Guild Wars 2

I don’t know if this had been already brought up, but after thinking about this for a few days I wanted to know your opinion too.

It is known that thieves have one of the most hated mechanics in the game: stealth.
Now, I think that Stealth itself is a really powerful tool, and it’s pretty much the bread and butter of most thieves builds. I am perfectly ok with that, even with D/P perma stealth, and I don’t think that we should nerf Stealth in any way: this is not what you will find in this thread.
However, I believe there are 2 (actually 3) things that could be “fixed” in the thieves kitten nal, so that the skill gap between good thieves and bad thieves will increase, while still giving “bad” 222222 thieves the opportunity to kill zerker opponents, thus not ruining their fun.

Fix #1: give stealth #1 abilities a Initiative cost of 1 Initiative.
Reason: most people believe that thieves should get revealed if their backstab is blocked or evaded.
I don’t think this way, because this change would overnerf backstab thieves, since backstab is pretty much their main source of damage.
On the other hand, with my suggestion, stealthed thieves will have to think twice before spamming #1 needlessly: using the skill only once will not affect the “good” player gameplay too much, but for those players that keep pressing 1 non-stop the moment they go in stealth, it could mean a quick death if they are not too careful.
Not only that: this change would render Blind somewhat effective against thieves, as they will either wait for the Blind duration to expire, or they will lose 1 iniative trying to backstab an enemy (of course, provided they don’t cleanse the blind when going in stealth).
To me, the good thief has to know WHEN to strike: he must know when a Warrior’s block is about to end and when their opponent is vulnerable.
This change will not affect S/x or P/x users that much, since the stealthed ability of S/x is not as important as D/x or P/x – stealth itself is more a way to confuse your enemy rather than a way to mitigate damage or going into the offensive for a Sword user; whereas P/x users, being Sneak Attack a multi-hit attack with a long attack animation, will still be able to land it completely and the 1 initiative used will not weight that much in a prolonged fight.
Expected Results if implemented: a lot of complain from “bad” thieves. Warriors/engineers/guardians will be a bit harder to fight, even for good thieves, given their huge amount of blocks.
Maybe this small nerf will require a main hand Dagger autoattack damage increase of 5-10%, but I am not so sure about this.

Fix #2: change Initiative cost to be “paid” at the start of the skill animation rather than at the end of the activation of the skill.
Further Explanation: this is what I think should have been implemented from the start.
We all know that 2 key skills in the thief’s kitten nal are Blinding Powder (x/P #5) and Cloak and Dagger (x/D #5). These two skills have a 0.5s attack animation. Now, if you notice, the initiative cost of these skills (6 Initiative each) is drained when the attack animation is CORRECTLY completed rather than when you start making the attack animation. This mechanic actually affects every skill in the thief’s array of skills, but it is particularly important for these 2 skills .
Reason: let’s say you interrupt a thief using CnD: assuming he does not use a Stunbreaker, either you kill him in that small window or he will simply CnD again you the moment the stun ends.
With this “fix”, you are completely rewarded if you manage to interrupt their CnD, since no matter what they do after the stun ends, they will have lost 6 initiative, and are now left with only 7 initiative (assuming they started the animation at 12 initiative). And the same goes for Blinding Powder.
This fix will reward “good” players a lot, because if they manage to get a good interrupt on the thief, they will be in great danger, especially the so-hated permastealth thief, since they will NOT be able to do the BP->HS combo, since it requires 9 initiative to complete, and will be forced to go in stealth in another way.
Good thieves will know when it is safe to use CnD or BP (maybe after you blinded you opponent in some way? Or when you enemy is disabled? Or when they have their interrupts on CD?), while bad thieves will get easily killed if they make a mistake.
Keep in mind that interrupting a 0.5s attack animation is quite hard, so you actually have to predict the thief’s next action in order to get the most out of it.
Again, good thieves will have little problems with these changes, while bad thieves will either learn how to fight properly or go back to their previous classes and acknowledge that the thief is not a class for everyone.
Expected Results if implemented: dramatic decrease of zerker cookie-cutter D/P-D/D thieves. Lots of QQ about stunlock classes who “interrupt my CnD”. People would probably switch to S/x, but many could reroll given the higher skill required for that spec.

In addition, these changes will still enable “bad” thieves to feel accomplished, since they will still be able to oneshot easily unaware opponents.

Now I would like to hear your opinion on these thoughts. Keep the thread clean please, no more “thief is OP you are dumb l2p n00b”, I’ve read plenty of that already.

Number 2 already exists. :I

1 is a good suggestion and i approve of it.

