Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been thinking for awhile (I know that’s dangerous but it had to be done) and I think I’ve finally come up with a few possible suggestions to change the way thief is allowed to be played and increase our build options without directly nerfing d/p (Nerfing it won’t magically fix diversity, it just makes us unviable). Here’s my thoughts, feel free to give feedback, agree, disagree, call me a noob, etc.

1) Stealth functionality changes:
So we know one of the biggest hindrances to our build diversity in pvp is the fact that stealth is not a viable defensive option due to its inability to contest points in combat and its generally slower approach to combat. I took some time just trying to think of a solution because it’s a big problem and you can’t just let stealth contest points because we have been there before, it’s not fun. So my proposal is this:
-Make stealth behave the way it does off point in pvp
-When you are on a point stealth switches to being a pulsing blind aura around you (Radius anywhere from 450-600 as deemed appropriate by balance people).
You still retain all of your stealth effects (I.E. regen, damage reduc, etc.) but you are “visible” as a shadow running around on point with a blind aura pulsing every second (Unblockable btw, we don’t need guards and scrappers to counter us more) This now allows you to capture/contest points in stealth so you can utilize it as a defensive tool in builds.
- Stealth no longer stacks in pvp. It would be applied at a 4-5 second base (Upgraded to 5-6 seconds with shadow arts) and if stealth were re- applied it would only reset the stealth timer.
- Shadow refuge would then be changed to constantly apply the 5 second stealth until you leave in which case you would lose the stealth or it ends and then your stealth timer counts down. In order for the skill not to be complete garbage after the change it would become a more supportive skill giving a 33% damage reduction to all allied units inside it and pulsing a 1.5k heal to 2k heal every second and have it’s radius increased slightly so that you have a little more wiggle room while utilizing it’s positioning. and while inside SR you would be unable to be revealed except through dealing damage. (Scrapper reveal and dh trap reveal would not work until the refuge was gone for example)

2) Weapon skill changes

a) Sword/Dagger
-AA 1 and 2 of the chain buffed by 5%
-Infiltrator’s strike damage buffed by 5%
-Infiltrator’s return is now instant cast but cannot be used while cced (This is done to prevent it from being a “perma stun break” tool so counterplay is still heavily existent, but thief’s quick reactions are rewarded by actually avoiding stuff by porting away)
-Jump cast on sword 2 made a function of the skill to increase the versatility of the set and the skill. Forces people to make the decision of leaving a safe return point or chasing aggressively and possibly getting caught out with no escapes.
- FS now cycles into LS after casting every time (It’s basically just reverting the nerf that imo was completely unjustified for the set) If that’s too much just have it cycle off of blocks and hits (Your still technically hitting something when you hit a block, your damage just doesn’t go through)

b) Dagger/Dagger
- 3 has bleeds removed and replaced with weakness for 3 sec on each hit. This allows the set to focus on a combination of evades, weakness, and stealth as its defenses. Skill damage is still kept low so it doesn’t become a spam to win button for thieves.
- CnD has a blind attatched to it on a successful hit (This is just for oh dag in general but I thought it best to put it with this change list)
- 3 Given a 1 second stealth after the skill to help the set drop targets and aggression easier (This is optional, I thought it may be a cool tool but if you all think it’s a bad idea I can scratch it off the list)

c) Sword/Pistol
-PW wind up reduced to 1/2 second from 3/4 (I don’t know much of what to change for this set outside of that as it will be buffed by the changes to other parts of the kit.)

3) Trait changes
-SoH recharge reduction made baseline on thief and the daze moved to replace preparedness as a minor trait
-Preparedness baseline (Initiative costs are already balanced around that anyways)
-Bountiful theft moved to GM trait
-New master trait added to increase damage done to foes by 1% per boon

I will probably add to this list later but for now I need to go. Have at it, if there’s stuff you like in here let me know so we can push some changes for thief. If it’s just lots of bad ideas, give me some alternatives or feel free to tweak some to a more balanced approach. Either way, let’s try to be constructive and have a meaningful discussion.

