Guild Wars 2

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Trickery – Preparedness
+3 max initiative should be baseline. This minor makes trickery, very much like pre-nerf critical stikes, too much of a ‘must have’ line
^
If they did this, would anyone invest in trickery ever?

Yes. You still have boon strip and daze on steal to get. In fact, I think the CD reduction should be moved from SoH to baseline to allow you to have more variety in thief builds. Changing steal to a 25 second CD and then having leadattacks increase recharge rate by 15% still would narrow the gap between traited and untraited steal.

Furthermore, bountiful theft could be moved into the minor master spot after preparedness is made baseline, but have the boon share removed. Then put a trait in so that whenever you steal a boon, you share it with your allies in a 240 radius(Including theft from larcenous strike). You could actually choose between supporting the team or selfishly taking trickster. Right now BT is virtually mandatory and should get the boon on attunment swap treatment that ele did.

Trickery would still be taken because of the utility and damage, but wouldn’t be mandatory.

TheDarkSoul.1938:

I couldn’t tell you how significant exactly the Ele nerfs were because I don’t play one, but I personally went into PvP earlier with my D/P and had a significantly easier time 1v1ing D/D ele. Won a few, lost a few, but it feels like the gap (although still there) is a little smaller now. It’s still tough, just not so absurdly tough that I’ll completely discount engaging a D/D ele on point 1v1 altogether.
PU mesmer isn’t as frightening to 1v1 now, either (Though condi builds are still annoying as kitten).

The meta D/D ele lost a significant chunk of might stacking, burn damage, and passive blind spam. This means they are putting out far less damage overall for being so tanky. That gap has been significantly shrunk as you observed.

Shimekiri.1580:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

Maybe not, but I don’t think making pistol SB-lite is the answer. I would rather have it have strong in combat fighting ability, meaning evasions and the ability to hinder the enemy. A boon hate design along with some evasive skills could make S/D+P/P something that might be able to stick to a point by killing boon bunkers. Maybe that number 2 skill needs poison in it too. A strong auto would be vital for maintaining pressure while saving your initiative for reacting to the opponent. SB is our utility ranged option, now P/P and P/D need to be our power and condi DPS ranged options.

to be clear, i don’t think pistol should be SB-lite. i was just saying that’s what it would take for someone to drop SB in favor of a pistol.

P/P, in my opinion, needs a new #3. something that gives it either mobility, stealth (directly or indirectly), or evasion, as those are the only things that can keep a thief alive, and incidentally the things that every thief set except P/P has. get pistol a better #2 too while at it. (poison isn’t a bad idea, though that sounds more like dagger’s territory. maybe a bouncy shot a la mesmer pistol that applies different condis based on target order).

Evasion on #3 is what I’m a strong advocate for. It just needs to have the shot number decreased to 4 instead of 8 so when you use it to evade it punishes people. Individual shot damage should stay the same so it would be a 1.2 multiplier (not taking account of the damage buffs today). Strong sustained damage should be moved to the auto since it’s a 900 range set with no mobility.

I’ll just put own cents here in this topic aswell:
First off, S/P doesn’t have access to stealth either and functions exactly the same as P/P does, but in melee instead and instead of having freedom of movement with the burst ability, Pistol Whip, it locks you into place and gives you short evade frames. (On top of working as an AoE, which Unload doesn’t do.)

The draw to both S/P and P/P is the fact that they have the burst dps capability. Its a playstyle choice. A choice many of us playing P/P and S/P love. That is also the reason why a very large portion of do not want any kind of change, at all, to Unload. It functions as intended and it functions well. What needs to be done is boost the damage of Vital Shot, so it’s closer to Unload in terms of damage, not on par, but closer, so when we need to choose between utility and damage, we would know we aren’t gimping ourselves heavily. This would give us the UTILITY of BURST DPS. A high spike damage that is on-demand, which doesn’t exist for our weapon sets outside of S/P, which can unfortunately be too easily avoided due to the fact that it locks you into place. The burst of P/P can only be avoided by dodging or by getting out of line of sight and both counters are easy to avoid when you’re not sleeping.

I’ll also lay in the concerns that adding a “disengage” type mobility into the primary burst ability of P/P, will render that ability completely useless in the majority of the PvE content in the game due to various problems such as throwing you out of range of the target or throwing you into insta-kill-AoE etc. It simply should not be done. Ever. For any reason.

My suggestions are these:
Change Body Shot into the mobility skill of P/X sets, that would leave P/P’s primary draw, Unload and burst DPS capability + interaction with the DPS instead of the snooze-inducing afk-while-autoattacks-do-the-job playstyle that many of our other weapon sets suffer from. That is also a playstyle choice, but not something all of us like and that’s why P/P and S/P have been our go-to choices.

Leave Unload as is, no further changes.

Shorten the cast time of Vital Shot to 1/3s, 1/4s would be even better, but would probably go to the side of overpowered.

Give P/P some form of AoE, such as piercing. All other weapon sets except P/X have AoE capability. Adding a pierce effect to all pistol attacks would in this way give the AoE capability to some extent to all of our weapon choices. Vital Shot pierce for P/X and P/P would get both VS and Unload.

Also consider lengthening the duration of Black Powder by 1-2s. It’d make using it less of a spammable chore and initiative drain, which sucks the fun factor out of using it, turning into a skill in the “Bleh, have to use it again…” category. It won’t be a major deal breaker in PvP as it still requires for you stay standing inside its small radius to get its effect, thus decreasing your mobility further if you wish to fully utilize this possible change in the PvP aspect of the game. It’d simply be a PvE QoL improvement.

The roll could be as short as 300 which is a standard dodge roll. The set is not working outside of PvE for what seems to be the vast majority of thief players. I don’t know the exact usage rates, but it’s low enough that pistols have been chosen to be addressed. Including the damage boost that was added, the 4 shots would be a 1.5 multiplier overall, putting it at midrange heartseeker. The initiative could be lowered to 4 as well at that point. Adding a mobility skill to pistol #2 is just trying to copy SB. If thieves need more evasion/mobility outside of SB, that should be addressed with utilities. RFI would be a good example. The initiative gain and cooldown could be cut in half allowing you to use it more often.
My overall point is that P/P is not working. Limiting what they’re allowed to mechanically change to only number 2 is not going to fix it or else these number changes would have come close to fixing it. I’m not saying take away the burst. The damage from the reworked unload would still be relatively high and at the same rate. P/P needs to be a strong in-combat weapon set with staying power, not more ability to run.

Tldr: Unload needs to change to fix the set.

Karl McLain.5604:

Other stuff:
As I talked about last update, Channeled Vigor’s now being tested as a 0.75 second cast (down from 2.25 seconds). We’re also toying with the endurance/healing values. The role of this heal is shaping more toward being high spike healing for the thief.

-Karl

1) Wow, ~2 dodges on a short channel heal is actually starting to get competitive with withdraw. Higher risk but higher reward. I like the direction at least!

2) Moving some of the endurance regen to the base of DrD could be the way to go. I misread at first and got excited that DrD would be receiving a higher base endurance regen.

NinjaEd.3946:

I salute you karl for stepping in this sub forum!

Still thief is a dying hope for me… but at least you make an effort.

I would like to add my thanks to this. Getting feedback on DrD was expected, assuaging our concerns about the functionality of pistols wasn’t.

Thanks for dropping by!

