Guild Wars 2

Amaterasu.6280:

Who.4651:

Amaterasu.6280:

Since pistol whip animation buff, s/p > d/p slightly because of evade frames and sword 2. I think once you’ve played d/p enough and understand the flaws, then s/p will definitely be superior to play especially against another d/p thief. The fight will depend on the better thief, but if we’re talking about players of the exact caliber, then I think s/p would win for sure. It really comes down to timing and anticipation/guessing.

Yea you can headshot the pistol whip cast but why would you waste 4ini to daze and tickle someone for 1/4s only for them to do it again? You’re not going to be able to do headshot while simultaneously dealing damage to them so you’re wasting loads of ini…seems like a pointless trade off. If I see you daze me and leap at me with HS out of blind field, i’ll pistol whip then and you’ll eat the whole thing…

Pre-daze nerf I would agree since you can still auto attack 2x before they come out of daze, but post-daze nerf, no.

Oh and spamming BP against a s/p thief is dumb…don’t do it.

its not 1/4s , if u stun the PW, they wait about 3~s to be able to do it again, 3s in thief world is a lot

You have got to be kidding me…

Please do yourself a favor and don’t post unless you know what you’re talking about…and it’s obvious you don’t even play a thief.

Lesson for you:

Thieves run on intiative, not cooldown time in seconds like all other classes. If you stun/daze my pistolwhip or any other weapon skill, it will put ALL of my skills on the same stun duration as your skill (I.E: Headshot has a 1/4s daze, thus all my skills will go on a 1/4s shutdown)

I will immediately be able to use whatever weapon skill I please after that 1/4s daze. It will NOT put my pistol whip on a 3s CD upon interupt because IT HAS NO CD. Try it for yourself. This is my reasoning behind why I don’t think Caed’s suggestion of dazing the pistol whip helps with the fight at all…you cannot do damage while simultaneously dazing them because the daze duration is too short. Not to mention you have to waste 4ini just for it. Since post-daze nerf, it’s totally not worth it.

You’re thinking about dazing/stunning a skill on a class whose weapon skills runs on CD times. Say, if I interupt a warrior’s Backbreaker(which has a 1s cast-time and a 30s CD) with Headshot, , I will put that particular skill on a 3s CD, while all his other skills will be put on a 1/4s CD.

The only way you’re going to disable a thief for 3s is if your skill actually stuns/dazes for 3s like Signet of Domination on a mesmer. You cannot put any of the thief’s skills on a 3s CD.

Again, steal-stab and done.

There’s no way for an S/P thief to avoid D/P steal-stab after the 2 standard dodges.

While flanking strike allows for dodge chaning with little to no aftercast, S/P castings are pretty obvious, so you really can do kitten against D/P.

Again, i agree S/P is superior to both D/P and S/D, but D/P will ALWAYS win in a duel, unless outplayed.

Amaterasu.6280:

Mrbig.8019:

Amaterasu.6280:

Since pistol whip animation buff, s/p > d/p slightly because of evade frames and sword 2. I think once you’ve played d/p enough and understand the flaws, then s/p will definitely be superior to play especially against another d/p thief. The fight will depend on the better thief, but if we’re talking about players of the exact caliber, then I think s/p would win for sure. It really comes down to timing and anticipation/guessing.

Yea you can headshot the pistol whip cast but why would you waste 4ini to daze and tickle someone for 1/4s only for them to do it again? You’re not going to be able to do headshot while simultaneously dealing damage to them so you’re wasting loads of ini…seems like a pointless trade off. If I see you daze me and leap at me with HS out of blind field, i’ll pistol whip then and you’ll eat the whole thing…

Pre-daze nerf I would agree since you can still auto attack 2x before they come out of daze, but post-daze nerf, no.

Oh and spamming BP against a s/p thief is dumb…don’t do it.

Uhm, no, i can’t agree with you.

as a D/P thief you can hide in stealth quite forever while your S/P opponent is always vulnerable ( if he starts with pistol whip, just interrupt it with steal-stab and puf, already under 50% HP).

Unless you waste your steal stab on a random disabling shot ( because kitten happens), a D/P thief will win 100% of the time.

This of course doesn’t mean D/P > than S/P, it’s quite the opposite, but still you can’t say that in a duel D/P won’t win, because it will.

Moreover, S/P is quite inferior to S/D in dueling capacities, and it’s a lot less forgiving ( you can end up swinging your sword at the air quite often) so there’s a reason why thieves may stick to S/D.

