Guild Wars 2

roamzero.9486:

evilapprentice.6379:

roamzero.9486:

Since Anet gutted Thief’s ability to might stack, a good Acro fix IMO would be to reintroduce some might stacking ability. Prepatch SA/Acro together could maintain 10+ might stacks. So something like Upper Hand could be buffed to give 3 might stacks on evade or something in addition to the ini.

Another change I would like to see is some way to get vitality. Just make Assassin’s Reward add 300 vit and keep the healing as-is.

They removed the might stacking for a reason – the same reason they changed the GM minor trait for both Acro and SA – they don’t want defensive traitlines contributing meaningfully to damage.

Almost all defensive traitlines in the game (minus Thief) have traits that can contribute to damage, unless you are implying that the devs are singling out Thief by design (and hence why almost no one is taking Acro and SA is pales itself in comparison to what it was).

Regardless what other classes got, it seems that Anet fully intended for thieves defensive lines to not contribute to damage at all, since they pulled every single trait (minor and major) that might have contributed to damage from both SA and Acro.

This is fine, assuming that they took into account this goal in the other lines (debatable, but in a separate thread). I’m personally fine with both SA and Acro offering no damage as long as they offer realistic and effective sustain, which currently neither line offers.

My design for Acro might not be perfect, but it offers realistic sustain for the thief that isn’t based around “Stealth, evade, blind”, like everything else is, and Anet has made it clear that it doesn’t want thief evading as much as it did prepatch (and as a bonus, they nerfed blind access even before the most recent patch).

Burning doesn’t need a damage nerf so much as it does an adjustment.

Yes, Burning could probably stand to lose 8-15% of it’s overall damage – I mean, it’s triple the damage of most other conditions in most scenarios, and that’s just silly. But more than anything, burning shouldn’t be doing “burst” damage.

Condi classes only need 1 stat from their amulet to do optimal damage. That’s supposed to be balanced against the fact that condition damage is intended to be of the “attrition” variety rather than the “burst” variety. Currently, burning can do excellent burst damage under the right circumstances, and that’s just silly.

Cut burning damage significantly (so it’d only 2.0 – 2.2 times other conditions, roughly), and extend the duration accordingly so that burning only loses between 0 and 15% of it’s overall damage (whatever playtesting (playtesting, lawl) proves fair), and then burning will probably be a fair condition.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

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I guess this is as good a time as any to list my changes.

#1: Drop expeditious dodger completely. Feline Grace becomes the new adept minor
#2: Endless Stamina becomes master minor. Don’t Stop becomes grandmaster minor
#3: Change Fleet of Shadow to: Granting Stealth to you or your allies also grants swiftness. 10 second swiftness duration, 15 second ICD.
#4: Pain Response now affects confusion and torment.
#5: Vigorous Recovery: This now cleanses one condition in an AoE.
#6: Double the base heal and scale healing of assassin’s reward, and make its heal an AoE with 360 range. Max 5 targets.
#7: Merge Swindler’s Equilibrium and Upper Hand, so now evades while wielding a sword both recharge steal and regain initiative, 1 second ICD. Add 5% damage bonus, and keep at the master tier.
#8: Move Hard To Catch to the Grandmaster Tier
#9: Changed Guarded Initiation to the following: Activate Assassin’s Signet when attacking a foe above a certain health threshold (90%). 45 second cooldown, and receives benefits from signet related traits.
#10: New Grandmaster Trait: Richochet. You all know what it does.

You’ll notice this leaves an open spot in the master tier. Because I lack creativity, I’ll have to leave that open for someone with better imagination to fill. Truth be told I also don’t know what to do about vigorous recovery.

I don’t mean to be rude, but all you’ve done is add damage to a defensive line. The very minor defensive buffs you’ve included do nothing to mitigate the fact that thieves still have access to roughly half the dodges they did pre-patch.

babazhook.6805:

As to assasins reward you are too focused on the meta. Lots of theives have fit healing into their builds. IP has become more widely used just for the healing. While this predicated on getting Crits and healing attribute is not an issue that it chosen shows how important healing is.

I’m too focused on what works? I currently use IP – it’s actually functional in the new patch. I never said anything about healing, just healing power, which pointing out IP has nothing to do with.

Assassins reward boosted as I suggested wherein one gets translates to an extra 864 heal on an unload. It means using SOM one will get a total health of 1176+864 from the trait and heal. Assassins reward is not intended as a standalone heal that will allow one to survive battles. It best used with a build that maximizes other sources.

An Unload using IP , SOM and Assassins reward on a typical crit based power build will see 1176+864+ 800 in healing if not more. A simple death Blossom using leeching Venoms, against two targets and using the proposed AR will see 2310+416+882 in healing if using SOM and Areward with base heal of 300.

If AR was strong enough to stand on its own 2 feet, you wouldn’t need to include SoM (which no one uses) and IP into the calculations to make it look good. Nobody in PvP will ever use deathblossom, because D/D is an underpowered set. None of what you’re saying is relevant to a discussion about acro in PvP.

When you want to make a build that focuses on sustain you do not just pick one trait that brings in health and expect kitten be adequate.

Acrobatics is not intended for s/d only. Were I s/d I would choose Pain response, Swindlers equlibrium and upper hand. Were i d/d i would choose other skills entirely.

If your only interest is PvP and you want traits that help only PvP then you should expect to fail as there three game modes. ANET will not design skills around PvP only.

No one is asking anet to design things around PvP only. What I want is for them to be balanced around PvP only, which is exactly what they are already do.
Also, Acrobatics is currently only for S/D, because D/D is a silly underpowered set with a condition damage skill smack dab in the middle of a bunch of power moves.

If you don’t agree with me that’s fine, but please don’t derail the thread with a separate discussion that has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.

babazhook.6805:

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

These are my own suggestions to fixing the Acrobatics line. I will start with GM traits.

Assassins reward. Boost the base heal by 20 percent. Boost the portion coming from Healing by 60 percent. Thus base heal per ini will go to 84. Healing for a person with 300 healing will add another 24 for a 108 heal per ini from the current 84 per ini.

This leaves us with a GM trait that’s worse than base regeneration – not much for a GM trait. In 3 years, there has never been a thief spec that could fit healing power into it, it’s time to give up that dream.

Don’t Stop. The effectiveness of Chiiled and Crippled is decreased by 66 percent rather then 50 percent. This means that swiftness and the 25 percent movement boost from the Signet and or runes will both give mobility slightly higher than base even when chilled or crippled.

How much does S/D thief gain from this? Between IR and withdraw, this trait is massively undervalued – again, not at all fitting a GM trait.

Upper hand. Lower cooldown to 2 seconds. Add to the trait On successful evade gain one stack of Vitality, One stack of vitality will be equal to 20 Vitality. It will cap at 15 stacks and be lost when downed.

This in essence is applied fortitude albeit harder to get and can add a potential of 3000 health to the thief at maximum stacks which is what was lost by removing Vitality from the traitline. I would also add a slow degeneration to these stacks wherein one stack lost every 30 seconds when out of combat. (I think building these stacks in combat will be fun)

Lacking the healing capacity of other classes, the extra vitality means little, and 1 init every 2 seconds does nothing to alleviate S/D thief’s problems, which are a lack of survivability due to reduced dodge capacity on a set that does sustain damage rather than burst damage.

The extra vitality means little? You obviously do not play in WvW where the thief goes out of his way to get those stacks for that extra health because of how much they add to survival.

No, I’m only interested in PvP, the mode in which the game is balanced on. I’m not concerned how “balanced” something is in a fundamentally unbalanced game mode.

Our healing did not go up since the major patch and people wqere taking Practiced tolerance and traiting into Acro just to get extra health.

