I think this will make not only make thief a much more interesting class with a higher skill cap, but quiet the complainers as well. Obviously all of these changes are with the expectation the rendering is fixed first.
The class will now be more comparable to a necro then a warrior. Instead of all of that boom headshot gib damage everyone complains about, it will draw out the fights a little longer, but give thief more control of situations with more condition options, while still keeping the mobility and stealth flavor.
Thanks for those who read, and you have to read it all to understand my vision.

i can say: why not? anet decides, we can theorycraft all the time we want.
but i still don’t like s/d. i would prefer something more damage than always put conditions. there should be some bonus damage for back strikes in the s/d dual itself. something you can upgrade with traits. right now s/d is only a control build, and thief really have s/p if he needs control.

Shukran.4851:

i can say: why not? anet decides, we can theorycraft all the time we want.
but i still don’t like s/d. i would prefer something more damage than always put conditions. there should be some bonus damage for back strikes in the s/d dual itself. something you can upgrade with traits. right now s/d is only a control build, and thief really have s/p if he needs control.

Well its still the tankiest build for thief (s/d) . Think about it this way, cripple the melee target with dancing dagger and he won’t be able to make it to you, this means less damage you are taking. Daze on the stealth ability, means the target will not be using abilities for those 2 seconds ergo less damage you will take. The dual ability that evades during the entire duration, thats a lot of damage avoided and you are removing boons from the target that not only could be keeping it alive but giving it more damage as well, which is even more time to live for you. If the target has no boons you are getting vigor and regen, I don’t need to explain the benefit of this.
Flanking strike will still do damage and so will the sword #1 chain, which is surely enough for the trade off of getting a large boost to survivability.
In addition with this sword/pistol will be similar just giving less survivability but giving more control

Knyx.5926:

Shukran.4851:

i can say: why not? anet decides, we can theorycraft all the time we want.
but i still don’t like s/d. i would prefer something more damage than always put conditions. there should be some bonus damage for back strikes in the s/d dual itself. something you can upgrade with traits. right now s/d is only a control build, and thief really have s/p if he needs control.

Well its still the tankiest build for thief (s/d) . Think about it this way, cripple the melee target with dancing dagger and he won’t be able to make it to you, this means less damage you are taking. Daze on the stealth ability, means the target will not be using abilities for those 2 seconds ergo less damage you will take. The dual ability that evades during the entire duration, thats a lot of damage avoided and you are removing boons from the target that not only could be keeping it alive but giving it more damage as well, which is even more time to live for you. If the target has no boons you are getting vigor and regen, I don’t need to explain the benefit of this.
Flanking strike will still do damage and so will the sword #1 chain, which is surely enough for the trade off of getting a large boost to survivability.
In addition with this sword/pistol will be similar just giving less survivability but giving more control

if i want to play a tanky thief right now i prefer d/p. stil more control than s/d, more damage, after all the nerfs at damaging thief got, this is now the best weapon set thief can have.
and in this build you are a fool if you think you will win by just presing 2,2,2,2,2.
as i said, why not? but i don’t like s/d suggestions.

I do like Dagger/pistol but I think you are just used to having it as your pseudo tanky weapon and that is why you don’t like the changes per-say to that set. However, it is obvious dagger was meant to be high risk quick damage set, and let’s face it pistol was never designed as a tanky set either. My changes now streamline each set into their own focus, with the dual skill setting the standard for the focus and the mh+oh abilities always supporting said standard.
With my changes if you want to go for high risk high damage, you will still go dagger/dagger. However now it will better suit mixing your stats rather then just straight crit+crtdmg and it will be more fluid as each ability in all the weapon setups will feel like they have meaning. If you wanted to go tanky with a side of control, you go Sword+Dagger. If you want to go full control you go sword/pistol. If you want to go max single target range moderate damage @ less risk you go Pistol/Pistol. If you want to go moderate risk@ moderate AOE functionality you go shortbow.

no i tested a lot s/d after pw nerf. it has no damage. it has only an evade and a daze. atm i don’t find it usefull for thief gamestyle or maybe on my gamestyle.
s/d imho needs a little rebalancing. after that i can consider it. right now, d/d and d/p are the best combinations for my gamestyle. (i never use assassin’s signet for the record.).
i accept your suggestions as i said. that’s all

S/d does not have PW, S/D has Flanking strike and is the tank set. These changes make it more useful and fluid with the design as a tanking set by not only granting things like vigor, or the choice of stripping boons that could be increasing the targets damage, but also keeping a dual skill that evades AND pathes correctly with less risk and damage then say d/p and less control then s/p

i black powder down and i can tank every melee hit i want. then i hs inside ahd i stealth, can BS someone and use #3 to chase blinding ranged opponents.
i black powder before stomping =100% kill. i can interrupt stomping, healing, guardian goes elite? gg at him wasting time dazed.
waiting for a tiny buff on s/d

You know, I love the idea of remaking a thief into something which isn’t just an assassin who can steal. When I conjure up images of what I would like a thief to be, I imagine something that is focused around utility. Certainly, it can be an assassin. But it ought to be able to do about anything. I think of thieves as being full of tricks and fully capable of playing the game how they wish. I would of liked to of seen that style put into them. I think how you’ve diversified your skills shows a similar desire.

