Guild Wars 2

DeceiverX.8361:

I hope all this time you’ve not thought I’d just had a particular liking for baby cats, either :P

A bit, that’s why I’m overjoyed to see you on reddit.

Probably not for long. I’ll run out of steam to care soon enough if this isn’t fixed. I can do a number of more productive things than peruse poorly-formatted reddit posts and a huge number of white-knights that go out of their way to downvote any criticism of ANet there.

DeceiverX.8361:

Probably not for long. I’ll run out of steam to care soon enough if this isn’t fixed. I can do a number of more productive things than peruse poorly-formatted reddit posts and a huge number of white-knights that go out of their way to downvote any criticism of ANet there.

FYI you should champion to improve thieves as a whole not just D/D while making D/P out to be the bad guy.

I read that thread and any down votes you got are well deserved. Look to improve the entire class not just your preferred way to play.

Azukas.1426:

DeceiverX.8361:

Probably not for long. I’ll run out of steam to care soon enough if this isn’t fixed. I can do a number of more productive things than peruse poorly-formatted reddit posts and a huge number of white-knights that go out of their way to downvote any criticism of ANet there.

FYI you should champion to improve thieves as a whole not just D/D while making D/P out to be the bad guy.

I read that thread and any down votes you got are well deserved. Look to improve the entire class not just your preferred way to play.

I’ve done so repeatedly, over and over, and time and time again, the culprit reasoning as to why changes cannot be made profession-wide lies in balance concerns with D/P due to power creep or over-buffing it, from a combined mix or both conceptual and mathematical reasons. I said it in the thread and I’ll say it again, I do not balance to compete with power creep. I balance relative to the rest of the profession and the core game as a whole. Strict buffs are not necessary, especially when considering the profession in various formats, and reworks will do very little without making tweaks to multiple sets, which includes downgrading aspects of D/P. The talks have been fone for years, I’ve personally done out the math, and so have many others; it’s just not reasonable to expect to make any changes to the profession without first nerfing Shadow Shot (and now Impacting Disruption via an ICD) at the very, very least.

Further, the rest of the thief from a numbers perspective is fine as-is. Blatant issues between formats (sPvP stat distribution) are to blame for the thief not performing well there, and that’s just a real, true fact. Go to WvW and you’ll realize the profession is absolutely fine once it can scale its stats properly.

It’s dominant for a reason, and thief as a profession is broken for a very similar one. The demand for a change to the ICD on stealth attacks is based only because of the way it specifically impacts D/D power. Frankly, if D/D power had a good kit, I actually wouldn’t care about the ICD so much. If the aegis got removed from PU on mesmer, I actually wouldn’t feel much of a need to complain at all.

It’s not out of selfishness but recognizing that the change was unfair to D/D despite being intended to raise the skill floor on D/P, which is largely failed to do. Yes, I play D/D power, so I have tremendous stake in the argument, but claiming that D/P is non-functional because of the change is actually just foolish, and the prospect of making proposals for the entire rest of the thief is a totally different subject, and something I’ve done repeatedly many times. As I said, however, D/P’s numbers are often to blame for a lack of progress in making such suggestions, since most necessary tweaks to fix MH dagger or thief as a whole cannot be reasonably suggested due to D/P gaining too much from said proposals.

The changes that D/D (and P/P) needs has nothing to do with D/P or any other weapon set. The technology is there in terms of environmental weapon and the mechanic is there in terms of dual-wielding.

I don’t understand anyone who would oppose to the idea that D/D (and P/P) needs its own separate 5-skills weapon set. It’s been obvious for quite a while now that this is the only solution instead of going through this roller coaster ride of nerfing and buffing skills and trait at the cost of D/D (and P/P).

D/D could largely be fixed with skill reworks on 3 and 4. Real talk, though, ANet isn’t probably ever going to change them because that’d take substantial resources.

P/P is a little bit trickier.

Just to show how much bullkitten this nerf contains, here’s an adorable fact. FOR SOME REASON EVEN IF I DO LAND A BACKSTAB I STILL HAVE TO WAIT 1 SECOND BEFORE BEING ABLE TO AUTO ATTACK. I have lost so many fights because I backstab and do nothing for 1 second whilst revealed… Wat… Am I supposed to stay visible now? Oh and thats if i land a backstab… now i cant olay d/d cuz whats the point in CnD for a slight chance that I will land a backstab and that I won’t misscalculate my attack distance or my opponent evades or blocks it. Backstab didnt even hit that hard kitten . Now I’m forced to play d/p pvp and I cant use black powder HS into backstab anymore cuz Ill be vulnerable for a whole second.

