“Dodge twice. Since HS is queued and he’s hasted, the thief will waste all init and can’t do anything about it because he’s spamming HS.
Chill.
Congrats. Thief wasted all his init doing nothing.
Chill reduces leap distance by 66%. Playing a necro in pubs, i would follow thieves around all game just to chill them and watch them hopelessly spam HS.
This one game, I got 25 bleeds on me, ran around in a circle, and died. Nerf bleeds."
First off, you wouldn’t be able to dodge until you got hit with the second HS. The first would be invisible coming from stealth until it hit you and the second would then technically count as the first visible HS. Assuming you activate dodge twice after the first visible HS (now that you’ve been hit by 2), what if he DOESN’T spam HS? What if he decided to use only 2 HS? You can’t just assume that by some psychic phenomenon you’ll instinctively know not only when an invisible player is going to attack you but know exactly what attacks he’s going to use. If he DOESN’T waste all of his initiative on HS you’ve still wasted all of your dodge and then CAN’T dodge the CnD > BS combo (assuming 15 initiative, -6 from 2 HS, -6 from Cnd allows for a total of HS > HS > CnD > BS > HS with Assassin’s Signet potentially in use and ~1-2 secs of Haste remaining). Or to make it even noobier, after you waste all of your dodge, the thief uses Roll for Initiative, evading while escaping and gaining 6 initiative and then spams more HS with Haste still up. Don’t forget, even though Roll creates distance, HS is a gap closer!
What you’re basically saying is “Assume you know what’s going to happen and when, time your dodges perfectly with precognitive precision, hope that all he does is spam one attack because if he doesn’t, you now have no dodge left to survive off of.”
This is the logic that prevents appropriate fixes from being implemented.
(edited by Hanzo.9624)
“You guys are stupid. Instead of crying about a silly spec why not actually learn to counter it? Notice how thieves basically have no stability? Why not cc them? There, their HS spam will now do 0 damage.”
You can’t counter things, even if you know how to counter things, if you aren’t given time to counter things. Not to mention as a Necro our “signature” CC is stronger when used by a thief who used Steal.
“For a necro, just put a staff 5 on the ground and stand in it. Then you can do your wellbomb combo.”
Any thief worth worrying about isn’t going to open on a necro standing in a blatantly visible mark.
“How about dodging twice while he spams 2 like a noob, making him waste all his initiative AND his haste buff? Just saying.”
Because 2 dodges =/= avoiding 5 attacks. As a thief, if I opened with HS + Haste and he dodged, I would stop spamming HS and then CnD > BS > Roll for Initiative > go back to HS (if spamming HS was my goal).
People always say “Just dodge it” when something is overpowered, meaning you need to meet certain prerequisites:
1. You have a full dodge meter.
2. You can see the attack coming.
3. There are zero other variables in place (like Basilisk Venom…)
That’s like saying to counter 100b warrior, “just dodge Bull’s Rush”. Except it’s more like you’re running, then all of a sudden out of nowhere you get knocked to the ground and instantly haste + 100B spammed to death before you recover from the knock down. Don’t forget Haste speeds up stomp time! You’re literally knocked down, burst down, and stomped before you have a chance to recover from the knock down. Even with a stun breaker the amount of damage accrued before you’re able to use it is significant enough to put you on the defensive which allows the warrior to continue attacking.
The common denominator here is HASTE. It’s a stupid mechanic and doesn’t belong in this game. It would make certain aspects of the game more tactically focused. Heartseeker DOESN’T NEED A GAP CLOSER THAT HOMES IN ON THE TARGET! These are basic design flaws that have been the topic of frustration since BWE1! That’s the disgusting part about this whole thing, that during the beta we were not only allowed but ENCOURAGED to give feedback and despite there being an overwhelming outpouring of protest from players on specific topics, NONE of the most important things were implemented!
(edited by Hanzo.9624)
“30k damage…???? lol”
27.8k to be exact.
Make a thief. Go to HoM. Trait 25/30/0/0/10. Find a player. Hit assassin’s signet, haste, then spam HS until you can’t spam it any longer. If he lives, heal stealth + shadow refuge to escape then repeat. Or use roll for initiative, repeat HS spam until dead, and THEN retreat if he’s not dead. Seriously go do this. This isn’t some attempt at trolling or getting thieves nerfed, why would I do that? My main is a thief, I don’t want thieves to get nerfed. I want HASTE to get removed and want Heartseeker to get fixed because as it stands both are too strong alone and game breaking combined. Granted it takes a special kind of moron to build around spamming HS but the fact that that moron can outperform better players across the board means the dev’s need to look at it.
