That’s different because D/P and D/D have advantages beyond stealth. P/P has unload, blind and unload. P/D only has its stealth attack. Give P/P stealth and it has all of P/D’s tricks and its own. P/D would be worthless in comparison.
Because D/P is the generally superior option to D/D?
Honestly, with all due respect, I think I see far more possibilities than you may think.
@Dual, that’s why we are suggesting a change to Body Shot, becouse pistol has unload, blind, unload (an on demand, spammable interrupt I’d say too, but whatever), and said shot is never used. P/D when traited for it, has a highly spammable one dimensional rotation that consists on entering stealth constantly, it’s a semi-melee set as well. Adding a blast finisher to P/P wouldnt interfere in the P/D style of play in the slightest, it would even improve it. P/P would now have access to a relatively expensive way to get into stealth, but nowhere near close what P/D can achieve, I donno how this change would stop those that are playing this P/D when P/P with this would be very different.
@ensoriki, that depends, you can’t really say it’s flat out better, even in the current meta. I think it’s evident D/ kitten eeing more play as of late, and maybe even more after this patch, it has a more inititive costly rotation, but you can stack some sweet stealth duration without the risk of failing a C&D, also, a ranged interrupt.
The thing is P/P would have blind, daze, unload, stealth and condition damage and P/D would only have a slightly more budget version of stealth and condition damage.
Absurd analysis Grumm. I actually took a 5th level character to the Toymaker area (Christmas time) with one friend so I have already “experienced” that. The two of us finished the area because, once again it leveled us up to the appropriate levels. That in no way allows you to sense the feeling of how powerful you are. Forced leveling ruins the feel of the game. Games that utilize this system make gaining levels irrelevant. You may as well not have levels at all with this type of system as there is no distinguishing sense of power regardless of what level you are whether you are first or 80th. The whole idea of stepping across a particular border and lose half or all of your levels is completely absurd. I have heard all your arguments for this system before. The whole “grieving” argument is nothing but a whine. Forced leveling is an absurd practice that caters to whiners and should never be used in games.
Toymaker’s autolevels you up to 80. Try somewhere like Orr or Frostgorge if you can even manage. In any case, I can kill some mobs near instantly in starter area on my 80. If there was no scaling I’d be able to clear an area by blinking. I like the scaling, it lets me go around with me guildies’ lowbies without trouncing everything before they can get close enough and keeps all the maps viable options to play on rather then being forced to stay in Orr if I want at least a little challenge.
Yeah all players are given the same choice of what server to go to and all servers follow the same rule set. It wouldn’t be fair to the larger servers if they pandered to the smaller server by decreasing the population in wvw, and it would be difficult to impliment.
That’s different because D/P and D/D have advantages beyond stealth. P/P has unload, blind and unload. P/D only has its stealth attack. Give P/P stealth and it has all of P/D’s tricks and its own. P/D would be worthless in comparison.
Because D/P is the generally superior option to D/D?
Honestly, with all due respect, I think I see far more possibilities than you may think.
@Dual, that’s why we are suggesting a change to Body Shot, becouse pistol has unload, blind, unload (an on demand, spammable interrupt I’d say too, but whatever), and said shot is never used. P/D when traited for it, has a highly spammable one dimensional rotation that consists on entering stealth constantly, it’s a semi-melee set as well. Adding a blast finisher to P/P wouldnt interfere in the P/D style of play in the slightest, it would even improve it. P/P would now have access to a relatively expensive way to get into stealth, but nowhere near close what P/D can achieve, I donno how this change would stop those that are playing this P/D when P/P with this would be very different.
@ensoriki, that depends, you can’t really say it’s flat out better, even in the current meta. I think it’s evident D/ kitten eeing more play as of late, and maybe even more after this patch, it has a more inititive costly rotation, but you can stack some sweet stealth duration without the risk of failing a C&D, also, a ranged interrupt.
The thing is P/P would have blind, daze, unload, stealth and condition damage and P/D would only have a slightly more budget version of stealth and condition damage.
Just a though, but would it be cool if they made it so Engies could use Hammers? Being all ranged save for a few kits can be very exploitable by classes with reflects. It’d also let a class outside of the soldier armour class use hammers.
Would if be his ghost or descendant? (you can actually find his and Yakkington’s grave in game) It’d be cool, even if dailies kind of do the same thing.
If P/P could stealth via blast finisher, why use P/D?
Why do you use D/P if you can already use D/D, on demand stealth anytime without the need to hit a target, sounds too good right? Oh no, becouse it’s much more expensive in terms of initiatve use. Yep, you still see many more D/D players than D/P.
