I don’t think the mechanics of Gw2 would allow that version of dancing dagger.
If this skill Crits on the first strike, it will continue to crit for the 2nd,3rd and 4th hit.
chances are the stun would continue on too.
No, the engine would be able to do this. It is present in the Mesmer’s pistol stun/daze/blind (first, second, third bounce).
Hooma, to address a few points:
- a 10% damage nerf is massive. Given that LS is one of our main sources of damage (it has the highest coefficient of all of our damage skills), a 10% nerf is a pretty significant blow to the amount of damage we deal. People take stuff like Force Sigil and Ogre Runes for a reason; those small percentages add up. A 10% damage nerf would be like removing 200 power from somebody with 2000 power when they use LS. That’s the equivalent of 20 trait points into a power tree; it’s worth more than the amount of power you can get from a jewel and is a pretty significant amount of both stats you can get from amulets and base stats.
- Immobilize is easier to counter (with condi cleanse) than stun, which is currently what PW applies no matter what side you’re on. The initiative cost on PW makes it difficult to spam, and if you talk to most S/P players a lot of them will tell you that spamming PW is bad anyways. Infi strike only applies an extremely short immob, maybe long enough to get in a single hit.
- Caed is an extremely good thief, and Acandis is overall a very good player. Jumper himself is practically a god of the sPvP thief community. Also, if you’re going to tell somebody that he/she isn’t any good, please at least have the respect to write as though you weren’t a chicken scratching a wall…
- Any video, even one of hotjoins, can at least give a rough idea of how good a build or class is. There’s no reason to think otherwise; you can simply watch how Jumper plays and how his opponents play, and then compare them to any standards that you want to set, and you still have all of the quality of a tPvP video. There’s no reason why every vid needs to be a tPvP one…
- Dancing Dagger is extremely hard to hit due to its large windup and the linearly traveling projectile that it uses. In a D/D build it is almost impossible to use with positive effects; D/D runs on low initiative and it thus can’t be wasting time on slow-moving projectiles that probably won’t hit anyways.
- You don’t need to compare to other classes in order to determine a state of perfect balance for all classes to strive for, you just need to set out a standard for what balance should look like. After that, all balance patches just need to revolve around that idea of balance.
…Other classes are not relevant for this discussion ..
the best joke ever. alone that statement shows that you have no idea what balancing means. i hope its just a joke. or do we really need 8 suggestions from biased “pros” like u to balance the game? must be a really enjoyable game u try to create.. so why not call in your friends for other “pro” suggestions?
i start to wonder if other classes are not relevant, why u need them to justify some suggestions?
I completely agree with this. It is 100% true and whoever says otherwise is wrong.
snip
11k with no aegis or protection. That’s a fair amount considering an elementalist can do the same thing, if not more, with less telegraphs and still offer more support to their team, right?
And what can D/P Trickery do? 25% less damage but with a game-changing steal every 21 seconds that interrupts stability/aegis stomps and resses and a plethora of blinds and other interrupts? I for one would still choose trickery. But those who prefer pure damage wouldn’t be at such a huge disadvantage anymore now would they?
Indeed, full glass eles can pull off 11k with two arcane utilities and crits on lightning strike & air attunement. Which also means the ele has ONE utility to provide some sort of defense. This could be arcane shield or lightning flash. None will cut it. Thief can use stealth or shadowstep to get out of trouble. And no, you don’t offer much team support as your boons are only applied to allies within 240 radius. Not exactly a wide circle..
Sorry for off-topic, but I just thought it would be fair to take the whole thing into consideration when you make a comparison between thief burst and ele burst. There’s more to it than just the burst part.
I wouldn’t discount the 15-20 might blasting, aoe crowd control, and the ability to force dodges with churning earth.
But you are right, both thief and ele have pros and cons to their burst builds and shouldn’t be compared to eachother in terms of raw damage, or at all rather. The main comparison I was getting at was the comparison of D/D DA vs D/P Trick giving up a HUGE amount of utility for little damage, similar to the current state of fresh air ele.
(edited by Jumper.9482)
the best joke ever. alone that statement shows that you have no idea what balancing means. i hope its just a joke. or do we really need 8 suggestions from biased “pros” like u to balance the game? must be a really enjoyable game u try to create.. so why not call in your friends for other “pro” suggestions?
i start to wonder if other classes are not relevant, why u need them to justify some suggestions?
Now I know you’re trolling. Riot devs use this reasoning all the time. “It doesn’t matter if Tryndamere can hit 500 damage a hit at level 6. That doesn’t mean everyone else has to. Tryndamere’s damage is balanced for Tryndamere.” I see you as the type of person who would compain “Corki’s R is weaker than Ezreal’s Q! Fix it!”. Even though Ezreal is balanced for Ezreal and Corki is balanced for corki.
well i must have missed the point gw2 is a moba. otherwise i would tell that the rules are different and for that another balancing approach is needed.
but after reading this sentence it seems u hasnt understand what the developer was telling. sometimes its hard to read between the lines, but thats def. the case here. and honestly i think you are trolling very hard. so regarding buffs different classes are relevant but not regarding nerfs.
I absolutely love most of these changes, though I disagree with just a few of the nerfs (I cbf posting which, it’s not like Anet is going to magically implement your list anyway, as amazing as that would be).
That being said, WHAT THE HELL MAN? YOU CAN’T ASK FOR TEEF BUFFS, STEALTH OP, EVADES OP, THIEF OP, THIEFHITFOR2KBETTERNERFALLISVAIN!
