Guild Wars 2

Honestly these 2 lines seem OP like hell

Panic Strike + executioner + Master and GM traits acrobatics are crazy imho.

We’ll have thief s/d more op than ever with this stuff

http://dulfy.net/2015/04/24/gw2-specializations-ama-livestream-notes/

The thing about it is that all classes are getting that kind of global buff, and while the traits are fantastic I think the amulet and rune choice will be just as critical.

The question is if or how much they are adding stats to Amulets and Runes to me. These traits will need to be tempered with lower stats so that an S/D thief can’t OHKO people while being untouchable.

Exactly. So many people are complaining about traits without having any understanding of how the stats will work.

Also, exactly how many top thieves even play s/d? I think the OP is about 6 months in the past. Saying that it will be “more op than ever”? The OP also didn’t play when they first buffed skill 3.

Amulets and runes change are the same for everyone.

These traits are really huge.

How do you want to bet Thief/Mesmer and Guardian will be always top tier like zerker classes?

Thief most of all. Thief s/d was just an example cuz amazing acrobatics line, a thief d/p will be amazing at the same time.

Personally, I felt DA seemed pretty OP as well, honestly… But I guess we’ll see…

Alexander.9810:

The thing about it is that all classes are getting that kind of global buff, and while the traits are fantastic I think the amulet and rune choice will be just as critical.

The question is if or how much they are adding stats to Amulets and Runes to me. These traits will need to be tempered with lower stats so that an S/D thief can’t OHKO people while being untouchable.

From playing both S/D and D/P recently, honestly while S/D has a ton of evades, that D/P perma Blind is just as bad and can already carry the full critical strikes line.

I switched to D/P just recently and went for Executioner instead of Panic strike and well I dont get hit very often at all, probably less so than I ever did with S/D.

D/P will likely not need the Acro line in this new trait system and you will see Panic Strike + Executioner D/P builds that are OH MY.

Its going to be interesting to see how it plays out.

P.S. I realize this may mean I was just a bad S/D thief.

No one will take executioner now though. Improvisation is in the same line and tier, and has become better, with a permanent 10% boost, allowing stolen skills to be used twice, and being able to recharge any skill the thief has, including withdraw and hide in shadows. The critical strikes line as we saw it has actually been nerfed by all the previous damage modifiers becoming critical damage modifiers, yet with the numbers remaining the same; this may change though as they repetitively said they are working on the functionality and haven’t done their pass over the new traits to balance numbers yet.

Acrobatics endurance has been overall reduced, but most importantly thieves that just spam dodged won’t be rewarded as much anymore; baiting dodges will actually work vs them because their endurance return will require a successful evade. Fluid strikes is gone, that’s 10% damage lost. Hard to catch finally got the change it’s needed for so long, but likely won’t get used much because Swindler’s Equilibrium is much better for S/*. Don’t stop is an interesting but dangerous trait. Too low and it’s too unreliable and won’t be used, but too high and it’ll be too much of a counter to builds with reliance on projectiles such as ranger and warrior. We need more information on it.

Shadow arts is actually quite interesting now, since it isn’t going to cost offensive stats to go in to. We might actually see what was once a joke - the "ninja nurse" - becoming a thing. Shadow step to and stealth your downed ally and res them while you both take 50% reduced incoming damage. It’s stronger than protective reviver, except you lose capture contribution. Blinding powder on steal is also an interesting idea.

Swindler’s equilibrium + improvisation can be over the top for a s/d thief.

In general I agree there are really huge traits for thief.

PS They buffed vigor? I see 120% end regen now instead of old 100%

Impact.2780:

No one will take executioner now though. Improvisation is in the same line and tier, and has become better, with a permanent 10% boost, allowing stolen skills to be used twice, and being able to recharge any skill the thief has, including withdraw and hide in shadows. The critical strikes line as we saw it has actually been nerfed by all the previous damage modifiers becoming critical damage modifiers, yet with the numbers remaining the same; this may change though as they repetitively said they are working on the functionality and haven’t done their pass over the new traits to balance numbers yet.

Acrobatics endurance has been overall reduced, but most importantly thieves that just spam dodged won’t be rewarded as much anymore; baiting dodges will actually work vs them because their endurance return will require a successful evade. Fluid strikes is gone, that’s 10% damage lost. Hard to catch finally got the change it’s needed for so long, but likely won’t get used much because Swindler’s Equilibrium is much better for S/*. Don’t stop is an interesting but dangerous trait. Too low and it’s too unreliable and won’t be used, but too high and it’ll be too much of a counter to builds with reliance on projectiles such as ranger and warrior. We need more information on it.

