Guild Wars 2

Thief

Withdraw: The healing values of this skill have been increased by 10%.
Double Strike: This skill’s damage has been increased by 42%.
Lotus Strike: This skill’s damage has been increased by 29%. The attack point has been increased by 0.06 seconds and the aftercast delay has been reduced by 0.35 seconds.
Shadow Shot: This skill will now trigger Assassin’s Reward correctly, even if it misses.
Shadow Strike: This skill will now trigger Assassin’s Reward correctly, even if it misses.
Slice: The attack point of this skill has been increased by 0.16 seconds.
Slash: Reduced the aftercast delay of this skill by 0.1 seconds.
Crippling Strike: Increased the attack point of this skill by 0.08 seconds. Reduced the aftercast delay of this skill by 0.48 seconds.
Basilisk Venom: While under the effects of this venom, your attacks are unblockable.
Hidden Thief: This trait now grants 50% bonus movement speed while in stealth.
Fleet Shadow: This trait has been renamed to Instant Reflexes. This trait no longer grants bonus movement speed while in stealth and will instead grant the thief evasion for 2 seconds when struck while under 50% health, with an internal cooldown of 40 seconds.
Feline Grace: This trait’s vigor duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
Pain Response: This trait now also removes torment in addition to its current removals.
Guarded Initiation: This trait now removes confusion in addition to its current removals. The health threshold has been reduced from 90% to 75%.
Swindler’s Equilibrium: This trait now also grants 5% bonus damage to sword and spear attacks.
Assassin’s Reward: This trait’s base healing per level has been increased by about 50% and its healing power contribution has been increased by 70%.
Upper Hand: This trait now grants regeneration for 6 seconds when the initiative regain occurs.

Daredevil:

Driven Fortitude: The healing from this trait will now appear in the combat log.
Staff Strike: This skill’s damage has been increased by 36%.
Staff Bash: This skill’s damage has been increased by 16%.
Punishing Strikes: This skill’s damage has been increased by 44%.
Debilitating Arc: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from functioning with Assassin’s Reward.
Bandit’s Defense: This skill no longer delivers a kick when you first block an attack. After blocking an attack, you will now gain access to a second ability, Reflexive Strike, for 6 seconds.
Reflexive Strike: Deliver a massive kick that knocks enemies down.

Just… wow? The +44% dmg to Punishing Strike is SO huge.

I agree. No need for the aa dmg buff on staff that much, nor dagger.

Wow this looks like it’s made sword even worse compared to d/p and staff

In before other professions Thief QQ.

Yep, what did I say? Extra movement speed in stealth is no longer in acro :( Now I’ll need to take extra movement speed in stealth or vigor on dodge since I don’t wanna give up critical strikes or daredevil. Apparently the combination of vigor on dodge and faster movement speed in stealth was too overpowered.

Aaahhhh they never fail to dissapoint me.
Good job Karl. Like always.

Freaking Necro gets piercing baseline on shroud and our Pistol still suck.

Best regards!

Shino

Why is Acro still so garbage.

Hmm..I don’t see the removal of the Black Powder aftercast that they mentioned in the live stream. =/

AA damage on MH dagger and staff way, way overtuned. Just what the hell are they thinking?…

Still. Can’t. Drop. Preparedness.

Rip new acro line, you cannot be played on my main thief. And probably not on my off-thief either.

Yeah it’s Bullkitten that they refuse to make Preparedness Baseline or reduce the cost of our skills to be balanced for the cost.

DeceiverX.8361:

AA damage on MH dagger and staff way, way overtuned. Just what the hell are they thinking?…

And sword aa was sped up about 30%!

I still can’t justify using Staff. S/d is better now btw, play the bunker trait version and its just…nuts. Acro/TR/DD.

DeceiverX.8361:

AA damage on MH dagger and staff way, way overtuned. Just what the hell are they thinking?…

So the language is a little weird. If by “increased the attack point” they mean increased the amount of time before the skill hits, sword really falls behind. If it pushes the attack into what was previously aftercast, sword is decently competitive. If the second is true, sword sits at ~1.5 mult/sec, dagger at ~1.65 mult/sec, and staff at ~1.58 mult/sec. If “increased attack point” means it hits sooner, sword actually jumps to the head of the pack at ~1.7 mult/sec.

