Guild Wars 2

i think this is not the final edition of the patch notes, but a basis for them. They might be changed, but I doubt drastically.

@doopslayer yes exactly! ive seen this before. i think they throw this out there for speculation purposes and sponge a lil info back in then revise and finalize.

EDIT: they better be careful this is a patch to create many quitters in my opinion. im borderline considering it already. they are dumbing the game down too much and making it too simple. id rather see other classes including thief get boosted and make it about skill….chance…. and choice of build/gear rather than an overall gray fight where anyone can win at any given time at any given place regardless of build…. might as well play hungry hungry hippos. lame.

if this is true … what are they thinking/ smoking?

ranged thieves are already of poor performance in pve,
and now they plan on to nerf clusterbomb even more?

at least other classes have access to 1200 range weapon attacks.
thieves only had CB on SB as an already compromised attack
due to the long flight time and arc, not to mention the autottack nerf
already done.

just go ahead and continue with the pve/pvp skill split already anet.
“promote diversity”, indeed.

Oh man… so much QQ here.

Thieves are still the single most reliable appliers of Weakness, which is now extremely powerful (a flat 12.5% incoming damage decrease: 25% of their hits deal only 50% damage). Shortbow is a liiiittle bit overpowered now, and using an init-regen power/crit build will contribute infinitely more to teamfights now.

shortbow is not OP in pve

Some good and bad changes all around. Ignoring the things that don’t count because they’re still useless imo,

The bad:
1) Last refuge is the single biggest reason i die, reduced cooldown actually makes this kitten worse. They need to either make it not work with the revealed mechanic or replace the skill with something else completely. Its shocking that anet hasn’t listen to every thief scream bloody murder about this and old yeller it already.
2) Cluster bomb range reduction makes the worst zerg fighter in the game obsolete. Venom share and dagger storm will be your 2 contributions to large scale fights.

The good:
1) Reduction in steal cooldown. Pretty sweet
2) scorpion wire cooldown reduction. Kinda cool, now if only they could fix the pathing to be more reliable.
3) Skale venom change. I think this is pretty cool, the skill sucked before and its extremely clear that anet is nerfing weakness sources/durations across the board. This will be a nice additional source of dps for condi thieves out there. Pistol bleed + sigil of earth + skale venom is going to add up quick.

Another thing to note is that whirling axe recieved a 50% damage buff so that it finally out dps’s the warrior axe auto attack. I wonder if this will also buff the damage of the stolen axe… if so O_o.

Seems like anet doesnt know what to do about the sword, they seem to nerf and buff it simultaneously, the last couple of patches. Lets see if pistol whip isn’t terribad anymore! Sky isn’t falling but dat cluster bomb nerf… will force me to shelf my thief for anything but roaming/scouting play in wvw. Sokay though, you should read the necro and guardian patch notes! Thank god i have alts

SharadSun.3089:

Oh man… so much QQ here.

Thieves are still the single most reliable appliers of Weakness, which is now extremely powerful (a flat 12.5% incoming damage decrease: 25% of their hits deal only 50% damage). Shortbow is a liiiittle bit overpowered now, and using an init-regen power/crit build will contribute infinitely more to teamfights now.

Pray tell. How is shortbow OP?

Travlane.5948:

@doopslayer yes exactly! ive seen this before. i think they throw this out there for speculation purposes and sponge a lil info back in then revise and finalize.

If this is the case I hope they hear this: Please revert the Lotus Poison change! (among other things… and remove Last Refuge instead of joking about it). There was no reason at all to change Lotus Poison (to the point it’s no longer worth it) when it was just fine and a very good source for support on the profession (and this game is about everyone being able to do every role), not OP at all as you needed to keep using it t maintain the weakness (and the new weakness isn’t SO much better, in fact against non berserkers it’s nerfed, and now it’s how it should’ve been from the beggining against zerkers).

SharadSun.3089:

Oh man… so much QQ here.

