Guild Wars 2

Jack of Tears.9458:

Ya know, I’d seeing a lot of “oh know, you’ll have to rely on X build instead of Stealth, or Burst now, won’t that be a shame?”.

Well, ask them then : what X build are you talking about ? The Immortal Unicorn one ? …

Or maybe the future is a pure Shortbow thief.

Hexalot.8194:

JonPeters.5630:

As we played with the stealth changed mentioned in the SotG, we recognized that in conjunction with the change to culling this was an unpredictable change to make. We also felt that it was too big of a hit to these stealth professions, so we ended up pulling that change in favor of just increasing revealed duration by 1 second.

Ha Ha… well now we know… Peters switched his main from Warrior to Thief.

The problem wasn’t how good the thief is at killing. Thieves should be good at killing. The problem has always been how easy it is to TROLL using all of the stealth options that are available.

Anet just doesn’t get it.

Laika.8795:

awgardner.9634:

Sounds to me like someone has been worked over by a P/D Thief a time or two I feel your pain, I really do… That’s why I rolled one !

Na, I have absolutely no problem with them, they are kitten poor against S/D. But they are generally for people who don’t like to get their hands dirty, and that is what a lot of the outcry is about in the forums. Also Mug>C&D>BS, which was supposed to be addressed, was not. Nothing that is ACTUALLY a problem with the class, as per the SotG, was actually touched, which is a massive disappointment to anyone that plays the game with tact.

Unfortunately thats what blanket nerfs do, they never address the actual issues they just weaken the entire profession, even if they do happen to slightly inconvenience the actual problems the cost is other options and valid uses get hit far far worse.

I read the forums alot but don’t post alot. But this patch just confuses me, so I felt I had to get my opinion shown to Anet (if they even read the thief forum considering the sorry state its in). I focus almost exclusivly on the PvE content, where stealth is used as a offensive tool rather than a defensive, that is unless you get an enemy on you (well, regen on stealth is somewhat defensive). First comes the change that going into stealth does not lower your current threat on the target (so I made a decision to lower my toughness and increase my vitality), learned to adapt my playstyle around it, forcing me to switch to pistol + pistol every so often and heal up with Unload. Apart from that I mostly used dagger + dagger for damage, or sword + dagger for control, that is, being focused on stealth. The one second increase to revealed is massive for any PvE thief. I think Dirtyshame hit the nail here, and I hope the post is read by a dev. A good thief uses different weapon settups depending on the boss, and thus the dagger offhand can’t be neglected. I would have welcomed the previously suggested revelaed changes. It could have removed the cheese in Wvwvw while not having a huge impact on PvE. Sure, chaining stealth to run through mobs, I guess.

Like I said; I read alot on the forums, so my general understanding is that thieves are hated because they’re annoying and cheesy in Wvwvw, and weak in PvE. Those are not my opinions. Its what I pick up from the forums. While those opinions are partly ignorance, it shouldn’t fully be dismissed. Sometimes there’s something in it.
So this one second increase to revealed that hurts PvE thieves more than PvP (for me theres no discussion about this, really…) and I can’t get my head around it.
It screams a sloppy last-minute change in my opinion. They had to know how this affects PvE. Atop of this; wheres the increased mobility they talked about in return for the stealth changes?

Sometimes I almost feel ashamed to bring my thief in PvE contents, not because I do a poor job, but because of the forums, and this does not make it better. No matter; I’ll stick to my thief, learn to adapt once again, it fits my playstyle and I put alot of effort to it. Neither would I want to give up hope. But I still felt I had to give word to my thoughts this time. I think this was an uncalled for nerf to PvE thieves. And no, I do not count WvWvW as PvE. I know thats the devs view of the concept, but it should be obvious that they can’t balance them both the same way.

Drawing Guy.3701:

I would much prefer the 3s reveal no matter what over the on hit reveal upped to 4.

Personally, I find the 4s revealed to be massively preferable to always getting revealed even when not attacking.

I’m finding the patch notes to be rather encouraging compared to what could have been.

I do suspect that Anet may find 4s to make thieves a little too weak on the whole when folks start adjusting their builds to be more durable due to the extra exposure – which will magnify the loss in offensive power from less frequent stealth openers. But they won’t decrease the revealed debuff; they’ll nudge other things instead.

I’m so relieved that they didn’t do the whole stealth stacking Nerf, but at the same time pretty tired of consequent nerfs to PvE. I’m sure quickness was a real problem in PvP for classes like thieves against warriors, but was it in PvE? No, no it wasn’t. Anet’s excuse for this is ‘we don’t want people to feel as though they are playing a different class’ in regards to balance changes. So the intention is good, but in reality all they’re doing is giving random and needless changes to classes that don’t warrant or require them. Necessary, right…?

I’ve always been a fan of Anet and supported their ideas, but they could really stop this balancing nonsense now. PvE, PvP & WvW are all completely different environments and should be balanced accordingly. They realised this in the original game, so they need to stop this kittenry and realise it NOW.

Laika.8795:

awgardner.9634:

Sounds to me like someone has been worked over by a P/D Thief a time or two I feel your pain, I really do… That’s why I rolled one !

