Guild Wars 2

saerni.2584:

So what we are talking about is a reduction in stealth capacity of D/P from that 12 seconds Jana mentioned to 9. Anyone using 9 seconds or less of stealth wouldn’t be affected. It brings D/P closer to the other sets and allows us to demand less broad nerfs to stealth in general (i.e. introducing new reveal abilities on other classes).

Why protest a change that only reduces the stealth potential of D/P slightly, which already has strong stealth potential—and which will remain strong after—as though it will make D/P unviable? It won’t, but I worry that without a change we will continue to face more and more unreasonably long reveal abilities being handed out like candy to other classes.

D/P has a lot more going for it than just pistol 5. Pistol 4 and Shadowshot alone make the set a potent and deadly weapon.

beucause if u dont run shadow arts u cant stay in perma stealth anyways. Stealth is just used to play unpredictable and for example blackbowder cost 6 Initiative heartseaker cost 3 the Initiative cost would be to high that why most thief dont stack stealth 4 times anyways. The thing it comes down to is that u have a problem with some guys thats playing a build that is not viabale in any gamemod and therefore wants a nerf thats will effect the only one that is.

u plan to nerf stealth in order to get buff on something else?
funny guy (yes i play S/D thief) but d/p is just far superior to S/D with or without stealth u dont need to nerf stealth thief just need to get stronger in other ways not with stealth not with mobility.

every class has it place in gw2 except thief (unless u play PvE which i have no clue about) nerfing stealth will just be the end of thief

we dont have stab
we dont have tons of cleanse
we dont have sustain
we dont have massive HP pool
we dont really have anything beside the hit n run tactic or hit n hide.

even tho i do not play d/p i do not approve this suggestion cus when i do play d/p once in a while i enjoy it cus of the stealthing and if u face a proper player ur stealth from blackpowder wont save your kitten at all.

Joel.8705:

saerni.2584:

So what we are talking about is a reduction in stealth capacity of D/P from that 12 seconds Jana mentioned to 9. Anyone using 9 seconds or less of stealth wouldn’t be affected. It brings D/P closer to the other sets and allows us to demand less broad nerfs to stealth in general (i.e. introducing new reveal abilities on other classes).

Why protest a change that only reduces the stealth potential of D/P slightly, which already has strong stealth potential—and which will remain strong after—as though it will make D/P unviable? It won’t, but I worry that without a change we will continue to face more and more unreasonably long reveal abilities being handed out like candy to other classes.

D/P has a lot more going for it than just pistol 5. Pistol 4 and Shadowshot alone make the set a potent and deadly weapon.

beucause if u dont run shadow arts u cant stay in perma stealth anyways. Stealth is just used to play unpredictable and for example blackbowder cost 6 Initiative heartseaker cost 3 the Initiative cost would be to high that why most thief dont stack stealth 4 times anyways. The thing it comes down to is that u have a problem with some guys thats playing a build that is not viabale in any gamemod and therefore wants a nerf thats will effect the only one that is.

Yep because I don’t main D/P… and I see the reason why Anet is too hesitant to actually give Thieves any real buffs. If stealth stacking isn’t needed in Pvp then this wouldn’t affect D/P in sPvP high tier play would it? Not in the slightest since from what you and bluri keep saying that Good thieves don’t stack stealth… you can still be unpredictable with this lil ICD. It just stops stealth camping/stacking stealth and nothing more.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Joel.8705:

saerni.2584:

So what we are talking about is a reduction in stealth capacity of D/P from that 12 seconds Jana mentioned to 9. Anyone using 9 seconds or less of stealth wouldn’t be affected. It brings D/P closer to the other sets and allows us to demand less broad nerfs to stealth in general (i.e. introducing new reveal abilities on other classes).

Why protest a change that only reduces the stealth potential of D/P slightly, which already has strong stealth potential—and which will remain strong after—as though it will make D/P unviable? It won’t, but I worry that without a change we will continue to face more and more unreasonably long reveal abilities being handed out like candy to other classes.

D/P has a lot more going for it than just pistol 5. Pistol 4 and Shadowshot alone make the set a potent and deadly weapon.

beucause if u dont run shadow arts u cant stay in perma stealth anyways. Stealth is just used to play unpredictable and for example blackbowder cost 6 Initiative heartseaker cost 3 the Initiative cost would be to high that why most thief dont stack stealth 4 times anyways. The thing it comes down to is that u have a problem with some guys thats playing a build that is not viabale in any gamemod and therefore wants a nerf thats will effect the only one that is.

Yep because I don’t main D/P… and I see the reason why Anet is too hesitant to actually give Thieves any real buffs. If stealth stacking isn’t needed in Pvp then this wouldn’t affect D/P in sPvP high tier play would it? Not in the slightest since from what you and bluri keep saying that Good thieves don’t stack stealth… you can still be unpredictable with this lil ICD. It just stops stealth camping/stacking stealth and nothing more.

Stealth stacking is definitely needed in pvp not to camp but to rotate without the enemy team seaing u in pvp i cant camp in stealth because i take DA not SA and taking SA to be able to stay in perma stealth would mean to give up 30% extra damage.

D/D is the training wheels of thief.

Thats the truth

bluri.2653:

Jana.6831:

bluri.2653:

Just 1 thing dropping any utils that are meta for something so bad as refugee/smoke screen just lol, please no just no.

and 2nd thing as i already understand this issue just exists in wvw where you guys are bothered about it then split stealth if u want it nerfed, it is not unbalanced or broken in spvp on higher levels where the balancing should be done rather than destroy a class.

