Guild Wars 2

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Thief-Black-Powder/page/3#post3544109

I do not turn it off. As Kanenas said, you’ll get pretty bored of pressing 1111 in the long run.

Looks like our builds are quite similar… Made this build after feeling that Carrion gear wasn’t doing it for me. I’m close to immortal with those traits and gear choices, and those few times I die it’s because I get too greedy… What do you think of it?

Btw; don’t look at the skills, elite or heal. I tend to change them all the time by how I feel that day, the current situation or how large the group I’m running into are ^^

I’d go with dire gear instead. Thief doesn’t have that nice synergy between precision and conditions that Necromancer have. We have far more need for defensive stats in these kind of builds since they’re built around attrition, not bursting something down before it can kill you.

Condition thief are awesome and pretty annoying in WvW, useless in PvP and ok in dungeons. Necro and engie are far better choices for conditions, and you’ll do way more damage with berserker and S/P for dungeons

Caltrops are awesome for PvE, but more difficult to land in WvW. If you play it right then you should have them because the bleed stacks are insane when timed right, especially against groups! If you’re fighting 1v1-2 then go with venom since it’s easier to land and give a nice burst if damage.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

P/D + SB Dire Condition Bunker <—- most annoying

Yep. My current WvW troll build. Condition bombing small gank squads with bleeds, poison, cripple and torment – just beautiful! Each bleed tick for 160, and with 10-20 stacks per person that adds up quite fast

Here is the build. I sometimes swap caltrops for shadow refuge, spider venom or skelk venom. If fighting 1v1 or smaller groups I go with thief guild. If you’re good at landing CnD you can go with withdraw for more might, dodges and bleeds with caltrops.

With this build you’re close to immortal. You can stealth a lot, stack conditions and let them do the job while you heal up in stealth. Condition bombing is fun too (activate caltrops and shadowstep inside a group, swap shortbow and drop poison field, shadowstep out). So much damage with so little effort.

Puz
You don’t need to power up later on. Your conditions are actually stronger with full dire set compared to carrion, because of food and crystals. The only thing you’ll lose is physical damage, but the survivability you get from dire is far more needed than extra damage from CnD.

The only thing I feel that this build lack is defense. You don’t have anything, not even some condition removal. Other than that it looks good! Damage is very high and it’s definitely fun to play ^^

Viking Jorun; really? This guy try out something new and you flame him for it…..?

Alright. I’m glad to see that this caused some buzz, it was my intention. I wanted to see what the community as a whole think of this idea. There looks like some people want this and some people don’t. Some of you that doesn’t looks like you don’t understand my idea here… I don’t understand why people want to harass me because this is simply an idea. I have over 2000 hours of thief play. My thief has completed all paths in every dungeon and I play high level fractals with him. He’s highly ranked in WvW and I used to play a lot of tPvP. After the reset I haven’t had time to play that much, but I’ll get back on the leader boards soon enough.

These changes are intended to raise the skill floor and ceiling by making it harder and more counterable to get stealth. The reason I say this is because I have yet to be neglected stealth with D/P. Not even in tPvP have I been interrupted while I tried to stealth. Saying that stealthing / dropping black powder in dungeons, WvW or sPvP is going to get you lonely is bullkitten. I often use it for the AoE blind (save my teammates, remember?) both in dungeons and in sPvP. I don’t always stealth but I sometimes use it to get that extra burst to finish someone off.

I still want Black Powder to be a blind field! So that won’t get nerfed, we will still have AoE blind on demand. I have played a lot of S/P, long before it got in the meta. Stealth would be a nice addition, but it will be a powerful addition, so I’m not sure what would happen there.

How often do you land CnD compared to BP+HS? I land the latter 99% (the last % because of random knockbacks in team fights). CnD isn’t nearly as easy to land. My changes to BP will level those out and make it harder to hit with it, because it can be countered much easier than the current combo. The fact that the thief can use the current combo from distance means that he will blind you from distance and then leap to get stealth, land on top of you and then position himself. You won’t have time to get rid if the blind before he stealth. With my change you will have time to see what’s happening and react accordingly.

Thief. Simply because I want to show them how to play their profession.

Which is why they need to make their report feature way better than it is today… It should also be possible to kick someone from the match. To prevent people from abusing that feature they could limit it to if you don’t have any points after, say 5 minutes, then you’re allowed to kick that person.

And it should be possible to report someone from doing what he was doing….

D/P is the current meta build for thieves, and there’s a reason for that. It is by far our best duelist weapon set. You have two gap closers (1 with blind and 1 with potential high damage), stealth on demand that isn’t affected by blocks or blinds, AoE blind field, a ranged interrupt (have used it to save allies from getting stomped or interrupt enemy ressing) and ofcourse backstab. It offers way more utility at the cost of more initiative heavy to stealth and a smaller burst.

