Guild Wars 2

Thief is dead. Simple.
Thief dev team is lazy. Nothing is done right, new spec is not even a new job they took old animation all together and say “hey now you are bruiser with 11k HP, please dodge”.
+ This last patch note preview. What a joke, all they said was bullkitten improvement that noone cares about. Dev don’t even know what is wrong with pistol so they came like “Hey, buff damage, hihi enjoy”. They don’t even bring D/D to the table, hell they won’t improve it.

I think Daredevil spec is simply a vizualisation of the attention thief gets right now. All classes buf thief got shiny new mechanics with really good work on it, new animations, new pets, new effects, new mechanics, new everything. Thief got old junk animations, stupid synergy, no really new mechanics, no new effects, nothing. That’s what you can expect in the future.

In a sentence: Reroll or leave the game. What’s the point of playing thief anymore?

Karl McLain.5604:

Punishing Strikes: Increased damage by 20% per attack. Added a missile reflect skill fact.
Hook Strike: Increased damage by ~250%. note: The damage is still on the lower side for the weapon, but now deals more than practically zero. This ability is intended to set up high damage combos through crowd control, thus we’re trying to keep the damage lower than other from-stealth abilities.

Weakening Charge: This ability is now targeted, with the animation being cleaned up a bit. Distance traveled is slightly less, to increase the ease of landing multiple hits on a target. Reduced aftercast slightly (120ms).

Debilitating Arc: Included an evade fact. This ability continues to evade from the start of the ability.

Impaling Lotus: Removed the hidden initiative cost.

Oooh that’s what I like to see! Finally!
2 could be great, depending on the modified range.
3 If it evades from the start of the animation, we could finally fully avoid a burst with it. Which is great and makes more sense.
4 is still useless, but hey every thief weapon set got kitteneless skill.
5 Would need a bit more attention here. I think there is 2 possibility but for any of these 2 to work out well it need a change.

Possibility 1: Staff being used as a main weapon ONLY (ie. Staff + SB).
The ability still needs an evade, we are to vulnerable while doing it. It’s an evasive build, so no stealth, and the cost should be one reason it should provides some defensive mecanism.

Possibility 2: Staff could replace SB as a weapon switch (ie. D/P + Staff).
It could be a great change in the thief world if we had something else than a SB as a weapon switch. Since 2012 every thief is using a shortbow. Why not changing it?
In anyway, the ability would need 900 range and still an evade to even think of the possibility. But 900 range could be a bit too much considering the rest of the abilities, so i guess damage should be tweaked as well.

As for the rest,

Bandit’s Defense: An active KD would be MUCH better! Even if we only have the block animation time to use it!

Impairing Daggers: An increased velocity would be really appreciated here. Like I said in my previous statement projectiles just disappear into thin air because of it in real PvP combat.

Impact Strike: It should stuns 2 seconds. Not dazing 2 seconds. At the moment, there is no reason to choose it instead of the venom. Venom is 2 sec hard CC, really easy to land.
Impact Strike is just dazing the target, and it requires an extra animation risking dodge, block and interrupt (which is not the case of the venom). So OK, there is more than just the dazing part, but GL to land it in PvP. That’s why, in my opinion, it requires a stun instead of a daze.
But i agree, adding a stun mecanism to this ultimate, considering the other parts would place it in a better place than the venom. That’s why it should also have an increased cooldown. Like 1 minute or 1 minute and a half.

And if that happens. Well, i guess we finally get ourselves a good elite specialization!

+ I’d like to see the monkey king animations while using a staff. We all know, staff animations at this point are cheesy.

Karl McLain.5604:

Yo!
First off, let me say thanks for all of the constructive feedback you’ve been providing. We had a great weekend watching everyone jump around like madmen. Here’s where we’ll be going with Daredevil in the future.

Yeah well… I’ve read it all and i am really disappointed with the changes.
You may have read what the community asked but you didn’t listen for the most part. In fact, the only good thing there is Weakening charge with an “ala heartseeker” mecanism.

