Guild Wars 2

NuhDah.9812:

When I said upping P/P range to 1200 I was just giving an example of improvement…

However that is not an improvement at all. When the game first released, Pistol and Shortbow has 1200 range and they don’t really make the Thief more viable then. So going back to that is not an improvement to the profession. It will be just more of the same thing since it is still centered on DPS.

They’ve added staff a few while ago and can’t seem to find too many people playing it in sPvP since it doesn’t make the thief more viable…

The staff was a missed opportunity. If they instead made an Elite Spec based around Shadow Arts instead of Acro and create skills and traits using Shadow Magic, it would be the very definition of improvement to the Thief profession. The Thief is a profession about shadow art, shadowstep, and steal — none of those can be found in the DD spec. It would have been a better design choice for them to not create the Revenant and create a Monk instead with the DD and Revenant specs. But moving forward, Thief doesn’t need another way to do DPS. What the Thief needs is something to do when it cannot DPS due to PvE fight mechanics and certain PvP situation.

And since thief is a class that works more with burst and mobility rather then range and support what would be the point in adding some range miracle to this profession…

There are times that the Thief cannot burst and mobility doesn’t do anything. In that situation, all the Thief can do is pick his nose until it has the opportunity to do damage. Instead, the Thief should be able to swap weapon set to play support until the opportunity presents itself rather than doing nothing. This is how the other professions plays and this is the main design idea of ArenaNet for all profession — to be able to switch to a supporting role in certain situations. The major difference is that the Thief has to commit to a set of support utility skills while other professions can simply swap weapons.

And yeah, I know I’m talking about pvp, and staff does good in pve (at least in terms of dmg) which is great, so with few trait changes to make the profession more team oriented thief would may even be a wanted party member, not a filler.

That’s the issue about the staff, it just another DPS weapon when the Thief needs range and support capabilities. You can’t just keep changing the traits because it will cause other builds to be affected. The traits needs to be general enough so that the Thief can benefit from it regardless of what weapon they choose. Traits like Dagger Training and Swindler’s Equilibrium needs to stop specifying certain weapon, instead it should be applicable to all weapon. All these traits does is further pigeon hole the builds around certain weapon set instead of encouraging build diversity.

Anyways, every profession has and should have things they are better at and things they don’t get to shine at in different real (if possible an mostly equal amount of end game pve and pvp situations) contexts…

Not in GW2, unfortunately. Take the Guardian for example, it shines in melee, range, tank, and support. Engineer is the same way. Ele is the same way. Necro is the same way. But Thief? Thief cannot do half of those. So that notion is not within the context of the game. That’s simply an idea that doesn’t apply in GW2.

Back to what your post, thief has one of the best condi removal trait lines in SA, but again that spec is not very effective right now and that is what needs rework…

We’re talking about weapon sets. Why does the Thief have to spec SA in order to deal with conditions while other professions can do so with a simple weapon swap?

Weapon condi removal isn’t something mandatory and also there are sigils which can do that kind of stuff if you need it…

I’m sorry but that is pure nonsense.

As for removing party members conditions are you seriously telling me because this is one thing thief can’t do they are undesired or underperforming? No, in fact thief is not desired because it’s underperforming in most of what it can do, even the traditional single target dmg…

That perception is too narrow. When the Thief cannot DPS due to fight mechanic, then what? While other profession swaps to support weapon set, the Thief does nothing but wait. The Thief cannot contribute to the party when it cannot DPS. Yes there are fights where the boss goes invulnerable or goes airborne while your whole party takes damage. During this time, the Thief can’t do anything but pick his nose.

As for your second point – why not reduce initiative consumption on things that consume to much initiative and puts the thief in a bad spot? How would adding cooldowns and abilities that don’t use initiative not be a change in the core of the thief play style? <- also if you want to play with cooldown and resource I’m sure other classes have those kind of choices (hail to rev). Every class should have ways into the higher ranks without betraying it’s core mechanic…

What are you talking about? My examples are very clear that an option to combine initiative and cooldown in the same weapon set is but one possibility. Stealth attacks don’t use initiatives, is that a betrayal to the core mechanic? That’s nothing but a ridiculous notion.

Simply reducing the init cost won’t fix the problem in terms of build diversity. Sure you can simply pick another profession but what if the player wants to play Thief and wants to play support. Right now the Thief can build Venom Share with Shadow Refuge, but that’s all in the utility skills and nothing in the weapon set. If I want to play Ranger and I want to play support, the support skills are also available in the weapon set. If I want to play Elementalist and I want to play support, the support skills are also in the weapon set.

If after all these you still not getting the necessity of more weapon set and build diversity — I have nothing more to tell you.

I’m not sure what you wanted to make of your 3rd point, but all the classes have different play styles, even though there might be similarities between some builds of different classes, I don’t believe this is something that you’d want to add more of.

All other professions can melee and range dps, and support right off their weapon set. Thief cannot. Play style is based on build diversity and has very little to do with what profession you choose, except of course the Thief because choosing this profession will pigeon hole you to a DPS play style due to limited build diversity.

NuhDah.9812:

I see you listed some of your thoughts about expanding the thief weapon lore. But my point is, why would thief need this. For example, if the devs decide to incresed the P/P range for thief to 1200 wouldn’t that be the same as what you said about using a riffle?

No. Because a new weapon set can grant the Thief access to 5 new weapon skills. Increasing the range of pistol doesn’t really improve the profession.

This is my first point to you. Secondly, by adding some of this options wouldn’t thief really start to play like other professions, why would you choose a thief that fights with GS like an Guardian and not choose the Guardian itself?

The skills given to Thief may be similar to other professions but functions differently. Your questions is basically asking the question to Mesmer why pick a Mesmer if you’re going to use stealth and why not just pick a Thief. Or Why pick a Guardian if you’re going to DPS with a Greatsword when Warrior is better at using them. Mesmers, Necro, and Rangers all uses Greatsword, why not just use Warrior?

It comes down to skill combinations. Each profession can both DPS and support, so why is this denied from Thief? How come Thief has no access to support in their weapon skills?

So your question is out of the game context.

The point isn’t to change the play style of the class, but the improve on it an let it be unique the way it play. Why add something you can play on another class and not really improve on what’s already there?

First of all, Thief is lacking condition removal from their weapon set. Sure Sword #2 can remove condition, but it cannot remove condition from the Thief’s party members. And to change the functionality of a weapon skill will cause a lot of balance issue. So the best course of action is to introduce condition removal skills by adding new a weapon — just like my Focus example above.

Second of all, the addition of other weapons doesn’t change the play style of the profession. It simply gives the profession more options in their weapon set. Right now weapon swapping for Thief means nothing due to initiatives restrictions. What if a Greatsword weapon skill is part initiative based and part cooldown based? Say skill #2 and #3 are DPS skills that cost initiatives, but #4 and #5 has cooldowns that can be used party wide. It doesn’t change the playstyle of the Thief, it just makes then less a liability in a party or raid settings.

Third, if your argument is to be taken seriously, they should just delete all classes except for Warrior, Elementalist and Engineer.

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

MadRabbit.3179:

I don’t get the responses to Lead Attacks. It caps at 15%, which makes Trickery competitive now with Critical Strikes; the damage multipliers in DA are better.

I’m not dropping Critical Strikes for Trickery for a power build.

The only significance it has is the fact that it now boosts condi damage, which gives a second multiplier for condi damage besides Lotus. I think it was needed for condi builds in PvE; I can understand the QQ if you dont like the playstyle in PvP.

Wouldn’t Trickery provide more sustained Damage over DA due to Executioner on activating at 50% health? Looking at this from more of a pvp/WvW standpoint.

DA + Trick = Execution + Lead Attack = buckets of QQ

Only thing Trick has going for it now is potentially a 15% damage multiplier with 100% uptime over the 10% multiplier in CS with 50% uptime. Still won’t take it over CS, because CS has a whole lot of other talents that contribute to big damage numbers.

If I was running a condi build, than yeah, I would run Trick and DA, but not for Executioner, because that multiplier doesn’t work with conditions.

(Keep in mind, I don’t PvP anymore; only PvE, so its a limited perspective here)

Yes, I was implying PvP, thus the buckets of QQs.

