Guild Wars 2

An easy band-aid until more thought through change have been tested is to lower the initiative cost of Pistol Whip with 1 for PvE only. This will keep it as a viable skill to spamm in trash AoE pulls, where currently thief is unwanted because of its percieved low survivability (which cannot be augmented by other traits, since damage suffers too much compared to other classes)

Kincaidia.3192:

Okay Straegen, the nerf to Opportunities roughly matches the buff to base init regen.

Is it necessary to nerf my emergency init (Klepto and 3 signets) from 9 down to 5?

Can you nerf that and still lie through your teeth and call this a “MASSSSSSSSSIVE BUFF”?

^^so much this

I rewrite here my suggestion for this trait:

Opportunist
Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase base cooldown from 1s to 10s. Cooldown is reduced by 0.3s for each point spend in Critical Strikes

at 15 points : 10s – (0.3*15) = 5.5s
at 20 points : 10s – (0.3*20) = 4s
at 25 points : 10s – (0.3*25) = 2.5s
at 30 points : 10s – (0.3*30) = 1s

You should also not change trigger chance, making the trait almost useless for a 15 points spender but letting it rewarding for deep critical builds.

This way no one will go for 15 points just to have this trait, but ppl who do like critical builds will not receive another nerf.

Thank you.

Daendur.2357:

I rewrite here my suggestion for this trait:

Opportunist
Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase base cooldown from 1s to 10s. Cooldown is reduced by 0.3s for each point spend in Critical Strikes

at 15 points : 10s – (0.3*15) = 5.5s
at 20 points : 10s – (0.3*20) = 4s
at 25 points : 10s – (0.3*25) = 2.5s
at 30 points : 10s – (0.3*30) = 1s

You should also not change trigger chance, making the trait almost useless for a 15 points spender but letting it rewarding for deep critical builds.

This way no one will go for 15 points just to have this trait, but ppl who do like critical builds will not receive another nerf.

Thank you.

This would make more sense if you left the trigger chance at 30%.

Kincaidia.3192:

Is it necessary to nerf my emergency init (Klepto and 3 signets) from 9 down to 5?

I didn’t look into Klepto and the Signet changes. Klepto isn’t a huge deal since it only effects a couple init per minute. The Signet one could be far more problematic especially for builds that use Improv. Both of these are nerfs no matter how we look at it. Not sure why they felt the need to do this. Players using either may (and probably will) have to unfortunately alter their attack chains.

Ichishi.9613:

Just as well the P/P and S/P are not hit HARD with this change it is just the sole fact that this change was brought in as a MASSIVE BUFF to any and all thieves.
But the change to opportunist did not include the compensation for those builds that actually actively, willingly, skillfully used it.
Thief gets more BASELINE power at the cost of lowering the skill ceiling and abandoning benefits that reaching that ceiling could give.
Look. D/D will make more CnD or more DB with this change.
S/D will make more stips with this change.
Godly SB doesn’t really care.
D/P will make more Heartseekers with this change.
P/P will make less Unloads.
S/P will make less Pistol Whips.
Does not sound like a buff for everyone.

I don’t agree that these classes will necessarily take that hit. They may have to space out their heavy init cost skills more but it is entirely possible they will cast the same number of these skills and in some cases considerably more.

No matter how I approach the math on Opp/Regen it seems to come out near even or better in most cases. The attack chains may have to be altered but it is likely that similar DPS will occur but with less peaks and valleys. Also, there will probably be new builds that spring up from this change to replace the old ones since the init regen does make the CS line more optional.

This is just my opinion from theory-crafting and clearly is not based in the real word. Time will tell and hopefully I am right since that would mean these builds are still as strong as they were going into the patch. It would be disheartening to me if these builds fall away because of this change.