I just dont know how Anet thought this was a good idea. I just dont understand it. People need to stop crying about thief damage and them being “broken”. Theyre squishier than a kitten feather guys. CC them and unload on them it’s that easy. This wasn’t a nerf, this was a cripple and I’m appalled that the company that made my favourite game actually thought that this was a good idea. This is why you need to implement balance changes on a testing server so that if you do kitten up, the community can at least point out the mistakes and help you out.

They will never admit this was a mistake – this will never be undone.

But in the end: With the dragon pvp thingy patch in 2015 my thief was crippled – I was unable to land a hit. Before that my D/D win rate against any opponent (engineers included – I couldn’t beat them, no matter what) was at around 97-98%. After that patch it was at ~70% – I couldn’t hit especially thieves anymore “Haha, look at that noob with his incinerator”.
I wrote the support, multiple times, I wrote on the bug forum, I wrote it 4 times in this forum – and hey, they fixed it last week THANKS I mean it. Just that my thief is dead now anyway – but I do enjoy being able to hit pve mobs again.

It would be awesome if anet really had a team taking care of all professions and balance. There’s so many bad ideas in this game which would’ve never happened if there were people who knew the classes and how they interact (as enemies and allies) – you can’t always satisfy the PvE crowd or noobs who complain about stealth and then go on to roll a thief “This is so much fun” but they won’t come back to the forums to admit they were wrong.

ETA: The reason I put up with the dragon bug for so long was that no one believed me and everybody said they had no bug. I tried to fix my pc, I got a new internet connection, everything.. I really thought that I had some ageing boost and now really was too slow to play thief properly.

DeceiverX.8361:

Azukas.1426:

DeceiverX.8361:

Probably not for long. I’ll run out of steam to care soon enough if this isn’t fixed. I can do a number of more productive things than peruse poorly-formatted reddit posts and a huge number of white-knights that go out of their way to downvote any criticism of ANet there.

FYI you should champion to improve thieves as a whole not just D/D while making D/P out to be the bad guy.

I read that thread and any down votes you got are well deserved. Look to improve the entire class not just your preferred way to play.

I’ve done so repeatedly, over and over, and time and time again, the culprit reasoning as to why changes cannot be made profession-wide lies in balance concerns with D/P due to power creep or over-buffing it, from a combined mix or both conceptual and mathematical reasons. I said it in the thread and I’ll say it again, I do not balance to compete with power creep. I balance relative to the rest of the profession and the core game as a whole. Strict buffs are not necessary, especially when considering the profession in various formats, and reworks will do very little without making tweaks to multiple sets, which includes downgrading aspects of D/P. The talks have been fone for years, I’ve personally done out the math, and so have many others; it’s just not reasonable to expect to make any changes to the profession without first nerfing Shadow Shot (and now Impacting Disruption via an ICD) at the very, very least.

Further, the rest of the thief from a numbers perspective is fine as-is. Blatant issues between formats (sPvP stat distribution) are to blame for the thief not performing well there, and that’s just a real, true fact. Go to WvW and you’ll realize the profession is absolutely fine once it can scale its stats properly.

It’s dominant for a reason, and thief as a profession is broken for a very similar one. The demand for a change to the ICD on stealth attacks is based only because of the way it specifically impacts D/D power. Frankly, if D/D power had a good kit, I actually wouldn’t care about the ICD so much. If the aegis got removed from PU on mesmer, I actually wouldn’t feel much of a need to complain at all.

It’s not out of selfishness but recognizing that the change was unfair to D/D despite being intended to raise the skill floor on D/P, which is largely failed to do. Yes, I play D/D power, so I have tremendous stake in the argument, but claiming that D/P is non-functional because of the change is actually just foolish, and the prospect of making proposals for the entire rest of the thief is a totally different subject, and something I’ve done repeatedly many times. As I said, however, D/P’s numbers are often to blame for a lack of progress in making such suggestions, since most necessary tweaks to fix MH dagger or thief as a whole cannot be reasonably suggested due to D/P gaining too much from said proposals.

You’ve been told by multiple people on multiple occassions….you’re wrong.

Either adapt or move on.

“Thief doesn’t have cooldowns on weapon skills, so they use initiative to…” Yeah right…

The idea of thief is not this. It really needs to be changed.

The complaints about the stealth attack’s ICD is exaggerated. I’ve chained back stabs and hook strikes last night and the ICD is negligible — if it’s even noticeable, it’s not as bad as Death Blossom’s after cast delay or Shadow Shot’s pre-cast delay (those delays are horrible). Heck, the Debilitating Arc after-cast delay is horrendous.

If you’re going to complain about ICD complain about the pre-cast and after-cast delays (aka ICD) instead.

