Guild Wars 2

If you plan on saying l2p then pls leave already as you’re not worth mine or anyone elses’ time.

Why do I suggest such a thing?
Well the answer is simple, D/P has too much synergy with it. Now on the surface having another leap isn’t a bad thing but when you look really into you start to see a problem emerging. The damage can stay so that people who use it for that can still benefit but it doesn’t give the level of benefit it does to d/p.

The problem:
With bound in daredevil and the standard setup for D/P atm it is possible for a thief to permastealth using bound in daredevil in combination with D/P. Now there’s nothing wrong with permastealth imo by itself but then you add on the spike damage, high evade uptime due to dd giving extra dodges, blind uptime, aa pressure, etc. and then it is a problem.

Solution and explanation:
Remove reveal from scrapper and rev so SA can see some usage and then remove the leap from bound so those who want to specialize in stealth have to trait for it. Right now there’s no point in SA existing because you can get the same stealth uptime with more utility offered as a whole with daredevil. That is a big nono and needs to be addressed. With this change there is a possibility for more build diversity within the whole class as stealth is no longer rendered useless from AoE reveal and then you end up with other sets able to emerge as they will be better in some areas than D/P is. AoE cc and damage could be toned down too but that could be addressed after the effects of this change would be evaluated.

Big note so I’m not mistaken by readers:
I am not asking to nerf stealth (I’d actually like to see it removed from everything except thief and buffed to be useful for us as a defensive/support tool) just the access to it that bound allows.

Edit: Here’s your proof of permastealth for those needing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQxZOyf3EQw&feature=youtu.be

Removing leap from Bound would lower the build diversity: with D/P we’d be pidgeon-holed in using Dash.

Bound gives us more ini/dmg/stealth uptime by giving away a lot of mobility given by Dash. If you remove the leap finisher from it, we would lose the higher ini/stealth, remaining with just a bit more damage: we then you’d ever want to go with it when using D/P instead of Dash?

TL;DR:

• Bound: more ini/stealth/dmg, slow as kitten.
• Dash: less ini/stealth/dmg, great mobility.

They’re ok as they are. As opposed to the utter useless SA/Acro traitlines. :P

By doing that, you’d just enforce d/p main set. Really really hard. The only self sustainable weaponset would remain d/p. You’d kill p/p, s/p, and staff. All in one, neat shot.

I’d rather just see SA and Acro reworked to be on the same level as D/P. Nerfing bound wouldn’t bring more diversity, it’d be doing the exact opposite. I see where your mind is at though, and I really appreciate it.

We definitely do need more build diversity. I miss when S/D seemed to be as viable as D/P. Now, D/P seems to be the really the only competitively viable build. Other than those holding onto the dream of staff. =\

Yea, the burst potential of a thief is really high when you use some things like bound in a combo…

…but that doesn’t mean that it’s imbalanced.

I mean, honestly, dash is better in any sort of competitive environment and while bound is viable, the opportunity cost of picking it up is high enough to offset the benefits.

And even if the bound combo was taken away by removing leap, you could still do just as much burst by using Impairing Daggers as part of the combo or by just bounding with steal → backstab while already stealthed.

Serious Thought.5394:

By doing that, you’d just enforce d/p main set. Really really hard. The only self sustainable weaponset would remain d/p. You’d kill p/p, s/p, and staff. All in one, neat shot.

This.

D/P is not the only weapon set the thief has. More viable move would be deleting heartseeker’s ability to stealth when leaping over own black powder smoke. This is almost uncounterable combo and easy to perform. Zero risk, high reward = not thiefy.

However, I imagine some people would be very upsed once it is taken away from them. Some compensation would be required.

Dagins.5163:

Serious Thought.5394:

By doing that, you’d just enforce d/p main set. Really really hard. The only self sustainable weaponset would remain d/p. You’d kill p/p, s/p, and staff. All in one, neat shot.

This.

