Flanking strike is still crap
lol they tried right?
It doesn’t need a rehaul, the potential is there. It just needs the Initiative cost to be reduced to 3. If the skill becomes more affordable and spammy, suddenly all those unblockable boon strips, free evades and decent damage would start to come into play more; that’s what I think it needs at least.
Right now it’s not worth using over C&D>Tactical Strike or just spamming 1 (or even Dancing Dagger which does A LOT of damage when two enemies are close).
(edited by Khenzy.9348)
i’m guessing that you didn’t understand the context of the change then.
There were several changes, across a few classes, to make the Aegis buff counterable. It was previously uncounterable because abilities that were capable of removing buffs were just being Blocked by the Aegis.
Flanking Strike has a boon stripping effect. Making the first strike Unblockable allows it to strip off an Aegis boon. that was the purpose of this change.
+1 for metaphorm. Couldn’t have said it better.
i’m guessing that you didn’t understand the context of the change then.
There were several changes, across a few classes, to make the Aegis buff counterable. It was previously uncounterable because abilities that were capable of removing buffs were just being Blocked by the Aegis.
Flanking Strike has a boon stripping effect. Making the first strike Unblockable allows it to strip off an Aegis boon. that was the purpose of this change.
So i have a skill that i will use ONLY against a guardian, and maybe against warriors with signet of rage activated.
AND i will use it only for the first strike, or rather half of FS move, because the second strike not only is slow as hell, but doesn’t even have the evade component added, making my thief exposed to my opponent fury.
You know, i was ALREADY doing that without the change: the only thing you had to do is to SPAM A FREAKING AUTOATTACK whenever you were seeing that nice shield icon on X guardian, and whopps, problem solved.
As long as the skill is UNRELIABLE, it could even fart rainbows and call the apocalypse upon the enemy, it’s NOT GOING TO BE USED.
And making the first attack “unblockable” has not changed anything for this problem.
FS is SPAMMABLE, it’s not like arcane thievery, on a 45 secs CD ( so that when your mesmer got blocked by aegis, you were headbanging against a wall screaming WTF).
So the situation here is a little different.
(edited by Mrbig.8019)
This ability is now very, very good. Unblockable means that warrior sitting at 10% health and blocking can now be hit. It does make me want to swap my Short Bow out to try it in those situations. I run into them quite a bit, and speeding up that Warrior death would be nice.
For Mrbig: there are plenty of on-block traits and abilities. You want to remove this, not auto-attack and trigger their abilities. Granted this is what I do, because I have no counter to it otherwise, but now I do, so time to adapt.
Someone needs to test if you can Basilisk Venom into a Flanking Strike and stun a blocking Warrior, thus interrupting his block.
The only thing this ability needs is for the 2nd strike to happen alot faster. The delay is what kills this ability.
The fact that you can spam the ability back to back and not get a 2nd strike shows that.
Someone needs to test if you can Basilisk Venom into a Flanking Strike and stun a blocking Warrior, thus interrupting his block.
I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to.
All flanking strike really needs to be decent is to just fix the pathing on the evade or turn it into a short-range shadowstep that always targets the back.
Mrbig, guardians were probably the one class i had trouble with during a 1v1. This changes that entirely.
nough said.
The pathing is weird, however it is a very powerful skill, and is now a guaranteed boon removal assuming you learn the best position to use the skill in. It doesn’t seem amazing but, until you fight good enemies and learn those boons, it will not seem amazing. When you see an Elementalist with 10+ stacks of might, or someone else with the same, such as a fellow Thief who has Might stacking happening, it’s extremely powerful. You’re basically cutting their intended damage by 10-20% by removing all that Might.
I also want to use it to remove Swiftness from certain players who are able to run off while slowing me at the same time. Flanking Strike can evade their cripple/chill and remove their Swiftness. Nice.
The pathing is weird, however it is a very powerful skill, and is now a guaranteed boon removal assuming you learn the best position to use the skill in. It doesn’t seem amazing but, until you fight good enemies and learn those boons, it will not seem amazing. When you see an Elementalist with 10+ stacks of might, or someone else with the same, such as a fellow Thief who has Might stacking happening, it’s extremely powerful. You’re basically cutting their intended damage by 10-20% by removing all that Might.
I also want to use it to remove Swiftness from certain players who are able to run off while slowing me at the same time. Flanking Strike can evade their cripple/chill and remove their Swiftness. Nice.
