Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon.
I sit under the wyvern in that fight. It doesn’t make flames underneath its body
(though I’m usually using my zerker d/f ele rather than my thief. similar class/build though. melee with no armor or heath pool)
I’ve done the event many times and I’m aware of spots that you can use. However, it’s not always the case since it’s part of the fight mechanic for the Wyvern to move around, which most of the time on top of the flame, especially after the flyby it has a tendency to land on the flames — thus, standing under the body is suicide.
I think, it is time to add a 5 sec intern cooldown on this trait.
Also may be reduce how long the caltrops last, to 5 sec.
I totally agree, only if Uncatchable uses the real Caltrops instead of mini-Caltrops.
For starter, the Radius should be 240 instead of 90.
Simply nerfing the trait is a deal breaker.
It’s called ’zerker build.
And the idea “to kill you before you kill me” only works against another ‘zerker build, however with the bunker build circling around, no room for ’zerker Thief since it is more than likely that _"they’ll kill you before you kill them"_.
Just picture yourself in a vehicle running 100mph to a 30ft thick concrete wall. 100mph vehicle maybe able to ruin any other vehicle, but againt a 30ft thick wall, you’ll look like a crushed aluminum can.
I think what OP is saying is that in order to balance the damage/survivability ratio, he’d prefer if our damage went up rather than our survivability.
I don’t think so. He’s very clear that he’s talking about builds which he had fully describe what we’ve already known all along as ’zerker build.
In PvP Thief is a tough class to play. So this is for those who want to get into playing Thief or want to play a different play style.
Thieves are squishy. So people think it’s good to add survivabilty to the class whether it’s through traits, runes, amulets, etc. Well I say no to this and instead what you should be doing is adding as much power as you can. I run a full power dps thief with staff. The mindset for my build is basically to kill you before you kill me.
It’s called ’zerker build.
And the idea “to kill you before you kill me” only works against another ‘zerker build, however with the bunker build circling around, no room for ’zerker Thief since it is more than likely that _"they’ll kill you before you kill them"_.
Just picture yourself in a vehicle running 100mph to a 30ft thick concrete wall. 100mph vehicle maybe able to ruin any other vehicle, but againt a 30ft thick wall, you’ll look like a crushed aluminum can.
Cripple actually. Cripple counts as a light CC (i think). Use caltrops.
I just Dash through Caltrops even proc-ing EA to remove the bleed.
Too strong, just like what the OP says.
Don’t get distracted, focus on the shadow kick.
You’re wrongly applying logic to Mortal Kombat — you can’t do that.
BUT
THREE TIMES
I mean yes the shadow kick is amazing let us dye the afterimage but
THREE TIMES
Fine, let’s apply logic.
Raiden regenerates lost limbs in an instant unless you severe the same limb three times. This also apply to his head, thus removing the head one time will never work, and to really kill a god like him is to severe the head three times.
Much better now?
And no, that’s not official.
So what you’re saying is Raiden is a Hydra
Hydra grows two heads to replace one, so no.
Maybe he was a hydra in training?
You can’t rule this out, maybe he only learned how to regen two heads the first time-
He regens one head at a time ad infinitum but he simply say kitten it at the third decap.
At any rate yes. Shadow kick cast time would be amazing, but that’s wishful thinking on an already useful skill at best.
It has to happen, I mean it’s already named correctly — it fits well with the Thief.
How do you CC a Dashing Devil? It’s impossible. It’s too strong.
Don’t get distracted, focus on the shadow kick.
You’re wrongly applying logic to Mortal Kombat — you can’t do that.
BUT
THREE TIMES
I mean yes the shadow kick is amazing let us dye the afterimage but
THREE TIMES
Fine, let’s apply logic.
Raiden regenerates lost limbs in an instant unless you severe the same limb three times. This also apply to his head, thus removing the head one time will never work, and to really kill a god like him is to severe the head three times.
Much better now?
And no, that’s not official.
So what you’re saying is Raiden is a Hydra
Hydra grows two heads to replace one, so no.
Don’t get distracted, focus on the shadow kick.
You’re wrongly applying logic to Mortal Kombat — you can’t do that.
BUT
THREE TIMES
I mean yes the shadow kick is amazing let us dye the afterimage but
THREE TIMES
Fine, let’s apply logic.
Raiden regenerates lost limbs in an instant unless you severe the same limb three times. This also apply to his head, thus removing the head one time will never work, and to really kill a god like him is to severe the head three times.
Much better now?
And no, that’s not official.
Don’t get distracted, focus on the shadow kick.
You’re wrongly applying logic to Mortal Kombat — you can’t do that.
I’d even argue that in most normal cases not having the Kd would be better.
I need to try this tonight, but I’m pretty sure the KD can be stowed. So evade frames would be much better than removing the KD.
Nope, KD happens automatically right after blocking.
which is the whole cusp of the problem, because the channel time it takes to actually launch the KD is enough time to:
Soak 75% of your hp in AOES
Die
Get blocked and also die
Get interrupted[its still a good skill but I cant handle the salt]
I’d be fine with just a plain stunbreak and a one second block on that KD.
OR
OR
an instant cast KD. A sped up animation would also be glorious.
Just give us the Warrior’s Kick anim and make the KD Channel like 1/4 second. DO IT
Nah, it has to be a Johnny Cage shadow kick.
Waiting for the 10% boost on Withdraw is like waiting for a Christmas bonus…you can’t really tell if it’s going to happen.
Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.
Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.
Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.
So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?
