Guild Wars 2

We all know the promises that the elite specializations were given and how basically none of them lived to see the light of day, SO we are stuck with it for however long that may be.

Some professions have the decency to be very viable without specializations but can do much better with them while some core professions are just far to behind in comparison with their elite specializations that they are locked into 2 if not only 1 trait line to choose from making build diversity non-existent.

Daredevil imho is complete toxicity for thief and here is why.

-Directly caused nerfs to acrobatics since the combination would of been too strong, so rather than keeping daredevil from being to strong they decided to make it acrobatics 2.0 and even still, acrobatics falls short.

-Promotes incredibly unhealthy play styles of “spam” behavior. Whether it be d/d evade spam, d/p easier stealth (bound), being near impossible to lock down with UC (not saying they can’t be, but DD is an excuse to say thief can escape easier making it almost mandatory), and even pulmonary impact with headshot spam. Basically DD makes it easier to spam things than before, many of which were already complained about for being unbalanced or flawed by design.

-with thief being essentially locked into trickery already, daredevil removed another trait line selection from builds, drastically lowering build diversity.

LONG story short, I’d rather not see thief as a profession be dumbed down because of this flawed specialization but I’d also like to not see all other trait lines over buffed to only promote the power creep just so they can compete with daredevil. I know other professions face similar but thief is locked into 1 trait line and with issues still with the weapon skills, even weapon choice isn’t that good. Thief needs changes, and although it has gotten some nice changes in small packages, there needs to be a campaign started to get this profession in a healthy light. Daredevil is in a good spot compared to the rest of the professions but as a whole thief is not even close and that needs to change.

Many people have their suggestions on what should change, many are good, but there needs to be action from a developer to sit down and openly talk about thief, preferably a developer who actually cares about thief and isn’t just stuck with the project. Some core things that thief needs changed is

-remove dependency on trickery(and daredevil, but that won’t happen for sometime). At the moment trickery augments steal to be very useful rather than imo, fairly weak. It also 9/10 times is being used as an on-demand interrupt (sleight of hand) which is huge for thief to have. With that however also limits GM trait choice so trickery becomes a staple on every build with little variation in the adept and major trait selection. It’s simple to be perfectly honest, look at the builds that are out there and you will see why they flock to trickery and find a way to eliminate that necessity either through making things baseline or relocating/changing them to actually be optional for build diversity. Even if they are put into a different trait line or merged somewhere for a new trait to try out, just get rid of the current set up.

-Separate daredevil and acrobatics purposes. I’d say acrobatics was here first but really it doesn’t matter, we don’t need 2 (1 obviously better than the other) trait lines that focus on the same effect. Also we don’t need repeated traits like VR and FG in acrobatics, FG already gives us near permanent vigor without thinking about it, and then you have “don’t stop” GM acrobatics VS. Unhindered combatant GM Daredevil. Separate these trait lines and their traits, 1 or the other, needs to be redone entirely (SEE POST BELOW).

-Look at the initiative management of each weapon set and adjust, even if preparedness was made baseline there are still unbalanced initiative costs between weapon sets. Also look into poor performing sets/skills and don’t factor in any traits to see what issues they have. Things like damage, functionality (evade frames, cast/aftercast times, range/speed, etc). This way you can see what the real issues are and rather than forcing people into a path to make it viable but those who don’t go down that route are stuck with a weak skill or build (main culprit, Bound and BPS, there are others though like VA and venoms for utilities)

-Like with all professions….. rework traits/utilities that don’t do any good. Everyone has their lists and suggestions, I’ll just leave it at that.

The real problem with Dare Devil is how good Unhindered Combatant is. IMO it is the best trait in the game hands down. Bound and Lotus Training are actually very strong traits but pale in comparison. Without that trait, Dare Devil wouldn’t be nearly as powerful for a lot of builds.

Acro is one of the stronger defensive trait lines and IMO completely underrated. It has one of the best tier 1 condi clear traits of any class. Hard to Catch is solid. While Don’t Stop falls short compared to Unhindered Combatant what trait is even remotely as good as that one?

Acro’s real purpose is that it opens up the use of Lotus Training or Bound both of which are impressive traits that can define a build.

[Acrobatics] Now acts as Daredevil traits (name fits better)

Adept
-(minor)Physical Supremacy: Same
-(MAJOR) Brawler’s Tenacity: Same
-(MAJOR) Driven Fortitude: when you evade you gain swiftness and heal yourself. Swiftness 5 seconds, heal 456^(0.1).
-(MAJOR) Weakening Strikes: Same
Master
-(minor)Feline Grace: Gain vigor when you evade. Vigor duration 5 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Endurance Thief: Same
-(MAJOR) Impacting Disruption: Add 2 second ICD.
-(MAJOR) Staff Mastery: Same
Grandmaster
-(minor) Endless Stamina: Vigor effects you apply are enhanced and remove 1 condition when applied. Vigor effectiveness increase 25% (75% endurance regen). Now works on BT for allies.
-(MAJOR) Bounding Dodger: lower damage of leap to ~465^(1.45)
-(MAJOR) Lotus Training: Change Lower bleeding duration to 6 seconds and torment duration to 4 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Unhindered Combatant: Change Remove swiftness, ignore incoming immobilizing effects periodically which become cripple instead. ICD 10 seconds. Cripple 3 seconds. Same condition removal and distance traveled.

[Daredevil] Now takes place of acrobatic traits. Focused on sword/x and being in melee range.

