Guild Wars 2

Daecollo.9578:

Of course, you pretty much got rid of the rapid attack healing option, but that is ok because we still have backstab. Now we can all be the same!

True until the fix stealth and/or culling. Once people can’t rely on being basically permastealth, or stealth is given a counter, then metas can finally be built around using all of the tools they have instead of just stealth spam. Thieves have so much potential to be a good high-skill class… they just don’t currently need it.

Drawing Guy.3701:

Daecollo.9578:

Of course, you pretty much got rid of the rapid attack healing option, but that is ok because we still have backstab. Now we can all be the same!

True until the fix stealth and/or culling.

Stealth does not need to be fixed. Culling does. Thieves will still be played the exact same way, however. You’ll only see them a second longer…

Laika.8795:

Drawing Guy.3701:

Daecollo.9578:

Of course, you pretty much got rid of the rapid attack healing option, but that is ok because we still have backstab. Now we can all be the same!

True until the fix stealth and/or culling.

Stealth does not need to be fixed. Culling does. Thieves will still be played the exact same way, however. You’ll only see them a second longer…

More like 3 seconds longer

Im mad because I use S/P and run alot of dungeons this added regen allowed me to melee Alot more.

Last few Arahs I have ran i range alot more and only come in for a PW , retreat p/p heal up

Lol this thread is about Pistol whip food build and the anti thief anti stealth people come in here and turn it into a stealth discussion lol.

My mesmer complained about the omnomberry nerf, but my thief couldn’t care less. He can still permastealth.

EasymodeX.4062:

Sometimes culling delay on targeting can be as low as ~1s, or as high as ~2-3s. Visibility is typically ~2s on the low end to ~5s on the high end.

Now you’re discussing zerg culling behavior, which is neither here nor there. A single thief, which is Columba’s chief source of baby tears, will never take that kind of time to render unless you’re on a dial up playing on your 10 year old computer. Which he’s confirmed that he is not.

A single thief will average about 1 second of missed visibility, 1.5 tops. I’ve never not seen the thief that has attacked me before revealed has dissipated (assuming it’s not a C&D re-tag), and that is the truth. I’ll gladly state that culling exists and is a problem, if people like Columba ditch the sensationalism and hyperbole that they spew in their half-kittened, histrionic posts.

Laika.8795:

Now you’re discussing zerg culling behavior, which is neither here nor there. A single thief, which is Columba’s chief source of baby tears, will never take that kind of time to render unless you’re on a dial up playing on your 10 year old computer. Which he’s confirmed that he is not.

A single thief will average about 1 second of missed visibility, 1.5 tops.

It’s not completely related to “TEH ZERG”. Simply being in an active WvW zone seems to have a pretty direct impact, as opposed to, say, sPvP.

I’ve seen several situations where a thief has taken ~2-4 seconds to re-appear and there were only a few players in clipping. Your personal internet connection and PC specs have little to do with it. It’s an engine issue and a lot of it is server-side decision making.

It’s simply not uncommon for thieves to exceed their revealed debuff with culling in a WvW zone — at least, in T1 or T2. I imagine T7 and T8 probably see less impact from the culling at all times, but I can only speculate since I’ve never been on those servers. Of course, histrionics are not necessary, but it’s the reality of playing against stealth in the current state of WvW.

EasymodeX.4062:

Laika.8795:

Now you’re discussing zerg culling behavior, which is neither here nor there. A single thief, which is Columba’s chief source of baby tears, will never take that kind of time to render unless you’re on a dial up playing on your 10 year old computer. Which he’s confirmed that he is not.

A single thief will average about 1 second of missed visibility, 1.5 tops.

It’s not completely related to “TEH ZERG”. Simply being in an active WvW zone seems to have a pretty direct impact, as opposed to, say, sPvP.

I’ve seen several situations where a thief has taken ~2-4 seconds to re-appear and there were only a few players in clipping. Your personal internet connection and PC specs have little to do with it. It’s an engine issue and a lot of it is server-side decision making.

