Guild Wars 2

I have been playing as a thief (dagger main hand, pistol offhand), and have noticed a seriously unfair way of killing high level enemies.

By using the 5th skill, “black powder”, you can make a group of enemies miss all of their attacks for 4 seconds, since the enemies make no attempt to get out of the AOE. During this time, you can land 2 full rounds of auto attacks, and then use heartseeker to go invisible (this happens when you combo heartseeker with the black powder AOE). Then backstab, and repeat.

You can literally do this indefinitely with the “infusion of shadow” trait, since you gain the same initiative back over the 4 seconds as you used. You receive close to no damage from the monsters you are killing because they spend the whole time being blind, hence you are able to kill things way above your level by adopting this very repetitive play style.

I am getting SO BORED doing it because everything is so easy to kill. At the same time, I can’t resist the temptation of using it to level up quickly. Please fix this so there is no longer any temptation! I am making myself get so bored of this game!

It’s not an exploit. You build your character to do this.

Um didn’t ANet already nerf black powder so that it ticks slower and have reduced aoe size? What more do you want? And enemies are stupid. They stand in aoes and most don’t know how to dodge.

This is not an exploit in any context. It is behaving as intended. Every class has powerful PvE faceroll mechanics like this because open-world PvE is easy by design.

Faereilos.5106:

Um didn’t ANet already nerf black powder so that it ticks slower and have reduced aoe size? What more do you want? And enemies are stupid. They stand in aoes and most don’t know how to dodge.

And the ones that do dodge you can just not target and they won’t

Why do I just believe right now, that this here is just a cheap disguised try to want to see Thieves getting nerfed only more and OP is in fact just someone, who gets beaten by this kind of thieves often in PvP/WvW and disguises his inability to beat such thieves there now as an “exploit” in PvE, that is no exploit at all in the hope, that in relation to that bad and wrong comparison ANet does nerf the thief in the end??

Is it just me, who believes this…?

PS: and even if the Op really was serious with all of this, then he posted it in the wrong area… then this should belong to the bug section where it literally wil lget closed only anyways, cause it is no bug/exploit at all

Faereilos.5106:

Um didn’t ANet already nerf black powder so that it ticks slower and have reduced aoe size? What more do you want? And enemies are stupid. They stand in aoes and most don’t know how to dodge.

Yes, but then ANet added Invigorating Precision (and then buffed it further % proc chance). With good old Lifesteal Sigils + Signet of Malice + added two targets to hit with Dagger autoattack (double crit proc) + Mug (if you want) just in case and you become a tank with Black Powder spam in zerker/assassin gear.

Actually going stealth to get Backstab is more complicated in the chain (unless you need stealth for the condition cleanse of poison or weakness via Shadow’s Embrace) in lieu of Infusion of Shadow.

Of course, level 80 PvE = breeze regardless in 99% of everything but this makes it braindead level (especially with Scorpion Wire for multi-ranged situations). And you can reset via stealth/shadow step whenever you want anyways.

Orpheal.8263:

Why do I just believe right now, that this here is just a cheap disguised try to want to see Thieves getting nerfed only more and OP is in fact just someone, who gets beaten by this kind of thieves often in PvP/WvW and disguises his inability to beat such thieves there now as an “exploit” in PvE, that is no exploit at all in the hope, that in relation to that bad and wrong comparison ANet does nerf the thief in the end??

Is it just me, who believes this…?

PS: and even if the Op really was serious with all of this, then he posted it in the wrong area… then this should belong to the bug section where it literally wil lget closed only anyways, cause it is no bug/exploit at all

Nope, it has all the looks of someone owned by a thief in PvP/WvW. Not that i play thief and actually i get killed a lot by them.

But the problem point here is not the class, the class in this case is perfect, is the enemy AI. They should improve the enemy AI so when you use AoE they try to avoid it.
That could be annoying at first but the play would get much better after that.

SpudMan.5041:

I have been playing as a thief (dagger main hand, pistol offhand), and have noticed a seriously unfair way of killing high level enemies.

