Guild Wars 2

A perfect world thief has the highest DPS in the game – 25/30/10/0/5 to hit max DPS on a CnD > BS > 1,1,1 > repeat. Steals for Mug damage during CnD triggers and to bolster your init if your crit gain slacks. Someone else gives you Fury/Might. Target is a rock.

Unfortunately ANet built Thief with CRAP base damage. You have to go full glass cannon to bring comparable DPS to the table. SotG suggested they will look at thief base damage, and I hope they do – I’m tired of having no choice but to play a 25/30/x/x/x or 10/30/30/0/0 to be able to kill anything.

Unfortunately this is not 90% of the bosses in GW2, so here’s my opinion of weapon sets:
-D/D = if you’re a master twitch dodger, this can be a solid combo in PvE, but only on single targets. Though being able to 2-shot trash means that doesn’t really matter.
-D/P = Much more versatile bringing interrupts, blinds and mobility while keeping the burst. Top dog for PvP and blinds are OP in non-boss PvE.
-P/P = Your desperado look. Get the hat, and look cool. You get the Pistol skills without the mobility or stealth (which gives access to the only real Pistol attack that’s worth it). The only reason to ever use this is for things you can’t fight melee range effectively as SB sucks at range and the rest takes melee for DPS.
-P/D = It’s like having P/P unload, but at the cost of 1 more init, you get to do several K more damage and a bunch of bleeds much faster all the while gaining two mobility moves.
-S/D = This is your sustained DPS weapon. Auto attack DPS is very respectable, #2 is epic mobility on top of a condition remover, and #3 is a dodge, hard hit, and boon strip. I’d say this is more PvP as you generally could care less about boon stripping in PvE, but with the update adding boon steal, there could be points this is awesome.
-S/P = I find this to be a useful PvE weapon. You just own the face of trash mobs with BP and autos. Add in a stun and an interrupt, and you now also have great control.
-SB = This is actually a horrible DPS weapon, but the fact that it has nothing but AoE and Mobility, is the linchpin to taking on any amount of PvE trash. Drop gas on a group and auto attack to get a quick poison stack, and once they get close, kite and CB spam them. It’s not even fair to trash mobs as shotgunning Cluster Bombs at melee range actually becomes good DPS and can wipe groups of any size.

Really, pick what works for you since as I don’t see there being a ‘bad’ choice with the exception of P/P. If my dreams come true and they turn P/P into a highest range DPS weaponset that it should be, then it would be complete playstyle.

Enjoy it though – I’ve seen many lame complaints of Thief being weak in PvE, and that’s all bonk. I’ve had no trouble with ANY open world content or dungeons – it just happens to be “why bring a thief” to a dungeon when a Warrior provides better DPS (why must you suck Pistols?) and better support (thief class support is blinds and CC, and bosses are immune to both. Yay!)

D/P vs D/D is no contest. D/P has more mobility, more access to stealth (non targeted stealth that can be spammed 3 times for 8 init vs 12 CnD that can’t stack), blinds for increased survival, and an interrupt that can stop heals/100b/etc. The only argue point that can be made for D/D is the CnD > Mug > BS combo… but that’s only effective against people that don’t don’t dodge the second you port behind them. The second that combo fails or doesn’t kill the target, D/P is better in every way imaginable.

As for the alternate weapon, it’s a tough choice. S/D + D/P makes a good brawler combo. Nothing really beats it in small scale as both combos are highly mobile. Large scale, you pretty much have to stay back and mass targeting > single, so SB is important. But amazingly we have a thing called inventories and the ability to swap weapons out of combat, so just be sure to bring all of it.

Why don’t you steal? I used to not use steal when I first started playing thief… then I learned I was dumb for not doing so. It’s an instant non-interrupt skill (so you can do it at any time with no penalty and trait it to do much) that is also a gap closer that gives you some extremely nice abilities. Steal an egg? That’s HP and 6 initiative. Gunk? Toss it and you now have a mesmer field that lets you give yourself Chaos Armor (best aura ever) or Confuse your target to all heck. Consume Plasma? Every freaking buff in the game for 10s. Whirling Axe? A powerful projectile-reflecting AoE move that I’ve taken out countless people and ghosts with. Then there’s a massive list of stuns, dazes and debuffs.

So I ask you again, why do you NEVER steal? Even when ranged it’s still worth it as it may give you the winning move. Only P/P doesn’t have a move that lets you jump right back, and why are you using that weapon combo anyways?

I use P/P as #3 spam is your only way to reach mediocre DPS outside of 130 range (as SB Cluster Bomb stops being DPS at range as it changes to a lame 3 second lob), thus making it your boss weapon as half the bosses in the game have constant aoe kittens if you get near them. Though once you run out of initiative, you become the worst ranged DPS in the game.

I used to use P/P because I thought it was cool. And then after I left early game and found myself NEVER using them except on a champion as they just slowed me down on killing things and offered nothing in return for that lost DPS, they have since gathered cobwebs in my inventory to only be pulled out on those anti-melee bosses.

I want them to be awesome, as it is awesome to run around with dual pistols. In fact, I feel that thief P/P should be the most damaging ranged combo in the game – you are giving up stealth and mobility on a minimum HP, meh armor, no survival buff, meh heal character. A kill or be killed cannon should be given in return. They’ve talked of giving it some mobility, but the thief already has many good mobility options, so I’d rather this be the bullet hose that has people wanting my thief in dungeons or CTRL + Clicking my char in a hurry in PvP as they know I’m an easy kill that can also kill them easily.

1. World vs World ratings – Currently the point system is not volatile enough creating stagnant matchups and having to stomp the other servers to the ground for weeks to hope to rank up. Being stomped for weeks is also obviously not fun and can change participation dynamics that are hard to recover from. Soft resets per tier to keep ranking gaps small so anyone can change a tier in any given week might be a solution. WvW participation and skill would have a far greater affect as ever week’s fight would matter.
2. Events – ANet has been doing pretty well with their main events. Super Adventure Box was epic. Wintersdaywas good. Etc. However they rarely had any actively ran events – this could be screen shot or art contests for game prizes. This could on a surprise reset one week, all of the dragons decided to claim Stonemist Castle for their own requiring all servers to band together to defeat them before turning on each other. A whole number of things – but basically things that look for active player participation but don’t take weeks of coding so they can be done spontaneously. As it stands, I know I’ll miss nothing if I don’t bother logging in until the next update.
3. Animations vs Skill Timings – At this time the difference between skill timings vs how long they take to actually animate is massive. As the damage is calculated on skill timings, this creates major discrepencies where classes relying on quick single attacks are far weaker than those that rely on channeled or already slow attacks (and thus the timing variance is smaller). Should every class and every weapon have the same DPS potential? No – as there are other considerations of utilities, buffs, survivability, etc to consider… but there are currently weapon combinations in this game nerfed to uselessness because of animations being too slow for their damage/skill use. These should be re-evaluated to fit their true timings or the animations made faster.
4. Player Acquisition – There are many things in this regard. There is getting the word out there: commercials on hulu/TV, internet ads, etc. Then there is rewarding your player base for bringing on new players. This could be a gem reward for referring a player. This could be a ‘luck’ aura on new players encouraging old players to party with new players (a non-selfish way to get your magic find). Creativity is the limit, but relying on them to come on their own without further motivation is not enough.
5. Magic Find – Just get rid of it please. It’s just a selfish stat – and people that argue that their fun is finding items or whatever can just stuff it. You can find the items without using gear that lowers your effectiveness to get. Or if it should exist, create it as a gear upgrade. Some kind of quest series or grind or something to enchant your gear to add magic find without lowering your effectiveness to fit greed.

