Guild Wars 2

Welp, as much as people like to cry about it:

Has backstab been nerfed hard yet?

Has stealth been nerfed hard yet?

I don’t recall either of these happening or will happen.

cyyrix.6105:

Yes. Failure to prevent stealth should be punishing. That doesn’t mean you should support unskilled, spammy mechanics like backstab. You can always compensate for the change. For example, if each backstab attempt costs 2 initiative:

1) Increased backstab damage (you don’t like this one)
2) Gain some combination of boons when you land backstab
3) Gain 4 initiative when you land backstab
4) Strip boons when you land backstab

All of these things would be a nice buff for the talented thief that lands backstab, while punishing untalented thieves that spam backstab on blinds/aegis/evades. This is a nerf to bad thieves and a buff to good ones. It’s unfortunate that you can’t grasp that.

These do nothing to solve the so-called “problem”. If anything, it will make people just want to spam stealth and backstabs even more due to its increased efficiency to the point where the ability would be blatantly overpowered.

I mean I don’t see why you support removing “spamming” while in stealth to make the skill hit once but instead support buffing the skill to the point where you’d just get one-shotted by any real stab thief.

Honestly, the better players are the ones that already land the stabs. It might be spammy, but a dodge roll prevents this skill from working without the thief needing to re-stealth. If thieves didn’t have a short stealth duration, I’d agree here, but simply, most defenses or evades used properly will force additional initiative burn (and thus reducing damage from almost all builds) and open an opportunity to counter-play. I do this constantly on my own thief against other D/D thieves by actually baiting their combo and eating half of it, recovering with a heal, and killing them instantly as soon as they lose stealth because they let their guard down.

And trust me, it would lead to immense QQ. My stabs already land for 14-21k. Additional damage, coming from a damage junkie, just seems excessive, and it would only lead to more QQ because I always hit it. Actually, the reason why the stab “spamming” is a problem at all is because thieves in general have either gotten good and learned to land their stabs all the time, or because their opponents were too slow/do not know how to counter properly. It just makes the problem at hand way worse. And I see no reason to face unnecessary future nerfs.

Fact of the matter is your concern lies more with high stealth uptime/re-acquisition over the ability to spam stabs. More often than not it comes from the thief’s ability to re-gain stealth so easily, especially on D/P, after failing a stab/combo.

Updated post #3 with another misconception.

Ok, I get it. Damage is a bad idea. That doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.

Let’s try an exercise…backstab now costs two initiative. In exchange, I’ll give you might, but only when you land backstab. How many stacks of might do you need to agree to the deal? If more than 25, then I’ll start giving you vigor, then regen, then swiftness and so on. There is a point at which you take the deal. If you claim that point would make you OP, then you would obviously be willing to take the trade at a lower amount, so there is guaranteed to be a point at which it is an even trade. This isn’t a hard concept.

At that point, you are punished for missing backstab (like every other burst skill in the game) but are properly compensated and rewarded for skilled play.

cyyrix.6105:

Ok, I get it. Damage is a bad idea. That doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.

Let’s try an exercise…backstab now costs two initiative. In exchange, I’ll give you might, but only when you land backstab. How many stacks of might do you need to agree to the deal? If more than 25, then I’ll start giving you vigor, then regen, then swiftness and so on. There is a point at which you take the deal. If you claim that point would make you OP, then you would obviously be willing to take the trade at a lower amount, so there is guaranteed to be a point at which it is an even trade. This isn’t a hard concept.

At that point, you are punished for missing backstab (like every other burst skill in the game) but are properly compensated and rewarded for skilled play.

Honestly, there’s probably never going to be a breakover point where people would consider it useful unless the benefit were pretty OP. The autoattack chain total has a multiplier of 2.26 over a 2.02 second period for no initiative. That boils down to ~1.12 mult/sec. As a point of reference, a necromancer dagger autoattack chain has a total of 2.8 over a 2.1 second period, for a total of 1.3 mult/sec. In fact, a front stab only has the same multiplier as the last hit of the necro dagger chain. It’s logical to conclude that our damage (being a hard hitting glassy class) has been balance on removing it from the autos and putting it onto backstab, so the lack of initiative cost has already been balanced out through the other skills in the set. As a further example, consider the warrior’s axe auto. The whole chain together has a multiplier of 5 over 2.9 seconds. That’s 1.72 mult/sec. If you dodge the last hit on the triple chop (the hardest hitting part of it), the mult/sec drops to 1.2. Heck, even ele air Dagger auto has a 1.22 mult/second. The “free” cost of backstab has already been figured into our damage output. The burst from it is balanced out by our slightly lower output. If the thief is “spamming” it, thats more time off target thay they are not hitting. If it takes more than 2 seconds to land the hit, they’ve accomplished less than they would have by autoattacking their target.

