Guild Wars 2

I know this is months old but I took a 3 month long hiatus and returned to this and I’m curious.

I noticed that the damage portion of Bound was nerfed quite significantly in sPvP, and I’m not entirely sure why. Most Daredevils (at least the ones who ran D/P) were all running Dash. Why would they nerf a skill that was wasn’t primarily used anyway?

The Devs mentioned in the same patch notes that they were trying to give the Thief/DD more AoE prowess while simultaneously moving it away from the staff a little bit. Bound is not directly connected to the staff, so you’d think they’d leave it alone for that exact reason.

Any chance I could get some feedback on this? I’m not mad or anything. I’m just really confused as to why they would nerf an AoE skill not directly connected to the staff while stating that they want to buff the Thief’s non-staff AoE, a skill that was also rarely taken in sPvP anyways.

Because it was just too much with acro staff builds. The rotation was bound bound any staff skill, normally #2-4 and the random vault chucked in, they also nerfed some endurance gain as well.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Because it was just too much with acro staff builds. The rotation was bound bound any staff skill, normally #2-4 and the random vault chucked in, they also nerfed some endurance gain as well.

Thanks for the reply, but that’s exactly where my confusion stems from; it was too much for acro-staff builds. I noticed they nerfed Acro as well, and I’m not sure why they didn’t just leave it at that while also addressing staff skills/traits. My confusion is why they are nerfing a skill not directly tied to the staff if the issue was acro staff builds. Sure, it would address the power of acro-staff a bit, but it would harm other builds that used it as well where it clearly underperformed.

It is what it is, but I honestly think if they wanted to address Acro-Staff’s balance they should have kept within Acrobatics (which they did nerf) and the Staff. There was no need to hurt an already underused trait (in SPvP). That’s all I’m sayin’.

Thief was able to 1v1 and thus it was removed.

On a serious note, Bound was too strong doing that much damage, +10% damage buff, and a leap finisher. I would have rather seen the leap finisher removed instead

I’m ok with the damage nerf the leap finisher provides other Weapon sets like p/p and S/p or any build running smoke fields reliable stealth access, but it’s made moot with me ES providing lots of stealth synergy.

Yes the damage was a little ridiculous for a Dodge but now it’s in line with Reckless Dodge.

Acro was nerfed due to the passive nature of the prevalent build used and the huge synergy it had with Acro 2.0.

And I agree with Azukas it mostly stemmed from Thief being able to 1v1 with a bruiser style build when Anet has clearly stated in streams that’s a Thief will be +1/decap.

Because bound was too strong for 1v1 so people qq and anet nerfed it, but it seems dash is perfectly fine as long as it doesn’t damage so it doesn’t matter if you can travel from home to far in 5s.

Sly.9518:

I’m ok with the damage nerf the leap finisher provides other Weapon sets like p/p and S/p or any build running smoke fields reliable stealth access, but it’s made moot with me ES providing lots of stealth synergy.

Yes the damage was a little ridiculous for a Dodge but now it’s in line with Reckless Dodge.

Acro was nerfed due to the passive nature of the prevalent build used and the huge synergy it had with Acro 2.0.

And I agree with Azukas it mostly stemmed from Thief being able to 1v1 with a bruiser style build when Anet has clearly stated in streams that’s a Thief will be +1/decap.

Reckless Dodge does more damage than Bound. Go ahead and check for yourself. I just got off my Warrior and between the new Might Makes Right trait and Reckless Dodge, I feel like Warrior can pretty much do the same thing but better minus the stealth.

It still makes 0 sense to me that ANet nerfed this. In the same patch notes they explicitly stated they wanted the Thief to have more AoE not tied to the staff so Thieves weren’t forced to get the staff. So they nerfed an already underused SPvP skill that isn’t directly tied to the staff because Acro-staff was too good? When they could have just nerfed Acro (which they did) and/or staff (which they also did)?

Exitus.3297:

Sly.9518:

I’m ok with the damage nerf the leap finisher provides other Weapon sets like p/p and S/p or any build running smoke fields reliable stealth access, but it’s made moot with me ES providing lots of stealth synergy.

Yes the damage was a little ridiculous for a Dodge but now it’s in line with Reckless Dodge.

Acro was nerfed due to the passive nature of the prevalent build used and the huge synergy it had with Acro 2.0.

And I agree with Azukas it mostly stemmed from Thief being able to 1v1 with a bruiser style build when Anet has clearly stated in streams that’s a Thief will be +1/decap.

Reckless Dodge does more damage than Bound. Go ahead and check for yourself. I just got off my Warrior and between the new Might Makes Right trait and Reckless Dodge, I feel like Warrior can pretty much do the same thing but better minus the stealth.

It still makes 0 sense to me that ANet nerfed this. In the same patch notes they explicitly stated they wanted the Thief to have more AoE not tied to the staff so Thieves weren’t forced to get the staff. So they nerfed an already underused SPvP skill that isn’t directly tied to the staff because Acro-staff was too good? When they could have just nerfed Acro (which they did) and/or staff (which they also did)?

Yeah but warriors have stances and more block up time so don’t rely on evades as much for defence.

Exitus.3297:

Sly.9518:

I’m ok with the damage nerf the leap finisher provides other Weapon sets like p/p and S/p or any build running smoke fields reliable stealth access, but it’s made moot with me ES providing lots of stealth synergy.

Yes the damage was a little ridiculous for a Dodge but now it’s in line with Reckless Dodge.

Acro was nerfed due to the passive nature of the prevalent build used and the huge synergy it had with Acro 2.0.

And I agree with Azukas it mostly stemmed from Thief being able to 1v1 with a bruiser style build when Anet has clearly stated in streams that’s a Thief will be +1/decap.

Reckless Dodge does more damage than Bound. Go ahead and check for yourself. I just got off my Warrior and between the new Might Makes Right trait and Reckless Dodge, I feel like Warrior can pretty much do the same thing but better minus the stealth.

It still makes 0 sense to me that ANet nerfed this. In the same patch notes they explicitly stated they wanted the Thief to have more AoE not tied to the staff so Thieves weren’t forced to get the staff. So they nerfed an already underused SPvP skill that isn’t directly tied to the staff because Acro-staff was too good? When they could have just nerfed Acro (which they did) and/or staff (which they also did)?

Have you never seen a Anet balance? It’s with a Hammer there is hardly any fine tuning, they take anything and hit all parts of what makes it what it was, and like I said in multiple streams Devs have stated Thief role is to be decap/+1 so when Thief gets a build that makes them viable outside of that it doesn’t last long.

/s

Also before the Pvp Nerf Bound did quite a bit more damage than Reckless Dodge. It had a 1.4 coefficient vs 1.5 and now Bound is 1.33 and Reckless Dodge is 1.75

I’m a bit mad at the bound nerf. It would’ve made sense if the sigil overhaul hadn’t also happened, but the only reliable damage the valk acro staff build ever had were vaults, dodges and the air/blood sigil procs. Instead of nerfing these gradually, they worsened all three components of the build at the same time and now there is really no reason to run the build since other classes’ 1v1 builds are more potent.