Well this due to a lack of range on the thiefs ranged weaponsets which I agree with. It not due to power being lacking. In That meta in TD I bring my PP thief and pound out 10k damage per unload on the boss. Granted I get boons from others in the area but this is substantial damage.
Legendary Wyvern can be a pain for the reasons you mentioned but I manage to dodge around enough to find spots I can get within range but again this not an issue with power being lacking.
My point is, if the Thief is required to dodge around as their defense mechanism instead of tank-n-spank, their DPS drops as a result. So in order to compensate for that drop, the Thief should get a damage boost as a supplement. Dodging shouldn’t be a punishing feature. Now Bound has the +10% damage boost, but even that is not enough, plus it pigeon hole the builds into taking Bound if the Thief didn’t want their DPS to suffer.
We probably have to determine first what is meant by “power creep”. I see it more as the amount of damage one is able to inflict rather then ones own ability to survive. It in that survival the thief lacking. What has happened is other professions maintain that high survival while being able to dish out just as much damage. The damage they dish out has to be brought back down to Earth.
Somewhat in-line of what I’m talking about since survival is a major factor. Yes, the Thief might be in the right place in terms of damage, that is if the target is a dummy golem. But as soon as the Thief needs to survive, which is by dodging or stealthing, or better yet getting out of range — DPS drops — while other professions can stay where they are and continue their DPS uninterrupted.
So you brought up an actually good question;
Should the Thief maintain their current power level but suffer when they attempt to survive or should the Thief’s power be brought up so attempting to survive won’t be detrimental to their damage output?
If they increase the Thief’s survivability by not relying on dodging/stealthing too much, then there won’t be any need for power up — which I agree.
However, if they maintain dodging/stealthing as the Thief’s base survival skills, which is more than likely to happen, then IMO the Thief needs a lot of power ups.
Well one thing I do NOT want to do is break the class. There no doubt a Revenant very powerful and even my limited time on it rather “easy to play” when it comes to surviving or inflicting damage, but I find it boring relative to thief.
This is why the original design to separate PvE and PvP skills was great that it allows the Dev to give PvE Thieves the power they need. They can even make pistol and shortbow range 1200 again in PvE. At the current state of the Thief, the changes only benefit the PvP while PvE Thieves remains way below average.
A part of what makes thief so fun for many of us to play might well be that “I make a mistake or two I am dead” thing that goes on. At the same time there has to be a reasonable chance we can prevail in fights when the enemy makes mistakes or we outplay them.
The major appeal of the Thief is that it is a high risk, high reward profession. Shaving off the reward and minimizing the risk only hurts the profession — and that’s where we are now. They need to give the Thief back their high reward playstyle starting with Backstab.
They can reprogram Revealed to do the following;
- non-Thief profession gets 3s Revealed after attacking from Stealth
- Thief do not get Revealed by attacking from stealth unless the skill specified it (edit: instead, they simply lose stealth)
- All stealth attacks applies a 10s Revealed
Then they can make stealth attacks more rewarding, for instance, making Backstab deal more damage than Vault since it is a single target skill. In addition, give all stealth attack an armor-ignoring ability ignoring 15%-25% of the target’s armor, whichever is balanced.
There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on the Thief, that’s why it’s too soon for a thank you.
(edited by Sir Vincent III.1286)
I’d even argue that in most normal cases not having the Kd would be better.
I need to try this tonight, but I’m pretty sure the KD can be stowed. So evade frames would be much better than removing the KD.
Nope, KD happens automatically right after blocking.
I run Dash in Open World PvE and WvW, and generally when I feel like moving fast.
I run Bound in Raids, Fotm, GvG and sPvP, where the damage is needed, along with the +10% dmg buff. I’ll rely on steal to get around 50% swiftness uptime.
^Basically this sums it up really well…at least for me.
Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.
Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.
Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.
So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?
Well this due to a lack of range on the thiefs ranged weaponsets which I agree with. It not due to power being lacking. In That meta in TD I bring my PP thief and pound out 10k damage per unload on the boss. Granted I get boons from others in the area but this is substantial damage.
Legendary Wyvern can be a pain for the reasons you mentioned but I manage to dodge around enough to find spots I can get within range but again this not an issue with power being lacking.
My point is, if the Thief is required to dodge around as their defense mechanism instead of tank-n-spank, their DPS drops as a result. So in order to compensate for that drop, the Thief should get a damage boost as a supplement. Dodging shouldn’t be a punishing feature. Now Bound has the +10% damage boost, but even that is not enough, plus it pigeon hole the builds into taking Bound if the Thief didn’t want their DPS to suffer.
We probably have to determine first what is meant by “power creep”. I see it more as the amount of damage one is able to inflict rather then ones own ability to survive. It in that survival the thief lacking. What has happened is other professions maintain that high survival while being able to dish out just as much damage. The damage they dish out has to be brought back down to Earth.
Somewhat in-line of what I’m talking about since survival is a major factor. Yes, the Thief might be in the right place in terms of damage, that is if the target is a dummy golem. But as soon as the Thief needs to survive, which is by dodging or stealthing, or better yet getting out of range — DPS drops — while other professions can stay where they are and continue their DPS uninterrupted.
So you brought up an actually good question;
Should the Thief maintain their current power level but suffer when they attempt to survive or should the Thief’s power be brought up so attempting to survive won’t be detrimental to their damage output?
If they increase the Thief’s survivability by not relying on dodging/stealthing too much, then there won’t be any need for power up — which I agree.
However, if they maintain dodging/stealthing as the Thief’s base survival skills, which is more than likely to happen, then IMO the Thief needs a lot of power ups.
Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.
Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.
Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.
