Guild Wars 2

Sword nerf.
I don’t usually go sPvP with this weapon set, coz it feels awfully clumsy for me.
But.
I do command on my thief in WvW with sword main-hand. I’m obviously will be talking about the zerg-fights.

Well, as I touched it… I’ll wine a little. Is there a spoiler here to hide it?
Anyway, here I go:
In current zerg meta thief lacks it’s role. Don’t get me wrong, it is viable and can be used, but it has a serious barrier for that.
Thief can do devastating damage to enemy backline, but he’ll hardly ever kill anybody there solo (except upscaled characters). There are 2 ways to overcome this. First, you go there, fearless in daggerstorm for aoe cripple and then pray while wirling that commander will push through your crippled victims. Other solution is to have somebody to step in there with you to actually kill them, not just to force them to heal or dodge. The higher level of organization is needed. Or go solo stealthy, picking up wounded targets. Both last are harder and more exciting, but are discouraged by skill-lag.
Other role viable for thief is the soft-controller. Venom Share. I’m running it. Other class that can provide it is ranger. Funny, but both classes are considerate as bad for zerging. So, I’m leading in venom share. I’m kinda forced to wear PVT so it looks like this (I use toxic sharpening stones, so I’ll swap dagger in the link for Giver for pretty numbers)
The thing is that while having ability to heavily soft-control (6s immobilize on 5 targets(precast Needle trap + Steal/ShadowStep), 4s immobilize for 15 targets(just share Devour Poison) that in many cases give your side kills, you lack other things. It is nearly impossible to lead without a guardian in a party, due to lack of stability and protection. That’s a big issue and to manage with it I picked up sword with a build-in stun-breaker(earlier) or at least teleport-out with condition cleansing (which is the other issue). It really helps a lot. Btw I’m forced to take Withdraw (for immobilize remove) and off-hand dagger with Shadow’s Embrace to somehow fix it. Your guardian is not a god – you will catch stun+condition-spam and you have to save yourself. Yes, I have shadow step. But really, that’s the only other save for me and it’s cooldown is not low. Look @ guardian, ele or warrior. They don’t have that type of problem. They can provide support while leading people without sacrificing their survivability. They also rely on there class-specific abilities. They really have more buttons to push and coz of this their utility slots are more free. I envy them.

May be part of problem is that Withdraw has terribly long respond time. It’s more reliable to step-away than hoping for it to activate before you’ll catch a stun. I think that’s wrong. Can you look into it, please? Withdraw’s activation time.

May be problem with my zerg build coz of Venom Share placed in a tree focused on stealthing, which is not so good for zerging, tbh.

#####
Also, about D/P.
With 15 in SA:
3 seconds stealth in cost of 7 initiative is too short. It’s -4 initiative.
For D/D it’s 4s stealth for 4 initiative. -0 initiative.

That’s kidna… frustrating. How about fixing Meld with Shadows to work with blast and leap finishers?

Cost.6917:

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.
.

Wrong. Any S/P build even in PvE or PvP got nerfed hard since PW hit like 7-9 times in less than 2 sec

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.

Well I disagree with you. Thieves are in a bad place.

Zacchary.6183:

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.

Well I disagree with you. Thieves are in a bad place.

Everyone disagrees with Sanduskel.

We should probably stop responding to anything he says in the thief boards at all, since he isn’t open to discussion. He only wishes to express his opinion which he considers infallible. His opinion has been acknowledged as extremely off base by nearly every single experienced thief who still frequents the boards (it might be literally every single one, I just don’t know for sure), so let’s just just all agree to skip his posts.

Here’s what I know about Sanduskel:

1) Most likely an alt account.
2) Main account likely to be a ranger
3) Gets ganked by thieves often due to low skill level
4) Wants one thing and one thing only – the total destruction of all thieves

He could also be a d/d ele think he should be able face roll thieves. Probably has never played thief or if he has got face rolled by a decent ele or war and ragequit.

evilapprentice.6379:

Zacchary.6183:

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.

Well I disagree with you. Thieves are in a bad place.

Everyone disagrees with Sanduskel.

We should probably stop responding to anything he says in the thief boards at all, since he isn’t open to discussion. He only wishes to express his opinion which he considers infallible. His opinion has been acknowledged as extremely off base by nearly every single experienced thief who still frequents the boards (it might be literally every single one, I just don’t know for sure), so let’s just just all agree to skip his posts.

I disagree with your suggestion. Perma-enabling this OP behavior will only break the forums. ;D

Zacchary.6183:

evilapprentice.6379:

Zacchary.6183:

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.

Well I disagree with you. Thieves are in a bad place.

Everyone disagrees with Sanduskel.

