Guild Wars 2

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

evilapprentice.6379:

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

You have to trait into traps on a ranger to make them worth anything. It’s the same with spirit weapons on guardian and certain kits on engi. Why are we excluding thief from having to trait? They already are very powerful if played correctly and you want to say they get this buff without having to sacrifice anything?

Venoms are currently useless. They’re no where near trap ranger or spirits when traited into. Not even remotely close.

They should be a valid option for some specs when untraited, and as good as trap ranger when traited, which is what I’m aiming for.

You misunderstood me, I didn’t say they’re already that good. I said we make rangers, guardians, and engineers trait into their stuff to make them not suck. Why are we not going to make the thief? You’re saying that with thiefs already being a powerful class in the right hands, you’re going to buff them without them having to give up any of their current build. You dont need to activate them if they were designed like this because the passive is way better.

No skill should be useless unless you spec into it – that’s just poor design. Hopefully they’ll fix those skills sometime soon. ATM, I’m arguing how and why they should fix venoms (you’ll note, thief traps are also useless, regardless whether or not you “spec into them”, except for shadow trap)

That being said, the changes I made to untraited venoms do not make them “good”. I’ve moved them up from “No, I’d never take that” to “Maybe I’ll take that in a specific scenario” – they’re up from D list to B list – they might help some specs out, but they’re still not top tier choices, and will often be overlooked for more solid, proven utilities.

Concerning activating over passive, you will 100% want to activate them , traited or untraited.

Spider venom’s passive is good for mitigating an opponents passive heals, and screwing with any passive condition removal they might have. Active, it’s good to mitigate a heal if you can’t interrupt it, and for condi specs you might activate it to get some bleeds back on your target right after a cleanse or to counter heavy HoT’s.

Devourers passive is good for keeping an enemy from opening a gap on you (or closing yours if you’re ranged), and the active is good for going for the kill/stopping them from getting somewhere they want to be (On a cap point, to a portal, to a res, etc).

Ice drake’s passive is good for diversifying a condi specs damage options, the active is good for using right after they use a big CD, keeping them from getting somewhere they want to go, or to keep pressure up after a condition cleanse.

Skale’s passive is good for diversifying a condi specs damage options, and the active is good for keeping up pressure after a condition cleanse, or ramping up the damage when your target is low (I admit, this ones passive/active could be a bit more varied)

The passive and active for Basilisks isn’t even worth talking about – they clearly serve 2 different purposes, and no one’s holding off using the active in favor of the passive when the time is right.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

You have to trait into traps on a ranger to make them worth anything. It’s the same with spirit weapons on guardian and certain kits on engi. Why are we excluding thief from having to trait? They already are very powerful if played correctly and you want to say they get this buff without having to sacrifice anything?

Venoms are currently useless. They’re no where near trap ranger or spirits when traited into. Not even remotely close.

They should be a valid option for some specs when untraited, and as good as trap ranger when traited, which is what I’m aiming for.

Updated Version

Venoms in general – 25s CD (excluding Basilisk Venom), Both passive and active effect. 5 CD on passive effect per venom. Passive effect is base 15%(Might need adjusting?) chance to trigger

Spider venom –
Passive: Poisons for 2s.
Active: Poisons 3 times for 2s a piece, bleeds 3 times for 6s a piece.

Devourers Venom –
Passive: Cripples for 2s
Active: Immobilizes 1 time for 3s

Ice Drake Venom –
Passive: Torment for 2s.
Active: Chill 3 times for 1.5s, torments 3 times for 4s a piece

Skale Venom –
Passive: Burning for 2s
Active: Burning 3 times for 2s,

Basilisk Venom (CD unchanged)
Passive: Bleed for 2s
Active: Stun 1 times for 1s

Traits:
Potent Poison: Unchanged
Venomous Strength: Gain 1 stack of might for 8s (debatable length) every time a venom triggers (included passive and active triggers)
Quick Venoms: No longer lose the passive effect of venom’s when they’re on CD, 20% faster venom CD
Residual Venom: Increase passive trigger chance by 4% per initiative point spent on the attack.
Leeching venoms: Effect reduced by a great degree – the venoms I’ve designed above trigger much, much more often, so the additional damage/heal would need to be reduced alot
Venomous Aura: Slightly bigger radius, includes passive trigger chance while in radius as well, otherwise unchanged. Passive trigger chances do not stack – 2 venom share thieves running spider venom still only have 1 chance to trigger per attack.

Spider venom is a good all around venom (poison is useful), and the active is good for Condi specs.
Devourer venom is tailored for Direct damage specs, but condi specs might find use in cripple and immob
Ice Drake Venom and Skale venom are tailored for condi specs, and basilisk venom is tailored for Direct Damage.

Edit: Don’t let the actual numbers bother you – I’m sure there would be some playtesting required to expose any imbalances/poorly thought out hard numbers. This post is more about the idea behind it all – turning venoms into a consistent trickle of effects rather than frontloaded garbage that gets immediately cleansed and is then useless for 30-40s

Nobody runs D/D anymore.
For Power/crit, D/P dwarfs it in every conceivable way, and as a condi build, it’s basically just an evasion/trolling build that doesn’t contribute much to a fight.

I do agree than No CD would probably be a little broken for DB (Which I forgot about entirely), and potentially broken with P/P.

I still like the idea of a 5 second CD (Making it 10s base and 5s with trait makes venoms too trait reliant) and 2s duration passive triggers, with say a 15% base chance to trigger – residual venoms adds 4% per initiative point spent to the trigger chance for the attack it was used with.

Fenrir.5493:

I think the main problem here is maybe not the blind, but THIEVES.

Everything thieves do is broken.

They dodge too much.
They stealth too much.
They blind too much.
They do too much damage.
They move around too much.
They don’t just sit there and die enough.
They have all the unicorns.
They keep stealing our women.
They make it impossible to be as cool as them.

It’s no wonder people won’t dare run a tournament without 3 of them. They’re always the first class people look for when making a tourney team.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

The passive will need a CD, just because the thief has a high dps, so these short CD and chances to inflict wont matter. Like a 10 second CD, and you can trait into it to cut the CD in half, so that the thief cant inflict permanent conditions, and he has to trait into it so he cant have high power AND ridiculous condition damage.

All the venom traits are already in DA and SA – there are none in Trickery, the thieves condition damage trait line. To take Venomous Might/Quick Venoms/Residual venoms would be a 30 point investment into the power traitline. Venom share is 30 points into toughness, leeching is 20 points in.

A 10s CD feels excessive on something that already only has a chance to trigger – plus then you’d have to increase the durations or else the whole venture is pointless.

