Guild Wars 2

So there has been alot of speculation, and questions about these notes being finalized and true. I for one am not believing anything until Anet themselves release the official copy of the notes. But for now, a Thief can dream. I do find a certain utility skill will start to be more abused if and when these changes occur. Abused to an extent it would be seen as broken, and that is Shadow trap. Destroying the trap will teleport you back to the traps original location?, and specfics on the range. Will it be infinite, or would it be 10,000 range like how it’s original shadow return teleport is? These traps will be used almost instinctual for thieves when running supply for keeps and towers.

I have other thoughts on the other skills and abilities, but I would like to hear first do you believe these notes, and second, your thoughts.

http://pastebin.com/2rrFg9pS

Thief

Lotus Strike: Poison duration increased form 2s to 4s.
Shadow Trap: Increased recharge to 45 seconds.
Destroy Shadow Trap: This ability now teleports the thief back to the trap location when it is destroyed. Added range skill facts. This skill now breaks stuns.
Shadow Pursuit: This ability now grants fury and 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds along with stealth when used to teleport to the enemy who triggered Shadow Trap. This ability now breaks stuns.
Death Blossom: Now costs 4 initiative.
Body Shot: Aftercast reduced by .4s. Decreased Vuln duratrion to 3s. Increaased to 10 stacks fo Vuln.
Pistol Whip: Decreased the time between the sstun and the sword flurry.
Scorpion Wire: Decreased aftercast by .2 seconds. Reduced cooldown to 20s.
Signet of Malice: Increased the base heal by 33% of the passive ability.
Steal: Recharge reduced to 35.
Cluster Bomb range set to 900 from 1200.
Larcenous Strike: Initiative cost increased to 2.
Nine tail strike: 3 initiative to 5
Shadow assault: 5 initiative to 7
The ripper: 5 seconds of bleed – > 7 s of bleed
Deadly Strike: Weakness duration 4s – 5 s, damage increased from 1 to 1.2
Skale Venom: Replaced Weakness with Torment.
Dancing Dagger: Reduced initiative cost to 3.
Shadow Return (infiltrator strike toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.
Withdraw: Travel distance cut in half underwater to match the land distance.
Deadly Strike: Reduced weakness duration to 3 seconds.
Crippling Strike: This ability no long applies weakness.
Rusty Scrap Strike: Reduced weakness duration to 8 seconds.
Throw Scale: Reduced weakness duration to 6 seconds.

Acrobatics
Assassin’s Retreat: This trait now grants 10 seconds of swiftness when you kill a foe. This effect has a 5 second internal cooldown.
Pain Response: This cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30.
Hard to Catch: The cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30.

Critical Strikes
Furious Retaliation: This trait now grants 10 seconds of fury when striking a target that is below 50% health. This effect can only occur once every 30 seconds.
Signets of Power: This 5 stacks of might that this trait grants has been increased to 10 seconds.

Deadly Arts
Corrosive Traps. This trait now 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds, up from 5.
Sundering strikes: Vulnerability caused by this trait has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
Panic Strike: This trait’s cooldown has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30.
Lotus Poison: Increased weakness duration to 4 seconds, but it can only apply once every 20 seconds per target.

Shadow Arts
Last Refuge: The cooldown of this trait has been reduced from 90 seconds to 60.
Slowed Pulse: The effect of this trait now occurs if you have 2 or more stacks of bleeding.
Shadow Protector: This trait has been changed to apply 10 seconds of regeneration when you stealth them. This effect will not occur if the ally already has regeneration on them.

Trickery
Merciful Ambush: This trait now grants 2 seconds of stealth to you and your ally when beginning a revive.
Long Reach: This trait now increases the range of Steal to 1500, up from 1200.
Ricochet: The chance to bounce for this trait has been increased from 25% to 50%.
Sleight of Hand: In addition to dazing your target, this trait now reduces the recharge of Steal by an additional 20%.
Instinctual Response: This trait now properly blinds enemies struck by the feathers. Increased radius from 120 to 180.

I’m hoping these are fake personally.

Seems pointless to add a new condition, and only give one way of applying it as a thief.

Also taking away Thieves’ only 1200 range attack would be a low blow by Arenanet if they didn’t give us a new weapon that had all 1200 range attacks.

Coldin.2840:

I’m hoping these are fake personally.

Seems pointless to add a new condition, and only give one way of applying it as a thief.

Also taking away Thieves’ only 1200 range attack would be a low blow by Arenanet if they didn’t give us a new weapon that had all 1200 range attacks.

its our only 1200 range attack and it has a 3 second travel time at that range, I can literally fire it and run past the spot were it should land before it explodes. The only thing that would make it worth it is if they sped up the travel time by 2×.

