Guild Wars 2

A short proposal to improve signets on thief:

SoA: remove condition removal. Add a stunbreak. Still refill endurance. You are literally trading passive offense for short term defense.

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. Gain swiftness for 5 seconds. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

SoS: Have it apply chill as well. In a game of +25% available to all we need something to catch targets better. This would trade your bonus to speed for a single target’s slowdown.

Assassin’s Signet: Fine as is.

SoM: Maybe activation could steal life for a set time or number of hits.

Edit: cleared up a part since I was no longer on my phone

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

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

How can you say that? There are other instant weapon abilities:

Just to name a few:

Mesmer:
Staff 2 Phase Retreat
Torch 4

Ele:
Staff Earth 4 Magnetic Aura
Scepter Air 2 and 3 Lightning Strike and Blinding Flash
Dagger Water 4 Frost Armor
Dagger Air 3 Shocking Aura
Focus Earth 4 and 5

…..

if they revert the init regeneration increase it would be losing 25%. “sounds” different than a 33% increase which is the same as a 25% decrease. hrm…… hrm….. a 33% increase sounds like a huge gain…..but a 25% decrease isnt as huge in the sense of change. just perspective.

What am i saying? i dont think this small increase is going to really affect anything other than maybe p/d. Any other build is going to be hurt by the other numerous init nerfs.

OK ILL KEEP SAYING THIS TO ANET :

My Constructive Criticism:

• When you make a game better make it better. Dont nerf classes, just buff others. (90% of changes should be buffs for balance not nerfs for balance) Stop dumbing the game down, its not going to help bad players be good. —-*-—

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

It’s really not the same at all. By shifting the stunbreak onto signet of agility, you’re forcing signet of agility/shadowstep on my bar while I want infil signet instead.

So, why not keep the stunbreak on infil signet, and then introduce stunbreak on SoA and SoS as well. Stunbreak > all.

In other words, you’re nerfing infil signet, and buffing SoA. Buffing both of them is better than nerfing the superior signet and buffing a worse one.

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

It’s really not the same at all. By shifting the stunbreak onto signet of agility, you’re forcing signet of agility/shadowstep on my bar while I want infil signet instead.

So, why not keep the stunbreak on infil signet, and then introduce stunbreak on SoA and SoS as well. Stunbreak > all.

In other words, you’re nerfing infil signet, and buffing SoA. Buffing both of them is better than nerfing the superior signet and buffing a worse one.

his point made great sense. your point is preference. thats the difference. i agree with both.

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

It’s really not the same at all. By shifting the stunbreak onto signet of agility, you’re forcing signet of agility/shadowstep on my bar while I want infil signet instead.

So, why not keep the stunbreak on infil signet, and then introduce stunbreak on SoA and SoS as well. Stunbreak > all.

In other words, you’re nerfing infil signet, and buffing SoA. Buffing both of them is better than nerfing the superior signet and buffing a worse one.

Only because 2 stunbreaks would probably never happen and inf signet has a better offensive capability already while agility has better defensive capability. Ideally we need double the number of stunbreaks we currently have if these changes go through (refer to my earlier post or the thread on it) but that was the reason behind my logic for that change.

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

It’s really not the same at all. By shifting the stunbreak onto signet of agility, you’re forcing signet of agility/shadowstep on my bar while I want infil signet instead.

So, why not keep the stunbreak on infil signet, and then introduce stunbreak on SoA and SoS as well. Stunbreak > all.

In other words, you’re nerfing infil signet, and buffing SoA. Buffing both of them is better than nerfing the superior signet and buffing a worse one.

Only because 2 stunbreaks would probably never happen and inf signet has a better offensive capability already while agility has better defensive capability. Ideally we need double the number of stunbreaks we currently have if these changes go through (refer to my earlier post or the thread on it) but that was the reason behind my logic for that change.

We need stunbreak on either SoA or SoS (preferably SoS because SoA is kinda meh) then, since I agree with you that we need more stunbreak.

I just want to ask – can we please get a buff to Vital Shot so that P/P can be functional? Currently, it’s broken by being too dependent on Initiative for damage, which screws up the usability of every utility skill in the set AND your mobility.

It’s all because Vital Shot has an overlong aftercast, leading to poor direct damage and sub-par bleed stacking (even compared to equivalent skills like the Warrior’s Bleeding Shot, which also has better range). It consequently fails to carry sustained DPS the way it should be able to and pigeonholes you into Unload spamming, which is neither fun nor terribly functional.

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

It’s really not the same at all. By shifting the stunbreak onto signet of agility, you’re forcing signet of agility/shadowstep on my bar while I want infil signet instead.

So, why not keep the stunbreak on infil signet, and then introduce stunbreak on SoA and SoS as well. Stunbreak > all.

In other words, you’re nerfing infil signet, and buffing SoA. Buffing both of them is better than nerfing the superior signet and buffing a worse one.

Only because 2 stunbreaks would probably never happen and inf signet has a better offensive capability already while agility has better defensive capability. Ideally we need double the number of stunbreaks we currently have if these changes go through (refer to my earlier post or the thread on it) but that was the reason behind my logic for that change.

We need stunbreak on either SoA or SoS (preferably SoS because SoA is kinda meh) then, since I agree with you that we need more stunbreak.

SoA is probably my favorite one because it keeps me alive in a tough situation. I have traveler’s runes to free up the utility slot that SoS demands so it really comes down to a matter of playstyle. Honestly venoms need a stunbreak too, and I really think it should go on basi venom (thematically it makes sense that if you were able to get a basilisk’s venom you would have an antivenom or resistance to stuns). Basi should be instant cast as well since our only 1.5 second stun is an elite skill, has a 1 second cast time, and has an icon which floats above our head saying “I’M ABOUT TO STUN YOU”…. compared to mace, hammer, and shield on a warrior it’s pretty sad. Our stun should be sneaky and swift, not more telegraphed than a soldier leaping at you.

Daendur.2357:

Vi Au.8341:

Venom having duration might sound good but in practice with venom share, it would be too strong. Think about having 5 ppl all with basilisk venom or devourer venom and tab targeting or aoeing the other team

we are talking about a 30 points traits + 1 elite skill + some other utility burned…. it has to be strong. Not being strong is as it is now, indeed it is hardly used.

Its a good idea but it would be too strong. i cannot imagine any guild raid not running it if it buffed to that. Simply put 4 condi necros with that thief in your 20 men raid and stack immobilize an than follow up with perma stun to the other team after their stability is down.