Kicker.8203:

Wow this looks like it’s made sword even worse compared to d/p and staff

Some math:
dagger AA
before (0.56+0.85+0.85)/2.07
=> 1.09 (+ poison)
after (0.56*1.42+0.85+0.85*1.29)/(2.07-0.35+0.06)
=> 1.54 (+ 16% more poison than before)
the poison is worth like 0.2-0.3 in a power build, so ~1.8 dmg coefficient/sec

sword AA
before (0.8+0.8+1.3)/2.52
=> 1.15 (+ cripple+weakness)
after (0.8+0.8+1.3)/(2.52+0.16-0.1+0.08-0.48)
=> 1.33 (+ 15% more cripple+weakness than before) dmg coefficient/sec

staff AA
before (0.55+0.65+1.32)/2.14
=> 1.18 (+ vuln)
after (0.55*1.36+0.65*1.16+1.32*1.44)/2.14
=> 1.59 (+ vuln)
vulnerability is a 15% damage buff solo, so 1.83 dmg coefficient/sec

conclusion: you’re right, sword became worse compared to staff and dagger

Dahkeus.8243:

Hmm..I don’t see the removal of the Black Powder aftercast that they mentioned in the live stream. =/

this this
I was looking forward to that

lets not forget though guys. even with the dagger AA buff, sword relyed on AA far more then dagger does.

I had a little play in pve with dagger and staff and i did not notice a massive change in dps wise.

Adrian Guardian.9480:

Kicker.8203:

Wow this looks like it’s made sword even worse compared to d/p and staff

Some math:
dagger AA
before (0.56+0.85+0.85)/2.07
=> 1.09 (+ poison)
after (0.56*1.42+0.85+0.85*1.29)/(2.07-0.35+0.06)
=> 1.54 (+ 16% more poison than before)
the poison is worth like 0.2-0.3 in a power build, so ~1.8 dmg coefficient/sec

sword AA
before (0.8+0.8+1.3)/2.52
=> 1.15 (+ cripple+weakness)
after (0.8+0.8+1.3)/(2.52+0.16-0.1+0.08-0.48)
=> 1.33 (+ 15% more cripple+weakness than before) dmg coefficient/sec

staff AA
before (0.55+0.65+1.32)/2.14
=> 1.18 (+ vuln)
after (0.55*1.36+0.65*1.16+1.32*1.44)/2.14
=> 1.59 (+ vuln)
vulnerability is a 15% damage buff solo, so 1.83 dmg coefficient/sec

conclusion: you’re right, sword became worse compared to staff and dagger

You probably mathed better than I did from my phone, although I didn’t include poison from dagger.

Dahkeus.8243:

Hmm..I don’t see the removal of the Black Powder aftercast that they mentioned in the live stream. =/

Aww great why does Anet hate thief having decent stealth….

Lyger.5429:

Dahkeus.8243:

Hmm..I don’t see the removal of the Black Powder aftercast that they mentioned in the live stream. =/

Aww great why does Anet hate thief having decent stealth….

For me the aftercast of blackpowder feels faster. Pressing 5 and immediately 2 feels faster than before. Maybe it’s just my mind playing tricks on me.

S/P was already powerful at least in WvW. It is also a nice non-stealth build. S/D still needs some love but the general speed up of the AA on sword is nice.

Still waiting for Ricochet or similar ability on Pistol. Appreciate the staff buffs not sure they were needed though. The Hidden Thief buff is a nice shot in the arm for my build but relatively minor.

Bandits Defense just got miles better and it was already bordering on a must take. BV will move from decent option to pretty good. Withdraw was already the cats meow for evasion builds and that just got better as well.

Overall pretty happy. Still plenty of room for improvement but if this is what these quarterly-ish balance patches are going to look like I can see the various classes/builds coming more into line with one another.

That I agree with. I’m just personally sad because I play s/p and my build would love nothing more than to just DROP trickery. But Preparedness forces that to be impossible. I need SA because I play venom, I need DA for mug, then I can’t drop TR. So I can’t use DD either. :C rip

godmoney.6025:

Lyger.5429:

Dahkeus.8243:

Hmm..I don’t see the removal of the Black Powder aftercast that they mentioned in the live stream. =/

Aww great why does Anet hate thief having decent stealth….

For me the aftercast of blackpowder feels faster. Pressing 5 and immediately 2 feels faster than before. Maybe it’s just my mind playing tricks on me.

