How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: spacemayu.4817

spacemayu.4817

The premise for this thread is that people don’t complain about Warrior damage, but do complain about Thief damage.

What is the difference?

Avoiding damage from a warrior is much easier than avoiding damage from a thief.

I believe there are several fundamental problems related to the mechanics not damage regarding certain skills and abilities.

To list the problems I’m here to discuss: certain skills can be spammed to death, the stealth system is too strong, and missing a backstab is too forgiving (and too easy to land).

  • Proposal 1: My proposal is to add a .5/1 second cooldown to all initiative skills. This would still allow the thief to spam these skills, but would lower effective DPS as skill activation will be delayed. Players that do not spam a single skill will be unaffected.
  • Proposal 2: My second proposal is to force the thief to be revealed if a certain threshold of damage is taken. The threshold could be 0 (in which case the thief is instantly revealed if hit whilst in cloak), or it could be 5 – 10% of max hp. Of course, there would need to be some period of invulnerability (.5/1 second) just after entering cloak so the thief cannot be decloaked when trading blows, etc.

A change such as this would prevent thieves from effectively being able to kite and injure other players in 2v1 up to even 5v1 scenarios. As someone that plays all the classes, I find it easiest to fight multiple opponents when playing a thief due to the fact I can stay in cloak almost indefinitely. Whilst in cloak I am free to allow my cooldowns to recharge, to heal up, and to reposition myself. Making a change such as this would change these situations into ones in which I will almost certainly lose.

It would also add another element of “player skill” in which entering stealth isn’t simply a free 3 – 4 second break of combat -> big damage, CC, etc. . Players would be forced to remain tactically aware and attempt to dodge or manoeuvre correctly in order to successfully backstab, pace, or escape.

Furthermore, it would allow all players to have a solid counter to stealth. As of now, swinging your autoattack where you think the thief is and successfully hitting does nothing other than add damage with no feedback. To decloak the thief when such hits are successful would provide much needed satisfaction and confirmation, not to mention force thief players to be more aware of AoE cooldowns, positioning, etc. for the duration of a fight.

  • Proposal 3: My next proposal is a change to the backstab. As of now, a backstab is considered to have come from the back so long as you enter the 180 degree radius behind the player. This means you can technically be standing at what seems more to be the side of the player than the back itself in order to get the full damage. Because of this (and because mobs/players tend to stand still ), it is too easy to score successful backstabs both in PvE and PvP.

I suggest a change to the countable radius for the successful backstab. Perhaps decreasing the radius to 90 degrees or less. This would make claims that “backstabs require skill” more valid than they already are, and would add a more interesting strategic element to successfully backstabbing (making cripples, stuns, and immobilizes much more valuable).

  • Proposal 4: My last proposal for now is again related to the backstab. To explain the situation, a thief is able to miss three or more backstab attempts and still remain in cloak. Clearly this is a problem, as the backstab should not simply be free damage.

Instead, I propose that the thief is revealed during the startup for the backstab animation. This would reduce the number of successful backstabs (and thus number of complainers), and also provide a solution to the claim that backstabs cannot be avoided.
It provides solutions to two problems with one change. It allows players to evade on reaction to a backstab, and it prevents a thief from having “more than one go” at hitting a successful backstab. I believe both of these would be very good things.

These are my proposals, feel free to share any changes to the mechanics you would like to see, other than simple damage nerfs (which punishes specs that don’t go full damage).

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: lolnotacat.9814

lolnotacat.9814

  • Proposal 1: My proposal is to add a .5/1 second cooldown to all initiative skills. This would still allow the thief to spam these skills, but would lower effective DPS as skill activation will be delayed. Players that do not spam a single skill will be unaffected.

This destroys the reason for initiative. Thieves have initiative specifically so they can spam skills if they want. I think a better solution would be to make many of the spammable skills part of a chain, each allowing different bonuses and disadvantages.

