Guild Wars 2

Fat Disgrace.4275:

That’s odd you say this because a top 40 druid roams with us (not saying the names) sometimes in wvw and claims thief is rediculasly strong because of pi.

What dmg does pi do in pvp now a days? Because in wvw I often hot 3700 on enemy glass builds (thives mesmes and sf eles) and then around 2500 even so low of 1300 dmg on some tanky builds.

I have changed my mind set about this trait from a few months back but that’s only because I fought a lot of thives ad learnt to be patient when we fight but it must be frustrating for necros and possible revs not being able to even get close to use UA

First of all comparing wvw and spvp is always inaccurate. You have sigils/runes/food/stones/oils that don’t even exist in spvp and not to mention scaling/buffs you name it.

And heres the footage of how PI works against tanky classes, then try to add nerfs and think about the consequences. https://youtu.be/cncHvOoesxs?t=6397 http://tinyurl.com/goa5e9p http://tinyurl.com/gr4g37u

It’s also pretty interesting that people think a class who is forced and only manages to kill stuff while outnumbering is considered OP who has no viable role around equal fights or big teamfights.

I’m in disbelief that people actually think thief is OP let alone that spending 4 initiative dealing 2-3k delayed damage off an interrupt (depending on build) is what makes the class OP.

I can’t find the words to describe the absurdity, especially since the only change to D/P thief since it was considered too weak for meta was a nerf to stealth attacks.

I guess I should be happy we have a bunch of new players who don’t understand how to play yet.

So you don’t think thief is op?`I think it’s the best class for pvp at the moment. Which makes it op.

The funnier thing is that Shadow shot is literally the same thing as a Headshot with pulmonary impact vs auto attacks (auto attack interrupts being a thing people are specifically pointing out) except Shadow shot deals more damage and is easier to land and puts you in position to deal more damage.

But nope, PI Headshots make thief OP. Lol.

Shockwave.1230:

Wow, what happened? The last change to thief I saw before I stopped playing was the set of changes with the auto attack buffs. Even after that though thieves, even the D/P Daredevil build, was considered too weak to be in the meta.

This was what… like a year ago. Since then the only changes to thief I’ve seen have been the nerf to stealth attacks. So now thieves are suddenly OP?

I doubt that. Has PvP been getting more players? And we have more people that need initiated?

Thief was undesirable due to the insane strength of revenants back then and how much more defensive everyone was. A lot of defensive amulets have been removed and defensive traits reduced in strength or given longer cool downs over the last year.

The nearest thing you get to a bunker is with paladins which adds 560 vitality and toughness, second to that is menders with 560 vitality but 1050 healing both are not that tough in actual stats. Most builds now are running very defensive in traits though, with most picking at least 2 defensive lines, 3 in some cases and even then they can be focused down pretty fast.

Rickster.8752:

bluri.2653:

Rickster.8752:

bluri.2653:

Azukas.1426:

I’m a mesmer main and I’ve seen this type of thread many times before. So I will post what I’ve always posted in these threads.

You have to look at the grand scheme of things in terms of PI. In those terms nothing about the Thief is OP. The only class that actually has a,decent gripe is necro, but if you should never be left to 1v1 a thief anyways. If you find you are in one vs a thief and die….that is a l2p issue on you and your team. Same with rev.

Now on each of those classes while you are countered you can survive a 1v1 long enough for a +1.

Now the other 6 classes pretty much hard or soft counter thief. This is with the OP PI trait too. So if you are dying 1v1 to a thief on one of these other classes then PI is not the problem. You are. Also if you are unable to hold out in a 1v1 with a thief long enough for a rotation to help you while on a necro or rev, PI is not the problem…you are.

No changes at this time are warranted to PI based on the current state of the entire game.

Thank you and /thread

^ what he said.

Also a side note, since rev is nerfed and you want to nerf thief do you guys realise what impact this will have to the meta? It will end in not being able to kill any bunker classes so we will have season1 all over again. Also another thing that you guys seem to not grasp is that thief is already stuck being in a +1 role since theres no teamfight capabilities and theres no 1v1 capabilities against any decent players whatsoever except rev/thief.

All in all, l2p issue – if you face an enemy thief and you are 1v1ing keep track of the map see if he’s gone and be ready to kite/jumping puzzle. *t’s near impossible to kill a good druid/engi/war in a +1 unless I have a mes with moa or a heavy counter to any of those classes then again your rotating was off if you got into this bad matchup.

Any sort of stab/block/reflect/anti projectile negates headshot as well and there’s plenty of this in the game.

The only nerf I could support would be that PI would be dodgeable and then you get room to play around it, everything else is nonsense

Surprised you say this /s

Seriously though, I think 100 posts proves that it is too strong. Time for anet to take a nerf to it. Do it small if needed then increase it until it is balanced.

So the amount of posts equals the truth? Good to know, regardless PI don’t need tweaking at high tiers, perhaps against people who have no clue how it works but if we are gonna balance gw2 around that then yeah….. Have you ever played thief yourself and tried to outnumber an engi/druid/war? Try it and see what would happen, if you do it successful against a good player then try to imagine PI nerf ontop of that and then perhaps realise what a joke this whole thread is.

I do sincerely hope anet don’t touch PI because if they do you’ll have no power based roamers available anymore since rev/thief will be a joke compared to the tankyness of bruisers. If you however only touch PI to dodgeable you actually make it skillfull to evade the damage and a way to play around it. Damage nerf = unkillable bunkers same goes with ICD, theres too few casts with long casting time to actually be able to headshot anything to get PI valuable, include /stab/reflects/yada yada and you’ll see that again it needs to procc on AA

this is my 5 cents. unless you play high tier thief you do not know how hard it is to kill good players even with PI right now, imagine a nerf to that, it would be a joke.

And last but not least, if we do nerf PI thief will 100% be unviable in competitive mindset with communication team v team.

If they do however by some dumb chance nerf PI to satisfy the lower tiers then I defo hope they make heartseeker cast time 50% quicker and increase the dmg by a lot. Remove stealth attack cd add damage to backstab to justify the pi nerf and to be able to kill bunkers

So many lies here

But we get it. You want to keep your class as the number 1. Stop pretending and just admit it

What exactly is he lying about? Care to elaborate?

apharma.3741:

Shockwave.1230:

Wow, what happened? The last change to thief I saw before I stopped playing was the set of changes with the auto attack buffs. Even after that though thieves, even the D/P Daredevil build, was considered too weak to be in the meta.

This was what… like a year ago. Since then the only changes to thief I’ve seen have been the nerf to stealth attacks. So now thieves are suddenly OP?

I doubt that. Has PvP been getting more players? And we have more people that need initiated?

Thief was undesirable due to the insane strength of revenants back then and how much more defensive everyone was. A lot of defensive amulets have been removed and defensive traits reduced in strength or given longer cool downs over the last year.

The nearest thing you get to a bunker is with paladins which adds 560 vitality and toughness, second to that is menders with 560 vitality but 1050 healing both are not that tough in actual stats. Most builds now are running very defensive in traits though, with most picking at least 2 defensive lines, 3 in some cases and even then they can be focused down pretty fast.

Everything has always been able to be focused down fast lol XD.

The problem with thief has always been in team fights as their only contribution is interrupts and damage and they get pressured out of doing those things because of not being able to take incidental cleave and AoE. This combined with AoE team heals negate thieves contribution to fights, and since I’ve been back I see these things havent changed.

I am mostly just amused that people are upset about less mathematical value out of headshot PIs than Shadow Shot, especially on autoattacks.

Shockwave.1230:

apharma.3741:

Shockwave.1230:

Wow, what happened? The last change to thief I saw before I stopped playing was the set of changes with the auto attack buffs. Even after that though thieves, even the D/P Daredevil build, was considered too weak to be in the meta.

This was what… like a year ago. Since then the only changes to thief I’ve seen have been the nerf to stealth attacks. So now thieves are suddenly OP?

I doubt that. Has PvP been getting more players? And we have more people that need initiated?

Thief was undesirable due to the insane strength of revenants back then and how much more defensive everyone was. A lot of defensive amulets have been removed and defensive traits reduced in strength or given longer cool downs over the last year.

The nearest thing you get to a bunker is with paladins which adds 560 vitality and toughness, second to that is menders with 560 vitality but 1050 healing both are not that tough in actual stats. Most builds now are running very defensive in traits though, with most picking at least 2 defensive lines, 3 in some cases and even then they can be focused down pretty fast.

Everything has always been able to be focused down fast lol XD.

The problem with thief has always been in team fights as their only contribution is interrupts and damage and they get pressured out of doing those things because of not being able to take incidental cleave and AoE. This combined with AoE team heals negate thieves contribution to fights, and since I’ve been back I see these things havent changed.

I am mostly just amused that people are upset about less mathematical value out of headshot PIs than Shadow Shot, especially on autoattacks.

You asked what changed, so I told you. A lot of defences on other classes have been reduced, if you don’t believe me then read through the nearly 1 year of balance patches and see for yourself.

Couple this with reduced stats on toughness and vitality with the removal of a large number of amulets and classes are much easier to burst down or focus than before. Engineer nearly always had an elixir S for when focused now not so much, they had 1/4s cast on healing turret but now it’s longer and easier to interrupt and heal gyro while instant is less of a heal and no condi removal. Some skills reduced damage by 50% and are now 33%, cool downs on some blocks have gone up, rev has to dodge an attack to get stab so now is very susceptable to thief.

Put simply a lot of the big picks for the last few esl tournaments have been nerfed in survivability which has allowed thief back into the role it used to have.

