Guild Wars 2

PoF Announcement Edit: Cool they took the name, the weapon, and some skills, but a lot of the important overarching implementation ideas didn’t make it. Oh well, maybe the ranger’s elite will offer similar playstyle ¯\(?)/¯

7/26 Patch Edit: The suggestion is suspended because the changes to baseline thief have borked several build paths available with the profession by removing the option of efficacy from all core trait lines. I am likely not sticking around to play the thief so long as they stay in-game, and will subsequently not be making changes to this proposal unless I have faith restored in ANet’s profession design decisions.

I’ve taken a while to work on a concept for a suggestion for the next Elite Specialization for the Thief. Ultimately, my goal is to get some dev attention to help inspire some creativity for the developers working on the next spec. I feel the Daredevil didn’t really change much for the thief thematically or playstyle-wise, so I’m trying to push the envelope to try and get something great to happen for our spec on the next go-around, since we’ve already been told another expansion is in development.

This is a really serious suggestion, and is fully fleshed-out including all of the nitty-gritty details. Therefore, there is a lot to read. I’m sorry, but that’s just how things work when the entire thing is developed.

What I’m looking for is feedback and discussion. This ES tries to deliver on a lot of high-demand and very low-demand concepts in attempts to make a really bad-cat (hehe) suggestion that could push the thief into completely new territory. I’m trying to make the concept work with as many traits and skills as possible, and would love to see some feedback and discussion regarding my decisions.

The Daredevil didn’t really deliver much to the thief conceptually. I’d like to change this.

So without further ado, I present my idea on what I consider as a solid, lore-friendly foundation for the next ES: The Deadeye.

IN WITH A BANG!
Out with a whisper~

CURRENT VERSION: 2.1.0

Specialization Name: Deadeye

Specialization Weapon: Rifle

Mechanics changes:
Heavy use of Revealed effect for prolonged periods of time, Steal changed to Stygian Charge//Skirmish, Use Stolen Item changed to Stygian Hunter transform ability. Stance utility skill type.

Specialization Goals:

• Give the thief the option to completely change its style of play from using stealth as a defensive mechanic/for repositioning and instead expand upon its counterpart mechanic, Revealed, to provide the thief with non-stealth combat potency, and reward the player for maximizing Revealed uptime.

• Provide the thief with its first 1200-ranged weapon.

• Emphasize allowing players to commit to their decisions more on the thief, while rewarding skilled execution and good decision-making for thinking in advance, rather than purely reflexive play.

• Expand the currently-existing limited competitive builds to be more inclusive of different combinations and styles of play, such as support and ranged potency, and reduce trait line dependencies through synergy, inverse effects, and overlap rather than simply more power.

• Ensure that the specialization is fun to play as and against, straying away from gimmicky builds or concepts which emphasize the “one-shot-kill from stealth ‘sniper’” concept.

• Promote unused or under-represented mechanics in the game to boost character diversity game-wide.

• Bring a cool new theme to the profession fitting in with core Guild Wars 2 lore and commonly-requested features by a large number of players.

CLASS MECHANIC CHANGES:

WEAPON AND UTILITY SKILLS

TRAITS

GENERAL BALANCE AND POLISH:

Whew. Finally over. Please let me know how you feel about the concept below. Also, to keep track of everything, I’ve broken down all the info into three documents:

This is a copy of the WIP document with EVERYTHING.

My design logic, principles, and neat interactions where I discuss the kit.

Changelog. Stay up to date with any adjustments I make or check what adjustments I’ve previously made.

Ok, could your next specialisation be called *Bad-cat Josteinn"?
It’s a D/D stealth thief and a shemale actually (it’s complicated).

Halfway on topic: I appreciate the efforts to craft new elite spezialisations but I don’t think all hope is lost on the current messy balance – so I’d rather have this sorted out before another massive change, that’s why I don’t really get all these “rifle” threads.

Thing is, they’ve already confirmed the next expansion and that implies another set of elite specs. All we can do is try to promote balanced suggestions so that we don’t get anything more blatantly overpowered. The last thing I’d want to see is stealth GF war v2.

Edit: The balancing team clearly has some issues making sound design decisions that shake things up without introducing tons of power creep. Even if they might balance out the current iteration of specs, the next ones are coming, and are likely coming soon. I’d rather not wait until it’s too late to make proposals but plant seeds early. As I said, I doubt this idea will become the next ES. I just wish to inspire the devs with thinking a little more unconventionally to open up a wider spectrum of roles the classes can partake in without needing to just make straight-up improvements to the core ones.

I’m also trying to shape the “rifle pls” idea into one which is coherent and good for the class. I frankly would prefer other weapons entirely, but the community is heavily driving the rifle thing right now. All I can do is try and springboard off of that to gain momentum with a good idea rather than try to force a poor one. It’s the same reason I want people experimenting and breaking this suggestion if possible. Inspiring that conversation can lead the devs to know what not to do through this testing ground/thought experiment (if they pay attention to this at all).

As far as the “bad-cat” thing goes; I think the pun about the “kitten” filter went over your head :s

Alright, Haven’t heard that they already announced the next expansion.
The problem (I have) with your ideas (I did try to read through all of it) is that they don’t include the existing traits and we have no idea what is going to happen to them in “nearest” cough future.

Looking at my FL I’d say that this game won’t survive another Expansion.

ETA: Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate any efforts – I’m out – hope you guys have some good ideas and discussions =)

ETA²: No, it didn’t – I just think “Daredevil” is too tame – I’d rather have a Bad-Kitten (without the filter) – and that shemale is because my char and I are being a running gag on my server.
ETA³: You could as well call it “Running Gag Josteinn” – but that wouldn’t sound Bad-Cat.
Oh, btw:
Bat-Cat

Yea, it was confirmed they started development for it recently. A potential 2016 release was mentioned, and is why I care so much as to try and get this idea off the shelf ASAP.

I’m not really following your statement about the existing traits not being included. Last I checked, the only trait with questionable use is Improvisation, which I touch upon in one of my blurbs as potentially having some use. It’s no game-changer, but it has some potential.

As far as your character goes and said references, seeing as I’ve never played on your server, the humor is over my head entirely.

No I mean the whole builds that will emerge after your spezialisation.
What happens when your spezialisation is put on top of existing traits.
Your Bad-Cat might have 2-3 (counting Mug as a heal) traits which heal, f.e. Other thieves have got 2 or 1 or none (like me).
In my opinion: As long as the current traits are uncertain it’s really hard to create a new line.

All good – we’re a server full of trolls and a lot of them love to troll me (which is appreciated) – that was just a humorous try to say that I want what we had and not more and more new stuff that’s put ontop of already existing problems.

ETA: Because when I wrote that I didn’t know that a new expansion was already around the corner. But I stick to: This game won’t survive another expansion (if it’s that close to the last – and also not if it’s that wonky like HoT).

Ok, I thought the utility was a trait (yes, I’m tired) – a lot of your ideas sound really nice and like stuff every thief needs right now.
So yes, I’d like to say: Go for it – but then the rest of thief would still lie in shatters – add some nice traits for my Bad-Cat, so I can take that line without taking rifle – and I’m likely in.
I’d still like it a lot better if the core game were adjusted so we don’t have to have additional traitlines/elites to deal with reveal.