For example: Wanna spam heartseeker? That’s great, but make it part of a chain. The first part can be activated at <60% (for increased damage) at 6 initiative, the second <40% (for increased damage) at 5 initiative, and the third <20% (for increased damage) at 4 initiative. This allows for a progression which can equal HUGE overall DPS but is easier to counter, as one break in the chain requires a complete restart.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Kurow.6973

Kurow.6973

Proposal 1: No!
Proposal 2: No!
Proposal 3: No!
Proposal 4: No!

Sounds like you just suck at playing the game and need to get better.

Almost all classes can deal massive damage, and kill just as fast as a thief if built as a glass cannon (though some can do this even without being a full glass cannon), and played right.

Moreover, backstab takes the most amount of effort and awareness to deal its full damage. BV is not an excuse anymore either since it is not a paralyze, but instead a stun. You’re just plain bad if you’re still dying to these thieves. Learn to use stun counters.

These are all just terrible suggestions!!!

(edited by Kurow.6973)

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: spacemayu.4817

spacemayu.4817

  • Proposal 1: My proposal is to add a .5/1 second cooldown to all initiative skills. This would still allow the thief to spam these skills, but would lower effective DPS as skill activation will be delayed. Players that do not spam a single skill will be unaffected.

This destroys the reason for initiative. Thieves have initiative specifically so they can spam skills if they want. I think a better solution would be to make many of the spammable skills part of a chain, each allowing different bonuses and disadvantages.

For example: Wanna spam heartseeker? That’s great, but make it part of a chain. The first part can be activated at <60% (for increased damage) at 6 initiative, the second <40% (for increased damage) at 5 initiative, and the third <20% (for increased damage) at 4 initiative. This allows for a progression which can equal HUGE overall DPS but is easier to counter, as one break in the chain requires a complete restart.

Yes.

The biggest complaint is the fact these skills can be spammed and (they claim) the damage output is too high for a skill that can be used in succession. The question they ask is: Why should it do as much damage as a skill for another class that has a 10 – 20 second cooldown?

So either you lower the base damage for the skill (lowering DPS), which hurts players that do not spam and whom aren’t the subject of complaint. Or you lower the rate of skill activation (also lowering DPS), that only affects the players that spam.

Perhaps making them part of a chain would indeed be better. It would certainly feel a lot better to have a 3-chain heartseeker that works such as you said. But because full activation of the skill would then come with the advantages you described, it would encourage spam as single activation would be vastly inferior.

Proposal 1: No!
Proposal 2: No!
Proposal 3: No!
Proposal 4: No!

Sounds like you just suck at playing the game and need to get better.

Almost all classes can deal massive damage, and kill just as fast as a thief if built as a glass cannon (though some can do this even without being a full glass cannon), and played right.

Moreover, backstab takes the most amount of effort and awareness to deal its full damage. BV is not an excuse anymore either since it is not a paralyze, but instead a stun. You’re just plain bad if you’re still dying to these thieves. Learn to use stun counters.

These are all just terrible suggestions!!!

The thief class is my main.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Kurow.6973

Kurow.6973

“I propose to disconnect any thief attempt to damage anyone(escpecially engineers).
This will reduce by far complaining of the others.”

Funny thing about that is the fact that a decent/good engineer can do something like the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJkTMqJOWvU However, you don’t see much qq about engineers because most of them suck and are too busy qqing about thief, instead of learning counters to them and improving their own playstyle.

“The thief class is my main.”

Has nothing to do with what I said.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: spacemayu.4817

spacemayu.4817

“The thief class is my main.”

Has nothing to do with what I said.

It has everything to do with what you said.

You were trying to suggest I came from the perspective of someone that doesn’t play a thief, someone that doesn’t kill other thieves just as quickly as a car instagibs a rabbit on the road, and someone that doesn’t dominate in tPvP as a thief player.

It took less than a week to get the Champion Slayer title as a thief.

