Guild Wars 2

Lopez.7369:

Every boon-removing ability has a priority system.

For example, Corrupt Boon prioritizes stability last, so good necromancers have to wait until someone has only five boons to corrupt.

On the other hand, Larcenous Strike prioritizes might last, so thieves have to work through a few boons before they can steal might.

I didn’t know they worked off a table, but after some digging I think I can establish that Larcenous Strike is not on the same table as Bountiful Theft. I’m saying this because when I’ve used LS on Dredge Disaggregator’s I was always stealing the Might and Swiftness instead of the Protection.

I agree. Especially since Larcenous Strike only steals one boon now. It’s pretty much a bad joke. They made a skill to be effective at fighting boon bunkers, then promptly nerfed it in a way that makes it absolutely useless at killing boon bunkers. (They could have upped the initiative cost to reduce spamming it, instead they made it impotent at its utility role, encouraging users to spam it even more just to make ends meet.)

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Dustfinger.9510:

Fortus.6175:

Well yes, isnt that the whole idea of counter play? In case you didnt know, aegis has a 90 seconds CD, stealth has a 4 seconds CD. Im sure you have done at least first grade math, so you should know that 90 > 4 therefore it is quite valid.

Not all theif builds have that stealth CD. Seems you would be forcing the thieves into that one build just so they could have a chance at winning.

Edit: This would only work if we also got rid of auto blocks. Auto anything really. That promotes sloppy play. This way a thieves attack is skill based along with his enemies.

I believe he was talking about revealed CD. If you have an offhand dagger you can re-stealth every 4 seconds after revealed, if you don’t blow your initiative on something else.

What auto blocks are you talking about?

I’d assume Guard’s passive Aegis as one. This brings up another issue. If Thief’s role is to burst down bunkers, then Guardian’s seem to have an inherent edge against Thieves just by virtue of being a Guardian. If it’s been +40 seconds since that guardian has fought, the Thief will have zero chance to catch the Guardian by surprise. I find it questionable as to weather a class should be able to cancel out a basic strategy such as that by default. Imo, it’d certainly lower Thief’s standings in the meta even further if they have to start avoiding fights with the game’s most common Bunker class.

I usually bounce around, but currently 0/30/0/20/20 S/P, P/P. My usual mainstay is 0/30/25/15/0 S/D, Sb, CC.

lujate.5432:

For what (WvW, dungeons/fractals, world event farming)?

General use to find my legs in a level 80 environment. So everywhere but fractals. Looking for usable over optimal.

Personally, I’d like if it stun broke and shadow stepped you directly behind the attacker. Maybe make it stealth too and adjust the cooldown accordingly.

Now Cavalier’s is much easier to obtain, I’ve been considering crafting a set. Anyone have any thoughts on this set?

My Ele’s ideally going to hit 80 over the holidays and I’m wondering what a good choice would be for armour. Should I be going full survival with something like Clerics, glassing it with Zerkers or the middle ground with something like Knights or Valkyies? I currently like using conjures, mostly for fun, and feel I want to focus on something that’s direct damage.
While you’re at is, got any general rune ideas?

One guy in my guild got it day one, another got it yesterday. (I’m honestly surprised the second didn’t get it day one, he’s one of those players with ridiculous luck. )

I like downed state because it adds a level of decision to the heat of battle. Do I hold off on the stomp to down the other guy? Or do I blow a cooldown and risk a stomp? Instances like that where the player has to make a strategic decision on the fly are why Downed is a great edition to GW2’ combat.

I agree we need toggleable chest armour. I’ve got a couple of characters that’d look great with this feature. Especially for norn and sylvari heavies. I like the underwhere idea too as another customization option and as a way so female characters aren’t left out. Personally I’d like to see bandage wrapping as an undergarment.

If the made armours of the six, it’d really break immersion for me.

I shall prepare my input.

Thus far. New heal’s interesting and they’ve finally managed to make my favourite weapon set since betas feel like an empty husk. I’ll see if I can continue using S/D.

