Guild Wars 2

Any chance of a tweak to Dancing dagger any time soon? It gets obstructed over flat ground a lot lately and at close to max range it often says out of range once it reaches the target ev en though there was no red bar under the skill.

JonPeters.5630:

This is great feedback. One thing I will tell you is that now your build has 33% more initiative than it used to. This will gain you back that lost survivability and then some IMO.

Jon

I work in software so I have “KISS in your commit comments or I will murder you” stamped on my brain.

I don’t think that anything in the proposed update is build destroying (except for certain D/P playstyles that shall not be named) and It’s going to more than compensate for whatever edits I choose to do.

Thing is… Traits like improv are in my opinion what all traits should be. it does a fun, interesting, gameplay altering thing.

Sure, slightly bigger numbers, or a few boons when condition X is met are useful, but they’re not nearly as awesome as, say, the first time you use a dodge-trait on a class, or the first time you reflect with a shield warrior, or when you realize you can now get rid of a utility because you’ve traited around what you needed it for.

That’s kinda what I’m lamenting. Not the removal of effectiveness. it still tanks and stabs stuff and never lets up and is fun. It’ll probably be more effective moment to moment, too, but it’ll have to give up either laying down double shadow refuges or using steal as an interrupt, and those little moments are what make build builds really. The collection of special things that you can do that they other guys around you can’t.

That’s important, the act of just “being special”

Otherwise we’d all roll the same three builds and one class.

JonPeters.5630:

This would just be a buff to pistol whip, with the one caveat that you wouldn’t be able to animation cancel and chain stun.

It would let you do things like use part one, then do some attacks then immobilize target, then use the flurry when they are immobilized. It just opens up skill choice on that weapon.

Im aware of what you’re trying to do, I’m just not a fan of the direction. I feel that PW design is fine as it is has been as a single skill.
What I found most problematic playing S/P before was 1) The amount of retaliation damage that can proc in a team fight 2) If you want to get past Stability/Retal you pretty much need Bountiful due to Sigil of Nullification not being a valid option and there being nothing else in another trait line or Utility skill to alleviate that. If you don’t mind them then sure you can ignore Bountiful. We can take Dev venom as an emergency fix to get around Stability kiting but out of luck on retal, until you open up some options sometime down the road. This is from an offensive (zerker/soldier) standpoint though. I mean sure, IA into Flurry will become an option, one you really don’t need to give, given you actually have given us a lot of tools to cling to opponents if we want to, but its your call.

There were a lot of times I wanted to take Trickster when I invested into the Trickery line but Bountiful is more practical on S/P for sure, if I wanted Trickster I had to then drop a Grandmaster (which Is fine). You’ll drop Trickster down, but then it competes with Thrill of the crime (at least for me), which is better granted we can get Fury from Furious Retaliation, so it will be picked more, but it would still be helpful if there was some kind of utility boon strip (or better Sigil of Null), so Bountiful could be dropped for the same reasons I can drop Thrill because I have Furious Retal.

Moving away from that. Is anything being done on Potent poison? I feel it doesn’t really fit in anywhere, and I never hear anyone at Anet mention it. Black sheep trait?

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

Dekk.3459:

@popeurban the other pistol traits are in CS… I dont see how ricochet fits better in DA.

The point is that it fits better in deadly arts (an offensive line) than trickery (a class mechanics line) and synergizes better with its partner traits (venoms), wheras trickery, being a steal/initiative line, should probably always look pretty build-neutral.

in addition, DA holds combined training, which is a trait that doesn’t really see play on any other set, but P/P builds spec pretty frequently.

JonPeters.5630:

snip

Hello Jon, I would like you to read my feedback about what could be done for the thief class.

Weapons Skills

• Dancing dagger: it’s a good skill, but it doesn’t worth 3 initiative, even if you think it’s a low initiative cost. Why? Because it’s a 5 second cripple with no damage at all and that can be cleared very easily. Forget about the fact that it can bounce to up to 4 targets, thieves usually don’t engage in such fights and they also have much better gap closer than that, both in SPVP and in WvWvW. In my opinion you can make this an immobilize that can not bounce more than 3 times and that, of course, last less than 5.5 seconds. You can also remove the damage, it’s irrilevant as it is now.
• Cluster bomb: nothing really to do here, I would like it to be at 1200 range again but I can see why you changed that. I would just like you to speed up the projectle speed.
• P/P set: It needs a complete overhaul. Is it a condition set? Is it a power? Can be a mixed one? What do you want the P/P to be?

