It’s a 33% blanket cooldown increase on ALL things stealth related, people.
How do you go from a change that you “felt would be an unpredictable change to make” to something that affects every single aspect of the entire mechanic and call it less drastic…
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This nerf is much bigger than most realize. It hits an entire trait line in the face.
Here’s what it affects for my balanced (10/30/30) build
-blind on stealth goes from 3s cd to 4s cd
-cd on healing in stealth goes from 3s to 4s.
-cd on bs 3 to 4s (huge dps nerf)
-cd on condition removal 3s to 4sSo I received nerfs to damage and survivability beyond just having more visability. Meanwhile instagib thieves remain untouched because they don’t use the survivability from the shadow arts trait line.
I play a thief, and if you think this is a huge nerf, you’re lying so you don’t get nerfed more.
You will not land stealth every 3 seconds on the dot everytime…Unless you’re chaining stealth over and over again with CnD which most didn’t.
You will not notice this change at all in actual WvW.
They Copped Out of actually making stealth require a semblance of skill and decided to go with this pathetic measure so they didn’t hurt the easiest of classes to play.
Pretty much this ^
I probably don’t land a C&D on the dot after 3 seconds when Revealed expires EVERY single time, but I certainly try, as it’s the most efficient timing in terms of damage/control, and do end up getting it more often than not. With this change, when I do land it at the 3 seconds mark, it will be a huge setback for me because I just wasted 6 ini and am still not stealthed due to the extra second on revealed…
That is more of a playstyle thing and I’ll get used to it eventually, but the nerf itself is quite significant when you consider that it increases the effective cooldown of ALL stealth related attacks, abilities, and trait effects across the board. In fact I’d say it’s probably more drastic than the nerf proposed in SotG.
I’m a bit puzzled as to why they decided to hold off on that proposed change, the one that could actually solve glaring issues with the class, yet go ahead with a huge blanket nerf like this.
As we played with the stealth changed mentioned in the SotG, we recognized that in conjunction with the change to culling this was an unpredictable change to make. We also felt that it was too big of a hit to these stealth professions, so we ended up pulling that change in favor of just increasing revealed duration by 1 second.
I’m sorry, but an across the board 33% nerf to all stealth related abilities and traits is a much, much more drastic change than the nerf proposed in SotG. Something this drastic should not be rolled out at the same time as the culling changes, even if you had a good justification for why stealth is in need of such drastic changes to begin with (and if you do, I’m sure most of us in this forum would like to hear it).
The ranger community generally likes him, but having him around doesn’t really help us much. He’s on dungeon design, not balance, so the most he can do it bring up our problems to the balance team. It seems to me (and a fair number of other people, I think) that the devs responsible for balance don’t really play rangers.
Ranger player here, and I for one almost cried man tears when he started posting in our forums (“A dev! A dev! Someone at ANet cares! He plays a Ranger, too?! I can’t breathe!”). However, like Kaos mentioned, he’s not on balance, so whether or not we’ll actually see any changes/fixes/overhauls to our profession because of him is as of yet unknown, and is something he himself has constantly reminded us of (lest we jump him if nothing happens, I suppose). Still, having even a modicum of dev input/commentary is night and day compared to having none, especially for our profession and after the months of silence following the now-infamous “Ranger Update” thread.
This is what I was trying to get at. With someone like Robert at least we get some insight into ANet’s priorities in terms of balance and which issues they’re acknoledging and their rationale for dismissing others.
ANet is completely silent on all other forums.
Just finished a tier 1 bounty with 6 people, only prescouting the Karka, Keg, and prisoner, none of which actually showed up as a bounty lol…
And we didn’t get the super easy to find ones like the quaggan. It was Tarban (Brisban) and Teesa (Frostgorge). We had 3 people on each map and found Teesa within the first 5 minutes, and Tarban around the 7 minute mark. After the other team finished off Teesa they came to Brisban to help take down Tarban faster. Ended up having over 3 minutes to spare.
