Guild Wars 2

Starting to think they’re real and am seeing if I can make something compelling enough to play again.

1225 posts clearly means this is something to heavily consider Anet.

If an extra hit gets in, it’s about an extra 500-900 damage on a power PW since another hit will land maybe more with haste.
I’m not gonna believe those patch notes are real but if they are a greater thing imo Steal changes meaning Bountiful theft gives you more constant boon removal to get through stability retal and protection.

Dealing damage ATM is the larger issue when S/P could simply kill you before retall killed it 1v1 but got smashed in a group fight on retal. Now retal basically does more because you have to hit more to make up for lack of DMG. Why even come though when you have no damage even before the retaliation is considered. There’s so many ways to reduce retals significance to S/P going forward like a buff to SoM or Assassins Reward but if it lacks threat it doesn’t matter.

kittennit.7648:

Shemsu.8721:

kittennit.7648:

Travlane.5948:

kittennit.7648:

dont really get all the complaints about S/D. I play S/D mainly and yes it’s a nerf but it’s not as bad as people make it out to be.

Stuns in this game are all quite short in duration, so even if it isnt a stunbreaker anymore it doesnt man we will be dead once the first stun hits us. Immobilize is much much stronger than stuns (imo) and infil strike still takes care of that just fine. We also still have Shadowstep / Roll for Ini / Infil Signet, etc.

Also, 2 Ini on Flanking Strike: Good change. The Skill is still really really good but this prevents all the noobs spamming spamming without properly managing their Inititative. I’ve encountered so many S/D thiefs going 333333 and it was just too rewarding for pressing one button over and over. (Btw you will still be able to spam it just fine if you spec very high into Ini regen -> jumpers build)

Anyway, i cant wait to try Shadow Trap, it sounds really good. I also like that they are buffing Dancing Dagger because thats the only skill i dont use frequently on S/D (i dont use it at all) but the ini reduced to 3 isn’t helping it at all. Infil Strike is still superior, so no point in using it.

d/d BV gonna sneak up and own your kitten now u have 0 chance hope ur quick with that SS or they gonan 2 hit u

Where’s the diff between popping roll for ini and shadow return?

I’m gonna respond to both of Shiz’s posts here, I’ve been a die hard sword thief since beta. You claim to play s/d but cant see the ramifications of these, lets call them possible changes. First off, by choosing sword over dagger, your sacrificing damage for mobility and survival. You can gain that survival either through shadow arts (which fits d/p much better than s/d) or through copious amounts of mobility and select condi.

Sword shadow return was a main aspect of that mobility and the weakness on auto provided a decent amount of indirect damage mitigation, something thieves in general lack. with both of these items removed, s/d mobile builds and s/p are hurt drastically. Now you could play s/d daze build and go for shadow arts instead, but this build has already been destroyed in spvp and was never that great in pve/wvw anyhow.

As to your final question, whats the difference in popping sr and roll for ini? Well for one, you have to waste a utility slot on rfi, sr is from a weaponskill. Secondly if your depending on rfi as your stun break, every single class will be able to recharge there cc and burst BEFORE the cd on rfi expires.

Sword main hand still has much much better mobility than Dagger main hand so…

You’re talking like Shadow return got patched out of the game. You realize that it still works the same way it did before? The only difference is that you cannot break stun with it anymore… yes it’s a nerf but its not nerfing he skill from “very very very good” to “useless” so yea…

Also: RFI was an exmaple, can also insert Shadowstep / Infil signet

It seems like many thieves only started touching sword in may. The inf strike change damages the already low key venom build on both sets where shadow return has a duty to protect from CC so you can bring your support. Without there is greater need for a stun break which decreases by necessity the possible venoms from 4/3 to 3/2.
Considering S/P’s state that’s another nerf in build variety after the crippling nerf to its burst build in march. Considering the time between attacks for PW even if the delay is reduced that will mean 1 extra slakitten best. In a power crit build that is 500-900 DMG. Which sounds a lot in theory but with only 3-4 hits getting in ATM that’s about 2500-4800 damage instead of 1800-4300 DMG out of the total ~ 5-8k. Ideally with haste it’ll mean 3 more hits. With lack of mug crits this will still be lower than March though S/P thieves can bridge the gap a bit better with skill. With no stun break though you have to work even harder than you did before March with less DMG. Wot?.

