Guild Wars 2

For those of you who only linger in the pvp sub-forums:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Backstab-time-to-nerf/page/2#post601420

Seen it, support it. So long as they’re conscious of keeping the class viable for tPvP (which they are), I’m all for toning down a build that very actively, aggressively discourages newer players from enjoying/learning PvP in this game.

They don’t want to nerf Thief into the ground – they want to nerf a one trick pony build that relies on ridiculous burst into the ground, because it’s not fun for anyone but the Thief. Chap made it clear they intend to compensate in other areas, which means they’re conscious that a nerf to burst will affect the class’ overall viability.

watch out, Chap didn’t say “we’re going to nerf thieves”, he said “we’re going to nerf spike dps BUILDS on SOME CLASSSES”.

Warriors, engeneers and mesmers will really love this.

And i’m wondering how they’re going to make offense to trump defense by lowering spike dps builds.

Intriguing.

I’m sure the thieves will like getting some survivability somewhere else sometime without having to spam death blossom or a bugged stealth. Whatever else happens after will happen. Its not like people will spec less bunker over this in tournaments but it has to be done.

I dont even think the burst type thief /shatter mesmers are thát bad off in the survivability department. Not like an engi and arguably Warrior.

Mrbig.8019:

watch out, Chap didn’t say “we’re going to nerf thieves”, he said “we’re going to nerf spike dps BUILDS on SOME CLASSSES”.

He posted it in the Thief forums in a thread called “Time to Nerf Backstab.” I’m sure Greatsword Warriors are quaking in their boots right now.

Too bad quote doesnt exactly work, but meh:

“Just wanted you guys to know we’re looking at this specifically right now. We will probably bring down the raw spike DPS for some builds, but we’ll be careful to increase other areas to compensate.”

So they might nerf Thief, and then buff their lacking areas to compensate for this. So they could nerf the thief’s burst, but buff our health pool, which is the lowest.

At the end of the day, the question remains, how will people who cry about thieves without learning how to beat them, beat the good thieves that will continue to play because they love the class, and not because it’s FOTM? I myself will always play a thief, even if it’s the lowest on the totem pole because I enjoy the playstyle, as I did with Deception Assassin in SW:TOR. What excuse will you have when the thieves relearn their class and still beat you then?

Too bad quote doesnt exactly work, but meh:
“Just wanted you guys to know we’re looking at this specifically right now. We will probably bring down the raw spike DPS for some builds, but we’ll be careful to increase other areas to compensate.”
So they might nerf Thief, and then buff their lacking areas to compensate for this. So they could nerf the thief’s burst, but buff our health pool, which is the lowest.
At the end of the day, the question remains, how will people who cry about thieves without learning how to beat them, beat the good thieves that will continue to play because they love the class, and not because it’s FOTM? I myself will always play a thief, even if it’s the lowest on the totem pole because I enjoy the playstyle, as I did with Deception Assassin in SW:TOR. What excuse will you have when the thieves relearn their class and still beat you then?

Learning how to beat a thief isn’t always the case. I just logged off, nerd raging because a thief killed me in less than 2 seconds in spvp on my mesmer. There is no learning curve there. i couldn’t even perform an action before i was downed. Thats not fun for me and although I could imagine how it would be amusing at first for a thief, it would get old quickly, I’d assume.

ShiftSide.3645:

Too bad quote doesnt exactly work, but meh:
“Just wanted you guys to know we’re looking at this specifically right now. We will probably bring down the raw spike DPS for some builds, but we’ll be careful to increase other areas to compensate.”
So they might nerf Thief, and then buff their lacking areas to compensate for this. So they could nerf the thief’s burst, but buff our health pool, which is the lowest.
At the end of the day, the question remains, how will people who cry about thieves without learning how to beat them, beat the good thieves that will continue to play because they love the class, and not because it’s FOTM? I myself will always play a thief, even if it’s the lowest on the totem pole because I enjoy the playstyle, as I did with Deception Assassin in SW:TOR. What excuse will you have when the thieves relearn their class and still beat you then?

Learning how to beat a thief isn’t always the case. I just logged off, nerd raging because a thief killed me in less than 2 seconds in spvp on my mesmer. There is no learning curve there. i couldn’t even perform an action before i was downed. Thats not fun for me and although I could imagine how it would be amusing at first for a thief, it would get old quickly, I’d assume.

