Infiltrator Strike : A balance blunder

Infiltrator Strike : A balance blunder

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Posted by: Arheundel.6451

Arheundel.6451

I can understand the all “evasive” tactic behind the s/d thief set, what I don’t understand is why somebody with a mele range weapon set is able to teleport away at 1200 range directly away from you.

Shadow return should be max 900 range and the initiative cost should be at least 3 pts , 4 pts ideally

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Posted by: JinDaVikk.7291

JinDaVikk.7291

Lol you missed the other 4 thief teleports where you can go one side of the map to the other in seconds.

Team Radioactive
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Posted by: Excalibur.9748

Excalibur.9748

never ending thief QQ…why not ask for buff to your own class?

what I don’t understand is why somebody with a mele range weapon set is able to teleport away at 1200 range directly away from you.

Because it’s much better if a ranged class does it!? You do realize a melee user can’t do anything at 1200 range?

All is vain.

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Posted by: Errant Venture.9371

Errant Venture.9371

A thief is tissue paper even in full soldiers. Stop complaining about their escape mechanics, they’re perfectly manageable if you’re not a trash player.

The Battle Bakery [vPie]

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Posted by: Aza.2105

Aza.2105

A thief is tissue paper even in full soldiers. Stop complaining about their escape mechanics, they’re perfectly manageable if you’re not a trash player.

This is a deceptive statement. You are looking at it from the perspective that they would die fast if they sat in the front lines soaking up damage like a warrior and guardian. Problem with this, each class folds when they are focused when hit by burst damage. Heavy armor or forms of mitigation like protection do not help.

What you aren’t saying is, realistically this never happens with thief. Since they have access to stealth and teleports which forces the enemy to drop target and lose sight of them. That is their mitigation, along with their blind spam. There is a age old saying about tanking, the best form of mitigation is to not get hit at all.

Thief has the best mitigation in the game, since they have the highest chance and the access to the most tools that allow them to avoid damage entirely. This is why players who use other classes complain, its easier to target a tanky necro and warrior than it is to target thief and efficiently kill them.

Infiltrator strike in its current form shouldn’t even exist. There is no punishment for using it over and over again other than wasting initiative which is trivial since its relatively easy to get back. On the other hand, classes who have to deal with this skill is severely punished since they have to deal with the fact that they can never keep target on the thief or catch up with them. Its a get out of jail free card that can be used practically any time with no repercussions what so ever. Its just as good as shadow step, which is a utility with a long cooldown.

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Posted by: Excalibur.9748

Excalibur.9748

Thief has the best mitigation in the game, since they have the highest chance and the access to the most tools that allow them to avoid damage entirely

I wonder why there are no thief bunkers if this is true and why it’s dominated by guardians entirely. I guess guardian is OP since every team in MLG use one.

All is vain.

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Posted by: Chaosky.5276

Chaosky.5276

Thief has the best mitigation in the game, since they have the highest chance and the access to the most tools that allow them to avoid damage entirely

I wonder why there are no thief bunkers if this is true and why it’s dominated by guardians entirely. I guess guardian is OP since every team in MLG use one.

Could it be because thieves make selfish tanks, and their stealth/teleportation becomes useless if they have to hold a point?

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Posted by: ensoriki.5789

ensoriki.5789

Which kind of removes it from the “best” category when the reality is that it cannot uphold itself meaningfully in the positions that require heavy mitigation

The great forum duppy.

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Posted by: Dee Jay.2460

Dee Jay.2460

Infiltrator’s Strike only has a 600 range in fact.

It’s just the return component that has a 1200 range so you can actually move after stepping to someone.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Strike

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Posted by: Derps.7421

Derps.7421

Its the most op skill in the game
1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axis
3. has no cool down,
4. no counter play
5. Pretty much spamable
6. removes a condi,
7. causes immobilize,
8. can be used to completely negate stuns ( not stun break but you can give enough distance to stop stuns)
9. Low cost initiative
10. The opposing player has no idea where the port back spot is.
11. Other classes have to waste utility slots with 30+ second cds to have this mobility.

This skill is the reason why we don’t see eles anymore. Also the mesmer staff port skill needs a nerf also.

Dr. Professor Evil – Engi
Stunned Girls Can’t Say No <Hawt>

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Posted by: Yamsandjams.3267

Yamsandjams.3267

1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axis

These are the oddest things I feel the skill has. They corrected a ton of other stuff to respect line of sight, but this allows you to teleport directly through walls. One would expect to it function like any other blink, but it doesn’t because it’s not a ground targeted ability.

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Posted by: Aza.2105

Aza.2105

Thief has the best mitigation in the game, since they have the highest chance and the access to the most tools that allow them to avoid damage entirely

I wonder why there are no thief bunkers if this is true and why it’s dominated by guardians entirely. I guess guardian is OP since every team in MLG use one.

Could it be because thieves make selfish tanks, and their stealth/teleportation becomes useless if they have to hold a point?

Bingo, someone gets it!

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Posted by: Puru.4217

Puru.4217

1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axis

These are the oddest things I feel the skill has. They corrected a ton of other stuff to respect line of sight, but this allows you to teleport directly through walls. One would expect to it function like any other blink, but it doesn’t because it’s not a ground targeted ability.

