Guild Wars 2

Mrbig.8019:

EoNxBoNx.9213:

hooma.9642:

evilapprentice.6379:

hooma.9642:

EoNxBoNx.9213:

I love these threads, these are the kinds of threads that really show some players don’t know why S/D has so many dodges, or does SO MUCH DAMAGE.

Fun Fact: ( I hate repeating myself) 30 into acrobatics gives a lot dodges!

Fun Fact: 30 into Critical Strikes gives a lot of damage!

Joking aside, but its almost like no one knows that this has nothing to do with sword dagger at all. I could play…anything literally any weapon set and have the same results with x/30/x/30/x really now. Back in October I would say you could S/P and have the same amount disengage, same damage, only little less evades, but for blinds, interrupt, and a stun. S/P is actually decent now with the small buff it was given.

Leaving these here for the people that don’t know what they are:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/First_Strikes

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feline_Grace

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fluid_Strikes

Also Lyssa runes do need to be changed, but not only because how good they are on thieves.

-snip-

Your comparisons are mostly pointless, when they’re not hyperbolic or loosely defined. You compare Thief to Ranger evade skills, but strangely forget to mention Ranger’s better base HP, access to immunity skills, and strong access to protection and Regeneration- all things that should be taken into consideration when we’re comparing defensive skills. Let’s not also forget that you’re comparing damage coefficients on the one class in the game that has a dedicated pet, and therefore sees lower damage coefficients on it’s skills

Fun “Facts” 1 through 8 don’t seem to serve a purpose for your argument – they’re just basic information we’re all already aware of. 9, while technically true, is misleading – AA and FS-LS Spam do nearly the same amount of damage – I believe FS-LS spam might do ~12% more damage than AA over the same time period (Without cripple or weakness while costing initiative, mind you). I pointed out my issue with 10 in the previous paragraph. Points 11-15 just seem like disjointed thoughts.

This long rant just seems like alot of “I Hate S/D thieves because they’re annoying to fight” rather than an argument based on merit.

basic information 1-8 and esp 9? well i suggest reread the complete thread.

i wasnt comparing the evadesskills of ranger, i was telling the skillcoeffs. nothing more. what i had compared was the shortbow 3 with flankings strike. same evade time, same cost but different dmg coeffs. 11-15 disjoints? well maybe u should watch some highlevel play of s/d and s/p to see the difference and whats make s/d so strong.

I did not want to reply to your unintelligent rambling, but I thought I would just like correct you here bud.

Flanking Strike evade frame: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Strike_

Disabling Shot evade frame:http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Disabling_Shot_

It’s also weird how Disabling shot costs 1 more initiative than Flanking Strike too isn’t, it?Yeah it is. Anyways as you were.

it’s sad that people complain about S/D instead of complaining about disabling shot spam.

Ultimate invulnerability, but hey, S/D DEALS DAMAGE, PL0X NERF.

By ultimate invulnerabilty you mean dumping all of your initiative for 2.25 seconds of evasion, right?

Zero Day.2594:

Ha! two balance patches since …. and:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Pvp-Thief-S-D-thief-is-still-too-strong
:D !

Yeah….this is what I was thinking too. It doesn’t matter that it’s a 4 month old thread with a few big nerfs in between because it’s still being complained about.

Edit: It’s probably weak because S/P is being called OP in the same thread… I guess they’re increasing build diversity by nerfing decent specs to (slightly) UP.

Zero Day.2594:

Aberrant.6749:

RyuDragnier.9476:

I AM a thief in WvW, I know the positionings well. I work in a way to where I’m only getting frontstabbed. But since it’s always by GC thieves, the damage is always pretty heavy. It’s annoying however to see them stealth again in 3 seconds to do it again, and for the process to repeat around 10 times a minute. That’s just levels of BS annoying that isn’t fun. At least Warriors can’t spam Killshot or Eviscerate that much.

You’re getting killed by frontstabs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT49R7Ffxzg

:| kitten , frontstabs… i bet that’s going to be the next OP thing on the list…

Man that 1.2 multiplier is huge! I betcha no other skills in the game have that high of a multiplier!

Soooooooo… Did thief literally get forgotten then edited in after?

Otaur.9268:

DeceiverX.8361:

If the problem lies in pistol offhand permastealth and blind, why is the OP asking for a stab damage nerf?

Stab isn’t even the biggest nuke skill in the game lol.

As a D/D ele and a D/D backstab thief player, I can assure you this is l2p. While I openly admit D/D ele is not exactly in the best place at the moment mostly due to conflicting concept design on ANet’s part, backstab is NOT the problem, seeing as Eviscerate, Headshot, and even a longbow ranger playing properly hit for better burst.