LOL! A mesmer complaining about thieves ^^, now I’ve seen everything on this forum, between fightning 2 thieves and a mesmer..I prefer the 2 thieves as they’re by far less OP than mesmers, as a matter of fact I’d prefer Anet to leave thieves alone and rather nerf that absurd shatter build which deal unavoidable 12-16k dmg every 8-10s on top of 6-8 stack of confusion-bleeding-vulnerability

By the way :" MESMER SHATTER BUILD NERF INCOMING" Ohh kitten YEA!! About kittening time!

At the end of the day, the question remains, how will people who cry about thieves without learning how to beat them, beat the good thieves that will continue to play because they love the class, and not because it’s FOTM?

maybe they will have a chance to learn to beat good players? but GOOD players deserve to win most fights. its what makes them GOOD. they know their abilities, when to chain them and how to work within the limitation of their character. With thieves at the moment its still easy to tell whom the good thieves are but even the terrible ones can follow the back stab patter with ease due to rendering bugs.

i really have no problem with thieves being able to hit hard. i and i think most of the community have a problem with them being able to hide in stealth doing it. Having the illusion of a chance is far better then the dismay of no chance. (yes i am aware and have used aoes to live through a thief. its the main reason i have my necro… whenever i get to pissed off on my ranger i log him in and start well / mark dropping thieves and just out tank them.)

nooo, please don’t nerve thief dps and buff their other stats for that, burstdamage thiefs are too predictable, love farming them, don’t take that from me

There are a lot of professions out there that have higher bursts than thieves and also higher survivability, if they are to nerf thieves AGAIN thous profession should get the same treatment.

Anything that nerfs thieves, in any way, I’m all for.

Volrath.1473:

There are a lot of professions out there that have higher bursts than thieves and also higher survivability, if they are to nerf thieves AGAIN thous profession should get the same treatment.

what other class can pull 15k in 1.5sec with little to no skill or setup required?

Certainly not thieves, warriors Easley can and with more that 1 spec and more that 1 weapon set for example.

Volrath.1473:

Certainly not thieves, warriors Easley can and with more that 1 spec and more that 1 weapon set for example.

got any screen shots of that? There have already been numerous thief screen shots.

sorry more like 22k

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/18353/gw003.jpg

I run a thief sometimes, however my backstabs don’t hit very hard like 3-5k at most since I’m not specced for that build.

Kneru.8014:

At the end of the day, the question remains, how will people who cry about thieves without learning how to beat them, beat the good thieves that will continue to play because they love the class, and not because it’s FOTM? I myself will always play a thief, even if it’s the lowest on the totem pole because I enjoy the playstyle, as I did with Deception Assassin in SW:TOR. What excuse will you have when the thieves relearn their class and still beat you then?

My question is how many FOTM will reroll away from thieves when they can no longer use the same few buttons to beat each different class.

Also dont be silly. The excuse we all want to say is ‘i got outplayed’. Thats the whole current issue. Thieves wont outplay you, but they will often beat you. Inb4 duelling theorycraft. Not talking fake imaginary duels.

Arheundel.6451:

ShiftSide.3645:

Too bad quote doesnt exactly work, but meh:
“Just wanted you guys to know we’re looking at this specifically right now. We will probably bring down the raw spike DPS for some builds, but we’ll be careful to increase other areas to compensate.”
So they might nerf Thief, and then buff their lacking areas to compensate for this. So they could nerf the thief’s burst, but buff our health pool, which is the lowest.
At the end of the day, the question remains, how will people who cry about thieves without learning how to beat them, beat the good thieves that will continue to play because they love the class, and not because it’s FOTM? I myself will always play a thief, even if it’s the lowest on the totem pole because I enjoy the playstyle, as I did with Deception Assassin in SW:TOR. What excuse will you have when the thieves relearn their class and still beat you then?

Learning how to beat a thief isn’t always the case. I just logged off, nerd raging because a thief killed me in less than 2 seconds in spvp on my mesmer. There is no learning curve there. i couldn’t even perform an action before i was downed. Thats not fun for me and although I could imagine how it would be amusing at first for a thief, it would get old quickly, I’d assume.

LOL! A mesmer complaining about thieves ^^, now I’ve seen everything on this forum, between fightning 2 thieves and a mesmer..I prefer the 2 thieves as they’re by far less OP than mesmers, as a matter of fact I’d prefer Anet to leave thieves alone and rather nerf that absurd shatter build which deal unavoidable 12-16k dmg every 8-10s on top of 6-8 stack of confusion-bleeding-vulnerability

By the way :" MESMER SHATTER BUILD NERF INCOMING" Ohh kitten YEA!! About kittening time!

