Guild Wars 2

First to Anet:

Thank you Anet for nerfing Cluster Bomb. Now, when we are attacking a tower at WvW i can finally drink some beer and enjoy the view(maybe while eating popcorn), while the rest 80% (all non-thieves that is) of the raid is trying to kill the npc, the players and the siege weapons on the wall. You just gave us an awesome excuse to slack.

To players:

Guys don’t be upset. Anet wants to help thieves relax a bit. They know our job is hard so they decided to give us a good reason to relax a bit before the big fight (that is after you enter the tower), watch some youtube vids, send text to your girlfriends (something that you probably forgot to do the for the last 1-2 hours), check facebook (for those who have one), stretch your arms and legs, go to wc and generally do whatever you like, while the rest of the ppl are still fighting. We must thank Anet for that!

Thank you once again Anet, we knew that you loved thieves, but we never knew that you love us that much! Thank you!

A happy thief.

or, OR, OR OR OR!!!!!! you could step forwards a couple steps and clusterbomb away? idk possibly maybe wtflmaokthxbai?

yes and get r*ped by all ranged players with 1200+ range while trying to get at 900.

Noshiz.8650:

yes and get r*ped by all ranged players with 1200+ range while trying to get at 900.

Honey look on the bright side, they got nerfed and they were gonna tear your kitten either way.

Noshiz.8650:

First to Anet:

Thank you Anet for nerfing Cluster Bomb. Now, when we are attacking a tower at WvW i can finally drink some beer and enjoy the view(maybe while eating popcorn), while the rest 80% (all non-thieves that is) of the raid is trying to kill the npc, the players and the siege weapons on the wall. You just gave us an awesome excuse to slack.

That 20% of total WvWvW population being thieves might be close to truth. Meaning that thieves are still overpowered (due spammable stealth + shadowstepping) in that game mode. No other profession has so easy escape from fights.

And if you are missing cluster bomb spam from enemies while trying to defend your keep or tower, I recommend to you transfer to Desolation. Yesterday after the patch I saw so many AoE circles from cluster bomb that I stopped counting them. I didn’t die, but I can see from combat log that I took just about 3k per hit (enemy thieves probably run full berserker ascended gear), while trying to defend against much larger enemy force, but couple of players on our side got downed. So the cluster bomb spam at siege is still very much alive and kicking. Visunah Square, EU rank 1 server, really loves those glass cannons spamming ranged AoE and they often sync it e.g. well timed ranger long bow barrages + engineer grenade kit spam + half a dozen staff elementalists doing meteor showers at same location + 10+ cluster bombs from several thieves. If you don’t dodge away, you are dead in a second.

Have you beeing using cluster bomb on tower after all those AC buffs?

shortbow from rangers wont reach you now too. They got nerfed to 900 range too

Epic.3950:

Noshiz.8650:

yes and get r*ped by all ranged players with 1200+ range while trying to get at 900.

Honey look on the bright side, they got nerfed and they were gonna tear your kitten either way.

If you are so sure that they would tear me apart, why are you all day long at thief forums QQing about how OP thieves are ?

Who is the noob now? Learn to play.

Rangers sbow nerf is pretty bad 2 kiwituatara, hopefully your LB gets a dps boost. The issue with thief’s is we are now the only class with no weapon skill over 900 range. It makes node offense/defense unfair, as we have to stand 300units closer to the target.
Player A (Any non thief 1200 range)
Player B (Thief-Mr 900 range)

A —>—>—>—>—>—>—>—>—>—>—>—>
………………….<—<—<—<—<—<—<—<—<— B

That ^ is the problem, instead of a level balanced field every other class exept B (thief) can engage 300 units further away. 1v1 this range makes little difference as cluster is rarely fired 1200 due to projectile velocity. This really affects thief’s ability to attack/defend a node as you have to stand under aoe intagib zone just to get off 1 weapon skill.
The reality is; every single class in gw2 has/had 1200 range weapon, thief had only one 1200 range skill which got reduced by 25%.
This has essentially given every class the exact same advantage over thief that a specifically traited longbow Ranger @ 1500 range has in gw2, that is, +300 range.

Please revise this change Anet; perhaps sPVP change only, change pathing on the CB detonation if high shots were been exploited, increase range of trick shot, choking gas or pistol auto to 1200. Sky-pirates and the rebalance as a whole was really solid and i was very impressed, but leaving thiefs 300units short really needs to be looked at again.

Cassiel.9431:

lol man thief get a lot of buffs and you are still QQ

Are you even playing this game?

Do you even play thief? guess not cuz those buffs are mostly minor. Steal recharge rate was reduced which is awesome, dancing dagger/blssom -1 initiative, SD no longer has a stunbreaker on infiltrators destroying S/D, Sig of malice got buff but its useless outside niche builds, scorp wire- 20s n looks awesome but it was on fast cd nyway and highly situational at best but it looks awesome-much better gap closers (SS)

Lets compare the veno new cond we got, torment stack on skale veno
Skale venom(from patch)-175 damage (350 if moving) on 3 hits =525dmg (1050 moving)
Spider venom (launch)- 550 on x 5 =2750 damage

19% (or 38% if target is moving) of damage from existing spider veno, with identical cooldown

Since you obviously have no idea about the class and that most of these buffs were minor perhaps you should make a thief 1st. Press H then read through the trait tree, ask a thief if they use those traits n wait for the laughter.

Hard to catch: “Absolutely the most useless grandmaster trait there is.”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/How-does-Hard-to-Catch-exactly-work
Panic strike; grandmaster trait, immob for 4 seconds at 50% health (can be removed by condi removal), much better choices if you’ve put 30 in deathmagic
corrosive traps; traps…niche build at best, pretty much useless lol
Sundering strikes-small vun stacks, just increases duration, gives u a bleed cover
last refuge: ok, you do realise what this trait is? it kills you more than saves you by teleporting you into zergballs lol broken since launch, just changed cd
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Will-Last-Refuge-ever-be-removed

This thread is about our only 1200 weapon skill (we had 1) been reduced to 900, while every other class has 1200 range weapon-leading to imbalance in node offense/defense.

