Guild Wars 2

Odokuro.5049:

Well 7 more days and Stealth orientated thiefs, won’t be such an issue. (No offense)

Anyways I am running the black water build, but, I want to change over to a power build but not be so glassy, any thoughts?

Having played a thief mostly in pvp you really should look at the stealth ‘updates’ as raising the skill ceiling. I liked sword and the dodging/mobility which I’m 99% sure wont be the same, so hello mesmer train.

Back to the topic of the post. So Ive mostly played a PvE Mes and this build would probably work for that… The trick to a good mesmer build is to focus on a couple of areas since mesmer is a very versatile class. From my limited experience, no Illusions trait points means careful timing of shatter abilites. There is good damage potential from phantasms (as chaos archangel mentioned) but it is quite easy for people to tell the difference between you and phantasm. Dueling X can work creating clones however with the limited amount of ‘misdirection’ I would imagine you would need nerves of steel to act like your clone (misdirection I mean stealth, blink, portal etc). This does seem like a workable build for a havoc squad though.

I dont know if that helps any… Still trying to work out a build I like myself.

trooper.2650:

this is my current build and armor

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8flwzipXUzgGb9IipHBnvBckUYavWJF82FC-j0DBYfAYLQINwkFA0HwJQFRjtmpIasaGYKXCxaXQKYoGzoWzCRmzweEYRBhRA-w

I kind of question two traits, well one really. Why Domination II instead of III? The CD for GS 5, Diversion and signet seem a bit long for HS. And have you considered Chaos III or VII (with upcoming change) instead of VIII? Just curious on the chaos trait.

Ikaros.5730:

Just wondering is Mantra of Resolve really better than Null Field in dungeons?

Also I like running a 0/20/0/25/25

Depends on the situation. Fighting dredge youre better off with Null Field and with CoE Mark w/e golem surrounded by turrets iDisenchanter is king.

Butter.3024:

Just don’t use staff or torch or scepter and you should be good. Also for PvE phantasm build is really good right now

Uhh no, staff is great for boss fights when there is condition spam and has the most survivability of the weapon sets imo. If you want to go through the rigor staff is also capable of spreading the most boons to group. Of course if you’re just talking the bang your kitten S bullkitten then refer to the first sentence.

eldenbri.1059:

I hope that players keep experimenting with PU (for example, I’m wondering if anyone has ever tried a shatter build that uses PU)

Oh yeah, when Illusionists Celerity and Shattered Strength are swapped next week Ive got a build in mind for just such a thing. It won’t have as much burst as Illusions 30 but i’ll take the CD reduction.

My two cents about stealth. Experienced players know that AoE is king fighting any stealth build… I’d rather have the option for this kind of versatility instead of having to play ‘hulk smash’. And being on an underpopulated WvW server (still High population… uhh yeah Beavis) PU is quite a life saver. And no I don’t run the Blackwater build, chasing is half the fun!

Helios.3598:

Veil and MI are mesmer god-mode in WvW.

Might be cool if they buffed MI somehow. Perhaps have it also apply a stack of confusion to 10 opponents in range.

because the name just screams confusion… lol

KeyLimPi.9031:

Then you hit level 40/60 and everything in the world is filled with sunshine, butterflies, and happiness. Seriously, mesmer is continually the only class you here people say “just grind it out, I swear it gets better”.

^^

ezd.6359:

Dekk.3459:

Why dont you try theory crafting??? Mesmer can ‘tank’ easy, anchor eh. Have you ever tried sw/sw in a build?

Get yourself some knights gear and try 0/ 20 (II or VII and IV)/ 20 (IV and X)/ 30 (I or II or IV or VIII and X)/ 0
Sustained Phantasm in your face mesmer.

Really don’t understand where you are coming from… PYHOOYA

I tried different things. Only time i feel some tankyness is regeneration->protection (have cooldowns). Am i stupid or we can’t maintain protection? In another way – we are still robes with low hp pool. But with high def stats we have low offensive stats :/

It takes money to try different things i.e. different gear. If you dont believe me and haven’t tried it then just kitten. because this whining is complete bullkitten

ezd.6359:

Ah… i want maintain “swiftness” and punishing abilities like in GW1 (confusion is not unique for mesmers). I want to be a tank or a support. Where all these possibilities for mesmers?

Why nobody fears mesmers?

Why dont you try theory crafting??? Mesmer can ‘tank’ easy, anchor eh. Have you ever tried sw/sw in a build?

Get yourself some knights gear and try 0/ 20 (II or VII and IV)/ 20 (IV and X)/ 30 (I or II or IV or VIII and X)/ 0
Sustained Phantasm in your face mesmer.

