Guild Wars 2

PopeUrban.2578:

So here’s what I’m seeing thusfar:

People like the seemingly intended synergy with existing builds.

People are still questioning why acrobatics is a generally underpowered trait line without DD.

People feel that the staff and dodges don’t feel as fluid and nimble as core specs and dodges. (Anet has stated dodges are being addressed. No word of Staff)

People feel distracting daggers is borderline useless in its current implementation.

People like fist flurry, but feel the payoff isn’t worth the difficulty to land the combo.

People like bandit’s defense, but would like to be able to interrupt it.

Almost nobody has a problem with impairing daggers. People find it useful and valuable.

People feel impact strike has too short a duration between strikes to be user friendly as a chain. People feel like Impact Strike is completely worthless in PvE. People like the insta-finish special feature.

People feel that overall the artistic polish on the spec is not up to par, with a lot of obviously re-used or poorly implemented animations, and a general lack of QA.

There is some contention about utilizing GM traits as the dodge selection mechanism. Some people think it’s fine, Others think it deprives DD of build choices.

There is some contention about the placement of traits.

That about sum it up this far?

This.
Also, I personally think that the heal skill is not fun as it stands. It needs to proc when your endurance is not full, even if that means turning down the heal a little bit.

I also think they should make it at least 2 seconds before comboing the elite. It feels like if the foe moves just a little to the left you just wasted your finisher.

You have some good stuff there man. But for the rest, you are way out there.
TL;DR.

Bllade.1029:

Dust Strike Suggestion 3 – Spin 360 degrees with your staff and create a ring of dust that absorbs projectiles. Enemies directly hit with the staff take damage and are inflicted with AoE weakness and vulnerability. Enemies that exit or enter the ring are blinded for X amount of second(s).

Heal Skill – Channeled Vigor – Although the idea behind the heal is good in terms of reward, there are many better options available to the thief in its current state. A couple of major problems we noticed are as follows:
The heal yields a greater health reward if the players endurance is full. This is counter-productive for a specialization who’s core mechanic is about using endurance.
The channel time of the heal leaves an enormous window for it to be interrupted, and leaves the DD too vulnerable in a combat situation to justify using over other heals available.
Many believed the animation did not properly represent the profession. All other professions get unique animations that differentiate from them from their counterparts. (Ex. Overloading attunements, Berserker burst effects, Reaper death shroud.) This animation is almost exactly the same as Elementalists ether renewal and does not fit well with the theme of a fast-paced, evasive, hand-to -hand combat oriented fighter.

Weakening Strikes Suggestion – Remove the 10 second ICD and give the trait a % chance to proc on critical hit. This would allow the AoE nature of the staff to apply weakness to more than one target while amidst combat. Adding an offensive way for the Daredevil to defend itself.

Minor Master Trait – Driven Fortitude – The sustain granted by this ability was too minuscule to notice. Conditions applied negated the effects of this ability, especially if one of those conditions were poison. This trait is designed to offer some sustain for the Daredevil through skillful play, meaning evading an attack. Since you must evade an incoming attack to gain the benefit of this trait the reward should be higher than traits that give sustain passively without any action (Example: Shadow Rejuvination).
Driven Fortitude Suggestion – Remove healing power scaling with the trait itself. Increase the heal from evade substantially. Keep the ICD the way it is.

Steal Suggestion 2 – Steal x amount of endurance from your target. Replenishing your own endurance pool.

Rain.9213:

Oh yeah, let’s make a skill that applies 8 seconds of bleeding, 6 seconds of torment, and 3 seconds of cripple not reveal you so you can stealth and spam it till the enemy dies xD

We Mesmers now?

It’s really funny how when the DD was first revealed the Thieves community was skeptical , then on PoI we got hyped because we thought we were finally getting some love, and now after testing it we are back at skeptical.

