Guild Wars 2

The purpose of the skills in downstate are not only to prevent the stomp but also equally important to support your team members trying to rezz you. Therefore the overall effectiveness of the downstate of a class is dependent on their ability to prevent stomping AND helping your allies to rezz you. For this purpose every profession has 4 skills in downed state not only one.

For example the ele is very good in preventing the first stomp but awful in helping his allies to rezz him. The guardian is not as good as the ele in preventing the stomp (stabilty counter) but is much better supporting his allies to rezz him (cc with wave of light for a knockback or to force a dodge and healing with symbol of judgement. Rangers can even control their pet. So imho vaporform is an advantage against opponents with stabilty and invularabilty but a disadvantage against opponents without stability or invulnerability, rezzing the ele is not possible in vaporform and it has no cc to give your team member(s) the important seconds to rezz you timely before the stomp.

The argument that vapor form has no counter: If a skill has a counter or not is not solely its measure of powerfulness (but of course important). For example the ele trait smoothing mist. It’s regeneration that can not be stripped, but is it really so powerful? Or the teleporting skill, blink, it allows movement which can not be countered. Is it really too powerful? Or warrior banners, or the uninterruptable healing skill withdraw, etc. (An example for a skill with no real counter which changed from too weak to too powerful even so its functionality didn’t change is healing signet).

Tldr
You have to look at all downstate-skills of a profession (and even beyond that; for example applying stealth before going down, pets, self-rezz etc) to evaluate its effectiveness to help your team members to rezz you and prevent a stomp. So imho altogether the eles downstate abilites aren’t more effective than other professions downstate abililities. The developers could change vaporform to a teleport and change the third skill to something which supports the eles team members and have a closer look at the other stuff like ranger pets in downstate, stealth before downstate etc., but imo it’s not necessary.

Mrbig.8019:

Estoroth.4310:

This is actually a nice list which describes the problem with
inifiltrator’s strike. Furthermore Infiltrator’s Strike + Shadow Return is a very good expample of the Risk vs. Reward Problem in GW2 already addressed in this thread:
Risk vs. Reward

1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axis
3. has no cool down,
4. no counter play
5. Pretty much spamable
6. removes a condi,
7. causes immobilize,
8. can be used to completely negate stuns ( not stun break but you can give enough distance to stop stuns)
9. Low cost initiative
10. The opposing player has no idea where the port back spot is.
11. Other classes have to waste utility slots with 30+ second cds to have this mobility."

The 4. point is imo the most important, “no counter play”, but it is a
little unspecific. Why does Infiltrator’s strike not allow counter
play? Well mostly (but not only) because it has no animation and is
instant. Additionally Shadowreturn functions without target and even
if infiltrators’s strike misses. As an counterexample let us look at a
quite well designed skill (from a couter play perspective): Magnetic
Grasp + Magnetic Leap, one of the gap closers of the ele
profession. This skill has an animation (and Magnetic Leap only works
if Magnatic Grasp hits the target), therefore it can be dodged or
blocked and thus you can prevent the ele to close the gap and reach
you. => counter play (simple isnt it.)

If Infiltrator’s strike + Shadow Return would function similarly, if
Infiltrators’s strike gets an animation and Shadow Return only works
if Infiltrator’s strike hits than counter play would be
possible. Because now the opponent could prevent the thief from
closing the gap and moreover the thief could not riskless engage into
the fight because shadow return would not be available to teleport him
away simply with one button press.

=> counter play => more options and decisions for the thief and
opponent => better Risk vs. Reward

Too much.

They should simply put range requirments on Inf strike so that if the thief is not in range for the attack, it should fail its teleport and put shadow return under thief’s feet.

Like this the thief would no more be able to jump from a tearget to another without counterplay.

In this case, range would be the counterplay: keep the range so the thief won’t be able to reach you.

Again, this would be a HUGE nerf, and the point why most thieves don’t want Inf strike to be touched is because, with current power level of this class, any Inf strike nerf would completely remove thief viability ( basically any ranged prof, like power engies, rangers etc etc, would literally crush S/D thieves in 1vs1).

Inf strike needs to be balanced in order to allow counterplay, but this needs to be done with consequential buffs to the whole profession ( OH dagger, traits, pistols etc etc) because the thief currently NEEDS those uncounterable stuff in order to be viable.

Just like Fresh Air eles: without that insta burst with no counterplay, they would be trash.

