Guild Wars 2

Mesmer’s hatter blind being fixed was a big relief with feline grace buff! If not every meta build would shlt blind condition, then s/d would feel more in line.

blitzkrieg.2451:

just so you know. thief was never meant to contest or hold points, you’re foolish in assuming that it being worse at doing just that is why thieves are in a worse spot right now.

noone wants thiefs as a point contester. you might missunderstand the point Sir. This post is about the S/D build. as you and many others pointed out this particular build lacks on burst damage compared to other thief/meser/etc builds, therefore it has to stay in the brawl to dish out some pressure. This is all becouse it’s main source of damage are autuhits + sigil procs. The problem with all this is, that the sword autohit is not designed to the builds playstyle. 2pure medium damage slow hits, then a big stab with 2useful condis for low duration. The problem comes with the slow hits, it not only makes the thief vulnerable vs. aegis and blind, but it resets every time you cast something else, thisway rarely getting to the final big hit. A good improvement would be to make the first hit like dagger’s: 2xhit for half damage, let the second hit inflict the cripple(this helps ti hit the third) and the third the weakness.
the second problem is its sustain. In this big of a power creap out there a viable build needs some healing. Seriously… most specs got built in passive regens or skillbar heals… we got what? Assassin’s reward as a GM trait. That trait really could use some love, if it would heal for 2x the amount(140hp/s) it still would succk as a GM. what about giving it condi clence every 5 init used and 2x the heals as regeneration?? this would help vs the insane blind+burn-spam of the meta.

My mate and I are big s/d thief fanboys(both main it) and obviously talk a lot about the builds weaknesses. My buddy made a masterful topic in the thief forums, but a lot of s/d topics popped out here recently so i thought i gonna just dropp it here to let it be seen by more people.

Kicker.8203:

—The problem is D/P does his burst dmg and then can leave, so he has to survive for a very short duration then they can switch to bow for cleave or go stealth. While S/D has no real burst and you do autoattack for damage if you autoattack in a team fight and do some flanking strikes u still die really fast. If you go shortbow or try to melee more carefully then u are nearly useless for your team.

—Sword autoattack is countered by blinds and blocks because even a warrior hits faster with sword (even without the attack speed increase trait or the haste trait they all have). A double hit for half dmg each on first autoattack would help a lot against their main counters while not helping much against other classes.
Dagger autoattack -in contrast- hits super fast which helps proccing sigils and has a powerful effect on each hit. (double hit, endurance gain, poison+weakness).
After running some autoattack tests on D/P vs S/D half of the time Sword half of the time Dagger wins so Sword doesn’t even have a stronger damage over time than Dagger.(Also note: too much RNG effects in the game)

—Sword has 2 attacks that do OK dmg then you do a more powerful 3rd hit with some short(2s :/ ) but useful condis. Dagger has 3 really quick hits at the start (that you can finish before sword lands a second hit). And what happens when in a fight?: your auto chain resets because you obviously have to use other skills or face pauses, Sword goes back to the weak start of the chain while Dagger gets to proc both of their sigils instantly with their quick hits and almost ignore blinds and aegis.

---

////Solution////: make the first attack double hit and move cripple to second attackto help land the third, and improve survivability to help staying in teamfights(for example Assassin’s reward could become a trait that heals you each time you evade with a 0.75 sec cooldown per 5 heals so during a good dodge roll if you avoid 7 things you get healed for 5 of them and the next time you dodge you can also be healed for 5 of them. Thus you are still encouraged to evade a lot of stuff at once but it can’t heal for absurd amounts.) Maybe 200 heal per evade but it would need some testing. Moreover Cloak and Dagger should get a buff because its way-way more risky to use than the smoke field+leap combo, possibly an aoe blind could be added when it hits or increased stealth time on it. Buff Acro in general and make it more sword-reliant. Add a short weakness to Flanking Strike to allow beneficial auto-attack trades & to make opponents have to dodge something at least.

well my last guess was warhorn, but guess what happened…

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Flavor-wise, an evade or miss may as well be the same as hitting the air.

think of it… if you AA into the air noothing happens, on the other hand if you AA someone blocking, evading or with blind your AA stage develops. this should happen to FS too.