Cassiel.9431:

have you read te patch notes?? ……

so first read the patch note, try to understand them and them talk

I read all and i am sick of it…..Anet failed absolutely again.
Nothing good they did is worth compare to shorbow and other nerfs. They just want to make us play tanky and condition builds. But i do NOT want to play what they want me to play and i never will!
If they thing this it is good way how to balance PVP, by forcing us to abandon certain play styles, they are terrible developers.

Thing is…thieves DID get buffs. Rangers got nerfs and no buff at all. So stop complaining. Thieves are fine.

Seriously Cassiel, you have never played a thief and you really have no idea what you are talking about. Ether that, or you are trolling (or you have some kind of mental illness).

I will assume that the second is the case because, your posts reveal that.

You are in a thief forum QQing about thieves because you believe that Mesmers got nerfed much more and that leads us to believe that thieves are buffed. Right?

Way to go.

Noshiz.8650:

Seriously Cassiel, you have never played a thief and you really have no idea what you are talking about. Ether that, or you are trolling (or you have some kind of mental illness).

I will assume that the second is the case because, your posts reveal that.

You are in a thief forum QQing about thieves because you believe that Mesmers got nerfed much more and that leads us to believe that thieves are buffed. Right?

Way to go.

Hey man, Cassiel is a famous amazing GW2 player, quite possibly the best, so he knows best! If he says we purely got amazing buffs and that we should stop complaining about having no 1200 ranged cluster bombs then we must. We’re just not seeing something, I’m sure in time we’ll be able to see what Cassiel sees and be as good as him, at least I hope of such things!

Cassiel.9431:

Noshiz.8650:

Seriously Cassiel, you have never played a thief and you really have no idea what you are talking about. Ether that, or you are trolling (or you have some kind of mental illness).

I will assume that the second is the case because, your posts reveal that.

You are in a thief forum QQing about thieves because you believe that Mesmers got nerfed much more and that leads us to believe that thieves are buffed. Right?

Way to go.

sorry man you have some real issue, i never talk about mesmer, but maybe i dont explain my self, what i what to say is with all the buff i dont feel correct continue QQ about SB,

I NEVER SAY THIEF IS OP NERF THEM OMG, you have already controll all my messagges and dont find nothig about it, so man im not against thief im agains child who’s QQ evryday, im sorry that you fell attached
btw the mental illness kep it for you

In your first page of posts you have 20 posts on Mesmer forum. And the latest of them are about mesmers getting nerfed while other classes DIDN’T.

I never said that you said anything about Mesmer here, but your posts proves that you are a Mesmer (not to say about ur sign) and that because u feel u got nerfed more than other classes you choose to come here and QQ about it by bashing thieves.

What do you have to say about this?

Quote:

#DiogoSilva …..LOL
i know engi were buffed, necro, thief, warrior and guard as well, ele got no nerf and no relevant buff, ranger have some nerf on pet dmg, but a huge buff on the LB.

So tell me where are these “many other builds nerfed” ?

—End of Quote

Link for the above post, it’s the 4th one.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/So-phantasms

You should read your posts again i think.

And sorry, but the child here is you. I never went to any other class forum to QQ about how much they got buffed. I haven’t even said anything here!

But you did.

Way to go again.

Cassiel.9431:

have you read te patch notes?? here they are a few
Lotus Strike: Increased the poison duration from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
Destroy Shadow Trap: This ability now teleports the thief back to the trap location when it is destroyed. Added range skill facts. This skill now breaks stuns. Using this skill puts Shadow Trap on recharge.
Shadow Pursuit: This ability now grants fury and 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds along with stealth when used to teleport to the enemy who triggered Shadow Trap. This ability now breaks stuns. Using this skill puts Shadow Trap on recharge.
Body Shot: Reduced the aftercast by .4 seconds. Decreased the vulnerability duration to 3 seconds. Increased to 10 stacks for vulnerability.
Pistol Whip: Decreased the time between the stun and the sword flurry.
Scorpion Wire: Decreased the aftercast by .2 seconds. Reduced the cooldown to 20 seconds.
Signet of Malice: Increased the base heal by 33% of the passive ability.
Steal: Reduced the recharge to 35 seconds.
The Ripper: Increased the bleed duration from 5 seconds to 7 seconds.
Deadly Strike:. Increased the damage from 1 to 1.2.
Skale Venom: Replaced weakness with torment.
Dancing Dagger: Reduced the initiative cost to 3.

Pain Response: Reduced the cooldown from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
Hard to Catch: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.

Corrosive Traps: This trait now grants 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds (up from 5 seconds).
Sundering Strikes: Vulnerability caused by this trait has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
Panic Strike: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.

Last Refuge: Reduced the cooldown of this trait from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.

so first read the patch note, try to understand them and them talk

Tell me how ANY of that is going to help in a wvw siege situation? Whether you’re up on a wall, or attacking the keep from outside, now you really don’t have anything to do until the wall/gate is breached. Thieves can basically hope the zerg bunches up and spams fire fields for them to blast for might, otherwise they can sit there and make threatening emotes at the enemies I guess, maybe try scorpion wire once every 20s if they’re on the assaulting side, but on the defending side.. they might as well just sit on the ground and wait for the gates to be breached.

Mesmer got hit as hard as rangers, so did some ele builds, guard/necro over buffed, thief mainly got buffed 2. However leaving thief’s with 25% less possible range than other classes feels like a kneejerk reaction, prob due to tPVP ppl using lob shots. There was never a problem with CB range, community never called for any change, yet here it is. Although slow moving tennis balls that take 3 seconds to hit/refire for moderate damage is so OP :P

The only real conplaint I have about thieves is ANet semi formally stating that these changes were to better diversify classes, which in my head computes to given us more options for builds rather then flavor of the month cookie cutter builds. From day one Ive been a double dagger/shortbow bleeder that utilizes stealth. So I can mass bleeds in the mists, drop sb 4 and inf shot away and clusterbomb. By no means was my build overpowered, moreso it was kitten and niche based. I would use pistols if I could use them from walls or to walls, but there is to much risk for low damage single target weapons if with a 50% chance.to ricochet.