Omg, we’re talking like the “boon stripping” component was added in this very patch.
YOU COULD DO IT EVEN BEFORE.
There was no need to “fix” the first strike, the things needing fix is THE SECOND kitten STRIKE.
If people here thinks that a simple boon strip is better than a costant daze-lock ( and since we have our dear initiative, we can’t really do both), then i have bad news for you.
Even more since ( and this would happen if half people in this forum had a MINIMAL knowledge about PvP) the only classes relying on VERY LONG boons with no reapplying are guardians ( aegis, and only for the first strike) and the warrior ( with their shouts and signet of rage), and maybe elixir focused enges ( even if they usually don’t pick elixir B, but whatever), excluding warhorn rangers because you need to use FS 3 TIMES in order to remove the annoying swiftness.
Other classes rely on constant reapplications of their boons ( enge with swiftness-vigor on crits, ele on attunment swapping, guardians with retaliation etc etc ) , meaning that a single “boon strip” is NOTHING.
Overall FS in this itaration is a very , VERY specific ability.
It could have been good if its pathing was PERFECT.
Since it’s not perfect, it’s only WASTED INITIATIVE, if not in those very, VERY specific situations.
I see what I wrote wasn’t what I was thinking.
‘Unblockable’ is the mechanic I was thinking about, meaning guaranteed removal of the boon I am trying to remove, without getting any blocks. That’s what I am trying to point out. I get blocks from Mesmers, Elementalists, Warriors, Guardians, Rangers fairly regularly. And many times there are on-block traits that add boons.
I’m not really concerned with the boon removal mechanic as it was.
I am concerned with the fact that now I can apply damage to someone who thinks they are negating all damage for 5+ seconds, and potentially apply venoms or other on-hit mechanics – and remove a boon like Regeneration while they are blocking. I don’t know if this is true, but that’s my focus in all this. Combating the ‘oshkitten’ button on those classes.
look, i’m not trying to say that this is about to make up for the broken movement pathing problems with Flanking Strike. i was just trying to contextualize the motivation of the change. it was part of a set of similar changes and i’m sure it was done for consistency, rather than as an attempt to independently fix whatever issues exist with Flanking Strike.
I see what I wrote wasn’t what I was thinking.
‘Unblockable’ is the mechanic I was thinking about, meaning guaranteed removal of the boon I am trying to remove, without getting any blocks. That’s what I am trying to point out. I get blocks from Mesmers, Elementalists, Warriors, Guardians, Rangers fairly regularly. And many times there are on-block traits that add boons.
I’m not really concerned with the boon removal mechanic as it was.
I am concerned with the fact that now I can apply damage to someone who thinks they are negating all damage for 5+ seconds, and potentially apply venoms or other on-hit mechanics – and remove a boon like Regeneration while they are blocking. I don’t know if this is true, but that’s my focus in all this. Combating the ‘oshkitten’ button on those classes.
And ok, this is a nice change. But the point is that these are very, VERY specific situations ( as i have already said before).
There’s no point in adding even more specificity to a skill which is already used in extremely specific situations due to bad pathing.
FS is useful in 10% of the occasions you could spend ini, while for the 90% of the time C&D + tactical strike or simply autoattacking is better.
Flanking strike is, in theory, the “defining” skill of the set: currently it’s suffering the same issue of shadow strike ( P/D dual) and shadow shot ( D/P), to a lesser extent, being suboptimal to the rest of other weapon set skills.
And since there’s no real way to build S/D if not power based ( with crit or toughness), this shows a pretty big major flaw in this skill design.
I would like to remember that the thief is already the class with the cheapest skill selection among all other classes : having a suboptimal skill ( unless you build SPECIFICALLY that way, like the D/D condition based DB spam build) is very limiting.
I’m fine if now i can overcome other classes blocks, but i would have preferred to have FS as a reliable skill ( so that i’m able to use it also in the 90% of other situations as an alternative to C&D+ tactical strike) instead of this quite useless “buff”.
look, i’m not trying to say that this is about to make up for the broken movement pathing problems with Flanking Strike. i was just trying to contextualize the motivation of the change. it was part of a set of similar changes and i’m sure it was done for consistency, rather than as an attempt to independently fix whatever issues exist with Flanking Strike.
I know perfectly the reason why they did this. It does have consistency.
But as I said above, there’s no SENSE in buffing it that way when the ability, by itself, doesn’t work.
And FS doesn’t work at all.