This was before marauders gave you ~17k health. Also, nobody in PvP was going acro “Just for the extra health”, and practiced tolerance was taken due to the kittenpoor competition in the slot that it was in.

Virtually every build out there now has Vlakyrie added as e means of getting extra vitality this with the thives lower healing.

Which no thief would ever be caught dead with in PvP.

roamzero.9486:

Since Anet gutted Thief’s ability to might stack, a good Acro fix IMO would be to reintroduce some might stacking ability. Prepatch SA/Acro together could maintain 10+ might stacks. So something like Upper Hand could be buffed to give 3 might stacks on evade or something in addition to the ini.

Another change I would like to see is some way to get vitality. Just make Assassin’s Reward add 300 vit and keep the healing as-is.

They removed the might stacking for a reason – the same reason they changed the GM minor trait for both Acro and SA – they don’t want defensive traitlines contributing meaningfully to damage.

babazhook.6805:

These are my own suggestions to fixing the Acrobatics line. I will start with GM traits.

Assassins reward. Boost the base heal by 20 percent. Boost the portion coming from Healing by 60 percent. Thus base heal per ini will go to 84. Healing for a person with 300 healing will add another 24 for a 108 heal per ini from the current 84 per ini.

This leaves us with a GM trait that’s worse than base regeneration – not much for a GM trait. In 3 years, there has never been a thief spec that could fit healing power into it, it’s time to give up that dream.

Don’t Stop. The effectiveness of Chiiled and Crippled is decreased by 66 percent rather then 50 percent. This means that swiftness and the 25 percent movement boost from the Signet and or runes will both give mobility slightly higher than base even when chilled or crippled.

How much does S/D thief gain from this? Between IR and withdraw, this trait is massively undervalued – again, not at all fitting a GM trait.

Upper hand. Lower cooldown to 2 seconds. Add to the trait On successful evade gain one stack of Vitality, One stack of vitality will be equal to 20 Vitality. It will cap at 15 stacks and be lost when downed.

This in essence is applied fortitude albeit harder to get and can add a potential of 3000 health to the thief at maximum stacks which is what was lost by removing Vitality from the traitline. I would also add a slow degeneration to these stacks wherein one stack lost every 30 seconds when out of combat. (I think building these stacks in combat will be fun)

Lacking the healing capacity of other classes, the extra vitality means little, and 1 init every 2 seconds does nothing to alleviate S/D thief’s problems, which are a lack of survivability due to reduced dodge capacity on a set that does sustain damage rather than burst damage.

muscarine.5136:

Stop whining about swindler’s equilibrium.
It’s awesome.

No, empirically, it isn’t. It’s a middling trait at best, and severely limited.

edit -

Dont Stop: After successfully evading an attack, gain Protection, Resistance, and Stability for 3s. 2s ICD.

What the hell man, god mode much ?

Think about it before you dismiss it. Thief isn’t Ele or Guardian – our lowest-in-the-game HP pool isn’t mitigated by amazing access to heals, great condi cleanse or plentiful blocks AND S/D doesn’t do the kind of burst damage a class missing all those things needs to actually drop targets. All my suggested does is lessen the damage in between dodges, which Thief needs because it can’t block,isn’t going to regenerate a whole ton of healing mid fight, can’t cleanse a condi bomb, and does slow and steady damage. Dont just look at the boons and go “OMG OP” without putting any thought into it.

Kicker.8203:

Yes they have to keep in mind that taking healing power as a thief wont ever be worth it when it comes to designig heal-scaling traits.
I think chaos armor wouldnt make any sense nor perma resistance and stability but the main principle u have that there should be a lot better on evade procs i can very much relate to.

I agree on chaos armor not making a whole ton of sense. Unfortunately, with the way they designed Guarded initiation, I couldn’t think of much else. Functionally, it works – it slightly penalizes opponents for hitting you, while slightly benefiting you – it’s a defensive mechanic that’s not just more of “Dodge, blind or stealth”.

I disagree about “perma” resistance/stability. Yeah, looking at the numbers you can say permanent stability/resistance/protection is possible, but not really. Best case scenario, you’re generating a dodge worth of endurance every 6 seconds, and you’re spending init on things other than flanking strike/disabling shot. If you’re dodging an attack every 2 seconds, you’re going to be out of tricks in 10-15 seconds, leaving you without a way to take advantage of the acro line. Instead, you’ll probably dodge a big attack, then let your buffs tank a few shots before dodging again.

IMO, you have to take into account how S/D thief works – it’s damage is slow and steady, without much in the way of burst, and even with Mug and Pain Response you don’t have much in the way of healing sustain. The numbers might need some slight tweaking, but you should be able to keep up defensive buffs most of the time in between your dodges. Maybe reduce the duration to 2s?

Here’s a way to fix it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Fixing-Acrobatics/first#post5334031

babazhook.6805:

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

I think added to any changes to the acro line is that the evades we get from the weaponsets have to be looked at. 1/4 on a DB is just not enough to be a reliable evade just as example which in turn leads to the user just hoping it would kick in.

A ranger gets a full 1 sec evade on one of their AA chains (greatsword) and this not seen as OP. All weaponset evades on the Thief side cost Ini so are not just going to be spammed.

If this happens the proc on evades from the line become more reliable.

I agree, but that’s a separate topic. We should design a functioning Acro first, then tackle weaponset evades (primarily duration, and animation canceling aspects)

Actually I am of the mind that the weaponset fixes have to come first. Then we can see how they work with existing traits and adjust said traits. The reason for this is I see weaponset changes as more permanent.

Acro’s current design gains very little from actually evading attacks in comparison to my proposed changes. Having functioning weapon evades was assumed in my changes, because if weapon evades are unchanged even my changes don’t make acro much better. However without my changes, functioning weapon evades just don’t bring much to the table, which is why I wanted to focus on Acro changes, though I suppose they’re equally important (IE, thief needs both for either to be truly effective).

That all said I have my own ideas on fixes to acro some very close to your own and while all traitlines in some need of work Acro is the one needing the most attention.
Acro does have some base traits that are really quite good. The issue is those second and third choices just do not stack up. This means of course if any of your proposed changes adopted one has to look at the existing traits and see if they would still be used. (Ie I sort of think the change to pain response woould make it a must have and Fleet shadow and vigorous recovery would fall to the wayside)

I agree that PR is probably the obvious choice for adept tier, but that’s a minor issue tbh. ALOT of thief traits have “obvious winners” in their tier, and this was just a first pass. Other traits can always be tweaked further once we have a functioning acrobatics line.

I think I can live with the vigor nerf and I really do prefer the idea of more active proc type traits especially those that synergize with existing weapon skills or other traits.

Exactly. I’m fine if Anets stance is “Constant evading is not fun to play against”, they just need to introduce other options. IMO, rewarding a player with defensive buffs/effects when they skillfully apply active defense is the best way to do so.

babazhook.6805:

I think added to any changes to the acro line is that the evades we get from the weaponsets have to be looked at. 1/4 on a DB is just not enough to be a reliable evade just as example which in turn leads to the user just hoping it would kick in.

A ranger gets a full 1 sec evade on one of their AA chains (greatsword) and this not seen as OP. All weaponset evades on the Thief side cost Ini so are not just going to be spammed.

If this happens the proc on evades from the line become more reliable.

I agree, but that’s a separate topic. We should design a functioning Acro first, then tackle weaponset evades (primarily duration, and animation canceling aspects)

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I’d settle for just your proposed change to pain response tbh. That alone would make non-stealth builds so much more viable it’s not even funny. Been playing S/P a lot recently, I don’t expect to beat meta builds when played at an equal level but it would be nice to not pretty much auto lose to a condi bomb.