Na, I have absolutely no problem with them, they are kitten poor against S/D. But they are generally for people who don’t like to get their hands dirty, and that is what a lot of the outcry is about in the forums. Also Mug>C&D>BS, which was supposed to be addressed, was not. Nothing that is ACTUALLY a problem with the class, as per the SotG, was actually touched, which is a massive disappointment to anyone that plays the game with tact.

I am sorry, but I strongly beg to differ. As a patch, the intention is always to better the experience for the players. Changes require adjustments, and we understood that when we signed up to play.

Be it that it may, people are always going to gripe. After every “Nerf”, their will always be that dedicated player that will learn to utilize the tools he is given to work with, while others will QQ about how they got “Nerfed” or “Balanced”, or their was not enough “Nerfing” or “Balancing” done to suit the ideas of others.. as countless as they may be.

There will always be QQ, there will always be OP, because they are always practiced through the opinions and values of the person practicing such natures. Hence there will always be somebody left unhappy.

HOWEVER – with the respected changes to the game, I will go ahead and get peoples panties in a twist when I say “I will learn to work my way in and out of the new updates, and this time, I am going to get credit for it and it will be seen by others across the Leader Board! So let the flaming prematurely begin !”.

Auesis.7301:

Dual.8953:

Auesis.7301:

Sifu.6527:

General

•Stealth: The duration of Revealed has been increased to 4 seconds when coming out of stealth via an attack.

Well, there goes my S/D dungeon build. Right out the window. Thanks, guys!

I know the feeling man. Now we blind every 4 seconds not to mention our other SA goodies.

It’s even more than that. I had a BRILLIANT melee pattern of stealth, daze, auto-chain, repeat, and I could stay at the front line of a fight for extended periods of time provided that I kept the momentum going. In this chain, Revealed would finish at the exact moment I hit C+D to restart the pattern. I felt rewarded for perfect execution. I was in favour of revealed on attack or not, as it would have little to no effect on skilled Thieves and punish one-trick-ponies that mess it up, as well as reward opponents who effectively counter-play stealth attacks. Instead, we get this hideous and stupid extension to Revealed. Now my entire dungeon playstyle is out the window and I suppose it’s back to crummy S/P or D/D glass like they seem to want to pigeon-hole us in to. Venoms aren’t even worth mentioning at this point and Traps are total BOLLOCKS, this patch doing absolutely NOTHING to make them viable. But hey, we drop more Caltrops on dodge!

D/D got kittened by this too. CnD -> BS -> AA chain -> repeat worked perfectly based on 3s revealed (hmmm… could it be that the skills were specifically designed with 3s revealed in mind… /gasp). Now as we finish the AA chain, we get to sit there for another second with a thumb up our kitten Another kitten you to PVE players, on a class that’s far from overpowered in that area.

Okamakiri.8746:

D/D got kittened by this too. CnD -> BS -> AA chain -> repeat worked perfectly based on 3s revealed (hmmm… could it be that the skills were specifically designed with 3s revealed in mind… /gasp).

Probably not, considering those skills are all far older than the revealed debuff. It’s more likely that your behavior was shaped with the 3s of reveal specifically in mind.

The effective PvE nerf is pretty stiff, but I’m not terribly worried about it. Even before, if you are playing a Thief in dungeons, any pretense of high performance is abandoned anyway. Reroll anything else → profit.

It’s more important to maintain niche value in PvP and at least be good at something.

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Every trait you have got nerfed by 25%, so did your damage and survivability.

Neither 25% or 33% is remotely accurate unless a player lives almost solely in stealth which pretty much nobody does.

This combo is just as viable with just as much damage: Steal/Mug, BS, HS, HS, HS.

Sure there are thieves that live in stealth but those are primarily griefers. All they did was add 1 second of out of stealth damage when coming out of a stealth attack. It will have an effect but not nearly 25%.

99% of thieves who play use stealth.

Holy hell… 1 extra second on the reveal absolutely cannot effect a thief by 25% or more. Period… cannot be done and under any circumstance. Do people here think for that one extra second a thief is standing still not using some non-stealth attack/skill or that most thieves constantly spam some in-stealth attack?

Only players who stay in semi-perma-stealth by spamming CnD or the like the entire time will notice a significant drop in DPS.

It does have an actual 33% affect on long term dps of several builds. One example is a 10/30/30/0/0 build that uses a CnD BS followed by full AA chain for poison then CnD again to repeat combo. If I don’t need to heal or purge conditions you won’t even notice me go into stealth because I keep positioned at the side or back of the target. This nerf kills that Rythm and lengthens the time between repetitions by 33%. So does it do anything to a single burst? Not at all but long fights against bosses and large groups will definitely feel the effect.

Vilkata.9078:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Every trait you have got nerfed by 25%, so did your damage and survivability.

Neither 25% or 33% is remotely accurate unless a player lives almost solely in stealth which pretty much nobody does.

This combo is just as viable with just as much damage: Steal/Mug, BS, HS, HS, HS.

Sure there are thieves that live in stealth but those are primarily griefers. All they did was add 1 second of out of stealth damage when coming out of a stealth attack. It will have an effect but not nearly 25%.

99% of thieves who play use stealth.

Holy hell… 1 extra second on the reveal absolutely cannot effect a thief by 25% or more. Period… cannot be done and under any circumstance. Do people here think for that one extra second a thief is standing still not using some non-stealth attack/skill or that most thieves constantly spam some in-stealth attack?