Hooma, to address a few points:
1 a 10% damage nerf is massive. Given that LS is one of our main sources of damage (it has the highest coefficient of all of our damage skills), a 10% nerf is a pretty significant blow to the amount of damage we deal. People take stuff like Force Sigil and Ogre Runes for a reason; those small percentages add up. A 10% damage nerf would be like removing 200 power from somebody with 2000 power when they use LS. That’s the equivalent of 20 trait points into a power tree; it’s worth more than the amount of power you can get from a jewel and is a pretty significant amount of both stats you can get from amulets and base stats.
2 Immobilize is easier to counter (with condi cleanse) than stun, which is currently what PW applies no matter what side you’re on. The initiative cost on PW makes it difficult to spam, and if you talk to most S/P players a lot of them will tell you that spamming PW is bad anyways. Infi strike only applies an extremely short immob, maybe long enough to get in a single hit.
3 Caed is an extremely good thief, and Acandis is overall a very good player. Jumper himself is practically a god of the sPvP thief community. Also, if you’re going to tell somebody that he/she isn’t any good, please at least have the respect to write as though you weren’t a chicken scratching a wall…
4 Any video, even one of hotjoins, can at least give a rough idea of how good a build or class is. There’s no reason to think otherwise; you can simply watch how Jumper plays and how his opponents play, and then compare them to any standards that you want to set, and you still have all of the quality of a tPvP video. There’s no reason why every vid needs to be a tPvP one…
5 Dancing Dagger is extremely hard to hit due to its large windup and the linearly traveling projectile that it uses. In a D/D build it is almost impossible to use with positive effects; D/D runs on low initiative and it thus can’t be wasting time on slow-moving projectiles that probably won’t hit anyways.
6 You don’t need to compare to other classes in order to determine a state of perfect balance for all classes to strive for, you just need to set out a standard for what balance should look like. After that, all balance patches just need to revolve around that idea of balance.
1. he compensates this nerf with other dmg buffs… so no i dont fall into that trick. in my opinion ls should not do any dmg. thats like saying quick shot or stalker strike on ranger needs a dmg buff. s/d has evade, teleport and boonsteal on demand. i think the UTILS should not be the main source of dmg.
2. immob is harder to counter as a stunbreak. last time i played nearly all condition cleanses have a activationtime and skills/traits ignoring a bound to some recharge time. interesting argumentation. so pw is not spammable already, thats why we need something against spammable pw. your argumentation doesnt follow his logic
3. be a good player doesnt make his suggestions better. im sure some monkey can better speak sign language than me. but that doesnt mean they have a better understanding. u can believe me, a “semi pro” with all champion titles and a more general view understands the game better than this ppl. thinking in a little box isnt that what this game needs.
if someone tells me he needs xxx ignoring he already has xxx tells me he can maybe play class y but hasnt understand the class or build.
4. so hot join = tpvp and tpvp heroes like jumper, caed or sensotix are the only ones we should listen, cause playing 100000 games makes your biased suggestions better. but every suggestion a hot join player makes is automatic bad and makes the game worse.
5. so the speed of the projectile is bad, thats why we dont increase the travel speed?
6. just lol. i can imagine the game after all the pros have done his suggestions and every class was balanced in a nutshell. can u tell me why a thief should get more condi cleanses? i dont see thiefs applying that massive condis.. or its a fact that u cant balance in a class-nutshell?
(edited by hooma.9642)
Things I disagree with:
Headshot – Daze duration increased to the original amount (pre-nerf) when interrupting the target.
I think headshot is fine as is. It is used as an interrupt, not to spam chain dazes on people.
Shadowstep – Increased cooldown to 60 from 50.
Other utilities should be brought up to Shadowstep, not the other way around. Utilities should be strong and I feel like the majority of them are unappealing. Why nerf the few good ones instead of making the others more appealing and bringing variety to the things people play? On top of this Shadowstep is a thief’s only reliable condition clear outside of Hide in Shadows.
Shadow Refuge – Increased cooldown to 70 from 60.
I do not see the point in increasing the cooldown. This skill compared to others has counter-play to it. It tells people where you are for he duration and you can be knocked out of it. This is unnecessary.
Debatable:
Executioner – Reduced extra damage when target is below 50% from 20% to 15%.
I don’t see this as a necessary nerf but it won’t really affect much and people will still take it regardless.
Sleight of Hand – Decreased steal cooldown reduction to 10% from 20%.
The amount could be argued, but this in tandem with the trait line change you proposed is probably too much. I’d argue to 15%.
Trickery Traitline – Decreased steal recharge reduction gained from traitpoints spent by 33%.
Again, watch what you touch because if you touch a little bit of everything then it all adds up and has a fairly large affect on internal balance.
What I want the most:
Disabling Shot – Added a ~0.25 second aftercast to add counterplay and discourage endless chaining of this skill for evasion purposes.
I believe all weapon skill evades should have a window of vulnerability. This promotes reactionary evades as opposed to proactive ones. Instead of spamming 3 until your initiative gets low you have to use it at the right time. Chaining evades forever is skill-less and boring to play against.
Overall:
I agree with most everything else. I think Jumper offers a lot of interesting idea’s and changes to abilities that are fairly balanced and sound fun to play. One last thing I’m unsure about is Runes of Perplexity. I think adding them would see a large shift in meta and I don’t know how I feel about it. All in all, good post, good ideas, and mainly fair suggestions.
