Guild Wars 2

We are increasing base regen by 33%. This is basically equivalent to a patch notes that says: “Warrior: Cooldown on all weapon skills has been reduced by 25%.”

Sort of. It would actually be more like “Warrior: Cooldown on all weapon skills has been reduced by 25%, but we are removing the several traits that combined reduced cooldowns by 50%”

The initiative global regen thing is definitely a buff, yeah, but for those that already had the trait buffs, it seems like it will be an overall nerf. At the very least, even if the overall regen over time ends up being the same, it will be more passive, while the old traits allowed the Thief to have more control over the process, regaining enough ini to make a single attack by using moves like Steal+Klepto.

By reducing this trait and improving base regen we are giving non-crit thieves 15-30 trait points back to spend where they want to. There are a lot of good traits that simply will never see play until we make this change.

Well then why don’t you add those traits in before nerfing the existing ones? That’s the problem, the viable options for Thieves have been reduced and reduced and reduced since launch, without giving them anything new to replace them. I mean, do you really expect anyone to invest in the new version of Quick Recovery?

No, I am saying that I don’t want the balance of the thief held hostage by a 15 point minor in critical strikes so we need to take that initiative away from there and put it into the base class mechanics, which is exactly what we are doing.

But you didn’t just nerf Opportunist. You also nerfed Kepto, and Quick Recovery.

I really appreciate all the input and posts you have put in here Jon but right now i really want to ask you: do you really think you are creating more build diversity or helping thief players in general by nerfing the few builds that actually work and giving us so little in return?

I really want to scuse myself for the incoming rant and negativity but the simple answer is no. Do you think thieves will stay and fight more if you nerf their acces to vigor, ini generation rewarded to them if they stick to fight and only give them a very lackluster healing on ini consumption trait that is bugged and another trait that has the potential to kill the thief rather help?

Again the answer is no. This entire balance update you have only contradicted yourselves in your stated goals and the actual changes you made. If anything you pidgeonholed us even more by significantly nerfing s/d and taking a hit at perma evade builds which were the only things that were keeping thieves afloat in spvp.

Also the gigantic, masssssive ini regen buff, which ultimately helps only the few already unviable builds which don’t heavily use ini regen traits (see d/d) and nerfed all the other builds which rely on said ini regen traits to mantain their ini generation rate and you know not die horribly and maintain their damage (See s/d trickery builds or the now long buried s/p).

And to add insult to injury you not also mistaken the shadowstep stomp with the sword 2# but listed it as one of the reasons you nerfed sword2# and s/x builds into the ground.

But my biggest problem right now is the mentality you have when it comes to balancing. Personally i’m sick and utterly tired of forcing us to come up with builds by nerfing the ones that work and giving very little or nothing in return. It’s the same mentality with which you created the elementalist update debacle (remember the june update and how wonderful it worked out, so wonderful that ele was the only class not represented in the tournament you made later) and the mesmer one before. You wants us to use venoms or condibuilds? Then rework venoms and condi acces to make them appealing or at least usable, don’t force us into these builds by nerfing everything else. Rework the traits that don’t work, buff the lackluster ones, create synergy between them don’t nerf the few ones who do work (outside clearly broken ones like d/p permastealth)and expect us to come up with miracles and still be effective when we have lackluster tools at our disposal.

Anyways as far as i’m concerned i’m relegating my thief to gathering duty until this debacle blows over and that’s only because i have the inifinite tools bought on him and don’t have the money to buy new ones for my other chars. I really hope you won’t nerf my gathering rate as well.

Again i scuse myself for the caustic tone used but going through this again (used to main an ele) is quite fustrating.

Yeah. What we really need is to have a BIG change to how Conditions work for all classes to make them more effective in actual gameplay.

JonPeters.5630:

No, I am saying that I don’t want the balance of the thief held hostage by a 15 point minor in critical strikes so we need to take that initiative away from there and put it into the base class mechanics, which is exactly what we are doing.

Jon

I wouldn’t say that thieves are pidgeon-holed into the Critical Strike traitline because of Opportunist. I’d say that they are pidgeon-holed in that traitline because of its grandmaster traits who are a requirements on any competitive build.

I can’t remember a popular build (or at least effective) who took only 15 points into Critical Strike without going deep to 30.

Going 30 into Critical Strike + Executioner is always a better choice then going 30 into Deathly Arts with any of its traits or splitting those traitpoints into different traitlines.

Anet just cant think outside the box their logic is totally broken, they make changes trying to nerf one thing but they just dont get it how hard it can hit other areas of the class (areas that are already in a deep hole)

sorrow.2364:

Going 30 into Critical Strike + Executioner is always a better choice then going 30 into Deathly Arts with any of its traits or splitting those traitpoints into different traitlines.

And next patch nerf Executioner.
Build diversity. All builds useless.

So base mechanics from the GW2 website:
“Thief
Experts at stealth and surprise, thieves can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons. Thieves practice an agile, acrobatic fighting style, which can make them very hard to hit.”

Why reduce mobility? Where are the stunbreakers for ‘vanishing into thin air’? Stealing… so more boon siphoning? What is the strength of a thief supposed to be? It certainly wont be burst anymore. P/D condition? Considering all the condition removal available to others classes you have to be joking. And you’re giving a traitable 25% movement speed to other classes and not the thief. Better condition removal, more regeneration, longer retaliation, and no survivability options for thief. The answer being, “Hey thieves take that random chance Hard to Catch will put you in an even worse position while you sit there on your back, you’re gonna be there soon anyway.” -ArenaNet

You know why thieves steal?? Because everyone else has something better

This is the worst balancing across classes I’ve seen to date

What you should be doing:

-Nerf permastealth (infusion of shadow)
-Nerf s/d but not as heavily as you are planning
-Make the change to opportunist less severe
-Do the nerf to the other initiative traits but give them something extra so we will actually consider taking them
-And like you said yourself: don’t nerf our vigor acces so severly

-MOST IMPORTANT: make other builds VIABLE…

You can’t just expect use to take the bad builds because the “OP” builds are being nerfed(heck even p/p is being nerfed and it isn’t even viable at the moment) Base initiative regen is NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE UP FOR THE SEVERE NERFS

You cannot do the nerves without making other builds viable AND you must make the nerfs less severe !

So the answer is: make the nerfs less severe + give nerfed ini traits more useability + make other builds viable in the next patch.

Please listen to us…

If it is the s/d evade you want to kill just remove the evade from the 3. skill and only place it with the boon steal and buff it.

JonPeters.5630:

Let’s break down this thief change a bit more so we can dispel any notions that this is going to ruin thieves.

We are increasing base regen by 33%. This is basically equivalent to a patch notes that says: “Warrior: Cooldown on all weapon skills has been reduced by 25%.”