So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?
What’s PVE?
My point exactly.
Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.
Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.
Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.
So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?
I had this idea as well about focus being an offhand to emphasize the shadowy magic thieves used. The elite spec should heavily emphasize stealth as well
Yes. Since you can only do so much with the off-hand weapon and adding stealth to it will only make it convoluted, the best place to add stealth is in the Elite trait. For instance, the Thief will go on stealth on a successful skill interrupt. This also gives x/P access to stealth which the set badly needs and in doing so opens up build diversity. While DD gives easy access to evasions, this Elite should give easy access to stealth.
I’m sorry but being untargetable does absolutely nothing to mitigate damage, especially now with reworked projectiles/action camera/similar alternatives. Dash is a full evade. You can’t take damage while using it.
I disagree. I’ve been using Dash and the main issue I have with it is the long animation frames. If the evade lasts as long as the animation, it would be perfect. Removing a condition at the beginning of the animation to only get it back when the animation ends is quite annoying. Thankfully, Dash applies a 10% damage mitigation so the new conditions wouldn’t be too bad, but I still take damage.
You can absolutely still take damage while in stealth. Only a few abilities in the game cannot hit stealthed targets, and those are numbered (pretty much just mesmer ranged weapons and shatter skills).
I’m speaking within the context of condition application and why stealth is a better choice than evasion within that context.
The only true damage avoidance mechanism is evasion.
The problem is, you can’t evade the damage from conditions. You’ll take the damage unless removed. And I know the value of Dash and Escapist Absolution, I Dash through AoEs all the time to remove conditions on me per AoE tick. The main issue is that EA has an internal cooldown that when you make multiple evades in one Dash, which happen a lot to me, it only removes one condition.
I’m not arguing whether that stealth is the true damage avoidance or not. What I’m saying is that due to untargetability, it can prevent further application of conditions.
Otherwise you’re basing damage “immunity” on sheer player ineptitude or completely leaving the fight via teleports and mobility rather than stealth, paired with a definite lack of AOE damage.
Evasion is hardly a damage immunity so I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Besides, the context is within the scope of condition damage. Even with AoE, SA provides enough protection to mitigate the damage. Just as Dash provides 10% damage reduction, SA provides 25%. Not to mention that stealth can remove upto 3 conditions so even if a new condition is applied while in stealth, it will be removed on the next tick.
Every time I face one in pvp it’s just a constant cycle of them running in, doing some damage, then as soon as you can finally get something off on them, poof, they’re gone in an instant…
Yup that’s usually what happens when you stomp them.
Another patch released with Withdraw still missing 10%. Say what you want about Anet, but you can’t deny that they’re consistent.
…at the same time inconsistent.
Daredevil provides excellent condition removal though
Try it against a condi necro.
ETA: (note to self – never post when a patch is happening)
I’m a D/D thief – that is a problem – I have to be close on my enemy = what is enough for a staff or D/P thief isn’t enough for me.
And: I’m still a power thief – no fan of D/D condi.D/D is arguably better for the condition removal on DD than D/P. Death Blossom being buffed so massively in terms of the evade allows it to be a free evade to trigger Escapist’s Absolution quite frequently without needing to burn a normal/“special” dodge. The removal is just a lot less passive and subsequently doesn’t auto-prioritize DoT conditions like SE does.
The main difference is I am not subject to further stacks of conditions when in stealth, thus is it not just a condition removal but also a condition prevention.
Arguably, dash makes D/D much more slippery than it is on SA from the condition cleansing and high mobility.
Mobility cannot ever replace stealth in terms of slipperiness. Dash is good, I like it a lot, but I am still subject to damage while being in stealth prevents further damage on me only because I’m untargettable. The only real bad thing about stealth is not even stealth it self, but Revealed. If that stupid self-inflicting nerf is removed I would redo my build to incorporate stealth again. But alas, I am forced to spec for DD only because they’ve ruined our core traits.
IMO, the extra dodge bar and the different GM dodge effect should be baseline to the profession, no traits required, just something unique the Thief brings to the table. Only because it’s too good that any other Elite Spec in the future will fail in comparison.
Nowadays, I can’t see myself without the extra dodge and Dash. It’ll just never be the same without them.
- If you’re going to use Staff you have to pick Staff mastery rather than Impacting Disruption. The DPS gain from Staff mastery supercedes the DPS you’ll get from ID especially when you don’t really have any interrupt skills other than Steal. It also adds endurance for each point of initiative spent giving you more survivability when attacking. This way you don’t have to take Bountiful Theft.
- If you want to keep ID, I would suggest replacing BV with Impact Strike as your Elite. For the same cool down time, IS is 100 times better since it has 2 ways to interrupt your target: Impact Strike dazes and Uppercut launches. When timed correctly, you’ll get to proc ID twice. However if you build around this, Staff would not be the right weapon choice since S/P would fit right in for an ID build.
IMO, too many skills and traits not complementing eachother.
Bets are open!
1g says we won’t get the +10% the 15th.
Eitherway, it was a pretty easy way to make some G’s.
Keep in mind that the +10% is still in their “iteration process”, 6 months and going strong, making sure that it won’t break “balance” in other parts of the game like “raids, fractals, (kitten dungeons), open world, PvP, and WvW.”
Due to the length it takes them to deliberate on what happens to Withdraw, it seems that the jury is split at end of the month, thus the iteration process will have to reconvene for a new session every month for the same iteration process — obviously arriving at the same result over and over again, month after month.
