Guild Wars 2

Ensign.2189:

I really didn’t like the initiative reduction on Dancing Dagger. The skill needs a somewhat faster projectile and more damage for general usage; without it the skill simply cannot compete with using gap closers.

Cheaper initiative costs just strengthen the perma-cripple abuse case in WvW, which is not where the skill needs power.

Dancing daggers tracking is truly awful – there are time’s I’ll toss it at a guardian to eat his aegis while I’m moving to engage, and if they strafe for half a second the skill flies wide by 200-300r. It really does need a projectile speed increase, or to be instant cast.

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”.

swinsk.6410:

It still ticks for about 100 which is the same as a bleed. Arguing over technicality when what I say is true. You can’t stop it from doing damage to you unless you have condi removal.

HiS is supposed to remove all damage over time condis. Torment is damage over time.

…and if you’d bothered to read anything I posted, you’d realize that is my entire point. I’m arguing that HiS was clearly designed to remove DoT conditions, and torment clearly qualifies.

I was arguing against withdraw removing it, because withdraw is for movement impairing conditions – torment deals more damage if you’re moving, but does not impair your ability to move or your overall speed in any way, therefore it shouldn’t be removed by withdraw.

swinsk.6410:

You cannot self mitigate torment! It still tick for about 100 damage even if your standing still!

From dictionary.com –
mit·i·gate
[mit-i-geyt] Show IPA verb, mit·i·gat·ed, mit·i·gat·ing.
verb (used with object)
1. to lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate. "\

Standing still self-mitigates the damage from torment.

Excalibur.9748:

Withdraw can also move torment. The theme with withdraw is it removes conditions that impair your movement. So either fear or torment.

No, that would be too much.

Fear does not impair your movement, it impairs control – those are 2 very different things. Fear is already a weak control impairment skill because it’s a condition and not a stun/daze – it doesn’t fit Withdraw’s design.

Same with torment – torment does not snare or root you – it just does more damage if you’re moving. You can self-mitigate torments damage by not moving, in the same way you can self-mitigate confusions damage by not using skills (and notice that HiS does not remove confusion, for that reason IMO).

Travlane.5948:

i see. we are assuming it does. so instead of plz fix….. “can you plz modify HIS to include torment as it sort of insists that all dmging conditions are removed”.

i agree but just didnt know if it was stated. everyone makes it sound like its stated.

withdraw would have to remove another condition then too…..what should it be?

You can look at HiS pre torment and clearly see that it was designed to remove all conditions that deal damage passively.

You can look at Withdraw and clearly see that it was designed to remove all movement impairing effects.

It’s not much of a stretch to claim that torment should be included in HiS – maybe that’s not the way Anet feels, but it’s not ludicrous for us to assume that it should be included seeing as how they designed thief heals pre-torment. Withdraw doesn’t need another condition added to its cleanses (unless of course they add another movement impairing condition). The point of this post is to bring it to Dev’s attention so we can either hear “you’re right, including it next patch”, or “Nope, torment isn’t supposed to be healed by HiS”

While it was never stated that HiS should remove all damaging conditions, its fairly clear that the initial intent was to clear all damaging conditions (except confusion, which can be player-mitigated by not activating abilities). It should include torment.

Dancing Dagger has its uses – the drop to 3 init was a good start, but in addition the ability should be instant cast OR the projectile speed increased (not both). The damage is laughable, it’s clearly a gap closing utility that has its place…it should just be more effective as such.

Body shot is in the realm of “permastupid” – the community has pointed out a dozen times at least, mathematically using the game designers rules, how worthless the skill is, and in patch after patch it remains unchanged.

Amaterasu.6280:

evilapprentice.6379:

Amaterasu.6280:

Illidan.6802:

As a thief, tell you that Withdraw is not a stun break. D/P has access to stealth on demand as its defensive mechanic, not even mention Black Powder. What does S/D thief have? Evasion, and on demand escaping when something when wrong. S/D dps is lower than D/P. Also, it is not like sword 2 does not cost initiatives. It is 5 for total an attack and return. The counter can position him/herself close to the Return circle to take advantage of his/her cc. On the other hand, the S/D thief doesn’t need additional buff in return, but should be toned down in accessing to vigor. It is not like we take away all the evade from the thief, but limit in some ways so that, at least, other play can land some attacks. It also make the S/D thief utilize his/her dodges better instead of just spamming them.

Right – my point is, a LOT of s/d thieves spam dodges just for giggles, and SHOULD be punished for it. In my opinion it just dumbs down the game play. I know GW2 isn’t the most complex game to play, but I respect people who really do try to time their dodges and watch the actions of the other guy. Being able to chain spam 8+ consecutive dodges just seems silly to me. In my opinion, stealth does not compare because you CAN die through stealth, you can’t die through dodges and evades.

They ARE punished for it. A thief putting 30 points in Acro, and slotting SoA and Energy Sigil is making CHOICES – that’s a utility slot, 30 points of a 70 point spec, and weapon sigil slot All dedicated to dodging. All those choices dedicated to dodging subtract something from the thief, whether it be Burst potential, DPS in general, or team utility.

If they dodge 8 times in a row just “for giggles”, they are not effectively playing their spec – the spec that they sacrificed so much else to run. What don’t you get about that? How can you possibly not get that after playing a thief for 3500 matches?

You just missed the entire point as to why people say s/d thieves are a problem right now. If they are simply just trolls with dodges and offer nothing else, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.

You claim that they are punished for it when you can still put out good DPS to everything with 10/30/0/30/0 or 0/30/0/30/10? There is a reason why people are afraid of fighting s/d thieves and not really d/p thieves. S/D may not have the initial 9k backstab burst, but it has INSANELY good sustain…mind you the initial burst isn’t bad already especially if you run mug. But, with the new FS/LS tracking, you are literally stuck to the other person. I’d say it tracks just as well, if not better than heartseekers.

Also, being able to dodge 8+ times in a roll while disengaging across the map, then coming back with almost full CDs does not mean that they are getting punished. Signet of agility (which gives you 3 dodges + condi clear/s) is on a 24s CD and withdraw is on 15. By the time you use them in conjunction to dodges to disengage and come back, they would already pretty much be recharged.

I think somehow you are in the delusion that people are complaining about S/D thieves strictly because of the dodges…while I brought up dodges as ONE of the problems, it is certainly not the only problem.

The only way to put out good DPS with 10/30/0/30/0 or 0/30/0/30/10 is to be a complete glass cannon – they can be dealt with in the same manner as any glass cannon, even with Sword 2. Even then, their DPS pales in comparison to a glass cannon running D/P – like i said, SACRIFICES. People are afraid of S/D because they’re too lazy to learn to counter it – Sword 2 doesn’t even have a stunbreaker anymore…close to the circle, and guess what – you just neutralized Sword 2! Their burst is still inferior to D/P (since they’re probably running Mug too). Only FS tracks – including LS in that is silly…because you know, it doesn’t track, like, at all. FS tracks now because prior to the change, FS was tracking inferiorly to similar ranger skills – it obvious that’s the way FS was supposed to track, it just wasn’t.

