Recent Dev comments
Bums will always have trouble with thieves. It’s true of rogue classes in every game. Thief is definitely good in WvW but it’s nowhere near the best; certainly not to the extent that it needs nerfs.
It’s funny that they think high-level tPvP actually exists anymore. Welcome to the spin zone.
(edited by Nilgoow.1037)
Yea, I wish they had picked a thread in here to respond too.
This board is for thief in spvp or wvw or pve and those comments are about the thief specifically.
Just another noob thief…
After reading their comments, this is what I gathered so far.
-Thief in WvW is AWESOME!!! WTF? (thieves were awesome in WvW before the Culling fix because no one could kittening see us…)
-Thief needs love in competitive/high end Tpvp
-Thief will get boon hate. Don’t know when and where (traits or weapon sets?)
-Thief will get more mobility. Don’t know when.
-Our burst combo is TOO GOOD. May see nerf in this area.
-They take QQs/Nerf posts/Newbie vs thief experience into consideration…wtf?
(edited by Sifu.6527)
Would have been nice to have a discussion about Thieves in the Thief forum, but I guess that makes too much sense. Still, at least they’ve acknowledged that we exist – not getting my hopes up for anything substantial, though.
Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief
Resident Thief
(edited by Auesis.7301)
John Sharp:
“So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker”
Urghblrghlblrgh! Brain melting from ears
“while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).”
How can people say that? S/x is way better because of Infiltrator’s Strike.
Infiltrator’s Arrow is only good for bypassing terrain or fleeing in stealth. It costs 6 initiative for Christ’s sake.
John Sharp:
“So with the Thief, we feel like their straight burst with some sets is too good as it is (Mug/C &D/BS/heartseeker”
Urghblrghlblrgh! Brain melting from ears
“while also improving their mobility with all weapon sets (since Shortbow is already strong at that, but it overpowers other options).”
How can people say that? S/x is way better because of Infiltrator’s Strike.
Infiltrator’s Arrow is only good for bypassing terrain or fleeing in stealth. It costs 6 initiative for Christ’s sake.
I don’t know. Maybe when they’re done nerfing us, they only thing we can do is use our mobility to run.
Roll for Initiative will be changed to Roll out of WvW.
What makes it more worrying is that in the effort to diversify the Thief (less burst, more mobility, buffing underused skills), they will no doubt use the “nerf first, buff later” method that has been the source of misery for most patches with most classes so far. In other words, it’s gonna be a rocky road for the next few months, and when the “buffs” do land, they’ll still be crap. Go team!
Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief
Resident Thief
I still bet they wont ever actually get around to buffing because every time they nerf they’ll look into wvw and hotjoin spvp see that new players that haven’t a clue what there doing are still getting destroyed by stealth alone and keep nerfing, its what has happened in basically every game I’ve played where they tried this sort of balance with a stealth class.
Funny thing is they wanted to be an Esport at one point and then decided that casual and new players are where all the balance is at.
(edited by Dasorine.1964)
The biggest problem with ‘boon hate’ is that so many classes have boons on procs that are relatively unavoidable or core to their defensive spec. You can never make ‘boon hate’ good because there is such little player input involved on either side. Turrets and Minions have the same problem. You can’t create a competitive system where one player can punish another when the mechanics involved are side-effects of other ubiquitous elements like dealing or taking damage.
Hmm…all the “boon hate” is a bad idea because what’s going to end up happening is if classes gain “boon hate” it means thieves that utilize boons…get negatively impacted as well, and even more squishy…if people can imagine how bad that will be.
The fact they are looking at the lowest level is very disturbing because you never are supposed to balance a game for the lowest common denominator – it does not work…EVER. Those are the “noobs” and they have no clue what they are doing in the first place so making balance changes that cater to players that have no clue while impacting the actual real competitive balance of the game is a terrible idea.
On that note…pvp even exists in this game? I come from SC/SC2 and RTS background, there is 0 incentive for me to play competitive PvP in gw2 because it’s off in it’s own little land with it’s own entry barrier. PvP should not be a sideshow to PvE/WvW, and i think that was a mistake that was made imo.
As for Thief mobility…yes they can improve a lot. Currently the Thief’s most mobile weapon ability and strongest ability in the game is infiltrator’s strike. This gives you more mobility than infiltrator’s arrow.
