Guild Wars 2

Please stop making changes and play a thief for a while in pvp….

You will notice that 60% of our utilities and traits are useless

Usefull traits for your team to work out:

• Move faster while holding a dagger
• Clean 1 condition on a dodge roll
• Vennons also clear 1 condition when applied
• Range on pistol and shortbow becomes longer
• Stuns also Apply poison
• Pistol skills have reduced ini cost

To give concise feedback on this set of changes my observation is this: The changes seem to be aimed at preventing mechanics the developers do not like (unlimited stealth, overvalued traits), but they do so by creating further imbalance in traits and abilities. Infusion of shadows is now unfieldable. By increasing baseline regen and nerfing infusion of shadows it seems that philosophically you have just killed a trait that was only hanging on due to the perma-stealth mechanic.

That isn’t to say I don’t understand. Permastealth is broken. I think your intent for the class was to have thieves popping in and out of stealth frequently by only taking brief respites into stealth. Why not incentivize that? What if you did away with Infusion of shadows, and revamped it to something like:

Stealth lasts 1 second less, stealth immunity lasts 1 second less.

or

Stealth immunity lasts 1 second less, gain 1 initiative when stealthing.

or

gain 1 initiative on stealth, stealthing grants you swiftness for the same length as your stealth. (to make reopening faster/more convenient)

My suggestions are “off-the-cuff” but I really feel like you have not incentivized the playstyle you want to see only penalized the mechanics you don’t (which has in turn simply changed the pecking order of traits, not resolved the desirability of choices between them).

I would love to see variation in thief builds like one that is incentivized to stay in stealth longer while one is incentivized to come out quickly (one has more overall heal in stealth, but it is regen, while one has less heal that is frontloaded so that it could open more quickly).

evilapprentice.6379:

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.

i get what you are saying and agree. but making regen higher and bursts of init lower…. it hurts our survivability. how? well lets see… if ur low on init and NEED MORE INIT NOW….not in 6 seconds later….. skills you would use….are…

Cloak and Dagger (blinds heals removes condis and stealths)
Disabling shot (evades and creates space)
Shadow Strike ( torment to keep them still and creates 600 gap)
Black Powder Shot (AOE blind to give u a chance to think/heal/defend)
FS/LS (obvious dodging)
Inf Return (removes condi and makes gap)
head shot (stuns a heal or w.e. you need)
body shot (immobs 1-2 secs)
Inf Arrow (900 gap giver)

Blah blah, I hate arenanet and their balance of thief.

What? Sword/Dagger has tons of evades/jukes and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? D/P has lots of stealth allowing removal of condis and healing? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Dancing Dagger has amazing dps and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Thieves stealth every 3s? NERF TO 4s!

We have never received a “real” buff to this class ever and if those kittens at arenanet think increased init regen is such a huge buff to cover all the incredibly huge nerfs this patch they are on some serious drugs.

I’m having fun until dec 10 on thief, after that, bye bye gw2 probably.

swinsk.6410:

Blah blah, I hate arenanet and their balance of thief.

What? Sword/Dagger has tons of evades/jukes and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? D/P has lots of stealth allowing removal of condis and healing? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Dancing Dagger has amazing dps and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Thieves stealth every 3s? NERF TO 4s!

We have never received a “real” buff to this class ever and if those kittens at arenanet think increased init regen is such a huge buff to cover all the incredibly huge nerfs this patch they are on some serious drugs.

I’m having fun until dec 10 on thief, after that, bye bye gw2 probably.

When they split FS and LS, and made LS steal 2 boons, it was a great buff. They cleaned up FS pathing (A fix, not a buff), separated the skills so you weren’t a sitting duck during it (another fix, this time to poor functionality), and gave LS the ability to actually threaten boon bunkers (The buff part).

Then they decided LS should cost 2 init instead of 1, which was ok.

Then they decided LS should only steal 1 boon, completely killing any ability the skill had to actually counter boon bunkers. And they left it at 2 init cost, so it’s actually a nerf.

Do buff’s we got temporarily but were later turned into a minor nerf count?

swinsk.6410:

Blah blah, I hate arenanet and their balance of thief.

