Guild Wars 2

There it is:

“Thief
Changes for the thief profession are not overly extensive, but they are direct. The team is still observing the changes from previous balance updates, and we’re looking to fine-tune the profession so that it maintains a unique role in the game without breaking its core philosophies.
Potent Poison: Fixed a bug that prevented the condition’s duration increase from displaying in the Attributes section.
Pulmonary Impact: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from doing damage while a thief was in the air.
Bound: The damage of this ability can now be triggered in midair or underwater.
Vital Shot: Increased damage by 15%.
Dancing Dagger: Increased damage by 20%.
Skelk Venom: The recharge time of this ability has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds. Its duration has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
Skale Venom: The recharge time of this ability has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds. Its duration has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
Spider Venom: The recharge time of this ability has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds. Its duration has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
Ice Drake Venom: The recharge time of this ability has been reduced from 40 seconds to 36 seconds. Its duration has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.”

Thoughts? I am trying to understand the change in Bound.

It’s good they recognize the need to improve skills like Dancing Dagger and Vital Shot (should have had Body Shot as well but eh). The bound change is for when you bound off a ledge for example. The animation ends before you land, and it previously wouldn’t deal damage because you had to land for the impact. Nice little improvement along with the PI fix. The venom change is very nice, and I have been waiting for that for awhile. I wonder how that will affect venomshare DPS. It may be close to competing with the power meta, though it will always be less reliable.

Edit:
I am grateful that some CC seems to have been toned down or removed from other classes. I think they should continue that so group fights aren’t such a mess. They could probably stand to buff Dancing Dagger and Vital Shot more along with Body Shot, Hide in Shadows, Skelk Venom, Thieves Guild, and traps (basically less used stuff). I was really hoping Destroy Shadow Trap would become like Portal…maybe next time.

Edit 2:
The downed state invuln change is a nice QoL buff for Impact Strike.

Edit 3 (sorry, so many edits):
If the Mesmer nerf means reduced quickness uptime, that further closes any gap between power and condi Thief…interesting.

I am loving the update to Dancing Daggers since I run S/D in WvW. Hopefully these venom changes can make them more useful for Condi builds and such

Cya in mesmer forum. Since they love them more than anything. WHAT THE actual fudge is this excuse for patchnotes.

for bound change when you dodge and stay on air the process would only start after you hit the land(that was before).and now you proccess it in midair if you do it from high enough. it is what I think.

Im more dissapointed in the lack of nerfs to DH in PvP.
Also why would they change bound but leave vault with the exact same problem?

Thing I loved about Dancing Daggers is how it interacts with dark fields. I really hope this change stays.

balance patch feels more like a revert of CD timers before the baseline venom share was introduced.

Another change regarding us.

“Warrior
•“On My Mark!”: This skill now applies revealed for 4 seconds in addition to vulnerability.”

I actually use Dancing Daggers a lot and it will be nice to feel a bit more impact on it, might just feel as it used to.

I will also like to use Bound underwater, I lurk in ponds and lakes to scorp wire runners into the water but I wonder if I can dodge key in glide mode and or jump up and tag someone on a ledge above me if they’re within range even if vertically.

Changes for the thief profession are not overly extensive. All were good changes but a lot more has to change to make an impact.

Now they should work on these: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1slZrh_ND6Bu6qYm8Yzmh5HMO43RhcE9_GLRt046i0JE/edit?usp=sharing

kash.9213:

I wonder if I can dodge key in glide mode and or jump up and tag someone on a ledge above me if they’re within range even if vertically.

You can’t dodge while gliding or falling. Trying to jump bound and hit someone above you won’t really work either for two reasons. First, Bound doesn’t actually displace your hitbox vertically, it just looks like it does. That’s why you can’t bound over even tiny obstacles. Second, even if it did actually move you upwards towards the person above you, you don’t deal damage until the landing part of the animation, at which point that height would be gone.

Biggest change for raids: With the nerf to quickness, you’ll probably just want to go back to ele stacking instead of thieves.

And there’s no way this will make condi thief competitive. =P

Zodryn.4216:

kash.9213:

I wonder if I can dodge key in glide mode and or jump up and tag someone on a ledge above me if they’re within range even if vertically.

You can’t dodge while gliding or falling. Trying to jump bound and hit someone above you won’t really work either for two reasons. First, Bound doesn’t actually displace your hitbox vertically, it just looks like it does. That’s why you can’t bound over even tiny obstacles. Second, even if it did actually move you upwards towards the person above you, you don’t deal damage until the landing part of the animation, at which point that height would be gone.

I don’t glide enough, makes sense.