If you look at how easy other classes gain stealth and I guess they have no restrictions if they “miss” a hit (which are all aoe and not single target hits anyway) – then this nerf is absolutely unjustified.
It’s fine in PvE, although it occurs there too, it’s not fine in buggy and laggy wvw (and maybe pvp).
I’m glad they’re working on it but it might never be 100% and now all those mindless facerollers have an even bigger advantage.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The complaints about the stealth attack’s ICD is exaggerated. I’ve chained back stabs and hook strikes last night and the ICD is negligible

It is only negligible on classes that don’t have the ability to effectively negate a Backstab or Hook Strike easily. Block chains, high evade, easy stealthers, etc all basically greatly slow down the burst if not outright eliminate it. If a player doesn’t land a stealth attack they have maybe one more shot at it.

The change effectively dropped burst on classes relying on that stealth attack off a cliff.

This 1sec cooldown when you miss a stealth attack makes no sense. It’s so DIFFERENT & STRANGE this even exist. The only reason I can think of why ANET targeted the thief as the ONLY CLASS to get a 1 second debuff if your attack misses in stealth (since anybody can be stealth) is because they have ‘stealth attacks’. I would rather they completely REMOVE STEALTH ATTACKS, just let us auto-attack like other classes, than we get this 1 second wait period.

Like another poster said “PvP is to fast to be one second behind.”

omega.3758:

This 1sec cooldown when you miss a stealth attack makes no sense. It’s so DIFFERENT & STRANGE this even exist. The only reason I can think of why ANET targeted the thief as the ONLY CLASS to get a 1 second debuff if your attack misses in stealth (since anybody can be stealth) is because they have ‘stealth attacks’. I would rather they completely REMOVE STEALTH ATTACKS, just let us auto-attack like other classes, than we get this 1 second wait period.

Like another poster said “PvP is to fast to be one second behind.”

While we are talking about 1 second differences, how about that 4 sec reveal in pvp amirite? Anet seems to just want to destroy the thief’s ability to utilize stealth in spvp at all. Not only is there a higher reveal uptime there (Unless it was changed ages ago and I never noticed) but now we also have to deal with CD’s on stealth skills because people couldn’t be bothered to use 1 of their 600+ ways to mitigate damage? Take backstab for instance, with the aftercast included in the recharge of the skill you can use it 1 time every 2 seconds so you can maybe get 2 off if you’re quick but outside of that you better not hit some passive invuln or anything like that because you now get 1 chance to do any sort of damage while everyone else can have the game do it for them.

For those defending this nerf, if we have to time our backstabs better consistently and deserve nerfs on all our burst, why shouldn’t every other class in the game have to time their defenses better and receive nerfs on all their defenses so they can’t ignore all the damage thrown at them? Why should they be allowed such high invuln uptime, high block uptime, insane healing, AND extreme aoe damage and control while we can’t use 1 single target skill that doesn’t even hit all that hard anymore without doing major setup for it and in the end only getting 1 chance for it?

Ario.8964:

omega.3758:

This 1sec cooldown when you miss a stealth attack makes no sense. It’s so DIFFERENT & STRANGE this even exist. The only reason I can think of why ANET targeted the thief as the ONLY CLASS to get a 1 second debuff if your attack misses in stealth (since anybody can be stealth) is because they have ‘stealth attacks’. I would rather they completely REMOVE STEALTH ATTACKS, just let us auto-attack like other classes, than we get this 1 second wait period.

Like another poster said “PvP is to fast to be one second behind.”

While we are talking about 1 second differences, how about that 4 sec reveal in pvp amirite? Anet seems to just want to destroy the thief’s ability to utilize stealth in spvp at all. Not only is there a higher reveal uptime there (Unless it was changed ages ago and I never noticed) but now we also have to deal with CD’s on stealth skills because people couldn’t be bothered to use 1 of their 600+ ways to mitigate damage? Take backstab for instance, with the aftercast included in the recharge of the skill you can use it 1 time every 2 seconds so you can maybe get 2 off if you’re quick but outside of that you better not hit some passive invuln or anything like that because you now get 1 chance to do any sort of damage while everyone else can have the game do it for them.

For those defending this nerf, if we have to time our backstabs better consistently and deserve nerfs on all our burst, why shouldn’t every other class in the game have to time their defenses better and receive nerfs on all their defenses so they can’t ignore all the damage thrown at them? Why should they be allowed such high invuln uptime, high block uptime, insane healing, AND extreme aoe damage and control while we can’t use 1 single target skill that doesn’t even hit all that hard anymore without doing major setup for it and in the end only getting 1 chance for it?

