I thought this a fair request, and a fun little activity, so here we go.
October 22nd, 2012
Flanking Strike: This skill’s first attack is now unblockable.
November 15th, 2012
Blinding Powder: This skill’s recharge has been reduced from 60 seconds to 40 seconds.
Smoke Screen: This skill’s height has been increased to help it absorb projectiles. (arguably a buff, arguably a functionality fix)
Leeching Venoms: This trait now scales based on the thief’s power.
Scorpion Wire: This skill’s range has been increased to 1200.
Shadow Trap: This skill no longer shadowsteps the thief when the trap is triggered. This skill now has two additional abilities: The first ability becomes available when Shadow Trap is cast and will destroy the current trap. The second ability, Shadow Pursuit, becomes available when an enemy triggers the trap. The thief may choose to activate this ability and shadowstep to the enemy that triggered the trap. If this ability is not activated after 10 seconds, the ability will fade and Shadow Trap will be available.
Piercing Shot: This skill is now a small projectile combo finisher.
Ink Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
December 14th, 2012
Ink Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher. (again, apparently)
Tow Line: This skill is now a projectile finisher.
Ink Shot: Projectile speed for this skill has been increased by 22%
Instinctual Response: Now triggers at 10% damage instead of 20%.
Ricochet: Increased bounce chance from 5% to 20%.
Fleet Shadow: Increased move speed from 33% to 50%.
Slowed Pulse: This can now trigger every 20 seconds instead of every 30.
Pistol Mastery: Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
Improvisation: Now also increased damage with environment weapons by 10%.
January 28th, 2013
All Venoms and Assassin’s Signet – The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
February 26th, 2013
Shadow Shot: This ability now allows the player to move while executing dagger strike portion of the ability. (Really a functionality fix, as a gap closer that roots its user on hit is useless)
Withdraw: This ability now scales 20% better with healing power. Base healing per level has increased by 10%.
March 26th, 2013
Uncatchable trait – Increased effective radius by 50%.
Haste skill: Increased duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
April 30th, 2013
Shadow Shot skill: The projectile portion is now unblockable. (Really a functionality fix, to prevent Thieves from pulling players to themselves when reflecting projectiles)
Flanking Strike/Larcenous strike split
Leeching Venoms trait: Increased the damage scale from power by 33%. Increased range from 325-400 to 325-425.
General signet buff, doubling passive stat boost
Haste skill – Increased duration by 1 second, Players now regenerate endurance at 50% effectiveness (increased from 0%) when under the effects of this skill.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
Lotus Strike: Increased the poison duration from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
Shadow Pursuit: This ability now grants fury and 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds along with stealth when used to teleport to the enemy who triggered Shadow Trap. This ability now breaks stuns. Using this skill puts Shadow Trap on recharge.
Death Blossom: This trait now costs 4 initiative.
Pistol Whip: Decreased the time between the stun and the sword flurry.
Scorpion Wire: Decreased the aftercast by .2 seconds. Reduced the cooldown to 20 seconds.
Signet of Malice: Increased the base heal by 33% of the passive ability.
Steal: Reduced the recharge to 35 seconds.
Deadly Strike:. Increased the damage from 1 to 1.2.
Dancing Dagger: Reduced the initiative cost to 3.
Pain Response: Reduced the cooldown from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
Hard to Catch: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.
Furious Retaliation: This trait now grants 10 seconds of fury when striking a target whose health is below 50%. This effect can only occur once every 30 seconds.
Signets of Power: The 5 stacks of might that this trait grants have been increased to 10 seconds.
Corrosive Traps: This trait now grants 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds (up from 5 seconds).
Sundering Strikes: Vulnerability caused by this trait has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
Panic Strike: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.
Slowed Pulse: The effect of this trait now occurs if the player has 2 or more stacks of bleeding.
Shadow Protector: This trait has been changed to apply 10 seconds of regeneration when the players stealth them. This effect will not occur if the ally already has regeneration on them.
Merciful Ambush: This trait now grants 2 seconds of stealth to players and their allies when beginning a revive.
Long Reach: This trait now increases the range of Steal to 1500 (up from 1200).
Ricochet: The chance to bounce for this trait has been increased from 25% to 50%.
Sleight of Hand: In addition to dazing the player’s target, this trait now reduces the recharge of Steal by an additional 20%.
July 23rd, 2013
Shadow Strike: This skill now applies 2 stacks of torment for 5 seconds.
October 15th, 2013
Venomous Aura: Increased the venom share radius to 360.
This list was compiled without much proofreading, so it’s possible I missed a few things.
It’s important to note not just the quantity of the above buffs, but the quality. From a PvP standpoint, any of the water-weapon based changes are basically pointless, and many of the buffs listed above are so ridiculously minor as to be almost worthless.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
It’s good to note as well that many of the buffs were later nerfed again (ex.: larcenous strike, and scheduled to be nerfed again) or because of a simultaneous nerf to the game mechanic itself (quickness speed nerf gave us longer duration instead).
I think if one had the patience to do more of an history of the evolution of the updates it could be quite interesting.
Add Fleet of Foot: The conditions will now be removed at the beginning of the dodge roll instead of at the end. This trait will now only go on cooldown when crippled or weakness is removed.
thats a buff
Add Fleet of Foot: The conditions will now be removed at the beginning of the dodge roll instead of at the end. This trait will now only go on cooldown when crippled or weakness is removed.
thats a buff