By using the 5th skill, “black powder”, you can make a group of enemies miss all of their attacks for 4 seconds, since the enemies make no attempt to get out of the AOE. During this time, you can land 2 full rounds of auto attacks, and then use heartseeker to go invisible (this happens when you combo heartseeker with the black powder AOE). Then backstab, and repeat.

You can literally do this indefinitely with the “infusion of shadow” trait, since you gain the same initiative back over the 4 seconds as you used. You receive close to no damage from the monsters you are killing because they spend the whole time being blind, hence you are able to kill things way above your level by adopting this very repetitive play style.

I am getting SO BORED doing it because everything is so easy to kill. At the same time, I can’t resist the temptation of using it to level up quickly. Please fix this so there is no longer any temptation! I am making myself get so bored of this game!

Your wrong about regaining all your initiative. Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You only gain 2 initiative back from infusion of shadow and heartseeker costs 3 initiative to use to get you into stealth.. So you will be losing at least 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo .

Are you REALLY using this tactic to kill enemies or did you watch a old youtube video and wanted a thief nerf? or did you get killed in PVP and run to the forums for a nerf X class thread?

Using black powder+heartseeker+infusion of shadow is a very slow way to level. All professions including the thief have faster ways to kill melee only trash mobs with near zero risk. This only works on land based enemies that lack ranged attacks, AOE attacks, channelled charge attacks or CC protection.

Certain enemies are Immune to blindness or have abilities/boons that reduce it’s effectiveness by 90%. Ranged enemies, enemies with channelled charge attacks and enemies with AOE attacks won’t come within the tiny black powder AOE. That’s over half of all the games trash mobs. The black powder bubble is so small that there are enemies who can hit you in melee from outside the bubble.

So you are looking at this tactic failing on most enemies other then some trash world mobs and running out of initiative after using this combo 3 times. Not to mention that this combo is all SINGLE TARGET DAMAGE, single target blast+ single target heartseeker with a delay between attacks. Sorry but your slowing your levelling down a lot.

The only exploit I see here is the original poster trying to exploit people who don’t know any better into thinking you can do this tactic indefinitely on all mobs with just infusion of shadow & a combo when you can’t as you will blow all your initiative fast.

High level enemies only take glancing attacks from you and can one shot you. It’s much faster to get experience facing mobs closer to your level while doing events. Either way you get so many tomes & writs in this game that getting to 80 can be done with no risk and plenty of boredom just by double clicking items in your inventory.

OP, if they nerf black powder you can simply swap to sword/pistol and pistol whip spam your way to victory, would that make it more fun for you? I really doubt it. Leveling and general open world content is not meant to be challenging. You’ll find dozens of ways to make it faceroll easy with any profession. My Ele used to just run a might stacking rotation on a group of enemies and watch them all be dead before I’m even really “ready” for combat, should Ele’s skills be nerfed? What about when I pull a bunch of things and just 100blades them down with a warrior? Should warrior defenses/damage be nerfed so I can’t do that? Or GS leap, binding blades pull in, whirling wrath and watch them fall over with guardian.

Use your tricks, love your tricks, look for more challenging content

SpudMan.5041:

I am getting SO BORED doing it because everything is so easy to kill. At the same time, I can’t resist the temptation of using it to level up quickly. Please fix this so there is no longer any temptation! I am making myself get so bored of this game!

It’s not an exploit so there’s nothing to fix. Your inability to “resist” it doesn’t change that: ArenaNet cannot fix your laziness for you.

Dagger/dagger and sword/dagger are both a lot more fun to play, though.

*takes screwdriver*
*stabs eyes*

Pifil.5193:

SpudMan.5041:

I am getting SO BORED doing it because everything is so easy to kill. At the same time, I can’t resist the temptation of using it to level up quickly. Please fix this so there is no longer any temptation! I am making myself get so bored of this game!

It’s not an exploit so there’s nothing to fix. Your inability to “resist” it doesn’t change that: ArenaNet cannot fix your laziness for you.

Dagger/dagger and sword/dagger are both a lot more fun to play, though.

I will rewrite what you wanted to write: "It doesn’t change that: ArenaNet cannot fix thief laziness for you.