D/P is not the only weapon set the thief has. More viable move would be deleting heartseeker’s ability to stealth when leaping over own black powder smoke. This is almost uncounterable combo and easy to perform. Zero risk, high reward = not thiefy.

However, I imagine some people would be very upsed once it is taken away from them. Some compensation would be required.

well the major problem there would be, you’d have nothing to set backstabs up.. or force the thief to stop using some of its utilities currently which are stronger to gain some form of stealth to do the backstabbing with on much higher CDs.

so yes some MAJOR compensation would be required if u intend to actually take away Backstab from anything but a possible initation as u’d take out Quite a chunk of DPS, sadly D/P Does need Stealth access in its kit to make backstabbing combos possible

btw, it is Counterable, any thiefs using that combo to get a Backstab on you, not really the choice of Escape, so just AoE urself and it’ll wipe em, Specially if something like a necro who has a second life or Guardian who has Massive self-burst healing capability and Traps, not to mention if a player gets reveal on you u will lose that and ur backstabbing which will handicap the thief hard… so it does have Multiple Risk factors as anything to do with committing is a Risk as a thief u don’t rly comitt to many 1v1s.

imho, I wouldn’t be asking for nerfs right now, we all know if they release a patch just before season 2 nerfing the thief 1) u wont see compensation til the end of season 2, u’ll be scrapped for another 3 months and Just like warriors you have 0 Garuntee on actually being Fixed properly.. which could push u through a 9 month streak of sucking and 0 Competitive play.

wait til they actually push us through the roof, or we lose D/P as a main Weapon set before putting forward Nerfs to lower risk capabilities tbh.

Ario.8964:

The problem:
With bound in daredevil and the standard setup for D/P atm it is possible for a thief to permastealth using bound in daredevil in combination with D/P.

OK so this ^^^ is your problem… Permastealth.

Please explain/show a Thief/Daredevil in permanent, unending stealth.

d/p is the most annoying and kittened weapon set in game and yet people suggest nerfing a useful trait that unsurprisingly finds a synergy with d/p instead of nerfing d/p

balance perception of players in this game is hilarious

People play D/P too much

Let’s nerf leap on bound so people are forced to use D/P for stealth.

I agree with the premise of the OP but others attesting it are right in that it would reduce diversity if other skills and builds remained in their current states.

Shadow Shot needs its damage cut and/or initiative cost upped. Reworking Body Shot into something more useful would probably be enough to justify the leap removal for P/P. S/P’s kit is in such a weird spot that I’m not sure what could possibly be done to help it out outside of PW buffs, but I’m skeptical of that due to the evasion frames.

I agree Bound D/P is a horribly frustrating set to play against and very boring to play as, and it does offer way too much synergy on the set, but only removing the bound wouldn’t accomplish that much with making changes to other weapons.

Dagins.5163:

Serious Thought.5394:

By doing that, you’d just enforce d/p main set. Really really hard. The only self sustainable weaponset would remain d/p. You’d kill p/p, s/p, and staff. All in one, neat shot.

This.

D/P is not the only weapon set the thief has. More viable move would be deleting heartseeker’s ability to stealth when leaping over own black powder smoke. This is almost uncounterable combo and easy to perform. Zero risk, high reward = not thiefy.

However, I imagine some people would be very upsed once it is taken away from them. Some compensation would be required.

HS through BP is easy to counter, with interrupts. Bound through BP, I don’t think you can stop, once the Evade frame starts.

Bound is good to take, but overall I think Dash is better, it has a small chance of getting that midair immob bug.

You’d effectively nerf P/P and S/P builds that do tend to use Bound quite often.
You definitely deserve a spot on Anet’s dev team.

I get what you’re trying to do here, but really I think you’re being too shortsighted.
The better way would be to go about it by increasing the viability of other traits, weapon sets and utilities.

