Guild Wars 2

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Improvisation is good as it is (the bundle damage). Don’t make the same errors as Anet by balancing over one gamemode of your choice thx.

Saying its half good is not saying its good as it is.

RNG is not something thief ever should or should want to deal with. Their actions aren’t all that forgiving and a 1 in 5 chance that a trait will help you with an incredibly situational secondary effect just begs the question, “what is the point of this trait?”.

I’d actually be in favor if it had a flat value cooldown reduction like 10 seconds. I could work off of that without it feeling like I’m too heavily rewarded for a 0 cast time skill effect. Also changing the bundle damage to something like movement speed would be great for those who want more mobility on a build such as d/d but anything can really replace that effect. The RNG recharge needs to go.

They buff your skill to no longer be as clunky, and you still want to port to dead clones….

No thank you. Learn to swap in <0.75 seconds, and don’t send such clones into blobs expecting them to survive.

I still use them because I had just gotten all 6 a few weeks before they nerfed them to oblivion. The 6th effect just helps a lot since missing your cnd is often the end for you. D/D needs unhindered mobility and when you can already get swiftness from other sources, it helps a lot with staying on target.

Kolly.9872:

let’s open everyday a “nerf ranger.. ranger op” thread like other classes have done for thieves from the release.
We don’t even need to know how the class works, just spam the forum with nonsense things about rangers. Let’s act like 10years old childs, it’s the only way A-Net will listen to us

Well, it worked on thief and has yet to work on warrior even in the mature discussions.

Anet just has 0 direction with thief and probably uses forum Q.Q against thief for a majority of their changes. A majority of the changes that “buff” thief don’t make any sense to anyone. The person responsible for typing the patch notes probably scratched their head when they updated water combat skills.

a t s e.9614:

2/6/6/0/6 thief D/P. Mega burst with absurd sustain from shadow arts.

? He said 16, not 20… ITS A TRAP!

-made fire and air sigils behave as the same type so they cannot be combined
-lowered the might duration on power of inertia to 10 seconds
-reworked all the traits thief does not use in acrobatics to invent something new for a change
-took a sledge hammer to AE until it disappeared into the SA trait line(pun intended)
-removed the cast time on IR
-lastly, left FS-> LS alone because it wasn’t a problem :/

Sebrent.3625:

NinjaEd.3946:

Please take your own advice and not change the context of other people posts. Nowhere did I say this post was suggesting a nerf, I said the negative " discussions" that erupt in every thread relating to thief is not helping us.

If that’s what you think you said, let me point out that not a single one of those words/phrases exists in your previous post:

• not “negative”
• not “discussions”
• not “is not helping us”

You did mention “no wonder we get nerfed” though.

NinjaEd.3946:

This happens on every post relating to thief. No wonder we get nerfed, they just want us to stop with the hate ; ;

If you want to say something … say it clearly. Otherwise, don’t be bothered when you are misunderstood.

Thank goodness Mr. Technical has arrived! Dun care for you p***ing contest, if you need every single word spelled out just for you to understand a post its no wonder you took up half this thread with nonsense. Quit with the derailing and get on topic, is that too much to ask? Derailing kills 9/10 thief posts, it is a very serious threat for a very underwhelming profession in dire need for reworks.

Sebrent.3625:

No one has asked for Thieves to be nerfed in this thread … at all.

The OP was suggesting a change to Revealed … because they, for some reason, believe that the current two sources of it from abilities that are rarely taken and on long cooldowns is “too much”.

It then changed to how Thieves can’t do anything to Rangers because of supposedly “OP” aspects of Ranger … which then turned into that person not liking my points and wanting to just fight in-game … which I did and won as a thief against them as a ranger …

Please make sure you know what is going on before you get involved :-p

Please take your own advice and not change the context of other people posts. Nowhere did I say this post was suggesting a nerf, I said the negative " discussions" that erupt in every thread relating to thief is not helping us.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

shameless bump for more e-drama

This happens on every post relating to thief. No wonder we get nerfed, they just want us to stop with the hate ; ;

Neptune.2570:

kaikalii.4198:

Neptune.2570:

kaikalii.4198:

I’ll start. PU shatter mesmer.

