Guild Wars 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4uojtr/skillbalance_changes_started_showing_up_in_the_api/

ANet r u srs

The thief still have to exchange his utilities (and his survival along with aht) for the venoms. Except for basilisk, but stun do not stack duration, so if everyone just gang upon the same target it won’t have full effect.

Honestly, I see much more annoying stuff in that post than VS as baseline…

Anyone running venoms was running aura already but yeah, the problem could be “regular” thieves randomly giving nearby allies it unintentionally.

Regardless of how strong it’ll end up being (depends on what other changes are included, I guess), more hard CC randomly tossed around is hardly what the game needs. Most people were probably hoping for quite the opposite.

This should be fun for maguuma.
This really didn’t need to be baseline.
/shrug
Oh well not like combat wasn’t turning into kitten already anyways, what’s another cancer to add.

Xenesis.6389:

This should be fun for maguuma.
This really didn’t need to be baseline.
/shrug
Oh well not like combat wasn’t turning into kitten already anyways, what’s another cancer to add.

Clueless anet at it again lol

Once thieves realize this and start to use more venoms, expect tons of CC and condi spam from randomly affected allies. At least the venoms were nerfed same time, because we really don’t need more random spam.

Just shows Arenanet doesn’t play much WvWvW.

I hope you enjoy being hit by five 1.5 second unblockable stuns applied by any damage skill whenever a Thief is in the area! Have fun!

Deniara Devious.3948:

Once thieves realize this and start to use more venoms, expect tons of CC and condi spam from randomly affected allies. At least the venoms were nerfed same time, because we really don’t need more random spam.

Just shows Arenanet doesn’t play much WvWvW.

The balancing is clearly not done with WvW in mind at all, even if they said WvW would be the focus after HoT’s release.

Why isn’t there a WvW split? I’m pretty sure we were balnced with PvE, which means warriors didn’t get any nerfs whatsoever in their godly marauder builds and basically everything else was nerfed.
And then there is this venom share. This is terrifying. 90% of roamers on yb run thief. They could chain venom stun somebody to death now without batting an eye.

Won’t matter until they nerf 100% resistance uptime boon blobs.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Just shows Arenanet doesn’t play much WvWvW.

But, but, but there was just a post the other day saying that they dared claiming a tower/keep…

7:26-16 Anet said, Let there be ratwells; they willed it, and at once there was ratwells. Oh, the power of the word of Anet! And in the new creation, the first thing that is wrought in the soul is ratwells:

Some Dev, somewhere, earlier this week.

I’m curious if I’ll see more thieves in zergs – I somehow guess I won’t. I’m usually the only one in my zerg.
But then again, thief got nerfed heavily with this patch and I don’t really feel like logging in anymore.
In the end; Venoms being baselines helps mostly PvE players who think they need venomshare in raids – I wouldn’t be too afraid of it in wvw – because a) thief still is dead with one hit (ask a hammer rev to come and focus any enemy thief) and b) all venoms were nerfed heavily with this patch.
I would be surprised if anything would happen at all, it’s like the “Oh noz thief auto attack got buffed, now thief completely OP” everybody was running thief for a week – I haven’t seen many since.

What about dem tanky Vigilant/Soldier frontline thieves, their sole purpose will be to add extra cheese.

Make it so!

Nuzt.7894:

What about dem tanky Vigilant/Soldier frontline thieves, their sole purpose will be to add extra cheese.

Make it so!

And watch they be useless because the boonsharing zergs will be completely immune to venomshare stuff.

And: Tanky and thief doesn’t work since the Ferocity Patch 2 years ago anymore anyway.

You guys are haters.

Nuzt.7894:

You guys are haters.

Ofc… We are WvW players. We hate everything.

You want a zergthief comeback, eh, Nuzt?
AINT GONNA HAPPEN! WE NEED TO NERF THEM MOAR!!

ETA:

Ofc… We are WvW players. We hate everything.

qft

Tanky and thief? We have people left and right feeling outclasses by high evade uptime thieves. Evade is the thief version of block. We can evade for ages. The only thing that front line thief needs is some respect and perma-fury uptime.