This would be exactly the same, you would have to spec for very high initiative regen to have stealth even remotely as often as spaming C&D.
That’s different because D/P and D/D have advantages beyond stealth. P/P has unload, blind and unload. P/D only has its stealth attack. Give P/P stealth and it has all of P/D’s tricks and its own. P/D would be worthless in comparison.
I agree with reducing stealth to only coming from utility and stealing skills. I feel that stealth is too easy to gain, simply by choosing Cloak and Dagger, and Hide in Shadows. These two skills will give you all the stealth you’ll ever need as a Thief, so players are never required to play fully into a stealth build.
Kasama, you can’t measure a stealth set’s effectiveness without stealth based on how well stealthless sets perform without stealth.
What does S/D have over S/P if it doesn’t have stealth. Flanking Strike can’t account for the loss of frequent dazes and blinds.
P/D without Stealth is P/P without unload, headshot or black powder. P/D users would be better off buying a consumeable Charzooka if they didn’t have CnD.
Suggesting a short back teleport and acting as a leap finisher, in place of Body Shot. Like a ‘back hearseeker’ so to say for pistol MH (a short teleport instead of an actual leap like Phase Retreat but with a cast time) which would gain stealth through Balck Powder.
But thanks to one of the suggestions, I think I came with something even better:
“If Body Shot was made a blast finisher, it would make Pistol/Pistol and Pistol/Dagger thieves great backline supporters with their blast spaming on Ranger and Ele Watter fields, guardian light fields for some retal, and so on (don’t forget low CD on demand group stealth!!). They would become great at support all of a sudden. It would mimick cluster bomb but you’ll be applying some vulnerability at the same time, maybe even AoE with the Ricochet trait.
Let’s call it Charged Shot. You fire a high powered pistol shot the applies vulnerability to your foes. 3i. ½ cast time. 5 stacks of vulnerability. Combo Finisher: Blast (where you stand).”
If P/P could stealth via blast finisher, why use P/D?
Don’t ever put a movement skill in an auto-attack chain.
Specifically, a gap-opener on a medium/short ranged weapon set.
The rear leap could put your attack out of range if your target is moving away from you.
Daecollo, how about this as an alternative:
- Vital Shot (1/4s animation)
- Body Shot – 450 range rear directional leap (like disabling shot on SB), make this skill a Leap Finisher (P/P doesn’t need another Projectile Finisher, after all.)
- Unload – Each shot has a base 20% chance to bounce to a nearby target. 1 bounce. (50% Chance with Ricochet)
- Headshot – In addition this skill should apply 1x Confusion (3s) in a small AoE (130) around the target. (Thematically explained as “You just watched someone get shot in the face. You’re a tad shook up.”)
- Black Powder – Add the Leap Finisher to Body Shot and this doesn’t need a single change. P/P needs access to Stealth. Granted, make it as expensive as the Dagger Pistol build. 9 Initiative.
We don’t need two P/Ds.
What would be good is:
Make Unload grant swiftness.
Bodyshot strip defensive boons maybe?
The major problem I forsee is you likely won’t be able to handle more then one opponent at a time. I’m not talking killing. If a second shows up you’re pretty much hosed.
@Bhagwad: If stealth stomping is unintended then why does Blind Stomping exist? Not even a guardian can interupt a Blackpowder stomp and just as easy to do as a CnD stomp with the same cost and everything. Your Warrior buddy can’t even 100b to save you.
The reason I like this idea is because it promotes proper counterplay to the thief. If they go into stealth to line up a big attack, blocking it ought to be rewarded.
The reason I’m nervous about this idea is because in typical combat (target sees the thief enter stealth) using a block in anticipation of a backstab isn’t that difficult. And if it’s long enough / used late enough the thief can’t actually attack their target, and is forced to wait for their stealth to drop anyways.
Well, I dunno. I’m concerned that it might punish thieves a little too much and be a little too easy to do.
Compound that with the coming stealth nerf.
If we’re just focusing on blocking, the fact that a blocked notifcation and an audible “pong” sounds when a block is successful, the blocker could use that as a warning to react. That and a good deal of blocks are counters.
Those screen shots prove the backstab damage thing, I’ll give you that, but I meant screen shots that would make a good argument for the change you’re suggesting. I don’t really feel like spending time testing, taking screen shots, etc. and if you don’t want to either, then let’s just agree to disagree.