Utilies

• Traps: In a few words, they are incomplete. A good idea would be to add a condition damage applier to them, and adding to the trait “Master trapper” the ability of being able of ground targeting with traps. This would really help condition damage build BUT these kind of builds would still be thorn between survivability (shadow refuge, blinding power, shadowstep), venoms (of which I’ll speak in the next point) and traps (which would improve the condition damage pressure but without providing any survivability).

• Venoms: I used to run both a venomshare build in WvWvW and a Condition damage venom build in SPVP. Like you (or another dev, I don’t remember) said, the ability of putting more than 1 condition is what makes a condition build viable. Thieves can, at the moment, apply bleeding and torment (the way we apply poison is so tricky that I won’t even consider that as an appliable condition). Right now applying torment can be a huge mistake if done in the wrong situation with the P/D build because you’d just run out of initiative too fast (because of that I think that P/D will see a huge buff with the initiative base regeneration increased, allowing us to apply torment in a much more forgivable way). So why not using venoms to improve our condition damage and make a condition damage build viable for both SPVP and WvWvW? Ice drake venom is too underpowered, the chill duration is very low considering it’s CD. I propose to increase the chill duration of 1 second, for a total of 2 second and to add a 2 attacks to the venom effect. That way you could apply 10 seconds of chill. This is still not very good, considering the CD and the fact that all those seconds can be neutralized by a single condition removal.

And here is what I think would be perfect for venoms:
Simply, instead of removing all our venom stacks in the next few attacks, let us trigger the venom each time we want to apply it. Let me explain better (english isn’t my mother tongue as you probably have noticed): we could be able to: 1) activate the venom on time (it still doesn’t go on CD!), 2) inflict the venom on our next attack, 3) activate again the venom every time we want to use it for a maximum of times that is the maximum of actual attacks (for example, 5 times for spider venom), 4) once we activated the venom all the times we could, the venom goes on CD.
I also think that lowering the Venom CD by 5 seconds could improve us. All of this would be awesome both for WvWvW venomshare builds, since the thief gains more control on when and how activate the venoms, and for the conditions builds, since it would allow us to inflict poison and other conditions in a more predictable (for us, not for the enemy!) way.

• Signet of Agility: why does it only increase our precision by 90 instead of by 180 like it was 2 weeks ago?

- continues in part 2 -

Traits

• Panic strike: this trait is not worth of the grandmaster trait. A single 4 seconds immobilize (that now can be achieved with Bodyshot whenever we want!) is redundant. Make it a 4 seconds daze with 36 seconds of CD. If thieves wanted to take this trait they would either give up feline grace or Hidden killer/Executioner. This would also open up a new CC build, making S/P viable, alongside with the trickery daze on steal (sleight of hand) option. It can also open a new way for a daze/interrupt build with S/D, which is currently mostly used for flanking strike, infiltrator’s strike and larcenous strike and NOT for Cloak and Dagger —> Tactical strike.

• Shadow Arts: I feel like Shadow’s Embrace has been overnerfed, passing from a 3 seconds CD to a 10 seconds CD. Moreover, now that people can’t achieve “permastealth” anymore it should be changed into a 6 seconds CD trait. Also I don’t understand why venom traits have been put here, please consider switching them into another tree or melting them with deadly arts venom traits.

• Hard to Catch: yes, even if lots of words have been spent discussing about this trait I would like to say that, in my opinion, it’s too much random. Swapping stealth with swiftness could help people thinking about it, but there would still be too many useful traits out there instead of that.

Thanks, Jon, for reading our feedback. I hope I’ve been useful to you, and not too much boring.

Frenk.

Frenk.5917:

…
Weapons Skills

• Dancing dagger: it’s a good skill, but it doesn’t worth 3 initiative, even if you think it’s a low initiative cost. Why? Because it’s a 5 second cripple with no damage at all and that can be cleared very easily. Forget about the fact that it can bounce to up to 4 targets, thieves usually don’t engage in such fights and they also have much better gap closer than that, both in SPVP and in WvWvW. In my opinion you can make this an immobilize that can not bounce more than 3 times and that, of course, last less than 5.5 seconds. You can also remove the damage, it’s irrilevant as it is now.
  …

You also forgot to mention:
(Maugetarr quoted)

Any chance of a tweak to Dancing dagger any time soon? It gets obstructed over flat ground a lot lately and at close to max range it often says out of range once it reaches the target ev en though there was no red bar under the skill.

That it’s bugged to hell….
3 initiative for a chance that it might work.

