Guild Wars 2

ANET, the constant nerfs are causing distaste for any changes to come. It is a form of mental fatigue to predict that the next incoming patch will have nerfs in store for your class.

Though zero-sum cannot usually be achieved, I do wish there were more effort to do so when going through with a nerf. After a nerf happens, the thief is still a thief, but the experience/effectiveness feels watered down. As a playerbase, thieves see themselves as strong damage dealers (burst or sustained through conditions) that relies on mobility and stealth to avoid damag. Nerfing damage over and over again without any compensation elsewhere takes the teeth out of that. If the expectation of the players are wrong, please state it.

This patch has a good and a bad exampe of balancing. Tactical Strike’s damage was buffed by 10% and the daze was reduced by 0.5 sec. The argument then becomes what values are appropriate, but I don’t feel like I’m waking away empty-handed in this situation. Dancing Daggers’s nerf by 50% is terrible. DD versus 2 targets rewarded me with strong damage for good target recognition. Now it’s the same condition (cripple), 50% less damage, and still the same initiative cost. There should have been at least a cost reduction to compensate.

Another example of a good change is blinding powder’s cd reduction to 40 sec. Previously, blinding powder and shadow refuge had the same cooldown. When picking the ability to stealth for 1 utility slot, shadow refuge edged out blinding powder due to being able to stealth friendlies from ranged, being a dark field, and healing them. Now blinding powder can be competitive for a different reason.

For context, no, I am no longer a D/D thief for about 2-3 weeks now. I had been since launch and was almost exclusively D/D while getting to rank 23 in sPvP. I simply find it frustrating to watch a class I enjoy in so many different ways get nerfed due to public opinion.

Thoughts from anyone?

Dancing Dagger’s nerf was a kneejerk reaction. 50% is blatantly overkill, they could have done a 15-25% nerf which would have been enough.

They could have made DD’s damage have a lower minimum damage to make it unreliable.

CnD damage wasn’t what made the BS build do amazing damage, the nerf to that damage is trivial. What needed fixing, realistically was hidden killer, culling and steal being usable in the middle of a combo (I’ll often times PW THEN activate steal followed by haste+PW so it’s not a singular build issue, it’s a mechanic issue).

But nope, instead of fixing what was actually broken Anet mucks it up.

BabelFish.7234:

steal being usable in the middle of a combo

If you change Steal, though, and the other shadowsteps are still unaffected, folks will just use Infiltrator’s Signet (no Mug then, though, I guess).

If you also hose stuff like Infiltrator’s Signet, you’re taking away a couple of really nifty tricks, like being able to counter downed-teleporting Thieves and Mesmers.

ASP.8093:

BabelFish.7234:

steal being usable in the middle of a combo

If you change Steal, though, and the other shadowsteps are still unaffected, folks will just use Infiltrator’s Signet (no Mug then, though, I guess).

If you also hose stuff like Infiltrator’s Signet, you’re taking away a couple of really nifty tricks, like being able to counter downed-teleporting Thieves and Mesmers.

True but damage+new ability+shadow step is what’s making the BS build overpowered. Sure a BS thief could use Infiltrator’s Signet but that means they’ll be required to have more skill in order to utilize their combo, they can’t queue up the combo and get a coffee.

I’m a little disappointed that Anet didn’t figure this out, my faith in them is dwindling by the hour it seems.

My vote would be an aftercast on C&D instead. It removes the amazing compression of C&D→Steal→Backstab but doesn’t make it impossible. And the impact to */D builds outside of the combo would be pretty negligible, I think, since I figure most thieves who C&D on the run are probably taking a sec to reposition anyway before they sneak attack.

Like most balance changes I’ve seen in the patch notes, nothing here makes a lot of sense.

I mean I can understand them nerfing Dancing Dagger (but 50%, really?) but it’s like they purposefully ignored what was actually broken about the profession.

Im pretty sure you guys missed the Anet post where they say the culling issue is gone? in the pvp section??

BabelFish.7234:

True but damage+new ability+shadow step is what’s making the BS build overpowered. Sure a BS thief could use Infiltrator’s Signet but that means they’ll be required to have more skill in order to utilize their combo, they can’t queue up the combo and get a coffee.

Its not just more skill to pull it off.
Infiltrator’s signet requires a utility slot (pushing out a venom or quickness or assassin’s signet or another stealth).
Infiltrator’s signet doesn’t apply basilisk venom.
Infiltrator’s signet doesn’t deal up to 6k dmg.

It’d be a massive debuff to the spike spec.

Eduardo.4675:

Im pretty sure you guys missed the Anet post where they say the culling issue is gone? in the pvp section??

Maybe I missed the ANet post because there were too many other posts and it took too long to render?

Yeah, something as simple as adding a quarter-second cast to Steal, and perhaps toning down the damage of Mug by ~20% would have solved the problems with that build while doing almost nothing to other builds.
The worst part of all is that the build was only actually an issue in WvWvW where people can get 100%+ critical damage, but they made the reduction to CnD damage occur only in s/tPvP where it wasn’t even an issue.

Mug is a huger problem than most people realize… it is INSTANT (and thus usable any time) ranged 4-5k damage.

You think HS spam is bad? Wait til they learn that they can HS……HS…….HSMUG.