My argument against the SR "fix"
3. Counterargument: “But it was never ANet’s intention to make the skill have infinite range!”
First of all, let me say that it was and supposedly still is ANet’s intention to boost thief mobility. In recent SotG’s, they have explicitly stated that they want to boost thief mobility so that we don’t have to constantly use InfArrow in order to go where we want to go to. They also stated that they were contemplating nerfing certain skills, like Mug, in exchange for increased mobility. So, they’ve explicitly stated that they want to boost thief mobility, and yet this “fix” does the exact opposite.
Also, ANet intending for something to be one way does not necessitate that the skill is theoretically correct by being nerfed the way it has been. They also intended for ACarts to be buffed in WvW, and the resulting damage increase has been very unpopular among the WvW community. ANet also intended for Dancing Dagger and Pistol Whip to be nerfed because of Quickness, however, their intentions have now backfired on them due to the fact that they later decided to nerf quickness altogether, so now PW and DD are both very weak skills. ANet can change their intents on the flip of a coin, too, so there’s no reason to believe that original intention equals what is correct for the game.
4. Argument: SR has a very good risk-reward balance with infinite range; without it, it is now more risky than rewarding to use the skill.
SR with infinite range is a very interesting tactical tool. On the one hand, it has a very limited range for attacking, but allows you to go back to one point from any range. This means that you always have to know how far away you and your enemy are relative to SReturn. You can, tactically speaking, draw out an enemy who doesn’t know anything about the skill, and then teleport back to your original point in order to escape. However, if you use the skill while in battle, and you stray too far from the point where you used IS, then you could potentially reset the entire fight, giving you a disadvantage if you engage in combat again because now the enemy knows what your build is, and how to fight against you. Furthermore, with infinite return range, it is actually very difficult to spam the skill, as you could easily teleport outside IStrike’s attacking range if you aren’t careful. Thus, IStrike has the possible benefits of granting you retreat when you need it, or placing your enemies in unfavorable positions, but when used at other times, it can be detrimental as it might reset a fight that is in your favor, put you at a tactical disadvantage, or teleport you outside fighting range with your opponent.
(continued)
However, with the new state of SReturn, hitting Sword 2 now means that there are less possibilities with this skill. You don’t get the same mobility advantages and disadvantages from before that having infinite range grants. Furthermore, skill spamming is much more usable as you won’t teleport 2000 units away from opponents simply for SReturning, which I doubt was ANet’s intention. Also, because of the bugs that SReturn now has, it can actually be extremely detrimental to rely on SReturn at all, as using it defensively might simply result in you losing an initiative to teleport a couple of feet away into a rock, where that GC melee warrior who is simply able to carry around purely melee weaponsets can laugh and then behead your character. Melee weapons are supposed to give more damage but less versatility; ranged weapons are supposed to grant more versatility but less damage. As it stands right now, sword is a mid-ranged weapon that scales… Decently with power, but not as much as Dagger does. For example, HS has a mere 150 less range than IStrike on sword, and yet even the weakest HS type (when the enemy is over 50% health) deals 133% of the damage that IStrike does, as its skill coefficient of 1 is greater than IStrike’s coefficient of .75 . Akittens highest power, on the other hand, Heartseeker deals 266% of the damage dealth by IStrike. However, the one thing that HS lacks is the secondary effect that IStrike grants; a hit-n-run type of effect. However, with this newest patch, HS can basically deal 2.66 times the damage of IStrike, and the only downside is that HS can’t spend one initiative to teleport into a rock 2 feet away. While IStrike does provide some condition cleansing, and a stunbreaker, first of all, it was already glitched so that it often did not give the option to SReturn anyways (or provide a stun breaker). Also, Dagger has easy access to a combo that grants stealth, allowing for a backstab, as well as condition cleansing via SA IV. This newest patch basically tells me that a glitchy skill is a good exchange for much less damage, a faulty condition cleanser (and often our only half-decent condition cleanser) and stun breaker (and this skill cannot be used with SA, by the way, as Sword and stealth are a terrible combination), that costs 1 initiative, etc relative to HS, a cheap skill that does tons of damage, doesn’t have a glitchy effect, and allows for a lot of combos.
…
5. Counterargument: “But the ability to control two points on the map was just too strong!”
First of all, IStrike doesn’t guarantee control of two points over a very long distance anyways, unless you’re going to burn up a bunch of mobility skills, in which case you maybe have 7-8 seconds to write in your chat “LOL I CAN TELEPORT ACROSS TEH MAP GUYZ” and then have to click the button, which is horribly inefficient anyhow. Furthermore, what’s the point in controlling two points if you only have a very limited time frame to control them, and have to abuse your mobility greatly in order for the teleport to mean anything anyways? Furthermore, while the idea looks great in theory, how many PvPers, for example, have you seen actually abuse this mechanic? Why is this mechanic even good? It means that a main mobility skill just has to sit on your bar unused for 15 seconds. If you try to go cap the clock tower in Kyhlo, for example, from the windmill, what might happen is that by the time you get to the top of the clock tower (and this is given that you abuse your mobility skills) you might have five seconds before you can SR back to the windmill. If somebody is about to neutralize windmill anyways, then why the kitten did you run to the clocktower to go get a few ticks on it in the first place? Now the enemy can attack a largely undefended windmill while you can choose either to let them cap it, and thereby wasting the whole idea behind laying down SR at the windmill anyways, or you can Shadow Return, wasting an initiative and a bunch of mobility skills just so that you can show off the fact that you can teleport from one point to the other in a map quickly, which is absolutely useless. You would’ve just been better off staying at windmill in the first place and then using IStrike to immobilize enemies coming to cap the point in the first place. So, this mobility “abuse” is only any use in fights anyways, as it gives you the opportunity to escape and cleanse conditions, but even then, you can’t let SR sit on your bar for too long without wasting a good weapon skill for you to use, and if you use it at the wrong moment then you might be left with unfavorable conditions. For example, condition cleansing with the skill against a staff necro might just result in you getting mark bursted as you try to get within attacking range of the necro again.
