Guild Wars 2

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The problem you’re having is understanding what is intended. FS – “as is” – is what is intended, which is obviously differ from your “expectations”.

So by saying that FS is not working as intended, what you really mean is, it is not working as you expect it.

As I have explained early on in this thread, the tool-tip may be the problem and not the mechanic of the skill.

For instance, they did “fix” this as you would have expect it to function…then you cannot use this skill unless you are IN FRONT of your target. Then a new problem that would need “fixing” arises.

So, as intended for the skill, it is not a guaranteed a strike on the back since it is a FLANKING strike. By GW2’s definition, that is a strike to either the side or the back.

Therefore, FS IS working as intended, but not as you expected it to work.

Well boo hoo, right?

At no point was I complaining at all about my final positioning vis a vis what part of my target I’m facing. I’m not one of those people who says “The skill SAYS it goes to his back, why doesnt it? Waah”. I’m talking about when you target a moving target, and you float far to the right of said target and stab empty space 10-15 feet to your targets side.

tl;dr – I don’t care what facing I’m stabbing, just that I path toward my target and not slightly away.

Doesn’t many other skills have similar behavior?

The intended use of the skill is to allow you to use it even without a valid target, that’s why you can waste your CD being out of range.

Also, as intended, allows a target to move out of the way in a split second without using dodge. Just like how I dodge arrows without actually using dodge, by simply walking back and forth.

So in the game’s perspective, your moving target is moving out of the way and as intended you are to miss them completely.

Trying to make the game predict your expectation will de-value all other mechanics I just mentioned.

If I’m out of range, then I’m out of range – the skill still shouldn’t send me careening off to the side. And although I can’t claim I’ve -never- been out of range when this happened (I’m sure that’s the case sometimes and I just don’t realize it), I’ve used it directly after connecting with a sword swing, and still spun off too the side. There’s something about a moving target that makes the skill bug out sometimes – it’d just be nice if it didn’t do that.

One noticeable reason to have caused you to slingshot to the side is having a speed buff when using FS. If that is caused by something else other than that, then it might be a bug. But to validate a bug, the alledge bug must be easily replicated, if not, then it might be caused by some other unknown factor.

Even with the combination of the speed buff, I would not classify that as a bug.

As for moving target, it is the games way of lead-targetting where the projectile or moving action/skill (like leap) will try to hit the target in a location they expect them to be.

I do run with SoS – it’s not really acceptable to have to drop all speed buffs to get FS to work correctly, though I am willing try it. Still; dropping SoS won’t fix the issue completely (at least in the spec I’m currently running, since I have Thrill of the crime slotted – having to drop SoS AND change my spec to get FS to work is a little silly IMO).

As for lead targeting, perhaps that’s the case if the player running away was rapidly tapping left and right – but I don’t see many other players zig-zagging when they run though – people tend to pick a direction and move in it. If I was just shooting a little bit past them, I’d still be annoyed but I’d buy it – it’s as if I’m trying to lead target them with negative Y coordinates – if they’re backing off to the left, I careen to the right (as if the skill was trying to guess where he’d be had he been moving at the same speed and angle, only to the right instead)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

I apologize for the snark then – I did not consider that point of view.

I still disagree however – if the skill is so powerful as to need a nerf, then it needs a nerf. A skill shouldn’t skate by because it’s not functioning properly, and people don’t understand that to be used effectively they have to do something completely counter-intuitive. If what you say is true, you’re helping to contribute to how one note the thief class is in general – instead of more thieves going S/D and being effective, diverse players, we’re mostly going D/P burst because it’s clearly one of the best specs (Since we’re not aware that FS can be jury-rigged into effectiveness.)

You should be encouraging spec diversity, and hoping skills get fixed, not hoping FS continues to go unnoticed because its super powerful but hard to use effectively due to bad implementation.

The problem you’re having is understanding what is intended. FS – “as is” – is what is intended, which is obviously differ from your “expectations”.

So by saying that FS is not working as intended, what you really mean is, it is not working as you expect it.

As I have explained early on in this thread, the tool-tip may be the problem and not the mechanic of the skill.

For instance, they did “fix” this as you would have expect it to function…then you cannot use this skill unless you are IN FRONT of your target. Then a new problem that would need “fixing” arises.

So, as intended for the skill, it is not a guaranteed a strike on the back since it is a FLANKING strike. By GW2’s definition, that is a strike to either the side or the back.

Therefore, FS IS working as intended, but not as you expected it to work.

Well boo hoo, right?

At no point was I complaining at all about my final positioning vis a vis what part of my target I’m facing. I’m not one of those people who says “The skill SAYS it goes to his back, why doesnt it? Waah”. I’m talking about when you target a moving target, and you float far to the right of said target and stab empty space 10-15 feet to your targets side.

tl;dr – I don’t care what facing I’m stabbing, just that I path toward my target and not slightly away.

Doesn’t many other skills have similar behavior?

The intended use of the skill is to allow you to use it even without a valid target, that’s why you can waste your CD being out of range.

Also, as intended, allows a target to move out of the way in a split second without using dodge. Just like how I dodge arrows without actually using dodge, by simply walking back and forth.

So in the game’s perspective, your moving target is moving out of the way and as intended you are to miss them completely.

Trying to make the game predict your expectation will de-value all other mechanics I just mentioned.

If I’m out of range, then I’m out of range – the skill still shouldn’t send me careening off to the side. And although I can’t claim I’ve -never- been out of range when this happened (I’m sure that’s the case sometimes and I just don’t realize it), I’ve used it directly after connecting with a sword swing, and still spun off too the side. There’s something about a moving target that makes the skill bug out sometimes – it’d just be nice if it didn’t do that.

Adaneshade.2409:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Looking-for-a-survivable-tanky-WvW-build/first#post1195052

Looks interesting. I’ll give it a try.

TBH though, I want to keep testing 10/30/0/0/30 for a bit. I was aiming for something with at least 20 points in trickery for Bountiful Theft – with FS to continue stripping boons, stealing 2 of them is all of a sudden worth it. Seeing as I wanted to keep 10 DA and 30 CS, I sunk the last 10 points into trickery for 4 init on heal. Steal granting fury, might, swiftness, vigor AND stealing 2 boons from a target (regen and protection, if you can get lucky) is actually very, very nice (especially on a 32s CD). 4 Init on heal and 3 init on steal helps as well.

Adaneshade.2409:

evilapprentice.6379:

Adaneshade.2409:

Perhaps you’re correct. I would, however, rather see other classes buffed and fixed first, to maybe attract some of the current thieves.

For the good of the game as a whole, the last thing I’d like to see is more thieves being rolled due to this newly fixed awesome weapon set.

But you can’t fight the tide – look at the interaction we just had. I assumed you were being an kitten hat (And due to that assumption was an kitten hat myself). I’ve been convinced that S/D was utter trash because FS (its obvious best skill) wasn’t working.

I’d MUCH RATHER play S/D than D/P – I love D/P, but its just a different flavor of burst, and I’m frankly sick of being burst. I want to play a more survivable, controlling spec, and that’s what S/D offers. Instead of having fun, being useful, and getting more competent with S/D, I’ve basically been wasting my time with filler.

People are always going to flock to the fotm – I don’t think its worth punishing long time thief players to try and stem that tide.

If you’d truly like to play a survivable S/D build, I do have one that I’m willing to share. At this moment and for the foreseeable future, FS will require some practice to master (well worth it btw) but everyone that’s tried my build has been really pleased with it.

Cool. Lets bury the kitten y internet snark hatchet and lay it on me. I tried 10/30/0/0/30 with a soldiers ammy last night and was reasonably pleased (though it is by no means well tested). What’re you running?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

I apologize for the snark then – I did not consider that point of view.

I still disagree however – if the skill is so powerful as to need a nerf, then it needs a nerf. A skill shouldn’t skate by because it’s not functioning properly, and people don’t understand that to be used effectively they have to do something completely counter-intuitive. If what you say is true, you’re helping to contribute to how one note the thief class is in general – instead of more thieves going S/D and being effective, diverse players, we’re mostly going D/P burst because it’s clearly one of the best specs (Since we’re not aware that FS can be jury-rigged into effectiveness.)

You should be encouraging spec diversity, and hoping skills get fixed, not hoping FS continues to go unnoticed because its super powerful but hard to use effectively due to bad implementation.

The problem you’re having is understanding what is intended. FS – “as is” – is what is intended, which is obviously differ from your “expectations”.

So by saying that FS is not working as intended, what you really mean is, it is not working as you expect it.

As I have explained early on in this thread, the tool-tip may be the problem and not the mechanic of the skill.

For instance, they did “fix” this as you would have expect it to function…then you cannot use this skill unless you are IN FRONT of your target. Then a new problem that would need “fixing” arises.

So, as intended for the skill, it is not a guaranteed a strike on the back since it is a FLANKING strike. By GW2’s definition, that is a strike to either the side or the back.

