All is vain.
Shadow trap nerfed
It seems it can still be fairly useful though. Think the biggest issue with it is how it gets stuck on a pixel and doesn’t move you at all.
? <(^-^><)>^-^)> <(^-^)> ?
I swear to god, if they wanted to give it a limited duration they SERIOUSLY needed to make the non-target return at least a legitimate teleport and not a bullkitten shadowstep.
It seems it can still be fairly useful though.
Don’t worry, there will be a patch for that too.
I jest.
Hopefully we’ll see a fix for the shadowstep problems. I get that patching numbers is easier than patching mechanics, and so I’m not giving up total hope. I know there are concerns with shadowstep, like turning any thief with a shortbow into the jump puzzle king. Still, the nature of Shadow Trap demands a somewhat looser implementation. With a 2 minute duration, maybe they can do that now, without worrying about it being a permanent “escape to castle” button.
The real problem is whether the devs are actually aware of the shadowstep problem or not, because this has been an issue since release and they never said anything about it.
As for the nerf, the cooldown will barely affect us. 2 minutes is still quite royal. If they actually fixed the shadowstep problem and it still had no cooldown then it would have been the best skill ever.
That being said, the shadowstep utility skill’s shadow return has a very short cooldown and needs the be much longer while the actual skill’s cooldown needs to be somewhat shorter.
120 second is very generious, most people thought it would have been at the most 60 second, how much more time would one need?
Also we need a range indicator that actually works.
When you put down the trap the range indicator is always red unless you have a target selected, in which case it would always show as in range because target selection itself is capped at less than 10k units.
The range indicator for these types of skills should be based on the distance between the player and the trap (or the player who set off the trap), instead of on the distance between the player and the currently selected target.
It was too glitchy before because of terrain issues and still is. This makes no change for me. =/
Another patch another nerf…right on schedule lmao.
All is vain.
An expiry is actually kind of useful, there’s been more than a few situations where I wished I could just actually destroy the trap without teleporting. With that said I’m torn. From a s/tPvP perspective, is 2 minutes enough to lay it down, assist on another point, and then get back if you need to assist where you were at?
UPDATE: Tested this, if the trap expires, there is NO cooldown. So there’s a silver lining in that aspect anyway. You are free to use the trap right away if it expires.
(edited by threothree.2618)
Another patch another nerf…right on schedule lmao.
yeah…the devs really hate us :P
The real problem is whether the devs are actually aware of the shadowstep problem or not, because this has been an issue since release and they never said anything about it.
They are aware, they just don’t care about it.
The terrain issue on general shadowstepping is likely going to be an extremely complicated issue to resolve. It took several iterations just to fix general projectile and leap pathing. Close to a year later, and those still aren’t perfect. I expect that issue will likely be some coder’s back-burner project for quite a long time. If we see a major issue resolved for thief sooner than later, it’ll probably be the culling-stealth issue, since that gets far more crying. For our reputation, I hope that’s the next target fix anyways. The nerfs won’t stop coming until we stop eating faces like they’re on buffet in WvW.
Something tells me shadow trap will be awful on the new map…
Seems like it’s a nerf with mainly WvWvW in mind. Hopefully they’ll fix in the shadow stepping on the skill, please turn it into a portal!
The real problem is whether the devs are actually aware of the shadowstep problem or not, because this has been an issue since release and they never said anything about it.
They are aware, they just don’t care about it.
More like they probably can’t find a solution that is worth the time to implement.
If it’s an actual teleport then it goes through gates in Spvp and tpvp. Meaning you could follow people into their base which they would probably want to avoid.
So its a shadowstep, and follows shadowstep pathing rules which are as a whole problematic.
The great forum duppy.
the fix for the return ability is more complicated than just making it work like portal. In wvw, it creates a serious issue if thieves are able to leave a shadow trap in a keep, then port back (even with a time limit). At that point they can res a fallen mesmer and portal a zerg back into a keep that they just lost / failed to attack.
I think the way portaling works right now is fair, and thieves can still achieve this goal with permastealth within a keep, but at least an observant opponent can detect it. The shadow-trap option would completely break this.