Go to S/D and the cost itself is fine if the /D was better. If you find justifying dancing daggers hard for the INI cost you will continue to do so when FS cost goes up simultaneously. A shame CND doesn’t give more vuln. S/D is still less fleshed out then its pre-december form. Running a supportive S/D will drop as well since if you were arguing for venom share S/D vs S/P won’t even matter when the stun break is gone and Venom share anything can’t protect itself well enough. Especially given that SB needs mean staying on the outskirts does not work well.

Needing inf strike will actually be a nerf to S/P and venom specs in general…wut.
Which would mean even the theoreotical viable S/P build would vanish. Unless they wanted to create parity on who runs venoms but that isn’t going to happen if they’re not run for lack of punch.
An extra INI wouldn’t be lethal to S/D given it would cost as much as PW but the increased cost means you have less INI to spend on dancing dagger regardless. That ability will not be used. Its disrupting the weapon set further when its in set balance is already off-tilt. 5 INI doesn’t change any paradigm it reinforces them.

Also I wish ricochet would just be scrapped.

Hope many of these aren’t in.

Julius.1094:

Given how they’re written and based on what the devs have said was coming to this patch and what they include I would be very surprised if these aren’t real.

But while they probably are real they also look like an earlier version of it, so I doubt we’ll be seeing everything on there on the final notes and there may be some added things. Just wait and see.

Will side with this. I think some are interesting changes for diversity and others just feel out there.

It was discussed a couple months ago. They want to create these improvements but they had higher things on their priority list so we may not see it until next year.

Either they’re asleep. Or it’s an april fools in june. Some of these I can’t get behind at all.
~Jaguar 25% crit? what? That is shelved.

Arganthium.5638:

Arheundel.6451:

The sky is falling….
They have increased the ini cost of larcenous strike by 1…I mean 1 freaking ini point more omfg..I hope my grandma ( who of course play thief) will be able to cope with this horrible change -_-

Yes, why don’t we boost all of your cooldowns, too, given that thieves only have one CD pool? In fact, why don’t we take off insta-CDs from weapon swapping as well? Oh, and why don’t we screw over the majority of your weapon skills in the meantime, while making your good ones more expensive to use?

It’s cray, but don’t take those patched notes srs.

Zenith.7301:

Archaon.6245:

Zenith.7301:

because spike in this game is the use of 3 skills at most. Most often it’s as simple as a shatter or a backstab.

Actually a shatter combo has something like 5-6 chained weapon and utility skills+dodges…just saying…it’s really far from being a 1 key burst.

Oh, please, don’t act like magic bullet is part of the spike. You summon your ranged phantasm, switch to s/p or s/s and summon the second phantasm, leap to target, swap, and shatter while blurred frenzy.

Each of those in berserker gear is easily spiking for 4-6k damage.

ensoriki.5789:

Zenith.7301:

ensoriki.5789:

Zenith.7301:

ensoriki.5789:

They’re not going to straight out drop damage like that since the game needs powerful offense in order to shift point possession in a reasonable time span.

And which are the classes that can use it? Not the bunkers.

1. Doesn’t matter if Bunker, roamer, joe across the street. It results in longer TTK. The longer it takes you to die, the longer you can defend a point. The longer that point can tick an extra point.
2. Multiple professions have weakness including those that can bunker.
3. This allows other professions if not the support to significantly extend life outside of the downed system, again raising TTK. Crits can be a 200% damage increase. No crits can mean a major drop to the damage you would take (cutting it in half).

If you’re a glass cannon Thief for instance, and you weaken the glass cannon Mesmer with your proposed “no crits guarantee” than that means he can certainly eat all 3 mind wracks. Which would let that thief sit on a node for longer if he needed to. Longer he’s alive the greater window of time his team has to come assist him, extend the time it takes to flip that node even longer. If nodes don’t flip in reasonable times the score snowballs because so many ticks occur before the node flips. Mix in these spike stops with the downed system and Im no prophet but I bet lifespans increase heavily. Why such is needed when you can actively stop many spikes with blinds, and hard CC, i don’t know. On top of protection, aegis, evades? How many buffers do people really need.

Necros don’t have aegis, or blind, or protection. They’d don’t have vigor, and they don’t have stability.

And these patch notes aren’t giving them any boons as they already said they wouldn’t be getting them, and if you earnestly believe that slightly more life force generation will make any difference while they’re getting trained by spike classes, you’re full of it.

Ditto for warrior.

Uwot? They have all of the bolded, it’s generally not felt justified bringing those options for a multitude of reasons.
You know full well the difference “no crits” has, especially on a item set like Berserkers where it’s completely defined by them.
Their implementation is RNG, but it’s much more reasonable .

Not gonna talk with a thief champion. It’s quite obvious thieves quite like having a sandbag to get free kills with instead of being forced to go after a mesmer or ele.