And as an ele, the amount of AOE you have, on top of mist form, should be able to effectively counterplay anything the thief throws at you.

My point wasn’t the damage itself, but the frequency it can be applied. Put Elementalist Fire Grab on a 4 second cooldown and see how many people complain…

Eviscerate is a much better comparison. It has a 2.5 and 3.0 multiplier for level 2 & 3. For reference, backstab has a 2.4 multiplier from behind and a 1.2 from the front. Eviscerate can be traited down to a 7.75 second CD. Both the thief and the warrior are physical melee with only 10 weapon skills (+F1). Straight comparisons don’t always work between classes such as the ele and thief because the ele has more variety band as such, longer CDs.

Tldr: eviscerate is a better comparison because it is (slightly) less frequent but has higher damage.

This is relevant:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvX-Thief-Last-Refuge/page/2#post3539117

Cynz.9437:

everyone and their mother runs sword in pvp atm, doubt any buffs will happen lol

D/D + SB all the way! (least likely to get nerfed)

What: S/D and S/P (?!!!)

Why: These builds have too much evasion. Weapon skill evasion should also cost endurance. Thief still to mobile. Too much damage. Too much burst.

Original Thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Pvp-Thief-S-D-thief-is-still-too-strong/first#post3561428

Dee Jay.2460:

Yeah, this is a big factor really limiting build diversity.

You can’t survive in WvW without condition removal and the only viable removal we have is in stealth. Fleet Foot really needs to remove any condition type of condition when we dodge (only one, obviously).

With no ICD also. Without an ICD it would only burst remove 3 conditions unless combined with SoA, which would make the utility part of SoA awesome (but still weaker than the warrior’s signet clear).

style.6173:

Maugetarr.6823:

…..wait…. thief sword #2 needs another nerf? It can already be cc’d now.

It’s more of a gameplay mechanism. No teleport, but the ability to cripple opponents AND pass one condition back to whoever you hit with the sword. A lot of thieves have been looking for additional ways to clear conditions, and this one give them one, plus damage the opponent at the same time.

Imagine a necro hitting you with 8 stacks of bleeds. Sword 2, and those bleeds are now back on the necro. In a group fight, the sword hits multiple opponents. Imagine dropping those 8 bleed stacks on 3 enemies all at once

But then sword loses it’s gap closer and it already has condi clear on the return. This would push D/P further into a superior position with a gap closer, poison for reduction of healing, and burst. Furthermore additional sources of cripple aren’t really needed. This would give S/D in particular 3 different sources of cripple, but no burst and no real mobility (just the ability to hinder others’ movement).

Additional condi removal needs to be added in an active form in the acro line so that both the defensive lines have equal, unique removal mechanics. Redundancies within the same weapon set don’t need to be added while removing the mobility that keeps S/X on par with D/X (since D/X has both mobility and burst)

style.6173:

You missed the most broken part. There needs to be new grandmaster traits in deadly arts. Do you know anyone who runs 30 points in DA except for maybe the 3 people who think the extra venom strike is actually worth it?

Roll residual venoms into venomshare so we don’t have to dump 60 points into 2 traitlines for effective support build.

Some traps either need to be made semi permanent (i.e. needle trap and trip wire need to work like wards which would be a nice boost to group utility) or turned into hexes/marks (not like the necro kind)/promises which are black border effects that either trigger on rollover skill use or when a condition is met (like target becomes knocked down on dodge roll in the case of tripwire). It would be an interesting change to traps in their current condition.

As for traits, dagger training might be outclassed by sundering strikes at this point, and power shots needs to increase range of both pistols and bow before it becomes a hard decision between that and IV, V, and VI.

Utility skills need a rework as well before more of them become as useful as deception utilities.

Auesis.7301:

Maugetarr.6823:

Infiltrators strike/return needs the shadowstep removed from it. Still too strong/unfun.

Original thread:https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvP-Nerfs-needed-on-every-class/first#post3558359

I just want to ask…what does the skill become then? Do we ice-skate back to our original position? o_O

Per the suggestion from the author:

“Thief:
1. Sword 2. It is just not fun to fight against. Remove the teleport aspect and instead add in a cripple and a transfer of one condition to whoever you hit on your next attack.”

I don’t mind the condi transfer idea, but does S/D need 3 cripples and no gap closers?

Infiltrators strike/return needs the shadowstep removed from it. Still too strong/unfun.