In PvE, I agree on picking CS. I personally run CS/Acro/DD in PvE because in my personal experience, it deals more damage than DA/Trick/DD.

NuhDah.9812:

Can someone explain to me how access to more weapons would make thief more balanced/viable? I’m really hearing this a lot, but being a newer kind of player I don’t really get it? Isn’t thief’s variety of weapons diverse enough to suit the thief play style from single target burst dodger to condi aoe trapper? I mean i guess compared to the other classes aoe dmg, survivability and passives thief might not be viable, but how would more weapon diversity change this? Would really creating even more diversity that’s underperforming compared to other classes help?

Here’s some possible weapon skills (personal preferences varies):
A Rifle can give Thief a 1200 range weapon with probably some support skills tied to the weapon.

A Torch can give Thief a party-wide buff and AoE zone control.

A Focus can give Thief a way to remove conditions and steal buffs.

The Staff would have been a good weapon to expand Shadow Arts by giving party heals, party stealth, etc.

A Greatsword can have CC skills (shadow stiching) and party buffs with shadowstep focused DPS skills.

The possibilities are endless.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

MadRabbit.3179:

I don’t get the responses to Lead Attacks. It caps at 15%, which makes Trickery competitive now with Critical Strikes; the damage multipliers in DA are better.

I’m not dropping Critical Strikes for Trickery for a power build.

The only significance it has is the fact that it now boosts condi damage, which gives a second multiplier for condi damage besides Lotus. I think it was needed for condi builds in PvE; I can understand the QQ if you dont like the playstyle in PvP.

Wouldn’t Trickery provide more sustained Damage over DA due to Executioner on activating at 50% health? Looking at this from more of a pvp/WvW standpoint.

DA + Trick = Execution + Lead Attack = buckets of QQ

Sane.1356:

I wonder what the damage change is for the Lead Attacks change – I feel the ramp up time and the fact it might not be possible to have fulluptime on it means a significant dps loss, whcih especially for core builds sucks a bit.

The Lead Attack buff lasts for 15 seconds with 15% max. This buff doesn’t deplete when your initiative regens. That means, after spending 12-15 initiatives, you have a 12%-15% damage buff for 15s. Add the other buffs from other sources like from Bound (10% damage) and Lotus Training (10% condi damage), you get a very nice 22%-25% damage buff just by these alone.

This buff is really easy to max with D/P, for instance — BP + HS + HS = 12 init meaning 12% damage boost to your next Backstab. With 15 init, just HS one more time for 15% boost.

Now picture Unload with the stacks of might…let the QQs begin.

It’s a very bad idea.

babazhook.6805:

DeceiverX.8361:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

AegisFLCL.7623:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That is because you’re not using it as intended.

You suppose to engage (or re-engage) with Shadowstep so when you get loaded with conditions, you can use the return to remove them.

Placing the condi-removal on first activation will have the same problem when Thieves uses it to engage.

You’re just creating a cyclical problem when you’re suppose to instead just use it as intended.

Please spare me the “I’m best thief NA” before you even reply…

What part of me reply you’re quoting? I don’t see anywhere that I even made that claim.

That is flat out not true. First off you’re blowing a long cd stun break when you can engage any number of ways to melee range (bar running staff where this could be considered useful).

That doesn’t change the fact that it was made with the intention to engage and condi-removal on disengage.

Second, Shadowstep is far more useful as a disengaging/repositioning tool.

Then I will argue that you’re blowing a long cd stun break just to reposition when you can reposition any number of ways. You see, your first reasoning debunked your second argument.

No matter which way you put it, on paper or in practice, it will always be more useful to disengage/reposition. And therefor frontloading the condi removal would be a good QoL improvement, especially with the existing meta and not being able to instantly faceroll.

That perception is too narrow. If you get stunned and your target runs away, this is a good time to use SS to break the stun and re-engage, thus if you get loaded with conditions on re-engagement, you can return to remove the conditions.

Besides, Infiltrator’s Signet is a better stun break with a very low cooldown — if you don’t have DD, otherwise Bandit’s Defense is even better.

Conditions can be removed by the right traits on evades or using Tricks.

In a sense, you’re using a very long cd skill just for disengage/repositioning.

Like I said, you’re only creating a cyclical problem.

If anything I think it’d be better to argue removing the condi removal from this skill all together and building it into another utility skill. As the skill exist now the way the condi removal function just seems like it was tacked on because they didn’t know where else to put it.

SS is an obsolete skill that needs to be redesigned. The cd is ridiculous for a utility skill. I agree that this skills should have the cleanse removed but the cooldown needs to be reduced to 15s (same cd as Bandit’s Defense). However making another utility skill that removes conditions is unnecessary and redundant since there’s already many ways to remove conditions.

I was about to agree with you until the end. No way.

The thief has access to good cleansing only on a few builds, notably in D/P DD. Anything else, especially core thief, cleansing is objectively the worst in the game, despite the low health pool.

We don’t need to see D/P with an even safer disengage/reengage pattern. I get this would push emphasis off the shortbow, but the cooldown being anything lower than 50s would make a thief almost impossible to catch up with unless it’s by another thief also running SS, in which case, that’s locking an already high-demand/overused utility into something even more powerful.

Shadowstep doesn’t so much need love in that regard so much as the thief needs better burst condition cleansing options for anything that isn’t Daredevil. Either this comes across the board from multiple trait lines, or potentially a utility which burst cleanses like Cleansing Fire or something along those lines.

s/d traited for trickery has ample cleansing. RFI/Withdraw/Scorpion wire/Haste all work good in this build. You can trait the escapists for even more cleanse but I find it not needed. Acro line PR gives extra cleanse every 20 seconds. Trait up upper hand and you got more regen coming in plus INI. UC keeps off chill crippled and immobile.

This build tends to have high INI so can spam infiltrators in sequence if required.

^this, nuff said.

Revealed doesn’t keep Thief in check. Cooldown added to stealth attacks and stealth detection mechanics can also keep the Thief in check without the burden placed on the Thief because of laziness reason. If stealth is such a problem, then remove stealth then change stealth attacks to flanking attacks where it triggers depending on the players position. So if the Thief is attacking from behind, skill #1 changes to Backstab. There are better solutions than Revealed.

Daredevil didn’t power creep at the same level as the other professions. It is a display of common sense and restraint to keep a balance profession. The current person in charge of the balance team is obviously clueless giving us more power creeps than an actual balance. This needs to change.

This notion about “skill ceiling” is nothing but a white rabbit that offers nothing but a wild goose chase. How can you even determine it in the first place? It’s utter nonsense. You’ll just keep nerfing anf buffing every season just because the skill level of the players fluctuates — this will become ArenaNet’s Sisyphus boulder.

A basket ball doesn’t get heavier just because MJ or KB is carrying it. Their skills in playing the game don’t grant less skilled players more points just to keep it balance. GW2 is practically giving free points to less skilled players and less point to more skilled players. Since the skill level of each players varies deeply, it is better for ArenaNet to simply develop a profession that is balanced relative to other professions and let players play the game how ever they want to. Rather than trying to be a nanny or a police all the time, the Devs needs to take a step back and keep in mind that this is a game to be enjoyed by everyone and not just by those who play in sPvP. Besides, the Mist already have their own restrictions that they can expand if they really want a fair and well balanced PvP. However, for the rest of the players who doesn’t care about sPvP, they should be allowed to play their professions fairly balanced relative to other professions.

The Thief class is lacking a lot of skills compare to other class in terms of weapon skills. If they increase this number by giving the profession more access to other weapons, it will give the Thief the ability to be relatively balanced compared to other professions. Thief has no support weapon set while other professions have. Thief has no access to heal and cleanse weapon skills. Thief overall is not a finished product.

Vital Shot: Reduced the aftercast delay of this skill by 0.6 seconds.
Body Shot: Reduced the aftercast delay of this skill by 0.16 seconds.

The problem with these skills is the pre-cast delay, where the Thief aims before firing.

The aftercast delay of Unload plus the pre-cast delay of Vital shot makes the whole P/P set really awkward to use. There should be on extended delays between these two skills.

The effectiveness of Body Shot is not based on the second shot but the first shot, thus reducing the after cast really means nothing. To immobilize someone with Body Shot, the pre-cast delay plus the projectile’s slow travel time makes the skill a waste of initiative.