Interceptor.2653:

Maugetarr.6823:

As I mentioned and you ignored, the new skull crack has a high chance of interrupting this now.

And as I said, that’s what your stun-breaker is for. It’s nonsense for Sword #2 to negate this forever as long as initiative holds out. Why shouldn’t we have to burn a cooldown to get away from the Warrior profession mechanic?

Because we need to go glass and to stay engaged if we want to kill a warrior with the sword. If we hit and run, the warrior will just shrug off our damage. Hardly fair considering they can wreck us while staying tanky cc machines. We can’t burst warriors to death so we have to go balls to the wall the outsustain them.

Interceptor.2653:

Dual.8953:

The thing is, if you’re using IR, it’s in reaction to an incoming attack. This is no longer possible against 1/4 second skills. You’ll attempt to escape coming stun but it’ll hit before you can get away.

That’s not what the skill is for. You have evades and utility skills if you need to dodge something instantly on reaction. Not to mention that what you said isn’t even true: what horrendously dangerous 0.25s skills are you talking about? Most of the truly dangerous moves are 0.75s and are telegraphed.

1)What is the skill for then if not escaping?
2)True 1/4 sec and instant stuns aren’t plentiful, but 1/2 sec stuns are common almost as dangerous and they can lead to even stronger CCs
3)Have you even tried using IR? Pre and post patch? Can you honestly say adding this cast time hasn’t truly removed a large chunk of its applications?

Interceptor.2653:

Lulz, what on earth are you expecting to interrupt a 0.25 cast time on reaction? Are you fighting Jesus? It’s four times faster than HiS.

The thing is, if you’re using IR, it’s in reaction to an incoming attack. This is no longer possible against 1/4 second skills. You’ll attempt to escape coming stun but it’ll hit before you can get away.

I’ve tried Inflitrator’s Return and I must say they’ve nerfed this skill in the absolute worst possible way. They could have put the shadowstep at the start of the cast but no. Now S/x users are stuck there for 250ms, completely open to interruption. IR is now completely useless against any skill in the game with a 1/4 second or less cast time, most importantly the interrupts. S/D is but a husk of what it once was.

lethotix.2973:

the hammer is the most telegraphed weapon.i have no problem dodging the attacks especially with ranged classes, and if I do get hit by the cc chain its easy to get out of or negate. ie: stun breakers,blinds,blink/shadowstep/infi strike, distortion….etc. hammer is indeed powerful if hit by the whole cc chain but your just bad if you do. this is indeed a l2p issue. hammer SHOULD NOT be nerfed…whats your opinion on warrior hammer?

Shadow Return is no longer relevant as of tomorrow and it used to be the main thing that allowed S/D thieves to engage warriors. The general complaints I’ve heard about the hammer isn’t the damage or the telegraphs, but the rate at which the warrior can use one the weapon’s CCs. More specifically, the hammer can allegedly be used so frequently that it can simple spam its CCs until the opponent is out of escape options then start the CC chains. On top of that the warrior was able to build tanky and still deal high damage.

Shademehr.1397:

Dual.8953:

Thief chiming in here to point something out. The thief version of Whiling Axes doesn’t have a reflect. What you are seeing is Thief elite skill Dagger Storm. Both skills have a nearly identical animation so it’s easy to see where the confusion arises.

Does the wiki have it listed incorrectly? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirling_Axe_%28stolen_skill%29

It’s been AGES since I’ve played my thief, so I can’t remember.

Maybe my bad then. It’s been a while since I’m stolen the skill (and I was checking my into on my phone). I’ll just be fading out I guess.

That vid is also on Anet’s youtube channel.
http://dulfy.net/2013/12/05/gw2-new-healing-skills-for-next-patch/
This link is to a site with screens of their tool tips. (Assuming no last minute changes are made.)

Thief chiming in here to point something out. The thief version of Whiling Axes doesn’t have a reflect. What you are seeing is Thief elite skill Dagger Storm. Both skills have a nearly identical animation so it’s easy to see where the confusion arises.

