Guild Wars 2

This my own opinion on the changes. On their own not earth shattering. Overall there buffs to certain niche builds while others stayed the same or got slight nerfs.

The greater issue is contrary to what was claimed the Thief as a class is NOT OP in any way shape or form. They can be very deadly in the hands of a skilled player just as any class can but “frustration at fighting a thief” due to stealth does not equate to too much power.

When this coupled with other classes getting boosts that are much more significant then there cause to worry. The warrior claim nerfs but I play a warrior a lot and those nerfs are more then made up for with even more condition cleanses and boosts to attack on mace/axe.

They now have a trait that will cure two conditions every 5 seconds simply by swapping weapons( one is blind).The condition cleanse available overall actually goes up even with the nerf to adrenaline. One that makes them immune to CC. No down tweaks to overall mobility.

Where the thief got another half second added to stability in a GM trait line that makes little sense and that no one will use the the warrior gets a full 4 more seconds of plus 1000 toughness. That is two warrior GM traits getting HUGE boosts.

The half second to the thief skill Equilibrium does nothing. The 3 percent percent to IP is welcome but no where near the scope of the tweaks to warrior GM traits no one was using.

That is a huge boost to the warrior trait and really nothing to the thief one. Kiss pistol whip/basilisk venom goodbye as a thief would be stupid to use them on a warrior.

Oh, and since none have mentioned it yet, that small hit on choking gas will make you eat a lot of retaliation damage if you shoot it into a group in wvw now, you will do like 300 damage to 5 players (if it has a target lmit) and take 600 retaliation damage from each of those players.

>>That’s a whole lot of words for “30 points in crit strikes and a bunch of other buffs is worth 580 healing on 7k damage”.

A rubbish counterpoint.

It is immaterial that the damage from an attack is 7 k or 8 k when we speak of a source of heal.

I do 133 heal on each attack using a SOM. That if the damage 100k or 1k so what?

Shadows rejuv does less of a heal while hiding and doing NO damage. Is it useless ? it about 300 per second while hid. You are inflicting no damage while hid. In that one second i can heal for more and inflict 7k in damage.

If I cleave with my sword I double up that heal. Can you do that while using shadows rejuv? Yes you might come out of the rejuv healed but while you were hiding that enemy healed as well.

Certainly there are other advantages to shadows rejuv other then the heal but it does not follow that healing for 580 and more per second while pumping out damage is “useless”.

Bazzoong.7145:

Oh, and since none have mentioned it yet, that small hit on choking gas will make you eat a lot of retaliation damage if you shoot it into a group in wvw now, you will do like 300 damage to 5 players (if it has a target lmit) and take 600 retaliation damage from each of those players.

Meaning Shortbow is essentially a dead weapon now, not worth taking in any mode. So now it’s Pistol mainhand or bust for range. Leave it to Anet to destroy a weapon that was literally perfect and fine.

>>Oh, and since none have mentioned it yet, that small hit on choking gas will make you eat a lot of retaliation damage if you shoot it into a group in wvw now, you will do like 300 damage to 5 players (if it has a target lmit) and take 600 retaliation damage from each of those players

A lets all stand here in the choking gas so he dies scenario. Not very intuitive is it?

I rarely used the shortbow but there will be even less reason to use it now. There not much left on it that useful outside the mobility.

I’ve only very briefly touched thief, so I’m an outsider to it. As an outsider “looking in” though, these changes don’t seem that great.
Thieves are really annoying and unenjoyable to fight against, largely as a result of how stealth works. I would have preferred they made a set of buffs and nerfs that moved thieves away from stealth while increasing their potency elsewhere. Thieves need buffs, but I feel the unquantifiable nature of the potency of stealth stands in their way.
I propose making the revealed buff stricter in PvP, while buffing thieves survivability/utility elsewhere.
Thieves are “the stealth class”. I don’t expect them to just get rid of stealth. Stealth does get in the way of balance though, and I think they should be stricter about it’s use.

BobbyT.7192:

Ricochet: Now also increases range to 1050, along with a few bug fixes to make it hit more reliably

Bug fixes aside, I don’t understand this one. Why not give that range to SB? We need the range on a more used weapon :/

Arewn.2368:

I’ve only very briefly touched thief, so I’m an outsider to it. As an outsider “looking in” though, these changes don’t seem that great.
Thieves are really annoying and unenjoyable to fight against, largely as a result of how stealth works. I would have preferred they made a set of buffs and nerfs that moved thieves away from stealth while increasing their potency elsewhere. Thieves need buffs, but I feel the unquantifiable nature of the potency of stealth stands in their way.
I propose making the revealed buff stricter in PvP, while buffing thieves survivability/utility elsewhere.
Thieves are “the stealth class”. I don’t expect them to just get rid of stealth. Stealth does get in the way of balance though, and I think they should be stricter about it’s use.

I really want to answer to this, to me this perspective is exactly the opposite to what I want from the game.

Please bear with me and read what I have to say on this.

This is a RPG, it means role play game, the different professions or archetypes in an RPG cater to different “fantasies”. For example the warrior caters to an “empowerment” or “hero” fantasy, you play it to be the strong guy who is incredible tough and has such qualities as loyality and honesty, we are talking about Thor or Hercules, the stone monkey(though that is an example of a trickster becoming a hero) or even the Hulk here. The thief caters to the “trickster” fantasy a person who you can not be sure of who might actually be one of the bad guys at times, we are talking about Loki, Coyote, Anansi about “shady” and "slippery"charakters here.
The stealth mechanic perfectly caters to that fantasy that is why in next to all games and in a lot of myths the “trickster” uses the “unfair” advantage of invisibility.
People playing thieves in games take that profession specifically for those kinds of mechanics those are part of what they want from those games, they find it enjoyable like others find it enjoyable to be the “hero”.
Being the single most annoying thing to fight is the whole point in thieves as a profession, being hated for that is part of the profession.

The suggestions in the post I quoted are exactly what not to do with thieves, they are just a version of delete the thief and reroll warrior idea. Do not change one fantasy to make it similar to the other keep them distinct players want that in an RPG.

If you find fighting thieves to be not fun that cannot be a reason to destroy the fantasy of the trickster, I do hate fighting warriors but I would never ask to destroy the “hero” fantasy.

Balance must happen by carefully ajusting the numbers not by messing with the core of the professions in my opinion.

Bazzoong.7145:

I really want to answer to this, to me this perspective is exactly the opposite to what I want from the game.

Please bear with me and read what I have to say on this.

