Guild Wars 2

Helo I am a thief that plays all weapon sets except PD. I would say I main shortbow and I combo it with DP or SD or DD. I make my own builds and strategies per class. I think solo roaming is kinda for newbies but i am past that stage so I play in small groups in wvw. I bought this game for spvp but spvp turned out bad and migrated to wvw like a lot of people. I watch some stream about devs talking to sPvP’rs I assume (because apparently they’re the cream of the crop, the crop being 200 players that play spvp) and I laugh at some things dev say regarding a lot of classes they talk about. One thing really worries me though.

Right now Mug makes it so a lot of builds or weapon sets can actually kill someone who plays properly or is tanky, or uses 100% damage mitigation dodges or distortions in a timely manner. Without mug the damage a thief will deal is not enough to justify how vulnerable he is at melee range vs these players. I don’t think stealth is a great defense tool in melee if you don’t spec 30 points into shadow arts because a lot of attacks are channeled through stealth (ie killshot, unload, volley etc). % dmg per boon wont work out, because thieves will be taking the same amount of damage for x increased DPS and wont be able to take advantage of the increased DPS to overcome to loss in burst (unless they want to sacrifice their health)

An example of solving the burst issue could be (not necessarily this):
Instead make CnD less faceroll to use. ie a longer cast time to give players longer time to react or it roots you in place like shadowshot used to do for x time if it hits something or something creative. This would make positioning and angle of attack much more necessary for the all-in DD thief than it currently is and give squishy targets a chance. Since release I feel as if most complaints have been targeted at thieves have been against Dagger Off Hand thieves, I think devs should have picked up on that by now.

Even lowering backstab damage to be equal to heartseeker at sub 25% (a 15-25%ish nerf?) or changing it to be from the back only not the back and sides makes more sense than changing mug, because while I think thieves have a high skill ceiling they also have a real low fkin skill floor to play (25/30/0/0/15 and x/30/30/x/x are both really easy to be effective in versus newer players) so increasing the requirements on positioning would help define good thieves from bad thieves and make it so other enemies have better chance for counterplay.

What i’m trying to say is that if you want to remove mug, you need to give thieves more burst or natural tankiness so that thieves can stay in the fight for longer without losing a lot of health in order to justify their increased DPS from boon killer or whatever. The former makes no sense to do if you nerf mug at same time and the latter makes it so you need to go 30 into shadow arts to get sustain in melee. Decreasing build diversity is really really dumb. I’m not necessarily against changing mug to something else, but you really need to take into consideration how it will effect ALL thief builds not just the one that can kill newbies who are just started the game >_> If an elegant solution can be made thats fine, but its not as easy as ABC 123 nerf Mug so e Z as I feel you guys are making it out to be. Removing the burst damage from mug will just completely nullify the killing potential of a lot of builds.

Personally I thought the change to stealth with reveal always coming up was a good change, but that is just me and idk if it was objectively a positive change for the game. That and the 4 second reveal and culling removal would have been too much though so i’m glad devs held back on that.
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Also let go of the idea of making thieves #1 mobility class. The way you described it at least makes me feel that you want to make us more mobile than elementalists. You seriously want a class more mobile than ele’s currently are? Thief mobility is really good at this moment, maybe not so much D/D thief but I feel that D/D gives up mobility for being able to do straight up damage.

TY for reading <3

Mug is currently waaaay to good for a 10 point trait. Rather then them nerfing it tho i much rather see it moved to a 20 point slot.

Mug is like pre-patch quickness. Makes up for inadequacies in the thief kit. Instant damage isn’t exactly great for what this game said it would be despite how useful it is ATM.

i would rather put that trait in a 30 point slot,

so thieves will be forced to go full DA tree

mug at 20 pt wouldn’t fix the problem at all nor would 30 pt mug. You would still have 30 30 0 0 10 thieves globalling people and have them come to complain about heartseeker spam. I’d also argue that people don’t take into account overkill that mug provides for the standard all in bv cnd steal backstab on glass cannons and removing mug would just do little to nothing for the newer players starting out since they’d die anyways.

