Guild Wars 2

laquito.5269:

Why is it that almost only non-thief players keep ranting about the class on the forum? We’ve got neither access to stability nor to invulnerability, no second life bar, no clones, no access to (massivly) block, no knockdowns, we can’t rally ourselves blablabla, yet people still whine about us. Invisibility doesnt mean we’re invulnerable or not there at all, if you can’t handle it, reroll a thief. Seriously its mostly bad players complaining in here and whats even more funny, is that they don’t even whine about d/p stealth spam, which is probably the only thing I consider OP – perma blind + stealthed needs to go, thats it. We’re a burst class by design, able to take out players fast, if they don’t pay attention, if you don’t like that design, move to another game. Now go troll yourself.

I’ve been saying this since release.
They can’t see the stomp coming, so they think it’s overpowered- yet completely kittening ignore stomps’ (stability/mist/elixir s) that you CAN’T stop. Period.

Yeah. Nurf t3h Theivf plz Anetz.

Daendur.2357:

Aervius.2016:

Why do people so vehemently resist this simple mantra?

Because everyone goes shatter….

If I had a womb, it would bare your child.

That was a pro Breath of Flame right before you went down.
You should write a guide.

What am I watching?

5 Month old thread and apparently people can’t read the FIRST POST.

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bhagwad.4281:

It’s a bit ridiculous to see the shots coming and having the thief still stealthed and untargettable.

Good point bro.
That is rediculous. It’s also rediculous that an Engineer can throw a glass of water at the ground that magically resses anyone it spashes near (including a recently downed Engineer, maychance.)
It’s completely ridiculous that a full-sized adult human could turn themselves into a cohesive ball of super-charged electrons and zip through the air at a target and discharge kinetic energy on impact (without simultaneously killing the Elementalist).

It’s a kittened video game and these are basic mechnics of the game.
LEARN.
ADAPT.
OVERCOME.

Why do people so vehemently resist this simple mantra?

Sunflowers.1729:

I think it’s silly that my 90 second cooldown virtue is negated by ANY CLASS USING ANY ATTACK EVER being able to press #1 twice.

/fix’d.
Seriously though, that’s more of a Guardian class issue than it is a Thief issue. I’m not sure why Virtue of Courage has a 90s cooldown for what is effectively a single target reactionary blind.

The power of the 0/30/30/10/0 build.
Goodnight, sweet prince.

We understand it’s not the Dual Skill you want on your P/D weaponset, but you’ll just have to learn to live with the fact that it is the dual skill your (clearly) favorite weaponset has.

“Just felt like the burst being preceeded by a melee attack makes the need to open the gap with #3 less so”
^^ This would be true if it weren’t for the fact that you’re playing a medium ranged (900 unit reach) build, you don’t NEED to be melee to do damage. Landing a CnD without Teleporting gimmicks is the learning curve of Pistol/Dagger.

You’re effectively asking that Anet remove the skill cap for your already low skill cap build.

Side note: Putting a GAP OPENER on a MELEE weaponset is counter-intuitive.

Aberrant.6749:

Svarty.8019:

Aberrant.6749:

See… I took that more as them all thinking “they just need to l2p against these classes then… why would we balance for such low skill level gameplay?”

To which I would reply that they should balance for such low skill level gameplay because the thieves themselves can be more effective than most other classes with less skill.

EDIT: In fact, the devs say as much right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0togRMEc_o#t=41m06s

What you’re complaining about is basically that not all classes have the same initial learning curve.

This is actually done on purpose to help new players feel like they can hop in a game and have a chance. Complaining about this is like some one complaining about how e-hondas 100h slap or an auto-shotgun in CS just owned them. They are just FOO tatics. Once you learn how to counter these tatics they are easy to deal with.

The guy even says something akin to as a vet this isn’t a problem for me… it’s only new players that have this problem. I also don’t have problems with thieves ganking me from spawn in PvP on any of my classes… because I know how to counter it easily. It didn’t take me long to figure out how either. I could explain the tatics used to counter the thief on the classes I play to the noob to help the person he’s talking about and the noob could pratice with those.

