Guild Wars 2

IP is useless. If you survived with IP, you could have survived without IP. I duo’d that champion with signet of malice and didn’t get downed once.

babazhook.6805:

>>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.

I forgot that all classes were the same. I’m sure IP is amazing when combined with all the protection, blocks, invulnerabilities, and amazing condition clearing that thieves get.

Oh, wait….

You’re wrong, and you’re perfectly happy being willfully ignorant as to why. We’ll just have to agree to disagree, because you’re here to sway others to your line of thinking rather than come to logical conclusions concerning how the games mechanics work.

Panic Strike: Reduced immobilize from 5 seconds to 2.5 second, reduced CD from 30 to 20 seconds.

I get the change…but I don’t think I ever saw this trait ever seriously used by any decent build.

Invigorating Precision: Increase healing % based on damage from 5 to 8%

Fair enough. I still see this as only a trait for certain open world PvE content, but the healing was too low for sure.

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

I’m not sure 150 additional range will make that much of a difference, but this is a good change that will at least help a few PvE or WvW encounters.

Assassin’s Equilibrium: Increase stability from 1 to 1.5 seconds

I still can’t see any point to this trait. =/

Maybe a D/D thief dueling a hambow would want it? lol

Venomous Aura, Allies will now use the thief’s condi damage and healing when applying the venoms.

I’ll still never use venoms, but I’m sure this will make some WvW thieves happy.

Dagger 1 Combo will now hit max 2 targets, Posion will stack, but not the endurance gain.

A nice change, but since so much of dagger DPS often comes from backstab, CnD, and heartseeker, I don’t expect this to really change much.

Pistol 5 Black Powder: will now pulse every 2 seconds for 4 seconds instead of 1 second for 4, and the aoe blind has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds per pulse.

Part of me really hates to see this, since I can see skilled players negating the advantage of any assistance that a blind field gives against a downed target…but at least it promotes skillful play.

P/P Unload: cast time as been reduced from 1 3/4 seconds to 1 1/2, also applies to your summon thieves as well.

A nice change for P/P, although I don’t anticipate a great change in pistol DPS since the initiative restriction mostly means that you’ll just get in extra auto attack occasionally.

Short-bow 4 Choking gas: now delivers a strike when it lands.

A fair change. I think this only really hurts the trolliest of the trolls.

S/D Flanking strike: initiative cost increase from 3 to 4, and now requires to hit before it can combo into Larcenous Strike,

S/D Larcenous Strike: Initiative cost reduced from 2 to 1

Not entirely sure what I think of this yet…I appreciate the increase need for skillful play, but it’s confusing to see this done to a build that requires a good amount of skill to pull off, particularly at a time when there are so many MM necros, spirit rangers, and turret engis.

Ultimately, the big question is whether Air/Fire sigils together will get nerfed as this plays such a large role in sword builds having competitive burst.

>>IP is useless. If you survived with IP, you could have survived without IP. I duo’d that champion with signet of malice and didn’t get downed once.

I was not talking about not being downed. I have soloed those champions and not been downed. This when I was in in 3k armor with 20K plus hitpoints and taking a long time to do so as I used heals and stealth to recover.

I am talking about my health barely dropping without ever having to stealth or leave combat due to health.

After that battle there was an attack at penitent point. At one point just as we were dropping one champion undead that showed (and those things hit hard) two more showed.

There was a sea of downed players, guardians, warriors , you name it and most no doubt having more armor then 2k and more hit points then I have.

My health indeed dropped in that mob even with IP, SOM and Ghost running. On three separate occasions i used shadowstep to get out of a mob with health left less then 3k.

I got around 5 pistolwhips off each time and from IP alone in that MOB with multiple targets suggest this healed me for well over 4k. I would have been downed without IP.

I did not stealth once in order to survive. I did not have a source of stealth on my utility bar.

So no it not true SOM would have been enough to keep me alive.

THAT said just to show how far from the truth “this skill is garbage is”

When 8 percent arrives I will get about 480 health from every unload on a SINGLE target.

I will add to that 325 from Omnomberry ghost.

