Guild Wars 2

I think this is an awesoem idea, however, not all s/p d/p thieves are solo 100% of the time. What about the small man team that uses that smoke field for a group stealthing effect?

If this change was implemented, which I want it to be, then make the necros well of darkness a smoke field and decrease the cooldown.

Yes, please nerf one of the most balanced classes atm. If you dont play a thief and know how it works and actually how hard it is to play them properly you dont deserve any say in if they should be nerfed/buffed because you’re just spewing nonsense.

Ichishi.9613:

Thieves use stealth because they don’t have something else. Once you have something to propose for them to have instead of stealth, we can talk.
More damage? you wont agree
More health? you wont agree
More what? you wont agree.
You just want everything around you to become easier. You are not the least bit concerned about the “Maybe some changes would actually BENEFIT the class” you mentioned.

I disagree in part, they use stealth the way it is because it is ALL reward and no risk. Sure they would die if they never used it and i am not saying that it should be totally removed i am fine with them having perma Stealth outside combat but inside combat it should be a little toned down.

Of course to counter that, yes they would need their stats buffed up to counter the loss of stealth would it break the class? I don’t think it would as long as the stats and other buffs to counter the loss of Stealth are both worth it to the class it self and not over done (we all know what Anet is like…)

I have said several times on several different posts that Stealth should be reduced and stats should be increased. Initiative would need to be fixed so that Chill actually WORKS on it like it does every other class. They could even turn a few of the stealth related traits into other defensive traits.

Inverted.7439:

Yes, please nerf one of the most balanced classes atm. If you dont play a thief and know how it works and actually how hard it is to play them properly you dont deserve any say in if they should be nerfed/buffed because you’re just spewing nonsense.

“balanced”…..Lol.

ArmageddonAsh:
Please stop with the “all reward and no risk” talk. Stealth does not have any risks, of course (well aside from fact that you can’t contribute to capture while in it). For the sole reason that THE RISKS OF STEALTH are already included INSIDE thief class already, regardless of whether he uses stealth or not.

Geiir.7603:

Cynz.9437:

Arkantos.7460:

Cynz.9437:

Arkantos.7460:

Vi Au.8341:

I believe there is a easier way to solve this problem. keep pistol 5 as a smoke field but change the order of priority of hit than stealth. So the chain would look like this: Black Powder – HS – Stealth – Hit.

It would be similar to how cluster bomb would reveal you if you blast a smoke field and hit a foe standing in it. This would allow thieves to stealth, get away regen or w/e but it would allow the opponent to counter the stealth by standing in the field.

I think this would allow for more interesting play from both side

but tell, how would that solve the Problem getting permastealthable?
thiefs would simply do the Hs+BP Combo on open field and stacking stealth again.
the new Change would simply prevent beeing permastealth because you cannot spam /stack stealth by using 6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6

@Cynz:
and what could be the most possible Thing they do after stealth…
indeed pressing 1 and then pressing 3 … dodge this ….and doing same Thing again or switching weapons…. dodge this

except to get backstab off you have to be in melee and behind the target, gl doing that while being chilled and crippled and your enemy having perma swiftness

it is way easier to dodge backstab than pistol channeled attacks

im sorry my english is lacking here, but to deal with the second one:
to dodge enemy BS is easy and also dodging channeling pistol attacks, because you can hear it and you know they are very expenxive initiative skills, so enemy cant use them very often and you have also the Option to simply interuppting them

you can’t always interrupt, because attack comes before target appears; by the time you get your interrupt(which also has cast time) the spell is already executed

channeled spells ARE harder to dodge than 1 simple attack simply because channeled spells have longer execution time and you would need 2 dodges mostlikely when for BS you would need 1

blinds also don’t work so well on channeled spells because only 1 tick will miss

there is reason why ranged attacks usually do less dmg than melee: ranged attacks are safe, ranged attacks don’t have such hard punishment for bad positioning; ranged attacks on thief don’t don’t get affected by chill/cripple

the only downside of ranged attacks is reflect shields but not every class has access to those w/o gimping themself out

i understand people want everyone build be viable in pvp but it is not possible, besides let’s face it p/p is probably the most braindead weapon set on thief; the only reason why it is not so popular in pvp is lack of moblity

P.S. i main thief myself btw

Alright, let me explain my idea again.

The chain of the skill should be like this:

• You press 5 and the Black Powder activates
• You can now see smoke around the thief as it is today and the field is already there.
• The thief starts a1/2 second channel where he aim at his target (you can clearly see this and prepare).
• The shot is fired.
• If the shot connects the thief will get stealth in a similar fashion as Cloak and Dagger.
• Not sure if I want to keep blind on the projectile, but the field should still pulse blind as it does today.

This skill work like the rangers longbow #3. It’s impossible for the Thief to stack stealth with this skill since it deal a little bit of damage. If the thief spam the skill he will simply get revealed because of the damage. The thief can’t chain stealth in open areas as it will need a target to gain stealth.

Since this is not a channel of several attacks it won’t cure any blind if the thief get blinded before the projectile is shot.

So, how does a minion master/ranger/whatev stop the thief from stealthing?
It’s hard enough to keep a thief from using cloak and dagger on pets right now. A ranged CnD without cooldown just asks to be exploited.
A CnD thief always has to get back into melee range, so you can predict his positioning. The only drawback of the bp thief would be having to stay within 900 range of any ai controlled entity to re-stealth safely.
Also against multiple players: Do you seriously suggest a whole group of people performing a simultaneous dodge, because some smoke field happened to appear on the ground?
Personally, I don’t see much problem with D/P right now. There should be some more skills, which apply revealed, tho, because to me, last refuge is far more deadly than any cc or damage source, an opponent possesses. Admittedly, my thief lives on the edge, which is partly responsible for last refuge getting into my way so often.
If D/P really is such a big issue, I’d agree with the proposition to make players unable to hit opponents with HS and still getting stealth, although, it would ruin some of my usual dungeon rotations.

Ichishi.9613:

ArmageddonAsh:
Please stop with the “all reward and no risk” talk. Stealth does not have any risks, of course (well aside from fact that you can’t contribute to capture while in it). For the sole reason that THE RISKS OF STEALTH are already included INSIDE thief class already, regardless of whether he uses stealth or not.

