Not sure where to put this, so I’m putting it here. It’s been brought up several times that PvP would be better off if all characters were normalized from a size stand point.
At the moment, asurans are small enough that it is more difficult to see their tells than other classes, on the other end, norn are pretty easy to see.
Why can’t we have an option to normalize all spvp player models so that they’re the same size? Maybe the size of a tall sylvari?
I’m fine with my character appearing as I designed it to me, but everyone else should see a standard version of sex, class and height.
It might look funny to see tall asurans, so use human models, idc, just make us all the same size.
tldr: Make all character models the same size, roughly silvari/human sized, in spvp
I think he’s talking about the second part of the animation where the tiger looks up at the sky, spitting all manner of phlegm and yet, inexplicably, utters nary a sound.
I guess I ain’t dragon born…
1. Balance: (more build diversity, controlling power creep, eles brought up, etc.)
2. Unique Skins in PvP, lot’s of them and very nice ones for top players
3. Build Profiles that you can load
4. sPvP Population growth
5. Non-Tourney, Condition/Win maps (see Fort Aspenwood)
TL/DR: ANET has better data.
Thats what i’ve been telling myself since release… but after all this time and A LOT of completely random nerfs and buffs. Im not so sure anymore.
Edit: I work a lot with randomized trials as well so i know 100 is a very small sample size and all that yada yada yada. But either way you listed all of that which u did perfectly soo…
Still thanks for compiling this list!
Hey, no problem, glad you found it interesting.
amazing data – anet needs to hire you and kick their balancing team. Not sure what these guys are doing maybe kittening and drooling all day.
Edit: nvm i missed your class choice
Time is just so important in this game.
Also look at the engineer stats xD 60 losses 40 wins and when theres 2 engies the win/loss ratio is the worst of them all only winning half as many games as losing xD
kitten this faceroll class that carries everyone while rolling your face over the keyboard.. so true xD
I apologize, but I’m not sure if you’re serious, but I’ll answer you as if you are.
ANET could hire me… I wouldn’t mind, but the PvP and Balance team have a lot more data than is presented here, they don’t have samples, they actually have a census and, I assume, make balance decisions with holistic data while taking into account other game modes.
These 100 matches are a convenience sample in which I participated. They may indicate class distribution for a very specific time period on NA Servers for players with MMR close to mine. Not sure you can extrapolate too much beyond that.
I posted this for fun, and I’ll update it in the future. Also, I wouldn’t worry about the W/L records by class too much, over time (i.e., larger sample), those should approach 50% because classes end up playing each other often enough that even if they’re “OP,” they counter each other. I put it in to see how it works out, I already saw it a bit as Necro win % dropped down as time went on (if I remember correctly).
The key to seeing what the population thinks is OP is in class selection, right now, the player base I played with for those 100 matches felt that Necros and Warriors give them the best chance to win, and that kind of matches up with what you read here, esp with Warriors.
Again, I feel pretty confident that this sample is representative of NA, Solo Queue during 6-9pm Server time at my MMR. Beyond that, I have no idea, esp since I participated in the sample.
It would be nice; however, if ANET and someone with some coding knowledge worked out a system similar to the Black Lion Trading post websites that can grab snap-shots of data from the server and create much larger data points from all different times and servers. Not sure that’s possible.
TL/DR: ANET has better data.
I’d like to see this with a player that isn’t below average; aka, 56%+ winrate.
Not sure what your point is here.
Average win rate should be about 50% over time now that the MMRs have settled some.
If you are 100% certain that you are not the reason that you are losing (aka, always doing positively good), then your winrate should be at 56%. This rate takes into account the non-probability that you are a negative factor upon your team and that the other team are getting the deadweights instead.
9 (potentially bad players) /10 (potentially bad players + 1, you) = 1.11…
50*1.11… = ~56%
Anything above 50% is a legitimately good win rate to have in a 1v1 game, but this isn’t a 1v1 game.
This work similarly the other way around; bad players are most likely going to hover at or below 44%.
Very good players (someone who consistantly 2v1’s and wins) could see win rates much higher, and very bad players… you see where this is going.