Unload: This skill now grants 1 stack of might for 8 seconds when striking an enemy.

This to show that the balance teams really knows nothing about the Thief profession. The P/P weapon set needs more defensive options, not more DPS. The nerf to Black Powder really crippled this set and it is yet to recover. Increasing damage output of pistol doesn’t change the fact that the Thief has very few defensive options specially when this weapon set has no access to stealth nor shadowstep.

Heartseeker: This skill is now able to be affected by quickness and slow.
Weakening Charge: This skill is now able to be affected by quickness and slow.

Woop-di-doo. We can HS farther again because that’s the only way to be really speedy in capping nodes. Rather than giving us more defensive options, they simply continue to encourage a boring gameplay for Thief.

Dust Strike: This skill now applies 5 stacks of vulnerability per hit. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to strike more than once. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to blind for only 3 seconds instead of the full 5 seconds.

Tsk. This kind of bugs is what makes me question the competence of the quality assurance. They make a brand new skill that doesn’t function as the design intended. It begs the question on how did this get pass the QA? But then again, we’re talking about the Thief here, which really at the bottom of the list in terms of quality. But hey, it now applies vulnerability which will increase the frequency of QQs because Vault now deals an even more insane amount of damage. gj balance team — you really know your stuff.

Larcenous Strike: The number of boons stolen by this skill has been increased from 1 to 2. The initiative cost has been increased from 1 to 2.

Ok, sure it steals 1 more boon but that doesn’t warrant an increase in cost. The total cost effectiveness of FS/LS is nerfed in this case because it is now one of the most expensive Dual-Wield skill with Pistol Whip.

Withdraw: This skill now removes torment in addition to its other removals.
Hide in Shadows: This skill now removes confusion in addition to its other removals. Increased the duration of regeneration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds.

These are not buffs. These should have been part of the skills in the first place or when torment was introduced. To intentionally leave them out further reinforce the notion that Thief is really at the bottom of the list in terms of quality.

Skelk Venom: The base healing modifier for venom strikes has been increased by 40%. The healing contribution for both the initial heal and venom strikes has been increased by 50%.

I don’t use this skill nor I’m even intrigued of using it now. The problem with this skill is not the amount of healing, rather it’s the 40s CD. Seriously though, if you’re going to buff this, the CD should be the first to get the improvement. I understand the fact that they want to normalize the CD of all venoms, but we’re talking about a healing skill here not a damaging skill.

Expeditious Dodger: Increased the swiftness duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds.

Utterly unnecessary. What needs fixing is Feline Grace.

Pain Response: The internal cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 20 seconds to 16 seconds.

Now this is an improvement, but how come this still doesn’t remove Confusion?

Vigorous Recovery: Increased the vigor duration of this trait from 7 seconds to 10 seconds.

Sure why not. I mean the whole trait line used to increase buff duration, so even though this is the only one that received the duration extension, it’s fine.

Upper Hand and Pain Response regen buff should have also received a duration boost.

Swindler’s Equilibrium: Damage while wielding a sword has been increased from 5% to 7%.

Not worth it! As long as the total initiative cost of both Sword weapon sets are so kitten high, no amount of buffs to the Sword will make it more effective.

Just a simple comparison;
D/P = 17 init total cost
S/D = 20 init total cost (used to be 19, thanks LS “buff”)
S/P = 21 init total cost

With 12 initiative pool (15 max), both Sword weapon sets are not worth it. Stop the damage buffs and reduce the initiative costs.

Lead Attacks: This trait has been reworked and now grants 1% damage and condition damage per initiative spent for 15 seconds. This effect has a maximum of 15%.

I can already see that this is going to be problematic with the DD trait stacking damage boost using Lotus Training or Bound.

lol at 25% damage boost — time to buy some buckets for QQ tears.

Did they even test this one out?

Bountiful Theft: The number of boons stolen has been increased from 2 to 3 in addition to applying vigor.
Consume Plasma: This stolen ability now grants resistance for 2.5 seconds, but it will not apply quickness. Updated the skill facts.
Throw Gunk: This skill is now ground targeted. Added the radius to this skill’s description. Added an allied combo-field effect and enemy ring effect to this skill.

No comments here. Not really that impactful and they are very situational.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Hell I’ll do one better, make the Condi clear whenever you use a shadowstep a trait, and make it affect all Shadowstep abilities. Muahahahaha

Haha, now that’s a QoL worth praising. Remove Venom Aura and replace it with Cleansing Shadow that removes one condition on shadowstep. Then delete the Shadowstep utility skill.

AegisFLCL.7623:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That is because you’re not using it as intended.

You suppose to engage (or re-engage) with Shadowstep so when you get loaded with conditions, you can use the return to remove them.

Placing the condi-removal on first activation will have the same problem when Thieves uses it to engage.

You’re just creating a cyclical problem when you’re suppose to instead just use it as intended.

Please spare me the “I’m best thief NA” before you even reply…

What part of me reply you’re quoting? I don’t see anywhere that I even made that claim.

That is flat out not true. First off you’re blowing a long cd stun break when you can engage any number of ways to melee range (bar running staff where this could be considered useful).

That doesn’t change the fact that it was made with the intention to engage and condi-removal on disengage.

Second, Shadowstep is far more useful as a disengaging/repositioning tool.

Then I will argue that you’re blowing a long cd stun break just to reposition when you can reposition any number of ways. You see, your first reasoning debunked your second argument.

No matter which way you put it, on paper or in practice, it will always be more useful to disengage/reposition. And therefor frontloading the condi removal would be a good QoL improvement, especially with the existing meta and not being able to instantly faceroll.

That perception is too narrow. If you get stunned and your target runs away, this is a good time to use SS to break the stun and re-engage, thus if you get loaded with conditions on re-engagement, you can return to remove the conditions.

Besides, Infiltrator’s Signet is a better stun break with a very low cooldown — if you don’t have DD, otherwise Bandit’s Defense is even better.

Conditions can be removed by the right traits on evades or using Tricks.

In a sense, you’re using a very long cd skill just for disengage/repositioning.

Like I said, you’re only creating a cyclical problem.

If anything I think it’d be better to argue removing the condi removal from this skill all together and building it into another utility skill. As the skill exist now the way the condi removal function just seems like it was tacked on because they didn’t know where else to put it.

SS is an obsolete skill that needs to be redesigned. The cd is ridiculous for a utility skill. I agree that this skills should have the cleanse removed but the cooldown needs to be reduced to 15s (same cd as Bandit’s Defense). However making another utility skill that removes conditions is unnecessary and redundant since there’s already many ways to remove conditions.

Kageseigi.2150:

This is a rather philosophical question, I suppose.
What does a truly balanced Thief look like?
And does it take a skilled played to be successful with it?

This comes down to equal representation.

If they give a Thief access to P/P, then this weapon set should perform close to other weapon sets. Making this set underpowered makes the Thief unbalanced.

Then the Thief needs to be relatively balanced when compared to other professions. Just by simply looking at how many weapon sets each other profession has access to, the Thief is left with a handful of skills due to limited weapon sets. The balance of Thief relative to other profession is based on the Thief’s capability of doing their job — that is to do massive damage to single or AoE targets. If the Thief cannot do their job, the Thief is unbalanced.

Then the Thief needs to be balanced when it comes to mechanic restrictions. No other profession has a mechanic restriction like Revealed. This mechanic restriction affects the Thief the most since the Thief uses stealth for both offense (stealth attacks) and defense (invisibility). To be the only profession with such a mechanic restriction makes the profession unbalanced.

So to answer the question about a balanced Thief, all of the above needs to be adjusted and Revealed to be abolished.

The player skills should simply be a factor that tips the balance. When all professions are balanced, it would end up in a stalemate so a balance tipper needs to be in place. Therefore, the player skills should not be counted as a factor when balancing the profession because nerfing the Thief because someone is too good at using the profession will only make it a bad profession for everyone else.

Think about this as a car race where everyone is using a stock vehicle. The winner of the race didn’t win because his car is overpowered, the winning team won because of the skill of the driver, the wisdom of the coach, and the skills of the crew. They didn’t nerf the car because one particular team is too good at racing — that’s stupid and lazy — thus the decisions of the GW2 balance team in nerfing the Thief is stupid and lazy.