Caed~
P.S. Something I would suggest is changing the hit radius on Shadow Strike (3) in Pistol/Dagger. The cone for the hit box is extremely small and frustrating to play with the extremely fast (and silly) cast animation.
(edited by Narcarsis.5739)
One last thing I’m unsure about is Runes of Perplexity. I think adding them would see a large shift in meta and I don’t know how I feel about it.
Caed~
I agree. I would actually like to see more traits (for all professions) linked to successful interrupts. Mesmers get halting strike that can hit for upwards of 3-4k on a squishy target. They also get might on interrupt. Warriors get confusion on interrupts.
Instead of introducing perplexity runes, I would love more “interrupt” traits; because they are skillful.
Disabling Shot – Added a ~0.10 second aftercast to add counterplay and discourage endless chaining of this skill for evasion purposes.
If that’s your goal, 0.1 isn’t really enough.
Headshot – Daze duration increased to the original amount (pre-nerf) when interrupting the target.
I can’t recall the prenerf duration, was it 0.5? This is a fun mechanic (reward success) but success in itself for a headshot is already rewarding, because it sets a cooldown on something. I’d much rather see this skill do something such as "deals X% (2? 4? 5?) times more damage on interuption.
Dancing Dagger – Increased cost from 3 to 5 initiative. Damage increased by 33% (~66% of the original). Now stuns first foe hit when hit from behind for 0.25 seconds. Increased aftercast by 50%. (optional:) If stun is triggered, no additional bounces are applied.
Probably still rather bad, however beyond this point I’m just rather unsure that Dancing D is the skill that offhand dagger needs. Pistol holds the “crowd control” aspect of thief offhands, so we’re kinda overlapping here. The skill probably just needs to be completely changed, because right now, it makes almost no sense to use it with any weapon set.
However, if it is going to stay, the projectile at least needs to be sped up.
Bah, iunno. Perhaps if it did more damage or inflicted a meaningful condition for a meaningful amount of time (8 sec of weakness?), you’d see it used.
Heartseeker – Increased aftercast by 20%.
Why not, sure.
Cloak and Dagger – Increased cast time by 10%. Decreased aftercast by 33%. Increased damage to the original amount up from 66% to match WvW and PvE.
C&D certainly needs to be more rewarding, there’s no arguing here.
[Leaping] Death Blossom – This skill now ignores aftercasts and cancels other skills in queue. Increased initiative cost by 2 to 6 from 4. Increased damage by 25%. Reduced bleed duration by a similar amount.
I can’t agree with this, mostly because you’re killing the (rare, but how fun!) DD bleeder thief for no reason really. The base damage is pitiful, so 25% of that is just as poor. The evade is 0.25 seconds, which is absolutely dreadful, especially since the animation is so misleading. Most of the time, you’re using it to avoid something specific and still get hit. So perhaps this should be looked at.
Tactical Strike – Increased daze duration by 0.5 seconds.
Shrugs.
Larcenous Strike – Increased boonsteal from 1 to 2. Decreased damage by 10%. Increased cost from 2 to 4 initiative. This ability now restores 2 initiative upon hitting a target.
Should more skills have initiative gains on hit like this?
Pistol Whip – Increased damage by 15%. Increased initiative cost by 1 to 6 from 5. This ability now immobilizes when hitting from the front and stuns when hitting from the side or behind the foe.
What’s the logic behind this/these change/s?
Vital Shot – Increased rate of fire by 20%.
If anything, it’s the dreadful aftercast that needs to be looked at. With a 0.5 cast time, this skill never gets more than 9 bleeds up on the target with max condi duration; which means that the aftercast is like, 0.45 sec.
Sneak Attack – Increased base damage by 10%
Doubt it’ll be useful for zerker thieves anyway, and the base damage isn’t that meaningful to other thieves. Not sure of the motive behind this one.
Unload – Reduced base damage by 25%. Damage is now increased by 15% of the new base damage per condition on target (eg. 109% original damage at 3 conditions). Increased initiative cost from 5 to 6. Now chains into “Laced Shot” for 3 seconds.
(New) Laced Shot – Stays toggled for 3 seconds. Cost 3 initiative. 0.50 second cast. 214 base damage. 100% projectile finisher. Transfers 1 condition to your target.
This should just replace body shot.
Infiltrator’s Return – Increased initiative cost from 2 to 3. Cast time reduced to 0.10 seconds from 0.25 seconds. This ability now ignores aftercasts and cancels skills in queue.
Unsure that nerfing the thief’s only weapon-related spot condition removal is the way to go, but I might be biased because I love my sword.
Blinding Powder – This skill is now a stunbreak. Increased cooldown to 50 seconds from 40.
Still don’t think I’d use it.
Ice Drake Venom – combined with Spider Venom. The next three attacks chill and poison foes.
Ice spider venom is new name. ™’ing that.
Scorpion Wire – Increased projectile speed/improved tracking. Increased base damage by 200% to 366 from 122.
Eh, why not. These need some love.
Roll for Initiative – Reduced cooldown to 40 seconds from 60.
Infiltrator’s Signet – Increased cooldown to 35 seconds from 30.
I’d rather look into buffing other signets.
Tripwire – Increased damage by 250% to 256 from 73. Cooldown lowered to 25 from 30.
Needle Trap – Increased damage by 250% to 283 from 81. Cooldown lowered to 25 from 30.
Ambush Trap – Doubled Thief’s health. Cooldown lowered to 25 from 30.