Zacchary.6183:

Number 2 already exists. :I

No, it doesn’t. The Initiative cost is paid at the end of the “channeling” (when the yellow bar is complete).
Whenever I get interrupted while trying to cast Black Powder, I never lose any initiative.
Just go look at any video of any thief on youtube, you’ll understand what I mean.

hihey.1075:

Zacchary.6183:

Number 2 already exists. :I

No, it doesn’t. The Initiative cost is paid at the end of the “channeling” (when the yellow bar is complete).
Whenever I get interrupted while trying to cast Black Powder, I never lose any initiative.
Just go look at any video of any thief on youtube, you’ll understand what I mean.

Initiative is paid at the end of the animation, but i am not certain making the cost upfront is a good idea- it will add A TON more pressure on skill management, which paired with high initiative costs on a lot of our bread and butter will significantly punish us and only further encourage perplex interrupt specs.

Asudementio.8526:

hihey.1075:

Zacchary.6183:

Number 2 already exists. :I

No, it doesn’t. The Initiative cost is paid at the end of the “channeling” (when the yellow bar is complete).
Whenever I get interrupted while trying to cast Black Powder, I never lose any initiative.
Just go look at any video of any thief on youtube, you’ll understand what I mean.

Initiative is paid at the end of the animation, but i am not certain making the cost upfront is a good idea- it will add A TON more pressure on skill management, which paired with high initiative costs on a lot of our bread and butter will significantly punish us and only further encourage perplex interrupt specs.

I really do hope Perplexity runes to be nerfed someday; still, your point is valid and I think most thieves will really hate this change.
However, I believe “good” thieves will overcome this. Take D/P for example, which is the set which will be mostly affected by this: aside from being able to use BP->HS AWAY from your opponent, you have a blind on Shadowshot and a Daze on Headshot. If you need to use BP, you could easily use one of these 2 skills to prevent being interrupted on your opponent’s next attack, and then safely cast your BP.
But you are still somewhat right: maybe the #2 would require the Initiative cost of BP/CnD to be reduced to 5 Initiative from 6.

EDIT: typos

hihey.1075:

Fix #2: change Initiative cost to be “paid” at the start of the skill animation rather than at the end of the activation of the skill.

This is a bigger nerf than what it looks like, until.. I see all other classes in the game
getting their cooldowns to full duration when getting interrupted.

And you also have to consider that switching to 2nd weapon set for a thief, doesn’t
give access to 5 new spells or abilities.

Getting 2 CnD’s blinded/dodged/blocked basically leaves the thief with auto attack and utilities til the initiative has replenished. Having interrupts kitten it as well would just make D/D even more squishy and punish all thieves when fighting other good players on CC-heavy classes, unless they play D/P instead which already is punished when BP>HS gets interrupted and is one of the most hated weapon sets currently. CC-heavy classes are already a hardcounter to thieves.

I like the other suggestion. But would prefer if it only drained initiative when blocked or dodged instead (and if pressing BS and initiative reaches 0, reveal). Since we don’t have access to auto attack while in stealth and blind is much more easier to access in the game than block I don’t think blind should apply to this.

i dont agree with nerfing the thief skills

as for now i dont think there are thieves who shown on video their mistakes but only their success thus ppl think and yell OP nerf….

instead of ppl learn how to counter D/P they want to nerf it. i see many good players kill D/P build and even p/d taking down d/p . i also see lots of ppl not dodging, bursting in one place and just welcome the d/p to backstab freely

i think what should be done is to make more skill range useful in thief skill line so you can see more versatile in game play and not too many d/p . example like the s/p after the new patch which become slightly more popular (but still hard to play by average thieves) and the p/d torment etc

still i do also hate to see HS spamming even when i dodge and get killed by lucky hit of 6k when i manage to put the d/p on 2k health…:(

hihey.1075:

Asudementio.8526:

hihey.1075:

Zacchary.6183:

Number 2 already exists. :I

No, it doesn’t. The Initiative cost is paid at the end of the “channeling” (when the yellow bar is complete).
Whenever I get interrupted while trying to cast Black Powder, I never lose any initiative.
Just go look at any video of any thief on youtube, you’ll understand what I mean.

Initiative is paid at the end of the animation, but i am not certain making the cost upfront is a good idea- it will add A TON more pressure on skill management, which paired with high initiative costs on a lot of our bread and butter will significantly punish us and only further encourage perplex interrupt specs.