Why would you make another thread on this? You could have just given your opinion in the other thread.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

Why would you make another thread on this? You could have just given your opinion in the other thread.

why not? anet leaked the patch notes so they could make sure they didn’t do anything kittened. Myabe if we cry enough about clusterbomb nerf it wont make it to live.

Torment will seem okay, I guess, but it’s still doesn’t make scalevenom worth it.

Congrats, you do 75-150% damage of bleed for a few seconds at the cost of a utility. Might as well just run caltrops and do a million more damage + cripple or drake venom for the chill.

Why is everyone so fixated on the Cluster Bomb nerf? It’s not even our main source of DPS. Shortbow was REALLY strong, and this nerf put Cluster Bomb in line with the rest of our stuff.

I’m surprised not as many people are crying over the Shadow Return mega-nerf =p

Hopefully, they altered S/P’s timing enough to make it viable again.

SharadSun.3089:

Why is everyone so fixated on the Cluster Bomb nerf? It’s not even our main source of DPS. Shortbow was REALLY strong, and this nerf put Cluster Bomb in line with the rest of our stuff.

I’m surprised not as many people are crying over the Shadow Return mega-nerf =p

Hopefully, they altered S/P’s timing enough to make it viable again.

People are focused on the Cluster Bomb because we don’t have any other 1200 ranged attack. Shortbow honestly isn’t all that strong, but works great as a utility weapon. I really don’t see it as the weapon thieves pull out when they want to do damage, but when they want to run support, or simply stay at a safe distance.

Though, according to the “leaked” notes, Rangers got all their Shortbow skills reduced to 900 meters too. But that came with a damage boost to make up for it.

Coldin.2840:

SharadSun.3089:

Why is everyone so fixated on the Cluster Bomb nerf? It’s not even our main source of DPS. Shortbow was REALLY strong, and this nerf put Cluster Bomb in line with the rest of our stuff.

I’m surprised not as many people are crying over the Shadow Return mega-nerf =p

Hopefully, they altered S/P’s timing enough to make it viable again.

People are focused on the Cluster Bomb because we don’t have any other 1200 ranged attack. Shortbow honestly isn’t all that strong, but works great as a utility weapon. I really don’t see it as the weapon thieves pull out when they want to do damage, but when they want to run support, or simply stay at a safe distance.

Though, according to the “leaked” notes, Rangers got all their Shortbow skills reduced to 900 meters too. But that came with a damage boost to make up for it.

Ahhh. I guess this is the PvP/PvE dichotomy then?

I’m a tourney player, so 900 vs 1200 range is fairly negligible as a Thief, given that I don’t have many ranged bombard options anyways and I may as well close to deal damage.

SharadSun.3089:

Why is everyone so fixated on the Cluster Bomb nerf? It’s not even our main source of DPS. Shortbow was REALLY strong, and this nerf put Cluster Bomb in line with the rest of our stuff.

The reason people are fixated on it is because it means Thief is the only class that does NOT have a 1.2k range weapon attack that they can use and there are some bosses where this is actually a huge disadvantage. Not to mention, it means they won’t really have ANYTHING to do in WvW when defending a tower, other than manning an Arrow Cart and it means they can’t nip to the back of a zerg and do good on low HP. It also seems like a pointless nerf because Cluster Bomb is most powerful when a thief is standing fairly close to their target because of the reduced travel time.

I’m thinking that the notes are either fake or not all of the changes are going through because some of them seem like overkill and far too much, too fast, e.g. for warriors. Ofc, I SPvP and PvE on a Mesmer/Necro and I was sorta expecting a slight damage nerf, condition spec damage buffs and a few survivability tweaks… I don’t really know why thief even needed nerfing.

(I do have a Thief as my WvW character, with quite a chunk of hours racked up.)

Well if these notes are true, S/D thieves will be food for D/D Glass thieves. Since the shadow return will not break stun, that bassilick venom will hurt, along with the CnD- backstab. I will asssume that when stunned with BV, there will be a 1.5 second CD on S/D (2) skill. So most likely be easy meat.

- Shadow protector trait up to 10 seconds regeneration… Stack that with Shadow rejuvenation, and that is quite the healing right there.

Signet of Malice + lifes teal food will be adored again

The trait Minor and Majors have their CD’s cut in half. Which is kind of unbelievable that ANET would do that. Doesn’t mean i don’t appreciate it, it’s just simply unbelievable which is why I am starting to question if this stuff is real.