That being said I would encourage you to play what you enjoy! D/D can be amazing in the right hands! If you enjoy it then I think you should go with it. You have access to stealth with a small burst and debuff attached, but it’s very easy to evade, block, blind or interrupt. It’s difficult to land CnD in group fights because of all the random evades, AoE and boons that’s being thrown around, but it is doable. Just learn to time CnD and you’ll do fine. It’s awesome to play if you get it right, so I say give it a go

Withdraw is amazing, so don’t underestimate it. If it’s optimal for your build I’m can’t really say, because that boils down to how you play. If you feel like you doesn’t get enough stealth then maybe you should go with HiS. Withdraw offers some mobility on short cool down which I like to use in my builds.

I love shadow trap as it has saved me countless times! Use it both offensively and defensively. Decapping a point and someone entered the area? You’ll know because of the trap and you can ambush them. Need a quick escape? You got it! But be aware that Shadow Trap bugs out in a lot of places! Experiment with it and you’ll figure where it works and where it doesn’t.

As for your build with D/D. You chose hidden killer, which is great, and I don’t see any flaws in your build. It’s your own, and you’ve probably thought it through. But the runes and sigils – just no. You don’t need the extra precision. You have hidden killer, so you could put in sigil of force instead of agility. As for runes you should go with Scholar or Eagle. You need critical damage. Critical chance isn’t going to help your backstab (which always will crit), but critical damage and power will. You get fury when your target reaches 50% health, so you’ll sti have lots of critical chance when you use your heartseeker to finish them off.

One last question. Why have you chosen signet of agility? If it is for condition removal and more endurance – then it’s cool. But if it is for the extra precision, I wouldn’t go with it… I’d rather have shadowstep or blinding powder in its place.

Burnfall.9573:

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the post, OP. This is a fairly polarizing topic, but it is interesting nonetheless. It came up quite a bit in the 3 likes / 3 dislikes thread as well. Changing the way downstate works would have such a large sweeping change on the way the game is played – it’s sort of fun to theorycraft the ramifications!

Keep in mind, I’m just spit-balling here – none of this is in the works. I would just like to see some more conversation on the topic.

So, what if you only rallied allies when you stomped someone, rather than cleaving the body? This would be much more difficult to pull off in large-scale fights, but you would have added risk/reward for attempting. Would even-numbered fights still snowball?

It would almost always affect players in small-scale fights as well. I’ve won plenty of 1v2’s in WvW and PvP from downstate, getting that clutch rally at the right moment – but that would go away too.

What if you couldn’t hard rez downed allies? What are the positives and negatives?

Anyways, just rambling. Feel free to discuss! If you have any good threads on the topic that come to mind, feel free to link them for me.

Near 1 year and 5+ months, why haven’t stealth stomping elimination been intentionally ignored or haven’t been in the works for so long?

" What if you couldn’t hard rez downed allies? What are the positives and negatives? "

To begin with, What if a thief Stealth Stomp down allies?

What is the point of having down dead stomp skills to begin with if stealth thieves are immune to them?

What if you couldn’t hard rez downed allies because they were killed by stealth thieves?

What if we couldn’t rally dead allies because they were already killed by stealth thieves?

To begin with,

obviously…

What can you do against a thief in stealth?

What can anyone do to a person/s you can not see?

What can anyone do to a Fail Proof thief class anyways?

" As the saying goes, "why inquire of change, when you play Favorites "?

The Positiveness of this is called Favoritism

The Negativeness of this is called Favoritism

End Favoritism than we can all talk about the Positiveness.

End Favoritism than we can all discuss the Negativeness?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt8TeW2Yor8

Of all the “safe” stomps stealth is by far the easiest to counter… Stability is impossible to counter unless you can strip it. A thief only need one of the many AoE knockbacks or interrupts that’s in the game. Just focusing cleave/AoE damage on the fallen comrade will force the thief to back off or he will die.

A thief is redicolously easy to counter. Instead of spending your days in these forums complaining you could dedicate them to learning how to counter one. Once you have learnt that it will be hard for a thief to kill you by abusing stealth…

It would be awesome to change the mechanic so that you can only rally if the player you’ve tagged is stomped, not killed by just damaging.

I would also love to see that the revive function (ressing a dead player) could could only be used outside of combat.

I remember having this Asura Thief calling me out the entire match, calling me a rat and a bad thief and so on, you get the idea. Needless to say I killed him whenever I saw him. That little rat ;p

Well. There’s a lot of crap talk in the chat, and some try to flame you by whispering you. Just block those guys and report them and just ignore what people are saying in the other chats. These brats will always be there, so just get used to it.

