Guild Wars 2

So a thought occurred to me.

When you use heartseeker through a blackpowder, even if you hit your target, you gain stealth – it appears as though mechanically, the stealth isn’t applied until the very end of the skill, so the fact that HS did damage does not effect you gaining stealth (IIRC, Haven’t played D/P in about a year).

Why not make last refuge operate the same way mechanically? If the thief isn’t using any skills, they are immediately stealthed – if they are in the middle of a skill, they gain stealth at the completion of the skill, as if they had leapt through a smoke field. Would that be too difficult to program that kind of split? It would solve 90% of LR’s problems.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

style.6173:

Easy fix for the issue. It should have 2 parts.

1. Puts you into stealth for 3 seconds at 25% health ignoring any existing revealed status
2. Next attack does not cause revealed flag

Play around with the recharge to make it balanced and this should work for everyone.

2. Consecutive Backstabs?

And that’s the problem with ignoring revealed – it’s not as big a deal for Mesmer because they weren’t balanced around powerful stealth only attacks. Even option 1 will generate ridiculous forum QQ – “A thief backstabbed me, took some damage, triggered Last refuge, then backstabbed me again in 2 seconds” – it won’t be a common occurrence, but people will notice when it happens, and complain about it.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

With a 60-90 recharge on it, i doubt it would be overpowered.
It would only be 3 seconds on Stealth(as much as Leaping through a Smoke Field).

I am also aware that this could interfere with Steal-style gameplay, as replacing your well traited Steal with something else in the middle of combat can have nasty side effects, but given that Steal skill itself already has a separate recharge from any “Stolen” skill, your Throw Feathers should not interfere much with Steal skill(use Throw Feathers and you get Steal back to what its current recharge was).

However, gaining a triggerable(intentional) Throw Feathers is a far better option than getting a random Stealth that unintentionally kills yourself.

Well yes, if you gave me the option to have my arm broken or have a finger broken, I’d take the finger, but I wouldn’t be a particular fan of either.

That’s not meant to insult your suggestion – it was a good one considering the dev team mentioned that they want to keep the skill stealth based, but it’s still far too limiting. The design behind these traits is that they fire automatically, to give you a little bit of defense even if you aren’t quick enough or able to do so because of CC – unfortunately giving a thief throw feathers isn’t very powerful in that context.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Josh Davis.6015:

Last Refuge is something we’ve been talking about quite a bit internally, and we certainly don’t like the way it can occasionally unintentionally punish players.

We’d like to keep the minor traits in Shadow Arts thematically the same (stealth based) rather than simply providing boons or something similar. Keep that in mind when you’re suggestions changes for Last Refuge.

Thanks for the feedback!

I have an idea that will make Last Refuge more player friendly while also keeping it Stealth based.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Feathers

When your health reaches 25%, you gain Throw Feathers in your Steal skill.

This allows the Thief to get a free Stealth(which is what you want from Last Refuge) which can be player-triggered(thus no more unintentional Stealth). This however could seem a little overpowered, but keep reading.

The balancing issues with this are:
1. If you already have a Steal skill.
Let’s say you already have Consume Plasma. We can either make Throw Feathers replace Consume Plasma, or Last Refuge does not trigger at all and the Thief keeps Consume Plasma.

2. If your Steal skill is on recharge.
We can either give Throw Feathers to the Thief while making it keep the remaining recharge left on Steal, or allow Steal to recharge instantly when Last Refuge activates.

3. The possibility of adding a cooldown to Last Refuge.
Depending on what you choose to do in 1. and 2. as well as whether this new mechanic is overpowered or not, you might want to add a cooldown to Last Refuge to balance it out.
If you choose Last Refuge does not trigger at all if you already have a Steal skill, then Last Refuge does not go on cooldown unless it activates at all.
If you choose to make Last Refuge give Throw Feathers and recharge Steal instantly so the Thief can use the skill, then there should be a cooldown on Last Refuge triggering again.

The problem is, any way in which you attempt to keep the skill stealth based will be flawed. Either the skill will be affected by revealed and be UP, or will ignore/circumvent revealed in some way and be potentially OP in the right situations. The skill simply cannot remain stealth based – if the devs want it to be useful it needs to be redesigned, no matter how much the dev team wants it to remain thematically centered around stealth.

CrazyCanuck.4265:

In my 2k+ hours of playing a thief I literally can’t think of a single time this trait has been the sole cause of my death, or even a significant reason in why I died. If I die due to getting revealed by this trait, is at a point where I would’ve died anyways because I was being too reckless. I can however think of several hundred times in which it has absolutely saved my life, either by clearing a condi from Shadow’s Embrace or blinding an enemy attack that wouldve killed me, or giving me an escape when everything else was on cooldown. There is no need to rework this trait, as it works perfectly if you understand how to use it.

This sounds like you’re talking PvE.

PvP is the realm where last refuge is an issue. It will get you killed you in PvP. Your assessment that it’s working perfectly, and those who don’t understand it is completely incorrect from a PvP standpoint.

nicknamenick.2437:

Thief: Evade spamming going into stealth > creates time for next healing
Ranger: Evade spamming + stealth + superior ranged kiting > creates time for next healing
Necro: Second health bar + fears and protection > creates time for next healing
Guardian: ALLOT of extra healing from weapon skills + traits + virtue etc..
Mesmer: they have so many ways to kite around with stealth and teleport so they can create allot of time to get there heal back from cooldown
Engi: allot of stuns/dazes/knockback/2x shield blocking etc etc.. so many skills + also healing from bombs or get allot of boons from kit swapping.. so many skills, enough to create time to kite around for there healing skill..

Evade’s have time in between them when you can hit the target – Stealth is not invulnerability, you can still damage a character in stealth and you can’t cap/contest points in stealth. Guardians have 8k less base HP, and have to spec into making all those heals work rather than slotting a single skill in any spec with 20 points in a single line. Engineers aren’t passively regenerating 400 HPS via their heal while using their stuns/dazes/etc, and you can interrupt their heals.

