Guild Wars 2

Sanduskel.1850:

Would be nice, but unjustified and will only make other classes hate us even more,

Oderint Dum Metuant

GameVeight.2745:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Imagine using Fear infinite times…let the QQ begins.

The F2 skill would have its own cooldown equal to that of Steal, technically it would be no different than stealing from the same target over and over.

So why even store it? If I can steal from the same target over and over, why don’t I just do that and only wait for one cooldown instead of two?

Having its own cooldown doesn’t change the fact that I can still use it infinite number of times.

Einlanzer.1627:

Utterly not true. Let’s assume someone has a Celestial build and is deciding between P/P and P/D. The play-styles are totally different. They bring different utility. P/D has better stealth access and does somewhat better condition damage but P/P gives you powerful blinds, a combo field, and allows you to deal relatively quick burst from a distance. In this situation, your aesthetic preference and your traits will make the choice for you. Both sets will be as functional as any other set.

The problem with this example is that, those who use Celestials will care less if P/P is more effective than P/D, or vice versa. So why even bring this up?

Let’s assume someone has a pure condition build. They will want to go with P/D most of the time because it would generally be more optimal, but P/P will be playable in casual content if they feel like changing it up occasionally or can’t benefit much from condition damage.

Please differentiate “Condition Damage” from “Non-Condition Damage” because they are not just “Condition”, each benefits either P/P or P/D and not both.

Assuming that you meant “condition damage build” then you are not acknowledging that when that build switch up from P/D to P/P that their damage output will be ridiculously low. Might as well use S/P in casual contents where condition damage is less effective — you get more damage output that way. Bottom line, no need to use P/P in this scenario.

Let’s assume someone has a pure crit build. They will get little benefit out of P/D and will go with P/P. It will be mostly like it is now, which is pretty much fine. The only difference is that they will sacrifice their DPS by 20% less than they do currently when they need to dodge or use utility skills and are consequently likely to see a roughly 5-10% increase in their sustained DPS in protracted fights.

That’s almost the same damage reduction to any weapon set if the Thief dodges, heal, or use a utility skill. You’re making it sounds like it’s exclusive to P/P when it’s not.

How much more straightforward can I make it?

But you’re not being straightforward, your last statement is not even based on reality and it’s mainly misleading.

WTB “Feign Neutrality” trait under Shadow Arts that grants +200 toughness and 5 stacks of Regen for 8 seconds after receiving a critical hit with 10s internal cooldown — to replace Last Refuge. Thank you.

GameVeight.2745:

I should have said:
“the stolen skill would be reusable until the thief uses Steal again”

The idea being that you could hold on to your favorite stolen skill for repeated use.

OP edited for clarity

Imagine using Fear infinite times…let the QQ begins.

*EDIT: To clarify what I’m responding to.

Ludus Rex.1562:

Einlanzer.1627:

I don’t really see how Unload spam is really a problem for Zerker Thieves.

Okay, so already you’re not in touch with the Thief community. Unload spam is pretty disliked as a playstyle, but necessary for people who want to be viable. Again, I get it, you don’t care about those guys. You don’t care about helping those guys. You don’t care about fixing their broken, completely utility-less build. Fine.

Einlanzer.1627:

With anything other than a heavily min-maxed Unload build, P/P literally has nothing going for it – it either has below average damage and useless utility or mediocre utility and terrible damage. Vital Shot is the primary cause of that problem, no ifs, ands, or buts.

HERE! This is the problem. This will STILL be the problem. You’re right on this one. Let’s recap, “other than Unload, P/P has nothing going for it”. AGREED!

But hold on, P/P can still do acceptable condition damage. It’s got sneak attack, vital shot, caltrops. So why isn’t this a valid role for P/P Thieves? Because P/D Thieves do this better. So it’s not the role (or niche) of P/P Thieves.

Both P/D and P/P get Vital Shot, Sneak Attack, Caltrops. Why does P/D win? It gets MORE Sneak Attacks, and the method it uses to do it grants it stealth, which is its own great defensive utility.

So, if you buff Vital Shot, you change NOTHING about P/P and it’s status RELATIVE to P/D, meaning it STILL won’t have a role. Why? P/D will have that roll still. P/D will fill that role BETTER. You’ll have simply buffed P/D, which is already a thing.

The only VALID reason to still go P/P, will be Unload.

Again, your proposed change does not at ALL change the position of P/P relative to P/D. P/D is winning now, P/D will be winning then, the buff won’t have impacted life for P/P Thieves.

Echo – Echo – Echo

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Like I’ve already mentioned, the problem with Vital Shot is that this skill is shared between 2 weapon sets. Any changes to this skill to buff P/P will also buff P/D. Now that both weapon set has a decent auto-attack, why would any one pick P/P over P/D? Can you see? That’s the same situation we are in today, thus this is a “band-aid” solution.

Anet needs to separate P/P from P/D, D/P and S/P and the only way to do that is to give P/P its own 5 skill weapon set (same goes with D/D).

Take Body Shot for instance. The immobilize is useful for P/P, but P/D now have 2 movement impairment ability — can’t you see the problem there? It just made P/D much more better than P/P, so why use P/P?

Glad we’re on the same page.

Athel.2076:

I’d agree. This would however be fine if our survivability was on par with a guardian, which it isn’t. Guardians suffer from a lower overall damage, we suffer from a lower survivability.