Many other classes have better higher skill gameplay potential than the thief. That’s the downside of foos. That’s why it’s rare you see a thief in a pro team. Same with why you don’t see a vet playing with e-honda or an auto-shotty… there are more powerful tactics available if you choose to practice and learn them.

So the solution? L2P better with your class and you’ll be just fine.

I hope you’ve learned a little bit about game design basics as well ^^

I run a might stacking “Signet Use” BS build, dropped on a Warrior who had just popped Frenzy (w/o Endure Pain)-
Mug hit for 10k
CnD for 11k
Backstab didn’t land because the Warrior was downed before he knew what hit him.
3500 attack + 25 BL stacks + 16x Might w/ Fury + Swift and ASignet’s 15% bonus.

The point is, if you aren’t paying very close attention, it’s very easy to get loaded up with enough Vuln that your paper-doll Toughness no longer provides it’s total benefit.
Defensive builds in this game are successful if they have two things – durability/regen + escapability. The Warrior has access to both.
You’re doing it wrong OP.

Deception skills are good, but not as good as the most OP condition removal in the game.
Shadow’s Embrace > Master of Deception.
Why? Condition damage gives away your position while you’re stealthed.

Aside from that, however, I’ve messed around with this build in WvW and while it is fun, if you run into a real bunker class (guardian/ele) you’ll run into some issues if you aren’t extremely careful. But you are kitten near unkillable unless a burst build catches you slippin’.

Edit: Try this burst rotation instead- precast Black Powder -> Shadowstep -> HS + Steal -> Backstab. (2100 unit reach burst rotation, fyi which leaves you options with Shadow Recall as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.)

Lag is making the game unbearable and it’s discouraging me from even logging in.

What’s really going to be funny is when people realise that this nerf won’t do kitten to protect them from that burst rotation.

Daecollo.9578:

Critical Strikes
En Garde
- Increases your critical-hit chance with a sword and spear by 10%.
- Gain 5s of Protection and revealed on critical hit with a sword or spear. (The protection and revealed applied by this trait will not apply when protection is already on the character, this is to prevent boon stacking and the fact that if the pirate is not in melee, he should not gain any benefit from running away.)

This trait allows for a “duelist” type thief who mostly focuses less on stealth and more on staying alive with sustain, the protection allows him to sustain melee combat with other classes, but he is also revealed as well so he cannot stealth as long as he has this protection.

Note: It would also be very nice is sword skills were more fluid like ranger attacks, and had more fluid looking animations, we don’t rely on brute force like warriors, we should be attacking with our movement and body, not just our arms.

Another Note: I would also like to add, that I love pirates, and I would like to see more pirate thieves then ninja thieves…

Sword Traits need a comeback for the Thief, I totally agree.

That said I think that 5s of Protection for simply landing a crit with a Cleaving weapon has the situational potential of becoming grossly overpowered, considering that a Pistol Whip Thief could potentially hit 3 people 8 times in a very small time period.

(As I’m sure you can already see, stacking up/past 10s(+) of Protection for the cost of 5 initiative throws class balance out the window.)

Why not this-
Duelist (Acrobatics, Master Tier)
Gain 3s of Retaliation when you evade an attack. (5s internal cooldown)
Additionally you gain a 25% chance to apply Confusion (2s duration) on a critical hit with Sword.

Uptime on Retaliation is controlled by the internal cooldown, and the incredibly short duration of the Confusion means that stacking anything above 3x stacks will be kitten near impossible unless the Thief sacrifices a ton of damage/stats for Condition Duration. Hell, I’d rock S/P if that suggestion becomes a reality.

ensoriki.5789:

Whoa stealth on flanking strike?
I should’ve read the full topic.
kitten that kitten, no kittening way will i put up with that kittening bullkitten on my motherkittening S/P I will kitten up the town if that kitten happens to my kitten

This.
Flanking Strike doesn’t need Stealth.
It needs an evade animation that doesn’t cause the ability to outright miss AND put you out of range of your target. S/D shouldn’t have to rely on Ini-based/Cooldown-based immob’s just to get marginal use out of it.