Original thread:https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvP-Nerfs-needed-on-every-class/first#post3558359

…..wait…. thief sword #2 needs another nerf? It can already be cc’d now.

If ShadowRefuge feels too safe to you, don’t use it. Also, you can cut out the 5 points for shadows rejuvenation and put it in Acro for feline grace.

D/D with shadowstep, blinding powder, and assassins signet on a 0/30/25/15/0 plays much more dangerously than 0/30/30/10/0 with shadow refuge on your bar.

Totalkill.8014:

Thanks for the quick replies but I am a dd/sp player that is hit and run burst.

Shatter mesmer as someone else mentioned. Don’t count out D/D or Axe/Focus power necro also.

Play S/P so you can get accused of using permastealth too!

D/D power/backstab doesn’t get me too many complaints though anymore because people know they didn’t dodge the CnD. I’m also not heavy burst though so people have time to react and know that they lost to a thief only handing out anywhere from 3-6k backstabs (in spvp).

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Maugetarr.6823:

Necros might need their health adjusted down with their skills adjusted up so that they play/sustain more like guards with continuous healing (or more dangerous siphoning… 2k over 3+ seconds on the dagger? The equivalent of 1 power based auto attack). In this way they could truly be attrition based.

Interesting idea but that would be a HUGE nerf to the class Mechanic. Seeing as how you need as much health as you can to make the most of it. Unless they go the (for example) Life Force = 150% Of Health or something similar.

They would also need to make it so that Siphons are built into ALL weapons and that the siphons in the traits are removed and replaced with something else. Making a Class have lower health but higher siphons is VERY bad when only 1 weapon actually has a siphon and you are forced into traits to get anything out of them. Or this would be a HUGE nerf not only to DeathShroud but ANYONE that doesn’t take the Siphon traits which would make them weaker as a result as they would need to take 15-20 trait points from somewhere…

That’s why in the other one I said life force generation may need a boost. If you look st the way guards play, they start with a lower health pool, but they jump up very quickly once they start getting behind. It takes coordinated effort or a well timed interrupt to take a good one down. From the perspective of killing a fair number of necros, once once they start their downward trend, they keep going thst way till they win/die/push their attacker off. As a % of their health pool, their heal isn’t great either. You are right about deathshroud though, numerically it needs to remain at least the same, meaning the % of the health pool would need to be increased. The siphon traits and LF generating skills/traits would need a boost.

Currently necros start high and get weaker the longer a fight lasts (unless it’s really long). An interesting change would be for them to start low and bounce above and below that starting point while gathering momentum.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Zero Day.2594:

;) I like how you swapped Ele and mesmer’s tiers… Not even going to touch on other mentioned classes as I don’t want to start a kitten storm… (but feel free to add a thief nerf to the nerf wish list in my signature! We get at least one nerf request each week!)

Ugh at the very end of my post I said
“And they can keep that… just that they now have to balance it out via traits… while trying to make every class not feel the same as another…
Yeah it’s hard… It’s also amusing to watch…”
See, the discussion was/is originally about base health (kitten everything else)… but now we’re getting into who has better passive regen, who has better “defense” (whatever that word means… armor? skills? boons? play skill?)…
Essentially you can really leave the tiers how they are now and balance it out via traits/skills….
(I guess the core issue is the balance in general… stemming from the need to balance traits/skills because of different health/armor pools)

:| Actually, personally I would promote buffing the lower health pools to 14/16/18 (someone already mentioned this combo)…. I wouldn’t consider touching anything outside of that (like nerf something down because of the increase in health)…

well to be fair, i am pretty sure all classes would see a buff except Necro and Warrior, so all the classes didnt really need their health buffed (Thief, Guardian) mostly would need to adjusts as i think they are fine the way they are – increase Thief to much and it will become just to powerful, same with Mesmer but reduce it to much and it would be a terrible nerf.

Mesmer does NOT need to be top tier when it comes to Health. See as how they have Invul, Stealth, Illusions, Burst, Conditions they would become the new warrior – except no insane Passive Healing or insane mobility.

The ONLY classes i think need adjustments are actually Mesmer(Down), Warrior(Down) and Ele(Up) i think the rest are roughly fine the lower health ones have either high survivability or stealth Necro i feel is fine as it has no other defense bar a crappy 7second protection on 60second cool down.

Necros might need their health adjusted down with their skills adjusted up so that they play/sustain more like guards with continuous healing (or more dangerous siphoning… 2k over 3+ seconds on the dagger? The equivalent of 1 power based auto attack). In this way they could truly be attrition based.

