Guild Wars 2

This is a pretty decent list, I thought I would add onto it:
CS Line: Most complete imo. If someone has some issues they’d like to point out that would be great.

SA Line: Good but has a few issues. The master tier traits really aren’t very good compared to the adept traits.
SA I, IV, V, VI, XI: All good. SA I is pretty good, but for PvP it gets pushed out for one of the others, but can seriously help a PuG out when needed in a dungeon
SA II: Why would I take this over SA IV? It’s not removing conditions, it won’t nullify more than a couple stacks of bleed, and it only triggers on one condition.
SA III: Situationally ok I guess? Other classes can give regen much more easily that can stack with other regen. Not too much of a reason to take it.

SA VII: I use SB mainly for it’s utility in a non glass build. If I’m traiting 20 into SA I’m most likely going to pick up 2 of the adept traits to increase survivability. 5% more damage on SB isn’t worth it.

SA VIII: Again, situationally useful, but the times I’ve had it equipped it hurt more than it helped because it messes with normal combos.

SA IX: Great if I’m venom share.

SA X : Why would I take this over SA V? If I have such bad initiative management that I need both it’s probably not going to help me survive.

SA XII: Venomshare. It is what it is.

SA 5: Gets me killed more than it saves me. Turn it into SA V, put SA V in the SA 15 position (so it’s comparable to opportunist) and move the current SA 15 to SA 5.

SA 15: Not bad, but not particularly worth a 15 point slot. The first thing you’d think they would teach a thief when training them in Shadow Arts is how to stealth longer.

SA 25: Pretty good.

Requiem.8769:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Maugetarr.6823:

I’ll just leave these here:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swap
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat

Yep. I love how mesmers get stun breaks on their weapons but thieves are “overpowered” when we have it on one, because it’s spamable by design. Solution: up the initiative cost.

Phase retreat is not a stun break. It’s a teleport that can be used while stunned.
Swap is a stun-break. To be used, i-leap must have already been used, and within the past 5 seconds. It is occasionally useful, but it must be planned beforehand, and can be easily countered by simply not stunning for those 5s. It is typically better for juking than stun breaking.

Phase retreat and swap work how they said they no longer want infiltrators return to work was the main point of the comment.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Maugetarr.6823:

I’ll just leave these here:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swap
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat

Yep. I love how mesmers get stun breaks on their weapons but thieves are “overpowered” when we have it on one, because it’s spamable by design. Solution: up the initiative cost.

Or reduce the range of the return to be on par with these. Their CD’s are traitable to 7.25 and 6 seconds respectively (relatively spammable).

capmasterflash.5690:

I would never leave thief. I would love it if d/p thieves went extinct though.

The problem with that is as soon as a certain spec is nerfed not the end of it. Eventually your build will end up on the chopping block when everyone moves to it because it’s one of the few viable builds left. All of a sudden it becomes the OP FOTM build and gets nerfed during the next balance update.

I’ll just leave these here:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swap
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat

Zacchary.6183:

Nema Tode.5637:

Zacchary.6183:

Sanduskel.1850:

style.6173:

Sanduskel.1850:

They haven’t ruined the game. they’ve balanced it so that all players can enjoy it. Most thieves still enjoy their thief and will continue to enjoy playing it long after the December 10th patch. As anet said, the init change is a massive buff. You should trust them.

I sometimes wonder if you even play a thief since you don’t make sense most of the time. Initiative change is a buff for certain very specific builds. It is not a massive buff for all as you say.

Anet said it was a MASSIVE buff.

And you are foolish to believe them.

Assuming the infusion of shadow changes don’t fall under the subject of the initiative changes, then unless you use one of the few initiative supplements (such as signets of power) then this SHOULD be a pretty good buff. Anet has said they don’t want people relying on these supplements anyways: “The default rate of initiative regeneration was simply to low and was causing players to either take traits to suppliment it…This is something that has to change. What these changes intend to do is to increase the power of every single thief build that is not running these traits”

If you look at the big picture, it’s a nerf. About 60% of the traits that thieves have are situational if not a waste of a trait slot because most of the traits that are worth the slot increase initiative in some way.

Something anet DOES NOT understand is that half the time a thief chooses a trait it’s because there is nothing better to slot. Another thing that they do not understand is that when thieves run out of initiative their chance of dying skyrockets because most of a thief’s survival comes from the spamming of blinds, stealth and evades.

Initiative is what allows a thief to use skills. These skills provide damage a/o evades, blinds and stealth. No initiative means no access to those skills ergo no evades, blinds and stealth. No evades, blinds and stealth = no survivability.

Initiative is everything to a thief. If anet touches initiative it affects the entire profession, not just a few builds, and everyone would know this if they would have stopped kittening and played the profession.

For this (the bolded) reason I don’t think there will be a reason to go more than 15 into acrobatics anymore. It’s not like they’re giving us a choice between multiple awesome traits and forcing a hard decision, they’re just nerfing the only reason I went 20 into that line instead of 15. Speaking of being held hostage by a 15 point trait (how they described opportunist) is how I see feline grace. No that doesn’t mean nerf it, but move it down a tier where the other classes who have access to perma-vigor have it as a 5 (10 in the case of ele) point trait. In a class based around dodging, you’d think some sort of endurance training would be the first thing on the list at thief bootcamp.

Momekic.8603:

You have gotten some good suggestions in this thread.

I would have to say the high toughness, and high number of condition applier builds are pretty much OP at the moment, which includes some Engi builds.