If you were continually downing one of them he would have less HP for each time you down him, until you’ll eventually kill him the instant he gets downed. The second time you down someone your finishing move will be finished before his teammate can get him back up – given he has no knockbacks or interrupts.

My S/P thief always enjoy it when they try to ress their fallen comrade. I’ll just PW them both to death ;D

First of all; you don’t have to stop playing for 3 days if the punishment you’ll get for being DC’d is 1 day. Then just take the chance and get that one day instead of a 3 day break. If I know that my connection is bad then I don’t do tPvP, simple as that. The team is probably going to lose if they are one man short, so to them it doesn’t matter.

On the other hand I think this is a bad excuse for Anet to not have a ready button yet. If they had a button that you had to click within a minute after you get teamed up or the team get back in queue (like WoW’s dungeon finder). If they had something like that (with punishment for not responding/afk) they could lower the punishment for leaving / DC. But the punishment should be felt anyhow. Like getting one hour first and then an even longer quarantine if the same thing happened within a given time frame and so on ^^

NinjaEd.3946:

Coronit.9432:

Link to Anet playing fractals?
Never saw or heard something about that…

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/3299578

Hope you laugh as much as the guy narrating this tragic tale in the background.

That’s just sad. A P/P thief with scorpion wire and signet of shadows in fractals?! This just proves that they have never really played thief or understand anything about the profession…. :/

Cynz
I would love for ANet to separate balance between sPvP, WvW and PvE, but since that isn’t going to happen they have to balance in between. That means that one side will get hurt while the other gets a buff.

I stated that I have more than enough knowledge, but that was to the player who claimed I didn’t know the thief profession / didn’t have a thief.

D/P have close to no counter play – at all. That’s why I want it changed. Why do you think it’s a nerf? Because you can’t stick to your target with heart seeker? I don’t get why you doesn’t want it changed. It just looks like you think Black Powder is in a good spot right now, and that’s pretty much it… I have to agree though; Black Powder is in a good spot right now, but it can be abused by d/p thieves, which is wrong. It can be abused by dropping black powder and then heartseek through it with no risk and gain a huge reward – stealth. This coupled with the Shadow Arts trait line basically means that you can reset, heal and cleanse conditions at will.

9/10 players I meet in WvW are d/p. 9/10 of those again are bad, and I mean brain dead bad. I see them survive outnumbered fights and run away when they realize they can’t win, with absolutely no risk. I know this because I have a friend who recently started playing a thief. He figured he’d give d/p a go – and he’s killing people with ease. He’s running away from outnumbered fights and surviving situations he shouldn’t be surviving. It’s not skill that let him live. It’s the weapon set he chose to run that do it for him. I told him to give d/d a go, and guess what? He land 1/50 Cloak and Daggers. He never survive outnumbered fights for long and he have no chance in running away or resetting unless he has blinding powder and shadow refuge in is skill slots.

What I’m saying is that Black Powder + Heartseeker combo requires no skill(risk) to do, but give a really high reward(stealth). My change add some real counter play to using stealth with d/p and in turn also gives p/p and s/p access to stealth.

Can you abuse necro marks? No. They can’t be spammed and they won’t give you the ability to reset a fight or win fights you shouldn’t be able to win by using. Black Powder → Heartseeker do. Yes, you can catch a fleeing thief, but 9/10 times you won’t.

Btw; can we please stop flaming each other and keep this conversation friendly? I do not seek to destroy the skill or the thief, I simply want to make it more competitive and add some real counter play to things that doesn’t have any real counter play today.

One of the biggest changes this will do is to add more risk/reward to the d/p thief. As it is now the thief can mindlessly use this skill, with no risk at all, well, almost no risk. D/P will lose some burst and it will have a harder time sticking on their targets because of not using heartseeker which now functions as a gap closer and mini burst. It will heighten the skill floor for that weapon set and add way more counter possibilities – which is needed! There’s a reason new thieves chose this weapon set. It’s way too easy to use and be “good” with. Even the worst player can survive forever with that set – and that is wrong.

Cynz
The skill isn’t broken now, but d/p can abuse it, p/p could use a buff and s/p could use the stealth.

Stand The Wall
Thief can still stealth groups with smoke screen, blinding powder and shadow refuge, so they still have team utility.

Inverted
I’ve played thief since beta. I have theory crafted a lot and played all parts of the game actively. I dare say that I’m a fairly good thief with an above average understanding of the profession and how it works. I’ve played every single build and weapon combination with the thief. I’ve played around with almost all the different gear stats to see wether they work or not. So please don’t come here and say that I don’t know Thief.