Asrat.2645:

There are a few things I noticed:
Relentless hunter.
-Alacrity should stay mesmer specific, i would recommend a static cd reduction
-No icd. totally devastating considering you can use the skill every 5 seconds but the boons last 10 seconds, fury is already a heavily used boon, giving us a 100% uptime with one trait is relatively powerful.
Expunge
-Might aswell apply resistance. Enables counterplay. But go with 2 or threee pulses of resistance so a single necro boon corrupt on this ability wont win the game automatically.
-Also I think you can slightly lower the cooldown, compared with existing pure condi cleanses, its rather high.
Predators invigoration
-maybe a small initial heal, as most abilities of that type have
-alternatively you could add some endurance, since you already called it ‘invigoration’
Ceaseless aggression
-better version of rfi, but thtas fine since rfi isnt exactly in the spot where it should be.
Massacre mastery
-A skill only to synergize with your main heal only for pve? I doubt many people would use that, but cant say I have a good alternative at hand.
Smack
-pls compare to Hook strike

I really like your concept by the way. There are some skills that are just plain ‘cool’
But even more important. A lot of times while reading, I was like: that could be op, and X in combination with Y could be op. Or first I could use A as a setup for B, going into…
But everytime I ended up admitting, that you already considered the option and negated it. The way your mechanics flow into each other, it is relatively hard to exploit any of them.

I’m going to address everything here so prepare for a wall. I will say thank you (and thank you Jana, you’re below) for the feedback right now before you potentially lose interest if you don’t reach the end :P

Small/short bursts of self-alacrity was something I was hoping to give the Deadeye as a means to reduce the cooldown of longer stances and a way to offset steal cooldown reduction effects from Trickery in order to reward the class increasingly for staying in combat through repeated re-applications of revealed and swapping in and out of SHF. I saw that the peak uptime given no use of Improvisation would be around 40%, with improvisation pushing the value alternating a bit between 40% and 66%, yielding a total cooldown reduction between 16.7% and 22.2%, allowing a DA/DE build to cover around half to two thirds of Trickery’s purpose when playing around utilizing the Alacrity from the trait in its fullest, thus pushing the likely cooldown on Charge to roughly 20s – almost identical to that of steal on a Trickery build. Further, this also explains why a few of the Stances’ cooldowns feel like they might be a little high; a build has the capacity to reduce stance cooldowns and all existing utilities by around 30% when combined with traits affecting these cooldowns. This also explains the fury/swiftness coverage as a replacement for ToTC and the initiative mechanic love the trait line brings; I hoped to be able to bump any given trait line, including Trickery, out of being required, something which Daredevil ultimately fails at doing.

I completely agree that long-duration/AoE alacrity is something which should be mesmer-specific. That said, the thief doesn’t get that much with the mechanic as it does not affect initiative restoration, and the mechanic helps push the thief’s utilities into more rapid use potential without just power-creeping cooldowns to be increasingly lower. Because alacrity doesn’t affect their weapon skills or initiative regeneration, I can’t see any reason why any mesmers would be woed by this implementation. I may tone down the alacrity duration to 1.5s from 2s, but I feel like removing the effect altogether could break a lot of desired synergy, and nerfing it to 1s would be overly-substantial. Let me know how you feel about this.

I did reduce the durations of fury and swiftness gained while entering SHF from 10s to 5s. You’re absolutely right that the 15s durations there were way too much, and stacking Trickery with ToTC and the durations from Relentless Hunter seemed excessive. The permanent fury is an intended behavior as a means of also reducing dependencies on No Quarter for the uptime, allowing IP to be selected for CS builds instead, but requires much more active play. Further, the real gains of NQ (16.7% critical damage) are lost as a tradeoff. Critting is a big part of the thief, and permanent mobility was something the class features in a variety of ways, and was originally supposed to be strictly better at than the rest of the classes (at release, the thief was the only class in the game which featured a passive means of gaining 25% mobility/permanent movement speed increases via Signet of Shadows). The duration adjustment here (5s + 5s) will prevent the Deadeye from having permanent fury/swiftness inherently and prevent it from being inherently better than ToTC or FS in Trickery, but can maintain both boons permanently via combinations with other traitlines. It’s a powerful trait, but it doesn’t quite stack up to the gains from the rest now. The costs to take it are also relatively big, as the competing traits here are rifle range and big sustain for acrobatics-type builds. It’s definitely not one-trait-fits all, but I hope to make each trait feel powerful but not necessarily overpowered in the context of others as well as the greater scheme of the thief and overall balance in general.
Thanks for the input so I could get this fix for RH through.

The decision over Resistance/Buff on Expunge is one I’ve been constantly debating and re-examining. On the one hand, I want its cooldown to be lengthy; the Deadeye has some solid condition removal options available between Skirmish and core thief abilities, and I want to finally give the thief a real, reliable tool to deal with condi bomb other than Shadowstep, which often gets used as a stunbreak. The recent push for boon theft, stripping, and corruption bumps across the board has me worried that a few stacks of resistance might not be enough, especially in group environments, where the spec is supposed to be much better at. I’m not really sure what a fair number is for Resistance in this case, as too many stacks will make the effect the same, but too few makes the utility not necessarily strong enough. It’s effectively a miniature, DoT-only Berserker Stance at the moment, and while I’m not fond of the kind of blatant copying of warrior skills, its shorter duration and control-susceptibility make me want to think it’s fair as-is. I’ll keep giving it more thought, and please let me know if you come up with any ideas to improve upon this idea better. The skill needs to be condi-bomb rejection effectively once, maybe twice, per encounter, and that’s really about it. All of the built-in cooldown reduction if traited and used well could lower this to about 30 seconds, which I think is quite powerful for the effect, so I don’t think there’s much of a need for that. Thieves still need weakness to conditions. They just need an answer somewhere to massive DoT bombs.

Predator’s Invigoration has been the single most challenging ability to balance I’ve toyed with on this project. I’ve buffed, nerfed, re-buffed, re-nerfed, and nerfed (again) this ability so many times that if I were to keep track of each instance of change made to this ability, I’m pretty sure I’d be on version 10 by now :P
I initially gave it a self-heal, but realized that it’d simply just become a better version of Signet of Malice at that point. I want to keep the skill quite risk-intensive, similar to Litany of Wrath, which only has a 1.6k base heal on it. Since we offer so much more damage potential, have Invig Precision giving another 15% crit damage as healing, and this is a group heal, I’m not certain I can justify simply making its self-sustain better. What I’m thinking about doing is buffing the healing applied to allies to be more substantial while scaling with Healing Power, giving a small percentage of healing power as percentage converted as outgoing healing. This gives the heal more of a purpose in the support-niche it’s supposed to cover while making its use require solid timing but have a big payoff if done correctly. I’d like to give this heal a lot of potential, but also a lot of potential to be screwed up massively. Let me know how you feel about improved outgoing healing towards allies as a compromise. There’s a bunch of endurance regeneration in traits already, and I don’t want to overstep the bounds of the trait line as to make it be able to replace Acrobatics, particularly since Withdraw is the heal Acro-built thief should likely be pushing for.

Ceaseless Aggression is a compromise on RFI. I think RFI’s cooldown should just be shifted baseline to kitten , but that’s besides the point. It’s not about getting bulk initiative right now, but about doubling up over a period of time. The net gains per cooldown are higher, which is intended, as CA will not allow a player to simply gain an additional and immediate use of Noxious Fumes or any critical high-initiative ability. Much like all of the stances, it’s intended to have its optimal use be when the player predicts or forces an future scenario that will occur within the course of the next few seconds. If timed poorly, though, it’s effectively a wasted utility slot, and competes with a stunbreak, which is what I’m trying to push regarding making educated decisions on what to use and when.