Therefore, FS IS working as intended, but not as you expected it to work.

Well boo hoo, right?

At no point was I complaining at all about my final positioning vis a vis what facing of my target I end up at. I’m not one of those people who says “The skill SAYS it goes to his back, why doesnt it? Waah”. I’m talking about when you try to use the skill on a moving target, and you float far to the side of said target and stab empty space 10-15 feet away. I doubt the skill was intended to spin you slightly away from your target.

tl;dr – I don’t care what facing I’m stabbing, just that I path toward my target and not slightly away.

Adaneshade.2409:

Perhaps you’re correct. I would, however, rather see other classes buffed and fixed first, to maybe attract some of the current thieves.

For the good of the game as a whole, the last thing I’d like to see is more thieves being rolled due to this newly fixed awesome weapon set.

But you can’t fight the tide – look at the interaction we just had. I assumed you were being an kitten hat (And due to that assumption was an kitten hat myself). I’ve been convinced that S/D was utter trash because FS (its obvious best skill) wasn’t working.

I’d MUCH RATHER play S/D than D/P – I love D/P, but its just a different flavor of burst, and I’m frankly sick of being burst. I want to play a more survivable, controlling spec, and that’s what S/D offers. Instead of having fun, being useful, and getting more competent with S/D, I’ve basically been wasting my time with filler.

People are always going to flock to the fotm – I don’t think its worth punishing long time thief players to try and stem that tide.

Adaneshade.2409:

You don’t seem to get it. It isn’t about some “superiority complex” at all. The skill is incredibly powerful; likely the most powerful ability we have. We already suffer from constant cries for nerfing our class. Right now, no one realizes how powerful this skill is because so few have actually figured out how to utilize it. If it ever become accessible to the masses, there will be a mass outcry for nerfing the skill.
I’m simply seeing where this fix would lead inevitably.

I’m perfectly willing to teach anyone willing to know, how to use it as is (the exact opposite of a superiority complex).

I apologize for the snark then – I did not consider that point of view.

I still disagree however – if the skill is so powerful as to need a nerf, then it needs a nerf. A skill shouldn’t skate by because it’s not functioning properly, and people don’t understand that to be used effectively they have to do something completely counter-intuitive. If what you say is true, you’re helping to contribute to how one note the thief class is in general – instead of more thieves going S/D and being effective, diverse players, we’re mostly going D/P burst because it’s clearly one of the best specs (Since we’re not aware that FS can be jury-rigged into effectiveness.)

You should be encouraging spec diversity, and hoping skills get fixed, not hoping FS continues to go unnoticed because its super powerful but hard to use effectively due to bad implementation.

Adaneshade.2409:

evilapprentice.6379:

Adaneshade.2409:

Or, you could develop the slightest bit of coordination (allot to ask I’m sure) and turn and activate the skill simultaneously….rather than QQing. Or….just go put the training wheels back on and play P/D or something easy like that.

You know you’re right. I should have experience, right? I mean, you have to be on a 90 degree angle with your target to get shadowshot to hit. Same for Shadow stab. and don’t get me started on Deathblossom – everyone knows you have to run through your target first, then spin around to get that one to connect. And pistol whip only works if you activate it then do a 360 before the stun swing goes off.

It’s not like your playing around a bug, and your riding your high horse telling everyone how easy it is to play around a bug, and how we’re all scrubs because we don’t. Its OBVIOUSLY just part of playing the class I guess.

FINALLY, you make some sense. I’m truly sorry you insist on falling in the “refusal to learn” sect. However, S/D works just fine, as is, for anyone half-way trying, changing it will likely do more harm than good.
I’ve been using this weapon set for all 1200 gameplay hours on my thief, and feel that I’ve EARNED the right to use something that some can’t (or in your case, won’t).

Me – “FS doesn’t work as intended”
High horse riding hipsters – “Duh, FS is working fine”
Me – “Nope, it doesn’t work”
High horse riding hipsters – “It works fine if you know how to use it.”
Me – “Ok, teach me”
High horse riding hipsters – “Duh, you just turn completely around before you use it!”
Me – “…that…would mean the skill is broken”
High horse riding hipsters – “DUH! IT’S BETTER BROKEN!”

I..I dont know how to make it more clear that your position is asinine. 100%, completely asinine. Rather than desiring that the skill work correctly, you’re happy with the fact that you’ve managed to jury-rig it – you somehow ‘own’ that, and the skill properly working would take it away. Zealously, you guard the fact that you’re soooooo good at a game you managed to find a way to make something broken work the way it was intended – fixing it would only cheapen that. Insisting that S/D will somehow be worse if the skill worked correctly is the icing on the cake – I’m sure you think D/P got worse too now that shadowshot doesn’t root you on hit. Do you miss running your P/P triple trap build too?

Jesus christ, let it go – the skill working properly is better for everyone, even if you do lose your hilariously sad little superiority complex based around using a broken skill effectively.

Edit: Mods, feel free to come in and shut this one down – I’m willing to bet he’s never going to get it, and I just can’t resist trying to correct stupidity of this magnitude.

Adaneshade.2409:

Or, you could develop the slightest bit of coordination (allot to ask I’m sure) and turn and activate the skill simultaneously….rather than QQing. Or….just go put the training wheels back on and play P/D or something easy like that.

You know you’re right. I should have experience, right? I mean, you have to be on a 90 degree angle with your target to get shadowshot to hit. Same for Shadow stab. and don’t get me started on Deathblossom – everyone knows you have to run through your target first, then spin around to get that one to connect. And pistol whip only works if you activate it then do a 360 before the stun swing goes off.

It’s not like your playing around a bug, and your riding your high horse telling everyone how easy it is to play around a bug, and how we’re all scrubs because we don’t. Its OBVIOUSLY just part of playing the class I guess.

Adaneshade.2409:

evilapprentice.6379:

Adaneshade.2409:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sebrent.3625:

LMAO. Elementalists seem so confused when they fight a thief and their boons suddenly disappear.

I had several people /w and /s me last night saying my build was a pain in the butt to fight against. A few said OP to which I simply replied “yes, I know it’s OP”.

So Impart – if you want the class to be less filled with noobs, answer my previous question. Please.

You can’t teach noobs, noobs want the easy way, they don’t want to learn they don’t want to practice they don’t want to improve

they want the other guy brought down to their level

Except that I’ve specifically requested to be taught in the masterful way that is getting FS to hit consistently. The silence on that subject however, is deafening. I think I see a tumbleweed going by too. I understand, you guys are probably just off somewhere being bad kitten with your secret knowledge you’ll boast about but not share.

I’ve already said that in this thread, simply turn your back to the target, you roll into their avatar making it easy to land both strikes.

Oh man, I hope this is true. I really, really do. I literally can’t wait to get home and test this.

Assuming so, I can see how I was a fool – how did I not think to about face and expose my back to my opponent to get 1 out of 5 abilities to work correctly? IT’S SO OBVIOUS!

Knowing that now, I can totally see that FS is working as intended, and it was a Learn 2 Play issue on my end. Of course the issue I was having was facing my enemy so all my other attacks would hit! How did I not see that? Man I feel silly.

I apologize for insinuating that you 2 were jury-rigging a broken skill to get it to function as it should in the first place, then acting like the issue was on my end. The next time I roll S/D, I’ll make sure to keep my back to my enemy, the way S/D was intended to be played.

I slay me.

Adaneshade.2409:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sebrent.3625:

LMAO. Elementalists seem so confused when they fight a thief and their boons suddenly disappear.

I had several people /w and /s me last night saying my build was a pain in the butt to fight against. A few said OP to which I simply replied “yes, I know it’s OP”.

So Impart – if you want the class to be less filled with noobs, answer my previous question. Please.

You can’t teach noobs, noobs want the easy way, they don’t want to learn they don’t want to practice they don’t want to improve

they want the other guy brought down to their level

Except that I’ve specifically requested to be taught in the masterful way that is getting FS to hit consistently. The silence on that subject however, is deafening. I think I see a tumbleweed going by too. I understand, you guys are probably just off somewhere being bad kitten with your secret knowledge you’ll boast about but not share.

Sebrent.3625:

(1) I don’t care if the class is less filled with noobs … I care if the class rewards noob behavior (i.e. spamming)

(2) Simple. Learn to turn. Don’t use when they dodge roll.

Thanks. I appreciate the dismissive response – I had a feeling I knew what all your boasting and superiority complex was all about, but I do prefer to be sure.

Sebrent.3625:

LMAO. Elementalists seem so confused when they fight a thief and their boons suddenly disappear.

I had several people /w and /s me last night saying my build was a pain in the butt to fight against. A few said OP to which I simply replied “yes, I know it’s OP”.

So Impart – if you want the class to be less filled with noobs, answer my previous question. Please.