Read, read: SpudMan: “I am getting SO BORED doing it because everything is so easy to kill”

What do a player laziness have to do with a profession that do not require no effort?

Example:-Class+Exam Test: Would you blame the student in the class room for being lazy because the teacher give them answer to the test?

SpudMan.5041:

Thief blind is OP

Fight Dredge.

Fight Bosses.

Fight ranged enemies.

Fight more than 5 enemies at once.

Fight enemies that attack more than once in two seconds.

Fixed.

I expect my check in the mail.

ITT: Someone trying to say thief requires no effort. Nice try. A for effort.

TIL using blind is an exploit.

Artaz.3819:

Faereilos.5106:

Um didn’t ANet already nerf black powder so that it ticks slower and have reduced aoe size? What more do you want? And enemies are stupid. They stand in aoes and most don’t know how to dodge.

Yes, but then ANet added Invigorating Precision (and then buffed it further % proc chance). With good old Lifesteal Sigils + Signet of Malice + added two targets to hit with Dagger autoattack (double crit proc) + Mug (if you want) just in case and you become a tank with Black Powder spam in zerker/assassin gear.

Actually going stealth to get Backstab is more complicated in the chain (unless you need stealth for the condition cleanse of poison or weakness via Shadow’s Embrace) in lieu of Infusion of Shadow.

Of course, level 80 PvE = breeze regardless in 99% of everything but this makes it braindead level (especially with Scorpion Wire for multi-ranged situations). And you can reset via stealth/shadow step whenever you want anyways.

You will still blow through all your initiative fairly quickly if you try to keep black powder up by relying on the 50% chance of a crit giving you +1 initiative back.

6 initiative use every 4 seconds isn’t something you can regain with Invigorating Precision. You might be able to regain 2 too 4 initiative if you have 5 trash mobs near your AOE attacks at all times less then that and you will blow through it all.

Personally I don’t recommend life steal sigils as they don’t give much health. Your far better off with +crit sigil + condition remove sigil to increase your chance at initiative regain with Invigorating Precision and remove conditions that prevent sigil of malice from healing you.

Sometimes I lose faith in humanity, the OP is a perfect example of this……. SMH

SpudMan.5041:

I am getting SO BORED doing it because everything is so easy to kill.

Stop doing it then!! :p

Victuswolf.5286:

Your wrong about regaining all your initiative. Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You only gain 2 initiative back from infusion of shadow and it takes 10 seconds to regain one initiative back naturally. So you will be losing at least 4 initiative every time you pull off this combo.

Not going into the OPs nonsense since black powder is fine and low level pve experience, not to mention super inefficient leveling experience, is not basis for balance.

Thiefs regenerate 1 initiative PER 1 second, not 1 per 10 seconds. Slight difference there.

SpudMan.5041:

I have been playing as a thief (dagger main hand, pistol offhand), and have noticed a seriously unfair way of killing high level enemies.

By using the 5th skill, “black powder”, you can make a group of enemies miss all of their attacks for 4 seconds, since the enemies make no attempt to get out of the AOE. During this time, you can land 2 full rounds of auto attacks, and then use heartseeker to go invisible (this happens when you combo heartseeker with the black powder AOE). Then backstab, and repeat.

You can literally do this indefinitely with the “infusion of shadow” trait, since you gain the same initiative back over the 4 seconds as you used. You receive close to no damage from the monsters you are killing because they spend the whole time being blind, hence you are able to kill things way above your level by adopting this very repetitive play style.

I am getting SO BORED doing it because everything is so easy to kill. At the same time, I can’t resist the temptation of using it to level up quickly. Please fix this so there is no longer any temptation! I am making myself get so bored of this game!

Not an exploit. Besides, it used to be that the blinding effect would pulse once per second with a one second duration. Now it pulses once per two seconds with a two second duration because it was deemed too good in its original state.

As for growing bored, you brought this onto yourself by playing that style. You can bring yourself out of it by playing another style.