JonPeters.5630:

ensoriki.5789:

JonPeters.5630:

We are thinking about making it into two skills that both cost initiative so we can balance the while thing more easily. For example this would let us increase the stun duration.

What no. Not my Pistol Whip.
Why can’t your team just handle skills as they are?
There is not much different in PW’s core from Hundred Blades, Zealots defense, and Blurred Frenzy but you need to split it in two? What?
Sure sometimes reworks need to be done but I dont think this is the case at all.

Whole thing with Initiative was a global resource to use skills as you need them. The More you split skills the more silly it becomes for the initiative system as I feel for it. If its the case you might as well give the Thief CD’s instead of ini if this is going to be a frequent addition.

Maybe I’ve misread you guys , how do you want S/P to play as a weapon set as it seems to differ from how I feel about it. I thought “Hit & run strong damage that doesn’t get blown up while doing that damage”, and brings significant disruption relative to S/D which is a more defensive kit that weakens (boon steal, cripple, vulnerability) a target while having some of the disable of S/P (tactical strike).
You want to make it just a heavy CC kit?

This would just be a buff to pistol whip, with the one caveat that you wouldn’t be able to animation cancel and chain stun.

It would let you do things like use part one, then do some attacks then immobilize target, then use the flurry when they are immobilized. It just opens up skill choice on that weapon.

Sorry Jon, some new information about change to infiltrator strike or the trait “hard to catch”?

I have three ideas for Venoms:

Make them toggled on and off – when a Venom is turned on, you get a chance to apply it’s effect on any hit – this is more like a permanent passive buff. The CD occurs when you toggle a different Venom (making it similar in ways to Ele’s attunements).

Issues: Venom effects will have to be completely reworked. People running a single Venom will have the benefit of never going into a CD (since they aren’t switching to another Venom) – but don’t receive as much benefit from Venom enhancing traits (since they are only slotting one), so that’s a trade off right there.

2nd suggestion:

Increase the number of applications to be closer to Conjurations. Adjust the abilities power and CD to compensate. One of the biggest drawbacks to Venoms is the small number of applications – you have to be 100% sure you want to use it, and it’s going to be a long time before you get another shot if you aren’t sure.

3rd suggestion:

Make Venoms work like Engi kits – Thieves have the fewest number of weapon sets available for any class in the game, and that means the fewest number of possible skills to choose from. Why not increase this a little by making Venom Kits, that offer an alternative 5 skills (or, not even 5 skills per Venom – each Venom could be 1 or 2 skills, perhaps an offensive/defensive skill per Venom)? This would add some versatility and diversity to the Thief’s skill set.

Frenk.5917:

JonPeters.5630:

snip

Utilies

• Traps: In a few words, they are incomplete. A good idea would be to add a condition damage applier to them, and adding to the trait “Master trapper” the ability of being able of ground targeting with traps. This would really help condition damage build BUT these kind of builds would still be thorn between survivability (shadow refuge, blinding power, shadowstep), venoms (of which I’ll speak in the next point) and traps (which would improve the condition damage pressure but without providing any survivability).

• Venoms: I used to run both a venomshare build in WvWvW and a Condition damage venom build in SPVP. Like you (or another dev, I don’t remember) said, the ability of putting more than 1 condition is what makes a condition build viable. Thieves can, at the moment, apply bleeding and torment (the way we apply poison is so tricky that I won’t even consider that as an appliable condition). Right now applying torment can be a huge mistake if done in the wrong situation with the P/D build because you’d just run out of initiative too fast (because of that I think that P/D will see a huge buff with the initiative base regeneration increased, allowing us to apply torment in a much more forgivable way). So why not using venoms to improve our condition damage and make a condition damage build viable for both SPVP and WvWvW? Ice drake venom is too underpowered, the chill duration is very low considering it’s CD. I propose to increase the chill duration of 1 second, for a total of 2 second and to add a 2 attacks to the venom effect. That way you could apply 10 seconds of chill. This is still not very good, considering the CD and the fact that all those seconds can be neutralized by a single condition removal.

And here is what I think would be perfect for venoms:
Simply, instead of removing all our venom stacks in the next few attacks, let us trigger the venom each time we want to apply it. Let me explain better (english isn’t my mother tongue as you probably have noticed): we could be able to: 1) activate the venom on time (it still doesn’t go on CD!), 2) inflict the venom on our next attack, 3) activate again the venom every time we want to use it for a maximum of times that is the maximum of actual attacks (for example, 5 times for spider venom), 4) once we activated the venom all the times we could, the venom goes on CD.
I also think that lowering the Venom CD by 5 seconds could improve us. All of this would be awesome both for WvWvW venomshare builds, since the thief gains more control on when and how activate the venoms, and for the conditions builds, since it would allow us to inflict poison and other conditions in a more predictable (for us, not for the enemy!) way.