Massacre Mastery admittedly might need some work. This is a big gain for a support-oriented thief since it’ll cause healing power stacking into levels of insanity, letting Predator’s Invigoration get some massive gains. I like the prospect of getting more support and sustain pressure through more kills, but you’re right in that the utility in itself feels a little bit lack-luster. I’ll re-map out some of what the class offers later today to see if there’s an unintended void it could possibly fill. Maybe something which extends the duration upon each kill in order to make it more sustainable in PvE and sPvP. There might need to be some tweaks made here. Again, please let me know if you come up with anything.

I just nerfed Smack after making some brief comparisons to Hook Strike. It now Dazes from the front and KD’s from the back, with a unified 2s duration. Despite offering slightly lower damage, it doesn’t deserve to be universally better at Knockdowns with the class in its current state. Plus it also makes more sense; hit someone from the front and they’ll be recoiling but not down, hit them hard from behind and they’ll be on the ground in most cases. I had it better initially as Impossible Escape did not exist upon early class creation, and the rifle also self-inflicted Reveal with the AA chain, so stealth would be much harder to get access to. Glad you caught this as well as it must have slipped by me with the dedicated work I was doing to traits and tuning coefficients recently.

Thanks again for the feedback and working with the spec. I’m glad you liked the theme, as it’s something I tried really hard to make sure fit the class, the game, and a bunch of what people wanted. The big thing I wanted was mechanical cohesion, so I’m glad that’s working out well so far. Ideally these changes should get people excited to see the new and awesome things they can do, but should be balanced enough to make people realize that while new and awesome, they won’t break the game.

Definitely open to suggestions and proposals for improvement so long as they’re trying to iron out some balance kinks or solidify the spec more as a whole without power-creeping.

@Jana

The core thief does need some cohesion love (especially in CS and SA regarding ability functionality and playstyle cohesion, respectively), and it’s been something I’ve been advocating for a while. It’s really hard to do in a balanced way without getting rid of someone’s favorite style of play or build, and I think ANet’s hands are tied right now. I have a feeling that we’re never going to see substantial core spec reworks, which while saddening, can be viewed positively in some respects such that new developments don’t need to be rebalanced/redesigned totally based on substantial changes made to the core ones, and thus the odds of breaking something with a change to the core specs decreases.

Try considering DE traits like 2/3 – 2 – 3 for your SA/CS/DE build while running Ceaseless Aggression, Shadowstep, and SR. I think you’d have enough initiative regeneration to compensate for the lack of Trickery, and you’d be less SoL while revealed after each backstab via increased toughness, control condition cleanse on reveal pairing with DoT removal on SE, an extra stunbreak if necessary, and even the amazing potential of recovering from being knocked out from SR or deciding to just leave it entirely and re-enter safely after AoE’s get burned on it from Impossible Escape. Work with it and I think you’ll realize you don’t need the rifle at all to make the line worth taking depending on your build.

Also, who doesn’t love some good ol’ CnD -> CA -> Backstab -> CnD (cure reveal) -> CnD (stealth) -> backstab right after the other, which only D/D could do due to its initiative cost and low casting time?

You think I would rea through your concept but be too lazy for the forum response? ^^
I might have to read it several times to catch everything, but the first thing I realized:
-I wasnt concerned about the knockdown on smack, I was concerned about it basically doing the same as hook strike, but dealing about twice the damage.
-My problem with alacrity was not taking a strong boon from the mesmer, but rather taking a unique effect that is tied by lore to their elite spec.
Probably depends on wether you want balance or concept.
-Massacre mastery needs something, not exactly sure what. First thing coming to mind would be to replace the PI cd effect and instead consume the hunters reward stacks on healing skill use for a much stronger heal.
This could lead to amazing synergy for passive heal with signet of malice and assassins reward.
On that notice: how long do the stacks last before they deplete?

As you ask I will start to think about possible builds, but it will take a few days until I know your concept good enough to get something done.

Hey, I’ve lost a few people on my walls before. I know well I tend to ramble. :P

Hook Strike’s damage coefficient is listed as 0.65 per the wiki. Smack’s is 0.6, so either the wiki lies or you recall the coefficient is lower than it is.

Yea, I wasn’t really thinking of Alacrity as lore-significant. I don’t follow the GW2 lore much at all (I’m almost always found in WvW and admittedly skipped most of the cut-scenes in HoT for the one character I played the story on), so I was using it purely as a concept. I’ll have to do some reading up on that to see just how tied to the mesmer it really is. This is why I want feedback ^^

Interesting idea on PI. I’ll run some tests later when I do out the ability mapping again as I mentioned. The accumulated stacks stay until the end of the skill’s effect (as of now). I’ll see if I can reword it to clarify that.

Take your time. As of now I mostly just need to generate lots of attention. The more people take this suggestion seriously, the more legitimate the proposal is and the more likely a dev is to actually take a look. I mean not to brag, but I have put forth a lot of effort to complete this idea, and I think it’s good enough to at least deserve a look-over by one or two of the devs. We’ll see if the rest of the thief community agrees.

DeceiverX.8361:

Yea, it was confirmed they started development for it recently. A potential 2016 release was mentioned

Admittedly, I haven’t been closely following news around the next expansion, but I haven’t heard anything about a potential 2016 release. Where was this mentioned, and more importantly, is it even plausible?

With how rocky HoT’s release was, I find a 2016 release window highly unlikely, especially since we haven’t even gotten squat about the next living story update. Nevertheless, I’m still curious to know where this rumor even began.

Yes, I can see this working for D/D – Impossible escape, Ink Purge and Quick reflexes.
Problem for me is though that I’m a weirdo (as all of you have already figured out) and usually only use D/D in 1 vs 1 and SB during zerg fights. I don’t need the extra initative of trickery for my D/D, but I do need the cooldown on steal, the interrupt and the cooldown on withdraw – all of it is nice to have in zerg fights as well, where I don’t really need SA which I only need for CiS and SE for my D/D anyway. I’d love to replace SA, but none of the condi clears of other lines is good enough. If I were solemly a ganker I could probably replace trickery, if I were only a mindless zergling I could probably ditch SA, but unfortunately I want to be both.

So yes, vanilla thief might stay as it is but every elite which will come on top of that probably won’t be able to show its full potential as long as the core is that messed up.
I’m not that into Rifle, but I do like some of the ideas I’ve read so far, I’m trying to get some concentration (and enthusiasm for rifle) together later on to read through it and make a constructive feedback.

Jana, recall the purpose of the Deadeye is to create new means of playing or adjust for similarities in existing styles. Since it’s not power creep, unfortunately I can’t simply make it be able to replace SA/Tr entirely. However, do recall that the cleanse-on-reveal mirrors that of the old SE (just inverted) and that it will operate on the same amount of conditions cleansed per unit of time, that initiative regeneration through Stygian Charge and Ceaseless Aggression displace the effective need for the initiative component of Shadow Rejuv (albeit through playstyle adjustments and/or small trait/utility skill investments), and the Concussive Rounds rifle abilities would enable a quick engage during the daze projectile period as a replacement (again albeit slightly worse) than SoH. Sacrifices always need to be made to achieve something, and it’s a matter of picking tools that are fun to use and get the job done just well enough to call it successful.

Thanks for the feedback/build Asrat! Spoiler text might just be too big is why it won’t work.