Tooltip also says:
Return to your original location. Cure one condition.
https://twitter.com/TalathionEQ2
6. Argument: removing this skill removes diversity between different professions.
The last argument that I’m going to make applies to all nerfs. As it so happens, this game seems to be experiencing far more nerfs than buffs, which I cannot understand. This recent nerf reduces from any unique-ness of the thief. While this was a skill that once only the thief had access to, now the sword consists of some fairly standard attacking ideas. As we nerf everything into balance, professions by nature become increasingly more similar and stale. Nerfing this skill just means that the thief has one less unique skill to its name. In the long run, this has serious consequences in that it makes the game less diverse and interesting, and simply drives the game into one direction of complete uniformity among all professions. What person wants to shoutcast a game when every person is playing the exact same build, strategy, and tactics? However, as we nerf everybody into oblivion, viable builds are being reduced and this is the ultimate effect. If revealed was automatically boosted up to 10 seconds, who would use a stealth-reliant build? There goes another build type. When confusion was nerfed, similarly, that destroyed another build: confusion shatter builds for mesmers. This constant “NERF ERR’THING” button that ANet uses, while very easy and convenient, is resulting in stale gameplay that doesn’t address the problems that the community wants them to address. Rather than devoting time to this issue, for example, ANet could have fixed the 14352724509284752 things that people are complaining about with PvP. Instead, they nerfed a skill which is ultimately going to have negative effects anyways.
In conclusion, the alleged “strengths” of IStrike, like infinite range, don’t give nearly the amount of control that players claim that it does. Furthermore, this patch causes more bugging problems and makes this skill extremely risky to try and use efficiently. Finally, the infinite range on IStrike, prior to the patch, was only any use in battle, but even then could come with some serious adverse effects.
I find this patch highly disappointing and hope that ANet will change this in the future, and consider my last argument as well, that the constant nerfhammer is doing nothing but damaging the game in the long run. Rather than destroying variety and utility, why not try to increase both of those concepts?
My argument against the Thief “whine”:
You are a class that has almost the most mobility, almost the highest burst, literally the best PvP mechanic in the game, and cry when the devs fix something that clearly wasn’t working as intended.
You are a great PvP class when used within a team (unheard of, I know), have amazing utility for PvE content, and can do almost everything but soak up damage.
If you ever sit and wonder why everyone else associated with the game find your player base a laughing stock, look no further than the QQ from the recent patch.
My argument against the Thief “whine”:
You are a class that has almost the most mobility, almost the highest burst, literally the best PvP mechanic in the game, and cry when the devs fix something that clearly wasn’t working as intended.
You are a great PvP class when used within a team (unheard of, I know), have amazing utility for PvE content, and can do almost everything but soak up damage.
If you ever sit and wonder why everyone else associated with the game find your player base a laughing stock, look no further than the QQ from the recent patch.
And yet your ad hominem remarks not once address the content of my post. Perhaps if you read you would understand that the QQ’ing, in this case, is well deserved. But you seem not to have, as it would seem odd for you to read the entire post only to not mention its content once in your reply.
Thus, as your comment is nothing more than the expression of your clearly biased and irrelevant opinions, I see no reason for me to continue discussing with you until you decide to speak on relevant topics.
My argument against the Thief “whine”:
You are a class that has almost the most mobility, almost the highest burst, literally the best PvP mechanic in the game, and cry when the devs fix something that clearly wasn’t working as intended.
You are a great PvP class when used within a team (unheard of, I know), have amazing utility for PvE content, and can do almost everything but soak up damage.
If you ever sit and wonder why everyone else associated with the game find your player base a laughing stock, look no further than the QQ from the recent patch.
And yet your ad hominem remarks not once address the content of my post. Perhaps if you read you would understand that the QQ’ing, in this case, is well deserved. But you seem not to have, as it would seem odd for you to read the entire post only to not mention its content once in your reply.
Thus, as your comment is nothing more than the expression of your clearly biased and irrelevant opinions, I see no reason for me to continue discussing with you until you decide to speak on relevant topics.
Congratulations, you just described this thread, the majority of the posters here, and basically 99% of all forums all over the net. With all the time Thieves use to whine in the forums, they could have rerolled a second 80 with full Ascended.
My argument against the Thief “whine”:
You are a class that has almost the most mobility, almost the highest burst, literally the best PvP mechanic in the game, and cry when the devs fix something that clearly wasn’t working as intended.
You are a great PvP class when used within a team (unheard of, I know), have amazing utility for PvE content, and can do almost everything but soak up damage.
If you ever sit and wonder why everyone else associated with the game find your player base a laughing stock, look no further than the QQ from the recent patch.
And yet your ad hominem remarks not once address the content of my post. Perhaps if you read you would understand that the QQ’ing, in this case, is well deserved. But you seem not to have, as it would seem odd for you to read the entire post only to not mention its content once in your reply.
Thus, as your comment is nothing more than the expression of your clearly biased and irrelevant opinions, I see no reason for me to continue discussing with you until you decide to speak on relevant topics.
Congratulations, you just described this thread, the majority of the posters here, and basically 99% of all forums all over the net. With all the time Thieves use to whine in the forums, they could have rerolled a second 80 with full Ascended.
Tell me, then- what is biased about the fact that Shadow Return clearly states that it returns you to your original location? What is opinionated? Is that an opinion, even? But perhaps you never read that.
What I really have to ask you- what gives you the nerve to come onto these forums, make clearly untrue claims (given that there are a very large number of great people on these forums whom I doubt you have ever even corresponded in the least bit with), and then insult us like this? If anything, you should be ashamed with yourself because of your childish behavior.
This skill is unreliable and i suggest keeping that in mind whenever you’re using it (because if you’re using sword main hand, you have to use it anyway).
You’ll either:
-Get stuck inside random walls
-Get randomly teleported between 0 and 1200 range but with a generally decent pathing.
Basically this skill now suffers from the shadow trap syndrom, meaning it’s unreliable and buggy.