Adept
-(minor) Fast travel: Gain superspeed when you shadowstep. 2 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Duelist: Dual sword skills perform faster. 25% speed increase(both parts).
-(MAJOR) Havoc Mastery: Gain increased damage to foes within range. After stealing a boon this amount is doubled for a short time. 5% increased Damage. Bonus duration 4 seconds. Radius 360.
-(MAJOR) Pain response: Same
Master
-(minor) Vigorous Recovery: Gain vigor when you break stun or use a healing skill. Vigor duration 7 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Deceptive Theft: Remove a boon from foes you shadowstep to. When you remove(steal) a boon from a foe apply slow. Slow duration 1.5 seconds
-(MAJOR)) Hard to Catch: Merged with instant reflexes, applies 2 second evade after this trait shadowsteps you upon incoming disable. ICD 35 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Bountiful loot: Gain increased boon duration after stealing a boon. This effect stacks 5 times. 3% boon duration for 10 seconds.
Grandmaster
-(minor) Steady Recovery: Gain 2 initiative when you use a healing skill.
-(MAJOR) Assassin’s Reward: Same.
-(MAJOR) Swindler’s Equilibrium: Same.
-(MAJOR) Shadow Leap: Increase shadowstepping range by 300 units.

Thief has always been ‘locked’ to certain traits just because of its design.

DA and Trickery have been ‘must have’ trait lines for years. If you ran D/P, you went with SA. If you went S/D, you went with Acro.

Daredevil hasn’t really done anything differently.

As far as ‘spam’ playstyle goes, that’s an issue with the staff design more than anything. If you’re playing D/P and are spamming anything, you’re doing it very wrong.

And yes, the condi D/D build also has problems, but it’s more than just Daredevil causing that. This is basically the same as the ‘Unicorn’ build that was around for a while long ago. It plays the same by spamming death blossom and dodges, but just doesn’t hide in stealth the whole time. Daredevil along with the recent trickery change just allowed this strategy to do enough damage to be semi-viable again, but it didn’t encourage the ‘spam’ behavior anymore than it already was.

Thieves have always been locked into a trait because of how good it was. Just because Daredevil is an ‘Elite’ spec doesn’t mean that there’s really anything different going on here.

The issues you’re describing are tied more directly to the core mechanics of thieves than anything else.

Straegen.2938:

The real problem with Dare Devil is how good Unhindered Combatant is. IMO it is the best trait in the game hands down. Bound and Lotus Training are actually very strong traits but pale in comparison. Without that trait, Dare Devil wouldn’t be nearly as powerful for a lot of builds.

Acro is one of the stronger defensive trait lines and IMO completely underrated. It has one of the best tier 1 condi clear traits of any class. Hard to Catch is solid. While Don’t Stop falls short compared to Unhindered Combatant what trait is even remotely as good as that one?

Acro’s real purpose is that it opens up the use of Lotus Training or Bound both of which are impressive traits that can define a build.

My issue with acro is that it falls behind daredevil and it pushes for the same playstyle of evasion defense. Everything that acrobatics has to offer can be outdone with Dardevil, 100%.

PR is much better than it was before but its also isn’t as strong as the description may seem. You could get hit with just a few skills, be below 75% health and have bleed tossed on you and it activates leaving you wide open for 16 seconds to be overloaded and melted with conditions. For how short of a cooldown it may be, you don’t need very long to kill a thief. Not to say this trait alone should fix that, but just stating that it isn’t as strong as it seems.

1 play style thief really lacks is being an effective duelist, and I don’t consider going in and out of stealth and using shadow shot and steal to bounce around to be dueling. By dueling I mean being able to be in the fight and not dependent on evade spam and build up momentum to be a tough target but effective at shutting someone down, specifically someone like a boon heavy support. We have the set up started with s/d and BT but its not all the way through to be a complete build, which I think would be a great alternative to having 2 evasive trait lines.

NinjaEd.3946:

My issue with acro is that it falls behind daredevil and it pushes for the same playstyle of evasion defense. Everything that acrobatics has to offer can be outdone with Dardevil, 100%.

DD is clearly one of the stronger trait lines just like Trickery. What makes it a “must have” still centers around UC which is mobility condi removal, speed, mobility, evade and damage reduction. UC is or at least is in the running for the strongest trait in the game. Any class would build around that trait if they could.

NinjaEd.3946:

PR is much better than it was before but its also isn’t as strong as the description may seem. You could get hit with just a few skills, be below 75% health and have bleed tossed on you and it activates leaving you wide open for 16 seconds to be overloaded and melted with conditions.

PR is ridiculously good and far better than Escapists. IMO it is better than Shadows Embrace as well. Paired with Shadow Step condi is sort of an after thought.

NinjaEd.3946:

1 play style thief really lacks is being an effective duelist,
…
specifically someone like a boon heavy support. We have the set up started with s/d and BT but its not all the way through to be a complete build, which I think would be a great alternative to having 2 evasive trait lines.

Without evasion/stealth the class simply cannot stand in on the current AoE or CC spam meta. Venom Share is quite powerful in a team setting which is as close as we are going to get for boon support. I don’t see Anet changing that outside of a new Elite spec though.

Straegen.2938:

NinjaEd.3946:

1 play style thief really lacks is being an effective duelist,
…
specifically someone like a boon heavy support. We have the set up started with s/d and BT but its not all the way through to be a complete build, which I think would be a great alternative to having 2 evasive trait lines.

Without evasion/stealth the class simply cannot stand in on the current AoE or CC spam meta. Venom Share is quite powerful in a team setting which is as close as we are going to get for boon support. I don’t see Anet changing that outside of a new Elite spec though.

That’s what I think could be solved if the traits were changed to a specific weapon type and augment just that weapon so when it comes to amulet or rune selection you could build much more sturdy without losing a huge chunk of dps.

This way you can’t make existing builds like d/x or staff even stronger.