Still i saw Sizer playing S/P yesterday.

Maybe the scrub S/D meta reached its end.

Hide in stealth forever? Trickery d/p can heartseek a total of 3x with full bar of 15ini if they do bp+heartseek stealthing. That’s a total of 6 seconds after burning a full bar of ini…I don’t see how that’s hiding in stealth forever. Not to mention for the typical stealthing of 3 seconds, while the pistol whip evasion frames are roughly 1.5s alone. The other 1.5s you can just dodge and/or position yourself elsewhere via sword 2. If you’re talking about shadow refuge, s/p thieves use the same utilities as d/p..or at least I do.

As I said, it’s all about anticipation and guessing. It also helps if you can dance in and out of range and LoS. One great thing about s/p is that sword 2 still goes through walls, and you can dance in and out of range especially when they are abusing stealth. Shadow shot can’t hit through walls, so unless they have stealth and/or infiltrator’s signet up, it’s very hard for them to catch up to you and position a good backstab in 3 seconds.

You gotta remember s/p trickery has sleight of hand as well…you can easily daze your opponent back.

Saying s/d is inferior to s/p is totally untrue as well. s/d heavily relies on handing larcenous strike which is totally telegraphed after flanking strike…you can always anticipate it since larcenous strike only remains active for a while after flanking strike. They also suffer heavily from BP spamming because unlike pistol whip, they can’t hit through it because of how slow their attacks are. Vice versa, they have no way to negate pistol whip damage aside from spamming dodges.

Again, in thief fights it always comes down to who plays better, but speaking about people of the exact same caliber, I think s/p has a slight upper hand (no pun intended) over d/p and s/d.

1. D/P hides in stealth, S/P doesn’t, reason why D/P can CHOOSE when to attack, while S/P has to foretell.

S/p can win against D/P, bt D/P has the advantage.

2. S/D is better in dueling all other classes, S/P is not. S/D has greater mobility, its damage is more bursty then sustained, it can be done on the move while S/p is static, S/D has better condi removal trough pain response.

S/D is better in overall dueling, while S/P can be better against S/D but it all goes to who plays better, it’s nothing more than kitten-45%.

Amaterasu.6280:

Since pistol whip animation buff, s/p > d/p slightly because of evade frames and sword 2. I think once you’ve played d/p enough and understand the flaws, then s/p will definitely be superior to play especially against another d/p thief. The fight will depend on the better thief, but if we’re talking about players of the exact caliber, then I think s/p would win for sure. It really comes down to timing and anticipation/guessing.

Yea you can headshot the pistol whip cast but why would you waste 4ini to daze and tickle someone for 1/4s only for them to do it again? You’re not going to be able to do headshot while simultaneously dealing damage to them so you’re wasting loads of ini…seems like a pointless trade off. If I see you daze me and leap at me with HS out of blind field, i’ll pistol whip then and you’ll eat the whole thing…

Pre-daze nerf I would agree since you can still auto attack 2x before they come out of daze, but post-daze nerf, no.

Oh and spamming BP against a s/p thief is dumb…don’t do it.

Uhm, no, i can’t agree with you.

as a D/P thief you can hide in stealth quite forever while your S/P opponent is always vulnerable ( if he starts with pistol whip, just interrupt it with steal-stab and puf, already under 50% HP).

Unless you waste your steal stab on a random disabling shot ( because kitten happens), a D/P thief will win 100% of the time.

This of course doesn’t mean D/P > than S/P, it’s quite the opposite, but still you can’t say that in a duel D/P won’t win, because it will.

Moreover, S/P is quite inferior to S/D in dueling capacities, and it’s a lot less forgiving ( you can end up swinging your sword at the air quite often) so there’s a reason why thieves may stick to S/D.

Still i saw Sizer playing S/P yesterday.

Maybe the scrub S/D meta reached its end.

Narcarsis.5739:

Headshot the Pistol Whips

This.

