Guild Wars 2

tell me your S/D experience after the september patch.

Im @ rank #50 ish to #90 Solo tpvp (former #11) my usual build is D/P 2/6/0/0/6 and S/D 2/0/0/6/6

1. Flanking Strike
   so i did 2 solo tpvp twice s/d 2/0/0/6/6 and it feels so so awkward half of my FS fail due to dodge,block, blind and i often land FS via precasting FS>Shadowsteps like steal or infilt.signet or #2 immobil cuz i need to catch em by surprise cuz smart players in tpvp can easily avoid (dodge,blind,aegis) Flanking Strike if u will just go near em and cast FS due to sound effect of FS and obvious animation

1. Larcenous Strike
   we cannot guarantee LS to land it by 100% or not even 70% during a high tier match cuz of SLOW casting time and it is easier to do a perfect backstab than to land your Flanking Strike>Larcenous Strike + u will just lose all your initiatives trying

- D/P still doesn’t have a solid place in team fights + the Black Powder Nerf LOL R.I.P. Thief (2014 september patch worst ever for thief)

the flanking strike nerf was incredibly misguided. if it at least worked so that you could successfully chain it like auto attacks on blocking/invuln players it would have made some sense, but now the design of flanking strike -> larcenous strike is up there alongside the placement of assassin’s equilibrium at the end of acro as one of thief’s worst design choices for a few completely obvious reasons:

• 1. it not only doesn’t fix the only issue people had with flanking strike (it being spammed for evades) but it goes on to make it even worse. the people who already spam flanking strike aren’t going to stop because it costs one more initiative, they’re the kind of players that don’t know how to manage initiative or care to do so. hilariously enough you’re actually rewarding spamming by making it instantly chainable and actually cost less initiative than it would have previously done to do so; you can get 6 straight flanking strikes in the same amount of initiative it would have previously costed to get only 4.
• 2. it hurts s/d’s standout ability to rip boons in a meta filled with builds centered around boons. other things can do this, but s/d thief was the best at it because it could actually keep up with the reality of how fast boons could be (re)applied while remaining a hard hitting threat.
• 3. the whole point of an unblockable skill is to be able to hit people who are… well, blocking. that being said, i really hope making flanking strike not chain when hitting blocking opponents is a bug or something as i struggle to find the reasoning behind making an unblockable skill counterable by blocking.

had a few duels with another S/d thief after the patch hit and each duel was literally us dancing in circles for about 10 mins per duel until one of us ran out of initiative,( that one of us more often than not being the other thief due to the fact that we were both running 20066 except i had swapped sleight of hand for hastened replenish and powerful inertia for assassin’s reward).
Anet had said they wanted to make dodging less prevalant in s/d thieves, but instead gave us a straight 9 dodges, in the prepatch 20066 meta not counting dodges from vigor, and on top of that, made our unblockable hardhitting attack inaccessible while your opponent is blocking… so…. please, if my confusion is misguided in this matter, i’d appreciate some logical explanation on how this change makes any sense. until i receive said explanation, i continue to say “….lolwut…”

p.s. i think Anet is confused. perhaps they should level-gate their access to balance patches until they get more experience.

nexidecimus.5973:

i think Anet is confused. perhaps they should level-gate their access to balance patches until they get more experience.

This.
Wins.
The.
Internets.

Wow. I’m going to F1 that and throw it down in my sig!

Enjoying the new flanking strike. Lets me actually fight against engies and their kitten storm.

The cases where I want the evade outnumber the cases where I want boon steal like 10 to 1 (cause bountiful theft anyway). I’ve never had initiative issues and I still don’t, so I guess people who say they do are just spamming 33333 when autoattack would deal more DPS.

Change was only a nerf vs guards and eles(like it matters) but a buff in survivability which helps against the glass builds we are supposed to be fighting

Edit: lol I bet we get more evade nerfs now though, not even necessary to run energy sigils

FS is not for dealing Damage, is more for movement and evading … if you pair it up with IS or Shadowstep gz … fully wasted .
You would rather use C’n’D .