I’ve played d/p a lot and I have yet to be interrupted mid heartseeker. Any smart thief will target it’s opponent when he drops black powder and blind him, then drop target (for escape) or keep target and heartseek. Since the opponent is blinded he won’t have time to clean the blind and interrupt. This alone makes that combo cheesy. There’s a reason thieves use stacking sigils – we never die with that weapon set unless we get too greedy. I can roam WvW for hours and not die because of that weapon set alone. No other weapon sets we have can accomplish that…

Naphack
Didn’t really think about that actually. Giving it some thought though, I think that it won’t change that much. It’s still really easy for a thief with dagger off-hand to gain stealth from all AI builds in the game, so it won’t change that much. What it will change is the thiefs ability to disengage and reset the fight at will. It will make it way harder for the thief to do that, or he would have to use utilities, which then justifies it a bit more.

Against multiple players it is as easy as a group wide aegis. Or they can time an evade, or put up a reflection wall. It’s more than just see the thief pop black powder and then heartseek through. It will be way easier to counter my version of the skill than the current combo in a group setting…

Sizzle Hint
It’s burst will come from backstab. It will hurt that specific build. It will have a smaller burst compared to d/d but it has way more mobility and useful skills. D/D has 3 skills that’s viable in a duel while d/p would still have all five viable; aa(backstab), finishing move with good damage, gap closer with blind, ranged interrupt and a melee blind field with ranged stealth.

I run 10/30/0/0/30 in tPvP a lot. So I know what I’m talking about

Glad to see that this caused some discussion! It’s exactly what I want to see; more discussion, less QQ

Most d/p thieves do the error of clearing target before dropping black powder, therefore you won’t be blinded. What I do is try to abuse stealth in the same fashion. If I can I alway try to land a CnD on them (just see where they land with heartseeker and try that spot). See yishis newest video. I believe he’s fighting a d/p thief there and destroying him

Cynz.9437:

Arkantos.7460:

Cynz.9437:

Arkantos.7460:

Vi Au.8341:

I believe there is a easier way to solve this problem. keep pistol 5 as a smoke field but change the order of priority of hit than stealth. So the chain would look like this: Black Powder – HS – Stealth – Hit.

It would be similar to how cluster bomb would reveal you if you blast a smoke field and hit a foe standing in it. This would allow thieves to stealth, get away regen or w/e but it would allow the opponent to counter the stealth by standing in the field.

I think this would allow for more interesting play from both side

but tell, how would that solve the Problem getting permastealthable?
thiefs would simply do the Hs+BP Combo on open field and stacking stealth again.
the new Change would simply prevent beeing permastealth because you cannot spam /stack stealth by using 6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6

@Cynz:
and what could be the most possible Thing they do after stealth…
indeed pressing 1 and then pressing 3 … dodge this ….and doing same Thing again or switching weapons…. dodge this

except to get backstab off you have to be in melee and behind the target, gl doing that while being chilled and crippled and your enemy having perma swiftness

it is way easier to dodge backstab than pistol channeled attacks

im sorry my english is lacking here, but to deal with the second one:
to dodge enemy BS is easy and also dodging channeling pistol attacks, because you can hear it and you know they are very expenxive initiative skills, so enemy cant use them very often and you have also the Option to simply interuppting them

you can’t always interrupt, because attack comes before target appears; by the time you get your interrupt(which also has cast time) the spell is already executed

channeled spells ARE harder to dodge than 1 simple attack simply because channeled spells have longer execution time and you would need 2 dodges mostlikely when for BS you would need 1

blinds also don’t work so well on channeled spells because only 1 tick will miss

there is reason why ranged attacks usually do less dmg than melee: ranged attacks are safe, ranged attacks don’t have such hard punishment for bad positioning; ranged attacks on thief don’t don’t get affected by chill/cripple

the only downside of ranged attacks is reflect shields but not every class has access to those w/o gimping themself out

i understand people want everyone build be viable in pvp but it is not possible, besides let’s face it p/p is probably the most braindead weapon set on thief; the only reason why it is not so popular in pvp is lack of moblity

P.S. i main thief myself btw

Alright, let me explain my idea again.

The chain of the skill should be like this:

• You press 5 and the Black Powder activates
• You can now see smoke around the thief as it is today and the field is already there.
• The thief starts a1/2 second channel where he aim at his target (you can clearly see this and prepare).
• The shot is fired.
• If the shot connects the thief will get stealth in a similar fashion as Cloak and Dagger.
• Not sure if I want to keep blind on the projectile, but the field should still pulse blind as it does today.