If there are going to be no changes to the mechanics, then you can enjoy your damage nerf. Suddenly any build which isn’t max damage simply won’t be able to kill anything, and the class will actually become useless when having no DPS and no support/utility that isn’t vastly dwarfed by the abilities of other classes.

And to suggest that the backstab as it is takes “effort” to land is simply untrue. You have three to four seconds to manoeuvre. There is no punishment for missing your first attempt. I am sure the stats will show that the majority of backstabs are for full damage.

Certainly for a player using movement keys to turn, it may be hard. But the reality is that most players are “skilled” enough to land almost all of their backstabs. This means the difficulty in landing the backstabs must be increased; otherwise if players rarely fail, why have a fail mechanic in the first place.

(edited by spacemayu.4817)

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Niktu.7215

Niktu.7215

Backstab is the only thing that justifies having knives at all. Who in their right mind goes in at close range with zero survivability and weapons with 12 inch reach? You only do this if your damage output justifies it.

If the burst of awesomeness is gone then the whole point of daggers are gone. My point is that if this is nerf hammered, then there has to be a + on some other things.

Better survivability like more dogde/evade features? Straight up kitten to actually take more dmg?

The ONLY reason this build works is because you can cripple the target initially in the fight. In all other situations you have a mild to severe disadvantage.

But ppl dont see all the times when that crazy dps thief died. They only see that small window when they themselves got hurt.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: spacemayu.4817

spacemayu.4817

Backstab is the only thing that justifies having knives at all. Who in their right mind goes in at close range with zero survivability and weapons with 12 inch reach? You only do this if your damage output justifies it.

If the burst of awesomeness is gone then the whole point of daggers are gone. My point is that if this is nerf hammered, then there has to be a + on some other things.

Better survivability like more dogde/evade features? Straight up kitten to actually take more dmg?

The ONLY reason this build works is because you can cripple the target initially in the fight. In all other situations you have a mild to severe disadvantage.

But ppl dont see all the times when that crazy dps thief died. They only see that small window when they themselves got hurt.

You are right.

The point of the suggestions I made regarding backstab and stealth mechanics is that the damage does not need to be nerfed.

Something will be changed. It is a question of whether the developers simply change damage numbers, or change mechanics.

(edited by spacemayu.4817)

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: spacemayu.4817

spacemayu.4817

No, it doesn’t…you’re an idiot…and it explains why you made this thread!

Could you try to keep discussion clean, and make posts that contribute to the flow of discussion.

I’ll remind you that the topic of this thread is “how can we make the thief more balanced (less complained about) without simply nerfing damage”. The topic is not “how can we make the OP look like an idiot so people stop having on-topic healthy discussion”.

If you have nothing to contribute on this topic then you have no reason to post in my thread. That being said, if you have no new arguments to post regarding the topic (ie. you have nothing new to add to your argument other than what you have said before) you again have no reason to make another post.

Try following the example of lolnotacat.9814 or Niktu.7215, both of whom disagreed with my suggestions but contributed with their own ideas on the topic in a constructive manner.

(edited by spacemayu.4817)

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Kurow.6973

Kurow.6973

No, it doesn’t…you’re an idiot…and it explains why you made this thread!

Could you try to keep discussion clean, and make posts that contribute to the flow of discussion.

If you have nothing to contribute then you have no reason to post in my thread.

Try following the example of the first person that replied to this thread.

Not with the posts you’re making, no!

I replied something that had association with the thread. You just simply didn’t acknowledge it because it was contradictory to what you wanted to hear.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: spacemayu.4817

spacemayu.4817

No, it doesn’t…you’re an idiot…and it explains why you made this thread!

Could you try to keep discussion clean, and make posts that contribute to the flow of discussion.

If you have nothing to contribute then you have no reason to post in my thread.

Try following the example of the first person that replied to this thread.

Not with the posts you’re making, no!

I replied something that had association with the thread. You just simply didn’t acknowledge it because it was contradictory to what you wanted to hear.

