Guild Wars 2

Sagat.3285:

Shogun.7401:

evilapprentice.6379:

Gabriell.4856:

Dakarius.3284:

Considering “bruiser” specs deal as much damage as my zerker speced thief while having about 4 times as much survivability… yeah, I’d say screw thief.

This. The thief class is just totally kitten tier now. Drd or not.

This is what happens when you have a dev in charge of that that doesn’t have a clue what the class needs.

Not only do the Dev’s in charge of thief not know what thief needs, they also seem to actively ignore the thousands of good suggestions that come from thief players themselves.

Sure, a lot of player suggest silly changes that are either insanely UP or OP, but there have been tons of well designed changes suggested on these forums that, at a minimum, would be a great place to start when trying to fix thieves problems. But as far as the dev’s are concerned, thieves don’t have any problems. That’s why it was totally fair to gut acrobatics, tweak the missing parts, then sell it back to us in a separate trait line.

I’m absolutely ecstatic I got my money back for HoT before it was too late. I’m genuinely sorry for any of you who didn’t.

This is so true. It is very disappointing that they ask for feedback but they implement something worthless. I feel bad for the players who spent tons of time drafting feedback and developers couldn’t careless.

Tip of the day. Don’t bother spending your time creating feedback for theif class.

I am glad I got my money back too.

I will still give him a chance. He has to put something about thief that is not DD related on those more common patches now that HoT is live, he doesn’t have to but the first post HoT patch is last opportunity I see for him to prove he listened and understood feedback because it’s been flowing since June 23 patch preview. 2 or 3 after would be a very insulting slap in the face many thieves were already lost.

Just to give you some perspective, I felt the same way you do nearly a year and a half ago. Stop giving them chances, they are endlessly squandered. If you can get a refund for HoT, do so immediately. You can always buy it again if they ever come to their senses and fix thieves issues, and the game just isn’t worth playing in its current state. Make your voice heard with your wallet.

Gabriell.4856:

Dakarius.3284:

Considering “bruiser” specs deal as much damage as my zerker speced thief while having about 4 times as much survivability… yeah, I’d say screw thief.

This. The thief class is just totally kitten tier now. Drd or not.

This is what happens when you have a dev in charge of that that doesn’t have a clue what the class needs.

Not only do the Dev’s in charge of thief not know what thief needs, they also seem to actively ignore the thousands of good suggestions that come from thief players themselves.

Sure, a lot of player suggest silly changes that are either insanely UP or OP, but there have been tons of well designed changes suggested on these forums that, at a minimum, would be a great place to start when trying to fix thieves problems. But as far as the dev’s are concerned, thieves don’t have any problems. That’s why it was totally fair to gut acrobatics, tweak the missing parts, then sell it back to us in a separate trait line.

I’m absolutely ecstatic I got my money back for HoT before it was too late. I’m genuinely sorry for any of you who didn’t.

I got a refund on my preorder the first day of BWE3, so I can’t advise you on HoT (Other than that I don’t believe Anets work was worth 50 bucks).

As for PvP’r, do you want to play Player vs player, or player vs capture point? If you want to have a decent chance of killing any other class running a meta spec, thief is not the class for you. Thieves only current viable roles are +1 and Decap.

This might change as the HoT meta developes, but since they didn’t bother to fix any of core thiefs problems AND Daredevil appears underwhelming compared to alot of the other elite specs (at least it was at BWE3, though I believe it got some buffs I’m unfamiliar with), I wouldn’t count on it.

Impact.2780:

BFMV.3198:

Thieves essentially have no weapon swap as you will never(or rarely) see a thief without shortbow.

This reasoning is so bad. You all choose this weapon to swap to, because it’s the best option. Yet, because you chose the best option for your weapon swap, you basically have no weapon swap. Completely false. The inverse isn’t even true: if the only weapon you can choose to have to swap to is so bad you never use it, you essentially don’t have a weapon swap. Then it’d be a problem with that weapon and or all the other options. You don’t not have something because you have it.

Thieves all choose this weapon to swap to because its the only viable option, not because it’s the best. Even the majority of players who (mistakenly) believe that thieves are in a “fine place” will tell you it’s because of their mobility/decap potential. Without shortbow, those things vanish. All you’re left with is a class that can’t 1v1 most other meta specs, and is viewed as a detriment in any team fight where they aren’t providing a numerical advantage for their team (which they’ll be MUCH less capable of doing without shortbow, btw) – not that team fights really matter without shortbow, as your ability to contribute to any aoe-fest node centered fight diminishes vastly without a shortbow equipped.

I’ll repeat it for you so it’s crystal clear – Even players who believe thieves are not in need of a buff will acknowledge that all of their meta viability is tied to their mobility. 95% of that mobility is found in shortbow. A thief without a shortbow is a waste of space in the meta, therefore any thief interested in being efficacious in the game has shortbow glued into their second slot.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Doggie.3184:

I’d rather have an F3 Shadowstep than that.

Of course because then you’d have Steal and a free extra teleport in addition to it.

Or they could just have this new F3 share a CD with Steal. Steal retains it’s 30s(~21s traited)CD, and this new ability could have a base 10s(7s) traited) CD that gets triggered on both abilities whenever either is used.