Shadow arts is actually quite interesting now, since it isn’t going to cost offensive stats to go in to. We might actually see what was once a joke – the “ninja nurse” – becoming a thing. Shadow step to and stealth your downed ally and res them while you both take 50% reduced incoming damage. It’s stronger than protective reviver, except you lose capture contribution. Blinding powder on steal is also an interesting idea.

Well I have no idea on panic strike as I havent tried it yet, but executioner on DP, well Cele eles have become a far less problem than they ever were on S/D for me. S/D just couldnt produce the damage needed.

Im fairly new and likely have a low MMR and might need to adjust soon, but as of right now, Im very happy with critical strikes D/P with Pack runes as it stands now. I guess because I have no reference of what the damage used to be, it seems pretty high damage to me very quick.

MarkPhilips.5169:

PS They buffed vigor? I see 120% end regen now instead of old 100%

Don’t overlook the minor traits!

Lower reveal back to 3 secs and with the trait system change, I will start using D/D again…

nightblood.7910:

Well I have no idea on panic strike as I havent tried it yet, but executioner on DP, well Cele eles have become a far less problem than they ever were on S/D for me. S/D just couldnt produce the damage needed.

Im fairly new and likely have a low MMR and might need to adjust soon, but as of right now, Im very happy with critical strikes D/P with Pack runes as it stands now. I guess because I have no reference of what the damage used to be, it seems pretty high damage to me very quick.

Remember you’re not just getting executioner though. You’re getting 300 precision and 300 ferocity with it, which also makes your sigil procs more reliable. More crits, higher crits, more sigil procs, and executioner. These changes will see the stats you would get from trait lines added in part to your base stats and in part to the gear you equip, meaning you would not be getting 300 precision and 300 ferocity - you’d already have that elsewhere - you’d only be picking up executioner.

Wow…Deadly arts seems overwhelmingly OP at first go. Taking Trapper’s respite (due to INSANE synergy with instant-cast withdraw), Panic Strike, and Improvisation (flat 10% damage increase is statistically the same damage as executioner but with goodies). The automatic, uncounterable immobilize spam with high burst damage is an incredibly strong combination, even before getting the stuff from other trait-lines.

Also, shadow arts is now hilariously OP too, with 50% damage reduction in stealth. Now stealth truly is invulnerability (from practical aspects).

I truly hope that a strong balance pass nerfs a LOT of class traits out of the stratosphere.

They probably have gone too far with Deadly Arts.
Minors are awesome and even what currently could be seen as no brainer choices, like executioner and mug, have serious contestants on Improvisation and Needle Trap (we will have tosee how well sinergyzes with withdraw, it might be totally insane).

On top of that, without stats tied to traitlines and both Executioner and Critical Haste gone, Critical Strikes looks underwhelming and completelly unnecessary.

It kinda looks like Deadly Arts + Trickery would be enough to outperform any current Thief build, and they will get full access to Acrobatics or Shadow Arts (which never were bad, just left the character with too litle damage or utility) on top of it.

BlackBeard.2873:

Wow…Deadly arts seems overwhelmingly OP at first go. Taking Trapper’s respite (due to INSANE synergy with instant-cast withdraw), Panic Strike, and Improvisation (flat 10% damage increase is statistically the same damage as executioner but with goodies). The automatic, uncounterable immobilize spam with high burst damage is an incredibly strong combination, even before getting the stuff from other trait-lines.

Also, shadow arts is now hilariously OP too, with 50% damage reduction in stealth. Now stealth truly is invulnerability (from practical aspects).

I truly hope that a strong balance pass nerfs a LOT of class traits out of the stratosphere.

I believe the 50% damage reduction stacks with protection.

Don’t forget that improvisation will also be able to recharge thief heals, since the heals will now be tricks/deception/whatever.

Meh.

I bet Anet ran out of things to nerf on the thief. So they decided to buff them only to nerf them even harder a month or two later. I’m calling it now.

Gabriell.4856:

Meh.

I bet Anet ran out of things to nerf on the thief. So they decided to buff them only to nerf them even harder a month or two later. I’m calling it now.

