Guild Wars 2

Pre-patch you were able to cancel your return spot by jumping while casting Infiltrator’s Strike while something is targeted, which provided the thief with extra engage/escape potential. Some people might call it a fix but it was a pretty strong tool for S/D thieves under the right circumstances, especially in WvW.

I play S/D most of the time over D/P since I prefer the playstyle despite it’s inferiority to D/P and many other meta builds in the game. It’s a completely unnecessary change but for it to not even be listed in the patch notes is pretty disgraceful. It’s not like the weapon set has been completely destroyed but as a player who often used that trick it’s going to take quite a while to get used to. I know this wont apply to many people but for me personally it’s put me off playing considerably.

/rantover

Evan Nebula.4608:

It’s not like the weapon set has been completely destroyed

But it has, you effectively cannot chase a target anymore with sword.

This change only reinforces the need of shadow shot.
This change only stifles build diversity and locks players into d/p & shortbow.
I am tired of both of these weapons. I’m tired of seeing people use them. I’m tired how d/p is the only viable set.

The bug while not intended was a large part of swords mobility. I understand this is a bug fix, but it takes so much away from sword and were not compensated in any form. No range increase, no damage adjustments.

Yeah I kinda hesitated in writing that. Certainly the way I play S/D has been well and truly gutted, I’m not entirely sure if I’d even be able to get used to what really is a drastic change to the weapon set. The reason I said it is that it might still be able to play it after a period of time to adjust but I can safely say there’s no way in hell it’s even going to be remotely competitive anymore. It’s just gonna be another build to mess about with in the guild arena.

I loved playing S/D since I had to outplay most of these other builds to stand a chance at winning, there’s no chance of that now and it’s so disheartening. It’s either play D/P again, find another build to love or just quit the game altogether.

I understand this diminishes capabilities of S/D a bit, but you guys (and others) are talking like you’re winning games by only running around spamming #2/jump and now you can’t so the weapon set is completely useless.

All Matters Fecal.9560:

I understand this diminishes capabilities of S/D a bit, but you guys (and others) are talking like you’re winning games by only running around spamming #2/jump and now you can’t so the weapon set is completely useless.

If you don’t play meta, this skill carried several other weapon sets and builds, including S/x itself.

The problem is there’s no compensation and the weaker non-meta sets already got nerfed ridiculously on 7/26 to border-line non-playability. This was the final nail in the coffin for most of them.

It’s not something which flat out carries you, the change just limits your options and forces you to save other important CDs which you previously wouldn’t have had to use. S/D was a lot about mind games and outplaying via positioning and they’ve straight up deleted a tool which did that. It’s not like it didn’t have it’s drawbacks either, sometimes you get wrecked by not having return spot to get out with.

It would be nice if it is a Thief exclusive feature to activate skills while in the air.

I always wanted to avoid fall damage by shadowstepping to a target before hitting the ground. Or use Impairing Daggers while jumping backwards.

It would give the profession a lot of appeal and a higher skill level to master.

I’m actually really sad about it because I was just getting into thief and it was really helping me finish map completion quickly. Went out, came home, downloaded the patch and it was fixeD! I only had a few hours’ fun with it.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It would be nice if it is a Thief exclusive feature to activate skills while in the air.

I always wanted to avoid fall damage by shadowstepping to a target before hitting the ground. Or use Impairing Daggers while jumping backwards.

It would give the profession a lot of appeal and a higher skill level to master.

Activating skills mid air sounds even more appealing then Unhindered on stealth attacks… not sure if this wouldn’t get thief in the realm of overperforming though… not that i would mind such change.

Usagi.4835:

I’m actually really sad about it because I was just getting into thief and it was really helping me finish map completion quickly. Went out, came home, downloaded the patch and it was fixeD! I only had a few hours’ fun with it.

Heh, I wanted to try it too but red the thread too late… seems like ANet reads and fixes thief “bugs” on daily basis if you take into account this quick response… Or do they?

NuhDah.9812:

Usagi.4835:

I’m actually really sad about it because I was just getting into thief and it was really helping me finish map completion quickly. Went out, came home, downloaded the patch and it was fixeD! I only had a few hours’ fun with it.

Heh, I wanted to try it too but red the thread too late… seems like ANet reads and fixes thief “bugs” on daily basis if you take into account this quick response… Or do they?

I got a few hours out of it :P

You can live on vicariously through vids on YouTube. Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjid3sk8lBo

Usagi.4835:

NuhDah.9812:

Usagi.4835:

I’m actually really sad about it because I was just getting into thief and it was really helping me finish map completion quickly. Went out, came home, downloaded the patch and it was fixeD! I only had a few hours’ fun with it.

Heh, I wanted to try it too but red the thread too late… seems like ANet reads and fixes thief “bugs” on daily basis if you take into account this quick response… Or do they?

I got a few hours out of it :P

You can live on vicariously through vids on YouTube. Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjid3sk8lBo

Lol, that was funny)

They finally own up to it, in today’s patch notes

Thief
Infiltrator’s Strike: Fixed a bug that prevented Infiltrator’s Return from becoming available when the skill was used in midair.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

They finally own up to it, in today’s patch notes

Thief
Infiltrator’s Strike: Fixed a bug that prevented Infiltrator’s Return from becoming available when the skill was used in midair.

Yeap, just saw that too, after got kicked out of the pvp que and needed to restart the game for the next patch to take effect.

This update dumbs down Thief play aswel as the entirety of the game.
Did Sizer pull a Helseth and whoop the kitten of some Devs while playing S/D and using this trick?
Like others have said, this little “fix” hits those who played non-meta (without SB#5 for example) really, really hard and does indeed shoe-horn us even more into same old boring D/P.
Nice job A-Net. Made me really kitten sad for the past few days.