The DD is fun, but it does not feel like a specialization. Its just what Acro was always meant to be. I see many good suggestions here, but truth is we are less than two months away from release, so chances are we are not getting anything too dramatic … Anyways, here’s my two cents:

1. Fist flurry: Too slow. Hard to land if the foe is not dazed. Low damage at that. Then you get access to palm strike, only then pulmonary strike. Too many processes for too little reward.

2. Staff needs to be faster, more agile overall or if not, hit harder.

3. Make the dodges toggle on Fs and gives us other grandmasters.

I am monitoring this thread.

EragamerLG.2390:

I agree with the OP. I have over 3k hours on my thief, mained since pre-launch, but this is making me log in less and less. If Thief is not playable in a close-to-balanced state as it has been before(compared to now), I’ll end up quitting GW2.
Primarily because the unbalance is at a state where it is absolutely not fun to play. All character classes except Necro has some sort of invulnerability skill. Mesmers out-stealth thief, HOW is this even possible? What logic does this have. Mesmers are supposed to be master of illusion, not stealth, yet they surpass the mastery of stealth Thief is supposed to have.
Thief’s damage is not the problem. The survivability is. Thief vs Thief is basically about who initiates and how agressively. Burst or be bursted. Thief vs other classes? Well, if they use invulnerabilty skills it’s kinda kitten, considering we have none of those. Stealth you say? Whats the point if other classes’ skills keep tracking a thief after stealth? Sure, we can still beat other classes, but not when they are running troll builds that thief has NO WAY of possibly countering. What’s up with Guardian’s Symbols killing a thief in 1-2 ticks???? Dodge you say? We would if we had Feline Grace. Basically all Guardians have to do is attack until a thief dodges twice, and then just put down a couple of symbols.

I’m sorry about this rant, but I’m sure the majority of the thief community will agree things are not looking good, and the person that was supposed to look out for our balance has absolutely no idea what he is doing. I thank him for the work thus far, but it’s far beyond time to admit things aren’t looking good, and the interest in that class is close to null, if not null itself.

If you’d like to know what has kept me playing so long, nerf after nerf, is due to how the Thief was primarily designed, pre-launch. The foundations it was built on made us capable, even after nerfs, of beating other classes. We were called OP, time after time, and nerfs were applied, and we still won. Again, we can still beat some players, but it’s not even fulfilling.

To know we’re not on equal fighting ground is just wrong. To know the one in charge of our class forgets about traits is just wrong. To know we’re 3 years into this game and we’re having an issue like this is just wrong. Of course, separating stats from traits, and doing other alterations ofr the sake of “balance” were bound to to bring issues with it. We all know that. But things like the trait redesign that were more susceptible to Human decision rather than coding variables is what struck me the most. Some of our traits alterations are so unjustified it’s just.. wrong.

AMEN.

Right now been a Thief is suffering.

Assic.2746:

I’ve got a question.
Have you ever considered spending supplies on defensive upgrades?

• Your door guards have better shields now, which grant them +50% hp and +500toughness.
• Your door guards are invulnerable for a first 5s of combat (while in combat; 90s cd).
• Your guards can throw a chain and pull enemies to themselves (60s cd).
• Build baricade on the road, which will slow down enemy NPCs (like in silverwastes).
• Place mines in front of the doors that will deal X dmg to the enemy who will step in them (enough to one shot a door breaker).
• Shiny armor! Enemy door breakers in range of 600 will follow you until the effect won’t end (duration: 20s). Be careful though if they manage to catch you, you will instantly die and lose you supply.

Every upgrade could be bought once.

Just asking, because I’m the guy who usually stay at a defensive line… it’s mostly boring. You kill npcs until you won’t die in 5 vs you battle.

Nothing that empowers the NPCs is a good idea. This is PvP, not PvE. Though I could be ok with some kind of traps or something, though I’d rather not.

Very exciting changes!
Let’s see how it does!

Can we talk about Guarded Initiation and how it should go back to Resistance but now with a 80% hp threshold and a 10secs cooldown? Please. I’ll be monitoring this thread.

