Guild Wars 2

LOL! When did Cluster Bomb have an AoE circle?

Zacchary.6183:

LOL! When did Cluster Bomb have an AoE circle?

since the poster thought arrow carts were cluster bombs.

sorrow.2364:

- 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.

Not as strong as it looks, the boons are fairly useless if traiting them to Steal – and reducing it’s cooldown(!) – cost you too much damage. Without a power/crit build, for instance, Fury is pointless.

- 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.

Yeah, i’m thinking of getting condition gear to try it out, with Shortbow blown up we can now look at P/D D/D

- Body Shot. It has its aftercast (which is the main problem with body shot)

It’s main problem is the uselessness of the condition it applies.

Now this skill can easily stack 20 vulnerability on a target.

Problem is, the first 10 stacks will be gone by the time you attack.

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

Interesting skill, too bad teleport and shadowstepping are so unreliable.

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

2, even 3, seconds of stealth are not all that useful for a rez, unless something/someone else pulls aggro away.

Removal of the stun breaker from sword makes that weapon somewhat inferior to plain D/D, at least for PvE.

frans.8092:

Not as strong as it looks, the boons are fairly useless if traiting them to Steal – and reducing it’s cooldown(!) – cost you too much damage. Without a power/crit build, for instance, Fury is pointless.

I’m running 10/30/0/0/30 with S/P and I find the Daze on steal, plus the reduced cooldown and all the goodies when stealing amazing.
Pistol Whip, also, synergize well with Daze on steal because it benefits too from sigil of paralyzation.
Check this build out!

Yeah, i’m thinking of getting condition gear to try it out, with Shortbow blown up we can now look at P/D D/D

Shortbow still has amazing utilities and mobility. It isn’t blown up.

It’s main problem is the uselessness of the condition it applies.

With P/P, 10 stacks of vuln might be useful. Have to check it out extensively, tho.

Interesting skill, too bad teleport and shadowstepping are so unreliable.

Actually, Shadow Trap looks fairly reliable. It is now a fixed utility in my bar in tPvP/sPvP.
Check this skill out by yourself too.

2, even 3, seconds of stealth are not all that useful for a rez, unless something/someone else pulls aggro away.

The extra stealth stacks with other stealth you might apply with Blinding Powder.
3s of stealth when ressing are absolutely not bad, tbh.

Removal of the stun breaker from sword makes that weapon somewhat inferior to plain D/D, at least for PvE.

It was expected.
Stunbreaker on initiative was quite too strong to be true. Shadow Return still saves your kitten from stun → burst.

kiwituatara.6053:

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

At least Ranger Shortbow got a 14% damage increase to compensate for the loss of range. Thief always gets things taken away but nothing compensated in return. The only thing Shortbow is good for now is blasting water fields.

frans.8092:

sorrow.2364:

- 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.

Not as strong as it looks, the boons are fairly useless if traiting them to Steal – and reducing it’s cooldown(!) – cost you too much damage. Without a power/crit build, for instance, Fury is pointless.

- 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.

Yeah, i’m thinking of getting condition gear to try it out, with Shortbow blown up we can now look at P/D D/D

- Body Shot. It has its aftercast (which is the main problem with body shot)

It’s main problem is the uselessness of the condition it applies.

Now this skill can easily stack 20 vulnerability on a target.

Problem is, the first 10 stacks will be gone by the time you attack.

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

Interesting skill, too bad teleport and shadowstepping are so unreliable.

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

2, even 3, seconds of stealth are not all that useful for a rez, unless something/someone else pulls aggro away.

Removal of the stun breaker from sword makes that weapon somewhat inferior to plain D/D, at least for PvE.

Yeah the chief problem with body shot was how short the vuln lasts. If it was like 15-20s of vuln, it might actually be useful, but 5s? Worthless.

Elthurien.8356:

kiwituatara.6053:

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

At least Ranger Shortbow got a 14% damage increase to compensate for the loss of range. Thief always gets things taken away but nothing compensated in return. The only thing Shortbow is good for now is blasting water fields.

False, the 14% damage increase was given to #3, #4, and #5, and now they just do the same damage as #1 (autoattack) if you don’t flank. Flanking, #1 does more damage because it also bleeds.

Overall, DPS on ranger shortbow remains the same, because on ranger’s shortbow the only source of damage is spamming #1, the other abilities are used just for daze/cripple/evade, never for damage.

sorrow.2364:

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.

Your problem is your arguments are not based in reality. Most of the buffs you tout (while ignoring the nerf list) have negligible impact on the strength of the class. The most common reason for this is because they are changes to traits and abilities that were not used before the patch and will continue to not be used after the patch – and for good reason. Several others have taken the time to explain this to you, perhaps not with the best tact, but clearly and point by point. You refuse to acknowledge the truth.

The real question is whether a thief playing best possible builds before the patch is better or worse than a thief playing best possible builds after the patch.