Since this thread starts with “How do I beat…” I was wondering if I could throw in my own request/question out there.

I consider myself a pretty good thief as well, but have come into a snag when fighting certain Mesmer builds. Mainly the high toughness, high condition applier builds (like this one https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-The-Blackwater-Mesmer-Condition-WvW/page/7#post3248822).

Does anyone have any advice for fighting and beating a Mesmer that uses this build or something similar? (using any weapon set but P/D).

I have dueled against that build (or close to it) against 1 person in wvw using D/D and won 2/4 fights against him. The key (w/ D/D) was to try to CnD him a couple of times without a backstab thrown in then transition to burst when he got low. I had both blind and remove conditions in stealth and that kept the confusion at bay. You can CnD off the clones too since a lot of the current builds don’t like to shatter them, but you miss out on the 4k hit to him. The trick I’ve found lately when fighting as a thief is to not get yourself revealed (against good players) until you think you can finish them off in that time period.

D/P seems superior in terms of defense, but it gives people longer windows and takes more initiative to kill people. It also doesn’t put quite as much pressure on you opponent. D/D also won’t be feeling the nerfbat this round (depending on your build/playstyle).

Well, our guild only has a few thief mains (including me) but lately they see far less play then our alts and probably less so after the patch. the thief still has strong single target damage a decent mobility but there are others that have much better group utility while maintaining decent burst. Mesmer will still retain phase retreat on staff which is traitable to a 6 second CD and swap (mes sword mh #3 rollover) will most likely retain its hidden stunbreak (traitable to about 7 seconds). I’m not complaining that mesmer is op here, I’m just saying that our abilities should stay comparable to the other class that also uses denial magic.

Oghier.7419:

And never underestimate shortbow in a power/crit build. It’s not just for tagging, blasting fields and mobility. It’s a heck of a weapon in its own right. One of the primary downsides to a condition build is you’re not as good with this little gem

Don’t forget the area weakness it can provide with both lotus poison and poison field+CB.

Interceptor.2653:

Jrunyon.3012:

We will all enjoy being demolished by warriors in the coming patch. It’s what Anet always wanted for us.

Uhh OK, have fun with that. The rest of us are just going to put a stun-breaker on our Utility bar.

Some of us already carried a stunbreak and a sudo-stunbreak, but already also dropped S/D when they nerfed the utility that it brought instead of the damage. In most situations D/X is going to be more useful now.

DeceiverX.8361:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

pawned.2359:

personally idc what u do to thief i will figure a way to kill people with it i have played other classes they seem to slow/easy thief is only one that tickles my gizzard when i out play someone ……….

^ this

Zacchary.6183:

If the thief profession is to truly be a thief, it should have plenty of access to everything via theft.

Stealing life, boons, endurance, certain attacks, switching out conditions with boons should all be part of the thief’s attacks while they have nothing to produce for themselves. They should be able to improvise with what they steal to at least create some sort of synergy for themselves. And for a thief to be able to hold all of the kitten it’ll be stealing, the thief will need deep pockets (meaning open up F2, F3 and F4 for stolen items).

The thief SHOULD NOT just be another rouge class whose only redeeming quality is ambush and going transparent all the time.

The ability to store multiple stolen skills would definitely add to thief gameplay. It’s something I wish we already had, everytime I have to waste stolen skill to free up my steal.

They simply shouldn’t be on the same button and should be queued for F2.
Steal remains on F1, and F2 allows the use of the last three stolen abilities from newest to oldest. Steal more than three times and the oldest gets kicked out of the queue.

Put an ICD on stolen skill use equal to that of steal’s such that you don’t have people stealing warriors and stacking whirl and then just spamming triple whirl.

So steal becomes a much more usable mechanic rather than just a gap-closer.

What? You mean holding onto useful skills as you pick them up and holding them for the appropriate time to use them strategically? And not having to blow them just so you can use it for a gap closer? And being able to see your cooldown timer on steal all the time? Nah. /sarcasm

I’d be all for no global icd on those, but if you end up with 2 of the same skill it just drops one of them (so you can only hold one of any one skill at any time).

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Imagi.4561:

I don’t know about anyone else, but I look up at the stars at night and wonder, why are we here? What is our purpose?

In all seriousness, what is the role of Thieves? “Jack of all trades” belongs to the Engineer; “highest damage output” is far easier done by other classes, like LH Eles and Warriors; “group utility” is served by Eles, Mesmers, and spirit Rangers. It’s a fun class and I enjoy it, but I feel largely ineffective in group dynamics.

It would be disingenuous of me to say the class is completely useless, or to ever claim that I intend to delete my Thief. But I’m not really sure if our status in the current game reflects what the class was meant to be.

I think the Thief has been failing to meet expectations since it’s institution in the game. It’s certainly failed many of mine.

Thief is classified as an Adventurer compare to Warrior and Guardian who are classified as Soldiers.

So what does an Adventurer do exactly?

Adventuring is daring the unknown and discovering new things. That’s why Engineer loves their tools and inventions; and Rangers loves their pets. Adventuring is also taking risk for a great reward and that’s why Thieves steals.

Typically when Thieves are caught, they face punishment and in some culture they are not only hit by a nerf bat, they also faced with a dismemberment — an act of making sure that the Thief will never steal again.

So how does that reflect the Thief in GW2?