NinjaEd.3946:

[Acrobatics] Now acts as Daredevil traits (name fits better)

Adept
-(minor)Physical Supremacy: Same
-(MAJOR) Brawler’s Tenacity: Same
-(MAJOR) Driven Fortitude: when you evade you gain swiftness and heal yourself. Swiftness 5 seconds, heal 456^(0.1).
-(MAJOR) Weakening Strikes: Same

Acrobatic should be a defense trait line thus Physical, Brawler’s and Weakening should not be here and they should stay with DD. Although, the 3rd dodge from Physical should stay. Adding Driven to Acro would improve this trait line big time.

Master
-(minor)Feline Grace: Gain vigor when you evade. Vigor duration 5 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Endurance Thief: Same
-(MAJOR) Impacting Disruption: Add 2 second ICD.
-(MAJOR) Staff Mastery: Same

Again, same sentiment towards non-defensive traits. ID and SM should stay with DD. Bring back HtC since it is the most appropriate trait for Acro along side with Escapist Absolution.

I’m really against any trait that favors a specific weapon like Staff Mastery, so I rather see this effect as a minor Adept for DD where every weapon skill use will return endurance per initiative spent.

Grandmaster
-(minor) Endless Stamina: Vigor effects you apply are enhanced and remove 1 condition when applied. Vigor effectiveness increase 25% (75% endurance regen). Now works on BT for allies.
-(MAJOR) Bounding Dodger: lower damage of leap to ~465^(1.45)
-(MAJOR) Lotus Training: Change Lower bleeding duration to 6 seconds and torment duration to 4 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Unhindered Combatant: Change Remove swiftness, ignore incoming immobilizing effects periodically which become cripple instead. ICD 10 seconds. Cripple 3 seconds. Same condition removal and distance traveled.

BD and LT should stay with DD for the same reason as above since they are damage focused. UC should have been in Acro from the very beginning and no ICD, that’s just bad design.

Bottom line, all damage traits should stay with DD and all defense trait brought into Acro. Remove any weapon specific traits and make some traits’ effect baseline.

Lol @ unhindered combatant being some sort of godly trait. It’s best use is for map completion and wvw to escape blobs.

Get used to it.

Elite specs are the new balance target for the game. Their mistake wasn’t making daredevil better than base thief (or any elite spec petter than the base class) but rather releasing that system with only one elite spec option to begin with.

Core trait lines must be inferior on some level because they can be combined with all future elite specs. That’s just a reality of the system. Build diversity is never going to be “you can use an elite spec or core” going forward, it’s going to be “you have a choice of elite specs to use, and you can use some or all of the features of the one you pick”

Acrobatics CAN’T be a viable alternative to DD simply because it has the potential to stack with DD any more than some elite spec can be a worse version of ciritical strikes or shadow arts.

Also, you’re delusional if you think there’s any universe in which a company puts out an expansion and cares at all about fair balance toward people that refuse to financially support their game by buying the occasional expansion. It’s like expecting better service at a restaurant despite the fact you never tip the servers.

You’re basically asking them to invest additional effort to give people reasons NOT to pay them for their work. That’s just dumb.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

NinjaEd.3946:

[Acrobatics] Now acts as Daredevil traits (name fits better)

Adept
-(minor)Physical Supremacy: Same
-(MAJOR) Brawler’s Tenacity: Same
-(MAJOR) Driven Fortitude: when you evade you gain swiftness and heal yourself. Swiftness 5 seconds, heal 456^(0.1).
-(MAJOR) Weakening Strikes: Same

Acrobatic should be a defense trait line thus Physical, Brawler’s and Weakening should not be here and they should stay with DD. Although, the 3rd dodge from Physical should stay. Adding Driven to Acro would improve this trait line big time.

Master
-(minor)Feline Grace: Gain vigor when you evade. Vigor duration 5 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Endurance Thief: Same
-(MAJOR) Impacting Disruption: Add 2 second ICD.
-(MAJOR) Staff Mastery: Same

Again, same sentiment towards non-defensive traits. ID and SM should stay with DD. Bring back HtC since it is the most appropriate trait for Acro along side with Escapist Absolution.

I’m really against any trait that favors a specific weapon like Staff Mastery, so I rather see this effect as a minor Adept for DD where every weapon skill use will return endurance per initiative spent.

Grandmaster
-(minor) Endless Stamina: Vigor effects you apply are enhanced and remove 1 condition when applied. Vigor effectiveness increase 25% (75% endurance regen). Now works on BT for allies.
-(MAJOR) Bounding Dodger: lower damage of leap to ~465^(1.45)
-(MAJOR) Lotus Training: Change Lower bleeding duration to 6 seconds and torment duration to 4 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Unhindered Combatant: Change Remove swiftness, ignore incoming immobilizing effects periodically which become cripple instead. ICD 10 seconds. Cripple 3 seconds. Same condition removal and distance traveled.

BD and LT should stay with DD for the same reason as above since they are damage focused. UC should have been in Acro from the very beginning and no ICD, that’s just bad design.

Bottom line, all damage traits should stay with DD and all defense trait brought into Acro. Remove any weapon specific traits and make some traits’ effect baseline.

The trait name changes, all I did is put evasive/physical/staff traits into acrobatics and sword/brawler based traits into daredevil. The name is really irrelevant as much as which trait line the traits are placed. As for weapon specific traits, they imo should remain major traits so that it is optional. Making them minor only makes the whole trait line an issue since you cannot invest only partially into trait lines.

The whole change in a nutshell is to push all “evasive” traits into Acrobatics and place a little offensive/defensive traits into Daredevil for the melee brute play style.

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re basically asking them to invest additional effort to give people reasons NOT to pay them for their work. That’s just dumb.

Or you just dumb down the trait system, introduce powercreept traitlines and lock them behind a paywall whilst watching your playerbase dwindle because of nonexistant balance.