Yes, that is exactly what I was aiming for. Most people just read the first paragraph and that is it, then thought i was trying to turn the thief into a necro when I wasn’t and by reading my actual changes they would see that.

Everyone is complaining about thieves, and they are trying to justify their argument by acting like they have no time to react. Well the above changes give every class that face the thief at least 5s, in many cases MORE to react. At the same time it opens viability for more thief builds and synergizes the sets.

I am getting this post back up beause if they are complaining about time to react, and this is what this solves, I will prove here and now they are just complaining to complain because they died once, and have no real justification.

I also wouldnt mind a redesign.

My perfect view of the thief is one that actually takes time to set up his burst, but can use stealth and other abilities to safely get to his target to set it up and to survive during that.

I just dont see why this archetype always needs insane frontloaded burst after appearing out of thin air. In this game its actually far worse because here they start with FULL ENERGY (initiative).

Your suggestion sort of does this. Nice post btw. But my personal suggestion is to balance thiefs around starting with zero initiative. This will have them use certain skills that now cost 0 initiative to build it up, but mostly to use their stealth and evades and superior dodges with timing and watching enemies closely to build up their initiative and burst. Less frontloaded burst, more skill.

Spammable 100% evade or auto hea®tseeking is a joke though and should not be possible even with full initiative. If such powerfull things are in the game they must be abilities that are used with timing and drawbacks/cooldowns. Otherwise it just makes the whole game look kitten

Not sure if these are the specific changes needed, I leave that to the professionals who design such complex mechanics.

By this remark, I don’t want to put the OP down, on the contrary: I welcome his effort to change things without breaking the profession.

I feel changes are needed indeed, so posts like this are really helpful in my view.
The dev’s can see this and compare the suggestions with their own findings and insight.

This game was advertised as a pvp game, and for so many reasons, including class balance and thief development, it feels like I’m playing a beta still…

Thank you, yea I am just trying to find a way to meet the wants of the nerf shouters without breaking the class just in case A-net is listening. This whole idea in my OP stops the “burst appearing out of thin air”, they would have to setup the burst with conditions, and actually do a little managing like necros do but less to make sure they have the maximum conditions they can get on the target before using their burst abilities.

Another neat effect this would add is the group synergy. Not only do conditions help the allies in say wvwvw or spvp kill a target but now running with a group will also benefit the thief because most classes can apply conditions as well, in turn helping the thief with his setup for his “burst”

There are several posts staing how a thief can be countered, most of them say it’s even ‘easy’.

My view on things is this:
it is far easier for a thief to burst, than it is for his victim to defend himself.

An average thief can burst, but it takes a good player to get out of that.

Maybe, just maybe, at highest skill level this evens out.
But most don’t play at highest level, most pvp is mid-level if anything.

What i like about your suggestion is that it raises the skill cap for thief burst.
A low experience thief might not get it right, and fail while doing it, leaving the other open for retaliation.

This is what is needed: attacking as a thief should be as ‘difficult’ as defending against one.
More or less, but at least more even than it is now.

Kimbald.2697:

There are several posts staing how a thief can be countered, most of them say it’s even ‘easy’.

My view on things is this:
it is far easier for a thief to burst, than it is for his victim to defend himself.

An average thief can burst, but it takes a good player to get out of that.

Maybe, just maybe, at highest skill level this evens out.
But most don’t play at highest level, most pvp is mid-level if anything.

What i like about your suggestion is that it raises the skill cap for thief burst.
A low experience thief might not get it right, and fail while doing it, leaving the other open for retaliation.

This is what is needed: attacking as a thief should be as ‘difficult’ as defending against one.
More or less, but at least more even than it is now.

Exactly.
A thief that is not skilled will fail to manage the conditions, even if its easier then necro, to the extent of maximizing the burst potential. Plus its not like someone can just frontal backstab then heartseeker spam (because now you have a bunch of conditions), because heartseeker won’t be useable till the thiefs target reaches a certain HP

EDIT: I just thought of something to keep the condition dependency on Backstab and HS but make it far more simplified.

Backstab:
Front= Now applies 5s of Poison, 3s of Chill, 1 Stack of Vulnerability at 8s, Burning for 8s and 2 stacks of bleeding at 8s. No longer does any damage on hit.