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

Maybe not, but I don’t think making pistol SB-lite is the answer. I would rather have it have strong in combat fighting ability, meaning evasions and the ability to hinder the enemy. A boon hate design along with some evasive skills could make S/D+P/P something that might be able to stick to a point by killing boon bunkers. Maybe that number 2 skill needs poison in it too. A strong auto would be vital for maintaining pressure while saving your initiative for reacting to the opponent. SB is our utility ranged option, now P/P and P/D need to be our power and condi DPS ranged options.

to be clear, i don’t think pistol should be SB-lite. i was just saying that’s what it would take for someone to drop SB in favor of a pistol.

P/P, in my opinion, needs a new #3. something that gives it either mobility, stealth (directly or indirectly), or evasion, as those are the only things that can keep a thief alive, and incidentally the things that every thief set except P/P has. get pistol a better #2 too while at it. (poison isn’t a bad idea, though that sounds more like dagger’s territory. maybe a bouncy shot a la mesmer pistol that applies different condis based on target order).

Evasion on #3 is what I’m a strong advocate for. It just needs to have the shot number decreased to 4 instead of 8 so when you use it to evade it punishes people. Individual shot damage should stay the same so it would be a 1.2 multiplier (not taking account of the damage buffs today). Strong sustained damage should be moved to the auto since it’s a 900 range set with no mobility.

sagat

-snip-
The other way is if we can drop semi-tanks as soon as they are in range meaning game breaking damage increase.

This is exactly why pistols need more of a mechanical change rather than just the number adjustment we’re seeing here. The Pistol 1-3 skills need to be balanced more like the melee sets with strong autos and utility on the rest of the set.

I’m actually happy that we’re being told that this isn’t the final iteration of pistols, just a stopgap.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

Maybe not, but I don’t think making pistol SB-lite is the answer. I would rather have it have strong in combat fighting ability, meaning evasions and the ability to hinder the enemy. A boon hate design along with some evasive skills could make S/D+P/P something that might be able to stick to a point by killing boon bunkers. Maybe that number 2 skill needs poison in it too. A strong auto would be vital for maintaining pressure while saving your initiative for reacting to the opponent. SB is our utility ranged option, now P/P and P/D need to be our power and condi DPS ranged options.

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Ausfer.1853:

20% damage is a start but the conditions are still mediocre, and there’s still no survivibility, and there’s still no way to hit multiple targets …. this change is missing the point of why players don’t like p/p.

This.

Unload is good. but even if it did 20% more damage we still have no way to remain mobile with that damage.

Is it difficult to change -several- skills if you equip two pistols, instead of just the middle skill?

Once again, our problem is not that we cannot instagib hard enough. It is that we have no way to be “thiefy” vs. other classes with the majority of our builds. We suffer shutdowns with extreme prejudice, and even if we see them coming with many builds there is very little we can do.

If we can push to avoiding a sizeable amount of damage with skillful play, that’s enough.

I’m even willing to give up ricochet for that.

Well, as you said, you cant really change P4&5 because they are performing well. You could change 1, 2, and 3 sice they’re underwhelming on both sets, which is why I think a change to where the damage comes feom on the sets and the utility of 2 and 3 would be the best courae of action. P/P should be a strong midrange weapon because it lacks the mobility of SB.

Shimekiri.1580:

Maugetarr.6823:

But I’m going to disagree with you and say that unload is broken. All the sustained damage comes from unload which ia an initiative hog. My suggested changes move the sustained damage to the autos and put the utility back into the reat of the set. P/P will still retain it’s burst DPS on unload, but won’t be dependant on the skill just to maintain DPS. Keep in mind unload saw a significant DPS boost when its channel was reduced from an overall 2.35 second cast time to a 1.75 second cast time. That was a 35% DPS boost to the skill which still left P/P in the same situation. A flat buff to damage across the board isn’t going to change how you use the set mechanically. Also, i would like to point out that body shot is only useless because it takes away from the initiative needed to maintain the sustained damage from Unload. It makes no mathematical sense to spend it on body shot because it will lower your DPS overall. Moving the sustained damage to the autoattack would allow you to use body shot in a way that makes sense because it wouldn’t lower the frequency of your damaging attacks. Sure body shot could use a mechanical change too which is why I think boon hate would be good for it, but mobility wouldn’t be bad either.

As for proc chance, in the same time frame as you have 8 shots right now from unload, you would have 5 total from unload and 1 auto. The difference between the proc chances is actually very small. Not to mention that you would have the initiative to spend on 100% projectile finishers.

As an aside, 3 spam right now on P/P is your autoattack for the set; it just costs initiative so you don’t have initiative left for anything else on the set. Saying that P/P will become tedious because it’s sustained damage will come from 1 instead of 3 is the wrong way to look at it. P/P is already tedious mechanically. If it weren’t for the cool looking animation, it would be much more apparent.

What P/P needs is to not have its sustained damage attached to initiative, but autos like the other successful sets. The other skills need to have utility in them or burst damage. P4&5 are un a good position. Unload essentially needs to be moved to the 1 position in functiin since it’s providing the sustained DPS for the set while P2&3 need to be given situationally useful utility (condi clears, boon hate, evades, mobility, whatever). Unload fights the thief design right now because it is the substitute for a poor autoattack.

Just going to break the quote wall a bit, but anyway… You forgot to consider the management of initiative which is necessary when most/all of the damage is NOT coming from the AA’s, but from Unloads instead, the utiliziation of Haste to its maximum effect, initiative pooling etc. When you shift the primary source of damage from Unload to AA, you dumb down the spec insanely much. Sure, it will “free” the initiative to use elsewhere, but why would you use ANY initiative at all since you would LOSE damage by doing so, not gain, as you need to remember that unspent initiative acts as a damage modifier. Full initiative counts as a flat 15% damage modifier, which is too good to pass up, especially if most/all of our damage would come from AA’s which do not cost any initiative at all.

I’m going to disagree with you on this point. The changes I made are specifically to allow better initiative management by moving the values around. Lets look at S/D for comparison since it has an evade built into the set. The Autoattack chain is the biggest source of sustained damage. Larcenous strike has a decent chunk on it too sitting at a 1.5 multiplier. You wouldn’t say that S/D lacks proper initiative management simply because the sustained damage comes from autos, but rather it frees up initiative for the proper use of the skills on the set. Right now the spec is dumb because it competes with proper management. That’s why you rarely see serious use in PvP. The proper design should be like SB which allows you to use the skills as needed. Since the set would still lack the escape options that SB has, it should be a strong in-combat, single target contender for the spot. That means increasing the damage output and utility by fixing 1, 2, and 3. Adding sustain by making a half second evade that still has a 1.2 overall multipler would help the skill cap, not hurt it.

As to your point on why you would use any skill on the set because of the loss from Lead Attacks… if that’s your stance on it, why would you use any skills except autos on any set? You would because the situation calls for it. Right now P/P only worries about damage output and sinks all of it into 3. If it’s not, then DPS is extremely poor on it. The goal is to bring P/P up to the levels of the other sets in terms of strength and utility. Deviating from 3 spam will not dumb down the set.

Shimekiri.1580:

Maugetarr.6823:

Shimekiri.1580:

Maugetarr.6823:

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight.

Problem with unload shots cut in half it breaks SOM procs it cuts down on IP health gain and it compromises the sigil procs with low cooldowns.

The sheer number of shots on unload is part of what makes it tick in the set and Pierce will not make up for that,.

Yea, but with the channel time cut in half, you should be able to use it twice in the same amount of time. Yes, that’s more initiative, but you also get the evades while you’re hitting ao you ahould be taking less damage overall. In a teamfight, piercing 1 target to hit what you’re aiming at would make up the difference, so positioning yourself to hit clones and pets would give you the same benefit as now. Also, with the majority of the damage coming from the autos, you will have the initiative to interrupt channels that would cause you to burn dodges to avoid currently. I don’t think P/P needs to be held back overall because of the interaction between our signet heal and Unload.