Really don’t understand where you are coming from… PYHOOYA

draconx.3102:

I feel the warden needs to be able to run while attacking.

This would probably be fine. But right now, the warden often runs without attacking for an incredible 0dps!

Or just stands there with his hands in his pockets. Oh and then runs out 600 range only to run back to where the mob was 10s before that… Worst pathing example seen from iWarden yet. (if pets were useful, Rangers must love the ground textures)

RollerbeetleLover.1840:

So far I’ve only noticed this in Jade Maw and Grawl fractal boss battles, where I can’t zoom out the camera as far as I could before the update. It makes the battle much more difficult to see what’s going on.

^^

Yep I received a regular ascended ring (one upgrade slot) from a fractal 36 today, and got one the other day from a 31 or 32. Also saw a fractal longbow drop that still required a transmutation stone.

well this not as transparent as an armor set looking like another. But this discrepancy needs to be addressed. May have to start a topic ‘Impeach Ellen Kiel’ that greedy kitten is keeping all out loot.

Id rather have the revamps minus the new fractals with a correct loot table.

Edit: commenting in bug section

AKGeo.6048:

Kingteranas.1376:

Only infused rings have 2 infusion slots.

I’m aware of this. That’s why I’m asking the question.

Well i got an ascended weapon box… and the weapon was ascended. Seen a fractal longbow drop that still required transmutation stone. SO no there was one upgrade slot, as it was not an infused ring. Not a name typo. The loot table is incorrect. imho

So I have gotten 3 rewards from daily chest from running 30-37. Two of them were uninfused rings… Why were the tables changes past 26? If I’m running 31+ I should not be getting ring rewards with no infusion.

Ansau.7326:

And here, the pure phantasm build I’m running with my guild:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8dlwzipHVTsGa9IypHMnz9ckUoasWJF42FC-jkCBYLCykDwEEQEGAZPFRjtMqIasabY6XRVFTI2iuIa1yAwMGA-w

Inspiration VIII instead of X? Just checking…

so minus all the warrior discussion

bump

you get more the higher your personal reward level is compared to the fractal instance level…

Karma farming is pretty much dead

This is a request for actual statistics. This is NOT part of the CDI for ‘class balance’ and peoples personal feelings on how the changes will effect their build.

So if the Devs would actually look at the numbers for some kind of indication on which classes need to be reevaluated. Personally I would like to see the numbers, and not some ‘oh look at how good we are’ since these are the best numbers statistics. For example, the numbers for WvW season weeks that show numbers and no ratio.

Just thought it might help the Devs to look at classes with the most feedback for future patches.

Elementalist – 21 pages
Engineer – 11 pages
Guardian – 10 pages
Mesmer – 10 pages
Necromancer – 15 pages
Ranger – 19 pages
Thief – 17 pages
Warrior – 6 pages

It may not be the best way to compare class issues but here is a very simple count of pages from each class forum for the thread titled Dec 10th patch with a Dev comment. IMO there were sweeping changes to Elementalist and Thief, which may explain the number of pages. There are is an obvious gap with half the classes from this comparison.

Any chance we can get some statistics for number of people playing, classes played, hours played (by class and region (pve/spvp/wvw) for a couple weeks before and after Dec 10th?

FluffyFox.2756:

Cries Of Sorrow.5864:

Very immature response from a mature person, i think you lack the integrity to judge wether this discussion is mature or not.

No, I agree with Mad Queen Malafide. Anytime someone brings up the “If you don’t like it, don’t play it” argument, then they basically have no argument. People don’t want to simply stop playing a class they like because it’s underpowered or undesirable in parties, etc, they want the game to be balanced so that NOT every optimal setup is the same zerk guard/warr/mes fiasco we’ve seen since the launch of the game.

Basically, by saying you don’t care that a class is underpowered, then you’re actually saying you don’t give two kittens about class balance… and considering this thread is about class balance, well… you put it together :P

Yeah… Id prefer a month or two free from new content and actually BALANCE classes.

Sadly I gotta agree, like some other MMOs that tried to balance/fix issues Anet is failing. Again there is no balance in this patch, ranger traps, mesmer condition removal, ele is getting attunement speed, and thief is supposed to be the most agile fighting style but just nerfed… Dec 10th Balance patch, WTFE

Anyone interested can join me in Path of Exile, its free download and play, pay for cosmetics, its a cross between diablo and gw1. And omg there is actually loot not just globs of gloop. IGN: theDekk feel free to add me

1 thief down 2 weeks ago, peace and gl

Well ill throw in my 2pennies as well.