Only players who stay in semi-perma-stealth by spamming CnD or the like the entire time will notice a significant drop in DPS.

It does have an actual 33% affect on long term dps of several builds. One example is a 10/30/30/0/0 build that uses a CnD BS followed by full AA chain for poison then CnD again to repeat combo. If I don’t need to heal or purge conditions you won’t even notice me go into stealth because I keep positioned at the side or back of the target. This nerf kills that Rythm and lengthens the time between repetitions by 33%. So does it do anything to a single burst? Not at all but long fights against bosses and large groups will definitely feel the effect.

It reduces the stealth rotation by ~33%, but the additional space in the overall rotation gets filled with #1 spam or something better. That addition mitigates the 33% down to something more palatable. It would take a bit of math and some assumptions to figure out what that number actually is – at least offensively. It’s hard to quantify the part of being more vulnerable and even how that affects real-world offensive capability.

In terms of hard math though, 33% is definitely erroneous.

Daeqar.8965:

Vilkata.9078:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Every trait you have got nerfed by 25%, so did your damage and survivability.

Neither 25% or 33% is remotely accurate unless a player lives almost solely in stealth which pretty much nobody does.

This combo is just as viable with just as much damage: Steal/Mug, BS, HS, HS, HS.

Sure there are thieves that live in stealth but those are primarily griefers. All they did was add 1 second of out of stealth damage when coming out of a stealth attack. It will have an effect but not nearly 25%.

99% of thieves who play use stealth.

Holy hell… 1 extra second on the reveal absolutely cannot effect a thief by 25% or more. Period… cannot be done and under any circumstance. Do people here think for that one extra second a thief is standing still not using some non-stealth attack/skill or that most thieves constantly spam some in-stealth attack?

Only players who stay in semi-perma-stealth by spamming CnD or the like the entire time will notice a significant drop in DPS.

It does have an actual 33% affect on long term dps of several builds. One example is a 10/30/30/0/0 build that uses a CnD BS followed by full AA chain for poison then CnD again to repeat combo. If I don’t need to heal or purge conditions you won’t even notice me go into stealth because I keep positioned at the side or back of the target. This nerf kills that Rythm and lengthens the time between repetitions by 33%. So does it do anything to a single burst? Not at all but long fights against bosses and large groups will definitely feel the effect.

It reduces the stealth rotation by ~33%, but the additional space in the overall rotation gets filled with #1 spam or something better. That addition mitigates the 33% down to something more palatable. It would take a bit of math and some assumptions to figure out what that number actually is – at least offensively. It’s hard to quantify the part of being more vulnerable and even how that affects real-world offensive capability.

In terms of hard math though, 33% is definitely erroneous.

No it’s not. At the end of an AA chain there is a pause before it starts again. So for that extra second of revealed we’re mostly just stuck there twiddling our thumbs. This is a huge nerf to both DPS and survivability.

Daeqar.8965:

Vilkata.9078:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Every trait you have got nerfed by 25%, so did your damage and survivability.

Neither 25% or 33% is remotely accurate unless a player lives almost solely in stealth which pretty much nobody does.

This combo is just as viable with just as much damage: Steal/Mug, BS, HS, HS, HS.

Sure there are thieves that live in stealth but those are primarily griefers. All they did was add 1 second of out of stealth damage when coming out of a stealth attack. It will have an effect but not nearly 25%.

99% of thieves who play use stealth.

Holy hell… 1 extra second on the reveal absolutely cannot effect a thief by 25% or more. Period… cannot be done and under any circumstance. Do people here think for that one extra second a thief is standing still not using some non-stealth attack/skill or that most thieves constantly spam some in-stealth attack?

Only players who stay in semi-perma-stealth by spamming CnD or the like the entire time will notice a significant drop in DPS.

It does have an actual 33% affect on long term dps of several builds. One example is a 10/30/30/0/0 build that uses a CnD BS followed by full AA chain for poison then CnD again to repeat combo. If I don’t need to heal or purge conditions you won’t even notice me go into stealth because I keep positioned at the side or back of the target. This nerf kills that Rythm and lengthens the time between repetitions by 33%. So does it do anything to a single burst? Not at all but long fights against bosses and large groups will definitely feel the effect.

It reduces the stealth rotation by ~33%, but the additional space in the overall rotation gets filled with #1 spam or something better. That addition mitigates the 33% down to something more palatable. It would take a bit of math and some assumptions to figure out what that number actually is – at least offensively. It’s hard to quantify the part of being more vulnerable and even how that affects real-world offensive capability.

In terms of hard math though, 33% is definitely erroneous.

Try with S/D. Hitting C+D after your auto-attack chain finishes, Revealed ends EXACTLY as you get the chance to hit C+D again after the third hit. Now you have to twiddle your thumbs as the cycle reverts to the first attack, or you have to dodge whatever comes your way in the bigger gap that has now been left. DPS is lower. Period.

Auesis.7301:

Daeqar.8965:

Vilkata.9078:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Every trait you have got nerfed by 25%, so did your damage and survivability.

Neither 25% or 33% is remotely accurate unless a player lives almost solely in stealth which pretty much nobody does.

This combo is just as viable with just as much damage: Steal/Mug, BS, HS, HS, HS.

Sure there are thieves that live in stealth but those are primarily griefers. All they did was add 1 second of out of stealth damage when coming out of a stealth attack. It will have an effect but not nearly 25%.