So you’re telling me you’ve seen thieves attacking, while invisible, for 4 seconds? Then I call hacking, because I’ve never once experienced anything even remotely along those lines.

And I play on JQ, so it’s not my server tier affecting it. If I saw video footage, I’d believe it. I invite anyone with a friendly thief on an opposing server to collaborate and get video of just how long culling lasts. I’ll gladly volunteer, if anyone wants to send me a PM.

Regardless, with news on culling being a client-side option coming next month, it’s a moot point, but I’d like science to be on our side.

Laika.8795:

EasymodeX.4062:

Laika.8795:

Now you’re discussing zerg culling behavior, which is neither here nor there. A single thief, which is Columba’s chief source of baby tears, will never take that kind of time to render unless you’re on a dial up playing on your 10 year old computer. Which he’s confirmed that he is not.

A single thief will average about 1 second of missed visibility, 1.5 tops.

It’s not completely related to “TEH ZERG”. Simply being in an active WvW zone seems to have a pretty direct impact, as opposed to, say, sPvP.

I’ve seen several situations where a thief has taken ~2-4 seconds to re-appear and there were only a few players in clipping. Your personal internet connection and PC specs have little to do with it. It’s an engine issue and a lot of it is server-side decision making.

So you’re telling me you’ve seen thieves attacking, while invisible, for 4 seconds? Then I call hacking, because I’ve never once experienced anything even remotely along those lines.

And I play on JQ, so it’s not my server tier affecting it. If I saw video footage, I’d believe it. I invite anyone with a friendly thief on an opposing server to collaborate and get video of just how long culling lasts. I’ll gladly volunteer, if anyone wants to send me a PM.

Regardless, with news on culling being a client-side option coming next month, it’s a moot point, but I’d like science to be on our side.

Of course we have. It happens all the time.

Hard to tell. The most I’ve personally witnessed that I can virtually guarantee fit the “they hit something, dropping out of stealth and still not rendering” (because they were attacking me) was ~3 seconds with about 8 people and 4 NPCs in the area.

There are a lot of subtleties that can cause variation however — for example, a thief can CND someone (where you can assume a 3s stealth then ??? culling-based fade-in) and they take 5-7 seconds to appear. However, they could have used Blinding Powder during the CND to extend the stealth, and it would be difficult to detect as they’re moving (e.g. you’re not hit by the blind).

EasymodeX.4062:

Hard to tell. The most I’ve personally witnessed that I can virtually guarantee fit the “they hit something, dropping out of stealth and still not rendering” (because they were attacking me) was ~3 seconds with about 8 people and 4 NPCs in the area.

There are a lot of subtleties that can cause variation however — for example, a thief can CND someone (where you can assume a 3s stealth then ??? culling-based fade-in) and they take 5-7 seconds to appear. However, they could have used Blinding Powder during the CND to extend the stealth, and it would be difficult to detect as they’re moving (e.g. you’re not hit by the blind).

Yes, but we’re discussing someone who is actively attacking, are we not? Anything else, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the thief is doing WHILE in stealth, as there are indeed ways to stack it, as well as C&D tagging + culling can lead to a near permanent stealth. I am aware of all of this.

What I’m hearing is that the thief can be in stealth, attack, and continue attacking while their model has still not rendered for upwards to four seconds. That is flat out impossible. Culling will add, in this scenario, 1.5 max, depending on the surroundings, and again, I invite you to let me tag around with you (I assume you’re on T1) and we can record exactly how long it lasts.

Otherwise, it’s all conjecture.

Like I said, I’ve witnessed up to 2.5-3 seconds. I wouldn’t be surprised at 4. I consider ~2 seconds to be more common overall.

And more importantly, it’s not really PC dependent, although it can be in extreme cases.

In terms of testing, it would be entertaining but I am too busy with IRL stuff this week.

This thread is about Pistol Whip and how it stinks, S/P thieves have nothing to do with stealth.