I’d like to see it changed into a large life siphon personally…

It won’t be able to crit, so the damage won’t be able to become stupid high for a 10 point trait (No 6k+ crits that occur instantly ontop of other attacks from GC’s)

It’ll provide some sustain to thieves to help them live (Due to health gain) in all builds, be they Condition, Bunker or Burst regardless of stats they go (Currently, only really worthwhile in Burst builds due to high Power/Crit Damage/Crit)

Since life siphoning isn’t affected by armour it’s easy to tune the exact damage/healing to be balanced number.

Of course, to really change how Mug works, they’d need to rethink the base 45 second cooldown on Steal due to having a lesser damage would make it almost worthless (Consider currently the damage it deals vs it’s cooldown… With the base cooldown, a 10k hit with it will only average out to 222 DPS… With 30 Trickery it’d go up to 294 DPS)

Changing the Steal cooldown would also have the side affect of making other Steal traits more worthwhile (Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand, Hidden Thief and*Improvisation*)

Also about the comment on increasing counterplay to thieves – Theives are already shut down by good players (Can counter stealth pretty easily, continue to attack stealthed targets, etc) and so are not played at higher end of PvP. Increasing the counterplay would make thieves even more useless at higher skill levels.

Steal itself needs a rework first before they nerf Mug. It’s really basically a utility skill and not a class ability and the only reason it’s there is to justify the class name of Thief.

Oldgrimm.8521:

i would rather put that trait in a 30 point slot,

so thieves will be forced to go full DA tree

Which only kills build diversity, but doesn’t actually change anything other than losing Panic strike/venom trait.

I agree in your reasoning for defending Mug, but don’t agree with your proposed solutions. Specifically, rooting CnD would be pretty terrible. Mobility is the key we are pushing, as you’ve also stated, and more rooted abilities stand in direct opposition of that ideal. Anyways, it is worth defending Mug since it is one of the few good things thieves still have, and I really hope they do not change it without giving us Something back. Thief morale is pretty low at the moment.

A little off topic, but I’ve been pushing that the root on Pistol Whip be removed, even if the evasion has to go with it. The point being the thief always has maximum mobility and no skills root them or detract from it. The evasion on pistol whip isn’t useful at all imo because the small interrupt at the beginning resets a mobs attack so they just auto attack you the instant you stop evading from pistol whip, guaranteeing you take damage.

I still don’t see the issue with a 1.5 skill coefficient hit every 45 seconds…

When in conjunction with the rest of a burst attack its quite harmful but its still once every 45 seconds, its still not amazingly powerful by it self and that burst is still unlikely to kill anyone but another glass cannon by itself.

moving it up the tree would be the only real way to “nerf” this without either totally redesigning it or making it utterly useless, considering other people who have moves that are around the 1.5 coefficient have them on a shorter cooldown, often on a ranged attack and such the only “advantage” is the instant nature of the move which makes it harder to dodge and lets it combo well with a burst attack but to pull of the supposedly deadly burst it takes more than 1 instant attack every 45 seconds and many others can acheive similiar damage from the entire burst at the press of 1 maybe 2 buttons with no movement involved etc.

IMHO, the only reason mug exist in almost every build is not directly mug’s fault since it is the only one that makes sense to trait for at that trait level.

Leave mug as is instead fix the other choices so there’s actually something to choose from.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

IMHO, the only reason mug exist in almost every build is not directly mug’s fault since it is the only one that makes sense to trait for at that trait level.

Leave mug as is instead fix the other choices so there’s actually something to choose from.

The reason it exists in every build is because your damage without it as a burst oriented build is put under scrutiny and it’s very efficient at what it does partially as a result of being instant. Back fighting and Venom might are fine traits. Corrosive Traps is actually quite good, the issue is bringing traps in the first place.

ChesterWing.5321:

mug at 20 pt wouldn’t fix the problem at all nor would 30 pt mug. You would still have 30 30 0 0 10 thieves globalling people and have them come to complain about heartseeker spam. I’d also argue that people don’t take into account overkill that mug provides for the standard all in bv cnd steal backstab on glass cannons and removing mug would just do little to nothing for the newer players starting out since they’d die anyways.

