Guild Wars 2

Yamsandjams.3267:

PopeUrban.2578:

Crazy Idea that would beef up blind without overpowering it:

Blind –
50% miss chance
Blinded targets can not crit.
Stacks duration

I think the only real valid point the OP has is that stacking blind duration generally has no point. This is exacerbated by the fact that someone can remove the blind by auto-attacking the air.

If they did change the mechanics to work how the OP says, the only way I could see it is with the above miss chance being lowered as quoted. Something like 33%-50% would have to be implemented instead of 90%-100%.

Blindness was OP in GW1 against classes that had to “attack” for damage. The only thing that didn’t put it over the top is that you had access to abilities that would ignore blindness. In GW2, everything is subject to blindness, so the GW1 model would need to be revised.

I’m not sure the OP appreciates that this will be a double-edged sword though. There would surely be a follow up post by someone describing how blindness destroys thief offence.

Note that my suggestion doesn’t list “removed on attack”

Essentially you have a blind condition that works in tandem with weakness for more reliable mitigation, and you wouldn’t have to massively rework a lot of duration effects. It’s still a condition, it’s still subject to removal, and it’s a patch to the critical flaw of weakness as a damage mitigating condition in that pvp-wise the volume of critical hits makes weakness far less potent at mitigating damage than it could be.

It still blows my mind that they want to make a class that can effectively remain invisible forever in WvW be even more “slippery”.

Sil.4560:

It still blows my mind that they want to make a class that can effectively remain invisible forever in WvW be even more “slippery”.

sil u have to play a thief to understand. 99.9% of complaints are from 1 v1 scenarios…..if u complain abut those you are an IDIOT bc they mean nothing and anywhere. the only viable builds are bleed invis and d/p invis bc its OUR only defense. maybe if blind worked the way i said ti should u would see other kidns of thievs that dont wanna go invis. without blind they way i say or invis. thieves will 99.9% NOT BE PLAYED bc they die in less than 2 secs in any zerg fight….unless they invis/ss out even then its a small chance of getting out. the best wvw players and pvp players have AOE effects and AOE CC. medium dmg to match and the team with the most CC / aoe dmg wins. its simple. would u rather have a player that hits 10k per ONE player or 2500 per 5 players? the answer is 2500 per 5 incase you are bad at math. thieves really suck if u think otherwise than you are just a skirmisher and should play mesmer/thief. think outside the box plz.

and ther eis no invisble forever. just seems like that. and going invis for a long time takes away all initiative and some utnility skills. be thankful for that. you see invis as offense…u should really see it as defense. but you obv dont play a thief. the ONLY good thieves right now are the ones with a really fast reaction time. the rest get ownd.

Travlane.5948:

you say 1 hit now you say 1 sec. can u make up your mind. and its NOT the topic but your language is very bad. its hard to debate with you bc your english is horrible. i dont mean to knock you im just saying that you dont make any sense. and if u have been reading spvp tpvp wvw and pve are going to be SEPARATE …that means that each skill will act DIFFERENTLY in each according to power. and yes its a good idea. every one of the skills form Gw1 transfered pretty much the same except for blind. it will not break the game…wanna know why? it didnt break the other game? it might act different….but if regulated for time or % then yes it will work perfectly. maybe you think my idea is bad bc u cant understand it due to lingual barriers. some players might not like this bc thieves are hard to target but they are not hard to kill. thieves need and already are PROMISED a defensive boost. doesnt matter if u like it or not. they are getting one bc they are unbalanced in a lacking manner.

I undeartand you absolutely WELL. Do you know difference between passive and active english? No i suppose. And you are first IN YEARS who is complaining on my english. So i do not take you seriously…..Maybe problem is in you….Or in your dialect if you are from english speaking countery…..My english exams from my University can prove that i at least understand english perfectly :-DD
I do not ( i am avoiding don’t becouse it is hard to wright it on my non english keyboard :-D ) agree with you becouse i do not agree with your idea….This is true reason and not english :-DD
Thiefs could use more deff. but not this.

I agree that blindness is pretty useless as is. Here are couple of suggestions:

- Blindness stacks, and each stack multiplies hit chance by 0.85 geometrically (i.e. you have a 0.85, 0.7225, 0.6141, 0.522, 0.4437, 0.377, 0.3206, etc hit chance for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc) or 0.8 geometrically (i.e. 0.8, 0.64, 0.512, 0.41, 0.327, 0.262, 0.2097, etc. for 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, etc) for each stack for 3 seconds. Thus, 1 stack isn’t debilitating, but it can become some very good damage mitigation at higher stacks. Also, by scaling geometrically, you get diminishing returns and never miss 100%.

-Have blindness stack give 0.8 miss rate (20% hit rate) and stack for # of attacks. (these numbers could be tuned. Again, this doesn’t 100% shut down attacks, and can be overcome by proccing many times, but still offers some decent damage mitigation.