You don’t have a blind outside or dagger offhand (which is used for transferring conditions) an elite. You don’t have stability outside an elite, and you sure as hell don’t have protection because spectral walk is superior to that garbage spectral armor in every way.

And you sure as hell don’t have vigor unless you’re being an idiot and suggesting that an RNG conversion from Well of Power is a reliable source of vigor.

~Says Necro’s don’t have blind, stability, protection or vigor"
~Is corrected and told that they are not used for multiple reasons"
~Responds that I am thief champion (Thank you) and then goes in to explain reasons why they aren’t used when I just said they aren’t used".

Not sure if serious.

Sunflowers.1729:

ensoriki.5789:

Thieves do not have a condition spec.

Yeah, neither do Guardians, or Eles (Have you ever seen a condition Guardian?). At least there are some P/D Thieves out there.

Also, the general question is that since these two classes are already dominating (albeit not with their condition builds), why is Anet going out of their way to make sure that they get more buffs, instead of fixing classes which actually need it?

I don’t see any reason for this buff. If it’s because Thieves and Mesmers don’t have viable condition builds, then why is the new condition not given to Eles and Guardians?

If it is because Thieves and Mesmers are terrible and need a buff somewhere, then that’s even more ridiculous. Surely you have seen the large number of Thief complaint threads?

I don’t think I’ve said anything against Guardian and Elementalist condi’s.
There is something wrong with this player base when things that aren’t being played are improved and people rage. Like improving the game is a problem.
When things that should be complained about “The lack of improvements” aren’t supposed to be criticized or “why are you even on this forum”.

How the hell can you say at this point fixes for other professions aren’t coming when they’ve blatently said they’ve been working on other professions.
Will they be enough? Who knows but I thing you’re conjuring delusions in order to suit your QQ.
There is a new condition, it’s not profession specific, 3 professions have it, Cry. Meh. Deh. River.

Anet on some level seems to care about class identity and so not everyone does the same things. My thief does not pop out confusion or burning, nice as it would be to do so. They seemingly feel this new condition fits the class identities of thief and Mesmer (and historically they do) in addition to the Necro so they got it as well. While simultaneously aiding in their current build deficits.

Anyways not sure why I’m having this conversation it’s completely juvenile
“W-why are they buffing underused specs!” Get real.

If Ranger spirits get buffed are we going to complain about Spirits getting buffed. Completely ridiculous.

Weird how you’re talking about someone giving you a typical non-ele response when you’re entire thread implies you don’t play thief or Mesmer.
Hell I don’t play Mesmer but I remember when I did.
They don’t have a condition spec.
Thieves do not have a condition spec.
Which is quite peculiar considering the GW1 Mesmer and GW1 Assassin (Deadly arts/Critical Strikes) certainly did have Denial, attrition and pressure specs.

Travlane.5948:

stof.9341:

Travlane.5948:

worst note : 4 init on deathblossom!?!?!?!? wtf….was it so op? did like 1200 dmg max lol and 3 stacks of bleed which are basically no dmg if ur going berserker. so dumb really this breaks an entire build.

You are aware this skill costs 5 init currently right?

total brain fart lol. yeah i was always saying they need to do to this what they did to FS LS bc when you leap in the air it doesnt always aim right. seems a lil annoying . or atleast add some distance and 50% more direct dmg. but for 4 initiative thats a lil better. yeah i read it wrong :P bleh! thanks man

You’re away of the evasion time LDB has at 5 initiative let alone 4? Considering how many players Q_Q on S/D evade time (which was higher pre-buff and can be replicated to an extend by condi D/D and even S/P).
This thing smells fake.

Zenith.7301:

ensoriki.5789:

Zenith.7301:

ensoriki.5789:

They’re not going to straight out drop damage like that since the game needs powerful offense in order to shift point possession in a reasonable time span.

And which are the classes that can use it? Not the bunkers.

1. Doesn’t matter if Bunker, roamer, joe across the street. It results in longer TTK. The longer it takes you to die, the longer you can defend a point. The longer that point can tick an extra point.
2. Multiple professions have weakness including those that can bunker.
3. This allows other professions if not the support to significantly extend life outside of the downed system, again raising TTK. Crits can be a 200% damage increase. No crits can mean a major drop to the damage you would take (cutting it in half).