Thieves in GW2 are risk takers. Players who plays Thief takes the risk of getting hit by a nerf bat because they are playing the profession really well — and Anet plays the barbaric culture of dismembering the Thief so that whenever we steal, we get cut into pieces because Anet wants to dismembered us from our ability to regain endurance.

So the Thieves in Tyria started to sign-up for military duty to become Soldiers and many have joined the ranks of Warriors and Guardians.

In Tyria, stealing and necromancy are dishonorable professions, thus they get hit with the bat more often that the “goody-two-shoes” professions.

Sanduskel.1850:

VladR.9827:

dunno why all cry about so called “nerf” – in few cases it is a boost – i am leveling 3rd thief atm to get him geared after the “nerf patch” … let the haters hate .. i think only true thieves will stay playing

Agreed. Those who rely on permastealth may leave, but that was an abuse of the mechanics anyway. Much of this patch is a buff.

Much of this patch is also a nerf to non D/P sets.

Zero Day.2594:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84aIX8UPklI

2nd one only up until 1:07

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOL6XQU7Iv4

(Before I get hated on, both bands are decent, I used to listen to metal (not much anymore, tastes change)…)

Well this is the slipknot song that came to my mind:

\m/

A lulz-y build. Give it a whirl.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlYmiOXcS4E/5Ey2jdqC5JdG00L1fgrA-jEyAYOBRKCARIiJyioxW4KiGraBTvSEV7TKiWNA-w

Don’t forget to add the stacks of sigil of perception in.

This one though at above 90% health an fron the sides/back should have 100% crit chance and 91% at all other times. It also invests points more into toughness and gives you might on dodge and stealth (which you’ll need with the low power):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlYmiOXcS4E/5Ey2jdqC5JeGOVS1f4qA-j0BBoiCiEBRkKAIRqIasFOFRjVtET/iIqGA-w

GLHF

Zacchary.6183:

Sanduskel.1850:

lol. ok have fun then!

I am. That’s the reason.

Opening up the slot for a mesmer?

Hype.8032:

If you thought thieves were in a bad spot before, they’re worse today. That’s all I can really say.

^^^ whether thieves are in a good spot right now is subjective. What is objective is that since you left some things were buffed then nerfed down below where they were before while others were just nerfed or are about to be nerfed. In the case of sword 2, it’s about to be nerfed for the 3rd time. It was arguable that its original iteration was too powerful, but objectively it has been made less useful twice and will be again on the 10th.

This patch just pushes me more towards SA. AR might be good to pick up at the end of Acrobatics if there were condi clear along the way. For good condi clear though, you still need to go into SA, then you’d have to go 30 points into acro to pick up a trait that forces you to burn initiative instead of waiting patiently in stealth for the right time to strike while gaining health. It’s not like they are forcing us to choose between two awesome traits this patch, they are giving me a reason to never go more than 15 into acro.

D/P blind and auto attack. I usually try to save my intiative for #3 as backstab will barely put a dent in their health. It’s better just to keep up constant poison with auto attack and poison field if you have to switch to SB.

Einlanzer.1627:

Vital Shot is a mixed damage skill, and given the role it should be playing, both its physical and condition damage are weaker than they should be.

I know there was a lot more to this post, byt I just wanted to point out (as someone else has) that vital shot is as mixed damage as necros’ scepter auto. Vital shot has a 0.4 multiplier on it while the first 2 hits of scepter auto have a 0.35 multiplier on them and a 0.5 multiplier on the last hit + poison making it an arguably better weapon for power due to the -33% healing aspect of it. You just don’t see necros using it as a power weapon though because its potential for condition is far greater than its potential for power. At best vital shot is a hybrid weapon skill but hybrid builds aren’t even sub-optimal in this game, they are sub par.

How about 8 seconds to bring it in line with partially traited mesmer staff.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Maugetarr.6823:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

I think I’m probably the only person in the game who’s actually happy with the P/P weaponset. My damage is good, initiative is manageable and sustainable without being forced to trait into it (even moreso with the upcoming patch), and my weaknesses can easily be coverable by utility choice and proper play.

In a perfect world, I could go for a bit more attack speed on the auto-attack. Maybe give Unload a passive generosity effect to keep up with the condi meta since thief cleanse options are complete garbage unless you’ve got a sword or Shadow’s Embrace. Even still, it would be a fine line between a simple buff and downright OP.

After you being able to kill people using fireworks, is P/P really fine or are you carrying the set with your gameplay? To clarify what I mean, you killed people without using weapons (here is not the place to discuss perplexity though) so virtually any attack would be a vast improvement over no weapons.

I’d like to think that player ability SHOULD carry a weaponset, not the other way around.

As it stands, P/P has good damage, a daze, an immobilize, and a fantastic blind/smoke field. The downside to all that flexibility is that you have to make decisions and sacrifices on the fly to get the most out of the set and can be easily punished if you make a mistake or countered if you fall into predictable patterns. In my opinion, that’s balanced. In fact, it might just be one of the ONLY balanced weaponsets in the entire game, but that’s a separate argument completely. :P

I feel that if a player like me can get by fine using the set, any buff that brings it more inline with the easier-to-use kits will just make it ridiculously powerful in the hands of the truly good players.

Well I guess that’s sort of the problem then when compared with the rest of the sets in the game. I guess it’s where you consider the baseline to be. Either P/P is subpar or everthing else is over the baseline. In either case something needs to be adjusted.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

I think I’m probably the only person in the game who’s actually happy with the P/P weaponset. My damage is good, initiative is manageable and sustainable without being forced to trait into it (even moreso with the upcoming patch), and my weaknesses can easily be coverable by utility choice and proper play.