I love how now a Berserker Thief has waaay lower HP (11k), less defense methods and STILL does less damage than any other class on Berserker. It’s like a bad joke.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Don’t know if it’s a bug, but Shadow’s Embrace now has a limited selection of conditions it can clear, whereas before it didn’t. This is displayed in the tooltip, but it’s still annoying that I can’t remove Fear by clicking Blinding Powder anymore. If it’s an intentional change, learning the rationale behind it might be nice, as thieves don’t really have a lot of condition removal options!

The condition clearing we have are so lame and they still keep pushing us and giving us a run for our money. I don’t even…

• 1. Signet of accurary: Barely worth the passive and only clear conditions if you are kissing your allies.
• 2. Shadow step: Removes conditions on the second jump. Which means that if you were standing into 4 Necro Wells and you jumped out, you have to JUMP BACK IN again to remove the conditions, which will effectively infect you again.
• 3. Infiltrator’s Strike: One condition cleared for 5 initiative. Shall I say more?
• 4. Shadow’s Embrace: THE ONLY WORTHY ONE. And now they’ve limited the conditions it clears and the initial proc.
• 5. Guarded Initiation: Guys, come on. Really? One of weakness, slow or vulnerability while over 90% hp…? Just come on…
• 6. I know there is a 6th one that nobody uses because traps.

I don’t know whats happening in those offices but something is not right. I feel like the Thief community is not being heard at all.

One reply to say it all.
Thanks evilapprentice.6379.

babazhook.6805:

Hold on a moment. That last line says “one condition removed”. Is this in addition to the three listed or just one of the three?

I am going to test.

EDIT Never mind it worse than i thought.

Haha, no m8. They can’t remove SLOW, VULNERABILITY and WEAKNESS all a once from the Teef! That would be game breaking m8. Just one for you.

Dand.8231:

Tarkan.5609:

+100 toughness? on thief? hell yeah, still better than kittening guarded initiation

T raw.4658:

I would take Thick Skin over it due to the fact the 1st hit you receive has an extra 100 toughness to contend with…..where as Guarded Intention just fails from the beginning.

Try again

No need to try again, mathematically, thick skin is FAR FAR worse.

Damage = Weapon * power * skill coefficient / targets armor

Exo greatsword has a Weapon value of 1047. Assume a Warrior with 2000 power, and using Warrior Greatsword AutoAttack with a coeff of 0.7 is smacking the P/P/F Thief who somehow haxxed himself Thick Skin.

No Thick Skin = (1047 * 2000 * 0.7) / 1955 = 749 damage
180 Tgh Thick Skin = (1047 * 2000 * 0.7) / 2135 = 687 damage

Thick skin is on between 10905 and 9814 health. The warrior smacks you once. You take 687 and save yourself from 62 damage, down to 10218 health. Second hit, another 687, with 62 prevented, and down to 9531, so thick skin deactivates. You saved a grand total of 124 health, which is worth about 12 vitality, or roughly 1% of your total health pool, and Thick Skin was activate for roughly the first 1 to 1.5 seconds of the fight.

Compared to resistance for 5 seconds, which makes you immune to the effects of condi? Guarded Initiation is like a dream come true. Wanna trade?

Oh wow, those are some heavy numbers that’s for sure a good contender haha.
But GI just makes you invulnerable to slow, weakness and vulnerability while above 90% hp. So yeah…I’d still take Thick Skin.

Oxygen.5918:

Last Refuge

15

Good try, but no. LR will save your life with a more or less 50% chance. GI won’t do anything most of the time and even when it procs it just plain useless.

• 90% of a now regularly 12k hp thief is 10,800 hp, which is literally one hit from any class.
• Even if you manage a sneak attack against someone that will inflict condis on you. Trust me it will not be weakness, slow or vulnerability. Heck, who even cares for those conditions that much to trait against them?
• It doesn’t make sense to choose a trait that covers you from harmless conditions when your health bar is full.