S/D isn’t special in disengaging, thief has always been great at escaping – SBow can do it without burning 8 dodges and a utility, and stealth can do it just as well, if not better. Crying that S/D is overpowered at disengaging when it’s part of the core class design is either disingenuous or ignorant.

Amaterasu.6280:

evilapprentice.6379:

Amaterasu.6280:

ensoriki.5789:

I don’t think you’ve fully thought this out Kuro. You were suggesting 600 range before

Dropping the range of the two is basically going to put S/P and S/D in a constant nuke range. S/P having a wind up evade self root evade skill with our base stats and armor not encouraging that. Without the inherit stealth option as a counter measure to range fire, a ranger’s pretty much just going to keep pressing 1 on you, even the options for LoS get significantly reduced dropping SR’s range.
Prior to the april update the same held true for S/D. Flanking stab always followed flanking strike so the tell for damage was incredibly clear which meant timing was crucial (but at the time you were rewarded fairly poorly for landing that stab relative to the ease of avoiding it).

If I get shot whatever but the clearest change is to keep the new tracking and fuse the 3 back into a single skill instead of a chain.

With Shadow return being locked down while CC’d you you make it quite easy to punish main hand sword. In fact Rune’s of Nightmare which go through evade is going to set you up to get spiked to hell and back. Which would be fine if the options for stability became something more than dagger storm, but I don’t think that will happen.

I don’t know man, I’m just throwing out ideas as to how I think the problems with S/D thieves could be resolved. And sword #2 is one of the biggest problems. I can care less for FS + LS because you can still kill through that but sword #2’s spammable engage at 0-600r and disengage at 1200r is probably mainly responsible for the complaints about how no one can kill a s/d thief. When the 8+ dodges can’t save you, you always have the 1200r disengage…

Or they could just make it so that you can ONLY use sword #2 at 600r with a target so that if you do use it and disengage, you still can, but at least you won’t be popping sword 2 first from way outside the point, go in to the point and pop return whenever something goes wrong.

Shadow return not working while cc’d could honestly be a reasonable change…you still have a million dodges to work with during the fight. I’m sure we’ve all fought enough s/d thieves to realize that their dodges are just as important to sword #2 when it comes to the inability to kill them. We’re trying to just handicap 1 of those ways. I personally thought the patch which made sword #2 “not” a stunbreak is absolutely silly…it IS pretty much a stunbreak anytime you can teleport back at 1200r. No one is going to be catch you at that range before the cc is up unless they teleport to you.

Now I’m not going to lie, shadowstep pathing is still kittenty since they last tried to fix it, so sword #2 isn’t 100% safe, but it’s very much a 90% successful guaranteed disengage especially if the terrain isn’t rugged and leveled.

But you’re starting with the assertion that S/D thieves are “a problem”. Your very first sentence says
“I don’t know man, I’m just throwing out ideas as to how I think the problems with S/D thieves could be resolved”.
I disagree that S/D thieves are a “problem”. All the forum support in the world that you can drum up isn’t going to convince me otherwise, because I’ve been playing S/D long enough to know that while the spec is strong, it isn’t broken.

They have a playstyle that people don’t like. Tough kitten, they’ll get used to it. I don’t like dealing with a mesmer’s constant escapes, but I’m not going to come crying to the boards and claim its OP and whine for nerfs just because I don’t like it

I’m not going to defend my points any further and stray this thread away to a pointless argument.

Again, if you feel that it’s just a matter of L2P when literally EVERYONE is saying that s/d thieves are OP right now INCLUDING thieves, then I don’t know what to say.

Did you feel the same vs triple cantrip bunker eles pre-nerf? Just tough kitten , get used to it?

How about the current state of necros? I guess it’s just a l2p issue too and we should just get used to the playstyle?

A problem is a problem, and I’m not going to sit back on it just because I play the class.

Literally everyone is a hyperbolic statement. I disagree, and I am a part of Literally everyone. There are also a ton of people who disagree – you just don’t count their opinions, because they diverge from yours.

Your comparison to triple cantrip bunkers is also asinine and an attempt to grasp at straws – the two aren’t comparable. When a thief can use S/D to generate nigh permanent regen/protection uptime and bunker a point, we can discuss it. Since that is not now, and has never been the case, you’ll need a more poignant argument.

Amaterasu.6280:

Illidan.6802:

As a thief, tell you that Withdraw is not a stun break. D/P has access to stealth on demand as its defensive mechanic, not even mention Black Powder. What does S/D thief have? Evasion, and on demand escaping when something when wrong. S/D dps is lower than D/P. Also, it is not like sword 2 does not cost initiatives. It is 5 for total an attack and return. The counter can position him/herself close to the Return circle to take advantage of his/her cc. On the other hand, the S/D thief doesn’t need additional buff in return, but should be toned down in accessing to vigor. It is not like we take away all the evade from the thief, but limit in some ways so that, at least, other play can land some attacks. It also make the S/D thief utilize his/her dodges better instead of just spamming them.

Right – my point is, a LOT of s/d thieves spam dodges just for giggles, and SHOULD be punished for it. In my opinion it just dumbs down the game play. I know GW2 isn’t the most complex game to play, but I respect people who really do try to time their dodges and watch the actions of the other guy. Being able to chain spam 8+ consecutive dodges just seems silly to me. In my opinion, stealth does not compare because you CAN die through stealth, you can’t die through dodges and evades.

They ARE punished for it. A thief putting 30 points in Acro, and slotting SoA and Energy Sigil is making CHOICES – that’s a utility slot, 30 points of a 70 point spec, and weapon sigil slot All dedicated to dodging. All those choices dedicated to dodging subtract something from the thief, whether it be Burst potential, DPS in general, or team utility.

If they dodge 8 times in a row just “for giggles”, they are not effectively playing their spec – the spec that they sacrificed so much else to run. What don’t you get about that? How can you possibly not get that after playing a thief for 3500 matches?

Amaterasu.6280:

ensoriki.5789:

I don’t think you’ve fully thought this out Kuro. You were suggesting 600 range before

Dropping the range of the two is basically going to put S/P and S/D in a constant nuke range. S/P having a wind up evade self root evade skill with our base stats and armor not encouraging that. Without the inherit stealth option as a counter measure to range fire, a ranger’s pretty much just going to keep pressing 1 on you, even the options for LoS get significantly reduced dropping SR’s range.
Prior to the april update the same held true for S/D. Flanking stab always followed flanking strike so the tell for damage was incredibly clear which meant timing was crucial (but at the time you were rewarded fairly poorly for landing that stab relative to the ease of avoiding it).

If I get shot whatever but the clearest change is to keep the new tracking and fuse the 3 back into a single skill instead of a chain.

With Shadow return being locked down while CC’d you you make it quite easy to punish main hand sword. In fact Rune’s of Nightmare which go through evade is going to set you up to get spiked to hell and back. Which would be fine if the options for stability became something more than dagger storm, but I don’t think that will happen.

