Guild Wars 2

After playing with it for the last few days, it is really kitten irritating not being able to remove imobolize and blind mostly, but also things like fear.

Just revert the change

BFMV.3198:

After playing with it for the last few days, it is really kitten irritating not being able to remove imobolize and blind mostly, but also things like fear.

Just revert the change

Yeah, Necro fearlock even more annoying.

Doggie.3184:

BFMV.3198:

After playing with it for the last few days, it is really kitten irritating not being able to remove imobolize and blind mostly, but also things like fear.

Just revert the change

Yeah, Necro fearlock even more annoying.

Hey, I know it isn’t a great solution but it will help you deal with fear
Try slotting signet of agility over blinding powder. Since most necros fear and instantly try to cast DS2 or DS1, popping your agility signet will instantly clear the fear if that was the last condition applied to you, and give you dodges to get out of the way.
It won’t be as nice as having your old shadow’s embrace back but at least you’ll have some counterplay to fear combo’s if your stun break is on cooldown.

Rin.1046:

Maybe they can just make SE give you invulnerability and immunity to conditions while in stealth? Stealth seems so underpowered. All you can do is hit hard from it, heal in it, gain ini faster in it, make yourself harder to hit in most situations, and reset most fights using it. If only it could have more advantages. If only stealth was the thief’s only mechanic they needed to use. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about learning any other mechanic or learn to use other non-steal skills! /s

Seriously, this is a good change. And in my opinion a necessary one. Not all nerfs are bad nerfs. Some of them are necessary and good for the game. Just as the engi’s Lock On trait is also a good addition. Cleaving and AoE’ing areas, in the hopes of hitting a stealthed enemy, is not good enough imo. Yes, some professions can knock or fear you out of SA, but that is the price you pay for having a skill that can give you 20 odd seconds of stealth. There needs to be drawbacks for such a powerful skill. And the same goes for stealth in general. There needs to be more solid ways of countering stealth, and I am really happy (as a stealth user) to see Anet adding more counter options and adjusting the potency of stealth for the thief.

The meta is changing, this is something you cannot avoid. With so many changes to skills and traits, builds people got confortable with are very likely to need adjustment. For me, I now take something else on my skill bar to deal with immob. This is not a big deal, and I can still make good use of stealth, both offensively and defensively. This change is not as crippling as many are making out.

Learn to adapt. And if Anet finds hundreds of thieves are dropping like flies, because of this change, I am sure they will fix it. But I doubt very much that will happen, because those who enjoy the profession as a whole, and not just the stealth mechanic, will likely be happy to adapt and will find ways to cope with this change.

I get the feeling you don’t play a thief.

As someone who plays multiple classes (thief ele guard warrior ranger in wvw and arenas and mesmer in arenas only) i can tell you thieves are in the tank right now.

Arena, nobody even takes Shadow arts if they know what they’re doing (and thats the trait line this thread is about). WvW, Shadow arts WAS imo a must outside of 1v1’s. Even in 1v1’s, half the classes you needed it for. With this huge nerf to SA thief survivability and sustain is almost completely gone. With my other classes in WvW (ele ranger warrior guard) i can deal with being outnumbered in a group fight and deal with multiple people at once. I used to b able to do that pre-patch, mostly because people are really kittening bad at this game. It is no longer possible to do that as thief against anything but the worst people.

If you lost to a thief on anything but a mesmer or ele pre-patch in a 1v1 it means you sucked. majorly. now both those classes can win too. Literally every matchup is stacked against thief.

I should note at this point that im talking about a power thief. obviously (hopefully obvious anyway). Condition thief used to be useless in anything larger than solo or duo roaming. It is much stronger now, and thats great. Im happy for condi thieves getting some power to compete in group settings. But i don’t want to play my thief that way as the playstyle is not enjoyable to me. I don’t play condition on any of my classes. I prefer the reaction/timing focus of instant power dmg over the condi and kitten off while they die approach. I respect people playing the more startegic condi style, butt i enjoy power more. And i don’t want to see the only thing that gave power thief enough suitability in groups to be viable gone.

What’s funny is that necro a new condi removal on entering DS works same way as old SE…

AegisRunestone.8672:

Especially if you’re fighting Teq. You’ll be feared into the poison fields and have no way of surviving it. :/

Tequatl’s Fear has a huge tell in its five second windup, complete with an NPC calling the incoming attack out. You do know you can just dodge it, right…?

I mean, after you dodge the initial super AoE effect, make sure you’re not standing in front of him where he’s breathing. The Fear will continue to pulse periodically right in front of him, but you’ll be fine to hit him from the side after dodging the start of the attack.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Tequatl’s Fear has a huge tell in its five second windup, complete with an NPC calling the incoming attack out. You do know you can just dodge it, right…?

I mean, after you dodge the initial super AoE effect, make sure you’re not standing in front of him where he’s breathing. The Fear will continue to pulse periodically right in front of him, but you’ll be fine to hit him from the side after dodging the start of the attack.

Yes, in a perfect world I have only eyes for the boss, am not out of dodges and I am not rezzing anyone so I can perfectly dodge everything that’s thrown at me.

Benevolence.8019:

I get the feeling you don’t play a thief.

I main a thief, and play all areas of the game, though mainly WvW and PvE. I also have one of every profession and often jump between them depending on my mood. But I play thief a ton more than the others, with currenly over 1500 hours on the thief alone.