1. Vault: Evade timer should be 3/4 sec, not 1/2. I’m pretty sure this is a bug. The move, as it is right now, results is us having no control over our character and constantly being hit for that 1/4 second. It makes the move more of a liability than anything.
Weapon skill evade is 1/2 sec (see Flanking Strike, DB, also) while the dodge evade is 3/4 sec. No bugs there due to consistency.
2. When we re-spawn we only have 100 Endurance instead of starting with a full bar of 150. Our entire class mechanic is that extra 50 endurance….we should be starting with a full bar.
Full bar is always been 100. The extra 50 is more like a reserved endurance.
3. Signet of Agi: It’s supposed to “Refill endurance bar”, but it currently only gives 100 Endurance. It doesn’t seem like this was updated for the expansion, and still thinks we only have 100 Endurance.
This is more than likely to be a tooltip fix than giving us 100% refill. Before the extra 50 endurance, we rarely get the full 100 endurance anyway. With the extra 50, we get 100 endurance all the time now.
All of these bug fixes are simple number changes that any programmer on the team should be able to fix solo within about 10 minutes.
I doubt it’s that simple. According to their latest “balance” post, there is an iteration process that covers all aspects of the game. Thus changing the numbers on a single skill will require a textbook thick of justifications and a probably a couple of hearings before they can actually go in iteration session. During a session there might be others who would disagree with the numbers and argue that 3/4 sec is too much that it should stay 1/2 second. Then they would go back and forth for months on ends. Thus by the time they finish with a single skill change…three years have passed.
That’s not very Thief-friendly at all.
I guess it’s better than nothing but the problem it not really addressed.
-various snips-
They really should have kept the skills separated for PvP and PvE since this “balance” update has nothing to do with non-PvP contents.
Agree with most of this, addressing what’s left.
Better than nothing, indeed, still hasnt fixed the problem as you said. I’m willing to hold my tongue since at least someone has said something, until it becomes clear that ‘iterative balancing’ is not the game plan for this.
I’d be fine with separating pvp/pve, but it seems that they are averse to anything that prevents people from crossing game thresholds with any degree of difficulty that is above ‘seamless’.
Apart from what they did to thief revealI don’t see it happening, but it would make their jobs a lot easier if they did. Then they could worry about not breaking the entire game and focus on how the classes interact with one another in a nice little pvp bubble. Even though
feeding cowsthe transition may be a bit tumultuous for the players, I still say the burden is better suited on them to learn a -slightly different- game if they want to pvp, if it preserves everyone’s sanity in the end.
For each skill they change, they want us to believe that they have an iteration process that covers raids, fractals, open world, PvP, and WvW — roflmao.
I’m really sorry because I simply don’t believe that bologna otherwise they won’t even break D/D, S/D, Blackpowder, and all skills and traits that made P/P somewhat usable (i.e Ricochet.) and more. There’s no such iteration, if there is, then it’s new.
And that balance patch is today.
check PVP forum.
I guess it’s better than nothing but the problem it not really addressed. For instance, the Mesmer block needed both duration and CD nerf, so nerfing the duration only partially solve the problem. The main problem with Mermer is their access to Alacrity, thus nerfing the duration of the block means very little when they should be nerfing the CD as well to balance the advantage of Alacrity.
Still, no words from other Devs other than Josh, though.
The funny part of this announcement is what Gaile posted;
Balance itself is an iterative process and our work will be ongoing. We’re taking a hard look at the ways players are experiencing content across the game (raids, fractals, open world, PvP, and WvW) and we’ll be making adjustments accordingly.
Nerfing both Mesmer and Revenant will leave a bad taste in PvE’s mouth. At the same time, by insisting that skills changes should be across the board, they’re making it hard to themselves to issue a balance update since they have to consider the changes in different part of the game rather than making changes where it needs to be. They really should have kept the skills separated for PvP and PvE since this “balance” update has nothing to do with non-PvP contents.
I’ll try to answer to the best of my ability.
So I ask my fellow thief players and anyone else… whats new and enjoyable?
The Daredevil spec opens up some possibilities in terms of combos but the weapon associated with this spec is a Staff, another melee, thus the playstyle is generally the same. The best part of the Daredevil spec is the extra dodge bar and the two of the Elite traits; Bound and Dash. As for what’s enjoyable, that’s highly subjective. As for me, I’m currently enjoying P/P thanks to Dash and the extra dodge bar. I was enjoying the Staff at the beginning since Vault deals an insane amount of damage, more damage than BS, but its novelty wear off rather fast for me so I’m back to D/D and P/P.
Is the new pve reasonably challenging or is it locked to a certain kind of “speed clear” non-sense that only hardcore zerker’s can enter?
Some contents are gated by Mastery so no speed clear, per se, but it’s a flimsy gate that anyone with ample time can bash through, thus, you don’t have to be hardcore. The challenges are reasonable most of the time, but there are times that if you prioritize the wrong Mastery, you’ll find the end boss rather difficult since certain Mastery offers you a lot of options. Difficult but still doable.
Is pvp still forcing thieves into the 1 role and 1 build or is build diversity even on the horizon of being explored?
As far as the most recent PvP league, no Thief nor Warrior can be found. Diversity is there, but not viability. The one role of the Thief, as being mobile, is currently replaced with Revenant having super speed on demand. The silence of the Dev is not very reassuring if Thief even have a future in PvP.
Of course many things are playable but I’m asking if our optimal build diversity is being opened up?
Nope. The promised January balance update may give a different answer or nothing at all.
Are there any cool skins for rouge archetypes or do we still get the constant traveler and gunslinger kitten?
I find the Carapace set very rouge like. But that’s been around prior to HoT.
