Guild Wars 2

So, basically what I’m trying to get at is, Thief lost all their might access, making one of the most meta rune sets: [Strength and Hoelbrak]. Completely useless to them, I guess to say is, bring back:
Hidden Assassin: Gain Might while in stealth.
Power of Inertia: Gain Might whenever you dodge.

Now, you may ask: “How would we do that now?”
For Hidden Assassin, it’s KIND OF obvious:
Hidden Thief: Gain Stealth when you steal > Hidden Assassin: Gain Stealth when you steal and gain might while in stealth. [Pulses 2 stacks every second, 6 second lasting might.]

Now Power of Inertia: Swindler’s Equilibrium: Successfully evading an attack while wielding a sword decreases the cool down of steal. > Swindler’s Equilibrium: Successfully evading an attack while wielding a sword decreases cool down of steal and grants might. [1 Second ICD on the trait, but the might lasts 15 seconds.]

tho i have nothing against it, i wouldn’t base all this on 2 runes that are currently “meta”

Better idea. Master minor in daredevil gets the might on evade in addition to the healing. Acro is a full defensive line now, while Daredevil is a mix of defense and offense, and due to thief’s role, Daredevil gets taken more than Acro. Acro will need more than a small buff to make it meta viable again; throwing a small buff into it instead of elsewhere is tantamount to no buff at all since it won’t get used due to not being enough to make the line worth taking.

Power of Inertia can’t be brought back because DD has so much damage on it. Yea, if they nerfed DD’s damage output, PoI being brought back and giving more might on a successful evade might be reasonable to ask for.

Hidden Assassin, though? No way. 360-420 power camping stealth was absolutely dumb. SA is a defensive line, like camping stealth is supposed to be. You shouldn’t be getting the same damage from SA as DA with all the bonus utility of playing safe in stealth. I’m a proponent of skilled play and high damage rewards, but HA had no opportunity cost and made camping stealth OOC while regenerating initiative have quite literally zero downsides.

Personally I’d just give thieves more boon stealing. It works as both a buff (we get might and change) and a debuff (they lose their boons) at the same time.

Boon stealing should be everywhere. So much so that nearly any build you make should comfortably have one or two sources for jacking boons.

I miss the good old days where i can stack 25 stacks of might constantly running D/D, sigil of strength, Runes of Strength, Power of Inertia and Hidden Assassin, with a condi cleanse every 4 seconds, while running a very forgiving and noob friendly build,(Acro,SA, DA) which i used to recommend to anyone starting out thief.

Now the only way to solo stack might on thief is to use traps. =/

I’ll support anything that makes thief more viable at this point, but i doubt giving us more might is going to help with out current situation. We lack survivablity, not damage. Party Might flows like water in a party scenario. Having these two traits is not going to give us a huge damage boost for PvP and WvW either.

I rather they give us a trait for protection every time we enter stealth. (probably too OP tho)

Speaking of which, imagine a trait that gives us 25 stacks of might when our hp is below 15-20%. Now that would be useful for doing clutch plays, making thieves more dangerous the lower his HP gets.

Actually I think no class should be able to stack 25 of anything on their own. Like ranger vulnerability f.e.
And damage is part of thief’s problem, at least for me as a D/D thief.
Don’t know about acro but every other line has got damage modifiers – so sorry, but I don’t get why might has been removed. Yeah, you could give me something in exchange.
And “stealth camping” has got a cooldown – so I don’t really get why the elitists demand that SA remains broken.

ETA: But alas as long as every other class has got revealed it’s useless anyway – can we get some new lines and delete acro and SA?

I can stack 25 stacks of might on my scrapper without even thinking about it. It just happens. Everytime I look I got over 20 stacks.

It the same with my reaper. Even easier then the scrapper.

I think what has to happen is as another suggested. Allow the thief even more boon stealing where they get full durations and stacks. This might make the Reaper/scrapper and others think twice about stacking all those boons as they will be stacking them for the thief to take.

I have no problem generating 25 stacks of might on my thief…..

I use Trappers Respite, Deadly Trapper, & Improvisation, in combination with Dragon Hunter Runes, and typically Ambush trap. (but I trade ambush with trip or shadow depending)

As I’m Idling walking to my destination (some mob, raid boss, pvp objective) I “activate” my trap, then rapidly weapon swap to cancel the move and put it on a 4s CD, and generating 5 stacks of might via DH runes.

I then tend to start off precasting Thief guild

About-face+ withdraw into my opponent to trigger Trappers Respite (5 stacks for placing via DH runes, 5 more when trap is triggered via Deadly Trapper, at this point we are @ 15 stacks)

I then drop my Ambush Trap which should be off CD by now. ~see above about ability cancel~ (5 stacks of might via DH, 5 might when triggered via Deadly Trapper, Resulting in 25 stacks.)

If Improve resets your traps the Needle trap from Trappers Respite is also reset, so I tend to be able to keep the stacks high early in for added burst pressure. If not they will both be back up in like 24’s, and each trap can give 10 stacks of might apiece.

Not to mention the Vulnerability that’s added to the target, or additional burst from having 3 minions blasting and blinding and scorpion wiring them.(or more if traps or elite skill is reset)

: / i’d post my build if Gw2skills.net wheren’t down.

Edit: Spelling

More boon stealing is absolutely somethign that needs to happen to rebalance the thief.
in fact I’m sharing the opinion that the thief should be 100% all about it as part of their complere gameplay.

When using steal, it shoudl be baseline that they automaticalyl steal also all boons from the target, for example.
Add to this then also some Boon Steal effects to all Weapon Sets, that they have at least 1 boon steal effecton every weapon set and some boon steal effects on all trait lines to add boon steal somehow to utility skills like their traps or when using tricks ect together with also passive boon steal effects, like when evading attacks and the thief would be alot more balanced, because a true thief never ignores the chance to steal somethign from their enemies to strengthen themself and weaken their enemies at the same time like some kind pf parasite that becomes always stronger and strogner, so more it can take away from their enemies.

babazhook.6805:

I can stack 25 stacks of might on my scrapper without even thinking about it. It just happens. Everytime I look I got over 20 stacks.

