Guild Wars 2

There’s been a lot of talk among the thief community about upcoming balance changes and nerfs. Pulmonary Impact definitively deserves a nerf, something like 30% damage reduced in my opinion.

Hear me out first. No, I don’t hate thief, in fact I love it. My second most played profession and my go to carry in PvP. However, d/p has been so good for the last 2 years, that the entire class has been balanced around it. And Pulmonary Impact just further insures that. Besides, thief isn’t at all reliant on PI for damage right now. Steal, mobility, Shadow Shot and autoattacks are the real reason thief is so strong when it comes to raw damage output.

I’d actually want to see damage removed from PI and some other mechanic added to it, as PI is also one of the reasons that keep other playstyles of thief underpowered. Nothing right now can even come close to interrupts and the mobility, blinds and damage output of d/p.

This somewhat sorta applies to WvW. I know stealth there is straight up almost OP, but can’t do anything about that. However, thieves running full zerk with a bit of marauder stats do way to much damage with PI. They simply backstab, then use Steal and Headshot to make sure their target stand little to no chance (looking at you necro)

It might be easier to just buff X rather than make X better through nerfing Y.

When thief stops getting one shot by random aoe while going for backstab, then we can talk about PI nerf. While i understand why there are complains about PI, let’s face it, as long as point is covered in 129038974^987^21394^5732987591 AOE you have no other choice but use PI. It was doable before HoT but now we have DHs, scrappers, druids, necros spamming everything they got on point – gl getting BS off there.

OP, you claim that nerfing PI will allow for a greater range of weapon choices, but yet you also say that it’s not a significant source of damage. If it’s not a significant source of damage, how will nerfing it put d/p in line with the other weapon sets?

This also assumes that the other weapon sets are not taken because they’re just not as good relative to d/p. I feel that the d/p prevalence is because other weapon sets require playstyles that other classes easily counter, either with reflects or AoEs.

And honestly, if I’m to give up one of my few condi clears, I’d want something that’s worth giving up for.

Third Degree Ember.6430:

OP, you claim that nerfing PI will allow for a greater range of weapon choices, but yet you also say that it’s not a significant source of damage. If it’s not a significant source of damage, how will nerfing it put d/p in line with the other weapon sets?

This also assumes that the other weapon sets are not taken because they’re just not as good relative to d/p. I feel that the d/p prevalence is because other weapon sets require playstyles that other classes easily counter, either with reflects or AoEs.

And honestly, if I’m to give up one of my few condi clears, I’d want something that’s worth giving up for.

Things always get worse, before they get better. It’s exactly the same with ele as it is with thief. You take focus away from ele, and it becomes the single worst profession in game when it comes to pvp. You take d/p away from thief and it comes very close to that. Balancing a class around a weapon set is terrible.
Yes, when you nerf the only thing keeping a class viable, you push them out of meta. But after you do that, you can buff other areas so the whole profession gets better. Not just one single build.

And when it comes to PI not being a significant source of damage, I stated it wrongly. It is, it’s just that even if you would take that away from thief, it would hardly make a difference. PI simply further insures that d/p is the alpha and omega of thief viable builds.

I already have said this in another post:
I don’t think a nerf on PI would be warranted, but I think a mechanic-rework could be interesting.

In which way that rework would go, I’d leave to the balance-team, but as of now PI essentially needs Pistol OH to work properly (the daze on steal alone is hardly good enough to justify picking up the trait). Something along the lines of Malicious Reprisal (Revenant Devestation line) could be interesting, as it would make the trait more viable for other weapon-combinations as well.

It’s funny how people think PI is the thing that makes other weaponsets of thief unviable, wrong.

Stealth on demand
Interrupt wether its damage or not

Nerfing PI has nothing to do with any of those two.