I don’t know man, I’m just throwing out ideas as to how I think the problems with S/D thieves could be resolved. And sword #2 is one of the biggest problems. I can care less for FS + LS because you can still kill through that but sword #2’s spammable engage at 0-600r and disengage at 1200r is probably mainly responsible for the complaints about how no one can kill a s/d thief. When the 8+ dodges can’t save you, you always have the 1200r disengage…

Or they could just make it so that you can ONLY use sword #2 at 600r with a target so that if you do use it and disengage, you still can, but at least you won’t be popping sword 2 first from way outside the point, go in to the point and pop return whenever something goes wrong.

Shadow return not working while cc’d could honestly be a reasonable change…you still have a million dodges to work with during the fight. I’m sure we’ve all fought enough s/d thieves to realize that their dodges are just as important to sword #2 when it comes to the inability to kill them. We’re trying to just handicap 1 of those ways. I personally thought the patch which made sword #2 “not” a stunbreak is absolutely silly…it IS pretty much a stunbreak anytime you can teleport back at 1200r. No one is going to be catch you at that range before the cc is up unless they teleport to you.

Now I’m not going to lie, shadowstep pathing is still kittenty since they last tried to fix it, so sword #2 isn’t 100% safe, but it’s very much a 90% successful guaranteed disengage especially if the terrain isn’t rugged and leveled.

But you’re starting with the assertion that S/D thieves are “a problem”. Your very first sentence says
“I don’t know man, I’m just throwing out ideas as to how I think the problems with S/D thieves could be resolved”.
I disagree that S/D thieves are a “problem”. All the forum support in the world that you can drum up isn’t going to convince me otherwise, because I’ve been playing S/D long enough to know that while the spec is strong, it isn’t broken.

They have a playstyle that people don’t like. Tough kitten, they’ll get used to it. I don’t like dealing with a mesmer’s constant escapes, but I’m not going to come crying to the boards and claim its OP and whine for nerfs just because I don’t like it

Amaterasu.6280:

evilapprentice.6379:

So you’ve played 3500 matches, but the words your saying still lead me to believe you don’t really understand basic meta.

If you’re capitalizing on swords AOE cleave, you’re in the Cleave radius of other classes – Thief isn’t built to tough that situation out – if your tanky enough to try to wade into an AoE Fest, your damage is crap, and if your damage is high enough to be considered a problem, you’ll be down 90% health and ticking 3-4 separate conditions in less than 5 seconds. You might score a few extra hits, but you’re not sitting in the middle of an AoE kittenfest and DPSing a ton of targets – you just don’t have the tools to do so, and thats fine, Thieves have different tools (like Inf strike/SR, as an example)

LS isn’t an evade, FS is – but I’m sure that was just a slip of the tongue anyone who’s played 3500 games with a thief might make.

“dodges via traits, almost perma vigor, signet of agility + withdraw (which is also a 1200r stunbreak) " – You can run withdraw (Which breaks snares/roots, not stuns, but again you knew that having played 3500 games on your thief. Also, don’t quote me on this one because I’m not sure of it, but I don’t think withdraw is 1200r.). In fact, your traits/utilities/heal setup is entirely independent of your weapon sets! Imagine that.

I understand you feel Sword #2 is broken – I’m probably not going to convince you otherwise. But saying that it’s a “Fact”, not a “Myth”, is silly, because its just your opinion (which, in case it wasn’t clear, I completely disagree with).

First I’d like to eat my words and say that I was wrong about the withdraw range. It is indeed not 1200r, but more around 600? It sucks that the description doesn’t have it’s range listed, but testing it again, it seems like it’s probably around that. For that, I apologize. I have no problems admitting I’m wrong about details. However, it does not mask the true problem.

I do mean FS as the evade, but I said LS probably because you have to use FS to get LS.

Anyway, I stand by my words – sword #2 is broken, and you can believe it’s just MY opinion or not…but I guess a lot of people playing casually and in high lvl tpvp share MY opinions then…

I completely understand that mistakes happen – I wasn’t confident saying “withdraw isnt 1200r” because of exactly what you pointed out – the range isn’t listed, and I couldn’t claim to know for a fact that the range wasn’t 1200. However, I’ve played my thief long enough to “know” (notice the quotes) that withdraw wasn’t 1200r – I couldn’t tell you the exact range, but I could guarantee it wasn’t the same as Shadow Step’s range.

It’s incredibly hard to take your opinion seriously when you claim to have played thief for over 3,000 games, but still claim Withdraw is a stunbreaker, and that LS has evasion attached to it- these are mistakes people unfamiliar with thief make – heck, these are mistakes people who are so convinced that they’re right that they don’t bother to take 20 seconds to cross-check Gw2skills make. I consider myself pretty well informed as far as a Thief’s available skills go, and I’ll still check a build editor before I make any definitive claims on the boards, because I don’t want my position weakened by incorrect assertions.

That’s why when you say “I feel Sword #2 is broken”, I just kind of laugh to myself and ignore it – I can find support on these boards to claim 80% of the skills, across all classes in this game, are broken; It doesn’t make any of you right.

Daecollo.9578:

I told a lot of people about the suggestions way before I actually posted them to see if they were good or not.

As you saw with both suggestions, the developers didn’t implement exactly what I said, just ‘like’ what I said.

I can only comment on the thief change, since that is the only class I’m intimately familiar with – your suggestion only matches what happened in the “boon stealing” aspect, and even then, only a little. Claiming that your suggestion was the inspiration for the change is reaching at best. You constantly and consistently make ludicrous suggestions for changes on the boards – I know your process is generally “Make an OP suggestion, let the boards whittle it down to something useable”.

But this current suggestion is too close to the basic definition of the game for that. Classes with Higher base HP are already balanced against classes with lower base HP in a number of ways – introducing a regen mechanic that treats the classes differently on the basis of their base HP is too much.

Sabre.1275:

The game is better now than it ever was. But balance patches will continue to improve the game.

“Improvements”, and “being better than before” are fine when you have a very solid balance base in place. GW2 does not.

For each of the 8 classes, there are generally 1 or (if they’re lucky) 2 specs that work – which specs work changes nearly every time a new patch is introduced. A year in, we don’t need incremental nudges toward better balance. We need solid balance, with a few outlying issues that are dealt with via incremental patch changes. Anet is still making massive changes to classes nearly a year in, and that’s not a good sign IMO.

In addition, the lack of a PTS is still galling. Not having a PTS is equivalent to saying “We don’t really give a kitten about the PvP community” – it can’t possibly be cost effective to test these changes in house. Set up a PTS, and give us the ability to extensively test your PvP oriented changes before they go live. kitten, charge us for PTS access it if you need to, those of use who see the potential in this game will gladly pay it. Just stop this cycle of knee-jerk, poorly tested balance swings that make this game so laughably unstable.

Lantz.7240:

evilapprentice.6379:

Lantz.7240:

The only thing they really say about P/D is its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

which isn’t true.

…Care to explain to me how it isn’t true? P/D only has consistent access to bleeds (which is how it “Only has bleeds”), and it’s super boring to play because without 5->1, wait for reveal, 5->1 style gameplay, your DPS will be extremely sub-par.

Shadow strike gaining torment is Ok, but it’s not a DPS powerhouse by any means – it still falls short of CnD->Sneak attack.

