Guild Wars 2

Azure The Heartless.3261:

knight.8926:

I don’t know why your complaining about not being “buff” enough but I just played thief and wow was it OP and fun to play. For those thinking its weak I main a mesmer and warrior and playing thief is seriously easy mode compared to those two. I’ll stick around thief for a while knowing how fun it is to play

What’s your build?

I also would want to know that mysterious easy mode thief build so that I can abuse it. PvE, WvW or PvP btw

meepeY.2867:

> Join WvW
> Spec for Acro, Trickery, DD for max Vigor# and Hard to Catch
> Equip Dash, Signet of Agility, New Heal
> Find a blob running between towers
> Run dead on into them
> Spam dodges all the way through 40+ people and out the otherside

So much fun!

sad thing is i always used to do that with the old trickery :/

only with acrobatics and the endurance signet

i actually like the current one better… engi is only my 2nd main so i didnt plan on unlocking scrapper until i’m 100% done with everything on my thief for wvw and pvp, but i hope the asuran mask looks similar to the charr mask

worked, such an easy fix thanks haha

MrNumnut.2635:

Did you try to await the freeze?
Every cutscene froze my PC for a min or two aswell, but eventually it worked.

I’m not used to that at all so after a few seconds I just restarted… gonna give it a try though, thanks!

When you begin the HoT Story in the Silverwastes to unlock Masteries there is a Cutszene in the beginning which I’m good with… the second cutszene always frezes the game and my whole laptop with it, only way to start again is to Restart my laptop…

Never had problems with my high settings in WvW solo/group roaming or PvP, just tried a fourth time now with low graphics settings and the same thing happened…

I had Axe and Mace from the time (over a year ago) when I was running fractals… for some reason in the collection they also added the Scepter, which I never dropped and also can’t find in my Wardrobe

Zaron.1987:

Zalavaaris.5329:

I was angry like everyone else that I had to unlock all 400 points to play my elite spec…. turns out thats not the case and I just didnt know… you have to put the thing in the bottom trait line in order to pick the elite. This whole time….. embarrassing…

and you have a weak character gz cause you lack on traits….

it’s more than good enough to run around and explore the new maps imo

Hey guys

I’m usually a WvW and PvP only player, but my main (Thief) has 100% world completion so I was able to get myself some parts of my Elite Spec unlocked in the one hour i was able to play yesterday (time was mainly taken up by checking on all the collections and whatever else was announced and new).

As a WvW and PvP player I don’t plan to do that at all for the next month or so, until things are kind of balanced… so I’d wanna ask, what is the best thing for me to do in PvE in order to get my Elite Spec?
Where do I get all the Hero Points I need, how exactly do I get to the three new maps and do I have to do the HoT Story for that?

You don’t, you only need to unlock the first minor trait in Scrapper’s traitline.
What the guy above meant that you should double check that you (for example) have Tools, Inventions and Scrapper equipped, not Tools, Inventions, Alchemy eg.

Kodiak.3281:

After thinking about it a lot I went Strength. Mightybird’s assessment is totally right and in most scenarios I will be solo or in a bad group so I will get the most out of the extra stacks of Might. Also the 150 Power vs 150 Ferocity I’m lead to believe that in general 150 power will translate into more damage than 10% more crit damage (but not that much more). The fury duration is largely useless with Herald as you can easily maintain perma Fury even running yourself out of energy, swapping to Shiro, running yourself out of energy, and still have time to get back and have Fury duration. I would use Rage pre-Herald but I’m going to use Travelers while I immediately focus on unlocking Herald so kinda a waste.

if i’m not mistaken 150 power = 5% dmg and 150 ferocity = 10% crit dmg
therefore should be: 150 ferocity > 150 power with an average crit chance okitten0%

Gray.9041:

Nocta.5274:

KeyLimPi.9031:

Well let’s be fair here, it’s not like ANY of the streams were worth a kitten .

The mesmer one was pretty good, since Helseth had footage and in depth analysis o things that mattered.

Mesmer gets done well while thief is ignored? I don’t believe it. I simply don’t believe it.

Helseth generally has really entertaining in depth videos. Why didn’t Thief have a Stream? Easy, Shiro is supposed to be the new thief, yay

I liked S/D, now I play P/P.
I like to be special and play unusual builds that work if I chose the fights (which I can, as I am a Thief).
But I just couldn’t get S/D to really work, the kiting ability + pure dmg output (also the burst) of P/P, as well as it being a really rare weapon set, still make me happy though.

But, play whatever is fun for you. S/D is in a pretty bad spot, gonna get better with HoT but only if you stick to it. Chosing a build and continueing to play it is what makes you good.

Kageseigi.2150:

Would it really be that imbalanced for a Thief to trait into gaining Resistance or immunity to conditions while in Stealth? Shadow’s Embrace is great and all, but it doesn’t seem to be enough.

SE is way better now against condi builds than before, if I ever run a Stealth Build I barely have problems with conditions.

A problem I also have with Resistance on Reveal is, that it – too – mostly chains with Stealth builds. However it would be good, especially given all the Reveal thrown around to multiple classes.

What I’d prefer is some resistance in a trait line that is not SA… good options (imo) would be CS or Acro

Daniel Handler.4816:

Um. Why didn’t you post it in the revenant forum since they have a reveal skill?

true I completely oversaw that one… don’t have time atm but if I find time in the next few days I’ll do just that

GrandHaven.1052:

Haralin.1473:

It is not redundant it is an additionally heal, and for Engis who do not want to choose the scrapper line it is not redundant.

Yeah for them its downight bad.

Just because there is a better version of it doesn’t make it a worse trait than it is atm.

I will try to get my perma swiftness elsewhere than tools and use Explosives, Alchemy, Scrapper for easy 200ish HPS without Healing Power or Super Speed

Haralin.1473:

Stealth needed a hard counter and i hope more classes get revealed skills. Sorry for the hate, but the most cowards playing thief or mesmer (my opinion).

:(

truth is though that i think a lot of lowskill cowards play thief and mesmer for stealth + mobility.

RebornbyFire.7913:

I can agree with most of this, including the following comments suggesting that Stealth-related bonuses should really only apply upon entering/leaving stealth, so that camping it is less encouraged. The OP’s idea for “Spotted” is pretty good, as well as the following suggestion that stealth-attacking into a block/distortion/dodge/etc. should apply “spotted” to the attacker. I also like the idea of some bonus for hitting non-stealthed players with the various revealing skills.

I would suggest that “Spotted” in general should have a longer duration and/or more ways to apply it than the current “Revealed” mechanic, but it should have a limited effective range: Once the “Spotted” player has gotten far enough away from the player who applied spotted to him, the effect should be dropped. Possibly, even breaking Line of Sight for more than a second or two should drop the effect.

Nice ideas! And yeah, the guardian forum seems to support my suggestions way more than the other forums
Gonna collect all of the ideas that were posted in a few days/a week or two, quite some nice suggestions in between.

apharma.3741:

Firstly, headshot and shadowshot are not “heavy initiative” they are medium so stop being a drama queen, it’s why people dislike the thief forums and people who dwell there.

Well Headshot or Shadow Shot may not be initiative heavy, it’s rather that having to use them pretty often while revealed to avoid dmg that makes them hit heavy on your Ini bar.
Could’ve also said that without insulting btw, thank you very much.

Secondly I think that spotted would be hard to telegraph to players about what is going on. The current stealth (being see through) and revealed communicates what is happening VERY well.

Spotted could mean everyone is able to see you. Normally. And to show that you’re stealthed you could still have the stealth + a spotted sign on your health bar.

I said on the thief forum, why not ask for “While in stealth” traits to be changed to “When entering stealth”? This way is dissuades against stealth camping which has been the biggest complaint in WvW.

That’s what I want and a lot of other Thieves as well… for SA and PU.
Some thieves are not as whiny loosers as you make it seem, some are capable of thinking through fair changes.