If the intent is to only use siege from walls, then make all class abilities do nothing to wall defenders or attackers.

Ive heard many talking about steal range, dont work from a wall or to get ontop of a wall. Dark Age of Camelot did it right by having ladder climbspots for rogues. I can see why ANet will never do this.

ANet did what was right for clusterbombs, but I believe they overlooked the fact they just stamped a “Melee or Roll a ranger sticker on is” and furthermore made us skirmishers unless we want to operate siege.

There are many other ideas of what our new roles for keeps and towers will be, I just dont believe its right whatsoever.

ps: Thieves are now primarily “Plains hunter”, in others chokepoints or obstacle less killers.

Cassiel.9431:

have you read te patch notes?? here they are a few
Lotus Strike: Increased the poison duration from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
Destroy Shadow Trap: This ability now teleports the thief back to the trap location when it is destroyed. Added range skill facts. This skill now breaks stuns. Using this skill puts Shadow Trap on recharge.
Shadow Pursuit: This ability now grants fury and 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds along with stealth when used to teleport to the enemy who triggered Shadow Trap. This ability now breaks stuns. Using this skill puts Shadow Trap on recharge.
Body Shot: Reduced the aftercast by .4 seconds. Decreased the vulnerability duration to 3 seconds. Increased to 10 stacks for vulnerability.
Pistol Whip: Decreased the time between the stun and the sword flurry.
Scorpion Wire: Decreased the aftercast by .2 seconds. Reduced the cooldown to 20 seconds.
Signet of Malice: Increased the base heal by 33% of the passive ability.
Steal: Reduced the recharge to 35 seconds.
The Ripper: Increased the bleed duration from 5 seconds to 7 seconds.
Deadly Strike:. Increased the damage from 1 to 1.2.
Skale Venom: Replaced weakness with torment.
Dancing Dagger: Reduced the initiative cost to 3.

Pain Response: Reduced the cooldown from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
Hard to Catch: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.

Corrosive Traps: This trait now grants 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds (up from 5 seconds).
Sundering Strikes: Vulnerability caused by this trait has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
Panic Strike: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.

Last Refuge: Reduced the cooldown of this trait from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.

so first read the patch note, try to understand them and them talk

The question is… did you read them?

•Shadow Trap: Increased the recharge to 45 seconds.
•Death Blossom: This trait now costs 4 initiative.
•Body Shot: Decreased the vulnerability (It put vulnerability on the target not the thief… so umm this is a nerf not a buff)
•Cluster Bomb: Decreased the range set from 1200 to 900.
•Larcenous Strike: Increased the initiative cost to 2.
•Nine Tailed Strike: Increased the initiative cost from 3 to 5.
•Shadow Assault: Increased the initiative cost from 5 to 7
•Shadow Return (Infiltrator Strike Toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

Now, yes, there were some buffs done to thief… all of them minor in comparison to the increased initiative cost on abilities that are sort okittenda possibly integral to the build they are representing and they are extremely minor in comparison to a 300 range decrease on our only viable aoe ranged attack for WvW siege. Compare it with the other 10000000 nerfs thieves have taken since the inception and well, these buffs suck.

Ruggen,

Death Blossom was a buff, from init cost if 5 to 4, but all it does is stack bleed, easily cleansed.

Cassiel.9431:

have you read te patch notes?? here they are a few
Lotus Strike: Increased the poison duration from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
Destroy Shadow Trap: This ability now teleports the thief back to the trap location when it is destroyed. Added range skill facts. This skill now breaks stuns. Using this skill puts Shadow Trap on recharge.
Shadow Pursuit: This ability now grants fury and 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds along with stealth when used to teleport to the enemy who triggered Shadow Trap. This ability now breaks stuns. Using this skill puts Shadow Trap on recharge.
Body Shot: Reduced the aftercast by .4 seconds. Decreased the vulnerability duration to 3 seconds. Increased to 10 stacks for vulnerability.
Pistol Whip: Decreased the time between the stun and the sword flurry.
Scorpion Wire: Decreased the aftercast by .2 seconds. Reduced the cooldown to 20 seconds.
Signet of Malice: Increased the base heal by 33% of the passive ability.
Steal: Reduced the recharge to 35 seconds.
The Ripper: Increased the bleed duration from 5 seconds to 7 seconds.
Deadly Strike:. Increased the damage from 1 to 1.2.
Skale Venom: Replaced weakness with torment.
Dancing Dagger: Reduced the initiative cost to 3.

Pain Response: Reduced the cooldown from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
Hard to Catch: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.

Corrosive Traps: This trait now grants 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds (up from 5 seconds).
Sundering Strikes: Vulnerability caused by this trait has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
Panic Strike: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.

Last Refuge: Reduced the cooldown of this trait from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.

so first read the patch note, try to understand them and them talk

Man, this was a really quick way to point out that you have absolutely no clue how thief works.
From the top
Lotus Strike – Minor buff in an attempt to mitigate how awful lotus poison is for Dagger MH thieves now (it doesnt).
Shadow Trap changes – Good on paper. Teleport on destroy is nice. The inclusion of stunbreaker was a bad decision – who want’s a stunbreaker that can be put on CD by a person running over it? Believe it or not, I’m not going to want/need my stunbreaker every time someone runs over the trap. It’s basically another thief “get out of death free card” (when it works, which isn’t always), and nothing more. People hate those, why are there more of those now?
Body shot – If you consider this anything other than a waste of time, you’ve never played thief.
Pistol whip – Inconsequential. Almost Nobody runs PW in PvP cause its bad, and this has almost no effect on PvE.
Scorpion wire – All the CD reductions in the world won’t stop pebbles from randomly kittening the entire skill over.
SoM – Niche heal is still Niche.
Steal: Genuinely good, though of course they changed the way Trickery worked as a CD reducer – it now “Speeds up recharge” rather than “Reduces CD” which is inferior, confusing, and an undocumented change in how the traitline worked prior to the patch.
UW Skills – who cares
Skale venom – This was a nerf, and a huge one. Weakness is finally a good condition, and instead we were given torment – kittening fantastic, once every 36-45 seconds I can hit 1 target with 3 stacks of torment. God-kitten kittening amazing Anet, How will people beat thieves now? Morons.
Dancing Dagger – The skill is halfway to being worth it since the damage nerf – make it instant cast and we have a reason to use it.
Pain Response, Hard to Catch, Corrosive Traps, Sundering strikes – These are still worthless, even buffed, so Anet essentially wasted their time thinking out and making these changes.
Last Refuge – Another nerf. The trait now kittens over thieves 33% more often.
Panic strike – a Legitimate buff.