These changes would have to come with some burst reduction on thieves with greater sustained damage (as planned).

BlackBeard.2873:

I agree that blindness is pretty useless as is. Here are couple of suggestions:

- Blindness stacks, and each stack multiplies hit chance by 0.85 geometrically (i.e. you have a 0.85, 0.7225, 0.6141, 0.522, 0.4437, 0.377, 0.3206, etc hit chance for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc) or 0.8 geometrically (i.e. 0.8, 0.64, 0.512, 0.41, 0.327, 0.262, 0.2097, etc. for 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, etc) for each stack for 3 seconds. Thus, 1 stack isn’t debilitating, but it can become some very good damage mitigation at higher stacks. Also, by scaling geometrically, you get diminishing returns and never miss 100%.

-Have blindness stack give 0.8 miss rate (20% hit rate) and stack for # of attacks. (these numbers could be tuned. Again, this doesn’t 100% shut down attacks, and can be overcome by proccing many times, but still offers some decent damage mitigation.

These changes would have to come with some burst reduction on thieves with greater sustained damage (as planned).

“effectiveness stacking” Is actually a pretty good idea for blind as mitigation, provided it still clears the entire stack with a single remove so as not to overpower it.

daros.3407:

Travlane.5948:

you say 1 hit now you say 1 sec. can u make up your mind. and its NOT the topic but your language is very bad. its hard to debate with you bc your english is horrible. i dont mean to knock you im just saying that you dont make any sense. and if u have been reading spvp tpvp wvw and pve are going to be SEPARATE …that means that each skill will act DIFFERENTLY in each according to power. and yes its a good idea. every one of the skills form Gw1 transfered pretty much the same except for blind. it will not break the game…wanna know why? it didnt break the other game? it might act different….but if regulated for time or % then yes it will work perfectly. maybe you think my idea is bad bc u cant understand it due to lingual barriers. some players might not like this bc thieves are hard to target but they are not hard to kill. thieves need and already are PROMISED a defensive boost. doesnt matter if u like it or not. they are getting one bc they are unbalanced in a lacking manner.

I undeartand you absolutely WELL. Do you know difference between passive and active english? No i suppose. And you are first IN YEARS who is complaining on my english. So i do not take you seriously…..Maybe problem is in you….Or in your dialect if you are from english speaking countery…..My english exams from my University can prove that i at least understand english perfectly :-DD
I do not ( i am avoiding don’t becouse it is hard to wright it on my non english keyboard :-D ) agree with you becouse i do not agree with your idea….This is true reason and not english :-DD
Thies could use more deff. but not this.

disagreeing with me is fine but again your not understanding. or writing correctly. you are right….you CAN understand me….but as i was SAYING……“I” cannot understand you because your lack of adequate english! my idea is fine and workable within the game. it may not be liked by thief haters or other non thief classes but i guarantee alot of thieves would start playing wvw again. incase you havent noticed…there are many that quit playing thief in wvw. there is a reason for that.

PopeUrban.2578:

BlackBeard.2873:

I agree that blindness is pretty useless as is. Here are couple of suggestions:

- Blindness stacks, and each stack multiplies hit chance by 0.85 geometrically (i.e. you have a 0.85, 0.7225, 0.6141, 0.522, 0.4437, 0.377, 0.3206, etc hit chance for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc) or 0.8 geometrically (i.e. 0.8, 0.64, 0.512, 0.41, 0.327, 0.262, 0.2097, etc. for 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, etc) for each stack for 3 seconds. Thus, 1 stack isn’t debilitating, but it can become some very good damage mitigation at higher stacks. Also, by scaling geometrically, you get diminishing returns and never miss 100%.

-Have blindness stack give 0.8 miss rate (20% hit rate) and stack for # of attacks. (these numbers could be tuned. Again, this doesn’t 100% shut down attacks, and can be overcome by proccing many times, but still offers some decent damage mitigation.

These changes would have to come with some burst reduction on thieves with greater sustained damage (as planned).

“effectiveness stacking” Is actually a pretty good idea for blind as mitigation, provided it still clears the entire stack with a single remove so as not to overpower it.

i like your base idea but those numbers i think are horrible off. .80% chance to hit is nothing……i mean if we had blindness in an auto attack like sword….would be good but by the time the rotation starts againt he blindness is off. so by that math you would have to put 3 blinds on per second to have any real dmg reduction…..or more like 7 if you can still remove it by swinging blindlessly in the air.

ATTACKING IN STEALTH DOES NOT REMOVE STEALTH> UNLESS YOU HIT.
ATTACKING IN BLIND DOES REMOVE BLIND > EVEN IF U DONT HIT.

