Guild Wars 2

Do you realize that you have done far more than just make a thief disappear less often?

One second extra on the revealed debuff does not address the problem that most people are having with thieves in WvW and PVP. A burst thief still exists and will still most likely one shot you, the only thing he can’t do is go back to stealth as quick to stomp. Culling was a large reason thieves were able to move around packs in WvW. The instant burst problem was allowing steal to remain off the GCD when MUG is traited. Make it where when using MUG stops other animations or has to wait until others are finished.

Adding 1 second to a 3 second buff is putting many abilities on a much longer cooldown without allowing any damage to make up for it. This also increases the cost to damage ratio of CnD and any stealth ability.

Shadow Arts is an entire trait line dedicated to a skill that obviously is loved/hated by the community, but in many ways is our best/and only support ability. Thieves already take a huge dps nerf waiting in stealth in both pvp and pve. Now the abilties that harmonize with it will suffer. In PVE especially stealth is our saving grace, and now we will easily be the brunt of more attacks. We only get so many dodges. Are we just supposed to GS warrior everything?

Traits:

Now shadow protector cannot be used in such quick succession (not a large loss, but no healing compensated here).
Shadow’s Embrace being one of our main ways of removing reapplying damaging conditions to our already low HP pool. Making S/x our best way of removing conditions anymore which can be very initiative heavy or prevent use of many other skills).
Infusions of shadow will now obviously proc less often, lowering the overall dps of CnD.
Cloaked in shadows recieves a huge nerf. Now only being able to proc every 4 seconds instead of 3. Over any lengthy fight, this can be a very big deal.
Patience and Shadow Rejuventation also will be Healing/Regen Initiative less.
Hidden Assaassin will now lower might stacking for the build (although the potency of using it in shadow’s refuge will still remain strong).

Most of the shadow art’s trait line has just suffered several nerfs from 1 problem.

Hidden Killer also comes in, taking away more guaranteed crits from builds that rely on it and stealth to prevent having to stack precision.
Fleet Shadow, small nerf to mobility. I found this talent extremely useful with my S/D build.

Weapon sets.

S/D builds will daze 1 second less often.
P/D will now have to wait longer to keep bleeds stacked and dps nerf as skill 1,2 can be lackluster.
D/D obviously will not be able to backstab as often, dps nerf.
D/P small nerf to dps using combo field, although speccing heavy into initiative regen builds that may use this to blind often will suffer more.

So far I see nothing to compensate the thief for being exposed more often especially after having an entire trait line and several weapon sets that seem dedicated to the idea of being elusive. If you want thieves to be seen more often then corresponding skills should have been buffed and tweaked to keep their effectiveness.

Stealth was also one of our powerful “dodge” mechanics. I think most would agree this class must dodge to survive more than many others, while having half of our weapon set be in melee range. At the very least the dodge bar for thieves could have been increased to 3 or 4 instead of 2, and the stealth weapon skills could have a damage/duration buff.

I just fill this is a very very bandaid fix on top of a culling issue.

They have made it clear that they do not understand balancing in any way, shape or form. The change they mentioned in SOTG (revealed whether you attack or not) would have been perfect. When almost all stealths end in some form of attack, you only get punished if you miss by your own failure or if the enemy is skilled enough to outwit you, by form of invulnerability skills, dodges or otherwise. I would have embraced that change, and PvE would be largely unaffected.

Instead, a huge bunch of builds become obsolete in anywhere that isn’t PvP, where the complaints came from in the first place.

dirtyshame.1863:

Do you realize that you have done far more than just make a thief disappear less often?

One second extra on the revealed debuff does not address the problem that most people are having with thieves in WvW and PVP. A burst thief still exists and will still most likely one shot you, the only thing he can’t do is go back to stealth as quick to stomp. Culling was a large reason thieves were able to move around packs in WvW. The instant burst problem was allowing steal to remain off the GCD when MUG is traited. Make it where when using MUG stops other animations or has to wait until others are finished.

Adding 1 second to a 3 second buff is putting many abilities on a much longer cooldown without allowing any damage to make up for it. This also increases the cost to damage ratio of CnD and any stealth ability.

Traits:

Now shadow protector cannot be used in such quick succession (not a large loss, but no healing compensated here).
Shadow’s Embrace being one of our main ways of removing reapplying damaging conditions to our already low HP pool. Making S/x our best way of removing conditions anymore which can be very initiative heavy or prevent use of many other skills).
Infusions of shadow will now obviously proc less often, lowering the overall dps of CnD.
Cloaked in shadows recieves a huge nerf. Now only being able to proc every 4 seconds instead of 3. Over any lenghty fight, this can be a very big deal.
Patience and Shadow Rejuventation also will be Healing less.
Hidden Assaassin will now lower might stacking for the build (although the potency of using it in shadow’s refuge will still remain strong).

Most of the shadow art’s trait line has just suffered several nerfs from 1 problem.