Still not worth using. Traps just don’t seem to fit thieves, as weird as this sounds. You want to be aggressive, not let people come onto you. These just need to go completely.
Shadow Refuge – Increased cooldown to 70 from 60.
Shadowstep – Increased cooldown to 60 from 50.
Don’t think that’s necessary, especially with RFI being more competitive.
Signet of Malice – Reduced active base heal by 50%. Your next attack will steal 50% damage dealt as health. Application is removed upon miss. Increased cooldown to 25 seconds from 15.
Increasing the cooldown to 25 would really kitten over the passive aspect of it. This also adds a lot of burst (life stolen = damage dealt) and we’re kinda back to pre-nerf assassin’s. Too binary of a change, I can’t like it.
Also, doesn’t function in any shape or form for condi thieves, which is sad.
Dagger Storm – reduced cooldown to 75 seconds from 90. Increased rate of fire (and therefore dps) by 33%. Decreased duration from 8 to 6 seconds.
Should be categorized as a trick to benefit from trait CD reduction as well.
Thieves Guild – reduced cooldown to 145 seconds from 180. Doubled Thieves’ health.
So 16k HP? They’re harder to kill than the thief itself!
This skill now ignores aftercasts and cancels other skills in queue. Increased initiative cost by 2 to 6 from 4. Increased damage by 25%. Reduced bleed duration by a similar amount.
I support this. Some hypothetical kitten in my head that might disagree with this, but it sounds quite reasonable. a 6 ini cost means that degenerate useless weak spam that pops up every once in awhile isn’t even remotely appealing, but it becomes a more practical dodge, with the damage to justify it.
Some things like dancing dagger, don’t sound right to me, given you’ve mentioned nothing about its kitten velocity that is fairly relevant to its success, of which it has little atm.
Increased projectile speed/improved tracking. Increased base damage by 200% to 366 from 122.
On the low while I agree with fixing the problematic hitrate of scorpion wire, I think it should remove a boon instead of a damage increase.
The thief is pretty much the third strongest boon remover behind necro and Mesmer, but lacks any utility skills to do so cementing it into bountiful theft or Flanking strike. This just increases the premium on bountiful theft, and makes it even more desirable than it would be had it some form of competition. In addition to this both Trickster and Bountiful theft, compete for the major slot (unless someone sacrifices their GM), and by letting a Trick have half the boon removal of Bountiful theft, it will start to increase the pick-up rate of Trickster. Making the skill increase it’s own pick-up rate and utility at a base level, and increasing the frequency of a trait pick up.
tl;dr: Take same pressure off Larcenous and Bountiful by giving another alternative.
I agree with boosting traps, but their cooldowns are pretty much fine where they are.
The traps should “ideally” cause a significant moment of vulnerability, but they need not do so frequently.
And S/P isn’t a 1-button build, wot. It’s been for eons one of the most diverse in skill usage (when PW hasn’t been broke by anet) build of the thief, rivalling the shortbow and D/P. Simply because every skill is functional even if Inf strike isn’t as lovely as it once was.
P/P falls in more simplistic areas however given that it’s damage is lacking everywhere else, where S/X doesn’t have that issue given the strength of the auto-chain, and S/P’s lack of snares outside of Inf strike, giving headshot use as an interrupt since you are not always in range for PW’s. BP’s to stomp, and team support. Yeah not sure where that 1-button experience is coming from.
There’s some good stuff in here, going to say BP shouldn’t stun break.
Be nice if it was ground-targetted like its original implementation though, would be plenty of use for that vs Shadow refuge at it’s current CDR. Not saying I agree with everything else but these are what caught my eye initially.
(edited by ensoriki.5789)
while i agree with some changes and i do question other
- perplexity runes have no place in pvp imo, it is already terrible rune set and shouldn’t have been introduced at all… there is already too much condition flying around, i would rather less of it than more
- nerf to stealth might cause huge complains from pve community since stealth is about only reason why ppl take thieves in “hard” content, while i understand where you are comming from i don’t think pve community (which is majority of this game) will do
- i think i am not only person who is sick and tired of AI and would rather see less of it, so i think buffs to thief guild, dog and trap are unnecessary
- traps: i think traps need to be completely redesigned because even if you lower CD on them and up the dmg, i personally would still never use them… i think traps should be team utility fields kind of like water field…
- i kind of do like poison and smoke bomb change, i personally don’t use them as much due to slot limitation i think it could be usefull for certain builds
- i think the issue with revealed and last refuge will still persist with this change, i do like current last refuge (despite the issue) since there were quite few times when i could do absolutely nothing while being knocked around and dazed for my entire HP bar (cough engis) and last refuge did save my kitten there… if your proposed change would be applied it actually would force me to stop from any agressive actions for few sec :/
- i miss old pistol daze :’(
- dagger training: i think it is hella massive buff to d/d… while i understand that d/d doesn’t have as much utility as other sets i think d/d already does quite a lot of dmg compared to other sets, the only issue is that CnD is very unreliable… i would rather add some utility to CnD and death blossom maybe than give flat 13% dmg increase to d/d.. this is comming from person who played d/d for a while an had to drop it due low utility in pvp :/
oh lastly, can you add tow line change so it doesn’t daze thief himself on use :/
(edited by Cynz.9437)
I approve of this message.
Not a bad list, but a few questions/comments
(edited by evilapprentice.6379)
Dear OP
+1
Pretty cool ideas , only applicable if other professions (warrior, necro mainly ) would get toned down as well (as heavily as you’re suggesting for Thief).
