Guild Wars 2

So three days ago, i decided to make a thief. I got him to 80 and dumped 350g into him. Then today, i heard that thief is getting “ruined”. or some big boy nerfs are coming…. Can anyone elaborate or link me to a post that says anything about this….heavily dissapointed.

they are changing the stealth mechanic. For the class as a whole it doesnt make a big difference, and in PvE you won’t likely see a big difference. In PvP and WvWvW the class is harder to play, but afaik and have been reading and expecting only so it is more equal to other classes.

can you point me to a post about this?

Well, there’s two things happening.

First is that culling is being removed. Of course, this will affect everyone, but Thief will be the most affected profession.

Second is that the State of the Game talk mentioned that Thieves will be put into Revealed when leaving stealth, regardless of whether you leave stealth by attacking or by stealth running its duration. This is of course mostly irrelevant to someone who uses a build that constantly uses stealth attacks like Backstab, Tactical Strike or Sneak Attack.

can you point me to a post about this?

No post about it, but you can watch the video here

tbh it will mostly hurt cheesers and people that used chain stealths in PvE for certain situations.

No more dredge bomb tunnel goodness because some idiots in WvW got killed by 1 attack every 3 seconds and couldn’t work out that stealth isn’t invincible while stealthed….

Dasorine.1964:

tbh it will mostly hurt cheesers and people that used chain stealths in PvE for certain situations.

No more dredge bomb tunnel goodness because some idiots in WvW got killed by 1 attack every 3 seconds and couldn’t work out that stealth isn’t invincible while stealthed….

That one attack can rip over 60% health off a non-glass, level 80 guardian. Sure, you can heal… then you get hit by it again. And again. And again.

While such thieves are glass and vulnerable to slamming the ground around you with AoE controls (how I shook off such thieves who thought I was an easy meal), not all classes have access to such skills- many, such as mesmer clones, require a target to activate, and stealthing throws off targetting. Even when you do have them, it’s hard to think under OH GOD WHAT JUST ATE NEARLY ALL MY HEALTH UGH

Blame the people who reduced thief play to 111115111151111511115, not the uplevels and non-eles they feasted on.

… if cloak and dagger is removing 60% of your health as a level 80 non glass guardian then you’ve done something very very wrong.

so its garunteed thing?

tbh we can’t know for sure until the actual patch.

Falunel.7645:

That one attack can rip over 60% health off a non-glass, level 80 guardian. Sure, you can heal… then you get hit by it again. And again. And again.

Excuse me, but Cloak and Dagger has a base damage of 504. By your logic, an attack that has more than 252 base damage should be able to rip through 30% of the HP of a Guardian. Well, I still haven’t seen a single Guardian dying to the three-hit auto-attack of Warrior GS, which deals a total of 851 base damage.

The big damage that you’re seeing is Backstab. And that already puts you into Revealed. To further humiliate Thieves, the devs talked about doing something with Mug as well.

Blame the people who reduced thief play to 111115111151111511115, not the uplevels and non-eles they feasted on.

Excuse me, but spamming 1 like that would put you into Revealed as you would be hitting Backstab. That kinda invalidates everything you just said. The CnD spammers would look more like 5, (count to 3), 5, (count to 3), 5…

Also, every single autoattack in the game deals more damage over 3 seconds than CnD would, mostly because to stay stealthed with CnD, you can only use it once every 3 seconds, whereas most auto-attacks will go through 1-3 full cycles in that time.

Olba.5376:

Falunel.7645:

That one attack can rip over 60% health off a non-glass, level 80 guardian. Sure, you can heal… then you get hit by it again. And again. And again.

Excuse me, but Cloak and Dagger has a base damage of 504. By your logic, an attack that has more than 252 base damage should be able to rip through 30% of the HP of a Guardian. Well, I still haven’t seen a single Guardian dying to the three-hit auto-attack of Warrior GS, which deals a total of 851 base damage.

The big damage that you’re seeing is Backstab. And that already puts you into Revealed. To further humiliate Thieves, the devs talked about doing something with Mug as well.

Blame the people who reduced thief play to 111115111151111511115, not the uplevels and non-eles they feasted on.

Excuse me, but spamming 1 like that would put you into Revealed as you would be hitting Backstab. That kinda invalidates everything you just said. The CnD spammers would look more like 5, (count to 3), 5, (count to 3), 5…

Also, every single autoattack in the game deals more damage over 3 seconds than CnD would, mostly because to stay stealthed with CnD, you can only use it once every 3 seconds, whereas most auto-attacks will go through 1-3 full cycles in that time.

That argument applies to Backstab, not Cloak and Dagger. I actually lowered the damage estimate from Backstab- the guardian in question is not myself, but a friend who I know isn’t full glass. While exploring WvW, he complained that he had gotten knifed by a thief for 14k. Which… to say the least, he either forgot one of his armor pieces or he overreacted. That being said, I could see Backstab hitting for 14k on upleveled characters.