[EDIT] – Seems that the numbering system starts over, but whatever. :p

My list of ten (broken into multiple posts as I’m super wordy apparently):

1. LFG tool – I find this seriously game breaking. Having to use an outside website to even attempt for a party is dumb. I would like to see a sortable party tool with 5 categories. With the exception of dungeons and s/tPVP, it should automatically filter based on current map (filter able to be custom set to map or all). 5 catagories:
   – Dungeon
   – Open World
   – WvW
   – sPVP
   – tPVP
   There could also be “Proxy Party” feature where in Open World or WvW if people are set to “Looking For Group” and get within 5000 units of each other, they automatically get invited party. This goes until the party is full.
2. RAID parties – In WvW and Open World, we should have the ability of much larger parties. The higher number you can get, the better – I want to be able to have one big party with my guild where I can see where everyone is on the map instead of having to ask on guild missions. Be able to actually do large groups in WvW instead of following whatever blue Dorito. This also opens the road for Dungeons with much harder content and super bosses.
3. Bosses – It’s been covered multiple times. World bosses right now are just DPS pillars that you just walk up to and smack in the safe spot until it dies. They need to be rampaging terrors that are dynamic. Lupicus from Arah approaches what is a proper boss fight. World bosses should be this magnified. They have legs and wings for a reason – use them.
4. End Game – Most MMOs rely on tons of max level dungeons and max stat gear treadmills to give goals to people once they reach max level. There is clear goals that they can just keep extending with each ‘content’ update. Here there is no true ‘treadmill’ (though ascended gear is starting to create one), so people have to decide on making one for a specific skin. It may be “play how you want”, but the problem of no specific goal is too easily read as ‘no goal’. And if you don’t care about what your character looks like, what is there to care about? I just don’t know if a gear/level treadmill is escapable for character longevity in MMOs.
5. Dungeons – I’m one that actually likes the changes made to AC. Many others need to have their mechanics made more complex and diverse. I’m also a fan of hard content, though I realize people like casual gameplay too, so a “hard mode” with better rewards would be nice too. Bigger concern would be to look at dungeons that are currently economy destroying like CoF due too how fast and easy they are for what they give.

Also tested and can confirm no difference. Mug and Sundering Strikes are the obvious choices in DA unless you also use venoms.

I then compared it to a 10/30/0/0/30. At full initiative, it did come slightly lower, but could easily be attributed to RNG. Under standard play use, my numbers were hitting about 200 lower. Heavier use would push over 500. It is of course debatable – your swords have the advantage of doing everything you’re turning your swords into already, so is it worth it at the cost of DPS? I admit I’ve let the steals spoil me – I found myself not using #3 to boon strip as much as I should as the steal made it where I didn’t have to really worry on the non-buff-heavy classes so I didn’t pay proper attention. I’ll need to practice the 25/30/x/x/x (still debating between 15 SA and 15 trick) before I can say which is better (at least to me).

It is official I suck at thief. I did not realize “Improvisation” gave 10% damage when keeping a stolen item – I just read “bundles” and thought ‘environmental weapons’. That 10% there has kicked my DPS numbers in the nuts, so a 10/30/0/0/30 can’t compare.

Looks like I’m always sticking to my 25/30/x/x/x like I’ve done for 99% of my thief’s life anyways. Question to ask myself, Sundering Strikes or Mug? And how do I want to spend those last 15 points? =d

Then Jakob posted – kitten Maybe I should actually use the trait for once and find out for myself. XD

Sigils have universal cooldowns, and weapon swap sigils have long cooldowns…. so remember to never mix these and ‘on crit’ sigils.

That said, while there’s no question chilling those around you, it DOES do direct damage (~500), so it will of course force you out. You may be able to use this to your playstyle, but it does not fit stealth unless you don’t plan on weapon swapping in stealth (stealth attacks > the sigil proc, so you don’t want to waste the chance).

Tips for sigils:
Permanent Stat Bonuses (accuracy, force and night): Beautiful and statistically some of your best DPS increase options. Remember that they don’t stack. If you can afford having a weapon bothe for force and night is great – put the night on an AC weapon so you know when to start swinging with the beast.

On Kill stats: You should have at least 1 weapons with “on kill” stat stacking. There is no reason to not get 250 stat points for free. Obviously having a spare weapon to swap to when you reach 250 stacks or are in often-death situations would be ideal, but it’s better to have one of these than not.

Condition Duration: You might consider these if you’re a no-crit condition build that specializes in a condition like bleed.

Bonus damage to X mob: these are utter trash.

On kill buffs: If your life revolves around open-world trash killing maybe you can find a use for these? But really just trash.

On kill charges: Pure trash. Sure, you could spend 10 minutes killing trash so you could get one guaranteed win in WvW, but really?

On Crit: These sigils are part of the reason precision and crits are so important in this game. Healing, condition removal, boon removal, debuffs, and DPS. Air/Fire is arguable against Force (and can’t compare to Night at night) for better DPS, but can’t deny the fun of fire explosions from your shortbow.

On Weapon Swap: Really, unless you’re building for constant weapon swaps, “on swap” sigils are inferior. Also note that they’ll screw over any of your “on crits” sigils with their cooldowns and vice versa. I’ve only ever used these on my elem and my quick swap axe/axe/mace warrior build.

I personally wouldn’t waste a “on kill” sigil underwater. 80% of the game your above water, so it’s better to bring dps/utility instead. And if you know you’ll be underwater for a while, just prep on trash (yellow mobs also count) first. Really, suggestions are heal on crit, bleed on crit, sigil of generosity, or any DPS (fire, lightning, force). I tend to use Bleed on Crit on my harpoon gun to have it double-bleed stack and DPS on the spear.

Running around in circles works in PvE. You should just stop attacking me so I can kill you. K thanx.