The thing is, you’re thinking about this in the PvP vacuum, when you need to think about it in the PvE aspect of the game aswell. Also note that if utilizing maximum range like in in many encounters you are, such as Tequatl or any Fractal bosses etc. a backwards flip is VERY counterproductive as it hurls you out of range, which is also very counterproductive in PvP as it can cause objects to get in the line of fire, the target to go out of range or again atleast in the PvE aspect of the game, for you to get flipped back into an AoE behind you, which could kill in less than a second. We do NOT want any kind of movement tied to Unload. Body Shot is the only skill currently without a valuable function tied to it, so that is where we should look at, for a mobility oriented skill.

But you’re talking about preserving a skill that turns the set into a 3 spam. Yes I am looking at it in a PvP vacuum because you can use virtually any weapon set in PvE and be successful. The point of this though is not to keep using unload like you currently do which would support your concern, but rather to move the damage to the autoattack so you have the options to use 2-5 when the fight calls for it rather than having to sink all of your initiative into unload.

Right now the total multiplier is 2.4 over 1.75 seconds (including aftercast). That makes the skill into 1.31 mult/sec. That doesn’t sound so bad, except that when you normalize it over the time to recharge 5 Initiative, it drops to 0.48 mult/sec of recharge. Do you know what else has a 0.48 mult/sec? Vital shot in its current form. The thing is that people see big numbers on Unload and assume it’s a good skill on the set, but it’s such a resource hog that it’s holding the rest of the set back. So why did I pick 0.75? Well, when you use Unload (and hit with the full channel) and add that to the damage from the 4 remaining shots in the 5 seconds waiting for initiative to regen, you get a 0.8 mult/sec ((2.4 + 4×0.4)÷5). They wanted to give pistols a ~20% boost, so 0.8×1.2=0.96 mult/sec. Changing the autoattack to 0.75 then dividing it by its shot to shot time gives us 0.75÷0.82=0.91, which is a 13% boost to the current unload + autoattack that P/P is on just the autoattack. I didn’t give it the full 20% because we have the initiative to use all of our skills on the bar as needed while still maintaining higher overall DPS than we currently do with the set for no initiative.

Sure, the stuff that you mentioned could be a problem if you continue to use Unload like the set demands right now, but you shouldn’t be doing that anymore because the changes allow you to use the skills on the set as needed rather than the initiative sink the set is in its current form.

I understand your point, but you’re trying to fix what isn’t broken. The AA wouldn’t be able to replace the synergy of Unload with sigils, on-crit effects and various field effects such as blind. Also, just buffing AA damage multiplier and nerfing Unload wouldn’t change the situation to the better, it would actually make it worse as in your case, all the PvE people would be doing is use the AA and afk/spam Black Powder.(And I don’t think this would be rare in PvP either.) Unload would become in PvE pretty much the same as Body Shot is in both PvE and PvP, useless outside of very rare niche situations, whilst making playing P/P in atleast in PvE an AA chore which is boring as hell as you wouldn’t need to do anything except move out of the random crap thrown at you. This isn’t something anyone really wants and I don’t think you want that either. Also, if we went down this route, you’d still be leaving our most useless skill, Body Shot, as is, with no changes and by buffing the AA damage multiplier, instead of the attack speed, you’d leave the set extremely slow-paced with even less to do than currently.

There are three things P/P truly needs(Atleast in my opinion.), a mobility skill, AoE capability and AA attack speed boost to 1/3s or 1/4s, to bring P/P closer to what the other classes and weapon sets on thief itself are capable of dishing out damage-wise. Body Shot is the perfect and only viable candidate for the mobility skill and for AoE, pierce would be the go-to non-random mechanic, if randomness was the true reason the bounce mechanic was removed.

But I’m going to disagree with you and say that unload is broken. All the sustained damage comes from unload which ia an initiative hog. My suggested changes move the sustained damage to the autos and put the utility back into the reat of the set. P/P will still retain it’s burst DPS on unload, but won’t be dependant on the skill just to maintain DPS. Keep in mind unload saw a significant DPS boost when its channel was reduced from an overall 2.35 second cast time to a 1.75 second cast time. That was a 35% DPS boost to the skill which still left P/P in the same situation. A flat buff to damage across the board isn’t going to change how you use the set mechanically. Also, i would like to point out that body shot is only useless because it takes away from the initiative needed to maintain the sustained damage from Unload. It makes no mathematical sense to spend it on body shot because it will lower your DPS overall. Moving the sustained damage to the autoattack would allow you to use body shot in a way that makes sense because it wouldn’t lower the frequency of your damaging attacks. Sure body shot could use a mechanical change too which is why I think boon hate would be good for it, but mobility wouldn’t be bad either.

As for proc chance, in the same time frame as you have 8 shots right now from unload, you would have 5 total from unload and 1 auto. The difference between the proc chances is actually very small. Not to mention that you would have the initiative to spend on 100% projectile finishers.

As an aside, 3 spam right now on P/P is your autoattack for the set; it just costs initiative so you don’t have initiative left for anything else on the set. Saying that P/P will become tedious because it’s sustained damage will come from 1 instead of 3 is the wrong way to look at it. P/P is already tedious mechanically. If it weren’t for the cool looking animation, it would be much more apparent.

What P/P needs is to not have its sustained damage attached to initiative, but autos like the other successful sets. The other skills need to have utility in them or burst damage. P4&5 are un a good position. Unload essentially needs to be moved to the 1 position in functiin since it’s providing the sustained DPS for the set while P2&3 need to be given situationally useful utility (condi clears, boon hate, evades, mobility, whatever). Unload fights the thief design right now because it is the substitute for a poor autoattack.

BartHomer.7512:

(This post is mostly orientated to wvw)

Oh and lets talk about thief that class that can have perma vigor easy pizzy and still outrun every enemy and infinite stealth… BUT NOOOOOOOOO LETS NERF ELE

What trait gives thief perma vigor? Are you referring to the combination of Bountiful theft, Slight of Hand, and 2 successful evasions with Feline Grace?

Shimekiri.1580:

Maugetarr.6823:

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight.

Problem with unload shots cut in half it breaks SOM procs it cuts down on IP health gain and it compromises the sigil procs with low cooldowns.

The sheer number of shots on unload is part of what makes it tick in the set and Pierce will not make up for that,.

Yea, but with the channel time cut in half, you should be able to use it twice in the same amount of time. Yes, that’s more initiative, but you also get the evades while you’re hitting ao you ahould be taking less damage overall. In a teamfight, piercing 1 target to hit what you’re aiming at would make up the difference, so positioning yourself to hit clones and pets would give you the same benefit as now. Also, with the majority of the damage coming from the autos, you will have the initiative to interrupt channels that would cause you to burn dodges to avoid currently. I don’t think P/P needs to be held back overall because of the interaction between our signet heal and Unload.

The thing is, you’re thinking about this in the PvP vacuum, when you need to think about it in the PvE aspect of the game aswell. Also note that if utilizing maximum range like in in many encounters you are, such as Tequatl or any Fractal bosses etc. a backwards flip is VERY counterproductive as it hurls you out of range, which is also very counterproductive in PvP as it can cause objects to get in the line of fire, the target to go out of range or again atleast in the PvE aspect of the game, for you to get flipped back into an AoE behind you, which could kill in less than a second. We do NOT want any kind of movement tied to Unload. Body Shot is the only skill currently without a valuable function tied to it, so that is where we should look at, for a mobility oriented skill.