I would also add that as S/P you’re always out of stealth without the permaevade thing S/D provides, while D/P can backstab basically at anytime, putting you already under the 50% threshold and already forcing you to play defensive.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

hooma.9642:

evilapprentice.6379:

hooma.9642:

EoNxBoNx.9213:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-snip-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reposting from thief forumz

Sensotix.4106:

the 2 vs 1 from teldo at waterfall…i spoke to ben (lord nag nag nag) and he said both didnt want to waste their cooldowns since they thought it would be an easy matchup

well i thought i had to bring it up because i saw a s/d thief winning a 1 vs 1 vs warri..vs spirit ranger…vs necro..vs the other thief without loosing even 50% of his hp

BUT

Resume: I was really happy to have this discussion here and I am glad that I did post this thread here and not in the structured pvp section because there I wouldnt have gotten many impressions from thieves.
I am happy that most of you tried to stay obejctive and tell me exactly how they feel about it and actually came up with some interesting ideas that I really appreciate

And I also have to admit that I have tried to be a little bit provocative so I can see who of you guys really stays objective and calm because I was searching for an experienced thief to interview about changes he wants to see in the game/his class

Thanks for everything guys it was a pleasure to discuss with u!

Thief interview will hopefully follow soon

just wanted to ump in and remember you a thing.

And mind, it was pre inf strike nerf.

S/D thief will NEVER win against a good necro.

Yesterday i had a fight with Sizer in a 1vs1 server and won as a POWER NEC on a tPvP build ( not even a 1vs1 build).

Ask him, he will confirm ( Capanelle here).

S/D is cheese and i would say super forgiving as a set, but it’s not really THAT impactful and can lose against a good tons of builds ( S/P thief, S/F ele, any necro, well played hambow, engies) OR take too much time in killing it.

Fightning a war is almost always too time consuming, for example.

The strenght of an S/D thief is the capability to overextend while still being able to disangage at will, while facetanking even 3 enemies ( number doesn’t really matter).

Surely not it’s 1vs1 capabilities.

It’s the fact that its GOOD ( not almighty, as you want to make it seem) 1vs1 capabilities ARE ADDED to the best mobility and best disangage capabilities.

personally i left S/D and now play S/P, and i find it way superior in coordinated teams ( altough i do solo q only lol), tough more easily countered and tough needing a lot more skill to be played.

Sensotix.4106:

the 2 vs 1 from teldo at waterfall…i spoke to ben (lord nag nag nag) and he said both didnt want to waste their cooldowns since they thought it would be an easy matchup

well i thought i had to bring it up because i saw a s/d thief winning a 1 vs 1 vs warri..vs spirit ranger…vs necro..vs the other thief without loosing even 50% of his hp

BUT

Resume: I was really happy to have this discussion here and I am glad that I did post this thread here and not in the structured pvp section because there I wouldnt have gotten many impressions from thieves.
I am happy that most of you tried to stay obejctive and tell me exactly how they feel about it and actually came up with some interesting ideas that I really appreciate

And I also have to admit that I have tried to be a little bit provocative so I can see who of you guys really stays objective and calm because I was searching for an experienced thief to interview about changes he wants to see in the game/his class

Thanks for everything guys it was a pleasure to discuss with u!

Thief interview will hopefully follow soon

just wanted to ump in and remember you a thing.

And mind, it was pre inf strike nerf.

S/D thief will NEVER win against a good necro.

Yesterday i had a fight with Sizer in a 1vs1 server and won as a POWER NEC on a tPvP build ( not even a 1vs1 build).

Ask him, he will confirm ( Capanelle here).

S/D is cheese and i would say super forgiving as a set, but it’s not really THAT impactful and can lose against a good tons of builds ( S/P thief, S/F ele, any necro, well played hambow, engies) OR take too much time in killing it.

Fightning a war is almost always too time consuming, for example.

The strenght of an S/D thief is the capability to overextend while still being able to disangage at will, while facetanking even 3 enemies ( number doesn’t really matter).

Surely not it’s 1vs1 capabilities.

It’s the fact that its GOOD ( not almighty, as you want to make it seem) 1vs1 capabilities ARE ADDED to the best mobility and best disangage capabilities.

personally i left S/D and now play S/P, and i find it way superior in coordinated teams ( altough i do solo q only lol), tough more easily countered and tough needing a lot more skill to be played.

sadly it’s too long

you sir, deserve my new signature. Changing it asap

yes pls. And thieves disbaling shot spam. And dumbfire.

+1

butch.8136:

Should have launched without hype.

This man speaks the truth

i’m sorry but you’re totally wrong.

Disabling shot is the perfect example of what an evade SHOULDN’T be.

An evade with no aftercast, spammable multiple times, granting total invulnerability.

Pistol whip and Flanking strike are perfectly fine ( if nothing, pistol whip evade acts oddly and should be fixed).