(edited by Hanzo.9624)
On my necro, baited some scrub thief who was literally only using Haste and then spamming heartseeker. Waited for him to come out of stealth and was going to death shroud (for retaliation) > DS fear > flesh golem knock down > well of darkness (with chill effect traited)> well of suffering > well of corruption > dagger #3 immobilize and #1 spam. Comes out of stealth from shadow refuge WITH HEARTSEEKER and literally didn’t even have time for my DS > Fear > Pet Knock down > Well Bomb combo before I ate almost 30k in HS damage as a 24k HP toon with ~1600 toughness.
Coming from a primary thief player, this is nauseating to me. I think thief is a great class when played skillfully. This was just some baddy pub scrub literally hitting Haste and then spamming the number 2 key on his keyboard and killing people with it. He was top score and the side of the screen was scrolling with him killing people using only heartseeker. This was NOT a skillful thief, based on his movement patterns and his inability to react it was just a bad player exploiting a ridiculous mechanic. He had no titles and the starter PvP gear. If he failed at spamming HS he would stealth heal + shadow refuge until his initiative was back up and then come out with more HS spam. Repeat.
Did you really design a game based around a player being able to defeat other players by hitting ONE BUTTON MULTIPLE TIMES? I wish I screen shotted it but I was too concerned with exiting the game and wiping its existence from my hard drive before it tainted my computer any longer. I’m all for buffs over nerfs and thief is my favorite class in every game that allows it, but this is like unbelievable. I’m by no means a bad player and very rarely have a problem with thieves on my necro and even less so on my thief. Thieves LOVE to defend their class by saying, “Good players don’t die to HS spam” to try and cover the ability’s overpowered mechanics. As a thief against a HS spamming thief it’s easy to CnD and make them waste their initiative HS’ing away from me. As a necro it’s even easier to well bomb/immobilize/fear/knockdown during HS spam. But when you’re actively waiting for a thief that you know is only going to hit Haste and spam HS, and you’re completely prepared to effectively nullify that attack, and instead immediately die, there’s really nothing you can do. I don’t care what you say should have been done differently, I KNOW what should have been done. I was physically UNABLE to do it.
Before you guys start diving into making your next whatever Holiday event maybe you should take a look at crap like this that’s completely ruining this game. It’s bad enough every class plays the same build basically anyway (have you seen a non-100b warrior?). Initiative was a good idea to try and keep the spirit of the thief alive but in a game like this it just doesn’t work. Heartseeker would be fine if it wasn’t spammable. STOP RUINING THINGS AND MAKE THEM BETTER. Take haste out of the game and you’ll solve so many problems: people won’t flock to FotM burst builds and players won’t keep getting killed by level 2 FotM rerolled burst builds! I don’t care what you do, because I’m done with this game. It’s more like an exit interview from a crappy job; I’m hoping that by being honest you’ll make things better for the people who stick it out.
Thief gameplay review from a player who mains a thief and also plays a necro and an elementalist in PvP.
1. Shadow Assault, the underwater #5 skill with spear, is unbelievably overpowered. Prior to the Capricorn shark nerf I was able to capture the Ruins while fighting 3 sharks just by spamming 5 and never getting hit once. Using your underwater utilities for initiative regeneration allows for almost unlimited use of this spell, which does moderate damage while providing 100% evasion uptime. Not only is this boring to use, it’s boring to fight against. No one wants to die while their opponent presses 1 button and remains at full health, and no one SHOULD want to win by pressing 1 button and staying at full health. It’s just a stupid idea.
2. Heartseeker is still absurd. As a thief it’s LOL when other thieves spam HS but on other classes it become ridiculous when the thief decides he’s done pretending he has a rotation and just pops assassin’s signet and spams up to 5 HS in a row critting for over 5k each when your health is low. Why do we need a spammable, leap finisher, gap closing, high damage attack on a class that already has more gap closing and high damage options than any class in the game? Necro has #3 scepter, Unholy Feast, as a “finisher”; it requires the necro to stack conditions and does more damage depending on the amount of conditions. At 25 stacks of bleed plus Signet of Spite and boon conversion to conditions from wells, my long cooldown “finisher” crits for maybe 50% of one heartseeker, on a good day, with NO gap closer, on the least mobile class in the game. You guys need to be looking at this stuff.