What? Sword/Dagger has tons of evades/jukes and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? D/P has lots of stealth allowing removal of condis and healing? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Dancing Dagger has amazing dps and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Thieves stealth every 3s? NERF TO 4s!

We have never received a “real” buff to this class ever and if those kittens at arenanet think increased init regen is such a huge buff to cover all the incredibly huge nerfs this patch they are on some serious drugs.

I’m having fun until dec 10 on thief, after that, bye bye gw2 probably.

Personally, I have just emailed the arenanet headquaters asking to purchase some of the kitten they are smoking…

Ill pay gems, gold or real cash, this must be some GOOD kitten mayne

Do buff’s we got temporarily but were later turned into a minor nerf count?

We never really got any buffs that didn’t come with nerfs at the same time or later down the road…

95% nerfs, 5% buffs that didn’t do anything.

swinsk.6410:

Blah blah, I hate arenanet and their balance of thief.

What? Sword/Dagger has tons of evades/jukes and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? D/P has lots of stealth allowing removal of condis and healing? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Dancing Dagger has amazing dps and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Thieves stealth every 3s? NERF TO 4s!

We have never received a “real” buff to this class ever and if those kittens at arenanet think increased init regen is such a huge buff to cover all the incredibly huge nerfs this patch they are on some serious drugs.

I’m having fun until dec 10 on thief, after that, bye bye gw2 probably.

I am sorry that you seem to be struggling with your thief. Spec something other than D/P. I prefer D/D but others will do. Why don’t you wait to see the patch results vs insulting anet?

Sanduskel.1850:

swinsk.6410:

Blah blah, I hate arenanet and their balance of thief.

What? Sword/Dagger has tons of evades/jukes and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? D/P has lots of stealth allowing removal of condis and healing? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Dancing Dagger has amazing dps and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Thieves stealth every 3s? NERF TO 4s!

We have never received a “real” buff to this class ever and if those kittens at arenanet think increased init regen is such a huge buff to cover all the incredibly huge nerfs this patch they are on some serious drugs.

I’m having fun until dec 10 on thief, after that, bye bye gw2 probably.

I am sorry that you seem to be struggling with your thief. Spec something other than D/P. I prefer D/D but others will do. Why don’t you wait to see the patch results vs insulting anet?

d/d conditions isn’t that great.

THEIF HAS NEVER HAD ANY BUFFS ……. that didnt have a nerf to go along with it that still made it overall a WORSE weapon/trait/skills/utility. PERIOD. you name one and ill eat my shoe

steal? srry mug got nerfed to oblivion . -6k dmg doesnt really account for -10 secs

Fs/Ls? srry but nerf on auto attack and tactical strike and LS to 1 boon..doesnt cover it

shadow trap? lol….thats all i;ll say. LOL LAWL ROFLMAO AHHAHAH fun to useless

can go on for days. all thief class gets is nerfed. we suck at everythign but still hang in there on 1 v 1’ing.

punch us in the face and tell us it gives us character. sorry but the “buffs” arent really buffs…they just maket he nerfs hurt a lil less. is this where we say thanks? …… nah probably goodbye. have to wait til dec 10th. game keeps getting dumbed down. i wonder if the casual players buy more gems or harder players. hmmm they cater to the casuals who QQ bc they have L2P issues…… so it must be them? some how doesnt make sense tho.

Zacchary.6183:

Sanduskel.1850:

swinsk.6410:

Blah blah, I hate arenanet and their balance of thief.

What? Sword/Dagger has tons of evades/jukes and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? D/P has lots of stealth allowing removal of condis and healing? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Dancing Dagger has amazing dps and kills people? NERF INTO OBLIVION!
What? Thieves stealth every 3s? NERF TO 4s!

We have never received a “real” buff to this class ever and if those kittens at arenanet think increased init regen is such a huge buff to cover all the incredibly huge nerfs this patch they are on some serious drugs.

I’m having fun until dec 10 on thief, after that, bye bye gw2 probably.