Yes I’m fully aware of how much shadowshot does and have said before on the forums how strong it is.

Azukas.1426:

I’m a mesmer main and I’ve seen this type of thread many times before. So I will post what I’ve always posted in these threads.

You have to look at the grand scheme of things in terms of PI. In those terms nothing about the Thief is OP. The only class that actually has a,decent gripe is necro, but if you should never be left to 1v1 a thief anyways. If you find you are in one vs a thief and die….that is a l2p issue on you and your team. Same with rev.

Now on each of those classes while you are countered you can survive a 1v1 long enough for a +1.

Now the other 6 classes pretty much hard or soft counter thief. This is with the OP PI trait too. So if you are dying 1v1 to a thief on one of these other classes then PI is not the problem. You are. Also if you are unable to hold out in a 1v1 with a thief long enough for a rotation to help you while on a necro or rev, PI is not the problem…you are.

No changes at this time are warranted to PI based on the current state of the entire game.

Thank you and /thread

This has not been refuted and pretty much shut the door on ANY argument for the nerfing of thief.

Until one you can prove this wrong this thread is over and the mods should lock it for spam/trolling/etc.

Thank you and /thread

Moises.2196:

Cynz.9437:

SolarDragon.7063:

Honestly, before I read this thread, I wasn’t aware how big a problem this was. But when every defender is suggesting spamming things like stab and blocks, which the thief can then just not IP, it’s become obvious there is zero sensible counterplay to headshot spam, which is not a good thing to exist in an engaging and interesting pvp environment, which should be the end goal of balance.

or… you can just stow weapon, which is free….

as someone mentioned above, how it is any different to confusion?

Cynz, if IP was nerfed what would the other classes have to give up to justify it in your opinion? give an example plz if you can.

tl/dr: it would take too many changes to other classes to make up for PI nerf and it would just cause huge rage across all GW2 communities (especially pve) so i am not sure if it is really that good of an idea. Given current state of classes, i do not think PI is broken or thief for that matter.

Ok. Let’s assume PI gets nerfed and can’t compete with EA anymore. This would lead to overall lower damage done by thief. To make up for it, thief would need to rely more on backstab.
Problem with backstab atm
1. it got nerfed way too many times in the past (CD, dmg nerf etc.)
2. it puts thief in really bad spot forcing him to eat all AoE flying around
3. due to nature of backstab (requires stealth etc.) it gets heavily hardcountered by blinds, blocks, passives etc. I know there are some highlights on youtube showing thieves doing 10k backstabs but our average backstab is like 3k on a good day due to passives etc.

So, imo, it would take a lot of changes to make bs worth of use again.

Problem 1: CD needs to go, this change was uncalled for on first place.

Problem 2: either massive AoE spam needs to go from all classes or thief needs ways to deal with it. Changing all classes like this would require a lot of work, take also pve into account – it won’t happen. Only way would be giving thief some kind of buff while in stealth to deal with AoE, e.g. reduce damage taken from all sources (ik there is SA trait, but SA itself is laughable compared to DD atm so nobody will take it) – but then everyone would cry that they can’t kill thief and stealth camping would be even more prevalent.

Problem 3: as with problem 2, it would require quite few nerfs to survival of other classes. Let’s assume Anet does implement it. It would once again heavily affect raids, wvw and interaction between those classes. Anet could also give thieves better way to land backstab (e.g. make it unblockable/ignoring protection if landed from behind on X CD) but then people relying on all their passives will cry rivers that they are dying to backstab.

Bottom line: thief is a glassy damage dealer that gave up everything but mobility and stealth for damage. They are meant to do damage. Regardless in what way they are dealing damage, players will be never satisfied and will complain about the class. The joke is, thief damage is still 99% single target, unlike traps and co.

I think dissatisfaction doesn’t come from the damage itself (in case of PI, as someone mentioned before, it works same way as confusion) but from the fact that thieves are so slippery and force enemy to time their skills and participate in mind games. Your average Joe is not interested in it, they just want to press their button, soak damage and mash things.

P.S. Sindrener is known to be reasonable (unlike certain mes main), so if he says PI is fine then there is nothing more to discuss, imo.
P.S.S. people accuse Sind of lying – i’ve seen everything now.

The amount of people defending a broken design is absolutely ridiculous. Have you thief players ever stopped and considered that the fact that thief is so reliant on these cheese gimmicks is because part of the design of the class is flawed? No, putting an ICD on ID will not kill thief, it just won’t.

But what I really can’t understand is why you thief players so adamantly defend cheese mechanics on a thief. Every single time it comes up you guys come rushing in with “But we need it! Otherwise thief will be trash.” Its either “Its not OP” (which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed design) or “if you nerf/remove this thief will never be competitive again”. If you rely on 1 or 2 cheese gimmicks to be competitive (which you actually don’t anyway) then the class needs to be redesigned.

Quit kittening whining and get out of denial. Some features of your class are just pure bad design and need to be redone. And when they are, thief will no longer be this one trick pony that it is right now, you will no longer be reliant on cheese mechanics just to be effective.

apharma.3741:

Shockwave.1230:

apharma.3741:

Shockwave.1230:

Wow, what happened? The last change to thief I saw before I stopped playing was the set of changes with the auto attack buffs. Even after that though thieves, even the D/P Daredevil build, was considered too weak to be in the meta.

This was what… like a year ago. Since then the only changes to thief I’ve seen have been the nerf to stealth attacks. So now thieves are suddenly OP?

I doubt that. Has PvP been getting more players? And we have more people that need initiated?

Thief was undesirable due to the insane strength of revenants back then and how much more defensive everyone was. A lot of defensive amulets have been removed and defensive traits reduced in strength or given longer cool downs over the last year.

The nearest thing you get to a bunker is with paladins which adds 560 vitality and toughness, second to that is menders with 560 vitality but 1050 healing both are not that tough in actual stats. Most builds now are running very defensive in traits though, with most picking at least 2 defensive lines, 3 in some cases and even then they can be focused down pretty fast.

Everything has always been able to be focused down fast lol XD.

The problem with thief has always been in team fights as their only contribution is interrupts and damage and they get pressured out of doing those things because of not being able to take incidental cleave and AoE. This combined with AoE team heals negate thieves contribution to fights, and since I’ve been back I see these things havent changed.

I am mostly just amused that people are upset about less mathematical value out of headshot PIs than Shadow Shot, especially on autoattacks.

You asked what changed, so I told you. A lot of defences on other classes have been reduced, if you don’t believe me then read through the nearly 1 year of balance patches and see for yourself.

Couple this with reduced stats on toughness and vitality with the removal of a large number of amulets and classes are much easier to burst down or focus than before. Engineer nearly always had an elixir S for when focused now not so much, they had 1/4s cast on healing turret but now it’s longer and easier to interrupt and heal gyro while instant is less of a heal and no condi removal. Some skills reduced damage by 50% and are now 33%, cool downs on some blocks have gone up, rev has to dodge an attack to get stab so now is very susceptable to thief.

Put simply a lot of the big picks for the last few esl tournaments have been nerfed in survivability which has allowed thief back into the role it used to have.

Yes I’m fully aware of how much shadowshot does and have said before on the forums how strong it is.

Great! So so that means thieves have been in the winning team comps for pro team champions then?

Azukas.1426:

Azukas.1426:

I’m a mesmer main and I’ve seen this type of thread many times before. So I will post what I’ve always posted in these threads.

You have to look at the grand scheme of things in terms of PI. In those terms nothing about the Thief is OP. The only class that actually has a,decent gripe is necro, but if you should never be left to 1v1 a thief anyways. If you find you are in one vs a thief and die….that is a l2p issue on you and your team. Same with rev.

Now on each of those classes while you are countered you can survive a 1v1 long enough for a +1.

Now the other 6 classes pretty much hard or soft counter thief. This is with the OP PI trait too. So if you are dying 1v1 to a thief on one of these other classes then PI is not the problem. You are. Also if you are unable to hold out in a 1v1 with a thief long enough for a rotation to help you while on a necro or rev, PI is not the problem…you are.

No changes at this time are warranted to PI based on the current state of the entire game.

Thank you and /thread

This has not been refuted and pretty much shut the door on ANY argument for the nerfing of thief.

Until one you can prove this wrong this thread is over and the mods should lock it for spam/trolling/etc.

Thank you and /thread

The thing is this entire thread is about pulmonary impact not whether or not thief is OP. Is PI OP? At a 3.28 multiplier it is undoubtedly strong especially considering there’s been a trend of increasing cast times on skills to allow interrupting them. When you also consider how little you have to invest to make it strong too (all you need is power) it’s obvious to many it is far too rewarding for what it is.

Turning round and making the thread about the thief as a whole is derailing it as many thief mains like yourself have done. Especially when the common responses only derail the thread even more after some people have tried to get it back on track.

OriOri.8724:

The amount of people defending a broken design is absolutely ridiculous. Have you thief players ever stopped and considered that the fact that thief is so reliant on these cheese gimmicks is because part of the design of the class is flawed? No, putting an ICD on ID will not kill thief, it just won’t.

But what I really can’t understand is why you thief players so adamantly defend cheese mechanics on a thief. Every single time it comes up you guys come rushing in with “But we need it! Otherwise thief will be trash.” Its either “Its not OP” (which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed design) or “if you nerf/remove this thief will never be competitive again”. If you rely on 1 or 2 cheese gimmicks to be competitive (which you actually don’t anyway) then the class needs to be redesigned.