Granted, with smaller teams it definitely requires that you know their mechanics and can play your class well, as some of these guys can be extremely tough and punishing for groups smaller than a full party. But hey, Tarban is supposed to be one of the most difficult to fight and we were holding our own with a group of 3 at the beginning. =P
TL;DR it’s completely doable with smaller groups (with very limited prescouting for the most difficult to find ones, if you want to increase your chances for success). Just queue up more than 1 mission in case something goes wrong.
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The Ranger forums is the exception rather than the rule.
If only ANet had a dev like Robert for every class. =/
Ha he is not much help IMO. He is of the mind “pets are fine in wvw, just keep them on passive and at your side”
You may not agree with his opinions, but at least he gives some insight on ANet’s stance on some of the important issues for the class, and actively responds to ideas raised in the forums. You can’t deny that there is tremendous value in the work he’s doing.
Every other class forum is a ghost town in terms of dev response, and that’s just not healthy.
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I’m curious as to what was the minimum number of testers it took to complete Tier 1 bounties without pre-scouting. Our guild can get around 10 people online when we schedule the bounty missions, but we tend to stick with the “safer” method of tracking down all the difficult to find bounties before starting the mission. If we can get some kind of assurance that it’s doable with our numbers without pre-scouting, then we’ll try without it for our bounty sessions moving forward.
I’m assuming that this will require splitting up the group between the two maps, correct? However, the way personal rewards are implemented right now, only the group that successfully killed the bounty on their map within the time limit will be eligible for their weekly personal reward, which is a bit unfair to the other group who spent the same effort scouting for theirs, but happened to take more time due to longer paths, more difficult mechanics, etc.
Would it be feasible to give out personal rewards to everyone in the guild who are on either of the maps that the two bounties appear on, when either one of them is defeated? I might be overlooking some kind of possible exploit with this approach but I feel like the issue itself does need to be addressed in some form.
Also, does the addition of the new bounty training missions mean the actual missions will reward influence as well?
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The Ranger forums is the exception rather than the rule.
If only ANet had a dev like Robert for every class. =/
Never mind, ignore my last post then. I thought this was about Infiltrator Strike for some reason lol.
In the case of Shadowstep the utility skill, both components are instant cast, so as you said there is only 1 reason to ever press it twice, which is for the emergency condition removal. However in my opinion, you’re down playing the importance of this scenario. The most common scenario where any decent Thief would actually use Shadowstep for condition removal is when another tick would likely kill them. And any delay added there could be the difference between 0 vs 1 more tick.
Pressing twice in other situations is just a bad instinctual reaction to lag, and is never beneficial, so this is a non-problem if players just realize pressing twice won’t help and simply train themselves to stop doing it. They’re not being punished because the game can’t react as fast as they do, but rather for the act of pressing twice in reaction.
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A thief has multiple sources of stealth. One of these is sure to be available for use. For example, they just have to hit the heal button!
All the non-initiative sources of stealth are cooldown-based. So the same argument can be made for the availability of multiple sources of stability/invulnerability for other classes. The Thief has 3 on-demand cooldown based stealths. This is comparable, albeit lacking for the most part, to the number of stability/invulnerability sources most other classes have.
Considering Stability/Invul are the technically superior sources of stomp securing, especially in a team setting, and that we have 0 access to said superior sources that could mean the difference between a failed or successful stomp, which could then in turn alter the outcome of a teamfight, I do still believe this should be considered balanced.
For the Heal button to be available for use it would have to mean the Thief didn’t HEAL in the last 30s of the fight for god’s sake, why would stealth stomping even matter at that point.
Like I said, it’s multiple sources. If it’s not heal it’ll be something else. One way or the other a thief is very likely to be able to stealth during any fight. And that is something other classes cannot do.
More importantly like I mentioned earlier, stealth has no counterplay for classes whose downed skills require targeting. Even invulnerability and stability have counterplay. You can move away from them. But with stealth, you can’t.
Give me an invulnerable opponent stomping me over a stealth guy any day. Absolutely any day.