We’ve seen moves, inte the upcoming december patch not least, where developers are trying to adress the guardian dps problems. I certainly hope they’ll look at thief survivability as well.

lol, have you seen what they are aiming to do concerning our survivability? They want us to engage then die.

Ludus Rex.1562:

So currently, P/P Thieves have amazing utilities that they can’t use if they want to be DPS players. Body Shot, Blinding Powder, and Head Shot all provide great utility in different ways.

But you can’t use these utilities if you want to be a DPS Thief. That is, a Thief whose focus is on DPS. I dare say that most Thieves have this emphasis, though not all.

After your proposed change, Vital Shot still would not scale well. The damage gap would still be huge. DPS Thieves would still have to use specialized, initiative consuming DPS tools. They would gain no additional utility. All of their current issues would continue to exist. Unload spam would still be a problem.

The Vital Shot suggested change is short-sighted aimed to benefit P/D build while rationalizing that P/P will benefit from it also — even though it obviously won’t.

I’ve used P/P as my main ranged weapon for 6500 AP worth of time because P/D and Shortbow is never my cup of tea. So I know, through experience first hand, that any changes to #1,2,4,and 5 to favor P/P without harming/buffing other builds has no reasonable solution — unless, Anet takes advantage of the “dual-wield” mechanic and give P/P and D/D their own weapon sets.

You guys can stay stubborn and continue to hit your head against a wall trying to come up with a solution for P/P without harming/buffing other builds, but all I have to say is, been there, done that and the wall wins.

Both Guardian and Ele have great healing abilities and Thieves have….um, have…, kittens, I’m drawing a blank here.

Einlanzer.1627:

Ludus Rex.1562:

Einlanzer.1627:

No, it’s a minor DPS buff for all builds and a major utility buff for non-DPS builds, which is exactly what the set needs. That’s the entire point. You’re stuck in a very specific frame of mind which makes it impossible to have rational discourse.

It’s a minor DPS buff for all builds, which will make people who ALWAYS emphasized utility over DPS feel slightly more justified in doing it? If they weren’t optimizing for DPS, then presumably they were already valuing utility and survivability over it, so it doesn’t really increase their utility access, now does it?

No, dead wrong, again. The ENTIRE problem with P/P is that you can’t be mobile or use any utility without tanking your DPS way more than on any other set in the game simply because your only Initiative free skill, which should be the bread and butter shot on all but the most crit heavy builds, sucks.

P/P’s utility isn’t good enough to require sacrificing so much damage, making P/P terrible 90% of the time. In fact, the only time it isn’t terrible is when you’ve built totally around maximizing Unload, which is kittened. Boring maybe, but playable. Without a build focused around Unload, it’s not even playable – that’s where P/P needs the most help.

Now you see the major problem that even buffing Vital Shot cannot solve. So do you now agree that P/P really needs a major overhaul? Or you still insist on your band-aid solution?

Cynz.9437:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You can always rearrange the traits and post your result. That would make a very good discussion.

As for burning, there was a proposal way back when to allow Thieves to use Torch, even to dual-wield it. That was an interesting suggestion and I won’t mind if Anet makes it happen.

can’t stealth while glowing tho o.o

If I can stealth in broad day light, torch’s light is nothing. I will stealth even the flames just like I did with my Fiery Dragon Sword.

Ludus Rex.1562:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Einlanzer.1627:

Vital Shot does mixed damage, which means it doesn’t optimize well

Ding! ding! ding!

which is fine (many weapons are set up that way), it just needs to be stronger at the baseline

It’s not fine and it doesn’t belong to a P/P set.

Maybe Unload should shoot a little faster or have an Initiative cost reduction to support better burst on P/P with zerker builds.

Horrible idea. The problem in P/P is #1, #2, #4, and #5, not #3. Unload is fine if the other skills can support it like, you know, #1 (auto-attack) applying vulnerability.

However, that absolutely should not happen in a vacuum, because P/P and P/D both have a more significant root issue that buffing Unload alone would only make worse.

That’s right, because that’s not the problem here. You’re starting to figure it out.

It would also substantially improve your ability to optimize damage with P/D and slightly improve the general performance of P/P with optimized builds (by granting you better damage between Unloads).

That’s a lame way to play P/P. It should be the AA stacks vulnerability and when you reach the peak of your build for the number of stacks, you use your Unload to deal massive damage. Your idea of making AA as a filler between unload is not a good way to play P/P because it encourages that P/P Thieves should empty their initiative bar at all times. That’s boring and lame and leaves your other weapon skills in constant cooldown due to empty init-bar.

That is by far the best solution to Pistol’s issues short of redesigning everything from the ground up, which I highly doubt is in the cards, or putting the burden of fixing it on traits, which is a bad design.

It needs to be redesigned if Anet really needs to fix it. Your solution, again, is just a bandage to a gaping wound.

Vincent,

I’m not really with you on 100% taking away the Bleed from the baseline ability. I know the trait to change it is a bit less straightforward than most mechanics, but I certainly hate to take tools away from Condition Players to satisfy Physical DPS Players. Seems like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I’m not suggesting to take bleed away from Vital Shot, in fact I want Vital Shot to stay as is for P/D build, but for P/P, it requires a different auto-attack skill.

My suggestion is radically give P/P its own weapon set skills. Since the “dual-wield” mechanic is exclusive to Thieves, there’s no reason why Anet shouldn’t give P/P and D/D their very own weapon sets based on Dual-wield mechanic so that balancing skills will not be so difficult. This way, then can balance P/P without affecting P/D.