None of what you’ve said here addresses how HS is effectively immune to every possible healing counter available in the game except for poison, which it is only extremely effective against (rather than being immune to it). That’s a problem – the heal has no viable counters, which every other heal in the game has.

Warrior: endure pain/berserker stance on both 60sec cooldown.. after that we can use a shield stance or try to run around..
If you run hammer you can try also to create time to get some stuns.. with offhand sword you have a 2sec block but mostly you don’t run a shield also..
So as you can see warriors get so much damage between there skills, that’s why we need a solid healing.

Which is why I mentioned part of the issue is the interaction between HS, CI, AH, and Zerkers stance. I also didn’t suggest reducing the heal to 250hps or anything like that. I also advocated a bump in Healing power scaling, because every class should have access to a ridiculously powerful heal as long as you dedicate some healing power to it, like any other class in the game.

Healing signet ignores or devalues every single healing counter available in the game.

With no cast time, it can’t be interrupted.

Due to its passive nature, you can’t preemptively CC your target when they’re low and DPS them down before they can break the CC and heal.

Due to its passive nature, it’s ticking at all times – when you’re blocking, when endure pain is up, when you’re attacking, when you’re running away, when your target is CC’d….

It’s highly resistant to poison – since the healing is spread over time, the only heals more effective against poison are those that cleanse poison before the heal is applied.

The base healing is very high at 0 Healing power.

Then there’s all the other little things that contribute to how powerful HS is.

Cleansing ire makes it very hard for a non-condition based spec to get poison to actually stick to a warrior for any reasonable amount of time.

Berserkers stance used after a CI that removes poison can guarantee 8-10s of full, unstoppable healing.

AH helps bolster the already great healing of HS.

Endure pain, defy pain, adequate access to blocks, great access to hard CC and the highest base health pool in the game all generate more time for healing.

With all that in mind, I wouldn’t claim that it’s crazy OP – but it’s not well balanced either. It definitely warrants looking into by the balance team, it has way too many strengths and almost no weaknesses, and likely needs to be shaved. The other abilities/traits (CI, AH, Zerkers stance) that contribute might be the culprit instead, but most of HS’s strengths are inherent to HS. The passive should probably be shaved (25-75HPS), the active slightly increased, and the Healing Power contribution increased – High HPS is fine for a warrior when they invest into healing power.

SoulSin.5682:

I am impressed you didn’t listed Last Refuge.

I can’t imagine they’re unaware of the issues with Last Refuge at this point – it’s been brought up 1,000 times at least. These Acro changes are fresh, and nigh-worthless. They need to be addressed, especially considering Anets stated intention was to increase survivability in Acrobatics.

ens.9854:

Not sure what build they are balancing assassins reward around. Cleric s/d boon stripping? Shaman d/d deathblossom signet of malice(explains move to g.master at least)? I mean come on lol

Even if they were, 1 additional HP per 100 healing power is a mathematically insignificant change (much less a “buff”). Consider – a thief’s absolute minimum health with 30 points in acro is ~13800. if you took 1200 healing power (not exactly realistic, but I’m specifically choosing an unrealistically high number for emphasis), that would equate to 144 additional healing over 12 spent initiative – that’s worthless to a thief running the minimum health they can with 30 points in Acro (also not realistic).

How this got pushed through as a buff is beyond reason.

JonPeters.5630:

Thief:
…
Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait.
…

Unfortunately, it appears to me that these efforts did not have their intended effect.
Some observations and a question to the Devs.

Hard to catch
This trait is basically a handicap in trait form. Being moved in a random direction, for a random distance when hit with a CC, Even if you have stability, and most importantly at the whim of another player, does not increase survivability. It’s disorienting, can force you off points, and doesn’t even clear the control effect. The range as well is much too short to be useful – being moved a maximum of 600 away from the target that CC’d you does almost nothing . Any melee class can close that gap in a second, and every non-thief has access to 1200 range (or better) weapons. Generally in most MMO’s, being moved by an effect you don’t initiate or control would be considered a CC effect, not anything positive.
How did Anet envision this increasing thief survivability?

Assassin’s Reward
This change has 2 problems.

• It’s a change in healing power scaling.
  What thief has room in their build for healing power? Perhaps a Venom share build dedicated to healing their teammates and doing almost no damage themselves might find use in stacking high healing power, but Venom share doesn’t have 30 points for the acro line anyway, so it’s a moot point.

• 35% more healing power scaling equates to 1 additional point of health healed per init spent for every 100 healing power you have, when compared to pre Dec 10th AR.
  How did this math justify a bump from Master to Grand master? The trait wasn’t a “good trait” when it was in the Master tier, and the buff is essentially non existent. How could someone crunch the numbers, see what an extremely minor effect that this change was going to have, and still push it through as a buff?

Could someone from Anet come and have a discussion with us, concerning how we are supposed to use these acrobatics changes to increase our survivability? Failing that (I honestly can’t think of an argument that would sway me into beleiving these changes increased survivability), could we discuss how to change/improve them in the next patch so that thief has some options for survivability via the Acrobatics traitline, as you intended?

There are other options of course – lowering the cast time for one. I understand why Anet doesn’t want BV to be instant cast, but a .25s cast time seems sufficient.

In addition, since BV is an elite with 1 application only, we can add some more powerful effects. Why not add a 5 second weakness to BV, so it has some utility beyond the breakable stun? Perhaps some poison as well – 5 seconds of Poison and Weakness on BV would come a long way into bringing it up to snuff as an “elite” skill.

Interceptor.2653:

evilapprentice.6379:

Edit: I Just re-read my original response, and can see how it might be confusing – when I said “All Conditions” I meant not restricted to Just weakness and cripple – Just remove a single condition, regardless which condition it is. If that’s what you were referring to, ignore the rant below

That’s what I was referring to. But even in the case where it only removes one condition, a 5sec ICD in a Master trait is still too good.

1. Master tier
2. All conditions
3. 5sec ICD

Pick two. I’d prefer that Fleet of Foot just had a lower ICD and a moderately expanded set of conditions that it clears. It has Crippled and Weakness, I’d add other movement-based conditions like Immobilize, Chill, and maaaybe Torment to a possible pool of removed conditions, with some sensible priority order.