It the same with my reaper. Even easier then the scrapper.

I think what has to happen is as another suggested. Allow the thief even more boon stealing where they get full durations and stacks. This might make the Reaper/scrapper and others think twice about stacking all those boons as they will be stacking them for the thief to take.

Necromancers don’t have the damage modifiers that thieves do. 25 might on my reaper puts the auto-attack damage on a dagger still lower than maybe 7 or 8 on my thief, despite the better coefficients favoring the necro.

And I completely understand the philosophy of stealing or at the very least stripping more boons. The “we should get it because x other class has it and it’s unfair” is the whole reason why we have a number of the balance problems we have right now; Let’s look at a lot of the abilities that at release were almost explicitly unique to the thief:

- Permanent movespeed bonus via either swiftness or a signet/passive effect; no other class had this feature at launch.

- Extended stealth; only a few abilities in the game granted stealth, let alone anything more than a few seconds on long cooldowns.

- Single-hit single-target burst; backstab had the highest damage coefficient in the game in regards to single-hit abilities. Not the case any longer.

- Low cooldown engages and disengages; there are an absurd amount these days.

Obviously there are a lot more.

Boons at this point are making builds that should be okay at anything be amazing at everything. Give the thief protection and resistance, and it becomes OP. Giving the thief more damage from might won’t solve the boon issue on other classes and only makes the very few strips/steals that do exist on the mesmer/thief/necro debilitating.

As far as Hidden Assassin, Jana, the resistance to this isn’t elitism but blatant balance concerns. There is no mythical ICD here; it would provide so much damage that the fight would be over by anyone running CS/SA/Tr in better speed than a DA/CS/Tr signet build currently can, which already kills any non-toughness/vitality build in the game in under two seconds, all while gaining the full defensive benefits of stealth.

This is blatantly overpowered. I don’t want the thief to become overpowered. I want the thief to be balanced, because being overpowered just causes more nerfs, and ANet never goes back on their buffs to nerf them when they overtune things; they always just modify something else as an excuse.

Heck, the initiative gain and condition cleansing in SA already offsets half of the investment of Trickery for such a concept, so a DA/CS/SA build would be capable of pumping out way more damage with way less risk – I.E., 30k damage backstabs in WvW on engage with invisible engages with a full condition cleanse, passive reduced damage, healing, and initiative regen on stealth, and three more utilities. This isn’t healthy play and anyone trying to justify this as healthy gameplay either has a motive or has not actually done their homework on the subject and is arguing from a purely anecdotal point of view from their own personal experience.

Yes, trait concepts need some overlap, but massive damage bonuses are definitely not a feature SA should be giving. I could see maybe 1 might for 5 seconds each second in stealth versus 1 might for 15 like it used to be in HA. But at that point, why not play the theme and give the thief like 7% bonus damage on stealth attacks in the SA line? Now you’re rewarding the use of stealth and not the abuse of stealth, using sneak attacks like an Assassin would, and offering competitive damage to what Trickery offers while giving damage superiority to CS and DA like the lines should have, and then there’s no need to nerf the defense and utility on SA.

Do me the favour and calculate the dps a regular SA thief with or without runes of strength could have.
Toning it a bit down would’ve been okay with me if not every kitten other build had gotten the best of everything.

DPS or burst? These are two hugely different things. DA/CS/Tr will always out-DPS CS/SA/Tr on the basis that the might gain would require stealth stacking which would mean no damage. Burst potential, however, the 10% reliable gain from DA and mug will not offset the benefits of 15+ additional stacks of might. That’s 450 power; roughly 20% of base power, giving substantially better damage against squishies and better performance against tankier players as well.

It worked in the old trait system because DA provided 300 power as bonus stats versus SA providing toughness. This meant that SA would always deal less damage than DA, but SA could maintain what was still very competitive damage. Under the old traits, CS/SA/Tr was a very prominent build in WvW for assassination builds, because it stacked more might than any other option the thief had while retaining the best damage modifiers for burst, and provided excellent support/defensive options. Half-baked signet burst playing CS/SA/Tr could maintain permanent stealth on D/P, and had a similar (and now superior) damage coefficient on Shadow Shot vs CnD, while engaging at 25 stacks of might and the 15% modifier on Assassin’s signet with two free utilities open, allowing for huge opening bursts with all the extra utility needed to follow through with a backstab.

Tell me, what other thief builds got the best of everything? Executioner was a horrible trait for reliable assassinations over HK and was better used as a finisher, since the build didn’t run DA for mug’s damage, as there was no need. Acro is the worst trait line now. SA is still operating as an optimal trait path for D/P. CS got much-needed love and tuning at the time and it is still deemed as inferior to SA, Trickery, DA, and Daredevil. Trickery got some love for build coverage and pushed for making tricks more useful towards recent balance.

Frankly, I believe SA’s defensive options have gotten objectively better; it just isn’t a one-stop-shop trait-line now that provides huge damage, defense, and initiative gain like it used to be, considering the damage with the separation of attributes from traits would make the line almost objectively better than the rest for everything but heartseeker hero PvE speedruns and bunkering sPvP, and even then, traversing the map in permanent stealth from D/P would make the 1 potential extremely potent with a free 15 stacks of might on Marauder.

I mean DPS as you should include how long a thief had to be in stealth to get the 420 extra power you assume they had all the time.

Honestly: When I started I was happy to be a noob and always said thatthe day I can calculate which gear/food/runes etc is the best for me would be the day I’m no noob anymore.
I’m still a noob but somehow see all what’s right or wrong long before others do – so I don’t get why you and the dev responsible for kicking D/D thieves out of this game don’t. That’s why I asked you to do the math – I know I’m right I want you to calculate and see that I am.
D/D has been completely destroyed with the botched SA line – the only ones “profiting” from it were D/P thieves who used other traits to which they still have access to. Those who are happy to play with DA have a huge advantage over CS, which is another D/D line, not so much D/P.

babazhook.6805:

I can stack 25 stacks of might on my scrapper without even thinking about it. It just happens. Everytime I look I got over 20 stacks.

