Guild Wars 2

Why the hell would they nerf d/p blinding powder? Its not like thieves were to tanky to begin with. Nobody even ran this build in competitive play and they come out with this… not to mention d/d, p/d and any sort of condition is still unviable… now we HAVE to play s/d even more than we did before… Better start spamming that 3 to be viable again.

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

Poplolita.2638:

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

It’s been like this for 2 years

No reason to nerf it now tbh

Poplolita.2638:

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

I seriously doubt it was for the reason you mention. The skill has a stronger function outside of blinding a downed person. One of them being that it will likely not be possible to stack 3 stacks of stealth off heartseekering through it, along with the shorter attack durations between reapplying.

T raw.4658:

Poplolita.2638:

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

It’s been like this for 2 years

No reason to nerf it now tbh

That’s like saying; because you’ve not been able to walk for 2yrs there’s no reason to repair your spinal cord now.

T raw.4658:

Poplolita.2638:

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

It’s been like this for 2 years

No reason to nerf it now tbh

It it’s broke, don’t fix it.

Not a big deal.

Dirame.8521:

T raw.4658:

Poplolita.2638:

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

It’s been like this for 2 years

No reason to nerf it now tbh

That’s like saying; because you’ve not been able to walk for 2yrs there’s no reason to repair your spinal cord now.

+1 for the awesome metaphor

Dirame.8521:

T raw.4658:

Poplolita.2638:

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

It’s been like this for 2 years

No reason to nerf it now tbh

That’s like saying; because you’ve not been able to walk for 2yrs there’s no reason to repair your spinal cord now.

No its more like saying because you keep bowling gutter balls now we’ll put up bumpers and give you a trophy

LOL this is hardly a nerf. BP>HS spam will be alive and well. Thieves will still be the hardcounter to all other power/glass specs.

It’s like warriors whining about adrenaline when everybody knows how quickly it builds up anyways.

T raw.4658:

Dirame.8521:

T raw.4658:

Poplolita.2638:

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

It’s been like this for 2 years

No reason to nerf it now tbh

That’s like saying; because you’ve not been able to walk for 2yrs there’s no reason to repair your spinal cord now.

No its more like saying because you keep bowling gutter balls now we’ll put up bumpers and give you a trophy

So are you that bad a Thief that everything else already kills you?

cheese.4739:

T raw.4658:

Dirame.8521:

T raw.4658:

Poplolita.2638:

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

It’s been like this for 2 years

No reason to nerf it now tbh

That’s like saying; because you’ve not been able to walk for 2yrs there’s no reason to repair your spinal cord now.

No its more like saying because you keep bowling gutter balls now we’ll put up bumpers and give you a trophy

So are you that bad a Thief that everything else already kills you?

No I’m saying you are bad for standing inside a 100 unit circle blinding field dying to a thief

Keep up.

What is the nerf?

lol apprently there were still people sitting in BP instead of moving one step out of circle, anet had to make it easier for clickers who stand still…

definitely promoting skillfull gameplay right here xD

pvp aside, it is actually bigger hit on pve thieves where BP was rather mandatory in some fights… aye Anet, keep nerfing thief group utility in pve, it will certanly go well~

P.S. i loved the buff to stability in GM trait (that requires stealth) in the trait line that has absolutely nothing to do with stealth… oh my sides, someone help me XDDD

Dirame.8521:

T raw.4658:

Poplolita.2638:

Probably because of it easily counters downed state #2?

It’s been like this for 2 years

No reason to nerf it now tbh

That’s like saying; because you’ve not been able to walk for 2yrs there’s no reason to repair your spinal cord now.

No it is more like:
This skill was kitten for 2 years.
No reason to buff it now.

What many people seem to forget is that the condition blind used to be removed by swinging at the air. No, seriously, this was the design for over a year.

This was the only reason BP was “balanced”. Anet buffed blind and made it so it required you to connect a hit to a target (which then missed due to blind) before it disappeared.

Also, I’m sure that those claiming you can stand outside the blind circle simply haven’t tried it or are terrible at playing thief. Is the opponent standing outside your BP circle with a melee weapon? Move to the opposite side and force him to walk in if he wants to be in range for melee. What’s that? He won’t follow you in? HS through your field for full damage + stealth → backstab, BP on top of him, repeat process until he dies while you have full HP. Any skilled thief knows how to force the opponent into the field (or simply put the field on top of the player if he moves out).

Didn’t anyone find it funny that Anet gave warriors a Grandmaster trait that was specifically supposed to deal with blind, yet it could not counter BP and thief blind spam? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Brawler's_Recovery

Yasha.5963:

What is the nerf?