Sebrent.3625:

(1) I don’t need cripple in order to land Flanking Strike

(2) Sword applies cripple via its auto-attack so its trivial to apply

l2p sword thief or stop talking about it. It isn’t even my main yet I’ve quickly figured out how to use flanking strike where landing it isn’t any harder than landing my auto-attack.

Ok, I will L2P – you’re so good at it, tell me. I’d -love- to learn. Without using cripple, chill, KD, or Immobilize (no matter how trivial they are to apply), how do you get flanking strike to land every time.
Please, be sure to include different situations – target is standing still, target is moving directly away, directly toward, away at an angle, toward at an angle…Obviously, I need the help.

Sebrent.3625:

I was hitting it against moving targets. It was very easy. It was even easier since the sword’s auto-attack cripples my target.

Landing flanking strike is largely l2p. If you’ve ever used Ranger sword, it’s a very simple skill to learn how to use. Same principles … skill with movement.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND for the last time – it does not matter how often you get FS to hit when you apply some sort of secondary condition.

I’m 100% aware on how to get FS to hit using snares, roots, and KD’s. The skill is not designed to only be used on snared, rooted, and KD’d targets. It is limited by its poor function, and shouldn’t be. I’m glad you’ve found a way to play around it, and take pride in it, but taking pride in knowing how to jury-rig a skill shouldn’t be a requirement for playing a S/D thief.

That doesn’t change the fact that the skill should work, the same way, every time you hit it. It currently doesn’t. That makes it inconsistent. I’m more than willing to learn and understand the skills strengths and weaknesses, as soon as it works correctly. Until such a time, keep jury-rigging it. Keep feeling good about yourself, you’re that kitten player who kept with it even though it wasn’t working right. Just like I’m sure you were running traps 3 months ago for the challenge, and D/P before that just to show everyone how bad kitten shadowshot could be if you just knew how to play the game.

And I have played a S/D ranger – its amazing how good their pathing is compared to FS – I don’t have any memories of ending up 10 feet to either side of my target after using any of their evade swings (though admittedly, I’ve played alot less time on my ranger)

Adaneshade.2409:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sebrent.3625:

I was making an effort to use flanking strike last night even to remove regen and other boons and was able to land it reliably quite a bit of the time. I even used it as a bit of burst once (cast once for extra damage, not spammed it).

Sigh.

If you have to come to the boards to point out how pleased you are that a skill worked as listed, that’s a problem.

I’m glad you like FS, I’m not trying to drag your opinion of S/D down – it’ll be a broken spec to me however until FS works correctly every time. And mind you, I just rolled S/D to see how good it would be against bunkers (and its actually pretty good – it’d be excellent if FS worked correctly tho)

It does work every time, if you know HOW to use it. We don’t want just any noob to be ABLE to use that skill. Atm FS is the only attack we have that separates noobs from vets. If you see someone landing FS, you know they are pretty skilled. Let the noobs keep their P/D and D/D builds.

You’re right. When my target is moving and I hit FS, and the first strike evades me on a 45 degree angle to the right of my target, that’s obviously my fault. I tapped the “pretend my target is 10 feet to the right” button before hitting FS – What a noob move, right? It has nothing to do with poor pathing on the part of skill – the true mark of talent is playing around bugs and poor pathing, rather that requesting it be fixed. Man, you must have been the nastiest trap thief back when they didn’t work right.

You can take all the pride you like in knowing how to jury-rig a poorly functioning skill into working. Me, I’d prefer if it did the thing it said it did every time, and not put any extra effort into it.

Sebrent.3625:

I was making an effort to use flanking strike last night even to remove regen and other boons and was able to land it reliably quite a bit of the time. I even used it as a bit of burst once (cast once for extra damage, not spammed it).

Sigh.

If you have to come to the boards to point out how pleased you are that a skill worked as listed, that’s a problem.

I’m glad you like FS, I’m not trying to drag your opinion of S/D down – it’ll be a broken spec to me however until FS works correctly every time. And mind you, I just rolled S/D to see how good it would be against bunkers (and its actually pretty good – it’d be excellent if FS worked correctly tho)

PowerBottom.5796:

evilapprentice.6379:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Lukin.4061:

Is it just me or the amount of gold pvp players obtain over time is ~1000 times lower than pve players? It is interesting what does anet think about the prices of “renting”…

I’m not sure if the currency for renting was confirmed yet but I would like them to make Glory Points a form of currency for these custom arenas.

Lets be fair here – Anet is still a company, and they’ve got bills. PvE players have tons of stuff they can spend real money on – PvP players, not so much. They don’t ask a monthly fee to play the game, so if I’ve got to lay down a bit of real cash for a server rental, thats ok by me (assuming their pricing structure isnt asinine)

Actually, I think that if the Custom Servers would cost Money (Gems), it could be highly beneficial for PvP and I’d gladly pay for it, if it gives us enough Choices.

In my opinion, ANet shifted their Focus from PvP to PvE, because they make more Profit there. If they could see, that PvP-Players also have Money they are willing to spend, they may put more effort into PvP.

Yeah, that works (because there’s always the option to purchase gems with real money). It doesn’t need to be a cash-only system, it just can’t be based on glory.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Lukin.4061:

Is it just me or the amount of gold pvp players obtain over time is ~1000 times lower than pve players? It is interesting what does anet think about the prices of “renting”…

I’m not sure if the currency for renting was confirmed yet but I would like them to make Glory Points a form of currency for these custom arenas.

Lets be fair here – Anet is still a company, and they’ve got bills. PvE players have tons of stuff they can spend real money on – PvP players, not so much. They don’t ask a monthly fee to play the game, so if I’ve got to lay down a bit of real cash for a server rental, thats ok by me (assuming their pricing structure isnt asinine)

Brassnautilus.2941:

Olba.5376:

Now let’s look at the range/initiative figures for each of those:

• Infiltrator’s arrow: 150 range/initiative
• Infiltrator’s Strike: 200 range/initiative
• Shadow Shot: 225 range/initiative
• Heartseeker: 150 range/initiative

So Shadow Shot already has the most range per initiative, plus it comes with a blind on the target.

And it’s not like we don’t have utilities with teleports.

infiltrator arrow needs no target
infiltrator’s strike comes with shadow return which is a break stun and instant displacement
heartseeker is treated like a closer only by people who spams that stuff

shadowshot only moves yuo if you hit your target, and it isn’t a utility.

the only thing semi comparable with shadowshot on your list is steal, and that cost 0 init…

Shadow shot does solid damage, travels faster than Inf arrow, farther than IS, and blinds on hit.
It also generates a hit faster than HS if you’re close enough.
900 is a fine range for it.

EasymodeX.4062:

Easiest way to counter prot and armor is to just use condition damage like a P/D spec.

I ran P/D for a long, long…long time. I’d probably run it again if there was ever any reason to hit 2, 3, or 4. It’s also 100% useless against a bunker ele, so there’s that.

It’s a particularly 1 note spec, and boring to play. Like LDB, or instagib. It’s also extremely predictable, since it relies on stealth so heavily to actually stack bleeds. Since we seem to be discussing all sorts of things, it’d be nice to have some solid specs (where all the abilities have useful applications), and some spec diversity.

EasymodeX.4062:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

An option that is unnecessary given that there are other tools that can do the job more effectively and efficiently.

Please, do list what “effective, efficient” boon stripping options thieves have.

Boon stripping isn’t the only tool that busts a bunker.

It’s one of the biggest obstacles that can be countered though. Among the factors that make a bunker tough, 33% additional DR is fairly strong. Stability prevents you from interrupting their actions. Then there’s retal, vigor, and regen.

Reducing heals would be another big one – it’s not exactly easy to counter passive/instant condition cleansing though (besides for loading them up with a bunch of filler conditions)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

EasymodeX.4062:

I’m saying that sharpening the wood sword is an interesting option.

An option that is unnecessary given that there are other tools that can do the job more effectively and efficiently.

Please, do list what “effective, efficient” boon stripping options thieves have.

As far as I can tell, this is the list.
1) Sigil – Marginal usefulness, strips 1 boon on crit, which removes tactical application
2) Flanking strike – Won’t count until it correctly tracks targets. On paper its fairly nice though.
3) Bountiful theft – No real complaints here. 20 points into trickery can be a little hard to manage if you’re aiming for decent direct damage though.

Did I miss anything?

Sebrent.3625:

Laika.8795:

Sebrent.3625:

A sword thief without shadow return readied is a dumb sword thief (or afk), lol.

FYI:

I’m sure it’s a bug, but if you cast IS and and then C&D (or any other skill) too fast, the strike won’t occur and your Shadow Return marker won’t be placed. It’s very frustrating when I jump into a sticky situation thinking I have an easy out, only to further entrench myself in the nastiness when I hit ‘2’ again…

:(

Ugh. Thankfully, I have not encountered that.

If you could replicate it and make a video of such, I bet it would speed up a fix for ArenaNet. Replication of a bug makes discovering the responsible code easier which makes creating a fix quicker.