This mentality is one reason why people are so wary. Even though this line clearly is kind of OP, if it goes live and eventually receives (justified) nerfs, every thief will qq the old chorus of “waaaa, we are the most nerfed class” even though thief has always been necessary on every competitive team-comp, EVER.

Honestly from looking at it though, initiative management is only in the trickery line. Where in Critical Strikes now you gain 1 initiative on crit. 50% chance on crit every 5 seconds.

So I think some balance was put in there with the initiative management aspect.

Basically youre going to have to run the Trickery line for any initiative management.

And yet we dont have any mechanic to deal with stealth outside of spamming random aoes, cleaves and guess when they attack – and even when we outplay stealth classes by block/blind/dodge them they wont get revealed luls gut balance gut

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet we dont have any mechanic to deal with stealth outside of spamming random aoes, cleaves and guess when they attack – and even when we outplay stealth classes by block/blind/dodge them they wont get revealed luls gut balance gut

Ohh you must play WvW.

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet we dont have any mechanic to deal with stealth outside of spamming random aoes, cleaves and guess when they attack – and even when we outplay stealth classes by block/blind/dodge them they wont get revealed luls gut balance gut

Ohh you must play WvW.

Once in a while when im bored, i jump in and pewpew everything tha moves. What it has to do with broken mechanic tho that has no real counter other than guess game?

Or may we give warrior f1 unblockable/unblidnable and undogable attack so you have to guess when to move out of range? How does that sound? Ill be fine with such change personally.

It’s funny how the hatred for S/D totally blinds some people’s perception. If anything you should be afraid of the new d/p panic strike build.

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet we dont have any mechanic to deal with stealth outside of spamming random aoes, cleaves and guess when they attack – and even when we outplay stealth classes by block/blind/dodge them they wont get revealed luls gut balance gut

Ohh you must play WvW.

Stronghold.

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet we dont have any mechanic to deal with stealth outside of spamming random aoes, cleaves and guess when they attack – and even when we outplay stealth classes by block/blind/dodge them they wont get revealed luls gut balance gut

Ohh you must play WvW.

Once in a while when im bored, i jump in and pewpew everything tha moves. What it has to do with broken mechanic tho that has no real counter other than guess game?

Or may we give warrior f1 unblockable/unblidnable and undogable attack so you have to guess when to move out of range? How does that sound? Ill be fine with such change personally.

sure on a 60 sec CD with a 1 sec cast, ill just use roll for initiative, withdraw, shadow return, or infultrators return and evade it.

This is the part that many mistake as stealth, Ive watched so many swinging at the air when I have shadow returned or infiltrator returned. Its not stealth, we left.

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet we dont have any mechanic to deal with stealth outside of spamming random aoes, cleaves and guess when they attack – and even when we outplay stealth classes by block/blind/dodge them they wont get revealed luls gut balance gut

Ohh you must play WvW.

Once in a while when im bored, i jump in and pewpew everything tha moves. What it has to do with broken mechanic tho that has no real counter other than guess game?

Or may we give warrior f1 unblockable/unblidnable and undogable attack so you have to guess when to move out of range? How does that sound? Ill be fine with such change personally.

sure on a 60 sec CD with a 1 sec cast, ill just use roll for initiative, withdraw, shadow return, or infultrators return and evade it.

I would like to see that, before you do all this stuff my killshot already will 1 shot ko you

Thanks for reduced casttime from 1.25 to 1sec btw.

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet we dont have any mechanic to deal with stealth outside of spamming random aoes, cleaves and guess when they attack – and even when we outplay stealth classes by block/blind/dodge them they wont get revealed luls gut balance gut

Ohh you must play WvW.

Once in a while when im bored, i jump in and pewpew everything tha moves. What it has to do with broken mechanic tho that has no real counter other than guess game?

Or may we give warrior f1 unblockable/unblidnable and undogable attack so you have to guess when to move out of range? How does that sound? Ill be fine with such change personally.

sure on a 60 sec CD with a 1 sec cast, ill just use roll for initiative, withdraw, shadow return, or infultrators return and evade it.

I would like to see that, before you do all this stuff my killshot already will 1 shot ko you

Thanks for reduced casttime from 1.25 to 1sec btw.

You really dont know much about thief do you? All of those are instant cast times, I said “or” for a reason.

The only time I ever get hit with kill shot now is if its far enough away and I dont see it.

Regardless my point of that was not to get into this, but to point out that many mistake shadow stepping for stealth (I did to at first when I played other classes), thus they assume that thieves have all this stealth and they dont.

