Guild Wars 2

We should have regular stolen items, and elite stolen items from players that have specced into their Elite trait.

- Reaper: Death’s Charge or Infusing Terror (Reaper Shroud #2 & #3 respectively)
- Dragonhunter: Lay a Trap: Processions of Blades or Test of Faith.
- Daredevil: Endurance refilled entirely or a super vigor
- Berserker: a fiery axe whirl, or Flames of War
- Tempest: a fire tornado
- Scrapper: a Gyro…? or protection or stability
- Druid: Thorns latching on the target for immobilize
- Chronomancer: Alacrity + Plasma
- Herald: Either a good deal of might, or good deal of regen

discuss

I am just happy he is increasingly present.

I am actually using Acrobatics as we speak and it comes in handy. It still goes well with S/D. It does not change the fact that line is still low class.

Pain Response, Swindler’s Eq, Guarded Initiation, Assassin’s Reward, Expeditious Dodges all those traits should be either buffed or completely revamped.

The core traits should be about competition, therefore we expect quality traits all over the place , but Acrobatics can’t even hold the line with SA.

I bet the only thing that will make us consider going back to Acro is the sheer number of anti-stealth that will send SA back to the bench, exactly next to where Acro has been sitting all along.

it looks pretty cool. Especially the back dodge. The way McLain has been working weeks just to tweak a make a few adjustment makes me feel like animation are very difficult to overcome and create. I love the idea, it will kind of the Daredevil feel like a ghost.

Let the Dev breathe guys. Let him keep the momentum from the positive feedback. I know we all got very important questions to ask him ranging from animations to core traits, and he does seem to be in a formidable mood today. I just wouldn’t want to risk this.
I will save my questions for another time.

Keep up the good work sir and have a nice day!

Karl McLain.5604:

A short update:
We’ve been working heavily on the dodge abilities, making them react the same way that your normal dodge occurs. There have been a lot of long hours, but we managed to get this functionality in for the next beta.

• The ‘Bound’ dodge animation is shorter and more appropriate for a dodge.
• Dash – The extra distance has been removed for now as well. Dash now breaks immobilize in addition to its other effects. For now, the animation is just going to run you in the direction you’re dodging.
• Impaling Lotus – The jump has been removed, as it caused issues that couldn’t be remedied. I’ll update if other things happen.

Other things:

• re: Shalien. I haven’t got this in the next beta, but the plan is to drastically reduce the cast time of Channeled Vigor. (3/4 to 1 second or so)
• Idle/running animations while wielding a staff are not planned to change at this time. There are, however, a couple of animations being worked on as development continues.

-Karl

A reasonable victory. I Thank Mr. Mclain. The most important aspect of the Daredevil seems to have been fixed.

If Idle/running animation are off the table that means, it’s all about combat animations, and that’s good news.

Thank you sir. a little joy never hurts.

edit: Now I wonder if he sees we are being left off, blown away to dust, because that immobilize break surprised me a bit, and that was truly a good call.

If Escapist’s Absolution becomes baseline it would really help us out, and put an end to the “chicken” Thief as we know it. However it would be too drastic and the QQ from outside won’t stop whatsoever.

I suggest EA to be minor, but for the baseline skill, I suggest it revolves around a Resistance boon like I read earlier today. Resistance upon leaving Stealth, Resistance upon criting on a reasonable ICD or even a Resistance boon when receiving 3 conditions or more.

I think this boon is made for us.

Might as well call the profession the “MineField”.

Tarkan.5609:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

- Starting with restoring Feline Grace where it refunds 15 endurance on dodge.

- Reduce the cooldown of Shadowstep to 20s.

- Remove casting time from Sword #2 (Infiltrator’s Return ).

- Remove Reveal from Thief skills — if you need to, I’m ok with adding CD to stealth attacks (i.e. add 3s CD to Backstab).

- Add Shadow’s Refuge to grant Stability.

- Lastly, P/P Unload to have Ankle Shot and Ricochet as baseline part of the weaponskill.

I hope you find these reasonable tradeoffs.

• @ Feline Grace: Let it refund 15 endurance on a successful dodge (not evade!). It was too strong pre patch and the successful-dodge-part gives it a more skill based and active defense.

• @ Shadowstep: 20s? For port, port back + condi clear? if you look at blink (30s, only port) or lightning flash (30s, port and dmg), 30-35s seems better. It’s an often used ability though and i’d ratherhave underused abilities (Roll for initiative for example) get buffed

• @ Infiltrator’s Return: remove the cast time, but it shouldn’t be activateable if youre disabled, similar to mesmers torch #4

• @ Reveal: don’t like that suggestion, after all every single class gets revealed while attacking out of stealth. other classes reveal skills should only make you visible though, while still allowing you to gain the boni from stealth (apart from the actual invisibility)

• @ SR: why exactly Stability? what would you gain from that? I’d rather get protection or resistance for 1s each pulse

• @ Unload: Nothing wrong with that, D/D #3,#4+#5 and P/P need a rework though anyway (even though for C&D it would suffice to lower the dmg a little bit while reducing the ini to 5 and giving it a small radius blind)

@ Feline Grace, we cannot revert it back to its original. I have to say, S/D Acro was crushing a lot of profession in Conquest. Something between 20 end and what it currently give should be reasonable. just a small buff, or make buff Vigor.