• Signet of Agility: why does it only increase our precision by 90 instead of by 180 like it was 2 weeks ago?

- continues in part 2 -

• Shadow Arts: I feel like Shadow’s Embrace has been overnerfed, passing from a 3 seconds CD to a 10 seconds CD. Moreover, now that people can’t achieve “permastealth” anymore it should be changed into a 6 seconds CD trait. Also I don’t understand why venom traits have been put here, please consider switching them into another tree or melting them with deadly arts venom traits.

I am in total agreement for the utilities. Traps have two traits currently that do not lend much to the utility category. Personally I would prefer an instant cast option… There definitely could be some added functionality to make them more played.

That poison idea working similar to mesmer mantras is very good idea it adds more control to poison skills similar to the thief initiative system. It would also create a synergy with Leeching Venoms and/or Venomous Aura…

I haven’t seen a post noting a change to SA IV would you mind linking that? Since that would be nail in the class coffin IMO.

Frenk.5917:

• Dancing dagger: it’s a good skill, but it doesn’t worth 3 initiative, even if you think it’s a low initiative cost. Why? Because it’s a 5 second cripple with no damage at all and that can be cleared very easily. Forget about the fact that it can bounce to up to 4 targets, thieves usually don’t engage in such fights and they also have much better gap closer than that, both in SPVP and in WvWvW. In my opinion you can make this an immobilize that can not bounce more than 3 times and that, of course, last less than 5.5 seconds. You can also remove the damage, it’s irrilevant as it is now.

Problem with this:

Dagger skills are all about situational benefits.

1- Auto, works well with other skills as a cover condition or to simply mitigate target’s healing. Conditional stealth attack for massive damage.

2- Conditional finishing damage – Good for mobility and low HP single targets. Bad as an opener or defensive tool.

3- Multiple targets/evade (evasion could stand a buff) Bad at direct damage, good at conditions and defensive play.

4- Multiple target cripple, 100% projectile finisher X4, Bad at damage and single targets, good at defensive play and steal/group combo interactions.

5- Stealth! Good for both offense and defense, but hosts lots of adrenaline.

Dagger 4, like our other 4 slot skills, isn’t a gap closer. It’s a defensive skill with strong combo interaction. I use it frequenltly to pump out lifetap heals, confusion, cripple and other points of opportunity where my other tools are a bad move (being overwhelemd by targets) It works best as a disengage/breather skill. You have plenty of other gap closers avaliable in the other 4 skills of your weapons, as well as a dedicated class ability and several utilities.

Try looking at it through the lens of a skill, like headshot, or poison arrow, that has a very narrow and specific use that it’s very good at. On other classes these skills aren’t a good idea, but thieves have these sorts of skills because of our init mechanic. because we don’t rely on cooldowns, Our skills are generally much more narrow and specific in their uses, and dancing dagger is no different.

Personally, I’ve saved my own life countless times by using it through a failed shadow refuge to save my own life.

Dancing Dagger should apply 2 stacks of Torment and Swiftness to the target

PopeUrban.2578:

Dekk.3459:

@popeurban the other pistol traits are in CS… I dont see how ricochet fits better in DA.

The point is that it fits better in deadly arts (an offensive line) than trickery (a class mechanics line) and synergizes better with its partner traits (venoms), wheras trickery, being a steal/initiative line, should probably always look pretty build-neutral.

in addition, DA holds combined training, which is a trait that doesn’t really see play on any other set, but P/P builds spec pretty frequently.

Thing is Ricochet also effects P/D. Which, when running a condition build, I personally do not use either Deadly Arts or Critical Strikes. Anyway the other pistol abilities are in CS was what I was saying. So far I have not seen any build suggestions for thief with the changes…

Dekk.3459:

I haven’t seen a post noting a change to SA IV would you mind linking that? Since that would be nail in the class coffin IMO.

That change has ALREADY been done several weeks ago.

Can dev also make Dredge afffected by Blidness? 1 dungeon, 1 fractal and some maps are full with this creatures that are inmune to ours most important damage mitigator in pve, just for a race flavor is just no fair, and also made many thieves to forget the usefulness of blinding builts in dungeons and wvw at certain point. If a guardian can make an ice elemental burn in flames why can a thief “blind” the senses of a mole humanoid?
Also make blind affect 1 attack each 5 attacks of champions will make blinding builts useful in boss figths too.

