Guild Wars 2

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first#post2833026

Looks like they want to reduce the number of boons it steals from 2 to 1.

They are giving other classes a reveal apply skill wich hits kitten stealth thieves and ALSO nerfing one of the only decent options for Non-stealth thieves! Way to go ANet!!

Get over it, you guys are more than fine and will be more than fine after this.

1. Rangers would have to give up a utility slot to slot that gimpy shout ability who’s only purpose is to reveal you once, you have non stop stealth and plenty of evades/teleports/escapes besides just stealth as well.

2. Larcenous Strike was a skill that did too many things, dmg, evasion, AND a massive utility (spammable 2 boon STEAL). That is huge, and it has to lose one of those. I would probably have chosen a dmg reduction instead TBH. So Larcenous is utility/defensive skill with some dmg and Auto’s are your bread n butter dmg, but w/e.

Stop freaking out..

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

Fade.7658:

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

Aoe dmg kills mesmer illusions and completely invalidated all of their illusion traits.

QQ mesmers useless.

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

Aoe dmg kills mesmer illusions and completely invalidated all of their illusion traits.

QQ mesmers useless.

And yet, I’m talking about thieves, in the thief forum, not Mesmers.

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

Aoe dmg kills mesmer illusions and completely invalidated all of their illusion traits.

QQ mesmers useless.

And yet, I’m talking about thieves, in the thief forum, not Mesmers.

It was an example to show how what you said is ridiculous.

Wile LS removed 2 boons ppl spammed it, now that it will only remove 1… thieves will ONLY press that button so expect allot more whining in the forums about spammers. But it is A-net’s fault for incentivating it.

Knote.2904:

2. Larcenous Strike was a skill that did too many things, dmg, evasion, AND a massive utility (spammable 2 boon STEAL). That is huge, and it has to lose one of those. I would probably have chosen a dmg reduction instead TBH. So Larcenous is utility/defensive skill with some dmg and Auto’s are your bread n butter dmg, but w/e.

Stop freaking out..

Larcenous Strike does not have an Evade it is one stab after using Flanking strike and it is pretty slow cast time.
I mainly use it for my evading build so I can use the evades from Flanking strike.

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

Aoe dmg kills mesmer illusions and completely invalidated all of their illusion traits.

QQ mesmers useless.

And yet, I’m talking about thieves, in the thief forum, not Mesmers.

It was an example to show how what you said is ridiculous.

And yet stealth plays a much larger part of how a thief operates. Nearly every single spec incorporates it into how it plays.

There is maybe 1 or 2 build types that doesn’t rely on stealth. Mesmer illusions don’t play as an important role in that respect. While I don’t play one, I bet there are plenty of builds that don’t focus on illusions.

You want to a be a thief hater, fine. Go elsewhere and hate on thieves there.

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

Aoe dmg kills mesmer illusions and completely invalidated all of their illusion traits.

QQ mesmers useless.

And yet, I’m talking about thieves, in the thief forum, not Mesmers.

It was an example to show how what you said is ridiculous.

And yet stealth plays a much larger part of how a thief operates. Nearly every single spec incorporates it into how it plays.

There is maybe 1 or 2 build types that doesn’t rely on stealth. Mesmer illusions don’t play as an important role in that respect. While I don’t play one, I bet there are plenty of builds that don’t focus on illusions.

You want to a be a thief hater, fine. Go elsewhere and hate on thieves there.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL omg.

You have to be kidding me.

There isn’t a single mesmer build that doesn’t use illusions, a mesmer w/o illusions is literally nothing.

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

Aoe dmg kills mesmer illusions and completely invalidated all of their illusion traits.

QQ mesmers useless.

And yet, I’m talking about thieves, in the thief forum, not Mesmers.

It was an example to show how what you said is ridiculous.

And yet stealth plays a much larger part of how a thief operates. Nearly every single spec incorporates it into how it plays.