I’m pretty sure the guardian sword skill and meditation does the same. Could be wrong though.

But yeah, overall i agree this skill (and shadow refuge even more) needs a nerf. That being said this class also needs major buffs pretty much eveywhere else as a compensation but that won’t happen.

It’s not my fault if S/P is not popular !!!

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Posted by: Mrbig.8019

Mrbig.8019

1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axis

These are the oddest things I feel the skill has. They corrected a ton of other stuff to respect line of sight, but this allows you to teleport directly through walls. One would expect to it function like any other blink, but it doesn’t because it’s not a ground targeted ability.

I’m pretty sure the guardian sword skill and meditation does the same. Could be wrong though.

But yeah, overall i agree this skill (and shadow refuge even more) needs a nerf. That being said this class also needs major buffs pretty much eveywhere else as a compensation but that won’t happen.

agree.

the thief is just kept alive by inf strike and fs→ ls chain, without those 2 skills the thief wiuld be in a horrible position, even behind eles.

I made a thread about nerfing Inf strike (range requirments in order to teleport to the enemy and no more z- axis porting would be enough, OP suggestions wouldn’t fix anything if not making the whole set clunkier) but still people need to u derstand thieves are naturally extremely weak.

the weakest proff in the whole game, probably the worst designed one.

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Posted by: Aza.2105

Aza.2105

the weakest proff in the whole game, probably the worst designed one.

One of the worst designed ones, perhaps. The weakest? No. If they were you would never see them in pvp. Just how in the beginning necros and to a degree warriors were very rare to sight in pvp.

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Posted by: Mrbig.8019

Mrbig.8019

the weakest proff in the whole game, probably the worst designed one.

One of the worst designed ones, perhaps. The weakest? No. If they were you would never see them in pvp. Just how in the beginning necros and to a degree warriors were very rare to sight in pvp.

Shadow refuge is the answer.

Group stealth is the most OP thing in the game, who cares if thief is the weakest profession ( even when mug was still critting and S/D thieves were non-existant, thieves were B tier at best).

The thief IS the weakest profession, especially now that wars have been buffed into oblivion.

When S/D will be brought down ( hopefully in the proper way, by fixing Inf strike), acro S/D will be the only one left, since they totally demolished any burst option from the thief ( and we don’t really have any other option).

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Posted by: Kwll.1468

Kwll.1468

Duh you are not suppossed to kill a thief is he doesn’t want to die.

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Posted by: Mathias.9657

Mathias.9657

Let’s nerf inf. strike so the thief isn’t used at all, perfect plan.

Back to WoW, make GW2 fun please.

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Posted by: ensoriki.5789

ensoriki.5789

Lol @ this thread and everyone who whines about inf strike. Skill was here from beta problem free in stronger form. Went from OP S/P and “OP” S/D went without being talked about. S/P remained in use as “the third” melee set and still no complaints when it had quickness support. Off hand dagger remained unbuffed. One S/D change later inf strike is the most OP skill in the game even after needs.

Straight up if inf strike is OP then players of this forum are so slow to find OP skills they’re quite likely still missing on worthwhile skills and weapon sets, that or they’re attaking the wrong thing but don’t notice as they need to just throw out kitten that they’ve heard from whatever “authority” they believe in.
Yeah if the sword was 5 months ago the skilled set with inf strike and a month later considered unskilled noob evade spam and attention goes to inf Strike forum went full goof.

7 months from now it’ll be complaints about Shadowstep, tripwire, obsidian flesh and swirling winds. “Swirling winds makes my shortbow useless, no counterplay needs nuuuuurf”

Kits have synergy changing a skill in a kit may make the others Vetter AS a result. That doesnt Mean they need changes to their core. If they find after kit changes they want to change inf strikes time frame to disengage theyll lowee infiltration.

The great forum duppy.

(edited by ensoriki.5789)

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Posted by: data.4093

data.4093

Ahahahaha…this thread. If it’s so OP go ahead and play a s/d thief. There are just so many of them in pvp because infiltrator’s strike is broken, right guys?

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Posted by: Lachanche.6859

Lachanche.6859

Lol @ this thread and everyone who whines about inf strike. Skill was here from beta problem free in stronger form. Went from OP S/P and “OP” S/D went being talked about. S/P remained in use as “the third” melee set and still no complaints when it had quickness supporting it and the stun break. Off hand dagger remained unbuffed. One S/D change later inf strike is the most OP skill in the game even after needs.

Straight up if inf strike is OP then players of this forum are so slow to find OP skills they’re quite likely still missing on worthwhile skills and weapon sets, that or they’re attaking the wrong thing but don’t notice as they need to just throw out kitten that they’ve heard from whatever “authority” they believe in.

7 months from now it’ll be complaints about Shadowstep, tripwire and swirling winds.