I have been able to adapt my build and keep it effective, why haven’t you? Actually, my build now feels stronger than it did before. I think some are just unwilling to change and want stealth to do everything for them. They got used to relying on it too much (something I never did), and to them this change is crippling.

To the others struggling with fear from Zhaitan. How about you take a stun breaker and learning when and where is best to use it perhaps? Stealth in PvE is already stronger than any other defense type, without the ability to remove fear and immob. This change just means you need to use your brain more, and means you need to use more of your other tools & tricks. Stealth shouldn’t be able to counter most of the challenges you face on its own. No other defense mechanic in the game, even after traiting into it, gives you that much capability.

Rin.1046:

To the others struggling with fear from Zhaitan. How about you take a stun breaker and learning when and where is best to use it perhaps?

Since when does a stun breaker help against fear?
My warrior has got passive condi removal – or had, haven’t looked into his traits lately. My ele has got passive condi removal (signet). And the only skill I can used when feared is blinding powder – so I can equip everything I like, still I can’t use it.

Jana.6831:

Since when does a stun breaker help against fear?
My warrior has got passive condi removal – or had, haven’t looked into his traits lately. My ele has got passive condi removal (signet). And the only skill I can used when feared is blinding powder – so I can equip everything I like, still I can’t use it.

From the wiki:

Skills that stun break will cancel control effects such as stun. These are often indicated by a “Breaks stun” skill fact on the tooltip. Certain traits will also break stun by granting stability upon being hit by a control effect. Stun breaks work on control effects which last for a duration. Fear is considered a control effect as well as a condition and can be broken.

Also, if you’re talking about traits that break fear automatically, the thief has an auto stun breaker trait too (Hard To Catch). And if you prefer the active stun breaker (which I do, as the situation may not be dire enough to warrant breaking fear), you have a few options for the thief: Shadow Step, Haste, Infiltrator’s Signet and Roll For Initiative. And now we have a trait in trickery that makes tricks remove a condition, skills like Haste and Roll For Initiative will also remove a condi as well as stun break.

We have other options, it’s up to you if you want to ignore those options.

Rin.1046:

Skills that stun break will cancel control effects such as stun. These are often indicated by a “Breaks stun” skill fact on the tooltip. Certain traits will also break stun by granting stability upon being hit by a control effect. Stun breaks work on control effects which last for a duration. Fear is considered a control effect as well as a condition and can be broken.

Hasn’t ever worked for me – try it and look for yourself?

Rin.1046:

Also, if you’re talking about traits that break fear automatically, the thief has an auto stun breaker trait too (Hard To Catch). And if you prefer the active stun breaker (which I do, as the situation may not be dire enough to warrant breaking fear), you have a few options for the thief: Shadow Step, Haste, Infiltrator’s Signet and Roll For Initiative. And now we have a trait in trickery that makes tricks remove a condition, skills like Haste and Roll For Initiative will also remove a condi as well as stun break.

We have other options, it’s up to you if you want to ignore those options.

Same goes for that – doesn’t work against fear – try it.

Edit: Haven’t tried the trait that might work – but every other skill you mentioned won’t work against fear. (My thieves have got most of them equipped – and I fought Teq a lot)

Jana.6831:

Same goes for that – doesn’t work against fear – try it.

Edit: Haven’t tried the trait that might work – but every other skill you mentioned won’t work against fear. (My thieves have got most of them equipped – and I fought Teq a lot)

I have broken out of fear many times, but not vs tequatl so much, so maybe this is bugged. However, I will try this next time I fight teq and let you know if I fail to break it with a stun breaker.

However, even if it doesn’t (it should, but lets assume this has changed or its a bug), there are still options to break out of fear. Signet of Agility removes one condition, and the second part of Shadow Step removes 3 conditions, and I have used Shadow Step while feared plenty of times.

To be honest most of my experience fighting vs fear is in PvP and WvW, so maybe Tequatl’s fear is broken or different? I have only fought him a few times. However, I have fought Jormag’s Claw a lot more and have broken its fear many times using Infiltrator’s Signet (which has no condi cleanse and is only a stun break).

Rin.1046:

I have broken out of fear many times, but not vs tequatl so much, so maybe this is bugged. However, I will try this next time I fight teq and let you know if I fail to break it with a stun breaker.

Ok – maybe it does work with trickster/withdraw – but I’m pretty sure I tried last time I fought him and it didn’t work – not doing much since the patch anyway. Except map completion. But I will get myself to fight teq a few more times to try it as well.

Anyway; I have been to wvw and was running DA,CS and trickery at first – and there’s no way I can survive all these conditions with trickery. Then I went SA and still had a lot of troubles to survive – I don’t think the nerf was justified – as it is our defensive line but we can’t even survive with it – so basically I really can use the whole trickery line and just hope I’ll kill my enemy before the condis eat me up.

(I’m running D/D – maybe at some point I’ll try D/P – although I hate that weaponset)

Jana.6831:

Ok – maybe it does work with trickster/withdraw – but I’m pretty sure I tried last time I fought him and it didn’t work – not doing much since the patch anyway. Except map completion. But I will get myself to fight teq a few more times to try it as well.

I am not sure withdraw+trait will work, as fear is a control effect and I believe it locks you out of using withdraw. However, haste/roll for initiative + trait will work, because both of those are stun breakers and can therefore be used while feared.