It is an incredible buff to this profession and should not be treated lightly. To counter this imagine we took a few weapons and took away the cooldown portion of their trait. They would still be 5% better but other weapons would be 25% better.

Among the changes that is basically what it amounts to, with the exception of one change which I’ll talk about next.

Opportunist
This trait was wildly overpowered. I there was a 15 point minor for any other profession that basically read: "Reduce cooldown of all weapon skills by 33%, it would basically be impossible to run that profession without putting 15 points into that line. Because of this every thief build that is effective uses this line, which improves crit and crit damage. This pigeonholes this profession in a way that makes it frustrating for players and developers. This trait has to be closer to an 8% increase if we expect people to consider not taking 15 point in critical strikes.

By reducing this trait and improving base regen we are giving non-crit thieves 15-30 trait points back to spend where they want to. There are a lot of good traits that simply will never see play until we make this change.

Hopefully this explains, in more detail, what we hope to accomplish here.

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

Jon

I think the 10points that we’re forced to put in Deadly Arts is just as bad or worse. Mug is a must have for nearly every build. I couldnt live without the heal if everything else was removed. Your not going to invest 15 points in CS unless your already adding crit to your build. I wouldnt make a PVT thief and waste the points on oppurtunist, there’s other traits that would provide more initiative gain for similar points. 20 points in either shadow arts or trickery would provide(at current) more regen and offer more defensive stats.
Your looking over 3 points.
1. It rewards aggressive play styles.
2. Your going to initiative starve players, this will particiuarly affect S/x and P/x playstyles since they have weak first atks.
3. People are going to have to invest more points in traits for initiative gain just to make up for this nerf. Either that or drop certain builds all together. Unless your planning to revamping some of the weapons ets to not depend so heavily on initiative.

Kaon.7192:

JonPeters.5630:

No, I am saying that I don’t want the balance of the thief held hostage by a 15 point minor in critical strikes so we need to take that initiative away from there and put it into the base class mechanics, which is exactly what we are doing.

Jon

This is a reasonable enough change IMO. Dependence of Thief builds on the CS line needs to be reduced to allow for better build variety and the only way to do that while avoiding power creep is by increasing Thief’s base effectiveness and reducing the effectiveness of certain traits in the CS line. There is no other way around it. Whether these changes go too far or not enough, however, is certainly up for debate.

Regarding Shadow Return, how about taking a similar approach and removing it from Sword altogether (change Inf to a leap finisher maybe?), and add Shadow Return as an F2 for our class mechanic Steal, adding a Stun Breaking/condi removal component?

This would accomplish the following:
1. Allow all Thief builds access to a more readily available Stun Breaker (that we really need due to being shoehorned into Zerker builds to be useful to our teams and the lack of Stability access), making other weaponsets approach pre-nerf S/x in viability
2. Give Thieves at least 1 Stun Breaker regardless of what utilities they need to bring on their bar (Venom share anyone?)
3. Make it easier for you to balance SR since Steal is a cooldown based mechanic
4. Make Steal inherently useful as more than just a gap closer and situational utility tool without traiting for it
5. Add a survivability aspect to the Trickery line so that it could be a viable alternative to Acrobatics

While we’re on the topic of Steal, please also consider removing the ability to use Stolen Items from F1, and add a F3 that will be populated with an Offensive item, and F4 that will be populated as a Defensive item when F1 is used. A Thief can then choose to between one of these two items to activate based on the situation at hand, or to Steal again with an unobstructed F1 without using F3 or F4 if he needs to use Steal itself to reroll F3 and F4 or to activate traited effects.

These changes would make untraited Steal a much more robust mechanic on par with the usefulness of other class mechanics that don’t require traits to be class-defining.

Basically you saying “anet you killed S/D thieves so why dont you just remove thief sword as a playable weapon?”

Hell no you P/D,D/D thief will not get this buff on S/D thieves behalf

Sorry to say this.

Because last time I commented about my passion for this class, I feel I was left with crickets and unsupported.

Its actually nice to hear that they are trending to see thieves have more diversity instead of being pigeonholed as a crit hitter.

However, its going to need alot more changes to bring me back to thief. They are just not viable to me in WVW. I dont really do SPVP. But will say this, you cant balance classes via SPVP in regards to WVW.

Consider this. My new class is a warrior. I have better armor, further range, just as much dps and crit if not more, more vitality and toughness. And the trade, cooldowns and a stealth component that actually can be a benefit or a consequence.

I still say All Shortbow users need some love, Pistol/Pistol needs love, Sword needs love, even Dagger/Dagger needs some reworking.

The thief is a class that requires reworking for it to be brought on par in WVW (doesnt matter if you dont agree, its my opinion and I will stick to the warrior as long as thief cobtinues its trend of being subpar in terms of diversity and no real practical purpose in WVW)

folly dragon.4126:

Sorry to say this.

Because last time I commented about my passion for this class, I feel I was left with crickets and unsupported.

Its actually nice to hear that they are trending to see thieves have more diversity instead of being pigeonholed as a crit hitter.

However, its going to need alot more changes to bring me back to thief. They are just not viable to me in WVW. I dont really do SPVP. But will say this, you cant balance classes via SPVP in regards to WVW.

Consider this. My new class is a warrior. I have better armor, further range, just as much dps and crit if not more, more vitality and toughness. And the trade, cooldowns and a stealth component that actually can be a benefit or a consequence.

I still say All Shortbow users need some love, Pistol/Pistol needs love, Sword needs love, even Dagger/Dagger needs some reworking.

The thief is a class that requires reworking for it to be brought on par in WVW (doesnt matter if you dont agree, its my opinion and I will stick to the warrior as long as thief cobtinues its trend of being subpar in terms of diversity and no real practical purpose in WVW)

Totally agree with you. I am totally disappointed with thief class !!

Initiative changes:

The reason so many players are up in arms about this is because we have done the math and you are directly nerfing many critical strike based builds. P/P is hit the hardest, S/P is also greatly effected, and to a lesser degree Dagger builds in PvE. If you truly just want to shift around initiative gains, please re-think your calculations, and try to avoid directly nerfing certain thief builds.

Another thing I want you to realize is that while you may view Quick Recovery at 2 initiative per 10 seconds to be too good… Many thief players myself included will view 1 initiative per 10 seconds as a waste of a trait point. Please don’t over nerf our traits.

Infiltrator’s return:

I do not see the logic behind your butchering of this skill. You mention that using IS/IR to escape stuns “doesn’t happen very often”, yet that is probably the main use for this ability, and it is a very necessary one considering how squishy thieves are.

You also say that the reason for this change is that thieves are using it to teleport stomp players. How is this in any way different than a black powder stomp, a mist form stomp, a stability stomp, or simply using shadow step/shadow return to stomp?

I don’t think you realize how big of a nerf this change is, it will literally ruin this weapon set, especially considering the Larcenous Strike nerf.

