Guild Wars 2

THIS IS NOT A KITTENING POST AND A REAL OPNION
Cast time IR-
Well,I must say I find it…challenging -to lose my only stun break except the ute,but after awhile,playing like that,I cant see the logic behind this change.

I for once like challenges,but this change is beyond the limit I can take.You cant excpect the most squishy class will stay long enough in a fight without any stun breakers?

Every class have multiply stun breakers which they utlize.And this class need it the most as we have low health pool and it seems we have the least.After several fights against elem and a hammer warrior and d/d thief i found that IR skill must be stun breaker in order to keep the S/x build viable.
Stealth is not viable while stunned and so is all the evade skills.We left with one ute worth keeping(Shadowstep) that is a stun breaker and with his 50sec cd not so great either.

To be frank,S/d builds,except the perma evade ones,were the most balanced builds the class had,So if you may,can you elaborate more about the reason behind this change?
If you can please reconsider this change and maybe add small buff to compensate S/X builds.
I hope someone gonna read it cause I love playing as a thief and especially as S/d one and would hate to force myself to reroll another class…
Happy holidays!

up Please dont ignore it Anet this IR thing should be explained.

Actually every class doesn’t have multiple stun breakers, and even the ones who do have to make tough choices to spec for them. Secondly, you only have a low health pool if you spec that way. I don’t choose a fragile spec and don’t feel disadvantaged by my health pool.

Just make sure to keep maximum uptime on your Protection, Block and Regen buffs.

(that was sarcasm)

Sanduskel.1850:

Actually every class doesn’t have multiple stun breakers, and even the ones who do have to make tough choices to spec for them. Secondly, you only have a low health pool if you spec that way. I don’t choose a fragile spec and don’t feel disadvantaged by my health pool.

hmm…
*warriors have plenty…so is for mesmers(have distortion too that is pretty much good aswell) and elems have plenty -these the proffesion I used to play so cant tell you on other proffesions but im pretty sure they have more usefull stun breakers than thieves…
*define health pool..cause 15k is not a good health pool and if you have like 20 your dmg output is pretty much low and it is stupid thing to be low dmg output on thief

Dont expect a RATIONAL explanation. Devs dont play thieves and neither does the balance team. we all know this to be a truth so lets just make that the given behind this comment.

NOW . . . the reason they did this is quite simple. SPITE. they dont like playing against thieves who respond well and are able to avoid a little bit of dmg. just spite and only spite. all the QQers and spiteful people at anet who made a class who is ….WAS….really good at 1 v 1 and now is horrible all around. can still do some 1 v 1 but hey . id rather bring another class in the same slot.

thieve team VS balanced team
1v1 (thief 50% chance of winning)
2v2(thief 47% chance of winning)
3v3(thief 44% chance of winning)
4v4 (thief 40% chance of winning)
5v5(thief 34% chance of winning)

50v50(thief 2% chance of winning)

now these examples are all thieves vs all balanced teams/zergs. so 50 thieves vs 10 guards + 10 warriors + 7 necros + 6 engineers + 5 elementalists + 4 rangers + 8 mesmers…. or somethign to that fashion.

the higher the quantity in the fight the more aoe/incidental dmg a thief will take even when not targeted…. which is death….

bc of this obv lack of….whatever you wanna call it…. we NEED a cast time of .25 on shadowstep. how dare we pop in do dmg and pop out ….. i mean thats what a thief does andhow dare he do what hes made to do. (all sarcasm)

anyway just take it at surface lvl. thieves are hating bc they are annoying. not great at helping in the game. but annoying. get “LFG lvl 50 fractals No thieves no noobs plz” and in 8v8 tpvp….“ummm…. you think you can reroll or….?” i could go on but REAL thieves and thieves WHO ACTUALLY PLAY their thief know what im talkin about. anet doesnt but perhaps someday they will clue in.

I tried it just now and it’s awful. It really breaks the flow of combat and removes the one thing which was keeping sword a viable weapon set. I really don’t see the reason to bring a sword in WvW now when you could be doing equal damage but have better escapes with D/P. This is a real shame since S/D has been my favorite weapon set since beta. I’m really considering shelfing my thief and and making a mesmer, since they can have a similar playstyle but now actually do it better.

What am i gonna do with my Bolt now :O 25g for transering it

gimme back the old range in inf strike/return!

Yeah this change to Infiltrator’s Return is incomprehensible to me.

I “get” why they made many of the other changes but this one is beyond me. Not only does it try to fix something that wasn’t a problem it also feels like the game is laggy and unresponsive.

Some of the exploits were OP, I agree, like the porting through walls and barriers. But why not fix those directly instead of messing with the ability.

