Guild Wars 2

Einlanzer.1627:

You have not proven that DB is completely useless by any stretch of the imagination. Not only did you leave out numerous scenarios that occur all the time in the game, but you explicitly stated a singular goal as if no other possible goals exist.

Thankfully, considering that your assertion was that DB is completely useless, I only need to provide one example to prove you wrong, but I can provide numerous ones.

I have a condi spec and want to use D/D just because

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. The quote in which you insisted “Yes, it is” literally starts the argument with “In a power/crit setup” Choosing to ignore that makes it painfully clear you’re not interested in a discussion, you’re just interested in “proving your point”. Unfortunately, you don’t really have a point that conforms to logic, so you can’t prove anything.

I need to evade an attack and don’t have Endurance or Roll for Initiative slotted

See above, where I specifically pointed out DB’s a poor choice for evading an attack due to poor evade frames and server latency.

I need to layer some quick condition damage to take down a mob with tough bark

See above where I mention how we’re talking about Power/crit specs, which is the design basis of every skill in D/D except for DB.

I want to hit multiple enemies at one time and drain their health while I reposition

Hey, that’s actually a scenario I didn’t list, thank you for that. Unfortunately DB isn’t a great tool to “reposition” as the leap is tiny and where you’ll land (and be vulnerable, thanks to DB’s kittenty evade frames) is conveniently in melee range of the things you just hit. I will admit though if you’re running SoM you can spend 4 init to gain some health while doing terrible damage. Just again, to make sure you get it, we’re talking about DB’s usefulness in a Power/crit spec, which is non-existant, because DB is USELESS IN A POWER/CRIT SPEC – No hyperbole needed.

Einlanzer.1627:

evilapprentice.6379:

Einlanzer.1627:

Kadin.2356:

CptnDrunk.8361:

D/D weapon set is fine as is… Id rather see S/P buffed or better trait changes to Acro line.
Changing DB would wreck a lot of condi thieves. I’ve fought some killer 3 spammers !

It’s not “fine” when 1/5 of your weapon options are useless. The weapon set as a whole might be ok at the moment (I’d argue that S/D and D/P outshine D/D imho) but having a completely useless skill can’t be “working as intended”.

Calling DB completely useless is an obvious hyperbole.

No, it isn’t. Not even a little bit.

In a power/crit setup, DB is useless. The answer to the question “What ability should I use next?” is almost never answered by “Death Blossom”. That should not be the case.

Even if DB’s evade was slightly extended, it still wouldn’t be worth using except for when you were entirely out of endurance. The only reason FS is worth using for 4 init is because it leads into LS, and because of how Inf strike and Inf return allow for constant repositioning. That’s why when Anet was looking to nerf S/D they limited the access to LS and let you use FS as much as you wanted.

When equipping D/D, you shouldn’t have to decide between 1 of your skills being completely useless or all of your other skills except 1 being horribly underpowered.

Yes, it is.

I offered an argument as to why I feel it isn’t hyperbole. If all you can offer is “Yes, it is” that’s simply your opinion. One I’ve proven wrong in the post you’ve quoted. Just because you feel DB isn’t useless for a power/crit spec doesn’t make it so.

Let’s do a quick thought experiment.

I’m running D/D, and the goal of my spec is to do power/crit damage. Ignoring potential traits;

I want to do damage and my opponent has high health. Is DB the best choice for this scenario?

I want to do damage and my opponent has low health. Is DB the best choice for this scenario?

I want to close a gap. Is DB the best choice for this scenario?

I want to open a gap. Is DB the best choice for this scenario?

I want to gain stealth. Is DB the best choice for this scenario?

I want to access a combo field. Is DB the best choice for this scenario?

Unsurprisingly, the answer to all of these are “No” (leap and projectile finishers are available on D/D and are again, almost always the better choice).

But maybe I stacked the deck. Let’s ask some questions that aren’t certainly “No.”

I want to avoid an attack. Is DB the best choice for this scenario? Maybe? DB’s evade frames are so bad you need split second timing (which is at time out of your control due to natural server latency), using endurance and actually dodging is always your best bet.

…. and we’re out of situations you’d want to use DB in.

Also note we’re ignoring potential trait interactions which would potentially make DB an even more unattractive proposition.

Einlanzer.1627:

Kadin.2356:

CptnDrunk.8361:

D/D weapon set is fine as is… Id rather see S/P buffed or better trait changes to Acro line.
Changing DB would wreck a lot of condi thieves. I’ve fought some killer 3 spammers !

It’s not “fine” when 1/5 of your weapon options are useless. The weapon set as a whole might be ok at the moment (I’d argue that S/D and D/P outshine D/D imho) but having a completely useless skill can’t be “working as intended”.

Calling DB completely useless is an obvious hyperbole.

No, it isn’t. Not even a little bit.

In a power/crit setup, DB is useless. The answer to the question “What ability should I use next?” is almost never answered by “Death Blossom”. That should not be the case.

Even if DB’s evade was slightly extended, it still wouldn’t be worth using except for when you were entirely out of endurance. The only reason FS is worth using for 4 init is because it leads into LS, and because of how Inf strike and Inf return allow for constant repositioning. That’s why when Anet was looking to nerf S/D they limited the access to LS and let you use FS as much as you wanted.

When equipping D/D, you shouldn’t have to decide between 1 of your skills being completely useless or all of your other skills except 1 being horribly underpowered.

evilapprentice.6379:

DeceiverX.8361:

It would break D/x dps/stab builds in PvP and ruin thieves in PvE, though. If anything it jut removes diversity from within the set by just saying “YOU NOW PLAY HYBRID” Actually, I would just straight up stop playing thief if that was implemented, no offense.

Oh my – how could I have forgotten how reliant Power/crit is on double strike and poorly positioned fronstabs. On top of that, X/D sets are so reliant on Dancing dagger that the 1 additional init cost would literally kill the set.

On a less sarcastic note, you can’t be serious. What you posted doesnt even count as hyperbole – anyone who understand how thief works couldn’t possibly believe what you posted. All a Power/crit thief would lose is a tiny bit of upfront damage on 1 of their AA chains, which would be made up for by the bleeds, and 1 more init on a utility skill that doesn’t see much use as it is. This barely touches power/crit builds, and opens up D/D to actually doing condition damage without 3 spam – how you got “reduces diversity” from that is beyond me. If you want to quit playing thief when they improve the weapon sets, be my guest.

Please, Oh please, explain to me how this would ruin Power/crit D/X builds – I’m champing at the bit to see it.

Before you post any further Deciever, please respond to this post from earlier in the thread. You made some pretty substantial claims that you were entirely incapable of
justifying. From what you’ve written here, it’s hard to believe you know the class well enough to weigh in on any balance decisions.

For the sake of clarity, here is the list of changes I suggested that you felt would “ruin D/X builds”

- Double strike – reduce damage scaling, add a 2-3s Bleed to each swing.
- Front stab (backstab from the front) – reduce damage scaling alot, add damaging conditions to compensate
- DB – lower bleed duration some, buff direct damage some
- Dancing Dagger – add torment, increase Init cost by 1.

Einlanzer.1627:

I think people fixate on D/D as a power set, and it causes them to have cognitive dissonance about Death Blossom, which is the only real mechanism causing people to want it to change. I will continue to argue the following points:

People want D/D to change because in PvP, it’s completely subpar to D/P. There’s more than 1 reason why, but one of the major reasons is because D/D is only viable in PvP as a power set, and DB is a complete waste of initiative for a power set.

Let’s also note, all signs point to D/D Being a power set – DB is the only skill you could reasonably use to cause condition damage to a target with D/D.

1.) It’s more useful than most people assume and is the best bleed stacking available to any class in the game. And, yes, it typically outperforms Cluster Bomb, even without Caltrops. Especially with it. Granted, this is a more a boon for PvE than for PvP, but that (and the reverse) is true for many things in the game. There’s nothing wrong with it.

We shouldn’t be using PvE as a benchmark – almost anything will work in PvE, which makes the statement “it works in PvE” almost worthless.

2.) D/D already functions more than fine with pure power builds. It is not in desperate need of that #3 skill to be anything else.

False. D/D is nowhere to be seen in PvP due in part to DB.

3.) D/D needs to be versatile. S/x is already a power-only set. It would not be a good status quo for Thieves to have no condition friendly melee weapons.

Thieves already don’t have a condition friendly melee weapon. Pressing 3 over and over again isn’t “playing the game”.

What DB needs is to have more reliable/better working evades. This will improve its usability in PvP without getting in the way of the benefits it grants to the set as a whole.

The other thing I have always argued is that Poison is not tuned well, and that downplays the condition component of D/D when it should not. Poison damage should scale better with Condition damage than it does, or, Thieves should have a trait that increases the damage of Poison.