PU shatter?
How does one go both 30 into choas and illusions and still generate enough clones for a shatter build without DE o.o?

In the title I am proposing a scenario in which we have 16 trait points to use rather than 14. With 16, you could go 0/4/6/0/6, taking DE, PU, and IP/

as soon as I wake up >.>

“I’m gana change my ways”….. sorry couldn’t help it. Onto topic,

6/6/0/4/0 pw thief. Damage, sustain, and mobility all in one despite s/p having such a bad rep.

/incorporate.thiefbuff
…..
…..
Does.not.compute——virus activated
ERROR→ERROR→ERROR
DELETE.THIEFS
SPELLING.ERROR
SERVER DISRUPTION

And that is how lag is created ladies and gentlemen.

Its like the ending of a good movie, so many interpretations O.o

quaniesan.8497:

I mained ranger in GW1 and enjoyed it, especially without pet (nice to have all the focus is to snip down the $#@$ out of foes, especially the squishy looking ones. and we all know how pet’s AI goes). GW2 should have give option to put pet away while giving ranger some sort of buff to compensate for a petless play style. Why? well, why not ?.
I know someone will start " oh shut it, they stated from the beginning that pet will be the ranger’s mechanic". Well, firstly, that is bad idea to begin with, forcing people to having a pet following around and worrying about the AI. And two, why can’t it be optional. Guardian’s virtue activation is their class mechanic, but they have the option not to activate it. Sure some would call them selfish freak or bad guard, but hey, at least they have the option. Mesmer’s shatter is their class mechanic, but they can run other builds that doesn’t involve shatter. Warrior can do built that optimizes based on NOT using adrenaline. Want more? I can do it all day. So please, option to tow it a away and compensate me with …maybe 25% speed boost or something.

Anet will not remove pets from ranger. Not sure as to why, but they’ve already stated this in the CDI. Probably because they still have faith they can make pets “work” and be a real threat.

6/4/0/4/0

You get accelerant packed turrets, enhance performance, and synaptic overload
You get the 2 FT traits
Here I got deadly mixture and protection injection.

FT, battering ram, and elixir S with supply drop, rifle, battle + rage sigils and hoelbrak runes.

Are the defenses there? Yes, more centered on CC as opposed to recovery and mobility.

Is there damage? Oh yeah especially if you lock them in with CC.

Is it fun? Still playing around with it, it is incredibly strong if you bait them around a corner or net shoot them on a chase and battering ram them into a corner.

Does vee wee realize how the signature function works on the forums?

Not very efficient typing that phrase out just to drop in 0.5 cents.

Death blossom does not need some damage boost or to substitute the bleeds for anything else. It just needs to turn to a skill shot like whirlwind attack and be a full evade. That way it works better on positioning and works reliably as a defense. D/D already has the damage, it just needs QoL improvements towards death blossom and dancing dagger.

On the right side, thief is as stale as a bag of chex mix from the early 2000’s.

Can the Dev’s who “work” on thief just retire or move to another profession? Cycle in some competent perspective so some of us can go back to enjoying the class instead of sulking

unlucky.9285:

• Look at what the dhuumfire terrormancer necros and PU condi mesmers have done.

you do realise dhuumfire was basically removed because it was too strong yeah?

more like you have to press 2 buttons to apply it rather than have it naturally apply on critical hits. If that is too much to ask of a condimancer then carry on.

Black Teagan.9215:

@NinjaEd

4 (or 6) secs are a little too short I think.
I find a base time of 5 secs + 3 secs with Meld with Shadows fits better.
+3 secs with Meld with Shadows for the simple reason that thieves should be a little more special.

But reveal should run between 8 and 10 secs, after stealth.
As compensation stealth could then changed to a profession mechanic.

Could work, but I wouldn’t go as harsh as 10 seconds or even 8. I’d be ok with 6 seconds of reveal but they’d have to compensate the stealth related traits for being harder to obtain and for being shorter in effect.

[Stealth function changed]
- stealth base now 4 seconds. Stealth increasing effects from traits increased to 2 seconds from 1. This will not effect skills already above 4 seconds. Combo skills (leap+smoke and blast+smoke) will also be increased to 4 seconds.