I am sorry that you seem to be struggling with your thief. Spec something other than D/P. I prefer D/D but others will do. Why don’t you wait to see the patch results vs insulting anet?

d/d conditions isn’t that great.

i agree. i took a several weeks break about 2 weeks ago and i came back and noticed that deathblossom was all funked up. i mean it seems really slow reactive and feels like it has a delay betweenthem. i dont think its playable in a competitive fashion anymore.

Regarding the discussion about the change to Infusion of Shadows…

What exactly am I missing here? Spend 6 to regain 2 is the current situation… and the notes dictate that you gain initiative now only when you enter stealth versus using a skill that simply would put you in stealth.

Okay, I get that, but then why are people complaining? If you spam CnD, you net loss 4, and if you bust out tons of stealth skills whille you’re revealed in order to gain initiative, you end up blowing cooldowns for seemingly no reason.

Granted, I do not play D/P thief, however I see no problems with this for D/D or anyone simply running a build based on chaining stealth post-reveal. Seeing as I don’t play perma-stealth just fine (even with P/P alternative), why is this such a big deal?

I totally disagree with a lot of the other changes made, such as Shadow Return’s cast time, but I don’t quite get the QQ about making the class non-viable with this change. Thief isn’t in the best spot, but even then it can excel without perma-stealth builds, and I see no real issues changing the skill to only go into effect when simply entering stealth.

Anyone mind to explain the reasoning?

This is my thief. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My thief is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
I will not roll a warrior or guardian. I will use my thief as a dedicated crafter.
All dailies will be mine.

DeceiverX.8361:

Regarding the discussion about the change to Infusion of Shadows…

What exactly am I missing here? Spend 6 to regain 2 is the current situation… and the notes dictate that you gain initiative now only when you enter stealth versus using a skill that simply would put you in stealth.

Okay, I get that, but then why are people complaining? If you spam CnD, you net loss 4, and if you bust out tons of stealth skills whille you’re revealed in order to gain initiative, you end up blowing cooldowns for seemingly no reason.

Granted, I do not play D/P thief, however I see no problems with this for D/D or anyone simply running a build based on chaining stealth post-reveal. Seeing as I don’t play perma-stealth just fine (even with P/P alternative), why is this such a big deal?

I totally disagree with a lot of the other changes made, such as Shadow Return’s cast time, but I don’t quite get the QQ about making the class non-viable with this change. Thief isn’t in the best spot, but even then it can excel without perma-stealth builds, and I see no real issues changing the skill to only go into effect when simply entering stealth.

Anyone mind to explain the reasoning?

the problem was D/P abusing it with 5 2 2 2 combo. the problem we have is we still want our init from using CND then using hide in shadows. so now it makes more sense to lose stealth and reenter with hide in shadows (makes us more vulnerable to attacks and showslocation) same with blinding powder shadow refuge and etc. i think the best way to do this make it so that ONLY WEAPON SKILLS gain init once to enter stealth….rather than utilities too. u know what i mean?

Travlane.5948:

THEIF HAS NEVER HAD ANY BUFFS ……. that didnt have a nerf to go along with it that still made it overall a WORSE weapon/trait/skills/utility. PERIOD. you name one and ill eat my shoe

steal? srry mug got nerfed to oblivion . -6k dmg doesnt really account for -10 secs

Fs/Ls? srry but nerf on auto attack and tactical strike and LS to 1 boon..doesnt cover it

shadow trap? lol….thats all i;ll say. LOL LAWL ROFLMAO AHHAHAH fun to useless

can go on for days. all thief class gets is nerfed. we suck at everythign but still hang in there on 1 v 1’ing.

punch us in the face and tell us it gives us character. sorry but the “buffs” arent really buffs…they just maket he nerfs hurt a lil less. is this where we say thanks? …… nah probably goodbye. have to wait til dec 10th. game keeps getting dumbed down. i wonder if the casual players buy more gems or harder players. hmmm they cater to the casuals who QQ bc they have L2P issues…… so it must be them? some how doesnt make sense tho.

Well thieves aren’t for everyone, you know. Either work harder or play another class.