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Victuswolf.5286:

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Wrong. Did you factor in the 3 second stealth which you can sit out and regenerate initiative? Just tested it myself, you actually can keep this combo up permanently or at least near permanently. OP is actually right about that.

The exact math would be:
- black powder -6 initiative → gain 4 initiative during duration = sum -2 initiative
- Heartseeker -3 initiative + 2 initiative from Infusion of shadow → gain 3 second stealth + 3 initiative = sum +2 initiative

-2 + 2 = 0 = permanent

Victuswolf.5286:

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

True.

Because that is way overcomplicating it. All you do is press 5, autoattack for 4 seconds (sometimes enemies have really slow attacks and give a couple secs extra), press 5 again and repeat. Any mob should be dead long before you run out of initiative.

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Wrong. Did you factor in the 3 second stealth which you can sit out and regenerate initiative? Just tested it myself, you actually can keep this combo up permanently or at least near permanently. OP is actually right about that.

Even if you had godlike timing and managed to use Heartseeker 3.99 seconds into Blinding powders effect and then sat in stealth for 3 seconds doing nothing to regain back 3 initiative your still losing initiative each time you do this combo.

So this tactic requires you to sit in stealth the entire 3 seconds while damaging no enemies to work?

Well the OP found the slowest most ineffective way to level.

This is ridiculous. At this point I’ll cry about Ranging is OP because mobs can’t hit me when I run screaming like a little girl, turning around each 5 second to attack from range.

THAT’S OP ANET FIX THAT.

“Exploit”… wat. Blinds are an efficient method of damage negation that a thief in particular offers to itself as a class and its party.

That’s like saying aegis is an exploit because it blocks an attack or reflecting is an exploit because it negates/re-directs damage, if you have the opportunity to use blinds to run something more efficiently why wouldn’t you? It’s a beneficial mechanic.

First time I’ve seen any one complain about something like this but OK… each to their own I guess.

Victuswolf.5286:

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Wrong. Did you factor in the 3 second stealth which you can sit out and regenerate initiative? Just tested it myself, you actually can keep this combo up permanently or at least near permanently. OP is actually right about that.

Even if you had godlike timing and managed to use Heartseeker 3.99 seconds into Blinding powders effect and then sat in stealth for 3 seconds doing nothing to regain back 3 imitative your still losing initiative each time you do this combo.

So this tactic requires you to sit in stealth the entire 3 seconds while damaging no enemies to work?

I edited my post with the exact calculation. With lag and minor good timing it’s not that hard. Mind you, I still think the OP is wrong and this combo is fine. Still it is doable.

Why in gods name someone would willingly level like that though is beyond me. There are way faster ways, not to mention killing higher level targets is not ideal. (That said, I did run into exactly that problem since enemys 10 levels higher become immune back when I leveled my Thief alt. Hey it was 2013 and exploring was fun).

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Wrong. Did you factor in the 3 second stealth which you can sit out and regenerate initiative? Just tested it myself, you actually can keep this combo up permanently or at least near permanently. OP is actually right about that.

Even if you had godlike timing and managed to use Heartseeker 3.99 seconds into Blinding powders effect and then sat in stealth for 3 seconds doing nothing to regain back 3 imitative your still losing initiative each time you do this combo.

So this tactic requires you to sit in stealth the entire 3 seconds while damaging no enemies to work?

I edited my post with the exact calculation. With lag and minor good timing it’s not that hard. Mind you, I still think the OP is wrong and this combo is fine. Still it is doable.

Why in gods name someone would willingly level like that though is beyond me. There are way faster ways, not to mention killing higher level targets is not ideal. (That said, I did run into exactly that problem since enemys 10 levels higher become immune back when I leveled my Thief alt. Hey it was 2013 and exploring was fun).

Cyninja and Honest Thief Players:

I did some investigation and found this: does it still work? Does it give thief more initiative regeneration? or less initiative regeneration? It is a High Initiative Regeneration build.

I thought trolls only existed in fairytales until I read this post.

Oh I was so wrong!

Victuswolf.5286:

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Wrong. Did you factor in the 3 second stealth which you can sit out and regenerate initiative? Just tested it myself, you actually can keep this combo up permanently or at least near permanently. OP is actually right about that.

