Guild Wars 2

D/p is annoying to fight but I dont think it needs such a drastic change. The only thing I would change is to make the projectile on Black Powder a non-projectile finisher and have it inflict vulnerability instead, and maybe make Heartseeker + BP break stealth if you hit something. D/d needs a buff to make the #3 useful and dancing dagger more impactful.

OP fails to notice several things. After CnD nerf people migrated from DD to DP because it offered a lot more utility for little to no loss in damage. You could have called DD a “burst set” prior to the abovementioned CnD nerf and Mug nerf but ever since then DP has been outclassing it in almost every way (DD is less ini-heavy). What you propose is to remove the core feature of D/X from DP that is Backstab. And before you come with that ‘stealth-from-utility’ garbage. SP/PP/SB are considered stealth-less sets for a reason.

Now speaking of the dark field itself. I mentioned it long ago in, what I believe was, Profession Balance – if ANET ever does thing as dumb as nerfing DP basing on WvW, let them at least do the following:
1) Keep the blinding pulses as they are.
2) Reduce smoke field duration so that you cannot HS multiple times but still benefit from the blind.
But again, following your idea will result in a bunch of SP and SD thieves spamming 3 for life and what is even worse – it will reduce the amount of effective tPvP specs.

On the side note, I play SD/PD in WvW and I don’t have problems with DP thieves. Black Powder is a short-sighted trap for a X/P user. I have seen top players get busted inside BP because they thought they were invincible inside it. DP roots you in a small area and makes you extremely predictable for the next 3 seconds. Take advantage of it. As a matter of fact I’ve finally, after 1,5 year, got into recording, so expect some clips (with DP thieves as well).
Cheers,
TJ

PS You can pm me here or in-game for some tips if you wish to.

Just buff their damage so they don’t have to stealth that much and die in 3 hits.
Seriously try actually playing theif in wvw and see for yourself how hard it actually is.

What really is dumb, is the Shadow Rejuvenation’s scaling with Healing Power. You get considerable regen while stealthed, with no real investment to Healing Power. With the ease of access to stealth, this makes stealth builds, D/P in particular, extremely easy to play and tedious to play against.

Of course, there’s a whole lot of other things, like warrior’s Healing Signet, that should scale with Healing Power better so that their base heal wouldn’t be so drastic, but that’s a whole another story.

#ReactiveGaming>PassivePlaying

You’d just wish they’d give us better scaling with Healing Power, but they didn’t, Healing Power is a very, very poor attribute on thieves and they must have had their reasons for making it that way.

Kibbles.9813:

(Note that the following mainly pertains to WvW; the current PvP Meta doesn’t use any points in SA anyway)

Whenever I run into a Thief in WvW they’re nearly guaranteed to run one set of D/P and 6 points in SA with Shadow’s Rejuvenation. The whole concept always struck me as a bit of a “training wheels” build since you’re sacrificing a lot of utility and raw damage for the ability to 5+2 your way out of nearly any losing engagement.

While on-demand Stealth is a very important core aspect of the Profession, that particular setup is also incredibly boring to fight against since most (bad) Thieves won’t deal enough damage to be a major threat to you in between having to repeat the BP+HSeeker combo just to stay alive. The main counters to the combo are Interrupts and Stuns / Dazes, both of which you either readily have access to (D/P, S/P, Sleight of Hand) or lack completely. Even then, depending on their loadout a Shadow Arts traited Thief will outheal most of the damage you can lay on them between visibility periods. As an end result, every Thief winds up running D/P because it’s really the only safe way to play against other D/P Thieves, and we end up with a bunch of Black Powder bunnyhopping slap fights.

So this is the crazy suggestion part, but what if Black Powder was changed to a Darkness field instead of a Smoke field? It would still retain the crucial Blind area control that is necessary to survive in melee engagements, but would change the 5+2 to no longer give you a “get out of jail free” card and allow for more strategic use of the skill. Leap Finishers (e.g. HSeeker) would gain target-specific Blindness, and Projectile Finishers (Shadow Shot / Headshot) would gain Lifesteal.