Is guild wars 2 in general worth going back to?
IMO, yes. The end boss fight is worth experiencing at least.
Just some clarification on the Staff’s tactical issues.
1) Weakening Strike – this skill applies Weakness to the target but this tactical advantage is overshadowed by the skill’s bad effects. The first issue is the animation. It shows that the Thief is doing a spinning attack while moving forward, however, this action is not an evade thus getting stuck to this animation is not good for the profession. The second issue is positioning. The skill will force the Thief to travel the full length instead of giving the Thief an option on how far it wants to travel. This skill becomes useless and a tactical liability when fighting in narrow passages with a cliff on either side.
2) Debilitating Arc – this is the most counter-intuitive skill ever. The skill applies cripple and removes immobilize, but the roll back diminishes this advantage since it places the Thief out of range for melee. The Daredevil spec already have access to anti-immob and it comes with 3 dodge bar making this Staf skill utter useless. If this skill has no rollback but maintain the evade frames, then it will be an advantegous tactical skill.
3) Dust Strike – the idea of this skill is great. However, blind is not a condition with duration thus the tactical value of this skill is very minimal and negligible. If Blind is a duration condition or it can be stacked multiple times, this skill will have advantegous tactical value if it applies 3 stacks of Blind or if the Blind lasts for 3 seconds and it’s not a one time use. Because of the nature of the Blind condition, the tactical advantage of this skill depends on how much initiative the Thief is willing to spend — in most cases, it’s not even worth it to try to apply tactics since Vault has a better return for the initiative spent.
I’d like to know if it’s because they’re completely inept at their job or if it’s because they are restricted from posting by their management (meaning their management is inept at their jobs).
That’s part of it why it is really strange since they we’re very active in the forum prior to HoT’s release.
Thief with staff, rifle, or greatsword might look cool, but any of these weapons will only result into a boring DPS skill set that will not improve the profession what so ever in terms of both strategical and tactical.
With focus, as I have suggested before, they can create an Arcane Thief that not only steals random items, but also an expert at stealing buffs or disabling certain enemy skills. A control oriented Thief that lurks in the shadows. The PvP, PvE, WvW possibilities of this choice makes the Thief more versatile. In PvP, they can actually have the tools they need to defend a node after capping — instead of running away. Mobility will no longer be the only factor in choosing a Thief.
I strongly believe that an Arcane Thief using Focus is the best shot at improving this profession…however the likelihood of this happening really depends on the expertise of the game designer who should have at least several hours in successfully playing a Thief. Alas, this is not the case in ArenaNet so it is more than likely that we’ll get another boring DPS weapon.
That’s what I posted 3 months ago and today I find myself back into using D/D and P/P. The staff has proven to be a boring DPS weapon set without either strategic nor tactical value. They did try; by adding an AoE blind, they did try to make it a tactical weapon but it is not reliable. It is not because Dust Strike is bad, rather Blind is bad.
In GW1, Blind is a condition with a duration. It is a very effective condition used by a squishy profession: the Assassin. However in GW2, Blind is very unreliable since it is a one time use. The main issue is that, the Thief needs to constantly reapply this condition to even have a marginal tactical value. Compare to off-hand pistol, Dust Strike is not initiative-friendly.
The idea of Arcane Thief was suggested 6 months ago by Cronicle.5691;
Shadow arts was a form of control of ether which let the user manipulate shadows to move around or control. Which would be a great use for a manipulation skill and Staff.
And this would give thieves something new, and something that we need. Casting, range, control, and well fits in to a theme that i my self find most suitable and authentic to the thief as a class.
A shadow arts based magic to use for control. This idea is what sold me to the possibility of an Arcane Thief using an off-hand Focus.
Two Focus skills that can bring more tactical value;
Slot #4: Shadow Distraction – cost 4 – no damage. Daze 1/2 sec. Return 1 init on interrupt.
Slot #5: Shadow Snatch – cost 5 – low damage. steals boons. Apply confusion. Steals 2 boons if in stealth.
Ideas for the dual-wield skills;
Sw/F #3 – Shadow Sword – cost 4 – enchant your sword with shadow magic turning your sword into shadow. Damage ignores armor.
D/F #3 – Shadow Torment – cost 4 – stab your target and infuse the wound with shadow magic applying stacks of Torment.
P/F #3 – Shadow Clone – cost 4 – shadowstep sideways leaving a shadowy clone behind. The clone is targetable but does nothing and it doesn’t take damage; lasts for full duration.
These are just some possibility if such weapon is made available.
(edited by Sir Vincent III.1286)
This is supposed to be “daily” not “every other day”.
I think they mentioned before that they have to jump through some serious hoops to post here. Early on a few devs that were not the best at communicating went all molyneux on them and ruined it for everyone.
If that is the case, I would really like if they put a sticky post up saying “We have internal procedures for this and we’re busy trying to fix things, so not hearing from us doesn’t mean we aren’t listening.”
Just… just one confirmation that they’re still paying attention, and that we aren’t a class left to rot.
Well to be fair i you look through the boards of other professions many have the same complaints indicating they not getting any attention from the devs.
That’s what I noticed. No Dev from the balance team had posted anywhere in these forums since that last one from Karl. I highly doubt that they’ll post more on Reddit than their official forum and even then, it’s rather strange that they would do that.
Santa then pulls off his fake beard and hat to reveal Karl’s face…
You just turned this into a horror movie. /shivers
“Dear Santa,
I like +10% for Christmas.
Always a good boy,
Withdraw"
Because then nobody would use channeled vigor.