One question: did you ever play any other set than D/P?

I’ve already played everything in the meta SPVP (S/D, S/P and D/P, some staff too), now let me ask you something – do you play competitive SPVP? No you don’t.

Also blaqfyre theres no revert of nerfs of S/D that would ever bring it back into meta competitive spvp, im talking about ESL/WTS

I’ll say it once again, stealth stacking in SPVP Competitive in the highest level has no issues whatsoever, you guys talk about scenarios that don’t exist here, and nerfing it because you guys have problems with it in other game modes is not the direction that thief needs in SPVP to become viable. Nor does it help reverting any other weaponset nerfs or traitlines (acro S/D for example)..

I want to say that’s part of the point to be made here; stealth has little role in the highest echelons of play in sPvP – and even in the lower ones, since it doesn’t contribute to captures/neutralizing points even in lower-tier games where the thief might be fighting more. Not to mention perplexity runes don’t exist which depending on the variant is a huge part of the ghost thief – at least the ones I see running around. Because of that, one needs to ask themselves if this kind of change would really have an impact in sPvP – I sincerely doubt it would, all things considered, as most people playing it power/meta would be unaffected by the cooldown since maxing out stealth uptime is a waste of initiative and nobody there runs SA. The prospect of removing permanent stealth or such high stealth uptime (I think we can agree it’s pretty poor design overall) is a valid endeavor so long as it doesn’t potentially harm the usefulness of the profession in other formats. Obviously PvE is about DPS, so it’s fine, and in sPvP, like you mentioned, nobody really does this. I see this as being a bit more of a philosophical debate about any aspect of the thief being nerfed over how it’d actually negatively impact the performance of it in sPvP or create an inconsistency between formats.

That said, I proved in a previous post that a 1s ICD would do nothing or next to nothing overall (I should perhaps edit my first post) in terms of the builds being discussed, since stealth could still be capped. Putting low-risk stealth on the initiative system was probably one of the biggest shortcomings ANet could have made for the profession when it comes to balancing it. Obviously the culprit(s) here is D/P or more generally, OH pistol with Bound.

Looking at the profession, I don’t think D/P Daredevil will ever not be the dominant build. To make it not dominant, you’d have to nerf it pretty massively to a point where the whole profession probably would see even less of a presence than it has now. There’s some promise with staff, but overall the thief as it is seems utterly broken in its implementation and without a comprehensive and total rework, no small amount of tweaks would seemingly enable diversity and keep it feeling fair to fight while rewarding skilled individuals/play.

I think this is particularly at the fault of Daredevil, which has single-handedly in so many respects made the thief border-line infuriating to fight against. Not so much strictly better (although it did do this), but the raised skill floor and lack of engagement when fighting against it make the thief seem much more overpowered than it is, but moreso, and in my opinion more importantly, simply not fun or interesting to fight.

Granted, we’re also very far from that mark of fun and fair gameplay with the rest of the professions since HoT. The game-state right now is so horrible I’d be hard-pressed to believe things will ever significantly improve, especially since we’re only in the first expansion and things got so bad :P

Joel.8705:

Stealth stacking is definitely needed in pvp not to camp but to rotate without the enemy team seaing u in pvp i cant camp in stealth because i take DA not SA and taking SA to be able to stay in perma stealth would mean to give up 30% extra damage.

Which kind of goes back on the point of that if it’s needed there are fundamental issues with the weapon set/profession.

Azukas.1426:

D/D is the training wheels of thief.

Thats the truth

On condi, sure. But people including myself have been saying that even since before the DB cast time changes got implemented. Good luck having half a chance of making it work on power, though. It’s definitely not easier or more effective at lower skill levels, that’s for sure. Maybe that could be argued before HoT, but absolutely not now.

DeceiverX.8361:

Joel.8705:

Stealth stacking is definitely needed in pvp not to camp but to rotate without the enemy team seaing u in pvp i cant camp in stealth because i take DA not SA and taking SA to be able to stay in perma stealth would mean to give up 30% extra damage.

Which kind of goes back on the point of that if it’s needed there are fundamental issues with the weapon set/profession.

Azukas.1426:

D/D is the training wheels of thief.

Thats the truth

On condi, sure. But people including myself have been saying that even since before the DB cast time changes got implemented. Good luck having half a chance of making it work on power, though. It’s definitely not easier or more effective at lower skill levels, that’s for sure. Maybe that could be argued before HoT, but absolutely not now.

Its not an isue on the DP weponset if anything you guys should ask for more utility on the other weponsets. And stealth is used in high level of pvp not because of damage but for the utility to cap/decap or tho sneak ress and wait out some cooldowns sure i try to land a backstab if i can but stuns and interups are more important. But how can u say that stealth has no efect on pvp play when it comes to cap/decap and for survivability it definitely has an efect.

The only place ur forced to play d/p is in high level PVP.

You can play any weaponset in PVE and you can play any weaponset in WvW. In lower tiers PvP I play S/P and in WvW I sometimes roam with S/D and staff. Unless your fighting duelists, you can usually outplay ur enemies and make ur weapon viable. If I’m fighting duellists i change my build to counter whoever im fighting anyways.

Thief isn’t the strongest class but it has a lot of freedom in its design which allows skills to outplay ur enemies. The general thief class can use a buff but it doesn’t need it.

If you wanna play thief and be good, u need to practice and be open-minded.

It sounds like a lot of people are so desperate to play their weaponset that they want to everything else to go to hell.