Infusion of Shadow:

I have to applaud this change. D/P perma stealth needed to go, and you guys made the correct change to make that happen without effecting other thief builds, well done.

Vigorous Recovery & Bountiful Theft:

I understand your reasoning for these nerfs, and I see that you have made vigor reduction to multiple professions. However I believe you have hit the thief profession too hard with this nerf. Thieves are supposed to be the most agile profession, we should have the highest access to vigor out of all the professions, yet after these nerfs, we won’t even be close.

How can you justify lowering our vigor by this much when other professions such as Mesmer will still be able to maintain 100% uptime on vigor.

Summary:

Your reasons for these nerfs make sense, but what you are failing to realize is that the Thief is already struggling to survive in Spvp, and these nerfs will make it even harder. If you want to make changes for the good of the profession, you have to make compensations, and you aren’t doing that. Hard to Catch is useless, and Aassassin’s Reward still isn’t worth traiting. Please consider this.

I personally dislike the sword change. The weapon set already took a certain amount of skill to play well, and the removal of that stun break is going to turn us into fodder for stun lock warriors. Intact, it will just make us significantly less effective because we will have to accommodate for the fast time while in a fight, reducing the amount of damage dealt, and expedites the amount of time we will spend doing nothing but being pounded on.
I do like the unitive change, and it will help a lot with many different weapon sets, but I kind of feel that sword is going to take a hit too big. A cast time for the initial shadow step in the series would be make more sense, preventing a thief from shadow step spamming. As Mr. Peters pointed out, it will put a burden on s/d thieves, and force then to save their stun breaks. I run a shadow step build, and shadow step now becomes my only stun break, IF I decide to open with it and not use it mid combat.

I am usually supportive of the thief updates, but I really feel this will be the destruction of any S/D shadow step build, and most shadow step builds. However, I think the rest of this patch is a general improvement for thieves.

Come Dec. 10th, it’s going to be the same song and dance. Any time I see posts from devs touting improvements, my stomach sinks. Mark my words, what you see listed now as changes will make it live in December.

It’s happened every time they tell us, or we get a leak. Mark Jacobs needs to get Camelot rolling asap imo.

sierras.6297:

However, I think the rest of this patch is a general improvement for thieves.

This is a balancing patch… Critical Haste and Sundering Strikes got improved, all the other traits effected are either not used or had their effectiveness reduced. Even Practiced Tolerance got a boost to 7% while other classes had attribute synergy boosted across multiple traits by upto 10%… And the other classes had survivability improvements… (guardians don’t really count, they got a damage buff).

So pass w/e you’re smokin around

Fade.7658:

Come Dec. 10th, it’s going to be the same song and dance. Any time I see posts from devs touting improvements, my stomach sinks. Mark my words, what you see listed now as changes will make it live in December.

It’s happened every time they tell us, or we get a leak. Mark Jacobs needs to get Camelot rolling asap imo.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/page/29

About 2/3 of the way down… The Devs are listening.

No, the Devs are still confused and stating incorrect talking points.

Massive buffs. Massive new content. Massive fixes. Only gem shop gets very little attention.

JonPeters.5630:

No, I am saying that I don’t want the balance of the thief held hostage by a 15 point minor in critical strikes so we need to take that initiative away from there and put it into the base class mechanics, which is exactly what we are doing.

Jon

Even playing a thief, i have to acknowledge that it is great to get more build diversity.

Still the crit line is to valueable for the thief compared to the others.

I think you have to somehow adjust the deadly arts trait line to be as good as the crit line as well as adjusting the acrobatics traitline to be as good as shadow arts.

Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes being the offensive lines that have to compete against each other and Shadow Arts and Acrobatics being the defensive lines to compete.

At the moment and after the changes you want to do, Critical Strikes and Shadow Arts will both win.

JonPeters.5630:

Let’s break down this thief change a bit more so we can dispel any notions that this is going to ruin thieves.

We are increasing base regen by 33%. This is basically equivalent to a patch notes that says: “Warrior: Cooldown on all weapon skills has been reduced by 25%.”

It is an incredible buff to this profession and should not be treated lightly. To counter this imagine we took a few weapons and took away the cooldown portion of their trait. They would still be 5% better but other weapons would be 25% better.

Among the changes that is basically what it amounts to, with the exception of one change which I’ll talk about next.

Opportunist
This trait was wildly overpowered. I there was a 15 point minor for any other profession that basically read: "Reduce cooldown of all weapon skills by 33%, it would basically be impossible to run that profession without putting 15 points into that line. Because of this every thief build that is effective uses this line, which improves crit and crit damage. This pigeonholes this profession in a way that makes it frustrating for players and developers. This trait has to be closer to an 8% increase if we expect people to consider not taking 15 point in critical strikes.

By reducing this trait and improving base regen we are giving non-crit thieves 15-30 trait points back to spend where they want to. There are a lot of good traits that simply will never see play until we make this change.

Hopefully this explains, in more detail, what we hope to accomplish here.

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

Jon

Thanks for this Jon! I have some opinions concerning this,but I’m posting from a mobile device and will save them for when I have a real keyboard in front of me.

Now, can we please discuss the issues the community has with the Infiltrators return changes? These changes are far more pressing than the opportunist changes. They are far more far reaching, and I feel the communities counterpoints to this change are very well composed, and I want to understand if/why the devs feel these points aren’t good enough to nix the proposed change entirely.

Zero Day.2594:

This may not be constructive feedback…
But please, guys, just re-roll guardians or warriors already. save some nerves and enjoy the game with less hassle/problems/nerf-every-patch.
Can’t you guys see, the game will be truly balanced if everyone plays either a guardian or a warrior.

I have been telling my guild this for weeks. We’re starting to seriously considering rolling out mostly heavies for World vs World play since the War/Guard combo is unstoppable and ANet doesn’t seem interested in changing that.

JonPeters.5630:

We are increasing base regen by 33%. This is basically equivalent to a patch notes that says: “Warrior: Cooldown on all weapon skills has been reduced by 25%.”

Wait…..the warrior has cooldown on weapon skills ? Is that a balance nerf ? [Sorry I could not resist]
Except that another class have 2 separate sets of cd (elem has four, but longer ones)
And BTW, they do not use their cds when underwater, but the thief still uses the same precious resource : initiative.

Initiative rework

I feel a little bit anxious about the change to ini because I can forecast a resurgence of good old HeartSeeker spam. I know that HS has been nerfed already, but quite honestly, I think the skill should be toned down slightly by lowering the dmg done for the >50%HP portion. The skill has a skill coefficient of 1.0 and I think it would be great to nerf it to 0.7 or maybe 0.6.
Of course, the two other portions should not be affected, I think this skill is meant to be a finisher, and it would be a great improvement towards smart gameplay to render HS spam utterly useless.