We should probably stop responding to anything he says in the thief boards at all, since he isn’t open to discussion. He only wishes to express his opinion which he considers infallible. His opinion has been acknowledged as extremely off base by nearly every single experienced thief who still frequents the boards (it might be literally every single one, I just don’t know for sure), so let’s just just all agree to skip his posts.

I disagree with your suggestion. Perma-enabling this OP behavior will only break the forums. ;D

I’m not looking to turn this into a Sanduskel bashing thread, but he is 100% committed to his opinion – he has no interest in discussing or learning – if you don’t agree with his opinion, you are wrong, regardless what your points might be. He’s either extremely misinformed and happy about that, or (much more likely) a troll.

Ignoring him entirely is the only option.

style.6173:

Sanduskel.1850:

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.

Post your videos. Would love to see.

google youtube sandusky

I’d like to ask if there are any more sweeping changes planned specifically for PvE Thieves in the future. I have to admit that as one I feel that I’m being caught in the crossfire of PvP balance changes a bit too often to my liking.

And now, back to the point of this thread.

Is there any more dev feedback about the IS change—or any of the other Thief changes, for that matter? There hasn’t been a dev comment in 4 or 5 pages.

LoneWolfie.1852:

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.

When you are balancing traits, its a self balance thing, you arent really disagreeing that opportunist was unbalanced, you are merely saying that other traits should be on the same level, so more builds of thief have access to good ini.

problem with this is, that means you would be increasing the max ini regen by even more, because if you improve those traits, people would get opportunist and the new traits.

you could move the traits up so it would be hard to get both, however that mean balanced builds wont have access to decent iniative gains.

the only way to make traits exclusive is to put them in grandmaster teir, and that brings a host of problems.

the honest best solution is that all theives need more access to a faster base ini regen. This means that traits that give ini CANNOT remain the same. it would just give people op ini.

Maybe the numbers arent perfect, or need tweaks, but its definately the right direction. Have you tried playing with other theif builds? you will find yourself out of initiative very fast and very often.

Now to the point that overall, theif needs buffs, i agree. Thief does not excel in any game mode, and is average at best in spvp. weak in PVE and not very good in WvW at actually doing things that matter. (best at annoying people and running away) So yeah, i think nerfs are bad, because its already barely hanging on in most modes, however as i evaluated the ini numbers, its going to give more ini to the majority of weapon sets, and close to break even for the others.

Imagi.4561:

And now, back to the point of this thread.

Is there any more dev feedback about the IS change—or any of the other Thief changes, for that matter? There hasn’t been a dev comment in 4 or 5 pages.

sorry, the last post was essentially that JP felt the spirit of the constructive feedback wasnt being honored, dont know if you will see any more responses, also they are closing this thread soon, probably because after today all changes with be decided, and they will begin implementation and testing.

If its not too late, i suggest that devs try to think of solutions to IR that do not limit the skill from its original intention as a strong positioning and reactive evasive tool. by all means solve the downing issues, and the stun issue, but dont defeat the purpose of the sword, which is supposed to be the best tactical weapon which allows you to control the flow and spacing in the field.

evilapprentice.6379:

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.

i can tell your very invested here, and i understand that, but lets try to be objective. Other stomp ensuring skills require the use of a 60 second cool down (base) utility that has a very high value in use, (usually invulnerability of some sort) The IR technique can be done every 22 seconds with steal, which is short cooldown, you can do it 3 times even without points in steal reduction by using a different utilities in addition to steal.

Now, i dont feel this justifies the nerf to IR, because i feel other solutions are better, and dont alter the spirit of the skill, and weapon outside of the flavor of the month builds/techniques.

yeah this solves stomps, but how does it effect a weapon with only 3 skills, lets be honest the 2 skill totally defines sword. The 3 changes, the stealth skill is below average in use, the 2 skill is what gives it is flavor and use. the IS/IR combo is all about tactical positioning control, and reactive play, the cast time limits that ability

If they go through with the IS/IR change, it will kill sword in PvP. Period.

So glad I made that Bolt…

Stx.4857:

If they go through with the IS/IR change, it will kill sword in PvP. Period.

So glad I made that Bolt…

LOL i know exactly what you are feeling… Love my sword in PvE and PvP and above that love my Bolt, dont want to use it only while running in LA xD

At this point, I think that even if ArenaNet doesn’t agree with the counterarguments that have been presented regarding the IS nerf, it should be postponed and perhaps put on the list for a future patch.

There has been a great deal of protest for this change and there are a multitude of other significant changes being implemented. I feel like this should be enough to warrant a delay until they’re in a position to do a weaponset overhaul, at which point it might not even be necessary.

evilapprentice.6379:

NOFUN4U

Fine have it your way.