Jana.6831:

Anyway; I have been to wvw and was running DA,CS and trickery at first – and there’s no way I can survive all these conditions with trickery. Then I went SA and still had a lot of troubles to survive – I don’t think the nerf was justified – as it is our defensive line but we can’t even survive with it – so basically I really can use the whole trickery line and just hope I’ll kill my enemy before the condis eat me up.

(I’m running D/D – maybe at some point I’ll try D/P – although I hate that weaponset)

Regarding the SA line, I still use it with the D/P set, and it still works a charm with Shadows Embrace, so it should still work with D/D. SE still removes damaging condis, so you only need to change your build to counter things like immob and fear. A simple swap out of Blinding Powder to a traited haste/roll for ini, or to shadow step/sig of agility, will give you that fear/immob break when needed. Your stealth will still get rid of the condi damage, as it did before.

Guys just ignore Rin. He’s on every thread trying to convince us all that Thief was too OP, and these nerfs are justified and great for the game.

Clearly he is better than everyone and we just need to L2P. Or an aNet shill. My money is on aNet shill.

CuteLilKittenHugz.2064:

Guys just ignore Rin. He’s on every thread trying to convince us all that Thief was too OP, and these nerfs are justified and great for the game.

Clearly he is better than everyone and we just need to L2P. Or an aNet shill. My money is on aNet shill.

I’m trying to use logic and experience to detail my points, what are you using? It seems to me that you are struggling to find a good enough arguement against me, and so resort to personal attacks in an attempt to discredit me. Well, I’m sorry but you are wastimg your time. I find it very satisfying to see this kind of comment, because it shows me you have nothing to devalue my opinion with, and in the end only serves to validate my points even more.

I am sure people who can think for themselves will be able to make their own mind up about my comments. But thanks for contributing so constructively.

Rin.1046:

CuteLilKittenHugz.2064:

Guys just ignore Rin. He’s on every thread trying to convince us all that Thief was too OP, and these nerfs are justified and great for the game.

Clearly he is better than everyone and we just need to L2P. Or an aNet shill. My money is on aNet shill.

I’m trying to use logic and experience to detail my points, what are you using? It seems to me that you are struggling to find a good enough arguement against me, and so resort to personal attacks in an attempt to discredit me. Well, I’m sorry but you are wastimg your time. I find it very satisfying to see this kind of comment, because it shows me you have nothing to devalue my opinion with, and in the end only serves to validate my points even more.

I am sure people who can think for themselves will be able to make their own mind up about my comments. But thanks for contributing so constructively.

I went through your last few messages to see what all this was about.

I think most of your points are fair in that obviously these changes just force thieves to adapt, but some of your suggestions for adaptation are ridiculous.

Swapping utilities or runes are fine suggestions for dealing with SE not affecting control conditions anymore. But suggesting people take SA and acro is not reasonable. With both SA and acro your damage potential will be so heavily neutered that the spec is likely in-viable with the current pace of play. Maybe is mismatches or circumstances where you are extraordinarily careful SA+acro can be viable, but in general it is subpar at best imo.

I think there is a lot to say for allowing SE to remove non-damaging conditions as it used to. Usually the removal of such conditions required you to use a CD if you were really compromised. Compared to the current state of affairs reverting SE would open up more utility options and improve diversity in skill load outs. Furthermore the revert would up survivability of thieves a bit which would be very useful in the land-mined PvP scene right now.

The thing to be cautious of is this would be a buff to d/p which may push it further along.

In general we would be encouraging more pistol main-hand and sword main-hand play.

Utility and weapon diversity should be the goal, a revert to pre-patch SE would be the former but perhaps not the latter.

I never suggested you should run SA + Acro, I said there is the Hard to Catch trait to break stuns automatically. Not that I think there is anything wrong with combining these two traitlines. I haven’t tried combining these two lines together since the patch, so I cannot say either way. I was merely pointing out that we have an auto stun break option (which I also added is something I dislike, as I prefer using an active stun breaker).

As to SE, I actually prefer that it only removes dots now. I means I have more control over what is removed and when. If I have immob I know stealth will not work, so I use whatever I equipped to deal with it. If I have a bleed, I know I can use stealth and not waste a utility skill. Pre-patch, there were occassions (when fighting condi builds mainly) when you would get hit my multiple condis at once and SE would not always remove the condi you needed it to at that moment. Post patch we now know exactly what it will remove and therefore we have more control over it. This means that when hit by several condis at once, we won’t waste ini stealthing, and hoping that it will remove the immob first. RNG is good sometimes, but other times I would rather have more control.

As to the idea that reverting SE would bring more utility, that may well be the case, but then we are back to the problem of stealth doing too many things. Do you really think it balanced that one mechanic on its own, even traited, should be able to do so much? I know stealth is a big part of the thief, but its not the only trick we know. The thief should be much more than a one trick pony.

For a while now I thought Anet has been focusing too much on stealth, and not enough on our other abilities. The thief should be capable of so much more, but for a long time stealth was king of everything. Now we need to look elsewhere to cover more ground, and that is a good thing in my opinion. It encourages us to diversify with our tool set, rather than pin everything on stealth.

Is the thief perfect in its new state? No, not yet. But then I doubt any profession will ever be perfectly balanced for everyone. Does this one change make the thief worse? No, only that trait’s capability is worse. The thief overall is still doing well as far as I can see.