Lets not forget aoe attacks with venom affect everyone hit by the aoe so 1 well with devourer for 2 is the well + 2 second of immobilize inside the well for 5 ppl.

all those aoe skill will also become stun fields that you can not foresee.

I like the idea i really do but i wouldnt like being on the receiving end of it.

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

It’s really not the same at all. By shifting the stunbreak onto signet of agility, you’re forcing signet of agility/shadowstep on my bar while I want infil signet instead.

So, why not keep the stunbreak on infil signet, and then introduce stunbreak on SoA and SoS as well. Stunbreak > all.

In other words, you’re nerfing infil signet, and buffing SoA. Buffing both of them is better than nerfing the superior signet and buffing a worse one.

Only because 2 stunbreaks would probably never happen and inf signet has a better offensive capability already while agility has better defensive capability. Ideally we need double the number of stunbreaks we currently have if these changes go through (refer to my earlier post or the thread on it) but that was the reason behind my logic for that change.

We need stunbreak on either SoA or SoS (preferably SoS because SoA is kinda meh) then, since I agree with you that we need more stunbreak.

SoA is probably my favorite one because it keeps me alive in a tough situation. I have traveler’s runes to free up the utility slot that SoS demands so it really comes down to a matter of playstyle. Honestly venoms need a stunbreak too, and I really think it should go on basi venom (thematically it makes sense that if you were able to get a basilisk’s venom you would have an antivenom or resistance to stuns). Basi should be instant cast as well since our only 1.5 second stun is an elite skill, has a 1 second cast time, and has an icon which floats above our head saying “I’M ABOUT TO STUN YOU”…. compared to mace, hammer, and shield on a warrior it’s pretty sad. Our stun should be sneaky and swift, not more telegraphed than a soldier leaping at you.

oic traveler’s rune. now it makes sense. Yea those runes are good , probably a must have if they make SoA into a stunbreak and not SoS. Though chances are good neither will be made into stunbreak lol.

also Caed says:

evilapprentice.6379:

JonPeters.5630:

Imagi.4561:

BobbyT.7192:

The only thing black powder can’t provide is protection against carpet bombing down targets.
Keeping in mind we can still teleport stomp, with shadow step, but we are still giving up a utility/actual stun break to do.

From what I understand, using IS requires using a utility anyways, or burning your Steal.

Yeah you burn your steal (35-20s cooldown) with it, instead of burning shadowstep (50-40s cooldown.)

Jon

and that’s so powerful it needs to be nerfed?

Steal can be a huge part of a number of builds, depending on how you’re spec’d. It can
-Heal, do damage, and poison
-trigger Might/Fury/swiftness
-restore initiative
-trigger stealth

and sacrificing all that versatility (not claiming all those abilities happen when you steal, just that you can specc’d for some of them) for a stomp, plus 5 initiative is so strong it needs to be nerfed? On the only class that can’t go immune, with no access to stability, and the lowest base Health pool in the game?

I mean, this sounds extremely anti-thief to me.

Yeah, when I down someone on my Guardian I have access to stability in multiple different ways with low CDs, as well as blind, block and shields practically every single time but somehow our methods deserve nerfed. :/

I stop looking at these forums for a week and all hell breaks loose.

The nerfs to thief sword skills after the initial buff are to much, either let it steal 2 boons or let it cost 1 Ini… And its BS to not gain Ini when using stealth skills in stealth when using infusion of shadow. I often use shadow refugee just to refill my Ini in a few seconds… this is terrible.

How about if you want to change some stuff, you do useful things, like make last refugee a trait instead of a minor trait so I can be rid of that garbage…

Some things that I believe thief really could use and why.

Venoms
-Merge Quick venoms into Venomous Strength (IV).
-Add new trait “Infused Venoms”(VIII) -Transfer 1 condition on successful venom strikes.
-Bump the chill duration for ice drake venom to 1.5 seconds per strike. I’d prefer 2 seconds but wouldn’t we all ^^ Anyways small steps, no drastic changes.
-Slightly bump the baseline for leeching venoms or bump its healing power scale. It’s not bad but its not good, especially considering the investment needed to make it at all viable (you lose a lot of utility/dmg). Imo it should be a type of thief bunker build who uses this to sustain, hopefully using spider venom (most strikes).

Weapons
-Sword: change LS back to 1 initiative cost (steals 1 boon now), or change how the skill behaves. By nature thief is rather selfish, maybe it could steal 1 boon and share it with nearby allies? Or perhaps FS can remove 1 boon and LS steals 1 boon, effectively keeping its intended purpose (to counter builds that rely on boons).
-SB: speed up #5 and #2 just a tad bit. Nothing serious but both of them seem rather lacking. Besides no one really uses #2 at long range unless its against a structure, sooo easy to spot and avoid.
-Pistol: I generally stay away from pistol MH, because its so slow. The amount of work needed to keep the bleed stacks up is tiresome, especially against builds who can remove conditions like its nobody’s business. I’m not sure if the aa just needs to be quicker or the bleed needs to be slightly bumped. Again I don’t use it all the time so maybe I’m wrong.

Stealth The big fish
-Hidden assassin, work on allies you stealth as well. More party love for thief?
-Shadow’s protector, add an ICD of 10 seconds. This will work for each unique player you stealth, remove the “does not trigger if your ally already has regeneration.” part.
-Revealed, occurs if you start to finish someone because I agree, it is rather unfair. HOWEVER, finishing while invulnerable should also be looked at (engi/ele). TBH invuln finishing is more unfair, because you actually watch them laugh and kick you in the face.
-Stealth duration, cap at 20 seconds. After 20 seconds you exit stealth revealed. W/o the reveal it really isn’t 20 seconds now is it? Anyway 20 seconds is over SR and more than enough for a thief to decide, “am I staying, or am I fleeing?”. The goal being, there will be no such thing as perma stealth. Eventually you will see them, so just keep those eyes peeled for a hooded figure.
-Hide in Shadows, bump stealth duration by 1 second. It has a cast time and a long cd with a not so high heal. Sure the condi removal is neat but not every fight is going to apply burn poison and bleed on you, its mostly situational imo, and doesn’t work too well at healing against DD builds who can usually interupt your heal.
-Allow meld with shadows to work on Leap skills through smoke fields. The perma stealth nerf is nice but I believe this is a justified return to not harm the utility of d/p combos too much.
-Patience, really not as strong as other traits. Even with the infusion of shadow’s change, I still won’t use it because there are much stronger substitutes that don’t require a heavy investment. Perhaps change to “Shadow Shield”, reduce incoming damage while in stealth (10%? or a scaled value of toughness) It is a master trait, and in a defensive trait line. Numbers can always been tweaked, but its just a thought.

