Guild Wars 2

Full clerics gear and trinkets. Not sure how this guy is hitting like this much.

in addition- Just to note, I am not sure what the logic is to put evades on a skill that lands THIS MUCH DAMAGE. This skill shouldn’t be uninterruptible.

They’ve already got three evades, and that 1 more than everyone else has.

Please fix. Thanks.

/end rant/

You’ll see that in PvP as well. Nearly 3,000 armor or more? Psh, they’ll still crit right through it in 4 hits if you’re lucky. And you won’t be able to hit them back either. There’s a special place in the Depths for those lot.

Uh taking things out of context is always fun. But let’s play the game, they probably run very glassy and have every single damage modifier under the sun now that is not to say the skill does not hit hard but To achieve big numbers with Thieves they have to slot all the damage modifier traits/runes/sigils and utilities. Also fun fact his 3 vaults in a row used up every ounce of Initiative the Thief had

And you can interrupt the pre cast of Vault it’s a small window but able to be interrupted, and they have a baked in punish frame on the second half of the skill.

I find it funny that you stayed under him on the most Telegraphed Skill Thief has to take three vaults to the face, when you have more than enough mobility and skills to kite the Thief.

No, i was out of everything, blew all my cooldowns to escape their zerg, but guess what? he’s got 3 dodges forward and a shadowstep to bridge the gap. g-kitten-g

It also does not help that i am playing this in OCX Timezone where constant 250+ pings. That “small window” might as well be a non-existent window.

Chiccotot.7296:

No, i was out of everything, blew all my cooldowns to escape their zerg, but guess what? he’s got 3 dodges forward and a shadowstep to bridge the gap. g-kitten-g

It also does not help that i am playing this in OCX Timezone where constant 250+ pings. That “small window” might as well be a non-existent window.

So due to your 250 ping and you couldn’t move out from under Vault which is a very slow and telegraphed groundtargetted skill that Thief can’t redirect unless he burns Steal or Shadowstep, only one of which he could have used by viewing your combat log, you stood under 3 vaults and you want the game balanced around that. Gotcha.

Honestly, you think that skill is balanced? What with the evades on evades?
:D

Chiccotot.7296:

Honestly, you think that skill is balanced? What with the evades on evades?
:D

If you read my original post I said that it does a little to much damage, I just can’t take people whining about their ping when wanting balance decisions made, this is one of the most Telegraphed skills in game and you age it 3 times in a row, once the the skill is cast the Thief is locked into it….. if you can’t dodge or move out from under it that’s not the skill being OP…

I may be whining as you put it. But this skill is far from balanced.

wait this come from a ranger who can do 10k+ from 1500 range? lol.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Chiccotot.7296:

Honestly, you think that skill is balanced? What with the evades on evades?
:D

If you read my original post I said that it does a little to much damage, I just can’t take people whining about their ping when wanting balance decisions made, this is one of the most Telegraphed skills in game and you age it 3 times in a row, once the the skill is cast the Thief is locked into it….. if you can’t dodge or move out from under it that’s not the skill being OP…

Its, imo, valid “whining”. The precast is what, 1/4 second? On a 250+ ping its impossible to interrupt something when the window is over by the time you see the attack start on your screen. Should OP not have stood in it? Yea, he shouldn’t have. But that doesn’t change the fact that such a tiny window to interrupt is kind of cheesy on such a high damage skill in the first place.

OriOri.8724:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Chiccotot.7296:

Honestly, you think that skill is balanced? What with the evades on evades?
:D

If you read my original post I said that it does a little to much damage, I just can’t take people whining about their ping when wanting balance decisions made, this is one of the most Telegraphed skills in game and you age it 3 times in a row, once the the skill is cast the Thief is locked into it….. if you can’t dodge or move out from under it that’s not the skill being OP…

Its, imo, valid “whining”. The precast is what, 1/4 second? On a 250+ ping its impossible to interrupt something when the window is over by the time you see the attack start on your screen. Should OP not have stood in it? Yea, he shouldn’t have. But that doesn’t change the fact that such a tiny window to interrupt is kind of cheesy on such a high damage skill in the first place.

Anet should never balance around player ping. It’s as simple as that.

ur #1 problem is u are playing a Ranger in WvW. Serious didnt ur WvW commander tell u not to use ranger?