Carrion gear w/ travellers
0/0/20/20/30

I like acrobatics for WvW especially the extra dodging and Pain Response. The regen from that works in place of stealth regen for me. And must have the mini caltrops trait like Omni has mentioned, also the steal daze.

Utilities depend on what im doing… always have the SS, withdraw usually, other favorites, dev venom, inf sig, scorp wire, shadow refuge.

Food: Bowl of Orrian Truffle Meat Stew and that new crystal from tower update.

Oh and SB swap… personal preference

If you look at the subject topic and the fact that they were asking for input during a specific time frame then

Believe what you want…

I have to agree with the OP, there just isn’t build diversity with thief.
Condition builds (are lackluster imo fun for awhile but ive got money to throw at it)
backstab builds (if you havent tried it you dont know GC)
Mobility build (potentially nerfed into the ground)

There is no survivability there… utilities basically amount to deception and an occasional trick or signet. Venoms and Traps need to be reworked. Compare Ranger trap traits to thieves and you’ll get a general idea. Venomous Aura, 30 point skill, with the smallest range of any group ‘buff’… Broken kitten excuse for an elite venom.

Thief wont be completely broken in a month but lets face it. If you don’t stealth and carry a SB back up then you’re goin solo

You all do realize they were only taking suggestions for a week right?

This post should have been locked over a week ago.

VaaCrow.3076:

Guru.1582:

VaaCrow.3076:

Instead of complaining about your servers doing badly and moving to higher tier ones, you should build up your community and DRAW people from tier 1-2-3 servers to your low pop servers because you have a nice community and NO QUES/little lag….

Funny how people are so willing to tell other people to do this, and yet so few actually will.

Admit it. You don’t really think it’s plausible for any random person to start a Grassroots mega-campaign to revitalize their server, do you? Long before it gets to that point, they’re likely to just jump to an overpopulated server, exacerbating the problem, or leave the game, ditto.

People just say “Naw, you just gotta turn into a community organizer the likes of which gaming has rarely seen” because it saves them from having to say “Yeah, WvW in general and this league in specific are poorly planned and designed, fundamentally.”

Don’t remember suggesting electing somebody as a community organiser? I also don’t remember saying that forming a community would be easy to do. But certain servers i have played /have friends on have had very nice communities, and to them it is natural not hard work, they have combined guild events, public ts/ forums, and its just the effort of guilds working together so that their server can provide a fun environment in which players can enjoy the game.

The leagues were planned well, they should just have had the forsight to block transfers to certain servers. It is not their game design that has ruined the leagues for YOU it is just player Greed and the devs can’t tell people not to be greedy, can they?

TL;DR Yes i do think it’s possible for a community to develop on a server really.

There is not enough strategy to WvW since the zerg wins. From playing on a small pop server I know you can take a group of 8 and beat a pve zerg of 30. WvW season 1 though the populations are just not close enough for there to be contest. Community or not.

I would prefer going back to the starting months. Free transfers let the big WvW guilds transfer whenever and push a new server to the top. Atleast that was entertaining for awhile. Anyone that likes the community can stay and not waste their money on gems.

@OP

I agree they could add an incremental Outnumbered buff. More speed is a bit much imo. More supplies suggested by another player is a fantastic idea.

JonPeters.5630:

• Be mindful of context. Power creep is something we’re trying to avoid. Sometimes a profession may not receive as many increases as other classes. A lot of times, this is because that class is already performing very well in the current state of the game. So keep the overall context/state of the game in mind when giving feedback.

Looks like some people need to be more objective. You’re giving warriors a 5% conversion increase to power based on toughness. Talking about power creep.

Time to find another game

liefbread.9513:

Dekk.3459:

liefbread.9513:

JonPeters.5630:

Uncatchable is a good trait, and it was considered for moving up, but ultimately passed on for reasons that escape me right now. We talked through this flanking strike vs trickster change again yesterday and are still up in the air on it. I’m only posting updates to the main thread of stuff that is 100% changing.

Jon

All thief players scream “uncatchable is an awful trait that people hate running and goes against several changes that Anet themselves have said they’re making to other classes for the better.” and give you in depth reasons why, and you come back with “uncatchable is a good trait.”

yeah… this is the state of the thief patch notes.

It gives away your location if you’re in stealth… Until the 10th though its pretty useful for s/d p/d or d/d condition, IMO. Great reasons for it being awful btw, i can only think of one. Is the fury, might, swiftness better, ehh, in groups.

The reasons were posted ad nauseum in the first few pages, and in many other posts :P

that said, as a S/D thief I HAAAAAAATE hard to catch.

