Guild Wars 2

Imperial Sanctum. That is all.

I can’t wait until you try an actual dungeon. They’re all fairly easy, but Molten Facility is like Hello Kitty Roller Rescue in comparison to some explorables.

Cultrix.3172:

This post is supposed to be a joke? Seriously you don’t have a clue of how dungeons should be done!!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BGVt8bnrV1M/Sonxpc4BTvI/AAAAAAAAAEw/QIIFor5y13A/s320/Rogue+80+Trial+of+the+Crusader+Northrend+Beasts.jpg

this is the simplest boss in WoW, this boss has a very simple tactic, BUT HAS A TACTIC!!!

The circles in MF do no damage, you can stand on them! They damage you for 240 damage… joke, how hard is this?

No challenge, no loot, no rewards and no tactics = no fun

1+1 = 2

Nice comparison, that to a dungeon that is not designed to be end-game content and more for the story experience than anything else. It even goes so far as to upscale players to level 80, allowing any old average joe to have a go at it. How can you seriously make that comparison?

Perhaps if it were designed as a purist end-game, true level 80-only trudge with big rewards attached, I’d take your comparison seriously. At the very least, you have to use an actual explorable mode to compare at all.

How insightful.

Shadowmoon.7986:

Rejoicing over limit time content over permanent game enhancing content.
/facepalm
The general player base makes me sick

Are you able to comprehend simple English?

I am well aware it is temporary. Which is why I’m asking for more, PERMANENT content from the same people behind the temporary content, because it is ashamedly better than the current permanent content.

God forbid that players want more of good stuff.

One of the most enjoyable story instances I’ve ever played. Tightly scripted (albeit cheesy) with a few chuckle moments and proper cutscenes, a whole bunch of different mechanics one after the other and bosses that don’t stand idly around while you wail on them for 10 minutes. For a dungeon that was touted to be between story and explorable in terms of difficulty, seemed about right to me. Are you implying that it’s not as good as the delightful dungeons we have now, filled with damage sponges and zero variety?

No. MF is by far the best instance the game has to offer so far. More dungeons need to be like that, only more difficult for explorable versions, but NOT made more difficult just with tougher mobs that hit harder. That is artificial difficulty and that is pathetic, and that is what most of the current dungeons suffer from. There is no reason to do anything else in current dungeons except run full Berserker and tear down mobs at ludicrous speeds, because there is no mechanics involved that force you to do anything else, ever. Every single dungeon in the game at the moment is stupidly easy because of that problem. The only difficulty comes from whether you can stay awake long to see the purple-grade mobs fall dead. Fractals was step 1. MF needs to be a catalyst. There’s a long way to go, but it’s a start.

The dungeon team could learn a lot from these guys. Take the Protectors that actually protect their allies with a powerful damage negation as an inspiration for something to spice up future trash packs. Something. Anything.

You’re missing a crucial point – Warrior.

That’s it. Just…

Warrior.

Best part of the whole dungeon – after the testing arena, the Engineer that pops up like “HAAAAA!”, who is level 1. Smacked him in the face and that was that. I hadn’t laughed that hard in weeks.

A simple request.

Molten Facility was BRILLIANT. We need more of this.

Tested it multiple times. Half the time I just prep FS from a distance, hit IS and then land LS on the immobilised target.

That is wrong. You can hit absolutely nothing and LS still triggers. Try it.

Volrath.1473:

^ it doesn’t say anything about it being unblockable in the skill description…

---

ahahah its all flowers and rainbows today!

we’ll see in a week time

everyone will be back to D/P

Yes, it does.

Volrath.1473:

Oldgrimm.8521:

indeed i stole aegis and prot on a guardian, so love it, and it hits reliably now

hum?! is it unblockable? cuz if not the Aegis should block the Larcenous hit thus preventing the boon theft.

It’s unblockable.

Used the skill once. INSTANTLY fell in love. Everything about it is positive:

1) Pathing is immensely improved.
2) It just…“feels” more reliable. In terms of how you move, and the transition to ordinary movement after the evasion. It just feels a lot better.
3) Boon steal itself is fantastic
4) LS boon steal portion is unblockable instead of the first part (which stripped a boon before). This needs to be emphasised.