They need to add similar types of mobility to other weapon sets with shadowsteps/evades because
a) it does not rely on stealth, which means noobs will perceive there is more skill involved (whether there is or isn’t)
b) some weapon sets mobility options are terrible
Look at pistol/pistol. There are 0 evades in that set. Off the top of my head what would be cool for pistol pistol is adding an evade to body shot maybe? Make the thief able to roll in a direction while using that ability? That would add a skill cap to the set, add mobility to the set, and evasion to the set that is sorely needed.
P/D…the shadow step in this set, how about instead of requiring you to stab the opposing player, make it like infiltrator’s strike where you simply target the opponent and it allows you to shadow step backwards as the skill already does. That would be along the lines of mobility and an escape mechanism for the set that doesn’t require you to have to be up in the opponent’s face, but you still have that option for cnd.
D/P…same thing here. They can improve this by slightly tweaking it to be like infiltrator’s strike as well. Make it so you can target a player and you will shadow step towards them the current distance of the ability even if you’re not currently “in range.”
S/D…fix flanking strike please, or make it more reliable in some way.
S/P, besides being completely obsolete after the 15% damage nerf + the recent haste nerf…how about doing the obvious with this ability by increasing it’s current damage to more than what sword’s auto attack is – make it so it doesn’t root you in place. It’s a bit strange and ridiculous that one of the classes that is supposed to be the most mobile has an ability that roots the thief in place and can whif so easily vs good players.
Oh, and lastly, the shadowstep utility. It’s ok but how about increase the time allotted for a player to shadowstep back before the ability is put on cooldown? I think it’s funny that infiltrator strike from the sword is much stronger thakitten0 second cool down utility.
Shortbow…nothing needs to be changed at all lol. It’s already the jack of all trades, AOE PvE beast + mobility forwards and backwards.
To sum up my thoughts from my experiences playing the game…sword currently is the highest mobility weapon the thief has. You can shadow step forward, shadow step back, you can do a stationary infiltrator strike run around, then shadow step back…so why not add similar type of mobility to the other sets, as that is a stated goal of anet.
(edited by avilo.1942)
How can people say that? S/x is way better because of Infiltrator’s Strike.
Infiltrator’s Arrow is only good for bypassing terrain or fleeing in stealth. It costs 6 initiative for Christ’s sake.
A 600 range Shadowstep that can only be used towards an hostile target isn’t good mobility …
The biggest problem with ‘boon hate’ is that so many classes have boons on procs that are relatively unavoidable or core to their defensive spec. You can never make ‘boon hate’ good because there is such little player input involved on either side. Turrets and Minions have the same problem. You can’t create a competitive system where one player can punish another when the mechanics involved are side-effects of other ubiquitous elements like dealing or taking damage.
Boon hate is indeed a very bad idea because what they are going to do is create a cluster…you know what.
If they go through with this…they are essentially gutting their own boon system, making it bad for you to have boons…which is entirely contradictory to the concept of applying a boon to yourself.
A new player, or even veteran, expects that if you apply a boon to yourself you are getting stronger, not being suddenly opened up to being damaged more. It’s completely unintuitive and goes down the slippery slope of, “oh so we added boon hate, what’s next, we have to add in boon love?”
“Boon Love” – this has been added into the game, we are planning to add traits/abilities that allow players with boons to not take as much damage from players with boon hate.
So you see the problem anet? The concept of boon hate is unnecessary and going to make your balance design overly complicated for no reason.
Instead of doing this, let’s be real here. Address the actual balance problem instead of trying to avoid the issue. And that of course currently is the d/d elementalist with lots of boons for the most part.
I honestly do not think the d/d ele is a problem overall yet, but if they believe it to be they should tone down the d/d ele’s boon, or obvious things like the arcana trait that gives 5 seconds lingering attunement bonuses..etc.
You get the picture – address the issue of the d/d boon ele instead of introducing a concept that’s adversely going to affect your entire class system.
How can people say that? S/x is way better because of Infiltrator’s Strike.
Infiltrator’s Arrow is only good for bypassing terrain or fleeing in stealth. It costs 6 initiative for Christ’s sake.A 600 range Shadowstep that can only be used towards an hostile target isn’t good mobility …
There’s two ways you can use it…
How can people say that? S/x is way better because of Infiltrator’s Strike.
Infiltrator’s Arrow is only good for bypassing terrain or fleeing in stealth. It costs 6 initiative for Christ’s sake.A 600 range Shadowstep that can only be used towards an hostile target isn’t good mobility …
It’s the strongest thief mobility in the game currently. The ability to shadow step in and out…it makes for a very dynamic thief playstyle. They should mimic infiltrator’s strike with other weapon sets like p/p that currently has 0 mobility.
