Guild Wars 2

After totally nerf s/d.
I think all thieves agree that Flanking Strike needs improvement.
The simplest thing to combine punches in one.

Flanking Strike. 4 ini
Evade and stab your foe. Strike Removes 1 boon.
Damage: 756
Range: 130

This would solve all the problems of this build. Without making it something OP.

How about instead of suggesting changes to an already potentially amazing skill Anet just fixes it so that it works as intended? It’s obvious that it’s broken so suggesting changes other than “fix it” is just counterproductive.

fix that it follows moving targets (or at least moving towards the target direction), kitten useless pvp skill ….
i doubt anyone cares much about fixing it….

Maybe they should turn the stab into a swipe and speed the animation up some

I just had a thought (and it didn’t hurt!) about how this might be related to camera positioning. I started an engineer recently and was having issues with the flamethrower. Basically, steering with the mouse was causing me to miss a lot of attacks. Letting go of the right mouse button when I used them caused this problem to mostly vanish.

I haven’t played with S/D in over a month… Is anyone familiar with this sort of issue and wouldn’t mind doing some testing? It might help people in the meantime.

Kajiri.8215
The problem is that the second shot is too slow. After total damage nerf s/d light burst is what you need.

I dont’ know about boosting the damage too much. If they never fix the animation, I’d rather that the damage be mostly front-loaded with the ending swipe doing significantly less. If they do eventually fix its’ pathing to be more reliable, then I think it’s probably good.

Flanking Strike does a lot of things all at once as it is (damage, dodge, boon removal, re-position), it’s just unreliable so most people don’t like using it. Fixing its’ pathing is probably enough.

Warkupo.1025:

I dont’ know about boosting the damage too much. If they never fix the animation, I’d rather that the damage be mostly front-loaded with the ending swipe doing significantly less. If they do eventually fix its’ pathing to be more reliable, then I think it’s probably good.

Flanking Strike does a lot of things all at once as it is (damage, dodge, boon removal, re-position), it’s just unreliable so most people don’t like using it. Fixing its’ pathing is probably enough.

So I suggest just remove the second hit, and its damage is added to the first strike.
This burst and defence boost, rather than damage.

Marduh.4603:

Warkupo.1025:

I dont’ know about boosting the damage too much. If they never fix the animation, I’d rather that the damage be mostly front-loaded with the ending swipe doing significantly less. If they do eventually fix its’ pathing to be more reliable, then I think it’s probably good.

Flanking Strike does a lot of things all at once as it is (damage, dodge, boon removal, re-position), it’s just unreliable so most people don’t like using it. Fixing its’ pathing is probably enough.

So I suggest just remove the second hit, and its damage is added to the first strike.
This burst and defence boost, rather than damage.

I’d be really okay with that. Just change the animation slightly so that we simply hit and then fart around behind the enemy and then keep auto-attacking.

Let’s go tell the developers. I’m sure they’ll love the idea

Here was my proposal. Change the 4 initiative per skill to 5 per “Disabling Leap” and 3 per “Dance of Death”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Flanking-Strike-and-an-alternative/first#post740605

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Small-buff-Flanking-Strike-after-huge-nerf-sd/first#post803952
Hopefully they sometimes are viewing this board.

Syko.3726:

I lol’d

Thief looking for more boosts, you don’t feel op enough ?

Some things are OP, some are UP.

First hit is a simple stab, no evading. Does some damage and removes a boon. If it lands, you can reactivate the ability to do the dodging part and more damage.

Or make it a block-riposte type of an ability.

Or make it perform a shadowstep behind the target and hitting it.

But I doubt A-net is going to change it. They don’t want to invest any time in reanimating stuff, all they’re going to do is change some numbers and that’s not going to change FS’s usefulness.

Hopefully wintersday bring something new.

You can hit flanking strike with some help, like using steal before second hit, or using signet of infiltration, movement helps to land it too a lil, if innitiatial strike didnt sent you flying to the side.

