Guild Wars 2

Thanks for posting this Terror! It’s helpful, useful, and most importantly a good example of a problem.

Vincent is 100% correct – thief is completely outclassed in the current meta. Your video and tips almost explicitly say so.

“Don’t try to 1v1 unless it’s a thief (the weak class you’re playing) or a mesmer (the class thief hard counters).” – what other class in the game running its meta spec can only handle 1/4 of the class choices in a 1 on 1?

“Only outnumber fights, don’t try to even them up” – Thief isn’t even good enough to run in an even fight – they’re only good for +1’ing a fight, which isn’t heartening, any class can make a fight uneven and do so successfully. What good is outnumbering a fight then you’re leaving your team outnumbered somewhere else?

I’ve said this before, but what good is mobility if you’re kitten near worthless when you get to your point? If you’re so weak that you can only make a difference when your outnumbering your opponents, why bother? As vincent keeps saying, taking a class that can effectively defend a point instead of a thief means less rotation, which means more points, which means winning the game.

Thief is in a horrible place right now – your guide paints a very clear portrait of that.

You can’t look at a class that shouldn’t 1v1 6 out of 7 classes (we won’t count thief v thief for obvious reasons) and shouldn’t even consider evening up a fight and pretend it’s in a good place.

It’s….definitely more effective than you think it would be at first glance. I did remarkably well with it considering it’s a new playstyle, but it was in hot join of course so take from that what you will.

Part of me feels like some of it’s effectiveness is the shock factor though – people see S/D and don’t expect to be dealing with conditions/Caltrops, so they’re half dead before they know it. If the build gains popularity, people will learn how to fight it (by not eating caltrops, mainly) and it’ll probably lose effectiveness.

I have no idea if it’ll become “meta” or not, but it’s at least a different, (possibly) effective new way to play thief for a bit – D/P burst and S/D spin dancer get old as your only choices after a while.

Turrets – allow crits and conditions to affect turrets. Rebalance health/armor to reflect this change.

Rationale – Players have 5 stats they can choose from to determine how much potential damage they do – power, ferocity, precision, condition damage and condition duration. Turrets ignore 4 of them. In addition, some classes defenses are based on/supplemented by conditions, which turrets completely ignore.

Off the top of my head, low Armor/High health turrets that are affected by crits and conditions feels fair.

Rapid Fire – Instead of 1 attack at 3.75 multiplier across 10 hits, give 1 attack across the first 5 strikes (because you cant say hits after 5) at 1.25 multiplier and 1 attack across the last 5 strikes at 3.75 multiplier.

Rationale – RF isn’t OP, but it’s far too easy to use for a burst skill. It requires nothing but LoS and range on the skill with the best range in the game (assuming EE and RtW). The skill shouldn’t be “Hit 2 and see how many attacks stick”. Since we’re making the damage harder to land on the skill, it gets a damage buff so when it’s properly used, it’s even better.

Point blank Shot – change the Knockback on the second (500) and third(400) tiers to 350 and 200 respectively.

Rationale – The knockback is too much at mid and long range.

Dear lord I hope not.

I’m not sure what everyone’s obsession with rifle is, but I can’t think of a more boring weapon choice for thief. I can’t even imagine how they’d balance it – Dagger DPS at range is already covered by Ranger/would be broken if the spec retains any of a thief’s mobility, shbow already covers ranged AoE, and P/D already covers ranged condition damage.

There’s so many more interesting possible combinations. Axe/Focus Bloodstalker (think thief/necro hybrid), Axe/Mace Thug (think thief/warrior stun centric hybrid), Sword/Torch (think “Burn the heretic!” Witch hunter style from Warhammer); even Martial Staff style Monk/or GS style Samurai are exciting compared to “Pew pew 1 shot you from across the point Ghilly suit if not” silliness. kitten, I’d even take shield OH over rifle, assuming they implemented it competently.

And even though it’s purely aesthetic, the stupid rifles don’t even fully point in the direction of the shot – those oddly angled light beams coming from the barrels of the rifles make the game look cheap.

I’m a bit confused.

Did the crying meta change when I wasn’t looking? Was there a forum kittening patch I missed? Are people super-kitten over the teleport fixes, and how they prove that z-axis teleports were intended design?

My only working theory is that a bunch of kids are just coming off of being grounded for something they did during spring break, getting their computer privileges back, and rushing to various forums (this one included) to spew a few weeks worth of pent up bile. I readily admit however that this is more of a “gut feeling” than something I can prove. Anyone else have any theories?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cronicle.5691:

evilapprentice.6379:

Oh, good. I’ll remember to stop attacking when I hit around 35% of my health, so as to not get screwed by LR.

I’m sure glad there’s a 1pt minor trait that dictates when I can and can’t attack, lest I take a penalty from a trait that’s supposed to be beneficial (and at its worse, should be neutral).

The fact that you think it’s perfectly acceptable for thieves to be forced to play around an unavoidable trait (if they go SA) or else take a penalty calls into question your qualifications concerning making suggestions on how we should all “stop sucking and start learning”.

So im presuming that you are one of the minority who complain about last refuge because you cant play with the mechanic which doesnt force you you stop attacking.

So lets be realistic about this. If you are dying because of a simple minor trait which actually has more defensive value (in my opinion) than anything then i can only judge you for being poor at thief (That is to say if you take the easy 6 points shadow arts route for a cheesy D/P build). If you got burst down, you would have died regardless. If your health DID reach 25% health and you still died in stealth, you died regardless. If you DIDN’T die, got away, and reset…. then you played smart. You cannot force a change of mechanic because you fail to utilize it correctly.

Ill take that free blinding powder 4 sec stealth and 6 sec blind for free, any day.

I agree with you, but it’s more complicated than that. The main issue is that we don’t have a choice to either take it or not. For those who knows how to take advantage of the trait, it’s a boon to their build. However for the rest of us who don’t want to deal with it should have an option not to take it.

Vincent, you’re generally a person I can trust to have an honest conversation with lacking any condescension, so I’ll direct this at you.

Let’s ignore the fact that you feel that thieves should have the option not to take LR. That would be great, but that would leave LR poorly designed.

Players should be making the best choice for the situation at hand – sometimes that means going for the kill/interrupt while hovering dangerously close to LR trigger range. Why should thieves who choose to play aggressively be potentially afflicted with 4s of reveal from a trait that’s designed to be beneficial (and again, neutral at worst).

Why should a 1pt trait force anyone to change their playstyle or be potentially penalized?

The thing about Last Refuge is that it gives a Thief a way to save themselves while running away — which is I believe is the intention of the trait.

And as you say, it doesn’t work well when the Thief is more riskier/aggressive, those who choose to stay in the offensive instead of going on defensive.

So we are facing two polar opposite playstyles and a trait that only apply to one style — so why not grant the Thief an option so that they can take it based on their playstyle?

There were numerous discussion about this and there were many valid suggestions, but depends on how much time ArenaNet wants to put into dealing with this trait, the easiest and the fastest way to fix this is to swap traits — just like what they did in the Acrobat line.

However the probability of that ever happening is so low given that only few Thieves ever spec for SA nowadays.

If they ever choose to swap, Cloaked in Shadow and Slowed Pulse are the best candidate IMO to swap with LR. Then if the player wants LR, they can spend 2pt into SA to get it.

And yes I agree, 1pt trait should not be a potential punishment.

Fair enough.

I support changing LR to “Invisibility” (stealth without SA benefits or Stealth attacks, with no revealed for landing an attack while invisible). However, if we’re assuming that Anet will never put the time in to fixing LR, I agree it can be useful for running away, and swapping it to 2 point adept would be the best course of action.

Edit: Considering that 6/0/2/0/6 is a fairly popular meta choice at the moment, I do see some value from Anet’s side in swapping LR into the adept tier.

Cronicle.5691:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cronicle.5691:

evilapprentice.6379:

Oh, good. I’ll remember to stop attacking when I hit around 35% of my health, so as to not get screwed by LR.

I’m sure glad there’s a 1pt minor trait that dictates when I can and can’t attack, lest I take a penalty from a trait that’s supposed to be beneficial (and at its worse, should be neutral).

The fact that you think it’s perfectly acceptable for thieves to be forced to play around an unavoidable trait (if they go SA) or else take a penalty calls into question your qualifications concerning making suggestions on how we should all “stop sucking and start learning”.

So im presuming that you are one of the minority who complain about last refuge because you cant play with the mechanic which doesnt force you you stop attacking.