There is maybe 1 or 2 build types that doesn’t rely on stealth. Mesmer illusions don’t play as an important role in that respect. While I don’t play one, I bet there are plenty of builds that don’t focus on illusions.

You want to a be a thief hater, fine. Go elsewhere and hate on thieves there.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL omg.

You have to be kidding me.

There isn’t a single mesmer build that doesn’t use illusions, a mesmer w/o illusions is literally nothing.

Thank you for proving my point regarding stealth and thieves. It’s the same thing, with maybe a niche S/D non-stealth build.

If you also read my post, I stated I didn’t play a mesmer, nor knew a lot about them.

The fact remains that you would love to see thieves suffer some sort of nerf regarding stealth.

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

Aoe dmg kills mesmer illusions and completely invalidated all of their illusion traits.

QQ mesmers useless.

And yet, I’m talking about thieves, in the thief forum, not Mesmers.

It was an example to show how what you said is ridiculous.

And yet stealth plays a much larger part of how a thief operates. Nearly every single spec incorporates it into how it plays.

There is maybe 1 or 2 build types that doesn’t rely on stealth. Mesmer illusions don’t play as an important role in that respect. While I don’t play one, I bet there are plenty of builds that don’t focus on illusions.

You want to a be a thief hater, fine. Go elsewhere and hate on thieves there.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL omg.

You have to be kidding me.

There isn’t a single mesmer build that doesn’t use illusions, a mesmer w/o illusions is literally nothing.

One of the most popular and and strong mesmers build are the Shatter builds, it can generate an insane amount of illusion and guess what they DO NOT need to stay alive for long cause the mesmer will blow them up asap to burst, interrupt, get invult, place conditions and thats why even inside an aoe they still work perfectly, so aoe cant negate a trait line.

Even on phantasm builds that focus on letting illusions up u can buff their HP to a very good amount, this can make them viable to small grp fights and AWESOME in 1v2 or 3. They can divide the foe attention wich usually leads them to death

Reveal on the other hand makes impossible for thief to get any thing out of a stealth trait line

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Knote.2904:

Fade.7658:

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

Aoe dmg kills mesmer illusions and completely invalidated all of their illusion traits.

QQ mesmers useless.

And yet, I’m talking about thieves, in the thief forum, not Mesmers.

It was an example to show how what you said is ridiculous.

And yet stealth plays a much larger part of how a thief operates. Nearly every single spec incorporates it into how it plays.

There is maybe 1 or 2 build types that doesn’t rely on stealth. Mesmer illusions don’t play as an important role in that respect. While I don’t play one, I bet there are plenty of builds that don’t focus on illusions.

You want to a be a thief hater, fine. Go elsewhere and hate on thieves there.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL omg.

You have to be kidding me.

There isn’t a single mesmer build that doesn’t use illusions, a mesmer w/o illusions is literally nothing.

Thank you for proving my point regarding stealth and thieves. It’s the same thing, with maybe a niche S/D non-stealth build.

If you also read my post, I stated I didn’t play a mesmer, nor knew a lot about them.

The fact remains that you would love to see thieves suffer some sort of nerf regarding stealth.

I could care less either way. Point is you’re over exaggerating.

A long cooldown that reveals you briefly does not completely invalidate a thief and their stealth traits lol…. You can stealth right after that. Not to mention all the evasion/teleports you have to escape as well.

Mesmers do fine even if their core mechanic gets killed/disabled, you will too…

You didn’t saw actuall skill description and you shake your kitten in fear lol. You will prolly get revelead debuff from this ranger skill and you can stealth again. I really don’t see a problem in here. Maybe it will force some ppl to actually think while doing their builds and not just go with D/P with facerollin in mind -_-’

All I can think of is…

Knote.2904:

Get over it, you guys are more than fine and will be more than fine after this.

1. Rangers would have to give up a utility slot to slot that gimpy shout ability who’s only purpose is to reveal you once, you have non stop stealth and plenty of evades/teleports/escapes besides just stealth as well.