OneEightHundred.5689:

Won’t matter until they nerf 100% resistance uptime boon blobs.

Resistance blocks Basilisk venom?

saerni.2584:

Tanky and thief? We have people left and right feeling outclasses by high evade uptime thieves. Evade is the thief version of block. We can evade for ages. The only thing that front line thief needs is some respect and perma-fury uptime.

Because I really expected anyone to take that comment seriously? I figured the “Make it so” part would make it pretty clear how serious of a post it was.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

OneEightHundred.5689:

Won’t matter until they nerf 100% resistance uptime boon blobs.

Resistance blocks Basilisk venom?

Resistance isn’t a block… it’s an immunity.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

OneEightHundred.5689:

Won’t matter until they nerf 100% resistance uptime boon blobs.

Resistance blocks Basilisk venom?

Nom but the stability they will also be sharing do.

Should screw up smaller fights nicely. Got to switch mes and thief to condi. Might as well help in pushing wvw to hell. Maybe if we break it enough it will fix itself.

Xillllix.3485:

The balancing is clearly not done with WvW in mind at all, even if they said WvW would be the focus after HoT’s release.

Indeed. Arenanet keeps buffing guardian, even thought guardian has always been meta in WvWvW. Guardians/dragonhunters form the bulk of most zergs, followed by heralds, tempests, warriors/berserkers and reapers. Most commanders run a very tanky guardian/dragonhunter build.

Ranger/druid still sucks in large fights, because the pet just keeps dying even if you put the guard/defensive mode unless you pewpew from far. This could be avoided by giving rangers option to put the pet into spirit mode, when the pet is invulnerable to all damage, but cannot interact with the world in any way (cannot use skills or attacks).

Core engineers are rare as hen’s teeth in WvWvW and scrappers are mainly seen roaming. Reverting some of the grenade kit nerfs and improving the mortar set, plus finally making the medkit work might put engineers back to the map.

Daredevils/thieves are of course abundant in roaming. Well, thieves have always been popular in roaming. In group fights thieves role has been primary sniping off enemy flankers and providing venom share. I don’t see changes to this role.

Mesmers are still utility bots in large fights, providing veil + portal + alacrity. Condition mesmers are among the hardest to kill in 1 vs 1, but the roles are limited to this.

I mean look at the number of classes that are accepted for wvw already, they’re mostly exclusive to just guardians, eles, necros, mesmers, 1-2 warriors, and revenants. Medium classes are usually tossed to the side and left to rot. It would be great if we could use venomshare thieves and invoke other guilds to do so. It’s really a shame that people have such high ego over not putting thieves in the zerg.

Simonoly.4352:

I hope you enjoy being hit by five 1.5 second unblockable stuns applied by any damage skill whenever a Thief is in the area! Have fun!

Well, if it actually worked like that… right now they are only working about half the time, and when they do work just pop your condi cleanse or stun break…done. The executioners trait is actually working better than basilisk venom or devourer venom.

Jana.6831:

I’m curious if I’ll see more thieves in zergs – I somehow guess I won’t. I’m usually the only one in my zerg.
But then again, thief got nerfed heavily with this patch and I don’t really feel like logging in anymore.
In the end; Venoms being baselines helps mostly PvE players who think they need venomshare in raids – I wouldn’t be too afraid of it in wvw – because a) thief still is dead with one hit (ask a hammer rev to come and focus any enemy thief) and b) all venoms were nerfed heavily with this patch.
I would be surprised if anything would happen at all, it’s like the “Oh noz thief auto attack got buffed, now thief completely OP” everybody was running thief for a week – I haven’t seen many since.

Interesting that they would think that they need venom share in raids… most raids won’t allow thieves even if they are running venoms because thieves in raids are absolutely useless.

Link.1049:

Interesting that they would think that they need venom share in raids… most raids won’t allow thieves even if they are running venoms because thieves in raids are absolutely useless.

One guild was very eager to get me so I would be in their raids – they had a reason actually. I can dish out a lot of damage, am a rather good player and had S/P as my secod set for the defiance bar.
Venomshare is kind of stupid, but it might work if the rest of the damage party knows how to make use of it – but most (PvE) players don’t know anything about thieves.
I guess this was anets try to justify thieves in raids – to make them more viable – unfortunately they justfied this “buff” with a bunch of massive nerfs and in the end it hurts pvp and wvw thieves – like usual.