In my personal opinion, ArenaNet needs a new person in charge of the balance team and I nominate Karl. He’d showed that despite what the other developers are doing with their professions (like overpowering them to heck), Karl kept his senses and gave us a well rounded Daredevil profession.

AegisFLCL.7623:

As I spend a lot of time on my Thief in PvP, I’ve always wondered why this skill was so clunky in regards to condi clear. As a predominately melee class, you want to leave melee range if you’re under pressure whether it be a condi based skill or flat damage.

Why is it that in a scenario in which you may have little time to react that the condi removal is offloaded to the return portion of this skill; A allowing you to die to condi ticks if you trying to avoid condi application in melee and already have condis, and B forcing you to re-engage or place yourself in melee range once more just to remove conditions that will kill you…

The obvious suggestion being that the condition removal aspect of this skill is moved to the first activation of shadowstep. You can than be allowed to re-engage with other skills without having to waste the second stun break on activation.

/discuss

That is because you’re not using it as intended.

You suppose to engage (or re-engage) with Shadowstep so when you get loaded with conditions, you can use the return to remove them.

Placing the condi-removal on first activation will have the same problem when Thieves uses it to engage.

You’re just creating a cyclical problem when you’re suppose to instead just use it as intended.

Amaranthe.3578:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Amaranthe.3578:

Asrat.2645:

Thanks, gonna send you flowers later. Cant join tho. I grew up following a strict moral code. Genosuicide is unethical.

U WILL BE REBORN AS A REVENANT ITS NO MURDER OR GENOCIDE

Wrong profession — only Warriors should be deleted to be reborn as Revenant. Follow the teachings of Rytlock.

Thieves aren’t allowed in the Mist…

Thieves are warriors who are too weak to wear plate and prefer to use leather instead
Delete your thief and be reborn as a revenant,join the revolution

meh, missing the reference makes this not fun anymore. gg

Amaranthe.3578:

Asrat.2645:

Thanks, gonna send you flowers later. Cant join tho. I grew up following a strict moral code. Genosuicide is unethical.

U WILL BE REBORN AS A REVENANT ITS NO MURDER OR GENOCIDE

Wrong profession — only Warriors should be deleted to be reborn as Revenant. Follow the teachings of Rytlock.

Thieves aren’t allowed in the Mist…

You do realize that your “revolution” is advocating the “murder” of all Thieves by propagating “mass suicide”, right?

Szeraf.5781:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

What you need is Signets of Power (trait), Conceal Defeat (trait), Signet of Shadow (util), Blinding Powder (util) and Staff 34 (Dust Strike) — learn the rotation and you’ll have an endless supply of blind. My weapon of choice would be Staff and P/P. With P/P, you can perma-blind a single target.

Just post the build mate

Here’s a build: Blind was Mingson

What you need is Signets of Power (trait), Conceal Defeat (trait), Signet of Shadow (util), Blinding Powder (util) and Staff 34 (Dust Strike) — learn the rotation and you’ll have an endless supply of blind. My weapon of choice would be Staff and P/P. With P/P, you can perma-blind a single target.

Asrat.2645:

No, its a pull. Its supposed to actually move you, the knockdown is only a visual side effect.

The funny (and annoying) part on how pull works in GW2 is that, when you use Scorp Wire, your target gets dragged on the ground and you’re lucky if you pull them at least half way. However, if you use Scorp Wire and it got reflected (i.e. Wall of Reflection) you fly up into the air and get yourself pulled instead. So why is our pull drags our target through the ground and doesn’t completely pull for 1200 range while the counter to pull lifts us up in the air to complete a 1200 range pull. Scorp Wire should work like the latter.

CutesySylveon.8290:

Or just make it become a knockdown because that’s all it does when it actually connects, never actually pulling to you.

A pull is also a knockdown, albeit a very short duration.

Nah, just replace the error message with “L2P Noob! Don’t believe what you read in the tooltip.”

MadRabbit.3179:

DeceiverX.8361:

Yes, initial aggro is based on a combination of proximity, armor, and player-output damage as a means of splitting aggro. It’s why the taunt condition is frivolous (especially with break bars). I don’t recall a period where this wasn’t the case.

I ask and I leave it out, because the wiki for Aggro doesn’t include armor as part of the aggro calculation in the “Gaining and losing aggro” section.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

It addresses the armor issue with this statement

“Some players have suggested the following factors might influence certain enemies, but this is not confirmed by any official source (and seems to be based on assumptions from other MMOs that go against the principles stated by Guild Wars 2 developers):

1. Top damage dealers [citation needed]
2. Who is using a shield / has more toughness and overall armor [citation needed]"

I wasn’t sure if this was current or just misinformed due to a lack of citations in the article.

In my part, it’s based on experience and experimentations. Since ArenaNet neither confirm nor deny the effect of toughness or armor, it is still easy to verify once you run your own experiments. Thus, for those who runs dungeons and fractals, this is a common knowledge.

Here’s one example of experiment and fact finding — The Aggro Magnet Guardian

Important notes:
“…having more toughness will actually attract more aggro on lots of instances, especially bosses.”

“Once I get all that down, the plan to gain and maintain aggro is easy: In order of importance
1) Stack toughness”

Also, there’s an interview that semi-confirm the toughness aggo effect;
ARENANET’S STEVEN WALLER DISCUSSES GUILD WARS 2’S RAIDING FOUNDATION

Important note:

“…in the encounter you just took part in there is definitely the opportunity for someone to draw aggro on the boss, but it’s not tied to a specific profession. It’s instead tied to the amount of Toughness you have…”

However, the mobs in the open world have a different AI programming which doesn’t respond to your specific stats. It seems that the mobs in open world has certain agenda or preferred targets regardless of what other players are doing within the proximity. This you’ll notice that there are mobs who zeroes in on you and not stop until you go down even though you have not dealt damage to that mob and other players are actually killing it. Some other mobs just randomly switching target.

EDIT: Another source.

GW2 Vale Guardian Raid Boss Guide

Important note:

“You want to run as much Toughness as you can so your healer doesn’t pull aggro off you since aggro is Toughness based.”

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

In addition, a party member bringing a party-wide toughness buff (i.E Banner of Defense) will increase the aggro generated due to the fact that mobs are programmed to prioritize players with high toughness. So with the additional toughness plus the amount of damage you’re doing, it can pull aggro really fast and it will be harder to drop. There was a time when Warriors do a massive amount of DPS with GS while having the highest toughness — they were the ultimate tank because you can never pull aggro off of them. So yeah, toughness is bad for Thief in group scenario.

Just curious. Has this been established being true now outside of raids?

I know this is how it is in raids, but it’s been debated a lot how much this is the case in open world and dungeons.

All I can say is that it’s very true in dungeons and fractal. It’s hard to say in open world since the mobs don’t really behave the same way as those in an instance. I find it really annoying at times when I get too much aggro only because our Guardian thinks that having Strength in Numbers is a good idea to have. And as soon as he switched out of it for Stalwart Defender…I can DPS without getting aggro.

reikken.4961:

Jana.6831:

I don’t get your “vitality gained for dps lost”

Perhaps this is a better way of explaining it:

If you’re in zerker’s and sub in valkyrie’s, for every 100 points of vitality you gain, you lose 100 precision.
If you sub in marauder’s instead, for every 100 points of vitality you gain, you lose 30 power and 50 ferocity and gain 30 precision.

The net differences:
130 precision (marauder’s) vs 30 power and 50 ferocity (valkyrie’s)
And the precision is better dps so long as it doesn’t put you significantly above 100% crit chance. (because any precision past 100% crit is wasted)

And no, I read your entire post every time.

ALSO, the crit chance gets you an additional bonus for trying to stay alive: A greater portion of your dps is coming from crits, so you get more healing from invigorating precision

That doesn’t make any sense. The point of trying to get high crit chance so that your high power and high ferocity can apply a large amount of damage. Sacrificing Power and Ferocity in favor of Prec doesn’t make a whole lof sense in terms of DPS. Sure you crit a lot, but your damage is mediocre because yo sacrificed Power and Ferocity.