“But my Backstabs!”, I hear the horrified cries of outrage. Shadow Shot would have to receive a buff to compensate for this, but the change would place D/P squarely as a Blind-focused melee setup with tons of potential to remain in melee range effortlessly, limiting Backstabs to Utility-deployed Stealth (Smoke Screen, BP, SR). D/D would return to the high risk / high reward core “Backstab loadout” role; as it stands D/D has very little benefits over D/P aside from greater damage output at a major cost of survivability, and the proposed change would address that.

In closing, here’s the TL;DR:
- Black Powder from Smoke to Darkness combo
- (Major) buff to Shadow Shot
- No more 5+2 spamfests
- Bad Thieves dying in droves

Comments and angry rants welcome! I’d love to hear how this would work / wouldn’t work / why it would be “the final blow to an already dying Profession” / what would be necessary as compensation if this change would take effect.

So instead of 52and 1 “spam” with occasional 3 to close gaps you would like it to become 333 spam only, I see.

Turn black power into a dark field might mess up sword pistol (nobody cares about p/p).
Other than that it would be nice, turn 3 into amove that stealths you after it hits. It costs initiative, has to connect to stealth like cnd (which is so obviously weaker than d/p for that reason).

It might be the new op set, but to clarify I dont think regen is training wheels. A lot of classes have a ton of regen and they are not noob for having it. The main difference is in wvw a thief can just stealth and run away. Which is what any stealth class in any game has ever done lol

Although D/P might be “easy” to play with, I still think it’s the most useful set simply because all 5 skills have their usages.

The whole “omg OP he can run away” mentality is kind of silly to be honest. If a player runs away from you in WvW it means you won the fight. There’s nothing at all to complain about really. If you really wanted to kill players go to PvP or something where running away will cost them the match or point with more direct consequences.

D/P 6 in SA isn’t even the meta in WvW anymore.

I think this is more a issue or boring when it is 2 thieves fighting each other. Both know what damage will come from stealth so both know to avoid backstab as much as possible. D/P gives the “free” stealth and a blind field to help against a /x user. I don’t find D/P thieves difficult on any of my other classes just when your on a thief vs another thief the fight teeters on the verge of 1 or 2 hits.

I run S/D+D/P but mostly use S/D and swap to D/P to go for backstab HS finish when they hit low health.

Many D/P thieves 5,2,1 attempt backstab dodge roll 5,2,1 repeat.

D/P thieves using Shadow Rejuvenation are frustrating, they aren’t impossible to counter, but being able to disengage using Shadow Step, go into stealth and come back for another burst is frustrating unless you can lock them down and take them down.

This is in a 1v1 situation though where some Builds aren’t so balanced in WvW that you’ll need a Build to counter which I don’t like to do.
In a group you’ll often get so focused on you can’t avoid the backstab when it happens.
Any changes to black powder will need consideration towards S/P.

The only thing I can say about all that is that d/p is not a problem whatsoever in pvp. I know you were aiming this at wvw, but changing something based on something as unbalanced and free as wvw is probably a bad decision.

Other than that I dont really see a problem with your suggestion assuming shadowshot was properly adusted

Turning shadowshot into a two part skill, with backstab like damage on the latter half seems fair. This would make it so landing shadowshot doesnt just do tons of damage instantly but gives you an opportunity to have burst with the second part, which is justified as it can be dodged/blocked and you see it coming.

I can honestly say I like the idea. +1 for thinking of something not completely game breaking….. or maybe I like it because it would be…

Just remove shadow rejuv, bads should die without it.

Game is not balanced around 1v1. Sure dp SA thief annoying as hell 1v1 but in team it not much stronger than other weapon set or build. Now the claim that running points SA is training wheels is just silly its very viable to trait into that line esp with all the condition damage everywhere. Also if you are engaging multiple players at once you are going to get hit no matter what so the extra regen helps and many other class have much more healing than the thief.

vincecontix.1264:

Game is not balanced around 1v1. Sure dp SA thief annoying as hell 1v1 but in team it not much stronger than other weapon set or build. Now the claim that running points SA is training wheels is just silly its very viable to trait into that line esp with all the condition damage everywhere. Also if you are engaging multiple players at once you are going to get hit no matter what so the extra regen helps and many other class have much more healing than the thief.