The unblockable attack on Stakeout is definitely excessive with it offering permanent stealth and casting fear and likely daze. I think removing that alone will help considerably. I’m also going to increase the initiative cost to 6 such that it won’t maintain net positive initiative in permanent stealth (This was too punishing for the skill methinks), and I will be adjusting the fear duration on target to 1s as well as making the PBAoE radius to be much smaller.

Either all of my coefficient data is wrong, or yours is. The rifle AA damage coefficient (0.6) is about 20% more than the pistol’s (0.5) based on my coefficient data. Brief testing in sPvP has me critting 1.6k damage AA’s using DA/CS/Tr with Assassin’s Signet (so 15% more damage via lead Attacks) using identical gear and with the Marauder’s amulet. The rifle should be achieving roughly about a 2200 damage crit at a 1s interval when vuln isn’t applied with such a build, making the lowly pistol AA DPS substantially better even against optimal rifle DPS. Quickness access is really what makes the weapon deal steady damage comparable to the pistol, with the interrupts and sustained pressure/presence intended to give the set enough longevity.

I’d check your coefficients. Your numbers in your spreadsheets are massively different from what the wiki has and what my own testing has resulted in (as I did checks to make sure the wiki numbers were correct or closely resembled some paper-math I did), and the calculated damage output is using a formula I’m not really sure is consistent with the game’s.

I also made a really stupid mental math mistake or typo or something which led the total coefficient on Stygian Assault to be higher than intended. I may move around some coefficients on Stygian Assault/Ink Splatter, and I might also even buff Stygian Assault’s per-hit damage (not Ink Splatter), although WvW balancing has me believing otherwise in that the skill combination might be a bit too deadly. While I wanted the skill to have a fairly easy-to-dodge mechanic which would cause the burst to be negated via dodging the first component, it may combo too nicely with BV and may have too much damage frontloaded on Ink Splatter, as it’s effectively 1.17 backstabs, although one whiff of a single bolt and it does less damage than Unload automatically.

The AA pressure in SHF shouldn’t be 3k in sPvP, so the sustained damage shouldn’t be as potent, either. The ranger’s Long Range Shot coefficient at its most significant penalty is 0.70, and I also went into sPvP using a near-identical setup on a ranger to confirm the damage output: It was critting a steady 2k on the light golem and 1.7k on the heavy with 6 stacks of might to compensate for Revealed Training use. Missing around 7% damage from a lack of No Quarter (Exposed Weakness and Flawless Strikes offset by Steady Focus and Ranger/pet Opening Strikes), the SHF AA damage per crit should only be hovering around 2.4k as intended without Wicked Abandon, which is very similar to the ranger’s LB auto at maximum range under the same test circumstances.

I’d take a look into your skill coefficients you’re using and make sure you’re on-par with the damage formula by estimating what your thief damage should be and then going testing things out. That might help clarify some potential confusion and make sure we’re on the same page regarding what might be OP :P

I don’t recall any of these coefficients changing, however. Typically wiki info is relatively correct. I find it best to often test things using backstab as a basis as I absolutely know the skill coefficient is 2.4 and have repeatedly tested it and confirmed it is still 2.4 using the official damage formula. This will crit around 7k on the medium golem using HK instead of NQ, so with NQ the results would push roughly 7.7k (as the gains from NQ are additive to ferocity gains from gear, since ferocity is calculated out all at once). The 0.6 damage coefficient adequately reflects what would be about a 2k damage AA chain on the rifle.

The 3.0 coefficient is out-dated and I made a mental math mistake. The 0.35 coefficient per stack over eight stacks applied by Stygian Assault will result in a total of 2.8 assuming all eight hits land. Between Stygian Assault and Ink Splatter, the total damage will be 3.6, which is roughly 11% more than unload.

As far as the synergy with reliability on interrupts, sigil of impact, etc., all intended ^^

I’ll be updating the OP significantly in the near future right now, cutting down unnecessary aspects of the post and streamlining a lot of the text in the document in preparation for its move to these forums, while making it a bit more readable.

Yeah. Ok. my table looks much better now. Im gonna attach it again and then delete some of my previous posts in order to clean up. The calculation I did for the burst build was plain wrong.
Reference table(wip)

I need confirmation about noxiuos fumes. Right now it looks like 6 stacks of each 2 seconds are applied a total of 2 times. (1 original, 1pulse).
This would even up in a quick 5k/6s poison damage. Given the way the skill works, it is not completely broken, but its strong enough to ask, if its intended.

That was just the explanation why I’m even running SA although I think the traitline is a mess. And actually I also think that SE is a mess – when I’m hit by condis it’s often 5+ and not all of them are intended to be cleared, that’s mostly 2 or 3 of the 5. An additional one I can get off by using withdraw which works every 15 seconds, so I’m stuck with at least one (ETA: Depending on the condis I’m stuck with removes trickster one condition when I use withdraw – If I’m hit with immobilize and whatever condis withdraw removes as well, it’s them and an addional one – but the chances that I can get the conditions not cleared by SE anymore off are really low).
The most annoying condis right now aren’t removed by SE: Confusion, Torment, Fumble and Fear. Your revealed would help with that but it can only be seen as an additional help, the condi cleanse for thief would still be too little. = Thus I don’t run DrD.
The problem again is that I’m a roamer and zergling – and don’t want to run away from anyone.
It’s not really the fault of your suggested traitline, it’s the fault of the botched SA line and also of how “condis work” – so maybe yes, all condi clears thief has got should be buffed, even your’s to “per pulse” probably.
I can’t compete against a condi build with CS, T, DrD, with CS, SA, T I can.

Asrat.2645:

Yeah. Ok. my table looks much better now. Im gonna attach it again and then delete some of my previous posts in order to clean up. The calculation I did for the burst build was plain wrong.
Reference table(wip)

I need confirmation about noxiuos fumes. Right now it looks like 6 stacks of each 2 seconds are applied a total of 2 times. (1 original, 1pulse).
This would even up in a quick 5k/6s poison damage. Given the way the skill works, it is not completely broken, but its strong enough to ask, if its intended.

Coefficient data looks much more accurate (although it’s 3:30 AM for me and I barely looked at it at this point), though your dagger MH builds should be tied for both or favoring dagger due to the dagger’s higher weapon damage.

You’re correct. The pulses are 2s apart with 2s poison durations and 1s blind durations, and the combo field lasts three seconds, so only two pulses occur. This is intended to give condi DE some pretty rapid AOE poison burst stacking, but at the cost that it simply can’t be maintained for an extended period. My concerns lie of a DE using it three times consecutively, however, applying extensive poison. I may need to cut the poison stacks or put a cast time on the ability to prevent lots of overlapping spam.

Jana.6831:

That was just the explanation why I’m even running SA although I think the traitline is a mess. And actually I also think that SE is a mess – when I’m hit by condis it’s often 5+ and not all of them are intended to be cleared, that’s mostly 2 or 3 of the 5. An additional one I can get off by using withdraw which works every 15 seconds, so I’m stuck with at least one (ETA: Depending on the condis I’m stuck with removes trickster one condition when I use withdraw – If I’m hit with immobilize and whatever condis withdraw removes as well, it’s them and an addional one – but the chances that I can get the conditions not cleared by SE anymore off are really low).
The most annoying condis right now aren’t removed by SE: Confusion, Torment, Fumble and Fear. Your revealed would help with that but it can only be seen as an additional help, the condi cleanse for thief would still be too little. = Thus I don’t run DrD.
The problem again is that I’m a roamer and zergling – and don’t want to run away from anyone.
It’s not really the fault of your suggested traitline, it’s the fault of the botched SA line and also of how “condis work” – so maybe yes, all condi clears thief has got should be buffed, even your’s to “per pulse” probably.
I can’t compete against a condi build with CS, T, DrD, with CS, SA, T I can.