Right so because just like ALL stealth it doesn’t capture a point in ONE game mode means it is perfectly fine. Lets be honest, Thief aren’t a capture mode kind of class anyway. They can STILL capture them as well, if people come just jump into the easily used stealth…

Now lets think about WvW, where is the risk? Don’t say Zergs because they can still get away from them and much more easily than other classes without access to stealth. Where is the Risk Vs Reward there?

You attack someone, from stealth into a BS you either know this is going to be a quick fight and they will melt or you do a few HS and then jump into stealth, regain your health and initiative only to repeat the same thing – worst comes to worst and you know you can’t win? Just stealth up and easily run away.

To kill a Thief you have to actually play A LOT better, Timing CC and stuns perfectly to make sure they can’t get into stealth and even that doesn’t always work.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

To kill a Thief you have to actually play A LOT better, Timing CC and stuns perfectly to make sure they can’t get into stealth and even that doesn’t always work.

guessing is luck…not skill
You can t kill a thief playing good, you can kill it if it either commit MANY mistakes or you are extremely lucky (mostly both together).

There is no pvp is this game where killing someone means winning.
You are not supposed to have ability to kill anything you want no matter who you or your opponent is. This game is not about that.
Thief can only do ONE of the things you named at once – permastealth, big backstabs, run away better than anyone.
You should try playing a thief and you will be quick to realize how weak any of the named qualities are alone.
It does not matter even if you are godly – it is a game where defense > offence in any pvp. It is normal to not be able to kill something (especially so when alone).

Anet will Change/nerf permastealth soon or later, thats a fact.
(just like the HS of warri, the 8% is just the beginning)

But I think, @Geiir had a good attempt idea to solve the Problem with the high rate which (mostly) wvw) thiefs using, to get stealthed again and again and also stacking stealth.

But be true to yourself first, you have 3 utilies, 1heal (HiS, SR, BP, ST) which can give you stealth anytime. And you can also use the d/p Combo or + shortwbow to get stealth again and you can also dodge.
Also for a high skilled Player it is simply very difficult to Counter the annoying part of your gameplay which simply contains of running into stealth when getting over 10% dmg again and again.
This is the same reason of annoying gameplay when playing against permavade thiefs before dec 10th patch …
And finally, they nerfed vigor,
instead of nerfing s/d #3 skill in the right direction.

Some less strong Version of @Geiirs Version:

- Black Powder still be as it is but darkness field instead of smoke field (no stealth here)
- you have the Option to stack stealth with Smoke Screen

otherwise, at the end, simply wait until anet could do some bigger nerfs on your stealth, which is not listened in Balance forums and this could hurt a lot more …..

naphack.9346:

So, how does a minion master/ranger/whatev stop the thief from stealthing?
It’s hard enough to keep a thief from using cloak and dagger on pets right now. A ranged CnD without cooldown just asks to be exploited.
A CnD thief always has to get back into melee range, so you can predict his positioning. The only drawback of the bp thief would be having to stay within 900 range of any ai controlled entity to re-stealth safely.
Also against multiple players: Do you seriously suggest a whole group of people performing a simultaneous dodge, because some smoke field happened to appear on the ground?
Personally, I don’t see much problem with D/P right now. There should be some more skills, which apply revealed, tho, because to me, last refuge is far more deadly than any cc or damage source, an opponent possesses. Admittedly, my thief lives on the edge, which is partly responsible for last refuge getting into my way so often.
If D/P really is such a big issue, I’d agree with the proposition to make players unable to hit opponents with HS and still getting stealth, although, it would ruin some of my usual dungeon rotations.

A minion master, ranger, or mesmer would have the exact same options to stop a D/P thief from stealthing than they do now, interrupt them while the skill is going off, plus any form of Blind/Block/Reflect would cause the shot to miss and therefore not stealth the thief. This change increases the options others have to prevent the stealth and increases the thief’s burden to time the skill correctly for the stealth.

The fact that the skill has no cooldown is irrelevant as it cannot be spammed to maintain permanent stealth. If you use it while in stealth the damage of the shot will reveal you, so you won’t get any benefit from the stealth the shot would give you.

The change is not meant to change the overall playstyle of D/P but to increase the effectiveness of P/P and S/P, both of which could use better access to stealth. D/P would be pretty much unchanged by this proposal, only there would be more counterplay added to stop the thief from stealthing in the first place.

Enenion.8127:

naphack.9346:

So, how does a minion master/ranger/whatev stop the thief from stealthing?
It’s hard enough to keep a thief from using cloak and dagger on pets right now. A ranged CnD without cooldown just asks to be exploited.
A CnD thief always has to get back into melee range, so you can predict his positioning. The only drawback of the bp thief would be having to stay within 900 range of any ai controlled entity to re-stealth safely.
Also against multiple players: Do you seriously suggest a whole group of people performing a simultaneous dodge, because some smoke field happened to appear on the ground?
Personally, I don’t see much problem with D/P right now. There should be some more skills, which apply revealed, tho, because to me, last refuge is far more deadly than any cc or damage source, an opponent possesses. Admittedly, my thief lives on the edge, which is partly responsible for last refuge getting into my way so often.
If D/P really is such a big issue, I’d agree with the proposition to make players unable to hit opponents with HS and still getting stealth, although, it would ruin some of my usual dungeon rotations.

A minion master, ranger, or mesmer would have the exact same options to stop a D/P thief from stealthing than they do now, interrupt them while the skill is going off, plus any form of Blind/Block/Reflect would cause the shot to miss and therefore not stealth the thief. This change increases the options others have to prevent the stealth and increases the thief’s burden to time the skill correctly for the stealth.

The fact that the skill has no cooldown is irrelevant as it cannot be spammed to maintain permanent stealth. If you use it while in stealth the damage of the shot will reveal you, so you won’t get any benefit from the stealth the shot would give you.