Anyway, I think I have talked enough about this topic. I have had my say, and if I am the only one who feels this way, then fair enough. Either way, I am still having fun with my thief, and my build feels even stronger now than it did before. This change has not effected me in the slightest, and I still make good use of SE.

Dunno if I like it or not.
Against zerk classes it’s a horrible trait now. Cripple+Weakness really hurt now.
Against Condi… I dont know, but overall I think it’s worse than before. For some reason I feel way more vulnerable.

I think it is a stretch to claim that cutting some of the conditions most likely to lead to a thief dying from removal by SE is a buff in that is allows more thoughtful counterplay.

Most thieves will be worried by immob, and let’s assume if you take SA you won’t take acro so immob is a real worry. In the past you could rely on HiS to remove immob as well as a bulk of what are now some nasty damaging conditions. Well with immob being a principle concern you can’t rely on HiS as HiS + SE won’t clear immob. Your choices are lyssa runes, kitten , withdraw, traited tricks and signet of agility. So at best we are blowing more cooldowns, or more important cooldowns, to do the same thing we used to be able to do with a single cooldown.

So basically we have to do more to do less or even as much as we used to. Stealth shouldn’t be our only way to solve problems, but that philosophy applied in this circumstance has left our class wanting. We can’t eat nerfs without buffs to compensate. The more our survivability is slashed as the offensive capabilities of the other classes are raised, the worse spots we will find ourselves in.

This change isn’t a deal breaker for thieves, but the general trend for our class leads me to believe that we will be facing a lot of future issues as more of our options for survival are eroded away.

Complete crap. Hate the changes.

So basically what I am gathering from people’s arguements here is that it’s completely fair for me (a main thief for the duration of me playing this game, which is on and off two years) to completely CHANGE my playstyle because the way I (and many others) played a certain way? That seems fair to some people? I shouldn’t have to relearn and regear my ENTIRE character to accommodate a patch to the game. Bullkitten.

The only fix they need is to make SE clear a condi on the first tick of stealth (as it did before), rather than after 3 seconds. Otherwise, making SE clear damaging conditions only (except fear) is fine.

The purpose of the SE change was to give more counterplay to stealth. Now as a thief you have to dodge attacks that apply weakness or immob before you stealth, otherwise it will mess up your burst. With the old SE, it didn’t really matter because stealth would clear those conditions for you.

Plus, you still have Withdraw to clear immob.

Too many thieves in this thread relied 100% on stealth, and complain now that it’s less effective. If you think stealth is the thief’s only defense, then you don’t know how to play thief. D/P thieves have excellent access to blinds (shadowshot), interrupts (headshot + sleight of hand), repositioning (sb5), and evades (bountiful theft + sb3 + withdraw). S/D has excellent mobility w/ Infiltrator’s Strike and evades w/ Flanking Strike. Learn to use those skills to avoid/mitigate your opponent’s main attacks. For example, blind the engy’s blowtorch, or the necro’s dagger3 immobilize, or quickly swap to SB5 to reposition yourself when you fail to dodge the immobilize. Stop instinctively dropping into stealth and trying to reset everytime you forget to use one of your ample damage-mitigating skills.

Stealth is not the thief’s only form of defense. If you think it is, then you’ve just grown to rely on it too much and neglected developing other aspects of your play.

TheMurkMuffin.8213:

So basically what I am gathering from people’s arguements here is that it’s completely fair for me (a main thief for the duration of me playing this game, which is on and off two years) to completely CHANGE my playstyle because the way I (and many others) played a certain way? That seems fair to some people? I shouldn’t have to relearn and regear my ENTIRE character to accommodate a patch to the game. Bullkitten.

??

I think most of us had to completely redo our characters at one time or another due to balancing changes.

This has to be a joke.

Asudementio.8526:

TheMurkMuffin.8213:

So basically what I am gathering from people’s arguements here is that it’s completely fair for me (a main thief for the duration of me playing this game, which is on and off two years) to completely CHANGE my playstyle because the way I (and many others) played a certain way? That seems fair to some people? I shouldn’t have to relearn and regear my ENTIRE character to accommodate a patch to the game. Bullkitten.

??

I think most of us had to completely redo our characters at one time or another due to balancing changes.

This has to be a joke.

Just because you’ve had to do it before doesn’t necessarily make it fair. Plus, I can tell you for a fact no patch prior to this one has made anyone completely change your gear set to simply survive. Lol. You must be the one joking if you tell me differently. Then again, It is very possible that I’m just mad that I spent a lot of gold and time to craft stuff only for me to have to start all over again. Very possible.

Has anyone here telling others to change from 100% stealth considered that maybe that is why we chose this particular class? mind = blown.

TheMurkMuffin.8213:

Asudementio.8526:

TheMurkMuffin.8213:

So basically what I am gathering from people’s arguements here is that it’s completely fair for me (a main thief for the duration of me playing this game, which is on and off two years) to completely CHANGE my playstyle because the way I (and many others) played a certain way? That seems fair to some people? I shouldn’t have to relearn and regear my ENTIRE character to accommodate a patch to the game. Bullkitten.

??

I think most of us had to completely redo our characters at one time or another due to balancing changes.

This has to be a joke.

Just because you’ve had to do it before doesn’t necessarily make it fair. Plus, I can tell you for a fact no patch prior to this one has made anyone completely change your gear set to simply survive. Lol. You must be the one joking if you tell me differently. Then again, It is very possible that I’m just mad that I spent a lot of gold and time to craft stuff only for me to have to start all over again. Very possible.

