Guild Wars 2

BobbyT.7192:

Yeah i am getting 132 with 0 healing power, and 170ish with ~500.

I was seeing 100 with 0 healing power, and 145 with 744 healing power (shaman ammy/jewel with 10 in SA)

Gab Superstar.4059:

Or did the devs think of something I am missing here?

Previous experience shows the dev don’t think. This is almost certainly something that didn’t even occur to them.

Ah, silly me. I forgot we were dealing with ANet, not competent developers.
Thanks for the info.

Signet of Malice: Increased the base heal by 33% of the passive ability.

What does this mean? because as far as I can tell (and granted, it’s been a bit since i ran SoM), it appears to mean Nothing. SoM is still 100 HpH (healing per hit) with 0 healing power, and appears to scale the same way it did pre-patch.

This isn’t referring to the activated heal, is it?

They buffed weakness.
Then they said “Ruh Roh Raggy, Choking Gas Might be too strong!”
So Dagger mainhand paid the price.
kittening morons.
Also yeah, kittening over an already kittenty venom was also a brilliant choice.

I’ll be adapting by playing a different, undoubtedly better game.

Not immediately, no. I’ll probably try the DB spam/Evade build for a few days, until pressing 1 button in between dodges gets boring. Then I’ll do what ANet is clearly telling thieves to do, and go D/P, because it’s head and shoulders better than any of our other weaponsets post patch. Then I’ll get bored being pigeonholed into a single playstyle, say to myself “kitten these morons”, and go play something run by competent developers.

JonPeters.5630:

Recharge rate means the speed at which it recharges, so it recharges 30% faster not 30% shorter recharge. Think of it this way.

New recharge time = (old time / 1.3) not (old time* 0.7)

So, they’ve been malfunctioning since Day 1, is what you’re saying? I pretty distinctly recall my Steal being listed as a 32s CD when I was 30 trickery a few months ago (45s – 13.5s, rounded up)

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

evilapprentice.6379:

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

evilapprentice.6379:

AikijinX.6258:

17.5 Steal recharge? Is this a dream? 4-5 death blossoms. Lol. 10,000 range on destroy trap. on top of a shadow step utility. I will be way to slippery.

17.5 second steal recharge in a build that can spare 30 points in trickery (IE, Unicorn DB builds, maybe). The ability to spam DB is also only relevant for Unicorn builds. IF you’re running Shadow trap and SS, you’re running 1 non stun break utility (probably trops? it’s been a long time since i tried condi’s on my thief).

It shows 17,5 but if you use it it’s 21

How does that work? Something Broken or are they applying the math in some way I don’t quite follow?

Trickery increases your steal recharge rate, not decreases cooldown. So if you somehow had 100 points in trickery your steal cooldown would be only halved. 30 points give you 23% cooldown reduction,

Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not how it’s worked since launch, is it? I’ve never run with many points in trickery for too long, but for a short time I was running 30 trickery, and I recall a 32s listed CD on Steal (45s – 13.5s)

Yeah, What you said. 21s doesn’t make sense any way you apply the math.

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

evilapprentice.6379:

AikijinX.6258:

17.5 Steal recharge? Is this a dream? 4-5 death blossoms. Lol. 10,000 range on destroy trap. on top of a shadow step utility. I will be way to slippery.

17.5 second steal recharge in a build that can spare 30 points in trickery (IE, Unicorn DB builds, maybe). The ability to spam DB is also only relevant for Unicorn builds. IF you’re running Shadow trap and SS, you’re running 1 non stun break utility (probably trops? it’s been a long time since i tried condi’s on my thief).

It shows 17,5 but if you use it it’s 21

How does that work? Something Broken or are they applying the math in some way I don’t quite follow?

AikijinX.6258:

17.5 Steal recharge? Is this a dream? 4-5 death blossoms. Lol. 10,000 range on destroy trap. on top of a shadow step utility. I will be way to slippery.

17.5 second steal recharge in a build that can spare 30 points in trickery (IE, Unicorn DB builds, maybe). The ability to spam DB is also only relevant for Unicorn builds. IF you’re running Shadow trap and SS, you’re running 1 non stun break utility (probably trops? it’s been a long time since i tried condi’s on my thief).

I like how Anet wants thieves to be more mobile and less bursty… then slightly nerfs our mobility and boosts out burst.

Such a professional company.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVkzzzz9Monwbmonwbma9MxxcMabckb8khf70z7kiO70z7070z7kGW70V7ow38of3

A good starting point for DB Unicorn spam builds. At least it’s better than just going back to D/P Burst again.

EDIT: Assassin’s Reward Should be Quick Pockets.

Bye Bye fun S/D spec. Hello boring D/D unicorn/dodge specs.

Let’s all just do what Anet clearly wants us to do and run D/P burst, as that’s all this class is apparently meant to ever do.

Daendur.2357:

even if it’s true, sd will still be good.

Assuming patch notes are true, and from a PvP standpoint

In what way? Dropping stun break on SR basically destroys the dodgy thief playstyle. IS/SR is the only reason Sword mainhand works. If you can’t reliably engage and disengage at any time, you’re basically a sitting duck. The only reason an in your face/no stealth build works for a thief (no defensive boons, kittenty regen access, lowest base HP pool) is because SR lets you disengage at any time. Without it, you might as well be a warrior -8k health.

In addition, crippling strike losing weakness is just mind boggling. 1.5 seconds to get to the AA chain finisher and an obvious animation for 2s of weakness was too strong?

No comment on the LS change, tbh – I’m not sure if its undeserved or fair, but it doesn’t matter – the SR change would kill S/D entirely, and the CS change would just be kicking us while we’re down.

If these patch notes are true, they could have simply just said “Thieves can now only equip daggers MH, pistols OH, and SHbows. Shbow now only has 1 attack, infilttors arrow”. It would have been way easier and faster than Obliterating Sword MH’s playstyle entirely, and screwing with our 1 perfectly balanced and designed weaponchoice.

Although I suppose it wouldn’t save them any additional time in their continued ignorance of P/P’s complete uselessness, and how underpowered P/D is. Just a note, this is all from a PvP perspective.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Torment, much like Confusion, also reward good decision making.

@evilapprentice, the devs have already confirmed that ranger’s pet damage would get nerfed, and that the next patch would feature massive balancing changes. In fact, the later information is all over there: it’s stated on their blog page, on their release page, on their facebook page, etc.

Bleah. I been gone a while, I guess.

Still, too many of these changes seem uncharacteristic of ANet.