In a perfect world, I could go for a bit more attack speed on the auto-attack. Maybe give Unload a passive generosity effect to keep up with the condi meta since thief cleanse options are complete garbage unless you’ve got a sword or Shadow’s Embrace. Even still, it would be a fine line between a simple buff and downright OP.

After you being able to kill people using fireworks, is P/P really fine or are you carrying the set with your gameplay? To clarify what I mean, you killed people without using weapons (here is not the place to discuss perplexity though) so virtually any attack would be a vast improvement over no weapons.

Incurafy.6329:

Maugetarr.6823:

evilapprentice.6379:

I don’t see why the dev’s don’t sit down and do some math.

I’m sure there exists a way to tune the Direct damage Vital shot does so that
- In a power crit setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Vital shot itself, but it does slightly less than comparable skills, which is made up for by the low damage bleed you get (low damage because you’re power/crit focused, not condition focused)
- In a condition setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Bleeding, but the ability doesn’t do the kitten poor damage it does now.

Then you do the same thing with unload – by having it apply torment, bleed, burning, whatever.

Viola – you’ve solved the bulk of P/P’s problems (it still has very poor defense options for a thief weaponset, but one problem at a time), and turned P/P into a versatile weaponset – something that works well for Power/crit setups, for condition setups, and hell, even for hybrid setups!

Make the auto attack faster with the same damage. Put vulnerability on the auto attack instead of bleeding (up to 8 stacks naturally). Lengthen the bleeds on sneak attack (p/p ain’t using it). Put poison on pistol 2 to make up for some of the lost bleeds and knock down regen. Decrease the number of shots by 2 on unload and increase the damage of the remaining ones accordingly to maintain the same damage but make it burstier.

Results (hopefully):
Decent direct damage that doesn’t require initiative and increases over time.
Vuln application for team play.
A method to knock down regen on tanks
Burst damage separated by the need to maintain vuln stacks.
Same condition damage + 1 more damaging condition
Vuln stacks set up for close combat burst.
Less susceptible to retal

Meanwhile, you would kill the already pitiful damage of P/D by almost completely removing it’s main source of damage (bleed application on VS).

Which is why you extend the bleeds on sneak attack and add poison to the set. You end up with bleeds that can be extended even longer, 1 more damaging condition, and a more constantly applied cover condition. I don’t think most p/d builds trait 15 into DA, but if you did, you’d also have weakness application on 2. Partially the idea is to be able to keep up poison without using a venom which will be cleared 5 seconds after you apply it so heavy regen classes go down rather than walking away from you. Anyway, re-read the original one because it tried to maintain the original condition damage while increasing the variety of conditions and hopefully benefiting hybrid/direct damage builds. P/D 3 should honestly either apply more stacks of torment or longer stacks of torment to help bring it up, but that discussion fell outside the purview of a P/P discussion.

evilapprentice.6379:

I don’t see why the dev’s don’t sit down and do some math.

I’m sure there exists a way to tune the Direct damage Vital shot does so that
- In a power crit setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Vital shot itself, but it does slightly less than comparable skills, which is made up for by the low damage bleed you get (low damage because you’re power/crit focused, not condition focused)
- In a condition setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Bleeding, but the ability doesn’t do the kitten poor damage it does now.

Then you do the same thing with unload – by having it apply torment, bleed, burning, whatever.

Viola – you’ve solved the bulk of P/P’s problems (it still has very poor defense options for a thief weaponset, but one problem at a time), and turned P/P into a versatile weaponset – something that works well for Power/crit setups, for condition setups, and hell, even for hybrid setups!

Make the auto attack faster with the same damage. Put vulnerability on the auto attack instead of bleeding (up to 8 stacks naturally). Lengthen the bleeds on sneak attack (p/p ain’t using it). Put poison on pistol 2 to make up for some of the lost bleeds and knock down regen. Decrease the number of shots by 2 on unload and increase the damage of the remaining ones accordingly to maintain the same damage but make it burstier.

Results (hopefully):
Decent direct damage that doesn’t require initiative and increases over time.
Vuln application for team play.
A method to knock down regen on tanks
Burst damage separated by the need to maintain vuln stacks.
Same condition damage + 1 more damaging condition
Vuln stacks set up for close combat burst.
Less susceptible to retal

Can we just make HtC a 5 seconds of vigor on crit every 5 seconds? The increased ability to actively dodge a stun versus the passive proc that it is seems much more appealing. Also I wouldn’t feel pigeonholed into taking withdraw for an evasive build to try to keep up vigor by blowing my heal every 15 seconds. Furthermore I might ve able to take HiS in an evasive build as an additional cleanse.

Additionally, as a major point, that would match the traits that 2 other classes have kitten point minor traits and 1 has in a 10 point major. Those other 3 classes have ample access to protection and regen as well as acess to aegis and an alright number of blinds. We have limited access to regen and no protection, stability, or aegis except in those situations where we can steal it. Furthermore this would be a 20 point major trait locking us out of a purely burst build. As a dodge based class we should retain access to a large number of dodges.

Finally, since this would be a natural dodge and not a weapon based evade it wouldn’t be doing anything other than avoidance. When FS/LS was change the reasoning given during the SotG was that it did too much: evasion, damage, utility. This would purely add to the evasiveness of all thief builds.

Thanks for your time.