Though, are you sure you’re not just hitting C&D before flanking strike has gone off?

What he’s probably encountering is the fact that IS goes off a fraction of a second after the teleport – you teleport, there’s a little wind up, then the swing. If you hit any skill inbetween the teleport and the swing, you don’t get the IS attack (or the immob) – though I don’t recall if shadow return circle isnt properly dropped.

I’ve personally hit alot of issues with IS – if you’re using it in any sort of fast paced fight (like say you’re trying to avoid AoE’s at both your target and your shadow return location), the ability inevitably bugs out – you dont teleport to target, you don’t return but consume the circle, you double teleport, you double return….the ability does not respond well to being used alot in a short time frame.

EasymodeX.4062:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

and please, go roll 25/30/0/0/15 with a zerker ammy (The spec that hits like a truck and is as tough as a wet dollar store napkin, the one I specifically mentioned) and see how quickly you melt when anything sneezes at you. I’m not saying the spec should be tough, but don’t pretend like its not among the glassiest glass cannons in the game.

Why do I have to roll that? That’s a horrible build IMO.

One thing to note about this line of discussion is that the concept of a “bunker buster” build doesn’t have to rely on raw damage output, which is what that glass cannon spec focuses on. That’s a very narrow-minded view.

A bunker buster may only do moderate damage, but if they can strip away all the defenses of a bunker build, then they will bust it.

One of the issues with the premise of this thread is that you are trying to adapt a glass cannon raw damage build to bust bunkers, which isn’t necessarily the right approach. It could be as simple as adding a greater variety of conditions and boon stripping to a thief condition build so that condition removals don’t work as well, combined with a removal of regen. This, on top of some buff to poison’s heal reduction could very well bust any bunker really kitten fast.

The concept that condition damage bypasses armor is already integrated into the game. Naturally the discussion becomes how “easy” it is to remove conditions, and how hard it is to re-apply large stacks. Hence, tuning to the existing condition / removal systems and abilities could easily be a better solution than some “new mechanic” like block-bypass or armor penetration.

One interesting concept is this: targeted boon stripping. There are already many abilities in this game that remove a limited set of conditions (e.g. removes cripple/immob, etc). Why not have a boon strip that -only- removes regen? Or only protection?

This sort of limited + targeted boon strip could be much more balanced / palatable / effective than any wholesale mechanics adjustment.

Edit: Warr GS Arcing Strike could sure as hell use a targeted boon strip, although due to its cooldown I’d say something like Aegis or Fury removal. Removing prot on an 8s cooldown or w/e it was is probably too low.

See? This is what I was aiming for. Less flaming (in general, that’s not directed at you), and more the exchange of ideas.

I very much like the idea of targeted boon stripping – it’s something you could tune to be more effective against specific specs (giving class X access to fury/might/swiftness removal, and class Y access to protection/regen/stability removal). You could make certain classes better tailored for dealing with spec X through means other than just damage and DR.

Sebrent.3625:

evilapprentice.6379:

Not all of us have a friend we can summon whenever a bunker needs busting. Whats the point of a burst class that has trouble with bunkers because they don’t have the tools to beat them?

What’s the point of a bunker that can be busted by burst? It isn’t killing other people nearly as quickly as the burst is who can simply switch targets to a non-bunker.

It should be about who plays better. I can’t currently “outplay” boons, because I don’t have much in the way of boon removal skills (and again, FS doesn’t count until it works correctly, no matter how many ways you can get it to overcome its kittenty pathing by using secondary effects)

Sebrent.3625:

Infiltrator’s Strike -> Flanking Strike … very simple. IF immobilizes for 1 second. That’s plenty of time.

This is what is called “comboing skills”. I know most thieves are aware of it since initiative lets you spam your favorite button, but this is how other classes are played.

Flank Strike also gives you control over your character after the initial first hit, so you can move/turn/etc. a bit before the second swing of Flanking Strike.

---

Sword damage is good but you aren’t as bursty as a dagger since you can’t simply get someone to 50% and spam noobseeker.

However, sword auto-attack is putting both cripple and weakness on your target. Helps you easily stay on your target and reduces the damage they can do back to you.

If you’re a fan of the stealth gamplay, while Sword’s tactical strike isn’t as much damage as backstab, it is still good damage and dazes your target for 2 seconds (from behind) or blinds them (not from behind). This helps you stay alive during those 3 seconds of reveal. Heck, if you daze them for 2 seconds each time, that’s only 1 second they can attack before you can stealth again. This is awesome and I love using it.

Making good use of Infiltrator’s Strike and Shadow Return helps quite a bit too.

Again – It doesn’t matter how many ways you can get FS To work – the point is it should work on its own. It shouldn’t be a requirement that your target be Immobilized or crippled or chilled…the pathing should just work correctly, because at 6 months in, it’s ridiculous to have skills that still don’t work on a base level. Maybe I didn’t want to FS right after my IS – maybe there weren’t any good boons to pull, or my target wasn’t blocking, or I wasn’t evading anything. What do I do if all of a sudden I need to FS, and I’ve got shadowreturn up? Spend 5 init and valuable time just to make sure FS path’s correctly? It would be a different story if FS was designed to be hard to hit, like say Churning earth – the ability is so telegraphed and long to cast because it’s extremely powerful – its acceptable for an Ele to have to use lightning flash to actually get it to hit. FS is not in that boat.

15 points in DA with a dagger applies weakness much more quickly and reliably than sword, while also applying poison. Cripple would be nice, but with shadowshot fixed (and a staple of defensive play thanks to the blind), it’s far from necessary. If your target stays in melee, weakness + BP from D/P mitigates way more damage than weakness from sword’s AA 3.

D/P doesn’t need HS to out damage Sword – it does that by itself. In fact, I barely use HS outside of gaining stealth – shadowshot hits the target faster if you’re close enough, blinds, and does (better at 50%+, only slightly less at 25-50%) damage when your target isn’t under 25%. If HS isn’t going to kill my target, I’ll almost always opt for Shadowshot because it allows me to AA unmolested for longer thanks to the blind.

Headshot is no where near the control skill that Tactical strike is, but it’s a million times better an interrupt (because you don’t have to be in stealth AND behind your target to get it off).

Again, Dagger MH has nothing that compares to IS – it really is an awesome skill. Its not awesome enough to cover up how sub-par the rest of Sword mainhand is though.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Allow me to elaborate (though to be honest, what I’m about to type here exists in this post already in some way shape or form).

Step 1) Reduce thief damage – Mind you, thieves will still have to hit fairly hard (low base HP, medium armor, no protection, no stability, no immune skills), but alter the mechanics that let them hit like trucks in exchange for being as tough as a wet dollar store napkin

To be honest, the answer to “what I’m about to type here exist in this post already in some way shape or form.”

No.

Step 2) With their new reduced burst potential, thieves need some way to actually threaten bunkers – My suggestion was to allow some or all of their attacks to penetrate block, with each ability having its own % of block piercing. I’m not suggesting every ability have 100% block penetration..in fact, I mentioned alot of them would probably be very low (just to allow the application of secondary effects through block).

If thieves are “as tough as a wet dollar store napkin” then even a bunker can sneeze and rip them to pieces.

Again: No.

You are fixing something that is not broken by breaking it and trying to fix it.

The second suggestion (taken from the general tone of the SotG) was more boon stripping/hate.

I can honestly say that you are extremely misinterpreted the message or simply highly exaggerating the necessity for a change.

When you combine the 2 (again, in my interpretation), it makes it so that bunkers can’t just throw up all their best boons asap and block whenever they feel like it – they have to try to counterplay the thief a little bit. Should the bunker throw up some short duration boons to try to bait me to waste Init? When should he use his block to ensure I won’t be able to burst him down through it? Can he throw up some important boons then block to get the thief to blow his init pool doing utter kitten damage just to remove the boons?etc, etc, etc…

meh…your scenario is way off. I’d grab my Mesmer friend and have him strip all the boons so I can burst/spike.

The end.

Not all of us have a friend we can summon whenever a bunker needs busting. Whats the point of a burst class that has trouble with bunkers because they don’t have the tools to beat them? Some classes having better access to boon removal than others is fine, but all classes should have some base level of it.

and please, go roll 25/30/0/0/15 with a zerker ammy (The spec that hits like a truck and is as tough as a wet dollar store napkin, the one I specifically mentioned) and see how quickly you melt when anything sneezes at you. I’m not saying the spec should be tough, but don’t pretend like its not among the glassiest glass cannons in the game.

The lack of boon removal is a pretty recognized issue at this point – maybe you disagree, but I’m not making the issue up out of whole cloth, and Anet agrees.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

The whole point of my post (and I admit, I could have been way clearer on this)was to reduce Thief burst (All burst actually, but thief is the class I’m most familiar with) without reducing the ability to kill bunkers.

Yes of course.