You make it sound like I don’t plan on stealing all your Stability anyway.

>:)

•Cloak and Dagger skill: Now functions with the Hidden Killer trait.

I don’t understand this. Didn’t it always trigger Hidden Killer when going in to stealth with C+D? Or does this note mean something else entirely?

What do the new Smoke Screen, Shield of Absorption, Swirling Winds etc. get affected by? Like, what projectiles are defined as unblockable? Does that include various places in PvE like Old Tom and the Asura at the end of that Fractal, Lava Elementals and other things?

Because THAT would suck. BIG time.

Larcenous Strike steals TWO boons?!?!

/dance

Overall, it could be better, but it could also be worse.

Thief

• Skills that must be performed from stealth are now labeled as “Stealth Attack.”
• Vigorous Recovery: Improved accuracy of description.
• Cloak and Dagger skill: Now functions with the Hidden Killer trait.
• Needle Trap skill: Removed the duration skill fact as being misleading.
• Shadow Shot skill: The projectile portion is now unblockable.
• Choking Gas skill: Added an Unblockable skill fact to reflect functionality.
• Flanking Strike skill:
  * Now evades and delivers one strike instead of delivering two attacks.
  * Removed boon removal.
  * Reduced initiative cost from 4 to 3.
  * Now toggles for 5 seconds to a second skill, Larcenous Strike, if the attack hits an enemy.
  * Improved reliability of flanking strike.

• Larcenous Strike: Deliver a quick strike that steals up to two boons from an enemy. Costs 1 initiative.
• Larcenous Strike, Stab skills: Reduced aftercast by 0.5 seconds.
• Mug trait: Can no longer critically hit. Now heals the thief from a range of 1980 health to 2700 health.
• Leeching Venoms trait: Increased the damage scale from power by 33%. Increased range from 325-400 to 325-425.
• Signet of Agility skill: Increased passive stat bonus by 100%.
• Assassin’s Signet skill: Increased passive stat bonus by 100%.
• Revealed effect: Reverted duration to 3 seconds in PvE.
• Trick Shot skill: First arrow is no longer heat-seeking.
• Smoke Screen skill: No longer destroys unblockable missiles.
• Haste skill:
  * Increased duration by 1 second.
  * Players now regenerate endurance at 50% effectiveness (increased from 0%) when under the effects of this skill.

Too busy to comment for myself on the changes, but I’ll get around to it. What do you think?

Agreed. However, I don’t see this ever happening. An Adept trait halving Cripple/Chill/Immobilise when we already have numerous ways to remove those conditions, and a huge flat reduction in condition damage? Every build ever would use at least 10 Shadow Arts. That doesn’t seem healthy.

If all you’re concerned about is the removal rate, how about just not having the immediate removal but keeping the 3s interval removal, or the other way around?

This sounds amazing. You need a spot on the team.

The full mobility can be a problem, mostly due to the latency it would no doubt cause when skyscrapers with legs begin intelligently swathing through armies of players. So, I had the idea of placing a net of “nodes” around the combat area, which the boss can navigate around with pathing chosen by the boss’ AI (which takes in to account player vicinity, density, threat levels etc). The nodes would be distributed such that there’s no “safe” spots between them, meaning that you can’t just stand a distance away from a dangerous node and range the boss to death. So, rather than target individual players or groups of players, it would use the nodes around the area to determine the threat that each one poses, and then move to and/or attack that node’s area. If the nodes are properly distributed, you simply would not be able to stand still and have to keep watch for the boss’ movement at all times. This is just for the mobility aspect, however. Every other aspect of the fights that you mention would be on top of that. The fights would get CRAZY.

That mostly applies to dragon fights, not so much the others.

I think something like that would be much easier on the server and for the dev team to handle rather than a full, dynamic, mobile AI the size of a country.

Just posting a comment so I can see the thread update more clearly. grabs popcorn

I was talking to Travlane there, but thanks for that :P

I’ve outlined my idea in more detail in a Suggestion thread here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Overhaul-Proposal-Steal/first#post1923087

As for the cooldown, 30 Trickery would give a 60% reduction in cooldown. 40% of 45 is 18. Unless I’ve done something embarrassing with basic math, that seems right to me :p

I have yet to come up with anything else in relation to the other traits that use Steal in some way, but they seem alright to me.