The main issue with your post is that it was directed at me as a player, rather than at the ideas I suggested. Your post was an attack or calling out of my ability as a player, and it is clear you were suggesting to everyone else in the thread that my ideas were wrong because I am a “bad player” (something which you have no evidence to prove) rather than for any other reason.

So rather than provide valid points that directly counter my argument, you launched a personal attack. As a human being of course I will ignore most of a post which starts off as an insult.

Understandable of course. If I didn’t want change as much as you did I would certainly want to defend it. But I wouldn’t question another player’s ideas based on something that has no place in any discussion. However I do think change is inevitable, so we should all choose a compromise that will work for everyone. That is what this thread is about, a compromise that isn’t solely “lower damage numbers”.

(edited by spacemayu.4817)

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: spacemayu.4817

spacemayu.4817

The main issue with thief is that you, as a player can’t handle them. It’s as simple as that.

I’ve sent you a pm. If you want to continue this off-topic discussion about my ability as a player, continue it out of this thread.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Esdra.7084

Esdra.7084

This is pretty funny. This game has the weakest stealth mechanic in any MMO I’ve played or even bothered to research….To complain about stealth in this game (bugs aside) tells me you’ve either never played other mmo’s or you’re just bad.
I’m assuming the latter.

I am a thief main and I’m not an “op” backstabber, PW spammer, or HS spammer. If anything needs to be looked at, I’d say look into the assasins signet + haste (possibly haste for all classes rly.) Personally though I don’t have an issue with any class including thief using haste and other thieves specifically using the assasins signet. I never have a problem with any thief spec really, even my own spec (just annoying.)

Yes I actually have more than 16K hp. :O

I will specifically say this one thing though. Putting a CD on Ini abilities is a bad idea and will create more problems than solve. Frankly it solves nothing because only a terrible player is beaten by spamming any one thief ability. It might help bad players, but punish the class as a whole. The class would need to be reworked to be compensated for such a nerf.

(edited by Esdra.7084)

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: spacemayu.4817

spacemayu.4817

This is pretty funny. This game has the weakest stealth mechanic in any MMO I’ve played or even bothered to research….

Just curious as to your thoughts why the stealth mechanic in this game is seemingly weaker than in any other game.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: lolnotacat.9814

lolnotacat.9814

Ah, I love internet forums. “I disagree with your argument, therefore ad hominem.”

Honestly, I think most of spacemayu’s suggestions…well…suck. But calling him a bad player, or saying he’s never played an MMO without arguing his points specifically, then going off on a tangent doesn’t particularly help.

Because I’m feeling helpful today, here’s an infographic!

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Xecil.2798

Xecil.2798

No. In PvE, I spam the kitten out of dancing dagger, cluster bomb, and in cc heavy scenarios, infiltrator strike. I have yet to die to a backstab/pistol whip/skillseeker thief since I focused on a balanced build instead of glass cannon. People need to understand that if they go glass cannon, they WILL die. The aforementioned thief types are so easy to shut down with cc, and they usually die in 1-2 dazes. imho, the hardest thieves to counter are well played lotus spammers, and p/d builds.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Esdra.7084

Esdra.7084

Interesting thing about ad hominems is the premise has to be a fact/truth. Is his argument a fact? lol. Stealth is too strong? Spaming any one thief ability is a detriment to the game/players? These are facts?

Right…I’m not here to help for something I believe is not an issue. Whatever can possibly be an issue I gave my opinion (haste/signet which i’m not even convinced on at this point given all the nerfs already) on as a possible place for anet to look to appease the masses (bads).

I don’t mean to be mean I just don’t see an issue for the most part (MAYBE the signet to help out the casuals)

I say maybe because I’m not Anet and don’t have any statistics, and I don’t like judging by crying on forums.

