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And how you get deadly arts is direct damage when the only “direct damage” bonus it really gives is the 300 power, 2 +5% damage traits and +50% damage when downed, the rest are all about cohesion with venoms and conditions…
D/D is no more a direct damage set then shortbow is a condition set or elementalist staff is a healing set.
Direct damage traits;
Exposed Weakness
Back Fighting
Corrosive Traps
Mug
Sundering Strikes
Dagger Training
Combined Training
I defy you to find a single condition damage trait in that tree. And don’t mention the Poison, like I said that’s used for the healing reduction. The damage is trash.
In fact the primary purpose for Lotus Poison is likely to give Poison greater value in a direct damage build.
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If you play D/D condition damage for anything other than the gimmicky Death Blossom spam for endless dodges and healing, you’re doing it wrong. And even that build is just a crappy one trick pony.
I’ve played D/D condition damage myself for a long time in the past, and I can tell you it is not any good. You may feel that you’re getting by fine, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that it is FAR worse than either condition damage Shortbow, or direct damage D/D. It is not a condition damage set, and that bleeding is just an anomaly. It’s there for the same reason that the Ranger’s Maul and the Engineer’s Blunderbuss have bleeding, and neither of those are remotely condition damage weapon sets; no one with a clue as to what they’re doing would attempt to build them that way.
It’s not nearly such an issue with them because they use cooldowns and it essentially costs them nothing to use those attacks.
But with initiative, where all attacks directly compete with each other, it becomes a big issue. Because such attacks become wasted space in most situations.
If you try using D/D for condition damage, you’re just spamming the crap out of Death Blossom and nothing else. That is not how any character is meant to be played, and it has no adaptability. It is the easiest thing in the world for people to predict and counter in PvP, and even in PvE you can’t adapt to any particular situation. Even something as simple as facing a single enemy rather than a group destroys much of your viability.
D/D is a direct damage set. And the poison is not used for damage, it’s used for the healing reduction. The actual damage is terrible.
The main trait tree for daggers is Deadly Arts as well, which is a direct damage line. It’s all Power and venoms (which apply non-damage, utility conditions).
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I’d argue the other way around for women. But yeah… I’d definitely like to see Braham and Rox’s unique looks available. Even if it’s gemstore only.
Please, no. I don’t want any more abominations like Rox. It’s just absolutely disgusting.
No, you!
…I want that hair on a human.
There doesn’t seem to be a large level of interest in this, but I’m considering doing it anyway simply because I’d like to.
I’d really like to know of more suggestions any of you have for things you would like to see on the site.
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?
Oooh, that’s a good one. Boon stripping on Body Shot would be awesome.
I really wish Ambush Trap would function as it should and summon the Thief AT the trap, chasing down whoever triggered it.
It’s useless as a trap right now because you can’t leave it alone. It only works as an ordinary summon, but more tedious because you have to drop it on top of someone.
It’s 3s of stealth, 4 if traited, not 5. Anyways you might as well count it as a meager class-feature not that it is particularly impactful. As a result of how thief durability, you can just nuke your team-mates body and the thief will then have to pop a utility like everybody else or be downed trying to stomp.
Nukes that could have won another fight around the corner, nice…
Yeah, God forbid you should have to defend your teammate.
I know when I see a Warrior or Engineer trying to stomp someone, I’m just like “Whatever, he can totally take care of himself.”
Sorry but you seem to consider ini cost of stealth to be a trivial cost, but that is simply untrue. At minimum, a thief needs 6 initiative to enter stealth, which is half of our initiative pool. In terms of opportunity cost, that is 6 initiative that the thief “consciously saved up” and did not use during the fight with an extra backstab, daze, unload, pistol whip, sneak attack, etc, all of which are skills that could end the fight faster and by choosing not to use them, the thief risks a vastly higher chance of being taken down first.
A thief, ele, and mesmer can avoid ANY initial stomp as long as they don’t screw up the initial timing. That’s rather a class balance issue than a problem specific to Thieves. I believe these are balanced that way because these down skills do not have cc effects that allow them to assist teammates while downed, and in return they get an almost guaranteed way to delay the initial stomp. Thief’s downed skill can still be negated by a well-timed teleport though, whereas Mesmers and Elementalists down skills have no counter if timed correctly.