The reason I was looking for someone that was statistically good (56!) was to see the distributions in the higher end of the spvp skill curve. Even if the leaderboards don’t mean anything, the MMR may be there.
But the whole point of MMR is to assign you with players of equal skill: not dead weight.
As for the skill curve, I’d like to see all of it. But I don’t have access to that data, I only know what my rank was through out the matches, it ranged from 80th percentile up to 400+, as of right now, I’m in the 300s on the LB. Some of the data I provided includes top tier players, one of the top 3 was on my team the other night.
I would be interested in seeing how class distribution shifts along the skill curve, if it does, so again, if ANET wants to provide it… I’ll take a peak.
Thanks for the replies, glad some of you found it useful. I’ll continue to update the master file, maybe after 200 matches, I’ll post an updated version to see how things have changed.
Again, all this stuff was done during NA prime-time (Except for a few matches) on NA servers. I should add that these 100 matches took place between Dec 16, 2013 & Jan 2, 2014.
If Anet wants to drop me a csv file with the data, say 10k NA and 10k EU team and solo matches with MMR to gauge where the matches to place in the ranks, as well as class & rank data, individual scores and total scores, as well as match durations… I’d be happy to do more robust analysis… :o)
Thanks for posting this, really cool stuff.
Just a suggestion though: plotting score vs. wins/losses would look great as two separate PDF or CDF plots.
Also have you considered posting your raw data? Might be fun for other people to poke around in.
Ask and you shall receive. It is attached. That is a tab-delimited file, this forum doesn’t allow csv format.
Attachments:
Hello, I recently decided to start capturing data from Solo Queue matches that I played in. I just completed my 100th data capture, and thought I’d share the results. At the least, I hope you find it interesting, here are some details on the data.
Method: I initially started doing screen-caps at the end of a match, but I soon realized that players often left matches before I hit print-screen, so I started doing a screen cap at the beginning and end of the match, so that I had more complete data, there are still some classes listed as “unknowns” where I forgot to screen-cap at the beginning of the match. There are also cases where I may not have noticed a player switch classes mid match, but I did capture some of those.
There are a total of 998 classes because of 2x 5v4s. There were more 5v4s than that, but I only counted it if the player was gone at the beginning of the game because that was an easier call to make. On the redistribution graph, rounding put the total classes up to 999. Go figure.
I mostly played between 6-9pm Server time, all games are on NA Servers and are Solo Queue. My rank ranged from 80th percentile at the beginning of the 100 matches and then traveled between there and the lower top 1k (at least every time I checked), the last 30 or so matches I was in the Top 1k, even sneaking up into the 400+ where I don’t belong.
I used the screen caps to record my personal score, the score of the game, the map played and the class distribution. The data was recorded by hand, so I expect I made a mistake or two, might have even put the losing team as the winners and the winning team as the losers. But I did go through all the scores and maps a second time, so I think it is pretty accurate.
I had 1 loss that I forgot to screen-cap, so that is excluded.
I don’t want to make too many judgments about the data, but I did provide some captions explaining the graphs with some of my thoughts. Keep in mind, this data may or may not be representative of the Solo Queue map population as a whole. I’ll probably continue to do this and add to my database just to see if/how it changes over time. Maybe I’ll update this post in the future with more samples added in.
Enjoy! Let me know if you have any questions or find any mistakes.
Funny to see people finding something negative to say… Yishis is a great player and great for the thief community. Very few thieves consistently post videos as informative and constructive as his.
My issue with fractals atm are the amount of bugs that are still there and the dredge fractal. Other than that, i thought the update, esp the account wide change, was great.
The Good
Rewards: Gold (silver) for matches, the new (temporary) NPC with glory/gold based reward options. I’ve really enjoyed what they’ve done so far and am looking forward to the upcoming changes to rewards they talked about today.
Additionally, the increase in rank gain from Solo/Team Queue wins is nice. IMO, increasing the rank gained for loses (obviously shouldn’t be as high as a win) would be nice as well, but the current setup is great.
Seems these two things have increased the overall population of sPvP, i’ve noticed Solo Queue times have dropped nicely during the 8-12pm EST hours.