Hidden Killer also comes in, taking away more guaranteed crits from builds that rely on it and stealth to prevent having to stack precision.
Fleet Shadow, small nerf to mobility. I found this talent extremely useful with my S/D build.

Weapon sets.

S/D builds will daze 1 second less often.
P/D will now have to wait longer to keep bleeds stacked and dps nerf as skill 1,2 can be lackluster.
D/D obviously will not be able to backstab as often, dps nerf.
D/P small nerf to dps using combo field, although speccing heavy into initiative regen builds that may use this to blind often will suffer more.

---

So far I see nothing to compensate the thief for being exposed more often especially after having an entire trait line and several weapon sets that seem dedicated to the idea of being elusive. If you want thieves to be seen more often then corresponding skills should have been buffed and tweaked to keep their effectiveness.

Stealth was also one of our powerful “dodge” mechanics. I think most would agree this class must dodge to survive more than many others, while having half of our weapon set be in melee range. At the very least the dodge bar for thieves could have been increased to 3 or 4 instead of 2, and the stealth weapon skills could have a damage/duration buff.

I just fill this is a very very bandaid fix on top of a culling issue.

Don’t worry, D/D Elementalist isn’t effected by these changes at all.

Could it be that the Backstab damage was reduced as well? My thief deals now less then a third of the damage with this skill. No changes at equip were made.

I also agree with dirtyshame.

Its a shame to nerf the one thing this whole profession is built around.

I would love to know HOW do A-net tests these changes internally and in all aspects of the game.

this way it would be easier for everybody to understand they’re reasons for these changes.

This is my first post on these forums ever. Infact, it is the first time I have logged into them but I feel it is now necessary to voice opinion.

This nerf is so short sited. In the recent state of game you mentioned revealed regardless of attacking, this would have been fine. It seems like you came up with a last minute change without thinking it through.

Anet, PLEASE revert the revealed change and THINK about what this will do to the class. I have spent months saving for my appearance based around my sword dagger build, I spent £40 buying your GW1 and 4 days to get hall of monuments fiery dragon sword, I’ve just now finished my t3 cultural set AND tomorrow when I finish my world completion will have incinerator, all this work is ripped in half because of a short sighted nerf.

I wouldn’t mind it if the sword dagger set had ANYTHING to compensate for this. You nerfed dancing dagger, ok no problem it was kinda OP especially on pet classes. Flanking strike has been broken since the beginning and with one stone you killed cloak and dagger and my main source of damage (auto attack).

As it worked, auto attack has stealth attack + three strikes – the final being the main damage dealer. This timed perfectly with revealed, allowing me to chain 5/1/1/1/1/5/1/1/1/1.

With this nerf, I have an extra second of time where I have NOTHING I can do. Flanking strike is worthless, Infiltrators does nothing, dancing dagger is poor. The only thing I can do is first auto attack (which is bad damage) until revealed is up and I can cloak and dagger.

You have ripped this game from under my feet – I was having so much fun, I have found my non-cookie-cutter-glasscanon-hs spam build and built my appearance up from this.

To top it off you add WVW progression and then destroy it for me by making me want to stop playing my class.

And to the people who play other classes and don’t use this skill, DO NOT REPLY. You cannot understand how this has messed things up unless you actually play the class, this is ridiculous. I have tested this for the past hour or two and tried altering my build but it is dead.

Thanks for Reading, if you did. I would be more than happy to talk to a dev and walk through my build/playstyle and why I think this should be reverted if you would like.

All that and you didn’t even cover the worst of the PvE nerfs. My healing and damage just went to crap with the cal-traps nerf. Venom builds are even more useless then they already were.

But don’t worry, they buffed warriors! again!

Haitch.3864:

This is my first post on these forums ever. Infact, it is the first time I have logged into them but I feel it is now necessary to voice opinion.

This nerf is so short sited. In the recent state of game you mentioned revealed regardless of attacking, this would have been fine. It seems like you came up with a last minute change without thinking it through.

Anet, PLEASE revert the revealed change and THINK about what this will do to the class. I have spent months saving for my appearance based around my sword dagger build, I spent £40 buying your GW1 and 4 days to get hall of monuments fiery dragon sword, I’ve just now finished my t3 cultural set AND tomorrow when I finish my world completion will have incinerator, all this work is ripped in half because of a short sighted nerf.

I wouldn’t mind it if the sword dagger set had ANYTHING to compensate for this. You nerfed dancing dagger, ok no problem it was kinda OP especially on pet classes. Flanking strike has been broken since the beginning and with one stone you killed cloak and dagger and my main source of damage (auto attack).

As it worked, auto attack has stealth attack + three strikes – the final being the main damage dealer. This timed perfectly with revealed, allowing me to chain 5/1/1/1/1/5/1/1/1/1.

With this nerf, I have an extra second of time where I have NOTHING I can do. Flanking strike is worthless, Infiltrators does nothing, dancing dagger is poor. The only thing I can do is first auto attack (which is bad damage) until revealed is up and I can cloak and dagger.