Now if you think trading a reliable “bugged” skill for a arguably even more bugged AND unreliable skill is a step in the right direction, feel free to think so but don’t expect to be taken seriously.
If it worked as it should i would have to agree though.
My argument against the Thief “whine”:
You are a class that has almost the most mobility, almost the highest burst, literally the best PvP mechanic in the game, and cry when the devs fix something that clearly wasn’t working as intended.
You are a great PvP class when used within a team (unheard of, I know), have amazing utility for PvE content, and can do almost everything but soak up damage.
If you ever sit and wonder why everyone else associated with the game find your player base a laughing stock, look no further than the QQ from the recent patch.
And yet your ad hominem remarks not once address the content of my post. Perhaps if you read you would understand that the QQ’ing, in this case, is well deserved. But you seem not to have, as it would seem odd for you to read the entire post only to not mention its content once in your reply.
Thus, as your comment is nothing more than the expression of your clearly biased and irrelevant opinions, I see no reason for me to continue discussing with you until you decide to speak on relevant topics.
Congratulations, you just described this thread, the majority of the posters here, and basically 99% of all forums all over the net. With all the time Thieves use to whine in the forums, they could have rerolled a second 80 with full Ascended.
Tell me, then- what is biased about the fact that Shadow Return clearly states that it returns you to your original location? What is opinionated? Is that an opinion, even? But perhaps you never read that.
What I really have to ask you- what gives you the nerve to come onto these forums, make clearly untrue claims (given that there are a very large number of great people on these forums whom I doubt you have ever even corresponded in the least bit with), and then insult us like this? If anything, you should be ashamed with yourself because of your childish behavior.
The nerve that Thieves cry over every insignificant change that happens in the game that somehow relate to them. Sorry you and your buddies on this side of the forums think so highly of yourselves that you can’t see past an obvious fix, but when all you know how to do is complain about how every single patch is a nerf, no one is going to take you seriously.
How has those stealth traps been ruining your game, anyway? I’m sure you’ve just been harassed 24/7 through countless anti-stealth mechanics the forums were raving about, amiright?
My argument against the Thief “whine”:
You are a class that has almost the most mobility, almost the highest burst, literally the best PvP mechanic in the game, and cry when the devs fix something that clearly wasn’t working as intended.
You are a great PvP class when used within a team (unheard of, I know), have amazing utility for PvE content, and can do almost everything but soak up damage.
If you ever sit and wonder why everyone else associated with the game find your player base a laughing stock, look no further than the QQ from the recent patch.
And yet your ad hominem remarks not once address the content of my post. Perhaps if you read you would understand that the QQ’ing, in this case, is well deserved. But you seem not to have, as it would seem odd for you to read the entire post only to not mention its content once in your reply.
Thus, as your comment is nothing more than the expression of your clearly biased and irrelevant opinions, I see no reason for me to continue discussing with you until you decide to speak on relevant topics.
Congratulations, you just described this thread, the majority of the posters here, and basically 99% of all forums all over the net. With all the time Thieves use to whine in the forums, they could have rerolled a second 80 with full Ascended.
Tell me, then- what is biased about the fact that Shadow Return clearly states that it returns you to your original location? What is opinionated? Is that an opinion, even? But perhaps you never read that.
What I really have to ask you- what gives you the nerve to come onto these forums, make clearly untrue claims (given that there are a very large number of great people on these forums whom I doubt you have ever even corresponded in the least bit with), and then insult us like this? If anything, you should be ashamed with yourself because of your childish behavior.
The nerve that Thieves cry over every insignificant change that happens in the game that somehow relate to them. Sorry you and your buddies on this side of the forums think so highly of yourselves that you can’t see past an obvious fix, but when all you know how to do is complain about how every single patch is a nerf, no one is going to take you seriously.
How has those stealth traps been ruining your game, anyway? I’m sure you’ve just been harassed 24/7 through countless anti-stealth mechanics the forums were raving about, amiright?
… I don’t think this ignorance even warrants a response.
^So that’s what it was, was wondering why It never seem to work today.
This isn’t the first time the range has been “Bugged” ive seen the tooltip read 900 before and nothing written on the patch notes. then the next day 1200. and the next it was “broke”(i figured they found where they wanted it to be hah how wrong i was) You could get 1 full range 2, switch to SB then 2 #5. Anything more and it reset and/or you ran out of time.
Well thought out Arganthium.
McFribble seems kitten. His arguments do not make much sense.
The skill is totally fine and I think a minor bugfix doesn’t really require a multi-wall-of-text QQ thread. Didn’t have a single issue on S/D in khylo today. Inf range was obviously not intended. It’s like the “END IS NEAR” always with you guys.
The skill is totally fine and I think a minor bugfix doesn’t really require a multi-wall-of-text QQ thread. Didn’t have a single issue on S/D in khylo today. Inf range was obviously not intended. It’s like the “END IS NEAR” always with you guys.
I’m not saying that the skill is “bad” or anything, but what I am saying is that it got rid of a very unique tool to the thief and replaced it with a buggy and unreliable skill instead. Will it always fail? Of course not. Will it always fail to do what you need it to do? Of course not. But it will have a tendency to be much less reliable than beforehand in that you really don’t know where you’re porting to.
It’s pretty unfortunate that s/p thieves got completely shafted this patch. Not only does it bug out upon use, It is no longer an escape tool. Anet, you say you want thief to have mobility, then implement a “fix” that pretty much forces thieves to use stealth instead.
Really not with how they’re going about things as far as thieves go.
[OHai] – Northern Shiverpeaks
My argument against the Thief “whine”:
You are a class that has almost the most mobility, almost the highest burst, literally the best PvP mechanic in the game, and cry when the devs fix something that clearly wasn’t working as intended.
You are a great PvP class when used within a team (unheard of, I know), have amazing utility for PvE content, and can do almost everything but soak up damage.
If you ever sit and wonder why everyone else associated with the game find your player base a laughing stock, look no further than the QQ from the recent patch.
Definitely an Anet Damage Control personnel. lol. Or at least he wants to be but obviously not qualified. :P
There’s too much BS on that reply I can’t even begin to enumerate them all.