The change is not meant to change the overall playstyle of D/P but to increase the effectiveness of P/P and S/P, both of which could use better access to stealth. D/P would be pretty much unchanged by this proposal, only there would be more counterplay added to stop the thief from stealthing in the first place.

the difference between then and now is, that now the thief has to spend 3 more initiative to gain stealth.

so how is a D/P 10 30 0 0 30 burst thief going to burst if this would be implemented?

Hm…i Main thief, i love thief…and i dont want this proffession to be nerfed again (sadly it will), but i think -and its purely my opinion- d/p has enough defense even without stealth from bp-hs.

Unfixed weapon skills. A pool of skills to choose from each set so a s/p or p/p can choose a skill other than black powder or head shot while retaining its dual skill.

i don’t understand why spell that isn’t broken needs to be changed so drastically…

One of the biggest changes this will do is to add more risk/reward to the d/p thief. As it is now the thief can mindlessly use this skill, with no risk at all, well, almost no risk. D/P will lose some burst and it will have a harder time sticking on their targets because of not using heartseeker which now functions as a gap closer and mini burst. It will heighten the skill floor for that weapon set and add way more counter possibilities – which is needed! There’s a reason new thieves chose this weapon set. It’s way too easy to use and be “good” with. Even the worst player can survive forever with that set – and that is wrong.

Cynz
The skill isn’t broken now, but d/p can abuse it, p/p could use a buff and s/p could use the stealth.

Stand The Wall
Thief can still stealth groups with smoke screen, blinding powder and shadow refuge, so they still have team utility.

Inverted
I’ve played thief since beta. I have theory crafted a lot and played all parts of the game actively. I dare say that I’m a fairly good thief with an above average understanding of the profession and how it works. I’ve played every single build and weapon combination with the thief. I’ve played around with almost all the different gear stats to see wether they work or not. So please don’t come here and say that I don’t know Thief.

I’ve played d/p a lot and I have yet to be interrupted mid heartseeker. Any smart thief will target it’s opponent when he drops black powder and blind him, then drop target (for escape) or keep target and heartseek. Since the opponent is blinded he won’t have time to clean the blind and interrupt. This alone makes that combo cheesy. There’s a reason thieves use stacking sigils – we never die with that weapon set unless we get too greedy. I can roam WvW for hours and not die because of that weapon set alone. No other weapon sets we have can accomplish that…

Naphack
Didn’t really think about that actually. Giving it some thought though, I think that it won’t change that much. It’s still really easy for a thief with dagger off-hand to gain stealth from all AI builds in the game, so it won’t change that much. What it will change is the thiefs ability to disengage and reset the fight at will. It will make it way harder for the thief to do that, or he would have to use utilities, which then justifies it a bit more.

Against multiple players it is as easy as a group wide aegis. Or they can time an evade, or put up a reflection wall. It’s more than just see the thief pop black powder and then heartseek through. It will be way easier to counter my version of the skill than the current combo in a group setting…

Sizzle Hint
It’s burst will come from backstab. It will hurt that specific build. It will have a smaller burst compared to d/d but it has way more mobility and useful skills. D/D has 3 skills that’s viable in a duel while d/p would still have all five viable; aa(backstab), finishing move with good damage, gap closer with blind, ranged interrupt and a melee blind field with ranged stealth.

I run 10/30/0/0/30 in tPvP a lot. So I know what I’m talking about

Glad to see that this caused some discussion! It’s exactly what I want to see; more discussion, less QQ

- you can’t mindlessly use BP + HS for simple reason – initiative; if you just spam it you won’t kill anyone, if you use it to kill someone you have revealed debuff anyway

- why does d/p have to be punished? thieves are not exactly riding the OP train atm nor is d/p most OP set, for pvp at least; i see more sword main hand thieves than anything else

- why does d/p have to have even more problems sticking to target as it already does? the entire d/p dmg comes from BS, if you don’t land it you are already punished…

- as long as game is flooded with condi tanks, all-in-one-win-package warriors there is NO, absolutely no reason why d/p has to be changed so drastically

- d/p already has it weakness, you dmg comes from bs, you HAVE to land it, even if you get stealth up BP oes give away your position, good place to get aoe there if you failed to interrupt BP or HS; BP+HS has already long kitten execution time and is too obvious

- as far as i know most new thieves play s/p…. but honestly it is hardly an argument, idk why it should be even used to nerf something that is not broken to ruin game for the sake of noobs…

- worst player not gonna survive with that set, that is an extraggeration… again fail argument w/o any proof

- please explain how d/p can abuse non broken spell.. i am all ear

- p/p maybe could use a buff but it would have to get nerfed as well simply because how safe ranged weapon vs melee is; if you wanna buff the set do it w/o breaking other sets ty

- so basically to get stealth off on a group i would have to sacrifice the common survival utilities just because you want p/p buffed and d/p nerfed… no ty

- just because you played since launch and did your own theorycrafting (guess what we all do at some point), doesn’t mean you are right

- certanly not everyone bothers interrupting BP-> HS but it is not even necessary in many cases, if thief got it off it doesn’t garantee them a kill; i also don’t get interrupred as much when i lay marks on my necro or spam hammer on my warrior, should all those weapon sets be nerfed because oh noesssssss ppl didn’t interrupt (or weren’t capable) every single of them?

- by your logic every spell with in this game is cheesy then…hi, i put putrid mark on the floor and trasnfered all condis on me to enemy, so cheese… hey ele put water field on the flow and i used cluster bomb on it for heal, so cheese

- everyone uses stacking sigils, this argument is pointless

- actually plenty of weapon sets can accomplish of never dying or rather in fact many classes can do it, again what is your point? just an example: especially in wvw, i can do d/d, if i ended up in bad situtation i can just walk up to NPC or tower door and cnd from it… the joke is enemy won’t even know where i am because there is not even BP red circle on the floor to indicate where i used it

- wanna know how to stop thief from running away in stealth by abusing BP+HS? chaos field, basi venom + cluster bomb, he will sit there wide open, you are welcome

lastly i am honestly not sure if you really do tpvp, i couldn’t find you name on any leaderboards….

i myself been hanging around rank 250-300 in team pvp and d/p is ok as it is atm, imo
there are way worse things that plague pvp and wvw than thief ability to use stealth

naphack.9346:

the difference between then and now is, that now the thief has to spend 3 more initiative to gain stealth.