What changed about feline grace? Or are you talking about the slight vigor duration buff from last patch?

Terrorsquad.4802:

I already tried multiple times but you’ll have ppl in a few hours say “what they showed on stream is never final”. Which is somewhere true but there was no communication from Anet to say “hey, we’re not gonna buff Withdraw”.

As of this moment, after months, still no word about it.
As far as it’s feels, they’re letting Thief die, despite their hard work on Dare Devil..

But it’s not just “something they said in a stream” – it’s right there in the patch notes! I have a screenshot AND I saved the .htm page from the game release notes forum in case they change their mind about it later, but currently it’s a documented change that was just skipped.

Edit: Here’s the bullet point, copied and pasted from the June 23rd patch notes -

-Withdraw: This ability is now a trick. Increased the recharge of this ability from 15 to 18. Healing (both base and healing power) coefficients have been increased by 10%.

Withdraw is still missing the 10% base healing buff it supposedly got a few patches ago.

Can we please have any word as to what’s going on here? This isn’t conjecture, or something that was mentioned in a preview and then changed – it’s right in the patch notes. It just didn’t happen.

A different game. I’m waiting until this weekend to see if DrD gets any better, but I also expect to ask for my money back on the HoT preorder.

Odokuro.5049:

With an insta-weapon swap you could start off with a Backstab into a Pistol whip, or any other two powerful attack combo, a full glass Thief could easily get 20k+ damage out of the a fore mentioned combo.

… You can do that now. In fact, the biggest limiting factor in doing this consistently isn’t so much the weapon swap CD as it is the 15 init (or 6 init + 40s CD) required to get stealth the use PW.

That still won’t help – DrD is supposed to be a team fighter, only without any of the sustain tools necessary to fight in an AoE cesspit. The only way Driver Fortitude works with any ICD is if the number is ludicrously high, which would be silly in 1v1.

Instead, they should remove the ICD all together and set a hardcap on “number of activations” per evade – for this and every other “on evade” trait. 5 sounds like a good number – 2.2k heal on dodging through a ton of different AoE’s seems about right, considering how many different effects you’d need to dodge through to get to that number and thief general squishiness.

It sounds like it’s time to see how those of us who were dumb enough to preorder HoT (myself included) can get a refund. I’ll be asking for one, and when they tell me no, I’ll be examining my legal options with my CC company for a chargeback. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

Please note that I’m encouraging people to look for legal recourse in their chargeback.

I for one feel this is a wonderful idea. In fact, I think Anet dev’s would agree!

I expect they’ll add it to druid and revenant primarily, with a little access for engineers and warriors. Thieves can expect to have a 10% proc chance on revenant stolen item, as per current design trends.

In exchange, the revenant stolen item no longer does damage.

Thanks for your wonderful suggestion!

It sounds like it’s time to see how those of us who were dumb enough to preorder HoT (myself included) can get a refund. I’ll be asking for one, and when they tell me no, I’ll be examining my legal options with my CC company for a chargeback. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

Please note that I’m encouraging people to look for legal recourse in their chargeback.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Amante.8109:

I do appreciate his higher rate of posting, but I’m looking for quality over quantity. He has yet to address any concern unrelated to the Staff or the new Dodges (which are the selling points of the spec so it’s kind of a given those will be improved). I don’t expect a response on everything salient, but a response on anything salient would be good.

The way I see it, they put in so much effort on making the Dash works, probably developing new technology just to make it happen. I think that effort is worth celebrating. There’s a lot of quality in making the Dash work as intended.

I agree that the list of things they need to address might be long, but the Dash issue is one issue off that list — meaning they are one issue closer to resolving the issues you want to be resolved.

That’s what a dash of sunshine means.

In a better world, they’d fix everything.

But since we have to compromise, I’d much rather they leave dash broken and fix 4-5 core issues with thief then “probably develop new technology to make sure dash works correctly”. You can’t polish a kitten , which is what “making sure dash works” while ignoring a litany of other key issues is.

In one of your other posts you pointed out how Karl feels Escapists Absolution is powerful enough to be considered a Major trait choice – if that’s who’s designing thief, I don’t have any hope for HoT.

I don’t mean to kitten on your optimism, but I feel like it’s massively misplaced (just as mine was 4 or 5 patches ago). I honestly just want my money back at this point.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Mosharn.8357:

Since there are more anti stealth stuff going around, I think thieves should get more evade and block type of builds. Theres already a lot of evade stuff now with the daredevil line but I think they should add some counterplay spec where you rely on blocking and countering enemy attacks when timed right.

Bandit’s Defense is basically what you’re looking for then, right? I haven’t played Daredevil yet, but this skill seems incredibly strong. It’s a VERY short cd stunbreak (maybe the shortest in the game), as well as a block and decent potential cc.

Bandit’s defense is nice, but already has it’s own design problems. It’s CD is already being bumped to 15s, and the melee retaliation automatically firing is kind of a huge detriment in team fights (which DrD was clearly designed to participate in) seeing a sit locks you in an animation and stops blocking. You’ll be knocking down minions/clones/phantasms while you get chewed up by AoE because you’ve stopped blocking. It’s potentially useful as a short CD stunbreak if you back up out of the fight while blocking, but that’s hardly good design.

ronpierce.2760:

I’m probably overstaying my welcome here in the thief forums, but I’d like to add my 2 cents to the mechanic denial debate, and clear up some misconceptions.