Thieves are still the single most reliable appliers of Weakness, which is now extremely powerful (a flat 12.5% incoming damage decrease: 25% of their hits deal only 50% damage). Shortbow is a liiiittle bit overpowered now, and using an init-regen power/crit build will contribute infinitely more to teamfights now.

How exactly? With Lotus Poison ultra nerf (wich means bye bye to that reliable weakness) and cluster bomb range reduction it was quite nerfed.

And as I said, the new weakness isn’t SO much better, and as I said only against zerkers.

DirtyBird.6093:

3) Skale venom change. I think this is pretty cool, the skill sucked before and its extremely clear that anet is nerfing weakness sources/durations across the board. This will be a nice additional source of dps for condi thieves out there. Pistol bleed + sigil of earth + skale venom is going to add up quick.

Torment isn’t that great. IF all of this is true (and we still don’t know if fake) torment is 75% of what bleed do, and if they move, 150% of bleed. Applying 3 torments at best counts as 4.5 bleeds on a 45/36 cooldown, considering the Ranger already has a “venom” (works exactly like venoms) that applies 5 bleeds, I think Skale still needs a good buff before being of any use.

And sigil of earth is better for Necros and maybe (with big question mark) rangers. For a Thief it isn’t worth it to lose the Power of Carrion in favor for Precission on Rabid.

DirtyBird.6093:

Another thing to note is that whirling axe recieved a 50% damage buff so that it finally out dps’s the warrior axe auto attack. I wonder if this will also buff the damage of the stolen axe… if so O_o.

I think it would’ve been included in the notes like other stolen skills did.

Travlane.5948:

if 6 people were attacking a boss it would outdamage. the total dmg is +150 ( 6 players hitting a mob with 25% vuln)

Here’s the problem with this assertion: Even if we assume the thief can maintain 100 % uptime on the 25 stacks, the thieves’ DPS will be substantially lowered (due to time/initiative investment and the traits needed to run the build in the first place). Now, if we assume an even distribution of DPS (20 % from each player), this seems like a worthwhile tradeoff. However, most groups with (good) thieves don’t have an even DPS distribution, the thief should be doing more than their share of damage, which means giving up that damage in return to buff the group is an even poorer choice.

Vulnerability can be an asset at the group level, but not when it requires a significant investment to stack. Passive vuln procs? Great. Giving up an actual DPS profession to boost everyone else isn’t going to work well.

kittennit.7648:

S/P has much bigger issues in my opinion… it’s called retaliation.

And why ppl keep assuming? I play S/D since last december (used to play a daze build, now i play a hybrid stealth / acro double S/D build)

Retaliation only gets bad if you’re not paying attention and hitting 2+ people(1 of them usually being a guardian). The flip side of pistol whip’s multi-hit nature is that it benefits GREATLY from opportunist trait which is what gives it the initiative sustain in fights. 1 pistol whip could actually only cost you 3 initiative from natural regeneration and 1 opportunist proc. It also lets you proc low chance sigils like rage (not that anybody uses that anymore) and stuff. Thats why I don’t want them to make it less hits.

Nike.2631:

Kerishan.8460:

Cluster Bomb range set to 900 from 1200.

This is so stupid if true.

Ranger shortbow skills all got dropped to 900 range. Don’t expect for a moment that Thieves are gonna get more range out of a weapon than a Ranger would.

I was thinking about lobbying the ranger boards for shortbows reaching to 1,000. If that were to pan out, I think cluster bomb range going to 1,000 might be more plausible.

You can just equip your longbow and enjoy your 1200 or 1500 range, so just stop kittenting.
Thieves just have nothing to do on 1200 range, and all skill with 1200 (like useless scorpion wire) have a stupid path with full obstacle or broken animation.

they talked about new grandmaster traits, but i couldn’t see any of them for thiefs, which are the new grandmaster traits?