If you’re a glass cannon Thief for instance, and you weaken the glass cannon Mesmer with your proposed “no crits guarantee” than that means he can certainly eat all 3 mind wracks. Which would let that thief sit on a node for longer if he needed to. Longer he’s alive the greater window of time his team has to come assist him, extend the time it takes to flip that node even longer. If nodes don’t flip in reasonable times the score snowballs because so many ticks occur before the node flips. Mix in these spike stops with the downed system and Im no prophet but I bet lifespans increase heavily. Why such is needed when you can actively stop many spikes with blinds, and hard CC, i don’t know. On top of protection, aegis, evades? How many buffers do people really need.

Necros don’t have aegis, or blind, or protection. They’d don’t have vigor, and they don’t have stability.

And these patch notes aren’t giving them any boons as they already said they wouldn’t be getting them, and if you earnestly believe that slightly more life force generation will make any difference while they’re getting trained by spike classes, you’re full of it.

Ditto for warrior.

Uwot? They have all of the bolded, it’s generally not felt justified bringing those options for a multitude of reasons.
You know full well the difference “no crits” has, especially on a item set like Berserkers where it’s completely defined by them.
Their implementation is RNG, but it’s much more reasonable .

Lokheit.7943:

ensoriki.5789:

I believe that cooldown system applies to an Ele regeneration trait when used with a Staff if I can remember.

I can’t find it I will continue the search. Sure it was regeneration? Filtering for that boon doesn’t show it.

And I think it’s very hard for the game to keep track of cooldown on each foe you hit with a condition that others can use but only on your aplications.

Imagine using Choking Gas on a group of 20 in orr (only 5 affected per pulse), then the game has to record a 20 seconds cooldown for each one of them to detect when your poisons will be able to apply weakness again. That consumes a lot of resources.

And 4 seconds each 20 seconds is too much of a nerf for something that was fine. Weakness change isn’t even that great (it simply affects criticals too).

Might be vigor.

Zenith.7301:

ensoriki.5789:

They’re not going to straight out drop damage like that since the game needs powerful offense in order to shift point possession in a reasonable time span.

And which are the classes that can use it? Not the bunkers.

1. Doesn’t matter if Bunker, roamer, joe across the street. It results in longer TTK. The longer it takes you to die, the longer you can defend a point. The longer that point can tick an extra point.
2. Multiple professions have weakness including those that can bunker.
3. This allows other professions if not the support to significantly extend life outside of the downed system, again raising TTK. Crits can be a 200% damage increase. No crits can mean a major drop to the damage you would take (cutting it in half).

If you’re a glass cannon Thief for instance, and you weaken the glass cannon Mesmer with your proposed “no crits guarantee” than that means he can certainly eat all 3 mind wracks. Which would let that thief sit on a node for longer if he needed to. Longer he’s alive the greater window of time his team has to come assist him, extend the time it takes to flip that node even longer. If nodes don’t flip in reasonable times the score snowballs because so many ticks occur before the node flips. Mix in these spike stops with the downed system and Im no prophet but I bet lifespans increase heavily. Why such is needed when you can actively stop many spikes with blinds, and hard CC, i don’t know. On top of protection, aegis, evades? How many buffers do people really need.

I believe that cooldown system applies to an Ele regeneration trait when used with a Staff if I can remember.

They’re not going to straight out drop damage like that since the game needs powerful offense in order to shift point possession in a reasonable time span.

KrisHQ.4719:

If torment were added on the mesmer’s Scepter, people would still use Scepter/Pistol and GS, which would result in phantasm mesmers being even stronger in duels.

Are we talking about a condi spec here, srs.
For all we know Torment scales almost entirely on condi dmg.
Something like (0.07 * condi_dmg) + 1.5 or something and a phantasm mesmer is better off not bothering with it unless they lower their damage to dip into condi_dmg.
If it’s on scepter 2’s Blind for instance than to get something out of a condition that has low base dmg (hypothetically speaking) and make it worth going Scepter over Sword or staff then they have to likely switch out of berserkers.

Nope.

Sauce?
Some are cool and good stops forward.
Then you have death blossom at 4 ini, I want to be real tea. If players are crying over FS+LS evade then they certainly can’t handle Death blossom at 4 ini.
Cannot be real tea.

Kinjax
For sure, but if you lose target with D/D. Then you’re going to throw either Dancing daggers (not really) or jump in with heartseeker (probably). If you need to kite/escape you’re going to throw Dancing daggers (unlikely) or Heartseeker (probably). So the mobility is definitely there. Ideally Condi D/D can relax on LDB a bit more after the patch. Or who knows maybe they throw torment on LDb and make us buy new 3 buttons on our keyboard every week.