Travlane.5948:

daros.3407:

Travlane.5948:

you say 1 hit now you say 1 sec. can u make up your mind. and its NOT the topic but your language is very bad. its hard to debate with you bc your english is horrible. i dont mean to knock you im just saying that you dont make any sense. and if u have been reading spvp tpvp wvw and pve are going to be SEPARATE …that means that each skill will act DIFFERENTLY in each according to power. and yes its a good idea. every one of the skills form Gw1 transfered pretty much the same except for blind. it will not break the game…wanna know why? it didnt break the other game? it might act different….but if regulated for time or % then yes it will work perfectly. maybe you think my idea is bad bc u cant understand it due to lingual barriers. some players might not like this bc thieves are hard to target but they are not hard to kill. thieves need and already are PROMISED a defensive boost. doesnt matter if u like it or not. they are getting one bc they are unbalanced in a lacking manner.

I undeartand you absolutely WELL. Do you know difference between passive and active english? No i suppose. And you are first IN YEARS who is complaining on my english. So i do not take you seriously…..Maybe problem is in you….Or in your dialect if you are from english speaking countery…..My english exams from my University can prove that i at least understand english perfectly :-DD
I do not ( i am avoiding don’t becouse it is hard to wright it on my non english keyboard :-D ) agree with you becouse i do not agree with your idea….This is true reason and not english :-DD
Thies could use more deff. but not this.

disagreeing with me is fine but again your not understanding. or writing correctly. you are right….you CAN understand me….but as i was SAYING……“I” cannot understand you because your lack of adequate english! my idea is fine and workable within the game. it may not be liked by thief haters or other non thief classes but i guarantee alot of thieves would start playing wvw again. incase you havent noticed…there are many that quit playing thief in wvw. there is a reason for that.

Again….NO ONE else had ever problem with my speaking…..
Even if it would be workable……You are not first who came with this idea but Anet never even said anything about considering it.
So i thing this not the way they whant it.
I would agree with something like lowering chance to hit. But not to some insane numbers like 90% chance to miss. Something about 30% chance to miss for 3-5 sec woud be enough to affect fight, but would not be too ,,OP"

30% wouldnt let u fight in a zerg. and 90% is not insane. wierd how millions played gw1 but didnt quit or reroll bc of the 90% miss chance on blind. infact the ele class was better than anyone at it….they call them blindbots and used RTL (ride the lightning) and anet didnt approve this idea. what they said was they were going to boost our defense somehow by intending us to be a more “sliperrier” class. i suggest this as a way to do it without having to rework mechanics. its a fantastic idea if balanced right. 30% miss chance and a thief still dies in any zerg in the same amount of time. dont forget blind only works on close up melee types unless using SoS. and thats a long recharge.

Travlane.5948:

30dont forget blind only works on close up melee types unless using SoS. and thats a long recharge.

Actually, that’s not true.

Blinding powder does fire a bullet which will blind the target that it hits since it self-combos with the smoke field (one of the only skills that can self-combo). Additionally, you can shoot through the combo field it lays for additional blinding projectiles. If you want to get really crazy, you can also start a whirl finisher in the smoke field to throw blinding bolts around.

Infiltrator’s arrow and shadow shot also apply blind, which are both 900 range abilities that can put you in range for your melee attacks. In particular, you can shadow shot to your foe then black powder if you really want to go for blinds.

Smoke screen and blinding powder also apply blind, although people generally won’t use them primarily for that purpose. However, you can always shoot through the smoke screen for more ranged blinds, as can your allies.

So there are ranged sources of blind.

actually no blinding powder doesnt fire a bullet. its only an upclose blind with a small (guessing) 400 area radius.

blinds …atleast for thieves…should be integral parts of their builds. not spend 5 initiative and an utility skill to blind the foe at range as they drop the condition(s) without a skill or trait (just by swinging).

anyway…yeah…the only good blinds are really up close melee blinds bc those are the ones that hurt chain skills and big hits if u happen to get lucky. range ones just take 1 swing awaw or one strike that may or may not be intended for you. without them staying on for a duration they are practically useless

Confusion and retaliation are two things that should have never been implemented.

A condition which kills you if you use any ability so you should sit there waiting patiently while getting DPSed or run away?

A condition which destroys you if you attack your target so you have to cower in a corner till it’s gone?

Wow..

The only people who defend this silly mechanic are people who play classes that use it or who have heavy condition removal. The remainder can go get farmed.

XII.9401:

Confusion and retaliation are two things that should have never been implemented.

A condition which kills you if you use any ability so you should sit there waiting patiently while getting DPSed or run away?

A condition which destroys you if you attack your target so you have to cower in a corner till it’s gone?

Wow..

The only people who defend this silly mechanic are people who play classes that use it or who have heavy condition removal. The remainder can go get farmed.

the other true mechanic probl with it is lets say im at 2k hp and i use my 6k heal. i die firs then try use the heal….should be other way around. same with condi removal…. skill dmg first then removal and ur dead. theres no way to get around with wthout using -70% condi build

Starbird.4029:

While the thief class does need a lot of love (P/P needs a total teardown, squishiness overall needs a tweak) posting your titles all in caps is just going to get your thread deleted.

this guy has an issue with all caps like seriously.