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Uh taking things out of context is always fun. But let’s play the game, they probably run very glassy and have every single damage modifier under the sun now that is not to say the skill does not hit hard but To achieve big numbers with Thieves they have to slot all the damage modifier traits/runes/sigils and utilities. Also fun fact his 3 vaults in a row used up every ounce of Initiative the Thief had

And you can interrupt the pre cast of Vault it’s a small window but able to be interrupted, and they have a baked in punish frame on the second half of the skill.

I find it funny that you stayed under him on the most Telegraphed Skill Thief has to take three vaults to the face, when you have more than enough mobility and skills to kite the Thief.

Nobody is taking anything out of context, there is a clear picture of the damage.

If you want to play the “it’s ok” card, then how about we give comparable damage and attack output to rangers and see how much you qq even harder on your thief…

Players like you are not competitive minded, and that’s very clear by your rude dismissal of the facts provided. You may choose to defend the amount of single player damage output, but that doesn’t make you right. The only reason certain stupid things, like this, even exist in the game is because the devs neglect profession development, won’t devote the resources to making healthy competitive game modes and most probably do not have a strong background in player vs player gameplay… But, ya know, this game is really balanced and well maintained for pvp combat so it must be all good…

So a thief is OP because one caught you with everything on cooldown and you were on a high latency connection? With those circumstances pretty much any burst build will kill you with big numbers super fast.

Single shot skills like Kill Shot, Gunflame, Eviscerate, Churning Earth, Grave Digger, etc can hit harder. Channeled skills like Rapid Fire, Whirling Wrath, Hundred Blades, Volley, etc can hit harder (much in some cases).

I can go over the condi burst like Skull Grinder or Burn Guardians that can drop 10+ stacks of fire on you which will kill you in about 2 steps.

Basically in that scenario just about any class has the ability to drop you in a couple seconds.

Obvious who the thieves are on this thread. BTW, I also play a thief.

It is an overpowered skill. Enough about ping and precast. Interrupting a split second precast is very hard, especially because most of the time, they’re stealthed when initially attacking you. Add to that the quickness most thieves initially have, add the evade while the skill is active. It’s just kittened.

If I’m playing anything squishy, I’m one-shotted. If I’m playing a tougher class, then I’m either dead after a couple more vaults, or I am able to react, defend. If I’m alive, the thief usually runs away. If they stay, then I fight and, depending on my class/build, either win, or they finish me off.

I’m opposed to anything that can literally one shot. This is a general issue with HoT and power creep while not buffing toughness/vitality. At least with a stealthed backstab, it was limited to the thief being in stealth, which has a CD. Vault doesn’t.

I think everyone misses the point that balance is all over the place in this game, well not everyone but get my drift. If you run bunker/heavy armor you should be able to take some punishment and reduce damage, ya know the idea since the dawn of time.

Yes, thieves are suppose be deadly and hit like mac trucks but at the same time shouldn’t the other player be able to compensate for his damage via his build and gear?

I think that’s the idea ya’ll are missing with the OPs complaint. Hence the balance postings left and right in the forums.

Straegen.2938:

So a thief is OP because one caught you with everything on cooldown and you were on a high latency connection? With those circumstances pretty much any burst build will kill you with big numbers super fast.

Single shot skills like Kill Shot, Gunflame, Eviscerate, Churning Earth, Grave Digger, etc can hit harder. Channeled skills like Rapid Fire, Whirling Wrath, Hundred Blades, Volley, etc can hit harder (much in some cases).

I can go over the condi burst like Skull Grinder or Burn Guardians that can drop 10+ stacks of fire on you which will kill you in about 2 steps.

Basically in that scenario just about any class has the ability to drop you in a couple seconds.

Yes, there are issues with some burst skills and combos, but I have pulled off 3 10k vaults… you let me know what other profession can blast 30k damage in a matter of seconds? And if you think that’s ok, we should probably give those capabilities to all professions in the name of “balance” right?

Swagger.1459:

Straegen.2938:

So a thief is OP because one caught you with everything on cooldown and you were on a high latency connection? With those circumstances pretty much any burst build will kill you with big numbers super fast.

Single shot skills like Kill Shot, Gunflame, Eviscerate, Churning Earth, Grave Digger, etc can hit harder. Channeled skills like Rapid Fire, Whirling Wrath, Hundred Blades, Volley, etc can hit harder (much in some cases).

I can go over the condi burst like Skull Grinder or Burn Guardians that can drop 10+ stacks of fire on you which will kill you in about 2 steps.