The Damage comes from your Sword AA and you can also hit if you time it right , just have to watch the nmy’s dodges now and not spam 3,3,3,3,3,3 all day.

I feel they should have made it turn over to larcenous strike when the attack is blocked. Semantically speaking, a block is still technically a hit, just not where you intended to hit. This, or they should have given us something back in exchange, such as a missed flanking strike - if it doesn’t count as a hit - not resetting your auto attack chain, making flanking strike unblockable too, buffing larcenous strike so you have more time to use it, restoring it to its former glory of stealing two boons, or increasing the damage of one of both of the attacks.

That being said, it is still a completely viable set, just nerfed once again, and probably again next patch, and so on as seems to be the pattern.

S/D is has less damage now? YES.
S/D brakoen, not viable, bad even in top pvp play? NO.
You just need to change your game style. damage now comes much more from AA chain than LS. My tip is keep pressure with AA chain. use FS only to dodge! one more dodge!! or u can use it as offensive tool if the target has some great ight stacks or stab.

Walker.3056:

S/D is has less damage now? YES.
S/D brakoen, not viable, bad even in top pvp play? NO.
You just need to change your game style. damage now comes much more from AA chain than LS. My tip is keep pressure with AA chain. use FS only to dodge! one more dodge!! or u can use it as offensive tool if the target has some great ight stacks or stab.

Yea its weaker but after playing with it more it may still be viable. What I do now i open cnd+steal D/D style, try to get daze, then 3 (pause: they always dodge right after daze) then LS. Nowhere near as bursty, and not sure if it’ll end up getting completely outshined by d/p, but its a little better than my first impressions of it

ArenaNet has always had problem with consistency in their definition of functions.

A Block is a hit that deals no damage (GW2 Wiki).

Thus it should satisfy that requirement.

Walker.3056:

S/D is has less damage now? YES.
S/D brakoen, not viable, bad even in top pvp play? NO.
You just need to change your game style. damage now comes much more from AA chain than LS. My tip is keep pressure with AA chain. use FS only to dodge! one more dodge!! or u can use it as offensive tool if the target has some great ight stacks or stab.

Don’t forget less boon ripping. I’d like to think that auto attack was already used as a primary source of damage, and larcenous simply when it was ready after using flanking strike as an evade, or to steal might stacks from warriors/elementalists, or remove stability (I know it’s still stealing but the purpose is to have them removed from the target) in order to crowd control a reviver or lich. Elementalists can now protect their juicy 15+ stacks of might from us just by dodging the telegraphed flanking strike, and stability can be protected with blinds and blocks while reviving. It introduces some nice counterplay to S/D, but having an unblockable attack which only has a 5 second window to be used requiring an unblocked hit to be accessed has removed a the counterplay thief has and brings to a team against blocking skills. In my mind, a flanking strike is a flank intended to avoid damage and or bypass a block followed by a counter strike which – given the bypassed block – should land. This kind of worked in the past in that flanking strike flanked and made available an unblockable attack, fitting the thief/assassin/acrobatic style very well, but now that element is gone without compensation. I can understand how one might argue that aegis should always block it because it’s a boon rather than a skill, but not blocks like shield stance and shelter. It’s not like it was without cost and risk either, because it used up a lot of initiative for a single strike.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ArenaNet has always had problem with consistency in their definition of functions.

A Block is a hit that deals no damage ("GW2 Wiki":http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Block).

Thus it should satisfy that requirement.

A point I was trying to make on another thread in the sPvP forum, and even referenced ANet’s definition of hit when they were making the changes to RTL, stating that it would be intended that a block still count as a hit thus reducing the cooldown to 20 seconds. I don’t know whether the people replying there genuinely can’t grasp the concept or just hate thieves with a vengeance, but they insisted that a block is not a hit... Of course, ANet has opted not to clarify or even state whether or not flanking strike not turning over when blocked is intentional. In ready up, the terms "blind" and "evade" were used in explaining when it would not turn over, but nothing was said about blocks. For all we know, given that they never fixed RTL to work as they originally claimed it would, they might have changed their minds on what constitutes a hit, but it would be nice to know for sure.. to know whether the skill is in fact working as intended or not.