The Dev was asking for feedback on Uncatchable… minicaltrops in trickery. But I agree HtC is worthless in its current state. And the two other leather classes get 2 traits focusing on disables, not some kitten with a bow.

Sanduskel.1850:

Imagi.4561:

Sanduskel.1850:

I disagree. This community shouted anyone down when the unfairness of permastealth was raised. It cannot think to the good of the game, rather only advocate for its narrow self interests. If I were Anet , I would use this forum’s input only as fact checking. If were up to many in this community the glaring op issues would never be touched.

Can you provide links to these discussions you speak of, where the majority of people contributing were supporting permastealth? At most, I see people tell those complaining about permastealth to “l2p,” but it’s pretty unanimous that it’s a cheap tactic whether you can counter it or not.

Also, which “glaring op issues” are being ignored by the community?

It’s quite humorous to see so many frequent posters suddenly emerge from the woodwork to admit that permastealth is an exploit of mechanics, when only a few months ago they all chanted that its impossible. Indeed, humorous.

Which op issues? The ones nerfed over the last year.

Get back on your main account, trolling is for dorks

Doggie.3184:

The camera exploit let thieves stay in stealth for a very long time, if they felt like doing it. I personally found it to be pretty lame and not very fun to use. Sure I still used it in wvwvw, but as mentioned, I got bored and bored of stealth in general and started using stealthless Sword instead, which to me personally is way more fun.

Yeah too bad no mechanic for sword lasts more than month without it getting nerfed to kitten. And apparently that ‘acrobatic fighting’ style is next on the list.

@Aesthetic
you can perma stealth in a keep/tower and rez a mesmer or 3 others or just take it back… After a proper sweep. That is OP.

liefbread.9513:

JonPeters.5630:

Uncatchable is a good trait, and it was considered for moving up, but ultimately passed on for reasons that escape me right now. We talked through this flanking strike vs trickster change again yesterday and are still up in the air on it. I’m only posting updates to the main thread of stuff that is 100% changing.

Jon

All thief players scream “uncatchable is an awful trait that people hate running and goes against several changes that Anet themselves have said they’re making to other classes for the better.” and give you in depth reasons why, and you come back with “uncatchable is a good trait.”

yeah… this is the state of the thief patch notes.

It gives away your location if you’re in stealth… Until the 10th though its pretty useful for s/d p/d or d/d condition, IMO. Great reasons for it being awful btw, i can only think of one. Is the fury, might, swiftness better, ehh, in groups.

@LoneWolfie
How about
Quick Recovery gain 5 initiative on condition removal…

Sanduskel.1850:

I disagree. This community shouted anyone down when the unfairness of permastealth was raised. It cannot think to the good of the game, rather only advocate for its narrow self interests. If I were Anet , I would use this forum’s input only as fact checking. If were up to many in this community the glaring op issues would never be touched.

Anyone who has played a thief long enough knows d/p permastealth was an issue, not many are arguing to keep it. This is supposed to be a balancing patch… And there continues to be a push towards survivability (besides guardian but anyone that cant survive as a guardian…). Let me be clear unlike you with 5 thief alts, I’ve got an 80 of each class and play guardian, mesmer, thief, elementalist and sometimes warrior (just don’t ranger or necro and engineer i suck). There are alot of changes proposed for the other classes and its pretty balanced from what I can see. Oh wait, guardians and mesmers increase/decrease for their benefit across the boards.

Except Thief, look at the patch notes. Initiative traits slashed, vigor slashed, some shell game of traits (look were doing something, oh wait we changed our minds), and yet no significant survivability options. Are you telling me youre gonna dump 30 trait points into acrobatics for assassins reward, wear a clerics set and run around wvw? With the amount of burst and conditions from other builds you might as well paint a target on yourself. I mean you’re “certainly” not gonna be stomping anyone that knows their class in that gear.

I mean seriously if youre not playing devil’s advocate GFd. The majority of people are distressed about the amount of time theyve invested in Guild Warriors 2.

JonPeters.5630:

Volrath.1473:

JonPeters.5630:

Maugetarr.6823:

JonPeters.5630:

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

I’m not sure what you mean by instant, but this is currently the only instant weapon ability. We are not adding a HUGE cast time to this skill. This skill is going to have a 360 millisecond cast time. ~1/3 of a second.

Jon

With no access to stability (other than a 90 second elite) the ability to avoid the following hit if you had a good enough reaction time seemed like part of the design of the sword. It currently doesn’t break stuns anymore, just moves you (possibly) out of range. Would you be adversed to the idea of making the return in the 600-450 range instead of putting a cast time on it so that the immediate next (melee) hit can avoided while it does not completely remove pressure from you?

