Guild Wars 2

Iv’e been thinking about it…

And other than the Sword nerf ( which IMO is incredibly sad but now we will need to avoid the entire hit rather than eat CC and then run. Never used it to stomp [due to pistol] )

The thief won’t really be going anywhere compared to where’s he’s at now.

Iv’e noticed a lot more thieves going 10/30/0/0/30 ( set up Iv’e been using for a little over a month now ) which has 0 initiative regen skills ( other that klept. ). The initiative buff will make that build even more crazy than it is. ( P/D of course ).

Thieves will honestly still be amazingly good ( I don’t understand why people think they’re going to be trash after the update. ). I expect more nerfs incoming personally.

Travlane.5948:

QUESTION for ANET/PLAYERS:

:)

S/P or S/D or D/D D/P build …..analyze init regen buff vs init gain nerf on the dec 10th patch. will it equate the same? better? worse? im going to guess worse …. as im writing this i have no idea how this will come out so… here goes.

Withdraw – Healing —-————- 15s CD
Infiltrators Signet – Tele 900 range CD + 2 init —-——-24s CD
Signet of Agility- Remove 1 condi per ally & Renew energy 2 init————-24s CD
Shadowstep – Tele 1200 range Tele back -3 condis --————— 50s CD
Basilisk Venom- 1.5s Channel 1.5sec stone to target on hit —-————kitten CD

Traits init boost as of PRE DEC 10th

+2 init per stealth (32 init per 60 secs)
+2 init per signet 20% cooldown reduction on signets (9 init per 60 secs)
+3 init per steal (roughly 6 init per 60 secs)
+1 init per crit per 1 sec (CD) (roughly 16 init per 60 secs)
+2 init per 10 secs (12 init per 60 secs)
+.75 init per second base regen (45 init per 60 secs)
TOTAL= 120 initiative gained per an average 60 sec fight

Traits init boost as of POST DEC 10th

+2 init per stealth (20 init per 10 secs)
+1 init per signet 20% cooldown reduction on signets (4 init per 60 secs)
+2 init per steal (roughly 4 init per 60 secs)
+1 init per crit per 5 sec (CD) (roughly 8 init per 60 secs)
+1 init per 10 secs (6 init per 60 secs)
+1 init per sec base regen (60 init per 60 secs
TOTAL= 102 initiative gained per an average 60 sec fight

TOTAL DIFFERENCE = 18 init per 60 secs

THE CHANGES are basically -3 init per 10 seconds for thief POST dec 10th.

If we pretend that nobody is stacking stealth for extra init….then its only roughly about a difference of -1 init per 10 secs loss.

I fail to see how this is beneficial or at least even?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Pre-Post-Dec-10th-changes-The-real-deal/first#post3206571

I think that alot of these Nerfs are over the top and lead to less diversity which is quite saddening. The thief is of no real benefit to anything other then small skirmishes and some PVP. It is unpreferable in PVE and can be outdone by other classes and is often skipped in party formation. At the very least if you are going to cut more diversity at least add something… How about buffing P/P and letting that weapon set have its day.. For as long as I can remember P/P has always been the least favorite weapon set. make someone somewhere out there happy.

A few days ago, I removed any weaps and traits that are set to be
“balanced.” A few hours ago, I double checked my traits and can
guarantee that I won’t be dancing to their fife.
Players gravitate to certain builds on certain classes when everything else sucks.
ANET, in their wisdom, breaks the things that work to stop popular usage.
Then everyone will find something else that doesn’t suck AS BAD.
Then those builds get nerfed …

Brett.4305:

A few days ago, I removed any weaps and traits that are set to be
“balanced.” A few hours ago, I double checked my traits and can
guarantee that I won’t be dancing to their fife.
Players gravitate to certain builds on certain classes when everything else sucks.
ANET, in their wisdom, breaks the things that work to stop popular usage.
Then everyone will find something else that doesn’t suck AS BAD.
Then those builds get nerfed …

there are still great builds. need to learn them.