Boons

I must admit I do not understand the previous nerf of Larcening Strike (1 boon vs 2) and I was expecting a move towards boons available to us. We were told that the thief was lacking boons options and to make up for it, we get LS. Few months later, LS is nerfed but we gained no additional boon.

With the nerfs to vigor uptime and Infiltrator’s return I would be glad to see a move in that direction, because we are the only profession with no access to stability or protection, and very limited access to speed. Moreover, stealth does not make up for our lack of stability, and I feel really weak and more punished by CC than other classes.

Basilisk Venom

Sorry to be direct but this skill is utterly unreliable : unlike every other stun, this skill do not cancel animation and the target sometimes continues his animation (movement) resulting in “Miss Miss Miss” because the target is not considered at range.
This is our only stun, an elite skill and has a short stun duration. I would be grateful if you can look into it.

Infusion of Shadow

Tweaking is really great !
I was fed up of thieves abusing BlackPowder/Smoke Screen with Heartseeker to gain high stealth duration.

Infusion of Shadow

Tweaking is really great !

Agreed. That and going shadow refuge and going from empty to full initiative was bogus. I can get behind those fixes – because they are fixing the intention, not recklessly demolishing traits.

S/P can already safe stomp with Black Powder, however a Cast time on Inf strike will be a significant hit to the defenses of that weapon set.
Can you make a cast time work on Inf strike? I believe so but not just throwing it on like that. Have to consider how you want the Sword thief to play not just defensively but offensively, if it is hit and run, what kind of damage output the Thief is doing before they “run” and how long they should be in the field before they run.

Raine Akrune.8416:

Zero Day.2594:

This may not be constructive feedback…
But please, guys, just re-roll guardians or warriors already. save some nerves and enjoy the game with less hassle/problems/nerf-every-patch.
Can’t you guys see, the game will be truly balanced if everyone plays either a guardian or a warrior.

I have been telling my guild this for weeks. We’re starting to seriously considering rolling out mostly heavies for World vs World play since the War/Guard combo is unstoppable and ANet doesn’t seem interested in changing that.

Yeah. We want the fights to last longer. But a Dev acknowledged the new guardian trait for aegis burst on removal might be abused in larger zergs…

Animus.6453:

Travlane.5948:

Animus.6453:

Travlane.5948:

swinsk.6410:

I’d be fine with all these changes Mr. Peters as long as we got some significant changes.

For instance, Last Refuge is a terrible trait and everyone hates its. Why not replace last refuge with infusion of shadow? Infusion of shadow is a must have trait for anyone going into the shadow arts line and last refuge is not.

This would open up some build diversity.

Why not give venoms to all thieves as F2-F4 skills with the exception of basilisk venom? This would be a flat out buff to the class. Thief community might actually say, hey thanks for giving our class something new and useful instead of whine nerfs 24/7.

I’d like to see some of these changes be added into these huge nerfs. This is a huge nerf patch. No more perma stealth, no more s/d builds, opportunist nerf is going to effect every thief build as well.

swinks hit it right on the head. our steal alone is a joke compare to other classes. really it is. if traited its better but still not as good as f1 f2 f3 f4 other classes have especially when its an all or nothing…miss or hit.

agreed with the rest too!

You seem to forget that the initiative system is counted in our unique profession mechanics. It might be a more passive compared to other professions, but combined with Steal it’s definitely as good as other professions mechanics (virtues, attunement swaps etc). What other class can use weapon skills consecutively without CD?

I do think putting venoms as a prof mechanic is a really cool idea, but at the same time it’s just not needed.

actually thief averages about 4 init per skill. they start with 12 init. thats 3 attacks maybe 4 in a row…. ok?

now take any other class. they have 4 skills they use in a row (2-5) and then switch then 4 more skills in a row (2-5) and then 2 secs later switch back.

so thieves can spam 3-4 skill attacks in a row and any other class 8…..

you were saying?

and id honestly take any other F mechanics over steal anyday. i could do the math if u really like.

EDIT: you say its just not needed…i disagree….

right now you make a 10 v 10 battle you bring a thief….umm never. so a thief isnt needed :P

You’re right in saying a thief is generally not needed for a 10v10, but that’s more an issue with a lack of build diversity than anything else. Other than bursting people down, everything else we can do another class can do much better in a large group, yeah? Support? Guardian, ele. CC? Damage? Control? Warrior, Warrior and Warrior (and don’t forget warrior!). See where I’m going with this?

While I agree with you here, I don’t really think it’s relevant to the profession mechanic though. It’s a completely different issue.

You go too far with the skill use notion. You shouldn’t be spamming all of your skills as hard as you can on any profession (unless you like zerging in WvW then by all means do it). That just makes you an awful player. You should be using your skills wisely for each situation. My point is that no other class can use the same skill several times in a row or within very small amounts of time (like seemingly infinite CnD -> backstab rotations).

Combined with proper initiative management (rather than spamming the kitten out of your skills) from the player and I’d say initiative is pretty kitten good as a class mechanic. It gives the player much more choice and control over what they want to do in a fight.

I’m talking from a more WvW solo/small man roaming perspective than anything else. While your raw numbers might say ‘yeah other classes can spam harder than us’, it’s not really applicable in real instances. There’s a massive difference between skill spam and controlled, intelligent skill use.

I think if you were to change anything about the profession mechanic for thief, it’d be a small change. Something like making Steal a stun break or unblockable. Nothing major, but something still useful for every thief.

i understand what you are saying and agree w/ most of it however these nerfs are not looking at the large picture.

HERE ARE SOME FACTS TO KEEP PERSPECTIVE:

1- Thief cannot do anything another class cant do better in group play

2- Thief is nerfed worse and worse without fail every patch

3- Thief has no spot in TPVP SPVP or WVW (preferred)

4- Our burst is useless bc we cant sustain/avoid damage

5- Only thing we were good at is 1v1 roaming & now we arent bc of complainers.

6- Anet team doesnt make the game better by increasing other classes…they dumb it down to balance rather than buff. A fundamental flaw in game improvement designs."

• All of these facts are with the note that 1v1 does nothing in this game and has no relevant area so not worth discussing as for a reason to balance **

JonPeters.5630:

Opportunist
This trait was wildly overpowered. I there was a 15 point minor for any other profession that basically read: "Reduce cooldown of all weapon skills by 33% [….]

Sorry but I really don’t understand ! Was the trait bugged somehow ?

Even at 100% crit, you would need 3.3 hits/sec to gain 1ini/sec.
Fastest thief attacks are multi-hit ones

• Unload = 8hits/2sec = 4hit/sec
• PW = 8 hits/2.75sec = 2.9hit/sec
  Then D/D:
• Dagger auto = 4hits/2sec = 2hits/sec.
  All others skills generate far less hit/sec (because of cast time/ini cost)

Are you nerfing this trait solely because of PW and Unload ?