Basically in that scenario just about any class has the ability to drop you in a couple seconds.

Yes, there are issues with some burst skills and combos, but I have pulled off 3 10k vaults… you let me know what other profession can blast 30k damage in a matter of seconds? And if you think that’s ok, we should probably give those capabilities to all professions in the name of “balance” right?

A rifle warrior hit my thieve buddy for 15k last night LOL

BlaqueFyre.5678:

OriOri.8724:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Chiccotot.7296:

Honestly, you think that skill is balanced? What with the evades on evades?
:D

If you read my original post I said that it does a little to much damage, I just can’t take people whining about their ping when wanting balance decisions made, this is one of the most Telegraphed skills in game and you age it 3 times in a row, once the the skill is cast the Thief is locked into it….. if you can’t dodge or move out from under it that’s not the skill being OP…

Its, imo, valid “whining”. The precast is what, 1/4 second? On a 250+ ping its impossible to interrupt something when the window is over by the time you see the attack start on your screen. Should OP not have stood in it? Yea, he shouldn’t have. But that doesn’t change the fact that such a tiny window to interrupt is kind of cheesy on such a high damage skill in the first place.

Anet should never balance around player ping. It’s as simple as that.

ANet should never have a skill setup like this in the first place. Its as simple as that. Your highest damage skills should not be the ones that are the hardest to interrupt. That’s poor balance. This goes for all classes, not just thieves.

Swagger.1459:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Uh taking things out of context is always fun. But let’s play the game, they probably run very glassy and have every single damage modifier under the sun now that is not to say the skill does not hit hard but To achieve big numbers with Thieves they have to slot all the damage modifier traits/runes/sigils and utilities. Also fun fact his 3 vaults in a row used up every ounce of Initiative the Thief had

And you can interrupt the pre cast of Vault it’s a small window but able to be interrupted, and they have a baked in punish frame on the second half of the skill.

I find it funny that you stayed under him on the most Telegraphed Skill Thief has to take three vaults to the face, when you have more than enough mobility and skills to kite the Thief.

Nobody is taking anything out of context, there is a clear picture of the damage.

If you want to play the “it’s ok” card, then how about we give comparable damage and attack output to rangers and see how much you qq even harder on your thief…

Players like you are not competitive minded, and that’s very clear by your rude dismissal of the facts provided. You may choose to defend the amount of single player damage output, but that doesn’t make you right. The only reason certain stupid things, like this, even exist in the game is because the devs neglect profession development, won’t devote the resources to making healthy competitive game modes and most probably do not have a strong background in player vs player gameplay… But, ya know, this game is really balanced and well maintained for pvp combat so it must be all good…

Again read my first reply or is reading comprehension something you lack? I stated the damage is a little much, and yes context was needed hence the later admission of 240+ ping, and it’s still a random screenshot no info on his gear besides the claim of full clerics and no info on the Thieves Setup see how no context(see below of more non Context screenshot of more Ermergherd OP damage) kind of pathetic why don’t you qq more then and every class can do stupid amounts of damage like 18k Mauls from Ranger. Also interesting a skill that has 1200 range and can hit over 20k all in the matter of seconds.

And never have Is said this game is balanced, go ahead look through all my posts never have I stated such, this game is a complete mess on all fronts in regards to competitive gameplay.

If u make damage it will make the hostile atacker think twice.

Game is about damage if u are not being carried by damage expect to die fast, play what carries u.

Button with high damage is considerated a pro thing in gw2, and some classes dont even need that DPS stats to aquire a high acceptable value.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Swagger.1459:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Uh taking things out of context is always fun. But let’s play the game, they probably run very glassy and have every single damage modifier under the sun now that is not to say the skill does not hit hard but To achieve big numbers with Thieves they have to slot all the damage modifier traits/runes/sigils and utilities. Also fun fact his 3 vaults in a row used up every ounce of Initiative the Thief had

And you can interrupt the pre cast of Vault it’s a small window but able to be interrupted, and they have a baked in punish frame on the second half of the skill.

I find it funny that you stayed under him on the most Telegraphed Skill Thief has to take three vaults to the face, when you have more than enough mobility and skills to kite the Thief.

Nobody is taking anything out of context, there is a clear picture of the damage.