I doubt they’ll do anything for reasons Pope Urban mentioned. Even if they did, I’d be fine with them scrapping Acro, merging over some traits from Acro to DD, nering/buffing a few things instead, and just giving the thief a different-style traitline (Why not say, revealed for the toe-to-toe build, or much better condition synergy? Or both, since DA has synergy with both of these?)

I agree entirely with the OP, though. DD is spammy and really deteriorates the thief as a profession. A lot of the buffs lately have also been promoting spammy play instead of skilled execution in play, such as AA increases and the changes to LA.

I actually played core thief since HoT came out till i reached diamond in season 2. I was forced to reroll DD (otherwise i simply wouldn’t be able to reach legend probably) because of 2 things:
- revenants (too many high damaging spells to dodge that can’t be interrupted in most cases, 6 sec reveal on 20 sec CD hurts too much)
- scrappers (too many high damaging to dodge hat can’t be interrupted in most cases, 6 sec reveal on 20 sec CD hurts too much)

See the pattern? Great balancing job lel.

In season 1 most revs ran condis and most of your teammates were supporty so it was ok. However since meta switched to more dmg and revs started to run marauder it simply became impossible to run core at higher levels in pvp anymore.

I agree DD is toxic to our prof, but so are all elites. All elites need nerfs. Period. 6 sec reveal on 20 sec CD needs to go, thief already got plenty of one shot things to dodge w/o this idiotic spells locking thief out entire trait line for so long.

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re basically asking them to invest additional effort to give people reasons NOT to pay them for their work. That’s just dumb.

I’m not asking them to work acrobatics around daredevil, I’m asking for them to separate them so they aren’t so similar. It is quite literally acrobatics 2.0 and that should change. What kind of philosophy is it to make resturaunt patrons pay extra for 1 slice of steak vs another because it was cooked differently? It’s the same steak, same meat, but 1 was prepared better than the other why am I paying more for 1 over the other?

Whether its a selling product or not, other professions for the most part got an elite specialization that changed their play style up a lot, thief got an upgraded trait line. I agree with cynz, all elites are toxic to their professions, but I think thief got hit with the worst one and and not saying that because I main thief, but because the thought behind the whole elite was based on something we ALREADY had.

laquito.5269:

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re basically asking them to invest additional effort to give people reasons NOT to pay them for their work. That’s just dumb.

Or you just dumb down the trait system, introduce powercreept traitlines and lock them behind a paywall whilst watching your playerbase dwindle because of nonexistant balance.

The player base that is dwindling is the player base on non-paying customers. I doubt they care all that much about the needs of people that aren’t willing to be customers.

Meta in competitive games with paid expansion steps ALWAYS revolves around new content or options found in the expansions. Players that care enough about being competitive are the players they care about balancing around.

Players that expect to remain competitive whilst remaining non-customers in their new financial model that hinges around people choosing to buy expansions are never going to be a priority.

Also, PvP population balance in GW2 isn’t a function of balance. It’s a function of GW2s competitive PvP being hilariously poorly designed from the beginning.

They’ve built a low TTK system heavily focused around movement and made your core competitive game mode revolve around staying confined in small circles and not fighting on the move.

They’ve attempted to shoehorn meaningful pvp roles in to a combat system explicitly designed to remove the need for roles.

They’ve built a combat system heavily dependant on CC and active mitigation around high damage and low health pools so that the impact points of any given fight can be counted on one hand.

They’ve tried to create a spectator sport out of a system that is nearly impossible for a passive observer to understand.

They’ve created a ranked league system built around being “fair” to people that solo que.

There’s a long list of why PvP sucks in GW2, but expansion versus core balance is such a non-issue it has no place on it. If you care about being competitive, it stands to reason you care enough to buy an expansion. If you don’t care enough to buy the expansion, they don’t care if your interest dwindles and you stop playing. You’re not a paying customer in the first place, you’re not meaningfully creating content by being an adversary for the players that do, and generally they have no incentive to care what you think.

Player interest isn’t and has never been low as a result of expansion classes. It’s low because PvP in GW2 is badly designed from the ground up and the haphazard balance is a symptom of these core problems, not the cause.

I bought the expansion. I just don’t like the Daredevil as a whole.

I don’t see a reason why a new way of playing a profession, rather than just a level cap/skill bump should justify a change in what’s good or not for the long-term. I get that it’s better to release new content as OP to hype/boost sales a little and then nerf, but to maintain imbalance suggests incompetence and causes people to lose faith in the development company as meeting their needs as a whole.

Snowywonders.1378:

Lol @ unhindered combatant being some sort of godly trait. It’s best use is for map completion and wvw to escape blobs.

Ever heard of PvP? Cuz it’s kind of a big deal there. =P

Snowywonders.1378:

Lol @ unhindered combatant being some sort of godly trait. It’s best use is for map completion and wvw to escape blobs.

Whaaatttt? Did I miss a sarcasm tone in there?

One trait that moves 450 on dodge, evades the entire time, completely removes all mobility conditions, reduces incoming damage (both power and condi) and applies 8s of swiftness. It is the single trait on the thief class that all other classes are jealous of.

Keeping swiftness up full time and kiting is a big deal in fights for a class that often needs positional attacks and dies if it gets pinned down. Don’t even get me started on keeping mobility condi in check so that other condi removal goes after the damage and not cover conditions.

@PopeUrban You do know that f2p players don’t have access to these forums, and everybody here has atleast bought the original game if not the expansion. So everyone that comments here IS a paying customer.

The real question is: why players are still on that game.?..
I don’t get it, why you guys don’t boycott that kitten??
There is NO WAY devs will drastically change the whole kittening game… even tho it’s needed.. there is too much to do to make the game healthy.. devs are simply overwhelmed by there own laziness..