99% of thieves who play use stealth.

Holy hell… 1 extra second on the reveal absolutely cannot effect a thief by 25% or more. Period… cannot be done and under any circumstance. Do people here think for that one extra second a thief is standing still not using some non-stealth attack/skill or that most thieves constantly spam some in-stealth attack?

Only players who stay in semi-perma-stealth by spamming CnD or the like the entire time will notice a significant drop in DPS.

It does have an actual 33% affect on long term dps of several builds. One example is a 10/30/30/0/0 build that uses a CnD BS followed by full AA chain for poison then CnD again to repeat combo. If I don’t need to heal or purge conditions you won’t even notice me go into stealth because I keep positioned at the side or back of the target. This nerf kills that Rythm and lengthens the time between repetitions by 33%. So does it do anything to a single burst? Not at all but long fights against bosses and large groups will definitely feel the effect.

It reduces the stealth rotation by ~33%, but the additional space in the overall rotation gets filled with #1 spam or something better. That addition mitigates the 33% down to something more palatable. It would take a bit of math and some assumptions to figure out what that number actually is – at least offensively. It’s hard to quantify the part of being more vulnerable and even how that affects real-world offensive capability.

In terms of hard math though, 33% is definitely erroneous.

Try with S/D. Hitting C+D after your auto-attack chain finishes, Revealed ends EXACTLY as you get the chance to hit C+D again after the third hit. Now you have to twiddle your thumbs as the cycle reverts to the first attack, or you have to dodge whatever comes your way in the bigger gap that has now been left. DPS is lower. Period.

I didn’t say dps isn’t lower; I just said 33% isn’t the right number. It’s grossly inflated, actually.

Daeqar.8965:

I didn’t say dps isn’t lower; I just said 33% isn’t the right number. It’s grossly inflated, actually.

It’s not inflated at all. The raw damage loss may not be as high as 33%, but it will be pretty kitten close. You’re basically taking a 3s rotation and stretching it into a 4s rotation, with perhaps the first attack of the AA chain added in. However, once you take into account the loss of might-on-stealth stacks as well, I wouldn’t be surprised if it adds up to even more than 33% loss.

Einlanzer.1627:

Geiir.7603:

This was a really hard hit for thieves in general… I would have had the stealth debuff for 3 appear after leaving stealth each time instead of those stupid 4 seconds. It destroys most of the thief builds in PvE. And don’t even get me started on the P/D thieves…. They had to stealth to stack their bleeds, now they’ll deal 33% less damage and kill the mob slower than ever, as if they didn’t use long enough time already to down something -_-

Maybe this will just serve to make it even more apparent (as if it wasn’t already) how totally kitten MH Pistol is and how badly it needs fixes.

Thief PVE in general underperforms in large part because Stealth is not adequate to compensate for their defensive weakness, and they aren’t particularly offensively strong relative to other professions. Why things like their horrendously bad downed state have never been touched is beyond me.

I completely agree with you! P/P and P/D need a huge fix. P/D condition thieves have only two (three if their target is fleeing) skills that are viable for their build. P/P is just bad all over. Unload is the only really big thing with that set.

Downed state need a huge fix. We can move and stealth. How is that helping us? Every single person who have downed a thief once know what he’s going to do, so predicting his actions is way to easy.

Okamakiri.8746:

No it’s not. At the end of an AA chain there is a pause before it starts again. So for that extra second of revealed we’re mostly just stuck there twiddling our thumbs. This is a huge nerf to both DPS and survivability.

There’s not a pause. I assume you’re mainly thinking of D/D because it has that limpy feel to the rotation because of how the first attack lands two separate numbers and how the ability durations play out. It does resume to the front of the chain immediately, though.

Just let the minimum next attacks land in order to resume stealth and then recalculate dps out of the overall average damage done across the new, longer time interval. To make things even more complex – you just lowered initiative per second expended, so you can add an Heartseeker or some other initiative attack over x number of cycles completed. You have to take all this sort of thing into account. Just using rough napkin math, I’m getting ranging more like 11% to nearly 0% depending on your assumptions.

It’s really more a matter of increased vulnerability and it’s real-world impact in being able to safely deliver damage instead of being forced to turtle or retreat. Raw damage output capability is not affected nearly as much as many here are assuming.

Again, I’m not debating the nerf; I’m just pointing out that characterizing it as a 33% damage nerf and similar is not accurate.

You are severely over-estimating the DPS of AA. Note I said DPS, not damage… CnD→ BS not only does way more than the entire AA chain, it also does it nearly instantly, hence way higher DPS.

To put it in some simple to understand numbers. If CnD → BS → AA does 15k dmg in 3s, that’s 5k DPS. Lets say that of that 15k dmg, 5k is AA, 4k is CnD and 6k is BS (I’m being conservative here. Due to “Hidden Killer” trait, BS will average way higher than AA on anything but a pure GC build with 100% Fury uptime). Even if you’re able to put out 1/3 of the AA damage in that extra 1s, that means the new rotation damage will be 5k + 5k/3 + 4k + 6k = 16666 over 4s, which is 4166DPS. 5000 / 4166 = 20% DPS loss. And that’s ignoring the reduction in might stacks from “Hidden Assassin” and the effect of “Hidden Killer”.