You also do not need a target for infiltrator’s strike btw. If you do not want to target something activate the ability and do your thing within 14 seconds you can shadow return back from any location that you are at. That’s why it’s more powerful than even the shortbow’s mobility (though shortbow is a close second and more of a “jack of all trades” type of mobility).
What I see here is more nerf to PvE Burst and damage, then compensating this damage loss in PvP with boon hate, which means nothing in PvE.
What I see here is more nerf to PvE Burst and damage, then compensating this damage loss in PvP with boon hate, which means nothing in PvE.
I think it’s common knowledge by now that they don’t give a rat’s tail about Thief PvE.
Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief
Resident Thief
What I see here is more nerf to PvE Burst and damage, then compensating this damage loss in PvP with boon hate, which means nothing in PvE.
I think it’s common knowledge by now that they don’t give a rat’s tail about Thief PvE.
They just need to separate PvE tPvP and WvW rules more imo…
The dev’s haven’t come up with what boon hate even does or how strong it’ll be yet.
Personally I would prefer to see more str8 boon ripping/destruction/corruption vs. something like extra damage (hich would then be mitigated by protection). Boon hate doesn’t sound very thief like either… far more warrior like.
Tarnished Coast
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
(edited by Aberrant.6749)
What I see here is more nerf to PvE Burst and damage, then compensating this damage loss in PvP with boon hate, which means nothing in PvE.
I think it’s common knowledge by now that they don’t give a rat’s tail about Thief PvE.
They just need to separate PvE and PvP rules more imo…
The dev’s haven’t come up with what boon hate even does or how strong it’ll be yet. Personally I would prefer to see more str8 boon ripping/destruction/corruption vs. something like extra damage… which would then be mitigated by protection/regen…
Unfortunately their adamant that they won’t do that so that new players are more prepared for the jump to WvW and PvP (because its working so far and all the mechanics you need to know in pvp are present in pve!)
What I see here is more nerf to PvE Burst and damage, then compensating this damage loss in PvP with boon hate, which means nothing in PvE.
I think it’s common knowledge by now that they don’t give a rat’s tail about Thief PvE.
They just need to separate PvE and PvP rules more imo…
The dev’s haven’t come up with what boon hate even does or how strong it’ll be yet. Personally I would prefer to see more str8 boon ripping/destruction/corruption vs. something like extra damage… which would then be mitigated by protection/regen…
Unfortunately their adamant that they won’t do that so that new players are more prepared for the jump to WvW and PvP (because its working so far and all the mechanics you need to know in pvp are present in pve!)
I really don’t understand why new players are this much of a concern to where it is now causing changes higher skill level gameplay (for the worse). Is it really a bad thing for a game to have some initial learning curves and imbalances when certain classes fight for the first time? Sure take it into consideration, but don’t kitten over the non-new players for it.
Tarnished Coast
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
The biggest problem with ‘boon hate’ is that so many classes have boons on procs that are relatively unavoidable or core to their defensive spec. You can never make ‘boon hate’ good because there is such little player input involved on either side. Turrets and Minions have the same problem. You can’t create a competitive system where one player can punish another when the mechanics involved are side-effects of other ubiquitous elements like dealing or taking damage.
Boon hate is indeed a very bad idea because what they are going to do is create a cluster…you know what.
If they go through with this…they are essentially gutting their own boon system, making it bad for you to have boons…which is entirely contradictory to the concept of applying a boon to yourself.
A new player, or even veteran, expects that if you apply a boon to yourself you are getting stronger, not being suddenly opened up to being damaged more. It’s completely unintuitive and goes down the slippery slope of, “oh so we added boon hate, what’s next, we have to add in boon love?”
“Boon Love” – this has been added into the game, we are planning to add traits/abilities that allow players with boons to not take as much damage from players with boon hate.
So you see the problem anet? The concept of boon hate is unnecessary and going to make your balance design overly complicated for no reason.
Instead of doing this, let’s be real here. Address the actual balance problem instead of trying to avoid the issue. And that of course currently is the d/d elementalist with lots of boons for the most part.
I honestly do not think the d/d ele is a problem overall yet, but if they believe it to be they should tone down the d/d ele’s boon, or obvious things like the arcana trait that gives 5 seconds lingering attunement bonuses..etc.
You get the picture – address the issue of the d/d boon ele instead of introducing a concept that’s adversely going to affect your entire class system.
They can go one of 2 routes.