Good thing I just dropped my Shadow-Troll build and went back to CDBurst.
I’m on the fence about the change to Stealth, it could be exactly what is necessary to balance out the few remaining vestiges of “OP” that the Thief has.
(Shadowing an entire 5-man whilst simply spamming CnD every 4s to down someone without ever leaving Stealth for more than 1/2-1s was over the top. I’m sorry Troll Thieves, it is/was.)

More to the point, D/P Stealth sloots will still be able to do what they do best- there’s just no safety net to ease your fall if you kitten-up your Stealth rotation (*insert a clever comment about Risk/Return).

Personally, I’m running a D/D + SB build and I usually spend most of my time in SB anyway, relegating D/D to ONLY the Burst rotation (i.e. the downing of my target), then quickly back to SB while I wait on my cooldowns to come up.

I will say that 3s of Revealed for popping HiS is a tad steep- maybe a revitalized trait from BWE2 might be just what the Thief needs to compliment the surge in ‘No-Stealth’ builds. My suggestion:

(Shadow Arts, Adept Tier)
Veiled Assault/Shadow’s Protection
Gain 3s of Protection and Regeneration whenever you are Revealed.

Really though, fellow Thieves, this change will be inconsequential if you know your classes capabilities and deficiencies and compensate accordingly.

25 DA (your auto attack triggers Exposed Weakness bonus)
30 CS (Selections are obvious)
15 TR (imo: More Ini, Mug burst gives Ini and triggers Thrill)

Heal: HiS
Utilities:
Roll for Initiative
Assassin’s Signet
Haste
Elite:
Basi (or anything, really.)

Basilisk -> Haste -> AS -> Mug → Unload -> Unload → Black Powder -> “Press F to stomp4thelul”

You said burst, you said nothing about survivability.

In WvW – The mobility alone makes SB better than P/P for a ranged weapon set.
(Like using Inf. Arrow to escape Immob Nukes, etc.)

But aside from WvW I would hardly say it’s required, it’s more of a playstyle preferrence.

However, as most testimony would suggest it can end up being a wasted slot in Fractals, where P/P specifically outshines most every other set available to the Thief. Access to a Blast Finisher aside, if you’re built for burst damage, and you’re running Fractals, you are literally gimping yourself (and thereby the overall intent of building for burst as well) by slotting SB over P/P, IMO.

I am disappointed, I thought the thread title was going to be followed with a Dos Equis parody.
“I don’t always cloak, but when I do, it’s because I have Shadows Rejuv.”
After backstab lands, count to three (i.e. one Mila Kunis one-thousand, two – etc.) and then start up CnD. Once you get practiced with a method for timing your playstyle around revealed, you can effectively maximize your damage output (and thus, your overall survivability if you’re burst. Dead enemies can’t kill you, after all.)

At which point, mind you, most non-instanced PvE content becomes a joke.

xyger.7349:

Aervius.2016:

If your primary goal is single target DPS, P/P is by far an amazing choice.

However, in certain situations (like my own) I run in groups that have access to a great deal of Light / Ethereal combo fields – the Blast finisher alone on Clusterbomb makes it a much better choice for group utility than a straight-up “Projectile Finisher” weapon set.

Unload’s damage far outclasses Clusterbomb, it’s the Finisher (IMO) that makes Clusterbomb invaluable in a group setting.

Edit: Maybe P/P + SB would be worth testing out.

See this makes sense. The sad thing, is that it’s useless against bosses in Fractals. The fact that Scootabuser is trying to use the combo finisher as an argument that makes SB better than P/P based on that is discredits his argument. Rarely, RARELY will you ever see someone melee a boss (unless glitched) that will put down a combo field and have a thief use Clusterbomb to stack might. Regen and Poison are time duration, which cap after a while of stacking (I believe the max is 8 secs or something? I can never apply more than that on poison) and the groups running are usually already good at keeping those up to begin with.

SB is more of a utility playing it slow and safe against bosses. P/P is faster and just as safe if you have decent skill at dodging.