I think that even though d/d would be boring , i’d love to see some good p/p – s/p builds in a competitive scenario.
Are those nerfs to SR,BP and to the Trickery line really necessary though?
What’s the logic behind this/these change/s?
It’s just S/P that has little room for it to be used. I was attempting to combat this (also applies to headshot) in my list via increasing the cost and damage (and positioning to incentivize the use of headshot) of Pistol Whip, making headshot and bpowder more attractive choices for moments when utility outweighed damage.
Basically, to take some utility away from S/P via initiative cost while making PistolWhip more of a “burst/use wisely” skill rather than “use this constantly in place of autoattacks”, incentivizing more use out of Headshot and Black Powder.
The positional requirement for example makes headshot far more reliable and valuable in this kit as an interrupt.
(edited by Jumper.9482)
What’s the logic behind this/these change/s?
It’s just S/P that has little room for it to be used. I was attempting to combat this (also applies to headshot) in my list via increasing the cost and damage (and positioning to incentivize the use of headshot) of Pistol Whip, making headshot and bpowder more attractive choices for moments when utility outweighed damage.
Basically, to take some utility away from S/P via initiative cost while making PistolWhip more of a “burst/use wisely” skill rather than “use this constantly in place of autoattacks”, incentivizing more use out of Headshot and Black Powder.
The positional requirement for example makes headshot far more reliable and valuable in this kit as an interrupt.
Pwhip does less damage than autoattacking, can’t be used on the move and doesn’t provide cripple and weakness, though. The tradeoff, I thought, was always the microstun and the sweet sweet evades. Would you… accept an invitation to my stream for a few minutes just to check out my pwhip/ s/p plays? I think I’ve got it pretty well.
-snip-
1. Yeah, damage is buffed to skills that aren’t even relevant to S/D… That, or they come with major nerfs as well. IS does less damage than the auto attack- it’s extremely small. The immob is also hard to utilize. We don’t have “boonsteal on demand” (it requires a relatively long amount of time for us to steal boons with LS because of the chain, and “filler” boons are generated to quickly for us to get the useful boons), teleportation is just another form of a leap (just without the finisher) and is just as predictable, and our evades are much fewer in number than most people seem to believe- and even if they weren’t, there are easy ways to take advantage of certain casts on Sword. Either way, though, Jumper suggested nerfing Feline Grace to help get rid of evasion-spamming, and I agree with him, so you can’t blame us for the evasion issues.
2. If you can counter stuns more easily than condis, then you simply need to change your build. Maybe you haven’t learned that condis appear much more often than CCs, even if CCs appear a ton. And I don’t claim to agree with every point that Jumper makes, but I don’t see any harm in making a hardly spammable skill less spammable, unless you’re some kind of big fan of spam.
3. Being a good player gives a player’s statements credibility because they have empirical data in the form of experience to back up those statements. The difference between your analogy and reality is that monkeys simply don’t have the capacity to understand things within a particularly large depth, but humans do. Thus, your analogy automatically assumes that Jumper is incapable of the same understanding that you or I can have of this game, and as there is no evidence to suggest that this is in fact true, your analogy is quite certainly faulty.
4. Did I say that hot join is the same as tPvP? No; stop lying. Everybody is to some degree biased in some manner or another to some issue unless he/she is apathetic to it. However, a single person’s bias does not affect the truthfulness of his/her statements. If I said that person X killed person Y, and I have videos, fingerprints, ballistics reports, etc to prove him guilty, but it turns out that I dislike person X, does that mean that person X is innocent? Of course not. Stop using bias as your main source of argument, it isn’t getting you anywhere. And, again, I never said that hot join players are automatically bad.
5. Because while the travel speed is bad, the utility from the skill is also extremely bad. The cripple is nice against fleeing opponents but that’s it; X/D builds are melee based (unless it’s P/D, though that weaponset has its own weaknesses anyways), and thus cripples aren’t going to be very good anyways. On top of that, any half-decent player knows that unless he or she builds specifically for mobility, fleeing from a thief is never a good option; thieves are meant to be mobile, and once you release pressure from one, he/she can rain damage down upon you easily. So certainly, for D/D and S/D, the cripple is fairly meaningless except for filler damage at a range when you’re, for example, standing on a point and don’t want to/are unable to swap weapons. For builds like D/D, you don’t have enough initiative to do that anyways. It’s easier just to keep the animation like it currently is, but to buff the skill so that it becomes a high risk, high reward skill.
6. Thieves only have two realistic ways to be able to condi cleanse at a reliable time right now: SA IV and Sword #2. SA traits are hardly ever taken because they just make stealth builds more gimmicky than they already are; it’s usually better to just play on the edge of a razor with a stealth build and either kill your opponent quickly or be killed. S/D can condi cleanse reliable with IR, but with the cast it’s become more difficult to do so. However, overall thief builds suffer from a lack of diversity because so many builds are vulnerable to conditions- that’s a major reason why P/D and P/P builds are weak, and it heavily limits D/X options. No idea how the number of condis thieves can apply has any relevance to whether or not we should buff our own condi cleansing.
Pwhip does less damage than autoattacking, can’t be used on the move and doesn’t provide cripple and weakness, though. The tradeoff, I thought, was always the microstun and the sweet sweet evades. Would you… accept an invitation to my stream for a few minutes just to check out my pwhip/ s/p plays? I think I’ve got it pretty well.
Pretty sure its the same dps.
