Guild Wars 2

Maderas.9741:

Maugetarr.6823:

Cloak and Dagger precludes the use of black powder.

How? Most thieves I see are running D/P and D/D, and if they need to escape they use stealth to break combat and swap to Shortbow. Or they can just mash Heartseeker.

So now were running around with 3 weapon sets I see. My point was you got hit by 2 cloak and daggers meaning black powder wasn’t even an issue here unless the engagement lasted at least 11 seconds.

Maderas.9741:

Bunnymancer.6901:

You can’t stealth spam and be glass cannon.
And I assume you’re a Ele bullkittenting about what your gear is.

Black Powder.

wish.1027:

Also: That attack chain would take 6 seconds minimum, L2P.

Explain.

Seazen.7415:

This type of damage does not happen unless there’s a HUGE discrepancy in gear. I don’t understand why people just don’t try out thief and see if these big numbers really exist against people who are well-geared.

It’s WvW… not PvE… you have to actually fight with some intelligence… not stand there spamming your keyboard

I guess he must be running full ascended armor, then. Oh, wait.

And it’s fairly difficult to get a chance to do anything with your keyboard when you die instantly, so your second point is moot as well.

Three for three on braindead thief responses. Keep them coming.

Cloak and Dagger precludes the use of black powder.
Edit: To further explain what is meant by “you can’t spam stealth and be glass cannon”: It takes investment in non-offensive traitlines to be able to spam stealth. What you most likely got hit by was a 3(4) signet thief. It literally takes dodging the 1 big hit and then auto attacks will kill them as all of their utilities are dedicated to offense and used in the span of about 2 seconds.

Just to add on to what I wrote before. After playing my thief more today, it’s not so much the nerfs we’ve recieved as much as the buffs others have received. If everything were where it was when you left we’d probably be in the same place, but there has been a substantial amount of power creep that we’ve been excluded from.

Aquin.3192:

increase to 4-5 initiative. Reduce range to 3-450. What is it now 600 I think?

Its range is already 450.

It’s multipliers are:

1.0>50%
50%>1.5>25%
2.0<25%

To put it in perspective, LS also has a multiplier of 1.5 and steals a boon for 2 initiative. Sword auto has a multiplier of 1.3 on the last attack. Changes really don’t need to be made.

rmBossa.4621:

Pretty much the same story its always been for anyone looking to start back up.

Most things are just a little worse, some things are a lot worse. Nothing got better.

S/D is still good just a little worse, the loss of 1 boon removal is a hit to its utility/support role but most still use it for the evade/mobility in group fights. (ironically it was the patch that was supposed to focus on group support, OH WAIT venomshare got buffed nvm we cool)

AND let us not forget that withdraw and RFI remove immobilize before the roll now. What more could you ask for?

Yski would be the person to talk to about this.

His video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM

His build is in the description.
Very glassy, and all the utility slots are used for an offensive burst.

FrownyClown.8402:

Here I have complied a list of cheese

1. Swiss
2. Cheddar
3. Condition Mesmer
4. Provolone
5. P/D thief
6. White American
7. Colby Jack
8. Every brand of Warrior
9. D/P Thief
10. Pepper Jack

Had to laugh. +1

Dual.8953:

Volrath.1473:

ppl will never be happy, if they had changed it a different way, lowering the dmg, increacing the init cost or both ppl would cry and say “why not make it strip only one boon and leave the dmg and init cost as it was?!”

anyway, i think the change was good. from all available choices i think they did the best one.

as for pistol… i think that the auto-attack should have been the one buffed, not body shot nerfed…

How was this nerf the best option when it leaves Thieves even less effective in PvE and promotes them only using 3 and dodge in Spvp? It feels very much like a step backwards for S/D. I remember a time when S/D users didn’t give a crap about their 3 skill, and made due with all their other skills. It feels like this has been inverted and now instead of using 4 skills, we’re encouraged to only use one or two skills. It also puts a lot of pressure on S/D thieves to focus on inti regen, rather then the relative freedom they had in builds when AA was their main source of damage.
At least, that how it makes me feel as someone who’s mained S/D since the betas.

I think this stemmed from nerfing the C&D damage and the daze duration in PvP specifically, and the Dancing Dagger damage and Shadow Return across all modes. Unsplitting those skill may be useful as well, especially the daze since the rounding thing was modified, but I tend to think that the meta became 3333 because every other skill except autoattack was nerfed.

We had this discussion on another thread a couple of days ago, but when I’m on my thief now I tend to stay in D/P (D/P +S/D combo) since the patch. The utility of S/D doesn’t really justify losing the burst damage of switching to it. At this point though I already have 2 level 80 alts and a couple more on the way. I’m not quitting thief as I find it the most fun, but it certainly sees a lot less play time after the last couple of balance patches.

As for S/D nerfing, I think they could have just reduced the damage without increasing the cost at all as it would have become situationally useful as a utility skill. You couldn’t spam it for damage anymore.