Warrior, necromancer, and to some extent, Mesmer both experience mechanic denial, and while Necromancers are fairly strong against D/P, both Necromancer and Warrior are subject to, quite literally, “mechanic denial” when facing a S/D thief or anything with high avoidance, especially Necromancer which actually has a much harder time with S/D than D/P, despite its less than optimal performance overall.

Evading a LF building attack or a Scepter or Axe can leave a Necromancer almost entirely void of Life Force which is basically certain death against a thief. This is part of the reason most PvP Necromancer builds have adopted to Soul Marks/Dagger+Warhorn and Spectral Armor. It’s the most likely to build sufficient Life Force against a thief, where a build that differs from this norm can be quite literally cut from most of their “mechanic”, which also includes basically all of their defense.

Warriors are similar in that the more pure-avoidance you have, the harder it is to build Adrenaline which reduces Burst finished rates, lower condition removal, less healing and so on, so that’s something to consider.

Mesmers are a bit in their own category where AOE is a mechanic denial.

Arguably, these situations are more of a mechanic denial as these are things ALL warrior/Necromancer/Mesmers use, and not just certain build types.

Food for thought.

The scale of the situations just aren’t comparable, IMO.

These next 3 points are closely related, so it might seem like I’m repeating myself.

A) None of them are nearly as binary as another class applying revealed to thief. Once you’ve been hit revealed, there is literally no way to gain access to stealth. It’s all or nothing. Evading/blinding an attack counters the LF/Adrenaline gain from a single attack.

B) There are other ways to gain Adrenaline/LF. Even if there aren’t a ton of ways, other ways still exist. The mechanic is never wholly shut out. As I said before, the second revealed is applied to a thief, it is literally impossible to gain access to stealth until revealed is over.

C) Both Adrenaline and LF (correct me if I’m wrong about LF, I’m not super knowledgeable about necros) can be used from a partial state. If you have at least some LF or at least 1 bar of adrenaline, you can access those mechanics.

D) Necro and Warrior have always needed to land their attacks to gain LF/Adrenaline. They were designed that way from launch, the way their skills work (should) take that into account. The inclusion of outside skills that apply revealed to a thief are new, and thief has not received any substantial buffs to help combat that.

E) Warrior does not lose access to every single pvp viable trait in a particular line if they have no adrenaline. Some yes, but not every single one. This may be true for necros as well, though I am not sure.

On one hand, we have some classes sometimes having trouble taking advantage of their mechanic, in a way that’s been around since the launch of the game, while also still having access to secondary methods of accessing that mechanic.

On the other hand, we have a class that can be entirely shut out of its mechanic (and every pvp viable trait in the associated traitline, considered mandatory in the current and previous meta), with no secondary methods of accessing it, all by new skills that thieves have never received balance changes to help counteract. The mechanic being denied is also considered one of the classes primary defensive mechanics and is inherently very squishy due to design choices which deny them a litany of sustain options other classes have, and make taking any sort of defensive stats a losing proposition.

As a side note while we’re doing all this, can we all make an effort to avoid feeding the trolls?

Just looking at the boards the last few days I’ve already noticed a pattern among a handful of individuals – they’re not here to discuss or learn, they’re simply here to shout down anything a thief says with misinformation and derision. You can’t stop them from posting, but lets just ignore whatever drivel they spew and stay on point.

Thanks.

DeceiverX.8361:

I’m trying to distinguish the fact that we don’t necessary need more buffs to stealth or that thieves shouldn’t feel cheated or feel targeted. Other classes and builds do depend on this as well and are similarly influenced.

We’re not misunderstanding you, we’re telling you you’re wrong.

No other classes loses as much as thief does when denied access to stealth.

For examples, See: stealth attacks, the entirety of the shadow arts line, the fact that thief was designed with stealth as one of their defensive mechanisms where 6 of the games other classes (at minimum) never had stealth considered in their defensive designs.

Your opinion is incorrect.

DeceiverX.8361:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DeceiverX.8361:

Again to clarify: stealth is not the thief’s class mechanic. Primary survival or not, it isn’t a mechanic belonging solely to the thief nor was it designed to be.

Initiative, Steal, and dual-skills (albeit bad), and Stealth attacks on the other hand, are the thief’s class mechanics.

There’s a trait line that’s called Shadow Arts who wants to say hello — it’s been here since the beginning — was working well in the beginning — the addition of reveal ruined everything about it.

And it still doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t a mechanic unique to the thief.

It’s just a mechanic with multiple unique benefits for thief, you’re just pointlessly arguing semantics at this point so you’re not perceived as wrong.

They’re the same as the odds that you strike oil in the bathroom of a mansion you won in a lottery, before being the first person on Mars, but after your whirlwind fling with an Icelandic supermodel while your band Leaf Seven (known for their hypnotic rhythms and driving baselines) is on world tour.

But don’t worry, even if we do get buffed, Anet will spend the next 2 patches nerfing it into the ground (so at least we’ll get a year out of it, heh), and the community will kitten about it for 3 years.

ionix.9054:

uglydan.1638:

And this is different than running into 3 PU condi mesmers?