Allowing a Thief to deal damage thru a block is “to reduce Thief burst " eventhough that blocking is 100% damage reduction, thus an effective anti-burst.

In short: I don’t follow your logic.

Besides, in a coordinated attack, a Necro or Mesmer will strip all protection from a target before the rest of the team burst/spike the target to death.

Allow me to elaborate (though to be honest, what I’m about to type here exists in this post already in some way shape or form).

Step 1) Reduce thief damage – Mind you, thieves will still have to hit fairly hard (low base HP, medium armor, no protection, no stability, no immune skills), but alter the mechanics that let them hit like trucks in exchange for being as tough as a wet dollar store napkin
Step 2) With their new reduced burst potential, thieves need some way to actually threaten bunkers – My suggestion was to allow some or all of their attacks to penetrate block, with each ability having its own % of block piercing. I’m not suggesting every ability have 100% block penetration..in fact, I mentioned alot of them would probably be very low (just to allow the application of secondary effects through block). The second suggestion (taken from the general tone of the SotG) was more boon stripping/hate. When you combine the 2 (again, in my interpretation), it makes it so that bunkers can’t just throw up all their best boons asap and block whenever they feel like it – they have to try to counterplay the thief a little bit. Should the bunker throw up some short duration boons to try to bait me to waste Init? When should he use his block to ensure I won’t be able to burst him down through it? Can he throw up some important boons then block to get the thief to blow his init pool doing utter kitten damage just to remove the boons?etc, etc, etc…

EasymodeX.4062:

AW rear positional 100% armor pen was a good mechanic though. I certainly enjoyed using it and playing against it.

Dat trinket was pretty kitten stupid though. Although I rather enjoyed the no-resist one for my Sorc when pesky WHs popped up with the immunity cooldown. Sumkittenes don’t expect a disarm to go straight their their magic immune. POW.

The whole point of my post (and I admit, I could have been way clearer on this)was to reduce Thief burst (All burst actually, but thief is the class I’m most familiar with) without reducing the ability to kill bunkers.

One of the very obvious and clear fixes for this is to remove PvE crit damage % itemization from WvW. There’s a very broad difference in burst damage between sPvP and WvW, and no small part of it begins with “Berz” and ends with “erker”.

But I sincerely doubt Anet will go that route.

I’m of the opinion that the bigger the PvE / PvP split, the better.

Everyone is supposed to be on equal ground in PvP – same gear choices, same levels, etc…

Things that unbalance WvW and PvE may have absolutely no bearing on PvP. Anet should be balancing based on PvP, or split the abilities across both worlds entirely. I understand that this is alot of work, but its silly to claim you want an Esport on a completely level playing ground, then make changes to PvP abilities based on their WvW performance.

Elmuerto.9840:

I think the mechanics are fine the way they are – we could suggest an ability that makes the next attack unblockable but that would be far too much. When I see a guardian blocking and I’m able to, I’m waiting for the right time to use my attacks. Although many think they must use D/D because backstab is the biggets hitter I think there are lots of ways a thief can be played and don’t feel we need anything additional like striking through blocking. Stealth is there and we can wait for opportune attacks – like a thief. I feel in Warhammer Online the % mechanics such as parry and the “can not be blocked” Pocket Items just dumbed down the playing greatly. GW2 is a much more fluid and fun game.

The whole point of my post (and I admit, I could have been way clearer on this)was to reduce Thief burst (All burst actually, but thief is the class I’m most familiar with) without reducing the ability to kill bunkers.

I’d like to see all burst reduced – I want more 15-30s fights, not a 5s “Who got who” burst fest between 2 glassily spec’d players. You can’t blame the glass (not everyone has to be squishy burst, but at least some players need to go that route to counter bunkers), you can’t blame the bunkers (all they’re doing is what Anet designed their class to do in PvP – cap a point and be tough to kill).

I’d like to see traits and abilities done so that a thief heavily invested in Power/crit does good (but not overwhelming) damage generally, and his method of dealing with bunkers is something that primarily affects bunker classes (boon stripping/hate, ignoring block, ignoring armor, etc). There’s some degree of collateral damage in any of these applications (EX -not only bunkers rely on boons, and if you give a thief enough boon stripping/hate to affect a bunker, its going to maul non-bunkers who rely on boons), I suggested ignoring block because it felt like the option with the least collateral damage – yes, non-bunkers do block, but it can be a major component of bunker survivability AND it’s not as universal to non-bunkers as say boons or armor is.

EasymodeX.4062:

seriously, we are talking about punishing thieves for repeatedly using their defensive ability here.

This may come as news to you, but thieves have more than 1 defensive ability in their arsenal.

Perfect example of a stealth crutch player who has no concept of dodges, blinds, or evades.

While you’re right, dodges, blinds and evades don’t trigger all the traits in the Shadow arts tree. It’s not the end of the world, but these changes will weaken our best healing and condition removal traits, if just a bit.

Daendur.2357:

As shown in the video stealth stomp + c&d is a common way of acting. They should have done something like “if you don’t perform any action you’ll get revealed” so you can’t just c&d -> wait -> c&d etc etc.
Also every block stance/immunity correctly timed will prevent any form of damage AND apply revealed.

@Sebrent = how is the s/d damage ? Can you actually kill someone?

Sword is unfortunately an inferior choice to dagger. Sebrent and others will no doubt come and explain at length how it takes more skill, IS is amazing, blah blah blah, but the truth is, it just isn’t as well designed as D/P.

FS’s targeting is all kinds of kittened up. I don’t care if it hits great with Basilisks or Devourers, I shouldn’t need to pop a utility to make sure one of my weaponskills paths correctly.

IS is amazing – it’s literally the rock that every sword spec is built on. Without it, Sword would be considered a joke entirely. There is an issue with using IS too fast however, where it constantly bugs out (Drops a circle and doesn’t teleport you to target, consumes shadow return but doesn’t move you to the circle, double shadow return, double strike…etc)

AA is ok, but slow and easily avoided. Hitting multiple targets per swing might be nice in PvE, but in PvP it just means there are that many targets in Melee range, either focusing you or hitting you with their own AoE, and thief isn’t tough enough to take that.

Dagger OH has been crap since they nerfed it – I’ll take Headshot and BP over them pretty much any day.

Tactical strike used to be a fantastic control move, until they nerfed the duration in PvP – now it doesn’t deliver enough daze for the insanely kittenty damage and positional req’s.

All in all, compared to D/P (or even D/D, which is worse than D/P), sword is inferior. It does less damage, slower. It has all the positional requirements of D/D, with none of the burst – the daze you get in return is sub par. While IS is amazing, it’s not good enough to save the spec from mediocrity. Perhaps if FS was functional and reliable, the case would be different (as on paper, FS is amazing)

Sebrent.3625:

I don’t think flanking strike removing 2 boons instead of 1 would be too overpowered.

If you made it easier to hit with flanking strike, however, I think its damage would need to be lowered as it is barely below the damage of backstab.

Its a 3/4 second activation ability (compared to 1/4), it does (If I recall correctly, can’t test atm) around 20% less damage, and you’re vulnerable (the evasion is no longer in effect) while waiting for the second strike to land. Its also broken into 2 swings, meaning the second strike can be dodged, and you always see it coming – BS is all or nothing, and done from stealth.

Adaneshade.2409:

I play S/D primarily and haven’t had a bit of trouble with flanking strike landing. ESPECIALLY vs a bunker which is a very sedentary build by design in order to maintain control of a point.

Any player standing stone still is doing it wrong – some bunkers may have a severe lack of speed buffs and movement related abilities, but you rarely see anything but inexperienced players just stand still for any extended period of time. Flanking strike is only 100% effective on players standing still – otherwise, it randomly has pathing issues, and can’t be relied on.

EasymodeX.4062:

3) No reasoning? Here’s a truncated version of the last paragraph of my original post. “Keep bunker bustering in via changes suggested, that way overall damage can be lower and other classes no longer feel like thieves 1 shot them, but bunkers still need fear them”.

That’s nice. Doesn’t explain whether or not players actually do get 1-shot, or whether getting “1-shot” is legitimate or not in the first place, or the conditions and characteristics of getting 1-shot that are legitimate or overpowered. Or how reducing “1-shot” damage/scenarios somehow correlates to a requirement for a total damage reduction.

In other words, you’re assuming that Thieves need a general damage nerf and that they need to bust bunkers more than they currently do (in order to compensate for it). If you want to make those assumptions, fine. State that those are your assumptions.

However, based on the last 10 patches, it doesn’t seem like ANet is interested in nerfing general thief damage (good). And if any changes need to be made, they are relative to the specific execution of specific combos (the classic CND Mug BS) or itemization (PvE crit damage itemization in WvW) rather than any general damage change for the class.

3) Heal reduction affects all classes, not just bunkers (as my suggestion did). People already feel thieves are too powerful, and with high access to poison, this will appear as though a pretty direct buff for them.