You either have short memory or are intellectually dishonest.
Let’s peek at the past options you had with mainhand sword as a theif.
Sword/Dagger -> only used due to hilt bash lasting as long as the current skull crack, not viable after they reduced hilt bash to 2 sec base duration.
Sword/Pistol ->pistol whip had a longass delay between the stun and the evade portion of the attack, you would actually start attacking with your blade after the stun effect finished. Damage was buffed, then nerfed again, stun duration was modified multiple times, then they only recently reduced the delay and made the set viable. Still vulnerable to retailation.

6 months later
flanking strike is more reliable than pistol whip to dodge attacks and larcenous strike more effective at dealing damage given its ability to punish boons users (specifically protection/retailation users).
The ability to disengage at will coupled with a reliable initiative based evade and shadow refuge makes it so a thief always has something to fall back to.

The single things aren’t unbalanced themselves but when you start to factor them all toghether you get why players in general don’t like infiltrator strike. A thief that goes for larcenous strike instead of dodging should be punished for his misjudgement, either by taking damage or by using a cd to escape, as it is now he can just shadow return back.

(edited by Lachanche.6859)

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Posted by: ensoriki.5789

ensoriki.5789

S/P has seen use at all times except for the 3 months after haste need. The delay didn’t matter when players were dead regardless. Still wasn’t commented on. Cruuk running that stealth heavy build coupled with inf strike having disengage for days, still not given attention to. Its not short term its reality for more then half this games lifespan inf strike was not in question even when the sets it is one were in arguably stronger states then they are now. PWs evade frames still take long to come out you can still be interrupted after stunning it has weaker burst then before still isn’t a reliable evade and its disengage is in question now that Inf strike doesn’t remove the stun? Lmao.

Yes as kits change it has effect on the skills around them. S/D used to have to put itself at risk for a counter attack after FS regardless of inf strike. Making FS super forgiving is just that. FS is really forgiving. Before if you cancelled your Flanking strike you lost your flanking stab. So your damage suffered if you wanted to play cat & mouse to this extent that and the utility was weaker and the damage not unlockable to make your life easier.

The delay change in PW is overrated, the change to FS practically changed several aspects of it and reduced the play around it. That’s not inf strikes fault however. If I make hundred blades mobile and immobilize on first hit so its easier to use that won’t mean rush is now broke because you can disengage with it. Means I made HB baby mode.
Inf strikes only gotten harder on its own merit to cover you defensively due to needs that is what it is. Undoubtedly the thief will always be complained about but FS going from a difficult to hit underpowered skill that’s hard to reap the full advantage of due to telegraphs to an easy to land skill with 2x utility easy to get advantage of and unblockable medium damage is probably more significant…

The great forum duppy.

(edited by ensoriki.5789)

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Posted by: Mrbig.8019

Mrbig.8019

S/P has seen use at all times except for the 3 months after haste need. The delay didn’t matter when players were dead regardless. Still wasn’t commented on. Cruuk running that stealth heavy build coupled with inf strike having disengage for days, still not given attention to. Its not short term its reality for more then half this games lifespan inf strike was not in question even when the sets it is one were in arguably stronger states then they are now. PWs evade frames still take long to come out you can still be interrupted after stunning it has weaker burst then before still isn’t a reliable evade and its disengage is in question now that Inf strike doesn’t remove the stun? Lmao.

Yes as kits change it has effect on the skills around them. S/D used to have to put itself at risk for a counter attack after FS regardless of inf strike. Making FS super forgiving is just that. FS is really forgiving. Before if you cancelled your Flanking strike you lost your flanking stab. So your damage suffered if you wanted to play cat & mouse to this extent that and the utility was weaker and the damage not unlockable to make your life easier.

The delay change in PW is overrated, the change to FS practically changed several aspects of it and reduced the play around it. That’s not inf strikes fault however. If I make hundred blades mobile and immobilize on first hit so its easier to use that won’t mean rush is now broke because you can disengage with it. Means I made HB baby mode.
Inf strikes only gotten harder on its own merit to cover you defensively due to needs that is what it is. Undoubtedly the thief will always be complained about but FS going from a difficult to hit underpowered skill that’s hard to reap the full advantage of due to telegraphs to an easy to land skill with 2x utility easy to get advantage of and unblockable medium damage is probably more significant…

again, you’re seeing it wrong.

We have NEVER really had a fully functional set with the sword MH.

Pre-november nerf, thieves were using sword simply for Tactical strike Dazelock, otherwise Dagger MH was superior in every aspect.

Pistol whip was already overrated thanks to quickness and easily countered by reta ( something easily spammed in the old meta build ) so dagger burst was way better.

Inf strike has been broken from the start, the only issue was that the thief was not able to sustain himself in the fight, reason why nobody cared about Inf strike Opness.

FS → LS chain is nothing more than a functional skill: a good evade, good damage.

If you remove the evade and rise up the damage, nobody will care, S/D will still be used because it has a way to deal damage RELIABLY.

S/P still doesn’t have it.

The culprit is Inf strike, but it should be nerfed in the proper way, not by nerf hammering it.

It should fail if you’re out of range, setting shadow return on your feet. ( so that thieves will learn to position properly instead of spamming the skill whenver they want to change target).

it shouldn’t travel in z-axis ( cough cough TREB coigh cough)

This doesn’t change the fact that we need serious buffs in almost every other aspect, that ’s the reason why i want OP stuff to be toned down, so we can get the buffs we desperetely need as a PROFESSION, instead of ALWAYS going full cheese ( insta quickness burst, evade and porting spam, OLD pistolwhip stunlock to death etc etc).

