LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell
(edited by BrunoBRS.5178)
[Skill Bar]Thief buffed in the wrong places
besides Dagger auto attack pseudo cleave I dont consider any other change a “buff”, it feels alot like “lets pretend we buff this tiny things that no one uses nor ever will to make up for the REAL nerfs were hammering the thief profession AGAIN!”
besides Dagger auto attack pseudo cleave I dont consider any other change a “buff”, it feels alot like “lets pretend we buff this tiny things that no one uses nor ever will to make up for the REAL nerfs were hammering the thief profession AGAIN!”
well, of course they’re buffing the things no one uses. the idea is to make it so the things that aren’t used become as used as the current options.
the problem is that their improvements aren’t really improving in the parts that need improvement.
LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell
besides Dagger auto attack pseudo cleave I dont consider any other change a “buff”, it feels alot like “lets pretend we buff this tiny things that no one uses nor ever will to make up for the REAL nerfs were hammering the thief profession AGAIN!”
well, of course they’re buffing the things no one uses. the idea is to make it so the things that aren’t used become as used as the current options.
the problem is that their improvements aren’t really improving in the parts that need improvement.
no no no, you don’t understand! they “buffed” stuff that no one uses and NEVER WILL USE no mater how much they “buff” them because they are bad in consent and some don’t even fit the profession style nor remotely synergies with anything at all.
besides Dagger auto attack pseudo cleave I dont consider any other change a “buff”, it feels alot like “lets pretend we buff this tiny things that no one uses nor ever will to make up for the REAL nerfs were hammering the thief profession AGAIN!”
well, of course they’re buffing the things no one uses. the idea is to make it so the things that aren’t used become as used as the current options.
the problem is that their improvements aren’t really improving in the parts that need improvement.
no no no, you don’t understand! they “buffed” stuff that no one uses and NEVER WILL USE no mater how much they “buff” them because they are bad in consent and some don’t even fit the profession style nor remotely synergies with anything at all.
well that’s kinda the point of this thread, isn’kitten saying that the buffs were aimed in the wrong direction, and hoping that i can spark enough discussion to steer them in a direction that will please both thieves hoping for new playstyles (i’m personally desperate for some ranged AoE condi style, see the edit to ricochet) and people that would have to fight said thieves.
just complaining that they’re doing it wrong without saying why or how you’d want them to change things won’t get us anywhere.
LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell
(edited by BrunoBRS.5178)
Problem is the one time we saw a developer driving a thief it was as a p/p rally bot.
They are so far disconnected with the class it’s not even funny.
- ricochet: it… still is kind of a lame trait to bring. added range adds nothing to pistol, which is mainly a skirmishing weapon that benefits from staying within 600 range. the odd bounce happening more often doesn’t make up for thief’s severe lack of AoE damage, condition or power-based. i’d honestly prefer if pistol shots instead had a chance of being AoE on target (think staff ele fireball). give it an average radius (150? 200?), keep the chance aspect (but keep it high enough that it’s reliable), and then call it explosive shots or whatever.
I disagree.
PP is hugely dependent on positioning. Your comparison to Longbow changes earlier is an apt one, because the two weapons can play very similarly; exploit the terrain to give yourself an unfair advantage while putting a lot of damage down-range before the enemy can close that advantage. You have no defenses in the weapon (you don’t have any dodges or blocks, just like longbow), so you need to make up that deficit with the environment. Adding 150 to the range of your bullet hoses is a big deal.
You could make a case that Ricochet’s placement in the tree is kind of odd because it competes with Bountiful Theft but Steal is an odd thing for PP anyway so
Nalhadia – Kaineng
- ricochet: it… still is kind of a lame trait to bring. added range adds nothing to pistol, which is mainly a skirmishing weapon that benefits from staying within 600 range. the odd bounce happening more often doesn’t make up for thief’s severe lack of AoE damage, condition or power-based. i’d honestly prefer if pistol shots instead had a chance of being AoE on target (think staff ele fireball). give it an average radius (150? 200?), keep the chance aspect (but keep it high enough that it’s reliable), and then call it explosive shots or whatever.
I disagree.