Flanking strike has no aftercast but chains into a slow move ( larcenous) which a pretty long aftercast, so you can punish the thief not only during larcenous strike casting but also on the aftercast.

Pistol whip doesn’t evade persistent AoE fields ( and should be fixed) and the last 0.25 secs of the animation won’t evade ( and it should be fixed), along with a quite obvious cast on pistol whip and a good aftercast after the flurry ( so you can attack in that frame time, along with bugged evasion on the last 1/4 of secs of the animation).

Get your kitten properly before posting.

Every meta had his issues.

Instakill thieves and S/D bunker eles are the most broken example, but indeed power meta was a lot better than this spam fest we have currently.

We also should say that other classes didn’t have viable choices: power necro sucked ( now it’s quite better), thief had only 1 viable weapon ( dagger, aside shortbow), off guardian sucked, warrior sucked, engi skills were bugged etc. etc.

Now that we have more choices, along with the clearly wrong overbuffing on the way, it’s clear how unbalanced some things are.

With a good amount of nerfs and needed overhauls, next meta could probably be the best.

Phantaram.1265:

I disagree highly with that kensuda. Mesmer was definitely top top tier with focus pull and thief was losing usefulness very quick. Vanish on helseths team stopped running thief right before the necro patch because lightning flash -> double arcane would instakill a thief every time so he was never safe to go into a fight. Xeph started using a greatsword at that time too (which wasn’t as common as staff) and could zone a thief out very easy from 1200 range.

Mesmer focus pull was like 50% of how all kills happened during that meta so naturally mesmer was top with ranger.

Totally agree here.

Thief was highly underperforming back then ( no trickery, no S/D, mug nerfed) so its burst was not higher than double arcane eles, with less group utility and sustain.

The only reason to have a thief in your team was shadow refuge for stealth oneshots, but mesmers/engies togheter were able to cover that role quite well so thief was not needed at all ( even underperforming).

cymerdown.4103:

A lot of these responses are to the title of the thread, which is admittedly inaccurate. If you actually read the post, he’s not saying that power necro, or lich form as a whole is overpowered. He’s saying that lich form #1 skill hits too hard, which is accurate. Power necro as a whole is not quite top tier viable (thief says hello), but that doesn’t mean that lich form in its current iteration is how it should be. Lich form should just be reworked a little to make some of the other skills in the kit a bit better but reduce the auto’s damage by a small margin (10%ish should be enough).

If you take a look at other skills, they’re pretty strong too.

Grim specter ( lich form 5th skill) is ridicolously strong ( basically 6-7k AoE damage curing conditions and ripping boons), a nice knockback + chill on 3 and good AoE damage + 8vuln stacks on 2.

The only lackluster skill is the 4th.

I play power necro ( as a main, along with thief) from dumbfire patch and when i use lich, i use all my skills because 80% of times they’re worth it.

1 does lots of damage but needs to be that way, Lich Form is exactly the way elite skills should be: gamechanging.

Like a well placed Moa on a bunker guard ( when mesmers could still actually use Moa).

one single shatter/corrupt boon/bountiful steal then just play ping pong with the giant and scary lich.

Suddenly not that OP.

I agree wholeheartedly with Helseth.

I’m still playing because the combat system is fun, nothing more.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Mrbig.8019:

Because, let’s be honest, aside wars totally ruining the meta and some brainless spamming proffs ( spirit ranger, S/D thieves, disabling shot spam and necros, which are pretty balanced overall anyway) balance is not that off.

So they want to shake up things and see what happens.

Reasonable, if i can say.

You listed 4 classes as brainless meta-ruining, yet balance is not that off? That’s 50% of the classes.

War is the only meta ruining proff.

The other ones are overall balanced, tough brainless.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Warrior is the best class by some distance in pvp. Ok that is not an opinion but an opinion accepted as fact.

Warrior has a 5 second weapon swap duration. Other classes have 10 seconds +

Have anet considered that removing the shared cooldowns on swap sigils will be a huge buff to warrior compared to everything else. Imagine a warrior with energy/battle and geomancy/leeching. Or whatever. It really is frightening.

The buffs a warrior will receive in this way will be double that of any other class. So removing the sigil shared cd is in fact an epic buff to warriors as opposed to other classes. Even if the sigils are weakened to compensate then a warrior will STILL get the best of it.

This patch will ruin the balance even more. Sigils affect the balance so heavily, there is so much to consider when implementing such a new system. I think there will be a big mess. Also it will keep the balance-team busy, which doesn’t solve the actual problem of balance (sigils were never a problem of balance).