Thief profession design is terribad at its core and we all know it.

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Posted by: Med.6150

Med.6150

If I was a designer, I’d ask myself these things:

Why was nobody complaining about this ability when it was 10 times stronger than it is today and remained as powerful for 10 months?

How seriously can one take player feedback given this little fact?

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Posted by: Aza.2105

Aza.2105

the weakest proff in the whole game, probably the worst designed one.

One of the worst designed ones, perhaps. The weakest? No. If they were you would never see them in pvp. Just how in the beginning necros and to a degree warriors were very rare to sight in pvp.

Shadow refuge is the answer.

Group stealth is the most OP thing in the game, who cares if thief is the weakest profession ( even when mug was still critting and S/D thieves were non-existant, thieves were B tier at best).

The thief IS the weakest profession, especially now that wars have been buffed into oblivion.

When S/D will be brought down ( hopefully in the proper way, by fixing Inf strike), acro S/D will be the only one left, since they totally demolished any burst option from the thief ( and we don’t really have any other option).

When mug was still critting no one used s/d because fs was garbage, it barely hit due to poor tracking.

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Posted by: Errant Venture.9371

Errant Venture.9371

If I was a designer, I’d ask myself these things:

Why was nobody complaining about this ability when it was 10 times stronger than it is today and remained as powerful for 10 months?

How seriously can one take player feedback given this little fact?

Exactly. Infiltrator’s strike is weaker now than it ever has been (much of LoS immunity removed, infinite range taken away). Why are people complaining about it? The thief’s role is to jump into a fight, deal damage, and jump out before it can be locked down and nuked. InfStrike isn’t overpowered, there’s just a MASSIVE prejudice against thieves on forums. The kids who post here simply do not want the class to be viable.

Nerfing infiltrator’s strike will NOT destroy the S/D perma-evade spec but it WILL kill the only other viable (but underpowered) thief spec: S/P

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Posted by: Lachanche.6859

Lachanche.6859

As I said it’s the combination of things that makes infiltrator strike so complained about.
If you reduced the evasion frames on flanking strike infiltrator would be ok, if you reduced the effectiveness of infiltrator strike flanking would be ok, if you toned down the amount of endurance a thief can produce infiltrator and flanking would be ok.
Originally leaping death blossom (d/d #3) had a much longer evasion frame to it, thieves could go full elicopter and be effective most of the times. s/d isn’t in such a bad spot because you must use larcenous strike after a flanking but you have the ability to teleport 1200 meters back at will, imagine if the old d/d spec could do that.

Also it’s true that the range is 600 but you do 2 + steal or 2 + signet, when you have those on cd you use basilisk venom or shadow refuge, if you need to buy more time you go into shortbow spam mode, there’s not a real window of opportunity and this is bad imo. (speaking about king of the hill mode duels)

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Posted by: Mrbig.8019

Mrbig.8019

If I was a designer, I’d ask myself these things:

Why was nobody complaining about this ability when it was 10 times stronger than it is today and remained as powerful for 10 months?

How seriously can one take player feedback given this little fact?

Exactly. Infiltrator’s strike is weaker now than it ever has been (much of LoS immunity removed, infinite range taken away). Why are people complaining about it? The thief’s role is to jump into a fight, deal damage, and jump out before it can be locked down and nuked. InfStrike isn’t overpowered, there’s just a MASSIVE prejudice against thieves on forums. The kids who post here simply do not want the class to be viable.

Nerfing infiltrator’s strike will NOT destroy the S/D perma-evade spec but it WILL kill the only other viable (but underpowered) thief spec: S/P

ahahahah i’m a thief from beta, simply i have enough understanding of the class to understand who is the culprit.

Again, we NEVER really had a viable Sword MH set: now that S/D is functional, Inf strike OPness is shown, and i agree a thief should be able to jump into the fight and go away at will, but we need SKILL for it.

As things stand now, without range requirment, you can jump from an opponent to another without even caring about being in range: just randomly press tab and switch to the nearest low opponent.

Because if any of these guys talking about S/D ever touched a good ranked match, they would know why S/D thief is so strong: because it can snowball low hp/armor classes thanks to strong sustained damage and ridicolous mobility, being able to switch target at will without your enemies being able to focus him.

Damage can’t be lowered AND SHOULDN’T be lowered.

Reducing the in-combat mobility is the only way to effectively nerfing the thief without gimpering the set.

And the only way to reduce the in-combat mobility without increasing ini costs ( which would simply make the set clunkier) is to put range requirments to Inf strike.

And guess what, putting range requirments would increase both the skill cap and the skill floor, since you would need to AT LEAST understand positioning in order to use S/D thieves ( right now people are rewarded for spamming with this set, you won’t really notice the different between a mediocre thief and a good one, only between mediocre ones and GREAT ones).

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Posted by: evilapprentice.6379

evilapprentice.6379

. (speaking about king of the hill mode duels)

Which has abso-kittening-lutely no bearing on a team based Capture point game.

