Guild Wars 2

TBH, currently Steal is totally unfair for P/P thieves, who wants to keep range at any cost ( and struggle a lot in doing so).
P/P is already a weak set by its own, moreover it suffers from not being able to use Steal without getting a disadvantage.
Not only that, but also in end game PvE, a thief gets instagibbed by bosses by simply going into melee range at the wrong time: again Steal can be quite risky, and the reward is often not enough ( in PvE, Steal is even worse, often outmatched by environmental weapons you find on the ground).
About P/D, the set is already about dancing around your opponent more than simply going ranged: this change to steal would simply make it " a bit more difficult", nothing more.
Anyway, a simple, new trait able to turn Steal into a shadowstep would solve the issue; not only that, but also you would now be able to close the gap more frequently due to the cheaper CD.

That’s true. I’d have to see it in action before I completely get behind it, but it could certainly work.

Kallist.5917:

Its a flaw in the games engine. “Fixing” it would most likely involve redesigning the engine, then essentially rewriting millions of lines of code to fix what the redesign broke, costing lots of money and time. The chance of them doing that is pretty slim.

It’s not that deeply ingrained in the engine. It’s a bad prioritization system. It will take some effort to get it working right, but it is fixable without rewriting the whole engine.

Mrbig.8019:

this is the suggestion that was said sometime ago about rehailing Steal in order to make it a deeper mechanic ( it was fairly approved by tons of people).

F1 Steal

25 secs CD

You leap to your enemy, steal an item, than go back to your previous position ( kinda like Inf strike, without the shadowstep), evading attacks during the animation time.

The items you stole will go into F2-F3-F4 pockets. If your pockets are already full, the next item you’re going to steal will replace the older one ( F2) and continue to do so.

Every pocket will have a shared CD ( 20 secs).

Cunning ( thief trickery stat) will now decrease pocket recharge time instead of decreasing Steal CD

This will lead to some changes into trickery traits, in order to customize Steal, stuff like:

“turn Steal into a shadowstep”
“Steal will also Stealth you”

And similar.

This would also lead to adjusting some traits like Mug ( decreased damage) and Improvisation ( totally different effect, since currently is just an horrible trait).

This would also fix current “instagib” component in backstab builds, that are causing so many QQs.

This would lead to adjusting stolen items effects, maybe adding more items to other professions to carry ( in order to increase the versatility and the effects against a single proff, more due to the fact that some proff items are ALWAYS better, like guardian and necro and, before the nerf, warrior).

Overall, it would make Steal more relevant, deeper and more intriguing.

Hm, that could be interesting. I wish we had a public test server where they could try out drastic changes like this with normal players before actually having it effect the real game… I could see it possibly being unfair to P/D thieves who attack at range but occasionally want to get in close for a CnD… But other than that it sounds pretty good.

1: Make steal interrupt casting or give steal an aftercast delay

I don’t think this is needed. Several other classes have skills that are instant-cast and can be cast while channeling other skills.

2: Make steal unable to apply any Utility venom (serpent’s touch trait will still work)
3: Remove quickness from the game or reduce the speed boost to 50% faster instead of the 100% faster that it is now

I support these. I also support fixing the rendering issues before trying to nerf further. A lot of thieves are appearing artificially stronger than they really are thanks to this little error.

and let thiefes kick themselves out of stealth when they miss their backstab while stealthed. imho all those kitten thiefes spamming 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 while stealthed will notice it needs at least a little skill to burst with the backstab combo.

I don’t know of any thieves that spam 1 while stealthed, given that it only provides half damage if the target is facing you… In any case, I don’t care about this one either way, stealth is short enough that it would barely be noticeable.

Azelroth.6801:

I highly support this suggestion. It’s really unbalanced that a thief can finish someone in stealthed mode.

It goes against the very purpose of having the downed-state to begin with (having a second chance). Finishing an opponent whilst stealthed offers the downed player no 2nd chance whatsoever.

Highly unbalanced when you consider that no other profession can do this.

