Guild Wars 2

Are you out of your mind? 50% damage? L2P noob ! Thief is fine ! Backstab is fine ! Learn to dodge ! Noob !

Now before you repeat anything of the above, read please. This is not a whine / nerf thread nor do i think it has to be nerfed (besides a special combo which is kinda OP but thats another topic)

I main a backstab thief myself and i think it is fine but it gets boring sometimes. An idea crossed my mind which i think would add another very interesting layer to backstab, if you’re interested, please read further.

First of all, cut damage done by backstab atleast by 50%. Now you might think “Dude, this skill will be useless if you cut its damage by that much, this will break the whole spec, it wont work.”

BUT

Everytime you hit someone from behind with a backstab you grant urself a boon, i will call it “find the weak spot” but it doesnt really matter how we call it at atm anyway. Now, what does this boon do? It increases the damage done by the next Backstab i will land on my opponent. This boon stacks, so for example i hit my opponent from behind with a backstab and i get this boon, my next backstab will now do +10% (just an example, make it 20%, 30%, 100000%, it doesnt matter i just want to make a point) more damage and on top of that i now have 2 stacks of “find the weak spot”. This boon stacks up untill u basicly on shot ur enemy if you have hit him with enough backstabs before. This boon will last 10 seconds but the duration gets refreshed everytime you land a backstab on ur opponent.

I think this would be an very interesting approach on the whole backstab thing IMO. Please, thief community and pro thiefs, tell me what you think about this !

P.S. This is just an Idea, if you think this wouldnt work please tell so but dont flame for no purpose at all. I would like to discuss an Idea here, thanks.

Edit: fixed some typos

it is a good ideea, but i doubt it can be implemented so fast. also landing the same backstab twice in 10s, you must be really PRO, or the target very stupid… also the CD of the imobilize vennom is rather high.
better break the combo(add casting time to steal and to bs) steal(mug)backstab+CnD/hs/etc. and nerf the backstab a little too
problem solved.

DanH.5879:

it is a good ideea, but i doubt it can be implemented so fast. also landing the same backstab twice in 10s, you must be really PRO, or the target very stupid… also the CD of the imobilize vennom is rather high.
better break the combo(add casting time to steal and to bs) steal(mug)backstab+CnD/hs/etc. and nerf the backstab a little too
problem solved.

I dont think i would be that hard to implement. Also, giving steal and backstab a casting time completely kills the gameplay of a pure backstab thief.

The idea i presented basicly destroys insta gib backstab builds while supporting rather skilled players without killing the gameplay.

Thanks for ur feedback nonetheless, i respect ur opinion !

The results are not worth the risks at that point. You’d have to waste either 5 initiative or a stealth skill to get an weak backstab ( + 10%) dmg. I would much rather use heartseeker and death blossom.

Doomdesire.9365:

The results are not worth the risks at that point. You’d have to waste either 5 initiative or a stealth skill to get an weak backstab ( + 10%) dmg. I would much rather use heartseeker and death blossom.

The point is that the boon stacks up. You can have 10 stacks of this, you just have to hit with enough backstabs before. Now, you might say that this is completely OP, but your opponent can counter it if he avoids any backstabs untill ur stacks run out which means you have to start stacking it up all over again.

This turns backstab from an ability without much interesting synergy with anything sans trying to instakill people to an ability that is absolutely terrible except when your center your build around it. Not the way thief abilities should be moving.

Put this w/ the other 500 threads that wanna nerf thieves.

Tulisin.6945:

This turns backstab from an ability without much interesting synergy with anything sans trying to instakill people to an ability that is absolutely terrible except when your center your build around it. Not the way thief abilities should be moving.

But isnt that the point? To build around a specific ability?

@Put this to the other 500 nerf threads guy.

Did you even read my post? Or just the topic title?

Shizzlenit.7648:

Doomdesire.9365:

The results are not worth the risks at that point. You’d have to waste either 5 initiative or a stealth skill to get an weak backstab ( + 10%) dmg. I would much rather use heartseeker and death blossom.

The point is that the boon stacks up. You can have 10 stacks of this, you just have to hit with enough backstabs before. Now, you might say that this is completely OP, but your opponent can counter it if he avoids any backstabs untill ur stacks run out which means you have to start stacking it up all over again.

But you don’t understand that it’s not worth the risk involved. I get the point is that the boon stacks up, but why? It would take 2-3 consecutive backstabs wasting initiative/stealth skills to do as much damage as I can do with more efficient heartseeker. What thief would spam backstab at that point when they can use heartseeker?

