Guild Wars 2

Pretty much the title.
Personally? I hate it. I think its poorly implemented, promotes mindless spam of Headshot (which is also the best use for it so yay more D/P) and makes fights, ESPECIALLY mirrors, incredibly boring and lopsided.

Skills like Headshot should be skills we use sparingly and with good timing due to the initiative cost and the fact that you wouldn’t get any profit out of interrupting an irrelevant skill like an AA….. If not for PI. Now its just a case of punishing people for pressing buttons simply by rolling your face over the 4 key and smacking them with 3-4k damage that’s also unblockable AND stacks. AND has no ICD.

Apologies if this has been discussed on the forum already, but I personally feel its surprising that this trait hasn’t been nerfed, and hopefully it will be. I’d gladly have the trait removed altogether, lol.

What do my fellow Thieves feel about it? Agree or disagree?

Headshot and Pulmonary Impact are two different things. I think it’s important that we do not mesh the two. One interrupts, the other causes damage 2 secs after successful interruption.
Not every D/P uses Pulmonary Impact, and some people like to use Pulmonary Impact with other weapon sets… anyways let me get to the point:

Frankly, think it’s fine. When I spam Headshot too often, I know I am going to get punished hard initiative wise. When I successfully rack up 3 Pulmonaries, then it’s my opponents fault for being too easy to read.

I think you should welcome the mindless spams, just like mindless blocks, or mindless dodges, etc. If it was not thought out, you should be punished.

I like it, and it allows us to dish out additional damages in WvW and PvP.

Yeah that’s true. I know its beneficial for say S/P users and such also, I only use Headshot as the example here because that’s the skill that gets the most out of PI. And when you put Headshot with PI, I find it to be an incredibly boring combination; get someone down to say 50% and then hit 4 a few times and you end up accidently interrupting a few AAs or a heal etc and your opponent literally dies because he hit a few buttons.

Its that kinda scenario that I dislike; dying to a Thief because he pressed 4 not necessarily to interrupt a key skill but simply because its a braindead way to land damage that’ll also sometimes unwittingly interrupt a heal or whatever. Like, I’d be fine if it had a small ICD or something, but right now it simply promotes mindless use of Headshot rather than the more reserved use of it back before HoT, which I miss.

Also, I personally find its pretty rare I come across another D/P user that isn’t using Pulm, but that’s just my experience.

Take PI and you have to get Condi cleanse from another source. PI spam from head shot can waste a whole lot of INI if the guy at receiving end is aware of what goes on. Head shot accomplishes nothing but a little damage if no interrupt generated.

I think the skill fine.

It still shouldn’t proc of AA, That’s my biggst issue with it.

PI is a great trait, does it need a nerf? No.

Why? because it has another great trait on the same bracket that you have to choose over it which is Escapist Absolution – remove 1 condi per evade every second.

Btw I use the condi on evade one.

@babazhook, That’s true, but personally as a WvW solo roamer, the only times I really need that extra cleanse is when I’m faced with a dire condi mesmer, in which case I do switch to EA. All other occasions, including against condi necro, I do just fine without it because the extra damage you get from PI more than makes up for it IMO.

@Fat Disgrace, Yeah I think so as well actually. I actually think that’s the biggest contributor to it making skills like Headshot more spammable nowadays because it turns those skills that SHOULDN’T do damage by themselves into damaging skills, because if someone isnt using a weapon or utility skill then they’re probably AAing. This is why I said that Thieves are using Headshot as an easy damage option when foes are at 50% or less because you also end up unwittingly interrupting key skills you wouldn’t normally be able to on reaction (or you’d have to be incredibly quick to do so)

I personally like PI. It makes skillful play more rewarding, on BOTH players. If I spam headshot while the enemy just has their weapons stowed then I’m down on ini without anything in return. But if the enemy is a mindless spammer then I just punished them with their own ‘skill’.

I’m not sure about PI not working on AA. Some classes can just spam auto to win if that is the case.. And it would take away the counter skill in stowing and using skills at the correct time.

So for now I’d say PI should interrupt on AA. Especially since you have to consider all specs when balancing PI, not only those using offhand pistol.