Maybe a 5 second CD (per venom), passives trigger for 2s – that way there is no possible way to perma-condition something with venoms.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

Are you a thief, because you want to make them godly.

Poison stacks duration and a thief can attack once per second, reducing the effectiveness of heals and making the thief able to easily take out any class, easier than the other class could take them out. Cripple and vulnerability would make the thief hit much harder and in pvp or WvW there would be no chance of running, making thief god tier. Burning on every attack would be ridiculous. and finally applying a perma weakness so that no class could ever fight back against these changes. This would propel the thief to stand miles above the rest of the classes.

No class inflicts conditions like that on basic attacks, they either needs to spec into it, or the engi can use his kits at the cost of giving up one of his other skills; and even then the elixir gun is the only one that can cause conditions anywhere close to that without being speced for it. Combine these passives with the already high dps of the thief and initiative over CD of their skills and no one would ever be able to beat a thief.

Perhaps the weakness on Basilisk and the Vuln on Devourers was over the top. As I’ve said before, the actual durations/% chance to trigger/Venom CD’s are all up debate – they’d have to be playtested of course. I’m all for making changes to specifics, but I’m still firmly in the realm of thought that if venoms remain “activate to dogpile condition X on your target”, they’ll remain useless – they’ll be useless in a condition spec (unless you cut the CD to something crazy like 8s), and they’ll still be considered a wasted slot for Power/crit builds. kitten CD is fine, if you make the passive triggers longer/more stacks per trigger, but it would be nice to have something that meshed well with our high hit volume weapons.

That being said, thieves have high DPS in Power/crit builds – incompatible with condition damage – you won’t find a thief hitting insane backstabs who’s burning ticks for anything useful. Thieves current condition options (based entirely on bleeds), is a joke – they can use a shot in the arm.

I don’t follow how any of these effects are “permanent” – all the passive trigger durations are at 1 or 2s (except vuln, which I admitted would probably be scrapped).

Perhaps instead of a base of 20%, it could be a base of 10%, and Residual venoms could be changed to say “Each point of initiative spent on an attack increases the trigger chance by 5% for that attack” – this way expensive attacks gain a bonus based on a limited resource, and AA still has a chance (albeit small) to trigger a venom.

Grimwolf.7163:

No, I mean you get more activations from the every X method when attacking multiple people, rather than attacking a single person with the every X method. Which counteracts the chance of applying it to someone you don’t want.
Say you’re attacking one person primarily, but catching a second person with ricochets or whatever. You have a 50% chance of hitting the person you want, but you’ll trigger the venom twice as often.
Besides, how is that worse than ALWAYS having a random chance of applying it to who you want?

But you don’t get more activations – mathematically, 33% chance is equivalent to every third attack (well, 33.3%, but you get the idea) – one method is set in stone, the other is random.

Each attack has a chance to trigger the venom – each initial pistol hit and each ricochet has (in this example) a 33% chance to trigger the venom, which is the same as every third attack.

It’s potentially worse in an AoE situation where the only person suffering from your conditions is the third person being hit, rather than everyone being hit to some lesser degree.

LilMcGinley.3890:

While I do agree venoms need a major overhaul, I do agree with what EnemyCrusher said, almost perma-poison. perma-chill on with a thief roaming group IE venom share builds would create a world of QQ on these forums… They are already super deadly in sPvP.. 4 P/P thieves with Venom Share DESTROY any group and easily 1 shot people.

Spammable condi-passives on a class with already spammable attacks, not good.

Venomous Strength: Gain 1 stack of might for 4 to 5s every time a venom triggers (included passive and active triggers) – you are looking at 3 venoms on a venom build, all 3 would trigger with each attack, unload is 8 attacks in like 2 seconds so you are talking about perma-20+ stacks of might just from 1 trait… not OP at all..

How I would fix it – Reduce cooldowns (20-25s), widen area for Venom Aura. Ice drake 3s chill. Skale 5 stacks of Vuln for 5s.

Like I said, perhaps the numbers need to be adjusted – it’s more the thought process behind it than the actual numbers.

Also, 4 P/P thieves running Venom share in a 5 man team would be an instant loss. You’re talking about grouping 4 squishy players together in a way AoE could only dream of, and not taking any strategy other than “Zerg the point”, which doesn’t work. No team in the game runs 4 copies of the same spec, no matter how effective it is, for a reason.

And I’m sorry, are you saying Venom share is already “Super deadly” in PvP, or P/P? Because while that’s not true in either case, it’s ridiculously untrue in the case of P/P, a thief’s most useless weaponset.

Your analysis is “20 stacks of might from1 trait” isn’t accurate – its 1 trait, on each player, for 4 players, and only for as long as they can keep spamming unload AND connecting with it (And again, in a situation that would never happen – 4 thieves running the exact same spec sticking close to eachother). HGH engi’s can pull that off on themselves solo.

Your suggestion doesn’t fix venoms – it just makes them marginally less kittenty. You’re still talking about a utility that frontloads 1 easily cleansed condition in 2-3 attacks and is then useless for the rest of the CD.

Edit: Also, I Don’t see Venom share stacking in that manner – just make it so that each player can be affected by a max of 1 type of each shared venom (IE, 4 thieves running Spider Venom counts as 1 “spider venom effect” being shared, which means 1 chance per hit to trigger spider venom, not 4 separate chances)

Grimwolf.7163:

evilapprentice.6379:

Grimwolf.7163:

Consistency in the every X attacks is much better than a random chance though; it prevents you from getting a bunch of wasted back-to-back activations or drawn out gaps of no activations.

Every X attacks makes it hard to use effectively for certain setups – who wants trickshot wasting a venom trigger on a turret, or choking gas applying it to a rock dog, or a ricocheted unload shot applying it to a jagged horror?

If you have things like that hitting multiple targets, you may risk losing the venom to a random enemy you may not want, but you also get more activations overall.

You don’t get more activations overall, you just get more predictable activations – if we pretend the activation chance is 33%, or your attacks apply it on the third strike, they should happen at the same rate. It will also have the unfortunate side effect of applying all your conditions to 1 target – lets say you’re running Skale, Ice drake, and Basilisk venom, and you’re AAing with shbow – that third target is the only one being hit by any passive venom triggers. random chance lets you spread the love a little bit, while having the same overall trigger rate.

Grimwolf.7163:

Consistency in the every X attacks is much better than a random chance though; it prevents you from getting a bunch of wasted back-to-back activations or drawn out gaps of no activations.