Nusku.3941:

I mean look at the number of classes that are accepted for wvw already, they’re mostly exclusive to just guardians, eles, necros, mesmers, 1-2 warriors, and revenants. Medium classes are usually tossed to the side and left to rot.

It would be great if we could use venomshare thieves and invoke other guilds to do so. It’s really a shame that people have such high ego over not putting thieves in the zerg.

No, it’s just that players don’t like crowd control effects, they don’t like to lose control of their characters, whether that’s slow, or chill, or immobilized, or stuns, or taunted, or feared. A great many players hate conditions as well, with venoms you get poison torment, invulnerability, chill, immobilized, stoned. Then combine it with aoe spells like with wells which are already nasty on their own…

Yeah maybe thieves and engineers and rangers have lost a place in the wvw zerg, but that’s because their skills are more solo based, classes like elementalist and guardians and revenants are built to be more group based. That’s what happens when one gets built entirely around stealth, one with half useless offensive kits, and the other with a dumb healing mechanic that people still prefer elementalist over it.

It’s not going to matter much to the groups already running a ton of boons, just another tool for them to wreck groups not so organized.

I’m just waiting for the day conditions finally kill the servers from lag.

Link.1049:

Jana.6831:

I’m curious if I’ll see more thieves in zergs – I somehow guess I won’t. I’m usually the only one in my zerg.
But then again, thief got nerfed heavily with this patch and I don’t really feel like logging in anymore.
In the end; Venoms being baselines helps mostly PvE players who think they need venomshare in raids – I wouldn’t be too afraid of it in wvw – because a) thief still is dead with one hit (ask a hammer rev to come and focus any enemy thief) and b) all venoms were nerfed heavily with this patch.
I would be surprised if anything would happen at all, it’s like the “Oh noz thief auto attack got buffed, now thief completely OP” everybody was running thief for a week – I haven’t seen many since.

Interesting that they would think that they need venom share in raids… most raids won’t allow thieves even if they are running venoms because thieves in raids are absolutely useless.

Basi venom shared baseline and increased to a 1.5s stun does a lot to break bars and thief has had competitive DPS just less support than the ele. I never turned away a good thief from raids because thief, however I would politely ask if they could bring ele to bosses that just sit there and have a hit box bigger than the moon like gorseval. The heal venom is pretty decent too, if it was 30s CD it would be a great raid heal imo as it is ~5k for allies and ~9k for thief.

As for WvW, depends how long it takes pug blobs to realise they can have a thief or two with necros and lock down other pug blobs easily. Considering I’ve been seeing more condi thieves lately it’s only a matter of 1 utility switch and you don’t even have to change anything else.

I’d be more worried for small-scale. VShare actually got nerfed for large-scale since the application is lower than before. It’s only one stun per necro now, and multiple targets despite being in the same well pulse don’t get stunned. Devourer venom is also lower by a stack.

What will be stupid is gank groups of 5 thieves just endlessly chaining BV for their whole parties. As another user put it above, I feel bad for anything fighting Mag.

The change makes no sense; LV and Aura should have been combined into the master slot, with baseline cooldown reductions on venoms instead.

DeceiverX.8361:

I’d be more worried for small-scale. VShare actually got nerfed for large-scale since the application is lower than before. It’s only one stun per necro now, and multiple targets despite being in the same well pulse don’t get stunned. Devourer venom is also lower by a stack.

What will be stupid is gank groups of 5 thieves just endlessly chaining BV for their whole parties. As another user put it above, I feel bad for anything fighting Mag.

The change makes no sense; LV and Aura should have been combined into the master slot, with baseline cooldown reductions on venoms instead.

Again I do not think it as bad as you suggest> I was toying with this in WvW last night and yes you can get that share on early in a fight but once the fight starts it rare to be able to load up multiple players. The limited range means you have to be very tight to your group.