Not really sure how this is related to my original post…

He was just drawing a comparison.

Why was he doing that? Because 90% of the non-thief posts on the thief boards are there to kitten about thieves. I’m not accusing you of such, just explaining the reality.

You see, this looks exactly like a “Thinly veiled nerf post”. Someone will come in “asking” how to deal with a certain thief spec. When said thieves are (mostly) constructive and offer advice, said person and other like-minded individuals will continually shoot down all advice as not viable. They’ll “Come to the conclusion” (ie, blatantly say what they meant to say when they first posted the thread) that thief is OP and in need of a nerf. It’s a pretty common method of kittening here on the thief forums, and after being helpful and accommodating so many times, most long time thief players come to just assume posts like these are intended to whine rather than actually learn anything. Seeing as thief is in a particularly terrible spot in PvP right now (the only thing keeping us slightly above Ranger at rock bottom is SBow 5), it’s particularly grating on the nerves.

Sorry if that wasn’t the case for you.

apharma.3741:

evilapprentice.6379:

Except it isn’t, at all. Poison can be cleansed, Reveal can’t. In fact, if you look at some recent past meta’s and even the current one, any class who specs for heavy healing sustain also has copious access to condition cleansing – they’re given tons of tools to counter their counter – thieves using stealth aren’t given those same tools.

I get what you’re saying but I think other thieves are really over reacting when they say revealed completely negates their entire trait line which is what I was referring to. It doesn’t, it only temporarily does in the same way stability does to CC heavy players does, the way high amounts of poison does to healer specced characters does, like how resistance and berserker stance temporarily counters conditions.

And again, all those things you keep mentioning have counters. CC has stunbreakers, immunities, and stability. Resistance can be stripped/corrupted, though I have no comment on berserker stance – that one makes no sense to me.

evilapprentice.6379:

The tactic isn’t to blindly AoE and hope you hit the thief. The tactic is “You know where the thief is trying to go(Hint, it’s behind you, in melee range)” so you either punish them heavily with your own high DPS skills or avoid their backstab all together via maneuvering/cc/etc." If thieves had a high damage ranged attack option(you know, like mesmers) while in stealth, it’d be a different story…but they don’t.

Firstly mesmer ranged option is as poor as thieves (hint: a mesmer shattering at ranged is taking a huge damage hit) though I would say thieves get the better utility. Additionally a Mesmer bursting from stealth needs to be next to you to come even close to backstab damage which isn’t really ranged.

Secondly I generally let them waste their skills doing that. Wait it out, re stealth and engage. I now have the upper hand as they wasted those AoE skills and I usually have full initiative by the time I need to restealth. The only thing the enemy accomplishes is buying time before the inevitable backstabbing happens…generally works well against things that are not DD eles or AI heavy builds, not that MM necro is a problem, just that pistol 5 generally won’t grant me the wide reaching protection from attacks it does to other builds.

and while you “waited it out”, they captured the point and you lost “the fight”. The only current competitive pvp mode is capture point – killing someone (or not dying for that matter) don’t count nearly as much as capturing and holding points.

apharma.3741:

Reveal is short and complaining about the way it invalidates a whole trait line is like complaining poison invalidates or massively reduces healing support.

Except it isn’t, at all. Poison can be cleansed, Reveal can’t. In fact, if you look at some recent past meta’s and even the current one, any class who specs for heavy healing sustain also has copious access to condition cleansing – they’re given tons of tools to counter their counter – thieves using stealth aren’t given those same tools.

Additionally you’re not acknowledging why reveal is there in the first place, as in to prevent backstab spamming.

I don’t think revealed/stealth attacks were well designed in the first place, but when it’s the thief applying it to themselves it at least gives the thief player the choice between doing damage and taking advantage of their traits.

Against bad thieves, sure sitting in black powder works but any competent thief (as in they don’t use auto target) can easily HS through it if someone sits in it. Better still the target just made themselves a sitting duck by being blinded and coming to you for BS.

Sure guards have a lot of ways to counter thieves with lines, rings, GS5 bullkitten but what of other classes? Rangers can rapid fire you as you go in otherwise more or less hit thin air, same for mesmers, warriors and a lot of other classes. The tactic is to hit that area with cleave/AoE and hope you’re hitting them which any competent thief can easily avoid.

The tactic isn’t to blindly AoE and hope you hit the thief. The tactic is “You know where the thief is trying to go(Hint, it’s behind you, in melee range)” so you either punish them heavily with your own high DPS skills or avoid their backstab all together via maneuvering/cc/etc." If thieves had a high damage ranged attack option(you know, like mesmers) while in stealth, it’d be a different story…but they don’t.

Lenaios.2781:

Yes, stealth attacks are unique thief “core” mechanic. However other professions have loads of access to stealth thus making it just a game mechanic not a thief only mechanic.
Most thieves just got used to being as strong as mesmers are now pre-trait patch thus this QQ. Also everyday I see very able thieves so we all know these QQ threads are mostly over exaggerated.