They have to take this trait back to resistance. The following iterations would be ok:

• When striking a foe while your health over 80%, gain 5secs of resistance. 10 seconds cooldown.

This trait is meant to give thieves an upper hand when sneak attacking. That’s what it should do.

Even when we were getting Resistance it was a so-so trait given such a small usage window and cooldown. The actual implementation of it is just plan hilarious.

Lauren Kamieniecki.6245:

Nirim.6789:

Yay! new build!
-seems to be fixed, thanks!

Go forth, be stealthy, and stab.

I’m pleased. You can go home now.

Lauren Kamieniecki.6245:

Well the fix looks pretty good so far, and we’re on track soooooooo…

“supa soon” is all I am going to say here. If it fails last minute please don’t poison my coffee… I need it for life ._.

Kittens are safe. For now…

Good afternoon guys.

I’m forming a squad for doing kitten things to kittens in case they’re planning on revealing us even when we don’t engage. If you’d like to participate, PM me.

Kittens will suffer if you do this Grouch, YOU HEAR ME!

I had a pretty funny one the other day.

It happens that the guy casted Shadow Refugee with very little HP left, so I proceed to cleave with my dagger around in order to finish him up. So I move a couple steps forward and BANG! My fire sigil procs. I know I have downed him on the spot. So I continue to cleave riight there. After a few seconds I know he shadowstepped away using his downed skill, so I continue to move around and oh geez, my sigil procs again. I don’t know if ya’ll have noticed, but when fire sigil procs on a invisible enemy, it still leaves a charred floor effect, effectibly pointing at the location of the enemy. I now know exactly where he is, so I stand my ground and kill him. A few seconds later the stealth finally wears off and there he lays dead. He then goes like:

-“That was bullkitten. I will let it pass this time you exploiter kitten, but next time I’m going to report you”.

To what I quickly replay: “I’ll talk to you later”. Because somebody else was coming to the point.
He then proceeds to call me hacker on map chat.

After the match, I PM the guy: “Hey, it was just my fire sigil haha, etc, etc”.
- “Shut up hacker. Reported.” – and blocks me.

I was like, oh, ok.

I agree that the Defiance Bar will be a must for this class. It looks fun and strong. Imagine Wells + that melee power.

But they have to be carefull with the bar. More than 2 shots for interrupts is a no-no. Although, depending on QQ they might make it 3 just to balance it later on.

Sorel.4870:

That’s debatable. Having a bleed on AA already qualifies pistol mh as a condi weapon (just compare it to the engineer’s pistol AA). And don’t forget the stealth opener, which is our best condi skill.

SB #2 is an hybrid attack, since it deals more power damage than condi (it’s still useful in some weird condi builds like condi SD). SB 4 applies poison, which deals minor damage and is useful only to reduce the incoming heals and to cover other conditions, maybe. I don’t remember SB #3 dealing any king of damaging condition. It cripples, but that does not make it a condition skill.

Yeah, sorry, my bad. SB 3 isn’t really usefull in condi builds. Typo on my end.
Going with your example, you can’t really compare engi’s pistols with Thief’s pistol in terms of conditions. Every skill on an engi’s pistol is condition based whilst only the AA on thief’s is.
But it the way it may, at the end of the day, we’re still lacking a condition build worthy of entering meta. That’s what I wanted to achieve with my proposal: To diversify the Thief’s role of roamer, give an option besides “Stealth Thief” through conditions and to maybe inspire a dev that could randomly read my thread.

Sorel.4870:

I really like your idea of an Assaulter, with the mines and everything. However, I think the rifle (if we get it) will be a power-based weapon. We already have a ranged condi weapon (pistol), while SB is more of an hybrid/utility weapon.

Its hard to call the Pistol a ranged condi weapon since skill 1 is the only one inflicting a damaging condition. 2, 4 and 5 would be more control-oriented and do not benefit from condition damage. If you pair it with the dagger in off-hand, you get something going on, but not ranged since you must in real close melee range to inflict torment. P/P is a very hybrid set, 1 condi, 2, 4, 5 control, 3 burst. Not something you could really use in a condition build either.