Also, we don’t have the initiative to support another attack between AA and next CnD. Even with “Infusion of Shadow”, we barely have enough initiative-per-second to maintain the rotation as is. For optimum DPS we also need to keep our initiative above 6, to get benefit from “First Strikes”.

Okamakiri.8746:

You are severely over-estimating the DPS of AA. Note I said DPS, not damage… CnD-> BS not only does way more than the entire AA chain, it also does it nearly instantly, hence way higher DPS.

To put it in some simple to understand numbers. If CnD -> BS -> AA does 15k dmg in 3s, that’s 5k DPS. Lets say that of that 15k dmg, 5k is AA, 4k is CnD and 6k is BS (I’m being conservative here. Due to “Hidden Killer” trait, BS will average way higher than AA on anything but a pure GC build with 100% Fury uptime). Even if you’re able to put out 1/3 of the AA damage in that extra 1s, that means the new rotation damage will be 5k + 5k/3 + 4k + 6k = 16666 over 4s, which is 4166DPS. 5000 / 4166 = 20% DPS loss. And that’s ignoring the reduction in might stacks from “Hidden Assassin” and the effect of “Hidden Killer”.

Also, we don’t have the initiative to support another attack between AA and next CnD. Even with “Infusion of Shadow”, we barely have enough initiative-per-second to maintain the rotation as is. For optimum DPS we also need to keep our initiative above 6, to get benefit from “First Strikes”.

I’ll try to get you some more accurate numbers when I have time. And I know there’s not enough initiative (right away), but if you’re spending the same amount of initiative over a 1s longer interval (or longer to fit different timings) then you have one of two things happening:

1. You’re accumulating (or retaining) a little bit of extra initiative with each cycle, which you will eventually want to spend on an initiative attack because you physically can’t spend it on more rapid stealth cycles.

2. You were already initiative limited and could not sustain 3s revealed cycle in the first place.

Spending initiative for anything else than C&D is wasting DPS.

These values are non-crit values right out of the game for a “balanced” build against default armor value. They are pre-modifiers, of course. Gear, lower real world armored targets, cooldowns, modifiers and all tend to make the values much higher in game, but generally not in a manner that would impact the comparison. Hidden Killer builds WOULD skew more towards old rotation. Assume all builds have 2 initiative refund trait on stealth. I apologize for the forum removing all the tab/spacing, otherwise it would be more readable.

Backstab 2062
Double Strike 482+482
Wild Strike 730
Lotus Strike 730+168
Cloak & Dagger 1196
————————————————————————————
Total 5850 3.0s
(1950 dps) (1.33 initiative spent per second)

Backstab 2062
Double Strike 482+482
Wild Strike 730
Lotus Strike 730+168
Double Strike 482+482
Wild Strike 730
Cloak & Dagger 1196
————————————————————————————
Total 7544 4.0s
(1886 dps – 3.4% less) (1.00 initiative spent per second)

BS + C&D combo 2062+1196 1.00s
(3258 dps) (815 damage per initiative)
Death Blossom 474+1551 0.50s
(4050 dps) (405 damage per initiative)
Heartseeker <25% 1595 0.75s
(2127 dps) (531 damage per initiative)
Autoattack Chain 2592 1.50s
(1728 dps) (initiative free)

So, add a execute range Heartseeker every 3 cycles in place of Wild Strike or a Death Blossom every 5 cycles, and the overall dps gap closes even more.

So, for raw stand still and dps PvE type cycles, the overall impact on dps isn’t that huge on D/D, and similar results can be found in other weapon sets.

You got nerfed, it was coming. You’ll get nerfed again. It’ll happen. You’ll also receive buffs in separate areas. This is called balance. Undoubtedly you’ll cite the time frame between now and then, but this is the penalty of being able to ride high so long on gimmicks, just like the HB warrior.

Just be patient, you’ll get more build diversity out of this in the long run. Oh and don’t cry about not getting love faster enough. A Ranger will kill you for that lol.

Ralathar.7236:

You got nerfed, it was coming. You’ll get nerfed again. It’ll happen. You’ll also receive buffs in separate areas. This is called balance. Undoubtedly you’ll cite the time frame between now and then, but this is the penalty of being able to ride high so long on gimmicks, just like the HB warrior.

Just be patient, you’ll get more build diversity out of this in the long run. Oh and don’t cry about not getting love faster enough. A Ranger will kill you for that lol.

Those “gimmicks” where the things least effected in fact some of/most of them completely unaffected by the wide nerfing. The nerfs hit the area’s where thieves where on par or slightly below the majority of professions.

Haste is a pretty trash skill right now.

If you’re against anyone good, they’ll immediately take advantage of your use of Haste and wreck you, especially in a team scenario.

5 seconds of helplessly walking around unable to dodge anything…lol!!!

they should make this 4 sec revealed only to pvp, that’s where people are complaining

Daeqar.8965:

BS + C&D combo 2062+1196 1.00s
(3258 dps) (815 damage per initiative)
Death Blossom 474+1551 0.50s
(4050 dps) (405 damage per initiative)
Heartseeker <25% 1595 0.75s
(2127 dps) (531 damage per initiative)
Autoattack Chain 2592 1.50s
(1728 dps) (initiative free)

A few more numbers that folks may find informative regarding D/D dps… To actually evaluate the value of the abilities, you have to relate them to how much better they are than autoattack chain, for how long they provide that boost, and at per initiative cost. You get a wonky [(% dps increase)*s/initiative] unit.