In PvE, melee will be there, so the AoE combo field will definitely be worthwhile, but the time it takes a Clusterbomb to fly from the bow to the actual mob and detonate perfectly or let it not explode it takes a ton of time, in that time I will already have dumped out an entire 2 clips of unload (considering the thief is playing at range, which is almost always the case). Also, I use quickness, which is (heavenly) which I don’t benefit as much from SB than I do from P/P.

But because P/P doesn’t have utility, I feel that it’s lacking and could use some sort of buff in SOME way to make it more useful. I don’t like the fact that all I can do is just DPS and nothing else.

I completely agree, in the context of an encounter that you are familiar with P/P is a far better choice than SB, especially for Fractals.
For Exotic Farm Dungeons, P/P > SB for bosses, SB > P/P for “trash clusters” IMO.

I’m actually in favor of Shield Bash granting the Warrior like, 2-3s of Protection (maybe even Retaliation for the same duration?).

IMO, a Warrior who takes Shield is intentionally off-setting their offensive potential for more defensive potential. Giving the Warrior something like 3s of Protection on a 25s cooldown (20s traited) would be exactly what the skill needs to enhance it’s usefulness in PvE. Furthermore, Protection is something that Warriors would benefit from immensely, regardless of how short the duration.

If your primary goal is single target DPS, P/P is by far an amazing choice.

However, in certain situations (like my own) I run in groups that have access to a great deal of Light / Ethereal combo fields – the Blast finisher alone on Clusterbomb makes it a much better choice for group utility than a straight-up “Projectile Finisher” weapon set.

Unload’s damage far outclasses Clusterbomb, it’s the Finisher (IMO) that makes Clusterbomb invaluable in a group setting.

Edit: Maybe P/P + SB would be worth testing out.

Dagger Pistol for burst-build PvE.
Problem Solved.

Edit: Alright, to be more assistance I’ll elaborate.

25 Deadly
30 Critical
15 Trickery

Traits:
DA – Mug, Quick Venoms.
CS – Practiced Tolerance, Signet Use, Exe.
TR – Thrill

Dagger + Pistol / Shortbow

You will spend much of the beginning of fights in Shortbow, only spiking your cooldown burst when the target mob is below 50% (the premise is, wait for the Executioner damage bonus before you start to blow initiative and lose the ‘First Strikes’ damage bonus.)

Dagger Pistol burst:
Black Powder
prep Basi
HS -> Steal (much like CnD precast, HS can be used in the same way) -> Backstab

You can then choose to dump remaining ini on #4 skill to burn through stacks of the CC immunity on bosses, setting them up for a longer, more controlled effect from one of your party members to land on the boss. Oh, yeah should you be fighting “trash” mobs, Black Powder is amazing by itself when all your attackers get spammed with Blind.

I’d run something like:
Heal – HiS
Util 1 – Shadowstep -or- Roll -or- Signet of Agility (probably a better choice for “boss” encounters)
Util 2 – Refuge
Util 3 – Assassin Sig (or any Signet you want really, I just use AS for the spike + the ini return to compensate for the Black Powder cost, as Heartseeker’s is covered by Klepto’s +3 ini on Steal. Meaning the entire burst combo leaves you with a total cost of (4) Initiative.

Elite – Basilisk Venom.
You can run any elite with this build, just change out the Master trait in Deadly to reflect it.
IMO, however, a well timed stun every 36s on the proper target can be far more effective than a derpyspin2win elite every 90s and moderately more effective than calling in two summons to wreak havoc every 3 minutes, just due to an obscene cooldown from a PvE perspective (unless you’re doing Arah/Fractals, then you’ll be in their long enough to get multiple uses out of TG).

If you’re burst/direct damage (which looking at Rune of Inf would suggest you are)
Ruby Orbs far outclass almost every Rune set in the game unless it specifically compliments a “gimmick” in your particular build (i.e. Rune of Centaur + Vigorous Renewal for Swift + Vigor + 4 Ini on heal, etc.).

125 power, 85 Precision and 12%+ Crit damage? It’s basically a specialized Runes of Divinity for a burst build, there really isn’t much of a better choice.