If you want to play the “it’s ok” card, then how about we give comparable damage and attack output to rangers and see how much you qq even harder on your thief…

Players like you are not competitive minded, and that’s very clear by your rude dismissal of the facts provided. You may choose to defend the amount of single player damage output, but that doesn’t make you right. The only reason certain stupid things, like this, even exist in the game is because the devs neglect profession development, won’t devote the resources to making healthy competitive game modes and most probably do not have a strong background in player vs player gameplay… But, ya know, this game is really balanced and well maintained for pvp combat so it must be all good…

Again read my first reply or is reading comprehension something you lack? I stated the damage is a little much, and yes context was needed hence the later admission of 240+ ping, and it’s still a random screenshot no info on his gear besides the claim of full clerics and no info on the Thieves Setup see how no context(see below of more non Context screenshot of more Ermergherd OP damage) kind of pathetic why don’t you qq more then and every class can do stupid amounts of damage like 18k Mauls from Ranger. Also interesting a skill that has 1200 range and can hit over 20k all in the matter of seconds.

And never have Is said this game is balanced, go ahead look through all my posts never have I stated such, this game is a complete mess on all fronts in regards to competitive gameplay.

Are you not aware of what you post? What I quoted was your 1st reply in this thread.

My points still stand.

I’m still on the fence about this skill. I like to think I’m pretty fair when it comes to claiming something is OP, because I very rarely make that claim. I practice and practice and if I don’t see any improvements or, if after I’ve repeatedly tried to exploit what should be a weakness to no avail, then I’ll usually start to question the balance.

I know there’s a frame of vulnerability during the Vault animation and I know Thieves run out of endurance just like anyone else. But it seems no matter how much I try to predict and counter, there’s no reward. They just Shadow Step out of range, stealth, Steal or what ever other ability they have available to slip out of my fingers, which it seems like they always have at least one. It’s not so much the damage with Vault I have a problem with as it is that not only is it highly damaging, but staff abilities return Endurance for Initiative spent and Channelled Vigor grants Endurance. So between staff evasions and endurance bar evades, it’s a nearly endless cycle that you can’t rely on to pin them down.

I’m not going to ask for nerfs because I don’t think Vault in particular needs it. But I do think something to do with staff and the amount of evades it can provide needs to be looked at. I’m going to continue practicing but it’s rapidly becoming one of those things I’d just prefer to avoid if I can help it. It doesn’t feel challenging or enjoyable, it feels like a guessing game where they always have an ace up their sleeve.

OriOri.8724:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

OriOri.8724:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Chiccotot.7296:

Honestly, you think that skill is balanced? What with the evades on evades?
:D

If you read my original post I said that it does a little to much damage, I just can’t take people whining about their ping when wanting balance decisions made, this is one of the most Telegraphed skills in game and you age it 3 times in a row, once the the skill is cast the Thief is locked into it….. if you can’t dodge or move out from under it that’s not the skill being OP…

Its, imo, valid “whining”. The precast is what, 1/4 second? On a 250+ ping its impossible to interrupt something when the window is over by the time you see the attack start on your screen. Should OP not have stood in it? Yea, he shouldn’t have. But that doesn’t change the fact that such a tiny window to interrupt is kind of cheesy on such a high damage skill in the first place.

Anet should never balance around player ping. It’s as simple as that.

ANet should never have a skill setup like this in the first place. Its as simple as that. Your highest damage skills should not be the ones that are the hardest to interrupt. That’s poor balance. This goes for all classes, not just thieves.

Yes I understand that and that’s why I have advocated for that on all skills that do too much, I play Rev and Thief, guess what go look at the Thread about Surge of The Mists nerf, I am for it and would love to see it in both WvW and PvP and in that same thread I stated they needed to nerf Vault under the same premise.

you know vault is not a true eva. it a 3/4 cast last 1/4 of skill is not eva frames so you could used your knockback shot rapid fire him he would died learn to play befor you QQ please <3

Don’t worry, as an elementalist you have Dragon Tooth, a very powerful skill that almost does 50% as much damage and only takes 3-4 seconds to land.

This skill is long overdue for a nerf. Spammable, 5 targets, easily hits for over 10k, and an evade? Absolutely terrible and out of touch design, and it needs to be changed for wvw and pvp. Combine that with thieves ridiculous amount of burst damage from power and conditions, stealth spam, and tons of mobility and escapes and you have a profession that is in dire need of rebalancing.