1) Take a long, in depth look at every class that can currently “Boon Spam” (Read: Keep a plethora of boons up during average length combat, even through boon stripping). They would have to take into account all traits, utilities, abilities and rune sets that grant access to and lengthen the time of said boons, and then take into consideration current boon stripping options, and whether or not they need to be expanded, and then make adjustments.
2) Add Boon hate (or boon stripping, targeted or otherwise) so that players can’t just blindly throw up boons anymore. They’ll have to make choices, only using boons that apply to the fight at hand, and not just blindly re-applying over and over again because they can. A thief or warrior will be scary not because “Oh kitten, they can do alot of damage in 3 seconds”, but instead because “Oh kitten, I can’t just blindly keep stacking duration on 6 different boons (only 3 of which are really helping me in this fight atm anyway) anymore, I actually have to apply those boons when they’ll be most useful.” This has the added benefit (if done correctly) of making thieves and warriors a more fun class to fight against – no more burst fest fights between non-bunkers. Instead, we’ll have some give and take, more opportunities for counter play, all without compromising the ability to deal with bunkers.
I absolutely do not trust anet to do 1/10th of the work that option 1 entails correctly. Option 2 is much simpler (though admittedly IMO still beyond their ability to properly implement) and carries less overall work to implement, and less complexity to take into account.
They also made boons to integral to bunkering – in most games, buffs or boons are helpful, but aren’t the thing that make or break a tank. In this game, the difference between a bunker and easy prey is heavily dependent on the boons they have access to, how often they can be applied, and how long they last – perfectly balancing boon access, boon duration, and boon stripping would be a nightmare for any company.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
(edited by evilapprentice.6379)
Bums will always have trouble with thieves. It’s true of rogue classes in every game. Thief is definitely good in WvW but it’s nowhere near the best; certainly not to the extent that it needs nerfs.
It’s funny that they think high-level tPvP actually exists anymore. Welcome to the spin zone.
Post of the month +1 made me chuckle a bit because it’s true. What about d/d ele ? Mesmers , 100nades engis. Since when is thief so good in WvW ? Probably the worst in a big zerg aoe destroys him. They needed 7 nerfs so far and they still claim it one of the best classes in WvW ? What a JOKE.
play hard , go pro.
Thieves have some of the worst weapon sets in the game. (P/P) and probably the worst utility in the game. (Venom.)
Hero {} Roleplayer {} Friend {} Professional Princess Saver
https://twitter.com/TalathionEQ2
https://twitter.com/TalathionEQ2
I find the shortbow’s evade and cripple an awful skill. It only works if I’m standing still (not because it cancels or anything, because I bounce around like a rubber ball if it moves me when I’m running, and often end up landing on the enemy – it’s similar to the thing which used to happen whenever dodging coincided with an attack) and that really ruins it because if I stop during the cast, the short range isn’t worth the initiative cost and I’d be better off sideways-running.
Oddly enough, the P/D skill which teleports me doesn’t care if I’m moving, the bouncing effect is non-existent for it. Both of them will randomly ‘hit’ minor imperfections in terrain I would have run right over though. That also seems to be true of shortbow #5.
SB #5 though is otherwise much better, and my only complaint is that it’s bad for fleeing because the cast time, arrow travel time, and range mean that I’ve almost run that far anyway. With speed from stealth or signet maybe I actually will have run that far… but as long as I don’t waste initiative trying to escape with it, it can help to get out of effects, and naturally applying blind is nice.
So in balancing the PvP meta, they want to make thieves less dangerous to new players by lowering our burst, while simultaneously making thieves and warriors wanted in high level PvP situations more as the anti-bunker classes. You gotta bring a thief or warrior in to tear down that bunker ele or guard since they are effectively giving us a nutcracker. Add more mobility so we can actually survive the lengthy encounter.
~sinp~
Joh Sharp:
~snip~
As Allie said, we want to be careful to balance their WvW/PvE potential against their PvP potential, and then inside of PvP, we have to be careful to watch how they perform at high ranks vs. low ranks.
~snip~
Please take a good look at GW1 and please learn from it.
Trying to balance something in different situation i a VERY BAD THING!
You already have different rules in place when it comes to PvP and PvE (i.e. Stun duration), so why not expand that and make the skills function differently in WvW, PvP, and PvE — high rank, low rank?
Stop changing it accross the board, it’s just not healthy for the game. It’s not cheap to keep changing gears just because you messed up.
I am coming to a point that I won’t care anymore.
http://sirvincentiii.com ~ In the beginning…there was Tarnished Coast…
Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D – Make it happen
PvE – DD/CS/AC – If that didn’t work, roll a Reaper or Revenant.
Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D – Make it happen
PvE – DD/CS/AC – If that didn’t work, roll a Reaper or Revenant.
Thieves have some of the worst weapon sets in the game. (P/P) and probably the worst utility in the game. (Venom.)
It amazes me how bad venoms are for a 45sec cooldown. One of my other characters is a necromancer, so I found this one particularly insulting…
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ice_Drake_Venom
Compare… http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chillblains and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spinal_Shivers http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spectral_Grasp
It might be nice… if three utilities were overkill and I wanted a decoration.
The only thing wrong with Venoms is the Cooldown.
The great forum duppy.
The only thing wrong with Venoms is Ice Drake and Skale.
Ok, they could use all some tweaks but those two are extra bad.
Venoms are terrible because they can become really powerfull when you trait massively into them.
Reducing the cd would be a lazy way to "fix"them, they need a complete overhaul be it in the skill effect itself and the traits.
Also, Traps (traits doesn’t save those at all).
It’s not my fault if S/P is not popular !!!
(edited by Puru.4217)
What I see here is more nerf to PvE Burst and damage, then compensating this damage loss in PvP with boon hate, which means nothing in PvE.
Exactly. Nothing it those posts indicates that they give even two kittens about PVE. Probably why they posted it in sPvP forum and not here.
What I see here is more nerf to PvE Burst and damage, then compensating this damage loss in PvP with boon hate, which means nothing in PvE.
Exactly. Nothing it those posts indicates that they give even two kittens about PVE. Probably why they posted it in sPvP forum and not here.
PvE/WvW players pay the bills so the Dev can have fun in their pet project called s/tPvP. Need to hurry up and cutt s/tPvP development since it offers no value added to GW2 and is tying up valuable resources.
The only thing s/pPvP is good for is a free trip to Lion Arch.
The only thing s/pPvP is good for is a free trip to Lion Arch.
I agree’d with almost everything else you said except for this.
sPvP is rediculously fun no matter what class you are playing.
It also the best place to learn how other classes work and gain a much better understanding of how combat actually works.
I’ve learned a lot about warriors and mesmers and soon necros/engineers. My main is a thief, but I play spvp with these classes to learn their strengths and weaknesses so that I can exploit them on whatever class I am playing.
You can also get a much better picture of class balance there because everyone has the same armor choices/runes/stats etc. You don’t have to be rich to succeed.
Just another noob thief…
I lost my faith in the “balance” schemes; I stopped playing my thief a few days ago, reluctantly. The coolest, most fun class, but the fun has been draining away from it.
My expectation is that damage will be reduced yet again as the next change, as they mentioned that in the SoTG. In addition I seriously doubt there will be "buffs"n (added mobility, ability to to ‘hang in the fight’ longer/better…and the ‘boon hate’ idea seems a total waste for pve and probably a disaster to implement in pvp…and WHAT has THAT got to do with a thief???)
In the past few days, I just had less and less desire to log on my thief. I realized, I fully expect the class to be absolutely no fun in pve soon ( no fun for me, anyway).
It is hard for me to believe that coming changes will at the very least, not detract from the fun for me….let alone add to it.
So, I just decided , enough. I am not going to waste any more time in game on the class until I see what the future holds. The trend so far has been very negative and this is what I expect in the future. Why should I invest in more sets of armor and weapons for different builds? I really feel that the class will be in truly bad shape eventually….maybe sooner than later.
So, on to other toons. I will watch developments but expect only to see degradation.
Luckily I do have some other classes I enjoy, though not as much I used to enjoy the thief in pve.
My expectation is that damage will be reduced yet again as the next change, as they mentioned that in the SoTG. In addition I seriously doubt there will be "buffs"n (added mobility, ability to to ‘hang in the fight’ longer/better…and the ‘boon hate’ idea seems a total waste for pve and probably a disaster to implement in pvp…and WHAT has THAT got to do with a thief???)
This is my worry as well. They’re using the “boon hate” idea as an excuse to further nerf us, with zero compensation in PVE. I’ve shelved my thief for now, spending my time mostly on the warrior and guardian.
The biggest problem with ‘boon hate’ is that so many classes have boons on procs that are relatively unavoidable or core to their defensive spec. You can never make ‘boon hate’ good because there is such little player input involved on either side. Turrets and Minions have the same problem. You can’t create a competitive system where one player can punish another when the mechanics involved are side-effects of other ubiquitous elements like dealing or taking damage.
