Guild Wars 2

oh wow

mug cannot crit anymore, but you gain heal for 2k and will scale with healing power

S/D flanking strike will steal boons, For the win!!!!! guardian i will hug you

and so on

we did not get boon hate, it went to warriors 3% damage per boon

but do I still evade with flanking strike.

Is that all for the thief? i missed like 80% of the show

So mug’s a life-steal now?

The evade will stay in.

edit: The boon stealing portion will be named Larcenous Strike, and will steal the whole stack of whatever boon is stolen, so if you steal might from a warrior, you will get all of it.

They are also improving the animation and tracking of Flanking Strike so it performs better.

They are also considering in a later patch to add a trait that will share stolen boons with team mates, and if steal is used with no target, it will shadowstep you forward, but they didn’t make any diehard promises on either.

There’s a bit more. They said they will begin to increase the base damage for some skills so we won’t have to rely so much on crit. and there will be a possibility of making the shadow step skills teleport even if you don’t have a target.

mug is a healing ability with damage now, and you cannot crit using that skill.

pretty much that is the big update for thieves,

making S/D the new meta ( i think)

since S/D FS will be a tactical weapon set,

you should hunt and wear down bunkers, and it is spammable in a sense (given that you have enough initiative to play with

Fade.7658:

The evade will stay in.

edit: The boon stealing portion will be named Larcenous Strike, and will steal the whole stack of whatever boon is stolen, so if you steal might from a warrior, you will get all of it.

They are also improving the animation and tracking of Flanking Strike so it performs better.

They are also considering in a later patch to add a trait that will share stolen boons with team mates, and if steal is used with no target, it will shadowstep you forward, but they didn’t make any diehard promises on either.

Nothing about the dmg or animation speed?
Assuming dmg nerf.

How exactly does this work? You use flanking strike then your 3rd ability will change to larcenous strike for a few seconds before returning to flanking strike?

Did they increase survivability for any other weapon set either? If you’re not running sword/dagger this sounds like a nerf for any direct damage thief build.

I thought they also said they reverting the 4s reveleaded in PVE and WvW, I just seen the post about SOTG in WvW forums

ensoriki.5789:

Fade.7658:

The evade will stay in.

edit: The boon stealing portion will be named Larcenous Strike, and will steal the whole stack of whatever boon is stolen, so if you steal might from a warrior, you will get all of it.

They are also improving the animation and tracking of Flanking Strike so it performs better.

They are also considering in a later patch to add a trait that will share stolen boons with team mates, and if steal is used with no target, it will shadowstep you forward, but they didn’t make any diehard promises on either.

Nothing about the dmg or animation speed?
Assuming dmg nerf.

They said they improved the evade animation so it tracks your target better and should be easier to land. I’d like to see how true this actually is against a real player though.

No mention of an increase of animation speed, nor a damage decrease. It looks like Larcenous strike pops up after the animation of Flanking strike and costs 1 init to use.

Did they mention how many booms this will steal ? or will it stay at one!

and guys be positive ;P boon hate build are actually really strong, imagine yourself stealing 25 might from HGH engi or stability from Ele’s or even swiftness from a running enemy as they try to run away. a guardian without protection is meat cake they just need to make it so the animation at the end of flanking strike doesn’t root you at the end.

So still nothing on mobility a month after it was mentioned, boon hate turned out to be a single attack on a single weapon set, and we probably won’t even get that in the stated form since it would be overpowered.
Mug change is about as short-sighted as possible. Steal is typically used to open a fight, when Health is still full.

I think they mentioned steal being a directional shadow step when without a target. It’s not coming yet but it’s something being looked at.

Additionally thief mobility improved relatively to the massive nerf to RTL for this particular patch.

Change to mug to heal is fine for now, but not really a long term answer. Now there is a choice to whether you want to open full burst or not. The problem I have with the change is that the heal is on mug and not on steal itself, so that trait is still pretty much mandatory.

We’ll see how boon steal works out.