And you still keep ignoring my point that this is balanced by the fact that stealth is a decidedly inferior form of stealth securing in a team context, which is the only context that downed state actually matters. In a 1on1, if you’re downed first, you’ve lost. Admit defeat and move on. Downing your opponent after you’ve been downed is just plain cheesy because at that point the outcome is determined purely by a matter of which class you play.
Let me elaborate further, once both players enter downed state in a 1v1, all pretenses of balance is lost. Some classes have such an insane amount of damage and/or sustain in downed state that others in down state simply have no chance of killing them before being killed themselves. Let me use Mesmer vs Thief as an example, since you seem to be so interested in this scenario. If both of you enter downed state at close to the same time and start attacking eachother, do you honestly think the Thief stands even a tiny thread of a chance? If so, you’re completely delusional. And Mesmers downed state is not even overpowered when you put it in context with Rangers/Necros/Warriors. There is simply 0 chance other classes in downed state can win against any of these classes also in downed state. Rangers will have their pet res themselves after 5 seconds, Necro’s will laugh in the face of your puny downed state damage output with his life drain, and Warriors will just get up with vengeance and take you down first.
If ANet ever does implement a 1v1 dueling mode. I am willing to bet downed state will not play a role in it at all due to the obvious fact that it was not balanced with 1v1s in mind.
In most formal 1on1 duels, the duel ends when a player is down, not when a player has been stomped. Precisely because downed states in a 1v1 context does not make sense, and winning after you’ve been downed due to your class having a decidedly superior downed state damage output or sustain is anything but fair and balanced.
But I’m beginning to doubt balance is what you’re looking for here. I agree with Grimwolf that you do seem to be complaining about stealth simply because its the only stomp securing mechanic that has a chance of countering Mesmer’s downed 2 (and this is only when the Mesmer failed to activate downed 2 in time while the Thief is still visible). You seem to want your downed mechanic to have 0 counters rather than 1 counter. This is a rather childish stance considering the number of counters available for most other classes’ downed states. Ele’s is the only one that has 0 counters (even Thief’s downed 2 is countered by a well timed teleport stomp, which does not work on Mesmer due to the invisibility it grants). It will be better for the state of the game if you spent your time advocating for at least 1 viable counter to ele’s downed state rather than trying to take your downed state to the same level of brokenness.
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A thief has multiple sources of stealth. One of these is sure to be available for use. For example, they just have to hit the heal button!
All the non-initiative sources of stealth are cooldown-based. So the same argument can be made for the availability of multiple sources of stability/invulnerability for other classes. The Thief has 3 on-demand cooldown based stealths. This is comparable, albeit lacking for the most part, to the number of stability/invulnerability sources most other classes have.
Considering Stability/Invul are the technically superior sources of stomp securing, especially in a team setting, and that we have 0 access to said superior sources that could mean the difference between a failed or successful stomp, which could then in turn alter the outcome of a teamfight, I do still believe this should be considered balanced.
For the Heal button to be available for use it would have to mean the Thief didn’t HEAL in the last 30s of the fight for god’s sake, why would stealth stomping even matter at that point.
Another point I would like to mention is that most other stomp securing mechanics counter your target’s allies’ attempts to save him/her as well. Whereas in a stealth stomp you are still vulnerable to every form of cc in existence, and one of the major pillars of stealth, confusing your current position, is rendered moot due to the fact that they know exactly where you’re standing for those 3 seconds.
Immunity from the other CC effects that players throw at you is often the difference between a successful stomp and an unsuccessful one. And the prospect of taking a player out of play for certain is most definitely worth blowing a long cooldown utility. If not, you wouldn’t see stability/invul stomps in the current meta to begin with. The thief has 0 access to reliable stomp securing options like invul and stability, so in return, we’re granted a semi-reliable way of securing stomps that only works on a subset of classes that stability/invul works on, but can be activated more frequently at the cost of our actual combat effectiveness. This alone was not enough to make up for the lack of a reliable stomp securing mechanic, so they also gave us one of the only ways to save teammates, with good coordination, from these stomp securing mechanics, which is also stealth.