Quit kittening whining and get out of denial. Some features of your class are just pure bad design and need to be redone. And when they are, thief will no longer be this one trick pony that it is right now, you will no longer be reliant on cheese mechanics just to be effective.

It’s not cheesy it relies on active play and timing to actually interrupt a skill, unlike certain classes relying on passives to carry them through most situations.

Also ID has tons of counter play already built in to the game, funny how that works, and there are only two classes that don’t have over the top means to get around it which are Thief and Necro, since every other class have Access to Stability/Blocks/Invulns and the plethora of Projectile Hate.

And it is pretty hard to take people serious when they don’t even know how classes even work and ask for Nerfs to them, i.e. Consume Plasma, need I say more?

OriOri.8724:

The amount of people defending a broken design is absolutely ridiculous. Have you thief players ever stopped and considered that the fact that thief is so reliant on these cheese gimmicks is because part of the design of the class is flawed? No, putting an ICD on ID will not kill thief, it just won’t.

But what I really can’t understand is why you thief players so adamantly defend cheese mechanics on a thief. Every single time it comes up you guys come rushing in with “But we need it! Otherwise thief will be trash.” Its either “Its not OP” (which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed design) or “if you nerf/remove this thief will never be competitive again”. If you rely on 1 or 2 cheese gimmicks to be competitive (which you actually don’t anyway) then the class needs to be redesigned.

Quit kittening whining and get out of denial. Some features of your class are just pure bad design and need to be redone. And when they are, thief will no longer be this one trick pony that it is right now, you will no longer be reliant on cheese mechanics just to be effective.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Block
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistrust

vs

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pulmonary_Impact_

PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.

Oh and I main mesmer so before you go on about headshot being spammable or some other kitten we mesmers can chain interrupts just as well.

So like I said until one of you refutes my original post please let this thread die.

Thank You

No smoke without fire. 3 pages now. This is an issue that needs looking at.

Shockwave.1230:

apharma.3741:

Shockwave.1230:

apharma.3741:

Shockwave.1230:

Wow, what happened? The last change to thief I saw before I stopped playing was the set of changes with the auto attack buffs. Even after that though thieves, even the D/P Daredevil build, was considered too weak to be in the meta.

This was what… like a year ago. Since then the only changes to thief I’ve seen have been the nerf to stealth attacks. So now thieves are suddenly OP?

I doubt that. Has PvP been getting more players? And we have more people that need initiated?

Thief was undesirable due to the insane strength of revenants back then and how much more defensive everyone was. A lot of defensive amulets have been removed and defensive traits reduced in strength or given longer cool downs over the last year.

The nearest thing you get to a bunker is with paladins which adds 560 vitality and toughness, second to that is menders with 560 vitality but 1050 healing both are not that tough in actual stats. Most builds now are running very defensive in traits though, with most picking at least 2 defensive lines, 3 in some cases and even then they can be focused down pretty fast.

Everything has always been able to be focused down fast lol XD.

The problem with thief has always been in team fights as their only contribution is interrupts and damage and they get pressured out of doing those things because of not being able to take incidental cleave and AoE. This combined with AoE team heals negate thieves contribution to fights, and since I’ve been back I see these things havent changed.

I am mostly just amused that people are upset about less mathematical value out of headshot PIs than Shadow Shot, especially on autoattacks.

You asked what changed, so I told you. A lot of defences on other classes have been reduced, if you don’t believe me then read through the nearly 1 year of balance patches and see for yourself.

Couple this with reduced stats on toughness and vitality with the removal of a large number of amulets and classes are much easier to burst down or focus than before. Engineer nearly always had an elixir S for when focused now not so much, they had 1/4s cast on healing turret but now it’s longer and easier to interrupt and heal gyro while instant is less of a heal and no condi removal. Some skills reduced damage by 50% and are now 33%, cool downs on some blocks have gone up, rev has to dodge an attack to get stab so now is very susceptable to thief.

Put simply a lot of the big picks for the last few esl tournaments have been nerfed in survivability which has allowed thief back into the role it used to have.

Yes I’m fully aware of how much shadowshot does and have said before on the forums how strong it is.

Great! So so that means thieves have been in the winning team comps for pro team champions then?

We don’t really know, last ESLs were quite a long time ago, September I believe and some of the hefty nerfs didn’t happen till October. Additionally that was the world championship so the teams competing as far as I know we’re already decided and short of the few thief players that we’re already on those teams there wasn’t likely to be a big roster change. On of the major changes was the nerfs to revs which I’m sure hasn’t gone unnoticed even by you.

I’m sure Sindrener can explain it in more detail as he knows more about ESL and how they work than I do.

Still the thread is about PI, on its own I believe it is far too strong for the little investment needed especially on the weapon set that is already the strongest for thieves. That doesn’t mean I think thief is currently OP though just that the skill is just like how I think UA is OP even if rev isn’t ATM.

Rickster.8752:

No smoke without fire. 3 pages now. This is an issue that needs looking at.

Nope I put it out. Now you just got a buncha people wishing they actually had a leg to stand on.

Go ahead and try to refute my posts or until then its time to throw in the towel

apharma.3741:

Shockwave.1230:

apharma.3741:

Shockwave.1230:

apharma.3741:

Shockwave.1230:

Wow, what happened? The last change to thief I saw before I stopped playing was the set of changes with the auto attack buffs. Even after that though thieves, even the D/P Daredevil build, was considered too weak to be in the meta.

This was what… like a year ago. Since then the only changes to thief I’ve seen have been the nerf to stealth attacks. So now thieves are suddenly OP?

I doubt that. Has PvP been getting more players? And we have more people that need initiated?

Thief was undesirable due to the insane strength of revenants back then and how much more defensive everyone was. A lot of defensive amulets have been removed and defensive traits reduced in strength or given longer cool downs over the last year.

The nearest thing you get to a bunker is with paladins which adds 560 vitality and toughness, second to that is menders with 560 vitality but 1050 healing both are not that tough in actual stats. Most builds now are running very defensive in traits though, with most picking at least 2 defensive lines, 3 in some cases and even then they can be focused down pretty fast.

Everything has always been able to be focused down fast lol XD.

The problem with thief has always been in team fights as their only contribution is interrupts and damage and they get pressured out of doing those things because of not being able to take incidental cleave and AoE. This combined with AoE team heals negate thieves contribution to fights, and since I’ve been back I see these things havent changed.

I am mostly just amused that people are upset about less mathematical value out of headshot PIs than Shadow Shot, especially on autoattacks.

You asked what changed, so I told you. A lot of defences on other classes have been reduced, if you don’t believe me then read through the nearly 1 year of balance patches and see for yourself.

Couple this with reduced stats on toughness and vitality with the removal of a large number of amulets and classes are much easier to burst down or focus than before. Engineer nearly always had an elixir S for when focused now not so much, they had 1/4s cast on healing turret but now it’s longer and easier to interrupt and heal gyro while instant is less of a heal and no condi removal. Some skills reduced damage by 50% and are now 33%, cool downs on some blocks have gone up, rev has to dodge an attack to get stab so now is very susceptable to thief.

Put simply a lot of the big picks for the last few esl tournaments have been nerfed in survivability which has allowed thief back into the role it used to have.

Yes I’m fully aware of how much shadowshot does and have said before on the forums how strong it is.

Great! So so that means thieves have been in the winning team comps for pro team champions then?

I’m sure Sindrener can explain it in more detail as he knows more about ESL and how they work than I do.

He’s telling you all that you’re full of it and you need to stop with this…..lol

Rickster.8752:

No smoke without fire. 3 pages now. This is an issue that needs looking at.

Lol, people are pointing out obvious flaws in the “nerf this” argument and the “nerf this” side continues pressing.

Clearly this does need looked at… So the thread can be closed for spreading misinformation. But I’ll enjoy the hilarity of the illogical arguments until then.

P.S. apharma is the only one presenting historical evidence with his points. Which I do find validity to. I’m of the opinion PI isn’t busted though simply because you are making a trade of Shadow shot for Headshot and both do the same thing , just one for skills and the other for attacks. And Headshot deals less damage.

apharma.3741:

Azukas.1426:

Azukas.1426:

I’m a mesmer main and I’ve seen this type of thread many times before. So I will post what I’ve always posted in these threads.

You have to look at the grand scheme of things in terms of PI. In those terms nothing about the Thief is OP. The only class that actually has a,decent gripe is necro, but if you should never be left to 1v1 a thief anyways. If you find you are in one vs a thief and die….that is a l2p issue on you and your team. Same with rev.

Now on each of those classes while you are countered you can survive a 1v1 long enough for a +1.

Now the other 6 classes pretty much hard or soft counter thief. This is with the OP PI trait too. So if you are dying 1v1 to a thief on one of these other classes then PI is not the problem. You are. Also if you are unable to hold out in a 1v1 with a thief long enough for a rotation to help you while on a necro or rev, PI is not the problem…you are.

No changes at this time are warranted to PI based on the current state of the entire game.

Thank you and /thread

This has not been refuted and pretty much shut the door on ANY argument for the nerfing of thief.

Until one you can prove this wrong this thread is over and the mods should lock it for spam/trolling/etc.

Thank you and /thread

The thing is this entire thread is about pulmonary impact not whether or not thief is OP. Is PI OP? At a 3.28 multiplier it is undoubtedly strong especially considering there’s been a trend of increasing cast times on skills to allow interrupting them. When you also consider how little you have to invest to make it strong too (all you need is power) it’s obvious to many it is far too rewarding for what it is.

Turning round and making the thread about the thief as a whole is derailing it as many thief mains like yourself have done. Especially when the common responses only derail the thread even more after some people have tried to get it back on track.