People crying about thiefs are people who only do PvE with them. What a shame. This forum is Hilarious. Everything needs a buff, everything needs a nerf.

that’s because anet stopped with the pve/pvp skill split updates.

there’s no denying that inherent gameplay differences between the two
means that some skills scales well on the two modes, some are either broken op
or unused since they’re almost useless on the other.

for pve, there is a current stigma against thieves compared to other classes;
just look at grouping sites/ map grouping… and that’s not without reason either,
especially at the obvious pve class imbalances.
.

Knox.3748:

People crying about thiefs are people who only do PvE with them. What a shame. This forum is Hilarious. Everything needs a buff, everything needs a nerf.

PvE Thief needed a nerf?

Guess I’ll stick with my Warrior then. 50% Whirling Axe buff? Lol. Yes please.

Really, who cares about pve? How can they nerf or buff something without messing with WvW and spvp?

SharadSun.3089:

Oh man… so much QQ here.

Thieves are still the single most reliable appliers of Weakness, which is now extremely powerful (a flat 12.5% incoming damage decrease: 25% of their hits deal only 50% damage). Shortbow is a liiiittle bit overpowered now, and using an init-regen power/crit build will contribute infinitely more to teamfights now.

tell u what lol u take the weakness applier on your character and my thief will trade it for your protection (33% decrease icnoming dmg) everytime. i love when people say such silly things. shortbow is slow and misses more often than not. its for siege and blast finishing. you have no idea about thieves plz dont make comments and clutter up our forums as its annoying and unproductive ty.

Kerishan.8460:

You can just equip your longbow and enjoy your 1200 or 1500 range, so just stop kittenting.
Thieves just have nothing to do on 1200 range, and all skill with 1200 (like useless scorpion wire) have a stupid path with full obstacle or broken animation.

>implying Ranger Longbow is useful, even with the buffs

Piogre.2164:

Kerishan.8460:

You can just equip your longbow and enjoy your 1200 or 1500 range, so just stop kittenting.
Thieves just have nothing to do on 1200 range, and all skill with 1200 (like useless scorpion wire) have a stupid path with full obstacle or broken animation.

>implying Ranger Longbow is useful, even with the buffs

Ranger Longbow is getting very substantial buffs AND being defined as the only 1200 range weapon, so yeah, it’ll be useful.

I WANT 1200 RANGE SKILL/WEAPON !!!
WHY OTHERS HAVE, AND WE DON’T ?

Travlane.5948:

daendur doesnt play s/d obviously. its a ruined set if even 1 is nerfed like so.

I actually play s/d and even if sr will drop his stun braker part it will still be useful.
condition remove and teleport …
you will still be able to engage / disengage but if you are stunned you’ll have to wait for it to wear off (after having disengaged)

Either i’m bugged or these notes are pretty obviously faked.

Shadow Return (infiltrator strike toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

This skill has never been a stun breaker. It just teleports you back to your original spot with everything still on CD from the stun/interrupt, still on your face or still stuck in one place until the effect you were under wears off. Unless the change means it no longer removes a condition, which would suck.

The removal of weakness sucks pretty hard especially considering how short weakness already was on bosses. If anything they should be extending our weakness application time in PvE.

I might try out a build with P/? if the SB nerf is true. I loved pistol and sword in Beta, but pistol just sucked too much compared to SB.

Shadow return has always been a stun breaker don’t know what you are talking about willis. Shadow return flops however if you use it while launched because stun breaking when in the air doesn’t work.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Either i’m bugged or these notes are pretty obviously faked.

Shadow Return (infiltrator strike toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

This skill has never been a stun breaker.

It always has been a stunbreaker. Since day-one release. Go check in-game and figure it by yourself if you don’t believe it.

Kyrion.2749:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Either i’m bugged or these notes are pretty obviously faked.

Shadow Return (infiltrator strike toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

This skill has never been a stun breaker.

It always has been a stunbreaker. Since day-one release. Go check in-game and figure it by yourself if you don’t believe it.

Just exited the game, it works exactly as I described. Doesn’t work on KD’s, Knockbacks, interrupts, or boss stuns. It does “work” on direct stuns from players as it removes the stun and allows me to move, but none of the abilities reset so I have to wait the full stun duration before being able to attack again anyway.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Kyrion.2749:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Either i’m bugged or these notes are pretty obviously faked.