On topic:
Jon I don’t think that the dev team understands the state thieves are in. You are not going to make thief player’s rely less on initiative regen traits when they only reason they go for them is because everything else sucks. I will go down the list of traits and explain why thieves currently do not take them and I would like you to look them over.

Back Fighting:
The only time this would help is if you are downed when another enemy is downed. Otherwise, it isn’t as useful as other traits because fighting in the downed state is almost completely pointless without others around you. Then again, even if you were downed you’de have a less likely chance of being revived before a more useful profession (I know this from experience while doing some orr bosses).

Corrosive Traps/Master Trapper:
All traps except for Shadow Trap are weak both utility wise and damage wise. Because there are better things to slot, using either one of these waste of a trait slot unless there really is nothing else you can use.

Venomous Strength:
Unless you are running venomshare, there is no point to use this. Signets with Signets of Power provide a better bonus.

Potent Poison:
Poison is good for reducing healing capabilities but is almost not worth concentrating on beyond that. Not only that, most professions carry a fair amount of condition cleanse with them so the poison will eventually be cleansed. Besides, bleeding does way more damage than poison and a thief can stack bleeds much faster. Since this is a numbers game bleeds > poison.

Sundering Strikes:
Does not activate often enough to make a noticeable difference in damage.

Improvisation:
This is good when using multiple utility types but other than that it’s a gamble and mostly used when there is nothing else better to equip. If you got rid of signets from the list it would boost the probability of everything else coming off CD by 5% and it wouldn’t be a waste since most signets are already on a short cooldown anyways.

(to be continued due to 15 minute flood control >.<)

Quick Venoms:
Like Venomous Strength, this is only good if you are using venoms or venomshare. Since venoms are overall too weak to use without using venomshare, this trait is overall situational (useless).

Dagger Training:
5% increase in damage is barely noticeable on it’s own but if a build relies on damage then using this would be a better choice to use than most of whats available on this line.

Combined Training:
Like dagger training, its barely noticable on its own especially since every dual attack a thief has deals less damage than the auto. Until there is a damage increase to dual skills, using this would be pointless. Besides, there are very few builds thieves have that utilize dual skills regularly so even if they were boosted nobody would take this trait unless there was nothing else.

Panic Strike:
IMO this could work with pistol MH or SB, however a few seconds of immobilize on a 30s CD is not that great especially when it can be cleansed easily.

Residual Venoms:
Useless unless using venoms or venomshare.

Concealed Defeat:
It would be better if it was a circle instead of a line or a line that was placed inbetween you and your opponent. However, since it pops right on top of you it does nothing because your enemy can still hit you from outside of the screen.

Pistol Mastery:
Great for p/p but does not bring pistol MH auto up to SB level. :I Pistol auto is probably the weakest auto thieves have.

Practiced Tolerance:
Great if you have nothing else to slot. However, the thief will have to gear for high precision if they were to make any use of it. Doesn’t help GCs very much since thief healing is poor as it is.

Ankle Shots:
Good of p/p if you plan on chasing. Otherwise, its lackluster for d/p and p/d.

Signet Use:
Unless you are using signet builds or you are using it in conjunction with Hastened Replenishment and Signet of Malice there is no point. Not only that, it takes 50 points to do the latter and that only works well for condition builds which thieves are not THAT great at being. But since you are going to nerf the initiative gain on it which was one of the two highlight of signet builds, I think this would get slotted less. Signets by themselves are too weak by themselves, however Signets of Power and Signet Use overrides their weaknesses and turns them into a source of initiative and might. Most of them are already on a short cooldown as it is so the 20% CD reduction doesn’t affect much. It is the initiative gain we want more of and the 20% CD only lets us gain that initiative faster.

Combo Critical Chance:
Like dagger training, except for builds that rely on damage would need more crit chance. It is also good for x/p if you plan on using dual skills to proc on-crit effects however there are still better things you can use.

Critical Haste:
2s of haste only gives me a whole auto attack worth of speed. It is better for p/x and SB than everything else, however I would only use it if nothing better was available.

Hidden Killer:
Not all thieves use stealth. Those that use it all of the time will want to slot this over Executioner because it frees up precision points for more survivability. However, this trait would be better suited in Shadow Arts because having 100% crit rate while in stealth makes precision pointless to have. That is why you’ll find more thieves slotting executioner than HK.

Slowed Pulse:
Regen is great, however bleeds are easily stacked and 3+ of bleeding will completely negate the regen.

Power Shots:
In a traitline where most of the traits are viable, something that barely increases the damage on a weapon that’s already kinda weak to begin with is not worth it. However this is fine for SB builds seeing as how its the only one for it. :I

Leeching Venoms:
Same as every other venom trait.

Patience:
Not that much of a boost. In fact, to get the full effect you have to remain in stealth till the very end otherwise there are better things to slot.