This combined with my posts above is why I believe stealth stomp is more or less balanced in its current state.
If something is not 1v1 balanced, it is not balanced.
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.
Thereby any discussion of downed state can only make sense in a team context.
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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.
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30 in SA for Shadow’s Rejuvenation is good advice. Much, much better sustain over time than leeching venoms (although nothing precludes you from using both). It regens about 300 hp/s on its own, so if you also take the Shadow Protector trait you can get close to 500 hp/s in stealth with only the 300 healing power from the traitline bonus. That’s 2k healing for each Cloak and Dagger if you wait out the whole duration. Shadow Refuge basically becomes a second healing skill capable of getting you back to full health. Take Shadow’s Embrace for condition removal and you’re set for most PvE content.
The Shadow Arts line alone is enough sustain to keep me alive and near full hp in most dungeon encounters with 0 survivability stats on gear (full zerker).
Another point I would like to mention is that most other stomp securing mechanics counter your target’s allies’ attempts to save him/her as well. Whereas in a stealth stomp you are still vulnerable to every form of cc in existence, and one of the major pillars of stealth, confusing your current position, is rendered moot due to the fact that they know exactly where you’re standing for those 3 seconds.
Immunity from the other CC effects that players throw at you is often the difference between a successful stomp and an unsuccessful one. And the prospect of taking a player out of play for certain is most definitely worth blowing a long cooldown utility. If not, you wouldn’t see stability/invul stomps in the current meta to begin with. The thief has 0 access to reliable stomp securing options like invul and stability, so in return, we’re granted a semi-reliable way of securing stomps that only works on a subset of classes that stability/invul works on, but can be activated more frequently at the cost of our actual combat effectiveness. This alone was not enough to make up for the lack of a reliable stomp securing mechanic, so they also gave us one of the only ways to save teammates, with good coordination, from these stomp securing mechanics, which is also stealth.
This combined with my posts above is why I believe stealth stomp is more or less balanced in its current state.
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I wish they at least made Shadow Trap work as a teleport instead of a regular shadowstep.
I was trying it out a while back after they updated the behavior, hoping that it might actually be useful now, but nope, still not usable at all for hopping between points due to irregular terrain.
I think it used to work as a teleport, back on the launch’s days (and before the changes). I remember teleporting across Khylo, from Mansion to the Windmill. Could have been bugged, though…
Maybe I should do a bit more testing on it. I’m completely in love with the way that Shadow Trap SHOULD work on paper since the last patch. But in practice it has been completely unreliable, which makes it completely unusable in a competitive context.
I’m also of the opinion that a hard-coded delay would be a horrible way to handle this.
There are many situations where it’s beneficial to break stun using shadow return and then infil back in immediately as soon as possible. Adding any hard coded delay goes against the fast paced, unrestrictive playstyle enabled by the initiative mechanic, which is by far the number 1 reason why I main a Thief.
Half of this is a core game mechanic issue (skill queuing, where pressing infiltrator strike once and then again during its brief animation will trigger shadow return as soon as it finishes) and the other half is a playstyle issue (shadow return is instant cast, so you only ever need to press it once, any delay you see is either server, network or client lag, and not something that pressing again will help with). We should be focusing on fixing these two issues directly, not needlessly encumbering the initiative system by adding in delays.
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I find stealth stomping far superior compared to stability/mist form/elixir s stomping because all those skills are on huge cooldowns while stealth is not. You’ll eventually miss those skills for your own defence when things go bad. And they take a utility slot while stealth… well not.
Which is balanced by the fact that stealth stomp has considerably more counters available than any of those other methods. And refer to my post above regarding opportunity cost. 6 initiative can mean the difference between a win and a loss, so the decision to save that for stomping is not trivial.
It means I had to save my skills for after the thief is downed rather than during the fight.
Well, you technically need only 1 skill to be available to guarantee a stomp.