DanH.5879:

Maugetarr.6823:

TL; DR: S/D doesn’t offer any significant utility anymore (imo) to make up for the loss of burst damage that D/P has.

no worry dude, d/p can also be nerfed because of the perma stealth troll builds

Well it has survived this long, but even so it can be played similarly to S/P without the self root. I’m honestly hoping they’re done nerfing thieves but….

evilapprentice.6379:

Maugetarr.6823:

evilapprentice.6379:

Maugetarr.6823:

I am tired of it as well, but at this point, I’m hoping for nerfs that remove the least amount of our utility so we can be more than just damage. There have been several red posts to the thief forums in the past week after months of none and I would hope that they are indeed reading these. If something has to be shaved, I’m hoping for the one that is least detrimental to our utility as we’ll slide back into “why bring the thief if they can’t bring anything unique” (which was a stated problem around when they buffed FS before this recent nerf).

Again, I do agree with you, but I fear reducing FS->LS damage will make the set 1 note – I should have said this earlier rather than posting another response, but if you half FS->LS damage, S/D will become “Dodge Crippling strike to win” – can you imagine running S/D without LS damage? It would be a joke – you can’t even guarantee a CS with Inf Strike, since its part of the AA chain. Trading FS->LS’s damage for utility will just make us useless in a different fashion.

Well…let’s hope they change it back, but in all my time on the thief they’ve only reversed 1 change which was reveal….and that was only in wvw/pve. I guess we can’t really come to a conclusion on which way you would rather be nerfed….

Your fingers or your tongue. Which do you prefer?

A man’s gotta have fingers.

Well, I know from experience that the current single boon steal does nothing, so I’d opt for the damage reduction and stealing 2 boons. From fighting non-boon bunkers though, I feel that the damage reduction would limit our ability to actually drop targets. The devil you know, and all that.

It’s hard to make a decision regarding either nerf because they are both unjustified – 1 has been tested and proven, the other just conjecture, but conjecture from an experienced player.

After playing eith it over the weekend, I’m leaning towards going back to D/P. Since LS has become meh in the utility aspect I think D/P has the following advantages over it now.

AA: Normalized damage over the chain. There’s no one big hit they can dodge. Poison will reduce both regen and their heal skill. Furthermore it affects warrior healing signet which couldn’t be stripped. Better endurance regen.

HS:slightly worse gap closer, but doesn’t roll over and has a leap finisher. Much better damage at all levels of opponent’s health.

SS: Not affected by movement impairing conditions. Defacto single ability dodge. Better damage than FS. Doesn’t roll over so it csn be used to chase an enemy who has multiple gap creators

Headshot: Excellent interrupt for when you see the blue glow of an enemy heal. Doesn’t require the positional and conditional parts of the sword stealth attack.

BPS: Longer and more effective against single targets then FS is . Most people still walk into it. You can headshot throught it interrupting. One attack and causing the next to miss. Sets up reliable stealth.

BS: Excellent burst damage

I know you know this stuff, but this is my reasoning for going back to it. Not a single attack on it needs to be fixed (like Dancing Dagger or D/D does) and it has sustained damage on par/greater than S/X while still retaining the burst. If boon stealing/destroying is really needed now, you might as well go sigil of nullification so you won’t have to spend initiative on it.

TL; DR: S/D doesn’t offer any significant utility anymore (imo) to make up for the loss of burst damage that D/P has.

It was accidental. They mentioned it in a different thread and the balance team is looking at it.

He is a ranger.

evilapprentice.6379:

Maugetarr.6823:

I am tired of it as well, but at this point, I’m hoping for nerfs that remove the least amount of our utility so we can be more than just damage. There have been several red posts to the thief forums in the past week after months of none and I would hope that they are indeed reading these. If something has to be shaved, I’m hoping for the one that is least detrimental to our utility as we’ll slide back into “why bring the thief if they can’t bring anything unique” (which was a stated problem around when they buffed FS before this recent nerf).

Again, I do agree with you, but I fear reducing FS->LS damage will make the set 1 note – I should have said this earlier rather than posting another response, but if you half FS->LS damage, S/D will become “Dodge Crippling strike to win” – can you imagine running S/D without LS damage? It would be a joke – you can’t even guarantee a CS with Inf Strike, since its part of the AA chain. Trading FS->LS’s damage for utility will just make us useless in a different fashion.

Well…let’s hope they change it back, but in all my time on the thief they’ve only reversed 1 change which was reveal….and that was only in wvw/pve. I guess we can’t really come to a conclusion on which way you would rather be nerfed….

Your fingers or your tongue. Which do you prefer?

A man’s gotta have fingers.

Clumsy.6257:

putting this in a new post since i cant edit for some reason

your thinking that your going from 2/3 to 1, which is more than 33% increase if you start with 2/3, but we started with 1, so 1 – 1/3 + 1/3 = 1

This is where we’re running into the issue. If you don’t remove protection, the reduced damage is your base damage. If you could then remove protection, you’ll be doing 50% more than what you were doing before that instant.

This is the same issue that we’ve run into with how ANet has phrased the thief steal recharge rate (why it’s not half if you trait into sleight of hand).

recharge rate=35/1.3-.2(35/1.3)=21.5 ish
but it doesn’t equal 35 *(1-0.3-0.2)=17.5
The difference is in the problem statement.