The OP made a very good argument and it’s obvious that you’re not honorable enough to at least read what he posted.
Now I see the next bug that Anet needs to crush that is currently bugging the Thief forum. lol.
Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D – Make it happen
PvE – DD/CS/AC – If that didn’t work, roll a Reaper or Revenant.
Arganthium.5638:
You have made such a valid comment, and obviously taken the time (as well know how to use the skill tactically within the game) to write a well, thought out, post on ArenaNet’s recent changes to this ability.
Today the game, and I have logged in and tried it, seems dull and uninteresting to me. When a Warrior can spam abilities to run away from me, a Greatsword on a Ranger = massive running away, catching up to players, and don’t get me started on Elemtals
Arganthium.5638:
You have made such a valid comment, and obviously taken the time (as well know how to use the skill tactically within the game) to write a well, thought out, post on ArenaNet’s recent changes to this ability.
Today the game, and I have logged in and tried it, seems dull and uninteresting to me. When a Warrior can spam abilities to run away from me, a Greatsword on a Ranger = massive running away, catching up to players, and don’t get me started on Elemtals
If you are having problems catching someone I suggest using a short bow and specing into swiftness on dodge.
They originally made Shadow Return function that way to avoid bugs with terrain. Now the Anet developer/s who initially discovered this bug either don’t work there anymore, forgot, or are busy doing something else. So the new people in charge of balances and fixes look at shadow return, unaware of why it functions that way, decide to “fix” it causing the skill to break. They do this often with Thief.
Arganthium.5638:
You have made such a valid comment, and obviously taken the time (as well know how to use the skill tactically within the game) to write a well, thought out, post on ArenaNet’s recent changes to this ability.
Today the game, and I have logged in and tried it, seems dull and uninteresting to me. When a Warrior can spam abilities to run away from me, a Greatsword on a Ranger = massive running away, catching up to players, and don’t get me started on Elemtals
If you are having problems catching someone I suggest using a short bow and specing into swiftness on dodge.
I want to point out to you that any Thief running up to me with a bow has died very quickly to my offset. I’m not going to burn Int left and right to catch someone. That’s not logical.
So basically what Anet has to do is fix the buggy pathing that came with today’s update and all problems are solved.
But of course Anet making their typical mistake is the opportune time for the common forum thief to argue to bring back what they intended to fix in the first place. Great logic thumbs up
So basically what Anet has to do is fix the buggy pathing that came with today’s update and all problems are solved.
But of course Anet making their typical mistake is the opportune time for the common forum thief to argue to bring back what they intended to fix in the first place. Great logic thumbs up
I’m arguing that no matter what ANet does, it will likely result in a bug like this if this is their intention, and is unlikely to be fixed any time soon. Just look at Shadow Trap.
Furthermore, that was only one in six arguments that I used. So thank you for your nonsensical reply.
Arganthium.5638:
You have made such a valid comment, and obviously taken the time (as well know how to use the skill tactically within the game) to write a well, thought out, post on ArenaNet’s recent changes to this ability.
Today the game, and I have logged in and tried it, seems dull and uninteresting to me. When a Warrior can spam abilities to run away from me, a Greatsword on a Ranger = massive running away, catching up to players, and don’t get me started on Elemtals
If you are having problems catching someone I suggest using a short bow and specing into swiftness on dodge.
I want to point out to you that any Thief running up to me with a bow has died very quickly to my offset. I’m not going to burn Int left and right to catch someone. That’s not logical.
That isnt the situation you portrayed. Clearly if the target that is running from you can so easily burst you down, why is he running? You act like having a sb out leaves you defenseless or unable to spam 5k hits, cripple, poison and evade… I am confident that if you had them on the run with your main loadout then you should have no problem with the shortbow even after you gap close with it. Remember they just used their’s to get away while you can hit them 1200 out while they try to run back at you. If your still having problems with those pesky runners turning to kill you when you pull out sb then pm me and I will give you tips.
(edited by YourOwnFear.2743)
Argue all you want, being able to teleport back so far away to the pointthat you actually need to let a loading screen commence is just too powerful.
No player should have the ability to do that, it was a bug.
So wipe away your tears and get over it.
Furthermore,just because this patch did not include addition of mobility to the class does not mean its never going to happen.
Anet said on SoTG that they are working on something for thiefs mobility, and this patch was about bug fixing,not about balance.
Argue all you want, being able to teleport back so far away to the pointthat you actually need to let a loading screen commence is just too powerful.
No player should have the ability to do that, it was a bug.
So wipe away your tears and get over it.
Furthermore,just because this patch did not include addition of mobility to the class does not mean its never going to happen.
Anet said on SoTG that they are working on something for thiefs mobility, and this patch was about bug fixing,not about balance.
This is a faulty argument in that it not once explains why my arguments are invalid and thus concedes them, and, furthermore, doesn’t provide any evidence to back your own arguments.
“No player should have the ability to do that”
“Should” by whose standards? Furthermore, what makes the ability to teleport far away overpowered? IS/SR is one of the few- oh wait, the only mobility skill that sword has, unless you count FS, which doesn’t have a very long range anyhow. Thus, having it sit on our bar for a long time while we wait to use SReturn isn’t exactly advantageous, as we now have one important skill just sitting on our bar. Furthermore, if we’re trying to win the fight, teleporting halfway across a map is actually disadvantageous. The only time the skill, then, is any use for teleporting so far across a map is when you engage in a fight with the intention of escaping already in your mind; it’s not simply an “lol I can suddenly tele halfway across the map” kind of a deal, it requires planning, and, when not used correctly, can actually be very bad for a thief.
Also, the fact that this patched nerfed thief mobility while adding none to it just shows that they have put thief mobility low on the list of their priorities, particularly when they promised enhanced mobility for the mug nerf.
I suggest you now go and actually read my post, given that you didn’t reply to any of it… Then again, neither have any of the other commenters saying that the thief SR should have been nerfed.
Holy kitten. This is a stupid thread. So what if it was nerfed. Use something else. I almost NEVER take this skill.