This is a RPG, it means role play game, the different professions or archetypes in an RPG cater to different “fantasies”. For example the warrior caters to an “empowerment” or “hero” fantasy, you play it to be the strong guy who is incredible tough and has such qualities as loyality and honesty, we are talking about Thor or Hercules, the stone monkey(though that is an example of a trickster becoming a hero) or even the Hulk here. The thief caters to the “trickster” fantasy a person who you can not be sure of who might actually be one of the bad guys at times, we are talking about Loki, Coyote, Anansi about “shady” and "slippery"charakters here.
The stealth mechanic perfectly caters to that fantasy that is why in next to all games and in a lot of myths the “trickster” uses the “unfair” advantage of invisibility.
People playing thieves in games take that profession specifically for those kinds of mechanics those are part of what they want from those games, they find it enjoyable like others find it enjoyable to be the “hero”.
Being the single most annoying thing to fight is the whole point in thieves as a profession, being hated for that is part of the profession.

The suggestions in the post I quoted are exactly what not to do with thieves, they are just a version of delete the thief and reroll warrior idea. Do not change one fantasy to make it similar to the other keep them distinct players want that in an RPG.

If you find fighting thieves to be not fun that cannot be a reason to destroy the fantasy of the trickster, I do hate fighting warriors but I would never ask to destroy the “hero” fantasy.

Balance must happen by carefully ajusting the numbers not by messing with the core of the professions in my opinion.

Stealth is also either broken or in a very precarious state of balance in pretty much every game that includes it in their PvP that I’ve ever seen. (we’re talking the “you straight up can’t see me” variety of stealth, just to be clear).
It’s very hard to balance because the advantage stealth provide isn’t quantifiable.

This is not a single player game. Nor is it an entirely cooperative game. It’s not a one way street, there are situations where a player has to deal with stealthed enemy players.
When you’re making something in a PvP game, you have to be concerned about more then just the person who’s using the skill. You have to balance it in such a way that it is not only fun and interesting for the person using it, but also for the person who is forced to fight against it.
If you want to lololpewpew unfeeling enemies who can’t react to you, I’ll point you in the direction of single player games such as Skyrim. This is the problem with stealth. It’s a selfish mechanic. Its enjoyment is entirely for the user, and comes at the cost of the opponent’s enjoyment.

If you find warriors frustrating to play against, fine (though honestly, it’s probably a result of the thief’s dependance on stealth ;D ). But at least there’s counter-play. As an enemy to the warrior, there’s a way to interact with their mechanics. The warrior’s abilities are very well-telegraphed, and the effects they impart can be countered in various ways (dodging, condi removal, damage mitigation, stun breaks, etc).
This isn’t the case with stealth. When someone stealths, they gain complete initiative over the fight. The only interaction the enemy can partake in thereafter is waiting, or taking wild guesses that are loosely based on meta knowledge.
Now Arena Net is taking some steps to add stealth-counters: Rangers and Engineers have/will have access to a revealing debuff. This is very binary though, it’s a crude interaction and I don’t think it will suffice on it’s own.

On the other hand something like Shadow Refuge is a good, well designed skill. It localizes the stealth to a limited area, and only pays off with non-localized stealth after a long duration. There’s opportunity for the enemy to interact with the thief as they stealth because the thief is limited to a small space for a long time before the “payoff”. I can AoE the space, or use knock-backs/pulls to get the thief out.
Short duration stealth is generally okay as well, because the stealthed individual is very limited in the space they can traverse and act upon in short periods of time. Chaining stealth and high mobility while in stealth ruins this though.

As I said, I know the thief is “the stealth class”, and I can’t expect them to take that away. I explicitly stated such in my original post because I don’t want them to ruin a beloved fantasy archetype. I do expect them to deal with this mechanic as a part of a game that has PvP though, and that will involve additional counter-play options and/or more limitations on stealth.

Doctoris.2675:

BobbyT.7192:

One thing i’ve notice, Stealth hardly got touched…. meaning anet must be fine with it.
So can the stealth haters give up now?

Let’s remember— in the last Ready Up, Ranger’s Sic’Em revealed debuff is getting increased from 4 to 6 seconds, and Engineer’s Analyze (Goggles’ toolbet skill) is also being buffed to counter stealth by getting the ability to apply 6 seconds of revealed. Honestly, goggles might be a straight-up stealth build counter, as it is a stunbreak, 10 seconds of blind immunity, and applies 6 seconds of revealed.

Let’s remember—

No one is going to run Goggles, and after a few weeks almost no one is going to run Sic ’Em

Engies will be running post patch exactly what they run now:
3 kits
2 kits + rocket boots
turrets

Thats it. No one is going to take goggles just to troll thieves. There is no room in their specs for them and with bomb kit, ’nades and buffed flame thrower, they are going to be inflicting plenty of pain while thieves are in stealth anyway.

Now, Rangers, yeah, they have room for Sic ‘Em. But most rangers are absolutely terrible, and post patch everyone is going to be glass longbow + signet of stone for a few weeks trying out rapid fire, and there is no easier pray for a thief than a glass bearbow. After the novelty of shooting faster wears off, Sic ’Em usage will return to its normal (current) levels, of only being used here or there. The real ranger change to watch out for isn’t Sic ’Em or Rapid Fire, its how signets will give all power rangers who use them BIG burst.

SotHunt + SotWild + (intel sig) + <Maul or Whirling Defense or Rapid Fire>, that will one shot some thieves. Likewise, SotWild + QZ + 1h sword.

But in both cases, that requires 2 utility slots for burst and makes taking Sic ’Em even less likely, especially with the temptation to take a stun breaker, condi clear or Signet of Stone.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2d0av2/upcoming_thiefwarrior_changes/

^There might be a few more in there…

Honestly, seems like normal ANet changes. Not sure how we can still overreact since this has been pretty consistent, it’s not a suprise… come on guys.

Are they trying to hint at high crit Ricochet build…? life steal from crit procs+ bouncing (with a tiny range increase).

babazhook.6805:

>>That’s a whole lot of words for “30 points in crit strikes and a bunch of other buffs is worth 580 healing on 7k damage”.

A rubbish counterpoint.

It is immaterial that the damage from an attack is 7 k or 8 k when we speak of a source of heal.

I do 133 heal on each attack using a SOM. That if the damage 100k or 1k so what?

Shadows rejuv does less of a heal while hiding and doing NO damage. Is it useless ? it about 300 per second while hid. You are inflicting no damage while hid. In that one second i can heal for more and inflict 7k in damage.