The main problem I can see is: how are you going to make it so these changes don’t just buff D/P too, and lead to more nerfs?

Because without the Evades from S/D, these traits are too infrequently available to be worth taking over CS or even SA. Everything is low duration/low ICD to support a spec that evades regularly, but not constantly – only S/D (and maaaaaaaybe S/P) fits the bill.

Also, lets note that D/P is viable, but not some powerhouse build – thief is in the same kittenty place it was pre-patch (+1 and decapper), maybe a little bit more self sufficient, but nowhere near OP.

Advent.6193:

NinjaEd.3946:

Best solution? Disable thief character creation and save new players the heartache of never excelling as a master of the shadows.

Then give the remaining thief players 50 gold if they delete their thief character(s) and only then will the thief haters leave us alone

Haters gonna hate. You could make Thief completely stealth-less … folk’d still cry about something.

They already did – kittening about S/D got the set itself nerfed multiple times, and then when that wasn’t enough, got acro nerfed into oblivion.

I’m going to keep this as short and sweet as possible.

ANet decided thieves had too many evades, and cut the access roughly in half.

The Problem: Damage went way up across the board, access to S/D’s only defensive mechanic was cut roughly in half, and absolutely nothing was introduced to replace this new gap in defenses.

The solution: Anet is not going to restore the pre-patch dodge access, so instead they need to introduce other ways to mitigate damage in between dodges.

Traits: (only tackling those that need to change)

Vigorous Recovery: When you heal, gain X second of vigor (X = 33% the base CD of the heal used, so now VR is useful for all heals and not just Withdraw).

Pain Response: After successfully evading an attack, gain 5 seconds of Regeneration and cleanse one damaging condition. 2s ICD.

Swindlers Equilibrium: After successfully evading an attack, gain the “Counter Attack” buff for 10s, 2s ICD. (This buff does not stack, expended like a venom charge)
Counter Attack: Your next attack is unblockable and inflicts 3s of weakness and 4s of posion.

Guarded Initiation: When striking an enemy from behind, gain chaos armor for 3s. 8s ICD (I admit, this one is kind of strange, but trying to keep it in the vein that Anet chose for it is tough)

Dont Stop: After successfully evading an attack, gain Protection, Resistance, and Stability for 3s. 2s ICD.

Assassin’s Reward: Base heal per init spent raised to 140, Contribution from healing power reduced by 75% – (Just a hint to Anet, there has never been a good thief spec that had room for healing power)

Upper hand: After evading an attack, gain the “Snatch” buff for 10s, 2s ICD (This buff does not stack, expended like a venom charge).
Snatch: Your next attack steals 1 boon, transfers 1 condition, and returns 1 init.

And there you have it.

Yes, alot of these effects look strong (especially considering the low ICD’s), but keep in mind a few things:
1) None of these effects trigger passively, they’re all predicated on successful active defense
2) S/D (the only spec that can honestly take advantage of Acro designed this way) is still a sustain set, not a burst set, so it needs this survivability
3) These effects are all tied to limited resources (Init, endurance)
4) Best of all, these traits actively discourage dodge spamming. If you just spam dodges until you’re out of resources, you can no longer take advantage of most of the traits offered in Acro.

So there you have it – maybe some of the numbers have to be playtested, but that’s what a useful acro tree looks like, for the most part.

Puck.9612:

evilapprentice.6379:

Chokolata.1870:

OK A-net, why didn’t you guys implement another F ability for the Ranger pet? I mean, Engi and Thief got one to enable more control over their class mechanics.
It would go a long way in improving Ranger pet responsiveness if you could control directly when your dog leaps, moa heals or bird casts the swiftness.

Come one, you can do it!!!! There is absolutely no reason not to anymore!!!

Thief did not get a new F ability. They got a QoL change so you can see the CD of steal while holding onto a stolen item, and so you can use steal without having to use your original stolen item just to open the skill back up again.

And yet that QoL change takes up the f2 slot so……

Oh, so you’re going with pointless semantic arguments over practical ones? Sorry, I didn’t realize, I’ll leave you to your waste of time.

Chokolata.1870:

OK A-net, why didn’t you guys implement another F ability for the Ranger pet? I mean, Engi and Thief got one to enable more control over their class mechanics.
It would go a long way in improving Ranger pet responsiveness if you could control directly when your dog leaps, moa heals or bird casts the swiftness.

Come one, you can do it!!!! There is absolutely no reason not to anymore!!!

Thief did not get a new F ability. They got a QoL change so you can see the CD of steal while holding onto a stolen item, and so you can use steal without having to use your original stolen item just to open the skill back up again.

Deadly Arts: Minor changes

Dagger training changed to “Main Hand Training” – Primary attacks (Skills 1,2 and 3) have a 33% chance to poison your target for 3 seconds – this helps P/D as a conditions set, and has potential use for S/X due to its general lack of poison access – it has the potential to contend with mug in some builds

Potent poison changed to “Potent Afflictions” – Damaging conditions you apply last 33% longer and do 15% more damage. Before anyone says “wow, that’s such a huge buff”, recall that 6 points in DA used to give 30% condition duration, and thief received nothing in the patch to bolster condition builds. “Potent afflictions” is actually a viable GM trait, Potent Poison is a complete joke.

Crit Strikes: Not a perfect line, but nothing so bad that it’s a priority to be fixed.

Shadow Arts: No practical sustain was added to this tree, and damage was buffed tremendously, resulting in SA being almost completely worthless for PvP.

Shadows embrace: Change to 2s of resistance on entering stealth, remove 1 condition when revealed

Shadow Rejuvenation: Change to Heal X when entering stealth and Y health per second while revealed.

Shadow resilience: Stealth you apply reduces damage by 25%. While revealed, apply 1s of protection,1s ICD.

These suggestions don’t really “fix” SA, but they push it closer to being useful.

Acro: Everything past the adept line (except Hard to Catch, hilariously enough) is a joke. I don’t have the time (or the ideas, honestly) to redesign more than half the line, but suffice it to say 2 of the master traits, and all of the grandmaster traits (along with the minors) need to be redesigned. Neither of thieves defensive lines offer much in the way of actual defense or sustain in a realistic PvP scenario. Invigorating Precision honestly does more for thief sustain than anything in SA or Acro.

Trickery: A pretty solid line, with a few minor quibbles. Pressure striking being reliant on interrupts is offputting, since no thief condi sets has good access to interrupts (and a condi build would want to t ake Bewildering Ambush over SoH), and the fact that SoH is practically mandatory when taking the trickery line since there are so many traits tied to steal, that 20% additional CD reduction is a really big deal.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

evilapprentice.6379:

[…]
Taunt fits into this the exact same way – every other CC effect in the game allows you to choose your target for using stunbreakers/instant skills, Taunt shouldn’t be a Super CC in this regard (especially since Taunt already is a unique and potentially very powerful CC effect)

You can break taunt with every stunbreaker. This is a big difference to unbreakable cc.
Targeting something else makes you able to attack something else, even without breaking the cc, at least for some classes. It is the meaning of taunt to prevent exactly this.

Btw. try autoattacking something with rangers sword while targeting something else :p

Is taunt better than some other cc effekts? Yes. Is stun better than daze and launch better than knockback? Does this make those cc effects unbalanced?

