Guild Wars 2

“Skills and traits that previously granted pulsing stability now grant a block of stability up front in order better allow for counterplay through boon removal.”

Dagger Storm is so underused that even the devs and the B A L A N C E team forgets that it exists…along with many other heal/utility/elite skills and traits.

That’s just thief btw…there’s also Balanced Stance for warrior, for example.

Not all pulsing stab was changed, in some situations it’s not unbalanced to have it, like transformation utilities that lock you out of your weapon skills.

The problem is the animation cancel. You used to be able to use daggerstorm then immediately dodge, then fight for the next 8-10 seconds with stability. With old lyssa runes on top (all boons for 5s on elite) and the fact thief didn’t need power runes for damage at the time, it was a little silly.

Making the skill give pulsing stab removed that functionality as the duration of each stack is short, and it’s probably the reason it got passed over here again.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

The problem is the animation cancel. You used to be able to use daggerstorm then immediately dodge, then fight for the next 8-10 seconds with stability. With old lyssa runes on top (all boons for 5s on elite) and the fact thief didn’t need power runes for damage at the time, it was a little silly.

Making the skill give pulsing stab removed that functionality as the duration of each stack is short, and it’s probably the reason it got passed over here again.

This. On channeled abilities, it’s really not a good idea to allow for bulk-stacks.

RS3 and SotP were not channels, and both had very potent synergies with other traits/skills (BB and boonsharing options available on the ranger respectively) which would proc each time a stack was applied. It also made burst-incoming CC negate portions of the traits’ efficacy which in turn nerfed stability with how much CC there is.

DS needs to be pulsing at the end of the day, and for good reason.

Only thief elite I ever use is the summon, for rare and special occasions.

The appeal of thieves is weapon abilities not having cooldowns. The fact that utilities and elites do makes signets super appealing. It’s just a shame thieves don’t have an elite signet.