Every X attacks makes it hard to use effectively for certain setups – who wants trickshot wasting a venom trigger on a turret, or choking gas applying it to a rock dog, or a ricocheted unload shot applying it to a jagged horror?

EnemyCrusher.7324:

I wouldn’t be opposed to venoms having a passive effect, but it would have to be much less than what you’ve listed. Something like every 10th attack, or 20% chance with a 5 second cooldown would be fair.

How would that be fair, and not completely useless? The passive effects last between 1s and 2s because they’re designed to trigger alot. If venoms triggered once every 10 attacks, or had a 5 second CD, they’d be exactly the same as they are now – not worth slotting. The point is to turn venoms into something useful – consistent condition pressure. Spacing out the applications leaves us where we are now, frontloading a bunch of effects which expire quickly/are instantly cleansed, leaving you with a useless skill on long CD.

Note: After some feedback from the boards, I’ve posted an updated version of this later on in the thread. I’m just leaving this here for the sake of continuity.

Similar to what I proposed for venom’s a while back

Venoms in general – 15s CD (excluding Basilisk Venom), Both passive and active effect. No internal CD on passive effect. Passive effect is base 20%(Might need adjusting?) chance to trigger

Spider venom –
Passive: Poisons for 2s.
Active: Poisons 3 times for 2s a piece, bleeds 3 times for 6s a piece.

Devourers Venom –
Passive: Cripples for 2s, vulnerability for 4s.
Active: Immobilizes 1 time for 3s

Ice Drake Venom –
Passive: Torment for 2s.
Active: Chill 3 times for 1.5s, torments 3 times for 4s a piece

Skale Venom –
Passive: Burning for 1s
Active: Burning 3 times for 2s,

Basilisk Venom (CD unchanged)
Passive: weakness for 1s
Active: Stun 1 times for 1s

Traits:
Potent Poison: Unchanged
Venomous Strength: Gain 1 stack of might for 4 to 5s every time a venom triggers (included passive and active triggers)
Quick Venoms: No longer lose the passive effect of venom’s when they’re on CD, 20% faster venom CD
Residual Venom: 15% greater passive trigger chance.
Leeching venoms: Effect reduced by a great degree – the venoms I’ve designed above trigger much, much more often, so the additional damage/heal would need to be reduced alot
Venomous Aura: Bigger radius, includes passive trigger chance while in radius as well, otherwise unchanged.

Spider venom is a good all around venom (poison is useful), and the active is good for Condi specs.
Devourer venom is tailored for Direct damage specs, but condi specs might find use in cripple and immob
Ice Drake Venom and Skale venom are tailored for condi specs, and basilisk venom is tailored for Direct Damage.

Maybe some of the specific numbers up there need to be adjusted a bit via playtesting, but there we go – Venoms that work well by themselves, Are worth spec’ing into, and work well with both Power/Crit setups And Condition setups. Best of all, they work well with our high hit volume attacks (PW, Unload), opening up new avenues for Condition based P/P or S/P. Heck, you could turn Shbow into a team fight condition weapon with the above venoms and the right spec.

Edit: Don’t let the actual numbers bother you – I’m sure there would be some playtesting required to expose any imbalances/poorly thought out hard numbers. This post is more about the idea behind it all – turning venoms into a consistent trickle of effects rather than frontloaded garbage that gets immediately cleansed and is then useless for 30-40s

Similar to what I proposed for venom’s a while back

Venoms in general – 15s CD (excluding Basilisk Venom), Both passive and active effect. No internal CD on passive effect. Passive effect is base 20%(Might need adjusting?) chance to trigger

Spider venom –
Passive: Poisons for 2s.
Active: Poisons 3 times for 2s a piece, bleeds 3 times for 6s a piece.

Devourers Venom –
Passive: Cripples for 2s, vulnerability for 4s.
Active: Immobilizes 1 time for 3s

Ice Drake Venom –
Passive: Torment for 2s.
Active: Chill 3 times for 1.5s, torments 3 times for 4s a piece

Skale Venom –
Passive: Burning for 1s
Active: Burning 3 times for 2s,

Basilisk Venom (CD unchanged)
Passive: weakness for 1s
Active: Stun 1 times for 1s

Traits:
Potent Poison: Unchanged
Venomous Strength: Gain 1 stack of might for 4 to 5s every time a venom triggers (included passive and active triggers)
Quick Venoms: No longer lose the passive effect of venom’s when they’re on CD, 20% faster venom CD
Residual Venom: 15% greater passive trigger chance.
Leeching venoms: Effect reduced by a great degree – the venoms I’ve designed above trigger much, much more often, so the additional damage/heal would need to be reduced alot
Venomous Aura: Bigger radius, includes passive trigger chance while in radius as well, otherwise unchanged.

Spider venom is a good all around venom (poison is useful), and the active is good for Condi specs.
Devourer venom is tailored for Direct damage specs, but condi specs might find use in cripple and immob
Ice Drake Venom and Skale venom are tailored for condi specs, and basilisk venom is tailored for Direct Damage.

Maybe some of the specific numbers up there need to be adjusted a bit, but there we go – Venoms that work well by themselves, Are worth spec’ing into, and work well with both Power/Crit setups And Condition setups. Best of all, they work well with our high hit volume attacks (PW, Unload), opening up new avenues for Condition based P/P or S/P. Heck, you could turn Shbow into a team fight condition weapon with the above venoms and the right spec.

official.4658:

and again i explained that stacking stealth is doing nothing for your team unless u find the sweet spot of dps and regen. Im out of stealth more than im in it doing lots of things to win the fight including backstabs/auto attacks interrupts blinds shadow shots and swapping to s/p which has no stealth where i get my health back from signet of malice on my pistol whips and daggerstorm elite (if im running it)

What should i do now? Any answer for thief = stealth or evade/infiltrator out

Heres a tip play another class

Ok, it’s obvious it’s getting a little late for some people here, so lets just agree to disagree without getting all kitten y about it, eh?

official.4658:

great explaination of cheesy ( just that it’s you know , cheesy)… If my spec is soo cheesy why am i literally the only one who plays it. O right because its a tought spec to play to do well in. Basically what your definition of cheese is is a classes playstyle that you dont like. Not that it is OP while doing nothing skillful to win. (which is basically everyone elses meaning for a cheese spec in this game. AKA Necro/spirit ranger right now)

That’s not what I mean by cheesy. I clarified that point over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. It’s cheesy (IMO of course, which I also pointed out) because it revolves entirely around 1 thing – stealth stacking. I prefer a spec where the answer to the question “What should I do now” isn’t answered most often by “Stealth, or survive until you can stealth again”