Mesmers also have stealth… and warriors can prevent all damage… and several classes can block or reflect projectiles…

I think thieves need to stop comparing themselves with warriors though.. generally hundred blades will do barely 10K damage, even though it takes almost four seconds to complete, roots the warrior and gives you ages to react. A large amount of skills can be used to stop hundred blades, such as any stun breaker, a simple dodge, a daze, a knockback, a knockdown, a stun, etc..

But that’s an exact mirror to the argument we gave against the Pistol Whip nerf. Besides, ArenaNet has said warriors are balanced. So if warriors are balanced, it is warriors we are going to compare to when speaking of attaining balance on other classes. So other classes need to be buffed to the level of warriors, not nerfed to the level of necromancers.

crewthief.8649:

Malkavian.3751:

> Designs class around high damage, low survivability
> Nerfs skills and damage repeatability
> Class becomes useless. Can role a warrior and do just as much (or more) damage with much higher survivability. Why play a class with mediocre damage AND low survivability?

Thieves do not have low survivability. If you do, you’re doing it wrong.

Thieves do have low survivability. If you can’t kill a thief, you’re doing it wrong.

Mosharn.8357:

bwillb.2165:

crewthief.8649:

bwillb.2165:

Some ppl just here for ego trips. There are not even a handful of people in this thread that actuly want to get the thief balanced. They just dont want to miss their instagibs.

Thieves ARE balanced. You just want to be able to stomp over thieves as easily as you do every other class, o mighty warrior. I mean, your latest argument is basically: “Thieves are easy to kill but sometimes extremely skilled thieves can run away before I get a chance to obliterate them.”

Apparently they are NOT balanced…they’re being adjusted very soon, according to Anet, LOL. But all the pros in this thread will be fine, right? I mean, they’ll obviously adapt instead of relying on an OP crutch, right?

They’re being adjusted because the current arenanet is bad at balance. I mean, they think warriors are fine but thieves deserve hundreds of nerfs. come on. But yep, they’ll adapt. Until the bads that are whining for thief nerfs continue to whine for thief nerfs, anet gives in yet again, and eventually everything the thief has is 100% useless. Doesn’t matter how good you are, you can’t rip out someone’s heart with a sword made of cotton balls.

Tell me when thief is balanced when you can speck a 2 hit build on any other class to kill any one in 2 hits. Till then plz dont say they are balanced because they are definitely not.

Aren’t you the warrior who just 1 page ago was saying you can kill thieves in a single whirlwind attack? And that’s an AoE attack… And it doesn’t have the setup and positioning requirements of a good backstab…

Ichishi.9613:

Sorry, I will just repost here for a hope of getting more attention

Guys what do you think about this kind of a fix: moving hidden killer trait (100% crit chance in stealth) into a shadow arts last tier?
This will solve many problems:
1) backstabs will either not crit with 100% chance or people will have to sacrifice power/crit damage for it, and non-glass build will not suffer because they don’t go there anyway
2) shadow arts trait line will get buffed and will result in even more thieves speccing out of glass cannon backstabs
Perhaps if there are enough people willing to bet on this, we could draw a-net’s attention to this kind of soft/preliminary fix if they have not thought of it already

Potentially okay. What would you replace it with?

crewthief.8649:

lonewolf.2601:

tagnut.8621:

Most of the thief players i know admit they are very overpowered – and its one of the reasons so many have switched to them.

A nerf – a big one – would be most welcome by 90% of the community.

Sorry but your friends do not how to play this game.
A big nerf would only make things worse for the whole game, but I don’t think anet has the intention to ruin their game, they seem to have learned from other companies mistakes.

Of course not. The only people who know how to play the game are Thief players, right? I know plenty of very good players, and most of them believe Thieves are due a nerf. Sorry to break it to you.

The only people in this conversation that know how to play the game are Thief players. Non-thief players are good at the game too, but they just play the game instead of trying to get nerfs to a class that is obviously not overpowered.

Ichishi.9613:

you demand nerf for a thiefs that can’t do anything to you? or nerf for yourself?

Yes, this seems quite prevalent here… “I can easily kill almost all thieves I run across but NERF THIEVES OMFG!!!!111?”

crewthief.8649:

bwillb.2165:

Some ppl just here for ego trips. There are not even a handful of people in this thread that actuly want to get the thief balanced. They just dont want to miss their instagibs.