Lol you are so full of kitten : p

Dont get me wrong Mesmers are OP as kitten, i have one, i know. But if they really do all that you’re saying, the guy has specced 30-30-30-30-30 and he never keeps any clones or spells for survivability and you should be able to nuke him down with focus fire. Their burst is also much much easier to see coming than a thief and certainly does less.

You fight 2 thiefs, i’ll fight that 1 mesmer tyvm.

I’m a Condition Mesmer who melts glass cannons, and I support this message.

You forgot to say that you “melt them in seconds”!

It always amazed me that they intended for players to be able to hit anyone for over 5k damage. Considering how low player health is in comparison, it’s like they want the game to be played like it’s Quake, or something.

If the lowest health possible for a player in your game is about 15,000, you’d think you’d design the game so that even by stacking buffs, min-maxing a build and so on, the most damage a single combo in the game could ever do would be about half of that, and would take either coordination or a lot of time to set up. One person just running in from behind, stunning you and doing 20,000 damage in 2 seconds is just asinine.

Maybe it’s just my personal preference talking. I think combat in MMOs should be more about decision-making and long term performance, not just surprise ganking someone and then walking off bragging, “You should have reacted to my god mode mode faster, noob!”

The degree of skill that is required to defend yourself from damage should be equal to the skill required to cause it in the first place.

In order to kill someone instantly with a thief, you have to be able to press three buttons within a couple seconds of each other.

In order to defend yourself from that same damage, you have to correctly predict where and when an invisible opponent will be attacking, save your stun breaks and execute them in .1 second, dodge in another .1 second. If these defenses are not executed perfectly, you can expect to die instantly or lose most of your health, only to die in a second attack 1 second later.

So you’re defining skill now in button presses?

A thief has to use 5-6 skills total. All you have to do is dodge, use a stun break, or a distance ability. 5 skills compared to your two max? Sounds like you got outplayed.

Then again, the number of button presses is kind of a dumb way to determine skill level.

If a thief is going to come on you, then he will most likely cast basilisk venom. That has a cast time and he gets a buff. At the very least Assassin Signet will be used. You know what’s coming next. So the whole “surprise” thing kinda goes out the window.

An invisible opponent? You can’t steal + c&d + bs from stealth. If they stealth before hand, then you should know it’s only going to last for 3 seconds. Unless of course they use SR. In which case that’s 10 seconds. Plenty of time to create some distance and get in a good position.

I agree. Playing against a BS thief is hard if you refuse to learn game mechanics and how abilities work. It’s the most punishing class to play against for being ignorant. Once you learn them, it’s very easy to tell when the thief is going to come at you bro.

Still not feeling confident in your ability to take on a BS thief? Get access to protection. Even the highest of burst classes can’t kill you when protection is up.

Now you know. More GI Joe tips to come!

Kneru.8014:

At the end of the day, the question remains, how will people who cry about thieves without learning how to beat them, beat the good thieves that will continue to play because they love the class, and not because it’s FOTM? I myself will always play a thief, even if it’s the lowest on the totem pole because I enjoy the playstyle, as I did with Deception Assassin in SW:TOR. What excuse will you have when the thieves relearn their class and still beat you then?

I think that’s fine, if/when I die to a thief that uses more than 3 keystrokes, dodges my attacks, and generally outplays me, I say “ kitten that thief was good, how do I counter that”
I never get that feeling when I die to a backstabbing noob thief..

LOL! A mesmer complaining about thieves ^^, now I’ve seen everything on this forum, between fightning 2 thieves and a mesmer..I prefer the 2 thieves as they’re by far less OP than mesmers, as a matter of fact I’d prefer Anet to leave thieves alone and rather nerf that absurd shatter build which deal unavoidable 12-16k dmg every 8-10s on top of 6-8 stack of confusion-bleeding-vulnerability

By the way :" MESMER SHATTER BUILD NERF INCOMING" Ohh kitten YEA!! About kittening time!

“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.”
Oh wait, that’s not it…
If you can dodge a backstab, you can sure as kitten dodge a shatter…

Daays.4317:

So you’re defining skill now in button presses?

A thief has to use 5-6 skills total. All you have to do is dodge, use a stun break, or a distance ability. 5 skills compared to your two max? Sounds like you got outplayed.

Then again, the number of button presses is kind of a dumb way to determine skill level.