Also you’re wrong that a mesmer has a guaranteed way to avoid ANY initial stomp – and that’s my point. The #2 skill requires a target to work. Hence the issue with stealth. Make downed skills not require a target and we’re all cool.
Note how I said delay the initial stomp, not avoid it.
In most 1v1 situations, if you go down, that is essentially the end of the fight. Any class in downed state will be stomped or just simply DPS’d to death by a decent player at that point. All anyone CAN do is delay when the enemy can land the stomp, hoping that an ally will make it in time for a res.
In a 1v1 situation with Mesmer vs Thief, any decent Mesmer SHOULD be using their downed skill as soon as he goes down, while the Thief is still targetable. Not doing so is a sign of lack of judgement or experience or reaction speed, or any combination of the above, because as you say, when the the Thief cloaks, you will loose your ability to target him with your downed 2.
Against any decent Thief this is the optimal course of action the Mesmer can take, because it will delay the initial stomp by a good 3-4 seconds. Will it turn the fight around? Most likely not. SHOULD it turn the fight around for him? Of course not.
The downed state is a team oriented mechanic. Without a teammate around, when you go down, it is by design that you should end up dead against any decent player. The only thing that some classes have control over, is when, and sometimes where, that happens.
The downed state adds another level of play. If the thief has 200 hp left he shouldn’t be able to stomp me. With stealth, he can. I can delay even invulnerable/stability players. But stealth is clearly something that’s akin to cheating.
…Once again, I think that’s more an argument for Mesmer downed state being the overpowered thing here, not Thieves stealth stomping. Most classes cannot single-handedly avoid an Invulnerable/Stability stomp. You’re apparently complaining because a stealth stomp is literally THE ONLY thing that can catch you. Blind might work as well, but I don’t know.
I’d like to note that on Cavaliers gear power is a secondary stat. If your trying to maximize you damage you don’t want to use Cavaliers. It would be better to Mix Valk/zerker/soldiers for defense. Reason being is you Crit damage is based off the amount of power you have. Power will always be more important then crit damage (at some point I’m sure they might even out but with the gear available power out weighs crit damage)
Just keep that in mind when using cavaliers gear toughness in the primary stat and power/crit damage are secondary.
Actually, Crit Damage is better than Power if you have at least a moderate amount of Precision. Once you get enough Precision, Power is only still useful to invest in because its needed for taking out structures and for some consistency in damage.
Once you reach a little under 25% crit chance the two break even. Any more than that and Crit Damage is better.
Specifically, for the same stat allocation enough Power to get you around 0.45% extra raw damage would get you 2% Crit Damage. If 25% of your attacks are crits, that is 0.5% extra overall damage.
-Edit- Wait, that’s off… I need to look again at how much Power grants 1% damage, because my math on that here is wrong.
-Edit- Okay, I can’t seem to find any exact numbers on it, but I seem to have given Power roughly half the value I should have, which is significant.
Odds are Crit Damage should be universally better once you have at least 46% crit chance, which is somewhat significant but still easily reached by a Precision stacking build.
Also worth noting is that Precision becomes superior to Power once you have at least around 60% Crit Damage.
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You’re forgetting that Heartseeker only costs 60% as much to use as Death Blossom, allowing you to use it more times for the same cost. Nearly 2 Heartseekers for every Death Blossom.
Yes, and let’s also be able to upgrade turrets by hitting them with our wrench.
No, I’m serious.
You say that, but Engineers sure as hell aren’t Gunslingers. Have you looked at their pistol/rifle skills? It’s all glue and poison and lightning.
Death Blossom seemed fine before when I thought the bleed was just an added bonus, but the direct damage really is total garbage. Because of the initiative cost plus damage, ignoring the bleed you would need to hit 6 people with it for it to be a better option than Heartseeker < 25%, 5 people < 50%, and 3 people > 50%.