Of course this conversation turned to stealth – the OP went that his build that was crutching against the unlimited food heal spam is now ‘broken’ because his rapid sword attack move is no longer a win button, and now the only option left is the stealth spamming backstab build. I argue that the thief has many tools and could be a great advanced class, but the stealth with broken culling makes it where no other build could compare. If that were fixed, we would have a half dozen good builds on thief. Stealth spam builds will always stay – but you stealthing won’t stop me from hitting you. Well timed blinds/evades/CC would. Thieves have that in spades, but never needed it as they have easy exploits – who cares if I can hit you when I never know where to hit you ever? The food was lost (all classes used this). I’m hoping they’ll now lose the other.

Drawing Guy.3701:

Of course this conversation turned to stealth – the OP went that his build that was crutching against the unlimited food heal spam is now ‘broken’ because his rapid sword attack move is no longer a win button, and now the only option left is the stealth spamming backstab build. I argue that the thief has many tools and could be a great advanced class, but the stealth with broken culling makes it where no other build could compare. If that were fixed, we would have a half dozen good builds on thief. Stealth spam builds will always stay – but you stealthing won’t stop me from hitting you. Well timed blinds/evades/CC would. Thieves have that in spades, but never needed it as they have easy exploits – who cares if I can hit you when I never know where to hit you ever? The food was lost (all classes used this). I’m hoping they’ll now lose the other.

We would have 1-2 builds that probably arn’t very viable for any content.

Edenwolf – having played S/P for quite sometime it roots and controls the thief more than the enemy. It’s most useful when combined with haste or a venom. if you like double tapping abilities. Smart players are rolling out of it’s range. It’s good against mobs at most and in some situations; going through the sword Slice combo keeps you moving and does as much damage as pistol whip. Another alternative would be pistol whip combo with Mug traited with the 1 second stun from Trickery – haven’t tried that one yet.

Drawing Guy.3701:

Of course this conversation turned to stealth – the OP went that his build that was crutching against the unlimited food heal spam is now ‘broken’ because his rapid sword attack move is no longer a win button, and now the only option left is the stealth spamming backstab build. I argue that the thief has many tools and could be a great advanced class, but the stealth with broken culling makes it where no other build could compare. If that were fixed, we would have a half dozen good builds on thief. Stealth spam builds will always stay – but you stealthing won’t stop me from hitting you. Well timed blinds/evades/CC would. Thieves have that in spades, but never needed it as they have easy exploits – who cares if I can hit you when I never know where to hit you ever? The food was lost (all classes used this). I’m hoping they’ll now lose the other.

I love how everyone says you don’t need stealth as a thief for a viable build but these people don’t post said viable build. Nobody is forcing you to take hide in shadows.

If you say its possible draw something up in the mist test it out hit wvw and comeback showing us this build where you die alot.

I love the idea behind pistol/pistol but I am not going to run haste, and signet of agility on my bar sorry. After you blow your load with pistol/pistol your a sitting duck at 900 range

You would have to find target spam unload and haste, pop signet of agility, roll for initatiative out of there(all your utilities spent mind you) then hop they don’t retaliate. You could use another unload spam and blow the rest of your initative after you roll either way you would still be frail. S/P and P/P don’t need stealth for damage everyone knows that. In order to deal that damage you have to be at least 900 units away. Once you deal your damage in a burst you have no initiative left. So you would need roll for ini. giving you back 6 which would be 1 Infil trator arrow to get out or die.

Drawing Guy.3701:

Daecollo.9578:

Of course, you pretty much got rid of the rapid attack healing option, but that is ok because we still have backstab. Now we can all be the same!

True until the fix stealth and/or culling. Once people can’t rely on being basically permastealth, or stealth is given a counter, then metas can finally be built around using all of the tools they have instead of just stealth spam. Thieves have so much potential to be a good high-skill class… they just don’t currently need it.

this guy gets it,

thieves have a lot of potential to be something great, something unique.

maybe once stealth abuse is gone and all the children have left the class then we can really start to see it shine.

Fiorrello.8126:

Drawing Guy.3701:

Daecollo.9578:

Of course, you pretty much got rid of the rapid attack healing option, but that is ok because we still have backstab. Now we can all be the same!