So lets be realistic about this. If you are dying because of a simple minor trait which actually has more defensive value (in my opinion) than anything then i can only judge you for being poor at thief (That is to say if you take the easy 6 points shadow arts route for a cheesy D/P build). If you got burst down, you would have died regardless. If your health DID reach 25% health and you still died in stealth, you died regardless. If you DIDN’T die, got away, and reset…. then you played smart. You cannot force a change of mechanic because you fail to utilize it correctly.

Ill take that free blinding powder 4 sec stealth and 6 sec blind for free, any day.

I agree with you, but it’s more complicated than that. The main issue is that we don’t have a choice to either take it or not. For those who knows how to take advantage of the trait, it’s a boon to their build. However for the rest of us who don’t want to deal with it should have an option not to take it.

Vincent, you’re generally a person I can trust to have an honest conversation with lacking any condescension, so I’ll direct this at you.

Let’s ignore the fact that you feel that thieves should have the option not to take LR. That would be great, but that would leave LR poorly designed.

Players should be making the best choice for the situation at hand – sometimes that means going for the kill/interrupt while hovering dangerously close to LR trigger range. Why should thieves who choose to play aggressively be potentially afflicted with 4s of reveal from a trait that’s designed to be beneficial (and again, neutral at worst).

Why should a 1pt trait force anyone to change their playstyle or be potentially penalized?

If you have that option to make that split decision whether you want to risk it or not while being excessively low to LR trigger then why the hell would you even want to take the risk that you know you cannot live through? With that low health to begin with you should regen/reset. If you die regardless your useless.

Why do you feel it’s up to LR to decide when and how and when you disengage? Are you playing, or is your 1pt in SA playing? Who said anything about “Knowing I won’t live through” anything? Have you never won a fight at low health? Claiming that every single situation where LR might trigger is one which you should be running to regen/reset is silly – nothing is that black and white.

Being low on health is not a death sentence. Being low on health and getting a revealed for no reason isn’t a death sentence either, but it’s definitely an additional negative, and one that was given to you by a trait that was designed to be beneficial.

And yes i see the point that it is a bit more complicated as you say but i generally feel that those who complain about this minor trait which i do feel belongs there, have such a narrow view that you can only build thief to a specific meta which is why we have people complaining about various skills they don’t understand.

Most of us understand completely how LR works – we just won’t want a trait we can’t avoid taking making decisions for us. We are the players. The outcomes of our fights should be decided by what we choose to do – letting the existence of LR decide for you when it’s time to stop attacking or possibly take a revealed for no reason is very poor design. The fact that you let LR decide for you when you should disengage is silly.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cronicle.5691:

evilapprentice.6379:

Oh, good. I’ll remember to stop attacking when I hit around 35% of my health, so as to not get screwed by LR.

I’m sure glad there’s a 1pt minor trait that dictates when I can and can’t attack, lest I take a penalty from a trait that’s supposed to be beneficial (and at its worse, should be neutral).

The fact that you think it’s perfectly acceptable for thieves to be forced to play around an unavoidable trait (if they go SA) or else take a penalty calls into question your qualifications concerning making suggestions on how we should all “stop sucking and start learning”.

So im presuming that you are one of the minority who complain about last refuge because you cant play with the mechanic which doesnt force you you stop attacking.

So lets be realistic about this. If you are dying because of a simple minor trait which actually has more defensive value (in my opinion) than anything then i can only judge you for being poor at thief (That is to say if you take the easy 6 points shadow arts route for a cheesy D/P build). If you got burst down, you would have died regardless. If your health DID reach 25% health and you still died in stealth, you died regardless. If you DIDN’T die, got away, and reset…. then you played smart. You cannot force a change of mechanic because you fail to utilize it correctly.

Ill take that free blinding powder 4 sec stealth and 6 sec blind for free, any day.

I agree with you, but it’s more complicated than that. The main issue is that we don’t have a choice to either take it or not. For those who knows how to take advantage of the trait, it’s a boon to their build. However for the rest of us who don’t want to deal with it should have an option not to take it.

Vincent, you’re generally a person I can trust to have an honest conversation with lacking any condescension, so I’ll direct this at you.

Let’s ignore the fact that you feel that thieves should have the option not to take LR. That would be great, but that would leave LR poorly designed.

Players should be making the best choice for the situation at hand – sometimes that means going for the kill/interrupt while hovering dangerously close to LR trigger range. Why should thieves who choose to play aggressively be potentially afflicted with 4s of reveal from a trait that’s designed to be beneficial (and again, neutral at worst).

Why should a 1pt trait force anyone to change their playstyle or be potentially penalized?

Oh, good. I’ll remember to stop attacking when I hit around 35% of my health, so as to not get screwed by LR.

I’m sure glad there’s a 1pt minor trait that dictates when I can and can’t attack, lest I potentially take a penalty from a trait that’s supposed to be beneficial (and at its worse, should be neutral).

The fact that you think it’s perfectly acceptable for thieves to be forced to play around an unavoidable trait (if they go SA) or else take a penalty calls into question your qualifications concerning making suggestions on how we should all “stop sucking and start learning”.

Perhaps you should learn the very basics of “Risk Vs Reward” and “Passive Vs Active Play” before encouraging us to learn how to play the game.

Save steal to interrupt their rapid fire/barrage (sometimes you’ll want to interrupt barrage when they drop it on themselves).
Use CnD when they go immune to give yourself breathing room (or Inf return if you can get out of LoS by using Inf Return) If you can get the Tac strike from behind, you’ve neutralized 3/4’s of their immunity.

You shouldn’t be running out of dodges – assuming you’re not already low in init/endurance when the fight starts, you should be able to Dodge→FS→dodge→dodge, which should be more than enough dodges to evade all of RF and PBS. Yes it’s expensive, but it’s better than eating an RF. If you’re running the standard Meta 2/0/0/6/6, you probably have SoA as well, giving you even more dodges.

If you’re stuck duking it out over open terrain (no LoS blocking available), try to put them in between you and your Inf return circle – that way they’ll have to do a 180 to keep attacking you when you inf return.

I think we can all agree the stability portion of elites, prior to this change, were far too easy to counter.

Hopefully we can all also agree than 3 stacks of 3s stability every 3 seconds has swung too far in the opposite direction, making it far too hard to counter realistically.

I’m just guessing that WvW influenced this decision – I don’t WvW, but I’m assuming that in zerg v zerg, CC is flying around everywhere and it’s possible to eat through 3 stacks of stability in 3s. In PvP however, this doesn’t feel feasible – 3stacks of 3s stability every 3s feels uncounterable.

A good compromise might be lenghtening the duration/time between pulses – 3 stacks of 6s stability every 6s feels both powerful for the user, and counterable by coordinated players (IMO) in sPvP at least.

Iavra.8510:

Softspoken.2410:

Iavra.8510:

Boonsteal should be one of your lesser worries, have you already tested the port changes? The mesmer forum is full of joy right now…

If I understand correctly, you can no longer waste 6 initiative on an Infiltrator’s Arrow that doesn’t actually shadowstep you anywhere. So that’s neat.

Didn’t test that, but at least Blink goes on full CD without doing anything when i try to blink on top of a camp roof, which used to work pre-patch.

/edit: You don’t lose initiative and, interestingly enough, Shadowstep doesn’t go on cd. Seems like (yet another) mesmer bug.

//edit: The 1200 range trait for Blink is bugged, teleports usually don’t go on cd or use initiative when used without a valid path.

Blink is a stunbreak, no? That means that it fires regardless for the stunbreak portion, and the teleport fails if it can’t find a valid path, the same way Inf Sig will work now.

choucs.4507:

You know what’s more original?!

Offhand focus

with power of the darkness

Rifle would be the worst choice.

I love the idea of the focus.

“Blood Stalker’
Axe/focus – all attacks range 600
Copious extremely short duration conditions (1-3s) on all weapon skills, all weapon skills have low damage coefficients (.25 – .6)

Specilization mechanic – Sowing. 2 “Stances”, 1 activate skill
“Stances” – 5s CD on switching stances
Sow Destruction – your attacks do 25% more damage (Remember, the base damage coeffecient of all of the weapon skills are very low)
Sow Disease – double duration of all conditions inflicted via weapon skill

Activation skill
Reap – 600 range, 5s cd .25 cast time- If In “Destruction” stance, gain boons based on the conditions inflicted on your target. If in “Disease” stance, strip 1 boon for each condition on your target.

Of course it was! It’s not a genuine Guild wars 2 patch without thief nerfs, whether they be direct or indirect.

To more specifically answer your question, this is how bountiful theft always worked concerning stacks – X stacks of might always turned into 1 single stack when stolen via bountiful theft. I’m not too clear on how the duration works though.

shimmerless.4560:

evilapprentice.6379:

shimmerless.4560:

Rome.7124:

evilapprentice.6379:

StickerHappy.8052:

The OP is not even asking to nerf thieves, HE IS JUST ASKING FOR A GM TRAIT TO WORK PROPERLY

Without any class bias.