The concern has merit, actually it’s even worst in a non-1v1 fight.

Imagine a 5v5 consists of 5 Thieves vs 5 Warriors. All 5 Thieves backstabs one Warrior, Warrior goes down, blind field, 4s later then the Thieves disappears, heals, then backstabs another Warrior, etc…you get the idea.

So even in a non-1v1 situation, stealth and SR is still something that needs to be looked at.

I’m not in anyway agreeing with the proposition, just saying that the concern has merit especially if the group of Thieves are well organized.

Shouldn’t that be the reward of having such an organized team? Trying something like that seems much harder than you’re making it out to be. It’s a lot harder to time 5 backstabs than it is to say, time 5 shatters.

Kibbles.9813:

It might actually has potential for better synergy even in sPvP. The current Black Powder AoE combo provides Stealth, which is of little benefit in team fights when contesting a point (and might even be a detriment).

If this is how you feel, then you truly do not know the capabilities, and complexity, of the D/P set.

I get it that you are coming from a WvW environment where 30 SA points is virtually standard, but that D/P setup isn’t the primary setup in sPvP. 30 in SA is very much an attrition build, and unfortunately you do not have that much time in sPvP to get your job done. The only way to get D/P SA to work properly in sPvP, is to hope your opposing team is dumb. I mean literally dumb. D/P 30 SA is about as useful as a PU mesmer is in sPvP. It goes to far, and tries to keep as many players there as possible and survive. That is the role of a 30 SA D/P thief in sPvP. It’s as selfish as an S/x build, and incredibly boring to play. Thankfully it’s not the “meta” in sPvP for a reason.

On the contrary the “meta” D/P setup is the most selfless/team supportive build for the thief in sPvP right now fundamentally because of the amount of utility it brings to the table in comparison to all other meta specs.

Funnily enough, D/P is actually in a weaker state than S/x build are right now because it’s so vulnerable to cleave damage and removing the stealth mechanic on the set would only harm it further. This would be unfortunate because D/P relies on so many different combos (usually dependent on what type of stolen item you have, if your elite is up, when to use your elite, when to weapon switch because shortbow on D/P is more than just a mobility weapon – unlike S/x builds – and your interrupts have to land properly) to get its job done. Whereas a S/x build usually relies on one core mechanic – evades. It is so unfortunate that S/x builds are so prectictable in comparison to D/P, but the reason for this is fundamentally because some weapon skills in all other sets rarely have any purpose. Even the steal mechanic, the core mechanic of the thief, is rarely seen being effectively used more than just a gap closer for generally all other weapon sets.

I cannot stress this enough: Bad D/P players are incredibly predictable because they are so dependent on 5, 2-ing all the time. Whereas a good D/P player will try their hardest to be as unpredictable as possible – it is where a major strength of the set lies. If only all other sets could have their flavor of play and be equally as unpredictable as D/P – I can only dream. Unfortunately the major culprit for this not being the case is the fact that, for other sets, there are certain skills which rarely ever see play because they ether don’t really need them, or are just useless.

So finally, what needs to be seen is a whole change to how the SA line operates. Instead of a lot of benefits activating when going into stealth, have them activate when outside/leaving stealth. Secondly, all other weapon sets have to have a better incentive to use all their weapon skills – much like D/P does. D/P, quite frankly, is the only thief set in sPvP that, in my opinion, is well balanced. D/D is crap because it’s a one-trick pony, and I would like to see S/x builds be less of a one-trick pony as well. The best way to do this, again in my opinion, is to create better incentives for players to use their other weapon skills for those sets. They’ve tried to make side-steps in this direction, dancing around the issue, with the addition of the new 30 acro trait but it’s still largely useless. The core issue still remains: There needs to be a good reason to use all weapon skills on all weaponsets. It promotes the need for better initiative management, and more diverse gameplay.