If a thief is going to come on you, then he will most likely cast basilisk venom. That has a cast time and he gets a buff. At the very least Assassin Signet will be used. You know what’s coming next. So the whole “surprise” thing kinda goes out the window.

An invisible opponent? You can’t steal + c&d + bs from stealth. If they stealth before hand, then you should know it’s only going to last for 3 seconds. Unless of course they use SR. In which case that’s 10 seconds. Plenty of time to create some distance and get in a good position.

I agree. Playing against a BS thief is hard if you refuse to learn game mechanics and how abilities work. It’s the most punishing class to play against for being ignorant. Once you learn them, it’s very easy to tell when the thief is going to come at you bro.

Still not feeling confident in your ability to take on a BS thief? Get access to protection. Even the highest of burst classes can’t kill you when protection is up.

Now you know. More GI Joe tips to come!

Your entire premise of this argument is based on the fact that every player should save their stunbreaker for backstab thieves, and backstab thieves alone, and that every fight is 1v1, you versus the thief (this is the inherent flaw in this argument). And with regard to the “invisible opponent” comment, that mostly has to do with the stealth rendering bug which ensures the thief can pull off the entire combo virtually unseen, not that the combo can start from stealth.

And let’s not pretend like the backstab combo is hard to pull off, I laugh everytime I see this argument cause I rolled a thief myself to test it out. The fact of the matter is that the backstab combo is total cheese. This is why you see so many fotm thieves in PvP and why Anet has seen it fit to reexamine this build.

So sorry you’ll have to change your spec up after the nerf…

Bsquared.3421:

Your entire premise of this argument is based on the fact that every player should save their stunbreaker for backstab thieves, and backstab thieves alone, and that every fight is 1v1, you versus the thief (this is the inherent flaw in this argument).

And let’s not pretend like the backstab combo is hard to pull off, I laugh everytime I see this argument cause I rolled a thief myself to test it out. The fact of the matter is that the backstab combo is total cheese. This is why you see so many fotm thieves in PvP and why Anet has seen it fit to reexamine this build.

So sorry you’ll have to change your spec up after the nerf…

So what else are you using your stun break on? Against some bunker class? Do you honestly believe that’s a good decision? And if a team is running multiple stuns, why aren’t you running multiple stun breaks? They’re utility skills for a reason. Not to mention every class has a way to deal with incoming attacks with their weapon sets alone.

If you’re so scared of a BS thief entering a fight, then your team needs to keep track of him. Put a target up. Most teams run 3x bunker 2x DPS, so you’re really only going to need to use your stunbreak for that basilisk venom.

Most BS thieves look for 1v1’s or look to enter a fight late. All of which can be taken care of with proper map awareness and communication. The spec is designed to prey on those who aren’t ready. A big target sign over his head is kinda hard to miss

Now you know. More GI Joe tips to come!

@Bsquared…

As usual you’re talking gibberish, non-sense and more.
Once you dodge the backstab build ( which is way too predictable) the thief have to wait several seconds where you can easily burst him down.

Every mesmer, along with his grandma, dog and cat got 3 daze on his bar + an immobilize with teleport and if this was not enough, the burst is availalbe every kittening 15s at least with illusions on a 8-10s CD.

But no you, being the greatest player of all times can dodge every kittening time regardless of being dazed-immobilized-crippled, I really want to know how the kitten you consistently dodge shatter mesmer of a limited space like a point.

The funny thing is you, who still die from a thief backstab dare to tell me how to fight mesmers which is 100x harder, after being praised by champion illusion players for being one of their hardest foes (on ele), I can say with confidence that your comment ( once again) will be placed in the “trolling posts” section like others

So what else are you using your stun break on? Against some bunker class? Do you honestly believe that’s a good decision? And if a team is running multiple stuns, why aren’t you running multiple stun breaks? They’re utility skills for a reason. Not to mention every class has a way to deal with incoming attacks with their weapon sets alone.

If you’re so scared of a BS thief entering a fight, then your team needs to keep track of him. Put a target up. Most teams run 3x bunker 2x DPS, so you’re really only going to need to use your stunbreak for that basilisk venom.

Most BS thieves look for 1v1’s or look to enter a fight late. All of which can be taken care of with proper map awareness and communication. The spec is designed to prey on those who aren’t ready. A big target sign over his head is kinda hard to miss

Now you know. More GI Joe tips to come!