Traps

-Merge Master Trapper(V) into Corrosive traps(II). Mainly because the amount of trap related traits are very few on thief, and standing alone are rather weak for their long cd. Also traps don’t seem to have much attention aside from shadow and ambush. Add new trait in Acrobatics ,“Powder traps”, traps create a smoke field when triggered. Field duration 3 seconds, 3s blind per pulse (1.5 seconds per pulse resulting in a max of 2 hits miss).
-Swap Combined Training(X) with Potent Poison(V). Change Potent poison to “Diseased Traps”, Traps spread the conditions of the foe that triggers it to their allies. (occurs immediately after it is triggered, to apply the trap conditions as well). Along the lines of epidemic, the goal being to make aoe conditions on thief more rewarding, the bleed on sb is rather weak and caltrops can be avoided quite easily or even ignored in larger groups.

Others
-Slowed pulse, change to apply 10s regeneration if you take 10% of your max health in condition damage. ICD of 15 seconds.
-Improvisation, transfer 1 condition you are suffering from to your foe when you steal along with its current effects. Take away the full rng effect of this skill, and thief doesn’t use bundles.. so sorry to break it to you.
-Power shots, also add increased range to sb and Harpoon gun. 100 just so we can spec to be long range, closer to being on par with other professions, who get 1200 range on land.
-Merge Fleet shadow (VI) into Fleet of Foot(VII). Change Fleet of foot to remove 1 condition when you evade an attack with an ICD of 8 seconds. More options to remove conditions outside of stealth using the next best tool thief has to survive, dodging. Perhaps it can have no ICD but swap places with Hard to catch (useless skill atm). It would be rather strong at that point and Should require a heavy investment but pay off for non-stealth builds.
-Hard to catch, change to break stun and grant stability for 1 second on incoming disable. Same ICD. Whether it moves down or stays in grandmaster, the random teleport WHICH btw proc’s even if you have stability, is just horrendous considering the errors shadow stepping runs into across uneven terrain.
-Merge Long reach (VI) into Bountiful Theft (VII). Long reach is NEVER taken over the numerous other major traits that by far exceed its use.
-New trait “Refreshing signet” signet’s maintain their passive effects for a short while after being used. (5 seconds?). This mainly ties into SoM, and justifying its active but also works well on Assassin’s signet, since 15% bonus dmg is actually incorrect in its own way, because you lose the power it grants.

I played GW2 a year ago and quitted when I hit 80 (played enough while in 80) due to several reasons about the game that aren’t just profession specific. Normally, I would want to give a constructive feedback as Thief is the only class I effectively play and want to truly enjoy it but I really have to put this out there. I started playing again recently and this is running through my head.

After seeing these and previous patch notes while I was away, I can truly say that this game is Anti-Thief. It is also Anti-personal-gameplay.

If I DON’T like using pistols and I DON’T want to use pistols I am gravely disadvantaged. I started off as a D/D condition thief, and when I returned from my hiatus I played S/D (albeit reluctantly) but still enjoyed it for all the evasions but still got put in place silly by thieves running D/P. (I am fine with that, but the balance should not be among professions but also weapon choices.) Let’s not even talk about other professions here.

I’m not as experienced or a great thief like many in this forum, Why can’t I choose to play what I like to play and still be good and relevant with it? I want to at least enjoy what I play and be relevant still. GW2 doesn’t quite allow me to do that, really.

Also if you nerf a profession on the basis that it is outrightly imbalanced, I can understand. But why do it in a way that it renders other styles that are not a “meta-build” irrelevant? Also, why nerf the one good build that works if at all?

If you dislike thieves for what they ought to be (mischievous), then why have thieves in this game at all?

Anet, here is a suggestion. Remove stealth, remove evasions, remove initiatives, keep venoms as useless of a function as they are in the game and reduce us to light armour. Rename this profession “kitten” and reduce the amount of weapons (already limited kitten nal) it can use to only a sunflower in main hand and a rose on the offhand kitten even WoW rogues can use axes and etc.

I’m getting tired with this nonsense as I am here trying to constantly be a capable player with all the research and play styles and there you are nerfing every thing I eventually get to. I’m an average player who is trying my best to always upgrade myself, honestly I am really tired.

I know, I could just go play a Warrior or a Mesmer and be the pet profession of Anet.

Sorry for the long QQ. I almost never get on the forums, I just needed to voice out my frustrations.

Apologies if I offended anyone, just my 2 cents. I didn’t bother with suggestions and so on because I know it will not be implemented. Many posts before me have great suggestions and I doubt anything will be implemented.

I hope Elderscrolls online will turn out to be a good game for me to move over to.

(Pardon me, but this rather needs to be said …)

You know. As someone whose main profs are Mesmer and Thief, I am growing a wee bit cross, RE: the idea [which some possess] that Mesmers are some kind of “favourite” profession. Heck, look at the recent Mesmer buffs – mainly to Mantras, which many Mes players would tell you are probably the most lacking skills in the entire profession.

Now, could we stick with the main agenda here, namely working to keep Thief as a functional profession? Thanks.

Think we need to tone down the melodrama. certain elements were badly op’d. For the health of the game, Anet is fixing them. Thieves are fine now and will continue to be fine. Relax.

My new feedback: I just got a cool sword in spvp… please don’t implement the cast time on IR… it really will ruin sword builds.

Advent.6193:

(Pardon me, but this rather needs to be said …)

You know. As someone whose main profs are Mesmer and Thief, I am growing a wee bit cross, RE: the idea [which some possess] that Mesmers are some kind of “favourite” profession. Heck, look at the recent Mesmer buffs – mainly to Mantras, which many Mes players would tell you are probably the most lacking skills in the entire profession.

Now, could we stick with the main agenda here, namely working to keep Thief as a functional profession? Thanks.

Lol, this is exactly what I meant sometimes. I said a whole lot on how I want to play the way I want to play and be encouraged for it, and there you are picking one or two lines about Mesmers. Oh please, quick to defend much?

Just some more absolutely idiotic changes based on things that either a) allow dominant builds to be even more dominant, b) completely annihilate other viable thief builds, or c) have literally no basis in any reality known to mankind.