You can still avoid follow ups with this. 360 milliseconds is faster than almost any attack and certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones. The only loss here is using this while stunned and using it to teleport finish an opponent.

yep! so in sum you are basically removing the only usefulness of this ability and making it a gap closer, no one will hit that button again until it switches back to Infiltrator’s Strike.

Why not remove the shadow return all together? it would be just another Shadow Shot with a insignificant imob instead of the blind… It would be alot more usefull then the new (worse) shadow return.

It is currently for 3 initiative:

• gap closer
• 1s immob

for 2 more initiative:

• escape when not stunned
• remove 1 condition

With the new base regen that means you can gap close and immobilize and remove a condition every 5 seconds. Even if you spread that initiative over 4 skill slots that skill can be used every 20 seconds.

Jon

That 1s immobilize isn’t worth ____ , and the gap closer already had the range reduced. So it is basically one condition removal after this proposed change. If the thief is supposed to be the most agile then increase the range. Or have it remove 2 conditions.

And again please change the randomness of Hard to Catch to offset the sword ability to get out of trouble. Every other class has a viable trait that breaks CC. Hard to Catch does not break the CC, transports (or tries to) some random place, and is usually detrimental.

Edit: Both of the other leather classes have 2 traits to deal with disables. Thief one and it has issues

TheBandit.7031:

vincecontix.1264:

TheBandit.7031:

I just don’t understand why the thief needs this kind of buff. This will allow them to be way more mobile too, and classes like the elementalist constantly have their mobility nerfed but thieves get it buffed. Even now there’s no one that can catch a thief or out kite them.

The thing is you don’t understand the thiefs current most viable/popular meta builds(dp sd) are not getting buffed due to the nerf to all the thief initiative regen traits . Lots of thief specs that went heavy into CS line will be lucky to break even after this patch. The changes with initiative will tone down the thiefs stronger specs and buff up the weaker ones. So overall after the patch the thief will most likely be weaker esp if you take into account the heavy nerf on our vigor uptime.

You are obviously not a thief player and don’t have a good understanding of thief traits or builds. So please don’t come in and post things out of ignorance.

I mentioned nothing about about them being more powerful. I was only talking about mobility. I referenced the elementalist because they used to have a good ability to escape, which was taken down a good notch. With more initiate you’ll simply be able to use more escapes, therefore escaping more easily. And there escape mechanisms are not being nerfed. You’re completely right about what you said, I’m sure they won’t be any better in combat. I just can’t seem to figure out if anet wants more or less mobility.

You obviously do not understand the changes. The ‘on-demand’ initiative gain is getting cut in half. So a thief will now have to decide go-all-in for attacks or to reserve initiative for defense. Meanwhile other classes have that one weapon skill used for defense that has always been there. It is a more limiting change then you realize.

TheBandit.7031:

I just don’t understand why the thief needs this kind of buff. This will allow them to be way more mobile too, and classes like the elementalist constantly have their mobility nerfed but thieves get it buffed. Even now there’s no one that can catch a thief or out kite them.

What reference are you using? There are more than a few builds where thief is kitable. Warrior is currently the fastest moving… So wtfe dude

So in a guardian 1v1 the guardian that attacks first gets the burst… Guardian A hits Guardian B, aegis burst from A hits B is blocked by aegis and aegis burst B hits guard A… Kind of ironic

PopeUrban.2578:

Dekk.3459:

@popeurban the other pistol traits are in CS… I dont see how ricochet fits better in DA.

The point is that it fits better in deadly arts (an offensive line) than trickery (a class mechanics line) and synergizes better with its partner traits (venoms), wheras trickery, being a steal/initiative line, should probably always look pretty build-neutral.

in addition, DA holds combined training, which is a trait that doesn’t really see play on any other set, but P/P builds spec pretty frequently.

Thing is Ricochet also effects P/D. Which, when running a condition build, I personally do not use either Deadly Arts or Critical Strikes. Anyway the other pistol abilities are in CS was what I was saying. So far I have not seen any build suggestions for thief with the changes…

Frenk.5917:

JonPeters.5630:

snip

Utilies

• Traps: In a few words, they are incomplete. A good idea would be to add a condition damage applier to them, and adding to the trait “Master trapper” the ability of being able of ground targeting with traps. This would really help condition damage build BUT these kind of builds would still be thorn between survivability (shadow refuge, blinding power, shadowstep), venoms (of which I’ll speak in the next point) and traps (which would improve the condition damage pressure but without providing any survivability).