So next time, Please have even the basest understanding of the class you’re talking about before trying to “correct” someone. As hilarious as this was to read and pick apart, you still look rather foolish.

People here always find something to complain about.
Also, you guys tend to see the bad side of the situation.

- Steal. It’s huge. Don’t pretend it’s not. The most powerfull skills of thieves come from that ability. Also, when traited, it is a boon factory. Steal builds are extremely strong right now.
- Pistol Whip. The decreased time window between the stun and the flurry is noticeable. PW is now effective both in PvE and in PvP.
- Death Blossom. Why are you all forgeting about this skill? It stacks bleed faster than any other skill in this game and it do that while evading. This is a big buff, not a small one.
- Body Shot. It has its aftercast (which is the main problem with body shot) decreased. Now this skill can easily stack 20 vulnerability on a target. With some condition durations, it is an extremely useful damage boost.
- Shadow Trap. Amazing. Pretty hard to understimate its value.
- Merciful Ambush. Huge buff in both PvE and PvE. Thieves already were amazing ressers, now they are even better.

But yeah, they nerfed the range of Cluster Bomb from 1200 to 900 (hurting only the WvWvW turrets), let’s all cry about it. Who cares about buffs, thief only has nerfs. Q_Q

sorrow.2364:

People here always find something to complain about.
Also, you guys tend to see the bad side of the situation.

- Steal. It’s huge. Don’t pretend it’s not. The most powerfull skills of thieves come from that ability. Also, when traited, it is a boon factory. Steal builds are extremely strong right now.
- Pistol Whip. The decreased time window between the stun and the flurry is noticeable. PW is now effective both in PvE and in PvP.
- Death Blossom. Why are you all forgeting about this skill? It stacks bleed faster than any other skill in this game and it do that while evading. This is a big buff, not a small one.
- Body Shot. It has its aftercast (which is the main problem with body shot) decreased. Now this skill can easily stack 20 vulnerability on a target. With some condition durations, it is an extremely useful damage boost.
- Shadow Trap. Amazing. Pretty hard to understimate its value.
- Merciful Ambush. Huge buff in both PvE and PvE. Thieves already were amazing ressers, now they are even better.

But yeah, they nerfed the range of Cluster Bomb from 1200 to 900 (hurting only the WvWvW turrets), let’s all cry about it. Who cares about buffs, thief only has nerfs. Q_Q

From a PvP standpoint –
Body shot is still useless because P/P is a joke and P/D is an underperforming condition spec. If P/P and P/D are fixed, perhaps this buff will prove substantial. As it stands, its pointless.
Steal – Yes, a buff. Steal is still on the weak side untraited, but can be potentially very strong while traited. I’d like to see steal buffed a tiny bit, and the traits nerfed a tiny bit, so the gap between traited and untraited steal is smaller.
Death Blossom – If thieves ever get varied access to conditions, this will be a great buff. As it stands, having access to a single damaging condition and poor access to “cover” conditions make a “condition thief” (IE a bleed thief) easy to counter in the current meta.
Shadow Trap – It’s like SS with less utility. It’s great as a “return to defendable point” teleport. It’s poor as a stunbreaker. If it’s triggered and you don’t need to break stun, or don’t want to disengage your target…well, it’s a waste. You’re paying an additional 15s CD for that stunbreaker. Drop Stunbreaker, leave other changes in, reduce CD to 35s and you have a fantastic skill.
Merciful ambush – Sounds strong, but competes with thrill of the crime, buffed Long reach, and Uncatchable. Testing required to see if it can bring enough utility to be better than those.
PW – Still carrying around a 15% damage nerf from when quickness was a problem. Maybe it’s better, haven’t tested – can people still walk out of the last few swings?

People’s problem with SHbow nerfs is that they feel undeserved. For a long, long time, SHbow has been considered the “perfect” thief weapon. It’s flexible, all the skills are worth using, and it didn’t feel OP. Then they just kept chipping away at it. 15% CB dmg nerf, Trick shot seeking nerf. Now a CB range nerf, and the Lotus Poison/Choking gas Nerf. They buffed weakness to the point where now Choking gas + lotus poison was too strong, and their change to lotus poison feels excessive. They SHOULD have cut weakness from lotus poison to 2s and given it a 5-6s per target CD, to encourage counterplay. Instead, its 4s every 20, which screams at the thief (and other players) Burst burst burst, run away.

sorrow.2364:

People here always find something to complain about.
Also, you guys tend to see the bad side of the situation.

- Steal. It’s huge. Don’t pretend it’s not. The most powerfull skills of thieves come from that ability. Also, when traited, it is a boon factory. Steal builds are extremely strong right now.

Strong in terms of what? Against Ambients?

The “most powerful skill” we have has been nerfed this patch.

-

Pistol Whip. The decreased time window between the stun and the flurry is noticeable. PW is now effective both in PvE and in PvP.

Are you seriously praising this? You’re kidding right?

The 2 main problem of this skill has not been addressed. Don’t kid yourself.

- Death Blossom. Why are you all forgeting about this skill? It stacks bleed faster than any other skill in this game and it do that while evading. This is a big buff, not a small one.

First of all, I personally won’t go and change my gears and spec just so I can go back using D/D again. Every patch that seems to be the case that we have to re-gear and re-spec — Not gonna happen this time.

If you think it is a “big buff” then play a Thief and tell us all about your conquest using the new and improved Death’s Blossom. We can gather around a camp fire enjoying your heroic tales. I’ll provide the marshmallow.