It’s possible that they made the change, but just forgot to put it in the notes.

Also, I’m wondering with all the necro changes if a heavy CC build may be a strong build for the meta. I may have to play around with a S/P Daredevil build…

With all the revive changes, something running with SA may be strong again as well. I’m predicting that Function Gyro stomps will be a lot more threatening than before and if stab on gyro becomes meta, stealth revives will be the best counter.

I got the same dps from autoing with sword and autoing with dagger
(5.3-5.4k on indestructible golem)
notably less with staff (4.x k)

Interestingly, the delay after backstab is so long that using CnD→backstab does not result in a dps increase over autoattacking

Quick tests in the mists on comparitive AA damage: Build only had trickery traitline, no amulet, no runes, no sigils. This is approximate time (no going back in to count frames or anything, I just wanted a quick comparison) to kill heavy golem with only autos.

Dagger: 32ish seconds (I suspect poison being the main culprit of this with such a long time to kill with virtually baseline stats)
Sword: 39ish seconds
Staff: 41ish seconds

With Pack runes and marauder amulet (no sigils or traits still):
Dagger: 11.5ish seconds
Sword: 12ish seconds
Staff: 13ish seconds

It seems that all the weapon autos were buffed to relatively equal damage output with the exception of staff which probably comes into line with staff mastery.

Withdraw: The healing values of this skill have been increased by 10%.

Did this buff actually make it in-game this time?

The June’s +10% is still missing though.

With today’s patch are thieves finally viable in raids for “superior dmg”?

Ok, I’ll add something to the math calculated DPS of all the main weapons.

I did the test using the jaxnX DPS meter on the immortal golem in the lobby.

I removed ALL damage buffing rune/sigils/traits, with Marauder amulet, and avoided (by asking people not to) any Might/Fury boons during the test. The stats are these:

Power: 2050
Crit. chance: 62.57% (Signet of Agility equipped)
Crit. dmg: 187.3%

I checked the DPS twice for each weapon, stopping when I reached 1M dmg overall. The results are:

Staff – 3100 DPS (consider the constant 13-16 Vuln stacks)
Sword – 2800 DPS
Dagger – 3400 (3-4 constant Poison stacks)

I’m baffled by my results compared to the math done before in the thread, since from that apparently Staff should have a lot higher DPS than Dagger AA. Must be cause of the aftercasts in game opposed to theoretical ones.

However, as far as AA goes, Dagger wins by a huge margin.

Galandil.9641:

Ok, I’ll add something to the math calculated DPS of all the main weapons.

I did the test using the jaxnX DPS meter on the immortal golem in the lobby.

I removed ALL damage buffing rune/sigils/traits, with Marauder amulet, and avoided (by asking people not to) any Might/Fury boons during the test. The stats are these:

Power: 2050
Crit. chance: 62.57% (Signet of Agility equipped)
Crit. dmg: 187.3%

I checked the DPS twice for each weapon, stopping when I reached 1M dmg overall. The results are:

Staff – 3100 DPS (consider the constant 13-16 Vuln stacks)
Sword – 2800 DPS
Dagger – 3400 (3-4 constant Poison stacks)

I’m baffled by my results compared to the math done before in the thread, since from that apparently Staff should have a lot higher DPS than Dagger AA. Must be cause of the aftercasts in game opposed to theoretical ones.

However, as far as AA goes, Dagger wins by a huge margin.

Which traits did you take? Did you take Swindler’s Equilibrium (This trait now also grants 5% bonus damage to sword and spear attacks) for the sword?

Edit: posted too soon
Can you also test if this 5% buff actually makes a difference?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Galandil.9641:

Ok, I’ll add something to the math calculated DPS of all the main weapons.

I did the test using the jaxnX DPS meter on the immortal golem in the lobby.

I removed ALL damage buffing rune/sigils/traits, with Marauder amulet, and avoided (by asking people not to) any Might/Fury boons during the test. The stats are these:

Power: 2050
Crit. chance: 62.57% (Signet of Agility equipped)
Crit. dmg: 187.3%

I checked the DPS twice for each weapon, stopping when I reached 1M dmg overall. The results are:

Staff – 3100 DPS (consider the constant 13-16 Vuln stacks)
Sword – 2800 DPS
Dagger – 3400 (3-4 constant Poison stacks)

I’m baffled by my results compared to the math done before in the thread, since from that apparently Staff should have a lot higher DPS than Dagger AA. Must be cause of the aftercasts in game opposed to theoretical ones.