Only things I think needs changing is revealed knocked down a notch to 5s and not stacking. As for thief itself daredevil and acrobatics are going to be very strong especially if they make the “on dodge” traits a little more forgiving so you get the benefits if you dodged about half a second early.

The problem for thieves isn’t revealed, it’s that you’re entirely dependant on stealth for any kind of meaningful condi cleansing and sustain.

Also I can’t believe you’re complaining about the skills/traits you’ve listed which all have a hefty cost to using them vs whatever else they could have taken. The thing you should fear is Gaze of Darkness as it’s a useful skill in and of itself on a legend that is also extremely useful.

I’m calling for a rebalance because it’s a free win. Occasionally but still.
Same like Diamond Skin on Eles should be changed.

Rizo.9534:

Tarkan.5609:

The only problem I see with Reveal from other classes is that they lock Thieves out of a whole trait line, making Stealth have one counter only – and that’s a hard counter.
Some more counters, but soft counters, would be nicer imo.

Same with rangers. If pet Die(it die really quick) we have locked Fully from BM tree.
More of that. Runes of Ranger did not work and 30% of our other traits did not work too.
20% of our skills based on our pet, and worst thing, that you can’t prevent pets death, because it has very low HP pool, can’t clean conditions and can’t dodge.

We have mechanic, that Locks 50% of our class mechanic for 1min every time PET dies and we can do noting with it.

And you complain about skills, that lock only one of your trees for only 4-6sec and asking for soft counter?

Guess why Ranger hasn’t been in the Meta for a long time.
That’s because it class mechanic is flawed, just like Necros (who only have a Meta place because of their boon conversion against D/D Eles)
Just because it’s been there for a long time desn’t mean it shouldn’t be changed.

Tuomir.1830:

Getting revealed is similar to getting interrupted – both throw off your plans big time. If a mesmer p-blocks your heal, chances are you’re in trouble. The counterplays are similar, too – bait out the revealed, dodge or avoid it if it has a cast time. For both, after the fact there isn’t much you can do about the interruption/reveal, but you need to deal with the results. The only thing you can’t do for revealed as opposed to interruption is to prevent it with stability – which I actually wouldn’t mind with the caveat that self-applied revealed (from going out of stealth) would go through stability.

Regarding the cast time you meantioned… Reveal skills currently don’t have any, that’s why it’s a counterplay that can’t be countered. Just like Mesmers Mantra you mentioned, which is a 100% stun and should be nerfed a bit, but well that’s not the topic.

All I want is to not be (in theory, if Thief was op) facerolling over everything unless they got Sic ’Em/Analyze/Lock On, in which case they could face roll me.

Dadnir.5038:

I wouldn’t even suggest anything if Shadow Arts wasn’t the best defensive option for Thief. Look at Acro, going for Critical Strikes is probably way better than taking Acro because you could take Invigorating Precision…
As soon as Anet is making Acro viable again I’ll stop using SA and jump on Acro S/D, the problem atm is though that its just outshined by… well everything basically

This is exactly my point. You won’t fix the issue by “buffing” something that’s absolutely unrelated. Honestly, Acro need work (I mean a lot of work) while stealth need to stay as it is right now. Introducing a new feature revolving around stealth because Acro can’t do it’s job is a nonsense. (There is barely any trait on the whole Acro traitline that don’t need work… It’s sad but it’s the reality).

SA could use some rework, Acro could use some rework.
So you would rather have one hard counter and no soft counters? Your skills could also be made stronger in general (extra offensive/defensive boons/effects), which could balance what you lost why not Revealing.

Raiden.1375:

Tarkan.5609:

• Make the skills not apply “Revealed”, but rather an effect called “Spotted”: everyone can see the target(s) while they still gain the benefits from being in stealth (easy to avoid Backstabs or Mirror Blades for example, but Thieves and Mesmers are not totally locked out of stealth traits they may have chosen for survivability).

I basically suggested the same thing in my Total Thief Rebalance thread but called the new debuff Exposed instead. The name doesn’t really matter, but I think this is the best solution because it will make all of the current skills that apply Revealed function just about the same as they do now, but they won’t shut down the Stealth Attack Thief mechanic in the process. These skills will all be very effective at countering stealth still.

Yeah I saw that suggestion in your thread and a very close on in another one as well.
Didn’t want to link your thread though as I don’t agree with some things you changed (one being Cloak&Dagger) and I think a lot of people would’ve read through your post and answered mine with comments regarding your thread.

Edit: Don’t get me wrong though, I liked a lot of your suggestions, just some things in SA or Acro didn’t really fit to my point of view.

Air sigil is currently bugged, on kitten ICD instead of 3s (apart from the chance on crit the superior sigil is currently just as good as the major one).

So if you plan on running Air+Blood/Fire, I’d rather take Fire+Blood/Air. I’m personally still using Fire/Air, not sure how good Blood’s leeching is though

Lite.3819:

santenal.1054:

Fighting you stealth abusers is a real chore for alot of builds/classes and i would like to see more reasonable counters to stealth.

Thieves abuse stealth is because they have a lot of benefits from it. Stealth removes conditions, stealth heals, charge inti. Etc. Worst of all there is absolutely nothing you can do about it pre-reveal.

I think there should be even more reveals as stealth isn’t thieves only strong point. Evasion skills and endurance regeneration is one also but thieves refuse to trait that direction as it easier to just stealth. Just like how the new specialization gave engineers a way to fight outside of reflect, thieves new specialization gave thieves a way to fight outside of stealth. Would thieves use it? I doubt it. Anet is literally screaming at thieves to stop depending on stealth so much and evade once in a while but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

I never had trouble seeing a thief. If I revealed a thief it “is” to lock them out of their stealth benefits and punishing them for traiting so heavily in that direction.

Actually, pre June 23rd 2/0/0/6/6 S/D Thief was pretty popular.
It was outshined by D/P 6/0/2/0/6 (PvP Stealth Build), but the Acrobatics Evade Build was what I used to run and also a lot of other Thieves who didn’t like Stealth much.
The problem is that currently taking Acrobatics is way less effective than just taking Shadow Arts or our 2nd offensive trait line Critical Strikes… just because Acrobatics was nerfed that much.
I for my part will run Daredevil with S/D + Staff as a stealthless build, but I think that should be possible before Eite Specs as well…
A lot of Thieves would chose a more or less viable non Stealth Build over the current Meta imo.

Vikkela.7261:

What about stealthed players that attack into a Block or the enemy Evades, shouldn’t the attacker be ‘spotted’?

That actually sounds like a decent idea, better than making BS have a CD or drop stealth immediately… and it would makes sense.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Sounds good. I’ll sign it off today and we should see it implemented Tuesday.

100% should be a dev.

Rizo.9534:

Before reveal skills, Stealth has NO conterplay at all.
You can go among people, threw people and don’t be afraid, that something will goes wrong.

Looks like it’s really hard for Thiefs and mesmers to swallow that fact, that now, they have to outplay someone and that they have to keep in mind, that you can be revealed.

“Revealed” buff added conterplay possibility.

I don’t feel fare. that mesmer can make 20k damage from stealth, and you can’t even dodge it, because you don’t even see it.

Thiefs and Mesmers have to be glad, that Anet did not added same Stealth mechanic like all other MMOs, when every damage will Reveal you automatically.

You can avoid Mirror Blade because it can be seen (like any projectile from stealth).
The only problem I see with Reveal from other classes is that they lock Thieves out of a whole trait line, making Stealth have one counter only – and that’s a hard counter.
Some more counters, but soft counters, would be nicer imo.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Can we get this poinless re-post thread deleted please? It does not belong here and its just spam, posted in multiple places.

Stealth needs counter play. Period.

I just felt like I should ask for opinions in the forums where the topic fits, as Ranger has both Stealth and Revealed that was a forum where the opinion mattered imo.
Counterplay yes, but only one hard counter? what about more soft counters instead, so that it’s not an insta win when used correctly.