The issue with that playstyle is that, with culling, stealth artificially lasts several extra seconds, giving the thief plenty of time to spam other attacks before stealthing again, and you don’t necessarily have to be inside a zerg for the problem to appear (or rather, not appear). So you could say it’s more of a culling issue rather than a stealth issue, and it might have been wiser for them to simply remove culling and wait to see how it affects thief play rather than removing culling AND nerfing stealth. Which I would have agreed with, seeing that, as you said, actually backstabbing prevents you from chainstealthing.

i dont wanna start arguments. But i agree with what both of you are saying. i think they should fix culling. Tbh, when i play on other charrs, i have no issue with thieves .i think its a bit of a L2play issue. they should remove culling and IF they needed to nerf SOME damage where they see fit. I love being able to stealth twice, i find it very crucial when fighting more than one opponent. they shouldnt nerf stealth. thats silly.

Idk, even a lot of high-end PvPers have stated their concern on backstab’s risk vs damage on several state of the game interviews. And Anet team is known to balance everything around PvP, so I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a learn to play issue.

Falunel.7645:

The issue with that playstyle is that, with culling, stealth artificially lasts several extra seconds, giving the thief plenty of time to spam other attacks before stealthing again, and you don’t necessarily have to be inside a zerg for the problem to appear (or rather, not appear). So you could say it’s more of a culling issue rather than a stealth issue, and it might have been wiser for them to simply remove culling and wait to see how it affects thief play rather than removing culling AND nerfing stealth. Which I would have agreed with, seeing that, as you said, actually backstabbing prevents you from chainstealthing.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that the stealth nerf here is a good thing. For one, it makes the Thief fall damage trait much less useful, because you can be forced into Revealed by someone with a knockback off a small cliff. Similarly, there’s a 10 point trait in the Trickery line that gives stealth when you take more than 10% of your maximum HP in damage.

It also makes it much harder for thieves to get away from unfavorable situations, because they won’t be able to restealth by using CnD on a random mob.

Recycle.5493:

Idk, even a lot of high-end PvPers have stated their concern on backstab’s risk vs damage on several state of the game interviews. And Anet team is known to balance everything around PvP, so I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a learn to play issue.

Its my experience over many many games that the high-end pvpers tend to be even more whiney and self entitled than the new players.

Olba.5376:

Falunel.7645:

The issue with that playstyle is that, with culling, stealth artificially lasts several extra seconds, giving the thief plenty of time to spam other attacks before stealthing again, and you don’t necessarily have to be inside a zerg for the problem to appear (or rather, not appear). So you could say it’s more of a culling issue rather than a stealth issue, and it might have been wiser for them to simply remove culling and wait to see how it affects thief play rather than removing culling AND nerfing stealth. Which I would have agreed with, seeing that, as you said, actually backstabbing prevents you from chainstealthing.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that the stealth nerf here is a good thing. For one, it makes the Thief fall damage trait much less useful, because you can be forced into Revealed by someone with a knockback off a small cliff. Similarly, there’s a 10 point trait in the Trickery line that gives stealth when you take more than 10% of your maximum HP in damage.

It also makes it much harder for thieves to get away from unfavorable situations, because they won’t be able to restealth by using CnD on a random mob.

That was not an argument against you… merely an agreement and a clarification.

I feel that removing culling is enough of a nerf as is to backstab thieves, one that doesn’t impact thieves who use stealth legitimately, without exploiting culling. I personally would have agreed with them if they had said, “We’re going to remove culling, but we’ll wait and see how that affects thief play before we change the class itself.” I also feel that if the issue was backstab thieves, then it could have been dealt with more effectively by lowering the damage of backstab. That, again, would have solved a balance issue without negatively impacting people who didn’t use that build.

Stealth is annoying. So is an elementalist’s mobility or a warrior’s burst damage. All three are important to their classes and shouldn’t be unduly nerfed. The issue with stealth is that it can be used to exploit culling, which gives an unintended advantage. Thus, removing culling alone should fix things.

My original post meant to highlight that a problem did exist. However, that problem was not stealth, but culling and people who abused it to make themselves uncatchable, to annul the Revealed debuff that results from attacking. Under the cover of culling, they were able to continue attacking until the debuff wore off and they could restealth and backstab again. The best counter to backstabs is to kill or evade the thief while he/she is visible- however, you can imagine how difficult this can be when the thief is never visible. Thus, because this was an unintended advantage (i.e. an exploit) it was never a L2P problem and thus not the fault of the people who got ganked. It was because of the actions of the thieves who abused culling that thieves as a whole will suffer.

I’ve derailed this topic enough, so if you want any further clarifications, PM me.

Dasorine.1964:

Recycle.5493:

Idk, even a lot of high-end PvPers have stated their concern on backstab’s risk vs damage on several state of the game interviews. And Anet team is known to balance everything around PvP, so I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a learn to play issue.

Its my experience over many many games that the high-end pvpers tend to be even more whiney and self entitled than the new players.

It’s my experience over many many games that the high-end pvpers tend to know more about class balance than the new players.

my response is….. “please?” :-)

Rainbow.3496:

So three days ago, i decided to make a thief. I got him to 80 and dumped 350g into him. Then today, i heard that thief is getting “ruined”. or some big boy nerfs are coming…. Can anyone elaborate or link me to a post that says anything about this….heavily dissapointed.