TJL

Fade.7658:

No mention of an increase of animation speed, nor a damage decrease. It looks like Larcenous strike pops up after the animation of Flanking strike and costs 1 init to use.

A chain skill?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

R.I.P my build.
I knew they’d pull something to mess it up.

I think stealing boons from the target, as they seem to be leaning toward, is a good way to add “boon hate” to the Thief within their own theme.
We need far more of it than just one attack though.

I hope there are more changes to the thief than this. A 2k heal every 45 seconds is nothing on a glass cannon thief, while the burst damage is also reduced. Since thieves really just rely on high burst to finish someone, they’re going to fail to quickly their target quickly more often and a 2k heal isn’t going to make up for the extra damage you take if your targets survives longer, assuming you don’t open with mug in the first place.

I don’t really like the reliance on your target using boons to boost our survivability either. It’s not going to do much in pve for the most part, and there’s only a few classes in pvp this will be effective on.

Fade.7658:

No mention of an increase of animation speed, nor a damage decrease. It looks like Larcenous strike pops up after the animation of Flanking strike and costs 1 init to use.

Wth?!

That’s is one unnecessary additional step that nobody asked for.

To be honest, I rather have them take 6-12 months before any update and get it right instead of having stupid updates like this that not only doesn’t serve the intended purpose but screws with every S/D rotation just because whoever is in the balance team doesn’t seems to know what they are doing.

I’ve seen many regulars here in the forum who makes more sense. This what happens when they never visit this forum just to get a little bit informed.

This is like GW1 all over again.

Putting the hurt on guardians and eles! High five, thieves, from a warrior!

ensoriki.5789:

Fade.7658:

No mention of an increase of animation speed, nor a damage decrease. It looks like Larcenous strike pops up after the animation of Flanking strike and costs 1 init to use.

A chain skill?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

R.I.P my build.
I knew they’d pull something to mess it up.

1. Please don’t use “fuark” to try and sound cool for something this kitten you’re not 10 years old
2. You have no clue how the kitten it’s going to work, why don’t you wait before making kittenumptions?

By the way, stealing boons, and potentially sharing it, is a Mesmer’s job. This idea is way out of flavor for a Thief.

IMO, they should take another month and another after that and re-iterate it more.

I love my thief.. you cam take my skills but you’ll never take my FREEDOM!!

Actually you probably can

Just throwing this out there.. I will always play my thief because I enjoy it so much

Bring on me boons

Humorless.1573:

ensoriki.5789:

Fade.7658:

No mention of an increase of animation speed, nor a damage decrease. It looks like Larcenous strike pops up after the animation of Flanking strike and costs 1 init to use.

A chain skill?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

R.I.P my build.
I knew they’d pull something to mess it up.

1. Please don’t use “fuark” to try and sound cool for something this kitten you’re not 10 years old
2. You have no clue how the kitten it’s going to work, why don’t you wait before making kittenumptions?

1. Cry me a river
2. As a chain skill it divides the skill at present you can cancel FS with itself . Within ini, the only other chain skill? Does not cancel itself. Actually I don’t recall any chain skill in the game from launch to now that cancels itself. Inability to cancel does have implications on survivability for the set itself as well from it’s current form as providing a secondary step for an augmentation to its current boon removal feature.

I think the mug change was stupid. I think thieves needed more burst to deal with bunkers…

However, they chose to go with the S/D route to deal with bunkers slowly…

Seriously, how is mugging someone supposed to give you health? Doesn’t make sense to me at all.

99% of the time I use steal on INC to get my burst off in spvp. So how is 2k hps supposed to help me while I’m already at 100%?

not the worst patch, not the best

swinsk.6410:

Seriously, how is mugging someone supposed to give you health? Doesn’t make sense to me at all.