So, how about that 10/30/0/0/30 spec you mentioned?

official.4658:

LOL im Literally the only one who uses this spec at top lvl pvp and your saying that it is the only route and that it is cheese. Obviously im going to defend someone saying a skillful spec is cheese when u clearly dont understand what is viable in pvp. My spec is a far point spec which requires being able to survive 1v2-3s and break off when neccessary. If you dont like stealth then run s/d no ones stopping you and no ones saying that it is less viable. Its all play-style preference and for you to say that my spec is cheese and that s/d is not is obviously going to annoy me. Be my guest run a perma evasion spec and ignore the perma stealth. All the other specs i listed are still very usable and lots of others besides the s/p one because of the haste nerf

Being cheesy is practically a requirement for top level specs – Cheese doesn’t mean it’s easy to play or ineffective (as I pointed out, oh, a dozen times), just that it’s, you know, cheesy. Whether or not you like the label, it’s clearly what it is. Cheese wins alot of games, GW2 is no different.

S/D is pretty clearly less viable IMO – It’s tools for surviving 1v2-3’s aren’t as good, and it’s not as easy to escape/reset a fight, and doesn’t have the same burst, or any blinds. Who knows, maybe that assumption of mine is wrong.

I’m sorry that other people’s opinions, politely offered, annoy you – you should probably work on that, it’s not a good quality.

official.4658:

its not build around 3 skills at all i use headshot and shadow shot all the time for the reason i put in there. And there are lots of thief builds that are just as viable without perma stealth i used to run s/p 0/15/30/25/0 effectively back in the day pre haste nerf and same with the d/p 25/30/0/0/15 build theres also a d/p 10/30/0/0/30 build that does great. As well as s/d.

Like i said above perma stealth isnt going to help you unless you are creating that sweet spot of dps and regen

Why do u even play thief if ur not ganna use stealth offensively and defensively. Sounds like you need to quit qqing and find another class imo

Who’s QQing? I didn’t realize not liking your playstyle was analogous to complaining. Perhaps you might try being less defensive? Especially when all I’m saying is I personally don’t like your specs playstyle, while still acknowledging how strong it can be.

I’m attracted to the less stealthy side of thief. I’m fine with using stealth offensively and defensively, I’m just not a fan of it being the absolute focus of the spec like it is in yours. Also, what do the specs that used to run but have dropped in favor of this one have to do with my opinion of this one?

Whats this 10/30/0/0/30 spec you mentioned?

I’m not calling it broken, or unfair. I was interested in GW2 precisely because thief was presented as an escape from the old Assassinate/Backstab style WoW rogue. I was expecting strong specs that used stealth as a supplement, not as the main offensive AND defensive focus of the entire build. Looking at your build, its obvious I’m going to have a tough time running anything that competes with it on the same level, and that’s depressing for me, because I don’t like the play style at all. Your guide specifically points out that the game play is built around 3 skills (BP, HS and BS) and sitting in stealth whenever you need to.

Hopefully they’ll make some changes to thief in the coming months that gives it a way to compete without being so stealth reliant. S/D has had some major strides in the last few months, hopefully they’ll keep it up.

official.4658:

and how is that build cheese have u seen s/d play???? im using skill to win what about that is cheese

i posted a edit on the paralyzation sigil if u would have looked…. i run the condi removal sigil instead ofcourse u can use fire or w /e if u want too

It’s 100% cheese – the spec is designed to live in stealth, regenerating and dropping conditions, and threaten positions with an implied threat. Like I said, it’s like you took a standard MMO rogue with permastealth and ported it as best you could to GW2, which clearly wasn’t designed for it.

That isn’t meant to be insulting – I never said the build was bad (in fact, I said it was probably the best for winning, which is the point of competitive games) or that it was easy (it clearly isn’t). Bravo for thinking of it, and more power to you for playing it so well.

Personally, I was attracted to GW2 thief specifically because it didn’t have perma-stealth, which I thought was a nice change of pace from standard MMO rogue archtypes. It’s sad (to me) that one of the best specs (if not the best) available for thief players is based around nigh perma-stealth. I would prefer the class be built around something else, but that’s just me.

S/D is hard to pin down and frustrating to fight, but it’s still intended to work with the rules in spirit.

official.4658:

http://intothemists.com/guides/5-cruuks_decapitation_build

Shadow arts is actually the best for farpoint assualt imo

This build can beat anything 1v1 and has the ability to survive against 1v2-3-4-5 if needed

Its also got the biggest burst as far as thief builds go (well 10/30/30 does but this is close)

Also does really well single target damage in teamfights since you can backstab over and over compared to the 25/30/0/0/15 builds that cna only burst once and then run away and hide up top with shortbow. You also have cleave with pistol whip or shortbow if u wanna run that instead

As far as stealth and the capping of points if your fighting a squishy then dont worry about the point and go for the kill
if your fighting a tankier class just hold the nute with black powders until they send 1 back to help

Btw if a thief isnt running shadow trap and a 1v2 spec they arent doing it right anymore imo

The thief role has changed with shadow trap whether they like it or not.

This spec strikes me as the epitome of cheese.

That’s not to say it isn’t effective (How could it not be?) or easy to play (It certainly isn’t), but it’s just like…you ported a standard perma-stealth thief into GW2, when it clearly wasn’t designed for it.

I fully understand why someone would take it – it’s obviously highly effective once you get it down, and in a competitive game, you take the best spec you can play. But if this is how thief is expected to be played, I can’t wait til they fix the class – it actively makes me want to play a different class, and I’ve loved thief since beta.

The Boz.2038:

So your argument now is “using situationally unfit skills randomly while the skills you actually want are on a long cooldown is a counter to chill”?

What are you talking about?

The Boz.2038:

I’m sorry, I was not aware that quoting every single argument in a discussion was a requirement to participate in that discussion.

I’m sorry that you don’t like that I’m pointing out that you haven’t actually contributed to the discussion (evidenced by the posts someone keeps reporting, even though I’m not being rude to you) – all I’ve asked you to do is clarify your position. “I agree with everyone else” doesn’t help because I feel I’ve offered counterarguments to their opinions. If you want to discuss, then discuss.

Xari.1086:

…any kind of ingame mechanic has to be consistent within the whole game. Like if you get hit you will gain some amount of damage calculated by the damage formula. You fall from a high cliff you die. You get affected by fear you will run away from the source of the fear in a straight line. And so on….