- Thief has, by far, the most access to stealth
- Thief is the only class to have access to special attacks in stealth, which their weaponsets DPS/utilities are designed around. This makes thief the only class that loses Damage/utility potential when denied stealth.
- Thief has, by far, the most traits dedicated to stealth. An entire line where every minor traitwhile and every worthwhile (pvp) major trait is dedicated to stealth, and then a smattering of other traits in other lines (revealed training, hidden killer, fleet shadow)
- Stealth is also supposed to be a defensive mechanic for thieves. Whereas other classes get stability, damage immunities, larger healthpools/great healing sustain, thieves are supposed to rely on stealth (or evade) and blinds.

Stealth is a Thief mechanic – other classes have access to stealth, but for thieves,
it’s a mechanic. If that wasn’t apparent to you, I’m not sure how you feel yourself qualified to talk about the class.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I’m pretty certain that engineers aren’t going to be running their AoE reveal (just as they don’t run lock on). I certainly won’t run it. It’s an elite skill that also gives stealth while keeping the drone that provides the stealth visible and (presumably) targetable. No thanks, I’ll keep running Elixir X or (Mortar) (depending) on the situation.

Whether or not you run it is anecdotal, will others run it? It’s also highly susceptible to change, will it be run when there’s a meta shift?

More importantly, it doesn’t really matter who runs it – what matters is the design philosophy behind it. I said all this when they added stealth reveal traps in WvW, then again when they added reveal to ranger, and again when it was added to utlitiy goggles – hardcountering a classes mechanics is extremely poor design. It shows a lack of creativity and understanding from the development team. At this point, it’s a pretty clear indicator of how Anet plans on “balancing” stealth (and by extension thieves)for the lifetime of the game.

Using the same train of thought, hard counters only affect those who runs stealth, but not all Thief.

Why is Warrior ShoutBow is popular? It’s because we hard counter them in melee with blind — thus denying (on hindering) them their Adrenaline mechanic.

Heck we can even make an argument that because of stealth, the Thief can deny everybody else from using their mechanic on the Thief. You can’t really do anything to something you cannot see.

My point is, the premise of this discussion can be argued in many ways for which the direction of it will go no where.

Yeah, no.

Comparing what blind does to a warriors adrenaline generation to an effect that locks out an entire trait line and a class mechanic is ridiculous – they aren’t even remotely comparable, and you should know that.

For it to be comparable, blind would have to read “Target loses all adrenaline and cannot gain adrenaline for 4s”, and they’d also have to have an entire traitline where every minor trait and worthwhile major trait revolved around generating/using adrenaline. Edit: Oh, and also once hit with blind there’s no way to cleanse the “no adrenaline” effects, you just have to wait it out.

I’m not sure why you’d ever bother to post that, or the unrelated scenarios that followed it.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I’m pretty certain that engineers aren’t going to be running their AoE reveal (just as they don’t run lock on). I certainly won’t run it. It’s an elite skill that also gives stealth while keeping the drone that provides the stealth visible and (presumably) targetable. No thanks, I’ll keep running Elixir X or (Mortar) (depending) on the situation.

Whether or not you run it is anecdotal, will others run it? It’s also highly susceptible to change, will it be run when there’s a meta shift?

More importantly, it doesn’t really matter who runs it – what matters is the design philosophy behind it. I said all this when they added stealth reveal traps in WvW, then again when they added reveal to ranger, and again when it was added to utlitiy goggles – hardcountering a classes mechanics is extremely poor design. It shows a lack of creativity and understanding from the development team. At this point, it’s a pretty clear indicator of how Anet plans on “balancing” stealth (and by extension thieves)for the lifetime of the game.

Where’s the 10% increase to Withdraw’s base healing? It was supposed to be included when you increased the CD by 20%, but it wasn’t. It hasn’t been fixed in any of the subsequent patches.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Taunt is no better than a stun…

Except that it is much better than stun.

I’m not even talking about how taunt goes through all defensive measures.

Here’s a list of things taunt potentially does that stun doesn’t
- generates additional damage for Torment and Confusion
- Triggers Retaliation and “on block” effects.
- Waste charges for things like Venoms and Assassins Signet
- Dynamically re-position your foe into traps/AoE’s/Environmental effects, off of points, and generally out of position

The only real potential downside to Taunt as compared to a stun is that your target isn’t standing still (which would make churning earth kind of hard to hit, I guess), and simply eating AA might be somewhat beneficial to your target (leeching venoms, sigil of blood, etc), but that’s a skill thing – you could just as easily make them waste those venoms by blocking/evading the attacks.

So yeah, Taunt is potentially much more dangerous that stun without considering the fact that it goes through all of these defenses.

Kocoff.7582:

I just read what he said, the dev definitely needs that feedback. However, how does it change anything? If it turns into a rollover skill, I find it gets even more likely that you end up knocking down one of those jagged horrors like he said.

I remember knocking down a few clones/phantasms, but then if am given the choice I do not think I would be able to accurately knockdown the right target in the heat of time.

…Except you would control when the kick went out, if it were a rollover skill. If you were surrounded by AI, you could just take the entire block and let the rollover expire. If you thought you had a chance to get to a worthwhile target, you could maneuver and try to use the rollover KD.

Kocoff.7582:

I am going to side with Alchemyst here OP. Althought your suggestion is just as reasonable, I believe the true purpose of this skill is actually setup, a bait to be more precise.