Viking Jorun.5413:

One thing I’m really big on to boost the effectiveness of my boon duration in solo/small group roaming is blast and projectile finishers through shortbow. While I don’t have direct access to stealth, if I really find a need for a breather, I can get at least 3 seconds if not more through one or more blast finishers in my black powder field. The Engie’s stolen Throw Gunk is amazing when combined with blast finishers to maintain Chaos Armor up to 50% of the fight which gives protection, retal, aegis, and can really mess up your opponent. Ranger water field is great because of its constant regen and condition removal, and with a few blast finishers to keep you healed and some projectiles through it for more regen, it can win you a 1v5 when facing a group with a ranger. I feel that most thieves don’t even think as far as combos, but when running a build like mine it’s important to know everything there is to know about the class and utilize those combos to their fullest.

This is why I always hate the suggestion of removing the leap finisher from HS to change D/P’s combo. Our finishers are the one place we really shine. I love throw gunk for the personal chaos armor on D/D as well. If potent poison increased weakness duration as well, we’d actually start having some really awesome group support.

If they lowered the necro pool, they could boost siphoning and other skills (such as un-nerfing weakening shroud) so that if a necro was good enough to survive an initial burst, they become extremely dangerous in a protracted fight. Life force generation on condition weapons (scepter) would have to be boosted. Right now the peak of a necro threat is in the beginning of a battle, so of they could adjust that to a lower start and an even or increasing level of danger, that would be nice.

Modified yours to be closer to mine. Slightly lower power and crit damage, but higher might gain. Blind on stealth is great against both physical and condi damage since it negates the stupid channeled attack hitting thing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlUmKOHcy9E/5Ey2DfqC5JeGOVS1f4qA-jkCBYfERjUgSjUBBJ5RZN7RQsMsIas6aYKXER1WzERzG0oSBExyI-w

Aside: @ Jorun: Condimancers aren’t the biggest problem right now (imo), it’s the condi engineers with access to more conditions than necros plus better (or simply more) utilities such as stuns, pushes, pulls, immobilize, AoE blind, AoE chill, plus invulns, stealth, and blocks. Additionally, they have dhuumfire as a master level trait. Maybe they won’t have all of this on a single build, but they can have a large amount.

Compared to fighting a half decent engi, dhuumfire necros feel extremely balanced to me.

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

Hey,

I’ve been playing a Ranger for a bit in PvP and have noticed that often a Thief targets and hunts me down, ignoring everyone and everything else.

Is there a particular reason for this or just bad luck?

Most rangers tend to not block/dodge. A lot of rangers tend not to strafe or kite either, making backstab a relatively easy setup with having the AoE pressure to push me off (such as a necro or bomb engi has). Occasionally I’ll run up against one that I can not touch, but those are very few and far between.

Travlane.5948:

Dee Jay.2460:

We will have to wait to see the full extent of the upcoming changes before we break out into a QQ fest. Apparently Thieves can expect a range of QoL improvements (fix for Last Refuge).

Until then we better zip it.

quite the contrary. we should talk and express our opinions and desires as they usually switch many things or tweek last minute due to unrest or outcries of the masses. its very common and even said so in one of their livestreams.

Like it changed their decisions on the last patch? If I recall correctly, the only things they changed their minds on after the preview was vigorous recovery (cause a straight up 50% nerf was huge, so they changed that to a 35%+ nerf) and not moving flanking strikes up a tier (because there was literally nothing good to switch it with except maybe bountiful theft). Our input and arguments were largely ignored and the final patch notes resembled the preview almost verbatim.

frans.8092:

Maugetarr.6823:

frans.8092:

It’s interesting to see all the attention go to the nerf it represents for D/P, yet little thought is going to the rather overpowering effect this has on P/P. While this set needs some love, the ranged stealth brings Sneak Attack into play for P/P. With the proper setup Sneak Attack and Unload combined can hit similar numbers as a CnD/Backstabs combo, but ranged. Get two of these off ….

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

That’s the point though. There is still counterplay with dodging the BPS, and if you fail to dodge that you can mitigate about 80% of the following sneak attack both revealing the thief and cutting the damage. The point is though that there is more play and synergy for P/P rather than the 3 spam that currently exists. Sneak attack only has a multiplier of 1.2 which is equivalent to a frontstab or necrotic bite (necro dagger auto attack chain 3). It really wouldn’t be any more powerful than CnD considering the telegraph and flight time.

C&D is very well telegraphed and Backstab and C&D can be dodged and kited and blinded and blocked and …
Adding in the condition damage Sneak Attack comes pretty close to Backstab (as back stab), even on Berserker gear and Unload matches it. Though you can still boost Backstab more then Unload and Sneak Attack.