If you were building on a higher HP class, Runes of Inf might be worth looking into. But for most Thief builds (i.e. the gimmicky yet highly effective ones) have much better Rune/Upgrade Component choices than Infiltration.

Just my two cents.
Edit: It’s also worth mentioning that if you’re not very familiar with Last Refuge, prepare to watch it get you killed. Especially if you’re a Cloak And Dagger build, that 25% mark can come in the middle of a CnD cast…

Pie charts?
Percentages?
Polling population of 2 pages of forums users?
It must be population-wide FACT!

Was this just for fun? :P

Yep, I’ve been using the D/D + SB version of this build for the last 3 months in WvW and I love the hell out of it.

Mobility?
Meh, I’ll just disappear.
Then just reappear with my dagger in your spine.
And leave you alone…
Promise.
“Thiefs’ Honor”.
/stealthtroll

Eviator.9746:

I guess I’m really talking about the “downedbeforeIcouldseehim” burst build with basalisk venom. The one where the thief burns through all his initiative trying to down you before culling zones him in, and one or two dodges is enough to negate the entire attack, but only if you know it’s coming.

I’ll change my topic title accordingly.

25 DA (or 30)
30 CS
15 TR (or 10)
Non-optional traits:
Mug, Thrill of the Crime.
Everything else is your personal preference.
Enjoy the gimmick for awhile and then build your thief into something useful. LOL.

It’d be cool if they gave us generically applicable “Touch” skills from GW1 Assassin for the empty off-hand.

My suggestions/wishes:
Palm Strike 3 Initiative
Iron Palm 6 Initiative

Tulisin.6945:

Aervius.2016:

I am rather confused why a dagger strike grants Stealth, while firing a blackpowder pistol shot (from a matchlock/flintlock pistol, no less) isn’t the off-hand Stealth ability.

D/P – Would be far more attractive than D/D for burst builds.
S/P – With the changes to Pistol Whip and the reduction of Tac Strikes daze, this might actually make S/P worth building as an alternate direct damage / control build, allowing more utility variance among the (largely) homogeneous Thief builds out there.
P/P – Would finally be the master of High-Hit Volume for the Thief. Could be imba for Condition builds (no risk to spike with Sneak Attack when you can Stealth without get into melee range), but if the Stealth function required that an enemy target is in the radius of the Smoke Field at creation I think it wouldn’t be anymore powerful than CnD, especially considering it’s pathetic damage.

It would make sense, imo.

Well sure, but consider that nobody would use the dagger offhand anymore. C&D is already the only worthwhile thing on it now that Dancing Dagger has been nerfed into the ground.

An AoE cripple is still a worth-while skill, granted- it’s not really worth the 4 initiative cost, but it’s value as-is more than compensates for it’s lack of damage. Granted, the damage reduction wasn’t compensated for non-backstab builds – but maybe that was what Anet had intended that as a detractor from the non-burst oriented builds?

It didn’t make much sense to me, as it’s spike was only very situational at best- but an AoE snare on an intiative-based “cooldown cost” is still rather attractive imo.

Besides, it’s either that or a single target 4 initiative 1/4s Daze meant specifically for interrupts, not high-uptime crowd control.

It seems like a “Defensive off-hand or Defensive off-hand” selection, imo.

plasmacutter.2709:

ANET: Please listen to this person, heck.. hire him

ASP.8093:

I play a thief in WvW and PvE.

In WvW, I think the complaints about thieves largely stem from players having a difficult time interacting with thieves, due to overlong stealth and super-quick spikes.