It the same with my reaper. Even easier then the scrapper.

I think what has to happen is as another suggested. Allow the thief even more boon stealing where they get full durations and stacks. This might make the Reaper/scrapper and others think twice about stacking all those boons as they will be stacking them for the thief to take.

Move Feline Grace to the Daredevil master minor (after merging the health gain into the condi removal trait) and then just rework the Acrobatics line to boonhate/boonsteal and shadowstep modifiers.

Jana.6831:

I mean DPS as you should include how long a thief had to be in stealth to get the 420 extra power you assume they had all the time.

Honestly: When I started I was happy to be a noob and always said thatthe day I can calculate which gear/food/runes etc is the best for me would be the day I’m no noob anymore.
I’m still a noob but somehow see all what’s right or wrong long before others do – so I don’t get why you and the dev responsible for kicking D/D thieves out of this game don’t. That’s why I asked you to do the math – I know I’m right I want you to calculate and see that I am.
D/D has been completely destroyed with the botched SA line – the only ones “profiting” from it were D/P thieves who used other traits to which they still have access to. Those who are happy to play with DA have a huge advantage over CS, which is another D/D line, not so much D/P.

Okay, two things:

1.) DPS has literally nothing to do with PvP potency because DPS is DPS; damage per second. There will always be an optimal DPS trait line and it will always be the one with the highest numbers for DPS. This before daredevil was DA/CS/Tr from the damage modifiers at play because stacking the might from SA and Acrobatics took either too long or implied not attacking. PvP functions completely differently and anyone making claims that optimizing DPS is the key to winning in PvP has no idea what the hell they’re talking about.

2.) SA being nerfed has nothing to do with D/D exclusively. SA’s nerfs hit D/P harder than D/D because D/P is objectively better at abusing stealth and was objectively better at maintaining stealth in any scenario above D/D. D/D has always been sub-par to D/P on a design level and only ever offered slightly more burst potential with CnD’s higher damage coefficient. Otherwise, Shadow Shot deals more damage, offers better engages, offers better stealth, offers safer skill usage, offers better utility, and offers better damage. D/D sucking has nothing to do with traits and entirely to do with skill design. If Shadow Shot wasn’t one of the most powerful skills in the game and Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger being borderline useless for power builds reliant on CnD and backstab, D/P would be just as bad as D/D and both sets would still be equally horrible. The only “advantage” D/D has ever had was lower-initiative cost stealth. The thing is, D/P ignored this penalty from CiS + initiative regeneration in stealth + increased stealth duration, allowing for permanent stealth uptime, thus gaining better might-stacking than D/D because it’d never miss a might tick on Hidden Assassin before engaging.

Regarding DPS:

If I said there was a skill which was an unblockable attack that cannot be dodged, reflected, or mitigated or prevented in any possible way which dealt 100k damage on a 1 minute cooldown to any given target up to 1800 range away, but disabled skill use during the cooldown of the ability, would you call this skill OP for the PvP formats?

Probably. You’re instantly killing someone every minute. Then you just turtle around for the cooldown.

How about for PvE?

Nope. It’d be the worst DPS in the game-levels of bad. That’s only 1667 damage per second on average – worse than a ranger using the longbow’s auto and only the auto to kill things. That’s dreadful. Burst wins PvP. DPS means nothing unless you’re playing a sustain build which can’t beat out the enemy’s incoming damage. It’s why certain builds are good in the bunker meta in sPvP and why a lot of these builds don’t work as well in WvW where the incoming damage is higher; sustain only works against sustain or if it can out-sustain burst. Otherwise, burst wins, and there’s no way around it.

So no, D/D and Shadow Arts have nothing to do with each other, sorry. You objectively lose damage on D/D when using Hidden Assassin versus D/P. I know you think you can chain CnD’s and you’ll never be “visible” to another player, but the game itself isn’t tricked in terms of how ticks for time aren’t calculated that .001 second frame causes the ICD to reset and you lose an additional might stack every chained CnD. You don’t and never did with D/P because you would never formally leave stealth.

You’re asking me to prove if 420 power is better than DA? Go to sPvP, spec SA/CS/Tr and leave SA blank, fill CS/Tr out as you would for damage, except make sure you have CS traited for signets.

Use SoM/SoA/SoS for 15 might and whatever other combo you’d do when doing a CnD/stab.

Now spec into DA replacing SA for DA/CS/Tr, do not remove SoP in CS, but this time activate no signets. Again, make sure Assassin’s signet was not used or equipped in the test prior to this due to the 15% damage gain on active or the 180 passive power. Repeat the process using Mug/PS. If you want to test what it was like when executioner was not a GM in DA and instead in CS, just leave the last trait blank.

You’ve now successfully achieved the difference between what was DA and old SA via 450 power off of 14 stacks of might before an engage (you’d likely drop to 13 mid-stab unless timed properly but ToTC grants one). Actually, SA would have dealt even more damage from might providing an additional 5 power per stack before might got nerfed.

Mind you, D/P offers even more damage as Shadow Shot -> backstab is a thing, and the coefficient on SS is better than CnD, and the 3% bonus damage likely will not offset this difference, or there will be no difference.

Buffing and nerfing Thief on its current state is crucial, i doubt we’re getting more buff aside other new Elites. as far as Might stacking goes, let alone other class profession do so though i am all for boon sharing mostly done in coordination.

Again, we do not need more of those damage percentile aslong as some of those can get through runes and sigils, besides stabbing someone behind while maintaining positioning is much more skill rewarding cos of 10% damage boost, didn’t we. must learn from the past or more ThiefcrycryOP (Elite spec included) it is not Thief, other class profession must need to be look at.

Although i am all for innovation and positive role

Orpheal.8263:

boon stealing.

Sadly, thief must need to do some damage first before stealing therefore stealth stealing is irrelevant without revealing your self.

Professions can already stack might up to limit, including thief. But the key is they can’t flip a switch to get to 25 instantly, and they can’t keep it at 25 for long. It’s like a rage mode. Gotta be careful how many sources of might each profession is given to keep it this way.