D/D’s best bet is to be turned into a hybrid set. Earlier in this thread you can find a suggestion I made to that effect. It would turn D/D into a functioning hybrid set without upsetting D/P or P/D.

I haven’t played in a while, but the (admittedly surprising) change to Invigorating Precision which makes it potentially useful got me thinking.

Any chance something like this might make it’s way into the meta?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwpVOx0J8PNBNRt9EMcVoWBQ3RRf1EA-TpBBwAAOBAUOCAF3fYzhAocZAIPAAA

There’s some variations on both the CS and acro traits if you don’t like them as is, but I’m basically wondering if the sustain offered by IP with a high crit rate (70-90%) and AR would be enough to give up 6 points in trickery for.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

ChoChoBo.6503:

evilapprentice.6379:

ChoChoBo.6503:

Wow, this thread kind of blew up.

BP is very op. Spamming it is hard, yes, but not impossible, especially on point with targets around you. This made it so you could keep a point contested almost indefinitely. So its not about targets/enemies being in the BP circle, but about the thief being able to stay on point.

So…you exclusively fought DPS Guardians? Because as far as I can tell, any War Engi Necro Ele Ranger Mes Thief would have simply switched to their ranged weapon and completely ignored the 12-18 init you dumped into a tiny melee resistant circle; if they were feeling too lazy to move around your little circle that is.

Contesting a point doesn’t mean bunkering. If a point is about to be flipped, BP is a great option for thief’s to keep it contested. I’m afraid you might not comprehend how valuable it is to be able to keep a point contested. If you want to range and fight off point, when you don’t own the point, go for it. I don’t mind fighting you off point in that situation.

I’m afraid you misunderstand some very basic concepts in this game.

1. Literally every other class in the game is better at contesting a point than Thief.

2. Your opponents can stand on point And fire their ranged weapons at you while standing outside BP’s effect, All at the same time! They do not need to stand off point to turn your melee resistant circle into a complete waste of init with their ranged weapons.

3. Dancing around inside of a BP effect on a contested point is probably the absolute least effective thing you can do for your team as a Thief (outside of very rare, specific, niche situations). Nobody wants their squishy, highly mobile, burst roamer to be sitting in place and doing 0 damage just so they can avoid some melee damage.

Do you drop BP when your opponent is using ranged? Seriously? Come on.

We all know that BP is anti-melee and if they use ranged weapon we get into their face with Shadow Shot.

Or BP+Steal->HS->BS.

Chocho was specifically mentioning dropping BP then just dancing around in it as a way to contest points, and cited it as a reason BP was so OP. I was simply pointing out how silly that scenario was because “they will just switch to their ranged weapons and ignore your little melee resistant circle”.

Sure other profession are better than Thieves at contesting a point but this is not due to BP. The main problem is that Thief’s damage has been nerfed while other profession’s defenses are buffed. ArenaNet needs to give us our burst back.

I agree completely – until the give us our burst back, the BP nerf should be reverted.

ChoChoBo.6503:

evilapprentice.6379:

ChoChoBo.6503:

Wow, this thread kind of blew up.

BP is very op. Spamming it is hard, yes, but not impossible, especially on point with targets around you. This made it so you could keep a point contested almost indefinitely. So its not about targets/enemies being in the BP circle, but about the thief being able to stay on point.

So…you exclusively fought DPS Guardians? Because as far as I can tell, any War Engi Necro Ele Ranger Mes Thief would have simply switched to their ranged weapon and completely ignored the 12-18 init you dumped into a tiny melee resistant circle; if they were feeling too lazy to move around your little circle that is.

Contesting a point doesn’t mean bunkering. If a point is about to be flipped, BP is a great option for thief’s to keep it contested. I’m afraid you might not comprehend how valuable it is to be able to keep a point contested. If you want to range and fight off point, when you don’t own the point, go for it. I don’t mind fighting you off point in that situation.

I’m afraid you misunderstand some very basic concepts in this game.

1. Literally every other class in the game is better at contesting a point than Thief.

2. Your opponents can stand on point And fire their ranged weapons at you while standing outside BP’s effect, All at the same time! They do not need to stand off point to turn your melee resistant circle into a complete waste of init with their ranged weapons.

3. Dancing around inside of a BP effect on a contested point is probably the absolute least effective thing you can do for your team as a Thief (outside of very rare, specific, niche situations). Nobody wants their squishy, highly mobile, burst roamer to be sitting in place and doing 0 damage just so they can avoid some melee damage.

ChoChoBo.6503:

Wow, this thread kind of blew up.

BP is very op. Spamming it is hard, yes, but not impossible, especially on point with targets around you. This made it so you could keep a point contested almost indefinitely. So its not about targets/enemies being in the BP circle, but about the thief being able to stay on point.

So…you exclusively fought DPS Guardians? Because as far as I can tell, any War Engi Necro Ele Ranger Mes Thief would have simply switched to their ranged weapon and completely ignored the 12-18 init you dumped into a tiny melee resistant circle; if they were feeling too lazy to move around your little circle that is.

You play the thief and deal with revealed as a repercussion of being able to attack from stealth/stealth skills. There is no such thing as a safe haven for a thief and there shouldn’t be. Play well or die. That’s what the game and this profession in general are supposed to be about. Use the profession mechanics to your advantage and play in a way conducive to its design.

BP was never this impenetrable bubble you’ve fantasized it to be, which is the entire point of this conversation. You’ve done little to prove that point, instead speaking as though it were a given.

The reality of the matter is that the thief as a profession does simply not play well in sPvP. And it never will with its dependencies on stealth for its most important utility. BP was overpowered because it allowed for too much staying power despite the fact the class wasn’t meant to have any.

That dynamic changed as they nerfed thief damage time and time again without offering anything in the way of sustain.

It’s worth 6 initiative because it’s a ranged blind with a smoke field which allows for stealth off of HS (D/P’s strongest asset) and to punish point/targeted location fighting. If you’re sitting in BP planning on taking hits, you’re doing thief wrong, just saying. If BP isn’t worth six initiative, do tell me, why is Cloak and Dagger, seeing as it’s strictly worse in regards to what it does in the format?

It no longer punishes point fighting – 1 blind every 2 seconds does very little to most meta builds, which again I already explained. You again offer no proof, you just state it as though it were a fact. CnD does 3 times as much damage, stacks some vulnerability, and gives you stealth at 66% the cost of Stealth from BP – it’s strictly worse than BP because it’s attached to D/D (which is strictly worse than D/P) and S/D (which doesn’t value stealth nearly as much as D/X Does)

This thread shouldn’t be about BP. It should be about thieves in general. Undoing the BP nerf is not a solution to make the class more viable in sPvP but a side-step to the problem by re-implementing an overpowered skill (clearly only so in the right hands).

Like in your unkillable P/P build? Being dismissive and stating opinion and conjecture as though they were fact does not further your point.

They could perhaps start by buffing the condition cleansing of the class overall and undoing some of the damage nerfs to skills which did not deserve them, like CnD, and undoing some of the other more general utility effects the class had in the past to help deal with aggressors’ incoming strikes.

Hey, something we agree on. BP would indeed be fine as is if they did some of the things you’ve listed. Unfortunately, Anet doesn’t seem too keen on making those changes.

DeceiverX.8361:

evilapprentice.6379:

snip

Take a 10 radius step backward from your attacker while inside. Problem solved. Basic geometry dictates the amount of movement needed to attack you by rotating around the outside of the circle will always be more than what’s needed to re-position inside/in a tighter radius. If you can’t kite inside of BP and avoid damage, that itself is a L2P problem; your enemies are totally irrelevant because skilled use of the skill actually prevents any counter-play at all in a 1v1 scenario, and if you’re outnumbered, why are you revealed, and why are you not running away from the fight? The ability for melee attacks to barely reach into the field is barely a bad excuse to say the skill was fair. It’s extremely easy to do and is and should always be faster than your opponent’s movements. Use proper angles. Stack effects with a 10 radius offset. Standing in the center or closer to your foe would have gotten you killed before the nerf. It helped punish heartseeker scrubs just spamming 2 on top of a BP’ed enemy as well.

Please, go on and explain how BP “prevents counterplay at all in a 1v1 scenario”. Be sure to include how it does so against ranged weapons, because for the life of me I can’t figure that one out.

The ability for melee attacks to barely reach into the field is barely a bad excuse to say the skill was fair. It’s extremely easy to do and is and should always be faster than your opponent’s movements.

Other classes get actual damage prevention – Blocks, psuedo-invulnerabilities, actual invulnerability, competent condition cleansing, access to stability and protection, etc – those skills are deemed fair. A blind field that can be played around (with some effort of course) seems fair in comparison.