Shadow strike is a kiting/defensive skill. If you were chasing you’d use Dancing dagger as your snare (eh not really). So like a Mesmer dropping phase retreats is the kind of incombat mobility I mean. Since P/D is a ranged set in theory…. if you can Shadow strike someone and warp to 600 range than with your 900 range weapon you can continue to harass with 1,2 or 3 (though thats obviously not the case).

Like I said there is definitely something to be said about their mobility, but they certainly have it.

Still moving while snared.

I’d disagree. Shadowstrike and Heartseeker fit the bill for in-combat mobility. Though there is obviously things you can say about them in a condi spec (or shadow strike in general).

Arken.3725:

It doesn’t make sense to give the highly mobile classes(thief and mesmer) more movement impairing conditions. This condi should be for the slower ones.

Don’t want to assume Anet but if it were me…

Mesmer Scepter is relatively underplayed, it deals Confusion but other then that it’s pretty much condiless. In addition the set itself has no real mobility unless you slap on focus. You could slap on torch but that too is an underutilized weapon.
So if I was putting on Torment knowing Scepter/Torch is pretty much heavy condi based, I’d put Torment on either the Scepter or the Torch. Since it stacks in intensity it’ll be weak for the typical power specced Mesmer and give them some variation in how they build.

If I look at thief, D/D, SB and P/D are the builds that can really hold condi’s. Unless im trying to correct S/X or D/P’s lack of synergy with Trickery condi dmg (which I doubt) it’s gonna go on D/D, P/D or SB. SB is pretty strong already excusing trick shot so unless Chocking Gas is being altered or IA being altered to put more benefit in warping to a target, it won’t get it.
The way to hit P/D and D/D simultaneously is Dancing daggers, which already a skill not really seeing play at all or I could put it on either of their dual skills which again don’t really see play at all. Only thing is LDB would be a superfed skill.

What is the issue?
Is the current Scepter/x Mesmer really mobile? Not really.

Parisalchuk.9230:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Its simple..they have to dractically increase warrior healing abilities or enjoy ur rifle+lb combo.

Its not just healing the warrior lacks.

Warriors lack condi removal, gap closing, condi application… The list goes on and on.

Didn’t they just say a trait to remove conditions on Burst skill usage is coming?
I don’t want to be optimistic since I’ve been let down several times but…mmm it’s possible this works out.

Not really worried about the skill update and trait changes. More concerned about how long until they make adjustments to what happens in this patch, another month?

BobbyT.7192:

Auesis.7301:

Trying to brainstorm where Torment will fit in to skills.

I have a sneaky feeling that both Body Shot and Dancing Dagger will get it. A few traps might – the trait changes may include applications of Torment for a prerequisite, like % of HP or something along those lines.

Don’t think both body shot and dancing dagger will get it, because there is P/D, making you choose one or the other depending which one does torment better.

I’m placing bets on dancing daggers. If it was on body shot, it wouldn’t make p/p a better set imo, making it only really useful on p/d and nothing else, while on Dancing Dagger, p/d and a condition base d/d would greatly benefit with this. Also it would improve S/D indirectly with this (In theory, easier to land you 3rd auto or LS on a target that does not want to move,),
Body shot needs some lovin, but this not it.

I’m going to assume Shadow strike. Since the ability forces you out of melee range, the condition would work well against melee chasers and kind of bring P/D back into a strong kiting set. Cover it with your bleeds and good to go.

DD could get it definitely but wouldn’t be surprised if it’s to Shadow strike or even LDB.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shameful_Fear

I’d be surprised if Torment was actually strong. For one it’s a stacking condition, they have low initial damage since they’re supposed to ramp up.

2) Currently thieves DoT is limited to bleeding and poison. This will be a condi spec thing primarily of which thief doesn’t roll. P/D WvW trolling? Who is to say that is not augmented this patch. Maybe Torment on Shadow strike to make more varied change.

3) Dunno if dodging is counted. Possibly not since confusion already treats dodging as a skill.

4)If this skill balance is large (possibly) than the weapons/utilities which get this ability may have other skills re-balanced around this new addition. So Current WvW presence (if you care about that) doesn’t necessarily apply. Though eh who knows with Anet.

It’s probably more so just to give the condi specs on these profs a bit of an extra edge to bring them up to par. That isn’t to say other professions don’t have weak condi specs but considering I don’t recall Condi Mes and condi thief being a “thing” for eons…. i doubt its an issue.

Its possible thief poison/weakness application is altered

The return of shameful fear!