You are too far gone to talk with. Sorry the changes are apparently affecting you so disproportionately.

Asudementio.8526:

TheMurkMuffin.8213:

Asudementio.8526:

TheMurkMuffin.8213:

So basically what I am gathering from people’s arguements here is that it’s completely fair for me (a main thief for the duration of me playing this game, which is on and off two years) to completely CHANGE my playstyle because the way I (and many others) played a certain way? That seems fair to some people? I shouldn’t have to relearn and regear my ENTIRE character to accommodate a patch to the game. Bullkitten.

??

I think most of us had to completely redo our characters at one time or another due to balancing changes.

This has to be a joke.

Just because you’ve had to do it before doesn’t necessarily make it fair. Plus, I can tell you for a fact no patch prior to this one has made anyone completely change your gear set to simply survive. Lol. You must be the one joking if you tell me differently. Then again, It is very possible that I’m just mad that I spent a lot of gold and time to craft stuff only for me to have to start all over again. Very possible.

You are too far gone to talk with. Sorry the changes are apparently affecting you so disproportionately.

I’m not really sure why you can’t see why I’m upset. Perhaps maybe I should point out that I did in fact change all my stuff? changed my weapon set? attempting to change my play style?

The bug has been patched – we now clear condis the moment we enter stealth.
That being said – trickery and SA with our tricks doesn’t really work out and I’m not so sure if that change is justified – I’d have to look into other classes condi clears but I’m pretty sure they don’t have to go that lengths to clear condis as I have to take 2 defensive traitlines to get rid of them.

Some people called the changes to SE a buff – I don’t.
Make trickery/trickster and all tricks work with SE, or give us a bigger health pool – for now it doesn’t really work out – and I’d like to have a counter to fear, which I formerly had. So yeah, easiest way would be to revert the change.

TheMurkMuffin.8213:

Has anyone here telling others to change from 100% stealth considered that maybe that is why we chose this particular class? mind = blown.

Absolutely agree. I chose thief to roam and I love stealth. Looking at the other classes, their condi clears are now way stronger. We now need to spec into 2 lines AND give up Hide in Shadows to have reliable access to removing imobolize and other non-damaging conditions

and even then it is not as reliable as before.

The most common thief setups can now be hard countered by soft-cc. Chill is especially frustrating.

I’m sorry, but I’m thinking this nerf was a good one. You could essentially run builds where conditions were irrelevant against you because you could cleanse them so easily. Stealth has largely been a get out of jail free card for wayyyyy too many thieves. Stealth is an important mechanic for thieves, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you rely on to survive. Burst, stealth, cleanse…rinse and repeat was all too many people did on thief. That is still a decently viable strat and the trait is still good for people trying to utilize stealth a lot, but the nerf balances it a little, opens up other build options, and also increases counterplay to stealth. I’m completely okay with that.

Right now, I’m absolutely loving the condition removal with tricks along with the heal boost to withdrawal. I’m running a build a lot now with Withdraw(chill/immob/crip 1), Shadowstep(33), Haste(1), X, Dagger Storm(1) and S/x(1). I could easily add Roll for Initiative for more condi removal.

So those of you thinking that thieves are unplayable are being ridiculous. Adapt. Ok, so maybe going into stealth every 4 seconds and cleansing conditions for 4 seconds and going back into combat isn’t as viable as it was before. Deal. Add some toughness, learn to dodge roll effectively and use positioning, tweak your builds and play style and move on. You can still use stealth and deal with conditions just fine. You just have to have a plan for dealing with CC condis as well. It’s just not ezmode to remove condis with stealth anymore. That’s a good thing and if it’s too hard for people their difficulty ceiling is set pretty low.

I can deal with the changes to Shadow’s Embrace only removing damaging conditions, but IMO this should include fear as well considering terrormancer, or is this not a thing anymore? However, what does need to change is the fact that the ICD for Shadow’s Embrace removing conditions needs to stop “pausing” while you are not in stealth anymore.

That way we will again cleanse conditions upon entering stealth and once again every 3 seconds we remain in stealth … I say this because with how powerful damage is now, those cleanses are absolutely necessary. It’s really not fun to have multiple stacks of burning with just a few bleed, only to see the bleed get wiped after 2 seconds of stealth, then try to wait for burning to go away but it brings you down anyway.

Reason I’m not too worried about immobilize / etc is because skills like heartseeker don’t even care about movement imparing effects anymore, so running away / chasing people is actually easier than it was last patch so long as you have the initiative.

Which I guess ^ is a problem for people who have a hard time managing their initiative and instead spam it all out on 22222222222 trying to down someone without really paying attention to the flow of battle.

All in all, Shadow’s Embrace needs to effectively cleanse conditions better. :l

drgast.1469:

I’m sorry, but I’m thinking this nerf was a good one. You could essentially run builds where conditions were irrelevant against you because you could cleanse them so easily. Stealth has largely been a get out of jail free card for wayyyyy too many thieves. Stealth is an important mechanic for thieves, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you rely on to survive. Burst, stealth, cleanse…rinse and repeat was all too many people did on thief. That is still a decently viable strat and the trait is still good for people trying to utilize stealth a lot, but the nerf balances it a little, opens up other build options, and also increases counterplay to stealth. I’m completely okay with that.