Wow, that is one long sentence!

kitten…while i agree with pawned, but paragraphs man….i hear they are OP

Sanduskel.1850:

Travlane.5948:

THEIF HAS NEVER HAD ANY BUFFS ……. that didnt have a nerf to go along with it that still made it overall a WORSE weapon/trait/skills/utility. PERIOD. you name one and ill eat my shoe

steal? srry mug got nerfed to oblivion . -6k dmg doesnt really account for -10 secs

Fs/Ls? srry but nerf on auto attack and tactical strike and LS to 1 boon..doesnt cover it

shadow trap? lol….thats all i;ll say. LOL LAWL ROFLMAO AHHAHAH fun to useless

can go on for days. all thief class gets is nerfed. we suck at everythign but still hang in there on 1 v 1’ing.

punch us in the face and tell us it gives us character. sorry but the “buffs” arent really buffs…they just maket he nerfs hurt a lil less. is this where we say thanks? …… nah probably goodbye. have to wait til dec 10th. game keeps getting dumbed down. i wonder if the casual players buy more gems or harder players. hmmm they cater to the casuals who QQ bc they have L2P issues…… so it must be them? some how doesnt make sense tho.

Well thieves aren’t for everyone, you know. Either work harder or play another class.

i dont mind hard work. but thieves are def underwhelming under the concept of guild wars. also i have to say that the hard work is much more rewarding than using a class like warrior which is 8 year old friendly. nothing against warrior players but its true. the real problem is that nerfs have no ending in sight. they havent slowed down and dare i say have been steadily increasing over the past year. its weird if u think about it. the kinds of changes have been getting more and MORE dramatic as time has passed. some hurt more than others in the past but still…they never would have messed with base concepts like init regen before. this is getting crazy and overly dumbed down, not to mention ruining the class even more.

I think some of the abilities need a rework.

Death blossom is a strange out of place skill. Low damage, condition with a very short evade. No one ever uses it as for the initiative it takes, the return is super poor. you’re also vulnerable during the last half of it. It’s in a weapon line which favours Power/precision and no condition. So will never hit for alot.

It should really just be replaced entirely with something more fitting to dagger dagger/power/prec skills. Or maybe something more utility.

Maybe DB is around so a second weaponset is somewhat useful to condition builds.

I want too see 1200 Range back,it is really annoying that thieves have only 900.

Zero Day.2594:

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.

agreed i did rolled a warrior when jon posted

TLDR; Thieves with 15+ in critical strikes and no other initiative traits will be slightly less efficient. All other thieves will be equally or more efficient.

Ive been running d/p glass since day 1 lol 25/30/0/0/15 now that my build will be less efficient when its already takes a lot of game play time and skill to be able to fight groups with out having that perma stealth option and house cause ur an easy target for aoe and ur only stealth skill is heal cause 5,2 cost way too much ini when ur not traited in SA for ini back on HS. They pretty much leave u with limited options in the end. Go warrior or P/x … i did both

I don’t see anything that needs to change, honestly.

I’m fine getting rid of the permastealth. I do not use that anyway since it gives up too much dps.

That said, I hope you are doing more than just nerfing infusion of shadows. That would be rather short sighted. Give it the following changes.

1. Only applies when entering stealth (this kills the permastealth and is what you’ve planned)
2. Increase the initiative gain to 3 or 4.

That way permastealth is dead, but the trait could still be valuable for certain specs.

You all do realize they were only taking suggestions for a week right?

This post should have been locked over a week ago.

Dekk.3459:

You all do realize they were only taking suggestions for a week right?

This post should have been locked over a week ago.

Read more closely friend, they intentionally left all these threads open

If you look at the subject topic and the fact that they were asking for input during a specific time frame then

Believe what you want…

Sanduskel you are a kitten to think d/p doesn’t have counter play. It just requires having a little more brains than mashing 2 keys to counter perma stealth.

D/d is worthless because it has no blinds/interrupts/900 range gap closers.

D/d will still be useless but next patch d/p thieves get nerfed because anyone who knows how to play a thief uses that set because it has such a high skill ceiling. I used to be a d/d noob too until I learned how to play game.