I play a bunker Ele, and run 3 cantrips (2 stunbreaks). That, plus my defensive spec, makes backstab thieves not that bad to deal with as far as staying alive. But they’re also very difficult for me to kill simply because I don’t have near enough burst damage to burn them down before they stealth/run off. Why do I have no burst damage? Because I have to spec defensively and run 3 cantrips just to avoid the instagib leaving me no option to spec for damage. This is why you see so many bunker Ele’s in PvP, because apparently Anet saw fit to nerf our damage after the BWE’s pigeonholing us into defensive support but left backstab damage insanely high inviting every noob fotm reroller to run that spec.

I tend to agree with you that backstab thieves aren’t really that big of a problem when you’re fortunate enough to see them coming and/or have stunbreaks at the ready. But it’s pretty obvious that something is wrong based solely off the sheer number of thieves encountered in sPvP. Anet seems to agree, hence the discussion they’re having internally about nerfing this particular ability.

I wholeheartedly welcome a nerf to the backstab instagib ability (which will cull the # of noob thieves in sPvP) provided that Anet provides buffs to other thief abilities and improves their general utility to make them more useful in some tPvP settings.

Bsquared.3421:

I play a bunker Ele, and run 3 cantrips (2 stunbreaks). That, plus my defensive spec, makes backstab thieves not that bad to deal with as far as staying alive. But they’re also impossible for me to kill simply because I don’t have near enough burst damage to burn them down before they stealth/run off. Why do I have no burst damage? Because I have to spec defensively and run 3 cantrips just to avoid the instagib leaving me no option to spec for damage. This is why you see so many bunker Ele’s in PvP, because apparently Anet saw fit to nerf our damage after the BWE’s pigeonholing us into defensive support but left backstab damage insanely high inviting every noob fotm reroller to run that spec.

I tend to agree with you that backstab thieves aren’t really that big of a problem when you’re fortunate enough to see them coming and/or have stunbreaks at the ready. But it’s pretty obvious that something is wrong based solely off the sheer number of thieves encountered in sPvP. Anet seems to agree, hence the discussion they’re having internally about nerfing this particular ability.

I wholeheartedly welcome a nerf to the backstab instagib ability (which will cull the # of noob thieves in sPvP) provided that Anet provides buffs to other thief abilities and improves their general utility to make them more useful in some tPvP settings.

You don’t have to run staff bunker. In fact a D/D glass cannon ele will destroy a D/D thief because of the knockdowns, burst, and lightning shield. Same with D/F. In fact a D/F hybrid build is impossible to beat as a D/D thief because of the massive amounts of immunities combined with the damage output.

You see so many bunkers ele in tPvP because of how Conquest Mode works and that it favors having 3 bunkers. One of the strongest bunkers out there is staff ele because of the team support it brings. Not because of D/D thieves killing people.

You see thieves in sPvP the most because they’re strong killers. And you’re rewarded for offense, not defense. Simple as that. Why else do you think games are filled with shatter mesmers, BS thieves, and other pure offensive classes?

Plague.5329:

It always amazed me that they intended for players to be able to hit anyone for over 5k damage. Considering how low player health is in comparison, it’s like they want the game to be played like it’s Quake, or something.

If the lowest health possible for a player in your game is about 15,000, you’d think you’d design the game so that even by stacking buffs, min-maxing a build and so on, the most damage a single combo in the game could ever do would be about half of that, and would take either coordination or a lot of time to set up. One person just running in from behind, stunning you and doing 20,000 damage in 2 seconds is just asinine.

Maybe it’s just my personal preference talking. I think combat in MMOs should be more about decision-making and long term performance, not just surprise ganking someone and then walking off bragging, “You should have reacted to my god mode mode faster, noob!”

This more then anything, that’s exactly what I thought this game would be. I was so surprised first time I fought my first thief or warrior. It’s one thing if the average health pool is 50,000 that would be a whole different ball game.

Arheundel.6451:

@Bsquared…

As usual you’re talking gibberish, non-sense and more.
Once you dodge the backstab build ( which is way too predictable) the thief have to wait several seconds where you can easily burst him down.

Every mesmer, along with his grandma, dog and cat got 3 daze on his bar + an immobilize with teleport and if this was not enough, the burst is availalbe every kittening 15s at least with illusions on a 8-10s CD.

But no you, being the greatest player of all times can dodge every kittening time regardless of being dazed-immobilized-crippled, I really want to know how the kitten you consistently dodge shatter mesmer of a limited space like a point.