Some are very severe (something they don’t usually do), some are completely counter to what they’ve been working toward the last 8 months (example: Thief burst buffs and mobility nerfs, directly opposite to their stated intention in the last 2 patches), and still other’s seem completely out of left field.

If these really are the patch notes, they have no idea what they’re doing. Or maybe I’m too out of touch, who knows.

Fake. For alot of reasons IMO.

Why would they nerf ranger pets so severely across the board the very next patch after buffing them? This isn’t like “Shattered Might”, where the ability was transparently OP on a very strong class… they wouldn’t nerf damage without giving the changes at least a few months to settle.

Thief changes invalidate sword completely. They might as well come out and say “We’ve removed every possible thief spec other than D/P stealth burst”, because that’s exactly what they’ve done (according to these notes). In addition, there’s a bunch of burst buffs and mobility nerf’s after ANet specifically said they want less thief burst and more thief mobility. Some changes are clearly OP (both Crit Strikes changes, The panic strike change), and some make absolutely no sense (the Lotus Poison change, Hard to catch CD reduction while the trait is still entirely useless)

I think the strongest indicator however is the volume of changes. When’s the last time PvP got this big an update? You think they’re starting now? This reads like a combined class wishlist (wishing for nerfs, mostly, but still).

silentnight warrior.2714:

A stealth player can heal other players, can avoid stomps to him and other players with stealth, can prepare some ambush when someone goes cap a point and thinks there is no one at the point, can burst the enemy quickly and then cap the point (can cap or prevent the cap) and can pick up the target he wants.
And even if he runs away from a fight he is not given the 5 points to the enemy for the kill. And if he comes back back later with full hp he still can get the 5 points from kiling the enemy he left at 20% hp and cap the point.

How is a stealthed thief healing other players (outside of SR, which if you used for the heal, you’re doing it wrong).

Every class has stomp avoidance mechanics – stealth isn’t special in this case. You might as well complain that people can knock you back while you’re trying to stomp.

That “Ambush” window is at max 4 seconds, unless SR is used – not a great use of SR (though loads better than “healing someone”). You’re still not “doing anything” for your team while you’re stealthed (you’re actively losing the cap if the enemy players makes it to the circle, in fact).

All you’re doing is listing stealth’s uses and trying to tell me they counter my point. You’re still not, in any way, contributing to the point scoring mechanics of the conquest game mode while stealthed.

If a thief ran away from the fight, it’s at worst a draw – he didn’t get 5 points for stomping you either. In most cases however, its a clear loss – if you were smart enough to fight on point, he contributed nothing (since he isn’t decapping due to the lack of KB, stealth, and so on) – you held the point, you won.

Raven.9603:

i really dont have a problem with perma stealth. the only problem with stealth in GW2 is that they ignored one thing every other game got right:

limited in-combat vanishes.

with cloak n dagger or bp+hs, thieves can stealth as often as we want. so we do. stealth, backstab. stealth, backstab. now youre low, maybe get lazy and heartseeker.

from the interviews on SOTG, Anet comes off as claiming that this makes the class a conundrum that is hard to balance (we cant make them tough because of infinite vanishes, but we cant take away their vanishes because theyre not tough).

in reality, if they only had 1 or 2 in combat vanishes, they could be balanced around being exposed more often. maybe higher base HP, better avoidance mechanics, something.

limiting the amount of re-stealths limits the amount of hugely powerful openers, which makes gameplay more involving for the thief (do i use my vanish for a second huge backstab or do i save it to escape), plus combat will last longer in general. it also limits escape potential, which makes it more rewarding to engage thieves.

the current state of not being able to kill any thief who doesnt want to be killed, not even remotely acceptable.

What you and others fail to realize, time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time again (despite having it pointed out to you, repeatedly) is that in the current format, stomping a player <> winning.

A stealth thief is in no way contributing to their team – they aren’t capturing a point, they aren’t healing other players, they aren’t preventing a decap. Stealth effectively removes a thief from the game’s scoring mechanisms entirely until they are no longer stealthed.

In addition, as others have pointed out – unlike every other MMO I’ve ever PvP’d in, this game does not require you to have a target to use an ability. Stealth is powerful in other games because a stealth target is basically invulnerable – you don’t have a target to use any skills on, so you’re limited to ground target AoE’s (if you even have any). In GW2, you can use all of your attacks (with I believe a few notable exceptions) without a target. It’s pretty easy to guess where a thief might be going based on their weaponset when they stealth – they’re either trying to get behind you, or running away. In the case of the latter, you win – the thief didn’t capture your point, in fact, he wasted his time and probably some CD’s (unless you were fighting off point, in which case silly you.) In the case of the former, you get used to the timing rather quickly when you play the game rather than QQing pointlessly on the boards.

Edit: What was the point of OP’s article? It’s entirely focused on PvE stealth problems (and is in fact calling Stealth UP, less fun, and less group friendly). The only mention of PvP doesn’t apply to this game – GW2 thieves can’t “Pick their battles” because they don’t get toggle stealth like other games stealth classes do.

sorrow.2364:

evilapprentice.6379:

Real quick!
Since you’re obviously intimately experienced with thief mechanics!
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides KB/KD/Blowout
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides daze over .5s
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides fear
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides Daze over .5
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides immobilize over 1s.

That list looking a little light? I wonder why?.

Because having easy to access CC on initiative would be incredibly broken, I just imagine all thieves running CC spamming with high initiative regen builds… Then I immagine people complaining about that and Thieves answering “Just dodge it” (realistic, don’t you say?).

Obviously that doesn’t mean that you have no access to CC at all.

- When you steal from Guardian, you get 4s of Daze. No other profession in this game have such an high daze duration.
- When you steal from Necro you have up to 3s fear.
- You have Tactical Strike from Sword that Daze for 1.5s, which isn’t that bad considering that it can be potentially used every kitten .
- You have 4s of immobilization from Devourer Venom.
- You have 1.5s of stun from Basilisk Venom

Not to say how crucial can be a CC in the right time considering how much damage a Thief is capable to do in a couple of seconds.

Anyway, I don’t know why you posted that list as an answer to what Atherakhia said.
Initiative system encourage mindless spamming and unskilled play as it is now.
Giving too much utility on a single skill and on low initiative cost of course will encourage everyone to use that skill over and over and to use the whole initiative pool on that skill. FS has everything in it. Boon stealing, evade and damage. Why everyone would bother to use any other skill in the bar if everything is on FS?
This is the design flaws people are talking about.