Also I saw some talk about necromancer. Necromancer stack might further into a battle because their strength is stacking condition first, then might. Most classes that specialize in direct damage stack might early on in fight because they won’t win a war of attrition.

Scrap might on SA. Put 2 or 3 might on cloak and dagger. Done, buffed /D without buffing D/P.

DeceiverX.8361:

1.) DPS has literally nothing to do with PvP potency because DPS is DPS; damage per second.

Exactly that’s what you obviously forget when claiming that a SA thief has been stronger than a DA thief.

DeceiverX.8361:

This before daredevil was DA/CS/Tr from the damage modifiers at play because stacking the might from SA and Acrobatics took either too long or implied not attacking.

Yes.

DeceiverX.8361:

SA being nerfed has nothing to do with D/D exclusively. SA’s nerfs hit D/P harder than D/D because D/P is objectively better at abusing stealth and was objectively better at maintaining stealth in any scenario above D/D. D/D has always been sub-par to D/P on a design level and only ever offered slightly more burst potential with CnD’s higher damage coefficient. Otherwise, Shadow Shot deals more damage, offers better engages, offers better stealth, offers safer skill usage, offers better utility, and offers better damage. D/D sucking has nothing to do with traits and entirely to do with skill design.

Yes, D/P was the more “faceroll” weaponset but yet all changes made in June especially hurt D/D – CnD dmg nerf, CiS in grandmaster, no might, SE nerf. So if you’re saying that “stealth campers should be punished” you effectively meant D/P, I guess. And D/D was pretty fine before June – I didn’t really mind that the weaponset itself had no real utility = to me it is the traits.

DeceiverX.8361:

So no, D/D and Shadow Arts have nothing to do with each other, sorry.

They have, the only line that made D/D halfway viable – CiS, SE, SRej, Hidden Assassin. No other weaponset really needed it.

DeceiverX.8361:

You objectively lose damage on D/D when using Hidden Assassin versus D/P. I know you think you can chain CnD’s and you’ll never be “visible” to another player, but the game itself isn’t tricked in terms of how ticks for time aren’t calculated that .001 second frame causes the ICD to reset and you lose an additional might stack every chained CnD. You don’t and never did with D/P because you would never formally leave stealth.

Didn’t know the last part, but don’t underestimate me, although I’m a noob = I know that I haven’t been able to chain stealth in wvw but in PvE, that’s why I was running one build for everything – it was the best I could get in wvw for my preferred playstyle and nearly as good as DA, CS in PvE.

DeceiverX.8361:

You’re asking me to prove if 420 power is better than DA? Go to sPvP, spec SA/CS/Tr and leave SA blank, fill CS/Tr out as you would for damage, except make sure you have CS traited for signets.

I answered that in the first quote: I don’t know about D/P thieves but a D/D thief in a pvp situation has never been able to maintain the 12 stacks for long.

DeceiverX.8361:

Use SoM/SoA/SoS for 15 might and whatever other combo you’d do when doing a CnD/stab.

So I’d go for 450 power?

DeceiverX.8361:

Now spec into DA replacing SA for DA/CS/Tr, do not remove SoP in CS, but this time activate no signets. Again, make sure Assassin’s signet was not used or equipped in the test prior to this due to the 15% damage gain on active or the 180 passive power. Repeat the process using Mug/PS. If you want to test what it was like when executioner was not a GM in DA and instead in CS, just leave the last trait blank.

You’ve now successfully achieved the difference between what was DA and old SA via 450 power off of 14 stacks of might before an engage (you’d likely drop to 13 mid-stab unless timed properly but ToTC grants one). Actually, SA would have dealt even more damage from might providing an additional 5 power per stack before might got nerfed.

No offense, but I don’t think testing what the old damage was is possible with the three forced trait lines anymore. I haven’t been able to get the 15% dmg increase with my old build.

ETA: Also: You added Rune of Strength into your “calculation” – so you should be adding Rune of the Scholar to the DA “calculation”.

I said SA was stronger because it bursted harder because DPS means nothing in PvP. I said DA/CS/Tr is better DPS, but since it means nothing in PvP, it can be ruled out as irrelevent. DA/CS/DD is actually the best DPS.

I don’t understand what the argument is here or why you keep insisting DPS matters when in all honestly it really, really doesn’t. Mesmers have the lowest DPS in the game, but shatter is a pretty strong build. There’s zero correlation.

—

D/P got hit harder by HA being removed because it could benefit from HA more than D/D. Yes, D/P is and was better. It doesn’t change the fact that HA being removed hurt D/P’s potency more than D/D’s, because D/P got more out of it than D/D. CiS let D/P actually maintain permanent stealth and maximum initiative easily to begin with. It’s no longer as big of a case. Yes, no other weapon set needed it – particularly D/P – but it doesn’t change the fact that D/P could be accelerated further even better than D/D because of the absurdity that was SA. D/D was only ever “good” because of SA; D/P was still better and it was better to an absurd extreme. SA was objectively the best trait line the thief had for every build based around even portions of stealth uptime. It’s still used because it’s just so strong as a defensive line. The offense was over-done and D/D wasn’t the sole benefactor in the slightest bit. If HA would be re-implemented, HA would still be even better on D/P than before because of Bounding Dodge on Black Powder. You’d get close to signet damage with massive numbers of evades, double condition cleanse, lower initiative costs, better utility, and more damage than D/D.

—

You’re not understanding the testing methodology. All you’re calculating is the damage difference between having 450 bonus power from might which is what HA would give on current might values versus what would be possible without it. And no, the 450 power is accurate. HA gave one stack of might on a 15 second duration. You never saw 15 seconds because in between CnD’s, you would not be under the effects of stealth for fractions of a second from the game engine’s point of view. This would reset the ICD for HA and cause you to miss three ticks to 15 stacks, resulting in a maxium might gain of 12 without runes of Strength. D/P could maintain the 15 stacks, though, which is what you’re really looking for in terms of how broken this trait was, especially since now D/P out-damages D/D due to the nerf to CnD in WvW. 450 power is what 15 stacks of might grants, no might-duration runes needed.