Considering most Mesmers tend to run with Decoy + Mass Invis/Time Warp + some way of getting illusions out fast (Mirror Image being common, especially for shatter builds)
Unless you’re saying that in a 1v1 you always need to pop nearly every utility and your elite skill against every class (Note: I’m considering more than just Thief vs Mesmer fights when regarding balance of abilities and combos that are available across multiple professions)
That is not a consideration for thieves who can easily stealth regardless with no downsides and no opportunity cost.
Opportunity cost for stealth stomp on a thief:
- Not having been in stealth for at least 3 seconds prior (Revealed)
- Access to stealth (Be it spending initiative on CnD the downed target (Can be interrupted to delay stealth), spending initiative on BP > HS combo (Can be interrupted to delay stealth), using a 40 second cooldown, using a 60 second cooldown or using a 30 second cooldown heal skill (Can be interrupted to delay stealth))
- Needs to ensure they have enough health to survive stomping (It’s quite possible to be downed if trying to stealth stomp at low health/with lots of conditions on)
The downside will be that thieves will be revealed after stealth stomping/if interrupted mid-stomp in the next patch.
I like how you say that being able to get nigh uncounterable stomps off is okay provided they come from situational skills that may or may not be used in combat yet don’t take into consideration that for a thief to get stealth stomps off they often will need to save up Initiative which is used for most of their damage, a thief will tend to have low initiative by the end of a fight due to needing to use it for getting to the end of a fight.
Regardless of whether I can use the skill during a fight or not, the fact of the matter is that I consciously save that up for that one situation. And if an opponent is down, chances are that I’ve just shattered my illusions so I’m left with exactly one second with personna trait. For classes that have interrupts like guardians, rangers, and sometimes engineers, I need to anticipate when they’re going to use it and time my one second. That takes skill and often doesn’t work.
Not to mention that if it’s a thief, mesmer, or ele they can avoid the initial stomp while my CD is blown.
The initiative costs for stealth however are trivial. The “costs” that you’ve outlined vastly outweigh the benefits. And in a 1v1 thief mesmer fight if the mes is downed, the stealth completely negates any damage whatsoever even if they have just 100 health left making the downed skill state a joke.
This is clearly unintended.
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.
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This is one of my most hated bugs in the game right now.
I hope ANet is aware of this and working on a fix.
I wish they at least made Shadow Trap work as a teleport instead of a regular shadowstep.
I was trying it out a while back after they updated the behavior, hoping that it might actually be useful now, but nope, still not usable at all for hopping between points due to irregular terrain.
This can be indirectly resolved if ANet allowed us to disable skill queuing, something that people have been requesting since the BWEs.
Thank you for documenting this issue. I always thought the behavior was due to random terrain issues but it looks like you nailed the steps to reproduce it.
Let’s hope ANet gets on it quickly.
it is not a valid balance issue because you(the person who is calling for the nerf) said that if the nerf was put in place that not even you would be able to play the thief in that condition. you would need to move up from (what you seem to think is the top of the skill ceiling) and practice to even make the spec function propperly.
this would cut everyone who is below the skill cap out of playing the spec all together.
if you do not consider yourself high on the skill cap.. then asking for a nerf that would make you unable to play your own class is illogical and deserves to be derailed.
or has another motive.
i.e. you were on another class and got killed by a thief you thought you were better then and dont think you deserved to die.
or you think its too easy for thieves with less skill then you to kill people.
just stating it again.
you..(a person who considers themselves a good thief).. would not be able to play the thief after the nerf you are calling for is put in place.
so… even high end thieves would have trouble compensating for the nerf you are asking for.
What I meant by that statement was that the transition itself will be difficult because the current system has given most of us bad habits in taking multiple backstab use for granted. Once we get used to it I really don’t think it will be that much of an issue to most decent Thief players.
It basically becomes a single attack that you have 1 chance to land, and can miss, like most other bursts in this game, with a 5s ish artificial cooldown near the beginning of the fight until we run out of initiative or stealth cooldowns.
