Guild Wars 2

As far as I know here is what players have been noticing since the update:

About the Revealed debuff increased from 3s to 4s:

-Damage/CC output reduction (The time interval required to use our weapon-specific stealth skill -Backstab, Tactical Strike, Sneak Attack, Surprise Shot- has increased by 33%)

-The time during which we are forced to be visible has increased by 33%

-Timing awkardness (The 3s revealed debuff matched perfectly the necessary time to perform one full auto-attack chain without quickness, and 2 full auto-attack chains with quickness (the old 100% attack speed one). Now with the 4s revealed debuff it corresponds to 1,5 auto attack chain without quickness, and 2,25 auto-attack chain with the new quickness (50% atk speed))

-The effectiveness of the following traits have been reduced by 33% (since you can go into stealth 33% less often) :
>Hidden Killer (100% crit chance while in stealth)
>Hidden Assassin (Gain might for 15 seconds when you go into stealth) with which you could get 12 stacks of might in a situation where you go into stealth as soon as the revealed debuff wears off, and get out of stealth right away -2 stacks every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. Now you only get 8 stacks of might -2 stacks every 4 seconds for 15 seconds.
>Shadow Protector (When you stealth an ally or yourself, they gain regeneration for 5 seconds)
>Shadow’s Embrace (Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth.)
>Infusion of Shadow (Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths you.)
>Cloaked in Shadow (Going stealth blinds nearby foes)
>Patience (Regain initiative faster while in stealth.)
>Shadow’s Rejuvenation (Regenerate health while in stealth.)

-The effectiveness of the following skills/combos has been impaired:
>The black powder + heartseeker combo to gain stealth could be used twice (the combo field remains for 4 seconds, the revealed debuff lasting 3 seconds, you had enough time to do Black Powder / Heartseeker / Backstab / do whatever you want while the revealed debuff wears off, then again Heartseeker during the last pulse of the Black Powder combo field to gain another stealth. So basically 2 stealths for 12 initiative. Now with the 4s revealed debuff you can only go into stealth once with the combo, so 1 stealth for 9 ini)
>Shadow refuge (Same here, you could Shadow refuge on you + your target / Tactical Strike / do whatever you want while the 3s revealed debuff / then you would get stealth from the last pulse of the Shadow Refuge because it lasts 4 sec. Now you can’t anymore.

That’s everything I can think of right now, did I miss something ?
Do you think the devs had all that in mind when they decided to apply that 4s revealed debuff change ?

Anvi.1802:

[snip]
Do you think the devs had all that in mind when they decided to apply that 4s revealed debuff change ?

I don’t know. But I really hope they did have all that in mind, as otherwise it would mean they are doing far less game design and analysis than they should be doing.
If you (a player who wasn’t involved in creating the Thief class) can do this analysis, the devs should be doing the same thing as you did, as a bare minimum.

I only recently (past month) got my enthusiasm to try out Thief again (after sucking at it at launch), but these changes aren’t giving me a warm feeling about the profession.

Sounds right to me. It was a bigger nerf to us than all the other professions think it was. The only thing I can think of to rationalize this is that chain CnD stealth gameplay is intended by the devs so thieves retain ability to decide when they want to engage a target at the right moment.

LordSlack.4685:

Sounds right to me. It was a bigger nerf to us than all the other professions think it was. The only thing I can think of to rationalize this is that chain CnD stealth gameplay is intended by the devs so thieves retain ability to decide when they want to engage a target at the right moment.

They wanted to nerf stealth and said so in the SOTG video. But then they remember this thing called “Culling” in WvW so they decided to hold off on the nerf.

However, since they already said they will nerf it, they had to do something or people who have been griefed by thieves will grab their torches and pitchforks. They made a last minute decision to add 1 second to reveal without much thought into it.

One more thing.

SOTG was on 03/14 or 03/15. Patch was 03/26. Excluding weekends and time for coding and Q/A, they made the decision in less than 5 days…

(Just my opinion on how it all played out)

Up to top. I need my thief back.

I agree for the most part on this, but D/P is not broken. It’s actually our best weapon set and still has the best synergy out of all our weapons.

The problem is that stealth is one of the core characteristic of our profession, even the smallest modification of its mechanics has ripple effects on almost every build through traits, skills, utilities and combo that rely on stealth.

What the devs had in mind with March’s Update was to nerf our burst output (mainly backstabs, and vital shots). We ended up with moderately nerfed burst, but highly impaired survivability (which has never been our main concern, I acknowledge that, but that’s no reason to weaken what little survivability we had).

I gotta say the extra second made a huge change to the class, and the thought of nerfing “stealth” makes me wonder – What do you want thieves to do then?

Beautiful. We needed someone to write this. And no, I don’t think the devs even remotely used their heads for anything else than derping randomly around the keyboard while doing this change.

They ruined tons of builds and rotations and really made the profession seem awkward and strange. It’s just not right.

This change didn’t affect my build as much since I use stealth very rarely, but I really feel for you guys who got your builds and rotations ruined…

I think the delay in blinding foes is quite important. A cloak and dagger thief not also has blind on stealth delayed but will presumably not use blinding powder when revealed either. The difference between applying blind after 3 seconds and after 4 seconds is very important as the first two seconds are usually safe, the third is risky, and the fourth is dangerous.

What do you think about that:

We get our revealed debuff to 3s back.
Instead, for diminishing our burst output, we decrease our damage coefficients (like maybe 15%) which we trade against an increase in attack speed (like 25%) so that our damage output curve will look less like a “wave” and more like a “line” (that’s an extrapolation but you get the idea.) or maybe have our initiative regen to 1 per sec instead of the current 1.33 point per sec (or maybe have the initiative regen as a passive trait bonus like steal recharge).

Do you have any other idea on how to reduce our burst but compensate with something else ?

those Americans are just farmers, i do not expect much from them…
take actions then see the results ^^, lol