3. Haste needs to be removed from the game ENTIRELY. It makes 100b and Pistol Whip go from mediocre attacks to insanely high damage burst paired with stun/knockdown. Have you ever seen a warrior in sPvP playing anything BUT 100b/whirlwind GS + M/S build? There’s a reason for that. Get rid of haste and normalize the damage for both. As it stands pistol whip is still not even close to as strong as 100b.
4. Pistol/Dagger bleed builds are the most boring thing I’ve ever seen. 0/0/30/20/20, constant stealths and healing/condition removal while stealthed, our survivability is insane which is good but it’s so ungodly boring to play. 111115111115111115. That’s literally ALL THE ROTATION IS. You auto attack until you can cloak and dagger, then you use sneak attack, then you repeat. Heal as necessary. It’s boring to play and it’s boring to fight against. Our only defensive class option shouldn’t be so mundane.
3. Sword/Dagger #3 needs to be totally reworked. The damage blows, it misses constantly and the initiative cost is too high.
4. Venoms need to be looked at. Being a staple of the thief/rogue/assassin class historically, they seem out of touch with this game, just thrown in because you feel like it was supposed to be. A couple hits of a debuff on a 45 second cooldown? I understand this is totally different from WoW, but choosing your poisons based on situation and having them on your weapons for an hour and always working was an awesome game mechanic. I feel like the only reason people take venoms in this game is for tPvP venom share builds or exploiting immobility for cnd > steal > bs.
How about when you’re fighting someone else and a thief runs up and spams HS? You’re going to somehow, with your at max 2 dodges, avoid up to 5 heartseekers in a row while also fighting someone else?
Clearly a 1v1 that turns into a 1v2, odds are you’re going to lose, but it’s extremely possible winning 1v2 fights. Unless a thief shows up and says, “Meh, I’ll just end this really quick and spam 5 HS because I’m at full initiative and he’s at 40% health. I don’t even need to pretend to use any semblance of a skill rotation because the game design has allowed #2 spam to be just as viable.”
Like I said, it doesn’t need a gap closer. Thieves have a ridiculous amount of slowing and gap closing options where they don’t need another one, that they can spam, that does that much damage. Either drop the damage and keep the leap or drop the leap and keep the damage.
We have a spammable gap closer that regularly crits between ~6-8k when the target is at low health. I have hit (and been hit) with 3 or 4 chained mega crit heartseekers that took a fight from equal to me instantly dead. Traited and at full initiative we can SPAM 5 heartseekers in a row. We all know that if we’re in a 1v1 and it starts to seem like we’re going to lose, all we have to do is spam HS and we’ll usually win. It’s an idiot mechanic. Between steal, shadow signet, infiltrators arrow, infiltrators signet, scorpion wire, shadow step, drake/skale and basilisk venom, dancing dagger, swiftness on dodge (depending on build), caltrops and thieves guild, any build with a dagger mainhand has MORE than enough methods of slowing their target and closing the gap without a spammable gap closer with an extremely high damage output.
I say they take away the leap option, up the initiative cost to 4, make it only activate when the target reaches 50% health and THEN let it crit for 8k. That’s still ~24k potential damage at someone with most likely less than 13k health.
Anyone who denies the fact that when losing, resorting to HS spam gives you the win, is full of it. It’s an easy out for bad players who can’t figure out any other method after they blow their cnd > steal > bs rotation, and why should they when HS spam is so stupidly effective?
The minions only attack if you hit 1. Using any other ability doesn’t send them to attack. If you always hit 1 at the start of combat your minions will attack. I’ve never had a problem using the minions other than bone minions being too slow. If they upped the speed on bone minions getting to their target they’d be amazing.
I’ve finally figured out how to play the necro in the way I assume it was intended to be played, and I’ve yet to find a situation that I don’t have an effective response for. My damage and survivabilty are both fantastic. The flexibility I now have with my utilities and traits allows me to switch between on demand burst or group utility depending on the situation. I’ve had no problems dealing with any class, any build 1v1 (exceptional players obviously are a challenge but no FotM build issues). I’ve officially shelved my thief to go back to my original necro main.