Clumsy.6257:

Maugetarr.6823:

….let me try to be more clear at how I arrived here using numbers because recipricals and variables seem too complicated.

lets say damage = 1
1*(2/3)=2/3

Now 2/3 is the damage you are effectively doing

A 33% increase in damage or rather 4/3 wont bring you back up to your original damage value.

(4/3)*(2/3)=8/9

an increase of 50% (1.5 which is equal to 3/2) is required to bring that number back up to the original value.

(2/3)*(3/2)=6/6=1

So if a boss has protection up the entire fight your damage output is basically 2/3 of what it could be. Removing that protection would be a 50% increase in the damage over the length of the battle.

except it wouldnt… it would be a 33% increase, as soon as protection drops your damage goes back to 1, while protections up its 2/3 so you would be doing 33% more if the boss didnt have protection.
edit: now i see where your going with this, although its still wrong.
Base damage = 1
protection = -33%
Base damage – protection = 2/3
Assuming the boss has protection the entire fight and all members of your party are using physical damage, your party dealt 66% of the damage possible. When protection drops, your damage is raised by 33% back up to the original 1.

This is where were getting lost:

It is a 50% increase over the reduced damage which would be your base damage if you let the boss keep up protection the entire fight.

damage=x
x*protection = y
y*1.33 does not equal x
y*1.5=x

y is the damage your group is doing with protection up. Without protection your group could do x damage. To get cy=x, y needs to be 1.5

The problem is that you’re approaching this from the wrong sid. y is going to be your base damage if you don’t remove protection.

I’ll state this another way

cy=x

if c=1.5 then 1.5y=x

moving c to the other side of the equation

cy/c=x/c

y=x/c or rather y=x/1.5 which becomes y=x*(1/1.5) which is y=x*0.66666

This disagreement is more about semantics. If a boss doesn’t have protection and then puts it up, he has reduced your damage output by 33%. This reduced damage is now your new output. If you remove protection, you are now doing 50% more damage than what your new output was. This is equal to your original output.

Clumsy.6257:

Maugetarr.6823:

Clumsy.6257:

Maugetarr.6823:

liefbread.9513:

rjnemer.7816:

Clumsy.6257:

rjnemer.7816:

Clumsy.6257:

dont listen to danh he doesnt actually play a thief, currently were #2 best dps and have a plentiful supply of support abilities, our only downside is we take squishy to the next level

edit: what moron told you eles suck? theyre #1 dps ingame with the best might stacking abilities, not to mention FGS which that skill alone is worth using a party slot on

I definitely agree with danh. I mained a thief for the first 6 months and i can tell you for fact that he is right. We are definitely not 2nd in dps. Thieves are maybe 3rd at best, more like 4th since being so dam squishy makes it extremely difficult to stay up 100% of the time (and when your dodging you loose out on dps as well).

Not only do we suck in pve we suck in wvw. If you were to put two equally skilled people up against each other with one as a thief and one as anything else, the other class will win 95% of the time (or the thief will just perma stealth troll and never die, but also not get anywhere near killing the other class).

Edit: I gave up on my thief for the time being. Back in march i rolled a guardian and havent looked back. They are 1000x more useful and have better dps. Also, i just rolled a warrior and geared her out a little over 2 weeks ago. Pretty sure running a lvl 5 warrior for the banner is better then a thief -.-

wow you must have sucked as thief, i can easily double my warriors damage with full zerkers, meta builds, scholars, same nourishment, same might+vuln, and if ele didnt have fgs, we’d be almost tied for #1

LOL, there is a reason speed clearing groups dont run thieves. They dont bring anything to the group that another class can do better. A wall from a guardian alone can out dps a thief in full berserkers.

Edit: They dont have any cleave with d/d as well.

Except most speed clearing groups have thieves. Lmao…

Thief stealth utility in dungeons is… near vital to most Arah speed runs, is vital in 40% of fractals… That’s not enough talking from a damage standpoint, but just a utility standpoint (if I let you skip 3 pulls of mobs, you’d better kitten ed well count it as me killing those mobs…)

Which is what bugs me the most about this patch as they halved the boon stripping utility that we can bring to parts like the dredge fractal. You can still use thieves to skip the door bombing, but there are parts that you have to fight in that fractal, and we excelled at removing things like protection and regen from the boss which is far better than just bringing damage. Thats a 50% increase in damage from the entire party which far outweighs the pure DPS of a zerker thief.

now lets be honest here, if a thief was doing the boon stripping you dont exactly have an optimal party setup, and 50%? more like 35%

Mathematically speaking:

normal damage*0.66=reduced damage

> reduced damage* (1/0.66)=normal damage

>1/.66 = 1.5, or a 50% increase over the reduced damage.

If you have a condition heavy party, maybe it won’t be quite that much of an increase, but thats why protection is so powerful in this game because its effectively a 50% increase to your base armor.

your math is so bad its not even funny, protection is base 33% reduction so multiply damage * 2/3 = x and thats all you need to do, how in the world did you get 50%

….let me try to be more clear at how I arrived here using numbers because recipricals and variables seem too complicated.

lets say damage = 1
1*(2/3)=2/3

Now 2/3 is the damage you are effectively doing

A 33% increase in damage or rather 4/3 wont bring you back up to your original damage value.