IgnisVulpesXI.3015:

I play Berserker S/D Rifle engineer in PvP and I do take Utility Googles/Analyze for the 10% extra damage + lightning proc. I’ve found out that after the first encounter, Thieves have ways to counter my Analyze, be it Shadowstepping away for the revealed duration, frontloading their burst so Revealed doesn’t matter anymore since I should die soon or act as +1’s in fights and come from behind when my attention is focused somewhere else.

That’s why it’s been a long time since any Berserker Build (apart from Mesmer because of Stealth + Portal and apart from Medi Guard because it counters Thief) was in the Meta.
Thief pretty much counters most Berserker Builds as you can engage in stealth and with Initiative have a really high burst.

I really see it more as a, as much as I hate using the expression, learn to play issue. Toolbelt Analyze requires the enemy to be visible so you have to guess when it will be useful; Detection Pulse, albeit AoE with wide radius, will have to be saved for when you know someone’s in Stealth nearby and it locks out AoE Moa, Orbital Strike and AoE Healpacks, which I’d say is a big trade-off for any engineer. I won’t talk about Lock On since, as it is now, won’t even properly pull targets out of Stealth.

True that but as a Thief I can tell you after the first Analyze, where we can Shadowstep out, on the second Analyze we can do nothing but dodge/“spam” #3 on D/P in order to hope that we don’t get hit by Overcharged Shot until reveal runs off.
It’s like a who survives game, if you are able to survive the Thief’s first burst he will likely be able to survive your first Analyze, but then have trouble survive with Lock On.
And until you got Analyze up again it’s the Thief’s time to burst.

You have to consider that the builds that might run Utility Googles and Lock On are burst builds, so chances are they’ll have at most Self-Regulating Defenses and perhaps Vampirism Mistform as means of ‘reactive’ defense; if caught, they die.

I think as a Thief thats a good trade off (in a 1v1 situation) as an Analyze after a used Shadowstep can mean free burst (you can also make yourself invulnerable to Blind, at which point the Thief can theoretically only dodge hoping not to die.
Elixir S is not too good in 1v1s against Thieves in my experience apart from the stealth for burst setup, as the Thief has time to get his reveal off himself and regenerate 4 Initiative. It’s basically his chance to stealth in order to reburst.
However if you react offensively your chances are high to burst the Thief down right after his burst, the easiest fights imo are the ones where the other player plays passively after you got your burst off.

EDIT: I guess I didn’t really answer your question directly; I’d say the Engineer skills are fair enough in what you have to give up to get the Revealed option: lose out one Utility Skill, on dual kit builds that means dropping Elixir S for instance; taking Lock On (which doesn’t ‘properly’ work as it does apply Revealed but doesn’t pull people off Stealth) over Power Wrench or Static Discharge; or losing out on powerful Elite skills (not counting we don’t even know how useful Sneak Gyro is yet).

However I understand your point coming from such a “niche” spec, personally still don’t like 3 possible reveals on Engi alone, denying us a whole trait line.
Anyway, thanks for the reply!

Agemnon.4608:

At least reveal doesn’t effect stability or blocking so all those reveal traits will be totally useless against a warrior.

And that’s exactly what I’d like to see changed (look at Another Idea)
Currently these abilities are useless against any class apart from Mesmer and Thief (and against the latter it can mean an easy insta win on a burst or condi burst build).

Ezrael.6859:

Light’s Judgment is 139 damage 8 times over 8 seconds.
10 Vulnerability for 2s per pulse.
1s of Revealed per pulse.

Of all the skills to reveal stealth it is the worst for 1v1 by far, it’s meant to reveal a large group of enemies that can’t quickly re-stealth (like a WvW zerg that veiled).

As for stealth counters, stealth is massively powerful in this game, it’s easily accessible and quick to be able to re-enter even after being revealed. You can stealth in combat with any stealth ability unlike other games.

And when you mess up or get countered during stealth like someone Blinding, Blocking or Dodging your Backstabs it doesn’t matter, you can just push 1 till it connects for massive damage as you don’t get revealed! So easy.

I personally think SA should get a rehaul making stealth camping way less optimal than right now.
What would you suggest, 1s CD on BS?

Dadnir.5038:

Well, everything need a counter play, even stealth. And reveal is the counter play to steath. Your idea are not bad but maybe, it’s just a guess, Anet would like that thieve use every spec instead of locking them in shadow art.

I don’t think what you want is needed. In fact what you propose would force thieves even more into one traitline because “it’s the best one”. For me, this is a bad solution to your issues.

I wouldn’t even suggest anything if Shadow Arts wasn’t the best defensive option for Thief. Look at Acro, going for Critical Strikes is probably way better than taking Acro because you could take Invigorating Precision…
As soon as Anet is making Acro viable again I’ll stop using SA and jump on Acro S/D, the problem atm is though that its just outshined by… well everything basically

Shadow Phage.9084:

A couple thoughts.

Thieves are reliant on stealth because they are poorly designed, much like Assassins from GW1. DareDevil and s/s Shiro Revenant are basically what thieves SHOULD have been, with a bit of stealth added on for flavor.

On to stealth itself.
GW2’s implementation, at the moment, is very binary. It has no true soft counters, and one hard counter: revealed. I am all for adding soft counters to the stealth mechanic.

I was fond of some of the approaches SW:TOR used for stealth. Invisible at range, but you start ‘ghosting’ to partially visible if you run around close to your target while in their forward arc. Then, Snipers/Gunslingers got a passive that let them gradually build up this stacking buff that increased the range at which stealthed targets started ‘ghosting’ (only for the sniper though, and only while in cover).

While it’d probably kitten people off, I’d be ok with the Spotter trait being reworked into a stealth soft counter trait. It could possibly allow the ranger to see through stealth at short/mid ranges(900-ish ?), similar to what the OP’s ‘Spotted’ debuff does.

As for engi’s, I have a lvl 80 engi but I rarely play it. That said, the amount of reveal they are heaping onto the class is a bit absurd. I really don’t want engi (or any class) to become the ‘anti-stealth class’. That’s just kittenty design.

Generally agree with everything you said but I think 900 would be too much.
I’d say at 600 you should be able to see a bit of blur.

Btw I also got every single class at 80 with at least 50 hours of pure WvW Solo Roaming and PvP Unranked/Ranked on each.
And while I’m a Thief main, I still regularly play other classes… ironically my 2nd main is an Engi. And no matter how often I do play a class, S/F Ele is the only build where I partly got problems with Thieves sadly

Treetoptrickster.4205:

OH Sword’s block can be used while moving and has a lower recharge and chains into an aoe immob.

I got two problems with Sword OH:

• #4 costs 20 Energy in order to get the immobilize off, which is quite a bit
• #5 is really hard to land and is actually way worse than #2 on Sword

I feel like that as well, Shadow Rejuvination should heal when you reveal yourself through attacking and when you gain stealth.
Nevertheless I think that reveal from other classes don’t help much at balancing this because it basically makes these traits unusable for 6s, completely throwing of a Thief’s defense

Hey everyone
in this Thread I would like to discuss the effect “Revealed”, specifically granted by the skills I will mention in just a second.
I will post this in the Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Ranger and Guardian Forum as these are the professions that either (usually) use stealth or have the ability to apply Revealed through their skills (or, in the case of Dragonhunter, will have the ability).