Initiative Gain & Pistol Whip: Really enjoying these two changes to thief, and I’m surprised at how little the adjustment to opportunist affected my play style.
Dishonor: I’ve noticed a difference, there are still 4v5s and quitters and work still to be done, but it seems like a step in the right direction to me.
The Bad:
Infiltrator’s Strike/Return: Thief Sword 2 changes. I might grudgingly admit to a need to change S2, but I don’t like the way it was done. A change in the initiative cost as a first step would’ve been preferred and the 1/4s cast time can be a lot longer with some aftercasts. Yuck.
Healing Signet: I fail to understand why this hasn’t been adjust. You could put it in the missing section, but I’ll stick it here as a bad for being a change they chose not to make.
Diamond Skin: I don’t understand.
The Missing:
Elementalists: They are missing. Where are they?
Retro-active Team/Solo Queue Rewards: I’d really like this to happen, so I’m declaring it missing. Based on the stated intent today of bringing the grind for the rank titles down coupled with the changes made to rank gain in Team/Solo queue already, it feels like the right thing to do. Also because I want it.
New Game Modes: some kind of nuanced death match. Please! I know there are new maps being worked on, but a bit more transparency around what you are planning with them and details on the new games modes you have in mind would be great!
————————————————————-
That’s all from me, I tried not to cover too much of what others have already said. Thanks for making the post.
I’d like to know the about the following:
1. Eles: how do you think they fit into the current pvp scene
2. New game modes, any previews?
3. Unique Pvp skins…
thanks!
I thought they said somewhere they were working on expanding some of the title tracks in pvp… maybe i’ve miss remembered.
I would like to propose the following change:
Hard to Catch
Renamed to Hard to Understand. Updated trait description to read as follows: We aren’t quite sure what this does, gl & hf!!!!!1!!!
The combination of S2 and Vigor nerfs this last patch with the buffs some of the other classes received mean it really is RIP S/D thief. I’ll still run it in solo queue/wvw because of how much fun it is, but S/D is no longer a meta build.
John, you had me at exclusive skins…
There are two things I’d like to see:
1. Add new ranks/titles for ladder, but don’t remove the existing rank
2. Now that plans are in place to make pvp armor skins wearable outside of the mists: Unique weapon and armor skins that are PvP only. And some ultra-rare skins for people who perform well in high-level tourneys.
Bad:
- Rank removal
- PvE skins in PvP
- Skillpoints required for new skills. I only have one level 80, the rest of my characters are level 2 PvP only characters, I am NOT going to be forced to PvE just to get new skills in PvP!
Good:
- Everything else.
I’m optimistic about this but I am completely diappoonted in the above.
- Ranks are being removed in favor of ladder divisions and tiers.
- It’s not just PvE gear in PvP, you’ll be able to take the gear you earn out of PvP. Do you want PvP specific gear rewards? Mention it in that discussion.
- The Tome of Knowledge will award skill points instead levels when you reach max level.
Regarding ranks, why does one have to exclude the other? Why can’t the current rank system remain and new emotes and titles be added for people who work their way up through the ladder.
Maybe you can’t go into much detail yet, but how would the ladder system and titles/emotes work?
Thief: I am not sure how thief will develope so I will try to be a little bit careful here..imo the possibility to dodge a lot even after the patch will still allow very good players to be “beasts” and completely destroy other classes…the unbalanced thing here is that other classes don’t have that possibility which makes it unbalanced imo
I’m not sure of your wording here, yes, thief has access to a lot of dodge, more than other classes, but not that much more than the builds with high vigor uptime (some of which are addressed in the Dec 10th patch), so I assume you’re talking about the combination of evade frames and dodges that the S/D/SB thief has access to. If you put those two together, yeah, thief can be really annoying to play against.
Obviously, other classes have a lot of things for damage mitigation that thief doesn’t have… petting zoos, protection, much easier access to stability, regen and other boons… so removing too much of the thief’s ability to mitigate damage by not being there when it hits will all but destroy it.