(4/3)*(2/3)=8/9

an increase of 50% (1.5 which is equal to 3/2) is required to bring that number back up to the original value.

(2/3)*(3/2)=6/6=1

So if a boss has protection up the entire fight your damage output is basically 2/3 of what it could be. Removing that protection would be a 50% increase in the damage over the length of the battle.

Clumsy.6257:

Maugetarr.6823:

liefbread.9513:

rjnemer.7816:

Clumsy.6257:

rjnemer.7816:

Clumsy.6257:

dont listen to danh he doesnt actually play a thief, currently were #2 best dps and have a plentiful supply of support abilities, our only downside is we take squishy to the next level

edit: what moron told you eles suck? theyre #1 dps ingame with the best might stacking abilities, not to mention FGS which that skill alone is worth using a party slot on

I definitely agree with danh. I mained a thief for the first 6 months and i can tell you for fact that he is right. We are definitely not 2nd in dps. Thieves are maybe 3rd at best, more like 4th since being so dam squishy makes it extremely difficult to stay up 100% of the time (and when your dodging you loose out on dps as well).

Not only do we suck in pve we suck in wvw. If you were to put two equally skilled people up against each other with one as a thief and one as anything else, the other class will win 95% of the time (or the thief will just perma stealth troll and never die, but also not get anywhere near killing the other class).

Edit: I gave up on my thief for the time being. Back in march i rolled a guardian and havent looked back. They are 1000x more useful and have better dps. Also, i just rolled a warrior and geared her out a little over 2 weeks ago. Pretty sure running a lvl 5 warrior for the banner is better then a thief -.-

wow you must have sucked as thief, i can easily double my warriors damage with full zerkers, meta builds, scholars, same nourishment, same might+vuln, and if ele didnt have fgs, we’d be almost tied for #1

LOL, there is a reason speed clearing groups dont run thieves. They dont bring anything to the group that another class can do better. A wall from a guardian alone can out dps a thief in full berserkers.

Edit: They dont have any cleave with d/d as well.

Except most speed clearing groups have thieves. Lmao…

Thief stealth utility in dungeons is… near vital to most Arah speed runs, is vital in 40% of fractals… That’s not enough talking from a damage standpoint, but just a utility standpoint (if I let you skip 3 pulls of mobs, you’d better kitten ed well count it as me killing those mobs…)

Which is what bugs me the most about this patch as they halved the boon stripping utility that we can bring to parts like the dredge fractal. You can still use thieves to skip the door bombing, but there are parts that you have to fight in that fractal, and we excelled at removing things like protection and regen from the boss which is far better than just bringing damage. Thats a 50% increase in damage from the entire party which far outweighs the pure DPS of a zerker thief.

now lets be honest here, if a thief was doing the boon stripping you dont exactly have an optimal party setup, and 50%? more like 35%

Mathematically speaking:

normal damage*0.66=reduced damage

> reduced damage* (1/0.66)=normal damage

>1/.66 = 1.5, or a 50% increase over the reduced damage.

If you have a condition heavy party, maybe it won’t be quite that much of an increase, but thats why protection is so powerful in this game because its effectively a 50% increase to your base armor.

liefbread.9513:

rjnemer.7816:

Clumsy.6257:

rjnemer.7816:

Clumsy.6257:

dont listen to danh he doesnt actually play a thief, currently were #2 best dps and have a plentiful supply of support abilities, our only downside is we take squishy to the next level

edit: what moron told you eles suck? theyre #1 dps ingame with the best might stacking abilities, not to mention FGS which that skill alone is worth using a party slot on

I definitely agree with danh. I mained a thief for the first 6 months and i can tell you for fact that he is right. We are definitely not 2nd in dps. Thieves are maybe 3rd at best, more like 4th since being so dam squishy makes it extremely difficult to stay up 100% of the time (and when your dodging you loose out on dps as well).

Not only do we suck in pve we suck in wvw. If you were to put two equally skilled people up against each other with one as a thief and one as anything else, the other class will win 95% of the time (or the thief will just perma stealth troll and never die, but also not get anywhere near killing the other class).

Edit: I gave up on my thief for the time being. Back in march i rolled a guardian and havent looked back. They are 1000x more useful and have better dps. Also, i just rolled a warrior and geared her out a little over 2 weeks ago. Pretty sure running a lvl 5 warrior for the banner is better then a thief -.-

wow you must have sucked as thief, i can easily double my warriors damage with full zerkers, meta builds, scholars, same nourishment, same might+vuln, and if ele didnt have fgs, we’d be almost tied for #1

LOL, there is a reason speed clearing groups dont run thieves. They dont bring anything to the group that another class can do better. A wall from a guardian alone can out dps a thief in full berserkers.

Edit: They dont have any cleave with d/d as well.