Brett.4305:

A few days ago, I removed any weaps and traits that are set to be
“balanced.” A few hours ago, I double checked my traits and can
guarantee that I won’t be dancing to their fife.
Players gravitate to certain builds on certain classes when everything else sucks.
ANET, in their wisdom, breaks the things that work to stop popular usage.
Then everyone will find something else that doesn’t suck AS BAD.
Then those builds get nerfed …

this is basically what happens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiXhgsfoL6c

when i see things like this it makes me mad. no i dont want a warrior nerf. even as they are now….OP and all. i just want no nerfs. undo all nerfs and make all classes better with buffs. should never nerf. rarely ever anyway.

a warrior can do that in the video an a thief would have died in EVERY instance. so a thief is slippery! BIG DEAL! 1 v 1 assassination is what a thief is. IR nerf? why bc they are hard to hit? BS

Sanduskel.1850:

Brett.4305:

A few days ago, I removed any weaps and traits that are set to be
“balanced.” A few hours ago, I double checked my traits and can
guarantee that I won’t be dancing to their fife.
Players gravitate to certain builds on certain classes when everything else sucks.
ANET, in their wisdom, breaks the things that work to stop popular usage.
Then everyone will find something else that doesn’t suck AS BAD.
Then those builds get nerfed …

there are still great builds. need to learn them.

Learn to read. I did “learn a build.”
sheesh, the Sanduskel strikes …

Again, sample size of 1 an anecdotal.

Sanduskel.1850:

Again, sample size of 1 an anecdotal.

…What?

Imagi.4561:

Sanduskel.1850:

Again, sample size of 1 an anecdotal.

…What?

What indeed, he certainly lost me…

Volrath.1473:

actually it was 1 init per second in beta and if I’m not mistaking at launch as well, it was nerfed to 0,75 later.

One can track the changes in the history of the wiki page

Sanduskel.1850:

Brett.4305:

A few days ago, I removed any weaps and traits that are set to be
“balanced.” A few hours ago, I double checked my traits and can
guarantee that I won’t be dancing to their fife.
Players gravitate to certain builds on certain classes when everything else sucks.
ANET, in their wisdom, breaks the things that work to stop popular usage.
Then everyone will find something else that doesn’t suck AS BAD.
Then those builds get nerfed …

there are still great builds. need to learn them.

I think you missed the core idea of his post.

Fear not fellow thief players.

Thief can only get better from here…

Seems like they are going to be worse starting Dec 10th.

The main problem lies in initiative management and how Anet has designed it. Players want more control of how much initiative they can gain at any given moment. Why? Every one of our skills are linked by that one core factor. All our skills depend on how much initiative we have left. This is a great for linking burst attacks, but it limits the number of combos we can operate at a given moment. If we blow our initiative puts us at a major disadvantage at constantly bursting (imo a thief is a very reactive class that plays on the opponents actions and hesitates to unload until the right moment). While other classes (ahem… warriors) can near consistently use at least one of their weapon skills with little to no cool down.
[ex. From personal experience on my warrior (GS/axe, shield), when traited correctly can have a near perfect rotation of GS5, 1, 1, 1 swap 1, 1, 1, 1, (dodge or 5), 3, 2, (~5-10 sec) 4, burst, swap, GS 2, 3, 5, 1, (dodge) 1, 1, etc… notice that I did not have to use any utilities. Adding in, healing signet, invulnerability, and instant condition removal and fury signet I have MANY options for remaining in a fight for extended periods of time or to pop out when needed. With the easy mobility I can very easily escape from fights (all movement skills remove immobilize) and reset into a defensive position if my health is low or take too much condition damage. Add in perplexity runes and I can pretty much take out any class in 1-2 combo rotations. On a thief (my main- (d/d & s/d with sb), I have to HEAVILY rely on confusing my target to my position and react according to their moves in terms of what skills I use and how often I can attack effectively, most of the time I use my initiative as a defensive mechanism rather than to burst- this means I have to often rely on positioning down my foes, weapon swap usually means that I am retreating or chasing.]
This is just to show that a class like warrior has little to no need to reset fights (except when playing defensive), while it is vital for a thief who has lost all their initiative to mount an offensive/defensive. IMO some classes are keypad crunching to wins, while thief is something that has to be played gracefully.

The buff to initiative as a means to keep us in the fight will pale in comparison to the trait nerfs simply because thieves will have less control of their initiative management. The end result will be the opposite of what I think Anet is trying to achieve… which is rather than keep thieves in fights longer, we will be forced to retreat and wait for regain more often (even if it means waiting less, the enemy will still have time to reset as well).

Regarding the IR and vigor nerf… yea, that will destroy the weapon set (see arguments above… all well written I might add).