Sic ’em is an ability that requires an active target to use. Just to clarify. So you will not be able to reveal a Thief already stealthed, simply prevent him from going into Stealth when he is still visible.
In this respect is no diffirent then a Daze or a Stun. Except the Thief can use all his other skills and abilities. In return the Revealed might (magic word here, we dont know) last longer then your typical stun or daze.

Walker.3056:

One of the most popular and and strong mesmers build are the Shatter builds, it can generate an insane amount of illusion and guess what they DO NOT need to stay alive for long cause the mesmer will blow them up asap to burst, interrupt, get invult, place conditions and thats why even inside an aoe they still work perfectly, so aoe cant negate a trait line.

Even on phantasm builds that focus on letting illusions up u can buff their HP to a very good amount, this can make them viable to small grp fights and AWESOME in 1v2 or 3. They can divide the foe attention wich usually leads them to death

Reveal on the other hand makes impossible for thief to get any thing out of a stealth trait line

I like how Knote completely ignores this hahaha

Kaizer.7135:

Walker.3056:

One of the most popular and and strong mesmers build are the Shatter builds, it can generate an insane amount of illusion and guess what they DO NOT need to stay alive for long cause the mesmer will blow them up asap to burst, interrupt, get invult, place conditions and thats why even inside an aoe they still work perfectly, so aoe cant negate a trait line.

Even on phantasm builds that focus on letting illusions up u can buff their HP to a very good amount, this can make them viable to small grp fights and AWESOME in 1v2 or 3. They can divide the foe attention wich usually leads them to death

Reveal on the other hand makes impossible for thief to get any thing out of a stealth trait line

I like how Knote completely ignores this hahaha

I gave up trying to prove my point to him. Most mesmers i’ve fought spit out illusions/phantasms at an alarming rate. It’s sickening how many people hate those that play thieves.

To get back on topic, what are your ideas for a new spec after the S/D nerf happens?
Venom share still seems like a too big investment imo.

Don’t like the idea of this change at all. That’s a 50% reduction in effectiveness – would rather it just cost an extra initiative. This just makes bountiful theft more attractive anyways, in addition to making people spam LS more.

In all honesty this probably means I’ll be moving towards a main hand dagger/backstab/HS build now. It’s not like I was some invincible Artemis Entreri wannabe running S/D. I always felt I had to work harder than other builds to be effective and I enjoyed that challenge because I liked the feeling of a sword in my hand, but I think I’ve had enough of that line of thinking after maining an ele as well for a year now.

Just out of curiosity – would you all rather run into a D/x stealth build or a S/D build in wvw?

S/D’s Larcenous Strike seems to inefficient with initiative cost to what you gain, i will likely only use the set now for the 5 and 2, maybe flanking strike if i get jumped.

Revealed is a much bigger issue. My ability to defend myself and my ability to survive is stealth dependent. Stealth is my condition removal and it is my way of dealing heavy damage. Any sort of repeatable 3rd party revealed drastically hampers my capacity to deal damage, defend, remove conditions, and much more. If this is not handle properly this change to rangers could DRASTICALLY weaken thieves in all formats but i fear most in WvW.

According to the latest leaked patch notes, S/D will only steal 1 boon now. No change to initiative cost.

Kaizer.7135:

Walker.3056:

One of the most popular and and strong mesmers build are the Shatter builds, it can generate an insane amount of illusion and guess what they DO NOT need to stay alive for long cause the mesmer will blow them up asap to burst, interrupt, get invult, place conditions and thats why even inside an aoe they still work perfectly, so aoe cant negate a trait line.

Even on phantasm builds that focus on letting illusions up u can buff their HP to a very good amount, this can make them viable to small grp fights and AWESOME in 1v2 or 3. They can divide the foe attention wich usually leads them to death

Reveal on the other hand makes impossible for thief to get any thing out of a stealth trait line

I like how Knote completely ignores this hahaha

That’s one build (shatter build) and it requires 2 specific traits and utilities and they have to be in melee range for it to be completely instant.