This has left me pretty confused, because I don’t get their concept of fixing the balance . . . by creating another problem?

It’s rather easy.

They want to shake things up and play the “wait and see” game.

Nerf something which needed a nerf and make some totally random change.

Because, let’s be honest, aside wars totally ruining the meta and some brainless spamming proffs ( spirit ranger, S/D thieves, disabling shot spam and necros, which are pretty balanced overall anyway) balance is not that off.

So they want to shake up things and see what happens.

Reasonable, if i can say.

same here, only nifhel

Zenith.7301:

What a stupid change. So necros have to blow their only line of defense just to take advantage of the trait?

Lifeblast and Life Drain should be good baseline for condi necros without requiring a trait, period. Its damage should scale with condi damage and power stats.

Change Dhuumfire to instead transfer a condition to surrounding foes from the necromancer and grant the necromancer 7 stacks of might for 10 seconds whenever burning, bleeding, or poison is applied to them. 20-25 sec ICD.

The problem with necromancer is that none of them can run without a staff, because staff, offhand dagger, and consume conditions is their only form of condi removal on a power build. What is a condi trait doing on a power line, I don’t even get.

Power necros need serious help.

Power necros are ridicolously strong, they just need help from teammates and skil to be played.

Source: power necro from dumbfire patch.

What kensuda said plus:

- nerf to dumbfire.

And we have a deal.

MTC.9536:

Hey my name is Ventari, currently r10 teamque leaderboards!

And I am rly scared looking at the dhuumfire change, a trait that was unblockable, not able to be blinded, and dodged now is all of it which will make it totally useless, so nobody would use it anymore, but then you lose 30% condi duration because you wouldn’t take the trait anymore which makes the fears tick only one time because they don’t last 2s anymore which means like 50% dmg nerf to fear dmg as well while not having the bleedings because they got nerfed….don’t know why, they have never been the problem, so either make sure to give back the weakness without bleeding stacks when u enter deathshroud or increase the bleeding stacks on the weapon skills again but don’t change the necro that way you said it in “ready up”. It will destroy the class completely.
And why do you implement a trait, then nerf it, then nerf bleeding stacks and now nerf the trait again without increasing the bleedings??
Idea: Make fear a stun so it is not affected by the condi duration to deny fearchains but still have a counter to berserker stance, AR and Diamond skill. to my mind totally brainless traits and utilities, thx!!
Otherwise I will leave the game like everbody else did, it is not funny anymore how the balance gets destroyed and they destroy a class after another.

Necro has been a joke prof for months.

No necro build ( aside hybrid wells or power necros) would have EVER pur 30 points in spite before dumbfire patch.

Time to learn to play again for our dear necros.

DanyK.3842:

Find the nearest warrior (easiest part), steal to them, blinding powder + whirling axe – facerub your opponent, blinding powder, stomp. After patch you could just stick a fire + air in your s/p for maximum pwnage. L2p thief.

Pls tell me how this is related with what i’ve written.

L2read.

Scrubs gonna scrub.

Sensotix.4106:

Player’s info
Username Rickster.8752
Character No Way We Win
Server Vabbi
Names played with We Wont Win, No Way We Win
sPvP info
sPvP rank 2
Personal best rank 2 (0 hour ago)
Wins 91
Loses 36
Wins Percent 71.65%
Reached top1000 2013-10-04 20:20:17
you were never rank 1 btw

gw2 shack player info has been broken for a long time.

He’s been rank 1.

But what’s the point when people up there play a game every 3 days just to not drop lol.

The only ones i see consistently are cheese mode guys ( with Rom believing war is fine LOL)

ensoriki.5789:

This is so silly. PW gives a moment of vulnerability in exchange it does strong damage, and some defensive stronghold. It is not perfect defense nor does it need to be.
Skills are allowed to be interrupted the “Counter-play to your counterplay” is to force out their interrupts earlier, Shadowstep into a pistolwhip to leave immediately into the stun from range, or throw up a dagger storm/Lyssa boosted Basilisk into PW with stability supporting you.