I also don’t understand people saying that Thieves are easy to control through CC, specially S/D thieves. They have a stunbreaker on initiative, plus they have the most reliable set of stunbreakers in the game (somebody said Shadowstep with 2 stunbreaks in 50s?). I think Thief is the profession which suffer from stuns the least.

Hmm, I wonder why you chose to quote only my first post , but not the second one? Is it because I said the exact same thing you said, but actually using my full, clear opinion wouldn’t allow you to pretend like you had a point with that first paragraph? I bet it is, because not having a real point and making one up out of thin air seems to be your style, as far as I can tell.

I’m done with you – I’ve only been interacting with you on the board for 2-3 days an this is at least the 5th time you’ve done/said something disingenuous or dishonest because you don’t have anything real or serious to contribute. Go back in your cave, troll.

Haru Kane.4623:

How do people feel about Steal, for thieves, having an instant activation time? I feel that if they added even the slightest activation time to steal it would fix a lot of the gripe and complaints about thieves. The idea behind adding a cast time would spread out the speed at which a thief can burst someone, so not the damage, but the speed. This would give people at least a few seconds to block or counter the thief’s dps. Ex: any good backstab thief knows the combo for their particular weapon set. If they run d/p they use 5->2->steal->1, if you add a cast time to the steal it would make it so the thief’s heartseeker skill would have to finish completely and then they could use steal. Or if they play d/d the usually do 5->Steal->1, the same thing goes for this weapon set, the steal would interrupt the number 5 skill (cloak and dagger) so that they can’t do the damage from C&D + Steal dmg + BS completely in stealth. Those are just my thoughts take it or leave it

Nobody has complained about Pre-cast steal → CnD → backstab for months, becuase it hasn’t been a problem in that long. Outside of that specific combo, there’s no need to change steal. Seeing as that combo is defunct, there’s no need to change steal.

Bump. For hopefully obvious reasons.

Travlane.5948:

evilapprentice.6379:

Atherakhia.4086:

evilapprentice.6379:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Larcenous strike should put a debuff on the target so they can’t gain new boons for 4 seconds. Then we wouldn’t need to spam it so often.

But you are right about one thing… the only legitimate complaint about thieves is how initiative regen is not balanced.

No.

Calculate the numbers for how much initiative we gain per second, and how much that benefits us, then compare with what other classes gain per second on their skills. Then tell me that it “isn’t balanced”.

The amount of time a thief can be stealthed and access to stealth isn’t balanced. Doesn’t mean the class has the tools to survive if it’s changed, because it doesn’t. But stealth in this game has got to be the dumbest implementation of it I’ve ever seen.

Just stop. Your post was about initiative regeneration, not stealth, and that’s what I replied to. Furthermore, stealth is almost detrimental to teams in PvP, and is easily countered in both WvW and PvP by practically just swinging your sword around and spamming AoE while running in random directions. It works.

The problem with stealth is the initiative regen you [censored].

So…you’re kittening about patience? The SA trait no thief takes because it’s kittening awful, pointless, and clearly inferior to any player who’s ever spent an hour on a thief in PvP?

I mean…that’s the only thing you could possibly be kittening about, because otherwise you’re kittening about the initiative system in general, which is an old, tired, debunked argument to begin with.

Debunked? Since when… it’s plain as day that the initiative system isn’t designed well and the fact that there are a dozen different skills and traits to regen initiative is the main issue behind the whole class. The simple fact is there probably shouldn’t be any.

Real quick!
Since you’re obviously intimately experienced with thief mechanics!
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides KB/KD/Blowout
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides daze over .5s
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides fear
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides Daze over .5
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides immobilize over 1s.

That list looking a little light? I wonder why?.

we only have 1 daze skill thats over .5 (tac strike) we can sometimes steal a fear…..we dont have any CLASS skills that immob that long…maybe surprise shot is 1 sec or maybe sligbhtly more…. we have dont have any blow outs or etc…closest we have really is a KD trap which is obviously garbage :P

One of those lines was supposed to be about stun, not daze (the dangers of posting drunk here folks).
But yes, my overall point was this –
Everyone likes to cry about how initiative works, but most non-thieves don’t ever take into account its limitations. Spammable skills don’t get good effects – Thieves don’t have a single weaponskill that has KD/KB/Blowout, our weaponskills don’t grant boons, Our weaponskill access to Immob/stun/Daze is limited and extremely short duration.

I’m not complaining about those things (I consider them fair since you know, the skill is spammable), but you can’t cry about the initiative system without taking those factors into consideration (which obviously most thief haters don’t)

Since other posters seem unfamiliar with how intiative works in general, let me also offer the standard point (you know, the one anyone who’s played the game for a week understands).

When non-thief class X takes 2 separate weaponsets, each weapon has distinct, individual cool downs. For a thief, it does not matter what your other weaponset is – Initiative is shared. If I take X/X – SB, and I blow all my Init on X/X, switching to SB gains me nothing. I still have no init for which to access SB skills.

Atherakhia.4086:

evilapprentice.6379:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Larcenous strike should put a debuff on the target so they can’t gain new boons for 4 seconds. Then we wouldn’t need to spam it so often.

But you are right about one thing… the only legitimate complaint about thieves is how initiative regen is not balanced.

No.

Calculate the numbers for how much initiative we gain per second, and how much that benefits us, then compare with what other classes gain per second on their skills. Then tell me that it “isn’t balanced”.

The amount of time a thief can be stealthed and access to stealth isn’t balanced. Doesn’t mean the class has the tools to survive if it’s changed, because it doesn’t. But stealth in this game has got to be the dumbest implementation of it I’ve ever seen.

Just stop. Your post was about initiative regeneration, not stealth, and that’s what I replied to. Furthermore, stealth is almost detrimental to teams in PvP, and is easily countered in both WvW and PvP by practically just swinging your sword around and spamming AoE while running in random directions. It works.

The problem with stealth is the initiative regen you [censored].

So…you’re kittening about patience? The SA trait no thief takes because it’s kittening awful, pointless, and clearly inferior to any player who’s ever spent an hour on a thief in PvP?

I mean…that’s the only thing you could possibly be kittening about, because otherwise you’re kittening about the initiative system in general, which is an old, tired, debunked argument to begin with.

Debunked? Since when… it’s plain as day that the initiative system isn’t designed well and the fact that there are a dozen different skills and traits to regen initiative is the main issue behind the whole class. The simple fact is there probably shouldn’t be any.

Real quick!
Since you’re obviously intimately experienced with thief mechanics!
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides KB/KD/Blowout
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides daze over .5s
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides fear
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides Daze over .5
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides immobilize over 1s.

That list looking a little light? I wonder why?.