Cleansing Ire would like to say Hello.

There’s really no reason to restrict the conditions it removes when it’s on a five second ICD And tied to an action – if it removed the condition passively, I’d agree with you, but since it costs endurance to access the condition removal, it seems fair. I’d prefer all conditions and 7-8s ICD over 5s and limited condition removal – thief already has plenty of limited condition removal skills.

Interceptor.2653:

evilapprentice.6379:

Fleet of foot should be changed to all conditions, have its ICD changed to 5s, and be combined with Quick recovery. Neither is currently worth slotting, but combined and with these tweaks it would be worth slotting.

That’s ludicrous. If you gave Thief omni-condition removal on dodge with a 5sec ICD, nobody would ever spec anything else in that slot, and you’d probably create the 20 Acro meta. You’d counter entire classes with one trait.

Edit: I Just re-read my original response, and can see how it might be confusing – when I said “All Conditions” I meant not restricted to Just weakness and cripple – Just remove a single condition, regardless which condition it is. If that’s what you were referring to, ignore the rant below

Yes, because pulling a single condition when you dodge with an ICD of 5 seconds would be devastating. Except of course the other classes in the game that can easily clear conditions just as fast/faster than that (Cleansing Ire being the perfect comparison point, since its at the same tier level and arguably more powerful than my suggestion).

It would be strong (perhaps the ICD for the condition removal should be 10s, but that feels weak – maybe meet in the middle at 7-8s), but removing 1 condition isn’t going to “Counter entire classes with 1 trait”.

Burst condi specs won’t be hurt by having 1 of the 5-6 conditons they dropped on you in 1s being removed every 5s. The slower, more attrition style condition specs have much better condition application than 1 condition every 5s.

Maybe at 5s ICD quick recovery could be bumped up to GM (since that’s a change that might actually be strong enough to bump a trait up a tier) and AR can go back down to master where it belongs. My numbers might need some tweaking, but the general idea isn’t bad.

Tachii.3506:

Fleet of foot should have a shorter internal cooldown. Maybe down to 5 seconds or something. 10 seconds is pretty ridiculous considering how fast you can be hit with those conditions.

Fleet of foot should be changed to all conditions, have its ICD changed to 5s, and be combined with Quick recovery. Neither is currently worth slotting, but combined and with these tweaks it would be worth slotting.

Edit: By “All Conditions” I mean the trait should remove a single condition of any type (not just weakness/cripple), not every condition.

Thieves are considered “strong” at the moment for one reason – trickery. The ability to counter stability with Sleight of Hand and Bountiful theft is very strong – so strong in fact, 2 (at least) top players have already suggested nerfing it somewhat.

Other than that, they’re decent roamers, but are currently kind of locked into D/P due to the issues (of varying severity) with every other weapon option.

LCV.7245:

Does this apply to all the new heals?

Yes.

Have to purchase it with skill points – gained via either leveling up, or tomes of knowledge (1.5k glory and 20 silver, if i recall correctly)

People won’t be happy until the thieves only weaponskill is “Auto-Stomp”, where they stomp themselves from full health to give the opposing team 5 points.

Seriously, after every nerf patch players magically discover the next thief ability that has been game-breakingly OP since launch that needs to be addressed in the next nerf patch.

Something is not OP if it is frustrating to fight against.
Something is not OP if you personally have a hard time countering it.
Something is not OP if it works well against your specific spec.

Once, about a month ago, when I fought a high ranked, experienced ele. I didn’t know his spec well, he knew exactly when to time his air burst against my spec, and was certainly out-skilled me.

Even then, he had to do everything nigh perfectly to win. One lucky/well timed dodge on my part and he was running around in water/earth trying to survive until his burst came back up. If he didn’t see me coming, I could drop him in less than 4 seconds playing S/D thief, which isn’t known for its burst.

Umut.5471:

Perma evade thieves need to be nerfed asap, they don’t even take damage while doing tons of damage. I can’t even understand why anet allows these ultra-broken op builds to stay in game?

I’m unaware of how a thief can “perma” evade – please provide an example?

Arganthium.5638:

azuzephyr.7280:

Arganthium.5638:

azuzephyr.7280:

I’m waiting to see any from your side, coffee pot is on

All I can see atm is two frequenters of the thief forum trying desperately to rip up any shreds of evidence that might highlight a cheap OP mechanic that they are relying on

As I have said many times already, create a counter poll that is as value free as you desire, in fact you can leave out Lyssa as an option altogether and just wait for people to post asking where Lyssa is.

Because it’s not evidence.

You’ve clearly shown in this statement that you are biased against Lyssa Runes, and while that may not have been a problem in and of itself, the fact that you (sub?)consciously placed Lyssa at the top of your poll shows that you have allowed your biases to greatly influence the results of your poll. I’m not creating a poll simply because neither I nor Evil wants to create one; that’s completely irrelevant as to whether or not your poll is accurate.

I don’t have any doubt that many people think that Lyssa is OP (even though its only good abilities are its 4 and 6, and the elite that thieves have to use in order to make Lyssa worthwhile gives a relatively short stun for being an elite and is easily evaded), but your poll seems to only have the goal of showing that Lyssa is in fact OP in mind, and you’ve altered your poll so as to create a voter bias against it.

Your post is a pathetic excuse for what you seem to call “evidence”, and has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on reality.

Actually I have never once said that the poll is flawless, quite the opposite, I don’t believe in value freedom, that’s all you.

But if you think you are fooling anyone by saying that Lyssa is flying to the top by a landslide in an optional poll by virtue of order bias, you are insulting the both of us.

That poll might be inaccurate to a degree. Without any evidence of your own, your claims are wildly more inaccurate, you just don’t like it, so kindly put them to rest where they belong.

Nor have I ever claimed that you’ve claimed that the poll is flawless.

Nor have I ever claimed that Lyssa is “flying to the top by a landslide” by “virtue of order bias”. I have, however, claimed that it has produced some degree of a bias that you cannot account for, and therefore the poll must be faulty. The degree to which it is faulty is debatable, but it clearly is, which is what matters.