@Shadowstep, I think i said ealier Shadowstep 20 sec being fine.. I stand corrected, 30 seconds should be lowest. Vincent ! you were against my Bandit’s defense back to 10 but you want Shadowstep down to 20 seconds :p. come on bruv.

@Infiltrator’s Return: I approve this message.

@Tarkan, If Shadow Refuge gets stability, you could be immune from those Knockbacks, fears and taunt that make you waste your precious life saver. So I think it’s important.

@ Unload, I agree with Vince, disagree with Tarkan. P/P needs to be restore and Ankleshot is truly terrible.

@blargh & Ronpierce, glad you made some suggestions.

Maybe, it’s the power/condi hybrid line that bothers me the most. I know I may be exagerating here, but half from both sides of power and condi end being inefficient. I like the concept of specialization, and it should focus solely on one.

Let’s face it Deadly Arts takes into account traps, poisons and raw damage, that’s just inneficient.

So.. Your take on Dagger training is interesting, but I prefer Blargh’s. Personally, I would rather have my init costs reduced on dagger than have init regen.

Your suggestion on Panic Strike would be much more useful for sure. the 5 stacks also provides an improved ICD (meaning you could modify with quickness, get slowed or even simply missing the hits), to the points where the 20 second ICD wouldn’t even be necessary especially if it provides just cripple. ok maybe 10 sec. It is definitely a nice one.

You are right, Potent Poison is tricky. Your suggestion, I feel would be quite difficult to adjust.

I was thinking maybe it could “tick” faster. It ticks twice as fast, but keeps the duration. It essentially doubles the damage of the poison, but is not modified by anything.

Should SB #2 and #4 be turned into “improved Trickshots” where it would become “explosive arrow” and “poison arrow” respectively. This could complete ignore the “travelling distance” everyone is mumbling about.

Also Ronpierce, Sorry I can’t help you on the Necro lol. Maybe you’ ll join us when things get better for us!

^^^^

This guy wrote 19 chapters I figured “if he is angry enough to write all of this, I should probably get reading.”

You made some very good points sir and I think your take on the profession’s survivability is the right path for us. Before I forget, don’t forget to share your points during BWE3 and in other threads.

1. Boon Theft should be a baseline for sure like you said, we are Thieves at the end of the day, stealing boons from people shouldn’t be a VIP or an advantage we get from a traits. This same idea should apply to Trickery’s Preparedness.

2. Resistance would be so beneficial to Thieves, and I was expecting the Daredevil would proc these from time to time but no… Resistance could be a real game changer, reduce to need to stealth and back away after only 3-4 conditions.

3. Weakness also applying to condition damage is a must. Never even thought about that.

4. I believe there needs to be a much bigger variety of stats because so far all I see is berserker Valkyrie or Dire . I myself run Valk. I know they have a huge array of stats, tThey should therefore promote fun builds for everybody to use anything. But that’s a long way from home.

The only thing I did not agree on was the The HP buff. There has to be more mechanics that promotes survival, such as resistance, protection and regen after leaving stealth. But please don’t forget to share your ideas in the other threads, because this one is kind of the wrong thread lol.

uglydan.1638:

It’s not unreasonable when it’s the truth. What makes it different from other professions like you mentioned, is that stealth is what makes people rage. “It’s unfair” is the non-thief battlecry. Ever wonder why there’s more and more reveals coming?

It’s my opinion that those in charge of balance are making any spec that utilizes stealth weaker, to make DD more appealing, something of a weaning us off stealth so when they do remove it, there won’t be quite the outcry.

Thieves have a long history of getting nerfed, someone finding a new spec that really performs, and then that gets nerfed, ad infinitum. And you wonder why people get so bitter?

So, no, it’s not unreasonable.

hmmmmmm fair enough. I get your point, althought i am still skeptical that Anet behaves that way. The outcry you mentioned however, is definitely undeniable, so fair enough.

uglydan.1638:

Anet has their own vision, even if it’s clouded by sub-par devs. They will not make changes based on our feedback. The feedback they often look at is from non-thieves.

Don’t get your hopes up. Daredevil is going to ship with broken dodges, crappy animations, still-broken traits/mechanics 3 years running, and they will laugh all the way to the bank, surfing through the front door on our complaints.

Want to play thief as many of us imagine it? Re-roll Revenant. Our dev has zero imagination, and even less concern/enjoyment of the profession.

edit: spelling fixes

That’s what I fear….. that is exactly what I don’t want to but will, one way or another eventually happen.

“The feedback they often look at is from non-thieves. " That’s a little unreasonable don’t you think ?
If we follow this logic, then we can say that they often look at non-ele feedback for real feedback. That’s counterproductive.

I just want people to be aggressive during BWE3, and I am confident they will.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Poliator.7021:

For example, on yours about Critical Strikes. It is a trait line that focuses on “improving” critical chance/damage benefits for the Thief, so keeping in mind that it is a purely offensive trait line:

So what’s Invigorating Precision doing in this trait line if it is “purely” an offensive line?

Adept: There isn’t any survivability, but I’d say there is utility on the Signet trait: it adds to one skill type Access to might and a reduced recharge. (If it’s good or under powered is another talk).