I would take that any day for the possibility of more counterplay. Black Powder → Heartseeker is way too easy to pull off for the reward it gives. It’s only counter at the moment is for the enemy to have a 3 second stun ready to use in the 0.5 seconds between the two skills, and that is after using a skill to clear the blind from the shot itself. And even if you manage to land that the thief can just do it again a few seconds later. This change would make it much more fun to fight against a D/P thief as it gives a realistic opportunity for the enemy to prevent the thief from stealthing in the first place. At the same time, if there are more ways to stop the thief from entering stealth the thief deserves a few extra initiative points for the added risk.

Cynz.9437:

…..lastly i am honestly not sure if you really do tpvp, i couldn’t find you name on any leaderboards….

i myself been hanging around rank 250-300 ……

this sentences sounds more like …." I have no more arguments to comment so I have to give an advice on my rank to get you know, my skill and knowledge is even higher then yours" ……

this is not the Topic of this thread
by the way, you over 380 now,
and also, leatherboard is nothing or do you want to tell us, that the higher rate you get, the more skill/knowledge you have ….

Arkantos.7460:

Cynz.9437:

…..lastly i am honestly not sure if you really do tpvp, i couldn’t find you name on any leaderboards….

i myself been hanging around rank 250-300 ……

this sentences sounds more like …." I have no more arguments to comment so I have to give an advice on my rank to get you know, my skill and knowledge is even higher then yours" ……

this is not the Topic of this thread
by the way, you over 380 now,
and also, leatherboard is nothing or do you want to tell us, that the higher rate you get, the more skill/knowledge you have ….

i typed that only because that guy claimed to do a lot fo tpvp and tried to backup his argument with it… i however start to doubt it and simply wanted to show how silly it is to post something like that

but sure go ahead and flame me for it if it is only thing you can post about blackpowder suggestion

Cynz
I would love for ANet to separate balance between sPvP, WvW and PvE, but since that isn’t going to happen they have to balance in between. That means that one side will get hurt while the other gets a buff.

I stated that I have more than enough knowledge, but that was to the player who claimed I didn’t know the thief profession / didn’t have a thief.

D/P have close to no counter play – at all. That’s why I want it changed. Why do you think it’s a nerf? Because you can’t stick to your target with heart seeker? I don’t get why you doesn’t want it changed. It just looks like you think Black Powder is in a good spot right now, and that’s pretty much it… I have to agree though; Black Powder is in a good spot right now, but it can be abused by d/p thieves, which is wrong. It can be abused by dropping black powder and then heartseek through it with no risk and gain a huge reward – stealth. This coupled with the Shadow Arts trait line basically means that you can reset, heal and cleanse conditions at will.

9/10 players I meet in WvW are d/p. 9/10 of those again are bad, and I mean brain dead bad. I see them survive outnumbered fights and run away when they realize they can’t win, with absolutely no risk. I know this because I have a friend who recently started playing a thief. He figured he’d give d/p a go – and he’s killing people with ease. He’s running away from outnumbered fights and surviving situations he shouldn’t be surviving. It’s not skill that let him live. It’s the weapon set he chose to run that do it for him. I told him to give d/d a go, and guess what? He land 1/50 Cloak and Daggers. He never survive outnumbered fights for long and he have no chance in running away or resetting unless he has blinding powder and shadow refuge in is skill slots.

What I’m saying is that Black Powder + Heartseeker combo requires no skill(risk) to do, but give a really high reward(stealth). My change add some real counter play to using stealth with d/p and in turn also gives p/p and s/p access to stealth.

Can you abuse necro marks? No. They can’t be spammed and they won’t give you the ability to reset a fight or win fights you shouldn’t be able to win by using. Black Powder → Heartseeker do. Yes, you can catch a fleeing thief, but 9/10 times you won’t.

Btw; can we please stop flaming each other and keep this conversation friendly? I do not seek to destroy the skill or the thief, I simply want to make it more competitive and add some real counter play to things that doesn’t have any real counter play today.

List of things that counter D/P thieves in a 1v1:
-Hammer Warriors
-Other D/P thieves, and S/P is a good match too
-Bomb-Nade Engineers
-D/D Eles
-Meditation Guardians

List of professions which could help in taking down a D/P thief in WvW if the thief is outnumbered and trolling:
-Mesmer
-Ranger
-Warrior
-Thief
-Elementalist
-Engineer
-Necro

Just save your stuns/knockbacks. If you spam them you won’t achieve anything.
Once you deny the outnumbered thief access to stealth by interrupting his HS, he will be cornered and will most likely Shadowstep away. Then he will either flee or will keep following you in stealth using Shadow Refuge. The next moment he reveals, you just need to do the same thing as before.
When I’m running with a group of 2-4 people with any of the class I have in my signature and I see a D/P thief trolling us, he will either disengage after using Shadowstep or he will die in a few seconds.

And this is assuming WvW. Nothing wrong in PvP with Black Powder.
People should learn how to counter rather than complaning and asking for nerfs.
BP has counterplay. If you lack stuns (and almost any class has access to them) then it is a your problem.

What you suggest is that thieves receive another instant 1 button stealth skill?

At least with D/P thieves have to use 2 skills.

Ini cost would have to be increased, as well as having a cast time relative to the powder+HS combo.

OP, your problem is you believe that d/p doesn’t have counter which leads me to think you never faced any half decent player. WvW, that is infested with spam key 1 zerglings, can not be a measure of skill, sorry. As stated above there are plenty of builds/classes that can counter d/p.

I don’t like your suggestion at all, it take away controll from d/p when to use stealth and when to use blinds. You suggestion will make BP very clunky. Also as said before, unless p/p is majorly nerfed somewhere else i would rather not see that braindead set getting free stealth. Same goes for s/p.

Do not change what is not broken. There are plenty issues in wvw and pvp, there are plenty issues with thieves themself, BP isn’t one of them.

I fail to see the problem in d/p or stealth at all.
Stealth does only two things: enables the use of stealth skill and makes user invisible for short time.
I have no idea how any of those are imbalanced in any way at considerable level of play.