Frenk.5917:

Dekk.3459:

I haven’t seen a post noting a change to SA IV would you mind linking that? Since that would be nail in the class coffin IMO.

That change has ALREADY been done several weeks ago.

That was a tooltip error at the time the last patch hit. The tooltip has since been fixed, but it was not noted in the last bug fixing patch.

Dozens of messages regarding p/p and not even a word more than pistol whip changes:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/P-P-death-10-Dec

Do not tell us that we improve with the initiative regeneration, because we already had opportunist. Do not tell us to take hard to catch because it is unplayable and I prefer ten times assasin reward…
Vigour and dodging was our survival…what we do know? Jump?

Best,

Haltair, one of the Twelve Shadows

Maugetarr.6823:

Frenk.5917:

Dekk.3459:

I haven’t seen a post noting a change to SA IV would you mind linking that? Since that would be nail in the class coffin IMO.

That change has ALREADY been done several weeks ago.

That was a tooltip error at the time the last patch hit. The tooltip has since been fixed, but it was not noted in the last bug fixing patch.

My ingame thief Shadow Embrace trait has 10 second of internal cooldown. Tested in the mist, it has a 10 seconds CD. Maybe I should test it again? It’s been a while since I did it.

Might suggest reworking traits such as corrosive traps, 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds makes this trait very weak and therefore pointless.

I just don’t understand why the thief needs this kind of buff. This will allow them to be way more mobile too, and classes like the elementalist constantly have their mobility nerfed but thieves get it buffed. Even now there’s no one that can catch a thief or out kite them.

I really just troll around with thief but I wouldn’t mind seeing that they give thieves 3 seconds to stealth back up again after bursting someone rather then 4 seconds.

I hope that’s not asking for too much : P

Just my own opinion but a lot of the weapon skills on the thief toolbar could use an uptick in duration or stacks. As example death blossom bleeds should have one more stack of bleeds .

The skill that adds torment when compared to a warriors impale is very underpowered. Impale can be used every 15 seconds for 5 stacks lasting 12 seconds.
20 percent condition duration means one can keep this 5 stacks on perpetually.

The thief version of torment Shadow strike adds two stacks for 5 seconds at the cost of 4 initiative. Yes the thief can use shadow strike several times to build up those stacks but the the low duration plus the fact this will burn off all initiative thus locking down the other skills on the tool power makes the relative power of this skill very weak . Since the base so low adding more condition duration will have little effect on overall stacks. With a Condition cleanse by the target all that initiative spent by the thief when compared to the warrior is more detrimental overall.

The duration should go up by two seconds and stacks by two.

TheBandit.7031:

I just don’t understand why the thief needs this kind of buff. This will allow them to be way more mobile too, and classes like the elementalist constantly have their mobility nerfed but thieves get it buffed. Even now there’s no one that can catch a thief or out kite them.

What reference are you using? There are more than a few builds where thief is kitable. Warrior is currently the fastest moving… So wtfe dude

TheBandit.7031:

I just don’t understand why the thief needs this kind of buff. This will allow them to be way more mobile too, and classes like the elementalist constantly have their mobility nerfed but thieves get it buffed. Even now there’s no one that can catch a thief or out kite them.

Nah thief will be in the worst state ever after the patch in my opinion. What thief build will be avaible on tpvp spam after changes? Please help im confused…

TheBandit.7031:

I just don’t understand why the thief needs this kind of buff. This will allow them to be way more mobile too, and classes like the elementalist constantly have their mobility nerfed but thieves get it buffed. Even now there’s no one that can catch a thief or out kite them.

The thing is you don’t understand the thiefs current most viable/popular meta builds(dp sd) are not getting buffed due to the nerf to all the thief initiative regen traits . Lots of thief specs that went heavy into CS line will be lucky to break even after this patch. The changes with initiative will tone down the thiefs stronger specs and buff up the weaker ones. So overall after the patch the thief will most likely be weaker esp if you take into account the heavy nerf on our vigor uptime.

You are obviously not a thief player and don’t have a good understanding of thief traits or builds. So please don’t come in and post things out of ignorance.

JonPeters.5630:

ensoriki.5789:

JonPeters.5630:

We are thinking about making it into two skills that both cost initiative so we can balance the while thing more easily. For example this would let us increase the stun duration.

What no. Not my Pistol Whip.
Why can’t your team just handle skills as they are?
There is not much different in PW’s core from Hundred Blades, Zealots defense, and Blurred Frenzy but you need to split it in two? What?
Sure sometimes reworks need to be done but I dont think this is the case at all.