Forums because College. Way easier to browse the forums on my phone than it is to because my freetime with my computer is so comparatively limited. Especially with it nearing the end of the semester.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Dual.8953:

ExaFlare.1390:

jimmyimo.2089:

ExaFlare.1390:

That’s not how you said it.
But anyway, you can’t have automatic immunity to something in a game like this.

It is the same as zerker stance but worse as it requires only one hit to get rid of it. 2k most.

Berserker stance is a manual skill, last 10sec with 60cd. Once it’s used the warrior is vulnerable.
Diamond Skin and Automated response are automatic, no CD. Last as long as you stay in the HP requierement.
How can you say it’s the same?
You need to use your berserker stance are the right time. But you don’t even need to pay attention to activate Diamond Skin or Automated Response.

Oh and btw, I main guardian. I hate Necros, but I still find those abominations should not exist.

You’re missing one key difference between Diamond Skin and Automated Response. Diamond Skin requires the Ele to be extra aware of their HP. One good power hit is all it takes to rid them of their immunity. True Eles can heal very well, but it still puts pressure on the Ele player, it’s still something they have to give a portion of their attention to. I think a good analog of it would be the Shield system in Halo. When a player’s shield in Halo goes down, the player has to immediately respond to the situation. When a DS Ele’s immunity goes down the Ele will have to react to that, when the Ele takes noticeable damage, they will have to react.
In short, Diamond Skin requires the Ele to pay attention to it.

Inversely, Automated Response becoming active at the bottom of the Engi’s health bar, acts as a safety net. It’s not something the Engi has to devote attention to, when it activates the Engi just has to use the reprieve from the condi damage to heal up and get back in the fight. They don’t need to do anything else because they know their AR safety net will be there when they get low again.

NO – in a 1v1 vs a necro the ele wont have to pay attention to anything. He will win with 100% health

What’s stopping the Necro from keeping a power option on standby? Just need to have a enough power to get past the immunity, like a power weapon on swap, then you can switch back. Also in a team fight, Necro’s would likely never even notice the immunity.

ExaFlare.1390:

jimmyimo.2089:

ExaFlare.1390:

That’s not how you said it.
But anyway, you can’t have automatic immunity to something in a game like this.

It is the same as zerker stance but worse as it requires only one hit to get rid of it. 2k most.

Berserker stance is a manual skill, last 10sec with 60cd. Once it’s used the warrior is vulnerable.
Diamond Skin and Automated response are automatic, no CD. Last as long as you stay in the HP requierement.
How can you say it’s the same?
You need to use your berserker stance are the right time. But you don’t even need to pay attention to activate Diamond Skin or Automated Response.

Oh and btw, I main guardian. I hate Necros, but I still find those abominations should not exist.

You’re missing one key difference between Diamond Skin and Automated Response. Diamond Skin requires the Ele to be extra aware of their HP. One good power hit is all it takes to rid them of their immunity. True Eles can heal very well, but it still puts pressure on the Ele player, it’s still something they have to give a portion of their attention to. I think a good analog of it would be the Shield system in Halo. When a player’s shield in Halo goes down, the player has to immediately respond to the situation. When a DS Ele’s immunity goes down the Ele will have to react to that, when the Ele takes noticeable damage, they will have to react.
In short, Diamond Skin requires the Ele to pay attention to it.

Inversely, Automated Response becoming active at the bottom of the Engi’s health bar, acts as a safety net. It’s not something the Engi has to devote attention to, when it activates the Engi just has to use the reprieve from the condi damage to heal up and get back in the fight. They don’t need to do anything else because they know their AR safety net will be there when they get low again.

It seems first person mode exists in the game in some way, shape or form, so I was wondering, if they devs have said anything about sharing it or if it’s going to remain a dev exclusive debug tool? Sorry if this has already been brought up somewhere, I’m a tad out of the loop what with year end reports and finals and what not.

