Guild Wars 2

Here is the change for those who are unfamilar:

• Shadow Strike: The amount of torment applied by this ability has been increased from 2 stacks to 4 stacks in PvP only.

I wanted to write feedback for this change and decided that posting it in the sPvP forum was the most appropriate. First, because the sPvP group is the one that decided to test changes independent of the game-wide balance team. Second, because unless the game-wide team adopts these changes based on feedback from the sPvP balance group it will likely remain a sPvP only version of the skill. I would like this skill change to be adopted game-wide.

How I envision this skill being used is as a punishment for an opponent getting into melee range without taking defensive precautions to avoid being outmaneuvered. It is an ability that should provide medium damage because it should make the person attacking them somewhat reconsider chasing in the first place—whether or not getting into melee range without some defensive skill or evade is a good idea.

Prior to this change using this ability was not an effective source of damage. Even if you managed to hit a person three times in rapid succession—not easy given that it teleports you backwards and is a short range melee attack—the total stacks of torment that could be applied was only six. This made it an inefficient use of resources for the amount of initiative required to achieve it. It was also relatively unremarkable damage.

After this change, the damage has become more like the ideal of the skill in sPvP. The total damage done isn’t unreasonable but it does make a noticeable difference. Whereas before the DPS potential of repeated use (against a target that is melee only) was around 1k, the new DPS potential is more like 2k. This assumes 3 applications, with 6/12 stacks of torment respectively, so the actual in game experience is far different with cleanses and the lower likelihood of achieving 3 such hits in rapid succession. (Side note that this relies on the Deadshot Amulet that was also introduced in the patch).

My experience in WvW suggests that it would not be overpowered if this change was applied to the skill there as well. In PvE there is similarly no real concern (less efficient to kite most mobs around than just shoot them from range).

Going to have to disagree; the concern for WvW isn’t the damage but the innate durability on condi builds there via dire/TB gear and innately higher condition durations from higher expertise and food.

SStrike in this scenario ends up providing solid damage and makes the P/D player virtually impossible to kill by melee opposition due to the innate durability on its armor, while dealing fairly high damage and poking for hits from range. P/D fell from being one of the most powerful/easy WvW dueling builds in 2015 simply because the sustain in the game went up. While torment stack doubling fixes this issue, it doesn’t fix the problem that at the time when it was a frequently-used build, is was frankly pretty overpowered. We’re talking what’s effectively a safer version of the PU condi mes.

Unlike PvP, the build isn’t relegated to staying in confined spaces, either, and thus that repeated disengage over flatter, larger spaces without compromising a win also gets much better as a defensive ability as well.

Not to mention, conditions hurt much more per tick in WvW due to the higher stats in general and things like Crystals which further bolster this damage substantially.

If dire/TB gear didn’t exist; surely; and even the condi mesmer wouldn’t be deemed overpowered. The sad fact, though, is that so long as these armors are in the game, any remotely-slippery condition build ends up being way too strong. And P/D re-using Shadow Strike for disengages on a tank build while applying pressure isn’t exactly skill-intensive.

Going to have to disagree with you for a couple of reasons.

Right now a single application in WvW is around 2500 maximum damage. Doubling that does not make it overpowered because (1) cleanse, (2) the ability to evade, (3) the ability to block. I should note that is with full corruption stacks, food, etc (using my build that does a lot more than just torment). Compare that to 4k in sPvP with full corruption stacks. So doubling it in WvW means 1k more damage compared to sPvP. That wouldn’t be overpowered given the stat inflation in WvW generally.

Skill intensive is relative. It isn’t particularly harder or easier than most other skills in this game. You don’t like condi builds but that doesn’t make them less skillful than power builds.

Again, I don’t think it’s a problem with making the kit inherently overpowered in terms of damage application but rather the fact that dire/tb is already so tanky combined with having a disengage and a condition applicator on what’s effectively no cooldown on top of the Daredevil while providing the capacity to get solid numbers. In most scenarios these days for WvW, the back-and-forth about the strength of conditions tends to be roughly the same as power builds given the number of % damage-reducing modifiers and permanent protection, etc. The thief in particular, operating under the assumption of small-scale (since thief has little purpose elsewhere in WvW) has great condition application capability in general.

For the most part, condition builds offer a substantially lower skill requirement in WvW than power builds due to the existence of dire/TB stats. Obviously their lack of existence in sPvP makes them much more reasonable in that environment, and again, that’s kind of where I draw the line for why SStrike among other condition options available in the game can’t really see much improvement.

Given the removal of Dire/TB gear, I’d totally support what you’re suggesting, and in fact, a lot of condition builds could probably be improved upon (granted I also believe dedicated cleanses and the interplay of skills/traits and damage mitigation/condition cleansing both need reworks); unfortunately I can’t justify further-increasing the potency of this build in particular due to how durable it is in nature in the WvW environment and how low of a barrier of entry it consequently has in what’s already a very condition-heavy game-state in the format due to the inherent disadvantages of power-based damage in the format, currently.

Your logic basically is that any buff to any condition ability will be overpowered because you view conditions as overpowered with Dire armor. So you would oppose any condition based buff on any class on principle, is what I’m taking away from you. I don’t, however, agree that conditions are overpowered due to armor.

My reason is that, in WvW, I could make a condition-crit build that sacrifices the durability of a Dire build in exchange for additional damage. Part of the reason I haven’t is because I like spending money on other characters, fashion, etc. Another, primary reason is because many people in WvW don’t build cleanses into their builds either through specializations or through utilities. This means I don’t need to sacrifice my durability to compensate against many opponents. The abundance of cleanse makes the problem more acute because condi burst had to be increased to compensate. Also, in WvW you often are fighting in larger scale battles where the extra HP/armor lets you live. So the incentives of the mode and the choices of the players in it are what drive me to use the armor I do. I’m not going to argue further about Dire/TB because that is not the point of the thread.

The truth is that Shadow Strike’s 2 stacks of torment were never that impressive. Even against a moving target the damage wasn’t significant (unlike Shadow Shot, which has both decent damage and teleport/blind built in and is unblockable). It didn’t really require cleansing by an opponent even when stacked multiple times. The change in sPvP made it independently useful (against a target that actually had cleanse as opposed to only against a target without cleanse).