If I cleave with my sword I double up that heal. Can you do that while using shadows rejuv? Yes you might come out of the rejuv healed but while you were hiding that enemy healed as well.

Certainly there are other advantages to shadows rejuv other then the heal but it does not follow that healing for 580 and more per second while pumping out damage is “useless”.

I apologize, I had assumed you’d follow the thought through to it’s conclusion. Allow me to spell it out for you, step by step.

The damage of the attack is very much material when talking about the source of this heal because it’s based on a % of damage done. It’s not simply a number independent of the amount of damage done, as in every other example you cited.

To do such high damage, you have to have to have good power, good crit %, and good crit damage %.

To have all of those things at a “good” level, you likely have defenses at a “poor” level, the typical nomenclature being “glass”.

That amount of healing is nearly inconsequential for a “glass” spec because it’s going to take a high amount of damage from most attacks.

Tl;dr – 580 health ain’t kitten to a spec that can hit that hard, because it is going to be hit very hard in return. When you realize you have to give up executioner or hidden killer for this kitten healing, it becomes laughable garbage.

Oh, and since none have mentioned it pistol 5 will no longer “protect” your stomps from interrupts since it pules every other sec now using an attack and then interrupt the stomp will screw that trick.

so it seems to me anet want the thief to be more group oriented than solo as they nerf the abilities to hit harder while buffing the abilities to gain health or give more to the group
so again more nich build style

p/p could be more viable in group play but 900 to 1050 isnt that much if melee train run you over, thus maybe 1200 as any other classes have would be good

group build available:
power p/p with various healing ability each unload can heal 2.8k (in wvw mainly cause food) but deal less dmg without executioner
condi p/x with full venom share stronger than ever (maybe in pvp area too?!)
mix condi/power p/p set (nich)

no buff to the d/d set
welcome nerf to s/d spamming ppl
d/p need more brain and luck

>>– 580 health ain’t kitten to a spec that can hit that hard, because it is going to be hit very hard in return. When you realize you have to give up executioner or hidden killer for this kitten healing, it becomes laughable garbage.

You can get a base crit chance of 80 percent crit which is ALL the time and have it hit 100 percent well over half the time using thrill of the crime and or furious retaliation.

You can do this in WvW and have near 2400 armor , 17k health and 200 percent crit damage each and every strike. This with power of over 2500 after boosts.

You are not giving up hidden killer at all. You have it ALL THE time.

That 580 heal is each and every time you autoattack. It is in addition to other sources of heal you might decide to take like Omnomberry ghost which proc will virtually every time you perform an AA cycle for another 325 point heal.

If you have this setup with a pistolwhip build and SOM you get another source of healing close to 1000 in two seconds . IP from a PW will get you over 500 heal. two procs of the ghost for over 600 for over 1000 heal per second. That is more heal in ten seconds then any of your other heals can give you.

If you are fighting a warrior who is attacking twice a second being able to heal 1000 per second is like having more armor and you are doing this without giving up a lot in the damage department.

A single dagger storm in the midst of an enemy camp will keep you chock full of health or fill it to the brim if low along with taking down the guards to near death if not dead all on its own.

Minion masters and pets actually can become sources of heals that can often provide more healing then the damage the companion inflicts.

If you take withdraw instead of SOM you will actually have one heal source all but equal to that provided by SOM in the way of IP along with the ability to spike heal when needed with withdraw.

This is not trivial. It is more sustain at the cost of damage to a single target with less then 50 percent health. It is not for every build or every persons personal style but it hardly “garbage”.

The only change that I agree with is the nerf to black powder, the rest of them were pointless and unneeded.

Guys I do not understand why d/p trickery is nerfed, i mean people say that its ruind the the “stealth spam” but how? you still have the smoke field.

Meh, i kinda liked P/P, bad as it was, but seems like it gets nerfed pretty bad.

Unload now does less damage per initiative. The damage or cast speed was never the problem (for me), but how fast you burn through your ini pool. BP was crucial for survival, too.

/edit: My bad, i totally misread the change.

Imo they shouldn’t nerf BP, but make it harder to combo HS with it (reveal when you land the HS, increase ini cost ect).

Very disappointing changes. I would have expected alot more changes to the Thief to finally improve the whole gameplayof that class, so that it makes finally better usage of its potential to become a more fun class to play.

The Thief has tons of useless/ underpowered Traits that Anet has finally to merge/ exchange with new traits to make the Thief a more interesting class that needs to receiver better options for support play in overall.

Instead Anet changes thigs, no one ever has asked about and nerfs the class even more hardly, compared to the Hard Counter Stealth Options Rangers and Engineers get (and who knows, maybe Mesmer, Necromancer, Guardian and Elementalist too >.<)

Changes, that clearly destroy the Thief mostly everywhere in this game, which make it soon even more important, that the Thief needs to receive a complete redesign in many areas of its core mechanisms to stay a viable playable class in this game.
Same needs to be done with the Ranger, but thats a different topic that needs to be discussed in the ranger Forum

Changes I would have hoped for in the next posting

• Venoms become now integral part of the overall Gameplay of the Thief and get removed as Utility Skills.

• Skale and Spider Venom get merged and become “Snake Venom” under F2
  Frost Drake and Devourer Venom get merged and become “Scorpion Venom” under F3 with new Effect
  New Venom “Spider Venom” under new Effect set under F4.
• Skelk Venom becomes the new F1, the Steal Mechanism gets completely reworked.

• Scorpion Venom
  Using Scorpion Venom, adds the effect of Chill and Immobilize changing your Weapon Skills to effectively deal these Conditions

• Spider Venom.
  Using Spider Venom, adds the effect of Confusion and Vulnerability, changing your Weapon Skills to effectively deal these Conditions

• Using Venoms aren’t scaled anymore by “Hits”, but instead have all after activation a Duration Time and within that duration time, the used venom changes the Weapon Skills of the Thief. Only 1 venom at a time can be used now.

• Dagger Storm becomes useable also under Water with similar Animations like the Warriors Spear Skill #5
• New Elite Skill “Shadow Bind” replaces Basilisk Venom.