Possible changes:

Increase initiative cost to 6 for wvw/pvp
Reduce damage by 20%
Remove the evade
Lower target limit from 5 to 3

X T D.6458:

This skill is long overdue for a nerf. Spammable, 5 targets, easily hits for over 10k, and an evade? Absolutely terrible and out of touch design, and it needs to be changed for wvw and pvp. Combine that with thieves ridiculous amount of burst damage from power and conditions, stealth spam, and tons of mobility and escapes and you have a profession that is in dire need of rebalancing.

Increase initiative cost to 6 for wvw/pvp
Reduce damage by 20%
Remove the evade

Seems reasonable. If it got the Revenant treatment, the damage would be reduced by 50% and they’d slap on 5 second cooldown even though it goes against the profession’s mechanics.

Clownmug.8357:

X T D.6458:

This skill is long overdue for a nerf. Spammable, 5 targets, easily hits for over 10k, and an evade? Absolutely terrible and out of touch design, and it needs to be changed for wvw and pvp. Combine that with thieves ridiculous amount of burst damage from power and conditions, stealth spam, and tons of mobility and escapes and you have a profession that is in dire need of rebalancing.

Increase initiative cost to 6 for wvw/pvp
Reduce damage by 20%
Remove the evade

Seems reasonable. If it got the Revenant treatment, the damage would be reduced by 50% and they’d slap on 5 second cooldown even though it goes against the profession’s mechanics.

Heh yea revenant is a another mess. One other possible change I forgot to add was to lower the target limit from 5 to 3. I think a damage reduction and especially increase in initiative cost would be the best way to go with this skill, increasing the cost would prevent it from being spammed a third time since pretty much every thief is running trickery and gets that extra 3 initiative. I don’t know the exact mechanics of the evade on this skill, but I would make it activate when coming down from the leap, therefore allowing a thief to be cc’ed when activating the skill.

Honestly, I would rather thieves use staff then weapon sets that rely on stealth, but this skill in particular is a little too strong right now. Stealth in itself is terrible and needs to be heavily nerfed. I would also like to see changes to dagger, pistol, and sword for thieves as well, specifically for pvp and wvw, but that’s just me.

X T D.6458:

Clownmug.8357:

X T D.6458:

This skill is long overdue for a nerf. Spammable, 5 targets, easily hits for over 10k, and an evade? Absolutely terrible and out of touch design, and it needs to be changed for wvw and pvp. Combine that with thieves ridiculous amount of burst damage from power and conditions, stealth spam, and tons of mobility and escapes and you have a profession that is in dire need of rebalancing.

Increase initiative cost to 6 for wvw/pvp
Reduce damage by 20%
Remove the evade

Seems reasonable. If it got the Revenant treatment, the damage would be reduced by 50% and they’d slap on 5 second cooldown even though it goes against the profession’s mechanics.

Heh yea revenant is a another mess. One other possible change I forgot to add was to lower the target limit from 5 to 3. I think a damage reduction and especially increase in initiative cost would be the best way to go with this skill, increasing the cost would prevent it from being spammed a third time since pretty much every thief is running trickery and gets that extra 3 initiative. I don’t know the exact mechanics of the evade on this skill, but I would make it activate when coming down from the leap, therefore allowing a thief to be cc’ed when activating the skill.

Honestly, I would rather thieves use staff then weapon sets that rely on stealth, but this skill in particular is a little too strong right now. Stealth in itself is terrible and needs to be heavily nerfed. I would also like to see changes to dagger, pistol, and sword for thieves as well, specifically for pvp and wvw, but that’s just me.

Only thing I have to blatantly disagree with is all Thief skills need to be balanced around the baseline 12 Initiative pool not on the 15. Or they need to make Preparedness Baseline since all skills are already balanced around the 15 Initiative pool. It’s not that Thieves like running trickery, it’s the fact they are forced to.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I know there’s a frame of vulnerability during the Vault animation and I know Thieves run out of endurance just like anyone else. But it seems no matter how much I try to predict and counter, there’s no reward. They just Shadow Step out of range, stealth, Steal or what ever other ability they have available to slip out of my fingers, which it seems like they always have at least one.

I just wanted reply to this as I found your post really reasonable.

The quote above outlines the issue with every class since HoT. Everyone seems to have oodles defense baked in be it blocks, stealth, evasion, healing and invulns and thats not even getting to some of the ridiculous passives. We have too many tools that let us go on for what seems forever. Even if you make a mistake, the current kits make it hard for your opponents to capitalize on them.