I really cannot figure out how many hit/sec I’m throwing (no parser/no combat log export) but as I do not play S/P or P/P I can feel that I’m far from hitting once a second…….
I only have ~50% crit => 0.5*0.3 =0.15 = 15% chance to proc Opportunist (6.67 hits needed) With the fastest attack I can use => Dagger auto (2hit/sec => 1 ini every 3.3 sec => 1/3.3 => 0.30 ini/sec)
0.75 + 0.30 ini/sec = 1.05 ini/sec.

And the new ini regen is now 1ini/sec permanently.

I really don’t understand the theorycrafting behind this nerf, unless you want to tone down the trait because of the new regen (1ini/sec vs 0.75/sec) but in this case, the trait was not OP previously.

If my theorycrafting is shaky, feel free to enlighten me, I really love numbers ;-).

Hi there, I am glad that there is finally some red tags in the thief forum. Especially considering the wealth of changes cited to hit us the 10th of December.

Initiative changes:
I feel these are mostly good changes. I don’t see really hitting opportunist that hard, but I really don’t see any of these sweeping changes making many more builds viable/unviable. Direct damage thieves (if that is what their goal is) will still mostly 20-30 in CS line, regardless; I just see p/p and s/p being even less used than currently (unless we really are overreacting to Opp).

Infusion of Shadow: Thank god. Finally. No more permastealth crying. Just stealth crying.

Inf. Strike/Return: If you just don’t want fancy stomps(using misdirection to land a stomp is any different than a stability/invuln stomp how? Aside from we ate up at least a steal or utility, and ate up our return from sw2(in the case of using sword2 to stomp)), why not just make it so it can’t be used while stunned/middle of another action. I am sure die hard sword users will still use their sword, but it just sounds freaking brutal for a class that is reliant on mobility/evasion to stay in a fight.

I get stunned, eat 1/3 my hp in the stun since my reactions suck, and our base survivability is crap, and now I have my sword2 available so I can evac and heal and run away, since my stunbreaker is now on CD and I have no feasible way to counter anything short of going crazy offensive, which with our crap survivability is laughable without poor opponents.

Hard to Catch: I used it before. I hated it. I had better luck with 5pt SA trait. It was nifty for trollesque fun builds, but past that you can’t seriously expect something with a random outcome to be beneficial and helpful in any way in a serious fight. Who knows, it might save you from that hammer train, or, it might just deposit you in all those necro marks/wells that have just been placed. Or it might just put you into terrain and you become a free kill anyway because you can’t go anywhere without waypointing.

I feel if you want helpful feedback, don’t try and force traits no one wants on people. Ask for how we can make those traits that nobody wants better so more people will want to try them out.
i.e. Hard to Catch: When disabled (stun fear daze sink float blah blah), remove said disable and 2 conditions, mirroring them to the disabler. (30s ICD).
No random; beneficial. Might be too much for master tier, but it’s better than the anet alternatives IMO.

I really don’t see people trying out a bunch of quick recovery builds (past the initial hey, it changed! testing). It was lackluster with the unicorn build, and more of icing on the cake than anything then, with its improvement, builds that were ‘hard’ (by thief standards) to kill, are now harder. Those squishy thieves will not much else.

All in all, I feel if a thief is still going to go direct damage, they HAVE to use 20-30 in CS line even after the update. The only variety are where those other points will go. I think it’ll still be trickery heavy and acrobatics heavy (where they were anyway, no? at least in a pvp environment).

-More viable condition removal outside of SA
-More tempting tradeoffs on damage/survival, we all go damage because our survival is crap and gets worse the higher the skill floor of our opponents gets.

I am curious to see how this plays out on my builds that I never used any slotted ini traits, or utilities, past that, this whole thief dec10 update feels like a slap in the face almost. They are a plethora of other problems, and I didn’t even cover the ones I thought most prudent, just responded to the general gist of the thread.

Good day fellow thieves, and Anet personnel.

Yggdrasil.7940:

JonPeters.5630:

Opportunist
This trait was wildly overpowered. I there was a 15 point minor for any other profession that basically read: "Reduce cooldown of all weapon skills by 33% [….]

Sorry but I really don’t understand ! Was the trait bugged somehow ?

Even at 100% crit, you would need 3.3 hits/sec to gain 1ini/sec.
Fastest thief attacks are multi-hit ones

• Unload = 8hits/2sec = 4hit/sec
• PW = 8 hits/2.75sec = 2.9hit/sec
  Then D/D:
• Dagger auto = 4hits/2sec = 2hits/sec.
  All others skills generate far less hit/sec (because of cast time/ini cost)

Are you nerfing this trait solely because of PW and Unload ?

I really cannot figure out how many hit/sec I’m throwing (no parser/no combat log export) but as I do not play S/P or P/P I can feel that I’m far from hitting once a second…….
I only have ~50% crit => 0.5*0.3 =0.15 = 15% chance to proc Opportunist (6.67 hits needed) With the fastest attack I can use => Dagger auto (2hit/sec => 1 ini every 3.3 sec => 1/3.3 => 0.30 ini/sec)
0.75 + 0.30 ini/sec = 1.05 ini/sec.

And the new ini regen is now 1ini/sec permanently.

I really don’t understand the theorycrafting behind this nerf, unless you want to tone down the trait because of the new regen (1ini/sec vs 0.75/sec) but in this case, the trait was not OP previously.

If my theorycrafting is shaky, feel free to enlighten me, I really love numbers ;-).

Since you like numbers, that’s sort of a rough way to estimate. You’ll never actually reach a guarantee of opportunist triggering, but the probability of it not triggering lowers exponentially with each hit.

Let’s say you have a 100% crit chance to make this easy, meaning opportunist has a 30% chance of working and a 70% chance of not working. So the easiest initial calculation is the chance that opportunist doesn’t trigger within a given number of hits (because theres a cooldown order matters and permutations aren’t fun for quick calculations).

So looking at it:
At 1 hit the odds of opportunist not proccing is .7=70%
at 2 this becomes .7*.7=.7^2=.49=49%
at 3=34.3%

So at 3 hits you have a roughly 65% chance of gaining at least 1 initiative. This might come in the form of a single bouncing arrow so every shot into a zerg (at 100%crit chance) had a 65% chance of gaining 1.
If this did not happen, the odds of 6 hits not triggering it in a row becomes a measly 11.7%. So at 100% crit chance in zerg fighting with SB you could have a 88.3% chance of initiative regen/sec of at least (2*.75 + 1)/2= 1.25 initiative per second. (there is a slim chance of gaining more encompassed by that chance, but I don’t want to calculate it right now)

I’m just trying to argue that this trait is not OP and scales directly with more aggressive playstyles which it seems the devs want. Initiative should be buffed and this should either be turned into a major trait or have the cooldown extended to 2 seconds to limit the fastest auto chain to 1 gain per chain, but that is only if the devs really think that we need a nerf along with the change. I think this would put us on par with the other classes to buff initiative regen and do nothing to this trait since all of our weapon skills across both weapon set use the same global cooldown. With any other class the most you have to worry about using a skill is that it puts that skill on cooldown. With thieves, you have to worry about all the possible skills you can use after that one has either hit or missed, and if you blow all of your initiative on one weapon you can’t even swap to the other to gain those weapon skills. You’re stuck.