Thieves ARE balanced. You just want to be able to stomp over thieves as easily as you do every other class, o mighty warrior. I mean, your latest argument is basically: “Thieves are easy to kill but sometimes extremely skilled thieves can run away before I get a chance to obliterate them.”

Apparently they are NOT balanced…they’re being adjusted very soon, according to Anet, LOL. But all the pros in this thread will be fine, right? I mean, they’ll obviously adapt instead of relying on an OP crutch, right?

They’re being adjusted because the current arenanet is bad at balance. I mean, they think warriors are fine but thieves deserve hundreds of nerfs. come on. But yep, they’ll adapt. Until the bads that are whining for thief nerfs continue to whine for thief nerfs, anet gives in yet again, and eventually everything the thief has is 100% useless. Doesn’t matter how good you are, you can’t rip out someone’s heart with a sword made of cotton balls.

Some ppl just here for ego trips. There are not even a handful of people in this thread that actuly want to get the thief balanced. They just dont want to miss their instagibs.

Thieves ARE balanced. You just want to be able to stomp over thieves as easily as you do every other class, o mighty warrior. I mean, your latest argument is basically: “Thieves are easy to kill but sometimes extremely skilled thieves can run away before I get a chance to obliterate them.”

Xsorus.2507:

So if warriors are as overpowered as thieves are, according to thieves in this thread about hopefully not nerfing thieves, Then why don’t I see a mountain of posts talking about how overpowered Warriors are vs thieves?

In fact why don’t I see countless posts by every other class in this game crying about every other class?

Why is it every other class seems to point to the thief and says “Well that class is overpowered”

Is it bias against you?….

maybe people just don’t understand how to play against the stealthing high burst classes with speed and teleports and that’s why that skillset is always nerfed in every single MMO it’s in….

Or Maybe..it’s because that skillset is always overpowered to hell and back.. and that is why it keeps getting nerfed.

I mean seriously…It’s been like 6 or 7 games now that have had crap like this, It always gets nerfed, and yet every time the people who play this type of class act surprised.

News flash mates, You’re this bastion of skill you think you are…The class is overpowered, The skillset it has is always overpowered, That is why it gets nerfed..

Stop rolling the bloody obvious overpowered skillset in every game and you won’t have to get nerfed.

I’ll point out yet again that in beta there was a consensus that the thief was underpowered. And that the thief has not received any major buffs since then. The only thing that’s changed is the number of people playing, the experience level of people playing, and the rendering issues. Oh, and multiple NERFS.

Oh, and to answer your question, it is a bias against stealth classes. People hate the enemy that they cannot see, even if it is just momentarily.

It’s also worth noting that the volume of demands for thief nerfs has drastically INCREASED after each thief nerf. Yeah that’s right, putting out a thief nerf results in more people wanting more thief nerfs. People cry for thief nerfs because they know arenanet will listen. And they don’t cry for warrior nerfs because they know arenanet has already made it clear that they won’t be nerfing warrior.

DieQuex.4096:

bwillb.2165:

Why does Arenanet insist on not rewarding more complex and skilled rotations?

Because if something that’s not easy to do is more powerful than something that is easy to do, the people who can only figure out the easy thing call for nerfs of the harder thing.

CnD + Steal + Devourer/Basilisk Venom + Backstab isn’t difficult. It’s actually incredibly easy, and happens so fast many people are unable to react quickly enough to counter it. I mean, why do so many thieves utilize the build if it’s apparently difficult? Come on now.

Hoping that the incoming nerf/compensations brings more viable/skillful builds to the PvP environments in the game.

I wasn’t specifically talking about backstab, but in general. If something is more powerful, even if it’s so hard that only some players are able to pull it off, people cry for nerfs. It’s one of the guaranteed things in MMOs. If he can do something that I cannot, he must be nerfed. That attitude is everywhere. And ArenaNet listens to it.

my post was meant for more experienced thief players. As they are the only ones who know how to get out of a bad situation fast. The nubs are dead in one whirl but an experienced thief uses stealth skill and spams with 5 skill on SB to get away which dosent mean you can catch them on any given class.

So your complaint is that you can only stomp over inexperienced thieves without using any skill, and experienced thieves are able to not kill, but only escape, a very bad warrior. Got it.