On the subject of D/P and Bound having too much synergy… Well, most D/P thieves (or any thieves for that matter) seem to use Dash instead. Myself included.

for d/p just nerf #3 dmg as AA are buffed. bound is ok as ppl mention above for p/p and s/p
if you want SA to be used than give it a trait which buff the dmg if you hit from stealth by 15% so ppl can choose between DA 30%, SA 15%, CS 40%, TR 10%, DD 17%,

DA isn’t a 30% damage bonus since at average it nets 20%, and 15% is overdone for a defensive trait line (which is why Daredevil is found on every single build right now).

SA and Acro are just out-classed right now because Daredevil is just objectively better on critical defensive aspects of both lines while giving core thief more synergy while not forcing a style of play, and it buffs damage. Nerf the power creep first before making buffs, or else we just end up in situations where combat and builds are trivialized by a lack of difficult decision-making.

I see where you’re coming from OP but I don’t really see many D/P Thieves using Bound when Dash is so incredibly powerful for snare prevention. Also, Bound leap finisher is actually making P/P and S/P ever so slightly more viable so it would be more damaging to build diversity to remove the leap finisher.

OP, you are using extremely flawed logic. There are several reasons this is a terrible idea.

1. D/P is overused because it is a very well designed set. Every skill is useful and versatile. We don’t need D/P nerfed, we need more sets like it.
2. Bound provides S/P and P/P with more versatility and build options, which is exactly what we need.
3. Nobody would run Bound in PvP if it wasn’t a leap. You pigeon-hole Thief even more into one cookie cutter build with no good alternatives.

I still fail to see how bound gives us perma stealth, could anyone please enlighten me?

rylark.3418:

I still fail to see how bound gives us perma stealth, could anyone please enlighten me?

This assertion is being ignored because it’s quite obvious that it is false.

The argument is essentially " Person is upset because thieves can break sightline with stealth, so nerfing it is automatically a rational idea, even though doing so would force thieves into using the spec Person hates even moreso than they are now and ignores that thieves need to spend initiative or a cooldown to set up the blind field for the leap in the first place."

But L2P would be considered a nonsensical and valueless retort.

rylark.3418:

I still fail to see how bound gives us perma stealth, could anyone please enlighten me?

I haven’t actually tried it, mostly because perma stealth is generally pretty useless (except I guess in lolbalancedWvW roaming), but I’m guessing it would be something like this:

Black Powder
Bound x3 in field for stealth
Repeat when stealth nearly wears out
Pop Sig of Agi and Channeled Vigor to refresh dodges
If out of dodges, use Heartseeker
If out of dodges and ini, use Black Powder and/or Shadow’s Refuge

In sPvP, you will never want to hide in stealth for more than about 5 seconds anyways.

With SA traited it was quite easy to do already with D/P using just SR. The evasion covering the init cost lets this work without needing utilities.

Dirtyrascal.1023:

OK so this ^^^ is your problem… Permastealth.

Please explain/show a Thief/Daredevil in permanent, unending stealth.

A Dagger/Pistol Thief (even non-Daredevil) can stay Stealthed indefinitely pretty easily. I didn’t believe it myself until I tried. There are two problems, however. First, the damage you can do while in Stealth is laughable. Second, you can only have a max of 5 stacks of Stealth on you at a time, so at max, that’s 20 seconds, and you will rarely have that. You can’t build it up for minutes or hours, sadly.

In a non-combat environment, a smart rotation of skills (with proper traits) to keep you Stealthed can be easily learned and maintained. But when you get into combat, things get much more difficult. The two skills with access to longer-duration Stealth make you very vulnerable and also have mid-long cooldowns… Shadow Refuge and Smoke Screen+Leaps.

From my experience, I actually spend a lot more time trying to maintain my Stealth than I do moving or engaging. If you don’t mind attacking and Revealing yourself, that’s a different matter altogether.

bound is fine it probably the worst of the 3 grand master to be honest. but that leap finisher make a lot of builds. its cool that a little buff to d/p but it make p/p an offer a lot of def to s/p

If GW2 was a duel-based game or had WoW-style arenas, bound would be really strong. However, in a Conquest dominated game, the cost of not using Dash brings Bound down considerably.