- Body Shot. It has its aftercast (which is the main problem with body shot) decreased. Now this skill can easily stack 20 vulnerability on a target. With some condition durations, it is an extremely useful damage boost.

Waste of initiative. Your damage is not boost if you have no initiative to spend. Think about it.

The point of vulnerability is for you to capitalize it using your hard hitting skill after applying the condition. You only see the 10 stack of vulnerability but not the 50% reduction to the duration.

At 30% Condi Duration, I can only get 1s more after patch, while I used to get 2s more pre-patch. I can stack 10 Vulnerability just fine pre-patch the important thing here is have it stay longer.

This is like one of those expensive, fast recharge, trivial damage spells that can drain your manapool (in this case initiatives) fast with little to no significant effect.

- Shadow Trap. Amazing. Pretty hard to understimate its value.

What value?
Make a video and show us where you can use this to give you an advantage.

- Merciful Ambush. Huge buff in both PvE and PvE. Thieves already were amazing ressers, now they are even better.

lol, so we plummeted so far down that we’re just ressers now.

But yeah, they nerfed the range of Cluster Bomb from 1200 to 900 (hurting only the WvWvW turrets), let’s all cry about it. Who cares about buffs, thief only has nerfs. Q_Q

You obvious have no understanding of what’s going on. You only see what you want to see instead of seeing it through the eyes of those who really are affected by this stupid update.

evilapprentice.6379:

From a PvP standpoint –
Body shot is still useless because P/P is a joke and P/D is an underperforming condition spec. If P/P and P/D are fixed, perhaps this buff will prove substantial. As it stands, its pointless.
Steal – Yes, a buff. Steal is still on the weak side untraited, but can be potentially very strong while traited. I’d like to see steal buffed a tiny bit, and the traits nerfed a tiny bit, so the gap between traited and untraited steal is smaller.
Death Blossom – If thieves ever get varied access to conditions, this will be a great buff. As it stands, having access to a single damaging condition and poor access to “cover” conditions make a “condition thief” (IE a bleed thief) easy to counter in the current meta.
Shadow Trap – It’s like SS with less utility. It’s great as a “return to defendable point” teleport. It’s poor as a stunbreaker. If it’s triggered and you don’t need to break stun, or don’t want to disengage your target…well, it’s a waste. You’re paying an additional 15s CD for that stunbreaker. Drop Stunbreaker, leave other changes in, reduce CD to 35s and you have a fantastic skill.
Merciful ambush – Sounds strong, but competes with thrill of the crime, buffed Long reach, and Uncatchable. Testing required to see if it can bring enough utility to be better than those.
PW – Still carrying around a 15% damage nerf from when quickness was a problem. Maybe it’s better, haven’t tested – can people still walk out of the last few swings?

People’s problem with SHbow nerfs is that they feel undeserved. For a long, long time, SHbow has been considered the “perfect” thief weapon. It’s flexible, all the skills are worth using, and it didn’t feel OP. Then they just kept chipping away at it. 15% CB dmg nerf, Trick shot seeking nerf. Now a CB range nerf, and the Lotus Poison/Choking gas Nerf. They buffed weakness to the point where now Choking gas + lotus poison was too strong, and their change to lotus poison feels excessive. They SHOULD have cut weakness from lotus poison to 2s and given it a 5-6s per target CD, to encourage counterplay. Instead, its 4s every 20, which screams at the thief (and other players) Burst burst burst, run away.

I can agree that P/P isn’t a good set in PvP (but it is quite good in PvE), mainly because shortbow is always a better choice as ranged weapon and P/D lacks synergy, but the Vital Shot buff is still a good buff.
Stacking vulnerability as easy on boss is a good thing.

Thieves have access to more conditions. Venoms have a whole set of conditions that can be applied on demand. You can cover your bleed stacks with Torment, Poison or Chill. Plus, there are several traits in the power traitline which grants situational conditions. Don’t forget also stolen things. Some of them give some extra conditions and CC. Condi thieves, now, are pretty much forced to build around steal too, so it is a factor to take into consideration. Not every condition spec needs to have access to every condition in this game.

If you want your Shadow Trap not to trigger, just put it when you know it doesn’t trigger. It isn’t that hard and I can easily place them in safe spots to run away when needed. It is a very strong skill as a stunbreaker, mobility and escape.

Merciful Ambush is the right trait to pick when you have only 10-15 points into trickery. It competes with nothing in that case.

Regarding PW, it is possible that people escape to some hit, but with Sigil of Paralization, it is quite hard that some hits misses. 15% damage nerf is low. I can crit for 8k in sPvP in zerker gear, I don’t think it can have a damage buff without getting into the OP side.

Don’t forget, also, that SB had an implicit buff. Choking Gas + Cluster bomb still gives weakness, which is now really really strong. This alone makes me forget about the range nerf to cluster bomb.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

CUT

I’m not going to answer an obvious troll.

sorrow.2364:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

CUT

I’m not going to answer an obvious troll.

Of course not, because we all know what is obvious here.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Of course not, because we all know what is obvious here.

Play the game and see how the changes really affected the gameplay instead of coming to the forum and pretending thief had no buffs and all nerfs.

Cassiel.9431:

Lotus Strike: Increased the poison duration from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.

RIP Lotus Strike. You used to be a great trait for a tankier, support thief… but now you are nearly worthless. Who cares about 4 seconds on a single target every 20 seconds?… where did my 100% uptime on Weakness go? Yes the buff to Weakness itself was nice, so that it was actually more useful against high crit builds… but they really went overboard on nerfing its application for Thieves.

Oh well, at least we can still get massive AoE Weakness uptime on Necromancers so that style of play hasn’t been completely removed from the game.

sorrow.2364:

I can agree that P/P isn’t a good set in PvP (but it is quite good in PvE), mainly because shortbow is always a better choice as ranged weapon and P/D lacks synergy, but the Vital Shot buff is still a good buff.
Stacking vulnerability as easy on boss is a good thing.

What does P/P have in PvE that it doesn’t have in PvP? It’s still a confused set with little utility. It’s markedly worse in PvP, but I can’t see what advantage it has over other weapons in PvE.
How useful is 3s of vulnerability, when other classes stack it for longer, easier?