Vault honestly is an example of an overinflated skill made to deal with the overinflated defenses currently in the game.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I’m not going to ask for nerfs because I don’t think Vault in particular needs it. But I do think something to do with staff and the amount of evades it can provide needs to be looked at.

I feel the same way. I can practically evade forever on staff against bad players. Its the same with DP and blinds/stealth. Thief in general has a pretty weak kit that really only supports one type of play style anymore which is active avoidance spam. I wish they would open the class up more so that it could have better exchange patterns.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

X T D.6458:

Clownmug.8357:

X T D.6458:

This skill is long overdue for a nerf. Spammable, 5 targets, easily hits for over 10k, and an evade? Absolutely terrible and out of touch design, and it needs to be changed for wvw and pvp. Combine that with thieves ridiculous amount of burst damage from power and conditions, stealth spam, and tons of mobility and escapes and you have a profession that is in dire need of rebalancing.

Increase initiative cost to 6 for wvw/pvp
Reduce damage by 20%
Remove the evade

Seems reasonable. If it got the Revenant treatment, the damage would be reduced by 50% and they’d slap on 5 second cooldown even though it goes against the profession’s mechanics.

Heh yea revenant is a another mess. One other possible change I forgot to add was to lower the target limit from 5 to 3. I think a damage reduction and especially increase in initiative cost would be the best way to go with this skill, increasing the cost would prevent it from being spammed a third time since pretty much every thief is running trickery and gets that extra 3 initiative. I don’t know the exact mechanics of the evade on this skill, but I would make it activate when coming down from the leap, therefore allowing a thief to be cc’ed when activating the skill.

Honestly, I would rather thieves use staff then weapon sets that rely on stealth, but this skill in particular is a little too strong right now. Stealth in itself is terrible and needs to be heavily nerfed. I would also like to see changes to dagger, pistol, and sword for thieves as well, specifically for pvp and wvw, but that’s just me.

Only thing I have to blatantly disagree with is all Thief skills need to be balanced around the baseline 12 Initiative pool not on the 15. Or they need to make Preparedness Baseline since all skills are already balanced around the 15 Initiative pool. It’s not that Thieves like running trickery, it’s the fact they are forced to.

While you bring up a good point, and I agree with you, increasing the initiative cost to 6 would still keep in line with what you are saying. Currently a thief is able to spam this skill 3 times in a row when using the trickery traitline, that is a little too much, and especially since pretty much every other #5 skill on thief has an initiative cost of 6 (infiltrators arrow, cloak and dagger, black powder). It can still be spammed twice in a row with or without trickery traited even if the initiative cost was increased to 6.

A player should need to use other skills, rather then just try to finish a fight instantly by spamming the same skill twice. Increasing the initiative cost and reducing damage would bring on better play I think.

If the OP was running glass, I’d say 10-11k was just on the very high side for a spammable movement skill with a built in evade. But in full clerics? That’s crazy.

X T D.6458:

This skill is long overdue for a nerf. Spammable, 5 targets, easily hits for over 10k, and an evade? Absolutely terrible and out of touch design, and it needs to be changed for wvw and pvp. Combine that with thieves ridiculous amount of burst damage from power and conditions, stealth spam, and tons of mobility and escapes and you have a profession that is in dire need of rebalancing.

Possible changes:

Increase initiative cost to 6 for wvw/pvp
Reduce damage by 20%
Remove the evade
Lower target limit from 5 to 3

All of that together seems like a bit much of a nerf.

OriOri.8724:

X T D.6458:

This skill is long overdue for a nerf. Spammable, 5 targets, easily hits for over 10k, and an evade? Absolutely terrible and out of touch design, and it needs to be changed for wvw and pvp. Combine that with thieves ridiculous amount of burst damage from power and conditions, stealth spam, and tons of mobility and escapes and you have a profession that is in dire need of rebalancing.

Possible changes:

Increase initiative cost to 6 for wvw/pvp
Reduce damage by 20%
Remove the evade
Lower target limit from 5 to 3

All of that together seems like a bit much of a nerf.

Oh no, as I stated in my next 2 posts those are possible changes, not that all of them should be implemented lol. Personally I favor an increase in initiative cost from 5 to 6, and reduction in damage in the range of 20%. This would curb some of the spamming and high damage of the skill while still keep it strong.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I’m still on the fence about this skill. I like to think I’m pretty fair when it comes to claiming something is OP, because I very rarely make that claim. I practice and practice and if I don’t see any improvements or, if after I’ve repeatedly tried to exploit what should be a weakness to no avail, then I’ll usually start to question the balance.