@Sanduskel- Yes, permastealth via p/d is going away. Yes, it needed to go away. Most people will agree including us thieves. Now stop beating an already dead horse and move on with the discussion please.
I have been playing thief since open beta and have tried many builds over this time… d/d bs, s/d evasion, s/p (mainly in pve), p/p perplexity, p/d condition- I have unique sets, weapons and trinkets for each (yea a bit of a thief enthusiast here xD)… but aside from d/d, I have pretty much heavily relied on stealth, evasion or initiative management traits- which I am sure all non-pve thiefs worry about/trait in one way or form.
Let me ask you… you say there are some great builds out there, I would love to know which ones you are talking about… please enlighten us, especially if they don’t utilize stealth, mobility, evades or initiative (last 3 of which Anet is nerfing) since after Dec 10 most thieves will need to look for a better means to cope with the current meta.

Last post:

Basilisk Venom- Why is this an elite skill? With the previous nerf to duration and the ability for opponents to come out of its stun, it seems like a pointless skill. Even mobs can come out of it or maybe it is just very buggy…. I thought the unique feature of petrification along with its animation was to be something that cannot be broken with break stun. In its current state, it cannot even stack stuns and seems worthless comparative to other class stuns which don’t have a cast time and are stackable.
Yea, I understand that bs thieves were abusing it by using it while in stealth. Maybe change the mechanism so that it can be stun broken while applied in stealth, but in any other situation it is not.

Lastly, why has this game moved more to Condition damage and stuns (reinforced by Anets latest updates)? Seems like us thieves are left in the dust with the limited condition removals, while other classes have so many means of cleanse.

Only ways any build thief can cleanse (not including racial skills):
Heal Skill
-Hide in shadows: Cures burning, poison, and bleeding
-Withdraw: Cures immobilized, chilled, and crippled.

Utilities
-Shadow Return: Cures 3 conditions
-Activate Signet of Agility: Cure a condition for each nearby ally.
-Roll for Initiative: Recover from crippled, chilled, and immobile.

Trait
-Shadow Embrace (SA IV): Remove conditions periodically while in stealth.
-Fleet of Foot (Acrobat VII): Dodging removes conditions from you. Specifically only cripple and weakness.
-Pain Response (Acrobat VIII): Gain regeneration and remove conditions when struck while your health is below the threshold. (bleeding, burning, poison)

S/x
-Shadow Return: Cure one condition
No other weapon set gives cures innately.

Im not even going to begin on how many condition cleanse other classes have….

I always thought a thief was meant to be ‘slippery’ and avoid conditions and that is why they have such limited removal. If dodge is taken away…. yea…. Also, I wonder if Anet sees the correlation between which utilities and trait lines are used more often than others. Seems pretty clear cut.

Sorry for the long posts, I just wanted to give my 2 cents and see what others think.
~Aladdin~

You laid it all out, Aladdin.
And you are correct on all points.

The dev team … I’m not sure what facts and figures they use
to arrive at their conclusions.

“One day they’ll have secrets … one day they’ll have dreams.” ~ Dr. Alfred Lanning

+1 for keeping Active Initiative gain.

Jumper.9482:

+1 for keeping Active Initiative gain.

Jumper it is almost as if you’d like to increase the skill cap or something +1

Jumper.9482:

+1 for keeping Active Initiative gain.

what do you mean by this?

Sanduskel.1850:

Again, sample size of 1 an anecdotal.

The pot is calling the kettle black again.

i really dont know why thieves compare themselves to warriors and more correctly the healing signet warrior
sure the warrior play style design is to put more sustain dps than the thief which has higher dps . so that is why warrior built to stay in the fight longer with higher armor and health pool while thief must go stealth or shadow step away to reset themselves.

i really dont know how the initiative change will impact my burst and skill use but from what i read anet want to buff it- so i can only hope that if they’ll see they were wrong they would change it ASAP .

my main concern is the vigor nerf
my play style wasnt built for perma stealth so my main defense were dodge/evades as much as possible . now i know s/d thieves took it to extreme so why they nerf the vigor for all weapon set
anet forget that although Vigorous Recovery has for now is 8 (after nerf 6) seconds every 15 seconds and Bountiful Theft is for 18 seconds (after nerf 14) (+%boon) for every 30 seconds . thus only build which combine both can get perma vigor and after the change it will be close to perma (maybe 2 seconds less). but what about build that dont combine both trait lines.
every class has its unique build which is hard to counter but now thief has none