Venomous Aura:
See leeching venoms. Also should be in Deadly Arts (my opinion) because it has ALMOST ZERO SYNERGY with this traitline.

Assassin’s Retreat:
This is great if you like hit-and-runs. However I will never use it. (does anyone even use these kinds of traits anyways?)

Assassin’s Reward:
This trait’s healing capability is so insignificant that its almost on par with Hard To Catch. Even the small buff that’s planned for it isn’t enough to make me want to use it.

Hard To Catch:
Why should I slot this? Its random movements combined with the fact *that I am still CCed screws me over. You could put the CD to 0 and make it an adept trait… nobody will use it. At least, Last refuge can be managed and that one also can screw over thieves.

(still not done)

phys.7689:

I can tell your very invested here, and i understand that, but lets try to be objective. Other stomp ensuring skills require the use of a 60 second cool down (base) utility that has a very high value in use, (usually invulnerability of some sort) The IR technique can be done every 22 seconds with steal, which is short cooldown, you can do it 3 times even without points in steal reduction by using a different utilities in addition to steal.

Every 22 seconds with steal and a grand master trait, otherwise its 22-35 seconds. And 5 initiative, lets not forget that. 60 seconds is a blanket number that doesn’t cover all cases – a guardian for example can generate stability for stomping every 30 seconds, faster than an untraited steal, and it doesn’t cost any weapon skills. An engineer can do it every 20 seconds. It’s not much more effective than just using Black powder, which doesn’t cost steal or any utilities, and only 1 more initiative – it’s also easier to set up, and useful for more than just yourself.
Bringing up “different utilities” doesn’t help your point, because other classes could bring 2 utilities that grant a combination of stability/immunity in the same manner.
Thieves have no access to stability, their defenses are all active, and generally built like glass by necessity to be effective. They can’t start a stomp with a huge health pool, protection, regen, aegis, and/or decently high armor like many other classes have the option to. A thief standing still for 4 seconds in any other situation is a death sentence, should thieves just not stomp?

Imagi.4561:

At this point, I think that even if ArenaNet doesn’t agree with the counterarguments that have been presented regarding the IS nerf, it should be postponed and perhaps put on the list for a future patch.

I’d actually like to see anets opinion on the counter arguments. All they responded to was a sarcastic comment about how IS/IR was now going to be useless, and it should be designed like Shadow Shot, instead of the myriad well constructed arguments concerning the change.

There has been a great deal of protest for this change and there are a multitude of other significant changes being implemented. I feel like this should be enough to warrant a delay until they’re in a position to do a weaponset overhaul, at which point it might not even be necessary.

I wouldn’t count on it – the vibe I’m getting is this change is happening, regardless how awful it appears to be.

I would also like to give my overall opinion on the traitlines:

Deadly Arts Traitline:
Good for stats Mug and Venomshare. Everything else is situational or underwhelming.

Critical Strikes Traitline:
Necessary if the thief plans to deal any damage. Most of the traits are in a good place, however some of them and some of the things these traits associate with need a buff before this traitline becomes something other than the source of damage dependence.

Shadow Arts Traitline:
Amazing for stealth users, pointless for everyone else. Less dependence on stealth will make this line and the profession more balanced (or at least give it the potential to be less broken).

Acrobatics:
Like Critical Strikes except it needs more work. Hard to Catch is the worst of them. If anything this line should concentrate more on condition removal since acrobatics requires a healthy, in-shape person to perform feats of agility. It just makes sense.

Trickery:
Probably the most balanced traitline thieves have. However, I would recommend that Condition Damage gets switched out for Condition Duration in Deadly Arts to make this line more versatile and ultimately open up new builds.

If you want a firsthand perspective you can try these out for yourself.

The profession has the ability to do some really potent stuff but most of it is situational and requires a setup that traits and gears heavily into those aspects. Not only that, setup isn’t completely reliant on the build either. So assuming the thief is balanced or overpowered and basing your changes off of these assumptions will ultimately kill the thief.

TL;DR The problem is not initiative regen, its everything else. If you really want to open up builds for the thief you should look at why we aren’t going with anything else rather than focusing on what we do use.

Zacchary.6183:

TL;DR The problem is not initiative regen, its everything else. If you really want to open up builds for the thief you should look at why we aren’t going with anything else rather than focusing on what we do use.

I hope that the developers read this and actually understand this.

They won’t. My target audience never listens to me.

Anet knows more about this class and they have much more data than we do. you need to trust them and not second guess their every move.

Brett.4305:

Zacchary.6183:

TL;DR The problem is not initiative regen, its everything else. If you really want to open up builds for the thief you should look at why we aren’t going with anything else rather than focusing on what we do use.

I hope that the developers read this and actually understand this.