So, officially applying I suppse.

Arg, you turned me onto this thread via my own request in the SPvP forums.

I currently run 10/30/0/30/0 Double S/D, focused on Init regen, endurance regen, and Crit. r40 (not saying that makes me a great player, but I do have an above average grip on the mechanics IMO). If you guys need an alternate, hit me up in game.

We can see how it works out, if I fit in, etc. If not, no hard feelings. If so, fun times ahead.

Arganthium.5638:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Team-Akatsuki-looking-for-experienced-Thieves/first#post2137805

If you want to, apply here.

Also, we want to build a decently sized team up, so that we can swap out players when necessary, so it’s ok if you can’t play 24/7.

Thanks for the heads up Arg. I’ll check it out. I’ll be honest tho – not sure what chances an all thief team has in TPvP. I’m willing to try tho.

Short and sweet. I’d judge myself about a 7.5 – better than average, but still room to learn.

What I run – Double S/D Jumper style with some minor adjustments.

What I’m looking for – I’ll be up front. I’m an adult. For me, that means a family, a job, and responsibilities. I want to run TPvP with a team, but since I cant absolutely keep to a schedule, I’ve avoided it in the past since I dont want to be the factor that holds our team back.

I wont lie – RL comes before this game for me. I can do on average 1-2 scheduled nights of practice, 1-2 nights of tourney play a week. I’m perfectly happy being an alternate,, if that’s what the team needs. I have no interest in being the member who holds the team back due to his reduced play schedule.

So, if any team needs a solid S/D thief, willing to learn and practice, as a semi-regular player who has no problems being a backup/alternate, hit me up.

I’m EST, and am almost always available by 6pm.

I Have (or can obtain) any VoIP means of coordination, along with a headest and mic. Hit em up In Game if you’re interested.

My IGN is goreshayd.

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Larcenous strike should put a debuff on the target so they can’t gain new boons for 4 seconds. Then we wouldn’t need to spam it so often.

But you are right about one thing… the only legitimate complaint about thieves is how initiative regen is not balanced.

No.

Calculate the numbers for how much initiative we gain per second, and how much that benefits us, then compare with what other classes gain per second on their skills. Then tell me that it “isn’t balanced”.

The amount of time a thief can be stealthed and access to stealth isn’t balanced. Doesn’t mean the class has the tools to survive if it’s changed, because it doesn’t. But stealth in this game has got to be the dumbest implementation of it I’ve ever seen.

Just stop. Your post was about initiative regeneration, not stealth, and that’s what I replied to. Furthermore, stealth is almost detrimental to teams in PvP, and is easily countered in both WvW and PvP by practically just swinging your sword around and spamming AoE while running in random directions. It works.

The problem with stealth is the initiative regen you [censored].

So…you’re kittening about patience? The SA trait no thief takes because it’s kittening awful, pointless, and clearly inferior to any player who’s ever spent an hour on a thief in PvP?

I mean…that’s the only thing you could possibly be kittening about, because otherwise you’re kittening about the initiative system in general, which is an old, tired, debunked argument to begin with.

I totally agree.
I mean, thieves are so obviously broken, right?
That’s why when I’m forming a TPvP team, the very first thing I do is secure a thief. Sometimes two or three! Cant win a tourney match without a thief, like they say. And since they’re so obviously OP, the rewards just get higher and higher the more you take!

Even if the trait was “Randomly recharge 1 equipped utility” it would still be too random to be counted on IMO.

Trying to make the trait actually useful is hard too. Adding “10% additional damage when wielding a bundle” was an awful, awful decision by Anet, since it adds absolutely no incentive to take the trait.
Restoring initiative isn’t a good option for the trait either, since thief has enough of that in other traitlines. I’d almost like to see it recharge our heal, but something tells me that would be too powerful with HiS.

Travlane.5948:

and if u avoid 2 LS you reduce the dmg by 40% too. :P i dont get ur point

Aimed at Sorrow. If you like walls of text, scroll up for context (its a bit convoluted to re-hash here)

Travlane.5948:

Evilek.5690:

FS+LS have same damage as autoattack chain.

6 sec combat vs heavy golem with 2347 power 62% crit dmg all attacks were critically

auto attack chain:

1890 Slice
1855 Slash
2643 Cripling Strike
1891 Slice
1858 Slash
3171 Critpling Strike
2278 Slice

Total: 15586 DMG

FS+LS
1657 Flaking Strike
3188 Larcenous Strike
1663 Flaking Strike
3192 Larcenous Strike
1774 Flaking Strike
3608 Larcenous Strike
1787 Flaking Strike

Total: 16869 DMG

you forgot to summarize. so allow me. so what this tells us…GRANTED is authentic data…….is that the auto attack and FS/LS combo are roughly the same dmg per time/attack. this means there is on fundamental difference: initiative. auto attack is free. so what did you just get for spending 4 initiative? a 1/2 sec evade on a 1 sec animation and steal 2 boons if they even have any. so again. 4 init = steal 2 boons (maybe) and 1/2 sec evade on a 1 sec animation. seems fair to me.

That’s a fantastic way to put it – Thanks Trav.

Evilek.5690:

FS+LS have same damage as autoattack chain.

6 sec combat vs heavy golem with 2347 power 62% crit dmg all attacks were critically

auto attack chain:

1890 Slice
1855 Slash
2643 Cripling Strike
1891 Slice
1858 Slash
3171 Critpling Strike
2278 Slice

Total: 15586 DMG

FS+LS
1657 Flaking Strike
3188 Larcenous Strike
1663 Flaking Strike
3192 Larcenous Strike
1774 Flaking Strike
3608 Larcenous Strike
1787 Flaking Strike

Total: 16869 DMG

Wow Sorrow, look at that, if you avoid the 2 crippling strikes you reduce the damage dealt by 38%.

@Sorrow
Sigh. I’m starting to think that you’ll just never get it.

You had access to GW2skills the same way I did. You obviously have no problem spending 5-10 minutes writing out your opinions, you can spare 3 minutes to provide the correct numbers. You’ve had ample opportunity to correct yourself (I’ve called you out on it multiple times, And in one post you went so far as to defend your numbers), but waited until I posted the math to say “20% off isn’t that much (Um, it is. Are you sure you play this game?), why are you making such a big deal about it”. The thief forums are plagued by exaggerations and outright lies that feed confirmation bias, so you should be more careful to only use facts, or else you’re going to get called out on it. You were perfectly content to ignore the fact that you were exaggerating, meaning you’re either lazy, malicious, or both.