lets remember what are the way to negate damage and which class has them
1. evade skill – ranger, thief, mesmer, even ele (1 skills)
2. dodge (vigor) – all classes beside necro
3. block skills – guardian, warrior, ranger, mesmer and even ele (1 utility) and engineer
4. aegis – guardian, mesmer, warrior, engineer
5. blind – all classes
6. invulnerable – ele, mesmer, engineer, warrior, ranger (traited) (and thief only in pve steal skill)
7. protection – guardian, ele, engineer, ranger, mesmer, even necro

as all of you see our name hardly mention
only evade and dodge are our main dmg negator (stealth may confuse but you can still take dmg).
so build that want to be more evasive now cant and must be more careful and can not play offensively rather than defensively
and lets talk about immobilize stacking – really thief has nothing to do with it as only 1 utility skills can negate (as you wont take both heal and utility) it but try to stay for 3 seconds immobilize and you dead while every other class has more ways to deal with it .
my only hope is that the ini buff will pay itself with more sustain dmg dealing

TL:DR
its feel anet wants to make thieves a hit and run or a scavenger class which cant play solo as we have poor defense abilities so we must play more in group while contribute almost nothing

@messiah I wasn’t trying to compare the warrior to thief, but rather the play style of initiative regeneration versus weapon set cool downs. All our skills are linked to how much initiative we have at a given moment, while most classes do not have this unique mechanic- this serves as a benefit (can chain the same skill multiple times) and a hindrance (no initiative means all our weapon skills are on CD) . I can just as easily do the same example with my mesmer or any other class with weapons CD in rotating their weapon skills (except I would need utilities to sustain through some of the CD) to stay longer in battle- funny thing is that mesmer is a light class and from experience I can stay inside a fight longer with her than with my thief. In the end it comes down to keypad crunching (skilled players fine tune this to an art) for most classes versus tactical response and dodging for thieves.
Simply put a thief is more of a reactive class… we watch and see what our enemy does before we strike then we put pressure on them when we feel we have the right moment, which results in 3 scenarios: they play skillfully and an epic battle ensues, they get the best of us and down us or they become flustered and start making errors that get them downed (assuming the fight is gone until completion).

I think we are arguing the same points. I really like how you broke down the list of damage mitigators in the game. Two additions are that a few of the warrior weapon sets and utilities give them the ability to evade, I would also add retaliation and fear to the stealth list while they do not prevent taking damage their mechanics intuitively negate damage.

alladin is right on one point quite well. thief is a reactive class. which means we should have initiative on demand. the init boosts should be more at will with a gnerally low regen rate like .75/sec.

sounds silly right? well think of it this way…… lets take away all init burst gains from all skills and all traits and put the regen at 1.25 per second or even 1.5 to be generous. that would extremely outweigh all skills/traits for init boost in a period of time.

how does this affect battle. lets see. Black powder shot to Heartseeker to backstab to heartseeker. now the enemy has about 25-30% hp left and you have 0 init. if you had init gain skill/traits you could have 6-7 initiative back right on the spot. however, downgrading like they are doing…if u have 1.5 regen per sec then you would only have 1.5 initiative in that same time when you are out of init. its much better to have the init gain in skills/traits bc we can choose when we need it. by upping regen and downing burst init gains it means we will have a very hard time staying active and finishing opponents and making attacks much more risky!

“I” believe this is a pretty big nerf. they are taking away the control from the thief and making it a standard regen. horrible idea. Then again anet seems to dumb down everything. just compare gw1 to gw2. its made for …the more inexperienced and simple of players. no real build diversity.

i agree a thief must has the control on his actions and cannot stand in random reaction
like some traits anet gave us which we would have never use (Hard to Catch,Instinctual Response,Last Refuge)
but again if the ini regen is buff to +33% so i want to think in short time we will get used to it and know how to control our skill actions like we have done so far

if not i am sure the thieves community will shout loud enough for anet to change/buff it or we all reroll other class or other game

as for now its really hard to play thief compare to other classes especially in group fight where you contribute almost nothing

After having some time to process all this information and responses it seems that anet is trying to dumb down the thief. Nerfing skills that are activated and putting power into passive stuff. Destroying sword/X. Nerfing general evasion/stealth tactics. Buffing completely useless traits to justify it. Completely limiting build diversity into only 1 viable build now for tpvp and in wvw. D/P will be the only usable weaponset, even after infusion nerf because d/d offers no defensive capabilities at all and doesn’t have any DPS advantage over D/P.