XII.9401:

Confusion and retaliation are two things that should have never been implemented.

A condition which kills you if you use any ability so you should sit there waiting patiently while getting DPSed or run away?

A condition which destroys you if you attack your target so you have to cower in a corner till it’s gone?

Wow..

The only people who defend this silly mechanic are people who play classes that use it or who have heavy condition removal. The remainder can go get farmed.

lol no confusion or retaliation isnt the issue…confusion is a good mechanic much like spiteful spirit was, you get punished for being a moron, same as retaliation, the whole problem with pvp right now is fury

bunkers can get high dmg mitigation and still deal dmg through fury, what do you think makes eles so op in pvp? not their constant application of fury.

I’m guessing the gw1 blind didn’t get transferred directly because of the % chance of surviving a hit. However, the topic is essentially Thief Defense and therefore will write on this. Currently thieves essentially only feel survivable when they are able to stealth, this is because we cannot self heal a lot or mitigate damage. The thief is most comparable to a ele in terms survival tactics, but lacks the eles ability to self heal or increase armour. Should stealth be nerfed i’d rather see a stacking self debuff that makes me take more damage each time I exit stealth for whatever the reason. Now this allows us to play with increasing the thief’s innate ability to survive without buffing stealthing builds to god-like.

devaking.2397:

XII.9401:

Confusion and retaliation are two things that should have never been implemented.

A condition which kills you if you use any ability so you should sit there waiting patiently while getting DPSed or run away?

A condition which destroys you if you attack your target so you have to cower in a corner till it’s gone?

Wow..

The only people who defend this silly mechanic are people who play classes that use it or who have heavy condition removal. The remainder can go get farmed.

lol no confusion or retaliation isnt the issue…confusion is a good mechanic much like spiteful spirit was, you get punished for being a moron, same as retaliation, the whole problem with pvp right now is fury

bunkers can get high dmg mitigation and still deal dmg through fury, what do you think makes eles so op in pvp? not their constant application of fury.

well u cant compare spiteful spirit like that….u hav a low lvl skill and then compare it to a high lvl skill (an elite) so if that low lvl is AS good as the elite spiteful spirit…therefor its OP or should be put in elite status/spot. that is a very strong skill undeniably. confusion is OP and so is shattter but they wont debuff both in the same patch….just doing the -50% dmg on shatter for now. which u will see …and alot of attack players will like it bc it is an easy build for anyone to play…making clones/phants and run in a circle/dodge and blow them up/let them do dmg.

and what did u mean about eles? u dont think they are op? or you do?

Zeoli.3402:

I’m guessing the gw1 blind didn’t get transferred directly because of the % chance of surviving a hit. However, the topic is essentially Thief Defense and therefore will write on this. Currently thieves essentially only feel survivable when they are able to stealth, this is because we cannot self heal a lot or mitigate damage. The thief is most comparable to a ele in terms survival tactics, but lacks the eles ability to self heal or increase armour. Should stealth be nerfed i’d rather see a stacking self debuff that makes me take more damage each time I exit stealth for whatever the reason. Now this allows us to play with increasing the thief’s innate ability to survive without buffing stealthing builds to god-like.

so you are saying thieves have good defense and need to take more dmg from going stealth more than once?

Travlane.5948:

Zeoli.3402:

I’m guessing the gw1 blind didn’t get transferred directly because of the % chance of surviving a hit. However, the topic is essentially Thief Defense and therefore will write on this. Currently thieves essentially only feel survivable when they are able to stealth, this is because we cannot self heal a lot or mitigate damage. The thief is most comparable to a ele in terms survival tactics, but lacks the eles ability to self heal or increase armour. Should stealth be nerfed i’d rather see a stacking self debuff that makes me take more damage each time I exit stealth for whatever the reason. Now this allows us to play with increasing the thief’s innate ability to survive without buffing stealthing builds to god-like.

so you are saying thieves have good defense and need to take more dmg from going stealth more than once?

I’m not, I’m saying stealthing provides decent defense but the other builds of thief (yes there are builds that don’t utilise stealth) lack defense somewhat. However to buff those would also be to buff the stealthing build.

Travlane.5948:

devaking.2397:

XII.9401:

Confusion and retaliation are two things that should have never been implemented.

A condition which kills you if you use any ability so you should sit there waiting patiently while getting DPSed or run away?

A condition which destroys you if you attack your target so you have to cower in a corner till it’s gone?

Wow..