I know there’s a frame of vulnerability during the Vault animation and I know Thieves run out of endurance just like anyone else. But it seems no matter how much I try to predict and counter, there’s no reward. They just Shadow Step out of range, stealth, Steal or what ever other ability they have available to slip out of my fingers, which it seems like they always have at least one. It’s not so much the damage with Vault I have a problem with as it is that not only is it highly damaging, but staff abilities return Endurance for Initiative spent and Channelled Vigor grants Endurance. So between staff evasions and endurance bar evades, it’s a nearly endless cycle that you can’t rely on to pin them down.

I’m not going to ask for nerfs because I don’t think Vault in particular needs it. But I do think something to do with staff and the amount of evades it can provide needs to be looked at. I’m going to continue practicing but it’s rapidly becoming one of those things I’d just prefer to avoid if I can help it. It doesn’t feel challenging or enjoyable, it feels like a guessing game where they always have an ace up their sleeve.

For the most part you’ve nailed it.

The thing about vault is that even punishing and interrupting it doesn’t really do anything to the thief unless you run a build overloaded with CC and for any reason at all you’ve caught them with their pants down with no stunbreak available; they’ll just be down a vault’s worth of initiative (only 5!) and can re-use it again immediately (and again and likely/potentially again via Kleptomaniac). If you somehow manage to punish the thief on every vault he just resets because Daredevil and comes back in 15s to repeat the process while your interrupts are on cooldown.

This is a general HoT problem, though; almost no builds are punishable outside of the realm of just having a hard-counter-based build.

It’s the ability to spam some very imbalanced abilities (Headshot + ID, Shadow Shot, etc.) that force the rest of the thief to be weak in order to remain balanced generally-speaking. It boggles my mind how the developers can’t see this, and again, also haven’t seen this on other professions.

Is vault overtuned? I think its damage at 2.52 is excessive – there’s really no need for it to hit that hard; a drop to 2.0 or maybe even a bit less would probably not change that much aside from letting spamming bads die more often – but it’s not necessarily overpowered in concept alone. I disagree with any existence of being able to deal damage during defensive state (as well as how most professional PvP players feel and by the PvP/WvW community at-large), but that’s seemingly the direction ANet wants to take in order to justify “harder” PvE.

DeceiverX.8361:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I’m still on the fence about this skill. I like to think I’m pretty fair when it comes to claiming something is OP, because I very rarely make that claim. I practice and practice and if I don’t see any improvements or, if after I’ve repeatedly tried to exploit what should be a weakness to no avail, then I’ll usually start to question the balance.

I know there’s a frame of vulnerability during the Vault animation and I know Thieves run out of endurance just like anyone else. But it seems no matter how much I try to predict and counter, there’s no reward. They just Shadow Step out of range, stealth, Steal or what ever other ability they have available to slip out of my fingers, which it seems like they always have at least one. It’s not so much the damage with Vault I have a problem with as it is that not only is it highly damaging, but staff abilities return Endurance for Initiative spent and Channelled Vigor grants Endurance. So between staff evasions and endurance bar evades, it’s a nearly endless cycle that you can’t rely on to pin them down.

I’m not going to ask for nerfs because I don’t think Vault in particular needs it. But I do think something to do with staff and the amount of evades it can provide needs to be looked at. I’m going to continue practicing but it’s rapidly becoming one of those things I’d just prefer to avoid if I can help it. It doesn’t feel challenging or enjoyable, it feels like a guessing game where they always have an ace up their sleeve.

For the most part you’ve nailed it.

The thing about vault is that even punishing and interrupting it doesn’t really do anything to the thief unless you run a build overloaded with CC and for any reason at all you’ve caught them with their pants down with no stunbreak available; they’ll just be down a vault’s worth of initiative (only 5!) and can re-use it again immediately (and again and likely/potentially again via Kleptomaniac). If you somehow manage to punish the thief on every vault he just resets because Daredevil and comes back in 15s to repeat the process while your interrupts are on cooldown.

This is a general HoT problem, though; almost no builds are punishable outside of the realm of just having a hard-counter-based build.