And the bleed won’t reach many ticks anyway unless you’re fighting a boss, at which point there’s no way you’ll be hitting enough multiple targets for it to matter, and you’ll have the rest of your team competing for bleed stacks as well.
It’s a direct damage weapon set; they need to replace that bleed with something useful.
Other classes DO get traits like those.
Ranger:
Hunter’s Tactics
Honed Axes
Peak Strength
Bountiful Hunter
Two-handed Training
Warrior:
Stick and Move
Berserker’s Power
Dual Wielding
Slashing Power
Critical Burst
Blademaster
Cull the Weak
Sundering Mace
Empowered
Burning Arrows
Heightened Focus
etc…
After looking around though, it seems other classes do have some 5% weapon damage traits. Most classes and trait lines are botched up and imbalanced…
Some grant 5%, some grant 10%, some grant 5-10% + another bonus like skill recharge. There’s no logic in it.
You can’t even say it’s because some weapons are baseline stronger damage-wise than others, because even ignoring the lack of sense handling it through traits, some extremely high damage weapons have the strongest traits as well. Like Slashing Power for the Warrior greatsword.
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Yeah, you are right. I just tested it. This means I’ve been doing it wrong for some time because of those stupid lying tooltips.
You’re sure? I have to test that again… 201 after 3 hits would be garbage.
Someone should fix the wiki too, because if that’s true then that would be “201 / 3”, not “201 × 3”.
You realize Death Blossom hits each target 3 times? It does not do 1/3rd the damage of Heartseeker;
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_Blossom
201×3 = 603
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heartseeker
672 < 25%
And even with 0 Condition Damage, the Death Blossom adds an additional 1260 over 10 seconds through bleeding.
The only reason Heartseeker is better against single targets is because it costs 2 less initiative, animates faster and deals all the damage instantly.
Heartseeker costs 60% as much initiative, so even if you go by damage-per-initiative Death Blossom still does more than half as much even before bleeding.
Another point worth making is that if you’re fighting someone with > 50% health and can’t use CnD > Backstab for whatever reason, Death Blossom is the best option even against a single target.
If it’s a boss or something like that and dying slowly enough for the bleeds to tick, Death Blossom would be the best option even at > 25%.
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…Pretty much. But you’d only use Death Blossom if there were multiple enemies. I personally wish Heartseeker used a different mechanic, because spamming #2 any time an enemy gets low on health is not remotely fun.
Pistol mastery was buffed to 10%, because Pistol damage’s not doing well, and so they buffed that trait in January to try and solve the issue of Pistol being generally the weak weapon set.
Are you sure? It’d make a hell of a lot more sense to just boost the base skill damage.
Plus, I don’t think there’s another trait in the game crappy enough to only boost a weapon’s damage by 5%. They all either grant 10%, or grant another effect along with it, like increased range or reduced recharges.
So… why does Pistol Mastery grant 10% damage to pistols, but Dagger Training only grants 5% to daggers? And then Combined Training is even WORSE, granting 5% damage only to the #3 attack.
Deadly Arts is a serious mess right now, just all over the place.
Im’ pistol whip spec full berserker. And when I’m fighting monster which regen, in specific effigy boss in cof path 1, I always wonder if I should just switch to dagger dagger. But I kind of don’t want to since I’m not sure if I do good damage with dagger/dagger since I thought dagger is more of a condition damage thing.
What’s people thought on this topic?
D/D is a direct damage set. The bleed on Death Blossom is just a bonus; over the three hits it actually does direct damage, per target hit, that rivals a single <25% Heartseeker on top of evading attacks. It’s just your universal AoE attack.
The only reason condition damage has any use at all on a D/D thief is because the initiative allows you to blindly spam that single attack with the bleeds on it, but it’s not nearly as effective as a direct damage build would be.
Even the Deadly Arts trait line, which includes the cruddy dagger boosting trait, is not actually a condition damage trait line contrary to common misconception. It improves Power and Condition DURATION.
The venoms are all utility conditions, not damage, and benefit from increased duration but get little if any benefit from Condition Damage.