Doomdesire.9365:

Shizzlenit.7648:

Doomdesire.9365:

The results are not worth the risks at that point. You’d have to waste either 5 initiative or a stealth skill to get an weak backstab ( + 10%) dmg. I would much rather use heartseeker and death blossom.

The point is that the boon stacks up. You can have 10 stacks of this, you just have to hit with enough backstabs before. Now, you might say that this is completely OP, but your opponent can counter it if he avoids any backstabs untill ur stacks run out which means you have to start stacking it up all over again.

But you don’t understand that it’s not worth the risk involved. I get the point is that the boon stacks up, but why? It would take 2-3 consecutive backstabs wasting initiative/stealth skills to do as much damage as I can do with more efficient heartseeker. What thief would spam backstab at that point when they can use heartseeker?

I see where u’re getting at, but i want to say that the numbers i came up with are just examples. Of course this would have to be balanced out. (risk/reward wise)

I just wanted to present a concept :P

Shizzlenit.7648:

Tulisin.6945:

This turns backstab from an ability without much interesting synergy with anything sans trying to instakill people to an ability that is absolutely terrible except when your center your build around it. Not the way thief abilities should be moving.

But isnt that the point? To build around a specific ability?

Yes and no.

Yes you want to find a playstyle that suits you and synergize around that playstyle to create something that is both fun for you and effective in application. That is your goal as a player.

No, you don’t change profession mechanics and skills to suit particular player tastes and support their builds. Skills encourage an environment full of synergy where players can combine what they’ve been given to create effective playstyles. Creating this environment is the goal of a developer.

Players often see “convincing the developers to buff my build at the expense of everyone else” as sort of a metagame, and it could definitely be considered one, but it is the responsibility of the devs to create a balanced environment where different playstyles can flourish effectively.

Not to mention that this would completely kill BS being used in PvE and would be pretty useless in sPvP/WvW because of the low uptime of stealth when in a group fight, not to mention that the debuff that cancels stealth skills lasts some 3-4 seconds, so you would only have a max of 6-7 seconds to land a CnD/stealth skill and hit someone who is actively trying to not be hit… and you would need to repeat this 5 times to get to the current level of BS.

The general idea is interesting but the examples, numbers and execution as well as lack of thought for all aspects of the game reduce the overall applicability of the idea.

DanH.5879:

it is a good ideea, but i doubt it can be implemented so fast. also landing the same backstab twice in 10s, you must be really PRO, or the target very stupid… also the CD of the imobilize vennom is rather high.
better break the combo(add casting time to steal and to bs) steal(mug)backstab+CnD/hs/etc. and nerf the backstab a little too
problem solved.

Are you serious? You can Backstab whenever you dont the revealed debuff, with the amount of Gap closers/Cripples/and stealths we have it’s not that hard.

Don’t you think that a position requirement (back) and a condition requirement (hidden) are enough for a backstab ? Put in other requirements will make that skill not worth it.
I think it will be better to put in a sort of c-c-c-combo breaker (cit.) that will hit that specific stupid build.

How about if that boon triggers with other abilities too?

Chakuna.6325:

You can Backstab whenever you dont the revealed debuff,

I’m pretty sure it also requires you to have a the “stealth” buff because i run around most of the time without the revealed debuff and i can’t backstab, or am i doing it wrong?

On topic: The general idea that they should create a buff promotes prolonged battles is great but having that buff be placed using a skill that doesn’t synergise with a prolonged battle isn’t the way it should be done. Maybe have that buff be target specific, i.e. the longer you keep damaging that target, the higher damage you will do to that target, and the buff gets wipe if u lose the target in anyway e.g. stealth or changing target.

If you must touch Backstab. Why not simply change part of the damage to a bleed.

Say:
50% direct damage, then 70% damage in a 5-7s burn/bleed!

This would keep the damage at a point where people cannot just shrug it off. But it will also give the enemy a chance to do something about getting killed.

ps; I increased the damage of the bleed part for two reasons. One, people will be able to use their heal now, so you need to compensate partly. Two, bleed damage is based on condition gear, which you don’t usually have lots of as backstab thief!

What you are trying to do is make the thief go stealth more than he already does which the average player (at least on the forums) is hating on… since it’s soooo impossible to counter.
With that said I hope they don’t implement this because it will lead to double nerf, first backstab then stealth.

You know backstab does exactly twice as much damage as the first dagger autoattack skill right? So if you cut backstab in half will mean it does roughly the same damage or slightly more than just plain attacking your target with the 1 skill, except it’s much much harder to pull off.