As I said before with my P/D setup I can bleed, poison, cripple, weaken and torment. Is it a power house? No but its not ment to be. I have good damage though and decent survivability. As for it being boring it is no more boring than the idiots who spam HS or the same exact 5-1 gameplay they do with daggers. You are not forced to just use 5-1. If you do and are bored then its your fault.

Poison, cripple and weakness are not DPS conditions. You will never kill a player with those conditions. Your access to Torment is crap – the spec relies entirely on Bleed to do DPS.

You are forced to use 5-1 if you want to even have a chance at killing anything – it is clearly the best DPS for the weaponset, which is why the set is boring. 99% of the time, the question “what going to end this fight the quickest” is answered with CnD, sneak attack – that’s bad. Sure, I could tool around with shadow strike and Dancing dagger and probably still win sometimes, but why am I going to choose inferior options? Why not just design the set so none of the options are obviously vastly superior?

Daecollo.9578:

However, I believe that such a thing will not happen. Thus Regeneration should heal classes that take more damage moreso then classes that take less.

That have the POTENTIAL to take less. THE POTENTIAL

Thieves do not automatically have better evasive options than everyone else. Ele’s do not automatically better damage mitigation than everyone else. Guardians sort of do with their aura’s, but that’s their class mechanic and to be expected.

When a thief SPECS for superior access to evasion, he is SACRAFICING something else. You’re talking about a blanket buff to classes that already have higher HP, with nothing lost in return.

Daecollo.9578:

I can’t argue with that, yes if you strip both classes naked, use none of their skills they get. Then yes they will take the same amount of damage.

However, I am sure they will do more then you know… nothing.

Exactly. Each class was designed with abilities that take their base HP pool into account. Claiming that higher base HP classes need more from regen is silly because the classes were already balanced with base HP in mind.

Daecollo.9578:

Manijin.3428:

milo.6942:

Daecollo.9578:

Regeneration is a boon, and all boons should fairly effect classes the same. Thief/Guardian/Elementalist take less damage then Necromancers/Warriors, so naturally regeneration should heal them for more to compensate.

you contradict yourself in the same paragraph

Actually, that’s not quite true. Fairness mean treating something not EQUALLY, but according to its needs. Necromancers and Warriors have fewer defensive tools beyond their base heals and a few attrition mechanics (Death Shroud and… I dunno endure pain?), so it’s actually more fair to imbalance regeneration favorably towards them.

I don’t always agree with Daecollo, but I think this is a good idea. Then again, I also think we should go back to the GW1 way of regen stacking intensity instead of duration >_>

I will bump this for you evil.

It is fair, Warriors/Necromancers may have a higher health pool. However I consider it more of a “disadvantage” then an advantage, because warriors and necromancers take a lot more damage then those classes.

Boons are meant to heal everyone equally, and I just do not see that. It isn’t fair that a boon helps class A more then class B.

Those classes take less damage naturally. So the classes that take more damage should heal for more, NO double benefit at all.

Those classes do not take less damage naturally. They might have Options to take less damage, but do not do so naturally.

If I rolled both a thief and warrior and brought them directly into the mists, took off all their armor, they’d both be hit for the exact same amount of damage from attacks. Thief, Guard and Ele have no “natural” damage reduction. That warrior clearly has nearly 8k more HP though.

Thief guard and Ele have better damage reduction/avoidance options because they need it, with their lower Health pools.

Lantz.7240:

The only thing they really say about P/D is its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

which isn’t true.

…Care to explain to me how it isn’t true? P/D only has consistent access to bleeds (which is how it “Only has bleeds”), and it’s super boring to play because without 5→1, wait for reveal, 5→1 style gameplay, your DPS will be extremely sub-par.

Shadow strike gaining torment is Ok, but it’s not a DPS powerhouse by any means – it still falls short of CnD→Sneak attack.

Lordrosicky.5813:

They said they were going to be tough on trolls within the game. Go back and look at the posts from august (release). They set a tough line which everyone knew and wanted.

Trolling and voicing your opinion (even with a poorly thought out joke) are 2 very, very separate issues.

I’m unaware exactly what Helseth said (so maybe I’m wrong here), but I can’t imagine any level of verbally bashing the patch while playing the game can be considered “trolling” in any way shape or form.

Daecollo.9578:

No… no it isn’t.

If the Guardian has 25k health and stacks a lot of vitality, he is still going to heal for 125 base + no healing power with my idea. The same healing as if he had 10k health.

If the Warrior has 35k health and stacks a lot of vitality, he is still going to heal for 215 base + no healing power with my idea. The same healing as if he had 18k health.

Again.

This idea is not based on max health.

This idea is based on the health the class starts with.

You’re asking for a double advantage.
Warrior Already has an advantage in their higher base health pool. You want to compound that advantage by having regen weighted on those base health pools.

It’s a bad argument. It’s also silly to say “But I have so much more base health, my regen NEEDS to be higher to be fair!”

Sajuuk.4973:

Yeah, I don’t think Necro’s have an instant blind other than throwing down WoD before hand for a constant blind for 5 sec. Even then it’s probably not guaranteed

I’ll give it to you from the perspective of a thief with Pistol OH (Black powder)
Guaranteed – Engi, Warrior, Necro – the cast time of their #2 skill pretty much guarantee’s they wont be able to clear the blind and successfully complete their interrupt before the field pulses again.
Almost guaranteed – Ranger, Guardian – experienced players will clear the blind with their #1 skill, then immediately hit their interrupt. Less experienced players will mess it up and blow their interrupt and eat the blind.
Does nothing – Thief, Mesmer, Ele. – Their #2 skills don’t rely on hitting.

As far as I’m aware, WoD works exactly like Blinding Powder. Morale of the story, if you cant lay down a pulsing blind field OR apply blind mid-stomp, it won’t do much for you.

Amaterasu.6280:

evilapprentice.6379:

Amaterasu.6280:

As a thief, I can say that the sword shadow return idea is a good idea. That, or give shadow return a CD so that you can’t spam sword 2 as a engage/disengage.

If you are not able to shadow return when you are CC’d then people would actually learn to dodge instead of relying so much on shadow return saving their kitten .

I play d/p so I really only get 2 dodges, no vigor, so timing is everything. I just feel a lot of s/d thieves spam dodge mindlessly and should be punished for it.

You either do not play a thief, or have a very subpar level of understanding of your own class.
Engaging/Disengaging at will is the entire point of Sword MH- it’s what the rest of the weaponset is built around. It is the only non-stealth option thieves get that allows them to survive.

Without it, Sword MH is positively and demonstrably worse than D/P in every single way. I’m not sure how you could not understand this if you’ve ever actually played a thief – that is not an insult, just an honest observation.

Playing D/P has absolutely nothing to do with how many dodges you get, or your access to vigor – it’s all about where you spend your points. As D/P, you’re probably heavily invested in SA, and with good reason. you could put 30 points in Acro and get better endurance regen and vigor access, but you chose not to. It’d be like my complaining that my S/D thief doesn’t heal in stealth or drop conditions or get init for going into stealth…S/D has nothing to do with it, I just didn’t put the points into SA.