Before replying please read the whole post, I know it’s a lot but there are also important suggestions + notes in the last few sentences. Thank you

Skills/Traits applying Reveal:

• Analyze (Engineer Toolbelt Utility Skill of Utility Goggles: 6s 1200 Range Reveal + 10×8s Vulnerability, 25s CD)
• Lock On (Engineer Tools Major Master Trait: Striking foes in Stealth analyzes them – see above)
• Detection Pulse (Scrapper Toolbelt Elite Skill of Sneak Gyro: 6s 900 Range AoE Reveal, 20s CD)
• “Sic ’Em!” (Ranger Utility Skill: 6s 2000 Range Reveal, 40s CD)
• Light’s Judgement (Dragonhunger Utility Skill: 10 240 AoE Pulses with 1100 Dmg, 8x 1s Reveal and 25×2s Vulnerability, kitten CD)

Why Do We Complain?
In the Thief Forum there have been a lot of suggestions/complaints about these Skills/Traits in particular. While we do know that they are rarely taken, Analyze, Lock On or Sic ‘Em are seen fairly often on Burst Builds.
Especially Thieves are targeted by the Reveal, as Stealth is currently our best defensive mechanic as Acrobatics (the Thief’s dodge trait line) sucks.
Given that we have an entire trait line based on stealth, lots of utilities and weapon combos balanced around it (while Stealth is not a Thief mechanic, Sneak Attacks are).

These skills/this trait pretty much deny us a whole trait line in a fight and with that most of our surviability, while Revealed we don’t have access to as much dmg as usual (which we usually build for) and the only defensive mechanics we then got are:

• Dodges (which every profession got, so these basically don’t count)
• Blind (very Initiative heavy)
• Interrupts (very Initiative heavy)
  Basically the only other two viable options are kiting (= no dmg) and shadow stepping out to wait until Revealed is over (50s CD).

Suggestions
Because of these reasons there have been some suggestions to change the Revealed effect of these skills/this trait:

• Make the skills not apply “Revealed”, but rather an effect called “Spotted”: everyone can see the target(s) while they still gain the benefits from being in stealth (easy to avoid Backstabs or Mirror Blades for example, but Thieves and Mesmers are not totally locked out of stealth traits they may have chosen for survivability).
• Make the skills be AoE and not apply Revealed to the target(s), but simply drop the stealth that’s currently on them. In this case the skills could even get a casting time and an animation in order to make them counterable.

With these changes, Revealed (and therefore possible “locked” chosen traits) could only be achieved by dealing damage from stealth, which at least a lot of Thieves deem fairer.

Many Thieves think that Revealed on Skills is a bad mechanic that wasn’t thought through, just thrown in to give people a counter to the former counterless stealth. Funnily enough, Anet thereby designed a counterless counter.

Another Idea
Also, I personally think that Analyze (and thereby Lock On), Detection Pulse, “Sic ’Em!” and Light’s Judgement should get benefits when hitting targets without Stealth.
For example, if you’d hit a Thief and a Warrior with Detection Pulse while the Thief was revealed, the Thief would get “Spotted” or dropped out of stealth. As the Warrior wasn’t stealthed, a possibility could be for the Scrapper to gain 1s of Stealth (could be 1s of Stealth for every non-stealthed target hit, while prioritizing stealthed targets. Detection Pulse should have a maximum amount of targets then).
With changes like this, I think these skills and traits would see more use (outside of rekking Thieves ) and would also have a more tactical approach.

Before Answering, Please
Please, before answering, consider the following: With this thread or these suggestions I don’t mean to balance any professions or builds, but rather only the skills I talked about and “Revealed”.
Therefore simply saying “No, it should stay, Mesmer and Thief OP” doesn’t contribute at all, as Mesmer’s or Thief’s OPness or not should be balanced by itself (Traits, Weapon Skills,…) and not through Skills of other professions.
I know it can be hard to differentiate (especially as a lot of players hate Thieves and think that Mesmers are OP at the moment).

Anyway, thanks for reading and what do you guys think about my suggestions?

Hey everyone
in this Thread I would like to discuss the effect “Revealed”, specifically granted by the skills I will mention in just a second.
I will post this in the Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Ranger and Guardian Forum as these are the professions that either (usually) use stealth or have the ability to apply Revealed through their skills (or, in the case of Dragonhunter, will have the ability).

Before replying please read the whole post, I know it’s a lot but there are also important suggestions + notes in the last few sentences. Thank you

Skills/Traits applying Reveal:

• Analyze (Engineer Toolbelt Utility Skill of Utility Goggles: 6s 1200 Range Reveal + 10×8s Vulnerability, 25s CD)
• Lock On (Engineer Tools Major Master Trait: Striking foes in Stealth analyzes them – see above)
• Detection Pulse (Scrapper Toolbelt Elite Skill of Sneak Gyro: 6s 900 Range AoE Reveal, 20s CD)
• “Sic ’Em!” (Ranger Utility Skill: 6s 2000 Range Reveal, 40s CD)
• Light’s Judgement (Dragonhunger Utility Skill: 10 240 AoE Pulses with 1100 Dmg, 8x 1s Reveal and 25×2s Vulnerability, kitten CD)

Why Do We Complain?
In the Thief Forum there have been a lot of suggestions/complaints about these Skills/Traits in particular. While we do know that they are rarely taken, Analyze, Lock On or Sic ‘Em are seen fairly often on Burst Builds.
Especially Thieves are targeted by the Reveal, as Stealth is currently our best defensive mechanic as Acrobatics (the Thief’s dodge trait line) sucks.
Given that we have an entire trait line based on stealth, lots of utilities and weapon combos balanced around it (while Stealth is not a Thief mechanic, Sneak Attacks are).

These skills/this trait pretty much deny us a whole trait line in a fight and with that most of our surviability, while Revealed we don’t have access to as much dmg as usual (which we usually build for) and the only defensive mechanics we then got are:

• Dodges (which every profession got, so these basically don’t count)
• Blind (very Initiative heavy)
• Interrupts (very Initiative heavy)
  Basically the only other two viable options are kiting (= no dmg) and shadow stepping out to wait until Revealed is over (50s CD).

Suggestions
Because of these reasons there have been some suggestions to change the Revealed effect of these skills/this trait:

• Make the skills not apply “Revealed”, but rather an effect called “Spotted”: everyone can see the target(s) while they still gain the benefits from being in stealth (easy to avoid Backstabs or Mirror Blades for example, but Thieves and Mesmers are not totally locked out of stealth traits they may have chosen for survivability).
• Make the skills be AoE and not apply Revealed to the target(s), but simply drop the stealth that’s currently on them. In this case the skills could even get a casting time and an animation in order to make them counterable.

With these changes, Revealed (and therefore possible “locked” chosen traits) could only be achieved by dealing damage from stealth, which at least a lot of Thieves deem fairer.

Many Thieves think that Revealed on Skills is a bad mechanic that wasn’t thought through, just thrown in to give people a counter to the former counterless stealth. Funnily enough, Anet thereby designed a counterless counter.

Another Idea
Also, I personally think that Analyze (and thereby Lock On), Detection Pulse, “Sic ’Em!” and Light’s Judgement should get benefits when hitting targets without Stealth.
For example, if you’d hit a Thief and a Warrior with Detection Pulse while the Thief was revealed, the Thief would get “Spotted” or dropped out of stealth. As the Warrior wasn’t stealthed, a possibility could be for the Scrapper to gain 1s of Stealth (could be 1s of Stealth for every non-stealthed target hit, while prioritizing stealthed targets. Detection Pulse should have a maximum amount of targets then).
With changes like this, I think these skills and traits would see more use (outside of rekking Thieves ) and would also have a more tactical approach.

Before Answering, Please
Please, before answering, consider the following: With this thread or these suggestions I don’t mean to balance any professions or builds, but rather only the skills I talked about and “Revealed”.
Therefore simply saying “No, it should stay, Mesmer and Thief OP” doesn’t contribute at all, as Mesmer’s or Thief’s OPness or not should be balanced by itself (Traits, Weapon Skills,…) and not through Skills of other professions.
I know it can be hard to differentiate (especially as a lot of players hate Thieves and think that Mesmers are OP at the moment).

Anyway, thanks for reading and what do you guys think about my suggestions?