Bunkers don’t survive without sustain. Healing is the primary sustain mechanism in GW2, particularly the relatively “high” base healing with armor (toughness) stacking.

At the end of the day, if Thieves already have good access to weakness (anti-dodge), poison (anti-heals), and some degree of boon strip (sigil and/or flanking strike and/or traited strip-on-steal), then why does a Thief need more anti-bunker than what is already “the best anti-bunker in the entire game”?

Seriously, I like the idea of armor pen. On one hand, protection is much, much more important than armor for DR,

0 to protection reduces damage by 33%. 0 to max toughness reduces damage by 50%? Plus or minus. Pretty sure armor (and the synergy of armor x heal) has more of an impact than protection.

If you’ve played the game or visited the boards, you’re familiar with both Instagib and the general “feeling” that thieves do too much burst damage. Again, I’m not going to write a dissertation with citations and references – unless this is your first time on the boards, you have a general idea of what I’m talking about.

I brought up thieves reduced damage because again, SotG mentioned that the “Do a ton of damage to overcome bunkers” model wasn’t working, and that it would need to be re-worked. They mentioned maybe lowering damage a bit, and adding more mobility options (something I didn’t include but should have, my bad). If they plan on lowering thief damage, they will need to increase bunker busting in some other form.

Crit boon removal sigil is garbage – its uncontrolled and happens once every 10s, it cant be applied tactically. Flanking strike would be an awesome boon removal…if the skill pathed correctly. Bountiful theft is nice to rip 2 boons every 32-36 seconds. No bunkering spec in the game will be crippled by losing 2 boons every 32-36s.

If armor was the key to bunkering, you’d see more bunker warriors. Huge armor and Highest base HP pool would make them monsters – but that’s not the case, s it. How effective you bunker is primarily based on your access to protection and healing (also taking into account other factors, like immune skills and condition removal). Being able to strip protection is more important than being able to ignore some % of armor, IMO (Unless you’re advocating some attacks ignore 60%+ armor, which just off the top of my head feels pretty OP, though maybe warrants some investigation)

Adaneshade.2409:

I think there is some confusion here. Easymode only made 1 post that was equivalent to “nope l2p”. Not sure where “continually” comes from.
It just goes to show that, while well laid out, your idea simply is not what many thieves find to be an acceptable fix.

I reported the first one (and it was removed) because I didn’t want to have to repeatedly ask people to actually back up their “nope, L2P” submissions. When it happened a second time, I decided it would be better to try and draw him into a conversation rather than continually reporting it.

And its fine that thieves are disagreeing with me – I’m not going to throw a hissy fit if people dislike my idea. The point of putting it here was to discuss it, I’m glad for even disagreeing opinions, as long as they’re opinions and not just internet toughguy snark.

EasymodeX.4062:

We’re going to try and have a discussion here – I’d like to assume you know how to do that, but so far it doesn’t appear so. Allow me to help you with specific inquiries.

You make posts like this and you don’t get infractions? Wow.

I was simply offering some clarification – you continually responded with “Nope, L2P” after I specifically requested people offer some sort of reasoning for their assertions. It appears to have worked (I couldn’t quote your whole post, it was rather long and attempted to include reasoning and logic, unlike your earlier ones, which I do appreciate), so I’d say it had the intended effect. Now, lets get into it.

1) I didn’t ask you to attach footnotes and formulas to your opinion, just to explain it, as I explained mine. Go watch SotG, or read some excerpts, and you’ll find the parts I referenced. It’s possible I’ve mis-remembered the SotG, but I don’t believe so.
2) Again, something I either saw during the SotG or read in the transcripts. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t believe so.
3) No reasoning? Here’s a truncated version of the last paragraph of my original post. “Keep bunker bustering in via changes suggested, that way overall damage can be lower and other classes no longer feel like thieves 1 shot them, but bunkers still need fear them”.
4) I feel its safe to assume you’ve played the game and fought other bunkers – they all utilize block. I don’t see the point in listing all the block options for the current popular bunker specs.
5) I don’t have the data in front of me Anet has – I didn’t cite specific numbers because that’s a decision you make via a design process and playtesting using data from the game.

Second set of points
1) I suggested better boon removal
2) Perhaps thieves need more weakness, haven’t thought about it enough to make that call – though at a glance, thieves do seem to have decent access to weakness.
3) Heal reduction affects all classes, not just bunkers (as my suggestion did). People already feel thieves are too powerful, and with high access to poison, this will appear as though a pretty direct buff for them.
4) That’s not a bad suggestion! Thanks for making it.

Seriously, I like the idea of armor pen. On one hand, protection is much, much more important than armor for DR, but we’ve already both agreed that more Boon removal is probably in order. That, combined with armor pen is probably a better mechanic than ignoring blocks (though both have the same aim – give thief a way to seriously threaten bunkers that cant be used on non-bunkers for ungodly high damage).

ensoriki.5789:

They didn’t disagree, you’re misunderstanding the statement.
You cannot have an entire defense mostly to exist.
You’re having Block now significantly ignored inherently.
Let’s look at Flanking strike, boons are still a factor for an S/D even with Bountiful theft, they are not ignored. To remove a boon you use 4 ini, to remove a boon you use steal.
If a Mesmer wants to remove a boon, they use a skill (outside of sword auto). Meaning trading a resource for that specific capability.

If all thief abilities had a % damage to just go through block, it’s not about trading resource, just keep doin what you do.

In gw1 Warrior’s “boon-hate” and the “assassins” we originate from was inherently different.
Warriors did not remove boons, they had additional effects against them.
Assassin’s removed the defense which worked for their lower dps but quick burst attitude. In exchange that did not invalidate non-boon defenses which you’re essentially requesting, to do that you had to take another skill (say Expose Defenses) or hex removal.

There were trade off’s for everything, Shattering Assault could be stopped, Lift Enchantments could be stopped, Expunge enchantments could be stopped.
Dark Apostasy could be stripped. We made trade off’s to break through defense instead of just blowing things apart with the highest damage Blades of Steel/Death Blossom combo we could figure out at the time. Having skills like Exhausting assault.
Having more unblockable skills would certainly make more sense if there were more skills that applied block but as it currently is, there isn’t really enough for such changes not to be fairly polarizing.

I could remove Protective Spirit, to start my spike, but a Mo/W could activate Bonetti’s defense, and stop themself from being shotdown. What you’re requesting is basically for you to passively get results by having inherent block piercing. That goes against active play that makes decisions.
I’d argue it’s not healthy.

Boon-hate and removal aren’t the same thing so there isn’t really a point to differentiate them. One destroys a boon completely, the other is working around it.
Boon removal being the ideal choice.

Make thieves the “Undermines your efforts” bunker buster by giving them more boon removal and unblockable attacks while also reducing their damage

Read what you’re saying.
Thief removes boon. Thief has unblockable attacks.
Thief essentially has no defensive counter then outside of dodge, and blind. Can’t snare me because I teleport. Mobility prof ftw. There has to be trade off’s. It’s part of why Tripwire is what it is. If a Ranger uses Counter attack, I am free to just plant a tripwire on him. His block is long enough that I can justify it. Same with Shield stance and many guardian blocks as well. In exchange they now sit on their kitten for 2s while you pound on them. Which frankly enough, can be more time than you need as a thief.

Having Niche unblockable attacks is fine. Having a few select boon removal skills is fine (there should be more). Most of your attacks just piercing through block as if it was just another type of “protection” is silly.

Thieves are finishers and mobile. They can’t just walk up to a guardian and say “You know you gonna eat aaaalllll of this”. Both sides are supposed to have options and this, is just kittenting on the guardians excessively with limited conscious choice involved on your own part.

But I’m not advocating that ALL (or even most) of our skills do 100% damage through block – I specifically said in the initial post that attacks do a % of their damage through block, and that % is on an attack by attack basis (not some blanket number). You’d have a small selection of attacks that do All or Most of their damage through block (Again, a playtesting issue), while the rest do severely reduced damage.

I imagine it being balanced in a way that just gives the thief options – do I want to wait until block is over and do damage, or do I spend initiative on moderately to severely reduced damage because its important for me to strip a boon/apply a condition/gain stealth…and so on. In the version I’ve suggested, if a thief blindly goes nuts on a blocking target, they’ll find themselves having spent all their initiative to do 15-25% of the damage they would have done if they had just waited.

Its about more tactical choices. More variety of play. Bunkers will have to respond differently to warriors and thieves, giving them more varied play and tactical decisions on the fly, not just “Uh oh, big DPS on the way, I know what abilities to dodge/block and what boons I want up”.

Thieves will have options when faced with a bunker – is sacrificing X damage worth performing some secondary action (boon strip, apply a condition, etc)? Is he trying to bait me into stripping these boons and wasting my init? Should I blow my init pool and go for the kill, or try to wear him down?

ensoriki.5789:

Defenses exist for a reason this is why Boon removal and Unblockable skills will continue to be relatively few in number, and generally outside of the box.

