All is vain.
(edited by Excalibur.9748)
I am scared, S/D about to nerfed again
1 2
There is no burst damage on 3
I don’t think you understand what “burst” means. It doesn’t mean backstabbing an enemy to death in two shots, it means an attack (or sequence of attacks) of elevated DPS compared to your autoattack, which is traditionally predictable pressure damage. This is mostly done to finish off a foe that you pressured down or to shift the pace of the battle so they use their heal prematurely.
The Flanking Strike>Larcenous strike chain is a much faster delivery of damage than the autoattack chain.and a 1 second cooldown would be stupid since there is already the initiative system.
You didn’t understand the point of my suggestion at all, did you?
The point of the ini system is to not have any cooldowns on weapon skills, not even if its 1 second.
they should nerf the damage a bit (around 20% seems fine) and give dancing dagger actually a use to compensate and complete the set, because at the moment it feels incomplete. (just like D/D, P/P and P/D)
That would effectively put FS/LS in a worse situation than pistol whip. At least pistol whip does same damage as AA. After 20% nerf FS/LS would do 20% less damage than AA.
FS/LS does more damage than AA, it is faster executed and LS does more damage than CS + evade + boon steal + unblockable. It also doesnt suffer from the problem that if you opponent dodges / blinds / blocks your Slice / Slash you have to start your AA chain over again, it is quite hard to get to crippling strike. FS/LS doesnt have that problem.
I play 10 / 0 / 0 / 30 / 30 double S/D and i still do enough damage (3,5k lac on glass, around 2,3k on bunker guards), i’m sure a 30 CS thief could live with a 20% dmg nerf (only on LS, not on FS). Yes, in PvP.
Also PW’s problem is not the damage, it’s retaliation which renders it useless in a team fight.
There were calculations that showed FS/LS doing LESS damage than auto attack chain and DPS was actually lower. Besides theoretical calculation, people who compared damage between AA and FS/LS on target dummies recorded similar DPS between AA chain and FS/LS. It probably comes out faster yea since it’s 2 hits vs 3, but AA does same or better DPS.
FS is evade and LS is boon stripping and unblockable but CS is weakness and cripple and doesn’t cost initiative. It’s also a lot easier to connect AA chain than LS especially considering you can use the initiative on dancing daggers to help you connect it.
That is hard to believe, you dont happen to have a link? im quite interested
There is no burst damage on 3
I don’t think you understand what “burst” means. It doesn’t mean backstabbing an enemy to death in two shots, it means an attack (or sequence of attacks) of elevated DPS compared to your autoattack, which is traditionally predictable pressure damage. This is mostly done to finish off a foe that you pressured down or to shift the pace of the battle so they use their heal prematurely.
The Flanking Strike>Larcenous strike chain is a much faster delivery of damage than the autoattack chain.and a 1 second cooldown would be stupid since there is already the initiative system.
You didn’t understand the point of my suggestion at all, did you?
The point of the ini system is to not have any cooldowns on weapon skills, not even if its 1 second.
they should nerf the damage a bit (around 20% seems fine) and give dancing dagger actually a use to compensate and complete the set, because at the moment it feels incomplete. (just like D/D, P/P and P/D)
That would effectively put FS/LS in a worse situation than pistol whip. At least pistol whip does same damage as AA. After 20% nerf FS/LS would do 20% less damage than AA.
FS/LS does more damage than AA, it is faster executed and LS does more damage than CS + evade + boon steal + unblockable. It also doesnt suffer from the problem that if you opponent dodges / blinds / blocks your Slice / Slash you have to start your AA chain over again, it is quite hard to get to crippling strike. FS/LS doesnt have that problem.
I play 10 / 0 / 0 / 30 / 30 double S/D and i still do enough damage (3,5k lac on glass, around 2,3k on bunker guards), i’m sure a 30 CS thief could live with a 20% dmg nerf (only on LS, not on FS). Yes, in PvP.
Also PW’s problem is not the damage, it’s retaliation which renders it useless in a team fight.
There were calculations that showed FS/LS doing LESS damage than auto attack chain and DPS was actually lower. Besides theoretical calculation, people who compared damage between AA and FS/LS on target dummies recorded similar DPS between AA chain and FS/LS. It probably comes out faster yea since it’s 2 hits vs 3, but AA does same or better DPS.