Winner?
It’s a winner to me.
I just happen to browse the Dev Tracker forum and I noticed that other than Josh Davis, the other Dev in the balance team are in complete radio silence.
The last post that I can find, unless I missed someone, is from Karl which is 24 days ago.
I want to believe that this is a good sign, that they are working hard for a balance in making all professions viable and not sitting around under a blanket with hot cocoa in hand.
It would be funny to see a Thief attempting to steal while dropping banners to mark his tracks and constantly yelling through a bullhorn.
“Corpening says ‘Unlike most other online games, there is no grind for gear and stats… When you log into PvP you have max stats and everything you need to be competitive right away.’ "
AHAHAHAHAAAAAA…. So that is why I just spent 5 gold on a Superior Rune of Durability, cause there is no grind for gear….go home Corpening your drunk.
I was thinking the same thing. lol.
That’s actually a bad for PR because if players from other game found this not to be true, they won’t even bother playing GW2 and they will definitely tell their friends and their fans about this. Time for damage control.
I don’t disagree, just kind of merging both your arguments, because you’re both right.
Anet does some dangerous stuff lately and brings in things they then nerf on thief (basically) which doesn’t make that much sense. But (that’s your argument) : does it even make sense to have these things in game?!There’s not so much counter play to qickness when downed, except if you’re a downed revenant.
This actually goes to another issue about downed state. The downed skills should not start with a cooldown. If all 4 skills are available from the start, the downed player can effectively counter a stomp even if the stomper has Quickness. But that’s for another topic.
You have a point, Sir Vincent, but on the other hand, why is one of our elite skills “insta stomp”,
That’s why ArenaNet needs to draw a line. Insta stomp and gyro stomp (and the likes) should not have been released, these are not healthy mechanics.
They need to start realizing that if they design a skill or allow a skill to undermine the downed state — they might as well save themselves some precious resources and do away with downed state.
Why create a feature like downed state, hype about it, to only undermine it?
Why set a rule that if you move while stomping that it will interrupt the channel but allow shadowstep to displace the stomper 1200 away without interruption?
It doesn’t make sense.
why do Revenants get easy access to quickness?
Quickness is a buff and open for counter play.
Why is there such thing as “rez faster” – all of this is already undermining the play and counterplay of downed state.
That’s why a line needs to be drawn somewhere. Quickness while stomping or rezzing doesn’t undermine the downed state, it is a counterplay to downed state, the difference is that no one is being denied anything. The stomper can still stomp and the downed player can still use their skills.
Let’s look at this from a different perspective. Let’s flip the situation. Let’s say ArenaNet created a downed skill called Deny. What this skill does is to interrupt the stomp by making the downed player unstompable. If a stomp is denied, the downed player rallies and the stomper don’t get another chance. Then the question would be; “what’s the point of stomping if Deny will just undermine it?”
The melee stealth skill and the replacement of Zack’s mobility skill with the melee combo was my idea. Just to let you know.
Also damage and risk/reward can be balanced in this thread. If you feel a skill is good but needs tweaking then by all mean post your ideas, Vincent.
I’m sorry but I don’t see Rifle will even work on Thief. I’m more of a GS and x/F camper. GS has a lot of potential for DPS as Infiltrators and Focus can open a path for Thief to become an Arcane Thief. Long range and Steal just feels awkward and counter intuitive.
Sorry Vincent, but if you don’t understand how removing SS stomp from thief without compensating the thief somehow would not make the thief weaker, then you’re just not cut out for this type of conversation. I’m starting to understand why others here have been frustrating debating this with you, because you don’t seem to comprehend what a nerf is.
Yes, the typical opt-out instead of arguing against my points.
When you remove the ability of a class to do something, that is a nerf, hands down.
Nobody is removing or nerfing anything. You’re the one who’s not comprehending what a nerf is because this is not it.
Interrupting an SS Stomp because the range changed from the time the channel was started is no different than interrupting the channel by moving. The rule is already in existence, it just needs to apply to SS Stomp.
If you could perform an intended action before, but can longer perform that action, that’s a nerf, a nerf is the term used to describe when a class/build is made weaker.
This is not a nerf. Stop confusing the topic.
Removing the ability to SS stomp would be a targeted nerf to SS and remove an aspect of thief that has been in the game for years.
It’s not removing anything. It’s applying the same rule that applies to interrupting a stomp by moving. Why is shadowstepping 1200 away be any different from moving an inch? If moving an ich interrupts a stomp, shadowstep should too.
You might not like it, as you said, and I can only hope Anet never takes your opinion on this matter seriously, especially since you think there shouldn’t be a downed state at all, but apparently believe that since there is one the player in downed state should have some sort of advantage against someone willing to burn a 50 second utility to stomp them.
Stop making things up since that is not even close to what I have posted. It is clear now that reading comprehension is an issue for you.
Not even the same logic. You have it backwards.
SS Stomp is similar to denying you your cleanse skill or stun break. The downed skills are created to counter/delay a stomp, just as cleanse is created to counter conditions and stun breaks to counter stun. Undermining the downed skills is like undermining a cleanse and stun breaks.
Yes, you’re right, but a line should be drawn somewhere. As I’ve already mentioned, buffs and debuffs are good; but forms, teleport, and gyros are not.
That’s beside the point and is off topic. Even if that is the case, then more the reason why the downed state should just be deleted since everyone will be an expert not going into downed state anyway.
The issue that I believe myself, and others posting here, have with your line of thinking, is that you think there should be no counterplay to downed skills.
That’s not it at all. Please re-read my posts rather than jumping to a wrong conclusion.