Adding Might is not utility, that’s damage. Adding Stability, removing cripple, and stun break are utilities.

Master: Here, I’d say that both Sundering Strikes and Ankle shots are a mix of damage and utility. Ankle Shots we can even say it helps survivability because it cripples the enemy, so you can get away more safely, as well as getting onto them. Sundering Strikes is more of a soft party buff, as everyone would benefit from the vulnerability. (Again, if traits are underpowered or good, is another topic).

You have an odd way of defining what survivability is. Protection and healing are considered survival skills, not cripple. Sundering Strikes doesn’t remove conditions nor replenish Initiative nor refund endurance…so no, it’s not a utility skill.

Grandmaster: There we have a raw surivivability trait and two “damage” traits. If No Quarter Fury+Ferocity group interaction wasn’t nerfed, I’d even say it has group utility (as a buff).

Buffs are not utility, they are either damage or survival.

As an example of a group utility skill, take a look at “Shake it Off!”/“Shug it off!”

It depends on how you look at things and if you agree with their Philosophies.

I’m sorry but I don’t agree with your perspective.

I think that Critical Strikes needs some work, as well as Acrobatics but they both accomplish “at some extent” what Karl talked about. That’s what I like to think at least.

No they don’t. As I have listed above, this design philosophy sounds more like an excuse than a rule.

Well Vincent you were a little harsh with Poliator, but I must admit that your critics are on point.

We tend to confuse Utility/ Damage and Survival a lot. I believe one buff from a specific category can help in the other.

By that I mean, that I think inflicting Cripple can help me Survive a great deal, even though Regen and Protection are the true life savers.

When it comes to designing traits, it’s truly crucial to understand the difference between Utility Damage and Survival. Vincent made good examples.

But we should focus back on Escapist’s Absolution…. please.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Kocoff.7582:

That is my point actually, I don’t really see anything to change for Deadly Arts, but there is always room for improvement in terms of synergy, and since you did good job with those suggest I wanted pick on your mind even more lol.

But your concept of balance is definitely in par with mine. We definitely don’t want to push, because let’s face it, we want to have fun as much as our enemies.

Hi, so I’m not the guy but I have a few ideas about Deadly Arts. As with most other traitlines we have, there just isn’t anything better to take than what we currently do…so some competition will do well.

Dagger Training: add Reduce Initiative costs of Dagger skills by 20%. All classes have some traits that reduce weapon cooldowns…this would be our version I guess…maybe a bit too strong? (also useful in PvE)

Trapper’s Respite: (Drop trap at beginning of heal) Triggered Traps heal you for [some amount].

Deadly Trapper: add Traps can be placed at range. I think all trap skills should have a trait like this.

Revealed Training: I know this has PvE applications, but it’s honestly not that great of a trait…not sure how to rework it though…might just need to be replaced with something more interesting.

Potent Poison -> Chemical Burns: Applying Poison applies Burning (x seconds). Seems thematic enough for me…gives thief access to a powerful condition, and numbers can be tweaked accordingly.

So these are my ideas. I tried to keep them more or less toned down…thoughts?

Kind of you good sir. It’s not bad.

I thought of something similar to Potent Poison and Chemical Burns, which is quite interesting btw.

I thought of “Ardent Concoction” Which applies burning when the Thief applies Blind. Anyways, i thought the similitude was funny.

- I liked Dagger Training a lot it has a wider and more beneficial use than increasing the chance of poisoning.
- I agree that traps should have a targeted aspect to it, I am sure the Dragonhunters are facing the same problem. They have a lot less little mobility, they must be screaming at this too lol.
-Same for revealed training, the current one is garbage and so it leaves space for a lot of imagination, but i definitely see a powerful defensive trait taking its spot.

Something like " Toughness +x for each target in your range . Being Revealed cleans conditions."

Thanks for sharing!

Imhotep.3850:

I totally agree with being vocal about our constructive feedback, even if we are off base with our desires for DrD and baseline Thief, we should still voice anything that may benefit the class and help mold the specialization. This is generally the rule of thumb for all constructive beta feedback for up and coming classes. Something that I can interpret is that our assigned class mod, Karl, is more reluctant to keep us posted on the Daredevil desires/changes. This could be due to the Tempest uproar/feedback keeping him busy, but honestly, we can’t just berate the forums with doom and gloom and expect our class to be reverted to its prior glory. We have to keep our feedback easy to read, and level headed and hope that it helps speed up the back and forth between the community and the developers.

I keep forgeting Mr. Mclain is assigned the Daredevil and the Tempest. Curiously enough both are angry about the changes done to them. It’s probably because the Dev actually takes into account the balance. While the others are going all out with their respective and assigned elite specs.

I don’t how Anet works, but it must be incredibly difficult taking care of Thief and Elementalist, I mean they are have so little in common..

Lenaios.2781:

Yes as I said here and in other thread, thief does need buffs on defensive department. Like someone else said that revealed training should give protection on reveal, but otherwise active defense. You know “in and out” style defense that thief has been for me(mainly S/D player) which the DD seems to be bringing.

Now it does make me a bit mad and sad that loads of thieves seem to think(or lie in hopes of some OP buff? Or just lie to themselves) that they have been bottom profession for the entirety of the game. And most of these kind of posts start with that kind of story instead of actual good pointers for devs and the community.