IMO, Taunt is powerful enough without this additional limiter. No other CC effect allows you to dynamically control the positioning of your target while also potentially forcing them to waste charges/eat retal/trigger on block effects/etc…

RevanCorana.8942:

Stealth is a cheap defensive tool promoting passive gameplay with low risk and no counterplay.
I think this should be fixed and it’s simple to do:
Hitting someone in stealth after the first second they entered it (with aoe fields, cleaving attacks or projectiles ) should reveal them for a short duration
That way the thieves / mesmers would not be allowed to sit comfortably in stealth waiting for cooldowns in the middle of a fight, instead he/she would have to carefully watch for oppenings, what his opponent is doing, when to step in, rewarding good positionning and smart moves.

Learn to play instead, please.

Saiyan.1704:

Kicker.8203:

The problem is that you target the pet unwillingly and during taunt u can’t change target.
Edit: To clarify the problem is NOT that you can’t change the target of your autoattack, but you can’t change target in general.
This takes away too much control for a cc effect. Can’t use Steal, Judge’s intervention, or dazing mantra etc. on the ranger, moreover you can’t even target the ranger so by the end of taunt u still have to change target. Please remove this target changing component from the effect.

Understood. My initial post still stands. I don’t think a person should change targets during a Taunt. Period. Like others have already stated… it’s kind of weird auto attacking a person while looking (targeting) some one else.

It’s not hard re-targeting a person. It adds more playability in a match, lets not dumb the game further because solo players can’t click or use “T” effectively.

No, the problem is that the current functionality turns taunt into a “Super” CC.

Remember a few years ago, when you couldn’t use skills in midair? This led to launches being a “Super” stun, because you couldn’t use a stunbreaker to break the effect until your character stopped moving. This was silly, and Anet fixed it so that some classes didn’t have access to a superior class of stuns.

Taunt fits into this the exact same way – every other CC effect in the game allows you to choose your target for using stunbreakers/instant skills, Taunt shouldn’t be a Super CC in this regard (especially since Taunt already is a unique and potentially very powerful CC effect)

EnterTheTITAN.3570:

evilapprentice.6379:

False. That [alternate] weaponset is always Shortbow

Read that and knew everything else that would follow would be your (illogical) opinions and not facts.

Smh at “always Shortbow”. Your other weapon set can be Shortbow, s/d, s/p, d/p, p/d, or d/d. Again, do you even thief?

Respond with correct statements and maybe you’ll have a chance at making valid points. Cuz I read thru the rest of your arguments and they are as unfounded and errant as the first statement. Feel free to try again but I don’t debate with someone who won’t stick to facts and states their opinions as if they are facts.

So, you can’t refute any of my points – but I already knew that.

P/P remains, empirically and provably, the worst thief set. No amount of misdirection and rambling excuses the fact you still haven’t even tried to explain why the sets only 2 damaging abilities require completely different stats to be effective.

Until you can do that (Which would just be the start, btw), please stop wasting everyone’s time, because P/P is clearly garbage.

EnterTheTITAN.3570:

Wow you guys cannot be more wrong about p/p.

Well, I knew you were going to show up. Lets see what arguments you’ve got to get refuted.

First of all, thieves have access to TWO weapon sets. Whatever you feel it is lacking, just make sure your other weapon set has it. That’s what ALL the other professions do (cept ele obviously, they just switch attunements). That argument in and of itself is enough to rest my case. But because this is a war of words, enter my bullet storm:

False. That weaponset is always Shortbow, since the only place weapon set functionality really matters is in PvP, and in PvP you’ll never see a thief without a shortbow (since it’s the definiton of the roamer playstyle, the only one available to thief). You’ll also be delighted to hear that shortbow makes a much better hybrid weapon than P/P. Even if that weaponset wasn’t shortbow, you could just replace P/P with an actual functioning weaponset and do multitudes better.

evilapprentice.6379:

3 of the 5 available skills (Body shot, Head shot, black powder) are utility skills not designed to do practical damage.

Complaining about the damage the 3 utility skills do means you do not understand the purpose of p/p. It includes 3 utility skills because the set is meant to add utility – plus a fair amount of condi and/or direct DPS to your other weapon set. Look at engi Rifle skills. Rifle also adds more utility than direct DPS, but it is awesome because of all the utility it adds. And (at least before aNet screwed us on this update) p/p could actually be used almost exclusively without need to swap (unlike engi rifle). Blind all day and stack bleeds and poison, stealth, repeat. After the initial Basilik Venom burst, burst thieves could not touch me, and if they did, my condi would down them before they could run and hide. (unfortunately can’t do that anymore because of the current imbalance, but the fact that we used to be able to should tell you it is a perfectly capable set). Next you’re going to complain that Shields, Warhorns and Focus are garbage cuz they generally don’t do much damage.

No one complained about the damage the utlities did. I merely pointed out that with 3 of the skills being utility oriented, the damage from the set was entirely reliant on the other 2 skills (who have completely different stat requirements for optimum damage, which was the point). It’s almost as if you have some sort of canned response for anyone who (rightly) criticizes P/P and decides to respond to my post with it anyway, even though it didn’t fit.

evilapprentice.6379:

Unload has absolutely no practical way to apply conditions

then you must’ve missed the fact that we are thieves and have venom utility skills available. Preeeeeetty sure there’s no exception to adding venom to Unload.

And you must have missed the fact that venoms can be applied by literally any weapon set. In fact, they can apply venoms while also being good weapon skills, unlike P/P! P/D can even do it from stealth (unavailable to P/P) while also applying 5 bleeds!

evilapprentice.6379:

Lack of defenses. Thieves rely on stealth, evasion, high mobility and blinds to stay alive. P/P lacks access to stealth, evasion and mobility, and their blind access was nerfed a few patches ago.

Hmmmm so I guess immob and an interrupt and a smoke field are completely useless for things like disengage, delaying a stomp, interrupting a big burst. I mean seriously bruh, do you even thief p/p?

Oh, do you mean that same interrupt and smoke field that are available on the vastly superior and better designed D/P, or the 1 second Immob at 900 range that literally every other class can match or exceed with their ranged weapon? Have you ever PvP’d with P/P? Don’t see many thieves taking P/P in PvP at all really…probably due to the lack of Stealth, Evasion, and Mobility that I pointed out earlier (which are things that actually help a thief survive in the majority of fights, btw). And in case you were curious, interrupting a stomp isn’t an improval to thief survivability and Infiltrators arrow/Heart seeker/Inf return/shadow shot are all infinitely superior to a 1s immob as a disengage, still making P/P the absolute worst in mobility, and still no stealth access.

Now I rest my case.

In an obviously inadequate state. You didn’t even offer an inadequate explanation as to why P/P’s only 2 damaging skills require completely different stats to be effective – Now, every competent thief reading this already knows that’s because there isn’t an adequate explanation, but it begs the question, why did you bother responding? P/P is still empirically the worst set Thief has, and possibly the worst set in the game.

Kizare.7950:

A short answer of why P/P is garbage? And how would you overall rank Theives weapon combos

P/P is garbage for a couple of reasons.

A) The set is utterly disjointed.
3 of the 5 available skills (Body shot, Head shot, black powder) are utility skills not designed to do practical damage. This leaves the last 2 skills (Vital/Surprise shot and Unload) with all the responsibility of doing damage for the set, and these skills use vastly different stats to do damage.

Vital/Surprise shot has a very low direct damage multiplier, and is intended for stacking bleeds.

Unload has absolutely no practical way to apply conditions, and a great direct damage multiplier.

So now, you’ve got a situation where taking the stats that Vitality/Surprise shot need (condi damage, duration) to do decent damage leaves unload out to dry, and vice versa. You can’t even go hybrid with a Cele amulet and see good results because the power/precision/ferocity counts so little for Vital/surprise shot, and the condition damage is utterly wasted on Unload.