Over-simplifying my argument weakens it. “Just dodge it” is usually a really poor argument because you have to watch out for all the other abilities and utilities the player can throw at you. “Just dodge it” works here because I’m specifically pointing out there are no other weaponskills/utilities worth dodging – LS and CS are the ONLY ONES. When you cut that point as extraneous, of course my argument looks weak, but you know this, because I’ve already said it to you at least once.

As others have pointed out, dodging the last hit of an autoattack (Yes, an autoattack) is not automatically a bad idea, and you’re being rather narrowminded for just assuming it is – in this specific instance, where CS and LS make up the vast majority of S/D’s damage, combined with the fact that there is absolutely no incentive to dodge any of the weaponsets other swings, AND the fact that the thief will not be running any other utilities that need to be dodged, it makes complete sense to dodge the last swing of the AA chain. Did you even play S/D pre-patch? Crippling strike and CnD were the only skills anyone ever dodged, because CS was the only DPS, and CnD was the only utility.

The ability to reasonably counter or avoid an ability IS part of a balance discussion. Seeing how easily the ability can be interrupted with CC or Dodged, dodge bears mention. All your interested in talking about is FS->LS’s strengths – anytime someone brings up a weakness, you either dismiss it or ignore it.

We haven’t even mentioned how Soft CC (like snares) would allow you to just walk out of the swing, or how Blind would force the the thief to either SR/IS to cleanse the blind (reducing the init pool for FS/LS), or leave himself vulnerable and waste time while trying to connect a swing to consume the blind while that precious 5s LS trigger ticks down.

You’re basically rehashing the HS spamming tears, and are for some reason surprised when people tell you to L2P. No one really cares because we all know HS spamming is pretty useless against anyone who’s not facerolling their keyboard, the same way FS/LS spamming is.

So yes, I concede that when you completely ignore half my points and underplay the value of the others, my argument looks weak – but that’s true of any point really.

@Sorrow

- It can be dodged or interrupted via CC (you forgot that part, because apparently most boon bunkers don’t utilize CC in the slightest)
- It’s one of 2 abilities in the set (with the same exact animations) that do -any- damage in the set. Avoiding these 2 abilities (both with per-requisites, one being an AA chain finisher and the other LS) completely nerfs S/D damage – when you only have 1 animation to watch for and the other attacks in the set do not need to be dodged, “Dodge it” is a reasonable counter-argument.
- For S/D to be viable, the thief has to run very, very glassy – your dodges and CC should easily be enough to avoid at least 75% of LS strikes while you punish the thief whenever he goes in for the LS.
- The thief sacrifices his second weapon set,2/3 utility slots, and spec’s in a very specific way to make this build viable – it’s only to be expected that it will do very well in that 1 area (Don’t believe I made this argument earlier, just adding it now).

That’s just the truncated list of my argument that I can recall off the top of my head (with the noted addition) – there’s possibly more if you scroll back through the thread.

Below please find a link to the average S/D build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsY8YlYmSOHcS6E/5Ex2jdKUe6VgsdP4qVrKA-TwAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNIYRw+j5HA
(Note, my previous link was to my variation on S/D, which sacrifices some init regen and utility for more power, since this build doesn’t hit hard enough for my tastes).
Recall, my argument was “A bunker can eat every swing that isn’t LS or CS because they do crap damage, and save all your dodges for the scary damage/boon steal”, to which your response was “Sword hits for 1.5k Average”.
First, we’ll define average.
From dictionary.com – the mean obtained by adding several quantities together and dividing the sum by the number of quantities:
Then, we’ll do some math.
Slice and Slash (the 2 hardest hitting skills in the set, discounting LS and CS as per my argument, and CnD since double S/D doesn’t gain much from stealth) hit for 540 against a 2600 armor target. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume the thief isn’t at max endurance, and has over 6 init, so we’ll add 20% – 648 damage.
Out of 10 attacks, 7 crit for double damage – 648*7 = 4536*2= 9072. Add your 3 non critical swings, 648*3 = 1944. 9072+1944 = 11,016. Now, lets divide that by the number of swings, 10. 11,016/10 = 1101.6.

So, your average S/D thief, who is always over 6 init and also not at full endurance, using only his hardest hitting abilities outside CS/LS, hits a 2600 armor target On average for about 1101 damage.
But wait, there’s more! That’s for a target over 50%.
For a target under 50%, we need to add 20% more damage. I won’t walk you through all the math, but for targets under 50% your average swing hits for 1285.

So, 50% of the time we do 1101 average damage, the other 50% of the time we do 1285 average damage, so from 100% to Dead, assuming the thief always has over 6 init and not max endurance, the average swing hits for (roughly) 1193.1 damage, which is 20% lower than your estimate…on a 2600 armor target. You know many bunkers who run 2600 armor, and no protection?

Perhaps my math is wrong (being honest here, I don’t claim to have perfect knowledge of how the games damage calculations work), but I don’t think it is. You could have went and done this math, but you didn’t – you decided to just throw a number out there that seemed plausible, and supported your argument. You see, I actually play S/D thief and said to myself “Hmmm, I don’t remember the last time I saw slice crit a bunker for 1500, much less just a regular hit…”

I made no personal attacks, just analyzed your personality from your tone – treating everyone who disagrees with you like a moron while offering erroneous and exaggerated facts and devaluing any ability/boon/whatever that weakens your argument, then on top of that dismissing their opinions makes you seem like a kitten…so I’ll treat you like one.

sorrow.2364:

RoRo.8270:

evilapprentice.6379:

RoRo.8270:

Ya it was overbuffed they can take me down pretty easily on my hgh engy they literally spam it 4x and im down to 30% health and all my might stacks are gone then they stealth and wait for initiative or use the shadow step skill. I play hgh engi they shred me apart

It also has a low skill ceiling. The problem with theives is if it’s a bad theif they will still be good because they can stealth or use their ridiculous teleports making them unkillable pretty much

I’m just going to be brutally honest with you – from the tone, writing style, and the way you described things in this post, I’m comfortable assuming you’re not the greatest player, and are not qualified to judge whats OP, has a low skill ceiling, etc…

Don’t be discouraged, that’s not a putdown. You can always get better. Watch some S/D video’s/spectate an S/D thief to get an idea how they work and you’ll start doing much better.

I’m rank 40 I have over 1k tourney games so I have a better idea than most people. Also I didn’t know that someones writing style dictates how they play the game thanks for pointing that out for me

Just ignore that guy. I had 2 pages of arguments with him leading pretty much to nothing.
That is the same guy who said LS is fine because it can be dodged because it has an obvious animation.