Hey everyone
in this Thread I would like to discuss the effect “Revealed”, specifically granted by the skills I will mention in just a second.
I will post this in the Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Ranger and Guardian Forum as these are the professions that either (usually) use stealth or have the ability to apply Revealed through their skills (or, in the case of Dragonhunter, will have the ability).

Before replying please read the whole post, I know it’s a lot but there are also important suggestions + notes in the last few sentences. Thank you

Skills/Traits applying Reveal:

• Analyze (Engineer Toolbelt Utility Skill of Utility Goggles: 6s 1200 Range Reveal + 10×8s Vulnerability, 25s CD)
• Lock On (Engineer Tools Major Master Trait: Striking foes in Stealth analyzes them – see above)
• Detection Pulse (Scrapper Toolbelt Elite Skill of Sneak Gyro: 6s 900 Range AoE Reveal, 20s CD)
• “Sic ’Em!” (Ranger Utility Skill: 6s 2000 Range Reveal, 40s CD)
• Light’s Judgement (Dragonhunger Utility Skill: 10 240 AoE Pulses with 1100 Dmg, 8x 1s Reveal and 25×2s Vulnerability, kitten CD)

Why Do We Complain?
In the Thief Forum there have been a lot of suggestions/complaints about these Skills/Traits in particular. While we do know that they are rarely taken, Analyze, Lock On or Sic ‘Em are seen fairly often on Burst Builds.
Especially Thieves are targeted by the Reveal, as Stealth is currently our best defensive mechanic as Acrobatics (the Thief’s dodge trait line) sucks.
Given that we have an entire trait line based on stealth, lots of utilities and weapon combos balanced around it (while Stealth is not a Thief mechanic, Sneak Attacks are).

These skills/this trait pretty much deny us a whole trait line in a fight and with that most of our surviability, while Revealed we don’t have access to as much dmg as usual (which we usually build for) and the only defensive mechanics we then got are:

• Dodges (which every profession got, so these basically don’t count)
• Blind (very Initiative heavy)
• Interrupts (very Initiative heavy)
  Basically the only other two viable options are kiting (= no dmg) and shadow stepping out to wait until Revealed is over (50s CD).

Suggestions
Because of these reasons there have been some suggestions to change the Revealed effect of these skills/this trait:

• Make the skills not apply “Revealed”, but rather an effect called “Spotted”: everyone can see the target(s) while they still gain the benefits from being in stealth (easy to avoid Backstabs or Mirror Blades for example, but Thieves and Mesmers are not totally locked out of stealth traits they may have chosen for survivability).
• Make the skills be AoE and not apply Revealed to the target(s), but simply drop the stealth that’s currently on them. In this case the skills could even get a casting time and an animation in order to make them counterable.

With these changes, Revealed (and therefore possible “locked” chosen traits) could only be achieved by dealing damage from stealth, which at least a lot of Thieves deem fairer.

Many Thieves think that Revealed on Skills is a bad mechanic that wasn’t thought through, just thrown in to give people a counter to the former counterless stealth. Funnily enough, Anet thereby designed a counterless counter.

Another Idea
Also, I personally think that Analyze (and thereby Lock On), Detection Pulse, “Sic ’Em!” and Light’s Judgement should get benefits when hitting targets without Stealth.
For example, if you’d hit a Thief and a Warrior with Detection Pulse while the Thief was revealed, the Thief would get “Spotted” or dropped out of stealth. As the Warrior wasn’t stealthed, a possibility could be for the Scrapper to gain 1s of Stealth (could be 1s of Stealth for every non-stealthed target hit, while prioritizing stealthed targets. Detection Pulse should have a maximum amount of targets then).
With changes like this, I think these skills and traits would see more use (outside of rekking Thieves ) and would also have a more tactical approach.

Before Answering, Please
Please, before answering, consider the following: With this thread or these suggestions I don’t mean to balance any professions or builds, but rather only the skills I talked about and “Revealed”.
Therefore simply saying “No, it should stay, Mesmer and Thief OP” doesn’t contribute at all, as Mesmer’s or Thief’s OPness or not should be balanced by itself (Traits, Weapon Skills,…) and not through Skills of other professions.
I know it can be hard to differentiate (especially as a lot of players hate Thieves and think that Mesmers are OP at the moment).

Anyway, thanks for reading and what do you guys think about my suggestions?

Hey everyone
in this Thread I would like to discuss the effect “Revealed”, specifically granted by the skills I will mention in just a second.
I will post this in the Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Ranger and Guardian Forum as these are the professions that either (usually) use stealth or have the ability to apply Revealed through their skills (or, in the case of Dragonhunter, will have the ability).

Before replying please read the whole post, I know it’s a lot but there are also important suggestions + notes in the last few sentences. Thank you

Skills/Traits applying Reveal:

• Analyze (Engineer Toolbelt Utility Skill of Utility Goggles: 6s 1200 Range Reveal + 10×8s Vulnerability, 25s CD)
• Lock On (Engineer Tools Major Master Trait: Striking foes in Stealth analyzes them – see above)
• Detection Pulse (Scrapper Toolbelt Elite Skill of Sneak Gyro: 6s 900 Range AoE Reveal, 20s CD)
• “Sic ’Em!” (Ranger Utility Skill: 6s 2000 Range Reveal, 40s CD)
• Light’s Judgement (Dragonhunger Utility Skill: 10 240 AoE Pulses with 1100 Dmg, 8x 1s Reveal and 25×2s Vulnerability, kitten CD)

Why Do We Complain?
In the Thief Forum there have been a lot of suggestions/complaints about these Skills/Traits in particular. While we do know that they are rarely taken, Analyze, Lock On or Sic ‘Em are seen fairly often on Burst Builds.
Especially Thieves are targeted by the Reveal, as Stealth is currently our best defensive mechanic as Acrobatics (the Thief’s dodge trait line) sucks.
Given that we have an entire trait line based on stealth, lots of utilities and weapon combos balanced around it (while Stealth is not a Thief mechanic, Sneak Attacks are).

These skills/this trait pretty much deny us a whole trait line in a fight and with that most of our surviability, while Revealed we don’t have access to as much dmg as usual (which we usually build for) and the only defensive mechanics we then got are:

• Dodges (which every profession got, so these basically don’t count)
• Blind (very Initiative heavy)
• Interrupts (very Initiative heavy)
  Basically the only other two viable options are kiting (= no dmg) and shadow stepping out to wait until Revealed is over (50s CD).

Suggestions
Because of these reasons there have been some suggestions to change the Revealed effect of these skills/this trait:

• Make the skills not apply “Revealed”, but rather an effect called “Spotted”: everyone can see the target(s) while they still gain the benefits from being in stealth (easy to avoid Backstabs or Mirror Blades for example, but Thieves and Mesmers are not totally locked out of stealth traits they may have chosen for survivability).
• Make the skills be AoE and not apply Revealed to the target(s), but simply drop the stealth that’s currently on them. In this case the skills could even get a casting time and an animation in order to make them counterable.

With these changes, Revealed (and therefore possible “locked” chosen traits) could only be achieved by dealing damage from stealth, which at least a lot of Thieves deem fairer.

Many Thieves think that Revealed on Skills is a bad mechanic that wasn’t thought through, just thrown in to give people a counter to the former counterless stealth. Funnily enough, Anet thereby designed a counterless counter.

Another Idea
Also, I personally think that Analyze (and thereby Lock On), Detection Pulse, “Sic ’Em!” and Light’s Judgement should get benefits when hitting targets without Stealth.
For example, if you’d hit a Thief and a Warrior with Detection Pulse while the Thief was revealed, the Thief would get “Spotted” or dropped out of stealth. As the Warrior wasn’t stealthed, a possibility could be for the Scrapper to gain 1s of Stealth (could be 1s of Stealth for every non-stealthed target hit, while prioritizing stealthed targets. Detection Pulse should have a maximum amount of targets then).
With changes like this, I think these skills and traits would see more use (outside of rekking Thieves ) and would also have a more tactical approach.