The really frustrating thing is that these things exist on the same toolbar, but do not work together. Thus both sides are feeling frustrated by lame tools they can’t use.

Exactly. That’s why Einl’s suggestion is just a band-aid, P/P really needs to get a total make over.

If the answer isn’t going to be changing the functionality of Vital Shot and Sneak Attack for players who opt into the change (via trait or some other method), then I would like to see some alternate form of synergy between the abilities. I’d be 100% on board with the proposals that other chaps are making about bleeds helping facilitate Unload, if I didn’t still think those Bleeds would just be better achieved by Caltrops. In this scenario, it still wouldn’t be Vital Shot -> Unload, -> Vital Shot -> Unload (like we want), but instead Dodge (Caltrops) -> Unload. If not for that, I’d like it the idea a lot.

If P/P receive a make over and its auto-attack applies vulnerability, the P/P users will be maximizing their auto-attack potential before using Unload. In this scenario, P/P user will be conserving init for other skills while dealing burst damage as it should be.

You can always rearrange the traits and post your result. That would make a very good discussion.

As for burning, there was a proposal way back when to allow Thieves to use Torch, even to dual-wield it. That was an interesting suggestion and I won’t mind if Anet makes it happen.

I don’t totally agree with the Dec 10 init change because I believe that it should scale based on how much init are missing, but I believe it’s a step in the right direction. And if Anet wants the init regen to be flat, then it should be around 1.25 init/s

Einlanzer.1627:

Vital Shot does mixed damage, which means it doesn’t optimize well

Ding! ding! ding!

which is fine (many weapons are set up that way), it just needs to be stronger at the baseline

It’s not fine and it doesn’t belong to a P/P set.

Maybe Unload should shoot a little faster or have an Initiative cost reduction to support better burst on P/P with zerker builds.

Horrible idea. The problem in P/P is #1, #2, #4, and #5, not #3. Unload is fine if the other skills can support it like, you know, #1 (auto-attack) applying vulnerability.

However, that absolutely should not happen in a vacuum, because P/P and P/D both have a more significant root issue that buffing Unload alone would only make worse.

That’s right, because that’s not the problem here. You’re starting to figure it out.

It would also substantially improve your ability to optimize damage with P/D and slightly improve the general performance of P/P with optimized builds (by granting you better damage between Unloads).

That’s a lame way to play P/P. It should be the AA stacks vulnerability and when you reach the peak of your build for the number of stacks, you use your Unload to deal massive damage. Your idea of making AA as a filler between unload is not a good way to play P/P because it encourages that P/P Thieves should empty their initiative bar at all times. That’s boring and lame and leaves your other weapon skills in constant cooldown due to empty init-bar.

That is by far the best solution to Pistol’s issues short of redesigning everything from the ground up, which I highly doubt is in the cards, or putting the burden of fixing it on traits, which is a bad design.

It needs to be redesigned if Anet really needs to fix it. Your solution, again, is just a bandage to a gaping wound.

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Improving Vital Shot is not enough reason to pick P/P over P/D. That’s my point.

Just to provide some focus, this is the main point I disagree with. Many people will run with P/P just because they aesthetically like it, but regardless of that, P/P still trades off some of the condi emphasis of P/D for better burst. A lot of folks like to be able to burst, and P/P will continue doing it better than P/D regardless of any buffs that are made to Vital Shot.

If you’re talking about Unload, then you’re mistaken. Unload is hardly a burst damage, it feel more like an auto-attack with high chance to crit but it does nothing else. Compare to other dual-wield skills, Unload is too plain. There are many times that Sword AA deals more damage than Unload that costs 5 init.

Buffing Vital Shot would only allow you to have better sustained DPS when you want or need to avoid dumping all of your Initiative into Unload.

That is so untrue. If you think that P/P is burst/crit, that means that the Thief is not Condition Damage based and will not have a “better sustained DPS” using Vital Shot — buffed or not. And you are contradicting your previous statement; “P/P still trades off some of the condi emphasis of P/D for better burst”.

So how is P/P going to benefit from buffed Vital Shot again if it is a trade off?

Look, I’ll be blunt here- I don’t see how this is hard to understand. Any buff to Vital Shot means P/P will be doing more damage at the baseline, which reduces your dependence on Initiative to do basic DPS, which is at least 80% of the problem with the set. Your build is irrelevant. I really don’t know how else to explain it.

It seems that you are the one not understanding. Let me keep it simple. Vital Shot is not a P/P auto-attack skill. It has noting to offer a P/P build whatsoever. The Vital Shot of P/D is more potent than P/P because P/D is built around condition damage while P/P is not.

Which part of that you’re not understanding?

I’m not saying that a buff to Vital Shot is the only thing that would benefit P/P, there are probably other tweaks that it needs too.

What I’m telling you is that Vital Shot doesn’t benefit P/P at all. If P/P goes hybrid, their Unload is really lame, even more so if they go condition damage just so Vital Shot deals its potential damage output. If P/P goes burst/crit, like it should, the changes on Vital Shot is negligible because P/P is better off spamming Unload. Fixing Vital Shot doesn’t change this, Unload will continue to be spammed.