Sheesh. True there’s too much passive play in PvP, but you’re missing a key element of why the passive play in PvP is bad. Skills like Healing Signet and Ranger Spirits, and skills traits like Dhuumfire are bad for multiple reasons, none of which are directly tied to their passive nature. Healing Signet’s not bad simply because it’s passive, it’s bad because it’s a relatively high heal with no conditions to fulfill. Strong passives need conditions to keep them in check. For example, if they changed it so HS’s passive was halved while under the effects of a condition, or the passive heal went on a 3 second cooldown when the warrior took crit damage, it’d be far less complained about when it is now, because it’d be easily countered.
In short, what I’m saying is: passive effects don’t inherently make passive effects bad. Its the lack of checks and balances on strong passives that make them bad. Don’t try to oversimplify problems.

messiah.1908:

you need to build 30,0,30,0,0 build 10 left wherever.
fully cleric will five you 3k attack 3k armor 10k hp so basically no power and no hp

what we suppose to be i cant remember?
reminder – Experts at stealth and surprise, thieves can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons. Thieves practice an agile, acrobatic fighting style, which can make them very hard to hit.

leech trait will give around 2600 health regen and venom will give around 3800 health regen if not blocked evade miss and 36 cd

so only 4 ppl will be affect by it and as most aoe will be in the front line some misses will be so i bet on 5k heal on average which water ele skill does the same or even better

Why not go 20/x/30/x/x or 25/x/30/x/x? Then you have 15-20 skill points to play with. Residual Venom’s hardly worth sacrificing one our remaining Master Minor Traits for.

Sanduskel.1850:

Geiir.7603:

Yeah, burnfall again….

They’re working on nerfing the perma stealth. ANet said that they think it’s wrong use of abilities, so they’re going to nerf certain traits and change the initiative regeneration so that it will be impossible to do it using only weapons. They find it ok to perma stealth for longer periods of time if this requires you to sacrifice traits and utility skills to do so. And I agree with them. D/P needed a nerf, and now they get it.

They’re also ruining sword. The only reason for most people to play it was the fact that they could teleport a lot. From 10th of december you’ll see thieves using Infiltrator’s Strike – getting stun-locked and unable to use Shadow Return. In other words, they’ll appear and be insta-killed. W2G ANet.

I disagree that they are ruining sword. They are opening other options now. Thieves who get insta killed are glass cannon specced and may need to put some effort into survivability, just as other classes must do.

What’s S/D to do against tanky specs now? They used Zerker to deal damage that wouldn’t be shrugged off. Their Larcenous Strike is no longer effective for boon bunkers because the user can’t get past the layer of quickly reapplied fodder boons, and thier ability to escape stunlocks in completely removed. They’ve taken a huge hit in their sustainability via skills, and if they go for sustain via gear, they won’t deal enough damage to be effective as anything more then a minor annoyance to bunkers and Warriors, and if they go balanced they’ll be mediocre at damaging and a step above poor at defense.
So I ask you, what grounds do you have to make your claims. What builds do you have in mind. What insight do you have on how to be in PvP against competent opponents? Are you in denial, taking thief’s viability as granted or do you actually see something none of the other Thief players see? If so, what is it?

I did some testing with the code, it seems the skill may have a higher heal potential then any of our other heals. This is assuming the heal in the spec is a single hit instead of overall.
Skelk Venom
6332 overall if per hit
1583 if overall
Withdraw
4683
Hide in Shadow
5805
Signet of Malice
3275
Anti-Toxin Spray
4275
This was on my Cleric’s set (you may ask why a thief has a Cleric’s set, short answer, experimenting. I have a Knight’s, Valkyrie’s, Berserker’s, Carrion and Soldier’s set too)

Viking Jorun.5413:

Excalibur.9748:

You mean this?
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/23539-skelk-venom

Wooh! Heals for 20 guys! If you add that up and hit all 5 attacks without being dodged, blinded or blocked that’s a whole 100 health!!!