WE (some players really interested in balancing honest and not biased) already gave them TONS of ideas to make the game better in all aspects..
Stop wasting your time and your energy guys…

Saku Joe.2857:

The real question is: why players are still on that game.?..
I don’t get it, why you guys don’t boycott that kitten??
There is NO WAY devs will drastically change the whole kittening game… even tho it’s needed.. there is too much to do to make the game healthy.. devs are simply overwhelmed by there own laziness..

WE (some players really interested in balancing honest and not biased) already gave them TONS of ideas to make the game better in all aspects..
Stop wasting your time and your energy guys…

It is not laziness, it is marketing strategy.

Yannir.4132:

@PopeUrban You do know that f2p players don’t have access to these forums, and everybody here has atleast bought the original game if not the expansion. So everyone that comments here IS a paying customer.

If you’re unwilling to buy their expansion and fade away from the game, they’re not losing any more money than if you were a f2p account.

If the assumption is that they should treat you better because you were a customer at some point, and then decided to stop being a customer. I’d say, from a business stand point, they’d have even less interest in pleasing you than a f2p account.

You’re a lost customer, while the f2p guy is at the very least still a potential customer, and what’s more the f2p guy has a much more compelling reason to become one due to the limitations on his account, right?

You sure do sound like a sleazy salesman pope. Have you ever been in the customer service business anywhere? Like with most people who fail at it, they look at 1 number. That number in front of their face, whether it be an expense or a customer purchase. Really what they should be looking at is pleasing the overall customer base so 2 things can happen. 1 is returning business in the future, 2 is recommendations towards others to bring in business. If you only market yourself for new customers you will find quickly how your sales dwindle to bupkiss, because no one is going to stay and be treated like that.

So when you gip the existing customer base by making them sub-par to new customers and force them to either purchase something or move on, its distasteful and take a wild guess as to how likely that person is going to recommend such services to a friend. That new customer is only going to last so long before they start to see the same thing assuming nothing is done to keep them around.

I recently purchased HoT specifically for the pve since other games are either worse off or too difficult to get into without a huge dedication. I gata say it is so much easier to just evade for 10 seconds and be doing 5-12k damage. Try to do that with my gw2 build, the account I DID spend hundreds of dollars supporting Anet for and its not even comparable. I DID NOT support HoT with my gem purchases all these years, I supported GW2 and that went to nothing since HoT is the new game with the core being just an after-thought.

I hope this changes since I actually find a little enjoyment from HoT pve but at the same time, there is zero appreciation for the customers who were here supporting the game for a long time. ZERO.

only clueless players call anything about thief a “spam”

its a profession balanced around a resource rather than cooldowns unlike all other professions and weapon sets have 1-2 main damaging abilities with the rest of weapon skills providing situational utility so of course you are going to use your damaging abilities more often than situational ones you silly cupcakes

I hope this changes since I actually find a little enjoyment from HoT pve but at the same time, there is zero appreciation for the customers who were here supporting the game for a long time. ZERO.

What about the knight outfit, character birthday gifts, and the free character slot?

Lexander.4579:

only clueless players call anything about thief a “spam”

its a profession balanced around a resource rather than cooldowns unlike all other professions and weapon sets have 1-2 main damaging abilities with the rest of weapon skills providing situational utility so of course you are going to use your damaging abilities more often than situational ones you silly cupcakes

This exactly. If people think that using a given skill two or three times in a row is “spam” and thus unskilled they are playing the wrong profession and should go play something they feel more “skilled” .

The weapons are designed with INI and multiple use of the same skill in mind. That is what makes theif different. INI management is the skill component not “number of different buttons pressed”.

@babzhook
I agree thief is often unnecessarily called spammy, BUT when builds like d/d condi exist that is when spam is an actual thing. You use #3 and your dodge over and over again. The reason it is spam and not normal thief gameplay is because there is no skill required to play it and it can actually be a threat. The bound+vault spam build is the same way, it relies on using 1 skill and dodging. It doesn’t require any skill and in the right cases it can be a threat (granted there’s a ton of easy lockdowns to it but that is not the point)

Resource based gameplay is power d/d, d/p (without bound and ID), s/d, staff (when not using the vault/ bound spam build), and p/d because they rely on using combinations of skills that can be used as many times as they want in a row but only when their resources allow them to. Yes most thief builds fall into that area but there are a few spam builds and only clueless players don’t see that or are too ignorant to recognize it as a problem. (not an attack on you, just turning around what Lexander said)

babazhook.6805:

This exactly. If people think that using a given skill two or three times in a row is “spam” and thus unskilled they are playing the wrong profession and should go play something they feel more “skilled” .

The weapons are designed with INI and multiple use of the same skill in mind. That is what makes theif different. INI management is the skill component not “number of different buttons pressed”.

It’s worth noting though that while using a skill 2-3 times straight isn’t guaranteed to be spam it most likely isn’t the optimal play. And thief definitely has potential to spam, take a look at Gosou’s spam 3 YouTube videos (But actually don’t if you value your sanity, the level of play in them is horrible).

Thieves have the unique ability to be limited by their resource pool, their ability to manage the resource pool, and their own decision making. That’s what makes thief fun to play and when played well makes it imo the hardest class to play and with the biggest skill gap between great thief players and simply average players.

Edit: I completely agree with Ario above me.