People who thought perma stealth was OP just stand in the red ring and you cause thief to have no init and revealed, interrupt the hs, aoe the ring

Sorry for the length of this post, there is some raging, so skip it if that bothers you :P

It really honestly just baffles me how one can look at most of the other classes and be like “yo, you need to be an epic swiss-army knife of awesomeness and have ALL the things to counter everything!”… and then they look at thief and go… “you win too much, you’re OP.” they nerf, some less coordinated or less skilled players quit, other determined players adapt through skill, maybe still manage ok, and then the cycle repeats, but it’s to the point where there will be less and less room to adapt. Then you only have amazingly elite players that play it well enough to win. Thief is basically the class that really suffers the most from the slightest error and because every class is being given a counter to everything thief has either by buffs to themselves or nerfs to thief (which have all been mentioned already) it is only going to get worse.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that thief takes skill, and I am by no means an incredibly awesome thief player but I am learning and also learning to adapt with the changes but it’s frustrating when you see how easy some of these builds for other classes are and how hard they are to counter without IMPECCABLE timing in a lot of cases.

Things that make thieves mad (not all of us I’m sure, but I can’t be the only one thinking some of this):

Using necro as an example, because I know people who have stopped playing necro because they themselves say it is too easy.. I just don’t understand how one can go as a necro into WvW, wear full zerker gear, have 20k+ HP, deathshroud on top of that for an extra barrier, ability to consume conditions, plague form with stability, and absolutely reap people with power and wells. HOW is this not “OP”? Oh but thief is the one that needs nerfs because they can go invisible, even though you can still die easily while invisible with even a sloppily timed channel skill. That is IF you don’t get pushed/pulled/feared/launched out of Shadow Refuge which strips stealth immediately.

Since we aren’t allowed to have stability, to me it would make more sense if Shadow Refuge didn’t have a tripwire on it, and that you would still maintain stealth for the length of the duration you stood in it while it pulsed, that way you don’t get doubly penalized for getting CC’ed out of it while being a sitting duck with your face on the ground, AND visible immediately while also under “revealed state”. It is SO easy for anyone to knock a thief out of Shadow Refuge with close to no skill, with the ONE exception being another thief…

A few other things I have to get off my chest… some already mentioned.

Why does warrior get the 25% run speed trait and we must waste a utility slot for a signet that is arguably useless in combat. Why do they ALSO have so many chainable 1200 meter dashes on top of that?

Why does engi get what is literally perma-swiftness, something that is being made EASIER on Dec 10th. Why is perma-swiftness not seen as OP but perma stealth is? I won’t even mention engi access to CC, condi’s and healing.

Why do thieves have NO stability other than daggerstorm which half the time doesn’t actually HIT anything?

Why is Sick Em on Ranger not dodge-able (anti stealth bias), but Steal (thief signature “skill”) is dodge/block/evade-able which puts it on cooldown?

Also, why on earth does heartseeker have such a wide hit zone? I heartseeked PAST a rabbit that had to be a full 5 steps to my right and POW.. rabbit ate it despite not being targeted, AND dagger not having cleave. This is unbelievably stupid as you can have someone targeted and go to HS to them, only to have HS catch some random garbage that was not in your immediate path and slow you down.

So anyways.. There have been TONS of great suggestions by a lot of people that would lift thief back up to be on par with where the other classes are right now but I feel like none of them ever get considered, except for the initiative regen which people have been begging for I DO applaud ANET for finally doing! Thank you for at least boosting this! Maybe some of the things I ask are outlandish, but some of the things that other classes can already do now are already outlandish!

And finally the point still stands as others have said, many of these changes that they make are making traits useless.. I sincerely doubt I will still even run infusion of shadows on my D/P thief after Dec 10th. The only time I “perma stealth” is if I am avoiding a zerg trying to res my havoc squad or something of the sort but even still, I cannot achieve “perma stealth” with my build without using Shadow Refuge, AND blinding powder and even my heal more than once depending on the length of time I am trying to remain hidden, and SR is by no means low profile.. “Perma stealth” requires more “skill” and timing than most people realize. It’s not just “place face on keyboard… achieve perma stealth”..

swinsk.6410:

Sanduskel you are a kitten to think d/p doesn’t have counter play. It just requires having a little more brains than mashing 2 keys to counter perma stealth.

