Guild Wars 2

RusShiro.9241:

lol, i am trying to learn thief, but so far my understanding is that stealth and entering exiting combat, is the primary defensive ability of thief.

Stealth doesn’t contest points, it puts your team at a disadvantage to use it. Getting out of combat certainly doesn’t contest points either.

Forz.1725:

Zanryu.3417:

Hype.8032:

selan.8354:

no, there is permastealth thieves there and such a thing would be very overpowered. i think it is fine as it is and should not be changed.

I challenge you to actually say WHY my suggestion would be overpowered.

Because being able to contest a point while being unable to effectively take damage for a prolonged period of time while everyone else who contests a point is susceptible to damage unless using certain, extremely short skills with fairly long cooldowns is just a tad unbalanced.

Stealthed thieves/mesmers/engis/rangers are all just as susceptible to damage as a non-stealthed character.

Stealth =/= invulnerable

He didn’t even read the original post Forz. My suggestion is to offer LIMITED capability to contest while stealthed. Maybe this should only apply for the small outer points? I could see this being too easily cheesed at the extra large points.

selan.8354:

no, there is permastealth thieves there and such a thing would be very overpowered. i think it is fine as it is and should not be changed.

I challenge you to actually say WHY my suggestion would be overpowered.

Cynz.9437:

eh… people are already crying rivers about stealth in pvp… if they actually could contest while in stealth the QQ would be endless

besides i can see it being abused by few hieves chaining refuge

Sorry to ask, but did you read the thread friend? How could it be abused if implemented the way I suggested? A perma-stealthed thief at worst could only slowdown the point transition. Furthermore, no one is crying about stealth besides stealth bombs at the start of a match. This change wouldn’t really impact that aspect of gameplay.

Wintel.4873:

What about the Initiative buff coming in Dec 10? Isn’t the entire point of that to increase build diversity?

You can read the threads in the thief forum if you want to learn more about it. In short however, it is not a buff, just a re-shuffling of how initiative is gained. The other nerfs to initiative gain fully offset the +33% passive increase in most cases.

Greetings!

I understand the danger of allowing a stealthed player to contest a point (think perma-stealthed thief troll), but not allowing a stealthed player to contest a point at all is a major unfairness. Why can’t Anet implement something like a stealthed player can contest a point at 50% efficiency (the point decaps/caps at half the usual rate). Or, do something like let the stealthed player 100% contest for 3 seconds of stealth with an ICD of 10 seconds.

The main reason I ask is because thieves are really hurting on build diversity in spvp. S/D is about the only build that can properly contest a point and it might not (probably won’t) be viable post Dec 10th patch. By allowing stealthed players to partially contest points, thieves can actually use points in shadow arts while remaining viable. We’d see s/d thieves using tactical strike, dagger/dagger might come back, d/p might run 10/30/30/0/0 and not feel embarrassed for doing so.

I think it’s about time for this change, what do the rest of you think? Keep in mind the nerfs to thief sword and perma stealth in the Dec 10th patch when replying.

EDIT: Some people talk about this being overpowered. Be honest, how many of you really have trouble turning over a point that a thief is guarding? At best a thief can let the point go neutral and re-cap it after (if) he defeats you. Other classes can keep the point capped the whole time until one side wins.

vrilek.4038:

The problem with thief class isnt health pool or damage -> its survival. After 10th Dec Thief wont be viable class on 5v5 tpvp type(only one type of pvp anyway since launch). If thieves get +20-30% dmg for all weaponsets and 20% more hp after next patch it still wont be viable class THATS THE REAL PROBLEM;)

Sorry but I’d feel like I was playing in godmode if I got that added to the dec10 notes. We need certain buffs and certain trait reworks to open up more builds but we’re not nearly as bad as everyone says. We don’t need a larger health pool but nerfs like the IR change on sword really need to be compensated for in some way. We need the survivability that in instant cast provided. A rework to dancing dagger, cloak and dagger, tactical strike, and pistol whip could make the sword builds viable again.

There is, check again.