Thieves have access to more conditions. Venoms have a whole set of conditions that can be applied on demand. You can cover your bleed stacks with Torment, Poison or Chill. Plus, there are several traits in the power traitline which grants situational conditions. Don’t forget also stolen things. Some of them give some extra conditions and CC. Condi thieves, now, are pretty much forced to build around steal too, so it is a factor to take into consideration. Not every condition spec needs to have access to every condition in this game.

Venoms. Your defense is Venoms. You do play this game…right?
I’m not building a spec around relying on RNG/Class I’m fighting to give me an ability that can cover my bleeds.
Every good condition spec needs access to multiple ways to deal damage, or else they’ll find their damaging conditions cleansed and be laughably ineffective…like thief is atm.

If you want your Shadow Trap not to trigger, just put it when you know it doesn’t trigger. It isn’t that hard and I can easily place them in safe spots to run away when needed. It is a very strong skill as a stunbreaker, mobility and escape.

So it’s this amazing new skill that’s like an SS you have to pre-cast in an out of the way location. Sounds pretty kittening useless to me. Like I said, sounds great for teleporting back to far point like a mesmer, but it’s kitten as a stunbreaker. It’s CD went up 15s because it’s now a stunbreaker, and adds fury/might. Drop stunbreaker, drop CD 10s, maybe it’s a good skill.

Merciful Ambush is the right trait to pick when you have only 10-15 points into trickery. It competes with nothing in that case.

Really? It’s better than Thrill of the crime for a burst spec? And better than uncatchable for a (admittedly ill-conceived) condition spec? How did you come to this, through thought of the pros and cons or by randomly stringing english words together until you formed a sentence?

Regarding PW, it is possible that people escape to some hit

Then it’s still kittening useless, isn’t it.

but with Sigil of Paralization, it is quite hard that some hits misses. 15% damage nerf is low. I can crit for 8k in sPvP in zerker gear, I don’t think it can have a damage buff without getting into the OP side.

Nice, I’ll dedicate a weapon sigil to helping a single ability get around it’s poor design. That sounds delightful. In addition, your anecdotal evidence is pointless – I can crit 8k in SPvP in zerker gear as well, against low toughness targets who don’t run stunbreakers, dodge, or move away when the stun wears off. I can do all sorts of silly high numbers against kittenty players, it doesn’t make the spec good.

Don’t forget, also, that SB had an implicit buff. Choking Gas + Cluster bomb still gives weakness, which is now really really strong. This alone makes me forget about the range nerf to cluster bomb.

Weakness for 4s out of 20, instead of constant weakness, which means no more endurance regen debuff. The “implicit” buff is minor compared to the nerf.

You do know how thief works in this game, right? Because you keep making extremely poor arguments.

It has gone too far. I’m not going into a flame war again with some people who can’t argue properly. Every argument with you, evilapprentice, ends with personal attacks.
Are you capable to have a proper discussion without harassing your interlocutor?

Keep thinking you had all nerfs and no buff. Keep complaining. At the end of the day, the fact remains as they are.

If you’re not capable to be effective with your thief, I don’t really care. Reroll another profession you think is OP and leave thief to people who are enjoying it.

If you’re not happy with ANet’s job, just quit the game and stop crying.

sorrow.2364:

It has gone too far. I’m not going into a flame war with some people who can’t argue properly.

Keep thinking you had all nerfs and no buff. Keep complaining. At the end of the day, the fact remains as they are.

If you’re not capable to be effective with your thief, I don’t really care. Reroll another profession you think it is OP and leave thief to people who are enjoying it.

If you’re not happy with ANet’s job, just quit the game and stop crying.

I’ve clearly pointed out the flaws in your argument. I’ve been dismissive because you’re either extremely inexperienced with thief (and therefore your opinion has no basis), or a troll.

You aren’t capable of arguing because your points are weak or extraneous.

evilapprentice.6379:

I’ve clearly pointed out the flaws in your argument. I’ve been dismissive because you’re either extremely inexperienced with thief (and therefore your opinion has no basis), or a troll.

You aren’t capable of arguing because your points are weak or extraneous.

Yeah, you are all right. clap

Now, leave this topic and let someone who is capable to have a mature reasoning speak.

I’m not arguing with you anymore. I’ve already done it and I wasted 5 pages of topic leading to nothing, arguing with a wall while getting flamed. Hope all your beliefs are right.

sorrow.2364:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Of course not, because we all know what is obvious here.

Play the game and see how the changes really affected the gameplay instead of coming to the forum and pretending thief had no buffs and all nerfs.

Pretending? It’s obvious who’s pretentious here.

I spent 4hrs last night with my Thief in the AR dungeon and all the changes are crap – no usable option at all. I have to take my Guardian to get the job done.

The things you call “buff” has no value in practice.

(It seems that the moderator didn’t like my previous response so let’s try this again)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Pretending? It’s obvious who’s pretentious here.

I spent 4hrs last night with my Thief in the AR dungeon and all the changes are crap – no usable option at all. I have to take my Guardian to get the job done.

The things you call “buff” has no value in practice.

(It seems that the moderator didn’t like my response so let’s try this again)

Oh, well.
That’s probably because you play guardian better than thief?
I don’t think any patch will make a thief fell like a guardian, ever.

Also, what is your point exactly? Are you trying to say that thieves are weak in dungeons and that this patch done nothing to them?

sorrow.2364:

evilapprentice.6379:

I can agree that P/P isn’t a good set in PvP (but it is quite good in PvE), mainly because shortbow is always a better choice as ranged weapon and P/D lacks synergy, but the Vital Shot buff is still a good buff.
Stacking vulnerability as easy on boss is a good thing.

Thieves have access to more conditions. Venoms have a whole set of conditions that can be applied on demand. You can cover your bleed stacks with Torment, Poison or Chill. Plus, there are several traits in the power traitline which grants situational conditions. Don’t forget also stolen things. Some of them give some extra conditions and CC. Condi thieves, now, are pretty much forced to build around steal too, so it is a factor to take into consideration. Not every condition spec needs to have access to every condition in this game.