But you’re talking about preserving a skill that turns the set into a 3 spam. Yes I am looking at it in a PvP vacuum because you can use virtually any weapon set in PvE and be successful. The point of this though is not to keep using unload like you currently do which would support your concern, but rather to move the damage to the autoattack so you have the options to use 2-5 when the fight calls for it rather than having to sink all of your initiative into unload.

Right now the total multiplier is 2.4 over 1.75 seconds (including aftercast). That makes the skill into 1.31 mult/sec. That doesn’t sound so bad, except that when you normalize it over the time to recharge 5 Initiative, it drops to 0.48 mult/sec of recharge. Do you know what else has a 0.48 mult/sec? Vital shot in its current form. The thing is that people see big numbers on Unload and assume it’s a good skill on the set, but it’s such a resource hog that it’s holding the rest of the set back. So why did I pick 0.75? Well, when you use Unload (and hit with the full channel) and add that to the damage from the 4 remaining shots in the 5 seconds waiting for initiative to regen, you get a 0.8 mult/sec ((2.4 + 4×0.4)÷5). They wanted to give pistols a ~20% boost, so 0.8×1.2=0.96 mult/sec. Changing the autoattack to 0.75 then dividing it by its shot to shot time gives us 0.75÷0.82=0.91, which is a 13% boost to the current unload + autoattack that P/P is on just the autoattack. I didn’t give it the full 20% because we have the initiative to use all of our skills on the bar as needed while still maintaining higher overall DPS than we currently do with the set for no initiative.

Sure, the stuff that you mentioned could be a problem if you continue to use Unload like the set demands right now, but you shouldn’t be doing that anymore because the changes allow you to use the skills on the set as needed rather than the initiative sink the set is in its current form.

Shadow Dragon Bob.7160:

Maugetarr.6823:

So no more Mai Trin like bosses?

No guarantees on that (if anything giant red zones of death are probably guaranteed if the regular mobs in HoT are any indication), however, dodge rolling through it will still mitigate 100% of the damage as long as you reach a ‘clean spot’ by the end of the dodge. The real trick will be learning each of the daredevil dodges to use on the threshold of such attacks. My main fear came from the idea that enemies would start having ground target attacks that would be unblockable. I can understand a wind up mega hit if you’ve failed a mechanic, but essentially in the rush to get the stream about druid out the dev misrepresented his meaning. My believe is he was speaking very much about ranger/druid, and about how raids would encourage more than just ten top tier dps builds. I mean, think of the last time you did a dungeon or fractal with a ‘speed run total zerk’ pug group. Did they really meet those expectations? Because for me 80% of the time the fail miserably and bicker at each other. Yet with how the content is structured, those people STILL wind up beating the thing eventually by bashing their heads against the keyboard until it works. For raids, that won’t cut it (at least by their goals), because the skill requirement is going to be raised while the forgiveness meter is all but non-existent (no revive orbs or way points). The DPS will still need to dodge but also be focusing on mitigating damage through weakness and destroying break bars, in essence making it faster. One of their main goals was that zerker should be an equal but different solution compared to sinister. You’ll notice a lot of what the druid does both mitigates enemies in a control sense while promoting party synergy through heals AND damage. Frost spirit buff + that shiny new glyph = ALL THE DAMAGE. Weakness from Druid + Weakness from Daredevil = constant weakness to keep the squishes up while still maintaining dps.

As for Main Trin, you can dodge roll through the canon phase if the area gets surrounded by red circles of doom, and, so long as you land in a ‘clean’ spot take no damage. Took me a bit on thief to figure that out but sb5 is still the best option combined with harpy feathers to stay stealth (for reasons that are probably well known). Either way the important part is that Karl’s energy was genuinely there. He wants this to work and is putting in insane hours to make it so. Granted we do have the right and need to say what we feel isn’t energizing the build, but I don’t want us lashing out with personal attacks or belittling someone just because someone somewhere said something.

Anywho’s I’ll be beta testing Daredevil and scrapper exclusively on BW3. So much has changed from BW2 that I’m really looking forward to the improvements.

What i was referring to was the un-dodgeable shot she fires if you were at the farthest away from her. If it means that its going to be more stuff like the molten duo or the cannon phase, thats fine, but literally un-dodgeable attacks are what worries me.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Maugetarr.6823:

Here’s the thing though. If you look at something like protection that reduces all incoming damage by 33%, you’re basically ignoring every 3rd hit. This would mean that you would have to dodge every 3rd hit to be as effective as protection. The other 2 low health tier classes have anple access to protection or rather continuous heals and blocks. Even with our high dodge rate with the old FG, that just put out evasive capabilities on par with protection. They should have stripped out the damage buffs from the line but left the defensive traits alone, requiring real choice when making builds.

So overall, I don’t agree that they can’t balance around not getting hit. Yes, it’s a little frustrating to fight against, but when it only takes 2-3 solid hits to down a thief, it’s fine.

I partially agree, but in practical terms you don’t actually need to dodge even 1 out of 3 attacks to get 33% damage reduction. Eating a few 1k auto attacks but dodging the 8k burst is a net gain compared to protection.

That is true, but protection allows you to shrug off the autochain from the opponent and dodge the burst. Autos alone can hit pretty kitten classes without protection or invulns. Right now you can dodge an 8k eviscerate (3.0 multiplier iirc) but if you eat the auto chain, it’s something like a 5.0 multiplier overall. Not to mention protection mitigates instant cast skill that you can only dodge through prediction. Back in it’s heyday, FG + Vigor let you dodge once every 3.5 seconds, and while that might be a little strong, getting it back down to kitten seconds would be nice since we lack most of the defensive capabilities seen by the other classes on our health tier.

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight.

Problem with unload shots cut in half it breaks SOM procs it cuts down on IP health gain and it compromises the sigil procs with low cooldowns.

The sheer number of shots on unload is part of what makes it tick in the set and Pierce will not make up for that,.

Yea, but with the channel time cut in half, you should be able to use it twice in the same amount of time. Yes, that’s more initiative, but you also get the evades while you’re hitting ao you ahould be taking less damage overall. In a teamfight, piercing 1 target to hit what you’re aiming at would make up the difference, so positioning yourself to hit clones and pets would give you the same benefit as now. Also, with the majority of the damage coming from the autos, you will have the initiative to interrupt channels that would cause you to burn dodges to avoid currently. I don’t think P/P needs to be held back overall because of the interaction between our signet heal and Unload.

Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight.