Except most speed clearing groups have thieves. Lmao…

Thief stealth utility in dungeons is… near vital to most Arah speed runs, is vital in 40% of fractals… That’s not enough talking from a damage standpoint, but just a utility standpoint (if I let you skip 3 pulls of mobs, you’d better kitten ed well count it as me killing those mobs…)

Which is what bugs me the most about this patch as they halved the boon stripping utility that we can bring to parts like the dredge fractal. You can still use thieves to skip the door bombing, but there are parts that you have to fight in that fractal, and we excelled at removing things like protection and regen from the boss which is far better than just bringing damage. Thats a 50% increase in damage from the entire party which far outweighs the pure DPS of a zerker thief.

I am tired of it as well, but at this point, I’m hoping for nerfs that remove the least amount of our utility so we can be more than just damage. There have been several red posts to the thief forums in the past week after months of none and I would hope that they are indeed reading these. If something has to be shaved, I’m hoping for the one that is least detrimental to our utility as we’ll slide back into “why bring the thief if they can’t bring anything unique” (which was a stated problem around when they buffed FS before this recent nerf).

My point is though that if the devs really felt like it was overwhelming/did too much, a damage nerf would have been the better route because now we have 2 skills that pretty much overlap on just damage. If it had been a damage nerf then we would have had:

AA: Damage
IS: Utility gap closing/creating
FS/LS: Utility evade/boon stealing
DD: (needs to be fixed)
C&D: Damage (depending on pvp/wvw) + Utility Stealth

Basically they could have turned S/D into the close combat version of Shortbow, which is the point I’m getting at. I really don’t think it needed to be changed, but if the devs absolutely had to change something, I think this would have been the better route to go because thieves would have to choose between damage and utility (as the devs thought it was all too much on the same ability). Again, I wish we’d had no buffs or nerfs this patch, just buffs to other classes and let the meta settle.

Burnfall.9573:

style.6173:

Burnfall.9573:

i would like to correct you OP, it is not “Lately the qqing has toned down a lot. People have learned how to counter thiefs and currently there and many other class that much stronger and more effective for less effort”.

As one of the top advocate againt the malpractice of thief class, the reason why i including other advocates has towned down out outcry case against OP thief is because we are carefuly taking the Wait and See Approach come into play from thief recent nerf/s.

In return, we look foward in seeing a towned down Overpowerdness thief class

Including having a Fun and Enjoyable place; WvW; which the remaining community eagerly been waiting for, since Day 1.

Don’t you think we deserve it by now?

Thieves are definitely one of the weaker classes. If you think they are currently strong for anything but hit and run, you don’t play a lot of WvW.

I do play alot of WvW.

From alot of experiences in dealing with thieves in wvw, thieves what i clearly understand by thieves ‘hit and run’ is by thieves stealthing.. hitting for 12-27k per stabbs than restealth for the finishing kills.

I don’t see where theives are weak?

Any class that can perma-stealth, reset fights, having almost unlimitted moblity and teleport and outputting extreme high single hits than any classes in the game is not concidered a weak class.

Seriously,

Ask yourself, if Arena.net were to give all classes the same stats as thieves, wouldn’t there be an outcry of Overpowerdness?

Of course!

Than why is it than it is okay for 1 class to have the Overpowerdness stats?

Absolutley none,

The weaker classes are the ones who don’t have that Overpowerndess stats,

The Over-Strong class who is the only Op class is Thief.

No other class can match thieves stats.

None whatsoever, so once again, why?

Where is the Justice in this?

Where is the Fairness in this ?

-Absolutelyy, None whatsover-

(as a ranger, i envy thief stats but we will never see the day of ever matching thief stats because it is only reserved to them only to them in Guild Wars 2)

Holy crap! 12-27k?! While a GC thief may occasionally hit 12-15k, blowing all of their utilities to do so against an equally glass target, that characterization is a bit of an overstatement. I have fought 2 of the same build rangers in the past couple of days (lb gs wolf + spider), one which melted and one which I couldn’t touch. As I recommended to you a while ago, I would say play the thief for about 100 hours (actually level one not just PvP with it). If you did that and asked questions about it you would be helped and much more well recieved than you currently are. Again. This is not sarcasm. Try it out. We’re really not the godmode class you think we are.

rjnemer.7816:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some people have success with dagger/dagger bleeds (#3) when combined with caltrops and a shortbow. Personally I can’t stand conditions on my thief and would recommend sword pistol as someone else did. Pick up smokescreen as well, it’s absolutely awesome for pve.

@clumsy: I think DanH does play thief but enjoys light hearted trolling regurgitating the mis-characterizations of the thief by other classes.

Yeah blinds from pistol are pretty cool, until a majority of bosses and trash cant be blinded. Oh wait, thats how it is now -.-

Oh and aegis is just a better blind.

Well, its decent until you get to something like the dredge fractal at least. Right now I’m running 0/30/20/20/0 for decent blinding and evades in dungeons.

Oh and I forgot OP: as soon as you can I would recommend 15 in acro and vigorous recovery (acro III) + withdraw. You need to dodge the big attacks from bosses as a thief and those traits will keep your endurance bar relatively full.