I’m breaking this up into two parts:

Kibbles.9813:

[…]will be able to outlast a Thief with any other loadout by a long shot due to the efficiency and synergy of the set. At this point it no longer feels like you’re fighting a player, but the game mechanics themselves.

Again, as you said, this is largely due to the fact that the D/P set has near perfect synergy. It is an uphill battle for an S/D build against a D/P, sure. At the end of the day though, don’t blame the set, get disappointed at the fact that the other sets have nearly useless skills to work with, given the playstyle of the set.

Kibbles.9813:

If you’re referring to the 2/6/0/0/6 meta, this applies to S/D as well.

It isn’t though. The trickery line does a lot to add utility to any setup, but a d/p trickery thief’s utility is still king over s/d with the same setup. The main reason why you would see an S/D thief run trickery instead of acro in this meta is because of the buff to strength runes. Otherwise, the acro line will always be the superior option for S/D because it complements its playstyle. Just like trickery heavily complements D/P playstyle.

Kibbles.9813:

A good S/D Thief will put as much effort and thought into their actions and initiative spending / stolen item use as a good D/P Thief does.

There is significantly less dependency on how you use your elite, and your steal item skills with S/D. Even the way a person uses shortbow is drastically different between the two sets. Nobody can deny this. It’s one of the reasons why S/x builds are so widely used in the sPvP scene.

Kibbles.9813:

[…] addressing [weapon skill reworks] would require an entire weapons overhaul which isn’t going to be the case anytime soon.

I disagree. I don’t think it would take much to tweak the few skills that need to be looked at. We should strive to have all weaponsets have such good synergy as the d/p set. We should be looking for many different – solid – playstyles. d/p as it stands now, is a unique way to play. We shouldn’t kill it off.

Kibbles.9813:

Instead we now have everyone running D/P for the foreseeable time because the skill floor on the set is so incredibly low.

In WvW, this might be true. But the dominant spec has been (for a while now) S/x builds fundamentally because of its ease of use due to the higher survivability (and point contention, to some extent) in tradeoff of spike potential. Additionally, S/x builds are the go-to spec if you want to try and zone out a critical enemy (usually someone who aoe bombs the team from range).

Kibbles.9813:

At the end of the day D/P does come down to 5+2 to deploy burst, whether you execute the combo unpredictably or not

Each weapon set has 5 weapon skills to work with. There is limitations to what a person can do for all classes because of this. Again at the end of the day, a shatter mesmer fundamentally uses zerker phant into mirror blade into shatter to deal its damage. The difference between poorly designed weaponsets and good ones is how they play off of their other weaponset, the class mechanic, the playstyle, the different ways you can execute your combos, and knowing the positives and negatives of each of the many different ways to execute your killing blows. As an example: shatter mesmer has this, d/p trickery thief has this; and on the contrary, hambow warrior, or greatsword guardian ether don’t have to really think about what they are doing, or are so ridiculously predictable that it’s sad.

It’s certainly true that d/p SA caters to the same players who would be good at a greatsword guardian, but the d/p set doesn’t stop there with its complexity – which is a good thing. You can certainly kill bronze league people with zerg rushing, but that doesn’t mean the zerg race is noob-land.

Kibbles.9813:

[…]it requires considerable amounts of counterplay to shut down

This is just simply not true. Moreover, it isn’t even relegated specifically to the d/p set. It’s also involved with the S/x set as well. S/x also have small windows of opportunity to take advantage of. At the end of the day though, if a person/teamfight wants a thief dead – especially a d/p thief – they can get it done easily by timing/coordinating their attacks correctly. This is good, and every class should require the same amount of counterplay (and for the most extent – with the good specs at least, and if played well – they do). This drives gameplay away from mindless rotations/combos and more towards timed, intentional, counterplay. In your words, it makes the game harder in a good sense of the word – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Kibbles.9813:

[…]rank near equally effective with appropriate utilization but require a greater investment in both effort and understanding of profession dynamics.