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet we dont have any mechanic to deal with stealth outside of spamming random aoes, cleaves and guess when they attack – and even when we outplay stealth classes by block/blind/dodge them they wont get revealed luls gut balance gut

Ohh you must play WvW.

Once in a while when im bored, i jump in and pewpew everything tha moves. What it has to do with broken mechanic tho that has no real counter other than guess game?

Or may we give warrior f1 unblockable/unblidnable and undogable attack so you have to guess when to move out of range? How does that sound? Ill be fine with such change personally.

sure on a 60 sec CD with a 1 sec cast, ill just use roll for initiative, withdraw, shadow return, or infultrators return and evade it.

I would like to see that, before you do all this stuff my killshot already will 1 shot ko you

Thanks for reduced casttime from 1.25 to 1sec btw.

You really dont know much about thief do you? All of those are instant cast times, I said “or” for a reason.

The only time I ever get hit with kill shot now is if its far enough away and I dont see it.

Regardless my point of that was not to get into this, but to point out that many mistake shadow stepping for stealth (I did to at first when I played other classes), thus they assume that thieves have all this stealth and they dont.

Animation spotting+reaction time+latency. Or you trying to imply that your ping is 1 and you have godlike reaction?

Noone mistake shadowstepping for stealth here. What im saying is that with -50% damage reduction in stealth they in fact gaining a bit too much considering how broken stealth is on it own (has nothing to do with thief btw) . Channel abilities? They will hit like a wet noodles. Aoe? Guess game that will hit like wet noodle as well. Spam 1 for cleave hoping for a lol 500 crit? Good luck. The way how stealth working now (no real counter, just purely guess game) its going to be broken as hell.

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet we dont have any mechanic to deal with stealth outside of spamming random aoes, cleaves and guess when they attack – and even when we outplay stealth classes by block/blind/dodge them they wont get revealed luls gut balance gut

Ohh you must play WvW.

Once in a while when im bored, i jump in and pewpew everything tha moves. What it has to do with broken mechanic tho that has no real counter other than guess game?

Or may we give warrior f1 unblockable/unblidnable and undogable attack so you have to guess when to move out of range? How does that sound? Ill be fine with such change personally.

sure on a 60 sec CD with a 1 sec cast, ill just use roll for initiative, withdraw, shadow return, or infultrators return and evade it.

I would like to see that, before you do all this stuff my killshot already will 1 shot ko you

Thanks for reduced casttime from 1.25 to 1sec btw.

You really dont know much about thief do you? All of those are instant cast times, I said “or” for a reason.

The only time I ever get hit with kill shot now is if its far enough away and I dont see it.

Regardless my point of that was not to get into this, but to point out that many mistake shadow stepping for stealth (I did to at first when I played other classes), thus they assume that thieves have all this stealth and they dont.

Animation spotting+reaction time+latency. Or you trying to imply that your ping is 1 and you have godlike reaction?

Noone mistake shadowstepping for stealth here. What im saying is that with -50% damage reduction in stealth they in fact gaining a bit too much considering how broken stealth is on it own (has nothing to do with thief btw) . Channel abilities? They will hit like a wet noodles. Aoe? Guess game that will hit like wet noodle as well. Spam 1 for cleave hoping for a lol 500 crit? Good luck. The way how stealth working now (no real counter, just purely guess game) its going to be broken as hell.

Its fairly obvious if a warrior is running kill shot, your animation is very slow compared to say hip shot from a rifle engi that is really hard to get out of the way of.

Hip shot can be pretty beast to thieves or at least to me, but I have yet to meet a kill shot warrior in sPvP that was problematic, now hambow warriors and all that fire can very well be a problem. As most smart ones up against a thief shoot the fire where they stand, best protection for them.

Ohh and no one runs more than 20 points SA in PvP (its a time waster and useless there) which is why I said “you must play WvW.”

Also from these traitlines we are seeing, most PvPers are going to be going for Trickery, Acro, DA. Because as I said, all the initiative management is in trickery.

I seriously doubt we will see much in SA in PvP still with this.

nightblood.7910:

Its fairly obvious if a warrior is running kill shot, your animation is very slow compared to say hip shot from a rifle engi that is really hard to get out of the way of.

http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

Will you make it in time to avoid getting hit by killshot when youre in melee range to warrior? Cause im not sure if you will be capable to get out of 1500 range considering things like camera, positioning, skill activation (rolls) and to properly aim shadow return. Now outside of reaction time rebember about latency as well.