Even if you had godlike timing and managed to use Heartseeker 3.99 seconds into Blinding powders effect and then sat in stealth for 3 seconds doing nothing to regain back 3 initiative your still losing initiative each time you do this combo.

So this tactic requires you to sit in stealth the entire 3 seconds while damaging no enemies to work?

Well the OP found the slowest most ineffective way to level.

somewhat relevant and funny so leavign it here

There are several issues conflated in the original post, so let’s rephrase it as:

Black Powder trivializes a lot of open world PvE content.

There are a lot of reasons for this, the most important imo is that the AI doesn’t consider moving out of AoE threats of any sort. This, however, is a problem that affects all PvE fights, not just Black Powder.

In fact, changing the AI would affect a lot of meta builds/tactics:

• Ranged mobs wouldn’t turn corners and stack just where we want; they would instead circle strafe around the corner, to back up their melee allies.
• Bosses wouldn’t stand in Meteors (among other AoEs), but would move out of them ASAP.
• All foes in a mob would always target the target member most likely to help the foes, i.e. the weakest (to quickly down and reduce damage they suffer), the deadliest (again to reduce damage), or the one doing the most healing/countering (which interferes with the first two).

Changing AI is difficult for variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it has unpredictable affects on every NPC fight in the game. It is never done quickly.

tl;dr regardless of the terminology, the root problem has more to do with AI that hasn’t adapted to the player meta than with any particular skill.

DarkSyze.8627:

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Wrong. Did you factor in the 3 second stealth which you can sit out and regenerate initiative? Just tested it myself, you actually can keep this combo up permanently or at least near permanently. OP is actually right about that.

Even if you had godlike timing and managed to use Heartseeker 3.99 seconds into Blinding powders effect and then sat in stealth for 3 seconds doing nothing to regain back 3 imitative your still losing initiative each time you do this combo.

So this tactic requires you to sit in stealth the entire 3 seconds while damaging no enemies to work?

I edited my post with the exact calculation. With lag and minor good timing it’s not that hard. Mind you, I still think the OP is wrong and this combo is fine. Still it is doable.

Why in gods name someone would willingly level like that though is beyond me. There are way faster ways, not to mention killing higher level targets is not ideal. (That said, I did run into exactly that problem since enemys 10 levels higher become immune back when I leveled my Thief alt. Hey it was 2013 and exploring was fun).

Cyninja and Honest Thief Players:

I did some investigation and found this: does it still work? Does it give thief more initiative regeneration? or less initiative regeneration? It is a High Initiative Regeneration build.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndNDJUn2XPY

Sure does work, but you hit like a wet noodle and heal just as effectively. Plus, you give up all your evasion so in the event you get interrupted, controlled or dazed, say bb to your health.

Its’ good for pve where things dont think, but anything that requires you to dodge will ruin you.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

DarkSyze.8627:

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Wrong. Did you factor in the 3 second stealth which you can sit out and regenerate initiative? Just tested it myself, you actually can keep this combo up permanently or at least near permanently. OP is actually right about that.

Even if you had godlike timing and managed to use Heartseeker 3.99 seconds into Blinding powders effect and then sat in stealth for 3 seconds doing nothing to regain back 3 imitative your still losing initiative each time you do this combo.

So this tactic requires you to sit in stealth the entire 3 seconds while damaging no enemies to work?

I edited my post with the exact calculation. With lag and minor good timing it’s not that hard. Mind you, I still think the OP is wrong and this combo is fine. Still it is doable.

Why in gods name someone would willingly level like that though is beyond me. There are way faster ways, not to mention killing higher level targets is not ideal. (That said, I did run into exactly that problem since enemys 10 levels higher become immune back when I leveled my Thief alt. Hey it was 2013 and exploring was fun).

Cyninja and Honest Thief Players:

I did some investigation and found this: does it still work? Does it give thief more initiative regeneration? or less initiative regeneration? It is a High Initiative Regeneration build.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndNDJUn2XPY

Sure does work, but you hit like a wet noodle and heal just as effectively. Plus, you give up all your evasion so in the event you get interrupted, controlled or dazed, say bb to your health.