FS is evade and LS is boon stripping and unblockable but CS is weakness and cripple and doesn’t cost initiative. It’s also a lot easier to connect AA chain than LS especially considering you can use the initiative on dancing daggers to help you connect it.
That is hard to believe, you dont happen to have a link? im quite interested
Well all the theorycrafting was done shortly after FS/LS was buffed, and S/D has only been nerfed since then. It would be a pain to find it again since it’s been so long, but the general concensus is FS/LS does same DPS as auto attack. The burden of proof should not be on me anyways, since what I’m saying is widely accepted as the truth for a very very long time.
All is vain.
There is no burst damage on 3
I don’t think you understand what “burst” means. It doesn’t mean backstabbing an enemy to death in two shots, it means an attack (or sequence of attacks) of elevated DPS compared to your autoattack, which is traditionally predictable pressure damage. This is mostly done to finish off a foe that you pressured down or to shift the pace of the battle so they use their heal prematurely.
The Flanking Strike>Larcenous strike chain is a much faster delivery of damage than the autoattack chain.and a 1 second cooldown would be stupid since there is already the initiative system.
You didn’t understand the point of my suggestion at all, did you?
The point of the ini system is to not have any cooldowns on weapon skills, not even if its 1 second.
they should nerf the damage a bit (around 20% seems fine) and give dancing dagger actually a use to compensate and complete the set, because at the moment it feels incomplete. (just like D/D, P/P and P/D)
That would effectively put FS/LS in a worse situation than pistol whip. At least pistol whip does same damage as AA. After 20% nerf FS/LS would do 20% less damage than AA.
FS/LS does more damage than AA, it is faster executed and LS does more damage than CS + evade + boon steal + unblockable. It also doesnt suffer from the problem that if you opponent dodges / blinds / blocks your Slice / Slash you have to start your AA chain over again, it is quite hard to get to crippling strike. FS/LS doesnt have that problem.
I play 10 / 0 / 0 / 30 / 30 double S/D and i still do enough damage (3,5k lac on glass, around 2,3k on bunker guards), i’m sure a 30 CS thief could live with a 20% dmg nerf (only on LS, not on FS). Yes, in PvP.
Also PW’s problem is not the damage, it’s retaliation which renders it useless in a team fight.
There were calculations that showed FS/LS doing LESS damage than auto attack chain and DPS was actually lower. Besides theoretical calculation, people who compared damage between AA and FS/LS on target dummies recorded similar DPS between AA chain and FS/LS. It probably comes out faster yea since it’s 2 hits vs 3, but AA does same or better DPS.
FS is evade and LS is boon stripping and unblockable but CS is weakness and cripple and doesn’t cost initiative. It’s also a lot easier to connect AA chain than LS especially considering you can use the initiative on dancing daggers to help you connect it.
That is hard to believe, you dont happen to have a link? im quite interested
Well all the theorycrafting was done shortly after FS/LS was buffed, and S/D has only been nerfed since then. It would be a pain to find it again since it’s been so long, but the general concensus is FS/LS does same DPS as auto attack. The burden of proof should not be on me anyways, since what I’m saying is widely accepted as the truth for a very very long time.
Dude you don’t have to proof me anything i would just find it interesting because based on experience i find it hard to believe. I have used the AA chain for months as main damage source on S/D long before the flanking strike change and it feels like FS -> LS does more damage… (and has like 10 times the utility)
(edited by Sizzle Hint.1820)
It probably just feels like low damage before FS/LS change since there was some kind of boon tanks everywhere where people just stack boons especially guardians. Yes FS/LS was responsible for this meta shift imo.
The meta kinda shifted now and the auto attack is a beast now. Also fairly common combo to open with FS/LS to strip boons then just whack with AA.
All is vain.
It probably just feels like low damage before FS/LS change since there was some kind of boon tanks everywhere where people just stack boons especially guardians. Yes FS/LS was responsible for this meta shift imo.
The meta kinda shifted now and the auto attack is a beast now. Also fairly common combo to open with FS/LS to strip boons then just whack with AA.
Yea i love opening with Larc into steal and instantly steal 4 boons (i run with bount), i only rly use it when the enemy has boons up i want tho (basicly vigor, fury, prot, stab, lot of might, swiftness)
This (Sept. 6 SotG) seems like it belongs here. I can’t remember when they mentioned it in the video, but S/D thieves got mentioned a couple of times during the discussion with possible ways to nerf them.