This again is simply untrue. The fundamental reason why we see S/x builds more in sPvP is because they are easier to play, have incredible mobility, and can still zone out players very effectively. Their defensive structure is “internal” through dodges and not “external” like d/p is. On the flip side, d/p is squishier, but provides good team support because of this. The cost though, for many players, is too high to run d/p. So they run with S/x builds instead because they have an easier time dealing with all the random crap that might happen in a teamfight.

Kibbles.9813:

If Shadow Shot was changed […]

Shadow shot doesn’t need to be changed. Maybe remove the unblockable effect on it – since it carries so much weight already – but it doesn’t really need to be changed.

but the consensus of D/P outclassing the other sets be it by utility or ease of use appears common.

This just simply isn’t true. S/x is far more common than d/p. In WvW, sure there are a dozen d/p players, and a dime a dozen of them are terrible SA players. In fact, no offense to WvW’ers, most of the WvW’ers can be classified as killshot bait. But I don’t see how Anet should focus much of their attention on micro-balancing a world with literally hundereds of people playing against each other at one point in time.

Proxy-cheese is powerful in Starcraft to bronze league players. Riki is ridiculously powerful in low rank pugs. D/P SA is powerful against many players in WvW.

a t s e.9614:

Just remove shadow rejuv, bads should die without it.

You’re just bad…thief bait.

Tachii.3506:

Although D/P might be “easy” to play with, I still think it’s the most useful set simply because all 5 skills have their usages.

The whole “omg OP he can run away” mentality is kind of silly to be honest. If a player runs away from you in WvW it means you won the fight. There’s nothing at all to complain about really. If you really wanted to kill players go to PvP or something where running away will cost them the match or point with more direct consequences.

I died a couple of times yesterday because warrs and guards dragged me over the whole map into their guild zergs…wasn’t able to down them XD.
Every class can get away if it wants

For all of the reasons WvW roaming is unbalanced and sPvP is balanced is why D/P 6 SA is king. Capture points! In WvW roaming I use this spec. For a long time. Training wheels? How do you beat a 2k condition damage engineer/necro without 6 in SA. When I see another bunny hopping D/P thief with 6 in SA I try and down him within 30 secs. Once he uses Refuge I use mine as well and keep it moving to the next camp. It is an annoying spec. because there is no rush to kill anyone unlike PvP I do not lose anything by resetting the fight constantly. I can “attrition” my opponents to death with superior damage mitigation through blinds and healing from shadows rejuv. This type of attrition is what I wanted on my other class the necro – which does not exist. There truly is no purpose to balancing based on WvW roaming. Good players still kill me as cheesy as I am. I also do 2 or 3v1 every single night I roam as well. The disparity in skill from roamer to roamer is far too big to ever think of balancing that aspect of the game. Roaming is not really a supported game format. Also in sPvP like everyone has already stated no one uses SA. D/P is borderline underpowered in PvP and does not see much use in PvE. So it is OP in a game format that really does not exist. Roaming is a community created game format. Meh

Lamuness.3570:

Shouldn’t that be the reward of having such an organized team? Trying something like that seems much harder than you’re making it out to be. It’s a lot harder to time 5 backstabs than it is to say, time 5 shatters.

There’s no timing involve for the backstab. The 5 thieves simply have to pick a target and which of them will drop the next Blackpowder that everyone can jump into for stealth. Not to mention all the shared buffs they can give each other.

The point is, whether it’s 1v1 or 5v5, the concern is the same but only easier to execute because if all 5 Thieves have the same exact build, you’ll always have a Shadow’s Refuge out of cool down and enough initiatives for blackpowder.

5 of any burst is ridiculous…its kind of a dumb argument. 5 earth shakers ommmmggg, 5 zerker staff eles aoe ohmygod. You name it and its ridiculous.

i honestly doubt a group of 5 thieves would kill a group of 5 warriors ( unless the warriors are bad ) , 1 v 1 is a different story though .