Back= 500 damage for 1 condition on the target
604 damage for 2 conditions on the target
700 damage for 3 conditions on the target
806 damage for 4 or more conditions on the target

Heartseeker:
Ability now greyed out and unable to be activated till target reaches 50% hp.
Scales like Backstabs back hit
1 Condition on the target: 336 Damage
2 Conditions on the target: 504 damage
3 or more Conditions on the target: 672 Damage
Leap function of heartseeker remains

@Gank Sinatra
You know, your thought about making initiative work from 0 up gave me an interesting idea. Have half your skills generate it and half your skills use it. You can’t use a skill if it would cause you to exceed the maximum.

I don’t know how well that would work, but I think it would be cool. It wouldn’t hinder that spamming mentality while it would also offer a more interesting and higher skill cap way of doing it.

Diage.6451:

@Gank Sinatra
You know, your thought about making initiative work from 0 up gave me an interesting idea. Have half your skills generate it and half your skills use it. You can’t use a skill if it would cause you to exceed the maximum.

I don’t know how well that would work, but I think it would be cool. It wouldn’t hinder that spamming mentality while it would also offer a more interesting and higher skill cap way of doing it.

That would require a lot more work actually then my redesign. Since thief has only 1 high damage ability in each set, sometimes 2 and it’s only ever 2 if they are built 100% for max damage glass cannon potential. ALso consider there is only 1 burst damage stealth attack, 1/4…. So really if you had thief start at 0 initiative now you have to make ALL weapon abilities do a lot of damage, and with your spin on it, you have to make ALL the abilities do high damage and the ones that spend it do even higher. You are also forgetting some sets are severly lacking in damage, some are just plained bugged, and some don’t even make sense for the thief class as it is…
That would also completely and utterly screw condition based thief builds over. They need to be able to use their highest condition attacks RIGHT AWAY to get the bleeds ticking

I stopped reading after you said that making D/D purely a single target condition build was a good idea.

Scaling damage off of how many conditions you have is terrible, btw. Necro already has to suffer from having a near useless 3 ability on Scepter because Condition builds will never hit hard with an ability like that.

Krathalos.3461:

I stopped reading after you said that making D/D purely a single target condition build was a good idea.

Scaling damage off of how many conditions you have is terrible, btw. Necro already has to suffer from having a near useless 3 ability on Scepter because Condition builds will never hit hard with an ability like that.

Your failure to read is why you failed to understand ( I never changed the AOE function of DB nor the bouncing of Dancing Dagger, so you are pulling things out of thin air as well). I explained in heavy detail why ALL builds would succeed with it.

Knyx.5926:

Krathalos.3461:

I stopped reading after you said that making D/D purely a single target condition build was a good idea.

Scaling damage off of how many conditions you have is terrible, btw. Necro already has to suffer from having a near useless 3 ability on Scepter because Condition builds will never hit hard with an ability like that.

Your failure to read is why you failed to understand ( I never changed the AOE function of DB nor the bouncing of Dancing Dagger, so you are pulling things out of thin air as well). I explained in heavy detail why ALL builds would succeed with it.

I skimmed through a little more. You seriously think making everything a condition build is a good idea? Everything applies some ‘random condition’ or scales off of damage based on how many conditions you have.

I suggest you try another class, because thief is not for you if this is what you want.

Krathalos.3461:

Knyx.5926:

Krathalos.3461:

I stopped reading after you said that making D/D purely a single target condition build was a good idea.

Scaling damage off of how many conditions you have is terrible, btw. Necro already has to suffer from having a near useless 3 ability on Scepter because Condition builds will never hit hard with an ability like that.

Your failure to read is why you failed to understand ( I never changed the AOE function of DB nor the bouncing of Dancing Dagger, so you are pulling things out of thin air as well). I explained in heavy detail why ALL builds would succeed with it.

I skimmed through a little more. You seriously think making everything a condition build is a good idea? Everything applies some ‘random condition’ or scales off of damage based on how many conditions you have.

I suggest you try another class, because thief is not for you if this is what you want.

Skimming is not reading.
Let me explain it to you in the simplest way I can (even tho its in the OP)
Since D/D is your concern I will adress that
Let say your thief is full 30/30/0/0/10 built with all gear related, backstab build

You find your target, and you still want to keep to your normal CnD+steal combo (even tho now you dont have to)
You do this, your mug is still hitting for the same as now, so is your CnD.
Now you do a frontal backstab first. It applies poison, burning, bleeding, chill and vulnerability. These conditions are effective against ALL classes no?
Since you have 30 in Deadly arts these conditions are now lasting quite awhile (10s+ for most). So you proceed with a #1 chain waiting for revealed to fall at the same time further extending the burning, bleeding, and poison on the target. Once revealed falls, you cloak and dagger, then do a backstab BACK hit doing the maximum potential you can do RIGHT NOW ON LIVE.
If the target isn’t dead, dont fret. They are most likely going to be at half health or less because not only did you hit them with a big backstab, but your conditions have been churning, and since you are crit based your burning is also ticking for quite nice hits even without condition damage stat. So now heartseeker is useable, and can be used in succession (multiple times) hitting the target for the same maximum damage potential as LIVE.