Just the usual, though.

EDIT: oh yeah, and still no changes to P/P that make the weaponset more viable… Changes that were promised in May.

Sanduskel.1850:

Think we need to tone down the melodrama. certain elements were badly op’d. For the health of the game, Anet is fixing them. Thieves are fine now and will continue to be fine. Relax.

“Fixing”?! Yeah, because we needed more init regen to render half of our builds inviable… And the “stun break” on sword #2 which is the only way to avoid being eviscerated every five seconds by a warrior? Yeah, that needed “fixing” too.

Arganthium.5638:

Sanduskel.1850:

Think we need to tone down the melodrama. certain elements were badly op’d. For the health of the game, Anet is fixing them. Thieves are fine now and will continue to be fine. Relax.

“Fixing”?! Yeah, because we needed more init regen to render half of our builds inviable… And the “stun break” on sword #2 which is the only way to avoid being eviscerated every five seconds by a warrior? Yeah, that needed “fixing” too.

What scares me the most is its fairly obvious Anets testing process is not very solid, to say the least. The attitude appears to be “This change is going in”, with absolutely no idea what it’s going to do to the thief meta. I mean, it was suggested that S/D was too powerful for stomping reasons, and we should bring another OH weapon to facilitate easier stomping. It seems the Devs have no idea thieves can’t TPvP without a shortbow in their OH. There’s also been 0 acknowledgement that thieves are the only class that can’t gain stability, and IR was the closest we’d ever get to avoid being obliterated every time we ate CC (which are dropping every 3 seconds in the current and foreseeable meta)

Its this startling lack of basic meta knowledge, combined with the poor testing process that just seems like thief is going to be a benched class between Dec and March.

I found it hard to determine what the Initiative changes would mean to the average Thief, so I wrote a simulation to estimate the percent gain (or loss) with the proposed changes under varying attack and critical chance rates. The first chart is for Thieves who only use Opportunist and the second is for those who use Opportunist and Quick Recovery together. These are steady state values using equally spaced attacks, but I think they are accurate enough to give us a better idea of where we will stand after the changes.

Initiative Increase (%) with only Opportunist

                  Attacks Per Second
Crit%  |    1      2      3      4      5      6
---------|-------------------------------------
       10 |   33    32    30    28    26    24
       20 |   32    28    23    19    16    12
       30 |   30    23    17    12      8      4
       40 |   28    19    11      6      1     -2
       50 |   25    14      6      1     -3     -6
       60 |   22    10      2     -3     -7   -10
       70 |   19      6     -2     -6   -10   -13
       80 |   17      3     -5     -9   -13   -15
       90 |   14      0     -7   -12   -15   -17
     100 |   11    -3   -10   -14   -17   -19


Initiative Increase (%) with Opportunist and Quick Recovery

                  Attacks Per Second
Crit%  |    1       2      3      4      5      6
---------|-------------------------------------
       10 |   17    16    15    14    12    11
       20 |   16    13    10      7      5      2
       30 |   15    10      5      2     -1     -4
       40 |   13      7      1     -3     -6     -9
       50 |   11      4     -2     -7   -10   -12
       60 |   10      1     -5   -10   -13   -15
       70 |     8     -2     -8   -12   -15   -18
       80 |     6     -5   -11   -15   -17   -20
       90 |     4     -7   -13   -17   -19   -21
     100 |     2     -9   -15   -18   -21   -22

High attack rate skills like Pistol Whip, Unload, and Cluster Bomb will take a hit, although recovery from bursting with those skills will be much improved. Sword cleave and Shorbow bounce will also be less effective in a multi-target environment. In WvW, PTV and other non-crit gear becomes more viable and should open up more build options. Overall, I think the Initiative changes are good and I’d like to thank all the developers who must surely have fought an uphill battle to “make it so”.

Arganthium.5638:

Sanduskel.1850:

Think we need to tone down the melodrama. certain elements were badly op’d. For the health of the game, Anet is fixing them. Thieves are fine now and will continue to be fine. Relax.

“Fixing”?! Yeah, because we needed more init regen to render half of our builds inviable… And the “stun break” on sword #2 which is the only way to avoid being eviscerated every five seconds by a warrior? Yeah, that needed “fixing” too.

Dont play a victim. they are making improvements too. decent thieves will continue to thrive. everyone gets mashed by warriors but that is getting nerfed too.

Mr. Peters,

How are P/P Thieves (moreso in PvE, but that’s mainly because almost no one runs P/P in any form of PvP) supposed to benefit from these changes, again?

The Pistol Mainhand auto-attack is so weak as to be pretty much unusable with the primary stat-build (crits and power) for using P/P’s only good attack (Unload).

Most P/P builds now have to trait into every Initiative-boosting trait and make heavy use of Opportunist to be able to sustain their only damaging attack.

They won’t be able to do that after this.

Should we just give up on Pistol/Pistol entirely?

I know P/P isn’t popular or very good, but it’s literally the only reason I made a Thief as opposed to any other class. That’s likely an extreme edge case in the playerbase, but it’s why I’m bothering to ask.

Laeir.5197:

I wrote a simulation to estimate the percent gain (or loss) with the proposed changes under varying attack and critical chance rates.

Nice one Laeir. This kind of data is what I’d like to see presented by the developers instead of overflowing marketing talk.

If this is how the change goes it would seem fair enough. However I remain concerned since there exists other calculations that show less gains.

Jon could you please take a look at this data and verify its validity?

Laeir.5197:

I found it hard to determine what the Initiative changes would mean to the average Thief, so I wrote a simulation to estimate the percent gain (or loss) with the proposed changes under varying attack and critical chance rates. The first chart is for Thieves who only use Opportunist and the second is for those who use Opportunist and Quick Recovery together. These are steady state values using equally spaced attacks, but I think they are accurate enough to give us a better idea of where we will stand after the changes.

