Is the current trend of punishing all thieves in an unsuccessful attempt to nerf burst going to continue? Because so far it is incredibly disheartening.
When the playerbase was crying about Pistol Whip -> Quickness, your answer was to reduce Pistol whip damage. This reduced Pistol whip near/below our auto-attack chain. When you use Pistol whip without quickness, your opponent can literally walk out of the last swings (they might have to dodge roll if you’ve crippled/chilled them). This results in No-one using Pistol whip anymore, because without quickness its a joke – we don’t need a kitteny cast time stun when we have Head shot, and who wants to let our opponent know we’ll be ready to be stunned/immobilizied/KD’d because we’ll be standing in place for a full second, swinging at the air? If we still wanted to run Pistol whip-> Quickness, it would work, people just don’t because whenever haste is down we’d only have auto-attack to do damage.
When the playerbase was crying about the instagib chain (Mug->CnD->Backstab), you mind-bogglingly decided to nerf CnD by 33%. This had a small impact on Instagib, and huge impact on everyone not running complete gas cannon. Look at the boards – most thieves and players are still pointing out how well instagib works, and now those of us who dont want to run cheese specs are paying the price. We’re paying 6 initiative for an attack that does 67% the damage it used to.
When the playerbase started crying about Dancing Dagger, you decided to cut the damage in half. That’s a third of our initiative bar for a skill that does what trickshot does, with a cripple, and now less damage. Dancing Dagger is a pretty Meh utility for chasing a target, or starting a fight off with a cripple (anyone with half a brain knows if a thief is chasing/approaching you with dagger OH, and you see him start to do something, you dodge, because its either Dancing Dagger or CnD->Steal/Inf sig). If the skill is going to cost 4 init, it needs to do better damage (probably not the damage it was doing Pre-patch, but definitely not 50% less. The damage should have probably been reduced 15-25%). If you want to make it a pure utility skill, remove the cast time and cut the init to 3, this way opponents can’t see the ability coming a mile away, and we aren’t dumping 1/3 of our initiative bar for kitten damage.
Losing .5 seconds off of tactical strike isn’t a big deal, honestly. (Edit: Its been pointed out to me that sigil of para is working, so a bunch of stuff I had here concerning it is no longer true). A 10% damage boost on an attack that did kitten damage isn’t much, TBH – tactical strike is a CC tool, not a damage tool. That would be like if you increased Headshot or Black powder damage by 25% – it sounds like alot, but it really isn’t because the base is so low.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
(edited by evilapprentice.6379)
The biggest slap in the face however was your complete lack of effort for our other weaponsets. We’re locked into using D/D, P/D, and S/D because our other weaponsets have glaring issues. P/P is a confused build without access to stealth (our primary survival mechanic), and worthless skill in the 2 slot, and an autoattack that doesn’t mesh well with its dual skill. Nobody plays it becuase it just isn’t viable. D/P is ruined because our primary gap closer roots us on hit – let me repeat that; our GAP CLOSER ROOTS US ON HIT – I don’t know if this is a bug or a design choice, either way its useless, the gap opens right back up…because we were rooted on hit. S/D is in use atm, despite the fact that flanking strike is a joke, primarily because we have so little working weapon options.
The cluster bomb reduction also reeks of kittening everyone to nerf glass cannons. The damage is rather good, but due to the travel time, its not an ability that can be “spammed” most of the time. I’ve seen glass cannons hit for 6-8k with the ability, so it probably needed an adjustment, but maybe one that only affects glass cannons.
The compensation we received for this massive loss of damage on our only working weaponsets? The blinding powder change was necessary, not a buff. Blinding powder was completely inferior compared to Shadow refuge in 95% of situations prior to the patch, seeing as they had the same CD and shadow refuge was 10 times as powerful. Cutting the CD to 40s was a good choice, but it wasn’t a buff, it was a fix to a poorly performing skill. Smoke screen is bigger now, thank you for that. Scorpion wire got a range increase, thank you for that. That’s the end of our “Compensation” section, sadly.
So, in short, our primary OH (Primary, Again, because its part of all our functioning weaponsets) lost 50% and 33% damage, with no reduction in initiative cost. Our broken/non-functioning weaponsets were not touched. The ability buffs intended to compensate us for massive damage nerfs were inadequate. This is the second time you’ve failed to properly address burst, and instead just weakened all us non-burst thieves. Please stop spitting in our faces.