You don’t need to have PW to readily evade a Eviscerate on the dime. They already gave you a stun you could time for that, and if timing the stun is impractical you have headshot which is what a .25s cast time on 4 ini to use instead of PW’s .5s. on 5 ini.
The skill is fine as it is, it’s strong and isn’t a shortfalling of the kit. The notion that they even want to split it when it’s in such a strong state as it is and “fix” what isn’t broken for no reason that I can see is baffling. PW isn’t holding some other weapon set back nor is it a detriment to S/P in its current state with the buffs it has recieved. It needs no buff.
S/P has some inherit weakness with ranged attackers due to inability to target break unlike /D’s and D/P, which are fine to keep but even reducing that slightly wouldn’t be about PW. It be about Headshot or Black Powder. Which probably won’t be changed due to D/P.

tl;dr. PW is fine wtf bro.

If you analyse PW in a vacuum, it’s not fine at all.

If you compare it with the only comparable skill ( Blurred Frenzy) it has a HOLE in its defense, unlike BF.

BF has an aftercast while you can hit the mesmer and it’s GOOD it’s like this because it forces a dodge in order to avoid the attack.

PW has a HOLE while you’re still attacking but not evading and this is not fine (clunky).

Again i don’t want it to be buffed, i want it to be polished ( like BF), because it would allow for counterplay from both my opponent ( attacking on the aftercast) and S/P user ( dodge).

As things stand now, you either dodge prematurely ( interrupting the animation) or move ( being vulnerable), which is not fine.

The set already has its weaknesses ( slow, roots you, so so chasing abilities), no reason to add “odd evasion frames” on it.

And aside this, permanent AoE fields go through PW no matter what.

muscarine.5136:

What MrBig says.

I like MrBig.

Except when he pushes for s/p buff.

But nobody’s perfect.

lol i’m nost asking for a buff, i’m asking for a fix.

S/P is super clunky and the evades do not fit the animation, forcing you to be either vulnerable or to dodge.

I just want it smoother, not more powerful.

on topic:

Engi has been top tier for already too much, and bunker engi are a direct answer to war CC spamming ( i’ve been able to fight against 2 wars at once while taking full cap thanks to Prot Inj , Prot shield and Stab Armor lol ) ,mostly because engi bomb-nade ( even more OP) suffers double war teams ( pretty common right now).

Both war and engi need fix.

Dumbfire will be fixed, time to fix them too.

ronpierce.2760:

Mrbig.8019:

ronpierce.2760:

Pistol whip needs to not evade anyways… Here’s why. Putrid explosion is losing its “Unblockable” because it doesn’t make sense to what the ability is. It’s a kittening explosion. So why in the hell does hitting someone with a hilt and slashing your sword around make you invincible? >_>: Stun better, or just be invincible, but you really don’t need both. Evades on skills is another thing that should be kept to a minimal that isn’t.

Give thieves real defenses so they don’t get 1 shot if they kitten up and remove all the bullcrap passive evades. Thx.

Blurred frenzy says hi.

S/P is a wonderful set where you use basically all your skills.

We need more of this instead of S/D 33333333 spamming ( doesn’t matter if with shortbow or S/D).

Blurred frenzy makes SENSE to the skill… Its a blur/distortion of the body. There’s magic involved. ( PS I don’t play Mesmer)

So thieves don’t use magic ?

Now that you say it, i always questioned form where the kitten my shadow refuge appeared.

Or my Shadow trap porting me everywhere

PW evades, end of the story.

And if it does, at least it should do it good.

It’s a High telegraphed move, you can walk away from it.

It’s not Op at all, it needs fixing.

ronpierce.2760:

Pistol whip needs to not evade anyways… Here’s why. Putrid explosion is losing its “Unblockable” because it doesn’t make sense to what the ability is. It’s a kittening explosion. So why in the hell does hitting someone with a hilt and slashing your sword around make you invincible? >_>: Stun better, or just be invincible, but you really don’t need both. Evades on skills is another thing that should be kept to a minimal that isn’t.

Give thieves real defenses so they don’t get 1 shot if they kitten up and remove all the bullcrap passive evades. Thx.

Blurred frenzy says hi.

S/P is a wonderful set where you use basically all your skills.

We need more of this instead of S/D 33333333 spamming ( doesn’t matter if with shortbow or S/D).

Aquin.3192:

You do have an opportunity to cancel the PW at the end with a dodge or movement. ( if you havent experimented with this yet)

I suppose that would be your counterplay to my counterplay. The opening vulnerability is unavoidable.

PW is in a very strong state when it comes to risk vs reward as mentioned by sorrychief.

that’s not what i’m saying.

If i cancel it with a movement i’m vulnerable.