One last thing to add to my edit: I’ll agree with the OP that backstabs are too forgiving in the sense that you can be on the side when its called backstab. Every other stealther i’ve played iirc you had to be in the back (not side) so i’d be fine with this change. It should be that way and its just allowing players either to be bad or lazy with their backstabs.

(edited by Esdra.7084)

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: lolnotacat.9814

lolnotacat.9814

Interesting thing about ad hominems is the premise has to be a fact/truth. Is his argument a fact? lol. Stealth is too strong? Spaming any one thief ability is a detriment to the game/players? These are facts?

Actually, it’s just bypassing the argument someone makes and attacking them directly. Much like if I were to say; “You don’t even know what an ad hominem is, obviously you’re an idiot who hasn’t graduated high school.”

Now, I certainly don’t mean that, but I hope such an example hits closer to home. You’ve completely bypassed his statements, and decided to go after him, instead of telling him specifically why he’s wrong, much like I’ve done with your ‘fact’ about the necessity of ad hominems requiring facts.

Right…I’m not here to help for something I believe is not an issue. Whatever can possibly be an issue I gave my opinion (haste/signet which i’m not even convinced on at this point given all the nerfs already) on as a possible place for anet to look to appease the masses (bads).

That’s fine, I can understand why people think it’s a non issue, particularly if they enjoy the playstyle. So, tell him why he’s wrong, I’d say most people (myself included) would even agree with you.

I don’t mean to be mean I just don’t see an issue for the most part (MAYBE the signet to help out the casuals.

Although it’s not your intention to be mean, I wonder if your intention is just to shut someone up who you disagree with.

(edited by lolnotacat.9814)

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Esdra.7084

Esdra.7084

No i’m not trying to shut him up, but I don’t find it necessary to further reply to his OP more than whatever I addressed. Let Anet sift through the BS, and make the proper decisions based on facts. Data. You know, reliable stuff. At least much more reliable than most posts. Since nothing was presented here other than someone who is tired of dying.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Krathalos.3461

Krathalos.3461

  • Proposal 1: My proposal is to add a .5/1 second cooldown to all initiative skills. This would still allow the thief to spam these skills, but would lower effective DPS as skill activation will be delayed. Players that do not spam a single skill will be unaffected.
  • Proposal 2: My second proposal is to force the thief to be revealed if a certain threshold of damage is taken. The threshold could be 0 (in which case the thief is instantly revealed if hit whilst in cloak), or it could be 5 – 10% of max hp. Of course, there would need to be some period of invulnerability (.5/1 second) just after entering cloak so the thief cannot be decloaked when trading blows, etc.
  • Proposal 3: My next proposal is a change to the backstab. As of now, a backstab is considered to have come from the back so long as you enter the 180 degree radius behind the player. This means you can technically be standing at what seems more to be the side of the player than the back itself in order to get the full damage. Because of this (and because mobs/players tend to stand still ), it is too easy to score successful backstabs both in PvE and PvP.
  • Proposal 4: My last proposal for now is again related to the backstab. To explain the situation, a thief is able to miss three or more backstab attempts and still remain in cloak. Clearly this is a problem, as the backstab should not simply be free damage.

Proposal 1: Giving thief cooldowns completely takes away the entire point of having initiative, no matter how short they are. Thief builds are mostly made for abusing damage on one skill, and giving it even a second CD would actually lower thief’s DPS far more than this would account for. It also takes away the unique thing thief can do.

Proposal 2: This is an absolutely terrible idea. Stealth needs to be just that: stealth. There is no reason to be knocked out of it if you’re hit for damage. That’s like asking for thief to be even more useless in zergs, since you will never land a backstab inside of AoE. Start using control abilities and stealth isn’t a problem.