“hey Guys wait till I load you up with venoms gather round” just is not going to happen a lot in a fight and the thief doing that is going to get cleaved or find himself in stacks of aoe. Basi is one of the longest to load as well. Standing still for 1 second can get you killed.

babazhook.6805:

Again I do not think it as bad as you suggest> I was toying with this in WvW last night and yes you can get that share on early in a fight but once the fight starts it rare to be able to load up multiple players. The limited range means you have to be very tight to your group.

I got lit up quite a few times last night from BV share. I don’t think a party would build around it but given its utility for a typical thief, I am definitely getting hit by it more often and from classes that normally don’t have access to free a long stun/root.

I’ll be interested to see how much this affects 10-15 person havoks, there are always a couple extra thieves following us around.

Basi venom + rapid fire + ancient seeds.

perseco.8321:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

OneEightHundred.5689:

Won’t matter until they nerf 100% resistance uptime boon blobs.

Resistance blocks Basilisk venom?

Resistance isn’t a block… it’s an immunity.

Basi isn’t a condi Although I think it should be a condi like fear.

apharma.3741:

Basi venom + rapid fire + ancient seeds.

You don’t really need basi for this when you can pbs and have the same effect. Nothing new here.

Straegen.2938:

babazhook.6805:

Again I do not think it as bad as you suggest> I was toying with this in WvW last night and yes you can get that share on early in a fight but once the fight starts it rare to be able to load up multiple players. The limited range means you have to be very tight to your group.

I got lit up quite a few times last night from BV share. I don’t think a party would build around it but given its utility for a typical thief, I am definitely getting hit by it more often and from classes that normally don’t have access to free a long stun/root.

I have not seen that yet myself. Most thieves use Basi Venom and I know I tried to load it up a few times last night on others. After that first load that occurs when you just gathering up to enter battle I doubt I got it to load again on more than one other during the course of the fight. As a thief I an moving around way too much.

Jeknar.6184:

apharma.3741:

Basi venom + rapid fire + ancient seeds.

You don’t really need basi for this when you can pbs and have the same effect. Nothing new here.

You need to PBS then hit them with another attack while they are knocked back.

What basi with rapid fire will do is guarantee that the first hit stuns the target forcing a stun break however you will be hit very quickly if not immediately by the ranger proccing ancient seeds and eating a whole rapid fire most of the time due to either being stunned or immobilised unless you have a stun break and cleanse.

You then get more options to use the PBS combo 10s later to lock them down again or interrupt the heal.

I saw quite a lot of thieves in wvw today – they all died within seconds.
But then again: I was walking around, minding my own business and all of the sudden thief 1 jumped out of the bushes, then thief 2, 3, 4…
What they didn’t know was that 5 guys were taking care of my wellbeing – I had no troubles to clear out my inventory.

In the end: Deceiver is right: Small scale might become a problem – the rest won’t – so give it a week or two and most thieves will be gone again.

Jana.6831:

I saw quite a lot of thieves in wvw today – they all died within seconds.
But then again: I was walking around, minding my own business and all of the sudden thief 1 jumped out of the bushes, then thief 2, 3, 4…
What they didn’t know was that 5 guys were taking care of my wellbeing – I had no troubles to clear out my inventory.

In the end: Deceiver is right: Small scale might become a problem – the rest won’t – so give it a week or two and most thieves will be gone again.

Yeah thieves everywhere and squashing them all day. I’m guessing well coordinated gank squads will get the best use out of this. Mag does come to mind. Roaming thieves are solo much of the time anyway and actual group v group fights will probably be spamming cleanse and resistance.

I think we can all agree that Anet needs to balance WvW SEPERATELY from PvE, just like PvP is balanced SEPERATELY. Things that have been removed or never allowed into PvP (dura runes, dire/sinister, etc.) shouldn’t be allowed in WvW either. WvW is a Player versus Player mode yet Anet continues to treat it as though it’s Player versus Environment. And that’s how all us non-zerging players/roamers continue to get screwed every patch.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Removing-Amulets-will-NOT-Solve-the-Problem-Merged/page/3

See what Josh Davis says to balance in pvp.
I’d say balancing all 3 modes would be possible if someone took the effort to even try it.