MadRabbit.3179:

If you disengage in a direction that pulls the mob away from your teammates instead of walking him thru your teammates in the other direction, you are lessening their damage and their proximity to the mob, thus making it more likely for the mob to follow you.

This ^ and everything he said in that post is true and valid.

In addition, a party member bringing a party-wide toughness buff (i.E Banner of Defense) will increase the aggro generated due to the fact that mobs are programmed to prioritize players with high toughness. So with the additional toughness plus the amount of damage you’re doing, it can pull aggro really fast and it will be harder to drop. There was a time when Warriors do a massive amount of DPS with GS while having the highest toughness — they were the ultimate tank because you can never pull aggro off of them. So yeah, toughness is bad for Thief in group scenario.

Jana.6831:

I’m not so sure these tipps are really helping the OP who is already using (half) marauders and has got problems to stay in fight.

On the contrary, I think the discussion have already answered the OP’s questions.

In this case do I take invigorating strikes and sacrifice damage?

The answer to this question is based on what item he has. Thus the discussion about zerker vs. marauder has answered this question. With his marauder gear, taking invigorating and sacrificing damage is feasible. However, the discussion also gave him another option so that he doesn’t need to sacrifice damage…but that is up to the OP if he’s willing to change up gears. The rest are just theorycrafting.

Do I disengage, stealth and re engage?

This question was also answered favoring that high Vitality will require less disengagement since it gives Thief more staying power. The rest, again, are just theorycrafting. I really doubt that the OP will go with Valkyrie for example since he already have ascended armor, but it is still an option he can take.

This topic just opened up a lot of other related topics on gear combinations, which in honesty, I really enjoy.

Asrat.2645:

So theoretically marauder deals less damage than exotic zerker. Still dont say its effectively worse, but I have to reverse my statement that the damage loss wont be noticeable.

Theoretically, marauder grants more staying power than zerker, so in a sense more DPS.

The problem with Marauder is that it has too much wasted stats allocated to Prec, when crit chance is so easy to get from somewhere else. If you want Vitality without sacrificing too much DPS, you’re better of with a Valkyrie than with a Marauder.

DeceiverX.8361:

If you have no other things to say aside from the fact that you dislike the Revealed effect and as a consequence disagree with the proposal on that basis, I strongly suggest you stop posting in this thread as our discussion is leaving unfriendly walls of text and is deviating away from the core discussion of the specialization other than a few comments about synergy among certain weapons.

That’s already my intention and kudos to your hard work on putting this together but I hope that no dev will listen to any proposition that was designed around Revealed and hoping that they realize that Revealed is kitten to the game that needs to be surgically taken out.

Venom Aura in SA is a whole different topic on itself because it should be in Deadly Arts. So I won’t further address VA.

And if you can’t tell the difference between mechanic lock (Revealed) and boon corruption, or mechanic lock and unblockable, then I guess we finally figure out why you’re accepting Revealed with open arms — you simply don’t know the difference. Boon corruptions are not self-inflicted nor it prevents Ele from using boons nor it automatically corrupts all boons they cast afterwards. Unblockable doesn’t prevent Guardians from blocking. They may not successfully block the unblockable skill, but they can still block everything else. The equivalent of Revealed is locking Water Attunement or locking Virtue of Resolve or Courage for a duration. I was not pretending they don’t exist, you’re simply comparing apple to a potato. If you still can’t comprehend the difference, then we are at a loss.

Again, Weakness is not the same as Revealed no matter how much you want them to be. Weakness doesn’t lock out dodges for 3 seconds. That in itself should debunk your silly argument.

DeceiverX.8361:

SA would be overpowered without Revealed. SE would be a passive cure 1 condition every 3s – best in the game; Hidden Thief is permanent 50% move speed – best in the game; RoS would be a permanent 25% reduction in damage stackable with protection – best mitigation in the game; Rejuv would be permanent passive healing bordering on Healing Signet and an effective 25% cooldown reduction to all weapon skills. Alternative, BP + HS spam would be the fastest blind applicator in the game to a point where even standing near a smoke field by a thief would be dangerous out of low counterplay.

How is it overpowered when the Thief cannot attack while having all these effects? That as soon as they attack, all these effects ends? If the Thief can attack in conjunction with these effects, like what Warriors, Revenant, and Guardians can do right now, then yeah, it’s OP. Revealed is an unnecessary and lazy fix that needs to go away.

You claim the Deadeye doesn’t provide an answer to being revealed. So what you’re saying is defensive stat increases, teleport skills, and long-ranged DPS to maintain pressure from a distance are not good things to have while revealed?

No. I can do all that with my current P/P build but without the long range. The long-range and defensive stats are not even in synergy because the Thief will only need defensive stats while in melee range because distance is one of their defenses (shadowstep). So having both long-range and defensive stats is redundant and wasteful. This “answer” is not even a good counter play because it triggers not as a counter to another profession’s skill (i.e. Sic ’Em) but an answer to a self-inflicted Revealed. The whole premise around this “answer” to Revealed is all going to a wrong direction. The answer to Revealed is to rid of it from the game.

You mean these concepts which have been explicitly not given to the thief and historically removed on the sole basis that they are so strong because of the thief’s core kit having too much synergy with these mechanics isn’t a basis for arguing that the Deadeye offers solid compensation for being revealed? I’m sorry, but that claim is foolish. The intent is to allow the profession to be able to reveal itself considering SHF only lasts as long as the Revealed debuff and is only accessible while revealed. This is done because the strength of even remotely good 1200 ranged damage is so powerful with the thief’s core kit, and that there are potentially devastating consequences to balance if left to working with stealth.

Yeah good concept, but not for Thief. If you are having a conflict about balance when used with stealth, then this Elite spec is not a good fit for Thief because Thief is an expert in Shadow Arts and not Revealed. The main problem here is that, this concept was made so unbalanced that it is forced to accept the existence of Revealed to balance it out. Also, it seems that you forget that the Thief used to have 1200 range weapon and that never raise any balance issue other than the fact that ArenaNet wanted to normalize their weapon types by giving them specific range. The reduction of range from shortbow and pistol placed the Thief in a position of extreme weakeness because the range of those weapons were never an issue nor a balance problem.

Also, no, stealth is not the thief’s profession mechanic. Steal and initiative are.

There’s lies the problem. Here’s a quote from the official wiki.

Thieves are expert in the shadow arts.

“Experts at stealth and surprise, thieves can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air…”

Denying these facts is a clear evidence that you don’t know Thief nor you’re an advocate in saving the integrity of the Thief profession. You just want some concept to be implemented at what ever cost, even to a point of changing the Thief profession to the core and destroying the profession in the process.

Arguing that stealth must be the feature of an elite spec because the class description of the core spec says so is also invalid.

Invalid? That is a ridiculous claim. If ArenaNet redefines the Thief and rename it to a Rogue, then I would have agreed with you. But the fact that they choose to name it Thief and give the profession the identity of someone who hides in shadows and steals, then any spec designs that doesn’t implement those mechanic is a move away from the core of the profession.

If going by profession descriptions, then warriors should be the fastest class in the game, since it states that the warrior relies on speed. The thief mentions this nowhere, so why are we supposed to be fast?

Oh please, your appeal to ignorance is neuseating. Warrior is not an expert on speed just as Thief is an expert in shadow arts. Thief is not faster than Warrior they have a lot of access to speedboost (see Warhorn and banner skills). The diffence is Thieves has access to displacement and displacement is not speed.

The Elementalist states that it does “massive damage in a single attack” as compensation for its low durability. Why then is the ele the tankiest profession in the game, and why do we hit harder per attack than ele? See, profession descriptions are borked, and game design goals change.

Dealing massive damage in a single attack doesn’t mean that it is the highest damage dealing attack. Again, neuseating appeal to ignorance.

Arguing that this idea isn’t flavorful because it plays with counterpart mechanics to stealth, which thieves have ready access to, is like saying we need to buff elementalist DPH to be the best in the game and make warriors by far the fastest profession. That’s silly and you know it.