Hope its as big as this update from back in GW1
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates/20070119
Still remember logging into RA that day and chat blowing up, guild chat blowing up, jumping into AB with my bud and that was blown up everyone was excited, some were raging but was exciting :o. Then it were rolling sh@ttering assault sins for life…. brb Nostalgia.

Slow and steady is nice but it is super boring.
Hope they don’t troll with some meh balance update.

I wanted to use P/D but the way it is somewhat effective is very disappointing.
It’s probably the most simplistic build we have currently simply because the ideal situation 90% of the time is 5-1 whether power or condi spec’d.
As well as Inf strike generally meaning I don’t have need for shadow strike where as Heartseeker and IA complement my sword better.
It was fun to play until I realized I was playing it wrong and was wasting ini using Shadow strike, didn’t benefit a lot out of body shot, and couldn’t justify throwing out Dancing daggers. Then it got boring.

Stealth only breaks on damage. This does no damage, it doesn’t break stealth while Shadow strike does. Its basically shadow strike without damage but more utility and without damage it doesn’t break stealth. Which is interesting, though doubtable to be included. Even if its included again its invalidating Shadow strike which is already struggling to find use on the weapon set against CnD+ Sneak attack. This is not considering the lack of use for DD. So P/D’s problems are still there, since you said P/X I thought it would make sense to point this out.

Free teleportion backwards (Shadow escape) was the original state of P/D’s Shadow Strike which didn’t make it into Launch (where now you have to hit the dagger hit).
At 1 ini cheaper you’ll likely never see this implementation on P/x.

Even if Vital shot’s sped up, I think the damage isn’t high enough at a base. Trick shot is practically putting out the same damage without a bounce with the bleed on VS being accounted for.

also where is the P/D factor? Atm the build is built on 5-1 with 3 thrown in every 3 years on a blue moon because its use is pretty much limited to immobilize and guardian wards given the damage it does in comparison to Sneak attack (whether power or condi spec’d).

KrisHQ.4719:

ensoriki.5789:

Endurance is fine. How much dodging are those necromancers doing?
Lettuce be real tea.

I wish someone would have applied your logic when Elementalists were considered OP.

Healing is fine. How much healing are those Warriors doing?

Remind me when in the past 4 months they decided to implement additional “heal hate” in relation to elementalists? Oh wait they didn’t, they just went after the Elementalists.

How Anet toning down a specific profession vs them attacking a global mechanic is the same I have no idea.
Next month will be Jumphate.

Zoe L was the only person running S/D?
Lol wot. Lots of us ran it until it was nerfed and even for awhile after it was nerfed. I was still seeing S/D run in tourneys after the nerf for a bit before people finally gave up on it. and switched to either burst S/P, D/P or D/D.

You can still see on Guildwars2guru (though I suppose you could find it on here too) many S/D thieves boasting ourselves against the other 3 melee sets back then despite being the most uncommon of the 4 melee.
Current S/D wasn’t really hard to play, You could 5-1 and be relatively successful at lower-mid levels but the skill ceiling was a lot higher.

Endurance is fine. How much dodging are those necromancers doing?
Lettuce be real tea.

sorrow.2364:

In my opinion, all the nerfs were right. So are the buff (excluding FS).
So stop cry about nerfs and get used to play into a balanced environment.

Not really feeling you here. While I agree with all the skills they touched being touched for a reason. That doesn’t mean it was done well. The circumstances that justified some nerfs have changed. PW nerf? Quickness has now been nerfed, Mug has been nerfed. The PW +Mug & Haste build has had all 3 aspects changed as of the previous balance patch.

Venom share is niche and it is not S/P exclusive you can run it with S/D. It’s hard to slot yourself in as a venom spec.

This is not a balanced environment, it is quite clear that it is not and if “Competitive means that the only thing which matters should be skill, not your class” then you still cannot say this. Your builds are tied to your class, and weapons are a part of that. Weapons clearly becoming niche/underpowered how can you stand by your statement that Competitive means only thing that matters is skill when it clear isn’t and underpowered specs are the flip side of the coin to overpowered specs in balance.

In addition as far as weapons themselves, skill usability should not decrease as it has. In efforts to balance dancing dagger they’ve practically taken it out of use, the skill is heavily unused, not for lack of wishing we could use it but this profession is based on opportunity cost for weapon skills and it is seldom worth it. If we had 100 initiative then sure tossing out Dancing Daggers is no problem, but we do not and throwing out Dancing dagger can literally cost you a fight.