Why are thieves being defensive?

The Trait requires you to spend 6 pts sheesh.

Okay, want a fair compromise?

It wont affect thieves, but make it an adept minor trait? Fair enough?

It does work properly.

Thieves have no cooldowns on weapon skills. You can’t increase what doesn’t exist. You’ll note that it works exactly as intended on a thief’s 6-10

Explain how thieves can steal something that doesnt exist then?

I’d love to hear his explanation for shadow stepping (on a damage-dealing skill) without a target as well

You’ll have to clarify your meaning, because I’m not entirely sure what you mean. Do you mean using something like Inf Strike or Shadow shot with no target? Because I fail to see how that applies.

As to quoting Rome, for shame shimmerless. I ’ve disagreed with you in the past, but at least you attempted to remain logically consistent. Are you so out of salient points that you need to rely on semantic arguments devoid of actual logic?

You fail to see how it applies? You have a skill that specifically says “shadow step to a foe” that can be used apropos of nothing, where is the consistency here? Can you do this with D/P #3 (which is technically a shadow step, as can be seen by shooting through the walls on clocktower)? No because there is no consistency at all. So many, many skills in GW2 behave the way they do “just because”. Whatever Rome’s history may be, on this issue I’m in complete concurrence.

You know you’re incorrect when you turn to semantics to defend your (incorrect, non-existent) points.

But since you’ll label that a deflection, we’ll just go ahead and look at how every weapon skills in the game (Well, to my knowledge nearly every) is usable without a target. Every single weapon skills that says “Bla bla your foe” or something to that effect would be unusable without a target according to your “logic”.

I shouldn’t have to explain any further in what ways your point fails to apply here, but I will for funsies. How could a Rangers GS1 Slash possibly work when the skill specifically says “Slash your foe” – there’s no foe to slash! Pressing 1 with no target selected should do literally nothing, since it’s only meant for slashing at your foe (it says it right there in the description!), and you have no foe to slash! I mean honestly, this was particularly poorly thought out, even for these boards.

But I try to be a nice guy. Here’s a link (Official Guild wars2 information,no less) that should clarify for you, completely, why PB doesn’t work on thief weapon skills.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/thief/

Just read the section titled “initiative”.

As a special bonus, reading the section titled “steal” should clear up Rome’s misunderstanding.

shimmerless.4560:

Rome.7124:

evilapprentice.6379:

StickerHappy.8052:

The OP is not even asking to nerf thieves, HE IS JUST ASKING FOR A GM TRAIT TO WORK PROPERLY

Without any class bias.

Why are thieves being defensive?

The Trait requires you to spend 6 pts sheesh.

Okay, want a fair compromise?

It wont affect thieves, but make it an adept minor trait? Fair enough?

It does work properly.

Thieves have no cooldowns on weapon skills. You can’t increase what doesn’t exist. You’ll note that it works exactly as intended on a thief’s 6-10

Explain how thieves can steal something that doesnt exist then?

I’d love to hear his explanation for shadow stepping (on a damage-dealing skill) without a target as well

You’ll have to clarify your meaning, because I’m not entirely sure what you mean. Do you mean using something like Inf Strike or Shadow shot with no target? Because I fail to see how that applies.

As to quoting Rome, for shame shimmerless. I ’ve disagreed with you in the past, but at least you attempted to remain logically consistent. Are you so out of salient points that you need to rely on semantic arguments devoid of actual logic?

StickerHappy.8052:

Exactly the point. Then why dont you guys suggest another alternative? Since you guys are right, you dont have cds, then cant you suggest any other way for this trait then?

Then this thread will be constructive then.

Instead of acting all defensive and all that. Noone is asking to nerf thieves. Jeezus.

Multiple people have made the only suggestion that matters – accept that PB does not affect thief weapon skills because thieves don’t have cooldowns on their weapon skills, and move on to another topic. Of course that’s not what you want to hear, so you dont consider it constructive, since only the way you interpret things has any value.

The trait works on thief skills that have cool downs – that’s the way it’s intended to work. It is functioning as intended. Move on.

zinkz.7045:

evilapprentice.6379:

zinkz.7045:

evilapprentice.6379:

You can’t add a CD to a skill that was designed, playtested and balanced with No CD in mind

Sure you can, they “designed, playtested and balanced” every skill, every trait, every mechanic before launch, guess what they got it wrong, horribly wrong in many cases, which is why numerous skills, numerous traits and even mechanics have been scrapped, redesigned and rebalanced, that they “designed, playtested and balanced” pre-launch is meaningless, by your “logic” they would change nothing.

You’re talking specific skills, effects, their durations, and the like – minor changes as far as the games mechanics go. I’m talking the design philosophy behind an entire class – major changes as far as the games mechanics go.

You show me an instance where they completely overhauled a class mechanic and I’ll agree with you. Til then, you’re extrapolating that since the game has had small changes, it’s perfectly logical for them to make a major change to a classes basic design.

It’s also possible you underestimate how major adding a CD to skills designed to have no CD is. That is not a minor change – you’re not tweaking damage, condition duration/application, or evade frames. You’re changing the entire dynamic of how the class works, it is a major change.

I’m not extrapolating anything, your argument has no basis, that they “designed, playtested and balanced” everything pre-launch is meaningless, it does not equate to what they designed as being balanced or well designed, and that applies to class mechanics just as much skills, traits, combat mechanics etc. In fact I’d say a lot of the issues with this game are down to class mechanics that don’t work well or are too strong.

So yes adding a CD to thief skills could be too much, on other hand it might not be, just because they didn’t have it launch is not a logical argument not to change things, unless you are suffering from the delusion that they achieved perfection at launch.

You show me an instance where they completely overhauled a class mechanic and I’ll agree with you. Til then, you’re extrapolating that since the game has had small changes, it’s perfectly logical for them to make a major change to a classes basic design.

Bolded the important part, I’m guessing you missed it the first time.

zinkz.7045:

evilapprentice.6379:

You can’t add a CD to a skill that was designed, playtested and balanced with No CD in mind

Sure you can, they “designed, playtested and balanced” every skill, every trait, every mechanic before launch, guess what they got it wrong, horribly wrong in many cases, which is why numerous skills, numerous traits and even mechanics have been scrapped, redesigned and rebalanced, that they “designed, playtested and balanced” pre-launch is meaningless, by your “logic” they would change nothing.

You’re talking specific skills, effects, their durations, and the like – minor changes as far as the games mechanics go. I’m talking the design philosophy behind an entire class – major changes as far as the games mechanics go.

You show me an instance where they completely overhauled a class mechanic and I’ll agree with you. Til then, you’re extrapolating that since the game has had small changes, it’s perfectly logical for them to make a major change to a classes basic design.

It’s also possible you underestimate how major adding a CD to skills designed to have no CD is. That is not a minor change – you’re not tweaking damage, condition duration/application, or evade frames. You’re changing the entire dynamic of how the class works, it is a major change.

Iavra.8510:

You make it sound as if thieves are designed to not be interruptable, yet i can perfectly interrupt every skill used by them that is not instant (like with any other class) and have other traits, say Chaotic Interruption, apply.

I would have thought with all the bold parts specifically talking about CD’s it would have been abundantly clear, but nevertheless I’ve edited the original text in an attempt to be completely unambiguous for you good sir.

Does Chaotic Interruption affect Cool Downs (which thieves don’t have on their WS)?
No? Well then there’s your answer.

This is growing asinine, so lets wrap everything up into 1 neat little post.

OP’s initial question was “Why does PB not affect thieves”. It was explained that it does not effect thief weapon skills because thief weapon skills do not have a CD that can be increased.

OP then changed/clarified his point to say that he feels PB should affect thieves. All it takes is a basic knowledge of how thief was designed to understand why this is a bad idea.

When every other class besides thief was being designed, their Weapon skills (WS) were designed with CD’s. They were designed to have kitten CD on interrupt because their skills already had CD’s. Their damage, effects, CD, range and all other attributes were designed, playtested and balanced with this in mind. PB changing the interrupt timer from 5s to 10s makes sense in these cases, because it’s a trait designed to increase the punishment for being interrupted.

When thief was designed, their WS were designed to not have any CD. Their damage, effects, CD, range and all other attributes were designed, playtested and balanced with this in mind. PB adding a CD to skills designed to have no CD at all is much more powerful than adding 5s to the CD of skills intended to suffed a CD on interrupt because of how the skills were designed. This is why PB does not and should not affect thief WS.