Sure there’s issues but there’s always issues. Minion AI needs some work. Feast of corruption needs a HUGE damage buff as a finisher with a condition stacking requirement (yet I’m still taking 7k on average per Heartseeker, spammable gap closer). Death Shroud UI should show other spells so we know better when to come out (showing DS cool downs while not in DS would be hugely helpful as well). Axe needs a damage buff. Otherwise the class is fine! I’m not boasting or anything I’m just excited to have a renewed interest in the game after reevaluating my necro play style and I feel bad for expressing so much negativity toward a game design I clearly did not understand.
Necros are fine. Thank you ANet!
This is one of those situations where I was just completely confused by the patch notes. After how many threads in this forum explained what player’s felt the most class breaking issues were, with barely any relevant feedback, they literally did NOTHING to help this class. Read the Mesmer notes. Mesmer is arguably the most OP class in the game and they have a huge list of BUFFS. They literally buffed mesmers with every single change they made. Necros should have seen a damage buff across the board. And why can we still not see our normal UI while in DS? If anything we were nerfed if you count the defiant change to Fear. I honestly can’t figure out why they would even do this. What’s the reasoning behind making the most powerful classes more powerful and the weakest class even weaker? This is such a Blizzard move.
Dude. Stop saying “thoughtness” instead of “toughness”.
It’s just as bad in pvp. I can go stealth and escape a fight with no health only to never start regenerating it. I should start gaining health back automatically after not attacking for like 15 seconds. It’s been several minutes sometimes that I’ll be alone on a map hiding with no health waiting for it to regen but nope. I have to use my heal and then wait another 30 seconds for it to come off cool down, sometimes have to use it again and then wait for ANOTHER 30 secs before getting back into the fight. This is a HUGE problem that needs immediate looking into!
The problem with allowing players to jump into pvp from level 2 is that you have a lot of people with little to no experience crying about other classes being overpowered. There has not been ONE post from a tournament perspective about thieves being overpowered, only underpowered. Don’t take anything casual whiners say seriously. There will always be those people who would rather see opposition made weaker in lieu of becoming better players.
That being said, it feels like thieves have entered a grey area where we’ll eventually be mediocre in all areas. Double dagger backstab is fun and effective but we die almost instantly when focused which is appropriate, but nerfing our damage is going to render that build unusable as there’s just an unfair trade off between damage and survivabilty.
Pistol/dagger is an effective but fairly boring build for pvp. It’s hitting 1 and then using cloak and dagger to open with bleeds. The number 2 ability for stacking vulnerability seems out of place as it doesn’t help with our bleed damage. I think the dual skill should do more damage as well.
Sword/anything needs help. Pistol whip is trash without haste and signet of precision to refill endurance so that’s two mandatory utilities to use a subpar skill that roots us. Hundred Blades and haste drops me (toughness stacked with over 20k hp) almost instantly without a stun break, so what was the problem with pistol whip?
Pistol/pistol would be better if Unload did more damage and had something else like stacking three bleeds ala Death Blossom. That way it would fit more in line with the bleed stacking pistol builds. Right now we pretty much need to use Shortbow with any build just for mobility it’d be nice to use our other ranged option.
Right now if we go burst we die immediately. If we even remotely focus on training for defense our damage drop is ridiculous. Our bleed damage is subpar. People can still channel abilities on us through stealth which makes our primary defensive mechanism unreliable. Thieves Guild cool down is too long. We need to have our DPS looked at because right now it’s do burst but die or survive but have trouble killing anything. I would also love to see venoms become viable options for us.
Also basilisk venom being our only underwater elite is absurd. All three of our elites could work underwater. Basilisk venom and all the venoms are undesirable only because of how unreliable they are to use. Any number of things can make you waste venoms. If you shoot air with basilisk venom on, you waste it. That’s dumb. Give us a better chance at actually applying them. Maybe an opposite venom share option where the venoms you apply to one target can be spread to other enemies. I’d like to see poisons stack so we can build condition thieves with bleeds and poisons and be more effective without having to go full power crit builds.
(edited by Hanzo.9624)
I run 30/10/0/0/30 with axe/focus and dagger/warhorn. 6/6 Dolyak runes. I love this build and so far I haven’t had problems dealing with anyone outside of the norm obviously. Utilities are spectral walk for stun break, life force gen and heal jukes. Well of darkness and well of suffering with plague as elite. Trait for death shroud. Use axe/focus to stack vuln, cripple in your wells with #3, swap to dagger for steady dps and life force gen. When appropriate use warhorn stun then swap to axe for axe #2 for good damage. On glass cannons it literally just rips them apart. Can use warhorn 5, focus 5, death shroud 2 for gap closers (dagger 3 root could be counted too). Well of darkness ruins thieves backstab combo. You leave consistent aoe damage which sucks but with axe 3, both wells dropped and then plague cloud with blind spam you provide good utility for your team to capture nodes. I feel this build provides solid single target sustained dps, great survivabilty when using death shroud appropriately (ie not just sitting in it until your bar runs out but popping in and out at the right time, making use of foot in the grave and the aoe bleed when you activate ds), and solid aoe utilities for group support. Spectral walk is huge. It’s so helpful for stun breaks, gap closing, escapes. Sorry for this crappy post I’m on my phone lol. Message me for more info if anyone cares.