I’ve played my share of S/P. Most of the time when I did, I always thought… “When am I ever going to use black powder rather than just PistolWhip evading this?” or “When will I ever use Headshot other than extremely rare cases when somehow I get out of range of my target?”.
Pwhip does less damage than autoattacking, can’t be used on the move and doesn’t provide cripple and weakness, though. The tradeoff, I thought, was always the microstun and the sweet sweet evades. Would you… accept an invitation to my stream for a few minutes just to check out my pwhip/ s/p plays? I think I’ve got it pretty well.
Pretty sure its the same dps.
I’ve played my share of S/P. Most of the time when I did, I always thought… “When am I ever going to use black powder rather than just PistolWhip evading this?” or “When will I ever use Headshot other than extremely rare cases when somehow I get out of range of my target?”.
It’s statistically the same dps, we’re talking digits %‘s lower, so I take that point back. I think they both have plenty of uses, and I feel that overall, s/p is the set that uses the most out of all of its different skills. Headshot is instant and ranged and can be chained to lock someone down, and black powder is obviously a stomper’s favourite and always good when facing warriors, guardians and other thieves. Shrugs. Maybe I’m bad.
Back many months (pre-haste nerf) when I dueled S/P against Caed, I would simply predict alot of his backstabs, turning around and catching him in a PistolWhip stun. If not, accidentally evading his backstab.
For warriors I’d just rather interrupt his eviscerate/shieldbash/etc with a Pistol Whip, evading anyone else who was hitting me that may have not been in powder range.
(edited by Jumper.9482)
Situationality is situational, right?
Back many months (pre-haste nerf) when I dueled S/P against Caed, I would simply predict alot of his backstabs, turning around and catching him in a PistolWhip stun. If not, accidentally evading his backstab.
For warriors I’d just rather interrupt his eviscerate/shieldbash/etc with a Pistol Whip, evading anyone else who was hitting me that may have not been in powder range.
I’ve done it against every D/P I’ve faced. Why? Black powder isn’t a sufficient defense, it’s just reality. It’s not ground-targetted, you can’t plant it on anyone without putting yourself in melee range. Against a D/P thief, the can stealth at will while S/P has to utilize Headshot to try and counteract it, otherwise S/P is frankly put on the defensive, and the only tools that will actually aid you in that situation was shadow return and PW.
Headshot deals trash damage, which means it’s entire purpose is utility, utilizing headshot means a heavy dip in offense via Inf strike/PW, and putting more pressure on your auto attack.
It’s just real tea, S/P uses pistol whip, because Black Powder is a pbaoe defense that is frankly mediocre at that purpose hence out of S/P, D/P and P/P, D/P is the only one who gets its kitten reliably saved by that, and thats only because the leap finisher is stealth. If D/P didnt have a leap finisher, it would get the exact same usage out of Black powder as S/P and P/P I’d even say S/P utilizes it more since it’s in stomp range the majority of the time. Otherwise it is utility, excluding certain situations such as Stability bound foes or heavy/instantinterrupt situations where the initial vulnerability of PW just doesn’t justify using it over black powder. PW’s stun takes 0.5s to interrupt, it’s not a reliable interrupt in the same vein of headshot, and for clutch interrupts headshot is the go-to skill for all /P’s.
(edited by ensoriki.5789)
Look at D/P. You have to constantly be on your toes and thinking, do I need to blind the next hit? interrupt it? or would it be best to lay down a powder and get a heartseeker stab off? Ok I have him 3k hp. Should I risk a heartseeker? I think he’s about to use Earthquake so I’d be better off closing the gap with Shadow Shot to blind it.
An infinite amount more depth than S/P or P/P atm.
That last example was a duel I watched between Zoose and Caed, btw. Zoose was 3k hp and Caed closed the gap and went in with a heartseeker. Zoose saw this coming and pre-casted Earthquake and it stopped Caed’s heartseeker. One 8k Phoenix and it was gg. A shadowshot there would have won that.
And I have plenty more examples like that.
Atm S/P is just ‘pistolwhip everything except in very extreme circumstances’. Same with P/P and unload.
(edited by Jumper.9482)
I do enjoy most of the these changes and agree that Trickery needs a nerf overall, but I’d like to see Sleight of Hand stay as it is and nerf the priority of Bountiful Theft. Good job on the list Jumper, keep it comin. I’m in favor of anything to make the game less spammy.
I just think if it were made that PW didn’t interrupt from the front, for example,
It would be nice to have to go “Oh, I can’t just press 3 anymore, I have to interrupt his eviscerate with a headshot or dodge or powder it instead”.
I literally am dumbfounded at this notion that S/P doesn’t use headshot when it does it’s like saying P/P has no use for headshot when it does (not that it can really afford a damage dip)
Even further by this exaggeration of powder given its most frequent purpose on D/P.
Even further ignoring whats been real tea since forever Black powder sucks as a defensive skill.
This seriously comes into light when you look at S/P and P/P and hell ignore their duals. Black powder isn’t defensively suitably for that purpose given its cost. Not that it’s a weak skill by any stretch of the imagination but there is an explicit reason only 1 out of 3 sets sees more frequent use of it, and it’s not because of dual skills lol. It zones out melees, can’t stop range, and S/P vs D/P, while S/P can pistol whip the fault remains on D/P for themself walking into a 0.5s skill predictably (because thats exactly what is happening) when notable D/P can just watch the root occur and counter attack. Given S/P’s only defense in that circumstance afterwards is to dodge roll or utility skill given after the root finishes, you can just be smacked while shadow returning now.