A previous post of mine for changes that could be made to rework acro into something interesting that could stand on its own

Basically, my idea is to offer 3 different types of enhancement that could be taken together as a single row or mixed. These are mobility enhancement(ME), brawling enhancement (BE), and effect mitigation(EM).
Adept
Expeditious Dodger: 3 seconds of swiftness on dodge.
ME: Fleet Shadow ->Explosive Speed: Gain 3 seconds of super speed when you gain swiftness (8 sec ICD)
EM: Pain Response: Fine as is
BE: Vigorous Recovery: Gain 5 seconds of vigor on heal. When you gain vigor, lose a condition (5 sec ICD)
Master
Feline Grace: Fine as is
ME: Guarded Initiation -> Captive Transversal: When you shadowstep to a target, immobilize that target for 1.5 seconds (8 sec ICD)
EM: Hard to Catch: Fine as is
BE: Swindler’s Equilibrium: Reduce steal cooldown by 3 seconds on successful evasion. No weapon restriction (5 sec ICD)
Grandmaster
Endless Stamina: Fine as is
ME: Assassin’s Reward -> Swindler’s Transversal: When you shadowstep to your target, transfer 1 condition and steal 1 boon (8 sec ICD)
EM: Don’t Stop: Fine as is
BE: Upper Hand: Gain 3-5 endurance on hitting the opponent (1 sec ICD) (would need to be play tested to determine strength)

Jana.6831:

Maugetarr.6823:

Here’s the thing though. If you look at something like protection that reduces all incoming damage by 33%, you’re basically ignoring every 3rd hit. This would mean that you would have to dodge every 3rd hit to be as effective as protection. The other 2 low health tier classes have anple access to protection or rather continuous heals and blocks. Even with our high dodge rate with the old FG, that just put out evasive capabilities on par with protection. They should have stripped out the damage buffs from the line but left the defensive traits alone, requiring real choice when making builds.

So overall, I don’t agree that they can’t balance around not getting hit. Yes, it’s a little frustrating to fight against, but when it only takes 2-3 solid hits to down a thief, it’s fine.

I’m not really sure if I’m right on this buut the 2 classes which don’t have invulnerability are necro (33% less) and thief (none – or 25% when in stealth when traited in SA).
The damage output overall got higher with the June patch, the health pool didn’t – I think mine is lower as it has been, no idea about other classes. Those who have 2 dodges and 1 or more invulnerabilities/blocks seem to survive better in this “patch”.
So, like a few already said: The overall damage should be reduced, especially for tanky classes or those who have got other ways to mitigate damage as it’s harder to hit them = to survive against them.
I don’t really oppose 3 dodges, thus a smart way to fight, just saying that even one hit right now hurts a lot.

Edit: So basically what I think is that currently all balance is off. You can buff thief all you want, but then we become another mindless class like the rest of them who can faceroll their keybord to success as they can go as glassy as they like, they still won’t get hit because of all their invulnerabilities.

Edit²: Thief needs buffs nonetheless but most other classes need nerfs.

Actually, playing on my non-thief alts, the game is pretty close to balanced (in PvP). There are a few outliers like D/D ele an PU mes, but the nerfs to the burns and the duration of PU respectively should bring them more into line with the other classes. That said, we are an outlier in the opposite direction. The bell curve just needs to be narrowed.

We are the outlier because of our lack of mitigation. I don’t really support giving thieves more autoprocs or boons, but more access to endurance regen in a form that could stack with vigor would be useful. Also, part of the reason that D/P is outperforming S/D is that it has better endurance regen because of the autoattack. More endurance regen should be folded into acrobatics, so if you want to stack dodge mechanics with DrD you have to sacrifice 2 offensive lines to be an evasive machine.

Honestly we need some more denial and theft mechanics if nothing else changes. We don’t need damage buffs, we need interesting mechanical buffs to our defensive lines. The underperfoming acrobatics line is a prime candidate to introduce some new things.

Amante.8109:

If the last three years have proven anything, it’s that balancing a class around never getting hit doesn’t work for a PvP-focused game. Even when that design is executed well, it’s extremely frustrating for your enemies to deal with; no one likes the feeling of being completely unable to hit the opponent.

This leads to there being realistic limits to how much can be evaded (as there should be), which is fine except when you have an entire class still balanced around not getting hit. Sooner or later that class will run out of dodges and tricks, and then they just die. Simply put, Thief needs to be balanced around the reality of sometimes getting hit.

Right now, it isn’t… and that’s a big problem for the people playing Thief.

Here’s the thing though. If you look at something like protection that reduces all incoming damage by 33%, you’re basically ignoring every 3rd hit. This would mean that you would have to dodge every 3rd hit to be as effective as protection. The other 2 low health tier classes have anple access to protection or rather continuous heals and blocks. Even with our high dodge rate with the old FG, that just put out evasive capabilities on par with protection. They should have stripped out the damage buffs from the line but left the defensive traits alone, requiring real choice when making builds.

So overall, I don’t agree that they can’t balance around not getting hit. Yes, it’s a little frustrating to fight against, but when it only takes 2-3 solid hits to down a thief, it’s fine.

Constructive? Like we’ve tried to be since the last patch?

You can only make so many threads with so many suggestions before you feel like you’re just banging your head against a wall. Even if the only response to these was “Hey, we read this.” it would do a lot to alleviate what you consider to be melodramatic threads.

Let’s take a look at pistols. The problem isn’t the damage, it’s the fact that damage is largely based around Unload. So what’s happening (based on the info)? Just a damage buff. That’s not the problem. The community has identified the problem with pistols pretty much since the beginning of the game. They lack the mobility and defence that every other thief set has, but they’re giving it a damage buff….

Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.7 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

Pistol 2 could have a boon strip or something that would put the utility on par with SB.

Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

Then put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight.

But no. We’ve been making suggestions for months after we became underwhelming since the last patch and years for other suggestions. Deathblossom is another skill that comes to mind. So, sorry if we’re tired of being being constructive, but its not like we get any better response than if we’re throwing a fit.

You lack perspective and experience.

Shadow Dragon Bob.7160:

One of my buddies got to talk to Karl at twitch con! One thing we can still count on is that dodge will mitigate 100% of damage. I don’t know about certain bosses having unblockable attacks and would assume they still might, but at very least the thing that struck fear in my heart is a little toned down.

So no more Mai Trin like bosses?

Even after this patch, while playing S/D against a Guardian, when we won the fight because I was the +1, I got told to spam 3 more. We’re always going to be OP, unless we’re on their team, at which point we’re ‘trying to lose.’

chibbi.3706:

DeceiverX.8361:

chibbi.3706:

I, for one think daredevil looks pretty strong and mostly hella fun, and if I get HoT I will definitely reroll a thief just to play it.

Having played it in BWE, it’s the worst-performing spec line for the thief. It’s slow, clunky, unattractive, and simply badly-designed and badly-implemented. I see zero reason to stray from any of the current lines because DD is so non-functional aside from condi D/D 3spam which benefits a bit more from this than some other lines.

Who said anything about DD condi ?

I think of it as a new build that works like the old S/D thief. I can be wrong of course, but I won’t just straight up believe someone who only tried it for 2 days and played a condi DD build.

It doesn’t have the increased endurance regen of the old S/D. It literally has 1 more dodge per fight. Might as well go DA/CS/Tr and kill things 20% faster so you don’t need that dodge.

Increase the damage and bleed length on autoattack (0.7 multiplier, 8 second bleed). Cut the number of shots and initiative on unload in half while giving it a backward roll, matrix-style.

The main damage should come from autos. Autos could do increased damage to foes with vulnerability also. Unload needs utility to put the set on the board like every other competitive set. There are so many tweaks that are mechanically different than “moar damage,” which is probably going to get nerfed anyway.

Nike.2631:

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

@Nike

So…I’m not really sure what you’re trying to accomplish with your argument. Are you suggesting that Daredevil is strong enough as it is, or do you acknowledge that, in its present state, it isn’t strong enough.

As I’m sure you’re aware, if you think the former, then no one here will take you seriously. Otherwise, tell us how you would improve the Daredevil spec if not by making the core mechanic stand out more.

I think the Daredevil has room to get stronger (and maybe even should) but that if we get those gains its gonna be inside the existing framework and not come by granting all three current GMs as a toggle that can be changed mid-match AND forcing them to come up with three more GW-magnitude traits, code them, and test them before a very real, very public deadline of Oct 23.