1. Culling. Every time a stealthed thief attacks me, I get hit 3-4 times before I can actually see him. I know this isn’t intentional because NPCs see you instantly after the first attack lands. I always shadowstep away when Backstabbed, because there’s no way I can make up Backstab and several other free hits. I understand that WvW culling is a big issue in general, but it’s especially annoying when it impacts you repeatedly in the same fight with thieves.
2. Contesting camps while stealthed. There are counter-strategies, but it’s still an annoying process. All the same reasons you can’t do this in SPvP should apply to WvW as well.
3. Big super-fast spikes. Lots of players complain about these. The overall damage itself is actually fine, in my view, but the spike compression — not damage! — that you get from C&D->Steal->Backstab is a bit much. My impression is that the problem isn’t that Backstab does a lot of damage, it’s that you get C&D and Mug and Sigil of Air all hitting at the same time, then Backstab almost immediately afterward. I think the best fix is turning the Backstab combo into more of a clear two-part spike, with a greater delay between the initial C&D burst and the Backstab follow-up, thereby giving players a chance to dodge, block, &c. My preferred solution would be adding an aftercast to C&D rather than tweaking damage numbers.

More generally, I think the game has a problem with quickness. We’ve seen both thief and ranger nerfed because they had abilities that were alright by themselves but over-the-top ridiculous with quickness. Seems like every ability is potentially problematic with quickness, which points to quickness itself needing some scrutiny.

1. Culling does need to be fixed. MMO’s that are almost a decade old have no trouble rendering 300+ models, plus textures. However, they are somewhat unique in this complication due to the fact that it is not just players from a single server in WvW.
2. Yeah, contesting an area should only happen if combat is taking place.
3. The damage compression is, imo, an issue. Besides, it’s not like the Steal -> Cnd -> Backstab is much slower. IMO, this would call for an overhaul of how instant-cast abilities should work in conjunction with Channeled abilities. All instant-cast abilities should interrupt channeled abilities.

However, the latter would lower the skill bar necessary to counter a burst Thief ambush- regardless of player skill. That said, I can’t fault a developer for redesigning for “mass appeal”. If my suggestions in #3 where implemented, I certainly wouldn’t mind.

We don’t need any more mobility.
We’re already the only class in the that can have a hope in hell of catching D/D Ele’s.
We don’t need to be passively faster than they are.

I would love the Active Immobilize back, though.

I am rather confused why a dagger strike grants Stealth, while firing a blackpowder pistol shot (from a matchlock/flintlock pistol, no less) isn’t the off-hand Stealth ability.

D/P – Would be far more attractive than D/D for burst builds.
S/P – With the changes to Pistol Whip and the reduction of Tac Strikes daze, this might actually make S/P worth building as an alternate direct damage / control build, allowing more utility variance among the (largely) homogeneous Thief builds out there.
P/P – Would finally be the master of High-Hit Volume for the Thief. Could be imba for Condition builds (no risk to spike with Sneak Attack when you can Stealth without get into melee range), but if the Stealth function required that an enemy target is in the radius of the Smoke Field at creation I think it wouldn’t be anymore powerful than CnD, especially considering it’s pathetic damage.

It would make sense, imo.

I love how everyone says “The Thief isn’t a thief! Look at this real life definition”

The class could be called Crapgoblin for all the Devs care because they stated it themselves, “The Thief will be the spiritual successor to the Assassin of Guild Wars”

/Dealwithitbabies.

More to the point, your entire diatribe is anecdotal to the extreme.
If it’s “OP” because someone can’t fight back when they get jumped/caught unaware and they didn’t slot any defensive utilities they don’t deserve a free get out of Backstab Card just because they can’t live without their Offensive utilities.

Glass Cannons kittening about Glass Cannons will never stop, simply because people play Glass Cannons to blow people up. It’s only intellectual impotents that can’t deal with getting blown up like a Glass Cannon.

If he was using Signet of Malice + Regen Food + Sigil of Leeching + Leeching Venoms + Shadow Rejuv, I could see that kind of healing happening intermittently, but not to 100% every time he unstealthed.

Sounds like hax or dev-trolling to be honest.

+1 to you OP.
You display a deft understanding of GW2 game mechanics and despite all the cries of overpowered-ness, you still approached the Thief from a neutral standpoint and observed the classes Strengths and Weaknesses objectively.
For that I applaud you.

I’ve personally taken it upon myself to start reporting all the Thief QQ Threads under the TOS violations of:
1. Repetitive Posting
2. Non-Constructive Content

If the bads want to kitten, they can do it quitely. In a corner.
Good players crap on Burst Thieves, because (while we may not telegraph as apparently as other builds/professions) we still telegraph incredibly predictably to players who have learned to anticipate the dreaded dual dagger burst builds.