@Puz, well to that I’d say that most players, unless they’re braindead, wouldn’t hit Headshot whilst you have your weapons stowed anyway. What most Thieves do is what I described; get you low, then hit Headshot a few times because they know that you HAVE to use some sort of weapon/utility skill or at the very least an AA to either recover or counterattack. At the end of the day, unless you have Stab (again, they wouldn’t hit Headshot if you did) they ARE going to interrupt something totally random and at the end of the day, it doesnt really matter what that is because PI, in this scenario, turns Headshot into a skill that does unblockable, undodgeable and stackable damage from range.

Before PI, if I just hit Headshot a couple times every time I got say another Thief below 50%, and all I ended up doing was interrupting an AA, that WOULD have been a waste of initiative and I should, rightly, get punished for it. Now however it’s not a waste of initiative because I’m getting damage out of it for no reason at all. Same as with S/P and Pistol Whip; Should I get rewarded for using it to interrupt a key skill like a heal? Or should I just get spoon-fed an extra 3k guaranteed damage because the guy was in melee range and so probably AAing at the time? The second scenario doesn’t seem very skillful to me.

The point I’m (poorly) trying to make is that yes PI is rewarding properly timed and executed interupts, but it’s also rewarding random use of skills like Headshot that previously were situational and now aren’t so much.

TheDarkSoul.1938:

@Puz, well to that I’d say that most players, unless they’re braindead, wouldn’t hit Headshot whilst you have your weapons stowed anyway. What most Thieves do is what I described; get you low, then hit Headshot a few times because they know that you HAVE to use some sort of weapon/utility skill or at the very least an AA to either recover or counterattack. At the end of the day, unless you have Stab (again, they wouldn’t hit Headshot if you did) they ARE going to interrupt something totally random and at the end of the day, it doesnt really matter what that is because PI, in this scenario, turns Headshot into a skill that does unblockable, undodgeable and stackable damage from range.

Before PI, if I just hit Headshot a couple times every time I got say another Thief below 50%, and all I ended up doing was interrupting an AA, that WOULD have been a waste of initiative and I should, rightly, get punished for it. Now however it’s not a waste of initiative because I’m getting damage out of it for no reason at all. Same as with S/P and Pistol Whip; Should I get rewarded for using it to interrupt a key skill like a heal? Or should I just get spoon-fed an extra 3k guaranteed damage because the guy was in melee range and so probably AAing at the time? The second scenario doesn’t seem very skillful to me.

The point I’m (poorly) trying to make is that yes PI is rewarding properly timed and executed interupts, but it’s also rewarding random use of skills like Headshot that previously were situational and now aren’t so much.

I will play devils advocate here.

Should players be rewarded for missing a dodge/block/invuln while being CC’d and reflect cc back at the source?

Should players be rewarded for failing to use their defenses properly and get auto invulnerable?

It’s not like Thief has the only trait that rewards unskilled play or the only trait that adds Damage to interrupts, there is Distracting Strikes 4 stacks of confusion on interrupt from Warrior which they can chain interrupt players for devasting damage, there is Power Block which is damage and Weakness on interrupt from Mesmer which also increase recharge time, Mesmer can spam Interrupts between its most used weapon sets, Ele has Lightning rod which damages on interrupt and so on.

TheDarkSoul.1938:

@Puz, well to that I’d say that most players, unless they’re braindead, wouldn’t hit Headshot whilst you have your weapons stowed anyway. << Or Stab…

I might be a tad pessimistic. But I really doubt most players actually realize the enemy stowed or has stab.

TheDarkSoul.1938:

The point I’m (poorly) trying to make is that yes PI is rewarding properly timed and executed interupts, but it’s also rewarding random use of skills like Headshot that previously were situational and now aren’t so much.

And I agree with you there. Even to the point where Id love to change it to reward only skilled plays. But in the current state of the game it really isn’t the thing I’d suggest anet to put effort into.

Why do people even stow weapon? It’s more of a give away when all of a sudden out comes the weapons again, especially when using lenegry weapons. I just have aa disabled and weapons always out.

Headshot is init heavy and cannot be effectively spammed. It also has a ridiculous number of counters. Try using it against a Tempest, Warrior, etc. It is almost laughable how easily it is shut down. I can only get it to work as a supplement to other main damage sources.

@Straegen, I can understand Tempests but Warriors? Just wait for the stab and Steal it, or kite until its over and you can Headshot pretty easily, I don’t have any issues interrupting Warriors at all, in fact they’re one of the easier targets to interrupt because of how telegraphed they are. I wouldn’t say Headshot is as easy to “shut down” as you say though, and ofc using it or other interrupts with PI are never going to be used as main damage sources by themselves, I just don’t believe PI should be supplementing damage in the same way it does right now.