So they need to remove the chesse and buff all the non-cheese, otherwise we simply have an inverted power creep that will remove the thief from high level PvP.

Imo the “power level” of other classes is the bigger problem. Nevertheless the problem with these kind of skills must be addressed. But changing just Infiltrator’s strike won’t solve the problem of course. If the adujustments are not done right the thief
will be in the same position as the ele profession.

But to be honest, with the power creep of the latest patches, the insufficient testing and resources for balancing and pvp in general i don’t think that there will be big changes regarding these things.

So they need to remove the chesse and buff all the non-cheese, otherwise we simply have an inverted power creep that will remove the thief from high level PvP.

+1

Calm down and read it again. (I think the misunderstanding is my fault because of my horrible text formatting.)

I didn’t say that every weakness of thieves is irrelvant.

I said that this statement:

Thief exists to go in and out of the fight.
“We want thieves to be the class with the best mobility” – The game’s developers.

and this statement:

Constant nerfs to burst, nerfs to stealth with more to come.

is irrelevant to the discussion, not the general weaknesses (like no aegis, on demand protection, blocks) or the strengths (like evades, mobility, boon stripping etc) of the thief. Furthermore i didn’t say that every strengths of the thief profession is a big problem.

What i said is that the skill Infiltrator’s strike + Shadow Return allows no counter play because of the reasons above. The Problem is that Infiltrator’s strike as a gap closer is instant with no animation, i didn’t talk about the immobilize and damage, and that
Shadow Return functions even without Target and even when Infiltrator’s strike misses.

Stop moaning about lack of counterplay on thieves when warriors can stack 800 HPS of passive, unstrippable regen on zerk set and spirit rangers have as much built-in evade and unstrippable condi-cleanse as thieves (with a whole lot more utility).

The thread is not about warriors or spirit rangers but infiltrator’s strike (But you are absolutly right about warriors and that there are many more skills which need to be looked at). Like i said in my first post:

Unfortunately there are lots of skills in GW2 which need a rework and
Infiltrator’s Strike + Shadow Return is one of them.

Unfortunately there are lots of skills in GW2 which need a rework and
Infiltrator’s Strike + Shadow Return is one of them.

At First some comments about some statements:

Thief exists to go in and out of the fight.
“We want thieves to be the class with the best mobility” – The game’s developers.

Irrelevant.

No Blocks
No Protection
No Aegis

Thief spammable Evade on Weapon Skills is much better than Blocks and Aegis.
Thieves can steal Protection.

Lowest base HP pool in the game.

Wrong.

Ele, Guardian and Thief have the same HP pool.

Constant nerfs to burst, nerfs to stealth with more to come.

Irrelevant.

This is actually a nice list which describes the problem with
inifiltrator’s strike. Furthermore Infiltrator’s Strike + Shadow Return is a very good expample of the Risk vs. Reward Problem in GW2 already addressed in this thread:
Risk vs. Reward

1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axis
3. has no cool down,
4. no counter play
5. Pretty much spamable
6. removes a condi,
7. causes immobilize,
8. can be used to completely negate stuns ( not stun break but you can give enough distance to stop stuns)
9. Low cost initiative
10. The opposing player has no idea where the port back spot is.
11. Other classes have to waste utility slots with 30+ second cds to have this mobility."

The 4. point is imo the most important, “no counter play”, but it is a
little unspecific. Why does Infiltrator’s strike not allow counter
play? Well mostly (but not only) because it has no animation and is
instant. Additionally Shadowreturn functions without target and even
if infiltrators’s strike misses. As an counterexample let us look at a
quite well designed skill (from a couter play perspective): Magnetic
Grasp + Magnetic Leap, one of the gap closers of the ele
profession. This skill has an animation (and Magnetic Leap only works
if Magnatic Grasp hits the target), therefore it can be dodged or
blocked and thus you can prevent the ele to close the gap and reach
you. => counter play (simple isnt it.)

If Infiltrator’s strike + Shadow Return would function similarly, if
Infiltrators’s strike gets an animation and Shadow Return only works
if Infiltrator’s strike hits than counter play would be
possible. Because now the opponent could prevent the thief from
closing the gap and moreover the thief could not riskless engage into
the fight because shadow return would not be available to teleport him
away simply with one button press.

=> counter play => more options and decisions for the thief and
opponent => better Risk vs. Reward