Boon hate is indeed a very bad idea because what they are going to do is create a cluster…you know what.
If they go through with this…they are essentially gutting their own boon system, making it bad for you to have boons…which is entirely contradictory to the concept of applying a boon to yourself.
A new player, or even veteran, expects that if you apply a boon to yourself you are getting stronger, not being suddenly opened up to being damaged more. It’s completely unintuitive and goes down the slippery slope of, “oh so we added boon hate, what’s next, we have to add in boon love?”
“Boon Love” – this has been added into the game, we are planning to add traits/abilities that allow players with boons to not take as much damage from players with boon hate.
So you see the problem anet? The concept of boon hate is unnecessary and going to make your balance design overly complicated for no reason.
Instead of doing this, let’s be real here. Address the actual balance problem instead of trying to avoid the issue. And that of course currently is the d/d elementalist with lots of boons for the most part.
I honestly do not think the d/d ele is a problem overall yet, but if they believe it to be they should tone down the d/d ele’s boon, or obvious things like the arcana trait that gives 5 seconds lingering attunement bonuses..etc.
You get the picture – address the issue of the d/d boon ele instead of introducing a concept that’s adversely going to affect your entire class system.
They can go one of 2 routes.
1) Take a long, in depth look at every class that can currently “Boon Spam” (Read: Keep a plethora of boons up during average length combat, even through boon stripping). They would have to take into account all traits, utilities, abilities and rune sets that grant access to and lengthen the time of said boons, and then take into consideration current boon stripping options, and whether or not they need to be expanded, and then make adjustments.
2) Add Boon hate (or boon stripping, targeted or otherwise) so that players can’t just blindly throw up boons anymore. They’ll have to make choices, only using boons that apply to the fight at hand, and not just blindly re-applying over and over again because they can. A thief or warrior will be scary not because “Oh kitten, they can do alot of damage in 3 seconds”, but instead because “Oh kitten, I can’t just blindly keep stacking duration on 6 different boons (only 3 of which are really helping me in this fight atm anyway) anymore, I actually have to apply those boons when they’ll be most useful.” This has the added benefit (if done correctly) of making thieves and warriors a more fun class to fight against – no more burst fest fights between non-bunkers. Instead, we’ll have some give and take, more opportunities for counter play, all without compromising the ability to deal with bunkers.I absolutely do not trust anet to do 1/10th of the work that option 1 entails correctly. Option 2 is much simpler (though admittedly IMO still beyond their ability to properly implement) and carries less overall work to implement, and less complexity to take into account.
They also made boons to integral to bunkering – in most games, buffs or boons are helpful, but aren’t the thing that make or break a tank. In this game, the difference between a bunker and easy prey is heavily dependent on the boons they have access to, how often they can be applied, and how long they last – perfectly balancing boon access, boon duration, and boon stripping would be a nightmare for any company.
“Bunkering” was never intended to be part of the game by the devs. They listed class roles as control, support, and dps (in varying degrees of combination) in several interviews pre-release, “tank/bunker” was never mentioned.
However, they did not fully consider every conceivable way that players would stack traits/boons to reach insane levels of survivability; so we wind up with “bunkers”. This is an anomaly that they are attempting to fix to some extent by giving some sort of counter to it other than “zerging” them.
~Shadowkat
Adding a couple of evades to our sets will not make up for some big damage reduction to our burst.
I’m all for making thieves and warriors capable of “bunker buster” specs. However, I’m not for pigeonholing thieves in to a single role in combat either.
Take a look at warrior for instance. They’ve done a good deal of work improving its spec diverstiy, including the recent major buff to banners to allow for working control, damage, or support specs.
Thieves, on the other hand, suffer from lackluster control or support options, even when traited heavily in that direction. Stealth nerfing is also a blind nerf, caltrops nerf is another control nerf, etc.
Personally I like mobility. After the nerf I rerolled D/D acrobatics/bleed and I’m having a blast with having to wrangle 4.6 million dodges and all the timing. It’s a lot of fun. However, it’s also still substandard to what a D/D ele is capable of. In the interim I’ve got less support options than before (and my P/D support setup was already kinda bad before) and my non-burst damage build options require substantially more effort and skill for equivalent or poorer damage than virtually every other class in the game. In top of that, control is extremely limited in that there aren’t any solid traits/utilities to back up sword control builds in a meaningful way (traps should be that option, but they’re just bad)
I’m all for having a boon hate option, but lets not design classes around being one trick ponies while we’re at it.
Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