I’m pretty confident the vigor and sword 2 nerfs are going to all but wipe the thief out, and you’ll be left with scrubs like me still running the spec in solo queue…
If you haven’t had a chance to hear them, I think Jumper’s thoughts on the Dec 10th nerf are good and would really punish poor play while still keeping S/D thief viable, more viable than the current Dec 10th patch will.
Finally, just a bit of advice, you’re quite helpful for the pvp community, and I’ve enjoyed your videos and insights into spvp, but be careful of the pve/wvw comments. PvX players (like me) have a right to comment on the kind of massive changes you’ve posted here because they would affect their gameplay. Even if you’ve made the suggestions in the spvp forum… Anet has shown a lot of hesitancy toward making a complete split of pvp/wvw/pve skills. I’m assuming this is because of data management and continuity issues, but regardless, the spvp needs more players and their best bet is to get them from the pve/wvw community, so try not to alienate that group by invalidating their opinions simply because they don’t spvp as much as you do. Just my 2c.
Great job! Hopefully, the frame rate issues get worked out for future casts.
I liked the commentary, you two work well together.
+1
15 characters and all that…
Honestly, it seems like 50% of the matches are 5v4, my last 2 were and we actually won one of them.
Folks that leave are toxic and bad for the community as a whole. Can’t wait until these trolls start getting penalized like they deserve.
Not even sure how it happened but a match I queue’d up for started off as a 4v5
It was awful
I’m not even sure why the matchmaking allows 4v5s to start once the timer runs out
Same… it ended as a 5v3.
had only 1 4v5 since patch and played a lot
and in this 4v5 the leaver was me – my internet broke somehow when we was winning :/
Wish I had your luck. I’ve been in 2 5v3s in the last 10 matches…
It’s very, very frustrating. They need to make some improvements to their reporting system. They need a coherent, concrete dishonor system. I dunno… maybe they could steal the idea from this game, I bet they wouldn’t mind.
I’ve played 18 matches of solo queue, i’ve had 2 5v3s (i was in the 3 on both) and several 5v4s. There absolutely needs to be stiff, stiff penalties for leaving a solo or tourney match.
In both 5v3 cases, we started 5v4. GG.
More great work. Would be nice to see ANET get behind something like this as a series of tutorials you could access from the mists or something.
Someone over at the gw2guru forum wrote a program to calculate to compare the init gain of Opportunist before and after the patch:
Results:
Against 1 foe, you’re basically exactly the same, doing 99.8% of current damage, with essentially the same number of unloads.
Against 2 foes, it’s 97.8% damage, and you’ve lost ~0.8 Unloads/minute.
Against 3 foes, it’s 96.8% damage, losing ~1.0 Unloads/minute.
Against 4 foes, is the same as ratios as against 3.So yes, it’s a nerf. But it’s only a 3.2% nerf when you were actually able to constantly fire into a crowd.
DesertRose, thanks for posting that. I wish he had shown his formulas because I cannot duplicate his results.
I’m not saying the guy in the link you posted is wrong, but I would like to see how he worked his figures out.
But just for fun, let’s say he’s right and the net result is a minor loss in both damage and initiative regen when you look at the change in base regen and opportunist. ANET is calling the change in base initiative gain a “huge” buff and if you look at it in isolation, sure, it is. But when you account for just one simultaneous nerf that reduces initiative regen, the buff is gone. Then there’s Klepto, Quick Recovery and Sig use to consider, all are getting nerfed.
How does this move satisfy the goal ANET set out to achieve of freeing up more trait options for thieves by reducing our dependence on traits that generate initiative?
Ultimately, if you rely on a lot of hits per second (what I would consider the active play style Anet is attempting to reward), this is going to suck.
On the other hand, watching game play footage of D/D thieves, I think they will feel like this is a buff.
For movement outside of combat (shortbow – 6, dagger – 2), this will feel like a buff because opportunist isn’t operating.
For a typical S/D thief that runs with Sig Use and/or Quick recovery, this is probably going to suck a lot.
For P/P thieves, this will feel like a nerf.
In the end, I do not see a scenario in which the Dec 10th changes, taken as a whole, amount to a “huge buff.”
Just my 2c.
Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
fine.I actually thought that was fine, too, although I didn’t think the 35% increase was enough to justify moving it up a tier, since the healing is massively underwhelming as it is.