I feel this is reasonable for the damage potential. But sadly, it seems like most people in this forum disagree. So I’ll take the hint.
And for the record, I did not start this thread. =P
the only reason other peoples skills get put on cooldown is because they do not use initiative. none of our skills get put on cooldown when used.
the skill that did get put on cooldown is whatever you used to get into stealth. that is the ability that gives you backstab.
Yes, most of our skills use initiative, which serves as our global cooldown mechanic. When missing those skills, there is opportunity costs involved.
Backstab does not use initiative, however, and can be used immediately after a miss/block/evade, so missing it has very negligible opportunity costs for us. Therein lies the problem.
I think you’re talking about point B and negecting point A.
The current topic of discussion is Backstab and how miss/evade/vul affect it. Before we talk about that, we need to go back to point A; stealth. How did the thief get into stealth? There are serveral options; heal, utilities, and weapon sets.
This should be where the oportunity cost comes into play. The majority of the time, stealth is either achieved by CnD or BP+HS. All of these skills cost init and with CnD it must hit the target at 120 range. But you as a thief player, already know this. The cost is paid up front via init and Backstab is our reward.
That’s an interesting way of looking at it.
But in that sense, are you saying that as long as you land the C&D or pop your stealth cooldowns, you should be rewarded with as many chances as the stealth duration allows for to land your backstab? I still don’t think I can agree with that.
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ehh. the whole topic is garbage imo. thats my valuable addition. it is you saying you have had it easy for too long and want to be nerfed so people will respect you more when you kill them.
gg on a topic that is all about how good you are.
You’re entitled to your opinion. But I think it’s disingenuous to derail this discussion to a matter of chest thumping without first offering a proper explanation as to why you believe this is not a valid balance issue.
question for kaon.
would you play a backstab thief if this change was made.. and why?
Yes, precisely because of the higher skill floor involved.
It would clearly separate the thieves who actually play well versus the others.I’m not saying that I’d definitely be in the former category, as I, myself, have gotten quite used to the forgiving nature of backstab as it is currently. But I’m willing to put in the time and effort to become better.
Right now there is very little room for differentiation for a zerker backstab thief. The skill floor is simply too low.
because as you stated…
you want to nerf your own class to the point where only people better then you will be able to play it.
because you are saying thief is too easy and you are at the skill cap of the current thief.
because you are claiming that thieves that kill in the current state did not earn the kill it was given to them by an easy unfair skill.
Thank you for the valuable addition to the topic at hand.
maybe play with 1 hand or your eyes closed if you are so skilled that your chest thumping cant be heard over the next thieves chest thumping. dont call for a nerf on your own class. that is just pompus and pig headed.
Balance is what will make or break GW2 as an e-sport. Balance benefits everybody who plays the game in the long term, including Thieves.
Care to explain what is pompus and pig headed about seeing an imbalance in my own class and wanting it addressed?
As people have already pointed out, back stab really doesn’t do that much damage unless you’re a glass cannon. I also disagree with people who are saying blocking a backstab is skillful. It’s completely telegraphed by their disappearing in stealth so it’s not hard to see coming. Aegis is the big one though, not just because of it’s virtually random nature, but also because it lasts 5 seconds when the virtue is used, longer than any stealth skill lasts outside of shadow refuge, even with the +1 second from the trait. So if a guardian uses the aegis virtue, you’re better off just popping out of stealth with a death blossom or waiting nearby to begin auto attacking because there’s nothing else you can do. Most of the block skills last about 2 seconds, some even more, so all you would have to do to not get back stabbed is dodge roll away from the thief, throw up your block, and then he only has a little under a second to get behind you and attack. Countering something by using a single ability that doesn’t even have to be that well timed isn’t my idea of skill.
I agree with you in that simply using Aegis to counter a single backstab doesn’t take all the skill in the world. However, there are mechanical restraints in place that prevent guardians from popping Aegis even remotely as often as we can reapply stealth, so it’s nowhere close to a hard counter.