22.1 [% * s / ini] – BS + C&D combo
13.5 [% * s / ini] – Death Blossom
5.8 [% * s / ini] – Heartseeker (execute range)

So, if your purpose is purely max possible dps while using D/D, never use Heartseeker unless you are doing it for the leap and/or leap finisher – not even in execute range. BS+C&D combo is the best single target use of initiative. If you have 2 or more targets nearby, stop using BS+C&D entirely and just use Death Blossom.

Daeqar.8965:

Vilkata.9078:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Straegen.2938:

Daecollo.9578:

Every trait you have got nerfed by 25%, so did your damage and survivability.

Neither 25% or 33% is remotely accurate unless a player lives almost solely in stealth which pretty much nobody does.

This combo is just as viable with just as much damage: Steal/Mug, BS, HS, HS, HS.

Sure there are thieves that live in stealth but those are primarily griefers. All they did was add 1 second of out of stealth damage when coming out of a stealth attack. It will have an effect but not nearly 25%.

99% of thieves who play use stealth.

Holy hell… 1 extra second on the reveal absolutely cannot effect a thief by 25% or more. Period… cannot be done and under any circumstance. Do people here think for that one extra second a thief is standing still not using some non-stealth attack/skill or that most thieves constantly spam some in-stealth attack?

Only players who stay in semi-perma-stealth by spamming CnD or the like the entire time will notice a significant drop in DPS.

It does have an actual 33% affect on long term dps of several builds. One example is a 10/30/30/0/0 build that uses a CnD BS followed by full AA chain for poison then CnD again to repeat combo. If I don’t need to heal or purge conditions you won’t even notice me go into stealth because I keep positioned at the side or back of the target. This nerf kills that Rythm and lengthens the time between repetitions by 33%. So does it do anything to a single burst? Not at all but long fights against bosses and large groups will definitely feel the effect.

It reduces the stealth rotation by ~33%, but the additional space in the overall rotation gets filled with #1 spam or something better. That addition mitigates the 33% down to something more palatable. It would take a bit of math and some assumptions to figure out what that number actually is – at least offensively. It’s hard to quantify the part of being more vulnerable and even how that affects real-world offensive capability.

In terms of hard math though, 33% is definitely erroneous.

You’re assumptions are incorrect if you assume this is only a DPS loss. Many of the stealth attacks and the process of being in stealth is part of the utility of the thief. Example: s/d will allow you to daze a target, extremely strong in against vets and players.

stof.9341:

Spending initiative for anything else than C&D is wasting DPS.

Agreed. Aside from Dagger 2 and Shortbow 2 and p/p 3, most of our weapon sets 2,3,4 are aimed at utility not damage.

dirtyshame.1863:

stof.9341:

Spending initiative for anything else than C&D is wasting DPS.

Agreed. Aside from Dagger 2 and Shortbow 2 and p/p 3, most of our weapon sets 2,3,4 are aimed at utility not damage.

Why even have initiative if its a detriment?

if people who have never played thief before are correct because it makes us instant kill everything? (just like every other “unique” mechanic thieves have apparently)

Laurienne.3645:

they should make this 4 sec revealed only to pvp, that’s where people are complaining

This is true, after the last patch where mobs would not wipe their agro table when stealth was used its functionality went down. 3 sec revealed is perfect for PvE, it felt like the dev’s really knew what they were doing. With 4 sec it doesn’t match up to the weapon rotations and feels clunky and unfinished. I rarely ran my thief after the stealth/agro change, now I’ll prolly retire it. Benefits to playing the class are just diminishing.

Make Revealed 3 sec in PvE, 4 sec in PvP.

Blood~

dirtyshame.1863:

You’re assumptions are incorrect if you assume this is only a DPS loss. Many of the stealth attacks and the process of being in stealth is part of the utility of the thief. Example: s/d will allow you to daze a target, extremely strong in against vets and players.

I never said it was only a dps loss. Quite the opposite actually, if you look at all my posts. I also clearly agree, this is a significant nerf to the class.

I’m just disputing the “33%” dps loss figures getting tossed around.

People are complaining about the wrong things. Instead of complaining about perceived massive dps losses in PvE rotations, people should be complaining about losing utility and survivability, and ability to safely deliver damage.

Daeqar.8965:

dirtyshame.1863:

You’re assumptions are incorrect if you assume this is only a DPS loss. Many of the stealth attacks and the process of being in stealth is part of the utility of the thief. Example: s/d will allow you to daze a target, extremely strong in against vets and players.

I never said it was only a dps loss. Quite the opposite actually, if you look at all my posts. I also clearly agree, this is a significant nerf to the class.

I’m just disputing the “33%” dps loss figures getting tossed around.

People are complaining about the wrong things. Instead of complaining about perceived massive dps losses in PvE rotations, people should be complaining about losing utility and survivability, and ability to safely deliver damage.

Noted.

I would say they are correct in saying it is a 33% reduction in usability of stealth skills only. Smaller numbers across the board however.

Daeqar.8965:

I’m just disputing the “33%” dps loss figures getting tossed around.

P/D pre-patch, rotation stacked up to 12 bleeds single target.
Post patch, 8 max.
8/12=0.66 33% nerf to bleed damage.
With a condition damage build, the direct damage is fairly insignificant compared to the bleed damage.