And yeah then not to mention how garbage everything else is and has no role along side it. Staff is the closest one that would make you be able to 1v1 due to dodge spam together with acro or non acro and it’s also a completely different role from what thief plays (swapping +1 to 1v1/equal fights instead)

I’d say staff has a good role in pvp if you get super good at it and play around being a strong 1v1er adapting ur trait to DA vs Acro depending on comp

If you then nerf D/P you’ll only see staff, so I don’t see the difference from what it is now except you’ll have one less build viable. if you want builds like S/D S/P to be viable again that won’t happen, ever. Unless you give S/D stealth/interrupts LUL or make larc precast and almost one shot targets OR lastly revamp every class in HoT

You’re right, it isn’t just pi but the whole dd line that has pushed d/p far beyond any other weapon set in the pvp scene as well as wvw. They nerfed a lot of sword skills, gutted acro and made the dd line. S/d pretty much lost its trait line since then because now d/p has the same number as evades as old acro s/d, they gave it a trait that synergies so well with head shot and they gave it a dodge skill which pretty much is immune to all soft cc and a dash range of 1350 range if used all 3 dodges in a row, it’s no wonder d/p is so strong.

S/x used acro before and d/p either used crit strikes or shadow arts so they were on even footings, now d/p is God mode compare to other sets and you can’t deny this.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

You’re right, it isn’t just pi but the whole dd line that has pushed d/p far beyond any other weapon set in the pvp scene as well as wvw. They nerfed a lot of sword skills, gutted acro and made the dd line. S/d pretty much lost its trait line since then because now d/p has the same number as evades as old acro s/d, they gave it a trait that synergies so well with head shot and they gave it a dodge skill which pretty much is immune to all soft cc and a dash range of 1350 range if used all 3 dodges in a row, it’s no wonder d/p is so strong.

S/x used acro before and d/p either used crit strikes or shadow arts so they were on even footings, now d/p is God mode compare to other sets and you can’t deny this.

Actually seeing it all spelled out … you make a very strong point.

Thief’s synergy is completely broken from what it used to be pre-Specializations, and it allows sets like d/p to “double dip” whereas other builds are too spread out to — or plain can’t — match its potential.

If anything, I think what we’re seeing is the results of poor planning and foresight by the design team which resulted in an unintentional loophole / meta that, like a lot of recent bad decisions, won’t be undone or corrected. As for why, I’d say it’s like what people have pointed out elsewhere in the forums: too much of the class has been left untouched and inconsistent to the point where the only real solution is to rewrite it from the ground up.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

You’re right, it isn’t just pi but the whole dd line that has pushed d/p far beyond any other weapon set in the pvp scene as well as wvw. They nerfed a lot of sword skills, gutted acro and made the dd line. S/d pretty much lost its trait line since then because now d/p has the same number as evades as old acro s/d, they gave it a trait that synergies so well with head shot and they gave it a dodge skill which pretty much is immune to all soft cc and a dash range of 1350 range if used all 3 dodges in a row, it’s no wonder d/p is so strong.

S/x used acro before and d/p either used crit strikes or shadow arts so they were on even footings, now d/p is God mode compare to other sets and you can’t deny this.

Excellent synopsis as to what happened.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

You’re right, it isn’t just pi but the whole dd line that has pushed d/p far beyond any other weapon set in the pvp scene as well as wvw. They nerfed a lot of sword skills, gutted acro and made the dd line. S/d pretty much lost its trait line since then because now d/p has the same number as evades as old acro s/d, they gave it a trait that synergies so well with head shot and they gave it a dodge skill which pretty much is immune to all soft cc and a dash range of 1350 range if used all 3 dodges in a row, it’s no wonder d/p is so strong.

S/x used acro before and d/p either used crit strikes or shadow arts so they were on even footings, now d/p is God mode compare to other sets and you can’t deny this.