Well supposedly we have the best single target DPS (debatable), but once you’re up against more than 1 enemy a guardian’s whirling wrath or warrior’s 100b will out DPS you once you consider the cleave. We can bring awesome utility with a shortbow and master of deception (SA I). Bringing shadowstep, shadow refuge, and smokescreen all on reduced cooldowns can prevent party wipes. A zerker group may not appreciate you but any other will. Try a 0/30/20/20/0 out with those utilities next time in fractals. You can stealth your group through the harpy jumping section by smokescreen> CB 5 times going 1/3 of the way up n SR, going 2/3 of the way up then smokescreen > CB again. It works on both sections, your party just has to be decent at jumping.

Edit: Prepatch I would have said we excelled at boon stripping too, but you might as well bring a necro with traited wells for that now instead.

Some people have success with dagger/dagger bleeds (#3) when combined with caltrops and a shortbow. Personally I can’t stand conditions on my thief and would recommend sword pistol as someone else did. Pick up smokescreen as well, it’s absolutely awesome for pve.

@clumsy: I think DanH does play thief but enjoys light hearted trolling regurgitating the mis-characterizations of the thief by other classes.

That’s why I wish they had halved the damage instead of the utility. When they originally talked about it in one of the SotG they said F/S +LS had too much on it. Evasion, damage, boonstripping. Well now all it does is give us what we already have naturally: evasion and damage. Even if they reduce the cost of it back down to 4, the speed at which it functions would still be too slow. Anyway, I like your idea of taking a defensive boon and a random one so we could still get through bunkers without stripping people who use them for offense too quickly.

I would rather have seen them nerf the damage than the utility. The DPS is on par with the autoattack. It would at least be nice if they reduced the cost of LS since they halved its utility. Even though we retained the damage, boon bunkers have effectively double the time to replace boons now. I thought they changed it to two boons in the first place because bunkers were over the top. We’ll see if we slide back into the meta of half a year ago.

Sanduskel.1850:

yet I am not the one whining like a victim. I don’t insinuate anything. that’s your reaction.

Nope. You directly state blanket insults about the skill levels of others while hiding behind the excuse that you never said you were were better than they were. I guess you got me there.

And that would be the trolling

Well you might as well try them out. Runes were only 72s as of when I was writing this. It was a lot of fun. The only real big problem I have with the nerfs this round was that they nerfed the utility on S/D. They should have nerfed the damage on LS if it was really over the top. For now I’m running S/D + D/P on that build I posted to get some of the utility back (interrupts/blinds). I won’t discourage you from giving it a try, I just get tired of nerfs when thieves feel about midrange when everyone else gets buffs (even if they weren’t the buffs they wanted). S/D + D/P pairs well for chasing also cause you can use IS + ShadowStrike to close decent gaps (it also pairs well with the mesmer runes).

^ wants you to start listing builds till he can say yes to one of them.

Carpboy.7145:

Imagi.4561:

Carpboy.7145:

Has anyone ever tried a heavy stealth build with S/D? With Mesmer runes, we can bring the daze on tactical strike up to 2.66 seconds. ( Correct me if im wrong) Then you could either precast CnD or use flanking strike to evade. Could keep them from ever hitting you. I did go 30 in SA with this one.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsY4alYmiO3eS+E/5Ey2jdqC5JuHJlR1UdF4KA-jEyAYrBRTWCNVIQJPl1sngYJtIas6aMtLRUtQAmnAA-w

Feels risky without shadows embrace, but that blind will be just another way they can’t hit you. With basilisk, you could literally stun/daze lock people to death.

I think stealth-heavy stun/dazelock builds for S/D are unpopular not because it’s bad, but because it’s inherently more evasive as a set with the 2 and 3 skills. And frankly, S/P can do it better.

Im trying to find videos of a daze lock one, and it seems everyone just uses it for evades. Thats great, but this daze thing does sound really cool to me, effectively locking them out of being able to heal or do dmg. Evade does the same thing, but they can still heal and dodge. I also understand a daze lock is easier said then done, what with people moving everywhere, but then i think if you can just evade until you get another opening for a TS, it could be a really fun and unexplored option for S/D thieves.

I have an armor set with runes of the mesmer on it but haven’t tried it out after the changes to how stuns and dazes work. It was a lot of fun before this change and its certainly a different playstyle. You end up using your entire skillbar. The power/precision boost of the runes is decent on its own as well. I actually stopped playing with this set though once the traveler runes came out though as they fit my S/D setup better.

nagymbear.5280:

I do read the thief forums occasionally, its almost as depressing as the ranger forums. I don’t get this fixation on what build Sanduskel runs. Is it really that important to prove that he’s suffering from the patch? Sounds pathetic. Also I think what he’s trying to say is that only bad thieves rely too much on stealth. Could have a point there, don’t you think?

Well speaking from the perspective of a thief that played S/D + shortbow before the patch I don’t understand the constant attacks by a supposed other thief. I am interested in what build he played that was not affected. Until then it seems more like trolling than anything else. Ironically and predictably permastealth was least affected by the changes this time. The point is not to prove that he is suffering, the point is that I simply don’t believe him because of the inconsistencies and attitude taken in posts he has made.

nagymbear.5280:

Zacchary.6183:

Sanduskel.1850:

I am having plenty of fun on my thief. Then again, I don’t need permastealth.