I’m saying not to use Assassin’s Signet while testing because it provides power and a damage modifier that would create inconsistencies in the tests. The other signets do not modify damage in their passive/active states.

It didn’t burst harder – I can tell that from having fought ~100.000 thieves.

I wasn’t talking about now but how it has been you said Hidden Assassin was OP because you tested it likely on a golem while having Blinding Powder and Hide in Shadows equipped (no one ever had) as otherwise you couldn’t get the 14 stacks of might – btw one lost 2 at a time, so 13 was only possible if you had other means to gain might.

Ok, to make it simple:
You said “Might in SA made SA thieves stronger than DA thieves” which is wrong, although it might appear like it if one looks only at the raw numbers of possible power. DA has and had damage modifiers – SA got might in exchange, CS got ferocity/critchance in exchange, Trickery got 15% (possible) more damage in exchange. Acro has got nothing, SA has got nothing anymore as well. The Reason(before June) : With that thief vs thief is nearly balanced – the longer the DA thief takes to get the SA thief down, the better the chance for the SA thief and also for a T thief who has a possible high first burst as well, depending on the situation.

I have no idea what you’re discussing about but not about the same thing as me as it seems.

And I would love to hear intelligent discussions and opinions about things like this and not just “well in theory a thief can chain stealth on a golem in the PvP lobby and then get 420 more might” (450 isn’t possible with chain stealth – but I think you already said that while then later assuming that a thief had always 450 more power which needed at least SR, BP and HiS and Runes of Strength and was only live for a split second).

And with that I’m good – I hope I got my point across.

So HA provided two stacks per second? You’re at 13 with ToTC providing 14, which is 420 power. If it was one gained per second, it was bugged at decaying 2 per second and you’d still end up with 14 realistically on a CnD/Stab and 15 on a SS/Stab.

420 net power will supersede 10% damage on DA. You can’t factor in Executioner as a valid damage modifier as it only applies to attacks made after the target is below 50%. There is no counter-argument here. Unless you run a base of around 4000 power without might (literally impossible), the gains from HA will be undeniably and factually better than the modifiers from DA. Period. I told you the conditions to go test this out by; might gain on this level is substantially better for damage.

I don’t understand the basis by how you’re refuting this, particularly because DA and CS are designed to offer more damage than the rest of the trait lines, with Acro and SA providing more defensive options; it’s why these lines provided Power and Condition Damage, Critical Chance and Critical Damage, Toughness and Healing Power, Vitality and Boon Duration, respectively. If you want SA and Acro to offer a substantial damage advantage, you better be willing to give CS and DA condition cleansing and initiative generation. HA was nerfed because SA was an offensively-damaging trait line with massive power on defenses. Because it was designed to be a defensive trait line, they removed the might gain because it was just excessive.

Also, 100k thief kills is BS. You’re implying you have ultimate dominator like six times over just based on class distribution in roaming for WvW. That’s literally 100 thief kills per day which at an average of playing 3h per day is one thief kill every 30 seconds. Hell, even people surfing blobs are not even accumulating that kill rate across all classes.

You’d only need SR to cap the might gain – better than casting three signets, D/P can get permanent stealth without too big of a challenge, and D/P Daredevil does this without needing any utilities.

You don’t need this for sustained amounts of time because you’d be killing people in two attacks. I play signets. Fights are usually over in under five seconds. If you’re stabbing below 10-12k on even a tank with just 10 stacks of might you’re doing something wrong. SA giving 15 would replace the need for DA on all fronts and net better burst damage running SA/CS/Tr and would make D/P even stronger because it offers higher damage coefficients, faster burst, and better stealth uptime to stack might and take advantage of the benefits of SA much easier.

You really didn’t get your point across because it’s not valid. HA’s reversion would just be straight power-creep on what’s already the meta builds and place an even bigger disparity between the trait lines that are already considered strong (Tr/DD/DA/SA) and weak (CS/Acro) as well as pushing even more in favor to D/P over D/D.

DeceiverX.8361:

So HA provided two stacks per second? You’re at 13 with ToTC providing 14, which is 420 power. If it was one gained per second, it was bugged at decaying 2 per second and you’d still end up with 14 realistically on a CnD/Stab and 15 on a SS/Stab.

What are you talking about? Sword Sword and stability? And you’re assuming a build that no one ever used?
People were either running 26600 or, weirdos like me 06620 – I got my extra might from Acro.
And please don’t forget that I had to sacrifice stuff for that, as well as those who ran 26600 – they had to sacrifice as well.
You’re throwing numbers around you rather randomly and don’t stay with one topic: Pick a build and analyze that and don’t pick the best of everything to which no one ever had access to.

DeceiverX.8361:

420 net power will supersede 10% damage on DA. You can’t factor in Executioner as a valid damage modifier as it only applies to attacks made after the target is below 50%.

Of course I can as the fight was already ongoing, otherwise the other thief wouldn’t have 12 stacks of might you assume he had all the time. Oh wait, you assume he had 15 – which I have never seen on myself.

DeceiverX.8361:

There is no counter-argument here. Unless you run a base of around 4000 power without might (literally impossible), the gains from HA will be undeniably and factually better than the modifiers from DA. Period.

No, and I already explained why. Period. But you guys seem to have fun fighting golems.

You don’t want to get my points, that’s why I seem to refuse to see in your opinion.

DeceiverX.8361:

Also, 100k thief kills is BS. You’re implying you have ultimate dominator like six times over just based on class distribution in roaming for WvW.

That number was pulled out, yeah but I can fight thieves without killing them and I can also be in pvp. Also I’m doing a bit more than solo roaming – you can assume that I fought a lot of thieves. And actually you also don’t know for how long I’ve been playing and am playing each day

DeceiverX.8361:

You really didn’t get your point across because it’s not valid. HA’s reversion would just be straight power-creep on what’s already the meta builds and place an even bigger disparity between the trait lines that are already considered strong (Tr/DD/DA/SA) and weak (CS/Acro) as well as pushing even more in favor to D/P over D/D.