Your definition of evidence seems to be purely empirical and opinion-based. That’s nice, but opinions are inherently biased and are therefore somewhat flawed. I base my evidence off of theoretical knowledge about the game, the basis of which I’ve justified many, many times.

That he doesn’t care is very telling. Azuze isn’t out to prove a fact – he’s out to prove his point, using any means necessary. It’ll be hard to take anything he says seriously because he’s fishing for data to prove his point, rather than gathering data then making a conclusion.

He was alerted to the issue with his poll very soon after it was posted. If he cared about the integrity of the poll, he had opportunity to fix it. Instead he insisted that if someone wanted a fair and unbiased poll, that was on them.

azuzephyr.7280:

Move on please, you have made your opinion known and its derailing yet another thread

You are welcome to make a poll in any format you wish, I’d vote the same regardless

See, the issue is you’ve already made your conclusion. You’re gathering data to support a conclusion you’ve already made without data, rather than drawing a conclusion from gathered data. Instead of being concerned that the data you’re gathering is subject to a bias, you accuse me of derailing a thread when I point out the flaws in your data collection. You’re too focused on “proving” (notice the quotes) your conclusion to gather objective data on the argument (Not that a poll is really all that useful for this anyway, but it’s the best we’re going to get)This is the problem with forum discussions with most players – you’re not interested in any argument or reasoning that doesn’t lead to your conclusion.

azuzephyr.7280:

Consider; why didn’t you make the poll?

Because I didn’t claim numbers existed to back up something I was claiming was a fact when no such numbers existed – you did (For Reference: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Crying-about-lyssa-again/first#post3459226 ). The burden of proof is on you – as flawed as these results will be, you’ll still use them.

Formatting complaints can be sent to HR, if you are too impatient to scroll then use ctrl + F

It’s not a complaint, I’m just pointing out how flawed your data will be now, so that when you try to use it to justify your point you’ll already be aware of my opinion concerning it.

Cute, putting Lyssa at the very top and Ogre/Scholar at the very bottom. At least you’re aware of how biases work. Why not alphabetically?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/08/behavioral-bias

Gaming the results (consciously or unconsciously) won’t help your argument.

DanSH.6143:

when a thief uses BV with lyssa runes he enters god mode. Thieves are balanced by having mediocre condition removal, and by not having access to stab/protection/aegis.
Thieves are already “hard to catch” especially if they’re playing s/d.
if an s/d thief uses BV with lyssa you have no counter except dodging for your life.

And of course the guarenteed counter I pointed out via trickery thief, and other counters you are unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge.

Warrios already have high access to stab and cond removal and shouldn’t be able to be even more unstoppable.
Guard using lyssa is ok since the class is not already OP, and the shortest cd elite is 90s.
necro/mesmer with lyssa could also be strong but I never felt like it’s OP on them.

This is quickly becoming a miasma of hyperbole, misinformation, personal opinions represented as ironclad fact, and lack of experience. I’ve pretty clearly laid out my opinion – agree or disagree, have fun with it.

azuzephyr.7280:

You are right on opinion though, so in fact lets ignore both of our arguments which are based on opinion and look at facts. The fact of the matter is that every single class that can abuse Lyssa, does so, in huge numbers. Numbers support that, If you disagree then call for a poll of who uses what runeset in tpvp and disprove this with facts that show any other rune is even competing with Lyssa on specs with short cooldown elites. Show me that any other runeset is coming even close to being as widely used as Lyssa by any specs, nevermind the typical ones which are almsot built around it. Otherwise your opinion has been noted and filed with the other opinions of the same merit.

The number of fallacious arguments in this paragraph are too long to list – I’ll just link to the wikipedia page on logical fallacies instead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies.
Let’s also note you claim the numbers support your facts, then mention that we’d need to take a poll to actually get those numbers – that is logically inconsistent. You’re claiming facts exist based on your undocumented, anecdotal observations and personal bias, which make them specifically not facts.

And if what you are suggesting is that I should be saving a dodge a weakness, throwaway hit, a blind and a reapplication of conditions for a runeset which requires 1 button to activate and the comparable options to this runeset are things like 5% damage while under the effects of might. Then I think your opinion is showing its ‘merit’ already.

Don’t blow your entire wad the second you see an enemy and you should have options. This would be like a thief complaining that blocks are too powerful because they spent all their init as fast as possible when they saw a target rather than making intelligent decisions and accurately judging how long the fight would go. You also keep failing to compare the other 5 set bonuses for runes – either you’re aware it weakens your argument, or you just don’t care.

azuzephyr.7280:

Even thieves and warriors who gain the most benefit from Lyssa runes wouldn’t argue this, people in this very thread are admitting that their class is hinged on this 6piece bonus.

And I’m on this thread claiming other things – people saying stuff doesn’t make it true.
“Thief P/P is a devastating force in TPvP – Uncounterable!”. See how I just said something that wasn’t true, even if I felt that way?

No offence but if you had actually played againt lyssa runes or even read this thread thoroughly you would see that the best boon stripping in the game does not counter this. Even in your ‘argument’ you are pointing out that other classes are working 10x harder trying to counter this set as best they can whilst thieves and warriors are gaining another get out of jail free card form their elite.

But I have played against Lyssa runes, And read the thread thoroughly – you’re just incorrect. A trickery thief (usually D/P) counters this 100%, and even dazes the target, so your point about it being completely uncounterable is null. You’ll also note I offered other options which you didn’t choose to comment on – when stability stops you from blinding/immobilizing/weakness’ing your target, or prevents you from dodging/stealthing/blocking/using an immune or psuedo-immune skill, then you’ll have a point.

The only counter to this that has existed was corrupt boon which was nerfed to 5 boons max, that is typically why people suggest that Lyssa be changed to 5 random boons and exempt from stability.

See above about D/P trickery thief. It’s hard to understand how you would have missed that, since Both “The Bear document” and “The Ken document” (fairly popular posts on the SPvP forums over the last week) have specifically mentioned nerfing trickery a bit because of how Bountiful theft and SoH work against aegis and stability. If you’re unaware of the existing counters for the runeset, how can you be so confident in your judgement of their power and suggesting changes?