Well, weapon traits need some serious love – as they are so horrid, 100% of your DPS lies in the DA/CS trees. The only ‘builds’ that pull away from this are ones that ignore damage in favor of just caltrop spam for bleed ‘condition’ damage. We need a sword trait. We need a SB trait that doesn’t suck. Only reason people touch the dagger trait (seriously, a MASTER trait that does nothing but 5% to one weapon? But SB is in the same boat) is because it’s already in the DA tree and a D/D burst build could care less about vuln stacking. I could write quite a post on what I would think would “fix” our trait trees. But if they fixed it, I’d find myself racking my brain on how to build my chars :p

I’m of mixed opinion about Mug. Mug is on a long cooldown skill and is the entire key to thief burst. It’s OP with daggers, but a must to give burst on all other weapon options. S/P #3 reverted? S/D #3 made more reliable? Pistols do actual damage on all skills and where #3 does something more than mediocre? SB damage also sucks beyond all recognition, but is made up for against multiple targets… cluster bomb not being physics defyingly slow at long range, or actually being given 1200 range (traited) on the SB is all I would care about. If they started taking things like that, I would gladly take a Mug nerf – but unless that happened, I’d rather they just nerfed backstab to 50% bonus behind to save the other weapon sets being screwed by the change.

We’ll see where they go with it.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

RashanDale.3609:

S/D has enough mobility as it is that adding more dodges is simply overdoing it. And if you need to put points into Trickery, then I guess S/D is not the right weapon set for your play style.

do you have an actual argument why trickery is apparently so bad for S/D?

Trickery gives more Initiative that S/D simply doesn’t really need.

Just like putting points into Acrobatic to be able to have an extra dodge. That extra dodge will simply sit there and not contributing because S/D doesn’t need extra mobility while an extra damage is always active.

Trickery is the same. If you are using S/D and think that you need more Initiatives, then what I’m suggesting is you’re better off with D/x that will definitely take advantage of the extra initiative. Otherwise, you’re either wasting Initiative on unnecessary weapon skills, or that extra Initiative just sits there and not contributing.

Here’s a question though, what rotation are you using that an extra Initiative is required for you to put points into Trickery?

JakobGW.5730:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

And if you need to put points into Trickery, then I guess S/D is not the right weapon set for your play style.

I run 10/30/0/0/30.

I can tell you that S/D definitely fits my play style. Ask my victims. =)

What are you doing that you need 30pts into Trickery?

Vincent, 30 trickery is not for the initiative (though it plays nicely with the T3 minor) – it is to turn your steals into shutdowns. In PvE I run 25/30/0/0/15 because simply said you’re right about it being the best DPS and I could care less about shutting down a trash mob. Thrill of the Crime from a steal gives a nice DPS boost and the init minors are enough to keep me above 6 initiative for the extra 10% with active use of my #2. I crit 3-4k with my first two sword attacks and over 5-6k on my third. By swapping to 10/30/0/0/30 I give up about 500 damage max per swing on a standard target. What I gain is that my steals now strip two boons giving them to myself and those close around me (and this has turned many fights for me, especially on guardians), and a 1s daze (as you should take steal daze, not initiative on heal) turning my steal into an interrupt that gives me about 2 seconds to whale on the target (after adding the restarted attack animations to the target).

What this does is I do less on naked targets, more on buffed because I can make them naked without the expensive #3. I can daze them from any direction. I shave a little over 6 seconds off that powered up steal (over the 15 points I had, it’s 13.5s if you hadn’t traited). I still get 10%+ attack bonus from Lead Attacks making the only real DPS loss from sundering strikes and 150 power. On soft targets you will barely notice as you wouldn’t have landed many vulns anyways, and if you have others stacking the vulns on the harder targets, you actually hit just as hard at full initiative as the 5% more attack covers the power difference.

Give it a try before you knock it Vincent. :p

Depends on the weapon your buddy uses and If you plan on running a lot of dungeons. If you plan on dungeons, roll a guardian, and you’ll have people flock to you or let you in pug runs. You’d be a DPS and Tank combo that few deny. Also if he’s a GS Warrior, as it’s triggers are not really that impressive with ele fields. Note, though, that the fields of a Guardian are pretty nice too.

An ele + hammer warrior own with combo fields + blast finishers (hammer burst, stomp, flags, etc) = win. Added with your own blast finishers, and you both can be easily keeping yourselves healed and might stacked. I had fun playing as an ele with my friend playing as a warrior and another as an archer.

I actually love Elems in dungeons, but as most build for tanking and not DPS, and most people are too lazy for triggering combo fields, they’re not on the dungeon shortlist. Though if you have a guild or others to play with, screw all that and play what you find most fun.

Lol Sir Vincent – with no real weapon traits, what weaponset doesn’t have it’s DPS lessened by doing anything other 25 DA 30 CS? It’s about fitting people’s playstyles a bit more and having fun. A 10/30/0/0/30 is actually pretty awesome – the DPS loss actually isn’t that bad as Fury and Lead Attacks plus stripping buffs can help close it. Having a super steal is fun and can turn fights you would have lost in your favor (I’ve completely screwed Guardians with it). It’s giving up a small chunk of DPS for very nice utility. The others might be more debatable – for example 10/30/30/0/0 might be better off with D/D over S/D – is the ability to spam dodge and shadow steps with a 10/30/0/30/0 really needed? – etc – but if that’s how you have fun and succeed playing, more power to you. I’m just hoping my build suggestions can help people fit their playstyle and be a little more effective at it.

urbanevil.7145:

10/30/0/15/15 – Is quite fun with a s/d setup.

Sorry, but I find 10/30/0/20/10 to be much better. Why take 3 starting initiative over 2 initiative gain per 10s? A quick fight you’re not likely to eat all your initiative anyways, and a long fight the initiative gain wins hands down.

[EDIT]
@Travlane – I’m trying to understand your build option. The 5/0/30/30/5 – P/D doesn’t apply to this topic, so I’ll ignore that. The 10/20/20/20/0 is… what do you consider giving up 100 precision, 10% crit damage, first strikes and executioner for? That’s a major chunk of damage. While I agree the utility is nice, just not worth the DPS loss. I’d lean towards 10/30/15/15/0. If initiative is more important than the seconds of stealth, then 10/30/10/20/0. And if you want to heavily rely on the stealth, to just full blow it to 10/30/30/0/0 as that is better than 10/30/20/10/0. But I will argue dipping below 30 Critical Strikes unless your going condition even if it is to gain initiative – there are plenty of number crunches proving that 30 in Critical Strikes is better than initiative gain. You can already run heavily with “CnD > stealth attack > auto attack chain” with 30 in SA or Acrobatics.

I also don’t understand what you mean about “screwed on second weaponset”. Thieves have crap weapon traits, so all weapons fit the traits the same and it affects their DPS the same. Do you go off hand D/D for a burst? Do you go D/P for yet another mobility move and infinite stealth? Do you go SB for the AoE/mobility? S/P so you can have an interrupt/stun weapon group and a stealth/cripple/evade group for your sword? The only real options I don’t see as meshing with S/D is P/P — P/P has less DPS, no mobility, and less utility than S/P or D/P. And P/D as you’re usually not building for conditions with a Sword build.