Any comments are welcome. After all, this is a quick brainstorm. If you find something wrong (and you probably will), you can either use this entire thread as a brainstorm for yourself on how you would improve Steal and make it stand out as a true profession mechanic, or simply help expand upon this one. One thing to bring up would be the stolen PvP skills and how the new system would affect the balancing act on what the skills are capable of there, and how to handle that.

If anything, take this proposal on a conceptual level, and ignore the numbers if there’s something fundamentally wrong with them.

Thanks for reading.

Traits:

Deadly Arts:

Mug – Leech health when Stealing. (This damages the target and heals the player for the exact amount that it would have hit for normally, non-crit, ergo, affected by Power and not Healing). Does not leech life from objects, but still damages.

Improvisation – Stolen skills have a 10% chance to be instantly recharged for a second use (other Stolen skills will still go on cooldown). Deal 3% more damage for each full pocket.

Trickery:

Long Reach and Trickster – traits swapped.

Steal Recharge Rate – Increased from 1% per point to 2% per point. Maximum reduction (30 Trickery) results in Steal having a cooldown of 14 seconds.

Long Reach – Stealing reaches further (1200) and uses ground targeting to affect the nearest two foes:
*Fury, Might, Swiftness and Vigor from traits only apply once. Stolen boons and leeched life can apply for two foes, however.
*If both foes have the same boon, and you steal it twice, the duration and/or intensity will stack
*When stealing from two foes, the closest will give their pocket skill in F2 first, followed by shifting to F3 for the F2 pocket from the second foe.

Sleight of Hand – Stealing dazes the target (1/2s). Pocket skills recharge 33% faster.

Functionality (Extended):

Steal (F1) is now on a 35 second cooldown. Where it differentiates is in the pockets. The pockets can NOT be spammed one after another. Using a pocket skill puts the others on an internal cooldown. This ICD differs depending on the skill that is used. For example, Consume Plasma results in a full 30 second pocket cooldown, but Whirling Axe only cools down for 15 seconds. However, you can still Steal using F1 to fill your pockets in the mean-time.

In both PvE and PvP, all mobs and players have an icon that only the Thief can see – this icon is labelled “Intuition”. Hovering over this icon displays the possible skills that the Thief can Steal from the target, in a menu that looks similar to chain skills. This enables new players to see what Steal is capable of at lower levels, where they won’t have seen the skills before.

Functionality (basic):

Steal comprises of four skill slots, F1-F4. F2-F4 are, by default, empty. These are ‘pockets’, where your Stolen skills will be stored until you change map or go down (not even defeated, just the Downed state). F1 remains as the “Steal” skill. However, “Steal” is now a Shadowstep in the same way that Infiltrator’s Strike is. When too far from a target, Steal will propel you further towards the target for the 900 units. It also now has a “Shadow Return” attached to it, which lasts for 10 seconds. This particular Shadow Return is strictly limited by distance (1200 units) and does not cure conditions, but does break stun. Attempting to return beyond 1200 units will pull you back for the distance, but you will not reach the origin.

Stealing from a target will place the Stolen skill in the F2 slot. Stealing again will place the next skill in F3, then F4. Using any Stolen skill shifts the pocket line-up to the right, and Stealing with full pockets will displace the F4 skill to make room in F2. Example: you have Skull Fear in F2, Ice Shard Stab in F3 and Whirling Axe in F4. You decide to use Whirling Axe. F3 becomes Skull Fear and F4 becomes Ice Shard Stab, leaving F2 open for the next skill. Your next Steal places Mace Head Crack in F2. You then use Skull Fear in F3, which results in Mace Head Crack moving to F3 to replace it, again leaving F2 open.

As it stands, Thieves have 3 main mechanics (Stealth is a heavy influence, but not a specific Thief mechanic, so it is excluded here):

- Initiative: the system that attempts to influence reactionary weapon skill usage and elaborate combos. While flawed, I do like it.