However if Vital Shot stacks Vulnerability instead of Bleed, P/P would want to make the most of Unload so they will auto-attack before Unloading. The old Body Shot with longer Vulnerability served to do just this, but the init cost made it unfeasible.

While P/D needs bleed off Vital Shot, P/P needs vulnerability. Two different needs ought to get two different skills.

But, it is the most important change that’s needed, and completely reworking everything to where the #1 skill is functionally different for P/D and P/P goes against the larger game design.

Dual-wield skills are already going against the larger game design. So what are you saying?

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Improving Vital Shot is not enough reason to pick P/P over P/D. That’s my point.

Just to provide some focus, this is the main point I disagree with. Many people will run with P/P just because they aesthetically like it, but regardless of that, P/P still trades off some of the condi emphasis of P/D for better burst. A lot of folks like to be able to burst, and P/P will continue doing it better than P/D regardless of any buffs that are made to Vital Shot.

If you’re talking about Unload, then you’re mistaken. Unload is hardly a burst damage, it feel more like an auto-attack with high chance to crit but it does nothing else. Compare to other dual-wield skills, Unload is too plain. There are many times that Sword AA deals more damage than Unload that costs 5 init.

Buffing Vital Shot would only allow you to have better sustained DPS when you want or need to avoid dumping all of your Initiative into Unload.

That is so untrue. If you think that P/P is burst/crit, that means that the Thief is not Condition Damage based and will not have a “better sustained DPS” using Vital Shot — buffed or not. And you are contradicting your previous statement; “P/P still trades off some of the condi emphasis of P/D for better burst”.

So how is P/P going to benefit from buffed Vital Shot again if it is a trade off?

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

A lot of stuff they could play with but what Einlizers(?) been suggesting would be the easiest.

I agree that it would be the easiest but it doesn’t solve the problem, his suggestion is just a “band-aid” solution.

P/P and D/D needs surgery, not bandage.

It’s not really a bandaid.
Think an ADC in a moba, or well most “ranger” archetypes (like even our rangers shortbow) in typical mmos, or even FPS games with abilities where your “auto-attack” is the greatest long-term source of damage. It’s putting it into that sphere.
The other option is to keep the auto attack meagre to put emphasis on the abilities but at the moment the abilities I would say still don’t flow that well to make it meet that goal and it’s hard to do it right given we use a global resource.
Ergo ~ Increase the auto-attack to go towards a certain design (which is valid and not a bandaid), or increase other abilities towards another (which is also valid but would quite likely take longer).

I think either way they’d have to look at a couple skills again even if they did increase the auto-attack but P/P would feel the improvement faster if they started there.

Like I’ve already mentioned, the problem with Vital Shot is that this skill is shared between 2 weapon sets. Any changes to this skill to buff P/P will also buff P/D. Now that both weapon set has a decent auto-attack, why would any one pick P/P over P/D? Can you see? That’s the same situation we are in today, thus this is a “band-aid” solution.

Anet needs to separate P/P from P/D, D/P and S/P and the only way to do that is to give P/P its own 5 skill weapon set (same goes with D/D).

Take Body Shot for instance. The immobilize is useful for P/P, but P/D now have 2 movement impairment ability — can’t you see the problem there? It just made P/D much more better than P/P, so why use P/P?

Why would they do this for P/P and P/D when it would break the conventions used by every other weapon in the game? The change to Body Shot was bad and shortsighted, but that has nothing to do with Vital Shot because it’s pure DPS and the only free skill either has. I still don’t get what you’re arguing exactly. There is no reason why they need to make P/P only direct damage and P/P only condition damage. There is also no reason that buffing Vital Shot would make people stop using P/D.

That’s not what I said, in fact, it’s the other way around. If buffing Vital Shot was meant to improve P/P set, why would anyone use P/P if Vital Shot also improved P/D?

Just as my Body Shot example. It did helped P/P to keep distance but subsequently given P/D two skills that impairs movement. The same thing will happen to Vital Shot.

Improving Vital Shot is not enough reason to pick P/P over P/D. That’s my point.

Even with the improvement of Vital Shot, we will still be in the same situation we are in today. P/P still sucks because P/P doesn’t benefit from condition damage, it benefits from non-damage conditions (i.e. Vulnerability, Chill).

It would literally change nothing about the dynamics in these sets other than improving their sustained damage by reducing the dependence on Stealth for P/D and Initiative for P/P. P/P still has a stronger emphasis on burst/crit and P/D has a stronger emphasis on condi, so people are likely to gravitate to whichever one their build best supports, which could be either.

If you really believe that P/P “has a stronger emphasis on burst/crit”, then why are you against on giving P/P a different auto-attack skill that supports burst/crit?

Also with both weapon set sharing the same skill, when one set is nerfed, the other set is too, eventhough only one of the set really deserves it.

ensoriki.5789:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

A lot of stuff they could play with but what Einlizers(?) been suggesting would be the easiest.

I agree that it would be the easiest but it doesn’t solve the problem, his suggestion is just a “band-aid” solution.

P/P and D/D needs surgery, not bandage.

It’s not really a bandaid.
Think an ADC in a moba, or well most “ranger” archetypes (like even our rangers shortbow) in typical mmos, or even FPS games with abilities where your “auto-attack” is the greatest long-term source of damage. It’s putting it into that sphere.
The other option is to keep the auto attack meagre to put emphasis on the abilities but at the moment the abilities I would say still don’t flow that well to make it meet that goal and it’s hard to do it right given we use a global resource.
Ergo ~ Increase the auto-attack to go towards a certain design (which is valid and not a bandaid), or increase other abilities towards another (which is also valid but would quite likely take longer).