Whole thing with Initiative was a global resource to use skills as you need them. The More you split skills the more silly it becomes for the initiative system as I feel for it. If its the case you might as well give the Thief CD’s instead of ini if this is going to be a frequent addition.

Maybe I’ve misread you guys , how do you want S/P to play as a weapon set as it seems to differ from how I feel about it. I thought “Hit & run strong damage that doesn’t get blown up while doing that damage”, and brings significant disruption relative to S/D which is a more defensive kit that weakens (boon steal, cripple, vulnerability) a target while having some of the disable of S/P (tactical strike).
You want to make it just a heavy CC kit?

This would just be a buff to pistol whip, with the one caveat that you wouldn’t be able to animation cancel and chain stun.

It would let you do things like use part one, then do some attacks then immobilize target, then use the flurry when they are immobilized. It just opens up skill choice on that weapon.

So you won’t be able to cancel the flury? Does it get a full time evasion frame then?
Because otherwise using that skill could become a deathtrap easily.

“all thief specs got massive buffs”. Yea, I guess a level 1 thief is now 25% stronger with any weapon.
Sword auto hits 3 targets. Pistol whip hits 3 targets 7 times plus initial strike.
Pistol shot with auto ricochet hits up to four targets. Unload with ricochet hits up to 15 targets.
Considering 100% crit rate on pistol whip/unload is not a problem at all, wan’t me to point out the loss?
Before (unload):
Base regen: 0.75/second
Average opportunist regen: (5(ricochets per unload average) plus 8 hits over)x4 = 52 crits in 7 seconds. 7.42 crits per second. 1-(1-0.3)^7.42 = 93% chance to get 1 initiative EVERY second.
Total regen: 0.75 plus 0.93*1= 1.68 initiative/second (average).
After (unload):
Base regen: 1/second
Opportunist: 0.2/second
Total regen: 1.2/second.
Summary: 30% nerf to P/P, the weakest thief spec.

Good point I hope jon will take a look at the math .

Me quoted there.
I want to point out again that I am not as much against changes as much I am against comments that came with them.

I am currently working on my feedback on the whole thief trait line selections. So to say, I am really afraid of what for now seems like a rather random changes (the solutions that look like there was no options to debate on at all and that thus made it in as the only ones).

There were a lot of times I wanted to take Trickster when I invested into the Trickery line but Bountiful is more practical on S/P for sure, if I wanted Trickster I had to then drop a Grandmaster (which Is fine). You’ll drop Trickster down, but then it competes with Thrill of the crime (at least for me), which is better granted we can get Fury from Furious Retaliation, so it will be picked more, but it would still be helpful if there was some kind of utility boon strip (or better Sigil of Null), so Bountiful could be dropped for the same reasons I can drop Thrill because I have Furious Retal.

Building off this train of thought.

There isn’t really any room for boon removal in current “Trick” skills outside of Scorpion Wire. If you can guys can find someone way to fit it in there, maybe as a pbaoe chain skill of Scorpion wire, or something then Trickster could definitely find itself being picked over Bountiful Theft.

vincecontix.1264:

TheBandit.7031:

I just don’t understand why the thief needs this kind of buff. This will allow them to be way more mobile too, and classes like the elementalist constantly have their mobility nerfed but thieves get it buffed. Even now there’s no one that can catch a thief or out kite them.

The thing is you don’t understand the thiefs current most viable/popular meta builds(dp sd) are not getting buffed due to the nerf to all the thief initiative regen traits . Lots of thief specs that went heavy into CS line will be lucky to break even after this patch. The changes with initiative will tone down the thiefs stronger specs and buff up the weaker ones. So overall after the patch the thief will most likely be weaker esp if you take into account the heavy nerf on our vigor uptime.

You are obviously not a thief player and don’t have a good understanding of thief traits or builds. So please don’t come in and post things out of ignorance.

I mentioned nothing about about them being more powerful. I was only talking about mobility. I referenced the elementalist because they used to have a good ability to escape, which was taken down a good notch. With more initiate you’ll simply be able to use more escapes, therefore escaping more easily. And there escape mechanisms are not being nerfed. You’re completely right about what you said, I’m sure they won’t be any better in combat. I just can’t seem to figure out if anet wants more or less mobility.

JonPeters.5630:

UPDATE

No longer swapping Flanking Strikes and Trickster because we felt it was taking away more build diversity than it was creating. We will revisit what to do with Trickster in the future.