I Said LS was fine for a whole litany of reasons, one of which is that it can be dodged – when combined with all my other reasons, it makes an argument. Again, a hallmark of a weak argument is the need to change the story to fit your desired outcome, rather than the other way around.

We had 2 pages of arguments that amounted to nothing because it’s impossible to warp facts to fit your opinion – you realized this at some point and just started making kitten up. When called on it, you started including one-off points that didn’t really have anything to do with the discussion at hand in hopes that I’d forget that you had to outright lie to bolster your weak and incorrect conclusions (hint – I didn’t). At first I just disagreed with you – now I’m having fun watching you tailspin, discrediting yourself further and further every time you post.

RoRo.8270:

evilapprentice.6379:

RoRo.8270:

Ya it was overbuffed they can take me down pretty easily on my hgh engy they literally spam it 4x and im down to 30% health and all my might stacks are gone then they stealth and wait for initiative or use the shadow step skill. I play hgh engi they shred me apart

It also has a low skill ceiling. The problem with theives is if it’s a bad theif they will still be good because they can stealth or use their ridiculous teleports making them unkillable pretty much

I’m just going to be brutally honest with you – from the tone, writing style, and the way you described things in this post, I’m comfortable assuming you’re not the greatest player, and are not qualified to judge whats OP, has a low skill ceiling, etc…

Don’t be discouraged, that’s not a putdown. You can always get better. Watch some S/D video’s/spectate an S/D thief to get an idea how they work and you’ll start doing much better.

I’m rank 40 I have over 1k tourney games so I have a better idea than most people. Also I didn’t know that someones writing style dictates how they play the game thanks for pointing that out for me

I know the basics of how HGH works, but am not intimately familiar with what weapons/non-elixir utilities (if any) you’d run with that.

Your post was just extremely general, and basically described 1 fight, kind of. From someone who’s R40 and has played over 1,000 tourneys, I’d have expected you to explain what engi abilities you’d expect to counter the thief, which didn’t work for whatever reasons XYZ, etc… Basically, it sounded like you were describing things “from feeling” rather than “from experience”.

I’m not doubting you, just explaining why I said what I said.

All that being said, I’m assuming you’re either running 2/3 elixirs or 3/3 elixirs (Again, not super familiar with Engi)? If that’s the case, it’s to be expected – you’ve sacrificed all your utilities to boon stack, the specific thing S/D counters extremely well. If you were a bomb or nades engi, I’m guessing you’d have a much, much easier time with all the AoE and conditions, and High vigor uptime (again, if that’s something native to the build I’m describing, I don’t really know).

If it’s any consolation, most S/D builds are in the same boat – my elite is popped more often than not as a mass condition cleanse, I’m running 2 signets to make the build viable, and I’m running double S/D – I’m sacrificing a ton of utility to do 1 thing, really, really well, and it just so happens that 1 thing is very strong against your spec (which also sacrifices a ton of utility to 1 thing really, really well). You can’t expect to do well in a situation where your build is dedicated to generating boons, and my build is dedicated to stripping them as often as possible.

fakeblood.2576:

I actually agree with the above post on one aspect… Thieves should not be able to steal these boons it’s complete bs

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lny8ygyays1qjssc0o1_500.jpg

RoRo.8270:

Ya it was overbuffed they can take me down pretty easily on my hgh engy they literally spam it 4x and im down to 30% health and all my might stacks are gone then they stealth and wait for initiative or use the shadow step skill. I play hgh engi they shred me apart

It also has a low skill ceiling. The problem with theives is if it’s a bad theif they will still be good because they can stealth or use their ridiculous teleports making them unkillable pretty much

I’m just going to be brutally honest with you – from the tone, writing style, and the way you described things in this post, I’m comfortable assuming you’re not the greatest player, and are not qualified to judge whats OP, has a low skill ceiling, etc…

Don’t be discouraged, that’s not a putdown. You can always get better. Watch some S/D video’s/spectate an S/D thief to get an idea how they work and you’ll start doing much better.

sorrow.2364:

Puru.4217:

Complains that fs removes boons from boon reliant class (mostly because of regen and protection, those class spam vigor so it being removed doesn’t really matter)
End up saying Protection is worthless.

Another priceless thread in the thief forum.

Oh man, why are people that stupid?

wish.1027:

Protection is amazing. My bunker guardian in WvW full times vigor, protection, regen and retaliation. I can face tank 2-3 people without breaking a sweat. I can also reapply boons faster than a S/D thief can take them from me by simply moving around a lot and using my blinds and CC’s and hitting him. Once the thief gets low on ini or HP they always back away, and when they back away I always run from them to force them waste cooldowns or ini to chase me. Its an effective strategy, and I havent lost a 1v1 yet doing it to a s/d thief. Theres been lots of times where they ran from me or didnt chase me though.

Honestly, I think it needs a bit more of a buff. Today for instance I was attacked by a s/d thief, plus a glass cannon mesmer and a ranger (no idea what he used other than a longbow). Know what happened? I kited them for 10 minutes before they managed to kill me, and I downed the thief once. This is on a slow moving guardian, that relies almost entirely on boons to stay alive. And youre saying S/D thief is somehow in need of a nerf? I think youre crazy.

I think WvW doesn’t really matter when evaluating how good something is.
There are too much parameters, laggs and everything that changes a lot in WvWvW. Try the same build you’re running in sPvP/tPvP.
Once an S/D thief come, you’ll see you won’t last that long.

Dahkeus.8243:

This logic is so broken, I’m not even sure where to start…

No one is arguing whether the protection boon is better than a dodge.

Protection and dodging aren’t mutually exclusive.

And wth is this about minion armies? Are you saying that you dodge everything? If you somehow evade every hit of damage, then please post a video of this godliness. For us mortals, however, protection means that your enemy has to do 33% more damage to kill you, which is easily the difference between whether you survive to use your heal when it comes off cooldown or whether you can live until you have the endurance to dodge that next shatter from the mesmer or whether that next backstab will drop you, etc.

Did you even undestood what I tried to say in one page of topic?
Seriously, you came here and say something which doesn’t really regards the dicussion, also with an arrogant tone.

I said that protection is useful only against a minion army, because it deals sustained damage over time, while, in any other average situation, having a dodge left is always better than having protection on.

Since some professions haven’t access to both vigor and protection while some have access to more dodge/evading compared to others, there is a reason behind comparing them. It looks like you don’t even know why we are comparing dodge to protection. Man, read the topic, then answer. Or, if you don’t want to read it first, don’t aggresively attack other people with your assumptions.