- Dual skills: Hardly a mechanic, but it does exist. Incredibly overhyped to be some sort of defining characteristic, when it just feels like any other weaponset for any other profession. The one skill that changes…really doesn’t feel like something incredible or unique.

- Steal. It is painfully obvious that it was thought up rather late in the development process (probably due to the rework of the class to separate it from Assassin after lore concerns).

As far as I’m concerned, the main mechanics of Thief are simply Steal and Initiative. Steal, however, is incredibly lacking, particularly in relation to how it integrates with the profession’s gameplay. It’s supplementary. Unlike Adrenaline, Attunements, Kits and others, it’s difficult to use Steal as a central mechanic to build around. Heavily traiting in to Steal doesn’t build your Thief to a state anywhere near as prominent as the aforementioned profession mechanics can.

Keep in mind that numbers are easily tweakable, certain traits are purely conceptual, and generally the whole thing is just a brainstorm with nothing concrete. I haven’t put it together over weeks of deep meta consideration. I have literally come up with everything on a whim. Undoubtedly, there will be kinks to iron out, probably many. Take the entire proposal with a grain of salt, and use it to expand with your own trains of thought on how to improve Steal as a profession mechanic.

I’ll do my best to cover everything. Here is my total overhaul of Steal.

It would be nice if you actually took in to context the entirety of my posts. Under my proposal, it would be possible to have Steal on an 18 second cooldown. And again, you ignore that I also thought about just slapping an internal cooldown between pocket uses (which could be affected by a reduction from Trickery traits etc.) instead of rebalancing the skills themselves. Steal usage would potentially become cyclic and not bursty.

Authority.6145:

LordSlack.4685:

Didn’t they also say they were looking at increasing base damage across most attacks as it seemed a little low? That wouldn’t be for this patch or the next patch as I understand it. Next patch is pure bugfix.

I could have sworn that they said for the next patch.

Don’t think so – it was just a future consideration. I may have heard it wrong, but I think it would be more talked about if it were more immediate. Who knows.

If all you’re concerned about is rarity/prestige Rising, I think you’d like my idea.

It’s simple: weapons do not drop anymore. Instead, a new relic drops at 20+, “Flawless Fractal Relic.” It has the exact same drop rate as any Fractal weapon at the moment, but you turn it in at the merchant in the lobby for a skin of your choice. Rarity remains, frustration partially fades.

I got a little better off – I got the Dagger, Pistol, Shortbow, Greatsword, Focus, 2 Rifles and another that I can’t think of right now. Less than half of those are usable on the character I got them on (Thief). The rarity of the weapons themselves is fine – the method of getting the one you actually want is not.

Deamhan.9538:

Since plenty of CC was used and didn’t counter it, I ask again. What is the counter?

Immobilisation.

You have now killed every cheesing zerg thief ever. You’re welcome.

Depends what you use it for. You can use it just for the auto damage, but I use C+D with it very often for controlling mobs (Sigil of Para for 3s daze), and if you’ve traited in to SA you can blind nearby mobs often (this will be easier when 3s Revealed returns) and other stuff. As for DD, I use that against a few different mobs to slow them down a bit and negate portions of their big hits (Icebrood Wolves are one good example, and Ascalonian Warriors too).

You’ll be yelled at if you spam HS or not, because people just hate Rogue archetypes. It’s as simple as that.

Fought a bunker ele in an sPvP duel (the quiet servers) – the whole fight was at least 5 minutes, and I think during that whole time I used it 3 times – twice as a gap closer (not in a row, just as he/she backed off two separate times) and the last time to finish him/her off. Apparently I “spammed” it, and I should feel bad.

Finally, the Traits:

1) Mug: After the recent discussion about non-crit and lifesteal, not sure how I would go about changing this. It seems fine with this new setup.

2) Acrobatics and Trickery: +% Boon Duration and +Condition Damage are swapped in the trait trees. This leaves Trickery with +% Boon Duration and +% Steal Recharge Rate and Acrobatics with +Vitality and +Condition Damage. This gives the natural boons from Trickery more synergy.

3) Trickery: Currently gives +1% Steal Recharge Rate per point. This increases to +2% per point.