D/d is worthless because it has no blinds/interrupts/900 range gap closers.

D/d will still be useless but next patch d/p thieves get nerfed because anyone who knows how to play a thief uses that set because it has such a high skill ceiling. I used to be a d/d noob too until I learned how to play game.

People who thought perma stealth was OP just stand in the red ring and you cause thief to have no init and revealed, interrupt the hs, aoe the ring

generally agreed even by thieves and by anet that perma stealth was a cheese abuse of the game mechanics. anet explicitly stated such. keep denying, but it’s settled. he’s dead, Jim. Long live the more skilled thieves.

I just want a wvw-viable P/P build T.T Why can’t I haz?

Can’t you make Cluster Bomb a 1200 Range attack again for PVE/wvw alone? I don’t think it’s too much of a game changer, same with the Vigorous Recovery change, that should be PVP only or it shouldn’t be nerfed to 5s for PVE/wvw.

Pls increase heartseeker range to 900 and give it 2 initiative

Shanna.4762:

I just want a wvw-viable P/P build T.T Why can’t I haz?

P/P 3v1 its viable but far from optimal

nerovergil.5408:

Pls increase heartseeker range to 900 and give it 2 initiative

Lol, just lol.

The range and cost are fine how they are.

Please increase range for bow skills.

The problem I see with a lot of thief changes (playing since launch) is anet doesn’t seem to have a direction with them. They gave sword/dagger a incredible change, and then nerfed it 3 times so far (cost more, 1 less boon ripped, IR change). P/x has yet to receive any needed buffs, and the #2 just is all up and down the spectrum with changes. Sb had the only skill with 1200 range and that was nerfed, which really didn’t make much sense even for wvw as many other professions could do what theif could with the AoE against far away siege, in fact dragon’s tooth doesn’t even need los as long as the siege can be clicked on.

-P/p is weak. Dead weak, I’ve watched some people try to pull it off and its just laughable even with a glass-ish build. The only real dps is unload and it was barely hitting me for 4k full chain. I even tried the build at one point and I was hardly getting above 5k, but I would be initiative starved a lot. Thief needs a good Direct Damage range build, and their only 2 ranged weapons seem to favor conditions/utility far more. (Yeah and running around spamming cluster bomb is not good direct damage, it usually gets you killed for being a kitten).

-P/d is slow and hard to maintain. Even with condition duration traits/runes/sigils the bleeds are just tiresome to keep up. The torment is nice but you’re a ranged fighter, being within melee range just to apply a condition seems to suggest something entirely different. It’s alright in the sense it’s doing its job to keep that gap but p/d condi builds should get some sort of buff to either a faster AA, or a longer bleed from the stealth attack. There are a lot of builds that can clear conditions like no tomorrow, and taking forever just to put a dent in someone’s hp just to have to turned off is… depressing. There are a ton of profession who have a much wider array of conditions with quicker means to apply them with lethal DoT.

-S/d was fun while it lasted, but now after numerous nerfs to sword I just started to lose hope in it. The whole goal I believe of sword/dagger was to counter boon heavy builds. It isn’t a super high dps weapon, getting the full aa chain off is difficult without getting pummeled by cc and using IR. Imo the stealth attack frontal blind is rather useless, I wish it had something more exciting like good damage from the front, daze from behind. I love the daze for interrupting a rally or stomp, but the blind is meh. I havn’t found it all that useful but maybe it’s just me.

-S/P just seems strange. Sure PW hits rather hard and cleaves but thief is usually on their toes and rolling about, any skill that roots them in place (yes I know it evades) just doesn’t fit their theme. I personally wish we had a new dual skill for sword/pistol, even if at times I had fun with pw in spvp.

-sb is almost mandatory for thieves. The utility, and the combo skills are just too good to pass up. No, please don’t nerf it, but make other weapons more attractive or give us another weapon for utility. Could have focus with some group orientated skills related to boon sharing or group stealth/boon. Point being we need a viable alternative if we wana pass up sb. Very few people run w/o sb, I’d be willing to bet more than 75% of the players who main thief have a sb in there somewhere.