The only people who defend this silly mechanic are people who play classes that use it or who have heavy condition removal. The remainder can go get farmed.

lol no confusion or retaliation isnt the issue…confusion is a good mechanic much like spiteful spirit was, you get punished for being a moron, same as retaliation, the whole problem with pvp right now is fury

bunkers can get high dmg mitigation and still deal dmg through fury, what do you think makes eles so op in pvp? not their constant application of fury.

well u cant compare spiteful spirit like that….u hav a low lvl skill and then compare it to a high lvl skill (an elite) so if that low lvl is AS good as the elite spiteful spirit…therefor its OP or should be put in elite status/spot. that is a very strong skill undeniably. confusion is OP and so is shattter but they wont debuff both in the same patch….just doing the -50% dmg on shatter for now. which u will see …and alot of attack players will like it bc it is an easy build for anyone to play…making clones/phants and run in a circle/dodge and blow them up/let them do dmg.

and what did u mean about eles? u dont think they are op? or you do?

no im saying bunkers, but specifically using eles as an example are OP because of fury, i was just using spiteful spirit as an example of a mechanic because it was the first to come to mind, confusion is a condition not a skill, confusion is not overpowered, its just very powerful, but lets focus on the major issues first.
this was the mistake with the quickness nerf, it needed it but there so much more pressing concerns that needed fixing first.

confusion is def op. they will change it a lil eventually. atleast so that condi removal removes it before dmg. or it only works on non auto attack skills idk. but right now u get 8 stacks of confusion i guarantee u lose 100% of the time. its an easy button for win.

@zeo it doesnt boost stealth bc ur not adding in stealth skills. ur must moving them from utility to f1 f2 f3 etc. so you wont have SS in f2 and in utility 7 ….get it? the only way it improves is that it now allows a stealth build or any build to move a lil better. thats it. doesnt change how long or how many times u stealth for

I see what you are saying and yeh not adding more stealth skills is cool. But seeing as stealth is used as both offensive and defensive, surely buffing non stealth thieves survivability would additionally buff stealth thieves who have stealth. So either have something that is unique to those weap sets (non stealth) in terms of defense or make stealth more of a get away/positional tool and up the defense for all thieves

Zeoli.3402:

I see what you are saying and yeh not adding more stealth skills is cool. But seeing as stealth is used as both offensive and defensive, surely buffing non stealth thieves survivability would additionally buff stealth thieves who have stealth. So either have something that is unique to those weap sets (non stealth) in terms of defense or make stealth more of a get away/positional tool and up the defense for all thieves

well thats fine i can did that… make the new utilites NON stealth like if you are going to move a couple to f2 f3. i am totally diggin that. right now theives arent really played anymore….very rarely. theres a reason for that they def need a slight boost to be able to get in on zerg action

@Travlane: just to clarify stuff… Condi thief is not viable, because it is essentially a bunker/damage hybrid, that gets countered by a single condition removal skill at a right time (all bleed stacks go puff!) and it is enough to cc you 2 times to kill you. As a damage dealer, you are sub-par to engi, necro, ranger, mesmer, and even longbow warrior, as a bunker, you are sub-par to any other bunkerish build, because you rely on stealth to clear conditions and get out of tight spots, which guarantees you will loose the point eventually (and possibly very soon). Basically said, the only thing that thief does better than other classes, is single target burst, and therefore it’s the only thing they are expected to do in tournaments, where min-maxing means a lot, and where nobody cares how much fun you are having playing your build (believe me, I’ve had my share of fun with bleed thief, I’ve just been forced to accept the truth). Even if you still do find a measure of success with your current build, if you keep winning you WILL meet people who will have no trouble dealing with you swiftly.

Also d/d is not viable anymore, because offhand dagger has been nerfed so much, it’s damage output and utility just don’t amount to anything anymore. People only play d/d at this point, because they find /p too hard to manage and/or pull off the combo.

Now to your preposterous idea about blindness nerf. Any mechanic that relies on RNG is a bad mechanic. It’s not reliable and you cannot count on it. Can you imagine trying to prevent an enemy thief from killing your teammate with his burst by blinding his basilisk venom strike, when the blind has about 33% chance to work? No, you would use something more reliable, like daze or stun. Right now, blindness works just like aegis does, except with 2 differences: the first one is, that you have much easier access to blindness, and second being that it’s much more easily counterable. As a potential solution to this, I would suggest increasing the radius of black powder and similar skills, so that a movement within the blind field would be possible and would allow for better gameplay options for the thief.

u need about 6 CCs or more to kill my bleed build. if u care to bet on that.. :P ill be happy to show you.. i dont run the averagee bleed build. also i run 22k hp. single condition removal? lol that doesnt matter …what matters is which condition is removed. so you have to put on bleeds at right time. and work in poison cripple blind weakness ice so that those are removed instead of bleed. even if they purge all conditions…it only takes 1 second to add 6 stacks back on. yes it can be a bunker build if done right …. ive held 4-5 people for 90 seconds all the time and my team takes the other points with easy. very big sway in points when that happens.

i do like your idea baout the thief radiyus on blind field. somewher around blind powders effect.

u can swing any atack to get rid of blindness. so its really a joke and useless. aegis stays on til you actually hit. not just swing at it like a joke

Travlane.5948:

confusion is def op. they will change it a lil eventually. atleast so that condi removal removes it before dmg. or it only works on non auto attack skills idk. but right now u get 8 stacks of confusion i guarantee u lose 100% of the time. its an easy button for win.