It’s the primary reason I dumped burst dagger/dagger.

Daecollo.9578:

Ricochet is more for condition damage users, it should be a 33% chance for pistol shots to explode, dealing 25% of that attacks damage and setting all targets around it on fire for 1s.

Pistol Mastery should improve damage by 10% and add piercing shots, but a critical pistols person would not go for ricochet because they would have little to no condition damage.

People seem to forget that the POWER part of pistol attacks is almost negated if you don’t use critical bonus/precision gear, while the bleeding part is negated if you don’t have condition gear.

Its perfectly acceptable to have both good power/good condition damage on one attack, because you can only really have one or the other.

I completely agree. Pistol Mastery granting +10% and Piercing would consolidate the benefits of Piercing attacks to largely Pow/Crit builds, while Ricochet granting the chance of exclusive access to a powerful Condition (Burning) for a small duration.

In fact, that change to Condition would also allow Condition Pistol Thieves to alternate between P/D for Bleed stacking, or P/P for higher hit-volume attacks to proc more instances of Ricochet, further escalating their potential for AoE pressure.
The latter being something that Thieves, exclusively, lack.

muscarine.5136:

Aervius.2016:

Body Shot – 3 Initiative
Leap away from your opponent, firing an explosive round that applies 1x bleeding (4s) and 1x weakness (3s) to enemies near your target. 900 range, 300 range rear-directional leap.

A backward leap would be an awesome utility indeed, even more considering that pistols are way more dependant on mobility rather than stealth imo.

Now i still think piercing would make p/p way too powerfull, it’s true it would help especially against classes protected by freaking bots (rangers-mesmers-necros), but if you really wish piercing on pistols then the piercing has to be reduced, 5 targets is way too much for multiple unloads.

Meh, in optimal conditions it would make Unload worth 5 initiative, especially considering that the other classes that have access to Piercing projectiles have much greater range on said weapons.
900 range Piercing wouldn’t be OP unless the morons all perfectly lined up don’t move at all while the P/P Thief dumps ini on Unload, even then, all it takes it’s the target to perform a dodge roll and he/she has just saved everyone in the line of fire.

IMO, 900 Range attacks that Pierce would be inherently balanced as “short-ranged firepower” especially considering that P/P leaves little in regards to survivability, inherently. Just going off experience with my Rifle Warrior, as the Risk/Return balance for Piercing Volley seems disproportionate (in favor of the warrior) due to Rifle’s range advantage.

Just food for thought.

edit: It’s also worth considering that it would enhance syngergy with Thief traits already in-place, specifically Flanking Strike, meaning P/P would also stress positioning to an extent.

@OP

No. This isn’t WoW, DAoC.
If you don’t like the mechanics that this game uses, don’t play it.
Crying on the forums doesn’t do anything except display an inability to adapt on your behalf.

Body Shot – 3 Initiative
Leap away from your opponent, firing an explosive round that applies 1x bleeding (4s) and 1x weakness (3s) to enemies near your target. 900 range, 300 range rear-directional leap.

Black Powder – 5 Initiative
Largely stays the same, but a small increase to the smoke fields’ size (200 wouldn’t be unreasonable, especially considering it’s a PB-skill) but the damage should directed as a 150 range PBAoE, not a projectile.

And lastly, fix Vital Shot.
Also, Pistol/Pistol build needs to have access to Piercing. Period.

I’m assuming it’s a Champ from your story?
Bring a friend

It sounds cool, but I can promise you from toying with builds in sPvP matches that it is more of a disorienting liability than anything useful.
Besides, it doesn’t take much to pop the real Shadowstep and go somewhere you would much rather be.

Coolmoos.8546:

quercus.9261:

suppenkasper.5371:

Tallis.5607:

Which game sent information about 100 other players to all other players ten years ago?

Dark Age of Camelot, to name only one … make it 200-300 players in the early zerg days

To be fair a lot of those early relic runs were slideshows. A lot of fun though.