Walker.3056:

damage now comes much more from AA chain

This is very sad and makes for a very bland weapon set :/

stof.9341:

Walker.3056:

damage now comes much more from AA chain

This is very sad and makes for a very bland weapon set :/

Well not really, the damage was always from AA , but one could also just wear down other class speccs by spmming #3.
So its good that this is not working any more.

But even then, agains better players S/D was not only #3 it was much more than that.
Knowing when to retreat and when to use #4 and #5.

So the nerf / change to FS somewhat encourages more ppl to think instead of spamming #3 over and over again.

moi.4398:

Impact.2780:

I feel they should have made it turn over to larcenous strike when the attack is blocked. Semantically speaking, a block is still technically a hit, just not where you intended to hit.

With that logic you should be revealed when your backstab get block right ?

Yes.

moi.4398:

Impact.2780:

I feel they should have made it turn over to larcenous strike when the attack is blocked. Semantically speaking, a block is still technically a hit, just not where you intended to hit.

With that logic you should be revealed when your backstab get block right ?

Seeing the word logic mentioned, how come backstab isn’t unblockable? Does people with blocks have an extra invisible shield and an extra pair of strong arms, and eyes that escape consciousness granting them visions of the unknown? In order to allow them to protect their golden butts?

After studying behavioral patterns of the balance team for quite some time, it’s just a matter of time until we have reveal on block as well, might even be before they decide to fix the steal bug.

Afterall, thieves hardcounters needs to be even stronger ! Since med guardians doesn’t already kill thieves in a couple of seconds.

Impact.2780:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ArenaNet has always had problem with consistency in their definition of functions.

A Block is a hit that deals no damage (GW2 Wiki).

Thus it should satisfy that requirement.

A point I was trying to make on another thread in the sPvP forum, and even referenced ANet’s definition of hit when they were making the changes to RTL, stating that it would be intended that a block still count as a hit thus reducing the cooldown to 20 seconds. I don’t know whether the people replying there genuinely can’t grasp the concept or just hate thieves with a vengeance, but they insisted that a block is not a hit… Of course, ANet has opted not to clarify or even state whether or not flanking strike not turning over when blocked is intentional. In ready up, the terms “blind” and “evade” were used in explaining when it would not turn over, but nothing was said about blocks. For all we know, given that they never fixed RTL to work as they originally claimed it would, they might have changed their minds on what constitutes a hit, but it would be nice to know for sure.. to know whether the skill is in fact working as intended or not.

I don’t really know why blocking is difficult to comprehend.

If someone swing a sword at you, they will either miss, or hit. You can dodge the attack so it will deal no damage, which means, the attack didn’t hit. If you did not dodge, it will hit you. And because it will hit you and you cannot dodge for some reason, your only option it to block it. The sword hits you, but since you blocked it, it didn’t do damage.

However, I think the problem with GW2 is that blocking is not necessarily means that you are blocking with your shield, thus an Aegis blocking an attack will not be considered a hit. But then, if the attack is not a hit, why block it?

In a classic table top DnD, you roll a hit die, if it’s high enough it’s a hit, then you can roll for reflexes to try to dodge or block the attack, else it will deal damage.

I don’t know, ArenaNet needs to re-evaluate their mechanics and clearly define what is a hit.

Just had a match where I found myself fighting a minion master. No problem, of course, until I encountered a very strange behaviour from flanking strike which I’ve never experienced before. The necro has minions around them, so even if they dodge, it’ll still hit a minion and turn over to larcenous, so you’d think the fight would be almost the same as pre-patch. Three times (in a row deliberately because I couldn’t understand why it was happening) I used flanking strike with the necromancer targeted... Flanking strike behaved as if I had no target and went off in the wrong direction. There’s no doubt I had a target. I always have a target, and as I said I did this three times in a row trying to figure out what was causing it.