A ranged stealth on P/P is going to make it very strong, if not OP.

But the BPS channel would be at least as dodgeable, blindable, blockable, and reflectable on top of that. The other difference with sneak attack versus backstab is that backstab delivers it’s damage in one hit whereas you can partially dodge sneak attack’s channel, often taking only 2 to 3 hits of the 5. Also, if not specced into condi damage, the bleed damage from sneak attack is only about 1200 damage including the 25% duration boost from the DA line while the physical damage is literally half that of backstab. Don’t get me wrong, it will buff P/P, but only to a point (imo) where it has utility and damage which put it in contention with the utility of SB.

Just to reiterate the main point though: the part of BPS that would stealth you would be at least as easy to counter as CnD.

TChalla.7146:

Necromancers and their debacle with Dhuumfire are all nodding in agreement over this.

I was thinking that this was sort of a cool idea until people mentioned that it might end up with the flanking strike treatment as well.

As for the necro thing and also looking at the changes to vigor and S/X #2 last time….. It seems like they balance in a vacuum rather than verses the other professions.

Viking Jorun.5413:

My E–peen is bigger thank both of you, Interceptor and Ninja.

/sarcasm

Seriously. This thread is so derailed by people flexing their E–peens and arguing over trivial facts that somebody’s got to put it right back on.

The answer, OP, is that it doesn’t matter worth a kitten what your toughness/vitality are, as long as you’re happy with your survivability, damage output, and sustain. It’s personal preference, so just go with what feels right with your build.

All of this, including the first half.

@OP as well. Start out with higher defense and keep dialing it back until you’re comfortable with where you are. I’ve had at least 4 different armors with different stats before I settled where I am now. A couple of them still sit in the bank in case certain things get adjusted (re:nerfed) and changes need to be made. It can’t hurt to have extra.

I would rather see flashing blades added as a grandmaster trait in the acro line. Something like when you successfully evade an attack it deals a certain amount of damage back to the target in the 130 range and blinds the attacker in the 240ish range.

OP? No more so than retaliation especially since it would only trigger on evade. The blind would also prevent excessive amounts of damage as the next attack would miss rather than being evaded. Plus it’s close combat range only for the damage.

frans.8092:

It’s interesting to see all the attention go to the nerf it represents for D/P, yet little thought is going to the rather overpowering effect this has on P/P. While this set needs some love, the ranged stealth brings Sneak Attack into play for P/P. With the proper setup Sneak Attack and Unload combined can hit similar numbers as a CnD/Backstabs combo, but ranged. Get two of these off ….

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

That’s the point though. There is still counterplay with dodging the BPS, and if you fail to dodge that you can mitigate about 80% of the following sneak attack both revealing the thief and cutting the damage. The point is though that there is more play and synergy for P/P rather than the 3 spam that currently exists. Sneak attack only has a multiplier of 1.2 which is equivalent to a frontstab or necrotic bite (necro dagger auto attack chain 3). It really wouldn’t be any more powerful than CnD considering the telegraph and flight time.

evilapprentice.6379:

Maugetarr.6823:

Josh Davis.6015:

Last Refuge is something we’ve been talking about quite a bit internally, and we certainly don’t like the way it can occasionally unintentionally punish players.

We’d like to keep the minor traits in Shadow Arts thematically the same (stealth based) rather than simply providing boons or something similar. Keep that in mind when you’re suggestions changes for Last Refuge.

Thanks for the feedback!

Alternatively, could you guys make the trigger interrupt the current thief action(maybe just attacks if possible so it doesn’t interrupt a heal and put that on a cooldown longer than the last refuge duration)? This might not help with ranged weapons when you include the flight time, but it would help with close combat which is where the danger is.

Not a big fan of the idea of the game making a decision that LR triggering properly is more important than my attack going through. True, it will save you from using CnD when LR is triggering, but what if I was using an attack that was going to drop my opponent? The automatic trait shouldn’t be overriding player input. Look above for my suggestion regarding “Cloak” instead of “Stealth” (Like mesmer’s Desperate Decoy)

That would also be acceptable. As long as it ends when you deal damage, but doesn’t trigger any stealth traits, rollover attacks, or revealed when dealing damage when it ends, that seems like a good solution. Maybe it could be abused if people pay very close attention, like if they used it to hide heartseeker when it triggered or something similar, but really all it would be doing is giving you some breathing room which was the original intent of the trait.