I have 3500 games with a thief, so I’m not going to even defend your claim of my “sub-par” understanding of my class. I am trying to give unbiased thoughts here, as I DO know the class.

Engaging and disengaging is the whole point of the sword MH, I get it, but if you have played a thief yourself or against it, you would know that sword #2 is OP. This is not a myth, but the truth.

For example, if the shadow return on #2 was limited to say, 600r, the same range that the initial hit is, then it’d be more balanced. If there was a CD on shadow return, then it would be more balanced. You don’t think that it’s a problem that sword #2 serves as a ALWAYS accessible stunbreak (even after the “nerf”) at 1200r? You arguably don’t even need shadowstep because of the above.

And how exactly would sword MH be worse than d/p if there was a nerf to sword #2? You STILL have hard hitting AOE cleave + larcenous strike, which is a evade + boon strip in itself. The fact that you think that the weapon set is totally done with a nerf to shadow return via sword #2, proves my points exactly – it’s THAT good.

On top of being able to chain 8+ dodges via traits, almost perma vigor, signet of agility + withdraw (which is also a 1200r stunbreak) , you think that there is no problem with that?

Btw, no tourney d/p thieves run 30 in SA unless you play like Cruuk. It seems like you’re not very familiar with the current tpvp meta…

So you’ve played 3500 matches, but the words your saying still lead me to believe you don’t really understand basic meta.

If you’re capitalizing on swords AOE cleave, you’re in the Cleave radius of other classes – Thief isn’t built to tough that situation out – if your tanky enough to try to wade into an AoE Fest, your damage is crap, and if your damage is high enough to be considered a problem, you’ll be down 90% health and ticking 3-4 separate conditions in less than 5 seconds. You might score a few extra hits, but you’re not sitting in the middle of an AoE kittenfest and DPSing a ton of targets – you just don’t have the tools to do so, and thats fine, Thieves have different tools (like Inf strike/SR, as an example)

LS isn’t an evade, FS is – but I’m sure that was just a slip of the tongue anyone who’s played 3500 games with a thief might make.

“dodges via traits, almost perma vigor, signet of agility + withdraw (which is also a 1200r stunbreak) " – You can run withdraw (Which breaks snares/roots, not stuns, but again you knew that having played 3500 games on your thief. Also, don’t quote me on this one because I’m not sure of it, but I don’t think withdraw is 1200r.). In fact, your traits/utilities/heal setup is entirely independent of your weapon sets! Imagine that.

I understand you feel Sword #2 is broken – I’m probably not going to convince you otherwise. But saying that it’s a “Fact”, not a “Myth”, is silly, because its just your opinion (which, in case it wasn’t clear, I completely disagree with).

Illidan.6802:

I think the shadow return in #2 s/d thief is fine. Its mechanic is similar to shadow step/steal. It works even when disable. It is already a nerf when it is no more a stun break. however, I think the amount of evasion need to tone down. I suggest to place an internal c/d on Vigorous Trait (30 s maybe?) since it is almost use with low cd healing skill (Withdraw) in most evade spamming build. The current Thief’s ability to access vigor is huge through this trait.

What do you suggest as an alternative then? You can’t take a defensive measure from the squishiest class in the game (no access to protection/stability/aegis, poor access to regen, poor toughness scaling when compared to DPS lost) and not replace it with anything.

Amaterasu.6280:

As a thief, I can say that the sword shadow return idea is a good idea. That, or give shadow return a CD so that you can’t spam sword 2 as a engage/disengage.

If you are not able to shadow return when you are CC’d then people would actually learn to dodge instead of relying so much on shadow return saving their kitten .

I play d/p so I really only get 2 dodges, no vigor, so timing is everything. I just feel a lot of s/d thieves spam dodge mindlessly and should be punished for it.

You either do not play a thief, or have a very subpar level of understanding of your own class.
Engaging/Disengaging at will is the entire point of Sword MH- it’s what the rest of the weaponset is built around. It is the only non-stealth option thieves get that allows them to survive.

Without it, Sword MH is positively and demonstrably worse than D/P in every single way. I’m not sure how you could not understand this if you’ve ever actually played a thief – that is not an insult, just an honest observation.

Playing D/P has absolutely nothing to do with how many dodges you get, or your access to vigor – it’s all about where you spend your points. As D/P, you’re probably heavily invested in SA, and with good reason. you could put 30 points in Acro and get better endurance regen and vigor access, but you chose not to. It’d be like my complaining that my S/D thief doesn’t heal in stealth or drop conditions or get init for going into stealth…S/D has nothing to do with it, I just didn’t put the points into SA.

shimmerless.4560:

i must admit i find the lack of a PTS somewhat baffling even STO had one (two, actually) and players were sometimes invited to play test changes.

it’s probably because the game is running as an all-inclusive PvE/PvP package so the devs don’t want people “previewing” expensive PvE content on a test server ahead of time.

They could make the PTS just the Mists, so people can test PvP balance changes before they go live.

zhudac.8701:

Stop trying to disguise obvious, dumbkitten criticism through “has anything changed…?”. It’s a stale and frankly stupid as kitten format of addressing complaints. If you want to say the game sucks, at least stop trying to disguise it with half-hearted subtlety.

Please work on your reading comprehension skills. The post very clearly lays out my opinion, which I will repeat here in as few words as possible – “Game good, Balance not so good, Dev’s seem clueless. Has Dev team gotten any better? Do we have PTS like any other MMO with a PvP focus would have?”

Nova Stiker.8396:

evilapprentice.6379:

So, I’m revisiting the game after a month away, and a particularly embarrassing aggravated forum blowout.

Has anything changed? Any indication that Anet now understands the classes they’ve developed, and worked towards balancing them appropriately? Any acknowledgement that the meta is stale, with any plans to bring diversity to the game where most classes are locked into 1 effective spec and its minor variants?

Essentially I’m asking if the dev’s have yet to realize they have a game held back by shortsightedness and poor short term balancing decisions. The base of this game has always been solid, even since launch. Has Anet realized that with some effort and competent balancing that this game can be amazing yet?

The game went from the best meta to the worst.

Rangers so far gotten the first instance of play style diversity with the Longbow and that’s it.

The developers are trying, I can tell you that much.
The problem started is ArenaNet wanted to make conditions more viable. Granted, condition builds weren’t the best but builds worked with conditions rather than, be just conditions.
Now builds based entirely on conditions outshine power.
Which is leading the meta to, heavy conditions, heavy condition removal.

Welcome to the Guild Wars 2 PvP mess.

How is this game a year old?

How do we still not have a PTS? Other games (I can’t name them, lest the moderator gestapo come and shut this thread down, but suffice to say think of a tear between worlds) that don’t even focus on PvP had PTS’s for PvP changes, and they were instrumental in balance – without them, balance would not have been achieved. kitten , Charge for PTS access if you have to! Harcore PvP players will be glad for the chance to vet your PvP changes prior to live changes! In fact, PvP players need more of an opportunity to give ANet their money (since the game is FTP after all), and this might be the perfect solution.