Absolutely you are right, but let’s pretend for a moment old acro would still exist and DRD would not give you extra dodges, that wouldn’t change kitten all, S/D would not be viable regardless, even if we would in this moment revert all nerfs to S/D and make acro the old acro and remove DrD S/D wouldn’t be viable still do you get what I’m trying to say? Even if you remove D/P none of D/D S/D S/P would be viable UNLESS you revamp the whole wepsets and please for the love of god can we stop combining wvw and spvp in the same balancing sentences because the game modes are seperate and theres so many things in it that are broken and the scaling is different/tweaking and all other scenarios blabla you get what im saying, everytime you talk you bring up wvw as if it’s the same thing which its so far from. I don’t care what they nerf or buff in wvw as long as it has no affect in SPVP

I think what you guys also have a hard time to understand is that

D/P has a role it’s a + 1 due to it’s reason (rupts, stealth)
S/D has no role, the previous role was more a 1v1/+ 1 kind of a hybrid (does not work at all currently)
S/P was a little bit of both as well (has no role anymore, at least closer to being a +1er than any other weaponset cus of stealth on demand with bound and rupts)
D/D (has this ever even been meta? i’d see this as a +1)
Staff 1v1/equal fight orientated

The problem with the weaponsets are that they lost their role/purpose and anet doesn’t know what they want to do with them, at least that’s how i see it.

Do we want S/D to be the old 1v1er or do we want to make it a + 1 role? We need to sort these questions out before we start tweaking, because right now without knowing what the purpose is of each weaponset it’s impossible to say they are not meta because of D/P.

But hey these are just my thoughts

Basically Sind is right in his assessment of the situation. The problem with thief’s other weaponsets isn’t D/P, but the rest of the game. Anet isn’t going to nerf D/P and buff the other weaponsets. No what will happen is you all will get D/P nerfed and get zero buffs to those cherished weapons you love so much. Now y’all got nothing but a rediculously non viable thief for S6. This new thief will be even more unviable than thief in S1.

Keep it up. Watch.

I’m gonna side with Azukas and bluri here (I know, shocker) but we need to look at how we want other sets to perform, what roles they should fill, and how to make them viable on their own before we start touching the d/p weapon set. Comparing everything to d/p doesn’t work in the long run for balance.
Use d/p as a benchmark to measure performance of other sets and you end up with people trying to make every set play like d/p when the sad truth is not every set will be viable for matches. Some just have roles that are suited more to the current meta than other sets do. When s/d was meta it was because the boon rip and sustain of the set was more favorable to a team comp than the burst and interrupt of d/p. Nowadays, you need heavy damage and interrupt so taking sets like s/d can still work but they will not be as effective as d/p. Of course nerfs didn’t help but it’s like Sind said: Even if you reversed every nerf to every set they would still not be as good as d/p. That’s all because their roles are not defined and what is defined is not as favorable in this meta as what d/p gives.

Proposal of what to do:
Find the role of each set and balance around it performing that role better than any other thief set. The variety in thief builds will emerge as people seek to fill different roles, not fill the same role with a different set.

Yes. This is the other problem. The game is balanced around conquest and since the new hot specs came out a lot of builds have been left behind. I am bringing wvw up “all of the time” because spvp isn’t the only pvp mode in this game, and what ever balance happens in spvp, that reflects to wvw as well (may be they are going to do more spvp skill only in the future)

To tell you the truth, we can sit here and discuss/argue all day about what we want the other sets to do but I belive that the game has gone to far beyond repair for the other/older builds or weapon sets. and its not that some of us cherish or love them…people are just fed up playing the same kitten weapon set over n over, that is all.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Yes. This is the other problem. The game is balanced around conquest and since the new hot specs came out a lot of builds have been left behind. I am bringing wvw up “all of the time” because spvp isn’t the only pvp mode in this game, and what ever balance happens in spvp, that reflects to wvw as well (may be they are going to do more spvp skill only in the future)

To tell you the truth, we can sit here and discuss/argue all day about what we want the other sets to do but I belive that the game has gone to far beyond repair for the other/older builds or weapon sets. and its not that some of us cherish or love them…people are just fed up playing the same kitten weapon set over n over, that is all.

If we are gonna balance around both game modes then they need to be identical, in wvw you have food/stones and different scaling, different gear/tweaks.
Borderland buffs/Keep buffs I can go on… (runes/sigils that don’t exist in SPVP anymore, minstrel/nomad/trailblazer stats)
therefor you can NEVER balance the same as in spvp I hope you understand this.