The staff is still a useless weapon and you won’t see many madmen jumping around on release if it stays that way.. OK now we will place our 2 with a correct animation but it still doesn’t adress the rest of the issues.
1- I’m not even sure Dust Strike with an instant animation will find usefullness.
2- The dodge is useless as it is. You can spam it so yeah you dodge but you are useless and the only times you really need to use it is when you are immobilized and because of the 2 part animation, you can’t even break it in time to fully avoid a burst.
3- Vault is the only thing doing damage. And well… Even grandma could dodge it. And the 1/4 animation gained would not cut it. The animation is too obvious, the range is kitten and even if it lands pray for crit cause it’s useless otherwise.
4- The staff does not give extra survivability. In fact, it gives less. The only real extra survivability you’ll find in staff is the endurance gain through the traitlines. BUT, you can’t have the dodge condi cure at the same time, and you WILL have it IF YOU WANT with another weapon. So you lose it, and the staff skills does not grant survivability cause of the clunkyness but you’ll lose the stealth, combat mobility and blind from D/P. Plus D/P do like twice the damage with a lot more precision and FUN.

Bandit Defense 15 secondes? Why not, but well.. It’s funny to see Berserker’s break stun is still 10 sec? I guess thief should still be nerfed in every way. Lol.
Plus, like every staff skills, there is a huge problem with this utility (which is by the way, the only good utility provided by the elite spec lol). It stops blocking whenever an ennemy hitting us is in range, so it kittens all the purpose of the skill which is blocking.
Sometimes interrupting someone is good, but i’d like to be able to use it WHEN I WANT it to be used. So i don’t die cause of the long animation at max range, cause it attacks a minion, cause the dude had a passive block, or whatever.

As for Impairing daggers, the projectiles should be a lot more faster. Most of the time it disappears in the void, it does not hit the target and it makes it useless. Even if the guy is not dodging, blocking, or goes out of range, just by moving and the terrain it misses. The animation should be reworked because of that and it will be the second usefull utility of the elite spec.

I won’t comment on the other changes because even with that the others utilities will still be of no use. The changes in the traits are useless, except the bug corrections, no one will use Evasive empowerment.

Anyway, like i said: very disappointed with the changes. I expected something good I guess. But hey, i can still be D/P like the rest of the thief world.

mickers.2715:

Every time invis procs when i get low hp in pvp i just happen to be casting cloak and dagger at the same time which then breaks my stealth.

This.

I really think they should modify this utility.

Right now we can see a lot of thieves who use it only for the “10-5-f1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2-” combo. It’s kinda broken that way because if they don’t insta-kill someone, they switch of weapon, they use shadow’s refuge then they flee with SB.
For a more common use it is not a usefull utility. Why is that ? Because it makes us lose all of our endurance + stop the endurance’s regeneration for a certain amount of time. It’s the worst thing to use to break stun actually, but it is our only offensive break stun, and by that i mean something that improve our DPS not just a TP.

My guess is they should nerf the movement speed improvement (actually +100%, i think of something more like 30-50%) and delete the negative effect. That way it will be a great break stun and they will finaly manage to properly nerf GC-trololo build.

And maybe.. I just say MAYBE, whiners are going to cry less.

Silverthorn.8576:

what gameplay? thief have no gameplay compare to the other classes.
It hits like a truk, has 4 ways to be invisible IN FIGHT and it is too easy to play.
I just do a BG with something like 6 thiefs it was a totally stupid game. Some fights i take more than 25 heart strike.
A no brain class like this should not be on live! Why did you do a beta seriously? Thief are ruining the game because it has so many advantages compare to its burst.

LOL
You survived 24 heartseeker, please nerf it, it deals too much damage !
Seriously a L2P is needed here. If you can’t kill a noob who do 24 times the same thing in a row, you should wonder who is the liar or the noob here.
There is a more no brain class out there, it’s called Warrior. You should test it maybe you will find a way to do 25 times hundred blades in a fight.

