Guild Wars 2

Hi guys! Today i want to talk about the D/D (dagger and dagger) weapon set.
During the last week i saw a lot of players killing almost everyone just by spamming Heartseeker (HS).
I am playing thief since BWE1 and i love this class, but i feel that those Heartseeker/Pistol Whip builds are making Thief very similar to Greatsword Warriors.

The point is HS needs only 3 initiative, where cloak and dagger (CnD) is 5 INI and HS does quite the same damage of a Backstab ( if you consider that BS needs you to be in stealth and behind your target), so everyone goes for HS spam.

So if you:
- Increase INI cost of HS to 4
- Decrease INI cost of CnD to 3
- Make CnD cloak you THEN dagger your opponent, maybe adding a trait to Shadow Arts for example, and making you cloack even if you miss ( your backstab will be weaker because vulerability hit missed your opponent)

I’m pretty sure that thieves will play to get backstabs instead of HS, and then finish off their opponents with a single HS cast at 25% Health.
This slows up the burst damage and makes the thief more stealthy and hard to catch.
One last thing, nerfing high damage skills like HS or PW will be geat…but only if you raise thief’s toughness/armor.

I hope you enjoy these ideas, so that we can enjoy a fair and balanced Backstab Thief.
Have a nice day and don’t forget to reply!

CnD is never going to be that cheap. Especially with the +2 init on stealth trait… you’d be invisible constantly, lol. You’d regen more initiative than you’d use.

My bad decreasing CnD to 4 sorry!

It’s good as it is now. Btw. heartseeker is very easy to dodge, because people spam it in chains. Also, it only does some damage, and very short range leap, nothing else.

Backstab Thief is absolutely fine as it is.

I do think Heartseeker should cost 4 Initiative.

Leaping Death Blossom is the ability that needs a cost reduction.

Leaping Death Blossom is fine I find. You need to trait into trickery my friend. I can cast it 3 times in a row, steal and use it again for a 4th time and stack bleeds like a boss.

CnD Should get a initiative reduction. Just put it to 3. Maybe make it do less damage? I would prefer to use it as an escape method. And when I’m all out of initiative and my steal is recharging and my healing skill is charging and I’m all out of options I would like to have it to just give me a brief way to stealth and run.

Its too slow to use as an escape, and 3 initiative would make it as spammable as heartseeker which is ridiculously stupid.

im gonna be nice and not jump all over you OP cuz i think your approaching this from a better standpoint then other people.

there are a lot of backstab thieves currently, if you dont see them its because they are in stealth “lol”

just becauase you dagger/dagger doesnt mean your stealth based backstabing or HS spamming. there are weapon sets, then there are traits that further flesh out your playstyle.

with shadow arts talents your CnD only costs 4 when it lands which is very acceptable i believe.

as for the part where you want CnD to work even if you dont hit them…i disagree

this is why, the game isnt like other mmos or rpgs, you dont just have a innate % chance to miss or anything, if you miss its because you either too far away or your enemy did something (dodge) to avoid it.

therefore CnD is risk vs reward, you have to land that hit to get your stealth. taking away that aspect simply cuz you dont like it shows that you want the class to be easier because you feel you cant get past the hurdle that is landing a CnD reliably.

same concept for the shadow arts talent really, its only gonna give the two initiative back if you land the hit on CnD (because you wont go into stealth without landing the hit) which means a miss is punished.

you may think “why am i getting punished for missing! thats not fair1” really it is, i mean, look at other classes that are Cd based, they miss with there attacks, there CD still happens, so they have to wait to try and use it again.

its ally remarkably balanced (tho maybe not perfectly)

HS definitely needs an increase in initiative cost. Right now thieves have the best elites (hi 8k damage while invuln to damage and unable to be cc’d, or thieves guild that can take someone from full to half health practically instantly) the best mobility and survivability due to said mobility. Anet didn’t want a perma stealth, but the way it is now stealth also lasts too long for the small initiative costs (due to gaining initiative back when stealthed) CnD definitely does not need a reduction. It needs an increase. Thieves have the highest damage potential with scaling damage attacks, great cc, great gap closers, the best get aways, IMO the best elite skills. As I see it thieves need a rebalancing so that a good thief is a good thief, not just someone who can spam 2 skills and be successful. There is a reason why just about every tourney team has a thief or 2 on it, they offer more than other classes. Thieves should have to choose with their initiative costs either high burst or high survivability. Not be able to have both.