If you can do that feel free to make a vid of “real” 1v1 where your friend will use killshot in the least excepted moment and we can take a look if you be capable to get out of range. Thats going to be interesing if you can do that in time (1 second).

I’m only worried about SA trait line allowing thief to easily reset fights while also doing amazing damage since there will be 3 gm traits to consider now.

What about SA? Rofl. 6/0/6/0/6 D/P thieves are going to be godmode.

Khenzy.9348:

What about SA? Rofl. 6/0/6/0/6 D/P thieves are going to be godmode.

Of course…that is EXACTLY what stealth needed, an unremovable buff that is worth almost 2x protection to go with high-self regen, more init regen, and condi cleanses. I think I could literally roll my face on a keyboard with this SA line and 2v1.

BlackBeard.2873:

Khenzy.9348:

What about SA? Rofl. 6/0/6/0/6 D/P thieves are going to be godmode.

Of course…that is EXACTLY what stealth needed, an unremovable buff that is worth almost 2x protection to go with high-self regen, more init regen, and condi cleanses. I think I could literally roll my face on a keyboard with this SA line and 2v1.

yea yea maybe if you go against current builds…

other classes are getting new stuff too dude… and we havent even seen elite specs…

Numbers can change to bring things into balance.

I think a big problem is that Critical Strikes has no additional functions to it that make people want to take it.

Acro has some interesting traits, the numbers between Shadow arts and Acrobatics traits aren’t quite right to make me want to take Acro over SA, but that can be tweaked.

Like I said, I seriously doubt anyone will take SA over Acro in PvP. The problem with SA is that everything has to be done in stealth.

If you are waiting out all that stuff in stealth then you are not capping/decapping, youre not attacking anything, at best you are moving from one place to another while in stealth.

Now the biggest problem I see in Acro is the option of Pain response or Vigorous recovery as current builds now use both. With that if Guarded Initiation was on say 75% health and not 100% health then that would compensate. As you could then stack some resistance through the fight.

With that said, Pain response and Hard to catch combined now will be viable as now hard to catch returns all endurance. without randomly placing you somehwere This will likely be the choice of many considering the amount of CC’s I tend to deal with as everyone wants to CC a thief.

Then Dont stop, with your minor trait of swiftness on dodge, and then evades on swiftness, then vigor on evades, Combined with Pack runes. OH MY. (In other words, no more wasted dodges when getting Rapid fired from 1500 a way while you are fighting something else and that Rapid Fire just helped you tremendously.)

With that said, Pain response combined with guarded Initiation may be viable as it shows. Though I still think guarded Initiation will have to drop to 75%, so you can gain resistance in the fight at some point by using a heal or what have you.

But still I think Hard to Catch as a stun breaker and endurance regen will be hard to pass up.

I think Acro is going to be pretty beast.

This I might be wrong in, but I think people who will choose the SA line in PvP have never run a S/D thief and understand how tanky they are with these skills, and how many dodges they can utilize.

Acro is going to bring a lot of that to D/P thief and combine it with the perma blind that D/P has instead of the evade that S/D has.

On the other hand, DA is going to bring some much needed damage to S/D.

Its going to make those two builds almost indistinguishable. Awesome gap closers on both, both having better health regen due to Pain response. S/D might have the advantage over D/P in condi clear due to infultrators return, but backstab and HS will give D/P the advantage in damage.

But I do agree critical strikes will likely be ignored unless the attribute bonuses from amulets is not enough and all that extra crit chance is needed, but as it stands right now, I dont see it being used at all.

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Its fairly obvious if a warrior is running kill shot, your animation is very slow compared to say hip shot from a rifle engi that is really hard to get out of the way of.

http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

Will you make it in time to avoid getting hit by killshot when youre in melee range to warrior? Cause im not sure if you will be capable to get out of 1500 range considering things like camera, positioning, skill activation (rolls) and to properly aim shadow return. Now outside of reaction time rebember about latency as well.

If you can do that feel free to make a vid of “real” 1v1 where your friend will use killshot in the least excepted moment and we can take a look if you be capable to get out of range. Thats going to be interesing if you can do that in time (1 second).