I agree with you on this part. That’s why I think a rate increase would fit thematically and help utilize the new traits better.

Edit: Even if they scaled endurance regen up to 7.5 per second within the traitline, including endless stamina on vigor it would still be few dodges in a timeframe than the old FG + Vigor.

Nike.2631:

Maugetarr.6823:

Second of all, how do you know they don’t agree? The whole point of this thread is to give feedback. Our (as in mine and at least Sir Vincent’s) feedback is that 1 extra dodge and the apparent added flexibility of 1 sigil is underwhelming and needs to be improved.

That’s easy: because we haven’ been invited in at the brainstorming stage or even the white-board stage. E-specs are only being exposed to public scrutiny after their core premise has been agreed upon and mulled over internally for a very long time. Some things at the philosophical level rather than the numbers tuning level were decided and set in at mostly cured clay if not stone before we were ever involved. And that’s not meant as “so don’t share your comments” because I think you’ve provided a needed service in forcing them to consider their decisions… but that consideration doesn’t mean they’ve opted to change those decisions.

That and you can watch them right now, today making the GM traits more effective – and every time that happens that’s a solid step directly AWAY from making those effects a selectable pack-in just for plopping the Trait line in slot 3. If they were weakening them, I’d totally agree they’re moving towards making them a free component of the line.

Think of it as Developer body language. The changes say a lot about the direction of their thinking above and beyond the details of the change itself.

Except that doesn’t preclude changing the line spec at all. Revenant saw some significant buffs to the core after the BWE feedback, and now we have been asked to participate in the same type of feedback for DrD. Because they are improving the GM traits doesn’t preclude changing the core either. Fixing the dodge traits first though was top priority because it limits the real feedback on survivability and usefulness when we can’t use them as intended.

Prioritizing fixes in the timeframe isn’t mutually exclusive with the other fixes and buffs. Alternatively, I could say they’re looking at improving a wide variety of things because both weapon skill mechanics and numbers as well as traits are being improved.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Amante.8109:

How many other elite specializations trade a whole tier of trait choices for their elite mechanic, exactly? Oh right… zero.

Or are you going to insist with a straight face that it’s an extra dodge-bar pip?

Believe it or not, the extra dodge roll is the mechanic here. The GM traits all interact with that extra mechanic. Some people keep saying “Does Reaper need a GM trait to enter RS?” and the answer is obviously not, but a number of its traits interact with RS just like how a number of the DD traits interact with dodging. I realize that a dodging elite specialization may be hard to grasp, but that’s what it is.

Maugetarr.6823:

Im going to agree with you here partially. I think bound could use some strengthening (mechanically, not a numbers boost, but rather a way to make it hit better), but other than that, they are GM’s made to augment out spec boost. I’m only partially agreeing because 1 more dodge is pretty weak mechanically for an elite spec. If they rolled the healing into the condi removal trait and added a trait to improve endurance regen and not just capacity, the whole spec would fill out better. (PS: good condi removal when traiting for it should be part of core thief and not necessary on elite spec).

As an explanation as to why I think the extra dodge alone is weak: it’s equal to half of the endurance gained by using signet of agility or hard to catch proccing. Adding an endurance regen that stacked with vigor would be more useful. Simply scaling base endurance regen with the max size would be best I think, so our base regen when taking DrD would be 7.5.

It’s similar to increasing your Vitality. Increasing your Vitality increases your overall bulk, but really all it does is just give you more frontloaded health with which you can take initial hits. If you can never get back to full HP during a fight, it really doesn’t help you much throughout the fight. However, when you gain increased Vitality, you still see it as a good thing that is helping you out a lot. Much like that, Daredevil works by increasing your endurance by a full 50, and while it doesn’t change how much you gain over time, it enables you to do things that you couldn’t before. Like what, you may ask? Have you ever had to double dodge in order to evade a particularly nasty and persistent group of enemies? Now you can dodge once more after you do that. That’s actually really strong. It means in PvP that people don’t get a free burst on you, and in PvE it means that you’ve got one extra chance to evade an attack that might otherwise down you.

It may not be immediately obvious how awesome this is, but truly it is awesome. The value of this is compounded if you’re using a Staff with Staff Master as well, because that enables you to regenerate endurance at a truly astonishing rate. You even gain an extra 50 endurance back when you steal with Daredevil. All things considered, it’s fairly easy to get back to 150 endurance in the middle of a fight and then have three full dodges with which to avoid incoming attacks.

While I understand what you’re getting at, by the exact same argument, you could double doge and then use SoA to gain 2 more dodges in a row. If we use the trait too (because you bring up staff training) that 100 more endurance over a 24 second period resulting in an equivalent of 4.16 per second. Or, alternatively, we could divide it up into 1 extra dodge and an equivalent extra endurance regen of about 2.08 per second making it directly comparable to the line. The regen of staff is 2 per second with this trait since it’s based off initiative. My overall point is that its underwhelming because it’s not really enhancing anything (or really even more advantageous to take over CS). IMO it’s underwhelming. Adding increased regen would put it on par with the other profession elite spec mechanics that we’ve seen.

Nike.2631:

It comes down to if you’re only “getting 1 more dodge per encounter”… you’re doing it wrong. How the heck are you positioning yourself so badly you need 3 dodges every 10 second (because by Grenth if you aren’t rocking Sigils of Energy on a dodge-monger….) and how can you possibly be doing any decent DPS with more than 20% of your time locked up in dodge-state?

Quit playing jackrabbit and position properly! There’s no PvE content in the game that should be taxing your dodges that hard and if its a player up in your grill like that POP SOME STEALTH. Nobody needs a dodge every 3.333 seconds like a metronome ticking and that means you are going to get times when you’re recharging your endurance pool above 100 which nobody else can do. Bamm! Every time that happens you are getting more than one extra dodge per encounter.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The extra window of opportunity doesn’t equate to what other professions are getting with the Elite spec.

The people whose decision matters don’t agree. I’m not that interested in fuzzy comparisons to other profession that work nothing like thief. I’m looking at how to leverage what we’re being given to maximum effect. Clearly there’s some skill cap at work, because there are going to be people who play Daredevils badly, and people that are going to be beasts.

First, leveraging that sigil to maximum effect is counter to the thief design based on the shared resources between the weapon swaps. It’s not like warrior warrior that can blow all of their skills, swap sets and be effective. Or we can look at kits on engineer gaining the full benefit from the sigil too by equipping a kit, then swapping right back to be able to maximize potential.

Second of all, how do you know they don’t agree? The whole point of this thread is to give feedback. Our (as in mine and at least Sir Vincent’s) feedback is that 1 extra dodge and the apparent added flexibility of 1 sigil is underwhelming and needs to be improved.

Nike.2631:

For must professions the optimal time to trigger Superior Sigil of Energy is when you have 50 endurance or less. Any later and you lose some portion of the 50 endurance it grants. The Daredevil has a wider window and more flexibility when to pop it and still gain the full benefit. And that’s assuming it doesn’t actually work as advertised and give you 75 endurance…

That’s cool and all, but considering the shared resources for thief weapon skills, thieves already benefit less from swapping anyway. Just because the endurance bar will make it easier to get the full potential of one sigil isn’t enough of a reason to leave the spec bonus sub par overall.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Maugetarr.6823:

2) Assuming that the traits are there to compliment the new spec, the new spec needs something like increased endurance regen because 50 more endurance is half as effective as using Signet of Agility in a fight (even less so if you consider it’s an AoE endurance refill and cleanse).