As i said, aside VERY specific situations, i would never use FS. The only time i would have used it has been against guardians and warriors ( the ones mentioned before).
And those times when i used it, i would find a way to land the “boon stripping” anyway, even with aegis, blocks and all the other stuff.
After all, if your enemy is blocking ( and it’s OBVIOUS due to obvious animations), nobody forces you to attack before the block ends.
Before the change, it was only a L2P issue.
I went through a bunch of skills and abilities, and I find almost all of them I use in very specific situations. I don’t use Backstab without a host of other conditions set forth. I don’t use Dancing Dagger just for the heck of it. I don’t use Heartseeker unless the situation is right. I don’t use Death Blossom unless the situation is right. I don’t use Cloak and Dagger unless many things click together at once.
I can say the Flanking Strikes buff means I will consider using it more. I see tons of blocks, because I go after Guardians and Warriors the same as any other class. And to know I can be unloading initiative, and damage, into them while removing their boons, during a time they think they are immune to damage, sounds like something I’d like to do in those specific, frequent situations which happen as often as any other situation I encounter.
I’ve yet to get home to test but I definitely will. Maybe they just made it remove the Aegis and that’s it. But if a blocking warrior is taking damage, I’m going to be happy.
As mentioned above, reducing the initiative cost to 3 would make the skill much more powerful for little actual effort in changing it. Ideally, the animation/timing should be altered, but that may be a more complicated fix.
Personally, my favorite suggestion for a FS buff is to make it steal a boon instead of simply stripping one. That’d be a substantially powerful ability and fit in well with the profession.
Agree with Tulisin: boon stealing would be better.
Imo FS should keep its cost ( 4 ini) , but they really need to make it a boon thievery + fastest animation/ evade during the WHOLE skill.
As it is now, there’s almost no use.
Agree with Tulisin: boon stealing would be better.
Imo FS should keep its cost ( 4 ini) , but they really need to make it a boon thievery + fastest animation/ evade during the WHOLE skill.
As it is now, there’s almost no use.
I really like this suggestion, boon stealing+double evade or faster second hit would make for a great skill indeed.
Hey Anet! Are you reading?!
blocking warrior deals no damage. Guardian loses his single block with a simple sight thrown in that direction.
To remain with this name, flanking side should have some really solid get-behind thing.
I don’t if this would be op, but I would consider separating this into two chain skills.
Stab+remove boon and 3 seconds to decide when to use evade(or shadowstep?) to back + strike.
@ichishi
that’s what i was trying to say.
Flanking strike first strike will never deal enough damage to “down” a blocking warrior ( unlike WoW mushroom chaos bolt), so the “unblockable” stuff is very questionable.
If he blocked your nuke, you have been outplayed.
If he’s blocking thin air, just wait for the block to go off.
It was nothing more than a learn to play issue.
The thing that really annoys me is they’re still not looking at flanking strike for a fix: they did nothing more than say " oh, let’s make boon stripping abilities unblockable, in order to not allow aegis to block them" and FS was “casually” among them.
FS had no real, direct buff in this patch.
To me it seems they want us to be all double dagger thieves or venom share thieves, in order to maximize control over the thief ( which seems the class going the most out of control, along with the mesmer).
Allow me to show my disappointment.
you show your dissapointment too frequently and too loudly though. your tone reeks of entitlement and expectation that developers both share your opinion and your priorities.
when you say things like “to me it seems like they want us…” it really damages your argument. you’re now assuming and projecting, rather then providing useful feedback.
I don’t really see why saying my opinion would damage my argument.
I never said “IT IS UNDENIABLE TRUTH”, all i said is IMO.
Fact is that people have been kittening about flanking strike from ALPHA TESTING, and nothing changed.
People have been kittening about Steal from thief class release, and almost nothing changed ( and now i have another class which i would never steal from: the warrior).
Currently all serious thief streams are about venom sharing/ bleed spamming/ backstab thieves ( for a reason of course) due to design flaws in other weapon sets.
S/P is used only to kill NPCs , and where’s the problem, since you can easily swap weapon out of combat in tourneys.
People in this forum are too focused on QQing or showing their “lulz teik da look at me backstab, 15k wut a bunch o’ nubs” instead of giving feedback to increase thief viability.
i want the thief to be viable in all aspects. Currently, tons of design flaws are no allowing this.
And i know perfectly that some other classes are in a much worse shape than the thief, but this doesn’t mean i shouldn’t argue about what is fine and what is wrong.