THIS THIS THIS. I dont mind the 4 second reveal, makes you think about when to engage in stealth and when not to. What kittenes me off though is that I have to time my backstab now so that I “might” hit it (not get blocked or evaded) and not even do that much damage, whilst other classes can just press a button and they block EVERYTHING. Why? What’s the point?? If I have to time my most important skill as a dagger dagger thief, why can’t other classes get punished for poorly timing their skills?

Oh that’s assuming I didnt already get punished for poorly timing backstab or just spamming 1. The 4 second reveal was more than enough warning for kittening up a backstab.

anet forgot the class that can stealth and do massive condition dmg while invisible

Taxidriver.2043:

anet forgot the class that can stealth and do massive condition dmg while invisible

Lol i wish i could do +10 to this one

Taxidriver.2043:

anet forgot the class that can stealth and do massive condition dmg while invisible

Add power damage to the traps and remove trap runes’ stealth= problem solved

No need for the rest of the class to suffer because some baffoons play a gimmick build. Kill the gimmick build and move on.

Ario.8964:

Taxidriver.2043:

anet forgot the class that can stealth and do massive condition dmg while invisible

Add power damage to the traps and remove trap runes’ stealth= problem solved

No need for the rest of the class to suffer because some baffoons play a gimmick build. Kill the gimmick build and move on.

Pretty sure he was referring to condi mesmer.

Conspiracy Theory: Anet added the 1 second ICD because of how shortbow stealth attacks will behave with Rending Shade.

borgs.6103:

Conspiracy Theory: Anet added the 1 second ICD because of how shortbow stealth attacks will behave with Rending Shade.

Interesting. Shouldn’t all that need to be done is check to see if the Thief has the Revealed effect applied? If so, then do not allow the boons to be stolen. Only one Surprise Shot can hit before Revealed is applied, even if there is a second in the air.

Huge spike in perma evade spamming thieves and trapper thieves because of this change. Backstab was already annoying to land before. Now it’s completely ridiculous, and the reason why is because this game has too many AoE CCs, blocks, and evades. It’s not a matter of a bad thief not being able to land backstab because he misses due to his own lack of skill. People just spam CCs/blocks/evades and there’s nothing you can do about it. The class just feels clunky af now. With so much class power creep backstab is becoming less and less worth it. And with this change? Why even bother, lets just all run evade builds or trapper condi. Thief was THE class that wasn’t supposed to feel clunky.

borgs.6103:

Conspiracy Theory: Anet added the 1 second ICD because of how shortbow stealth attacks will behave with Rending Shade.

I do not believe this the case. I have read speculation by others claiming the reason for the change is rending shade but see no evidence fromn a dev for that.

If they were concerned about this they could have added a 1 second cooldown to Rending shade much like we have on Guarded initiation, driven fortitude and the like.

babazhook.6805:

borgs.6103:

Conspiracy Theory: Anet added the 1 second ICD because of how shortbow stealth attacks will behave with Rending Shade.

I do not believe this the case. I have read speculation by otherws claiming the reason for the change is rending shade but see no evidence fromn a dev for that.

If they were concerned about this they could have added a 1 second cooldown to Rending shade much like we have on Guarded initiation, driven fortitude and the like.

My theory is that they are working on removing the lazy Revealed debuff. It would all make sense if that is the case.

And then the game would be truly broken rofl.

DeceiverX.8361:

And then the game would be truly broken rofl.

Sometimes it’s necessary to break it down, then build it up again. To be honest, the Thief in its current state is out of whack that needs to be redefined and then polished. Patching it up at this point will not fix the Thief — there’s just too many issues.

This is a joke of a thread. If you know you are going to miss, stow weapon mid back-stab and no one second ICD. Now can we talk about relevant things?

thankitten.6307:

This is a joke of a thread. If you know you are going to miss, stow weapon mid back-stab and no one second ICD. Now can we talk about relevant things?

ofc its so easy to stow a 1/4 activation time :-/

thankitten.6307:

This is a joke of a thread. If you know you are going to miss, stow weapon mid back-stab and no one second ICD. Now can we talk about relevant things?

Don’t come on the thread, if it’s a joke. You’re more than welcome to make a new thread talking about “relevant things”

ego’s are left at the door.

thankitten.6307:

This is a joke of a thread. If you know you are going to miss, stow weapon mid back-stab and no one second ICD. Now can we talk about relevant things?

If we knew we were gonna miss, we wouldnt have started the backstab attack then… there are so many factors that go into missing a backstab that you can’t keep track of. The issue with this 1 second cd is that it makes gameplay way too clunky. If I initiate a backstab it means I want to get revealed at that point and do a chunk of damage. If I miss the backstab and have to wait for one second, then Im in stealth possibly in some sort of AoE that I wanna either get out of or down the enemy asap so that I can get out of it.