25/30/x/x/x is your max DPS setup for thief period – DA and CS give DPS stats and the best DPS traits including minors, and Thief has crap weapon traits, so no matter what weapons you use, 25/30/x/x/x will hit hardest. Put 15 points in Shadow Arts for Blind on stealth or cheaper Cloak and Dagger. Put 15 in Acrobatics for more survival from dodges and might or vigor bonuses. Put 15 into Trickery for more utility from your steals.

The question comes do you want to give up DPS for utility? And really, that boils down to your playstyle. For Sword, I personally wouldn’t drop off 30 Critical Strikes as that’s far too much of your DPS to let slip. And steal is a big part of a mobile build, so Mug becomes extra important for DPS. Thus I consider 10/30/x/x/x as a hard coded part of a Sword/Dagger build. So where do you put the 30 remaining points?

10/30/30/0/0 – CnD is part of your regular attack cycle and you use Hide in Shadows as your heal. Stealthing now becomes heals, blinds, a few might stacks, and either cheaper CnD or condition removal.

10/30/0/30/0 – CnD is more for escapes as dodges are your survival. With good initiative gain and might built up on those dodges, you still hit pretty hard and rely more heavily on those skills than auto attack.

10/30/0/0/30 – Steal is now not only mobility with a kick, but major utility too. It gives initiative, damage (Mug), Fury, Swiftness, Might, Vigor, boon-strip, and Daze. Auto-attack and steal is your DPS as your initiative is just for mobility and evasion (using initiative cuts your DPS as you now have two minors that boost you up to 25% damage just on the basis of your unused initiative). You could give up the daze on steal for 4 initiative on heal if you find yourself dipping below 6 initiative commonly.

Of course these are not the only options, as you can hybrid the utility:
- 10/30/0/20/10 has dodges with caltrops and very nice initiative gain with Quick Recovery and steal.
- 10/30/20/0/10 gives your stronger CnD with a steal that has 3 ini and Thrill of the Crime.
- 10/30/15/15/0 gives longer stealths that blind along with your dodges making a nice survival combo.

And that pretty much covers all the viable build options – 3 DPS build options with minor utility. 3 build options that specialize on a utility (stealth, initiative/dodges, steal). And 3 hybrid utility builds. Any other build options I’ve found to be ineffective, though 9 build options still is pretty impressive.

Really, it depends how good your initiative regain is – You can use #3 again even in the middle of the counter response to block and retrigger the counter. I always use Infi Signet under water to help boost the hungry initiative needs of this. The better your gain, the more targets or longer you can hold out doing your only real damage move while not taking damage. Stick on the ranged targets, and let the melee swim to you so #3 hits all of them. If you get more, spam #5 and dodges until your party gets the attention of a few.

For fractals I admit I play it a bit more pansy like – I let someone else initiate the fight, swing my spear until I have the attention of a mob or two, then commence #3 spam. :p

Conclusion – You’re fine in PvE (but you’re fine in PvE even if you played the whole game with nothing but auto attack and dodges on any class) as mobs are predictable and controllable. Unfortunately you can’t control people locations like you can mobs, and as they have heals and dodges, 2+ people are guaranteed to outlast your initiative unless they suck (I have had people fight me grouped up), or you built for super initiative gain (which usually means you sacrificed your already poor underwater DPS for it – so it just means it goes until you still run out or they give up).

Personally I’ve grown to like Last Refuge. I’m being aggressive, they took me low but I know I’ll still win? Hold off on my CnD and just HS (if they’re not below 50% and I am, I wouldn’t be staying there) – once they hit me and I proc Last Refuge, I’m now invisible and they’re blind – that is enough for their next to miss and let me dodge/run/port behind them for the finishing backstab. That, or I simply don’t care as it will trigger when I’m on reveal debuff anyways.

For running away is where it is actually a problem. You can start running away first in a straight line to purposely let them proc then cut off out of the general AoE/auto attack spam and get to safety. Judge sooner to know if you can be aggressive and stick a fight that lets you get that low or reset. Or as you said, most stealth builds are glass cannons as OP stealth is more than enough survival in PvP/WvW, so most people can hit you harder than 25% of your HP, so why does the skill even affect you?

Would I like a better skill? Yeah. But do I consider it broken? No. I’ve learned to either use it or not care if it happens.

It is true that Basilisk Venom is our only underwater elite. With no burst to utilize with that move, it’s sadly weak underwater.

As for Thieves underwater, it depends… thieves have crappy HP, crappy toughness, and crappy DPS underwater. I’m full glass cannon and that’s still not enough to make up for the kitten ~100 damage skill bases. Thieves, however, do have one thing going for them underwater – they’re basically invulnerable. Despite hitting like a limp fish, 1v1 I own 99% of the time. Spear with 2 evades, one a long one (#2 and 5), a spammable block (#3) that you can use infinitely with even slight initiative gain attempts, and two gap closers (steal and spear #4), and I can slap anyone to death. In PvP it usually ends with them swimming for land – and well, pfft, half health against a glass cannon dagger theif? gg. Unfortunately you can’t afford to make yourself invulnerable for long against multiple targets (#2 and 3 is easy for another to just off hit, #5 far too expensive), so the second one more person joins (even if it’s a freaking pet), you’re screwed since once you lose that invulnerability, you’re back to low HP + low defense + low DPS fail. Sadly harpoon is just more wimpy DPS without the survival options and has stupidly costly moves (that still suck with DPS), so it’s a non-option.

Is half damage of other classes worth single-target invulnerability? Maybe if the game was 1v1 in PvP and that PvE was against single targets (which yay if you like taking 30 minutes to solo a Champion?)… But as it is not, pretty much any other class is better underwater.

Short Bow is extremely weak DPS wise, but it’s sheer effectiveness in mass trash makes up for the DPS. I would love to see the auto attack be at the rate listed and the cluster bomb getting a speed boost so it actually could be used as a DPS weapon would be nice.

Daggers are fine as they are – They are the only hope of thief DPS with backstab and HS spam… which should not be thief’s only option.

Sword is pretty good, but would like to see #3 of both P and D helped a bit and an actual trait to specialize in sword to make them stronger when you do build for it.

Pistols are what need desperate love. They have fractionalized damage on the calculations of rapid attacks… that are then put on slow animations. Unload is an channeled animation so the attacks come at the speed they’re meant to, so it’s the only move not broken for DPS (though should either cost 4 or do more damage) making it a requirement to spam to do DPS as a pistol thief (or attack from stealth). This needs to be fixed. And if the animations can’t be fixed, damage and debuff durations needs to boosted by 50% to compensate. Also think #5 is too expensive for the utility – want to see it turn to smoke field at you and your target that you can teleport between twice at the cost of 1 or 2 init… or any other number of options to boost mobility/utility of the pistol 5.

