Guild Wars 2

All Thief patch notes:

Thief

• Assassin’s Signet: This skill has been updated to grant 15% damage for 5 attacks rather than 50% damage for one attack.
• Basilisk Venom: This skill’s buff now applies for the appropriate duration of 30 seconds.
• Disabling Shot: This skill can now be fired continuously at targets behind the player without the ability jumping them back toward the target. This skill now also has a cost when firing at targets behind the player.
• Flanking Strike: This skill’s first attack is now unblockable.
• Ink Shot: This skill no longer allows players to shadowstep out of water.
• Nine-Tailed Strike: This skill has been fixed to properly provide the intended amount of initiative.
• Shadow Refuge: This skill’s stealth removal tripwire has been updated to properly match the skill’s effects.
• Whirling Axe: This skill has had evasion removed from the ability and has a missile-reflection effect applied to the whirl effect.

So, the initial reaction of a lot of people has been surprisingly negative, which is disappointing considering that the overall change to Assasin’s Signet is more of a buff than anything else.

To begin with, the previous ability of the Signet was to give the user a bonus of 150% damage on their next attack (that’s 50% extra damage for those of you who are a little slow in the maths department like me) over just one attack. With the new change…

• Assassin’s Signet: This skill has been updated to grant 15% damage for 5 attacks rather than 50% damage for one attack.

… the damage has been reduced significantly, but the trade-off for this is that it works over five different attacks, instead of just one. What this obviously means is that we now have the ability to buff a series of attacks in a chain as opposed to just one attack.

For example, the P/P dual skill “Unload” unleashes a volley of projectiles. When combined with a Power/Crit based build this has decent ranged damage, but not as much as people would like. With the balanced Assasin’s Signet, almost the entire volley can be buffed with 15% extra damage. Combine this with the Tier 1 trait Signets of Power which gives 5 stacks of might when activating a signet, this could be a very hefty amount of ranged damage.

Overall, I’m very happy with the changes to the Assasin’s Signet utility and look forward very much to seeing just what new builds will come out of it.

What do you think?

How come the range on my dagger attack is now 130 like CnD wasn’t it higher before?

Yep it won’t change anything. People will still QQ about thieves killing them in 1.5 seconds. They just won’t have the one 22,000 hit to show everyone in the screenshot.

Rizzy.8293:

How come the range on my dagger attack is now 130 like CnD wasn’t it higher before?

Unless all of the major build calculators have already updated their stats, no, it hasn’t changed.

Stiv.1820:

Yep it won’t change anything. People will still QQ about thieves killing them in 1.5 seconds. They just won’t have the one 22,000 hit to show everyone in the screenshot.

A reduction in the damage buff to 15% is significant. If people continue to QQ then we will just continue to tell them to L2P.

Incurafy.6329:

A reduction in the damage buff to 15% is significant. If people continue to QQ then we will just continue to tell them to L2P.

But now it’s +15% damage to Cloak and Dagger and Steal(?).
If we assume Steal deals about as much damage as Cloak and Dagger the damage of the combo was reduced by ~6%, and the two next attacks deal +15% damage. Overall it may have made Backstab Thieves even stronger.
On top of that it’s now easier to perform the Backstab combo.

love the change

DesertRose.2031:

Incurafy.6329:

A reduction in the damage buff to 15% is significant. If people continue to QQ then we will just continue to tell them to L2P.

But now it’s +15% damage to Cloak and Dagger and Steal(?).
If we assume Steal deals about as much damage as Cloak and Dagger the damage of the combo was reduced by ~6%, and the two next attacks deal +15% damage. Overall it may have made Backstab Thieves even stronger.
On top of that it’s now easier to perform the Backstab combo.

^This. In addition, it also buffs the heartseekers that come after said ‘combo’. If anything, it could actually be a buff or just a very minor nerf. The good thing, though, it’s actually usable by other builds now. The thief cries will keep coming nonetheless (and with reason in some cases).

this seems like a positive to me. its less burst damage but higher sustained damage. thats, in general, a good change for balance reasons. its also a good way of making the signet a bit more versatile and elegant for a greater number of builds.

this signet was previously only useful for using just before a Backstab. it had no other uses at all. now its entirely reasonable to include this signet in alot of different builds. activating it will give you a period of noticeably increased damage that should make it alot easier to down somebody. it no longer matters if you’ve set up a Backstab or not. you can use it any time, with any weapon, from stealth or not, and still get a benefit.

and yes, this should reduce the amount of whining about 20K Backstab crits that we sometimes see around here.