Galandil.9641:

Removing leap from Bound would lower the build diversity: with D/P we’d be pidgeon-holed in using Dash.

Bound gives us more ini/dmg/stealth uptime by giving away a lot of mobility given by Dash. If you remove the leap finisher from it, we would lose the higher ini/stealth, remaining with just a bit more damage: we then you’d ever want to go with it when using D/P instead of Dash?

TL;DR:

• Bound: more ini/stealth/dmg, slow as kitten.
• Dash: less ini/stealth/dmg, great mobility.

They’re ok as they are. As opposed to the utter useless SA/Acro traitlines. :P

tl;dr buy HoT and forget there are other trait lines.

No thank you, HoT is a disgusting addition to gw2 and should go.

Sorry was away for a bit, will gather footage of myself doing it tonight hopefully and I will post here ASAP so I do not appear to be making false accusations.

So I’m going to compile a list of arguments I’m seeing here and see if I can address them in a way to promote discussion.

1) Bound is fine, D/P needs to have utility nerfed so other sets can utilize bound while D/P is still brought into line.
I disagree with this statement entirely. D/P is a self reliant set, which imo we need more of. Traits should not be mandatory to make a set function (i.e. D/D) the reason I suggested nerfing bound is the fact that it now gives us a chance to rework the function of some weapon sets mentioned in arguments here (P/P, S/P) in order to make them more self reliant rather than trait reliant. Having functionality tied to a trait is silly. (now I’m not saying everything has to be perfect but a weapon shouldn’t be rendered unusable because it’s lacking a trait.)

2) Ermahgerd hes complaining about permastealth what a noob.
Not sure why I’m even bothering to address this but the only reason it was brought up is the fact that the ability to do that without SA renders the line useless for the same reason dd outperformed acro. It shares the same intentions but it dd does it better and offers other utility to the player. Permastealth by itself it not an issue if it requires investment into a traitline specialized for stealth based gameplay.

3) What makes it worth taking over dash? Without the utility leap nobody will use it.
Ok, this one is a bit harder to address but it is possible to rework it to have some extra utility (not that it needs it cause 3k crit on dodge is nothing to sneeze at). Possibly something along the lines of blinding foes around you whe you dodge so it can still be useful to sets like s/p, p/p, d/d, and d/p. but it won’t be the one be all end all option and it won’t shut out traitlines like SA (which does need a small buff but that’s it) for those who are going into stealth based builds.

4) Build diversity will be limited and thief will only have 1 good set.
I disagree but this I could very well be wrong on. From my perspective I’m seeing it end with D/P having 2 viable options (SA for stealth or dd for dodge/damage) S/D being able to push it’s way back in and depending on how other sets are touched, maybe a few of them can come in as well. But there’s no way to be 100% sure unless it were to be implemented.

Oh and Azure, I main thief so don’t act like I’m some sorry Mesmer coming over to complain. I know what I’m talking about and you may not agree with it but that does not justify you trying to berate me or devalue my argument just because you may not like what I’m suggesting.

Bound isn’t the be-all-end-all option for D/P.
The vast majority of Thieves use Dash from what I’ve seen. Only in PvE is Bond more commonly used due to the 10% extra damage (even there I see more and more Viper Thieves running with Lotus Training…)

So instead of nerfing Bound which is already seeing less and less play as a meta is settling in, how about you make suggestions to bring our other trait(lines) and weapons in line with D/P? As clearly, that’s the issue here. It’s not Bound, it’s just the rest that’s not on par, while it really should be.

There’s better ways of encouraging build diversity then Nerfing.

Here’s the TL;DR version:

D/P is a good set.
Other sets are not as good.
Bound helps multiple sets, including D/P.
Nerf Bound so that everything is worse.

…Profit?