For god’s sake Anet, find a way for PvP players to give you their money outside silly cosmetic changes, and then invest that money in whatever you need to develop more complete and well thought out PvP changes in a more timely manner. You have such a solid base, tarnished by nearly a year’s worth of mostly stupid and ill tested changes. Tighten up and go AAA, its what we all want.

kitten Jonathan Sharp cant remember what skills are on a GS warriors skill bar – I’ve never rolled a Warrior in my time playing this game and I could tell you exactly what every weapon skill a GS warrior has is! If that’s not indicative of a problem, I don’t know what is.

Probably, I just felt it prudent to check.

As much as I like to complain (As many of us do), Anet has a unique, fun to play game mired underneath all their poor balance decisions. It was probably a bit optimistic of me to think they might have addressed any of these poor decision in a mere month, but hope won out over cynicism.

So, I’m revisiting the game after a month away, and a particularly embarrassing aggravated forum blowout.

Has anything changed? Any indication that Anet now understands the classes they’ve developed, and worked towards balancing them appropriately? Any acknowledgement that the meta is stale, with any plans to bring diversity to the game where most classes are locked into 1 effective spec and its minor variants?

Essentially I’m asking if the dev’s have yet to realize they have a game held back by shortsightedness and poor short term balancing decisions. The base of this game has always been solid, even since launch. Has Anet realized that with some effort and competent balancing that this game can be amazing yet?

Ark, Just ignore Sorrow. A few minutes with his post history will show he has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

sorrow.2364:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Exactly. The thief doesn’t match my play style, and the closest thing it had has now been nerfed into the ground and completely destroyed. So why keep playing it?

And your FotM comment just makes you look ignorant.

Yeah, right.
The 300 range nerf is a “nerf to the ground”.

The FotM comment doesn’t make me look ignorant, it is just the logical conclusion.
You’re asking the thief to be stronger as you want to be. You’re not adapting to the profession as it is because you like it but you’re asking for buffs. That is the typical mindset of a FotM player. Sorry if it looks like it.

Sorrow, you’re right. Most MMO’s require the player to Adapt Patch after patch after patch after patch, changing specs, gears, runes, sigils and playstyle as the dev’s flail wildly, making seemingly random changes.

While I respect your right to have an opinion, it’s painful to interact with someone who is so consistently wrong.

Woaden.9425:

With a mix of zerk and valk, you can get around 16-17k hp, with around 40% base crit, and 65 or so base crit damage. With food and perception stacks you get that to around 60-70% crit chance and 75% crit damage, which still hits hard for sure (this is wvw obviously). In spvp, it’s best to go bunker IMO, and harass as you say, being a boon stripper/node holder, like the esteemed double S/D player, Jumper.

Last time I saw a Jumper vid (admittedly, weeks ago), he was running zerker/burst, not Soldiers/longevity. Something change recently?

sorrow.2364:

It has gone too far. I’m not going into a flame war with some people who can’t argue properly.

Keep thinking you had all nerfs and no buff. Keep complaining. At the end of the day, the fact remains as they are.

If you’re not capable to be effective with your thief, I don’t really care. Reroll another profession you think it is OP and leave thief to people who are enjoying it.

If you’re not happy with ANet’s job, just quit the game and stop crying.

I’ve clearly pointed out the flaws in your argument. I’ve been dismissive because you’re either extremely inexperienced with thief (and therefore your opinion has no basis), or a troll.

You aren’t capable of arguing because your points are weak or extraneous.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That does looks like fun.

But I personally don’t like not having at least 2k armor and not having Shadow’s Embrace. They’ve become a staple in my playstyle.

I’m coming from 10/30/0/30/0, so my armor and lack of SE have been ingrained in me for a bit. It’s overall alot less damage, which might be what kills the spec (since you’re clearly glassy), but I’m still eager to try.

Perhaps switch the Zerkers for a Soldiers and focus less on killing people and more on stripping boons hassling other players?

sorrow.2364:

I can agree that P/P isn’t a good set in PvP (but it is quite good in PvE), mainly because shortbow is always a better choice as ranged weapon and P/D lacks synergy, but the Vital Shot buff is still a good buff.
Stacking vulnerability as easy on boss is a good thing.

What does P/P have in PvE that it doesn’t have in PvP? It’s still a confused set with little utility. It’s markedly worse in PvP, but I can’t see what advantage it has over other weapons in PvE.
How useful is 3s of vulnerability, when other classes stack it for longer, easier?

Thieves have access to more conditions. Venoms have a whole set of conditions that can be applied on demand. You can cover your bleed stacks with Torment, Poison or Chill. Plus, there are several traits in the power traitline which grants situational conditions. Don’t forget also stolen things. Some of them give some extra conditions and CC. Condi thieves, now, are pretty much forced to build around steal too, so it is a factor to take into consideration. Not every condition spec needs to have access to every condition in this game.

Venoms. Your defense is Venoms. You do play this game…right?
I’m not building a spec around relying on RNG/Class I’m fighting to give me an ability that can cover my bleeds.
Every good condition spec needs access to multiple ways to deal damage, or else they’ll find their damaging conditions cleansed and be laughably ineffective…like thief is atm.

If you want your Shadow Trap not to trigger, just put it when you know it doesn’t trigger. It isn’t that hard and I can easily place them in safe spots to run away when needed. It is a very strong skill as a stunbreaker, mobility and escape.

So it’s this amazing new skill that’s like an SS you have to pre-cast in an out of the way location. Sounds pretty kittening useless to me. Like I said, sounds great for teleporting back to far point like a mesmer, but it’s kitten as a stunbreaker. It’s CD went up 15s because it’s now a stunbreaker, and adds fury/might. Drop stunbreaker, drop CD 10s, maybe it’s a good skill.

Merciful Ambush is the right trait to pick when you have only 10-15 points into trickery. It competes with nothing in that case.

Really? It’s better than Thrill of the crime for a burst spec? And better than uncatchable for a (admittedly ill-conceived) condition spec? How did you come to this, through thought of the pros and cons or by randomly stringing english words together until you formed a sentence?

Regarding PW, it is possible that people escape to some hit

Then it’s still kittening useless, isn’t it.

but with Sigil of Paralization, it is quite hard that some hits misses. 15% damage nerf is low. I can crit for 8k in sPvP in zerker gear, I don’t think it can have a damage buff without getting into the OP side.

Nice, I’ll dedicate a weapon sigil to helping a single ability get around it’s poor design. That sounds delightful. In addition, your anecdotal evidence is pointless – I can crit 8k in SPvP in zerker gear as well, against low toughness targets who don’t run stunbreakers, dodge, or move away when the stun wears off. I can do all sorts of silly high numbers against kittenty players, it doesn’t make the spec good.

Don’t forget, also, that SB had an implicit buff. Choking Gas + Cluster bomb still gives weakness, which is now really really strong. This alone makes me forget about the range nerf to cluster bomb.

Weakness for 4s out of 20, instead of constant weakness, which means no more endurance regen debuff. The “implicit” buff is minor compared to the nerf.

You do know how thief works in this game, right? Because you keep making extremely poor arguments.

Old skale venom had the potential to be powerful with new weakness – they made a conscious decision to keep it as a POS by changing weakness to torment – who thought 3 stacks of “Bleed+” on a 45 second CD even constituted an “idea”?