Xenesis.6389:

Nusku.3941:

I mean look at the number of classes that are accepted for wvw already, they’re mostly exclusive to just guardians, eles, necros, mesmers, 1-2 warriors, and revenants. Medium classes are usually tossed to the side and left to rot.

It would be great if we could use venomshare thieves and invoke other guilds to do so. It’s really a shame that people have such high ego over not putting thieves in the zerg.

No, it’s just that players don’t like crowd control effects, they don’t like to lose control of their characters, whether that’s slow, or chill, or immobilized, or stuns, or taunted, or feared. A great many players hate conditions as well, with venoms you get poison torment, invulnerability, chill, immobilized, stoned. Then combine it with aoe spells like with wells which are already nasty on their own…

Yeah maybe thieves and engineers and rangers have lost a place in the wvw zerg, but that’s because their skills are more solo based, classes like elementalist and guardians and revenants are built to be more group based. That’s what happens when one gets built entirely around stealth, one with half useless offensive kits, and the other with a dumb healing mechanic that people still prefer elementalist over it.

It’s not going to matter much to the groups already running a ton of boons, just another tool for them to wreck groups not so organized.

I’m just waiting for the day conditions finally kill the servers from lag.

Anet has nerfed thieves primary wvw utility of 1v1 roaming. Also, with raiding, if a thief is on your side…they can’t apply conditions to you, just sayin. We don’t have wells and other stuff. Thief was built on stealth, conditions, and speed. Anet has nerfed all of that. Engi’s and ranger’s still dominate in WvW…and with this latest patch Mesmer is going to explode yet again.

apharma.3741:

Link.1049:

Jana.6831:

I’m curious if I’ll see more thieves in zergs – I somehow guess I won’t. I’m usually the only one in my zerg.
But then again, thief got nerfed heavily with this patch and I don’t really feel like logging in anymore.
In the end; Venoms being baselines helps mostly PvE players who think they need venomshare in raids – I wouldn’t be too afraid of it in wvw – because a) thief still is dead with one hit (ask a hammer rev to come and focus any enemy thief) and b) all venoms were nerfed heavily with this patch.
I would be surprised if anything would happen at all, it’s like the “Oh noz thief auto attack got buffed, now thief completely OP” everybody was running thief for a week – I haven’t seen many since.

Interesting that they would think that they need venom share in raids… most raids won’t allow thieves even if they are running venoms because thieves in raids are absolutely useless.

Basi venom shared baseline and increased to a 1.5s stun does a lot to break bars and thief has had competitive DPS just less support than the ele. I never turned away a good thief from raids because thief, however I would politely ask if they could bring ele to bosses that just sit there and have a hit box bigger than the moon like gorseval. The heal venom is pretty decent too, if it was 30s CD it would be a great raid heal imo as it is ~5k for allies and ~9k for thief.

As for WvW, depends how long it takes pug blobs to realise they can have a thief or two with necros and lock down other pug blobs easily. Considering I’ve been seeing more condi thieves lately it’s only a matter of 1 utility switch and you don’t even have to change anything else.

Can’t speak for raids, as I’ve yet to complete one. Been told I’m good enough, just not allowed in the raid because I should “either kill myself or roll a revenant”.

As for WvW… necros completely invalidate the use of thieves…. you get the crowd control and slowing on a larger scale, with more damage and survivability. Same for the other classes. I tend to command on my thief, and the only reason that works is because everyone targets the guardians thinking that one of them is commanding… I’m low priority because honestly a light breeze will knock over the best thieves. (and send them into the next county). As for condi’s…the only class they are effective against especially since the latest nerf, is other thieves…we’re the only ones with pretty much no real condi cleanse. If you find a thief that can clear condi’s quickly enough, you don’t worry about him because that tells you they can’t dish out damage.

I myself think we need more longbow root rangers in the roaming scene.

Escapists Absolution and traited Withdraw will cleanse all conditions on a thief in about a half second without them losing any damage.

As a condi Pistol Dagger Thief, thieves are among the slowest for me to kill. I need to stop attacking so the cleanse on successful dodge doesn’t kick in. And that assumes they aren’t running secondary cleanses that can extend a fight almost indefinitely.