You mug like a vampire, jump on them and bite their neck like a pro.

anyone have a link to the sotg thingy? I’d like to hear what was said. Is interesting despite the last one they said one thing but the patch did something completely different (ala instead of revealed on stealth exit, we got 4s revealed)

randomfightfan.4091:

anyone have a link to the sotg thingy? I’d like to hear what was said. Is interesting despite the last one they said one thing but the patch did something completely different (ala instead of revealed on stealth exit, we got 4s revealed)

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/c/2208106

^ thanks 15 chars

What the dumb how did they decide on mug healing for 2k. They think we will use it defensively? I use it when I’m full hp #facepalm. This is a band aid not a fix and it’s pretty random.

Heal on mug dumb award of 2013

ChesterWing.5321:

^typical dumb thief that opens with mug and gets his burst evaded

Opening with mug is so 2012, right? lol

I can’t see Fs being a channeled ability, you sure they just didn’t tack the boon steal onto the second strike?

i reserve opinion on mug. at first glance it seems like a bad idea simply for the fact that if your mug doesn’t crit where does that leave swirl, throw gunk, and all the other abilities you mug.

I’m a little concerned that every single time they talk about balance they’re talking about sPvP and the pvp meta.

I understand that they want to concentrate on turning sPvP into a competitive community, but they specifically mention splitting effects so that they don’t neuter PvE with changes, so obviously they should be paying at least some attention to PvE balance right?
Yet the only change they discussed making BECAUSE of PvE was a change to Pet Ai.

There’s a LOT to be said about PvE balance such as how blinds are completely overpowered against normals/vets but then almost completely useless against champions or how condition damage is virtually useless in large group events, etc… etc…

Is the SotG show specifically about PvP (in which case please ignore this rant), or are the devs really placing 99% of their attention to balance on PvP with only a secondary thought to how those PvP changes will affect PvE?

ya the devs really only care about the 500 people that play spvp

that wasn’t sarcasm and I think its funny as hell that they’re focusing on such a small aspect of this game when it comes to balancing

Well at least we weren’t hit the hardest by the nerf bat this time. It’s not like we haven’t been warning people for months that once the thief was nerfed to an unviable state that they would be next. So they took the fact that they may have overdone it on the last patch and are now (partially) reverting it.

As for mug, it would have been better thematically I think to combine it with bountiful theft to give burst thieves a second attempt if the first try failed and give trickery a new trait like they did for warriors.

Watched the video. Apparently only S/D got the boon steal so it could be used as a guinea pig. If it works out well, we may or may not see that crucial benefit for the rest of the profession some time in… I don’t know, Fall? They said specifically they won’t even be doing a balance patch next month <_<
‘Cause minor changes once a freakin’ month wasn’t slow enough, right?

I neither understand nor care for the changes to Mug. I liked it just fine the way it was. I’m not going to throw myself from a cliff, mind you; the sun will still rise tomorrow. But I’d rather they have left it alone.

swinsk.6410:

I think the mug change was stupid. I think thieves needed more burst to deal with bunkers…

However, they chose to go with the S/D route to deal with bunkers slowly…

Seriously, how is mugging someone supposed to give you health? Doesn’t make sense to me at all.

99% of the time I use steal on INC to get my burst off in spvp. So how is 2k hps supposed to help me while I’m already at 100%?

not the worst patch, not the best

very happy S/D builts get some love, so sick of all the Dagger built out there.

phor.7952:

I’m a little concerned that every single time they talk about balance they’re talking about sPvP and the pvp meta.

I understand that they want to concentrate on turning sPvP into a competitive community, but they specifically mention splitting effects so that they don’t neuter PvE with changes, so obviously they should be paying at least some attention to PvE balance right?
Yet the only change they discussed making BECAUSE of PvE was a change to Pet Ai.

There’s a LOT to be said about PvE balance such as how blinds are completely overpowered against normals/vets but then almost completely useless against champions or how condition damage is virtually useless in large group events, etc… etc…

Is the SotG show specifically about PvP (in which case please ignore this rant), or are the devs really placing 99% of their attention to balance on PvP with only a secondary thought to how those PvP changes will affect PvE?

Yes, Guru’s SoTG is about PvP only, thats is why they invite players from the top tournament teams to participate in them.