What do you want from those thieves sir? an apology? This post isn’t about good pointers for devs. It is addressed to the community, and I am telling the whole Thief forum to forget about being reserved in their demands because the others are not at all, and we need to be aware of that for the next BWE.

As for the story, like any good story, It’s only natural that it starts with us being weak, us being cornered, not only because it gets people to participate in the talk, but most importantly because it is true. The threads I start never get straight to the point.

There are plenty of constructive threads with amazing suggestions and feedback in the forums. They are scattered all over the place and are not very hard to find (Shout out to Ronpierce.)

This Thread, unfortunately, is not one of them.

Staff animations really needed. I made a Charr Thief the moment I saw the Human Staff animation. I know it’s a gamble, but Charr animation is a little smoother in general, just hoping this rule holds.

and you know, you would think they would hire professional Martial Artists to make visually appealing moves every Daredevil skills, but it’s look like they brought Stalone or some random WWF star to put fake some moves.

But I am fairly confident they will work on it. It will be smooth

I wanted Tony Jaa or Donnie Yen lol.

Past doesn’t really matter anymore mate. I can’t keep on reminiscing the glory days with Stolen Plasma in my hand and expect things to go smooth.
The only good thing about the past is to see where we are currently located.
Thief was in a good spot. Thief is now in a terrible spot. Thief needs some serious fixing and support. period.

I have been patient 3 years? More like since that terrible patch lol. Misplaced traits, nerfed traits, healing skills not fixed, broken core traits that aren’t really relevant anymore, etc.
Asking for the simplest of fixes leads nowhere, yet you see other professions get the same exact thing without any difficulty.

We have been weak since then, and patient for that same amount of time. You can call that “blabbering” if you want, but this is an urgent matter. I am pretty sure when HoT releases, you won’t be stuck with a 1200+ hours vegetable.

ronpierce.2760:

Kocoff.7582:

I just read OP’s suggestion and I am surprised to say I agree with him 90%. Stealth is cool for sneaking in and getting out, but in combat? It can be redundant, abused and exagerated, especially when no damage is being dished out while in stealth.

I very much liked the suggestions and changes done to Shadow Arts because OP is right: SA promotes passivity, and that’s not what the Thief is about.

Of course, some numbers should tweak to adapt to the actual sustain, but the idea is there and that is what matters most.

You have done a lot but I would like to see you make changes to Deadly Arts.

On the other hand, I want the utility CDs be dropped even lower, to promote competition and diversity in fixing our bar. Not enough RFI around here, and the same applies to traps.

anyways I hope you read this OP and TY for your efforts.

Hey, thanks for chiming in!

What specifically are your main concerns with Deadly arts? I found some areas where there wasn’t much trait competition, certainly, but my personal biggest beef was how Improvisation works. If you could elaborate specifically what areas you dislike about DA, it would provide a good base for discussion.

RFI could probably be even a bit lower, I tend to agree. I wouldn’t get too out of hand though. Pushing things up to the edge of viable and alternative without making it the next “go-to” can be hard. RFI is the type of thing that might need to be tried at different levels and see what cooldown fits, but it’s certainly too high as it stands.

That is my point actually, I don’t really see anything to change for Deadly Arts, but there is always room for improvement in terms of synergy, and since you did good job with those suggest I wanted pick on your mind even more lol.

But your concept of balance is definitely in par with mine. We definitely don’t want to push, because let’s face it, we want to have fun as much as our enemies.

I just read OP’s suggestion and I am surprised to say I agree with him 90%. Stealth is cool for sneaking in and getting out, but in combat? It can be redundant, abused and exagerated, especially when no damage is being dished out while in stealth.

I very much liked the suggestions and changes done to Shadow Arts because OP is right: SA promotes passivity, and that’s not what the Thief is about.

Of course, some numbers should tweak to adapt to the actual sustain, but the idea is there and that is what matters most.

You have done a lot but I would like to see you make changes to Deadly Arts.

On the other hand, I want the utility CDs be dropped even lower, to promote competition and diversity in fixing our bar. Not enough RFI around here, and the same applies to traps.

anyways I hope you read this OP and TY for your efforts.

I didn’t read a lot of the things, but I am just going to start initiating a mini topic off of this one, and how to combat these kids.

If I see a Scrapper Gyro and i am my current S/D – SB set, I would Steal+ C&D, switch to SB, then spam 2s and prepare a shadowstep for extraction. As this point, the fight should revert back to the expect fight.

Of course, there is a chance that there were about 3-5 people inside that cloaking field. The Thief’s gameplay becomes more and more of a gamble with HoT.

evilapprentice.6379:

As a side note while we’re doing all this, can we all make an effort to avoid feeding the trolls?

Just looking at the boards the last few days I’ve already noticed a pattern among a handful of individuals – they’re not here to discuss or learn, they’re simply here to shout down anything a thief says with misinformation and derision. You can’t stop them from posting, but lets just ignore whatever drivel they spew and stay on point.

Thanks.

I absolutely agree. Obvious trolls are obvious.

Sarrow.2785:

TWEET LOUD FELLOW THEIVES – FLY MY PRETTIES!!

https://twitter.com/Dakeyrus/status/646281124776308736

hahhaha he went ahead and did it.