PP is hugely dependent on positioning. Your comparison to Longbow changes earlier is an apt one, because the two weapons can play very similarly; exploit the terrain to give yourself an unfair advantage while putting a lot of damage down-range before the enemy can close that advantage. You have no defenses in the weapon (you don’t have any dodges or blocks, just like longbow), so you need to make up that deficit with the environment. Adding 150 to the range of your bullet hoses is a big deal.
You could make a case that Ricochet’s placement in the tree is kind of odd because it competes with Bountiful Theft but Steal is an odd thing for PP anyway so
longbow has a long range soft CC AoE. longbow has an insanely strong knockback. longbow has stealth.
longbow has plenty of defenses.
longbow also hits fairly harder than P/P, because longbow is purely a power weapon, whereas P/P is a condi mainhand with a utility offhand and a power dual attack.
honestly, 150 range will not improve P/P nearly enough to be viable. is it a nice change? sure, we finally get over 900 range again, but it’s such a small improvement it might as well not be there.
LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell
Clearly this is a L2P issue ~Every Thief Ever
longbow has a long range soft CC AoE. longbow has an insanely strong knockback. longbow has stealth.
longbow has plenty of defenses.
We should be comparing it to their other weapons rather than making absolute statements. Does longbow have a good number of defenses compared to:
Shortbow?
Greatsword?
Sword/x?
Axe/x? (this one is the turkey)
Personally I’m inclined to say no but I haven’t done the legwork.
longbow also hits fairly harder than P/P, because longbow is purely a power weapon, whereas P/P is a condi mainhand with a utility offhand and a power dual attack.
Offhand’s purpose is irrelevant considering initiative is a thing. The main ‘hole’ in P/P is the 1’s split between condi and power, which is a real thing, but if you’re forced to use the 1 then you’re using the weapon wrong and/or you can switch to a sword and autoswing for a while while you get Initiative back.
Rangers do spend more to bring their longbow up to its peak. An LB ranger will be spending, what, 10 trait points to get all their LB goodies, including two masters and a grandmaster. A thief will be spending 6, for an adept and a master. With that in mind I don’t think it’s unfair that
honestly, 150 range will not improve P/P nearly enough to be viable. is it a nice change? sure, we finally get over 900 range again, but it’s such a small improvement it might as well not be there.
Let’s get hypothetical;
Would 1200 range PP be viable?
Would 1500 range PP be viable?
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
We should be comparing it to their other weapons rather than making absolute statements. Does longbow have a good number of defenses compared to:
Shortbow?
Greatsword?
Sword/x?
Axe/x? (this one is the turkey)Personally I’m inclined to say no but I haven’t done the legwork.
i’d say it’s worse than GS (which is built on defense), on par with S/x, and better than any of the other ones, defensively.
Offhand’s purpose is irrelevant considering initiative is a thing. The main ‘hole’ in P/P is the 1’s split between condi and power, which is a real thing, but if you’re forced to use the 1 then you’re using the weapon wrong and/or you can switch to a sword and autoswing for a while while you get Initiative back.
Rangers do spend more to bring their longbow up to its peak. An LB ranger will be spending, what, 10 trait points to get all their LB goodies, including two masters and a grandmaster. A thief will be spending 6, for an adept and a master.
no, offhand is totally relevant, because if you’re only bringing 1-3 useful skills to the table, you’re not getting the full potential. it’s why thieves rag about dancing dagger being there. they don’t have to use it because initiative is a thing, but it’s a waste of slot that could go to something useful. regardless, offhand pistol is fairly decent, it just doesn’t bring any power to the table, leaving unload as the only real skill to use.
which brings me to my main argument, P/P is a “spam single skill” set. you have 5 weapon skills, but only one you’ll ever use, and it’s hardly strong enough to be viable, because if it was comparable to a LB burst, its spammable nature would make it a broken god tier QQ machine. and since it has a considerably lower base damage, you’ll be wanting to at least go as far as executioner to get some punishing going. pistol damage is so pitiful that it’s the only weapon set in the game that gets a 10% damage bonus through a trait, instead of 5%, and it’s put on adept instead of master to boot.