Vornollo, I haven’t seen as many using dash with D/P so I was going off of personal experience. The reason I wasn’t suggesting huge buffs is we are still trying to get over some of the powercreep from HoT so I didn’t want to look at giving out a ton of buffs and end up with thief being the new scrapper or something like that but yes you do have a serious point with things not being at d/p’s level and while that does need to be fixed the D/P weaponset is not my issue. My issue is how much synergy it has with bound because that trait alone gets rid of the need for SA completely due to the fact that camping stealth in pvp doesn’t do you much good but sometimes it is nice to be able to have a high stealth uptime for escapes and such (all of which bound provides in combination with some extra damage).

Only reason bound is seeing less play is because of condi reaper’s chill. If they didn’t have to remove it so often as needing to have a dodge remove it then bound would be a better option for any set with an offhand pistol. This is a hard issue to address because it involves nerfing other classes to be in line rather than just buffing thief up to their level.

As for giving suggestions to other things to bring them in line?
D/D- Rework #3 so that the entire set is a strong dps set by removing bleeds and slightly boosting it’s damage (don’t want it too high cause we would like to avoid the perma evade and shred enemies build)
Blind on CnD and have it stealth on blocks (after all, we just need to hit people, skill says nothing about doing damage)
Buff the damage of Dancing dagger so it will see some more gameplay.

S/P- This one is a tough one because the set’s design is kind of contradictory to itself, sword is not for stealth, pistol generally is. Possibly could change #3 to make the skill a 2 part skill like S/D #3. Have the first part be a small charge that is a leap finisher that stuns and if it hits then it cycles to the damage part of PW. That may give the set a bit more fluidity in gameplay without causing any other weapons involved to be too strong.

P/P- Again this is a bizarre set because P/D is a condi set so trying to make a power set out of a condi mainhand is tough. They could do a rework and have running P/P shift the aa to a power focused aa that has no bleeds on it and have it change the stealth skil to power focused that has no bleed and then give it the normal stuff it has now when you equip P/D. Unload is a decent damage skill so I’m not sure the problem is in there so maybe a change to pistol 2 to fire a fast moving shot that immobs your target and then roll backwards (similar to staff 3 with the quick cast but maybe a slightly larger roll as it is a ranged set) to give the set a little more mobility in combat.

P/D- aside from the changes listed for P/P above, reduce aa damage and add an extra stack of bleed onto the auto so condi application will be a bit higher. With all the other changes I’ve listed this set should be fine after changes are done.

D/P- just needs some damage taken off of #3 and slight damage shave on autos so they don’t outdamage sword’s autos but other than that this is a self reliant set and should used as a model for other sets in terms of appropriate utility, damage, and defense.

And with these changes bound is no longer needed for sets like S/P and P/P to have combat viability (hopefully, maybe some other changes are needed but I will have to look a bit more in depth with the sets before I make those judgements) and then the leap can be removed without the destruction of those sets while still keeping D/P out of permastealth without SA.

Now there do need to be trait changes as well so let’s look at that:
SA-Cloaked in shadow would no longer be needed if CnD had blinds so that can be removed and replaced with possibly a small damage boost when hitting with a stealth skill. The damage reduction from falling can go into last refuge if not into the new GM trait.
Move the venom traits into DA over the Revealed training and dagger training traits.
Replace leeching venoms with gain might (probably 2 stacks) when you grant allies stealth (same functionality as shadow protector but might instead of regen.)
Maybe instead of venomous aura do something like leap finishers will act as blast finishers. Provides the thief with more party support abilities for group stacking stealth, might, or heals.

Acro I can’t really say much on atm because build software hasn’t updated to the new changes so right now I have nothing to look at, will probably edit in a suggestion later.

Big changes aside from weapons and traits
Preparedness baseline (allows sets to grab traits that may be of more use to them so they can perform better in combat)
Revealed from other classes that takes the thief out of stealth removed (So things like sic em are fine but dh traps and scrappers big aoe are not okay)
AoE damage reduced (things like SR rezzing may be able to come back because you aren’t getting nuked the second the refuge goes down)
Stealth consolidated to the thief class only (can then be balanced as a defensive tool and have it’s interaction with things changed without possibly causing problems for other classes that utilize stealth. Replace what those classes are losing with alternate effects such as blocks and prot.