That is not true:
- you give up condi removal for it
- you give up gap closers, stealth for it since you use ini for headshot instead of other spells
- you actually have to run dps amy for it to do meaningful dmg….
- you actually have to successful interrupt the target and that is not as easy as you would think due to nature of other classes (pulsing stab, blinds, blocks etc.)

Now let’s do a little comparison here: take scrapper hammer. Most skills have basically backstab multiplies. How much does scrapper have to invest to do decent damage with those spells? Rrrright not much really: 0 traits required and scrapper can run paladin amy (so still be able to invest in survival). Not to mention those spells all have secondary utility like block or reflect so it is not like he only does damage with those.

How is 3k (on good day) single target PI is OP when there is warrior running around doing 7k instant aoe damage covering whole point while having by far better survival than thief? Or let’s take your beloved mesmer with undodgable/unkitable shatters because clones run at 300% speed and teleport on top of you even across the map. I am not even going to start on double quickness moa (animation shows after moa is already in effect) which messes up necros more than PI will ever do.

Azukas.1426:

OriOri.8724:

The amount of people defending a broken design is absolutely ridiculous. Have you thief players ever stopped and considered that the fact that thief is so reliant on these cheese gimmicks is because part of the design of the class is flawed? No, putting an ICD on ID will not kill thief, it just won’t.

But what I really can’t understand is why you thief players so adamantly defend cheese mechanics on a thief. Every single time it comes up you guys come rushing in with “But we need it! Otherwise thief will be trash.” Its either “Its not OP” (which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed design) or “if you nerf/remove this thief will never be competitive again”. If you rely on 1 or 2 cheese gimmicks to be competitive (which you actually don’t anyway) then the class needs to be redesigned.

Quit kittening whining and get out of denial. Some features of your class are just pure bad design and need to be redone. And when they are, thief will no longer be this one trick pony that it is right now, you will no longer be reliant on cheese mechanics just to be effective.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Block
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistrust

vs

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pulmonary_Impact_

PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.

Oh and I main mesmer so before you go on about headshot being spammable or some other kitten we mesmers can chain interrupts just as well.

So like I said until one of you refutes my original post please let this thread die.

Thank You

No one needs to refute your original post because all it is doing is trying to derail this thread, exactly like you are doing with this post. This is a thread about thiefs, not mesmers. Even then though, yes mesmers can chain interrupts but it requires more than 1 skill on the bar to do so, unlike thief. To chain 3 interrupts, a mesmer would have to use 3 different skills on their bar, and power lock has a 4 second cooldown itself regardless. Thief only has to burn 1 skill to do the same thing. This thread is about thieves however, not about mesmers. Trying to turn the discussion back to mesmers is doing nothing more than trying to derail the thread because you can’t actually defend the point at hand.

@BlaqueFyre – Oh, I’m sorry. You are right, I didn’t know every mechanic of a class I don’t play often. Forgive me for trying to learn. I didn’t realize that looking for resources to learn how a class works is the wrong thing to do. Ad hominem attacks don’t strengthen your argument, but they do actively weaken it. It shows that you can’t defend IP itself, so you are resorting to attacking people who see the problem with its flawed design. Also, for the record, I never once called for a nerf to thieves in that thread. Not once. So get that bullkitten out of here.

Azukas.1426:

OriOri.8724:

The amount of people defending a broken design is absolutely ridiculous. Have you thief players ever stopped and considered that the fact that thief is so reliant on these cheese gimmicks is because part of the design of the class is flawed? No, putting an ICD on ID will not kill thief, it just won’t.

But what I really can’t understand is why you thief players so adamantly defend cheese mechanics on a thief. Every single time it comes up you guys come rushing in with “But we need it! Otherwise thief will be trash.” Its either “Its not OP” (which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed design) or “if you nerf/remove this thief will never be competitive again”. If you rely on 1 or 2 cheese gimmicks to be competitive (which you actually don’t anyway) then the class needs to be redesigned.

Quit kittening whining and get out of denial. Some features of your class are just pure bad design and need to be redone. And when they are, thief will no longer be this one trick pony that it is right now, you will no longer be reliant on cheese mechanics just to be effective.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Block
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistrust

vs

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pulmonary_Impact_

PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.

Oh and I main mesmer so before you go on about headshot being spammable or some other kitten we mesmers can chain interrupts just as well.

So like I said until one of you refutes my original post please let this thread die.

Thank You

Ok, lets talk about factually incorrect statements.

“PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.”

Confusion damage formula for background tick = (0.035 Condition Damage) + 10
Confusion damage formula for on activation = (0.0625 Condition Damage) + 49.5

So with carrion amulet it looks like:
((0.035 X 1200) + 10) X 4 = 208
((0.0625 X 1200) + 49.5) X 4 = 498

So 1-2 ticks and a skill use you will take 208+208+498 = 914 damage
Even if we calculate the full background tick for 6s you only take 1232 and would need quite a few skill activation hits to get to 4k.

PI is a 3.28 coefficient and the damage formula is as follows:
Damage done = (Weapon strength) X Power X (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

You also have to factor in multipliers which the thief has a 10% minor in DA and will have at least 5 of the lead attacks buff.

(2225 X 3.28 X 952.5/2000) X (1.10 X 1.05) = 4014

So no, mistrust won’t do even close to PI levels of damage.

Now for power block.
It has a 1.5 coefficient so on the same target and assuming we get about a 10% damage increase through vulnerability with berserker amulet and greatsword the formula looks as below:

(2375 X 1.5 X 1047.5/2000) X (1.10) = 2052

It can crit so we’ll assume it does for 110% more damage and it looks like 4310.

That is more than PI, however there are differences between the two skills. Power block needs precision and ferocity to hit as hard as PI and there’s also other advantages to power block that you use it for, namely the increased cool downs. There’s also the potential for procing it where thief has much more use of interrupts than the mesmer per investment. The realistic damage from power block though is about 3k as you’re sitting on just over 50% crit chance.

Edit: Tbh you really can’t compare power block with PI very well and I’ve also weighted everything in the mesmers favour here, using sword will reduce the damage and running marauder will equally reduce damage both on crit and without.

Perhaps someone might want to compare other on interrupt damage or condition applications and see how they measure up to PI?

Edit 2: I can only really find a warrior on interrupt trait which applies 4s confusion for 8s which would do more damage than mistrust (on single targets) but less in team fights. It’s worth noting that mistrust can score high numbers if you interrupt 2-3 people in a group and they don’t realise, the draw back though is better AoE cleansing and that the mesmer would lack certain defenses afforded by the current meta build.

OriOri.8724:

Azukas.1426:

OriOri.8724:

The amount of people defending a broken design is absolutely ridiculous. Have you thief players ever stopped and considered that the fact that thief is so reliant on these cheese gimmicks is because part of the design of the class is flawed? No, putting an ICD on ID will not kill thief, it just won’t.

But what I really can’t understand is why you thief players so adamantly defend cheese mechanics on a thief. Every single time it comes up you guys come rushing in with “But we need it! Otherwise thief will be trash.” Its either “Its not OP” (which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed design) or “if you nerf/remove this thief will never be competitive again”. If you rely on 1 or 2 cheese gimmicks to be competitive (which you actually don’t anyway) then the class needs to be redesigned.

Quit kittening whining and get out of denial. Some features of your class are just pure bad design and need to be redone. And when they are, thief will no longer be this one trick pony that it is right now, you will no longer be reliant on cheese mechanics just to be effective.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Block
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistrust

vs

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pulmonary_Impact_

PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.

Oh and I main mesmer so before you go on about headshot being spammable or some other kitten we mesmers can chain interrupts just as well.

So like I said until one of you refutes my original post please let this thread die.

Thank You

No one needs to refute your original post because all it is doing is trying to derail this thread, exactly like you are doing with this post. This is a thread about thiefs, not mesmers. Even then though, yes mesmers can chain interrupts but it requires more than 1 skill on the bar to do so, unlike thief. To chain 3 interrupts, a mesmer would have to use 3 different skills on their bar, and power lock has a 4 second cooldown itself regardless. Thief only has to burn 1 skill to do the same thing. This thread is about thieves however, not about mesmers. Trying to turn the discussion back to mesmers is doing nothing more than trying to derail the thread because you can’t actually defend the point at hand.

@BlaqueFyre – Oh, I’m sorry. You are right, I didn’t know every mechanic of a class I don’t play often. Forgive me for trying to learn. I didn’t realize that looking for resources to learn how a class works is the wrong thing to do. Ad hominem attacks don’t strengthen your argument, but they do actively weaken it. It shows that you can’t defend IP itself, so you are resorting to attacking people who see the problem with its flawed design. Also, for the record, I never once called for a nerf to thieves in that thread. Not once. So get that bullkitten out of here.

It’s not an Ad Hominem attack, you are in this thread and a few others asking for nerfs to Thief, when a player has proven they don’t even know the mechanics behind Thief, (they dont have to play the class to know it’s mechanics for one,so trying to use that as an excuse is very poor) and when that same person cries for nerfs on a class they have proven not to know the very basics of, it makes really really difficult to take their input seriously.

And when people call for Nerfs they have to look at everything as a Whole not just one isolated skill or ability. Every class except for two have more than enough counters to ID/PI, you cannot say they don’t because then you would be lying which discredits the argument of it being OP even more.

Guess what gameplay in PvP is all about Rock Paper Scissors, only two classes have very little to answer Headshot and PI with those being Thief and Reaper, everyone else has massive amounts of Blocks/Invulns/Stability application/Projectile Hate, all as a valid answer to Headshot/PI, it’s very funny people try to ignore those answers/counterplay.