True until the fix stealth and/or culling. Once people can’t rely on being basically permastealth, or stealth is given a counter, then metas can finally be built around using all of the tools they have instead of just stealth spam. Thieves have so much potential to be a good high-skill class… they just don’t currently need it.

this guy gets it,

thieves have a lot of potential to be something great, something unique.

maybe once stealth abuse is gone and all the children have left the class then we can really start to see it shine.

You people act like if culling is changed it somehow changes the builds. You know most thieves don’t know if they are culling to the person or not. If I am going for a back stab and I connect I don’t know if I rendered to that person. When I fight another thief sometimes they render fast sometime they don’t like if I am fight p/d I sometimes have to swing where I see the bullets coming from. Sometimes I don’t I doubt a P/D thief is going to pick different traits because he renders faster now lol.

You know most thieves don’t know if they are culling to the person or not.

Pretty sure most thieves will immediately notice a change in the flow of combat ifwhen culling is actually removed, and will trend to respond with build changes, accordingly.

Honestly… it was kind of OP…

A warrior with dual axes could essentially heal full up using a single skill #5 on a short cooldown… with availability of another full heal up in between.

It was OP… it was almost godlike… I tried it… never had to dodge… didn’t have to slot anything like endure pain… if I got in trouble I could just hit #5 and heal all the way up while dishing out massive damage in an AoE at the same time. Cooldown on it was less than my heal… it was begging for a nerf.

A consumable should never make a build… enhance one sure… but if the absence of that food means the build has lost all survivability or effectiveness entirely… then the food was OP and needed to be adjusted.

bluewanders.5297:

Honestly… it was kind of OP…

A warrior with dual axes could essentially heal full up using a single skill #5 on a short cooldown… with availability of another full heal up in between.

It was OP… it was almost godlike… I tried it… never had to dodge… didn’t have to slot anything like endure pain… if I got in trouble I could just hit #5 and heal all the way up while dishing out massive damage in an AoE at the same time. Cooldown on it was less than my heal… it was begging for a nerf.

A consumable should never make a build… enhance one sure… but if the absence of that food means the build has lost all survivability or effectiveness entirely… then the food was OP and needed to be adjusted.

Or…the build was garbage, and needs to be adjusted to make it viable without the use of food. P/P for example falls very nicely into this category.

Of course D/D and P/D won’t die. Stealth is still an opening and fight reset move, and that is super powerful. I wouldn’t make a thief build with zero access to stealth. It just won’t be a fight win move, so when people notice that they always have to run away or get squished since they now have 2 seconds less to lay in DPS unseen and they can survive a counter attack, they now have to figure out how to avoid that counter attack.

Venom builds have a ton of built in CC – laying in chills, immobilize, and weakness (halves dodging) on top of weapon cripples would allow you to kite melees to your hearts content. Venom builds are dictated more by weapon choice, and there are a multiple on these forums.

Or a dodge/condition build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYQQFAVlYmSuHdy9E+5Eh3jvS2xqfAn9MuKXB;TYAqvMfJ+y+l7L5XA

Thieves also have some of the best dodge traits in the game, allowing a cheaper dodge to grant swiftness, might, drop caltrops, etc. As that also ties in with Bountiful Theft (steal strips boons, gives you those boons and grants 15sec vigor on a tree that makes steal quicker), you can easily create a build that can dodge almost all incoming damage while laying in condition damage. This will be able to lay in constant cripple, bleed, poison, and weakness. Being an asura allows you to touch the occasional confuse. Switching Sundering for Mug will allow you to step in some damage if you don’t put in any precision.

Or you can go for a p/p build that relies on blinds:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAV8alcmCOHdy9E+5Ex2jeKUeqfAn9Mi6VB;TsAg0CnoqxUjoGbNuak1ssYAxGDA

This goes for high initiative gain to be able to keep your higher cost skills going. Black Powder is basically a blind spam, thus basically invuln mode for your unload. Heals gives 6 initiative (using signet) every 12 seconds. Utilities of course are situational – signet of agility allows 1 condition to be removed every 24 seconds vs 3 every 50 seconds of shadow step – as you’re more likely to come across repeatedly applied few conditions over stacked conditions, I find agility better condition removal and more dodges, but situation dictates. You may even need both. Infiltrator is a 24 sec stun breaker/chaser/initiative creator. Roll for initiative I see as the more swappable option for refuge, powder, shadow step. P/D is selected as the alternate weapon set as it gives you a stealth option (if not set as a utility), and a quick step back from a steal (3). This also allows weapon swapping without interrupting auto attacks.