Or lets say you want to play the condition damage psuedo tank build “Unicorn” or whatever. 0/0/20/20/30. Carion gear
I shouldn’t even have to explain this… but..:

Now you have a use for backstab, even if its only front hit, back hit still synergizes with your build, so does heartseeker. Also the FULL #1 chain also synergizes well and the base damage on it is never changed.

Or perhaps the hybrid build with Rampagers gear and divinity set across the board???
Something like 10/20/5/15/20

Now you are extremely benefiting from Burning crits, plus your bleeding is doing good damage (same as live), so is your poison (same as live), you also have more ways of refreshing them or increasing stacks, and still can do decent damage with Backstab BACK hit and heartseeker.

Any other builds or weapon sets you want me to explain?

@Knyx

It was just an idea, I completely agree with the concept of attempting to add diversity to thief builds. Note however, all that idea would do is essentially add preconditions to being able to spam freely and reduce the ability to just spam one skill. You would have to combo initiate builders with initiate users to maximize your ability to output damage. As it stands, all their damage is frontloaded. That could be altered by reducing their ability to push that damage out IMMEDIATELY and simply make it take a couple more hits or even a bit of building before it would be possible (as I think about it, it is incredibly similar to adrenaline in GW1 with the extra condition that you cant exceed a maximum adrenaline.)

Well the difference is, no offense at all, but your idea to change it so they have to build initiative from the start would make thief unplayable. That system would make more sense for warrior or guardian. Doing so you would have to give thief more tanky stats then a warrior or guardian. Otherwise you are not changing anything because you would have to make all the initiative builders to high damage, so the thief is still accomplishing something, and keep the initiative spenders do really high damage.
Even still it gos back to having to give them a warrior/guardians tanky stats because this will completely nullify the fact the class is meant to jump in attack and jump out. The class is not designed around the 20-40s prolonged combat your changes would create. At the same time you are screwing over any small damage weapon sets, or condition builds… so every thief would be playing glass cannon… Where as my condition changes however complex looking on paper, are rather small in actuality.
They would only prolong fights heavily based on player skill (which is what we want don’t we?) but by a minimum of a couple seconds. Giving all players of all builds a chance to react to the thief’s combo, giving them a second maybe 2, to pop their condition remover so the thief has to start reapplying in turn extending the fight even a few more seconds again.

The only reason the “initiative” building and “Initiative” spending system works in WoW, is because there the “rogue” type class has a plethora of cc on each weapon set.
They have lots of hard stuns, etc AND perma stealth

I haven’t played wow, so I wouldn’t know the reference anyways. But consider like this, it would still be possible to go in, attack, and step out. Just you might have to do it multiple times. There is no claim that you have to stand there and attack the whole time. This is the place where the increased skill cap comes in. The point is it would force essentially a combo builder with a very loosely related combo requirements (as opposed to GW1 where you needed a lead, offhand, and whatnot.)

So I could see things like perhaps applying some stacks of condis to build some initiate, go into stealth, then come out and burst. This system balances the thief by removing their ability to just come out of no where and burst you. It raises the skill cap while still maintaining their high DPS objective. And it better promotes the attack from the shadows, disappear, and attack mentality as opposed to come out of nowhere, kill and then be done with the fight.

You have to keep in mind that defense for a thief is different than defense for a warrior. A thief has his defense from his ability to go invisible and evade damage in a more mitigation way. So the only thing that would need to be balanced is that aspect.

I mean, think about the complaints right now. “The thief is too bursty and although they’re defensively stat-wise weak, their stealth gives them too much defensive options.” In a sense, this concept would reduce the effectiveness of that defense by requiring them to step in and out of stealth more actively. So yes, it would reduce their effective ability to defend, but you wouldn’t need to increase their damage, unless of course you want to maintain that low skill-cap mentality which thieves are already so rank with. I am for any concept that raises their skill cap without making them a hard to play class. One thing to fix this is to remove damage from their front loaded attacks and perhaps spread it across a couple of engagements or reduce their effectiveness of stealth.

Although, I would still like to point out that I like the idea of a thief. However, anet didn’t make a thief, they made an assassin who steals. So your original ideas help to create something that feels more like a thief instead. I would like to see a combat that looked to push a more combo intensive play style. It increases skill cap without reducing damage or overly complicating combat.

Having initiative builders that do conditions as well, that is exactly what my redesign does minus the initiative part because the condition “combo” builders and the high burst abilities relying on condition amount force you to do what you are trying to accomplish, you are taking my redesign and overcomplicating it. It doesn’t need to go that far.