This is a good point in my opinion. One of the thief’s strengths is that they can do damage in single strikes while other classes, like the warrior, need multiple hits to deal damage. If thief unstealthed when they failed a sneak attack, using a single block attack or a one blind would be all it would take to nullify all the damage while doing the same to a warrior would only nullify one strike. So it kind of makes sense that you would need to use multiple defensive skills and abilities to dodge the stab. But in the end, you really need to look at the thief and all the other classes as a whole rather than a few skills.
dont forget that the CRIT ratios (% dmg boosted by crits) is higher than that of triple chop from the axe. Therefor a critting backstab is worth MUCH more than all 3 hits of triple chop critting.
I’ve been backstabbed for 9000 before on a glassy build and i can guarantee you against the same build I’d never hit 3000 3000 3000 with triple chop.
Percentages are multipliers. Multipliers have unchangable ratios. If the crit boost was additive it’d be a different story but not. So both skills have an equally scaled maximum damage potential. Now on that note Backstab does have a higher likelyhood of reaching it’s damage potential because it’s all in one shot but triple chop has a higher potential and is more readily accessible.
My mathematical proof is.
9•1.5= 13.5
(3•1.5)•3= 13.5
Know what’s funny about complaining about how easily thieves can access stealth stomps? x/P builds can just as easily perform the much more powerful blind stomps yet you don’t see whining about that.
Seeing as Smokebomb (downed 3) is no longer useful in PvE due to the aggro changes why not make it mimic Black Powder dropping a smoke field instead of stealthing the thief?
1) Runes are craftables as it is now, this’d just make getting superior rune sets into a gear grind. Especially for players who want multiple sets for different situations.
2) We already get copper for most kills. One should be wary of increasing money gain. More money for everyone means higher inflation in the black lion.
A thief standing still for 3 seconds to stomp, invisible or not, is usually a dead thief. Hasted stomp is the real killer.
But you do bring up an interesting point – thieves have NO non-channeled ability stability. Daggerstorm, which you can’t do anything other than….. daggerstorm while it’s active. Only class that has that limitation.
So you can take your thief hate and cram it down your whinehole.
tbh you can daggerstorm, evade (interrupting DS) and do what you want with your stability buff… but it is a bit too much I think to use 1 elite + 1 dodge for 8s of stability
That’d be a glitch if you can. DS immediately drops stablity for me when I roll out of it.
Dagger mainhand is the highest damage in the entire game so you know sword is more for aoe.
Actually, this isn’t quite true. Thief’s sword auto combo does more then Dagger’s. dagger just has Backstab and Heartseeker. Additionally, Triple Chop (the 3rd attack in Warrior’s Axe Mainhand chain) actually deals more damage then backstab. I’m not even sure if that’s the strongest melee weapon in the game.
As for the topic at hand. You could try P/D for Sneak Attack too, or if you can aim it well enough, FS on S/D could work. Another good idea is Clusterbomb and Choaking Gas on Shortbow. Combo them and you get Poison, Bleed and Weakness afflicted.
if BS is a basic maneuver, why block it should be something requiring skill ?
You just have to press 1 button to block… Pressing 1 button is a basic maneuver
It is. But it doesn’t work obviously since BS can just be repeated.
And Shield Stance last 3seconds… also block can be repeated… so ?
I has a 30 second cooldown. I’m sorry I didn’t understand what you were trying to say…
That nothing requires skill … just press 1 button. it’s easy, a monkey can do that.
if you don’t consider positioning and timing I don’t consider cooldowns…
btw it has been stated that there are multiple options to avoid BS, not only a 30s cooldown skill.
A mesmer has a skill saying “block next attack” and lasts for two seconds. Now since stealth lasts for 4 secs, it takes anticipation and timing to use those two seconds at the correct moment. But there have been times when I use it, it works, and I still get hit immediately after that.
So I used skill, timing, I saved up my CD for a chance to use it…and what benefit do I get? Nothing.
Would you tolerate this for any other skill in the game? Come on…I’m not being unreasonable here
As for the 30 second cooldown, it’s useless as soon as the thief stealths again 3 secs later. So it’s not as if this is a hard counter to a BS. Surely you’re not complaining about it?
I have been saying this for a while now and I totally agree with you. I play a plethora of classes, as well as a thief, before anyone says that I need to play a thief.
To the people saying you can dodge, yes I can. But dodging takes a while to recover so I can’t do it infinitely. Also, you can just CnD IMMEDIATELY if you missed you backstab and went out of stealth. Press CnD again and you’re in stealth again, ready for another try.
If I were one of the devs I’d make it so blocking and a dodge removes stealth. Only those 2 though. You can still try 5 times to finally hit me, but if I actively dodge or block it, you should be revealed.
Anyway, I think this topic doesn’t matter a lot anymore, looking at the upcoming change to stealth. They will still be able to “negate” blocks but at least they can’t reapply stealth whenever they want.
