Guild Wars 2

The following was a reply to thread, that thread however seems to have been deleted. So I will post it here.

I play a Thief myself. However, there have been times where I am unable to Shadowstep out of a Basilisk Venom. Either because of

1) Culling… (Usually the main culprit… kittening hate the culling in this game…)
2) Haste…

Take this into account. If combined with Haste, CnD has a .25 second cast time. Backstab drops to .125, as well as Lotus Strike. Now, I feel my reflexes are pretty good. And I’ve felt there have been many times where as soon as I hit my Shadowstep keybind (“E” key, BTW), to break the Basilisk Venom, I’m already dead.

The average human reaction time is 150 milliseconds to 300 milliseconds (or .15 – .30 seconds). When combined with culling, you might not even notice you are being hit until you see your health drop, and by then, it’s already too late.

The solution? Culling needs to be fixed, and all sources of quickness (Haste, Frenzy, Quickening Zephyr, etc), removed from the game. Unless you have awareness of the thief’s presence, you’re not going to expect the initial combo. There have been plenty of times when I see the Thief, and am better to react to the Backstab or Pistol Whip setups.

However, if you do not know we are there, and Haste + Culling issues combined, the opponent will die simply before you appear on their screen. This isnt Planetside 2 where, like Infiltrators, we have a distortion effect. We are completely invinsible. Therefore, the above problems (culling and haste), need to be resolved before we have any more calls for nerfs against thieves.

I dont want Thieves to end up being the Operatives from SWTOR, where their DPS specs were constantly nerfed into oblivion for a while. I love my Thief, but these issues need to be addressed.

Though, I guess if I wanted to I actually could drop something and grab Haste, and destroy people before they even notice it. Or I could wait and let the skill cap of thieves and other players go up, while I snipe people in Planetside 2… I’m thinking… the latter.

I actually wonder if you might have hit on the solution to all the thief / mesmer problems.

Instead of stealth turning thieves invisible (and making them completely disappear from the game world), it could give them a cloaking/distortion effect like in planetside (like the predator basically) and make them un-targettable for those few seconds.

This means no more culling, since they are still there on screen, and also balances stealth out a bit.

Might as well remove stealth completely, for good players stealth will no longer be stealth and for others small visual effects can be enlarged with add-ons.

Haste is OP , No doubt , on any classes not only thief.
I can kill supply camp champion in 30-40 seconds – if i use 1 haste (4 seconds) i can kill it in 10 cause he won’t heal anymore
Personaly i do not use it cause i rarely do 1 vs 1 , where haste shine, and if i engage vs 3-4 players i sacrifice some survaivability utility and 2 dodge rolls.
I do not belive thief need any nerfs, but i belive game need caps – maximum critcal rate – maximum critical power /power and haste efect reduced to 50%.

I’m sorry to be this guy, but “culling needs to be fixed!” – You don’t say?! :O

Here’s Anets words on culling; it’s not just a simple fix:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/arenanet-tracker/topic/245102-can-you-fix-it-culling/

As for Quickness, it’s OP on all classes, not just Thief. It should be changed to 33% like Swiftness and like it was in GW1.

It feels like thief’s damage is balanced around haste, which really sucks for all parties involved

Incurafy.6329:

As for Quickness, it’s OP on all classes, not just Thief. It should be changed to 33% like Swiftness and like it was in GW1.

Quickness is IMO not OP,but plain Stupid.They should either remove it ,or just change it to 100% faster CD recovery/Ini recovery!

reikken.4961:

It feels like thief’s damage is balanced around haste, which really sucks for all parties involved

Where did you get this from?In SPvP from 20 thieves,10 are BS,3 are P/D bleed,3 are S/D,3 are P/P and 2 are D/P(at least this is what i observe).And only PW and Unload builds can benefit from Haste.Backstab builds have the optimal UI setup as following:Shadowstep,Assassins Signet,Shadow Refuge,i don’t see place for Haste.
P/D also don’t need it because they do steady damage,not burst.