I do not use frenzy on my war. but in wvw takin a 18k hit is a death sentence because that 18k isnt the only amount of dmg you take. I have 22.2k hp so i know this.

And how do you think the thief feels? two people auto-attacking a thief will kill him. Hell, getting accidentally caught in an AoE aimed at someone else will kill him.

And endure has a CD near basilisks CD. Sure it counters it but you wont have it up all the time to count every single basilisk you get hit with which are many as finding a thief alone is hard since they usually run in groups of 2+.

And the thief won’t have basilisk available every time they run into someone. Maybe you should consider running in a group of 2+ as well? If you’re trying to solo PvP you’re bad.

Even if you do counter it with endure the thief will reset combo by using 5 skill on SB and comin right back at you with the combo without the venom and you have lost one or possibly 2 utilities by now and your rush/WW on CD while the thief has no CD since the skills are dependent on initiative.

And exactly how much initiative do you think the thief has? That 5 SB skill that they’re apparently spamming costs a whopping 6 initiative per use… That’s half the default initiative bar… CnD is another 6… And if they don’t have the venom, your options for dealing with the thief increase significantly.

Also no good war uses endure in traits its stupid long on CD and useless since you only buy your self 4 seconds in which your already dead.

No good war? I don’t think you’d know a good war if it came up and rubbed your bum. 4 seconds of invulnerability is long enough to kill 4 thieves. (or long enough for 4 thieves to kill you, if you’re not invulnerable)

Mosharn.8357:

bwillb.2165:

No other class can deal anywhere near 18k dmg.

Most classes can easily top 14k damage instantly or near-instantly, and that’s enough to kill a thief. 14k, 18k, 200k… doesn’t matter, they’re all a dead thief.

By the way, Basilisk venom has already been nerfed to near-uselessness. You should probably get caught up on balance before trying to be an authority on it.

then i think you dont see what ive seen past 2 weeks in wvw. Thief comes in uses basilisk venom then the said combo begins. Also im sure it dosent matter how much dmg it takes to kill a thief since if i get lucky and my aoe hits em its usually 1 whirlwind and they’re history but soon as their combo fails they spam 5 skill on SB and are gone like the wind.

Killing a thief is easy catching it is the hard part. Besides your insta 14k wont matter when they insta 18k and then dance on your dead body.

Good try though.

A single non-elite stun breaker completely negates the effect of basilisk venom now. How many elites share that weakness?

edit: wait, whirlwind? You’re playing a WARRIOR against thieves and having an issue? Yeah, the problem is definitely YOU. What’s 18k against a caster is like 14k against a warrior. Besides, 18k burst doesn’t even kill an afk warrior… Are you popping frenzy right before they hit you or something?

I mean hell, you’ve got a non-elite skill available that not only breaks stun (rendering basilisk venom useless) but also prevents ALL direct damage for 4 seconds. WHILE you continue to attack! And there’s NOTHING that can end it early! And you have a trait to give it an extra second! And another trait to activate it automatically at 25% health!

Either you’re really, really, really bad at this game, or you’ve got some sort of unfounded vendetta against thieves (possibly both).

No other class can deal anywhere near 18k dmg.

Most classes can easily top 14k damage instantly or near-instantly, and that’s enough to kill a thief. 14k, 18k, 200k… doesn’t matter, they’re all a dead thief.

By the way, Basilisk venom has already been nerfed to near-uselessness. You should probably get caught up on balance before trying to be an authority on it.

Why does Arenanet insist on not rewarding more complex and skilled rotations?

Because if something that’s not easy to do is more powerful than something that is easy to do, the people who can only figure out the easy thing call for nerfs of the harder thing.

crewthief.8649:

Doomdesire.9365:

crewthief.8649:

Doomdesire.9365:

crewthief.8649:

Doomdesire.9365:

Shilian.5873:

Thieves of all the world, go to roll a ranger and build it glass cannon, then tell me if you still have the guts to complain about your incoming nerf.

That’s very ironical, but ranger was a good class before as glass cannon that DID NOT need a nerf, and it got nerfed to the point where the ranger class isn’t nearly as great, now this is happening to us while warriors and guardians still have the same type of damage.