As it stands now D/D is dead – has been killed off in June. So if nothing is happening to buff D/D they’d still be better off against any opponent if the changes were reversed – I explained the why. The best a SA thief could get from HA was a damage spike after sacrificing a lot of utility. I don’t care about a possible power creep for D/P thieves as how it is now I don’t have any chance against any opponent and a D/P thief can always go DA which still is a stronger line than old SA.
(Get it now? – guess not, because you want to be right, no matter what. So, let me rephrase: I hope the rest of who read this got my point as that was what I wanted).

Jana.6831:

DeceiverX.8361:

So HA provided two stacks per second? You’re at 13 with ToTC providing 14, which is 420 power. If it was one gained per second, it was bugged at decaying 2 per second and you’d still end up with 14 realistically on a CnD/Stab and 15 on a SS/Stab.

What are you talking about? Sword Sword and stability? And you’re assuming a build that no one ever used?
People were either running 26600 or, weirdos like me 06620 – I got my extra might from Acro.
And please don’t forget that I had to sacrifice stuff for that, as well as those who ran 26600 – they had to sacrifice as well.
You’re throwing numbers around you rather randomly and don’t stay with one topic: Pick a build and analyze that and don’t pick the best of everything to which no one ever had access to.

DeceiverX.8361:

420 net power will supersede 10% damage on DA. You can’t factor in Executioner as a valid damage modifier as it only applies to attacks made after the target is below 50%.

Of course I can as the fight was already ongoing, otherwise the other thief wouldn’t have 12 stacks of might you assume he had all the time. Oh wait, you assume he had 15 – which I have never seen on myself.

DeceiverX.8361:

There is no counter-argument here. Unless you run a base of around 4000 power without might (literally impossible), the gains from HA will be undeniably and factually better than the modifiers from DA. Period.

No, and I already explained why. Period. But you guys seem to have fun fighting golems.

You don’t want to get my points, that’s why I seem to refuse to see in your opinion.

DeceiverX.8361:

Also, 100k thief kills is BS. You’re implying you have ultimate dominator like six times over just based on class distribution in roaming for WvW.

That number was pulled out, yeah but I can fight thieves without killing them and I can also be in pvp. Also I’m doing a bit more than solo roaming – you can assume that I fought a lot of thieves. And actually you also don’t know for how long I’ve been playing and am playing each day

DeceiverX.8361:

You really didn’t get your point across because it’s not valid. HA’s reversion would just be straight power-creep on what’s already the meta builds and place an even bigger disparity between the trait lines that are already considered strong (Tr/DD/DA/SA) and weak (CS/Acro) as well as pushing even more in favor to D/P over D/D.

As it stands now D/D is dead – has been killed off in June. So if nothing is happening to buff D/D they’d still be better off against any opponent if the changes were reversed – I explained the why. The best a SA thief could get from HA was a damage spike after sacrificing a lot of utility. I don’t care about a possible power creep for D/P thieves as how it is now I don’t have any chance against any opponent and a D/P thief can always go DA which still is a stronger line than old SA.
(Get it now? – guess not, because you want to be right, no matter what. So, let me rephrase: I hope the rest of who read this got my point as that was what I wanted).

Shadow Shot Backstab. I already mentioned this combo. It offers better, faster, safer, and more reliable burst than any D/D build ever has. You talk like D/D has actually been good or had its good moments, but D/P has always been the better set.

Yea, people were running 2/6/6/0/0. Because it was optimal damage. They got the best of both words by getting Mug and EW from DA, the crit damage modifiers from CS, and the cleansing/blinding/stealth/initiative regen/healing/huge damage from SA.

When trickery and PS were figured out as being amazing, people dropped CS for DA/SA/Tr because Panic Strike’s utility required a big investment and SA still offered both necessary support and damage that was just better than CS’s to begin with.

I don’t understand why you’re fixated on Thief vs Thief encounters. If they really mean so much, D/D just shouldn’t be played because D/P is so much better.
A thief building CS/SA/Tr on the old trait lines will not need to be engaged in combat for less than a few seconds, and his target will be killed off by the backstab itself at over 50% or heartseeker if it doesn’t finish the job, something which executioner really doesn’t help with burst-wise. Executioner helps make bigger numbers. It doesn’t necessarily help dropping a single target any faster in regards to a target not engaged in combat; actually, it rarely ever does. It’s taken in the D/P sPvP meta because the +1 role is to drop targets already engages faster, not to increase damage on an outgoing burst when targets are OOC. I run this trait. It’s very easily replaced and serves no purpose outside of ganks. I run it for aggressive edge periphery in WvW blobs; better to kill the target on CnD alone and save the backstab for someone else entirely for two finishes over just one. Absurd damage I get occurs because Mug and CnD have already taken the target below half. 20% more on a backstab literally serves no purpose because the target is already guaranteed to die even if Executioner isn’t applied. Executioner only benefits heartseeker heroes and +1’ing using autos and HS in sPvP.

The fight doesn’t need to be ongoing for the thief to stack might from HA. He can do so before ever engaging. You’re not reading my posts or something, because I properly explained to you why you never had 15, be it from the way D/D works or a bug in HA causing stack degradation occurring too quickly.

If you’re willing to pull our huge numbers from your bum in regards to bragging about how good you are or how much experience you have, yet call yourself a “noob” in your defense when being wrong as a joke, there’s no helping you justify your argument. You’re making up numbers and not even attempting to justify them.

You’re neglecting the importance of might, closing your ears screaming “BUT DAMAGE MODIFIERS!!!1!” I’m sorry, if you honestly think DA offers more damage than ~400 power, you’re very far-removed from the reality of how the trait lines currently work or how the damage formula works.

SA sacrificing a lot of utility?… Are you crazy? SA IS the utility. Hell, even some staff Daredevils are taking SA because the utility in SA is so strong that coverage from BP and SR alone makes the entire trait line worth it. That’s like saying D/P has to make some sacrifices when switching from D/D because they miss out on some evasion frames and AOE cripple utility.