Secondly, the Stolen skills:

Giving such diversity to the Steal mechanic means that some of the Stolen skills are going to be immensely powerful such that they are not realistic in the new pocket setup. Thus, the individual skills will need to be toned down to compensate for the plethora of combinations and utility that Steal can now give. PvE skills can remain the same simply for the case of making the Thief’s unique mechanic useful in dungeon environments etc, but PvP equivalents need to be mixed up. Thus:

Mace Head Crack: This daze is reduced to 3s.
Whirling Axe: Attacks 33% faster, but now does not reflect projectiles.
Throw Gunk: Can remain the same.
Healing Seed: This removes a condition, plants a small Water field and gives a small flat heal instead of regeneration.
Blinding Tuft: This now has no attached blind condition, and is renamed to “Illusory Tuft”, “Cloaking Tuft” or a similiar name.
Ice Shard Stab: Chill reduced to 6 seconds.
Consume Plasma: Still grants Stability for 3 seconds and Retaliation for 5 seconds, but all other boons are also reduced to 5 seconds. Gain 3 Might stacks instead of 1. Cast time reduced to 1/4s.
Skull Fear: Instead of functioning identical to “Fear Me!”, it is a straight up 2s Fear from 0-600 range.

All PvE equivalent stolen skills can remain the same, or perhaps improved. I’m open for suggestions on those, too. Those are just changes from the top of my head, but yeah, having access to 3 of these skills at once if prepared for it could become problematic, hence the toning down of them in a PvP area. You could just attach an internal cooldown between skills, also.

Firstly, the mechanic itself:

F1: Functions as normal, however, it is now a Shadowstep. It does not cure any conditions or break stun, but it has a Shadow Return mechanic that is active for 10 seconds after the Steal. This emphasises what a steal actually is: you don’t sprint up to a target, rip something from their hands and then stare at them. This gives the option of a more elusive stealing manoeuvre for players who choose to remain at range.

F2, F3 and F4: These are now “pockets”. When the Thief uses Steal, the stolen skill is placed in to F2, then F3 and then F4 if none are used during the Stealing process. These skills last until a map change or until you are downed. If you attempt to steal more than you can carry, the Thief will dump the F4 skill, and the skills will cycle across to accommodate the new stolen skill in F2.

Example: A Thief is facing two opponents. During the fight, he steals from both. F2 gives him a Fear skill, and F3 gives him a Chill skill. While cornered, he quickly pulls out and uses the Fear skill. The Chill skill then cycles back to F2, and a subsequent steal puts the next Fear skill in F3.
That basically outlines the actual mechanical change to Steal. Now the nitty gritty:

I made a lengthy post a while back about improving Steal. Here’s a re-hash of it:

They did say that they had an idea of making it a Shadowstep with a target or not, although I have no idea how that will be implemented.

An aloof sellsword, who goes where the money is and nothing more.

There’s a thread on Linksville showing dungeon solos.

Here’s my contribution (HotW P1 on Thief):

I prefer the new version. Might actually make me try using it for once.

Thieves and Warriors are seemingly getting different versions of boon-hate. Warriors will power through it (unblockable attacks, flat damage increase against more boons), and Thieves will peel them away and use them for themselves.

I don’t think Mug is the answer to that. I think something like Leeching Venoms will eventually get boon stealing/sharing attached.

This is just…priceless.

Daecollo.9578:

Auesis.7301:

I’ve already given you video evidence that SoM is incredibly potent as a healing tool in another thread, “post-omnomberry pie nerf” as you always rant about. There is no speculation.

Sorry but that is for easy PvE. :<

All PvE is easy.

I’ve already given you video evidence that SoM is incredibly potent as a healing tool in another thread, “post-omnomberry pie nerf” as you always rant about. There is no speculation.

Because you can heal endlessly so long as you keep effectively putting out and avoiding punishment, something that cooldown-based heals do not enable. It’s fine where it is.

Healing Power is a statistic, but the active heal from the Signet is not a stat akin to Power or Precision.

The actual description by the devs was that the 10+1 per level bonuses are now 20+2 per level, making the 90-stat bonuses from stuff like Assassin’s Signet or Signet of Agility effectively 180-stat bonuses. Nothing more.