I cast it while running away before CnD > Steal. It guarantees a Backstab or a Sneak Attack, stops them from using any abilities (aside from stun breaks) and interrupts abilities. As 0/0/30/20/20 it shares to any ally including NPC’s. Sharing spider, basilisk and skale venom with your team when attacking a node is huge. On a 45 sec cool down. As 20/0/30/20/0 it’s 36 sec. The only change I could see is to make it a 1/2 sec longer and instant but I think the premise when used correctly is fine. It’s people who cast it then attack when the target is obstructed or when they have a defensive cool down up so they waste it that have the most issue with it.
“(this is especially important when you’re doing Brazillian Jiu Jitsu!)”
Especially when you’re transitioning from 50/50 guard to a berimbolo.
“How much time and/or efforts did you took, as a Thief, to learn how to counter a Necromancer?”
Most players in MMO’s are awful, especially in this game. You can make a level 2 toon and jump into pvp without knowing anything about your build or gear or abilities. How many of those cry baby forum whiners are there that are getting insta-gibbed by thieves on a toon they’ve never played before and then coming on here like they have a right to judge class balance. This includes necros. I see necros more often than not wasting death shroud for it’s entire duration.
Typical necro fight for me: I burst. He uses death shroud and every ability death shroud offers. I white damage then burst him again when DS is down. Pretty kitten
And then there’s really really good necros who throw wells under me when I’m stealthed because they’re not complete idiots, or drop marks on themselves when I go stealth so when I do burst them I get overwhelmed with conditions and feared. They force me to waste hide in shadows then immediately stack bleeds on me when I can’t remove them for 30 seconds. They pop in and out of death shroud and kite me. And these are only condition necros. Minion Masters are also hard and near impossible to kill when played correctly. Flesh Golem knock down > Drop staff marks on knocked down thief > Bone minion explosion > Thief uses hide in shadows > pop DS on thief’s burst and fear > pop out of DS and use pet root > drop marks on thief again > resummon bone minions etc etc
I have no problems with thieves on my necro unless they jump me when I’m fighting someone else, and I’m not an idiot so I don’t complain about getting killed 1v2. Video games attract the type of people who want instant gratification without any work put in. Who, instead of trying to get better, expect everyone else to be made worse just so they can feel better about themselves. I hope ANet isn’t one of those companies that cater to spoiled children.
“why are they stronger then the skills of the class they stole from normally.”
Because they only get to use it once. It’d be like if necros could steal a stealth ability that lasts for 6 seconds, making it better than thief default stealth. If the ability only lasted for 1 second, it would be worthless. Would you waste a 45 sec cooldown, burst element and gap closer for a 1 sec stealth ability? No! You’d save it for something better.
If they made Steal take worse versions of other profession’s abilities it would just be a terrible version of Infiltrator’s Strike on a ridiculously long cooldown. The better abilities actually give it purpose. Besides, it’s not difficult timing evade for when the thief gets within Steal range, or using a a defensive ability. Steal misses/is blocked fairly often and we end up with a HUGE hole in not only our offensive potential but in our defensive as well.
I felt the same way so I’ve been using a different type of build that I’ve had great success with. At my level I’m 25/0/0/20/15 d/d and sb. DA: Venomous Strength, Dagger Training, A: Vigorous Recovery, Assassin’s Reward, T: Uncatchable. Utilities I use Healing Signet, Spider Venom, Caltrops and Shadow Refuge. Elite is Dagger Storm.
For large groups I pull with shortbow Cluster Bomb’s to stack bleeds then dodge to drop caltrops, then I use the the caltrop utility, pop spider venom then spam leaping death blossom. When I run out of initiative, dodge for more caltrops and more death blossom. You can get over 20 stacks of bleeding almost immediately, have great healing from signet and assassin’s reward, plus you have tons of dodging from vigorous recovery and feline grace which means more caltrops from uncatchable. Use dagger storm as needed.