• Venoms: I used to run both a venomshare build in WvWvW and a Condition damage venom build in SPVP. Like you (or another dev, I don’t remember) said, the ability of putting more than 1 condition is what makes a condition build viable. Thieves can, at the moment, apply bleeding and torment (the way we apply poison is so tricky that I won’t even consider that as an appliable condition). Right now applying torment can be a huge mistake if done in the wrong situation with the P/D build because you’d just run out of initiative too fast (because of that I think that P/D will see a huge buff with the initiative base regeneration increased, allowing us to apply torment in a much more forgivable way). So why not using venoms to improve our condition damage and make a condition damage build viable for both SPVP and WvWvW? Ice drake venom is too underpowered, the chill duration is very low considering it’s CD. I propose to increase the chill duration of 1 second, for a total of 2 second and to add a 2 attacks to the venom effect. That way you could apply 10 seconds of chill. This is still not very good, considering the CD and the fact that all those seconds can be neutralized by a single condition removal.

And here is what I think would be perfect for venoms:
Simply, instead of removing all our venom stacks in the next few attacks, let us trigger the venom each time we want to apply it. Let me explain better (english isn’t my mother tongue as you probably have noticed): we could be able to: 1) activate the venom on time (it still doesn’t go on CD!), 2) inflict the venom on our next attack, 3) activate again the venom every time we want to use it for a maximum of times that is the maximum of actual attacks (for example, 5 times for spider venom), 4) once we activated the venom all the times we could, the venom goes on CD.
I also think that lowering the Venom CD by 5 seconds could improve us. All of this would be awesome both for WvWvW venomshare builds, since the thief gains more control on when and how activate the venoms, and for the conditions builds, since it would allow us to inflict poison and other conditions in a more predictable (for us, not for the enemy!) way.

• Signet of Agility: why does it only increase our precision by 90 instead of by 180 like it was 2 weeks ago?

- continues in part 2 -

• Shadow Arts: I feel like Shadow’s Embrace has been overnerfed, passing from a 3 seconds CD to a 10 seconds CD. Moreover, now that people can’t achieve “permastealth” anymore it should be changed into a 6 seconds CD trait. Also I don’t understand why venom traits have been put here, please consider switching them into another tree or melting them with deadly arts venom traits.

I am in total agreement for the utilities. Traps have two traits currently that do not lend much to the utility category. Personally I would prefer an instant cast option… There definitely could be some added functionality to make them more played.

That poison idea working similar to mesmer mantras is very good idea it adds more control to poison skills similar to the thief initiative system. It would also create a synergy with Leeching Venoms and/or Venomous Aura…

I haven’t seen a post noting a change to SA IV would you mind linking that? Since that would be nail in the class coffin IMO.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Voramoz.6790:

Stop trying to fight the vigor NERF. It’s happening. 100% swiftness is a lot already 100% vigor is in need of a NERF.

Yes it is. But it’s in need of a nerf across the board and not just targeted at engineers who are one of the least in need of such a nerf and its a nerf that hits home pretty hard given the fact that our survivability has taken a hit every single patch outside of the last one.

There are a large number of good examples to give for classes that have viable builds with far more dodges than engis can get.

AGAIN, invigorating speed is TOO STRONG. But you’re ignoring the blatant offenders (rangers, acrobatics thieves, energy sigils)

The vigor changes should be across the boards. And yet guardians and mesmers still have those 5point traits for permavigor. 10 sec ICD for the 5 point traits??

JonPeters.5630:

PopeUrban.2578:

So I run D/D “zergbunker” Trickery specced thief as such:

20/0/0/20/30

This is not a crit spec, it’s not a FOTM spec, and it is a spec that revolves around steal moreso than most. It was enabled by some great updates to Trickery and is being fundamentally made less fun by the proposed trait updates.

Now, The reason why I run it is that the ~20s stealth makes improvisation actually useful, and lotus poison is a nice condition cover from the auto for basically free.

With 20 in acro I’m using assassin’s reward as backup for the composite overall healing from mug and signet of malice. It’s a fun build that’s a hybrid of evasion and self healing, requiring an active defense and a really aggressive playstyle not possible on other thief builds.

I think this merits saying as if the focus is build diversity, I run a pretty uncommon build, which is being kinda gutted of utilities in favor of (In my Opinion) much less interesting bigger damage and healing numbers.

These changes are doing the following to my build:

Increasing overall healing, but only IF I drop either improvisation (and lotus poison) or lead attacks/sleight of hand.

THE problem is, these two traits are only really in the build in order to support one another. Is there any chance we can move/adjust improvisation (which is highly underused/undervalued, and thus should be a candidate for a buff in this patch) to allow it?

