Guild Wars 2

One of the us based Telia server backbone has been having massive packet loss ever since the game went free to play.
I am with TPG Australia and when ever it’s peak hour or weekend I experience massive lag to the point where the game fails to run and stutters.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I came to the thief boards to check on helpful hints for my thief alt, and just read through this thread. As somebody who mains a ranger, you have no clue how hard I am laughing. Unplayable? A single second is added to reveal, and you think it breaks the class completely? This is as hilariously stupid as Warriors saying that their class is now broken because of the quickness nerf. And not bringing anything to the group? The same thing has been said about Rangers since forever, and has been proven false again and again. You guys need to wake up, because a single second added to reveal does not break a class.

We explained why it breaks stealth heavy builds, its not based on nothing… please read.
It’s not that its unplayable, its just that it is no longer worth the risk of doing so. You can play without dying but 1 second in stealth = massive dunk in damage/utility.

Silver.4798:

You mad about stealth nerf? Forget stealth, let’s put our thinking caps on and try some non stealthy builds!

Here’s one that I came up with (or rediscovered, in case someone already thought of this before):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Less-Wonky-Signet-Build-Take-2

I’m still at the testing stage of this build but so far I am REALLY encouraged by the results, and I’m finding it to be EXTREMELY fun!

Why BS ppl and run around like a little pansy hiding behind the fragile stealth mechanic when you can dodge and fly all over the map drop spikes everywhere and play the thief like a MAN!!!

I just think that stealth should stay an available and valid option for PvE because I thoroughly enjoy it and its good to have more variety in this class.
On another note Black Powder, pistolwhip, daze, unload, high range dps potential and melee dps and tanking capabilities+high speed and dodge.
Gg why did I not think of this before.

I think that quite a lot of people here play thief, but I also feel that quite a lot of you underestimate the effects of the nurf because of your own experiences of playing with builds that do not depend heavily on stealth. This change would not affect quite of lot of you because you are unlikely to go back into stealth after 4 seconds anyway.

I play a build heavily dependant on stealth:
D&D and S&D
I stack mostly precision but also toughness, healing power and power.
I have 2 heals Hide in shadows and shadow refuge with shadow rejuvenation.

Quite a lot of you are saying that thieves have high survivability that is both true and false.
This is definitely true for ranged thieves utilising dodge
For stealth builds though you are likely to be in melee range for Cloak and Dagger.
I consider myself one of the tankier thieves and I can only last around 3 shots against bosses max usually only 2. The problem is you are in melee range with medium armor and relatively low hp, most other dps classes have either higher range and more armor making it easier.
For stealth builds, the survivability of stealth becomes a necessity due to the high risks you and you team is taking

Reduced Damage
- Directly- less stealth means less damage from backstabs.
- Indirectly- Less stealth means less blinds form Cloaked in Shadow (very important) means I will be taking more damage and healing less from stealth. 1 second extra in revealed means a LOT because mobs will miss the first shot but be MUCH more likely to hit with the second shot, for this squishy class it means using more active heals. After patch, I find that I am using Shadow Refuge for heals a LOT more because I have already poped the Hide in Shadows, and when I heal with Shadow Refuge I am completely out of battle for 10 seconds, resulting in reduced damage.

Reduced Utility
- I am using shadow refuge a lot more for myself, then I will be less likely to have it for when a team member needs it during battle. That is most of my utility really.
- If I am out of battle more team will benefit less from my debuffs.
- With S&D I used to be able to continually daze a mob for a good period of time while my team takes out other mobs. Useful for mages/ more annoying mobs like bombers. Even before nurf, I CANNOT do this indefinitely and I will need to retreat eventually, which is fair. After nurf This tactic is now not worth the risk of using it. I take significantly more damage, which = higher chance of down or faster retreat.

To me what this nurf did was significantly reduced my utility, damage(more than 30%) and increased significantly the risk of combat in general. (less heal and get hit more)

Stealth based rogues have always been about risk vs reward, you have high utility, high damage but high risk (bad armour for melee) With that 1 second increase in revealed utility decreased, damage significantly decreased but also risk increased.

Before anyone says I need to get used to new rotation, I have, I can stealth consistently on the 4 second mark. The extra 1 second simply screws stealth rogues over in PVE imo.
The animations are also choppy, if this is going to stay, the animations need to be changed. It’s not that I am not used to it, to me the animations simply don’t work as well.

SUGGESTION: Leave PvE the way it was, it was good and fair. Tweak with revealed and stealth in PVP and WvW.