-Revealed now lasts 6 seconds naturally, with the 2 skills (sic em and utility goggles) still providing 6 seconds. Revealed will NOT stack in duration what so ever, will only refresh.

[Select traits rebalanced to function on revealed]

(Thief)
-Shadow Protector will grant 10 seconds of regeneration to allies on application. When regeneration is applied through this trait, the ICD starts at 10 seconds.

-Shadow’s Embrace will remove 1 condition every 3 seconds you are effected by reveal with 1 condition removed upon stealth.

-Shadow’s Rejuvenation will continue to regen upon stealth for only up to 4 seconds. Healing base increased to 439(150%). Healing power scale increased to 0.20.

-Cloaked In shadows now applies 2 seconds of blind on stealth and 2 seconds on reveal.

-Fleet shadow now applies during reveal.

Black Teagan.9215:

I see the problem more in the generally time of stealth and reveal.

Stealth is just too short to make it more than a simple spamskill and reveal is too short for the others to give them enough time to attack them, before they are stealth again. (The same for Mesmer)
Inclusive that their whole design around this mechanic make them really weak without it.

Stealth should be more an utility and not replace their whole deffense.

I’ve always wanted a longer stealth in turn for a longer reveal. At the same time, it just makes combat against such classes feel like even more of a waiting game which is already kittening off a bunch of players.

If they made stealth base generally 4 seconds and stealth increasing traits (meld with shadows and PU) to add 2 seconds in exchange of on stealth traits to be rebalanced to proc during reveal rather than stealth. Some traits would remain during stealth but move the stronger ones to on reveal and rebalance them around their shorter duration. Lastly, increase reveal to 5 seconds so there is less waiting since their defense will either come from breaking LoS or engauging to proc trait effects.

Gives more decision on how to use stealth and would hopefully make stealth dependency less important. How they incorporate those certain traits to proc on reveal as opposed to stealth would be tricky but not impossible.

Can’t balance pistol whip? Increase initiative to 7 in pvp…

Can’t balance s/d? More like can’t realize certain acro traits + fire/air sigils + the buffed zerker amulet is the cause.

Can’t balance IP or AE Gm traits? Give them mediocre buffs without considering any opportunity cost.

Can’t balance panic strike? Didn’t even realize it needed balancing, most 30/x/x/x/x thieves die from looking at them.

Can’t fix venoms? Buff 1 trait to function the way it should of from the start and pretend venoms are for condition builds.

Can’t fix steal? Incredibly underwhelming without traits, bugged beyond belief for months now. Fun stuff when your class mechanic is clunky.

Can’t balance underwater combat? What is underwater combat and how does one stealth underwater without hide in shadows or hidden thief?

End result: Disappointment, my builds really haven’t changed in months now. At least I can still play it though, but man has it fallen behind.

One party is greatly upset that they died to a class once mocked for being useless.

The other party attempts to explain how its strength is also its downfall. 1 dodge evades most of the arrows (especially if they have quickness), reflect almost insta-kills themselves, very few defenses once you get within melee range of them.

They seem to just be covered from tears and can’t get the message across :/

tl;dr power ranger is viable, but not OP. Notice there was 0 damage boost to rapid fire, it had a functionality change which can be exploited by both sides so there is no real imbalance aside from people believing every class needs to have a reflect now to combat the “ranger meta”.

TexZero.7910:

why are you going 5 points into arms to begin with ?

6 strength
2 arms
6 discipline

You only want crack shot, you don’t need anything else.

Probably because of some major traits. I use it because of that quick opportunity to spike someone with last chance, and also so that I can trait rending stirkes which greatly helps my adrenaline gain on rifle since the AA now grants +1 adrenaline if the target has vulnerability on them. The minor traits make much less sense now with rifle but rifle isn’t a 1v1 spec anyways so the 10% bonus towards bleeding targets is usually kept in line from allies rather than relying on precise strikes or the old bleeding aa.
Gs, rifle, 30/30/10/0/0 with all stances (including defiant). Gives me time to time invulnerability towards situation X and GS to bounce if its too much.

