Guild Wars 2

SSalp.6423:

Would be very messy and not really help if you have multiple traits with ICD.

Any more messy than the current quantity of Boons and Conditions a player can have on them? As for not helping, even if you have 3 separate traits with ICD labeled “V”, when they appear should give you enough context to know which trait just triggered in the majority of situations. Worst case scenario, it’s equivalent to the current system of not telling us our ICD’s at all.

Also it is not that hard to keep track of those while playing.

This feels like a naive, off the cuff refusal of the idea without really thinking about it. Do you turn your UI off and keep track of all your weapon, utility and heal cooldowns mentally? Do you track endurance in the same manner? Of course you don’t. OP’s suggestion would increase transparency and potentially skill cap, and it’s not as if he’s suggesting something brand new – the UI already supports icons and timers for conditions and boons, it’s not a mountain of work to include ICD on traits/runes/sigils on there. You could always offer a toggle to display/hide these icons in case it makes a players screen too busy. It’s a nice QOL increase at (what I’m assuming is) a low cost in development time, due to already existing structures.

xMidnightxWolf.9258:

Hi, I havn’t been playing GW2 long but let me start this post by telling you abit about myself in terms of gaming. First off, i’m a huge pvper. I love pvp, it’s all I do. I’m ok with pve to kill time, but mainly pvp. Now then to the topic at hand.

Like the title says, pvp is a friggin joke in this game. Of course this is just MY opinion but who cares. So then, why do I think pvp is a joke in this game? Simple…First off, theres no feel to it. It’s all too fast paced and theres really no need to actually do a rotation or set yourself up for a decent strategic kill in pvp. Why I think that is simple. Out of all the pvp i’ve done in this game it’s been the same thing…Attack someone, they break out of all your cc, dispel all your dots, and pretty much be immune to damage/or unable to be targeted. Then, get gang kitten d by the targets teamates. This is what I have been experiencing all day everyday for as long as I been doing pvp. It’s total bs. For example, Mesmers. How do you guys expect someone to beat a mesmer when they constantly go invisible.

And ontop of that, you have illusions that do damage and half the time you can’t find the real player. Going invisible like every 3sec is bs. How could you even let that slide or even add something like that into the game I mean seriously? Same goes for theifs, constantly invisible, or stealth, whichever you prefer, and just like mesmers, do tons of damage. How can you beat that? All the constant health regenerations, all the cc breakers, all the things that prevent damage being taken, for example retaliation…B…S…Simply…BS! Everytime I go up to a target and actually begin my rotation the same ol BS happens. They break out of my cc and I end up having to pop all my defences and healing and still die in 10 seconds. It’s unbelievable. When I play pvp all I see is me getting crunched and facestomped by abunch of mesmers and thiefs. If not them, then i’m getting facestomped by the entire team. I’m alway’s dieing, and i’m alway’s getting jumped, never getting kills. Not fun at all.

I play Elementalist, i’ve been told Elementalist sucks right now but what? Am I suppose to reroll? No, that’s not fair…So then what am I suppose to do…Quit? Well, that’s my plan because you know what? Like I said, all I do is pvp, the pvp is not fun on this game to me for the reasons I listed above. So basically, I wasted 40 something bucks on a game, that I don’t even enjoy. Now I understand theres some kind of huge patch coming up on April 15th. Well hello and welcome to that patch, that’s my last stand right there. Hopefully, you guys actually do something about this BS that i’m experiencing and I don’t have to explain to my wallet why I took 40 bucks out of it for no reason at all. HOPEFULLY, things get better and more balanced in terms of pvp. But hey, that’s you guys job, not mine. All I know is, is that i’m a noob, playing a supposedly hard class, getting destroyed in pvp. As far as i’m concerned, buying this game was a waste of time and money.

I tryed everything, switching up weapons, switching up armor runes, switching up traits, weapon skills, slot skills. Still the same result. I’m done, I don’t care anymore. I’m willing to give it one more shot, i’m not playing this game until that patch arrives. And if the same crap happens, then i’m done. You guys probably don’t give 2 craps about that, but oh well, i’m speaking my mind and that’s it.

Now to wrap this long post of ragemode up, I have suggestions, turn down the ability to dispel, the ability to heal, and the ability to break cc. In my opinion, those are what’s ruining the game pvp wise. Those who can utilize and strategize there FEW abilities, not MANY, FEW abilities, are the true pros. That’s all i’m saying. But anyways, thanks for reading and hearing me out. Goodday to you all.

Evilapprentice used CarriageReturn-LineFeed!
It’s super effective!

alchemyst.2165:

All this time I’ve been saying why reveal yourself to get the bonuses? I’ve said before that would kind if make it revealed arts, and it’s counter productive.

How is it counter productive to take away the incentive to sit in stealth for no other reason then to take advantage of SA traits and change it to an incentive to fight your targets? In what way is that counter productive exactly?

I’m wondering if YOUVE been following what IVE been saying, you seem to be avoiding that point.

I’ve addressed that point in nearly every single post. Thieves won’t have less defense from SA – their defense will be more evenly spread throughout a fight rather than concentrated in stealth uptime. It will be more easily accessed. It will encourage and reward active play rather than encouraging and rewarding passive play. Encouraging Active play will go a long way in making thief a class that is both more fun to play and more fun to play against.

I like your goal to make thief more of an active class but this isn’t the way to go imo.

There is no other way to make thief a more active class with the SA line – as long as Shadow Arts creates an incentive to stay in stealth where they wouldn’t normally be one, SA will encourage passive play – there’s no way around that that doesn’t remove the incentive to stay in stealth.

And on your points about sitting in stealth for 10 sec, you can’t really do that. I don’t play like that. I use my utilities only in defense because thief lacks defense.
You’re implying that I use my shadow refuge offensively, which I do not.

You can “sit in stealth” as long as you want, in most situations. With D/P, as long as you’re looking to avoid a fight, you can BP->HS, wait, and repeat. It won’t last forever, but you can spend a good 10-15 seconds in stealth regenerating easily. You can leap through smoke screen multiple times, or just sit in an SR if you’re confident you wont get knocked out of it/AoE spammed to death. I also don’t recall ever implying that you use your SR offensively, not that it really factors in either way.

Stealth is a defense all on its own – not the best of them, but it has its uses. It doesn’t need SA rewarding you for sitting passively in stealth to make it better when it could instead reward you for being active while still making stealth a better defensive tool

scabrous.7835:

I support this idea. The only thing that would need some reword would be Shadow’s Rejuvenation. In the new system it would be too weak. It would need a buff that doesn’t make it OP. I’m thinking about making it heal for 1k (random number!) on 5-7s ICD. Compared to current 330-ish per second.

You could potentially tie it to the length of revealed (which would help keep it balanced between PvP and WvW). The actual HPS would probably have to be a little bit lower than shadow rejuv currently is, because you’re no longer forced to sit in stealth and not do anything to get the heal.

Off the top of my head, I’d probably set it 200 HPS while revealed, no idea on the HP contribution. That of course is just a thought, it’d need to be playtested.

alchemyst.2165:

What benefits? All this is doing is making it harder to survive. This punishes people for being in stealth Whig is what shadow arts is about. I was talking about conditions because the title of this article has to do with shadow arts traits in stealth, and one of them is remove condos in stealth. I’m not saying it’s a great trait, but it’s our best one in that line. I was saying that because the whole point of this is to get your heal and condos removed on reveal, and as I keep on saying, that’s being counter productive. I’m trying to see the whole scope of things, looking at each detail and how it will be applied in combat. You’re overlooking a lot of things here.

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I’m not sure you’re really capable of following this conversation. You just keep saying the same things. Over and over again, regardless how much I explain them.

I understand having a different viewpoint, but you keep backing up your viewpoint with something we’ve discussed half a dozen times at this point. You seem to be unable or unwilling to acknowledge any of my points, instead just focusing on narrow, specific “What ifs” that don’t take the whole picture into account.