How can a company afford to start an expansion project that clearly soaks up all the avaible resources? Having the mother game decaying for a year isnt healthy for your player community.
As you can already tell most of your players are complaining loudly about issues that should be solved with a hotfix and not with an Xmas patch. Releasing a major gamechanging update requires a tonn of testing or frequest following fixes and updates prowiding balance.
Allowing bugs and inbalance to overtake gaming experience mirrors a phlegmatic mentality and yes all of your customers feels this dear Anet.

My question is:
Would you prefer an expansion coming out this winter bringing decent amount of fun and new stuff (this even going to be undertested/not balanced). or delay it and have a more enjoiable game till it it hits?

From my perspective:
I wont hesitate to buy an expansion having a year of unarguably good plays, chill moments and stuff behind me, on the other hand i feel i’d say to thorw this kitten and let it be played by other players who dont mind being stressful and frustrated by facing kitten every day.

thx for reeding. Waiting for feedback && watching series.

Architecture.7524:

A lot of my friends are leaving the game because of … snip…

becoue of the inbalance, becouse of the lack of competetive leaderboard, becouse of the usual 6 months peace of cake, etc etc etc…
i can’t make enough polite posts / topics about clear issues (with hand in hand with many other decent players), they stay unanswered. at least pls dropp a ‘we don’t care’ sign or something….

Kicker.8203:

---

////Solution////: make the first attack double hit and move cripple to second attackto help land the third, and improve survivability to help staying in teamfights.

Moreover Cloak and Dagger should get a buff because its way-way more risky to use than the smoke field+leap combo, possibly an aoe blind could be added when it hits or increased stealth time on it.

this

Rin.1046:

- Reduce the initiative cost of Infiltrator’s Return to 1 ini. Now it no longer breaks stun

sry?

also my openion on buffing non d/p builds:
- the stabbing autohit part and Larcenous shoud have faster execution time or some other way to allow it to hit more reliably like a 150 unit dash/jump(or this seems too op?? o.O).
- also flanking strike shoud turn in larcenous whan hit is evaded or blocked.
- C&D should give longer stealth
- Assassin’s reward should heal way more or get a 100% rework
- all abilitys that provide “evade” should start with cancel action when button is pressed. (really inportant! many times you are unable to evade things couse you are out of endurance but in mid animation so skill have to finish casting to start lets say flanking strike)
- deadh blossom should have bigger range
- thief needs some access to defensive boons.

all things in short i can think of in 3mins.

Lordrosicky.5813:

You realise they did a balance patch after 18 months and actually buffed the celestial amulet right?

To expect anything after that is ridiculous.

They tried to nerf celestial and failed to understand the change they made and therefore increased the percentage stat difference. Do you even want a balance patch after that?

actually i do expect forwarding changes. + i dont see how you think cele amullet is unbalanced. if you find some cele ele spec still OP(or engi?, or war?) then specify your complainments so other intelligent people can throw in their openions. else there is noothing we can talk about.

Sauncho.8076:

Are you new to the game? This is ANET SOP (standard operating procedure).

NO, but its summer, its hot and im more kittened than usual due to random irl kittens.

Edit:

At least they said they will balance patch bi weekly now until HoT releases … oh wait.

and also this.

pls give me a clue of someone is testing and working on balance and bug issues that effect spvp at Arena net. Or i dont care even lie that we are going to get a tiny cake of smoothing next week so i can stop watching terribad series on TV and come back for some action…

Morwath.9817:

Ranked currently means no Skyhammer and Coutyard, nothing more nothing less.

Default modells >>> no skyham/courtyard

the problem is not necessaily on our side. Its more the instant meta the new patch encourages. As a thief we can evade, los, dodge major abilitys but not instants becouse guess what, they are instants. Nowdays if you dont get as many instans in your build as you can, you are not building optimally, and this is really sad. introducing feline grace rework meanwhile thorwing more instant snacks to other profs… have fun “skillfully” evading all those kitten out there with endurancebase for 2 dodges.

Taobella.6597:

What would balance thief is allowing blind to be stack able con

Another way would be to give thief an X buff well they sit in stealth something like. every second thief in stealth they gave 1% dmg mod to next hit. make it stack to 10 max. duration of 15 seconds on each stack.

… ppl like you shoud really stick your head out of the D/P heaven of yours… what do you thing would happen to the already suffering build diversity!!!?!

the hope is back though

1) Guilds can register guild teams to compete within sPvP, in both Conquest and Stronghold maps.
2) Leaderboard will show the best guild teams in the world⁹.