Now if most classes didn’t have ridiculous access to all those counters to Headshot/PI then yeah you would have a point, but they do exist and in massive amounts so no currently it is not OP when considered in the current Meta with all the active and passive counters to it.

OriOri.8724:

Azukas.1426:

OriOri.8724:

The amount of people defending a broken design is absolutely ridiculous. Have you thief players ever stopped and considered that the fact that thief is so reliant on these cheese gimmicks is because part of the design of the class is flawed? No, putting an ICD on ID will not kill thief, it just won’t.

But what I really can’t understand is why you thief players so adamantly defend cheese mechanics on a thief. Every single time it comes up you guys come rushing in with “But we need it! Otherwise thief will be trash.” Its either “Its not OP” (which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed design) or “if you nerf/remove this thief will never be competitive again”. If you rely on 1 or 2 cheese gimmicks to be competitive (which you actually don’t anyway) then the class needs to be redesigned.

Quit kittening whining and get out of denial. Some features of your class are just pure bad design and need to be redone. And when they are, thief will no longer be this one trick pony that it is right now, you will no longer be reliant on cheese mechanics just to be effective.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Block
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistrust

vs

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pulmonary_Impact_

PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.

Oh and I main mesmer so before you go on about headshot being spammable or some other kitten we mesmers can chain interrupts just as well.

So like I said until one of you refutes my original post please let this thread die.

Thank You

No one needs to refute your original post because all it is doing is trying to derail this thread, exactly like you are doing with this post. This is a thread about thiefs, not mesmers. Even then though, yes mesmers can chain interrupts but it requires more than 1 skill on the bar to do so, unlike thief. To chain 3 interrupts, a mesmer would have to use 3 different skills on their bar, and power lock has a 4 second cooldown itself regardless. Thief only has to burn 1 skill to do the same thing. This thread is about thieves however, not about mesmers. Trying to turn the discussion back to mesmers is doing nothing more than trying to derail the thread because you can’t actually defend the point at hand.

Huh? Is this a serious post or are you really posting this?

Please let me know

Thank you

apharma.3741:

Azukas.1426:

OriOri.8724:

The amount of people defending a broken design is absolutely ridiculous. Have you thief players ever stopped and considered that the fact that thief is so reliant on these cheese gimmicks is because part of the design of the class is flawed? No, putting an ICD on ID will not kill thief, it just won’t.

But what I really can’t understand is why you thief players so adamantly defend cheese mechanics on a thief. Every single time it comes up you guys come rushing in with “But we need it! Otherwise thief will be trash.” Its either “Its not OP” (which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed design) or “if you nerf/remove this thief will never be competitive again”. If you rely on 1 or 2 cheese gimmicks to be competitive (which you actually don’t anyway) then the class needs to be redesigned.

Quit kittening whining and get out of denial. Some features of your class are just pure bad design and need to be redone. And when they are, thief will no longer be this one trick pony that it is right now, you will no longer be reliant on cheese mechanics just to be effective.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Block
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistrust

vs

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pulmonary_Impact_

PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.

Oh and I main mesmer so before you go on about headshot being spammable or some other kitten we mesmers can chain interrupts just as well.

So like I said until one of you refutes my original post please let this thread die.

Thank You

Ok, lets talk about factually incorrect statements.

“PI can’t crit, but power block can. Mistrust gives out 4 stacks of confusion which is insane damage that will eclipse a PI proc with like 1-2 tics + skill use.”

Confusion damage formula for background tick = (0.035 Condition Damage) + 10
Confusion damage formula for on activation = (0.0625 Condition Damage) + 49.5

So with carrion amulet it looks like:
((0.035 X 1200) + 10) X 4 = 208
((0.0625 X 1200) + 49.5) X 4 = 498

So 1-2 ticks and a skill use you will take 208+208+498 = 914 damage
Even if we calculate the full background tick for 6s you only take 1232 and would need quite a few skill activation hits to get to 4k.

PI is a 3.28 coefficient and the damage formula is as follows:
Damage done = (Weapon strength) X Power X (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

You also have to factor in multipliers which the thief has a 10% minor in DA and will have at least 5 of the lead attacks buff.

(2225 X 3.28 X 952.5/2000) X (1.10 X 1.05) = 4014

So no, mistrust won’t do even close to PI levels of damage.

Now for power block.
It has a 1.5 coefficient so on the same target and assuming we get about a 10% damage increase through vulnerability with berserker amulet and greatsword the formula looks as below:

(2375 X 1.5 X 1047.5/2000) X (1.10) = 2052

It can crit so we’ll assume it does for 110% more damage and it looks like 4310.

That is more than PI, however there are differences between the two skills. Power block needs precision and ferocity to hit as hard as PI and there’s also other advantages to power block that you use it for, namely the increased cool downs. There’s also the potential for procing it where thief has much more use of interrupts than the mesmer per investment. The realistic damage from power block though is about 3k as you’re sitting on just over 50% crit chance.

Edit: Tbh you really can’t compare power block with PI very well and I’ve also weighted everything in the mesmers favour here, using sword will reduce the damage and running marauder will equally reduce damage both on crit and without.

Perhaps someone might want to compare other on interrupt damage or condition applications and see how they measure up to PI?

Edit 2: I can only really find a warrior on interrupt trait which applies 4s confusion for 8s which would do more damage than mistrust (on single targets) but less in team fights. It’s worth noting that mistrust can score high numbers if you interrupt 2-3 people in a group and they don’t realise, the draw back though is better AoE cleansing and that the mesmer would lack certain defenses afforded by the current meta build.

So by your irrefutable math PI hits for 4k in PvP……yeah I’ma just let you truck on with that one.

Defense rests.

Next.

Cynz.9437:

That is not true:
- you give up condi removal for it
- you give up gap closers, stealth for it since you use ini for headshot instead of other spells
- you actually have to run dps amy for it to do meaningful dmg….
- you actually have to successful interrupt the target and that is not as easy as you would think due to nature of other classes (pulsing stab, blinds, blocks etc.)

Now let’s do a little comparison here: take scrapper hammer. Most skills have basically backstab multiplies. How much does scrapper have to invest to do decent damage with those spells? Rrrright not much really: 0 traits required and scrapper can run paladin amy (so still be able to invest in survival). Not to mention those spells all have secondary utility like block or reflect so it is not like he only does damage with those.

How is 3k (on good day) single target PI is OP when there is warrior running around doing 7k instant aoe damage covering whole point while having by far better survival than thief? Or let’s take your beloved mesmer with undodgable/unkitable shatters because clones run at 300% speed and teleport on top of you even across the map. I am not even going to start on double quickness moa (animation shows after moa is already in effect) which messes up necros more than PI will ever do.

Again, you invest nothing into a condi removal line and choose to take a DPS line instead. Look at the scrapper build, every single line is defensive.

A thief can run paladins and get the same damage out of PI, basically any amulet that adds 1050 power and pack runes and you hit as hard as marauder with it so no, you don’t need to run a dps amulet tbh.

What gap closer are you giving up to take PI? If you’re meaning the choice to use headshot instead of shadowshot then that’s a choice depending on circumstance. If you’re playing well you use the headshot to interrupt them being able to recover from a spike in damage or you use shadowshot to close in and finish them. Heaven forbid you play a class where when they use a skill to gap close it’s gone for 30s+.

The damage on scrapper skills is strong, you’ve seen me say it before so I don’t see why you keep bringing it up.

They changed Moa so the signet appears above the mesmer at the start of casting now. Arc divider is silly strong, many people have said how making it a huge AoE is essentially guaranteed adrenal healing but that has nothing to do with the thread. Neither does “unevadable shatters” as you put it as this thread is about PI.

You haven’t asked my opinion on half the things you assume I’m OK with and keep presuming I’m ok with other things I think are grossly overtuned. I’m asking you to please stop derailing the thread and these constant assumptions for the sake of the thread.

Azukas.1426:

So by your irrefutable math PI hits for 4k in PvP……yeah I’ma just let you truck on with that one.

Defense rests.

Next.

If you want to do the math I laid it all out there for you to check. The reason PI doesn’t usually do 4k in PvP is many targets have protection when it hits as it’s a delayed hit. Still doesn’t change the base damage of the skill or how strong it is.

What defence? You haven’t disproved a single thing I’ve put where as I have put factual information backed up with mathematics which the game is based on.

apharma.3741:

Azukas.1426:

So by your irrefutable math PI hits for 4k in PvP……yeah I’ma just let you truck on with that one.

Defense rests.

Next.

If you want to do the math I laid it all out there for you to check. The reason PI doesn’t usually do 4k in PvP is many targets have protection when it hits as it’s a delayed hit. Still doesn’t change the base damage of the skill or how strong it is.

What defence? You haven’t disproved a single thing I’ve put where as I have put factual information backed up with mathematics which the game is based on.

When doing your "raw damage " comparisons you ignore the fact that a mesmer interrupt can be followed up by a number of other weapon skills. Just the one used goes on cooldown. While a thief does not have cooldowns per se the more times they try a headshot the quicker they get to the point where all of their skills outside the AA unusable due to the use of INI. This makes all of the counterplay available to the other classes MORE effective in relative terms against a theif than against those other classes.

Headshot spam means no ini left to stealth , or to unload or to do a pistolwhip. The damage off headshot is still less then an AA chain and requires an interrupt to proc. . Without ability to crit against heavies the damage per ini spent is just not there. This is particularily true against classes that not only have heavy armor, but have access to blocks , satbility and invulns as well. Those types can drain all of the INI from a thief spamming a headshot and take next to no damage.

