Guild Wars 2

Ok, so Perplexity runes opened my eyes to how incredible ANET could make this set.
With the current implementation of Perplexity in PvE it feels pretty balanced, yet incomplete, much like S/D. I’ll be examining what needs to be done to implement and balance this kit for PvP.

Sneak Attack: The most balanced stealth attack, it deals good damage and the opponent is actually able to dodge most of the damage reactively.
Auto Attack: Deals very low damage, as expected.. it’s an autoattack.
Body Shot: Incredibly niche design and useless in almost every scenario.
Unload: Waste of Initiative in a condition build, hits too low for a power build and was nerfed in BWE due to 3-spam.
Headshot: Alone, an incredible skill used to interrupt important skills such as heals or resses. With Perplexity, a skill-based rather than spam-based dps source.
Black Powder: Smoke field, nuff said. Incredibly useful especially for P/P.

Suggestions:

Headshot: Ok, so first off, we all know Perplexity is over the top and classes like Engineers would become out of control with such power. My suggestion to avoid completely killing it for thieves, is nerf the confusion stacks interrupt to 2-3 and passive to 1-2, whatever would be considered balanced. Second would be to give thief the same effect implemented as one of their traits for 1-2 stacks of confusion. Alternatively, it could be implemented as part of the base Headshot skill.

Unload: To keep synergy, as well as open up room for hybrid/power play, I’d suggest Unload to give additional damage per condition on the target. This would eliminate the “3 spam” style of play which was present and un-welcomed in the beta weekend events. Players would be forced to looking to use other skills in their kit to apply conditions to amp up the damage on Unload or coordinating it with another player, rather than simply hitting frenzy and mashing it.

Sneak Attack/Body Shot: There are very limited options to get into stealth with P/P. To give body shot some utility, at the same time giving P/D the buffs it needs, I suggest a remake to Body Shot. This was suggested previously by another user, but I feel a good way to take it would be to make it a small radius (160-250ish) blast which burns nearby foes for a short duration. This would enable P/P and P/D another condition to punish players in melee range as well as blast a Black Powder for stealth, enabling Sneak Attack. Balance the initiative cost so that it is only effective situationally, using a black powder that was used to blind an important attack, for example. We wouldn’t want to see a boring 521 521 521 repeat rotation.

Further detail:

I was thinking something like 1-2 second of burn for 4-6 init and see where that stands. Something like how the D/P trickery build is, you almost always initiate with a bp>seeker>stab, but then very rarely use it mid-fight.
Note: If it were given flat damage, it would not be able to give yourself stealth while hitting a burn, so that is another balance decision that can be made. Personally, I think this would be ideal, forcing the player to decide and/or be aware of nearby enemies when trying to enter stealth. Also it introduces counterplay to the enemy by seeing a P/P thief drop a BP and knowing to walk into it to counter the thief going into stealth, wasting a huge chunk of the thief’s initiative leaving him vulnerable.
The base damage and initiative could also be set at a relatively high amount, opening more options for Power P/x specs. Although balancing these numbers along with the burn would require much effort.
I would go even further to balance this skill by implementing a .25ish sec cast time in which you are locked in place (or the cast is cancelled) rather than having it instant+aftercast like most of the thief’s abilities. This opens up even further skilled and counter-play—what this game so desperately needs.

For P/D:

I would intend on P#2 becoming either mostly a utility/situational and/or power-based weapon skill with a (very) small amount of burn to compensate condi specs. It would be made slightly less effective initiative-wise than using Sneak Attack or Shadow Strike on a P/D condition build, but ideally offer a small condition “burst”. This is, if the numbers are tweaked well-enough. Whether or not P/D needs buffs or not is irrelevant, as it is still an incomplete kit with not much synergy across each skill, similar to P/P and S/D.

These are good suggestions and would make the set way more fun to play… unfortunately I don’t think Anet gives two kittens about P/P …

I like the idea, although I’m sure it’s not gunna happen. Another suggestion I want to add is adding vulnerability to unload along with the short range blast replacement for bodyshot.

It would also strengthen the current p/d condition meta by giving them a 4th condition. giving thief burning would be amazing. This along with nerfing conditions across the board would be perfect for all classes in my opinion as the current strength of conditions is ridiculous.