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A backstab can hit a light armored class for 14k damage. So it’s just plain wrong to say that the damage is low. Let me know if you want screenshots.
Go ahead. Like I said, make an argument. Be sure to provide some trait and gear info though and not just damage numbers.
We’ve already established that it’s “light armored”. Unless you’re saying that light armored glass cannons are not viable in sPvP that is…
He’s not asking for the armor class. He’s trying to make the point that your claim is a straight up lie, because you simply cannot get your stats high enough for that damage on a single Backstab.
Maybe if you had Berserker’s in every last equipment slot, including weapons and trinkets, had 25 stacks of Might, 25 stacks of Bloodlust, and maybe some Vulnerability on your upleveled, undergeared target in WvW.
Umm…yeah. If your opponent has the presence of mind to save a block skill till you stealth, then you were outplayed. I’m astonished that you seem to think you have a god given right to land a backstab regardless of counters the opponent throws up.
You should be saving the block skill for a heart seeker, a CnD, or a death blossom, and blocking is not the only counter and was never intended to be a hard counter to back stab. It’s already easy enough to stop a back stab with skills like Updraft and Illusionary Wave or just avoid it completely with blink, lightning flash, and other step skills.
Or you could just, you know, not leave your back open to them? That works for all professions.
A “block next attack” skill is a hard counter to any other single hit skill in the game. Why should BS (or any stealth skill) be any different? You can’t just wave it away and say “use something else!”. Why should I?
Or take a skill that gives you 2 secs of invulnerability that roots you to the ground. You save up for it to prevent a backstab, you see 4 or 5 “invulnerable” messages pop up but as soon as it’s over, you get hit. You saved and blew your CD for nothing with no benefit.
Landing a BS this way takes no skill. Weed out the spammers and make the thief play smartly by timing stealth and backstab when the opponent is vulnerable…like all the rest of us do. For example, I don’t MOA a guardian when he has aegis up. You can’t just spam skills and land them with no downside. Doesn’t work that way.
You’re arguing semantics. You can’t stop 100b, Rapid Fire, Pistol Whip, Blurred Frenzy etc with a “block next attack” effect. The fact that only one hit actually occurs means nothing.
At least with stealth attacks you’re fully capable of blocking the CnD, and stopping them from stealthing in the first place.
I wasn’t planning to use an exact estimate, but if for example I only ended up getting 2-3 replies before this post sank from view, that wouldn’t look good for it.
I already know exactly how much it’ll cost me, but the time I would have to spend deliberately practicing with the Thief to verify facts or learn new things, and to collect information from across various forums and videos. That is something else entirely.
Without much traffic not only would I not make enough off it to reach a fair level of compensation for the time spent, but the information itself would largely be going to waste.
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I’m considering making a blog site that would host all the information I can collect on Thieves; guides, advice, mechanics, instructions, news, events etc. All with the goal of helping visitors become more adept at the class, and hopefully even allowing constructive discussion on the class free of un-managed nerf rants.
This wouldn’t just be basic information. I know I can collect things that even the most experienced players would find useful. Such as detailed guides on playing against any of the other classes and various builds, group tactics, lists of various thief builds and their strengths/weaknesses and purposes, and various tricks that can be utilized, like the Shadowstep stomp.
First though, I wanted to gauge the interest there would be for such a site.
Some people might remember that I tried something similar but smaller scale a few months ago, and it didn’t pan out well; no one really seemed that interested and I wasn’t getting much traffic.
If I were to do this though, I’d need to get enough site traffic to recuperate my costs and make the effort put into it actually worthwhile.
Does this sound then like something you would be interested in?
by default guardians sit with aegis on. not only does it take 0 skill 0 spec and 0 button presses.when traited it heals and causes retaliation and burning when it is removed.(still 0 buttons pressed) people saying spammable backstab isnt skilled when they compare it to the skill it takes to block??
where is the logic in that.
Automatic Aegis has a 40s cooldown, and most on demand aegis have much longer cooldowns than that. Using one of the few sources of on demand Aegis that they have at the appropriate moment to block a backstab does in fact take some degree of skill, regardless of what you would like to believe. Right now, that skill is completely inconsequential to the thief because half a second later another backstab of the exact same damage will hit.