Evades aint fun, AI aint fun, stealth aint fun, node sitting aint fun, bunkers aint fun, aoe aint fun. Burst aint fun, Hgh aint fun, shatter aint fun, trap ranger aint fun, ele aint fun, bunker ranger aint fun, free tourneys aint fun, paids aint fun, 1 match being called tourney aint fun, matchmaking aint fun, hot join aint fun, keg brawl aint fun, CA not fun, Spectator not fun, 100nades aint fun, 2 piece chicken at pop-eyes aint fun. Active defense aint fun, active offense aint fun, need more passivity. /sarcasm

Pve? Only one of use to you then is Ambush trap primarily though Needle trap may snare you a champion if you want that.

Jumper.9482:

Weapon Sets:

Sad state of affairs.
We had 4 viable melee sets. Somehow in theircrusade for balance, we’ve lost build diversity and intra-thief balance is at the worst it has ever been. After the december nerfs, S/P, D/D and D/P were all still usable sets. Then they put the nail in the coffin for S/P when its main utility, the very utility they nerfed Pistol whip around, got nerfed. Someone could say Venom share, but how many Venom Share S/P’s can anyone remember seeing since Launch?10 of em? Now left with 2 2 sets, simultaneously S/D gets nerfed again since while it fell far behind S/P after November. Haste+mug on anything could burst. D/D’s already at this point a fairly uncommon set there is basically 1 main set, D/D and Swords on the dryer. They nerf mug, buff S/D. Somehow S/D returns to the public eye but the set has degenerated greatly in skill use. D/P starts to falter from lack of damage. D/D drops out of use. Ridiculous how we’ve fallen this far, and yet that is just melee. in the months since launch at no point did P/D or P/P become credible. The 900 range shortbow now wants to run into 300 range so it can hit its auto attack.

Nothing has positively changed for build diversity in the thief. The game launched with 5 viable weapon sets out of 7, and has degraded to 3, where that number can be argued to be even less.

They could easily bring S/P back in to the game this month with damage buffs to PW and Black Powder (simultaneously helping out D/P though P/P needs far more then that). Wouldn’t be perfect due to group fight retaliation cleave = Death and something should be done about that. However if that damage buff comes in, the zoning potential of S/P is better than any other melee spec and it strengthens the threat when venom sharing.

SoM shouldn’t apply based on caltrops. Other then that definitely SoM needs the buff.

Some very interesting perspectives you put out here. Though I certainly disagree about Bountiful. You can’t seriously propose pigeon holing all the boon removal into S/D. It’s been bad enough that Bountiful is the only auxillary option, they’ve got to sprinkle a couple more boon removing applicants in the pipeline. Some utils certainly wouldn’t mind the addition.

Also I dont think CS is above anything. Outside of executioner what really sticks out about CS? Nothing, it’s just another trait line. If you say Executioner is a really strong trait compared to other options then definitely. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Executioner vs Hard to catch isn’t a debate.

S/P’s main “fix” is simply upping numbers. 3-5 should all be considered for increases on their co-efficients. Traps, venoms, signets, whatever should be considered secondary focuses behind the weapon sets. The longer the weapon sets aren’t the primary focus for the thief the longer the professions going to be held back.

Geiir.7603:

Manuhell.2759:

Guess it may be the only way to try balancing that class. The problem with the lack of cooldown/initiative costs is that, as now, there is basically no incentive to use something other than the “best” skill, simply cause you can do that, aside from few strategical choices.

Thief was designed to be a quick in and out of combat class. We move in for the kill and disappear again. Any good thief will never really spam an ability, because there is really no “best” skill. I use all skills on my weapon set for different reasons, and I rarely do any spamming. We can’t spam any ability and actually kill someone, except for those bad players just standing there…

Try a thief and you’ll understand.

An ability gets spammed when the opportunity cost for it and the other 3 skills on that bar are disproportionate. Hence P/D’s typical 5-1 play. Outside of imbalances in skills spamming is terrible for thieves because it means putting all your eggs in one basket and getting drained out of initiative. Good thieves don’t spam skills when our weapon set is balanced to give them choice otherwise thief has no option but to spam.

Initiative is a good mechanic, imo a really good one, but initiative doesn’t want slow skill balancing. It requires meaningful choices and for those choices to have a cost. Imo initiative is much better than a cooldown system and every profession would be more interesting if they had it. Only reason to not want it is because of how thief skill balance has been handled. We’d be better off with Cooldowns the way things have been going.

The builds im talking are for before the quickness nerf. The necro is more problematic now because the Thief does less damage. However the necromancers retaliation has always been negligible because PW doesn’t get wrecked by retal until it hits 2+ people with retal.