Yggdrasil.7940:

JonPeters.5630:

Opportunist
This trait was wildly overpowered. I there was a 15 point minor for any other profession that basically read: "Reduce cooldown of all weapon skills by 33% [….]

Sorry but I really don’t understand ! Was the trait bugged somehow ?

Even at 100% crit, you would need 3.3 hits/sec to gain 1ini/sec.
Fastest thief attacks are multi-hit ones

• Unload = 8hits/2sec = 4hit/sec
• PW = 8 hits/2.75sec = 2.9hit/sec
  Then D/D:
• Dagger auto = 4hits/2sec = 2hits/sec.
  All others skills generate far less hit/sec (because of cast time/ini cost)

Are you nerfing this trait solely because of PW and Unload ?

I really cannot figure out how many hit/sec I’m throwing (no parser/no combat log export) but as I do not play S/P or P/P I can feel that I’m far from hitting once a second…….
I only have ~50% crit => 0.5*0.3 =0.15 = 15% chance to proc Opportunist (6.67 hits needed) With the fastest attack I can use => Dagger auto (2hit/sec => 1 ini every 3.3 sec => 1/3.3 => 0.30 ini/sec)
0.75 + 0.30 ini/sec = 1.05 ini/sec.

And the new ini regen is now 1ini/sec permanently.

I really don’t understand the theorycrafting behind this nerf, unless you want to tone down the trait because of the new regen (1ini/sec vs 0.75/sec) but in this case, the trait was not OP previously.

If my theorycrafting is shaky, feel free to enlighten me, I really love numbers ;-).

you made a really good point. wish i thought of breaking it down. then again inever saw this as a broken trait. very neccessary.

JonPeters.5630:

Opportunist
By reducing this trait and improving base regen we are giving non-crit thieves 15-30 trait points back to spend where they want to. There are a lot of good traits that simply will never see play until we make this change.

Thieves only have crit builds or condition builds. Why do crit thieves have to suffer because of non crit thieves? Have you looked at how this nerf also affects other skills like Unload and Pistol whip?

I like how the Ranger forum gets “We’ll look into possible solutions to the problems you have with the class…” and the Thief forum gets “Let me tell you why your math and logic is wrong about the thing you said was one of the smaller issues you had with the notes.”

I believe in you Jon, I’ve seen you care in other topics.

They nerfed stealth. I went to a shadow step/crit/dodge build : S/P – sb ; no stealth.
Now they are proposing to hamper crit builds AND nerfing sword
AND hampering dodging.
I’m going D/P – sb.
These changes affect the viability of the profession in PVE although the problems
precipitating the changes occured in WvW, sPvP, etc.
They should just balance the skills around each mode of play.
Their approach to “balance” : X class is too OP in WvW
solution: let’s kitten the skills in WvW
result: balanced in WvW – useless in PvE.

Six months later: Players adapted to the changes we made; they are killing
monsters and surviving events. More balancing !

Thanks for this thread Jon. We don’t get a lot of dev feedback in this forum and we really do appreciate your input. I don’t think I or anyone else here will be able to persuade the balance team to cancel the sword #2 change. Rather, I ask that you all closely watch your internal metrics. If s/d and s/p become largely underplayed ( I predict this will happen) can we please get some changes to make them more viable again?

Currently, s/d needs all the survivability it has to fight successfully. Adding a cast time to the return will reduce the survivability against skilled opponents to a very high degree. The kit’s dps will not be enough to down the opponent before the s/d thief is stomped and forgotten about. If this change goes through s/d thief will need more damage or more survivability through other methods. I’ve been secretly holding out hope that 25/30/0/15/0 might be successful post patch but I still expect s/d to be worse off.

Finally, I currently telestomp all over the place. Sword return + steal/inf sig and porting away and back with the shadowstep utility are both insanely fun and they give a squishy thief a sense of purpose on the battlefield. Please don’t marginalize the impact of losing a mechanic that is just straight up fun to use (I know I said I didn’t think I could convince you but hey I had to try right?).

All in all I think this coming patch is going in the right direction but thief might be taking it in the chops this go around (spvp perspective).

Honestly, everyone talking about the opportunist changes don’t really appear to be taking into account the new base init regen bump.

Even if you aren’t a huge fan of the opportunist change, its hard to argue that its as detrimental as the infiltrators return change – one potentially slows down the init regen of Cs specs a bit, and the Other reduces our tpvp viable weapon sets by 50%, down to one weapon set. Does everyone want to run the same exact weaponset with nigh identical trait setups for the next 3 months?

evilapprentice.6379:

Honestly, everyone talking about the opportunist changes don’t really appear to be taking into account the new base init regen bump.

Even if you aren’t a huge fan of the opportunist change, its hard to argue that its as detrimental as the infiltrators return change – one potentially slows down the init regen of Cs specs a bit, and the Other reduces our tpvp viable weapon sets by 50%, down to one weapon set. Does everyone want to run the same exact weaponset with nigh identical trait setups for the next 3 months?

Quoted for truth. I already run d/p almost exclusively in spvp but I absolutely hate the idea of having no alternative when I want a change of pace.

Hype.8032:

evilapprentice.6379:

Honestly, everyone talking about the opportunist changes don’t really appear to be taking into account the new base init regen bump.

Even if you aren’t a huge fan of the opportunist change, its hard to argue that its as detrimental as the infiltrators return change – one potentially slows down the init regen of Cs specs a bit, and the Other reduces our tpvp viable weapon sets by 50%, down to one weapon set. Does everyone want to run the same exact weaponset with nigh identical trait setups for the next 3 months?

Quoted for truth. I already run d/p almost exclusively in spvp but I absolutely hate the idea of having no alternative when I want a change of pace.

QFT but replace D/P with warrior.

I wasn’t about to run S/D anytime soon in this pathetic meta, but this patch is gonna seal it.

The problem is that S/P, P/P P/D and D/D are just so dysfunctional…

infantrydiv.1620:

The problem is that S/P, P/P P/D and D/D are just so dysfunctional…

But that’s most Thief weaponsets!