I’d also like to re-iterate by saying that when I say “spam Headshot” I don’t literally mean smashing my fingers on the 4 key over and over, I mean frequent use of it without any thought or intention going into it. Obviously popping off 3 Headshots one after the other is a waste, unless of course your opponent doesn’t catch on and you end up interrupting 3 random skills one after the other in which case congratulations you just landed 9k for no reason at all. (But still probably a waste)

@Fat Disgrace, I sometimes stow my weapons and then Steal straight afterwards, the stow often makes people think you’re going to wait or kite for a few seconds so the Steal straight afterwards catches some people. I guess its also an alternative to disabling AA, but I know some people use it for style points, lol.

TheDarkSoul.1938:

@Straegen, I can understand Tempests but Warriors? Just wait for the stab and Steal it, or kite until its over and you can Headshot pretty easily, I don’t have any issues interrupting Warriors at all, in fact they’re one of the easier targets to interrupt because of how telegraphed they are. I wouldn’t say Headshot is as easy to “shut down” as you say though, and ofc using it or other interrupts with PI are never going to be used as main damage sources by themselves, I just don’t believe PI should be supplementing damage in the same way it does right now.

I’d also like to re-iterate by saying that when I say “spam Headshot” I don’t literally mean smashing my fingers on the 4 key over and over, I mean frequent use of it without any thought or intention going into it. Obviously popping off 3 Headshots one after the other is a waste, unless of course your opponent doesn’t catch on and you end up interrupting 3 random skills one after the other in which case congratulations you just landed 9k for no reason at all. (But still probably a waste)

@Fat Disgrace, I sometimes stow my weapons and then Steal straight afterwards, the stow often makes people think you’re going to wait or kite for a few seconds so the Steal straight afterwards catches some people. I guess its also an alternative to disabling AA, but I know some people use it for style points, lol.

The Meta warrior build uses blocks that reflect as well on very low CDs it’s not just the stab

If you’re talking about Mace + Shield then that’s fair enough, but as I’ve already said I’m speaking as a solo roamer in WvW and there I literally never see Mace Warriors at all. Pretty much always the standard power zerker Axe/Shield + GS, sometimes Sword instead of Axe. I assume you’re talking from an sPvP standpoint in which case I’d agree Headshot is less effective, but condi warriors in general or even power mace warriors are a very very rare sight for me in WvW so idk. A single reflect on Shield and abit of Stab aren’t enough for me to consider Headshot as “Laughable” against the warriors I typically fight against.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

It still shouldn’t proc of AA, That’s my biggst issue with it.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

It still shouldn’t proc of AA, That’s my biggst issue with it.

Boy wouldn’t it be nice if that’s how the on-interrupt effects worked.

This is the first I’ve read that it has a delay… honestly it’s never been highly useful because by the time they’ve taken the damage it doesn’t matter any longer. That and even with the interrupt it very rarely ever takes effect. I haven’t seen a cooldown on it anywhere, but I’ve only seen the pulmonary impact damage one in maybe 30 interrupts.

PI is fine as is. If it didn’t interrupt on AA then you guys would be again be at more of a disadvantage to ranged attackers than you currently are. You also currently sacrifice your condi cleanse to take the trait which creates a high skilled build with higher rewards.

Also the only way I can see you thieves taking out the eles of today is with PI. W/out it and you dont have the damage to drop them efficiently in a match. Same with druids and other classes.

Thieves are almost back to where they need to be in terms of PvP. Some more nerfs to the meta classes and thieves will be good to go. PI is a trait that will help get you guys there.

Link.1049:

This is the first I’ve read that it has a delay… honestly it’s never been highly useful because by the time they’ve taken the damage it doesn’t matter any longer. That and even with the interrupt it very rarely ever takes effect. I haven’t seen a cooldown on it anywhere, but I’ve only seen the pulmonary impact damage one in maybe 30 interrupts.

I dont know fam, but PI is carrying thieves hard into the meta lol

As long as other classes don’t get toned down (especially in survivability department) we do need PI. If you don’t like PI, you are welcome to go play core thief in pvp and tell us how it went for you (i really do hope OP that you are not in bronze).

If a person is… “smart”… enough to be hit by 3 consecutive head shots (and three different pulmonary impacts), should they not be punished for face-tanking such obvious spam?