Right now, I’m absolutely loving the condition removal with tricks along with the heal boost to withdrawal. I’m running a build a lot now with Withdraw(chill/immob/crip 1), Shadowstep(33), Haste(1), X, Dagger Storm(1) and S/x(1). I could easily add Roll for Initiative for more condi removal.

So those of you thinking that thieves are unplayable are being ridiculous. Adapt. Ok, so maybe going into stealth every 4 seconds and cleansing conditions for 4 seconds and going back into combat isn’t as viable as it was before. Deal. Add some toughness, learn to dodge roll effectively and use positioning, tweak your builds and play style and move on. You can still use stealth and deal with conditions just fine. You just have to have a plan for dealing with CC condis as well. It’s just not ezmode to remove condis with stealth anymore. That’s a good thing and if it’s too hard for people their difficulty ceiling is set pretty low.

oh yeah let’s completely ignore the fact that pvp exists and bountiful theft is must have for team play… not to mention that ds is like a red flag yelling at everyone “HEY GUIZE PLZ KILL ME”

SE would deserve a nerf if condis weren’t so easy to apply (aoe and AA)~

I just think if you are going to basically nerf thieves’ stealth capabilities into the ground you should A) give us more health. B.) return vigor to the old way it was, or buff it more for thieves so we can innately dodge that much more. Conditions have always been a problem for us, but now the conditions are BETTER but our removal is WORSE. gg.

PS: I am going out on a limb here and saying that all these people that are okay with the nerf to stealth, were probably those people that never used it or casually (if at all) played thief anyways.

I do not know how work on the classes but it looks to be not very good in his job.

Am I the only one who thinks this nerf was OK?

Thieves that spec into SA now get Shadow Rejuvenation too. We have to add, on top of that, movement (leap) skills are not affected by impairment effects, so this conditions have lost, at some extent, their effect.

You know get surely removed damaging conditions too. Which, oh well, kills you in the end. You can still either spam HS or IA to get away (because you get the 1 second bonus of stealth too).

It’s still a fairly good condition removal for the class, at least better than Sword#2 return and more “cheap” than using Shadowstep return to cleanse. I don’t know where this complains are coming from.

But after all, this is just my opinion and I might be biased because I don’t like Thief stealth playstyle. I’ve been always more kind using S/D playstyle, or even S/P or D/D burst playstyle.

This said… I think D/P got buffed a lot more rather than nerfed (without comparing with other classes buffs after the patch).

Poliator.7021:

Am I the only one who thinks this nerf was OK?

Thieves that spec into SA now get Shadow Rejuvenation too. We have to add, on top of that, movement (leap) skills are not affected by impairment effects, so this conditions have lost, at some extent, their effect.

You know get surely removed damaging conditions too. Which, oh well, kills you in the end. You can still either spam HS or IA to get away (because you get the 1 second bonus of stealth too).

It’s still a fairly good condition removal for the class, at least better than Sword#2 return and more “cheap” than using Shadowstep return to cleanse. I don’t know where this complains are coming from.

But after all, this is just my opinion and I might be biased because I don’t like Thief stealth playstyle. I’ve been always more kind using S/D playstyle, or even S/P or D/D burst playstyle.

This said… I think D/P got buffed a lot more rather than nerfed (without comparing with other classes buffs after the patch).

It’s okay with SE I just don’t understand CiS in GM spot they could merge it with Shadow Protecor and then put fall damage part in master spot.

BFMV.3198:

Why would you nerf the one reliable source of condition removal ??

it does not proc twice in the 4s and you stopped it being able to remove all conditions??

Revert it please or I may consider being done since with this game Lock on, Cloaked in shadows, Feline grace and now SE.

ok cya, i’ve been doing just fine

exactly why im thinkin to quit thief for good. THIS change and also “gain iniative every 4seconds while in stealth”. that trait was nerfed so bad too. used to be “whenever u gain stealth”. now on DP 1 combo of 5+2 is not enuff. even one combo is quite risky cuz u can land HS and reveal urself. so now u gotta do 5+2+2.. huge huge deal. iniative and condi was rly important for a DP Thief runnin SA.

for now just playin that glassy meta DP but i wish they could change back SA trait. this new “meta” is rly rly glassy. Anet we need you to give us ALL condis and Gain ini whenever entering stealth (like used to be)!

SpiritSpeakerOfHoelbrak.3980:

Dave.6819:

exactly why im thinkin to quit thief for good. THIS change and also “gain iniative every 4seconds while in stealth”. that trait was nerfed so bad too. used to be “whenever u gain stealth”. now on DP 1 combo of 5+2 is not enuff. even one combo is quite risky cuz u can land HS and reveal urself. so now u gotta do 5+2+2.. huge huge deal. iniative and condi was rly important for a DP Thief runnin SA.

for now just playin that glassy meta DP but i wish they could change back SA trait. this new “meta” is rly rly glassy. Anet we need you to give us ALL condis and Gain ini whenever entering stealth (like used to be)!

D/p thief before patch was bs op. Now it’s fair. I personally think invis classes are puss espically the ones that spam blinds every 2secs. With this change, thief can no longer hide and reset the fight 2million times.

its not puss or anytin. its just different type of defense. id be interested to see how you would react if your main source of defense would be nerfed. lets say your blocks/shouts/shelter/invuln signets/meditation condi cleanses or your vigor or whatever defense mechanism you have. im sure u’d just go and QQ in forums. Thief is fun, hard to play, challenging to master and has a different def. mechanism (hence why i think a well played Thief has a right to be OP. atleast Thieves takes some effort to be good unlike other classes). and its not like you cant hit us while we are in stealth anyway. but yes you are the type that wants only good stuff for your class so idk if theres even a reason to talk to u.