@zeo it doesnt boost stealth bc ur not adding in stealth skills. ur must moving them from utility to f1 f2 f3 etc. so you wont have SS in f2 and in utility 7 ….get it? the only way it improves is that it now allows a stealth build or any build to move a lil better. thats it. doesnt change how long or how many times u stealth for

lol please explain how confusion is OP? you get 8 stacks of confusion you back off and run away or you cleanse it, its not an easy win button lol unless your noob, refuge as a thief and its cleansed, if not you just gain a bunch of hp that offsets the confusion because 8 stacks is not enough to outright kill you for using a skill, and then you run away, confusion is good against noobs and as a team support as you apply stacks of confusion and then have a theif jump em

to the moron who said confusion and retaliation shouldnt have been implemented. your a moron, like seriously burn is better than confusion and retaliation.

ok ill explain it to you step by step so you cant contradict or side step.

QUESTION 1: Thief burst and Mesmer burst builds are pretty close in power/time per kill ? moreso for mesmers in spvp. do you agree?

posting this bc u will disagree bc i think it is probably in your nature. good aoe dmg too.

answer question then i can move to next part of why.

Travlane.5948:

actually no blinding powder doesnt fire a bullet. its only an upclose blind with a small (guessing) 400 area radius.

Again, this isn’t true. You’re not paying attention to the ability when you use it. Test it in PvE. Stand away from a mob, target them, and use black powder. It actually shoots them. That’s why there’s a range listed on the tooltip.

And a 400 radius is quite large, it’s closer to 120.

I forgot to mention that smokescreen will also blind anyone who passes through it, so you can kite mobs through it to stack blinds. Players might not be as gullible for that though.

@Travlane: I am not saying your build is bad, I am saying it’s not viable, and there is a reason for that. There are basically two things you ought to do in tournament pvp. First is to hold and defend your points. In order to do that, you need a character that concentrates in defense and survival, and is therefore capable of remaining on the point, even if focused by 2 or more characters for a longer period of time WITHOUT allowing the enemy to decap it. That is why Guardians, with their constant blocks, healing dodge rolls and invulnerabilities are considered the best bunkers. Or rangers who can evade for about 60% of the total time they fight.

The second objective is to decap and take the nodes enemy holds. This needs to be done as fast as possible, otherwise reinforcements will arrive for the bunker, and you might not get the point at all. For this purpose, DPS roamers are the best choice. As much damage as possible in as short a period of time as possible. You cannot argue the abysmal difference in DPS of a condition thief and backstab burst by anything you could ever say.

There is a third type of setup people sometimes run, and that is support/healer (mainly bunker eles, but sometimes engies or guardians).

Either way, your build doesn’t fit into any of these roles. It doesn’t defend a point against/without the enemy capturing it. It doesn’t get the point nearly as fast as other builds do and it doesn’t offer any team support, therefore it’s not viable. It does kill people, that’s for sure, but it takes a prolonged fight to have the enemy bleed out, and some enemies are just downright impossible to kill.

Now, as to the solution of the thief survivability problem, the issue is much more complex than blindness being weak. While I still do strongly believe, that blindness fields need increase in radius, it’s also important to note, that thief already has some awesome damage mitigation options (like 15 trait points in acrobatics with withdraw as a heal and vigor on heal trait lets you dodge almost indefinitely), that if coupled with for example valkyries amulet would allow for some great playstyle options and good survivability. Now the problem is, that current meta-build (25/30/0/0/15) has such incredibly strong synergy, that just by taking those 15 points from first or last traitline (you obviously need 30 in critical strikes with valkyrie amulet). You may loose up to 30% damage output (23% exactly just on backstab) NOT counting the 20% + decrease in critical chance from berserker’s amulet. To many, this might seem like a solid trade-off for such an increase in survivability, but it’s not. Remember, this is a thief, even with 2600-ish armor, you gain maybe the ability to withstand 2 more decent hits from an enemy, and your only chance to win a fight, is to burst the enemy down before he gets to you. But now, you are critting 20% times less than before, your damage output is 25%ish lower and you have probably traded executioner for hidden killer, so those 20% extra under 50% health is not coming. All of this given away in exchange for not dying to crossfire in teamfights (slight exaggeration, but not that far-off). Ultimately, what thieves need to get, is to move some of that DPS potency down the trait lines, so that we can actually invest some of our traits into defensive trait-lines without completely killing our burst off. Make the 15 point difference between 10/30/0/15/15 (just an example) maybe 10% tops, not 23%+ and thieves won’t suffer nearly as much as they do now. Just let us access our other traits without ruining what we are.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Travlane.5948:

actually no blinding powder doesnt fire a bullet. its only an upclose blind with a small (guessing) 400 area radius.