This is why we need split balancing as they have been doing (but we need MORE of this) I simply couldn’t care five cents about the mess that is called wvw/roaming because this is beyond saving

I’ll state it again, it doesn’t matter if you remove D/P none of your beloved weaponsets will be good enough to compete anyway. And I said and i’ll repeat, no matter if you remove D/P your weaponset doesn’t change still, they are still as bad and will remain as bad D/P has nothing to do with them being bad.

Ah, another person proposing to nerf D/P just because other weaponsets are subpar (at best).
There’s a reason everyone uses D/P. It’s not because it’s op and needs nerf, it’s simply because other sets are bad and they have no real use in PvP other than crippling your own team.

And people cry so much about PI like it’s free damage. It costs 4 ini points, needs to interrupt something, and also comes at a cost of not getting that valuable condi cleanse. PI isn’t baseline, it has costs so it’s only natural that there’s some use from it. Reduce damage or make it have ICD and it’ll become yet another unused trait.

You think Pulmonary Impact is good with D/P, you should try it with S/P. Just adds another interrupt on the build lol.

Without even looking at buffs and nerfs:

- The value of an interrupt is way up in HoT, there are a lot more crucial defensive skills that don’t have any recourse other than interrupts (and we’re no longer in a world where many of the best heals blocked/evaded/were passive).

- The value of an individual boon strip is way down – boons are spammed out in large numbers, so while pulling 1-2 boons used to be a big deal now you really want classes that rip half a dozen or more to get through all the crap.

- Immobilize has lost a ton of value. Before the 6/23 patch and HoT there were times where immobilize was higher value than a stun, as it could be harder to remove and would force big cooldowns to be blown. Now several classes have trivial answers to immobilize, area condi cleanse is much more prevalent, and there are short cooldown block/evade skills to neutralize it.

- Burst damage is way, way up in value. Putting healers into the game means you don’t wear anything down anymore, you either blow it up before their cooldowns come back up or you watch them reset.

- Excess cleave and reveal has turned Shadow Refuge from an essential skill for +1s and rotations into a death sentence, raising the value of all other out-of-combat stealth substantially.

That’s a meta shift that is very hostile to anything other than D/P, but quite favorable to D/P. Even is sword was operating at full power, it doesn’t offer the right tools to successfully counter the meta – it would have to be so powerful as to actually define the meta, which is very, very unlikely to happen.

That’s a fantastic summary, Ensign.

Pretty much, no matter what you do to D/P unless you do either one of these things:

Revamp other weaponsets to fit the meta
Revamp all classes/skills/utilities to create a meta where other weaponsets of thief works

It will not do a thing if neither of above is done

PI cannot crit which makes it a fairly ho-humm damager. Sure it can bang up a crappy player that doesn’t realize they are seeing Head Shot spam and persists smashing the AA key. However any decent player counters Head Shot with relative ease.

-nerf PI damage
-buff sword auto
-sword 2 should reach out to 1200
-reduce initiative of Larcenous Strike to 1
-slightly increase speed of the initial stun of pistol whip
-dagger 4 should inflict 2 seconds of poison and cripple longer (meant to be used against downed)
-dagger 5 should have initiative reduced to 5

This will be enough to make SD and SP viable.

Doctor.1905:

-nerf PI damage
-buff sword auto
-sword 2 should reach out to 1200
-reduce initiative of Larcenous Strike to 1
-slightly increase speed of the initial stun of pistol whip
-dagger 4 should inflict 2 seconds of poison and cripple longer (meant to be used against downed)
-dagger 5 should have initiative reduced to 5

This will be enough to make SD and SP viable.

You actually thinking these things would make SD and SP viable in high end pvp is laughable

bluri.2653:

Doctor.1905:

-nerf PI damage
-buff sword auto
-sword 2 should reach out to 1200
-reduce initiative of Larcenous Strike to 1
-slightly increase speed of the initial stun of pistol whip
-dagger 4 should inflict 2 seconds of poison and cripple longer (meant to be used against downed)
-dagger 5 should have initiative reduced to 5

This will be enough to make SD and SP viable.

You actually thinking these things would make SD and SP viable in high end pvp is laughable