You don’t play thief.

^

Zacchary probably came to that conclusion the same way I did when sansuskel always brings up permastealth thieves when taljing about builds thatbhave nothing to do with it. When asked about what builds he does play since he insists that his builds weren’t affected whatsoever he has abandoned the threads. He has also made flat out false statements on how stealth attacks operate and also abandoned the thread when asked to demonstrate what could only be characterised as a bug based on his description. Furthermore his earliest posts only started during the balance patch preview to say that he welcomed the changes to make his 5 thief alts more challenging. Most (if not all) of his posts are not constructive and serve only to say what scrubs thieves who don’t use his build are. Read through our forum during the past month or so and you’ll see.

Edit: Meant to quote this one but messed up on my phone “So your “reply” was just stating your oppinion with no logic connection to what he said…. hmmm. I will learn from you master.” Sorry.

Mambo.7586:

dDuff.3860:

So. With recent nerf (should i say fix) it is nearly impossible to land at least few strikes of pistol whip on good opponents.
Good game.

how is it nerfed?

Apparently all stuns rounded before, not just those affected by sigil of para. With the change to stuns no longer rounding the stun ends before the flurry begins.

Olba.5376:

nicknamenick.2437:

ok +1sec is too much.. mostly for the mace/100b build.

but now you got indeed +15% duration.
used it on shield.. now its 1,15sec instead of 1sec. cool

yes trash now

also thanx now.. why didnt reduced the mace f1? and made the sigil of para + 0,5sec??
+15% on 3sec is 0,45 sec… but on a 1sec stun like the shield thats a COMPLETE JOKE!

Also thanx Anet, ty and smart move! the mace/100b is still strong and hardly a nerf..
But a complete nerf for other builds…

Because there are stuns in the game that have ridiculously short durations that would benefit ridiculously from +0.5s. Such as:

• Shield Bash
• Pistol Whip
• Basilisk Venom
• Shocking Aura

Actually pistol whip naturally rounded up before without needing the sigil. Currently the stun is so short that it wears off before the flurry starts. A-Net already addressed this in another thread, but if the sigil added a flat value rather than a % increase, it might do a lot to improve subpar stuns while not making already decent stuns overwhelming.

What I was using before this patch:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmiO3eS9E+5Ey2jdqC5JOFOlR1pgrsKA-jUCBYLCikFQEBgUBAZPFRjtMsIas6aYKXCyqYJFA-w

Sort of similar to what you’re going for with a little more group focus. Used it in fractals 30+ as well. For personal use, you can swap out blinding powder for shadow refuge.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Update-Notes-October-7th-2012/first#post370244

It’s funny that it’s so rarely broken that people think that it has been unbreakable for the past year. The only advantage it has over a standard stun is that it works on bosses.

My favorite is when it edits the middle of words like:

AxRxSxExNxAxL

to kitten nal.

Einlanzer.1627:

But in the last patch, wasn’t the time gap between the stun and the flurry reduced? Do you think it’s worse than it was before the last patch?

As an aside, I actually thought it was kind of weird that the stun and the evade overlapped so much after that patch. I think they just need to buff its damage back up 15% to remove that misguided nerf from a long time ago.

Someone else made this video showing what the stun change did to S/P. About halfway through they slow it down so you can see the flurry starts after the stun ends.

Sanduskel.1850:

I enjoy playing my thief, so I don’t get the fuss. Then again, I don’t rely on perma stealth, so the nerfs don’t affect me.

So what build do you play?

I’m actually having trouble understanding what has been changed about basilisk venom.

From October 7th 2012:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Update-Notes-October-7th-2012/first#post370244

It could already be broken using a stunbreak. If they mean that it no longer stick you in the position while still attacking (i.e. attacking with no animations) than this was a buff as we can now see when people have broken it. If I am misunderstanding something can someone clarify?

Ryan.8367:

Maugetarr.6823:

rpfohr.7048:

evilapprentice.6379:

rpfohr.7048:

Boohoo. So it’s a hard counter to a strategy that itself was a hard counter. As I stated earlier its not like its destroying your class mechanic initiative and steal.

Stealth is not a counter to anyone who knows what they’re doing. It doesn’t block access to your traits, therefore it is not a hard counter in the same way as denying stealth to an SA build. Stealth may hard counter you, but plenty of players have figured out how to deal with it.

Furthermore, Stealth is a thief mechanic – we have an entire traitline dedicated to “on stealth” effects, and each of our weapons get a special attack when in stealth – no other class gets anything close to comparable.

I get it, you don’t like thieves. Disagree all you want, but don’t lie or delude yourself, it makes you look foolish and does nothing for your argument.