This is 800 health the exact amount I would get from an unload using SOM

Compare that to Mesmer GM trait “disrupters Sustainment” which adds 1000 to healing predicated on USING a heal (meaning it then on cooldown) and it far superior.

With the use of SOM and IP/ghost If facing a person with 2000 condi damage who has loaded 10 stacks of bleeds on me , I can heal for more on an unload then those bleeds will inflict.

If I switch SOM to Withdraw , I can have a source the same as SOM (and higher) at the same time as I have a spike heal like withdraw on my utility bar. (SOM base adds 100 health per attack. The WEAK AA of p/p from vital shot will garner one about 80 health)

I was going 6/6/2/0/0… with full zerk

Platanos.8107:

I was going 6/6/2/0/0… with full zerk

I was 2/6/0/2/4 in THIS incarnation with assassins/zerk mixed. No stealth. Not even as a utility. I try and make a no stealth power build work for me. I started with 2.4k armor 17k health and have slowly been scaling back on armor/ health. It not where I want it yet.

BobbyT.7192:

Panic Strike: Reduced immobilize from 5 seconds to 2.5 second, reduced CD from 30 to 20 seconds.

Panic Strike is a thing? Not too terrible a change I suppose, 5s is a long immobilize. If they’re cutting the duration in half though, would have made sense to cut the cooldown in half. So, nerf to a little-used trait.

Invigorating Precision: Increase healing % based on damage from 5 to 8%

And still no one with 6 in CS will ever use this over Executioner or Hidden Killer.

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

Before, Thieves are the only class without a 1200 range weapon. So now, we have to use a trait for it and we’re -still- the only class without a 1200 range weapon. Why the kitten did they not buff it up to 1200?

Assassin’s Equilibrium: Increase stability from 1 to 1.5 seconds

Useless trait before, still every bit as useless after.

Venomous Aura, Allies will now use the thief’s condi damage and healing when applying the venoms.

Good change I guess, for a very niche trait.

Dagger 1 Combo will now hit max 2 targets, Posion will stack, but not the endurance gain.

Suppose I can get behind this, though I was fine with sword being our ‘cleave’ weapon. So it’s a buff, but not really one that was needed nor wanted.

Pistol 5 Black Powder: will now pulse every 2 seconds for 4 seconds instead of 1 second for 4, and the aoe blind has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds per pulse.

And you’ve just destroyed PvE’s only defensive skill.

P/P Unload: cast time as been reduced from 1 3/4 seconds to 1 1/2, also applies to your summon thieves as well.

Doesn’t affect the underlying problem of a power/crit based skill in a condition based weaponset.

Short-bow 4 Choking gas: now delivers a strike when it lands.

Don’t really see why this was necessary, but I suppose I’m not devastated about it.

S/D Flanking strike: initiative cost increase from 3 to 4, and now requires to hit before it can combo into Larcenous Strike,

S/D Larcenous Strike: Initiative cost reduced from 2 to 1

I don’t do S/D much, but I can see why this would be a hassle to thieves who do. It’s a tough build to use effectively, this just makes it tougher.

So basically, there was a nerf to the only PvE defensive skill, a bunch of worthless buffs to worthless skills or traits, and a few nerfs/buffs that don’t really accomplish anything. Meanwhile, Mug still breaks steal-on-stealth, we still have almost no condition cleaning outside of gimmicky stealth builds, and Last Refuge is still a thing.

Summary? Devs still don’t have a clue and/or kitten about thieves.

I’m pretty okay with these changes. I worked up a d/d hybrid/passive heal bunker when invigorating precision came out and it’s been a pretty great PvE spec since then.

The combination of mad king runes, basilisk venom (single target fights) or daggerstorm (zergs) along with IP and signet of malice opened up a lot of gearing options. Deathblossom and the dagger auto bonus endurance give good sustain in this spec, and it can gear pretty well for condition, direct damage, or all-out bunkering and still deal pretty decent DPS without relying on filling the utility bar with evades/stealth just to survive.

It’s a “balanced spec” that didn’t quite work before IP because the passive healing wasn’t big enough, but it’s been getting progressively better and more PvP viable each balance pass. Fire/air/water sigils on the daggers round out the heals and make it a pretty scrappy group fighter which can still hammer in some deathseekers or C&D to help stomp.