There are a couple genuine improvements, primarily to steal mechanics and D/D weapon set, however at best the improvements simply make these realistically competitive build options compared to prior best possible builds. They do not result in stronger thieves after the patch, just different thieves.

Meanwhile, certain common elements in best possible builds have clearly lost effectiveness. S/D as a set is not as effective as it was. Shortbow is not as effective as it was. Lotus Poison is not as effective as it was overall, even with weakness being “better.” Bizarrely, Last Refuge is a leading culprit of death in a lot of top builds, and it got “buffed” such that it will result in even more deaths. All of these things tamp down the effectiveness of the class’s best builds, and of all the buffs only the Steal changes likely hold some promise for net improvement in top builds.

Overall, I do not see the patch as a huge deal either way except for the Cluster Bomb range nerf. That one thing cuts down the types of situations that thief can even participate in and makes the class even more one-dimensional. It drives thief players even further into the playstyles that opposing players hate and complain about.

Noshiz.8650:

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.

clap clap clap. you are so smart. you obviously have no real argument because one minute you are talking about the fact you are so bad you cant even survive a ranger pet, now you are commenting on how everyone knows thieves are OP get a grip. 300 range isnt going to affect you in 99% of situations. and if you wanna go there we can complain about how the warrior cant go axe and rifle because their only 1200 range weapons are completely immobile. Suck it up id take a lot of things with decreased range to get what you can do.

Epic.3950:

Noshiz.8650:

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.

clap clap clap. you are so smart. you obviously have no real argument because one minute you are talking about the fact you are so bad you cant even survive a ranger pet, now you are commenting on how everyone knows thieves are OP get a grip. 300 range isnt going to affect you in 99% of situations. and if you wanna go there we can complain about how the warrior cant go axe and rifle because their only 1200 range weapons are completely immobile. Suck it up id take a lot of things with decreased range to get what you can do.

Stop telling people they are saying something they aren’t. He never said EVERYONE knows thieves are op, he said YOU think thieves are op, but that thieves will be beat every time by a different class, which means thieves are not op, so you’re contradicting yourself. Also, at least you have the OPTION to use a 1200 range weapon. Thieves now don’t even have the OPTION to use one, because we don’t have one. And there are plenty of specs for a rifle warrior. A thief has no powerful ranged weapon anyways and now they just took away our ONE option for tower defense, which we claim is completely uncalled for and pidgeonholds us into using melee all the time, which we don’t want.

Epic.3950:

Noshiz.8650:

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.

clap clap clap. you are so smart. you obviously have no real argument because one minute you are talking about the fact you are so bad you cant even survive a ranger pet, now you are commenting on how everyone knows thieves are OP get a grip. 300 range isnt going to affect you in 99% of situations. and if you wanna go there we can complain about how the warrior cant go axe and rifle because their only 1200 range weapons are completely immobile. Suck it up id take a lot of things with decreased range to get what you can do.

First of all i never said that “everyone knows how op thieves are” YOU said that, because YOU think that. And as Craig said, you are contradicting yourself. First you said that they would tear me apart, suggesting that thieves are not op, and then you say you that thieves are OP.

So you are ether mentally kittened, or a troll.

Most probably both tho, looking at your posts, you are trolling everywhere with kittened facts.

Daeqar.8965:

Your problem is your arguments are not based in reality. Most of the buffs you tout (while ignoring the nerf list) have negligible impact on the strength of the class. The most common reason for this is because they are changes to traits and abilities that were not used before the patch and will continue to not be used after the patch – and for good reason. Several others have taken the time to explain this to you, perhaps not with the best tact, but clearly and point by point. You refuse to acknowledge the truth.

The real question is whether a thief playing best possible builds before the patch is better or worse than a thief playing best possible builds after the patch.

There are a couple genuine improvements, primarily to steal mechanics and D/D weapon set, however at best the improvements simply make these realistically competitive build options compared to prior best possible builds. They do not result in stronger thieves after the patch, just different thieves.

Meanwhile, certain common elements in best possible builds have clearly lost effectiveness. S/D as a set is not as effective as it was. Shortbow is not as effective as it was. Lotus Poison is not as effective as it was overall, even with weakness being “better.” Bizarrely, Last Refuge is a leading culprit of death in a lot of top builds, and it got “buffed” such that it will result in even more deaths. All of these things tamp down the effectiveness of the class’s best builds, and of all the buffs only the Steal changes likely hold some promise for net improvement in top builds.

Overall, I do not see the patch as a huge deal either way except for the Cluster Bomb range nerf. That one thing cuts down the types of situations that thief can even participate in and makes the class even more one-dimensional. It drives thief players even further into the playstyles that opposing players hate and complain about.

Thief was strong even before the patch.
They don’t need an huge buff in order to be put on par.