Jumper.9482:

I suggest a remake to Body Shot. This was suggested previously by another user, but I feel a good way to take it would be to make it a small radius (160-250ish) blast which burns nearby foes for a short duration. This would enable P/P and P/D another condition to punish players in melee range as well as blast a Black Powder for stealth, enabling Sneak Attack. Balance the initiative cost so that it is only effective situationally, using a black powder that was used to blind an important attack, for example. We wouldn’t want to see a boring 521 521 521 repeat rotation.

As I discussed in the original thread of that suggestion, there is a big problem with adding burning to a Thief weapon skill and that’s initiative.

A burning is like throwing 8 bleeds to a target. Initiative in principle is balanced in a way that as it substracts from your other skills, it is compensated, but this causes certain problems. One of those as we all know is that our weapon skill CCs either last 0’25 seconds or roots you (or requires a stealth rotation that has been nerfed). This is another one. If it wasn’t spammable it wouldn’t be a problem, but adding to a P/D bleeding rotation a sudden burst of “8 extra bleeds” that you can quickly put again if cleansed breaks it.

About the blast part, I’ve sugested that other times, and it could be very interesting to make P/P a conditions set. In my sugestion Body Shot would become a melee range skill that blasts your opponent away (only push without interrupt, and as it only has melee range, you can’t spam it to control an opponent attack) with the blast being represented by the very potent recoil. And as if you damage your target, the blast gives you revealed instead of stealth, you either chose to use the skill effect or the blast.

But burning on a weapon skill would be too good. Recently I was doing some calculations and even with some “fake cooldown” (making the skill go through 2 phases or making it burn only on blinded targets) the initiative cost to balance it would be extremely high for it to be viable (burning with intiative is a case of either extremely OP or I will never use that crap).

The other ideas sound good. Perplexity opened some minds about something most of all wanted when the game started: some confussion on headshot. As being CCed has poor synergy with triggering confussion, it’s not like you will spam it, and will bring some utility to the skill.

Making Unload do more damage the more conditions the target has sounds good too. Carrion builds still punch well enough, and while you won’t be able to use 3333 synergy traits (like ini on crit, except maybe some case of Rampager, Rabid and Carrion mixing like nemesis Necro if the numbers look good enough), the purposse isn’t to spam but instead to abuse what your other skills did balancing your skill usage, so if the numbers are treated correctly it could be good (and add some synergy between the bleed on the auto-attack and Unload).

Well, I was thinking something like 1-2 second of burn for 4-5 init and see where that stands. Something like how the D/P trickery build is, you almost always initiate with a bp>seeker>stab, but then very rarely use it mid-fight.

Note: If it were given flat damage, it would not be able to give yourself stealth while hitting a burn, so that is another balance decision that can be made. Personally, I think this would be ideal, forcing the player to decide and/or be aware of nearby enemies when trying to enter stealth. Also it introduces counterplay to the enemy by seeing a P/P thief drop a BP and knowing to walk into it to counter the thief going into stealth, wasting a huge chunk of the thief’s initiative leaving him vulnerable.

The base damage and initiative could also be set at a relatively high amount, opening more options for Power P/x specs. Although balancing these numbers along with the burn would require much effort.

I would go even further to balance this skill by implementing a .25ish sec cast time in which you are locked in place (or the cast is cancelled) rather than having it instant+aftercast like most of the thief’s abilities. This opens up even further skilled and counter-play.

Good suggestions jumper but p/d doesn’t need a buff.

I would intend on P#2 becoming either mostly a utility/situational and/or power-based weapon skill with a (very) small amount of burn to compensate condi specs. It would be made slightly less effective initiative-wise than using Sneak Attack or Shadow Strike on a P/D condition build, but ideally offer a small condition “burst”. This is, if the numbers are tweaked well-enough.

Jumper.9482:

Suggestions:

Headshot: Ok, so first off, we all know Perplexity is over the top and classes like Engineers would become out of control with such power. My suggestion to avoid completely killing it for thieves, is nerf the confusion stacks interrupt to 2-3 and passive to 1-2, whatever would be considered balanced. Second would be to give thief the same effect implemented as one of their traits for 1-2 stacks of confusion. Alternatively, it could be implemented as part of the base Headshot skill.