You say
“But what about all the time I spend in stealth, I’m losing so much defensive ability”

I say
“But what about all the times you don’t sit in stealth, and you just use it to quickly get in position and use a stealth attack? You’ll have roughly the same defensive ability, but instead of it all focused into a 10s SR stealth where you sit with your thumb up your kitten , it’ll be spread out during the time you’re actively fighting.” Active > Passive.

You say
“But what about my ability to sit in stealth for 10 seconds and remove conditions”

I say
“That’s a terrible, terrible tradeoff. It’s sad that even with how bad it is, it’s one of thief’s best ways of removing conditions. Condition removal for thieves has to be reworked, regardless how SA works now or could work in the future.” My suggestion (and recall, its only a suggestion) for how SE would work keeps it fairly strong, without having to sit in stealth with a thumb up your kitten waiting for the trait to passively fix you.

You say
“But it’s going to make thief harder”

I say
“No, it’s going to make thief harder to keep playing if all you want to do is sit in stealth and have passive abilities fix you. It’ll be easier to play if you’re actually interacting with targets, using stealth for positioning and going for stealth attacks when it makes sense, rather than just sitting in stealth waiting for your passive SA traits to do enough to justify taking them.”

alchemyst.2165:

As Shinjo said, this would make it a more dangerous, 2 part thing to remove conditions. And it can be pretty hard to hit people in the first place with d/d. Why should we have to hit people to get our bonuses? We get affected by blinds misses and blocks a lot more than most classes because we rely on hits already. It’s too risky to rely on hits even more. This is actually making it much harder to get bonuses. Thief is already a hard class, we don’t need more difficulty.

And again, for at least the fourth time, talking about conditions is not productive to this conversation. Even if we leave SA exactly how it is, thief condition removal is severely lacking. Just because you’ve gotten used to how Shadow’s Embrace works does not make it a good trait – it’s actually pretty kittenty. If you’re in a situation where you can’t just sit in stealth (PvP, any situation where it’s smarter for you to attack your opponent rather than twiddle your thumbs in stealth), it’s fairly weak, and even when you can just sit in stealth you’re forced to remove yourself from combat just to drop a few conditions – that is not good design.

Just because it’s the shiniest kitten on the dinner plate doesn’t change the fact that you’re eating kitten. You’re consistently focusing on 1 aspect without bothering to look at the bigger picture. You’re talking about lackluster condition removal when that’s a thief problem, not an SA problem, and all the scenarios your thinking about focus entirely on “What about when this specific situation arises” while ignoring how you got to that point, thereby glossing over all the benefits the proposed change to SA brings with it.

Shinjo.6092:

The thing is, this turns our condition removal into a 2 step process – you now have to go into stealth and successfully hit something in order to remove conditions. This makes movement impairing conditions like cripple, chill, and immobilize even more deadly for us than it already is since we may not always be able to hit something, and it boosts weakness and confusion against us since we have to suffer the negative effects by attacking first before being able to remove it. Do you really want to boost conditions against us at a time like this?

I think with some tweaking, u may potentially have a good idea here but I’m not sure what your goal is. Just so we have this clear, you realize that even if your idea goes through, everyone will still be complaining about thieves right? It never stops.

My suggestion actually mentioned dropping 1 condition on stealth, and 1 more on revealed, but that’s beside the point. Focusing on conditions doesn’t help with the overall discussion because thieves are in an awful position concerning conditions currently. Just because Shadows embrace is our current best condition removal doesn’t make it good, it’s just the prettiest piece of kitten in the dump.

The suggestions themselves are also just spitballing – any changes would need to be thoroughly playtested of course, the main idea is to switch any benefit that scales with time spent in stealth it into a static “on revealed” trigger. This would switch SA thieves focus from “Sit in stealth and do nothing while traits do their thing” to “Continue playing as I normally would while traits do their thing”

People are going to kitten and moan regardless – I Don’t give a kitten about them. The point of my suggestions was to make thief a more fun class to both play and play against, and open up some build diversity in PvP at least, all of which would make the game better as a whole. I think this suggestion accomplishes those goals.

alchemyst.2165:

This just leaves thief with no defensive options, though. You would have to go full aggressive mode, risking getting tunnel visioned into dying. This would kill outnumbered fighting for thief. What happens when we try to be aggressive but the opponent I even more aggressive? There has to be balance for those who want to play aggressively and defensively. With my build 10/30/30 I can choose when I want to be aggressive and defensive because mug saves me a lot of time waiting to heal. The current system allows players to choose whether to attack or stay on the defensive.

My system also allows the player to choose whether to attack or stay on the defensive, that doesn’t change. It just rewards being aggressive rather than being passive.

It also doesn’t kill outnumbered fighting for thief, or leave you defensless – if your only defensive mechanism is sitting in stealth, you’re doing something wrong – you should have blinds and/or evades and teleports as well, and possibly some interrupts. and you can still sit in stealth if you want to, nothing changes that.

You have all the same defensive tools as you have now, and they’re being triggered by you actively playing rather than just sitting around in stealth. Instead of long periods of not taking advantage of SA benefits (by fighting) followed by long periods of taking advantage of SA benefits (by sitting in stealth and doing nothing), you’re spreading out the SA benefits over the entirety of the fight.

I Don’t think you’re taking into account how much more pressure you’ll be generating by switching out “Sitting in stealth waiting for regen” with “Regenerating while actively fighting opponents”.

alchemyst.2165:

As to evilapprentice, I like the idea of being active, I just don’t see how this is a buff defensively. I’m starting to open up to the idea more, you’re arguing this very well. But what happens when I get to about 2k health, my last refuge procs, I want to heal up but I have to reveal ourselves to get extra protection? Conditions ticking away, opponent still attacking. I suppose I could always shadow step away, but I’d rather try and win the fight than escape if possible. Plus, there’s gonna be conditions crawling all over the place. I would be dead in a few seconds unless I asked for more. There’s also people who actually know how to fight thief and predict where we are.

You’re looking at the end result here and not taking into account how you got there.
Lets take your scenario and examine it under both the current system, and my proposed system.

In the current system, if you were playing aggressively you likely didn’t receive much benefit from SRejuv, and only about half of the condition cleanse embrace could have delivered. Last refuge procs, and you sit in stealth to regen and drop conditions.

In my system, if you were playing aggressively, you were receiving the full benefits of Srejuv and Embrace the entire time. It should have taken you longer to hit the point where last refuge procs, at which point you’ve already received a significant amount of healing and condition removal.

Instead of sitting in stealth passively to regen large chunks of health and drop heaps of conditions at the tail end of the fight, roughly equivalent healing and condi removal would have been spread out over the entire fight.
[/quote]

MonMalthias.4763:

evilapprentice.6379:

snip snip snip
…I’m not? Stealth remains completely untouched. Shadow arts is changed. You’re going to need to decouple those in your way of thinking to grasp the goal here.

I had the same exact problem with my Stealth as a Boon thread and it’s going to be a hard uphill slog. I wish you luck.

It’s like talking to some hardcore brick walls up in here. Thanks for the well-wishes.

Alch, you’re still free to play stealth however you enjoy it. The system I’ve proposed just rewards active gameplay as opposed to passive gameplay. You can still play all the “mind games” you want, you’ll just gain the benefits when you attack rather than while you’re sitting there twiddling your thumbs.

Since most stealth access is 3 seconds (base, without meld), my proposed system doesn’t really get in the way of you “playing mind games” and “timing things perfectly.” You might lose out a little bit on sitting in long stealth from SR/Multiple jumps through SS, but you’ll make up for it all the times you attacked shortly after stealthing (where as in the current system, you’d see less benefits out of SRejuv and Embrace in those cases). The only thing this really removes the incentive from is people stealthing, doing nothing, and stealthing again so SRejuv can passively heal them while they do nothing, which is a good thing. The best part is people are still free to do that (since recall, I haven’t changed how stealth works at all), it just removes the rewards for doing so.

alchemyst.2165:

I just don’t see why someone would want to reveal themselves JUST to get a small heal and maybe some condis cleared. Being revealed as a thief for prolonged periods of time is bad for your health O: But you’re not helping yourself by saying “Alright guys, I’ve regained a bit of hp and cleared my condis. Attack again now!”