But it’s already inconsistent – Ele’s and Engi’s have the potential to completely ignore chill’s CD increase due to their ability to have more than 2 weaponsets. Yes, they are affected by chill in the same manner, but it doesn’t mean as much when you have enough “weaponsets” to cycle through that your not affected by the slowdown at all.

I disagree that all things have to affect everyone exactly the same. The difference in base HP is also a big counter to this argument – conditions are much more dangerous for classes with a low base HP pool; should their base damage be calculated based on base HP? That would be “fair”, but I don’t think it should happen because that’s not how the game was designed.

Sepreh.5924:

Hey evil, thanks for the well thought out reply. Just a couple points that came up in my head while I was reading it that I thought you could comment on. Again, don’t mean to be antagonistic but do really want to understand the issues and implications.

It seems like there are several issues with chilled affecting initiative:

1. Lack of ways to defensively deal with chilled – I can definitely see this to some degree but also have to think that thieves do have some defensive ability vs. chilled. Again, correct me if I am wrong but from my understanding there are several defenses. For example, withdraw is a heal, is on a 15s cooldown and will not only remove chilled but create distance. Shadowstep will remove chilled but is on a long cooldown. Shadows embrace must be traited for but can remove chilled as often as a thief can stealth. Additionally, as opposed to block or aegis, there are some builds that use evade which can have a similar effect to block or aegis. There are also blinds which do not prevent AOE chilled but are effective for single target chills. As far as chills actually hitting thieves, its the difference between AOE and single target. For example, I can see it very likely that the AOE chill of my chillbains or AOE chill of a engineer/ele will hit the thief. There are, however skills that require a target to hit, for example (I am using necro examples because that is what I main and know best) spinal shivers or dark path. For these, stealth serves as a defense as you cannot be targeted while in stealth.

2. Affecting the initiative bar affects two weapon sets more severely than other classes – I can see this being the case which is why I think that the effect on initiative should be tested and likely be something less than a 66% reduction on recharge. As a side note, it appears that elementalists may preferentially also have underlying reduced effect of chilled due to having 16 skills to use rather than 8. Same may be said for engineer swapping kits or necro going into deathshroud for more skills. I think the point is that they are all affected to some degree in their 1-5 skills by chilled

3. Thieves are not overpowered so why nerf them – I have not played enough to say if this is true but I tend to also think that they are not overpowered. As somewhat of a counter argument, however, chilled is not a condition that is going around like crazy, at least from what I can see, and it is unlikely that the change will affect most encounters out there.

Feel free to rip those points apart. I will appreciate either way as debate is the only way for me (and others I would guess) to understand the implications of any proposed change

TBH, I’m more curious as why you feel chilled Has to affect initiative regen? As you pointed out, chilled can potentially be less effective/nearly useless on an Ele and maybe an engi due to their ability to run more than 2 weaponsets, and you don’t see that as unfair. IMO, it’s not as if thieves are regenerating Init crazy fast regardless of spec, and they need to be affected by chill to bring them into line.

Without specifically speccing for initiative regen, thieves already have pretty kittenty initiative regen. You’re seeing alot of thieves go 30 points into acro for Quick Pockets AND quick recovery because without them, our init pool regenerates at a pathetic rate. The only other options are to go crazy burst so we get a fantastic rate of Damage per Init spent, or to invest heavily in SA so we can use stealth to give us time to regen init (usually both of these combined, actually).

Navzar.2938:

evilapprentice.6379:

Stealth doesn’t reduce the damage you take…

LOL Are you really arguing stealth isn’t a defensive mechanic? You also neglected to mention the evades.

Also, skills you have already used are still affected by chill regardless of what class you are.

No, I am not arguing that. Please read my post in full before responding.
My claim was Stealth does not make you “Tanky”, and that’s 100% true. “Tanky” is not the same as “Defensive”. My further point was that Stealth isn’t a great counter to Chilled in particular because it’s very easy to track a thief moving at 33% speed, even in stealth.

In addition, I’ve mentioned evades a number of times – particularly because chilled reduces the evade-movement is my claim as to why chilled affects thieves defensive mechanics so heavily.

Sepreh.5924:

Guys, lets avoid the personal attacks. Sorry the topic is so heated.

Any devs out there have an official word on whether chilled will ever affect thieves skills 1-5?

Again, I don’t want this to come out as NERF THIEF. I don’t think that needs to happen and all classes have strengths and weaknesses. I do, however, think that chilled should affect the 1-5 skills of all classes and am trying to have a healthy discussion between all classes to figure out the best way to do this

I apologize for contributing to the silliness – while i disagree with you, I respect your opinion. Some others aren’t as deserving of that respect, but I shouldn’t have derailed the thread.

My argument remains the same however. Mobility and stealth are a thief’s primary defenses. The movement debuff on chill affects thief more than any other class because a reduction in mobility is a severe debuff to both offense, and defense, with no “special” way to counter it (IE, any class can cleanse the debuff, but a guardian can block through it, or an ele could mist form, etc). Even if a thief teleports away, there are plenty of classes that can follow or keep pounding on him at range (and he can’t escape, due to being chilled)

Any other class has other ways to deal with being chilled defensively – they can throw up protection, stability, regen. They can hit an immune skill or start blocking – chill doesn’t affect any of these the way it affects a thieves defenses.

In addition, as others have pointed out, slowing down the entire initiative bar punishes every skill on both weaponsets rather than skills individually like chill does for other classes – you can’t draw a direct comparison between the two.

As it stands, thieves are mid-tier atm at best in TPvP – while you might feel it would be “Fair” if chill affected their weaponskills in some way, its a power reduction on a class that already doesn’t really have a solid place in TPvP.

In addition, the game isn’t built on being “Fair” – some classes have higher base HP – some have great access to dodges – others have great access to block. It’s not fundamentally flawed if chill affects thieves differently. “Balanced” or “Fair” does not mean that every condition effects every class exactly the same way – just that every class is relatively close to each other in potential.

The Boz.2038:

evilapprentice.6379:

The Boz.2038:

evilapprentice.6379:

Every post in this thread.

Wow, dude.
Wow.
Rarely do I see someone so consistently and persistently wrong.
Still waiting on that “the devs made it so with a reason” reference you mentioned earlier. I won’t hold my breath.

Unfortunately I could not find the article I was referring to. Oh well.

So, do you have any reason you disagree with me, or are you on the “Blind assertions are always right” bandwagon? Agree or disagree, I listed the reasons why I felt that way. If you want to assert that I’m wrong, you’re going to have to back it up.