Novalight.7568:

On your elementalists get more and more powerful…I can just lol. You serious?? How, gimme evidence. They nerfed the bunkers, nerfed tornado, don’t get me started on how ele was in betas… They fixed few skills (fixing skills that benefit eles usually so they don’t benefit anymore heh). Scepter and staff are kinda useless in sPvP compared to daggers (woo, 1 weapon ele can use with success), elite skills suck. Oh…and ele downed state went from 100% free stomp to useful…you referring to that zomg so gamebreaking buff?? As far as I’m concerned thieves still have more builds that are successful than ele in sPVP, feel free to prove me wrong since I admit i’m not most knowledgeable in that regard (been slacking since crapoween event).

Actually elems have a lot of dispells, good damages – and insane AoE damage -, multiple heals (water spells + heal), good defense, boons, multiple break stun and one of the best mobility if not the best combat mobility in the game. All in the same D/D build.
So yeah actually elems dont have a lot of weapons to use.. They use D/D or Staff in massive PvP, D/D for roaming, D/D in sPvP and sometimes they are playing with Scepter/Dagger.. But their D/D dispell tanky Damage Dealer build is totally kittened up in the hands of a good player. Not everyone can play this good, but when one does it’s kinda OP. When they will get really good Elite skills, i think it will be insane..
I am not complaining about this class actually, i just say that people are crying over and over again on the thief but War, Elem and Mesmer are as good – if not better – as the thief is. But just because Mesmer can’t perma-stealth (but they can deal damage while they are invisible) and other classes can’t stealth at all (except for the ranger and the engineer) : Thief must be OP.

Thuran.7624:

“Several hours”. It has now been 15 hours and I have yet to recieve anything in my mail!

Can I get to panic now?!

I think we are screwed

AcidicVision.5498:

Nerfing thieves has pretty much been the answer to everything. As far as I can tell there hasn’t even been an honest attempt at balance. Only random cuts to whatever other players are complaining about.

Downed state (which was taken from us for being imba, but then given to Mesmers?), Heartseeker, Pistol Whip, Backstab, Basilisk Venom, Dancing daggers, Whirling axe bundle and a few I am sure I am forgetting. And each of those things had substantial risk involved on the thief’s part, and legitimate strategies to counter. But instead of expecting players to elevate their game, or adapt,Thieves just get a baseball bat to the knees.

Meanwhile other classes have safer methods of delivering the same amount or more of direct burst damage and go untouched.

But wait…Scorpion Wire range increased from 900 to 1200! Because that’s what every Thief player has been begging for and makes everything better.

I honestly think that Anet isn’t sure what they want the thief to be or how it fits into the game anymore.

Totally agree. Surely Anet is planning to delete this class.
They have no idea of what they are doing IMHO… We got nerfed about everything. They make the elem even more powerfull as it is and surely they dont plan to nerf warriors. Next patch : – Thief cannot stealth more than 3 seconds every minute – Elem’s Water spells heals for 50% HP with total damage immune – Warriors get defy pain every time they do critical hit.
That’s how Anet is attempting to balance the game ! The thing is whiners will keep crying because Anet cant upgrade their own skill.

Some points need a change. Thiefs arent weak but they arent perfect either.
- Basilisk Venom shouldnt be an elite or the duration should be raised. There is no point to this. I use it sometimes but only for troll purposes, a good player will break stun it easily and makes it useless. Some class got better stuns and they are not elite skills.
- Dagger Storm is kinda underpowered now.
- Flanking Strike is a joke. The animation is really too slow. Any player who use his two hands can avoid it and a sigil is much better to dispell boons. The time needed for this skill to land and the damage it does are ridiculous.
- Body shot is useless. Really.
- Headshot is a good skill but since we need to spam unload to make damage, what’s the point ? I really think vital shot should do some more damage so we wouldnt have to spam unload and use other skills.
- Pistol Whip is good right now, not too OP but i still think the stun animation should be reduced.
- Death blossom deals too much with a bleeding build.
- Dancing Dagger is a joke since its damage got nerfed. At least, it should cost less initiative.
- Last Refuge, as it stands, should be rename “Kill me faster please”. I think it’s the point who really need attention.
- Venom are great but they shouldnt be consumed everytime we land an auto-attack..
- Power shots has nothing to do in Shadow Arts. It’s a bow passive skill. The bow is the only thief weapon who really doesnt need stealth 90% of the time..