Are you saying that Guardians have the same burst as Thieves?

The max I’ve backstabbed a squishy with vulnerability was 8K + 5K steal + the normal 4K CND

I’ve seen warriors do 20K+ 100B and kill the guy before he can get up. I’ve seen 11K eviscerates and it could probably go higher with the right gear.

Right, but 100B burst build takes alot of setup and isn’t nearly as ‘on-demand’ as the Thief backstab build. And I was asking about your inclusion of Guardians in that statement. No way is a Guardian bursting for as much as a Thief.

I see I did include guardian, that was my mistake and ignore that, however backstab arguably takes the same amount of setup and isn’t on demand. No way is it on demand and if you do use it on demand (which at this point heartseeker would be much better in almost all scenarios except the original burst) it’s not nearly as effective. Not at all. It’s an intiative killer and requires your target to be off guard and not expecting it. If you’re already in the mud, backstab isn’t nearly as effective as people thinks. That’s a huge misconception. People think thieves can instantly spam backstab. And with the right skillset, it’s possible, but why? Heartseeker at that point would be much more effective and damaging.

Okay, fair enough. So do you feel that a Thief sacrifices as much as a Warrior when speccing full-on glass cannon? I don’t believe they do, not even close. In fact, with the amount of mobility and innate survivability (stealth) that a Thief has, I don’t see any reason why anyone would ever NOT run a glass cannon as a Backstab spec…

Stealth isn’t innate, you have to activate it through one of a few slot or weapon skills. And it certainly isn’t survivability. It doesn’t block a single point of damage. It’s a positioning tool. The current rendering issues cause it to be more effective than it should be, and most thieves against nerfs will agree that that issue needs to be fixed.
The warrior, on the other hand, is at least as mobile as the thief in combat (greatsword alone has at least two rush abilities that DON’T take resources away from their burst attacks), plus true innate passive survivability (extremely high health pool and the strongest armor in the game), PLUS abilities that directly block ALL incoming damage.

Kyus.3812:

bwillb.2165:

Jericho.4521:

I don’t like to gloat, but this nerf should have been seen a mile away by everyone. I’d also like to point out that there are plenty of other professions that were already pretty much bottom tier and received nerfs anyways going into release (cough necro, ele, ranger), so I really don’t think this will kill thieves to have to seek some new builds and slightly more complicated combos.

I’d like to point out that the Thief is one of those classes. In beta, thief was considered UNDERPOWERED. Thief has received no major buffs since then. The ONLY major difference in favor of thieves is the rendering bug.

the only thing underpowered about the thief in beta were the people using them. as you said they haven’t changed but in beta 2 I played a backstep spec and it was freaking ridiculous.

So you’re saying the problem on a class that is supposedly a noob-friendly spam class was the players playing them? How very interesting.

Jericho.4521:

I don’t like to gloat, but this nerf should have been seen a mile away by everyone. I’d also like to point out that there are plenty of other professions that were already pretty much bottom tier and received nerfs anyways going into release (cough necro, ele, ranger), so I really don’t think this will kill thieves to have to seek some new builds and slightly more complicated combos.

I’d like to point out that the Thief is one of those classes. In beta, thief was considered UNDERPOWERED. Thief has received no major buffs since then. The ONLY major difference in favor of thieves is the rendering bug.

Protip: Saying your viewpoint is objective doesn’t make it so.

kKagari.6804:

From the necromancer forums, a nice read:

JonathanSharp.7094:

So, quickly, on the design philosophy at play here (you can feel free to disagree, but this is what I feel):

We want the Thief to be the class that most “slips through your fingers”. Other classes like the Ele and Mes have some of it too (and rightly so), but if anyone is escaping a fight, that should be a slippery Thief.

The Necro, on the other hand, should be the dude you CANNOT get away from. It’s an attrition based class, so the idea is that if you lock horns w/ a necro, know what you’re getting into: you’re fighting a class that’s built for attrition. It can dot you, dps you, rip your boons, and severely hinder your movement. AND it also has the ability to soak up a lot of damage. So the longer the fight goes, the stronger the Necro should get. That’s the idea behind Death Shroud, but little escape ability.