I think either way they’d have to look at a couple skills again even if they did increase the auto-attack but P/P would feel the improvement faster if they started there.

Like I’ve already mentioned, the problem with Vital Shot is that this skill is shared between 2 weapon sets. Any changes to this skill to buff P/P will also buff P/D. Now that both weapon set has a decent auto-attack, why would any one pick P/P over P/D? Can you see? That’s the same situation we are in today, thus this is a “band-aid” solution.

Anet needs to separate P/P from P/D, D/P and S/P and the only way to do that is to give P/P its own 5 skill weapon set (same goes with D/D).

Take Body Shot for instance. The immobilize is useful for P/P, but P/D now have 2 movement impairment ability — can’t you see the problem there? It just made P/D much more better than P/P, so why use P/P?

Excalibur.9748:

Was there more than 1 buff to weakness?

IIRC there was just that 1 buff – making weakness affect critical hits as well.

Ah, that’s right…my bad. Yeah, that was a nice buff but not for Thieves, they remove weakness from Skale :/

Excalibur.9748:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Excalibur.9748:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Excalibur.9748:

when u put it that way, it makes weakness seem amazing

Not anymore.

Skale Venom weakness used to last 25s on full stack (without counting gear bonuses). That’s from the 15s base (fullstack) + 30% from DA + extra tick from Residual Venom (DA) that totally kitten any Warrior.

Instead, we now have the useless torment and 3s Weakness from Lotus. >.<’

remember they tried to remove weakness from sword AA too?

Never really cared about a 2s Weakness from a sword. So whether they tried to remove it or not after adding it post beta, I didn’t really care because Skale Venom was all that’s needed.

I have to admit I’m suprised people actually used venoms prior to their “buff”. Especially since weakness was pretty bad before the buff.

Not sure what “buff” to weakness you’re talking about, but I used Skale Venom only against Warrior and other Thieves because it was hilarious and effective.

ensoriki.5789:

A lot of stuff they could play with but what Einlizers(?) been suggesting would be the easiest.

I agree that it would be the easiest but it doesn’t solve the problem, his suggestion is just a “band-aid” solution.

P/P and D/D needs surgery, not bandage.

Excalibur.9748:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Excalibur.9748:

when u put it that way, it makes weakness seem amazing

Not anymore.

Skale Venom weakness used to last 25s on full stack (without counting gear bonuses). That’s from the 15s base (fullstack) + 30% from DA + extra tick from Residual Venom (DA) that totally kitten any Warrior.

Instead, we now have the useless torment and 3s Weakness from Lotus. >.<’

remember they tried to remove weakness from sword AA too?

Never really cared about a 2s Weakness from a sword. So whether they tried to remove it or not after adding it post beta, I didn’t really care because Skale Venom was all that’s needed.

Einlanzer.1627:

No – they are both mixed, like most sets in the game. P/D is slightly geared more toward condi and P/P is slightly geared toward direct damage, but they both contain plenty of both. The problem is that P/P is incorrectly pigeon-holed into a direct damage set because Vital Shot is poorly tuned and blatantly outperformed by Unload even as a source of sustained damage, which shouldn’t be the case.

But Vital Shot is not a total condition skill, it’s a direct-condition hybrid skill. It’s fine supporting DPS on both sets, it just needs to be buffed so it can be a functional part of P/P’s rotation and allow you to not be so dependent on Initiative for DPS.

That’s the problem. Condition damage has no place in P/P, condition duration, yes, but not condition damage — P/P benefits more from Chill, Vulnerable, Cripple, for example, than from Poison and Bleeding. Having condition damage in P/P only complicates its role. P/P should be designed around Unload, and D/D designed around Death Blossom.

Your idea of hybrid doesn’t fix the problem since if P/D and P/P are both hybrids, then why pick P/P? That’s what we have now.

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Two major problems with P/P:
1) Any changes to skill #1 and #2 will affect P/D
2) Any changes to skill #4 and #5 will affect D/P and S/P

They can’t make these skills appealing or viable for P/P without breaking it for the other 3 weapon sets.

Solution?

Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D

I’ve said this before and I’m still waiting.

I’m not going to rain on your parade by dissing your idea, because it would be kinda neat. However, it’s not practical merely because that isn’t the convention for how other weapons are set up and would require extensive work. The changes need to fit into the scope of how other weapons are designed, so they need to just focus on fixing what they can fix within that paradigm.

I totally disagree. There’s a library of items that players can pick up that changes our whole weapon set (i.e. pickiing up a boulder). Now each of these items are store in a database with unique IDs same with skills and their IDs. How do you think data mining works?

If Anet can create a new skill ( you know the one they sell for 25 skill points), they can create new skills for Thieve’s dual-wield. They then can deploy these new skills by simply adding a new set of dual-wielding sets into the weapon set database. Then every time a Thief have the weapon set active, or swapped into the set, the game will pull data from the new dual-wielding set.

They’ve already show that the technology and capability is there, it’s just a matter of whether Anet really cares for Thieves.

I think they can buff Vital Shot by a full 20% without really making P/D OP. If P/D feels too strong after a buff to Vital Shot (keep in mind it doesn’t have the same burst potential that P/P has), all they need to do is reduce the strength of the Sneak Attack to compensate.