They should have renamed it “Bandit’s Bait”. Now I did not pay sufficient attention during BWE to see if Bandit’s defense successfully interrupts Warrior’s GS#3, because GS#3 also acts like an evade.

I don’t think Thieves should see it as an Interrupt, simply because it’s not. Every 8-10 seconds, this skill give you the opportunity to burst your target down/ or recuperate those precious seconds for your next Withdraw.

Bandit’s Defense is pure a bait, reversal mechanism, not in any way an interrupt. Like, you don’t run away with 1k hp hoping the skill will save your skin. Again, I still think adding the evade you suggested is reasonable, but it is certainly not necessary.

I vote we drop the OP/Alchemyst debate and focus on what Maug brought up.

Regardless of the intent of the skill, in its current form its much too easily triggered by AI/Random attacks in big team fights, making both the Block and Setup portion of the skill unreliable.

Since Anet has clearly designed DD to be a “team fighter”, we should be asking Anet to design the skill as Maug described earlier in the post.

Warhawk.7095:

alchemyst.2165:

If you have that low of hp that you will be killed if you use that ability you probably shouldn’t be using that. At least not at close enough range that it procs. You should probably be kiting in that case. To solve your problem you could also time it so that it is the last swing of whatever combo they’re doing so that you don’t get hit extra when the skill activates.

Besides, technically you’re not interrupting the incoming attack, you’re blocking the incoming attack and then knocking them down. It can interrupt things, but I don’t see why you’re looking specifically for an interrupt. I mean yeah, pulmonary impact trait, but still, it’s not IDEAL for the sole purpose of interrupting someone.

And if you’re looking for a “true” reactionary interrupt skill, look at headshot or steal. As I said before, you’re looking at the skill without looking at ALL of its purposes, you’re looking at it as just an interrupt due to aftercasts.

So to sum up your post:

You shouldn’t use the skill for its intended purpose, it’s better with this unintended design flaw.

I don’t know why you’re assuming it’s an unintended design, to the point of being a flaw. With a 10s CD, the KD feels to me like a designed window of counterplay. Again, that’s not the case at 15s CD, but the skill was initially designed with a 10s CD.

Maugetarr.6823:

It should just be a 1.5 second block that has a rollover skill and blocks everything until it ends or you use the knockdown. That way you can choose to use it defensively or offensively and it doesn’t get triggered by all the AI running around.

I like the auto-fire KD as an element of counterplay, but I do agree with you that AI severely reduces the effectiveness of the skill.

I like your suggestion of a 1.5s block with a rollover on block, rather than forcing the KD to fire on melee block.

At 10s base CD for a block/stunbreaker, the retaliatory kick is necessary for some sort of counter play. Not every class has the ability to exploit the .5s KD attack, but some do – as a thief, you should learn who you can use BD as a block against, and who you should save it as a Stunbreaker against.

But, since we already know the skill is being bumped to 15s CD, it’s going to need some kind of buff – I just went over how easily countered the skill is by any class with stability/a multi hit attack, and it’s just not good enough for a 15s cd.

Instead of an evade, perhaps cut the KD kick cast time down to .25s?

TexZero.7910:

Cecilia.5179:

TexZero.7910:

Cecilia.5179:

Here’s another angle to see this issue from: If a ranger or another class that has a dangerous channel skill starts attacking for you just before you stealth, you can’t dodge any of it, or you’ll give up your stealth and likely take even more damage. Maybe you dropped an emergency Shadow Refuge to escape from a zerg, the Shadow Refuge may finish, but you can’t dodge out of the way or dodge in the Shadow Refuge because you’ll get revealed and die. I’m sorry. I can’t see any defense for a reveal on evade. Condition thieves can be scary, but this skill is a total hindrance to them.

It’s only a hindrance if you have to use stealth as a crutch.

@ the other dude. I’m not out to insult your use of Stealth, however the common misconception with a bunch of people is stealth is required to be good at thief and that is flat out wrong and leads to people trying to use it in every situation….see the above quote as to the wrong time to use it.

Condi Daredevil isn’t a build that absolutely relies on stealth like previous thief builds do. See the current PvP / WvW state of D/P SA/Trick/CS or DA.

I wouldn’t say that I need stealth to function. I usually play Necro with no special teleports, stealth, or evades. The problem isn’t that it hurts people who depend on stealth, but that it punishes the player for needing to evade in stealth, which can be necessary sometimes. There’s little reason to run it right now because it is more punishing than it is rewarding.

I’m pretty sure when push comes to shove what punished the player wasn’t the trait it was their inability to read. If you want a get out of jail free card evade, don’t take the 2 damaging dodges. You have a choice here, you chose damage over safety.

Instead of building around the fact that everything you do by its very nature is evasion based with Daredevil, you’re still relying heavily on stealth to carry you. Daredevil is old acro buffed.

I’m afraid I have to agree with Tzerio here. I mean, what do you think, thief is some sort of special snowflake? That you deserve new mechanics that are compatible with old mechanics?

No no no no no. A quick glance at the boards will tell you that stealth is the most broken thing ever (even in capture point format), so you should have seen this coming. Daredevil has it right – not only are your old mechanics (Stealth) incompatible with DD mechanics (dodges), they actively penalize you for trying to mix them!