Another thing is that people now as soon as they see a theif go into stealth will dodge roll. You know how hard it is to hit a backstab when someone dodgerolled away knowing you only have one shot?

Before you start to incite an argument for 0 reason, look at why people are angry at the nerf and then judge whether it’s justified or not. From the looks of your post you just read the title and drew your own conclusion.

Menmaro.4607:

thankitten.6307:

This is a joke of a thread. If you know you are going to miss, stow weapon mid back-stab and no one second ICD. Now can we talk about relevant things?

If we knew we were gonna miss, we wouldnt have started the backstab attack then… there are so many factors that go into missing a backstab that you can’t keep track of. The issue with this 1 second cd is that it makes gameplay way too clunky. If I initiate a backstab it means I want to get revealed at that point and do a chunk of damage. If I miss the backstab and have to wait for one second, then Im in stealth possibly in some sort of AoE that I wanna either get out of or down the enemy asap so that I can get out of it.

Another thing is that people now as soon as they see a theif go into stealth will dodge roll. You know how hard it is to hit a backstab when someone dodgerolled away knowing you only have one shot?

Before you start to incite an argument for 0 reason, look at why people are angry at the nerf and then judge whether it’s justified or not. From the looks of your post you just read the title and drew your own conclusion.

Backstab is not the only Stealth Attack. They can dodge roll away from Sneak Attack (Pistol SA) but they’ll still get hit and receive bleeding condition. I have my backstab either hit, blocked, or evaded, but I never miss (as is backstabbing in air) because it requires a great deal of experience to properly time the Backstab. If I can see that my target is too far, I’ll reposition in stealth instead of chasing for Backstab. A lot of the issues are simply L2P Thief and other are exaggerations.

So what if you only have one shot to land a Backstab? Why should you get more than one? We only have one chance to land an interrupt, but you don’t see any complaints about it. Let’s be honest here, no matter how much I tried to recreate the scenario where people are getting stuck in the 1s ICD, I just can’t get myself stuck. My Thief just resumes to auto-attack after a stealth attack, thus I question the merit of the claim.

If you play D/P, it’s not a problem. If you play D/D, it is. I don’t whiff the air. But there’s also no reason why my enemies should get second/third/fourth chances from my attacks on passive skills and abilities when I had to do my best to just land CnD.

It’s really just that simple, and a perspective that needs to be recognized before debate.

DeceiverX.8361:

If you play D/P, it’s not a problem. If you play D/D, it is. I don’t whiff the air. But there’s also no reason why my enemies should get second/third/fourth chances from my attacks on passive skills and abilities when I had to do my best to just land CnD.

It’s really just that simple, and a perspective that needs to be recognized before debate.

Devs don’t care. People being crying how their passive auto-aegis/blocks gets neglected by backstab spam + SA trait got changed (for some reason they apparently thought that everyone will use it while revs and engis still have reveal on demand lel) so they changed all stealth skills. Just another stupid change done by people that never touched the class.

DeceiverX.8361:

If you play D/P, it’s not a problem. If you play D/D, it is. I don’t whiff the air. But there’s also no reason why my enemies should get second/third/fourth chances from my attacks on passive skills and abilities when I had to do my best to just land CnD.

It’s really just that simple, and a perspective that needs to be recognized before debate.

We all know that the problem with D/D is CnD. There is no difference between D/P and D/D in terms of Backstab. The difference is that D/P puts you in a much favorable position than what you’ll get from D/D — but we’re talking about the ICD here.

The passive skills are there for a reason and as a Thief we just need to learn to deal with it. If the Dev thinks that Thief needs to bypass those passives, then they should grant Unhindered (cannot be blocked or evaded) to stealth attacks. Even then, it has nothing to do with the ICD anymore.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DeceiverX.8361:

If you play D/P, it’s not a problem. If you play D/D, it is. I don’t whiff the air. But there’s also no reason why my enemies should get second/third/fourth chances from my attacks on passive skills and abilities when I had to do my best to just land CnD.

It’s really just that simple, and a perspective that needs to be recognized before debate.

We all know that the problem with D/D is CnD. There is no difference between D/P and D/D in terms of Backstab. The difference is that D/P puts you in a much favorable position than what you’ll get from D/D — but we’re talking about the ICD here.

The passive skills are there for a reason and as a Thief we just need to learn to deal with it. If the Dev thinks that Thief needs to bypass those passives, then they should grant Unhindered (cannot be blocked or evaded) to stealth attacks. Even then, it has nothing to do with the ICD anymore.

Unhindered on stealth attacks sounds nice.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

We all know that the problem with D/D is CnD. There is no difference between D/P and D/D in terms of Backstab. The difference is that D/P puts you in a much favorable position than what you’ll get from D/D — but we’re talking about the ICD here.