• Shadow Bind
  You bind up to 5 foes at your chosen ground target to your shadow, what will daze them2s and lets them from that moment on also receive 50% of the damage and conditions, whenever you receive damage or conditions for 10s.
  After 10s you heal yourself for every shadow bonded foe and lose 1 condition per bonded foe, if you havent full health or suffer on any conditions still (max 3)
  Activation Time: 2s
  Coodown Time: 180s
  Counts as Trick Type Skill

• Thieves Guild will count now as Trap Type Skill despite being basically a summon.
• 4 New Utility Skills get implemented for the moved Venoms as new Utility Skill Type “Chakra”

• Deception Breaker Chakra Utility #1 Cooldown 40s
  Removes Fear, Stun, Daze and Immobilization. If you remove any of these Conditions by this Skill, you get healed and destroy any nearby Illusions and Phantasms.
  The Heal gets stronger for every destroyed Illusion/Phantasm and shatter effects from their destructions are nullified towards you

• Chakra Runner Chakra Utility #2 Cooldown 60s
  Put your Chakra into your Feet and after activation this skill, you will receive Stability for a second for the next 10 seconds, whenever you receive Swiftness.

• Shuriken Assault Chakra Utility #3 Cooldown 40s
  Attack your foe with a fan of 3 Shurikens and jump back evading attacks at the same move. Each shuriken deals damage and lets the hit foe suffer oin the Impale Effect that causes over the next 4s to cause Torment Stacks.

• Sight of the Initiator Utility #4 Cooldown 50s
  You can see the next actions of your foe coming, before he does them, resulting in the next incoming 2 hits to be blocked and perform a shadow strike Backstab counterattack into the back of your foe. You gain Initiative back when you counterattack successfully, if your counterattack doesn’t get blocked or evaded.

• Short Bow Range gets increased back to 1200, but deals now increased damage to foes if they are within 900er range and lesser damage, if they are over 900er range.
  Counts also for Rangers

• Caltrops and Shadow Trap change their Skill Types with each other. Shadow Trap gets renamed to Shadow Gate
• Tripwire removes now Stability and an other random Boon
• Haste lets you not lose anymore all endurance, enduranre regen gets reduced only by 25%, but you receive now 25% damage while using it. Cooldown gets reduced from 60 to 40s
• Roll for Initiative Cooldown gets reduced to 50s
• Skelk Venom gets exchanged with a new Healing Skill Shadow Doppelgangers
• Hide in Shadows becomes a Deception Type Skill
• Withdraw becomes a Trick Type Skill

• Shadow Doppelgangers Cooldown 60s
  You summon for 10 seconds two Shadow Doppelgangers of yourself that use the same weapon skills of your 2 sets like you, which will attack nearby foes.
  Their attacks will heal you and nearby allies and if they get killed, you get healed for a bigger amount if your health.
  If you would receive a deadly hit, before this skill ends, the deadly hit will be reverted, your Shadow Doppelgangers die and you receive a large healing and lose 2 conditions.

Steal Mechanism

Gets removed from F1 to make place there for Skelk Venom.
Steal activates itself now if you have no stolen skill currently, then theres a chance, that you will perform automatically a Steal when you hit your foe, so that the player hasnt to do Steal manually self anymore.
It gets automatically done when you have free slots for stolen skills at a certain chance, that will get affeced by the trait line that affects currently the steal cooldown.

Raven.9603:

Doctoris.2675:

BobbyT.7192:

One thing i’ve notice, Stealth hardly got touched…. meaning anet must be fine with it.
So can the stealth haters give up now?

Let’s remember— in the last Ready Up, Ranger’s Sic’Em revealed debuff is getting increased from 4 to 6 seconds, and Engineer’s Analyze (Goggles’ toolbet skill) is also being buffed to counter stealth by getting the ability to apply 6 seconds of revealed. Honestly, goggles might be a straight-up stealth build counter, as it is a stunbreak, 10 seconds of blind immunity, and applies 6 seconds of revealed.

Let’s remember—

No one is going to run Goggles, and after a few weeks almost no one is going to run Sic ’Em

Engies will be running post patch exactly what they run now:
3 kits
2 kits + rocket boots
turrets

Thats it. No one is going to take goggles just to troll thieves. There is no room in their specs for them and with bomb kit, ’nades and buffed flame thrower, they are going to be inflicting plenty of pain while thieves are in stealth anyway.

Now, Rangers, yeah, they have room for Sic ‘Em. But most rangers are absolutely terrible, and post patch everyone is going to be glass longbow + signet of stone for a few weeks trying out rapid fire, and there is no easier pray for a thief than a glass bearbow. After the novelty of shooting faster wears off, Sic ’Em usage will return to its normal (current) levels, of only being used here or there. The real ranger change to watch out for isn’t Sic ’Em or Rapid Fire, its how signets will give all power rangers who use them BIG burst.

SotHunt + SotWild + (intel sig) + <Maul or Whirling Defense or Rapid Fire>, that will one shot some thieves. Likewise, SotWild + QZ + 1h sword.

But in both cases, that requires 2 utility slots for burst and makes taking Sic ’Em even less likely, especially with the temptation to take a stun breaker, condi clear or Signet of Stone.

It’s definitely not going to be a skill that we’ll run into often. I disagree with the idea that nobody’s going to run it though. The skill doesn’t sit as a dead one if a thief isn’t around. It’s quite versatile as a stun break/blind immunity/fury skill all wrapped up into one. Adding anti-stealth (benefits against PU mesmer as well, fantastic counter to mass invisibility if an interrupt isn’t available, guaranteed mesmer down-state stomp) might be what inclines some players to pick it up as their de-facto stunbreaker (though meta builds will likely be staying with Elixir Gun). Static discharge builds already run Utility Goggles incredibly frequently.

In regards to rangers, I don’t think power ranger is the only build that will be making a resurgence (and power rangers should definitely not be slotting Sic’Em. That’d be suicide). Amid all the well deserved hub-bub for the power ranger changes, there was also the change to the beastmaster trait line that removed the specific pet requirement for benefiting from the traits. I think beastmasters are going to be coming back prominently as one of the default go-to builds for rangers come this following patch (Eagle/Hawk, intimidation training, and invigorating bond is just one example of a crazy benefit beastmasters gain from the patch. The new axe autoattack granting might for each target hit shares the might with the pet if the minor trait fortifying bond is taken). Sic’Em as a base +40% attack/movement speed buff to pets fits in very nicely with the builds of beastmasters, and that 6 second revealed is the cherry on top.

So yes— I think this is why stealth was untouched from our end this patch. Because the anti-stealth gameplay is being promoted on the other classes.

babazhook.6805:

>>– 580 health ain’t kitten to a spec that can hit that hard, because it is going to be hit very hard in return. When you realize you have to give up executioner or hidden killer for this kitten healing, it becomes laughable garbage.