This (Sept. 6 SotG) seems like it belongs here. I can’t remember when they mentioned it in the video, but S/D thieves got mentioned a couple of times during the discussion with possible ways to nerf them.
Can you summarize please, because an hour long stream is too long to watch for most people.
From what you said so far, it seems like an S/D thief nerf is on the table. The only uncertainty is HOW. Meanwhile, they want to buff warrior. Sounds like they know what they’re doing!
All is vain.
At 9:32
Jonathan Sharp:
“I think the S/D in particular, it got damage, it has boon removal and it has evade all at the same time.
I think what we want to do is shave a bit of the damage… maybe, or maybe take out one of the boon strips… maybe or maybe the skill itself should cost a Little bit more.
So there is different ways we can deal with it in different game types.”
It was not clear which would be implemented in what game type. Or if they had decided for sure on which change would be implemented. In his list of the maybe changes he also mentioned a maybe regarding steal (I think?). But I couldn’t hear it clearly.
(edited by Reesha.7901)
Maybe they’ll delete FS, move the evade to shadow return, and increase LS initiative cost to 4. So you cant evade into boon steal and it will be expensive to steal everything.
There is only one god and its name is nerf. There is only one thing we say to nerf, not today
At 9:32
Jonathan Sharp:
“I think the S/D in particular, it got damage, it has boon removal and it has evade all at the same time.
I think what we want to do is shave a bit of the damage… maybe, or maybe take out one of the boon strips… maybe or maybe the skill itself should cost a Little bit more.
So there is different ways we can deal with it in different game types.”It was not clear which would be implemented in what game type. Or if they had decided for sure on which change would be implemented. In his list of the maybe changes he also mentioned a maybe regarding steal (I think?). But I couldn’t hear it clearly.
The original FS had 1 boon strip, and it wasn’t horribly effective. In fact, most boon bunkers would eat the FS swing because they knew you were stuck in kitten animation for the second part, and could punish you heavily for it. With the new pathing and ability split things are likely different, but something tells me stripping 1 boon at a time isn’t enough to counter the rate at which boon bunkers can generate boons (as the LS change was intended to do).
It’s been suggested before to force LS to only pop up if FS actually hits, but this isn’t good either – thieves will just get better at evade tanking, and that’s not the intended goal (or good for the game, imo).
What I would suggest is flipping the damage numbers – make FS the hard hitting attack, and LS the low damage utility attack. This way, the FS->LS combo isn’t so weighted toward LS. If this doesn’t work, you could normalize the damage numbers (so overall DPS is the same, but both swings do the same damage). Nerfing the overall damage of FS->LS seems silly – it does similar DPS to AA, and costs initiative to do so. It isn’t a burst still, it’s a sustain skill. You can’t reduce FS→LS damage and move it somewhere else (Like AA chain or Inf strike) without upsetting S/P’s balance, so that doesn’t work either.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
(edited by evilapprentice.6379)
At 9:32
Jonathan Sharp:
“I think the S/D in particular, it got damage, it has boon removal and it has evade all at the same time.
I think what we want to do is shave a bit of the damage… maybe, or maybe take out one of the boon strips… maybe or maybe the skill itself should cost a Little bit more.
So there is different ways we can deal with it in different game types.”It was not clear which would be implemented in what game type. Or if they had decided for sure on which change would be implemented. In his list of the maybe changes he also mentioned a maybe regarding steal (I think?). But I couldn’t hear it clearly.
The original FS had 1 boon strip, and it wasn’t horribly effective. In fact, most boon bunkers would eat the FS swing because they knew you were stuck in kitten animation for the second part, and could punish you heavily for it. With the new pathing and ability split things are likely different, but something tells me stripping 1 boon at a time isn’t enough to counter the rate at which boon bunkers can generate boons (as the LS change was intended to do).
It’s been suggested before to force LS to only pop up if FS actually hits, but this isn’t good either – thieves will just get better at evade tanking, and that’s not the intended goal (or good for the game, imo).
What I would suggest is flipping the damage numbers – make FS the hard hitting attack, and LS the low damage utility attack. This way, the FS->LS combo isn’t so weighted toward LS. If this doesn’t work, you could normalize the damage numbers (so overall DPS is the same, but both swings do the same damage). Nerfing the overall damage of FS->LS seems silly – it does similar DPS to AA, and costs initiative to do so. It isn’t a burst still, it’s a sustain skill. You can’t reduce FS->LS damage and move it somewhere else (Like AA chain or Inf strike) without upsetting S/P’s balance, so that doesn’t work either.
