Guild Wars 2

I’m ok with the changes.

WvW will get 3s reveal again, and boon stealing for all those boon stackers. I can see fighting those rangers will be TONS easier =P

Travlane.5948:

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?

You realize that thief was designed as a single target damage class right? Stick on sbow and harass the zerg (very effectively I might add) and when you see that guy take a few too many hits and wants to retreat behind his zerg, that’s your opportunity. You melt those people in heartbeats finish them without anyone knowing what’s up, then get out. If you do it right and a bunch of people go to res that guy, you can clusterbomb spam that group while you’re still close which will often leave their zerg weak. Not saying this always works or if that will even work in t1 wvw but I know for a fact it has worked many times for me and has won zerg fights for GoM.

tldr~take out vulnerable targets and initiate in with crazy aoe damage in close range if you see the opportunity.

Volrath.1473:

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?

It’s not as prevalent in pvp b/c you often don’t get full aa chains off between each cnd. It will be a little strange having the 2 different but I consider this a big victory for thief in general. Even if it isn’t that big a small victory is better than no victory at all.

Oldgrimm.8521:

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

Yeah if they don’t decide to back off it at the last minute like the March patch…

Also, thieves were never going to get boon hate. Ever. That was something someone misheard from last SotG and assumed they were talking about thieves. Its a warrior thing.

Being able to transform boons from an enemy to yourself does sound like a boon hate mechanism to me.

On the paper it sounds way more interesting than just flat out dmg% increase warriors are getting. Stealing boons is very thiefy thing to do and “in your face” raw damage punishment suits warriors more.

We will see how this concept will get developed in the future, but I think it will make experienced thieves that know what to steal in which situation pretty annoying.

kubetz.3058:

Being able to transform boons from an enemy to yourself does sound like a boon hate mechanism for me.

On the paper it sounds way more interesting than just flat out dmg% increase warriors ae getting. Stealing boons is very thiefy thing to do and “in your face” raw damage punishment is suiting warriors more.

We will see how this concept will get developed in the future, but I think it will make experienced thieves that know what to steal in which situation pretty annoying.

exactly why I`m swapping my traits from bug to bountiful theft and I will have no regrets. Time to be more thiefy and this change will def increase the skill ceiling for really good thief players. Makes me think Dps thief can be useful in pvp now. Probably have to go soldier due to EVERYTHING being bunker but with all the boon rips, we might actually be able to for someone else off a point and cap it.

Finaly made my thief ( third char after main ele and second mesmer) and not going to rely on kittentealth since it makes player skill slack IMO. Theory wise got play style but everything else is shaky except I’ll 100% S/D which is awesome for me.

About steal… Instantly saw it as an awesome juke tool and escape. In trouble? Find target, steal to them(now heal) and run away laughing after the instant teleport. Team this up with the sword 2 skill with the circles and you just jump all over the place. Way more to thieves than gimmicky glass cannon stealth 2second paperweight builds

Like I said all theory crafting but using it as a damage and not a juke tool seemed weird considering how strong it is. Team up with short bow…. You get the picture Guess I’ll level thief up faster since glamour isn’t gonna be great with confusion nerf anymore for mesmer. Not even level 10 yet XD

I like this. Making the thief a little bit resistent while lessening the overall instagib damage (that can still be done!)

As a user of virtually everything people forgot about I’m kind of interested in the mug change. That’s just one more passive heal in my malice evasion build, and bonus, it happens at the same time as improvisation procs, meaning that now I may not only be doubling up on basilisk venom, shadowstep, shadow refuge, roll for initiative, or whatever, but I’m actually getting a bonus heal? That’s neat and actually a good alternative to increase poison duration. I’ll wait until I play with it to see if the new pathing for flanking strike is less off putting than the last time I tried S/D.

Something they mentioned that has not been listed here is the Signet changes for everyone. They want to make using a signet a tough decision: Use it for the special benefit(s) you get for activation, or keep it unused for the passive benefits.