the problem with switching stealth to blind is it makes the stealth skills obsolete. i play s/d in pvp every day and id say 70% f the time im seeing condi thieves, 30% d/p power and then alot of other things such as hybrid builds and other stuff. i use stealth even kitten. while yes it does cripple our power to cap, it can makes us excellent at decapping and running in sticky situations. i feel like i have my place in pvp, i stick to the sides which will usually cause 1-2 people to come after me from mid… this puts us at numbers. buffs for s/d id like to see, faster AA. Id die to see the day they makee s/d 3 cycle on hit, even blocks, because that ruins alot. i think d/d needs a 3 rework so it can focus on being a power weapon, something to make it worth using, i love using CnD but its been nerfed down and d/p should win vs d/d every time which is a problem, there is so much more to offer for d/p vs d/d.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean with the stealth skills being obsolete. If it’s only shifting to a blind aura on point then we still have escapes and such when off point. You still have access to stealth skills and such, it’s just the way stealth is displayed and interacts with other players is changed (If that was a point of confusion my bad). It just means positioning is key when it comes to utilizing our stealth effectively. If we want to burst with a stealth skill it may require moving off point to do it undetected or just require faster moving on point. It also means that when we want to be undetected visually we have to remain off point which generally is what ends up happening anyways. I may just be misreading but could you possibly try to explain it a different way if I’m not seeing it correctly?

S/d already cycles on hit but there’s so many random blocks in the game it just ends up costing a silly amount of ini to land once which was why I put in the possibility of cycling off blocks but I could see how that is not a good idea looking back on it. I didn’t see the problem with it cycling every time like it used to because it opened up a higher level of decision making on the set which was “Do I preload and go for burst or do I save the defensive part of the skill in case I need it?” If ini costs need to be rebalanced around that functionality then do it but it felt more stable when it was like that than it does now imo. (This coming from someone who mains s/d in pvp so my feel for the set is based on that background so any influence in wvw or pve is kinda lost on me)

In terms of d/d I think 3 ought to be an evade skill for the set. Given that it has to be able to get close to stealth it needs the ability to survive outside of stealth and that’s why I like the evade on 3. I just know the condi needs to go so we can not only the cheese evade spam condi but then we can actually balance the set as a power one. Do you have any thoughts of what could be done to the d/d set to make it a better choice? I’d be interested to see your thoughts on the matter as I’ve run out of solutions to that problem.

Stealth → Blinds has some pretty severe implications for resistance and condition removal effects. 450 radius is also insane. Arc Divider is OP only for this reason as well.

Upping base stealth durations won’t work without increasing the initiative cost on weapon skills used to gain stealth, especially given the blind access for something as simple as a Steal→BP → HS combo. Even when BP was on a 1s pulse the blind application was too overpowered on its small radius due to how much damage the thief could mitigate this way.

SR would just be kinda busted if changed to that, especially stacking with RoS.

They’ll never revert jump-casts on IS. I’ve done all in my power to communicate the importance of it, and while it was a big part of the kit, they’re never going to undo this. Even Robert Gee has come out directly and said as such.

S/D needs some other utility and damage improvements to things like DDagger and its stealth skill to really warrant use in general. 5% won’t really do much, and the FS/LS change, while keeping the kit out of viability in sPvP, was only largely viable due to the boon stealing capacity in the past boonbunker sPvP metas more than anything else. For a lot of players, the ability to chain FS is a huge gain as it has no precast or aftercast periods so the evasion uptime is amazing for disengages and skill avoidance when in the right hands.

Of all things for S/D, I’d just have to say FS should become unblockable as well as LS and the kit becomes very usable while still promoting smarter play and letting the weapon keep its potential no-target dodge utility. This may even warrant some damage nerfs to LS and putting more damage from it into the second hit of the AA chain on sword, but getting the consistency here is a big deal, and it gives S/D thieves a better way to deal with more things rather than just precast 3 into a fight to stomp harder.

D/D needs substantial design changes to DB and DDagger which I’ve outlined a bunch in the past. DB focusing on dodges and mobility, and DDagger some AoE and power damage and control condition application would give D/D the utility it needs while help pushing some further love to P/D’s damage as well.

CnD doesn’t need a blind. The issue with D/D is the unreliability of the set and its over-dependence on CnD landing. You addressed the issue with S/D as being the blocks; power D/D has the same if not worse problem, and like LS, there’s plenty of punishment out there as it is when the first hit (CnD/FS) lands. To make stealth more accessible to more builds and bump the kit’s reliability, CnD’s initiative cost should just be reduced to 4.

S/P doesn’t need a ton. If PW’s delay is to be reduced, its absurd cleave radius (nearly 300 degrees) should become more in-line with the animation as to let people who do flank/kite out of the impact be rewarded.

SoH steal reduction should be made baseline just because CC often hurts more than helps these days from passives. Preparedness baseline is controversial as I’m not 100% sure it’d make Trickery worthwhile to really pick beyond that point.