Whether you spam your skills or you spread them out tactically, this should be left to you, the player, to decide what will work best for their situation. As it stands, we have 3 strong daredevil major master traits (2 for staff, 2 for other weapon sets). Lets try not reduce this to 1 for other weaponsets, okay?

Azukas, I’d actually prefer it if interrupting AA didn’t proc PI because that way Headshot would go back to doing what it’s intended to do which is interrupting key skills such as heals. Yeah sure if I see a LB druid sitting there sniping me with AA then it’d make sense for me to hit Headshot or whatever because it’d be easy and require basically no timing or effort on my part to get free damage out of it whilst also interrupting ranged damage…. Which is exactly my issue. It requires no timing or effort, which is what skills like Headshot were designed for. Now they aren’t. Also I don’t believe it’d be okay for everyone else to get nerfed so that WE are “good to go” because then you’re suggesting that Daredevil in general doesn’t need tweaks and that Daredevil, just like all the other elite specs, isn’t power creepy as hell, which ofc it is.

Cynz, just because I don’t like PI doesn’t mean I don’t use it because I do, for the reason you stated; we can’t cut through sustain as easily without it. I also never implied that it simply get nerfed and everything else about the other classes be left where it is because I think its a given that all the classes need toning down in both damage and sustain departments. Heck, I actually love core thief, so I’d love to be able to play it in any game mode but unfortunately, as we both know, I’d get my kitten kicked. Also, if you’d read my previous posts you’d know that I’m a solo roamer in WvW. I have played sPvP but not to a substantially high level and the highest I’ve gotten to is a few pips away from Diamond…. I don’t see how my ranking in a game mode I rarely play relates to my opinions about a trait in a completely separate game mode though.

Westenev, I’m not trying to reduce this to 1. I want different traits to be useable for different weapon sets as well. I didn’t even suggest that I wanted PI to be nerfed into the ground and I haven’t even said its OP because, in the current state of the game its not. However, let’s say PI was around before HoT – would it be considered OP then? Probably. All I want is for it get changed, SOMEHOW, so that it rewards ACTUAL skill rather than randomly pressed Headshots interrupting basically nothing. I’m not talking just straight up nerf it and I’m not talking don’t nerf every other skilless trait or weapon skill that the other classes have, change them all.

Skillful interupts are no longer a thing with PI because head shot can be used every 4 seconds (it could before, we all know this) it’s re warding interupting a heal/stomp/res or other important skills, but now that pi rewards dmg on interupting, interupts have become an easy dmg sorce regarding inative system.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

TheDarkSoul.1938:

@Puz, well to that I’d say that most players, unless they’re braindead, wouldn’t hit Headshot whilst you have your weapons stowed anyway. What most Thieves do is what I described; get you low, then hit Headshot a few times because they know that you HAVE to use some sort of weapon/utility skill or at the very least an AA to either recover or counterattack. At the end of the day, unless you have Stab (again, they wouldn’t hit Headshot if you did) they ARE going to interrupt something totally random and at the end of the day, it doesnt really matter what that is because PI, in this scenario, turns Headshot into a skill that does unblockable, undodgeable and stackable damage from range.

Before PI, if I just hit Headshot a couple times every time I got say another Thief below 50%, and all I ended up doing was interrupting an AA, that WOULD have been a waste of initiative and I should, rightly, get punished for it. Now however it’s not a waste of initiative because I’m getting damage out of it for no reason at all. Same as with S/P and Pistol Whip; Should I get rewarded for using it to interrupt a key skill like a heal? Or should I just get spoon-fed an extra 3k guaranteed damage because the guy was in melee range and so probably AAing at the time? The second scenario doesn’t seem very skillful to me.

The point I’m (poorly) trying to make is that yes PI is rewarding properly timed and executed interupts, but it’s also rewarding random use of skills like Headshot that previously were situational and now aren’t so much.

I will play devils advocate here.

Should players be rewarded for missing a dodge/block/invuln while being CC’d and reflect cc back at the source?

Should players be rewarded for failing to use their defenses properly and get auto invulnerable?

It’s not like Thief has the only trait that rewards unskilled play or the only trait that adds Damage to interrupts, there is Distracting Strikes 4 stacks of confusion on interrupt from Warrior which they can chain interrupt players for devasting damage, there is Power Block which is damage and Weakness on interrupt from Mesmer which also increase recharge time, Mesmer can spam Interrupts between its most used weapon sets, Ele has Lightning rod which damages on interrupt and so on.