If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.

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Posted by: Lachanche.6859

Lachanche.6859

. (speaking about king of the hill mode duels)

Which has abso-kittening-lutely no bearing on a team based Capture point game.

except when you go for the far point decap what happens 50% of the times is you have to 1v1 the enemy side holder.

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Posted by: evilapprentice.6379

evilapprentice.6379

. (speaking about king of the hill mode duels)

Which has abso-kittening-lutely no bearing on a team based Capture point game.

except when you go for the far point decap what happens 50% of the times is you have to 1v1 the enemy side holder.

Perhaps I read too much into the use of the word “Duel”.

Having a team you can rely upon for support and different tactical choices still changes things however.

If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.

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Posted by: Darnis.4056

Darnis.4056

The problem with evades in conquest isn’t that they’re so strong that they’re completely OP it’s that they don’t all work the same.

Blurred frenzy for instance does not count as if you’re capping a point, but a ranger/thief can dodge around on point all day.

Invulnerability/MEGAblock/evades should all work the same way and decap the point under you.

Will the Real Pink Puma Please stand up?

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Posted by: Lachanche.6859

Lachanche.6859

Blurred frenzy for instance does not count as if you’re capping a point

This was recently changed, you can’t use blurred frenzy to avoid the cannon in skyhammer but now you can use it while capping a point.

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Posted by: Avead.5760

Avead.5760

Apparently from leaked notes all invuls will not decap the point now.
Inculding warriors vengeance

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Posted by: Darnis.4056

Darnis.4056

Blurred frenzy for instance does not count as if you’re capping a point

This was recently changed, you can’t use blurred frenzy to avoid the cannon in skyhammer but now you can use it while capping a point.

A Recent undocumented change apparently.. Just tested :/

Will the Real Pink Puma Please stand up?

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Posted by: Med.6150

Med.6150

ahahahah i’m a thief from beta, simply i have enough understanding of the class to understand who is the culprit.

Again, we NEVER really had a viable Sword MH set: now that S/D is functional, Inf strike OPness is shown, and i agree a thief should be able to jump into the fight and go away at will, but we need SKILL for it.

No other weapon set was as prevalent as S/P during the first months of this game, so no idea during which “beta” you started playing. In fact, I don’t even recall a single period of time where any weapon set has been as predominant as S/P used to be even now.

Most people talking about balance and skill spam only really started dabbling in that subject recently, you included.

“Spamming skills” isn’t anything that can be fixed. People don’t spam their abilities, because that is the most effective way, but because it is the only way and that’s because the game is so fast paced in terms of damage and TTD, yet nobody really wants a slower paced game and everybody seems to believe mashing their keys in combos that comprise up to 4 keys will distinguish between good and bad players, because those 4 skills will kill somebody else before they can even start thinking about being smart with their abilities.

Nobody would ever care about the “spammy” nature of pvp if it wasn’t as necessary, which means that reducing overall damage will do away with most of the complaints about skill spam or all the “perma-whatever” (cause you know, it seems like everything is permanent in GW2 nowadays, if you can do it more than once).

Once you reduce the damage, you can then reduce the effectiveness of the predominant survival builds, bringing the two ends of the spectrum closer together, opening up build diversity, decision making in combat and eliminating the so called “cheese” by rendering it irrelevant all in one big swoop.

It is no coincidence that “the pros” have started understanding that everything and every class is overpowered and needs nerfing. That’s because it isn’t the skills or the classes, but rather the fact that the game is way too much of a gamble by being so fast paced, that everything that is played in abundance and turns out to be successful (for reasons related AND completely unrelated to the builds of those involved) is regarded as too powerful or even broken.

(edited by Med.6150)

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Posted by: Med.6150

Med.6150

Blurred frenzy for instance does not count as if you’re capping a point

This was recently changed, you can’t use blurred frenzy to avoid the cannon in skyhammer but now you can use it while capping a point.

A Recent undocumented change apparently.. Just tested :/

This was very much documented and not so recent of a change either.

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Posted by: ensoriki.5789

ensoriki.5789

We have NEVER really had a fully functional set with the sword MH.

That is completely false.
S/P Had been the only Melee kit that was firing on all cylinders until D/P’s Shadow shot lost the root in the January update and became “complete”. If you want a kit that’s been off from Launch look at D/D and P/P.

Pre-november nerf, thieves were using sword simply for Tactical strike Dazelock, otherwise Dagger MH was superior in every aspect.

I played S/D heavily through Frees from launch until Jan before I switched to S/P when I finally bite the bullet that they wrecked it. It wasn’t just Tactical spam. Everything was getting used, including FS albeit it got used less than others, was far more “complete” then D/D was however, D/x was just outrageous.

Pistol whip was already overrated thanks to quickness and easily countered by reta ( something easily spammed in the old meta build ) so dagger burst was way better.

Reta doesn’t hard counter pistol-whip. It puts heavy pressure on it in a teamfight (a tad more than it should). PW is about as countered by Retal as blurred frenzy and Whirling strike. Not that it’s any fault in PW, what a shame that a skill has multiple ways to play around it, should make it an instant 5k damage.