Really, making pistols competitive DPS is the thief biggest need for a quick fix for dungeon viability. Skill curve of a squish class in melee is simply too steep to trust, and zero real ranged DPS means you can’t trust thief to be reliable DPS at this current time. With all the bosses being basically immune to blinds, they lose a major support option. So thieves either need more support, blinds buffed against bosses, or unparalleled DPS potential to make up for glass to be good dungeon options.

Exactly – it’s not a “bring back”, but a change that if you did your PvE monthly before the patch that gave PvP laurels, but not your PvP monthly until after the patch… then you were able to get them both. It happened to be a special situation that was a nice treat for those that fit that situation, but is should not be the standard case. Doing both dailies never got both that I ever heard reported, and if it did, it was quickly patched as I did both dailies the day after the patch.

Wrote a post about why they shouldn’t have it, but I take it back. If I desire to do both, why should I not be rewarded for both? If I spend twice the time playing the game, why should I not get my items twice as fast? If they consider a rare from a boss every day as an acceptable rate, even someone doing both dailies every single day and both monthlies still would not turn as many rares/exotics by converting laurels to boxes. Ascended Rings would still be much much slower than fractals. Accessories would still be dependant on guilds for which is faster. Gives altoholics like myself a grindy method to have a hope of getting my multiple chars equipped in a timeframe not listed in years.

We all know Vital Shot was meant to do 1/3rd the physical damage of Bleeding Shot, do 2/3rds of the bleeding, and fire just as slow.

But yes, a lot of the damage and debuff durations of skills were built off the front load of the attack delay, but are really forced on the back load of the animation. Every class is affected, and I wish they would fix this. The most heavily affected, of course, is thief Pistols. They have fractional damage under the assumption of rapid fire, but have slow animations (we’re talking 50% cast times being added, which is not joke), so they’re just stuck with… fractional damage period.

Unfortunately I don’t see them taking the effort of changing animation timings. This would be the best fix as it stops the option of animation clipping for serious delays on long combos like Guardian hammer auto (so any animation clip would constitute an interrupt as it would still be in the skill timer). But unless they do that, they seriously need to recalculate the balance of every single move in the game based on animation times and change the skill timings to match to prevent animation clipping.

Daecollo.9578:

Drawing Guy.3701:

Obviously “Last Refuge” sucks as it is completely counter-intuitive to the trait line it belongs on. While paper it makes sense as it stealths you, it only works in the situation when you’re already unstealthed and not on reveal debuff… which anyone taking this trait line will not have be the case.

The OP’s suggestion is overpowered… especially as a 5pt minor. It also doesn’t fit the “oh kitten” auto-survival point. Personally this is my suggestion:

Slippery: When your health reaches 25%, your survival instincts kick in, evading all attacks for 3 seconds. (This can only trigger once every 90 seconds)

Something like that would fit their description of thief, and would be that last ditch trigger that might actually help you survive rather than get you killed.

I like it when you suggest something of mine is overpowered when it really isn’t, it offers the thief staying power and more builds to what it needs, staying power.

Then you pretty much say: Well how about instead pretty much invulnerability, which is completely balanced? Not really considering the way thief works, 3 seconds of evasion at 25% health is amazing for PvP and I could argue even MORE overpowered, not so much for PvE.

Where my idea is amazing in PvE, and soso in PvP.

Um – on crit heals is not over powered? Something that would apply 24/7 and help any but a non-crit condition? Something that is a required trait as it’s just a 5pt drop into shadow? Every single build option I would ever make (as a non-crit thief is just dumb) would take this trait period. 417+ HP every two seconds is not trivial – who wouldn’t want a few K HP for free between any of your normal heal options for only 5 trait points? So yes, your idea is “amazing” in both PvE and PvP.

As for my idea, yes it is something that can save your life, but 3s+ evade/invuln is something almost every class has at their disposal. Only exceptions is Ranger – though they have their double duration evades on several weapon’s auto attacks and utility, and 5pt perma vigor for their protection dodge… so they’re not really hurting. Necro, but they’re designed to take a hit. Then thief – designed to not take a hit but has no evade options beyond the standard .7s. Sadly they STILL would not have access to anything but twitch timing except as an “oh sh-” option, but still fitting. So should it be 2s instead of 3? Or should they not be allowed to use 1-5 as they’re too busy concentrating on survival to attack? That would be subject of balancing if it is deemed as OP, but considering it is on long cooldown and matched or bettered by most, it doesn’t seem to be OP to me.

Obviously “Last Refuge” sucks as it is completely counter-intuitive to the trait line it belongs on. While paper it makes sense as it stealths you, it only works in the situation when you’re already unstealthed and not on reveal debuff… which anyone taking this trait line will not have be the case.

The OP’s suggestion is overpowered… especially as a 5pt minor. It also doesn’t fit the “oh kitten” auto-survival point. Personally this is my suggestion:

Slippery: When your health reaches 25%, your survival instincts kick in, evading all attacks for 3 seconds. (This can only trigger once every 90 seconds)

Something like that would fit their description of thief, and would be that last ditch trigger that might actually help you survive rather than get you killed.

I personally hate the 4 sec cooldown myself. It fits no real attack cycle or skill, so you’re just kittening for that extra second. Then there are people like me that habits die hard, so I find myself STILL wasting CnDs – of course usually expending the last chunk so I can’t CnD again for a few seconds.

Unfortunately while I considered the ‘no matter what’ 3s reveal, it actually affects nothing but CnD spam. Stealth stacking will still exist as you never get unstealthed – so it would not get a debuff. You’ll still be able to D/P permastealth in a keep or camp indefinitely… and that’s what I find most broken. So the question is, how can they fix that? They can’t disable stacking as that would break moves like Shadow Refuge, and any limit that supports SR is no limit to other stacking options as they’re actually less stacks. I personally love how it works – it is a great reward for staying in, with a penalty for leaving. It still helps latecomers, and you can lose your stacks to avoid that big AoE and step back in to get some back. But really, the only solution I see is it has to take a hit to fix stealth a bit.

My Suggestion to fix stealth:
- Revert back to the 3 secs reveal on hit, no reveal on time out.
- Stealth does not stack.
- Shadow Refuge now gives a 15 second stealth on cast – Heals pulse as normal. Leaving refuge is now more heavily punished as you can’t get the stealth back, but still gives an amount of stealth worth the risk (technically 11s as I don’t count the 4 stuck in the circle). This does mean you have to coordinate the cast for full party use, but I find that to be fine.

What this accomplishes:
- Gives back the over time DPS that I don’t think should have been stripped from thief. 25%, 10%, whatever the latest number crunch is, don’t care – it was still a hit. I don’t think from stealth hits should be our main DPS, but until they buff pistols to a respectable level, it’s what we have to compete.
- Makes “perma-stealth” a game of timing and actually trying to go unnoticed as you can no longer just spam. This also makes a reveal upon time out as well actually viable instead of a CnD only punishment if even that perma-stealth is considered too broken.
- Is NOT a penalty to D/P. Sorry, but this would have zero affect on your combat ability; and taking away the ability to be able to keep a fort contested so no one can spawn and never be found, holding a camp from capping infinitely, or permahiding in a tower/keep until everyone leaves is not a ‘nerf’, but a fix.