So they nerfed or fixed eles rtl and now IS/R.This goes back to the driods bugging into keeps in wvw, thank them for this.

S/d is pointless.

Highlie.7641:

S/d is pointless.

Why? Don’t tell me you spammed this bug as a mimicked version of shadow shot. I don’t understand why people can not, and or accept that if some one got away then they ‘won’. I have know about this bug for years like everyone else but stopped using it after a few weeks later. S/d is is still powerful as a defensive/offensive weapon set and vs a non d/p, it’s a very good dueling set. People crying like they are now reminds me of when flanking strike got nerfed so that it had to land to proc LS, why? There was no tactical play when that was around… 90% of the people used the FS in the open then bursted with ls.

The bug allowed the thief to shelf shortbow in favor of something else is all. It added a lot of utility to the weapon that it otherwise really lacked, and didn’t have the tools to really do much about.

This isn’t so much really an issue of people not willing to adapt like the FS/LS changes (which I was fine with). The FS changes were always positive imho, and I saw the tweak to FS as a buff (you could dig through my post history and find me claiming chained evades would make evasion builds played by skilled players better). I think it was at its worst at launch, when there was no second component, and was just a super-cheap, very spammable source of evades, just like DB is now. The real issue is the simple fact it just hurts the utility options the weapon carried so much. It’s still usable as a main set, although it definitely struggles a lot more than it did since it can’t catch much now (600 range teleport is kinda crappy). I just depended heavily on the set in WvW since I don’t like shortbow, and preferred the options S/D gave me. With forced return, it makes D/D also harder to play and weaker to D/P, again, since the shortcomings of having poor stickiness cannot be resolved via another weapon and well-played swapping.

Isn’t that being too gready though? Having 2 melee sets and still having an unlimited use of 600 range port? I have always used shortbow tbh so I wouldn’t know how bad it was for you guys but this change hasn’t effected me at all, in fact I have about 5 shortbows all acsnded with the same stats xD just with different skins.

Greedy because we had the capacity to use two melee sets functionally well? No. Most professions can achieve this.

Unlimited use? It was at best three or so consecutive casts followed by then having zero initiative to do anything – the IS/IR both still needed to be casted, and was thus a 600 range teleport for 5 initiative – objectively slower-moving than shortbow, and not as good for engaging as Shadow Shot from both initiative and range POV’s. Running double melee also prevented the thief from having ranged pressure/poke after a disengage (which could not be achieved with just sword unless other targets were provided), and thus has a more difficult time when being forced into ranged combat. Because of this, skippable IR was at times critically mandatory to catch up to professions such as druids, which have tremendous burst-mobility and ranged damage. Simply now, it’s just not possible to run double melee from most angles of combat due to melee’s innate weakness, nor is it possible to have the chase potential necessary to do keep up with fleeing targets.

In it of itself, it was 25% less movement per initiative, with the dependence on casting IR, slowing down the process with those casts overall to a substantial degree. Its landspeed hovered somewhere in between Vault and IArrow.

sorry been playing other things latetly.

It’s pointless because you can do everything that set does cheaper, and with more overall damage on other weapon sets.

What is the point of it? (i’ve mained s/d since launch btw)

death blossom is a cheaper evade with the same duration
you can trait for the boon strip from larc strike now (you still do more damage with d/d over s/d with CS)
Inf strike is slow and clunky, Shadow shot is a much better option.

It’s not about the bug.

You can’t trait to replace Larcenous. RS only works if the stealth attack lands, has a cooldown, and is not unblockable.

S/D got gutted from its chase potential, which was a big part of the kit.

Maybe up the range to 700 but for the most part it fine.. I always found the power of the skill not so much the port and chase as it was the second component return as In get in do your business and if you get in trouble port out.

The port IN and out is akin to the pd 3 and d/p 3 skill combined in that regard. Just lower range in. Chase potential is inferior. Got it. Disengage is superior.

A bug is a bug. If al that makes a weaponset work is a bug then remove the bug and work on the weaponset.

babazhook.6805:

A bug is a bug. If al that makes a weaponset work is a bug then remove the bug and work on the weaponset.

I guess the question is… what makes a bug a bug? What separates a bug from a feature?

Is it sloppiness? Is it intent?

Sometimes, accidental results are better than intentional results.

Is it a bug that Black Powder is a self-combo-ing skill? Did someone think that through? Or did it just happen because they put a projectile and a smoke field on the same skill without paying attention?

Can one programmer’s feature be another programmer’s bug?

More I think about this I wonder if swapping the return and engage ranges would be a good change to make the chase potential there while still having some of the return potential. I think that would be a simple fix, it would allow us to spend our init to chase. Obviously it would need some tuning as a 1200 range engage is a bit much. I think 900 range would be fair and allow us to gain 300 ground per cast.

Something like

Infiltrators Strike
Range 900
Cost 4

Infiltrators Return
Range 600
Cost 1

Rest unchanged. What are other peoples thoughts? would you rather we could escape better or chase? Frankly the 1200 return range has rarely been that advantageous for my own play.

The 600 range engage when reusable was enough to keep it useful while not overbearing, and the 1200 range disengage is huge at times for certain things like kiting GS warrior, D/P thief, or even DH, so I’m going to have to say I think it’d end up hurting more than helping.

Honestly, if they only want it to be used once every 15s as an engage, the range should be doubled on the engage and the skill normalized to 1200.

reminds me of when they nerfed ranger spirits when it was already dying…by making spirits unable to move
.
.
Neither my friends nor I will ever support another game anet make

Larc strike only works if you hit with flanking strike? whats your point
You are in stealth meaning it doesn’t have to be unblockable.

As for “Chase potential” Roll Inf signet (Assuming your playing Pvp) Or use one of the cooldown reductions on steal (Wvw) It is much cheaper.