Anyways the OP’s idea is a horrible one, this nerf suggestion of his isn’t and shouldn’t even be considered by the dev team and i say this as someone who find fighting D/P thieves super annoying.

If other weapon sets of the thief are weak compared to d/p then you buff said sets instead of nerfing down the stronger set to the weaker ones’ level.

attrail.8613:

5 of any burst is ridiculous…its kind of a dumb argument. 5 earth shakers ommmmggg, 5 zerker staff eles aoe ohmygod. You name it and its ridiculous.

Exactly! That’s why the discussion is based on a 1v1 scenario because taking the whole team into account would be ridiculous.

TheThiefMaster.3812:

i honestly doubt a group of 5 thieves would kill a group of 5 warriors ( unless the warriors are bad )

Then you have not seen it. All it takes is to down one Warrior then another Warrior has to rez the fallen one, which easily makes a 5v5 into 5v3 and it’s all down hill from there. To escape, all it takes is one of the 5 Thieves to drop a blackpowder for everyone else to jump into.

Warrior excels in a 1v1 because they can mitigate most of the damage coming from one source, but if the damage is coming from 5 different sources, they go down so fast before they can think.

As a matter of fact I would love to give up SA in WvW. However it’s impossible to fight any half-decent cond class without it; not to mention 1vX. If only Invigorating Precision was better we would be able to get some sick builds but atm SA is the only way to sustain yourself.

Imagine 10/30/0/0/30 Generosity+Purity SD/DP <3

TheThiefMaster.3812:

i honestly doubt a group of 5 thieves would kill a group of 5 warriors ( unless the warriors are bad ).

Honestly, I think that’s a situational example with too many variables. But I think it is unwise to state that in general a group of 5 thieves would not kill a group of 5 warriors. Because it depends on the kind of skills that are being run by both parties.

Certainly, at face value I think it is entirely possible for a group of 5 thieves to defeat a group of 5 warriors, assuming the thieves are actually competent at playing their class, which more often than not doesn’t seem to be the case, unfortunately.

With regards to OP, I don’t think it’s necessary to change Black Powder into a darkness field. And I don’t think it’s necessary to remove SA in general. Shadow Rejuvenation is good if you are roaming alone in wvw; and Venom Share is fantastic if you’re running in a small group, especially if it’s with other Venom Share thieves.

I don’t think Shadow Rejuvenation or SA is the problem. I think the problem is that many people don’t want to leave their little black powder ring, and simply stand in it when they’re fighting. D/P is very versatile I think it’s kind of sad that people are restricting themselves to 1,2, and 5 skills and to a very small area. But, I don’t think nerfing is the solution to this. <3 Shadow Shot.

So, I guess I disagree and agree at the same time. I don’t think anything should be nerfed, but I do think that it would be nice if people realized the versatility of the class they are playing.

It’s not like Condi in Spvp are not a big deal but we just basically outplay them.

instead of going for a cheap way out . . .

NiffyinaJiffy.1532:

With regards to OP, I don’t think it’s necessary to change Black Powder into a darkness field. And I don’t think it’s necessary to remove SA in general. Shadow Rejuvenation is good if you are roaming alone in wvw; and Venom Share is fantastic if you’re running in a small group, especially if it’s with other Venom Share thieves.

I don’t think Shadow Rejuvenation or SA is the problem. I think the problem is that many people don’t want to leave their little black powder ring, and simply stand in it when they’re fighting. D/P is very versatile I think it’s kind of sad that people are restricting themselves to 1,2, and 5 skills and to a very small area. But, I don’t think nerfing is the solution to this. <3 Shadow Shot.

I wouldn’t call venom share fantastic with its limited range and overall inferiority with venom-related skills.

In group play with less emphasis on staying in stealth, one can just get 3 in Acrobatics instead for an extra dodge or the blind on stealth trait for even more blindness. This really isn’t relevant to the thread though, and I’d love to see more changes occur for venoms (and traps).