You have exceptions on traps and FS. FS doesn’t hit quite hard, and Tripwire can be difficult to land specifically when someone is blocking. Lack of getting past block is not an issue or a solution to a thieves role or damage.

But Anet disagrees with your statement about boon removal – the last SotG (as far as I know, maybe I’m not recalling it correctly?) specifically talked about giving DPS a way around boons. Their current “Give thieves and Warriors enough damage to simply outweigh the boons” isn’t working as they intended, and there are undesirable side effects (they can hit SUPER hard on squishier classes). Current Boon Bunkers (the players that tailor their spec for maximum defensive boon applications and uptime) has caused Anet to examine a possible way around boons – more Boon removal, and maybe a new mechanic Boon Hate (X% More damage per boon your target has).

What I’m suggesting is, instead of just adding some boon removal and boon hate to warriors and thieves, why not differentiate the 2 a little bit? Keep warrior the hard hitting “Overwhelms bunkers with sheer damage” class by giving them access to Boon hate. Make thieves the “Undermines your efforts” bunker buster by giving them more boon removal and unblockable attacks while also reducing their damage. Each class has a way to seriously threaten bunkers, but they’re distinctly different. This would add some dynamic elements to the game (Bunkers will have to employ entirely different tactics against warriors and thieves, rather than mostly the same tactics with slight variations).

So in short, my suggestion is both warriors and thieves no longer do insane damage up front – the way bunkers are dealt with is changed for both classes.
Warriors do more and more damage the more boons their target has – that means they can still have good (but not overwhelming) damage against classes that don’t stack boons, but still be very strong at bunker busting – a good balance.
Thieves instead get to keep good (but not overwhelming) damage against players that don’t rely on boons and blocks, but still have the tools to drop those bunkers when they encounter them.

EasymodeX.4062:

Your suggestion is unnecessary. All players are sadface when their attacks are blocked.

Deal with it?

We’re going to try and have a discussion here – I’d like to assume you know how to do that, but so far it doesn’t appear so. Allow me to help you with specific inquiries.

Why do you feel my suggestion is unnecessary? Try and list some justifications as I and others have, not just blanket statements and dismissals. A discussion isn’t “your idea sucks, L2P”. Its more along the lines of “I feel as though your suggestion is unnecessary – here are some reasons why” (then you supply the reasons).

What exactly do you feel is bad about my idea to lower a thieves overall damage while keeping them as the “Bunker busting” class ANet envisions them as? From my point of view, it keeps the community happy (lower thief damage overall, raising the skill floor since thief can no longer rely on huge burst to remove skill from the equation) while still allowing them to fulfill ANets vision behind the classes design.

To re-iterate (Again, so that it’s perfectly clear), I want this to be a discussion. I want to know why you disagree with me – maybe there are things I haven’t taken into account, maybe my idea is just plain dumb. But we’ll never know if all you contribute to the conversation is “Your idea is bad, L2P”.

Adaneshade.2409:

OK, how’s this…

ArenaNet already thought of this. That is why they implemented Flanking Strike’s ability to ignore block functions. We can’t give everything to dagger builds or there’d be no diversity at all. Simply having us hit through block is too easy, players should be expected to be able take A and B and make C with it.

Sure Flanking Strike’s first hit sucks. But it does provide an unblockable vector to carry some poison or other effect to the target. In addition, it will strip a boon off (let’s say regeneration, or maybe even aegis itself).

The use of basilisk venom with sword builds is a very good combination as sword kind of focuses on CC, so it’s not so far out of the realm of possibility that a player would already be using that venom.

I do not mean for this to come out as personal attacks against you, rather an attack on the current idea of what a thief is or “is forced to be”. I think the thief community will have to better itself through use of “off the wall” ideas if we are ever to generate respect for out community.

We are viewed almost unanimously by players as an “unskilled” or “trash” class that requires no thought to play. I’m simply trying to show that the class has potential to use thought processes more advanced than simply increasing damage output, or in this case making attacks ignore functions without having the player make a conscious decision to do so.

But I’m also advocating the lowering of damage – I’m not just saying “make all thief attacks some % unblockable”, I’m also saying “While normalizing thief damage”. In addition, I’m also advocating that some abilities have really low damage % through block – you’ll still have to make conscious decisions (Do I flanking strike for 100% damage through block, or do i IS (which we’ll pretend only does 10% damage through block) for the immob?)

My suggestion would make thief a weaker class against anyone who can’t block or who blocks very infrequently – its a way to lower thief damage (which should please the rest of the community) while NOT decreasing their ability to down bunkers (which is something ANet feels thieves should specialize in).

While I Agree with you about how other players view thief, you can’t account for the views of other players; they’ll NEVER be happy.
A) It wouldn’t matter if thieves hit for 10 damage an attack, people will QQ about stealth. People will QQ on the boards as long as stealth exists. This is a fact.
B) Most skilled players who tPvP rate thief around the middle for a reason – they’re currently useful, but by no means “necessary” in tPvP. Thieves shouldn’t be concerned with making “off the wall” and “outside the box” decisions to prove they’re not OP, because the tPvP community already understand they’re not. The people who believe they are OP are generally inexperienced or highly biased, and you don’t need to cater to inexperienced or biased players – in fact, catering to them will only kitten up the balance.

Adaneshade.2409:

It isn’t really a suggestion, though. Just another QQ thread by someone using a very linear build, my point is; built properly, the thief has a counter to EVERY ability.

Posts like this are the reason everyone assumes that thief is incapable of anything more than “moar pew pew”.

How is this QQ? I’m not complaining about anything, I’m making a suggestion. In the SotG they mentioned bunker busting via high damage – I feel that should be a warrior’s area of expertise. High damage and boon hate (Dealing more damage per boon an enemy has) seems a very “Warriory” thing to do – just hitting harder and harder and harder until your enemy falls.

That doesn’t really fit the theme for a thief – they should be stripping boons and doing damage to you even if you do block, like a sneaky backstabbing thief would – and not with just a single skill on 1 weaponset (which at the moment is poorly designed and poorly functioning).

People cry that thieves do too much damage – Anet says thats because they’re supposed to bust bunkers. I’ve suggested a bunker busting method which would allow thieves damage to be more normalized, but still be considered deadly to bunkers in a way rangers and engineers and elementalists might not be.

And again, its just a suggestion which I’ve asked for opinions on. If your opinion is “I disagree”, by all means contribute. But there’s no need to be a prick about it, and don’t fall back on your forum cheat sheet by calling what is clearly a suggestion “QQ”.

Adaneshade.2409:

evilapprentice.6379:

Adaneshade.2409:

Two words……. FLANKING STRIKE!

Time to take the training wheels off and play a real build.

Only the first strike on flanking strike (The kittenty one, that hits only slightly harder than dancing dagger in a power crit build) is unblockable – the second more powerful strike (the one that only occurs after your evasion has ended, btw) is blockable.

Also, considering the extremely poor pathing of the skill, you might want to leave the training wheels on – seems like it needs it.

How about popping a venom before using it? You land the venom (let’s say basilisk) guy is turned to stone and can’t block. His CD is burned and he’s screwed.
Think outside the box.

Oh cool, I’ll specifically dedicate a utility to make one of my poorly designed and poorly functioning weapon skills work! That’s much easier than expecting Anet to fix the ability so it works in and of itself, with no outside help, like every other single weapon skill in the game was designed to do.

If you don’t like my suggestion, feel free to express your opinion without being condescending or an kitten. If you can’t do that, do not bother.

Adaneshade.2409:

Two words……. FLANKING STRIKE!

Time to take the training wheels off and play a real build.

Only the first strike on flanking strike (The kittenty one, that hits only slightly harder than dancing dagger in a power crit build) is unblockable – the second more powerful strike (the one that only occurs after your evasion has ended, btw) is blockable.

Also, considering the extremely poor pathing of the skill, you might want to leave the training wheels on – seems like it needs it.

dandamanno.4136:

I think blocking is pretty balanced already, as characters that block can generally do nothing else while blocking. I think having it apply to all thief skills would be OP.

Better balance would be some thief skills (on specific weapons) and would have to be traited for (much like unblockable marks for the Necromancer.) This would allow for a specific bunker bursting build while having to give up traits/weapons that may do more damage. (and could allow for full damage through the block)

Except that blocking gives them a chance to regenerate (via the boon or other health restoring means), wait out CD’s, and wait out boons on their opponents. They could also have thrown out some AoE’s before blocking,

The point of giving different skills a different percentage of damage is to give the thief a unique application in sPvP and tPvP – you can have abilitites like flanking strike and BS do 100% damage (please don’t point out if this is OP or not, I’m not advocating, just using these as an example), and have something like CnD do 10% – the idea isn’t to use CnD as a DPS tool against a blocking opponent, more that a thief is so quick and sneaky that they can still land a glancing strike on you even though you’re blocking to take advantage of an abilities other effects (stealth in the case of CnD, blind for BP, immob for IS, etc…)

So; you read the title, and you’re here to call me an idiot. Before doing that, please read the post. Titles are woefully too short to properly encapsulate my idea in full.