If you want your Shadow Trap not to trigger, just put it when you know it doesn’t trigger. It isn’t that hard and I can easily place them in safe spots to run away when needed. It is a very strong skill as a stunbreaker, mobility and escape.

Merciful Ambush is the right trait to pick when you have only 10-15 points into trickery. It competes with nothing in that case.

Regarding PW, it is possible that people escape to some hit, but with Sigil of Paralization, it is quite hard that some hits misses. 15% damage nerf is low. I can crit for 8k in sPvP in zerker gear, I don’t think it can have a damage buff without getting into the OP side.

Don’t forget, also, that SB had an implicit buff. Choking Gas + Cluster bomb still gives weakness, which is now really really strong. This alone makes me forget about the range nerf to cluster bomb.

First off, vital shot didnt get touched, which is why p/p is still a worthless set in every game mode. Secondly, stacking vuln on bosses? yeah its great! for 1.5 seconds thanks to unshakeable/defiant, well then it becomes worthless.

As for shadow trap, I agree it could be an amazing change, except they already “fixed” shadowstep pathing, so at best its a stun break that doesnt move you anywhere and might give you a short 5 second buff. All in all, fix shadowstep pathing and it could be something great, until then however its still not good.

Merciful ambush will never be better that totc in a power build or dodgetrops in a condi build. ever.

As far as PW goes, it might be worth using sigil or para or mesmer runes, if more of our abilities worked with them. you can break STUN on basi venom, but you cant boost it with STUN duration? huh? so until those issues get resolved, people can easily step out of pw, meaning this change has very little effect on dps.

As for the cluster nerf, i’m not sure how you can forget about it or defend, its absurd. WvW siege fights are built around ranges at and above 1200, being the only class restricted to 900 completely is just bad design

sorrow.2364:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Pretending? It’s obvious who’s pretentious here.

I spent 4hrs last night with my Thief in the AR dungeon and all the changes are crap – no usable option at all. I have to take my Guardian to get the job done.

The things you call “buff” has no value in practice.

(It seems that the moderator didn’t like my response so let’s try this again)

Oh, well.
That’s probably because you play guardian better than thief?
I don’t think any patch will make a thief fell like a guardian, ever.

Also, what is your point exactly? Are you trying to say that thieves are weak in dungeons and that this patch done nothing to them?

I play S/D so the first offense of this patch is the cost of Larcenous Strike. They should have normalize the cost by lowering the cost of Flanking Strike. The added cost to my skill broke the synergy of my build.

Second offense – Shadow Return no longer a stun breaker – which would have been a big plus during Frizz fight.

So now it’s your turn.

Among all the changes, what good do they offer to my current (broken) build?

Deniara Devious.3948:

Noshiz.8650:

First to Anet:

Thank you Anet for nerfing Cluster Bomb. Now, when we are attacking a tower at WvW i can finally drink some beer and enjoy the view(maybe while eating popcorn), while the rest 80% (all non-thieves that is) of the raid is trying to kill the npc, the players and the siege weapons on the wall. You just gave us an awesome excuse to slack.

That 20% of total WvWvW population being thieves might be close to truth. Meaning that thieves are still overpowered (due spammable stealth + shadowstepping) in that game mode. No other profession has so easy escape from fights.

And if you are missing cluster bomb spam from enemies while trying to defend your keep or tower, I recommend to you transfer to Desolation. Yesterday after the patch I saw so many AoE circles from cluster bomb that I stopped counting them. I didn’t die, but I can see from combat log that I took just about 3k per hit (enemy thieves probably run full berserker ascended gear), while trying to defend against much larger enemy force, but couple of players on our side got downed. So the cluster bomb spam at siege is still very much alive and kicking. Visunah Square, EU rank 1 server, really loves those glass cannons spamming ranged AoE and they often sync it e.g. well timed ranger long bow barrages + engineer grenade kit spam + half a dozen staff elementalists doing meteor showers at same location + 10+ cluster bombs from several thieves. If you don’t dodge away, you are dead in a second.

so many you couldnt count and each did 3k dmg + ….BUT YOU DIDNT DIE> interesting. you really know how to help our cause lol. you are a dink my friend. 20% of wvw is NOT thieves. about 7% maybe 8% 10-12% on a high day. seriously you have no idea what you are talking about.

MECHANICALLY/PHYSICS speaking if you aim an arrow higher it will travel farther and hit its target after a longer period of time (aka slower) ….doesnt this soudn like cluster bomb? no reason it shouldnt be 1200 range. if you stand at the gate of a tower and do any leap skill with a warrior/guardian etc ranger thief w.e. you will have jumped farther than a cluster bomb would have flew from the top of the tower. makes no sense.

Shemsu.8721:

First off, vital shot didnt get touched, which is why p/p is still a worthless set in every game mode. Secondly, stacking vuln on bosses? yeah its great! for 1.5 seconds thanks to unshakeable/defiant, well then it becomes worthless.

As for shadow trap, I agree it could be an amazing change, except they already “fixed” shadowstep pathing, so at best its a stun break that doesnt move you anywhere and might give you a short 5 second buff. All in all, fix shadowstep pathing and it could be something great, until then however its still not good.

Merciful ambush will never be better that totc in a power build or dodgetrops in a condi build. ever.

As far as PW goes, it might be worth using sigil or para or mesmer runes, if more of our abilities worked with them. you can break STUN on basi venom, but you cant boost it with STUN duration? huh? so until those issues get resolved, people can easily step out of pw, meaning this change has very little effect on dps.

As for the cluster nerf, i’m not sure how you can forget about it or defend, its absurd. WvW siege fights are built around ranges at and above 1200, being the only class restricted to 900 completely is just bad design

1. You have also to consider the increased condition duration coming from equipment and power traitline. Also, not every encounter is a boss encounter. 10 stacks of vulnerability aren’t that useless, after all.

2. Shadow Trap pathing looks different. Unless you are 10000+ away to your trap, it always teleports you to the exact same spot you used it. I’m always using it in every match and it never failed if I wasn’t further its effective range.