Your examples are the silly one here. You’re trying to make a point based on a weak premise that those examples are even close to similar on what the Thief has. No where in Warrior’s description that is states the they are an expert on speed. Nor any where in Elementalist’s description that it states that they are an expert in dealing massive damage. In contrast, Thie is an “expert in stealth and surprise” and “expert in shadow arts” (wiki)

So please stop making silly claims and stop comparing apples to potatoes.

bearshaman.3421:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

SoulSin.5682:

Well if you take everything in a good way, it proves that ANET somewhat understands which classes need a buff and which ones need a nerf.

At the very least we didn’t got nerfed in this joke. Hahahaha

Yes we did. The joke is, all those things will never happen — meaning we’ll never be Caithe. It’s the ultimate nerf.

That’s one way to interpret it. I think it just means that they won’t turn thieves into the most hated class ever.

Oderint, dum metuant

DeceiverX.8361:

Vincent,

Your entire basis for argument is that a trait line is countered by a mechanic.

By this logic, Weakness needs to be nerfed because it reduces the effects of Vigor and thus locks out the class from properly maintaining benefits from the entirety of Acrobatics.

That’s flawed and you know it. Revealed is self-inflicted and totally locks out a defense mechanic. Weakness doesn’t prevent you from dodging, so your counter argument is a little silly.

SA has high stealth synergy. Again, I’m not disagreeing with you that giving other professions availability to reveal the thief is a good idea.

Yes I don’t mind that at all as long as the mechanic is a stealth detection and not stealth lock down.

I’m disagreeing with your statements which are claiming revealed in it of itself is a bad mechanic. Not having revealed in general, but instead, only detection, would result in massive balance concerns for SA regarding its defenses and offensive capabilities being overpowered.

I disagree and you have yet to illustrate why SA is “overpowered” that it requires a mechanic that can totally lock down the entire trait line and one of the Thief’s defense mechanic.

Your proposal makes little sense in the context of the class itself and only gains validity when examining extra power acquired by other classes. The Deadeye is intended not to be a direct answer to being revealed by other professions, but instead provide an answer to being revealed by other professions. Making the claim that Sic ’Em is overpowered is ridiculous. The claim that revealed needs to be changed entirely because of a few overpowered skills and abilities is inherently flawed and should be targeted towards those few abilities.

First of all, Deadeye is not a “direct answer to being revealed” because it purposely revealed the Thief.

“Gain stealth for the duration of the dash and replenish initiative, and then become revealed for a duration based on your total initiative. "

This Elite spec doesn’t even require other professions to reveal it because it can do it all by itself.

Second, Sic ‘Em can be easily changed to stealth detection that not only detects a single target, but it’s an AoE party wide effect that is more useful than what it currently is.

As far as your claims about me not playing them or being familiar with the thief, I play D/D and have since release of this game. I have been around when Revealed wasn’t here. I am blatantly admitting that I was overpowered when the mechanic didn’t exist.

You’re the one who made the claim that backstab is no longer being used, I’m simply pointing out that D/x build uses it frequently because they have no other big hitter in their weapon set. For you to make such claim shows that you either don’t know Thief or you don’t play D/x because everyone who plays D/x knows this.

FYI, Revealed existed on release. There was never a time after release when Revealed doesn’t exist. It was added as a last minute “fix” before release due to QQs during the beta weekends. The QQs were never substantiated but they’ve kept the lazy fix.

So if you were playing since release, then there’s no way you could’ve experienced playing Thief without Revealed since that only happened pre-release during the beta weekends. I’m sorry but I call B.S. here.

And additional FYI, it wasn’t overpowered because those who chain CnD wastes their initiative really fast and can do nothing else after 2 CnDs. The QQs stems out from CnD→BS chain, but the solution to that is not Revealed but a cooldown on backstab (and all other stealth attacks).

As far as synergy with MH dagger goes, you’re not reading the spec in detail, but are whining about the revealed mechanic being used because you do not like it. I explicitly created traits for direct synergy with SA which effectively nullify the self-inflicted revealed debuff. Via Impossible Escape, the Deadeye enables some of the single most powerful synergy that has ever existed with MH dagger. It literally offers the ability to backstab twice consecutively, completely skipping Revealed altogether. This spec has been approved and critically acclaimed by MH dagger players. You’re not reading the details and are condemning the entire idea because it utilizes a mechanic which you do not like.

What are you talking about? If I backstab and CnD, I won’t go in stealth instead it will remove Revealed, which means I have to CnD again to go in stealth. Do you even realize how absurd that is? Sure that trait might be good for D/P who can leap through smoke and remove the Revealed on the first leap, but that again is a pigeon hole that forces build that uses this Elite to use D/P because it would suck for D/D. On top of that, another pigeon hole trait is Grit, where it’s not even a choice and it’s an obvious pick because the Thief will be self-inflicting Revealed for a very long time — 20s max.

Stealth is the Thief’s profession mechanic — NOT Revealed.

This Elite spec is totally abandoning the Stealth mechanic and treating Revealed as if the mechanic that Thief should have had from the very beginning. This Elite spec not only breaks the Thief profession in terms of flavor by replacing the stealth mechanic with Revealed, but this Elite spec is more appropriately given to Eng or Warrior.

I’m sorry you do not like the revealed mechanic, but it is a necessary addition to the game, and enabling the mechanic to have more depth and give the thief as a profession a less-binary role in terms of performance in and out of stealth, while effectively reducing the potential intent by many players to even take or use revealing abilities to begin with. You slot massive boon stripping and corruption to deal with an ele; you slot reveal effects to deal with a stealth-oriented thief. Again, I’m not vouching for accessibility on revealed, but that the mechanic, if properly given means to give the thief a fair chance in combat during this period, is one which can have a positive effect on the game as a whole.

One thing is certain, this Elite spec is not for Thief. Thief by description is about stealth and deception and “expert in Shadow Arts” (wiki) — NOT Revealed. This Elite spec has nothing like that to offer.

All elite specs will feature a weapon. I built this one with the rifle because it is the most-requested ES weapon by thieves. I also did it to give the thief a support weapon and potential support role. I wanted to generate mass appeal and give the thief a way to change its style of play, and not simply buff it, which is what elites are intended to do.

To be honest, the Rifle skills are fine. It needs some testing and probably some tweaking but it’s good for now.

Revealed-oriented play is something the thief does not have access to doing right now – you say so yourself that the thief is too easily shut down by it – so claiming that this pigeon-holes the thief is ridiculous, especially since this build surrenders stolen items and one if its best teleports to gain initiative and a self-reveal effect. As for the Deadeye doing the same thing as the core thief and Daredevil, via “another way to do DPS,” you’re simply mistaken. Everything about the specialization is a DPS loss compared to Daredevil or what core thief can do. Everything. There is quite literally zero reason to take this spec if DPS is desired. Absolutely none. Nada. It’s been balanced to deal sub-optimal DPS. That’s the entire point. And that’s why it’s something new. Frankly, at this point, I’m convinced you have not read or even thought about the details of this proposal. If you wish to make more comments on this topic, please read up on it and give it some thought. It’s because of your effective ignorance to the options I’ve put into this spec to enable such play opportunities that I believe your feedback has not been worth it so far.

I’ve read it several times and I’m simply talking about the main mechanic it revolves around first, since the other stuff are built around that mechanic – Revealed. Since the whole spec hinges around Revealed, and Revealed should not be a Thief acceptable mechanic, this whole spec falls apart. This is why we’re discussing the legitimacy of Revealed as an acceptable mechanic when it is a complete opposite to what Thief is all about — stealth, deception and expert in Shadow Arts. In a sense, I’m against the fact that this Elite will redefine the Thief profession to something else other than what it really is.

A spec featuring tons of teleports like you propose is better left for another thread. And frankly, it better have a compromise as to why it effectively just gives MH sword more of what it offers already or completely replaces the need to use it. Actually, most of the discussion about revealed itself and your proposed replacement mechanic is completely off-topic from this proposal.

I’m not making a counter proposal rather I’m simply using it as an example to compare which spec would be more appropriate to the Thief profession. So no, it was not off topic since I have no intention to talk about it.

I understand you may not like the revealed mechanic, or the spec concept itself, but I am designing this specialization on existing game systems, seeing as I have no authority to suggest major overhauls to the way stealth itself is handled, and frankly, very few players have qualms with revealed itself (and often the players who do are the ones which propose asinine buff suggestions), but rather have problems with the mechanic being applied by other professions so readily.