Dev’s don’t want thief specs held hostage by 15 points in CS for opportunist, without realizing its actually held hostage by 30 points in CS for Hidden killer/Executioner and crit damage. It seems they have a very loose grasp on how the thief class plays, especially in SPvP.

Sanduskel.1850:

Anet knows more about this class and they have much more data than we do. you need to trust them and not second guess their every move.

You’ve made a dozen posts in this thread saying exactly that. Nobody has paid more attention to the 12th than to the 1st.

Stooperdale.3560:

Sanduskel.1850:

Anet knows more about this class and they have much more data than we do. you need to trust them and not second guess their every move.

You’ve made a dozen posts in this thread saying exactly. Nobody has paid more attention to the 12th than to the 1st.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Dec-10th-thief-changes/page/11#post3174287

Stooperdale.3560:

Sanduskel.1850:

Anet knows more about this class and they have much more data than we do. you need to trust them and not second guess their every move.

You’ve made a dozen posts in this thread saying exactly. Nobody has paid more attention to the 12th than to the 1st.

Saying exactly what?

Zacchary.6183:

Its hard to trust someone with something when you know they know way less than you do about it.

i think you think they know less than you think you know.

I foresaw this many months ago…

we are getting bananas as weapons.

phys.7689:

When you are balancing traits, its a self balance thing, you arent really disagreeing that opportunist was unbalanced, you are merely saying that other traits should be on the same level, so more builds of thief have access to good ini.

problem with this is, that means you would be increasing the max ini regen by even more, because if you improve those traits, people would get opportunist and the new traits.

you could move the traits up so it would be hard to get both, however that mean balanced builds wont have access to decent iniative gains.

the only way to make traits exclusive is to put them in grandmaster teir, and that brings a host of problems.

the honest best solution is that all theives need more access to a faster base ini regen. This means that traits that give ini CANNOT remain the same. it would just give people op ini.

Maybe the numbers arent perfect, or need tweaks, but its definately the right direction. Have you tried playing with other theif builds? you will find yourself out of initiative very fast and very often.

Now to the point that overall, theif needs buffs, i agree. Thief does not excel in any game mode, and is average at best in spvp. weak in PVE and not very good in WvW at actually doing things that matter. (best at annoying people and running away) So yeah, i think nerfs are bad, because its already barely hanging on in most modes, however as i evaluated the ini numbers, its going to give more ini to the majority of weapon sets, and close to break even for the others.

My point is how the original opportunist + base regen = 80 initiative per minute, new system = 60 initiative/minute. As far as I’m concerned why is ANet nerfing our pve aspect, then thrashing our traits and weapon sets to kitten in PvP?

And if you think it will give more initiative to weapon sets, that’s completely and utterly wrong. S/P, PP, Shortbow, S/D instant nerf for critical line. There’s NO way other lines in the new system can output more initiative than the old critical lines.

If you wanted to increase the viability of the new builds, they should have monitored the critical line closely instead of kittying around with it. It’s not like thieves are meant to be survival tankers.

What’s the use of giving the PVT thieves 15 more initiative per minute. 2.5 Extra cloak and daggers? 2000 more HP gain under stealth? Or what, cast 3.25 extra seconds worth of immobolize/minute with PP set with the new initiative system? Massive buff??? To what aspect? Support thief? Tanking thief? Healing thief with area stealth and traiting regeneration for allies (OH WAIT—- Infusion of shadows nerfed!)

WOOOOAHHHH MASSIVE! Changes…. to… erm… what? Massive nerfs to survivability to thief because thief got slapped a 40 % vigor nerf? Yeah. Yessss! MASSSSSIVE changes indeed.

If they want to increase their base ini regeneration they should have done so without messing around with our meta builds and call it a massive buff.

LoneWolfie.1852:

phys.7689:

When you are balancing traits, its a self balance thing, you arent really disagreeing that opportunist was unbalanced, you are merely saying that other traits should be on the same level, so more builds of thief have access to good ini.

problem with this is, that means you would be increasing the max ini regen by even more, because if you improve those traits, people would get opportunist and the new traits.

you could move the traits up so it would be hard to get both, however that mean balanced builds wont have access to decent iniative gains.

the only way to make traits exclusive is to put them in grandmaster teir, and that brings a host of problems.

the honest best solution is that all theives need more access to a faster base ini regen. This means that traits that give ini CANNOT remain the same. it would just give people op ini.

Maybe the numbers arent perfect, or need tweaks, but its definately the right direction. Have you tried playing with other theif builds? you will find yourself out of initiative very fast and very often.

Now to the point that overall, theif needs buffs, i agree. Thief does not excel in any game mode, and is average at best in spvp. weak in PVE and not very good in WvW at actually doing things that matter. (best at annoying people and running away) So yeah, i think nerfs are bad, because its already barely hanging on in most modes, however as i evaluated the ini numbers, its going to give more ini to the majority of weapon sets, and close to break even for the others.