This skill work like the rangers longbow #3. It’s impossible for the Thief to stack stealth with this skill since it deal a little bit of damage. If the thief spam the skill he will simply get revealed because of the damage. The thief can’t chain stealth in open areas as it will need a target to gain stealth.

Since this is not a channel of several attacks it won’t cure any blind if the thief get blinded before the projectile is shot.

Saturn.6591:

What if an opponent just kites you? With 30 in Trickery, you can have Steal on a 21 seconds cooldown. But that’s about the only gap-closer you have with P/D.

That’s the downside of not having a 1200 ranged weapon… But this build is about kiting the enemy, blinding them and evade while giving more bleeds. You could use shadow step or infiltrators arrow to close the gap. Other than that you can use your heal to stealth or blinding powder – you’re also a ranged condition stacker you know

Take a look at this build. The bleeds doesn’t last that long, but they tick for 150 each per second, which is pretty good. You need to constantly enter stealth and evade to stack the bleeds, but it works wonders! You have insane survivability and very, very good dps.

30 points in trickery doesn’t really help much since you’re not dealing any physical damage. Steal is something I only use to get the stolen ability (looking for thieves, necros, rangers or engineers).

Cygnus.6903:

I don’t like this idea, because it seems OP to me.

A ranged skill with no cooldown that can provide you stealth? It’s like Cloak and Dagger without the problem of needing to be close to your target. Stealth needs to have strong setbacks, like C&D has.

I feel this is close to a solution, and definitely agree P/P needs help.

A ranged stealth sounds OP, but think about it. You get a very clear indication when you see the smoke around the thief that he has popped Black Powder and is about to fire a shot that will grant him stealth. It will be just as easy to avoid as Cloak and Dagger, but the damage will be drastically lower and you won’t get vulnerability. The thief is probably doing this from range, so he will have to close the gap, thereby making it more difficult to backstab.

I run P/D + Short bow. Full dire with the condition consumables (condition damage from toughness and vitality and +40% condition duration). Runes is all about personal preference. Sigils are corruption and agony. Build is 0/0/30/20/20. Condition removal, heal and blind on stealth, ricochet, caltrops on evade and pain response.

You survive for an infinity use to the high health pool and the toughness and all the AoE blind on stealth. You also deal a good amount of damage by applying poison, bleeds and torment. You can run venom share if in a group and therefore add some team utility.

Melee isn’t really a problem because of p/d #3 and AoE blind on stealth. You should have blinding powder for some extra stealth after you’ve used #3 to stack even more conditions and keep dropping caltrops.

They’re nerfing crit and making conditions stronger?! Wtf have Anet been smoking?! I don’t think they’re playing the same game as we do….

Not sure about this yet. Will have to see it first, let’s just hope that they don’t destroy zerker builds…

Where do you get this from?

P/P wouldn’t be viable for condition builds with this change, so people would only use it as a power build. P/P is still weak and could need some love. I’m not sure about S/P though. It do have enough damage and are used competitive. The added stealth wouldn’t be used for much other than defense in tight spots though.

D/P would still be the best 1v1 because of shadow shot and head shot, but it would add more counter play to it than it has today.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Geiir.7603:

5. Black Powder - proposed by Maugetarr
Make black powder a dark combo field instead of smoke. Change the skill so that the projectile grants stealth if it connects (in the same manner of Rangers Longbow 3 skill).

This would help fix P/P which currently need a boost. It would also grant S/P stealth which would help that set a lot. Changing it to a dark combo field would give P/P access to life leech and whirl finishers would fire leeching bolts.

This is by far the best idea I’ve seen to fix the current issue with D/P and help fixing other weapon sets.

No thank you. I like how my Unload applies Blind through Black Powder. If I really want heal using P/P, I’d bring SoM.

-1

You’re saying this from a PvE perspective, right? If so then most fights are pretty stationary and you could drop the field on top of the mob instead of from range. Or you could bring smoke screen for an even longer blind field.

The best thing would be to separate PvP, WvW and PvE balance, but since that isn’t going to happen we have to see where it’s most needed…

It should still apply blind as it does now. This is why it doesn’t need a damage buff. It would be powerful in a P/P set, but that set really need it. The life steel won’t be OP either because you would have to stay in it or move behind it. It’s very easy for the other player to counter that and it would add more team utility by allowing teams to heal a small bit by firing through it or whirling in it.

Aberrant.6749:

The risk is being interrupted and having spent a lot of ini in the process with no reward. Stopping a bp->hs will wreck a thief and force them to start popping utilities to make up for it. It would be more forgiving if they didn’t have to hs through the field.

They also lose out on the c&d damage (doesn’t apply in sPvP where c&d needs a buff to make up for the higher risk though).