Most of the buffs they made had a real impact on Thief.
Before the patch, you were forced to run S/D + Shortbow just because they were the best sets. Running S/P, D/D or D/P was not a good choice just because you were able to run S/D and be more effective, despite the fact that other sets aren’t overall uneffective.

You can’t just buff-buff over and over every set to put them on par on the strongest set without having a power creep, which looks like it is what you guys want.

SB range nerf is a real QQ. I can’t find ANY reason for anet to do that. It’s realy a foolish thing.

sorrow.2364:

Thief was strong even before the patch.
They don’t need an huge buff in order to be put on par.
….
You can’t just buff-buff over and over every set to put them on par on the strongest set without having a power creep, which looks like it is what you guys want.

You are making a strawman. Thief players are identifying the CB range change as being poorly justified and having a negative impact on the game with well reasoned arguments. No one is asking for huge buffs to the class; you are arguing against yourself.

sorrow.2364:

Most of the buffs they made had a real impact on Thief.
Before the patch, you were forced to run S/D + Shortbow just because they were the best sets. Running S/P, D/D or D/P was not a good choice just because you were able to run S/D and be more effective, despite the fact that other sets aren’t overall uneffective.

Again, this is a clear example of you either not reading or not comprehending what all these other people were taking a lot of time to explain. Just declaring a real impact doesn’t make it true.

Also, D/P was generally regarded as the best weapon set even before the patch. S/D was quite good as well, but even then wasn’t getting more than probably ~25% use by thief players.

Nerfing CB range doesn’t make poor weapon sets suddenly better and competitive against other classes. It’s just going to drive players even more into playing melee burst specs that opposing players hate because participating in ranged tactics is even less of an option now than it was before.

Daeqar.8965:

You are making a strawman. Thief players are identifying the CB range change as being poorly justified and having a negative impact on the game with well reasoned arguments. No one is asking for huge buffs to the class; you are arguing against yourself.

Really? It looks like that people here think that Thief is weak and needs serious buffs to be put on par with other professions.

As I said, the only logical reason behind shortbow nerf is for design.
ANet probably doesn’t want thieves to blast people down the wall in WvWvW. Neither they want shortbow to be a long-range weapon.

sorrow.2364:

Most of the buffs they made had a real impact on Thief.
Before the patch, you were forced to run S/D + Shortbow just because they were the best sets. Running S/P, D/D or D/P was not a good choice just because you were able to run S/D and be more effective, despite the fact that other sets aren’t overall uneffective.

Again, this is a clear example of you either not reading or not comprehending what all these other people were taking a lot of time to explain. Just declaring a real impact doesn’t make it true.

Also, D/P was generally regarded as the best weapon set even before the patch. S/D was quite good as well, but even then wasn’t getting more than probably ~25% use by thief players.

Nerfing CB range doesn’t make poor weapon sets suddenly better and competitive against other classes. It’s just going to drive players even more into playing melee burst specs that opposing players hate because participating in ranged tactics is even less of an option now than it was before.

I actually was seeing about 80% of thieves running S/D in tournaments, hotjoins and WvWvW before the patch. I don’t know in which region do you play in, but in EU S/D thieves were popular as kitten.

Nerfing SB doesn’t make other weapon sets better, but nerfing S/D does. It is no more a must go for every thief who wants to be at maximum effectiveness.
SB nerf, as I said, was probably because of design choices.

So, can we expect some type of response as to why this happened seeing it’s a pretty significant change?

Here I’ll start: “We at Anet feel that Thief should be the only class limited to fighting at 900 range because _________”

There just fill in the blank, thanks!

sorrow.2364:

Really? It looks like that people here think that Thief is weak and needs serious buffs to be put on par with other professions.

As I said, the only logical reason behind shortbow nerf is for design.
ANet probably doesn’t want thieves to blast people down the wall in WvWvW. Neither they want shortbow to be a long-range weapon.

It doesn’t seem we are reading the same thread/forum.

Before the range change, thieves could participate in wall fighting (which is a big part of WvW) but weren’t good at it. CB dps at ~1200 ranges is pretty low due to slow refire rate – cannot shoot again until prior shot lands. And the aoe radius is too small too do anything important like attack well placed arrow carts. 900 is not enough to even participate in meaningful situations where people will shoot back – it’s just asking to get focus fired even if you can find a technically reachable target. Nothing about the 1200 range on 1 ability made thieves OP; it just allowed them to participate.

Not allowing shortbow to be long range at all might be fine if thieves had ANYTHING else long range. This argument is only becomes valid after thieves get Rifle or Longbow or something like that.

sorrow.2364:

I actually was seeing about 80% of thieves running S/D in tournaments, hotjoins and WvWvW before the patch. I don’t know in which region do you play in, but in EU S/D thieves were popular as kitten.