You WOULDN’T want to get revealed to get a small heal or some condi’s cleared – you get revealed because you went for Backstab/Sneak attack/Clutch head shot interrupt/etc. It is part of the natural flow of thieves, stealth and revealed. Sitting in stealth can be advantageous at times, but it shouldn’t be the focus of a trait line.

There’s a new -50% damage while in stealth trait coming mid april- seems that’ll do just fine protecting yourself.

People will still take Shadow’s Rejuvenation. I think this is more of a support option for thief, or preference, but not everyone will take it. Every shadow arts builds has it and they’ve gotten used to it.

Warrior’s have gotten used to their current situation – does that mean it shouldn’t be changed for the better of the game?

Stealth remains completely untouched. Shadow arts is changed

For a thief build, there is usually Stealth involved, and, in turn, Shadow Arts. (WvW standpoint, a lot of people don’t use 30 SA in spvp) That’s just what they were made to do. (Personally I would like to see more acro builds though) If any thief is hoping to run stealth (which most thieves have to) they use shadow arts or they’re incredibly glassy. Stealth is affected because you’re changing how people will use it. I mean, I guess stealth as a mechanic isn’t changed but thief stealth will be.

I understand your goal is to make stealth thieves more active in the fight? They already pretty much are. Thieves have to constantly watch their oponnents, think about how to approach (should I wait, or should I go for burst now), think about their own health and survivability, managing cooldowns, and if they are in a group, make sure they can res and rally properly. Plus, just sitting in stealth won’t really kill your opponent.

What do you mean by active in the fight? Do you mean button-pressing wise, movement wise, or thinking wise?

I mean “not sitting in stealth letting a trait passively heal/cleanse them”. It’s boring for the thief and for their opponents. " It’s a huge source of WvW QQ (not entirely unwarranted), and it makes the entire SA traitline completely worthless in PvP. From an Esports perspective (lawl, I know), it’s boring to watch, and it rewards sitting around and not playing the game. Watching your opponents" is not “being active in the fight”, it’s just a basic part of gameplay.

Of course some of your in-stealth time will sometimes be spent waiting and getting into position, but currently SA is designed to encourage you to sit and wait, even if you’re in position or have the potential to be helpful to your team with a stealth attack, because you’re being passively rewarded for sitting in stealth. It should instead encourage you to contribute to your team (with a Backstab or a Tactical strike or a surprise shot or a clutch interrupt, and so on). You still have the option to sit in stealth if you feel like waiting is the better call, but you’re no longer being rewarded for it.

And “thief stealth” is not changed. Ask yourself this – if you took 0 points in SA, is stealth any different between how it’s currently implemented, and my suggestions? The way thieves can use stealth is changed. It’s changed for the better, which is the point.

alchemyst.2165:

Yeah….No it isn’t. It’s worthless in PvP because you can’t contest points or contribute much to your team while just sitting in stealth, and It’s annoying in WvW because there’s nothing preventing thieves from just sitting in stealth as long as they can afford to so that they regenerate health/init/etc. My suggestion fixes both of those issues while still encouraging the thief to use stealth to its fullest.

In pvp, the role of the thief is to kill and support/roam. Other players are meant to cap while you destroy the other team. Also, with this maybe we should make mesmers able to cap while in stealth as well, if capping is the issue.

Capping while in stealth would be an AWFUL idea…just, truly awful. My suggestions make absolutely no changes to a thief’s ability to support/roam, not sure why you brought that up.

I can kind of see where you’re going with wvw, the problem is if you’re trying to stealth and escape from opponents, multiple especially, you cant really protect yourself unless you reveal yourself, which is being counter productive. Low hp, being pressured while inside a shadow refuge, conditions ticking away at your health and you can’t regenerate hp or cure conditions unless you reveal yourself and ask to get killed.

There’s a new -50% damage while in stealth trait coming mid april- seems that’ll do just fine protecting yourself. You’ll still have shadow protector, cloaked in shadow, the heal from shadow refuge itself, and the dark field that shadow refuge is to help heal you if that’s what you need – the dark field would actually mesh well with my suggestions and projectiles, in fact. Bringing up conditions is, as I’ve already said, counter productive; thieves need some condition removal love regardless, sitting in stealth to remove conditions is a poor substitute – it’s just our best option atm.

I think you’re also looking at this from a d/p permastealth build standpoint.

I can’t imagine how, as there is no D/P permastealth build anymore. It was (rightfully) killed with the dec 10th patch. You can use D/P and utilities to gain access to long uptime stealth, which is fine (even the developers expressed that sentiment)

Also wondering if you play thief, that can really change someone’s perspective on stealth. Lots of people who know how to fight thief can counter stealth easily.

3000+ games (I looked it up, anticipating this question). You can also take a brief tour of my post history if you doubt my honesty.

stealth is fine the way it is.

So..why are you trying to change it?

…I’m not? Stealth remains completely untouched. Shadow arts is changed. You’re going to need to decouple those in your way of thinking to grasp the goal here.

oZii.2864:

It is interesting idea one I haven’t heard but it totally changes the way thief plays. The problem most people have with thieves is that the thief dictates the fight. With the mobility a thief can have they can do this anyway without stealth. Your suggestion makes them much easier to kill to satisfy the crowd that hates that a thief can dictate the fight.

The point isn’t to “totally change the way thief plays”. Thieves are the kings of mobility by design, this sentiment has been expressly stated by the developers. I’m not trying to redesign the class. The idea is not to make thieves easier to kill – they’re still going to get healed by shadow rejuvenation and have conditions cleansed by embrace. Thieves will still be using stealth for positional benefits because that’s what thief does. If you’re interested in “Thieves without mobility and stealth”, roll a warrior (though their mobility can be pretty impressive).

It puts a arbitrary icd on all the stealth traits namely shadow rejuvenation and shadows embrace I am guessing is your targets here. Hidden killer not sure how that would work? You get 100% crit chance during your entire revealed? Some might actually like that.

Why would hidden killer change? It’s not a benefit that scales with time in stealth, it’s a toggle – Hidden killer would remain exactly how it is. Again, the idea is not to “weaken” stealth, stealth is fine the way it is. The idea is to shift the focus of SA from “Sitting in stealth to take advantage of SA” (Which is annoying to players and useless for PvP) to “Using stealth as it was intended while still getting a benefit from SA”.

Overall though can’t say I’m a fan of what your suggesting here it is a major change in the way thief works. I’ll need to think it over more usually when I see a suggestion the first thing I think of is how can players abuse this which is usually what the players are looking for.

…How is it a “major change in the way thief works”? It’s a change in when SA benefits are applied, and nothing more. Yes, it will change the way thief plays, but only in that you’ll need to continue fighting your target if you want SA’s traits to trigger properly. All it does is remove the incentive (and the need) to sit in stealth for extended periods to take advantage of SA’s best traits, which is beneficial for both WvW (in terms of how annoying thieves are to fight) and PvP (in that it makes SA a viable PvP traitline, finally). There’s nothing preventing thieves from sitting in stealth with these changes, it’s just that SA doesn’t beg you to do so anymore.

alchemyst.2165:

This would decrease the effectiveness of the thief’s stealth. In fact you would be punished for being in stealth longer.

As something to just sit in, yes. It has no effect on stealth as a tool for gaining position, which is what it’s intended for. You’d be punished for sitting in stealth for no reason other than to take advantage of SA traits. Dev’s have stated in the past that they want to encourage more active thief playstyles, instead of just spamming dodges or stealth – this does this without penalizing SA or stealth heavy builds.

If you’re in stealth and you have a mass of conditions on you, you would have to attack the target and risk being killed for it.

Conditions aren’t a great marker to go by – thief needs access to better condition removal beyond the scope of this conversation – for a 10 point trait, dropping 1 condition on stealth and 1 condition on revealed would be plenty powerful – the traits current implementation is already a bit strong for its point cost in situations where you can just sit in stealth as long as you want (IE, not capture point PvP), and weak in situations where you cant just sit in stealth as long as you can afford to (capture point pvp). Why have that dichotomy instead of a traitline that’s useful across all modes of play? The entire point is to encourage active play rather than just sitting in stealth to “reset fights”.