It will wreck a thief yes. But how often does this happen? I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been negated stealth using that combo… It’s hard to counter in a 1v1 because you blind people with the shot. The hearseeker happens so fast after that you won’t have time to clear the blind and interrupt the thief. This also means that we can’t just stealth and run away and keep stealthing using that combo. It would actually require a target to get stealth, like cloak and dagger, which I think would be much more balanced.

Is Cloak and Dagger more forgiving than d/p? No. It’s possible to evade, block, blind or interrupt. Hearseeker can only be interrupted… When you see the smoke field drop you know that within half a second (you can see the thief aim at you) the thief will fire a shot that grants him stealth. This shot can be evaded, blinded, interrupted, blocked or reflected. It doesn’t need more damage since it blind it’s victim and is a ranged stealth.

The stealth comes from the skill itself (like Cloak and Dagger on dagger off-hand 5). When you activate the skill the following happens;

• Black powder field drops
• Thief is rooted within the field for 1/2 second while it aims at his target, charging the shot
• Shot is fired.
• This shot blinds target and stealth the thief if it connects (hits).

This means that if the shot is evaded, blocked or blinded the thief won’t get stealth. As it is now the thief just drop black powder and use heartseeker through it. There’s really no skill or risk/reward, because unless you’re interrupted you will get stealth. Making this change will make black powder function the same as Cloak and Dagger, but ranged. It offers more counter play and can actually be interrupted, blinded, evaded or blocked.

I have a post going on how to fix D/P for you guys.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/My-idea-to-fix-Stealth/first#post3509424

Read the entire first post before posting please ^^

Sir Kaboomski
Pleide read my edits on the original post. As you can see I’ve changed some of my opinions after getting some feedback and discussed a bit with you guys.

I actually think what would fix this would be the proposed change to black powder.

As it stands today I rarely die. I can disengage pretty much at will. If I die it’s usually because I got too greedy. Our ability to disengage a fight at will, which I 90% of the times can, is just too easy – no counter play when playing d/p to stop stealth…

Xavi.6591:

Geiir.7603:

Reverence.6915:

Was fighting in the middle of 25-30 people… Got hit with a killshot doing around 18k damage. That kitten needs to get looked at…

And that’s a 1500 range attack. Yet people complain about a 7k backstab….

You mean 2222?

For those that are getting hit with large Kill Shot numbers, you probably had stacks of Vulnerability on you as well as the warrior having used their Signet.

A full zerker warrior won’t need any of that weakness to deal those amounts of damage. Kill shot has a damage coefficient of 3.25 while backstab has 2,4. One of them is a combo finisher, can pierce and has a range of 1500, the other one has 130 range and requires stealth to land.

Huge skill lags for me too. It also applies to Asura gates, weapon swapping and evades. It’s not a graphic lag and my friends are experiencing the same thing :/

I edited the original post! Please read it again guys!

:)

Maugetarr
That’s the best idea I’ve seen in a long time! It could actually work too. It would add way more counter play and it would be a nice buff to S/P and P/P.

If this gets enough attention I’ll add it in the OP and see what people think. So far I looks like 2 is the most hated, and after reading the discussions here I can see why it won’t work, so I’ll scratch that from the list ^^

Backstab is far from the strongest attack in this game. Warriors can deal almost twice the damage from 1500 range, and still be immune to conditions, physical damage, have a high health pool and toughness. Thief won’t survive a group fight nearly as well, but yeah, people think we’re broken.

Backstab is a single target attack that requires a setup to do. You either have to blow a utility or you have to land another attack to set it up. It involves a ton of counter play;

• Evade
• Block
• Invulnerability
• Blind
• Fear
• Daze
• Immobilize

All those can be used both to negate the thief stealth or to deny him a backstab. My glass thief rarely hits a backstab above 7k. During a fight I may land a clean backstab, but usually I’m face stabbing or I’m out in the open running for my life.

People still cry about being beaten by a duelist build / profession on their zerg / group play character…. kitten logic, right?

Yeah. I got the same lag two days ago, but in the entire game. My fps is stable at 55, so no problem with that. My ping is at 6 and i got a 100/100 broadband connection, so it’s not from my side. All my friends also got this lag.

It takes 2-5 seconds for my skills, weapon swapping, asura gate entries and so on to happen.

BFMV
I believe I said that I doesn’t want it to stack using weapon skills and combos, which means that it should be able to stack using utilities. I wrote that too

Sir Kaboomski
Yes. Everyone can build tanky and survive. Thieves need to be able to stay alive, and we have a ton of tools to do so. The problem is that we are able to go full berserker and still be able to run from every single fight we want to. All of us agree that any good thief will rarely die? Is that because there’s no good players on other professions, or is it because we have a mechanic that give us the ability to disengage at will? I believe the latter, because 9/10 thieves I see are horrible players that doesn’t know how to do anything – yet these guys survive because they can just chain stealth with bp+hs and gtfo.