+1
? ? ?_? ??15char

Belial.9350:

Why does this exist? Instant guarenteed 1.25s stun while shattering = guarenteed 12k damage.

you are forgetting to mention the immob from chaotic interruption whitch makes the whole thing even more broken

E: i dont mind mesmer damage buffs. the thing that makes me run out of the world is the amont of CCs the specs can build up these days… Reminds me of fighting ranger but in a way scaryer scene…

got login server errors over and over. restarted game, it downloaded a patch which was not advertised by ingame yellow message. still got login server errors after trying to join fractal after successful patching.

getting crash report every 2hrs

Anonymouse.4760:

I hope the balance team does a good job on our new specialization or thief will continue to be the most stale class in the game.

made ~3 topics about this problem before patch. 0fks where given. im really getting tired of being right…

Josh Davis.6015:

The release has been out for 4 hours. It’s a little early to tell.

sup now? patch is out since ages.

desertleaf.5403:

Are you saying, that released content are never tested? It’s pretty apparent.
Will guild wars 2 ever leave beta phase? Its been 3 years now.

+1. and i believe suff is tested till it seems bugfree for first look. so newer tested for balance

agreed. instant skills && instant proc traits/sigils are the flawe of the whole combat system. The whole fluid combat system of this game is about avoiding damage with evades. You can predict some instant skills yes, but what about ista proc?! Its getting more and more terrible every patch. the problem is that after you destroy all the key abilits opponent lands some autohits or 0hitting skills and procs all his instant kitten sigils & traits and you are still dead. what should one do? you cant destroy all minor stuff too…

it does not trigger with longbow f1. fix pls

… i think 80% of you dont even get why this topic was created. The reason was i am unsatisfied by the fact that only D/P is viable and even that got 2 hardpointed traitlines.

MadVisions.4529:

In the end i only see d/p [DA/SA/Trick] being used by every thief player WHO WANTS TO WIN. this is really unhealthy for the thief community, can we have changes pls?

can we?

quote from this topic: Link

the current state of thief was predicted by many good thief players. !http://i.imgur.com/r9nEuPT.jpg!

Vaux.7502:

Eh, not really predicted. D/P is garbage too!

not sure if kidding… D/P works fine atm

predicted or predicted?

Kicker.8203:

skowcia.8257:

Kicker.8203:

MadVisions.4529:

skill changes:

Shadow shot: blind duration reduced to 3 seconds from 5,5. Projectile is no more unblockable

It should still be unaffacted by reflects.

And steal does need some range increase IMO with warriors having 1200+ range on longbow and rangers 1800 on theirs

Yeh, cause war lb is soo stronk at long range (if it even hit anything) and thieves cant walk over rangers as they wish already right?

Steal is for now the most op ability ingame

Yeah by some i meant maybe the middleground between 900 and 1200, so about 1050.
Thief is all about mobility so they are supposed to catch up fast.

I’m not gonna go into the stupid Steal OP argument.

more range means less ability to predict steals on you. You dont want to open on a ranger with steal the majority of times. Its better to rupt heal/rapidfire/bear with it.

Kicker.8203:

No Quarter: was a good trait too as the developers did it.

Power of Inertia as minor trait would be great and might duration could be a bit less, like 6-7 base but shouldn’t have internal cooldown. This trait would have a lot of play to it

Assassin’s Reward is pretty lackluster as well, it should give 0.5 s vigor/initiative spent instead of healing.

I got no problems with No Quarter, but anet threw away the idea of separating PvP traits and skills from PvE. Therefore i find no place for this trait only if it replaces Invigorating Precision which finds greate use in PvE.

Assassins reward: i like the idea. mby add ICD.

hope dies last. the last 2 ladder betas almost killed it though…

skill changes:

Steal: range remains 900.

Choking Gas: no nerf needed.

Shadow shot: blind duration reduced to 3 seconds from 5,5. Projectile is no more unblockable

Scorpion wire: projectile moves 20% faster, gets no more obstructed by a leaf on the ground.

Roll for Initiative: recharge time reduced from 60 sec to 50 sec.

Ambush: now spawns 2 thieves.

Signet of Shadows: cooldown reduced to 15sec from 30 sec.

Dancing Dagger: bounces 2 times instead of 3. deals 20% more damge.