Heartseeker is plain leap without any immunities. Even when I play D/something I use heartseeker solely when I can be sure it cannot be countered – it does not matter if you gain stealth at the end of it – everyone who actually saw you do it will know exactly where you are regardless of whether they see you or not.
I also fail to see how thief mass stealth capabilities should be limited to utilities. As a matter of fact, using blinding powder without utilizing its blast finisher (on the said smoke field from black powder) is just stupid.

Don’t forget, thief can use only 60 seconds worth of cooldowns per minute with two weapon sets. For most classes it is by far greater even on single weapon set – and other classes get team support skills on their weapon skills.

I only read the first post, so I apologise if this has already been said.

Terrible idea. This would remove the ability to to enter stealth without a target, thereby nerfing thief’s deceptive capabilities. Using black powder and heart seeker to make it look like you’re going in a particular direction. This is a very good tactic in PvP, stopping opponents for a few seconds of indecisiveness, manipulating where they go, pinning them on nodes etc. It’s also something the thief can do while healing instead of just sitting in stealth being completely useless.

This change would also force thieves to burn a stealth granting utility skill - which have 50-60 secs cool down - in order to sneak up on an target. That being said, I think blinding powder has a way too long cool down anyway.

Ichishi.9613:

I fail to see the problem in d/p or stealth at all.
Stealth does only two things: enables the use of stealth skill and makes user invisible for short time.
I have no idea how any of those are imbalanced in any way at considerable level of play.

Heartseeker is plain leap without any immunities. Even when I play D/something I use heartseeker solely when I can be sure it cannot be countered – it does not matter if you gain stealth at the end of it – everyone who actually saw you do it will know exactly where you are regardless of whether they see you or not.
I also fail to see how thief mass stealth capabilities should be limited to utilities. As a matter of fact, using blinding powder without utilizing its blast finisher (on the said smoke field from black powder) is just stupid.

Don’t forget, thief can use only 60 seconds worth of cooldowns per minute with two weapon sets. For most classes it is by far greater even on single weapon set – and other
classes get team support skills on their weapon skills.

Stealth does much more than 2 things. Depending on traits, it can heal 300ish/s, remove conditions, gain extra initiative, or give a 50% speed increase. Those aren’t necessarily a given though. It also allows for great burst, ability to reposition, ability to disorient oppenents, and the ability to disengage from a fight at will. Stealth is our most powerful aspect, do not try downplaying it.

D/p has NO counter play besides trying to interrupt the thief though a blind which is difficult in itself. It doesn’t require ANY skill at all to gain stealth; you don’t even need a target. The only other steath on a weapon set is x/d and that in clock and dagger. Which requires a target and can be blocked, dodged, blinded, immobilized, or cc’d.

This change would at least give d/p more counter play while giving some decent surviablility to p/p and a good, but unneeded buff to s/p. Yes it’s a ranged c&d, but you see the field right before the shot to gain steath. It has a nice visual cue and gives it the same counter ability that c&d has. Having such free access to steath is a bad thing for this game’s health whether you realize it or not. I would much rather have it changed this way, than what others have suggested. ( i.e removing the leap from heart seeker)

Yeah we would be losing the smoke field to stealth allies, but we still have utilities for that, and most still work better than Mesmer steath. I’m not including veil bots for zergs in this post.

Impact.2780:

I only read the first post, so I apologise if this has already been said.

Terrible idea. This would remove the ability to to enter stealth without a target, thereby nerfing thief’s deceptive capabilities. Using black powder and heart seeker to make it look like you’re going in a particular direction. This is a very good tactic in PvP, stopping opponents for a few seconds of indecisiveness, manipulating where they go, pinning them on nodes etc. It’s also something the thief can do while healing instead of just sitting in stealth being completely useless.

This change would also force thieves to burn a stealth granting utility skill – which have 50-60 secs cool down – in order to sneak up on an target. That being said, I think blinding powder has a way too long cool down anyway.

Steath is the deceptive ability. Enemy already loss target and have ZERO idea where we are for 3-4 sec. We also have plenty of shadow steps to jump a target as well as well as steal which you can trait to steath as well. Free stealth whenever is bad. Though we are spending 8 of out 12(15) initiative, Even after the initiative changes the cost is still trivial.

hihey.1075:

List of things that counter D/P thieves in a 1v1:
-Hammer Warriors
-Other D/P thieves, and S/P is a good match too
-Bomb-Nade Engineers
-D/D Eles
-Meditation Guardians

Black Powder lasts 4 seconds. In order to stop a thief from stealthing you need to hit the thief with a 3 second stun (3 Headshots, which cost more initiative than the stealth combo itself) in the 0.5 second between when Black Powder ends and Heartseeker begins. To top it off you need to cleanse the Blind first or your stun will miss anyway. So yes, it is possible to stop a thief from using Hearseeker after Black Powder but it requires you to use 2 skills and close the possible gap between you in the space of half a second. This is ridiculously skewed in favor of the thief, since even if you stop the Hearseeker he will have enough initiative to do the combo again in a few seconds, while your stun will be on cooldown.

Given all the benefits that Stealth can give thieves, access to Backstab, condition removal, extra initiative, great health regeneration, etc, it should not be this easy to access stealth without using a Utility skill. There should be extra conditions tied to stealth on weapon skills, and having to hit an enemy to get it has multiple precendents already.

Impact.2780:

This change would also force thieves to burn a stealth granting utility skill – which have 50-60 secs cool down – in order to sneak up on an target. That being said, I think blinding powder has a way too long cool down anyway.

You’d still be able to get stealth in exactly the same way using Smoke Screen, which is on a 30s cooldown (less if traited). The only reason thieves don’t use that is precisely because D/P does that for them with less cooldown. D/P makes getting stealth ridiculously easy and it needs more conditions attached to it.

skyz.7321:

Ini cost would have to be increased, as well as having a cast time relative to the powder+HS combo.

He also suggested increasing the cast time to make it similar to the cast time for C&D. There is no need to increase the initiative cost though because they are increasing the chance of the thief not stealthing.

And what does a stealthed D/P do that needs changing?
You might not believe me, but I don’t really care about being able to stealth in combat. But I do care about being to stealth on demand outside of the combat. We most definitely do not need to improve thief’s ability to stealth in combat.