It can go on, and I’m sure many would make tweaks to my builds, but there is no doubt in my mind that once thieves can’t hit more than once in stealth, the meta will open up for them of viable builds that were previously overshadowed by broken mechanics.

S/P is still a viable build, it just requires more timing and insight now. You should invest some points from DPS into Acrobatics/Shadow Arts now, as you won’t be able to go full glass and life steal 5k per Pistol Whip anymore.

As much as I loved the build, I think this fix was the right decision.

Maybe now they will re-buff PW to do more than auto-attack.

Nah, prolly not.

20/30/0/0/20.
10/30/0/0/30.
SS,SR,Haste
You’re welcome.

style.6173:

EasymodeX.4062:

If the food buff makes or breaks builds, then the food buff is broken.

End of story.

WRONG. If the food makes or breaks builds, the BUILD is broken. In this case, S/P is just plain weak.

I agree, Signet of Malice is very weak and we don’t have any traits, we deserve a trait that steals health when we hit the target like necromancers.

Necromancers minion heals for 987 almost every second now, non-stealth thieves deserve some life stealing, we really need more sustain builds.

Daecollo.9578:

Drawing Guy.3701:

Ahhh, all these posts of “broken food that I completely relied on to not have to actively play is now fixed, breaking my build”. This supposed nerf has driven every aoe/rapid attack build to the ground. The simple fact is, these in of themselves are not “builds”, but setups that exploited an OP food and were reliant on that broken mechanic.

Honestly the thief has the highest combat mobility in the game. Almost every weapon combination contains spammable mobility moves, a ton of evade and blind moves. They have so much going for them to allow them to control a fight that I don’t see there as a bad weapon choice if traited right. The only thing is culling breaks stealth in WvW, so any build that doesn’t exploit that is comparatively weak now that the food exploit is gone.

Of course, you pretty much got rid of the rapid attack healing option, but that is ok because we still have backstab. Now we can all be the same!

Except you still have that option. It’s called Signet of Malice. The difference is that now you have to choose it as part of your build rather than having extra gobs of passive healing on top of what are already some of the best active heals in the game.

I don’t see a problem with that. Signet of Malice, with the attack timing of the thief, is still one of the most powerful sustain heals in the game. I use it religiously on my P/D and it’s actually even better on S/P. Believe it or not, thief builds in both PvP and PvE exist that aren’t all crit damage and evasion/stealth. Toughness, vit, and healing power actually do increase durability while sacrificing damage, just as they do on any other class. The bonus is that you can still make that sacrifice while losing none of your access to our powerful stealth and evasion-based active skills.

The difference here is that the pre-nerf food allowed you to sidestep any tradeoffs for the survivability it offered, on every build that was using it as a “main heal” an simply stacking zerker and playing glass cannon like it was a more balanced stat build, or worse, stacking it on an already defensive setup and becoming far more durable than was reasonable.

Since the fix, glass cannons are glass cannons again and balanced builds actually have more value compared to glass cannon backstab than they did before.

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

Drawing Guy.3701:

Ahhh, all these posts of “broken food that I completely relied on to not have to actively play is now fixed, breaking my build”. This supposed nerf has driven every aoe/rapid attack build to the ground. The simple fact is, these in of themselves are not “builds”, but setups that exploited an OP food and were reliant on that broken mechanic.

Honestly the thief has the highest combat mobility in the game. Almost every weapon combination contains spammable mobility moves, a ton of evade and blind moves. They have so much going for them to allow them to control a fight that I don’t see there as a bad weapon choice if traited right. The only thing is culling breaks stealth in WvW, so any build that doesn’t exploit that is comparatively weak now that the food exploit is gone.