Everything Purple
I think anet wanted it to return you to your original location within a limit.
Why do I think this? Partially because of the description, but also because there were similar mechanics in guild wars 1 such as shadow meld and aura of displacement, two assassin elites in gw1.
I’m so amused by the OP – none of his arguments are actually about whether this change is a ‘bug fix’ or not, except #1 and #3 (which is actually the same point, made twice in slightly different ways).
Everything else is just discussing whether the skill should be changed to be better or worse. That’s not really the point here, since this entire patch just fixed bugs (if you notice, there were no balance changes).
So let’s take a closer look at this argument – I’ll quote the post here:
1. Counterargument: “But the tooltip says that it has 1200 range!”
The tooltip also says that you “return to your original location”, so obviously the tooltip is contradictory. Furthermore, just because the tooltip says something does not make it theoretically correct in the first place, anyways.
Alright, what he is saying is that
1) The tooltip says “return to your original location” so obviously the intention was to return to the location, regardless of the actual distance in between
2) The tooltip is wrong
For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Judge%27s_Intervention
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blink
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flashing_Blade
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ride_the_Lightning
I think that’s enough abilities to get the point across. All of them say that they teleport you to the target/targeted area (I specifically chose skills that say that in the description, just to be very pedantic)
All of them also have a range stated in the description. When Shadow Return allows the Thief to teleport back from an infinite range, I expect to see all of the abilities above work at an infinite range as well.
As for your second argument, that makes even less sense. If the skill description isn’t ‘theoretically correct’ (whatever that means) then we can completely disregard them.
Personally I think that the Engineer Grenade Kit should summon a fotm lv 40 Jade Maw to smite all my enemies for 90 million damage. What’s that? It doesn’t say anything like that in the description? Ah, the description isn’t ‘theoretically correct’.
Good job OP, you posted a huge amount of stuff that is completely irrelevant.
Edit: In case I wasn’t exceedingly clear enough, the patch had only bug fixes.
Whether Shadow Return deserves a buff is another topic entirely, but to call this change not a bug fix is just silly.
(edited by Sunflowers.1729)
I remember in beta when you get out of range of shadow return it would automatically trigger shadow return regardless of the timer on it. I had no idea it had infinite range, sounds like the skill was repolished and people abused the loophole.
I’m so amused by the OP – none of his arguments are actually about whether this change is a ‘bug fix’ or not, except #1 and #3 (which is actually the same point, made twice in slightly different ways).
Everything else is just discussing whether the skill should be changed to be better or worse. That’s not really the point here, since this entire patch just fixed bugs (if you notice, there were no balance changes).
So let’s take a closer look at this argument – I’ll quote the post here:
1. Counterargument: “But the tooltip says that it has 1200 range!”
The tooltip also says that you “return to your original location”, so obviously the tooltip is contradictory. Furthermore, just because the tooltip says something does not make it theoretically correct in the first place, anyways.
Alright, what he is saying is that
1) The tooltip says “return to your original location” so obviously the intention was to return to the location, regardless of the actual distance in between
2) The tooltip is wrongFor the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Judge%27s_Intervention
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blink
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flashing_Blade
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ride_the_LightningI think that’s enough abilities to get the point across. All of them say that they teleport you to the target/targeted area (I specifically chose skills that say that in the description, just to be very pedantic)
All of them also have a range stated in the description. When Shadow Return allows the Thief to teleport back from an infinite range, I expect to see all of the abilities above work at an infinite range as well.
As for your second argument, that makes even less sense. If the skill description isn’t ‘theoretically correct’ (whatever that means) then we can completely disregard them.
Personally I think that the Engineer Grenade Kit should summon a fotm lv 40 Jade Maw to smite all my enemies for 90 million damage. What’s that? It doesn’t say anything like that in the description? Ah, the description isn’t ‘theoretically correct’.
Good job OP, you posted a huge amount of stuff that is completely irrelevant.
Edit: In case I wasn’t exceedingly clear enough, the patch had only bug fixes.
Whether Shadow Return deserves a buff is another topic entirely, but to call this change not a bug fix is just silly.
Entirely too much sense being made in this post so it will be ignored, lol. Im glad you brought up rtl because its tool tip said 1200 but it was actually doing 1500 since launch and was corrected a couple patches ago. All the elementalists claimed unneeded nerf while every other class said much needed bug fix since it made them uncatchable. This whole thing reminds me of that.
I kinda actually like the change. I really don’t see the use in abusing 1200+ range return unless you’re trying to get both you and the enemy to go out of combat. It seems actually detrimental to have it so far because you could accidentally click it and get teleported in the middle of nowhere (stated in the OP) and then you gotta use initiative or waste time running to them. Apart from a couple niche uses like annoying someone at the west camp above bay from the platform above, it seems like a generally good fix.
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“For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game”
There is also the necromancer spell Spectral Recall which teleports you back to where you have started. and has no limitations, goes through walls which stops shadowreturn at times. Surely this needs to be limited aswell?
Sunflower:
First of all, I didn’t post this so that we could debate whether this patch is a bug fix or nerf, yet that seems to be what you think my intent was. It was to determine whether this change was justified or not. Thus, until you can address the four arguments that you didn’t reply to, you must concede them.
However, to address the two you did refer to:
For the first argument, you cite a variety of different teleportation skills and state that because all of them clearly have a range even if they do state that they “teleport”, that that means that SR has a range just as much. However…
First of all, “Blink” simply states that it teleports you to a target location. However, it does not state where that target location is limited to, at least not explicitly. However, the 900 range would suggest that the target can be placed anywhere with a circle of radius 900 units. This would make sense with the skill as the skill would still function as the tooltip says, but the target circle can simply only be within a certain area. Thus, Blink doesn’t work for your argument.