Frankly my presumption is you’re looking at it at a D/P vs S/P standpoint (given the examples you have given), where frankly D/P has the advantage, especially given that S/P’s root is more pronounced with Shadow returns cast time. D/P’s do walk into Pistol whip, I’ve seen plenty of them do so, so I won’t say it doesn’t happen. However the reality is that fault is on them.
(edited by ensoriki.5789)
Immobilize or stun are so similar when you’re facing an evading target, though. If anything, it’d be stronger because stability wouldn’t do squat anymore.
I like these. Particularly how it gives S/D back it’s utility role while adding some risk/reward mechanics.
This seriously comes into light when you look at S/P and P/P and hell ignore their duals. Black powder isn’t defensively suitably for that purpose given its cost. Not that it’s a weak skill by any stretch of the imagination but there is an explicit reason only 1 out of 3 sets sees more frequent use of it, and it’s not because of dual skills lol.
I actually used black powder alot on my perplexity P/P build.
Interrupt 1-3 skills then try to blind/dodge the rest so I could get some damage in via confusion.
(It’s also a decent replacement for evasion and stealths when throwing in range and the 20% on auto/100% projectile blind on headshot)
(edited by Jumper.9482)
That death blossom change is meaningless. The skill needs retooling because it’s on a weaponset with no condition support, and as we can see with rangers and eles hybrid weapons don’t work compared to specialized ones (why power based warrior and mesmer skills are better, and why necro and engineer condi weapons are better).
Remove the bleeds from leaping death blossom, and make it either apply 7 vulnerability stacks or so or place weakness on it if you want to make it a defensive skill.
Quite frankly it should be the cleave damage alternative to the dagger, so its damage should be buffed by a good amount and its power scaling as well.
Pistol Whip should apply some stacks of cripple per strike the target suffers. Or vulnerability.
If the rest of the changes happen, especially the elites, they must be spvp exclusive. Thieves are outright broken in WvW and these spike buffs and mobility buffs will break them even more in a format where you don’t have the holding of points to keep them in check.
(edited by Zenith.7301)
the best joke ever. alone that statement shows that you have no idea what balancing means. i hope its just a joke. or do we really need 8 suggestions from biased “pros” like u to balance the game? must be a really enjoyable game u try to create.. so why not call in your friends for other “pro” suggestions?
i start to wonder if other classes are not relevant, why u need them to justify some suggestions?
Now I know you’re trolling. Riot devs use this reasoning all the time. “It doesn’t matter if Tryndamere can hit 500 damage a hit at level 6. That doesn’t mean everyone else has to. Tryndamere’s damage is balanced for Tryndamere.” I see you as the type of person who would compain “Corki’s R is weaker than Ezreal’s Q! Fix it!”. Even though Ezreal is balanced for Ezreal and Corki is balanced for corki.
Sorry Jumper. I agree with most of your Thief changes, but Riot Devs balancing is an utter joke. If you want to discuss real balancing you should always refer to Icefrog from DotA.
The very fact that the Lead Balance Dev at Riot was fired from Guild Wars 2 Balance Team should scream something to you.
Now I know you’re trolling. Riot devs use this reasoning all the time. “It doesn’t matter if Tryndamere can hit 500 damage a hit at level 6. That doesn’t mean everyone else has to. Tryndamere’s damage is balanced for Tryndamere.” I see you as the type of person who would compain “Corki’s R is weaker than Ezreal’s Q! Fix it!”. Even though Ezreal is balanced for Ezreal and Corki is balanced for corki.
this paragraph confused the hell out of me. what the kitten is a corki
Now I know you’re trolling. Riot devs use this reasoning all the time. “It doesn’t matter if Tryndamere can hit 500 damage a hit at level 6. That doesn’t mean everyone else has to. Tryndamere’s damage is balanced for Tryndamere.” I see you as the type of person who would compain “Corki’s R is weaker than Ezreal’s Q! Fix it!”. Even though Ezreal is balanced for Ezreal and Corki is balanced for corki.
this paragraph confused the hell out of me. what the kitten is a corki
Its one of the characters from League of Legends.
-snip-
-blah blah-.
sorry never read so much stupid kitten about thiefs or balance
so its not enough that some skills have some util. and for that a reason to use. no they should always make more dmg then autoattack. and even thats not enough they should also provide more util. mmh i think we should buff throw axe on warrior main hand axe. there is no gap closer. and that little dmg + cripple is soooooooooooo bad. so i suggest 10 secs stun, 10 stacks might, 10secs burning for the start. u know, to get the ppl a reason to use it.. the obvious reason isnt enough.
the rest is a lot of blah blah… u should read ur past posts to have at least a argumentation that follows some pattern..
and as last point u hasnt answered my question. 2 condicleanses are enough for thief if we follow your and jumpers logic. or is the thief a condition applying monster that the thief needs so many condicleanses? your argumentation and jumpers just jumps in and out.. balance in a nutshell, no balance in a nutshell, looking to other classes, not looking to other classes, some util. arent there, then they arent enough and more such kitten. every time exact that justification what better fits your argumentation. i get tired of such stupid things.
Jumper.9482 I thought you left the game. Better leave again and take your “improvements” list with you.
Jumper.9482 I thought you left the game. Better leave again and take your “improvements” list with you.
how can u say that? all the fanboys will cry if a master of cheese leaves the game.
The trolling is strong with these ones. This thread is someone’s opinion, and he’s entitled to it. You can disagree, but chill with the personal attacks.