The only weapon that is condition oriented right now is SB, where 2,3 and 4 actually damage your opponents with conditions.

YuiRS.8129:

I like the idea of a sticky-mine based weapon. Imagine placing a dozen of those on the map, each inflicting long cripple and such, messing with the enemy roamers and softening people up before a team fight. A good Thief would have to not only manage his decaps and team presence, but also make sure the trails remain trapped. It needs an Infiltrator Arrow-type move, though.

I was refering more about body-mines than floor ones. You could only attach these to players. I think the Rifle should be a defensive/condition weapon cause we already have a lot of power based weapons. Something that allows you to tank a little more by sacrificing movility and stealth. This will introduce more tanky builds and let the Thief finally escape the “roamer” role.

Basically, forme Rifle would idealy have: Blind, knockback, resisistance, area conditions.

Just a wild guess but I think the role we will be fulfilling is Ranged Conditions. So, the blog post would go like this: (haha)

“We are proud to present the newest Guild Wars 2 Especialization: The Assaulter!

Carrying his Rifle around the battlefield, The Assaulter will pressure enemies from a medium distance with a rain of condition and unpaired resilence. Using a combination of venomous shots and strikes, once an Assaulter has you, he’s not letting go.

Brand new class mechanic: Assault!
The F1 steal has been replaced with the Assault skill. Once you assault an enemy, you will shadowstep to him and then back to your original position. But before you leave, they better check their pockets for a little gift. Body Mines are the newest form of havoc spreading the Assaulter is bringing. Once an enemy is assaulted, a mine will be left at his back, visiby ticking off for 3 seconds before exploding. Once it does, the mine will inflict the enemy with a variable set of conditions depeding on what the Assaulter has previously determined with his F2 and F3 skills: Mine Charge and Mine Set-up.

F2 skill Mine Charge!
Mine Charge will work as follows: Everytime you use it, it will deplentish all of you Initiative Points and charge your Assault, making it stronger the most IP you had. So if you used it with a 10 IP, you will inflict a bigger number of condition stacks.

F3 skill Mine Set-up!
This ability is now your brand new F3 skill. It will cost 2 IP and will allow you to stack the conditions your Assault skill will inflict. It has a 3 seconds cooldown and takes up to 4 stacks, going as follows:
1st stack: Confusion
2nd stack:. Bleed and vulnerability
3rd stack:. Poison and criple
4th stack: Torment and Burn

This makes the Assaulter a force to be reckoned with if given the time to prepare. So you better watch your steps, because you might get Assaulted!

See you in game."

Just a wild guess but I think the role we will be fullfilling is Ranged Conditions. So, the blog post go like this haha:

“We are proud to present the newest Guild Wars 2 Especialization: The Assaulter!

Carrying his Rifle around the battlefield, The Assaulter will pressure enemies from a medium distance with a rain of condition and unpaired resilence. Using a combination of venomous shots and strikes, once an Assaulter has you, he’s not letting go.

Brand new class mechanic: Assault!
The F1 steal has been replaced with the Assault skill. Once you assault an enemy, you will shadowstep to him and then back to your original position. But before you leave, they better check their pockets for a little gift. Body Mines are the newest form of havoc spreading the Assaulters are bringing. Once an enemy is assaulted, a mine will be left at his back, ticking off for 3 seconds before exploding. Once it does, the mine will inflict the enemy with a variable set of conditions depeding on what the Assaulter has previously determined with his F2 and F3 skills: Mine Charge and Mine Set-up.

F2 skill Mine Charge!
will work as follows: Everytime you use it, it will deplentish all of you Initiative and charge your Assault, making it stronger the most IP you had. So if you used it with 10 IPs, you will inflict a bigger number of condition stacks!