MIrra.3604:

Before, you just have to pay attention to blind and auto attack to remove it which seems fair as it reward players who have combat awareness. It forces an action; either waiting it out or auto attack to remove it. If you did neither of those, you may suffer a lenghty cooldown on one of your abiltiies.

Excuse me…what?

It “seemed fair” to be able to no longer be blind because you…swung at empty air? What did you miss thanks to the blind condition? Oxygen atoms? Blind is meant to be “your next attack that would have been a hit instead misses because you are blind”. You did not execute a successful attack on thin air, therefore you are still blind.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsY8YlYmKOHcS6E/5Eh3DyOWzqVgmdP4qVrKA-TwAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNIYRw+j5HA

Itching to try it later today. Not sure how it will compare to 10/30/0/30/0, but it certainly seems like fun.

Possible Trait swaps –
Hastened replenishment (instead of slight of hand) – Longer Steal CD, but absolutely insane Init regen. Between Steal, 15 base init, quick pockets, quick recovery, and hastened replenishment, you should be able to just spam skills relentlessly. The 20% steal CD reduction might be too valuable though, with bountiful theft, kleptomaniac, thrill of the crime, mug, and serpents touch all being tied to steal.
Power of inertia (instead of vigorous recovery) – Vigorous recovery + Bountiful is way more than perma vigor, so maybe drop Vigorous for Might on dodge.
Long Reach (instead of Thrill of the crime) – maybe 1500 range steal will be better than fury/might/swiftness?

sorrow.2364:

People here always find something to complain about.
Also, you guys tend to see the bad side of the situation.

- Steal. It’s huge. Don’t pretend it’s not. The most powerfull skills of thieves come from that ability. Also, when traited, it is a boon factory. Steal builds are extremely strong right now.
- Pistol Whip. The decreased time window between the stun and the flurry is noticeable. PW is now effective both in PvE and in PvP.
- Death Blossom. Why are you all forgeting about this skill? It stacks bleed faster than any other skill in this game and it do that while evading. This is a big buff, not a small one.
- Body Shot. It has its aftercast (which is the main problem with body shot) decreased. Now this skill can easily stack 20 vulnerability on a target. With some condition durations, it is an extremely useful damage boost.
- Shadow Trap. Amazing. Pretty hard to understimate its value.
- Merciful Ambush. Huge buff in both PvE and PvE. Thieves already were amazing ressers, now they are even better.

But yeah, they nerfed the range of Cluster Bomb from 1200 to 900 (hurting only the WvWvW turrets), let’s all cry about it. Who cares about buffs, thief only has nerfs. Q_Q

From a PvP standpoint –
Body shot is still useless because P/P is a joke and P/D is an underperforming condition spec. If P/P and P/D are fixed, perhaps this buff will prove substantial. As it stands, its pointless.
Steal – Yes, a buff. Steal is still on the weak side untraited, but can be potentially very strong while traited. I’d like to see steal buffed a tiny bit, and the traits nerfed a tiny bit, so the gap between traited and untraited steal is smaller.
Death Blossom – If thieves ever get varied access to conditions, this will be a great buff. As it stands, having access to a single damaging condition and poor access to “cover” conditions make a “condition thief” (IE a bleed thief) easy to counter in the current meta.
Shadow Trap – It’s like SS with less utility. It’s great as a “return to defendable point” teleport. It’s poor as a stunbreaker. If it’s triggered and you don’t need to break stun, or don’t want to disengage your target…well, it’s a waste. You’re paying an additional 15s CD for that stunbreaker. Drop Stunbreaker, leave other changes in, reduce CD to 35s and you have a fantastic skill.
Merciful ambush – Sounds strong, but competes with thrill of the crime, buffed Long reach, and Uncatchable. Testing required to see if it can bring enough utility to be better than those.
PW – Still carrying around a 15% damage nerf from when quickness was a problem. Maybe it’s better, haven’t tested – can people still walk out of the last few swings?

People’s problem with SHbow nerfs is that they feel undeserved. For a long, long time, SHbow has been considered the “perfect” thief weapon. It’s flexible, all the skills are worth using, and it didn’t feel OP. Then they just kept chipping away at it. 15% CB dmg nerf, Trick shot seeking nerf. Now a CB range nerf, and the Lotus Poison/Choking gas Nerf. They buffed weakness to the point where now Choking gas + lotus poison was too strong, and their change to lotus poison feels excessive. They SHOULD have cut weakness from lotus poison to 2s and given it a 5-6s per target CD, to encourage counterplay. Instead, its 4s every 20, which screams at the thief (and other players) Burst burst burst, run away.

Terrahero.9358:

All this also applies to WvW

Since the Downed State is such an integral part of the games combat system, the players last ditch effort to contribute to the fight. Why is it that the downed states of all the professions are so utterly unbalanced?

We have professions that are guarenteed to avoid the first stomp (Mesmer, Thief, Ele) on one hand.
And professions that can only interupt 1 person, if that person doesnt have stability, if that person isnt in stealth, if you arent blinded, and if you have a direct LoS to that person (Warrior, Engineer) on the otherhand. And varying levels of effectiveness in between.

And then we havent even touched on the damage difference and burst some professions are capable of pumping out, where as others seem to grab the nearest feather in an attempt to tickle a nearby foe.

I am all in favor of profession unique downed state abilities because its fun and all, but keep that stuff in PvE, where it doesnt really matter all that much. But where PvP action is going on, you cannot excuse such big performance disparities in what is a significant part of the games combat system.

Balance it, or standardize the downed state giving everyone the same abilities.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

You people never look at all the facts. You’re either ignorant of them, or choose to not acknowledge them at all because they make your argument fall apart.

You have 2 classes that are guaranteed to avoid the first stomp – Mes and Ele.
You have 1 class that is nigh guaranteed to avoid the first stomp – Thief (You can use any teleport-to-target skill to counter a thieves teleport away, and in addition, terrain/camera can occasionally make escaping a stomp impossible)
You have 2 classes with AoE interrupt – Guard and Ranger
You have 3 classes with ST interrupt – Warrior, Engi, Necro

The 3 classes with guaranteed (or nigh guaranteed) stomp avoidance have absolutely no way to save anyone but themselves.
The 5 classes that have stomp avoidance abilities that can be blocked/blinded/etc can be used to save themselves AND OTHERS. You can interrupt a stomp on yourself. Or on a teammate. Or you can interrupt a res on an enemy.

The others do not have that option. In a team based game this is a big deal. Stop crying about it.