Use proper angles. Stack effects with a 10 radius offset.

Yes, 12 initiative for 3.5 seconds of “it’s kind of hard to hit you in melee” seems like a fair tradeoff. It’s a wonder we didn’t see it all the time in TPvP before the nerf.

Standing in the center or closer to your foe would have gotten you killed before the nerf. It helped punish heartseeker scrubs just spamming 2 on top of a BP’ed enemy as well.

I wouldn’t call BP a giant telegraph. It’s less telegraphed than backstab itself even while stealthed, and it provides extreme amounts of utility. Everyone seems to forget it blinds twice on cast, the first on the ranged projectile and the second on the first pulse. You can punish hambow warrior hard with the skill by using it while they’re in the air during earthshaker (BP has a faster full animation and the projectile is instant)

You could have punished him more with SS, which has a faster blind and 5 times the damage for 2 less initiative.

and proper use of evade timing and keeping track of the enemy’s blinds and your pulses lets you know when you need to evade or not.

BP doesn’t interact with evading in any special way – you’re trying to make BP seem better by describing normal play, as if it were some special case for BP

BP is a better blind than shadow show when timed properly due to the multiple application. It can blatantly prevent you from dying to certain combo attempts. BP isn’t supposed to be a refuge during revealed.

It never was – see above concerning ranged weapons.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

One of my suggestion was to make LR turn you into a shadow with the Shadow Form effect buff — which means, you get a buff that immunizes you to all damage for the duration and breaks the buff if you attack. It stops all actions in progress when it triggers so a CnD will not break this buff if it triggers mid way CnD casting time.

This suggestion is still detrimental. Say you were mid HS, about to drop your opponent; LR triggers, your opponents heal goes off, and a fight that should have ended right then and there is still going.

The game shouldn’t be deciding for you to stop your HS because triggering LR is more important. LR should be designed in such a way that it triggering mid-ability is, at worst, a neutral effect – it costs you nothing, but you gain nothing.

The real way to fix LR is to have it trigger “Cloak” – “Cloak” makes you invisible, but does not give you access to stealth attacks. Landing an attack from “Cloak” does not trigger reveal. It isn’t absolutely perfect, but it’s much better than what we have now, and still better than the game deciding to interrupt what you as the player chose to do in favor of triggering LR.

If your suggestion didn’t stop actions mid-use, it’d also be a great way to fix LR.

official.7362:

omg someone with a brain posted on my fourm post!!!1 i was losing faith and patience

i bet the p/p thief plays p/p cause he never leaned that thief can shadow shot backstab from range

I’m not sure why anyone would bring up P/P in a conversation concerning PvP – it’s a broken, disjointed set that no one uses.

As much as deciever likes to swear up and down he has some amazing PvP P/P build, common sense says otherwise. The simple fact that you’ve never seen a P/P thief in a tournament should be proof enough that it doesn’t exist. We could also mathematically tear down his argument when he inevitably tells me I’m crazy for calling his P/P build not viable. That or he’ll talk about how it’s some unstoppable dueling set, which is about as relevant as arguing who’s armor looks to the best since the only available PvP mode has almost nothing to do with how well a spec duels.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Is this OP for real?

It seems that he’s having a hard time grasping that the BP nerf is to limit the D/P’s utility. You can’t just go in stealth and us BP to protect yourself while waiting for reveal to go away. Nerfing the BP is create a counter play window at least every other attack.

You’re wrong into thinking that the change to BP is for PvE. If ArenaNet will separate the nerf, this nerf will stay in PvP.

In what world did BP protect you while you were waiting for reveal to go away? It’s radius was smaller than melee range – it is possible to melee someone standing in BP from outside the circle no matter where they stood inside BP’s effect. On top of that nearly every meta spec has ranged options, which BP is worthless against.

BP wasn’t changed to have “less utility” in D/P – it was changed into garbage. Prior to the nerf, you could use BP to force an opponent to reposition, and maybe buy yourself 1-2 seconds. Now it’s a giant telegraph that tells your opponents to ready their interrupts, you’re going into stealth because 19 times out 20, shadow shot is the superior ability if you want to blind your opponent. 1 blind every 2 seconds isn’t good enough to keep a thief up against any meta spec, so your opponent can just wade right through it and still win the fight. How is that worth 6 init?

BP either needs to return 2 Init when the projectile hits (making it cheaper to use in combat but not cheaper to use just to gain stealth outside of combat), or it needs better damage. 6 init is far to much initiative to just tell your opponents you’re going to try and go into stealth. Or they could just revert it back to how it was – if your opponent cant move around a small circle in PvP, they’ve got bigger problems than D/P thieves.

Phantaram.1265:

The article has a lot of great points but here is what I think.

I think mesmer historically has only limited the meta by being so strong you should take 1 on each comp. They did not however limit other people from playing other builds by countering them.

Thief on the other hand has kept so many builds out of GW2’s competitive history it’s crazy. They counter a lot of builds that could have been and could still be taken but because thieves exist we’ll never see that kind of diversity. I will say that now more than ever though thieves are less limiting.

I don’t think people switched to celestial because of these classes though. Celestial is just really strong so people play it. Celestial classes still gets insta bursted by thief mesmer pretty easily.

Care to list a few of these builds that would be perfectly viable if thieves didn’t exist?

If I recall correctly (and it’s possible I’m mistaken), you’re primarily a mesmer player who’s made a career of requesting thief nerfs on the boards, so it’s hard to take anything you say without a grain of salt.

Morwath.9817:

Shockwave.1230:

@Morwath

When something has no counterplay it means there’s no way deal with it. I can list off dozens of ways to deal with thief stealth options. You can feel there’s not enough counterplay to thief stealth, but it’s not uncounterable.

You can’t prevent Thief entering stealth.

You can reasonably prevent every weapon skill that grants stealth. The only things you can’t reasonably prevent are SR, Blinding powder, and Last refuge (though last refuge will usually screw the thief’s stealth up for you.)

And once he enters it, you can’t track his high mobility abilities

Except with channeled skills

, you can only predict where he can be and where he will strike, but it doesn’t mean you will predict right, while you can hunt down any other class. This is huge advantage over any other roamer, because you can only guess where Thief is and where he is heading.

in the vast majority of cases, “Behind you and also in melee” is the only position a thief is dangerous in, making predicting “where he’ll strike” unbelievably easy. Those classes you can “hunt down” have options for damage invlunerabilities, protection, and stability which thief does not get (Mentioning AE as a way to get stability will generate much amusement on my part)

Thats what I meant by stealth having no counterplay, even if you can e.g. finish briefly stealthed Thief by AoEing his position.

We know what you meant, it was just incorrect. If you feel stealth has “no counterplay”, you don’t have enough experience for your opinion to be taken very seriously. You’ve also obviously never played a thief, because if you had you’d have watched an experienced player easily counterplay your stealth.

Fortus.6175:

Cynz.9437:

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Flawed logic is flawed…..

So would you rather have a full team of 5 bunker guardians, or 5 cele engis, or 5 power ranger, or 5 necros , etc etc?!

Sigh.

I would you like to watch a football game with 11 goalies, or 11 trainers, etc….. They are both vital yet you dont see european leagues asking for several of them…..

Thieves are prevalent in ALL teams, every single one of them, throughout the entire history of the game since release, unlike other classes, which had literally 0% in some competitions, namely elementalists.

edit: I can see Im not the one using the football analogy xD

Flawed understanding is flawed.

“More than 1” <> “Entire team”. There’s a whole bunch of numbers that are greater than 1 AND less than 5.

I’m willing to bet a number of football teams would jump at the chance to field 2 goalies and 1 less offensive player – which was exactly OP’s point.

Kreed.2768:

You probably mean Black Powder. And it was nerfed, as far as I recall, mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, it made any and all interrupt downstate skills (Warrior #2, Ranger #2, etc.) completely useless. It’s still hard to get a hit now, but at least there’s a chance now that they can get a hit off. And before you start about stability and whatnot, skills that supply that buff are usually on a long-ish cooldown, while Black Powder in theory has none.

This is very inaccurate. BP was a hard counter to Warrior, Engineer and Necro downed interrupts. It was a skill check for Guardians and Rangers. Ranger/Guard Players with a modicum of experience and the ability to count could easily clear the blind with their DS AA and then hit their interrupt.

The second reason was because it allowed thieves to just solo all sorts of bosses and other mobs that are supposed to present a bit of a challenge without any trouble. Just use Black Powder once every 4 or 5 seconds and spam auto attack until it’s dead.

So nerf it in PvE, leave it alone in PvP.