It does not matter that “Thief already has an advantage against Mesmer, why do they get this too?” – this isn’t a class balance decision, it’s a decision concerning basic mechanics of the game. You can’t add a CD to a skill that was designed, playtested and balanced with No CD in mind

This argument also extends to chill, which other players have brought up. Causing cooldowns to tick more slowly is in no way comparable to slowing down initiative – against CD’s, chill causes those individual CD’s to tick at a slower rate – against initiative, slowing down initiative regen slows down the thief’s ability to use any of his skills across both weaponsets. It’s easy to see how different the power level of those 2 scenarios is, hence why chill does not affect thief WS.

Also note that it’s disingenuous to claim that thief is “immune” to PB and Chill – their heal, utilities and elite are all effected by both effects. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to why? Don’t worry, I’ll just tell you – because those skills were designed, playtested and balanced with Cool down timers and 5s cd on interrupt in mind.

If you’re still not convinced, I honestly don’t care, unless of course you have some sort of logical argument to back it up. Note that “But thieves already hard counter mesmers” is not a qualifying argument, and neither is “Why do thieves get to be special”?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

This is really just getting silly now, if we can push aside all the childish accusations of “ur bad. This is gibberish” and really have a discussion on the issue.

Thieves are immune to Power Block for the same reason they are immune to chill… Just because.

All the other examples given have a form of counterplay or a way of getting around it. Diamond Skin only works above 10% damage, zerk stance lasts a few seconds, some things are mitigated by the almighty dodge.

Power Block never has any chance of working on Thieves (in addition to being useless in PvE).

The question is whether or not this is actually good design, not over the math of how the skill works. The same way you say “lul play a thief” I could just as easily say “lel play a Mesmer and try that trait.”

So lets try this again, without the bias. I don’t think good that this trait works literally not at all against Thieves the same way I feel that Chill shouldn’t be just a glorified cripple for them. I feel like there should be an adjustment, even if there needs to be some sort of compensation as a result.

Thieves were designed to have access to all of their weapon skills at all points in time, provided they had the initiative. No other class loses as much as a thief by being locked out of 1 weapon skills because their weapon skills were already designed to have cool downs.

Let’s imagine some scenarios.

You PB Infiltrator return – congratulations, you just cut S/D’s effectiveness in half at the minimum.
You PB CnD – congratulations, you just almost completely shut down D/D.
You PB Shadow shot – congratulations, you just cut D/P’s gap closing and half of its defenses.

The developers designed Thief to spam weapon skills – denying access to them is too strong, which is why interrupts do not affect them.

The same thing with chill – increasing CD’s and slowing initiative are not the same thing – they are not comparable.

Interrupts and Chill don’t affect Thieves because the way they were designed makes those effects disproportionately powerful against thieves, not “Just cause”.

StickerHappy.8052:

The OP is not even asking to nerf thieves, HE IS JUST ASKING FOR A GM TRAIT TO WORK PROPERLY

Without any class bias.

Why are thieves being defensive?

The Trait requires you to spend 6 pts sheesh.

Okay, want a fair compromise?

It wont affect thieves, but make it an adept minor trait? Fair enough?

It does work properly.

Thieves have no cooldowns on weapon skills. You can’t increase what doesn’t exist. You’ll note that it works exactly as intended on a thief’s 6-10

Dondagora.9645:

evilapprentice.6379:

But that is unfortunately unbalancing. The initiative system works the way it works for a reason.

It might further help to realize that the initiative system isn’t all positives – there are costs associated with it. Weapon skills that can be used without CD do not get access to the kind of long duration CC and conditions that other classes get. Imposing further negatives on it, ones it wasn’t designed to accommodate, is unnecessarily punishing.

I know, but that’s part of pros and cons of both systems.

Pros: No CD
Cons: Less-Effective Skills

And, theoretically, there should be cons to thieves being interrupted, meaning loss of init without any effect. That’s not always the case, given that initiative is apparently spent towards the end of the skill cast so if it’s interrupted early, not init is spent. That’s a problem in of itself, though.

What I’m saying is that the Initiative system isn’t full of pros, but it isn’t all cons. It’s balanced for itself, and an interrupt is supposed to be punishing, and PB is a trait to make an interrupt more punishing. My argument, thus, is that a PB interrupt should be equally punishing for thieves as it is for every other class, even if it’s in a way specifically made for their system in order for it not to be overly punishing.

Loss of init without any effect is not comparable to a weaponskill going on CD. 1 skill being put on CD is in no way comparable to losing initiative with no effect, since its 1 static pool for both of your weapon sets.

Thieves are still punished for interrupted weapon skills – the effect doesn’t go off. All of the weapon skills were designed to be used at any time, provided you have enough initiative. Locking one of those skills out, even if it is from a GM trait, isn’t feasible because that’s not how all of the thieves weapon skills were designed.

It also bears mentioning that your GM trait isn’t “entirely useless” against thieves as has been suggested. Thieves still have a heal, 3 util’s, and an elite that can be interrupted and effected by PB, which is fine, because their effects and CD’s were designed with the possibility of being interrupted in mind.

shimmerless.4560:

Good thing we have so many ardent forum warriors to completely ruin any given thread with solipsist Teef whining.

I concur. Thank you for supporting poorly thought out decisions based entirely on your class preference with no critical thinking applied so as to give me something to defend. Your contributions are invaluable.

BTW, do you have any other big words to use? I already know the definition of the one you keep using, and I’d love to at least get a bigger vocabulary out of my interactions with you, my mesmer mirror.

Dondagora.9645:

evilapprentice.6379:

Dondagora.9645:

evilapprentice.6379:

Dondagora.9645:

evilapprentice.6379:

Dondagora.9645:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Now if you are done posting jibberish, accept a simple truth. If you can’t beat a thief, you are not good enough. Also, there are classes/builds you simply can’t defeat in 1on1. Every thief lives with this mindset. Learn to do it as well.

When did I ever say I had a problem killing thieves~?

This has nothing to do with me personally. It’s about a standard of truthiness[apparently a real word, too]. The skill’s tooltip says “Enemy skills that you interrupt have an increased cooldown”, so I’m saying that if a thief’s weapon skill’s CD is still zero after being interrupted, the trait is definitely not working as [I’m sorry if my math is off here] 0 is not greater than 0, thus it is not increased.

I didn’t realize that this was such a simple misunderstanding.

So, you’ve got the 5 second standard interrupt CD, time 0 because thieves have no CD’s on weaponskills. You apply power block, which doubles it.

5*2*0 = 0

Or perhaps it’s an addition, not a multiplication?

(5+5)*0 = 0

Any way you look at it, it’s working as intended. There you go, understanding achieved, thread closed.

Ah, but that’s the problem. It does not say doubled, it says increased. Therefore if the end result is the same as before, it is not increased. That is part of the problem I have. So 10>5, that makes sense, the ten was increased, it is larger. 0>0 does not make sense, it was not increased as it says it should have, and thus the trait does not work as it says. It is, how you might say, “broken as intended”.

Now, to your point, I understand that the trait probably works as you say, meaning it multiplies the interrupted CD. That is also a problem, as this does not allow the trait to work as it is said to work[as I stated above]. So my issue is that the developers didn’t go through the trouble of making the trait “work” by making it an addition problem, not a multiplication problem.

Thus, I know how it works, I’m saying that way of working is making it broken.

(5+5)*0 = 0

The base interupt cd was increased. Then it was multiplied by 0, because thieves have no weapon CD’s. The math is very clear.

The trait works exactly how it was designed – it increases weapon CD’s – a class designed to have no CD on weapon skills won’t see the increase, because it’s reduced to 0 after the increase by design.

If you had a trait that when triggered tripled the duration of your current might stacks, would you complain it wasn’t working if it triggered when you didn’t have the might boon?

Um… 0>/>0

Therefore the CD is not increased. Because the CD is not the thing multiplied by zero, it is the end result, meaning that 0 on the right side of the = in your equation.

And if a class has an initial CD of zero, then something that increases that CD should make their CD greater than zero. Math.

So even if we understand however it works or it is working as ANet intends, that does not mean we have to agree that that is the right way it should work. That is what this thread is arguing. This thread is saying that ANet did it wrong and we want them to take another look at it.

You missed the edit for clarity – here it is again

“If it helps your understanding, don’t think of thieves weapon skills CD as 0 – think of them as non-existent (because that’s what they are) – you can’t increase what doesn’t exist, in the same way you can’t increase the duration of a boon you don’t have.”

Hm, that’s one way of thinking about it. Interesting concept. I think that it should not be done this way.

The argument can also be made that thieves initiative is a shared CD among the weapon skills, in which case PB should affect that. However, that might be a bit too punishing, so a mere five second CD on a single skill might in fact be the better alternative.