Dee Jay.2460:

I do think Heartseeker should cost 4 Initiative.

Leaping Death Blossom is the ability that needs a cost reduction.

yes for the love of god reduce cost of LDB, its rediculous at 5 for what it does right now.

Valk.4013:

HS definitely needs an increase in initiative cost. Right now thieves have the best elites (hi 8k damage while invuln to damage and unable to be cc’d, or thieves guild that can take someone from full to half health practically instantly) the best mobility and survivability due to said mobility. Anet didn’t want a perma stealth, but the way it is now stealth also lasts too long for the small initiative costs (due to gaining initiative back when stealthed) CnD definitely does not need a reduction. It needs an increase. Thieves have the highest damage potential with scaling damage attacks, great cc, great gap closers, the best get aways, IMO the best elite skills. As I see it thieves need a rebalancing so that a good thief is a good thief, not just someone who can spam 2 skills and be successful. There is a reason why just about every tourney team has a thief or 2 on it, they offer more than other classes. Thieves should have to choose with their initiative costs either high burst or high survivability. Not be able to have both.

considering HS damage was nerfed 20% and the the thresholds changed…really when do we get BOTH high burst and survivability? the only button i can think of is leaping death blossom, and those conditions can be cured.

honestly your post has quite a few misconceptions about thieves.

and lol at best survivability, guadian would like to say hi. or even a sustain engineer.

stealth costs are fine, CnD costs 6, and only costs 4 if you land the CnD and get the stealth, its risk vs reward, we land it, we get 4 cost stealth, we dont, we waisted half our initiative bar. CnD further has a cast time with a obvious animation, the argument “dodge it” is much more applicable then heartseeker.

as for other stealth costs, black powder>HS costs 8! so thats 6 if you successfully do the combo, quite expensive

other ways to stealth are traited steal (lasts 3 seconds with points into shadow arts)

and our heal/utilities which are 30 second Cd and 1 min Cd’s respectively. and the only one that is longer then say 4 seconds TRAITED is shadow refuge, and only if you stand in the circle the entire duration (which smart playres should be aoeing in anyways)

no the real issue is lag

Valk.4013:

HS definitely needs an increase in initiative cost. Right now thieves have the best elites (hi 8k damage while invuln to damage and unable to be cc’d, or thieves guild that can take someone from full to half health practically instantly) the best mobility and survivability due to said mobility. Anet didn’t want a perma stealth, but the way it is now stealth also lasts too long for the small initiative costs (due to gaining initiative back when stealthed) CnD definitely does not need a reduction. It needs an increase. Thieves have the highest damage potential with scaling damage attacks, great cc, great gap closers, the best get aways, IMO the best elite skills. As I see it thieves need a rebalancing so that a good thief is a good thief, not just someone who can spam 2 skills and be successful. There is a reason why just about every tourney team has a thief or 2 on it, they offer more than other classes. Thieves should have to choose with their initiative costs either high burst or high survivability. Not be able to have both.

Dagger Storm elite, while powerful, is not all that awesome as you talk it up to be. During the ~8 seconds of spinning, you move slower, are easily CC’ed (yes, they gain stability, but conditions still work). And they block projectiles, not invulnerable to damage. Melee and AOE still hit them.

Valk.4013:

HS definitely needs an increase in initiative cost. Right now thieves have the best elites (hi 8k damage while invuln to damage and unable to be cc’d, or thieves guild that can take someone from full to half health practically instantly) the best mobility and survivability due to said mobility. Anet didn’t want a perma stealth, but the way it is now stealth also lasts too long for the small initiative costs (due to gaining initiative back when stealthed) CnD definitely does not need a reduction. It needs an increase. Thieves have the highest damage potential with scaling damage attacks, great cc, great gap closers, the best get aways, IMO the best elite skills. As I see it thieves need a rebalancing so that a good thief is a good thief, not just someone who can spam 2 skills and be successful. There is a reason why just about every tourney team has a thief or 2 on it, they offer more than other classes. Thieves should have to choose with their initiative costs either high burst or high survivability. Not be able to have both.