Oh, right.

i would really love to hear from devs where they see thieves role

they can’t defend points in pvp
they can’t capture them (unless point is empty or very bad players are defending it, but you don’t need to be thief for it…)
they contribute little to group fights
in pve they are overshadowed by warriors/mesmers (mesmers for stealth etc.)
in wvw a ranger can scout as effective except they contribute more to fights

what are thieves for in this game? for roleplaying a ninja?

i think it would really help if devs would set on certain role for thieves and would balance them around that role instead throwing nerfs around just because non-thieves don’t know how to handle stealth

To start out I’d like to say thanks for communicating with us now and actively taking suggestions. I’ll point out some things I like and am disappointed with the current changes listed.

Initiative Changes/Traits
I think this is obviously the best change and I’m glad you guys are doing it.

Opportunist would obviously be too good if left the way it is with the new regeneration, but it might be under-performing a bit with the new change, but honestly it’s still not a bad trait regardless.

Quick Recovery I honestly don’t see anyone taking this trait now, unless they went 20 into acrobatics and nothing else even remotely appeals to them. Leaving it at 2 initiative would once again be too good obviously so perhaps add an extra function or even just change the trait completely to make it attractive again.

Infiltrator’s Return
This is by far the biggest nerf (assuming you’re using S/X) and I also agree that this would most likely kill and S/X build for any part of the game. Infiltrator’s Return is needed to survive in pretty much every part of the game, and will be even more so with the vigor nerfs.

If shadow step stomping is truly one of the major reasons for this to be nerfed then why not make it is if you were ever out of range of the target to stomp then it will fail, is that not possible to code in? If not is there no way to change the stomp function to be interrupted by any action used?

The other reason you guys gave for this nerf is stun mitigation and well I partially agree on this, but the problem is thief is one of the squishiest classes in the game and we have no access to stability. I do have a possible solution (assuming it could be coded in) how about have it so Infiltrator’s Return’s return range is lessened to 400ish while stunned?

Hard to Catch
Once again I still don’t think this trait will be useful, truthfully I like Phys' idea that all shadow step skills become a stun break with ICD and if the reducing Infiltrator’s Return’s range while stun is possible, then this could bring back the range while the trait isn’t on cool-down of course.

Vigorous Recovery/Bountiful Theft
I still think 5 seconds on VR will not be enough, please bump it to at least 6 seconds to try. Bountiful Theft 10 seconds is fine, but please make it so the trait steals boon stacks.

Misc Changes
Pistol Whip, Sundering Strikes, Trickster and Infusion with Shadow changes I’m all very happy to see.

Assassin’s Retreat should just be out-right changed to something else, buffing the swiftness duration doesn’t make this trait anymore attractive. Please just make it something like a 25% movement speed with melee weapons.

Flanking Strikes I already considered under-performing when you compare it to Thrill of Crime and Uncatchable for some builds, not sure this is suited as a master trait unless you add something else to it.

One last thing not related to current list of changes. Can you please reduce the cool-down on out of range steal to 1-2 seconds? 4 seconds is kind of ridiculous, especially considering you can stand right at the edge of the range where the red line range indicator under steal isn’t showing and it will still fail like you’re not in range, which also honestly needs to be fixed.

KaiserCX.7103:

…
One last thing not related to current list of changes. Can you please reduce the cool-down on out of range steal to 1-2 seconds? 4 seconds is kind of ridiculous, especially considering you can stand right at the edge of the range where the red line range indicator under steal isn’t showing and it will still fail like you’re not in range, which also honestly needs to be fixed.

^^ so much this… please

Cynz.9437:

i would really love to hear from devs where they see thieves role

they can’t defend points in pvp
they can’t capture them (unless point is empty or very bad players are defending it, but you don’t need to be thief for it…)
they contribute little to group fights
in pve they are overshadowed by warriors/mesmers (mesmers for stealth etc.)
in wvw a ranger can scout as effective except they contribute more to fights

what are thieves for in this game? for roleplaying a ninja?

i think it would really help if devs would set on certain role for thieves and would balance them around that role instead throwing nerfs around just because non-thieves don’t know how to handle stealth

The problem is, that the Rogue playstyle is always a SOLO playstyle, by nature.

Gimicky-ness IS THE PLAYSTYLE. What I mean is, nothing you do is sustainable – you hit fast and kill, and then run.

Or you hit from the shadows – and then RUN.

Or, you stunlock and kill – then run.

Or, you jump and dodge and spin and roll so much that you can’t be hit.

Whatever you do, it isn’t going toe to toe with anything (except maybe another Thief).

Your role, by it’s very definition, makes you a solo character (or, at best, support for a small group of adventurers/dungeon runners).

Prob is, Anet has to balance them for grand melee (i.e., WvW and sPvP) – and this is precisely where the Thief does not fit in, and never will.

To be fair, it isn’t entirely Anet’s fault – this same problem crops up in every multiplayer game that attempts to incorporate such a gimciky class.

There’s a reason other games stick to single-player RPG’s when they allow the Rogue class.

The more the Thief gets patched, it will either be nerf stomped into the ground, or it will be made far too similar to another class, most likely Warrior and everyone will just wonder why not roll that class instead.

Rogues simply don’t belong in multiplayer games like MMO’s – and if you think I’m wrong, then I challenge you to come up with a single major MMO where this hasn’t happened, because in every MMO I’ve ever played, this exact scenario plays out with this class every single time.

ipan.4356:

Cynz.9437:

i would really love to hear from devs where they see thieves role

they can’t defend points in pvp
they can’t capture them (unless point is empty or very bad players are defending it, but you don’t need to be thief for it…)
they contribute little to group fights
in pve they are overshadowed by warriors/mesmers (mesmers for stealth etc.)
in wvw a ranger can scout as effective except they contribute more to fights

what are thieves for in this game? for roleplaying a ninja?

i think it would really help if devs would set on certain role for thieves and would balance them around that role instead throwing nerfs around just because non-thieves don’t know how to handle stealth

The problem is, that the Rogue playstyle is always a SOLO playstyle, by nature.

Gimicky-ness IS THE PLAYSTYLE. What I mean is, nothing you do is sustainable – you hit fast and kill, and then run.

Or you hit from the shadows – and then RUN.

Or, you stunlock and kill – then run.

Or, you jump and dodge and spin and roll so much that you can’t be hit.

Whatever you do, it isn’t going toe to toe with anything (except maybe another Thief).

Your role, by it’s very definition, makes you a solo character (or, at best, support for a small group of adventurers/dungeon runners).

Prob is, Anet has to balance them for grand melee (i.e., WvW and sPvP) – and this is precisely where the Thief does not fit in, and never will.

To be fair, it isn’t entirely Anet’s fault – this same problem crops up in every multiplayer game that attempts to incorporate such a gimciky class.

There’s a reason other games stick to single-player RPG’s when they allow the Rogue class.

The more the Thief gets patched, it will either be nerf stomped into the ground, or it will be made far too similar to another class, most likely Warrior and everyone will just wonder why not roll that class instead.