D/D is dead? It died in June? D/D hasn’t been as good as D/P since they introduced Revealed and nerfed CnD in 2012. It’s just taken people that long to realize this, and with CnD being nerfed in PvE for the normalization of buff in sPvP recently, D/P has only been improved by comparison by just being a better set, replacing the need for anything power D/D can bring and providing better utility and damage. D/D didn’t die in June. You not being carried by an overpowered trait line died in June. Since June, I’ve still played D/D with even better success than before (until now with HoT but I think we can agree there are balance problems completely unrelated to the thief here), because a lot of traits got moved around or improved for better coverage spread. You know what really died in June? Acrobatics and S/D. That was actually a good weapon combination that lost its oomph due to a lack of burst on the weapon and low utility if not played very well. Acro got gutted to make way for Daredevil (the combination of old Acrobatics and DD would be way too overpowered and most skilled thieves agree with this because it is quite obvious as to why). SA got nerfed because it was actually just overpowered and brought too much of everything to the table while rewarding unskillful play with unnecessary amounts of damage.

DeceiverX.8361:

D/D is dead? It died in June?

Well to be fair, and slightly off topic from your current argument discussion, D/D did die (or at least got gutted) in June for PvE. =)

To be honest, both of you raised valid points. The problem (from what i can tell) with your discussion is that you guys are not on the same page.

Hidden Assassin does give D/P thieves much more burst damage, as they can stack stealth prior to (and during) engaging an enemy, unlike D/D where you can’t reliably stack stealth (outside of taking smoke screen or using SR)

D/D only really benefited from HA in prolonged fights, which is more often than not in PvE.
You get 2 stacks of might for every CnD, which really is not much since fights rarely lasts longer then 4-5 CnD>Backstabs.
You might have to forgive Jana for failing to see the ‘true potential’ of HA as he might be looking at the HA trait through the eyes of a D/D user, not D/P user. =)

Not to mention when he stated that taking SA sacrifices a lot of utility, try to see it from his perspective. D/D has much harder access to stealth compered to D/P, so a D/D thief may not benefit as much from SA as a D/P thief would.

Yes, D/P is pretty much the better weapon set for PvP/WvW compared to D/D simply due to having much more utility and more reliable (but arguably expensive) access to stealth.

However, you can’t fault someone for liking certain weapon set. =) I for one am a stuborn staff user despite knowing that objectively, D/P brings more utility to the table for our current role.

Anyway, there is no real point in arguing over split milk. =P HA is gone, the old trait system is gone, lots of amazing traits have been replaced by arguably equal/decent ones.(ignore Acrobatics ofc)

I personally don’t really mind losing Hidden Assassin. What really made me sad was the removal of Infusion of Shadow. =(

Good to have another person involved in the discussion.

I still play D/D to this day – I think D/P is frankly quite boring and very easy such that more interesting fights are often trivialized to spamming stealth and eventually bursting or just spamming Shadow Shot (I have proven many D/P players wrong about this skill being “fair” by beating them exclusively with this ability and killing them in three hits).

It’d still only take SR to stack the might necessary to burst. HA’s might gain would put CnD and backstab damage equal to that of Mug + CnD + backstab damage. I even went as far as testing this myself, and my claims hold true (Jana clearly did not).

And that’s exactly the thing: SA being nerfed didn’t really “ruin” D/D, and restoring it won’t really help D/D or balance the thief; all we’d see is an even bigger gap between D/D and D/P as I mentioned above, and D/D would just end up even further behind when D/P takes the balance considerations by being the strongest/meta build in what’s still an under-performing class. To buff D/D, the facets of what makes D/D rather weak need to be isolated and then reconsidered. A trait line universal to the entire thief class which genuinely only has minimal impact on D/D will not be a solution and likely end up causing unnecessary nerfs elsewhere as a consequence, potentially hurting the rest of the class even more.

SA is a very strong defensive trait line, and just giving it might gain doesn’t fix the problems with D/D or the thief in general. When considering balance, the class needs to be looked at holistically, not just through the lens of one weapon set. D/P is the primary concern here in regards to balance, despite the fact such a trait would ramp D/D into being objectively better and make SA deal more damage than DA. If people really want some damage on SA, I proposed a solution earlier to give a smaller damage modifier to stealth attack skills; this way, all builds based on dealing damage out of stealth (primarily D/X) benefit equally, and the line gets some more damage but not more than DA, which it shouldn’t, unless DA ended up getting things like cleanses and healing, but that would be overpowered considering DA is already considered one of the better lines, and is often used in conjunction with SA. If any line deserves more defensive utility, it’d be crit strikes, and probably modifying HK, considering backstab builds are not very strong relative to Shadow Shot/Auto-attack/Heartseeker spam D/P even within the scope of the thief itself.

DeceiverX.8361:

-snip-

I agree, classes are generally balanced around the strongest weapon-set. So in the process of fixing D/D, if we accidentally ‘break’ other sets, we are most likely going to be gutted, again.

Perhaps we should focus on the strengths of D/D to make it viable, instead of trying simply to make it comparable to D/P.
Currently, D/D is mostly used as a condition set. Maybe it’s possible to increase the effectiveness of D/D as a condition damage set, heck even as a hybrid set.(Viper/Sinister/Celestial thief maybe?). Current D/D is considered a cheese build, so why not make it a viable build?

D/D currently has 2 skill which deal damaging conditions, one from our auto-attack, one from death blossom. Perhaps increasing the power damage of DB will make hybrid builds more viable.

Revert the changes to dancing daggers that made it next to useless. Perhaps make it deal torment as well. This will make hybrid D/D even more viable.