Umm…
Well, see, the situation now is that thief weapon skills flat out ignore the part about chilled increasing cooldowns. The thread was made to change that, because the OP thinks this is OP. If you categorize statements such as “I think this is OP, it should be changed” as blind assertions, then yes, all we are making here are blind assertions, no matter how well be back them up with theorycraft.

You need to qualify why you think it’s OP – things are different class to class. I’ve offered my opinions (as have others) why they think chill affecting Initiative regen would be a bad idea. Your free to disagree, but if your counterargument is still “I just think it’s OP”, it doesn’t carry much weight.

Dredlord.8076:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sepreh.5924:

evilapprentice.6379:

google.3709:

Thief are immune to 2 conditions : )

1. Chill for stated reasons
2. Blind (barely noticible unless its on CnD)

Immune to chill? Do thieves not move at a reduced speed when they’re chilled? News to me.

Chill was specifically designed with initiative in mind – someone at Anet specifically used chill as an example to how thieves CD mechanics were different than the other classes, mentioning that the CD slowdown part of chill was specifically designed to not affect initiative.

Case closed.

Well that would be an easy answer. Do you have a link to this?

Looking for it now – the problem is looking up “chilled” and “initiative” mainly leads to the boards.

oh I see now, you read some other player say it so it must be true and then I guess you got busy “parroting” what you heard other thief fanboys say and it became gospel?

is this what happened?

you seem to be somewhat familiar with this scenario…

evilapprentice.6379:

Most of the posters on these boards are too busy just parroting “Thief rabble rabble my class is too hard to play and spec” to do so.

cmon tell me this isn’t what happened

Shh Shh, you’re done son.

Zzod.5791:

NornBearPig.9814:

I’d just like to point out that when a skill is cast, the cooldown continues to recharge 66% slower even after the chill has ended – something thief initiative doesn’t even have to worry about with the proposed change.

NornBearPig.9814:

Last time I tested was september, so yea I may be wrong.

Ah. So, first make a bold, assertive claim about your understanding of a certain mechanic and then quick back peddling after you are exposed to actually not knowing a kitten ed thing about what you are talking about. Why not take the time to actually look into something before spreading baseless claims?

I even love how you have the “I’d just like to point out” as if what you were pointing out was something that had flown over our heads originally and we need your deep insight to show us how we carelessly overlooked this tricky dynamic within the world of chilled targets.

This kind of misinformation ruins threads and quality of forums.

That’s unfortunately how these forums operate. People spread mis-information (Most just stick to it like a hard Line, at least Nornbearpig was willing to admit he might be wrong), and let confirmation bias kicks in. The amount of kitten people post on these boards that expose how kitten poor their understanding of this games most basic mechanics is astounding. I’ve never participated in a forum where this problem was as bad as it is here.

Go ahead and look, literally everything a thief can do is considered OP by someone, and they can easily find support for their harebrained opinion.

The Boz.2038:

evilapprentice.6379:

Every post in this thread.

Wow, dude.
Wow.
Rarely do I see someone so consistently and persistently wrong.
Still waiting on that “the devs made it so with a reason” reference you mentioned earlier. I won’t hold my breath.

Unfortunately I could not find the article I was referring to. Oh well.

So, do you have any reason you disagree with me, or are you on the “Blind assertions are always right” bandwagon? Agree or disagree, I listed the reasons why I felt that way. If you want to assert that I’m wrong, you’re going to have to back it up.

Dredlord.8076:

evilapprentice.6379:

Dredlord.8076:

evilapprentice.6379:

shimmerless.4560:

chilled is strong enough against a class that needs constant movement to stay alive. i think this would be a very negative change/would make some classes even more powerful

Ah, there’s your problem shimmerless – you “thought”.

Most of the posters on these boards are too busy just parroting “Thief rabble rabble nerf” to do so.

and here you are too stupid to realize he’s on your side and still you bash him.

you need to read the posts before you respond kid.

I was bashing people like you by pointing out his position was too well thought out for anyone here to follow. Thank you So much for exemplifying exactly what I was saying so utterly perfectly. I mean, this couldn’t have gone any better. Thank you.

hahahaha nice backpedal, you look some clever now…

You’re in over your head intellectually here son, allow me to educate you.

“Ah, there’s your problem shimmerless – you “thought”.

Most of the posters on these boards are too busy just parroting “Thief rabble rabble nerf” to do so."

Read that second sentence – I’m disparaging (since I know you’re going to need it, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disparaging?s=t) those people.

I’ve specifically set shimmerless apart from that group by pointing out that he thinks.

Ergo (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ergo?s=ts), you should probably refrain from any “battle of wits” in the future. You’re clearly ill equipped.

Dredlord.8076:

evilapprentice.6379:

Andele.1306:

evilapprentice.6379:

Elementalists have the options to go tanky if they desire – thieves do not.

Everything after this quote is worthless since it defined your lack of build knowledge, Please tell me what else is a permastealth (and i dont mean BS poke) thief than a tanky evade kitten, you can be in a evasion movement for 4 of 5 seconds for 25~ seconds before popping a long cd utility…
.

… seriously? “Tanky”? Stealth doesn’t reduce the damage you take… it doesn’t grant stability.. it doesn’t regenerate health (without a grandmaster trait), you can’t hold/contest a point during it… it doesn’t let you block… and I’m the one with a lack of build knowledge? You seem to have trouble with an MMO’s basic definitions (“Tanky”,‘Dodgy", etc..), I’m not sure you’re qualified yet to understand builds.

You’ll also note, we’re specifically talking about chilled here, which seriously hampers evasive game play and stealth – if you can’t keep beating on a thief who stealthed moving at 33% movement speed, you probably should go play a game more suited to your skills, like tic-tac-toe or something (But be careful, X is OP and needs to be nerfed).

your whole argument seems to rely on us both pretending the thief doesn’t have any dodges, evades, no cooldown stunbreaks, teleports etc.

again if your build doesn’t take advantage of these things perhaps someone can help you with that.

What do stunbreaks have to do with chill? Oh yeah, Nothing.
Dodges and evades are seriously hampered by chill, which was the main part of my point.
You know what chill doesn’t hamper? Immune, block, protection, regen, stability.

Just a note: I Don’t PvE at all.

Having said that, what about a Venom Share build with 20/0/30/0/20? Something like this – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAsIFhmLNpai/cig7BAg6T9UQ2xqp4m2E

Maybe that would work?

Dirame.8521:

Beserker stance – Immune to conditions for 8 secs
Cleansing Ire – Removes 3 conditions when you land a burst skill
Mending – Removes 3 conditions when you heal.
Healing Signet – Passive Can heal for up to 700 per second
Longbow 5 now applies 6 stacks of bleed as well as immob
And stuns are the new thing for Warriors.