I feel like arenanet is trying to fix something that isn’t broken and in the process they are going to break the thief on dec 10.

swinsk.6410:

After having some time to process all this information and responses it seems that anet is trying to dumb down the thief. Nerfing skills that are activated and putting power into passive stuff. Destroying sword/X. Nerfing general evasion/stealth tactics. Buffing completely useless traits to justify it. Completely limiting build diversity into only 1 viable build now for tpvp and in wvw. D/P will be the only usable weaponset, even after infusion nerf because d/d offers no defensive capabilities at all and doesn’t have any DPS advantage over D/P.

I feel like arenanet is trying to fix something that isn’t broken and in the process they are going to break the thief on dec 10.

I’m not sure why they feel the need to dumb it down—as you said, it’s like trying to fix something that isn’t broken. It already has a pretty low skill floor, and I feel like some of these changes are reducing the ability of experienced players to earn rewards with build synchronicity and risk-taking.

Perhaps it’s just me, but that’s the general impression that I’m getting.

swinsk.6410:

After having some time to process all this information and responses it seems that anet is trying to dumb down the thief. Nerfing skills that are activated and putting power into passive stuff. Destroying sword/X. Nerfing general evasion/stealth tactics. Buffing completely useless traits to justify it. Completely limiting build diversity into only 1 viable build now for tpvp and in wvw. D/P will be the only usable weaponset, even after infusion nerf because d/d offers no defensive capabilities at all and doesn’t have any DPS advantage over D/P.

I feel like arenanet is trying to fix something that isn’t broken and in the process they are going to break the thief on dec 10.

been saying this since gw2 launched. they are dumbing it down so theres no good players. just good skills and classes. they want to make it so an 8 year old can play at the same lvl as a 25 year old. and that is all related to the interest of revenue. problem is that the ones that actually spend money on the game are ones that go for legendaries…titles….skins. and those are usually the higher tier players which hate these junk nerfs.

they are taking the skill out of the thieves players hands and now its going to be so passive that its attack attack and wait for long period of time.

Jaradon.2756:

Imagi.4561:

Sanduskel.1850:

Again, sample size of 1 an anecdotal.

…What?

What indeed, he certainly lost me…

Basically whatever Sanduskel says is irrelevant because he’s a sample size of one.

I’d actually like to have a dev who really plays thief in pvp and wvw, so he knows how balanced thief is. If he then still thinks the next update will buff us, then I know, it is my fault and I have to adapt. But a dev who plays his thief only in pve has no clue, if a class is balanced and which buffs would help.
In my view, this is our main problem: we don’t have a Dev who knows the class.
So every other class gets nice buffs (see warriors), but we don’t.
Warriors aren’t op, compared to guards, necros or mesmers. I think the fights between them are pretty balanced. The problem is, that the thieves get constantly nerfed as soon as they play a build well.

And as you want constructive examples:
Let’s look at sb, probably the only usable weapon in zerg fights (maybe also d/d on condition).
Cluster Bomb? no dmg, can be maybe used for tagging and getting loot. But 500dmg on a few enemies. They can start dancing and won’t die.
Choking Gas? yeah, i can shoot 3 times and am out of initiative.

Alright so thieves are useless in zerg fights.
That means, in wvw they only can roam.
But who else is excellent in roaming? engineers, mesmers, warriors, probably even rangers and guardians.
Let me think about it: all these classes can roam and are good in zerg fights.
Why should anyone play a thief, what can thieves, what others can’t do that nice?
Sorry, but the only thing I can think of, is running away.
IMO we should get back crit on C&D, crit on MUG, more dmg by dagger storm.
SB has to get usefull again (except for running away).

The first few nerfes a year ago were really necessary, for example no perma stealth.
Back then, I could understand other classes complaining about thieves. The problem was, you started buffing everyone else and nerfing us.
The question is, when you actually start balancing.

But hey, just keep nerfing us. In fact, why don’t you lower our health pool, don’t you think we should get one hitted by auto-attack?

Well, whatever, I’m already that inactive, I don’t care how far you nerf thieves. I still have fun in my guilds raids on weekends, even if i’m not helpful at all with my cluster bombs.

I think initative regeneration traits should simply be removed and replaced by actually meaningful traits. Now with higher natural regeneration and trait regen. effect being reduced, these regen. traits will be completely (or close to) obselate. Replacing these traits with new ones could open up much more builds. For example, an actually useful PvE condition build would be nice to have. I tried to leave my thief for a ranger (got bored with it so I went back to the only class I had: thief), but again and again I feel like I simply cannot do ANYTHING against conditions besides being forced to drop my berserk build for condition removal / 3sec in stealth and the signet active effect. Then I get 5 more stacks of anything a few seconds later and I’m dead. If I do ANY other build than full berserk, my damage goes so ridicolously low that it simply doesn’t pay off for that tiny bit more survival that doesn’t really changes anything.