…It’s starting to sound like the real issue here is that you play a Guardian, and instead of doing what everyone else does to easily avoid a Backstab they know is coming, you keep blowing Blocks you know won’t stop them <_<
I can confidently say the real issue here is not with the Thieves you’ve been fighting. Also, I fail to see how your agenda even relates to Misses, except that you have a personal bias against Thieves.
Or is it just that you feel you should be rewarded somehow for surviving an initial hit? Yeah. lets reward you for doing that. and actually ruin the whole build for a dd thief just because you managed to evade the initial backstab, and like i said, refuse to hit that one button.
Anyway, BS unblockable ftw.
But nevertheless backstab should be unblockable.
If by “rewarded” you mean being safe from that particular attack at least till the next time the thief stealths…then yes!
I’m concerned that you think being unable to spam BS “ruins” the build for a D/D thief. Don’t you want at least some skill to play?
i dont really know how many times can one spam backstab in 2-3 seconds (depending on how long it takes to get in position), and maybe you didnt know.. but once you land it, you get revealed, so, “spamming backstab” is not an option.
and yes, nerfing backstab that way will break the build because it will take a huge amount of luck to actually land it (maybe if the opponent was sleeping or something). The glass cannon build is ment to deal that huge damage (which anyway requires good positioning before you even use steal to actually have chance to get close to instagibb) – observe the emphasys on how backstab isnt that easy to play as you think it is -. If you blow your burst then you might as well disengage, and if not, most of the times die, considering the opponent is not a total noob.
So you see.. playing a dd bs build requires that you have some skills to set up the burst and the rest of them to escape/survive. How much viable will that build be when you get to mess it up more often than now. Because when you play on a higher level, people actually know how to counter. Which leads me to the same question.. why do you keep beating around the bush and refuse to say why you prefer not to press the counter button?Spamming BS in this context refers to repeatedly missing your BS until it hits.
I think you’re confusing luck with skill, patience, and practice. Instead of mindlessly spamming 1 until backstab hits, this change will force the Thief to observe his opponent more carefully, watching for dodges, aegis, stunbreak cooldowns, etc.Right now, dodge, the counter button shared by all classes that SHOULD work on backstab, doesn’t work because backstab can simply be repeated until the evade is over. No other kind of burst has this fail-safe functionality, and backstab shouldn’t either, as it trivializes the consequences of bad play on the thief’s part as well as good play from the opponent.
You clearly have no idea what you are even talking about. First of all, yes, a dodge DOES avoid it, simply because by doing that you make it incredibly likely that their stealth will run out before they can get behind you. Second, you cannot just blindly spam backstab until it hits. If you do you’ll just end up hitting them from the wrong angle and do piddly half damage.
If you have so little experience with this, why are you even trying to argue against it?
I could probably accept a blocked/evaded backstab taking you out of stealth. Though I do think it would be unnecessary and potentially harm an already precariously placed class due to incessant nerfing.
Early on I just assumed it worked like that anyway and was surprised when I found out otherwise. But no way in hell should a miss take you out as well.
The terrible range coupled with the directional requirement make it way too hard not to miss, and that’s why it would make the skill into complete garbage.“it’s way too hard not to miss” is something that should be overcome with skill and practice, and not a mechanic that simply forgives failure. When juxtaposed with backstab’s damage potential and how often stealth can be reapplied, I feel this is absolutely a reasonable thing to ask of the player.
Damage potential? There are so many attacks in the game right now that do more damage far more easily, and you want to make it even harder.
There’s a certain concept of Cost vs. Reward. Most people already avoid Backstab builds in higher SPvP simply because it is so unreliable to land. And that’s WITH all this “cheap no-skill spammy spam” you’re complaining about.
If it were made even less reliable, people would just stop using it all-together. Because it would not be BALANCED, since there would be BETTER alternatives. As in anything else.
Even as-is, a single dodge roll is often enough to negate it simply because of the sheer time it takes to wait out the dodge, catch up to them, and reach the back of someone who’s constantly moving and turning before the stealth runs out.