Yeah, they need to revert a lot of changes, and removing the disastrous changes from SE would be a great start.

Dave.6819:

Anet we need you to give us ALL condis and Gain ini whenever entering stealth (like used to be)!

^this.

Meh. Another major nerf to thieves, especially with the predominance of MINDLESS condi-spams from every other class in PvP and WvW. ANET is a business; they will cater to the masses, and since there has been plenty of QQ about thieves since the history of the game...logic dictates the obvious. I wonder if any ANET devs actually roll a thief to seriously play in PvP and WvW. And when I mean "seriously" I mean like a seasoned thief player and experience the nerfs first-hand in real-time. I have yet to see one.

--RIP condi-cleanses; Rip vigor buffs--

In any case, I’ll still be playing my thief. Will continue to work on improving my thievery craft. #teef4lyfe

SpiritSpeakerOfHoelbrak.3980:

FlawlezZ.3178:

SpiritSpeakerOfHoelbrak.3980:

FlawlezZ.3178:

this is wvw with buffs. and still only 10k? where is your 15k?
you know you don’t use signet of malice nor signet of blood in pvp / wvw?
you know you can just block, blind or port away and that thief from first video is dead (he has used all his utilities)?

srsly?

My point is. when you have a class that can hit insane dmg when you cant even see them. that is broken. idk about you but im not gonna spam dodges just cause i think a thief maybe behind me. Like thief before (and i would argue still now) is just a gank class. they can unload so much dmg on you before you even see them just by using SR and talking up to you without you noticing. If backstab had a cast time and in mid cast the thief would come out of invis then fine. but no so the least they can do is making it so you can lock down that bs and actually fight. Thief has way to many escaps and ways to invis for people to be crying that going invis does not remove every condition.

what? you see them after the first hit. they are revealed for 4 seconds. when they place SR you know where they are for 4 seconds. you can see infiltrator arrow. you can see smoke field. you can pop signet, endure pain, obsidian flesh, use mesmer f4 to get no damage at all and thief can’t do anything against it

The first hit is the one the matter the most. i dont want to have to take 7k+ backstab dmg. but you pretty much have to if they walk in already clocked.

spirit I’m sorry to tell you this but you are simply talking bs
1: the ONLY way for the tief (full berserker gear) to one shot someone is by having all stacks maxed out, sneak up from stealth, hit the c&d backstab heartseaker combo, which still will mostly not one hit your foes (and technically isn’t even a one hit!!!)
this combo is only possible if you play a dd thief, which hardly anyone does anymore, so stop kittening
2. this combo is not used within stealth, you sneak up invisible, wait until you aren´t anymore than do the combo, while doing the combo you also are revealed, meaning the attacked player can see you 2 times and react to you
3. in the most cases the player being attacked has seen the thief, meaning not seeing him anymore (stealth) means he is attacking, so don’ expose your back, use a block skill, TURN around a few times, hit your autoattack, boom initial attack counter if done correctly
4. yes thiefs dmg has been slightly buffed, but every other class has been awarded a magure buff, meaning the damage is not high compared to the other classes, e.g. a warriors GS3 can onehit, a mesmer can onehit, ele can one hit, so can necro and lets not forget our favourite the engineer.

5. you keep kittening about SR which is the EASIEST deception skill to counter, just use a knockback or anything, it’s a big HIT ME sign for everyone, no thief will use it pre fight, well not the intelligent ones…
6. all stealth utility skills and shadowstep have a increadably long cooldown, and most of them HiS SR for eg have a delay, meaning the skill needs to be charged and does not give instant invisiblity

7. the lack of condi removal is a death sentance for thieves post patch (POST) due to the extream increas in their power, eg 3 ticks of burn will kill you in 2-5 sec if you are unlucky
8. due to our reduced health an immo means automatic death
and so on and so on

the only real buff the thief got i a F2 button, whoopdydoodaday

before the patch imo the thief was balanced, if you knew how to counter him it was really easy, if you didn’t and the thief was somewhat skilled, see ya so long

but now post patch almost every class has more sustain and raw damage output than the thief, plus the nerf to his invisibility makes it even worse.

i have several friends who played thieves in ESL etc. they all say the same, don’t touch him and play something else if you don’t want to hate your fav. class

If you disagree go play thief yourself, have fun being kitten d by classes that shouldn’t be able to just onehit you and need 3+ backstabs just to get to 50% hp

arenanet pls just make the thief more valuable to players and focusparties again. It’s simply pathetic in it’s current state.

PS: to Rin or whatever your name was (sorry^^) no i don’t only need my stealth to survive, pre patch, because i didn’t die from one single hit all day long. and even post patch i wouldn’t need it, if as i said you could withstand more than a sneeze in your direction!!

This change was 100% warranted for this update. Stop being selfish and look at the bigger picture.