So if we add an initiative cost of 2, for a D/P stealth attack, it would cost 11/12 base initiative. It would be better to save the initiative and shadowshot to them then autoattack.

Tldr: The damage of the “free” backstab has been taken into account through the other attack skills.

I often browse through the thief forums to see what unique ideas or advice people can give to enhance or make me a better player. Nearly EVERY time I’m here though, I read about some person who is complaining about thief being overpowered or that they were hit with 10k backstabs. They have no idea how squishy that build is and how little mistakes a thief of that capacity can afford in comparison to their opponent. I read this and feel annoyed, sometimes even angry that I know where these people are coming from: a dark place of ignorance and stubbornness. I’ve always just stayed quiet and said nothing.

I hope one of these people who cry about thief would be willing to create one and duel any of us experienced thief players on a profession of their choosing, so that we can hand their kitten to them and show that they are not OP, all while making their name/loss public on here (video to back it up). You lost because you were outplayed and that person is in fact better than you – maybe not overall but in that particular fight(s) they were.

The last person I remember was a zerker staff ele complaining about thieves.. in every response that people gave him/her, she responded with “well how about you play zerker staff ele and beat me on thief”. They seem to think that because they stand back and pew pew from max range, get a kill(s) in the process, that they should be able to beat everything even in a 1v1 situation. Counters are not possible. This kind of mentality drives me crazy lol.

WEXXES.2378:

Welp, as much as people like to cry about it:

Has backstab been nerfed hard yet?

Mug can’t crit. Ferocity Patch reduced every Critical Damage by around 10~20%.
Mighty was also nerfed so the Full Burst thief got a damage reduction as well.

Overall speaking the damage from Backstab droped from a easy 9k damage to around 5k with the same build. Mug can’t crit anymore and people moved from D/D to D/P so we also lose the damage from C&D

If you never noticed a damage drop on the Thief burst you are simply not trying hard enough.

WEXXES.2378:

Has stealth been nerfed hard yet?

- Reveal. 3 seconds for PvE/WvW and 4 seconds on sPvP
Rangers and Engies can “extend” that time for another 4 seconds with Sic’en and Googles.

- I am not sure how it was in the past but the Stealth from leap isn’t affected by the 1 extra-second-stealth Trait. And Infusing of Shadow was modified so you can’t freely regain initiative stacking stealth.

- There is also a limit on stealth stacks that works the same way as swiftness.

- Shadow Refuge instant reveals you if you leave the circle (it wasn’t like that in the past).

- In PvE mobs don’t lose aggro to stealth anymore.

- C&D animation was modified and added an extra delay. Its now harder to hit, more obvious to roll and takes more timing. (almost sure about this change, someone can confirm for me?)

- Could also list all nerfs to initiative regen as well, since indirectly it affects our access to stealth.

WEXXES.2378:

I don’t recall either of these happening or will happen.

We can’t trust your memory then.

WEXXES.2378:

Welp, as much as people like to cry about it:

Has backstab been nerfed hard yet?

Has stealth been nerfed hard yet?

I don’t recall either of these happening or will happen.

You’re wrong about stealth not being nerfed! Reveal seconds has been increased! Backstab hasn’t been nerfed but look at other weapon sets== what? Do you really want to see backstab get nerfed in order to be satisfied?! Wth is wrong with you?!

Yolo; please read.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/13000er-Backstab-hit-Where-is-the-challenge

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/25k-Backstab-Skillz/first#post381021

ok this is 18 page thread of backstab problem; need nerf by thief player and other player
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Backstab-time-to-nerf/page/3

Did arena net fix backstab problem? a little but after 2 years; backstab damage is still high; so nerf to backstab was not serious.

Yolo, read past history before make thread to call other not thief player complaint. The other not thief player is right and you are wrong for make fun of them.

dude they nerfed the dmg of thief backstab by over half of its dmg from release kitten used to hit for 16k+ and people still complain i mean backstab hits for as hard as a lichform necro auto attack now and we have to stealth and get behind them and its only 1 hit. i would just leave it alone man. people who play at higher calibur dont complain about it at all its just the scrubs and newbs that dont have situational awareness or get caught without CDs or at low HP. sometimes when the stars align and you proc both air and fire sigil as well as critting your backstab and both sigil procs can i see the dmg maybe reaching 8k but like i said the god kitten stars need to align for a situation like that. Unfortunately with online games people will always blame the thing that killing them rather than admit the fact that they may not be so good at the game and need to practice.