Venoms are still kitten, and will continue to be kitten until they’re moved away from being balanced around venomshare. They need to buff all venoms, then change venomshare to effect one nearby ally. The net support effect would be the same, but it would allow venoms to be useful outside of VS builds, and make venomshare more intuitive since you’d only need to hug one ally to get the full benefit, and you can control your distance to a single ally yourself while you need a whole group to hug you in the current implementation.

babazhook.6805:

Platanos.8107:

I was going 6/6/2/0/0… with full zerk

I was 2/6/0/2/4 in THIS incarnation with assassins/zerk mixed. No stealth. Not even as a utility. I try and make a no stealth power build work for me. I started with 2.4k armor 17k health and have slowly been scaling back on armor/ health. It not where I want it yet.

First off, I think 2/6/0/2/4 is a bit weird. I hope you can tell me what traits you put in trickery and acrobatics. Second off, I should not have dismissed invigorating precision that quickly, because of course it helps with extra sustain, and for enemies with high health pool, executioner only makes you kill things ~8% faster.

Alright. I’m going to go through the numbers (as of this moment, I do not know if 8% is “good”). So, I think it would be generous to say that pistol whip with zerker stats, ruby orbs, going 5/6/0/0/3 does about 9k of crits with 2533 power and 88% crit chance. Note, this is including Combined Training Trait (+5% damage), initative > 6, assassin’s signet, signet of agility. On average, I would say you do 6k of crits. The attack takes 2.2 seconds to do, so that’s about 4.1k damage per second if the rng god is on your side, and 2.7k dps if everything is normal. With god rng, If you attack three people, that’s 12.3k damage per second. 8% of that is 984 hp/sec. With normal rng, that’s 648 hp/sec.

I’m assuming you don’t stealth because you want to keep attacking and be continuously doing damage, so basically you would take executioner if you could sustain a bit more. If you have signet of malice, you should take caltrops (10 sec, 30 sec cd). With 3 enemies in caltrops, that is ~400 hp/sec for 10 seconds. So yes, when fighting 3 enemies that have high health pools, people may take invigorating precision. But when there’s 5, you get 665 hp/sec + condition damage.

How to survive longer without invigorating precision? Take caltrops. Or take shadow refuge or take both. Shadow refuge heals 335 hp/sec. You can use dancing dagger to get 202*4 hp(808 hp) per use I think… Shortbow is useful too for damage and healing; you can quickly kill trash mob and regen hp by spamming 2. Dagger storm is basically auto-fill hp.

In a nutshell, these are the numbers I got and it is up to you to decide whether taking signet of malice + these utility skills are worth taking and getting executioner. For me? I think it is worth it. For others? Maybe not.

EDIT: And also? Can they change the animation on FS and LS if they are going to implement these changes? It seems strange that the dagger hits up to three people but the sword only hits one.

this to rid the boards of a double post.

>>First off, I think 2/6/0/2/4 is a bit weird. I hope you can tell me what traits you put in trickery and acrobatics

I have been “bouncing” the numbers around. With low armor/health I was finding it prone to a single burst. If I did not dodge that burst The low health dropped me on a single hit since the armor is paper.

I wanted to boost it enough so I could survive that eviscerate or some such if I missed the dodge and then fill up on health with unloads or pistol whips.

I also wanted over 80 percent crit base along with the fury from the CS line and Thrill of the crime. The point is every hit a crit so every hit is healing. Further with ferocity the bonus 217%.

SOM only allows 100 health base so when my INI out or low I am only getting 100 health per attack from that. The IP on the other hand even on a single target hits pretty hard. Using my weakest attack (vital shot form PP I hit for around 1300. 2 shots in about a second is 130 health from IP 200 from som and pretty good odds of 325 from Ghost. At 8 percent that 1300 hit will get 100+ health the same as the base of SOM without heal bonuses.

With s/p the autoattack chain hits around 7 k total so using no ini those 3 attacks get 300 from SOM and 350 from the IP at its 5 percent. Ghost will kick in more often then not for another 325 heal.