CnD inflicts 3 stacks of vulnerabilty, so if the CnD hit then the backstab is a difference. But there’s more to thief than backstabs and SS is far easier to land than a CnD and also a teleport – that’s why the ICD doesn’t hurt D/P that much.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The passive skills are there for a reason

Yes, PvE

and as a Thief we just need to learn to deal with it.

We’re expected to play PvE.
I got what you were going at with that – still I wanted to explain why D/D suffers a bit more than D/P.

Jana.6831:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

We all know that the problem with D/D is CnD. There is no difference between D/P and D/D in terms of Backstab. The difference is that D/P puts you in a much favorable position than what you’ll get from D/D — but we’re talking about the ICD here.

CnD inflicts 3 stacks of vulnerabilty, so if the CnD hit then the backstab is a difference. But there’s more to thief than backstabs and SS is far easier to land than a CnD and also a teleport – that’s why the ICD doesn’t hurt D/P that much.

My point is, both weapon set will feel the effect of the ICD. The fact that D/P has SS and D/D has CnD are completely different issues. We could all agree that CnD needs a built-in shadowstep for starter and in addition, reduced casting time. Which as I mentioned, has nothing to do with the ICD anymore.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The passive skills are there for a reason

Yes, PvE

and as a Thief we just need to learn to deal with it.

We’re expected to play PvE.
I got what you were going at with that – still I wanted to explain why D/D suffers a bit more than D/P.

D/D suffers more than D/P, that has been a fact for a long time now. However, the fix should be focused on other skills in D/D and not the stealth attack’s ICD.

That aren’t completely different issues as D/P uses more SS than BS anyway – get what I mean? They don’t need backstabs anymore thus won’t really feel the ICD.

Call me old or oldfashioned, but I’d rather have the game like it was than having more powercreep added.
But in the end: I have been crippled by a bug for 1,5 years and in the end was unable to kill anyone (it’s a bit better now, at least I’m able to kill thieves and don’t miss every CnD because my enemy caughed).
Now is the question: Is everything as it seems or is just everything bugged and we have no idea how combat really is? I guess especially wvw may be suffering from “positioning bugs”. So it’s a lot more than missing class balance as it seems.

Jana.6831:

That aren’t completely different issues as D/P uses more SS than BS anyway – get what I mean? They don’t need backstabs anymore thus won’t really feel the ICD.

That really has nothing to do with the complaints especially the exaggerated one about not being able to do anything for 1s after BS.

The ICD is there for both weapon set once they use BS — and D/P uses BS. I mean it’s a free damage when they’re in stealth.

What you’re implying is that D/P don’t need BS because their main damage comes from SS. SS cost 4 init while CnD cost 6 and they practically have the same base damage. SS has a positioning advantage while CnD is harder to use. So the argument that you’re really making is not about BS or its ICD, it’s about giving D/D the same usability as D/P.

For instance, if they reduce the cost of CnD to 5 and give it shadowstep, then they should both not have any problem with BS and its ICD. That’s my point — to solve this issue is to improve CnD.

Call me old or oldfashioned, but I’d rather have the game like it was than having more powercreep added.

I don’t like powercreep either. A lot of the Thief’s issue can be solved by making Preparedness base line (max init 15) and reduce the cost of weapon skills to a normalizes total cost of 15. The max init and the total weapon skill cost should match.

But in the end: I have been crippled by a bug for 1,5 years and in the end was unable to kill anyone (it’s a bit better now, at least I’m able to kill thieves and don’t miss every CnD because my enemy caughed).
Now is the question: Is everything as it seems or is just everything bugged and we have no idea how combat really is? I guess especially wvw may be suffering from “positioning bugs”. So it’s a lot more than missing class balance as it seems.

WvW is too big and was never polished. They’re in a hurry to release it without even thoroughly testing that every key profession mechanics (i.e. shadowstep, scorp wire) will work properly — but that’s a whole different issue.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That really has nothing to do with the complaints especially the exaggerated one about not being able to do anything for 1s after BS.

The ICD is there for both weapon set once they use BS — and D/P uses BS. I mean it’s a free damage when they’re in stealth.

Why should I complain about something I don’t use if I don’t use it? Also D/D needs a bit longer to BS than D/P or better: it’s a different playstyle.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

What you’re implying is that D/P don’t need BS because their main damage comes from SS. SS cost 4 init while CnD cost 6 and they practically have the same base damage. SS has a positioning advantage while CnD is harder to use. So the argument that you’re really making is not about BS or its ICD, it’s about giving D/D the same usability as D/P.