My point is how the original opportunist + base regen = 80 initiative per minute, new system = 60 initiative/minute. As far as I’m concerned why is ANet nerfing our pve aspect, then thrashing our traits and weapon sets to kitten in PvP?

And if you think it will give more initiative to weapon sets, that’s completely and utterly wrong. S/P, PP, Shortbow, S/D instant nerf for critical line. There’s NO way other lines in the new system can output more initiative than the old critical lines.

If you wanted to increase the viability of the new builds, they should have monitored the critical line closely instead of kittying around with it. It’s not like thieves are meant to be survival tankers.

What’s the use of giving the PVT thieves 15 more initiative per minute. 2.5 Extra cloak and daggers? 1000 more HP gain under stealth? Or what, cast 3.25 extra seconds worth of immobolize/minute with PP set with the new initiative system? Massive buff??? To what aspect? Support thief? Tanking thief? Healing thief with area stealth and traiting regeneration for allies (OH WAIT—- Infusion of shadows nerfed!) WOOOOAHHHH MASSIVE! Changes…. to… erm… what? Massive nerfs to survivability to thief because thief got slapped a 40 % vigor nerf? Yeah. MASSSSSIVE changes indeed.

If they want to increase their base ini regeneration they should have done so without messing around with our meta builds and call it a massive buff. kitten this kitten.

PS: Sanduskel can you stop trying to be the resident you-know-starts-with-letter-T-trying-to-bait-people? We (main thieves and either got to high ranking/did mathematical calculations) know better than the devs who didn’t do any calculations but gut feelings , end of story.

so a pistol/dagger thief has more torments, stealth bleeds, imobs cripples
so a dagger dagger thief has more cloak and dagger, bleeds and evasions
so a sword dagger thief is gaining more initiative while dancing around
so a sword pistol theif is gaining more initiative while dancing around/stunning players

so a venom sharing build isnt giving up all the positional shadow steps and only pressing 1 because he got no ini

Yeah i get that it MAY slightly effect people doing a max dps rotation versus a mob that is never a threat to them and so they never do anything but attack, but i dont think that one playstyle should be the one which forces all others to have crappy ini gains. In fact i would hope they improve thier AI to where thats never the right answer for a fight.

how do you realistically propose they give all the builds which actually need more ini regen ini, without increasing the 80 you are used to, to 120 ini?

evilapprentice.6379:

phys.7689:

I can tell your very invested here, and i understand that, but lets try to be objective. Other stomp ensuring skills require the use of a 60 second cool down (base) utility that has a very high value in use, (usually invulnerability of some sort) The IR technique can be done every 22 seconds with steal, which is short cooldown, you can do it 3 times even without points in steal reduction by using a different utilities in addition to steal.

Every 22 seconds with steal and a grand master trait, otherwise its 22-35 seconds. And 5 initiative, lets not forget that. 60 seconds is a blanket number that doesn’t cover all cases – a guardian for example can generate stability for stomping every 30 seconds, faster than an untraited steal, and it doesn’t cost any weapon skills. An engineer can do it every 20 seconds. It’s not much more effective than just using Black powder, which doesn’t cost steal or any utilities, and only 1 more initiative – it’s also easier to set up, and useful for more than just yourself.
Bringing up “different utilities” doesn’t help your point, because other classes could bring 2 utilities that grant a combination of stability/immunity in the same manner.
Thieves have no access to stability, their defenses are all active, and generally built like glass by necessity to be effective. They can’t start a stomp with a huge health pool, protection, regen, aegis, and/or decently high armor like many other classes have the option to. A thief standing still for 4 seconds in any other situation is a death sentence, should thieves just not stomp?

hmm, ehh maybe

phys.7689:

so a pistol/dagger thief has more torments, stealth bleeds, imobs cripples
so a dagger dagger thief has more cloak and dagger, bleeds and evasions
so a sword dagger thief is gaining more initiative while dancing around
so a sword pistol theif is gaining more initiative while dancing around/stunning players

so a venom sharing build isnt giving up all the positional shadow steps and only pressing 1 because he got no ini

Yeah i get that it MAY slightly effect people doing a max dps rotation versus a mob that is never a threat to them and so they never do anything but attack, but i dont think that one playstyle should be the one which forces all others to have crappy ini gains. In fact i would hope they improve thier AI to where thats never the right answer for a fight.

how do you realistically propose they give all the builds which actually need more ini regen ini, without increasing the 80 you are used to, to 120 ini?