Black Powder is still plenty strong and retains the uses it had before. It’s just not a complete crutch anymore.

No, it’s an overpriced gate into stealth now, and that’s it. More on that below.

DeceiverX.8361:

BP was overpowered in a lot of scenarios, sorry to say.

No, it wasn’t. It was arguably OP in countering 3/8 of the games classes down state interrupts, that’s it.

The fact I went undefeated in a guild PvP and duelling session my first day in sPvP against people who dumped thousands of hours into their classes, builds, and strategies while playing as a P/P healing power/dwayna build based around blind-spamming my enemies to death and healing back whatever I took instantly kind of demonstrated that permanent blinding effects needed to get changed.

1 Players anecdotal experience is not enough to claim something is OP. Even if it was, an abilities efficacy in duels has nothing to do with whether or not it’s OP, since this a team oriented capture point game – if it wasn’t, PU mesmers and P/D thieves would rule SPvP.

BP used to be a skill check and a forced reposition tool. If your target sat in the circle and whiffed attacks, you knew they were still relatively inexperienced. Otherwise, all BP forced another player to do was change his positioning…which was a good thing for thief, the mobility based class that takes advantage of bad positioning.

Now, any class can just sit in the BP circle and still win the DPS race, because 1 missed attack every 2 seconds isn’t enough to keep a squishy, low HP thief ahead of the curve.

BP is now a 6 initiative skill that lets everyone around you know “Prepare your interrupts, I’m going to try going into stealth!” Why is that, you might ask? Because 19 times out of 20, if you need a blind, shadow shot is the better candidate. It does 4-5 times more damage (I forget the exact multipliers off the top of my head), costs 2 less init, the blind cant be blocked or reflected, And it puts you into melee, which is where a D/P thief wants to be with his target most of the time. The only reason you’d choose BP over shadow shot 19 times out of 20 is because you’re planning on going into stealth.

So there you go – BP used to be a useful ability that could be used skillfully to force your opponent to reposition. Now it’s a 6 init warning to your opponents that you’re most likely going to be trying to enter stealth.

Reaven.3958:

Kadin.2356:

There’s been countless threads on this. They just don’t care.

That’s not an acceptable answer. They need to address this.

They’re not going to. This is easily the 20th thread to bring up this issue. They’re always on the first page of the thief forums for a week minimum; still, nothing is done.

Ignoring the fact that ANet has yet to fix the issue, here’s the simplest, most elegant solution that will solve everyone’s issues with LR.

Switch LR to grant “Concealed” instead of Stealth. “Concealed” makes you invisible but does not toggle stealth skills (which means no backstab, sneak attack, etc), and Does not trigger revealed upon attacking.

There you go, LR is fixed. The only question that remains is do “on stealth” SA traits trigger on “Concealed”. This would require playtesting, but even if Anet defaulted to “No”, LR would still be better in this form than it is now.

P/P is a hot mess of poor design decisions. Let’s dissect it, shall we?

3 of the weaponsets skills are pure utility. With poor damage scaling (BS is .5, BP and HS are .25), you’ll never use these skills with the intent of dealing damage to your opponent. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it leads us to my next point.

When 3 of your 5 skills are utility only, your other 2 skills are going to need to work together with themselves and your utilities amazingly to make the set worth running. Hilariously, P/P’s AA is a condition based skill that gains very, very little from powe/crit, and the dual skill is a power/crit skill that gains bupkis from condition damage. That’s right, the 2 skills are almost completely incompatible with eachother! It doesn’t even make sense to run the set as a hybrid setup because of how poor Vital shot (AA)’s direct damage scaling is, and how Unload (dual skill) gains absolutely nothing from condition damage.

…But wait, there’s more! On top of being poorly designed for offense, the set is similarly poorly designed for defense as well!

For the most part, thieves rely on the following for their survival – Evades, stealth, blind, and mobility. P/P Has absolutely no access to evades, stealth, or mobility. On top of that, their blind (Black powder) was recently nerfed into the ground, making it almost useless as a defensive utility if you were counting on it to blind your opponent.

There are other issues of course (900 range, ricochet being too gimmicky for serious pvp, etc) but the majority of P/P’s issues stem from the fact that it’s awfully designed for both offense and defense.

For those of you who might not remember, Shadow shot (Thief D/P 3 skill) used to be awful. The melee stab after the ranged attack hit used to have a huge delay on it AND the thief was rooted during the animation, the stab missed on anyone not standing stone still. Eventually, the skill was fixed, and D/P was made a genuinely useful set for thieves.

Well, the delay is back. Often, I’ll teleport to a target who was clearly hit by the shot (obviously, since I shadowstepped to them), but the stab will miss, or the target will somehow dodge the stab even though the ranged attack hit. If you don’t believe me, test it on Class NPC’s in the mists – they’ll often dodge the stab after you’ve teleported them.

This is not right – either both attacks hit, or both attacks miss. Please fix this Anet.

I’d honestly rather see the plethora of worthless and UP thief utilities buffed.

The reason you see SR and SS on every thief bar is partly due to how good they are, but mostly due to the immense gap between our few “good” utilities and the rest of the kitten.

Utility venoms are useless, with the occasional exception of Devourers in some niche builds (even then it isn’t a particularly “good” utility).
Traps are crap.
Scorpion wire would be a great utility if the pull worked even 75% of the time – it doesn’t, so it isn’t.
RFI would be a solid utility choice if you could count on it to fire when you hit it (I’m not talking server latency, I’m talking hammering on the skill for 1-2s and having nothing happen) – it doesn’t, so it isn’t.
Caltrop’s are meh even for condition thieves (which you don’t see in PvP for obvious reasons) thanks to the amount of condi cleansing the current (and past few) meta’s necessitate and the fact that it’s just more bleeds (the one damaging utility thieves have applicable access to)
Haste is a crapshoot for a class that relies so heavily on evades for damage mitigation.

Deception and signet utilities are decent for the most part – which is why you’ll usually see a thief with SR, SS, and either a Signet or Blinding powder – there’s just no competition.

I hate to be the one to kitten on your parade, but this weapon could never exist in PvP.

2/0/0/6/6 would be an untouchable bunker – between blocks and evades, you could easily spend 20-30s completely avoiding damage while still holding down a point.
You’d have perma-vigor, could easily spend 8-10s blocking by just spamming 4, would be healing yourself constantly (via the weaponset itself and the fact that you’d probably take AR), it’d be nuts.

Your only weakness would be Conditions, and that’s more the fault of the class overall than your weapon design – you could even mitigate that weakness with Lyssa runes.

This build probably isn’t perfect, but off the top of my head it’s a good example of how much healing you could pack into a build that was going to be avoiding/blocking most of the damage you throw at it anyway – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQBVSzkenW4ETnw/0E0Ek3h5LlRrA0dU6bTA-TpQXAAaZAY/BA

DeceiverX.8361:

BP was broken. A good thief with offhand pistol could literally be untouchable to all melee attacks. Over-nerfed? Maybe for its init cost, but the ability as it was was just way too strong.

Frankly I miss the old old FS when it wasn’t a two-part skill. It was a lot more fun and a lot less situationally imbalanced.

Please explain how player skill (“A good thief with offhand pistol”) has any bearing on the radius of the BP circle? With a radius of 120 and a melee range of 130, it’s possible to melee the thief from outside the circle no matter where he is in the circle.

Pre-nerf BP was a multi use skill. It was
1 part skill check – If your target just stands in the circle and keeps whiffing, you’re probably winning that fight.
1 part repositioning tool – if your target moved out of the circle like anyone with a weeks worth of pvp experience would, you had a momentary breather to change your position/consider your options.
2 parts stealth access.

This made the fact that BP costs 6 init while having a ridiculously kittenty damage multiplier Ok – it wasn’t a 1 note skill.

All BP is good for now is stealth access – nearly any spec of any class can just sit in the circle and pummel you, because 1 blind ever 2 seconds wont even interrupt most AA chains. Any player with experience will see BP now and know with nigh certainty the thief is going into stealth – and it still costs 6 init and does laughable damage.

What of the blind shot aspect, you might say? Shadowshot does it better – it’s cheaper, the blind portion is unblockable, and it does 5 times as much damage. For situations where you might not want to end up directly next to your target, Headshot is cheaper, instant cast, and still a projectile finisher. There will be situations where neither of those options are as good as BP’s blinding shot, but they’re few and far between.

BP needs a cost reduction or a damage buff, because at the moment it’s an extremely expensive gate to stealth access that announces loudly to everyone around you “HEY! I’M PLANNING ON GOING INTO STEALTH!”