Then I realized that, after this patch, if I put 30 into Acrobatics for this trait there’s absolutely nothing I’d want in the Master slot. I’d probably still take the vigor-on-heal trait, but nothing remaining in the Master tier looked even remotely appealing enough for me to want to pigeonhole myself into Acrobatics.
I doubt I’ll take it, but I’m still fine with it because it is a trait I never use replacing a trait I’d never use. If that makes sense… :o)
Or to put it another way, if I had to pick the “buffed” AR or the current Hard to Catch for the other Grand Master slot, I’d go with the AR.
But I get where people who don’t go 30pts into Acro find this change annoying, it may be better off staying as a master trait.
Thief:
Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75/second to 1/second.
fine
Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time.
Would you consider increasing the initiative cost to 3 instead? I would consider that more of a shave.
Pistol Whip. Reduced the after cast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.
Good start, and I like the idea of splitting this into 2 skills, but the changes to Sword 2 makes this change lackluster, imo
Deadly Arts VI – Sundering Strikes. Increased the trigger chance from 50%. Remove ICD. Decrease Vulnerability duration to 6s.
fine
Critical Strikes VI – Practiced Tolerance. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
fine
Critical Strikes 15 – Opportunist. Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase cooldown from 1s to 5s.
I still don’t get this and don’t think it’s justified, changes like this sort of undo your “buff” of base initiative increase. If you need to tone it down, don’t basically destroy it, keep the ICD to 1s and try it with 15%-20%.
Critical Strikes VIII – Signet Use. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
fine
Critical Strike X – Critical Haste. Increase trigger chance to 25%.
fine, but I don’t think anyone will take this unless the trigger increases
Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.
fine, over due really. I’d also like to see Thieves get revealed if they are blocked in an attack from stealth, that’s a nerf that makes sense…
Acrobatics III – Vigorous Recovery. Reduced Vigor duration to 5s from 8s.
6s would be better, we’d at least be able to get back to the base 8s by going 30pts into acrobatics
Acrobatics IV – Assassin’s Retreat. Increased swiftness duration to 20s.
fine, but i don’t think it will be used
Acrobatics IX – Quick Recovery. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
This no longer looks like a master level trait. This should either be dropped to adept or add a condition removal to it.
Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
fine.
Acrobatics XI – Hard to catch. Moved to Master Tier.
This is still a pointless trait, not having control on your location with a class that requires precise control of your location is never going to be a trait thieves will use long term.
Trickery 5 – Kleptomaniac. Reduce initiative gain from 3 to 2.
This change and the changes to Quick Recovery (assuming you either drop it to adept or add condi-removal) and Signet Use would be fine if you left Opportunist alone.
Trickery IV – Flanking Strikes. Move to Master tier.
fine
Trickery VII – Bountiful Theft. Reduced vigor duration to from 15s to 10s.
Better at 11s or 12s.
Trickery VIII – Trickster. Move to Adept tier.
fine
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
If it will save IS/SR, why don’t you consider tweaking Larcenous strike? Why not give it some of the functionality of Heart Seeker where the damage is reduced at higher Health?
How about this:
Larcenous Strike
Target is above 50% health – 365 dmg, 1 Coef and 1 boon stolen
Target is below 50% health – 365 dmg, 1.5 Coef and 2 boons stolen
Thanks for putting this together.
I may just be tired how would thief casting another ability which uses initiative cause him to recharge the first skill faster?
You’re not tired, I am. I should’ve said decrease…
…snip…
its like, imagine a necro being with a staff, and instead of casting 2,3,4,5 skills after witch all of his skills go on cd and not avaiable, imagine him being able to cast 5,5,5,5 after witch the 2,3,4,and 5 skills go on a same cooldown .
…snip…
A necro, after casting 2,3,4,5 can then swap weapons and cast 2,3,4,5…
A thief can cast the equivalent of 12 init (untraited) and then is on cool down on all skills.
As soon as a Necro casts a skill, it begins regenerating whether he casts any other skill or not, casting 3 after 2, does not decrease the recharge rate of 2. It does for a thief because all his skill use the same 12 init resource.