WOW. That’s very simple… how about giving thieves base regen of 1/second without any strings attached? Doesn’t mean flat out increasing the regen = instant OP thief. If you recall we’re getting FLAT nerfs on our Vigor. If our crit line is indeed generating too much initiative, we can tweak opportunist a little.

phys.7689:

so a pistol/dagger thief has more torments, stealth bleeds, imobs cripples
so a dagger dagger thief has more cloak and dagger, bleeds and evasions
so a sword dagger thief is gaining more initiative while dancing around
so a sword pistol theif is gaining more initiative while dancing around/stunning players

so a venom sharing build isnt giving up all the positional shadow steps and only pressing 1 because he got no ini

Yeah i get that it MAY slightly effect people doing a max dps rotation versus a mob that is never a threat to them and so they never do anything but attack, but i dont think that one playstyle should be the one which forces all others to have crappy ini gains. In fact i would hope they improve thier AI to where thats never the right answer for a fight.

how do you realistically propose they give all the builds which actually need more ini regen ini, without increasing the 80 you are used to, to 120 ini?

Note the weaponset you didn’t mention. The one that’s not the Thief “universal offhand” (Shortbow).

You know, the one that’s only used for one very initiative-heavy attack, that’s outperformed by shortbow and all the melee options?

Yeah, Pistol/Pistol.

Considering how Pistol/Pistol was originally mentioned as “underperforming” by the Devs back in May, and here we are in December with no useful changes to it, I’d rather not nerf the hell out of P/P just to achieve a tangential nerf on the sets you mentioned.

They need to look at the reasons why people take 30 points in Critical Strikes (and end up getting 15 points along the way), and why people were taking the initiative-buffing traits (hint: It’s because most of the others are situational or outright bad).

But instead they’re just changing stuff along one axis of adjustment without really looking at any of the others.

Sanduskel.1850:

I seriously think that you think that you know what you think and that you know more than you think that they think they know, but seriously you don’t think half as much as anet thinks you don’t think.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

I really cannot believe you haven’t gotten bored yet of running to every single thread about thief shouting the same stuff that no one cares about :/

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

Firstly I want to say thank you for taking the time to come here and respond to the concerns expressed here in this thread. I’m very much enjoying this new collaborative development and I think the plethora of information that has occurred in both directions as a result will have promising results for the future of GW2.

On topic, I believe the two abilities in question are “Infiltrator’s strike” and “Shadow Return” (number 2 on the sword). After a few more days of consideration as to the proposed changes with this skill my reaction was slightly misguided but I have a suggestion that could eliminate my concern with this change but accomplish a similar end result.

I realize there are other abilities that have channel times and ‘cast times’ on the thief that are similar, and in some cases longer. Where they do not typically apply though is on the thief’s mobility which is a primary attribute of the class. I think perhaps a better solution to this issue of telestomping people would be to put the cast time on infiltrator’s strike, not the shadow return.

This will put the delay at the moment of attack, but leave utility part of the ability for quickly getting out of the way of a big hit or danger which thief desperately needs to survive. It will eliminate the ability of rapidly spamming the ability to tag a target and dash, but retain the ability to use it as intended, to get the heck out of danger.

tl:dr – put the cast time up front on infiltrator’s strike, not the return.

LoneWolfie.1852:

My point is how the original opportunist + base regen = 80 initiative per minute, new system = 60 initiative/minute. As far as I’m concerned why is ANet nerfing our pve aspect, then thrashing our traits and weapon sets to kitten in PvP?

original opportunist + base regen =
18 initiative per minute ( 1 every 3,3 secs) + 45 initiative per minute = 63 initiative
new opportunist + base regen =
6 initiative per minute (1 every 10 secs) + 60 initiative per minute = 66 Initiative

LoneWolfie.1852:

And if you think it will give more initiative to weapon sets, that’s completely and utterly wrong. S/P, PP, Shortbow, S/D instant nerf for critical line. There’s NO way other lines in the new system can output more initiative than the old critical lines.

I have never used Opportunist and dont need it to have always a high inipool, that mean opportunist cannot be so strong.

Black Teagan.9215:

I have never used Opportunist and dont need it to have always a high inipool, that mean opportunist cannot be so strong.

Not interested in weighing in on this, just here to point out that this above statement is a blatant logical fallacy, and holds no value.

“I’ve never eaten a burger, and I’ve eaten a staggering amount of delicious food, that means a burger cannot be so delicious”.

Black Teagan.9215:

LoneWolfie.1852:

My point is how the original opportunist + base regen = 80 initiative per minute, new system = 60 initiative/minute. As far as I’m concerned why is ANet nerfing our pve aspect, then thrashing our traits and weapon sets to kitten in PvP?

original opportunist + base regen =
18 initiative per minute ( 1 every 3,3 secs) + 45 initiative per minute = 63 initiative
new opportunist + base regen =
6 initiative per minute (1 every 10 secs) + 60 initiative per minute = 66 Initiative

LoneWolfie.1852:

And if you think it will give more initiative to weapon sets, that’s completely and utterly wrong. S/P, PP, Shortbow, S/D instant nerf for critical line. There’s NO way other lines in the new system can output more initiative than the old critical lines.