Of course, you pretty much got rid of the rapid attack healing option, but that is ok because we still have backstab. Now we can all be the same!

Except you still have that option. It’s called Signet of Malice. The difference is that now you have to choose it as part of your build rather than having extra gobs of passive healing on top of what are already some of the best active heals in the game.

I don’t see a problem with that. Signet of Malice, with the attack timing of the thief, is still one of the most powerful sustain heals in the game. I use it religiously on my P/D and it’s actually even better on S/P. Believe it or not, thief builds in both PvP and PvE exist that aren’t all crit damage and evasion/stealth. Toughness, vit, and healing power actually do increase durability while sacrificing damage, just as they do on any other class. The bonus is that you can still make that sacrifice while losing none of your access to our powerful stealth and evasion-based active skills.

The difference here is that the pre-nerf food allowed you to sidestep any tradeoffs for the survivability it offered, on every build that was using it as a “main heal” an simply stacking zerker and playing glass cannon like it was a more balanced stat build, or worse, stacking it on an already defensive setup and becoming far more durable than was reasonable.

Since the fix, glass cannons are glass cannons again and balanced builds actually have more value compared to glass cannon backstab than they did before.

Signet of Malice isn’t that great, it needs its healing increased by atleast 80% so S/P and P/P are more viable.

P/D benefits a lot more from the Stealth heal.

The reason S/P, P/P need improved signet of malice is because they lack a lot of condition removal because they don’t have access to stealth.

Master of Timespace.2548:

My mesmer complained about the omnomberry nerf, but my thief couldn’t care less. He can still permastealth.

And you are nuts if you dont think this is next on the list of things being changed.

Master of Timespace.2548:

My mesmer complained about the omnomberry nerf, but my thief couldn’t care less. He can still permastealth.

That says it all. This food was broken as a full heal skill. It clearly wasn’t intended to do that.

Daecollo.9578:

Signet of Malice isn’t that great, it needs its healing increased by atleast 80% so S/P and P/P are more viable.

P/D benefits a lot more from the Stealth heal.

The reason S/P, P/P need improved signet of malice is because they lack a lot of condition removal because they don’t have access to stealth.

While I wouldn’t be upset to see the ratio increased on SoM I think 80% would be completely overdoing it. With just a life sigil I’m pushing 134 per attack, on top of trait heals for about 420 per c&d that’s a solid 1k heal every stealth attack, plus whatever I’m getting from stealth trait-heals. Not to mention the heal pulses from the birds on my mad king runes, every time something takes a tick from dodgetrops, or the stupid amount of ticks given when a zerg runs through a field of caltrops.

At an 80% increase I’d be quite literally unkillable, pushing nearly 2k heals while never stopping damage, on a build with 20k HP and 2700 armor with bleeds that tick for 130.

Yeah, it would be awesome, but it also feels like too much bunker, something that was just toned down a bit on the ele for a similar reason. Durable should be possible, but unkillable is a fine line, especially when we’ve got so many really good passive heal traits.

Remember that ratios exist the way they do to account for the entire picture. Sustain heals on any class/build are only as good as your investment in them. SoM is tuned the way it is on a thief specifically because of our trait passive heals, and because of our ability to continuously spam high hit-per-minute attacks.

All three thief heals are very good heals. Hide in Shadows and withdraw are situationally useful to soak big damage once on some pretty generous cooldowns. One’s got a stealth, and one’s got a dodge. These are really solid skills. Signet of malice is a little more tricky to use as its usefulness is in its passive effect, and in stead of a cooldown (because the active is just shooting yourself in the foot) the drawback is that you can’t one-button recover from big damage. You can come close however with some creative choices of gear, skills, and combo fields.

Personally I’ve found that my overall survival rate increased when I experimented with speccing around it a little. Not because it’s better or worse than the other heals, but because I specced for it.

That’s the difference I think. HiS and Withdraw are about as useful as they’ll ever be right out of the box. Sure, you can scale them up a bit with healing power but it’s not a good investment for something that’s not healing you very often, and you’re taking them because of their “all this stuff rolled in to one button with a pretty good heal” mechanics. Especially with the CD change to withdraw they’re both nearly perfect in their roles and make a good case for thief having possibly the most diverse and useful selection of self-heal skills of any class.