I’d say to you, go play power necro where your best defences are [lol] soft cc with enormous cast times and then tell me that Lyssa runes are balanced. Go.

So 1 spec being countered = OP? Better nerf every class then, because hard and soft counters exist pretty much everywhere. Please note that Engineers, Warriors and Ele’s are also broken in this comparison (and they must be devastatingly broken, seeing as their condition immunities are much longer lasting, and all 3 have access to stability just from their class).

For the record; ‘outskilled’ and ‘Lyssa’ don’t belong in the same sentence.

Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Vuh.1328:

If you don’t see how removing ALL conditions and giving ALL boons, including stability and aegis is overpowered for a runeset you are blind.

If you can’t give us a reason as to why you feel this way, it’s hard to have a discussion about it. Perhaps you can address my points, which in summation are basically “Lyssa runes bonuses besides for the 6th are all fairly weak – a runeset that gives you 5s of power every 45-60s is on par with a runeset that gives you stats/abilities that are always useful”.

It’s so broken that certain classes(thieves/mesmer) is pretty much depending on them to survive in this “meta”.

I could survive with ogre runes – I’d do alot more damage too. I choose Lyssa for the flexibility.

Balanceing the classes themself will be ALOT harder with lyssa being in it’s current state.
The effect by it self is stronger than most utilities in the game really.

But it’s not a utility – it’s a runeset. Compare it to another runeset if you’re trying to convince us how OP it is.

Even if it gave nothing besides the (6) bonus it would still be worth using.

Yes, because the other 5/6 abilities are so under-powered, which for some reason you don’t choose to factor in when talking about how useful Lyssa’s are.

azuzephyr.7280:

lvis.3824:

Why do you cry about it ?
Because you play a profession with a long cd on elite ?
Perhaps you should play a thief and run it with another runeset – and then come back and tell us how you performed ?

Because one runeset is more powerful than some classes utilities and is adding to the counterless cheese specs dominating pvp, not a good direction to be heading in and needs to go the way of the dodo. God forbid you might have to actually think about how/when to use your elite rather than just blow it asap letting you burst down a target, immune to CC, immune to the most effective boon-strip in the game, immune to the next outgoing attack and giving yourself a full condition cleanse at the same time

Did unblockable skills and boon strip/steals vanish while I wasn’t looking? Are guardians without counter when they use Aegis or Stability? Does stability grant immunity to immobilize now? Does your class not have access to blocks/immunities/stealth/dodging? If a thief blows BV ASAP, they just wasted BV and the condition cleanse portion of the runes- they took a 6 piece runeset for 5s of boons – there are a dozen runesets that are a better choice when you use it as mindlessly as this.

Tell me, what is the counter to a burst thief/warrior running lyssa? Corrupt boon leaves up stability, the main offender, blinds get blocked by aegis. Even if you outskill them by dodging BV/Earth shaker they still have 1 failsafe block up and following that can’t be CC’d and can’t be boon stripped fully.

Aegis blocks 1 skill – use your blind after the aegis is down. The duration of the boons is 5 seconds – if the thief used their elite at the right time and you can’t buy yourself 5 seconds, well then that player out-skilled you. Instead of taking runes that provide a worthwhile bonus for the entirety of the fight, they took runes that give them a big advantage with a very short up-time – it’s a play style difference. You refuse to acknowledge the weaknesses of the runes, and focus instead on the 5 seconds out of every 45-60s that they’re good and claim they’re too powerful.

That is too much for a runeset. Too. Much.

It really isn’t – you just don’t value the other runesets as highly because you can’t “see” their effects as easily.

Vuh.1328:

Why would i try that? I dont think thief is very (if at all) is op.

Lyssa runes are however. Especially with sub 60sec cd elites

You’re advocating a thief nerf whether or not you mean to – the only sub 60s elite commonly used with Lyssa’s is BV. I don’t see many warriors running Signet Mastery, and I don’t see many MM Necro’s running Lyssa’s (though perhaps I just haven’t seen it)

You’re basically arguing that a runeset with 1 good effect out of 6 (as opposed to other runesets players take, which usually have 4-6 good effects) should be nerfed.

• Precision is a fairly low value stat. Power is in most cases more valuable for a Power/crit spec, and does little for Condi specs.

• 10% longer condition duration is nigh useless for power/crit specs (which is where you see Lyssa’s most often)

• A random boon on heal is just that – random. Sometimes it will be useful, other times it will be completely worthless. Arguing that this aspect needs a nerf is like arguing that the thief trait Improvisation is broken because once in a while it will refresh a fight-changing utility.

• Adding a secondary function to your elite skills means you likely won’t get the full benefit of all the effects when used or just one of them. If you’re activating your elite for the boons, its possible your elite will not be used to its fullest effect. Same goes for using your elite to clear condis, or using your elite for the actual elite. This limits how useful the 6 piece effect can be. There will be some instances when you use your elite at just the right time to get the most effect out of the condi cleanse, the boons, AND your elite skill, but they won’t be often.

• The boons last for 5 seconds – that’s not exactly an eternity.

Maybe an ICD increase to 60s is justified (it’d only really impact thief) – I’m not really on either side of that argument. Suggesting anything else be changed would bring Lyssa’s far below the power level of nearly every other runeset.

Sanduskel.1850:

Incurafy.6329:

How many times does it have to be said? D/P pseudo-permastealth was already nerfed on the 10th of Dec and it is now impossible to maintain it without the use of utilities with lengthy cooldowns. In fact, maintaining it while doing noticeable damage is close to impossible.

It’s actually easier now lol

This is entirely false. If you’re unwilling to post a video showing us how easy it is for you to perma-stealth like D/P did pre Dec 10th, you’re just spreading lies.

Not a bad list, but a few questions/comments

• What’s the logic behind the Shadowstep CD increase?

• While I like the LS change, it feels like you’re turning fighting a S/D thief into “Dodge LS” – the set already only has 2 skills worth wasting a dodge on (CS and LS, occasionally IS if you can guess when it’s coming), though with your proposed DD, TS and CnD changes, maybe that issue would fix itself.