I have never used Opportunist and dont need it to have always a high inipool, that mean opportunist cannot be so strong.

Black Teagan.9215:

LoneWolfie.1852:

My point is how the original opportunist + base regen = 80 initiative per minute, new system = 60 initiative/minute. As far as I’m concerned why is ANet nerfing our pve aspect, then thrashing our traits and weapon sets to kitten in PvP?

original opportunist + base regen =
18 initiative per minute ( 1 every 3,3 secs) + 45 initiative per minute = 63 initiative
new opportunist + base regen =
6 initiative per minute (1 every 10 secs) + 60 initiative per minute = 66 Initiative

LoneWolfie.1852:

And if you think it will give more initiative to weapon sets, that’s completely and utterly wrong. S/P, PP, Shortbow, S/D instant nerf for critical line. There’s NO way other lines in the new system can output more initiative than the old critical lines.

I have never used Opportunist and dont need it to have always a high inipool, that mean opportunist cannot be so strong.

Uhh I had a slight mistake in using numbers (can’t remember exact numbers except it was a 20 point difference). If you took my earlier numbers it’s supposed to be

94.8 initiative per minute (old system, 5 attacks per second 100% crit chance), compared to

71.64 initiative (new system, 5 attacks per second, 100% crit chance, a difference of 23.16 initiative/minute.

If you take 80% crit chance then old system would be

1-(80%0.3)-(80%0.3)-(80%0.3)-(80%0.3)-(80%*0.3)

44.76 +45 initiative = 89.76 initiative per minute.

New system for 80% crit chance + 5 attacks per second

11.6 initiative + 60 = 71.6 initiative per minute (crit chance ceases to be useful after a certain crit chance%).

If you have 100% crit chance with 5 attacks per second you gain about 49.8 initiative per minute.

Was the critical line thief with extremely high crit chance very OP in PvE or WvW or PvP? What can justify anet’s nerf? Nothing at all. Just because a 15 point master trait is the best trait amongst all other professions doesn’t mean the other traits = broken, and yet they nerf the initiative gain from other places anyway without even buffing it.\

And if you don’t use opportunist, it means you don’t use critical line trait, you’re dragging down people in PVE content. Why are you wasting their time with PVT gear thief? If you want to use condition thief to do dungeons, why not switch to necros instead?

If any of the devs are still reading through this thread, I’d like to ask a question. How much harder would it be to alter the functionality of player stomping to disallow shadow-stepping during the animation than it would be to change Shadow Return?

I want to offer that as a solution, since it would solve half the problem that led to the proposed change to Shadow Return. As for using the skill while stunned, can we compromise with a range reduction and an initiative cost increase instead of disabling the skill altogether?

I think that the opinion of jumper equals 0 is now a thief dead for several months.
I play the thief since this game started , I think that this community has only learned over time how to cry on patch after patch leaving his mind in a box instead of reacting as he did after being combined with the latest patches mesmers the community . As a thief I am also opposed to this nerf but I also think that after the nerf sword dagger will still be playable and finally we will not see kids who just spamming 1 and 3 without a bit of strategy in the evasion or sometimes even not using the sword 5 to escape in stealth mechanisms or apply a little more complex strategies .
I think sword dagger only need a small review on the build and skill to use right now trying to be a more strategic minimum during battles together with your team , please let your mind take away from this box thieves and collaborate together , as regards kids can also change the game or character since they are inclined to play only the PG over power of the moment.

That’s all .

Sword 5 you say …

i wanna mean 6 cloack and dagger ….

and 5 sometimes for crippling enemy

it’s dagger OH 4# for cripples and 5# for stealth :P

Im not on my pg anyway i want mean that thief comunity should work toghethere not like this moment where you are look what is the nuber of cloack and dagger or dancing dagger…..

all the constructive feedback was already given and not replied to.
So we are waiting for some enlightenment from our devs. Whether those are some answers or “thread closed”.

People are crying because a Skill, that renders the vast majority of cc skills useless and allows you to make up for 293824902380 mistakes at avoiding certain key skills, is getting fixed. Sorry guys but its time to step up your/our gameplay instead of whining.

Let’s be honest. I consider myself mediocre at best. In pvp encounters I dodge randomly (and so does the large proportion of gw2 players) most of the time and I can still win most 1v1 encounters in WvW/spvp as a s/p thief and I am pretty sure I can do so after the nerf, too.
If you consider yourself good, you should be able to do so easily and if you can’t play without a spamable stunbreak, then you are simply not good but getting carried by your class.