On the other hand, the other three tooltips refer to a mechanic that SR does not: “teleport”. SR states that you “return” to your original location. Although it may seem a minor point, the fact that these three skills refer to a different mechanic (“teleportation”) than what SR refers to (“returning”) means that the two cannot be compared. You’re trying to compare two skills of different types. The GW2 Wiki- a reliable source, given that you cited it- actually refers to Flashing Blade and JI as both being teleportation skills, while Shadow Return isn’t even on the list. It is, however, on the list of shadowsteps, suggesting that “Shadowstep” and “Teleportation” are, as a matter of fact, different mechanics entirely.
Either way, none of your post actually gets at the heart of my counterargument- why does it matter what the tooltip says? If the tooltip says “does 123789054709 damage”, does that make it correct?
As for my second argument, I use “theoretically correct” on these forums to refer to the theory behind GW2 strategy, tactics, and balance. That is what the term referred to. Not once did I state that the tooltip was “theoretically incorrect”, anyhow, so your argument is irrelevant.
Now, on the other hand, the Jade Maw idea would not be theoretically correct, as it provides the engineer with such a large damage output vs damage taken advantage thakittens performance ability is unparalleled by any other class. “Theoretically correct” is not the term I use as my “such-and-such should be like this because I like it this way” term that I use, it is a term that I use to refer to balance among classes.
Your final comment simply refers to the fact that you completely misunderstood the intention of my post in the first place.
“For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game”
There is also the necromancer spell Spectral Recall which teleports you back to where you have started. and has no limitations, goes through walls which stops shadowreturn at times. Surely this needs to be limited aswell?
That skill has a 60 second cd and isnt on a weapon. It also doesnt remove conditions and leaves a big green trail reminder instead of a small circle that can be hidden by terrain. Just saying.
Edit: In case I wasn’t exceedingly clear enough, the patch had only bug fixes.
Whether Shadow Return deserves a buff is another topic entirely, but to call this change not a bug fix is just silly.
The point of my post was not about bug fixes, it was about nerfs.
I define a bug fix as a change made to the game that makes it better fit the developer’s intentions. I define a nerf as a change made to the game that decreases the DPS vs damage taken ratio that a class has.
It’s intention versus effect.
I do not deny that this patch was a bug fix, but I argue that it was also a nerf, and in that it was an unjustified nerf, given that the developer’s ultimate intention is to bring balance to the game.
It’s a 1200 range from your point of origin. That gives you plenty of space to control territory and still have a relatively safe area to port back to. Yeah the pathing is buggy now, but that’ll get fixed. Having an infinite range on that skill was not ok. That’s like if the beginning and ends of a Mesmer portal had infinite range from where they can be dropped. Thief class still maintains a lot of mobility, this is merely a fix, not a nerf.
“For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game”
There is also the necromancer spell Spectral Recall which teleports you back to where you have started. and has no limitations, goes through walls which stops shadowreturn at times. Surely this needs to be limited aswell?
That skill has a 60 second cd and isnt on a weapon. It also doesnt remove conditions and leaves a big green trail reminder instead of a small circle that can be hidden by terrain. Just saying.
Spectral recall also has an 8 second limit, compared to the 15 second limit on shadow return. So yeah, I’d think spectral recalling isn’t much of an issue and in certainly doesn’t suggest SR should have better return ability. I can understand the want of a teleport in place of shadow step though.
“For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game”
There is also the necromancer spell Spectral Recall which teleports you back to where you have started. and has no limitations, goes through walls which stops shadowreturn at times. Surely this needs to be limited aswell?
That skill has a 60 second cd and isnt on a weapon. It also doesnt remove conditions and leaves a big green trail reminder instead of a small circle that can be hidden by terrain. Just saying.
That skill also provides 30 seconds of swiftness and grants you life force on damage taken, and can be traited to have a reduced cool down. Furthermore, its stunbreak is reliable and not buggy like ours is.
Furthermore, the fact that the utility isn’t on a weapon, IMO, can be reversed and actually claimed to be advantageous by the necro. I state in another post,
“… Furthermore, what makes the ability to teleport far away overpowered? IS/SR is one of the few- oh wait, the only mobility skill that sword has, unless you count FS, which doesn’t have a very long range anyhow. Thus, having it sit on our bar for a long time while we wait to use SReturn isn’t exactly advantageous, as we now have one important skill just sitting on our bar. Furthermore, if we’re trying to win the fight, teleporting halfway across a map is actually disadvantageous. The only time the skill, then, is any use for teleporting so far across a map is when you engage in a fight with the intention of escaping already in your mind; it’s not simply an “lol I can suddenly tele halfway across the map” kind of a deal, it requires planning, and, when not used correctly, can actually be very bad for a thief."
See, with infinite range, it is extremely rare to have to abuse that by going such a far distance, so having a 60 second cool down doesn’t really mean much. It’s like Shadow Refuge; we don’t need it enough to justify throwing it down whenever we want to, only when we absolutely need it. However, a weapon skill takes up a slot on your attack bar, the bar that you’re supposed to be using to the largest extent possible; having a button like SR that doesn’t change back to its original mobility skill for 15 seconds can actually be disadvantageous. Many professions often need one or two utilities on their bar, but it’s very rare for them to require three, and usually even when they do that’s because they run a very thematic build, like a venom thief for example. Thus, that third utility tends to be very situational, and SWalk is one of those types of situational utilities.
Comparing a utility and a weapon skill… Those are two very different things right there.
I think its balanced to have the teleport range be the average max range of most damaging skills. I mean think about it. An inf range teleport, stun break that removes a condition. Is that balanced?
“For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game”
There is also the necromancer spell Spectral Recall which teleports you back to where you have started. and has no limitations, goes through walls which stops shadowreturn at times. Surely this needs to be limited aswell?
That skill has a 60 second cd and isnt on a weapon. It also doesnt remove conditions and leaves a big green trail reminder instead of a small circle that can be hidden by terrain. Just saying.
That skill also provides 30 seconds of swiftness and grants you life force on damage taken, and can be traited to have a reduced cool down. Furthermore, its stunbreak is reliable and not buggy like ours is.