Lenaios.2781:

Kocoff.7582:

Lenaios.2781:

You guys do realize that thief was current mesmer level strong before trait revamp and even stronger before…and you have been patient…What?

I don’t ever recall a time where the Thief was stronger than a Mesmer. What you are saying is that before trait “revamp”, the Thief was the strongest profession in the game. Are you sure about that claim? Because we both know this is complete nonsense.

Thief as a top 5 of profession? I would agree with you but to say the Thief was stronger than the Mesmer, PvE, PvP and WvW taken into account? You must be joking.

To some extent, you do prove the point that Thief WAS in fact in a better position than it is now. Therefore, something has to be done, and it’s not about balance.

I dont know what game you are playing but before trait revamp mesmers(and to a less extent other zerk professions) were free food for thief. No thief has never been number one profession never said that. But thief was as strong before the trait revamp as the current mesmer now is. Only the celestial trio could give thieves problems pre revamp.

You must have been perma blinded because what you said is still not true. Mesmers were by far a prominent profession before revamp. You saying that Thief before then was as good or better than a Mesmer leads to the point that, you did in fact, say that Thieves were at the very top, above Mesmers. If it was strong before, it should have been left strong not torn to pieces like you clearly advocate.

Strong should remain strong, and the phylosophy is to have for all the other professions to reach that apex. This is the true meaning of balance, not bringing one down for the sake all of the other 8 professions.

You said it yourself “Thief was as strong before the trait revamp as the current mesmer now is.” Needless to say, there is something inherently wrong about that sentence.

What is so hard about sending the Thief back to it place? Can you really call the state of the Thief Balanced? With about 90% of PU mesmers not really giving a kitten whether or not there are 5000 reveals out there?

Everywhere on youtube, i find misleading vids like “Berserker Ranger” or “Berserker Engineer” and it’s really annoying.

I was wondering, you guys might the know the popular youtubers who uploaded the Warrior’s elite spec. I am mainly a thief player, and the Daredevil just makes me sad.

Lenaios.2781:

You guys do realize that thief was current mesmer level strong before trait revamp and even stronger before…and you have been patient…What?

I don’t ever recall a time where the Thief was stronger than a Mesmer. What you are saying is that before trait “revamp”, the Thief was the strongest profession in the game. Are you sure about that claim? Because we both know this is complete nonsense.

Thief as a top 5 of profession? I would agree with you but to say the Thief was stronger than the Mesmer, PvE, PvP and WvW taken into account? You must be joking.

To some extent, you do prove the point that Thief WAS in fact in a better position than it is now. Therefore, something has to be done, and it’s not about balance.

Nutjob.9021:

Thief: Corrected a spelling error in one of the tool tips.

And it happens over, and over, and over. . . ..

hahahaha that’s messed up.

Yes. yes. yes.

ShadowSteps to 20 seconds! and RFI to 30-40, just a beautiful utility that is rarely used because of the stupid CD.
OP should be a detective cause he keeps asking the right questions.
Also, I am going to keep nagging about EA and BD until i get banned.

We were way too kind in our demands guys. We have been duped with the previous nerf, making us think that this was all about “Balance”.

Do I need to remind all of you the skill/utilities that were passed around?

- a skill that blocks and attacks AT THE SAME kitten TIME.
- a skill that distorts time, reverting back to the user’s orginal HP with weapon and utility CDs
- a 1000 range skill that acts as an evade + leap finisher… (we can’t even get D/D #3 moving an extra evade frame)
-all dem reveals.
- mass stunbreak
- a constant 16 stacks of might
- THE LIST GOES ON about 5 chapters.

I am telling you guys, this was never about balance. It really never was, and we were way too kind thinking about how other professions wouldn’t cope with our suggestions and gameplay. We are the true victims of this disgusting story.

Forget about all of this, and if you have played WoW before will understand the term “Greed Before Need.”

BWE3 must not escape us, ask away, as outrageous as it may sound. Just ask away. They are obviously playing the lottery with us. It may be a little late, but this is actually the law the jungle.

Do not be fooled by non-thieves pointing fingers, nor be stoic and restrained when it comes to balance.

you guys … * shedding tears *

It’s ABOUT kitten TIME

Aenesthesia.1697:

Daendur.2357:

there isn’t a skill that prevents a warrior’s eviscerate

Hello, my name is DODGE.

The problem with stealth is that there is little to no counter to it. Reveal will provide a hard counter (too hard, by the looks of it) and, of course, thieves will have to be completely rebalanced to take this into account. Otherwise, it will be seriously nerfing thieves.

But look on the bright side of life, this will seriously kitten Mesmers

Actually, Daendur is right. There is no skill that prevents the use of a Warrior’s Eviscerate. Dodge is something you use when Eviscerate has been used and is coming at you.

The only thing that could prevent the use of Eviscerate would be a stun, but this pales in comparison to preventing the use of Backstab.

It’s true this can be really annoying, but the easiest way to fix this, is to not have any targets then pop your Blinding Powder.

press escape and stealth out.

Originally by: PopeUrban.2578
What: A reasonable alternative to Reveal
Thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Engineer-Utility-Sneak-Gyro-is-outrageous/page/2#post5509598

I have had to my posts deleted by moderators recently, so i am going to do my best to write carefully.