So, in this matter, I find the design of thieves having “nonexistent CD” a flawed concept and argue against this. Instead, I suggest “a CD of zero” so that PB can affect it.

But that is unfortunately unbalancing. The initiative system works the way it works for a reason.

It might further help to realize that the initiative system isn’t all positives – there are costs associated with it. Weapon skills that can be used without CD do not get access to the kind of long duration CC and conditions that other classes get. Imposing further negatives on it, ones it wasn’t designed to accommodate, is unnecessarily punishing.

Dondagora.9645:

evilapprentice.6379:

Dondagora.9645:

evilapprentice.6379:

Dondagora.9645:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Now if you are done posting jibberish, accept a simple truth. If you can’t beat a thief, you are not good enough. Also, there are classes/builds you simply can’t defeat in 1on1. Every thief lives with this mindset. Learn to do it as well.

When did I ever say I had a problem killing thieves~?

This has nothing to do with me personally. It’s about a standard of truthiness[apparently a real word, too]. The skill’s tooltip says “Enemy skills that you interrupt have an increased cooldown”, so I’m saying that if a thief’s weapon skill’s CD is still zero after being interrupted, the trait is definitely not working as [I’m sorry if my math is off here] 0 is not greater than 0, thus it is not increased.

I didn’t realize that this was such a simple misunderstanding.

So, you’ve got the 5 second standard interrupt CD, time 0 because thieves have no CD’s on weaponskills. You apply power block, which doubles it.

5*2*0 = 0

Or perhaps it’s an addition, not a multiplication?

(5+5)*0 = 0

Any way you look at it, it’s working as intended. There you go, understanding achieved, thread closed.

Ah, but that’s the problem. It does not say doubled, it says increased. Therefore if the end result is the same as before, it is not increased. That is part of the problem I have. So 10>5, that makes sense, the ten was increased, it is larger. 0>0 does not make sense, it was not increased as it says it should have, and thus the trait does not work as it says. It is, how you might say, “broken as intended”.

Now, to your point, I understand that the trait probably works as you say, meaning it multiplies the interrupted CD. That is also a problem, as this does not allow the trait to work as it is said to work[as I stated above]. So my issue is that the developers didn’t go through the trouble of making the trait “work” by making it an addition problem, not a multiplication problem.

Thus, I know how it works, I’m saying that way of working is making it broken.

(5+5)*0 = 0

The base interupt cd was increased. Then it was multiplied by 0, because thieves have no weapon CD’s. The math is very clear.

The trait works exactly how it was designed – it increases weapon CD’s – a class designed to have no CD on weapon skills won’t see the increase, because it’s reduced to 0 after the increase by design.

If you had a trait that when triggered tripled the duration of your current might stacks, would you complain it wasn’t working if it triggered when you didn’t have the might boon?

Um… 0>/>0

Therefore the CD is not increased. Because the CD is not the thing multiplied by zero, it is the end result, meaning that 0 on the right side of the = in your equation.

And if a class has an initial CD of zero, then something that increases that CD should make their CD greater than zero. Math.

You missed the edit for clarity – here it is again

“If it helps your understanding, don’t think of thieves weapon skills CD as 0 – think of them as non-existent (because that’s what they are) – you can’t increase what doesn’t exist, in the same way you can’t increase the duration of a boon you don’t have.”

So even if we understand however it works or it is working as ANet intends, that does not mean we have to agree that that is the right way it should work. That is what this thread is arguing. This thread is saying that ANet did it wrong and we want them to take another look at it.

It’s arguing it very poorly. The class was obviously designed the way it was for a reason, your only counter argument is “Thieves are strong against Mes, this shouldn’t work this way!” Perhaps it works this way specifically because thieves are designed to be strong against Mes. Or perhaps it simply works this way because introducing a weaponskill CD to a class designed from the getgo to have no weaponskill CD’s is silly and unbalancing.

shimmerless.4560:

Jelzouki.4128:

Quadox.7834:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Oh look, thieves have executioner grandmaster trait, but you can make a distortion and avoid the dps. Welp … lets buff that GRANDMASTER trait and have it hit people through blocks and evasions and stuff. Yeah, seems fair!

Pretty sure every class can complain of other classes negating their grandmaster traits.
You can hardly get a bunker guard below the health threshold for the execution to work … OMG OMG NERF BUNKER GUARD BECAUSE THIS WAY HE EFFECTIVELY NEGATES EXECUTIONER TRAIT

wait what? o.O

Now if you are done posting jibberish, accept a simple truth. If you can’t beat a thief, you are not good enough. Also, there are classes/builds you simply can’t defeat in 1on1. Every thief lives with this mindset. Learn to do it as well.

/Thread.

P.S: Plus you are talking out of your kitten . Take D/P thief for example. If he fires Headshot at you and you block it, he is 4 initiative back. Maybe create a thief before posting bullkitten?

Also its like 99% of you thief crybabies forget that thieves get Revealed debuff on out of stealth anything…

What the actual kitten, this is not even remotely the same. lol.

It actually is in fact the same. Someone in this thread made the plea that a class avoiding another class’ GM trait is poor design or unbalanced or whatever.

No, it’s a completely ridiculous non-argument. Executioner is “mitigated” by distortion in the same sense that it’s mitigated by a Warrior immunity or a blind or mist form. The interrupt trait is a very clear example of one class being given carte blanche to a major trait investment for no real reason. (It’s not as though 30 Dom isn’t glassy enough to begin with).

By the way the trait originally worked on said skills upon release. It was only changed because it caused Groucharoo took a dirt nap on his Teef in solo queue.

The game has similar skills that shut down entire traitlines, much less individual traits – I don’t see how this is any different.

Any skill that applies Revealed completely shuts down every worthwhile trait in SA, and that is deemed fair.

Diamond skin AND berserker stance shut down every point spent that increases condition duration AND condition damage, as well as any traits that inflict conditions, and that’s deemed fair. Hell, they’re introducing a boon that says “kitten your conditions”!

It just seems like you’re so invested because you want your classes counter weakened, rather than you really care about the overall balance in the game.

Thieves were designed with No weaponskill CD – you knew this when you bought the game. A trait that increases CD’s not affecting a class with no weapon skill CD’s should not be surprising or strange for you.

Dondagora.9645:

evilapprentice.6379:

Dondagora.9645:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Now if you are done posting jibberish, accept a simple truth. If you can’t beat a thief, you are not good enough. Also, there are classes/builds you simply can’t defeat in 1on1. Every thief lives with this mindset. Learn to do it as well.

When did I ever say I had a problem killing thieves~?

This has nothing to do with me personally. It’s about a standard of truthiness[apparently a real word, too]. The skill’s tooltip says “Enemy skills that you interrupt have an increased cooldown”, so I’m saying that if a thief’s weapon skill’s CD is still zero after being interrupted, the trait is definitely not working as [I’m sorry if my math is off here] 0 is not greater than 0, thus it is not increased.

I didn’t realize that this was such a simple misunderstanding.

So, you’ve got the 5 second standard interrupt CD, time 0 because thieves have no CD’s on weaponskills. You apply power block, which doubles it.

5*2*0 = 0

Or perhaps it’s an addition, not a multiplication?

(5+5)*0 = 0

Any way you look at it, it’s working as intended. There you go, understanding achieved, thread closed.

Ah, but that’s the problem. It does not say doubled, it says increased. Therefore if the end result is the same as before, it is not increased. That is part of the problem I have. So 10>5, that makes sense, the ten was increased, it is larger. 0>0 does not make sense, it was not increased as it says it should have, and thus the trait does not work as it says. It is, how you might say, “broken as intended”.

Now, to your point, I understand that the trait probably works as you say, meaning it multiplies the interrupted CD. That is also a problem, as this does not allow the trait to work as it is said to work[as I stated above]. So my issue is that the developers didn’t go through the trouble of making the trait “work” by making it an addition problem, not a multiplication problem.

Thus, I know how it works, I’m saying that way of working is making it broken.

(5+5)*0 = 0

The base interupt cd was increased. Then it was multiplied by 0, because thieves have no weapon CD’s. The math is very clear.

The trait works exactly how it was designed – it increases weapon CD’s – a class designed to have no CD on weapon skills won’t see the increase, because it’s reduced to 0 after the increase by design.

If you had a trait that when triggered tripled the duration of your current might stacks, would you complain it wasn’t working if it triggered when you didn’t have the might boon?

If it helps your understanding, don’t think of thieves weapon skills CD as 0 – think of them as non-existent (because that’s what they are) – you can’t increase what doesn’t exist, in the same way you can’t increase the duration of a boon you don’t have.