Use 2 init on stealth…. it’s big for d/d. You might have enough init to throw in the occasional DB then

If you thought thieves were in a bad spot before, they’re worse today. That’s all I can really say.

To answer your question: thief is capable of winning almost all 1v1s so if you are having trouble it’s your skill or your build. I’m certainly not saying we’re on equal ground as all professions but we can still win by outplaying them. If you’re really in full zerker gear that’s too glassy for your skill level. Mix in some soldiers (chest,helm,legs if I remember right) to gain some sustain. Thief plays differently than all the other professions, you have to learn a new style of play to be effective.

Are you 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0? I still think one of those is best for d/d in wvw.

Jumper.9482:

+1 for keeping Active Initiative gain.

Jumper it is almost as if you’d like to increase the skill cap or something +1

It’d suck to relearn the class but it’d make thief more viable and increase the skill ceiling even further. So I’m for it with whatever balancing necessary to make it fair. Anet, instead of the boring and down right depressing changes you’ve given thief for over a year (aside from the original FS/LS change), why don’t you work to give us stuff like this?

http://pl.twitch.tv/forsaker_/profile Watch this guy for a while and you’ll probably improve by leaps and bounds.

Jumper says it best.

This weekend I’ve been playing my mesmer and necro trying to decide which will be my new main. I’ve been wanting to get good at another class regardless but Anet’s handling of thief balance has kitten ed me off. Feeling weaker and weaker each patch and having to try harder each time to remain relevant really blows. The sword #2 change is so huge. I know it won’t be fun anymore and playing other professions made me fully realize that everyone can do stuff like that.

-A stunned necro can switch into DS and fear the opponent away. No stunbreak.
-A mesmer can phase retreat away. No stunbreak.
-Using the wurm and spectral walk a necro can shadowstomp the same way a sword thief can
-Using phase retreat and blink (or portals) a mesmer can shadowstomp just like a sword thief.

How is it possible that a necro can be a better thief than a thief? Anet, you’re letting a necro use mobility to secure a stomp while simultaneously preventing thieves from the same! Both of the 2 things Jon mentioned needing nerfed from this IR change can be done by other classes. Am I taking crazy pills?

It wont’ be an esport will they let us follow individual players. I really REALLY don’t want to watch mm necros, spirit rangers, or warriors roll their face over the keyboard when I could be watching a thief or mesmer actually play skillfully.

You didn’t spell it right – it is “Hard to Justify”. At least that’s what we’re going with here. It should be a stunbreak, player controlled shadow step, or stability. Not the current rng stuff that is rampant in this game.

Honestly, if you want to play thief play thief. It is a ton of fun regardless of the fact that anet is butchering it piece by piece each patch. It feels like a hard time to learn it right now (I’m really glad I was able to slowly build up skill while we were still powerful and the meta wasn’t so crazy). If you want some build advice (assuming you stick around) just let us know

Cheers!

I have to give credit to caed for showing me it first but I like using shadow refuge while in sbow to get a immobilize on the enemy to chain more cluster bombs. Not about clearing condi’s but a good trick to know regardless.

This is a great change. I am sad that I won’t get a title for being in top 200 or something like that. I never cheated/exploited at all but I know at least one game I was on the side of the syncers.

Wouldn’t it be fun for once if they actually buffed a spec before they nerfed another part of it? The way mug was done is another example of a poorly done series of changes. Why wasn’t steal’s CD shortened the same time mug was nerfed? Why did we have to wait so long for the compensation? Nerfing sword now feels the same but we don’t even know if the future buff is even coming.

Anyone who thinks thieves are getting a 33% buff to initiative doesn’t have a firm grasp of math. On usable specs it’s a wash at best. That’s all I’ll say about it. Grouch is excited about the patch because thieves will be even more easy-mode kills for engineers. I’ll still melt face with d/p but where the hell is the build diversity?

Zacchary don’t reply to him.

Read this very carefully: stealth is underpowered in spvp. Underpowered. A stealthed player should be able to at least partially contest a point. Instead of buffing it properly you want to make it worse? This suggestion from the OP is so so so very bad.

Quip is great for trolling so just keep using it for that.