Shadow Return (infiltrator strike toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

This skill has never been a stun breaker.

It always has been a stunbreaker. Since day-one release. Go check in-game and figure it by yourself if you don’t believe it.

Just exited the game, it works exactly as I described. Doesn’t work on KD’s, Knockbacks, interrupts, or boss stuns. It does “work” on direct stuns from players as it removes the stun and allows me to move, but none of the abilities reset so I have to wait the full stun duration before being able to attack again anyway.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

It works on every single one of them. I’m doing it right now.

Knockdown by Icebrood Wolf – Shadow Return, skills return, stun is broken.
Knockback by Icebrood Goliath – Shadow Return, skills return, stun is broken.
Launched by Veteran Saboteur – Shadow Return after landing – skills return, stun is broken.
Interrupted by all 3 of the above, worked in the exact same way.

Boss stun makes no sense, because there is no difference against any other stun.

From my personal experience, there’s some rare random case where sword shadow return (or even shadow step two steps) will bug out and result in just a teleportation.

It’s really rare though.

Knox.3748:

Really, who cares about pve? How can they nerf or buff something without messing with WvW and spvp?

it may not to you, but a lot of anet’s playerbase actually only cares about pve,
and they keep getting screwed over because of pvp balancing. pve balance
between classes is undeniably unbalanced and biased to a few others right now.
just take a look at dungeon grouping sites/ chat.

anet acknowledged the inherent difference between pve/pvp when they were
forced to split the skills in GW1. some skills scales well on both modes, some
are left unused since they are almost next to useless on the other.
they also started splitting the skills here as well (though very slowly)

as for wvw, there already have been numerous suggestions for it as well:
ranging from it doesn’t matter if they follow the pve skillset, to using the pvp
version of the skill with pve gear, to completely creating another skill split
for wvw for very tricky special skills, ect.
.

Auesis.7301:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Kyrion.2749:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Either i’m bugged or these notes are pretty obviously faked.

Shadow Return (infiltrator strike toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

This skill has never been a stun breaker.

It always has been a stunbreaker. Since day-one release. Go check in-game and figure it by yourself if you don’t believe it.

Just exited the game, it works exactly as I described. Doesn’t work on KD’s, Knockbacks, interrupts, or boss stuns. It does “work” on direct stuns from players as it removes the stun and allows me to move, but none of the abilities reset so I have to wait the full stun duration before being able to attack again anyway.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

It works on every single one of them. I’m doing it right now.

Knockdown by Icebrood Wolf – Shadow Return, skills return, stun is broken.
Knockback by Icebrood Goliath – Shadow Return, skills return, stun is broken.
Launched by Veteran Saboteur – Shadow Return after landing – skills return, stun is broken.
Interrupted by all 3 of the above, worked in the exact same way.

Boss stun makes no sense, because there is no difference against any other stun.

well that’s great for you but i’ve been playing S/D or S/P since launch and it’s never once worked like that for me. Guess i’ve been missing out. I mostly use it to return to the boss after getting knocked back to save some running time. Guess I should bug report that…

its always a full stunbreak regardless of situation unless on a very rare occaison it bugs

I don’t want more shortbow nerfs. The range is already awful enough.

Seven Dreamsong.9802:

Knox.3748:

Really, who cares about pve? How can they nerf or buff something without messing with WvW and spvp?

it may not to you, but a lot of anet’s playerbase actually only cares about pve,
and they keep getting screwed over because of pvp balancing. pve balance
between classes is undeniably unbalanced and biased to a few others right now.
just take a look at dungeon grouping sites/ chat.

anet acknowledged the inherent difference between pve/pvp when they were
forced to split the skills in GW1. some skills scales well on both modes, some
are left unused since they are almost next to useless on the other.
they also started splitting the skills here as well (though very slowly)

as for wvw, there already have been numerous suggestions for it as well:
ranging from it doesn’t matter if they follow the pve skillset, to using the pvp
version of the skill with pve gear, to completely creating another skill split
for wvw for very tricky special skills, ect.
.