Initiative Increase (%) with only Opportunist

                  Attacks Per Second
Crit%  |    1      2      3      4      5      6
---------|-------------------------------------
       10 |   33    32    30    28    26    24
       20 |   32    28    23    19    16    12
       30 |   30    23    17    12      8      4
       40 |   28    19    11      6      1     -2
       50 |   25    14      6      1     -3     -6
       60 |   22    10      2     -3     -7   -10
       70 |   19      6     -2     -6   -10   -13
       80 |   17      3     -5     -9   -13   -15
       90 |   14      0     -7   -12   -15   -17
     100 |   11    -3   -10   -14   -17   -19


Initiative Increase (%) with Opportunist and Quick Recovery

                  Attacks Per Second
Crit%  |    1       2      3      4      5      6
---------|-------------------------------------
       10 |   17    16    15    14    12    11
       20 |   16    13    10      7      5      2
       30 |   15    10      5      2     -1     -4
       40 |   13      7      1     -3     -6     -9
       50 |   11      4     -2     -7   -10   -12
       60 |   10      1     -5   -10   -13   -15
       70 |     8     -2     -8   -12   -15   -18
       80 |     6     -5   -11   -15   -17   -20
       90 |     4     -7   -13   -17   -19   -21
     100 |     2     -9   -15   -18   -21   -22

High attack rate skills like Pistol Whip, Unload, and Cluster Bomb will take a hit, although recovery from bursting with those skills will be much improved. Sword cleave and Shorbow bounce will also be less effective in a multi-target environment. In WvW, PTV and other non-crit gear becomes more viable and should open up more build options. Overall, I think the Initiative changes are good and I’d like to thank all the developers who must surely have fought an uphill battle to “make it so”.

I’m not a maths expert, correct me if I’m wrong.

Current initiative gain for 100% critical strike opportunist:

Attacks per second, 1 second ICD, 1 to 5 attacks per second, 1-0.7*0.7*0.7*0.7*0.7 (probability of triggering opportunist = 83% at 5 attacks for 100% critical chance)

Estimated initiative per 5 seconds for each opportunist trigger.
1.5 2.55 3.3 3.8 4.15
Base regen = 3.75

Estimated gains/5 seconds.
5.25 6.3 7.05 7.55 7.9

New Opportunist/5 seconds (icd 5 seconds)
5.5 5.75 5.87 5.94 5.97

Effectiveness of New opportunist over Old opportunist for 1 to 5 attacks:
1.05 0.91 0.83 0.79 0.76

So my numbers are quite different from yours.

Now take Pistol whip (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pistol_Whip), (9 hits) * (3 enemy cleaves), and work it in a PVE settings. Never mind about the sPvP and WVW settings, this new change alone already affects PVE.

I’m not sure why you want to thank the devs for nerfing the thief class (overall) in PVE and PVP. Is there any other way to play pve other than zerk or semi-zerk?

WvW impact

I have over 2000 hours on my thief and even went around as a thief commander. PTV gear fully placed and non-crit gear. What does the improved initiative do for me as a Non-critical thief?

Opinion: The new initiative system does better on blasting fire fields and water fields. D/D spam ‘3’ will be slightly more spammable so I can kite around as a “commander leading the zerg”.

But how about the critical line?

Opinion: I tested quite a bit on thief builds to make my critical chance to reach 100% with fury on certain builds with gear. This obviously reduces my initative gains by 15-20%.

Overall patch changes along with traits?

Opinion: My current DPS build will do more poorly by around 5-10%. Survivability will be worse off with vigor changes (- 40% vigor uptime = death for thief commanders). S/X ‘2’ IR doesn’t remove us from danger anymore from stuns.

Other builds will find themselves doing more poorly with trait and weapon nerfs. Initiative overhaul is mostly junk changes to the good players because the previous initiative trait system is managed carefully (The overhauled system is actually good for non-crit lines, but the crit lines just got nerfed 10-20% making it a painful thing). Gimmicky venom share players will have more initiative that does no damage output.

This patch basically turns thief from a sick tiger to a sick cat. Have fun for the next 3 months while anet “balances” things.

LoneWolfie.1852:

WvW impact
Opinion: My current DPS build will do more poorly by around 5-10%.

This has also been my gut feeling with 27k kills worth of DPS wvw thief experience. I just don’t have the math skills or combat log data to figure out what the actual effect is and will be. There have been various calculations posted.

Question to JonPeters:

• Do you think that dps thieves in wvw group/zerg encounters are currently overpowered, and need to be toned down?

If it goes like LoneWolfie says, thieves in wvw group fights will take a clear reduction in effectiveness in an environment when they were not desired in the group to begin with.

This appears to be an unfortunate side-effect from the general initiative regeneration balancing, which is good for class diversity as a whole. Still, I want to ask the developers if there are any changes that can be made to the patched initiative in cases where sustained hits per second is over one?

Reworking Opportunist to be more lenient in the high end. A five second cooldown feels more like an extension of passive regeneration than reward from actively hitting things. Or improving shortbow auto-attack speed & velocity to balance the initiative starvation, since that must be used more.

Einlanzer.1627:

I just want to ask – can we please get a buff to Vital Shot so that P/P can be functional? Currently, it’s broken by being too dependent on Initiative for damage, which screws up the usability of every utility skill in the set AND your mobility.

It’s all because Vital Shot has an overlong aftercast, leading to poor direct damage and sub-par bleed stacking (even compared to equivalent skills like the Warrior’s Bleeding Shot, which also has better range). It consequently fails to carry sustained DPS the way it should be able to and pigeonholes you into Unload spamming, which is neither fun nor terribly functional.

+1

Sage.4170:

Mr. Peters,

How are P/P Thieves (moreso in PvE, but that’s mainly because almost no one runs P/P in any form of PvP) supposed to benefit from these changes, again?

The Pistol Mainhand auto-attack is so weak as to be pretty much unusable with the primary stat-build (crits and power) for using P/P’s only good attack (Unload).

Most P/P builds now have to trait into every Initiative-boosting trait and make heavy use of Opportunist to be able to sustain their only damaging attack.

They won’t be able to do that after this.

Should we just give up on Pistol/Pistol entirely?

I know P/P isn’t popular or very good, but it’s literally the only reason I made a Thief as opposed to any other class. That’s likely an extreme edge case in the playerbase, but it’s why I’m bothering to ask.

+1, no answers yet to p/p issues:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/P-P-death-10-Dec
delete that weapon set…

Best,

Haltair, one of the Twelve Shadows

So this is getting closed today without a single answer given?

LoneWolfie.1852:

I’m not a maths expert, correct me if I’m wrong.

Current initiative gain for 100% critical strike opportunist:

Attacks per second, 1 second ICD, 1 to 5 attacks per second, 1-0.7*0.7*0.7*0.7*0.7 (probability of triggering opportunist = 83% at 5 attacks for 100% critical chance)

Estimated initiative per 5 seconds for each opportunist trigger.
1.5 2.55 3.3 3.8 4.15
Base regen = 3.75

Estimated gains/5 seconds.
5.25 6.3 7.05 7.55 7.9

New Opportunist/5 seconds (icd 5 seconds)
5.5 5.75 5.87 5.94 5.97

Effectiveness of New opportunist over Old opportunist for 1 to 5 attacks:
1.05 0.91 0.83 0.79 0.76

So my numbers are quite different from yours.