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I would really like to see the 6 piece bonus improved. I’ve wanted to use these on a character many times before, but 30 health per second is just abysmal.
Compare this to the runes of Vampirism, which on the lower-tier 4 piece bonus allows you to STEAL nearly 1000 health every time you heal. That’s 975 healing + 975 damage to the enemy.
Just to make up the healing alone would take over half a minute, slightly above the wait on even a long recharge heal. You can’t even compare them if you take one of the 15 second heals. And that’s before considering the extra damage.
And there are other examples of runes with universally superior bonuses; Dwayna, Flock, Water etc.
Honestly, many of the runes are terribly imbalanced in general and it severely limits our options.
I could probably accept a blocked/evaded backstab taking you out of stealth. Though I do think it would be unnecessary and potentially harm an already precariously placed class due to incessant nerfing.
Early on I just assumed it worked like that anyway and was surprised when I found out otherwise. But no way in hell should a miss take you out as well.
The terrible range coupled with the directional requirement make it way too hard not to miss, and that’s why it would make the skill into complete garbage.
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This one is pretty simple, everything should have some means of a counter and atm stealth finishers have none so unless ArenaNet is willing to add a new downed skill to all classes to prevent thieves from finishing you off with impudence then they need to remove this. Thieves shouldn’t be the only class that can negate all other classes downed abilities simply because they have one ability that trumps all others.
Thanks for your time
I think what you mean is, you can’t do anything personally, if you happen to be playing a Ranger, and they have no allies standing near them who you can target with Thunderclap instead.
Because everyone else can avoid it perfectly fine.
Engineer – Booby Trap
Mesmer – Deception
Guardian – Wave of Light
Thief – Shadow Escape
Elementalist – Vapor Form
Warrior – Vengeance
Necromancer – Fear
I think the real problem is simply that you’re terrible at the game, and would rather drag everyone else down to your level than try to improve.
While we’re complaining about stealth and stomping, I’d like to point out that thieves can still BE stomped while in stealth, making the #3 downed skill totally terrible for most situations.
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Sustained long range dps is a feature of a ranger.
What? No it is not, are you completely insane? Every single class in this whole freakin’ game is capable of building for ranged damage. Hell, the Engineer doesn’t even HAVE melee unless you use the tool kit.
I don’t understand. You’re saying it’s ok for a thief to spam BS from stealth even when the opponent has taken the trouble/lucked out to avoid it once? Given that landing a single backstab for huge damage can easily determine the outcome of a fight, is it fair that a thief gets multiple chances to land it with no penalty?
Far from making it a “stupid skill”, it will promote skilled gameplay and weed out those thieves who don’t take the trouble to ensure that it lands by forcing the opponent to blow their CDs first. As it stands right now, spamming BS takes no skill and has no cost.
The damage is not so high to justify what you are asking.
A single backstab can’t determine the outcome of a fight, unless you are fighting upleveled undergeared characters.
Triple BS damage and your request will make sense.Abilities that put out even more damage than Backstab:
Kill Shot
Churning Earth
Fire Grab
3 illusion Mind Wrack
100 BladesAbilities that still go on cooldown if you miss/evade/block them:
Kill Shot
Churning Earth
Fire Grab
3 illusion Mind Wrack
100 BladesSo your point is?
Abilities with a longer range than Backstab;
Kill Shot
Churning Earth
Fire Grab
3 illusion Mind Wrack
100 Blades
Abilities that damage multiple targets in an area;
Kill Shot
Churning Earth
Fire Grab
3 illusion Mind Wrack
100 Blades
Abilities that do not require specific orientation relative to the target;
Kill Shot
Churning Earth
Fire Grab
3 illusion Mind Wrack
100 Blades
etc.
I don’t understand what your point is either.
And then Backstab becomes the single worst ability in the entire game. Yay for balance, right?
As long as the thread is here, we may as well talk specifics.
Obviously it needs to be focused on long range. Maybe give some of the attacks a bonus to damage the further away you are, kinda like the Ranger’s longbow.