Before Answering, Please
Please, before answering, consider the following: With this thread or these suggestions I don’t mean to balance any professions or builds, but rather only the skills I talked about and “Revealed”.
Therefore simply saying “No, it should stay, Mesmer and Thief OP” doesn’t contribute at all, as Mesmer’s or Thief’s OPness or not should be balanced by itself (Traits, Weapon Skills,…) and not through Skills of other professions.
I know it can be hard to differentiate (especially as a lot of players hate Thieves and think that Mesmers are OP at the moment).

Anyway, thanks for reading and what do you guys think about my suggestions?

Hey everyone
in this Thread I would like to discuss the effect “Revealed”, specifically granted by the skills I will mention in just a second.
I will post this in the Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Ranger and Guardian Forum as these are the professions that either (usually) use stealth or have the ability to apply Revealed through their skills (or, in the case of Dragonhunter, will have the ability).

Before replying please read the whole post, I know it’s a lot but there are also important suggestions + notes in the last few sentences. Thank you

Skills/Traits applying Reveal:

• Analyze (Engineer Toolbelt Utility Skill of Utility Goggles: 6s 1200 Range Reveal + 10×8s Vulnerability, 25s CD)
• Lock On (Engineer Tools Major Master Trait: Striking foes in Stealth analyzes them – see above)
• Detection Pulse (Scrapper Toolbelt Elite Skill of Sneak Gyro: 6s 900 Range AoE Reveal, 20s CD)
• “Sic ’Em!” (Ranger Utility Skill: 6s 2000 Range Reveal, 40s CD)
• Light’s Judgement (Dragonhunger Utility Skill: 10 240 AoE Pulses with 1100 Dmg, 8x 1s Reveal and 25×2s Vulnerability, kitten CD)

Why Do We Complain?
In the Thief Forum there have been a lot of suggestions/complaints about these Skills/Traits in particular. While we do know that they are rarely taken, Analyze, Lock On or Sic ‘Em are seen fairly often on Burst Builds.
Especially Thieves are targeted by the Reveal, as Stealth is currently our best defensive mechanic as Acrobatics (the Thief’s dodge trait line) sucks.
Given that we have an entire trait line based on stealth, lots of utilities and weapon combos balanced around it (while Stealth is not a Thief mechanic, Sneak Attacks are).

These skills/this trait pretty much deny us a whole trait line in a fight and with that most of our surviability, while Revealed we don’t have access to as much dmg as usual (which we usually build for) and the only defensive mechanics we then got are:

• Dodges (which every profession got, so these basically don’t count)
• Blind (very Initiative heavy)
• Interrupts (very Initiative heavy)
  Basically the only other two viable options are kiting (= no dmg) and shadow stepping out to wait until Revealed is over (50s CD).

Suggestions
Because of these reasons there have been some suggestions to change the Revealed effect of these skills/this trait:

• Make the skills not apply “Revealed”, but rather an effect called “Spotted”: everyone can see the target(s) while they still gain the benefits from being in stealth (easy to avoid Backstabs or Mirror Blades for example, but Thieves and Mesmers are not totally locked out of stealth traits they may have chosen for survivability).
• Make the skills be AoE and not apply Revealed to the target(s), but simply drop the stealth that’s currently on them. In this case the skills could even get a casting time and an animation in order to make them counterable.

With these changes, Revealed (and therefore possible “locked” chosen traits) could only be achieved by dealing damage from stealth, which at least a lot of Thieves deem fairer.

Many Thieves think that Revealed on Skills is a bad mechanic that wasn’t thought through, just thrown in to give people a counter to the former counterless stealth. Funnily enough, Anet thereby designed a counterless counter.

Another Idea
Also, I personally think that Analyze (and thereby Lock On), Detection Pulse, “Sic ’Em!” and Light’s Judgement should get benefits when hitting targets without Stealth.
For example, if you’d hit a Thief and a Warrior with Detection Pulse while the Thief was revealed, the Thief would get “Spotted” or dropped out of stealth. As the Warrior wasn’t stealthed, a possibility could be for the Scrapper to gain 1s of Stealth (could be 1s of Stealth for every non-stealthed target hit, while prioritizing stealthed targets. Detection Pulse should have a maximum amount of targets then).
With changes like this, I think these skills and traits would see more use (outside of rekking Thieves ) and would also have a more tactical approach.

Before Answering, Please
Please, before answering, consider the following: With this thread or these suggestions I don’t mean to balance any professions or builds, but rather only the skills I talked about and “Revealed”.
Therefore simply saying “No, it should stay, Mesmer and Thief OP” doesn’t contribute at all, as Mesmer’s or Thief’s OPness or not should be balanced by itself (Traits, Weapon Skills,…) and not through Skills of other professions.
I know it can be hard to differentiate (especially as a lot of players hate Thieves and think that Mesmers are OP at the moment).

Anyway, thanks for reading and what do you guys think about my suggestions?

Agemnon.4608:

Keep in mind the game isn’t just about you (or more specifically, the self in general) and if you queue as an objectively bad class you’re handicapping your team. Yes, team, with real people, who also want to win. I’d like to use thief too but it just isn’t viable. Even I say no rangers or thieves but people tend to have many classes anyway so why not queue on a mesmer, guardian, elementalist, or warrior instead?

I don’t mind nicely asking to switch classes, but after all everyone can play what they want. Especially in Unranked it doesn’t matter that much anyway, even though it could be considered wasted time or frustration.

I don’t even know why one class on it’s own gets 3 ways to Reveal. I mean one would think Analyze on it’s own would suffice if a player has a lot of trouble against Thieves, but putting on one more skill and a trait is just simply overkill.

I think it is because Mesmer’s been a great threat to Engis generally with unblockable dmg + range + stealth, especially since 23rd of June Devs seem to think the way to balance them out is to give other classes Reveal.
Thief is just a class that gets forgotten in that mindset and has to miserably live with it.

In the Thief forum the Idea came up that skills that reveal others should be AoE skills that

• a) only destealth X targets or
• b) make X visible to everyone around, while they still enjoy the benefits of being stealthed.

What do you guys think about that?

Edit: besides, reveal skills should probably get benefits when hitting opponents with no stealth, as that could make them more viable for PvP or WvW Roaming

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Are you then telling me that a 21s Steal should not happen either because it functions exactly the same way?

Exactly.
1st: 21s CD, not a 5 second (5s gets censored?) theory CD
2nd: You need to target something – likely get some more dmg until then.
3rd: There actually needs something to be targeted.
4th: Steal is a really nice boonstrip + daze + provides (depending on the situation) a useful skill -> you can use it to interrupt your opponent or get out of there, but it has the downsides i just mentioned.

It has to be.

Why Thief should be an easy target for melee stuns while other professions have multiple ways to get out of that situation?

Usually melee stuns are easy to evade/blind though.
Hammer or Mace on Warrior have obvious animations, GS#5 on Guard as well… Giving the Thief a way out on EVERY SINGLE mistake can’t be the solution, even OP eles have a limited amount of stunbreaks.

But it also prevents using BS for a second time while stealthed. Every time you C&D/BP+HS you only want one chance of hitting BS? I doubt that, for that it’s way too easy to miss (blind, dodge, invul, out of range,…)

It doesn’t really matter at that point because you can still go back to stealth while BS is in CD instead of being punished by Revealed for the same duration.

Thief skills shouldn’t be self-punishing…no other profession have skills that punishes themselves.

As you said yourself before, a CD for BS would mean to prevent chaining BS+Stealth right after each other… same as Reveal currently, no self-punishing but rather balanced.

No. What Revealed does is not only prevents chaining BS but also deny the Thief its defensive mechanic — Revealed and CD are not the same.

Thats like saying the CD on an Eviscerate on a Warrior is just punishing him because it’s his class mechanic.