Dumb suggestion, d/p needs stealth from black powder. D/P is already UP in spvp, go away please….

One could legitimately make the argument that trickery is training wheels.

The pros don’t wanna hear that but trickery >>> SA

tom.7468:

Just buff their damage so they don’t have to stealth that much and die in 3 hits.
Seriously try actually playing theif in wvw and see for yourself how hard it actually is.

I kind of find it amusing how everyone cry over thief which is the most squishy with decent damage class.

I have to agree with you TC, I do dislike the D/P spam for the reasons you listed. If you fight any D/P thief, it makes the fight last longer than it should. I also agree that the change to the Black Powder should be done (preferably for WvW alone), since not only does this get rid of a really irritating setup in WvW, it also gets rid of stealth spamming thieves to a degree unless there’s a zerg to coast on using CnD.

For the class to become better at surviving, we need to show to Anet how well thieves survive out of stealth (meaning not that well unless specced for it). Such a change could even lead to them boosting our base stats.

Kibbles.9813:

(Note that the following mainly pertains to WvW; the current PvP Meta doesn’t use any points in SA anyway)

Whenever I run into a Thief in WvW they’re nearly guaranteed to run one set of D/P and 6 points in SA with Shadow’s Rejuvenation. The whole concept always struck me as a bit of a “training wheels” build since you’re sacrificing a lot of utility and raw damage for the ability to 5+2 your way out of nearly any losing engagement.

While on-demand Stealth is a very important core aspect of the Profession, that particular setup is also incredibly boring to fight against since most (bad) Thieves won’t deal enough damage to be a major threat to you in between having to repeat the BP+HSeeker combo just to stay alive. The main counters to the combo are Interrupts and Stuns / Dazes, both of which you either readily have access to (D/P, S/P, Sleight of Hand) or lack completely. Even then, depending on their loadout a Shadow Arts traited Thief will outheal most of the damage you can lay on them between visibility periods. As an end result, every Thief winds up running D/P because it’s really the only safe way to play against other D/P Thieves, and we end up with a bunch of Black Powder bunnyhopping slap fights.

So this is the crazy suggestion part, but what if Black Powder was changed to a Darkness field instead of a Smoke field? It would still retain the crucial Blind area control that is necessary to survive in melee engagements, but would change the 5+2 to no longer give you a “get out of jail free” card and allow for more strategic use of the skill. Leap Finishers (e.g. HSeeker) would gain target-specific Blindness, and Projectile Finishers (Shadow Shot / Headshot) would gain Lifesteal.

“But my Backstabs!”, I hear the horrified cries of outrage. Shadow Shot would have to receive a buff to compensate for this, but the change would place D/P squarely as a Blind-focused melee setup with tons of potential to remain in melee range effortlessly, limiting Backstabs to Utility-deployed Stealth (Smoke Screen, BP, SR). D/D would return to the high risk / high reward core “Backstab loadout” role; as it stands D/D has very little benefits over D/P aside from greater damage output at a major cost of survivability, and the proposed change would address that.

In closing, here’s the TL;DR:
- Black Powder from Smoke to Darkness combo
- (Major) buff to Shadow Shot
- No more 5+2 spamfests
- Bad Thieves dying in droves

Comments and angry rants welcome! I’d love to hear how this would work / wouldn’t work / why it would be “the final blow to an already dying Profession” / what would be necessary as compensation if this change would take effect.

Well changing how BP works will affect DP in PvP as well. It makes much more sense to change specific traits in SA, eg. tone down the rejuv from the GM.

Tachii.3506:

NiffyinaJiffy.1532:

With regards to OP, I don’t think it’s necessary to change Black Powder into a darkness field. And I don’t think it’s necessary to remove SA in general. Shadow Rejuvenation is good if you are roaming alone in wvw; and Venom Share is fantastic if you’re running in a small group, especially if it’s with other Venom Share thieves.