If i cancel it with a dodge, i waste a dodge.

The animation should give FULL EVADE time, or it should be tweaked in order to do it ( shortening the animation) in order to avoid wastes or open times.

if i need to have an opening, do it by adding an aftercast, not by creating an opening WHILE i’m whipping, because it makes no sense.

By fixing the animation by adding an aftercast AND giving full evade, you give your opponent counterplay that can be coutnered by you at the same time ( with a dodge roll, not wasted in this case), just like mes blurred frenzy ( best possible example).

The skill is unpolished

Rickster.8752:

Arpheus.6918:

I’m really glad that the devs communicate changes before they come. That gives us the opportunity to give some feedback before changes which can really affect balance in a bad way get released.

Yeh but they then don’t listen. Many many good players told them not to do diamond skin but they did it anyway.

ehi, look at dem eles in top teams thanks to diamond skin.

Aquin.3192:

Working as intended. There is an opportunity for counter play RIGHT between the stun and the attack and right before the attack completes.

This is where I knock you back with the hammer or smash you while you stare at the screen wondering what happened.

What do you guys want complete invuln? no risk vs reward?

No, i want to be able to COUNTERPLAY your COUNTERPLAY.

If i know there’s a time frame ( when i can react) while you can attack me, i’ll dodge-evade-port way-whatever.

Sad thing is that such counterplay is available only for the opponent, while we’re stuck with an animation we don’t know if evading or not ( still not sure about evade frames).

in short word, we can’t react properly.

And aside that, there’re things totally ignoring PW evade frames ( persisting AoE fields in general and shatterz).

And even with 100% evade, S/P thieves would be far from OP.

Shockwave.1230:

There was dev talk of changing pistol whip to a two part skill on the live stream, one part for the pistol whip, and one part for the evading flurry.

this doesn’t mean they’ll fix the odd evade frames.

ok you can add Eviscerate to the list of things PW doesn’t evade

because warrior are obviously not strong enough.

I’m baffled so few notices how ridicolous this thing will be for warriors.

In a week i got skyhammer 50% of my solo q.

I lose nearly all time.

I don’t want to play cheese.

Remove this crap

I don’t even care about my leaderboard rank ( that dropped ridicolously), i just hate it.

Like everyone else

Blackjack.5621:

someone is mad lol, we play double warrior because my main class isn´t viable btw

devs said ele is balanced dunno whaddya talkin bout

it got buried, we should remember devs mods had to merge thread for this kittenING MAP

ronpierce.2760:

Not to be rude but this petition has happened like 5 times. Either it’s going to happen or it’s not. More petitions won’t change that. Just bump the old ones enough times, and let those get bigger and you might get a response.

you’re right

we should necro all skyhammer threads so that they cover the whole first page

inb4 “mod deletes it because hurr durr”

i agree.

But it doesn’t matter how many threads we put on the forum, devs don’t care and this map will stay.

Yesterday i got raged against because as a thief i was not using scorpion wire ( lol), i can’t even count how many ranks i lost in the leaderboard due to this map.

But whatever.

this guy says the truth.

Change your thread’s title, it’s misleading and won’t gain the attention it deserves.

too stronk.

Engi is an overall too strong prof when compared to other profession.

It has a high skill cap undoubtly, but it doesn’t mean it should be able to be so powerful.

Needs a nerf.

Hype.8032:

Amaterasu.6280:

I believe that would truly bring out the good thieves vs the bad ones.

You know it is already extremely obvious which ones are bad right? Thief is probably more polarized between good and bad than any other class.

Not true.

S/D acro build is extremely forgiving even if you play very bad.

Asomal.6453:

As far as I could test, PW evade frame last 0.75s casting time. However, the animation from it last 1 second. In other words, all those ‘bypassing’ skills happen in the last 0.25s of the animation, where you don’t have your evade anymore…

which goes back to “change this crap animation” since using PW against an half decent opponent who knows his stuff can mean suicide ( especially against necros), altough i’m not sure about it since i’ve been definitely hit by shatters DURING my PW, not only at the end.

Also, what Kuro said: nerf the kitten off Disabling shot, add a kitten after cast, i’m tired if scrub thieves avoiding attacks simply due to spamming 3 like a nub.

Start fixing this professio otherwise not only people will always complian, but also good thieves will ( i HATE S/D evade crap thieves, one of the most dumb builds ever, even if it was born by even more braindead builds like dumbfire necros and AI ranger).