Even if I’m jumping up to land on the same level, the damage will still wait until I touch ground then, it won’t cleave them on the down side of the jump? I don’t get that change then where does that it come into effect?

Edit: or am I reading it wrong? Wouldn’t be the first time.

kash.9213:

Zodryn.4216:

kash.9213:

I wonder if I can dodge key in glide mode and or jump up and tag someone on a ledge above me if they’re within range even if vertically.

You can’t dodge while gliding or falling. Trying to jump bound and hit someone above you won’t really work either for two reasons. First, Bound doesn’t actually displace your hitbox vertically, it just looks like it does. That’s why you can’t bound over even tiny obstacles. Second, even if it did actually move you upwards towards the person above you, you don’t deal damage until the landing part of the animation, at which point that height would be gone.

I don’t glide enough, makes sense.

Even if I’m jumping up to land on the same level, the damage will still wait until I touch ground then, it won’t cleave them on the down side of the jump? I don’t get that change then where does that it come into effect?

The change is that previously you had to physically land on the ground to do damage. Now, if Bounds landing animation ends and you are still in the air (because you bounded off a cliff or down a steep slope), it will still deal damage. The damage is still dealt at the same time in the animation.

We still have the 1 sec cd for stealth skills good job Anet ignore the community…….

Tl;dr Anet wants you to play P/P Bound venomshare build in sPvP. That is all.

Serious sPvP commentary: These updates came just when we thought condi thief couldn’t get any easier/more annoying. Considering that utility venoms have no casting time, it’s easy to run into a node fight and just button mash to give your teammates a ton of condi, as Anet made venomshare baseline a few months ago. With this CD reduction it’s clear that Anet wants venom thieves in the meta, it’s now too good to pass up. Why? Because with this new change you can use venoms in every skirmish, they should be fully recharged whenever you need them unless you’re spamming them unnecessarily. Additionally, Deadly Arts has a lot of synergy with Spider Venom. Buffing pistol AA is small, but significant in making P/P a more reliable build.

As a D/P power thief I’m not very happy with these changes simply because they don’t touch the meta and encourage low-skill, easily-countered builds. They have also not addressed power staff builds by decreasing evade or damage on Vault. However, D/P and Staff builds benefit from the changes to DH, as they now have lowered CC and block uptime, and less healing from Purification, a big challenge for melee fighters.

Zodryn.4216:

The change is that previously you had to physically land on the ground to do damage. Now, if Bounds landing animation ends and you are still in the air (because you bounded off a cliff or down a steep slope), it will still deal damage. The damage is still dealt at the same time in the animation.

I actually get what you’re saying but my imagination isn’t always happy with just the facts and information so bear with me for one more, does that mean I can suicide dodge from a cliff or wall and take out a chunk of a squad? I mean, technically that animation isn’t over until touch down.

Lol, the ICD remains.

ANet is trying way too hard to push condi OH dagger, and for the most part, nobody actually cares when the rest of the class is broken.

No nerf to durability runes, no actually significant gameplay fixes.

Almost exactly what I expected, ha.

Seriously, this patch feels like it was generated last-minute based on some sporadic reading of the forums while trying to do as absolutely little as possible to negate the major game-breaking decisions they’ve made in the past.

Must be the easiest job in the world to be on that team…

this patch is a joke, gonna stop playing this “pvp” game

Why aren’t they working on traits? While flipping through all classes changes I found maybe one trait.
Anet, wake up!

DeceiverX.8361:

Lol, the ICD remains.

ANet is trying way too hard to push condi OH dagger, and for the most part, nobody actually cares when the rest of the class is broken.

No nerf to durability runes, no actually significant gameplay fixes.

Almost exactly what I expected, ha.

Seriously, this patch feels like it was generated last-minute based on some sporadic reading of the forums while trying to do as absolutely little as possible to negate the major game-breaking decisions they’ve made in the past.

Must be the easiest job in the world to be on that team…

I don’t really agree, a lot of work was put into Guard, Ele, and Ranger balances to say the least. However, both Thief and Rev balances are pretty one-dimensional; Rev’s changes focus around Jalis and Retribution, and Thief is pretty much around Venoms. So this is really an imbalanced “Balance” patch simply because they didn’t put in equal effort across the board.

kash.9213:

I actually get what you’re saying but my imagination isn’t always happy with just the facts and information so bear with me for one more, does that mean I can suicide dodge from a cliff or wall and take out a chunk of a squad? I mean, technically that animation isn’t over until touch down.

Nope sorry. The animation is always 0.75s like any other dodge, and that hasn’t changed. The “landing” part of the animation may occur while you are still in the air, it doesn’t wait until you hit the ground to end. If that happened before, you’d do no damage. Now you will deal damage regardless of whether the animation ends in the air, in water, or on the ground.