Thanks for the info.

NornBearPig.9814:

I’d just like to point out that when a skill is cast, the cooldown continues to recharge 66% slower even after the chill has ended – something thief initiative doesn’t even have to worry about with the proposed change.

I’m pretty sure (not entirely though, which is why I’m leaving room for doubt) that’s 100% incorrect. Chill causes skills to CD 66% slower While chilled, otherwise it seems like it would be ungodly OP.

Can anyone do me the favor of filling me in on what’s changed for warrior in the last 2 patches? I took a break, and after coming back, I’ve noticed warriors seem to be in a much better place than…well, the entirety of the past year.

Let me be clear – I’m not claiming they’re broken, just that I need better understanding on what they’re doing so I can counterplay. So far I’ve noticed what appears to be variations on 2 distinct specs.

Hybrid – it seems like hybrid specs finally have a good mix of damage and survivability. Whereas 2 months ago these specs were easy but time consuming to drop, they’re now a serious threat if I make any mistakes. No real issue with this spec, just wondering what exactly changed so I have an idea if there are any skills/effects I should keep an eye out to counter. Seeing alot of LB here.

“Bunker” – Notice the quotes – I’ve fought a couple of warriors lately that, well, just don’t die. They’re not quite as tanky as guardians, but they seem to have great access to endure pain/shield block/Power damage mitigation. I’m usually not in any risk of losing the fight here, but I have watched them heal through pretty much everything I throw at them, and other than interrupting heals/keeping poison up (which I’m already doing), I’m unsure exactly how to drop one in a reasonable amount of time. What changed to make Warriors so survivable?

Just a note, I’m running 10/0/0/30/30 Boon thief S/D with about 3100 power, 56%crit, and 20% crit damage.

Shar.3402:

Chill should affect initiative regen the same way it affects weapon skill recharge for other classes, period.

Chill should not affect initiative regen the same way it affects weapon skill recharge for other classes, period.

Wow, that was easy – it’s almost like you can assert anything as long as you pretend facts don’t matter!

Andele.1306:

evilapprentice.6379:

Elementalists have the options to go tanky if they desire – thieves do not.

Everything after this quote is worthless since it defined your lack of build knowledge, Please tell me what else is a permastealth (and i dont mean BS poke) thief than a tanky evade kitten, you can be in a evasion movement for 4 of 5 seconds for 25~ seconds before popping a long cd utility…
.

… seriously? “Tanky”? Stealth doesn’t reduce the damage you take… it doesn’t grant stability.. it doesn’t regenerate health (without a grandmaster trait), you can’t hold/contest a point during it… it doesn’t let you block… and I’m the one with a lack of build knowledge? You seem to have trouble with an MMO’s basic definitions (“Tanky”,‘Dodgy", etc..), I’m not sure you’re qualified yet to understand builds.

You’ll also note, we’re specifically talking about chilled here, which seriously hampers evasive game play and stealth – if you can’t keep beating on a thief who stealthed moving at 33% movement speed, you probably should go play a game more suited to your skills, like tic-tac-toe or something (But be careful, X is OP and needs to be nerfed).

Zenith.7301:

ahuba.6430:

does chill affect life force and adrenaline?

Does blind affect initiative regen? Because it does affect life force and adrenaline. So does aegis or dodging.

It does – if you spend init on a skill that misses due to blind, it’s hurt your initiative pool… the same way that a blind/aegis/dodging hurts adrenaline/lifeforce buildup – you’ve spent a resource and saw no gain from it.

pmnt.4067:

• The counter-argument mobility/survivability: There are other classes which are dependent on mobility for survival (elementalist and any full-glass spec to a degree) which get the full recharge and movement penalty from chill. Also stealth, evades and shadow steps still work while chilled.

Elementalists have the options to go tanky if they desire – thieves do not.

Elemenatalists have access to protection, stability, blocks, supplemental heals, and immunity skills regardless of their spec – Thieves do not. In fact, every class in the game (Except maybe necro? I don’t know them that well, but top tier base HP and a second health bar certainly help) has the option to slot a utility that stops all direct damage/total immunity, and many have blocks attached to their utilities/weapon choices.

Stealth is useless while chilled – it’s really easy to keep hitting a thief moving at 66% movement speed. Evades that move you 33% of the distance don’t do kitten to get you out of trouble. Shadow steps will get you out of trouble, but you have the potential to be almost completely useless because there are plenty of situations where Shbow doesn’t cut it, and we have no other competent ranged options.

Chilled clearly affects thieves more than any other class because thieves are by far the most reliant on mobility to both deal damage AND stay alive. We can’t knock you down to keep you in place – our stun options are limited to a 1s cast time elite and PW, which last 1s and .5s respectively. Immobilize is limited to Inf strike and a venom which see’s little use due to how poorly designed venom’s are. Tripwire and scorpion wire might one day invalidate some of what I’ve said above, but they’re currently poorly implemented/designed, and not worth taking.

So, lets talk about Targeting and Model Normalization.

Targeting – This has been a problem for a long time now – when a 2v3 can include 20 separate models, targeting becomes an absolute nightmare. This isn’t even taking into account movement abilities, particle effects, and AoE – just the sheer amount of screen clutter can make it impossible to find your target. Now it’s too late to adjust the amount of pets/NPC’s in a match without a major game overhaul, so what are our options?

Solution: As others have posted, give players a toggle for tab targeting – whether or not it includes NPC’s. We shouldn’t be forced to click on 1 model out of 20 in a kittenstorm of effects and movement, considering how many classes have abilities that drop targeting.

Model normalization: This has also been discussed ad naseum on the boards, but Anet has yet to address it, so here it is again – Asura. On top of trying to find my target in the midst of 20 NPCs, AoE, and particle effects, I’m supposed to be able to discern exactly what ability an Asura is using? It’s a clear and abused advantage to play an asura over every other race in PvP. I’d rather not be forced to roll an Asura just to even up the odds, because it feels cheap and I don’t want to win because people can’t tell what skill I’m using. It’s pretty obvious you dropped the ball on this on Anet – stop ignoring the issue and address it.

shimmerless.4560:

chilled is strong enough against a class that needs constant movement to stay alive. i think this would be a very negative change/would make some classes even more powerful

Ah, there’s your problem shimmerless – you “thought”.

Most of the posters on these boards are too busy just parroting “Thief rabble rabble nerf” to do so.

Dredlord.8076:

Softspoken.2410:

It doesn’t, but realize exactly how crippling chill would be on a thief if it did: unlike other professions where it would slow down the recharge only of skills they’ve already used, it would slow down the ‘recharge’ of every weapon skill (besides 1) for a thief.