Nooo, I was so happy to have Trickster at Adept ;_;. Why not changing it with Merciful Ambush or Instictual Response while buffing these traits? They are quite weak after all.

Hi Jon Peters,
It took me some time to pick up theese changes and realize whats happening, first I get shocked like everybody else who plays a thief, but now Im relaxed and I want to tell you my Impression of the last days, so lets get to the Points!

1. I go with your idea of kiting a thief away from 30 Points into critical strikes, cause you can also do alot dmg without First Strikes and Executioner.

2. I also go with the Vigor nerf, today I could run around with a timeframe of 4 sec where i having no vigor BUT evade every time one every weaponswap and after every healing> gain full endurance … every thief knows how to do that and I admit its a bit impudent compared to other classes …

3. …but we have nothing to counter burst dmg with an instant skill like block/endurepain/mistform/stonesignet/deathshourd/invulnerability/Elexier S/Blur or do you see the 2.sword teleport or shadowstep as only Option as a similar skill?

4. If the stunporter will be remove completely from the 2. sword skill , is there any Chance to get a compensation on itself?
Lesser Inititave/ 2 seconds immobilize/higher port range/higher backport range as before all the port range nerfs/ Cure 2 conditions/buffing with a boon? PLZzzz;
its a very HUGE nerf

It is very hard enough for thoose thiefs who want to Play whithout stealth (especially in tpvp) and getting now a kittensläp. by watching warriors on a Point who healing the autoattack of the shortbow away … but thats something else, excuse myself.

Splitting PistolWhipe would be perfect, 2 skills > 2 Options what to do > spend Initiative or not > THANKS ( buffing the stunduration and separate from the flurry would give us more diversity on s/p )

For my new build I will try something like
//10 15 0 30 15// 0 20 0 30<maybe> 20//10 20 0 20 20// depending on how hardtocatch will work finally ….
with some trick utilies, I love the scorpion wire, plz switching Trickster to Adept
is it possible to increase the Speed of the thrown rope ?! I know you already buffed the range and cd but in fact you cant pull enemies to you which you dont attacked first?

Anyway thanks much for reading and making your thoughts

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

This, this, this and this!!

TheBandit.7031:

vincecontix.1264:

TheBandit.7031:

I just don’t understand why the thief needs this kind of buff. This will allow them to be way more mobile too, and classes like the elementalist constantly have their mobility nerfed but thieves get it buffed. Even now there’s no one that can catch a thief or out kite them.

The thing is you don’t understand the thiefs current most viable/popular meta builds(dp sd) are not getting buffed due to the nerf to all the thief initiative regen traits . Lots of thief specs that went heavy into CS line will be lucky to break even after this patch. The changes with initiative will tone down the thiefs stronger specs and buff up the weaker ones. So overall after the patch the thief will most likely be weaker esp if you take into account the heavy nerf on our vigor uptime.

You are obviously not a thief player and don’t have a good understanding of thief traits or builds. So please don’t come in and post things out of ignorance.

I mentioned nothing about about them being more powerful. I was only talking about mobility. I referenced the elementalist because they used to have a good ability to escape, which was taken down a good notch. With more initiate you’ll simply be able to use more escapes, therefore escaping more easily. And there escape mechanisms are not being nerfed. You’re completely right about what you said, I’m sure they won’t be any better in combat. I just can’t seem to figure out if anet wants more or less mobility.

You obviously do not understand the changes. The ‘on-demand’ initiative gain is getting cut in half. So a thief will now have to decide go-all-in for attacks or to reserve initiative for defense. Meanwhile other classes have that one weapon skill used for defense that has always been there. It is a more limiting change then you realize.

JonPeters.5630:

Cyhann.2609:

JonPeters.5630:

UPDATE

No longer swapping Flanking Strikes and Trickster because we felt it was taking away more build diversity than it was creating. We will revisit what to do with Trickster in the future.

Nooo, I was so happy to have Trickster at Adept ;_;. Why not changing it with Merciful Ambush or Instictual Response while buffing these traits? They are quite weak after all.

Yeah those are the kinds of ideas, but we don’t want to move flanking and don’t have time to buff something else right now. I will save these suggestions for when we do get to this.

Jon

Ah, well okay, even though waiting so long is unbearable, I’m thankfull for your response.
But why don’t you just swap them now, and buff them later? I really doubt that
many people use these traits, and even if there are, more are would be able to
profit from such a change.