You’re wrong. Using the Warrior as an example, it’s like stripping Warrior naked after using Eviscerate denying them their defensive mechanic. If that happens to the Warrior, would you still think that Eviscerate is not punishing them?

Problem with no Reveal is, that it would allow you to stealth, BS and immediately stealth again. Wait in stealth until the CD for BS is over and then go in again. Effectively perma stealth with short breaks for Burst, but no 3-4s being visible to other players.

I never said that there should be no Revealed. What I said is to remove Revealed from Thief skills. If any professions want to counter stealth, then they have to use their own skills to do so — why is Thief being punish for using their skill by self-revealing?

That would mean you could just simply be invisible all day long while still dishing out incredible amounts of dmg (5-8k every 3s).

As we should. Isn’t that the reason why we’re seeing more and more anti-stealth skills? If those skill are really necessary, then they should be stapled on their build, but the Thief skills should be free of self-revealing.

• we are not naked when out of stealth. Dodges, interrupts, blinds, kiting with SB.
• Reveal only temporarily prevents the thief it’s defensive mechanic. Not permanently, and you gotta admit, Shadow Rejuvination and SE (better than pre change against condi builds, worse against direct damage builds) are too strong to be always up. Shadow Rejuvination gives you almost as much healing as Healing Signet for warrior after all, and everyone was complaining about that some time back.
• Stealth, Wait, Backstab, Repeat… sounds like an awesome playstyle, I’m rolling Warrior even that would be less one-sided and boring. perma stealth + burst dmg every 3s is just too strong in any PvP setting as opponents don’t see you. You have an insane tactical advantage, you can chose when to burst, you can move, outmanover the opponent, force CD’s.
• I don’t know what game mode you play but I rarely see an Sic ‘Em or Analyze going on. Stealth Gyro also won’t see too much use in WvW Solo Roaming or PvP I bet, the only thing is the occasional Lock On. Reveal on opponent’s skills is the worst kind of counterplay I have ever seen though, a mechanic as bad as this should be thrown out of the garbage bin along with it’s creator.
• Thief is “punished” (I’d call it balance) for using their skills because they are really strong. BS hits hard and can’t really be seen coming.

Rizo.9534:

Superspeed don’t have to stack, or it will be superOP.

If Superspeed will stack, then they have to review all mechanics.

try to stack Superspeed permanently then.

• Tool Belt + Speedy Kits = 2s Superspeed every 20s
• Slick Shoes #F = 5s Superspeed every 25s (possibly an extra 5s every 40s due to Tools GM)
• Scrapper Adept = 3s CD every 10s (if you get a lightning field every 10s)
• Scrapper Master Minor = idk how long or on what CD, but on revive
• Scrapper GM = Giros are useless nvm

Solo Roaming with Hammer:
- kitten Superspeed every 100s (lightning field every 20s) + possibly more due to Tools GM

You could of course get a high uptime, but movement speed caps at 33% infight. So the other 17% would only help you while you’re crippled or chilled.
Also, you’d have to basically run a Build focusing on Superspeed so it will lose a lot of it’s effectiveness but have high mobility and healing due to Rapid Regeneration (Superspeed healing should be brought down a little if Superspeed ends up stackable).
With a group you could stack perma Superspeed, but with a group you can also get perma protection, swiftness, 25 might, loads if not perma stability,… you get what I’m saying.

As long as Thief gets balanced in the process I’m okay with any of Anets strategies.

It’s a nice litte bit of hope, love the happy ending.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Tarkan.5609:

As a Thief, we have a lot of traits related to dodges.
Making these traits skillful to make use of ensures to not make these combinations op.
If you get endurance on any dodge, I believe it should be 10, not 15.

Imagine if Warrior and Guardian has to actively use a skill or ability to survive, meaning all their passive healing and protection are active instead…that would make these profession a pain in the donkey to play. The player experience will go down the drain.

So if Thief has to rely on dodges to survive, there shouldn’t be a setback in their defense mechanic — that’s just design stupidity to spite the Thief profession for no reason.

By creating anti-stealth skills, Feline Grace needs to be restored.

let’s just agree to disagree here… imo 15 endurance flat would justify needing some skillful play, in yours it doesn’t. all good.

because steal has a CD
Sword #2 doesn’t. Would almost be like a free porting stunbreak, no chance of ever getting a Hammer stun off on a thief no matter how bad he plays (which is imbalanced).

Oh come on. Every Thieves knows that weapon skills have cooldowns albeit shared among the other skills. Also Sword #2 was never a stun break.

I never said it was. But making it – again – a skill that ports you back 1200 units and can be activated while stunned, it would be almost as good as a stunbreak. On a (in theory) kitten CD (even though that can’t be fully applied here you gotta accept that this is madness for any build involving melee stuns)

Giving BS a CD wouldn’t allow you to use it multiple times though, if someone dodges BS a CD wouldn’t be better than the revealed mechanic currently.

The purpose of the CD is to prevent a CnD->BS->CnD->BS chain…it mildly forces the Thief to stay in stealth for at least 3 seconds before BS again.

But it also prevents using BS for a second time while stealthed. Every time you C&D/BP+HS you only want one chance of hitting BS? I doubt that, for that it’s way too easy to miss (blind, dodge, invul, out of range,…)

Revealed is no part of any skill, but rather a part of the mechanic.

Revealed is part of attack skills from stealth in addition to being knocked out of Shadow Refuge. These needs to be removed since it is no longer necessary with all the new anti-stealth skills that is going around. They can instead keep this on non-Thief professions.

Which is, imo, not even bad. Only all the revealed from other classes make stealth moreless a gamble against engineers and in WvW with stealth traps.

Thief skills shouldn’t be self-punishing…no other profession have skills that punishes themselves.

As you said yourself before, a CD for BS would mean to prevent chaining BS+Stealth right after each other… same as Reveal currently, no self-punishing but rather balanced. Thats like saying the CD on an Eviscerate on a Warrior is just punishing him because it’s his class mechanic.
Problem with no Reveal is, that it would allow you to stealth, BS and immediately stealth again. Wait in stealth until the CD for BS is over and then go in again. Effectively perma stealth with short breaks for Burst, but no 3-4s being visible to other players.
That would mean you could just simply be invisible all day long while still dishing out incredible amounts of dmg (5-8k every 3s).
Repeating myself but whatever, reveal from other classes should only make you visible to them while you are still getting the stealth benefits, the only way to apply revealed should be by dealing dmg while in stealth.

Knicking people out of SR is a good thing though imo, allowing for some counterplay. After all, they have saved up their knockback for that reason alone (probably).
The Stability should only last 3-4s though and be one stack, if that ever gets implemented (which i doubt).

One stack of Stability for 3s would suffice.

Knocking people out of SR is a counterplay, however, with the new anti-stealth, SR becomes a joke skill that provides neither Shadow nor Refuge.

alright with all the Reveal from other classes stability should actually be the case, i agree you convinced me.
Still rather be visible while stealthed instead of revealed when others use their Lock On trait on me :<

Are.1326:

Rifle don’t force you into a whole traitline, so it will still see play, especially in SD builds since the scrapper gives nothing to them.

500 toughness is not bad… or protection on HT

Agemnon.4608:

Black Frog.9274:

Agemnon.4608:

blibbity blabbity

So it IS a bug.

The “fixing” of which would result in nerfing the class. Why do they seem to care about this one particular “bug” when there are countless others for other classes or even bad bugs within thief itself like mentioned earlier?

Bugs are there to be fixed.
Imbalances are there to be worked on.

These two things have nothing to do with each other, that’s why I added the Basilisk Venom bug to the Thief Bugs…

A player shouldn’t want bugs to persist, because they are unwanted in a game. While I agree on Thief needing a nerf, I also want ALL of it’s bugs fixed (positive and negative ones).

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Tarkan.5609:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

- Starting with restoring Feline Grace where it refunds 15 endurance on dodge.

