Guild Wars 2

Now that you have buffed damage across the board.

May I suggest to the devs a small couple ( few) of things.

-Undo the nerf you made to Pistolwhip OR buff the damage by 5-10%

- buff the damage 15% for backstab, make attacking a blocked, invulnerable,or attacking a foe while blind, from stealth reveal the thief.
My idea for this is that if you backstab a target (or use any stealth switched skill) you should be rewarded highly, and if you bait dodges and invulns, you need to be rewarded for your play, staying alive as a thief sounds easy, until you fight players that know how to fight thieves.

- Make Cloak and Dagger blind
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Cloak-and-Dagger-should-blind-as-baseline

-Undo the nerf to Assassin Signet OR make it like ranger’s Signet of the Wild.

-Combine Swindlers Equilibrium and upperhand, make the initiative regen 3 instead of 1 for the ICD attached to it

- Give the old feline grace back as a grandmaster ( make it activate on evasion)

-Buff trickster to 2 conditions

-Buff Quick pockets to 5-8 initiative ( its a GM and it should actually COMPETE with other GM choices)

I think that thieves took a hit in SA, and while that nerf was warranted imo ( i hate SA with a passion thanks to condi roamers)
I think Acro received a heavy hand for no real reason.
and some trickery traits are not worth the investment.

Thoughts?

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I don’t think backstab should change. 15% bonus damage isn’t worth getting revealed so easily. Seriously, it happens so often and would make us even more useless in team fights because people will be randomly dodging, using invuln etc. for the team fight and then bam, as a free bonus they also reveal the squishy thief who now has no burst or escape.

Edit: typos, also I’m down with blind on CnD

Zodryn.4216:

I don’t think backstab should change. 15% bonus damage isn’t worth getting revealed so easily. Seriously, it happens so often and would make us even more useless in team fights because people will be randomly dodging, using invuln etc. for the team fight and then bam, as a free bonus they also reveal the squishy thief who now has no burst or escape.

Edit: typos, also I’m down with blind on CnD

Yea I thought about the dodgeing thing, So i changed that, dodges happen way to often to be predictable sometimes.

But things like blind,block, and invuln however are a visible status you can see.
They serve as buttons to counter burst and if they pop that when you go into stealth, the obvious choice for you then would be to wait it out or switch targets.

I would also add/suggest that blind should have reduced duration when having assassin’s signet on.

I could maybe accept that since it encourages smarter play, but it’s still a big nerf and would require more than a damage buff to compensate. They could give us double stealth duration instead of 1s extra like mesmers have (seriously, no idea why we didn’t get the same) so we have time to wait out those blocks. That is the only way I would be OK with it.

Solori.6025:

-Undo the nerf you made to Pistolwhip OR buff the damage by 5-10%

So I’m not the only one still hurting for that idiotic nerf 2+ years ago.

And we told them, “it’s not PW the problem, it’s Haste”.

Zodryn.4216:

I could maybe accept that since it encourages smarter play, but it’s still a big nerf and would require more than a damage buff to compensate. They could give us double stealth duration instead of 1s extra like mesmers have (seriously, no idea why we didn’t get the same) so we have time to wait out those blocks. That is the only way I would be OK with it.

I would actually raise the base duration of stealth utilities.

like blinding powder – base stealth duration 5s, 6s when traited.

Other than that, because of the frequency that a thief could stealth, and it’s mobility that’s about all I would change.

You still have evasion on D/D, S/P, S/D, and shortbow, and blind on D/P with the option to go into stealth without a target on D/P also.

Your duration may not be as long, but your frequency is the highest. That in and of itself is a thing many people forget.

What I propose with the Acro line is to give thieves some defense through dodging. Since they have 4 weapons with some type of evasion.
This means that even if you don’t use sword.
You get the initiative and endurance because you dodged properly.

( I should probably be specific since the one trait is sword specific.)

While yes backstab would be nerfed slightly to promote skilled play. The damage that you would be able to achieve with an extra 10% plus an unnerfed assassin’s signet OR a straight out extra 25% damage buff would warrant the reward.
Especially with the recent changes.

This will also open up some type of counterplay to the damage and pressure a thief can achieve.

Also, how frequently can someone go invuln or block vs the frequency that a thief can stealth?

P.S.
I should add that with the CnD change, I would proc the blind on skill use ( dunno if someone in that thread said that or not :I). This gives CnD some defensive purpose even outside of stealth

Galandil.9641:

Solori.6025:

-Undo the nerf you made to Pistolwhip OR buff the damage by 5-10%

So I’m not the only one still hurting for that idiotic nerf 2+ years ago.

And we told them, “it’s not PW the problem, it’s Haste”.

RIGHT!!
Then they nerfed quickness and didn’t unnerf the sword.
Like WTH.
Now that EVERYONE is doing more damage, I think the trade off of being immobile during this skill warrant’s the skill being unnerfed.

i’d rather see (for example) blinding powder give you 4secs of stealth and 2nd minor in SA give you +2s
Why? Otherwise an untraited BP would be really strong, while a traited one wouldnt make much of a difference (thats the same with meditation guards… heal on meditation has a high base but scales badly with healing power… should be the other way round)
Then also, traiting for something shouldnt double the viability of it

Then you should also rework some traits in SA though

or, since we have so many ways to enter stealth (more than mesmer) the base stealth duration should stay the same, but the 2nd minor in SA should give +2s stealth duration

Tarkan.5609:

or, since we have so many ways to enter stealth (more than mesmer) the base stealth duration should stay the same, but the 2nd minor in SA should give +2s stealth duration

I would support this, and it sounds like a good trade since one of the main defenses of thief is stealth.

Though, before any more changes to anyones stealth I wanna see how they nerf PU.
That will speak volumes on how anet will treat stealth in the future.