Not gonna happen only because it will make D/P broken.

Unload: To keep synergy, as well as open up room for hybrid/power play, I’d suggest Unload to give additional damage per condition on the target. This would eliminate the “3 spam” style of play which was present and un-welcomed in the beta weekend events. Players would be forced to looking to use other skills in their kit to apply conditions to amp up the damage on Unload or coordinating it with another player, rather than simply hitting frenzy and mashing it.

I don’t think that you realize that amping up the damage will make it more spammable. What’s going to happen is that, high Crit Chance with Condition on Crit Sigil will dominate this set, and all you have to do is spam #3 even more.

I spec 25 into DA for this very reason, so I know fully well where this is going and how it can be abused.

Sneak Attack/Body Shot: There are very limited options to get into stealth with P/P. To give body shot some utility, at the same time giving P/D the buffs it needs, I suggest a remake to Body Shot. This was suggested previously by another user, but I feel a good way to take it would be to make it a small radius (160-250ish) blast which burns nearby foes for a short duration. This would enable P/P and P/D another condition to punish players in melee range as well as blast a Black Powder for stealth, enabling Sneak Attack. Balance the initiative cost so that it is only effective situationally, using a black powder that was used to blind an important attack, for example. We wouldn’t want to see a boring 521 521 521 repeat rotation.

I have 2 issues with this:
1) P/P don’t need stealth, it needs evasions, blind, cripple, which it already have.
2) Sneak attack is a stupid skill since it requires stealth. Sneak Attack should trigger based on our position relative to the target. So if we are positioned in flank or behind, sneak attack should become available. The check for this is already in game, they just need to apply it to the sneak attack skills.

As for Body Shot, I want it reverted back to it’s original form but with reduced cost. We don’t really need burning. We don’t need stealth for P/P either. We just need it to focus on whakittens good at like dealing consistent DPS. Unload is only being spammed because it is cost effective compare to other skills, if the cost of other skills are reduced — or some way to received a refund from traits — then we would see more variety in the rotation.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Not gonna happen only because it will make D/P broken.

That’s why I first suggested it as a trait, likely in trickery, forcing either Thrill/Uncatchable, Bountiful Theft, Or Sleight of Hand to be given up. D/P cannot spare any of these, whereas P/P could.

I don’t think D/P would be too powerful with headshot as a 1x-confusion base, either though. It would be a very small buff, but indeed, D/P is quite balanced already, I wouldn’t want to disrupt that.

I don’t think that you realize that amping up the damage will make it more spammable. What’s going to happen is that, high Crit Chance with Condition on Crit Sigil will dominate this set, and all you have to do is spam #3 even more.
I spec 25 into DA for this very reason, so I know fully well where this is going and how it can be abused.

Earth Sigil is the only on-crit condition sigil, and it was nerfed in BWE3 to have a hidden 1s ICD for this very reason. That is only 1 condition, which Pistol already has plenty of.
What I suggested is increased damage for each condition type, similar to the Warrior’s Destruction of the Empowered. If you indeed do spam 3 with only bleeds, you wouldn’t be playing at top efficiency.

Sneak attack is more balanced than Surprise shot and Tactical strike?

Body shot should be a blast finisher, instead of adding vuln it should extend all current conditions on the victim by 2s.

Headshot should torment (or maybe poison or blind) on interrupt. Leave the confusion function to the perplexity runes, which will probably get nerfed.

Vulnerability should be transferred to unload, short duration (1.5-3s).

I still don’t know how Sneak attack can actually work with P/P because it has so little access to stealth. You would have to have refuge to get a sneak attack off, or blinding powder. Or more into it, if you carried around a SB, you could blast your black powder, but that just seems like a very clunk way to do things.

As for Body Shot, I am not a fan of giving more burn around. A small burn field might be okay, maybe the size of the Staff 2 for Eles, but not that much bigger.