That enough balance sugestions? :P In all seriousness though I see what your point was Vornollo. These are just a few suggestions I have if they want to make thief more balanced. If you disagree let me know and I’ll be happy to discuss it.

Removing the leap from bound, like posted above, ruins other build possibilities/ synergies such as s/p or p/p. If you want to suggest nerfs to d/p than do that.

Most D/P thieves I see run dash. With the exception being in dueling rooms where I see an even mix of bound and dash (Assuming they are running one or the other). Actually, at the last AG tournament I was watching not a single thief chose to run Bound over Dash.

D/P does have good synergy with bound. But that’s mostly from a 1v1 scenario. Dash is better for disengaging and rotations.

Honestly I think permastealth is kinda overrated. Outside of EoTM/WvW scouting, say do you do go permastealth. Then what? You can’t decap or hold a node while in stealth. Also if you’re stealthing to go disengage or rotate then having Dash would be better than having the extra one or two stacks of stealth Bound can offer.

Only reason to run Bound is for the extra damage and ability to re-stealth. But those things in themselves are different from permastealth, and like I mentioned earlier more suited for 1v1’s. On the topic of choosing Bound for 1v1’s though you have to think. What classes/builds does Bound let me 1v1 that I couldn’t before? Bound isn’t going to magically win you the Scrapper or DH matchup. It certainly makes the thief mirror matchup easier, but you still definitely can lose to a thief running Dash if he/she gets the first burst off (Or just plain outplays you).

Of course you could argue that the extra damage is better in +1’s/teamfights. But then you have a similar situation as above where running bound is only helpful if you actually need the extra damage in order to make your +1/teamfight successful. Personally I think there aren’t enough scenarios where a Dash thief will lose but a Bound thief will win to justify taking Bound over Dash. Especially considering that, in terms of +1’s at least, Dash lets you get to those scenario’s faster which usually means more opportunities for success.

Anywho, Dash vs Bound for D/P aside. Despite the wall of text I think if they removed leap on Bound and replaced it with an AoE blind as you suggested, then we might actually see more diversity as far as Bounding Staff thieves go. I’d definitely expect to see less Bounding D/P thieves (Which imo aren’t the majoriity in the first place). But Bounding Staff thieves never used the leap finisher anyway so a blind would be a straight up buff to them. I dunno if more Bounding Staff thieves for fewer Bounding X/P thieves is really what you want though.

If they replaced bound damage with the blind and kept the leap, I would be more then fine with that (coming from someone who constantly fights bound thieves and uses bound in other builds). I’m all for less damage spam and more utility besides.

I’d vote no super hard. The only motivator I have for that traitline is the bound dodge. Pulm impact is nice too, but no Bound means I choose a traitline for one trait. I’d say give the blind to Lotus Training as it is the condi set.

But.. the whole point of Bound is the leap.

Ario.8964:

If you plan on saying l2p then pls leave already as you’re not worth mine or anyone elses’ time.

lol at speaking for everybody else…

bound actually helps s/p be a really strong weapon set atm (especially after auto buff)
id actually like to see stealth have a max of 6 seconds or less having huge durations of stealth doesn’t feel very guildwarsy

So what I’m getting from a few people is they’d be okay removing damage from bound if they got to keep the leap and then add a blind onto it. Would that be an okay change for the majority of players here? If so then I will edit OP and shift the discussion to that.

Sorry for late response got busy with life stuff.

Would reducing the stealth from 3 to 2 on leaps and increasing it from 3 to 5 on blasts be better or worse?

You are not seeing the correct solution to the problem.

The problem is that thieves can use stealth as both a defensive tool and an offensive tool with the same effectiveness.

The actual solution to any problem derived of usage of stealth is a change to the stealth mechanic that will make it less useful for defense the more it’s used offensively, and vice-versa.