Does the scaling work that way? GW2db has Sig of Malice’s passive heal is rated at 4 and Withdraw is rated at 120. Plus if you’re going that deep into SA, you may as well grab Leeching Venoms.

Seems like this is mostly geared to lighten the competion on AP top rankers, who are exhausting each other trying to out do each other. Not a bad suggestion. My only grievance is those days you notice you notice you’re just a few AP from your next chest. But then, that situation may not apply to me in the first place, as I’m pretty lax on achievements.

I vote for the Black Powder version. Seems the least likely to screw things up.

I’d be ecstatic if GoodSmile did some Nendos like Caithe or Zojja.

We really need glasses back for standard armour.

brannigan.9831:

I agree with just about everything here. I give you a lot of credit for bringing up Thieves. The average thief player stinks but a very good thief is almost impossible to beat one versus one or kill without strong aoe/swami like prediction powers. I am not sure if it is a problem because there are not many that are very good quite frankly.

I’m not sure they’ll survive as they currently are next patch. They’ll have lost thier only way to sustain versus CC builds.

It’s safe to say Thieves are taking a pretty heavy hit on December 10th. Why don’t we see if we’ll be able to salvage this situation. What will we still have that can be considered viable. Please refrain from ReRoll comments and Doomsaying. This thread is to see if we have any tricks left.

I didn’t get the chance to purchase it, so no screenshot, but good bye one of the few armours that looked good on my Norn Ele.

I think it’s largely because it’s an easy and safe fix to make. Reskinning an armour is something they can say is doable with absolute confidence because their’s little to no unknowns. Debugging is practically the opposite, where there are tons of unknowns. It requires comprehensive knowledge of your program, right down to how many nano seconds it takes for each individual function in a program to process. (Seriously, bugs can occur when a process takes too long.)

I’m opposed because the dynamic leveling lets you do something you can’t do in MMOs without this feature: playing with your lowbie friends on a max level character. There’s other problems too that would arrive if you remove this feature. Players would be regulated to zones that match their level, going to a lower zone without this feature would allow high level players to grief lowbies because they’d be one shotting all the mobs before the lowbies could even land a hit., boss mobs would be trivialized in lower zones (I mean to the point that they could be one shotted like a common mob), it’d force events like the tower of nightmares, and such to exclude a significant portion of the player base.

Yenn.9185:

Star Ace.5207:

Yenn.9185:

The whole “play how you want” doesn’t just apply to you. It applies to elitist as well. If the casual (lack of better word) can play with pugs, why can’t the elitist play with whoever they chose to? Double standards.

They don’t want to, since by definition they are elitists and they think they are better than others, and WANT to be segregated and play with the so-called “elite.” Thus they should play with like-minded players rather than complain about lacking a DPS meter “tool” which would inevitably multiply the real attitude tools, such as seen here and many other threads.

In short, the elitist doesn’t want to PUG because he thinks he’s better than the “average” PUG-therefore, he/she shouldn’t complain and just play with so-called superior players to have “fun”, rather than complain forever about PUGs or lack of DPS meters. He/she is still free to play the way he/she wants, but he/she has chosen that he/she doesn’t want to play with PUGs, due to ill-placed feelings of superiority.

(Note that not all speedrunners are jerks, BTW, nor have I ever claimed as much; but the bad attitude of a few of them is a cancer that can make other players-which they would dare call “bad” without knowing them because they are not part of their “elite” strata-even stop playing the game, especially given the seal of approval of an official ANet given DPS meter. It would confirm that ANet agrees that DPS is the one way to play GW2, which they have never ever stated, as popular as that opinion is with some that claim that GW2 is “DPS-only” role by virtue of not employing a trinity combat system.)

In a perfect world, 4 members would be waiting for me in LA so we can run a dungeon right after I log in. But it’s not that case, everyone needs to Pug at some point, not just want. The tool would help the elite find like-minded people.

So would a guild or a board with a registry similar to LFG. So does being specific in your LFG post. And those wouldn’t influence the general community negatively like a meter would. Finding other elite players by it’s very nature means you’ll have a harder time then an unbiased player, you’re willfully filtering out a significant percentage of the playerbase.