Every class has weapon sets that are weaker. That’s just the way it is. All the weapons will never be perfectly balanced.

It does suck when ur dueling another thief on D/P and ur stuck on another weaponset cuz its looks cooler or whatever but most thieves are bad and u can generally outplay them with weaker weaponsets.

If the thief is good, then u gotta put ur serious face on and take out the big guns.

It’s ok, he will buff shatterstone damage by 5% on your thief too.

To all those who say you can’t perma stealth without shadow arts, or shadow refuge, or blinding powder:

Yes. You can. Extremely easily. All you need is trickery, daredevil, d/p, bounding dodger, channeled vigor, and Signet of Agility. And the signet isn’t really necessary, just makes it so you’re not running low on the stealth timer every now and then. These are staples of most D/p builds anyway.

And if you’re around critters, then it’s even easier with bountiful theft vigor and endurance thief minor trait. Unless you run deadly arts with mug. Though personally I do acro/trick/dd

VciouSidewinder.4029:

The only place ur forced to play d/p is in high level PVP.

You can play any weaponset in PVE and you can play any weaponset in WvW. In lower tiers PvP I play S/P and in WvW I sometimes roam with S/D and staff. Unless your fighting duelists, you can usually outplay ur enemies and make ur weapon viable. If I’m fighting duellists i change my build to counter whoever im fighting anyways.

Thief isn’t the strongest class but it has a lot of freedom in its design which allows skills to outplay ur enemies. The general thief class can use a buff but it doesn’t need it.

If you wanna play thief and be good, u need to practice and be open-minded.

It sounds like a lot of people are so desperate to play their weaponset that they want to everything else to go to hell.

Every class has weapon sets that are weaker. That’s just the way it is. All the weapons will never be perfectly balanced.

It does suck when ur dueling another thief on D/P and ur stuck on another weaponset cuz its looks cooler or whatever but most thieves are bad and u can generally outplay them with weaker weaponsets.

If the thief is good, then u gotta put ur serious face on and take out the big guns.

Curious question upfront: Are you the commander from IoJ who was/is with [AUX] (I think)?

On topic: We already had all the pro’s and cons and D/P is the “best” set with unfortunately tons of stealth which it actually doesn’t really need. It’s played in “high level pvp” because the skill level of all participants is more or less the same and all other sets fade against D/P.
There’s only one set that has that easy access to “unlimited” stealth, but people don’t understand it and demand nerfs to (thief) stealth in general which hurt and will hurt every other thief but D/P.
I don’t deny that there’s unviable weaponsets for every class – but question is if that has got to be – it was different once and I don’t see why I’m not allowed to play the game on the profession and set I like. Plus anet themselves said they have got no idea where to go with thief and we try to explain that D/P really is the root of all problems thief has got. Probably like staff for druid – but alas I don’t know too much about other classes that’s why I don’t run around on the forums and demand “xy to be nerfed”. (I do know D/P and D/D though – I stay away from other discussions – most people don’t).

Edit: Grammar

Edit²: And yeah, I’m a power D/D thief – for now nearly 3 years. I have to stay away from about 2/3 of all professions in wvw – solo roamers are hard to find anyway, so maybe I could beat this or that profession if there wasn’t this pesky warrior buddy of them. But I do know that I outskill everybody I kill by miles, except maybe staff eles.

Turk.5460:

To all those who say you can’t perma stealth without shadow arts, or shadow refuge, or blinding powder:

Yes. You can. Extremely easily. All you need is trickery, daredevil, d/p, bounding dodger, channeled vigor, and Signet of Agility. And the signet isn’t really necessary, just makes it so you’re not running low on the stealth timer every now and then. These are staples of most D/p builds anyway.

And if you’re around critters, then it’s even easier with bountiful theft vigor and endurance thief minor trait. Unless you run deadly arts with mug. Though personally I do acro/trick/dd

Ofc we know that we all play Theif:P but give up the mobilty of dash.. No.

The thing that puts me of the most is that noone has talked about how to bring more utility to any of he other weponsets. To think that nerfing DP will make the other weponsets viabale i just crazy to me. I have seen classes not that has not been viable for a long time without anet doing anything for them i mean look at what they did for P/P they increase the damage when whats realy is needed is more utility. Thats why i play DP not because its easier because what it offer with utilitywith shadow shot port, blind , interrupt and stealth stack.

We did – this discussion is going on for nearly a year.
This thread is about nerfing the stealth duration D/P has got – it still would be the strongest set but we could revert some of the nerfs, overwork reveal skills and also stealth skills of other professions and so on and would probably have less rangers demanding GHOST THIEF TO BE NERFED (haven’t seen any in now nearly a year but it seems to be a huge problem) – the stealth duration D/P has got is a problem though “How often did he leap – 1 time, 3 times, 4 times? When do I dodge the BS?”
And yes, the P/P part is right but anet is more focused on PvE anyway, so it’s MOAR damage all around while we actually need less but that is a very complicated and complex topic.

Jana.6831:

We did – this discussion is going on for nearly a year.
This thread is about nerfing the stealth duration D/P has got – it still would be the strongest set but we could revert some of the nerfs, overwork reveal skills and also stealth skills of other professions and so on and would probably have less rangers demanding GHOST THIEF TO BE NERFED (haven’t seen any in now nearly a year but it seems to be a huge problem) – the stealth duration D/P has got is a problem though “How often did he leap – 1 time, 3 times, 4 times? When do I dodge the BS?”
And yes, the P/P part is right but anet is more focused on PvE anyway, so it’s MOAR damage all around while we actually need less but that is a very complicated and complex topic.