A thief player spoke, who mains the class since relase, but tries to drop it because is tired of getting 1 shot everywhere or dealing 0 damage if tries to prevent this. Tried an alt build with conditions… it’s so useless compared to necros or even rangers that I find no words for it. I’ll return playing a thief when they can use a longbow or a rifle, hopefully this year.

Leveling my guardian now.

salty. if you think regen is better than init traits/skills than you really should think a lil harder. even if you had 1.5 init per second its not as useful as having initiative gain skills/traits bc u need them on command to finish enemies or escape or to go stealthed. having initiative on command is a NECCESSITY for thief. not a luxury.

Travlane.5948:

salty. if you think regen is better than init traits/skills than you really should think a lil harder. even if you had 1.5 init per second its not as useful as having initiative gain skills/traits bc u need them on command to finish enemies or escape or to go stealthed. having initiative on command is a NECCESSITY for thief. not a luxury.

Isn’t that one of their reasons for nerfing, the fact that it’s a “necessity” to be using skills/traits that give init. You know if they nerf them so much that it’s relatively useless to take those skills/traits… then we don’t have to, and that promotes build diversity! So, if any of our skills/trait’s become another necessity, that’s when they become targets for a nerf (buffing/fixing other skills/traits? lol good one)…

Zero Day.2594:

Travlane.5948:

salty. if you think regen is better than init traits/skills than you really should think a lil harder. even if you had 1.5 init per second its not as useful as having initiative gain skills/traits bc u need them on command to finish enemies or escape or to go stealthed. having initiative on command is a NECCESSITY for thief. not a luxury.

Isn’t that one of their reasons for nerfing, the fact that it’s a “necessity” to be using skills/traits that give init. You know if they nerf them so much that it’s relatively useless to take those skills/traits… then we don’t have to, and that promotes build diversity! So, if any of our skills/trait’s become another necessity, that’s when they become targets for a nerf (buffing/fixing other skills/traits? lol good one)…

Giving on-demand init gain increases the skill ceiling though. Nearly all builds have it in some way or another already. They need to work on making all our weapon sets viable rather than dinking with lackluster trait changes.

Hype.8032:

Giving on-demand init gain increases the skill ceiling though. Nearly all builds have it in some way or another already. They need to work on making all our weapon sets viable rather than dinking with lackluster trait changes.

Yeah… I’m sure that will happen…

Zero Day.2594:

Travlane.5948:

salty. if you think regen is better than init traits/skills than you really should think a lil harder. even if you had 1.5 init per second its not as useful as having initiative gain skills/traits bc u need them on command to finish enemies or escape or to go stealthed. having initiative on command is a NECCESSITY for thief. not a luxury.

Isn’t that one of their reasons for nerfing, the fact that it’s a “necessity” to be using skills/traits that give init. You know if they nerf them so much that it’s relatively useless to take those skills/traits… then we don’t have to, and that promotes build diversity! So, if any of our skills/trait’s become another necessity, that’s when they become targets for a nerf (buffing/fixing other skills/traits? lol good one)…

u missed the point. its a neccesity bc we need to have a FAST gain. not a fast regen. for emergencies and finishing. low hp low armor no block no invuln no protection no aegis …. its a neccessity. this init nerf is making it worse. its taking the control from the players and making it passive not to mention for an overall loss.

This may be the patch that makes me stop playing thief all together. We will see…

swinsk.6410:

This may be the patch that makes me stop playing thief all together. We will see…

I’m deleting my thief today to free up a character slot. :3

wow. that’s pretty dramatic for a pretty innocuous patch.

I have a legitimate reason to do so.

lol. ok have fun then!

Travlane.5948:

Zero Day.2594:

Travlane.5948:

salty. if you think regen is better than init traits/skills than you really should think a lil harder. even if you had 1.5 init per second its not as useful as having initiative gain skills/traits bc u need them on command to finish enemies or escape or to go stealthed. having initiative on command is a NECCESSITY for thief. not a luxury.