Buffing phantasm hp requires 1 trait slot AND giving up an entire utility slot for it.

Oh not to mention, a good portion of Mesmer survivability comes from Stealth as well, and they also have important traits that rely on it. (PU), you don’t see them freaking out, despite the fact that stealth is their only true escape, while thieves have better evasion/mobility and teleports to escape with.

Keep exaggerating thieves.

(P.S. Thief and Mesmer are my most played classes since beta)

Fade.7658:

Tell ya what, how about thieves get a utility that gimps any other classes’ damage, utility or defense? Not everyone plays S/D or D/P. I play P/D and no stealth means no sneak attack (or any defenses gotten from the shadow arts line).

Giving an ability that causes reveal entirely negates a whole trait line for those that spec shadow arts.

Pistols have kitten for a #2 slot, and their idea of a boost for it for team play will be garbage.

I swear to god, the devs are clueless, and have no idea how to properly balance anything. If there was a monthly fee to play, I would’ve taken this off the hard drive 9 months ago.

hahaha dude, it’s a SINGLE skill (with a decently long cooldown) that only rangers have, and the revealed debuff probably won’t even last that long. This is probably the most hilariously dramatic qq post I’ve ever seen.

Is it that time of the year again already? “Let’s see how we can tamper with sword thief” month? We sure get a lot of those and I’m getting sick of it. Hey Anet. You like shaving? How about shaving the initiative cost back down hm?

This is going to turn into a QQ post and I really dont care. I think I’m done with thief as a profession in gw2, there’s absolutely no stability, no security, nothing to look forward to except “what am I going to lose next time?”. I’m hanging up my Whisper’s hood and suiting back up in heavy armor.

It almost feels liberating, in a sad shameful way. I wonder if Yishis felt the same way when he moved on to Engineer.

I really don’t see the reason for this nerf. I am a S/D thief and don’t even use larcenous strike that much. This will give me even less reason to use it and make the class a little more boring and predictable….

I enjoy all these changes. They keep this game fresh and challenging!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Larcenous-Strike-Idea-fix-please/first#post2845011

Should merge my thread with this one to avoid clutter, yours was made before mine.

Agreed, this nerf should come with atleast a shaving on the ini cost. 1 boon instead of 2 is pretty hard nerf. Although I mostly used it only for the evade it’ll still be pretty painful to get through those boon covers to snatch that stability. Not worth it for the ini cost imo. I think I might try out trickery S/P when I don’t like the new S/D.
Could even try something weird like S/P&D/D. Although dagger offhand is pretty terrible, it’s still faster and less telegraphed burst, but it’ll probably won’t be worth it to give up sbow.

If they nerf the boon stealing then they should also give back the old initiative cost.

Losing 1 boon steal seems somewhat fair. However i dont find the set OP at all the way it is so idk why they are even doing this…

they should also make lacrenous cost 1 init instead of 2 after this

To me it really seems like they should sit down and reevaluate the thieves’ weapons and think what they want to accomplish with them. It’s very rare, if not unheard of, to see a d/d thief running a backstab build to use death blossom. Yes there are d/d condition builds but are they as effective as a p/d or sbow for that matter. Regardless of which weapon combination you pick there are always maybe 1 or even 2 skills that are lackluster to use in your build or playstyle. I hope that if they nerf LS they will sit down and find a purpose for s/d and adjust it accordingly so it does not become what it was before.

It took a really long time to make this change, but it was something I expected since they reworked it

On the other hand, it costs too much initiative. You have to use Flanking Strike anyway to use Larcenous Strike, and that costs 5 initiative.
FS is ok: free evade, hits the enemy twice and cleaves
LS damage is not awesome, just normal; and steals one boon now. Thats 2 initiative for a normal attack

Suggestions:
- Higher damage. I disagree with that, it’s used mainly for the boon steal, so dealing a lot of damage and stealing boons would unbalance it
- 1 initiative. Best suggestion I’ve read and hope it becomes true