Wow, I just read them, those are some pretty severe nerfs. Was d/p used much outside of hotjoin? Most people seemed to be running S/d or S/p.

Weird that there was no reduction of initiative on bp to go with halving its strength. What do you think triggered the nerf? Again I have only seen people crying about s/d thieves so it is a bit surprising to see the d/p set nerfed so hard.

Kharr.5746:

What many people seem to forget is that the condition blind used to be removed by swinging at the air. No, seriously, this was the design for over a year.

This was the only reason BP was “balanced”. Anet buffed blind and made it so it required you to connect a hit to a target (which then missed due to blind) before it disappeared.

Also, I’m sure that those claiming you can stand outside the blind circle simply haven’t tried it or are terrible at playing thief. Is the opponent standing outside your BP circle with a melee weapon? Move to the opposite side and force him to walk in if he wants to be in range for melee. What’s that? He won’t follow you in? HS through your field for full damage + stealth -> backstab, BP on top of him, repeat process until he dies while you have full HP. Any skilled thief knows how to force the opponent into the field (or simply put the field on top of the player if he moves out).

Didn’t anyone find it funny that Anet gave warriors a Grandmaster trait that was specifically supposed to deal with blind, yet it could not counter BP and thief blind spam? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Brawler's_Recovery

wars have no room to complain about BP as long as zerker stance and combustive shot exist

Black powder have for far too long been overpowered. It’s been a cheap way to trade autoattacks, disrupt, and put space between melee wielding enemies.

For people saying that it did not matter because the enemy should not be walking inside a little circle that blinds, and hence reducing the pulses promotes less skilldependant gameplay; You are wrong.

Basicly since any half-decent player would not ever do that. Which only made the skill result in stale and boring gameplay, of course not in terms of the projectile itself and the skills combo attainabilites.

If you thought that was what differentiated the opponents and your skill, there’s something wrong with the optimization of your profession, build and gameplay.

This is a completely justified nerf, absolutely nothing to complain about other than the initative cost was not increased.

Cynz.9437:

wars have no room to complain about BP as long as zerker stance and combustive shot exist

If blind wasn’t such a big problem in PVP, warriors wouldn’t be forced to run zerker stance and LB. Combustive shot is the only burst skill that isn’t completely wasted when blinded. There’s a good reason no warrior can go into competitive PVP without those two. Nerfing blind will allow warriors to switch up their builds a bit more, which will make blind more effective since fewer warriors will have a hard counter (berserker stance) to it.

Kharr.5746:

Cynz.9437:

wars have no room to complain about BP as long as zerker stance and combustive shot exist

If blind wasn’t such a big problem in PVP, warriors wouldn’t be forced to run zerker stance and LB. Combustive shot is the only burst skill that isn’t completely wasted when blinded. There’s a good reason no warrior can go into competitive PVP without those two. Nerfing blind will allow warriors to switch up their builds a bit more,

I was thinking along the same lines. Pretty sure Anet showed warriors and thieves together just to demonstrate that the thief/warrior nerfs were balanced to each other.

Yasha.5963:

Yasha.5963:

What is the nerf?

Was d/p used much outside of hotjoin?.

Not really, but you cant balance 100% of the time around Arena matches. Imagine a new player coming into this game and going into pvp and just getting roflstomped by the blinds being re-applied. It would be a giant turn off, especially when mixed in with all the other broken hot join builds, and a lot of people would be turned off by the pvp experience.
Now before people go “Hurr duur who cares about hot joins” you gotta remember not everyone is going to jump right into Arenas. So if Anet doesnt start to fix broken builds then their pvp base wont grow because not enough people will get past the terrible hot join experience.

Nanashi.5704:

Yasha.5963:

Yasha.5963:

What is the nerf?

Was d/p used much outside of hotjoin?.

Not really, but you cant balance 100% of the time around Arena matches. Imagine a new player coming into this game and going into pvp and just getting roflstomped by the blinds being re-applied. It would be a giant turn off, especially when mixed in with all the other broken hot join builds, and a lot of people would be turned off by the pvp experience.
Now before people go “Hurr duur who cares about hot joins” you gotta remember not everyone is going to jump right into Arenas. So if Anet doesnt start to fix broken builds then their pvp base wont grow because not enough people will get past the terrible hot join experience.

This is very true. Hot join are 99% of us started, and it is where new pvp’ers will start. If they only encounter the very unbalanced hot join builds – why would they think it is better in arenas? I know quite a few players who left PvP because of thinking it was like hot join…

I do currently enjoy wrecking hot join builds with my d/p thief though

I always thought BP was way overpowered as it had a similar effect and duration as Well of Darkness from necros, but BP has a better combo field effect and lacks the 50 second cooldown. I get that it’s a lot of initiative and a smaller radius, but it creates a lot more blinds than WoD could.

the 6 ini cost on BP used to mean a lot more before the ini regen boost. it needed toning down since it hardly requires the ini management it once did.

d/p has only taken a backseat to s/d in team play because of the strength of the boon rip and inherent survivability in the current boon heavy, high sustain meta. Not because of any functional inferiority. it’s simply the better tool for the job at the moment.