3. Merciful Ambush is a matter of choices. I’d pick the easier ress for teammates over a 33s cooldown fury.

4. Blurried Frenzy and Hundred Blades works pretty much as Pistol Whip, excluding the stun. I don’t think they are bad abilities. It happens that you miss a sword hit, but it isn’t a catastropic event. The damage is still pretty good. You still have evaded attacks. You still have stunned your target.
Basilisk Venom doesn’t increase with SoP because… it isn’t a stun. If it were a stun, it would be cancelled by defiant. It can be stunbreaked for obvious balance reasons.

5. Are you saying that before the nerf, Cluster Bomb on a 1200 range was worth something? I think that it is a design choice that thieves have no high range weapons considered their mobility. It makes sense.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I play S/D so the first offense of this patch is the cost of Larcenous Strike. They should have normalize the cost by lowering the cost of Flanking Strike. The added cost to my skill broke the synergy of my build.

Second offense – Shadow Return no longer a stun breaker – which would have been a big plus during Frizz fight.

So now it’s your turn.

Among all the changes, what good do they offer to my current (broken) build?

1. Flanking Strike was too good for its previous initiative cost.
Compared to the pre-buff flanking strike, you still have reliable pathing and you still steal two boons.

2. That means that you have to work like every other profession in this game. Avoid the beams.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Yesterday after the patch I saw so many AoE circles from cluster bomb that I stopped counting them.

This is why thieves get nerfed due to QQ posts flooding in from people who have no idea what their talking about

Brim.4152:

Mesmer got hit as hard as rangers, so did some ele builds, guard/necro over buffed, thief mainly got buffed 2. However leaving thief’s with 25% less possible range than other classes feels like a kneejerk reaction, prob due to tPVP ppl using lob shots. There was never a problem with CB range, community never called for any change, yet here it is. Although slow moving tennis balls that take 3 seconds to hit/refire for moderate damage is so OP :P

Eles got substantially buffed if you weren’t dagger/dagger. dagger/dagger pretty much stayed the same, some scepter/focus skills got lower cast time/aftercast, staff got a LOT of lower cast times/aftercasts, so that increases dps through lower time. There was a small nerf to the trait that gave extra damage per boon, but I think the cast times make up for it, and now you just swap one of your cantrips for signet of air which is now a great stunbreaker (aoe blind, stunbreaker, with passive movement speed, it’s like signet of shadows but does damage (at 1200 range too!) and breaks stuns)

sorrow.2364:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I play S/D so the first offense of this patch is the cost of Larcenous Strike. They should have normalize the cost by lowering the cost of Flanking Strike. The added cost to my skill broke the synergy of my build.

Second offense – Shadow Return no longer a stun breaker – which would have been a big plus during Frizz fight.

So now it’s your turn.

Among all the changes, what good do they offer to my current (broken) build?

1. Flanking Strike was too good for its previous initiative cost.
Compared to the pre-buff flanking strike, you still have reliable pathing and you still steal two boons.

2. That means that you have to work like every other profession in this game. Avoid the beams.

1. What? Flanking Strike is too expensive for what it does AND I’m talking about LARCENOUS STRIKE here.

Oh and don’t get me started about the pathing.

2. Wow. And here you are saying that we should embrace the buffs.

I’m sorry but you’re full of….<enter whatever is appropriate here>.

Thank you for your time. It seems that your thoughts are worth a penny after all.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

1. What? Flanking Strike is too expensive for what it does AND I’m talking about LARCENOUS STRIKE here.

Oh and don’t get me started about the pathing.

2. Wow. And here you are saying that we should embrace the buffs.

I’m sorry but you’re full of….<enter whatever is appropriate here>.

Thank you for your time. It seems that your thoughts are worth a penny after all.

1. Flanking Strike and Larcenous Strike are essentialy the same skill. Actually, LS is the one who steal boons. Which was at 1 initiative. 2 boons stolen on 1 initiative. It definitely needed a ini cost increase.

2. What?

^^^You obviously know nothing on what you’re talking about — calling FS and LS the same skill — ROFLMAO — excuse me, it’s just too funny.

Well, if you’re done with your godly advice, I’m done watching this comedy show also.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

^^^You obviously know nothing on what you’re talking about — calling FS and LS the same skill — ROFLMAO — excuse me, it’s just too funny.

Well, if you’re done with your godly advice, I’m done watching this comedy show also.

facepalm

Travlane.5948:

so many you couldnt count and each did 3k dmg + ….BUT YOU DIDNT DIE> interesting. you really know how to help our cause lol. you are a dink my friend. 20% of wvw is NOT thieves. about 7% maybe 8% 10-12% on a high day. seriously you have no idea what you are talking about.

In a hectic battle you can count all the enemy skills. Well good for you.

I run with WvWvW commander build everywhere and obviously it needs to be quite sturdy and traited for lots of passive / auto-defenses as those are working in massive zerg lag.

Arenanet hasn’t released any recent statistics of profession usage, so we can just speculate. According to my observations (EU tier 1) thieves are much more common than you claim. Guardians and warriors are probably most common, but thieves seem to be 3rd most common profession. Elementalists are also plenty.

Seriously people are now raging too much about the cluster bomb range change. Thieves has so many gap closers (steal, heartseeker, infiltrator’s strike, infiltrator’s arrow, shadowstep) so getting in range to use 900 range skill or get out of enemy’s range is not a problem. Shortbow is still very good.

Instead of QQ, I would rather investigate and experiment the changed traits and skills, as there were many buffs as well.

^

please elaborate, what do these cluster bomb AoE circles look like

What is this “QQ” bullkitten? Has the internet really gotten so lazy it’s making acronyms and kitten for the word “cry”?

Is this a WvW thread, because Cluster Bomb nerf actually did effect thieves in sPvP. Thief has to put him self in an awkward position to feel like he is putting in damage into a team fight.

Their team could have necros or engis, which have 1200+ range and just condi spam me out of a team fight, and immediately have a positional advantage. Only option (as burst) would be to just burst in to a team fight and get out and then try to use SB Cluster Bombs.