Its’ good for pve where things dont think, but anything that requires you to dodge will ruin you.

Thank You!

Thieves are exceptionally squishy, their only survival is their ability to avoid damage via blinds, stealth, and evasion. Removing or changing this would seriously damage the class’s survivability.

Gern.2978:

Thieves are exceptionally squishy, their only survival is their ability to avoid damage via blinds, stealth, and evasion. Removing or changing this would seriously damage the class’s survivability.

Anet knows. Gamers who dont play thief do not.

LOL this thread made me laugh. With OP’s logic.. I’m wondering if he’s also over at the Warrior forum asking ANET to please fix that pve exploit by removing warrior class from game.

Victuswolf.5286:

Artaz.3819:

Faereilos.5106:

Um didn’t ANet already nerf black powder so that it ticks slower and have reduced aoe size? What more do you want? And enemies are stupid. They stand in aoes and most don’t know how to dodge.

Yes, but then ANet added Invigorating Precision (and then buffed it further % proc chance). With good old Lifesteal Sigils + Signet of Malice + added two targets to hit with Dagger autoattack (double crit proc) + Mug (if you want) just in case and you become a tank with Black Powder spam in zerker/assassin gear.

Actually going stealth to get Backstab is more complicated in the chain (unless you need stealth for the condition cleanse of poison or weakness via Shadow’s Embrace) in lieu of Infusion of Shadow.

Of course, level 80 PvE = breeze regardless in 99% of everything but this makes it braindead level (especially with Scorpion Wire for multi-ranged situations). And you can reset via stealth/shadow step whenever you want anyways.

You will still blow through all your initiative fairly quickly if you try to keep black powder up by relying on the 50% chance of a crit giving you +1 initiative back.

6 initiative use every 4 seconds isn’t something you can regain with Invigorating Precision. You might be able to regain 2 too 4 initiative if you have 5 trash mobs near your AOE attacks at all times less then that and you will blow through it all.

Personally I don’t recommend life steal sigils as they don’t give much health. Your far better off with +crit sigil + condition remove sigil to increase your chance at initiative regain with Invigorating Precision and remove conditions that prevent sigil of malice from healing you.

50% crit chance is actually on the low end (get the right trinkets (Captain)/runes) but sure. I sit at 80% crit chance with a 100 prec food and no boons (or 100% crit chance with 99.9% uptime on Fury). Build —> Link (lots of options to move trait points/utilities/gear around but bones in there).

Not only do you have Opportunist since you are already going for IP, but I’m also a fan of Quick Pockets + Quick Recovery + Infiltrator’s Signet. You’ll have all the initiative you’ll ever need for BP spam. Just equip/use the same offhand pistol. If you can build for precision-high gear + Fury, you can forego Quick Pockets and rely on Opportunist + Kleptomaniac.

Runes of the Warrior is one option for Quick Pockets build. I personally prefer Runes of the Pack for ~65% uptime by itself on Fury because of Rune proc or Runes of Exuberance for raw health with solid core stat bonuses if I encounter a ton of rapid condition spam (Vinewrath).

TL;DR Using stealth makes it overcomplicated since you have to hit one more button every two AA chains

I agree with the OP. And while they’re at it, they should fix that weird bug on warrior that causes them to have 18000 hp and high armor. And that bug on guardian that blocks attacks for you.

Jerus.4350:

Faereilos.5106:

Um didn’t ANet already nerf black powder so that it ticks slower and have reduced aoe size? What more do you want? And enemies are stupid. They stand in aoes and most don’t know how to dodge.

And the ones that do dodge you can just not target and they won’t

Few days ago I made yet another ele to lvl up, when I went to the low lvl norn area with svanirs, I noticed they actually run away from aoes. I don’t remember them doing that before so I assume either anet polished up the AI or I got alzheimer.

Uhm… are there not a few skills mobs use that are not affected by blind? I know there have been a few mobs I know I have blinded yet their abilities still hit me.

@OP