Warriors can also run away (usain bolt reference in the wvw forums….), and people complain about them too. Guess they’ll get their nerf in a few patches… I honestly think it’s unfair that we can survive, even after we blew all our utilities, heals and elites away, just because we can chain bp+hs. There’s absolutely no risk but a high reward for doing so, and that’s wrong.

Chaining with utility skills is another story, because you’re sacrificing those utility slots to be able to do so. That’s why I think that’s fine.

Maugetarr
Yes. You understood why we need to discuss this. If we doesn’t want to help the devs, I fear that they’ll do something worse and destroy the entire stealth mechanic as we know it.

Guys, please understand that I don’t want to necessarily nerf stealth. To start with I would like to see d/p get a little pain, because that weapon set is way too easy as it is now…

Glad to see I got some discussion going here!

As I said, number 2 is the one I’m not completely sure about, but I’ve seen the idea in the forums a few times and I’ve given it some thought. It would hurt us a lot, but it would also heighten our skill floor/roof. It would really force us to be more tactical and not just spam stealth. But since we have the Shadow Arts trait line I think it would be to hard to implement it.

Maugetarr
1. This is why we need to separate WvW, sPvP and WvW balance. They can’t balance for all three parts of the game, it’s just not doable… It would fix d/p by denying stealth stacking by using combo field and finishers. It’s really the only big one that we need to balance that weapon set.

Dahkeus
It need some sort of tweak to work. People complain too much, and it’s really only about d/p stealth.

I don’t think they should remove the leap finisher from heartseeker, because it’s the only thing that’s making d/p a good duelist set. It would still be strong if we denied it stealth stacking, but not cheesy ^^

Same here. Started yesterday and it’s still here. It’s only skill lag, no drop in fps.

Kanenas.4906:

I agree with all but 2.
We have not a passive heal like warriors, and recently mesmers, so why is it bad to stealth for a bit of healing?
Also how are you gonna remove that fire that just proced on you after the necro’s attacked ctit just when you left stealth? Will you have to wait and burn to death?
And since the biggest problem people have (even me as a condition thief) is backstab after stealth, I would add to your list:
5. Reduce the angle a hit form the side counts as a hit from the back.

2 was the one I’m most uncertain about. This is all just ideas and my personal opinions. I’m glad that people disagree, because I want to find something that we thieves and other professions can live with.

Backstab after stealth? I don’t think I’ve ever noticed anything like that. Please explain in more depth what you mean.

Completely agree on your idea of number 5!

I think that the best solution is to only have humans in sPvP. Make it so that the first time you enter the Mists with any other race you get to design a human.

I see way too many posts about people who want more hard counters to stealth, but that’s not what this game needs. A hard counter to stealth would be a 1-button-to-win skill against a thief. What we need is more counter play to stealth, not hard counters.

I’ve had these ideas for quite some time and I’ve thrown them out in different threads over the last year. I’m posting this now as a thread by itself because I think this needs some attention. If we don’t help Anet with ideas on how to improve it I think they’ll mess up and give us a wrong nerf (by maybe adding more skills that directly counter stealth and thieves in general). So, here it goes.

1. Stealth can’t stack.
At least not stealth from weapon skills and combos. This would fix the number one problem that people have with the thief; dagger/pistol. It’s really the only weapon set that people complain about, and it’s by far the ultimate troll set in this game. Access to stealth on-demand that doesn’t require any skill at all to use? I find it cheesy and unnecessary.

Why I think that stealth shouldn’t stack?
Because it would really force the thief to think twice before wasting initiative on it. It would force d/p thieves to be more tactical about attacking an enemy force. It’s too cheap of a weapon set and it can make the worst thief seem like a hero fighting off a larger force. Which he isn’t., he’s abusing a mechanic to troll other people. It isn’t helping the game or the thief achieve anything other than frustration/feeling of accomplishment.

I don’t want this to apply to stacking stealth using utility skills or heals.
Not even in combination with weapon skill. I feel that this should apply to weapon skills and combos only. This because utility skills should be strong and after using those skills the thief will be very vulnerable and open for attacks. They don’t need a nerf in my opinion.

2. Revealed debuff when leaving stealth.
This is a huge one, and some of you might think I’m crazy, but read it through please. I want the “Revealed” debuff to be applied every time the thief leave stealth, wether he attack or not. This would really, and I mean really, force the thief to be more tactical and think twice before stealthing. We either have to run, or we have to attack.