Every class is getting balanced one way or the other.Why are you asking btw,did you just google for the most Op build in gw2,came up with the thief perm stealth build to spam the same skill over an over,now find out its being balanced and you kinda regret it all ? Just keep on playing the game…

Caedmon.6798:

Rainbow.3496:

So three days ago, i decided to make a thief. I got him to 80 and dumped 350g into him. Then today, i heard that thief is getting “ruined”. or some big boy nerfs are coming…. Can anyone elaborate or link me to a post that says anything about this….heavily dissapointed.

Every class is getting balanced one way or the other.Why are you asking btw,did you just google for the most Op build in gw2,came up with the thief perm stealth build to spam the same skill over an over,now find out its being balanced and you kinda regret it all ? Just keep on playing the game…

no……… just using a BS build………. And i feel it necessary to double or even triple CnD when in outnumbered fights. I dont understand while they are nerfing Cnd. Nerf the damage,not the mechanics. I dont appreciate you being snobby…just wanted some answers 0.o

Falunel.7645:

Olba.5376:

Falunel.7645:

The issue with that playstyle is that, with culling, stealth artificially lasts several extra seconds, giving the thief plenty of time to spam other attacks before stealthing again, and you don’t necessarily have to be inside a zerg for the problem to appear (or rather, not appear). So you could say it’s more of a culling issue rather than a stealth issue, and it might have been wiser for them to simply remove culling and wait to see how it affects thief play rather than removing culling AND nerfing stealth. Which I would have agreed with, seeing that, as you said, actually backstabbing prevents you from chainstealthing.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that the stealth nerf here is a good thing. For one, it makes the Thief fall damage trait much less useful, because you can be forced into Revealed by someone with a knockback off a small cliff. Similarly, there’s a 10 point trait in the Trickery line that gives stealth when you take more than 10% of your maximum HP in damage.

It also makes it much harder for thieves to get away from unfavorable situations, because they won’t be able to restealth by using CnD on a random mob.

That was not an argument against you… merely an agreement and a clarification.

I feel that removing culling is enough of a nerf as is to backstab thieves, one that doesn’t impact thieves who use stealth legitimately, without exploiting culling. I personally would have agreed with them if they had said, “We’re going to remove culling, but we’ll wait and see how that affects thief play before we change the class itself.” I also feel that if the issue was backstab thieves, then it could have been dealt with more effectively by lowering the damage of backstab. That, again, would have solved a balance issue without negatively impacting people who didn’t use that build.

Stealth is annoying. So is an elementalist’s mobility or a warrior’s burst damage. All three are important to their classes and shouldn’t be unduly nerfed. The issue with stealth is that it can be used to exploit culling, which gives an unintended advantage. Thus, removing culling alone should fix things.

My original post meant to highlight that a problem did exist. However, that problem was not stealth, but culling and people who abused it to make themselves uncatchable, to annul the Revealed debuff that results from attacking. Under the cover of culling, they were able to continue attacking until the debuff wore off and they could restealth and backstab again. The best counter to backstabs is to kill or evade the thief while he/she is visible- however, you can imagine how difficult this can be when the thief is never visible. Thus, because this was an unintended advantage (i.e. an exploit) it was never a L2P problem and thus not the fault of the people who got ganked. It was because of the actions of the thieves who abused culling that thieves as a whole will suffer.

I’ve derailed this topic enough, so if you want any further clarifications, PM me.

This guy is correct imo. thanks. go tell Anet this.

Falunel.7645:

Dasorine.1964:

tbh it will mostly hurt cheesers and people that used chain stealths in PvE for certain situations.

No more dredge bomb tunnel goodness because some idiots in WvW got killed by 1 attack every 3 seconds and couldn’t work out that stealth isn’t invincible while stealthed….

That one attack can rip over 60% health off a non-glass, level 80 guardian. Sure, you can heal… then you get hit by it again. And again. And again.

While such thieves are glass and vulnerable to slamming the ground around you with AoE controls (how I shook off such thieves who thought I was an easy meal), not all classes have access to such skills- many, such as mesmer clones, require a target to activate, and stealthing throws off targetting. Even when you do have them, it’s hard to think under OH GOD WHAT JUST ATE NEARLY ALL MY HEALTH UGH

Blame the people who reduced thief play to 111115111151111511115, not the uplevels and non-eles they feasted on.

Actually… Nerfing Cnd seems to reduce the skill. Alot of the skill in fights usually seem to come from choosing when to CnD defensively or offensively . I liked it that way :]

Rainbow.3496:

So three days ago, i decided to make a thief. I got him to 80 and dumped 350g into him. Then today, i heard that thief is getting “ruined”. or some big boy nerfs are coming…. Can anyone elaborate or link me to a post that says anything about this….heavily dissapointed.

what kind of thief has 350G if you’re so rich why do you have to steal things just doesn’t make a lot of sense just my thoughts am i right?

I used my steal to steal all of the gold, so arena net has to nerf it. THOUSAND BLADES OP.