Skale Venom applies torment. What about Skale venom consumable

Cluster Bomb got hit hard, that’s all it is to that.

Rightfully so, Larcenous strike has went up to 2 initiative, and something that has been needing an initiative fix for a long time. Dancing dagger, and Death blossom.

Lastly that god all mighty steal recharge decreased to 35 seconds. Another indication on why these notes may not be true, and making our only 1500 range ability a steal, rather than a ranged weapon skill is beyond me. PVE’ers would definitely benefit from the range, as would WvW’ers.

Idk, I feel like the changes are completely in line with the Thief archetype xD these are things that ANet has been stressing about Thieves.

Shortbow’s Cluster Bomb is really and honestly overpowered. Hitting for 4-5k+ in a repeatable AoE is seriously a bit silly and repetitive, and I don’t see Thieves as ranged bombarders, rather midranged interceptors at most. The nerf hurt PvE Shortbow a lot, though.

Still, I stick with P/P + S/P for Fractals/PvE purposes and I fare perfectly well, with really competitive DPS and a frightening amount of utility. So I’m not sure why people think SB is our only ranged option ;-; even though it used to have our only 1200range attack, range itself isn’t paramount in PvE.

I was expecting good changes/buffs to MH pistol sets to bring them up to par. Nerfs to other sets and the ridiculously ineffective Body Shot change is just about as bad a job as could possibly be done.
Hoping these are fake, but given Anet’s balancing history, I could see them being real.

Oh come on! It’s an obvious fake. If not that then Anet forgot how to proofread.

EDIT:
Just to show some examples.

Pain Response: This cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30.
Hard to Catch: The cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30.

Corrosive Traps. This trait now 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds, up from 5.

See anything wrong?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Oh come on! It’s an obvious fake. If not that then Anet forgot how to proofread.

EDIT:
Just to show some examples.

Pain Response: This cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30.
Hard to Catch: The cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30.

Corrosive Traps. This trait now 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds, up from 5.

See anything wrong?

Proofread? They’re supposed to be a leak. Meaning they’re probably not done. Why proofread something when it might still be subject to change?

RoterFuchs.9216:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Oh come on! It’s an obvious fake. If not that then Anet forgot how to proofread.

EDIT:
Just to show some examples.

Pain Response: This cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30.
Hard to Catch: The cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30.

Corrosive Traps. This trait now 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds, up from 5.

See anything wrong?

Proofread? They’re supposed to be a leak. Meaning they’re probably not done. Why proofread something when it might still be subject to change?

You would have had a point if this is written down by hand, but this is typed written.

Besides, all unofficial changes are not written in this format. All information is stored in a database so that when they are ready for release, all they have to do is run a report on all items flagged ready.

If you think they keep track of change notes using notepad and word documents…then lol.

only the thief has those errors in spelling but whatever, I think they are an iteration of the changes, but not the final.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Oh come on! It’s an obvious fake. If not that then Anet forgot how to proofread.

EDIT:
Just to show some examples.

Pain Response: This cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30.
Hard to Catch: The cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30.

Corrosive Traps. This trait now 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds, up from 5.

See anything wrong?

Proofread? They’re supposed to be a leak. Meaning they’re probably not done. Why proofread something when it might still be subject to change?

You would have had a point if this is written down by hand, but this is typed written.

Besides, all unofficial changes are not written in this format. All information is stored in a database so that when they are ready for release, all they have to do is run a report on all items flagged ready.

If you think they keep track of change notes using notepad and word documents…then lol.

They probably do. Why do you think there’s so many changes forgotten and not mentioned in the changelogs? :p

Why would they use some very complex machinery when a simple notepad file is good enough?

stof.9341:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Oh come on! It’s an obvious fake. If not that then Anet forgot how to proofread.

EDIT:
Just to show some examples.

Pain Response: This cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30.
Hard to Catch: The cooldown of this effect has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30.

Corrosive Traps. This trait now 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds, up from 5.

See anything wrong?

Proofread? They’re supposed to be a leak. Meaning they’re probably not done. Why proofread something when it might still be subject to change?

You would have had a point if this is written down by hand, but this is typed written.

Besides, all unofficial changes are not written in this format. All information is stored in a database so that when they are ready for release, all they have to do is run a report on all items flagged ready.

If you think they keep track of change notes using notepad and word documents…then lol.

They probably do. Why do you think there’s so many changes forgotten and not mentioned in the changelogs? :p

Why would they use some very complex machinery when a simple notepad file is good enough?

Oh my.

You obviously have not managed people from different departments.

I’ll just leave it at that.