Jon, Mesmers can trait phase retreat down to a 6 second cooldown and it functions the same as our sword #2 return currently. Please consider delaying or canceling this sword nerf until other changes are ready to compensate for the loss of effectiveness. Please consider the effect of this change on build diversity. Thieves are very weapon limited and 2 sets will be affected by it.

Thank you for your time.

Heizero.9183:

I just put the points into SA. i actually run 0/30/20/20/0. It’s more defensive, but honestly the damage difference isn’t that big and i can deal with any condi class with ease.

I’m going to get flak for my setup, but idgaf because it works for me.

Remember folks: A live Thief always deals more damage than a dead Thief.

I use that build in wvw sometimes, it’s my favorite build that puts points into SA. However, you lose an absolute ton of damage compared to 10/30/0/0/30. 100 power, mug, poison on steal, 21 sec steal, 0-15% damage from initiative, fury up 50% of the time, boon steal (think removing protection), and better initiative management through the trickery line. If you’re taking hidden killer due to lower crit chance you’re losing even more dps not having executioner (fury gives you like 80% crit chance from behind) I think a s/d thief is just as tanky but does more dps over a d/p SA thief.

That being said, use what works for you. Is it giving you flak just saying it isn’t optimal?

Cheers!

I think I might troll elementalists with S/D after this patch just for spite. Anet decided that s/d thief was removing ele’s from the meta so they decided to remove it completely. The part I’m most sad about is that they actually said they plan for s/d to still be viable. I’m considering that a lie at this point. I hope this was constructive enough.

K – acro thief: lyssa runes are an all clear, sword #2 gets one, shadow step utility removes 3 (it’s a stunbreak, condition clear, and disengage.. it’s far superior to signet of agility), and pain response nullifies most the opening burst if you don’t dodge it. Don’t open a fight with basilisk venom… you lose that powerful condition clear.

trickery d/p – try really hard to dodge their opening spam with dodge or shortbow 3. If you do get dumped on you’ll have to immediately use Hide in Shadows to remove most of it. After that it’s a dps race to kill them before they can restack conditions. A well used shadow step will lengthen the fight. I’m sure you know how strong the stolen fear is from necros so don’t miss steal and use it often. Steal from the engi and toss the gunk at him and drop a cluster bomb onto him and the gunk to proc chaos shield for yourself. That always seems to help a lot. When stealthed from your heal you can immobilize them and spam 2-3 clusterbombs point blank and do big damage. Lately (since I don’t use lyssa on d/p) I’ve been using thieves guild instead of BV and it makes most 1v1’s pretty easy. I got used to winning with BV so it feels like easy mode with TG

You shouldn’t be going into SA in spvp, not with the way things currently are. We’re at a disadvantage vs several builds but it doesn’t mean we can’t win. Sometimes it is best for your team not to engage but sometimes you should stand your ground.

Ihales.3820:

20 seconds is quite high “cooldown” compared to skills of other classes.

“360 milliseconds is certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones.” I know there is “almost” but skull crack with current 250 milliseconds cast time is fight changing skill because 3s stun is almost always difference between life and death. And how many similar skills are still in game? You are changing skull crack to 500 ms that leaves us 140 ms to react. 40 ms for network delay (really low delay) leaves us with 100 ms to react. Unfortunately average human reaction time is more than 150 ms… (one source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time but there are many others)

So how useful is that? And I am not even considering skill delay which is now so common or issues when this skill won’t move you at all.

The devs need to read this and comments like this over and over. I firmly maintain that this nerf is horribly unjustified from a balance standpoint but it’s even too aggressive to be used to avoid stuns at all! Everyone makes mistakes but putting your collective heads in the sand and continuing a mistake is much much worse.

What S/D thief really needs:
LS should steal 2 boons again – reduce the damage if you feel it is necessary
Dancing dagger should move faster and have the full 5 second cripple
Tactical strike needs a buff to give a reason to use CnD
TS does not need more damage but more utility (longer daze, chill, torment… SOMETHING)

IMO, every balance meeting should start with the statement that the goal is to make more viable builds as a first priority.