All I’ve been saying is that, this is not the right direction to take the Thief profession. Accepting Revealed as a Thief mechanic is asinine in itself because Revealed does not define Thief since Thief, again, is about stealth, deception and expert in Shadow Arts. Even the Daredevil spec is a move away from what Thief is all about and hopefully Mr. MO, as the new director, will realize that the professions are being taken to all the wrong direction that hopefully he will stop the insanity and start bringing back some senses to the professions.

Thief could have been a stealth sniper or an Arcane Thief, but not Daredevil and definitely not Deadeye as is.

Please, do read the spec. Make some builds, and explain why you think certain aspects are either too weak or not strong enough or simply conceptually not sufficient within the context of the class or current game scenario based on what you make and the trait/skill interactions at hand. If you wish to campaign a change to the revealed mechanic, post a new thread on that, and let that discussion ensue.

I’ve already given you an example, D/D. Deadeye doesn’t work with this weapon set. Just looking at the Tier 1 traits…there’s nothing there for D/D. At least with Daredevil, I have a choice between Havoc and Weakening — Deadeye has nothing to offer unless I pigeon hole myself and abandon D/D for Rifle. That’s just one example.

DeceiverX.8361:

Not really, though. If you can see the thief, it doesn’t matter if he’s stealthed. I can walk up to a detected but not revealed thief and still kill him in one attack.

Even if that scenario is true and I choose to take seriously, it is still a better alternative from Revealed. If you can one-shot me, then good for you.

The defensive nature of stealth is only not having complete knowledge of where the thief is. That’s it.

Not true. There a whole traitline that are being locked out by Revealed also that improves the defenses and survival of the Thief. You speak as if you have no knowledge about the Shadow Arts trait line.

The thief also has a wide array of tools to deal with being revealed, such as rapid access to blind, and spammable evades on a plethora of weapon sets.

That’s not the point. The point is that stealth is a defensive mechanic. The availability of other options doesn’t make it right to have Revealed to completely lock out one of the Thief’s defensive mechanic. What if Revealed locks out evade? Would that be ok since Thief has access to blind, stealth, etc., etc.? Of course not.

Revealed is like a debuff which would cut healing by 50% like poison, but couldn’t be cleansed which could kill an elementalist if they depend on water solely for sustain and don’t use any other abilities in their kit (L2P problem), or a warrior or reaper using utilities or a thief using BV or LS on S/D which make their attacks unblockable. The answer to this that the guard has is invulns or simply getting out of the way of a combo, which they can do with relative ease. If they don’t, they die, which is also a L2P issue.

You’re not making sense. Revealed is not a L2P issue, it’s a complete lock out of a defensive mechanic due to laziness on the developer’s part. We’re not talking about a Thief tripping on his defenses like one of your examples, this is about a mechanic that denies Thief from using their defensives because the devs cannot be bothered from programming something more comprehensive like stealth detection.

The suggestion of being seen but not revealed frankly doesn’t make any sense in the context of improving the thief’s QoL except making stealth attack access available while visible, but seeing as most people don’t even bother with backstab anymore, this doesn’t really change much, and being able to counter the effects of being seen is a much stronger and viable answer to Revealed than just giving stealth attack abilities the ability to land, which would also likely miss before stealth would expire, considering one can dodge roll out of the way of a “detected”-but-stealthed thief’s attack when he gets close.

How is it not making sense? We’re not talking about the word “revealed”, we’re talking about the mechanic of it. A stealth detection can reveal a Thief, but doesn’t place a bad debuff mechanic on the Thief that prevents them from using their defensive. The Thief can still gain the debuff called “revealed” (or “detected”) for tracking purposes but without the lazy mechanic. The detection range would be short that would allow a Thief to shadowstep out of range as a counterplay. There are more possibilities with stealth detection than with the Revealed mechanic.

I don’t know about you or where you get your information but builds using D/P and D/D still uses backstab as a source of large damage. Speaking of which, unlike Daredevil, your proposed Elite spec has nothing to offer to builds that uses D/P and D/D. Instead, this Elite spec further pigeon hole Thief into using certain weapon that they may not even like. Instead, the Elite spec should open possibilities to the current builds by improving their game play by offering options that previously not available. An Elite shadow arts that centers around shadowsteps would be more effective and useful than offering a Thief another way to do DPS.

The big difference is that stealth detection doesn’t prevent Thief from using their defense mechanic — Revealed, on the other hand, completely locks the Thief out if its defenses. I assumed that these facts are obvious.

The main issue here that seems to be being overlooked is the fact that Revealed locks Thief’s defensive mechanic. Imagine how squishy Guardians would be if they are locked out from generating Aegis, or Elementalists locked out from using Water attunement. Even for a short duration of 3 seconds, it will trash the game play of those professions. Due to the lack of other defenses that Thief has, locking stealth via Revealed is poor job in solving a very simple problem.

If the problem is chain stealth, the solution is stealth detection, not Revealed.
If the problem is hard hitting stealth attack, the solution is cooldown not Revealed.

SoulSin.5682:

Well if you take everything in a good way, it proves that ANET somewhat understands which classes need a buff and which ones need a nerf.

At the very least we didn’t got nerfed in this joke. Hahahaha

Yes we did. The joke is, all those things will never happen — meaning we’ll never be Caithe. It’s the ultimate nerf.

DeceiverX.8361:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

There should be a rule – Thou shall not make any suggestions revolving around Revealed. It’s a lazy, not well thought of mechanic that should really go away.

Just my 2 cents.

It’s a necessary one. Recall the days of old when it wasn’t around and thief was absolutely and totally overpowered?

It doesn’t have to be Revealed, that’s the problem. The fault is at the design of the weapon skills leaving it without cooldown. A simple cooldown on Backstab (and all other Stealth attacks) would have solved the stealth problem without punishing the stealth mechanic really had. Stealth is not just an access to a really powerful attack, it is also the Thief’s defensive mechanic and by disabling the Thief from using their defensive just because they used a stealth attack is a stupid solution to the problem. Revealed was never a solution, it’s lazy band-aid patch that punishes the Thief by self-inflicting Revealed and giving anti-stealth to other classes.

Access to the Revealed mechanic by other classes is lazy, but it’s a lazy but necessary solution because giving so much stealth to other classes is a lazy solution. The increased access to revealing the thief by other classes is part of the basis of this spec’s design; it acts as a means to counter the hard counter which was implemented due to a snowball of poor previous design choices.

They can simply de-stealth the Thief rather than giving them Revealed. Or make and anti-stealth mechanic where a profession, an Engineer putting on a pair of goggles for example, can see stealth characters or give the party member an ability to see stealth creature, but never apply Revealed. They have proven in HoT that they have the technology to allow players to see stealth creatures…this tech should replace Revealed altogether.

I sincerely doubt ANet will reduce or remove stealth access on scrapper/mesmer/trapper runes, and making Revealed Training serve a definitive purpose while giving a committal playstyle to the thief rather than the non-committal one it has now will turn the tables on how the profession can be played, which was the goal of the elites; it wasn’t just power creep.

The solution is de-stealth and stealth detection, not Revealed.

If you did read everything and still feel the implementation of the spec is shoddy, I can’t help you. This is numerically the best implementation I was able to devise which solved conceptual problems the thief is facing right now in combat, rather than just sheer buffs. Buffs got us into the mess we’re in now. I’d rather not keep pushing for them.

I like the concept, but I’m not a big fan of suggestion that is built around Revealed because that will only make Revealed more embedded and will be hard to get rid of later on. The Daredevil Elite spec didn’t even bother working around stealth and Revealed, which is the right direction to take the Thief’s Elite profession.

We shouldn’t be accepting the existence of Revealed, nor we should even accept it as a necessary fix, because there are other solutions and they should get rid of Revealed instead of designing skills, trait, and other mechanics around it. It’s not a good mechanic, it’s a lazy solution and should not be acknowledged nor accepted as part of the Thief profession.

I heard that it’s bugged (obviously) that backstabs only deals frontstab damage. And that you can’t steal account bound items…bummer.

There should be a rule – Thou shall not make any suggestions revolving around Revealed. It’s a lazy, not well thought of mechanic that should really go away.