Cassiel.9431:

have you read te patch notes?? here they are a few
Lotus Strike: Increased the poison duration from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
Destroy Shadow Trap: This ability now teleports the thief back to the trap location when it is destroyed. Added range skill facts. This skill now breaks stuns. Using this skill puts Shadow Trap on recharge.
Shadow Pursuit: This ability now grants fury and 10 stacks of might for 5 seconds along with stealth when used to teleport to the enemy who triggered Shadow Trap. This ability now breaks stuns. Using this skill puts Shadow Trap on recharge.
Body Shot: Reduced the aftercast by .4 seconds. Decreased the vulnerability duration to 3 seconds. Increased to 10 stacks for vulnerability.
Pistol Whip: Decreased the time between the stun and the sword flurry.
Scorpion Wire: Decreased the aftercast by .2 seconds. Reduced the cooldown to 20 seconds.
Signet of Malice: Increased the base heal by 33% of the passive ability.
Steal: Reduced the recharge to 35 seconds.
The Ripper: Increased the bleed duration from 5 seconds to 7 seconds.
Deadly Strike:. Increased the damage from 1 to 1.2.
Skale Venom: Replaced weakness with torment.
Dancing Dagger: Reduced the initiative cost to 3.

Pain Response: Reduced the cooldown from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
Hard to Catch: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.

Corrosive Traps: This trait now grants 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds (up from 5 seconds).
Sundering Strikes: Vulnerability caused by this trait has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
Panic Strike: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.

Last Refuge: Reduced the cooldown of this trait from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.

so first read the patch note, try to understand them and them talk

Man, this was a really quick way to point out that you have absolutely no clue how thief works.
From the top
Lotus Strike – Minor buff in an attempt to mitigate how awful lotus poison is for Dagger MH thieves now (it doesnt).
Shadow Trap changes – Good on paper. Teleport on destroy is nice. The inclusion of stunbreaker was a bad decision – who want’s a stunbreaker that can be put on CD by a person running over it? Believe it or not, I’m not going to want/need my stunbreaker every time someone runs over the trap. It’s basically another thief “get out of death free card” (when it works, which isn’t always), and nothing more. People hate those, why are there more of those now?
Body shot – If you consider this anything other than a waste of time, you’ve never played thief.
Pistol whip – Inconsequential. Almost Nobody runs PW in PvP cause its bad, and this has almost no effect on PvE.
Scorpion wire – All the CD reductions in the world won’t stop pebbles from randomly kittening the entire skill over.
SoM – Niche heal is still Niche.
Steal: Genuinely good, though of course they changed the way Trickery worked as a CD reducer – it now “Speeds up recharge” rather than “Reduces CD” which is inferior, confusing, and an undocumented change in how the traitline worked prior to the patch.
UW Skills – who cares
Skale venom – This was a nerf, and a huge one. Weakness is finally a good condition, and instead we were given torment – kittening fantastic, once every 36-45 seconds I can hit 1 target with 3 stacks of torment. God-kitten kittening amazing Anet, How will people beat thieves now? Morons.
Dancing Dagger – The skill is halfway to being worth it since the damage nerf – make it instant cast and we have a reason to use it.
Pain Response, Hard to Catch, Corrosive Traps, Sundering strikes – These are still worthless, even buffed, so Anet essentially wasted their time thinking out and making these changes.
Last Refuge – Another nerf. The trait now kittens over thieves 33% more often.
Panic strike – a Legitimate buff.

So next time, Please have even the basest understanding of the class you’re talking about before trying to “correct” someone. As hilarious as this was to read and pick apart, you still look rather foolish.

“Condition thief”. That’s cute.
Call it what it is – Bleed thief. It’s the only damaging condition thieves can apply with any regularity.
You can add all the tricks in the world, it doesn’t matter – when your spec has 1, UND ONLY VONE! condition to do damage with, it’s nigh worthless in the current meta.

In addition to that, our only consistent access to “cover” conditions (you know, crappy conditions we don’t really care about because they’re literally just there to eat cleanses instead of bleed) is limited to venoms… which are currently ridiculously kittenty, unless you dedicate at minimum 50 trait points AND all your utilities AND generally your Elite just to using venoms. Then they become kind of Ok…at the cost of a completely dicated setup (which surprise surprise, doesn’t mesh well with condition specs).

Adding burn to a specific weapon ability won’t do a kitten thing. The initiative system practically guarantee’s that the duration will be laughably short (or else it would be overpowered), so how do we fix this situation?

IMO, traits. Give us traits that expand our access to damaging conditions. Something along the lines of
“whenever you apply bleeding to a target, they also suffer confusion for X seconds, 5s internal CD”
“Venoms also apply burning for Xs on application” (lets roll that one into the might on venom trait, so as to make it suck less)
Change Lotus poison (since Anet kittened it up, like they do most things) to add torment whenever a target is poisoned instead, with no ludicrous internal CD.

Make venoms less god-kittening-awful in general. Give trickery more condition damage traits (Since its our kittening condition damage traitline, you mooks)

Here’s another brilliant one – Normalize Utility Venom applications. Make every single venom have the same number of applications – adjustdurations and Leeching venom as needed, but cut this kitten out where spider venom applies 5 times, and devourerers applies twice. Make all venoms apply 5 times. Duh.

Softspoken.2410:

I’d call it confusing, but honestly it’s been like this for all of those traitlines for a very long time. The tooltips just weren’t always accurate.

I’m not talking about the number on the tooltip. I’m talking the Cooldown number that appeared after I used Steal – it was 32s.

It’d be nicer if you didn’t have to go 30 points in to get a decent reduction. It’d also be nicer if they didn’t change the way the math was applied so we get less CD reduction out of putting points into trickery than we used to.

I guess those are small nitpicks since now our class mechanic is…oh wait, it still has the highest CD in the game as far as class mechanics go. Oh well.

Inb4: Guardians get 3 skills with passive effects as well as active. Engi’s and Mesmers get 4 class skills.

Nikkle.4013:

Grimwolf.7163:

That is a spectacularly misleading way to handle that. Considering that all other recharge reduction traits and, as of now at least, every tooltip uses a completely different formula.
And even knowing the formula, it’s still convoluted and difficult to perceive.

No, ele arcane works exactly the same and has since release. Recharge rate vs recharge faster. Rate is (time/(1+rate)), faster (time*(1-rate)). Seems straight forward to me.

A) No it isn’t. It isn’t straight forward at all. It’s quite the opposite.
B) It’s additionally confusing because up until this patch, it was a cooldown reduction. The more I think about it, the more positive I am when I ran 30 trickery my Steal CD was 32s.

It was a change to the way the math was done, with no notice.

I’d also like to point at that this was all a really complicated way to attempt to convince us that a 1s daze on a Grandmaster trait was “worth it”. Hint, it’s not. Trickery is further plagued by the fact that thieves don’t go conditions (PvP standpoint) because it’s really really easy to mitigate 1 kittening damaging condition. The Skale venom change was a “kitten you”, not a buff.

It’s worked the same way since launch. Now they’re claiming that it’s been a problem since Launch, and they’re only now deciding to “fix it”.

This is called backpedaling. it worked a particular way, now they want it to work another way, but instead of just saying that, it’s called an unresolved issue since launch.

Reaaaaal believable. Jeez, you guys can’t even bullkitten competently.

Why wouldn’t it work?
With a range of 10,000, it should be able to connect any 2 points in an SPvP map with a walking path (assuming you’re not trying to go through a closed gate or something).

Oh wait…Anet programmed it.

Cotillion.7625:

I don’t read these forums very often, can someone tell me what Unicorn means?

A condi spec that spams DB via high init regen and dodges around alot via High energy regen.