And from your point of view, what is the difference of doing blinding powder + heartseeker and blinding powder + cluster bomb?

I am not as much against the change, it just like people said – it is not worth to change single ability so cardinally when ability itself is working quite nicely.

If you ask me, I would agree to complete removal of stealth (as much as I like it I would still prefer to play a game where I wouldn’t be pigeonholed into using it) from the game, granted it will be adequately counterbalanced.

For me blinding powder is a perfect PvE skill as it is.
For PvP, only change I would make is something to counter is the extreme ease of countering it (at least increase in radius to correspond to the actual in-game melee range). In PvP, getting more than a single tick of blind on opponent is impossible and cost of 6 ini is really high for that (granted d/p has access to 4 ini guaranteed blind).
As I don’t see how the effect radius increase could affect PvE (as in pve blind from it is always countered by either defiant or aoe cap) so I would deem the change to aoe size in both PvP and PvE much more appropriate than complete overhaul.

MrAmputatoes.6031:

Steath is the deceptive ability. Enemy already loss target and have ZERO idea where we are for 3-4 sec. We also have plenty of shadow steps to jump a target as well as well as steal which you can trait to steath as well. Free stealth whenever is bad. Though we are spending 8 of out 12(15) initiative, Even after the initiative changes the cost is still trivial.

Entering stealth while moving in a particular direction is the deceptive element that allows you to pin your opponent to a node or waste skills in anticipation of your attack. Losing target alone isn’t enough. Shadow step is nice but against a good opponent it’s not deceptive without stealth because target lock will give you away.

I’m not looking to get into a discussion on whether “stealth whenever” is good or bad. I haven’t the time or the patience lol.

Enenion.8127:

Impact.2780:

This change would also force thieves to burn a stealth granting utility skill – which have 50-60 secs cool down – in order to sneak up on an target. That being said, I think blinding powder has a way too long cool down anyway.

You’d still be able to get stealth in exactly the same way using Smoke Screen, which is on a 30s cooldown (less if traited). The only reason thieves don’t use that is precisely because D/P does that for them with less cooldown. D/P makes getting stealth ridiculously easy and it needs more conditions attached to it.

I can’t speak for others, but that’s not the only reason I don’t take smoke screen. I wouldn’t take it even if the changes proposed in the original post were applied.

As for the ease of entering stealth… That sounds like just another case of “make it harder because it’s a thief”. I’ve seen mesmers stealth more than thieves, and theirs is longer duration at the press of a single button. Guardians gaining permanent protection with an auto attack – very easy in a team fight? Able to be a resilient berserker by having every utility skill healing for 2k+? Warrior’s dodge 2-3k with a minor trait while Mug can’t crit and is an adept trait on a 21-32 second cool down? Other classes completely negating damage at the press of a button, and chaining that invulnerability? Blocking? But thief should not be able to use 9 initiative (75% of their global skill cool down) to stealth for 3 seconds at any time they choose, provided they have that 9 initiative to spend? Let’s not go there.

Without both stealth and shadowstep loss of target is more of ltp issue.
Heartseeker has long and obvious animation, decent aftercast, vulnerable to any kind on impairment effects.
Standard melee attacks hit in 180 degree cone in front of you for 180 range.
I find the fact of being totally unable to hit a thief that executed such combo unlikely unless: thief used shadowstep/dodge/hs again. At that point thief literally spends double (if not more) the resources than initially mentioned in this topic.
With proper camera positioning you can even hit stealthed targets with single target ranged attacks.

@Cynz
scroll back , I already postet some modified Suggestion

explanations, excuses, no real suggestions, is there anything ppl can bring on to this thread, except real suggestions to fix the nearly mindless stealthspamming d/p set,
like a warrior defending his nearly OP HS …. nothing else

Arkantos.7460:

@Cynz
scroll back , I already postet some modified Suggestion

---

explanations, excuses, no real suggestions, is there anything ppl can bring on to this thread, except real suggestions to fix the nearly mindless stealthspamming d/p set,
like a warrior defending his nearly OP HS …. nothing else

you honestly compare blackpowder to HS?….wow

there were plenty of arguments brought why it shouldn’t be changed, if they don’t fit you, sorry, but i think nothing would

as far as suggestions go, you won’t see any simply because there is NO, absolutely NO good reason so drastically change a spell that is not broken and is not OP

“mindlessly spamming stealth” thief is not killing anyone, NOBODY would ever even think about spamming stealth in pvp… wvw is kitteng joke ruled by zerg, key 1 spam, food etc. and can’t be used as measure of what should be nerfed and not

I see this all the time as a thief in WvW, from enemy thieves I’m fighting. It really is annoying, and really the only way I could see to fix it would be to either change the field itself, thus nullifying stealth off the D/P set itself, or make it so it doesn’t set down a field on you, but on the opponent’s position when the attack connects (which would be preferred, since either way the enemy will be blinded).

if someone not playing gw2 comes to this thread he would most likely think that wvw is nothing but thieves deciding winning server by fighting thieves on an open and empty terrain. And winner is whoever stealths first.

Stealth can really help with a fight if you abuse backstab, which most zerker thieves do, along with stealth. It doesn’t mean you’ll win the battle in small group combat, but it heavily puts it in your favor.

Geiir.7603:

Why do I think this is a good idea?

• It would fix the problem with D/P stealth stacking
• It would provide stealth too P/P and S/P. Dual pistol really need help, and this would help a lot.
• It add real counter play to the D/P stealth combo. You could just evade, block, blind, etc the projectile to negate the thief stealth. This is also in the same fashion as Cloak and Dagger.
• The cast time would really help with the counter play as people will have a chance to evade or block it.