So then what if it works like portal but will not cross a wall? That sounds fair, except what if you are outside a keep, and just happen to move in such a way that the keep wall is between you and the shadow trap…well then how does it count? I think these are the sorts of tough pathing issues that the devs are working on. I think the fundamental code needs to separate locations into neutral/ours and theirs. And the limitation on shadow-return should be that it does not take you from “neutral/ours” and deposit you in “theirs” but otherwise, all locations are fair. If attempting to go from neutral to theirs, it should deposit you as close as possible to theirs within neutral territory. Anyhow, that’s what I’d like to see…not sure how easy it is to code that.
Ok how about we change Shadowtrap into a venom that when used on an enemy you basically tag him and can teleport to him like shadowtrap does?
Ok how about we change Shadowtrap into a venom that when used on an enemy you basically tag him and can teleport to him like shadowtrap does?
hehe…not a bad idea for a venom, but I don’t think anyone is asking for this. Shadowtrap as it is, is really nice. It’s just buggy and glitchy and inconsistent. It either saves us, or kills us.
“the fix for the return ability is more complicated than just making it work like portal. In wvw, it creates a serious issue if thieves are able to leave a shadow trap in a keep, then port back (even with a time limit). At that point they can res a fallen mesmer and portal a zerg back into a keep that they just lost / failed to attack.”
That would be awesome and make WvW more fun. It’s not like only one faction could do it.
120 second is very generious, most people thought it would have been at the most 60 second, how much more time would one need?
I used to use it simply as an alarm that the enemy was in the tunnel to the watergate. I couldn’t port there, but it was useful anyway. Not any more, though.
D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]
the fix for the return ability is more complicated than just making it work like portal. In wvw, it creates a serious issue if thieves are able to leave a shadow trap in a keep, then port back (even with a time limit). At that point they can res a fallen mesmer and portal a zerg back into a keep that they just lost / failed to attack.
I think the way portaling works right now is fair, and thieves can still achieve this goal with permastealth within a keep, but at least an observant opponent can detect it. The shadow-trap option would completely break this.
So then what if it works like portal but will not cross a wall? That sounds fair, except what if you are outside a keep, and just happen to move in such a way that the keep wall is between you and the shadow trap…well then how does it count? I think these are the sorts of tough pathing issues that the devs are working on. I think the fundamental code needs to separate locations into neutral/ours and theirs. And the limitation on shadow-return should be that it does not take you from “neutral/ours” and deposit you in “theirs” but otherwise, all locations are fair. If attempting to go from neutral to theirs, it should deposit you as close as possible to theirs within neutral territory. Anyhow, that’s what I’d like to see…not sure how easy it is to code that.
Some good points in here, but I don’t agree with what you’re suggesting in that I don’t believe a single Thief shadow trapping back into a keep would be any more broken than a Mesmer portalling a whole zerg in like they can do at the moment.
They did say that instead of taking away that ability from Mesmers they would like to give similar options to other classes instead, and I think shadow trap would be a reasonable way to achieve it for Thieves.
In order to pull off that scenario, a Thief has to first place down the trap inside the keep and hope that no one triggers it, turning it into a shadowstep that won’t go through walls, get out of the keep without dying while staying within 10k range of the trap, and trigger the trap within within 2 minutes after placing it, and then stay undetected inside an enemy keep for an additional 3-5 minutes for invulnerability to wear off, before he can make anything out of the situation.
As you can see there are quite a few variables in play that can cause things to go wrong, some which are out of the Thief’s control. If the enemy teams are sweeping the keep for Mesmers in the first place as they should, there would be a reasonable chance that the trap will be triggered no matter how carefully it is placed. If the enemy team is pursuing the Thief on his way out of the keep, it would be fairly difficult for him to remain within 10k range of the trap. The time limit of 2 minutes is actually a lot tighter than you would think because in order to place it in a reasonably well hidden place, he would have to do so well in advance of any enemy presence, and by the time he needs to use it, it is likely that the trap would be close to expiring. And when teleporting back in there’s a chance that he would be discovered immediately as the trap doesn’t grant stealth if not triggered.