Oldgrimm.8521:

mug is a healing ability with damage now, and you cannot crit using that skill.

pretty much that is the big update for thieves,

making S/D the new meta ( i think)

since S/D FS will be a tactical weapon set,

you should hunt and wear down bunkers, and it is spammable in a sense (given that you have enough initiative to play with

yeah, the thing is they gave the boon “Stealing” ability to a weapon set that does not have burst dmg so even if you steal the bunkers boons you will need someone else to kill them since the S/D weapon set relies on auto attack for dmg….

Noob here. I like that mug will heal now! I usually use it mid combat though… 2k of 17k total hp sounds like it could be a massive improvement theoretically. Having access to 3 heals, and a potentially useful stolen item? Yes please… Then again I partake of spvp wvw and pve…

it is counter intuitive, teleporting into your enemies melee range in order to heal yourself for a little bit? if you need a heal the last thing you what to do is get in melee range of you opponent…

Also about Reveled, i wonder why no one is talking about it… if they admit that it makes the thief less effective and less fluid in PvE, doesn’t it have the same effect in PvP? why not reverse it on the PvP side as well?

um nope?
Deaths charge?
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Death's_Charge
It means if you are injured you can close the gap and refresh.
ergo you are at 8k already and a ranger comes at you, you steal and now your at 2k and have closed the range distance. It’s not counter-intuitive, only if they want you to only ever enter combat at full health. This helps you keep up your 5 pt minor trait in Critical strikes and even scholar runes if you are using the,/
Like John said specifically in that sotg “instead of starting with Steal, you can use it later” gives it multi-purpose.

Mindtrick.5190:

ChesterWing.5321:

^typical dumb thief that opens with mug and gets his burst evaded

Typical a person like you says something ignorant. You should come by my stream I will not only ban you from chat to save people from your opinion. But also show you how to play. Take care and I hope you rage out

Calm down, I’ve seen your stream and you’ve died to countless thieves and so many classes.. not to mention you way point after you use all your skills (have seen that about 15 times on your stream at least lol). Out of all people, don’t give advice on thieves.

it is awesome for condy thieves (a race almost extinct) since they save steal for when they have no init left (it gives 3 init on steal).

I can see it being useful for 30 Shadow Arts thieves with stealth on steal BUT none of those specs have traits in Deadly Arts… and for GC thieves 2k hp may help them stay alive for another 0,5sec.

wow. they just dont get it. lets take away dmg….making 1 v 1 worse……and zerg play worse…..lets give them boon steals on FS…..only helps 1 person…..hurts 1 person….THIEVES STILL CANT PLAY IN WVW! WTF is wrong with these game designers!? jesus. i guess i ll never be able to zerg it. ill have to roam all my kittening time in game. good grief. i have NEVER seen a change for thief where im like yeah thats cool. and they say that taking a boon from ele is going to cripple them to the group? it takes 2 secs for them to put it back up. wtf are theyt alkin about? do they even play this game or just read about it?

GuilguiS.2738:

There’s a bit more. They said they will begin to increase the base damage for some skills so we won’t have to rely so much on crit. and there will be a possibility of making the shadow step skills teleport even if you don’t have a target.

That seems counter-intuitive to me … I actually dropped crit because base damage was so low. /shrug

for people over kittening over mug, be thankful you are not being boned like the ele.

I think the changes are good, but I haven’t been a thief for long. I do worry that the class has a hard time actually engaging an enemy as they’ll always see you coming and mug helped me with this problem. I wish things like shadowstep stealthed you or the class had a long duration stealth on a long cooldown.

They made our only damage specs (mug) completely gone lol.. We got a 3 skill that takes away one boon (chanined skill).. Seems like a fair trade off.. Complete kitten

Volrath.1473:

phor.7952:

Is the SotG show specifically about PvP (in which case please ignore this rant)…

Yes, Guru’s SoTG is about PvP only, thats is why they invite players from the top tournament teams to participate in them.

Well that’s a bit of a load off my mind then I guess.
Thanks.