Nerfing SB doesn’t make other weapon sets better, but nerfing S/D does. It is no more a must go for every thief who wants to be at maximum effectiveness.
SB nerf, as I said, was probably because of design choices.

I’m in US. S/D is a small scale utility weapon set. It’s not good for large scale or damage/burst. So, obviously it got a lot more use in sPvP settings (although I still saw more D/P), but in WvW it’s just a situational swap set for some – usually troll roamers. In serious PvE, its use was nearly zero because its utility has little value there and damage is low. (The chief driver of S/D in s/tPvP was actually a boon build meta {Eles/Guardians/etc} moreso than S/D being amazing overall on its own – the meta overvalues repeatable boon stripping.)

Nerfing S/D doesn’t make other sets better either…pretty much fail logic there. It might make other sets used more, but it doesn’t make them better. The measuring stick is against other classes as much as it is other weapon sets.

The result of this patch is even more thief focus on playing D/x burst. Is that what the player base really wants? I doubt it, since that’s where most of the anti-thief complaining has always come from.

sorrow.2364:

Daeqar.8965:

You are making a strawman. Thief players are identifying the CB range change as being poorly justified and having a negative impact on the game with well reasoned arguments. No one is asking for huge buffs to the class; you are arguing against yourself.

Really? It looks like that people here think that Thief is weak and needs serious buffs to be put on par with other professions.

As I said, the only logical reason behind shortbow nerf is for design.
ANet probably doesn’t want thieves to blast people down the wall in WvWvW. Neither they want shortbow to be a long-range weapon.

sorrow.2364:

Most of the buffs they made had a real impact on Thief.
Before the patch, you were forced to run S/D + Shortbow just because they were the best sets. Running S/P, D/D or D/P was not a good choice just because you were able to run S/D and be more effective, despite the fact that other sets aren’t overall uneffective.

Again, this is a clear example of you either not reading or not comprehending what all these other people were taking a lot of time to explain. Just declaring a real impact doesn’t make it true.

Also, D/P was generally regarded as the best weapon set even before the patch. S/D was quite good as well, but even then wasn’t getting more than probably ~25% use by thief players.

Nerfing CB range doesn’t make poor weapon sets suddenly better and competitive against other classes. It’s just going to drive players even more into playing melee burst specs that opposing players hate because participating in ranged tactics is even less of an option now than it was before.

I actually was seeing about 80% of thieves running S/D in tournaments, hotjoins and WvWvW before the patch. I don’t know in which region do you play in, but in EU S/D thieves were popular as kitten.

Nerfing SB doesn’t make other weapon sets better, but nerfing S/D does. It is no more a must go for every thief who wants to be at maximum effectiveness.
SB nerf, as I said, was probably because of design choices.

So all you saw was s/d thieves, i’m thinking its just you or just EU. Even after the larcenous strike change the majority of NA thieves were still running d/p for the most part. A number tested s/d, then promptly went back to d/p. Its true that more played s/d after ls, than before, but to say 80% is just silly, maybe 20%.

So when a set (like d/p) is strong, your idea of a solution is to nerf the thieves best set? Until all sets are not viable?

As for CB nerf being a design choice, gw2 was in development for years, and has been live for almost a year, wouldnt a major design choice like limiting 1 classes range lower than all others be something to decide before the game has been live for a year?

Seriously, saying that 80% of thieves pre-LS nerf played S/D isn’t an exaggeration.
D/P thieves, in comparison, are a rare sight in EU.
I have no idea, though, on how is the NA meta, but prior the nerf, there were only S/D thieves.

Now the situation is a little more variegated. I see pretty much any kind of thief. Bleed thief too. That leads to the obvious conclusion that S/D nerf was healthy for the game variety.

My idea of a solution isn’t nerfing all best set. My idea is to nerf the set which is clearly overperforming in order to keep the set decision an hard choice, not forced.

Also, you guys are talking assuming that other thief sets are bad.
They are not.
All weapon sets, with the notable exception of P/D and maybe P/P in some environments, are equally viable and good. S/D was overshadowing other sets because it was cheap, effective and accessible (read OP). Plain and simple.

According to you guys, shortbow was weak even before the nerf at 900+ range. But, still, you are making a cut of range of a skill which was anyway not effective a tragedy.
If it was just a matter of “partecipating”, why on this world there are all those cries if they cut out a feature which wasn’t even worthy?
Really. It looks like you are complaining just for complaining’s sake.

Also, why you think that thieves SHOULD have a 1200 range weapon? What made you think that ANet wants all professions to have a long range weapon?

2sorrow
The best answer for you is “try to play thief first and then come back”, I think.

sorrow.2364:

Also, you guys are talking assuming that other thief sets are bad.
They are not.
All weapon sets, with the notable exception of P/D and maybe P/P in some environments, are equally viable and good. S/D was overshadowing other sets because it was cheap, effective and accessible (read OP). Plain and simple.

Some of the other sets are bad.