Proposal 3 and 4 (since they basically cover the same thing): Backstab is already hard to hit with if your target knows how to move. All proposal 3 would do is cause all thieves to be using Devourer’s Venom or Basilisk Venom. Backstab is supposed to be free damage as much as every other character’s ability is free damage, especially auto attacks like it’s characterized as. You still have to land it, but you only have a specific time frame or else you cannot use it. If you start actually moving or dodging, Backstab is extremely easy to dodge. No idea why people act like it’s impossible to dodge. I’ve had good players dodge mine before simply because they realize that they aren’t supposed to stand in one spot and expect to be invincible.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Sin.8174

Sin.8174

OP is obviously not a thief. Don’t be giving us ways to fix our class.

Orphyn X – 8X Thief – Tarnished Coast
Lady Raevyn – 11 Necromancer – TC
Fanboy- The New Godwin’s Law.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Esdra.7084

Esdra.7084

Not sure if what I said was lost in my edit post, but I agree with the op that backstabs are too forgiving in the sense that they should be on the targets back, not side as well. The ability is called backstab so it should have a much less broad requirement to land it. As it stand it’s 180 degrees and that’s pretty forgiving compared to other games and my own experience. I always try to be directly behind especially because thats what I’m use to from other stealth based classes in other games, but I shouldn’t land BS as frequently as I do imo.

Lets be honest here though, thats one of many things/mechanics/features that seems to be implemented purposely to make the game easier for casuals.

Anyway, i’m all for it…The rest though not so much(haste/signet aside) at least not without buffs in other places.

Pretty much the only thing I fully agree with.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Nephar.3746

Nephar.3746

i like your efforts, but u clearly have no experience of pvp at all. this is all theorycrafting..
what i mean is that in a pvp environment no player would be hit by a backstab with a 90 degree radius.. this is simply punishing.
the main thing many player refuse to see or understand is that the skills itself isnt OP, but can occur to be OP in a certain skills-combo.
some build are made to heavily rely on a skills and are useless out of that. the so hated one-shot backstab combo is just the result of a 4 skills-combo + valid positioning. i personally dont like that kind of build and i think it’s pretty stupid… do u know there is a button to ista-turn your toon 180°? if u are right on timing and that kind of thief miss his “super-pumped” (signet on) backstab, he is simply dead..
anytime u die in 1 sec from a glass cannon build (many classes can do that) u dont have to whine.. just think that that toon will be useless till their cd’s are up again and that’s all, they are indeed WEAK builds. anyone playing a thief rly know this, exactly how weak was spamming HS.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Trismegistos.3046

Trismegistos.3046

  • Proposal 2: My second proposal is to force the thief to be revealed if a certain threshold of damage is taken.
  • Proposal 3: My next proposal is a change to the backstab. As of now, a backstab is considered to have come from the back so long as you enter the 180 degree radius behind the player. This means you can technically be standing at what seems more to be the side of the player than the back itself in order to get the full damage. Because of this (and because mobs/players tend to stand still ), it is too easy to score successful backstabs both in PvE and PvP.

2. no kitten way. u crazy?

3. you obviously have never played a backstabing class, and u dont know how weird such a mechanic is.
very often, even with the lowest ms you get error message (or in this case, no bonus damage)
even though your client shows that you are completely behind your target.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: psyt.9415

psyt.9415

Yes make thief harder to master. Those with skill will produce the same results. No nerf just a bar set that separates the spammers from the pros. It needs a mechanics change not a dmg nerf.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Avalaxus.2081

Avalaxus.2081

I do play glass-cannon thief. I die alot.
The only way i see to nerf thief without harming it is make “heartseeker” worth more initiative. Backstab doesn’t do as much overall damage as heartseeker spam. But still i don’t know why someone wants to nerf thiefs. There are ****tone of ways to stop thief of being able to harm you in all the professions. Anet nerfed pistol whip.. allright, skill that meant to be used while standing still is now useless for me even more. Do you want to make thief useless as well? I see it as damage dealer glass-cannon class. Not support, not healing, but damage dealing. And equal damage with top damage dealing classes can be achieved by Thief AS IT IS. Use upgrades, not nerfs in this case – upgrade other classes survivability, etc. Don’t ruin the game for those who mastered Thief as it is. We do pay lot of gold for repairs to do this damage f f s.
P.S.: kitten, my kitten. kitten kitten kitten kitten. kitten. As if this game hasn’t enough kittens allready.