This change would help people counter the D/P weapon set and it would help the other two sets that use pistol off-hand a lot! This change was originally proposed by Maugetarr.

this is a thoroughly god awful idea in every way.

blinding powder is fine how it is.

d/p stealth has long been the excuse of terrible player after terrible player for why they get rolled by d/p thieves but the reality is counter-play is there and it doesn’t take much to do it. there’s no validity to anyone whining about it because all it means is that they aren’t taking the time to learn this counter-play.

additionally, this change would only make d/p insanely worse and barely help (if at all) s/p and p/p out. s/p already does well without stealth, as sword mainhand sets tend to do, but p/p is just a useless weaponset for wvw/pvp and this wont change that.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I see this all the time as a thief in WvW, from enemy thieves I’m fighting. It really is annoying, and really the only way I could see to fix it would be to either change the field itself, thus nullifying stealth off the D/P set itself, or make it so it doesn’t set down a field on you, but on the opponent’s position when the attack connects (which would be preferred, since either way the enemy will be blinded).

Read the suggestion. The proposal is to change the Smoke Field to a Dark Field (no more Stealth through Hearseeker) BUT to add Stealth as an effect of the projectile. That means the set can still Stealth if the projectile hits, but now there is more an enemy can do to stop the thief from stealthing, because if the projectile misses (due to Blind/Block/Evade) the thief does not get Stealth. This change also buffs P/P and S/P since they couldn’t get Stealth through the Heartseeker Combo.

Impact.2780:

As for the ease of entering stealth… That sounds like just another case of “make it harder because it’s a thief”. I’ve seen mesmers stealth more than thieves, and theirs is longer duration at the press of a single button. Guardians gaining permanent protection with an auto attack – very easy in a team fight? Able to be a resilient berserker by having every utility skill healing for 2k+? Warrior’s dodge 2-3k with a minor trait while Mug can’t crit and is an adept trait on a 21-32 second cool down? Other classes completely negating damage at the press of a button, and chaining that invulnerability? Blocking? But thief should not be able to use 9 initiative (75% of their global skill cool down) to stealth for 3 seconds at any time they choose, provided they have that 9 initiative to spend? Let’s not go there.

When stealth can give you so many things, like extra initiative, curing conditions, the ability to backstab, etc, above it’s already huge benefit of dropping target there needs to be more options for enemies to deal with Stealth. It should not be that easy to enter Stealth on a whim. Certain defensive options for other classes are overpowered, but that’s a different matter. This change may make it slightly harder for a D/P thief to enter stealth, but it compensates by reducing the initiative cost of the stealth down to 6 since you’re only using one skill to stealth and it buffs P/P and S/P.

sinject.4607:

d/p stealth has long been the excuse of terrible player after terrible player for why they get rolled by d/p thieves but the reality is counter-play is there and it doesn’t take much to do it. there’s no validity to anyone whining about it because all it means is that they aren’t taking the time to learn this counter-play.

additionally, this change would only make d/p insanely worse and barely help (if at all) s/p and p/p out. s/p already does well without stealth, as sword mainhand sets tend to do, but p/p is just a useless weaponset for wvw/pvp and this wont change that.

The counter play that currently exists is not sufficient. Black Powder lasts 4 seconds, in order to stop a thief from stealthing you need to have at least a 3 second stun ready to go during the 1/2 second before the thief triggers Heartseeker. Plus you need to cleanse the blind from the shot itself. Having to use 2 or more skills in 1/2 a second to negate one enemy action is not good enough when even if you succeed the thief can repeat the combo as soon as the stun ends. The combo is so easy to pull off, in most situations it’s pointless to even try to stop the stealth. Even in a fight between two D/P thieves they won’t try to stop the other from stealthing because it takes more initiative to use Headshot 3 times than it does to stealth after they do.

@ Cynz: I have to agree with you that black powder+HS right now is not OP, the problem is that it is complained about now, and it will most likely be nerfed in the future because of that. This would be a change that would increase counterplay to BPS.

Overall changes:
No stealth stacking
Duration increased by SA
Overall easier to counter by dodging/reflecting
Overall cost decreased so a second attempt can be made
Lifesteal on projectile finishers
Blind on leap finishers
Lifesteal on whirl finishers (I’m looking at you warrior axe and Daggerstorm)
Blast finishers grant AoE blind (very helpful in ZvZ/GvG)
P/P gets more interesting play than 3333333 (5>1>(2)>3 or just 5>3 if BPS misses)
S/P gets access to stealth also (new builds available on both P/P and S/P)
D/P stealth can’t be messed up by allies’ fields

Things that stay the same:
AoE blind field
D/P still has access to stealth

Also, to those worried about how this would be against AI professions (necro, ranger, mes,+any others I forgot): I don’t see how this would be more effective than the current form of BPS. Right now no target is required. This would just require the BPS shot to hit an AI rather than not hit an AI….

How come people continue contradicting points already given here.
Noone is going to change a skill simply because it can be better. ANY skill can be better. Whats wrong with blinding power alone?

Half of people complains about getting hit by thieves, other half complains about not getting hit by thieves.

Even if you can’t deal with stealth, even if it is LTP issue, feel free to do so in topics about stealth. Black powder nicely working skill that in no way relates to the issues people have with stealth.

If you want to propose changes to black powder do it in an orderly and civilized manner, keeping your opinions to yourself or, at very least, making them objective.

Talking about backstab “abuse” (there are targets other than pve mobs that can get beaten with that?), “godly” stealth traits (that essentially require thief to drop the said backstab damage to miserable levels) and “useful” buffs to “not-so-op” thief builds.

1) stealth stacking – after first 3 seconds any additional stealth in no way contributes to thief’s victory
2) SA duration increase – why would I (and You) want more stealth?
3) Counter what? Blind field? Blind shot? Heartseeker that should NOT hit you to work?
4) Second attempt? If you can’t get what you NEED from skill you won’t use it even first time. It’s not “oh, initiative”. It is a GLOBAL cooldown.
5) Lifesteal on projectiles – what for? Ranged thief does not need lifesteal. If he takes damage he is either dead or uses SoM
6) Blind on leap – for? D/P has unblockable blind on 3 with guaranteed unrestricted and fast teleport (unlike leap)
7) Lifesteal on whirl – again, why? I may assure you, that both poison and blind are much better at increasing your survive-ability
8) Blast finishers aoe blind – black powder gives aoe blind for 4 seconds… Why need more?
9) 2 unloads do way more than any of combos you listed
10) What will S/P use 6 ini stealth for? PW has stun, evade AND damage. Run away? Sword 2.
11) If D/P needs stealth he goes and makes it. Dropping blinding powder in a middle of something more important pretty much guarantees you a party kick/“noob thiev”/lonely future. Since you are not aware of this you probably didn’t play thief seriously anywhere (including dungeons, wvw and s/tpvp)

Amstel Steel.2058:

Unfixed weapon skills. A pool of skills to choose from each set so a s/p or p/p can choose a skill other than black powder or head shot while retaining its dual skill.