Ario.8964:

@babzhook
I agree thief is often unnecessarily called spammy, BUT when builds like d/d condi exist that is when spam is an actual thing. You use #3 and your dodge over and over again. The reason it is spam and not normal thief gameplay is because there is no skill required to play it and it can actually be a threat. The bound+vault spam build is the same way, it relies on using 1 skill and dodging. It doesn’t require any skill and in the right cases it can be a threat (granted there’s a ton of easy lockdowns to it but that is not the point)

Resource based gameplay is power d/d, d/p (without bound and ID), s/d, staff (when not using the vault/ bound spam build), and p/d because they rely on using combinations of skills that can be used as many times as they want in a row but only when their resources allow them to. Yes most thief builds fall into that area but there are a few spam builds and only clueless players don’t see that or are too ignorant to recognize it as a problem. (not an attack on you, just turning around what Lexander said)

no need to flip my words in that way bae

your poor example with kitten d/d and staff bound builds is a joke and you know perfectly well that people bm thief with the “spam” word on any build as long as the situation requires thief to use the same skill 3-4 times in a row:
- elem stuck at 25% hp refusing to die with all his b/s healing cooldowns so i repeatedly use dagger 2? spammer noob thief
- warrior running at me spamming his bow 1 so i punish him with pistol 4 repeatedly? gg noob thief spam more

and there are more examples now and in the past, for example when dagger 4 was actually a real skill you could simply bounce it between zerk-geared gankers and drop them like flies punishing them for poor positioning, what then? thief is spammer

if people called “spam” only d/d condi and staff vault build nobody would even care about it, but the ignorance spreads much further and people just use this word to bm a thief rather than reflect on the actual gameplay

The maximum number of times a Thief can use DB and Vault is 3 times in a row. After that, the Thief has to wait at leat 5sec before he can use the same skill again. From this point on, the Thief can use only use the same skill once every 5sec. Unless the Thief waits for full init bar, which is a 12sec CD for DB and 15sec CD for Vault, you won’t see the same skill used in a row anymore.

In other words, this notion of “Thief spam” is utter nonsense and it’s the source of what the misinformed Devs believes thus they keep on nerfing the Thief’s initiative gains and refuses to lower down the cost of each skill — on top of nerfing the Thief’s overall damage relative to the current meta. For once, they should stop looking at the numbers and actually play a Thief and balance the profession based on their first hand experience.

NinjaEd.3946:

You sure do sound like a sleazy salesman pope. etc.

Not saying I like it or agree with it. You’re absolutely right, and I’ve said several times that the best sales tactic should be offering a stand out product. However, I’m also a realist, and it’s pretty darn obvious how Anet’s monetization strategy works at this point.

For the record, I have worked in sales, and I sucked at it. Mostly because I say stuff like this to customers, and am usually responsible for a lot of lost sales.

They’re not interested in your repeat business, and they’re not concerned with user retention. Arenanet has gone full on mobile game marketing strategy. Get the new users, pump them for all they’re worth, and discard. That’s why the game is a far better deal for new accounts than existing ones, that’s the entire reason ranked PvP is even a thing, and that’s why they don’t care.

Back in GW1, when the original anet crew broke with blizzard to start a new studio, they did it with a vision of routinely giving their customers excellent value, and using the proceeds to offer a similar package consistancy. Over time, GW1 began to play with microtransactions, As the data rolled in and the industry at large figured out microtransactions and nickel and diming could squeeze a disproportionate amount of money out of a fraction of the user base, they went for it. That money exceeded what could be made from selling high value-for-dollar packages to every user equally, and somewhere someone decided that repeat business was less valuable than new business, especially when, in an MMO, your product actually becomes more valuable and thus attractive to new users over time.

This happened all over the industry simply because the actual costs of producing what people expect in a AAA game have significantly increased, so the quickest solution was figuring out how to get more money to cover the cost and push out substantial amounts of content.

Anet got caught up in those metrics before the release of GW2, and decided microtransactions were the way of the future, and built a significant amount of their revenue model around them. Then, when users clamored for a return to the big, meaty expansions of the past, they decided that existing users were so acclimated to the fact, and new users expectations wouldn’t be damaged by their inclusion. So they did it. They ramped up costs to produce said expansions, which in turn meant a need to ramp up revenue. They already had a model in place where they could finely tune revenue streams, so in stead of doing the responsible thing for the consumer and swapping to the old expansion revenue model, they decided to continue with their new one and just slap it on top. That way they can say “we did what you wanted” while theoretically making more money to do it better.

That’s where there’s a suspicious lack of rewards in HoT. That’s why there was so much day one cosmetic microtransactions. Many of the outfits and skins we’ve seen since HoT were probably originally designed within the framework of HoT as ingame rewards. At some point someone said “the numbers don’t add up, we need more money to give our users what they say they want and to bring in new ones.”

So they sacrificed focus on the existing users in favor of new ones because, when you roll over the data, people complain about DLC, microtransactions, and being nickel and dimes, but the numbers show, overwhelmingly, that even the loudest complainers are perfectly willing to be nickel and dimed for a game they’re invested in than they are willing to part ways with the sunk cost fallacy and quit due to business practices they feel are exploitative or unfair.

Until consumers change how they actually behave, these practices will contine across the industry. People can complain about being treated unfairly as consumers all day, but as long as they’re still buying while complaining, nobody cares.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The maximum number of times a Thief can use DB and Vault is 3 times in a row. After that, the Thief has to wait at leat 5sec before he can use the same skill again. From this point on, the Thief can use only use the same skill once every 5sec. Unless the Thief waits for full init bar, which is a 12sec CD for DB and 15sec CD for Vault, you won’t see the same skill used in a row anymore.

In other words, this notion of “Thief spam” is utter nonsense and it’s the source of what the misinformed Devs believes thus they keep on nerfing the Thief’s initiative gains and refuses to lower down the cost of each skill — on top of nerfing the Thief’s overall damage relative to the current meta. For once, they should stop looking at the numbers and actually play a Thief and balance the profession based on their first hand experience.