That’s a bug if SE doesn’t remove confused or torment; it’s supposed to and says it does in the tooltip. I haven’t used the trait in ages, so I can’t say I know if this is true. I do hope that gets fixed if it’s still bugged/is bugged, and it’d probably help fix the line massively.

CS/SA/DrD should have better condition cleansing than CS/SA/Tr, however. Unhindered + EA has allowed the thief to pretty much be able to ditch SA as a whole for its cleansing needs since it gets one cleanse per second via evades this way, which is better at burst-removal than SE. Thankfully Daredevil doesn’t need to be considered stacking with the Deadeye, as only one ES can/will be used at a time. Otherwise I’d likely have to nerf DE’s cleansing options.

Just trying to gather insight and make the traitline as universally useful as possible without replacing any others.

-Your changelog says you decreased weaponrange to 900 on some skills, the document itself doesnt reflect that. I wouldnt really like it either.
-In general range is missing for tracer
-I would recommend you to also put subsequent, longer posts into spoilers, like I did with my first one. We have enough wall of text in here.

Ok, good to know, no these 4 condis aren’t cleared anymore and yeah that hampers with thief mechanics massively “Woohoo a 2k backstab ‘cause I can’t get fumble off and the duration is ~a felt minute – great, I don’t have other stuff to worry about”.
ETA: I will try confusion again when I can, but I’m 99,9% certain that torment isn’t removed. Would be great if someone else could test it in wvw or pvp and wvw – need to find a friendly enemy to do some test runs and that might take a while or won’t happen.

I did use dash, but as a D/D power thief I don’t really evade attacks – I really would have to relearn thief and completely change my playstyle to make DrD work on D/D – or any other line besides SA. SA and DrD would be solid to get rid of conditions, but then I would lack damage and also the reduced cooldown on my heal, on my beloved elite and on steal and the only interrupt I have.
Still, I think some kind of reversed SE (per pulse) would be nice to have in another traitline.

Maybe D/D is just outdated and really needs utility on the weaponset – either way all the evade reliant traits still wouldn’t work with (power) D/D. – Even if I do use death blossom, which I do, it’s maybe once or twice per fight. Condis are applied a lot faster than I would be able to get them off. And since I’m that close to my opponent I often dodge rather randomly, so a lot of my dodge evades would “miss”.

Asrat.2645:

-Your changelog says you decreased weaponrange to 900 on some skills, the document itself doesnt reflect that. I wouldnt really like it either.
-In general range is missing for tracer
-I would recommend you to also put subsequent, longer posts into spoilers, like I did with my first one. We have enough wall of text in here.

Actually, I hate “spoilers” – makes stuff unredible for me. I guess that’s personal preference.

Asrat.2645:

-Your changelog says you decreased weaponrange to 900 on some skills, the document itself doesnt reflect that. I wouldnt really like it either.
-In general range is missing for tracer
-I would recommend you to also put subsequent, longer posts into spoilers, like I did with my first one. We have enough wall of text in here.

• Says to 1200 from 900.
• Just updated the skill, not even changelog-worthy :P
• Will look into it. Admittedly that’s pretty much discussion and I’d rather leave it kind of normal so people don’t feel like they need to click a button to read anything and everything in the thread.

Jana.6831:

Ok, good to know, no these 4 condis aren’t cleared anymore and yeah that hampers with thief mechanics massively “Woohoo a 2k backstab ‘cause I can’t get fumble off and the duration is ~a felt minute – great, I don’t have other stuff to worry about”.
ETA: I will try confusion again when I can, but I’m 99,9% certain that torment isn’t removed. Would be great if someone else could test it in wvw or pvp and wvw – need to find a friendly enemy to do some test runs and that might take a while or won’t happen.

I did use dash, but as a D/D power thief I don’t really evade attacks – I really would have to relearn thief and completely change my playstyle to make DrD work on D/D – or any other line besides SA. SA and DrD would be solid to get rid of conditions, but then I would lack damage and also the reduced cooldown on my heal, on my beloved elite and on steal and the only interrupt I have.
Still, I think some kind of reversed SE (per pulse) would be nice to have in another traitline.

Maybe D/D is just outdated and really needs utility on the weaponset – either way all the evade reliant traits still wouldn’t work with (power) D/D. – Even if I do use death blossom, which I do, it’s maybe once or twice per fight. Condis are applied a lot faster than I would be able to get them off. And since I’m that close to my opponent I often dodge rather randomly, so a lot of my dodge evades would “miss”.

Yea, I’d check up on that. I know HiS doesn’t cure those conditions, but it never did and is something I’ve also advocated for, since HiS was developed to just remove DoT’s, which confusion initially wasn’t, and torment was not released until a year after the game was.

As far as learning a new style of play, even those three dodges would be sufficient cleansing for the most part. You could reap the benefits during stealth by dodging an AoE and cleansing by SE, while doubling healing from SR and DF. Also consider a sigil of Stamina for blobbing; refilling endurance on kill + EA would make you really hard to keep conditions on in a larger fight. I run it on my zerg characters and let me say it’s fantastic (dodge-spamming reaper is really funny to watch disengage with perpetual rolls :P). You’d only be missing around 5% damage or so with DD over Trickery since Havoc Mastery could cancel out most of Lead Attacks. You’d only have two total evade-reliant traits, and more resources to keep evading (50 endurance on steal) while replacing effects from other lines. D/D is dated, but nobody can agree on how to fix it.

But I think conversation on your habits and build styles regarding SA and D/D and disputes over Daredevil use to solve your problems may be going on a little bit long for this topic. I’d like to keep on topic regarding the elite spec here, and we can discuss the rest in another thread.

I can remember standing with 6 stacks of Torment in SR and having to wait them out. Maybe it is the last being cleared so I got the impression that it isn’t cleared at all. Whatever happened there – I think it is cleared = I was wrong with at least Torment. Haven’t been hit by confusion yet again.

You’re right, I “could” – but I would have to change my style of play to deal with condis and that’s stupid. Someone using S/D already uses their #2, no matter whether or not they have to deal with condis on them – I’d have to go out of my way if hit with condis.

I’m not really using stealth in zergfights, more for others than myself. Only thing that “might” bother me there is the over nerfing of SB #4 – I’m using sigel of blood and energy (the latter for duels). Still I “need” the benefits of trickery – I don’t want to miss trickery when it comes to zergs.

And yes, you’re right, that’s a whole new topic and no one really knows how I fight anyway – I’m observing more of how I’d like condi clears to be changed – I still find them insufficient, chill and fumble are really nasty for a thief – and far easier applied than cleared with trickster and SE doesn’t take care of them.

ETA: I was killing the ogres on EB today and constantly had fumble on me, so I hit them for 1,8 instead of ~8k. Your condi clear would clear the condi while I’m revealed – that is nice but after my BS.

Reddit thread up. Tell your friends!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4az6s7/inspire_the_devs_full_thief_es_suggestion/

Big numbers tweaks to Predator’s Invigoration (heal) and a small bump to Black Bolt’s damage coefficient due to early mathematical error on my behalf. Damage was slightly too low.