(edited by Kaon.7192)
@Kaon
10k is the range of a treb, isn’t it? With that kind of awesomeness at my disposal, I’d just form a guild of thieves dedicated solely to teleporting back into objectives and taking them before anyone can respond. All we’d have to do is put those traps at obscure locations inside objectives where people are unlikely to go and port back after the enemy takes them. Chain stealth if there are still a bunch in there and wait for a chance to strike, or just play mindgames with them. Even if the attempt fails it slows down the opponent and trolls the hell out of them. The rage and tears on the forums would be a sight to behold. Taking SM would effectively lock down the entire EB population of a server for quite some time to even hope that maybe there are no thieves in there. It would be more overpowered than having NATO bomb the kitten out of a jungle tribe somewhere in nowhere that just invented a spear. I love it. Can I please have this Anet?
The real problem is whether the devs are actually aware of the shadowstep problem or not, because this has been an issue since release and they never said anything about it.
They are aware, they just don’t care about it.
More like they probably can’t find a solution that is worth the time to implement.
I feel that ‘they don’t care’ is an accurate abbreviation of your statement
If it’s an actual teleport then it goes through gates in Spvp and tpvp. Meaning you could follow people into their base which they would probably want to avoid.
The target got somehow tagged to allow the mechanism that shadowsteps you to him to keep track of said target. That tagging could be removed when he goes through one of those brightly coloured doors – which is the only one that matters for this case.
That part looks easier to implement then shadowstep pathing.
@Kaon
10k is the range of a treb, isn’t it? With that kind of awesomeness at my disposal, I’d just form a guild of thieves dedicated solely to teleporting back into objectives and taking them before anyone can respond. All we’d have to do is put those traps at obscure locations inside objectives where people are unlikely to go and port back after the enemy takes them. Chain stealth if there are still a bunch in there and wait for a chance to strike, or just play mindgames with them. Even if the attempt fails it slows down the opponent and trolls the hell out of them. The rage and tears on the forums would be a sight to behold. Taking SM would effectively lock down the entire EB population of a server for quite some time to even hope that maybe there are no thieves in there. It would be more overpowered than having NATO bomb the kitten out of a jungle tribe somewhere in nowhere that just invented a spear. I love it. Can I please have this Anet?
You can do essentially the same with Mesmer Portals, except it only takes 1 Mesmer to portal 20 players of any class back inside a keep. You don’t see this too often anymore because 1) Portals are visible and expire 1 minute after placement 2) People have adapted to this tactic by scouting for Mesmers and their portals after capping objectives.
ANet has stated multiple times that they would like Mesmer portals to be able to keep this functionality. So decreasing the expiry time for Shadow Trap to 1 minute and making it visible within the perimeters of any non-friendly Fort/Keep/Castle would essentially make it function as a 1 man portal, and allow it to be dealt with the same way people deal with Mesmer portals at the moment. In fact, it would be easier to deal with since simply triggering the trap would remove the Thief’s ability to teleport inside, because it would then turn into an useless pathfinding shadowstep.
Basically, my point is if ANet thinks Portal’s pathfinding-free mass teleport should exist in the WvW meta, then with enough tweaks to its behavior, a Shadow Trap with an pathfinding-free component of some kind would not be unreasonable to have as well. In fact, any Thief who has tried to use Shadow Trap extensively in WvW can tell you that shadowstep is simply not a viable mechanic for long range teleport due to its quirky pathfinding requirements.
P.S. not entirely sure but intuitively I feel Trebuchet range is much more than 10k, as 10k is the range of merely 11 or so Infiltrator Arrows, and I recall having seen Treb shots fly what looked much farther than that.
(edited by Kaon.7192)
so the issue with thieves getting into keeps via shadow trap is that they can then res a dead mesmer and facilitate a portal. currently for this to work, the thief has to stay perma-stealthed inside the keep…which is fair, as there is viable counterplay.
A friend and I tried to pull this off the other day after one portal-breech that failed. I was playing a stealthy mesmer, and he was thief. Unfortunately, we both got caught the second time around and killed…again, because there are viable counterstrategies. If shadow trap were an option it would make it very easy for the thief to avoid getting caught by leaving the keep, waiting, then stealthing and porting back in. No way to counter that aside from camping my corpse…which is not fun counterplay.
If traps were made visible when inside enemy Forts/Keeps/Castle and set to expire in 1 minute then that scenario wouldn’t be any more of an issue than a Mesmer ressing a dead Mesmer by leaving a portal inside a keep, which is currently possible.
Again, I’m just trying to suggest that Shadow Trap without pathfinding limitations can work within the confines of the current meta with enough tweaks.
(edited by Kaon.7192)