• The “On miss” changes to SoM and Venoms feels like it will penalize searching for stealthed players with AA and the like – One of the most basic counters to stealth is guessing your opponents end-goal positioning while you can’t see them.

• No proposed changes to the traits de-valued by the Init change? Quick recovery is just god-awful now, it could use something extra to make it worth a master slot. Opportunist and Kleptomaniac could also use minor buffs. My suggestions are 1 condi removal on dodge for QR (5 or 10s ICD), 1 boon strip on crit for Opp, and 1 condition transferred to target on steal for Klepto.

• No suggestions for better condition removal for thief. SS/SR (which you propose a 10s CD increase on) and Lyssa’s are thieves only current counter’s to being condi-bombed. Embrace and IR are the only real options for mitigating conditions when they’re placed on you in a less bursty manner.

• Concerning IR, why not just eliminate the cast time and disable it when stunned/mid action? ANet’s stated goal was to prevent thieves from escaping stuns and facilitating stomps – if the skill were simply Instant cast but disabled while stunned/stomping, it would achieve those goals. Init increase seems fine as long as the skill returns to instant cast.

klemen.8439:

evilapprentice.6379:

There is no Perma-stealth anymore via BP and HS. I am unsure how you could be unaware of that while feeling you’re qualified to suggest changes to D/P, especially as a thief player.

Let bad thieves spam 2 – there are bad players of every class – the solution isn’t to fix what isn’t broke.

You can still perma-stealth but with combination of utilities and traits that you have to risk. Only thing you can’t do now is spam HS 4 times in an open field through one smoke field but you can still do it many times while facing a wall. The perma-stealth still remains WvW issue if used by a good thief.

4 HS’s + BP = 18 Init – with Infusion and 15 points in trickery, this is probably possible once from full init. Using all of your init for 8 – 10 effective seconds of stealth seems fine to me, and mathematically is not permanent stealth (since you’ll only have regenerated as many init as you spent seconds in stealth). Using utilities to have a long period of stealth is acceptable, and in no way “Perma-stealth” in the manner the term was being used before the infusion change.

And my point is not just saying that HS is somewhat OP. My main point I’m trying to get through is that Guild Wars should be about skill chains and diversity among weapons and utilities, not this monotone 99% bullkitten.

And that’s fine if that’s your point. Your suggestion is still awful however – HS isn’t good enough to warrant the increased init cost you suggested. Furthermore, the basic design of thief means bad players will spam when it’s unwarranted – there’s no cure for that that doesn’t unnecessarily penalize good players with higher costs/other negative effects.

klemen.8439:

Alright, I’ve been playing a lot of tPvP lately and noticed that 99% of thieves I’ve came across are complete noobs to be honest.

They’re all playing dagger/pistol and all they do through out all fights is push 5 and then spam 2 (smokefield -> heartseak spam). The combo is really a no skill, annoyance to other players and kinda OP towards most light classes (necro DS insta kill, ele insta kill).

I’m not saying this as a non-thief player. I’m saying this because I, as a thief player, am sick and tired of seeing the HS-spammers and not just because they “burst people down” but because they die like flies. I hate getting them on my team because it’s a lost match in most cases.

It’s really disappointing to see the whole class be so “monotone” single-button masher where there are SO MANY good builds with which you can easily do 1vsX (For example, sword/dagger shadowstep master).

Therefore, I would suggest few solutions to this issue:
Make a change with the heartseeker skill instead of the trait-chain for once

- Making heartseeker require like 2 more initiative so that a thief would be unable to spam it like 4 times in a row

- Switching dancing dagger (Skill n°4 on dagger) with heartseeker would not only make dancing dagger being used more (due to it being the second skill) but would also fix the perma-stealth issue that’s been bothering a lot of WvW players.

There is no Perma-stealth anymore via BP and HS. I am unsure how you could be unaware of that while feeling you’re qualified to suggest changes to D/X, especially as a thief player.

Let bad thieves spam 2 – there are bad players of every class – the solution isn’t to fix what isn’t broke.

SpecterMAT.7306:

infantrydiv.1620:

SpecterMAT.7306:

Warrior have no sustain at all.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Name anykind of warrior sustain sir.
Because Mr. Necromancer, we doesn1t have second life bar as you.

You have a utility and a trait that allows you to take 0 direct damage. Unlike blocking, you can still use all your weapon skills and other utilities during this time.

You have a utility that makes you immune to conditions, and you can still use all your weapon skills and other utilities during this time.

You have access to stability

You have access to a shield with blocks

You have access to amazing hard and soft CC on multiple weapons

With cleansing ire, you have some of the best condition cleansing options in the game. With LB, that cleanse is absolutely guaranteed.

With all of this, you have AH and HS, to passively regenerate 400-500 HPS.

You have the highest base health pool and armor type.

If you’re having trouble seeing the sustain options in all that, I honestly don’t know what else I can say.

cymerdown.4103:

The 6-set bonus of Superior Runes of Lyssa has been changed:
(6) When you use an elite skill, lose 3 conditions and gain 3 random boons for 5 seconds (not including Stability). (CD: 45 seconds)

Why go through all this effort when simply deleting the runeset would have the same effect – Lyssa never being run again. I’m not of the opinion that the set needs to be nerfed in the first place, but even if I was, this change would be far, far too much. You’re already sacrificing a lot taking Lyssa’s in the first place.

Thief
Shadowstep — Increased cooldown to 60 seconds, up from 50 seconds.

Roll for Initiative — Reduced cooldown to 50 seconds, down from 60 seconds.

Slightly more Init per second via 50s RFI doesn’t do enough to open up builds to justify further reducing condition removal via 10 extra seconds on SS CD. Shadowstep and RFI are fine as is.

Thieves Guild — Reduced cooldown to 150 seconds, down from 180 seconds.

Would this really allow the skill to compete with BV in tourney level play? That’s not a sarcastic question, I’m honestly curious and find it hard to judge.