I really do hope Perplexity runes to be nerfed someday; still, your point is valid and I think most thieves will really hate this change.
However, I believe “good” thieves will overcome this. Take D/P for example, which is the set which will be mostly affected by this: aside from being able to use BP->HS AWAY from your opponent, you have a blind on Shadowshot and a Daze on Headshot. If you need to use BP, you could easily use one of these 2 skills to prevent being interrupted on your opponent’s next attack, and then safely cast your BP.
But you are still somewhat right: maybe the #2 would require the Initiative cost of BP/CnD to be reduced to 5 Initiative from 6.

EDIT: typos

To point out, the daze on headshot is shorter than the time it would take to cast BP and would be a further intense initiative drain. Also shadowshot, i do use but it doesn’t prevent aoe style interrupts.

Ghostwolf.9863:

This is a bigger nerf than what it looks like, until.. I see all other classes in the game
getting their cooldowns to full duration when getting interrupted.

And you also have to consider that switching to 2nd weapon set for a thief, doesn’t
give access to 5 new spells or abilities.

Getting 2 CnD’s blinded/dodged/blocked basically leaves the thief with auto attack and utilities til the initiative has replenished. Having interrupts kitten it as well would just make D/D even more squishy and punish all thieves when fighting other good players on CC-heavy classes, unless they play D/P instead which already is punished when DP>HS gets interrupted and is one of the most hated weapon sets currently. CC-heavy classes are already a hardcounter to thieves.

I mainly thought of this as a counter for D/P thieves – it’s easy to read a “bad” D/P thief, and I thought the best way to punish him (as a mainly D/P thief myself!) would be to interrupt them with P#4 while he is casting is BP.
There are, of course, many ways to counter D/P, but it’s really hard to COMPLETELY shut them down, especially in a 1v1 situation – and this is widely agreed.
Interrupting the BP would be the ideal choice for countering D/P (which really does not fear stunlock heavy builds, since the Blind field would prevent most attempts of stunning).

What about adding this change only to the BP field?

I like the other suggestion. But would prefer if it only drained initiative when blocked or dodged instead (and if pressing BS and initiative reaches 0, reveal). Since we don’t have access to auto attack while in stealth and blind is much more easier to access in the game than block I don’t think blind should apply to this.

Keep in mind that Blind can be cleansed easily with Shadow Embrace trait. The problem may arise if there are multiple conditions on top of Blind, which will be the case of only a condi Mesmer (torch), who has limited access to blocks (but a good access to evasion, even though it’s hard to find a condi mesmer with a main hand sword) or an Engineer (limited access to block)

hihey.1075:

I mainly thought of this as a counter for D/P thieves – it’s easy to read a “bad” D/P thief, and I thought the best way to punish him (as a mainly D/P thief myself!) would be to interrupt them with P#4 while he is casting is BP.
There are, of course, many ways to counter D/P, but it’s really hard to COMPLETELY shut them down, especially in a 1v1 situation – and this is widely agreed.
Interrupting the BP would be the ideal choice for countering D/P (which really does not fear stunlock heavy builds, since the Blind field would prevent most attempts of stunning).

What about adding this change only to the BP field?

As I said BP>HS is already heavily hurt by getting their HS interrupted,
and I think HS already uses its initiative as soon as the HS animation fires off, and it needs to finish to apply stealth.
just felt like I’ve had 4 initiative left after getting interrupted while in middle of HS anim, however times when I’ve gotten interrupted while in HS precast I haven’t lost initiative. Correct me if I’m wrong

Keep in mind that Blind can be cleansed easily with Shadow Embrace trait. The problem may arise if there are multiple conditions on top of Blind, which will be the case of only a condi Mesmer (torch), who has limited access to blocks (but a good access to evasion, even though it’s hard to find a condi mesmer with a main hand sword) or an Engineer (limited access to block)

And I don’t think picking Shadow Embrace should reward the thief a lot more than than picking something else. It’s already hard to not pick Shadow Embrace, which reduces build variation a lot. And as there are blind fields in the game that applies
blind every second it would just be too much, even when picking Shadow Embrace.

This seems pretty unnecesary and dumb… no offense. Direct damage burst is alread bad enough lol.

Good thieves sure know a lot of stuff, don’t they?^^

For #1 to take place I’d need our base init regeneration to increase to compensate for 1-2 stealth attacks. Even having one less init every 10 seconds is a huge nerf for several builds.

Others already explained why #2 is a bad idea. It’s a counter to bad d/p thieves? Bad d/p thieves are already easy enough to counter; they’re not good by definition!

Interrupting the other professions should put that all of that weapon set’s skills on full cooldown. That’s about equivalent to your kind suggestion.