B) Lack of defenses.
Thieves rely on stealth, evasion, high mobility and blinds to stay alive. P/P lacks access to stealth, evasion and mobility, and their blind access was nerfed a few patches ago.

I’m sure someone (probably babazhook) will respond to this with some story about how it works for them, or how you can jury-rig the weaponset into working in some situations, but that doesn’t matter. Someone elses subjective experience does nothing to counter the objective, empirical facts I’ve laid out concerning how poorly P/P is designed – this is why it’s a garbage weaponset.

Bleeding:
New damage over time: 2 + (0.25 * Level) + (0.06 * Condition Damage)
600 – 22 + 36 = 58
900 – 22 + 54 = 76
1200- 22 + 72 = 94
Burning:

New damage over time: 7.5 + (1.55 * Level) + (0.155 * Condition Damage)
600 – 131.5 + 93 = 224.5
900 – 131.5 + 139.5 = 271
1200- 131.5 + 186 = 317.5
Confusion:
New damage over time: 2 + (0.1 * Level) + (0.035 * Condition Damage)
600 – 10 + 21 = 31
900 – 10 + 31.5 = 41.5
1200- 10 + 42 = 52
New trigger damage: 3.5 + (0.575 * Level) + (0.0625 * Condition Damage)
600 – 49.5 + 37.5 = 87
900 – 49.5 + 56.25 = 105.75
1200- 49.5 + 75 = 124.5
Poison:
New damage over time: 3.5 + (0.375 * Level) + (0.06 * Condition Damage)
600 – 33.5 + 36 = 69.5
900 – 33.5 + 54 = 87.5
1200- 33.5 + 72 = 105.5
Torment:
New damage over time: 1.5 + (0.18 * Level) + (0.045 * Condition Damage)
600 – 15.9 + 27 = 42.9
900 – 15.9 + 40.5 = 56.4
1200- 15.9 + 54 = 69.9
New damage while moving: 3 + (0.36 * Level) + (0.09 * Condition Damage)
600 – 31.8 + 54 = 85.8
900 – 31.8 + 81 = 112.8
1200- 31.8 + 108 = 139.8

The base on burning is better than the combined damage of any other condition at 1200 condition damage (save moving torment, which edges it out by ~6%).

I don’t want to speak In absolutes (again, the patch is still very new), but it certainly looks like burning needs to be toned down in to various degrees in multiple areas (duration via sigils, damage, access to burning) to be anything other than 3+ times as effective as any other condition

alchemyst.2165:

evilapprentice.6379:

alchemyst.2165:

evilapprentice.6379:

NinjaEd.3946:

evilapprentice.6379:

NinjaEd.3946:

Normally I’d agree to fix a bug no matter how enjoyable it may be, but considering the damage this patch did to our defensive trait lines, just let us have it.

Nope.

“But my class is so weak without it” is never an acceptable excuse for a Bug/exploit. If the incorrect timer reduction is accurate, it should be fixed.

Never said my class cannot live without it, the fact that we took such a hard hit to SA and acro they should fix the skill to make that value make sense rather than nerf this “exploit”. It doesn’t make or break thief, but don’t make it sound like cancer.

It doesn’t matter what exact words you used. It doesn’t matter the scale of the bug. No matter what the current conditions you think your class is in, it does not and never will justify ignoring a bug.

If you have complaints about the quality of the thief changes, bring them up – don’t claim a bug is fine because you feel the class doesn’t have enough defenses. Not that this bug should be particularly high in Anets list (it’s not like Grenade Barrage), but it should most certainly be fixed.

While we’re talking about bug fixes, let’s also ask where the heck that 10% additional base to withdraw is. I’d like to see Anet at least acknowledge that it’s in the pipeline to fix.

Chill fam, you’re making it sound like this is a horrible exploit that breaks the game. It’s not like that CD reduction is making thief broken. Besides, maybe it isn’t even a bug, they probably would have fixed it by now. Maybe it’s just a typo.

I’ll quote and bold the pertinent part for you below.

evilapprentice.6379:

If you have complaints about the quality of the thief changes, bring them up – don’t claim a bug is fine because you feel the class doesn’t have enough defenses. Not that this bug should be particularly high in Anets list (it’s not like Grenade Barrage), but it should most certainly be fixed.

Additionally, they haven’t fixed Grenade Barrage or the base healing of withdraw yet, have they? Maybe those are intended. It would be strange though, at least in the case of withdraw, where the notes say it should have had a 10% base healing buff.

The sentiment “my class isn’t so good right now, can’t we just ignore the bugs?” isn’t a good one.

That’s actually not what I’m trying to say.

I never said you were – the personal I originally quoted sure was though.

Maybe I should just put it like this: Who cares? It’s not that big a deal. I mean I guess I wouldn’t care either way, whether they kept it at a 32 second CD or a 48 second, but I’m just saying don’t flip out over people “exploiting” something that isn’t even confirmed as a bug for one thing (I mean it most likely is, but there could be other explanations is what I’m saying). People are going to use it whether its a bug/“exploit” or not.

My only comments were about those who said it “shouldn’t be fixed” because of the state thief was in, no judgement on those that are using it. Like you said, the bug isn’t very noticeable or powerful, it’s not changing the course of any fights significantly (as opposed to, again, Grenade Barrage) Also, if you think anything I’ve said constitutes “flipping out”, I’d love to see how you react when someone near you raises their voice. Honestly, it’s almost as if you read 3 words of my replies, decided to make up the rest in your head, and responded to that instead.

Also, if it’s a bug, you could still argue that the proper cooldown should be brought to what it is now, so it wouldn’t necessarily be “ignoring” the bug but rather changing it, because yes, the fact that thief isn’t in a good spot right now actually does give us reason to have some sort of buff. Then again, it would be buffing our damage even more (well I guess it wouldn’t be a difference because of what it is now) when we need balance in other areas, but I’m going off topic.

Yeah, an extra 12 seconds off of Flanking strikes isn’t going to make or break thief, so hoping this is a bug that gets turned into a buff is just as worthless as hoping that it’s a bug that doesn’t get fixed quickly.

alchemyst.2165:

evilapprentice.6379:

NinjaEd.3946:

evilapprentice.6379:

NinjaEd.3946:

Normally I’d agree to fix a bug no matter how enjoyable it may be, but considering the damage this patch did to our defensive trait lines, just let us have it.

Nope.

“But my class is so weak without it” is never an acceptable excuse for a Bug/exploit. If the incorrect timer reduction is accurate, it should be fixed.

Never said my class cannot live without it, the fact that we took such a hard hit to SA and acro they should fix the skill to make that value make sense rather than nerf this “exploit”. It doesn’t make or break thief, but don’t make it sound like cancer.

It doesn’t matter what exact words you used. It doesn’t matter the scale of the bug. No matter what the current conditions you think your class is in, it does not and never will justify ignoring a bug.

If you have complaints about the quality of the thief changes, bring them up – don’t claim a bug is fine because you feel the class doesn’t have enough defenses. Not that this bug should be particularly high in Anets list (it’s not like Grenade Barrage), but it should most certainly be fixed.

While we’re talking about bug fixes, let’s also ask where the heck that 10% additional base to withdraw is. I’d like to see Anet at least acknowledge that it’s in the pipeline to fix.

Chill fam, you’re making it sound like this is a horrible exploit that breaks the game. It’s not like that CD reduction is making thief broken. Besides, maybe it isn’t even a bug, they probably would have fixed it by now. Maybe it’s just a typo.

I’ll quote and bold the pertinent part for you below.

evilapprentice.6379:

If you have complaints about the quality of the thief changes, bring them up – don’t claim a bug is fine because you feel the class doesn’t have enough defenses. Not that this bug should be particularly high in Anets list (it’s not like Grenade Barrage), but it should most certainly be fixed.