Now take Pistol whip (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pistol_Whip), (9 hits) * (3 enemy cleaves), and work it in a PVE settings. Never mind about the sPvP and WVW settings, this new change alone already affects PVE.

I’m not sure why you want to thank the devs for nerfing the thief class (overall) in PVE and PVP. Is there any other way to play pve other than zerk or semi-zerk?

WvW impact

I have over 2000 hours on my thief and even went around as a thief commander. PTV gear fully placed and non-crit gear. What does the improved initiative do for me as a Non-critical thief?

Opinion: The new initiative system does better on blasting fire fields and water fields. D/D spam ‘3’ will be slightly more spammable so I can kite around as a “commander leading the zerg”.

But how about the critical line?

Opinion: I tested quite a bit on thief builds to make my critical chance to reach 100% with fury on certain builds with gear. This obviously reduces my initative gains by 15-20%.

Overall patch changes along with traits?

Opinion: My current DPS build will do more poorly by around 5-10%. Survivability will be worse off with vigor changes (- 40% vigor uptime = death for thief commanders). S/X ‘2’ IR doesn’t remove us from danger anymore from stuns.

Other builds will find themselves doing more poorly with trait and weapon nerfs. Initiative overhaul is mostly junk changes to the good players because the previous initiative trait system is managed carefully (The overhauled system is actually good for non-crit lines, but the crit lines just got nerfed 10-20% making it a painful thing). Gimmicky venom share players will have more initiative that does no damage output.

This patch basically turns thief from a sick tiger to a sick cat. Have fun for the next 3 months while anet “balances” things.

every build/amount of enemies evaluates to a different amounts of hits per second, so its hard to quantify this change, but you still must remember, you have a 1 second period where it cant trigger, then from that point on average 3 attacks before it triggers again, how long it takes you to do those attacks is the huge factor. This also assumes you are attacking non stop, no dodging, no shadowsteps, no invisible back stab set ups, no enemies moving away or dodging you.

passive regen is always working.

I really dont believe this is going to be a nerf for most theives/playstyles, the numbers dont really suggest it. But lets say im wrong and your right, apparently this skill was insanely powerful compared to all other ini management skills. even with 4 signets using them all on cooldown, you dont come close to the points per second. If it was as powerful as you suggest, it most certainly needed to be nerfed because its so far and away better, that any build not taking advantage of it is wasting space.

short version, either it aint the end of the world and now more options are open, or it was so incredibly powerful it had to die so other options exist, either way its better off gone.

The IR issue though is different, as someone earlier showed, there are more instant weapon skills

mostly used for defense or reactive play, which fits into the same category as IR.

Ichishi.9613:

So this is getting closed today without a single answer given?

he gave the answers, hes going to make vigor nerfs a little less so, ini changes are going through, to be honest they need to, the only thing ill say is some of the traits need sme addition effects or synergy so as to still be appealing outside of ini gain.

IR he says must not mitigate stuns, or be used for stomps, which makes sense. However i feel, putting a 300 ms cast time on it limits the skill as a reactive tool

according to the net
“The average (median) reaction time is 215 milliseconds.”
adding 300 ms to that we have 515 ms

now, in warriors thread they slowed down mace skill to .5 seconds so someone can react to it, however we see the average human will not be able to us IR to react to skullcrack,

this doesnt include any latency at all.

reactive skills generally have extremely short to non existant cast times because of this. Essentially we are losing IR as a reactive skill, its now a proactive skill. I dont think this is a good change unless it gives us more benefit for predicting the enemies actions ahead of time.

Ichishi.9613:

So this is getting closed today without a single answer given?

Patience, it’s only 5am in east coast now. Let him sleep

phys.7689:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Snip

every build/amount of enemies evaluates to a different amounts of hits per second, so its hard to quantify this change, but you still must remember, you have a 1 second period where it cant trigger, then from that point on average 3 attacks before it triggers again, how long it takes you to do those attacks is the huge factor. This also assumes you are attacking non stop, no dodging, no shadowsteps, no invisible back stab set ups, no enemies moving away or dodging you.

passive regen is always working.

I really dont believe this is going to be a nerf for most theives/playstyles, the numbers dont really suggest it. But lets say im wrong and your right, apparently this skill was insanely powerful compared to all other ini management skills. even with 4 signets using them all on cooldown, you dont come close to the points per second. If it was as powerful as you suggest, it most certainly needed to be nerfed because its so far and away better, that any build not taking advantage of it is wasting space.

short version, either it aint the end of the world and now more options are open, or it was so incredibly powerful it had to die so other options exist, either way its better off gone.

The IR issue though is different, as someone earlier showed, there are more instant weapon skills

mostly used for defense or reactive play, which fits into the same category as IR.

Incredibly powerful against what? What sort of baseline are you comparing it to? Is it the condition/dps from Necros in PvE, or warriors in PvE, or elementalist in PvE, or Guardians in PvE?

I think some of the people here are going about it the wrong way. Why are you comparing thieves builds amongst themselves? You should compare against other professions. Take this for example. P/P vs warrior’s rifle, S/P vs warrior’s GS. If you have trouble reaching the warrior’s DPS with the current system, it’s quite obvious you won’t even come close with the new system.

Critical lines isn’t “op” compared to the other lines, it’s because the other lines suck in initiative management. Critical lines requires you to be high in crit chance and we do so by managing our gear/food and make it compatible with the trait lines.

I keep telling other people I don’t understand why you want to let yourselves sink into a bad position. The changes made for thieves are nerfs across the board, and the “buffs” are very questionable whether or not they are effective.

You cannot expect the next balance patch to come in 3-4 months later (remember cloak and dagger 4 seconds in PvE, that was hell). Don’t you remember who nerfed S/P damage by 15%, then nerfing quickness by another 50%, and thereby making S/P to the equivalent of auto attack damage? Now you want to accept anet’s nerf stick from the messing around of initiative traits and thereby decreasing even more DPS from a weapon set?

Jon already admits Anet team don’t have the resources to change weapon sets. He also posted poor reasons as to why anet devs want to nerf IR (Stomping? Seriously?) or how initiative is a massssive buff (users playing critical lines already posted statistical evidence that it’s a nerf).