From my understanding S/D was supposed to help counter boon based builds, not completely rip them apart by spamming 3. Most Guardians have to use boons in order to be efficient, and it’s part of their mechanics. It would be like if they gave guardian a weapon skill that could remove stealth/apply reveal on hit. Anyways boon bunkers aren’t really even a problem now, they have so much going against them with All the necros and Condition spammers running around, and not to mention S/D thieves are basically the only ones you see now.
Reth Grimrazor – Charr Guardian – [GWB]Grim Warband – Tarnished Coast
Redgen Furyblaze – Charr Guardian – [SHD]Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Lerious Warhowl – Charr Warrior – [SHD] Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Redgen Furyblaze – Charr Guardian – [SHD]Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Lerious Warhowl – Charr Warrior – [SHD] Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
At 9:32
Jonathan Sharp:
“I think the S/D in particular, it got damage, it has boon removal and it has evade all at the same time.
I think what we want to do is shave a bit of the damage… maybe, or maybe take out one of the boon strips… maybe or maybe the skill itself should cost a Little bit more.
So there is different ways we can deal with it in different game types.”It was not clear which would be implemented in what game type. Or if they had decided for sure on which change would be implemented. In his list of the maybe changes he also mentioned a maybe regarding steal (I think?). But I couldn’t hear it clearly.
The original FS had 1 boon strip, and it wasn’t horribly effective. In fact, most boon bunkers would eat the FS swing because they knew you were stuck in kitten animation for the second part, and could punish you heavily for it. With the new pathing and ability split things are likely different, but something tells me stripping 1 boon at a time isn’t enough to counter the rate at which boon bunkers can generate boons (as the LS change was intended to do).
It’s been suggested before to force LS to only pop up if FS actually hits, but this isn’t good either – thieves will just get better at evade tanking, and that’s not the intended goal (or good for the game, imo).
What I would suggest is flipping the damage numbers – make FS the hard hitting attack, and LS the low damage utility attack. This way, the FS->LS combo isn’t so weighted toward LS. If this doesn’t work, you could normalize the damage numbers (so overall DPS is the same, but both swings do the same damage). Nerfing the overall damage of FS->LS seems silly – it does similar DPS to AA, and costs initiative to do so. It isn’t a burst still, it’s a sustain skill. You can’t reduce FS->LS damage and move it somewhere else (Like AA chain or Inf strike) without upsetting S/P’s balance, so that doesn’t work either.
From my understanding S/D was supposed to help counter boon based builds, not completely rip them apart by spamming 3. Most Guardians have to use boons in order to be efficient, and it’s part of their mechanics. It would be like if they gave guardian a weapon skill that could remove stealth/apply reveal on hit. Anyways boon bunkers aren’t really even a problem now, they have so much going against them with All the necros and Condition spammers running around, and not to mention S/D thieves are basically the only ones you see now.
Nothing says you have to put up all your boons in 2 seconds like bunkers did pre LS, because there was absolutely no cost associated with doing so. LS has a 1/2s casting time, and it’s arrival is further heralded by the extremely visible spin move thieves pull before hand. FS does pretty awful damage, so a bunker (likely under protection) can eat that swing and save their dodges/interrupts for LS, and guardians have plenty of interrupts.
Yes, a thief could Inf strike to pin you down beforehand (which only prevents evades, not interrupts), but now we’re talking about 8 init to steal 2 boons…and that’s just the first time. Its 10 init (because you have to clean up the SR before you can Inf strike again, or waiting 12 seconds for it to expire) for the next 1s Immob.
FS->LS spam is just as bad as HS spam – it owns inexperienced players and can be dangerous when multiple people are locking you down, but it’s an easily countered, poor playstyle except in extremely niche cases. Additionally, you can only really spam FS->LS if you’re running double S/D with quick pockets, which is nigh useless in team fights and has poor mobility due to the lack of a SHbow.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
Discussion continue because 5k character limit
The thing is certain trait setups and utilities that give more initiative/initiative regeneration that it is allowed to be spammed a couple times before easily disengaging and getting your initiative back up again. And it really isn’t about putting all your boons up at once, it’s the fact that anytime I have boons up I’ll either have to dodge or get 2 boons stolen, vs the time it takes to get the utilities that give boons off CD, i can understand it with Eles though since they can pump out boons constantly. There’s really no risk to doing it against a guard though unless he’s DPS specced, because A bunker Guardian does pretty meh damage. Burns and Retal is mostly what we have to counter aggression and it’s really not enough to bring down anyone unless they’re mindlessly spamming buttons and not watching their health. And Damage on LS is fairly good it does hurt when it lands(most of the time)
There are only a few ways to interrupt, wardings, Hammer 3(long wind up time but satisfying when it hits) and Shield 5 Bubble knockback. Most of these skills have a Mildly long CD. Though i’m talking about 1v1 perspective (WvW) in any case if a additional person shows up on either side, the favor of the fight obviously tips over to whoever got the additional person. In a Spvp environment though this is not so bad, since all i need to do is make sure points don’t get capped.