Now That’s what I call good design.

Driften.8716:

I had high hopes after POI 31 but after playing more solo at the end of the beta weekend this about summed up how I felt about the thief and the new DD spec.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder…who designed DD? How did it get approved?

Looking at the staff skills, its obvious they wanted DD to be the melee team fighting weaponset, then they just didn’t bother to put any survivability in.

How is a DD thief supposed to stay alive in a brawl over a point?

The 456 health they recover on successful dodge? The weakness from weakening strikes (Which is not per target, btw, so what good is it)? How about those dodges that eat up our GM slot, not a single one of which adds much to survivability (Dash is ok, but it’s not like thieves are hurting for solutions to cripple/chill).

I just don’t get it.

Ghotistyx.6942:

They balance the game based on all game modes. Spvp might be affected the most by changes, but they aren’t going to allow ridiculous things to run rampant. No limit to healing and condition removal on evade fits exactly into that category. Even not in wvw, being able to remove 5 conditions and heal 2500 health isn’t unreasonable, and with dash dodge removing cripple and chill, staff 3 removing immobilize, and an 8-10 second stun break, when would a thief ever die?

3-5 activations per trait per dodge hardcap seems fair to me – it’d still be useful in PvP without being insane in WvW.

Kadin.2356:

evilapprentice.6379:

Kadin.2356:

The condi removal trait is already bordering at OP with a 1 sec ICD. I imagine post release that’s going to be nerfed to like 3 seconds.

Please, elaborate. Just saying that it’s “Bordering on OP” provides nothing.

Please explain exactly how removing 1 condition on successful evade is “borderline OP”.

The condi removal potential on this ability is already very high compared to most other class’ options in that department. The only reason that even this much is justifiable is due to our low HP pool. I’d love for this to do more but I doubt it would pass any kind of balance check.

That’s your argument? What other classes get?
Where’s thief’s stability? resistance? protection? damage immunities? complete invulnerabilities? Hell, we only just now got a single block skill, and that’s already seeing a 50% increase in CD. More importantly, where’s thief’s competent condition cleansing? If you eat 3 damaging conditions as a thief, your options are to blow SS just to cleanse them, or eat damage from them as you slowly find a way to cleanse them off.

Thieves, to this day, still lack competent condition cleansing. Remember when Warrior was described as the class that “has some problem cleansing conditions”? Now they get a complete immunity skill and braindead condition cleansing options.

What I’ve suggested is a skill based condition cleanse – if you don’t want thieves cleansing more than 1 condition per dodge, then don’t mindlessly spam attacks hoping to see what sticks. It’s probably not “perfectly balanced”, but it’s absolutely nowhere near OP. In its current form, it’s ridiculously UP for a Master trait.

Kadin.2356:

The condi removal trait is already bordering at OP with a 1 sec ICD. I imagine post release that’s going to be nerfed to like 3 seconds.

Please, elaborate. Just saying that it’s “Bordering on OP” provides nothing.

Please explain exactly how removing 1 condition on successful evade is “borderline OP”.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

No cooldowns, limit on how many conds/hp you can heal per proc will suffice.

Yeah, a 5 trigger hardcap per dodge seems fair.

Ghotistyx.6942:

evilapprentice.6379:

The game is balanced around 5v5 PvP, not WvW. How good this would be in a WvW zerg has no place in a discussion about balance.

My mistake, I forgot that wvw wasn’t a part of this game and that no one should care what happens outside of a very narrow scope.

You can be kitten about it if you want, but WvW just isn’t the part of the game the balance team considers when making changes. It’s not as if I’m guessing, or I made the decision, they’ve come out and unambiguously stated that the game is balanced around 5v5 sPvP with standardized gear.

If it makes you feel better though, Babazhook made a good suggestion in a overall “per dodge activation” hardcap, which I think would be fair at 5 – it wouldn’t really matter for PvP, and would just be a WvW concession.

Kocoff.7582:

that’s a crazy suggestion… That means if you dodge 50 things in 3 seconds (like Ranger arrows and 3 AoE zone) , you may heal back to full HP with Driven Fortitude.

A) Your numbers are ridiculously hyperbolic – Even if we’re talking AoE’s that Pulse every .25s (I cant think of an AoE that pulses that quickly), dodging through three of those AoE’s wouldn’t even trigger 10 times.

B) The suggestion above your post mentioned that the benefits don’t have to necessarily be applied immediately – the effects could simply stack like a buff.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Because thieves should be able to zerg surf and heal 500 and remove a condition anywhere from 3-15 times per evade.

The game is balanced around 5v5 PvP, not WvW. How good this would be in a WvW zerg has no place in a discussion about balance.

YOUNGaz.5690:

I think it needs to be 1sec cd because skills like hundred blades, pistol whip, etc will proc multiple evades with just one dodge roll. Happens quite often where you’ll see ‘Evade’ pop up several times on a roll. Skills like those aren’t really mindless spam, they’re just skills. Would be too OP if each one of those evades proc’d an ‘on evade’ trait.

But against thieves, those skills are just “mindless spam” – you can just throw kitten at the wall and see what stick. Against any other class in the game, to be effective you actually have to plan out your RF/HunBlades/PW – using the skill without setup and only landing a few swings is bad play. Against a thief landing just a few hits is fine – it works. Removing CD’s from “on evade” traits fixes this.