Problem: Over exaggeration post patch
Why: I doubt its enjoyable let alone helpful having people yell at you all day for your work. Has anet messed things up now and in previous patches? Yes. Do they deserve constructive criticism? Yes. Do they need a dozen posts crying about the same topics? No.

I understand people need to vent time to time but there is nothing productive about getting sniped and instantly raging about how something is OP despite numerous posts showing easy methods to counter such bursts. Try having a dozen + posts about such topics and finding something worth taking notes on. Everyone can do there part and be a little more productive here and maybe get more red posts for meaningful discussions. Some actual communication with the dev’s once in a while would do wonders but with such rage against them I’m not surprised they stay hidden for the most part.

wiredrawn.7298:

Problem: [Post-Patch] Game Sucks
Solution: Revert

Hardly helpful, many patches have messed with the balance and reverting them would do no good because they weren’t 100% bad. Problem is they never address the bad :/

Problem: Patch feedback
Why: Ignoring people who actually play the game instead of a small group of testers who ship out these pieces of work with several bugs is only fueling the forum rage. To top it off, there is no response from anet both in text or by patch notes addressing the bugs and poor designs that have either recently been added or been with us since launch. Ignoring the elephants in the room is terrible for you dev’s, which causes extreme dislike from the community often erupting into violent posts or causes people to move on to bigger and better games looking for a dev team that takes their game seriously. With such a good foundation it’s a shame to watch it crumble ever so slowly.

Such Q.Q, such little direction

Lyssa forbid you get punished for missing something. Welcome to earth warriors, welcome to earth. Sit down and smell the sweet smell of punishment for low skill floor. So mad that you weren’t catered as Anet love child hmm? Practice on your active thinking and maybe you will adapt or just quit realizing its too much work when it really is too easy to adapt to this change when you didn’t just press 1-5 for a living.

Problem: Retreat skills
Why: When immobilized or in the few retreat skills that break stun, you cannot aim the direction you fall back towards. With position being so important especially for some classes, this really hurts the player in not being allowed to make such decisions. Skills that are meant to aid in defenses should not have negative outcomes.

Problem: Stacking sigils
Why: In the case of ele and engineer (this has been brought up already iirc), they cannot take up a second weapon set to throw one of these on there like other professions. When looking at the professions as a whole this is, without a doubt, in favor of classes who can use multiple weapon sets. Additionally, 250 of 1 stat does not equal the same amount of another so using this baseline number only makes their placement in the game questionable.

Problem: Limited risks resulting in no balance changes.
Why: By this I mean take a trait like empathic bond for example. You might say a ranger with this trait really has no issues with condition removal especially with signet of renewal. However, what about a ranger without this trait? There are more than just this example even post patch where 1 strong trait or skill is restricting any chance of buffing other traits/skills relating to its function because of the potentially overpowered combination. There are such things as negative effects to balance these out so they do not work too well together, yet I don’t really see any of that. As a result we are stuck with the same build choices because they work.

Guys, just wait another 6 months and see what happens. That’s all you can do…

Cynz.9437:

Um, if i recall correctly petitions and such are against forum rules…

And we’ve tried in the past. The only person reading this forum is a moderator making sure we don’t cuss each other out. There is no hope in any “petition” no matter how much you shove it in front of them and bang on the windows.

killahmayne.9518:

It is punishing in the sense that for 3 seconds you leave yourself vulnerable to damage, and CC. In that 3 seconds you could of been doing damage instead of aiming a Killshot. Missing a Killshot was never a “free” pass because of all the opportunity costs involved in trying to land one.

They could make it like a lock in type skill for the sake of accuracy but also reduce the channel time needed to fire the shot off. For example, you hold it down for up to 2.25 seconds taking aim for 100% accuracy (moves quite fast so strafing isn’t too much of an issue). Similar to engineers poison volley in terms of accuracy , the shorter you channel the aim the more likely the shot will stray off and be off target. Hold it for <1 second it is likely to shoot off in the wrong direction, hold it for >1 second and it will be quite close to 100% accuracy, hold it for the full 2.25 seconds and it will be 100%.

In short range this could be quite the nasty combo since the bullet wouldn’t exactly shoot sideways, so if you immobilized or stunned them and fired this off directly in their face for a split second channel it would be quite OP. However for longer range this be a little easier to fire off and wouldn’t affect sniping since you still need to hold the channel to lock in.