I don’t think Shadow Rejuvenation or SA is the problem. I think the problem is that many people don’t want to leave their little black powder ring, and simply stand in it when they’re fighting. D/P is very versatile I think it’s kind of sad that people are restricting themselves to 1,2, and 5 skills and to a very small area. But, I don’t think nerfing is the solution to this. <3 Shadow Shot.

I wouldn’t call venom share fantastic with its limited range and overall inferiority with venom-related skills.

In group play with less emphasis on staying in stealth, one can just get 3 in Acrobatics instead for an extra dodge or the blind on stealth trait for even more blindness. This really isn’t relevant to the thread though, and I’d love to see more changes occur for venoms (and traps).

I’ve never had a problem with venom share range being an issue. Sure, it has a limited range, but it is up to you as the thief to get into a better position so that that range isn’t an issue. However, I think what we have there are subjective differences in what we preferably see as ‘better’ play styles.

I’m curious why someone can’t have 3 in acrobatics and 6 in SA, for instance. Of course this all depends on what build a person is running initially and what someone is comfortable with for their play style. I still think venom share is fantastic, but this opinion is simply based on the fact that I have yet to have a single problem with it. There are still other ways that an individual can add blind to enemy players without traiting for descent of shadows for instance and without solely relying on black powder.

While this isn’t necessarily conducive to the thread as a whole, I’m curious as to what sort of build you’re running, Tachii, and if possible (perhaps some place else), we can continue this conversation.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I have to agree with you TC, I do dislike the D/P spam for the reasons you listed. If you fight any D/P thief, it makes the fight last longer than it should. I also agree that the change to the Black Powder should be done (preferably for WvW alone), since not only does this get rid of a really irritating setup in WvW, it also gets rid of stealth spamming thieves to a degree unless there’s a zerg to coast on using CnD.

For the class to become better at surviving, we need to show to Anet how well thieves survive out of stealth (meaning not that well unless specced for it). Such a change could even lead to them boosting our base stats.

If something annoys you it doesn’t mean it needs to be changed because you don’t like it. Annoyance =/= unbalanced.

Anet knows how thieves survive out of stealth it’s called S/P with Pistol whip and S/D with Flanking strike and evades. Martyring to get base stats improved not many people will hop on that train.

Your balance perspective just kind of struck me as odd.

oZii.2864:

If something annoys you it doesn’t mean it needs to be changed because you don’t like it. Annoyance =/= unbalanced.

I agree with this line of thinking as a whole, but with stealth, it’s annoying BECAUSE it’s unbalanced. Somebody enters stealth, you’ve just lost targetting and they’re invisible. It can’t even be removed outside of WvW’s stealth traps unless the stealth runs out or the thief scores a direct hit on anything, meaning dodging and blocking won’t even remove it when they really should (since it gives a counter to stealth). And with so many moves in this game requiring a target to work, the loss of targetting alone can prove to be a hindrance. That’s not bad if the stealth they used is a utility, considering it’s going to take some time to get that stealth back (at least 20 seconds), even IF they have the Hidden Thief trait and full points in the trickery traitline.

However, when you have a combo you can use to re-enter stealth that has little to no counters due to it being easily spammable from range and doesn’t require your target to be hit, that’s a problem. I’m not including Cloak and Dagger as a problem because it requires close range and for the target to be hit by the move, meaning the thief will be seen coming and the move can be dodged, blocked, or the area around the target can be turned into a literal minefield of AoEs.

oZii.2864:

Anet knows how thieves survive out of stealth it’s called S/P with Pistol whip and S/D with Flanking strike and evades. Martyring to get base stats improved not many people will hop on that train.

Nobody with half a mind will use S/P in WvW, it’s too easy to get killed using it. S/D I do agree though is amazing survivability if the player knows what they’re doing. And I’m sorry, but everybody who is thief wants better survivability outside of stealth, but to do that they have to gut something about stealth itself to even it out, most likely the access to it. Just changing Black Powder alone to a Darkness field instantly guts access to stealth in a way without it being overdone.