But hey, this is the thief forum. I don’t even know why I’m losing my time here.
I have too much faith in human’s race.

The arrogant tone is warranted. You wheel heedlessly from example to example, some completely made up (“1.5k average sword hits”,“PW is 2 seconds of evasion”), and others completely off topic (“See how a necro GC does with protection” when we’re talking about thieves) in a desperate attempt to prove a point that most concur is incorrect. You refuse to acknowledge where these magical numbers came from when called out on it, and give kitten psuedo explanations as to why you’re bringing off topic things into the discussion then sweep them aside to keep hammering at a point everyone but you in this thread has come to – there’s nothing wrong with FS and LS.

Furthermore, you devalue genuinely powerful abilities (IE protection) because they are inconsistent with your opinion – you are trying desperately to warp the facts around your opinions and treat us all like morons when we don’t concur.

You’ve got a weak point that most dont agree with specifically because it’s wrong, so you’re trying (perhaps subconciously) to spin a web of bullkitten and dismissal that’s condescending, convoluted, and at times spun out of thin air because, again, the facts don’t fit your opinion, so clearly he facts are wrong.

Go on, take a break from the forums. Try to have fun in this horribly balanced BS game that’s so obviously run by the stealth abusing FS spamming thief Illuminati of your worst nightmares.

sorrow.2364:

evilapprentice.6379:

Silly me! I forgot that “not dying” was the metric by which capture point games were scored. No wonder bunkers are so popular!

Who’s talking Bunkers? I’m talking GC thieves with access to defensive buffs instead of stealth. Protection is powerful on a GC. It’s the equivalent of doubling your toughness if you’re running base toughness. Think about that for a second. Stability is also a nice one – no more getting stunned/feared/KB’d while executing your burst combos. Imagine an ability like endure pain on a GC thief – 5 seconds to go just go nuts, knowing that no burst can stop you. I’d give up the ability to go invisible (but still have competent players have a fairly good idea where I’m heading) for that in a heartbeat.

Actually “not dying” is a crucial part in any PvP match because if you’re dead you’re not helping your team. Simple.

Holding capture points is the crucial part in any PvP match. That’s the thing you can’t do in stealth.

Just like when a thief roams around in stealth, he’s not helping his team. He’s not contesting points, he’s not doing any DPS, and he’s no CCing anything. If a thief uses stealth to run away, it was a win for you- he didn’t get 5 points for stomping you, you didn’t get 5 points for stomping him, and neither of you are running back from spawn. As long as you didn’t somehow lose the capture point (it’s nearly impossible, considering how stealth works), you won that fight.

Did you considered the fact that those good things are uptime half a time you are capable to have Stealth up?

Of course, because they’re more powerful.

Did you know that dodge is, in fact, a 0.75s invulnerability?

Fantastic – when I can LS while in the middle of a dodge, When I can count on Dodge to keep me on a point for 5s to prevent the neutralize, when Dodge can be used while immobilized, we’ll consider the matter closed. Til then, thief has no access to invuln or psuedo-invuln (like endure pain).

Did you know that Thief and Rangers are the only two professions who have a trait which maximize the endurance regeneration?

Yup, we’ve gone over this. I have no issue with Thief as is – I certainly don’t consider them UP in the defensive department. I only have an issue with people crying (This time I am addressing this specifically to you) about how unstoppable thieves are with stealth and evasion, considering their lack of access to every other defensive mechanic in the game.

Did you know that Thief, if you look closely, have access to invulnerability? It has only a different name, which is “evade”.
Did you know that Pistol Whip has 2s of “evade”?

Oh man, how could I have forgotten about Pistol whip? I mean, it’s such an obviously well designed skill. On top of that All the top thieves run it, because it’s just so kitten good. I feel silly for having somehow never thought of using PW.
[/sarcasm]
If you’ve resorted to pointing out a technicality that you know (since you play a thief, right?) is entirely worthless atm, you know your argument is weak. As Daecello also pointed out, you’ve more than doubled the evade time in your estimate. Like I said when you claimed sword struck for “1.5k average”, go to gw2skills.net and check your facts before posting. Spreading disinformation is harmful to new players, and makes you look silly, considering the ease of access.

Protection is pretty much worthless, trust me.

I know you specifically feel this way (you’ve said it in other threads that I’ve responded to) and I continue to wonder if you’re that dense or just an incredibly dedicated troll. I don’t think there’s a quicker way to discredit yourself than to say “Reducing damage taken by 1/3rd is pretty much worthless”. Also, if thats the way you feel, exactly what is your problem with LS? What boons is an S/D thief stealing that’s just completely wrecking your Boon bunker build if it’s not protection?

Necro has some access to it due to Spectral skills, while they have no access to evades, movement skills or stealth.
Try protection on a GC Necro and tell me how are you doing into tanking people.

We’re talking thieves here man, Focus! How well a necro does with protection doesn’t factor in. I’ve also specifically pointed out, we’re not talking Tanking – we’re talking about defensive boons keeping you in the fight long enough to pull of your burst combo, which is basically the only thing a GC spec’d anything cares about – downing their target with their burst.

Constantly changing the subject also doesn’t look good for your side of the argument.

sorrow.2364:

evilapprentice.6379:

“I Don’t know where my target is” is a disingenuous statement when referring to thief.
More accurate would be “I don’t know the exact location of my target”.

When a thief stealths, he isn’t contributing anything to his team. He isn’t contesting points, doing damage, CCing…and so on. This limits the effectiveness of a stealthed thief. So, lets puzzle out what our thief is doing. He could be running away (in which case, you won! grats, get ready for the next fight). He could be trying to kill you, in which case you have a very, very good idea where he’s aiming to end up (psst, it’s behind you). Those are basically the 2 options. If he’s not doing either of those things, he’s not contributing to his team, and he’s worthless.

If after a few weeks of play you can’t puzzle out where a thief might be headed when he stealth’s based on his health and how the fight was going prior to him stealthing, you’re not trying.

By all means though, keep insisting on how broken stealth is – when anet eventually caves and replaces it with protection, stability, blocks, more evades, and maybe even an invuln skills, people will feel really stupid when they get shredded by GC thieves that they can see but can’t stop.

We are talking about a defensive mechanic, right?
So if it let you escape alive, it has done its job.
I don’t know how do you think boon-bunkers work, but having boons doesn’t allow you to run GC, which is something Stealth and evades do.

Silly me! I forgot that “not dying” was the metric by which capture point games were scored. No wonder bunkers are so popular!