You have ripped this game from under my feet – I was having so much fun, I have found my non-cookie-cutter-glasscanon-hs spam build and built my appearance up from this.

To top it off you add WVW progression and then destroy it for me by making me want to stop playing my class.

And to the people who play other classes and don’t use this skill, DO NOT REPLY. You cannot understand how this has messed things up unless you actually play the class, this is ridiculous. I have tested this for the past hour or two and tried altering my build but it is dead.

Thanks for Reading, if you did. I would be more than happy to talk to a dev and walk through my build/playstyle and why I think this should be reverted if you would like.

Sword dagger has taken a bit hit i agree…

would have preferred revealed whenever leaving stealth over this…

ZudetGambeous.9573:

All that and you didn’t even cover the worst of the PvE nerfs. My healing and damage just went to crap with the cal-traps nerf. Venom builds are even more useless then they already were.

But don’t worry, they buffed warriors! again!

Buffed warriors? The global change on Quickness hit them. Hard. They just tried to soften the blow by buffing their kick. Their kick, of all things.

dirtyshame, I totally agree with everything that you said. Very disappointed in the last update, mostly regarding the thief nerfs. Everyone complains about thieves being op and bursting people down. Now they can’t do that now people will stop complaining? The main reason everyone complains is that so called perma-stealth which doesn’t exist. Well not in a battle at least. Now they give thieves 1 more second on reveal and nothing to compensate for it. Thief mobility was mostly based on stealth and the occasional evade skills. In fact the Hidden Killer trait was also ripped away, but that will “maybe” be fixed soon

The first thing they should’ve dealt with was the problem when exiting stealth and making them visible right away and not to nerf the profession so much.

Like Auesis said, "they have made it clear that they do not understand balancing in any way, shape or form. "

They just nerfed us into warriors, but with half the hp, toughness and damage. We have the lowest health pool of the melee classes, and now we have to stay in the opponents face for one extra second. For a thief with 10-17k hp that is a lot of time.

I completely agree with what you are saying OP and Haitch. My SD / DP build is next to useless…

We do not have the lowest health pool of the melee classes. We plain have the lowest health pool of the whole game.

Haitch.3864:

This is my first post on these forums ever. Infact, it is the first time I have logged into them but I feel it is now necessary to voice opinion.

This nerf is so short sited. In the recent state of game you mentioned revealed regardless of attacking, this would have been fine. It seems like you came up with a last minute change without thinking it through.

Anet, PLEASE revert the revealed change and THINK about what this will do to the class. I have spent months saving for my appearance based around my sword dagger build, I spent £40 buying your GW1 and 4 days to get hall of monuments fiery dragon sword, I’ve just now finished my t3 cultural set AND tomorrow when I finish my world completion will have incinerator, all this work is ripped in half because of a short sighted nerf.

I wouldn’t mind it if the sword dagger set had ANYTHING to compensate for this. You nerfed dancing dagger, ok no problem it was kinda OP especially on pet classes. Flanking strike has been broken since the beginning and with one stone you killed cloak and dagger and my main source of damage (auto attack).

As it worked, auto attack has stealth attack + three strikes – the final being the main damage dealer. This timed perfectly with revealed, allowing me to chain 5/1/1/1/1/5/1/1/1/1.

With this nerf, I have an extra second of time where I have NOTHING I can do. Flanking strike is worthless, Infiltrators does nothing, dancing dagger is poor. The only thing I can do is first auto attack (which is bad damage) until revealed is up and I can cloak and dagger.

You have ripped this game from under my feet – I was having so much fun, I have found my non-cookie-cutter-glasscanon-hs spam build and built my appearance up from this.

To top it off you add WVW progression and then destroy it for me by making me want to stop playing my class.

And to the people who play other classes and don’t use this skill, DO NOT REPLY. You cannot understand how this has messed things up unless you actually play the class, this is ridiculous. I have tested this for the past hour or two and tried altering my build but it is dead.

Thanks for Reading, if you did. I would be more than happy to talk to a dev and walk through my build/playstyle and why I think this should be reverted if you would like.

Well said. The rotation issues you mention are the same with Dagger/Dagger. Very clunky messy feel to the class now… The Reveal after breaking stealth regardless of attacking would of been the perfect solution. Everyones rotations stay the same, NOTHING changes unless you screw up and miss your opponent, or your opponent out plays you.

Part of me isn’t too worried and thinks A-Net will change it back to 3 seconds and go that route… it just seems too obvious not too. If it stays like this then it’s pretty depressing how they just ruined a whole class.

Well said, op. I have always enjoyed /assassin like classes in mmos and this patch with its bugs makes my playstyle seem awkward and weak. I have never abused c&d or stealth stacking in any way. These changes and bugs couldn’t possibly have been aimed to fix the abusers. This was a wvw PvP and pve nerf to dps and many playstyles/builds that no one complained about.

I hope you all realize that this patch didn’t fix the issues people complained about, thus anet will have to make more changes on top of this patch. When that happens it will most likely affect all of us non abusers as well.