P/P is bad for anything outside a single target PvE boss – and even then results in sub-par performance compared to other classes. P/D isn’t horrible, but it results in sub-par condition builds vs. other classes and it’s not as good as D/x for direct damage builds. S/P isn’t horrible, but it suffers greatly from lack of access to stealth; Warrior for example can offer similar gameplay with superior result.

S/D was quite good, but extremely niche. Even if I can begin to believe you on how popular it was in EU, it would only be in s/tPvP – only 1/3rd of the game. But then again, it has to be good to use something so niche.

Shortbow was a solid offset choice for nearly any build in any facet of the game and generally still is, but it definitely was not overpowered in any form. Shortening the CB range is going to make a lot of folks consider just going extremely specialized melee instead of multi-purpose, which is not a good thing for the game.

D/P and D/D are pretty much the only healthy sets in the game right now. S/D and Shortbow are right on the edge of being just fine and definitely were just fine before the patch. All the others need serious re-thinking.

You can say the same thing with most other classes needing help on poorer weapon sets, but Thieves are fairly unique currently in that they are so limited in useful playstyles right now.

sorrow.2364:

According to you guys, shortbow was weak even before the nerf at 900+ range. But, still, you are making a cut of range of a skill which was anyway not effective a tragedy.
If it was just a matter of “partecipating”, why on this world there are all those cries if they cut out a feature which wasn’t even worthy?
Really. It looks like you are complaining just for complaining’s sake.

Also, why you think that thieves SHOULD have a 1200 range weapon? What made you think that ANet wants all professions to have a long range weapon?

I am baffled how you read previous comments and come to the conclusion I and other recent posters said shortbow was weak before the nerf. Nobody said that, explicitly or otherwise. I did correctly say CB dps was low all the way out at 1200 (its dps scales down with range,) but that in no way means Shortbow is a weak weapon. It just means it’s not capable of wrecking anyone from long distance. Most nerfs come out of needing to tone down something overpowered and unbalanced which is certainly not the case here.

There is a huge difference between being able to bring something to the table and participate in things like wall fighting and having to literally stand around and wait for everyone else to do the work. Every class should have at least an opportunity to contribute in every game situation, even if they cannot all contribute equally.

And that also answers why thieves should have access to 1200 range in some form. Additionally, every other class in the game does – why should thieves bear a unique handicap?

Daeqar.8965:

Additionally, every other class in the game does – why should thieves bear a unique handicap?

Well, if you played all the professions in different forms of the game and at least to level 35-40 (without power leveling via crafting), you would notice that all the professions have some unique weaknesses.

E.g. currently necromancers are the only profession, which doesn’t have any valid gap closers e.g. skills which allow them to leap or rush forward. In other words if things get nasty necromancer won’t be able to run away from it (sacrificing flesh wurm is very situational). But are necromancers weak? Definitely not, despite this weakness, they are probably the best profession at the moment and I can see some nerfs coming towards the terrormancer build.

Engineers used to have the same weakness until the latest patch, which changed the way rocket boots work and now engineers actually have a valid 900 range gap-closer. At same time elixir R was nerfed and I think that was the last nail to coffin against HGH build. In fact most top engineers adopted and already moved out of that build.

Despite all this raging in these forums, I think shortbow is still a very good weapon. It packs amazing amount of utility into just one weapon. Three guaranteed combo finishers, shadow stepping, poison field, evade, bleed, blind, poison, cripple and immobilize. Most other professions would be jealous to have all that in just 1 weapon. Note that the weakness condition became clearly stronger, especially in pvp and WvWvW and SB#4 + SB#2 combos area weakness. Thus in some way SB actually got stronger. My thief will continue to use it… my other set is D/P, because I am a lame thief player (D/P is easiest. SB + D/P = almost no skill required). D/P also feels stronger because of changes to the blind condition. SB#5 also has blind. Now if a melee character parks next to you, use SB#5 and teleport behind him just out of his melee range. He is blinded and swinging just air won’t remove the blind as it used to do.

In other words: 2 buffs to short bow.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Daeqar.8965:

Additionally, every other class in the game does – why should thieves bear a unique handicap?

Well, if you played all the professions in different forms of the game and at least to level 35-40 (without power leveling via crafting), you would notice that all the professions have some unique weaknesses.

lvl 35-40 really doesn’t mean anything. It’s not until your know what the traits do you can actually get a feel for the class. Until lvl 60 you’re really only experimenting with the weapon skills and a very very limited set of utilities.

E.g. currently necromancers are the only profession, which doesn’t have any valid gap closers e.g. skills which allow them to leap or rush forward. In other words if things get nasty necromancer won’t be able to run away from it (sacrificing flesh wurm is very situational). But are necromancers weak? Definitely not, despite this weakness, they are probably the best profession at the moment and I can see some nerfs coming towards the terrormancer build.