Someone came from Warcraft XD
Little tip, this game doesn’t have “globals”.

ensoriki.5789:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

IMHO, the only reason mug exist in almost every build is not directly mug’s fault since it is the only one that makes sense to trait for at that trait level.

Leave mug as is instead fix the other choices so there’s actually something to choose from.

The reason it exists in every build is because your damage without it as a burst oriented build is put under scrutiny and it’s very efficient at what it does partially as a result of being instant. Back fighting and Venom might are fine traits. Corrosive Traps is actually quite good, the issue is bringing traps in the first place.

Are you agreeing with me because that’s exactly what I just said?

Describing the other choices as “fine” and “quite good” says a lot about those alternatives.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

IMHO, the only reason mug exist in almost every build is not directly mug’s fault since it is the only one that makes sense to trait for at that trait level.

Leave mug as is instead fix the other choices so there’s actually something to choose from.

The reason it exists in every build is because your damage without it as a burst oriented build is put under scrutiny and it’s very efficient at what it does partially as a result of being instant. Back fighting and Venom might are fine traits. Corrosive Traps is actually quite good, the issue is bringing traps in the first place.

Are you agreeing with me because that’s exactly what I just said?

Describing the other choices as “fine” and “quite good” says a lot about those alternatives.

That’s like saying Back Fighting and Venomous Strength have “good personalities”, lol.

I have used Tripwire with Corrosive Traps and Pistol Whip with hilarious results, but that was just for testing the “what if”.

If they nerf mug (which seems likely at this point) it would be great if they reduced steal recharge rate to 30 seconds so the overall mobility of the thief would go up and the other ‘on steal’ traits would be strengthened while lowering the burst but not the sustained DPS of the thief. You could get steal down to 21 seconds then so 1 stun every 21 seconds would finally be slightly better than shield bash. ANet might see a rise in support thieves without having to institute boon hate.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

IMHO, the only reason mug exist in almost every build is not directly mug’s fault since it is the only one that makes sense to trait for at that trait level.

Leave mug as is instead fix the other choices so there’s actually something to choose from.

The reason it exists in every build is because your damage without it as a burst oriented build is put under scrutiny and it’s very efficient at what it does partially as a result of being instant. Back fighting and Venom might are fine traits. Corrosive Traps is actually quite good, the issue is bringing traps in the first place.

Are you agreeing with me because that’s exactly what I just said?

Describing the other choices as “fine” and “quite good” says a lot about those alternatives.

When do positive statements imply anything negative?
Mug is “too good” similar to quickness before the nerf, but like quickness if it gets nuked. It’s instantaneous damage that can at times go for 5+k damage.
There isn’t anything wrong with the traits I mentioned before.
However like the nerf to quickness/haste, if they hit Mug you’ll likely see more builds phase out because they’re not able to put out enough meaningful damage in required time-frames.

All I’m saying is Mug being nerfed makes a lot of sense granted what it is, but nerfing it considering the current state of the thief won’t really be helping overall balance and diversity in any format (at least for us thieves) in the immediate short-term unless they’re pushing their longer objectives with that nerf. I doubt they’d do so however since they’ll likely justify that a mug nerf requires observing how the thief plays in all 3 formats post-nerf before making changes…

thats just the thing… people always focus on the fact that its instant and that it can hit glass cannons fairly hard… totally ignoring the fact that its a 45 second cooldown and melee range etc.

I mean if you compared it to similiar damaging moves as if it was a weapon skill or such it would actually be a bit underpowered the fact that its actually a trait just makes it less so and such.

No No No. Mug only hits hard if you are using a power build. You do NOT see big damage if you are using a typical S/D type build.

style.6173:

No No No. Mug only hits hard if you are using a power build. You do NOT see big damage if you are using a typical S/D type build.

Far as I’ve ever known 10/30/30 is the typical S/D build or was for a significant period of time. Mug actually does hit hard in that set, but most importantly it plugs up the damage hole that S/D kinda has without it. You could take other traits but everything else is much more long-term in terms of a fight, outside of mmmm venom sharing you could say.