F3 skill Mine Set-up!
This ability is now your brand new F3 skill. It will cost 2 IP and will allow you to stack the conditions your Assault skill will inflict. It has a 3 seconds cooldown and takes up to 4 stacks, going as follows:

1. Confusion
2. Bleed and vulnerability
3. Poison and criple
4. Torment and Burn

This makes the Assaulter a force to be reckoned with if given the time to prepare. Watch your steps, because you might get Assaulted!
See you in game."

• Delayed Reactions – Interrupting a foe slows them. (3s of Slow)

Consider 2s instead for the sanity of other players.

Also, why are the class mechanics Minor Traits?
Maybe these slots could be used for normal traits while the new classes mechanics are explained elsewhere.

Its like having a minor trait to Steal as a Thief…

Come to think about it, its very unlikely they will change the name. Consider the following:

1. The armor and weapons designed for this character are Dragon themed.
2. There’s probably a ton of text to change that could of been potentially ready to ship.
3. There might be another things like cutscenes, events, skills or dialogue that include this name as well and were ready to ship, meaning they’d have to re-check all of it.

Basically, it’s not just changing the tittle on the blog post, but this might represent greater changes and quite a few man hours. So abandon the ship guys, this won’t float.

Rising Dusk.2408:

This one’s easy, even within the theme they were going for. Seeker.

This one sounds alright. Also The Vigilant.

In my opinion, following the trend of superb and elaborate words Anet has been known to use for their things, most of which I never heard before like: Revenant, Alacrity, etc. (I admit I’m not a native English speaker, but I consider myself fluid), this particular name seems a bit off, perhaps, too simplistic. Maybe it is not that bad, but it sure sounds a bit edgy, which is a delicate issue when it comes to fantasy.

Again, just my opinion.

Kageseigi.2150:

(Replace)
Essence of Shadow:
Reveal decreases duration as health decreases.
< 75% health: Reveal lasts 2 seconds
< 50% health: Reveal lasts 1 second
< 25% health: Reveal is immediate with no duration

Really liked this.
But I would lower it more, so its 2 seconds at 50% and 1 second at 25%.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Not a bug, this is certainly intended.

Look at it from the other side (the enemy player that used the channeled skill), he just used a ranged skill that has a cooldown and that thief over there can stealth every few seconds. And most importantly, since he is ranged, most of his skills REQUIRE A TARGET. What would you expect him to do if stealth would break channeled skills? Stand around and dodge once in a while? While most people run ranged/melee, there are builds that require target on all their weapons’ autoattacks.

If stealth broke channeled skills, rangers wouldn’t kill another thief ever.

However, I personally do find it annoying that the skill shows my (changing) position. If the skill animation would stop in the location where I stealth up, but I’d continue taking the dmg, that would be fair.

I specifically mentioned interrumpting the skill would be unfair. However, I do understand your point. We’ll see how it turns out with the -50% dmg on stealth.

Still, I think it is pretty annoying. Remember we do not have access to any other form of defense, we got stealth and that’s it. We have to time it and have it available. Other classes have Invulnerability, Block, Retaleation and Protection. All of those lasting for several seconds and being accessible pretty easily. Homming proyectiles nullify our only defense making it, in simple words, useless. That is just a no-no.

Pretty good suggestions.

I’d rather have a set % amount of cooldown cut from equipped utilities on Improvisation than fully recharging a random one. Also, considering the rework they said they’ll do on the bundles, using them twice might turn to be a good/bad idea.

The merging of SP and HD sounds good for a GM.
And of course, the ToC buff on might stacks is something we’ve all been waiting for some time.

On another note, I also liked the Shadowstep on Hard to Catch, but seems like some people didn’t. I’m ok with that either way.

3 out of 5.
No more halfways.

Quinci.5968:

This is one of the most annoying things about playing a thief in WvW. It’s especially frustrating because it is completely unnatural behavior. The first time you see it happen you have to assume it’s a bug.