Your “math” trying to prove it does too much damage is very much like the people who come here claiming the same about backstab or heartseeker. It ignores costs associated with it and in particular as it relates to ini and the lost opportunity of other weapon skills when the INI used up trying to get an interrupt off.

People that complain about the thief ability to spam a skill still just do not understand how that makes the thief play so very different. The more a thief spams a single skills off his weaponset, the less available are the other skills. Managing INI is key and headshot spams where 4 chained and one in 4 proc is not managing INI.

The skills damage is fine.

apharma.3741:

Cynz.9437:

That is not true:
- you give up condi removal for it
- you give up gap closers, stealth for it since you use ini for headshot instead of other spells
- you actually have to run dps amy for it to do meaningful dmg….
- you actually have to successful interrupt the target and that is not as easy as you would think due to nature of other classes (pulsing stab, blinds, blocks etc.)

Now let’s do a little comparison here: take scrapper hammer. Most skills have basically backstab multiplies. How much does scrapper have to invest to do decent damage with those spells? Rrrright not much really: 0 traits required and scrapper can run paladin amy (so still be able to invest in survival). Not to mention those spells all have secondary utility like block or reflect so it is not like he only does damage with those.

How is 3k (on good day) single target PI is OP when there is warrior running around doing 7k instant aoe damage covering whole point while having by far better survival than thief? Or let’s take your beloved mesmer with undodgable/unkitable shatters because clones run at 300% speed and teleport on top of you even across the map. I am not even going to start on double quickness moa (animation shows after moa is already in effect) which messes up necros more than PI will ever do.

Again, you invest nothing into a condi removal line and choose to take a DPS line instead. Look at the scrapper build, every single line is defensive.

A thief can run paladins and get the same damage out of PI, basically any amulet that adds 1050 power and pack runes and you hit as hard as marauder with it so no, you don’t need to run a dps amulet tbh.

What gap closer are you giving up to take PI? If you’re meaning the choice to use headshot instead of shadowshot then that’s a choice depending on circumstance. If you’re playing well you use the headshot to interrupt them being able to recover from a spike in damage or you use shadowshot to close in and finish them. Heaven forbid you play a class where when they use a skill to gap close it’s gone for 30s+.

The damage on scrapper skills is strong, you’ve seen me say it before so I don’t see why you keep bringing it up.

They changed Moa so the signet appears above the mesmer at the start of casting now. Arc divider is silly strong, many people have said how making it a huge AoE is essentially guaranteed adrenal healing but that has nothing to do with the thread. Neither does “unevadable shatters” as you put it as this thread is about PI.

You haven’t asked my opinion on half the things you assume I’m OK with and keep presuming I’m ok with other things I think are grossly overtuned. I’m asking you to please stop derailing the thread and these constant assumptions for the sake of the thread.

Omg, do you even know what EA is lol?
Actually you need maradeur amy on thief otherwise you won’t be able to do enough damage to anyone lol.
So you agree that to use IP you might give up gap closer. Good. So you proved yourself wrong.
Classes that have gap closers on 30+ CD also have absurd amount of survival and on point presence….
I bring it up to show the overall picture. IP doesn’t need nerf if you don’t see thief in vacuum.
Signet appears after moa takes effect if you have quickness running…..
Actually arc divider is good example what is really strong. IP is not in comparison. Thing is, you just don’t want us to bring up spells from other classes because you just want to get IP nerfed.

This is not derailing thread, it is valid point to bring other classes into picture if we are talking about changes to a class because the change you ask for WILL affect thief standing vs other classes and it would be moronic to ignore that fact.

Cynz.9437:

Actually arc divider is good example what is really strong. IP is not in comparison. Thing is, you just don’t want us to bring up spells from other classes because you just want to get IP nerfed.

No class has the interrupt capabilities of thief, and IP hits way to hard for such a interrupt heavy class.
IP would be fine if thieves couldn’t interrupt chain till the end of time.

As a necro I would rather face a power warrior 10/10 times than a IP thief, because warriors can be countered. Thieves you can’t touch because literally every single one of my casts is interrupted.

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

Actually arc divider is good example what is really strong. IP is not in comparison. Thing is, you just don’t want us to bring up spells from other classes because you just want to get IP nerfed.

No class has the interrupt capabilities of thief, and IP hits way to hard for such a interrupt heavy class.
IP would be fine if thieves couldn’t interrupt chain till the end of time.

As a necro I would rather face a power warrior 10/10 times than a IP thief, because warriors can be countered. Thieves you can’t touch because literally every single one of my casts is interrupted.

Warrior begs to differ….

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

Actually arc divider is good example what is really strong. IP is not in comparison. Thing is, you just don’t want us to bring up spells from other classes because you just want to get IP nerfed.

No class has the interrupt capabilities of thief, and IP hits way to hard for such a interrupt heavy class.
IP would be fine if thieves couldn’t interrupt chain till the end of time.

As a necro I would rather face a power warrior 10/10 times than a IP thief, because warriors can be countered. Thieves you can’t touch because literally every single one of my casts is interrupted.

Warrior begs to differ….

Warrior does not have the interrupts of a thief. The closest would be a old school physical build. And warriors have large amounts of telegraph on their CC.

babazhook.6805:

apharma.3741:

Azukas.1426:

So by your irrefutable math PI hits for 4k in PvP……yeah I’ma just let you truck on with that one.

Defense rests.

Next.

If you want to do the math I laid it all out there for you to check. The reason PI doesn’t usually do 4k in PvP is many targets have protection when it hits as it’s a delayed hit. Still doesn’t change the base damage of the skill or how strong it is.

What defence? You haven’t disproved a single thing I’ve put where as I have put factual information backed up with mathematics which the game is based on.

When doing your "raw damage " comparisons you ignore the fact that a mesmer interrupt can be followed up by a number of other weapon skills. Just the one used goes on cooldown. While a thief does not have cooldowns per se the more times they try a headshot quicker they get to the point where all of their skills outside the AA unusable due to the use of INI.

Headshot spam means no ini left to stealth , or to unload or to do a pistolwhip. The damage off headshot is still less then an AA chain and requires an interrupt to proc. The skills damage is fine. Without ability to crit against heavies the damage per ini spent is just not there.

Your “math” trying to prove it does too much damage is very much like the people who come here claiming the same about backstab or heartseeker. It ignores costs associated with it and in particular as it relates to ini and the lost opportunity of other weapon skills when the INI used up trying to get an interrupt off.

People that complain about the thief ability to spam a skill still just do not understand how that makes the theif play so very different. The more a theif spams a single skills off his weaponset, the less available are the other skills. Managing INI is key and headshot spams where 4 chained and one in 4 proc is not managing INI.

Thing is thief auto is one of the strongest in the game, opportunity cost while it is there there it isn’t half as big as a lot are saying it is. When I play thief (WvW only mind you) I don’t spam headshot, I wait till I see them doing an animation then bam headshot, next animation head shot, while also putting in auto attacks as needed. I don’t spam needlessly and I don’t waste ini when I know how much the auto does. I am not an amazing thief but I don’t have trouble with ini 90% of the time. Many other classes cannot use skills back to back, once it’s done it’s done both systems have drawbacks and advantages.

When you compare PI to every other interrupt trait out there only power block comes close to it’s raw damage and you have to invest in precision and ferocity for that. Though I did mention comparing the two isn’t really a great option, just as the confusion on interrupt traits are hard to compare as a cleanse can negate all the damage.

The math wasn’t to show it as OP/UP it was to show the comparison and the false information Azukas was spreading. You can all make your own decisions based on it or ignore it, I don’t really care. In my opinion though it is too strong and I have already outlined what I would do to the skill along with how I would reduce mesmer and other elite specs. I would urge you to read that.

Cynz, go read my other replies not to you but others in the thread. My responce about paladins was in relation to the skill PI not the other weapon skills on thief as that is what we’re talking about.
I know what EA is, my point is you are not picking any cleanses in any other line at all and choose instead to pick mainly damage traits in every other lines, compared to other classes that are picking their condi cleanse line as well as power defence line.

Edit: Cynz I’ve seen a post you made earlier I haven’t read, I’ll go read it in a sec.

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

Actually arc divider is good example what is really strong. IP is not in comparison. Thing is, you just don’t want us to bring up spells from other classes because you just want to get IP nerfed.

No class has the interrupt capabilities of thief, and IP hits way to hard for such a interrupt heavy class.
IP would be fine if thieves couldn’t interrupt chain till the end of time.

As a necro I would rather face a power warrior 10/10 times than a IP thief, because warriors can be countered. Thieves you can’t touch because literally every single one of my casts is interrupted.

You are facing some pretty bad warriors if they do not have interrupts to use against a necro spamming skills.

The warrior does not only have those interrupts but can easily add to them with all manner of added damage.

i really dont know what is OP with IP as play thief or being killed by one i usually see 1 hit
i try not to spamm skills or as a thief look for the heal skill or key moments with enemy rotations to HS them
yes i see sometime in team fight especially thief which spamm HS. as mesmer with 3 clone and F3 daze can daze you 3 times with 1 skill. so i have to be careful and let him spent initiative ans see him disengage.

but reading some post i think buff the PI dmg and add CD to it can resolve it.

skilled thief will gain more as they hardly spamm and gain more dmg. and spammer thief wont get anything from it.

so dmg should be 25% more and 3 sec cd to the trait.

regarding stability if you like to do 4k dmg just spent all your initiative and hope the enemy will spamm skills.

babazhook.6805:

You are facing some pretty bad warriors if they do not have interrupts to use against a necro spamming skills.