However, as far as AA goes, Dagger wins by a huge margin.

Which traits did you take? Did you take Swindler’s Equilibrium (This trait now also grants 5% bonus damage to sword and spear attacks) for the sword?

Edit: posted too soon
Can you also test if this 5% buff actually makes a difference?

I guess I can, I still have 5 minutes before dinner, I’ll try it now and post the result.

Galandil.9641:

I checked the DPS twice for each weapon, stopping when I reached 1M dmg overall. The results are:

Staff – 3100 DPS (consider the constant 13-16 Vuln stacks)
Sword – 2800 DPS
Dagger – 3400 (3-4 constant Poison stacks)

I have no idea how you’re getting so much lower numbers for sword than dagger, when I’m getting almost the exact same damage. 3200 for sword and 3350 for dagger (I turned off poison damage in the log. but it’s only ~100 dps anyway)

Galandil.9641:

Ok, I’ll add something to the math calculated DPS of all the main weapons.

I did the test using the jaxnX DPS meter on the immortal golem in the lobby.

I removed ALL damage buffing rune/sigils/traits, with Marauder amulet, and avoided (by asking people not to) any Might/Fury boons during the test. The stats are these:

Power: 2050
Crit. chance: 62.57% (Signet of Agility equipped)
Crit. dmg: 187.3%

I checked the DPS twice for each weapon, stopping when I reached 1M dmg overall. The results are:

Staff – 3100 DPS (consider the constant 13-16 Vuln stacks)
Sword – 2800 DPS
Dagger – 3400 (3-4 constant Poison stacks)

I’m baffled by my results compared to the math done before in the thread, since from that apparently Staff should have a lot higher DPS than Dagger AA. Must be cause of the aftercasts in game opposed to theoretical ones.

However, as far as AA goes, Dagger wins by a huge margin.

Your test actually shows that the AA buff on sword was actually nothing compared to the AA buff the other weapons received…

kittenit anet, can’t you give sword a direct damage buff?

Staff and Dagger AA buffs weren’t needed.
I’ll take them, but they sure as hell weren’t needed.

All in all, I think our biggest buff is in the nerfs to other classes.

@Dahkeus they did remove the aftercast on Black Powder! It’s ingame, but not in their notes for some reason.

When comparing sword damage to dagger one can not just ignore the 5 percent buff in the acro line. While this of course has to be traited and some might not take acro the fact remains dagger has no such extra damage.

Staff does of course have the buff in the DD line again if mastery traited.

reikken.4961:

Galandil.9641:

I checked the DPS twice for each weapon, stopping when I reached 1M dmg overall. The results are:

Staff – 3100 DPS (consider the constant 13-16 Vuln stacks)
Sword – 2800 DPS
Dagger – 3400 (3-4 constant Poison stacks)

I have no idea how you’re getting so much lower numbers for sword than dagger, when I’m getting almost the exact same damage. 3200 for sword and 3350 for dagger (I turned off poison damage in the log. but it’s only ~100 dps anyway)

This is odd. Did you check if you had NO dmg buffing equip/traits?

I used Acro/SA/DD with no major traits equipped (only the minors, they don’t give any dmg buff), and I used Sigil of Bloodlust + Benevolence + Rune of Altruism (so no dmg buffs from these too).

The difference thou can be caused by the variance of crit. chance and wpn dmg (sword has a wider range, 950-1050, while dagger a smaller range, 970-1030).

However, I did again the sword DPS test, this time I got 2950 (explained by variance), while with Swindler’s Equilibrium I achieved a 3200 DPS (way higher than a +5% increment in DPS).

If you can all do some more tests, it’ll be very useful, but still apparently sword has a lower DPS than dagger nonetheless.

babazhook.6805:

When comparing sword damage to dagger one can not just ignore the 5 percent buff in the acro line. While this of course has to be traited and some might not take acro the fact remains dagger has no such extra damage.

Staff does of course have the buff in the DD line again if mastery traited.

Well, it can be argued that when going D/P, you can use Revealed Training, which is a +200 power buff while revealed. And with dagger you get in and out of stealth a lot of times, so the reveal uptime in conjuction with RT must be considered similar to Swindler’s or Staff Mastery.