I just came across your ‘elite spec collection’ and remebered I owe you some builds.
Nice idea btw, I have some unfinished concepts flying around, maybe I’ll try to make something of it.
Anyways: I have four. Three of them are pretty obvious and basically what I had in mind when I first thought about this. I dont think any of them will suprise you.
The fourth one is a little more special. I like it.
I havent worked out every detail everywhere. There are some flaws, some non-maximized efficency and a lot of things where I just stayed close to typical choices without thinking about uncommon alternatives. But there we go.
All four are designed for sPvP

Thanks so much for the dedication. The “collection” was supposed to be its own thread. Mods merged it with the other one because they’re “too similar,” despite my intent being very far from some skill ideas haphazardly posted by many others. Hopefully some more people post here :T

Covering Fire

Pretty stock-and-standard build as a +1 role. Definitely something I had considered during design.
Mobility is primarily supposed to come from charge, and again, RH is simply a not-quite-perfect-but-still-near-identical option to replace the need for ToTC (as this build doesn’t need trickery). A more mobile build with permanent swiftness would likely orient itself towards x/Tr/DE. Since the Deadeye isn’t really meant to feature innately high mobility out of SHF, it’s intended that the landspeed would be a bit slower.

The hidden thief issue is actually one I considered and is partially why I made the Impossible Escape trait. Used in tandem, this causes charge to no longer reveal but simply refund initiative, but makes gaining the revealed debuff harder to get for SHF. The Deadeye can either play more selfish and use the Hidden Thief + Impossible Escape combo, or can play into the more support-oriented role of the Deadeye and SA and use venoms.

Condition Nightmare
Also pretty much mirroring expectations and trap synergy for solid on-point defense. I do worry still about Noxious Fumes doing too much damage. It may need to drop to 4 or 5 stacks, as the poison damage output from two uses of the skill + needle trap seems very concerning, especially since it can do it and then immediately enter stealth via Stakeout or any other ability. That said, it does require the enemy to play relatively poorly, so I’m a bit on the fence. Its synergy with needle trap and other CC’s may warrant this reduction, however.

Marauder

Another relatively-standard idea, though the choice on Quick-Footed surprised me over Ink Purge, particularly since you’re only running TP. Any particular reason for this?

Statements about this combo being stronger than what daredevil offers has me a bit worried. I want to make sure the profession can perform well but will not simply be better (a concern addressed in my OP). I understand S/D is considered fairly weak right now in sPvP, but have not played it in sPvP much at all. Are there fears that this build might be too strong (I don’t see any at the moment due to the cooldown on charge/skirmish being longer than Daredevil/Acro gains)? Do you think Tr/Acro/DE would be too evasive?

As a side note, do you think the swiftness uptime is too excessive with ToTC + QR + QF? I’m feeling a bit wary of giving the build too much mobility as a result of pressing F1, but also want to make sure the profession has its needed mobility in SHF.

Jumper
Glad the build looks fun, and the management of constantly switching and maintaining revealed/SHF/stealth is absolutely something I want to promote.

The Quick Pockets + SHF (Let’s not forget Improvisation synergy, too!) interaction was one I explicitly planned earlier on, however this was planned mostly for the rifle and the overarching theme of the Deadeye getting a lot of access to more initiative regeneration. That said, I fear there may be a little bit too much initiative regeneration on the D/P combo as to enable a lot of Shadow Shot spamming via flickering SHF immediately after revealed from a stealth attack, causing a QP proc, and with improvisation, two of these procs (or four, depending on how swaps count if leaving SHF would trigger this). I’m actually a bit worried that the condi rifle build paired with this idea would be an over-performer through spamming Noxious Fumes.

This issue seems to lie more with Quick Pockets and follow-up potential rather than improvisation’s sheer initiative number returned per use. Is suggesting giving an ICD to improvisation reasonable? I fear that subsequent nerfs to Noxious Fumes and potentially suggestive nerfs to Shadow Shot’s damage (which many are already asking for) may be necessary. Let me know how you feel.

Conclusion

Interesting. The damage issue is more or less one with Daredevil, however. I can’t reasonably justify making any build get competitive damage without making it either uninteresting or OP. The “better” acrobat is mostly referring to conceptual design and the soundness of it. As it is, PvE DPS doesn’t even run Trickery because the best DPS is just DA/CS/DD running staff and spamming 1. I hoped that the rifle’s vulnerability and break bar destruction via Concussive Rounds and AoE healing would justify the class’s use and give it a definitive role. The healing potential is very, very high.

I’ll see if there’s much I can do about the under-performing utility problem and synergy with Acrobatics. Acro ultimately lacks some meaningful damage and control, which I hoped the DE could provide a little bit of both, particularly when going back on the forced-tempo of Skirmish with a little bit of extra sporadic behavior DD has as to the old Vigor. Ideally, a pure-evasion build should likely favor the Daredevil, as the class features evades as a primary mechanic. Returning the tempo and diversity of old Acrobatics while providing a sound framework for a variety of styles of play other than evasion spam is something I hoped the Deadeye could deliver.

There should be a rule – Thou shall not make any suggestions revolving around Revealed. It’s a lazy, not well thought of mechanic that should really go away.

Just my 2 cents.

-To be honest I didnt even consider ink purge. S/d does not have much reveal access, CnD is a little expensive for one cleanse and relying on steal…I dont know. But i’d have to try it out.

-I wouldnt worry about it being too powerful. I mostly wanted to justify why one would play s/d DE oder DrD. Its definetely a tough decision due to the lack of UC and EA.

-Youre right, it could be even more devastating on rifle.. Smoke tracer+ quick pockets would essentially gain you more initiative then you loose. But I dont think putting a icd on the trait would be too much of a problem.
Tho if I could choose: I would replace the trait with one that removes cooldown on weapon swap entirely. It fits the thief better and would finally make for a valuable choice.

I wouldn’t get my hopes up on thief getting rifle because it is a close ranged class. I have heard the arguments that there is no reason it can’t be but if you look at the profession mechanic you can see that it is. Steal is a gap closer and has many traits that buff it (which all say when you steal). Most notably Improvisation. What are you gonna do with 2 stolen bundles if you get no stolen bundles? See how it conflicts?

Also none of the elite classes got any drastic changes to their profession mechanics. Most got additions. Even Reaper shroud is still a shroud that uses life force and Berserker whatever is just their old mechanic with fire added.

Yeah sure, I think guardians elite is just as their core.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

There should be a rule – Thou shall not make any suggestions revolving around Revealed. It’s a lazy, not well thought of mechanic that should really go away.

Just my 2 cents.

It’s a necessary one. Recall the days of old when it wasn’t around and thief was absolutely and totally overpowered? Access to the Revealed mechanic by other classes is lazy, but it’s a lazy but necessary solution because giving so much stealth to other classes is a lazy solution. The increased access to revealing the thief by other classes is part of the basis of this spec’s design; it acts as a means to counter the hard counter which was implemented due to a snowball of poor previous design choices. I sincerely doubt ANet will reduce or remove stealth access on scrapper/mesmer/trapper runes, and making Revealed Training serve a definitive purpose while giving a committal playstyle to the thief rather than the non-committal one it has now will turn the tables on how the profession can be played, which was the goal of the elites; it wasn’t just power creep.

If you did read everything and still feel the implementation of the spec is shoddy, I can’t help you. This is numerically the best implementation I was able to devise which solved conceptual problems the thief is facing right now in combat, rather than just sheer buffs. Buffs got us into the mess we’re in now. I’d rather not keep pushing for them.

Asrat.2645:

-To be honest I didnt even consider ink purge. S/d does not have much reveal access, CnD is a little expensive for one cleanse and relying on steal…I dont know. But i’d have to try it out.