Josh Davis.6015:

Last Refuge is something we’ve been talking about quite a bit internally, and we certainly don’t like the way it can occasionally unintentionally punish players.

We’d like to keep the minor traits in Shadow Arts thematically the same (stealth based) rather than simply providing boons or something similar. Keep that in mind when you’re suggestions changes for Last Refuge.

Thanks for the feedback!

I didn’t read through all of the posts so someone might have already suggested this, but you could have it drop a smoke field which wouldn’t get the thief revealed when it procs mid CnD. In this way, if he is mid CnD, it just blinds the opponent and he gains stealth from his attack, or if he is not attacking, he could then heartseeker through the field to gain stealth, thus increasing active play and the skill cap.

Alternatively, could you guys make the trigger interrupt the current thief action(maybe just attacks if possible so it doesn’t interrupt a heal and put that on a cooldown longer than the last refuge duration)? This might not help with ranged weapons when you include the flight time, but it would help with close combat which is where the danger is.

Thanks for your time. So happy to see a red post on this skill finally.

@ Cynz: I have to agree with you that black powder+HS right now is not OP, the problem is that it is complained about now, and it will most likely be nerfed in the future because of that. This would be a change that would increase counterplay to BPS.

Overall changes:
No stealth stacking
Duration increased by SA
Overall easier to counter by dodging/reflecting
Overall cost decreased so a second attempt can be made
Lifesteal on projectile finishers
Blind on leap finishers
Lifesteal on whirl finishers (I’m looking at you warrior axe and Daggerstorm)
Blast finishers grant AoE blind (very helpful in ZvZ/GvG)
P/P gets more interesting play than 3333333 (5>1>(2)>3 or just 5>3 if BPS misses)
S/P gets access to stealth also (new builds available on both P/P and S/P)
D/P stealth can’t be messed up by allies’ fields

Things that stay the same:
AoE blind field
D/P still has access to stealth

Also, to those worried about how this would be against AI professions (necro, ranger, mes,+any others I forgot): I don’t see how this would be more effective than the current form of BPS. Right now no target is required. This would just require the BPS shot to hit an AI rather than not hit an AI….

Interceptor.2653:

I have about ~15,000-16,000 health and ~2400 Armor at any given moment, depending on various bonuses and whether or not I am using Practiced Tolerance (which, as mentioned above, is very good). The majority of my bonus health comes from 30 Acrobatics. Toughness comes from full Knight’s Armor and a couple defensive trinkets.

This is for WvW.

I also aim for those numbers. Any more and I feel like I lose the power to push people off of me. All my trinkets are zerk and H/C/L of my armor are PTV while the rest are zerk. Zerk weapons as well (D/D + SB). The rest of my toughness/vitality come from being 0/30/25/15/0 with practiced tolerance thrown in there too.

Interceptor.2653:

^ Even one stack of Vulnerability from Sundering Strikes is worthwhile to your group, as has been mentioned several times in this thread. Surely D/D can maintain this.

Yes, but the OP was wondering if it was worth taking his thief over his engi for this trait. So I guess the discussion should come back to bomb/nade engi (25+ in explosives) vs. SS thief. That talk needs to factor in overall contribution to the group though.

Edit: Just to clarify it’s 6 second base duration with a 50% chance on crit on up to 3 targets vs a 5 second base duration on hit on up to 5 targets.

It looks like if you were going to bring your thief no matter what, SS would be the trait to bring.

Well, I don’t think I’ve ever been kicked after a dungeon started, but most of the time I run with a group of friends/guildies, and we run pretty far off meta. When I do pug, I usually have run [insert dungeon] a fair amount and can walk through people who have never done it. If you’re really having trouble, make the group and people who don’t mind thieves in groups will join you.

Also, last night I played tPvP for the first time in a while and we won 2/3 games that we played. We had a bunker/condi necro + power/modified ammo engi on back, and a power necro + hambo war on mid with me roaming in between. I was a 0/30/25/15/0 D/D backstab build. I would recommend finding a really good, inclusive guild and doing content with them.

Tl;Dr: Groups will make judgements based on bad thieves they’ve had before. Run with friends so they know what you’re capable of.

Burning Arrows.8276:

I have seen what he is talking about and he killed two warriors in the process.
It is not uncommon to see a thief that can staff invisible as long has he wants in WvW and be able to kill anyone in the group he picks out. For example, today I had my Warrior, Toughness= 2100 Amor=3100+ Health=22000+ struck the thief with my hammer he stood there dazed for two or three seconds with my hammer smashing in his face and he walks away and kills me and the guy that was with me…

Can someone say how that happened?
Oh yea the other guy was a guardian

If you and the other guy couldn’t burst the thief down in that time period, you have too much survivability without enough power/precision/crit damage. If you’re part of a team and your only job is to control, you need to make sure your teammates are ready to burst in that timeframe.