I would have to ask then: Should being allowed to miss/blocked/evaded any number of backstabs and still land the backstab be considered skill?
question for kaon.
would you play a backstab thief if this change was made.. and why?
Yes, precisely because of the higher skill floor involved.
It would clearly separate the thieves who actually play well versus the others.
I’m not saying that I’d definitely be in the former category, as I, myself, have gotten quite used to the forgiving nature of backstab as it is currently. But I’m willing to put in the time and effort to become better.
Right now there is very little room for differentiation for a zerker backstab thief. The skill floor is simply too low.
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the only reason other peoples skills get put on cooldown is because they do not use initiative. none of our skills get put on cooldown when used.
the skill that did get put on cooldown is whatever you used to get into stealth. that is the ability that gives you backstab.
Yes, most of our skills use initiative, which serves as our global cooldown mechanic. When missing those skills, there is opportunity costs involved.
Backstab does not use initiative, however, and can be used immediately after a miss/block/evade, so missing it has very negligible opportunity costs for us. Therein lies the problem.
because every other damage heavy skill will be put on a cooldown after getting dodged. Why should we get a second, third or fourth chance?
war adrenaline moves that missed don’t burn their adrenaline, and they can swap to redo (just in a different form) with no CD.
seemed fair and square to me.
Oh but you’re forgetting swap has a CD.
And this is offset by the fact that the only heavy damage burst skills for warriors are eviscerate and kill shot, and those two are not exactly chain-able for obvious reasons.
And to be clear I’m not claiming warriors not loosing adrenaline after missing is balanced. Quite the opposite, in fact.
(edited by Kaon.7192)
I think a good compromise might be to only allow the very first auto-attack in stealth to activate the stealth attack. That way you have a single chance to land your backstab/daze and after that your 1 slot becomes your regular auto-attack, but you don’t get revealed until you actually do damage.
More detailed possible implementation.
Being revealed might be a bit too heavy handed a way to handle this, but at the very least, stealth attacks should be limited to a single chance for each stealth duration.
That would be my suggestion.
Kaon.. how long do you think stealth is? if a person evades a backstab the thief needs to reposition and try again before the stealth is over. that is a huge punishment and will most likely lead to the backstab not happening. stealth caused by stealing lasts 2 seconds. in those 2 seconds the thief needs to position behind for an attacka nd compensate for the evade. the dodge did work… you evaded steal which evaded (fury,might,swiftness) evaded mug which caused basalisk not to trigger screwing up the thiefs position to try to get a backstab off. congrats
Most standard length stealth last 3 seconds, 4 with the shadow arts trait.
Hidden Thief is a special case and always lasts 3 seconds anyways due to the prerequisite minor trait.
3 seconds will allow for at least* 1 repositioning after a backstab is dodged in my experience (usually more). Which is 1 more than there should be from a balance perspective, because every other damage heavy skill will be put on a cooldown after getting dodged. Why should we get a second, third or fourth chance?
(edited by Kaon.7192)
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.
Lol Guardians… the most boring class in the game imo… but feel free to take a look at my post history and tell me again that I don’t play Thief or have an interest in the state of Thief balance.
If you’ve actually read my posts you’ll see that the issue I’m raising here is that dodges alone are NOT sufficient to put a backstab on its artificial cooldown of sub-5s.
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?
A dodge doesn’t even give a whole second worth of invulnerability. If you’re a half decent player you shouldn’t have any trouble landing backstabs on enemies after they’ve dodged once or even twice simply because even if you backstab while they dodge and evade your first attempt, you can still try again almost immediately.
Blindly spamming backstab while behind an enemy will hit before the stealth ends more often than not. This is the “playstyle” of a large majority of zerker Thief builds, and it shouldn’t be viable imho.
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.
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.
And all of those attacks will miss if you dodge it and be put on a cooldown.
Backstab has high damage potential AND a sub 5s cooldown from the revealed debuff. Don’t you think a failsafe that pretty much guarantees a hit on every cooldown is a bit much?