They plan on doubling those signets that offer a stat increase. For example, Signet of Agility will give 180 precision instead of it’s current 90. The base will be 20 + 2 points per level.

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.

It should be pointed out that they said Flanking Strike would now cost 3 init. So Flanking Strike + Larcenous Strike should still cost the same as old Flanking Strike.

ryokoalways.3450:

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

there is no choice now. 1 boon steal is NOT the answer as ALL Boones last 10 secs or 6 secs. VERY rare it lasts more. anyway steal is now the worst F skill in game as it was before. mug is a joke. and BURST is not possible. warriors AND mesmers will NOW outburst thieves. if u dont agree than u are just really ignorant of more than one class.. not trying to be mean if u disagree but its true. see how much a warrior can burst for with signet of rage and a 5 sec immobilize…..mesmers shattering 5 cloens/phantasms after they all ahve done dmg with zerker setup then the mesmer goes invulnerable for 2 secs with a flurry of GS attacks. pffft yeah. we dont even have invulnerable. but steal ing 8 secs of swiftness or 5 secs of protection. if u notice the best defensive boons in the game are 75% short lasting. and giving on pulses also…so making them stolen really not change much….. this patch for thieves is a major fail and more nerfs. EVERYTHIGN was a nerf. everything. the boon hate is a joke. u will see . if people start playing s/d which i have done for 6 months…….it will b because of its “fun” factor. not for skill 3 and larcenous strike.

Fade.7658:

Something they mentioned that has not been listed here is the Signet changes for everyone. They want to make using a signet a tough decision: Use it for the special benefit(s) you get for activation, or keep it unused for the passive benefits.

They plan on doubling those signets that offer a stat increase. For example, Signet of Agility will give 180 precision instead of it’s current 90. The base will be 20 + 2 points per level.

I think they are improving the heal signets as well. Many other signets are going to get improved too.

google.3709:

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.

The odds are terrible.
You would have to land it 3-4 times to get a somewhat reliable chance at the might stack on an HGH engi. That or blow a trait on that boon steal on steal.
(they have constant, refreshing, short duration vigor/swiftness; typically regen occasionally retal/protection/fury)

From my understanding the first hit of FS will delete a boon from the enemy, the second one will do lots of damage, and the third optional hit will steal a boon? Isn’t this kinda bad because you might delete a 25 might stack but steal retaliation? Why can’t both hits be boon steals?

They’ve split the 2nd hit into the chain skill.

garethh.3518:

google.3709:

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.

The odds are terrible.
You would have to land it 3-4 times to get a somewhat reliable chance at the might stack on an HGH engi. That or blow a trait on that boon steal on steal.
(they have constant, refreshing, short duration vigor/swiftness; typically regen occasionally retal/protection/fury)

short duration and fast reapplications. wtf ist he point. they give us one skill and nerf 33% of our burst… kudos anet.

Turbo Whale.1738:

From my understanding the first hit of FS will delete a boon from the enemy, the second one will do lots of damage, and the third optional hit will steal a boon? Isn’t this kinda bad because you might delete a 25 might stack but steal retaliation? Why can’t both hits be boon steals?

u misunderstand. the first evades and strikes. the 2nd u can use for 1 intiative whenever and if it strikes it removes a boon(s) and you get it (or them) ……………..first part is called flanking strike(2 inti) second is called larcenous (1 inti)

I’ll take a 3s revealed for a mug change like this any day of the week… the larcenous strike sounds solid as well.

Overall it doesn’t seem like a big hit from the nerfbat… more of a change. They felt mug was too strong for such a low tier trait, so they removed the crit, but added in another component to partially make up for it. I MUCH prefer them balancing like this vs all of the straight 50% damage nerfs etc.

anyoneelse realize that our F skill is 1/3rd at best of everyone elses? F skills and yes i said skills as plural bc ours is only 1