Perplexity I do not know that much about the runes, but I think the best way to go about it would just to nerf the overall rune set, like you said to 1-2 or whatever could be balanced. Maybe a trait, but not on headshot, and if it was for certain, that D/P could not access this, how do you think this would effect S/P?

as much as i’d like P/D to be a respectable build (instead of being shunned every time someone realizes the D and the P on my weapon set are inverted), and as much as i’d like body shot to be reworked so it is worth a kitten , i don’t think pushing the meta further towards multiple condis flying everywhere is the solution.

the problem with the current meta is that everyone is thinking that if their condi build is not on par with necros, then they should be buffed towards that. if condi hadn’t been pushed so much on certain builds, then cleanses wouldn’t have turned into this mandatory thing everyone needs to have, and if cleanses cease to be something people have to cram their utility bars with, then condi builds that focus on sustained damage, like P/D, would be fine.

that said, body shot most definitely needs a rework. low damage and crappy condition for 3 initiative means no one uses it, ever.

well i just realize after playing thief for 10 months … thief is the only class who cant apply BURN!? LOL

put a burn on crit for DA grandmasters trait

@Bruno
The problem with the Necro is moreso the lack of counterplay available than the dps output.
P/D doesn’t have that problem… Also its single target and melee…

Jumper.9482:

@Bruno
The problem with the Necro is moreso the lack of counterplay available than the dps output.
P/D doesn’t have that problem… Also its single target and melee…

i wouldn’t call it melee, as you only need to get in melee range every 4 seconds or so (less if your opponent is kind enough to provide an AI ally for you to stealth from), but i see what you mean. i just don’t see “add more condi burst” as a solution. in fact, i see it as hurting the game as a whole by pushing the meta further into the “condi spam VS cleanse spam”.

P/D has always been more suited to a power/condi hybrid anyway, using condi as sustain to raw damage. at least that’s how i’ve always seen it.

but the point is, and you seem to agree with me apparently, that the problem isn’t P/D itself. it has its flaws (body shot, mainly), but it’s well telegraphed and it’s not an AoE freakout bursting condis everywhere. it just so happens that certain other things got way too strong, making reasonable builds unviable.

The numbers for hybrid on P/D don’t add up at all.
I’ve tested Rabid, Carrion, Zerker, Rampager specs.
tl;dr, if I remember correctly:
Carrion>Zerker>Rabid>>>>>>>>Rampager(hybrid)

IIRC, i run carrion with zerker jewel. it puts out decent damage without being glassy. can handle teamfights, but by nature of being a stealth build that doesn’t burst, is not a good far point roamer.

don’t know, i honestly enjoy it and don’t think the build itself is the problem in the meta, but we’ve had this conversation on twitch a few times by now, so we’ll have to agree to disagree :P

for the record, here’s what i run. i’m sure you’ll find a lot of stuff you’d build different, but it works for me :P

a few things to explain:

1- i hate ground targetting while being focused, so that’s why i use roll for initiative instead of shadowstep. the instant cleanse of the condis that affect mobility help escape too.

2- that S/D is mostly to steal boons from guards (or HGH engies), then head back to P/D. it’s also good to cleave through engineer turrets, and the damage is not shabby.

Using P/P as a thief was one of the things I looked forward to most before GW2 release, I hope they tweak it again soon.

Have body shot cause Retaliation for 3 seconds or so in addition to it’s current effect.

BrunoBRS.5178:

as much as i’d like P/D to be a respectable build (instead of being shunned every time someone realizes the D and the P on my weapon set are inverted), and as much as i’d like body shot to be reworked so it is worth a kitten , i don’t think pushing the meta further towards multiple condis flying everywhere is the solution.

the problem with the current meta is that everyone is thinking that if their condi build is not on par with necros, then they should be buffed towards that. if condi hadn’t been pushed so much on certain builds, then cleanses wouldn’t have turned into this mandatory thing everyone needs to have, and if cleanses cease to be something people have to cram their utility bars with, then condi builds that focus on sustained damage, like P/D, would be fine.

that said, body shot most definitely needs a rework. low damage and crappy condition for 3 initiative means no one uses it, ever.

I gotta agree with this. Conditions used to be balance, then people find out about food+melandru and most conditions build become worthless in WvW. But then a new food came out that give a huge advantage to condition, and now the new runes is just making it worst for power build. Now instead of just using melandru+food, all power build need to have more cleanses utility than they did last time. If not, you’ll get melted easily by conditions, and it is not fun because conditions is supposed to kill you slowly, not bursting you like a power should.