Opinions are opinions, but quite frankly more than enough people posted statistical results to show FACTS that this upcoming patch is a nerf. Unless you want to post your evidence that some other obscure build lines actually benefits from the changes in terms of DPS/condition damage (and actually be able to replace the current meta builds of having executioner in the critical line for PvE or hidden assassin in PvP), I suggest you rethink your position whether this patch is a good thing or not.

Why do the changes to thieves feel a lot like Obamacare?

phys.7689:

Ichishi.9613:

So this is getting closed today without a single answer given?

he gave the answers, hes going to make vigor nerfs a little less so, ini changes are going through, to be honest they need to, the only thing ill say is some of the traits need sme addition effects or synergy so as to still be appealing outside of ini gain.

I agree that a lot of answers were given. I just disagree that we got an “answer” to the communities issues with IR, which is easily the most important of the changes (the init change is nice, but it wont be introducing P/D or P/P into TPvP, while the IR change will almost definitely remove S/D from our TPvP viable weaponsets, leaving us with D/P – SBow) – we were basically told it was happening, with no discussion based on our questions of how S/D was supposed to remain viable after the change. It’s not like a few random players are spreading doom and gloom – there are a number of long time, experienced players who are convinced this is an awful, awful idea.

IR he says must not mitigate stuns, or be used for stomps, which makes sense.

Why? Thieves aren’t gaining much in the way of survivability this patch (Assassins Reward has the potential to be good, but not amazing, and its a GM trait in 1 line, not like its Healing Signet we’re talking about here) – in fact, they’re losing survivability at every turn. Less vigor uptime for less evades (our only non-stealth based way to avoid damage), No more Perma Stealth (which I agree with 100%, but still results in a squishier thief), and No more IR teleporting you away from danger when one of the 50 CC’s that every popular meta class (except thief) can drop every 5 seconds tags you. They already reduced S/D’s survivability AND utility last month they they halved LS’s boon steal, so now S/D is as useless against boon bunkers as it was earlier in the year when FS was a non-split skill. Jumpers post (Here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Dec-10th-thief-changes/page/8#post3168211 ) is actually pretty accurate on that account – This is, nigh verbatim, my experience with every half decent bunker since the patch.

The Dev’s decided we don’t get stability or protection. They decided we don’t get to block, or go immune. They decided we should have 10.8k base HP. D/P at least has burst and blinds – what’s an S/D spec supposed to do, literally dodge every non auto-attack while they slowly kill their target (in comparison to D/P) in plain view? That’s what they’ve been trying to do, and the community cried so hard vigor uptime (the 1 defensive boon thieves have good access to) got nerfed.

I don’t get why they want S/D out of the meta so badly and I really don’t get how they can just annihilate the set against the opinion of several experienced players without even discussing it (though they still have a month to discuss it with us, I’m just assuming from the way the issue has been dodged thus far that we won’t be getting the discussion we want. I hope I’m wrong in that). It’s not as if S/D thief is super strong in the current meta – it’s mostly taken specifically because it allows them to not get 2 shot by current CC spam warriors – it’s still an uphill battle, but IR allows S/D thieves to actually have a chance.

They aren’t replacing it with any other options either. If these changes go through, its D/P, quit, or roll Warrior.

Except the rollback note on Flanking Strikes and consideration over the amount the vigor duration will be reduced to no answers were given that we did not know already.
Unless we consider rather debatable claims a valid answers. Like massive buffs, abusing the most abusable stomping mechanic and comparing initiative with cooldowns.

I’ve been playing heal thief in PvP for a few weeks now and it’s going to be somewhat immune to the nerfs but it does get boring pretty quick. You can get a lot of glory and die something like once in 10 games, but boring is boring.

JonPeters.5630:

JonPeters.5630:

JonPeters.5630:

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

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.

It is currently for 3 initiative:

• gap closer
• 1s immob

for 2 more initiative:

• escape when not stunned
• remove 1 condition

With the new base regen that means you can gap close and immobilize and remove a condition every 5 seconds. Even if you spread that initiative over 4 skill slots that skill can be used every 20 seconds.

Jon

20 seconds is quite high “cooldown” compared to skills of other classes.

“360 milliseconds is certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones.” I know there is “almost” but skull crack with current 250 milliseconds cast time is fight changing skill because 3s stun is almost always difference between life and death. And how many similar skills are still in game? You are changing skull crack to 500 ms that leaves us 140 ms to react. 40 ms for network delay (really low delay) leaves us with 100 ms to react. Unfortunately average human reaction time is more than 150 ms… (one source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time but there are many others)

So how useful is that? And I am not even considering skill delay which is now so common or issues when this skill won’t move you at all.

LoneWolfie,

The difference lies in how the attack times are spaced out. My calculation spaces attacks evenly, while yours has them all occur at the same time in a 5 second window (i.e. no interaction with the following 5 second window). Both of our calculations are edge conditions that don’t describe real attack rates perfectly. The real initiative gain values lie somewhere in between your numbers and mine.

I don’t usually post on the forums, but the changes you propose for my class concern me greatly.

1. Initiative Change

I don’t really consider the thieves initiative regeneration to be a big enough issue honestly. It’s true that the base regeneration seemed quite slow to me, true, but that felt fair. In addition, we had traits that can increase the regen. + the infiltrator’s signet. But that is just my opinion, if the change is welcome by the majority, why not, but I find it unnecessary.

2. Infiltrator’s Return

I am strictly opposed to this. I admit that before, when the skill was a stun-breaker, it was overpowered in PvP. But against a stun locker (and there are a lot in PvP) who root you in one place and you just have to take it all in, it was a skill that gave the chance to back off. And you are still stunned when you go back, so I don’t think that this ability is over powered. I agree that the spamming of the skill to continuously immobilize the target is bad, but frankly, I’ve never/very rarely seen this being used like that, since this is not viable as it eats your initiative way to fast. And the addition of a cast on these type of skills (I’m thinking of Destroy Shadow Trap) renders them much less usable, again in PvP. You might say that the addition of a 1/3 sec cast is not much, I’ll say that it’s A LOT. How many times I’ve gotten killed during the cast on the Destroy Shadow Trap is mind-boggling. Granted, the skill takes a 1.5 sec cast, much more then a 1/3 sec cast, but I truly think that every little second counts.