Even you give the Thief the HP pool of a Necromancer, so a minimum of 19k, it will still be broken. It’s about the mechanics and not the HP.

Higher damage however, could let us ignore that 6 seconds reveal pretty quickly lol.

Zero Day.2594:

Kocoff.7582:

The Real Thief Support Group: Thief PvP/ WvW Videos posted on the forums.

…

Yes, yes WvW videos…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01wq6bm2BM4

what did you make me watch :/

Why Thief is the most fun

0. D/D. A Zerg passes by, takes you by surprise, you got 1/4 of your hp left, but you Cloak and Dagger your way out of the mess, 1 by 1, slowly but surely.

1 . Outnumbered situations : when you know you are about to die, but Improvisation (a Deadly Arts GM) just saves the day.

2. Finishers in Stealth… a beautiful thing.

3. Shadow Escape to the level above… ( Downed Skill #2). worthy of lols.

4. Rallying from Shadow Refuge, while your ennemies are on a manhunt. #MetalGearSolid

5. the Jukeception = S/D – with Infiltrator’s Signet and Shadowstep

6. When that well timed Withdraw let you evades about 50 things that would have sent you dead… without a downed state lol.

7. a well timed Headshot to prevent a heal and a smooth Round about+ Withdraw it’s action movie like. ( still have a very hard time pulling this off.)

8. Playing in WvW with other thieves, Roaming. When your boy’s Shadow Refuge saves your noob kitten .

9. Emergency Nurse sessions. Ressing somebody in the middle of a huge mess, especially when you 7 seconds of stealth left.

10. this one is definitely nothing to be proud of but when a D/D celestial ele tries to kill you, but you barely make it out.

I swear this profession is the best

The Real Thief Support Group: Thief PvP/ WvW Videos posted on the forums.

Those vids are the life and blood of morale upbringing . In June, right before the patch there were so many good quality vids of S/D, and DDs.

There are a lot fewer now, but they are still here. Mostly D/P, but they are still here.

You got El Cabi – Afro Gaming Entertainment – Coloxxus – Havoc – etc.
(don’t get offended if I didn’t name you youtubers, I watched for sure)

These boys are beasts, and if whenever you feel down about how they are wrecking the profession. Keep your head up and watch these guys do work.

ps: lol @ Zeroday’s badge.

The only advantage to this profession is mobility. The other advantage other people claim we have are either flawed or simply inexistant.

I really think the Thief should have faster endurance regen. Make Feline Grace (the current nerf one) a passive.

hahahahaah OH man i missed that video so much. Thank you for bringing this, I think the original OP of this video took it out of his channel because the comments weren’t in his satisfaction. I remember posting this vid on the forums cause it was too funny to watch.

On serious note, the problem wasn’t the OP thief, it was that clueless Guardian and an average warrior. Thief played really well and took advantage of the terrible lack of response to kill both of them. (This video doesn’t go all the way to the end.)

The Thief had D/P + P/D – Shadow refuge, Caltrops and Needle traps with Thieves Guild (not shown in the vid.)

Access to stealth
With the D/P + P/D synergy, stealth is there, but it can be quite costly in combat.
Needle Trap is on a 24 sec CD,
and those players made it EAAASSY for a Cloak Dagger (mostly how to remained concealed for so long.)

The description from that video is completely flawed, biased af and misleading, the Thief isn’t rocking Blinding powder.

Trapper Thief is a great build. It is OK. Reinforever made a real hype out of this, and it was really fun. Unfortunately, this build will go extinct when HoT releases.

Ps: we need to meet that Thief, he is getting infamous for his nice display to skill lol.

anybody has the chat codes?

Tux kitten inguin.3049:

I actually know quite a lot of players using Hide in Shadows in both, pve and pvp.
Especially in pve withdraw is not good in many situations, as you leave the point of stacking. Running pve u usually even use the sigil.
In pvp its more commen to use withdraw, but a lot of players prefer the hide one while using sword. I dont think we need a new heal skill, its fine.

Hide is Shadows is still pretty usable, but I do agree that, along with Withdraw, the healing mechanism is very predictable. The other skills are borderline useless and underpowered.

S/P is relatively tricky and clunky.. but it can be really fun. I suggest you wait for HoT to be able to play S/P more smoothly.

I don’t suggest having two different attack weapon sets simply because it will be very initiative costly.

get one attack weapon set and a utility weapon… so in terms of now you should stick to D/D and SB.

In terms of HoT you get the option of switching SB with Staff.

but D/D, S/P? A rather inefficient way of dealing with enemies imo. At the end of the day, do what you fancy the most, it’s the best way to learn what works and what does not.

Jana.6831:

babazhook.6805:

Thieves will be the class that people who want to learn to play select

Not sure about that

lol that map chat was amazing lol.

There are three things right now that really matter to me:

BWE3, including a focus on fighting Scrappers, Druids, Heralds.
the dev’s current response to our feedback.
the dev’s vision of the Thief, explained in details. The most important one.

If we don’t get the last one on lock, all our suggestions will be baseless and inaccurate.

Apolo.5942:

Errr? dissengage when you see the pulse and re engage when revealed is gone?