DS2 says hi. A 4s imo and perma swift also say hi.

Engineers used to have the same weakness until the latest patch, which changed the way rocket boots work and now engineers actually have a valid gap-closer. At same time elixir R was nerfed and I think that was the last nail to coffin against HGH build. In fact most top engineers adopted and already moved out of that build.

Joking right? Not including magnet, rifle and elixir gun both have pretty good chasing/escaping abilities. Pistols also have that crazy aoe goop.

Despite all this raging in these forums, I think shortbow is still a very good weapon. Note that the weakness condition became clearly stronger, especially in pvp and WvWvW and SB#4 + SB#2 combos area weakness. Thus in some way SB actually got stronger. My thief will continue to use it… my other set is D/P, because I am a lame thief player (D/P is easiest. SB + D/P = almost no skill required).

Only thing terrible with sbow now is what everybody has been complaining about. If you’re on a wall, you can’t shoot down b/c clusterbomb just won’t reach 95% of the time. Same problem with some pve situations (more than you’d think) and it has now become fairly junky in pvp (I’ve heard).

randomfightfan.4091:

Joking right? Not including magnet, rifle and elixir gun both have pretty good chasing/escaping abilities. Pistols also have that crazy aoe goop.

I was talking about gap-closers. Ways to get quickly out of combat or catch a foe, which is already over 1200 range away from you and running away. Magnet won’t work in such situation as it is pull skill with over 1 s activation time.

Rifle #5, jump shot, animation finally got bug fixed one day ago. I tested it today and it still isn’t a gap closer with rifled barrel’s trait as you can actually run that distance with swiftness as fast as you can you move with that skill. I didn’t test if the glitch with canceling the landing animation with toolkit swap still worked.

Elixir gun #4, acid bomb, is a 400 distance leap backwards. What a gap-closer to catch your enemies or get away so that the warrior/elementalist/thief/etc won’t be able to catch you. LOL. For your information just one heart seeker leaps a bit more than engineer’s acid bomb does and you use several heart seekers in a row.

Before the recent changes to the rocket boots engis had no valid gap-closers, but now they do have if they just equip that skill.

Thieves still enjoy better mobility and I think this is intentional game design. Arenanet has repeatedly stated that they want thieves to be the best mobility profession. Shadow stepping from weapon skills, steal and utility skills is extremely powerful especially in WvWvW setting where maps are much bigger than pvp maps.

I think the Arenanet logic on this matter is: they want that thieves will use their mobility to get within 900 range or closer and disengage if needed.

One more time: there are a lot of players at this game who do not care spvp at all. It’s not even part of mmo, it’s just a separate session mode. But these players care about 3w and know how to play it. Especially at high tiers. And if they play thief, they do not use blind from 5 with sb. They do not use 4+2, don’t use 1500m steal (omg), don’t use d/d, d/p so on. They use cb to blast and aoe. Becouse high tier www is blobs wars + lags. Now thieves lost their possibility to aoe walls and their only long range skill. Even if you don’t like blob trains and play small roaming format, there is still no any reasons to spoil cb range.

@ den

So you’re saying engi gap closers aren’t good enough b/c your imaginary conditions (that you just thought up) don’t apply to the multiple gap closers an engi has. I guess by your logic an rtl doesn’t count as gap closer b/c it was recently nerfed and 2hs can go further or warrior whirlwind goes the same distance but evades while doing so. You can’t complain that there’s no gap closers b/c other gap closers are better in certain situations. A gap closer is a gap closer and engi has lots of them.

fumcheg.1936:

One more time: there are a lot of players at this game who do not care spvp at all. It’s not even part of mmo, it’s just a separate session mode. But these players care about 3w and know how to play it. Especially at high tiers. And if they play thief, they do not use blind from 5 with sb. They do not use 4+2, don’t use 1500m steal (omg), don’t use d/d, d/p so on. They use cb to blast and aoe. Becouse high tier www is blobs wars + lags. Now thieves lost their possibility to aoe walls and their only long range skill. Even if you don’t like blob trains and play small roaming format, there is still no any reasons to spoil cb range.

In W3 cluster bomb was very useful for defending and ranged aoe. These have been removed and thief has nothing past 900 they can use in these situations. This puts the thief closer than ANY other class to the other team while being a softer class.

My guardians ranged attack… which was buffed up to 1,200 range in the past for these exact reasons… just got a speed increase (which was well deserved). My guardian can take a lot more punishment than my thief can… so why in the world would the put a softer class closer… and create a problem on my thief that they recognized on my guardian long ago? It makes zero sense.

Time to break out consta-dodge!

Time to prep for consta-dodge QQ!

Aberrant.6749:

In W3 cluster bomb was very useful for defending and ranged aoe. These have been removed and thief has nothing past 900 they can use in these situations. This puts the thief closer than ANY other class to the other team while being a softer class.