I think that both balance wise and thematically the skill should continue to channel at the location the thief went stealth, as that is the last known location of the thief from the attacker’s perspective. Alternatively it could just break the channel altogether, perhaps putting the skill broken on a lowered CD.

It surely looks like a bug. I was testing this with my friend and he couldn’t believe it worked. “No wonder why I always nail them” – He said.

Interrumpting the skill would be too drastical, because even when the Thief went away it could still hit people left behind, specially with the piercing trait rangers have.

But ultimately, if you move out of the way it should not chase you. This also happens with turrets. If the proyectile is midair: you are screwed. It will chase you even at 360 degrees.

Bret.6940:

i understand your pain for the rapidfire in stealth but looking at what traits we get in shadowarts now you get the -50% damage reduction in stealth so while i agree the heatseeking is bs at least we get the trait.

This would mitigate the problem, but not really bring a solution to it. What if the proyectiles also inflict conditions? You are still getting them no matter what.

godz raiden.2631:

I agree with you, MakubeC. It’s particularly annoying in certain situations, such as in WvW, when you just had a fight and some pesky ranger comes out of the woodwork and just presses 2 on you. You’ve got one dodge left (maybe) and your heal still has 15 seconds left on its cooldown. There’s no real way to survive that outside of using shadow refuge if you still have and managing to maybe res yourself while you’re in stealth, but that’s all assuming the ranger is a moron who can’t find you while you’re downed. Of course, lots of assumptions made in that example just now, but I think the point is made.

To my knowledge, there haven’t been any Dev comments, at least not recently, in regard this matter. In my observational experience on this forum, the game Devs have stayed pretty far away from the thief forum anyway, so I doubt you’ll find any meaningful posts from them here.

Maybe if we could attrack some people into this issue we could use the spotlight effect to lure a dev in and maybe bring some clarification into this matter. But people tend to read without commenting.

godz raiden.2631:

Channeling skills in this game follow you in stealth for the sake of game balance, although I personally find it to be lazy design. For classes where stealth is a secondary form of defense, it doesn’t matter too much (Mesmers, Rangers, and Engis all have ways to block or go invulnerable). For Thief, where stealth and evasion are your primary forms of defense (depending on your build) the damage from channeled skills is almost impossible to negate. Especially from skills like Rapid Fire, or a fair number of Necro skills. For example, to negate the damage from Rapid Fire alone, a Thief generally needs to dodge twice in a row, or Shadow Step outside of the range of Rapid Fire (another trick is to Shadow Step behind the ranger, which cancels Rapid Fire altogether).

There are ways to deal with channeled skills at a Thief, it just feels a bit absurd at times, especially in WvW where a group of Rangers targeting one Thief can pretty much just all press their 2 keys and track the thief even after he uses Hide in Shadows, all while doing insane amounts of damage at 2k range. It would be nice to see a change to how channeled skills interact with stealth, but there would be far too much complaining from players who main classes like Ranger and Necro, so I don’t think we’ll ever see a good change in this case.

IMO nobody should expect to hit you with a 100% rate while you are invisible. Having homming proyectiles nullifies the use of stealth against ranged enemies, making it useful only for melee combat.

Balance-wide, I think it is pretty negative for the Thief.

Are there any Dev comments on this matter? I’ll try to find some.

I think that too. It’s pretty frustating at least for me, because my instintual response when I see them (arrows in this case) flying towards me is to stealth. Only to see myself still get wrecked.
Stealth should make you lose all targetings.

The other day I noticed entering in stealth does not makes you avoid channeled skills.

For example:
A Ranger uses Rapid Fire, but midways into their channel, you go into stealth and move away. In this scenario, the arrows will still chase after you even when the Ranger is unable to target you.

This makes stealth lose some of its appeal as a defensive skill.
Any thoughts? Do you think this is for balance or a bug?
Is it fair?

Just make it ignore Revealed.
Fixed.

oEnvy.3064:

I really don’t know what you’re talking about. 60606 thief is going to be godmode.