There are tons of things that go straight trough PW evade frames. To name a few:

1) guard symbols
2) combustive shot
3) engi bombs
4) mesmer shatters
5) some CC effects ( this needs more testing, but i’ve definitely been stunned by stuff like Signet of Domination during the evade frames)

and many more.

Overall, all persisting AoE fields go trough PW defenses, and it makes no sense since i should be evading.

PW evasion is odd and unreliable and needs fixing.

1. Are there any plan to change its animation ?

In PvP it’s slow and clunky, especially the first part.

2. Are there any plan to revisit its damage ?

Post nerf, damage wise you would be better off autoattacking

3. Are there any plan to fix the kitten evasion ?

As things stand right now, it evades some stuff and some other doesn’t, it’s often random ( i even got CCed while whipping) and unpredictable.

For example, necro minions attacks go through the evade frames like if there was no evasion at all.

the set would be overall pretty good and competitive if these things were addressed.

Some people can still make it work, but these issues are glaring and really keep the set behind, along with retaliation killing yourself on a single pistol whip.

*okthxplsfix

cymerdown.4103:

I think the damage is fine. You don’t need it to stun, evade, and also deal as much DPS as autoattack chain.

It’d be cool if they separated the stun and the flurry into a 2-part chain, other than that, the animation seems fine (nobody really calls blurred frenzy “clunky”). I wouldn’t mind if they moved it down to 5 attacks instead of 9, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

I’ve never seen anything weird happen with the evasion, other than the usual things regarding evasion attacks (Nightmare Rune procs, etc.). Maybe all you’re experiencing is some latency-related client-server desyncs. Evasion is evasion, nothing special about pistol whip from a programmatical standpoint, I’m sure.

Pistol Whip doesn’t need anymore buffing, it’s already really good against a lot of specs. Only real weakness is that it gets hunted by D/P.

i’m absolutely sure it’s not a latency issue.

There are tons of things that go straight trough PW evade frames. To name a few:

1) guard symbols
2) combustive shot
3) engi bombs
4) mesmer shatters
5) some CC effects ( this needs more testing, but i’ve definitely been stunned by stuff like Signet of Domination during the evade frames)

and many more.

Overall, all persisting AoE fields go trough PW defenses, and it makes no sense since i should be evading.

PW evasion is odd and unreliable and needs fixing.

Moreover i don’t really see how D/P can hunt S/P thieves down, it’s a 50/50 at best.

Chaith.8256:

Mrbig.8019:

S/P is still inferior to S/D ( altough it’s really S/D fault of being too dumb easy to play) even when played properly, while not allowing room for error.

I know magic toker plays S/P and does fine with it, but in EU nobody plays it for a reason ( i would say usually thieves here reroll, shad is the most glaring example, unless playing acro thief).

Pistol offhand is miles ahead of dagger offhand.. Pistolwhip is much better against targets with little stability. Due to the lockdown. There are situations where S/D is better, IE, attacking retaliating enemies or enemies with priority boons, but bountiful theft does the trick fine when it counts.

Very few people have tried P/W seriously, let alone skill capped it. After the patch, you’d be surprised..

I know perfectly, i play S/P.

The issue i’m talking about are “clunkyness” and “odd evasion frames”.

Allow me to complian if i say the whole move is clunky ( not slow, clunky) and if i notice a mesmer dazes me with diversion ( or bursts me with mind wrack) while i’m in evasion frames.

Something is not fine with this skill, it needs to be revised and fixed.

Decrypter.1785:

Yeah so why are all the cheese builds just so stronk ?

power MM , HamBow , Spirit Ranger ,

Power MM ? wtf is that ? O_o

Regarding the rest, i agree.

Chaith.8256:

Auesis.7301:

Personally, I think the best option is to revert the nerf to the damage (15% I believe) and then change the amount of registered attacks to 4 instead of 8 in PvP. 8 never made sense as there are only 4 strikes in the flurry, and this means Retaliation procs twice as much as it should.

No, pistol whip 10/30/0/0/30 is a super top tier build for thieves when played properly.

It does not need a 15% damage boost and to take less damage from retal.

Animation, that is a problem.

S/P is still inferior to S/D ( altough it’s really S/D fault of being too dumb easy to play) even when played properly, while not allowing room for error.

I know magic toker plays S/P and does fine with it, but in EU nobody plays it for a reason ( i would say usually thieves here reroll, shad is the most glaring example, unless playing acro thief).