In fact, this would make thieves even more annoying to you guys. They would be in stealth, want to reveal themselves to you so that they get the bonuses from it, and then run away and re-engage because they don’t want to be killed. Counter-productive to what you want.
Thieves need the in-stealth bonuses of Shadow Arts to survive. Otherwise we are nothing and we melt instantly. We have no condi clear or outside healing other than SA.

This is entirely inaccurate on multiple points.

Nothing I’ve suggested makes the playstyle you’ve described any more viable then it is right now. Thieves can teleport away while visible and restealth right now, my changes do nothing to make that better. It encourages actively playing (going in and out of stealth, using stealth attacks to get the revealed debuff), rather than sitting around waiting for passive abilities to fix you while in stealth.

The idea is to replicate those in-stealth bonuses when you choose to reveal yourself – my suggestions aren’t stripping those bonuses, it’s just shifting them to “On revealed”, so thieves have to be active in combat to get the bonuses. Your comment about conditions is true, but part of a larger problem – we shouldn’t put making SA better on hold because thief has awful condition removal options. Condition removal access should be expanded regardless of whether or not SA is changed, because it’s currently abysmal.

SA is fine as is.

Yeah….No it isn’t. It’s worthless in PvP because you can’t contest points or contribute much to your team while just sitting in stealth, and It’s annoying in WvW because there’s nothing preventing thieves from just sitting in stealth as long as they can afford to so that they regenerate health/init/etc. My suggestion fixes both of those issues while still encouraging the thief to use stealth to its fullest.

What they should do is add more build diversity to thief. That way people who like stealth can use stealth and people who like dodging and being all over the place can do that.

My suggestion opens build diversity in PvP and leaves WvW build diversity unchanged. You can still sit in stealth as long as you want, you just need to actively reveal yourself (IE, participate in combat) to reap the benefits of SA.

Bazzoong.7145:

Any clearer statement ofmy point of view will get me another infraction point, I do hereby respectfully acknowlege that you “do not get it”.

They guy in the vid does not even use a consistent “build”, surely the 300 or something hp he regenerates while stealthed and the condition removal offered by SA are what made him win (especially against the warrior, check the signets on that guy, hint… hint..).

SA was quite obviously what made him win against the S/P thief “challanger of the arena” means top 100 tournament player (hint… hint…).

Your suggestions would make that “build” and playstyle weaker (suposedly more fair)? It does not get any weaker that this, there is no more uphill fighting that what this guy did.
Even if you get all you ask for, this guy would still do this. Can you guess why?

Because you’ve got an obviously biased view of how thieves work, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will sway it? Like most people who hate thieves without understanding the mechanics in the slightest, you’re here to reinforce and spread your view rather than being open to conversation.

The video you posted has laughably bad opponents. I was literally laughing out loud at the first 2 thieves who fought them – I’ve played alot of S/D, and enough D/P to know how inexperienced they were. Anyone with an iota of skill in PvP would have obliterated him. There’s a reason this was done in WvW instead of a dueling server in PvP – It wouldn’t have made as hilarious a video when mid-skilled PvP players tore him to shreds.

If you’re unable to see how changing SA traits to “On revealed” rather than “while sitting in stealth” would have made most of the fights in that video impossible, you don’t really have a strong enough grasp of the mechanics to contribute meaningfully to this conversation. If you can’t make your point without being infracted, you don’t really have a point to make.

If you still disagree that changing all the “Sit in stealth for benefit” traits into “triggered on reveal” traits would make the class more fun to play/play against in both PvP and WvW, you’re welcome to explain why you feel that way. Try to offer some analysis or logic though, “Because thief is broken” isn’t going to get you anywhere.

Edit: Your comment “It doesn’t get any weaker than this” is probably most telling of your lack of understanding of the mechanics. His lack of an OH mostly denied him stealth – you’ll notice all 3 of his utilities (Smoke screen for HS leaps) AND his heal grant stealth. The build is based on sitting in stealth for long periods to regen hp and drop conditions, while also letting CD’s tick down.

My proposed changes (of which the specifics are just a suggestion, mind you) would completely shut down his entire playstyle – he would have most likely lost every fight, even against the less-than-experienced players he was facing.

Bazzoong.7145:

So since I got my 1st infraction point here and my post got deleted, I respectfully and totally without insults to your cognitive capacities and your knowledge about the mechanics of this game, ask you to take a look at this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Video-New-meta-no-OffHand-for-poor-people/first#post3837475
I consider this free educational advice about this game’s mechanics and do in no way want to be disrespectful.

Please forgive me if my inadequte english may create any bad emotional experiences for anyone reading this.

I totally respect you all I also do not wish to humor you in any way this game and anything about it is to be taken 100% serious…

I am not saying this to be rude, but I am genuinely confused as to what your point is.

If you’re trying to point out how cheesy the SA trait-line is for WvW, I agree with you. The point of my suggestion was to remove all trait related value from sitting in stealth – instead, SA’s most common traits will instead be tied to being revealed, which will make sure thieves have to be in active combat to receive the lines biggest benefits (healing, condition removal, etc). It would have the added benefit of also fixing SA for PvP, since now thieves don’t need to sit in stealth to reap the rewards of their spec.

My suggestions would make the build/playstyle in the video you linked much weaker – no more sitting in Shadow Refuge stealth to regen, most importantly.
Let’s also note that, of the fights I watched (the first 3), the posters opponents were laughably bad. That last Rage-inducingly-bad fight with just a dagger OH vs that awful mesmer would be impossible with my suggested changes, because you wouldn’t be rewarded with HP and condition cleanses for just sitting in stealth – you’d only earn them by using an attack from stealth and getting the revealed debuff.

Renny.6571:

Gulesave.5073:

The Steal mechanic is underused by many players due to the lack of control over the results.

lol wut. Steal from any class and you know exactly what you’re gonna get. Besides, 30 trickery and you have aoe 10sec might/fury/swiftness, 2 boon strip which prioritizes stab+aegis and is aoe shared, a daze and +2 initiative all in a gap closer, no animation instant cast skill every 20 seconds. No decent PvPer would ever say it needs a buff.

I would expect any ability I invest 3 out of 7 traits into to perform admirably at the minimum, regardless of class.

That being said, the steal mechanic itself is more than fine when traited (there might be merit in a discussion of slightly stronger base Steal and slightly weaker traits). The stolen ability could use a little work – some are already magnificent….others, not so much. I like the idea of each class stolen from offering a set item for each slot.

F2 – Direct damage oriented – works well for power/crit builds.
F3 – Condition damage oriented – works well for condition based builds.
F4 – Support – not tailored for either build, just offers some sort of support item.

That way whirling axe isn’t mostly useless for condition build, and throw gunk isn’t mostly useless for a power/crit build.

Julie Yann.5379:

NinjaEd.3946:

Julie Yann.5379:

They should just remove the thief from the game. No more spammable cheese builds, everyone gets to fight on a level playing field and Anet doesn’t have to waste resources trying to balance an incredibly broken mechanic. It’s a win fro everyone.

While they’re at it, remove every class except warrior. That way the skill level will be minimal and those who spent months perfecting their builds even after constant nerfs can feel like it lead somewhere.

No, just thieves will do.

Nah, Ninja had it right. After thief is gone, a new class players never bothered to learn the mechanics of will suddenly be game-breakingly OP. These players will come to boards in droves to complain about mechanics they don’t fully understand, and never intend to. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

The end result will just be 1 class with about 3 skills, and even then, Paper will cry that scissors are OP but rock is fine.

Please, Just Learn to Play?

muscarine.5136:

Awesome, can’t wait to see the first “revealed lasts too long nerf plx” thread so i can start walking on the head.

The effects wouldn’t be forced to last as long as revealed is up, like the new DA trait.