Selver.1307:

I couldn’t tell you how many bad people continue to pew pew me through DStorm. It’s 99% rangers, but I get the odd warrior and engi to do it too.

I MEAN THE WHOLE kitten CHANNEL (if they don’t down first).

You would also think that their dodge button is disabled until you meet that 1 ranger out of 100 who you can’t even touch with all the weapon evades + dodges.

Red Falcon.8257:

It was about time Sword 2 got some fixing.

You know, the worst feeling in GW2 is when the enemy does something and naturally you press the counter-to-that button… but in this case, I’m left looking at my skillbar and realizing nothing counters it.
Stun? They zap out.
Root? It gets removed by sword 2 plus teleport.
Gap closers? Mine have a cooldown, Sword 2 doesn’t and is pretty cheap.
They get in, quickly burst, then get away. Rinse and repeat.
Basically the only option is to run away when you get a Thief specced into that.

Mind you, this is not a complaint, I like to fight with Thieves the most and I want them to keep being strong opponents.
I’m just turned off by uncounterables.

If they shortened the return and made the return spot visible like on shadowstep (utility), would that be a change for the better or worse than the proposed one?

Just trying to give ANet alternate suggestions so input helps.

Thanks.

D/P trickery ricochet perplexity. Headshots for errbody!

I know Jon already sort of responded to this idea about nerfing the retun range on sword, but what about also making the return ring visible to the enemy in addition to shortening the range so there would be the capability of more counterplay without removing the ability to juke during a stun or use it as a dodge. 360 milliseconds may not seem long but as far as I know if you added such a delay to regular dodges it would render them useless as a reactive mechanic.

Thanks for leaving the individual forum threads open to encourage further discussion.

Crawford.4135:

phys.7689:

LoneWolfie.1852:

phys.7689:

so a pistol/dagger thief has more torments, stealth bleeds, imobs cripples
so a dagger dagger thief has more cloak and dagger, bleeds and evasions
so a sword dagger thief is gaining more initiative while dancing around
so a sword pistol theif is gaining more initiative while dancing around/stunning players

so a venom sharing build isnt giving up all the positional shadow steps and only pressing 1 because he got no ini

Yeah i get that it MAY slightly effect people doing a max dps rotation versus a mob that is never a threat to them and so they never do anything but attack, but i dont think that one playstyle should be the one which forces all others to have crappy ini gains. In fact i would hope they improve thier AI to where thats never the right answer for a fight.

how do you realistically propose they give all the builds which actually need more ini regen ini, without increasing the 80 you are used to, to 120 ini?

WOW. That’s very simple… how about giving thieves base regen of 1/second without any strings attached? Doesn’t mean flat out increasing the regen = instant OP thief. If you recall we’re getting FLAT nerfs on our Vigor. If our crit line is indeed generating too much initiative, we can tweak opportunist a little.

You are still failing to realize the key here is balancing the traits among themselves. Regardless of whether thief is op for other classes, the ini traits would still be requirements for the best builds. You wouldn’t be making more builds viable, you’d just be buffing everything.

Yes thief needs various buffs, but there’s a difference between balancing builds and balancing classes against each other

Are you a Thief? No? What’s your point, then?

Once they narrow the extremes, hopefully they can buff rd adjust the class as a whole. That’s why opportunist is being changed along with vigor access and stealth access (for d/p). Although I disagree with the vigor nerfs because that is not what’s causing the extreme evasion builds, I understand the final objective. If they buffed thieves across the board wuthout nerfing the viable builds, the extremes would be that much more powerful and our forum would be flooded with even more qq. It’s sort of the opposite of the method they used with warriors by buffing the baseline first then narrowing the extremes (hambow). Anyway, it might be a bad few months for the thief but hopefully the class will eventually come out better for it.

Again, I don’t like all the nerfs because there are builds that will be destroyed in the short term by this, but long-term they might make sense.

mikeew.8607:

My biggest frustration with this build that he runs is the gear. He says Valks gear w/Travelers Runes you are talking a almost 100gold investment. The armor is 24 gold and only available via craft so either u make or buy it. The runes are roughly 10g each x6 60 gold for those and 4g and some change for the armor x 6 so 25 gold there about 85 gold.

You can also use a combination of soldier and zerk armor to replicate valkyrie armor. There have been a couple of threads about the gains/losses of that. You can dungeon run for that stat combo, although you still have to sink 60g into the runes.

Kadin.2356:

I see all this math going on and I just wanted to make sure that we were taking into account actual time on target. I can understand that’s not as big a concern for PvE characters but for PvP you are not going to be just straight up hitting someone as fast as possible. There’s going to be a good amount of downtime while you circle around and get a tick or two of healing from stealth before you re-engage. I see that really benefiting the new system over the current. It still might be an overall loss, but it will be much less than if you are looking at it as a 100% time on target situation. Couple that with the baseline regeneration increase and I’d be surprised if it’s not an overall buff.

Yeah, the new system benefits less time on target and is a benefit to up through (at least) 2 hits a second.

@Laeir: I’m sorry, I’m terrible at checking others’ code! Ask 5 people to write a code to do the same thing and end up with 5 different codes.

Nilgoow.1037:

Can you post a link to the post with the tables?

Certainly. I originally only linked my table with the 50 & 70% crit chances in the opportunist thread the devs created, so Ill link all of them here.

I did it with probability over a 4 second time period since 2 rounds dagger auto (almost) lines up exactly with that.