Caltrops Duration cut by 1/3 = damage per cast cut by 33%

So while you may dispute that D/D or S/D lost as high as 33%, P/D actually did.

awgardner.9634:

Laika.8795:

awgardner.9634:

Sounds to me like someone has been worked over by a P/D Thief a time or two I feel your pain, I really do… That’s why I rolled one !

Na, I have absolutely no problem with them, they are kitten poor against S/D. But they are generally for people who don’t like to get their hands dirty, and that is what a lot of the outcry is about in the forums. Also Mug>C&D>BS, which was supposed to be addressed, was not. Nothing that is ACTUALLY a problem with the class, as per the SotG, was actually touched, which is a massive disappointment to anyone that plays the game with tact.

I am sorry, but I strongly beg to differ. As a patch, the intention is always to better the experience for the players. Changes require adjustments, and we understood that when we signed up to play.

Be it that it may, people are always going to gripe. After every “Nerf”, their will always be that dedicated player that will learn to utilize the tools he is given to work with, while others will QQ about how they got “Nerfed” or “Balanced”, or their was not enough “Nerfing” or “Balancing” done to suit the ideas of others.. as countless as they may be.

There will always be QQ, there will always be OP, because they are always practiced through the opinions and values of the person practicing such natures. Hence there will always be somebody left unhappy.

HOWEVER – with the respected changes to the game, I will go ahead and get peoples panties in a twist when I say “I will learn to work my way in and out of the new updates, and this time, I am going to get credit for it and it will be seen by others across the Leader Board! So let the flaming prematurely begin !”.

can you frap that and posted UNEDITED AND UNCUT?
I would love to see it

Dasorine.1964:

Ralathar.7236:

You got nerfed, it was coming. You’ll get nerfed again. It’ll happen. You’ll also receive buffs in separate areas. This is called balance. Undoubtedly you’ll cite the time frame between now and then, but this is the penalty of being able to ride high so long on gimmicks, just like the HB warrior.

Just be patient, you’ll get more build diversity out of this in the long run. Oh and don’t cry about not getting love faster enough. A Ranger will kill you for that lol.

Those “gimmicks” where the things least effected in fact some of/most of them completely unaffected by the wide nerfing. The nerfs hit the area’s where thieves where on par or slightly below the majority of professions.

This isn’t the last change. I mentioned that. Just one of the steps in the way there. I can see why they went this way first. There will be more room to buff up those affected while focusing the next set of nerfs upon the gimmick builds directly. This was a needed step.

Most likely when they nerf those gimmick builds they will be underpowered for a bit until they buff them back up again in different ways.

problem is if these are the sorts of changes they are going to be making (and the “buffs” are not at all definite, most likely they will never happen), profession wide nerfs that aren’t fully thought through damaging all sorts of builds that are generally seen weaker, making entire trait lines less desirable and still not fixing any of the actual perceived issues.

What exactly did this 1 second longer reveal fix that was so much of an issue that isn’t still massively present? Compared to all the many many area’s it actuall broke?

Dasorine.1964:

problem is if these are the sorts of changes they are going to be making (and the “buffs” are not at all definite, most likely they will never happen), profession wide nerfs that aren’t fully thought through damaging all sorts of builds that are generally seen weaker, making entire trait lines less desirable and still not fixing any of the actual perceived issues.

What exactly did this 1 second longer reveal fix that was so much of an issue that isn’t still massively present? Compared to all the many many area’s it actuall broke?

If you take that view then no game will ever satisfy you ever because you can literally look at any moderate or larger change in that light. Very very very very few changes are ever undone in the MMORPG sphere.

You’d be better applying your energy towards helping propose and supporting good ideas for moving forwards. Currently the game does not have bad balance. If they go down a dark path and you are right? Nobody wins. Might as well work to support the other possibilities eh?

Because pointless pessimism, is pointless? I mean your comment isn’t even constructive. Even if you are right it’s just empty and has no positive effect.

Unfortunately when they gave us a bad idea I and at least some others tried giving them alternative methods of dealing with the issues, instead they scrapped their flawed blanket nerf and randomly chose a different blanket nerf without actually telling us why.

And its not changes I dislike, its poorly thought out changes that have little thought put into them that I dislike.

And also you don’t balance someone by nerfing on the basis that sometime in the future you may possibly buff them in other ways. That is not how balance should work.

I’ve posted so many times on different ways to fix at least some of the percieved issues with thieves but between non-thief players that can’t cope with the stealth mechanic at all trolling and ANET’s apparent disregard for a large portion of profession abilities what I’m left with is flickering hope that this is a two time goof only, which in of its self is not enough.

Dasorine.1964:

Unfortunately when they gave us a bad idea I and at least some others tried giving them alternative methods of dealing with the issues, instead they scrapped their flawed blanket nerf and randomly chose a different blanket nerf without actually telling us why.

1. It’s assuredly not random.
2. They don’t tell alot of times because a millions forum warriors like you are waiting to argue them and tell them how wrong they are for every minute change.

And its not changes I dislike, its poorly thought out changes that have little thought put into them that I dislike.

Having admitted that you don’t know why the changes were made you cannot possibly know if they are poorly thought out or not. Nor do you know how much thought was put into them. You have contradicted yourself.