A lot of people seem to be against cutting the S/D Thief’s endurance gains by 50%…
Or is it maybe the cutting of Trickery’s steal reacharge gains by 40%?
Or maybe its the MASSIVE UNREASONABLE 10% BUFF that is being proposed for a massively underpowered and underused weapon set (D/D).
Yeah, that must be it.
I agree with Caed, our go-to utilities don’t need nerfed at all, the worse utilities need to be buffed to come up to them. Nearly every build I run (including s/d) has inf signet, shadow step, and shadow refuge and you propose to lengthen the CD on all of them?
I also don’t understand the view that d/p trickery is OP like you’re claiming. I’ve played it as my primary build before and after dec 10th and it has hardly changed. However, before dec 10th it was widely viewed as underpowered and not worth using. I understand what you’re trying to do but I disagree with the baseline for your balancing. You don’t see d/p thieves rampaging across the mists like warriors/necros have in recent months, they’re not in the same league.
All in all I probably support more than half your suggestions so that’s good I guess. I’ve long believed that s/d needs a reason to use c/d and TS so maybe your proposed changes would be enough for that?
However, before dec 10th it was widely viewed as underpowered and not worth using.
Actually it has been on-par with the S/D Acrobat since the Trickery changes were first introduced.
At the moment one on each team is practically required in group play for that incredibly overpowered/gamechanging 21s cooldown aegis+stab intterruption.
However, before dec 10th it was widely viewed as underpowered and not worth using.
Actually it has been on-par with the S/D Acrobat since the Trickery changes were first introduced.
At the moment one on each team is practically required in group play for that incredibly overpowered/gamechanging 21s cooldown aegis+stab intterruption.
Calling d/p trickery required compared to say a bunker guardian in teams isn’t an equal comparison. But god forbid a thief having a role in a team right? I don’t see anything that makes that spec op, it wasn’t required before dec 10th and it wasn’t really buffed (you can argue it was but in my experience it’s roughly on par with before). The only reason why it’s considered required at all right now is because s/d was nerfed.
I’m not trying to be combative or insult you in any way, I’m just really surprised you think that spec is OP.
(edited by Hype.8032)
I’d argue that Thief was nearly required before December 10th, as well.
I think the build is pretty well-balanced, I would only make a few small tweaks, and very slowly to see the repercussions. I’d up the CD on Shadowstep by 10s, and possibly lower the CD decrease on Steal from Sleight of Hand by 5% down to 15% (I was debating putting that change in my document thing, but I decided against it for now). Outside of that, the build is powerful and useful, but it’s because of its combination of utility, decent spike, and map mobility. I think the right approach is to provide equally viable alternatives for other classes, without upsetting the important niche that the Thief is currently filling.
I don’t understand the desire to increase the cd on shadowstep. Isn’t it the only utility that thieves have that can remove conditions?
The functional changes to the thief seem quite well thought out. The only issue I think people are running into is some of the specific numbers. Which honestly is more Arena nets fault.
There really doesn’t seem to be a reasonable reference point in the game anymore. In this sense how is it possible to suggest exact changes when imo there are 8 different reference points, all of which are undesirable. People can argue based on preference but that doesn’t seem like it is going anywhere.
Really Anet needs to create a new reference point, created outside the context of Gw2 and within the context of a competitive game. From there suggestions can be targeted around that reference point which has to be in a pretty kitten good place to get the support of most players. And really middle finger to anything that uses the current game as a reference.
Disabling shot nerf must be done with initiative regen buff they can spam that skill like a boss. Thats all.
Update:
Scorpion Wire (Thanks to ensoriki)- Improved heatseeking to 100%. Now steals 1 boon (Applied before pull, same priority list as Bountiful Theft). Increased cooldown from 20 to 45 seconds.
I think this would be a fair and interesting implementation, balanced around the cooldown and fact you may only steal either stability or aegis rather than both like Sleight of Bountiful Theft.
However, before dec 10th it was widely viewed as underpowered and not worth using.
Actually it has been on-par with the S/D Acrobat since the Trickery changes were first introduced.
At the moment one on each team is practically required in group play for that incredibly overpowered/gamechanging 21s cooldown aegis+stab intterruption.Calling d/p trickery required compared to say a bunker guardian in teams isn’t an equal comparison. But god forbid a thief having a role in a team right? I don’t see anything that makes that spec op, it wasn’t required before dec 10th and it wasn’t really buffed (you can argue it was but in my experience it’s roughly on par with before). The only reason why it’s considered required at all right now is because s/d was nerfed.
I’m not trying to be combative or insult you in any way, I’m just really surprised you think that spec is OP.
Point is it’s not really required.
There are plenty of teams running without thief in EU, but we know NA has always been another world.
Thief fills a nice niche, dunno why it should be nerfed even further (buffed maybe) and D/P trickery (which is not even the stronges trickery build) is a strong build, nothing more.
Mesmer can do the same with diversion-boon rip, with an average 30 secs CD ( with illusion invigoration) but with multiple dazes ( that, right now, are free mind wracks) but nobody complains ( i think it’s balanced).
Jumper, you’re talking about ripping stab stomps like a ridicolous overpowered mechanic, while in reality, stability stomps have ALREADY small counterplay.
We need more counterplay, i would argue to make stability ALWAYS first in boon rippings priority, even corrupt boon.
So people will finally start to learn to wait instead of spamming AoEs at first sight ( or corrupt boons as soon as you see MOAR BOONS)
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