SoM is exponentially more effective when you gear for it, favoring healing power as a replacement for some vit and toughness. It doesn’t have the one-button utility of the other heals, but the point is that it has some very viable build options, including S/P control builds.

I will agree with you about P/P needing… something though. It’s just a headless mashup of too-expensive control skills, one power/crit dump, and all that rolled in to a condition-based auto.

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

Signet of Malice isn’t that great, it needs its healing increased by atleast 80% so S/P and P/P are more viable.

P/D benefits a lot more from the Stealth heal.

The reason S/P, P/P need improved signet of malice is because they lack a lot of condition removal because they don’t have access to stealth.

While I wouldn’t be upset to see the ratio increased on SoM I think 80% would be completely overdoing it. With just a life sigil I’m pushing 134 per attack, on top of trait heals for about 420 per c&d that’s a solid 1k heal every stealth attack, plus whatever I’m getting from stealth trait-heals. Not to mention the heal pulses from the birds on my mad king runes, every time something takes a tick from dodgetrops, or the stupid amount of ticks given when a zerg runs through a field of caltrops.

At an 80% increase I’d be quite literally unkillable, pushing nearly 2k heals while never stopping damage, on a build with 20k HP and 2700 armor with bleeds that tick for 130.

Yeah, it would be awesome, but it also feels like too much bunker, something that was just toned down a bit on the ele for a similar reason. Durable should be possible, but unkillable is a fine line, especially when we’ve got so many really good passive heal traits.

Remember that ratios exist the way they do to account for the entire picture. Sustain heals on any class/build are only as good as your investment in them. SoM is tuned the way it is on a thief specifically because of our trait passive heals, and because of our ability to continuously spam high hit-per-minute attacks.

All three thief heals are very good heals. Hide in Shadows and withdraw are situationally useful to soak big damage once on some pretty generous cooldowns. One’s got a stealth, and one’s got a dodge. These are really solid skills. Signet of malice is a little more tricky to use as its usefulness is in its passive effect, and in stead of a cooldown (because the active is just shooting yourself in the foot) the drawback is that you can’t one-button recover from big damage. You can come close however with some creative choices of gear, skills, and combo fields.

Personally I’ve found that my overall survival rate increased when I experimented with speccing around it a little. Not because it’s better or worse than the other heals, but because I specced for it.

That’s the difference I think. HiS and Withdraw are about as useful as they’ll ever be right out of the box. Sure, you can scale them up a bit with healing power but it’s not a good investment for something that’s not healing you very often, and you’re taking them because of their “all this stuff rolled in to one button with a pretty good heal” mechanics. Especially with the CD change to withdraw they’re both nearly perfect in their roles and make a good case for thief having possibly the most diverse and useful selection of self-heal skills of any class.

SoM is exponentially more effective when you gear for it, favoring healing power as a replacement for some vit and toughness. It doesn’t have the one-button utility of the other heals, but the point is that it has some very viable build options, including S/P control builds.

I will agree with you about P/P needing… something though. It’s just a headless mashup of too-expensive control skills, one power/crit dump, and all that rolled in to a condition-based auto.

Thieves with Healing Power are completely worthless (we don’t have many healing abilities, and P/W+Unload are our only high-hit-rate abilities, it should be buffed 80% like necromancers minion was, that thing heals for almost 950+ every ‘2’ seconds, along with all there other heals, with NO healing power.

“At an 80% increase I’d be quite literally unkillable, pushing nearly 2k heals while never stopping damage, on a build with 20k HP and 2700 armor with bleeds that tick for 130.”

Omnomberry Pie + Malice healed me for far far more, and I was hardly unkillable, you forget that thieves have the lowest health pool and some of the lowest armor. [I wear full Knight’s Gear.] (No access to protection or a damage reduction signet.)

P/P and P/W have no stealth, and stealth users don’t really benefit from Malice that much, they hit hard, but only hit once.