Just my 2 cents.

My hate towards ArenaNet is not directed at my Thieves (I have 3). I am more than likely favor to delete ArenaNet and have some other developer fix GW2 than ever deleting my Thieves. Thieves are not the problem — ArenaNet is.

Romu.1352:

Jana.6831:

Romu.1352:

dunno what ppl are talking about, i feel pretty comfy with venom share, tricks and dire set build against anyone in wvw.

Funny thing: each time someone says “thief is fine” and I ask them, when they last played, how their playstyle is, if they’re running with zergs etc.. it emerges that they last played thief 2 years ago, are running with zergs in eotm etc. so I’m taking your “thief is fine” with a grain of salt =)

nice, you have salt, i will bring lemons, now we only need tequila!

I usually roam alone, flipping camps and dollys. When i am drunk then i usually play in zerg.

As i told, i feel comfy, it does not mean i kill everyone : D
It means i have some mistake rooms with my high HP, toughness and evade skills and same time nice condi damage.

So yeah, for myself, my personal opinion is that thief is fine.

I can all do those even with player enemies defending it, but that doesn’t mean that the Thief is “fine”. It only means that even with a crappy profession, I can win a fight only because I’m a better player.

Vornollo.5182:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If your attacker wasn’t revealed — then how do you know it was a Thief?

Look at the video… Those were clearly Thief sounds and skills.

As others have pointed out, that was a trapper thief.
Kageseigi.2150 gave a great summary of what probably happened, judging by how you were getting hit. Best option would be to just remove Trapper runes from the game, or atleast remove the part where you get stealthed.
However, it’s an issue with Thief and a Thief in WvW, no less… So no, it won’t ever happen.
Next time you could maybe go into your Celestial form if you’re running that trait (even though you didn’t have it ready to go up for this instance, I see) and probably hit your Heal Skill faster when you notice you’re running into a similar situation.
After that, just kite away (don’t continue to move into a straight line). Trapper thieves only work if you stay close to them, really.

He was ambushed and when a Thief gets to ambush you, your chance of recovering is very slim. Even with Celetial, he would still go down.

If your attacker wasn’t revealed — then how do you know it was a Thief?

Anomaly.7612:

I’ve tried playing my Thief in ranked today. Lost so many games just trying to push through. I switched over to my support Ele and magically started winning. It pains me to see that as a Thief, I’m a total liability to my team, yet I change class and things get better.

I wish this meta allowed for Thief to be played at the same level as other classes because as of now, it just doesn’t seem so. Pretty sad about it. At least I can play support. /criesinterally

Support Ele are rarely in melee range, the Thief is. So either you’re really good at playing Ele and bad at playing Thief, or you just don’t know how to play a profession at melee range. Whatever the reason, the profession is not the liability — you are.

What ruined S/D is the addition of boon strip. It was a great set pre-boon strip but because of the boon strip, they have to tone down the damage of the second strike (LS), ruin skill #2, and trash CnD in the process.

This kind of “balancing” is typical of ArenaNet when they don’t want to see the set being used in PvP. Back in GW1, this is what they did to a skill that they won’t even bother balancing properly;

Smiter’s Boon (PvP) – Enchantment Spell. (5 seconds.) Your Smiting Prayers have double Divine Favor healing bonus. 25e / 0.25s AT / 90s CD

Note: (5 seconds) is the duration. Enchantments are similar to boons in GW2.

The PvE version;

Smiter’s Boon – Enchantment Spell. (30 seconds.) Your Smiting Prayers have double Divine Favor healing bonus. 5e / 0.25s AT / 10s CD

Note: This is what it’s supposed to be; long duration, low cost, and low CD.

As you can see, if the balance team decides that they don’t want something in PvP, they will destroy it by making it unusable. We can clearly see that the Devs doesn’t want S/D in PvP because all the tweaks and improvements are only happening to D/P and nothing else. So Thieves who wants to play in PvP and actually to be competitive are being pigeon holed into one weapon set.

“It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.” – Colin Johanson, January 2013 (link)

I guess that philosophy is no longer being followed.

I think it would be best to try removing all speed boosts and play without them for a while. Then after a few hours or so, include them again to your build and see the difference.

babazhook.6805:

In my own power build I prefer shadowtrap over the ambush although both work very well. This a staff build and shadowtrap becomes 2 sources of stealth (using trappers) for an extra knockdown off hook strike and a vault from stealth into an enemy group after triggering a pursuit is just so rewarding with all that might and the fury.

I really want to like Shadowtrap but I have an issue with it so I don’t even bother. The range and the inconsistency of the shadowstep mechanic are my main issues. Short range use its great (long CD though) but other than that, it’s really a hit and miss for me.

Taobella.6597:

needle trap is amazing i run it in 70% of my builds

shadow trap could be strong but it CD is to high and shadow return should be instant on destorying trap, to be worth looking at.

ambush trap sucks so does tripwire.

Needle trap only good when you’re running condi build, otherwise Ambush is the only trap worth bringing. I understand that some may not know the value of Ambush that’s why it sucks for them, but that’s fine.

MadVisions.4529:

But i’m already bored of headshot spammer pulmorarity inpact tryhards. just saying.
not like i was enjoying to fight paladin druids or scrappes or even precision strike heroes but this last piece of shlt badly designed trait is driving me insane.
GJ ANet! also decent changes on season #2 patch u’re in my debt forever as allways…

That HS spam build only works when your target becomes predictable — like seeing them using the same rotation, combo, etc.

“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” – Bruce Lee

Meaning, be flexible and unpredictable. Mix up your skill uses and learn how to force a headshot.

If they are using D/P, the most annoying part of that build is the improved dagger AA damage because even though you see big numbers from Impacting Distraction, the AA is what actually killing you. Plus the Shadowshot to make sure that you remain within melee range.

If they are using S/P, they yeah, that can get to my nerves also because of the double access to interrupt within the weapon set. Not to mention, this set has access to immob too. Less mobile that D/P but pretty solid too.

This is mainly about the DrD build.

First of all, you’re really losing a lot of damage potential when you partner CS and Trick together since CS doesn’t benefit from Steal’s low CD while DA is the best trait line to go with Trick.

Second, IMO, that’s just way too many stun breaks. For the build with DrD, all you need is Bandit’s Defense + Brawler’s Tenacity and you have all the stun breaks you’ll even need. And due to the low BD’s CD, you can even use it as a block when necessary. With BD, you can open up two slots for more useful utilities.

Third, Shadowstep has such a long CD for condition removal — you can use Scorpwire 3 times, removing 3 conditions before Shadowstep even goes off cooldown. Scorpwire also has an additional tactical use when necessary. For gap closer, Steal has lower CD than Shadowstep. For creating gap, it’s cheaper to use either Dash, Debilitating Arc, or even Weakening Charge. So of all the other options, the I don’t see why would a DrD build take Shadowstep.

Lastly, Haste, it has a potential but it’s not something I would bring myself. There are other better choices IMO.

However, I can see this may work well if I am teamed with a Chrono since alacrity will make these builds work flawlessly. Other than that, it’s hard to imagine that this build will work without a Chrono since it has a lot of long CD issue.

Wargameur.6950:

Something crossed my mind not too long ago and I can’t find a real answer to that one. Maybe it’s an overly stupid question.

I ‘ve never seen a thief using blackpowder + steal(or any sort of tp) as an engage. Is there a reason to it ? Doesn’t it make sense to bring a smoke field on the battlefield instead of wasting it outside of the range of the fight ? Is wanting to engage in stealth the reason for that? Is it really worth it?

lol, I do that with my P/P build all the time. It forces my target to waste a dodge. Not so much about going into stealth. However, it’s not very effective 100% of a time but very useful when fighting against Rangers and Mesmers in WvW. In PvE, there are mobs that cannot be blinded like the Dredge in the fractals.

For D/P, I get the same reaction in WvW when I do this combo. But unlike P/P, I cannot keep them blinded so it used to as a setup for a backstab: BP→Steal→HS→BS. The HS thru BP will keep you within BS range even if they dodge away. At least, that’s how it usually goes for me. Against more experienced players, they will simply walk out of the smoke field instead of dodging — which means, you’re in for a long fight.