I think Anet devs are afraid to even enter Thief sub forum now XD

If you can’t imagine why the change was made, you never fought a thief abusing IR. It is game-breaking to the point that you can not even begin to fight the thief as long as they manage their initiative (which is also easy). At least now, if you put yourself into a stupid situation, you have to pay for it like every other class/build.

VidurrRedhands.1964:

If you can’t imagine why the change was made, you never fought a thief abusing IR. It is game-breaking to the point that you can not even begin to fight the thief as long as they manage their initiative (which is also easy). At least now, if you put yourself into a stupid situation, you have to pay for it like every other class/build.

Unlike every other class, thieves do not have access to stability, protection, block or immune.

If you want thief to play like every other class, give them the same tools as every other class. I’d prefer a game where each class has different strengths and weaknesses – thieves just had a strength removed with no compensation, which is disappointing to see.

It was a strength because it was overpowered, the only difference is now you can actually be pinned down with CC and have to use a stunbreaker, like everyone else. No other class has a pseudo-stunbreaker that is attached to a gap closer + immobilize that you can combo a few hits off then get out.

VidurrRedhands.1964:

It was a strength because it was overpowered, the only difference is now you can actually be pinned down with CC and have to use a stunbreaker, like everyone else. No other class has a pseudo-stunbreaker that is attached to a gap closer + immobilize that you can combo a few hits off then get out.

Except Mesmer, which has a skill with the exact parameters you described, and another psuedo-stunbreaker escape on a very short CD which doesn’t need to be set up ahead of time, and is on a ranged weapon so the gap it opens is entirely beneficial. It appears to me as though you just dislike thieves.

S/D works on dodging almost everything that isn’t an auto-attack – it does slow, steady damage in a glass setup. Without IR it does not have the tools to beat equally skilled players, since you can’t dodge literally everything. Don’t be surprised if you see S/D get a large buff to compensate in the future, you might have preferred it the way it was.

VidurrRedhands.1964:

It was a strength because it was overpowered, the only difference is now you can actually be pinned down with CC and have to use a stunbreaker, like everyone else. No other class has a pseudo-stunbreaker that is attached to a gap closer + immobilize that you can combo a few hits off then get out.

no other class has a passive heal that heals for 400 HPS…

no other class has clones that can do heavy damage

no other class dies in 3 hits like teef

I actually play thief and dislike the abuse of IR. All I can do here is reiterate, if you think IS/IR was fine you either abused it or never fought against someone who did. No one’s mind will be changed here and none of you are devs, so you can’t change anything no matter how mad you are.

There are few classes that a thief is not capable of three-shotting.

VidurrRedhands.1964:

I actually play thief and dislike the abuse of IR. All I can do here is reiterate, if you think IS/IR was fine you either abused it or never fought against someone who did. No one’s mind will be changed here and none of you are devs, so you can’t change anything no matter how mad you are.

Here’s the thing. WIth the cast time, thieves are way too easy to kill – 1 stun and they are pretty much done. Without the cast time, thieves are hard to kill because you can shadow return while stunned (you are still stunned).

If you really think the way it is now is alright, then something is wrong with you. It needs a middle ground. Something like if you shadow return while stunned/launched/knocked down, the shadow return is half as effective, so you won’t return that far, so you’ll have to use it smartly.

VidurrRedhands.1964:

There are few classes that a thief is not capable of three-shotting.

There are also few classes that aren’t capable of 3 shotting thieves.

Thieves can three shot others and can be three shotted in return, sounds fair to me. What you guys want is a skill that is equivalent to a utility that has a 50 second recharge that can be used as often as you have initiative for it. Slot a different stun breaker. The only thing different is now the skill doesn’t actually act as a stun breaker even though the devs specifically stated they don’t want it to be a few patches back.

VidurrRedhands.1964:

Thieves can three shot others and can be three shotted in return, sounds fair to me. What you guys want is a skill that is equivalent to a utility that has a 50 second recharge that can be used as often as you have initiative for it. Slot a different stun breaker. The only thing different is now the skill doesn’t actually act as a stun breaker even though the devs specifically stated they don’t want it to be a few patches back.

What spec can S/D thieves 3 shot? Even 3 LS crits aren’t going to drop anything but a elementalist with 0 additional toughness/vitality (which doesn’t exist, btw), and it’s not like you can use LS 3 times back to back anyway.

You appear to be mixing/matching specs – talking about S/D specs like they did 25/30/0/0/15 DD pre mug nerf damage. If S/D did that kind of damage in that kind of time frame, the IR nerf would be entirely justified. Instead, they do slow, steady sustained damage with glass toughness, and relies on evades pre-nerf IR to live long enough to kill targets.