Remember, you have to actually “hit” for SoM to proc, unlike other things… So if the enemy dodges or is slippery like an elementalist, getting those hits off is much much harder then it appears to be.

Buffing SoM to heal for 926 and giving it an internal cool-down would also be in favor. (But that would just make people want to go into more backstabby nonsense…)

Daecollo.9578:

Thieves with Healing Power are completely worthless (we don’t have many healing abilities, and P/W+Unload are our only high-hit-rate abilities, it should be buffed 80% like necromancers minion was, that thing heals for almost 950+ every ‘2’ seconds, along with all there other heals, with NO healing power.

“At an 80% increase I’d be quite literally unkillable, pushing nearly 2k heals while never stopping damage, on a build with 20k HP and 2700 armor with bleeds that tick for 130.”

Omnomberry Pie + Malice healed me for far far more, and I was hardly unkillable, you forget that thieves have the lowest health pool and some of the lowest armor. [I wear full Knight’s Gear.] (No access to protection or a damage reduction signet.)

P/P and P/W have no stealth, and stealth users don’t really benefit from Malice that much, they hit hard, but only hit once.

Remember, you have to actually “hit” for SoM to proc, unlike other things… So if the enemy dodges or is slippery like an elementalist, getting those hits off is much much harder then it appears to be.

Buffing SoM to heal for 926 and giving it an internal cool-down would also be in favor. (But that would just make people want to go into more backstabby nonsense…)

You and I have different opinions on SoM and healing power, which is fine, but I will say I’d be really sad to see SoM buffed with an internal cooldown. Speaking from personal experience, it works with a little healing power but it does make you work for getting the most out of it. In a vaccum, SoM is an underwhelming heal compared to the other two. In the context of a stealth build which stacks it with other passive heals, or a balanced S/P acrobatics build it’s actually pretty viable.

I’m not saying an 80% boost would make me faceroll immortal, but I am saying that kind of healing combined with stealth and mobility creates a build that’s more evasive and harder to kill than the bunker eles that just got nerfed. Yeah, I’d abuse the heck out of that, but it wouldn’t last, and it wouldn’t work long term the same way omnom didn’t work long term.

SoM tends to scale in to higher viability in larger target number situations, making builds which can use it properly much more adept in PvE and WvW but pretty lackluster in sPvP. It’s a drawback, and were the majority of my fights solo encounters I probably wouldn’t be using it. However, my build decisions are informed by the fact that I’m, pretty much always, in at least a three mob or player fight, where little quirks of SoM’s mechanic and its interactions with skills like dancing dagger, daggerstorm, caltrops, cluster bomb, and some others make it scale extremely well. Well enough that the healing power from my trait lines and one fully charged life sigil have made it consistently outperform the other two heals without significant investment in healing power.

On the subject of healing power, you’re right, we don’t have a lot of healing skills and it isn’t a good investment… unless you’re using SoM. Under the passive of SoM nearly every skill on the roster becomes a healing skill, and some skills become amazing healing skills when used in combination.

I’m not saying SoM is a good fit for every build under the sun. It’s a horrible choice for low hit volume builds like stealth backstab, and getting the most out of it literally requires a shift in both build and playstyle. Saying SoM is plain out bad (and the blood minion for necros was just plain out bad. A passive heal on a low attack speed pet that died all the time) is like saying d/d 3 is plain out bad. It’s bad if you’re not specced for it, it’s significantly better than your other options if you are. Assassin’s/Agility signet is bad if you’re a condition build for instance. Heck, pistol whip drastically falls off in utility the more enemies you add to a fight. Skills have best case and worst case scenarios. All skills are not equally useful in all situations.

That’s all I’m saying. Skills like SoM promote build diversity, but at the same time buffing it too much to make it generally useful to all builds would push those builds too far. Fundamentally changing its nature would destroy anything set up around it, the same way fundamentally changing a skill like backstab would. Better ratios? Sure. It might encourage healing power as a more desirable stat for more thief builds. 80% heal buff? That’s just a nerf waiting to happen.