I mean most players already get free invuln and counter cc so…

Back to the topic:
PI imo is a bad trait. Making a high damage skill that only has to scale off power (So carrion condi builds can do high damage from interrupts as well), has 0 cd, cannot be dodged, and can proc off of aa is bad design choice. Benefitting the player who interrupts is fine (Maybe grant the thief might in interrupt or stab or something of that nature) but giving out extra damage is just not a good choice. The trait doesn’t promote much skill in play when the game is as simple and spam heavy as it is now, instead it serves to carry people who just throw out random cc skills without actually predicting what anyone is doing.

Ario.8964:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

TheDarkSoul.1938:

@Puz, well to that I’d say that most players, unless they’re braindead, wouldn’t hit Headshot whilst you have your weapons stowed anyway. What most Thieves do is what I described; get you low, then hit Headshot a few times because they know that you HAVE to use some sort of weapon/utility skill or at the very least an AA to either recover or counterattack. At the end of the day, unless you have Stab (again, they wouldn’t hit Headshot if you did) they ARE going to interrupt something totally random and at the end of the day, it doesnt really matter what that is because PI, in this scenario, turns Headshot into a skill that does unblockable, undodgeable and stackable damage from range.

Before PI, if I just hit Headshot a couple times every time I got say another Thief below 50%, and all I ended up doing was interrupting an AA, that WOULD have been a waste of initiative and I should, rightly, get punished for it. Now however it’s not a waste of initiative because I’m getting damage out of it for no reason at all. Same as with S/P and Pistol Whip; Should I get rewarded for using it to interrupt a key skill like a heal? Or should I just get spoon-fed an extra 3k guaranteed damage because the guy was in melee range and so probably AAing at the time? The second scenario doesn’t seem very skillful to me.

The point I’m (poorly) trying to make is that yes PI is rewarding properly timed and executed interupts, but it’s also rewarding random use of skills like Headshot that previously were situational and now aren’t so much.

I will play devils advocate here.

Should players be rewarded for missing a dodge/block/invuln while being CC’d and reflect cc back at the source?

Should players be rewarded for failing to use their defenses properly and get auto invulnerable?

It’s not like Thief has the only trait that rewards unskilled play or the only trait that adds Damage to interrupts, there is Distracting Strikes 4 stacks of confusion on interrupt from Warrior which they can chain interrupt players for devasting damage, there is Power Block which is damage and Weakness on interrupt from Mesmer which also increase recharge time, Mesmer can spam Interrupts between its most used weapon sets, Ele has Lightning rod which damages on interrupt and so on.

I mean most players already get free invuln and counter cc so…

Back to the topic:
PI imo is a bad trait. Making a high damage skill that only has to scale off power (So carrion condi builds can do high damage from interrupts as well), has 0 cd, cannot be dodged, and can proc off of aa is bad design choice. Benefitting the player who interrupts is fine (Maybe grant the thief might in interrupt or stab or something of that nature) but giving out extra damage is just not a good choice. The trait doesn’t promote much skill in play when the game is as simple and spam heavy as it is now, instead it serves to carry people who just throw out random cc skills without actually predicting what anyone is doing.

You have contradicted yourself within the same post. You go on to say that PI is low skill because it adds damage but all the other spammable interrupt traits are ok. You then say you just spam HS to win but go on to say it’s quite alright for the other clasers AoE spam to stay in the game.

You know what I do when fighting a,thief using it?

Block
Distortion
Evade frames
LOS
And not spam AA needlessly

And that’s just on my mesmer. On my other classes I got stability that I have access to like candy.

Azukas.1426:

Ario.8964:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

TheDarkSoul.1938:

@Puz, well to that I’d say that most players, unless they’re braindead, wouldn’t hit Headshot whilst you have your weapons stowed anyway. What most Thieves do is what I described; get you low, then hit Headshot a few times because they know that you HAVE to use some sort of weapon/utility skill or at the very least an AA to either recover or counterattack. At the end of the day, unless you have Stab (again, they wouldn’t hit Headshot if you did) they ARE going to interrupt something totally random and at the end of the day, it doesnt really matter what that is because PI, in this scenario, turns Headshot into a skill that does unblockable, undodgeable and stackable damage from range.