They would be triggered by revealed, and balanced individually however makes sense.

For example, Shadow’s embrace could be “Remove 1 condition when you enter stealth or get revealed”, effectively removing 2 conditions per stealth like it does now.

Shinjo.6092:

A ranger who uses sic Em will now heal, blind your opponents, and cure conditions for you.

and deny stealth, which was the intention of the skill in the first place. The fact that it shuts down all a thief’s points in SA is silly, as I’ve said in the past.

Also, they wouldn’t blind – blind is an “enter stealth” trigger, not “Sit in stealth”.

The only traits effected would be Shadows Embrace, Patience (for completeness, it’s not like anyone uses it), and Shadow Rejuvenation. The idea is to remove all incentive to just sit around in stealth while traits do their thing.

Take any of the traits that reward sitting in stealth for an extended period of time, change their effect to “On reveal”, and re-balance the effects themselves.

There, you’ve solved most of SA’s issues in both PvP and WvW.

In WvW, there will no longer be an incentive to sit in stealth and wait, since it will no longer benefit them to just sit in stealth.

In PvP, you won’t punish players who want to cleanse conditions or heal using the SA traitline by forcing them to sit in stealth for an extended period, giving up caps and not contributing to their team.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Arganthium.5638:

“I’m bad at this game! Let’s find a scapegoat to blame all of my problems on!”

That seems to be what a pathetically large portion of unskilled mesmers are saying right now.

“I’m not OP. Everyone else is bad at this game” That seems to be what the overwhelming majority of pathetically unskilled thieves are saying right now. Reminds me of the World of Roguecraft days. God there were so many bad rogues who thought they were great. Then the class got balanced and they had kitten-fits because they realized they were actually terrible at PvP.

World of Roguecraft = GW2 today

You seem to have forgotten to quote the section after that, where Arg provides examples, evidence, and the logic behind his assertions. I’m sure it was just an accident rather than a deliberate choice due to your inability to counter any of his points in a logical manner.

You also seem to have omitted your own section where you attempt to prove, in any way, that your assertions are more than just hot air. Just another oversight I’m sure; I look forward to reading your well thought out, fact based counterpoints.

Belorn.2659:

Could you explain why a less informed discussion would be better?

Or is your argument simply that a mono culture in profession choice is good, so any information to that effect would just distract by giving ammunition to those who disagree?

Sigh

Because the majority of the forum denizens here (and across most of the internet, to be fair) have neither the tools nor the inclination to properly interpret that data. Rather than these enlightened discussions you envision happening, people’s biases will be further bolstered by numbers they see, but don’t properly understand. People’s arguments will seem more legitimate due to “the numbers” backing them up, when in fact they’re just as wrong as they would be without those numbers.

Rather than all this data making for better, more sound arguments, it will just be misinterpreted and and used as justification for people only interested in spreading their viewpoint rather than having discussions based around fact.

Lets take my “40% example”. People will immediately jump to “that class is broken” and defend that interpretation viciously, rather than asking themselves “What factors are involved in this class being the most popular?”, which is what those numbers should draw you to. That class being broken is certainly a possibility, but the numbers do not “prove” it, but people won’t care – that’s what they’ll say and you’ll be an idiot for questioning “the numbers”.

Belorn.2659:

If statistics say 40% of players play class X, would that not be a very bad thing? Anet made 8 profession. Having to fight the same one profession 40% of the time sounds very boring regardless of why 40% of players pick the same profession.

Would a less informed discussion have a better time fixing the 40% problem?

Thank you for proving my point so very quickly.

This is exactly the kind of pseudo-informed arguments we’d see if Anet released the numbers. It’s really no better than conjecture, but because there’s some math in there people will feel more confident in their still-just-as-weak arguments and others will be swayed due to incorrect confidence in “the numbers”.

I 100% agree with you…In spirit.

In effect, all you would do is shift the argument sideways.

Instead of "Class X with spec Y is too powerful, I see it everywhere, that means its clearly OP,why hasn’t this been addressed yet, rabble rabble rabble! " you’d have “Look, the statistics say 40% of players play class X and with spec Y, that means its clearly OP, why hasn’t this been addressed yet, rabble rabble rabble!”

You’d end up with droves of people who have no understanding of how correlation and causation interact suddenly having their opinions “validated”, leading to different types of frustrating arguments.

Interceptor.2653:

Travlane.5948:

anything im missing here?

A bunch of things, but here’s two important ones:

1) We have other sources of Stability, and they stack.

I’m super confused as to why you keep saying this. It’s such a weak point, and you keep leading with it, it makes it hard to take any of your arguments seriously. Even if it were true, this argument would be bad.

Our sources of stability are a stolen ability, stealing it with Bountiful/LS, Lyssa’s, and Daggerstorm. We can throw daggerstorm right out – no one is running a serious PvP build that dodges out of a 90s elite for 8s of stability, and it clashes with Lyssa’s. The stolen ability is highly situational, seeing as you need to steal from a specific class to get it, and saving it for an opportune time denies you access to steal (which a lot of builds rely on as a gap closer and for its traited effects)

Let’s pretend we take your comment at face value, and we do have good access to stability via other sources. If that’s the case, what good is an additional One second with such an odd use case? To even have the opportunity to extend an existing stability, you have to be in stealth first – stability isn’t useless in stealth, but it certainly reduces its value (Since you know…you’re in stealth) – you’re reducing the value of stability for 1-3 seconds (Since most players aren’t just going to stand around and wait to be hit once you stealth) just to extend it by 1 second…not a great tradeoff.

If you plan on granting yourself stability after you’ve come out of stealth, congratulations, you wasted most of the stability granted by this trait casting the ability to grant you more stability. If you’re having trouble seeing how silly that is, there’s not much else I can do to help.

2) Fights don’t take place in the Danger Room. Real combat is kinda chaotic.

You seem to think thief plays like a Warrior – getting into the thick of things, absorbing hits and damage, etc etc etc… Thief relies on avoidance rather than mitigation to survive. The only thief specs that are going to be under constant fire from multiple targets are the kinds that evade alot like S/P or S/D. They gain very little from stability because their goal is to not be hit at all.

In short, 1.3 seconds of stability triggered by being revealed is an awful, nigh useless mechanic that is poorly designed. The length of stability being granted is pitiful, and the trigger for said trait is too awkward to be used with skill, making it more passive trash. Even if we ignore nearly every other issue with its design, It can’t be used on it’s own tactically due to how it’s triggered. Attempting to extend an existing stability using it is also generally a wash, since being in stealth helps reduce the need for stability in the first place and consumes more than 1.3 seconds of your time, as most targets will not sit still and wait to be hit when you stealth.

The kinds of specs that would see the most use out of mindlessly generated stability(S/D and S/P, due to their ability to mix it up in group fights) have even less incentive to take it because their survival is based on evasion rather than mitigation, so they’re already trying to avoid most hits, and on top of that neither of those specs have much use for stealth in the first place.

All it’s going to be used for (at least in the current meta) is for guaranteeing you wont be interrupted using HS once after a Backstab – that’s a pretty kittenty “best case sceanrio” for a grand master trait, especially considering the stiff competition in other trees.

I’d rather stop at fluid strikes and take Serpents touch, since poison is a strong debuff and it can be used intuitively, tactically, and skillfully.

Interceptor.2653:

1. AE as a Stability-extender (stacks up to three sources, and we have our own access via Lyssa and/or Dagger Storm, which naturally does not include boons from others).

1.3 seconds for 30 points in a tree is pathetic. In addition, if you’re using Dagger storm purely for the stability, you’re doing it wrong. I don’t care how many niche scenario’s you can conjure up, it’s beyond silly to blow a 90s CD for 8s (base) stability, especially considering the fact that it also costs you your elite slot.

1. Blind and Daze cannot be removed, blocked, or reduced in duration.

Blocked = No revealed = No stability, but I’m the one having trouble connecting the dots, so what do I know? You’ve got that mighty 1.3 second window, so reduced duration doesn’t really play, and even with a removal, you better hope they’re using a low casting time CC if you want that stability to actually come in handy.