Simply put the d/p build mechanically is very fun and engaging and you don’t actually stack stealth in terms of heartseeking multiple times off of one blind field and you stealth at critical times periodically.

Enenion.8127:

The counter play that currently exists is not sufficient. Black Powder lasts 4 seconds, in order to stop a thief from stealthing you need to have at least a 3 second stun ready to go during the 1/2 second before the thief triggers Heartseeker. Plus you need to cleanse the blind from the shot itself. Having to use 2 or more skills in 1/2 a second to negate one enemy action is not good enough when even if you succeed the thief can repeat the combo as soon as the stun ends. The combo is so easy to pull off, in most situations it’s pointless to even try to stop the stealth. Even in a fight between two D/P thieves they won’t try to stop the other from stealthing because it takes more initiative to use Headshot 3 times than it does to stealth after they do.

if you’re telling me that d/p thieves should not be able to access their only survival mechanic with a semi-reliable method (still interruptible, pull-able, knockback-able, and you can stand in the field to prevent stealth stacking) then you really just have no argument to make.

and the reality is there is no fair argument to make against d/p stealth.

it’s not broken. and it’s as simple as that.

there’s a reason why thief isn’t a s-tier (too stronk-tier) profession in spvp like warriors, necros, engies, or even rangers are.

We’re talking WvW, sinject. In WvW it’s broken, considering thieves do not have any of the nerfs from sPvP present, we’re at full power there.

RyuDragnier.9476:

We’re talking WvW, sinject. In WvW it’s broken, considering thieves do not have any of the nerfs from sPvP present, we’re at full power there.

WvW is broken with the food and potions and gear oh the gear….. The shadow traits could be adjusted. But the skill? Then on a broader scope you see everything else unbalanced in wvw and it creates its little own perfect storm.

sinject.4607:

if you’re telling me that d/p thieves should not be able to access their only survival mechanic with a semi-reliable method (still interruptible, pull-able, knockback-able, and you can stand in the field to prevent stealth stacking) then you really just have no argument to make.

and the reality is there is no fair argument to make against d/p stealth.

it’s not broken. and it’s as simple as that.

there’s a reason why thief isn’t a s-tier (too stronk-tier) profession in spvp like warriors, necros, engies, or even rangers are.

The only reason thief isn’t s-tier for spvp is because you can’t contest a point while stealthed.

You make it sound like hitting an enemy with a ranged skill is such a hard thing to do. We’re not talking about charging a a Kill Shot here. Good thieves can already land the majority of their C&Ds, a ranged skill should be even easier to hit with. It just requires a little more skill than pressing 5 then 2 regardless of surroundings or what enemies are doing.

Ranged CnD? This will never be taken seriously even if it will be unrelated to black powder.
You think people will whine less from skill that would allow maintaining stealth at range while still dealing damage rather than a more costly, harder to perform and telegraphed combo?
S/D thief as it is – is easily counterable (for me at least). But with this change(stealth on 5), they would be untouchable.
Sorry, but I think using 5+2 to get into stealth is much harder than pressing a single button at right time.

Enenion.8127:

When stealth can give you so many things, like extra initiative, curing conditions, the ability to backstab, etc, above it’s already huge benefit of dropping target there needs to be more options for enemies to deal with Stealth. It should not be that easy to enter Stealth on a whim. Certain defensive options for other classes are overpowered, but that’s a different matter. This change may make it slightly harder for a D/P thief to enter stealth, but it compensates by reducing the initiative cost of the stealth down to 6 since you’re only using one skill to stealth and it buffs P/P and S/P.

Again, it would significantly nerf a deceptive style of play.

Giving the ability to back stab… the proposed change would still have it grant stealth…
Initiative return on stealth… again, the proposed change would still have it grant stealth…
Traited condition removal on stealth… again, the proposed change would still have it grant stealth… And in any event, all classes have access to reliable condition removal (i.e doesn’t only remove specified conditions, not activated automatically at a certain health threshold, not the only such source with a long cool down). Condition removal by stealth already stops the thief from attacking for (n-1)*3secs where n is the number of conditions that need to be removed.

The change would remove the means by which a thief can enter stealth without hitting a target and without using a utility slot for the purpose, and those of which worth taking having long cool downs. I don’t even need to argue this point, because it is never going to happen without significant changes to the trait lines, which isn’t likely to happen since ANet doesn’t want to spend a lot of time focused on just one class. With so many traits stealth oriented, it would be too much of a nerf, not to mention the impact it would have on other elements of game play.

Ichishi.9613:

Sorry, but I think using 5+2 to get into stealth is much harder than pressing a single button at right time.

Having to pay attention to your surroundings and actually watch your opponent is harder than pressing 5+2 without a care in the world for what anyone else is doing, even if less buttons are involved.

Impact.2780:

Again, it would significantly nerf a deceptive style of play.

Giving the ability to back stab… the proposed change would still have it grant stealth…
Initiative return on stealth… again, the proposed change would still have it grant stealth…
Traited condition removal on stealth… again, the proposed change would still have it grant stealth… And in any event, all classes have access to reliable condition removal (i.e doesn’t only remove specified conditions, not activated automatically at a certain health threshold, not the only such source with a long cool down). Condition removal by stealth already stops the thief from attacking for (n-1)*3secs where n is the number of conditions that need to be removed.

The point of the change isn’t to remove Stealth from D/P. Stealth is an integral part of the thief class and D/P especially, which relies on Backstab for damage, so removing stealth is out of the question. The change aims to make it a bit harder for the thief to get Stealth in the first place, since there are a couple more counters to a projectile than to someone attacking the air inside a field. A deceptive style of play is still very much possible even with the proposed requirement to hit something.