Another option is to reduce the channel time for a long range shot and if you move you cut the bullet distance in half. So reduce the channel time to ~2.25 seconds and if you move during the channel you continue to channel but the range is halved. The rather obvious animation of you holding your rifle up and aiming should be enough of a tell that something bad is coming your way.

[Updated Thread purpose]
Simple place to fire off quick thoughts on the changes as a whole. A few rules however.

-no Q.Q, this isn’t a collection of rants. Now if you have a problem, you can explain it (preferably brief) but don’t go on and on about some “game breaking nerf”.

-this is for what could of been addressed (bugs, broken traits,etc) and for what was changed and why the result may or may not be acceptable to someone.

-Respect others opinions (kinda a given)

-Shorter is better, or atleast use some format of tl;dr to help readers understand.

-Not a place for suggestions as they usually need either several posts explaining it or long posts to cover all angles.

With that, I’ll start up the format.

Problem: Elite stat removal
Why: Not every profession have a luxury supply of elite choices. When some were utilizing the stat increases just to make use of a channel it only further cut their place in the game. I do believe in the end elites should stand on their own but until they are all looked into this should of been left alone.

Problem: Amulet choices
Why: There are a bunch of amulets that are simply too exclusive to certain professions due to their natural stats in either a builds’ trait line or from their vit/armor. The recent addition of assassin didn’t really give us anything we didn’t have before in various forms, also curious as to why valkryie isn’t the pve/wvw form still :/

Problem: Self might stacking and fire/air sigils
Why: I don’t believe this is a new problem, just one that’s more commonly used as people found out they could ditch their offensive traits and gear and just use heavy self-might stacking for their damage. I have no problem with groups blasting for group effects, this comes down more so to traits and other effects that dish out long lasting might giving heavy damage for more “tanky” builds. Fire/Air sigil plays a role in this as well unfortunately. I wouldn’t say flat out nerf these things but just look into them to make them less attractive over true offensive build properties from trait lines, runes, amulets, etc.

[Updated thread purpose]

Otaur.9268:

stof.9341:

Otaur.9268:

Signet of Stone is an 80 second cooldown now.

If you go for a Longbow build, there’s no reason not to take the Signet CD reducing trait that makes it a 64s cooldown.

Or u can take the 10% damage increase with full endurance… 1500-1800 range, dodging only when necessary!

Or use a bear type pet and protect me and its a 60 second cooldown and break stun O.o

Why are people expecting arcing slice to be a AoE eviscerate? I watched the warrior ready up when they talked about arcing slice and after these patch notes I stll only see buffs. It got a damage increase at <50% health, it’s AoE, same fury duration, easier to proc CI (as someone pointed out).

Not every burst skill is meant to act as a KO skill, some are utility and arcing slice got a little of both. It can hit hard and it gives you a 150% fury duration in comparison to its base cooldown at 3 bars of adrenaline which is extremely easy to obtain. Quit whining and enjoy your more reliable burst skill now.

dancingmonkey.4902:

I know why.

This is why they changes how it works. They did this to lich form, tornado, rampage, and so on. The did this specifically so players would no longer be capable of exploiting it, and causing the buff of the skill to effect skills out side the scope of the elite.

Yup^^

Can’t throw out a channel skill and then swap to a power enhancing elite to exponentially buff its damage. Same was done to every racial elite so that no stone was unturned. The elite’s themselves were unchanged in damage as they buffed the skills there, but they do not grant power anymore.

stof.9341:

Needle Trap (and Tripwire) are actually AoE skills. The trick is that, those two skills aren’t just some wire you put to drop down people. Tripwire in fact is a small landmine that knockdowns people when they break the wire!

The effect is obviously AoE. I do remeber the time where the low quality materials we had to work on to make those landmines meant that players that cut the wire from the edge were too far from the mine to even be affected in the first place :’(

If only steal worked, we could gather the resources need to improve our traps!

Can we go back to discussing why warrior isn’t dead and baddies should quit the Q.Q because they have to put a little more effort into playing the easiest class?