It’s another 4 months to hope things will get better
Yeah well, there’s always pve and maybe by that time they also figured out the targeting thingy.

Zodryn.4216:

Nope sorry. The animation is always 0.75s like any other dodge, and that hasn’t changed. The “landing” part of the animation may occur while you are still in the air, it doesn’t wait until you hit the ground to end. If that happened before, you’d do no damage. Now you will deal damage regardless of whether the animation ends in the air, in water, or on the ground.

Wishful thinking on my part then, I figured if they’re allowing the damage happen in mid air that they changed it to make sense and damage on landing instead of containing it in the duration and going poof where it won’t matter. At least I can jump in the water and drop kick a fish maybe but I don’t see where this balance change will matter. Thanks for putting up with me thinking outloud though and answering the questions.

is like, “oh, we didn’t get nerf? well that’s nice.” lol

even after a few buffs here and there, nothing has change! most people will and are still going to prefer power burst thief, but
im just glad we didnt get anymore nerfs, for now.

I made a set of viper/carrion gear for P/D recently, good timing I guess ^^

Venoms are what Anet buff/nerf when they don’t fully know what to do next with thief, so all told I’m just glad nothing got nerfed.

I’d suggest P/P, Bound out of your smoke field and Unload from behind it, those finishers blind

Huskyboy.1053:

I’d suggest P/P, Bound out of your smoke field and Unload from behind it, those finishers blind

Use the stealth attack before Unload. Even more burst!

I think it’s good that they’re taking baby steps at a time. Drastic changes to classes just causes everything to be very out of balance. While I would have liked to have seen more buffing of underpowered sets, it gives me hope that they are able to recognize areas they need to improve. So I get why they’re taking small steps. They don’t want to go too far and cause imbalance then (try) to fix it later with more drastic changes.

Should have included a revert to 1s internal cooldown on stealth attacks. That’s the only thing I was hoping for. Looks like I’ll have to wait 4 months :/

I feel bad for you thief players tbh.

Not enough love or nerf of other classes to let you not be the worst class in the game

Another patch pushing the condi meta… disappointing. Here’s to looking forward to the next balance patch.

“The team is still observing the changes from previous balance updates, and we’re looking to fine tune the profession so that it maintains a unique roll in the game without breaking it’s core philosophies.” (We have no idea how to balance this class.)

Luto.1938:

Another patch pushing the condi meta… disappointing. Here’s to looking forward to the next balance patch.

“The team is still observing the changes from previous balance updates, and we’re looking to fine tune the profession so that it maintains a unique roll in the game without breaking it’s core philosophies.” (We have no idea how to balance this class.)

I read it as ""The team is still observing the changes from previous balance updates, and we’re looking to fine tune the profession so that it is stuck as +1/Decap roll in the game without giving it any usefulness in groups"

Feel pretty good about the venom timer changes. . . definitely makes my hybrid condi build a bit more viable, and happy with the Dancing Dagger buff (maybe I can use it for more than pushing posions now). There is still MUCH work to be done on our class, but at least they didn’t nerf us this time. Thank you anet.

I think that Anet still hasn’t decided how to handle stealth attacks.

The internal cooldown was a concrete step towards potentially buffing the power of stealth attacks. Give it some “risk” by punishing missing the attack and then buff it to do more damage. This is related to another idea where missing attacks in stealth would reveal you.

That said the biggest difficulty from a technical standpoint is that when you miss a stealth attack the entire skill—auto-attack included—is disabled. This feels more clunky than it needed to be, given that auto-attack is significant DPS for a thief.

Stealth attacks are a core philosophy or mechanic of the class. That said, D/P doesn’t use it because it is weak and D/D is overly reliant on consistently landing it for damage. I feel like they are having trouble conceptually balancing D/P and D/D. They like the feel of D/P 3 but can’t buff backstab too much without making D/P even more overpowered. Ultimately, I think they will need to nerf Shadow Shot in order to make room for a stronger stealth attack on both D/P and D/D.

Venoms are an easy buff in a lot of ways. First, the 40 second timer was far too long in comparison to the elite venom skill. Second, the condition builds that thief has access to don’t do nearly as much as condi mesmer or condi necromancer, etc, etc, etc. Decreasing the recharge closes the gap and enhances the thieves benefit to the group as a whole.

Eventually Anet will need to address the perma evade environment—for all classes—that the current boon heavy meta has created. Some thief builds are extremely forgiving because of the high evade frames available to them. This results in frustration for enemies fighting them, especially those fighting the D/D condi builds, because they are dying and unable to hurt their opponent enough. Warriors that need to land burst skills to heal/sustain are going to be even more annoyed by this kind of evade build.