DarkSyze.8627:

Yolo; please read.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/13000er-Backstab-hit-Where-is-the-challenge

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/25k-Backstab-Skillz/first#post381021

ok this is 18 page thread of backstab problem; need nerf by thief player and other player
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Backstab-time-to-nerf/page/3

Did arena net fix backstab problem? a little but after 2 years; backstab damage is still high; so nerf to backstab was not serious.

Yolo, read past history before make thread to call other not thief player complaint. The other not thief player is right and you are wrong for make fun of them.

Backstab can still be high, yes, but we have to sacrifice even more survivability than we had to before critnerf.
I played D/D back there, with 2 parts of armor soldier and two valkyrie, rune was traveler. Since then I have changed armor for full zerker, rune to strength, full ascended and infusions. You see what happened? ^^

The damage has been cut.
Ferocity has nerfed it.
Revealed status did not exist at some of those threads’ inceptions.
Culling was a huge problem that led to all classes being invisible in combat.
Assassin’s Signet change cut stab damage by another 30%.

DeceiverX.8361:

The damage has been cut.
Ferocity has nerfed it.
Revealed status did not exist at some of those threads’ inceptions.
Culling was a huge problem that led to all classes being invisible in combat.
Assassin’s Signet change cut stab damage by another 30%.

Still not enough!

I’m gonna stop reading this thread from here on out. The amount of Facepalm action here is giving me a headache.

DarkSyze.8627:

Yolo; please read.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/13000er-Backstab-hit-Where-is-the-challenge

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/25k-Backstab-Skillz/first#post381021

ok this is 18 page thread of backstab problem; need nerf by thief player and other player
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Backstab-time-to-nerf/page/3

Did arena net fix backstab problem? a little but after 2 years; backstab damage is still high; so nerf to backstab was not serious.

Yolo, read past history before make thread to call other not thief player complaint. The other not thief player is right and you are wrong for make fun of them.

Read my OPs before you comment with something like this. Thanks.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

I never got any QQ on my alts, yeah I got 90% of my wvw time on thief but on engi I run the pure cheese with perp, my ele’s crits so high she can 1 shot light/medium and my medi guard can evaporate light/medium just as fast.

One time I didn’t play my thief for like 1.5month (lvling ele and guard) then when I logged on my thief, 30mins later I got 2 pages of QQ from someone I didn’t even kill.

People would talk kitten about thieves even if our skills would be disabled.

Mesmers could disable thief skills for a few days. There was so much thief QQ, Mesmers were nerfed in a hotfix.

How often does THAT happen from Anet ;D

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.

Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.

The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.

Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.

Well, in the current meta, a fair number of mesmers take shattered concentration, so most of the boons remaining would have been ripped (if you had that as well). You also had mantra of distraction, so whether he was D/P or D/D, you had the skills on your bar to stop him from stealthing. Even if he had dropped shadow refuge, you had illusionary wave off cooldown. You had means available to counter all of his stealthing attempts, save blinding powder.

You’re really missing the point here. I’m not complaining about killing thieves. I’m not asking for a nerf. I’m certainly not looking for advice on how to play mesmer.

I’m suggesting a rework that would make good thieves better (higher damage from backstab) in exchange for making bad thieves worse (wasted initiative spamming backstab on blinds/aegis/evades). It would encourage skillful play for everyone.

Bad/inexperienced thieves are already loot bags. Look around thief forums and you see this mentioned many times, pro thieves can own anyone, while new players struggle to survive. I would like more skilled players within thief playerbase, that won’t happen if first 1k hours are such pain that most would just move to another class.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

I never got any QQ on my alts, yeah I got 90% of my wvw time on thief but on engi I run the pure cheese with perp, my ele’s crits so high she can 1 shot light/medium and my medi guard can evaporate light/medium just as fast.

One time I didn’t play my thief for like 1.5month (lvling ele and guard) then when I logged on my thief, 30mins later I got 2 pages of QQ from someone I didn’t even kill.

People would talk kitten about thieves even if our skills would be disabled.

Mesmers could disable thief skills for a few days. There was so much thief QQ, Mesmers were nerfed in a hotfix.

How often does THAT happen from Anet ;D

So much qq you now have the urge to visit thief forums regularly.

yolo swaggins.2570:

DarkSyze.8627:

Yolo; please read.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/13000er-Backstab-hit-Where-is-the-challenge

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/25k-Backstab-Skillz/first#post381021

ok this is 18 page thread of backstab problem; need nerf by thief player and other player
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Backstab-time-to-nerf/page/3

Did arena net fix backstab problem? a little but after 2 years; backstab damage is still high; so nerf to backstab was not serious.