3. Infusion of Shadow

I actually encourage this change, it is necessary. There was a lot abuse of the perma-stealth build (D/P 2+5 Combo) in MvM and I’m glad that this is finally addressed.

4. Flanking Strikes

Don’t really have an opinion on this, and you’ve already said that you will not move the trait after all.

5. Vigorous Recovery and Bountiful Theft

Now first of all, correct me if I’m wrong, but the boon transfer to your allies is broken on Bountiful Theft. Either that, or the radius of the transfer is ridiculously small. Because I’m just not seeing this part of the trait work, and when I steal boons from the target, an ally is just 20 from the enemy and does not get the stolen boons. And shouldn’t the thief get the stolen boons as well as the allies? I’m just saying.

As for the vigor nerf, I’m glad you came back on the original intended reduction. 2-3 sec reduction is ok, 5 secs on Bountiful theft just seems wrong.

As for the rest, I don’t really have any comments to make. My only wish is that you buff some utility skills for the thief, like the poisons or the traps, because no-one uses those skills, and no-one will use them as they are now.

Thank you for taking in account our opinions and excuse me for my mediocre English : /

Ihales.3820:

20 seconds is quite high “cooldown” compared to skills of other classes.

“360 milliseconds is certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones.” I know there is “almost” but skull crack with current 250 milliseconds cast time is fight changing skill because 3s stun is almost always difference between life and death. And how many similar skills are still in game? You are changing skull crack to 500 ms that leaves us 140 ms to react. 40 ms for network delay (really low delay) leaves us with 100 ms to react. Unfortunately average human reaction time is more than 150 ms… (one source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time but there are many others)

So how useful is that? And I am not even considering skill delay which is now so common or issues when this skill won’t move you at all.

The devs need to read this and comments like this over and over. I firmly maintain that this nerf is horribly unjustified from a balance standpoint but it’s even too aggressive to be used to avoid stuns at all! Everyone makes mistakes but putting your collective heads in the sand and continuing a mistake is much much worse.

What S/D thief really needs:
LS should steal 2 boons again – reduce the damage if you feel it is necessary
Dancing dagger should move faster and have the full 5 second cripple
Tactical strike needs a buff to give a reason to use CnD
TS does not need more damage but more utility (longer daze, chill, torment… SOMETHING)

IMO, every balance meeting should start with the statement that the goal is to make more viable builds as a first priority.

Word “decent thief” is thrown around a lot lately. I hope people understand that is has nothing to do with thief build itself. It has more to do with the brain of player.
Decent thieves will always continue to thrive. Except there will be less and less of them. Decent thieves will thrive when there will be no thieves at all, too.
But that has nothing to do with the topic.

Since Infusion of Shadows (SA V) will longer work for each smoke field leap or blast (a fair change) can you please fix Meld with Shadows (SA 15) to work with it?

It takes ~1.25s to gain 3s of stealth in d/p (.5 (Blackpowder) > .75 (Heartseeker). That’s a very long time and if anything in that 1.25s process is interrupted or we get revealed we’ve lost 9 initiative and unless we have a powerful defensive utility cooldown available our chances of survival are low. Additionally, the enemy knows where you are while combo’ing. That’s a huge cost/risk compared to cloak and dagger which gives 4s for 6 init in a pre-castable 0.5s cast.

Two leaps offers 5s of stealth, in a highly telegraphed location, where the enemy will have several seconds of knowing where you are and can reposition while you are “stunned” into your extended and easily interrupted 9 init restealthing combo. Currently 3 or 4 heartseeker combo’s are usually required to get enough time to catch up to the enemy (who will have had at least 3-4 seconds to react), which will no longer be possible at a prohibitive 12 and 15 initiative cost.

Multiple smoke field heartseekers’s aren’t required because thieves love permastealth cheese, it’s required because the stealthing mechanic takes so long, is so highly telegraphed and so little stealth duration is gained per leap. You must address this.

Please fix Meld with Shadows to work with smoke field combo stealth. It should still be impossible to maintain permanent stealth via smoke fields which these changes are rightfully trying to prevent but will not kill fair d/p game play.

You can not make these balance changes assuming that d/p works with a single heartseeker smoke field leap.

So, there are several things that everybody are talking about:

• Initiative buff/nerf
• Sword nerf
  Big ones…

I’ll tackle them later, let’s go for a smaller ones for now:

• Assassin’s Retreat
  - will still be useless, seriously… What is the point of that trait? Swiftness on PvE events? Come on… Ye, it’s only Adept trait but still… Could do better than that! May be initiative gain or endurance refill on kill?
• Assassins Reward
  Tbh I didn’t get it, may be I overlooked answer(sry if I did), but: " Increased healing scaling by 35%". By 35% ?
  The scaling was 3.5%, wasn’kitten So the new scaling is 4.725% or what? Still 3 times less than regeneration scaling?
  If yes – it’ll still be useless trait, imho.
• Hard to Catch
  As was mentioned somewhere in the tread the “Step-away” part is too unreliable for even looking @ that trait seriously…

#######
Now, few cents about Ini buff/nerf.
I won’t go into some abstract math here as someone did. I’ll make it simple.

In dungeons I provide my group a perma-blind on trash packs by spamming Black Powder.
For this I need 6 ini every kitten seconds.
Right now I get 3 ini from regen and about 2-3 ini from Opportunist (I make 4 cleaves with the sword while blind is there).
With new regen I’ll get 4-5 ini from regen and 1 from Opportunist.
I will not notice any change.
The thing is we actually will have a buff in vulnerability-stacking.

Let’s look into other situation.
DPSing a boss with D/D. Go see calculations made – insert there time you waste on dodging and we’ll notice nearly no change or even a buff in your initiative gain.

Now an active PvP fight, where you go in, damage, then go out. Opportunist could not even proc for me in that cases, but it will proc now. Not even mentioning buffed initiative regen.

And the last one.
You are a DPS thief in a zerg fight in WvW. You see a brief moment – no heavy AoE, no retaliation up – and go in for some Cluster-spam.
This is the only case, where Opportunist was nerfed, imo. That’s sad, and I don’t really see a reason for it, but I can accept it.

• Initiative gain from Signet Use and Kleptomaniac.
  This two are the most sad thing I see. It was used for finishing Heartseaker spam under effect of Assassin’s Signet(w/o auto-attack), but not anymore. It’s not like you’ll use signets on cd for better initiative gain, so there was no reason for nerfing this other then for Assassin’s Signet’s active and First Strikes to not work together, imo.