Single targets I do spider venom, cloak and dagger + steal, throw caltrops while stealthed then backstab before they hit the ground (this combo also works well in PvP with basilisk venom off cloak and dagger, they come out of BV with caltrops and backstab simultaneously), dodge to drop more caltrops, etc. Same strategy as above except I sub in thieves guild for an elite and I open with the backstab combo.
I had a lot of trouble leveling early on but this build has been great.
(edited by Hanzo.9624)
Awesome reply. Someone finally “learned to play” and is much happier because of it. That most pathetic thing about this thread is that the op wants to know how to beat thieves in 1v1. THE GAME DOESN’T EVEN HAVE DUELING. THERE IS NO OPTION FOR 1v1!!! Why do people play MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER GAMES so they can complain about how they can’t beat everyone by themselves? The joy of multiplayer of that you never have to fight 1v1. If you’re alone guarding a point and you see a thief call out in chat for backup. No one talks in this game. There’s no solid team communication. It’s not hard to call out incs and mark targets to focus fire. People are so concerned that their class is underpowered and everyone else’s is overpowered that they forget to utilize the most important aspect of combat: the rest of their team!
More crap from noobs who want to run around solo but get mad when a build made to take out single people rapidly takes them out. Wah wah. You know what gives me the most trouble as a thief? Good players who stay with team mates. Dropping someone fast doesn’t mean anything when their team mate revives them before I can stomp and now I have no potential burst setup for almost a minute.
As a roamer my job is to patrol the map and pick off people running around alone, provide backup in skirmishes, help capture points, repair treb etc. If you’re alone on the map you must be a roamer so use mobility! Get to your team. If you’re holding a point you should be a bunker so you have no fear of my burst. But chances are you’re just stupid, respawned and ran around alone instead of waiting for someone to run with, and you got killed by a thief. Thus thieves are OP and the world is against you because you want to suck without consequence. Sorry. If it wasn’t for downed state thieves would be op. I could kill two people no problem. But thankfully most players aren’t smart. They don’t go for revivals with the same urgency as they do stomps. If I use my elite, my steal, my signet (three 45 sec cool downs) plus almost all of my initiative to drop someone and his partner revives him immediately I’m screwed.
Arena Net knows what they’re doing. They don’t want to encourage pandamonium with people running around doing nothing. They want team work. Stay with someone and make revivals priority. Common sense people.
I’m running 22/0/0/20/15 d/d and sb with healing signet, spider venom, caltrops, signet of shadows and dagger storm. I was built for straight toughness and vitality and I died all the time because mobs weren’t dying. Now I just bleed kite things. Pull groups with cluster bomb, dodge with uncatchable to spam caltrops and then use caltrops and spam death blossom. With everything crippled and bleeding you can run around with sb and spider venom and add cluster bombs as needed. Things die so fast and you can avoid damage while dealing bleed damage constantly. I can get 20 stacks of bleeds on right off the bat. I highly recommend this play style for leveling.
Only morons have trouble against thieves. You should be complaining about mesmers.
Basically what MMO pvp boils down to can be likened to this analogy:
“I just lost a boxing match. No I’ve never trained in boxing. No I didn’t put my hands up. No I didn’t try to avoid the punches. It doesn’t matter, this just proves that boxing is overpowered.”
What boggles my mind is that with all the noob outcry about nerfing the Thief class you would think the Devs would want to broadcast as many of the changes they made as possible to show the community that they are listening and making adjustments as needed. Hiding nerfs is really, really weird.
Playing devil’s advocate, maybe they were trying a different model from other MMO’s who list all the changes on the patch notes. Maybe they wanted to just tweak things and see if the complaints stopped happening on their own because you know a lot of people will READ changes and then start complaining about them before they even get into the game. Maybe they expected the thief QQ to slowly die off as more changes were implemented instead of “We changed stealth for you guys” “NO Y U NO NERPH BACKSTAB!!???”
How can anyone honestly complain about Shadow Refuge? The healing it provides is negligible, it’s on a 1 min cooldown and it’s like a billboard saying “There are people standing in this circle feel free to AoE it”. It’s greatest benefit is for stomps and revivals.
So this nerf and the stealth stacking nerf both “must not have made it into the patch notes”? That seems very odd that two important changes for the same class based on the same mechanic were somehow both forgotten…