So for instance, the odds of gaining one initiative at a given crit chance would be “g” and the odds of of not gaining it would be “f”.

For a 4 second time period you had a total of 8 attacks meaning 2 attacks per second (I simplified them into each being .5 seconds). The odds of gaining exactly one initiative without affecting the next time period would look like this (broken into 1 second pairs):

(g)(1) * (f)(f) * (f)(f) * (f)(f)=> g*f^6

The “1” represents the cooldown for the rest of the second in which the gain happens. This is only the odds for that specific order though so its actually multiple times that to get the total chance of only 1 initiative in that 4 second period. Anyway, natural regen rate + regen from opportunist was added and then divided by the 4 second period to get the rate. I only did this for 2 attacks per second cause I didn’t want to waste too much more time on it. Similar methods were used for the possibility of a gain of 0, 2, 3, & 4.

The new rate is also included, but the line is much simpler because it only has the chance to proc once in that time period. Anyway, for those unfamiliar with reading a probability curve the total area under the curve represents 100% and the area between 2 different rates over the total area represents the chance for you to fall somewhere in between that region.

Edit: There should be more “*” in the equation but this format makes them a bold command….

@ OP
I run something similar to Mika with soldier armor, Traveler runes, with zerk everything else. D/D + SB has been working for me since the last patch and the only foreseeable nerf to my build is vigorous recovery. Once you get the timing down on C&D it’s not so bad. D/P is also decent but I like moar dmg! from C&D. Go watch a Yishis or Mugi video for strategies on making D/D effective if that’s the way you wanna go.

Mika.9815:

MyCondolences.8172:

Laeir wrote this in the main topic about thief changes.

That seems to contradict Nilgoow’s data.

Nilgoow gave an example of 57% crit chance hitting 1 target per second having a 48% reduction from opportunist. With base regeneration changes it would be a 0.145 or 14.98% increase.

Current:
Base 0.75
Opportunist 0.218
Total 0.968

Proposed
Base 1.00
Opportunist 0.113
Total 1.113

Whereas Laeir’s table indicates something around 23% increase for that scenario. So I wonder whose data is more accurate, and how the multiple hits will end up being. Laeir’s version would feel fair overall if real, only adversely affecting the very top end. And in that case compensation changes could be made to the individual weapon skills like unload.

It’s probably just a difference in ways they went about it. Permutations and chance and stuff. I have probability curves I came up with but you need to read them as 60% of the time the new proposed is a buff and 22% of the time its a nerf. They narrowed the band for initiative regen by bringing up the base and capping the top. What is interesting though is that pretty much all of the slightly different values do indicate a buff.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Seetoo.9316:

p/p x2 + quick pockets > quick recov

Yeah but Assassin’s Reward is getting buffed and moved to the Grandmaster tier December 10th xP Quick Recovery also looks like it’s getting nerfed, so we can safely toss in Instinctual Response or some other trait there for the time being.

The new HtC would be a prime candidate for that slot.

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

It’s really not the same at all. By shifting the stunbreak onto signet of agility, you’re forcing signet of agility/shadowstep on my bar while I want infil signet instead.

So, why not keep the stunbreak on infil signet, and then introduce stunbreak on SoA and SoS as well. Stunbreak > all.

In other words, you’re nerfing infil signet, and buffing SoA. Buffing both of them is better than nerfing the superior signet and buffing a worse one.

Only because 2 stunbreaks would probably never happen and inf signet has a better offensive capability already while agility has better defensive capability. Ideally we need double the number of stunbreaks we currently have if these changes go through (refer to my earlier post or the thread on it) but that was the reason behind my logic for that change.

We need stunbreak on either SoA or SoS (preferably SoS because SoA is kinda meh) then, since I agree with you that we need more stunbreak.

SoA is probably my favorite one because it keeps me alive in a tough situation. I have traveler’s runes to free up the utility slot that SoS demands so it really comes down to a matter of playstyle. Honestly venoms need a stunbreak too, and I really think it should go on basi venom (thematically it makes sense that if you were able to get a basilisk’s venom you would have an antivenom or resistance to stuns). Basi should be instant cast as well since our only 1.5 second stun is an elite skill, has a 1 second cast time, and has an icon which floats above our head saying “I’M ABOUT TO STUN YOU”…. compared to mace, hammer, and shield on a warrior it’s pretty sad. Our stun should be sneaky and swift, not more telegraphed than a soldier leaping at you.

Excalibur.9748:

Maugetarr.6823:

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

It’s really not the same at all. By shifting the stunbreak onto signet of agility, you’re forcing signet of agility/shadowstep on my bar while I want infil signet instead.

So, why not keep the stunbreak on infil signet, and then introduce stunbreak on SoA and SoS as well. Stunbreak > all.

In other words, you’re nerfing infil signet, and buffing SoA. Buffing both of them is better than nerfing the superior signet and buffing a worse one.

Only because 2 stunbreaks would probably never happen and inf signet has a better offensive capability already while agility has better defensive capability. Ideally we need double the number of stunbreaks we currently have if these changes go through (refer to my earlier post or the thread on it) but that was the reason behind my logic for that change.

Excalibur.9748:

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

Terrible idea. Stunbreak is better than cripple chill and immobilize.

Which is why the stunbreak should be moved to Signet of agility so you get the stunbreak and the possibility of dodging 2(3) more stuns. Similar in functionality to dolyak signet breaking stun then providing immunity to stuns for 8 seconds.