Feline Grace: This trait’s vigor duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

OMGOMGOMG! They totally fixed it! 4 seconds of whothekittencares Vigor to a whole FIVE seconds of whothekittencares Vigor! This is totally just as good as it was before they completely destroyed it now! Viva Acro!

Galandil.9641:

babazhook.6805:

When comparing sword damage to dagger one can not just ignore the 5 percent buff in the acro line. While this of course has to be traited and some might not take acro the fact remains dagger has no such extra damage.

Staff does of course have the buff in the DD line again if mastery traited.

Well, it can be argued that when going D/P, you can use Revealed Training, which is a +200 power buff while revealed. And with dagger you get in and out of stealth a lot of times, so the reveal uptime in conjuction with RT must be considered similar to Swindler’s or Staff Mastery.

Revealed training not comparable to staff mastery or swindlers which are weapon specific bonuses. Daggwe matwet is dagger specific but does not add direct damage bonus but rather a chance at applying poison condition.

Well one can also trait rrevealed using staff and s/d. S/d has a stealth built in via CND , the same as dagger/dagger.Staff is much harder to be sure meaning one has to go SA or take stealth type utilities. Hidden thief with knockdown followed by revealed as you leave stealth hits hard and that AOE off vault will hit everyone with that bonus from revealed and the Staff mastery that in that area of effect (steal to target with hidden thief and then vault. Few block that as few know it coming)

Staff with dd/da/sa is very doable.

babazhook.6805:

Well one can also trait rrevealed using staff and s/d. S/d has a stealth built in via CND , the same as dagger/dagger.Staff is much harder to be sure meaning one has to go SA or take stealth type utilities. Hidden thief with knockdown followed by revealed as you leave stealth hits hard and that AOE off vault will hit everyone with that bonus from revealed and the Staff mastery that in that area of effect (steal to target with hidden thief and then vault. Few block that as few know it coming)

Satff with dd/da/sa is very doable.

Well, yes, I agree with you. The problem is linked with sword and our traitlines, even after the AA buffs, are pretty mandatory. DD/Trickery/DA are still a must, at least 2 out of all 3, I can’t see how we can drop one of them to bring Acro and get the Swindler’s Equilibrium (which gives only a +5% on sword dmg).

I didn’t check in depth the new changes to Acro thou, so I may be mistaken, but at superficial glance it still seem way subpar to the other traitlines.

@Vornollo Thanks for the confirmation! (still at work, unfortunately, so haven’t been able to test)

Also, I’m seeing several people mention the 5% boost for sword from the acro trait. While this is nice, remember that there’s an opportunity cost with taking this trait. If you take acro, you’re missing out on DA, CS, or DD, which all give you more DPS than the acro line will.

From a PvE perspective where the utility from acro is generally unecessary, this puts sword in a pretty bad place. For PvP…I don’t think this saves the sword, but it’s at least a bit less of a handicap to your damage if you decide to go this route.

Galandil.9641:

However, I did again the sword DPS test, this time I got 2950 (explained by variance), while with Swindler’s Equilibrium I achieved a 3200 DPS (way higher than a +5% increment in DPS).

Thanks. It’s still not worth giving up Hard to Catch.

An unannounced patch change for this: THEY FIXED THE SYNERGY BETWEEN TRICKSTER AND FLANKING STRIKES. It now gets proper cd reduction. Happy day.

Still doesn’t work with improvisation but oh well.

Ohoni.6057:

Feline Grace: This trait’s vigor duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

OMGOMGOMG! They totally fixed it! 4 seconds of whothekittencares Vigor to a whole FIVE seconds of whothekittencares Vigor! This is totally just as good as it was before they completely destroyed it now! Viva Acro!

I know right? Especially given how you’d normally refresh it anyway within that time but is more likely a fix for PvE.

My gripe with acro at the moment is how many traits overlap with daredevil making some of them redundant. The 50% movement speed in stealth was better off in acro because reveal provides too strong of counterplay to justify taking shadow arts. The grandmaster traits in acro especially needing a good look but they removed the best trait in acro and replaced it with a passive that has a cooldown.

Still nothing about CiS and SRej in the same tier, d/p needed improvement why not buff that?

Sagat.3285:

Still nothing about CiS and SRej in the same tier, d/p needed improvement why not buff that?

Because D/P isn’t the build that actually needs improvement, and never has been. The nerfs to the other classes were really the only buffs D/P needed. This dagger auto damage is just icing.

