Guild Wars 2

Was discussing with some guildies how we could rework the thief cause we all agreed it needed it and this is some of the stuff we came up with

Proposed Rework ideas:
Delete Daredevil and give us a real elite specialization, not a resold acro line. (keep it staff wielding but more of a brawler like scrapper or a support like spec like druid)
The line as it is right now just obsoletes acro, there’s no point to take acro anymore because daredevil is just better in every way shape and form. The modified dodges will be deleted as they just promote skill less spam which is not healthy and should not be encouraged. The new reworked acro line would look a bit like this:

1st minor- Swiftness on dodge increased by 3 sec to give 7 sec of swiftness on dodge.
2nd minor- Vigor on successful evade and gain 15 endurance back whenever you dodge (Rewards evading intelligently rather than spamming while still giving extra dodges immediately for specs like s/d)
3rd minor- Effects of vigor on you are enhanced and heal on a successful evade

Adept- (only ones listed are ones I’d edit)
Pain Response- keep it’s current effect and add escapist’s absolution (Probably a cd increase added to the condi removal for balance reasons)
Fleet shadow- removed and replaced with Weakening strikes

Master- (same thing as above, anything left out will remain unchanged except for maybe some number tweaks but I’m not addressing that right now)
Guarded Initiation- removed and replaced with power of inertia. Grants 10 seconds of might on dodge and combined with havoc mastery for a 5% damage increase within the range threshold rather than 7%.
Swindler’s Equilibrium- Removed and replaced with Assasin’s reward. Buff assassin’s reward to 90 hp per initative spent.

Grandmaster- (Same thing as the others)
Assasin’s reward- Moved to master tier and replaced with invigorating senses. Regenerate health while you have vigor (150-200 hps).
Upper hand- keep the initiative regen but add gain 25 endurance when you steal from an enemy.

Daredevil would then be replaced accordingly and we would have a line that did something different for the class like it should’ve done before. There are many other changes that we think need to occur though:

Sword 2 return needs to be instant, not a stunbreak but it is not fulfilling it’s role in this state
Flanking strike needs to flip to larcenous even if it’s blocked. Should not cycle for evades and blinds but blocks yes. Larcenous strike needs to steal 2 boons. Thief needs to bring something unique to a party, and extreme boon hate could be a big part of it fulfilling a new role as well as giving it a better chance in 1v1’s against many of the new specs.
CnD needs blind baseline
Preparedness needs to be baseline. Thief is too dependent on too many traitlines to be effective and it’s killing the diversity of the entire class. The baseline would help reduce the dependency on trickery.

That’s a majority of the changes that were proposed (The actual trait changes were my own thinking so I will be held responsible for any hate messages coming from that). Let us know if you agree, disagree, or are indifferent in regards to the proposed changes and please elaborate on it so we can grow a healthy discussion despite any trolls that respond here. Yes we do recognize there are other issues on thief that need to be changed but this was all that was discussed today before we got distracted.

Edit #1: I still stand by the idea that stealth needs to be thief specific so it can be balanced according to how it influences thief gameplay. Other effects can be added to other classes skills to compensate for the loss of stealth and too give each class a more distinctive feel to them.

This guy has a pretty good idea imo:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3vlolr/an_attempt_at_making_the_thief_profession_fun/

Reverting most of the nerfs that anet placed on the profession would put thieves on par with the other professions.

DD is fine; more elite specs in the future will compensate.
Not sure if the thief needs innate buffs, but what you’re proposing isn’t overly-extreme. That said, I’d have to look into it more later. Pretty tired right now. It won’t really solve core issues with the thief, though. A lot of problems lay in the foundations and principles of other trait lines/utilities. Infiltrator’s Return is iffy on the no casting time; it can be both wildly overpowered but not so at the same time.

As far as the reddit thread:
Gross. He pretty much gutted backstab builds for anything they were worth.

DecieverX, The issue is that Daredevil is fine. Because it is fine it makes acro completely 100% obsolete. This post was specifically pertaining to those two lines and I may update the OP as I have more discussions with fellow guild members which is why nothing has been extreme outside of renewing acro and deleting daredevil. The hope I was having by starting with this kind of idea was in order to start balancing so that thief should not have to be required to take a line just to be effective.

Right now to function properly we need trickery and da, which leaves room for only 1 more line and with all the reveal out now people are just migrating to dd. This lack of diversity and effectiveness is just silly considering how many other profs can have higher damage, sustain, cc, team support, aoe, res utility, etc. all at the same time. If these changes go through we will see an increase in build diversity as well as a new option for a role opened because of the making of a new elite spec. Additionally builds won’t be limited to d/p and vault spam because options like s/d will synergize well with these changes and more builds will be available to the class.