My guardians ranged attack… which was buffed up to 1,200 range in the past for these exact reasons… just got a speed increase (which was well deserved). My guardian can take a lot more punishment than my thief can… so why in the world would the put a softer class closer… and create a problem on my thief that they recognized on my guardian long ago? It makes zero sense.

Ehm… That’s what I said. I don’t get why they broke cb. See no even one small reason for this. It was an answer to “butyouhave1500mstealnow!!1oneone” guys.

randomfightfan.4091:

@ den

So you’re saying engi gap closers aren’t good enough b/c your imaginary conditions (that you just thought up) don’t apply to the multiple gap closers an engi has. I guess by your logic an rtl doesn’t count as gap closer b/c it was recently nerfed and 2hs can go further or warrior whirlwind goes the same distance but evades while doing so. You can’t complain that there’s no gap closers b/c other gap closers are better in certain situations. A gap closer is a gap closer and engi has lots of them.

Not every gap closer is equal. E.g. that acid bomb is 400 range leap backwards. Compare it with rush (warrior greatsword #5), which is 1200 range. That is 3x difference, which is much bigger difference than the 900 vs 1200 difference people are now raging here.

If the gap closers you claimed you would work, then tell me. Let me play my level 80 elementalist, level 80 thief or level 80 warrior. I am now fleeing from your level 80 engineer using my skills to the max. How are you gonna close the cap using the “gap closers” you mentioned. Or let’s reverse situation. Your level 80 engineer wants to run away from my elementalist, thief or warrior. It won’t work. But that rocket boots, which is a 900 range gap closer, at least sometimes gives some opportunities to get away or catch up a fleeing enemy. Thief still has multiple ways to move 900 range. There is no question that thief is better in this respect and this is exactly how Arenanet wanted it to be.

I wrote in this thread that thief’s short bow got actually 2 buffs because the following two conditions work now differently: weakness and blind. And then people just write that many thieves never use them.

I personally feel cheap when I play a thief in WvWvW. Honestly it feels a bit overpowered, because the high mobility and constant stealth makes it very easy to escape almost any situation and also surprise unwary opponents as it is not a human nature to be alert 100% of time. I would argue that thief is the best roaming profession in WvWvW and still useful in zergs as well even when there is that huge lag. If you play on Desolation server, I can come with my thief right in the middle of the zerg fight.

Deniara Devious.3948:

randomfightfan.4091:

@ den

So you’re saying engi gap closers aren’t good enough b/c your imaginary conditions (that you just thought up) don’t apply to the multiple gap closers an engi has. I guess by your logic an rtl doesn’t count as gap closer b/c it was recently nerfed and 2hs can go further or warrior whirlwind goes the same distance but evades while doing so. You can’t complain that there’s no gap closers b/c other gap closers are better in certain situations. A gap closer is a gap closer and engi has lots of them.

Not every gap closer is equal. E.g. that acid bomb is 400 range leap backwards. Compare it with rush (warrior greatsword #5), which is 1200 range. That is 3x difference, which is much bigger difference than the 900 vs 1200 difference people are now raging here.

If the gap closers you claimed you would work, then tell me. Let me play my level 80 elementalist, level 80 thief or level 80 warrior. I am now fleeing from your level 80 engineer using my skills to the max. How are you gonna close the cap using the “gap closers” you mentioned. Or let’s reverse situation. Your level 80 engineer wants to run away from my elementalist, thief or warrior. It won’t work. But that rocket boots, which is a 900 range gap closer, at least sometimes gives some opportunities to get away or catch up a fleeing enemy. Thief still has multiple ways to move 900 range. There is no question that thief is better in this respect and this is exactly how Arenanet wanted it to be.

I wrote in this thread that thief’s short bow got actually 2 buffs because the following two conditions work now differently: weakness and blind. And then people just write that many thieves never use them.

I personally feel cheap when I play a thief in WvWvW. Honestly it feels a bit overpowered, because the high mobility and constant stealth makes it very easy to escape almost any situation and also surprise unwary opponents as it is not a human nature to be alert 100% of time. I would argue that thief is the best roaming profession in WvWvW and still useful in zergs as well even when there is that huge lag. If you play on Desolation server, I can come with my thief right in the middle of the zerg fight.

You’re the only thief I have ever met that claims a thief is useful in a zerg. If I want to run with the zerg I have to completely change my skills around and significantly decrease my dps just so that I can survive in the fray. We have someone on ET that transferred to Fort Aspenwood for a short time to see what WvW was like there. He said in their coordinated guild zergs they don’t even ALLOW thieves. When asked what a thief brought to the table in a zerg fight they said “umm… cluster bomb.” Now Anet nerfs this? We are simply wanting the logic behind this. It makes no sense and forces us into the solo roaming ganking playstyle everyone hates.