Personally I’ve never seen this as an issue on my Mesmer – I personally use my clone generation time to gather mobs up, get them into a cluster, shatter combo then Sword #2. Anything that survives a double shatter is finished off with my sword, plus it allows me to blur right by my target as I have self shatter for my second shatter hit. Anything that can survive that is something that has times for me to individually use clones/phantasms on, so I can group or target spread as I choose.

Having them continue to survive without specific targets turns the clones from utility/dps to pets… and that would be brokenly over powered – especially once you start turning into WvW zergs.

I personally hope they make them better copies. Currently titles break them as titles are not over clones. Clones don’t copy secondaries. Clones lose tags with an option tick. Targeting stays on the real target rather than picking randomly on clone generation (though decoy is a counter from stealth target drop). Pretty much clones are useless in any serious PvP for illusionary. Having that improved is what I want. :p

Definitely a mobile build. I would argue S/P over S/D, but both are pretty good weapon sets. However I admit I’ve grown to shun ‘bunker’ thief builds – they simply don’t have the survival traits needed to take real hits (boons, HP pool, or real heals – even fully traited Thief has some of the weakest in the game) – so the trick to thief is to not get hit. And, well, if you’re not getting hit, why do you need Vitality or Toughness? I say Zerker and Rampagers for thief. You can start tanky, but swap them out as you learn other people’s tells and can effectively fight with getting hit less and less. If you don’t have killing power, you become a game of attrition – They go until you’re all on CD or make a mistake and they squish you or they give up. You go until your buddies come or your target gives up and runs. Only kills you’ll really get are hot join nubs or… nm, just hot join nubs. Though if that’s all you do (hot join), you’ll rock. I’ve run thief bunkers and would repeatedly win 1v3+ and would always capture my points. However the second I took it into a real PVP or guild groups joined, I was stuffed with the fact I could never kill them. I would be faced with praying for actual DPS to come, just annoying them until they wore down all my CDs for evading/stun breaking and having to run or die. I survive longer on glass cannon builds in real fights because at that point I can always kill my target, it just becomes a game of skill.

TL;DR – practice your build and switch to as much DPS equipment as you can as soon as you can is my suggestion. Thieves have some pretty rocking choices for trait spreads, so play that how you want, but DPS gear I don’t see as a true option. Worst class in the game for taking a hit, but lots of fast attacks making it good for DPS – that combo doesn’t leave much options. :p

Both Ele and Guardian have a massive amount of boons and heals to keep themselves up. The boons stop the insta-gib, and the heals make up for the low HP pool. Thief has neither of those, instead relying on high evasion, blinds and stealth – this makes it a class that cannot afford mistakes. Conversely, though, is the fact that no damage is > any amount of Vitality, toughness or boons. So your thief has a balance – played right it can take on more than almost any other class, but cannot take a hit as well as any other class. I can step up against any boss or any number of targets on my thief without fear as I know that I can evade/blind my way through it – I can’t do that on my high armor, high HP Warrior (that also has an OP heal) – he may be able to take a hit or two, but if I’m in trouble, I’m in trouble. There’s never really any ‘trouble’ for my thief – if I die, it’s because I screwed up… it just happens to be it doesn’t take much to screw up.

My biggest problem is that attacks from stealth is the ONLY way thief had DPS that competes with other DPS classes – that needs to be fixed.

Daggers are fine – though want stealth back on 3s and reveal at the end of stealth no matter what.

Sword needs traits to make it an effective DPS weapon.

Pistols are what need the most love. P1 should attack much faster, or hit harder (at least as hard as Warrior rifle if it is to be as slow – though faster is preferred as I like differences). P2 I find useful in parties, but is useless solo. Utility should be looked at. P3 (unload – p combos with daggers are fine, with sword might be fixed with Sword traits) needs a DPS boost… ~10%. It takes 2 unloads to do 9/10ths of 1 rapid shot in a longer period of time. P4 is a debatable move – useful in PvP and bosses where interruption is more important that DPS, but considering it’s basically stripped of damage and still costs 4, think the daze should last 1s instead of 1/4. P5 is of course the super expensive smoke field – a dozen suggestions for this, all boil down to not worth the cost period as is unless you’re HS spamming in PvP.

Realize that 42k takes a lot of stars to align. I think the max I’ve seen on myself is 45k (adding might flag on top of flag of discipline, curry butternut squash soup food with powerful undead slaying potion on undead target, 25 stacks might against 25 stacks vuln). So a few more stars like I had can push a few K more (hitting high on damage range makes a difference too), though when I hit that number, I had only one ascended zerker piece.

I am curious, though, what is the max possible damage of 100B. This would be the (current) perfectly aligned stars:

- A 25/25/0/0/20 build. Pretty sure 50 power and 3% damage beats out 5% crit damage :p
- Not full endurance for ~3% damage
- Bleed on target for 10% damage
- Targeted potion for 10% damage
- Plate of Truffle Steak Dinner after a recent kill for 200 power and 10% crit damage
- Banner of Discipline (15% crit damage) and Banner of Strength (170 power)
- Signet of Might (90 power)
- Warrior nearby with Empower Allies trait (70 power)
- Full zerker gear with full ascended zerker accessories slotted with +5 might (current max is all but one earring as not enough time has passed for a guild one to be bought or 2 + amulet from laurel, though it’s coming soon)
- Scholar Runes with 90% HP
- Night Sigil at night (I carry both force and night) or anti creature for 10% damage
- 25 stacks of might (875 power)
- 25 stacks vuln on target (25% more damage against target)

Can’t think of any trait from other classes that grant power or crit damage to other people in the party off the top of my head, and even the +70 from another warrior probably shouldn’t count as it’s not a real option I’ve ever seen people use, but listing it anyways. :p Fury is a given, but not necessary in a calculation as max damage would assume every hit was a crit. Armor of target of course has a major factor, but any boss could be compared against.

I definitely do think they need to look at the penalty of Frenzy – I agree that quickness was a bit overpowered, but considering the penalty placed on Frenzy, it barely made it worth it. To work Frenzy you had to build around it – stack yourself with a bunch of stuns/knockdowns so a single target wouldn’t be able to stomp your face when you frenzied, or take up multiple utility slots just to survive using it.

Compared to every single other quickness in the game it’s not remotely balanced, and now the benefit is halved… this has now been nerfed to a useless state. Why the heck would you use it over any other move that gives just pure bonuses that would increase your killing power almost as much without the penalty? Even if the damage taken were halved (so 25%), it would still be a debate and a heavier penalty than any other Quickness option in the game. It would at least place it on the ‘debatable’ list again.