The advantage of the using SoA is that as if you have an independent endurance bar that refills at the same time as your endurance. The 3rd endurance bar has to wait for the 1st and 2nd bar to refill before it can start refilling. Big difference.

Now if each endurance bar refills independently and can refill at the same time, then we might be on to something very useful.

That was my point though. 50 more endurance isn’t anything except 1 more dodge. My whole point was though that something needs to be buffed, but whether you see the dodge traits as part of the new mechanic or as traits leads to big differences of opinion.

(yes, your point of the CD recharge being independent of endurance is also correct and should serve to illustrate the point that something needs to be improved somewhere, which is why I’ll continue to advocate scaling the endurance regen with the total capacity.)

Bllade.1029:

Yulan.4069:

Bllade.1029:

Here are your GM traits, they compliment your over all play style depending on your needs.

Please enlighten me on how this isn’t exactly what the 3 different dodge traits do.

I would enlighten you, but that would take me a wall of text to show you the point we’re trying to make here.

Best thing I can say for you is to look up all of the other Grandmaster traits of the other specializations then compare them to what we have currently. Note the differences and i’m sure you’ll come to your own conclusion.

I think the impasse we’re coming to is that they really are just traits intended to enhance the new line’s bonus. That said, 50 more endurance is underwhelming which is why we’re arguing about it:

1) Assuming the new dodges were part of the bonus, DrD would be up to par with others if it had a selection box.

2) Assuming that the traits are there to compliment the new spec, the new spec needs something like increased endurance regen because 50 more endurance is half as effective as using Signet of Agility in a fight (even less so if you consider it’s an AoE endurance refill and cleanse).

I think it’s fair to say that everyone thinks something else could be done to the baseline spec, but depending on how we see what is part of the baseline spec is causing huge differences in opinion.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Amante.8109:

Karl,

How much longer are you going to ignore the elephant in the room of the dodges unnecessarily taking the spot of real Grandmaster traits? Are you not allowed to make a statement on it? Blink once for yes, twice for no

I’m shocked that you’ve persisted so diligently in asserting that the Daredevil GMs aren’t “real”. They all have very real effects on dodge, and all augment dodge in a unique way that makes them very strong. I’m not sure what you genuinely expect to change in response to your complaints.

Im going to agree with you here partially. I think bound could use some strengthening (mechanically, not a numbers boost, but rather a way to make it hit better), but other than that, they are GM’s made to augment out spec boost. I’m only partially agreeing because 1 more dodge is pretty weak mechanically for an elite spec. If they rolled the healing into the condi removal trait and added a trait to improve endurance regen and not just capacity, the whole spec would fill out better. (PS: good condi removal when traiting for it should be part of core thief and not necessary on elite spec).

As an explanation as to why I think the extra dodge alone is weak: it’s equal to half of the endurance gained by using signet of agility or hard to catch proccing. Adding an endurance regen that stacked with vigor would be more useful. Simply scaling base endurance regen with the max size would be best I think, so our base regen when taking DrD would be 7.5.

Bllade.1029:

The boon meta is really boring and unoriginal. Every profession has access to boons one way or another, instead of piling on more boons for an already prevalent boon meta, this might be a good opportunity to embrace what the class is by nature: A Thief.

Instead of providing our own boons, have more access to stealing other peoples boons.

I agree with this assessment. I think this is half the reason why cele necro is a soft counter to cele ele right now . They’re the only one who can keep the boon corruption up. Returning the 2 boon steal to larcenous strike and giving a way to share it would help tone down the cele ele and put S/D back on the board for team fights.

I had an idea of how to rearrange trickery slightly to boost core thief and build variety a while ago.

Arctarius.2649:

Maugetarr.6823:

Shalien.9018:

Bllade.1029:

Might as well keep this Feedback train rolling;

How do we feel about Staff #4? Any Suggestions?

How about Channeled Vigor the DD heal?

Consensus on Staff 4 is to make it take 1/2 second cast time and put down a darkness field that pulses blind for 3 seconds.

Not many people talk about the heal because they aren’t planning on using it. A 3 person cleave physical attack that heals you and if you hit someone returns endurance would be leagues above the weird super long channel skill we have now.

How about a heal that returns 100 endurance instantly and heals a small amount (~2.5k) and then gives you a buff that the next 3 times you evade attacks you gain health (~1k) per successful evasion. Put a time limit of 10 seconds for the buff.

With the reveal timer, 3 would be pointless, I like your idea but instead it should be, for 10 seconds you have ( the next evade you make grants you stealth) and the buff is removed once stealth is granted. Even in the moment you get stealth, that’s 1 second, then at least 2 while in stealth, then 4 of reveal. 7 seconds gone so I don’t see the point in the 3.

Well DD seems to be an out of stealth fighter, so that’s why I put the 3 evades part in. Basically it would be kitten heal with 2 dodges attached so it could compete with withdraw. I don’t understand your comments about stealth an reveal attached to it as it would be instant initially and then give a 10 second window for the rest of the health gain.

Shalien.9018:

Bllade.1029:

Might as well keep this Feedback train rolling;

How do we feel about Staff #4? Any Suggestions?

How about Channeled Vigor the DD heal?

Consensus on Staff 4 is to make it take 1/2 second cast time and put down a darkness field that pulses blind for 3 seconds.

Not many people talk about the heal because they aren’t planning on using it. A 3 person cleave physical attack that heals you and if you hit someone returns endurance would be leagues above the weird super long channel skill we have now.

How about a heal that returns 100 endurance instantly and heals a small amount (~2.5k) and then gives you a buff that the next 3 times you evade attacks you gain health (~1k) per successful evasion. Put a time limit of 10 seconds for the buff.

So I’m hesitant to nerf Infiltrator’s Arrow, but honestly it might be necessary. Combined with making preparedness baseline and making it 5 Initiative it would make it take your entire initiative pool to go 1800 units, which seems about right. If you were in combat, most likely you could only get 1 off initially, then 1 a couple of seconds later allowing for more counterplay. The caveat I have on that thiugh us that the arc needs to be higher and the arrow faster so that it doesn’t clip the ground (resulting in a short shot) as much.

There’s more I think needs to be done, but this idea was one tradeoff I found myself agreeing with.

Slowmelt.8547:

Maugetarr.6823:

Cynz.9437:

Want to have extra frustrating time? Play w/o vamp runes on thief….. :|

If you’re a masochist, play without vamp runes, shadow arts, or any stealth utility on your skill bar.

Apparently I’m a masochist

I’m just not that kind of Thief.

Welcome to the club!

Zero Day.2594:

Maugetarr.6823:

Cynz.9437:

Want to have extra frustrating time? Play w/o vamp runes on thief….. :|

If you’re a masochist, play without vamp runes, shadow arts, or any stealth utility on your skill bar.

And only with 1 dagger, record the kills, make a montage video, and post it up on PvP forums. Then enjoy the QQ’ing and the nerfing to come.

I do play it with 1 dagger! Just paired a sword

:P

Bllade.1029:

Seems like a lot of us are torn between staff #3; we’ll see what Karl has to say.

An idea would be to change Staff skill #3 into a flip ability like Flanking Strike and Larcenous Strike.

Make the initial part of the ability cost 3 initiative; the flip ability a follow up gap closer that costs 1 and gives some sort of benefit, but you only get the flip ability if you actually contact a target with it. Kills two birds with one stone.

That way you can use the consecutive evades if you feel like you need to; other wise you can close the gap.

I don’t know about that. I would rather see #2 turned into a directable evade style skill so you could re-engage with it or reposition. A rollover just makes it more like S/D. Changing 2 would give a unique flavor to staff overall rather than making it like ranger sword.