JonPeters.5630:

This is incorrect simply because Opportunist already had an ICD. Also a minor trait that gives even 1/2 of what you think it gave is not going to let us balance init regen for any non Opportunist specs.

I think he was considering the 1s ICD , indeed calculation are done per second.

Anyway, is the change definitive or you can maybe consider what I suggested some post before?

Thank you.

JonPeters.5630:

Cyhann.2609:

JonPeters.5630:

UPDATE

No longer swapping Flanking Strikes and Trickster because we felt it was taking away more build diversity than it was creating. We will revisit what to do with Trickster in the future.

Nooo, I was so happy to have Trickster at Adept ;_;. Why not changing it with Merciful Ambush or Instictual Response while buffing these traits? They are quite weak after all.

Yeah those are the kinds of ideas, but we don’t want to move flanking and don’t have time to buff something else right now. I will save these suggestions for when we do get to this.

Jon

posted my earlier comment while you make your note official-
It was a great idea maybe you have Long Reach/Uncatchable/merciful Ambush/Instinctual Response für switching,
oh plz it would be so more useful in Adept
‘hope’

Here is my objective comparison between S/D thief before April 30th, 2013 and S/D thief as it currently is:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ahi5x5bvGhKqdHRTMnZ1R201endmank3UnVfZHdkbVE#gid=0
(For clarification: I am still referring to Infiltrator’s Return as Shadow Return in my analysis)

I sincerely hope that this analysis is read by everyone who comes across this post.
I have already posted this in the Dec 10 patch notes thread, reposting here for visibility.

JonPeters.5630:

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

I’m not sure what you mean by instant, but this is currently the only instant weapon ability. We are not adding a HUGE cast time to this skill. This skill is going to have a 360 millisecond cast time. ~1/3 of a second.

Jon

With no access to stability (other than a 90 second elite) the ability to avoid the following hit if you had a good enough reaction time seemed like part of the design of the sword. It currently doesn’t break stuns anymore, just moves you (possibly) out of range. Would you be adversed to the idea of making the return in the 600-450 range instead of putting a cast time on it so that the immediate next (melee) hit can avoided while it does not completely remove pressure from you?

(As a joke it’s an infinitely large % change to cast time: 360 ms/x ms=>? as x approaches 0)

JonPeters.5630:

Maugetarr.6823:

JonPeters.5630:

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

I’m not sure what you mean by instant, but this is currently the only instant weapon ability. We are not adding a HUGE cast time to this skill. This skill is going to have a 360 millisecond cast time. ~1/3 of a second.

Jon

With no access to stability (other than a 90 second elite) the ability to avoid the following hit if you had a good enough reaction time seemed like part of the design of the sword. It currently doesn’t break stuns anymore, just moves you (possibly) out of range. Would you be adversed to the idea of making the return in the 600-450 range instead of putting a cast time on it so that the immediate next (melee) hit can avoided while it does not completely remove pressure from you?

You can still avoid follow ups with this. 360 milliseconds is faster than almost any attack and certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones. The only loss here is using this while stunned and using it to teleport finish an opponent.

Won’t the cast time not allow you to cast it while stunned though?

Edit: I would also like to thank you for sticking around in these forums to address concerns over the new patch notes. Last time they were given a month in advance, then they hit with little to no change or discussion. This is one of the best discussions we’ve had it the last year and few months.

JonPeters.5630:

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

I’m not sure what you mean by instant, but this is currently the only instant weapon ability. We are not adding a HUGE cast time to this skill. This skill is going to have a 360 millisecond cast time. ~1/3 of a second.

Jon

The problem is not being able to return when stunned, wich makes it kinda useless since it removes only one condition, removing the return (we still are stunned even after return) will be a killer cause we dont have stability (please dont tell me about DS) or protection and our dodges will be lowered soooo we wont be able to sustain agains heavy disable classes like Wars, Engi since we will prob have one stun break… Shadowstep, After that we will be free kill any stun = death

I would really like you guys to reconsider the sword #2 return change it will make pvp sword builds dead, we will be forced to go dagger if we want to be a little bit effective (high damage, high mobility compared with the new sword)

Thanks for the attention would like to hear why you all think its needed to nerf more the sword return when its the only skill that makes the sword weapon still alive

PS: English isnt my main language but i hope you can understand what i tried to say

JonPeters.5630:

You can still avoid follow ups with this. 360 milliseconds is faster than almost any attack and certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones. The only loss here is using this while stunned and using it to teleport finish an opponent.

Would you be able to tell us how it was being used to teleport finish? I’ve played S/D since betas and I never used it this way, so clearly I was missing something.