I did a survey a while back with 1000+ responses from members of the GW2 community. An overwhelming majority of players are in it for the PvE content and less than 10% are engaged in structured PvP.

Further proof to this notes being fake, or at least not the final product:

Absolute no single mention to PvP division for skills. We know the progression of the balancind process has become more and more about separating skills into PvE and PvP. The word PvP NEVER appears in those notes.

Einlanzer.1627:

Piogre.2164:

Kerishan.8460:

You can just equip your longbow and enjoy your 1200 or 1500 range, so just stop kittenting.
Thieves just have nothing to do on 1200 range, and all skill with 1200 (like useless scorpion wire) have a stupid path with full obstacle or broken animation.

>implying Ranger Longbow is useful, even with the buffs

Ranger Longbow is getting very substantial buffs AND being defined as the only 1200 range weapon, so yeah, it’ll be useful.

If you think ranger lb will be useful you are out of your mind. I genuinely feel bad for rangers if those patch notes are real.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Seven Dreamsong.9802:

Knox.3748:

Really, who cares about pve? How can they nerf or buff something without messing with WvW and spvp?

it may not to you, but a lot of anet’s playerbase actually only cares about pve,
and they keep getting screwed over because of pvp balancing. pve balance
between classes is undeniably unbalanced and biased to a few others right now.
just take a look at dungeon grouping sites/ chat.

anet acknowledged the inherent difference between pve/pvp when they were
forced to split the skills in GW1. some skills scales well on both modes, some
are left unused since they are almost next to useless on the other.
they also started splitting the skills here as well (though very slowly)

as for wvw, there already have been numerous suggestions for it as well:
ranging from it doesn’t matter if they follow the pve skillset, to using the pvp
version of the skill with pve gear, to completely creating another skill split
for wvw for very tricky special skills, ect.
.

I did a survey a while back with 1000+ responses from members of the GW2 community. An overwhelming majority of players are in it for the PvE content and less than 10% are engaged in structured PvP.

so you know for a survery to be legit you need a randomized population of players. did you ask in an unbiased area or were you out in a pve area somewhere?

you would have to estimate the average given number of pvpers on and add that right into your conculsion. so if 5000 players were asked in pve and only 500 of them were pvpeers and the rest were pveers only then you would add the 500 that were in pvp at the time to the 500 to get 1000 out of 5500 players being pvpers in addition. see what i mean?

even better yet wait til the next patch is going in for wvw then go to LA and get a randomized survey there. that way you have as likely a pvp to a pve player to ask. i bet youll find it a lil closer to a 35 65 mix or 30 70 at most.

Travlane.5948:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Seven Dreamsong.9802:

Knox.3748:

Really, who cares about pve? How can they nerf or buff something without messing with WvW and spvp?

it may not to you, but a lot of anet’s playerbase actually only cares about pve,
and they keep getting screwed over because of pvp balancing. pve balance
between classes is undeniably unbalanced and biased to a few others right now.
just take a look at dungeon grouping sites/ chat.

anet acknowledged the inherent difference between pve/pvp when they were
forced to split the skills in GW1. some skills scales well on both modes, some
are left unused since they are almost next to useless on the other.
they also started splitting the skills here as well (though very slowly)

as for wvw, there already have been numerous suggestions for it as well:
ranging from it doesn’t matter if they follow the pve skillset, to using the pvp
version of the skill with pve gear, to completely creating another skill split
for wvw for very tricky special skills, ect.
.

I did a survey a while back with 1000+ responses from members of the GW2 community. An overwhelming majority of players are in it for the PvE content and less than 10% are engaged in structured PvP.

so you know for a survery to be legit you need a randomized population of players. did you ask in an unbiased area or were you out in a pve area somewhere?

It was in general discussion, which is as general as you can get.