And to be clear, IR has not been a stun break for months now. Being able to use a skill while stunned but remain stunned is not a stunbreak.

It wasn’t a stun breaker before either, it was a get away mechanism that still had you stunned. What we want is something that doesn’t completely destroy thieves. We have stun breakers, we can slot them and we can use them. Difference between thieves and other classes is that their stun breakers also give stability for a short time, which stops all CC coming their way for a period of time. Thieves don’t have that which is why they relied on shadow return in the first place.

Like I said, it was strong before, but now it’s very weak. It shouldn’t go back to the way it was, but it needs to be changed to be more balanced.

It is a stun break if you teleport 600 units away since that gap can’t be easily closed during the duration of the stun. Also, I’ve played both S/P and S/D and those builds usually have far from glass survivability since the burst is so low you have to have sustain in order to keep pressure on. You still have your evades.

VidurrRedhands.1964:

It is a stun break if you teleport 600 units away since that gap can’t be easily closed during the duration of the stun. Also, I’ve played both S/P and S/D and those builds usually have far from glass survivability since the burst is so low you have to have sustain in order to keep pressure on. You still have your evades.

In this quote you claim S/D and S/P have such low burst, but above you claimed S/D thieves could 3 shot players. Which is it?

In addition, we have ~40% less vigor uptime, so the statement “you still have your evades” should be changed to “You still have ~60% of your evades, which is the primary mechanic by which thieves survive due to the lack of protection/stability/blocks/immunes”.

And again, it is not a stun break. Stun is not broken. It is usable while stunned, but it is not a stun break.

evilapprentice.6379:

VidurrRedhands.1964:

It is a stun break if you teleport 600 units away since that gap can’t be easily closed during the duration of the stun. Also, I’ve played both S/P and S/D and those builds usually have far from glass survivability since the burst is so low you have to have sustain in order to keep pressure on. You still have your evades.

In this quote you claim S/D and S/P have such low burst, but above you claimed S/D thieves could 3 shot players. Which is it?

In addition, we have ~40% less vigor uptime, so the statement “you still have your evades” should be changed to “You still have ~60% of your evades, which is the primary mechanic by which thieves survive due to the lack of protection/stability/blocks/immunes”.

And again, it is not a stun break. Stun is not broken. It is usable while stunned, but it is not a stun break.

To further bolster the point:

June 25, 2013

• Shadow Return (Infiltrator Strike Toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

It’s additional evade (on a timer) at the cost of initiative. (The other side effect of the reworked skill is that condition clearing can be delayed / less effective.)

VidurrRedhands.1964:

It is a stun break if you teleport 600 units away since that gap can’t be easily closed during the duration of the stun. Also, I’ve played both S/P and S/D and those builds usually have far from glass survivability since the burst is so low you have to have sustain in order to keep pressure on. You still have your evades.

Clearly you didnt played S/D enough and I think you play d/p cause most of the D/p thieves hates S/D thieves. Please dont judge other spec just because you fail against them.(that is the only explantion why it is you against everyone here)..
Lets review our options as thief alright?
lets say you are shadowstep into 2 guys one is a mesmer the other one is an elem. lets say you target the mesmer first→you hit him with mug! and you also been able to hit him TWICE! but most of them would not die that easy like with d/d so they blink away/decoying cause you dont have any long stun skill like almost every class have.. suddenly the elem ride the lightning to you knock you and do the whole ground thingy combo which means constant knockdowns while the mesmer just dpsing you with clones…alirght lts avoid it with shadowstep ute! which means all the same all over again with one change→you no longer have shadowstep cause it has 50s cooldown!
so what you gonna do now? run and try again when shadowstep will be available again or try your luck without.(for the record the mesmer and elem have full health and they know what they doing and not button mashing)
So basically we rely on shadowstep ute now.
NExt patch:Thief:
Shadowstep-reduced the range and add cast time and cooldown to encourage thieves to go melee.

Bredgen.6721:

VidurrRedhands.1964:

I actually play thief and dislike the abuse of IR. All I can do here is reiterate, if you think IS/IR was fine you either abused it or never fought against someone who did. No one’s mind will be changed here and none of you are devs, so you can’t change anything no matter how mad you are.

Here’s the thing. WIth the cast time, thieves are way too easy to kill – 1 stun and they are pretty much done. Without the cast time, thieves are hard to kill because you can shadow return while stunned (you are still stunned).

If you really think the way it is now is alright, then something is wrong with you. It needs a middle ground. Something like if you shadow return while stunned/launched/knocked down, the shadow return is half as effective, so you won’t return that far, so you’ll have to use it smartly.

VidurrRedhands.1964:

There are few classes that a thief is not capable of three-shotting.