You dont aim shadow return. If you are using shadow step appropriately, you are aiming into the fight, and use return to get out of the fight. Sometimes I even set it some random place before going into the fight, just to see what really is happening in clock tower and will likely return if its completely out of control and nothing I do will change that or if its completely in control and nothing I will do will change that.

But Shadow return is an instant cast that returns you to the initial place you initiated it, the part where you aim. The same as Infultrator’s return though it doesnt aim just needs a target.

Its the return of Shadow step and doesnt need to be aimed. And yes, that is common to use both behind LoS blocks to get out of dodge and block projectiles.

I do it now.

Now like I said, if you were 1500 a way and I dont see you, well yeah you might just one shot me, but you can do that now anyway.

But my point in all of this as I said, was that everyone is complaining about SA and its benefits to stealth, that will only affect WvW not PvP. I seriously doubt anyone will be running the SA line in PvP its just too much time sitting in stealth and not doing your job as thief in PvP.

I’ve said that the changes to acro are good in that they punish mindless dodging, but they are far from OP. I’ll quote a post from the thief forum where someone did the very simple maths that shows just how little an extra 20% effectiveness to vigor is.

Maugetarr.6823:

Endless stamina is too weak to make up for the fact that FG doesn’t stack with vigor anymore or the loss of fluid strikes. It would need to be 50% before it’s going to make an impact on actual combat (which would be 1 more dodge every 20 seconds). I’m more or less happy about everything else though.

Math for FG and the change:

Baseline Endurance: 50(endurance)/5(endurance per second)=10 seconds per dodge

Baseline FG Endurance: 35(endurance)/(5 endurance per second)=7 seconds per dodge

Vigor Endurance: 50 (endurance)/ (5*2)(endurance per second)=5 seconds per dodge

New trait: 50 (endurance)/ (5*2.2) (endurance per second)=4.5454 seconds per dodge

Suggested trait (50% increase): 50 (endurance)/(5*2.5)(endurance per second)=4 seconds per dodge.

Current Vigor+FG: 35(endurance)/(5*2)(endurance per second=3.5 seconds per dodge

Shadow arts will make D/P overpowered. Acro won’t. The nerf is in anticipation of the fact that vigor will be near enough permanent when evades are used properly, and swindler’s equilibrium which D/P won’t be able to utilize. I don’t know how hard this will hit S/D, or how great the gap will be in effectiveness between S/D and D/P after this. I do think that the endless stamina trait does need to be a bit stronger though. Making 5 seconds down to 4.5 seconds isn’t much for a build that relies so heavily on endurance.

nightblood.7910:

Scoobaniec.9561:

nightblood.7910:

Its fairly obvious if a warrior is running kill shot, your animation is very slow compared to say hip shot from a rifle engi that is really hard to get out of the way of.

http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

Will you make it in time to avoid getting hit by killshot when youre in melee range to warrior? Cause im not sure if you will be capable to get out of 1500 range considering things like camera, positioning, skill activation (rolls) and to properly aim shadow return. Now outside of reaction time rebember about latency as well.

If you can do that feel free to make a vid of “real” 1v1 where your friend will use killshot in the least excepted moment and we can take a look if you be capable to get out of range. Thats going to be interesing if you can do that in time (1 second).

You dont aim shadow return. If you are using shadow step appropriately, you are aiming into the fight, and use return to get out of the fight. Sometimes I even set it some random place before going into the fight, just to see what really is happening in clock tower and will likely return if its completely out of control and nothing I do will change that or if its completely in control and nothing I will do will change that.

But Shadow return is an instant cast that returns you to the initial place you initiated it, the part where you aim. The same as Infultrator’s return though it doesnt aim just needs a target.

Its the return of Shadow step and doesnt need to be aimed. And yes, that is common to use both behind LoS blocks to get out of dodge and block projectiles.

I do it now.

Now like I said, if you were 1500 a way and I dont see you, well yeah you might just one shot me, but you can do that now anyway.

But my point in all of this as I said, was that everyone is complaining about SA and its benefits to stealth, that will only affect WvW not PvP. I seriously doubt anyone will be running the SA line in PvP its just too much time sitting in stealth and not doing your job as thief in PvP.

Regarding “Don’t Stop,” it says periodically evade attacks…not all attacks. From the looks of it, there is a 1 sec CD so I assume it will be 1 attack per CD. Basically, you will evade 1 out of 8 RF…

Gabriell.4856:

Regarding “Don’t Stop,” it says periodically evade attacks…not all attacks. From the looks of it, there is a 1 sec CD so I assume it will be 1 attack per CD. Basically, you will evade 1 out of 8 RF…

I would hope so. I never read that incorrectly, but vigor every 5 seconds?