Flanking Strike, Disabling Shot, Pistop Whip: now cancels cast immidiately after hotkey pressed
Reasoning: a lot of times you have to evade mid cast times. dodging cancels all animations, these skills should too.

These suggestions are based on the newest patch nodes(06.16) not on the current systeam. This means the changes not mentioned here shoud still apply.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Thief-suggestions/first#post5169434

link to my topic which got link to my thougths…

topic would be too long so i decided to upload all the trait changes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H8B4SXn0iB58kUQCjJOAYZeCgPF52w5SqSyHxhqVFQw/edit?usp=sharing

what are your thoughts?

idk anet went with the easy way again…. call to arms coused most of the vigor poroblems but why nerf it? ahh its warrior stuff i see….
tanky ish specs like dd ele, cele engi who had 50% uptime easy… (+60% in teamfight from CtA)
vigor indeed needed a tonedown but in the side of the skills that providing it, not yolo easywork lets nerf to 50%… guess anet didnt think about squishy specs who actually RELY on evades 0-24 to not get killed while above mentioned ones just gonna take a big sigh and pretend like noothing happened.

Kicker.8203:

All I’m saying if C&D is this risky make it rewarding at least.

PS: moving this topic here gonna lead into less ppl reading it—> less feedback so GJ dear mod! creating it in PvP main forums wasnt an accident.

naphack.9346:

I just don’t see why people would choose shadow rejuvenation over venom share, which is way more busted even for D/P builds.
Quickly deciding a 2v1 is way more important and has way more impact on the game state than being able to escape from a fight, where all your allies died.

i highlighted that trait becouse:

this trait enforces passive boring gmepay for both sides and is incredebly strong for a low hp pool class with on demand invis. its not only for this trait the entire traitline is built around stealth’s mechanic that cant be easily accessed with all the builds.

and yess venomshare with devourer venom replacing infiltrator’s signet going to be chosen by some players. SR is stupid strong though to endure aoe pressure from cele meta.

philheat.3956:

pve/www characters (with ascended stuff)

this.

leman.7682:

In Guild Wars 1 they would always give short dev notes to balance changes that usually put things into perspective. I believe that some info on every profession regarding what the aim of the changes was and how the devs think it is going to play out would come a long way in clarifying things.

for Jon Snow’s here is an example:
Second Wind reduced casting time to 1 second; reduced Exhaustion to 5; changed functionality to: “You gain 1 Energy and 5 Health for each point of Energy restricted by Exhaustion. You lose all enchantments.”
Second Wind is a skill that has a unique interaction with the Exhaustion mechanic. While it doesn’t see a lot of use it can be fairly powerful under the right conditions. We’ve lowered the casting time and Exhaustion caused by this skill in order to improve its use. Additionally, it now heals the caster to provide some bar compression. Testing revealed that these changes could potentially bring back certain undesirable smite builds to PvP, so we’ve added a clause that removes all enchantments to prevent this from happening. Because the skill provides both Health and Energy now, we don’t feel this will negatively impact most builds.

i’d like to see the same things… but times change… games change… habits change… sometime in the wrong direction.

T raw.4658:

Loyo.8526:

Currently? necromancer isnt looking like a good contender. But I can say that Engineer is looking to receive a bunch more players into their family.

Making an asuran Engi names to vote on

“Teef Hardcounter”
“Face Roll Two Win”
“Anet’s Baby”
“Wish You played Engi”
“Crate For Lulz”
“Not Even Trying”
“No Clue WTF I’m Doing”

Also taking suggestions as well

ahahah this made my day!!
“NukeYourMom69”

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Shadow of Azrael.1205:

Withdraw doesnt clear poison, there your counter play.

Ah, but traited Withdraw will…

(assuming anyone actually gives up Bountiful Theft to trait Withdraw’s cooldown)

which wont happen. so poison is indeed a counterplay.

the skill is trong but nerfing it going to effect all the builds that thieves dont use becouse of d/p being dominant.

Fay.2357:

The problem is that withdraw is a heal with zero counterplay. Literally the only way to interrupt it would be to put a static field/line of warding/ring of warding/ unsteady ground behind the thief, and hope they’re dumb enough to withdraw into it. Even then, I think the heal applies instantly, so they’d just not roll back the full distance.