I’ve already dealt with the nerf, on a rifle warrior. I’d bring up my bunker spec but after they buffed it I have no reason to play the role of rock anymore. It isn’t that bad, you miss a burst skill “whoop dee doo!” couple seconds later I’m already at 2 bars and I’m not even using CI. Adrenaline gain is incredibly easy if you know the class which by the looks of it there are a LOT of people who got slapped in the face for giving 2 kittens about actual skill and taking the easiest route (hambow).

A bit of advice, take the time to learn warrior and realize this “super nerf” was a skill check to weed out the bad players. I’m sure people who actually know warrior inside and out will adapt to this change in no time.

a t s e.9614:

lolol kill shot is easely the worst skill in the game. If it hits you , then you should uninstall. Backstab takes positioning and perfect timing because its only 1 attack. Rapid fire can be used even on aegis because there’s many arrows.

Melee burst ( warr/thief) needs a buff to compete with rapid fire.

Generally yes but I can’t tell you how many people I’ve baited into a killshot.

-Thief using whirling axe, unaware I main thief and know exactly how long the channel lasts. He sits in it and then approaches me with whilring axes. Timed kill shot, dead (he also dodged in whirling axe while I had rifle out to show how stupid he was, but none the less)

- Fool on skyhammer kept jumping in and out of mid via lift pads. Mapped his rotation, charged up kill shot, pop goes the weasel.

-fleeing target on temple of silent storm heading up stairs towards mid point. I targeted him using 3rd person vision, he walked up without noticing me, BOOM HEADSHOT!

Is it strong to combat competent level players in say high tier pvp? Not even close, but its really easy to execute this skill if you have a little intuition and a knack for surprising people.

Nerfs to thief are always intended, nothing to see here. Move along now.

Fellas, you forgot the most important buff!

Needle trap: Now applies 3 stacks of bleed for 3 seconds

WAY over the top buff, I mean can you imagine the AoE bleed you can…. wait what do you mean its single target?

S/d= cheese
d/p= cheese
p/d= cheese
sb= cheese
S/= cheese

Conclusion= thief is cheese in the eyes of the public. Now with our “epic” unload buff p/p will be added shortly. Expect a nerf from 5 to 7 initiative cost.

Why you ask? Because they can

It may not of helped right now, but it is a step in the right direction if you ask me. Think about the old well of blood, you stood in a circle for 10 seconds to get a small AoE heal from it. Aside from waving a banner of war you couldn’t be asking for any more occurrences of “Direct AoE here”.

It would of been nice if they took a minute to do some math and realize the healing power multiple on the pulses is taking a dive by cutting the duration in half but compressing the pulse heal to give a little more in a shorter time frame is good.

blakdoxa.7520:

Actually 1v1 is the new metric just look at how they nerfed PU with swiftness and a freakin stack of might.

Isn’t it one of 5 boons at random every 1 second and not all 5 boons every second?

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

The problem is Combustive Shot! Nerf plz!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Dude, you know you can add that first part into a signature on your posts right?

That or you are determined to keep this front up and confuse people with a false popularity. In either case tell Mario and Luigi hello!

Oh noes, I miss my attack and have to auto attack for 7 seconds to get 3 bars back.

Atleast you gave us the ability to gain adrenaline on weapon swap, or maybe it was me just getting 3 bars before I had the time to do that… I never really knew. Warrior is just one big puzzle to me I’m gana have to rethink what weapons to use after they smiter booned greatsword >.>

:)

Are people forgetting how incredibly easy it is to obtain adrenaline?

So who cares if you spent those 3 bars, the rifle aa got an adrenaline buff and by the time the cooldown comes off you can try again. Also warrior rifle isn’t meant for up front battles, you should try sniping from a vantage point and see how much more effective it is in a team fight (like above the hut in temple of the silent storm).

ButterOfDeath.2873:

It basically would make every single ability twice as powerful at player’s whim.
How many traits allow this kind of power to be achieved? All i might think of is ranger’s trait that allows signet to affect them too… and it’ll be made into baseline thus not a big deal.

Technically physical training allows physical skills to deal double damage and recharge quicker and its a master trait. Fresh air allows a full recharge on the attunement which in turn works on respective air attunement swap traits to proc. Ele can also be immune to all conditions above 90% health, ranger can passively remove 3 conditions every 10 seconds. They look OP because no one else really gets those effects but look at the end result of them and see how it actually effects each profession.