Even more pointedly, you seem to believe that some skills should be allowed as counterplay to downed skilled, just not the methods used by thief.
I’m sorry but you’re wrong. I don’t agree with Mesmer portal either.
The line that YOU draw appears to be “you need to be in melee range during the entirety of the stomping animation.” Which that’s fine I guess, but it’s just your opinion, and I happen to believe that opinion doesn’t really matter when other classes have a far easier time stomping without having the additional risks that are inherent while playing the thief class.
Correction, the line should be to only allow buff and debuff. Any actions used while channelling should interrupt the channel. Any changes in range should also interrupt the channel. By setting these rules (or drawing the line), it doesn’t trivialize the whole downed state and stomping.
What you’re not acknowledging are the facts that these “safe stomps” are indeed undermining the whole downed state and denying any counterplay from the downed player. Instead, all the responses to my argument are based on ignoring these facts. And if you believe that these are what the game suppose to be, then my response to do away with the whole downed state and if you health reach zero, consider yourself stomped.
I mean, just look at mesmer if you want to see a class that has a plethora of methods to safely stomp, and then realize SS stomping isn’t that bad at all for game balance, especially in the current meta.
It doesn’t make it ok nor make the game healthy.
Also, your comparison to SS stomp being like denying a condition cleanse or stun break is kind of silly imo. There are some condition cleanses (usually attached to heals) that actually can be denied through interrupts, and as far as stun breaks go, the whole point of CC is to force your opponent to use stun breaks of suffer the consequences of not avoiding the CC.
This response is what is silly. Interrupting a cleanse is not the same as denying a cleanse in a sense of not actually being able to use any skill. This kind of denial is preventing you from even trying to cleanse. An uncleansable condition only exist in this game in a form of environmental effect like Agony. Denying is like watching myself take damage from 10 stacks of poison and the skills given to my profession cannot be used. This is the same feeling when someone is doing an SS Stomp. The skills given to my profession to counter/delay a stomp cannot be used.
Also CC is not to force your opponent to use their stun break, that’s just silly. Not all CC warrants a stun break. The purpose of stun is to put your opponent into a helpless state while you deal damage to them. SS Stomp is placing your opponent into a helpless state but without a stun break.
The point I’m trying to make is, the more options of counterplay that are in a game, the more diverse combat can feel and the more creative you can be with your playstyle. Once you start removing innovative ways to accomplish combat goals, even stomping enemies, you really start dumbing this game down, and I don’t think that’s healthy.
SS Stomp is not even close to a counter play nor it is a diversity in combat. You’re going off the wrong tangent.
I, and I’m sure many other players, especially in this forum, are just a bit tired of balance decisions being made that seem to be in response to posts that people like you make, which only makes our class weaker and more boring to play.
How does not allowing SS Stomp make Thief weaker? I’ve stomped many times without using this method — and yes I got interrupted as I should. SS Stomp is what’s unhealthy since it trivializes stomping by undermining the downed state and denying the use of downed skills.
If my opinion is non-sensical or unhealthy for the game, then the Dev has no reason to balance the game based on the posts made by people like me. My opinion will still remain my opinion, that will not change.
But that’s already where it’s going. Just like how Revealed undermines the whole Shadow Arts trait line — might as well get rid of Shadow Arts if they are going to make skills or allow skills that undermine the trait lines anyway. Same with downed state, they can either stop allowing teleport stomp or get rid of the downed state altogether because really what’s the point.
If this logic were applied to everything in the game, then we would be playing pong. “Well, conditions undermines Endure Pain, so you may as well remove Endure Pain! Well, direct damage undermines Berserker Stance, so you may as well remove Berserker Stance! Well, condition cleanses undermine condition application, may as well remove conditions. Well, Stone Heart undermines builds that rely on critical hits, might as well remove the ability to land critical hits.”
Not even the same logic. You have it backwards.
SS Stomp is similar to denying you your cleanse skill or stun break. The downed skills are created to counter/delay a stomp, just as cleanse is created to counter conditions and stun breaks to counter stun. Undermining the downed skills is like undermining a cleanse and stun breaks.
The way I see it, part of this game’s balance revolves around countering your opponents abilities with abilities of your own. You cast skill 1, your opponent casts skill 2, you counter that skill with skill 3. The key to winning fights in this game often revolves around minimizing risk to yourself, while maximizing the reward of your actions. If someone is willing to invest in a certain trait or utility to lower the inherent risk of stomping, or tanking, or whatever else, that’s simply part of the game.
Yes, you’re right, but a line should be drawn somewhere. As I’ve already mentioned, buffs and debuffs are good; but forms, teleport, and gyros are not.
Also, you want to know the best counter to being SS stomped, Vincent? Don’t put yourself in a situation where you’ll be in the downed state and the thief will still have SS available.
That’s beside the point and is off topic. Even if that is the case, then more the reason why the downed state should just be deleted since everyone will be an expert not going into downed state anyway.
@ Vincent This is where I disagree with you. These long ranged charged shots already have enough telegraph. What you are suggesting is making a skill which is supposed to be telegraphed and bursty into a super-obvious “hit dodge now” attack. That kind of treatment should be reserved for attacks that will outright kill you in one shot.
Even if they hit dodge and evaded the attack, that weapon skill can be used again. This is the major difference from other skills; our skills doesn’t really go on cooldown as long as we have enough initiative to pay for the cost.
Also, with rifle, it is just natural to carry traps and by doing so, it’s natural to also take the Trapper Runes. With this build, the telegraph you want will be completely overcome with stealth while the telegraph I’m suggesting is in line with the HoT’s sniper mob.