As for missing the old FS, do you really miss people standing and eating the low damage FS so they could punish you in the .5 seconds you were locked in the LS animation? Besides FS’s old pathing problems, it was akin to CCing yourself for your opponents benefit.

NinjaEd.3946:

Thief has received numerous miscellaneous changes that have done nothing significant.

Long story short the builds that you may of enjoyed in the past are either unchanged or nerfed or changed for no greater good. Overall same class just a different log-in date.

This is….very inaccurate.

BP’s nerf (standing outside of circles is hard!) made it so that anyone with half a brain can land an entire AA chain or an important skill on you while standing in the circle. That changes BP’s function from a good utility skill to an overpriced entry gate to stealth.

FS→LS’s nerf made it so that your opponents can dodge both your FS and LS with a single evade/immune/blind/etc while also increasing the init cost of FS (the skill you have to land to gain access to the 1init LS). Making evades more spammable is viewed as a “buff” by some, but it wasn’t. S/D already had all the evades it needed, it relied on LS’s damage/boon steal to be threatening – without it, it’s a fairly kittenty set.

Trying to play either of those sets the way you did pre-nerf to would put you at a disadvantage and confuse a player who wasn’t aware of said changes.

Arikyali.5804:

What if venoms are meant for PvE? Condition damage PvE? Certainly no use in dungeons, eh. Maybe solo roaming in open world?

/shrug

Out of 5 venoms, one applies a damaging condition (and 3 whole stacks for a 40s utility, lawl). No, Poison is not a damaging condition – it’s a heal debuff that does extremely minor damage.

So I’m not sure what you’re talking about here. That’s not meant as a dig at you, it’s aimed at venom design.

Disclaimer: I have no concept of time.

Your 2 biggest problems (most likely).

X/P – Black powder now pulses every 2s, instead of every 1s.

S/D – FS now costs 4 init, LS 1 init, and you cant use LS unless FS hits first.

There were buffs to other classes that might contribute, but one of those are most likely your most immediate problem.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Well for those who say its balanced. Please tell me a trait in the game with a higher power level?

I dont think there is one. And this for a minor trait? And balance is secondary to FUN. The trait is really not fun to play against. Mindless spam being rewarded is not really a good thing. Add an icd of 10 seconds Then its still a really good trait.

And if there are other viable specs then even more reason to nerf it.

You’re looking at the trait without looking at the class.

Things a thief does not have access to:
Invuln
Psuedo-invuln
Block/Aegis
Protection
Stability (If you mention AR I will be forced to mock you)
Adequate condition removal

Other circumstances
Lowest base health pool
Poor sustain options (due to design choices that make power/crit stats infinitely more valuable than sustain stats for the class)
One of our defensive traitlines is worthless in SPvP due to capture point format.

Evading damage (With evades, blinds, and to a lesser extent stealth) is the only survivability mechanic thieves have.
Get hit with a condi bomb?
Dead or retreating.
Don’t break stun/immobilize quickly?
Dead or retreating

If we’re going to play the “Look at this trait without considering the class it belongs to game”, then I’d literally kill for CI. You could make it cleanse 3 conditions only (ignoring the adrenaline portion of the trait), a GM trait in DA OR Acro and have it trigger off of steal (which at best is double the CD of a burst, at worst quintuple) and I’d still take it in a heartbeat. Why? Because it was designed for a different class without the unique strengths and weaknesses of the thief class. If you still haven’t grasped that, what have you been doing for these last 2 years?

You know I gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised at the responses. I was expecting a whole bunch of bandwagon hopping misinformed silliness.

You know thief is in a bad state when someone makes a ridiculous claim to thief OPness on the forums and the majority of the responses disagree. It’s like I’m living an episode of the twilight zone!

Thanks Anet for this 11% cooldown buff venom’s got.

That’ll surely fix the issue of venom’s being underpowered due to their interaction with venomous aura, and all the other problems that come with requiring 5 traits and a bar full of venoms with no stunbreaks or condi cleanses to be useful.

WvW of PvP?

If it’s WvW I can’t help you.

If It’s PvP, which amulet, what runes? When you say Signet, do you mean assassin’s with the 5might stacks on signet use trait?

Link your build and it’ll be much easier to answer this question.

Chaith.8256:

I honestly think that players adapted and stopped trying to revive through Grenades, Wells, Hammer Trains, Lich spam, and so on.

Players felt that way strongly before, but I’m not so sure that remains to be the overwhelming consensus.

It’s not so much “trying to revive” as it is “trying to survive”. Alot of players complain about the sustain/bunkerish meta we have at the moment, but how can you blame anyone? Meleeing anything on point requires wading through half a dozen AoE’s – no wonder thieves run sword for evades (or used to before it was gutted, cause timing is hard) and every other class runs as much condi clear and healing as they can – because it’s ridiculously easy to bathe the objective of the game in half a dozen different effects, damaging and otherwise. What changed that convinced Anet that “Nah, these AoE’s we said were OP and needed looking into are fine”.

Elitist.8701:

Hi frands, Teef Teef Teef Teef here, #Thief NA and world’s first Champion Shadow!

Key words: 1-1.5 years ago!

Wahoo! Bye Frands!

That was sort of the point now was it not (phrasing thanks to overzealous filter) – asking Anet why it was a stated goal, then completely dropped and ignored. That or they said something/changed their stance and I missed it, hence my inquiry.

I’m operating entirely on recollection, so anyone please feel free to correct me where I’m wrong.

That being said, didn’t Anet say roughly a 1 year – 1.5 years ago that one of their big focuses was toning down AOE’s due to their strength in capture point games (the only format of SPvP and TPvP Anet currently offers)?

Did I miss the nerfs? I know I’m not imagining Anets claims, I’m just wondering if during one of my breaks from the game I somehow missed the part where Anet followed through on their promises and toned down AOE’s.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Honestly this article is redundant at this point. There is no way anything with respect to this game will change outside of an expansion. Otherwise they will be tinkering numbers when core issues stop the game being fun to a significant number of people (pvp wise).

The more you play the PvP the more you get disapointted with lameness. Everything is uncounterable. Thiefs spamming ports/evades. Mesmers spamming ports/damage from 1500 with massive insta burst. They are probably the two most frustrating to play against but on the whole every class is on some level frustrating to fight against. I guess massive sigil power also just adds to frustrations. Because you just die out of nowhere. That isnt fun to fight against. Thief having no cooldowns? Not fun. So many issues. And will never be resolved. So at this point making articles like this is pointless. It is better to either quit the game or just give up on any seriousness in the game and just enjoy it when you can enjoy it.

Either way, we all probably got our monies worth from this game. So thanks to anet for that. But in terms of a pvp game with lasting appeal. There is none due to how most of the classes are not fun to fight against. This is a design failure but it is minor compared to a good value for money game they produced.

I Love how “everything is uncounterable” is followed by kittening about 2 specific classes. Your bias has been evident for years – that’s a strong statement for a game that’s barely in the plural phase of existence, and unfortunately true.

Firebird.8324:

Please re-title this “Imagine if this game were the same as every other game instead of being unique and interesting.”

+1, only because the forums limit me to a single feature in which I can point out the correct sentiment in a thread.

alchemyst.2165:

evilapprentice.6379:

alchemyst.2165:

@evilapprentice I think for your changes we might as well make a new traitline called “Revealed Arts”. I’m pretty sure Shadow Arts is meant for more passive play anyways, if you don’t like the playstyle switch to acro.

No, that’s silly. Both a thieves defensive trait lines should be viable in PvP, WvW, and PvE. While “Revealed arts” sounds cute, you’re presenting an argument about semantics, which doesn’t really matter. It’s about better mechanics for the class.

You’ll also note that since to be revealed, you generally have to be in stealth first, as well as the fact that most of my suggestions have both a “gain stealth” and “gain revealed” component, Shadow arts still fits nicely.

And from what I understand is, you’re trying to make Shadow Arts viable in tpvp right? Well for 1 thing I don’t see the point in that because even with the changes people still wouldn’t play it. Also, there is already an active playstyle for you and it’s called 6 in acrobatics. Or trickery. What you’re proposing is to restrict diversity between traitlines. There’s nothing wrong with a more passive traitline.

I’m not sure I trust your power of prognostication. I’m sorry that you don’t see people using a better designed SA, but I do see it. As for limiting diversity, one defensive traitline is about evading attacks, the other is about going in and out of stealth (and in my suggestion, landing stealth attacks). My suggestion does nothing to make the 2 more similar.

Let me just put it simpler: Shadow Arts needs little tweaking. Only thing that needs changed is the healing of Shadow’s Rejuve, which should be nerfed slightly. But what you’re suggesting won’t help the thief class. In fact, it may hurt it since you would have to be TOO active in the fight to get any bonuses from your suggestions. To get any defensive bonuses from what you are describing, you would have to be very aggressive which contradicts defense especially when you’re in the middle of the fight and need to go on the defensive. While it may seem tactical to you, what you’re saying is to basically spam stealth, which is already what people do.