It needs a real cast time, not a ’I’m evading, just thought I’d let you know how long I’m evading for’ cast time.

what a contradictory topic mate! .. ring of warding is a rare skill nowdays! +dont forget to leave a gap in the circle to let the thief withdaw out somehow!
also pls make sure, before you suggest shlt like this cast time idea to at least write after it to give thieves 20k baseline hp to endure pressure while casting! deal?

Impact.2780:

Yup. I stopped playing 2/0/0/6/6 S/D back in January or so, before they even announced these changes. Went 2/6/0/0/6 because my team needed more damage and D/P is boring. Great fun, managed to make it effective. Panic strike becomes more and more popular, and is quite annoying when it triggers on you in a team fight because you can’t avoid it since it’s a bloody on-hit trigger. The team wants this advantage too, now. They have it, so we need it. So I go 6/0/0/2/6 S/D. Still more enjoyable than D/P, annoying to be using a trait of the type I hate, but there you go.

The changes are announced and yay, good thing I changed. I’ll be ahead having already gotten used to S/D without Feline Grace and only 50% vigor uptime. Now I find I’m going to be forced into acrobatics despite because of the stupid vigor change.

What’s the issue with vigor? Energy sigil. They stack. Warrior gets perma vigor and energy sigil every 10 seconds due to their design. Too strong. But no we don’t nerf warrior specifically; we love warrior. Why do people have perma vigor? Ele because they needed it apparently (they don’t because they could use energy sigil). Everyone else has it because of… Warrior! Warrior gives everyone vigor, which stacks in duration with their own 50% up-time on vigor. So why nerf vigor? Warrior is the problem, so nerf warrior. Oh, right, you won’t. Better to nerf vigor so it nerfs everyone, including those squishier classes that need the dodges more than the tanky class that already has more dodges than anyone except a thief with feline grace, on top of blocks and immunity skills.

I notice that every class is getting buffs to be better at their current roles. Bunkers are getting tankier. Supports are getting more healing support options. Mesmers are getting great new build options by making important traits baseline. Rangers ranged damage is getting improved. Thieves got what they already have reworked a little to be less effective but introduce skillful play, and a couple of nice traits which would synergise quite well but nothing that really improves what they already do, because they mainly rely on stealth, positioning, and evades. And now vigor gets nerfed. Compensation? Of course not.

appearently we are in the same boat.

shouters…. HAHAHA at least they lose the 30% boon duration too…
i remember myself arguing about the same suff many months ago with guildies. Providing 60% vigor uptime on the whole team only with a single ability (that also applyes one of the strongest condis and is a blast finisher…) is kitten stupid… 10 sec of vigor means a whole dodge roll….

actually the tone down of vigor was needed. it is one of the strongest buffs (in not ‘the strongest’) and most classes got easy access to it. unfortunately anet has chosen the easy way to handle the situation…

edit: missed your edit

Edit: Oh and we lose Fluid Strikes too. A damage nerf, naturally. This was noticed, and not liked, but not really complained about. It was mostly accepted. So survival nerfed, build options reduced, damage nerfed, traits to reveal when struck while stealthed for other classes.

What’s the bet people will still come here crying “thief OP?”

in the past i made a QQ thread about acro changes. fluid strikes and power of inertia gave us the damage that was missed by not triting into dps oriented lines. both of them gone. kkthx

the odds are high!
‘thief’ means D/P[6-0-2-0-6] later [6-0-6-0-6] nowdays. people tend to forget to specify what they are talking about…. and D/P gonna be strong
(if you meant under “here” that “in this topic” not “on the forum” then i think not. there is no kitten baised stuff here that could be trolled and people posted useful stuff before so this might be a sign YAYY )

Laraley.7695:

He’s not wrong, though imo. The nerf to sd did change a bit, on the other hand dp brings more utility to the group. I think if dp thief didn’t exist, sd would still be in play due to the mobility + sr.

ofc he is not wrong, but those changes where ages ago.

as for you: ure right s/d would be definately there! actually it even was played by Sizer for long time after nerf i believe(competitive side).
with the patch acro’s bonuses gonna be weakened compared to the current state, not sure if s/d gonna return in teamplay if we head to this direction.

style.6173:

MadVisions.4529:

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

For someone who says they have so much thief experience, you sure don’t know what you are talking about. D/P didn’t force the rest of the builds out of the meta. The nerf to precasting flanking strike hurt S/D. The initiative increase on pistol whip hurt S/P.

therfore d/p got better so it forced them out of the meta.