A necro, running on an initiative system could, at best cast 5, 5 and be completely blown on both land and underwater weapon sets. That means he used 2 skills to put 18 others on CD.
It’s a bit like comparing apples to oranges. The initiative system has advantages as does the alternative, but they are a bit too different, imo, for ANET to use the 25% analogy as a justification for claiming a massive buff to a class that is once again being nerf hammered.
edited: fixed for tired
(edited by Pixels.6532)
Jon,
Thank you for the response!
Initiative
I don’t have a problem with the select-able initiative regen trait changes, Signet Use is still viable because of its additional benefit, Quick Recovery will be fairly useless now, but at least I don’t have to take it. Regarding Opportunist, the change doesn’t really seem to fit your intent of rewarding a thief for staying in the fight as well as giving him/her more options on select-able traits. I feel like leaving Opportunist alone and taking a wait and see approach with it would be better.
Also, the condi-removal suggestion on Quick Recovery would keep it viable. You might even make QR an adept trait and switch Vigorous Recovery to Master Tier and reduce the base duration to 6.
Vigor
I appreciate that you’re reconsidering the Vigor changes, if I can influence you… 6 seconds would be nice, that way we can at least get back to the base 8 seconds we have now by going fully into acrobatics for the 30% boon duration.
Assassin’s Reward
Regarding the assassin’s reward changes, is it a base 35% increase with a 35% scale on healing power? I was a bit confused by the notes.
Infiltrator’s Return
This one hurts. But if you’re mind is made up…
Everything else
There are some good threads on the first few pages detailing some bugs with the class, softening some of the blow from Infiltrator’s return, Vigor, etc. might be addressing some of these… The change to Infusion of Shadow is justified, imo, and I think most of the thief forum agrees with it.
Vigor
This is kind of depressing. The affects on Vigor are pretty straight-forward and obvious, see attached. Under the new system, even with 30% boon duration, you can’t get back to the base 8 seconds of Vigor that you had previously. Bountiful theft is the same story, after Dec 10th, expect a lot less Vigor uptime.
queue mini-rant
I don’t really get this. The thief is a fairly unique class for an MMO, and I really like the feel of it from the initiative system to the dependency on avoiding damage by not being there when the damage hits either through evasion, dodges or shadow-stepping. Thieves are highly dependent on positioning both to mitigate damage and to deal it (Backstab, Tactical Strike, Side Strike, etc.), so anytime you’re going to affect a thieves mobility, it’s a big deal.
Not too long ago, the term “shaving” was being thrown around. I have news for you, a 50% reduction is not a shave.
If you go the route of removing more and more of the thief classes’ access to damage avoidance via dodging and evading and stealthing, etc., then you have to give them other means of condi-cleanse and damage mitigation… go too far and you’ll have a class that isn’t much difference from a Warrior or a Ranger… just with less health and in the case of the Warrior, less armor.
end mini rant
(edited by Pixels.6532)
The more I look into what is being proposed, the more I don’t like it. I’ve done a quick analysis of the initiative regen and vigor changes, you can see them attached below.
Someone double-check the workings, here are the assumptions:
Initiative Regen
The passive Initiative regen will work exactly as shown on the spreadsheet, but active traits, like signet use, won’t unless you burn your signets every single time they come off cd… but it still shows how the change will effect (affect?) your ini gain on use.
The Total (2 Sig) etc. are just showing the regen with 2, 3, 4 signets equiped and again burning them exactly as they come off cd.
Opportunist is a 33% nerf in Initiative gain no matter what Crit Chance you have whether it is 4% or 100%. However the higher your crit chance, the more ini that 33% nerf becomes. If you run a high crit build, this is a significant nerf, more on this below.
Anet has mentioned that they want to reduce our dependence on Ini regen traits, yet for an S/D thief (10/30/0/30/0) running 1 signet and using Quick Recovery and Signet Use along with 65% crit change, you effectively lose about .02 ini per second… while keeping the same traits under the new proposal.
Remove Quick Recovery from your trait selection and you lose .12 ini per second. This new proposal doesn’t free you up to choose a different trait at all, it just shifts your regen around. You have to keep Sig Use and Quick Reco just to stay where you were pre-patch.