In the grand scheme of things, your changes will not help the thief class, and Shadow Arts does not need changed. It’s a good trait line, arguably the best traitline a thief has. Why change it?

Because you’re very clearly only talking about WvW. No one who’s talking about PvP thinks of SA as “a good traitline, arguably the best traitline a thief has”.

Changing the triggers from “Sit in stealth” to “gain stealth and gain revealed” is better for the class, and for the game. You are incorrect, but If I haven’t convinced you by this point, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Reading evil’s suggestion, you mentioned it wrong, which is why I gave a massive NO to your version of it. Here’s what he said, quoted and all.

evilapprentice.6379:

Shadow arts does not need to be removed.

What it does need is to have it’s shift focused from “Sit in stealth for benefits” to “Engage in combat for benefits”.

At the moment, many of the most used SA traits give alot of incentive to sit in stealth for their benefits, regardless whether or not the current situation calls for sitting in stealth. That needs to change, and can be done easily.

Shadow’s Embrace – changed to “Remove 1 condition when you enter stealth. Remove 1 condition when you gain revealed.” Now an SA thief will mitigate conditions by staying in combat and weaving in and out of stealth, not by jumping into stealth and just sitting there.

Patience – I’ll be honest, I don’t have a great suggestion for this one, but it also need to change, partly because it incentivizes sitting in stealth, and partially because it’s buttkitten useless and nobody runs it. Perhaps something along the lines of “All CD’s tick 20% faster while revealed”, or something of the like.

Shadow Rejuvenation – changed to “Heal X when you enter stealth. Heal Y health per second while revealed”. Again, now a thief is healing by weaving in and out of stealth and fighting his opponent instead of by just sitting in stealth doing nothing. X and Y will obviously need to be playtested, since being healed while revealed is more powerful than healing while in stealth.

Resilience of shadow – changed to “Stealth effects you apply reduce incoming damage (30%). When you (and only you, not others) are revealed, reduce incoming damage by 15%.”

There you go – you now how an SA tree that’s useful in PvP and not annoying in WvW.

Meaning he wants it changed so the traits activate upon entering stealth and upon leaving it through revealed, which is a far better version than what you put TC.

That last sentence is the important one. My specifics aren’t important (even if I do think they’re good suggestions), the thrust of the argument is SA traits should ditch “Sit in stealth for benefits” in favor of “on stealth and on revealed” triggers. It’ll just make thieves better.

alchemyst.2165:

@evilapprentice I think for your changes we might as well make a new traitline called “Revealed Arts”. I’m pretty sure Shadow Arts is meant for more passive play anyways, if you don’t like the playstyle switch to acro.

No, that’s silly. Both a thieves defensive trait lines should be viable in PvP, WvW, and PvE. While “Revealed arts” sounds cute, you’re presenting an argument about semantics, which doesn’t really matter. It’s about better mechanics for the class.

You’ll also note that since to be revealed, you generally have to be in stealth first, as well as the fact that most of my suggestions have both a “gain stealth” and “gain revealed” component, Shadow arts still fits nicely.

And from what I understand is, you’re trying to make Shadow Arts viable in tpvp right? Well for 1 thing I don’t see the point in that because even with the changes people still wouldn’t play it. Also, there is already an active playstyle for you and it’s called 6 in acrobatics. Or trickery. What you’re proposing is to restrict diversity between traitlines. There’s nothing wrong with a more passive traitline.

I’m not sure I trust your power of prognostication. I’m sorry that you don’t see people using a better designed SA, but I do see it. As for limiting diversity, one defensive traitline is about evading attacks, the other is about going in and out of stealth (and in my suggestion, landing stealth attacks). My suggestion does nothing to make the 2 more similar.

Ajax.5346:

evilapprentice.6379:

Ajax.5346:

B) SA isn’t viable in any level TPvP currently, which was the entirety of the point of my suggestions – to make it viable in TPvP.

That is my whole point. Why suggest subpar changes that really doesn’t change anything?

We’re having this discussion because we want SA to be viable in both PvP and WvW.

By your own admission, you don’t play WvW so I’m going to assume you are not aware of the issue WvW thieves encounter in WvW. How can you even state/suggest changes when you don’t have a clear understanding of that game mode? As I stated before, you want blind nerf to SA for the sake of pvp.

You’ve yet to explain why you feel that the changes are sub-par, you’ve just stated it as though it were a fact (which it isnt). Just because it might hurt the way you play in WvW does not make it bad. For just 1 example, being able to continue attacking your target while still benefiting from your traits rather than being forced to sit in stealth because you need to drop that condition or need to regen some health certainly seems better to me. “On revealed” triggers mitigate revealed traps and ranger/engi skills. Not being able to just sit in stealth for benefits might hurt some playstyles, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad, you just perceive it that way.

I don’t need to play WvW to understand how powerful stealth without any of SPvP’s restrictions can be – it’s plain as day. I also don’t need to play WvW to see that ANet specifically designed thief to weave in and out of stealth rather than sit in it for extended periods of time. GW2 handles stealth differently than nearly every other MMO with a stealth class in it. You’re clearly supposed to weave in and out of short duration stealth rather than stealth being a permanent, 1 shot burst skill (with your perfunctory long CD re-stealth meant as an escape). Why they designed SA to benefit from sitting in stealth as long as possible is beyond me, but it should be fixed.

I touched on it briefly in my previous post. If they follow thru with your changes, how would you spec? 10/30/30? 10/0/30/0/30? 10/0/30/30/0? I really would like to know How would a full SA thief be better than a cele d/d ele or ham/bow warrior when those classes bring much more in terms of a balance build. Why take a thief then? Basically, you have the mobility but cant do jack kitten once you get there.

you’re making an awful lot of assumptions, most of them proven wrong by precedent. 10/30/0/30/0 was a viable and effective S/D build for a while, as was 10/0/0/30/30. 30 points in a defensive traitline doesn’t mean a spec is pointless.

“On revealed” triggers mitigate revealed traps and ranger/engi skills."

Clearly we see ranger/engi reveal skill in top lvl tpvp. Do you even pvp? Reveal changes were made for WvW….

Yes, I was specifically talking about benefits in WvW, because that was what you were talking about my changes ruining. You’re either willfully misinterpreting me, not reading the posts, or not fully comprehending them. All I can do is ask that you read my posts more closely, please

“You’re clearly supposed to weave in and out of short duration stealth rather than stealth being a permanent”

Clearly? SA has been mostly untouched for 2 years. CLEARLY, if they saw a problem with it, they would have done something about it by now. Additionally, they add the GM trait resilience of shadow which encourages staying in stealth. So maybe you’re blind? Now revealed training in the power line is a different story. But then again, that is a different trait line. Maybe you should focus on those trait line for your offensive playstyle instead of a toughness/healing power trait line… just saying.

SA is 1 traitline of 1 class. Stealth is a game mechanic for all classes. The way a universal game mechanic is designed carries more weight than the way 1 traitline for 1 class was designed. As far as ANet changing things that clearly aren’t working as intended for over 2 years, P/P seems like the only precedent I need to prove my point (though it’s very much not the only precedent that exists).

“1 shot burst skill "

CLEARLY, you dont play WvW nor understand it.

Again, talking about how other games design stealth. You had to cherry pick that quote out of it’s context to represent it any other way. Please don’t spread misinformation for fun.

“If the only way SA is viable in WvW is to sit in stealth for extended periods of time rather than getting those same benefits from engaging your targets, then something is wrong.”

Nothing is wrong. Anet encourages passive play such as healing signet….

And one of the forums time honored pastimes is complaining about passive play and suggesting fixes for it, thus here we are.

Ajax.5346:

B) SA isn’t viable in any level TPvP currently, which was the entirety of the point of my suggestions – to make it viable in TPvP.

That is my whole point. Why suggest subpar changes that really doesn’t change anything?

We’re having this discussion because we want SA to be viable in both PvP and WvW.

By your own admission, you don’t play WvW so I’m going to assume you are not aware of the issue WvW thieves encounter in WvW. How can you even state/suggest changes when you don’t have a clear understanding of that game mode? As I stated before, you want blind nerf to SA for the sake of pvp.

You’ve yet to explain why you feel that the changes are sub-par, you’ve just stated it as though it were a fact (which it isnt). Just because it might hurt the way you play in WvW does not make it bad. For just 1 example, being able to continue attacking your target while still benefiting from your traits rather than being forced to sit in stealth because you need to drop that condition or need to regen some health certainly seems better to me. “On revealed” triggers mitigate revealed traps and ranger/engi skills. Not being able to just sit in stealth for benefits might hurt some playstyles, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad, you just perceive it that way.