I think that this would change the mentality of many thieves. We won’t just spam stealth mindlessly or Cloak and Dagger off critters just to heal ourself, we would actually have to think. This would definitely help forcing thieves to become more skillful and would highly increase the skill floor/roof.

3. Cancel channeled attacks
This has bugged me since the beta. When I disappear I find it stupid that AI should still find me and that channeled skills still hit and follow me when I’ve moved. This really need to be fixed.

4. Revert the Revealed change in sPvP
No need to explain. The 4 seconds doesn’t match any AA chains and doesn’t “flow” the same way. It’s a huge change from PvE and WvW and the whole thief doesn’t feel the same in sPvP because of this.

5. Black Powder - proposed by Maugetarr
Make black powder a dark combo field instead of smoke. Change the skill so that the projectile grants stealth if it connects (in the same manner of Rangers Longbow 3 skill).

This would help fix P/P which currently need a boost. It would also grant S/P stealth which would help that set a lot. Changing it to a dark combo field would give P/P access to life leech and whirl finishers would fire leeching bolts.

This is by far the best idea I’ve seen to fix the current issue with D/P and help fixing other weapon sets.

Final words
Keep in mind that these are ideas I’ve acquired during way to many hours on this profession and by reading these forums. I’ve mained thief since beta, and have only touched other professions to learn how to counter them. Because of this I believe I have more than enough knowledge over stealth and the thief to propose these changes.

I’m very open to discuss since this is no more than my opinions. I would love some feedback on these changes from other players – both new players and veterans.

Cheers!

Edit
I temporarily added a strike through to point number 2. It was the least popular change, and after discussing with other thieves and reading this thread I’ve concluded that the change is not needed. I still have it there so people can see it and discuss, but I won’t support the idea any further since you guys have made me realize it’s a bad idea.

I also added a strike through to point number 1. Point number 5 would fix all the problems we have with D/P.

I also added the suggested change to Black Powder.

Thank you to everyone who participates in making this an interesting discussion! The devs need good ideas if they are going to help us.

Yeah it’s strong, but it’s easy to counter unless you’re in a 1v1 situation (and you’re blinded). If you have some teammates they can still knock back the thief, AoE daze him or focus a high amount of conditions, AoE and direct damage at the area around you.

We also have:

• Stability
• Aegis
• Invulnerability
• Portal
• Shadowstep
• Blind

All these can be used to secure a stomp, and I frankly find stealth to be the easiest one to counter unless you’re alone. If you are alone you’ve already lost, so then I wouldn’t complain about it.

People are still having trouble with stealth, really?! I don’t have any trouble fighting most thieves, but there are a few good ones – and these are nearly impossible to kill because of the stealth mechanic. I’ve had ideas since launch that could fix the entire thing, so let’s drop them out here – again.

1. Make it impossible for stealth to stack (does not apply to stacking through utility skills). This would fix the only build that people complain about; Dagger/Pistol. The only problem with this build is the ability to stack stealth by using Black Powder and Heartseek several times through it.

2. Give the thief the “Revealed” debuff wether they attack from stealth or not.

These changes will make the Thief way more tactical to play. It will heighten the skill floor and actually challenge the player to think twice before stealthing. Us thieves would have to either attack or retreat when we stealthed, and since we know that we will get the revealed debuff we need to think fast and figure wether we want to go for the kill or gtfo.

This comes from a Thief that have mained it since beta with way too many hours on it, and heavy use in all game modes.

Kovu.7560:

Geiir.7603:

Reverence.6915:

Was fighting in the middle of 25-30 people… Got hit with a killshot doing around 18k damage. That kitten needs to get looked at…

And that’s a 1500 range attack. Yet people complain about a 7k backstab….

To be fair, you can see the killshot coming and defensively prepare.

~ Kovu

Not necessarily. The few times I’ve been killed by kill shot I was running with my back turned to the warrior (didn’t even know he was there). They have insane mobility and can easily get in range and kill shot before you even know he’s there. You can also defensively prepare for a backstab, can’t you? Aegis, evade, block, invulnerability, blind? It’s the same principle. You actually have more tells about the thief. Because a thief can’t in any normal situation one shot you with only backstab. He need a full combo and probably a heartseeker to finish you off. You can also hear the thief stealth if he’s near or you’ll feel the cloak and dagger, and if he still manages to land his backstab then he either out-played you or you need to learn how to counter thieves, because we’re probably the easiest profession to anticipate what we are going to do next…

I wasn’t complaining. I was laughing about how stupid it sounds that people complain about backstab when warriors with stability, immunity to conditions and physical damage and high mobility can literally one shot people from 1500 range.