IMO, P/P shouldn’t have Vital Shot — it should be a non-condition damage weapon set and D/D is a condition damage weapon set.

Excalibur.9748:

when u put it that way, it makes weakness seem amazing

Not anymore.

Skale Venom weakness used to last 25s on full stack (without counting gear bonuses). That’s from the 15s base (fullstack) + 30% from DA + extra tick from Residual Venom (DA) that totally kitten any Warrior.

Instead, we now have the useless torment and 3s Weakness from Lotus. >.<’

messiah.1908:

again you have to use your steal ability at the right time against right enemy
against hammer warrior whirling axe probably wont be good but against longbow warrior its awesome

take 30 points in Trickery and your steal will daze

Doesn’t solve the main issue that the stolen items are mostly crap.

There should only be 3 types of things that a Thief would want to steal:
1) Damage boost
2) Defense boost
3) Healing boost

All others are crap. Keep in mind that this is our Profession specific skill, the items should be comparable to Warrior’s Burst skill at least.

Two major problems with P/P:
1) Any changes to skill #1 and #2 will affect P/D
2) Any changes to skill #4 and #5 will affect D/P and S/P

They can’t make these skills appealing or viable for P/P without breaking it for the other 3 weapon sets.

Solution?

Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D

I’ve said this before and I’m still waiting.

I agree.

Weakness on you + Protection on them = wet noodles.

It’s even worst from a Warrior’s perspective. When Skale Venom used to apply weakness instead of torment, it was the only way to tame a Warrior.

messiah.1908:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s too much calculations for such a simply skill. Nothing’s wrong with the current steal, Anet just need to improve the quality of item we’ve stolen.

yes to the first part no to the last part
the item stolen is so good when using them in the right time against the right target
Bone Crack – stun pls yes
Consume Plasma – gain all boon – hell yea
Ice Shard Stab – 2-3k dmg and chill which slower cd and movement – omg
Mace Head Crack – daze mmm…yummy
Skull Fear – just op
Throw Gunk – random condition and ethereal combo field which can do confusion
Whirling Axe – just love it with 6-8k dmg while reflect
Blinding Tuft – life saver and life taker

Whirling Axe is not always a good steal to use against a Warrior. :/

This is why it needs improvements, more like putting all their main hand or off hand weapon skills in a global cooldown, for example, implying I stole their weapon. Then use the skill associated with that weapon.

i can see why only F1 is bit boring while other have f1-f4 abilities so if we want f2-f4 we need to KIS – keep it simple

f2 – Last Refuge – remove from trait and make it actively useable
f3 – Hard to Catch – remove from trait and make it actively useable
f4- Instinctual Response – remove from tait and make it actively useable

those trait are hardly useful or valuable as they tend to mess up our timing while popup in the wrong time
and instead of the traits above we can get more group sharing boons or venoms trait or p/p trait etc

Just delete those and make a new ones. No reason to keep those around.

I build both my warrior and my thief as vulnerability builds. Without a doubt, warriors deals a lot more damage on stationary targets. But when the target is mobile, warrior sucks while Thieves has a lot of ways to get closer to the target and maintain DPS.

Having the ability to get to melee range while immobilized allows Thieves to out DPS Warriors against mobile targets.

Solely based on my observations, feel free to disagree.

Yes, do take note that when a 30s cooldown skill misses that the player has to do without that skill until it becomes available again — But when a Thief misses, the most costly weapon skill is 6 initiatives — that’s 6s of cooldown after Dec 10. That’s like 8 choices every 6s while the cooldown’s skill choices gets fewer and fewer the more skills they use.

Doggie.3184:

Also keep in mind Sigil of Generosity procs it’s CD when you don’t have a cond on you, which is unfortunate and wish it was fixed. I’ve never heard of on swap and crit proc sharing CD though, I just tested it with both generosity and fire and apparently it’s true. o.O

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You suppose to get Trickery 10 not CS 10 and pick up Trickster when it becomes Adept.

Then you can add Roll for Initiatives on your build. It’s mandatory when using P/P.

:P

How so? With the upcoming initiative buff there won’t be a need for R4I, and in this meta the condition removal is far superior. I don’t see anything in Trickery 10 that would help this build or its purpose. Uncatchable, maybe, but if an enemy is so close that you have to cripple them to get away, you’re better off blind spamming them and taking them down.

R-o-I is your stun breaker…

Not even close to enough Stun breakerage to deal with how often other classes can use it for how long the CD is. :<

R-o-I rolls you out of range and not only breaks stuns, it breaks the stun chain.

But I don’t really care, honestly. If you choose to get squished, then go right ahead, but the skill you refuse to take is there. With December 10, R-o-I gets reduced cooldown for only 10pts compare 20pts currently and sharing with Ricochet.

That’s too much calculations for such a simply skill. Nothing’s wrong with the current steal, Anet just need to improve the quality of item we’ve stolen.

IMO, that change will annoy the heck out of me since it messes with my play style.

Blowing all 8 skills at the beginning of an encounter is as reckless as blowing all your initiatives. As I’ve already mentioned, if any of those skills did not connect, they’ll auto-attacking the whole time, that’s why, as I’ve also mentioned, you only see 3-4 of those skills used most of the time. Just because they have the potential to use 8 skills doesn’t equate that those skills will be profitable — you’re just using them just because you can. That’s hardly realistic at all.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Yeah the reason I left out scenarios as examples was it can be setup in whoever favor you want, my only issue is with we are tied to 4 skills at any given time outside of ini regen which is negated while using the utility skills and mobility thieves have, but even our utilities are lack luster in every aspect besides mobility, kiting and waiting for ini regen is fine in my book I play S/D so I have gotten used to waiting it out to be able to attack.