I don’t need to play WvW to understand how powerful SA without any of SPvP’s restrictions can be – it’s plain as day. I also don’t need to play WvW to see that ANet specifically designed thief to weave in and out of stealth rather than sit in it for extended periods of time. GW2 handles stealth differently than nearly every other MMO with a stealth class in it. You’re clearly supposed to weave in and out of short duration stealth rather than stealth being a permanent, 1 shot burst skill (with your perfunctory long CD re-stealth meant as an escape). Why they designed SA to benefit from sitting in stealth as long as possible is beyond me, but it should be fixed.

If the only way SA is viable in WvW is to sit in stealth for extended periods of time rather than getting those same benefits from engaging your targets, then something is wrong.

Ajax.5346:

Geiir.7603:

evilapprentice.6379:

Shadow arts does not need to be removed.

What it does need is to have it’s shift focused from “Sit in stealth for benefits” to “Engage in combat for benefits”.

At the moment, many of the most used SA traits give alot of incentive to sit in stealth for their benefits, regardless whether or not the current situation calls for sitting in stealth. That needs to change, and can be done easily.

Shadow’s Embrace – changed to “Remove 1 condition when you enter stealth. Remove 1 condition when you gain revealed.” Now an SA thief will mitigate conditions by staying in combat and weaving in and out of stealth, not by jumping into stealth and just sitting there.

Patience – I’ll be honest, I don’t have a great suggestion for this one, but it also need to change, partly because it incentivizes sitting in stealth, and partially because it’s buttkitten useless and nobody runs it. Perhaps something along the lines of “All CD’s tick 20% faster while revealed”, or something of the like.

Shadow Rejuvenation – changed to “Heal X when you enter stealth. Heal Y health per second while revealed”. Again, now a thief is healing by weaving in and out of stealth and fighting his opponent instead of by just sitting in stealth doing nothing. X and Y will obviously need to be playtested, since being healed while revealed is more powerful than healing while in stealth.

Resilience of shadow – changed to “Stealth effects you apply reduce incoming damage (30%). When you (and only you, not others) are revealed, reduce incoming damage by 15%.”

There you go – you now how an SA tree that’s useful in PvP and not annoying in WvW.

Finally someone with some sense! This would definitely shift the style from defensive to offensive and more active and fun. Love the ideas. You should post these in the balance suggestions forums, or I’ll do it for you :p

Edit: posted it here.

You and evilapprentice are totally idiots. Sorry for the harsh words.

Even with the suggested changes, it would have no impact on pvp and pve but it would nerf WvW thieves. Basically, you are not giving considerations to one part of the game because you focus on a different part, spvp. I can’t imagine thieves running 10/0/6/0/6 for tpvp. Hell, SA isn’t even viable in high lvl tpvp. So, why are we even having this discussion? Basically, the OP got trolled by a SA in hotjoin and QQ’ed.

A) I have no qualms (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/qualms?s=t) about ruining the “Sit in stealth” playstyle. In fact, the express purpose of these suggestions was to completely kill it. It’s poorly designed and should be eradicated from the game entirely. Looking at my suggested changes, WvW players would still get their heals and condition removal as long as they were in combat. It wouldn’t be a nerf, it’d be a shift away from a poorly designed, cheesy playstyle to a fun, well designed playstyle.

B) SA isn’t viable in any level TPvP currently, which was the entirety of the point of my suggestions – to make it viable in TPvP.

We’re having this discussion because we want SA to be viable in both PvP and WvW. It was stated clearly in the post you quoted. I’m not sure how you missed that.

Fay.2357:

vincecontix.1264:

Whether steal is traited is Op or not is a matter of opinion. Though thief in the current meta is an ok class its not top tier. They are far from op they have counters(med guard, engi, necro etc.. They cant really 1v1 a lot of the celestial/bunkerish meta builds.

So to those who want thief steal nerfed suggest some things to compensate it. Some have mention thief is one of the few classes that can wear a zerker amy. Which is not true Med guards, power necro, and even rangers wear zerker Amy. Thief has less options than other classes and has no choice but to run zerker amy.

Honestly, I’m not truly familiar enough with thief to suggest viable alternatives for the myriad traits that affect steal, and that really should be a job for the devs. The important thing is that the message is gotten across that steal shouldn’t be possible to trait into a monster. The traits need to be re-aimed at other areas that could use interesting modifiers instead of just piling it all onto steal.

But then people will just complain about those traits, because thieves are frustrating to fight and that somehow means they’re broken.

It’s how the forums work when it comes to thieves.

1) Complain about something, even though 9 out of 10 times that thing is fine.
2) ANet eventually caves and nerfs that something.
3) Thieves find a new way to be effective using something else.
4) Go back to step 1 to complain about something else.

It doesn’t matter how many times thief is nerfed, players will keep complaining. That isn’t a subjective observation, it’s an objective one that’s been true since the game launched. As of right now, it is a fact.

I’d be excited to see some new traits that replace all the junk that needs to be piled onto steal to make it a useful mechanic (it wouldn’t be such a big deal to have an UP mechanic, except it’s the class mechanic), but it’d only be 6 months until forum QQ had all those traits nerfed anyway, so it’s more of a safe bet to defend the status quo.

Auesis.7301:

Most classes have borderline useless trait lines for sPvP – SA for Thieves isn’t some crazy exception. It works fine in WvW and could do with some reduction, but nuking the whole thing from orbit because it doesn’t work in one game mode is just stupid.

But it doesn’t “work fine” in WvW, does it? I don’t WvW so I’m not qualified to call it “broken”, but I can certainly see how powerful SA would be if I didn’t have to worry about losing the game because I was in stealth and it was harder to read my position while in stealth due to the fact that I don’t have to stand in a tiny circle to win the game.

Ignore OP’s silly thought of deleting shadow arts – it’s a pointless, dead-end argument. Instead, take a look at my suggestion of shifting the focus from “sit in stealth” to “engaging in combat”.

You might see it as a “nerf” from a WvW standpoint, but it’s better for the class and for the game. It also has the added benefit of semi-countering all the new “apply revealed” skills that have come and are coming in the future(make no mistake, more classes will get the power to apply revealed). Instead of an SA thief being completely locked out of the SA traitline as well as stealth (thief is the only class in the game that can have an entire traitline locked out without a counter, btw), it allows some of your traits to continue to function.

Sensotix.4106:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sensotix.4106:

Summary of steal when using the current thief build (30 0 10 0 30)

1) 1.244 dmg (usually more)
2) 2 boons stolen (priority on stability)
3) giving these boons to you and nearby allies in a radius of 240
4) grants vigor for 10 seconds
5) grants you and allies in a radius of 360 fury for around 10 sec
6) grants you and allies in a radius of 360 swiftness for around 10 sec (and 1 might stack)
7) heals you for 2.040
8) puts poison on the enemy for 13 seconds
9) dazes the target (which goes through stab because its first priority on boons removed)
10) when using the current backstab build with panic strike it afflicts weakness for 51/4 sec on the enemy
11) recharges all skills of one type (traps, venoms etc)
12) gives you 2 initiative
13) has a 900 range
14) is instacast
15) can even be casted if you cannot even port to the target currently because he is on an obstacle (effects still proc)
16) only has 21 1/2 seconds cooldown
17) ports to the target (instant gapcloser)
18) you get a skill that in most cases counters your enemy for a certain amount of time

Can you not see how this is utterly broken?

Your list appears to include the effects of numerous traits, both minor and major.
Let me shave that down for you, to just what steal does.

13) has a 900 range
14) is instacast
17) ports to the target (instant gapcloser)

Yup. That’s it. Everything else you listed is the result of a trait, and not steal itself (or in the case of point 18, highly subjective).

Your list includes the effects of 5 (out of 7) major traits and 3 out of 7 minor traits – it seems to me if the majority of your traits are dedicated to a single skill, it should be pretty strong.

If you can’t state your point honestly without hyperbole and misleading posting techniques(like having to break a trait down into 2-5 separate points so your list looked impressive and Point 10 brings up a trait that doesn’t interact with steal at all), you don’t really have a point to make.

Summary of steal when using the current thief build (30 0 10 0 30)
current meta thief build for backstab thieves being played in at least 4 teams in the top 30

it seems to me if the majority of your traits are dedicated to a single skill, it should be pretty strong.