You do realize natural initiative regeneration occurs while casting skills, right? Plus You have a lot of people playing Acro on D/D getting an initiative on each dodge, plus initiative on steal. DB only costs four initiative, so on natural regen alone you’re looking at 3 and then almost immediately after a fourth.

All said and done, if you’re not fighting a static target, you’re probably able to get around six or so consecutive DB casts in a row without considering other potential utilities like RFI or IS passive. If you play correctly, you should be able to approach 100% evasion uptime between mixed dodges and DB casts unless you walk into CC.

DeceiverX.8361:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The maximum number of times a Thief can use DB and Vault is 3 times in a row. After that, the Thief has to wait at leat 5sec before he can use the same skill again. From this point on, the Thief can use only use the same skill once every 5sec. Unless the Thief waits for full init bar, which is a 12sec CD for DB and 15sec CD for Vault, you won’t see the same skill used in a row anymore.

In other words, this notion of “Thief spam” is utter nonsense and it’s the source of what the misinformed Devs believes thus they keep on nerfing the Thief’s initiative gains and refuses to lower down the cost of each skill — on top of nerfing the Thief’s overall damage relative to the current meta. For once, they should stop looking at the numbers and actually play a Thief and balance the profession based on their first hand experience.

You do realize natural initiative regeneration occurs while casting skills, right? Plus You have a lot of people playing Acro on D/D getting an initiative on each dodge, plus initiative on steal. DB only costs four initiative, so on natural regen alone you’re looking at 3 and then almost immediately after a fourth.

All said and done, if you’re not fighting a static target, you’re probably able to get around six or so consecutive DB casts in a row without considering other potential utilities like RFI or IS passive. If you play correctly, you should be able to approach 100% evasion uptime between mixed dodges and DB casts unless you walk into CC.

You can never have 100 percent evasion uptime nor close. All evade frames the thief has have points where they vulnerable.

I do play one of those d/d db thieves time to time and yes against a type of player they very effective but they have very little flexibility. They can not adapt on the fly as there few things in the build that help them do so. As such I know when they vulnerable.

The past week or so I have seen more of those Vault using thieves or the d/d DB types and can easily dismantle them on my power thief armed with P/P and S/D. Headshots and interrupts are an excellent counter and given this can be at range you have little to worry about if they DB. Kite and shoot. Infiltrators is excellent as well as you can time your shadowstep in , for when the thief vulnerable, very often have time to get a flanking/larcenous strike off before his next DB (using the Immob) and step back out.

You now out of range of his death blossom again.

Lexander.4579:

Ario.8964:

@babzhook
I agree thief is often unnecessarily called spammy, BUT when builds like d/d condi exist that is when spam is an actual thing. You use #3 and your dodge over and over again. The reason it is spam and not normal thief gameplay is because there is no skill required to play it and it can actually be a threat. The bound+vault spam build is the same way, it relies on using 1 skill and dodging. It doesn’t require any skill and in the right cases it can be a threat (granted there’s a ton of easy lockdowns to it but that is not the point)

Resource based gameplay is power d/d, d/p (without bound and ID), s/d, staff (when not using the vault/ bound spam build), and p/d because they rely on using combinations of skills that can be used as many times as they want in a row but only when their resources allow them to. Yes most thief builds fall into that area but there are a few spam builds and only clueless players don’t see that or are too ignorant to recognize it as a problem. (not an attack on you, just turning around what Lexander said)

no need to flip my words in that way bae

your poor example with kitten d/d and staff bound builds is a joke and you know perfectly well that people bm thief with the “spam” word on any build as long as the situation requires thief to use the same skill 3-4 times in a row:
- elem stuck at 25% hp refusing to die with all his b/s healing cooldowns so i repeatedly use dagger 2? spammer noob thief
- warrior running at me spamming his bow 1 so i punish him with pistol 4 repeatedly? gg noob thief spam more

and there are more examples now and in the past, for example when dagger 4 was actually a real skill you could simply bounce it between zerk-geared gankers and drop them like flies punishing them for poor positioning, what then? thief is spammer

if people called “spam” only d/d condi and staff vault build nobody would even care about it, but the ignorance spreads much further and people just use this word to bm a thief rather than reflect on the actual gameplay

I’ve always wanted to be bae (jokes aside I’ll get to my actual post so I’m not too off topic)
I was providing true examples of spam for those who were looking for what an actual spam build is. In some really weird way I’m supporting what you’re saying with people BMing thieves for “spam” when it’s really just a situational benefit using a skill more than 2 times. My intent was to outline the difference between legitimate spam on the thief and situational usage of a skill.

The sad thing is yes, people are very ignorant of how the thief is to be played (hence why we still get rage pm’s for ganking and running out of fights) but we can’t really change that view. What we CAN do is limit the powercreep from HoT by nerfing everything from it that is overperforming. But even if all that is done people will still complain about thief because #blamethethief is still a thing.

It’s four years into the game and people still don’t understand thief and it’s mechanics. I’d laugh if it didn’t make me sad. Hell just the other day someone accused me of using macros on one of my videos despite me using an app to record my keyboard during the fights so he could see all my moves.

Ario.8964:

The sad thing is yes, people are very ignorant of how the thief is to be played (hence why we still get rage pm’s for ganking and running out of fights) but we can’t really change that view. What we CAN do is limit the powercreep from HoT by nerfing everything from it that is overperforming. But even if all that is done people will still complain about thief because #blamethethief is still a thing.

Ragers gonna rage… I run a Bound Staff / Double Pistol build (so stealth is really costly and I can hardly reset fights without Dash / SB) and I also get angry PM sometimes… The average level in WvW has sunk since the last updates (alpine BL and server merges) and half of the people don’t even know how to counter Vault (dudes, just move!) or Unload (sic). But they sure know how to complain about it.