(edited by Avalaxus.2081)

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Red Falcon.8257

Red Falcon.8257

Thief is well balanced now, they just need to start fixing the class bugs.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: WarriorKitten.7192

WarriorKitten.7192

My opinion best way is to make them real slow like everyone else when they are in combat. That’s the biggest problem. The stealth output right now is powerful enough, giving them crazy mobility during it is just over the top.

Example: Fighting a thief as a ranger. Manage to get them down to 10%. Thief starts running away really fast, and stealths. Pets give chase and run really far away. Standing alone with no pets, everything on cooldown. Suddenly thief appears behind me with 90% hp, stuns, and hits for 10k. Stealths again. This happens every fight. Granted rangers are probably the weakest class at the moment, but the In Combat movement speed is insane.

Being able to stealth 90% of the fight is not a good place to be. I understand why players don’t want to let that go but something has to. Either mobility, stealth, or damage. Sitting in stealth, popping up dealing 10 k, and going back into stealth is a joke.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Ensign.2189

Ensign.2189

Going down the list:

Suggestion 1 is hilariously bad. The single most important part of a character design isn’t the DPS or particular damage numbers, but the flow of the game play of that character. Above all else characters need to have compelling play patterns that flow naturally. The thief’s pattern is built around being able to chain abilities into each other; on occasion that means chaining an ability into itself. This is the basis of the play pattern. Adding a cooldown (to reduce damage) is a massively worse solution than just nerfing damage, since it achieves the same goal in a roundabout way – by breaking the flow of the character and wrecking the play pattern.

Suggestion 2 is problematic as stealth is the backbone that allows thieves to melee in team fights in the first place. If it gets broken by casual AoE on the ground, the class crumbles in team fights – and we’re talking about a class that is not strong in team fights to begin with. There are problems with model loading that are dictating the balance point of stealth. I don’t think the 3s / 4s stealths are a problem; it is possible that the revealed debuff needs to be longer, but that’s difficult to balance as long as there are loading issues that effectively have stealth linger after attacking.

Point 3 is related to point 1 in how the game flows. When you take into account network lag, slight desynchs, and the model animation locks in game, it turns out that combat needs to be pretty forgiving for melee combat to flow properly. The big backstab cone is related to this – while a small cone might sound better in theory, it will often play terribly as you’re much more dependent on ping for landing a backstab on a competent player. Getting that to land reliably is more important that the fact that you can sidestab baddies.

Proposal 4 I don’t have too much of a problem with, and it ties into the same sorts of fluid game play issues as the above. However, it cuts the other way – revealing earlier on an attack counteracts some of the model loading issues. The main thing it hurts for thieves is missed stealth attacks, which I’m ok with; stealth attacks are one of those really frustrating mechanics and more counter-play there is fine.

The key point is that game play is paramount. Number tweaks, including damage nerfs, are perfectly fine and expected, and really not a big deal – breaking the flow of the class, on the other hand, is.

I expect a massive nerf to Assassin’s Signet, since it’s singular component of the lolspikes that doesn’t have a lot of collateral damage to hit. I wouldn’t be surprised to see tweaks to Cloak and Dagger damage, or Mug damage. Backstab does hit hard but it’s really not out of line with other comparable hits. I don’t expect those nerfs to be big, however. Thief damage, outside the lolspikes, isn’t actually that far out of line and might even be low in several areas – so much of the issue is that the class punishes bad players hard for building and playing badly, which isn’t exactly a balance issue.

How to fix the Thief without nerfing damage.

in Thief

Posted by: Kurow.6973

Kurow.6973

My suggestion to thief players would be to start rolling a new char, preferably a warrior.