And honestly, if you’re missing your backstabs even with the fail-safe in place then you have bigger issues to worry about than balance.
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.
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.
People who say “as X class” and then agree with a nerf don’t actually play that class.
Believe what you want, but some people actually care about balance.
Thank you for the follow up, gimmethegepgun. =)
For the record, I’m a Champion Shadow who plays sPvP pretty much exclusively as Thief.
Stealth is going to be removed if your unable to attack anymore, so if you miss your backstab, there is a good chance that your going to get reveal anyways now.
Pretty much this if you block/evade a backstab the thief is going to be exposed for 3 secs anyway unless he pops blinding powder to stay stealth. Then you know something is up but he blew one of his get out of jail cards to stay stealthed a bit longer to land a bs. Then he is probably going to either have to disengage then or go all out praying he can drop you with his next few attacks.
Sorry but I’m having trouble following your points.
The way the stealth attack mechanic works right now is, for as long as you remain in stealth, you can keep repeating the stealth attack indefinitely until you deal damage.
If your first stealth attack is blocked or evaded, a Thief can simply follow up with a second one in less than a quarter of a second, and a third one afterwards if the second one fails, rinse and repeat.
It’s completely delusional to consider this balanced, as it practically negates most forms of defensive action on the opponent’s side and allows for a practically unlimited amount of redo’s for the Thief if he misses his burst/control.
Being revealed might be a bit too heavy handed a way to handle this, but at the very least, stealth attacks should be limited to a single chance for each stealth duration.
(edited by Kaon.7192)
All the people claiming that they absolutely NEED more than 1 chance to land their ~5s cooldown 5k+ dmg backstab and that any blocks/evades from the opponent must be rendered effectively useless for them to play the class properly makes me ashamed to be playing the same class.
Completing it with 4 people will be difficult, but probably doable if you get lucky.
My small guild had about 8 people on for our last bounty session. We sent each player to a map to find one bounty, and then had whoever finds their bounties first place a personal waypoint at the bounty’s last known position and move on to find a bounty on a different map.
We covered the whole list of possible bounty locations this way and it still took 2 tries to complete due to other guilds killing bounties we tracked before we arrived…
With 4 people you should have at least 5 bounty missions queued up and hope you’re lucky enough to have the bounty assigned from the 8 maps you’re able to cover.
I would like to see they keep Withdraw the way it is. It takes practice to use to its fullest potential as a positioning tool and that’s just the way I like it.
The skill floor for Thieves is low enough as is. Please don’t also limit the skill ceiling.
As for mobility related changes, I’d definitely like to see the p/d dual skill returned to its former glory. Almost instant on-demand backward shadowstep was amazing as a mobility tool back when it still worked that way.
More access to swiftness would be nice as well. Right now our “burst” mobility is at a decent place, but in sustained mobility we simply can’t compete with ele’s without the 25% movespeed signet taking up a valuable utility slot.
(edited by Kaon.7192)
I know the thread has ended but this OP bothers me so much that I just have to reply. =P
Stealth does not make you invulnerable to CC. Anything that CC’s a Thief while he’s visible will CC a Thief while he’s stealthed. Stealth is the only stomp securing mechanic that DOES have counters by almost every class, as opposed to your ridiculous claim. Stability/Invul/Blind stomps are the ones that you literally can’t do anything about in down state unless you have a downed skill that allows for repositioning.
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.
When you also take into account the minimal interval you can have between successive backstabs, then some form of change is definitely justified.
I think a good compromise might be to only allow the very first auto-attack in stealth to activate the stealth attack. That way you have a single chance to land your backstab/daze and after that your 1 slot becomes your regular auto-attack, but you don’t get revealed until you actually do damage.
Having LR ignore revealed won’t help in most scenarios because it tends to get us killed when it triggers right before a cloak and dagger hits, which applies revealed on us because of the damage done by c/d…
I REALLY hope they change this next patch along with the stealth change, or it will become even more of a detriment than it is now.