For example, by linking the duration of the Revealed effect to the damage done when being revealed. Less damage would have a shorter revealed than now, greater damage would have a longer revealed than now. So the more damage you are doing, the less you can depend on Stealth for defense and vice-versa.

Leap on bound is the main reason I use it for my s/p staff thief, while 6k crits on dodge are a nice icing on the cake, with no leap, I wouldn’t slot the trait over dash.

im guessing i am one of the few that doesnt use bound for just stealth…. fire aura and frost auras save my bacon in wvw far more than just going 5, dodge, stab repeat……

In PvE, I run P/P with power staff build, mostly because the non-condi dmg on the autoattacks is slightly less than bow, but has stronger single target burst. I don’t need the mobility from bow with staff, but P/P makes up for a number of weaknesses with staff, mainly providing stronger single target kiting, a ranged CC for break bars and the only form of stealth access I have via black powder and bound.

If you remove the combo finisher, you would remove the only on demand stealth access my build has while D/P still has on demand stealth access build into the weaponset.

This is the reason that long thread on nerfing D/P has some merit, because when you start suggesting nerfing skills and traits that improve multiple builds due to D/P being overpowered, well, then you can’t really do a whole lot to improve the class when the imbalance of D/P eclipses everything else.

The issue I’m seeing is the fact that the interaction is too good with pistol 5 for me to justify it being utilized for utility on other builds. (and that’s coming from someone who made it a point to try and create p/p s/p and other such underutilized builds using bound for it’s utility to buff them to viability) I could justify something like bound being in SA because the stealth interaction would be within a stealth based specialization. The fact that 1 trait gives you more utility, defense, and damage than another entire line is ridiculous. Buffing sets on the thief is a better way to try to make them viable instead of giving them a trait that is too good in combination with another set. If other sets need leaps then give it to them in a way that it can’t be accessed by other sets that would benefit too freely from it. (i.e. make staff blind a smoke field that lasts for 2 seconds so you can get some on demand stealth built in. Make s/p 3’s stun a charge instead of a swing and cycle the same way as s/d 3 so the leap part can be utilized separately from the damage part. p/p 2 could have an added leap backwards after the shot is fired so it’s both an escape and a way of gaining on demand stealth)

Yes I recognize the utility is amazing and not everyone using it is D/P but it doesn’t change the fact that the trait is too good with D/P as the set being used with it. Instead of just gutting another thief set I’d rather see other sets buffed to that level of performance on their own so that all sets can compete with each other.

Edit: Fixed an error in the title where it changed to something I didn’t want. Thanks phone, you’re a real helper… /sarcasm

Thanks for posting you demonstrating Thief in perma-stealth.

I hope everybody who complains about Thief perma-stealth watches that video so they can see how clunky it is to maintain, how kitten the thief’s build needs to be and how generally useless and undesirable it is for the Thief.

No Thief is going to compromise their build and usefulness to obtain that functionality – certainly not in sPVP.

Great to see someone who complains about something actually being able to demonstrate what he has a problem with, but I personally think the demonstration shows what a non-issue it actually is.

Justine.6351:

Would reducing the stealth from 3 to 2 on leaps and increasing it from 3 to 5 on blasts be better or worse?

I think better, the biggest culprit I’ve seen from suggesting thief buffs is taking d/p into consideration and reducing it’s effective stealth uptime between bound/HS would tone that down but still give s/p and p/p a moment to reposition.

Could in turn allow meld with shadows to increase combo finisher: leap – smoke field duration as well so SA has a little more of a purpose to be chosen.

Dirty, The issue is that the build is not really that clunky. The only difference from the standard build is channeled vigor over withdraw. Roll for ini was left over from my s/d build as that skill slot is filled through preference.

NinjaEd.3946:

Justine.6351:

Would reducing the stealth from 3 to 2 on leaps and increasing it from 3 to 5 on blasts be better or worse?

I think better, the biggest culprit I’ve seen from suggesting thief buffs is taking d/p into consideration and reducing it’s effective stealth uptime between bound/HS would tone that down but still give s/p and p/p a moment to reposition.