Let’s get hypothetical;
Would 1200 range PP be viable?
Would 1500 range PP be viable?
if the only way to make P/P viable is “spam unload from past the rendering distance”, then it’s kinda sad (i’m not saying 1500 is past rendering distance, i’m extrapolating). being a weapon set that deals cheap pot shots from a distance so safe it takes the other player several seconds to figure out what is hitting them (and they’ll have plenty of time, unless they’re zerker x/D eles, given even a full unload isn’t enough to put a player down, and the new unload can be mostly rolled through in a single dodge) is the wrong way to attempt to make a weapon viable.
LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell
@BrunoBRS & Sarrs I wasn’t gonna comment in this thread due to not playing thief, but seeing as how you’re arguing over ranger things, I felt like I should chime in.
I personally main LB as my weapon of choice and can say without a doubt that it’s defensive skills are lacking compared to GS and S/X, but this is because GS and S/X have guaranteed defenses AKA evades/blocks. The LB however does have defenses but they have “counters” to them, you essentially just play keep away with the enemy by kiting through barrage and utilizing KBS and the stealth to reposition the enemy/yourself.
As you could imagine if someone had high uptime on stability this renders our knock back (best defensive tool) useless, and if they have high blinds/aegis uptime then our Hunters Shot becomes useless (or at least significantly harder to use) as well.
That being said I’d say the LB is far from defenseless and in most situations outclasses P/P in terms of utility, and damage even without training LB into becoming the long range god weapon it can be.
IMO the main Achilles heel for P/P is it can’t decide what it wants to be, it has group utility through body shot and head shot, it’s got some Melee defense/ utility/“offensive defense” by utilizing your blind field and pistol shots, it’s got direct damage through Unload and then the auto is just sorta “wut”.
Personally, the MAIN issue with pistol is that the auto attack is trying to fill 2 roles at once with very little chance of it being able to hybrid the damage like the rangers axe can, and that body shot, although very useful in team scenarios, is utter kitten when you’re using it for yourself, it’s too much initiative for the very limited kiting potential it provides.
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
@BrunoBRS & Sarrs I wasn’t gonna comment in this thread due to not playing thief, but seeing as how you’re arguing over ranger things, I felt like I should chime in.
I personally main LB as my weapon of choice and can say without a doubt that it’s defensive skills are lacking compared to GS and S/X, but this is because GS and S/X have guaranteed defenses AKA evades/blocks. The LB however does have defenses but they have “counters” to them, you essentially just play keep away with the enemy by kiting through barrage and utilizing KBS and the stealth to reposition the enemy/yourself.
As you could imagine if someone had high uptime on stability this renders our knock back (best defensive tool) useless, and if they have high blinds/aegis uptime then our Hunters Shot becomes useless (or at least significantly harder to use) as well.
That being said I’d say the LB is far from defenseless and in most situations outclasses P/P in terms of utility, and damage even without training LB into becoming the long range god weapon it can be.
IMO the main Achilles heel for P/P is it can’t decide what it wants to be, it has group utility through body shot and head shot, it’s got some Melee defense/ utility/“offensive defense” by utilizing your blind field and pistol shots, it’s got direct damage through Unload and then the auto is just sorta “wut”.
Personally, the MAIN issue with pistol is that the auto attack is trying to fill 2 roles at once with very little chance of it being able to hybrid the damage like the rangers axe can, and that body shot, although very useful in team scenarios, is utter kitten when you’re using it for yourself, it’s too much initiative for the very limited kiting potential it provides.
without derailing the thread too much, i’d say the range benefit also counts as a defense for LB, so while LB defenses can be countered/avoided more easily than S/x, the weapon is also ranged, so it evens out.
anyway, i wrote another thread on how to rework P/P, the basic idea is give unload a blast finisher at the end (so P/P can access sneak attack), and more importantly, rework vital shot so it can be more hybrid without changing the P/D meta too much.
someone on it suggested just reshuffling how P/D applies conditions, and make vital shot purely for damage. i think that would get in the way of the pressure P/D is known for, but it’s an interesting thought.
LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell
Thieves weren’t really buffed.
