Guild Wars 2

Wasdclick.1764:

I was summarizing people’s kneejerk reactions to their profession mechanics after their reveals.

Kneejerk reactions exist for a reason. When you’re used to being punched in the face for years at a time, an errant twitch or two is to be expected.

Kageseigi.2150:

Aw, but I wanted a baseline increase. Sadz all day :-(

As much as I’d like to see interesting differences between professions on a baseline level, it seems to be against their design philosophy. Still, having meaningful playstyle differences attached to minors is a good enough compromise.

Thief is all about mobility, and what better way to encourage that than remaking Acrobatics into Thief’s mobility line? A +25% movespeed minor—ala Chronomancer—would go a long way toward reinforcing Thief’s profession identity.

If they’re going to keep talking game on Thief being “the most mobile”, they need to show it. Currently, 90% of our mobility is inextricably linked to Shortbow #5, and that creates an untold amount of problems.

Much like being a parent, 9/10ths of being a good developer for a persistent online game is just BEING THERE (i.e., openly communicating).

When that initial HoT teaser was released, I saw Rytlock performing Relentless Assault and thought “Sweet! That must be a new thief ability!”. If only I had known…

I have long wanted to play a manly rogue in MMOs, but very few have the insight (or balls) to let you do so. Say what you will about WoW… at least Combat Rogue was a legitimately different style of play from Assassination/Subtlety.

I don’t need a million changes at once… I just want a statement of intent that they’re going to fix things in the foreseeable future. It’s the years of cumulative silence that is the most worrying.

King Noob IV.3560:

the only class that comes close to being a better thief is mesmer.

And Revenant. It is not exaggerating to say that Shiro Revenant (and the Devastation line) are all that Thief SHOULD be.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all.

I just returned from San Francisco and am going to crash hard from the busy weekend at Twitch Con very soon, but first I wanted to clarify something:

During the skill balance stream on Friday we weren’t able to go into depth or even talk about the reasons and expected results for changes we did reach due to time constraints[sub]1[/sub]. Because the June 23rd patch was mentioned during the stream many people seem to expect a patch of that size and magnitude.

This coming patch is NOT that big.

Tuesday’s patch will have those changes we discussed in the livestream, some bugfixes, and more, but it is a step in the right direction. It is not the end-all.

There shall be more.

—

1. (Although maybe Ice Bow 4 changes didn’t really need explanation)

Thanks for checking in, it is much appreciated! Would it be possible to get the notes for Tuesday’s patch sometime tomorrow? We’re dying to know what changes are coming, even if they’re just the first of many steps in the right direction

Most Thieves would gladly lose Shortbow #5 in exchange for the tools most other professions have. Tell it to ANet though, they seem pretty happy maintaining the “thief sucks at 1v1s; only can decap and +1s” status quo.

My mind keeps going back to Scrapper’s Adaptive Armor GM, which still feels like it’d fit perfectly on Thief. Passive -20% damage taken from Conditions (a Thief’s worst enemy), and a Toughness boost received on hit that stacks up to five times.

Coronit.9432:

I was[n’t?] able to enjoy the new dodges with 500 ping… That is really frustrating. Normal dodges still show the annimatin instantly, while the endurance drains a little bit later (at that time the real dodge happens. Elite dodges not being real dodges? Weird, right?

For what it’s worth, that’s the one and only thing we can count on getting fixed. The animations are going to get even more bland and generic to do it, but the DD dodges should be very reliable come HoT release.

Daredevil S/D definitely has potential. That said, it merits mentioning that the two builds showing any promise whatsoever use little to none of the new utility skills, and CERTAINLY don’t use the Staff. Daredevil S/D will be bog standard S/D but with Daredevil instead of Deadly Arts. Condi P/D will run Daredevil instead of Shadow Arts and maybe replace one utility skill with Impairing Daggers. Everything else is looking standard or sub-par right now… not exactly a ringing endorsement of how the elite specialization is going to change the profession.

37 hours is a drop in the bucket here, OP. At any rate, perhaps you should take your own advice? There’s nothing constructive about dropping into a forum you don’t normally post in so that you can tell people their thoughts and feelings are wrong, but YOU have it all figured out.

Oh look, another person who barely plays Thief sauntering into the Thief forums as if they own the place. Has it been 5 minutes already?