NinjaEd.3946:

Blackhat.4016:

A proof that a mediocre warrior > a mediocre thief… Man, I really needed a video to know that.

But seriously, every single player knows that warriors are too strong right now and the upcoming “nerfs” won’t change anything. Beating a thief as an engi should be pretty easy as well (too much condition spam), ranger could be interesting.

Would be nice to see you playing an ele after that.

But wait, theres more! We have “good things in store”. Expect dancing dagger to cripple for 4 seconds and ambush thief to get a 10% bonus to their health pool.

That’s a 33% buff to the cripple duration! That’s pretty massive!

Kadin.2356:

naphack.9346:

The only thing left is to bring down condition damage

That’s my only real complaint. If they want to slow down combat then ok, but they need to make sure to treat everyone equally instead of just putting a bulls-eye on power builds.

Another thing I just realized is that sustain is getting a pseudo-buff as it will be more important in longer fights.

Yeah… those bunkers that weren’t speccing crit damage are being indirectly buffed (unless that crit damage nerf is coming from the 50% base) since power builds are going to be missing about 10% of their damage.

The only reason the nerf doesn’t bother me is that it’s across the board. Maybe we’ll even get a base damage increase since our cap is being brought down. Wishful thinking, I know, but they mentioned that and more mobility 6-7 months ago and maybe have just been trying to figure out how to implement it without making our damage outrageous since then.

Karolis.4261:

snacktime.1082:

Replacing a crit damage with a variable stat makes sense. It actually gives them the ability to tweak how it works over time, or in different situations (pve vs wvw). It makes min/maxers go mad because it’s more work to figure out exactly what it’s doing, but it makes sense from a balancing perspective.

Replacing crit damage on gear with variable stat does make sense. However choosing Ferocity – Crit damage conversion ratio that will decrease current cit damage numbers does not. If you want to tweak down critical damage in pve w/o shafting it in www u add crit damage ressistance to mobs.

Or they couldn’t have simply increased mob armor instead of always increasing their health pool when they scale them. All of a sudden condis can burn through the high armor, small health pool as fast or faster than direct damage.

Zero Day.2594:

Maugetarr.6823:

One thing I took away is that we will be better at evasion than the heavy additional defensive boon classes. Feline grace was not as good kitten (10 in the case of eles) Traits and will now be better than those easily accessible traits. I wish they didn’t nerf the other classes, butvat least they’re getting consistent in their balance choices.

Somehow I’m doubtful about them improving our evasion… Considering there was already a QQ about SB’s evade … If we get buffed in that area that should bring in even more QQ’s…

I wasn’t saying that they are improving ours, but rather ours won’t be outclassed by others’ 5 point minor traits because those are getting knocked down to base 50% uptime. A small moment of schadenfreude….

One thing I took away is that we will be better at evasion than the heavy additional defensive boon classes. Feline grace was not as good kitten (10 in the case of eles) Traits and will now be better than those easily accessible traits. I wish they didn’t nerf the other classes, butvat least they’re getting consistent in their balance choices.

@AikijinX

The claim usually is though that average thieves are impossible to kill; they’re a no risk/skill class. Here he shows an average skill warrior taking down average skill thieves. (No insult intended toward the warrior or thieves shown in the video)

Geiir.7603:

Maugetarr
That’s the best idea I’ve seen in a long time! It could actually work too. It would add way more counter play and it would be a nice buff to S/P and P/P.

If this gets enough attention I’ll add it in the OP and see what people think. So far I looks like 2 is the most hated, and after reading the discussions here I can see why it won’t work, so I’ll scratch that from the list ^^

Thank you. If the discussion keeps going, maybe we should put the edited list in the profession balance subforum (and alao include a link to this original discussion). It seems like that forum gets more traffic (or at least comments) from the devs.

TheGuy.3568:

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’m awaiting Burnfall and Sanduskel’s responses to this. Haha.

Picture #1: The waiting

Picture #2: after I read the comments

You sir, are a fortune teller.

Burnfall.9573:

nice video OP; you played well.

One thing though, the only 2 class who find thief easy to kill are thieves and warriors.

That’s all i have to say.

He said next vids are of a ranger and engi though.

Dahkeus.8243:

I think that’s your long, drawn out way of saying that “I don’t think that SS is a DPS gain in any situation.”