TBH it would make more sense as a master trait in trickery anyway, and richochet would make more sense in deadly arts.

How about swapping the position of ricochet and improvisation, moving a pistol DPS trait to the DPS line and a steal focused trait to the steal line? I’d be able to keep the utilities in place, but still have to give up 10 points in deadly, thus losing lotus poison and bountiful theft, which seems like a fair trade for fluid strikes and the ability to run hard to catch and assassin’s reward.

This would also benefit P/P and venomshare builds.

P/P would be able to run lighter on trickery and get more utility out of deadly arts, making the p/p without venom share overall a better spec due to the 5 extra optional points in critical trikes or a defensive line, which synergize much better with p/p. In addition they’d have an overall better base of optional initiative traits to fuel themselves, and P/P builds would just be overall tighter with less “chaff” trait points to get to the good stuff.

This would also have a potential slight benefit on venomshare builds, allowing them the option of running improv and the other venom traits for possible proc recharges.

This is great feedback. One thing I will tell you is that now your build has 33% more initiative than it used to. This will gain you back that lost survivability and then some IMO.

Jon

@popeurban the other pistol traits are in CS… I dont see how ricochet fits better in DA.

@Jon
The thing with the initiative change is that the thief will now have to decide play offensive or defensive. The option for initiative gain through signets for that last minute defensive play is being taken off the table…

So I still don’t see how reducing costs to elementalists attunement swap is being considered balanced when they are getting much improved traits to survive. Please at the very least change Hard to Catch as many have suggested. Remove the randomness to the trait. Something like other classes, the CC doesn’t work, thief goes invuln for 2s, grants stability for 5s, a change so it relays synergy to the thief class. Honestly I’ll probably still take Pain Response as the 20 point trait since it is a toss up between the lack of stunbreakers and condition removal which are both horrid on thief compared to other classes.

JonPeters.5630:

Pavel.8531:

JonPeters.5630:

Uncatchable is a good trait, and it was considered for moving up, but ultimately passed on for reasons that escape me right now.Jon

Suggestion – move it to major instead of flanking strikes, but increase the radius by 40.

And I am thrilled about the PW change… When do you estimate can tell us how will it look like? Because it was quite decent before the 15th of October patch (1s rounded stun meant you could hit with half of the flurry before the stun ran out in wvw). And it always was a great skill for PvE.

Noted. That is likely what we would have done. I would like to hear the opposing view of players who run this trait with only 10 points in trickery…

Jon

With the current setup I think it works well as a 10 point trait. This trait is a great example of allowing the thief some breathing room btw. For 20 points the result would have to mirror caltrops (longer/more cripple, bleed and area) to be worth taking. IMO

MyCondolences.8172:

Dekk.3459:

No way. Mesmers and Engineers get stealth. Thief and Mesmer can spec for stealth traits. If your problem is with the thief than just say so because youre not even mentioning mesmers…

I have no problems with stealth, just the fact that once someone enters stealth there’s no way for another player to end it. And this is why people pick on thieves so much. Too much stealth, nothing to do about it.

eg. X class nearly kills thief, thief hides and run off. Atm you complain and its essentially “tough luck kid” which brings the blame on thieves. Where as if we had reveals of some sort, then the blame would reflect the player who let the thief escape.

And I think they are doing the right thing by limiting the amount of stealth you stack. Problem is with all of the AoE damage thief needs to be able to get away. Any class can make a build to severely hamper stealth based thief. They just prefer to play a build someone posts on the internet as the best build.

When the game first came out there were the profession skills and each class seemed pretty unique having a feature that made it different from the others. I mean how many people are complaining about CnD? And the usefulness of SR for preventing stomps or ressing, nope. And my impression of this balancing patch (outside of the permastealth change) is that a couple of thief builds are not liked and instead of new options they are just punishing the class in its entirety. No new options. Saying changes to initiative being better is a farce compared to the other balances.

I really think the solution to stealth stacking is in this next patch…

No way. Mesmers and Engineers get stealth. Thief and Mesmer can spec for stealth traits. If your problem is with the thief than just say so because youre not even mentioning mesmers…

Yeah they should just fix heartseeker animation so when you hit the button it doesn’t react until the animation finishes… would probably end up with 5 heartseekers in 8s instead of 6s but then there would be NO thief burst.