@ craig

He’s not a thief. He’s just some troll that wants to complain for the sake of complaining. Most people realize the truth that thieves are useless in anything besides roaming now in wvw. If you haven’t noticed, there’s only about 2 thief qqers here today. That’s a nice change from the 15 per hour we’re used to.

sorrow.2364:

frans.8092:

Not as strong as it looks, the boons are fairly useless if traiting them to Steal – and reducing it’s cooldown(!) – cost you too much damage. Without a power/crit build, for instance, Fury is pointless.

I’m running 10/30/0/0/30 with S/P and I find the Daze on steal, plus the reduced cooldown and all the goodies when stealing amazing.

Eeks, no Shadow Arts ánd no Acrobatics?
You really need Crits to fuel fury, so yeah, those traits would make the boons useful again. How’s the surviving on that setup?

Pistol Whip, also, synergize well with Daze on steal because it benefits too from sigil of paralyzation.
Check this build out!

Maybe, the steal change definitely warrants a try-out.

Yeah, i’m thinking of getting condition gear to try it out, with Shortbow blown up we can now look at P/D D/D

Shortbow still has amazing utilities and mobility. It isn’t blown up.

Yeah, I swap it in for travelling, not bad in PvE either as you can still AoE blow up mobs in melee range and with the improved SoM you can now face-tank hordes of undead even better. But I wasn’t talking about PvE.

It’s main problem is the uselessness of the condition it applies.

With P/P, 10 stacks of vuln might be useful. Have to check it out extensively, tho.

They’re gone before yo know it, might get an unload in with +10% damage but, why not use the ini for another Unload?

Interesting skill, too bad teleport and shadowstepping are so unreliable.

Actually, Shadow Trap looks fairly reliable. It is now a fixed utility in my bar in tPvP/sPvP.
Check this skill out by yourself too.

Except on flat terrain, shadowstepping in general is unreliable, sure, you’ll move, somewhere, but not necessarily where you thought you would move.
It’s a weird skill though, I still have to thoroughly experiment with it.

2, even 3, seconds of stealth are not all that useful for a rez, unless something/someone else pulls aggro away.

The extra stealth stacks with other stealth you might apply with Blinding Powder.
3s of stealth when ressing are absolutely not bad, tbh.

It competes with caltrops on dodge and flanking strike, and doesn’t stand a chance.

Removal of the stun breaker from sword makes that weapon somewhat inferior to plain D/D, at least for PvE.

It was expected.
Stunbreaker on initiative was quite too strong to be true. Shadow Return still saves your kitten from stun -> burst.

No, anything ranged (and somtimes channeled) will still hit. The point is that sword lost a major advantage it had on main-hand dagger. And why is it too strong as weapon-skill for thieves when it’s a weapon skill for other professions?

Well… since I dislike the slow travelling speed on Cluster Bomb (CB) arrows, I try to get a bit closer to the target anyway. So /shrug to that range adjustment.

However – IF I want to close gap and use Short Bow (SB), I most likely try an Infiltrators Arrow (IA). With the adjustments made to IA Thieves lost at least 50% of the usable targets for IA and half of the other ones are so hard to hit exactly in the heat of the battle, that the skill fails.

So if I loose range AND the effectiveness of a movement skill – that’s really bad. Leave SB range at 900… no problem – but add 25% damage (*) and give IA a big push. That way SB Thieves can get to their targets if they want to, CB or swap weapons or else.

At the moment ranged classes can stand at certain places and dps their heart out while Thieves have to kinda walk up to them (please take CC skills into account). A few weeks ago I could IA to that places and start a fight – now I have to burn some good abilities including heal just to get there.

(*) :p

I hate the new cluster shot. it completly changed my opening combo of cluster shot. inf strike Fs steal ect ect. 300 range is a huge diffrence. that combo simply does not work anymore. and since we lost 300 range the arc on cluster shot has changed. so instead of shooting over the lip in the wall. we get to hit it. from the wall we got the same range as burning oil. does that make sense to any of you?

rmBossa.4621:

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

Been searching for this comment, glad I found it.
I feel like you didn’t emphasize enough on the >>> AoE circles <<<< part enough, tough.

I main a S/D thief (alt SB) and the only main big hit to the build is the lost of stunbreaker in shadow return. The +1 initiative on LS is hardly noticeable unless you are a mindless #3 spammer.
In any event, the nerf is kind of offset by the buff on Steal… somewhat.

I acknowledge the reduced range of CB, but it is not game changing/breaking. To those who complains about the ineffectiveness of the skill now when sieging keeps, take it with a bit of salt (or popcorn) like the OP’s suggestion (albeit sarcastic). After all, how many class gets to flank enemy zergs from the back, picking off enemies one by one, AND still get out alive unnoticed; or stealth long enough to ninja a Keep’s Lord without even sieging the front door?
(In layman’s terms, there’s a role for every class, and sieging the front door aint it for thiefs.)