Dondagora.9645:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Now if you are done posting jibberish, accept a simple truth. If you can’t beat a thief, you are not good enough. Also, there are classes/builds you simply can’t defeat in 1on1. Every thief lives with this mindset. Learn to do it as well.

When did I ever say I had a problem killing thieves~?

This has nothing to do with me personally. It’s about a standard of truthiness[apparently a real word, too]. The skill’s tooltip says “Enemy skills that you interrupt have an increased cooldown”, so I’m saying that if a thief’s weapon skill’s CD is still zero after being interrupted, the trait is definitely not working as [I’m sorry if my math is off here] 0 is not greater than 0, thus it is not increased.

I didn’t realize that this was such a simple misunderstanding.

So, you’ve got the 5 second standard interrupt CD, time 0 because thieves have no CD’s on weaponskills. You apply power block, which doubles it.

5*2*0 = 0

Or perhaps it’s an addition, not a multiplication?

(5+5)*0 = 0

Any way you look at it, it’s working as intended. There you go, understanding achieved, thread closed.

Iason Evan.3806:

Drennon.7190:

This is now the player vs thief forum. Carry on

You’re right. A class should be immune to a GM Trait. Giving a class carte blanche to another classes’ mechanics is poor design. At the very least it should affect the Thief in some way like loss of Initiative or something.

So it’s safe to assume then that you showed similar dismay over traps/player skills that apply revealed? Those abilities lock out all the minor traits and major traits worth taking in an entire traitline, not just 1 GM trait, as well as locking out a class mechanic!(Thieves being the only class that gain stealth attacks make it a class mechanic)

I mean if you didn’t, it’d just seem like you just didn’t like fighting thieves rather than you actually caring about the integrity of the games design.

Booms.3952:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Overall, most PvPers seem to like this change conceptually, but worry about the number of stacks chosen for each skill.

Don’t know who you’re talking to. I dont care what hot joiners think about this change. Literally every single person Ive talked to at the high end of pvp (the ones that actually get rewards) don’t like this change. Doesn’t matter if they play a class that has stability or boonstrip or lots of ccs, they think its a worthless change. Stability is already an underused boon. There’s absolutely no reason to change it unless theyre nerfing the CRAP out of cc’s once the change goes through.

And of course neither you nor they entertained the possibility that Stability access would be added to a number of already existing skills due to it’s relative drop in power. Of course this is purely conjecture.

No one knows what the plans are yet so if you’re going to speculate, at least do it politely and intelligently.

The more I think about Resistance, the more it seems like a bad idea.

It’s starting to sound like any spec/weaponset that relies on soft CC to keep it in the fight is going to get completely screwed by Resistance. Any class with access to both Resistance and Stability has the potential to be ridiculous, unless they handle all this very carefully.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

evilapprentice.6379:

D is a bit trickier, since we don’t know exactly how taunt works right now. If it works like fear (your path is calculated at time of cast), then it’s only slightly better than fear. However, if the character follows the taunter even if they move it’s potentially much more powerful than fear, since you have much more control over your targets path.

Fear’s path is recalculated constantly. That’s why Necros can Fearchain so well with Spectral Wall; they “herd” people through the wall multiple times. This requires cripple or chill on the victim, but it is completely doable.

Taunt will not likely be any different on that front.

Yeah, I may be spotty on fear – I Don’t really play a class that uses it and I tend to either break it immediately or melt when it’s on, though I was under the impression you ran in 1 direction when it was applied.

How does the direction mechanic work?

ronpierce.2760:

Seems like a stretch. I think you’re undervaluing the protective part of Fear.

I’m not sure why Fear keeps coming up. Fear certainly looks like a better defensive CC, but I’m not talking about defensive. I’m talking damage potential, and Taunt (appears to) take the cake on that one – fear doesn’t let your confusion keep ticking, it doesn’t let you force an enemy player to eat an “on block” or “on hit” attack they’d normally avoid because it’s highly punishing because it’s so obvious.

Also, I’d venture to say because of AI mechanics and slows, you probably won’t even have that much damage from it, it’ll probably end up more like a glorified pull rather than a push.

What exactly do “AI mechanics” have to do with this? also, most players will probably save their Hard CC (Taunt) for when their soft CC (Slow) is no longer on their target and vice versa.

ronpierce.2760:

evilapprentice.6379:

Taunt as they’ve described it sounds asinine. A CC effect that can
A) Cause a player to eat more damage from torment
B) Cause a player to eat more damage from confusion
C) Potentially cause a player to eat more damage from Retal
C) Waste “on swing” charges (such as venoms)
D) Control a players path, potentially forcing them to walk into traps (literal traps/marks, off of ledges in skyhammer, swinging into a ele with shock field up, etc)

And that’s all just off the top of my head having read this article moments ago. I’m sure there are a couple of other scenario’s I’ve missed.

Taunt should have been handled it like it was in WAR (Warhammer online: Age of reckoning). Taunt should have been a debuff that reduced your outgoing damage by 50% until you hit the taunting target X times, or until the duration was up. That’s a well designed taunt.

What Anet has proposed is a poor imitation.

Most of that applies to Fear too, the trade off is that fear doesn’t take damage.

Fear does not apply to B, C or that second C I mistakenly put, so you’re already short of “most”.

D is a bit trickier, since we don’t know exactly how taunt works right now. If it works like fear (your path is calculated at time of cast), then it’s only slightly better than fear. However, if the character follows the taunter even if they move it’s potentially much more powerful than fear, since you have much more control over your targets path.

In either case, you’re looking at taunt sharing 20-35% of fear’s characteristics, which is far from “most”.

The game didn’t need more hard CC. Soft CC (the way WAR did taunt, as I described) would have been much better.

Taunt as they’ve described it sounds asinine. A CC effect that can
A) Cause a player to eat more damage from torment
B) Cause a player to eat more damage from confusion
C) Potentially cause a player to eat more damage from Retal
C) Waste “on swing” charges (such as venoms)
D) Control a players path, potentially forcing them to walk into traps (literal traps/marks, off of ledges in skyhammer, swinging into a ele with shock field up, etc)

And that’s all just off the top of my head having read this article moments ago. I’m sure there are a couple of other scenario’s I’ve missed.

Taunt should have been handled it like it was in WAR (Warhammer online: Age of reckoning). Taunt should have been a debuff that reduced your outgoing damage by 50% until you hit the taunting target X times, or until the duration was up. That’s a well designed taunt.

What Anet has proposed is a poor imitation.

BFMV.3198:

Maugetarr.6823:

yolo swaggins.2570:

The engineer can already use the rifle and it is speculated they are getting hammer. The Ranger is confirmed getting a Staff with the Druid Specialization. That leaves thief.

Secondly, this post is the most well thought-out and well-recieved weapon suggestion in the thief forums. If anet had any sense they would take it and make it their own because the OP not only went through the trouble of providing tooltips and math, but he also designed a few traits to go along with it. On top of all that it looks fun to use AND it gives thieves a long range option.

I preferred mine

That auto attack on the idea you linked is a little underpowered to say the least (especially the cone thing, guard staff auto has a 0.6 multiplier on it for reference). That bullet to the knee is pretty weak as well(DancingDagger has a 0.5 multiplier on it, so the only benefit from this is the longer cripple). If a lot of our damage doesn’t come from a decent auto, we’re gonna end up with another P/P unload initiative sink. I think we should have the option to have decent damage at long range, but get more powerful as we get closer as opposed to mesmers and rangers. Damage is really low on that overall.

I once stated I thought your idea was complete ludicrous because it was the opposite of what it should do. Seriously, hit your foe with the butt of your rifle, your a thief who is slippery and going to be at a distance!! If they get near you switch to daggers or something I still think that. However………

Some of your skills game me ideas for my set

All 1200 range
Skill 1: Sniper Shot – 1/2 second cast
Shoot a bullet that deal more damage the further away you are Inflicts one stack of vulnerability.
Skill 2: Shadows Retreat – 3 Initiative –
Shadow step away from your foe and blast them with a crippling shot
Skill 3: Furious Shot – 4 Initiative – ½ cast
Fire a piercing shot that grants fury for 5 seconds.
Skill 4: Shot from Shadows – 5 initiative – ½ cast
Stun you foe with a powerful shot – stun duration 1 second
Skill 5: Meld with Shadows – 6 initiative
Gain an active camouflage for 3 seconds that is broken when movement occurs. Gain 2 stacks of might for 5 seconds. Your next attack deals +20% damage.
Skill 6: Stealth Skill – 1-2 second channel
- Headshot – 1500 range
Fire a brutal shot that deals high damage. Also dazes your foe for 2 seconds.

None of these suggestions (yours, Maug’s, or Zach’s) are anything new for a thief – all you’ve created is a backstab thief who can fight at range, and that’s boring for many, many reasons.