You can get a base crit chance of 80 percent crit which is ALL the time and have it hit 100 percent well over half the time using thrill of the crime and or furious retaliation.

You can do this in WvW and have near 2400 armor , 17k health and 200 percent crit damage each and every strike. This with power of over 2500 after boosts.

You are not giving up hidden killer at all. You have it ALL THE time.

That 580 heal is each and every time you autoattack. It is in addition to other sources of heal you might decide to take like Omnomberry ghost which proc will virtually every time you perform an AA cycle for another 325 point heal.

If you have this setup with a pistolwhip build and SOM you get another source of healing close to 1000 in two seconds . IP from a PW will get you over 500 heal. two procs of the ghost for over 600 for over 1000 heal per second. That is more heal in ten seconds then any of your other heals can give you.

If you are fighting a warrior who is attacking twice a second being able to heal 1000 per second is like having more armor and you are doing this without giving up a lot in the damage department.

A single dagger storm in the midst of an enemy camp will keep you chock full of health or fill it to the brim if low along with taking down the guards to near death if not dead all on its own.

Minion masters and pets actually can become sources of heals that can often provide more healing then the damage the companion inflicts.

If you take withdraw instead of SOM you will actually have one heal source all but equal to that provided by SOM in the way of IP along with the ability to spike heal when needed with withdraw.

This is not trivial. It is more sustain at the cost of damage to a single target with less then 50 percent health. It is not for every build or every persons personal style but it hardly “garbage”.

Lets say you do 30k damage in 15 seconds. That feels a tad quick to me (with blocks, invulns, blinds, dodges, kiting, etc), but let’s take it anyway.

At an 85% crit rate, 25,500 of that damage is critical, and will apply heals.
25,500 * .08 = 2040
2040/15 = 136HPS

Congratulations on your 30 point GM trait that is roughly equivalent to the Regeneration boon. You could have gotten that from Shadow protector for 10 points in SA, and it wouldn’t rely on you landing crits/being in combat at all, and can be used on friendly players to boot.

Garbage.

>>Congratulations on your 30 point GM trait that is roughly equivalent to the Regeneration boon.

1>The build already has hidden killer+ as every hit is a crit. Hidden killer is of no use to such a build. The crit rate is in fact higher then 85 percent.

2>The other choice in the line is that off executioner which is a boost to a single target of 20 percent damage when they below 50 percent health. This is certainly not a bad choice but it hardly the only one.

3>Choosing that extra damage does not give one more armor or more health. It provides more damage in the hopes you can get the enemies health down before he does the same to you. That is all.

4>If I take Monks focus on the guardians line I gain heals based on meditations. The shortest cooldown is around 20 seconds for a 2k heal. This adds up to 100 hps. Guardians do not consider that trait garbage.

5>In order for a medi build to work the Guardian generally takes several meditations while locking up skills on his toolbar the cooldowns on these skills are as long as 60 seconds. if one does your same math for that full period it a heal rate of 160hps. Yet it not considered “garbage”.

6>The IP source of heals is available as long as you are attacking. Further to that just as the Guardian adds more sources of heals by using more meditations, the Thief can do the same . Omnomberry ghost will fire about 10 times in that 15 second perriod for 3250 more heal . Your HPS is now 232. This can be added on top of your Regen.

7>in your example above using executioner for around half of those seconds no extra damage will accrue. It does nothing until the enemy at under 50 percent health. Even if we assume this happens at the 6 second mark 20 percent extra damage will apply to 9 seconds which is 60 percent of the time. 60 percent of 30k damage is 18000 damage. 20 percent more damage on top of that is 3600 more damage. 3600/15 is 240 more dps.

Using your own (flawed) methodology IP/ghost build has just neutralized your executioner.

Guess they made it clear they want me to delete my sword. It looks so cool though.

The trait changes show they still don’t understand their playerbase at all. ;/ Which is disappointing but not unexpected.

Also, Last Refuge still untouched. What’s up Anet? Please tell us what you think of this trait for once.

Dagger cleave is cool and Pistol Buffs are nice but dunno if it’s enough to make people use them.

Love the offhand pistol changes. I understand I’m in the minority here, but it pretty much removed the incredibly low skill ceiling the skill had and will now require more counterplay efforts by D/P thieves than just pressing 5. While it makes me sad my unstoppable healing power/blindspam tank troll thief won’t be permablinding people anymore, it makes me happier that I won’t be permablinding people anymore simply because the effect was too overpowered and too easily applied for how little effort it took. BP’s initial strike blind is what keeps the skill good, and with warrior’s adrenaline skills blowing adrenaline even if they miss, a well-timed BP can nullify their combo on cast and still leave some residual while allowing the caster to stealth or reposition.

Cleave on dagger is fantastic and a really nice QoL change.

S/D I actually really like. The skill cap just shot up a lot, and chain evasion thieves can make a return to the game whereas larcenous always found itself in the way and burned unnecessary amounts of initiative. Some compensation would have been nice in regards to perhaps stripping two boons like it did before to make the skill have that sense of impactful duality based upon how it’s used.

Ricochet isn’t bad. I’m not really impressed, either.

Venom sharing again, a nice QoL buff, but ultimately the entire functionality of venoms in their design needs some work. P/D venom condi is going to be even more brutal with skelk venom, though on thieve’s guild/allies.

Choking gas is alright. I see why they did it, but the shortbow has seen too many nerfs across everything. Ultimately I think this weapon needs some reconsiderations, for all it’s really good for at the moment is the heal cut portion of choking gas, and maybe cluster bomb. It needs to either return to 1200 range or see damage increases on CG/TS to warrant the weapon’s success as an evasive ranged set.

Invigorating precision will always be sub-par. I believe it honestly belongs in either another trait line or in the adept level. Simply, the healing is too small, even on cleaves/AOE skills, and the competition (HK/Exec) is way beyond this skill in usefulness as those traits define entire builds and styles of play.

So overall these changes aren’t bad. I really, really do like the BP/Sword changes as they add a lot more depth to the class and builds while raising skill ceilings, but a lot of the intended buffs were simply not enough, and the CG change/fix ultimately hurts the shortbow a lot more than it needs since every skill on it has now been nerfed extremely hard.

babazhook.6805:

>>Congratulations on your 30 point GM trait that is roughly equivalent to the Regeneration boon.

1>The build already has hidden killer+ as every hit is a crit. Hidden killer is of no use to such a build. The crit rate is in fact higher then 85 percent.