There are also few classes that aren’t capable of 3 shotting thieves.

There are few classes that aren’t capable of 3 shotting ANY CLASS that specs glass cannon. Thieves aren’t disadvantaged on health unless they fail to spec properly.

Sad to have Bolt and not able to use it because they break your entire build.

I want my Ilex of Generosity (my fav sword skin and going for 300g currently)/Off-hand Incinerator to be more viable.

I don’t even think “Perma” Evasion builds were OP and the only way to do it was to use double S/D and Sigil of Energy~so The Sigil was the issue, not us… It was only viable in SPvP anyways and the build didn’t even use Infiltrator Strike very much so I don’t see how they could use that as an excuse. Flanking Strike is also pretty slow and has a huge window where enemies can land hits.

It didn’t use Bountiful Theft’s Vigor either, which would only effect the 10/30/0/0/30 build which is far from OP, never complained about and not even used commonly.

If they were trying to nerf D/D cond evasions I can’t remember the last time I ever seen one of those, and what’s that have to do with Sword? o.O

i have:

FireBringer
Incinerator
Dreamer
Quip

and finishing bolt but decided im not going to. and not going to spend any more real money in gem store either. sword is useless. just worked yourself out of some money anet. bravo

I spent a fair amount on gems last night. I think that ascended armor will bring additional interest to the class.

Sanduskel.1850:

I spent a fair amount on gems last night. I think that ascended armor will bring additional interest to the class.

Wha…what?! How?!

I do agree with the original post about using sword skill 2 as an escape mechanism from stuns and just in general.

I don’t main a thief, but I have a thief alt toon and while the skill still works, it’s not as good as it should be.

I think this is especially a problem for WvW and PvP sword wielding thieves.

The build was in no way abusive towards any player. It was abusive to a player who can’t handle highly skilled/cap plays and builds. I had no trouble with IR ‘abusing’ thieves. Ir was perfect the way it was, it only needed a bit more attention from teams to negate the thief. I wish A-Net handled patches like Riot, asked the pro-players not the public. To be honest the public has no idea what they’re talking about, unlike the pros. The build in general was squishy and NEEEDED IR to be viable, A-Net broke thieves because ‘Balance is kitten ’.

I think relying on so called pros is extremely dangerous. You end up with horrible balance because self serving players distort the facts and because you tailor your game to a very small audience of full time gamers.

Excalibur.9748:

VidurrRedhands.1964:

It was a strength because it was overpowered, the only difference is now you can actually be pinned down with CC and have to use a stunbreaker, like everyone else. No other class has a pseudo-stunbreaker that is attached to a gap closer + immobilize that you can combo a few hits off then get out.

no other class has a passive heal that heals for 400 HPS…

no other class has clones that can do heavy damage

no other class dies in 3 hits like teef

no other class has no weapon cooldowns and easy access to stealth

Rskin.4901:

no other class has no weapon cooldowns and easy access to stealth

No other class skills affect both weapon sets. No other class has to think about resource management. See? I can play this game too.

I think the IR change was the worst way to handle the situation and hardly seems like “shaving” the build at all. There are tons of better ways that have been suggested to handle this.

They could have doubled the cost of using IR when disabled for instance. This would increase the build’s vulnerability to cc-heavy specs and make the skill less spammable without breaking the playstyle.

Another possibility that was mentioned was they could have shortened the distance of the return. This would make it easier to hit a stunned thief even after he uses the return skill. Also not a gamebreaking change.

They could have made the skill conditional based upon the thief’s remaining initiative, maybe make it so you can only use the skill while stunned if your initiative is above 50%. This would again prevent spamming and increase the build’s vulnerability to cc specs while increasing counter play.

They could have made the return deplete some endurance if used while stunned. This way even if the thief uses the skill while stunned to escape you are damaging his ability to survive, since acrobatics based builds rely heavily on dodging to stay alive.

If the devs’ intent was to not remove functionality from the skill, any of those options would have been better. This change, combined with the nerf to vigor, the only other thing keeping Sword builds viable, and offering no real replacement (Hard to Catch doesn’t count) is like shaving with machete.

Rahktaahl.3082:

The build was in no way abusive towards any player. It was abusive to a player who can’t handle highly skilled/cap plays and builds. I had no trouble with IR ‘abusing’ thieves. Ir was perfect the way it was, it only needed a bit more attention from teams to negate the thief. I wish A-Net handled patches like Riot, asked the pro-players not the public. To be honest the public has no idea what they’re talking about, unlike the pros. The build in general was squishy and NEEEDED IR to be viable, A-Net broke thieves because ’Balance is kitten ’.

+1. they listen to the nubs bc they want $.