The warrior does not only have those interrupts but can easily add to them with all manner of added damage.

The difference is you can juke a warrior out of their interrupts. You can’t juke a thief because they have no cooldowns. Also warrior CC doesn’t get a free 4k hit every time.

Warrior 1v1s are so much easier than thief 1v1s.

apharma.3741:

babazhook.6805:

apharma.3741:

Azukas.1426:

So by your irrefutable math PI hits for 4k in PvP……yeah I’ma just let you truck on with that one.

Defense rests.

Next.

If you want to do the math I laid it all out there for you to check. The reason PI doesn’t usually do 4k in PvP is many targets have protection when it hits as it’s a delayed hit. Still doesn’t change the base damage of the skill or how strong it is.

What defence? You haven’t disproved a single thing I’ve put where as I have put factual information backed up with mathematics which the game is based on.

When doing your "raw damage " comparisons you ignore the fact that a mesmer interrupt can be followed up by a number of other weapon skills. Just the one used goes on cooldown. While a thief does not have cooldowns per se the more times they try a headshot quicker they get to the point where all of their skills outside the AA unusable due to the use of INI.

Headshot spam means no ini left to stealth , or to unload or to do a pistolwhip. The damage off headshot is still less then an AA chain and requires an interrupt to proc. The skills damage is fine. Without ability to crit against heavies the damage per ini spent is just not there.

Your “math” trying to prove it does too much damage is very much like the people who come here claiming the same about backstab or heartseeker. It ignores costs associated with it and in particular as it relates to ini and the lost opportunity of other weapon skills when the INI used up trying to get an interrupt off.

People that complain about the thief ability to spam a skill still just do not understand how that makes the theif play so very different. The more a theif spams a single skills off his weaponset, the less available are the other skills. Managing INI is key and headshot spams where 4 chained and one in 4 proc is not managing INI.

Thing is thief auto is one of the strongest in the game, opportunity cost while it is there there it isn’t half as big as a lot are saying it is. When I play thief (WvW only mind you) I don’t spam headshot, I wait till I see them doing an animation then bam headshot, next animation head shot, while also putting in auto attacks as needed. I don’t spam needlessly and I don’t waste ini when I know how much the auto does. I am not an amazing thief but I don’t have trouble with ini 90% of the time. Many other classes cannot use skills back to back, once it’s done it’s done both systems have drawbacks and advantages.

When you compare PI to every other interrupt trait out there only power block comes close to it’s raw damage and you have to invest in precision and ferocity for that. Though I did mention comparing the two isn’t really a great option, just as the confusion on interrupt traits are hard to compare as a cleanse can negate all the damage.

The math wasn’t to show it as OP/UP it was to show the comparison and the false information Azukas was spreading. You can all make your own decisions based on it or ignore it, I don’t really care. In my opinion though it is too strong and I have already outlined what I would do to the skill along with how I would reduce mesmer and other elite specs. I would urge you to read that.

Cynz, go read my other replies not to you but others in the thread. My responce about paladins was in relation to the skill PI not the other weapon skills on thief as that is what we’re talking about.

The thiefs auto is immaterial as there counters galore available to every class in the way of traps, aoe blocks and the like that can counter that auto. The thief drops fast when a mistake made.

The Thiefs RANGED auto is weak meaning in order to do any damage once their ini spent they have to get up close and personal and wait on regen of INI so as to be able to escape or stealth.

You seem to have little experience with a thief. I play them extensively and all styles. I assure you that in my p/P build as example I would much rather preserve my INI for unloads over headshot.

In d/p I would rather stealth with #5 and HS and get in for that auto from stealth and out again than headshot if I am looking for raw damage.

Headshot becomes more usable against theif/necro sinmply because those two have less in the way of blocks and stability.

You yourself stated in your rebuttal that when you play a thief you do not spam headshot. If you do not spam headshot and are waiting for the next opportunity to use it , then you have precluded yourself from inflicting damage in that time between so as to nurse that ini. Do you not see the problem with your argument when comparing damage to say the mesmer or another class that can chain interrupts?

They do not have to wait to use the next because they are not worried about wasting INI.

Crinn.7864:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

Actually arc divider is good example what is really strong. IP is not in comparison. Thing is, you just don’t want us to bring up spells from other classes because you just want to get IP nerfed.

No class has the interrupt capabilities of thief, and IP hits way to hard for such a interrupt heavy class.
IP would be fine if thieves couldn’t interrupt chain till the end of time.

As a necro I would rather face a power warrior 10/10 times than a IP thief, because warriors can be countered. Thieves you can’t touch because literally every single one of my casts is interrupted.

Warrior begs to differ….

Warrior does not have the interrupts of a thief. The closest would be a old school physical build. And warriors have large amounts of telegraph on their CC.

Oh really? Let’s see Meta Thief can Chain 4 Headshots together, Warrior can Chain 4 interrupts together all on low CD funny how that works isn’kitten Since you were talking about Chaining together Interrupts, and saying how no other class can Chain as many CC, and guess what the Warrior CC Chain does more damage overall….

Crinn.7864:

babazhook.6805:

You are facing some pretty bad warriors if they do not have interrupts to use against a necro spamming skills.

The warrior does not only have those interrupts but can easily add to them with all manner of added damage.

The difference is you can juke a warrior out of their interrupts. You can’t juke a thief because they have no cooldowns. Also warrior CC doesn’t get a free 4k hit every time.

Warrior 1v1s are so much easier than thief 1v1s.

A thief has INI. I juke them out of that INI all the time.

Headbutt does more damage then a PI. I assure you and PI does not proc everytime. It only procs on an interrupt. Do you not understand that headshot , which is the prime source of interrupts on a theif has little in the way of upfront damage while the interrupts a warrior can use such as with their mace burst and headbutt can generate a whole lot of damage upfront? This damage is applied even if there no interrupt generated.

babazhook.6805:

The thiefs auto is immaterial as there counters galore available to every class in the way of traps, aoe blocks and the like that can counter that auto. The thief drops fast when a mistake made.

AoE blocks don’t exist outside of well of precog which isn’t run. DH is the only trapper class relevant to balance discussions since trapper thieves and trapper rangers are free kills.

You seem to have little experience with a thief. I play them extensively and all styles. I assure you that in my p/P build as example I would much rather preserve my INI for unloads over headshot.

This isn’t about P/P thief. This is about D/P thief.

Crinn.7864:

babazhook.6805:

You are facing some pretty bad warriors if they do not have interrupts to use against a necro spamming skills.

The warrior does not only have those interrupts but can easily add to them with all manner of added damage.

The difference is you can juke a warrior out of their interrupts. You can’t juke a thief because they have no cooldowns. Also warrior CC doesn’t get a free 4k hit every time.

Warrior 1v1s are so much easier than thief 1v1s.

Fully agree. Warrior is fine for necro both 1v1 and in a team fight. Warrior stil, has advantage but there is counter play to the warrior. They are fun to fight vs. Thief and mesmer just own necro though. There is nothing you can do. Some games a thief will just farm you all game if you get no support.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Crinn.7864:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

Actually arc divider is good example what is really strong. IP is not in comparison. Thing is, you just don’t want us to bring up spells from other classes because you just want to get IP nerfed.

No class has the interrupt capabilities of thief, and IP hits way to hard for such a interrupt heavy class.
IP would be fine if thieves couldn’t interrupt chain till the end of time.

As a necro I would rather face a power warrior 10/10 times than a IP thief, because warriors can be countered. Thieves you can’t touch because literally every single one of my casts is interrupted.

Warrior begs to differ….

Warrior does not have the interrupts of a thief. The closest would be a old school physical build. And warriors have large amounts of telegraph on their CC.

Oh really? Let’s see Meta Thief can Chain 4 Headshots together, Warrior can Chain 4 interrupts together all on low CD funny how that works isn’kitten Since you were talking about Chaining together Interrupts, and saying how no other class can Chain as many CC, and guess what the Warrior CC Chain does more damage overall….

Meta thief has steal interrupt, their elite and 5-6 headshots if they are alternating HS with auto.
Bad thieves that can’t manage ini are not relevant to discussing balance.

Warrior has 4 interrupts that go on full cooldown when used.

Crinn.7864:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Crinn.7864:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

Actually arc divider is good example what is really strong. IP is not in comparison. Thing is, you just don’t want us to bring up spells from other classes because you just want to get IP nerfed.

No class has the interrupt capabilities of thief, and IP hits way to hard for such a interrupt heavy class.
IP would be fine if thieves couldn’t interrupt chain till the end of time.

As a necro I would rather face a power warrior 10/10 times than a IP thief, because warriors can be countered. Thieves you can’t touch because literally every single one of my casts is interrupted.

Warrior begs to differ….

Warrior does not have the interrupts of a thief. The closest would be a old school physical build. And warriors have large amounts of telegraph on their CC.

Oh really? Let’s see Meta Thief can Chain 4 Headshots together, Warrior can Chain 4 interrupts together all on low CD funny how that works isn’kitten Since you were talking about Chaining together Interrupts, and saying how no other class can Chain as many CC, and guess what the Warrior CC Chain does more damage overall….

Meta thief has steal interrupt, their elite and 5-6 headshots if they are alternating HS with auto.
Bad thieves that can’t manage ini are not relevant to discussing balance.

Warrior has 4 interrupts that go on full cooldown when used.

Let’s use your logic:

[/quote]This isn’t about P/P thief. This is about D/P thief.[/quote]

This thread is only about Headshot and Pulminary Impact so….