PopeUrban.2578:

See, when you get wrecked by a better… let’s say warrior. You felt like you had a chance, even if you didn’t. You probably dealt damage to that guy, you probably watched his HP bar drop at least a bit. Even if you were massively outclassed in terms of player ability you felt like you had a chance because you saw some of your tools being effectively applied.

The problem with stealth, and evasion for that matter, is when you get beat you feel like everything you did was pointless. You’re either swinging at air or seeing a string of “evade evade evade” and players find that frustrating.

When developers test content in a live environment, they are players, and a lack of objectivity leads to the same result. They believe the class is more powerful that it actually is.

Your whole post really hit the nail on the head. This is why it’s important to have developers that actually play a class like Thief. Otherwise, they end up balancing it around the same erroneous assumptions and emotional reactions that players have. When the developers have their own experience related back to them by the average player, it creates an echo chamber that further reinforces an already faulty design philosophy.

Middle of the pack does not equal “worst by far”.

Are people still under the impression that Diamond Skin is (or ever will be) a thing? For a variety of reasons that should be self-evident, “above 90% health” traits aren’t practical against any reasonably competent player.

Regardless of whether it’s this kind of implementation or not, I think Thief having switchable stances would be very interesting and thematic. Hopefully for a future elite spec, at the least.

I think you just answered your own question

Poxxia.1547:

You can’t argue with thieves who don’t realise, that other classes apart from thieves suffer from lack of diversity.

I would argue that this is more pronounced with Thief than any other profession in the game right now. The key words there are “right now”. As much as a lot of Thieves like to complain, there was a respectable amount of diversity in builds up until the big trait patch in June. Unfortunately, that patch obliterated numerous archetypes of Thief that had existed up until then, leaving little in its place but D/P and a subpar version of S/D.

Here’s to hoping HoT brings some of that diversity back. I’m a little skeptical right now, though… the only builds potentially on the rise so far are S/D and Condi P/D.

If the last three years have proven anything, it’s that balancing a class around never getting hit doesn’t work for a PvP-focused game. Even when that design is executed well, it’s extremely frustrating for your enemies to deal with; no one likes the feeling of being completely unable to hit the opponent.

This leads to there being realistic limits to how much can be evaded (as there should be), which is fine except when you have an entire class still balanced around not getting hit. Sooner or later that class will run out of dodges and tricks, and then they just die. Simply put, Thief needs to be balanced around the reality of sometimes getting hit.

Right now, it isn’t… and that’s a big problem for the people playing Thief.

I’m human and I get frustrated like anyone else. There’s plenty of other posts (and threads) where I deliver completely constructive, on point feedback

And as fun as it might not be to deal with, this level of pent up bitterness and frustration from people is kind of to be expected. It should not be used by development as an excuse to remain silent on the forums (that’s a lot of what caused said feelings in the first place), especially when there’s still so much constructive feedback to be found in places like the BWE3 thread.

Shalien.9018:

Everyone else is being offered a gold chariot with their elite specs. We’re being given a recycled chariot made from broken chariots for Daredevil.

It has outstanding potential… we’re so close to having an awesome elite spec. We just have very obvious glaring design issues that the community pretty much agrees on unanimously that are incorrectly implemented.

For example I personally don’t like the idea of a channeled heal. However Karl’s buff he’s putting in will make the heal good in some people’s eyes. I understand that and even though the heal isn’t one I’ll personally use. I get it – good on him. It’s the things that everyone knows are incorrectly implemented such as the Elite Spec mechanic being locked behind our grandmaster traits and the endurance regen not accounting for the extra dodge that are causing so many issues.

This times a thousand pretty much. Daredevil has tremendous potential, if actually iterated on. Unfortunately, it seems as if it will go live in what feels like a very underdeveloped state. If Karl would open up and share some of the plans on what he plans to fix post-launch, it would go a long way to assuage people’s concerns. As is, it seems impossible to get a word on things which are near-universally agreed upon.

babazhook.6805:

There have been a number of significant changes since the first release to the DD traits. Having followed Necromancer and Revenant boards and seeing how many changes they made in a much longer period of time I do not think one can conclude DD concerns not being addressed. Necro got a headstart of several months and only started getting near to where it should be and even now people feel it not enough.

There have been a few worthwhile changes in there (Immobilize break on Dash, quicker cast on Channeled Vigor, etc.) but not nearly enough for my taste. Beyond that, there’s a palpable lack of passion for Daredevil from the developmental side that really concerns me. I think a lot of people hit the nail on the head when they said that Daredevil sounded cool in theory, but has been very lacking in its execution.

In terms of comparing Thief’s elite spec to those of other professions, Engineer and Ranger seem like more meaningful comparisons. Both reveals came after Thief’s (Ranger in particular was obviously the last to be fleshed out internally), but they still look very fun to play due to the clear passion and excitement that went into designing them.

I just don’t get that same impression from Daredevil. In general, developing Thief seems to be a chore that no one is particularly interested in internally, and as long as that dynamic continues it will be hard for both Thief and Daredevil to fulfill their promise.

babazhook.6805:

As I stated previously, I do not expect this to be complete in time for HOT release.

I don’t either, but if I thought the changes that needed to be made were gonna happen in the month or two after release I’d be fine. Given how much of a struggle it is just to get the little things acknowledged, I’m not feeling especially optimistic.

Shalien.9018:

We definitely didn’t get the vocally-passionate dev. Let’s hope he’s the secretly-implements-what-the-community-actually-wants dev.

No such luck. That’s Irenio, not Karl

The scary thing is how much of an uphill battle it will be to get Karl to even consider something as simple as scaling the endurance regen, when that’s how it should have been in the first place. It seems hard to get any feedback through to him that isn’t small tweaks to his already preordained design.

I’ve long thought we should have some kind of Shadowstep core mechanic. Something akin to Infiltrator’s Arrow as a F3 (or it as the F1 and Steal as F2+F3) would make a lot of sense.

Shutensou.7162:

The expansion is still in beta for a reason.

It’s less than a month from release, which means it’s functionally done. A vast majority of the changes made between now and October 23rd are going to be minor tweaks and number changes… dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s, as it were.

But I guess that “it’s still beta!” fallacy will never die. This is not my first rodeo… I have seen well over a decade worth of people trotting out that beta bit to minimize or ignore the reality of massive problems with a MMO/expansion nearing release, and every time they ended up eating their words.

MMOs are the most time, money, and people intensive type of game to produce in existence. Things are not going to magically fix themselves in less than a month.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Well hey, that’s not completely fair. It was only really since June 23rd that thief got really bad. Before that, we were still able to fight people.

Hence why it took many of us so long to get the picture. Things were decent before, which masked the inattention and lack of passion for Thief that, honestly, has been there from the very beginning. Now it’s absurdly obvious because they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore.

Hopefully they figure out the scam faster than the three years it took us.

Yep. The accessibility issue is one of many reasons they should be linked to the first minor, not the GM traits. I feel bad for any legitimately new Thief player who will have to unlock a spec this mediocre piece by piece.

Jana.6831:

So? That’s because of the classes’ mechanics, you can buff all you want, still doesn’t change the mechanics how many times do I need to repeat this?

Not Thief mechanics, Shortbow #5. Just Shortbow #5.

Remove that and Thieves disappear from every competitive team overnight.

Voramoz.6790:

For those of you who did not know Engineer and Thief got nothin out of their so called Elite Specialization. The feeling is mutual on both our forums. Support it all of it with upvotes:

Engineers got plenty. You could make the argument that the “elite mechanic” itself (the function gyro) is a bit underwhelming on its, but the total package is quite good.

Not something you can say about Daredevil.

Rangers are the only other profession that has legitimate grounds to feel as neglected as Thief does. As noted, their representation in SPvP isn’t so great, particularly at the pre-made tournament team level.

Re: the dungeons bit though, who cares? Dungeons are so easy that you can essentially do them with any profession or build. I’d highly recommend running with guild/friends/chill groups instead of subjecting yourself to the tyranny of ‘meta’ blowhards.

I think a lot of people missed what the point of me making this thread was. It was not for people to share their personal wishlists of the most sorely needed Thief changes. We all have one, but the scale of our desired improvements for the profession is a lot bigger than a small balance patch made on a rushed pre-expansion timetable can handle.

I made this thread to list two changes that absolutely, 100% need to happen on Tuesday, to deliver things that were either promised or brought to the rest of the professions on a game-wide level months ago.

More importantly, these changes are a good litmus test for what we can expect from the developers going forward. If we can’t even get two quick number adjustments that should have already been made in a random bug-fix patch, then you can kiss any hope of future mechanical changes or trait redesigns goodbye.

fireflyry.7023:

A pistol is used for stealth and daze access, not damage so who cares outside P/P which is just for lols anyway.

People who enjoy the playstyle of the weapon-set care. Judging by the sheer quantity of the posts on the subject of P/P on this forum, that’s a whole lot of people.

That’s a mighty big “if” at this juncture…

apharma.3741:

In WvW you are the slowest thing outside of a medi guard. Even necros have better and more accessible swiftness than mesmers.

…you know Mesmers are getting +25% movespeed less than a month from now, right?

apharma.3741:

Caedmon.6798:

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

This isn’t 2012. People have figured out how to work around Blind (never mind the fact that only one Thief weaponset has real access to it). As for ‘infinite teleports’, Thief has… Shadowstep (50s CD), and using all their Initiative to get away with SB #5. Those ‘infinite evade frames’? Only S/D has a plentiful amount, and it’s barely even playable anymore.

But hey, it’s easier to complain than it is to look at things from different perspectives…

I’m waiting to see the full notes on Tuesday, because there’s a few things they didn’t get to. Still not expecting much.

Schrodinger’s Thief

DresdenAllblack.1249:

I main a Warrior and could care less for the zerker, after they dumbed down that magnificent rifle finisher. And I don’t think any Ele cares about Tempest. Poor things heard about DH too.

You are not alone.

Berserker is fine, even if you don’t care for it. Robert Gee has actively engaged with the Warrior community and taken most of their concerns to heart.

The other two, you have a point (even if their base professions can afford the hit, unlike Thief). Would it surprise you if I told you that the same person that designed those two specs also designed DD? I think I’m starting to notice a pattern…

Arctarius.2649:

There’s one thing that people always seem to forget.. These companies are nothing without us, we fuel them the money they need to run the game.

They don’t need us anymore; they have an influx of new players through F2P. They can stand to lose us, because they can repeat the sins of the last three years on a whole new batch of people who are none the wiser. Ah… the games industry.

Nike.2631:

Questions:

• Does Signet of Agility’s active give 100 or 150 endurance to Daredevils?

• Does Superior Sigil of Energy’s on-swap effect give 50 or 75 endurance to Daredevils?

100 and 50 respectively when I tried them in BWE2. To reiterate what I said above:

Amante.8109:

If we’re being asked to accept the boosted dodge bar as Daredevil’s “elite mechanic”, it needs to do a lot more than it currently does. Others have mentioned that having 150% of normal endurance should scale base endurance regen accordingly, and I agree. There is also major inconsistency in terms of what Endurance-restoring effects do for the Daredevil. At best, one or two restore the amount you would think they should.

If a bigger Endurance bar is truly our “thing”—meant to rival berserking and turning back time—then we need to be able to use it to full effect. The changes mentioned above would further differentiate what currently feels like a mechanic hastily slapped-on.

Get on it, Karl. The clock is ticking, and so is people’s patience.

Quadox.7834:

Dragon hunter doesn’t get their profession mechanic for free, for example.

Upgrading their virtues from the old ones does not make it a “cost”; they still get the upgrade just for equipping the Dragonhunter specialization (and it’s part of the specialization’s design, so if they don’t want those upgraded virtues they probably shouldn’t be running Dragonhunter).

The comparison would make a lot more sense if Dragonhunter had to pick which of the three virtues to upgrade with their Grandmaster trait choice, which they do not.

Quadox.7834:

Anet could probably replace steal with a toggle for the new dodges and make new grandmaster traits, but i would expect many many thieves would not be very happy about losing steal.

This is an extremely poor analogy, as there’s absolutely no reason that being able to choose your dodge from a drop-down list would have replace Steal. Now, if equipping Daredevil gave you a different version of Steal, it would be more like the Reaper and Dragonhunter comparisons you are trying to make.

There’s no way Ricochet is coming back. There may eventually be some other form of P/P AoE, though (piercing would still be best imo).

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And Thief is spewing smoke like nobody’s business

atlrising.5134:

I’ll give you an A for effort on trying to sell bull kitten though.

Funny, as that’s what I thought after reading your posts in this thread.

To be fair, they seem pretty good about giving refunds without asking a lot of questions. And that’s definitely what I’ll be doing on Tuesday if those patch notes don’t offer something substantial…

Don’t waste your time trying to convince people that Thief has major issues. People are still living back in the Thief terror days of 2013 and haven’t realized it’s 2015. Maybe in another two years?