I repeat again. Stealth is not our class mechanic initiative is as well as steal. Thief just happens to have lots of stealth access

Also thief is my second favorite class. So I love them and play one.
I hate complaining and incomplete thoughts
Think about why it was given to ranger and you will realize that any future skill that would get this would have a more apparent weakness

Lastly once again killing the pet negates the skill. Weakness found now go use it

Again, just to reiterate, stealth attacks are a mechanic. While other classes may have access to stealth and limited stealth based traits, they do not have access to stealth attacks. So while stealth may or may not be a core mechanic, we definitely have core mechanics based on stealth.

Next time don’t bring dagger or pistol mainhand to fight a ranger, it may be less useful now. Now you may have to use s/d instead, it’s kind of cool because instead of spamming 5->2 or 5 on our pet you know can’t dodge you basically just hit 3 now, dodge roll cancel , hit 3 again and you get the option to steal a boon as well if you want to and the plus is with s/d you still get the option manipulate that bad pet ai by CNDing that pet , that once again, you know can’t dodge! It’s a perk and you don’t have to hit as many buttons!

Actually, before this patch my build revolved around using S/D and using every skill on the bar, not just evade spamming (you know, our full kitten nal (really filters?) to stay effective against people who knew how to press a dodge button during LS). But rangers can put up boons faster than I can strip them with that now though so the better option has become trying to burst one before they can react. For now I’ve gone back to a semi-burst D/D build as taking 1 boon for 5 initiative is subpar which is why it was increased to 2 because of the boon bunker meta that existed before the change.

As for your suggestion of using BPS then using heartseeker after it wears off….the stealth is applied at the end of that combo, meaning that the ranger will still have 3/4 of a second to use an instant cast ability. I haven’t tried testing it but even if it doesn’t stack does the new revealed not replace the old one meaning you could overlap them?

rpfohr.7048:

evilapprentice.6379:

rpfohr.7048:

Boohoo. So it’s a hard counter to a strategy that itself was a hard counter. As I stated earlier its not like its destroying your class mechanic initiative and steal.

Stealth is not a counter to anyone who knows what they’re doing. It doesn’t block access to your traits, therefore it is not a hard counter in the same way as denying stealth to an SA build. Stealth may hard counter you, but plenty of players have figured out how to deal with it.

Furthermore, Stealth is a thief mechanic – we have an entire traitline dedicated to “on stealth” effects, and each of our weapons get a special attack when in stealth – no other class gets anything close to comparable.

I get it, you don’t like thieves. Disagree all you want, but don’t lie or delude yourself, it makes you look foolish and does nothing for your argument.

I repeat again. Stealth is not our class mechanic initiative is as well as steal. Thief just happens to have lots of stealth access

Also thief is my second favorite class. So I love them and play one.
I hate complaining and incomplete thoughts
Think about why it was given to ranger and you will realize that any future skill that would get this would have a more apparent weakness

Lastly once again killing the pet negates the skill. Weakness found now go use it

Again, just to reiterate, stealth attacks are a mechanic. While other classes may have access to stealth and limited stealth based traits, they do not have access to stealth attacks. So while stealth may or may not be a core mechanic, we definitely have core mechanics based on stealth.

Ryan.8367:

Doomdesire.9365:

Pretty ridiculous earlier today I had 12seconds of revealed from multiple rangers spamming this crap. Needless to say, melted in less than a second.

You can’t even target against D/P users, why add it? It hurts the good builds who rarely rely on stealth. This is a mistake anet. You should have given a passive pet signet that lets pets attack thieves in stealth, not any revealed skill.

I think many thieves realize that ranger is a weak class, but you shouldn’t nerf another class as a “buff” to rangers. You should buff rangers and leave the other classes alone. All this is doing is fixing one problem by adding another.

As a ranger , it’s good to see thief tears in regards to ranger , it only took 1 year to accomplish.

On a side note, the reveal doesn’t stack so if you actually let them chain Sic em on you and anticipated it, then I’m sorry to say this, but you’re really bad and need to learn anticipation on the game. The issue really doesn’t really apply to the rangers themselves, you need to know they can do that now and anticipate it and play smart. Finally, you have to play smart against a ranger now, shocking , I know.

How would he have let them not chain it? Dodging? Stealthing?

Well, at least it got directly addressed. Always good to see a “we’re working on it” response.

@ensoriki range is exactly why I thought the two wouldn’t overlap too badly. At this point wouldn’t it be better to bps and autoattack from it? I mean then you’d even be able to interrupt a skill on demand with headshot while blinding them further. If the devs really are looking at it though then we’ll see how it goes.

At this point what if they just removed the root and made the precast for the pistol hit shorter? If it’s just going to be a skill interrupt instead of a meaningful stun the cast time shouldn’t be any longer than headshot. That seems like it would put the skill back on par with the autoattack.

@ ensoriki: well this is why I usually try to defend thief specs that I typically don’t like to play or even play against. From the changes/nerfs/balances we’ve seen in the past usually a lot of collateral damage occurs often harming uninteded targets more.

So I take it the stun duration is somewhere around .57 seconds now instead of 1 second.

ensoriki.5789:

Sword/Pistol was super nerfed.
Pistol whips stun now lasts half as long. It cannot hold anyone which means it struggles far more than ever to get damage

Due to the sigil of paralyzation fix?