Its not like the thief is lacking in the dissengaging/mobility deparment.

This guy… are you planning on disengaging every 20 seconds? That’s your plan mate?

Shadowstep is on a 50 second CD btw.

PopeUrban.2578:

Honestly, outside sources of reveal should be changed to grant a boon that allows you to see stealthers in stead. Reveal should only be applied by attacking from stealth, as that was its original design, to prevent stealth spamming that would make you impossible to detect while still dealing good damage.

Insight: When affected by insight, you can see stealthed characters and monsters.

Sic ’em: You and your pet gain Insight for 10 seconds
Analyze: You gain Insight for 10 seconds
New engi toolbelt: You and up to 5 allies within 900 units gain Insight for 10 seconds.

There, fixed. It’s a logical counter to stealth that doesn’t shut down a trait line, and it can be countered as stealthers and their allies can see the boon, rip it, avoud the guy with the boon until it’s over, and otherwise actually have some counterplay

It’s also a better stealth counter as it affects your perception of all stealthed targets rather than a single stealther, meaning it’s much better against packs of stealth mobs in pvE or stealth blobs in pvp.

I love that idea.GG. It should allow the sight stealthers as a watery, fluid, distortion of the landscape as we see in typical video games. This would solve the problem for sure.

Finally, the infamous OP came up with something completely reasonable. So with that sir, I completely back you up on this. Keep the faith, be patient.

When did Anet say they will have a balance path for Elites & Core specs? That is the real question.

bliss.4305:

Yup… After playing Daredevil I concluded stealth would still be the mechanic that keeps Thieves competitive and finally made my “Quip”. Imagine my frustration after the Engineer Elite Specialization reveal…

Granting Reveal to all classes look nothing more than a VERY lazy attempt to help players deal with a class they don’t fully understand. Seeing as no Thief was given ANY help to counter other class mechanics, its just sad…

Reveal is just a very unfortunate, bad game design thrown around to avoid actual effort to address the real problems with the mechanic (not that it has many…).

A lot of truth this player just mentioned guys. Please read.

Reveal is badly thought out, and is lazy. I think the only countermeasure to this, is a serious surge in attack power, to the point where being reveal or not doesn’t complete negate your damage with Stealth Attacks.

What other counters to Reveal do you guys have in mind? PLease note: reveal wouldn’t be such an issue if our core traits were impeccable.

bliss.4305:

5/10.

I will explain why I’ve graded it this low.

1) The implementation is very kitten a technical perspective. It is possible, don’t get me wrong, but they’d never implement a work-around this complex, affecting multiple classes at once.

2) The idea immediately creates the notion of difference between classes. Almost as if “classism” Don’t tell me you don’t already see posts on forum/reddit saying how thieves have real stealth while mesmers or other classes have the “useless” stealth. It will affect the community negatively.

3) The idea solves the problem for only 1 weapon set. I especially don’t like how you’ve mentioned “Ghost Stealth” will be attained through “blasts – finishers” which immediately says go D/P or go home. You know stacking stealth through Shortbow is never a thing unless out of combat.

4) After playing for so many years without any movement speed restriction in stealth I really don’t want to go back to “WoW-style stealth” where you’re punished for being invisible.

---

Overall, good & constructive effort to solve the reveal problem, but unfortunately, not enough in my humble opinion.

The only suggestion I can have for the whole reveal fiasco is to reduce the reveal to 2-3 seconds. 6 is incredibly long as it is. Ripping off stealth is already a huge counterplay, and not letting them gain for another 6 seconds is just ridiculous.

I would also like to see such reveals on a much longer cooldowns (60 + seconds) considering our utility stealth skills are on a relatively long cooldown and it wouldn’t be fair if they could counter it every single time we use one.

I already believe our “initiative-generated stealths” SHOULDN’T be countered that easily. We’re literally spending ~10 initiative to keep ourselves stealthed for 5-6 seconds. We trade our resource of damage/evade/debuffs (anything that initiative grants us) for stealthing ourselves.

I don’t know…. they are really fudging up Thief boys… I feel cheated and sad for investing this much time on a class that lingers on the border of being completely unplayable – unfun.

T_T

Thank you for the feedback. You want “ghost” do be available with diverse means, not just combos. I do still believe that some professions should be inherently be penalized for going stealth. Let us be honest here mate, Guardian stealth? Warrior? Why? They can do well with out without it, they are not as dependent as we are. That is why, the movement speed debuff is implemented. It’s better than damage reduction I think…

Idk. I hope you reconsider that side. The rest is completely reasonable. Ty again.

^^^

That made me lol, but 10 seconds is necessary. PLEASE GUYS WE NEED THE SUPPORT.

Zodryn.4216:

I don’t like the implementation, but interesting. I think we need a gm in sa or an elite to give brief ghost level stealth. I don’t think anyone wants stealth with movement speed decrease.

Ok you just want a trait that grants immunity to reveal? Wouldn’t that make SA a complete must? I like the idea thought. Nobody wants movement speed decrease on stealth that is true, but why would a Guardian or a Ranger need Stealth for? The idea is based on the fact that rangers and Guardian have rudimentary means of stealth, and because the camouflage is so basic, they have to move slower to remain undetected.

idk What do you suggest ?

meepeY.2867:

6/10

An interesting thought, however this would make D/P the indisputable king of Thief with no room for innovation. The other specs would just fall to ruin or be forced to take something that can leap or blast finish.