Isn’t that one of their reasons for nerfing, the fact that it’s a “necessity” to be using skills/traits that give init. You know if they nerf them so much that it’s relatively useless to take those skills/traits… then we don’t have to, and that promotes build diversity! So, if any of our skills/trait’s become another necessity, that’s when they become targets for a nerf (buffing/fixing other skills/traits? lol good one)…

u missed the point. its a neccesity bc we need to have a FAST gain. not a fast regen. for emergencies and finishing. low hp low armor no block no invuln no protection no aegis …. its a neccessity. this init nerf is making it worse. its taking the control from the players and making it passive not to mention for an overall loss.

The problem is they think they’ve increased thief survivability.

If we pretend thief is survivable, then the new init changes make sense. You don’t blow all your initiative at the start of the fight, you whittle your opponent down, and burst them at the end, with all this lovely initiative you’ve got from the increased regen and from not having to go nuts spending init throughout the fight.

Unfortunately, Anets thoughts on “Survivable thief” is hard to catch and assassins reward, nerfing vigor uptime, and ruining sword on the competitive level.

Zero Day.2594:

Jaradon.2756:

Imagi.4561:

Sanduskel.1850:

Again, sample size of 1 an anecdotal.

…What?

What indeed, he certainly lost me…

Basically whatever Sanduskel says is irrelevant because he’s a sample size of one. :D

+1 to you. xD

Sanduskel.1850:

lol. ok have fun then!

I am. That’s the reason.

Zacchary.6183:

swinsk.6410:

This may be the patch that makes me stop playing thief all together. We will see…

I’m deleting my thief today to free up a character slot. :3

No!
Stay with us!
Let’s troll together!

xmtrcv.5236:

Zacchary.6183:

swinsk.6410:

This may be the patch that makes me stop playing thief all together. We will see…

I’m deleting my thief today to free up a character slot.

No!
Stay with us!
Let’s troll together!

Zacchary.6183:

Sanduskel.1850:

lol. ok have fun then!

I am. That’s the reason.

Opening up the slot for a mesmer?

The Dec. 10th changes seem reasonable for the reasons listed, but my thief still seems like it has a ton of problems which have not ever been addressed.

Our utilities are truly lackluster. They have long cooldowns and are not as useful as most classes’ 1-5 abilities. The only good ones are for running away (through stealth or teleportations). Please take a look at them and give us some group utility!

Travlane.5948:

Zero Day.2594:

Travlane.5948:

salty. if you think regen is better than init traits/skills than you really should think a lil harder. even if you had 1.5 init per second its not as useful as having initiative gain skills/traits bc u need them on command to finish enemies or escape or to go stealthed. having initiative on command is a NECCESSITY for thief. not a luxury.

Isn’t that one of their reasons for nerfing, the fact that it’s a “necessity” to be using skills/traits that give init. You know if they nerf them so much that it’s relatively useless to take those skills/traits… then we don’t have to, and that promotes build diversity! So, if any of our skills/trait’s become another necessity, that’s when they become targets for a nerf (buffing/fixing other skills/traits? lol good one)…

u missed the point. its a neccesity bc we need to have a FAST gain. not a fast regen. for emergencies and finishing. low hp low armor no block no invuln no protection no aegis …. its a neccessity. this init nerf is making it worse. its taking the control from the players and making it passive not to mention for an overall loss.

p.s. I was being semi-saracastic on saying nerf something to promote build diversity because that nerfed something is now useless… pretty soon we will be running the famous reroll-to-warrior build or the bother of that build reroll-to-guardian build.

Doxie.4037:

The Dec. 10th changes seem reasonable for the reasons listed, but my thief still seems like it has a ton of problems which have not ever been addressed.
…

Don’t hold your breath, just use the reroll-to-warrior build.

You know, the more I think about some of these changes and people’s responses the more I am starting to think Anet has done the right thing. But, not completely I’d like to add.

On the ini regen rate and people’s comments about taking ini gain out of the player’s hands. This is not strikely true. You say the ini regain is on your control, but it’s not. It’s just another passive part of the build. If you build to regain ini from stealth, you’ll gain more ini when using stealth. And as stealth builds will be using stealth all the time, it is just part and parcel of the build that you gain more ini. Now that has been reduced or removed, it is in the players hands to manage their ini effectively again. It’s not about controlling how much ini you gain, it;s about how much you use.

The thief is suposed to choose when to use ini and how much, if you provide a way for a thief to build for a near infinite supply of on demand ini, then there is no choice to make, you will always have it available. Now you do not, and that was (if I remember correctly) the point of initiative.