Kicker.8203:

Wise words…
I see the changes in acrobatics for S/D thieves try to revolve around evading which is a good thing but i think they look at it from a wrong angle: the evasion should be the tool for evading important skills rather than activating traits for evading a crappy auto-attack. If the thief fails to elude a burst he dies anyway – no need for traits to incentivise evading. If anyone cele eles should be forced to evading something to trigger their Evasive Arcana because they use their dodge solely as a skill and they get away with it perfectly fine. Not to mention preemptive dodging is the only way to avoid incoming stealth bursts and instant or fast casting skills.

also wise, agreed.

ok. lets talk a bit about other ‘big’ builds.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

s/d: <~900++ games on this also my favorite thing to play />

dont know about you but i havnt met an s/d since ages. Even i moved back to d/p in the last months or so…
this build is awesome (y i’m a fanboy). its fun to play, i believe the best build on thief to perform outplays and clutches. However it lacks a big chunk of burst damage compared to dagger builds which is a huge disadvantage in the current cele-party support meta. This, the lack of (party side) stealth and the diasadv vs. d/p made this build only viable in solo or casual gmeplay.

With the update this build gonna change towards a 2-6-0-0-6 s/d build. I have been experimenting some with stuff like this lately couse i wanted to “prepare” for the patch. here is the build i used: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwpdPxyJ8PNBNBt9w7QE8OMfpMaFAA-TpBFwACOCAPOBALOEA62foaZAAPAAA. I did not really think this is bad…. BUT this stuff turned out extremely glassy. even in a 2v2/3v3 i was forced to stay too passive and still do less burst than d/p. the lack of hp/evades/utilitys made disengageing or avoiding focus much harder. after a bunch of games with this i had to make the decision to dropp the build and go back to d/p… which turned out effective but boring as allways.

Why i compare (2-6-0-0-6) instead of the (2-0-0-6-6) version to the after patch build? simply becouse its more similar. You gonna be forced to take acro becouse of the vigor nerf(still losing 25% effectiveness) to mentain endurance but it gonna lift you up to the current prepatch no acro level. feline grace rework, vigorous recovery+pain response in same tier… none of the GM traits are even decent*. The only extra it gonna give is Swindler’s(dunno how this trait gonna turn out). the no hp, boon dura from acro stays and the damage part from crit strikes(all zerker stats) also. So imo s/d gonna be on the edge of unviableness.
+d/p’s gonna laugh at you even louder couse of the reset potential of shadow rejuv.

*i see ‘dont stop’ being the only viable choice besides that it isnt even decent. you could flanking strike/SB#3 in immob to negate damage or infiltrator return/strike from it, but this at least gonna get rid of some mid air immobs for you that couldnt be countered. (flanking strike gonna negate all movement stuff anyways and even with reduced effectiveness you gonna be outrunned).

Condi thief:

this is going to be a thing! people gonna feel the aids of the devourer+basilisk venom sharing shadow arts deadly arts trickery thieves.

i see a p/d || d/p build played in the future with on interrupt torment(headshot), dagger training, potent poison, caltrops, geomancy, carrion stats.
cant really tell how this going to turn out, but the d/p invis gonna lead to a more frequent pistol invis attacks, while mentaining strong condis on its site(poison + blind + torment)

if not this there going to be a condi thief build which is going to be kitten boring to fight against. still if they gonna be decent in 1v1 situations they wont be able to even prevent point decap becouse of the need of invis.

rest of the builds are more likely ‘fun tier’, so i wont write novells about s/p, p/p etc…
they gonna have ridiculous damage with DA+CS though ^^ panic strike + executioner unload hmmm nom-nom-nom. but we all know how vulnerable these builds are therefore unvaiable in teamplay.

In the end i only see d/p [DA/SA/Trick] being used by every thief player WHO WANTS TO WIN. this is really unhealthy for the thief community, can we have changes pls?

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

i actually believed that devs gonna be smart enough to entierely remove the trait Shadow rejuvrection with the new patch(not giving it passive init regen). this trait enforces passive boring gmepay for both sides and is incredebly strong for a low hp pool class with on demand invis. its not only for this trait the entire traitline is built around stealth’s mechanic that cant be easily accessed with all the builds.
now lets take a look on what thief builds got on demand invis: d/p, ( ok. s/p+[sb || d/any] too but this requires weapon swap and some other circumstances ie: sacraficing SB or no enemy in 300 rad).

