Guild Wars 2

Nerf the queuing of CnD before a steal. Make it so that if you steal from someone you can’t be in the middle of a CnD style.

This is about the only nerf I can see as a legit nerf to the class because there are traits that give 2s of stealth after a steal (which i use). I don’t abuse the CnD+Steal.

Nerfing anything else would kill my build.

“Nerfing anything else would kill my build.”

Pretty sure that’s the point.

30CS
20SA
20Tickery

D/D

I use backstab but I don’t front load like what most people are probably complaining about.

Backstab itself is not over powered. What you can do is CnD queue, Steal + Mug for like 4k, then CnD hits for like 1-3k, then bs. Add in any poisons as well…

This move is only available every 30s tho. Otherwise you have to play like I do and use CnD to stealth and then BS, which is not over powered.

well anet really needs to decide on their direction for the class.

they stated over in the necro forums that they wanted thieves to be the most ‘slippery’ class that can run away from fights at their choosing.

that is all fine and well, but a class that can always run away at its choosing should not also be a class that can be considered the top burst or condition damage class in the game.

thats just too powerful. i really hate to be like that, but honestly.

if you have the easiest way to escape as well as the highest damage there is very little risk to your reward. the whole high risk, high reward paradigm just went out the window.

my advice: safe up gold to re-work your gear
i play thief at this moment , even if i got 3 classes full equipment
the reason is simple: i got 100% chance of 4 criticals in row before enemy can see me

Yeah, you have a very good point (which I’ve pointed out multiple times in a few different threads) and then you ruin everything you said with that single line:

swinsk.6410:

Nerfing anything else would kill my build.

Nobody cares about ruining your build. There are many builds out there. This is about potentially ruining a skill because it is being used in unison with another skill in a (likely) unintended way.

Also the general hostility of your title doesn’t help matters at all.

So here’s the point, people: (and anyone can feel free to steal this explanation for any other thread that could really use it)

1. The way it currently works is a Thief will activate Basilisk Venom and Skale Venom while out of combat.
2. When a target is spotted, the Thief triggers Cloak and Dagger.
3. While the animation is warming up the skill (but before the skill procs), the Thief triggers Steal, which teleports them to the target and deal damage because they’ve traited it.
4. This is where things get shady. Rather than overriding Cloak and Dagger, the activation timer keeps ticking while the Thief is using another skill and the .5 second activation time of C&D essentially becomes less than 100ms, rendering it IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.
5. Target gets hit by Steal damage, is instantly and unavoidably smacked by Cloak and Dagger, which applies Basilisk Venom and Skale Venom, rendering them (a) surprised, (b) stoned, © Vulnerable, (d) weakened, and (e) setup for the next stage.
6. The target has about .5 seconds at this point to react with a stun breaker if he was facing the Thief when this all started and .25 seconds if not. The Thief gets behind his or her stone target and triggers Backstab, which is likely to crit if the Thief is built properly.

Total time for this combo (not including Basilisk Venom)? About 1-1.5 seconds. Total available reaction time? More often than not, about .25 seconds.

This is the problem non-Thieves are not understanding. Make Steal trigger like any other skill in this game (ie. One skill at a time) and the combo suddenly becomes: Venoms → Steal → Cloak & Dagger → Positioning → Backstab. The combo time would not increase much at all as the same skills are being used but the reaction time would increase about 3x to somewhere around .75 seconds with .5 of those devoted to avoiding the initial Cloak and Dagger attack, Skale Venom, and Basilisk Venom altogether. Half a second is an eternity to dodge, pop an invulnerability skill, block, or whatever. If the target couldn’t handle that, then he or she has other problems.

This is what needs to be fixed. Nothing else.

I agree that steal-cnd combo is a lil OP, Backstab itself its not. i crit for max 5k on bunkers (without signet). But making steal interrupt any action would kill the class mechanic, and thats a fact, i already started to change my mind set and try to play p/p even if its a lackluster spec.