Given the changes to DB, Backstab should just baseline apply a few stacks of 4s poison to compensate D/D condi players for the lost damage. This keeps them still using DB for damage for procs on DT but also utilizing stealth and the other parts of the kit rather than just mashing 3 in order to achieve good damage.

I’m going to be honest I want sure where to set the radius at for the whole blinds thing because a small radius would let you get farmed by the giant cleave skills we have now but too big would make it so you just have to sit on a point and let your team kill everyone while you permablind them. Do you have a suggestion as to a better solution or radius number for that?

My thought surrounding upping base stealth durations is with the system I put out it would make short terms stealth a much more affordable thing for many thieves but it would make long term extremely costly especially on the side of d/p where they’d have to spend 9 ini for every restealth. Ini values can always be tweaked but I wasn’t sure where I’d put those values so I said nothing.

So if you scrapped the damage reduction and dropped the heal to 1k/sec, how do you think that would be?

That’s disappointing news honestly, jump casts were an advanced skill and took a ton of extra mechanical skill and forethought to really utilize effectively.

So your suggestion would be have it behave the way it does now with fs being unblockable? (Just want to make sure I understand this correctly)
I can see where that logic is coming from and I agree that’s going in a good direction. Do you think any of the other damage buffs I listed would be necessary given this change or would you scrap those, take some of ls damage and put it on 2nd aa and call that good?

I’ll agree with the cnd changes. I know you said db needs to be reworked but how exactly would you do that? Would you just kinda replace the current skill with an updated version that is more mobile and dodge focused or would you be tweaking the skill with things like I did? DDagger, would it just be a damage and cripple duration increase needed or would you add a different condi onto it?

The cleave of s/p could easily go down, I’m just speaking from experience that the wind up is often too slow to really be useful in a situation where you’d need another evade or some counter pressure. Heck, just make the cleave radius 180 and it instantly becomes better.

Yeah, if I didn’t need to take it for the reduction I’d be using ini on wep swap rn. The daze proccing passives all the time screws you over more than it helps and there’s nothing you can really do about that. Preparedness I argue as being a baseline only because of how ini costs have been balanced. It’s next to impossible to run a serious build that doesn’t use trickery just because everything is too expensive to use as much as you need it up. I think trickery would still be worth taking for boons on steal, boon removal on steal, assuming bt was moved to gm people may take trickster and withdraw as an alternative heal (I definitely would) and possibly roll for ini as a utility. The line offers enough utility that I think it’d stay a competitive pick. Though if it’s not we could see some new builds coming out that don’t utilize trickery and that’s something people have been wishing for for a long time.

I agree on bs changes, condi thief needs options to do damage outside of dodge spam. I think it’d be cool giving them sort of a condi burst type build that utilizes bs and poison mastery.

With blinds the radius is a problem because it’s offsetting other skills which have too large of radii and leaving the rest at a loss. Arc Divider is just silly in this regard, and so on. I don’t think trying to fix other professions via changes to the rest is a good idea in general. Those radii should be reduced and problem solved.

Stealth is already largely resetting the timer on high stealth uptime builds so to speak; there is a maximum duration upon re-application so it pretty much already exists like that. The biggest issues regarding balance for the thief and stealth builds in general is just how accessible it is and how much it can be sustained for long periods of time. IMHO, the best thing you could ask for is simply to make stealth timers simply not stack or reset at all – you get one fixed duration. Yes, it might throw the thief a bit out of whack in terms of balance, but on the design level I think this is something that needs to happen to make the thief more fun.

1k health per second is still a tremendous amount. I know the thief is squishy, but that effect during stealth basically gives every stealth (as proposed) a 50% base hp heal every few seconds. I don’t really know if I have an alternative right this moment, but I don’t necessarily think it’d be a good idea.

Yeah, being a S/D player I appreciated the old jump-casts and it helped a lot against condition builds while applying pressure. Just how it is, though.

You understand correctly with FS/LS; both attacks unblockable. I think this alone would help S/D tremendously given LS’s high damage value and boon stealing. Would definitely impact the thief/DH matchup a lot. Granted, this may make S/D a bit 3-spammy against guard, and may warrant some damage redistribution elsewhere on the kit (buff AA, nerf LS damage), but I think it’d be the best way to handle S/D in terms of its overall usability.

I gave a more holistic overview of some propsoed OH dagger fixes here a while ago:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Off-hand-Dagger-Discussion-Thread/first#post6427223