-I wouldnt worry about it being too powerful. I mostly wanted to justify why one would play s/d DE oder DrD. Its definetely a tough decision due to the lack of UC and EA.

-Youre right, it could be even more devastating on rifle.. Smoke tracer+ quick pockets would essentially gain you more initiative then you loose. But I dont think putting a icd on the trait would be too much of a problem.
Tho if I could choose: I would replace the trait with one that removes cooldown on weapon swap entirely. It fits the thief better and would finally make for a valuable choice.

It’s just a matter of deciding what that ICD should be. It may also simply be a matter of proposing that SHF either doesn’t count as a swap, or have a rule for Quick Pockets which discounts SHF. I’ll need to do some tests later. Asking for complete skill changes is beyond the scope of the thread, though, and if anything, it’d likely need to be like Fast Hands – 5s reduction on swap. On-swap sigils would be bonkers without it.

Shadow.1345:

I wouldn’t get my hopes up on thief getting rifle because it is a close ranged class. I have heard the arguments that there is no reason it can’t be but if you look at the profession mechanic you can see that it is. Steal is a gap closer and has many traits that buff it (which all say when you steal). Most notably Improvisation. What are you gonna do with 2 stolen bundles if you get no stolen bundles? See how it conflicts?

Also none of the elite classes got any drastic changes to their profession mechanics. Most got additions. Even Reaper shroud is still a shroud that uses life force and Berserker whatever is just their old mechanic with fire added.

I recognize that the thief is a close-ranged class in its current state due to its engage and disengage + stealth potential and very high damage output on these melee options. That said, the rifle doesn’t bring that much damage to the table – it’s similar to that of the pistol unless playing in melee range via Noxious Fumes. Specializations are designed to change the way the class is played as a whole, and I think there’s room to give the thief ranged weapon access at a cost of a trait line and non-committal combat identity/stealth access.

Stygian Charge is affected by on-steal traits, which I did account for. In the writings above, it’s mentioned that improvisation will reset the cooldown of the Stygian Hunter Form transformation skill if Stygian Charge is used, enabling a reveal skill to enable SHF -> Fakeout Bolt + Stygian Assault -> reveal expires ->teleport to range via the delay on Fakeout Bolt -> Charge away/tangential from target -> Reveal from Charge to full initiative -> SHF immediately again to perform Ink Splatter without needing to first Assault. On-steal effects which affect enemies such as Mug are also worded to pick the closest target to the caster at the end of the charge (within a very small radius) to be applied to, still enabling their effects but requiring melee-range to use. I’ve taken all of these traits and effects into account and made sure absolutely every single one of the on-steal traits would continue to be useful for the elite spec in some way or another, even if not useful in the same exact way it is on the core thief with Steal.

Guardians -> DH’s had all of their virtues entirely replaced and re-designed, as Jana mentioned. Reaper shroud, while using the same resource mechanic, honestly makes the necro play like an entirely different class altogether. The changes for the reaper are the most profound and most impressive example of how elite specializations should be implemented as a means to change the way the class is played. Maintaining the steal and stealth mechanics while giving the thief something new and balanced which completely changes its style that isn’t just sheer power creep such as increased stats to reflect a new style is simply not a possibility I see. Due to the tight restrictions on the thief being melee-only as it has been, there’s little available room left for growth here.

Something needs to give to make way for more openings, and the difficulty in deciding what needs to change is the basis for this thread; helping the developers, if stuck, overcome this obstacle. Changing the profession mechanics in a balanced way that isn’t simply an improvement is the ideal I’m attempting to push. For this reason I also believe the class developers largely failed on the elite specializations; it was power creep that was simply not necessary, and many professions saw not playstyle adjustments but rather just numbers increases.

If there’s an improvement or design shift possible which may enable alternate styles of play in a balanced manner without changing the class mechanic, I’d love to discuss them. Based on your response overall, though, I first suggest you really dig deeper into my proposal, as your response (based on what I’ve said above) indicates that you’ve only really looked on the surface level of the design. I encourage you to look deeper and post your thoughts. A large portion of this has been shaped and adjusted by feedback and discussion among participants in this thread as well as friends of mine. The more eyes the better, and I’ll readily make changes if things are not behaving as intended (like discussion on Quick Pockets).

I read that stuff however I sincerely doubt they will change core traits so they can change the steal mechanic into some kind of celestial avatar form for thieves. Even with other classes the new mechanics still inherit those traits and they don’t have any radical changes. Shroud skill 4 still has some kind of “pulse” so that it can pull downed people to you. Even though Reaper shroud plays differently than Death shroud, they have similarities with the difference of one being melee based and one being ranged. Skill 2 still gap closes, 3 still causes Fear and 4 still has some sort of pulse type of deal. The Guardian virtues where as you see them as completely changed they aren’t that different than the core ones. Virtue 1 still applies burns, 2 still heals and 3 still blocks so they aren’t that radically different. Changing steal into some sort of initiative regen thing that still does all the steal trait stuff and gives access to “avatar” form is a radical change to the mechanic. You might be better off adding a new mechanic because your current idea is pretty much gutting steal entirely and replacing it with an obscene amount of power creep.

Shadow.1345:

I read that stuff however I sincerely doubt they will change core traits so they can change the steal mechanic into some kind of celestial avatar form for thieves’’…’’Changing steal into some sort of initiative regen thing that still does all the steal trait stuff and gives access to “avatar” form is a radical change to the mechanic. You might be better off adding a new mechanic because your current idea is pretty much gutting steal entirely and replacing it with an obscene amount of power creep.

Are you sure you read it?

Asrat.2645:

Shadow.1345:

I read that stuff however I sincerely doubt they will change core traits so they can change the steal mechanic into some kind of celestial avatar form for thieves’’…’’Changing steal into some sort of initiative regen thing that still does all the steal trait stuff and gives access to “avatar” form is a radical change to the mechanic. You might be better off adding a new mechanic because your current idea is pretty much gutting steal entirely and replacing it with an obscene amount of power creep.

Are you sure you read it?

Let me see if I got this right, this thing is a leap finisher and gives 6 initiative on its own. Take the trickery line and that is 8 initiative and if you take Sleight of Hand a reduction in CD plus swfitness and fury if you take Thrill of the Crime and that’s not even including the stuff if you get actually end with someone nearby. While revealed you can get a free “Dash” dodge like from Daredevil plus a leap finisher like Bound without using any endurance. Since the 8 initiative gives at least 12 seconds of revealed then you can get 2 free dodges out of it. Add in that now your f2 is a new form with a teleport for z-mobility with a slower form of SB 5 and a skill that applies 4 stacks of vulnerability, cripple and blind for only 3 initiative. Yeah that’s gutting steal and replacing it with power creep.

How did it switch from “Thief will never get a rifle” to “They will never change the core traits” who suggested changing the core traits in this thread? What did I miss?

ETA: I guess “trait” was used as the original meaning and not in game description of a profession’s trait.
Dismiss my question.