Arkitech.9158:

I like the idea, although I’m sure it’s not gunna happen. Another suggestion I want to add is adding vulnerability to unload along with the short range blast replacement for bodyshot.

Kinda like what they did with Ranger Rapid Fire~ moving vulnerability to it from Hunter Shot and then changing Hunter Shot to an entirely different function.

I’ve always thought Body Shot should be changed to do burn damage and/or do somekinda explosion aoe. The Blast thing would be a nice addition too. Combos are one of my favorite parts about Thief, and I would always welcome more of them. (One reason I dislike Sword in PvE, no Combos..)

Lol,I post this and everyone else is instantly a P/ expert and know better.

I heard jumper quit the game?

I don’t see feel any reason to turn P/P into a condition heavy spec and certainly dont think body shot should be a blast finisher. There should be a divide between /D and /P throwing more stealth on /P sets such as in the case of D/P only serves to marginalize the /D offhand further. Nor do I think it’s necessary given S/P and SB are better sets despite also lacking stealth.

The 3 suggestion is an interesting iwarlock direction.

I want to see Pistol #2 become a Leap finisher ala Engineer’s Jump Shot. This would give P/P a way to enter stealth. Black Powder plus Pistol #2 → Stealth. The high initiative cost I think would keep it balanced when considering the inevitable Sneak Attack followup. #onecandream

I like the Unload suggestion, and agree it’d open up some more skill-based options.
I also think we should probably shy away from Burn, in favour of more evasion/movement on Pistols. After all, while P/D has Stealth and D/P packs Leap and Stealth potential … P/P is still lacking in either regard. And, indeed, Evasion/Leap Finisher would lend more towards the “Gunslinger” mindset.
As for Jumper’s idea for Perplexity Runes: Surprisingly workable … I was thinking the only way to constructively “nerf” ‘em would be through an ICD on #6, but dropping the # of stacks would also work out, if done right. It’d also preserve the AoE aspect of that Rune set.

Jumper.9482:

Lol,I post this and everyone else is instantly a P/ expert and know better.

maybe the P/ niche just wasn’t vocal, they now have a thread to discuss stuff because they’d like changes too. you’re definitely not the first thief to realize pistol mainhand can be enjoyable or even effective.

Jumper.9482:

This was suggested previously by another user, but I feel a good way to take it would be to make it a small radius (160-250ish) blast which burns nearby foes for a short duration. This would enable P/P and P/D another condition to punish players in melee range as well as blast a Black Powder for stealth, enabling Sneak Attack. Balance the initiative cost so that it is only effective situationally, using a black powder that was used to blind an important attack, for example. We wouldn’t want to see a boring 521 521 521 repeat rotation.

Wow! That’s a relatively old saggestion of mine, my feedback actually gets heard on forums (others may surely have suggested that too though!)!! That’s definetly reasuring even then! Although I suggested a PBAoE blast finisher but still keeping the vulnerability on target. I also suggested it to be a small leap backwards like Disabling Shot or Quick Shot and it being a leap finisher.
With that said, I would be very hesitant to add any other condition to weapon skills due to the spammy nature of initiative, I’d do it though utilities or traits to spice out build diversity.

I really like your unload suggestion: the bigger the number of conditions on target, the greater the damage. Spamming it is no longer optimal, so it opens up room for other skills in the rotation. Simple, elegant, easily coded and implemented; I like it!

thought about it early today:

what if body shot worked like the engineer’s pistol autoattack, in that it blasts into a small radius AoE when it hits its target? instead of vulnerability, we’d get a blast finisher on target. damage could be moderate (taking in consideration that unlike autoattack, it doesn’t apply conditions and costs initiative, but at the same time it’s also a small AoE), and it would synergize with more offensive combo fields, like poison and dark (both of which thief has access to), as well as bring utility to teamfights (blasting those water, light and fire fields can be the difference between winning and losing). if it’s deemed too strong for the ini cost, raise the cost to 4 initiative.

honestly, the more i think about it, the more i like it.

Yeah, changing it to a blastfinisher would help it a lot !!