Additionally, they haven’t fixed Grenade Barrage or the base healing of withdraw yet, have they? Maybe those are intended. It would be strange though, at least in the case of withdraw, where the notes say it should have had a 10% base healing buff.

The sentiment “my class isn’t so good right now, can’t we just ignore the bugs?” isn’t a good one.

NinjaEd.3946:

evilapprentice.6379:

NinjaEd.3946:

Normally I’d agree to fix a bug no matter how enjoyable it may be, but considering the damage this patch did to our defensive trait lines, just let us have it.

Nope.

“But my class is so weak without it” is never an acceptable excuse for a Bug/exploit. If the incorrect timer reduction is accurate, it should be fixed.

Never said my class cannot live without it, the fact that we took such a hard hit to SA and acro they should fix the skill to make that value make sense rather than nerf this “exploit”. It doesn’t make or break thief, but don’t make it sound like cancer.

It doesn’t matter what exact words you used. It doesn’t matter the scale of the bug. No matter what the current conditions you think your class is in, it does not and never will justify ignoring a bug.

If you have complaints about the quality of the thief changes, bring them up – don’t claim a bug is fine because you feel the class doesn’t have enough defenses. Not that this bug should be particularly high in Anets list (it’s not like Grenade Barrage), but it should most certainly be fixed.

While we’re talking about bug fixes, let’s also ask where the heck that 10% additional base to withdraw is. I’d like to see Anet at least acknowledge that it’s in the pipeline to fix.

NinjaEd.3946:

Normally I’d agree to fix a bug no matter how enjoyable it may be, but considering the damage this patch did to our defensive trait lines, just let us have it.

Nope.

“But my class is so weak without it” is never an acceptable excuse for a Bug/exploit. If the incorrect timer reduction is accurate, it should be fixed.

I think this parody account is no longer entertaining.

I mean, it was kind of cute for a while Hank, but it’s grown out of hand.

Just play the game – or don’t, I don’t really care. Just stop posting over the top nerf request threads and pretending like they’re anything but.

Because dodging doesn’t trigger the trick skill “Caltrops”. It drops some caltrops, which is a mini version of the skill.

Think about it for a second – they won’t even give us a “clear a condition on dodge” trait in acro, do you really think they’re going to give it to you in Trickery with additional effects?

babazhook.6805:

So you predicate your rebuttal based upon the fact that you do not like to use the weapons that best take advantage of a given trait?

If you do not want to use P/P then do not dismisss something like Ankle shots as useless when there are people what want to use it.

I predicate my argument on common sense. If you’ve somehow missed the glaring, set breaking issues with P/P by this point, I can’t help you. Also, “people wanting to use the trait” does not affect its usefulness – Steve jobs wanted to use juice and carrots to treat his cancer, didn’t make it useful.

If you do not want to use PW than do not claim sundering strikes useless if that the weapon that best takes advantage of it.

You misunderstand – I want S/P to be useful…it just isn’t. It’s not that I don’t want to use it, It’s just that I want to be successful in PvP, and S/P precludes that.

If I do not use dagger . I am not going to complain that dagger training trait is usless because I use a s/p build. You have practiced tolerance which suits your build and gamestyle. Use it. Do not presume everyone else must play your way. There are more weaponsets then d/p.

Oh as to stacking Vuln. I can without much trouble stack 10 and more if I wanted to and yes in a group environment that does in fact help the group. That others can do it too or easier does not make the skill useless. In a large zerg fight those others can be focusing a target completely different than your own. I see someone ticking conditions off and load on Vulnerability he goes down fast and my direct damage is only marginally lower as those conditions tick higher.

In WvW I have been in plenty of smaller groups where no one traited to load Vuln stacks. You adapt to the situation at hand . You just do not use the same build in very circumstance.

The more I read, the more I’m convinced you’re just a contrarian – you just have to disagree with what’s obvious for some reason. You can argue niche cases all you want, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference. For the vast majority of people running functional weaponsets, Ankle shots and Sundering strikes are crap compared to Practiced tolerance.

Mrbig.8019:

Rofl thief is not squishy at all, it’s the most forgiving class in the meta right now and will be even more after patch.

What discerns a bad thief from a good thief is the capability to apply pressure or not, surely not the survivability.

A good thief can LITERALLY never die even when focused by 3 people.

See, this is what happens when players make assumptions.

Have you played thief since the patch? With the damage flying around, the heal from Shadow Rejuv is almost nothing – any player that isn’t going full bunker can fart and deal 900-1200 damage to a thief. There’s also the fact that SE was changed to damaging conditions only (not the biggest deal in the world, really), and no longer cleanses on stealth (this is where the big deal is, it basically kills SE). Taking SA over CS also severely limits your damage potential, and the tiny bit of sustain you get from SA does not compare to the damage lost.

I don’t agree with your proposed stealth cap and auto-revealed suggestions, though I do agree that SA is a terribly designed tree. Instead of some silly stealth cap, SA should be redesigned as follows:
Any trait that encourages stealth camping (SE, SR) instead grants part of its effect on gaining stealth, and another portion on becoming revealed. For example, SR could heal for X on gaining stealth and grant 1 init, and then heal Y health per second while revealed. SE could remove 1 condition when gaining stealth, and 1 condition when revealed. This removes the SA based incentive to remain in stealth, and forces the thief to remain active in combat to gain the benefits. You could even backload the bulk of the benefits on the “on revealed” if needed. This is a much better solution than a stealth cap and auto-revealed suggestion.

babazhook.6805:

ankle shots is fine. It is intended as a pistol trait for power. If one is not using pistols there no point to it just as there no point to dagger training if not using daggers. It does in fact add range to the pistol and overall damage in a pistol set is higher and is especially noticeable when you gear up with ferocity in Runes.

This makes ankle shots definitively not fine. P/D is pretty obviously a condi set (please don’t waste both of our time by explaining how you or someone you know uses it for power), and P/P is a horribly designed and utterly disjointed set. Pistol weapons don’t need a kittenty trait, they need a complete overhaul.

Sundering strikes is not something I would take if using slow attacks such as the traditional backstab thief. Again it works very well with pistols , shortbows or other attack styles where one maintains constant pressure. I would not take it for 1v1 as the other choices better. In group fights however, the vulnerability stacks add greatly to the damge of the party ticking all applied conditions higher along with having your own and yourr teamates attacks hit higher.

10 stacks means 10 percent more damage from everyone not just yourself.

Good luck getting 10 stacks. With a 102% crit rate and the haste from flanking strikes, against unmoving test golems, I once got up to 7 stacks. The norm was more like 4-5. Sundering strikes is crap because it has to take into account the possibility of Unload and Pistol whip stacking tons of vulnerability – only P/P is crap, and S/P is a meh PvE set at the moment. Other classes stack vulnerability much more efficiently than thief, so why sacrifice your own crit damage to perform a poor emulation of what another class can bring?

These are all very good and usable traits. The type of battle one is in along with weapon loadout will determine which one to pick moreso than one of the three just being that much better.

I’m sorry, but I still disagree. Sundering strikes and Ankle shots are crap.

NinjaEd.3946:

evilapprentice.6379:

NinjaEd.3946:

Right to it;

-Practiced Tolerance: It used to be a great trait to pick for some added survivability and for some reason it was flipped to go full dps. There were far to many nerfs to thief defense in this patch, we did not need more critical damage/chance modifiers.

Practiced tolerance is perfect the way it is now.

Anet made it a point to remove damage modifiers from defensive lines, and defensive stats from offensive lines. This change was in line with that.