Regardless of what it may do, not everyone has to follow the same rules or we’d all just be using auto attacks and relying on passives. Traits are what differentiate us imo the most. There is a lot that goes into a build but traits are what bend the rules and right now, thief has an RNG trait with a % increase on something we cannot do on our own. If there were sub classes I’d say this trait is pretty good but when your own class has a trait granting a bonus towards a non-existent effect what is the point? It’d be like giving 50% poison duration to a guardian or increased vigor duration to a necromancer.

The fact that anet shipped thief out with this trait and 2 years later hasn’t done anything to it saddens me. This on a laundry list of things that have been ignored and not just on thief just is disappointing.

Kyuubi.2640:

NinjaEd.3946:

Kyuubi.2640:

This is a L2P issue. Its high risk, hi reward, very skill based.

I’d agree on the first 2, but not the 3rd. It’s really not all that skillful to press 1-3 and the occasional gale + dragon’s tooth. It isn’t brain dead but its not skillful either.

If you get hit by gale and dragons tooth, then its an L2P issue. Dragon tooth is probably the longest animation next to churning earth. I mean if you don’t see a big red thing about to fall on you and can’t react in that amount of time, then I have no comment. So many things you can do to counter it, block, blind, invuln, dodge, teleport out… I mean get creative with it.

I didn’t say the combo was op, I’m saying the rotation is pretty straightforward and therefore not very skillful. You use swirling winds during projectiles, obsidian flesh to avoid burst or wait out a cooldown to recover, magnetic wave against projectiles or for a little condi cleanse, etc.

Getting hit by dragons tooth is entirely a L2P issue I agree, however gale isn’t a projectile or some obvious particle effect incoming, its a swing of the arms and a knockdown at your location from a distance. Dragon’s tooth can be avoided all day but gale is much more tricky to do so which is why the cooldown is rather long.

Assassin X.8573:

NinjaEd.3946:

Thief is far less forgiving even with such rules like not revealing when they haven’t dealt direct damage. Thief cannot make nearly as many mistakes as warrior, warrior’s need to not sulk in this “nerf” when all they had to do is just execute an F1 and win.

yes warrior F1 burst is more forgiving than….
Hide in Shadows,
Blinding Powder,
Shadow Refuge,
Combo Field: Smoke × Combo Finisher: Blast
Combo Field: Smoke × Combo Finisher: Leap,
Hidden Thief (When stealing)
Instinctual Response (when you take more than 10% of your health in a single strike)
Last Refuge (when your health reaches 25%)
Descent of Shadows (when you take falling damage)

so simple math says: 1 (warrior single F1 burst skill) < (is less than) 9 (NINE options for stealth)

gg.nr.gfus

1. Cast time, weak heal regardless, a thief having this interrupted is usually GG.
2. Any different from The prestige? Or decoy? Or cloaking device? Lets just give all stealth skills an obvious cast time, and make thieves have to rub two sticks together to obtain stealth.
3. Not sure what that has to do with forgivness, especially when it either costs a lot of initiative or long cooldowns to accomplish and can only be done once.
4. Here, let me pick an obviously BS build and use that as my justification to nerf the entire class…. >.>
5. bugged first off, secondly few people pick this trait because steal→ cnd → backstab or bps→HS→bs has more damage with it and can be done as frequently if not more so. Lets be realistic here.
6. Because everyone runs this trait right? I mean its obviously OP, lets talk about last stand and spiked armor shall we? I mean there is too much skill involved with those traits.
7. You do realize this skill naturally causes reveal in most situations right? Have you been on these forums ever or did the countless posts asking to change or remove this trait just slip by you?
8. falling damage traits OP yo

Simple math: My sneakers do not equal your belt. Next time try to compare things that are cut from the same cloth please.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

ButterOfDeath.2873:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

NinjaEd.3946:

A thief enjoying an RNG factor in their build? Who are you?!!

Seriously, how can anyone enjoy the random effect this trait produces? Thief needs quick decisions to pull of their bursts and stay alive, having a 1 in 5 chance to recharge your skill(s) is just awful. There needs to be a purpose to this trait other than “ooh, piece of candy”.