(for purposes of discussion I am assuming a little better then medium armor on enemy)

in trickery I take Thrill of the crime. This used at the start of a fight to get that Fury up. As the battle goes on Furious retal kicks in and then the pack runes will give the occasional fury although I do not count on it. Steal cycles back in short order and I can fury again. Base crit is 82 percent so we get 100 percent crits.

The REASON i wanted to just drop stealth was after reading on the reveal changes. I wanted a build that would NOT simply drop if stealth lost for 6 seconds followed by another six. I did not want to count on using a shadow refuge if there going to be more ways to counter it.

In trickery I also took unload. Again this to get more crit attacks. Much like a pistol whip and its cleave, those extra attacks kick in health from SOM and from the IP.

In DA I was swapping between mug for even another heal and sundering strikes. Sundering strikes with every shot a crit can quickly build vulnerabilty. It not hard to get 10 stacks which is 10 percent more damage. This allowed me to drop pistol mastery. The poison on the steal also would cripple the enemies first heal as that first unload chain could put a lot of pressure on an enemy to use a heal and with 33 percent less effective heal the next chains of that or PW can put him on the defensive.

In Acro I took descent of shadows. The real purpose there was just a little more health in the build. I will put in poi or assassins retreat in there as well.

What I envision is when the 8 percent kicks in and with a few tweaks to the build I will have the equal of an SOM all the time with the combo of ghost and IP. I then can slot withdraw for the purposes of the mobility/condi cleanse and rapidly cycling spike heals to supplement the IP.

Currently on my toolbar I use SOM/Signet of Agility/Shadowstep/assassins signet and daggerstrom.

Shadowstep the obvious Condi cleanse and stun break. That has to stay. SOA stays for the extra precision and occassional emergency condi clear. That stays. Assassins signet can be bumped and not overly affect the build.

I have generosity/purity on my P/P set. The alternate set is s/p. When I need condi cleanse the p/p set can clean 2 in 10 seconds.

Even with that as most know a thieve without stealth will find it hard to clear conditions at times. I was fighting a real nasty Necro team the other night that could just load them on me over and over again. To address that I made sure my Thief a Human and can slot in the little used Kormir prayer. I have never used those before but it made me much more survivable when an enemy has access to a lot of conditions.

Using executioner one might kill faster but they really do nothing for half the battle. If fighting a medi guardian or an elementalist with lots of access to heal, I was finding they could quite easily heal back over that 50 percent. Then that trait does nothing again. As I have said it a great trait, I am just going a different route.

(Once I get better trinkets I can still keep that high crit rate of 80+ base and then switch out rune of the pack as an option. Mad king runes maybe, Runes of Vampirism? What would mad king give on a daggerstorm or using basilisks for a spike heal every 45 seconds)

No stealth. P/P as a big part of the build. Fight in the open and dodge/kite a lot. Sustain through heals from my attacks. Pressure, pressure pressure. No resets

The BlackPowder Nerf is the worst since it will make blindfield safe stomping a lot more unreliable and useless against anyone with a braincell. So they want us to go into stealth more for safe stomping (i thought previous patches were all about bringing thief out of stealth into the fight) and they dont want us to safestomp guardians without blowing shadowstep CD. Yes because guardian was clearly underpowered.

BobbyT.7192:

S/D Flanking strike: initiative cost increase from 3 to 4, and now requires to hit before it can combo into Larcenous Strike,

Dangit. No more shadowstep boon stripping?

Prince.7198:

The BlackPowder Nerf is the worst since it will make blindfield safe stomping a lot more unreliable and useless against anyone with a braincell. So they want us to go into stealth more for safe stomping (i thought previous patches were all about bringing thief out of stealth into the fight) and they dont want us to safestomp guardians without blowing shadowstep CD. Yes because guardian was clearly underpowered.

Black Powder was a little OP, really. You can avoid a lot of damage if you used properly. I’m more concerned about the dagger nerf. It probably won’t make too big of an issue (I hope).

Idk, I think 2s of stability coming out of stealth will be quite useful, especially stomping in wvw