If u havent seen anyone in nearly a year why does it has to be a huge problem? Maybe its just that the peapole complaining about it is the one that is heard most, is always like that the ones that complain is heard the most.
Yes a ghost trapper Theif has beter 1v1 potential then other thiefs includeing normal power DP but that dosent make that build beter. Many classes has builds thats succeed in a 1v1 that dont make them the best to play anyways. And nerfing DP will only get us one more set with the lack of utility that it needs and then we only have SB.

Ask the people who complain, not me – I say the stealth duration D/P has got at hand is too much and should be adressed. There’s other issues with D/P but lets stay on topic stealth.

Jana.6831:

Ask the people who complain, not me – I say the stealth duration D/P has got at hand is too much and should be adressed. There’s other issues with D/P but lets stay on topic stealth.

I dont get how its to much? Most of a Theif damage dont come out of stealth anyways..
And we use almost all of our initiative to stack stealth and its used for survivability and unpredictable play. And if its true that what u saying that u play D/D since the first year of gw2 you should rember that D/D was the original perma stealth build and that damage it had with full valkyre set was crazy it. DP in the current state of the game cant even come close to that set in those days, its just the set has the most to offer Theif at the moment so nerfing it is crazy.

Jana.6831:

Ask the people who complain, not me – I say the stealth duration D/P has got at hand is too much and should be adressed. There’s other issues with D/P but lets stay on topic stealth.

Why do you think it is too much? How did you come to such conclusion.? How much is too much? Who are you to dictate the numbers?

Shadowstep.6049:

Jana.6831:

Ask the people who complain, not me – I say the stealth duration D/P has got at hand is too much and should be adressed. There’s other issues with D/P but lets stay on topic stealth.

Why do you think it is too much? How did you come to such conclusion.? How much is too much? Who are you to dictate the numbers?

Is it really rocket science? I already said that I have 12 s of stealth without SA with D/P and 4 leaps, that’s as long as the duration of SR which is a gigantic red circle people can hit or get me out of. No other set can do that. And not only that, also D/D has to decide between CiS and SRej which nowadays comes with initative regen, so a D/P thief traited in SA can stealth endlessly. Reveal skills were brought in because of stealth which wasn’t that much of a problem back in the day because we only had 2 full traitlines, so most thieves didn’t use trickery. Reveal skills do make sense against engis and probably mesmers – they’d also make sense if they had the usual reveal duration of 3/4 s – but thief is built around stealth – so these skills destroy a good part of what is thief. Still all people see is thieves who have got an easy and extended acess to stealth, which is D/P, and call for nerfs for stealth, while it’s only D/P that is the problem.

Jana.6831:

Shadowstep.6049:

Jana.6831:

Ask the people who complain, not me – I say the stealth duration D/P has got at hand is too much and should be adressed. There’s other issues with D/P but lets stay on topic stealth.

Why do you think it is too much? How did you come to such conclusion.? How much is too much? Who are you to dictate the numbers?

Is it really rocket science? I already said that I have 12 s of stealth without SA with D/P and 4 leaps, that’s as long as the duration of SR which is a gigantic red circle people can hit or get me out of. No other set can do that. And not only that, also D/D has to decide between CiS and SRej which nowadays comes with initative regen, so a D/P thief traited in SA can stealth endlessly. Reveal skills were brought in because of stealth which wasn’t that much of a problem back in the day because we only had 2 full traitlines, so most thieves didn’t use trickery. Reveal skills do make sense against engis and probably mesmers – they’d also make sense if they had the usual reveal duration of 3/4 s – but thief is built around stealth – so these skills destroy a good part of what is thief. Still all people see is thieves who have got an easy and extended acess to stealth, which is D/P, and call for nerfs for stealth, while it’s only D/P that is the problem.

Who said 12 sec is too much? What is too much for? You still didn’t answer my questions – you just post random claims without anything to back them up.

In pve stealth is not issue, in pvp neither since if thief does stealth for so long they usually do it to go decap other point. WvW? Last time i checked devs stated that wvw will never be balanced, not to mention you got way to detect thieves in wvw.
Also, if d/p thief did stealth for whatever reason for 12 sec – they are sitting at 0 ini, they gave up interrupts, they gave up gap closers and blinds. There IS a trade off.

SR is a good spell, only reason why it is weaker now is because of scrappers/revs reveal on demand and more AoE added with HoT. SR also provides more than just stealth, t gives regen, it gives life steal field, it stops teammates from being stomped – so no, HS+BP is nowhere comparable to SR.

D/D doesn’t have to decide between those, you don’t even have to run SA on first place. Also, i would bet that most d/p actually run da/tr/dd and not SA unless it is ghost thief – once again wvw issue – game is not balanced around wvw, wvw provides ways to deal with stealth.

Most thieves didn’t use trickery? Really? Where do you pull those numbers from? What a bunch of bs. Trickery was mandatory for years, at least in pvp. Are wvw thieves are majority of populaton now, once again where do you pull those numbers from? Did all of them used everything but trickery? Highly doubtful. I ran trickery in wvw, all thieves in my roaming guild ran trickery, not to mention when s/d was strong they also all ran trickery – it is small pool but proves that thieves did ran trickery in wvw.

Actually people call for dodge and evades nerfs nowadays because of condi d/d and vault/bound spammers.

Look at that, only people that ask for d/p nerfs are d/d wvw die hards. Only reason they ask for it is because d/p gives them hard times not because it is for some greater good. The world should burn and thieves in other games modes should be doomed as long as d/d die hards can have edge over d/p – that is all what it boils down to.