Sorry but Mug needs to stay as is.

Its on a 45 second cool down, and quite frankly if they nerf it steal needs to have a 15 sec CD for compensation. Out of all the classes thieves got shafted the worst in the F key abilities since they have to spend traits to make their only ability useful.

Sorry but i have too lol at this statement

“Without mug the damage a thief will deal is not enough to justify how vulnerable he is at melee range vs these players.”

I only used mug wen i played GC a loooooong looooooog time ago.
haven’t used it for months and for some odd reason i still managed to kill ppl… a lot of ppl. so yeah i can very well live without it as many other GOOD thieves out there that are not GC.

tbh i cant wait to see this trait nerfed or replaced even. same goes for last refuge.
some of you know what i’m talking about, those who don’t, i feel sorry for you.

I largely agree with OP in defense of why Mug is important to have currently, although I disagree on what to do about it.

Thieves don’t have particularly special burst numerically on their individual abilities. However, stealth mechanics enable relatively safe/reliable delivery, and there is an ability to line up several separate abilities into a small time window – of which Mug plays a big part. At the same time, it’s arguable that sustained damage capability is actually too low, especially from the perspective of PvE players.

So, yeah…if you completely remove Mug, thief builds that rely on burst have a damage problem and half of the few thief builds worth playing possibly go to the scrap heap.

However, I also don’t like that we have such a reliance on a trait for basic direct damage capability; it actually hamstrings design options for the class. Damage oriented builds will always be arguably OP with it or arguably UP without it.

Also, I could stand for some of our other 10 point traits to get buffed up a bit. Some other classes have 3+ 10 point traits as good as Mug – it’s just that a lot of them do something other than raw damage.

So, I would actually prefer for Mug to essentially go away in current form and turn into some sort of utility or not-so-bursty damage, provided that they buff back up damage on abilities in the weapon sets to make up for it. (Which would improve sustained damage for the PvE folks.)

In a world with quickness already nerfed and Mug no longer producing eyebrow raising burst combos, Anet could probably revert nearly all of the ability damage nerfs that thieves have absorbed so far since release.

The problem with nerfing mug is some more balanced (read: not backstab) builds rely on it for their under 50% burst. You can’t nerf it without compensating. If you want to nerf backstab build, you do it in a way that isn’t going to effect other builds. Nerfing backstab itself is a problem because even though I am not abusing it (pre cast C&D => Steal => Backstab) I still use it once or twice per fight and need that damage. Assassin’s Signet (do they even still use this, not sure what the current “best” backstab build is) and Cloak and Dagger are probably the best bet for further adjustments. If damage of Cloak and Dagger is further nerfed, cost should be adjusted accordingly.

Ashanor.5319:

If damage of Cloak and Dagger is further nerfed, cost should be adjusted accordingly.

I don’t see why.

Outside of the Burst combo (Also, the CnD cheese that somehow kills people…), builds tend to not utilise CnD for the damage but rather the stealth (To use an ability that does do damage/control)

Having CnD damage nerfed/removed wouldn’t change most builds (It could be compensated with more Vulnerability stacks) but would remove a portion of the Burst combo and make CnD cheese literally useless.

Also a side note: I shouldn’t be able to get 5.5k crits with CnD on level 80’s in WvW…

Taril.8619:

Also a side note: I shouldn’t be able to get 5.5k crits with CnD on level 80’s in WvW…

Meh I was hitting 4k cluster bomb crits on people in WvW last night…. Im running a condition build… WvW numbers are not representative of actual balance due to idiots and upscales.

Heck I ran around naked for a bit and saw people hitting me for ridiculous crits, doesn’t mean the moves they used actual hit that hard in “proper” fights

The complete removal of damage from CnD would have effects in other area’s of the game as well, such as PvE sustained damage (every little but helps there) and such. Wouldn’t be a massive drop and many probably wouldn’t miss it, but it removing it accomplishes very little as well other than dealing with something thats already a non issue.