Note: If you’re going to respond in either support or disagreement, please keep it civil. I am a person, the Dev team is made up of people. I’m trying to express my disappointment, and perhaps actually get an explanation that will shed light on my confusion. This post isn’t meant to be a rage dump for children to call people names.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
(edited by evilapprentice.6379)
The skill was ineptly designed in such a way that made it overpowered, and all this patch did was leave its inept design intact while making it underpowered. Way to go there.
The proper way to design this skill is so obvious that it’s painful and single-handedly makes me question their competence (ok, I first questioned it with the PW nerf). One of the two following needs to happen:
1. Make it so that the first hit does full pre-patch damage, and each subsequent hit (bounce) does reduced damage. This is so common sense I can’t believe it wasn’t designed this way to begin with.
2. Keep the post-patch damage, make it strike 4 times regardless of how many targets there are. This is not as good as #1 IMO, but far better than the current implementation.
Now that we’re starting to split skills between PVP and PVE, can we undo the nerf to pistol whip that put it under autoattack damage for PVE? it was a good skill to use in PVE and most PVE thieves who used it weren’t using it in conjunction with haste (the real culprit behind the skill being “OP”
I for one am getting really tired of standing in a cloud of smoke autoattacking.
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
I’m pretty sure this was unintended since the skill descriptions haven’t been changed and trap potency also doesn’t work on them now.
Doesn’t matter if it was intended or not. We’re probably stuck with it for the next month or more.
It’s also becoming pretty common to see patch notes that say “Tooltip changed to correctly reflect ___________”
It’s a bug that will take two years to fix at this pace.
=nerf
Oh goody! Our only good utility skills got nerfed!
Well at least all our utility skills are ‘balanced’ now… they all suck equally! Hooray!
No. Survival skills are still useable.
Next patch, QZ now gives 4s swiftness instead of quickness, muddy terrain gives all enemies might, and lightning reflexes now stuns you as you go into a fetal position and cry pathetically while your pet runs around aimlessly in circles.
That was… uncalled for…. anyone up for a petition…
Founder of [CBA]/Former vE
No.2 Warrior NA/Irl behind Mr Kitten.7359
No.2 Warrior NA/Irl behind Mr Kitten.7359
S/D just got screwed. Dancing Dagger had its damage reduced by 50%, CnD damage reduced by 30%, and Tactical Strike reduced to 1.5 second daze. They didn’t even fix Flanking Strike.
I’m very dissapointed ANet, very dissapointed.
(edited by Zunhar.4079)
Having come over from another MMO (not WoW), I grew fairly accustomed to getting patch notes weeks before a patch hit, and then watching them evolve in stages. This gave the players time to give the Development team (constructive) feedback, and maybe point out scenarios they didn’t think about, as this happens often… After all, a Developer is only human.
I don’t think it would be unreasonable for ANet to release patch notes in advance. There are a fair share of people who would “chicken little” over every change to their class, but they can be easily ignored, honestly. I learned a long time ago in GW1, no matter how many complaints there are, unless something is technically broken, ANet won’t go back just because of public outrage (anyone remember the LoD nerf?). What early patch note release does is gives us some idea of what we can look forward to. It gives us a sense of direction once a new patch drops, and (bonus) it generates buzz. How is that a bad thing? I don’t think it’s a stretch to say, this game could use some good press right now.
But alas, this thread, and others like it, fall victim to the same problem that I mentioned previously: ANet has never caved to public outrage that I can recall in my years with GW1, and now here. And so patch note release prior to the actual patching of the client is unlikely.
It would be welcome, but is unlikely.
Hope is the carrot dangled before the draft horse that plods along in the vain attempt to reach it
TBH waiting isn’t the issue.
Look it makes no sense to tell us times you cant keep because all it does is piss us off. You could have said 6 pm tonight. No one would have complained since we all go by Anet’s schedule. We aren’t rushing them. Just don’t tell us to show up some place and not be there lets be honest its a crappy move.
Kor The Cold Heart War
Wrekkes-Engineer Kore Rok Thief-Asraithe-Ele
Wrekkes-Engineer Kore Rok Thief-Asraithe-Ele
Trahearne would send a mayonnaise sandwich back for being too spicy.