Reth Grimrazor – Charr Guardian – [GWB]Grim Warband – Tarnished Coast
Redgen Furyblaze – Charr Guardian – [SHD]Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Lerious Warhowl – Charr Warrior – [SHD] Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Redgen Furyblaze – Charr Guardian – [SHD]Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Lerious Warhowl – Charr Warrior – [SHD] Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
(edited by Lucentfir.7430)
10-15% damage nerf fs/ls + tactical strike 2 sec stun.
Pointless nerf destroy s/d like 15% nerf damage pw.
Thief needs a nerf in both s/d and d/d, it is so kitten obvious that it simply needs to happen, we just count on anet being slow with observations, as 80% of them roll main theifs anyways.
D/D….needs a nerf? I’m assuming you’re talking WvW (Which I have 0 Knowledge of), and not SPvP.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
Discussion continue because 5k character limit
The thing is certain trait setups and utilities that give more initiative/initiative regeneration that it is allowed to be spammed a couple times before easily disengaging and getting your initiative back up again. And it really isn’t about putting all your boons up at once, it’s the fact that anytime I have boons up I’ll either have to dodge or get 2 boons stolen, vs the time it takes to get the utilities that give boons off CD, i can understand it with Eles though since they can pump out boons constantly. There’s really no risk to doing it against a guard though unless he’s DPS specced, because A bunker Guardian does pretty meh damage. Burns and Retal is mostly what we have to counter aggression and it’s really not enough to bring down anyone unless they’re mindlessly spamming buttons and not watching their health. And Damage on LS is fairly good it does hurt when it lands(most of the time)
There are only a few ways to interrupt, wardings, Hammer 3(long wind up time but satisfying when it hits) and Shield 5 Bubble knockback. Most of these skills have a Mildly long CD. Though i’m talking about 1v1 perspective (WvW) in any case if a additional person shows up on either side, the favor of the fight obviously tips over to whoever got the additional person. In a Spvp environment though this is not so bad, since all i need to do is make sure points don’t get capped.
I honestly don’t care about what they do to S/D in WvW – they could remove the weaponset entirely for all I care. I’m not judging WvW, I just don’t care about it, and don’t want to see skills nerfed in PvP because of WvW (because they’re completely different formats, and that doesn’t make any sense).
Again, the only way to spam FS→LS enough for it to honestly overwhelm a bunkers defenses is by running 30 acro with Quick pockets, Quick Recovery, and Double S/D. This is a kittenty spec for reasons I mentioned earlier (also A lack of poison, which I’m adding now). Also note, taking at least one (usually multiple) init traits is basically mandatory, as base init regen is dreadful. This makes thief specs rather boring, because instead of being able to take cool traits that might define different specs, we’re forced to take “get to actually land your attacks if 1 or 2 of them get blocked/evaded etc” traits
If you’re getting hit with LS most of the time, I don’t know what to tell you – anyone I go after watches for LS, and makes it as hard as they possibly can for me to land it. I’m not wasting LS unless I’m reasonably sure it’s going to hit. As for easily disengaging – just drag the fight back to the little circle that drops when a thief Inf Strikes – no more easy disengage.
If you’re running a bunker spec, you can’t really complain about how hard it is to kill people – you’ve chosen to give up offense in favor of staying power. That would be like me complaining how much damage I take when I run a zerker ammy.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
10-15% damage nerf fs/ls + tactical strike 2 sec stun.
Pointless nerf destroy s/d like 15% nerf damage pw.