Why did i never see you wvw heroes making thread after thread about d/d stealthing endlessly off keep walls? Hmmmm? Actually this was main culprit for most cries about stealth in wvw on first place.

Jana.6831:

Joel.8705:

So how will that help the other sets that DP gets nerfed thats will only make Theif worse buff the other sets instead of nerfing our only viabale set?

Because they have to buff thief if they nerf D/P.

Hahahahahahahahahaahahaahahahahahahahaha. Ah, that was a good one.

Nerfing stealth won’t affect other weapon sets as much as d/p, so why would they then go and buff other weapon sets? We will just get another crippled weaponset.

Reading this thread I feel like there is at least 10 developers pitching in because of how you all set your mind at the idea that if d/p gets nerf everything else will become competitive all of the sudden.

Shadowstep.6049:

Who said 12 sec is too much? What is too much for? You still didn’t answer my questions – you just post random claims without anything to back them up.

It is too much if no other thief has got accerss to it and anet decides to randomly bring in reveal skills which destroy the stealth for which other thieves actually have to take a risk. Also the benefits SA brings while in stealth are far to plenty given that no ot5her thief can have them.

Shadowstep.6049:

In pve stealth is not issue, in pvp neither since if thief does stealth for so long they usually do it to go decap other point. WvW? Last time i checked devs stated that wvw will never be balanced, not to mention you got way to detect thieves in wvw.

Then quote that to me, please – you pvp heros always claim that anet said that and pretend you know how they meant it: You can’t balance 50 players but you can balance the professions – and I am certain that’s what they meant. And stealth is also an issue in pvp if no other set than D/P is viable as there have been other sets in even your prcious ESL whatevers back in the day but it’s only D/P that is left.

Shadowstep.6049:

Also, if d/p thief did stealth for whatever reason for 12 sec – they are sitting at 0 ini, they gave up interrupts, they gave up gap closers and blinds. There IS a trade off.

T&hey aren’t – I have 10 initative by the time my stealth runs out – without SRej – I already wrote that a page ago.

Shadowstep.6049:

SR is a good spell, only reason why it is weaker now is because of scrappers/revs reveal on demand and more AoE added with HoT. SR also provides more than just stealth, t gives regen, it gives life steal field, it stops teammates from being stomped – so no, HS+BP is nowhere comparable to SR.

And that refers to? You can also have regen with SA and the heal you get in that gigantic red circle is 2k.

Shadowstep.6049:

D/D doesn’t have to decide between those, you don’t even have to run SA on first place. Also, i would bet that most d/p actually run da/tr/dd and not SA unless it is ghost thief – once again wvw issue – game is not balanced around wvw, wvw provides ways to deal with stealth.

Yes, probably but it was an example for why the extended stealth D/P has got is unfair towards other thieves and why it should be restricted – because they can trait SA (just like every other thief) and they don’t need CiS (which D/D needs if it isn’t a one shot build).

Shadowstep.6049:

Most thieves didn’t use trickery? Really? Where do you pull those numbers from? What a bunch of bs. Trickery was mandatory for years, at least in pvp. Are wvw thieves majority of populaton now, once again where do you pull those numbers from? Did all of them used everything but trickery? Highly doubtful. I ran trickery in wvw, all thieves in my roaming guild ran trickery, not to mention when s/d was strong they also all ran trickery – it is small pool but proves that thieves did ran trickery in wvw.

You sound really mature and seem to know what you’re talking about.

Shadowstep.6049:

Actually people call for dodge and evades nerfs nowadays because of condi d/d and vault/bound spammers

That is another problem yes, but a nerf would rather tweak DrD and not the whole profession.

Shadowstep.6049:

Look at that, only people that ask for d/p nerfs are d/d wvw die hards. Only reason they ask for it is because d/p gives them hard times not because it is for some greater good. The world should burn and thieves in other games modes should be doomed as long as d/d die hards can have edge over d/p.
Why did i never see you wvw heroes making thread after thread about d/d stealthing endlessly off keep walls? Hmmmm? Actually this was main culprit for most cries about stealth in wvw on first place.

No, the people calling for thief nerfs are people who only see D/P, it’s those die hards who know the reasons behind that.
Do you want me to duel you? you on D/D me on D/P?

martin.1653:

Jana.6831:

Joel.8705:

So how will that help the other sets that DP gets nerfed thats will only make Theif worse buff the other sets instead of nerfing our only viabale set?

Because they have to buff thief if they nerf D/P.

Hahahahahahahahahaahahaahahahahahahahaha. Ah, that was a good one.

Nerfing stealth won’t affect other weapon sets as much as d/p, so why would they then go and buff other weapon sets? We will just get another crippled weaponset.

Reading this thread I feel like there is at least 10 developers pitching in because of how you all set your mind at the idea that if d/p gets nerf everything else will become competitive all of the sudden.

That is exactly what d/d lovers want. I can’t have nice things – so other shouldn’t neither.

Shadowstep.6049:

That is exactly what d/d lovers want. I can’t have nice things – so other shouldn’t neither.

WE ONLY HAVE ONE THIEF SET!! EVERY OTHER PLAYER SHOULD QUIT THE GAME DEAL WITH IT!!! WE KNOW YOU’RE RIGHT BUT WILL NEVER ADMIT IT _ WE WILL RATHER CALL YOU ALL NAMES POSSIBLE!!!

./facepalm

Because the stealth from CnD ends after 3-4 seconds. There is a moment where you come out of stealth and are visible. It lets a player know where you are and lets them start a channeled attack on you.