It’s the ability to spam some very imbalanced abilities (Headshot + ID, Shadow Shot, etc.) that force the rest of the thief to be weak in order to remain balanced generally-speaking. It boggles my mind how the developers can’t see this, and again, also haven’t seen this on other professions.

Is vault overtuned? I think its damage at 2.52 is excessive – there’s really no need for it to hit that hard; a drop to 2.0 or maybe even a bit less would probably not change that much aside from letting spamming bads die more often – but it’s not necessarily overpowered in concept alone. I disagree with any existence of being able to deal damage during defensive state (as well as how most professional PvP players feel and by the PvP/WvW community at-large), but that’s seemingly the direction ANet wants to take in order to justify “harder” PvE.

Two things about your last paragraph there.

A – If Anet had slowly ramped up the difficulty in mobs at a fairly steady pace from starter zones to the mobs in HoT, we wouldn’t need skills that do 4 different things and we wouldn’t need hard hitting skills that are also very defensive in nature. Yet by keeping the difficulty of mobs so faceroll for the entire leveling curve, it doesn’t teach people how to play with GW2’s combat system, so they just aren’t prepared for harder PvE mobs. A better ramp up, while not the perfect solution, would go a long way in reducing the need for how ridiculously good some of the elite spec skills/traits are.

B – Now that we are starting to see some real skill splits, hopefully ANet can start keeping the PvE skills as they need to be to allow all players the ability to do HoT content without making those same skills do 3 or 4 things at once in PvP. Especially that the tooltip says that the skill is different between game modes, there isn’t any excuse on the player’s part for a skill working differently between PvE and PvP

If you think the 10k crit was impressive,
Look at that 5k non-crit….

Chiccotot.7296:

They’ve already got three evades, and that 1 more than everyone else has.

/end rant/

6 with signet of agility, and if running energy on weapons 7, even more if hard to catch is traited. Bounds for dayz.

WvW has so much broken stuff in it, Gunflames hitting for 15k on a class with heavy armour and max base hps, multiple invulns and access to pulsing resistance to effectively ignore condis.

This sort of dmg should be on a glass Ele in light armour on a skill with a decent wind up, if it exists at all. Not a heavy armored warrior with access to unblockable quickness gunflames.

Taxidriver.2043:

ur #1 problem is u are playing a Ranger in WvW. Serious didnt ur WvW commander tell u not to use ranger?

heh, i was playing my ranger at the time because i havent logged into her for a long time and my Kudzu was already wilting, but i main mesmer and necro.
To be honest, I wouldnt be half surprised if i get the same damage on my mesmer and necro since they’re light classes, but on my medium armor full clerics druid, i felt it warranted a post in the salty forums

#nohate

I am the thief. Full size norn vault spam ftw.

It’s just another example of the OP skills they have brought in or not fixed in order to work around all the buffs etc they had to go with in order not to have distinct healer/tank/squishy classes.

It’s all turned into quite a mess, with skills being able to hit 10k on a 3k+ armor toon with little to no cool down or instant spam several skills like thiefs can do, or CoR, or many other burst skills, or condi bombs.

There are so many skills and combos that need fixing for wvw. Sadly they have no interest in doing so.

Imagine if Dragonhunter gained Evade while casting True Shot.

They don`t even care a bit about wvw class balance so what ?

Angelbeats.9701:

I am the thief. Full size norn vault spam ftw.

This player seems sketchy, 3 posts for a platinum rank account?

Perhaps a ban is in order for Anelbeats for his offensive vaulting behaviour.

Hint: Kill them when the vault holds them in the air the short time before they land. Problem solved.

Ezrael.6859:

Imagine if Dragonhunter gained Evade while casting True Shot.

If they do, I’m kittening blaming you. =.=

more and more of the DD staff 5s are coming out. ANET please help!

remove the evade of the staff 5, or make it give them just 1 aegis stack.
the evades are ridiculous.

Full Condi Tank / Troll dodge evade meta… Poor kitten overflow.

I would point out we are talking about a class that is mediocre at duels (and that is generous), virtually useless in zergs and marginal at best in skirmish. It even mostly sucks in sPvP outside of Decap.

If the plan is to nerf it so zerglings can fight it solo, well then go for it. However any player getting blown up by Vault spam is a fairly crappy player or got caught on cooldown (as the OP was) which can happen with any decent build.

Staff thieves are so far down on the list of “hard to beat” classes in a straight up fight it isn’t even remotely useful what is being proposed here.