And if I don’t want to play 60606? :/

I’m not very happy about these changes. It’s not that they are bad as a whole, but that compared to some of the other traits other classes got, they seem incredible simple and lackluster. Like if they ran out of imagination for the Thief iteration.

1. Don’t stop looks good, but why just not make it work without the swiftness?
2. The Ricochet + Invigorating precision combo is gone.
4. Improvisation being a GM now is a joke.
5. Guarded Initiation is our only access to Resistance and we’re supposed to get with it with full HP. I don’t even…
6. Flanking and Side Strikes did not get merged.
7. Rangers get “Strider’s Defense” and"Most Dangerous Game", etc, etc.
8. Warriors get Rending Strikes while we are stuck with Sundering Strikes and also get the break immobilize with “Warrior’s sprint”.

What is the Thief exceeding at now? It sure isn’t single target damage, could arguably be mobility, can’t clean conditions or resist that much outside of the Godly sent “Resilience of Shadows” and isn’t even the faster attacker.

And then we have a whole set of “Is that all?” traits like:

1. Serpent’s touch
2. Pressure striking
3. Keen observer
4. Bewildering Ambush
5. Last refugee still doesn’t work if you are Revealed.

I’ve played Thief only since pre-release, and I admit I’m not the best player ever, but with pain in my heart, I think I’ll just move on this time. Time to use that Engi I got to lvl 80 through KTs.

1. We’ve seen many good tweaks in the layout of this map, but how will this new map address the coverage issue?
2. Can you tell us the specifics about the changes to PPT if any?
3. Will this map be playable during the upcoming beta?
4. Off topic: I have played Gw2 daily since pre-release, how come I didn’t get a beta invitation? </3

Get it together, I’d like to participate.

Just here to say I liked the old Dailys best.
After this update went live I’ve done less than 10 dailies and I play almost every day.
The new ones are boring, annoying (looking at you daily profession win) and plain weird, like the Ascalon Vista.

The motto behind dailies was “You should be able to complete your dailies by just playing the game your own way”. This is not the actual case.

Also, the people in Dark Souls did a VERY nice shield design competition.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/363032419935726557/

Stolen designs is definetely not an issue for calling off a competition of this kind.

cosmatman.9306:

MakubeC.3026:

I’m still waiting for more people to get behind this. Too many views, too few replies.

User created content is nice and all, but i’m guessing that the devs are afraid of stolen designs. With player created storyline/quest content it might be a little harder to spot if your Asura is playing out the story to 50 Shades of Grey. But with a 3d model its a little harder to disguise. Star Trek Online had a contest a while back where players could suggest ship models and the winner would get picked. But there ended up being a controversy in that one or some of the designs were stolen ( i cant remember if it was the winning design though). If you are interested in it do a google search for “Star Trek Online Odyssey fiasco”.

A couple things come to play with this:

1. Stolen ideas will always surface. And I don’t really like the idea of stolen, but to “resemble” something existing. For example a weapon that looks like a Xenoblade is not totally bad. As long as its just a resemblance or a kind of tribute. In the case of total copycat, the community would notice and the winner just gets invalidated, no big deal.

2. The choosing of a winner involves a lot of things. One of them is that the weapon has to be “thematic” with the GW’s world, which makes it less prompt to plagiarism, but also the judges would have to do a minimal research, at least google image it.

In the end, plagiarism is an issue in any kind of competition, but that’s no reason not to make them.

I’m still waiting for more people to get behind this. Too many views, too few replies.

Please bring this awesome contest back.

For those of you who don’t know:
The Design a Weapon Contest was a special contest held in the original Guild Wars where players were asked to design concept art for weapons that would later be included in game.
(http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Design-a-Weapon_%282007%29)

/signed.

15 Charrs.

Loved it!
These changes make me a happy human being. Thanks for your hard work.
Now we are only missing a native “Combat Mode”, or a “/click” as suggested earlier on this thread and we are all good with camera options.