This patch brought other classes sustain down a notch. Further efforts will possibly reduce that even more. Eventually, thief may face a nerf in the evade-damage meta that both power and condi builds have benefited from.

ImmaQuality.4730:

Im more dissapointed in the lack of nerfs to DH in PvP.
Also why would they change bound but leave vault with the exact same problem?

Bound and Vault both work mid-air now. Tested on the dredge and Vault deals damage even though it procs mid-air.

Can we come up with a reliable p/d pvp build now ?

I don’t really complain about the changes, venoms were on too high cooldowns to be considered.

Well they have buffed the auto attack damage on pistol so in theory a hybrid build may be more viable now.

Toughness matters less than vitality imo, so as far as sPvP I would use my build with a vitality/power/condition amulet for hybrid.

Too funny – ANet continues to make WvW ghost thief more annoying … keeping buffing Spider Venom, it needs to apply double poison stacks with eat hit next time around or it still isn’t useful. LOL

Venoms only proc on direct damage. Therefore a ghost thief does not benefit from venoms. Therefore you are wrong.

Artaz.3819:

Too funny – ANet continues to make WvW ghost thief more annoying … keeping buffing Spider Venom, it needs to apply double poison stacks with eat hit next time around or it still isn’t useful. LOL

Yay! Another person that doesn’t understand Thief mechanics!! Keep them coming

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Artaz.3819:

Too funny – ANet continues to make WvW ghost thief more annoying … keeping buffing Spider Venom, it needs to apply double poison stacks with eat hit next time around or it still isn’t useful. LOL

Yay! Another person that doesn’t understand Thief mechanics!! Keep them coming

we should make it a requirement to post a screenshot of their characters before they start talking crap lol

I think devs hope the nerfs are enugh to bring back thief but i dont think they are enough. Rev and dh changes are too conservtive and feel untouched so thief still no good i pvp.

alchemyst.2165:

I think it’s good that they’re taking baby steps at a time. Drastic changes to classes just causes everything to be very out of balance. While I would have liked to have seen more buffing of underpowered sets, it gives me hope that they are able to recognize areas they need to improve. So I get why they’re taking small steps. They don’t want to go too far and cause imbalance then (try) to fix it later with more drastic changes.

True, but they didn’t touch any traits, they’re just tinkering around with weapon skills and cooldowns. And it’s another 4 months until anything might happen. And the game is out of control for now 1,5 years.
I’d agree with you if the next patch were up in a month. I’m getting a bit impatient here.. oh no wait – I gave up

Zodryn.4216:

It’s good they recognize the need to improve skills like Dancing Dagger and Vital Shot (should have had Body Shot as well but eh). The bound change is for when you bound off a ledge for example. The animation ends before you land, and it previously wouldn’t deal damage because you had to land for the impact. Nice little improvement along with the PI fix. The venom change is very nice, and I have been waiting for that for awhile. I wonder how that will affect venomshare DPS. It may be close to competing with the power meta, though it will always be less reliable.

Edit:
I am grateful that some CC seems to have been toned down or removed from other classes. I think they should continue that so group fights aren’t such a mess. They could probably stand to buff Dancing Dagger and Vital Shot more along with Body Shot, Hide in Shadows, Skelk Venom, Thieves Guild, and traps (basically less used stuff). I was really hoping Destroy Shadow Trap would become like Portal…maybe next time.

Edit 2:
The downed state invuln change is a nice QoL buff for Impact Strike.

Edit 3 (sorry, so many edits):
If the Mesmer nerf means reduced quickness uptime, that further closes any gap between power and condi Thief…interesting.

Vital Shot’s under-performance has, from day one, been the main problem with P/P (and to a lesser degree, P/D) due to the way it created a resource vacuum through over-reliance on Unload for damage. It’s only astonishing that it took them over three years to recognize it and give it two significant buffs back to back.

Einlanzer.1627:

Vital Shot’s under-performance has, from day one, been the main problem with P/P (and to a lesser degree, P/D) due to the way it created a resource vacuum through over-reliance on Unload for damage. It’s only astonishing that it took them over three years to recognize it and give it two significant buffs back to back.

Of course, now it’s one of the strongest ranged auto-attacks in the game. We’ll see if that’s enough to get people to stop crying about it.

Personally I think the set has severe weaknesses and the auto damage was a distraction, but at least that isn’t a distraction anymore and it does do its job as a one dimensional damage spam set a lot better.

On side note, all those complains from revs – i just can’t feel bad for them, considering in which state thief was in s1 (because of revs on first place) and in which bad state core builds are. In fact, i am starting to love this patch just for this very reason.

Nerfs to revs – indirect buffs to thieves, even if small <3