Before PI, if I just hit Headshot a couple times every time I got say another Thief below 50%, and all I ended up doing was interrupting an AA, that WOULD have been a waste of initiative and I should, rightly, get punished for it. Now however it’s not a waste of initiative because I’m getting damage out of it for no reason at all. Same as with S/P and Pistol Whip; Should I get rewarded for using it to interrupt a key skill like a heal? Or should I just get spoon-fed an extra 3k guaranteed damage because the guy was in melee range and so probably AAing at the time? The second scenario doesn’t seem very skillful to me.

The point I’m (poorly) trying to make is that yes PI is rewarding properly timed and executed interupts, but it’s also rewarding random use of skills like Headshot that previously were situational and now aren’t so much.

I will play devils advocate here.

Should players be rewarded for missing a dodge/block/invuln while being CC’d and reflect cc back at the source?

Should players be rewarded for failing to use their defenses properly and get auto invulnerable?

It’s not like Thief has the only trait that rewards unskilled play or the only trait that adds Damage to interrupts, there is Distracting Strikes 4 stacks of confusion on interrupt from Warrior which they can chain interrupt players for devasting damage, there is Power Block which is damage and Weakness on interrupt from Mesmer which also increase recharge time, Mesmer can spam Interrupts between its most used weapon sets, Ele has Lightning rod which damages on interrupt and so on.

I mean most players already get free invuln and counter cc so…

Back to the topic:
PI imo is a bad trait. Making a high damage skill that only has to scale off power (So carrion condi builds can do high damage from interrupts as well), has 0 cd, cannot be dodged, and can proc off of aa is bad design choice. Benefitting the player who interrupts is fine (Maybe grant the thief might in interrupt or stab or something of that nature) but giving out extra damage is just not a good choice. The trait doesn’t promote much skill in play when the game is as simple and spam heavy as it is now, instead it serves to carry people who just throw out random cc skills without actually predicting what anyone is doing.

You have contradicted yourself within the same post. You go on to say that PI is low skill because it adds damage but all the other spammable interrupt traits are ok. You then say you just spam HS to win but go on to say it’s quite alright for the other clasers AoE spam to stay in the game.

You know what I do when fighting a,thief using it?

Block
Distortion
Evade frames
LOS
And not spam AA needlessly

And that’s just on my mesmer. On my other classes I got stability that I have access to like candy.

Never once in my post did I condone the presence of other classes’ skills that promote any sort of spam. I did say I would be okay if PI benefitted the thief using it rather than carrying their damage because they are too lazy to set up proper burst combos. I never HS spam to win because I can do damage more effectively the point is it shouldn’t even be an option and for some players it most certainly is a very strong option.

Again, I never condoned the presence of another classes’ spam being in the game but this thread is about 1 trait on the THIEF class, not about what other classes have. If what a Mesmer or Warrior has was in any way relevant to my feelings on PI I’d have said so but it isn’t so they didn’t need to be mentioned.

Edit: I eat most other thieves for breakfast even when they run it so I don’t have any issues fighting it but that doesn’t mean I have to like it being there.

Edit 2: I suck at acronyms so I changed my original post

Ario.8964:

Azukas.1426:

Ario.8964:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

TheDarkSoul.1938:

@Puz, well to that I’d say that most players, unless they’re braindead, wouldn’t hit Headshot whilst you have your weapons stowed anyway. What most Thieves do is what I described; get you low, then hit Headshot a few times because they know that you HAVE to use some sort of weapon/utility skill or at the very least an AA to either recover or counterattack. At the end of the day, unless you have Stab (again, they wouldn’t hit Headshot if you did) they ARE going to interrupt something totally random and at the end of the day, it doesnt really matter what that is because PI, in this scenario, turns Headshot into a skill that does unblockable, undodgeable and stackable damage from range.

Before PI, if I just hit Headshot a couple times every time I got say another Thief below 50%, and all I ended up doing was interrupting an AA, that WOULD have been a waste of initiative and I should, rightly, get punished for it. Now however it’s not a waste of initiative because I’m getting damage out of it for no reason at all. Same as with S/P and Pistol Whip; Should I get rewarded for using it to interrupt a key skill like a heal? Or should I just get spoon-fed an extra 3k guaranteed damage because the guy was in melee range and so probably AAing at the time? The second scenario doesn’t seem very skillful to me.

The point I’m (poorly) trying to make is that yes PI is rewarding properly timed and executed interupts, but it’s also rewarding random use of skills like Headshot that previously were situational and now aren’t so much.

I will play devils advocate here.