The funny thing is you, who still die from a thief backstab dare to tell me how to fight mesmers which is 100x harder, after being praised by champion illusion players for being one of their hardest foes (on ele), I can say with confidence that your comment ( once again) will be placed in the “trolling posts” section like others

First thing, I rarely, if ever die to a backstab thief build for exactly the reason you state, it’s predictable (and I spec defensively with 3 cantrips). That doesn’t mean I don’t see the cheese in it and welcome a change to this mechanic in favor of adding additional utility to the thief class as a whole. Apparently, based on the linked post by the OP, Arenanet agrees…

Second, I never really intended to suggest that mesmers are easysauce and that shatter builds don’t drop me. Hell, EVERY class has dropped me on occassion, even 100B warriors when I was surprised and had all my utilities on cooldown. That being said, there is a reason Mesmers one of the more popular PvP classes out there. But the same argument people use against those saying “backstab needs a nerf” (e..g, bring a stunbreak, pre-dodge, keep moving, etc.) apply to fighting mesmers.

Don’t stand on his clones. You can see them running at you when he wracks, dodge when they go off (mind wrack has 15 second cd, you can dodge more than once every 15 seconds. I also run sigil of superior energy, so I get an extra dodge every 9 seconds while attunement swapping). Dazed is a PITA, I admit, but crippled/immobilized can be cleansed quickly and effectively by swapping to water, using cleansing wave (I run D/D), dodge rolling in water (I run evasive arcana), using cleansing fire, or popping ANY regen ability or cantrip (e.g., mistform or lightning flash). No, you will not dodge everything and you’ll be hit by shatter now and again, thank god the Ele class has such nice healing capabilities…

Yes, it’s even tougher if you’re fighting on a node and can’t leave the space for fear of him neutralizing it. But then, the same argument that people use against those saying “bunkers need a nerf” apply. That is, bring a friend or call out to your teammates for help.

Again, I never claimed that Mesmers aren’t tough to fight, they might be one of the hardest for Ele’s, but the fact remains that if have the utilities/abilites to dodge a venomed backstab, you should be able to dodge/avoid a fair amount of shatters.

Daays.4317:

You don’t have to run staff bunker. In fact a D/D glass cannon ele will destroy a D/D thief because of the knockdowns, burst, and lightning shield. Same with D/F. In fact a D/F hybrid build is impossible to beat as a D/D thief because of the massive amounts of immunities combined with the damage output.

You see so many bunkers ele in tPvP because of how Conquest Mode works and that it favors having 3 bunkers. One of the strongest bunkers out there is staff ele because of the team support it brings. Not because of D/D thieves killing people.

You see thieves in sPvP the most because they’re strong killers. And you’re rewarded for offense, not defense. Simple as that. Why else do you think games are filled with shatter mesmers, BS thieves, and other pure offensive classes?

I actually run a D/D semi-bunker with soldier’s ammy/jewel (so my power isn’t complete crap). I do far better damage than most true bunker ele’s, but get good survivability through speccing (0/0/10/30/30) and gearing. And I agree that bunkers are popular because of the nature of conquest. I disagree however that glass cannon ele’s are particularly viable in PvP however because although you CAN take down a D/D thief (with the appropriate amount of stun breaks) you’ll get rolled by almost any other class. Sure they exist, but they’re certainly not the most popular. I suppose I overstated the reason why most Ele’s roll bunker builds, it’s NOT just because of glass cannon thieves, but because of glass cannon anythings and anything that can survive your burst…

Anyone who was surprised about this has their head in the sand. Everyone knows backstab burst is going to get nerfed. It’s just a matter of when, not if.

And it will most likely be done the same way as pistol whip.

Pistol whip by itself, good ability.
Pistol whip + haste? broken.
Solution: nerf pistol whip

Backstab by itself, good ability
Backstab with damage increasing utility skills? broken
Solution: nerf backstab

Hundred Blades by itself, good ability
Hundred Blades + Haste? broken
Solution: nerf 100 blades

Mindwrack by itself, good ability
Mindwrack stacked with more than 3 illusions? broken
Solution: nerf mindwrack

I think it would be ideal if there were no damage increase traits, skills or so on through the whole game. It just creates min-maxing problems and causes the min-maxed versions of the skills to be the new normal, and the skills themselves to be worthless unless you’ve min-maxed them. +10% damage if… +5% damage if… and so on. Those sorts of things do not need to exist, especially when there’s a world of other possibilities to choose from, many far more interesting and rewarding.