So we don’t want that attrition class to also have great ways to escape. This used to be the case, and we felt the Necro was just too strong if it was great at attrition as well as movement/escape. We wanted the Necro to be more about attrition, and for other classes (Thief, Ele, Mes) to be more about escaping and mobility.

Hope that makes sense.

Whilst he didn’t say “thieves aren’t supposed to be bursty”, Arenanet’s design philosophy seems to edge more towards a character with many ways of escape, rather than the iconic phrase thrown about in the thief subforums, all too often “we’re supposed to be bursty like that!”

I’m scratching my head at this one. He basically said the necro is supposed to be the one who can kill anything and thief is the one that should run away from everything… except for necro, because the necro should be able to kill him anyway. Now I assume the point is that the thief is stronger early in the battle and the necro is stronger later in the battle, but without front-loaded burst damage on a thief, that simply wouldn’t be the case.

i just dont think any class should be able to played like 2-2-2-2-2 stealth and wait for initiative then 2-2-2-2. they really need to look at the mechanics of the class in my opinion. im not saying its too powerful or whatever, just that the class mechanics support making one-button wonder players.

I’m not really sure what build you think can do 2-2-2-2-2 stealth…. Sword 2 is a shadowstep, that can’t be it… Pistol 2 is a very low damage shot that applies vulnerability, I doubt that’s it… Dagger 2 does piss-poor damage until the target is under 50%, that can’t be it… Shortbow 2 is decent but would be absolutely horrid if you just rapid-fire hit it… Nope, no idea what you’re talking about.
However, the Warrior with a greatsword can do the same damage as a well played thief by doing: 2! autoattack for 8 seconds! 2! autoattack! 2! They tend to live longer, too, without having to actively avoid attack.

after the burst you should still have a guy to fight against on his last legs, and be in the state of gambling your survival that you sacraficed….. not nuke a guy then tell them its fine cus you cant survive in a fight where your opponent is already dead

The problem is that you’re taking a 1v1 scenario, a type of play that is not supported at all. Unless that guy you nuked was a complete moron, you can bet there is at least 1 other guy waiting to kill you as fast as you killed his friend. In real play, the backstab thief is essentially sacrificing himself to take out a high value target. And even then, even if the backstab combo goes off perfectly, it’ll all be for naught if you’re outnumbered, thanks to the downed state.

The problem is many thieves including me are tired of having to rebuy different gear and learn new playstyles patch after patch.

Just make a warrior, pick up a greatsword or some axes. It’ll be the last change you ever have to make, because warriors are nerf-proof.

Auesis.7301:

I had a similiar idea to Cassie for S/D – Flanking Strike is actually good for me, but the style strikes me as more of a swordplay style than a finesse style. A channeled block/daze + damage on successful block type of mechanic would be nice. The animation could be something along the lines of holding the dagger forwards, and a slight step sideways dragging the dagger down to simulate a parry, followed by a quick sword flourish that does a good chuck of damage while the enemy is dazed.

I’ve gotta disagree on that one. Those “sit and wait until you block an attack” abilities aren’t fun. Our underwater spear has a skill like that, and it makes our underwater play extremely dull. I’d rather see something where you do a pomel bash to daze the target then shadowstep behind them to deliver a venomous shiv to the kidney. Could then chain into an ability where you pull out the shiv to cause bleeding and extra damage (as an added feature, and also to prevent the daze from being spammed too quickly)

JonathanSharp.7094:

Paranoid.9542:

Doomdesire.9365:

Thieves who are against this nerf need to speak up. If you are against this, make your own thread, so anet can hear us out

Awful idea, wow. I’m all for getting yourself heard, but everyone making your own thread is a freaking stupid idea.

Ya, no need for multiple threads – it’ll just clutter the forum. One thread is sufficient.

How about keeping that same policy for the ones wanting the nerfs, eh? This forum is often almost nothing but cries for nerfs, to the point where players of the class cannot have a discussion.

Edit: In fact, just delete ALL of the people demanding nerfs. That’s not what this forum is for.