JonathanSharp:
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters..

S/d now have only projectile finisher and autoattack.
Fs useless ability
Second strike miss rate 90%
Second strike beats only 1 target
Second strike not unblockable

Just remove second strike.

The only thing which has to be fixes about FS is animation delay. It has to be instant like dodge. Right now, it waits for auto attack animation to be finished, and then eventually accurs. It kills viability of the evade, unless you turn off auto attack (main damage source…) or open with FS, so there is no animation que.

Dagins.5163:

The only thing which has to be fixes about FS is animation delay. It has to be instant like dodge. Right now, it waits for auto attack animation to be finished, and then eventually accurs. It kills viability of the evade, unless you turn off auto attack (main damage source…) or open with FS, so there is no animation que.

Maybe so.
“Blurred frenzy” and “Pistolwhip” for example have invulnerable attack and have more damage. “Flanking strike” evade before attack and crappy second strike.

IMO instead of the “flanking” it should be a melee ranged shadowstep behind, and then stab.

Doomdesire.9365:

IMO instead of the “flanking” it should be a melee ranged shadowstep behind, and then stab.

No, it shouldn’t, because it’s designed to counter an attack in melee range. It’s not designed as an initiative burner, like heartseeker. The idea of Flanking Strike is cool, side evade looks awesome, but it’s delayed, what entirely kills the idea of this ability.
Example:
I fight a warrior in melee range. I see the warrior rising his hands to use eviscerate on me, and I have less than 0.5 sec to react. I press FS button, but it won’t be instant, because it will be queued after current a-a animation. FS will come +0.5 sec later, after I take a hit. Boom 10k hit on my face, I am dead.

Same problem with headshot. If you a-a with pistol, it will be delayed, and most likely will hit after the target cast something. This problem is non existant, if you wield sword in main hand, and are away from target – not using a-a. Then, it will always work.

This delay is a VERY big problem in a competitive PvP, because sometimes one interrupt/evade means you lose or win a fight. The animation engine is somehow clunky (it is set to make animations between attack smooth, queues animations), and I hope seeing it fixed asap for moves which require to be instant (flanking strike, headshot… I don’t know other classes similar skills).

PS: I would love to see a feedback from a game designer here about this issue.

I would prefer it left as is, I, as well as many other more practiced players have managed to figure it out and use it effectively. Changes to it might cause the removal of its “unblockable” property, which currently makes it amazing vs shield blocking warriors.

Adaneshade.2409:

I would prefer it left as is, I, as well as many other more practiced players have managed to figure it out and use it effectively. Changes to it might cause the removal of its “unblockable” property, which currently makes it amazing vs shield blocking warriors.

1-2k ublocable hit and 3-4k block or 90% miss without selfdefence(evade).

Fs have worst base damage compare with other weapon sets. Worse only Shadow Shot|Shadow Strike – teleport. Misses happen even if the target is stationary.

It’s purpose is utility, not dps. I don’t expect everyone to understand this, but sometimes utility is more important. Having the ability to guaranteed hit and strip a boon (regeneration for instance) prevents that bunker warrior from healing up can be the difference in taking a point or not.

Just reduce the time between the first and second hits and maybe increase the hitbox size on the second hit and you have an amazing ability.

I’m afraid that if it’s made so the masses can use it, we’ll lose one of our only 2 weapon sets with the barrier of entry of not having a spammable burst button; and the only one that’s direct damage based.

I like that fact that it’s nearly unplayable by all but the more experienced thieves.

Got to lol at thieves QQing

It’s a very fancy idea they had to truly twirl around your target, but completely unncessary.

Just make it shoot toward your target 300-400 units while evading, and then re-face the target and swing. The whole twirly dirvy thing was a fun idea, but it has failed. Basically if you put your target at your 9 oclock this is what it does, right? (unless you’re truly at melee then it works more as intended).