Secondly, what you propose seriously will negate most of thief’s mobility with one use, hit or not. It already eats the entire bar and so there will be nothing to run away with.
That’s one of my points. Having a high cost is not a good thing because it would render the weapon set useless; and at the same time, lowering the cost means lowering the damage so we’ll end up with a long range mediocre damage weapon.
Instead of putting ludicrous costs on a True Shot equivalent,
True shot is a bad example because it’s a broken skill. No weapon skill with 4 sec CD should deal that much damage.
…you can actually engineer a weakness into the weaponset by simply making it bad at close range utility and mobility. This will force the thief to choose melee or SB for the second weaponset. One lacks mobility, the other lacks melee ranged capability. Assuming the rifle’s design is done correctly, melee range pressure will most likely force the thief into switching to the other weaponsets. From there, you can weigh and balance how much damage the skill can do based on the cost it has.
Not necessarily. If the Thief employ traps and trapper rune, plus fleet to shadows plus swiftness, shadow step, dodge/withdraw…nobody will ever get into their melee range. The traps will be enough to secure an escape.
Also one of the suggested build has a skill that the Thief can use in melee and it’s pretty good, maybe too good.
Smokescale Sac- Throw a smokescale sac at your feet, making a smoke field that you evade attacks in. When in this field, steal has a very short cool down. Inflict revealed on yourself. (a small time shorter than the end of the smokefield). Breaks Stun.
Not to mention the skill you/Zack is proposing; parry/kidney/knee/sp/cs
With these kinds of skills, there’s no such thing as melee pressure.
As an example, I liked how Zack designed his rifle burst skill… But the costs to achieve such a feat would justify it. Consider the costs vs. the reward:
Why use the snipe skill if I already have a better mobile skill called Drill Shot and an awesome anti-melee skill (parry/kidney/etc) that are cost effective?
Using the snipe for 7 initiative is never a good thing. That cost is simply unaffordable. I can use a better cost effective weapon set with similar damage potential. The only advantage of this skill is the range, but for that cost, it’s not worth it.
This goes back to my other point. In order to balance this skill so that it is affordable is for the damage to be reduced, which means, it has to be mediocre. That’s why I’ve mentioned that increasing the initiative cost will render the whole weapon set unusable.
So I invested all my initiatives on the shot and a Guardian with his aegis up crossed the line of fire and negated the shot…that wouldn’t feel right.
(list of cost/risk)
———————————-
(list of reward))
Not worth it. The cost and the risk is too high for a skill that can be mitigated or negated. With that much initiatives, I can deal so much more damage some other ways.
If now the reward might be insane but so are the costs and risk. If you really want to balance, you need to be thinking about “mana in to power out”. More risk, more reward.
I’m looking at it by asking what can I get for each of my initiatives. Investing 7 initiatives without any return is not a good investment.
Let’s use an example. The snipe improves every second. If my target moved out of range before the 1s mark, I’ll get an error for target begin out of range. It’s a waste of initiatives.
With this example, if you were to just double tap 5 all you’ll get is a regular burst skill…
That damage per initiative is not worth it. 7 initiatives for a damage weaker than Unload. In fact, Drill Shot is better damage per initiative.
In fact, I don’t even expect rifle to be used in sPvP. Like, the only way to effectively pull off a such an attack is to pop shadow refuge before you channel and even then you are not guaranteed a kill because the design is more about range than damage.
Then it’s not usable just like I said since the cost is paid for more range than damage. With initiatives, this is not a good investment. If these skills are cooldown based, then it might work.
And this posed another problem that I’ve pointed out; mobility. With a skill like snipe, the Thief can damage someone at long range and there’s no way to get to them due to the range of the attack and their mobility.
If the kick was turned in to evade frames, then it would still have the reactive skill component, requiring you to time it properly, but it wouldn’t get you killed for timing it properly in large fights. In addition, it would actually slightly increase survivaility in situation where you’re getting spammed with damage as you’d stunbreak, block a hit, then evade while you kick whatever random target procced it. Currently, to use it effectively in such fights as a stunbreak you want to stunbreak and then immediately dodge out of it, wasting the potential of the skill and one of your dodges.
The problem with BD is the dilemma of when to use it.
Should you time the block correctly to get the intended KD?
Or should you save it as a stunbreak instead?
The only real time that I’ve used both stunbreak and block+counter effectively is when a Thief petrified me with BV, so I popped this to stun break, then blocked the backstab and knocked them down. Other than this very specific scenario, BD is just a low CD stunbreak. Waiting for a perfect timing to use it in a large fight will get you killed even if you manage to KD someone.
Also I doubt that they will give us stunbreak, block, evade, and KD, all in one skill with a 15 sec CD. It would probably end up with a 30s-40s cooldown which will lose its appeal of a low CD stunbreak.
To be honest, even if they removed the KD, BD will still be fine as is. A 12s-15s stun break is hard to come by.
That’s precisely why it’s such a good skill, aside from the animation lock-in of the kick animation. It’s versatile and creates multiple decision points in combat. More skills in the game should require the same sort of tough decision making.
GW1’s skill setup was all built around these kind of decisions in every fight. Every skill had conditionals and real opportunity costs associated, and gameplay was much more cerebral, dynamic, and strategic.
That’s what I like about BD. It feels like I made choices in combat and am rewarded or penalized for my choices rather than just automatically hitting a button in response to an action like a robot.
Yes, as is, it is really good. Take away the kick, it’s still good. But adding evade on kick will break it.
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