Now let’s look at this you said chaining which means chaining no breaks, or no aa in between. Now let’s look at the Omg high CDs of Warrior Cc, we have 2.5 sec CD, 12 Second CD, 16 Sec CD and a 20 Sec CD so depending on how the warrior opens he can easily achieve anywhere from 5-6+ CCs chained. Yay facts!!!

Cynz.9437:

Ok. Let’s assume PI gets nerfed and can’t compete with EA anymore. This would lead to overall lower damage done by thief. To make up for it, thief would need to rely more on backstab.
Problem with backstab atm
1. it got nerfed way too many times in the past (CD, dmg nerf etc.)
2. it puts thief in really bad spot forcing him to eat all AoE flying around
3. due to nature of backstab (requires stealth etc.) it gets heavily hardcountered by blinds, blocks, passives etc. I know there are some highlights on youtube showing thieves doing 10k backstabs but our average backstab is like 3k on a good day due to passives etc.

So, imo, it would take a lot of changes to make bs worth of use again.

Problem 1: CD needs to go, this change was uncalled for on first place.

Problem 2: either massive AoE spam needs to go from all classes or thief needs ways to deal with it. Changing all classes like this would require a lot of work, take also pve into account – it won’t happen. Only way would be giving thief some kind of buff while in stealth to deal with AoE, e.g. reduce damage taken from all sources (ik there is SA trait, but SA itself is laughable compared to DD atm so nobody will take it) – but then everyone would cry that they can’t kill thief and stealth camping would be even more prevalent.

Problem 3: as with problem 2, it would require quite few nerfs to survival of other classes. Let’s assume Anet does implement it. It would once again heavily affect raids, wvw and interaction between those classes. Anet could also give thieves better way to land backstab (e.g. make it unblockable/ignoring protection if landed from behind on X CD) but then people relying on all their passives will cry rivers that they are dying to backstab.

Bottom line: thief is a glassy damage dealer that gave up everything but mobility and stealth for damage. They are meant to do damage. Regardless in what way they are dealing damage, players will be never satisfied and will complain about the class. The joke is, thief damage is still 99% single target, unlike traps and co.

I think dissatisfaction doesn’t come from the damage itself (in case of PI, as someone mentioned before, it works same way as confusion) but from the fact that thieves are so slippery and force enemy to time their skills and participate in mind games. Your average Joe is not interested in it, they just want to press their button, soak damage and mash things.

Didn’t see this till now, sorry for that.

I agree that the ICD on stealth attacks isn’t great atm however conversely it wasn’t balanced when a thief was in stealth and all you saw was block, block,block, backstab too. Reducing it to 1/2s CD while adjusting the aftercast might resolve issues in a decent middle ground.

The only things I really think need nerfing is HoT stuff, things like >50% uptime on stab, perma prot, spammable X, lots of traits and weapon skills I can’t list due to message body length. Needless to say there needs to be more trade offs for picking elite.

I personally think one of the main problems with thief is it has too much mobility for it to warrant having too much on point presence. It’s skills have pretty decent power scaling and a minor increasing to the non auto attacks (10-40% depending on skill) would allow them to compete nicely in a more tanky build if mobility was toned down considerably. The other aspect is that thief is just so much better in the +1 decap role and build which makes all other builds rubbish.

Personally I find the most dissatisfying aspect of fighting thieves is a lot of the time they jump you and if they weren’t successful they run away only to come back maybe 10-20s later. To a lot of people it looks like there wasn’t much risk involved and with the lower cool downs and ability to use effective skills back to back it doesn’t feel fun to fight. The other aspect is the cheesey builds that do require a lot more effort to kill than to survive against, every other class has cheesey builds, but most of the time they only require you to be aware that they are using that build and you can counter it with little effort.

In a patch that I would have introduced PI would have to be reduced significantly as most other HoT specs would be. Stab wouldn’t be something classes can just spam or keep up with little to no care, reflects would have a slightly higher cool down with simple projectile blocks left as is. Generally a lot of things would be toned down as well as an overhaul of boons and their uptime.

You can’t change Headshot because that will affect core Thief, so the change (if it needs to happen) must happen on Pulmonary Impact since it only affects Daredevil. Also be thankful https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Draining is not in PvP.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

It’s not cheesy it relies on active play and timing to actually interrupt a skill, unlike certain classes relying on passives to carry them through most situations.

Only in the sort of game where the play is as low skill as GW2 do you get people justifying something is “active” or “skilled” on the basis of a comparison to passive traits, it is tragic.

Newsflash, you are playing an “action combat” game so passive it does the aiming for you (basically like a kid with stabilizers on their bicycle), where thief has two of the most faceroll interrupts in the game, because they are ranged and one being instant and the other being instant cast with a minimal travel time, then to top it off because you can spam one of them, in a lot of situations it doesn’t even really matter what you interrupt for it to be effective, such skilled active play…

apharma.3741:

Azukas.1426:

So by your irrefutable math PI hits for 4k in PvP……yeah I’ma just let you truck on with that one.

Defense rests.

Next.

If you want to do the math I laid it all out there for you to check. The reason PI doesn’t usually do 4k in PvP is many targets have protection when it hits as it’s a delayed hit. Still doesn’t change the base damage of the skill or how strong it is.

What defence? You haven’t disproved a single thing I’ve put where as I have put factual information backed up with mathematics which the game is based on.

PI doesn’t hit for 4k in PvP

Consider yourself disproven

Azukas.1426:

apharma.3741:

Azukas.1426:

So by your irrefutable math PI hits for 4k in PvP……yeah I’ma just let you truck on with that one.

Defense rests.

Next.

If you want to do the math I laid it all out there for you to check. The reason PI doesn’t usually do 4k in PvP is many targets have protection when it hits as it’s a delayed hit. Still doesn’t change the base damage of the skill or how strong it is.

What defence? You haven’t disproved a single thing I’ve put where as I have put factual information backed up with mathematics which the game is based on.

PI doesn’t hit for 4k in PvP

Consider yourself disproven

This is just nitpicky. But if someone has protection up, PI only has to hit for 2,680 for it to have done 4,000 damage to someone without prot. Besides, you haven’t disproven anything, all you’ve done is say

“It doesn’t happen, therefore you are wrong.”

That’s not proving anything, its almost the exact opposite of debating

apharma.3741:

Moises.2196:

apharma.3741:

Moises.2196:

Most people on the forums say they are ok with nerfs to their class if the other classes get tone down as well, so why not start that discussion and try to figure something out that works to better balance all classes in a way that we can all agree? I’m trying to change the conversation to a more productive one. All you have to do is see Cynz reaction to these nerf suggestions. I promise that if you included toning down all the other classes while asking for a nerf to thief Cynz and others would be more willing to compromise.

Editted it down to the part that’s relevant not because of any underhandedness.

The thing is I’ve seen a lot of nerf mesmer threads as well, it’s not until you explain that a mesmers shield is the highest cool down block for duration in the entire game that people start to realise maybe it’s not actually imbalanced.

Anyway as I’ve said many times as well a lot of HoT things need toning down, I posted in the mesmer section a long time ago how I would reduce the class to how I thought the elite spec should be.

I can’t find it but I’ll give you the gist of it, no continuum split, alacrity mesmer only mechanic, less quickness and even then chrono would be a trait line that would be a good option in many cases. However it would be utterly attrocious if every other class was left the same way and I would expect some seriously deep nerfs to others as well.

The point is moot though as ANet clearly showed with the first 2 balance patches that they would rather change core aspects than nerf the power creeped HoT specs and the clear imbalances within them.

I agree with this 100%, and yes I feel that if the community had these discussions we would be able to come to an agreement across all classes and player base, but anet keeps going at it the wrong way. I’m hoping that if we have more discussions like this where the community can agree on nerfs and buffs than anet might eventually see what we are really asking for which is a balanced game that is fun.

The thing is mesmer wouldn’t be in a great place with the above suggestion (though it would bring the elite spec in line) as they still have pathetic sustained damage due to balancing around clones and phantasms. It might also delete them from PvE and WvW roaming would be back to core mesmer most likely because stealth is so OP there.

Even nerfs on this level to other classes doesn’t really help as there are deep seated issues within the classes. HoT pets for ranger are way too tanky in 1v1s but die super easy in team fights, ele does not have anything but support builds as they don’t have the tools to be a roamer or a bruiser anymore, thief having bouncing off the walls crazy mobility but no ability to be a team fighter. That’s just to name a few.

Thing is, this was to be expected as soon as we saw a PvE-oriented design focus.

People have been screaming for dedicated roles forever. They’re now set in stone in their design, and as expected it’s had a huge negative effect on the game.

As a side note, chrono shield block cooldown is kinda weird. On one hand, it has the highest cooldown in the game, but on the other hand, CS enables it to have the highest effective block uptime of all shield blocks in the game. Mesmer I think suffers from the most inherent design flaws (particularly due to the trickery of balancing chronomancer; we’ve talked sustained damage before and as you said the limitation is clones, which buffing baseline damage makes mesmer (especially chrono) do too much potential burst and sustained damage in PvP environments).

I’d really like to just see a big step away from the trend they’ve followed and make the nature of the game much simpler; to deal damage, you need to attack and make yourself vulnerable on some level; to negate damage, you need to stop attacking and defend. Aside from a very select few weapon skills like Pistol Whip, Blurred Frenzy, and the occasional major cooldown like Endure Pain or well-timed Virtue of Courage every 30+ seconds. Nothing or very little should be able to do both at the same time without some very serious investment/pre-cast animations.