LoL… This made my day.. haha I’m picturing that now..

The nostalgia that comment triggered was magnificent, wouldn’t you agree? LOL.

Solori.6025:

It really does help if you pick one up and play it, Thieves actually have some really predictable tactics that 90% of them use without fail, if you learn them, then you can counter them just as easy.

This.
I am qouting your comment to reinforce it’s validity and usefulness to the OP.

nerva.7940:

Aervius.2016:

(It’s so sad to see that, really.)

the absolute saddest thing that ive seen on these forums is how hard some thief mainers are clutching onto their broken, skill-less prof. and i say broken because, well, with culling thieves are literally broken. the responsible thief mainers are actually coming out and supporting change, which is very much appreciated by the rest of the pvp community.

Well, that couldn’t possibly be any worse than the army of WoW/LoTR/SWoTR bads screaming nerf when they get outclassed by a gimmicky build they could destroy in seconds when they stop kittening and LEARN TO PLAY.

Furthermore, this isn’t Warhammer, DAoC, SWoTR.
WvW =/= PvP.
You don’t see Culling happening in sPvP. Try actually PvPing for a change instead of wandering out into WvW Lakes and getting jumped by a full zerker Cooldown Thief.

It isn’t the Thief professions’ fault that Culling exists, nor is it the fault of the playerbase that enjoys the Thief.
It isn’t the fault of the Gimmick Thief that you are gullible enough to deadpan to your immediate front at all times, completely ignoring the fact that you are in a 360-degree combat environment.
It isn’t the fault of the decent Thief players that you can’t learn to counter our classes’ respective gimmicks.

Do I agree that culling needs to be removed? Of course I do.
But from what I’ve seen enemy players will just be standing around with their thumb up their kitten for a shorter duration when Culling is fixed and people will still be coming onto the forums to kitten about thieves because the bads on this forum don’t want to actually listen to the community and Learn. To. Play.
So, be the first.

nerva.7940:

actually, i do have an idea about what im talking about. thief has the most reliable burst in the game. youre the one without a shred of serious pvp experience.

warrior – one good dodge, warrior dead.
d/d ele – u can dodge just about every move from his chain
engie – just burst him down first. he has no mobility, he cant apply his burst.
mesmer – only in tpvp. i dont see any shatter mesmers in wvw. dont think ive seen one actually. my guildie tries to play one, and hes good, but it just doesnt work.

so it’s all about applied burst. thief has the best applied burst. next.

You can come up with whatever propietary terminology you want to, with the descriptions you just listed it’s clear you’re trolling.
Or you’re a bad who doesn’t know how bad they are. (It’s so sad to see that, really.)

nerva.7940:

devs mentioned they wouldnt stress balance for WvW.

I’m pretty sure that summarizes the futility of all the WvW/Thief kittenfest Threads.

Replace it with the Deception utility cooldown Major, imo. At least that wouldn’t get me killed.

In WvW = Easy. Don’t be kitten Thieves- keep them at range, keep kiting.
Control, Kite, Counter, Collect Badges.

In sPvP = You’d better be some kind of epic with a Thief to take down a Bunker before his roamer arrives to wreck your day.

-Signed.
Camped realms should stay camped, not have their NPC’s fight the WvW War for them. All this bleeding-heart bullkitten about “We can feel like winners, even if we’re losing.” should stay in the world of Self-Help Coaches and Drug Addiction Centers.

The Break-Out Event, to me, is rather similar to these hypotheticals:
-Referees in the NFL will give a “Break Out” Touchdown to a team that is down 30 points.
-Judges at the Olympics will now be giving a “Grace Score” for how gracefully a gymnast recovers from a horrific and body twisting loss of balance.
-The U.S. Army will now be issuing standing orders that for every 20 Hostiles killed by drones strikes, 5 American Soldiers will be put on a 72-Hour “No Movement” status, preventing their involvement in further military operations for the duration of the Order.

WvW is a three-way war.
If your server can’t compete, you don’t belong in the tier you’re in.
Server Xfer’s are free, after all.