Quick Recovery — This trait has been redesigned.
Quick Recovery
Gain endurance for each point of Initiative spent.
Endurance: 2

The only suggestion I really like here, though I foresee it going live for about a month before forum outrage forces it to be nerfed (Like LS) – a 10/0/0/30/30 S/D build will be dodging nigh constantly, which is what led to the vigor nerfs in the first place. Regardless, Quick recovery needs something, as it’s currently complete trash.

Hard to Catch — Now also prevents the disable effect from occuring. Raised the shadowstep distance to 900, up from 600. Increased the cooldown to 60 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

Better design then Anet’s, still not great though. Being teleported at the whim of another player is confusing, and removes control from the player – you should always be in complete control of what your character is doing, unless denied by a CC effect (as that is their design). Allowing another player to choose when my position will be changed to a random new position has too many negative consequences to be worthwhile without insanely powerful positive benefits. I can think of a half dozen scenarios just off the top of my head where I’d prefer to just hit a stunbreaker and not lose my positioning.

I think HtC would be interesting if it was designed slightly differently than the other Auto-Stunbreaker traits – instead of being a list of positive effects for the thief, how about negative effects? Something like “Ignore the CC effect and Immobilize everyone in a 240 radius for 2s, 10s swiftness on the thief”? Don’t read too much into the specifics, just throwing out an example.

Forgive me – I don’t PvE or WvW, so I’ve got a question.

Judging from the way the Boss’s(?) HP dropped from your backstabs, and the fact that it clearly wasn’t immune to blind, wouldn’t S/P have done this in 5 minutes with BP and/or PW?

Or a DB/Trops condition build? I mean, the fact that those NPC’s dont seem to cleanse conditions, would stand in both activated and dodge trops, and the fact that you can get more Condition Duration in PvE/WvW then you can in PvP, wouldn’t this be an insanely easy fight?

I’d like to see P/P become something not awful.
I’d like to see P/D become tournament viable.
I’d like to see D/D upgraded into something other than D/P’s kittened cousin in PvP.
I’d like to see S/D have 5 skills worth using, rather than 2.5
I’d like to see Pistol whip become something useful and unique, rather than the warmed over garbage it is at the moment.

Then I’d like to see Torch OH, because I think it’d make a fun Non-stealth based condi setup for thieves.

Kagamiku.9731:

It’s 8 seconds, unless you trait for it to be 10; which most warriors wont do because the defensive line has a lot of traits better than sure-footed. And it’s only condition immunity, other forms of damage still work…

Which doesn’t have anything to do with OP’s point. The post was specifically talking about soft CC as a defensive mechanic, not damage.

Rednik.3809:

If enemy burns important defensive CD, then it’s time to pop some of yours or disengage for few sec, no? Or you want to ignore long enemy cooldowns and just pew-pew because you want to pew-pew?

I’m not weighing in on either side of the argument, but you’ve missed the point.

If you rely on cripple, chill, immobilize, weakness or blind as defensive mechanics, Zerker’s completely nullifies them. If you rely on torment or confusion to force your opponent to make hard decisions on whether or not they want to pursue you/keep using skills, you’re in the same boat. Your spec might not have a disengage that isn’t linked to one of those conditions because that’s a pretty broad spectrum of defensive mechanics that a single ability grants total immunity to.

Combined with stability, you’ve got an opponent you can’t root, snare, weaken, blind, CC in any way, or force to take higher damage if they decide to pursue/press. That was his point.

At OP: Lumping poison in which damaging conditions is unnecessary – it does the rough equivalent of 2 bleed stacks, on a slower tick. Poison is a control condition designed to weaken heals, not a real damaging condition like bleed, burning or torment.

DanSH.6143:

Only. One. Viable. Build.

- Torch/Dagger/Shortbow – These one are actually pretty good! on a condition build!!!

A fairly minor point, but dagger seems fairly well built for both power and condition builds. Poison is not a DPS condition, it’s a heal debuff, and 10s base duration is solid. 1.25s evade is also nothing to complain about. With bleeds, a cripple, and projectile finisher, Crippling Talon also has something to offer to both Power and Condition builds.

Thief:
…
Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait.
…

Unfortunately, it appears to me that these efforts did not have their intended effect.
Some observations and a question to the Devs.

Hard to catch
This trait is basically a handicap in trait form. Being moved in a random direction, for a random distance when hit with a CC, Even if you have stability, and most importantly at the whim of another player, does not increase survivability.

It’s disorienting, can force you off points, and doesn’t even clear the control effect. The range as well is much too short to be useful – being moved a maximum of 600 away from the target that CC’d you does almost nothing . Any melee class can close that gap in a second, and every non-thief has access to 1200 range (or better) weapons.

Generally in most MMO’s, being moved by an effect you don’t initiate or control would be considered a CC effect, not anything positive. How did Anet envision this increasing thief survivability?

Assassin’s Reward
This change has 2 problems.

• It’s a change in healing power scaling.
  What thief has room in their build for healing power? Perhaps a Venom share build dedicated to healing their teammates and doing almost no damage themselves might find use in stacking high healing power, but Venom share doesn’t have 30 points for the acro line anyway, so it’s a moot point.

• 35% more healing power scaling equates to 1 additional point of health healed per init spent for every 100 healing power you have, when compared to pre Dec 10th AR.
  How did this math justify a bump from Master to Grand master? The trait wasn’t a strong trait when it was in the Master tier, and the buff is mathematically insignificant. How could someone crunch the numbers, see what an insignificant effect that this change was going to have, and still push it through as a buff?

Could someone from Anet come and have a discussion with us, concerning how thieves are supposed to use these acrobatics changes to increase survivability? Failing that (I honestly can’t think of an argument that would sway me into beleiving these changes increased survivability), could we discuss how to change/improve them in the next patch so that thief has some options for survivability via the Acrobatics traitline, as you intended?

Strayhand.8216:

Oh, just shut up and use the awesome new venom heal we got! Some people are never satisfied…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Coulter.2315:

Its a fast paced game. 1sec kills are possible for thieves, you need to be able to deal with this with good reactions.

Yeah, not against warrior’s in PvP they aren’t.