Rin.1046:

Maybe they can just make SE give you invulnerability and immunity to conditions while in stealth? Stealth seems so underpowered. All you can do is hit hard from it, heal in it, gain ini faster in it, make yourself harder to hit in most situations, and reset most fights using it. If only it could have more advantages. If only stealth was the thief’s only mechanic they needed to use. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about learning any other mechanic or learn to use other non-steal skills! /s

Seriously, this is a good change. And in my opinion a necessary one. Not all nerfs are bad nerfs. Some of them are necessary and good for the game. Just as the engi’s Lock On trait is also a good addition. Cleaving and AoE’ing areas, in the hopes of hitting a stealthed enemy, is not good enough imo. Yes, some professions can knock or fear you out of SA, but that is the price you pay for having a skill that can give you 20 odd seconds of stealth. There needs to be drawbacks for such a powerful skill. And the same goes for stealth in general. There needs to be more solid ways of countering stealth, and I am really happy (as a stealth user) to see Anet adding more counter options and adjusting the potency of stealth for the thief.

The meta is changing, this is something you cannot avoid. With so many changes to skills and traits, builds people got confortable with are very likely to need adjustment. For me, I now take something else on my skill bar to deal with immob. This is not a big deal, and I can still make good use of stealth, both offensively and defensively. This change is not as crippling as many are making out.

Learn to adapt. And if Anet finds hundreds of thieves are dropping like flies, because of this change, I am sure they will fix it. But I doubt very much that will happen, because those who enjoy the profession as a whole, and not just the stealth mechanic, will likely be happy to adapt and will find ways to cope with this change.

if you don’t even know how much stealth you can gain from SR you certainly aren’t a so called stealth user, so stop your bsing
FYI with the added second trait SR will give you 16sec, not 20
plus if you cannot knockback a thief out of hit or just simply kill him within that’s your problem, killing a thief is easy as hell!
even more now post patch

And for all the thieves crying; I am still able to kill anyone on my thief, be it bunker guard, or PU Mesmer; Even condi necros. Some encounters are harder than others, but then again who wants the game to be so easy and faceroll; besides all the complainers on these forums

SpiritSpeakerOfHoelbrak.3980:

Dave.6819:

exactly why im thinkin to quit thief for good. THIS change and also “gain iniative every 4seconds while in stealth”. that trait was nerfed so bad too. used to be “whenever u gain stealth”. now on DP 1 combo of 5+2 is not enuff. even one combo is quite risky cuz u can land HS and reveal urself. so now u gotta do 5+2+2.. huge huge deal. iniative and condi was rly important for a DP Thief runnin SA.

for now just playin that glassy meta DP but i wish they could change back SA trait. this new “meta” is rly rly glassy. Anet we need you to give us ALL condis and Gain ini whenever entering stealth (like used to be)!

D/p thief before patch was bs op. Now it’s fair. I personally think invis classes are puss espically the ones that spam blinds every 2secs. With this change, thief can no longer hide and reset the fight 2million times.

sounds to me like you are just kitten because you have been killed by thieves over and over, without ever even playing one.
plus if you let him get away and reset that easily blame yourself, learn to counter thief, there are so many kitten ways to, especially now!

SpiritSpeakerOfHoelbrak.3980:

Dave.6819:

SpiritSpeakerOfHoelbrak.3980:

Dave.6819:

exactly why im thinkin to quit thief for good. THIS change and also “gain iniative every 4seconds while in stealth”. that trait was nerfed so bad too. used to be “whenever u gain stealth”. now on DP 1 combo of 5+2 is not enuff. even one combo is quite risky cuz u can land HS and reveal urself. so now u gotta do 5+2+2.. huge huge deal. iniative and condi was rly important for a DP Thief runnin SA.

for now just playin that glassy meta DP but i wish they could change back SA trait. this new “meta” is rly rly glassy. Anet we need you to give us ALL condis and Gain ini whenever entering stealth (like used to be)!

D/p thief before patch was bs op. Now it’s fair. I personally think invis classes are puss espically the ones that spam blinds every 2secs. With this change, thief can no longer hide and reset the fight 2million times.

its not puss or anytin. its just different type of defense. id be interested to see how you would react if your main source of defense would be nerfed. lets say your blocks/shouts/shelter/invuln signets/meditation condi cleanses or your vigor or whatever defense mechanism you have. im sure u’d just go and QQ in forums. Thief is fun, hard to play, challenging to master and has a different def. mechanism (hence why i think a well played Thief has a right to be OP. atleast Thieves takes some effort to be good unlike other classes). and its not like you cant hit us while we are in stealth anyway. but yes you are the type that wants only good stuff for your class so idk if theres even a reason to talk to u.

See the thing is all these defensive skills you speek of have this cool thing called a cool down. Im not sure you heard about it cause you know thiefs have like non of those, except for there utilities. like when you can blind/invis spam as a class your puss im sorry. Play S/D or another class that does not just revolve around a gimmick. And yes you can hit them in invis if they are idiots and are predictable. the greates thing Anet did for this game was make it so that thiefs invis condi cleanse did not remove movement condition cause not like you said i can hit them in invis

I’m starting to think you are either just a troll or that your mouth has been replaced with your kitten since everything you’ve been saying is BS
and btw, there is this extra cooldown called “revealed”
and the cd on utility skills is VERY high

so (once again) stop your kittening
no hard feelings right?

Thank you DHawk and Spirit for proving that no thread can ever have constructive criticism or productive discussion because two people can’t let their interweb egos go and believe their own selfish opinions are the only right ones.

Bravo for proving just how useless GW2 forums can be.