1. All fights take place as one-one-one duels.

As a thief, you don’t generally want to be mixing it up in big ol group fights, but it does occasionally happen. Does it happen enough to justify a 30 point trait? Is 1.3 seconds long enough to really matter? Spoiler Alert: No.

Here’s what I actually said: “…turns CnD into a source of 1.3 seconds of Stability”. Notice how changing someone’s words, also changes the meaning? CnD is undeniably a source of Stability in this instance; it is not giving it to you, and nobody ever said that it did.

If you really want to argue semantics, becoming revealed is the “Source of stability”. Stealth is the state which allows you access to an ability that will lead to the revealed status, and CnD is the access to stealth – your citing an ability 2 steps removed from the Stability buff as its source was a poor choice in phrasing.

“People are not going overboard”, followed by you giving a perfect example of someone going overboard. AE is not a strong GM trait, but calling it “nigh worthless” says more about your valuation methods than it does about the trait.

Which is your opinion, which as I’ve noted, is always particularly contentious. 10 minutes spent with your profile will see that your SOP is to argue against how the majority feels, regardless whether or not you have a good point to make. Though you’re not always wrong, you are wrong a vast majority of the time.

It’s a lot like Hard to Catch, in that it does have positive uses, but unlike HtC in that it has no downside if you’re already that far down the tree.

We’ve discussed this as well – HtC is garbage, regardless how you feel. The fact that it can occasionally be helpful does nothing to fix the fact that another player changing your positioning at a time of their choosing would be defined as a crowd control effect in their favor in any other scenario. The fact that it doesn’t even prevent the CC effect, And that the teleport is fired even when you have stability is just additional marks against it. It is an innately negative effect that occasionally works out for you, which is not desirable design in a trait you have to waste a slot for. But you knew that, because I’ve told you that in the past.

Remember: x/x/10/25-30/x is a spec that exists in real life. Acrobatics lacks condition removal, but 10 SA with CnD is pretty strong for that job. If you’re S/D with Lyssa runes and can’t really leverage Quick Pockets in your spec (maybe because of a Shortbow secondary set), you’d think about taking this trait over AR or stopping at Fluid Strikes.

That 1.3 seconds of stability has very little value for the S/D spec you’ve listed above, when you consider it cost a GM slot to get it. Go ahead and really think about it, then come and tell me what that 1.3 seconds of stability is going to facilitate in normal play. The answer of course is not much, especially so when you consider that we’re talking about a GM trait.

This is definitely kind of curious, and I’d like an explanation for it

Finally, something we can agree on

but ANet’s motivations don’t really have anything to do with usefulness.

Which as we’ve discussed, is almost nothing – it has almost no usefulness.

Edit: And then there’s Stof’s point below. This is not a trait you can really time, or use skillfully with any reliability. It’s there to cover 1 desperate heartseeker after a backstab – note i said 1 heartseeker, because that’s all 1.3 seconds of stability will cover.

Interceptor.2653:

This is not a strong Grandmaster trait, but I think people around here are going a little overboard with their criticism of it.

The natural constituency of Assassins’s Equilibrium is going to be the S/D Thief who has 10 in Shadow Arts, 30 Acrobatics, and 30 <whatever> (probably Trickery). There are at least three really strong SA Adept traits that work in that slot, and this new GM trait turns CnD into a source of 1.3 seconds of Stability on a move that you’re already using to damage an enemy while either blinding them or removing conditions from yourself.

That 1.3 seconds of stability is sure going to help against that blinded/dazed opponent. And the CnD doesn’t give you stability, using an attack and becoming revealed does – good luck timing that against incoming CC.

But of course you’re here to argue the other side, it’s what you do – at first I was surprised at how consistently and often your understanding of the game was incorrect, but at this point I’m onto your schtick.

People are not going overboard with their criticism – it’s a nigh worthless GM trait, and it for some reason works on revealed while sitting in the “non-stealth survival” tree.

Pyriall.5027:

evilapprentice.6379:

style.6173:

Pyriall.5027:

Poison on steal needs to go as well as the 900 range blind on black powder. The blind pulse on black powder needs to be adjusted as well. There are two abilities that deal with blind, one on engi and warrior. Not every profession can over load the blind, and thieves should not be immune to melee damage because they decided to hit 5.

The blindness is only for the first hit. As you know, most melee players are smart enough at this point not to just stand in the black powder.

Psssst, He doesn’t know that. His earlier post specifically mentions how most classes can’t “hack through the constant blind reapplications”. He can make all the arguments and propose all the hypotheticals in the world, but not knowing that makes it impossible to take his opinion seriously.

Pssst…I actually play this game.

I dont think this phrase means what you think it means. You keep saying it then directly contradicting it by saying things nobody who’s played this game for more than a week would say. Your opinions betray you – anyone can say “I actually play this game”, but if you weren’t aware that you can melee a thief sitting in a BP without touching the effect itself, it’s abundantly clear that you have a incomplete grasp on very basic game mechanics regardless of the amount of time you’ve “played the game”.

Your assertions are the kind that anyone with a weeks experience know are incorrect, inaccurate, or downright fabrications. You’re mouth is saying “I’m knowledgeable about this game”, but your understanding of basic mechanics is saying “I have no idea what I’m doing”.

style.6173:

Pyriall.5027:

Poison on steal needs to go as well as the 900 range blind on black powder. The blind pulse on black powder needs to be adjusted as well. There are two abilities that deal with blind, one on engi and warrior. Not every profession can over load the blind, and thieves should not be immune to melee damage because they decided to hit 5.

The blindness is only for the first hit. As you know, most melee players are smart enough at this point not to just stand in the black powder.

Psssst, He doesn’t know that. His earlier post specifically mentions how most classes can’t “hack through the constant blind reapplications”. He can make all the arguments and propose all the hypotheticals in the world, but not knowing that makes it impossible to take his opinion seriously.

Mrbig.8019:

Pyriall.5027:

Surferboy.1649:

to pyriall, do you know how much initiative skill 5 costs? you can’t barely do anything after it any more. and it blinds once per second, as soon as you use an attack like 100b you will still hit the thief.

.

Yes I know how much it costs. I also have the benefit of playing over 1000 games on every profession in every build imaginable. The common theme is that no matter what berserker build you play (outside of dps guardian), thieves make obsolete. Given their role in a team match they also make dps guardian obsolete. As I stated previously, not all professions can overload the blind with a multiple hit ability.

As to the thief doing anything after dropping it…all you need to do is auto attack out of it. If you are using dagger, you’ll have the added benefit of putting poison on your opponent. If sword, you’ll apply weakness and cripple. All the while you regain initiative.

Dude pls, stop this nonsense.

You’ve literally no clue about the thief profession and i really hope aNet won’t listen to people like you ( sad part is they do).

What made it obvious? When he spoke about BP as if you couldn’t melee the thief while remaining outside the circle? Or was it all the other ridiculously incorrect assertions he made?

Pyriall.5027:

Poison on steal needs to go as well as the 900 range blind on black powder. The blind pulse on black powder needs to be adjusted as well. There are two abilities that deal with blind, one on engi and warrior. Not every profession can over load the blind, and thieves should not be immune to melee damage because they decided to hit 5.

I agree wholeheartedly.

In addition, Heartseeker should see a 20% damage nerf and be cut down to 300 range.
In addition, Consume plasma, Healing seed, Whirling Axe, and Skull fear should all be toned down. PW should lose 20% damage, Inf strike should be increased to 4 init, LS should lose 20% damage, shadow shot should lose blind, and Executioner should be reduced to 10% when the target is below 25% health.

If Anet wont just delete the class, they should at least make it unplayable to accommodate the rest of us who don’t bother to learn the first thing about thief mechanics.

kubetz.3058:

evilapprentice.6379:

I’ve seen QQ about stolen items(Remember the one about how ridiculously OP whirling axe was?), stealth in general, evades, teleports, damage… you name it, thief is broken at it. Poor condition removal, no protection, no stability (until the patch! lawl) and lowest base HP pool are all meaningless to the uber-broken thief who can kill everything and anything.