The guilty party here is Opportunist, don’t nerf this trait and you’ll actually free up a select-able trait and achieve what you’re trying to do.
Kleptomaniac
It’s a pretty straight forward nerf. And I’m kind of ambivalent about it.
Infusion of Shadow
I’ve video taped the timing on a BP->4x HS, and I can’t see you pulling it off much under 4 and 1/2 seconds (Because kitten is kitten, see… kitten.), probably more like 5s, but with latency, I can’t say for sure.
The trait procs at the end of your HS. As you can see from the sheet, you’re currently out 7 initiative at the end of that combo, you’ll be out 12 under the new change. This is designed to remove “perma-stealthing” D/P, and it should do exactly that. The regen section here is showing how much you’ll naturally gain back in initiative during the course of the combo.
Regarding Initiative Regen changes, I understand the intent here, and I don’t mind it, but my conclusion is that the Opportunist nerf is plain silly and undermines what ANET is trying to do. As far as Ini regen goes, don’t change Opportunist. That’s it.
If you decide to leave Opportunist alone, then why not change Quick Recovery to a condi removal? How about removes one condition on dodge (10s ICD)?
Up next: Vigor!
So… I have a couple of questions:
Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier
Are you saying it will now scale at 35% of Healing Power or are you increasing the current scaling by 35%? Seems like it would have to be the following:
69+Healing Power *.35 per initiative… because a 35% increase on a 3.5% modifier ain’t much.
My other question is, are there any thoughts to giving thief more condi removal? You’ve sort of set the stage with the infusion of shadow change to making one of our best condi removal builds obsolete (D/P w/ at least 20 points in SA).
One idea would be to give an on-crit trait a condition removal with an internal cd or let us trait in deadly arts a way of transferring or removing a condition with a venom (with an icd of course). Why not combine Quick and Residual venom into one Grandmaster?
That leaves you an open slot to do something like: Tolerance: when you apply a condition with a venom, lose one condition (icd 5s or something).
Anyway, would be nice to get a dev response or two… or three.
Well…
We tried.
Edit: With Jon Peters posting their proposed changes to Thief along with the other classes, I thought I’d post them here and comment.
———-
Thief:
One of the issues we are working on for thieves this patch is the dependence on the traits which boost initiative. We did this by shaving a significant amount of initiative gain from these traits while simultaneously boosting the generic rate of initiative gain by 33%. We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves by reducing vigor up time and adding some cast time to the Shadow Return skill on the sword. This prevents these thieves from evading too much and too easily dealing with being disabled (stun, daze, fear, knockdown, etc.). Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait. This will reward thieves who are actively engaged in the fight rather than those who are just dodging over and over again. The change to Infusion of Shadow is meant to stop players from gaining initiative by applying stealth while already in stealth. This should keep thieves from being able to recharge all of their power while idling in a very long stealth. We felt that using a lot of different abilities to maintain stealth is ok, but re-using the same ability over and over for almost permanent stealth was just bad for the game, especially when gaining large amounts of initiative.
Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75/second to 1/second.
Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time.
Pistol Whip. Reduced the after cast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.
Deadly Arts VI – Sundering Strikes. Increased the trigger chance from 50%. Remove ICD. Decrease Vulnerability duration to 6s.
Critical Strikes VI – Practiced Tolerance. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
Critical Strikes 15 – Opportunist. Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase cooldown from 1s to 5s.
Critical Strikes VIII – Signet Use. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
Critical Strike X – Critical Haste. Increase trigger chance to 25%.
Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.
Acrobatics III – Vigorous Recovery. Reduced Vigor duration to 4s from 8s.
Acrobatics IV – Assassin’s Retreat. Increased swiftness duration to 20s.
Acrobatics IX – Quick Recovery. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
Acrobatics XI – Hard to catch. Moved to Master Tier.
Trickery 5 – Kleptomaniac. Reduce initiative gain from 3 to 2.
Trickery IV – Flanking Strikes. Move to Master tier.
Trickery VII – Bountiful Theft. Reduced vigor duration to from 15s to 8s.