Probably the fastest is warriors… I can’t remember the exact spec I’ve been running but with x/x/x/x/30 you get 7s burst skills and weapon swap every 5s. Using s/s and lb (well see with changes to lb burst) the skills are 2-3 sword auto, impale, flurry, swap lb, fan of fire, pin down, combustive shot… blah blah about 16s rotation through both weapons ends up with 30-38 attacks per 100sec. Just pop signet of fury for instant adrenaline at beginning of fight and there you have it, high sustained power/cond build. The number of attacks will vary with adrenaline gain, more mobs the better, but that is a pretty accurate number of attacks (in a fight not dummies).

Edit: think the build is 0/20/20/0/30 anyway it is outrageously faster, more bleeds, and torment then p/d thief and fire instead of poison, drags the fight out longer but effective i guess.

you have to actually pay attention to skill animations… too bad lag kills you.

After Dec 10th I am looking forward to running away (I mean noob killing)

Raine Akrune.8416:

Zero Day.2594:

This may not be constructive feedback…
But please, guys, just re-roll guardians or warriors already. save some nerves and enjoy the game with less hassle/problems/nerf-every-patch.
Can’t you guys see, the game will be truly balanced if everyone plays either a guardian or a warrior.

I have been telling my guild this for weeks. We’re starting to seriously considering rolling out mostly heavies for World vs World play since the War/Guard combo is unstoppable and ANet doesn’t seem interested in changing that.

Yeah. We want the fights to last longer. But a Dev acknowledged the new guardian trait for aegis burst on removal might be abused in larger zergs…

Manuhell.2759:

Dekk.3459:

And engineer Transmute change, I applaud, it needs a longer ICD like 30s. If it was just removes a condition, then fine 15s… It converts a condition to a boon. So Transmute needs a longer ICD.

Again: it converts an incoming condition, not a pre-existant one. It does nothing to the ones already applied on the engineer. This is actually a nerf in disguise, and few people realize this due of the wording of the trait.
Before it was an 8% defense against any incoming condition. We had no control, but at least it could have worked anytime. Now it a single incoming condition every 15s…and we still have no control upon it. It will stop just the spare bleeding now and then.

Ahh like the 30point trait… gotcha.

Volrath.1473:

JonPeters.5630:

Dekk.3459:

Good to see progress is being made. There has be a lot of versatility added to classes. And I know I am tired of saying this but where is the versatility for thief? There have been the across the boards attribute transitions for example %tough -> precision. Looking at thief you’ve buffed initiative base gain, and slashed trait initiative gain, and reduced mobility.

Don’t really see any versatility improvements for thief, you know, compared to balance of other class traits.

And engineer Transmute change, I applaud, it needs a longer ICD like 30s. If it was just removes a condition, then fine 15s… It converts a condition to a boon. So Transmute needs a longer ICD.

Versatility for thief. We are giving every single thief build 33% more initiative to work with. We have said this a number of times, but clearly it needs to be said again. If any other profession was getting a patch note that said: Decreased cooldown of all weapon skills by 25%, that would be considered a huge buff. The way initiative works is obfuscating how powerful this change it, but please consider the value of this change when weighing thief changes in this patch.

I don’t think that any thief doubts that the init natural regen increase is a very nice buff but what i think that what Dekk.3459 ment was about the trait changes and the versatility of combat, not the number of times thieves can spam this or that ability due to having virtually more initiative.

For example, competitive thieves only have 1 single weapon set, the other slot is reserved for the Shortbow, without it there is no mobility and versatility.

Thieves are not allowed to leave home without it. Very rarely you find a thief that does not carry a Shortbow but that thief is probably clueless or simply playing for himself and not for the team, he is hunting and killing random ppl in hotjoins not caring about caping nor wining.

Versatility as in team support besides Shadow refuge reses.
Versatility as in having a decent condi remover without having to use Lyssa Runes.

I remember a few month back you guys say something about merging some traits together and add a few new traits…

Giving Thieves a bit more init regen is good for us no doubt about it, but it adds very little versatility (or I miss to see it).

Also get ready for the tears in the forum about HS spamers, I might be wrong but after buffing init, the next step will be nerfing the dps…

Exactly some people would be just fine not playing a stealthing thief. Problem is there is a very limited amount of smoothly functioning traits and utilities. And after the originally proposed changes other classes have many more build options, where thief feels like its getting more cornered.

Critical Strikes trait line is used primarily for damage, not opportunistic strike. Nerf CS XI and XII and you will kill the class.

If the meta is being pushed to more survivability, then give the thief some freakin survivability. Take away mobility > then give some stunbreakers, condi removal/transfer, boon stripping, stability, protection… survivability. For example, Practiced Tolerance 7% why not 10% like Warrior and Necro traits for power gain? Its not like thief has an outrageous vitality scaling factor.