No, it is about BS and SS – see above and see any other post I wrote to you. But I’ll leave it at that because repeating the same thing over and over isn’t my idea of having an intelligent conversation.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

For instance, if they reduce the cost of CnD to 5 and give it shadowstep, then they should both not have any problem with BS and its ICD. That’s my point — to solve this issue is to improve CnD.

I know, but why wouldn’t I play D/P if D/D does just the same but still inferior to D/P?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

WvW is too big and was never polished. They’re in a hurry to release it without even thoroughly testing that every key profession mechanics (i.e. shadowstep, scorp wire) will work properly — but that’s a whole different issue.

I had this bug everywhere: PvE, WvW and PvP – just that in wvw everybody is on a different but the same server – prone to even more positioning bugs.

ETA: And that’s not a different issue – that is the main issue people have with the shadowattack cooldown – and that needs to be taken into account if bringing something like the cooldown into game. I was complaining yet again about my bug (which I complained about for 1,5 freaking years) and they fixed it then. Without this fix (~1 day after the patch) I was unable to hit anything. Be glad you hadn’t had it because otherwise you would get why a lot of people don’t think the cooldown is a good idea at all.
ETA²: And if you don’t believe me that there was a positioning issue and that it has been partly solved, read the patch notes – we had about 3-5 small patches after they brought the cooldown into game. And no: it is still not entirely fixed, mobs in pve still count as being hit from the front when I hit their back. But at least I don’t miss them anymore now.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

For instance, if they reduce the cost of CnD to 5 and give it shadowstep, then they should both not have any problem with BS and its ICD. That’s my point — to solve this issue is to improve CnD.

Btw, if CnD was another port/shadowstep/gap closer, wouldn’t that make 2 from S/D sort of too much porting mobility especially since this one works without landing and also faster then the SS port? like you could gap close with only this 2 abilities 1800 range in a flash and also get into stealth afterwards.

Jana.6831:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That really has nothing to do with the complaints especially the exaggerated one about not being able to do anything for 1s after BS.

The ICD is there for both weapon set once they use BS — and D/P uses BS. I mean it’s a free damage when they’re in stealth.

Why should I complain about something I don’t use if I don’t use it? Also D/D needs a bit longer to BS than D/P or better: it’s a different playstyle.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

What you’re implying is that D/P don’t need BS because their main damage comes from SS. SS cost 4 init while CnD cost 6 and they practically have the same base damage. SS has a positioning advantage while CnD is harder to use. So the argument that you’re really making is not about BS or its ICD, it’s about giving D/D the same usability as D/P.

No, it is about BS and SS – see above and see any other post I wrote to you. But I’ll leave it at that because repeating the same thing over and over isn’t my idea of having an intelligent conversation.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

For instance, if they reduce the cost of CnD to 5 and give it shadowstep, then they should both not have any problem with BS and its ICD. That’s my point — to solve this issue is to improve CnD.

I know, but why wouldn’t I play D/P if D/D does just the same but still inferior to D/P?

That’s why I said that in order to solve this disparity is to improve CnD. I’m comparing CnD and SS because they almost have the same base damage and the only problem is position and execution. I’m also not going to repeat myself because I know I’ve made it clear already.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

WvW is too big and was never polished. They’re in a hurry to release it without even thoroughly testing that every key profession mechanics (i.e. shadowstep, scorp wire) will work properly — but that’s a whole different issue.

I had this bug everywhere: PvE, WvW and PvP – just that in wvw everybody is on a different but the same server – prone to even more positioning bugs.

ETA: And that’s not a different issue – that is the main issue people have with the shadowattack cooldown – and that needs to be taken into account if bringing something like the cooldown into game. I was complaining yet again about my bug (which I complained about for 1,5 freaking years) and they fixed it then. Without this fix (~1 day after the patch) I was unable to hit anything. Be glad you hadn’t had it because otherwise you would get why a lot of people don’t think the cooldown is a good idea at all.
ETA²: And if you don’t believe me that there was a positioning issue and that it has been partly solved, read the patch notes – we had about 3-5 small patches after they brought the cooldown into game. And no: it is still not entirely fixed, mobs in pve still count as being hit from the front when I hit their back. But at least I don’t miss them anymore now.

It’s a different issue in terms to the topic of this thread. And I believe you, I have the same issue with WvW. Most of the time the game shows me that I made the jump but the game killed me because of fall damage.

NuhDah.9812:

Btw, if CnD was another port/shadowstep/gap closer, wouldn’t that make 2 from S/D sort of too much porting mobility especially since this one works without landing and also faster then the SS port? like you could gap close with only this 2 abilities 1800 range in a flash and also get into stealth afterwards.