I used to think the same untill I tried the trait. This “piece of candy” is a lot more useful to me than 5% on dagger skills or similar traits, which are just boring. Quick decision making is exactly what Improvisation allows for, since it changes thief’s possibilities right away.

ButterOfDeath.2873:

Now, a 20% chance to reset all utility cooldowns is indeed really powerful, but useless 80% of the time.
Instead, having to build around improvisation will limit what utilities, healing and elite skills you can choose while making utility-specific traits much less useful.

Plus, now that you’ve seen i know what intended means, let me iterate that in much earlier stages of the game the thief would steal a bundle, not an extra ability.
In that enviroment, the trait would’ve been just right, right now not so much.

Thus, this is why i’m proposing possible solutions to make the trait interesting and useful, rather than a really situational trait that requires certain conditions to be met.

I doubt many of those who use this trait actually build around it. You don’t build around each of the traits you use either, just some of them.

If you take illusionary persona on the mesmer, i’m surely going to play shatter.
Sure it’ll improve any build, but i’d gladly build around it.

Apples and oranges.

You could compare more equivalent traits but ofc that wouldn’t help your argument much.

Perhaps thieves need to speed up their decision making skills if they think Improvisation is useless due to rng.

There really is no decision making when you have a chance at nothing happening. If it guartuneed atleast 1 of my utility skills currently on cooldown would reset then it would be perfect both for rng’s sake and those who want to actually decide.

Simple terms, put 1 skill on cooldown and proc improvisation, you know exactly which utility is going to be reset. Put all 3 skills on cooldown and now its random but atleast you know 1 skill will be recharged.

What about a couple options for changing this trait without making it brokenly OP?

-Reduce the cooldown of 1 skill type by 50% when you successfully steal. (This would be randomly chosen based on your selected skill types. If your skelk venom had 30 seconds left on its recharge and of your selected skills venoms were chosen, it would drop to 15 seconds. This would cross over to elite and healing skill types. The cooldown reduction is based on the remaining recharge time, so the sooner you proc this effect the higher pay off.)

-Recharge 1 skill type on a successful steal. (skill type is chosen at random based on your selected skills. In other words, it won’t pick a skill type you don’t have slotted. This would all skills of that type, and would cross over to elite or healing skill types. As a preemptive measure to limit abuse for those slotting 1 skill type, a 60 second ICD would be in place for up to 3 skills, and for each additional skill recharged increase the ICD by 30 seconds so 5 venoms being recharged would activate a 120 second cooldown on this trait. This choice is more of a game changer than something you’d put into a rotation.)

-Recharge 1 skill type on a successful steal. (similar to the one above however this would not cross over to healing and elite skills and would only effect 1 of your utilities currently on cooldown. To a lesser degree to limit abuse, a 45 second ICD would be in place. This choice would follow more of a rotation and give choice to the thief in how they want to play with this trait.)

-Recharge 1 skill at random or gain initiative on a successful steal. (either recharge 1 healing, elite, or utility skill chosen at random based on them being on cooldown or gain say 6 initiative. To limit abuse, a 90 second ICD is in place. This would best suit the rng where it could give you what you want or just add nothing that you needed. The true feel of improvising but with a cd so the effect isn’t so easy to abuse.)

-Recharge 1 skill at random. (similar to the above except without the intitiave part. Same deal where it relates closest to the RNG element of this trait but it would still only chose 1 skill that is currently on cooldown from your slotted healing utility and elite skills.)

Black Teagan.9215:

Kicast.1459:

In the other hand…what are thiefs weak against ?

Damagespikes, Conditionspikes, Every kind of CC, Any attacks if their ini pool is low/empty, groups, Immo, Daze, Stuns, Ice(semi),…

builds that kite equally, last refuge, withdraw in certain situations like ring of warding/static field/cliff, evasion baiting, focus fire of any degree, shadow refuge in team fights, casting HiS or skelk venom, reflecting sneak attack (reveal will not, lead dinner you will), missing a pw, having hs randomly leap you backwards despite not having a target, chill/cripple, retaliation (on some builds).