If this were the Black Lion forum we could expect John Smith to drop by to itemize the shortfalls in the survey’s methodology in 3… 2… 1…

But its a class forum, so we’ll just have to imagine it .

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Travlane.5948:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Seven Dreamsong.9802:

Knox.3748:

Really, who cares about pve? How can they nerf or buff something without messing with WvW and spvp?

it may not to you, but a lot of anet’s playerbase actually only cares about pve,
and they keep getting screwed over because of pvp balancing. pve balance
between classes is undeniably unbalanced and biased to a few others right now.
just take a look at dungeon grouping sites/ chat.

anet acknowledged the inherent difference between pve/pvp when they were
forced to split the skills in GW1. some skills scales well on both modes, some
are left unused since they are almost next to useless on the other.
they also started splitting the skills here as well (though very slowly)

as for wvw, there already have been numerous suggestions for it as well:
ranging from it doesn’t matter if they follow the pve skillset, to using the pvp
version of the skill with pve gear, to completely creating another skill split
for wvw for very tricky special skills, ect.
.

I did a survey a while back with 1000+ responses from members of the GW2 community. An overwhelming majority of players are in it for the PvE content and less than 10% are engaged in structured PvP.

so you know for a survery to be legit you need a randomized population of players. did you ask in an unbiased area or were you out in a pve area somewhere?

It was in general discussion, which is as general as you can get.

general discussion where? on forums? in game? even so how can you be sure its an equal ratio of pve/pvp players to online if its in forum. you would literally have to get a list of all players and randomly pick 1000 of them to make it unbiased. i am on the forums alot and i can tell you that 80% at the very minimum here play PVP and thats being EXTREMELY conservative. id guess around 90% play pvp at least on a regular to occaisonal basis here. hence why skill changes are much more important as they reflect changes to and from other classes. i do get what you mean tho. a very large portion of people do play pve but generally pve is pretty kitten ed easy as a thief can 2 hit most mobs that are non bosses. i mean if its 5-6 people obv a warrior/guardian will make easy work of them much easier but thenagain people dont realize how hard the shortcomings of thief really are.

Travlane.5948:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Travlane.5948:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Seven Dreamsong.9802:

Knox.3748:

Really, who cares about pve? How can they nerf or buff something without messing with WvW and spvp?

it may not to you, but a lot of anet’s playerbase actually only cares about pve,
and they keep getting screwed over because of pvp balancing. pve balance
between classes is undeniably unbalanced and biased to a few others right now.
just take a look at dungeon grouping sites/ chat.

anet acknowledged the inherent difference between pve/pvp when they were
forced to split the skills in GW1. some skills scales well on both modes, some
are left unused since they are almost next to useless on the other.
they also started splitting the skills here as well (though very slowly)

as for wvw, there already have been numerous suggestions for it as well:
ranging from it doesn’t matter if they follow the pve skillset, to using the pvp
version of the skill with pve gear, to completely creating another skill split
for wvw for very tricky special skills, ect.
.

I did a survey a while back with 1000+ responses from members of the GW2 community. An overwhelming majority of players are in it for the PvE content and less than 10% are engaged in structured PvP.

so you know for a survery to be legit you need a randomized population of players. did you ask in an unbiased area or were you out in a pve area somewhere?

It was in general discussion, which is as general as you can get.

general discussion where? on forums? in game? even so how can you be sure its an equal ratio of pve/pvp players to online if its in forum. you would literally have to get a list of all players and randomly pick 1000 of them to make it unbiased. i am on the forums alot and i can tell you that 80% at the very minimum here play PVP and thats being EXTREMELY conservative. id guess around 90% play pvp at least on a regular to occaisonal basis here. hence why skill changes are much more important as they reflect changes to and from other classes. i do get what you mean tho. a very large portion of people do play pve but generally pve is pretty kitten ed easy as a thief can 2 hit most mobs that are non bosses. i mean if its 5-6 people obv a warrior/guardian will make easy work of them much easier but thenagain people dont realize how hard the shortcomings of thief really are.