Sarabande.8260:

Vayne.8563:

Sarabande.8260:

Vayne.8563:

Nope, it’s unfair to those people that some people share your attitude. I’m not trying to appeal to your passion. I’m not trying to appeal to anything. I’m stating that in my opinion. people who have your opinion are being unfair to others less talented.

I’ve always believed those who are blessed with talent should be gracious and grateful. Naturally not everyone shares that belief.

Well in my defense I am fairly accomplished classical guitarist (been playing since I was 5), and I give lessons every other weekend – for free. I make a living as a history teacher, and I tutor, again free of charge. ;-)

However, I stand by what I said – if one seeks to be carried, solo content is one kick away. Really, I think the less talented people, or the folks with issues impacting their playing ability are the inconsiderate ones. Since this is going into “rl” stuff (I put that in quotes as if games aren’t RL), it’s like someone on a team, say a basketball team. If that person is holding back the team, well… there’s the bench. >>>>

If I broke my hand, I wouldn’t try to run dungeons with people, because I know I wouldn’t contribute worth a hell. It would be very inconsiderate of me to do so.

I hate leeching off people, and if I don’t have the physical ability or talent to do something I am not just going to impose my poor performance on a group because I want to be there. That’s, imo, the very definition of being inconsiderate/unfair.

I’m sorry I’m going to have to leave this conversation…it’s not worth the infraction and that’s surely what would happen if I continue it.

Have a good one.

Well collect yourself and have the conversation without getting infracted. What did I say that offended you so?

If one cannot perform for whatever reason it is inconsiderate/unfair to hold a group back. This is true in GW2 and beyond.

What probably offended him is you’ve essentially said, “those who are afflicted with a disability, do not deserve to enjoy themselves”. It is a disgusting, vile way of thought. This game was marketed to everyone, not just the elite, so “underperformers” have just as much right to all content in this game as “good players”. If you don’t like it, you best move on.

IMO, it’d be an unreadable mess with 10s of thousands of players blurting out whatever comes to mind, and their posts disappearing the instant they’re posted; but if you want all that, fine. I can just keep it off my filters.

evilapprentice.6379:

They adjusted signets to have better passives, but didn’t bother to check the actives to see if they introduced a conflict/made something redundant. SOP for Anet.

They likely won’t increase the damage percentage on the active, but they definitely need to add something innate to the signet that makes it worth using.

Wonder if making it bypass Protection and Aegis would be OP’d or good. They could always increase the cooldown to compensate.

Lighter.5631:

wow, i keep telling you that warrior is the easier thing to kill for thieves, you even get one of the most usefull steal skill against warrior, if you disagree you are just bad. try against engi, ranger or necro

1st of all, cc chain? black powder and hes done, berserker stance ? kit him for 8 second or just pop in stealth. longbow pin down rifle killshot? whilring axe.
also wirling axe in black power? profit?

What build are you talking about exactly? D/P? Kind of hard to Black Powder when you’re already CC’d. Can Backstab even do enough damage to get past all the armour and regen?

Yeah. I agree with pretty much all your points. Especially as a Thief who’s mained S/D since the betas. Its getting hard to watch thieves get nerfed in all the wrong ways, be it the LS boon nerf that made it so thieves would have to spam LS even more to be effective, or this change to Shadow Return which has pretty much nuked S/x’s survivability in general.

Pazu.8320:

Thief version of dealing with those builds is Shadow Return (sword #2). Oh, wait…

This.

If you’re a soloist, thieves are pretty good pretty good for doing all those pesky tasks in open world PvE, such as channeling skill points. I’d say they’re passable in all PvE modes. In WvW they’re greats at preying on lone enemies, but your chances of successfully, drastically decrease if your target has experience against thieves, or if more then one enemy is in the area. For SPvP, they’re about as viable as anything on the low end, and currently just hanging on with a build that’s about to be nerfed in the top tier. Dunno where the Thief will fall meta-wise after Dec 10th.
Overall Thief if played well will provide fun, reactive gameplay, though their skill cap is visible in some areas.