So… Not too far from the current meta. D/D would become useless in the upcoming HoT, kinda like it is now, but even more-so.

There’s a lot wrong with the idea and a lot right with it. It would take some serious balancing. Perhaps not through finishers but specific Thief abilities, that way D/P doesn’t become the absolute must have. Make it so that Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder and other Utilities give you the “Ghost” level of Stealth. It becomes more “Thief” like because it’s through our unique skills, not combo finishers.

You could even go so far as to provide bonuses for using Ghost stealth as it will be behind a long cooldown. If you blast finish the Blinding Powder then you would gain x2 the Ghost stealth, to keep it simple and fair. Also leaping or blasting a Smoke Screen would give Ghost stealth so it makes more sense.

Combo’ing through 1-5 skills doesn’t give Ghost Stealth… Gotta balance it somehow.

Heck, you could make it so that gaining Ghost stealth removes Reveal.

Ok reasonable. So you are suggesting more access to Ghost stealth. Just as fair I suppose.

Agemnon.4608:

I like the idea of a GM trait in Shadow Arts totally negating reveal. Since reveal is a new mechanic I’d buff master and other traits with healing and condition removal upon stealth to avoid the reveal immunity from sacrificing what we simply just had before.

So you agree with the one above. It is very interesting but I fear this would make it truly powerful for implementation.

With this apocalyptic mess going around us, we need this guys. Not even joking, we need every extra second or fraction of a second we can get out of this.

Before we start on this suggestion let us be clear on this one thing: Stealth is not a mechanic unique to the Thief. It is quite obvious but, I want to be safe to point it out.

Thieves are the master of trickery, subtlety, subterfuge,and cheap shots. The things we do sometimes are beyond the wildest dreams of any other professions.

It is therefore natural that the Thief’s stealth skills be of higher quality than other profession’s stealth utilities.

OK let us get to the point
Introducing the 3 types of invisibility:

Camouflage – Stealth – Ghost. Please bare with me boys and girls.

I. General info

a- Camouflage is considered level 1, therefore it is affected by reveal. Camouflage however reduces movement speed.

b – Stealth is level 2, it is also the most common type of invisibility, the current profession will have access to it. It is still succeptible to reveal.

C- Ghost however is the prestigious and most intricate one. and it not bound by movement speed and is immune to Reveal. Very few skills have and invisibilty of Ghost quality.

II. More Details

Cloak: Mostly available to every class. Rangers, Dragonhunter, Engineers using elixirs,etc. Mesmer’s Prestige.

Stealth: Only Mesmer Elite Mass Invisibity grants this, and Scraper’s Sneak Drone.

Ghost: Only exclusive to the Thief. HOWEVER it is only accessible through combos finisher. So moves like, C&D, Blinding Powder or Shadow Refuge, or even traits will be either turn out to be Stealth or Camouflage quality.

Now for example, if you do Smoke Screen+ SB #2 you get Ghost quality.

So far, I think this will give us room to breathe without making everything absolutely obsolete. It will let our oponents be just as versatile in taking us down.

What do you think?
Please rate out of 10 and discuss, I won’t get offended if you put -5/10. I just want good arguments that are for and against this idea.

Thank you. Please don’ say stuff like « Yeah I don’t like the term Ghost, i like x,y,z » because that is not the point.

again, ty.

How are we going to cope with all of this? How are we supposed to cope with all those changes?

I keep asking the dev what is his vision of the Thief because all those elite spec are clearly shutting us down and so idk what to expect anymore.

At first we had the occasinal Sic ’Em or Lock on we dealt it.
Then we got the “wow Rev with reveal, hm i can deal with them.”
After, we get Berserker Taunt “Not bad.. not bad. This one i can take care of it.”
Later we get the Scrapper " …. what?"

There is one more reveal left guys and I can tell the Druid is going to tear us to pieces.

I was expecting diversity with those specs, but when HoT comes out: we are all going to be playing Daredevil with Escapist’s Absolution. Landing a Stealth attack will be reserved only for the skillful of the skillful.

Shadow Arts is getting torn apart as we speak, since 90% of those traits are based of stealth, and RIP Acro. We got.. 2-3 traits available now. The way this is going, our D/P will be invalid for competition.

Thief’s most crucial/popular skill known as Shadow Refuge is now obsolete thanks to all those counters. I don’t want to revert to using gorrilla forums tactics and go to a Engi’s, Rev’s, Necro’s forum, asking for nerfs like they did for us. That’s just low and I ain’t about that life.

What is going on? I just started World completion on my second thief, but the future doesn’t look so bright at all.

We need a straightfoward, upfront answer.

Do you expect all veteran players to start merging towards Elite specialization?

Please devs, we need to know what is the overall vision of this profession.

Wow…. wait up. the Stealth drone lasts 30 seconds and the CD is 30 seconds… The Stealth boon lasts 4 seconds and the interval of application is 3 seconds.

That means in WvW, the Scrapper will be rocking permanent stealth to them and 5 person.

That’s more stealth than a Thief could ever dream of. Permanent stealth roaming?
If you don’t see a flying little gyro miles away you are already dead.