I guess you didn’t get the memo vince. The devs have announced that they’re making revealed occurs regardless of whether you attack or don’t.
Why would you waste a block or invuln cd on backstab? thats not outplaying someone thats wasting your skill which is a fail. BS can be avoided so easily by simple movement, even keyboard turning can cut the bs damage in half, yet you want to waste a block skill? and call that skill? Use the block skill on CnD then you’ve negated the damage from cnd and backstab, plus the vuln cond and the blindness that goes with it, AND stopped then from entering stealth and forcing them to waste HALF their init, with one block skill. THAT would be skill, what your doing is a fail
Many thieves themselves can’t see a CnD coming. I’d like to see someone who can reliably block it on demand. You’re just exaggerating for effect.
And this isn’t just about BS. It’s about any stealth skill. Like if I absorb sneak attack’s projectiles for a second, the thief is still out there free to try it again. Think of the larger principle of the matter.
This isn’t about a specific tactic. Whether I choose to blow a CD to negate backstab is irrelevant to the discussion. The point is that many CDs don’t do the job because BS (and other stealth skills) are spammable with no consequences.
Well there will be more pressure to land them after this next patch so why not see how the upcoming stealth changes effect things. (Also if they did do this they should make all stealth skills boon hate. Guardians and Eles practically fart defensive boons)
What are all your init recoveries? That’s s 10 init combo and you don’t even have 15 in Trickery. I’d assume you aren’t running many of SA’s defensive traits. I’m also unsure about the quality of your opponents considering tactical strile is nerfed in Spvp and that spvp includes hotjoin.
How’s this OP? The make Backstab go down on miss but in return give it 150 range. Give Tactical Strike an extra 50ms of daze, make every shot of Sneak Attack have a chance to inflict 2 bleeds on crit, and for Surprise Shot an extra second of immobilize.
Swirling Winds can be used to a small group’s advantage too provided they’ve got a good amount of eles. The way you’re arguing this can be said about everything in the game. Even the AoE cap removal people pine for gives the zerg more of an advantage. There’s little even the devs can do. More people means more everything.
People who say “as X class” and then agree with a nerf don’t actually play that class.
Believe what you want, but some people actually care about balance.
Problem is balance is subjective. It’s a matter of perception. To add to the ambiguity, it’s safe to assume players on this forum are a minority in comparison to the full population of GW2. So what seems like a big deal here has a good chance of being a minority opinion in the game as a whole.
And how does that relate to being incapable of having the opinion that a class is overpowered, due to you playing it?
What you see as “overpowered” others may as “okay”. In otherwords, what we as individual as balance doesn’t matter. If you can prove a significant percentage of the whole community shares the view, that’s a bit differently, however ultimate only the devs decide is what balance is.
People who say “as X class” and then agree with a nerf don’t actually play that class.
Believe what you want, but some people actually care about balance.
Problem is balance is subjective. It’s a matter of perception. To add to the ambiguity, it’s safe to assume players on this forum are a minority in comparison to the full population of GW2. So what seems like a big deal here has a good chance of being a minority opinion in the game as a whole.
So, I happened to stop by the GW2 State of the Game stream just in time for their discussion on thieves. Apparently, ANET plans to change stealth so that it applies the revealed buff, regardless if you hit something or not.
Discuss.
Good change, also prevents thieves from having infinite stealth inside forts and castles and running around untouchable for 45 min.
Um yeah. They already patched the whole CnD off walls thing.
Thieves only dominate new/unsuspecting WvW players. Once people get used to fighting against them (e.g. not standing still, using AoE) they aren’t nearly as effective – then they’re more like a normal glass cannon that kills fast but dies fast.
WvW presents players with a huge area and they never know when a thief will strike. I think that it is a fun dynamic to have, take away that burst damage and you’ve ruined one of the most frightening aspects of WvW. I like that sensation.
So, I am against a nerf to thief damage. They should eat glass cannons for breakfast. I’m okay with that. They should frighten new players. It creates a degree of intensity you couldn’t get if a thief didn’t burst you down so fast. Also, it helps to balance the meta. Play a glass cannon and you know the risks. Risk number one being thieves and other glass cannons that get the jump on you.
Anything we do to make zergs more powerful will, in my opinion, be bad for the WvW meta. The upcoming AoE nerf could do that. However, the thief shortbow AoE (2) could stand to be changed. But single target burst damage shouldn’t. (I think the short bow will be the next nerf for thieves anyway. And that’s probably for the best.)