Another thought (yeah, i know, but I’ll keep throwing them out there because I want DD to work):

Increasing the total endurance pool really doesn’t help in a fight. It’s 1 more dodge and then the rest of the fight it’s not noticeable because the regen remains the same. The idea is to make the base endurance regen scale with the increased endurance pool the same way. This would be a 50% increase to the base regen, putting it at 7.5 per second.

I’m emphasizing base regen, because this should be modified by vigor. So the overall regen with vigor would be 11.25 or 13.125 with endless stamina. That would really bring DD up into the evasive brawler category. Yes, I realize that that means DD could have a dodge just over or under every 4 seconds depending on whether or not they took acro, but without access to significant healing or mitigation, avoidance is the only other option. And really, combining it with acro (and taking the virtually mandatory trickery) means you’re losing out on a lot of damage modifiers and utility in DA, CS, and SA, so it seems like a fair tradeoff, especially when comparing it to the strengths of stealth.

Please try it internally before dismissing it. I think it would bring DD up to the evasive machine it is intended to be.

P.S: If that proves difficult to balance with the 10 endurance on physical skill trait and the staff trait, I would recommend reworking those traits slightly so that there can be more build diversity within the DD line. Those can be given more utility enhancements or duration buffs instead of endurance returns. For example, “increase the effectiveness of physical skills and reduce their cooldown.” This could make the Brawler’s Defense block last longer, the CD lengthening of Distracting Daggers longer, the Imairing Daggers’ condition duration longer, the heal cast time shorter, and Fist Flurry unblockable.

The staff trait could daze the opponent (0.25 seconds) on the next attack after successfully evading an attack.

Stuff to think about.

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

Tldr: please make staff the thief skillshot weaponset. Skip to (1) and (2) for the ideas on how.

Quick thoughts on staff again. I know it’s repeating myself a little, but I’m just want to illustrate how i feel about the set clearly. Even with the change to #2 being targeted, it’s not going to have a unique feel/role amongst the weaponsets. The reason I think making #2 like whirlwind attack would be better than targeted like heartseeker is the weaponset could be made into one of those that you don’t necessarily have to target the opponent to fight. What do I mean by that? Let me explain.

Some other professions have weaponsets where you don’t really need to target the opponent to fight them. Virtually every skill is AoE or ground targeted making it a skill shot set. To better understand what I mean, look at engineer grenades or D/D ele. The nature of their cleaving/ground target skills allows you to fight without ever selecting a specific enemy.

So back to staff thief. The weaponset is halfway there already. Making it the skill shot weaponset would give it a unique niche for thieves. It’s just going to require 2 minor changes.

1) Make #2 directable so it can be used for repositioning and whirling through multiple people.
2) Make #4 a cone attack like warrior hammer 3, but blind instead of cripple. This cone should leave a dark field for 2-3 seconds that doesn’t pulse any effects. In this way you can aim it with the camera against multiple targets and get a nice life steal combo to fight them better.

These two changes would give staff a role that’s new, instead of being a combination of existing weaponsets. It would help focus it.

Good idea. I know some sugested a smoke field #4 but I would prefer a water or dark field myself just to distinguish the set from others. Dark field is likely more theif like than a waterfield.

I originally said smoke field as well, but on thinking about it more, this is a set that it seems they don’t want to give weapon stealth to. Adding a dark field increases out-of-stealth sustain through lifesteal and blind combos with the whirl and leap finishers respectively.

Cynz.9437:

Want to have extra frustrating time? Play w/o vamp runes on thief….. :|

If you’re a masochist, play without vamp runes, shadow arts, or any stealth utility on your skill bar.

Tldr: please make staff the thief skillshot weaponset. Skip to (1) and (2) for the ideas on how.

Quick thoughts on staff again. I know it’s repeating myself a little, but I’m just want to illustrate how i feel about the set clearly. Even with the change to #2 being targeted, it’s not going to have a unique feel/role amongst the weaponsets. The reason I think making #2 like whirlwind attack would be better than targeted like heartseeker is the weaponset could be made into one of those that you don’t necessarily have to target the opponent to fight. What do I mean by that? Let me explain.

Some other professions have weaponsets where you don’t really need to target the opponent to fight them. Virtually every skill is AoE or ground targeted making it a skill shot set. To better understand what I mean, look at engineer grenades or D/D ele. The nature of their cleaving/ground target skills allows you to fight without ever selecting a specific enemy.

So back to staff thief. The weaponset is halfway there already. Making it the skill shot weaponset would give it a unique niche for thieves. It’s just going to require 2 minor changes.

1) Make #2 directable so it can be used for repositioning and whirling through multiple people.
2) Make #4 a cone attack like warrior hammer 3, but blind instead of cripple. This cone should leave a dark field for 2-3 seconds that doesn’t pulse any effects. In this way you can aim it with the camera against multiple targets and get a nice life steal combo to fight them better.

These two changes would give staff a role that’s new, instead of being a combination of existing weaponsets. It would help focus it.

Sagat.3285:

Maugetarr.6823:

How about we just change all of our “while in stealth” traits to “when you are revealed” instead. So SRej becomes “gain 1200 health and 2 initiative when you leave stealth or are revealed.” SE becomes “lose 2 conditions when you leave stealth or gain revealed.” The leaving stealth part is there so that if it expires naturally, you still gain benefit from it.

I’ve spoke on that a while ago on a decently big thread, coming from necro that would be bad you can receive infinite damage or conditions while revealed so no.

But while revealed you also lose access to SE, so it pretty much works out the same that way. Also, you could improve your cleansing by playing more agressively.

How about we just change all of our “while in stealth” traits to “when you are revealed” instead. So SRej becomes “gain 1200 health and 2 initiative when you leave stealth or are revealed.” SE becomes “lose 2 conditions when you leave stealth or gain revealed.” The leaving stealth part is there so that if it expires naturally, you still gain benefit from it.

Babylon.8972:

Yeah, its very sad thiefs cant be anymore class with no counterplay. Year ago thieves can disengage with stealth any fight they wanted, they could reset fight with stealth whenever they wanted, they were allowed to stay invisible for 20 seconds and wait all cd’s recharged. Its not anymore possible and its very healthy change for pvp balance

So we can’t be properly balanced because we used to be too good at running away a year ago.

Seems about right.

So really FG needs to come back. Yes it’s a possible dodge every 4 seconds with the new vigor + endless stamina. That said, protection is a 33% reduction in damage. That means over time you’re basically ignoring every 3rd attack. So if we can dodge once every 4 seconds, I don’t really care if the other classes think that’s too much; thats our form of protection since we lack the protection, invuln, heals, and blocks compared to the other lowest health pool professions.

Even if you combined it with DD, DD only offers 1 extra dodge from full endurance pool and rather limited regen rate increases.

Seriously. Just bring back FG. It only requires 1-3 hits to down a thief right now if they have <75% health.

PS: About patience. We have been pretty patient anyway, but it’s hard to maintain a positive attitude when you get nerfs while everyone else is getting buffs. The forum put up a lot of ideas to help the class since the patch when thieves were obviously undertuned in their defensive lines and some offensive traits. It basically has come to the point where the other professions are stating that thief needs to stay underpowered because they can run away…. that’s really frustrating to deal with.

We don’t really get a choice of secondary weapon right now. It’s almost always shortbow. You can try others, but you’ll come to realize that shortbow has the utility you need (especially to make up for D/D) and is the best choice for range amongst the 3 possible combinations (SB, P/P, P/D).