Kharr.5746:

Cynz.9437:

wars have no room to complain about BP as long as zerker stance and combustive shot exist

If blind wasn’t such a big problem in PVP, warriors wouldn’t be forced to run zerker stance and LB. Combustive shot is the only burst skill that isn’t completely wasted when blinded. There’s a good reason no warrior can go into competitive PVP without those two. Nerfing blind will allow warriors to switch up their builds a bit more, which will make blind more effective since fewer warriors will have a hard counter (berserker stance) to it.

my point is, BP aoe is tiny and you can walk out of it and still fight… with combustive shot you either stay and die in it or you walk out but then you can’t really fight warrior as melee class

I’m just wondering how I’m supposed to secure a stomp with offhand pistol vs rangers, engis, necros, guardians, and warriors now….. I might have to get better on engi because it at least has mechanics that work…

nyqwist.2360:

Black powder have for far too long been overpowered. It’s been a cheap way to trade autoattacks, disrupt, and put space between melee wielding enemies.

For people saying that it did not matter because the enemy should not be walking inside a little circle that blinds, and hence reducing the pulses promotes less skilldependant gameplay; You are wrong.

Basicly since any half-decent player would not ever do that. Which only made the skill result in stale and boring gameplay, of course not in terms of the projectile itself and the skills combo attainabilites.

If you thought that was what differentiated the opponents and your skill, there’s something wrong with the optimization of your profession, build and gameplay.

This is a completely justified nerf, absolutely nothing to complain about other than the initative cost was not increased.

3/10 troll

Last sentence ruined it mate

Hype.8032:

I’m just wondering how I’m supposed to secure a stomp with offhand pistol vs rangers, engis, necros, guardians, and warriors now….. I might have to get better on engi because it at least has mechanics that work…

Y’know how it still reliably blinds, just not so spammily?
Y’know how you can avoid their #2 attack with dodges or blocking with terrain, and if they’re timing this around a blind it’ll be easy to predict?

“oh no this thing I was abusing is slightly less exploitable so now I’m useless!”

Hype.8032:

I’m just wondering how I’m supposed to secure a stomp with offhand pistol vs rangers, engis, necros, guardians, and warriors now….. I might have to get better on engi because it at least has mechanics that work…

I can never tell if there is sarcasm in these posts or not. Ranger and guardian can be a bit of trouble sometimes, I’ll give you that, but if you cant stomp any of the others without a blind then thats a giant fail on your part.

Enjoy the best build s/d while you can after the patch even that will be free kill.

Nanashi.5704:

Yasha.5963:

Yasha.5963:

What is the nerf?

Was d/p used much outside of hotjoin?.

Not really, but you cant balance 100% of the time around Arena matches. Imagine a new player coming into this game and going into pvp and just getting roflstomped by the blinds being re-applied. It would be a giant turn off, especially when mixed in with all the other broken hot join builds, and a lot of people would be turned off by the pvp experience.
Now before people go “Hurr duur who cares about hot joins” you gotta remember not everyone is going to jump right into Arenas. So if Anet doesnt start to fix broken builds then their pvp base wont grow because not enough people will get past the terrible hot join experience.

I agree hotjoin is important as well. However, players not understanding the mechanic is no reason to nerf something or call it broken. If blind was so powerful then that build would be used in tourney play, and I would easily beat everyone when I play d/p.

The change just seems to have come out of nowhere- why? What prompted this? Who decided that we better basically destroy the d/p thief build? And why would they do that when its not used that much in tourney and when there are numerous builds that counter it-even it hotjoin.

I may be mistaken but I really think it was a PvE reason it was nerfed.

That being said blind has been buffed as a condition, it’s not as easy to remove now. This kind of thing also fits with the design choices that seem to be leading up to forcing builds and classes to set up while in combat, as opposed to pre loaded burst. It seems to me end goal is to allow a bit more play between classes, but if you have a perma blind spot on point it may make counter setup via BP to strong.

I don’t think you are mistaken Daishi – I think it was for a PvE reason as well.

They definitely didn’t balance it on the use of D/P in EU. D/P is basically non-existent in EU.

ANET just wanted to try to find a way to buff warriors.

Seriously though, BP isn’t a problem for anyone who has learned not to stand in the circle.

Thieves can’t solo chief and svanir anymore!!