I was under the impression that it ADDED 150% damage initially, not that it DID 150% damage. The shock of seeing it drop down 135% initially had me until I found out that 100% of the damage was actually just crummy wording. Seeing that this is actually the case makes more sense, especially since it didn’t really feel like I was getting that much damage in the first place.

Mazrem.3291:

I was under the impression that it ADDED 150% damage initially, not that it DID 150% damage. The shock of seeing it drop down 135% initially had me until I found out that 100% of the damage was actually just crummy wording. Seeing that this is actually the case makes more sense, especially since it didn’t really feel like I was getting that much damage in the first place.

Same

But now it’s +15% damage to Cloak and Dagger and Steal(?).
If we assume Steal deals about as much damage as Cloak and Dagger the damage of the combo was reduced by ~6%, and the two next attacks deal +15% damage. Overall it may have made Backstab Thieves even stronger.
On top of that it’s now easier to perform the Backstab combo.

This is what I’ve been thinking too.

It just makes bursting someone that much easier when you can just pop the Singet before you engage them. And Assassin’s Reward should now apply to all attacks.

Honestly, this might have made thing worse than they were before.

No it gave you the chance to actualy counter it and not direcly be burst down in 1 shot.

NightyNight.1823:

No it gave you the chance to actualy counter it and not direcly be burst down in 1 shot.

If you can’t counter it before, you won’t be able to counter it now.
4k + 4k + 15k = dead
5k + 5k + 12k still = dead lol

I kind of hate how it activates auto-attacks with my P/D. bug maybe?

Yes, Unload specifically will be great with Signet now instead of the signet being totally worthless. (Ever try using signet with Pistol/Pistol? haha)

This doesn’t make backstab reliant thieves stronger, please stop posting that. It does not make bursting people easier. It makes your Signet use stronger over a greater period of time, which makes it impossible to make a burst stronger by its very definition. :P

For backstab thieves, you’re losing your frontload, and having a stronger rotation. For others, you’re getting a small damage buff.

This allows p/d condition builds to actually open up with steal>cnd>stealth “unload”. I can’t wait to try it out (though it sounds like it’s bugged according to the poster above). Before, I never had any reason to look at that signet.

If you can’t counter it before, you won’t be able to counter it now.
4k + 4k + 15k = dead
5k + 5k + 12k still = dead lol

Dead? perhaps you..I will never go down that easy specialy whit that combo.Only if I’m AFK.Glass Cannon builds are viable only against stupid or newbs.They keep whining that they nerfed their precious AS and that makes thief useless.I’m a thief too and never used this build and I destroy everyone I fight and specialy Glass Cannon .

NightyNight.1823:

If you can’t counter it before, you won’t be able to counter it now.
4k + 4k + 15k = dead
5k + 5k + 12k still = dead lol

Dead? perhaps you..I will never go down that easy specialy whit that combo.Only if I’m AFK.Glass Cannon builds are viable only against stupid or newbs.They keep whining that they nerfed their precious AS and that makes thief useless.I’m a thief too and never used this build and I destroy everyone I fight and specialy Glass Cannon .

Isn’t it only the stupid or noob that cry about the bs built? I mean really it’s not a hard built to counter.

This signet was useless in almost all situations compared to other utility skills, now it is the other way around… it’s a contender to go on the bar in WvW.

I like how everyone calculates the “combo” leaving two more attacks with 15% damage just sitting there not part of any equation.

I think it will still be nerfed by the numbers, but I do not think it will be nerfed by perception anymore… like someone said, no more gigantic backstab screenshots.

Artanis.4160:

NightyNight.1823:

No it gave you the chance to actualy counter it and not direcly be burst down in 1 shot.

If you can’t counter it before, you won’t be able to counter it now.
4k + 4k + 15k = dead
5k + 5k + 12k still = dead lol

So your backstabs do over 10k without signet? I would love to face the squishies you’re fighting… The highest BS I’ve seen WITH signet and might stacks is 9k. But that’s in sPvP, posting numbers from WvW is pointless.