Excalibur.9748:

key thing that keeps mesmer viable is phase retreat, which is basically shadow return. if that ever gets nerfed (.25s cast time added), i fear mesmer will be in the same state as S/D thief – completely not viable.

I don’t want staff nerfed anymore than IR but I think it’s worth noting that mesmers can be very effective while slotting 3 stunbreaks. Thieves kitten themselves quite a bit not taking shadow refuge…. so mesmers can handle stuns better and their skill remains safe from THA NERF HAMMMAAAHHH.

It is just preference. You can get speed in stealth or vigor on heal to work just as well.

In wvw it can happen pretty often and he uses it as another way to get a backstab in.

I always like his videos though… even on engi.

Shadow arts thieves don’t know how to play d/p imo….

My new feedback: I just got a cool sword in spvp… please don’t implement the cast time on IR… it really will ruin sword builds.

garethh.3518:

Hype.8032:

garethh.3518:

Narcarsis.5739:

If you’re complaining about backstab you’re playing poorly and deserve to die.

Cheers,

Caed

Nobody said for balance and balance alone.
Yes it is balanced against other top tier specs.

No it isn’t, even somewhat, decent gameplay (against the vast, vast majority of specs).

I find it kind of hilarious, that those are mainly Anet’s thoughts.
During beta they talked about how much the game was going to be active defense based, how there weren’t going to be tons of bursts and spikes…
GW2 is so far from that.

That’s no way to balance a game. You bring up the lousy builds to the same level as the meta builds. You don’t cherry pick the soon to be only viable build for 1 class and destroy it. You can understand that can’t you?

Why are people so angry on these forums?
You can ask for clarification if your not sure what a person is saying before deciding to rant…

Saying, that a build is balanced compared to top tier builds, then that it isn’t utter cheese when fighting a few select builds, doesn’t me I…

For one, want to destroy stealth builds.
For two, think that cherry picked builds should be nerfed to the ground.

Hope that answers your question….

Mind restating that more clearly? “doesn’t me I”?

A ton of people including myself proposed changes to nerf perma-stealth. Anet’s change is the same as what I suggest several months back. You exaggerate even though your point has some merit

Don’t forget 10/30/0/30/0 s/d getting nerfed in a few weeks.

sirflamesword.3896:

Hype.8032:

Phoenix and dragon’s tooth do the same damage as backstab, are we nerfing those at the same time? These kinds of posts are pretty good for a laugh in the evening.

You stay classy my friend!

Clearly the Ele using Phoenix and Dragon’s Tooth can hit stealth>teleport away if those 2 skills miss, restarting the whole fight right?

Edit: FYI this is in no way agreeing with the OP though, you just cant compare the damage for a class with no type of stealth to a class with it.

The OP is a known thief hater so I’m just using his poor logic against him but relating it to his class.

Yeah, I’m against adding those to the class as well. We already have the tools, anet just needs to stop taking them away.

KaiserCX.7103:

JonPeters.5630:

It is currently for 3 initiative:

• gap closer
• 1s immob

for 2 more initiative:

• escape when not stunned
• remove 1 condition

With the new base regen that means you can gap close and immobilize and remove a condition every 5 seconds. Even if you spread that initiative over 4 skill slots that skill can be used every 20 seconds.

Jon

It’s an initial gap closer with 600 range (Warrior, Elementalist and Ranger have 1200 and 1100 range gap closers) so generally you have to combine it with steal or a utility to actually close the gap. 1 condition removed every 5 seconds on a universal cool-down, which isn’t crazy considering thief’s lack of condition cleanse options.

With the nerf you’ll obviously be losing the escape when not stunned function, you’ll also be losing the ability to use it as a dodge, yes 1/3rd of a second isn’t long (I thought you originally listed 1/4?) but keep in mind dodge is instant. Thief is currently the squishiest class as we have no stability (outside of cancelling an elite), lowest tiered HP pool, very few condition removals, no protection, no aegis and no regeneration outside of stealth spec builds and a 30s ICD trait (Pain Response). IR nerf coupled with the vigor nerf is just asking for thieves to be free kills for the majority of classes honestly.