The effects don’t have to happen immediately – each evade could give you a stack of “Driven Fortitude”, “Escapists absolution” or “upper hand”, which tick in interval with their current listed CD. Regardless, thief needs better defensive and sustain options, and this is one way to accomplish that.

There’s far too much mindless attack spam and AoE in the game. Allow properly traited thieves to punish bad play by removing ICD’s from traits that trigger on successful evade.

It’s not a huge change, but it’s a step in the right direction.

alchemyst.2165:

And finally my favorite… removing conditions on dodge! been waiting for this for a really long time, and although there are counterplays to it it’s a very good trait to take and allows you to survive pretty well.

You’ve been waiting for it for a really long time because it’s belonged in Acro for about 2 years now. Most of DD is comprised of ideas that should have been in acro, but weren’t because then how could they sell us DD?

Since this is a compliment thread, I will point out that most of the physical utilities are great. Bandit’s Defense is great (at 10s, probably less so at 15), Impairing Daggers will be solid once they remove the bugged Init cost, Flurry has some potential, and Impact strike feels nigh perfect. Distracting daggers needs some redesign though.

1.) Evasive Absolution needs to be rolled into Driven Fortitude for a number of reasons. first of all, 456 health on Successful evade with a 1s CD is a weak trait. In addition, evasive absolution becomes a “mandatory pick” for the master line due to the thief glaring lack of (non movement related) condition cleansing. DD thieves aren’t taking SA, and too much of Trickery’s usefulness is tied to BT/SoH to make trickster a viable alternative (Not that it would be anyway, with DD favoring physical skills by a wide margin). Please just give thieves some competent condition cleansing already.

2) Weakening charge needs to actually hit its target. If you’re not standing in the exact sweet spot distance wise, you’re lucky to get even a single hit out of weakening charge. If however you use it in conjuction with steal/Inf sig, it doesn’t travel through your target and suddenly it’s a useful and powerful skill. Considering the AoE nature of the staff, the best fix is probably extending the radius of the swings so that when you travel through a target (but still remain relatively close), the skill still hits.

3) Vault is crap. It’s a 1 second cast and it’s insanely obvious. I can’t tell you how many Staff thieves I watched vault into my dodge-trops because I had all the time in the world to evade the attack. The tiny radius means you can simply walk out of the effect while the thiefarina is still twirling around in the sky. It’s not even a good downstate cleave – adjust the casting time/damage if need be, but Vault needs help.

4) Bound is poorly designed. Unless your vision for bound was “D/P Stealth access at 50 endurance instead of 3 init”, Bound doesn’t do its job. If you’re dodging an attack, you’re most likely not hitting your target. At best, you’re causing some incidental AoE (which the game has far too much of already), or you’re blowing a dodge when you didn’t need to for a little extra damage to your target.

5) General clunkiness – All of the traited dodges are clunky, and I’ve noticed a number of the physical skills (especially bandits defense) don’t feel “responsive”. Perhaps this is because it’s a BWE, but it’s definitely something to be looked into.

6) Channeled vigor – DD is still a squishball class that survives by dodging. Standing still for any length of time is akin to begging for death. A 2.25s heal would have to restore something like 10k health to be even be considered worth trying. Since that isn’t likely to happen, you’ll need to figure something else out to make the heal viable.

Also going to list bugs and design flaws here, for added visibility.
Impairing daggers cost 1 init per dagger
Lotus training costs 1 init per dodge in combat
You can’t use steal while using a DD traited dodge or while using Vault
Endurance thief does not restore 50 endurance (it restores a seemingly random lesser amount)
Distracting Daggers setup skill should be instant cast
Dust strike projectile needs to be more visible – I’ve had a number miss that I feel probably should have hit, but I can’t see the effect to determine what went wrong.

Now for some positive points as a palette cleanser.
Bandits defense is a literal godsend – it’s a wonderful little skill, and forced KD on block feels like a fair window for counterplay.
Impact strike really helps with thief’s overall lack of stomping options.

New bugs

Upon match start/respawn, you only spawn with 100 endurance (instead of 150)
Cannot use steal in the middle of the vault/traited dodges.

Endurance thief does not return 50 endurance – it returns between slightly less than 50 endurance, and at time just brings you up to the next “bar” of endurance (returning much less than 50 in the process).

Tested both by itself, and in comparison to energy rune.

Rain.9213:

evilapprentice.6379:

It looks to me like they cannibalized Acro for DD, and left Acro in a complete crap state.
Now if I want to play a dodgy thief rather than a stealthy, I’ll have to shell out for HoT.

Implying you weren’t gonna buy HoT anyway….

I wasn’t planning on buying HoT in the first place. This pretty much sealed the deal – there’s always a chance I’ll change my mind I suppose, but at the moment I’m not interesting in paying 50 dollars to gain access to a playstyle Anet took away mere months ago with no explanation or reason.

It looks to me like they cannibalized Acro for DD, and left Acro in a complete crap state.
Now if I want to play a dodgy thief rather than a stealthy, I’ll have to shell out for HoT.

Paywalled Repackaged Acrobatics.