Guardians on the other hand pretty much have a free pass to all of the modes in GW2, and practically exhale team support. Just having a Guardian beside you boosts your dps, and if they use their F skills, selfishly or not they’re boosting your survivability. They can either power through things or bunker down and focus on staying alive with relative ease.

ATMAvatar.5749:

Qaelyn.7612:

Funny how in this thread everyone’s talking about how OP thieves are, but in the profession-specific forum everyone’s complaining about how weak the class is becoming and speculating over how many people will stop playing thief after the December 10th patch.

General consensus seems to be that getting rid of permastealth is a good thing, but that every time some “OP” ability of thieves is removed, it’s not balanced with anything new they can do instead.

After playing a thief for a couple of weeks, IMO the thieves who can dominate in combat are that way because they’re incredibly good players. On my warrior I can be effective with little effort or experience. On my thief I get my butt handed to me all the time and probably will for the next 6 months until I get better at it.

Given that everywhere I look these days I see warriorwarriorwarriorwarriorwarriorwarriorwarriorwarriorwarriorwarriorwarrior I don’t think it’s thieves that need even more restraining. They’ve already been subjected to a lot of it, and at least when a thief is really good it’s because the player is really good.

Bottom line: if you want to nerf stealth into utter uselessness, then what do you replace it with? If all you’re going to do is say to remove it, then I guess you might as well remove the whole class.

That’s easy. Like most other games which have thief-like classes/professions, make stealth something that’s only useful for openers (with perhaps a skill to re-stealth on a long CD). Then, make the rest of their combat ability based upon some sort of evasion mechanic. In GW2, that could be tied to giving thieves a much larger vigor pool or regeneration rate, for example. You could even make it something affected by traits – one line might increase vigor while another increases passive miss/block chance.

The idea should be to reduce the Thief’s reliance upon stealth for survival and then make stealth a much smaller aspect of its play style.

Except the thief complainers whined about how S/D evaded and teleported too much so thieves are getting a substantial nerf to there vigor and their shadow return on sword is getting a cast time, so if they get stunned once, they’re pretty much toast if Shadow Step is on cooldown. True the build did have CnD, but it never used it, it needed to go glass to do viable sustained damage which means 0 stealth traits. My point is, stealthing or evading, thief gets complained about just as much.

Nema Tode.5637:

Here’s my opinion on the matter:

The only thing that the infusion patch will effect is the d/p weapon set. That being said, as a thief who has both used and fought people with d/p, I think that using d/p as a way to stealth independently of the target and remove some conditions is perfectly fair and should be kept, however, using d/p to chain stealth is not.
For this I am reasonably sure infusion of shadow was not created to allow people to use d/p like this, but allow people to use a single stealth skill without burning up their initiative. Yes other classes DO have blocks and DO have more damage mitigation skills, but they aren’t able to use them in succession like thieves who use d/p. They can only use them one time and then must wait to use them again, and it should be like that for us too. Another thing to note is that other classes seem to incorporate defense more than thieves. I am sure that at least half of the thieves reading this have defense on the low side in order to get the most out of a backstab, and I get that, but it comes at a price.

To summarize:
Thieves that use d/p as a gateway to using backstab and quickly healing/removing conditions will be unaffected by this patch, but thieves that use d/p to heal a great amount of health and remove all of their conditions in only one stealth period are going to get the hammer, which is a great solution for a great problem IMO.

I think most Thieves agree that the Infusion of Shadow nerf is needed. We just don’t want the nerfs to continue afterward. I’m an optimist to a fault, and even I see that we’re beginning to reach our limit nerfs wise. I’m suspecting the coming Sword nerf will cause us to buckle on the 10th, and we’ll have to scramble to find a new viable build, (likely something D/x)(that said I live and die by S/D control, so I’ll see if I can figure something out)