NinjaEd.3946:

The problem I see with a lot of thief changes (playing since launch) is anet doesn’t seem to have a direction with them. They gave sword/dagger a incredible change, and then nerfed it 3 times so far (cost more, 1 less boon ripped, IR change).

Because noone knew how to fully utilize the Sword’s aftercasts until I combined it with acrobatics. lol. As I said while I was experimenting with it the week before the buff, I think Flanking Acrobats may have always been viable, perhaps too strong.

Well they changed it to steal boons as opposed to removing them. Maybe 2 boons was too many, but to be fair thief doesn’t have many boons to live off. I wish they kept its goal without nerfing it entirely. Like only remove 1 boon on FS, steal only 1 boon on LS. That way its still working to counter boon heavy builds like engi ele and guardian, without simply giving thief way to much control over the fight.

If the thief profession is to truly be a thief, it should have plenty of access to everything via theft.

Stealing life, boons, endurance, certain attacks, switching out conditions with boons should all be part of the thief’s attacks while they have nothing to produce for themselves. They should be able to improvise with what they steal to at least create some sort of synergy for themselves. And for a thief to be able to hold all of the kitten it’ll be stealing, the thief will need deep pockets (meaning open up F2, F3 and F4 for stolen items).

The thief SHOULD NOT just be another rouge class whose only redeeming quality is ambush and going transparent all the time.

I have to ask… why do people get such mad nasty wedgies when they talk about “perma-stealth”.

I still fail to see why the infusion of shadows nerf was even necessary. It breaks so many other parts of the D/P build than simply “perma-stealth”.

For one thing it allows for less condi removal, because less initiative recycling means the BP + HS combo can’t be used as frequently, so less effectiveness for Shadow’s Embrace.

Secondly, since you will run out of initiative faster you won’t be able to use HS or clusterbomb to combo into fields as much, so you get less might stacks from the Hidden Assasin trait.

None of this was considered when making this change… there is nothing to counter balance the nerfs. They need to do something like make Infusion of Shadows return 3 init, not 2, since it only procs the FIRST time you stealth, it is hardly worth taking at 2.. 3 I would consider, but 2… meh. Also, make the might stack from Hidden Assasin 3 instead of 2 this would even it out.. since this was not a nerf that was called for, there is no reason NOT to do this.. You see? This nerf is NOT a singular nerf to D/P builds…

I also need to mention because very few seem to really understand.. “Perma-stealth” isn’t even possible when fighting thanks to the “revealed” state. Not to mention if a thief IS perma-stealthing on you, there are tons of giveaways to where a thief that’s OOC is located… but really, what is it? Is it just that you get kitten ed off because you can’t hit a guy that’s hiding and isn’t hitting you? Do yourself a favor and either play smart and interrupt his perma-stealth sequence, or don’t stand around like a pinata waiting to be smashed..

“Perma-stealth” is just a band-wagoner term to refer to a mechanic that they don’t understand. Perma-stealth is NOT achievable without using utility skills, unless you trait more initiative regen other than Infusion of Shadows.. show me a USEFUL D/P build loaded up with initiative regen that allows perma-stealth using BP + HS alone that can do enough damage and survive long enough to fight against (and WIN) against someone who isn’t terribad.

Those of us that utilize the current Infusion of Shadows for useful things are getting shafted, just because people get their knickers wadded over an annoying (not overpowered) tactic.

Thieves wouldn’t even need to perma-stealth if we had as much ranged escape ability as warriors/ranger/engi/etc. The only time I go heavily stealthed is if I need to get the heck out of a situation where I get massively overrun.. you have to stealth in the middle of it all STARTING WITH SHADOW REFUGE, and with patience, slowly make your way out, because HS, and Infiltrator’s Arrowing away not only short ranged and easily closed upon by the “nike” zoom zoom classes, but you’re also left with 0 initiative to do anything once the small gap is closed and they’re on your face again.