Daecollo.9578:

ensoriki.5789:

Daecollo.9578:

The skill is very hard to use in PvP, and easy to use in PvE, separating it would make it useful for PvP.

Atm, Pistol Whip is an absolute joke to my necromancer. Hes not even the best SPVP class.

It does less damage then autoattack, WHY Not raise its skill cap and separate it and add some diversity? IT WOULD ALLOW people to use more then 3 3 3 3 3 3…

PW isn’t hard to use in PvP.

Frauding, typical tpvp specs for Necromancer are still vulnerable to S/P due to the necro’s lack of stunbreaks and general lack of mobility. Necro’s probably the easiest class to kill with S/P.

S/P uses all of its skills. What are you talking about “allow people to use more then 333333” S/P, D/P and SB are the only sets that actually use all their skills.

Wow, you’ve played with some terrible necros then. Retaliation eats PW users ALIVE. However I understand most hotjoin necros are terrible. Its not exactly an easy class to play like thief. That is why my suggestion actually makes it harder to play and raises the skill cap a bit.

Retaliation doesn’t eat PW until you’re hitting multiple targets. Against a single-target it’s manageable. Also 30 in trickery was viable when haste was rolling because you had enough damage as a result of quickness. Not that you needed it, at all. 25/30/0/0/15 ate necros. Why? The damage output was high enough that no one cares about your retaliation. You as a necro are a single person with retal. Retaliation for S/P really sucks in when you’re hitting 2 and 3 people simultaneously because then you’re taking double and triple retaliation damage every swing. This is the same thing for HgH engies. No one is losing sleep over one person with retaliation. It isn’t a problem.

I Literally don’t know what you’re talking about. If you went 25/30/0/0/15 with Mug and Haste, the damage output would dropped Necro’s. Basically the easiest target on the field unless they went on a bunker spec. In which case you’d still kill them but it would take longer. If you went 10/30/0/30 with acrobatics you killed Necros. If you went 10/30/0/0/30 you killed Necro’s. You’ll probably still kill Necro’s in a Venom spec running 30/0/30/0/10. When you can bring LoS around nearly all capture points. Can daze, stun and immobilize a prof that admits it doesn’t break CC well and has low mobility and bring up retaliation? A single person with retaliation does not kill S/P thieves. It’s going in a team fight, guardian drops retal on everybody you cleave 3 people and are taking huge amounts of damage with your hasted whips and can go from 100% health to 20% faster than Usain bolt can run 100m.

Daecollo.9578:

The skill is very hard to use in PvP, and easy to use in PvE, separating it would make it useful for PvP.

Atm, Pistol Whip is an absolute joke to my necromancer. Hes not even the best SPVP class.

It does less damage then autoattack, WHY Not raise its skill cap and separate it and add some diversity? IT WOULD ALLOW people to use more then 3 3 3 3 3 3…

PW isn’t very hard to use it all. Landing PW isn’t problematic. It’s when you land them and they shrug it off because of the nerfs in PW, Haste and Mug adding up.
You’re doing less damage and thats why S/P becomes less threatening. The typical S/P set took 3 damage nerfs… If you nerf backstab 15% you’ll see D/ wondering why people are shrugging them off, and hell that is already happening.

Everything empathetic said +1.
There are team fights but not a lot, most of it rotating players and forcing uneven numbers.

Vanthian.9267:

Jumper.9482:

Actually, there is plenty of play/counter play to entering stealth.
There is Dagger offhand (rarely used) Cloak and Dagger which is a huge tell and dodge/interruptible with a HUGE initiative cost.
There is Thief stolen ability and Hide in Shadows(heal) which both have obvious animations and easily interruptable.
There’s the D/P Black Powder Heartseeker which is again, interruptible and extremely easy to read.
And there’s the most easy of all to counter, Shadow refuge, aka. knock him out of the circle or just kill him.

The only “uncounterable” stealth a thief has is Blinding Powder, a 40sec cd utility noone uses.

There is no counter to stealth. Once they are stealth, that is it. They will only be reveled once they hit something (choose to come out) or the stealth runs out (3 seconds/4 seconds (most thievies)/ or the annoying 16 seconds). None of these things are negative and prove there is 0 skilled play that can counter someone in stealth. The best you can do is guess which way he went and swing in the air.

So what?
The only time stealth is problematic in any sense is when it gets extended/stacked.

Hmm I’m fine. It doing something and it remedying the issues the set has are two different things. It doesn’t address them so I deem it unnecessary. Why break apart the skill if it’s design isnt broken.

I’ve got nothing against you for trying to add anything. It bothered me that you were stating what I think. Moving on.