Could in turn allow meld with shadows to increase combo finisher: leap – smoke field duration as well so SA has a little more of a purpose to be chosen.

Agreed.
/15char

Ario.8964:

Dirty, The issue is that the build is not really that clunky. The only difference from the standard build is channeled vigor over withdraw. Roll for ini was left over from my s/d build as that skill slot is filled through preference.

OK – I think we disagree on this at least for sPVP because imo it is simply not worth having a sub-optimal build just for perma-stealth that you’re never going to waste time on in a match.

If this was an issue I’d be seeing thieves abusing it, and nobody is abusing it because it’s a clunky gimmick.

With all that endurance you’re generating you’d be much, much more effective using it for evades that matter in a fight than a one-off needlessly long pre-fight stealth. Sorry I’m just not seeing the problem here. Removing the leap means only one weapon set has access to stealth and absolutely no impact will have been made to anything other than that really.

Maybe down the line somewhere in some Meta at some point in the future this will be a problem – but it’s not an issue now.

No I agree it’s not really worth perma stealthing in pvp. The point I’m getting at isn’t that it’s gamebreaking #1 needs to be balanced priority level, it’s that the functionality of it goes against the fundamentals of balance. The reason it is so hard to argue the necessity of this change is because it’s not brokenly op or being mass abused by players.

The reason I brought it up is because the trait with EA gives you all the utility of SA with the extra fighting utility dd grants when using d/p. I’d much rather see leaps added onto sets like p/p and s/p and give the sets more interesting combo play through that then justify not making changes to sets based on the fact that bound gives them leaps. If bound is too strong on d/p in comparison to what it offers the other sets then changes like this can be made to bring it’s interaction with d/p in line with it’s interaction with other sets. Then at the same time you make it necessary for people who want to possess high stealth uptime to make the investment into a stealth based line to do so.

Doing all this sets a balance precedent overall which is something the game desperately needs. The idea behind balance is that you get what you invest into, no more and no less. Bound’s leap undermines this and removing it and spreading the utility elsewhere 1) removes the mandatory nature of this trait for some styles and 2) opens the door for weapon redesigns and other balance changes similar to this the would be beneficial to the game as a whole.

So should it be their top priority? No because as you said it’s not a gamebreaking problem in the meta but it definitely needs to be looked at in the near future.

Ario.8964:

No I agree it’s not really worth perma stealthing in pvp. The point I’m getting at isn’t that it’s gamebreaking #1 needs to be balanced priority level, it’s that the functionality of it goes against the fundamentals of balance. The reason it is so hard to argue the necessity of this change is because it’s not brokenly op or being mass abused by players.

The reason I brought it up is because the trait with EA gives you all the utility of SA with the extra fighting utility dd grants when using d/p. I’d much rather see leaps added onto sets like p/p and s/p and give the sets more interesting combo play through that then justify not making changes to sets based on the fact that bound gives them leaps. If bound is too strong on d/p in comparison to what it offers the other sets then changes like this can be made to bring it’s interaction with d/p in line with it’s interaction with other sets. Then at the same time you make it necessary for people who want to possess high stealth uptime to make the investment into a stealth based line to do so.

Doing all this sets a balance precedent overall which is something the game desperately needs. The idea behind balance is that you get what you invest into, no more and no less. Bound’s leap undermines this and removing it and spreading the utility elsewhere 1) removes the mandatory nature of this trait for some styles and 2) opens the door for weapon redesigns and other balance changes similar to this the would be beneficial to the game as a whole.

So should it be their top priority? No because as you said it’s not a gamebreaking problem in the meta but it definitely needs to be looked at in the near future.

Yeah cool… or maybe just remove Thief’s access to stealth via the clunky BP>Leap Finisher route altogether and give Thief an F3 ability of 3secs stealth on a 15 seconds cooldown. Not stackable, not abuse-able, non-variable, easily balanced. I’d be up for that.