I’d also like to see a melee attack on it that stealths you CnD style, to keep you slippery and hard to pin down in close range.
I also think it’d be good if the stealth attack caused knockback. It’d pair well with the melee stealth as yet another way to keep your distance.
Another attack could be a long range shot with maybe ~1 second cast that pins you in place while charging, encouraging you to keep your distance so you won’t have to move around so much while attacking.
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I’m almost certain Fleet Shadow is not working properly. I understand that it can’t go above 133%, and theoretically the purpose of the +50% is to put you at nearly 133% even while in combat, since combat brings you down to like 80%.
Even when in combat though, you only seem to move as quickly as ordinary swiftness would allow.
It’s easy to test. Just gain swiftness while already in combat, CnD someone on the run, and see if you move any faster. My testing says no.
P at the end of one word, iss at the start of the next. I have to wonder if carefully disguised cursing would not be better than the monster they’ve created to fight it.
If their goal was to teach everyone new and obscure profanities, it certainly succeeds in that.
Clearly we’re Assassins, but someone decided 90% of the way through the design process that they would rather not have the same name as the Guild Wars 1 class, maybe because the lore associates the title with the formal order of assassins in Cantha or something weird like that.
So they arbitrarily landed on Thief instead, because Rogue was too cliche I guess? And they had to randomly throw something in to justify the title, which is why our class ability sucks.
I think it’s already common knowledge that everyone wants rifles for sniping on a thief.
This topic has come up many times before.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/0/05/Horia_Dociu_Sniper_concept_art.jpg
Biggest issue would be bypassing jumping puzzles, or porting inside a keep.
Even if you rely heavily on the dual attack specifically, like with a P/P build, it’s still terrible. It could easily be twice what it is now and only be acceptable.
A condition damage thief is a bit flawed in general. They focus more on venoms with little if any bonuses for bleeds, but venoms are all utilitarian with negligible damage.
I’d like to see a trait that drastically boosts the damage of Poison you apply, as well as some kind of bleed-boosting trait.
I suggested it that way only because it seemed a little weird to have the initial attack hit a group of enemies while marking only one, but wanted to maintain the AoE damage.
Oooh, I really like the idea of Dancing Dagger being changed to a shadowstep.
The way I think I’d like to see it done is to have the thrown dagger strike a single target and apply a short cripple, then you have a few seconds to trigger it again to shadowstep to the enemy you had hit and perform a quick AoE spin attack, like the single-dagger Twisting Fang.
I’d like to see them reduce the recharge on Shadowstep by around 10 seconds, and increase the return duration to around 30 seconds.
Increase the window of opportunity to activate Shadow Trap after it’s been triggered.
Make Blinding Powder remove stun instead of Haste.
Change Body Shot to roll backward, dodging, then fire. Apply momentary Immobilize or Cripple instead of Vulnerability.
Reduce the base recharge on Steal to 40 seconds.
Change Last Refuge to instead grant Vigor while in stealth.
I think this would all go a long way toward improving mobility.
One thing that would likely interest you is Shadow Refuge. It’s a skill with a 60 second cooldown, 48 if you trait properly, and it grants long enough stealth for you to actually sneak past certain things.
Try playing a ranger.
Rangers have some of the best traits in the game, they just have weaker class skills due to being a pet class.
Not even close. As one example, all of their “On Crit” traits last only 1 second. Small chance for 1 stack of bleeding for 1 second, small chance for 1 stack of Might for 1 second, etc. Full blown useless.
Not really, considering the current Last Refuge is more detrimental than anything and most people would rather not have it at all.
I’d have to agree. The main use for Blinding Powder is to stealth yourself while disabled, since you could otherwise just use CnD. Though the blind helps a fair amount, it still isn’t great in that regard if you can’t move after.
And if you want to use it to save allies, Shadow Refuge is better.
so let’s make rapid fire beam…
….It is; Rangers have a trait to make all bow attacks pierce.
As do Engineers for pistols and Warriors for rifles.
/Facepalm
(edited by Grimwolf.7163)