A) Immobile stealth is silly. It’s primarily good for when you’ve seen a target and they haven’t seen you.
B) Rifle thief cannot operate like LB Ranger. It can’t be designed to do more damage the farther it is from it’s target because thief is insanely mobile and it would be nearly impossible to correctly balance in PvP.
C) Since the intent of your weaponset is burst damage, you’ve left thief right where it’s at in the PvP meta – roaming burst that +1’s fights. This means every thief will still be using a ShBow, because without a ShBow thieves can’t roam effectively. That means no melee weapons.

I get how everyone want’s to see “Boom, headshot!” from 1500 units away, but how is that fun after the first handful of times? Just lot’s of standing far away and pressing buttons. At least D/X and S/X force you to constantly watch your positioning and weave in and out of combat. At least LB ranger has to have some sort of plan for when their target closes the gap. Thief will just hit one of it’s many, many escapes and go back to pressing 1.

I’d honestly like to see a weaponset that shifted the thief dynamic instead of just piling on to what we’ve already got in spades.

Focus OH could turn thief into a Shadow Caster of sorts that plays like a necro/thief hybrid. Low(er) damage, lots of debuffing and support.

Axe/Mace in MH/OH could turn thief into more of a Thug that plays like a warrior/thief hybrid. More centered around landing combo’s and controlling the pace of the fight through short duration stuns and dazes – big damage from correctly executing combos.

Torch OH could turn thief into a Warhammer style Witch Hunter, that would focus more on picking 1 target and disabling it through unique debuffs rather than big crits.

yolo swaggins.2570:

The engineer can already use the rifle and it is speculated they are getting hammer. The Ranger is confirmed getting a Staff with the Druid Specialization. That leaves thief.

Secondly, this post is the most well thought-out and well-recieved weapon suggestion in the thief forums. If anet had any sense they would take it and make it their own because the OP not only went through the trouble of providing tooltips and math, but he also designed a few traits to go along with it. On top of all that it looks fun to use AND it gives thieves a long range option.

That weaponset suggestion looks…kittening godawful (IMO, of course).

All 3 of the AA’s and the stealth attack look disjointed and weak (the stealth attack hits as hard as TRICK SHOT WITHOUT THE BOUNCES and has a measly cripple attached to it). The rest of the set looks like an uninteresting Ranger LB/ Warrior rifle clone with MUCH less power and less versatility (which is at least somewhat understandable, because of thief’s inherit mobility). Ghillie suit is useless once you’ve been seen, shadow retreat would be fine except your AA is crap and 600 range isn’t enough to set up snipe, and snipe just looks silly – a giant initiative sink with a base 1x multiplier? Good thing it has bleeds attached to it, because that’s what a weaponset where every other skill gains absolutely nothing from condition damage needs on its high damage finisher.

This set will get chewed up by every other weaponset in the game.

Let’s also note that in PvP, this would leave thief exactly where it is meta wise – 1 shot wonders who +1 fights and deliver killing blows (Only infinitely more poorly, since the damage across all of rifle is pure crap). Since the thief would still need to be highly mobile, you’d still be forced to take ShBow as your second weapon, leaving you without a melee option and making rifle’s AA an even more unattractive option when compared to ShBow’s options.

Teleporting LB ranger/Killshot warrior mashup without any of the damage and hard cc – this is what thief players want?

The only weapons that hold absolutely no interesting possibilities for thief (again, IMO) are LB and Rifle.

shimmerless.4560:

evilapprentice.6379:

Failed sarcasm, uninteresting scenarios, cringe inducing writing style, hyperbole and exaggeration needed due to lack of real evidence for argument.

2/10, Please don’t try again.

43 pages of solipsistic Teef whining… pot meet kettle

Hi kettle. Glad to see we have so much in common. Maybe we should be friends.

Can’t change the 2/10 though. Sloppy, low effort work.

Failed sarcasm, uninteresting scenarios, cringe inducing writing style, hyperbole and exaggeration needed due to lack of real evidence for argument.

2/10, Please don’t try again.

The absolute worst part of it is that it could have been adapted to provide the class training people have been clamoring for for months now.

Example:
Instead of “win 5 games as a thief”, it could have been something like “Deal 5k damage with one skill” or “Blind a player 10 times” or “Decap 10 points”.

Don’t look at my examples too literally, they’re just off the top of my head, but look at the intent. If Anet had tailored the class dailies to teaching players the strengths/preferred role of the class in PvP, they’d be making players better in the process.

JaeleCt.3967:

almost full glass theif running s/d can easily crit for over 4k with the last hit of the AA chain. they might do more sustained damage than we can but they have no where near the burst, especially because theyre hardest hitting attacks (RF and Maul) are both quite telegraphed and easily dodged

There’s more than 1 thing incorrect about this statement, but let’s focus on the primary one.

Claiming that “RF and Maul” are both quite telegraphed and easily dodged while insinuating that Crippling strike isn’t is hilarious – it’s the last swing of a slow, flashy AA chain where the last strike is the only one worth dodging – you can see CS coming a mile away because slash and slice have to hit first.

Michael.9517:

yes. Power rangers do more damage than thieves. By far.

The trade off is mobility. Rangers have virtually no disengage, so they drop real fast in a 2v1.

thief can easily get away in 2v1 or 3v1 or even 4v1.

that is the trade off.

Since when are Swoop or Hornet Sting/Monarch leap, Hunters shot, point blank shot, lightning reflexes and entangle not considered disengages? Not as many as a thief obviously, but “virtually none” doesn’t seem to fit.

DeceiverX.8361:

Those aren’t unreasonable scenarios, frankly. And that goes back to staying power and whatnot. Get caught in a sustained fight and you’ll likely be in that position.

Watch any D/X thief in any tournament and count the number of times they front stab, then get back to me.

Also note that a ranger who roots you and stays in melee range isn’t a bad player. Unless you’d like to just state that all S/x rangers or classes that use an immob and go in on melee are bad lol.

You are in stealth in this scenario. What exactly are they fighting?

Running at an “angle” doesn’t help. If you keep your camera forward as the thief, the skill would travel forward, thus making it land. You’re implying the war would need to do a zig-zag via WWS + rush and the dagger would need to be thrown delayed such that the skill would miss. Otherwise it should and would have always landed. Nike war just doesn’t move that way.

Oh my god, you don’t actually know how DD works, do you?

You just verified that DD on two targets would hit harder than a stab from the bounce. It’d end up with almost twice the base value and about 18% less scaling due to the bounces returning on the original target. Not to mention it hits both targets this way. Two thieves could wipe an entire party this way by using SR on both and both pressing 4 -> 4.

If I were to use the old DD now, each bounce would deal around 6000 damage on a given target. That’s 12k per person in a group of two on what was once still 8 init, versus 12 from CnD stabs over a much longer period of time with no paired cripple.

The post was a mixed reply to your and Ein’s criticisms over my post. Ein stated the damage nerf was overdone and two years ago when the nerf actually occurred, that it was unnecessary.

I’m sorry, I naturally assumed we were comparing backstab to 1 DD (pre damage nerf), not 2, because comparing it to 2 is asinine.

DeceiverX.8361:

Regarding the comment about front-stabbing: I do it intentionally all the time. If your foe is at 33% from a cloak and dagger, and you get clutch Immobilized by say, a ranger, is it smart to just stand there useless while in stealth waiting to die, or burn additional skills and utilities to try and re-position for a backstab after he heals? NO. If your CnD got him that low, the stab will finish him off, even from the front. What’s better, trying to maybe not die by doing nothing in hopes you don’t get focused, or just finishing the person right there and then?

You’ll be able to find a number niche situations where you can use frontstab, but they’re exceptions to the rule. I could concoct a dozen scenarios where Hard to Catch would benefit a thief, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an awful, kittenty trait that should never have seen the light of day. You’re in stealth AND you’re not running SE AND you have no condition cleanse AND you don’t have inf sig/SS AND you can’t switch to Shbow AND your target is at low health AND he remains in your immobilized melee range is an awfully specific situation, and you’re just not going to see situations that specifically tailored to frontstabs often enough for it to matter. Additionally, any ranger who immobilizes you and then stands in melee range anyway is a bad player, and effectiveness against bad players is not a good benchmarking tool. The fact is that my proposed change has an extremely minor impact on D/D, and when combined with my other suggestions, turns D/D into a set you can use as either power/crit OR hybrid effectively.

Regarding Dancing Dagger, it wasn’t viable so much as a 900 range DPS tool or long-range poke, no, but it did offer tons of utility in terms of escape prevention. It would have issues left/right, but its frontal honing was absolutely fine. The number of nike warriors trying to run away I’ve killed by a well-placed Dancing Dagger early on to reduce rush, wwa, and charge has proven the skill as invaluable to me, even sitting on 4 initiative. We’re back on the spamming thing again as well, such that I don’t believe any skill should be spammed for damage.