Rogues simply don’t belong in multiplayer games like MMO’s – and if you think I’m wrong, then I challenge you to come up with a single major MMO where this hasn’t happened, because in every MMO I’ve ever played, this exact scenario plays out with this class every single time.

yeah i agree with you, i played few mmos and all thief like class followed same fate: they got nerfed to the point where nobody played them anymore which is why it saddens me because i personally think thieves could have a role despite their “gimmicky-ness”

i can bring as example wow rogue (wow has its own problems, and rogues suck there atm but let’spout it aside): rogues were pretty good in arena in some seasons for control and and high dmg which allowed them to kill enemies fast or at least provide enough CC support so the team could kill enemy; in RBGs (which is kind of like gw2 arena, except 10v10) they would be there to ninja points or ninja kill flag carrier and were pretty good at it in some seasons

another example: Evelynn from LoL, she is one of those non conventional junglers, she is also a stealth class but is based on high dmg and decent moblity; ppl in LoL hate Evelynn as she is good at keeping enemy gold low since they have to buy pink wards or they will end up in 3v2 or 2v1 situation very quickly w/o seeing it comming; full build Evelynn is also quite nasty as her dmg is really high and she can drop someone pretty fast

it IS possible to give thief-like classes a role that they are really good at, imo

the major difference i see between thieves in gw2 and rogues in wow for example: when rogues were in good state they could actually defend point untill help came or they could also win 1v1; if the patch comes in it’s current state i don’t see thieves being able to win 1v1 fight vs other classes given same skill level of the players

Sometimes I wonder if the devs postings in thief section (or even other professions) are just simply bait to make people mad or post even more bait posts for infractions. I’m done with the “massive” (more like kittying changes).

We are increasing base regen by 33%. This is basically equivalent to a patch notes that says: “Warrior: Cooldown on all weapon skills has been reduced by 25%.”

Giving us one additional pistol whip every 20 seconds =/= warrior reduce all weapon skills by 25%. Our rotations for thieves are not equivalent to warriors rotations. After wasting (in example) 3 pistol whips, our entire skill set will be in cooldown. All of them.

Our current system with critical strike = high init gain if you strike enemies.

Time to gain 12 full initiative that can cast 3/4 weapon skill hits = 16 seconds cooldown with old system – (3-4 seconds on getting opportunist with cleave) – (2 init with stealth init gain traited) = 2-10 seconds average cooldown (if you used shadow refuge for full initiative gain).

At best your proposed system is a 10% nerf to the critical line users, perhaps 10% buff on non-critical line users.

Warriors have quick hands, so the different weapon combinations cooldowns are effectively 5 seconds on certain weapons. You won’t run out of skill combinations that easily, especially with an effective stun mace/shield + GS/hammer.

Mesmer = multiple clones attacking multiple times if you don’t handle it correctly. Their skills are pretty long on cooldown, but in actuality they are really difficult to handle 1v1 because of the illusion mechanics.

All your changes doesn’t change the gameplay of thieves one bit. You still use the same mechanics of initiative to deal damage. Your initiative is still mostly tied to spamming a single attack, but we’re in a worse position because our critical line and majority of the initiative gain traits are affected.

tldr: No excuses of stating massive buff when all traits are nerfed to make an overall 10% initiative nerf on current meta builds. Massive fail.

@Cynz

Yep.

Notice how the majority of the ‘roles’ you talk about for Rogues involve killing people very quickly (much more quickly than other classes – we are Assassins, and the closer we get to one shot one kill, the better we are doing our job).

The problem with that, which you mention, is that other people HATE US when we are actually doing what we are supposed to – GANKING people. This is purely psychological – people just hate losing this way. Even if, statistically you only get the same number of kills as other classes, on average, people hate it simply because it feels so violent to get taken out by a Rogue.

If we don’t gank, then we die too quickly. If we do gank, then everyone else despises the class and screams for nerfs – also, the other proble with ganking is that you get a whole group of Rogues together who can basically instagib entire groups by getting the jump on them and using all their burst – with cd’s or initiative, if an entire party or guild is doing this, then they can burst down anyone, and be refreshed when the respawns come back>

So, you either get nerfed into nothingness – or the class slowly becomes a doppelganger of another class – or they let us remain OP.

Being OP is the Thief’s CLASS MECHANIC.

I wish developer would get this from the get go – and either decide NOT to include the class who must be OP to survive – or explain to everyone up front that this is simply how the class has to be.

I played the Witch Elf in WAR forever, and it’s exactly the same bs.

ipan.4356:

@Cynz

Yep.

Notice how the majority of the ‘roles’ you talk about for Rogues involve killing people very quickly (much more quickly than other classes – we are Assassins, and the closer we get to one shot one kill, the better we are doing our job).

The problem with that, which you mention, is that other people HATE US when we are actually doing what we are supposed to – GANKING people.

If we don’t gank, then we die too quickly. If we do gank, then everyone else despises the class and screams for nerfs – also, the other proble with ganking is that you get a whole group of Rogues together who can basically instagib entire groups by getting the jump on them and using all their burst – with cd’s or initiative, if an entire party or guild is doing this, then they can burst down anyone, and be refreshed when the respawns come back>

So, you either get nerfed into nothingness – or the class slowly becomes a doppelganger of another class – or they let us remain OP.

Being OP is the Thief’s CLASS MECHANIC.

I wish developer would get this from the get go – and either decide NOT to include the class who must be OP to survive – or explain to everyone up front that this is simply how the class has to be.

I played the Witch Elf in WAR forever, and it’s exactly the same bs.

the funny thing is tho, this game has active dodge; if i decided to blow all my burst in wow for example only thing ppl can rely on their passive block/dodge or pop w/e CD before i do that; in gw2 you can actually actively dodge the burst w/o sacrificing major CDs…

look at pve, there are plenty of NPCs in this game that would one shot you if you don’t dodge in time and quite few of their spells are not even telegraphed; burst in this game IS managable imo

Shadow Return
I think the cost of the skill should be increased rather than out right destroying it as an option to escape after being stunned:

• Increase the cost of Shadow return to 4 initiatives while reducing Infiltrator strike to 2
• Reduce the cast-able window from the current 12 ~ 15 seconds (?) to 6 seconds.

It’ll force a thief to spend a lot more initiative per second to maintain the ability to escape stuns and remove conditions, which I think is closer to the theme of the profession – It’s not just a cooldown in your utility bar, it’s a skill that’ll cut down on a thief dps after it’s used since it cost so much initiative.

Pistol Whip
I don’t think any amount of tiny changes will make this skill useful: It is becoming an awkward version of Blurred frenzy the more you reduce the cast time and after cast time. I think an overhaul is in order for the skill, and should contain either a range dps component or a reliable finisher (whirl or blast), two things that may help adding some more purpose to the S/P set.

Other then these two I think the changes to Assassin’s reward and Infusion of shadow are fair.