I think that’s one thing we suffer from… we’re too focused on specifics instead of looking at the big picture. The Thief is in a bad place. 1,800 range shadowsteps wouldn’t change that. The Thief can already do that with D/P anyway… just using utilities instead of initiative. The Thief’s problem is that it doesn’t have the fighting ability once it gets into range, and it gets outranged by several other professions.

The only true way to “balance” the weapon sets is to give each whole set its own unique skills. And I don’t think that’s going to happen. So the best I can hope for is that they will “fix” some sets even if it increases the abilities of other sets which are already “fixed.” I’d prefer every set to be viable with some being overpowered than to have some sets viable while others can’t even compete at all. With the way the game is currently set up, those are the only two options I see that are available… which is VERY unfortunate.

My problem with the ICD is: BS is a single target damage – it’s the main source of damage for a D/D thief and this game is a mess from a-z. I don’t feel in a position to say what this game needs because of that. Because I couldn’t fight thieves (except if they were running idly) for 1,5 years – I had no chance to hit them – other classes were okay though (which detoriated) – get what I mean?
And because everything is a mess, from programming to balance, bringing the ICD into game as it is (1 s is freaking long) made no sense. Shifting the main source of damage to CnD doesn’t make sense as well – nothing in this game makes any sense at all anymore. And I am no programmer and no programmer for this game, I can’t say more than “I have troubles to hit anything after patch xy although everything looks normal” – it shouldn’t take them 1,5 years to get behind that or they should take my noobish complaint more seriously – I guess you guys know what I mean. Frankly: Im giving up on anet.
ETA: This game is a PvE game – go enjoy it.

Kageseigi.2150:

NuhDah.9812:

Btw, if CnD was another port/shadowstep/gap closer, wouldn’t that make 2 from S/D sort of too much porting mobility especially since this one works without landing and also faster then the SS port? like you could gap close with only this 2 abilities 1800 range in a flash and also get into stealth afterwards.

I think that’s one thing we suffer from… we’re too focused on specifics instead of looking at the big picture. The Thief is in a bad place. 1,800 range shadowsteps wouldn’t change that. The Thief can already do that with D/P anyway… just using utilities instead of initiative. The Thief’s problem is that it doesn’t have the fighting ability once it gets into range, and it gets outranged by several other professions.

The only true way to “balance” the weapon sets is to give each whole set its own unique skills. And I don’t think that’s going to happen. So the best I can hope for is that they will “fix” some sets even if it increases the abilities of other sets which are already “fixed.” I’d prefer every set to be viable with some being overpowered than to have some sets viable while others can’t even compete at all. With the way the game is currently set up, those are the only two options I see that are available… which is VERY unfortunate.

Yeah i know thief already can do that even more using utilities, but adding this to that potential I mean. that’s what i was curious about what you guys think… And yeah I understand that this is an issue with the abilities not being exclusive for each weapon set in the current state of the game and that’s why I was asking if this would feel right in the current state of the game.

CnD doesn’t need a teleport gap close to copy D/P. If people want a shadowstep gap close, they play D/P, because that’s its featured skill.

Dancing Dagger needs a rework and to be normalized, Death Blossom needs to see the condi application moved to Dancing Dagger, and the evade made into a lunge to enable a gap closer or disengage tool for better out-of-stealth potential if things go wrong.

Either the ICD needs to be removed/reduced on stealth attacks, or passive defenses in this game nerfed massively. I prefer the latter, but ANet loves its passives.

I would rather not see the d/d set become a duplicate of what is in d/p/ They need to be different styles of combat. Giving one a port because the other has a port and giving one a blind because the other has a blind means we might as well not have two different weaponsets at all. That just lazy game design.

Other things can be added like a pull, adding quickness, a slow added , cnd as unblockable , superspeed granted…anything that can enhance the set and make it competitive with d/p while ensuring gameplay is still different.

1. and #2 are already the same. Why make the rest the same ?

babazhook.6805:

Giving one a port because the other has a port and giving one a blind because the other has a blind means we might as well not have two different weaponsets at all.

I think the shadowstepping gap closer is on the wrong set. As much as it helps D/P, at least the Pistol naturally gives range and utility. D/D is very melee-oriented and quite lacking utility.

So where the concept of a Dagger = Melee, and a Pistol = Ranged, it’s D/D that seems to warrant the shadowstep to stay in melee range. D/P can keep the Blinds and Interrupts.

I’m not saying that’s a good change. It just seems to make more sense. But, hey… this world has magic and all sorts of stuff, so who’s to say what makes sense?

Shadowstep in CnD is needed that’s why CnD→Steal works very well. That combination should be in CnD. Then again, that’s just a lame idea because what I really want is a completely 5 different skills exclusive for D/D (and P/P) using the Dual-Wield mechanic.