Again, how something works against bad players is a poor benchmark. Any warrior with half a brain would run away from a D/D thief at an angle, because pre-patch it guaranteed that DDag wouldn’t hit.

DD had to be nerfed in its damage because before the nerf it did more damage than a backstab if two people even stood remotely close to each other. A 900 range projectile cripple that could be thrown twice from stealth before the first even connected was just silly and broken.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dancing_Dagger
Dancing dagger lost 50% of its damage, so it’s multiplier used to be 1.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backstab
Dancing dagger never did “more damage than a backstab”.
I’m not offering an opinion on the damage nerf (though I am curious as to why you brought it up), I’m just pointing out the inaccuracy.

DeceiverX.8361:

evilapprentice.6379:

We are not talking about a condi spec. That was made abundantly clear. The entire point of this conversation is how DB has no place in D/D because the rest of the set is clearly built for Power/crit, as DB is the only skill in the entirety of the set that gains anything palpable from condition damage.

Right. So why are you re-working the entire weapon combination and subsequently other weapons as well? Get rid of the condition application part of the weapon if it’s designed around power, and make DB do something more useful than apply a few stacks of bleeds.

DB could afford some changes and alterations to help D/D be a more cohesive weapon set, but hybridizing it does nothing to solve these cohesion issues/weaknesses. I’d rather see the skills be mediocre than too strong individually due to the initiative system allowing for a lack of cooldowns. That’s why I refuse to acknowledge D/D 3 spam condi as a style of play or a legitimate build; it’s utilizing only on skill for everything it does and is almost exclusively measured by how “properly” one presses 3 or gets into stealth to heal. This is not difficult, it does not require thought, allows for huge margins of error while playing, and totally contradicts the intention of the initiative system by capitalizing on one strength repeatedly.

Hey, I actually agree with you here. Unfortunately the thief community is stricken with some form of autism when it comes to D/D.

If you say “Look at how DB is the only skill that isn’t power/crit based. The set is obviously for Power/crit specs.”, you get droves of POHR players who scream about how spamming 3 in PvE is their way of life, and any change as such would be a travesty.

One thing they point out that I sort of agree with is that Thief already has a ton of power options. The only functional condition set is P/D, and it’s worthless in PvP.

A nice compromise would be turning D/D into a hybrid set that didn’t loose too much if you went straight power/crit, which I believe my suggestions achieves. You disagree.

It already has enough potency as it stands for condition builds because of the cripple as well. P/D can really utilize the cripple to maintain perfect distance, and P/D already has spammable torment.

Again, you say things that make me wonder if you actually play the class. Please explain how a melee range skill that moves you 600 units away from your target is “spammable”. If you’re lucky, you’ll get 4 stacks on a player – unless you want to blow steal and Inf sig. Let’s also note that choosing to use Shadow stab puts you out of range for CnD, which denies P/D access to it’s best bleed stacker.

Giving the build with the second-highest access to torment in the game even more access to torment is just silly and superfluous, especially when it comes from ranged and can bounce.

Second-highest access to torment for a thief, which as it turns out isn’t all that much, as I pointed out above. Ignoring practicality to prove your point only weakens it.

The cripple itself is also useful enough even for existing DB 3 spammer condi builds to better lock down their foes such that more of the hits from DB resolve, or to force cleanses prematurely. Much like DB, I find that those who believe this skill as totally worthless have a lot more to learn. After a lot of testing and forcing myself to familiarize myself with using it an identifying what uses it has, I’ve found myself able to better handle encounters I used to struggle with.

Dancing dagger was only “useless” (I use quotes because it was never as bad as DB, even with the slower projectile speed) when the projectile speed prevented it from hitting anyone who had played the game for more than a week.

These aren’t mean to be high-impact skills. That’s why Dancing got nerfed to begin with so long ago; it did too much. What these skills are meant to be are answers for situations that D/D as a set struggles with otherwise.

I never said “make Dancing dagger a high impact skill”. I said “give it torment”. perhaps after playtesting, it was decided that DD should get 2-3 seconds of torment. That would offer a good balance between attrition damage and cover condition status.

D/D is a set that emphasizes physical damage. I do not consider spamming 3 a build, or what should be a build strategy, or even a style of play. I call it a design oversight which can’t be reverted due to existing player investment and that the build itself is sub-optimal or in many regards, contrary to the design of what the class was supposed to do.

Hey, we finally agree on something.

DB is not junk, either. When used correctly, it acts as a nice evade frame when if say, a shortbow swap is not available such that it can be used with about-face and rear-facing camera to provide a similar effect as Disabling Shot. It requires much better timing, yes, but it does prevent the necessity from swapping to a utility weapon and waiting to swap back again for fast-response damage.

And we’re right back to disagreeing. DB is not “a nice evade frame”. 250Ms of evade time is pitiful when you factor in natural human response time and server latency. Depending on the cast time of the skill you’re trying to dodge, you’d have to range between amazing split second timing and the ability to see the future to use DB as an evade successfully. Let’s not also forget the aftercast, which leaves you wide open for any player who’s seen DB used before.

DeceiverX.8361:

Okay.

DS is part of the thief’s primary DPS rotation. It’s not part of the burst, but it’s part of the primary DPS. Removing the damage from this skill will reduce PvE viability as well as reduce finishing potential for power builds. It is always better to chain 1 -> 1 -> 2 over 1 -> 1 -> 1. In PvP formats, Double Strike also functions frequently as a finisher to bring down low health targets quickly. The damage that comes from this skill is fast and essential before allowing say a clutch heal/cleanse.

My suggestion was to add a 2 or 3 second bleed. The amount of base damage lost would be balanced such that power/crit specs lost almost nothing, made up by the bleeds. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough there.

Front stab, sometimes you need that damage right then and there and can calculate whether or not it’s necessary to backstab or just hit them in the face instead. If can keep up with the math, you’ll know exactly how much a front-stab after CnD will hit for by doing the calculations in real-time based upon CnD damage. Not to mention landing a front-stab is inherently easier to do (so rewarding condi builds for… what exactly?), and DoT’s just don’t play into the premise of a setup designed for ending fights quickly due to lack of staying power.

The risk to reward ratio on front stab is abysmal for a thief. If you’re winning fights by taking a revealed for a front stab, you can win without doing so. There’s no thief in the game who “counts on” the damage from front stab to win a fight. This change would leave D/D power/crit virtually unaffected while opening up the spec to hybrids.

Dancing Dagger is another essential skill for power stab builds. It’s got a solid-duration cripple that can let one close a gap relatively easy, and currently has a very nice niche. It’s a ranged finishing blow, an engage or disengage tool, and a projectile finisher. I believe DD, with the recent projectile speed increase, is a very useful skill to have for what it is, and I’ve always thought so.

Do we play the same game? Up until this recent patch Dancing dagger was a joke due to its poor projectile speed. You could take half a step in any direction and the skill would miss. That’s why it was buffed. Claiming it was “essential” for any build before the 27th is just silly. It also used to cost 4 init, so increasing it back up to 4 init would not completely break the set.

Myxam.2790:

evilapprentice.6379:

Snippity

Then why does the 3rd ability chain on 1 inflict a long duration Poison?

Poison is a CONTROL CONDITION. It does pitiful damage because it’s intended to debuff heals, not deal respectable damage. You link me a spec that can kill a player by dealing primarily poison damage (not counting the damage the ability that applies the poison does), and I’ll show you the way into Narnia. The fact that you think this is a “point” that means anything shows a real lack of understanding.

Why is this the only weapon set in the thief weapon group that can maintain 25 stacks of bleed with ease?

Why does literally every other skill in the set not benefit in any meaningful way from condition damage?

No, its simply that Sword is the Power/Crit weapon and you, like many people (myself included) don’t like Sword on the thief. D/D is a hybrid set, get over yourself.

Quick, use D/D to deal condition damage capable of killing anything without spamming 3.
Oh wait.
D/D is not a hybrid set. No matter what skill you’re using, only 1 set of DPS Stats (power/crit, condition) is ever being counted for your damage, and only one skill uses condition damage.

EDIT: Saying Death Blossom is worthless is a hyperbole whether you intended it or not. — here’s a definition for you:

Hyperbole:
Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

My claims were intended to be taken literally and through use cases proven to be true. Don’t blame me for your lack of understanding. Also, please brush up on your reading comprehension, because the statement was, and I quote,

In a power/crit setup, DB is useless.

If you can’t be bothered to read, please don’t bother to post.