There is a general forum? Didn’t even know. All I see is the spvp forum and profession forums as those are the only ones that matter to me.

Noctis Assassin.4035:

Travlane.5948:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Travlane.5948:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Seven Dreamsong.9802:

Knox.3748:

Really, who cares about pve? How can they nerf or buff something without messing with WvW and spvp?

it may not to you, but a lot of anet’s playerbase actually only cares about pve,
and they keep getting screwed over because of pvp balancing. pve balance
between classes is undeniably unbalanced and biased to a few others right now.
just take a look at dungeon grouping sites/ chat.

anet acknowledged the inherent difference between pve/pvp when they were
forced to split the skills in GW1. some skills scales well on both modes, some
are left unused since they are almost next to useless on the other.
they also started splitting the skills here as well (though very slowly)

as for wvw, there already have been numerous suggestions for it as well:
ranging from it doesn’t matter if they follow the pve skillset, to using the pvp
version of the skill with pve gear, to completely creating another skill split
for wvw for very tricky special skills, ect.
.

I did a survey a while back with 1000+ responses from members of the GW2 community. An overwhelming majority of players are in it for the PvE content and less than 10% are engaged in structured PvP.

so you know for a survery to be legit you need a randomized population of players. did you ask in an unbiased area or were you out in a pve area somewhere?

It was in general discussion, which is as general as you can get.

general discussion where? on forums? in game? even so how can you be sure its an equal ratio of pve/pvp players to online if its in forum. you would literally have to get a list of all players and randomly pick 1000 of them to make it unbiased. i am on the forums alot and i can tell you that 80% at the very minimum here play PVP and thats being EXTREMELY conservative. id guess around 90% play pvp at least on a regular to occaisonal basis here. hence why skill changes are much more important as they reflect changes to and from other classes. i do get what you mean tho. a very large portion of people do play pve but generally pve is pretty kitten ed easy as a thief can 2 hit most mobs that are non bosses. i mean if its 5-6 people obv a warrior/guardian will make easy work of them much easier but thenagain people dont realize how hard the shortcomings of thief really are.

There is a general forum? Didn’t even know. All I see is the spvp forum and profession forums as those are the only ones that matter to me.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2

Travlane.5948:

@mirra im pretty sure thats wrong. only reason you could use shadow return instead of any other skill is bc it was a stun break. same with shadow return on SS>and removes 3 conditions. take that away and you wont. :/

Last time I checked, you can use instant cast when you’re stun. One example is Mesmer’s Staff #2 and thief’s Blinding Power. It won’t break the stun but the ability will fire. Most importantly regarding Shadow Return is the ability to port back and not necessary the break stun portion. The stun break was just the icing on the cake.

I predict Shadow Return will work similarly to Mesmer’s Staff 2; you will be stun but you can still teleport back.

Travlane.5948:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Travlane.5948:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Seven Dreamsong.9802:

Knox.3748:

Really, who cares about pve? How can they nerf or buff something without messing with WvW and spvp?

it may not to you, but a lot of anet’s playerbase actually only cares about pve,
and they keep getting screwed over because of pvp balancing. pve balance
between classes is undeniably unbalanced and biased to a few others right now.
just take a look at dungeon grouping sites/ chat.

anet acknowledged the inherent difference between pve/pvp when they were
forced to split the skills in GW1. some skills scales well on both modes, some
are left unused since they are almost next to useless on the other.
they also started splitting the skills here as well (though very slowly)

as for wvw, there already have been numerous suggestions for it as well:
ranging from it doesn’t matter if they follow the pve skillset, to using the pvp
version of the skill with pve gear, to completely creating another skill split
for wvw for very tricky special skills, ect.
.

I did a survey a while back with 1000+ responses from members of the GW2 community. An overwhelming majority of players are in it for the PvE content and less than 10% are engaged in structured PvP.

so you know for a survery to be legit you need a randomized population of players. did you ask in an unbiased area or were you out in a pve area somewhere?