Yeah, ton of people are QQing about thieves, but when you look for those “what professions are giving you troubles” topics on different subforums you see quite a few posters saying they are eating thieves for breakfast (warriors, engineers, necromancers, etc).

Does. Not. Compute.

I have no doubt that both are happening.

Thieves don’t have the tools to run a tanky condition spec, or a more balanced sustain spec – they (Mostly) run straight up GC because that’s how the class is built. GC’s can win (or lose) a fight based on a very small number of decisions, so I think it’d be common to see alot of people kittening they lost to a thief (who didn’t make any mistakes) and alot of people claiming they own thieves (those who make, you know, 1 or 2 mistakes). The problem is with the losing players refusing to try to learn anything, for the most part.

Sensotix.4106:

imo “steal” is the issue

The real problem is that thief is horribly broken in almost every way. The game won’t be playable until the class is removed completely.

Interesting. What are your prognostications concerning the continued spinning of the earth, death, and taxes?

But on a more serious note, the thief QQ will never stop. I’ve seen a completely serious QQ post for almost every single thief skill (I think headshot and throw gunk are the only ones I haven’t seen a QQ topic about) with droves of inexperienced players adding their (mostly worthless) 2 cents.

Remember when IS was an instant cast stunbreaker, and you could use it the moment PW was over to avoid all damage? Yeah, somehow PW is more broken now then back then – people have forgotten than you can just walk out of the last few swings I guess.

I’ve seen QQ about stolen items(Remember the one about how ridiculously OP whirling axe was?), stealth in general, evades, teleports, damage… you name it, thief is broken at it. Poor condition removal, no protection, no stability (until the patch! lawl) and lowest base HP pool are all meaningless to the uber-broken thief who can kill everything and anything.

Heck, some Rune sets (cough Lyssa cough) are broken just because they’re associated with thief!

Chicago Jack.5647:

Dj,

It had a damage increase, also the time it takes for the sword damage to start up has been shortened, finally there was the increase in base initiative regen.

I don’t recall any damage increase – can you link the patch notes where PW had it’s damage increased?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

So that with 30-x-x-30-x, you can burst with Pistol Whip from stealth unhindered.

I’m telling you now, that new DA trait will get nerf fast, if not changed before release.

How exactly did this change? The fraction of a second player had to interrupt you between the Stun portion of PW hitting your target (which is when you’ll be revealed) and the evade from PW’s swings starts, since they shortened the gap to practically nonexistent? Let’s also point out S/P doesn’t have any access to stealth that isn’t based in a utility (since running Shbow in SPvP is a requirment). On top of all that, a max of 10 points in CS makes for low crit damage and lower crit chance even with a zerkers ammy, and of course no executioner. The acro GM is laughably bad.

Now you might have a point for a 30-30-x-x-x builds (would require testing), though you’re still looking at the fact that S/P has no innate access to stealth.

If you really want to PW from stealth, I’m sure you know how to make stealth happen. As for me, I’ve been using S/P + S/D lately with 25-x-x-15-30, so stealth is not a problem.

No shortbow = inferior roaming. S/P + S/D sounds fun for hotjoin and screwing around in solo q, but since the only role thief fills is roamer, taking away your roaming capabilities isn’t realistic. You can make stealth happen with ShBow S/P, but lets not pretend S/P is going to be accessing this new 30 point DA trait like crazy – it won’t be like fighting a D/p thief.

Also I’m only speculating on the possibility of a 30-x-x-30-x with this new trait. Often times, my PW gets interrupted due to our lack of stability. So if we can PW from stealth with this trait, that is still a plus because stability provides a wide range of protection.

However, as I mentioned in the other thread, 1s is too short.

You’re telling me you consistently get interrupted in the period after your pistol swing stun goes off, and before your sword swings start (Yes, you could use steal with mug to trigger the revealed and have 1s of stability while winding up the stun, but seeing as you can do that once ever 32-35 seconds in this setup, it hardly seems worth a GM trait)? I know Necro’s can do it consistently via a trait, and occasionally you’ll probably eat a stun from a warrior with stability up, but I just don’t see it happening so often that you have to slot a GM trait to avoid those situations, though I admit it probably warrants some testing.

And again, even if you do run 30-x-x-30-x, you’ve got a maximum of 10 points to put into CS – that 200 power is nice and all, but 20-30% less crit damage, ~10% less crit, and no executioner is going to be noticeable. I’m more excited at seeing what kind of damage S/P puts out with a min/max 30-30-0-0-10 PW from stealth with AS and fury from TotC than occasionally avoiding a niche interrupt for 30 points in acro.

Even if the stability was longer, why is the survivability-via-evades tree granting these bonuses on exiting stealth when there’s an entire tree dedicated to stealth? It’s especially silly considering a cleanse-on-dodge would have fit into a GM slot very nicely – thieves desperately need some way to mitigate conditions that isn’t based on runes, sitting for an extended period in stealth, or blowing their best stunbreaker just to cleanse. Dodge-to-cleanse 1 condition would have probably fit exceedingly well – it’s not so spammable that thieves will be able to completely mitigate condition specs, and it consumes a valuable resource that thieves need to survive – it would have probably made a great addition to acrobatics.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

So that with 30-x-x-30-x, you can burst with Pistol Whip from stealth unhindered.

I’m telling you now, that new DA trait will get nerf fast, if not changed before release.

How exactly did this change? The fraction of a second player had to interrupt you between the Stun portion of PW hitting your target (which is when you’ll be revealed) and the evade from PW’s swings starts, since they shortened the gap to practically nonexistent? Let’s also point out S/P doesn’t have any access to stealth that isn’t based in a utility (since running Shbow in SPvP is a requirment). On top of all that, a max of 10 points in CS makes for low crit damage and lower crit chance even with a zerkers ammy, and of course no executioner. The acro GM is laughably bad.

Now you might have a point for a 30-30-x-x-x builds (would require testing), though you’re still looking at the fact that S/P has no innate access to stealth.

Zacchary.6183:

Clear.8512:

Thief
In addition to a few bug fixes and slightly toning down the poison duration of Choking Gas, thieves will be looking at a few new survival and support options via traits. Sharpen your blades, pack your pistol powder tight, and fletch your arrows: Invigorating Precision is coming your way, which will heal you for a percentage of your outgoing damage on critical hits.

“We feel the thief profession isn’t as viable as we thought it was so we are going to keep throwing healing traits and skills at them until they are.”

Yeah, that 50HP for every 1k crit damage thieves will be doing is going to go miles in keeping those Glass cannons alive – if there’s anything glass cannons really need, it’s infinitesimally small heals via a 30 point GM trait. I’m sure they’ll barely notice the loss of executioner.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

evilapprentice.6379:

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

Exactly. Acro 30 should be some type of condi-removal on dodge (REAL conditions, not like that crappy Fleet of Foot trait).

That would have probably been a great GM trait – cleanse 1 condition on dodge, no CD – for 30 points, that sounds great. Powerful without being OP, offering thieves something they desperately need. But no, Dodgy thieves will instead get 1.25 WHOLE seconds of stability when they come out of stealth. It’d be funny if it weren’t so very sad.

Interceptor.2653:

I have no idea why a PvP player would approach the analysis of every new feature as if it were intended for him or her. PvP is already the real game, but with less stuff. You figure you’d be used to not finding everything useful.

I have no idea why the developers would spend 6 months developing traits that are only really useful for PvE instead of ones that are useful for BOTH PvE and PvP, especially when PvPers were told to look forward to great balance changes with this patch.

Also, my above assessment holds true for both PvE AND PvP.

Let’s also note you’re just a particularly contentious poster on the thief forums – if 90% of thieves feel a particular way, you’re nigh guaranteed to appear and holler a dissenting opinion, usually condescendingly and with faulty logic.