If you add any cast time add like a .01s cast time so it’s still instant, but can’t be used while stunned and give us more access to stun breaks or stability, otherwise I truly believe that his change will ruin sword MH as many have stated.

1 nanosecond is too long. This skill needs to work while stunned and during stomps unless we’re getting protection and stability in this same patch.

garethh.3518:

Narcarsis.5739:

If you’re complaining about backstab you’re playing poorly and deserve to die.

Cheers,

Caed

Nobody said for balance and balance alone.
Yes it is balanced against other top tier specs.

No it isn’t, even somewhat, decent gameplay (against the vast, vast majority of specs).

I find it kind of hilarious, that those are mainly Anet’s thoughts.
During beta they talked about how much the game was going to be active defense based, how there weren’t going to be tons of bursts and spikes…
GW2 is so far from that.

That’s no way to balance a game. You bring up the lousy builds to the same level as the meta builds. You don’t cherry pick the soon to be only viable build for 1 class and destroy it. You can understand that can’t you?

Phoenix and dragon’s tooth do the same damage as backstab, are we nerfing those at the same time? These kinds of posts are pretty good for a laugh in the evening.

You stay classy my friend!

I think Jon is off work for the night

Jon replied to one of my posts confirming they think sword thieves will still be viable in tpvp. So, I think sword will eventually see other buffs ~6 months down the road when they realize it is not viable. Maybe it’ll be like nerfing mug only to buff it with a reduced steal CD. It’ll be a boring 6 months though.

Pavel.8531:

Sigh… so I guess no matter what we say can make them change their minds about Shadow Return – the skill that was making sword like 3 times more fun to play (at least to me and I have never used SR stomps). Everyone playing sword mainhand knows we have to go (almost)full glass to be able to put pressure with our damage and that’s why… ah forget it, why am I even trying, back to leveling my new project. Rifle/longbow full troll roaming warrior might be fun.

It’s sad knowing a bad change is coming and you can’t do anything to stop it.

Pretty sad…. But at least we aren’t getting sword gutted next patch…. wait…

JonPeters.5630:

Maugetarr.6823:

JonPeters.5630:

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

I’m not sure what you mean by instant, but this is currently the only instant weapon ability. We are not adding a HUGE cast time to this skill. This skill is going to have a 360 millisecond cast time. ~1/3 of a second.

Jon

With no access to stability (other than a 90 second elite) the ability to avoid the following hit if you had a good enough reaction time seemed like part of the design of the sword. It currently doesn’t break stuns anymore, just moves you (possibly) out of range. Would you be adversed to the idea of making the return in the 600-450 range instead of putting a cast time on it so that the immediate next (melee) hit can avoided while it does not completely remove pressure from you?

You can still avoid follow ups with this. 360 milliseconds is faster than almost any attack and certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones. The only loss here is using this while stunned and using it to teleport finish an opponent.

Jon, can you please explain this further? As I understand it, you cannot cast IR while stunned. You must wait till the stun ends before starting the 1/3 second cast. So, it won’t get a thief out of harms way in 1/3 second… it’ll get the thief away several seconds after the stun in some cases. Am I correct? It will no longer help us avoid a follow up eviscerate after a shield bash. The way you said that almost implies you can cast it even while stunned but now we wait 1/3 sec instead of it being instant.

The return on sword is mainly used to avoid follow up damage after stuns, to help get a stomp off, and to completely disengage from a fight. The former 2 were the most common and they’re being taken away. We don’t want to run from fights we want to have enough sustainability to stay in and have a chance to win.

Ravoku.1852:

Hype.8032:

You must have misunderstood me. Thief should definitely be able to stomp with this technique and it’s not fair that it’s being removed.

Ah, I was wondering if this was the case. Your first paragraph just kinda sounded like you were trying to downplay what the thief has to use in order to pull off a secure stomp. Oh well, I think my “counter argument” made some good points with regards to securing stomps as it stands up to the methods used by other professions

No worries I was just trying to get across that it is both common and not unjustifiably utility exhaustive to stomp in this manner. People were acting like it’s impossible or that no one ever does it.