Furthermore, the fact that the utility isn’t on a weapon, IMO, can be reversed and actually claimed to be advantageous by the necro. I state in another post,
“… Furthermore, what makes the ability to teleport far away overpowered? IS/SR is one of the few- oh wait, the only mobility skill that sword has, unless you count FS, which doesn’t have a very long range anyhow. Thus, having it sit on our bar for a long time while we wait to use SReturn isn’t exactly advantageous, as we now have one important skill just sitting on our bar. Furthermore, if we’re trying to win the fight, teleporting halfway across a map is actually disadvantageous. The only time the skill, then, is any use for teleporting so far across a map is when you engage in a fight with the intention of escaping already in your mind; it’s not simply an “lol I can suddenly tele halfway across the map” kind of a deal, it requires planning, and, when not used correctly, can actually be very bad for a thief."
See, with infinite range, it is extremely rare to have to abuse that by going such a far distance, so having a 60 second cool down doesn’t really mean much. It’s like Shadow Refuge; we don’t need it enough to justify throwing it down whenever we want to, only when we absolutely need it. However, a weapon skill takes up a slot on your attack bar, the bar that you’re supposed to be using to the largest extent possible; having a button like SR that doesn’t change back to its original mobility skill for 15 seconds can actually be disadvantageous. Many professions often need one or two utilities on their bar, but it’s very rare for them to require three, and usually even when they do that’s because they run a very thematic build, like a venom thief for example. Thus, that third utility tends to be very situational, and SWalk is one of those types of situational utilities.
Comparing a utility and a weapon skill… Those are two very different things right there.
Take away the swiftness and put that sucker on any necro weapon with say a 10 second cd to compensate for no resource usage and I dont think you will hear 1 necro complain. A free utility and an infinate range stunbreak teleport with no to low cooldown sounds like a great day.
(edited by YourOwnFear.2743)
It’s a 1200 range from your point of origin. That gives you plenty of space to control territory and still have a relatively safe area to port back to. Yeah the pathing is buggy now, but that’ll get fixed. Having an infinite range on that skill was not ok. That’s like if the beginning and ends of a Mesmer portal had infinite range from where they can be dropped. Thief class still maintains a lot of mobility, this is merely a fix, not a nerf.
There are, however, a few issues.
First of all, how easy is it to fix the pathing bug? After all, STrap has been like this for ages, and yet it hasn’t even been addressed slightly by the devs. It sounds great in theory, but can you actually think of a way to address the pathing issue that fixes the bug but also can teleport you to a point up to 1200 units away that isn’t your original starting point? I certainly can’t.
Now, it’s true that the 1200 range is a decent bit; in fact, the infinite range was hardly an issue beforehand with being abused for its distance anyhow. However, realize that this “fix” allows for much more spamming of the skill back and forth, which I doubt was the dev’s intention with the skill. Rather than teleporting away 2000 units now, you only port back 1200 units (or less with the bug), meaning that you’re in better range to use the skill again. I can easily envision this resulting in a new build that just focuses on hit and run, over and over again, whereas the infinite range meant that you had to be careful that you weren’t too far away. Some people might want to reset the fight, but realize that the only reason a person would lay down SReturn and then engage in a fight (which is the most common case for this skill, given that in battle you need the skill for mobility and immobilize), and so the only “abuse” given by the skill is the ability to harass players while not doing much damage to them anyways. By the time you land a hit or two, you’ll probably have to port back, because, let’s face it, you can’t go particularly far away and expect for most of your 15 seconds to still be on the clock, unless you choose to burn all your mobility skills- but that’s another topic that I discuss elsewhere in the OP anyways.
Finally, the difference between an infinite distance mesmer port and an infinite distance thief port is that a thief is one player, but a team can consist of 50+ players. Zergs have the disadvantage of being very visible in WvW; that’s the price they pay for being so powerful (among a few other minor things). A mesmer port bomb from halfway across the map would essentially be the same as nuking enemies from your base. However, a thief porting so far would be no different from throwing a nail at an enemy. Also, there are two other things. First of all, mesmer port gives a 60-second time window to lay down the second portal, allowing for much more distance for a mesmer. Also, mesmers have an “aggressive” port; they lay down a portal to where they want to attack, in this situation of zerg bombing, whereas thief infinite range SR is a defensive port that is simply the place you want to return to. One allows you to control where you go later on, allowing you to predict enemy movements and port based on that, whereas the other doesn’t. I’m sure you can figure out which is which.
So why should a weapon skill be stronger than a high cd utility?
“For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game”
There is also the necromancer spell Spectral Recall which teleports you back to where you have started. and has no limitations, goes through walls which stops shadowreturn at times. Surely this needs to be limited aswell?
That skill has a 60 second cd and isnt on a weapon. It also doesnt remove conditions and leaves a big green trail reminder instead of a small circle that can be hidden by terrain. Just saying.
That skill also provides 30 seconds of swiftness and grants you life force on damage taken, and can be traited to have a reduced cool down. Furthermore, its stunbreak is reliable and not buggy like ours is.
Furthermore, the fact that the utility isn’t on a weapon, IMO, can be reversed and actually claimed to be advantageous by the necro. I state in another post,
“… Furthermore, what makes the ability to teleport far away overpowered? IS/SR is one of the few- oh wait, the only mobility skill that sword has, unless you count FS, which doesn’t have a very long range anyhow. Thus, having it sit on our bar for a long time while we wait to use SReturn isn’t exactly advantageous, as we now have one important skill just sitting on our bar. Furthermore, if we’re trying to win the fight, teleporting halfway across a map is actually disadvantageous. The only time the skill, then, is any use for teleporting so far across a map is when you engage in a fight with the intention of escaping already in your mind; it’s not simply an “lol I can suddenly tele halfway across the map” kind of a deal, it requires planning, and, when not used correctly, can actually be very bad for a thief."
See, with infinite range, it is extremely rare to have to abuse that by going such a far distance, so having a 60 second cool down doesn’t really mean much. It’s like Shadow Refuge; we don’t need it enough to justify throwing it down whenever we want to, only when we absolutely need it. However, a weapon skill takes up a slot on your attack bar, the bar that you’re supposed to be using to the largest extent possible; having a button like SR that doesn’t change back to its original mobility skill for 15 seconds can actually be disadvantageous. Many professions often need one or two utilities on their bar, but it’s very rare for them to require three, and usually even when they do that’s because they run a very thematic build, like a venom thief for example. Thus, that third utility tends to be very situational, and SWalk is one of those types of situational utilities.