Personally I would like to see the penalty change – something like after the Frenzy, you’re hit with Weakness and Cripple for 10s (the concept of being fatigued after a frenzy). The warrior is more limited on condition removal, so still a solid penalty without being brokenly heavy. It also adds a level of uniqueness of having the penalty after rather than during the frenzy like the other classes.

Conner.4702:

Can I suggest a better error message while you are at it. Telling people to check their internet connection while you are ingame is not really a helpful error message.

This. I thought I needed to relog as I happened to be in an area with no other players. A custom error code that you can manually apply in situations like this so you can say “WvWvW is temporarily disabled” or anything more applicable/informative would be appreciated.

You (and I) played WvW under the previous model because we thought it was rewarding enough then (help boredom, XP, tokens of jumping, etc). Now that they’ve improved the rewards, you think you should just be given them because you played it before? Sorry sir, but your viewpoint is nothing but a meaningless sense of entitlement.

Would be cool if that logic worked – buy a car once and get every future model for free because I already spent the money. Sit in the gym for a few months watching TV, then start working out and have all the previous time retroactively apply even though something different is being done just because it’s the gym. You get my point.

Sadly these nerfs suck imo. I would much prefer the 3s reveal no matter what over the on hit reveal upped to 4. The removal of culling fixes the duration not being long enough – the ability to lair points and groups (or run) for so long stealthed I found to be more broken. This current change definitely hurts my DPS as a thief.

The caltrop change is also a major nerf. The duration change is the least amount of kitten – giving them red circles defeats the ENTIRE purpose of them being a trap. Now that they’re obvious, they’re easily avoided. Now that they’re obvious, every kitten and their mom will react by leaving/dodging out avoiding the damage or much more easily allowing them to control the situation. Small circle? Stand there or dodge out. Big circle? Just stay out of the obvious. Might as well give the rest of our traps red circles so people won’t accidentally step into them. This is just such a major nerf to them in PvP… I guess I will have to see if the on dodge caltrop change makes a big enough difference to make them useful open field to help counter balance despite the fact they now know exactly where my traps are.

Habib Loew.6239:

The addition of the WvW progression system doesn’t impact regular character leveling at all. Characters will still get regular XP in the usual way and they’ll also get WXP so characters below level 80 can be leveled simultaneously while they advance their world rank.

Thanks! I feared the XP bar being replaced with a WvW progression bar like it is in PvP. I personally am excited for these changes… maybe my server will finally take a break from dungeons/fractals an play WvW a bit.

I’m glad that people still calculate groups on “stand there and auto attack”. Anyone that does not do max DPS with 1111111111, is useless DPS wise. Anyone who does not give me might/protection/haste is useless support wise. Because, you know, the fact that thieves can perma-poison (making any boss with a form of heal die faster), perma-weakness (making bosses not hit as hard), vuln-stack (better than warrior even counting ‘On My Mark’), on top of mass cripples and blinds is not considered support.

Luckily this game has plenty of players. I never had an issue getting a party, so anyone that doesn’t think thief has a lot to bring to the PvE table can go back and stick with the three classes they think are the only good ones. As stealth gets a few more nerfs and the crappy thieves go to other classes/quit and more play styles are explored, I expect that every run will learn to want a thief. Their flexibility to bring so much to the table beyond just the boons people close their minds around, and thieves actually bringing that instead of just stealth. We’ll see. Until then, I hope you get lucky enough to party with me some day and see their potential.

My bigger question is will the WXP replace standard XP? Meaning you can no longer level in WvW? D=

Now if only candy corn monsters could use the pillows…

Dasorine.1964:

Drawing Guy.3701:

Personally I refuse to play until they take away thrown kegs scoring. You can throw the keg and score all the way from the pick up point, and there is no point in playing at that point. Make it have to be in someone’s hands to score, period. I miss the days when it was an actual brawl (when no one knew how to place the camera for lob) rather than just a toss fest.

Only if your uninterupted or non of the other team run interception.

Either stun them or stand infront of them (doesn’t have to be that close) and even if their hurling it all the way to the cursed shore your character will grab it.

Because a #3 evade roll away from anyone intercepting close range works? And most of the time people don’t stand endzones, so you’re always stuck doing it to stop the auto-win? Maybe if Lob wasn’t so OP, it would stay a bit more close combat. I just find most matches pretty ‘brawless’. Or maybe I need to get lucky and have better groups.

Personally I refuse to play until they take away thrown kegs scoring. You can throw the keg and score all the way from the pick up point, and there is no point in playing at that point. Make it have to be in someone’s hands to score, period. I miss the days when it was an actual brawl (when no one knew how to place the camera for lob) rather than just a toss fest.

Pumpkin cookies have a transform? I thought they were a stat. But that still doesn’t solve the problem of Costume Brawl not being immediately accessible to new players… it would still be a native knowledge item (and one that even I didn’t know about myself if it is indeed a costume brawl item).

And my new Costume Brawl item involves no cookies unless it is as an after fight snack. :p

Costume Brawl is currently part of the daily rotation – I actually find it a fun distraction every now and then. However it is implemented in such a way you have to already know how to play to play. Town clothes do not have them to start with. Tonics are late game as dungeon drops, or mystic forge crafts. And only fighting items are donation. Simply said, there is no given quick access for people to easily discover… just drop a cannon in Lions Arch and watch as people are horribly confused at what you are doing to them when they hop on your cannon… at level 80.

What is needed is DEFAULT costume brawl moves. And here are my suggestions:

1- Punch: Classic brawl. How can you have a bar fight without a fist to the mouth?
2- Slap: A role play move. A move that gives early introduction to costume brawl. And can’t deny a good ol’ slappers only fight. This also causes a short daze.
3- Insult: Random gibberish that causes your target to /cry for 2-3 seconds
4- Compliment: Throws a few hearts and you don’t take costume brawl damage for 3 seconds
5- Run away home: Gives a fear run and you leave costume brawl

This, of course, is a full costume brawl setup that it seems Anet has been avoiding in favor of donations, but without rapid fire attacks it still is at a big disadvantage while still giving full advantage of their roleplay (and now daily) aspect of the game. Any costume brawl items that grant moves (gloves, toys, etc) would overwrite these. And if they don’t want anyone to have full brawl access for free, at the very least give us Slap and a way to leave brawl.

I also have a suggestion for a new Costume Brawl fight toy to be sold in the gem store: The Pillow

1- Swing: Alternates from left to right. Puff of feathers when it connects.
2- Spin: Spin once in a circle holding the pillow at arms length, hitting everyone in the path
3- Padding: You use your pillow as a shield. No costume brawl damage for 3 seconds.
4- Feather Flurry: Swing your pillow wildly while giggling. Feathers everywhere!
5- Nap Time: Put the pillow on the ground and sleep on it, exiting costume brawl (but can be used at any time for a role-play move with the prop)

Mixed opinion – Downed 3 is awesome in WvW/PvP. Having 2 anti-stomps (ones that stop ALL active stomps at that) has saved my thief’s bacon on countless occassions. The only class that has better survival options is Ele on the pure principal that mist form can run back to your lines/through your wvw gates. True that it is worthless in PvE, but I’m willing to give that up in PvE to have it in WvW and PvP (and WvW/PvE has no split).