When I was explaining Rapid Shot, generally you get hit by 1 or 2 of the shots and realize what it is and hope you have a dodge or evade up somehow.

I dont know about others, but if I have full endurance right now I might get hit by 2 of those shots at best.

In that scenario, first hit you would likely evade, and then get vigor so no more hope that you have a dodge up.

Thats also what I meant about wasting a dodge on a Rapid shot while you are fighting something else, as likely you are using your dodges against them.

So now, you gain vigor on that problem.

Yeah I would hope that we couldnt just evade an entire Rapid shot just because we have swiftness. Ill just stand here and dodge constantly and nothing can hit me. While that may be the most trolliest thing you could do to a person, it really would not be good balance.

I got challenged to play thief and I started playing it and the reason I like it so much is that it is active defense and not passive defense.

Exactly what I was trying to get out of other classes, but it really is the only class in game that is active defense. It has no protections except on steal, it has no Armor really, it has stealth but AOE, and blinds. You really have to actively engage in your defense as thief, therefore I wouldnt want something that all of a sudden gave it passive defense that much.

Impact.2780 I dont see where the Dont Stop trait affects that math, but only in that of dodging.

With S/D you have evades, with Dont Stop you have evades with swiftness.

You have swiftness on dodge and if you have some other source of swiftness IE Pack Runes if they will still be relatively the same, you have more evades plus vigor if the evade works.

SO worst case scenario is that you have at least another evade in there that is not a dodge.

Now what has me concerned in all this is Initiative management.

I run a critical strikes D/P build right now and I definitely felt a difference in initiative when I gave Panic Strike a try due to the loss of Opportunist in Critical Strikes.

They dont have that anywhere in here, but with that said, many D/P thief survive without it now, so I can likely adjust.

nightblood.7910:

Impact.2780 I dont see where the Dont Stop trait affects that math, but only in that of dodging.

With S/D you have evades, with Dont Stop you have evades with swiftness.

You have swiftness on dodge and if you have some other source of swiftness IE Pack Runes if they will still be relatively the same, you have more evades plus vigor if the evade works.

SO worst case scenario is that you have at least another evade in there that is not a dodge.

I can barely interpret what you’re trying to say. You’re questioning where don’t stop comes into play? That the maths omits this trait? Well of course it does, it’s for manual dodges only. We have no idea how effective don’t stop will be, and thus no way of factoring it in or knowing if it’ll even be worth taking. Personally, I don’t like reliance on RNG.

Yeah that was kinda messy wasnt it?

Yeah Dont Stop. While it may be everything has to line up correctly to get the vigor , it does present another evade at least every 5 seconds, with that lining up at some point and you do get vigor out of it.

Its just not a dodge.

Honestly though, as D/P doesnt even use the acro line right now, it will be a vast improvement on its vigor.

With S/D, your evades will produce vigor as well as evades from swiftness and you have far more chance for it to line up. I can imagine its mostly the S/D guys saying “Hey whats going on here” but with the tons of evades that S/D has that are not dodges, I dont know that its going to be that big of a deal as they think it is.

Now other builds, Ive never run, so I dont know how this will affect any d/d builds and so on.

Lets also not forget hard to catch, if you want serious endurance regen, its there.

Vigerous recovery is still there as well as Hard to Catch also restoring endurance.

Hard to catch is likely the reason of the change in FG.

95% of the thieves are going to be running with 6/0/6/0/6 D/P with Improv, Venom Share and Sleight of Hand – Withdraw, Shadowstep, Devourer Venom, Refuge and Basi – and this is going to be crazy strong. Thief really needs to be looked at with the new trait system.
Maybe moving Improv and Executioner to Crit Strikes and Sleight of Hand to Deadly Arts would help? That way you’d need to choose 3 out of –
Improv/Executioner,
Venom Share,
Sleight of Hand and
Bountiful Theft.
Having all of those in one build is certainly nuts.

New Shadow Art is the most broken of all.
Now you’ll see almost all thieves go 6 0 6 6 0. They do exact same damage as currently thanks to all trait moving to deadly art and all stats moved to gear, while they got 2 insanely brokenly defensive trait lines to back up.

Way to balance the game Anet.