Comparing a utility and a weapon skill… Those are two very different things right there.
However there is a Thief utility skill which also uses Shadow Return
Shadowstep – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep
Essentially the same thing as the Infiltrator’s Strike, except it uses ground targeting instead of unit targeting.
And no, this fix doesn’t allow more spamming. You could have chosen to use shadow return with less than 1200 range before to warp around before as well.
“For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game”
There is also the necromancer spell Spectral Recall which teleports you back to where you have started. and has no limitations, goes through walls which stops shadowreturn at times. Surely this needs to be limited aswell?
That skill has a 60 second cd and isnt on a weapon. It also doesnt remove conditions and leaves a big green trail reminder instead of a small circle that can be hidden by terrain. Just saying.
That skill also provides 30 seconds of swiftness and grants you life force on damage taken, and can be traited to have a reduced cool down. Furthermore, its stunbreak is reliable and not buggy like ours is.
Furthermore, the fact that the utility isn’t on a weapon, IMO, can be reversed and actually claimed to be advantageous by the necro. I state in another post,
“… Furthermore, what makes the ability to teleport far away overpowered? IS/SR is one of the few- oh wait, the only mobility skill that sword has, unless you count FS, which doesn’t have a very long range anyhow. Thus, having it sit on our bar for a long time while we wait to use SReturn isn’t exactly advantageous, as we now have one important skill just sitting on our bar. Furthermore, if we’re trying to win the fight, teleporting halfway across a map is actually disadvantageous. The only time the skill, then, is any use for teleporting so far across a map is when you engage in a fight with the intention of escaping already in your mind; it’s not simply an “lol I can suddenly tele halfway across the map” kind of a deal, it requires planning, and, when not used correctly, can actually be very bad for a thief."
See, with infinite range, it is extremely rare to have to abuse that by going such a far distance, so having a 60 second cool down doesn’t really mean much. It’s like Shadow Refuge; we don’t need it enough to justify throwing it down whenever we want to, only when we absolutely need it. However, a weapon skill takes up a slot on your attack bar, the bar that you’re supposed to be using to the largest extent possible; having a button like SR that doesn’t change back to its original mobility skill for 15 seconds can actually be disadvantageous. Many professions often need one or two utilities on their bar, but it’s very rare for them to require three, and usually even when they do that’s because they run a very thematic build, like a venom thief for example. Thus, that third utility tends to be very situational, and SWalk is one of those types of situational utilities.
Comparing a utility and a weapon skill… Those are two very different things right there.
Take away the swiftness and put that sucker on any necro weapon with say a 10 second cd to compensate for no resource usage and I dont think you will hear 1 necro complain. A free utility and an infinate stunbreak teleport with no to low cooldown sounds like a great day.
Except that you have to plan beforehand in order for the infinite mobility to mean anything; it’s not like SReturn is a free Shadowstep with infinite range in battle. If you put it down right before a battle, attack briefly, then retreat, then its infinite range is useful, but you people put it up as if it’s saying “lol I can instantly teleport from Rogue’s to Mendon’s with a press of a button!”, but that’s not what it is. The 15 seconds, first of all, is surprisingly short, and the use of teleporting so far away is so rare anyways that it’s difficult to think of a good situation where you would really need to use it. Harassment and ganks are really the only two situations I can think of, and then ganks have effects that are usually predetermined by how you use your other mobility skills anyways. I argue against it, however, as the fix allows for lots of unintended consequences: skill abuse, glitches, and a generally unreliable skill overall. The skill is actually fairly costly- 5 initiative (total) out of our 12 initiative pool, so it can’t just be used nonsensically, unless you build around using the skill like that. Beforehand, however, if you were trying to catch an enemy running away, then you couldn’t just press the skill over and over again, as you would just teleport farther and farther away from your enemy each time. With this patch, however, that is no longer the case. This means that the latest change has brought about a lot of unhealthy consequences.
And no, this fix doesn’t allow more spamming. You could have chosen to use shadow return with less than 1200 range before to warp around before as well.
Nope.
Beforehand, all an enemy had to do to stop spamming was… Walk away. Every time you used SReturn, you would be farther and farther away from your enemy. Now you’re guaranteed to be within ~1200 range max every time you port away, with only 600 of that range needing to be covered to use IStrike again. Against stationary enemies, of course, this skill could be abused both prior to and after the patch, but it had a very easy counter to it.
So why should a weapon skill be stronger than a high cd utility?
Because it isn’t.
SStep is a utility that is used for its step towards a point- a given point that you can manipulate and use for aggressive purposes. SReturn is a weapon skill that grants you a fixed point that you can make a tradeoff for; you can either teleport back to that point and burn two initiative, or you can keep it sitting on your bar granting you no offensive opportunities for 15 seconds. Also, SStep provides two stunbreaks, whereas SReturn provides one. SStep is ground targeted, meaning that it can be used essentially anywhere, allowing for far more opportunity, which IS/SR doesn’t have.
Utilities aren’t meant to be used over and over again (unless your build relies on them solely, i.e. trap rangers and venom thieves), and SStep has much, much more utility than SReturn. To call SReturn “stronger” is a dreadful mistake.
What? Why would you be farther and farther away? You wouldn’t be. You could just have used it before you’re 1200 away from the spot you were it.
Obviously in a single use the utility can be better, but you have to take into account the amount of times you’d use IR/SR. Anyway, I wasn’t talking about shadowstep’s SR utility, I was talking spectral recall (since it was mentioned earlier), whose warp backwards only allows 8 seconds to be used. So it’s be <8sec of distance traveled vs <15sec of distance traveled warped back if SR had infinite range.
As for shadow step, yes it has more utility, as it should. Despite being similar mechanics, it’s used somewhat differently since you can warp without a target.