Also, I’m not a D/D anything. I run P/D in fact.

You still haven’t really addressed the basic argument that revealed skills are being put into the game in part because of long term stealth mechanics of D/P. Each patch has consistently moved more in that direction and thieves that can’t use those mechanics are rightfully wary of the direction that balance is going in.

My preferred method is actually to decrease the BP duration to three seconds and reduce the interval on blind to one second. This buffs the blind by one extra pulse and reduces the stacking potential. I don’t like ICD, and I’ve come to realize this idea is not a great one because of the impact it would have on blast finishers.

And we should have a “Top Three Buffs Thief Needs” thread.

And with that I’m out – For those who still don’t get the point and a possible solution (stealth cooldown would be rather harsh and I’m still not sure I’m convinced, but it might be the only way) : L2P
Yes, I mean it.

Jana.6831:

Shadowstep.6049:

Jana.6831:

Ask the people who complain, not me – I say the stealth duration D/P has got at hand is too much and should be adressed. There’s other issues with D/P but lets stay on topic stealth.

Why do you think it is too much? How did you come to such conclusion.? How much is too much? Who are you to dictate the numbers?

Is it really rocket science? I already said that I have 12 s of stealth without SA with D/P and 4 leaps, that’s as long as the duration of SR which is a gigantic red circle people can hit or get me out of. No other set can do that. And not only that, also D/D has to decide between CiS and SRej which nowadays comes with initative regen, so a D/P thief traited in SA can stealth endlessly. Reveal skills were brought in because of stealth which wasn’t that much of a problem back in the day because we only had 2 full traitlines, so most thieves didn’t use trickery. Reveal skills do make sense against engis and probably mesmers – they’d also make sense if they had the usual reveal duration of 3/4 s – but thief is built around stealth – so these skills destroy a good part of what is thief. Still all people see is thieves who have got an easy and extended acess to stealth, which is D/P, and call for nerfs for stealth, while it’s only D/P that is the problem.

It still goes back to that the nerf on D/D was mainly cused by the change from crit damage – precision and from traits – specialization so how will nerfing DP solve your problem? When the changes where made mainly to the game not thief, how do you expect them to buff the other weponset? And why cant they just buff the other set with more utility whitout nerfing DP?

@Jana:

- staff has crap load of aoe dmg with evade – no other set has it. D/D has absurd amount of evades with little punishment window – no other set can do it. S/D can strip boons – no other set can do it. The logic is garbage. I highly suspect reveals were added because of sneak gyro tbh. Nothing stops other weapons sets from using stealth….. d/d, s/d have cnd; p/p, s/p have bp + bound – d/p isn’t only set that can profit from SA.

- Brb looking for quite from 2-3 years ago. So far they have been balancing around pve and pvp and i doubt it will change. WvW is too volatile anyway and has too many variables so it makes balancing there impossible anyway. D/P is viable in pvp not because of stealth stacking but because of utility. S/D was also viable due to utility but got dunked due to acro nerfs. I honestly can’t believe you actually claim stealth is issue in pvp where pvp is all about point holding and only time you use stealth there is to avoid major CDs like rampage, for roaming, group spikes and saving teammates from stomps – yeaaaah let’s nerf the bit of team utility thief brings to pvp for the sake of some wvw duels.

- But it means they are not attacking for 12 sec – plenty of time for enemy to heal up, get CDs back, cap point, rez teammates etc. What is your point?

- Point i SR provides more utility than just selfish bp+hs spam. Also to profit from bp+hs you need to trait SR – which is bad idea in pvp (unless you don’t have HoT).

- Wait, so the d/p should be balanced around how it is fair vs other thief builds but completely ignore that there are other classes in this game that are in most cases by far superior to thief? Are you serious now? Like, are you for real now? Holy cow, GET OUT OF YOUR WVW DUELING MINDSET, there are other things out there than just wvw duels.

- And you resort to flaming when you don’t have any argument left.

- Or they could just nerf your beloved d/d. DrD needs a nerf but together with other elite specs. Also, still doesn’t change my point that most complains i see right now are about evades and not stealth.

- Once again, most nerf cries i see right now are about your beloved d/d and staff/bound spammers so i would argue about your point. The d/d lovers ask for d/p nerfs only for the sake of thief vs thief duels, that is all i see. Also, what would dueling you prove exactly? 2 people dueling doesn’t prove anything at all, alone due to skill difference and small sample pool.

edit: ahahahahahahaha calls me immature and says L2P – golden.

saerni.2584:

Because the stealth from CnD ends after 3-4 seconds. There is a moment where you come out of stealth and are visible. It lets a player know where you are and lets them start a channeled attack on you.

Also, I’m not a D/D anything. I run P/D in fact.

You still haven’t really addressed the basic argument that revealed skills are being put into the game in part because of long term stealth mechanics of D/P. Each patch has consistently moved more in that direction and thieves that can’t use those mechanics are rightfully wary of the direction that balance is going in.

My preferred method is actually to decrease the BP duration to three seconds and reduce the interval on blind to one second. This buffs the blind by one extra pulse and reduces the stacking potential. I don’t like ICD, and I’ve come to realize this idea is not a great one because of the impact it would have on blast finishers.

And we should have a “Top Three Buffs Thief Needs” thread.