2>The other choice in the line is that off executioner which is a boost to a single target of 20 percent damage when they below 50 percent health. This is certainly not a bad choice but it hardly the only one.

3>Choosing that extra damage does not give one more armor or more health. It provides more damage in the hopes you can get the enemies health down before he does the same to you. That is all.

4>If I take Monks focus on the guardians line I gain heals based on meditations. The shortest cooldown is around 20 seconds for a 2k heal. This adds up to 100 hps. Guardians do not consider that trait garbage.

5>In order for a medi build to work the Guardian generally takes several meditations while locking up skills on his toolbar the cooldowns on these skills are as long as 60 seconds. if one does your same math for that full period it a heal rate of 160hps. Yet it not considered “garbage”.

6>The IP source of heals is available as long as you are attacking. Further to that just as the Guardian adds more sources of heals by using more meditations, the Thief can do the same . Omnomberry ghost will fire about 10 times in that 15 second perriod for 3250 more heal . Your HPS is now 232. This can be added on top of your Regen.

7>in your example above using executioner for around half of those seconds no extra damage will accrue. It does nothing until the enemy at under 50 percent health. Even if we assume this happens at the 6 second mark 20 percent extra damage will apply to 9 seconds which is 60 percent of the time. 60 percent of 30k damage is 18000 damage. 20 percent more damage on top of that is 3600 more damage. 3600/15 is 240 more dps.

Using your own (flawed) methodology IP/ghost build has just neutralized your executioner.

What an irony that omnom heals more than gm trait and it’s even life steal so it boosts dps too.

>>What an irony that omnom heals more than gm trait and it’s even life steal so it boosts dps too.

Omnom is a great food in high crit builds. That 1 second cooldown is nice and it also adds precision.

Keep in mind though that ghost does have a cooldown of 1 second. Your overall heal from IP will still be higher as you will get heals from cleaves/ricochets and AOE attacks.

IE in theory ricochet with unload can get you 32 separate hits each adding health whereas ghost can kick in twice at max during that unload.

I would never use IP unless it a high crit rate build and the weapon set one that allows multiple attacks in a short period of time .

P/D D/D wvw player here for the last few months… I have always sloted ricochet! Loving this buff :P

It’s unfortunate that the continual changes to larcenous strike (and flanking strike) ever since it was introduced give no confidence that the balance passes are actually finding solutions to anything. Let’s not even even start talking about venoms either.

babazhook.6805:

>>What an irony that omnom heals more than gm trait and it’s even life steal so it boosts dps too.

Omnom is a great food in high crit builds. That 1 second cooldown is nice and it also adds precision.

Keep in mind though that ghost does have a cooldown of 1 second. Your overall heal from IP will still be higher as you will get heals from cleaves/ricochets and AOE attacks.

IE in theory ricochet with unload can get you 32 separate hits each adding health whereas ghost can kick in twice at max during that unload.

I would never use IP unless it a high crit rate build and the weapon set one that allows multiple attacks in a short period of time .

That above is true for SoM, not IP since it heals for % of crit dmg, doesn’t matter if that dmg is delivered in single hit or multiple hits over the same time. It’s still %.

Stooperdale.3560:

It’s unfortunate that the continual changes to larcenous strike (and flanking strike) ever since it was introduced give no confidence that the balance passes are actually finding solutions to anything. Let’s not even even start talking about venoms either.

venoms? what about traps?

Still no changes to heartseeker spammers? Sigh…

@2nd post in topic: are you nuts?
From point to point:
1. A more reasonable time of immobilize, it would get removed anyway by condi cleanse, 33% faster cooldown. BUFF.
2. Healing buff for PvE, increased survivability.
3. Richocet: a good buff to pistol main hand, makes pvp and wvw thieves happy, adds build diversity.

4. I don’t see what this trait is good for, but still it got buffed.

5. Venom Share buff, now your teammates will do a lot more damage and heal back a lot more with your shared venoms if you have a healing / condi build. Buff.

6. Dagger autoattack is not singletarget anymore, helps in pvp, insanely good buff for PvE for more dps, DOUBLE amount of heal from heal signet and the (just getting buffed) heal on crit trait. Even poison stacks from it.

7. Slight nerf so you can’t or have to work a bit more for PERMA AoE blind in PvE. Like… now you actually need to… you know, dodge! Position yourself! You know, core thief gameplay. Survavibility nerf? Just look at point 2, 5, 6.

8. Straight simple dps buff. Offhand pistol could use a rework to be more viable in any game mode, but a good start. Again, a buff.

9. Well, this may hurt WvW, if you are a fan of “let’s join a zerg and shortbow autoattack, then just stealth and run if there is a problem”. It was a fun feature to have, I’m a bit sad this gets taken away, but I’d hardly consider this as a nerf, since now you actually can’t run away playing braindead. Oh you still can, just not stealthed. Oh you still can, even stealthed, you just don’t have to shoot behind your back while doing so.

10. So instead of overall 5 initative cost, now you pay… oh wait it’s still 5, you’ll just need to manage your resources a bit better. Definitly not a nerf.

YOUR REACTION TO ALL THIS, copied again:

Wow nothing but nerfs on a class that didn’t need it.

PVE thieves are getting kittened bad

S/D thieves just got kitten d bad too

The worst of all was how bad D/P trickery thieves just got hit.

Wow I’m shocked at how off they are

I feel like I wasted my time explaining this to you.

evilapprentice.6379:

Lets say you do 30k damage in 15 seconds. That feels a tad quick to me (with blocks, invulns, blinds, dodges, kiting, etc), but let’s take it anyway.

At an 85% crit rate, 25,500 of that damage is critical, and will apply heals.
25,500 * .08 = 2040
2040/15 = 136HPS

Congratulations on your 30 point GM trait that is roughly equivalent to the Regeneration boon. You could have gotten that from Shadow protector for 10 points in SA, and it wouldn’t rely on you landing crits/being in combat at all, and can be used on friendly players to boot.

Garbage.

A hundred times this.

MakubeC.3026:

evilapprentice.6379:

Lets say you do 30k damage in 15 seconds. That feels a tad quick to me (with blocks, invulns, blinds, dodges, kiting, etc), but let’s take it anyway.

At an 85% crit rate, 25,500 of that damage is critical, and will apply heals.
25,500 * .08 = 2040
2040/15 = 136HPS

Congratulations on your 30 point GM trait that is roughly equivalent to the Regeneration boon. You could have gotten that from Shadow protector for 10 points in SA, and it wouldn’t rely on you landing crits/being in combat at all, and can be used on friendly players to boot.