‘Gutting steal’ …in a way I guess. Making it telegraphed, taking away the stolen skills, making it reveal you.
But lets be honest: most of us expected a steal transform when they started to unveil the other elite specs. And this is just one way to transform it.
The 8 initiative on that sort of cooldwon could be viewed as powerful. But you dont have to discuss that with me. There is someone here who did the math for this.
The transformation finally is not power creep at all.
The strong thing about a celestial avatar or a death shroud is the access to a complete new set of skills. Something that is way less beneficcial for an initiative system.
Also the skills themselves. Fakeout bolt, which you seem to be concerned with is a great addition.
It finally makes the shortbow optional. For in-combat movement and heightglitching. It can replace it. But if you want a weapon to quickly escape a fight or a maw trap, it is lethal. It is also way less beneficial for quick rotation.
And if you talk about itscombat effect: if your opponent stays in one spot for 2 seconds, its kinda their own fault to get hit.
The skirmish finally: I wont pretend like its not strong. But we both know daredevil is better if you want dodges. And: its static. Signet of agility, vigor, endurance refilling effects wont do anything.

But again: im just someone who likes the idea. If you want a technical discussion you’ll need to wait for the op to show up. But from my current point of view the op has considered a lot of things you and I didnt even think about and has done a fair share of math to ensure this is not powercreep.

Jana.6831:

How did it switch from “Thief will never get a rifle” to “They will never change the core traits” who suggested changing the core traits in this thread? What did I miss?

ETA: I guess “trait” was used as the original meaning and not in game description of a profession’s trait.
Dismiss my question.

No. I was talking about changing quick pockets. But that was only as a side note.

Shadow.1345:

Jana.6831:

How did it switch from “Thief will never get a rifle” to “They will never change the core traits” who suggested changing the core traits in this thread? What did I miss?

Is English not your first language? I ask this because you seem to have problems with comprehension. If so I don’t mind explaining things more simply for you.

Changing a core trait was mentioned about Improvisation being changed to effect the CD on Stygian form instead of giving two stolen bundles since the new F1 skill would not steal anything. That would be changing a core trait to accommodate the Elite profession skill suggested in this. I also never said “thief will never get rifle” I said “I wouldn’t have any high hopes this will be implemented because it involves taking away the profession mechanic which none of the other Elites have done.”

It is not my first language, but you don’t even understand the meaning of what you yourself wrote, so I’m pretty good, I think.

Jana.6831:

Shadow.1345:

Jana.6831:

How did it switch from “Thief will never get a rifle” to “They will never change the core traits” who suggested changing the core traits in this thread? What did I miss?

Is English not your first language? I ask this because you seem to have problems with comprehension. If so I don’t mind explaining things more simply for you.

Changing a core trait was mentioned about Improvisation being changed to effect the CD on Stygian form instead of giving two stolen bundles since the new F1 skill would not steal anything. That would be changing a core trait to accommodate the Elite profession skill suggested in this. I also never said “thief will never get rifle” I said “I wouldn’t have any high hopes this will be implemented because it involves taking away the profession mechanic which none of the other Elites have done.”

It is not my first language, but you don’t even understand the meaning of what you yourself wrote, so I’m pretty good, I think.

They’ve been called trait lines in the past which would reasonably make the individual parts traits.

Shadow.1345:

They’ve been called trait lines in the past which would reasonably make the individual parts traits.

Yes, but no one spoke about changing traits – even improvisation wouldn’t really be changed. The core of the class would still stay the same, only if the new line and improvisation are used in combination improvisation will be changed.

And with that I’m out again.
I guess I would have to try deceivers ideas to see how they work out – in this case I can’t theorycraft – I probably would be able to if someone gave me a ready made Deadeye D/D build. Just know that he is pretty very seriously accurate when it comes to numbers and powercreep.

@Jana

DeceiverX.8361:

In the writings above, it’s mentioned that improvisation will reset the cooldown of the Stygian Hunter Form transformation skill if Stygian Charge is used,

That is where it was mentioned in response to the lack of stolen bundles.

Shadow.1345:

@Jana

DeceiverX.8361:

In the writings above, it’s mentioned that improvisation will reset the cooldown of the Stygian Hunter Form transformation skill if Stygian Charge is used,

That is where it was mentioned in response to the lack of stolen bundles.

I got that – I also got that you exaggerated and interepreted it as the whole profession being changed.
Anet threw something at us: Forced revealed – they destroyed a whole traitline (SA) with it, without giving us something in exchange – this is the idea of how to exchange us as they need to do so or take revealed out of the game. So we’re already moving into the direction and it was anet who started it – they just didn’t bring it to an end yet.

No the whole profession mechanic gets changed, not the whole profession, from steal to something else entirely. Shroud is still shroud, Death or Reaper. Virtues are still Virtues DH or Guardian. Warrior stuff is still the same type of thing. Celestial Avatar isn’t taking away a pet and making something new, it’s an addition. Continuum Split is an addition. Overload is an addition. Function gyro is an addition. Extra endurance is an addition. This Stygian Form idea would be better implemented as an F3 mechanic and leaving F1 and F2 the same as they were.If that is difficult for you to understand then I don’t know how to better explain that to you.

And revealed was added to stop the CnD>Backstab>Cnd>Backstab and Revealed Training was added as compensation. SA isn’t dead in the water because of Revealed it just stops people from abusing spamming for insane damage.

There’s so much stuff bound to steal already that you could’ve argued like that right from the start (= game launch).

I meant the forced revealed – which actually destroys the core mechanics of thief – but alas no core mechanics were changed, right?
You actually don’t need to explain anything to me, because I don’t care.

Jana.6831:

There’s so much stuff bound to steal already that you could’ve argued like that right from the start (= game launch).

I meant the forced revealed – which actually destroys the core mechanics of thief – but alas no core mechanics were changed, right?
You actually don’t need to explain anything to me, because I don’t care.

It’s not about stuff being bound to steal that is wrong, it’s that they won’t change it to suit a new mechanic replacing steal. They said so when they explained the necro changes on the traits regarding shroud skills, hence why they says Shroud Skill 1 instead of the name of that skill. That’s why this Stygian thing would be better markeeted to the Dev team as an addition mechanic and not as a replacement.

I do find the free dodge while revealed is a cheap way to give Daredevil mechanic in addition to a new mechanic.

Interesting perspective. I’ll look around to see if anywhere they explicitly state that they will not change the current activation of skills to a different mechanic. If you have the source, please link it.

Additions are cool and all, but they should never be on the class-mechanic level. I’ve discussed the idea on the mesmer forums extensively and done the math to demonstrate why if the mesmer wants a DPS spec, shatters need to be removed as a consequence for the integrity of balance. Otherwise it’s never-ending power creep, and honestly, that’s objectively bad game design to follow. That’s why the DE replaces steal; having access to both just gives too much to the DE over core thief. The class mechanics haven’t totally changed, either; initiative still remains as the primary resource unique to the thief, and the DE pushes initiative regeneration much more over core thief.

Simply, the “on steal” wording could be changed to reflect the universality of applying it to Stygian Charge, either as how the necromancer traits were changed (as they already did this), or through dynamic tooltip modifications which change the text via a getSkillName() (or something similar to the implicit return of said method that exists in the current API) method call for the skill name for whatever skills f1 and f2 are on the thief. I don’t see any technical or design issues preventing this from being possible or even disagreeable. Unless I’m misunderstanding something, I’m not really sure what you’re arguing.

Skirmish is on a cooldown unaffected by vigor and also requires the revealed debuff. It’s not meant to replace the utility of evasion of daredevil, but simply blend in together some of the features. At perfect utilization, it’s effectively unmodified vigor, traited (via alacrity) it can be used slightly more frequently, but is otherwise strictly worse.

Daredevil effectively replaces Acrobatics, Shadow Arts, and parts of Crit Strikes, and it’s definitely a superior melee/evasion option in terms of sheer evasion potential.