Incurafy.6329:

I’m sorry to be this guy, but “culling needs to be fixed!” – You don’t say?! :O

Here’s Anets words on culling; it’s not just a simple fix:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/arenanet-tracker/topic/245102-can-you-fix-it-culling/

As for Quickness, it’s OP on all classes, not just Thief. It should be changed to 33% like Swiftness and like it was in GW1.

Oh, you’ll forgive me as I havent been over to GW2Guru in quite some time. ^^;

And that’s why I did not mention just Haste, but also Quickening Zephyr and Frenzy, etc (cause I dont remember Mesmer’s 10 second quickness elite. >.>). Frenzy however less so, cause most just use that for a BC > 100B combo that every newb sees coming and can avoid it, but I’d definitely have more health after Shadowstepping a BC.

ZLE.8293:

Incurafy.6329:

As for Quickness, it’s OP on all classes, not just Thief. It should be changed to 33% like Swiftness and like it was in GW1.

Quickness is IMO not OP,but plain Stupid.They should either remove it ,or just change it to 100% faster CD recovery/Ini recovery!

reikken.4961:

It feels like thief’s damage is balanced around haste, which really sucks for all parties involved

Where did you get this from?In SPvP from 20 thieves,10 are BS,3 are P/D bleed,3 are S/D,3 are P/P and 2 are D/P(at least this is what i observe).And only PW and Unload builds can benefit from Haste.Backstab builds have the optimal UI setup as following:Shadowstep,Assassins Signet,Shadow Refuge,i don’t see place for Haste.
P/D also don’t need it because they do steady damage,not burst.

Eh, you could work in Haste if you wanted to. Hell I’ve done Sin’s, Shadowstep, and Scorpion Wire when I first started playing Thief. However, Scorpion Wire seemed pretty buggy last I played, and always knocked them down without pulling them to me, so it was frustrating. Was fun yelling, “Get over here!”, and yanking someone off an edge, followed by CnD > Backstab.

I understand it takes time to fix things, especially something like culling. No problem there, I can wait. But I think most of us agree quickness just cheapens the game by removing the ability to react fast enough.

You said make it a 33% cap, and restore init. How about 33% cap, Thief: Restore Init, Everyone else: Reset CDs. :O

xiv.7136:

I actually wonder if you might have hit on the solution to all the thief / mesmer problems.

Instead of stealth turning thieves invisible (and making them completely disappear from the game world), it could give them a cloaking/distortion effect like in planetside (like the predator basically) and make them un-targettable for those few seconds.

This means no more culling, since they are still there on screen, and also balances stealth out a bit.

I feel stealth doesnt need balancing. People will cry regardless if we are invisible or distorted. However, atleast in GW2 you can hit someone with regular attacks (not just AoE), and save AoE for the nuking when someone drops down a Shadows Refuge.

ZLE.8293:

reikken.4961:

It feels like thief’s damage is balanced around haste, which really sucks for all parties involved

Where did you get this from?In SPvP from 20 thieves,10 are BS,3 are P/D bleed,3 are S/D,3 are P/P and 2 are D/P(at least this is what i observe).And only PW and Unload builds can benefit from Haste.Backstab builds have the optimal UI setup as following:Shadowstep,Assassins Signet,Shadow Refuge,i don’t see place for Haste.
P/D also don’t need it because they do steady damage,not burst.

not needing haste actually doesn’t have much bearing on damage being balanced around haste:
Either it has very little synergy with haste (and is therefore already balanced around haste being used with it), or it has synergy with haste and is balanced around haste being used with it. The “spend initiative to do dps” skills don’t do much dps because they do a lot of dps with haste

I could easily see Haste skills reworked to shorten the CD of the skills,used while effect is active .Like the following skill.It was a part from the perma-SF Assassin(now that was OP,i would imagine our whiners would suicide themselves if encounter that):

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Swiftness

This is off course for non-thieves.For us maybe 100% ini recovery