Guild Wars 2

is it just me or is my Thief even stronger since the patch? Im literally rolling through people with the 5 attack +15%. Im pretty much killing anyone i choose before they can do anything about it with Steal (6k), Dancing Dagger (3k), CnD (4k), Backstab (8k), Heartseeker.

I guess the Heartseeker spammers will enjoy this change too as it pretty much reverses the Heartseeker nerf from 2 patches ago with this signet used.

Definately we are a ton stronger, I don’t D/D and with my current setup its freaking awesome!

I don’t know if I am stronger but I love the changes! I run a BS build and don’t miss the big burst from BS at all. So what if we have to hit 5 times to do the same damage, I think it makes the better players better and the bad players not as good.

Kyus.3812:

Definately we are a ton stronger, I don’t D/D and with my current setup its freaking awesome!

I love it too, i just find it ironic that the strongest insta killer in the game just got made even stronger when its obvious they were meant to nerf us lol

Go Anet! thumbs up

Go read Assasins signet 15% topic.
We arent stronger, the overal damage is tottaly same. However the damage from first 3 hits lower 15% in backstab build. Meaning people got more time to react.
Yet now signet can go in many builds not just backstab.

Make no difference really, people that die to thief before and cry will still die to thief now and cry. Thief is OP thread will still be rampart. lol

Yeah, I haven’t sPvP’d too much since the patch (especially not as a Backstabber) but I haven’t noticed much difference in WvW and other aspects of the game.

I wouldn’t say we’re notably stronger either. Just that nothing much has changed.

Well i would say this change is welcome for people who had too low or no time to react, in normal pvp whre ppl react in time nuthing changed. Its even better, as now countering that 1 hit wont drop signets usefullness to 0, as it did before so its better in pro pvp.

Psy.6153:

is it just me or is my Thief even stronger since the patch? Im literally rolling through people with the 5 attack +15%. Im pretty much killing anyone i choose before they can do anything about it with Steal (6k), Dancing Dagger (3k), CnD (4k), Backstab (8k), Heartseeker.

I guess the Heartseeker spammers will enjoy this change too as it pretty much reverses the Heartseeker nerf from 2 patches ago with this signet used.

I was just wondering, what build are you using in order to get such high crits? and also is this sPVP or WvW.
My thief is full exotics/ power/precision/crit dmg and i barely get 4k steals/2k dancing daggers/6k backstabs…

I’m 75 on my thief and I have 0/30/30/5/0 (will probably move this to DA for Mug at 80. And I have Hidden Killer for the 100% backstab because I run Power, Toughness, Vitality gear (karma crap) and beserker jewelry and weapons. I backstab for anywhere from 4-9k but I have more health and more survivability. I’d like to switch Hidden Killer to the trait for +20% dmg below 50%. Heartseeker + Assassin’s Signet would blow ppl up.

It definitely didn’t make [Backstab] “stronger”.

The exponential gain you could achieve from [Assassin’s Signet] on a single attack was absolutely insane and definitely needed to be nerfed somehow.

{Signets of Power}+{Venomous Strength}+{Improvisation} can max Might stacks = 875 power
{First Strikes} = 10%
{Exposed Weakness} = 10%
{Flanking Strikes} = 5%
And then you auto crit from {Hidden Killer} which can get close to doubling your damage w/ CritDmg gear.

So we were looking at a ~300%+ total damage bonus.
Tack on [Assasin’s Signet] and suddenly you were looking at a 500%+ total damage bonus.

Tooltip only said 50%, but because of the way damage is calculated, if you focused every ability you had on Might and CritDmg while completely ignoring all utility, the actual increase in damage you saw from popping [Assassin’s Signet] could skyrocket to nearly quadruple that.

With the change to 15%, that’s a LOT of lost damage and your Might stacks won’t last long enough to hit another 4 attacks.

However; speccing everything toward setting up that 1 single attack to see a huge number while completely ignoring utility and survivability was never practical (despite what all the whiner threads on the forums say). So who cares if it Nerfed that build.

Meanwhile it’s just as good as it always was for BS builds who pick up utility and survivability instead of concentrating completely on the exponential buildup.
And it’s actually much better for a lot of other builds than it used to be.

So I would agree that it made Thief stronger overall.

thief is by far the class to farm glory/rank on spvp. dont really need to know how to play it to have at least 200 rank every match on random spvp.

on tournaments is diferent but on spvp you see thief everywhere for some reason, is just the best and easy class to farm points period.

It’s already been proven mathematically to be a nerf, quit making troll threads pretending you’re a thief etc etc.
It’s not like Anet is going to buy into this, they did all the math as well.

Dancing Dagger huh? Well seems players still haven’t learned to evade.

DD is one of the fastest thief skills in terms of use time, requires no special setup, is spammable, and hits quite quickly at point-blank. Personally, I’m just fine if people dodge my DDs, they don’t require much investment and if they’re dodging then it’ll make subsequent attacks that much easier to land when they’re endurance-starved.

Plus, when it does land in a multi-target situation the burst damage is insane.

The D/D back stab build was toned down slightly, while making all other builds more viable.

Best patch so far.