- Reduce the cooldown of Shadowstep to 20s.

- Remove casting time from Sword #2 (Infiltrator’s Return ).

- Remove Reveal from Thief skills — if you need to, I’m ok with adding CD to stealth attacks (i.e. add 3s CD to Backstab).

- Add Shadow’s Refuge to grant Stability.

- Lastly, P/P Unload to have Ankle Shot and Ricochet as baseline part of the weaponskill.

I hope you find these reasonable tradeoffs.

• @ Feline Grace: Let it refund 15 endurance on a successful dodge (not evade!). It was too strong pre patch and the successful-dodge-part gives it a more skill based and active defense.

I agree that it was too strong pre-patch within the pre-patch meta. However, looking at the upcoming meta from HoT, this needs to be reverted back since this has severely crippled the Thief’s survivability.

Just look at the Dragonhunter, despite its name, the skills the Guardian gets from this trait has too much survivability on top of a lot of condition damage. Compare that to what we get from DD, we have to successfully evade, not dodge, to get something out of the trait.

The hoops that we have to jump into are unfair and unnecessary while other professions get survivability even when just pressing random keys.

As a Thief, we have a lot of traits related to dodges.
Making these traits skillful to make use of ensures to not make these combinations op.
If you get endurance on any dodge, I believe it should be 10, not 15.

• @ Shadowstep: 20s? For port, port back + condi clear? if you look at blink (30s, only port) or lightning flash (30s, port and dmg), 30-35s seems better. It’s an often used ability though and i’d ratherhave underused abilities (Roll for initiative for example) get buffed

Those professions have other ways to cleanse conditions, Thieves do not. Steal is approx. 21s CD and this utility skill simply matches the shadowstep capability of Steal.

Again, with professions focusing on Chill this coming meta, Shadowstep needs its CD reduced to 20s — or some odd number between 20 and 25 but not 25 or over.

Our lack of condi remove should not be fixed by a skill that also acts as a double stunbreak and 1200 range port.
These port skills (also for example Judge’s Intervention) have different upsides and therefore different CD’s, ours is one out of the following:

• Blink: 1200 range port (30s)
• Judge’s Intervention: 1200 range port, burning, dmg, requires target (30s)
• Flesh Worm: 1200 range port, life force, deals minor dmg over time, needs setting up, killable (40s)
• Lightning Flash: 900 range port, dmg (40s)
• Shadow Step: 1200 range port + port back within 10s, on that one 3 condi clear
  I think our Shadow Step shouldn’t be 20s as it would be lower than any other port, while offering way more than they do. You can definitely see the way they decided the CD’s of the ports, but as our port requires porting back for maximum payoff I think 30s or 35s would be apropriate.

• @ Infiltrator’s Return: remove the cast time, but it shouldn’t be activateable if youre disabled, similar to mesmers torch #4

Again, the purpose of the nerf on Sword #2 was based on the pre-patch meta that is no longer relevant to the upcoming meta. If I can use Steal while disabled, it makes no sense why I can’t activate Sword #2’s return.

because steal has a CD
Sword #2 doesn’t. Would almost be like a free porting stunbreak, no chance of ever getting a Hammer stun off on a thief no matter how bad he plays (which is imbalanced).

• @ Reveal: don’t like that suggestion, after all every single class gets revealed while attacking out of stealth. other classes reveal skills should only make you visible though, while still allowing you to gain the boni from stealth (apart from the actual invisibility)

This countermeasure should not been part of the Thief’s skill. This should be part of the other profession’s skills. If they want to counter stealth, then they should bring this skill — Thief shouldn’t be punishing themselves for using their mechanic. It needs to be removed from the Thief’s skills and keep Revealed debuff on non-Thieves. Other professions are not master of the shadows after all.

Revealed is no part of any skill, but rather a part of the mechanic. Giving BS a CD wouldn’t allow you to use it multiple times though, if someone dodges BS a CD wouldn’t be better than the revealed mechanic currently.
Which is, imo, not even bad. Only all the revealed from other classes make stealth moreless a gamble against engineers and in WvW with stealth traps.

• @ SR: why exactly Stability? what would you gain from that? I’d rather get protection or resistance for 1s each pulse

Ever gotten knocked out of SR before? That’s why.

We shouldn’t be forced to waste endurance by dodging inside SR, it is called “refuge” for a reason thus it needs to grant refuge as it should.

Knicking people out of SR is a good thing though imo, allowing for some counterplay. After all, they have saved up their knockback for that reason alone (probably).
The Stability should only last 3-4s though and be one stack, if that ever gets implemented (which i doubt).

• @ Unload: Nothing wrong with that, D/D #3,#4+#5 and P/P need a rework though anyway (even though for C&D it would suffice to lower the dmg a little bit while reducing the ini to 5 and giving it a small radius blind)

Normally I would disagree with blind on CnD, but at this point, I would agree with anything that will improve the Thief experience post-HoT release.

also @ Kocoff:
Only buffing Unload won’t change the overall viability of P/P in a PvP setting, unless thr conbo of taking Daredevil and Bounding Dodger proves viable.

kevvy.5081:

As a buff that Anet is trying to sell in a pretty package under Scrapper as a genuine group utility, it SHOULD affect the way allies are benefited from Super Speed as the Engi does. But I do agree that the healing for others should be at a fraction. Maybe 1/3 the amount Engi receives?

it currently already is better than backpack regenerator 90% of the time, why improve it even further (when you could also buff BR instead)?
Apart from the fact that Anet could sell more copies then

Sir Vincent III.1286:

- Starting with restoring Feline Grace where it refunds 15 endurance on dodge.

- Reduce the cooldown of Shadowstep to 20s.

- Remove casting time from Sword #2 (Infiltrator’s Return ).

- Remove Reveal from Thief skills — if you need to, I’m ok with adding CD to stealth attacks (i.e. add 3s CD to Backstab).

- Add Shadow’s Refuge to grant Stability.

- Lastly, P/P Unload to have Ankle Shot and Ricochet as baseline part of the weaponskill.

I hope you find these reasonable tradeoffs.

• @ Feline Grace: Let it refund 15 endurance on a successful dodge (not evade!). It was too strong pre patch and the successful-dodge-part gives it a more skill based and active defense.

• @ Shadowstep: 20s? For port, port back + condi clear? if you look at blink (30s, only port) or lightning flash (30s, port and dmg), 30-35s seems better. It’s an often used ability though and i’d ratherhave underused abilities (Roll for initiative for example) get buffed

• @ Infiltrator’s Return: remove the cast time, but it shouldn’t be activateable if youre disabled, similar to mesmers torch #4

• @ Reveal: don’t like that suggestion, after all every single class gets revealed while attacking out of stealth. other classes reveal skills should only make you visible though, while still allowing you to gain the boni from stealth (apart from the actual invisibility)

• @ SR: why exactly Stability? what would you gain from that? I’d rather get protection or resistance for 1s each pulse

• @ Unload: Nothing wrong with that, D/D #3,#4+#5 and P/P need a rework though anyway (even though for C&D it would suffice to lower the dmg a little bit while reducing the ini to 5 and giving it a small radius blind)

I actually don’t know what all of you guys have. He pointed out a bug, didn’t request a nerf, is that so bad?
If he pointed out withdraw still lacking the 10% healing buff, would you act that offended then?

And what does class balance have to do with bug reports, I begin to see why devs tend to avoid the thief forum

Killyox.3950:

And damage. Skill 5 does hit really kitten sword.
language filter is so annoying grrrrrrrrrr.

Sword #2 deals more dmg, scales better with power, chills, has a higher range, costs less and it’s CD is a third of Sw#5. The only thing you lose is a pull + self-pull

Axe #4 allows for better dmg, another gap closer and whatnot.
I will probably never use Sw OH because Axe or Shield just fit better… Axe for mobility+dmg, Shield for defense