Inf strike has been broken from the start, the only issue was that the thief was not able to sustain himself in the fight, reason why nobody cared about Inf strike Opness.

S/ thieves always had higher visible sustain than D/ thieves. Half of these SOTG’s where they were talking about Thiefs inability to be in the fight were spoken at when D/ was the mainstay. A Daggers answer to not being focused in a fight is to throw Stealth or a lol worthy death blossom. It doesn’t work. If they don’t stop you during the initial waves, PW’s i-frames protect you, and FS used to be cancellable so you could whenever at the cost of your damage.

*FS -> LS chain is nothing more than a functional skill: a good evade, good damage.

Just by splitting the skill itself, forget boon steal, forget the switch of unblockable, forgot even the tracking, they made the ability to do damage on S/D increase because of the practicality. Previously , FS comes they may or may not dodge it, the wind up for the flanking stab happens, easy to dodge, most players did it as a reaction to flanking strike and conveniently ended up dodging the stab from their delayed reaction. Just splitting the skill they increased the usability. They then shifted the skills focus, improved tracking (understandably), and increased utility, and even decreased the cost of the evade itself which makes it taxing on your initiative. You dun goofed if you think S/D prominence came out of Inf-strike.

If you remove the evade and rise up the damage, nobody will care, S/D will still be used because it has a way to deal damage RELIABLY.

So does S/P wtf are you talking about. When is the last time you played S/P,in the alpha? In April?

It should fail if you’re out of range, setting shadow return on your feet.* ( so that thieves will learn to position properly instead of spamming the skill whenver they want to change target).

In January Rangers were blowing up the spot with traps. Positioning was knowing to use Inf strike outside of trap range, instead of blowing yourself nilly willy right into them and giving a ranger free pressure on you. Not throwing your inf strike so far back that if they CC and force you out, you aren’t trying to run back. Well technically they made it easier to get away with overextending your Inf strike by limiting your range, now you don’t have to worry about getting too far removed from the fight and losing time.

it shouldn’t travel in z-axis ( cough cough TREB coigh cough)

Cough what? If you want to troll the treb you’ll always be able to do that with Shadowstep, and stealth. Theres so many ways to blow that thing up, on any prof.

How seriously can one take player feedback given this little fact?

Funny thing is for the flack we give them, Sharp seems to think along similar lines. He pointed out how slow player response to Warriors was. Reality is 1) Ele situation isn’t as black as some would paint it and 2) Many would still cry how weak Ele is even if it was blatantly wrecking the game for weeks due to the response time.
Look at it, none of our evade options are new, inf strike isn’t new. You can roll Acro S/P and contribute to a team, but you know what? When it’s time to deal damage, you’ve got to put yourself at risk for a reasonable period of time and that can be shutdown.

The great forum duppy.

(edited by ensoriki.5789)

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Posted by: Darnis.4056

Darnis.4056

Blurred frenzy for instance does not count as if you’re capping a point

This was recently changed, you can’t use blurred frenzy to avoid the cannon in skyhammer but now you can use it while capping a point.

A Recent undocumented change apparently.. Just tested :/

This was very much documented and not so recent of a change either.

My fault I haven’t found the change in the patch notes yet;
however I did find the change to making BF not cap points.
It’s strange they changed their minds.

Will the Real Pink Puma Please stand up?

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Posted by: Med.6150

Med.6150

Blurred frenzy for instance does not count as if you’re capping a point

This was recently changed, you can’t use blurred frenzy to avoid the cannon in skyhammer but now you can use it while capping a point.

A Recent undocumented change apparently.. Just tested :/

This was very much documented and not so recent of a change either.

My fault I haven’t found the change in the patch notes yet;
however I did find the change to making BF not cap points.
It’s strange they changed their minds.

Okay I think something got lost in that quote mess. Last time I checked:

- Blurred Frenzy allowed you to cap a point. This has never been different, since you always could

- Blurred Frenzy acts as an evade, thus you can not avoid the damage from the skyhammer. This change to Blurred Frenzy happened a few months ago, as it used to be an invulnerability (which would still allow you to cap points, unlike every other invul)

- Distortion is an invul (same icon as Blur, which you get from Blurred Frenzy, but different effect) used to allow you to cap points. This was changed, so that you now do not cap points any longer just like you can’t with other invuls

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Posted by: milo.6942

milo.6942

never ending thief QQ…why not ask for buff to your own class?

what I don’t understand is why somebody with a mele range weapon set is able to teleport away at 1200 range directly away from you.

Because it’s much better if a ranged class does it!? You do realize a melee user can’t do anything at 1200 range?

can’t do anything but leave a fight

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Posted by: Mrbig.8019

Mrbig.8019

That is completely false.
S/P Had been the only Melee kit that was firing on all cylinders until D/P’s Shadow shot lost the root in the January update and became “complete”. If you want a kit that’s been off from Launch look at D/D and P/P.

In EU they stopped running S/P as soon as guards started running heavy reta bunker builds ( especially the 0-0-10-30-30 which was pretty common in the first times).