Yea man, I think ArenaNet should send someone out to everyone’s home to stand over them with a raised fist so no one knows when they’re going to be punched in the head it adds to the “intensity”…
Come on, thieves being able to take out players who aren’t able to anticipate their actions at any and all times is a dumb mechanic, just like the current form of stealth. Stealth should be a tool carefully utilized not something that is an automatic “get out of jail free” card that can be facerolled to escape or attack.
You’ll have to excuse the spiritual successor to the assassin class for assassinating. Runs in the family I suppose. (This aguement is kind of like saying Sniper in TF2 shouldn’t one shot) The truth is you shouldn’t lets your guard down anywhere in a pvp zone. Their combo won’t oneshot you in the initial hit (Mug+CnD) unless you’re complete glass, so you can react before backstab hits if you’re ready to react. (Part of the whole “don’t let your guard down in a pvp zone”.)
In anycase I’m guessing you didn’t get the memo but this month’s patch will be addressing culling (not the “End of Culling” headline in your launcher) and the devs have stated they’ll make is so all stealth ends in revealed status whether the stealther attacked or didn’t. See the latest State of the Game (that SotG thing floating around).
S/D, Sb 0/30/30/0/10 will be unharmed by this. Dunno what you’re talking about, on one hand I crit and proc haste via Critical Haste a lot. On the other, I proc, blind, daze, condition removal and regen every 3 seconds.
Stealth has never broken channels. As to whether it’s intended, it’s never been stated either way. The best way to handle channels are evades or interupts.
I don’t see how this fix anything. The only problem now with the stealth is the culling not the skill. I think anet is making a big mistake here. (I play a guardian as a main)
This is to fix permastealth/stealth stacking. Currently a thief can just cloak and dagger more or less indefinitely and there are many videos on youtube showing it. Mesmers can use decoy, then viel, then mass invis one after the other. The idea is to put a cool down in between stealthing again. There will be a “revealed” status (though I don’t believe anyone mentioned a duration).
This is a problem with the skill because even in a 1v1 mesmers and thieves can disappear for a long time. In fact, trying to take down a perma stealth thief is really tough unless you have the right build (in mesmers case at least because our aoes are very limited, iLeap fails regularly, and there aren’t many ways outside of ileap to keep opponent pinned). Even if you do get immobilize, cripple, etc when they stealth I believe (and I might be wrong) they can lose a condition every few seconds. So really, while you might not lose to one, killing one is a real pain in the kitten – cuz the ones who can’t beat you just run away stealthed.
As for mesmers, we can easily use a trait to cloak at 25% hp, then if we have regen we regen up to 26-27% and the skill will activate again, plus decoy, plus veil, plus mass invis, throw in 3 clones at a time and it’ll be a pain in the kitten as well (though I’ve never seen a mesmer run a full cloak build since you’d be sacrificing utilities that are actually needed to take down your opponent). Not saying we’re OP as I don’t think any particular profession is OP. But it’s highly unbalanced they way it currently is.
So yes, there is an issue with the skill. Culling is an entirely separate issue.
Erm, stealth stacking / perma stealth will still be possible…
You do realize this thread is about the devs saying they’re changing stealth so it’s Revealed status activates at the end of stealth no matter the condition right. Which means the CnD trick will become impossible.
I’m curious how it’d effect Smoke Field > Heartseeker but that’d now be harder to do in combat at least.
Body Shot work be a better choice. Headshot’s actually useful as it is and S/P doesn’t need a stealth. (P/P doesn’t really need a stealth either. If you want stealth go P/D, if you have P/P an area stealth it’d completely invalidate P/D.)
Out of all the ways they could have nerfed stealth, this is the best way they could have. Thieves who stay on the attack will be mostly untouched because they’ll have gotten revealed anyways. Out right vanishing when the fight goes bad will be harder to do, but we’ve still got Shadowsteps, speed and Roll for Initiative, and there’s still terrain to hide behind.
With the talk of ‘boon-hate’ and abilities and Warrior on the last SotG, do you think the Warrior may see something new referencing the GW1 Magehunter’s Skills?
Like if you miss an attack or always? Either way, as thief player I have no problem with this and actually promote it so long as it doesn’t interfere with my rotation which this shouldn’t.
You know what rotation does ? makes you predictable.
I can shake it up with Infiltrator’s Strike, Flanking Strike and dodge rolls. In any case my rotation involves a lot of blinds and dazing, so I think I’ll be fine in CQC. And if not, that’s what Sb is for
Like if you miss an attack or always? Either way, as thief player I have no problem with this and actually promote it so long as it doesn’t interfere with my rotation which this shouldn’t.