Again, this isn’t true. You’re not paying attention to the ability when you use it. Test it in PvE. Stand away from a mob, target them, and use black powder. It actually shoots them. That’s why there’s a range listed on the tooltip.

And a 400 radius is quite large, it’s closer to 120.

I forgot to mention that smokescreen will also blind anyone who passes through it, so you can kite mobs through it to stack blinds. Players might not be as gullible for that though.

black powder fires a bullet. however blinding powder does not. i am 100% correct. it sounds like you just used the wrong word in your first message.. thats prolly where the disagreement comes from….but yes black powder shot does!

Silferas.3841:

@Travlane: I am not saying your build is bad, I am saying it’s not viable, and there is a reason for that. There are basically two things you ought to do in tournament pvp. First is to hold and defend your points. In order to do that, you need a character that concentrates in defense and survival, and is therefore capable of remaining on the point, even if focused by 2 or more characters for a longer period of time WITHOUT allowing the enemy to decap it. That is why Guardians, with their constant blocks, healing dodge rolls and invulnerabilities are considered the best bunkers. Or rangers who can evade for about 60% of the total time they fight.

The second objective is to decap and take the nodes enemy holds. This needs to be done as fast as possible, otherwise reinforcements will arrive for the bunker, and you might not get the point at all. For this purpose, DPS roamers are the best choice. As much damage as possible in as short a period of time as possible. You cannot argue the abysmal difference in DPS of a condition thief and backstab burst by anything you could ever say.

There is a third type of setup people sometimes run, and that is support/healer (mainly bunker eles, but sometimes engies or guardians).

Either way, your build doesn’t fit into any of these roles. It doesn’t defend a point against/without the enemy capturing it. It doesn’t get the point nearly as fast as other builds do and it doesn’t offer any team support, therefore it’s not viable. It does kill people, that’s for sure, but it takes a prolonged fight to have the enemy bleed out, and some enemies are just downright impossible to kill.

Now, as to the solution of the thief survivability problem, the issue is much more complex than blindness being weak. While I still do strongly believe, that blindness fields need increase in radius, it’s also important to note, that thief already has some awesome damage mitigation options (like 15 trait points in acrobatics with withdraw as a heal and vigor on heal trait lets you dodge almost indefinitely), that if coupled with for example valkyries amulet would allow for some great playstyle options and good survivability. Now the problem is, that current meta-build (25/30/0/0/15) has such incredibly strong synergy, that just by taking those 15 points from first or last traitline (you obviously need 30 in critical strikes with valkyrie amulet). You may loose up to 30% damage output (23% exactly just on backstab) NOT counting the 20% + decrease in critical chance from berserker’s amulet. To many, this might seem like a solid trade-off for such an increase in survivability, but it’s not. Remember, this is a thief, even with 2600-ish armor, you gain maybe the ability to withstand 2 more decent hits from an enemy, and your only chance to win a fight, is to burst the enemy down before he gets to you. But now, you are critting 20% times less than before, your damage output is 25%ish lower and you have probably traded executioner for hidden killer, so those 20% extra under 50% health is not coming. All of this given away in exchange for not dying to crossfire in teamfights (slight exaggeration, but not that far-off). Ultimately, what thieves need to get, is to move some of that DPS potency down the trait lines, so that we can actually invest some of our traits into defensive trait-lines without completely killing our burst off. Make the 15 point difference between 10/30/0/15/15 (just an example) maybe 10% tops, not 23%+ and thieves won’t suffer nearly as much as they do now. Just let us access our other traits without ruining what we are.

i agree on the radius needs to be bigger especially on lbinding powder. should be like 600-900 max. i think its like 350 or so now (ghuessing) i wasnt blaming our survivbility on lack of a real blindness. was saying it was a step in the right direction without making us tanky and ruining or “visage”. without taking a big step they should try make blindness stay the full duration so you cant swing and miss to remove it. you should have to actually connect. thats a start. and make it a larger radius too.

also this is a similar build i play. mine is a lil better as i can do it with more on me in same small space however his is a lil faster at killing (little)

check it out.

Travlane.5948:

ok ill explain it to you step by step so you cant contradict or side step.

QUESTION 1: Thief burst and Mesmer burst builds are pretty close in power/time per kill ? moreso for mesmers in spvp. do you agree?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfeZ8P8T81g

posting this bc u will disagree bc i think it is probably in your nature. good aoe dmg too.

answer question then i can move to next part of why.

so im not sure what your trying to show me here? those guys didnt die by confusion they all got ganked so whats your point?

i knew ud dodge my point ….which u dont know bc u wont let me get to it. please answer the question.

