Guild Wars 2

The more I look into what is being proposed, the more I don’t like it. I’ve done a quick analysis of the initiative regen and vigor changes, you can see them attached below.

Someone double-check the workings, here are the assumptions:

Initiative Regen
The passive Initiative regen will work exactly as shown on the spreadsheet, but active traits, like signet use, won’t unless you burn your signets every single time they come off cd… but it still shows how the change will effect (affect?) your ini gain on use.

The Total (2 Sig) etc. are just showing the regen with 2, 3, 4 signets equiped and again burning them exactly as they come off cd.

Opportunist is a 33% nerf in Initiative gain no matter what Crit Chance you have whether it is 4% or 100%. However the higher your crit chance, the more ini that 33% nerf becomes. If you run a high crit build, this is a significant nerf, more on this below.

Anet has mentioned that they want to reduce our dependence on Ini regen traits, yet for an S/D thief (10/30/0/30/0) running 1 signet and using Quick Recovery and Signet Use along with 65% crit change, you effectively lose about .02 ini per second… while keeping the same traits under the new proposal.

Remove Quick Recovery from your trait selection and you lose .12 ini per second. This new proposal doesn’t free you up to choose a different trait at all, it just shifts your regen around. You have to keep Sig Use and Quick Reco just to stay where you were pre-patch.

The guilty party here is Opportunist, don’t nerf this trait and you’ll actually free up a select-able trait and achieve what you’re trying to do.

Kleptomaniac
It’s a pretty straight forward nerf. And I’m kind of ambivalent about it.

Infusion of Shadow
I’ve video taped the timing on a BP->4x HS, and I can’t see you pulling it off much under 4 and 1/2 seconds (Because kitten is kitten, see… kitten.), probably more like 5s, but with latency, I can’t say for sure.

The trait procs at the end of your HS. As you can see from the sheet, you’re currently out 7 initiative at the end of that combo, you’ll be out 12 under the new change. This is designed to remove “perma-stealthing” D/P, and it should do exactly that. The regen section here is showing how much you’ll naturally gain back in initiative during the course of the combo.

Regarding Initiative Regen changes, I understand the intent here, and I don’t mind it, but my conclusion is that the Opportunist nerf is plain silly and undermines what ANET is trying to do. As far as Ini regen goes, don’t change Opportunist. That’s it.

If you decide to leave Opportunist alone, then why not change Quick Recovery to a condi removal? How about removes one condition on dodge (10s ICD)?

Up next: Vigor!

Vigor
This is kind of depressing. The affects on Vigor are pretty straight-forward and obvious, see attached. Under the new system, even with 30% boon duration, you can’t get back to the base 8 seconds of Vigor that you had previously. Bountiful theft is the same story, after Dec 10th, expect a lot less Vigor uptime.

queue mini-rant
I don’t really get this. The thief is a fairly unique class for an MMO, and I really like the feel of it from the initiative system to the dependency on avoiding damage by not being there when the damage hits either through evasion, dodges or shadow-stepping. Thieves are highly dependent on positioning both to mitigate damage and to deal it (Backstab, Tactical Strike, Side Strike, etc.), so anytime you’re going to affect a thieves mobility, it’s a big deal.

Not too long ago, the term “shaving” was being thrown around. I have news for you, a 50% reduction is not a shave.

If you go the route of removing more and more of the thief classes’ access to damage avoidance via dodging and evading and stealthing, etc., then you have to give them other means of condi-cleanse and damage mitigation… go too far and you’ll have a class that isn’t much difference from a Warrior or a Ranger… just with less health and in the case of the Warrior, less armor.

end mini rant

Basically I get the idea being you have to pistol/x or shortbow since the only real opposition to damage (with the dps meta was) for the thief class was avoidance. I mean really the lack of buffs available to thief is amazing considering ALL the other classes, even necro has decent damage mitigation specced right IF that giant health pool doesn’t do the trick.

And I totally agree with the additional condi removal of other classes (so much for dire sets). Thief sword #2 is gonna be close to useless with all the stuns and knockbacks in this game, so p/d for SA. I mean really SA or go home for condi removal, so sad.

Pixels.6532:

queue mini-rant
I don’t really get this. The thief is a fairly unique class for an MMO, and I really like the feel of it from the initiative system to the dependency on avoiding damage by not being there when the damage hits either through evasion, dodges or shadow-stepping. Thieves are highly dependent on positioning both to mitigate damage and to deal it (Backstab, Tactical Strike, Side Strike, etc.), so anytime you’re going to affect a thieves mobility, it’s a big deal.