I mean, if the thief was running full GC, probably had a bunch of might stacks (think 15+), full bloodlust, probably fury, fulfilled both his conditional 25 point minor damage traits, was running executioner, the warrior was running full glass with no additional toughness and vitality, didn’t dodge, didn’t block, didn’t use Endure Pain, didn’t use Fear me, and wasn’t running defy pain then maybe…..

Interceptor.2653:

Are there any Acrobatics thieves that don’t have at least some investment in Critical Strikes? Spend a trait slot on the newly-upgraded Practiced Tolerance. I get about ~1400-1500 extra health out of it, depending; not bad for an Adept.

What does that have to do with OP’s statement?

How good practiced tolerance is has no impact on how ineffective the Assassin’s Reward “buff” was. Since the stated intention of the change to AR was to “improve thief survivability when traited in Acrobatics”, some of us would like it to do so. But you were already aware of this – we had a long conversation about it, recently.

Oxygen.5918:

So we moved your initiative to healing trait to grandmaster and improved its scalling from a stat you don’t use.

And the improved scaling works out to 1 additional health per init spent for each 100 Healing power you have. When you take into account the fact that the absolute lowest health a 30 Acro thief can have is ~13800, the “buff” was mathematically insignificant.

I can’t understand how a mathematically insignificant increase to the contribution of a stat thieves don’t have the luxury of taking if they want to be effective could be considered a buff.

Mrbig.8019:

evilapprentice.6379:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Great Suggestion. Definitely time to remove the “no risk – full reward” of this set.

There are plenty of costs associated, you just prefer not to see them so that you can make your argument.

Precision being a low value stat costs alot in potential DPS (Look at any of Arganthium’s posts). Let’s also note that using your elite to clear conditions/generate boons also means using your elite when you need those conditions cleared/boons generated, which may or may not be the best time to use your elite skills.

Lowering your DPS increases risk at all points in time. Using your Elite just to clear conditions, generate boons, or both runs the risk of using your elite skill at a time where it will be partially or completely ineffective (yay BV on a target with 60% health).

There’re weapon sets that gain specifically more from increased crit chance than power, thief sword being one od them.

As soon as your weapon has an high skill coefficient and all atttacks have similar skill coefficient ( just like thief’s sword) your weapon is more suitable regarding precision, increasing crit chance, than power, because you have no “strong burst attacks”, meaning that weapon is min-maxed toward sustained dps.

I’ll have to take your word on that. Assuming what you say is true, it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s less valuable than power for some weaponsets.

Regarding the change and how Lyssa’s currently work, i would say that in most cases you’re using your elite EXACTLY when needed: mass inv when focused ( also by conditions) and basilisk venom is commonly nothing more than a “bonus” along with the condi removal, along with signet of rage.

The only “misuse” could be the flesh golem charge, but necro has so many condi flips that no one really cares.

“Most cases” is an exaggeration. There are too many variables to list all the possible scenarios. While there are certainly times your need for condition removal, your ability to take advantage of all of the boons you get, and your elite being used at the right time will coincide, it’s much more likely you’ll be getting reduced/almost no benefits from some of the effects if you’re aiming to use one of said effects to its fullest.

Personally i would keep lyssa just like they’re currently, while just making the 6th bonus " convert all conditions into boons".

That would make it balanced.

That would make Lyssa’s really bad.

If your proff doesn’t have stability there’s no way you should gain it with a rune set, not this reliably at least.

Anet seems to disagree – this isn’t the first “Lyssa’s is OP” post – I don’t even think it’s the 5th.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Great Suggestion. Definitely time to remove the “no risk – full reward” of this set.

There are plenty of costs associated, you just prefer not to see them so that you can make your argument.

Precision being a low value stat costs alot in potential DPS (Look at any of Arganthium’s posts). Let’s also note that using your elite to clear conditions/generate boons also means using your elite when you need those conditions cleared/boons generated, which may or may not be the best time to use your elite skills.

Lowering your DPS increases risk at all points in time. Using your Elite just to clear conditions, generate boons, or both runs the risk of using your elite skill at a time where it will be partially or completely ineffective (yay BV on a target with 60% health).

Lopez.7369:

In every MMO I know of, most classes only have one or two viable builds. That applies in Guild Wars 2 as well.

In both Rift and WAR, most classes had more than 1 or 2 viable builds. Hell, WAR was a hot mess for a long time with 3 very limited talent trees, and most classes still had 3 builds to choose from.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

evilapprentice.6379:

Seems awfully silly, since the other part of this 30 point trait reduced Steal CD to 21.5s. A 1 second daze already isn’t much for a 30 point trait, especially on a 21.5s cooldown.

It seems awful silly that you don’t consider the totality of what happens during this time.

Boons are set in a block priority system for removal, despite trying to cover boons.

Bountiful Theft steals two boons – of which aegis and stability are always at the top.

This allows the steal to ALWAYS daze, which should not be the case.

Except that is exactly how it was designed to work. Go ahead – check the patch notes. It’s mentioned that Bountiful theft will trigger first specficially so SoH’s daze isn’t wasted. It was designed by Anet to work in this exact manner. if you’re claiming that Anet made an error in this specific design, well 30 points and 2 traits seems like a fair cost for a guaranteed 1s daze (that’s a daze, not a stun) on a 21.5s CD.

So, you have a few options here, of which I suggest nearly all of them – first in/last out for boons and condis would be the easiest. Second would be an ICD on Sleight of Hand. Third, but what I intentionally leave out, is addressing bountiful theft, which I think is fine. Whether a dev listens or anything is used is up in the air. However, there are two solid suggestions – address block-style priority for boon removal and/or ICD Sleight of Hand.

You still haven’t addressed why a 30 point trait which lowers steal to 21.5s CD should have it’s daze effect set to a 30s ICD. You haven’t made a case as to why a 1s daze on a 21.5s CD requires nerfing. Let’s also not ignore the fact that it’s tied to steal, and steal has a ton of other trait options to enhance its functionality. There are a lot of variables that make it so that stealing just for the daze might not always be the best option in the long run.

I’ll re-iterate – I really don’t feel you’ve got the necessary experience to suggest balance changes to thief.