Garbage.

A hundred times this.

not so true
with one unload i can get back almost 3k health alongside with this trait so dont calculate it by hps (health per second) rather when needed
as if you need health regen so before you use your health skill you do small fast burst and get back 800-1200 health which is nice as it 25% from regular heal skill

messiah.1908:

MakubeC.3026:

evilapprentice.6379:

Lets say you do 30k damage in 15 seconds. That feels a tad quick to me (with blocks, invulns, blinds, dodges, kiting, etc), but let’s take it anyway.

At an 85% crit rate, 25,500 of that damage is critical, and will apply heals.
25,500 * .08 = 2040
2040/15 = 136HPS

Congratulations on your 30 point GM trait that is roughly equivalent to the Regeneration boon. You could have gotten that from Shadow protector for 10 points in SA, and it wouldn’t rely on you landing crits/being in combat at all, and can be used on friendly players to boot.

Garbage.

A hundred times this.

not so true
with one unload i can get back almost 3k health alongside with this trait…

To get 3k health back with this trait, you would need to do 37,500 damage, all crit.

Please tell me how you did 37,500 damage with 1 unload, because I’d love to run that spec.

Or were you taking into account SOM, food, and a dozen other factors? You know, things that Aren’t IP.

IP is garbage – your reliance on mixing its heals up into a bunch of other effects to make it look halfway decent only further proves my point.

You know when executioner is good? When it’s slotted. Sure, you can make it better with might stacks, food, vulnerability on your target and so on, but it’s good enough to be taken on its own merit. It doesn’t need crutches to seem halfway decent

I’m confused about the BP blind spam complaints. I can even autoattack and backstab someone with a dagger outside of bp’s range. Sure perma-blind is OP, but how difficult is it to hold down the “S” button for one second? It takes one second to be unblinded from a thief skill that uses 6 initiative.

IP sucks. In my opinion, it would be balanced with other traits if it deals additional life steal on crit damage (5% crit damage is life steal).

Note: I don’t play d/p. The only reason I’m complaining about this is because of pve content. I guess I’ll just stick with pistol whipping everything instead, which is basically the same as black powder, except I’ll be doing like 5% more damage but not helping my party in any useful way.

Edit: I’ll be so kittened if they implement these changes before they fix Steal. Anet, you should rename the profession if thieves can’t even steal in this game.

Platanos.8107:

I’m confused about the BP blind spam complaints. I can even autoattack and backstab someone with a dagger outside of bp’s range. Sure perma-blind is OP, but how difficult is it to hold down the “S” button for one second? It takes one second to be unblinded from a thief skill that uses 6 initiative.

IP sucks. In my opinion, it would be balanced with other traits if it deals additional life steal on crit damage (5% crit damage is life steal).

Note: I don’t play d/p. The only reason I’m complaining about this is because of pve content. I guess I’ll just stick with pistol whipping everything instead, which is basically the same as black powder, except I’ll be doing like 5% more damage but not helping my party in any useful way.

8% of critical damage turning into lifesteal would actually be interesting. That number might have to be tweaked and playtested a bit.

Your off the cuff remark is more interesting and effective than Anets designed trait.

evilapprentice.6379:

messiah.1908:

MakubeC.3026:

evilapprentice.6379:

Lets say you do 30k damage in 15 seconds. That feels a tad quick to me (with blocks, invulns, blinds, dodges, kiting, etc), but let’s take it anyway.

At an 85% crit rate, 25,500 of that damage is critical, and will apply heals.
25,500 * .08 = 2040
2040/15 = 136HPS

Congratulations on your 30 point GM trait that is roughly equivalent to the Regeneration boon. You could have gotten that from Shadow protector for 10 points in SA, and it wouldn’t rely on you landing crits/being in combat at all, and can be used on friendly players to boot.

Garbage.

A hundred times this.

not so true
with one unload i can get back almost 3k health alongside with this trait…

To get 3k health back with this trait, you would need to do 37,500 damage, all crit.

Please tell me how you did 37,500 damage with 1 unload, because I’d love to run that spec.

Or were you taking into account SOM, food, and a dozen other factors? You know, things that Aren’t IP.

IP is garbage – your reliance on mixing its heals up into a bunch of other effects to make it look halfway decent only further proves my point.

You know when executioner is good? When it’s slotted. Sure, you can make it better with might stacks, food, vulnerability on your target and so on, but it’s good enough to be taken on its own merit. It doesn’t need crutches to seem halfway decent

pls read :“alongside with this trait”

i use som, food, rune, sigils, and TRAIT = >
1 unload does 4 hit from 8 crit hits for 4000 dmg so with this trait its 5% 200 health
som 125*8=1000
sigil of leeching 975 health
sigil of blood 450 so can be 1 crit as it has 5 sec cd
rune of vampirism – 15% chance with unload very food chance to proc 975
after heal skill use another 975
food 325 with 1 sec cd may proc 2 times so 650
assassin reward trait 420 health (not must)

total health gain from 1 unload = 4670 so 3k very possible if some hits miss

but again you lose power and 5% to 8% is only 120 more health which is too low to be GM trait

but if you take it with food only it can regen you for 400 shps if you crit
but i agree thief are not warrior so anet must not do this compareness as thief needs burst heal effect and not over time effect

lets say if you crit you get 50% hp back and 10 seconds cd more suitable to the thief gameplay (warrior can go health gain over time but thief has no time as he must burst fast and stealth)
and with this chance thief will play more aggressively and not perma stealth tizzer

>>That above is true for SoM, not IP since it heals for % of crit dmg, doesn’t matter if that dmg is delivered in single hit or multiple hits over the same time. It’s still %.

I am uncertain of what you try and say here.

IP works exactly the same when it comes to multiple targets as far as health return goes.

Assuming every shot connects and there no dodges.

If I use SOM and PW i get around 100 health back for each and every hit. If there one opponent that means I get 9X 100 health. It takes around 1 second so were I using ghost I could only get one that triggers due to the cooldown so would get 325 health.

With IP I would get the 8 percent of total damage (assuming every hit a crit) so if the damage from PW is 6000 I get 480 more health. So the PW would return in total some 1700 health which is nicely in line with a MUG and wherein one does not have to wait 21 seconds to do again.

Now you have TWO opponents and the pistolwhip hits both.