Vuln is a 1% damage boost against a target for each stack. Step into the Mists and even in PvP gear where you’re only getting about 75%ish crit max (zerker gear, combo crit chance, side strike, etc.), you can keep up around 7 stacks of vuln and can hit upwards of 20 if you burn through ini on Pistol Whip. In PvE, you can hit 100% crit rate when you consider PvE gear’s difference along with getting the 20% crit from fury….but I’m playing a conservative estimate to please you.

Let’s assume you have a group where each person does 6,000 DPS. Not a perfect group by any standards since many classes/builds can hit 10,000 DPS, but I’m playing a conservative estimate to please you.

Over 30 seconds, these 5 people will deal 900,000 damage. Assuming you’re just keeping up a steady 7 stacks, that’s a 63,000 damage boost to your group over 30 seconds.

On the other hand, you could take Mug, which will deal maybe 2k damage on a 30.5 sec cooldown.

Groups damage improved by 63,000 vs 2,000 personal damage gain every 30 seconds.

So yea, I think it’s worth it.

This is what I would consider a valid argument for taking it (if the group couldn’t hit max stacks without you). My original thoughts were that it was not worth bringing the thief for this trait if the OP had to option of bringing his engi which can stack it better. AoE bombs & nades vs. Cleaving PW.

Sanduskel.1850:

L2p /15 characters.

I don’t understand this comment. He did L2P, thats the entire point of this. Heat seeking, channeled, and AoE skills still hit the thief in stealth which he showed. I mean, come on… a demo video for how to effectively engage, fight, and kill thieves using a class besides a thief from a thief main. So now when come here we can just refer them to a training video on how to kill thieves.

Your comment makes me think you read the title and didn’t watch the video.

@TheGuy and Karolis

I don’t think I have explained my idea clearly. What I want to do is not remove the field produced by BPS, but change it to a dark filed. This way, instead of gaining stealth when you leap through it, you get blindness, projectile finishers get lifesteal, and whirl finishers get leeching bolts. This would essentially make BPS into a small well of darkness (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Darkness) that lasts 1 second shorter. What would trigger the stealth is the BPS projectile succesfully connecting with the opponent like ranger’s Hunter’s Shot (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hunter%27s_Shot). Because it has to successfully connect, this would mean that X/P could have their stealth counterplayed like dodging CnD. It would not nerf S/P, but actually give it access to stealth. This would also give P/P a slight boost since it would have access to stealth, thus sneak attack, and it could shoot through the dark field it just laid down to get lifesteal shots. Again, the skill that gives stealth to X/P would be blockable/dodgeable/reflectable instead of having to interrupt the leap through the smoke field on D/P the way it currently is.

@Karolis
Yest, this might make P/P the new P/D, but keep in mind it wouldn’t have access to torment, and using BPS at range may be safer, but the recognizeable animation (smokey projectile, dropping of a field) would make it more easily counterplayable at range, meaning that you still have to get relatively close. You’re right though, it would be a boost to P/P which needs a boost in some way. Instead of just 333333, you could use BPS then either 1 (sneak attack) or if they dodge, unload through the field and have 8X20% chance of projectile finishers. It would give you a reason to use more of the skills on P/P. It would also give both S/P and P/P access to the SA line increasing build diversity.

Edit: The whole idea of this is to increase counterplay and make it so that you would have to land the shot on a target similar to landing a CnD properly. You could no longer start to run, fire BPS, and leap through it 3 or 4 times and then continue to run.

Dahkeus.8243:

Stealth doesn’t need to be “fixed”.

I agree with you, but there are still people saying that thief is uncounterable because of stealth. Most of those complaints stem from D/P stacking because if you tell people that all you have to do is dodge CnD for X/D thieves people can’t really counter argue since their first point is that thief should only have access to long CD stealth (utility stealth). The argument then comes down to their inability to dodge a key attack.

We keep talking about this though because it seems that eventually everything that gets complained about on the thief does get nerfed.

I like the idea of changing BPS to a dark field and having the projectile hit cause stealth. You can then argue that people can dodge the key attack (same as with X/D) and it buffs S/P and P/P. With P/P especially, you get a bunch of possible life leeching attacks making up for its lack of evasion frames and mobility. All the counterplay that it would require is someone dodging the BPS, which is recognizable with its black shot and field creation. Since lifeleech recently was made to scale slightly better with power, It would be a real asset.

This would allow for the utility “Smokescreen” to remain untouched since the devs said they are fine with long stealth using utilities. It would also allow HS to keep its leap finisher for use with smokescreen.