Auesis.7301:

Deadly Arts: 200 power when Revealed

Critical Strikes: 5% of critical damage heals you

Shadow Arts: Stealth reduces damage by 50% (which stacks with Protection)

Acrobatics: 1s of Stability when you get Revealed

Trickery: 5 stacks of Confusion on Steal for 5s

Forgive me, I don’t have the names. But…kitten .

I’m just going to assume this is all accurate. From a pvp perspective,

DA: Clarification needed – 200 power when you have the revealed effect on you, or 200 power when not in stealth? The former is laughable garbage, the latter is potentially pretty good.

CS: Laughable Garbage.

SA: Has to be tested. Doesn’t do much to change the fact that you can’t sit in stealth in PvP for any length of time. Will likely result in insane levels of WvW QQ.

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

Trickery: Not exactly laughable garbage, but it’s hard to see why you’d take this over SoH – 5 stacks of confusion for 5s on a 28s CD feels weak for 30 points. even if SoH wasn’t a better choice in most scenarios. thieves don’t really have the power to generate cover conditions to make this worth it.

Loki.8793:

Rickster.8752:

Anet: None of your new traits, sigils and runes matter for kitten. You can theory craft some new epic necro/ele/whatever build but it won’t matter for anything. You will have an awesome coherent build and then you go to play it and you just get pistol whipped to death over and over by an unhittable thief. What ruins this game isn’t what is not there. It is what is here. Addition by subtraction is something you people should be aware of. There is no point in this patch if we just get pistol whipped over and over still, or if we can’t even fight a 4v4 because of a decap engi on our close all game like a braindead idiot

This patch is going to be the worst ever produced. And I was excited about it. None of it matter anymore. New map? Who cares. I will just get pistol whipped 7 times in 10 seconds on that map too. So who gives a kitten.

You’re actually complaining about pistol whip? Of all things that are wrong with balance in this game, pistol whip? Any amount of validity I may have thought your opinions had has now been entirely lost.

Where have you been? Complaining about an attack you can literally walk away from the tail end of has been in vogue for at least a month.

Marcos.3690:

Yep. 6 more months of decap engis is worrying.

Eh, at this point I find it hard to care what’s running Wild anymore. Who cares who’s the Star of a game with such a slow development pace? All I know is stiff competition is coming, and soon, so if I was Anet, I’d pick up the pace.

BeardRex.6739:

evilapprentice.6379:

BeardRex.6739:

evilapprentice.6379:

The PvP in this game was marketed around skill based play, not grind based. Equal footing for everyone from the getgo. Skill and trait unlocks is directly opposite this idea. No one is complaining because things aren’t being handed to them, they’re complaining because the focus of the game was supposed to be Skill, not skill as long as you have grinded out the necessary abilities/traits beforehand.

So League of Legends is a “grind based”?

Even if it is, it’s the most popular PvP game in the world. People obviously like having progression like this. You might now. A small, vocal portion of the community might not, but people having been asking for this, and it is already proven to be successful in other games.

Just because people are now complaining, doesn’t mean there weren’t twice as many or more complaining that sPvP didn’t have a horizontal progression system.

You know, I don’t recall mentioning LoL. Or playing it. Or being on their boards. We’re talking about GW2, what they marketed the game as, and what they’re now doing. If you can’t make a point that relates to that, you don’t really have a point to make in this discussion.

If you don’t think the progression system in the most popular pvp game in the word is an important part of the discussion then you really are ignorant.

If you think that the progression system for any other game anywhere somehow factors in to a discussion concerning how this game was marketed vs what they’re doing now you really are fishing.

Whether or not this is a good idea isn’t what I’m discussing. What I’m discussing is whether or not this leaves the games original design (equal footing for all players, regardless of play time/grinding, differentiated only by skill) intact, and it very clearly does not. You’re so wrapped up in your own argument you aren’t bothering to read mine, just hammering away – you’re not interested in a discussion, just shouting your point over and over and over and over and over again until everyone agrees with you or gets tired of your inability to process the inaccuracies and moves on.

BeardRex.6739:

evilapprentice.6379:

The PvP in this game was marketed around skill based play, not grind based. Equal footing for everyone from the getgo. Skill and trait unlocks is directly opposite this idea. No one is complaining because things aren’t being handed to them, they’re complaining because the focus of the game was supposed to be Skill, not skill as long as you have grinded out the necessary abilities/traits beforehand.

So League of Legends is a “grind based”?

Even if it is, it’s the most popular PvP game in the world. People obviously like having progression like this. You might now. A small, vocal portion of the community might not, but people having been asking for this, and it is already proven to be successful in other games.

Just because people are now complaining, doesn’t mean there weren’t twice as many or more complaining that sPvP didn’t have a horizontal progression system.

You know, I don’t recall mentioning LoL. Or playing it. Or being on their boards. We’re talking about GW2, what they marketed the game as, and what they’re now doing. If you can’t make a point that relates to that, you don’t really have a point to make in this discussion.

BeardRex.6739:

Where were all you people who don’t want horizontal progression in sPvP when everyone else was asking for it?

If I was Anet, I would have made the same decision based on feedback.

Please link us some of these posts where people said “I want new/returning players to have to grind to have the same access to abilities/traits as everyone else”.

jayson.6512:

If the new trait is great I don’t mind buying it with gems or gold every time they release stuff I like I bought it with gems so I can support the game. The game has no monthly sub but the devs are very active and hard working if you are not happy then play other games or pay for games with sub

I’m all for the monetization of pvp, but not when it corrupts the basic principle of the game, which again is “Everyone has the same footing, skill is what determines fights.” I’d prefer to just pay a monthly sub then watch this BS unfold.

Dahkeus.8243:

Darek.1836:

Justin ODell.9517:

Nineaxis.1826:

snip.

Please do not presume to speak for all players. As a PvP player, I disagree with you, and I know others that do as well.

If you want to turns this into a numbers game, please do keep in mind that the vast majority of PvP players play PvE and WvW as well. We definitely want to make the game fun and enjoyable for PvP-only players as well, but we need to keep a broader context when designing systems.

No one on the entire forums agree with you. Does that not say enough?

Don’t try to speak for “everyone on the forums”.

I agree with Justin. I think a lot of players are getting scared that they’ll have to actually work towards something instead of just getting it handed to them, but personally, I will enjoy having something more than just a higher ranking to work towards.

I am completely, 100% against the power imbalances with players who put tons of time in the game for gear/bonus/etc. advantages like you see in other MMOs, but I don’t think that’s what this is.

This will be a good change.

Perhaps he should have said “90% of the playerbase does not agree with you”.

The PvP in this game was marketed around skill based play, not grind based. Equal footing for everyone from the getgo. Skill and trait unlocks is directly opposite this idea. No one is complaining because things aren’t being handed to them, they’re complaining because the focus of the game was supposed to be Skill, not skill as long as you have grinded out the necessary abilities/traits beforehand.

Here’s just 1 example – Let’s pretend Thief Venomshare is a good spec – the kind people in organized teams want. I’m a thief player – I’ve proven to a prospective team that I’ve got the skill and understanding required to play with them, but Oh No, I Don’t have skelk venom unlocked. Guess it’s time to go grind a bunch so I can get skelk venom. Unless of course I want to just buy them with currency I can obtain by spending real money of course.

Now repeat that for new traits, plus whatever else they’ll be releasing 8 months after this patch. How this any different from “I know my class well enough, but I have to grind to the next level of PvP gear before I’m effective”? The answer of course is that it isn’t different at all.

The problem here is that Anet is saying “Trust us, this will be awesome”, and Anet has set a very poor precedent for trust. Nearly every time they’ve asked for the playerbases trust, they’ve betrayed it.

I’m truly sick of Anet telling me as a player “Trust us, this is what you want”, when the vast majority of players have made it clear that No, this is NOT what we want. In fact, more often than not its the EXACT kittenING OPPOSITE of what we want. It’s like being in an abusive relationship, and I’m looking forward to getting out of it.

That isn’t aimed at you personally Justin – thanks for always taking the time to respond calmly and politely, it is appreciated – it’s just unfortunate that Anet’s position is so consistently opposite the desires of the majority of the community.