Plus it also has the movement speed reduction which is quite punishing for any mobility based thief, which is most of them.

no you are wrong.

if any other class doesn’t have any skills on cooldown it doesnt effect any recharges and in the same way if the thief has not used any skills then initiative recharge is also not effected because it is full.

having the benefit of using the same skills over and over but dependent on a resource pool is the reward, the risk is finite resources and the opportunity cost of using one skill over another. Thieves have flexibility that no other class has in this way. This flexibility sure as hell should NOT give them 50% immunity from a condition as well.

No, you’re wrong, and “50%” is a silly number you made up that doesn’t mean anything.

Initiative has both positive and negative aspects -
Positive – skills don’t go on cooldown, can be used repeatedly.
Negative – Instead of having 2 separate weaponsets with their own unique cooldowns, thieves get 1 pool of “actions” with all equipped weapons. A warrior can go nuts and blow every single GS skill as quickly as possible…then switch to Axe/Shield and have access to all 5 skills. If a thief blows all his initiative with D/P…He’s out of actions until init regens.

In addition, spammable abilities come with a cost – thieves are denied some effects on their weaponskills precisely because they are spammable. No KD/KB/Launch/Pull. Extremely short durations on Stun/Daze/Immobilize. No skills that grant any useable duration of a Boon. I’m not claiming this is unfair (its perfectly fair, the skills are spammable), but it’s something most don’t notice because they never bothered to play thief.

Now to clear up your made up numbers. Chill has 2 unique effects – a snare, and CD increase. so, 50/50. The chill fully affects a thief – the CD increase effects skills 6-10, which all have CD timers. The only thing unaffected is weaponskills – so a thief is immune to roughly 25% of chills effect. Seeing as how reliant thief is on mobility to remain alive, however (no prot/aegis/stability, poor regen, lowest base healthpool), that snare affects them more than most other classes.

Fenrir.5493:

evilapprentice.6379:

Fenrir.5493:

Evilek.5690:

Fenrir.5493:

Right now as it is a thief can spam and perma blind you all the time and you cant do anything about it, you dont even want to waste a condition removal on that because they are so easy applicable that is really unfair to have you all the time unable to attack, i find that this mechanic needs to go back so we can remove it just with the swing of the weapon is the only way to make it fair to the current state that is so spammable.

This thing makes aegis look like a baby.

Stay out of Black Powder

Problem fixed

So if im a warrior and i need to stay close to hit the thief i am now forbiden to do so because the thief ca spam this field?… eonugh with your bs.

And even if i did so, the blinds of thief are not only comming from that field, they have tons ways to put blind is a joke completely and mark my words is getting nerfed.

Black powders field isn’t big enough to deny your melee range – there’s no place the thief can stand where you can’t get melee range on him and still be outside the field – just don’t charge into it blindly and you’ll be fine. If he retreats into the field, circle it and you’ll have him back in range in a second. Let’s also note that if he is hiding towards the back of the field and you can’t hit him with melee without entering it (again, by just blindly walking into it instead of intelligently circling around it)….he can’t hit you with melee.

It’s really just a matter of skill, don’t stand in the field.

Also lets note that a skill that costs half a standard initiative bar isn’t “Spammable”.

Sure, everything seems very legit on paper but the reality is other man, sorry your blinds are broken and are going to get nerfed.

My blinds? I’ve run exclusively S/D (except for when I’m kittening around) since a month or two before the LS patch – I have 0 access to blinds in my spec, and blinds are actually fairly strong against thief sword players – I just know the game well enough to know that blinds are currently not broken, and they should have been this way from the start.

It took a few games to get used to the difference, but it’s very easy to play with skill, rather than come crying to the boards for nerfs.

Aza.2105:

evilapprentice.6379:

Jzaku.9765:

He means You used to have to time your blinds properly or it’d just be instantly cleansed off. Now you can just apply them whenever you feel like it, and even stacking its duration is effective in some situations. The devs stated that it “raised the skill cap” on blinds in the sotg but from any reasonable person’s perspective it has been lowered SIGNIFICANTLY.

It raised the skillcap of countering blind.

It used to be “Oh i’m blinded? I’ll just spam AA while I close distance because clearly, missing a swing on empty air is the same as missing an actual target because of the blind effect”.

Now you actually have to miss what would have been an effective hit to clear blind – it made blind an actually useful condition.

It doesn’t make sense, why do you need to connect with your hit for blind to go away?

Because in a game that is supposed to reward positioning and timing, what good is a condition that says “AA once to clear”?

Jzaku.9765:

He means You used to have to time your blinds properly or it’d just be instantly cleansed off. Now you can just apply them whenever you feel like it, and even stacking its duration is effective in some situations. The devs stated that it “raised the skill cap” on blinds in the sotg but from any reasonable person’s perspective it has been lowered SIGNIFICANTLY.

It raised the skillcap of countering blind.

It used to be “Oh i’m blinded? I’ll just spam AA while I close distance because clearly, missing a swing on empty air is the same as missing an actual target because of the blind effect”.

Now you actually have to miss what would have been an effective hit to clear blind – it made blind an actually useful condition.

dreztina.4820:

I really do hate the blind change. It went from a strong ability with counterplay, to an insanely strong ability with no counterplay.

Missing an AA swing on empty space clearing blind was “Counterplay”?

Sepreh.5924:

evilapprentice.6379:

google.3709:

Thief are immune to 2 conditions : )

1. Chill for stated reasons
2. Blind (barely noticible unless its on CnD)

Immune to chill? Do thieves not move at a reduced speed when they’re chilled? News to me.

Chill was specifically designed with initiative in mind – someone at Anet specifically used chill as an example to how thieves CD mechanics were different than the other classes, mentioning that the CD slowdown part of chill was specifically designed to not affect initiative.

Case closed.

Well that would be an easy answer. Do you have a link to this?

Looking for it now – the problem is looking up “chilled” and “initiative” mainly leads to the boards.

google.3709:

Thief are immune to 2 conditions : )

1. Chill for stated reasons
2. Blind (barely noticible unless its on CnD)

Immune to chill? Do thieves not move at a reduced speed when they’re chilled? News to me.

Chill was specifically designed with initiative in mind – someone at Anet specifically used chill as an example to how thieves CD mechanics were different than the other classes, mentioning that the CD slowdown part of chill was specifically designed to not affect initiative.

You’ll also note it still affects heals, utilities, the class skill, and elites, because those have CD timers.

Case closed.