When? How about half of TBC and all of WotLK? I never even bothered to level my rogue past like 72 once I got my druid into the high end content and saw how poorly rogues were doing. I can’t speak to how they’re doing now, though, because I’ve left that game completely behind in response to their nonsensical sad excuse for “balance”, much like the situation brewing here in GW2.

The upcoming changes are just a drop in the barrel of liquid excrement. I’ve already stopped supporting the company long before this call for boycott.

Rogues were and are very competetive and effective class in all formats of WoW PvP

And became a laughing stock in PvE that no one wanted to carry thanks to all of the PvP-centric nerfs.

and even if the target survives the combo the Thief is far from beaten; with 9-13 Initiative, up to 2 utility skills and the healing skill left it is hardly an easy target.

I don’t think you understand how the build works… Like, at all… The build that gets the very high damage numbers everyone whines about puts EVERYTHING into backstab. that means taking signets to pop for might, venom to keep the target from moving, and forgoing initiative traits in favor of raw damage bonuses. After the thief performs a buffed up backstab, all they can really afford to do is try to cnd then run away, since they’d die in 2 hits.

Paranoid.9542:

bwillb.2165:

Refuse to give an FoV option or fix the myriad of camera..

Isnt something to do with FoV in beta atm?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/FOV-Field-of-View-Changes-Beta-Test/first#post551634

Or am i misunderstanding what that is?

(sorry bout the OT comment)

Huh looks like it is. Didn’t see that announcement. Took enough arguing to get it… I’ll scratch that off the list. Other points still stand, though.

edit: Nevermind. Just gave it a try. A single option that’s just a minor increase? I see they put about as much effort into that as they did into the pistol whip nerf. Try again, Anet.

Yeah, i disagree with it. I haven’t bothered to play much at all in the last month or so. Anet has really changed and is showing their true colors. Refuse to give an FoV option or fix the myriad of camera, performance and rendering issues, but give in to every single whine of OP (except against warriors, of course. can’t nerf their favorite class when there are other targets available to scapegoat!)

Eicherjw.3926:

Must be dependant on the type of root. I’ve hard guardians cast that chain effect looking root on me and I just keep spinning through it.

Yes this is exactly the case. Most CCs are blocked, but a couple types are not. Ironically, one of the best ways to stop someone with stability was with Basilisk Venom, which has now been nerfed to not work against it. So in fact Dagger Storm got relatively stronger because of a thief nerf.

Ichishi.9613:

problem is with autotargeting and and whole targeting thing – even if spell has cast time, at the end of which projectile is released, projectile will home onto a target even if target stealthed before skill was cast.
If someone AT LEAST pressed skill button (skill itself has not been cast yet) while targeting someone, skill will ignore any vision impairment afterwards. What is most annoying, this applies also to already queued attacks (ones that are yet even to be started casting).

It definitely shouldn’t apply to queued attacks. I think it’s fine on attacks that are already being cast, though. Otherwise stealth would be an extremely low cooldown interrupt, which would easily be quite overpowered. Then of course because ArenaNet like to apply band-aids instead of fixing the problem, we’d end up with 30 second revealed debuffs.

Are they saying they expect some players to be surprised by timezone differences meaning different calendar dates

Did you not see the big stink over part 1 of the Halloween event starting on a different date in Europe?

Ashanor.5319:

Revealed definitely needs to be applied on the first hit, not after the attack.

Nah it should go back to how it was before where it happens as soon as you break stealth with an attack. They just need to fix stealth attacks so that they cannot be used after stealth expires. Enough with the lame bandaid fixes that break more than they fix.

Rizzy.8293:

maybe they should nerf whatever attacks it is you’re using.
considering dagger storm glass cannon or not does pretty crap damage and if its hitting you for a lot it means your range is being reflected back.

so yeah, nerf whatever ranged abilities it is you’re using

I like this suggestion. I vote Rizzy for president of good points.

Ohh okay after stealth wears off. That makes a bit more sense. The dev said people were waiting for revealed to wear off and I was like, “whaaat”

But in this case, it sounds more like a bandaid nerf to the actual issue of stealth attacks being able to go off after stealth ends.