Who’s talking Bunkers? I’m talking GC thieves with access to defensive buffs instead of stealth. Protection is powerful on a GC. It’s the equivalent of doubling your toughness if you’re running base toughness. Think about that for a second. Stability is also a nice one – no more getting stunned/feared/KB’d while executing your burst combos. Imagine an ability like endure pain on a GC thief – 5 seconds to go just go nuts, knowing that no burst can stop you. I’d give up the ability to go invisible (but still have competent players have a fairly good idea where I’m heading) for that in a heartbeat.

sorrow.2364:

About the evasiveness-boons argument, I don’t really think it is a fair trade.
Having your enemy in sight, being aware of their positioning and also having it targeted is huge in any fight. Nothing can be a better defensive mechanic then making your enemy not know where you are and making you untargeted.
Also, this brings another important issue, because as good evasiveness is in a PvP environment, it is not as effective as tankyiness in PvE. This means that giving some profession evasiveness only and no tankiness, makes them extremely strong in PvP while below average in PvE.
There is a reason if Thief and Mesmer are the two most played professions in the mist and it’s not because they are pretty.

“I Don’t know where my target is” is a disingenuous statement when referring to thief.
More accurate would be “I don’t know the exact location of my target”.

When a thief stealths, he isn’t contributing anything to his team. He isn’t contesting points, doing damage, CCing…and so on. This limits the effectiveness of a stealthed thief. So, lets puzzle out what our thief is doing. He could be running away (in which case, you won! grats, get ready for the next fight). He could be trying to kill you, in which case you have a very, very good idea where he’s aiming to end up (psst, it’s behind you). Those are basically the 2 options. If he’s not doing either of those things, he’s not contributing to his team, and he’s worthless.

If after a few weeks of play you can’t puzzle out where a thief might be headed when he stealth’s based on his health and how the fight was going prior to him stealthing, you’re not trying.

By all means though, keep insisting on how broken stealth is – when anet eventually caves and replaces it with protection, stability, blocks, more evades, and maybe even an invuln skills, people will feel really stupid when they get shredded by GC thieves that they can see but can’t stop.

sorrow.2364:

Daecollo.9578:

I can see how bunker boon users would be angry about flanking strike, however its rock paper scissors, I think Warrior and Ranger elites should have there boons split a bit so they arn’t as effected by this however the ability itself is fine.

Any boon removal in this game isn’t capable to constantly cleanse the enemy out of their boons. They mostly annoy the boon-user if you are good enough to use your boon strips at the right time, to strip the most crucial boons.

Once you give to some profession the tool to completely wipe any boon out of your enemy for some reasons (probably they want boons out of the meta), you should adjust any other boon-hate skills according to your game design decision, or your buff will become imbalanced.

Anet has already decided a shift was needed – Burst was too high, bunkers were too tough. Increasing Warrior and Thief burst to counter Bunkers toughness left everyone else out to dry – thieves were 3 shotting people, and other classes were having trouble cracking bunkers. The solution was rather well thought out IMO – reduce thief and warrior burst, and replace the lost DPS with abilities that specifically target bunkers.

What do bunkers rely most on? Boons. Maybe that wasn’t the best design decision by Anet, but its much too late to think about changing it.

By targeting boons, thieves and warriors (warriors in theory, at least) now have tools that allow them to counter the way a bunker plays outside of “Do moar damage!”, which means they aren’t 2 and 3 shotting non-bunkers. Bunkers took a small hit in survivability, but they needed it – also note that with warrior and thief burst (supposedly) dropping a bit with these new tools, bunkers didn’t lose as much as you think. Sure, my S/D thief might be able to steal your boons, but his strongest attack doesn’t do nearly as much damage as a low health HS or a Backstab,

sorrow.2364:

evilapprentice.6379:

Those classes with vigor generally have additional defensive options such as invulns, blocks, protection, stability, and high regen uptime.

I think that you know that Mesmers and Thieves have additional defenses too.
Uh, and they have vigor too!

Of course they do, and they’re the most kittened about classes on the forums because their defensive measures are evasiveness and confusion (talking about confusion as a noun, not the in-game condition). As far as thieves are concerned, they get a ton of evasiveness and confusion because they don’t get block, invuln, protection or stability, and their access to regen is pretty kitten . And it’s all perfectly fair, until people (in general, not singling you out) start crying about how broken stealth and evasion are.

I never claimed one was more powerful then the other, just that they existed. I honestly think most of the classes are fairly well balanced (Well, beside Warriors) at this point – once warriors get a leg up, we’ll probably be in the “minor tweaks” part of game balancing, rather than sweeping changes.

sorrow.2364:

stof.9341:

Well, except the classes with lots of vigor and invulnerability or blocks, like elementalist and guardian. Or the ranger with a lot of evade on his melee weapon skills too. For sure they can get very strong healing.

So we got mesmer, thief, elementalist, guardian, maybe ranger too. That’s the majority of the cast already :p

I think there are 2 missing, right?
Uh, do Vigor is as much effective as an evade on any weapon set?

Those classes with vigor generally have additional defensive options such as invulns, blocks, protection, stability, and high regen uptime.

Kryshade.6075:

Countering elites is part of the game. A Mesmer can Moa Morph a Necro out of Lich/Plague form. Plague Form helps to counter Timewarp, An AOE condition cleanse will get people out of tangling roots etc.

Having your boons stripped is all part of the game. It adds strategy and skill when elites can and should be countered.

For the most part, you just named Elites countering other Elites.

I primarily play my thief as double S/D (you know, the kind that loves it when a warrior pops Signet of rage), and I agree with Daecello.

Elite skills should feel Elite.

That being said, I think his suggestion specifically goes too far to the other side – now instead of having Elite’s easily countered by boon removal/stealing, it’s almost completely uncounterable.

I think a better approach would be something in the middle – Gain 10s of 5xMight, Fury and Swiftness every 6s for 18s (or something like that). That way counters aren’t completely useless (6s can be a looooong time), and the player isn’t completely shafted if an S/D thief tags them with LS right after they pop their Elite or some other boon removal happens.

shimmerless.4560:

I don’t think Larcenous hurts Eles/Guards the most, it’s classes who don’t get many boons and who cherish the few they do get. Poor War has a whopping three boons on his only real Elite.

I’m not a fan of anything being “Unblockable” either since this messes with expectations for how things should work; players shouldn’t have to remember, “Oh, my Aegis works against everything except X Y and Z”. On a similar note I’d give up the Unblockable on Arcane Thievery in exchange for it not being the most temperamental skill in the game.

Anything that targets boons needs to be unblockable or else Aegis (a boon) completely nullifies it.