FS→LS does similar damage to AA, and S/D is incapable of burst. A damage reduction isn’t necessary.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
Fair enough though on discussion about The bunker stuff, well for the comment hard to kill i know there’s always a tradeoff(or should always be a tradeoff). being Survivable means loss of Damage ofc, and loss of Survivablity ,means more damage. Bunkers win through by outlasting, bunkering normally, and putting those aggression counters to use. Damage wins by spiking or steady streams(decent dps). Now S/D to me it takes the bunker out of the bunker. boonwise the thing that lets Guardians sustain in the frontlines well is protection and passive healing, When protection gets stolen it hurts.. We get those things because nearly the lowest health pool. Now not everyone want to bunker but if we choose to go another spec that doesn’t involve 30 in Honor, and/or 30 in valor we get swamped.. Though finishing up here we’ll see what Anet has in store for our classes. What’s your view point of perma evasion thief(seen a video of it)
Reth Grimrazor – Charr Guardian – [GWB]Grim Warband – Tarnished Coast
Redgen Furyblaze – Charr Guardian – [SHD]Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Lerious Warhowl – Charr Warrior – [SHD] Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Redgen Furyblaze – Charr Guardian – [SHD]Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Lerious Warhowl – Charr Warrior – [SHD] Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
At 9:32
Jonathan Sharp:
“I think the S/D in particular, it got damage, it has boon removal and it has evade all at the same time.
I think what we want to do is shave a bit of the damage… maybe, or maybe take out one of the boon strips… maybe or maybe the skill itself should cost a Little bit more.
So there is different ways we can deal with it in different game types.”It was not clear which would be implemented in what game type. Or if they had decided for sure on which change would be implemented. In his list of the maybe changes he also mentioned a maybe regarding steal (I think?). But I couldn’t hear it clearly.
The original FS had 1 boon strip, and it wasn’t horribly effective. In fact, most boon bunkers would eat the FS swing because they knew you were stuck in kitten animation for the second part, and could punish you heavily for it. With the new pathing and ability split things are likely different, but something tells me stripping 1 boon at a time isn’t enough to counter the rate at which boon bunkers can generate boons (as the LS change was intended to do).
It’s been suggested before to force LS to only pop up if FS actually hits, but this isn’t good either – thieves will just get better at evade tanking, and that’s not the intended goal (or good for the game, imo).
What I would suggest is flipping the damage numbers – make FS the hard hitting attack, and LS the low damage utility attack. This way, the FS->LS combo isn’t so weighted toward LS. If this doesn’t work, you could normalize the damage numbers (so overall DPS is the same, but both swings do the same damage). Nerfing the overall damage of FS->LS seems silly – it does similar DPS to AA, and costs initiative to do so. It isn’t a burst still, it’s a sustain skill. You can’t reduce FS->LS damage and move it somewhere else (Like AA chain or Inf strike) without upsetting S/P’s balance, so that doesn’t work either.
From my understanding S/D was supposed to help counter boon based builds, not completely rip them apart by spamming 3. Most Guardians have to use boons in order to be efficient, and it’s part of their mechanics. It would be like if they gave guardian a weapon skill that could remove stealth/apply reveal on hit. Anyways boon bunkers aren’t really even a problem now, they have so much going against them with All the necros and Condition spammers running around, and not to mention S/D thieves are basically the only ones you see now.
Nothing says you have to put up all your boons in 2 seconds like bunkers did pre LS, because there was absolutely no cost associated with doing so. LS has a 1/2s casting time, and it’s arrival is further heralded by the extremely visible spin move thieves pull before hand. FS does pretty awful damage, so a bunker (likely under protection) can eat that swing and save their dodges/interrupts for LS, and guardians have plenty of interrupts.
Yes, a thief could Inf strike to pin you down beforehand (which only prevents evades, not interrupts), but now we’re talking about 8 init to steal 2 boons…and that’s just the first time. Its 10 init (because you have to clean up the SR before you can Inf strike again, or waiting 12 seconds for it to expire) for the next 1s Immob.
FS->LS spam is just as bad as HS spam – it owns inexperienced players and can be dangerous when multiple people are locking you down, but it’s an easily countered, poor playstyle except in extremely niche cases. Additionally, you can only really spam FS->LS if you’re running double S/D with quick pockets, which is nigh useless in team fights and has poor mobility due to the lack of a SHbow.
This is exactly why I don’t think S/D is anywhere near OP. A lot of people that are talking about them being OP, even if those people are really great at the game, mainly encounter that playstyle in those niche environments.That quote from Jonathan Sharp is taken somewhat out of context by the way. I think it’s very important to know what he said right before and right after that.
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