And here comes the point: while d/p’s mechanics allow the player to abuse the shadow arts bonusses nearly limitless the other builds do not. (basicly d/p gonna be able to mentain invis if he wants so! haha. forum gonna expode soon! :’/ )

d/p was/is more popular in terms of thief builds becouse it has got decent burst damage and insane reposition posibilitys(on demand stealth). yep it does better in terms of these things than the rest of the builds, even if you think of s/any #2’s positioning posibilitys couse of rooted return points and no auto detargeting. This potential isnt weakened(+ free executioner cough cough).

Even the stat removal from trait lines is in d/p[6-0-2-0-6]‘s favor. the condi damage from trickery, condi duration from DA, some toughness+heal from sa gonna return in zerker stats, while other former builds like s/d’s boon duration,health from acro where essential anyways.

The lack of(haha lack… 15sec withdraw..) self sustain is solved by the ability to fully trait SA so basicly now this build lacks NOTHING!! :’D. big damage, mobility, flood of boons, vamp rune…, party stealth, and now self sustain?!? wtf its like giving DD ele eviscerate or something.

Xillllix.3485:

Engi, thief and ranger got buffed a lot.

and not only for you Xillllix.

wrong. !!! D/P !!! thief got buffed a lot. not just “thief”. thats silly.

i’d say the only reasonable thing from the thief side was the C&D buff.

ronpierce.2760:

It’s 75%. Similar to the revenant “50% increased effect from Fury” would be 30%. Slight chance I’m wrong, but I’m pretty confident.

Edit:
“•Death Perception: While you are in shroud you have an additional 50% chance to critical hit.”

I’m fairly sure they’d say an additional 50% if it stacked additionally.

ty 4 fast reply. im afraid of the same but gonna wait for a dev answer before making some silly ‘QQ’ thread.

Endless Stamina: The effects of vigor on you are enhanced by 50%.

this means vigor 50% + trait 50% = 100% (basicly ‘unnerfs’ vigor)

or

vigor 50% * 150% = 75% (gonna cry)

i’d say get rid of the camera close ups and 95% of the trollfaces next vid.
gl with your stream.

try out this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVl0MprpdPx0J8PNBNhwdtY38O83yaFA-TpBFwACOCAPeAA12fYxhAoaZAAnAAA

imo this gonna be the meta next week with the exra dmg from full DA.

Shadow.1345:

Poliator.7021:

For reference, the more glaringly issue of Thief right now in PvP is that have to spec in the Trickery trait line, because boon rip and Daze on Steal (+ the CDR on it) is simply outright strong.

I’m not an expert on this however looking at the core specializations recently I saw some traits that look really awesome. While looking at the system I realized something, though. We may see a change in how people trait the Trickery line.

No kittening way you scream at me? No one would ever not pick Thrill of the Crime and Bountiful Theft, right?

Well look at the Adept line and you have Flanking Strikes. Flank and get Quickness. So hit from behind and you get a boon that lets you attack faster. Quickness for Thieves is huge because they already depend on speed. To get it that easily is a major boon for any D/x build. Except then you can’t get Thrill of the Crime because you only get one Adept Major trait. Eh, Quickness from flanking… no big deal right. Except when you combine it with Panic Strike and Executioner from Deadly Arts and then you’ve got a beastly attack once that enemy hits 50% health. It certainly gives pause to think about wanting to just get those boons from stealing.

Then look at the Master line and you have Trickster. Trickster, bah! Just 20% reduced recharge on tricks and it removes a condition, compared to Bountiful Theft who would want that? Oh wait… Withdraw is a trick which means a reduced recharge on a healing skill plus an extra condition cleansed. kitten … rip boons or more heals and condi clear? again, tough choice. Add in now you could take Caltrops or Roll for Initiative with reduced CDs + Condi Clear as that third utility instead of Blinding Powder or Infil Sig could make people start to rethink those traits.

Of course there will always be testing to see if these are viable in PvP but with just some preliminary theory crafting I can see where there is a possibility for different builds being seen and just hopefully we might see some viable diversity.

Gain quickness. Lose all endurance and reduce endurance regeneration by 50%.
you gain this not only quickness.
also boonful theft is boonful couse it gives vigor. if you replace suff with what you said you gonna end up with a thief without any endurance. but ofc it can be tested and turn out decent who knows!