Like yolo said, I think a large part will be just reverting some nerfs in the past and then the other parts will be larger buffs like making thief have a health pool equal to engineer (the change would apply to guard and ele as well) or equalizing revealed in this game across all modes (3 sec or 4 sec doesn’t matter, just needs to be the same). If anet starts taking these kinds of steps we will see thief become viable in high level pvp without allowing for huge powercreep because as you said deceiver, none of the changes are too extreme so far.

Reverting nerfs isn’t going to fix DD, Acro, or even thief.

DD + Acro given a restored Acro trait line would be deemed as too overpowered by a large number of people and I’d almost be inclined to agree with them. The current game state is absolutely broken and the thief sucks because it isn’t. The problem is that adjusting balance by throwing in more imbalance does not resolve core design flaws particularly when it comes to such disparities.

While I fully endorse the concept of an evasion-based thief being viable, and agree the concept of the daredevil was unnecessary and the cause for ruining the Acrobatics line, the two trait lines share such similarities that allowing them to work in tandem with what was once already a very strong trait line would cause massive waves of complaints and potentially allow the class when played correctly to be virtually if not literally unkillable.

Winning a fight should be based on a few factors, namely involving the skill of the player and subsequently his ability to judge and counter-play each individual incoming attack. The thief should flourish when played well, but so should all professions; making the thief do inherently better by playing well isn’t a proper way to consider balance in game design, for then you end up needing to set a common denominator for balance and anything above or below such a mark would result in awkwardness and disparities in gameplay; rewarding people in general for playing better than their opponents should be considered as the proper approach.

Yes, I would love DD to get thrown out the window. But guess what? It’s not happening. ArenaNet is stubborn, they’re milking HoT to get sales by leaving the ESpecs overpowered and imbalanced, and frankly, I don’t think Karl is motivated or concerned enough with the class (I think the evidence for this claim is substantial) to make such sweeping changes. Frankly, if he wanted to put a lot of time into the profession, age-old design flaws and reworks would have been resolved a long time ago.

Acrobatics, the thief in general… they need a lot of work, yes. I just don’t think you’re going to gain any traction suggesting they outright remove the DD, nor do I think solely undoing nerfs is the place to start.

IF my changes were to occur (and you’re absolutely right they won’t but it never hurts to at least throw the idea out there and if they eventually decide that they need to get their poop in a group then maybe they’ll think about things like this) then DD+ Acro wouldn’t be a thing as DD wouldn’t exist. Unfortunately at this point one of the lines has to be thrown out the window and remade if they want lines to serve different purposes which is why I thought of this in the first place.

I’m glad we both want an evasion thief to be a thing but I agree we do have to make sure we don’t do a revitalized acro and leave dd in without taking into account what could happen but that’s the whole idea behind remaking a line. To prevent such a thing from happening. (though given anet’s history they’d probably overbuff and then re-nerf it so it’d be worse than it is now).

I agree skill is a large part in winning fights but as it is with the large amount of power creep from ESpecs thief is suffering. Now adding more power creep is not a good thing at all, but I don’t see any of my proposed changes as being on the level of causing power creep. Even outplaying someone significantly at this point is just gambling that they won’t have some silly passive or broken power coefficient srew you over because you don’t get to have invulns as a thief. (not asking for invulns just saying why power creep affects thief more than any other class). Balance in addition to what you said in that small section should also be uniform across the game. What I mean by that is there shouldn’t be different balancing styles from the devs. (I.E. Robert gee focuses on building synergy while Karl attempts to create sacrifice in choices) Uniformity in balancing will also help in the future for all classes.

Do I think anet will make changes like this soon or ever? No. Will I make suggestions anyway in case they change how they’re operating? Of course I will. If he isn’t motivated enough to make changes that are good for the game then he’s not a good choice for an employee in that position. (Nothing against him personally, the philosophy applies everywhere in life and the business world)

I don’t really expect to gain any traction by posting anything as anet really has no reason to listen to me or anyone else. The goal is to get ideas out there so maybe it’ll catch on and something good will happen for a change. I think undoing nerfs that were unnecessary in the first place is a great place to start as most of the buffs that would make certain things on thief viable again are just nerf reverts. That doesn’t have to nor should it be the only thing that happens, but imo it’s a great place to start because it doesn’t require a ton of programming and design and to be frank, it is the least likely thing to cause power creep. If it becomes broken they can hotfix it because they already have the coding required to do so. There’s not much risk in starting there and it helps to allow them to figure out what traits actually need changes because maybe the extra escapes from instant infiltrator’s return and the extra boon hate from 2 boon steal on sword 3 will influence the game enough to where things are viable without huge trait changes.