Increase the effectiveness of Dagger Training. A 33% chance to deal 2 seconds of poison is simply too weak to be even considered a trait. Perhaps make it a ‘deal poison/bleeds on crit’ when using daggers, with maybe an internal cooldown of 1-2 seconds. Either that or increase the duration of poison from 2 seconds to at least 10 seconds. And bring back the +5% damage when using daggers. =(

Make Cloak and Dagger an interrupt, like a 0.25 second daze. It’s hard enough to land CnDs, requiring perfect timing and positioning, with a very high initiative cost, so make it slightly more rewarding. It would also make Impacting Disruption a viable trait for D/Ds. It’s also one reason why D/P is better then D/D (Headshot is so good).
and make it deal 10 stack of burn

An extra bleed-on-crit trait would be nice, which may make Rampager Thief viable. Or maybe buff potent poison by giving us a free Spider Venom when our/the enemy’s HP gets below certain threshold, (with maybe a 45-60 sec internal cd). This will let us deal even more conditions.

Our issue with condition damage is our lack of access to burns, so to balance it out, why not give us more ways to dish out conditions?

While i do agree these changes may sound slightly OP on paper, but due to us using initiative, I doubt it will be anywhere close to overpowered. It just gives us more options when playing D/D. And with most of the buffs tied to off-hand dagger, it will buff P/D as well (which is to be discussed in another time).

With the huge amount of poisons we deal, we may start to counter healing bunker builds like druids or tempests (well, not DS tempest, i guess =/).

While we are at it, please un-nerf choking gas on our SB4. This change made hardly any sense.

… I just derailed the thread didn’t I? =/

I don’t really agree DB is needing buffs, particularly since it’s a cheap evade that deals quite a bit of condition damage already. Dagger Training should just be improved and made to apply 2s of poison on Double/Wild/Lotus Strikes to give the set more than just 3spam and need to use a not-so-safe auto to really optimize damage. Ideally design decisions should cut down on “cheese”, and without just removing DB or nerfing it, I see no middle ground other than traits or making the build carry some more risk to optimize its damage.

Frankly, I don’t think D/D was meant to be a condition set, and it happened as collateral when Death Blossom was forgotten about before they added condition damage into the game a long time ago. P/P is definitely intended to be the hybrid set and P/D the condition one. One carries strong interrupt potential with bleeds on the auto, the other one heavy use of Sneak Attack and the same torment access from Shadow Strike. D/D as a set feels half-developed in two directions; it’s like they initially wanted to make the set based heavily on power, then decided recently on conditions. I don’t think this has to do much with sPvP, though, rather that they’re trying so hard to bust the “zerker meta” in PvE and are giving D/D thieves better condition access and synergy with Daredevil as this won’t require a gear change.

Given these adjustments to DT, I think Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger could get reworks in their design. We don’t necessary need more or less condition application in either of them, but rather what makes this set fail for power builds and “cheesy” on condition builds and lack useful utility other sets have other than just evading while dealing damage.

For power, the set performs poorly since most applications of DB and Dancing Dagger are better-performed by D/P; Shadow Shot’s blind works excellently to mitigate an incoming attack and does massive damage rather than DB, and Headshot also has very strong interrupt capabilities, particularly when stacked with Impacting Disruption on the Daredevil. D/D is a very aggressive set for power builds, so dealing with slow animations is difficult. As far as Dancing Dagger goes, the skill has a poor skill coefficient and only works reasonably well against two targets grouped together where neither are dodging or invuln/blocking. These conditions are way too restrictive for the skill to function, particularly due to the sheer number of block and invulnerability skills now in the game. It’s long-lasting cripple may be intended to allow a chase, but a 900 range unblockable-teleporting-nuke on Shadow Shot doing almost 250% more damage is just objectively better at everything mentioned, while also providing defensive support through blinds as mentioned.

For conditions, the set lacks skills to deal condition damage other than Death Blossom. As such, because the evade has been buffed substantially, the bleeds last decent duration, and it has a lot of synergy with Daredevil’s condition applications, the build can readily rely on spamming 3 to mitigate damage and deal substantial damage in the process, all while being innately tankier than a power build by the nature of competitive condition damage stats.

Frankly, I’d rather see condition builds carry the same risk as power builds when optimizing for damage output instead of a sustained fight, so I don’t really support Death Blossom’s bleeding on its evades.

The resolution I see is completely changing the skills and their intent;

Death Blossom shouldn’t be such a short-range evade that can easily rack up condition pressure, and should instead focus on the evade and repositioning for chase potential, such as Whirlwind Attack. The damage should be kept low as to prevent spamming it for kills, but maintaining this mobility and defensive utility not while stealthed is something D/D absolutely needs to compare to D/P. Rather than blinds, the set can gets its defense on evasion, and bring more mobility to the table than D/P when out of combat, providing a potential purpose in decapping in sPvP. This skill can also apply some cripple and Vulnerability as to allow for cover conditions for condition builds and secure chases easier for power builds like Shadow Shot does for D/P, while ramping damage for D/D’s more aggressive nature.

Dancing Dagger should be remade into an entirely new skill. We’ll call it Blade Fan. The skill applies 50% more damage than Dancing Dagger hitting one enemy, but daggers are thrown at an enemy and up to four additional nearby targets, inflicting some brief torment and bleeding. The design intent is allow for better condition spread and have D/D have ranged options in both its physical and condition damage builds, while having Dancing Dagger not suffer from its primary target having a block or invulnerability preventing subsequent bounces in instances where it would be optimal. Due to the buffing the skill is undergoing, upping the initiative to four is necessary as to prevent the ability from being over-used over a stretched period of time.

I’m not fond of giving CnD an interrupt just because that’s really flavorful to have on the offhand pistol; kind of like a gunslinger who quickdraws his gun to stop someone as soon as they try to mess with him. CnD is tricky to balance, because increasing its reliability would have potentially disastrous consequences; that said, Shadow Shot seems to be doing fine in terms of balance (/sarcasm). I think I’d rather see the skill see a reduced initiative cost due to the risk it carries (down to 5 or even 4) and the vulnerability it applies heavily increased, allowing for D/D power to hit harder than D/P as it used to, and x/D conditions to tick harder on both D/D and P/D, as again, the build isn’t as safe as P/D or P/P interruptions due to the blinds, interruption-oriented play, and ranged capabilities.

But yea, thread derailed :P