“Perma-stealth” is ONLY, a defensive tactic.. ever.. once you attack someone, you are on the offensive, stealth is gone immediately and cannot be re-applied until “revealed” wears off as long as you are in combat. The only way this would EVER not be true is if “Revealed” was removed from the game.

Maybe I’ll eat some of these words once the patch goes live with the initiative regen, but I’m not feeling it.. more than likely I won’t if history is any indication.. Had to voice my thoughts for the night.

In closing.. I leave you with this:

“Oh ma gawd that thief goes into stealth frequently while fighting me! That’s totally PERMA-!” <- NO!!… LEARN WORDS!

because perma stealth is an abuse of the mechanics. anet said so.

Thief will remain broken for at least another year.

It’s sad that only two weapon set will remain good (D/D power builds ,P/D Condi builds). Good thiefs will do just fine in WvW .

Guys burst them down to death they’re gonna cry anyway. Make them suffer.

pawned.2359:

personally idc what u do to thief i will figure a way to kill people with it i have played other classes they seem to slow/easy thief is only one that tickles my gizzard when i out play someone ……….

^ this

Zacchary.6183:

If the thief profession is to truly be a thief, it should have plenty of access to everything via theft.

Stealing life, boons, endurance, certain attacks, switching out conditions with boons should all be part of the thief’s attacks while they have nothing to produce for themselves. They should be able to improvise with what they steal to at least create some sort of synergy for themselves. And for a thief to be able to hold all of the kitten it’ll be stealing, the thief will need deep pockets (meaning open up F2, F3 and F4 for stolen items).

The thief SHOULD NOT just be another rouge class whose only redeeming quality is ambush and going transparent all the time.

The ability to store multiple stolen skills would definitely add to thief gameplay. It’s something I wish we already had, everytime I have to waste stolen skill to free up my steal.

Anet is stopping the thief from gaining too much ini by using stealth skills and to prevent players from maintaining long stealth uptimes without using utility skills. I agree with both these changes. Stealth, regardless of the fact you still take damage, is a very powerful and effective defense. And no defense that is that powerful should be allowed to be used that frequently with your weapon skills alone. Sure it has its weaknesses, but then so do other defenses. No defense should be perfect and no defense should be maintainable from just your weapon skills IMO.

I personally think the Dec 10th changes are mostly good and I am looking forward to them. I would just like to see some of our less useful traits and skills buffed a little. The buff to ini regain will go a long way to improve things in the meantime though.

“Well thieves aren’t for everyone, you know. Either work harder or play another class.”

Sanduskel is up to 48 posts in this thread now with expert advice like that. Just ignore him.

So that’s one page out of 17 in this thread wasted by just one person. Excessive trolling cannot be grounds for banning on this forum?

If you want to argue that the stealth capability from D/P was “broken” then fine, let’s go ahead and say it is.. putting that aside completely, my problem is the fact that changing this ONE trait is nerfing multiple aspects of the build and other traits that are based on stealth. No adjustments are made to these traits to at least leave them unaffected by this change. There are far more reasons for D/P 0/30/30/10/0 thief to stealth in and out while IN combat (like the example of might stacking from Hidden Assasin), then there are for one to “perma-stealth” and watch from afar.

Example.. If I have full initiative (12)and no traited regen (except infusion) I can drop BP + HS 3 times through it to gain 6 stacks of might and still have some initiative to fight.. With the change it will be pretty difficult to do it more than twice, so now our might is reduced from 6 to 4.. This is a side nerf and in my opinion should not happen.

BP + HS is also D/P’s quickest access to stealth, but now it’s going to eat up so much initiative.. Unless the base regen really makes things amazing, and I guess we won’t know until it’s final, I just see this build ending up much more in the negative than anything.

“Perma-stealth” might be considered by some an abuse of the mechanics, but I STILL fail to see how it actually hurts anything or anyone other than kitten ing them off because they can’t get a bag from someone that ISN’T FIGHTING THEM.

If they want to make this change, they NEED to look at the big picture. I feel they’re tunnel-visioning on the desire to slap perma-stealth trolls on the wrist and call them bad children and not considering how this affects other parts of D/P builds.