Thread suddenly went blank after I replied…

Hello! There was actually a subtle change that went in, which was intended to be in our patch notes but seems to have been lost in compiling:
Stealth skills now always apply the ‘Revealed’ buff when they hit their target. We were finding that some players were waiting until the revealed buff was almost off, then executing a stealth opener like Backstab. The Revealed buff would be removed naturally from timing out and the Backstab would connect, without applying the revealed buff. This allowed players to execute their stealth opener combos and then immediately return to stealth for another assault without becoming revealed. Now, whenever a stealth opener connects with their target, they will receive the revealed buff.
We’ll be including the patch note in a future update. Thanks much for noticing
-Karl

Wait, what? I can’t speak for pistol builds, but that’s how backstab already worked. revealed debuff shows up when you attack from stealth. If you’re out of stealth, you can’t backstab until you stealth again. So what do you mean people were waiting out revealed before backstabbing? That wasn’t possible. There are not and were not any situations where you would have stealth AND revealed. What am I missing here? Something smells fishy, and it isn’t my dinner.

The whole pet thing is still an issue. Not much of a positioning tool if our movements are trackable.

That’s called a counter. You can counter the counter by killing or CCing the pet before you stealth.

If you were close enough to someone doing a melee attach or in an AoE damage area it would break stealth

Unless something changed in the last patch, damage doesn’t break stealth. It just damages, like you’d expect.

Burrid.4739:

fractal.7039:

Every class has one elite ability that is over the top….
Hell Mesmer has 2….

Name one of the elementalist.

Tornado is to melee as Dagger Storm is to ranged. Double the recast but also double duration. And you get nifty skills to use while in tornado mode such as an AoE blind.

Fiery Greatsword is also pretty kitten

I don’t see too much problem with it as it is. Stealth isn’t meant to be a damage blocker, it’s mostly just a positioning tool.

Snowgoons.6349:

Which is why 90% of WvW thieves including myself just spam it over and over.

Oh you can spam it? Down with that kitten! Oh, wait, 90 second cooldown…

Are you not understanding how stability works?

Are YOU not understanding how stability works? It’s a boon that prevents (MOST) CC. Boons can be ripped quite easily, and the thief can’t hide this one with another boon because using another skill would stop dagger storm. And for that matter, do you not understand how projectile reflection works? Dagger storm barely does any damage if you stop shooting. Most of the daggers flying off of it are only a visual effect.

Sa Da Tay.6542:

I wish threads like this could be only replied to if you didn’t have a man crush on the class.

I wish threads like this could only be created if you pass an in depth class knowledge test. Hint: Threads like this wouldn’t be created.

Let the river of tears flow in from thieves trying to say it’s not overpowered.
Then let’s check that river of tears to see how many are running dagger storm.
I bet you it will be a high %.

So you’re saying the ones that use the skill are the ones most likely to defend it? Well kitten, son! Call the press! It’s not like they’d be the ones more knowledgeable about the skill than some noob that can’t figure out how to stop auto-attack.

Exactly Snowgoons,
Like you said, if it wasn’t overpowered 90% of people wouldn’t be running it.

90% of warriors in pvp use Signet of Rage for their elite. Does this mean its OP? No, it means the other two are absolutely dreadful in similar situations. Hell, at least 80% of the warriors I run into have Signet of Rage, “Fear Me”, “Shake It Off”, “For Great Justice”, and Mending. But according to ArenaNet, warriors are the most balanced class and are the stick by which all other classes should be measured.

Hi all. There was a change implemented that seems to have not made it into the patch notes from Monday that was intended to go in the ‘Professions’ section. Stealth now only stacks up to five times consecutively, meaning you can’t bombard yourself with massive stealth applications to become invisible for extended periods of time.
We’ll be including the patch note in a future update. Good catch!

Cool. Now can you undo the Descent of Shadows nerf since stealth doesn’t stack high anymore?

I haven’t done any underwater combat since the update. What exactly was changed? Before the update you could just put 3 on auto-attack and go afk, so it definitely needed some sort of a change, just not sure what.

Ditton.3149:

Its personal because its your part of a grander story, you arent the lynch pin, you’re just another cog of the wheel. I like it.

That’s how the NPCs try to characterize it, but in actuallity I’m Batman and I have a few barely-useful employees that give me new gear every now and then.