I agree.

Other classes can use their 2 weapon sets to constantly apply pressure more effectively in a burst scenario, then use there invulnerability and mobility utilities until they are off cd,

Not entirely true. Because of long cooldown, they have to be wise on using their skills. Most of the time, they have skills that simply sits there, off cooldown, not being used because it would be wasteful to do so. So they wait for the right moment. Even if they have access to 8 skills, you will only see 3-4 of those skills are being used most of the time and the ones with long cooldowns are used only when the probability of a direct hit is secured — i.e. when target is disabled.

both methods have favorable conditions and this feedback has been helping me see all these aspects.

So what I have gathered especially with the new patch is thieves are being forced to play more tactically than any other classes especially with how they are reworking traits and skills.

Nobody is being forced to play a certain way, but yes, you need to be tactical to be profitable, you don’t want to waste initiative just as you don’t want to waste CDs.

Ichishi.9613:

Now what can a (not godly insightful superskill) thief do?
1) wait 4-5 seconds for initiative to recharge to use blind. You’ll die before.
2) dodge. and die in aoe.
3) dodge and dodge back. you might have regened 4 initiative to blind next one-shot. MAYBE. and you can’t dodge anymore
4) dodge out and use an ability to port yourself back. No guarantee that you will actually avoid damage this way. Or that you will be ported right back on safe spot.
5) use an op utility. Wait, what? Theoretically you can use: Smoke wall, signet of shadows, shadowstep(if you are lucky with terrain). Sure as hell you won’t be carrying smoke wall for this. Just as well you would not consider wasting a stun breaker if you are not sure it will surely save you. Well, SoS is still an option. If you waste a slot for running it in combat.

None of the above.

This is a poor scenario to favor the warrior. What if I say that you are standing on an island surrounded by boiling lava and your only way out is to jump to the main island? In this scenario, you are the warrior and your friend is an Engineer. You try to jump, but it’s too far you died. The Engineer uses their rifle skill to jump over. Do you see now why your scenario is not representative?

Besides, I can get out of that AoE field in one piece myself. Your approaching enemy just gave me the way out. If you don’t know how — then you’re not a thief. Hint: Kleptomaniac grants 3 init.

Now, what can a warrior do?
1) Use one of 7 other skills. That, unlike thief skills, may include block or some other invulnerability, reliable CC or just enough damage to finish threat off right away.
2) If for some reason 1) was not favored, there is 3 utility slots where warrior can have anything ranging from CC to invulnerability.
3) forget it. I have 2x base hp and 1.5-2x base armor. I’ll take it like a man.

Funny how the Thief has no utility skill but the Warrior has. lol.

Nice try, but this only proves that you have no idea how the comparison works.

Back when I was using D/D, I use Vampirism Runes.

The attack speed of daggers and Hide-in-Shadows → Back stab heals me for a lot of health and when I get into trouble, the Mist Form allows me to get out of danger before going down.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

And I’m creating an argument to learn my self for one far mor knowledgeable people here than me on thief class, so if I’m wrong I will let it be.

Yes thief skills can regen faster than most c d’s but other classes and swap weapons and have access to 8 skills to use against us while we are tied to four at any given time then have to wait for a minimum of three seconds to be able to use the cheapest ini cost skill

The risk is higher against the cooldown skill because if that skill missed, dodged, or evaded, that skill is in for a longer cooldown. Thieves on the other hand can recover quickly from a missed, dodged, or evaded skill due to the improved init-regen. This is why I said that with the new change, it will allow us to keep the pressure. If they block one of our skills, their block skill is locked out, while we can try again in a few seconds.

The change removes the requirement that we have to proc Opportunist to get initiatives back, this is a big step in the right direction especially against a target with Retaliation.

I agree on the fact that the init-regen is not fast enough (I believe that it has to scale based on the missing Initiative), but Jon admits that it needs to be tested so that they can get a more solid set of data. I believe that’s fair enough.

Ichishi.9613:

If we assume that all skills have 30 sec cooldown (and most of them have lower cd) you still can blow 8 skills every 30 seconds on cooldown class.
In the same 30 seconds thief would regenerate 30 initiative. That is 10 heartseekers. Or 7.5 DB. Or 6 unloads/pistol whips. Or 5 CnD’s. Notice, you can only spam heartseekers more than other classes can use skills in this case. Oh wait, now add cooldown reduction to cooldown skills.
And try again.

That’s hypothetical and not even close to representative on what actually happens in a fight.

You do realize that if a profession blow all 8 skills with 30s cooldown that all they’d be doing for 30s is auto-attack, right? How long do you think it will take for another profession to take them out? I know my Thief can take them out before they can get their cooldowns back because my Thief will have a nice flow of initiatives that allows me to keep the pressure until they break. All it takes is 10-12 initiatives to pull a nice combo.

lol @ spamming 10 HS for 30s.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Yes the only issue I find wwith the initiative system vs cooldowns, is if you blow all your c d’s you can switch weapons and have a whole new set to use, if a thief blows all his initial he can’t instantaneously get a whole other set of attacks and utilities

Then after that first swap, half of their skills are locked out for upto 15-20s while in that same time frame we would have a bar full of initiatives plus half bar more. The balance here is that, they get a full set of skill to blow at the first swap, but we get to reuse our skills sooner that they do. With 1-init/sec, it would only take 12s to get full init-bar, 15s if traited.