From the SotG, it sounds to me like the devs initially gave thieves such high damage as a bunker busting mechanic – they’re supposed to deal high burst damage, even through boons, in an attempt to overwhelm a players defenses. I don’t know about you guys, but to me this description appears more fitting for a Warrior than a Thief. Thieves shouldn’t be the ones hitting so hard that they overwhelm a target with sheer damage – they should be the one slipping in behind to ignore and strip those defenses.

To that end, I’m suggesting all (or almost all) thief abilities do some percentage of their listed damage through block. Each ability could have a different % (for balance reasons, and to make some skills better than others for dealing with bunkers who constantly block). That’s where thieves belong – standing behind their target, sliding the dagger into their back through a gap in their armor – not just beating on them as hard and as fast as they can.

Obviously, there would have to be an adjustment of damage as well. I’m not going to suggest specific numbers (that’s a playtesting issue), but I think this would give the class a distinct identity – the ability to consistently pressure and damage bunkers (by taking advantage of/stripping their boons like mentioned in the SotG, and making it so they can’t rely on block to completely save their lives) without doing so much damage that other classes fear being 1 shot.

What do you guys think?

Eduardo.4675:

Ok. Ive read this Thread. And i find this hard to believe. And its not the 3 tenths of a second reaction time the resident Clark Kents here claim to have. Its more the figures shown in that screenshot.
So, acording to the OP and other posts from the author in this thread, this guardian has 3k Armor (2959 as shown in the screenie), and 19k health points. Only possible if he is using Soldier amulet, btw. No other equipment combination can achieve this is spvp (im assuming its spvp, if not, the OP is invalid, as there is no “at the start of the match” in www). Also, according to the picture and the OP statement, this took place as the match started, and this thief, without any might and bloodlust stacks, hit ALL OF HIS COMBO ATTACKS without triggering AEGIS. Odd. Possible, but odd. Moving forward to the maths.
The OP states that the domages shown in the screenie are only possible due to the high scaling of % dmg increase given by stats/traits/runes/amulets/crit dmg. And that tufness does jack sheet. Well, i’ll show its not true. Ill adress the backstab and heartseeker numbers, as they are odd. They do not compute.
If we take a thief with all zerk equipment, scholar runes (those are the most dmging, due to 8% + crit dmg and 10% flat dmg increase), and give him a stat spread of 30/30/0/0/10, chose mug, venomous strength, dagger training, signets of power, executioner and flanking strikes, use basilisk and assassins signet as some of the utilities, we will get the following stats and % increases:
- 2549 power, after activating venom and assassin signet;
-58% + crit dmg;
-2.4 skill modifier for backstab;
-2.0 skill modifier for heartseeker after reaching the 25% hp treshold;
-1030 dmg for dagger strikes, assuming that it allways hits for max dagger dmg (981) and after dagger training is applied (for triggering max dagger dmg its required planetary alignment, pluto included);
-70% dmg increase from all traits/rune/assassins signet dmg modifiers: 5% from flanking strikes, 10% from scholar runes, exposed weakness and first strikes, 20% from executioner and 15 % from assassins signet.
The guardian has 19k hp and 2959 armor, as stated by the OP himself. So, to reach the 25% hp treshold (for heartseeker max dmg hits), we need to do over 14250 dmg first. C&D + steal + backstab = 2851 + 4320 + 8047 = 15218. We ONLY reach the 25% treshold for max heartseeker after backstab. So, this heartseer did meet the requirements to hit both the 25% treshold imposed by the skill itself, and the 50% treshold imposed by executioner to get the extra 20% dmg increase. But… what about BS? and C&D? and steal? we do know that C&D and steal never reaches the 50% treshold to trigger executioner, at least not in someone with 19k hp, but BS?
-> 2851 + 4320 = 7171… BS NEVER benefited from executioner, as it hit the target when he was above 50% hp. So, in light of this, BS did not reap the + 20% increase from executioner. That leaves us with only 50% dmg increase after crit and dagger training. Lets plug this figures in the dmg formula:
Dmg = 2549 × 1030 × 2.4 / 2959 <=> 2129 dmg for a normal hit; if we add the 108% increase from crit dmg we get 4429 dmg; now adding 50% dmg increase from traits/runes/signet, we finally get a BS for… 6644 dmg. That is far from 8047 dmg. And very similar to the heartseeker hit. Something does not compute. What is wrong here? Is it the armor value? the screenshot has zero value in that dept, as the number in there was plugged in by picture manipulation, the 19k hp value seems to be right coz its consistent with the death report shown on screen. These figures are similar with a toon having 2.5k armor, not 3k. In the mists, testing against the heavy golem im sure it will give our heartseekeers values within the reach of those 6630 shown in there. But BS for 8k when above 50% hp is very difficult. This is all very odd. Armor deflection (or, the effect of tufness in reducing dmg) is given by the formula (CA – BA)/CA, where CA is current armor and BA is base armor. With 2959 armor, and a guardian having 2127 base armor, the Armor deflection is 28.12%. That’s almost Protection. I dont understand this domages. The fact that steal hit for half of the BS, and BS hit for quite more than heartseeker benefiting from the executioner trait, makes me think that the OP is lying about his stats. This is another one of those threads. A useless one. QQ thread.

The quoting of this post should be mandatory in all further communications in this thread. As a thief, I’m running a High crit damage/high power build atm, and I don’t reach anywhere near these numbers, even on GC thieves.
Thanks for doing all the legwork to expose the bullkitten – I don’t mind people kittening, but liars and exaggerators are half the reason there are so many misinformed players atm QQing for nerfs and changes that make no sense to those of us who bothered to play the game and learn.

TGSlasher.1458:

I am lvl 1 in sPvP on 1 of my accounts
and lvl 30ish on my other.

Does that mean that if I want to make another character on my second account I have to regrind to victory just to play tourney with that character?

Well, let’s be blunt here – you own 2 accounts.

Rank is account level rather than character level for a reason – to avoid situations such as this. I don’t think its Anets responsibility to design around players with multiple accounts.

PopeUrban.2578:

Nope.

Signet of Malice is specifically designed to reward high hit volumes. Normalizing it as such simply makes it an overall worse heal than the other two rather than a situationally better or worse heal.

Thieves already have the best variety of unique heal skills, and all three of them are already very good at their intended purpose whilst simultaneously sucking when that purpose is not met.

• HiS: Awesome when you’re not revealed, kinda crappy when you are. Worse against CC if you haven’t traited for condition removal in stealth.
• Withdraw: Awesome when you’re not bleeding/burning/poisoned/conditioned to death, kinda crappy when you are.
• Signet of Malice: Awesome in target rich/high hit volume scenarios, kinda crappy against single targets/low hit volumes.

This makes heal selection actually important as a skill selection on a moment-to-moment basis, and Anet has repeatedly said that they want and intend for us to be swapping skills between fights based on the situation (similar to how all of GW1 was designed specifically for you to need to swap skills between areas or for PvP group composition.)

Asking for SoM to be good at something that is counter to its design just plain weakens SoM and actively removes rather than adds build options and combat maneuvers that are the sole reason it’s worth putting on your bar. You’re expecting SoM to “just work” rather than having to “make it work for you” and this isn’t how HiS or Withdraw work either.

There’s a combination of issues here.

SoM only rewards high hit volume builds. This (at the moment) is restrictive, because a thief doesn’t really have a high hit volume build that’s considered worth using in either PvP or PvE. From the PoV of the current meta, SoM needs an update – everyone wants more spec diversity.

Looking at it from a design standpoint (if we assume all classes are well built and have multiple spec options), SoM is fine – its a heal for high hit volume builds, which thief should have plenty of access too (again, assuming classes are well built and have multiple spec options). It gives each of the separate heals their own flavor – tailored more to their own spec, etc…

So, that puts us in an awkward situation. ATM, Anet hasn’t build up any trust in the community as far as giving classes multiple spec options goes. I can see why OP want’s an SoM update; it’s currently crap for anything that isn’t a gimmicky or sub-par spec.

Looking in the long run however (and that’s loosely defined, who knows when ANet is going to actually achieve spec diversity), changing SoM would be a mistake. Theoretically, it’s an awesome heal for high hit volume specs, and in a game where there are multiple high hit volume specs available to thief, it gives the player different play style options.

tl;dr – SoM only sucks at the moment because Anet hasn’t delivered on spec diversity promises. Once thieves have high hit volume specs that work in PvE and PvP, SoM will be a worthwhile heal. ATM though, its crap, and I understand why OP wants it changed (though it shouldn’t happen, due to long term concerns).