Sorry but my English is not good. I can not take it anymore! I’m starting to hate those who ask to nerf the thief. Nerf pistol whip, backstab nerf, now stealth nerf … I continue to play GW2 because I love the thief and I hope that ArenaNet do not hear these little girls … Also because if not, I will surely leave this game and surely many others like me . But let us play! and go see other professions who really needs nerf … The truth is that those who complain and asks obsessively thief nerf is absolutely incompetent in the game. I play the thief from preorder and I swear, I do not mean to make the braggart, but I was killed from a glass cannon thief only a dozen times, and always because I was doing other things. Learn how to use the dodge and defense skill, look at the point where it enters stealth, but especially stop to bust our balls!!
It is not balanced, it’s not supposed to be. Sorry if I don’t take ANY of your loldata seriously when you hit that 50k BS on a target in lvl20 armor with 10 trait points.
I sickens me every time someone takes their examples from WvW and thinks it’s valid at all. Either try Spvp and get a real scope on things or just don’t post, don’t pretend you have any idea of how this game should be balanced.
99% of the QQ vs thieves are from people who play WvW. It’s the equivalent of me going into battlegrounds in WoW the moment I hit 80 in questing blues and expect to beat the best pvpers who already have max gear and traits and know what they’re doing.
Please, this forum could use some logic & real numbers taken from real pvp. It actually scares me the things people say in this forum because I don’t want ANet to go the Blizzard route by going ahead with unnecessary nerfs.
Assuming they don’t go that route, and trust me they have people working these numbers anyways, but if you still insist on convincing them of anything you would need to take a glass cannon, a bunker, and a balanced and test all numbers next to each other vs every build in spvp.
It’s not fair to take a glass cannon vs another glass cannon and when one pwns the other in a burst you scream “Overpowered!” that’s just not how this works I’m sorry. I am inclined to do a bunch of testing myself just to shut everyone up but I don’t have the time right now between work & play.
People need to learn to adapt to a meta and build against it, seriously are there NO guild wars 1 players in here??? Get better and learn to dodge backstabs it’s really not hard, the game isn’t as unbalanced as you think. Build a bunker and troll thieves all day, I don’t care, just don’t come here and cry when one kills you because you were outplayed…
“I find this rain quite pleasant, it feels as though raindrops are blessing our victory”
Or at least increase the cool down a bit…say, once a month. Thieves getting nerfed every patch from excessive whiners is too op.
This subforum was meant to be a place where thieves came to share their adventures, ask questions of their peers and discuss strategies with other thieves, all in all, a place to have fun and improve at the game. But right now, its become the most popular place on the forums for complaints, whines and QQs. Right now, this place looks exactly like the rogue forums in WoW. Why has it come to this?
I’ve been noticing a very specific trend with the Thief.
Thief builds that want to be viable have to rely on gimmicky one-time bursts in order to do any good.
First we have the Pistol Whip burst and now we have the Backstab Build.
Personally, I don’t enjoy resorting to these gimmicky builds…going invisible and doing a very routine and mundane combo (pop venoms, signet, CnD+steal+Haste, backstab, stall with more stealth or swap to SB until I can do it again).
I don’t enjoy shadow stepping/stealing into my opponent and Haste+PWing my opponent, then le gasp rolling back and relying on the Short Bow until I can do it again.
This bring me to my point: What other options do we have as a Thief?
We have horrible survivability (bar dodging)
We have horrible DPS (we only have burst damage, which keeps getting nerfed)
Our range is the shortest range in the game
To remain competitive in PvP, Wv3 and to a lesser extent: PvE we have to rely on gimmicks or we just melt.
The Thief in general need some TLC, the trait trees are a mess (some of the traits are really good and work but most are really, really bad and can’t be used if we don’t want to die non-stop), the weapon skills are either gimmicky, lack any real synergy or have been nerfed (or will be nerfed) into a state of mediocrity.
So please, please, please if you decide to nerf the thief and one of the only viable things we have left look into revamping the thief trait and weapons. We need viability in order not to utilize these one-trick ponies.
Well its obvious that the massive qq and crying has led up to this once again and it mostly comes from people who dont understand the class or dont want to. Its easier to come to the forums and post thread after thread of qq then going ingame and learning a class or how to counter something. I really want to see how they can “compensate” another nerf.