Sir Mad.1092:

… I run a Bound Staff / Double Pistol build (so stealth is really costly and I can hardly reset fights without Dash / SB)

I’ve been enjoying that same rollout, there’s a nice feedback loop of initiative and endurance you can build for but it can get pretty telegraphed if you get lazy with it.

DeceiverX.8361:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The maximum number of times a Thief can use DB and Vault is 3 times in a row. After that, the Thief has to wait at leat 5sec before he can use the same skill again. From this point on, the Thief can use only use the same skill once every 5sec. Unless the Thief waits for full init bar, which is a 12sec CD for DB and 15sec CD for Vault, you won’t see the same skill used in a row anymore.

In other words, this notion of “Thief spam” is utter nonsense and it’s the source of what the misinformed Devs believes thus they keep on nerfing the Thief’s initiative gains and refuses to lower down the cost of each skill — on top of nerfing the Thief’s overall damage relative to the current meta. For once, they should stop looking at the numbers and actually play a Thief and balance the profession based on their first hand experience.

You do realize natural initiative regeneration occurs while casting skills, right? Plus You have a lot of people playing Acro on D/D getting an initiative on each dodge, plus initiative on steal. DB only costs four initiative, so on natural regen alone you’re looking at 3 and then almost immediately after a fourth.

All said and done, if you’re not fighting a static target, you’re probably able to get around six or so consecutive DB casts in a row without considering other potential utilities like RFI or IS passive. If you play correctly, you should be able to approach 100% evasion uptime between mixed dodges and DB casts unless you walk into CC.

My point is, the “spammability” of said skill goes into a cooldown after the initial sequential use. I simply kept it simple in my post.

So let’s take your point into account. Ok, you used DB 4x in a row, then what, you go into a cooldown of at least 4sec before you can use DeeBee again — or 12-15sec cooldown before you can use DB 3x – 4x in a row.

- Steal only grants 2 initiatives which is barely enough to reliably “spam” DB.
- RFI has 48sec – 60sec CD, depending on your trait allocations, which rolls you out of range for another DB, effectively interrupting the said “spam”.
- Upper Hand is 1 initiative per evade, not dodge, with 2s cooldown — which diminishes its usefulness if you choose to spam DB. You would only net about 1-2 initiatives before your initiative pool is empty — assuming that you’re evading attacks while using DB, which is very unlikely. The common reaction against DB is dodging. No enemy will stay there trying to attack you while using DB, instead they will create a gap by dodging/moving away from you.

That’s my whole point. This notion of spammable skill is nonsense same goes with the “100% evade uptime”. They are simply not based on reality.

Lexander.4579:

and there are more examples now and in the past, for example when dagger 4 was actually a real skill you could simply bounce it between zerk-geared gankers and drop them like flies punishing them for poor positioning, what then? thief is spammer

I apparently never played thief when dagger 4 was a real skill. Please tell me more. Did it actually used to do damage? I pretty much assume the skill isn’t actually there. (I’ll use it to slow down someone approaching a point I am in the process of capturing, but that’s basically it.)

PS. I really think competitive gw2 could use a daily skill/trait discussion thread where the community can give feedback on a skill or trait (synergies, use cases, etc.). A lot of abilities are “vestigial” ( I just really wanted to use that word ), and are often just straight up not very good. Thief Dagger 4 is one of many.

alemfi.5107:

I apparently never played thief when dagger 4 was a real skill. Please tell me more. Did it actually used to do damage? I pretty much assume the skill isn’t actually there. (I’ll use it to slow down someone approaching a point I am in the process of capturing, but that’s basically it.)

PS. I really think competitive gw2 could use a daily skill/trait discussion thread where the community can give feedback on a skill or trait (synergies, use cases, etc.). A lot of abilities are “vestigial” ( I just really wanted to use that word ), and are often just straight up not very good. Thief Dagger 4 is one of many.

Dagger 4 was stupidly strong for a long time. I can’t remember how much the value of the Nerf was but it was 50% or something crazy.

Agemnon.4608:

I hope this changes since I actually find a little enjoyment from HoT pve but at the same time, there is zero appreciation for the customers who were here supporting the game for a long time. ZERO.

What about the knight outfit, character birthday gifts, and the free character slot?

Birthday gifts giving hardly anything, not sure what free character slot you are talking about, I never got one yet, and 1 outfit they designed and gave out, which I don’t even really like the look for.

Try harder… much much harder.

alemfi.5107:

Lexander.4579:

and there are more examples now and in the past, for example when dagger 4 was actually a real skill you could simply bounce it between zerk-geared gankers and drop them like flies punishing them for poor positioning, what then? thief is spammer

I apparently never played thief when dagger 4 was a real skill. Please tell me more. Did it actually used to do damage? I pretty much assume the skill isn’t actually there. (I’ll use it to slow down someone approaching a point I am in the process of capturing, but that’s basically it.)

PS. I really think competitive gw2 could use a daily skill/trait discussion thread where the community can give feedback on a skill or trait (synergies, use cases, etc.). A lot of abilities are “vestigial” ( I just really wanted to use that word ), and are often just straight up not very good. Thief Dagger 4 is one of many.

it did about 2.5x of its current damage and cost 4 initiative, using it 4 times on 2 people was enough to down any zerker geared class except maybe warrior

that skill ended up being one of many thief skills which were victims of GW2’s early days of full zerk meta and got some heavy handed nerfs which are still not lifted despite the game had evolved into a rather defensive direction so even in their old form those abilities wouldnt be that powerful anymore

so now d 4 is just a 3 sec cripple on a 900 range lol