Agemnon.4608:

Ohoni.6057:

Feline Grace: This trait’s vigor duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

OMGOMGOMG! They totally fixed it! 4 seconds of whothekittencares Vigor to a whole FIVE seconds of whothekittencares Vigor! This is totally just as good as it was before they completely destroyed it now! Viva Acro!

I know right? Especially given how you’d normally refresh it anyway within that time but is more likely a fix for PvE.

My gripe with acro at the moment is how many traits overlap with daredevil making some of them redundant. The 50% movement speed in stealth was better off in acro because reveal provides too strong of counterplay to justify taking shadow arts. The grandmaster traits in acro especially needing a good look but they removed the best trait in acro and replaced it with a passive that has a cooldown.

Keep in mind that acro is base and daredevil is an elite spec. Daredevil is, essentially, improved acro, and thus can synergize with acro.

This seems like an academic distinction now, but after a few more elite specs are out, acro will be your only option for endurance related stuff should you decide to play another elite spec.

Which, in turn, indicates to me that acro still needs more love. Feline grace should at least also grant swiftness or a flat 25% move speed increase for starters.

PopeUrban.2578:

Agemnon.4608:

Ohoni.6057:

Feline Grace: This trait’s vigor duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

OMGOMGOMG! They totally fixed it! 4 seconds of whothekittencares Vigor to a whole FIVE seconds of whothekittencares Vigor! This is totally just as good as it was before they completely destroyed it now! Viva Acro!

I know right? Especially given how you’d normally refresh it anyway within that time but is more likely a fix for PvE.

My gripe with acro at the moment is how many traits overlap with daredevil making some of them redundant. The 50% movement speed in stealth was better off in acro because reveal provides too strong of counterplay to justify taking shadow arts. The grandmaster traits in acro especially needing a good look but they removed the best trait in acro and replaced it with a passive that has a cooldown.

Keep in mind that acro is base and daredevil is an elite spec. Daredevil is, essentially, improved acro, and thus can synergize with acro.

This seems like an academic distinction now, but after a few more elite specs are out, acro will be your only option for endurance related stuff should you decide to play another elite spec.

Which, in turn, indicates to me that acro still needs more love. Feline grace should at least also grant swiftness or a flat 25% move speed increase for starters.

Feline Grace is good enough as it is because it allows you to have excellent dodging upkeep. Apparently they thought it synced too well with the 50% movement speed in stealth which was a great treat since people know tactical strike is coming if you go sword and dagger while s/d + staff give lots of on weapon dodge, and with cloak and dagger can switch to staff for the knockdown skill. Sword/dagger and shortbow is a good alternative if you’re dedicating to a decap role rather than just mobility within the context of a battle (vaulting from target to target all while being mindful of the AoE spam).

What needs addressing are redundancies, like replacing hard to catch since daredevil obsoletes that particular trait.

Einlanzer.1627:

Jesus. Overbuff on Dagger and Staff AA while Sword and Pistol still suck.

My god he is terrible. At least we got the Withdraw buff finally.

Sword seemed fine to me. I do agree pistol needs legitimate assistance. I was thinking burning matching bleeding for sneak attack and/or that the Pistol auto (after using the trait, and prob with an CD) swapped one of your conditions for one of their boons. YAY POWERCREEP.

Keep in mind that acro is base and daredevil is an elite spec. Daredevil is, essentially, improved acro, and thus can synergize with acro.

But Acro is NERFED Acro, and they should restore it to where it was this time last year, regardless of what Daredevil gets up to. This patch change is not sufficient. They need to restore the ORIGINAL VERSION. Then balance whatever they need to around that single factor.

PopeUrban.2578:

Sagat.3285:

Still nothing about CiS and SRej in the same tier, d/p needed improvement why not buff that?

Because D/P isn’t the build that actually needs improvement, and never has been. The nerfs to the other classes were really the only buffs D/P needed. This dagger auto damage is just icing.

^ This. So much this.

Hell, just having rezzmers out of the meta is HUGE. Not only can a D/P thief now stomp faster than any other class (well, technically we were faster before if timed right), but we can also land headshots to kick rezzes instead of getting blocked with feedback.

I mean, if someone tries to stab rez and steal is off cd, you can still usually spam headshot enough to break through the stab stacks. Feedback rezzmers completely prevented this though.