Eh, is there any real point of fractals past 25 other than squeezing in another daily tier? Once you start getting all infused ring chances, anything else I’ve heard has just been rumor/conjecture.

Now for my opinion of fractal builds mentioned:
0/30/30/10/0 – Great for WvW/PvP, but not really fractals. Too many bosses are far to punishing to melee to properly lay in backstabs. You need to be ranged on most of the bosses most of the time as you don’t have the HP/Boons to survive a face punch if you dodge too slow. And there are much better ways to trait your stealthless SB than the SA line.

25/30/0/x/x – This plays better into hitting hard at ranged. 25/30/0/15/0 gives you dodges, and 25/30/0/0/15 gives you a little more needed initiative and Thrill of the Crime. However I’ve found on boss fights your initiative regain to be a bit too limited even on the latter. Stomps trash, though. 25/30/0/15/0 is my favorite distribution for thief.

0/30/0/25/15 – This build steps up with initiative or HP regain options on top of awesome evasion traits. Whether you’re dodging to avoid damage or for might, you should never be at full, so you’ll be using that 10% endurance not full damage. My comment, though, is there are better options. By going 0/30/0/30/10 you give up your initial 3 initiative (as I only consider that opener, has no continued advantage unless you only burst your initiative) for another dodge/initiative/HP trait. I find that to be far more useful.

New options:
10/30/0/30/0 – Like the other, but you give up Thrill of the Crime for hard hitting steals or tons of vulns. I tend to use Sundering Strike. If you use SB a lot, 15/30/0/25/0 means your chocking gas will be laying in a constant weakness.

10/30/0/20/10 – This is a build I like to use in standard dungeons as I find it to be pretty versatile. I keep the vulns up on the target increasing entire party DPS, good initiative regen, and I have the option of caltrops on dodge for trash and thrill on bosses. Now if the party already has good vuln access (Warriors/Necros/vuln traited mesmer), I would go to the 0/30/0/30/10.

The actual traits you choose in each group depends on your weapon choice and play style, though I can break those out on what I would use if you give me your preferred point choice and weapons. One thing I would note is in the Critical Strikes tree, I would consider Practiced Tolerance over Critical Chance or Haste – 1-2k HP from a single trait vs what should already be high crit chance/something that doesn’t help DPS if you’re already at initiative regen limits is an easy choice to me.

I am indeed curious what they plan on doing. A lot of the mobility of Elementalist comes from PBAoE – you can move around without taking the time of facing to fight your target. As a thief, you not only have to worry about facing of your character, but that of the enemy too – precious time to handle this eats into your mobility value. I know they are not going to consider that, but it is an item where I doubt thief will pass Ele in mobility unless they buff the Thief with sheer number of options that character facing is negated.

That said, a thief is pretty darn mobile – only the P/P lacks movement utility. Some possibilities I would like to see fix that:

Pistol 5 – “Black Powder” to generate a cloud at your location AND the target location. This can be shadow stepped between for the 4s duration with a 2s interaction delay. Brings the skill more in line with the cost it has, and provides a step of mobility and unpredictability to the x/P.

Pistol 3 – “Unload” – While unload is active, the skill becomes “On the Run” where you dodge in the direction your moving (or backwards standing still) at the cost of 1 or 2 init while you finish the unload. Allows for your total matrix moves you know we all want to do with P/P, and gives the build option the mobility it needs to counter the low HP/armor during a channel move.

As for other comments, having Withdraw and RoI count for dodge traits would be awesome.

I have to agree. WBs are currently boring – they are too static and too predictable. Making them hit harder just means it will continue being a game of ‘find the safe spot’. More HP just means you stand there attacking longer. I want them to be more dynamic. Dragon fights like the linked video, and I could list/link a dozen other games (Skyrim, Monster Hunder, even DDO has good ones). Dying in 1 hit =/= fun, though it should be important to avoid it’s attacks. Taking an hour to kill a boss because it has a trillion HP isn’t fun, but I don’t want it to last seconds. But being dynamic whether either previous factor is true or not makes a big difference in fun.

skupuz.6940:

Drawing Guy.3701:

I do wonder – he relied on CnD spam multiple times to stay permastealth for recovery, and that “tool” (read as “crutch”) will be lost. What will he use instead? Change traits for dodges? Drop SoS for another stealth utility for powder? Curious. But then to be honest, I doubt he will not be terribly affected – he’s not the burst and run builds that rely on the permastealth waiting for a target to 25/30/0/0/15 (or close iteration) burst – he is aggressive and has the same affect as he would have in most cases anyways. The culling removal is likely to have a bigger affect on him. =d

Can you tell me how to perma stealth with 25/30/0/015? I would really like to see that as I can only CnD maybe 2-3 times before I have to wait for init regen…

I’ve played that build as a thief, and with a combination of CnD and heal/utilities, had runs of over 20 seconds of perma-stealth. Durations like this is more than enough to lair in zergs, especially considering I don’t even have to try to keep it perfectly stacked with culling to help. No, it’s not infinite perma-stealth, but you don’t need that for picking off 1vX fights – you have more than enough to run away with and reach a hide point, which is all you care about with this build anyways. If you’re keep lairing or whatever, there are build options for that too (though not as easy since they took off wall hitting CnD)

I do wonder – he relied on CnD spam multiple times to stay permastealth for recovery, and that “tool” (read as “crutch”) will be lost. What will he use instead? Change traits for dodges? Drop SoS for another stealth utility for powder? Curious. But then to be honest, I doubt he will not be terribly affected – he’s not the burst and run builds that rely on the permastealth waiting for a target to 25/30/0/0/15 (or close iteration) burst – he is aggressive and has the same affect as he would have in most cases anyways. The culling removal is likely to have a bigger affect on him. =d

D/P is affected in ‘theory’ by the fact that BP + HS = Stealth. As this is a more expensive stealth combo that can’t be used for perma-stealthing like x/D can, if you’re waiting for fade rather than using the combo in an attack, you’re still now being forced to be revealed for 3 seconds rather than just the 2 seconds it takes to do the combo.

Really though, shouldn’t be on that list. And I hope of all hope that anyone thinks that losing the ability to permastealth off x/D breaks thief quits/rolls another class. This is such a minor change that only fixes a broken aspect of the gameplay of thief. Perma stealth should never been achievable, especially in the no-counter-no-downside-heavily-buffable state that it is. All other standard gameplay of stealth will remain the same. The bigger “nerf” is the fact they’re turning off culling.