Sensotix.4106:

Summary of steal when using the current thief build (30 0 10 0 30)

1) 1.244 dmg (usually more)
2) 2 boons stolen (priority on stability)
3) giving these boons to you and nearby allies in a radius of 240
4) grants vigor for 10 seconds
5) grants you and allies in a radius of 360 fury for around 10 sec
6) grants you and allies in a radius of 360 swiftness for around 10 sec (and 1 might stack)
7) heals you for 2.040
8) puts poison on the enemy for 13 seconds
9) dazes the target (which goes through stab because its first priority on boons removed)
10) when using the current backstab build with panic strike it afflicts weakness for 51/4 sec on the enemy
11) recharges all skills of one type (traps, venoms etc)
12) gives you 2 initiative
13) has a 900 range
14) is instacast
15) can even be casted if you cannot even port to the target currently because he is on an obstacle (effects still proc)
16) only has 21 1/2 seconds cooldown
17) ports to the target (instant gapcloser)
18) you get a skill that in most cases counters your enemy for a certain amount of time

Can you not see how this is utterly broken?

Your list appears to include the effects of numerous traits, both minor and major.
Let me shave that down for you, to just what steal does.

13) has a 900 range
14) is instacast
17) ports to the target (instant gapcloser)

Yup. That’s it. Everything else you listed is the result of a trait, and not steal itself (or in the case of point 18, highly subjective).

Your list includes the effects of 6 (out of 7) major traits and 3 out of 7 minor traits – it seems to me if the majority of your traits are dedicated to a single skill, it should be pretty strong.

1/6th of your list was accurate – that’s an awful percentage to aim for. If you can’t state your point honestly without hyperbole and misleading posting techniques(like having to break a trait down into 2-5 separate points so your list looked impressive), you don’t really have a point to make.

Shadow arts does not need to be removed.

What it does need is to have it’s shift focused from “Sit in stealth for benefits” to “Engage in combat for benefits”.

At the moment, many of the most used SA traits give alot of incentive to sit in stealth for their benefits, regardless whether or not the current situation calls for sitting in stealth. That needs to change, and can be done easily.

Shadow’s Embrace – changed to “Remove 1 condition when you enter stealth. Remove 1 condition when you gain revealed.” Now an SA thief will mitigate conditions by staying in combat and weaving in and out of stealth, not by jumping into stealth and just sitting there.

Patience – I’ll be honest, I don’t have a great suggestion for this one, but it also need to change, partly because it incentivizes sitting in stealth, and partially because it’s buttkitten useless and nobody runs it. Perhaps something along the lines of “All CD’s tick 20% faster while revealed”, or something of the like.

Shadow Rejuvenation – changed to “Heal X when you enter stealth. Heal Y health per second while revealed”. Again, now a thief is healing by weaving in and out of stealth and fighting his opponent instead of by just sitting in stealth doing nothing. X and Y will obviously need to be playtested, since being healed while revealed is more powerful than healing while in stealth.

Resilience of shadow – changed to “Stealth effects you apply reduce incoming damage (30%). When you (and only you, not others) are revealed, reduce incoming damage by 15%.”

There you go – you now how an SA tree that’s useful in PvP and not annoying in WvW.

Xae Isareth.1364:

^ at this point, I would really really be relunctant to change anything into a condition weapon. Doing so instantly relegates it from being useful in half the game because of how conditions are just broken in PvE.

If you do that, any thief who wants to play seriously in PvE is then basically forced to use s/p or s/d

I wouldnt know because I don’t PvE, but that’s not the Thief classes problem and D/D shouldn’t be paying the price for it.

My suggestion leaves D/D as a viable power/crit set (if it works now as a power/crit set, it’d work with my changes as a power/crit set almost identically), elevate it to a functioning hybrid set, and improve it as a condition set (though I probably still wouldn’t call it viable or well built as a condition set)

If conditions in general have issues in PvE, that’s a separate issue that has nothing to do with the design of D/D. They could make the changes in PvP/WvW for all I care.

Edit:Also, how would this transform D/P into a condition weapon?

DeceiverX.8361:

It would break D/x dps/stab builds in PvP and ruin thieves in PvE, though. If anything it jut removes diversity from within the set by just saying “YOU NOW PLAY HYBRID” Actually, I would just straight up stop playing thief if that was implemented, no offense.

Oh my – how could I have forgotten how reliant Power/crit is on double strike and poorly positioned fronstabs. On top of that, X/D sets are so reliant on Dancing dagger that the 1 additional init cost would literally kill the set.

On a less sarcastic note, you can’t be serious. What you posted doesnt even count as hyperbole – anyone who understand how thief works couldn’t possibly believe what you posted. All a Power/crit thief would lose is a tiny bit of upfront damage on 1 of their AA chains, which would be made up for by the bleeds, and 1 more init on a utility skill that doesn’t see much use as it is. This barely touches power/crit builds, and opens up D/D to actually doing condition damage without 3 spam – how you got “reduces diversity” from that is beyond me. If you want to quit playing thief when they improve the weapon sets, be my guest.

Please, Oh please, explain to me how this would ruin Power/crit D/X builds – I’m champing at the bit to see it.

NinjaEd.3946:

evilapprentice.6379:

Einlanzer.1627:

kitten .9460:

Einlanzer.1627:

No thank you.

Frankly, making DB a power skill wouldn’t make sense, since D/D is already fully functional as a power set and the only other melee option is power-only.

It doesn’t need to be changed, except for maybe tuning the evade a bit. It functions very effectively as a bleed stacker and allows D/D to have a little versatility. It’s also very flavorful. Anyone who thinks it’s weak or useless doesn’t know what they’re talking about and is just stuck in myopic perpetual backstab mode.

DB is a terrible skill I’ve mained thief since day 1… it is just bad, glad you can find some joy in 3 spamming on immobile AI though.

Try using it against another player in yolo or team queue or even a dungeon and watch as the group laughs at you and expect a swift kick.

Doesn’t make sense to have it condi based on an obvious power set.

Except it isn’t. Layering it on top of Caltrops is the most effective bleed stacking in the game, hands down.

For things too stupid to walk out of the caltrop AoE and incapable of cleanses, IE things that nearly any spec would work on. Just because something works on dumbkitten AI and kittenty players does not make it viable or well designed. If you still want to mindlessly spam 3 in PvE, you can always roll S/P.

And yes, it does. It’s called versatility. Stop being myopic.

No, it’s called poor design – the set is too disjointed. For any specific weapon skill, you’re only ever using one set of DPS stats – every time you DB, every point you have in power, precision and ferocity is wasted. Every time you use any other skill in the set, your condition damage is absolutely worthless. This is a great example of poor design.

DB doesn’t need to function as another hard hitter for your power/prec/ferocity to be “useful” there. It just needs to evade reliably and be a skill shot. Makes “3 spam” harder, the aftercast will make you vulnerable but atleast you would be able to time your initiative evasion rather than do a ballerina dance as they strike a hammer down on you.

No, DB doesn’t need to change to benefit from Power/feorcity, but D/D does need a change. As it stands, D/D is a subpar power set, an extremely subpar “hybrid” set, and worthless as a condition set. It’s not good for anyone.

I’m all for turning it into a real hybrid set (some copy/pasta below on the subject), but pretending like D/D is fine the way it is or would be fixed with minor tweaks to DB while ignoring the fact that every other weapon skill in D/D has no use for condition damage is naive.

DeceiverX.8361:

That said, I would like to see some of D/D’s condition application tweaked. I dislike the prospect of 3spam bleedfest while evading. It’s great for weapons to have two ways of dealing damage, but this set handles it poorly. Would much rather see conditions attached to a mixture of DB and Dancing Dagger and a little more potency added, just to make the build a bit more diverse and a bit more functional with less 3-spam, because admit it, Heartseeker/QZ+SotW+RF bearbow ranger/HB war spam is the same thing.

Here’s a copy paste of something I said earlier in this thread -

“Want to see what D/D would look like if it was actually a hybrid set?

Double strike – reduce damage scaling, add a 2-3s Bleed to each swing.
Front stab (backstab from the front) – reduce damage scaling alot, add damaging conditions to compensate
DB – lower bleed duration some, buff direct damage some
Dancing Dagger – add torment, increase Init cost by 1.

There. That’s what a hybrid set looks like (at least compared to what we currently have in D/D). You have multiple options for dealing condition damage – you have multiple options for dealing direct damage – the skills that don’t have a way to deal both types of damage (wild strike, HS, CnD) at least have other generally useful side effects (endurance gain, gap closing, stealth which opens up your dual use BS)."

Is that suggestion perfect? Probably not, but it would turn D/D into a functional hybrid set without breaking D/P, S/D, or P/D.

Because of Venomous aura.

Go ahead – try to design a utility worth taking on its own that won’t become OP when shared with 5 people. You can’t, and neither can the developers.