A short proposal to improve signets on thief:

SoA: remove condition removal. Add a stunbreak. Still refill endurance. You are literally trading passive offense for short term defense.

I signet: remove the stunbreak, have it remove cripple chill and immobilize while still shadowstepping you to the target. Gain swiftness for 5 seconds. This would trade sustain for short term pressure.

SoS: Have it apply chill as well. In a game of +25% available to all we need something to catch targets better. This would trade your bonus to speed for a single target’s slowdown.

Assassin’s Signet: Fine as is.

SoM: Maybe activation could steal life for a set time or number of hits.

Edit: cleared up a part since I was no longer on my phone

Man…. between yishis and mugi D/D is going to be put back on the chopping block after this patch.

Straegen.2938:

Mrbig.8019:

S/D thief was barely on par, now anyone picking sword would be literally crazy

1. same stunbreak capability than dagger
2. less DPS than dagger
3. more condi removal ( but who cares, since you’ll be dead at the 2nd stun) than dagger
4. less burst than dagger
5. more predictable than dagger

Basically there’s no reason to play sword. Abolutely no one. And dagger was already sub par.

Disagree. I always considered S/? a utility weaponset much like the SB at least in WvW. The feel of S/? blends well with D/D. The utility of Infiltrator’s Strike and Flanking Strike should not be underestimated in a roamer build. I switch to S/D when roaming now and will continue to do so especially since Infiltrators Strike is a much better gap closer than HS or Infiltrators Arrow.

This capability and more defensive capabilities could now be better accomplished by D/D + D/P which won’t have the stigma of permastealth anymore.

JonPeters.5630:

Please respond to some of the more serious, well reasoned arguments concerning this change. There have been a dozen solid arguments as to why this is a bad idea, which take into consideration how S/D is forced to Spec and gear if it wants to remain effective, and also how thief was designed as part of the lowest Base HP pool in the game, with no way to block, go immune or psuedo-immune, no access to protection or stability.

When you make a statement like this, it is important to re-read the original post in general about how to give feedback. I appreciate the passion here, but literally this breaks every rule that I laid down.

How to give good feedback and what to expect.

• Be constructive. If you think a change may cause issues, say why and give examples. Try not to argue with others – make your point and then accept that other people may have different points of view.
• Be concise. Our time is limited and we can’t read walls of text because it will prevent us from having the time to read as many posts as possible. Bullet points or numbered lists are very easy for us to read!
• Be specific. “I expect this change to accomplish A, but I think it will actually accomplish B”. The more specific you are, the better we are able to understand where you’re coming from, what type of content you play, and it helps us to understand the context for your feedback.
• Be objective. Keep in mind that just because you may not like something, that doesn’t make it bad. Others may have differing opinions. They may play a different type of content, or they may play a different profession, so be objective and keep in mind – we have to balance the game for EVERYONE, not just you.
• Be respectful. This goes for your fellow community members as well as for devs. Respect the ideas and opinions of others.
• Be mindful of scope. These are the changes we are trying to get in for the Dec. 10th balance patch. That doesn’t leave us with time to rework entire classes, or redesign entire weapon sets with this update. Keep scope/work/time/resources in mind when you make your suggestions.
• Be mindful of context. Power creep is something we’re trying to avoid. Sometimes a profession may not receive as many increases as other classes. A lot of times, this is because that class is already performing very well in the current state of the game. So keep the overall context/state of the game in mind when giving feedback.

Since my above post breaks the wall of text rule I’ll post the TL; DR here:

Thief stunbreaks are insuficient to cover the proposed changes to sword and vigor. I already feel pigeonholed into 2 specific ones for survivability. More need to be added and the current ones improved. Specifics included in other post.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I too find this a horrible idea. Init-regen increase or init-refund is the best solution here. I think Anet is going towards the right direction here.

This is what I suggested in one of my posts;

Counter-Solution (hypothetical/non-tested):
- Increase initiative gain based on the amount missing.
- 100% init = .75/sec
- 75% init = +25% (.93/sec)
- 50% init = +33% (1/sec)
- 25% init = +50% (1.13/s)
- 0% init = +66% (1.25/s)

Not a bad idea but people would complain that thieves could HS spam more now and would be rewarded for doing so. Although this would dramatically improve the thief’s ability to finish people while not drastically changing the fight above 50% health.

Since the weapon skill IR is going to be changed to not allow it to avoid the following hit after a stun, I’d just like to go through our alternatives (stun breaks) and look at their opportunity costs.

Blinding powder: not a true stunbreak, but an alternative to the current IS/SR since it negates one hit + stealth. 40 second cooldown. Worth it, but I already slotted it in an effort to increase my survivability.

Shadow step: Arguably our best true stunbreak. Already had it equipped when running sword because sitting through any stuns as a thief usually means death. 50sec CD. I have a feeling the cooldown is partly balanced around the condition removal, but I will never use it for that purpose. Its utility as a stunbreak far outweighs its removal. It would be nice to have a shorter cooldown on it since it is 2 breaks at best compared with other classes stunbreaks of relatively close cooldown times which grant stability negating all stuns during that period.

Infiltrators Signet: Very limited utility as a stunbreak. When someone stuns me its usually followed by a close range big attack. The last thing I want to do is shadow step into them. When I slot this, it’s for the offensive capabilities it adds to D/D.