Not too long ago, the term “shaving” was being thrown around. I have news for you, a 50% reduction is not a shave.

If you go the route of removing more and more of the thief classes’ access to damage avoidance via dodging and evading and stealthing, etc., then you have to give them other means of condi-cleanse and damage mitigation… go too far and you’ll have a class that isn’t much difference from a Warrior or a Ranger… just with less health and in the case of the Warrior, less armor.

end mini rant

… Please edit end of paragraph 1 to “it’s a HUGE deal”

Note: I’m not an extraordinary thief player. It just seems like a huge push away from melee/aoe to ranged. If these changes happen I might as well delete my thief as it just won’t be fun to play.

Good stuff… it does seem like opportunist is being over nerfed here.

I was going to make a post about this but you literally posted my exact thoughts. I really hope anet sees this because i 100% agree opportunist needs to stay. Anet wants thieves to stick it out in a fight yet they want to nerf a trait that rewards that type of play (Opportunist).

Aside from that i agree also on the fact taht it seems they are trying to nerf both of our main defensive capabilities (Damage mitigation through evades, and Stealth) without really giving anything meaningful to compensate. If they don’t want us evading damage, and they don’t want us stealthing to re-position and clear condi then what exactly is it that they want us to do?

Who cares?

Theives are like assassins from daoc. They were awesome and overpowered at the start. Everyone cried. They got nerfed into uselessness for years to come.

My advice, re-roll a different class and save yourself the grief. ANet clearly stated we are to rely on Hard to Catch now as our primary defensive trait, lulz!

swinsk.6410:

Who cares?

Theives are like assassins from daoc. They were awesome and overpowered at the start. Everyone cried. They got nerfed into uselessness for years to come.

My advice, re-roll a different class and save yourself the grief. ANet clearly stated we are to rely on Hard to Catch now as our primary defensive trait, lulz!

Well after 2400 hours on my thief i am not quite willing to make that change. It’s either do or die for me. If my class get put on the bottom shelf, so does my copy of GW2. =/

Thief post again sorry!
I main thief. If you are going to make changes to the weapon skills themselves, such as the sword, and just end up completely destroying the reason why people use them (to stay out of danger and keep their mobility up), will you compensate for things like legendary weapons? They take soooooo long to make, and require so much resource and time. If a change like the thief sword is made, I don’t think I’ll use the sword anymore, in that case, rendering my legendary pretty much useless. Will there be a chance to opt to transform the legendary into a different one? The sword isn’t broken, and its the one redeeming trait that allows many players in PVE to survive close encounters in dungeons and not end up being “That” thief that downs all the time and ends up making people not want thieves in the party.

Husky.8413:

Thief post again sorry!
I main thief. If you are going to make changes to the weapon skills themselves, such as the sword, and just end up completely destroying the reason why people use them (to stay out of danger and keep their mobility up), will you compensate for things like legendary weapons? They take soooooo long to make, and require so much resource and time. If a change like the thief sword is made, I don’t think I’ll use the sword anymore, in that case, rendering my legendary pretty much useless. Will there be a chance to opt to transform the legendary into a different one? The sword isn’t broken, and its the one redeeming trait that allows many players in PVE to survive close encounters in dungeons and not end up being “That” thief that downs all the time and ends up making people not want thieves in the party.

I was also wondering about that.
When vigor wil be halfed and sword nerfed again, i’ll probably never touch my bolt again. I’m already playing D/D in WvW atm, just to get the feeling of not using sword. After the patch i’d rather have an incinerator, but well…. i’m 99% sure anet won’t allow a legendary weapon exchange/unbound.

Husky.8413:

Thief post again sorry!
I main thief. If you are going to make changes to the weapon skills themselves, such as the sword, and just end up completely destroying the reason why people use them (to stay out of danger and keep their mobility up), will you compensate for things like legendary weapons? They take soooooo long to make, and require so much resource and time. If a change like the thief sword is made, I don’t think I’ll use the sword anymore, in that case, rendering my legendary pretty much useless. Will there be a chance to opt to transform the legendary into a different one? The sword isn’t broken, and its the one redeeming trait that allows many players in PVE to survive close encounters in dungeons and not end up being “That” thief that downs all the time and ends up making people not want thieves in the party.

I think you might want to make a separate thread for that response, it doesn’t really have much to do with the OP’s post tbh….