Revealed added to revs and scrappers had mainly following reasons imo:
1. to delete SA trait line and enforce DD thus encourage sales
2. to delete thieves from pvp and replace them with revs thus encourage sales
3. sneak gyro was given to scappers which is SR on steroids

Nothing stops you from cnd again right before stealth runs out, you can use it on literary anything hitable (critters, mesmer clones, enemy, NPCs etc.). Once again, long stealth is not issue in pvp (where balance does matter actually) because
1. you give enemy breathing room
2. you potentially lose point = lose game

Jana.6831:

Shadowstep.6049:

That is exactly what d/d lovers want. I can’t have nice things – so other shouldn’t neither.

WE ONLY HAVE ONE THIEF SET!! EVERY OTHER PLAYER SHOULD QUIT THE GAME DEAL WITH IT!!! WE KNOW YOU’RE RIGHT BUT WILL NEVER ADMIT IT _ WE WILL RATHER CALL YOU ALL NAMES POSSIBLE!!!

./facepalm

Never i said every other thief should quit game. I am all up for other weapon sets to get buffed (e.g. CnD get blind) and i think you shouldn’t be wasting time and efforts to get only set that is semi viable in high tiers nerfed but instead use that energy to make devs improve other sets. Also shouty caps, ts ts. Is your face ok?

Shadowstep.6049:

@Jana:

…Also, what would dueling you prove exactly? 2 people dueling doesn’t prove anything at all, alone due to skill difference and small sample pool.
…

Like in them older days, whoever wins the duel is the one whose word is truth. We don’t need argumented discussion. Duel solves it easy.

If long stealth isn’t a problem in sPvP why are you arguing that a slight nerf to long stealth—and only the perma stealth at that—would damage sPvP. It is a contradiction, either you think long stealth adjustments won’t matter and therefore the nerf won’t actually be a problem or you think long stealth is required.

Stealth gyro has one main flaw in that the gyro is not itself stealthed. Counterplay includes aoe, killing the gyro, or otherwise immobilizing the gyro to expose the engineer. And they are part of the reason why reveals are being added. I think the stealth gyro should be fairly vulnerable to damage, but that is a separate balance discussion from this.

saerni.2584:

If long stealth isn’t a problem in sPvP why are you arguing that a slight nerf to long stealth—and only the perma stealth at that—would damage sPvP. It is a contradiction, either you think long stealth adjustments won’t matter and therefore the nerf won’t actually be a problem or you think long stealth is required.

Stealth gyro has one main flaw in that the gyro is not itself stealthed. Counterplay includes aoe, killing the gyro, or otherwise immobilizing the gyro to expose the engineer. And they are part of the reason why reveals are being added. I think the stealth gyro should be fairly vulnerable to damage, but that is a separate balance discussion from this.

Because it limits roaming capability of thief in pvp – and it is only role they have there.

And that is a problem, although I can say that if you are talking roaming stealth isn’t as important as:

SB + Shadowstep + UC + SA (cooldown reduction on SS to 40 seconds).

If thief is truly only good at roaming decap then thieves should actually spec for that role. And if they can’t do anything else that is a problem for theory crafters and balancing to fix.

saerni.2584:

And that is a problem, although I can say that if you are talking roaming stealth isn’t as important as:

SB + Shadowstep + UC + SA (cooldown reduction on SS to 40 seconds).

If thief is truly only good at roaming decap then thieves should actually spec for that role. And if they can’t do anything else that is a problem for theory crafters and balancing to fix.

You don’t take SA because you need mobility for roaming which is provided by DD. You also can’t take it because rev and scrappers can potentially reveal you. Problem with pvp – enemy team can not know where you go. You can’t +1 and decap effectively if they know where you are hence why long stealth AND mobility are must have. You also need to be able to stay in fights for few sec or you can’t +1 so just making full build only just for running around the map and stealthing at costs of fghting capability is not an option.

Try to fight premade with ts as a thief – holy hell it is painful since they always keep track on you and long stealth is only saving grace.

Long stealth from SA and Shadow Refuge. Access to mobility via Shadowstep.

+1 is easy because you don’t need to be max DPS to effectively +1 if you know what you are doing.

saerni.2584:

Long stealth from SA and Shadow Refuge. Access to mobility via Shadowstep.

+1 is easy because you don’t need to be max DPS to effectively +1 if you know what you are doing.

To have as big burst damage is very important to + 1 thats why old shatter mesmer and thief was good at plus one and thats why not evrey class has the potential to be a good plus one. So you are right not high damage but decent burst is need thats why taking SA over DA is not valid.

I’ve seen SA power thieves with high burst. Just saying…

saerni.2584:

Long stealth from SA and Shadow Refuge. Access to mobility via Shadowstep.

+1 is easy because you don’t need to be max DPS to effectively +1 if you know what you are doing.

Shadowstep CD is too long to make for mobility not to mention you need to save it for stunbreak. By the time CD is back i probably decaped enemy far 3 times as DrD.

What will you give up for SA? DA since trickery is mandatory? Good bye improvisation, good bye dmg, good bye mug, good bye immob – all things needed to be somehow ok in fights. In many cases you are not going to instagib someone alone due to passives. Just because you +1 doesn’t mean fight will end instantly – you need to be somehow capable of surviving in the fight a bit and put some pressure besides initial backstab. Once again, SA is also completely deleted in fights thanks to revs and scrappers. I play core from time to time w/o DrD, SA just can’t keep up.

saerni.2584:

I’ve seen SA power thieves with high burst. Just saying…

yeah and i haven’t seen a single SA thief in high tiers (besides myself) since HoT came out because it is not viable in pvp vs half decent players

saerni.2584:

I’ve seen SA power thieves with high burst. Just saying…

To give up DA for SA i not a valid option DA offer the most boost to you burst 30% damage and SA only gives you perma stealth and some bad condi cleanse i have more use of the condi cleanse from shadowstep then i have from the whole SA trait line..
Not to mention to have impro with two plasma is also a beter tradeoff for condi resistance.