Stin.9781:

Go read Assasins signet 15% topic.
We arent stronger, the overal damage is tottaly same. However the damage from first 3 hits lower 15% in backstab build. Meaning people got more time to react.
Yet now signet can go in many builds not just backstab.

Technically we are a little stronger, pre “nerf” The signet Was one time 150% dmg now at 5 times 115% is equal to 175% dmg boost. So over all the signet got a 25% dmg bump.

phor.7952:

It definitely didn’t make [Backstab] “stronger”.

The exponential gain you could achieve from [Assassin’s Signet] on a single attack was absolutely insane and definitely needed to be nerfed somehow.

{Signets of Power}+{Venomous Strength}+{Improvisation} can max Might stacks = 875 power
{First Strikes} = 10%
{Exposed Weakness} = 10%
{Flanking Strikes} = 5%
And then you auto crit from {Hidden Killer} which can get close to doubling your damage w/ CritDmg gear.

So we were looking at a ~300%+ total damage bonus.
Tack on [Assasin’s Signet] and suddenly you were looking at a 500%+ total damage bonus.

Tooltip only said 50%, but because of the way damage is calculated, if you focused every ability you had on Might and CritDmg while completely ignoring all utility, the actual increase in damage you saw from popping [Assassin’s Signet] could skyrocket to nearly quadruple that.

With the change to 15%, that’s a LOT of lost damage and your Might stacks won’t last long enough to hit another 4 attacks.

However; speccing everything toward setting up that 1 single attack to see a huge number while completely ignoring utility and survivability was never practical (despite what all the whiner threads on the forums say). So who cares if it Nerfed that build.

Meanwhile it’s just as good as it always was for BS builds who pick up utility and survivability instead of concentrating completely on the exponential buildup.
And it’s actually much better for a lot of other builds than it used to be.

So I would agree that it made Thief stronger overall.

i couldnt of said it better myself..

in fact.. i was using this exact technique to hit my backstab at 23 stacks of might (weapon swap + power of inertia combined with what u mentioned).

you say adopting this option was never practicle due to lack of utility etc.. well, using this technique i used the soldiers amulet.. which more than makes up for the lack of survivability. I was still hitting for +16k backstabs, with great lvls of hp and toughness.

i have now seen my backstabs go from 16k to 10k… with low precision all my other attacks are quite weak i dont even notice the +15% boost on my other attacks.. it makes my build now not practicle to use

for me personally, this is a huge nerf and its back to the drawing board to figure out a way to stay tough, and deal max pain

They need to fix all weapon slots that are not D/D, SB.

P/P needs to not be worthless… ect ect…

blackgoat.5172:

Stin.9781:

Go read Assasins signet 15% topic.
We arent stronger, the overal damage is tottaly same. However the damage from first 3 hits lower 15% in backstab build. Meaning people got more time to react.
Yet now signet can go in many builds not just backstab.

Technically we are a little stronger, pre “nerf” The signet Was one time 150% dmg now at 5 times 115% is equal to 175% dmg boost. So over all the signet got a 25% dmg bump.

My lord, does no one know how percentages work? The 15% doesn’t stack, it applies 15% individually. To better illustrate, I’ll use this a set of numbers to represent the infamous BS combo with 2 HS.
Lets say it goes 4000 (Mug), 8000 (CnD), 10000 (BS), 4000 (HS), 4000 (HS).

Now under the old setup AS would be applied right before BS so the equation is.

4000+8000+(10000*1.5)+4000+4000=35000

Now the new AS

1.15(4000+8000+10000+4000+4000)=34500
(4000*1.15)(8000*1.15)(10000*1.15)(4000*1.15)(4000*1.15)=34500 (just to prove I’m calculating correctly)

Now here’s another curve.
The strength of the BS combo was being able to dish out high damage in supposedly 1 second. So lets remove the HS from the equation as they’re easier to evade.

The old:
4000+8000+(10000*1.5)=27000

and the new:

1.15(4000+8000+10000)=25300

So to sum it all up, the new BS combo is approximately 13% weaker
The new AS with 2 HS is 1.4% weaker.

Sorry if this feels like I’m singling you out. I’ve just seen so many people with the misconception that percentage values add up.

@Dual,

I understand your making purely a mathematical point.

but the way I look at it I see my cluster bombs now doing more sustained high damage too. plus before if you missed with attack 1 you gained nothing at least this way if someone dodges you still get something out of it :-). I am pulling rough numbers I see my cluster bombs do from around 4k to a maximum of 9k so six is a wvw average.

9000 + 6000 +6000 +6000 +6000 = 33,000

6900 + 6900 + 6900 + 6900 + 6900 = 34,500

my shorbow with quickness (proc or Time Warp, don’t use Haste) and AS melts ppl pretty bad

Volrath.1473:

my shorbow with quickness (proc or Time Warp, don’t use Haste) and AS melts ppl pretty bad

I think me and you are doing something very very similar Volrath.. but i tend to not use haste as without it it melts them and that way I get another utility :-)

The proc haste works soooo nice with the new signet, once you see it going up pop the signet and MELT people. I tested going with P/P in WvW and oh the eles and rangers are just dropping like flies.