Shadow Trap: This was decent for a 2 month period. It required you to plan ahead in a fight and plant it before you went in if you were going to use it as a stunbreak. Using it in combat is only useful offensively due to its short rollover time. If the rollover time lasted 25-30 seconds I could plant it during a fight and possibly turn the fight around when stunned. I realize that it shadow steps you to your opponent like ISignet but combined with traits it can blind them and stealth you followed by a short offensive boost. Please look into lengthening the rollover time.

Haste: I will never use this a a defensive stunbreak since it completely negates sustain after use. Endurance is taken away and evade frames seem to be reduced as well. If you use it, you’d better be able to kill your opponent in the next 2 or so hits because the follow through to the stun and a few auto attacks which you can no longer dodge will most likely kill you.

RFI: Pretty decent functionally. 1 dodge which removes movement impairing conditions and returns enough initiative to use C&D or maybe a Shortbow IA. Cooldown is way too long for me to consider slotting it. Half of the current CD would make me consider it.

Daggerstorm: Not a stunbreak, but as our only source of stability I’ll sometimes pop it and dodge cancel it for just the stability when fighting a CC heavy class.

That’s it and this list includes 2 non-stunbreaks. If you want to reduce the effectiveness of IS/IR, please look into improving our stunbreaks or attaching a stunbreak to other skills. Signet of agility would be a prime candidate as it would break stun and refill endurance instantly adding sustain to a plethora of thief builds. Take away the condi cure or something if you think it would be too effective, but that part only affects the functionality of a single ele dodge roll.

Thanks for reading. Sorry if I forgot any.

Arganthium.5638:

Whatever, man. Look, I gotta admit it: the skill level required to get excellent results on a warrior is so incredibly low as compared to a thief is absolutely kittening ridiculous, and yet it’s the thieves that keep getting nerfed still. I’ve written so much about the thief and how to counter it, and have even provided ANet with the means of mathematically proving its balance, and not only have they completely ignored me, but they have in fact swayed with the mindless sheep droning on without end because of their own lack of skill.

Personally, I’m still going to play thief. I’ve played thief since I first got the game, and I find every other profession far too boring to even touch (excluding, maybe, mesmer). I also love the mobility that I get on my thief. I will, however, say one thing in particular: ever since necros became OP, I’ve been playing full zerker gear, which is optimal against condi builds but is generally more fun to play anyways. Since then, however, the purpose has shifted from being directed against condi builds to being against ridiculously OP warrior builds in general. If I don’t run zerker, I don’t do any damage and I get smashed anyways. If I do run it, then I take a huge risk that relies entirely upon my own skill while my opponent facerolls the keyboard. I do an insanely small amount of damage while having to stay at a range and time my dodges well. On the other hand, if I get hit more than once or twice, I’ll probably just drop dead.

I also now have to run 3(!!!) stun breakers as well + shadow return along with immobilize/cripple/chill breakers via Shadow Returns, Withdraws, and Roll for Initiatives at suboptimal times. I still run my 10/0/0/30/30 build, but the amount of effort in order to get anything done is almost ridiculous. Furthermore, guardians have now become so ridiculously difficult to kill that I usually take only two or three stabs at them before I decide to simply walk away. I’ve seen groups of 5-10 people in WvW unable to take down a guardian easily because of how stupid they are right now.

But no, ANet, thieves, of all professions, are completely OP.

Well, with warriors and guards now it pretty much boils down to keeping poison up 100% of the time. The boon stripping capabilities of the sword aren’t good enough to get through the regen and protection, so SB and daggers seem like the way to go at this point. At this point I’ve dusted off D/D because of all the tanks walking around. PVT armor, traveler runes, and zerk everything else has been effective for me lately.

Dekk.3459:

@LonieWolf
How about
Quick Recovery gain 5 initiative on condition removal…

That’s some impressive play. Watched outnumbered 1 as well also and I guess I really need to start using food buffs because with similar stats I dont hit nearly as hard. Nice calm playstyle.

JonPeters.5630:

Volrath.1473:

JonPeters.5630:

Maugetarr.6823:

JonPeters.5630:

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

I’m not sure what you mean by instant, but this is currently the only instant weapon ability. We are not adding a HUGE cast time to this skill. This skill is going to have a 360 millisecond cast time. ~1/3 of a second.

Jon

With no access to stability (other than a 90 second elite) the ability to avoid the following hit if you had a good enough reaction time seemed like part of the design of the sword. It currently doesn’t break stuns anymore, just moves you (possibly) out of range. Would you be adversed to the idea of making the return in the 600-450 range instead of putting a cast time on it so that the immediate next (melee) hit can avoided while it does not completely remove pressure from you?

You can still avoid follow ups with this. 360 milliseconds is faster than almost any attack and certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones. The only loss here is using this while stunned and using it to teleport finish an opponent.

yep! so in sum you are basically removing the only usefulness of this ability and making it a gap closer, no one will hit that button again until it switches back to Infiltrator’s Strike.

Why not remove the shadow return all together? it would be just another Shadow Shot with a insignificant imob instead of the blind… It would be alot more usefull then the new (worse) shadow return.

It is currently for 3 initiative:

• gap closer
• 1s immob

for 2 more initiative:

• escape when not stunned
• remove 1 condition

With the new base regen that means you can gap close and immobilize and remove a condition every 5 seconds. Even if you spread that initiative over 4 skill slots that skill can be used every 20 seconds.

Jon

Do you think this will lead to more 3 spam in an effort to avoid getting hit in the first place? In conjunction with the vigor nerf it seems thief defenses are being lowered across the board.