Since a zerker ammy is certain death in PvP (11k HP lol), the extra ferocity helps when taking a marauders ammy. It also helps differentiate thieves using CS from other thieves – if you’re focusing on crit strikes, your critical strikes should hit harder. It’s not like 150-175 extra vitality is worth much to a thief currently – I’ll take 13% more crit damage over possibly surviving 1 additional hit or condi tick.

That was the point of the old PT, that extra defense which thieves lack, not to mention it was a major trait so it was a build choice not a staple on CS. I’d much rather have that extra bit of health to survive an attack and react than to worry about extra damage when thief already has tons of it and was given more this last patch. Our survivability went down this last patch and it was already weak enough, this push towards full glass was a bad idea for the sake of all game modes.

You now have a slightly higher base HP (due to 1000 base vitality), and marauders gives more HP than old zerkers did.

With marauders, you have slightly more HP than berserkers and PT combined, and the freedom to not take PT if you don’t want. The new practiced tolerance is perfect the way it is – in fact, the only real issue is just how bad sundering strikes and ankle shots are in comparison.

You only go full glass if you insist upon the extra 150 power from berserkers.

It’s supposed to – the ability was balanced and design with this in mind.

End of thread.

NinjaEd.3946:

Right to it;

-Practiced Tolerance: It used to be a great trait to pick for some added survivability and for some reason it was flipped to go full dps. There were far to many nerfs to thief defense in this patch, we did not need more critical damage/chance modifiers.

Practiced tolerance is perfect the way it is now.

Anet made it a point to remove damage modifiers from defensive lines, and defensive stats from offensive lines. This change was in line with that.

Since a zerker ammy is certain death in PvP (11k HP lol), the extra ferocity helps when taking a marauders ammy. It also helps differentiate thieves using CS from other thieves – if you’re focusing on crit strikes, your critical strikes should hit harder. It’s not like 150-175 extra vitality is worth much to a thief currently – I’ll take 13% more crit damage over possibly surviving 1 additional hit or condi tick.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Hello thieves! Take some time from instagibing me and talk about the new specializations! Either answer my questions directly or simply post about what you feel is important for the devs to know about the new changes.

Questions:

1. A lot of thief builds got rolled into one (Panic Strike + Exe + Shadow Arts + Venom + Trickery Thief is possible!). How do you like the fact that thieves can do this?
2. I’ve heard some people say they don’t like the critical strike line. Do you agree and why?
3. I’ve also heard some people say that S/D is dead and that acrobatics sucks. I tried out a build with Don’t Stop and Hard To Catch and had trouble dying but still got some kills! How do you feel about S/D and Acrobatics? Have you tried the line?
4. Thief got some new condi traits. Have you tried making a condi build and how did it go?
5. Improvisation vs Executioner. Which wins for you?
6. Dagger Storm and Thieves Guild got turned into a trick and a deception. Are you taking them now that they can be traited?

1. The combination of lines was well done, IMO. It feels like traits are in the line they belong, and weaker traits were rolled into more powerful ones to create traits actually worth taking…for the most part at least. There are some real stinkers, but that’s a separate discussion.

2. I -love- the CS line, but there’s some conditions to that statement. No quarter is basically perfect – it’s unique, it gives the thief incentive to stay in combat, and it’s powerful as a GM trait should be. The minors are good, and the adept line has some choices, but the master line is an absolute joke – nothing competes with Practiced tolerance, that should be fixed. I also feel like part of CS’s strength is how underpowered SA is.
When everyone saw SA, they lost their minds, but they didn’t take into account how miniscule the healing of Shadow Rejuv is considering the new damage capacity across the board, the opportunity cost of sitting in stealth, and how useless Shadow’s embrace is if it doesn’t cleanse a condition on entering stealth. CS is basically a default because it adds MUCH more damage than SA adds sustain – if the 2 were more even, CS would still be good, but less attractive.

3. S/D is dead, there’s no doubt to that, even if your personal experience was positive. Acro is a joke in its current state. Ranger and Engineer get better dodge traits, which is strange considering those professions have actual access to protection and stability, blocks, immunity type skills, better condi cleanse, and better sustain across the board. The old S/D dodged like crazy, but because it needed to – no iteration of the thief class has ever had passive sustain or defenses. It’s always been active, and the current acro is basically worthless – 1 mistake means your death. Vigor uptime isn’t even viable without BT from trickery which locks you in two traitlines if you want to go S/D, and it doesn’t come anywhere close to pre-patch dodge capacity, and damage has gone through the roof! Less dodges for more damage doesn’t work.

4. I haven’t bothered with a condition spec. Burning is roughly triple the damage of any other condition, and thief has zero access to it. Their access to any condition that isn’t bleed is middling at best, and without consistent access to a variety of damaging conditions to beat all the cleanses flying around, it just doesn’t feel worth it. Pressure striking is in a weird place, since it looks like a great trait on paper, but has almost no practical use – what thief condi spec has access to interrupts? A condi spec wants bewildering ambush over SoH, and P/D is the only functioning condi spec thieves have (which means no interrupts from Sword MH or Pistol OH). The huge damage nerf to potent poisons was also disappointing – 10% increased damage and 33% increased duration doesn’t compete with improvisation in any spec or format.

5. Executioner, hands down. Improv isn’t a bad trait, it’s just that with damage the way it is currently, thieves don’t have the luxury of taking a trait that doesn’t either make them hit harder or 100% guarantees better survivability. If spec diversity ever opened up to allow a thief that wasn’t 100% focused on downing opponents, Improv might have a spot, but currently executioner is essentially a requirement for being effective.

6. No, BV always wins. Thieves only viable role is still that of the highly mobile roamer, and nothing DS or TG offers makes up for their CD’s in comparison to BV.

Thanks for posting this, I hope my input matters.

RolandMode.2749:

Why on earth did they remove Practiced tolerance and Ricochet ?

Practiced tolerance was changed because they focused DPS trait lines on DPS.

Ricochet was removed because it was an RNG clusterkitten that interacted with our currently worst designed and worst performing set, P/P.

I’m sorry you miss it, but Last Refuge should never, ever, ever, ever be placed as a minor again.

The problem with LR is that it penalizes you if you don’t play the way the trait wants you to play. If you are low on health, but the smart play is to play offensively, you are potentially gifted with 4s of revealed for no reason.

A trait shouldn’t be penalizing you for not playing the way it encourages you to play – the worst possible outcome should be no benefit from the trait. By comparison, if I take Feline Grace but I never, ever dodge, I am not penalized at all – I just don’t get the benefit of feline grace.

Sol.4310:

Momekic.8603:

To be honest, thief is trash right now. Even with DA/SA/Tr builds. If you lose to a thief right now then you really need to learn to play. Thief is prettymuch only good at being a +1 now. If you fight them on their own they are pretty easy to blow up. ANet took away their survivability.

I agree, getting hit for 7.5k from stealth and having Fire/Air proc taking 10k of your life then spamming #3 #1 over and over getting your Fire/Air proc is definitely learn to play issue, people need to learn how to see a stealthed thief coming and dodge there burst.

7.5k from an SA thief doesn’t sound right – I’d recheck those numbers if I were you.

Also, I wasn’t aware you could count Autoattack as “spam”.

Honestly, it just sounds like you’re bitter and maybe a little inexperienced with thief as a whole. Playing the class a little would probably go a long way towards becoming better equipped to fight thieves.

Yeah, I’m not following the obsession with SA at all.

With SE practically useless (waiting 3 seconds for a single damaging condition to drop kills the trait), what does the set have to offer? Sitting in stealth to regen? That was possible before the patch, and it meant more when damage wasn’t so huge across the board. Even if SE was dropping a condition on entering stealth, it just doesn’t add enough sustain.