Should players be rewarded for missing a dodge/block/invuln while being CC’d and reflect cc back at the source?

Should players be rewarded for failing to use their defenses properly and get auto invulnerable?

It’s not like Thief has the only trait that rewards unskilled play or the only trait that adds Damage to interrupts, there is Distracting Strikes 4 stacks of confusion on interrupt from Warrior which they can chain interrupt players for devasting damage, there is Power Block which is damage and Weakness on interrupt from Mesmer which also increase recharge time, Mesmer can spam Interrupts between its most used weapon sets, Ele has Lightning rod which damages on interrupt and so on.

I mean most players already get free invuln and counter cc so…

Back to the topic:
PI imo is a bad trait. Making a high damage skill that only has to scale off power (So carrion condi builds can do high damage from interrupts as well), has 0 cd, cannot be dodged, and can proc off of aa is bad design choice. Benefitting the player who interrupts is fine (Maybe grant the thief might in interrupt or stab or something of that nature) but giving out extra damage is just not a good choice. The trait doesn’t promote much skill in play when the game is as simple and spam heavy as it is now, instead it serves to carry people who just throw out random cc skills without actually predicting what anyone is doing.

You have contradicted yourself within the same post. You go on to say that PI is low skill because it adds damage but all the other spammable interrupt traits are ok. You then say you just spam HS to win but go on to say it’s quite alright for the other clasers AoE spam to stay in the game.

You know what I do when fighting a,thief using it?

Block
Distortion
Evade frames
LOS
And not spam AA needlessly

And that’s just on my mesmer. On my other classes I got stability that I have access to like candy.

Never once in my post did I condone the presence of other classes’ skills that promote any sort of spam. I did say I would be okay if PI benefitted the thief using it rather than carrying their damage because they are too lazy to set up proper burst combos. I never HS spam to win because I can do damage more effectively the point is it shouldn’t even be an option and for some players it most certainly is a very strong option.

Again, I never condoned the presence of another classes’ spam being in the game but this thread is about 1 trait on the THIEF class, not about what other classes have. If what a Mesmer or Warrior has was in any way relevant to my feelings on PI I’d have said so but it isn’t so they didn’t need to be mentioned.

Edit: I eat most other thieves for breakfast even when they run it so I don’t have any issues fighting it but that doesn’t mean I have to like it being there.

Edit 2: I suck at acronyms so I changed my original post

You have to balance the trait/class/build vs the ENTIRE game. In the grand scheme of things PI is FAR from OP.

If you main necro I could understand your hatred of PI, but the rest of the game should have no problems with it.

Thank you for existing Azukas, you are probably the only one who makes sense on this forum, funnily enough you don’t even play thief

There nothing wrong with PI. it not OP or too much for the Ini spent. It does not crit and other attacks do more damage.

Put it on s/p it not op. Put it on p/p it not op. Use it in conjunction with interrupt skills like Scorpion Wire or Staff one stealth it not op.

The only real issue is it works very well with the d/p set which aready has few downsides. Changing PI in any way shape or form will not help there and will in fact just open the gap between d/p and other sets wider.

Generating an interrupt in a game so as to apply more damage via a PI triggering is not disimilar to having a person take damage just for doing an action because he has confusion stacks on him.

Sigh. I’ll say again, I DO NOT think that PI is “OP”. I haven’t said that it is. I HAVE said that it’s a lazily designed trait. Why? Because instead of it being what it SHOULD have been, which is rewarding well timed interrupts of important skills, it’s basically turned into “here have some extra damage on Steal and oh yes let’s turn all your stuns/dazes/etc into damaging skills for no reason at all as well.”. THAT is all I want changing, just change it in SOME way so that it better reflects skillful play.

I’m fully aware that in the current state of the game, having PI in the state it’s in right now is pretty nice because we need to cut through the stoopid levels of sustain everything has. Not having it would be crappy damage wise. I get that. What I’m talking about is how stuff is designed and I suppose I’m talking in an ideal world where we didn’t need to get EVEN MORE damage handed to us for free just to effectively kill other classes.

I wouldn’t want anything about us nerfed/changed (design wise, so not simply a nerf) until every other class got sustain/damage nerfs across the board so that PI didn’t seem, from a damage POV, as desirable as it is right now and we could instead look at ways to make it better design wise. I.E, before HoT, a Headshot hitting a heal skill and interrupting it would be great. A Headshot hitting an AA would be a total waste of initiative. One way you get rewarded, the other way you get punished. Now you just get rewarded either way, and that’s quite clearly IMO a step backwards when it comes to how the class, and the game in general, is designed. You absolutely should get punished for using a skill that’s originally intended to be based on good timing at the wrong…. time.