It was in general discussion, which is as general as you can get.

general discussion where? on forums? in game? even so how can you be sure its an equal ratio of pve/pvp players to online if its in forum. you would literally have to get a list of all players and randomly pick 1000 of them to make it unbiased. i am on the forums alot and i can tell you that 80% at the very minimum here play PVP and thats being EXTREMELY conservative. id guess around 90% play pvp at least on a regular to occaisonal basis here. hence why skill changes are much more important as they reflect changes to and from other classes. i do get what you mean tho. a very large portion of people do play pve but generally pve is pretty kitten ed easy as a thief can 2 hit most mobs that are non bosses. i mean if its 5-6 people obv a warrior/guardian will make easy work of them much easier but thenagain people dont realize how hard the shortcomings of thief really are.

The class forums get a lot more PvP discussion on average, but my research, which is sourced not only from general discussion on this site, but reddit and gw2g, indicates that the “silent majority” is an overwhelmingly PvE oriented bunch.

http://kwiksurveys.com/tmp_pdf/report-81A39396E4194D20BF9C7B1C9A693707.pdf

i think its hard to tell without anet killerangel. can never estimate a silent majority. only speculate.

@mirra only time will tell. but if they do stop stun break it will kill s/d to a nonplayed weaponset agian more than likely.

MIrra.3604:

Travlane.5948:

@mirra im pretty sure thats wrong. only reason you could use shadow return instead of any other skill is bc it was a stun break. same with shadow return on SS>and removes 3 conditions. take that away and you wont. :/

Last time I checked, you can use instant cast when you’re stun. One example is Mesmer’s Staff #2 and thief’s Blinding Power. It won’t break the stun but the ability will fire. Most importantly regarding Shadow Return is the ability to port back and not necessary the break stun portion. The stun break was just the icing on the cake.

I predict Shadow Return will work similarly to Mesmer’s Staff 2; you will be stun but you can still teleport back.

yes you can use instant cast when stunned. And the teleport USED to be the best aspect. However since they “fixed” the shadow return range and “fixed” the teleport patting the last two patches, more than half the time I use I don’t move at all or I get stuck on a pebble two inches away. So the stun break is all that is left. If they remove that I will use the skill and still be stunned stuck on the closest patting glitch awaiting death.

Travlane.5948:

i think its hard to tell without anet killerangel. can never estimate a silent majority. only speculate.

@mirra only time will tell. but if they do stop stun break it will kill s/d to a nonplayed weaponset agian more than likely.

It is difficult to estimate, but you are welcome to conduct your own research if you want to challenge my findings.

@killer angel i bet anet has it somewhere on these forums. question is where. i remember them mentioning it somewhere in the past i just cant recall if a number or % was given.

in any case, the pve playerbase is substantial enough for anet
to be taking notice of them,

they’ll take further dips in sales/ cash shop if they continue to let them get
the short end of the stick because of the effects of pvp balancing.

continuing on with the split will help them either way.

well, i am happy the sword isn’t nerfed into oblivion…
.
btw, the merciful ambush SHOULD have a CD, just to avoid perma invisible trolls
i am happy, it could have been much worse like:
1.the trait 2 ini on stealth could go into 1 ini on stealth,
2.or remove 1 condition after 2 seconds of stealth (not proc-ing instantly as now),
3. or slower ini regeneration etc.
imo sword is/ss should have 9s return window, not 15 …15 makes you walk long distances…and be able to swap weapons. and maybe up to 3 ini the cost for the return.
that nerf would not hit so hard, imo

however, remember we are not that OP in PVE…
guardians/warriors and others come to mind here…
warrior = extra 80% base hp from us + heavy armor + best dps, good condition remover, good aoe buffs (flags and 600 range aoe healing too, might + fury)

perma stealth WILL NOT kill the dungeon boss, that’s a fact !
i am using it to revive ppl, or to heal some extra HP before going melee again

DanH.5879:

well, i am happy the sword isn’t nerfed into oblivion…

Don’t say that too loud yet…