Why do you still insist on your weak argument?

yes depending on how thieves are trained they can get a significant amount of initial back, however with the new patch that is gone and capped out , weakening the thief class even more especially with more of their utility weapon skill getting nerfed.

Suit yourself, but you’re not convincing anyone with that statement, you’re just making noises for no apparent reason. Your concerns have already been proven to be baseless.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You suppose to get Trickery 10 not CS 10 and pick up Trickster when it becomes Adept.

Then you can add Roll for Initiatives on your build. It’s mandatory when using P/P.

:P

How so? With the upcoming initiative buff there won’t be a need for R4I, and in this meta the condition removal is far superior. I don’t see anything in Trickery 10 that would help this build or its purpose. Uncatchable, maybe, but if an enemy is so close that you have to cripple them to get away, you’re better off blind spamming them and taking them down.

R-o-I is your stun breaker…

You suppose to get Trickery 10 not CS 10 and pick up Trickster when it becomes Adept.

Then you can add Roll for Initiatives on your build. It’s mandatory when using P/P.

:P

Straegen.2938:

The change actually encourages pacing over burst.

I don’t think so.

The change actually gets you back into bursting sooner even if you don’t land a crit and triggers Opportunity.

Hypothetically speaking, if I can burst every 10s right now, I can burst every 8s after Dec 10.

Ichishi.9613:

And what is the point of comparing how many skills warrior and thief can use in a given time frame if we do not consider the usefulness of those skills?

“Usefulness” is highly subjective and very situational. In order that we can make a comparison, we need to look at both weapon sets (warrior’s and thief’s) objectively — otherwise we’ll be going out of our mind discussing the cause and effects, chain of events, plays and counter-plays, and the endless possible scenarios.

So the point that we are trying to accomplish in this topic is not how useful or effective a skill is, rather when do they become available to the given profession — what they do with that skill is really up to them and there’s really no way to anticipate on how they will spend their cooldowns or initiatives.

Ichishi.9613:

You are forgetting to compare the other parts.
Like how long it would take a thief to do a damage that would be equal to a warrior blowing his all cooldowns in a row.
Believe me, that time is much greater than the cooldown on the warrior’s skills.

Damage is not the discussion here because there are many factors we need to consider to define what damage really means. If you want to discuss damage against an inanimate object, then yes, you’re right, but that’s hardly representative on what actually happens in a fight. Conditions, buffs, evasions, dodges, positioning, to name a few, plays a large part when talking about damage.

If you want to discuss this topic, make a new thread and post the numbers that made you believe that the “time is much greater than the cooldown on the warrior’s skills.”

Rafahil.2857:

But after 10Dec thieves and “prolonged fight” won’t mix well together anymore regardless of extra initiative regen….

I highly doubt that. The extra init-regen will allow us to put a lot of pressure and force targets to blow their cooldowns making a lasting fight more fair than before.

Dagins.5163:

I don’t understand why anybody would consider picking D/D over D/P, even if not planning to play “perma stealth”. With D/D you don’t have #3 skill, where D/P’s chase ability with blind is insanely useful.

IMHO, it’s because of the coolness factor. D/P #3 is not cool enough, it’s just another shadowstep skill. D/D #3 on the other hand, it has the best dual-wield skill animation ever.

On a serious note, stealth from D/P is too complicate for what its worth, not everyone can do it. I pulled it off at one time but decided that it’s too much trouble compare to CnD.

Tyrael.9745:

I can see this trait being used in a pistol/pistol direct dmg build to give you a little ranged aoe, because as a thief you don’t really have good aoe (direct dmg) except dagger storm. But in this situation you are forced to go 20 points in Trickery, with gives you condition dmg, something you don’t need.

P/P’s auto-attack (vital shot) deals bleeding so the condition damage is not wasted.

It just seems like this trait should bee in Deadly Arts, and maybe 10 points. Like this you can get the condition duration if your playing pistol/dagger, and you get the power if you play pistol/pistol.

I disagree. I’m not replacing Combined Training with Ricochet, no thank you. Your suggestion is not well thought out.

Maybe I’m not seeing something here and the trait is fine the way it is.

IMO, it is fine where it is.

Maugetarr.6823:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I too find this a horrible idea. Init-regen increase or init-refund is the best solution here. I think Anet is going towards the right direction here.

This is what I suggested in one of my posts;

Counter-Solution (hypothetical/non-tested):
- Increase initiative gain based on the amount missing.
- 100% init = .75/sec
- 75% init = +25% (.93/sec)
- 50% init = +33% (1/sec)
- 25% init = +50% (1.13/s)
- 0% init = +66% (1.25/s)

Not a bad idea but people would complain that thieves could HS spam more now and would be rewarded for doing so. Although this would dramatically improve the thief’s ability to finish people while not drastically changing the fight above 50% health.

Not necessarily. The only reason we see a lot of HS spamming is due to the fact that our Init-bar depletes so fast that once it is tapped out, all we can really do is HS. But if the Init-bar depletes at a slower rate, we will see more meaningful combos and less HS spamming.