@Niim yea IF only.Actually, my complaints stem from me both playing a lvl 80 geared thief doing this, and a lvl 80 guardian trying to figure out how to stop it, because there is no prevention to the stealth raw spike burst dps. There is also no cost of this high damage, if you start taking damage you can just stealth run away.
It would actually help if you posted suggestions or asked people how to avoid those situations.
In your thread however, you just want Anet to nerf thieves. This is a discussion forum to ask about class mechanics and discuss strategies. Not a place to direct your frustration.
OP this is a game-wide problem that ANet seems inept at understanding. All eight professions are riddled with bugged or useless skills/traits yet ANet completely ignores them and instead just tweaks numbers every patch. The result is that the number of viable build options for most professions is getting smaller and smaller and the bugs are funneling everyone into the same builds.
What I honestly cannot understand though is how ANet can hope to balance professions when half their skills/traits are not functioning as intended. Any number changes they make now will be pointless if/when they actually start fixing things.
Their apparent priorities just make no sense to me.
It doesn’t make much sense to me that a longbow has greater range than a good rifle.
Not that GW2 is a reflection of reality or anything, but effective range on a longbow was actually greater than that of long guns for a decades after the longbow fell out of use (longbow is arguably a superior weapon to basic firearms used as late as the American Civil War – essentially until action rifles were used. It is likely true that true rifles were more accurate by the early 1800s, but these reloaded slowly. The best of Wellington’s troops could manage 3 shots a minute maximum). The problem with the longbow wasn’t effectiveness, but the years of required training to pull one in comparison to about 5 minutes to learn to shoot a gun. Fletching is also far more difficult to industrialize for mass production than producing shot and powder.
Anyway, as far as GW2 is concerned rifle should be fear-inspiring heavy-hitter. Longbow should be the sniper weapon. Engineer might make a good exception to this if the dev team wanted – split the current rifle into a shotgun and true experimental rifle type.
Anyway, rant off. Hopefully something theres is constructive.
That is the most fallacious statement I’ve ever heard.
Everyone would just buy it without any grind
I wasn’t aware that people paying money for an item had to grind as well, when you go into a shop and pay for a basket of shopping have you ever been asked to drop and give them 20 to make sure you did some work for it?
no one would ever go out and get any other GS, except for the legendaries.
Do you have any evidence to make up this assertion? – In GW1 whenever a new outfit came out suddenly that was hot outfit of the month, having some really sweet outfits early on didn’t appear to hurt long term sales.
. Now take this to a new level and imagine all kinds of gear items, that have the level of awesomeness as the Greatsaw currently has. No one would play the game since it doesn’t require any real effort to grind for armor or weapons, since you could get them all from the cash shop
Again, look at existing examples like GW1 and City of heroes, both games freely sold gear and yet people played them for years. Indeed, City of heroes had no gear grind at all all of it’s gear was cash shop or given freely. Most people see more in a game than vanity outfits… I hope you do too right?
A BIG chunk of the dedicated and hardcore players would simply leave the game
Again can you back up this assertion? – That is a hugely sweeping statement that doesn’t seem to tally
Unique items are what keep an MMO running. (see GW1)
See GW1, as a game where people could just buy gear, yet they kept playing anyway. Your statement is provably wrong.
The Ashwalker – Ranger
Garnished Toast
Garnished Toast
I humbly request the devs to change the animation and name of hip shot to a more appropriate one that caters to scoped/iron sighted rifles, especially for our legendary rifle. No damage and range changes, just a name and animation change. Since its one of the few weapon attacks/skills that can go 1000/1200 range wouldn’t it be appropriate for us engineers to aim properly? You could just copy the shot animation of bleeding shot of the warriors if it burdensome to make a new one.
It looks quite silly when you’re wielding some fancy looking axe, throw it, and the second it leaves your hand it turns into the generic basic hand axe model. The axe should look the same flying through the air as it does when its in your hand. Ditto for every other thrown weapon skill in the game. And Engineer’s shield toss skill is the worst because its very noticable since its bigger and flies slower. My transmuted Iron Legion shield turns to wood every time I use the skill >.>
Its a fairly minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but it would make thrown weapons look a lot better if the thrown graphic matched what you’re actually holding.
But they rarely answer.