I do understand how PI being changed would hit other sets harder than D/P, but I feel that’s an issue with those weapon sets being underpar + D/P being TOO good in comparison. Once those sets get the changes they deserve then that won’t be as big of an issue because those sets will have other methods to deal damage that won’t rely on a trait that freely rewards damage for no reason.

There are a number of skills that apply damage to interrupt in some form across all classes in addition to that interrupt.

I disagree that there a problem with this. In taking such traits the person has to give up something else.

I do not see how this any more bad design then “add 10% damage” to foes with a condition.

TheDarkSoul.1938:

@Straegen, I can understand Tempests but Warriors? Just wait for the stab and Steal it, or kite until its over and you can Headshot pretty easily, I don’t have any issues interrupting Warriors at all, in fact they’re one of the easier targets to interrupt because of how telegraphed they are.

Block, block, block, 0, 0, 0, evade, evade, 0, 0, 0… That aside you are going to use steal to get their stab, drop 6 init to do maybe 10%-20% of their health. That is a lot of setup for a shot that cannot crit and doesn’t have an immediate impact. Headshot with ID, Torment and Draining works in tandem for solid damage particularly when stopping heals and such but ID by itself is not a reliable consistent damager.

Headshot is also a telegraphed skill so that road goes two ways. Headshot destroys bad players but so does facerolling a keyboard. Headshot is mainly a side damager/interrupter of key skills between quality opponents.

bluri.2653:

Thank you for existing Azukas, you are probably the only one who makes sense on this forum, funnily enough you don’t even play thief

Sig’d nm too big of a quote

/cry

Azukas.1426:

Ario.8964:

Azukas.1426:

Ario.8964:

Back to the topic:
PI imo is a bad trait. Making a high damage skill that only has to scale off power (So carrion condi builds can do high damage from interrupts as well), has 0 cd, cannot be dodged, and can proc off of aa is bad design choice. Benefitting the player who interrupts is fine (Maybe grant the thief might in interrupt or stab or something of that nature) but giving out extra damage is just not a good choice. The trait doesn’t promote much skill in play when the game is as simple and spam heavy as it is now, instead it serves to carry people who just throw out random cc skills without actually predicting what anyone is doing.

You have contradicted yourself within the same post. You go on to say that PI is low skill because it adds damage but all the other spammable interrupt traits are ok. You then say you just spam HS to win but go on to say it’s quite alright for the other clasers AoE spam to stay in the game.

You know what I do when fighting a,thief using it?

Block
Distortion
Evade frames
LOS
And not spam AA needlessly

And that’s just on my mesmer. On my other classes I got stability that I have access to like candy.

Never once in my post did I condone the presence of other classes’ skills that promote any sort of spam. I did say I would be okay if PI benefitted the thief using it rather than carrying their damage because they are too lazy to set up proper burst combos. I never HS spam to win because I can do damage more effectively the point is it shouldn’t even be an option and for some players it most certainly is a very strong option.

Again, I never condoned the presence of another classes’ spam being in the game but this thread is about 1 trait on the THIEF class, not about what other classes have. If what a Mesmer or Warrior has was in any way relevant to my feelings on PI I’d have said so but it isn’t so they didn’t need to be mentioned.

Edit: I eat most other thieves for breakfast even when they run it so I don’t have any issues fighting it but that doesn’t mean I have to like it being there.

Edit 2: I suck at acronyms so I changed my original post

You have to balance the trait/class/build vs the ENTIRE game. In the grand scheme of things PI is FAR from OP.

If you main necro I could understand your hatred of PI, but the rest of the game should have no problems with it.

From a balance perspective in the current meta I think it’s fine. My feelings on it as a trait alone: I don’t like it. However, that doesn’t stop me from using it and recognizing it’s importance atm. It’s the same with d/p, I don’t like the set’s dominance nor do I like playing it but it’s necessary for the class to be competetive. My feelings on how things play=/= my views on balance just wanted to clear that up. I agree things ought to be balanced for the whole game and as such if i had my way there wouldn’t be traits like that in the game but it’s not changing any time soon so I’ll continue to use PI when i play d/p so I can actually kill the bunkers in this game.