Moreover thieves were running full instagibs build, D/D ( pre Dagger OH nerf) with haste, so i’m not really sure why you ( and @Med) are saying that S/P was prevalent.

Infact, it wasn’t.

I played S/D heavily through Frees from launch until Jan before I switched to S/P when I finally bite the bullet that they wrecked it. It wasn’t just Tactical spam. Everything was getting used, including FS albeit it got used less than others, was far more “complete” then D/D was however, D/x was just outrageous.

It was surely more complete, yet Flanking was bad at best. Dazelock builds were prevalent and a very good alternative to instagib burst ( iirc even jumper used to run with some strange dazelock build at first times).

Reta doesn’t hard counter pistol-whip. It puts heavy pressure on it in a teamfight (a tad more than it should). PW is about as countered by Retal as blurred frenzy and Whirling strike. Not that it’s any fault in PW, what a shame that a skill has multiple ways to play around it, should make it an instant 5k damage.

With the difference that blurred frenzy is not the main damage source of a mesmer, same for whirling wrath ( which guess what, in teamfights is retaliation).

Reta has been nerfed too. In the past, a single pistol whip in a teamfight would have eaten more than half your HP.

If this is not a “hard counter”, then i dunno what else i can say.

S/ thieves always had higher visible sustain than D/ thieves. Half of these SOTG’s where they were talking about Thiefs inability to be in the fight were spoken at when D/ was the mainstay. A Daggers answer to not being focused in a fight is to throw Stealth or a lol worthy death blossom. It doesn’t work. If they don’t stop you during the initial waves, PW’s i-frames protect you, and FS used to be cancellable so you could whenever at the cost of your damage.

I’m not questioning Sword sustain. I’m saying that still it was not enough. With recent buffs to S/D, it has not been a problem anymore. Thus why Inf strike became a problem.

And no, you can say it as much as you want but Pistol whip is not a reliable source of damage.

Just by splitting the skill itself, forget boon steal, forget the switch of unblockable, forgot even the tracking, they made the ability to do damage on S/D increase because of the practicality. Previously , FS comes they may or may not dodge it, the wind up for the flanking stab happens, easy to dodge, most players did it as a reaction to flanking strike and conveniently ended up dodging the stab from their delayed reaction. Just splitting the skill they increased the usability. They then shifted the skills focus, improved tracking (understandably), and increased utility, and even decreased the cost of the evade itself which makes it taxing on your initiative. You dun goofed if you think S/D prominence came out of Inf-strike.

I’m not disagreeing with you, the point is that FS is not the source of the problem. FS->LS are 2 skills working as they should, if nothing ALL THIEF SKILLS should be like this.

Currently the only set were you’re effectively using all 5 skills at their best is D/P, which became mediocre at best after all the nerfs to thief burst.

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Posted by: Mrbig.8019

Mrbig.8019

So does S/P wtf are you talking about. When is the last time you played S/P,in the alpha? In April?

No.

Pistol whip is not as reliable as FS. You can clearly see it in MLG, where Guts tried to go out with S/P instead of S/D, with the result of losing almost any 1vs1 against Vanish.

And no, Vanish is not better than him, they’re pretty much on the same level.

And this even accounting that S/P should be a sort of “counter” to S/D: the set is simply not on par.

In January Rangers were blowing up the spot with traps. Positioning was knowing to use Inf strike outside of trap range, instead of blowing yourself nilly willy right into them and giving a ranger free pressure on you. Not throwing your inf strike so far back that if they CC and force you out, you aren’t trying to run back. Well technically they made it easier to get away with overextending your Inf strike by limiting your range, now you don’t have to worry about getting too far removed from the fight and losing time.

I understand your point. Infact i pretty much believe that the thief should be buffed in almost every other aspect: i would recall that S/D has basically a whole useless weapon attached ( dagger OH) where you’re basically wasting ini 99% of the time if you use those 2 skills.

But simply because the thief has been designed during a sabbath orgy, it doesn’t mean that skills like Inf strike should be kept as OP: if your opponent has a ranged weapon, it’s RIGHT that he’s able to withstand your teleports. You can still use LoS to play with him, as long as you’re in the range needed.

Range restrictions are needed for this skill in order to be balanced.

Cough what? If you want to troll the treb you’ll always be able to do that with Shadowstep, and stealth. Theres so many ways to blow that thing up, on any prof.

You won’t have anywhere near half the results. With Inf strike you can sit down the treb and spamming Inf strike, spamming some attacks, shadow return, rinse and repeat, without your opponent being able to do ANYTHING.

That’s the same when any other proff ( ele and mesmer especially) use repositioning skills on long CDs to find a safe spot just to find out that you can follow them with a single skill, which can be spammed.

Again, z-axis fix and range requirments are required in order for Inf strike to be balanced. It’s fine if it ignores LoS, it’s not fine if it travels in Z-axis or ignores range, because this leads to abusing.

If anything, they should nerf what is needed and kittenING buff the rest.

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Posted by: Demonts.4593

Demonts.4593

cost 3 or 4? what a joke. that would mean it would cost 7 init to tele there and back… They should just make it so you have to be in range and maybe decrease the range a bit. The damage and evades are not even CLOSE to OP. Why do people complain about this with all the other OP kitten in this game? its saddening.