DA is not mandatory like trickery is…

I haven’t run DA in months (playing power), and I win 1v1s far more often then not. DD/Trick/Acro or DD/Trick/SA. D/P Staff or D/P P/P

Turk.5460:

DA is not mandatory like trickery is…

I haven’t run DA in months (playing power), and I win 1v1s far more often then not. DD/Trick/Acro or DD/Trick/SA. D/P Staff or D/P P/P

We are not talking about one v one im talking about thiefs role in pvp as +1 where its no point to take SA over DA. I dont see the use of SA in wvw either but that is my prefrence.

@ jana, yes, i am that commander.

Are you still on IOJ?

when was the last time u see a DEV thief running around?

Taxidriver.2043:

when was the last time u see a DEV thief running around?

Couple months ago in video from Helseth playing thief. They faced team of Anet devs in unranked i think. Helseth made to his goal to keep devs dead in that match. One of the dev played thief actually. Fun fact, after Helseth unranked farm balance patch came out that nerfed every single stealth attack from thieves – what a coincidence~

Personally, I don’t care about the stealth stacking and long lasting stealth as much as I do about stealthing every 3 seconds. Constant stealth and losing your target is by far the most annoying thing in the game, even more than non stop CC. And constant stealth also gives a much more significant fighting advantage than stealthing for a long time because you can burst more frequently with a surprise. Got a solution for that too?

Zintrothen.1056:

Personally, I don’t care about the stealth stacking and long lasting stealth as much as I do about stealthing every 3 seconds. Constant stealth and losing your target is by far the most annoying thing in the game, even more than non stop CC. And constant stealth also gives a much more significant fighting advantage than stealthing for a long time because you can burst more frequently with a surprise. Got a solution for that too?

Constant blocks, heals, invuls, perma weaknesss, aoe, stability, CCs are by far more annoying. Thieves don’t have anything but stealth and dodges. Go make a thief and play vs DHs, wars and co. in pvp – you would want to pull your hair out. Retargeting is easy, this is really l2p issue and not balancing one.

Constantly stealthing doesn’t save thief from taking damage unlike blocks or invuls, nor it heals thief for absurd amounts (sup DHs). Those burst attacks from stealth have stealth requirement, crit requirement and positional requirement (be in melee aka eat AoE, behind the target). Imagine your high damaging attacks would require you to be in melee behind the target but you wouldn’t have any invuls or blocks and would have very little heal. And in most cases you would land maybe a 3-4k bs because of perma weakness and protection. There is a reason why bs is actually not as used as much as you would think it would be. What kills you is AA not bs.

Stealth and re-stealthing is how the thief is designed. It is a core part of the class. High evade builds that don’t stealth are the exception not the rule.

And losing target is the challenge of fighting stealth’ed targets. Use tab.

Just cap the stealth to 4sec and be done with it.

All these irrelevant talks only muddies the point of what’s being talk about here. Ok, we get it, you want your favorite weapon set buffed, but this is not the place to discuss that. If by any chance that ArenaNet ever nerfed D/P then there’s really no need to talk about other weapon set at this point until we’ve seen what this nerfs result would be.

In my opinion, Revealed is the self-inflicting nerf that needs to go away. This self-inflicting nerf only exists to tame and balance the over-stacking of stealth. If the stealth is cap at 4s (with SA), the Thief will have to keep track of the stealth timer — re-stealthing too soon will have no effect, so they have to pay attention on the timer. This will balance D/P since they can no longer re-stealth without appearing first. Of course the Thief can drop a BP before the stealth wear off then HS to re-stealth, but that requires a high level to skill and at the same time, the smoke field will give them away for a possible counter play.

Revealed debuff will then be unnecessary, so this effect will simply be a “stealth strip” instead of debuff with duration. A D/P user who is stripped with stealth will have to go through the process of BP->HS giving the opposition the ability to counter play. The redesigned Revealed (as a stealth strip) will work as a ground target skill and any stealth character will be revealed within the radius of the target area. This way, the skill like Sic ’Em will no longer require to target the Thief, because to be honest, it is useless if you cannot target the Thief. So using Sic ’Em, the pet will go to the target location and basically “shout” and all stealth character within the area will be stripped of stealth. This is the best way to counter party wide stealth from Mesmers also.

To those who cries about killing D/P, this will not kill D/P rather it will put it on a higher skill level to be used properly and effectively. Low skill and inexperienced players can instead rely on utility skills to go in stealth.

To those who will argue that CnD->BS chain will be broken without Revealed debuff, I have a simple answer, don’t just stand there like an idiot. A single dodge can break this chain since CnD is highly telegraph.

There’s really no need to buff anything right away because the removal of the Revealed debuff should be enough to elevate the effectiveness and efficiency of the Thief. There’s a lot of irrelevant nonsense in the thread so place let’s try not to derail this.

Dug up from earlier:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The fault is at the design of the weapon skills leaving it without cooldown. A simple cooldown on Backstab (and all other Stealth attacks) would have solved the stealth problem without punishing the stealth mechanic

Seems like the developers agree with you for putting an ICD on the attacks. Granted, it seems most players don’t. They’re never removing Revealed, though. Not happening. If they do, so many people would leave in droves it’d be pretty bad, honestly.