And also you don’t balance someone by nerfing on the basis that sometime in the future you may possibly buff them in other ways. That is not how balance should work.

It’s actually one of the very best methods to achieving balance, but it’s normally poorly received. Nerfs and buffs are always best in incremental steps where you can then observe the real world effects of each change before proceeding on. Even the most talented of people can’t predict the savvy adjustments some of the player base makes.

There have been many cases in the past of classes in MMORPG that have been sleeper overpowered for example. Being rather ignored and overshadowed mostly until something else gets nerfed out of being FOTM. Then suddenly something that has been around for a long time gets heavily abused as the new FOTM, though it was nearly completely ignored before.

I’ve posted so many times on different ways to fix at least some of the percieved issues with thieves but between non-thief players that can’t cope with the stealth mechanic at all trolling and ANET’s apparent disregard for a large portion of profession abilities what I’m left with is flickering hope that this is a two time goof only, which in of its self is not enough.

You’ve posted your OPINIONS on different ways to fix thieves “perceived” issues. Just from this quote alone it’s easy to see that you are not exactly unbiased in your opinion.

I’ve been on both sides of that fence before, but as I stand now 10+ years into the MMORPG experience it’s alot easier to see the possible failings and ignorance of both myself and others relative to the developers. They still make mistakes, oh goodness do they, but the playerbase honestly makes them look like complete rocket scientists by comparison with their lack of touch with reality and obvious biases.

Only an extremely small % of the playerbase provides actual good advice on a regular basis. That may or may not include you or me.

Anet is doing a great job so far overall. Lets give them some credit and have some faith eh? You wouldn’t be playing this game if you didn’t like it.

Ralathar.7236:

Anet is doing a great job so far overall. Lets give them some credit and have some faith eh? You wouldn’t be playing this game if you didn’t like it.

That is also just your opinion, my opinion differs in so much as so far there has been no real success on Anets part either content release wise or balance wise.

Dasorine.1964:

Ralathar.7236:

Anet is doing a great job so far overall. Lets give them some credit and have some faith eh? You wouldn’t be playing this game if you didn’t like it.

That is also just your opinion, my opinion differs in so much as so far there has been no real success on Anets part either content release wise or balance wise.

As such your presence here would either be masochism or counter logic. Unless the base game is at such a level as to keep you anyways, in which case you are hardly put out. Furthermore you like it enough to be active on the forums.

phor.7952:

Daeqar.8965:

I’m just disputing the “33%” dps loss figures getting tossed around.

P/D pre-patch, rotation stacked up to 12 bleeds single target.
Post patch, 8 max.
8/12=0.66 33% nerf to bleed damage.
With a condition damage build, the direct damage is fairly insignificant compared to the bleed damage.

Caltrops Duration cut by 1/3 = damage per cast cut by 33%

So while you may dispute that D/D or S/D lost as high as 33%, P/D actually did.

You’re basing your numerical analysis on anecdotal evidence of a peak bleed count. A highly skewed and incomplete numerical analysis at that.

No, P/D didn’t lose anywhere near 33% overall dps either. Of course it lost a meaningful amount – probably more than D/D – but like I said earlier, if you’re complaining about losing max dps throughput, you’re complaining about the wrong things.

Ralathar.7236:

It’s actually one of the very best methods to achieving balance, but it’s normally poorly received. Nerfs and buffs are always best in incremental steps where you can then observe the real world effects of each change before proceeding on. Even the most talented of people can’t predict the savvy adjustments some of the player base makes.

There’s nothing wrong with incremental nerfs/buffs when there is dps number balancing to do. But that’s not what happened here.
They made a design change that has a long list of undesired side effects. (loss of dps/survivability/utility)

And to make the matter worse, they made this design change last-minute before releasing the patch. Most likely because they finally realized the potential consequences of their initial plan and how it would also effects Mesmers.

That’s just poor development. Plain and simple.

this patch was fine it change nothing that game breaking to a thief. extra second on reveal is not that big of a deal. i WvW almost 10 hour a day i never had a problem with cloaking honestly if your cloaking every 3 seconds your wasting to much meter.

Daeqar.8965:

You’re basing your numerical analysis on anecdotal evidence of a peak bleed count. A highly skewed and incomplete numerical analysis at that.

No, P/D didn’t lose anywhere near 33% overall dps either. Of course it lost a meaningful amount – probably more than D/D – but like I said earlier, if you’re complaining about losing max dps throughput, you’re complaining about the wrong things.

It’s not anecdotal evidence.
Bleeds don’t last long.
You hit your peak in mere seconds and in PvE you can hold it there almost continually, so peak bleed count is a pretty decent approximation of overall DPS.

The fact that you say “probably more than D/D” shows that you obviously haven’t done the math yourself, so why argue against people who have.

If you want to get technical, for my specific P/D build and gear the change was just a hair over a 27% nerf to my sustained damage if I’m dropping Caltrops and using Daggerstorm on cooldown. And it would be at least a few percentage points higher for people who gear/trait for higher condition damage and have less power than my build.

But since when is losing a “meaningful amount” of dps to a build that was already behind not worth complaining about?

I understand that you believe we should be complaining about the clunky rotations and how heavily handed the change affected the entire Shadow Arts trait line (I’ve seen plenty of that going on…) but I completely disagree with your insinuation that we should just ignore a substantial DPS loss like it’s no big deal.