Travlane.5948:

sil u have to play a thief to understand. 99.9% of complaints are from 1 v1 scenarios…..if u complain abut those you are an IDIOT bc they mean nothing and anywhere. the only viable builds are bleed invis and d/p invis bc its OUR only defense. maybe if blind worked the way i said ti should u would see other kidns of thievs that dont wanna go invis. without blind they way i say or invis. thieves will 99.9% NOT BE PLAYED bc they die in less than 2 secs in any zerg fight….unless they invis/ss out even then its a small chance of getting out. the best wvw players and pvp players have AOE effects and AOE CC. medium dmg to match and the team with the most CC / aoe dmg wins. its simple. would u rather have a player that hits 10k per ONE player or 2500 per 5 players? the answer is 2500 per 5 incase you are bad at math. thieves really suck if u think otherwise than you are just a skirmisher and should play mesmer/thief. think outside the box plz.

and ther eis no invisble forever. just seems like that. and going invis for a long time takes away all initiative and some utnility skills. be thankful for that. you see invis as offense…u should really see it as defense. but you obv dont play a thief. the ONLY good thieves right now are the ones with a really fast reaction time. the rest get ownd.

Honestly a lot of what you said doesn’t really pertain to what I had in mind. Probably. It’s kind of hard to parse some of your message.

Anyway, I was trying to say that the invisibility and “pop” mechanics mixed with the lag of rendering creates this sort of horrible problem with near perpetual invisibility. When it’s not happening I’ve got no problem at all fighting thieves. The mechanics themselves are interesting but have somewhat unfortunate side effects for myself and a lot of other players which weren’t really intended by the devs.

Travlane.5948:

ok your english is horrible for 1. ….

I really wouldn’t advise being the first one to cast stones at someone’s composition skills, if I were you.

As for the main topic, I think the guy who suggested that Blind should stack intensity instead of duration is on the right track. It would require a little adjustment to base durations probably, but it would be a more desirable mechanic overall.

how would intensity stack? what u have to swing 2x instead of 1 to get rid of the condition? i may mis-type certain words on my tablet. but its written as said without proper punctuation/grammar. who i was referring to was not understandable bc even if you read it….it makes no sense. if you read mine…it may not be perfect. but its understandable. then again the way people speak is usually never correct in a perfect grammar sense.

FOR EXAMPLE :::: \
“If I were you, I would not advise being the first to cast stones at one’s grammar skills.
As for the main topic, I think the guy that suggested blind should stack intensity rather than duration is on the correct track. It would, probably, require little adjustment to the base duration. Overall, However, it would be a more desirable mechanic.”

If a collegiate Professor of English were to correct/rewrite your message it would look more like that. About 20 fixes. Just sayin’ :p not picking on you…just pointing out nobody has used grammar well in their posts here….not even I. And that is coming from sombody with a bachelors.

I’m ok with the thief right now, but ineed he needs some buffs.

best buff we get is swift+fury.

Travlane.5948:

how would intensity stack? what u have to swing 2x instead of 1 to get rid of the condition? i may mis-type certain words on my tablet. but its written as said without proper punctuation/grammar. who i was referring to was not understandable bc even if you read it….it makes no sense. if you read mine…it may not be perfect. but its understandable. then again the way people speak is usually never correct in a perfect grammar sense.

FOR EXAMPLE :::: \
“If I were you, I would not advise being the first to cast stones at one’s grammar skills.
As for the main topic, I think the guy that suggested blind should stack intensity rather than duration is on the correct track. It would, probably, require little adjustment to the base duration. Overall, However, it would be a more desirable mechanic.”

If a collegiate Professor of English were to correct/rewrite your message it would look more like that. About 20 fixes. Just sayin’ :p not picking on you…just pointing out nobody has used grammar well in their posts here….not even I. And that is coming from sombody with a bachelors.

As someone who appreciates and practices the art of writing (cough), I mean it when I say you don’t know anything about what you’re talking about.

The way he wrote it originally was perfectly fine and you simply introduced errors in your “correction”.

On the topic: I think thief should be given more slippery buffs. The devs keep telling us (whilst grinning wickedly) that our class is meant to be “slippery” an “escape artist” and yet cut us down every time someone kittenes about not being able to kill us.

Give us almost permanent swiftness, a billion more blinds (just one at a time isn’t enough, a single attack renders it useless) things like the deception skill tree doubling stealth time, etc.

Let glass cannons be so, and get mean crits, but please; reward us for going down the slippery alley when we do.

Travlane.5948:

how would intensity stack?

Just that when blindness gets applied to a target that already has blindness, instead of tacking on duration, it tacks on another “stack” of blindness. Each time the blinded player/mob misses an attack, it would remove one stack.

There are situations where that system would be either more and less effective than the current mechanic.

Thieves are one of the most (if not THE most) evasive classes in the game, and that’s BEFORE you even consider the multitude of blinds and stealths and whatnot they have.

The last thing they need is more ways to escape damage, at least as far as PvP or WvW is concerned.

I do know that they could probably use some love in PvE.