SOM will return twice as much health. IP will return twice as much health. Omnomberry ghost will not as it can only kick in once per second. There no cooldown on IP. (In theory if all hit a 1800+960+325 heal)

The same is true when you shoot your pistol and get a richochet. If half those bullets hit a second opponent on that single shot , those will be crits and will add to the health returned via IP whereas the Ghost can not kick in again.

messiah.1908:

pls read :“alongside with this trait”

i use som, food, rune, sigils, and TRAIT = >
1 unload does 4 hit from 8 crit hits for 4000 dmg so with this trait its 5%
ip(5%) = 200 health // ip(8%) = 320 health
som 125*8=1000
sigil of leeching 975 health
sigil of blood 450 so can be 1 crit as it has 5 sec cd
rune of vampirism – 15% chance with unload very food chance to proc 975
after heal skill use another 975
food 325 with 1 sec cd may proc 2 times so 650
assassin reward trait 420 health (not must)
Regeneration (base, no HP) = 260 health

Did a little formatting and emphasis, added IP after it’s “buff”, and added a base No healing power Regeneration for comparisons sake.

>>Did a little formatting and emphasis, added IP after it’s “buff”, and added a base No healing power Regeneration for comparisons sake.

Ah so he now has two regens , one more powerful then the other running at the same time.

Not all that bad.

i think you miss the point here
its not supposed to work as regen (i.e over time) rather as burst heal (semi heal skill)

i will try to show it on video soon with testing builds i have done around this idea

Engines certainly will use utility goggles in about 10% of power based builds. But, remember, those builds are Zerg focused. Likewise, the skill requires you to have a target first. It is bad only after you attack.

SaltyDave.7346:

9. Well, this may hurt WvW, if you are a fan of “let’s join a zerg and shortbow autoattack, then just stealth and run if there is a problem”. It was a fun feature to have, I’m a bit sad this gets taken away, but I’d hardly consider this as a nerf, since now you actually can’t run away playing braindead. Oh you still can, just not stealthed. Oh you still can, even stealthed, you just don’t have to shoot behind your back while doing so.

It really hurts for WvW zerg versus zerg support. My role in zergs was to help set off the fields for retal and healing for the frontline, then quickly stealth and run to the side of the opposing zerg, tossing Choking Gas on them before ending up behind them. At which point me and several other thieves would jump on their backline and take out their healers as fast as possible. The Choking Gas was really only to lower the amount of damage the frontline could heal to help give our zerg the advantage.

With this change, unfortunately I won’t be using Shortbow for anything other than the combo finisher, since it’ll be too dangerous to run by the enemy zerg now, they’ll just look at and target me now.

babazhook.6805:

>>Did a little formatting and emphasis, added IP after it’s “buff”, and added a base No healing power Regeneration for comparisons sake.

Ah so he now has two regens , one more powerful then the other running at the same time.

Not all that bad.

For an Adept tier, sure. For 30 points in CS? Garbage.

messiah.1908:

i think you miss the point here
its not supposed to work as regen (i.e over time) rather as burst heal (semi heal skill)

i will try to show it on video soon with testing builds i have done around this idea

I didn’t miss the point at all – the healing is not at all worth a GM slot in any tree, much less the CS tree. Run it all you want – that doesn’t mean it isn’t garbage.

The black powder double-nerf is ridiculous. What’s the point of spending 6 initiative on it when a warrior can run directly through it and still land an eviscerate on me? Now it’s going to feel completely unreliable. I’d honestly rather they reduce its duration to 3 seconds than allow people who faceroll to just ignore it.

Really guys, I think we need to be more vocal about this.
I feel like we are getting screwed….:(

MakubeC.3026:

Really guys, I think we need to be more vocal about this.
I feel like we are getting screwed….:(

we been getting screwed for past year at least, if you didn’t notice

aparrently not enough thieves play condi tanks so they will force us to play condi by deleting every other build, not for the sake of balance but for the sake of numbers… that would be my assumption

i mean look at the past patches, all of them are nerfs to direct dmg builds and attempts to make condis more “viable”

>>I didn’t miss the point at all – the healing is not at all worth a GM slot in any tree, much less the CS tree. Run it all you want – that doesn’t mean it isn’t garbage.

You indeed missed the point. It is perfectly in line with GM traits in other classes trees.

Just an example off the top of my head in the Ranger tree for a GM trait there a “provides regen for you and your pet” . The amount of the regen is considerably less then this affords.

Parasitic contagion is a GM trait in the Necromancer tree and offers 5 percent heal on Condition damage.

Unholy sanctuary provides regen of 125 per second when in death shroud as a GM trait.

Vampiric rituals siphons 50 health per pulse of a well and is a GM trait. (50 damage 50 heal).

The return per second on a Guardians Monks focus is not any higher then IP the difference being it is a spike heal as opposed to a continuous heal. That too is a GM trait.

All of them are used to some extent. All of them are leveraged with other skills.

There a reason a regen stacks in duration rather then in intensity. If it stacked in intensity it would be overpowering allowing too great a heal. A regen of 260 HPS might not seem like something warranting any more then a adept slot but another source that can stack on top of a regen does.

You can not just take out that healing per second and measure it in a vacuum.

Just earlier today I took my thief to hunt some of the champions in Orr.

4 of us took on that Champion giant. I loaded up IP along with SOM and omnomberry ghost and stood toe to toe pistol whipping said giant . My armor is only 2100. My total health only 14k.

I never had to stealth once. I would do an evade away when INI used up. When that giant dropped his slugs my pistolwhips were doing over 18k in total damage which was a 900 point heal just from IP.

On its own this would not be enough heal but with SOM I was getting another 2700 heal and another 325 heal from the ghost. SOM would not have been enough on its own. Ghost is not enough on its own. Added together and they are something else.

Now it takes quite some time before you can drop a champions health to under 50 percent. During that time a skill like Executioner does absolutely nothing. It is of no benefit even as IP provides heals. During that time in another build of only 2k in armor and 14k in health without that steady heal coming in one is going to be spending more time in stealth or away from combat in order to recover health where no damage being done.

IP is not about how much healing it does on its own per second. It is how that can be leveraged with other sources of heals so as to provide a steady stream of health that is incoming. This allows more sustain and the ability to stay in combat longer inflicting damage rather then stealth or withdraw in order to restore ones health.

A single cycle of another pistol whip is 6k which will take 3 10k backstabs from the person relying on executioner to make up for.

Parasitic contagion will not provide a Necro a heck of a lot of health incoming on a one vs one. Spread those conditions among a group of enemies where the source is suddenly coming from 3 or 4 or more, mix that in with others sources of heals and it becomes an entirely different skill.

The same is true of IP and it will get better.