At the minimum, they should make Flanking Strike Unblockable or cycle to LS even if blocked since the later is Unblockable and so the whole skill was meant to be used to steal any boon, even Aegis.

It’s hilarious how wrong are such a large amount of Thiefs (even the OP’s top 50 whatever..). This build is actually stronger than before because you can now, literally, pema evade while still doing a lot of damage with your auto attack (I never counted on lacernous strike to do the dps for me before, flanking strike as here to close the gap/evade a big skill from your opponent… autoattack hits harder and procs more sigil).

This build has become even more cancerous and is even harder to deal with…. yet so many thiefs are complaining, christ…

In the end, a lot of Thiefs are leaving their char because of this patch because they don’t understand the change and that won’t bother anyone, on the contrary

Ergolicious.1507:

It’s hilarious how wrong are such a large amount of Thiefs (even the OP’s top 50 whatever..). This build is actually stronger than before because you can now, literally, pema evade while still doing a lot of damage with your auto attack (I never counted on lacernous strike to do the dps for me before, flanking strike as here to close the gap/evade a big skill from your opponent… autoattack hits harder and procs more sigil).

This build has become even more cancerous and is even harder to deal with…. yet so many thiefs are complaining, christ…

In the end, a lot of Thiefs are leaving their char because of this patch because they don’t understand the change and that won’t bother anyone, on the contrary

Perma-evade with a 4 init cost? Don’t be ridiculous!

Your level of understanding is laughable and you have the nerve to ridicule our concerns?

That additional init in the cost is a 30% increase. That increase nets less evades because in a 15 init bar, where we used to able to evade for 5 times, we can now only evade for 3 times.

Your idea of “perma-evade” is based on an uneducated guess.

No thank you.

Ergolicious.1507:

It’s hilarious how wrong are such a large amount of Thiefs (even the OP’s top 50 whatever..). This build is actually stronger than before because you can now, literally, pema evade while still doing a lot of damage with your auto attack (I never counted on lacernous strike to do the dps for me before, flanking strike as here to close the gap/evade a big skill from your opponent… autoattack hits harder and procs more sigil).

This build has become even more cancerous and is even harder to deal with…. yet so many thiefs are complaining, christ…

In the end, a lot of Thiefs are leaving their char because of this patch because they don’t understand the change and that won’t bother anyone, on the contrary

Lol @ auto attacks doing more than larcenous. A lot of people have been saying that but its completely false. Sure maybe PvE style standing still for 10 seconds spamming 1 outdamages spamming 3, but in a practical usage during PvP carefully time LS strikes were the key to bursting, particularly in the opening sequence.

I’m starting to incorporate more CnD into my playstyle to daze and get guaranteed land on 3

Y’all need to chill, S/D is still perfectly playable (and now you guys have a better excuse to run Hastened Replenishment with S/D! Which is something I’ve advocated for a while but nobody ever really seems to talk about it). I don’t know that ANet necessarily made the right changes to S/D, but it’s obviously not as overpowered as it was before.

What you should be more concerned about are AI builds such as turret engi and the now fantastic Scepter mesmer.

Ergolicious.1507:

It’s hilarious how wrong are such a large amount of Thiefs (even the OP’s top 50 whatever..). This build is actually stronger than before because you can now, literally, pema evade while still doing a lot of damage with your auto attack (I never counted on lacernous strike to do the dps for me before, flanking strike as here to close the gap/evade a big skill from your opponent… autoattack hits harder and procs more sigil).

This build has become even more cancerous and is even harder to deal with…. yet so many thiefs are complaining, christ…

In the end, a lot of Thiefs are leaving their char because of this patch because they don’t understand the change and that won’t bother anyone, on the contrary

Yes, increasing the initiative cost of FS to four on an animation which can be effectively read and countered and making it far more difficult to use LS- which does twice the damage of FS and boonsteals- made S/D even more overpowered than before.

and also had few duels with same 2/0/0/6/6 s/d thief build and the result is draw… we’re both just running out of initiatives and get tired of tryin FS>LS and the Auto attack chain and SB are my only source of damage lol