Panic Strike – duration of immobilization too long (5.25s baseline), reduced it to 2.5 s. Reduced the cooldown from 30s to 20s so you will be able to use it more often.
Nobody goes 30 into DA. Panic strikes being slightly more effective isn’t changing that.
Invigorating Precision – Increased from 5% to 8% of your crit dmg returned as health to you.
Still crap. The % of health returned is almost always going to be less than the additional damage Executioner delivers. We could also talk about how, for a glass setup (which a thief with 30 points in critical strikes is going to be), additional damage is much more valuable than a little bit of extra healing.
Ricochet – In addition to bouncing your pistol shots, this trait now Increase the range of your pistol shots. From 900m to 1050m range increase. Also some bug fixes to how Ricochet works, it will bounce more reliability.
P/P is still the most poorly designed weaponset in the game, and P/D needs to close to melee to access stealth for sneak attack. Still a crappy trait.
Assasin’s Equilibrium – The amount of stability it grants increased from 1s to 1.5s
50% longer, still 100% worthless.
Venomous Aura – Previously, if you applied venom to an ally, they applied conditions using their own stats. You now will use your own condition stats. Other venoms like Leeching Venoms will use your own healing stat. Basilisk Venom, however, remains as an interrupt through the target you have applied the venom to.
Fantastic, Now it functions as anyone with a functioning brainstem would have expected it to. Why was this functioning in any other way prior to this? Let’s also note that VA is the reasons venoms are so awful to begin with – how does one design a venom that’s good enough to be slotted on its own merits without it being horribly OP if you can suddenly give it to 5 additional targets?
Dagger Strike/Wild Strike/Lotus Strike now hits up to 2 targets. Previous it only hit 1 target and became difficult for targets with pets etc. The defensive measures on these skills such as endurance gain from Wild Strike will only apply once.
The only actual buff – I’m waiting til I see it in action before I judge it.
Unload – Cast time reduced from 1.75s to 1.5s for overall 20% reduction
Like the Dev’s just spit in thieves faces. Who the kitten cares how fast unload fires? It’s a weaponset where the 2 attack skills which do damage and aren’t designed as pure utility do not do the same damage type. Unload is power/crit based, VS is condition damage based. They realized how silly that was for Warrior Rifle In the very same patch, and still haven’t touched P/P despite thieves asking them to address the issue for over a year now.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
^ panic strike: they’re trying to give it more incentive to actually go 30 DA. free immobilize on a guy low on health every time is pretty good, let’s see if it’s good enough to pick it up.
invigorating precision: i don’t think they’re really trying to make it better or worse than executioner, or viable as a PvP choice. i find it fun for open world PvE.
i already commented on the rest.
PS: if vital shot stops being condi, P/D dies as a set.
LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell
^ panic strike: they’re trying to give it more incentive to actually go 30 DA. free immobilize on a guy low on health every time is pretty good, let’s see if it’s good enough to pick it up.
And they failed. They’d have to introduce a useful master tier trait into DA (excluding VA builds) to make the line worth taking. Then it would have to contend with 30CS and 30trickery, which are both proven and useful.
invigorating precision: i don’t think they’re really trying to make it better or worse than executioner, or viable as a PvP choice. i find it fun for open world PvE.
Most of the changes appear to be based around PvP balance. Why throw this PvE change in there?
PS: if vital shot stops being condi, P/D dies as a set.
Who’s asking them to turn vital shot into a direct damage ability? Unload is clearly the odd man out here (When you look at P/P and P/D), just like Warrior’s Bleeding shot was clearly the odd man out in the weaponset. The fact that they fixed warrior rifle when warrior has the best weapon selections and ignored P/P when thieves have the worst weapon selections (remember, ele gets attunements and engi’s kits) is just an additional slap in the face.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
i agree that DA master traits could be more appealing outside of niches. dagger and dual training feel pretty lame for what they are. but it’s not like it’s panic strike’s fault.
i don’t see the problem with a PvE balance change being highlighted. i mean, there’s no way that trait will be picked on PvP without being too strong.
i guess they could make unload a condi skill, but what exactly would it do?
LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell