Oh well, thieves are great as sustained and burst damage.
Burst damage is ridiculous, sustained damage over time is much more ridiculous. I’ve met some thieves in tPvP which spammed Death Blossom while popping in and out of stealth and running with high toughness/vitality, they were nearly impossible to kill.
Crit Warrior (Axe/Mace/Hammer) is better sustained imo, and that is with 30 in his toughness line.
its not fair on other classes if this actually makes it
Err no. Ranger is for people who like to play Pokemon and let their pet do 50% of their damage, or people who like to auto attack things to death. Just kidding rangers, sorry they destroyed you in beta.
Also, we already have ranged options. It’s just that P/P is a little underpowered currently so not many play it.
Teleports NOT canceling current actions is a cool mechanic that works very well, and is very fun, with other professions. For example, a Mesmer with Blink or an Elementalist with Lightning Flash can spend one utility slot to make sure their self-root bursts hit reliably.
Fixing a mechanic to balance a single skill sequence from a single profession, while ruining perfectly balanced strategies from other classes, is not a good idea. Clearly, as I’ve shown, the problem is not with the teleport mechanic itself, because it works greatly in other situations.
Ever consider that maybe you shouldn’t be able to make it hit reliably? Maybe it should take a little more practice to make it hit reliably? For instance, it makes C&D way to easy to land.
Hmm, Remove the teleport, give 3 seconds stealth on usage of steal(Would reduce the time of the spike greatly), change the trait with gives stealth upon stealing to something else.
Or reduce the range of steal to 300-450 traited to 600
Steal range is currently 900 untraited (I believe), but very few people actually take the increased range trait. I don’t agree with removing the teleport from steal, but I am fine with making it pre casting C&D and then using steal to teleport to them and land C&D doesn’t work. Leave the trait as is imo. Steal shouldn’t get a free stealth, currently you have to spec into a defensive line for it.
If a thief wants to run away midfight because you’re a better player and outplayed him, he will get away unless he’s absolutely terrible. If you want to run away midfight because you got outplayed by a thief, good luck.
It’s like that in every (most) game. Stealthers have the option to pick and choose fights and exit a fight if it goes bad a lot of times. Probably not going to change.
Teleports NOT canceling current actions is a cool mechanic that works very well, and is very fun, with other professions. For example, a Mesmer with Blink or an Elementalist with Lightning Flash can spend one utility slot to make sure their self-root bursts hit reliably.
Fixing a mechanic to balance a single skill sequence from a single profession, while ruining perfectly balanced strategies from other classes, is not a good idea. Clearly, as I’ve shown, the problem is not with the teleport mechanic itself, because it works greatly in other situations.
Ever consider that maybe you shouldn’t be able to make it hit reliably? Maybe it should take a little more practice to make it hit reliably? For instance, it makes C&D way to easy to land.
Once again. The problem isn’t Backstab. It’s the comination of C&D, Steal, Backstab hitting all at once. If Backstab is nerfed, it us nerfed for specs that it isn’t overpowered in and becomes useless. Interrupting C&D with steal is the problem. Teleports need to be fixed to cancel current action, across the board.
If you are going to nerf the spike damage of Backstab builds, the best way to do it is to make it so teleports do not interrupt casts and let you finish them. Make it so teleports (steal, shadowstep etc) cancel the current action (including stomps, and this is for all classes).
This alone would dramatically change even the most hardcore of Backstab builds. I play Thief by the way, this isn’t a nerf cry. I have thought this should be changed since I first discovered it.
The kind of change I personally would like to see (and this is a half formed thought), would be to tone down the direct damage of backstab and give it some other additional effect, such as maybe a big stack of vulnerability or something.
Umm, no. If anything needs to be nerfed it is the combo of cloak and dagger interrupting steal and teleporting you to your target to land the cloak and dagger followed by an instant backstab. If you nerf backstab itself, you ruin it for more than just hardcore backstab specs. Basically you will force any Thief that wants to use Backstab more into glass cannon builds. This would not be taking the class in the right direction. What needs to be nerfed is all that damage happening at once, and that is really only possible because of teleport skills (steal) interrupting other skills such as cloak and dagger.
If steal didn’t interrupt and teleport you mid C&D, any Thief that wanted to BS after a fast teleport in would need to spec 2 seconds stealth on steal which means they need to be at least 20 in Shadow Arts (toughness line). The thing that makes that good is going into the toughness line brings down DPS in itself, but you also wouldn’t be able to follow it with a C&D because you would be immune. Best you could do would be Steal.. wait for stealth expiration, wait for stealth debuff, C&D, Backstab. This is good in a few ways. The chain does less damage, the target was notified when you stole from him thanks to mug (not taking it would lower DPS too much), and the full chain takes about 7 seconds vs 2.
Not even close to being similar. In DAoC ANY attack interrupted casting, even auto attack. You had a fast cast where you could get off one spell once you were being interrupted, generally saved for a cc so you could get away.
this ^. if i decide to roll an engi or a ele or a guard or an alternate built thief, why is it not even possible to do this kind of damage in this kind of time frame, oh yea imbalance.
/logic
Not every class is the same. If you want the damage of a Thief, you would have to have to same type of utility as a Thief. If you have the same type of utility as a Thief, you are pretty much a Thief. This would be class homogenization.
Look at TF2 for instance. Classes are not homogenized, yet there is still a fine balance.
Are you saying that serpent strike and hornet sting save you from theives with 2k toughness HAHAHAHA thanks bro haven’t laughed like that in years. Tell me how that works agianst a theif who has played the class for more than an hour.
Actually, a good melee ranger can destroy a Thief. I never met a Thief or Warrior who could kill my melee ranger. He was S/D A/T with traps and protect me.
The problem is that a none glass cannon thief is a lot harder to play in melee and honestly is a part of the fail balance of classes ingame. When have you seen thiefs with high toughness ingame…. try one and see how you do. The high damage glass cannon builds (not talking about bleed builds) are wide spread because you have a quick success, otherwise the classs struggles with incomming damage even with high toughness build.
Agreed. If you could make a more balanced build or a tanky build, people wouldn’t be playing glass cannon so much on Thief. The problem is, those type of builds on Thief don’t work very well. I have tested countless balanced and tanky builds and the difference between a tanky build for most other classes in the game and a Thief is laughable. Let’s not forget that my Warrior can do more sustained DPS than a Thief even when speced as a balanced build. The thing that makes Thief a little stronger for small scale PvP? It isn’t damage, although the interrupting abilities with steal needs to go. It is their ability to leave a fight if they choose to. This is why people hate stealthers in every game. Picking and choosing their battles.
Only thing likely for thieves in the near future are nerfs.
Thieves are fine. My Warrior can DPS as hard as my Thief and can knock you down 3 times, knock you back 1 time, stun you one time, has 5 seconds of retaliation every 15, 2 cripples which also apply 1 second of immobilize which also gives me fury, and can go immune to damage for 5 seconds. He is also fairly tanky, has stability, beats the kitten out of Thieves, and his heal does a ridiculous amount once every 30 seconds if he has 3 bars of adrenaline. If I find myself fighting condition builds it is easy enough to switch around a couple skills for condition removal, though it is usually not needed.
No thanks. Too many games have overpowered healing and damage avoidance, and even this game has builds that are too strong in that department (bunkers).
Completely locked up my PC 3 times yesterday. At no other time or while playing any other game has my PC locked up. It’s starting to feel unplayable to me.
Which is really one of the bigger problems IMO. If you have a portal down on home, you don’t need to be safe unless the portal expires and you have to go back to drop another one.
A mesmer would be able to head mid right off the bat and chill there for as long as necessary without any real fear of a neutralize on home. An ele has to head back home just in case every time the spawn timers line up – and that’s abusable one way or the other. That fear of what could possibly happen is enough pressure by itself to give the other team an instant advantage elsewhere – that’s why a teleporting defense is best, as you said, and it’s why the long duration stealth that SR currently gives further narrows the game to portals on home over any other class.
Also, as a competitive player I figured you’d know that 2-4 seconds can be all you need to decide a fight.
Your whole argument is about how strong portal is and how it is required, but then your solution is to nerf another class because of portal. The whole premise is ridiculous.
Calling incoming is irrelevant? I think I am starting to see the problem here. If you had someone tanky sitting on point who said “inc windmill 1” as soon as the Thief popped up, then properly had your roamers fall back to enforce the node, it wouldn’t be a problem.
If you have somebody tanky sitting on your home point, and the other team has a portal mesmer sitting on their home point, then you’re playing 4v5 in mid in the opposing team’s favor.
I really don’t understand where the disconnect is. It’s not about relying on portals, it’s about portals being the single most effective method to defend home point while also supporting mid fights – and shadow refuge moves it from effective to required.
It’s like we’re going in circles.
So get rid of portal. Everyone knows it is overpowered for multiple uses anyway. I mean, look at all the exploits it caused in WvW since release. Not to mention makes Mesmer the most effective class to ever use the trebs in Kylo.
Also, I’m not sure if you are aware of this or not… but this is not WoW, and Thieves can not be accurately compared to Rogues. Completely different things.
It is perfectly alright to compare a much more powerful stealth mechanic (WoW) on larger maps (WoW) and why they aren’t a problem in WoW but you guys think they are a problem in GW2. We are comparing a 2 forms of Stealth and 2 forms of capture and hold PvP. The only reason you want to say not to compare it is because you obviously don’t like WoW and don’t want the golden child compared to it.
Better question then, in TOR how come a Jedi Shadow isn’t a problem on smaller sized maps like GW2… but they also have perma stealth. Explain that, and when you come to the realization that stealth isn’t the problem (you just hate thieves and would like to see them nerfed so they are the pigeon hole for everything wrong with the game) then you can let me know.
Stealth speed in WoW, last I checked, was nearly identical to full speed. Also, I could easily prevent a solo player from capping a point for a minute or more in WoW without ever having to fight.
Calling incoming is irrelevant? I think I am starting to see the problem here. If you had someone tanky sitting on point who said “inc windmill 1” as soon as the Thief popped up, then properly had your roamers fall back to enforce the node, it wouldn’t be a problem. You once again prove that my point about you relying too much on Mesmer portal to win your games. Also, it took 10 seconds to cap something in WoW, but that was 10 seconds of uninterrupted cast time. Any attack interrupted you. I would say it is MUCH harder to cap a node in WoW than GW2 where you just sit on a node and any class that needs to kite or stealth will lose it.
I was not experiencing problems prior to the Halloween patch. Now the game is completely locking up my PC pretty regularly. Seems random when it happens.
Dunno about that. The maps in GW2 are fine. Conquest could use a rework from a 1cap to a team cap system, but the map themselves are well designed.
AB suffered from the farm/bs/mill trifecta defense and how easy it was to reinforce. Was a huge advantage to the team that spawned on the South side of the map.
That would be called the Iron Triangle. Yes, it was a strong strategy for Horde, but could easily be overcome with proper counter strategy. The maps in GW2 are too small and have to few nodes imo.
Besides, this just brings up another point. If Thieves having a 10 second stealth is so detrimental to GW2 tPvP, why are Rogues with perma stealth not considered detrimental to rated Battlegrounds in WoW? I’ll tell you why, because stealth isn’t the problem. You being overly reliant on portals and not calling incomings is the problem, on top of bad map design.
So nerf Shadow Refuge? You do realize the other obvious answer is to nerf Portal right? Sorry, but you shouldn’t have perfect vision of the map anyway, nor should you be able to instantly fall back to defend a node. That is the problem. You think everything needs to be the way YOU think it should be.
@Dual: You still aren’t’ getting it, but at this point I don’t think you will. It isn’t even about you disagreeing, it’s that you don’t seem to understand what he’s saying.
If you have some super secret uber idea that you don’t want to share because it’ll make you the #1 GW2 player ever, fine. However, generalizations on theorycrafting strategies don’t help in the face of an explicit example of how the ability is affecting the meta.
Who cares if it affects the “meta”? The “meta” is supposed to evolve. It isn’t supposed to stagnate and be the same forever. As classes are changed over time, the meta will change as well. That is how it is, stop complaining or don’t tPvP.
I stuffed around with builds in hotjoin yesterday for a good few hours and got into a match that had 4 out of 6 as rangers on both sides, other matches that had 0 thieves in them. Wait long enough and you will get games with any combo you want in them to post a screenshot of.
Exactly. I see games with more of every class than Thieves regularly. People always post these screenshots of a match with a lot of Thieves or Mesmers or Guardians to try to prove some point that doesn’t exist. I played a 4v4 with 4 Elementalists yesterday, 3 of which were Bunker speced and I didn’t come here and complain. I played multiple games with 3-4 Bunker Engineers. I also never pick a game with more than 8-9 players.
8s stealth is hella long. It’s long enough to travel at least one third of the map without being noticed and finally attack the enemy’s point. You don’t see the house, you don’t see a thief approach you and then hide you simply don’t see anything until you eat the first BS.
If they are backstabing you from stealth from Shadow Refuge, it won’t be that damaging of an attack chain since they can’t use C&D. Steal, BS all at once.
Shadow Refuge is fine, you guys need to get over it.
Oh, the runes. I don’t see much problem with that. It is on double the cooldown as the sigil, has only a 20% chance to proc, and you give up tons of other stats to get that proc. That’s what you call balance. Sure, you may get a 4k lightning proc on occasion, but you also do less damage overall.
I can tell you right now the Lightning Sigil combined with better runes and you would do way more DPS than you are with those runes.
I forgot to mention this is also with 5% damage rune and 10% damage while above 90%.
Actually, I am not even sure that anything effects a procs damage. I had heard that they are always the same regardless of spec. Even if they aren’t I can’t see them getting that high.
I don’t know if I believe that damage log. The max I see mine hit for is probably around 1-8-2.1k if they are below 50% health so my trait is in effect. I don’t think 25 stacks of Bloodlust would bring the damage up that much and I still don’t think you could get that number even on another Warrior using Frenzy. There has to be an explanation for that.
No thanks to more NPCS in sPvP. Larger maps with more nodes are a major plus though. Just look at the difference between WoW’s Arathi Basin that was huge and had 5 nodes vs the one they release in Cata that had 3 nodes and was about 1/4th the size. One was a zerg fest, the other was an awesome Battleground that I enjoyed for years.
Seriously, patch notes are a big deal. ANet has an unfortunate habit of conveniently “forgetting” to include unpopular nerfs not just for thieves but for multiple classes (Ranger’s 7% SB nerf anyone?). This is unacceptable and defeats the whole purpose of patch notes.
People would be far less angry if these stealth nerfs were transparent as they should be rather than trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Yep, reminds me of politicians. They need to let us know what is going on.
Doesn’t it have like a 2-3 second cast time or something? Not to mention… wow, I am seeing those Rifle Warriors everywhere. lol Realistically, I see very few Warriors in sPvP and of the ones I do see 80% are GS, 15% are other melee specs, and maybe 5% are Rifle. lol
What boggles my mind is that with all the noob outcry about nerfing the Thief class you would think the Devs would want to broadcast as many of the changes they made as possible to show the community that they are listening and making adjustments as needed. Hiding nerfs is really, really weird.
Playing devil’s advocate, maybe they were trying a different model from other MMO’s who list all the changes on the patch notes. Maybe they wanted to just tweak things and see if the complaints stopped happening on their own because you know a lot of people will READ changes and then start complaining about them before they even get into the game. Maybe they expected the thief QQ to slowly die off as more changes were implemented instead of “We changed stealth for you guys” “NO Y U NO NERPH BACKSTAB!!???”
MMOs have tried stealth nerfs in the past, it always involves seriously angering players and a mass exodus when people get fed up with it. Most won’t admit that they did anything when they stealth nerf though. It almost looks like someone is trying to balance the Thief and thinks they can sneak these changes by us, but when they get caught someone goes and checks the change log and the notes and admits something was changed. If they really are trying to be secretive about it, it is probably because they fear a lot of Thieves will quit the game. I am more likely to leave over dishonesty. We shall see how many more stealth nerfs happen. It just all seems a little too coincidental.
Hi all. There was a change implemented that seems to have not made it into the patch notes from Monday that was intended to go in the ‘Professions’ section. Stealth now only stacks up to five times consecutively, meaning you can’t bombard yourself with massive stealth applications to become invisible for extended periods of time.
We’ll be including the patch note in a future update. Good catch!
Seems an awful lot of Thief changes don’t make it into the patch notes. Max time on stealth and now the revealed buff thing. Just saying.
It has a GCD so it’s not possible to Blind stomp with it.
Signet of Shadows can be used to Blind stomp
Umm, I blind stomp with it all the time. Just lay one down and get to stomping. It generally works. Occasionally they get through the blind and can get a knockdown or something off.
Make it apply cripple w/ the same cast time/initiative cost. P/P is now closer to becoming viable.
You can only keep black powder on for so long from a Thief/Warrior from killing you.
I agree with this. Make it a cripple with a small amount of damage. Speed up unload slightly also. I think it should have a blast effect also. P/P needs a way to get into stealth like so many other specs have. I have to rely on utility skills to get into stealth. The only problem then is a unload centered spec is already so initiative heavy that I don’t think I could spare the Blinding Powder + Body Shot to get into stealth. Maybe a better change would be to make it so BP causes stealth for 3 seconds if you have the 60% chance to cripple with pistols once every 10 seconds trait.
Senate, nobody cares that it benefits everyone. It is a waste to use it unless maybe you are fighting a boss mob, even then other classes have easier and better ways to stack vulnerability for longer periods.
why wouldn’t mug be a 30pt trickery trait instead? it reduces the cooldown on steal itself… it’s the STEAL TRAITLINE.
In fact placing it into trickery near mid/end would in fact help add a little balanced non condition damage into condition damage thieves… makes more sense doesn’t it?
This is just one of TONS of traits that are in the wrong place imho and horribly thought out and would serve better purposes in different placements
offering us better balanced grab bag utility builds would lead us to a LOT more varied play and would kill the need to run heartseeker spam noobmonger builds.
It won’t out and out stop “2 spam lolz” but at least we won’t feel like we should be spamming it with them -_-’
That doesn’t fix the problem and nerfs Thieves who aren’t using Backstab builds, that is why. When I play my Thief I play Dual Pistol and guess what, I still use Mug to get that little bit of extra burst that is very much needed in my build.
Oh, I also want to add that I have been invited to two different tPvP teams after they saw my performance in sPvP on Warrior (after they were on the receiving end). Warrior really isn’t as bad as people would have you believe.
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