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Posted by: Derps.7421

Derps.7421

cost 3 or 4? what a joke. that would mean it would cost 7 init to tele there and back… They should just make it so you have to be in range and maybe decrease the range a bit. The damage and evades are not even CLOSE to OP. Why do people complain about this with all the other OP kitten in this game? its saddening.

1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axis
3. has no cool down,
4. no counter play
5. Pretty much spamable
6. removes a condi,
7. causes immobilize,
8. can be used to completely negate stuns ( not stun break but you can give enough distance to stop stuns)
9. Low cost initiative
10. The opposing player has no idea where the port back spot is.
11. Other classes have to waste utility slots with 30+ second cds to have this mobility.

Your right sounds completely balanced and fair. Booo whoooooooo poor thieves always getting picked on.

Dr. Professor Evil – Engi
Stunned Girls Can’t Say No <Hawt>

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Posted by: Demonts.4593

Demonts.4593

cost 3 or 4? what a joke. that would mean it would cost 7 init to tele there and back… They should just make it so you have to be in range and maybe decrease the range a bit. The damage and evades are not even CLOSE to OP. Why do people complain about this with all the other OP kitten in this game? its saddening.

1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axis
3. has no cool down,
4. no counter play
5. Pretty much spamable
6. removes a condi,
7. causes immobilize,
8. can be used to completely negate stuns ( not stun break but you can give enough distance to stop stuns)
9. Low cost initiative
10. The opposing player has no idea where the port back spot is.
11. Other classes have to waste utility slots with 30+ second cds to have this mobility.

Your right sounds completely balanced and fair. Booo whoooooooo poor thieves always getting picked on.

If you tone down sword 2 there is tons of counter play. No CD? lol it costs initiative… that is what we use in case u didnt know… it is good against stuns cuz we get 1 shotted if we get stunned so that is fair. the warrior can creep up on our port so we cant retreat too. The other player should also know where the port spot is too. But again, if they change the 2 skill a bit (like range or make it so you have to be in range) the build will be fine. The 2 skill is the only problem with the build.

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Posted by: Mrbig.8019

Mrbig.8019

wholeheartedly agree.

too much fuzz about the thief when inf strike just needs to be “shaved” in order to allow counterplay and to not be spammed mindlessly WHILE still being effective.

and if they do this, they’d better start buffing us too.

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Posted by: Poxxia.1547

Poxxia.1547

wholeheartedly agree.

too much fuzz about the thief when inf strike just needs to be “shaved” in order to allow counterplay and to not be spammed mindlessly WHILE still being effective.

and if they do this, they’d better start buffing us too.

Just took the last post, sorry.

I wonder … if you see thieves as a class, that should be able to get in the battle and out again … isn’t that the case, for every GC-build (or at least the ones, who can roam … which is again another issue)?
Yet, I haven’t seen any class, that can do it with so little effort. I can’t help feeling, that the escape/engage-opportunities need some kind of timing, instead of being spamable.

Else it should be given to everyone (and mind you, be out of reach for all other GC-builds as well), and that would just be a mess.

I hope you understand what I am trying to say; not sure if it is very clear, else I will try to elaborate.

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Posted by: Mrbig.8019

Mrbig.8019

wholeheartedly agree.

too much fuzz about the thief when inf strike just needs to be “shaved” in order to allow counterplay and to not be spammed mindlessly WHILE still being effective.

and if they do this, they’d better start buffing us too.

Just took the last post, sorry.

I wonder … if you see thieves as a class, that should be able to get in the battle and out again … isn’t that the case, for every GC-build (or at least the ones, who can roam … which is again another issue)?
Yet, I haven’t seen any class, that can do it with so little effort. I can’t help feeling, that the escape/engage-opportunities need some kind of timing, instead of being spamable.

Else it should be given to everyone (and mind you, be out of reach for all other GC-builds as well), and that would just be a mess.

I hope you understand what I am trying to say; not sure if it is very clear, else I will try to elaborate.

infact i agree with you

take a look at my last posts, you’ll see that i want it nerfed and balanced like any other guy with a bit of common sense.

but we need to balance it in the right way, and still thieves are not in a very great shape (design wise) so they should indeed rebalance the power among our skills.

D/P is the perfect example that any thie weaponset shoukd follow.

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Posted by: Lachanche.6859

Lachanche.6859

i would recall that S/D has basically a whole useless weapon attached ( dagger OH) where you’re basically wasting ini 99% of the time if you use those 2 skills.

IMO this is because offhand dagger was very good early on.
I dont really remember when these things were changed but i remember trying out all of them myself.
No revealed debuff.
Could contest points in wvwvw under stealth.
Too good damage on bouncing dagger (i remember the damage on the tooltip was 754, for comparison heartseeker’tooltip stated 1100 dmg under 33% hp).
Low ini cost on c&d.
Specifically about c&d i have to say that i remember the damage, the cast time and the ini cost bounce around quite a lot until it assesestated at 6 ini, mid damage and short cast time.

At this point i think it’s fair to say that off hand dagger lacks something to make up for what it lost.