Dasorine.1964:

The complete removal of damage from CnD would have effects in other area’s of the game as well, such as PvE sustained damage (every little but helps there) and such. Wouldn’t be a massive drop and many probably wouldn’t miss it, but it removing it accomplishes very little as well other than dealing with something thats already a non issue.

That’s why I suggested an increase in Vulnerability stacks as compensation. It doesn’t take a huge amount for Backstab to start getting higher damage (Also in group PvE when there isn’t already perma-25 vuln it’d increase the damage done by allies)

CnD cheese may be a non-issue for competent players, but I dare say if it’s kept in there will be a lot of people crying nerf about it. I don’t want to be slapped with a ham-fisted stealth nerf again (Though interestingly, I only started playing stealth orientated builds after the stealth nerf… Go figure)

Also, cutting down the burst combo is something that A-net where looking at. I’d rather something that is inconsequential to most builds as this happen than something like the complete gutting of Mug and/or backstab (Or stealth… Because you never know)

The moment people start accepting taking unneeded nerfs in the “hopes that will appease the QQ’s and prevent Anet doing something stupid again” is the moment anet ends up removing thiefs all together due to QQ’s still QQing.

Well, CnD at least needs to do enough damage such that its individual dps keeps up with autoattack dps. Otherwise, you’re going down a yucky road.

CnD burst is basic front load vs. back load damage where damage occurs at the end or front of a cast/cooldown period. Lots of classes have that and it’s not particularly special. Throwing Mug into the mix off CD is special.

ensoriki.5789:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

IMHO, the only reason mug exist in almost every build is not directly mug’s fault since it is the only one that makes sense to trait for at that trait level.

Leave mug as is instead fix the other choices so there’s actually something to choose from.

The reason it exists in every build is because your damage without it as a burst oriented build is put under scrutiny and it’s very efficient at what it does partially as a result of being instant. Back fighting and Venom might are fine traits. Corrosive Traps is actually quite good, the issue is bringing traps in the first place.

Are you agreeing with me because that’s exactly what I just said?

Describing the other choices as “fine” and “quite good” says a lot about those alternatives.

When do positive statements imply anything negative?
Mug is “too good” similar to quickness before the nerf, but like quickness if it gets nuked. It’s instantaneous damage that can at times go for 5+k damage.
There isn’t anything wrong with the traits I mentioned before.
However like the nerf to quickness/haste, if they hit Mug you’ll likely see more builds phase out because they’re not able to put out enough meaningful damage in required time-frames.

All I’m saying is Mug being nerfed makes a lot of sense granted what it is, but nerfing it considering the current state of the thief won’t really be helping overall balance and diversity in any format (at least for us thieves) in the immediate short-term unless they’re pushing their longer objectives with that nerf. I doubt they’d do so however since they’ll likely justify that a mug nerf requires observing how the thief plays in all 3 formats post-nerf before making changes…

Even if Mug got hit by the nerf bat, my point is, it is still the best among the other choices — unless — they improve the other traits to be more flexible than limiting.

There is lots of good discussion in this thread and I hope more people discuss things. The examples I provided are just some ideas and I did not mean to say “these are the best things you can do”. I just want to see some ideas and let this be talked about since I think people are too concerned about the revealed buff and not this change.

I do think looking into CnD Damage is a viable option, because like I said I think dagger offhand has been what has causing people to call for nerfs personally. I don’t think PvE is something that is worth to be considered because PvE isn’t the most challenging thing in this game. I think the vulnerability idea is interesting though

Like someone said, Mug gives the ability for a lot of builds to actually KILL someone below 50% hp. Nerfing mug because a lot of its damage is potentially overkill in D/D BV CND steal all in builds will really make these other builds lose a lot of power and possibly make them unviable because simply they won’t be able to kill anyone who knows how to play.

Someone came from Warcraft XD
Little tip, this game doesn’t have “globals”.

No need to be condescending, I apologize for using the phrase global. If anyone was confused all that means is basically instakilling someone

CnD was already nerfed.

Mug is on a 45 sec CD.

Thieves do not need further nerfs.