Also , if they would just increase the vulnerability duration , 3 sec’s is soo weak compared to how much other classes can stack vuln ( automaticly even .. ).

Jumper.9482:

Well, I was thinking something like 1-2 second of burn for 4-5 init and see where that stands. Something like how the D/P trickery build is, you almost always initiate with a bp>seeker>stab, but then very rarely use it mid-fight.

Well, with 1700 condition damage, a 2s of burning, somehow with 100% burning duration (is that even possible?) would turn out for a total of 3000 damage.

Is 3000 damage that you cannot stack worth 4-5 initiative? Especially considering it probably won’t be 100% duration either?

most of this sounds really boring

we are receiving buffs and nerfs by the number of whine threads
end of story.

@dan h. right. i dont even bother suggesting legit possibilities like this. to be honest these sound more watered down than they should be. expected tho…bc we never once get the buffs we ask for. other than steal CD reduction.

Jumper.9482:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Not gonna happen only because it will make D/P broken.

That’s why I first suggested it as a trait, likely in trickery, forcing either Thrill/Uncatchable, Bountiful Theft, Or Sleight of Hand to be given up. D/P cannot spare any of these, whereas P/P could.

I highly doubt that.

I don’t think D/P would be too powerful with headshot as a 1x-confusion base, either though. It would be a very small buff, but indeed, D/P is quite balanced already, I wouldn’t want to disrupt that.

The only reason why D/P is balance is because it is taking a risk getting in melee range. If they can secure their safety by stacking confusion, this will give them a lot of control over a fight.

Jumper.9482:

I don’t think that you realize that amping up the damage will make it more spammable. What’s going to happen is that, high Crit Chance with Condition on Crit Sigil will dominate this set, and all you have to do is spam #3 even more.
I spec 25 into DA for this very reason, so I know fully well where this is going and how it can be abused.

Earth Sigil is the only on-crit condition sigil, and it was nerfed in BWE3 to have a hidden 1s ICD for this very reason. That is only 1 condition, which Pistol already has plenty of.
What I suggested is increased damage for each condition type, similar to the Warrior’s Destruction of the Empowered. If you indeed do spam 3 with only bleeds, you wouldn’t be playing at top efficiency.

You don’t understand, the condition is just so I can gain access to the bonus damage and bleed is not the only condition applied on Crit. I love Vulnerability with my P/P build having 25 in DA and I’m sure you can figure out why.

I’ve had 25/30/x for a long time now, capitalizing on the bonus damage on target with condition, regardless if the condition deals damage or not. Even more so in a group situation where condition builds will stack condition on the target anyway leaving me to just spam #3.

If the bonus damage is per condition, you effectively just doubled your damage with a simple skill as Unload if the bonus is at least 5% additional damage per condition.

I can single-handedly apply bleed, poison, blind, weakness, vulnerability, chill, torment, cripple, and confusion. I can apply bleed, poison, weakness, cripple, and vulnerability just by spamming Unload.

The bottom line is, I can break this without even changing my current build.

The bonus damage is a flat 10% in total as long as the target got at least one condition on him. Nothing more.

Retreat Shot(replaces body shot): Fire a powerful explosive at the ground burning surrounding foes and leaping backwards. 4-5 initiative. 3 sec burn. Blast or Leap combo finisher. short leap backwards possibly also an evade (but prolly not)
additionally add vulnerability to unload. p/p un-viable problem solved.

stof.9341:

The bonus damage is a flat 10% in total as long as the target got at least one condition on him. Nothing more.

You might want to read the whole thread…

Ah wait, I see. But it would be kind of insane ranged DPS once applied to group content or worse, zerg content :/ 5% more damage per conditions on a target with all of them would easily tip Unload DPS high above any other thief options, even melee ones no?

stof.9341:

Ah wait, I see. But it would be kind of insane ranged DPS once applied to group content or worse, zerg content :/ 5% more damage per conditions on a target with all of them would easily tip Unload DPS high above any other thief options, even melee ones no?

Exactly!

As it is now, the stacking bonus damage is already great in a large group and decent in solo (“decent” relative to the S/B). And yes, it would be insane if it also scale up per condition on the target because the damage increase will be exponential.