SA thieves are trading a huge chunk of damage for just slightly more sustain, and it’s the kind of sustain that doesn’t work in a capture point format.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-g3RV;1VwF_0J5R-Fd0;9;4IJM;0148046137;4IJV44;1m7YBm7YBa0Q

This probably isn’t a perfect spec, but it’s worth checking out and tweaking. 70% crit (90% with permafury not counting side strikes or keen observer), 230% crit damage, and enough condition cleanse to get you out of 1 condi bomb/ drop 1 or 2 deadly conditions. Depending on the circumstances, this build does 20-30% more damage than SA.

Morwath.9817:

evilapprentice.6379:

Badcat.7320:

evilapprentice.6379:

Trevor Boyer.6524:

You didn’t?
Apparently everyone else on the forum did
You should start paying attention my friend
Perhaps try playing a conquest match or two

The forums are in the exact same state they are after every patch (only a little more widespread because everyone is kittening about everyone else) – if that’s your metric then every single patch has been a massive failure.

If you think you’ve got the changes perfectly pegged after 18 hours, you’re being silly.

Just to note, that’s not to say you aren’t potentially correct, but you’re already 100% convinced that you’re correct, and that’s just not possible.

Boyer seems to be right you know. People in mists saying same stuff.

Sigh.

What bearing do a bunch of opinions with the same amount of experience (roughly 18 hours) have on my argument that people don’t have enough experience yet to properly judge the new content?

It doesn’t matter HOW many people believe in creationist theory, they’re wrong when they say the earth is 5000 years old. The number of people parroting that opinion doesn’t help “prove it”.

Again, I’d like to clarify I’m not saying he’s definitely wrong. I’m not saying that Raw DPS is in a good place right now – How could I? I don’t have any more experience than anyone else with the patch. All I’m saying is let’s keep the definitive statements of whats wrong and what needs to be fixed off the boards for at least a few days until a meta starts to develop.

Thats your opinion, nothing more.

“The meta needs time to settle” is not an opinion, it’s been true of every patch thus far.

It’s statistically impossible for every potentially viable build to have been tested against every other potentially viable build by players all across the range of skill levels in a mere 18 hours. That is a fact, not an opinion.

Badcat.7320:

evilapprentice.6379:

Trevor Boyer.6524:

You didn’t?
Apparently everyone else on the forum did
You should start paying attention my friend
Perhaps try playing a conquest match or two

The forums are in the exact same state they are after every patch (only a little more widespread because everyone is kittening about everyone else) – if that’s your metric then every single patch has been a massive failure.

If you think you’ve got the changes perfectly pegged after 18 hours, you’re being silly.

Just to note, that’s not to say you aren’t potentially correct, but you’re already 100% convinced that you’re correct, and that’s just not possible.

Boyer seems to be right you know. People in mists saying same stuff.

Sigh.

What bearing do a bunch of opinions with the same amount of experience (roughly 18 hours) have on my argument that people don’t have enough experience yet to properly judge the new content?

It doesn’t matter HOW many people believe in creationist theory, they’re wrong when they say the earth is 5000 years old. The number of people parroting that opinion doesn’t help “prove it”.

Again, I’d like to clarify I’m not saying he’s definitely wrong. I’m not saying that Raw DPS is in a good place right now – How could I? I don’t have any more experience than anyone else with the patch. All I’m saying is let’s keep the definitive statements of whats wrong and what needs to be fixed off the boards for at least a few days until a meta starts to develop.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

You didn’t?
Apparently everyone else on the forum did
You should start paying attention my friend
Perhaps try playing a conquest match or two

The forums are in the exact same state they are after every patch (only a little more widespread because everyone is kittening about everyone else) – if that’s your metric then every single patch has been a massive failure.

If you think you’ve got the changes perfectly pegged after 18 hours, you’re being silly.

Just to note, that’s not to say you aren’t potentially correct, but you’re already 100% convinced that you’re correct, and that’s just not possible.

Obsidia.5127:

Shadow.1345:

Obsidia.5127:

Crit Strikes is by far the worst choice. It’s for PvE and I would be shocked if I saw anyone using it in sPvP. I mean, GOOD LUCK dealing with conditions with that build.

DPS showed this as one of the best lines for damage to combine with DA. Unrelenting Strikes + No Quarter for the massive uptime on Fury after getting the foe down to 50% and if you take Panic Strike + Executioner that is pretty much instant death on anyone once they reach that 50% health threshold.

I have to completely disagree with that statement and people that play on a high tier also disagree with that statement.

I guess you are NA.

“High Tier” EU certainly doesn’t take ‘Crit Strikes’ as a serious option at all from speaking to Levin, Sindrener and a couple of others from ORNG.

I would rather have incredible survivibility over some Ferocity… Fury doesn’t even matter as you can get permanent Fury with Pack Runes & Thrill of the Crime anyway.

Did they give you a signed document saying that they don’t take crit strikes? I mean, I wouldn’t normally insist on one, but considering the patch has been live for ~18 hours, I’m finding it hard to believe you’re citing precedent.

Seriously, the patch literally just dropped – neither you or anyone else knows without a shadow of a doubt if SA is superior to CS, or vice versa. You can pretend and be pretentious all you want, whatever you need to get through the day, but let’s just all settle down and see where things are in 2 weeks across all the classes.

You figured all this out in 18 hours, did you?

Shadow.1345:

Obsidia.5127:

Crit Strikes is by far the worst choice. It’s for PvE and I would be shocked if I saw anyone using it in sPvP. I mean, GOOD LUCK dealing with conditions with that build.

DPS showed this as one of the best lines for damage to combine with DA. Unrelenting Strikes + No Quarter for the massive uptime on Fury after getting the foe down to 50% and if you take Panic Strike + Executioner that is pretty much instant death on anyone once they reach that 50% health threshold.

I have to completely disagree with that statement and people that play on a high tier also disagree with that statement.

Glad I’m not the only one who feels this way.

BTW, the 50% in the notes is a typo – it’s 90%, just like karl said. Functionally, it’s permafury, and targets just melt.

Obsidia.5127:

Crit Strikes is by far the worst choice. It’s for PvE and I would be shocked if I saw anyone using it in sPvP. I mean, GOOD LUCK dealing with conditions with that build.

From what I can tell from the forums (I haven’t tested it myself), but didn’t SE get changed so that you remove 1 condition after spending 3 seconds in stealth (as opposed to the old formula of 1 condition removed upon entering stealth, then 1 every 3s)?

Even if it didn’t, if you’re condi bombed SE isn’t saving you, and if it’s less than that you have SoA and SS (and maybe trickster/withdraw/haste if it’d work). I think you’re vastly underestimating how hard you hit with CS over SA – my trick shot was hitting as hard as my dagger used to pre-patch, and I saw some ridiculous CB crits.

I’m not saying it’s certainly viable, but with the patch not even 24 hours old yet I think you’re jumping to conclusions. Your ‘testing’ couldn’t have been very robust just considering the time constraints.

Obsidia.5127:

Thief is currently the dullest class at the moment. SA is the only viable option and from what I have tested so far, it is awful at 1v1 in Conquest meaning we still have the typical boring kitten job of ‘decapping’ and ‘+1ing’ … Woo.

…have you tried CS?

I can’t claim to have thoroughly tested it, but 6/6/0/0/6 with flanking strikes over TotC feels like it’ll be viable. 95% crit rate with permafury and ~220% total crit damage (iirc) means thieves finally have the burst forum warriors have been pretending they had for the past year and a half.

Sure, you’re squishy, but only slightly more so than pre-patch with a huge boost in damage potential.