Yolo, read past history before make thread to call other not thief player complaint. The other not thief player is right and you are wrong for make fun of them.

Read my OPs before you comment with something like this. Thanks.

Before i comment; i do research. I do research in past thread to see if problem was already there before. I use research result to challenge you because you make fun of other not stealth player and blame them in fat they are right with their complaint because arena net nerf to thief backstab was not serious.

Evidence; past 7 month-July 2014, a player make thread and post video(arena net tell youtube remove video) of thief very high backstab 27k+ https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Over-27k-Backstab/first#post4145025

I show this to server thieves and guild thieves, they say, “it is rare but not impossible. The normal extreme thief backstab damage range 12k-24k”

Even after many evidence include thieves player of 2 year+beta; thieves always say qq; which is lie. QQ vs Evidence;2 Year+Beta= Evidence; 2 Year+ Beta Win!, include not stealth class

Final; A lot of player you make fun was already there before you include beta; instead think know everything, do research; not hard; very easy.

I don’t have the slightest idea what was said in the post above mine.

But I can state now that any build stabbing over 20k are the hardest builds to play in the game. And that those hits are extremely rare and only occur on very glassy opponents, which are becoming fewer in the WvW roaming meta, and do not exist in sPvP. Go ahead, try a real signet stab build in any context outside of ganking from an unseen position against a glassy target, and without extensive practice, you will lose the fight.

How about instead of doing “research,” you go and play the class itself and compare it to say, the difficulty/performance of a terrormancer, or even a P/D condi thief?

People complaining about BS damage…do they even realize that there are skills that hit even harder, and are easier to land, which does not depend on positioning?

Easy example? Eviscerate!

It has a damage of 1008 with a 3.0 power scaling while BS is only 806 with a 2.4 power scaling. It is a leap, so it homes in on you, and the damage is independent of positioning.

DarkSyze.8627:

Before i comment; i do research. I do research in past thread to see if problem was already there before. I use research result to challenge you because you make fun of other not stealth player and blame them in fat they are right with their complaint because arena net nerf to thief backstab was not serious.

Evidence; past 7 month-July 2014, a player make thread and post video(arena net tell youtube remove video) of thief very high backstab 27k+ https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Over-27k-Backstab/first#post4145025

I show this to server thieves and guild thieves, they say, “it is rare but not impossible. The normal extreme thief backstab damage range 12k-24k”

Even after many evidence include thieves player of 2 year+beta; thieves always say qq; which is lie. QQ vs Evidence;2 Year+Beta= Evidence; 2 Year+ Beta Win!, include not stealth class

Final; A lot of player you make fun was already there before you include beta; instead think know everything, do research; not hard; very easy.

I also do research. But you don’t have to do research to know that backstab is a burst skill and as a burst skill it is capable of 5 digits. But this thread isn’t about backstabs. It is about the things anti-thief players (usually backstab victims) say to get the thief nerfed and why they are wrong.

If you would have actually read the OPs, you could have saved yourself a blind comment. You would have seen the bullet point where I explain how basing the brokenness of a profession off of a portion of said profession’s design is the wrong way to go about nerfing it.

And if you’de actually played thief to the extent I have, you’de have a completely different opinion. This is something else that doesn’t need to be researched. But here is something you fail to understand:

That isn’t research nor is it evidence. Just because someone has spent 2 years on thief doesn’t mean it automatically qualifies legitimacy and credibility. Those perks come with real evidence which is backed up by results done by hardcore, unbiased theorycrafting. And I only know one thief who is capable of consistently obtaining these results but he can’t post to tell you himself.

Posting a skill that produces big numbers and spamming complaints about a single skill does not prove that a skill is OP. Posting a skill that produces numbers higher than the popularly hated skill for a fraction of the effort and sacrifice is a better way to go about proving how OP a skill is.

For example, Eviscerate vs. Backstab.

Backstab:

• Requires the player to be stealthed to use. Stealth requires 6 initiative or 1 utility to use.

• Requires the player to be behind to deal maxed damage.

• Backstab has a 1.2 damage coefficient from the front and a 2.4 coefficient from behind.

Eviscerate:

• Requires the player has 10 points of adrenaline to use.

• Eviscerate has a 2.0 damage coefficient at 10 points, 2.5 at 20 points and 3.0 at 30 points.

Given that stats and circumstances are the same for both professions, because the scientific method requires control groups for best results, Eviscerate is readily more powerful than backstab. You can even use the formula on wiki and find that a 2-3 bar Eviscerate does more damage than backstab. People complain about backstab more because they don’t see it coming as easily.