Trickery VIII – Trickster. Move to Adept tier.
——-
Here’s my 3 things:
1. Steal should shadow step even if no target is selected
2. Increase the stun duration on Pistol Whip to a base of 1s, think about slightly decreasing the time it takes to go from whipping to slashing
3. Give P/P an identity, is it a condi-spec? Why all power on Unload …I’m so confused.
Thanks! Add your 3 and keep it civil.
(edited by Pixels.6532)
Yes! Another thief vid. Thanks for posting!
Variations of the following:
1. Hero’s Ascent
2. Annihilation style PvP Maps in addition to the current point cap
3. Competitive Missions as a feeder for sPvP
I like P/D now. I feel like it is developing an identity as our “anti-movement” set. If you use it to harass and keep your distance, it works really well. I think as an off-set in a team build, it can do quite well for focus fire as you can pin a target quite nicely.
I also find body-shot is more useful for setting up a CnD now.
It would be nice if they gave us a “Click Only” option for NPC targeting in sPvP. That way, “C,” “T,” and “tab” targeting would only select players.
I think a Fort Aspenwood style map would make for a great sPvP feeder map. This would be something that more casual players can hop into without a team and get a taste of some sPvP gameplay while introducing a tweaked PvP game mode. More options!
I realize there’s no lore for this battle, so why not change it up a bit. Instead of a fort deep in the Kurzick forests, make it an island that the Consortium and Black Lion Trading Co are fighting over, as it is a key stop in a major shipping channel.
It’s a solo queue, 8v8 map. You decide if you want to rep the BLTC (Defensive) or the Consortium (Offensive) and off you go.
Just like FA, you have npcs to protect, walls to rebuild, supply to run. Basically, a lag free, small encounter version of WvW, but an instanced version with even numbers and a specific objective (defend until time runs out or capture the island before time runs out), much shorter queue times, and no gear grind, as it would use your sPvP gear.
This should have its own achievement and title track as well as give glory like other sPvP matches. And give event style PvE rewards, see here
Improve sPvP rewards:
Make sPvP matches an event system (Sample attached). Reward players with XP for killing players and decapping, capping nodes. Not a lot, similar to the XP gained for npc kills in PvE.Maybe give some TP sell-able items as part of the reward chests for winning in solo/team queue as well.
I said this in my old reply, i think this is the best and easy way to add exp/karma/money to spvp and to not interrupt progress from pve/www.
I’d create different values between tpvp and hotjoin, so people are stimulated to go in rated matches because they can get more rewards.
but for hot join, i’d add this concept only to 5vs5 match, so people are forced to understand real conquest mechanics to win a match to get more rewards. This could be a real first step for people who want to approach spvp and team queue and soloqueue could get great benefit from that.
A progression reward system instead needs 2 main components: Seasons and good leaderboard.
Anet i think can improve their reward system in different steps, first step they can add a general improvement reward (exp/karma/money by medals system) and when they fix (i hope soon) leaderboard and implement seasons, create a progression reward system.
Hey, thanks for the response. In the attachment, I did 60% of the Team/Solo queue value for hotjoins. Not sure if they could separate it between 5v5 or 8v8, but I def. think it should reward less for hotjoin than for tourney.
I agree on the seasons. They’ve set that precedent with WvW, so hope to see that in sPvP too.
Expand existing title tracks and add new ones:
I keep getting network errors and losing my posts, so I split this up into two posts. In addition to adding some PvX rewards (post above). Why not improve the title track progress and add more titles that grant more achievement points.
Why not have all the class tracks include an “Ultimate” version for getting 1,000 wins in tournies?
Here are a few more ideas on an expanded title track and achievement rewards.
Improve sPvP rewards:
Make sPvP matches an event system (Sample attached). Reward players with XP for killing players and decapping, capping nodes. Not a lot, similar to the XP gained for npc kills in PvE.
Maybe give some TP sell-able items as part of the reward chests for winning in solo/team queue as well.
This is great, thanks. I like the thief vids… If I could request a few more… :o)
I think improv would be great if they just changed it to 2% damage for each type of utility skill equipped.