I think part of the problem is perception of the thief and what its role is. And lets not be fooled, each profession was given a role to play in the game, by the devs. They removed the trinity but added their own class specific roles. For example, the warrior is supposed to be the front line soldier, who can charge into battle, taking and dishing out damage. This is not the thief’s role. The thief’s role is being sneaky, taking out lone stragglers and roaming. The problem is, other professions can now do just as good a job as the thief at those things. The thief is no longer the king of his role. They were also supposed to be the kings of the 1v1 combat scenerio (the thief’s description on the official site even said they were deadly in 1 on 1 combat, but strangely enough this has now changed). It seems to me that the thief’s role has changed somewhat from it’s original purpose, but they have not given us a clear definition of what they are supposed to be good at now, other than being stealthy and evasive. And both of those things have been nerfed (in some cases rightly so though).

So what I would like to know from the dev’s is, ‘What is the thief’s role now, if it is no longer to be the best 1v1 combatant?’ and ‘Now our main defense has been reduced, will we have any kind of compensation in other areas (such as direct access to more defensive boons like protection)?’. If you are going to remove the trinity and say to players that they can build their favourite profession to fill any role, we really need to be able to compete with other professions in all roles. At the moment, we cannot do that.

To be honest, I am still very happy with my thief, and I am looking forward to the ini regen change. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will effect my play. But I do think we are not getting enough buffs to compensate the nerfs. On a side note, I would also REEEEALLY like to see more weapon options for the thief, it is high time we had more options available to us (sword off-hand and rifle would be a good start ).

Rin.1046:

You know, the more I think about some of these changes and people’s responses the more I am starting to think Anet has done the right thing. But, not completely I’d like to add.

On the ini regen rate and people’s comments about taking ini gain out of the player’s hands. This is not strikely true. You say the ini regain is on your control, but it’s not. It’s just another passive part of the build. If you build to regain ini from stealth, you’ll gain more ini when using stealth. And as stealth builds will be using stealth all the time, it is just part and parcel of the build that you gain more ini. Now that has been reduced or removed, it is in the players hands to manage their ini effectively again. It’s not about controlling how much ini you gain, it;s about how much you use.

The thief is suposed to choose when to use ini and how much, if you provide a way for a thief to build for a near infinite supply of on demand ini, then there is no choice to make, you will always have it available. Now you do not, and that was (if I remember correctly) the point of initiative.

I think part of the problem is perception of the thief and what its role is. And lets not be fooled, each profession was given a role to play in the game, by the devs. They removed the trinity but added their own class specific roles. For example, the warrior is supposed to be the front line soldier, who can charge into battle, taking and dishing out damage. This is not the thief’s role. The thief’s role is being sneaky, taking out lone stragglers and roaming. The problem is, other professions can now do just as good a job as the thief at those things. The thief is no longer the king of his role. They were also supposed to be the kings of the 1v1 combat scenerio (the thief’s description on the official site even said they were deadly in 1 on 1 combat, but strangely enough this has now changed). It seems to me that the thief’s role has changed somewhat from it’s original purpose, but they have not given us a clear definition of what they are supposed to be good at now, other than being stealthy and evasive. And both of those things have been nerfed (in some cases rightly so though).

So what I would like to know from the dev’s is, ‘What is the thief’s role now, if it is no longer to be the best 1v1 combatant?’ and ‘Now our main defense has been reduced, will we have any kind of compensation in other areas (such as direct access to more defensive boons like protection)?’. If you are going to remove the trinity and say to players that they can build their favourite profession to fill any role, we really need to be able to compete with other professions in all roles. At the moment, we cannot do that.

To be honest, I am still very happy with my thief, and I am looking forward to the ini regen change. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will effect my play. But I do think we are not getting enough buffs to compensate the nerfs. On a side note, I would also REEEEALLY like to see more weapon options for the thief, it is high time we had more options available to us (sword off-hand and rifle would be a good start ).

^Pretty much all of that.

Another thing I would like to see on thief, is the “move 50% faster while stealthed” trait changed to “move 25% faster” much like warrior has because the former trait doesn’t really seem to do squat while in combat, and stealth duration is so short other than Shadow Refuge that the “moving 50% faster” is barely useful. Thieves should be able to run fast without wasting a utility on a useless signet or putting overpriced runes on armor that severely lower DPS. There is no reason thief of all classes should not have this.

Also, since infusion of shadows is getting nerfed, why not change infiltrator’s signet, infiltrator’s strike, and infiltrator’s arrow to 1200 range? Why can thief not move as far as warrior?