Well, that just sounds like someone is butthurt.

I don’t see how Thieves don’t have to choose between dmg or survive ability. Actually, i think they have to do so more than any other class.

If HS would be further nerfed, it could just be removed as well, since it’s already only worth the initiative if the target is below 25 % health.
Also i don’t see why a single target melee finisher burst skill shouldn’t actually burst, and if a Thief outplays you so incredible well, that he still has tons of initiative left when you are at least below 50 % health (so basically you get auto attacked down by Thieves?), then he should do nothing more but enjoying his well deserved kill with some Heartseekers in your face.
On the other hand, you could just dodge them, but after reading your post i think you are probably not capable of such a thing.

THE best elite skills is also pretty interesting. So in a important teamfight, you would prefer a Basilisk Venom over a Tornado? Ok.

You know there are different situations. A Thief catching a single person with low defense is the point where the Thief shines.
And if you let the Thief shine, just like any other class (except the bugged Necro), then they will.

If you can’t back off when a Thief daggerstorms, then you are probably that kind of person who also runs repeatedly into a tornado, enjoys the view in a 100 blades, or simply loves to walk trough Lich form Marks.

No? Then why the hell play so bad when facing a Thief?
Because if you die to a Thief pressing only 2 buttons, then the only possible answer is bad play (i guess you just panic when facing a Thief, which always leads to terrible play).

But please, keep telling people that the Thief is OP, since Thiefes lately got free kills for me (playing Thief as well), since they actually really only press 2 buttons, because thats what they read in the forums, and after i enjoyed watching them wasting their whole initiative on a HS spam i dodged, i can simply autoattack them down.

But probably my Thief is just more OP than their Thief is, who knows.

Rabbitstew.2756:

Dagger Storm elite, while powerful, is not all that awesome as you talk it up to be. During the ~8 seconds of spinning, you move slower, are easily CC’ed (yes, they gain stability, but conditions still work). And they block projectiles, not invulnerable to damage. Melee and AOE still hit them.

Thats just it, if you’re standing in melee range, you get wrecked. If you choose to try to kite them they can’t be damaged and have stability. They can be snared sure, but given average reaction time you will burst someone more than enough with Dagger storm to force defensive cooldowns and heals all while being immune to projectiles. And AoE’s in this game hit like wet noodles and should not be a valid arguement against an obviously AMAZING elite skill. I suggest playing other classes and seeing their crappy elites and then realizing how amazing your elites are and actually feel like elites, not just another skill to use.

if they reduced the cost of ldb i dont think i would ever die i think it is fine the way it is ,not that id complain if they lowered it but i do pretty good with it the way it is now.

@ Xaphen, LDB relies on such a specific build for tons of initiative and initiative regen. itd be nice if specs that didnt spec exclusively for LDB build could use it without crippling there choices.

Valk.4013:

Rabbitstew.2756:

Dagger Storm elite, while powerful, is not all that awesome as you talk it up to be. During the ~8 seconds of spinning, you move slower, are easily CC’ed (yes, they gain stability, but conditions still work). And they block projectiles, not invulnerable to damage. Melee and AOE still hit them.

Thats just it, if you’re standing in melee range, you get wrecked. If you choose to try to kite them they can’t be damaged and have stability. They can be snared sure, but given average reaction time you will burst someone more than enough with Dagger storm to force defensive cooldowns and heals all while being immune to projectiles. And AoE’s in this game hit like wet noodles and should not be a valid arguement against an obviously AMAZING elite skill. I suggest playing other classes and seeing their crappy elites and then realizing how amazing your elites are and actually feel like elites, not just another skill to use.

I’m just pointing out the misunderstanding around Daggerstorm. You can dish out damage, yes, but you aren’t an invulnerable god while you’re doing it. There are ways to counter it. That said, I love the skill to death and it’s nearly always on my bar.