Guild Wars 2

Rezzet.3614:

thiefs are meant to be stealthy however one thing is sneaking around being stealthy and another is being an invisible ninja assasin.

Well either thieves are stealth assassins which is the common trend, or they revert to their other MMO definition. The Old definition : thieves steal. To be precise they steal your items like in Ultima Online or T4C

randomfightfan.4091:

Main reason why is because the duration is crazy long. Mostly in pvp is it stupid strong when caping and defending but even in wvw and pve it was a tad too strong. The reason being is that it was a 15s long duration on a 30s cd that can be cast while invis and not break the invis. Made it far too easy to wreck large groups. With 10s you still maintain the utility, just the dps is nerfed.

I don’t see how you maintain the utility since the duration has been nerfed by 33% It reduces the utility in the same proportion as it reduced the DPS.

We do not have the lowest health pool of the melee classes. We plain have the lowest health pool of the whole game.

But if ANet added all the stats from the start, some of us wouldn’t have bought the wrong items and wouldn’t have to farm one more month of dailies to get the correct item! Thus it’d reduce the “time before full BiS” value they carefully crafted to be a big grind so it’s a no no.

Why was it waranted?

Problem in thief leveling in PvE is that everyone focuses on the huge burst we can do. Burst that is possible because of our high level traits mostly. And so ANet nerfs our skills and so our skills are weak unless we are level 70+ …

And now they nerf the few skills we could use for leveling correctly.

0.75s delay please.

Fey Zeal.7032:

This recent nerf did little to address what I see as the real problem with Theifs and whether it really was or wasn’t necessary is not something I will or can comment on.

The fact that a thief can wait for Stealth to wear off naturally, attack you and then go right back into stealth with Cloak and Dagger allows stealth to be chained endlessly. Now, granted you aren’t going to stand there and wait for them to keep attacking you but it’s like Ele bunker builds there’s nothing you can really do to take them down. And in spvp I assume you need to be able to take players down in some cases.

As a solution, I feel, a Reveal “like” debuf should be applied when coming out of stealth from Cloak and Dagger naturally. If you use a different Stealth skill while still stealthed from CaD, the debuf could then be dropped from occurring, should you let stealth wear off naturally in this case. This way stealth skills are not affected and perma invis is stopped.

Maybe someone else can explain why this single skill is not excessive or over powered…
because I don’t understand how it is not the focus of anet’s attention, in regards to Theif.

Because unlike the Ele bunker you mention, the thief doesn’t capture points nor contest them while he does that and he does little damage and he doesn’t heal his allies around him at the same time?

Hicci.8761:

yawn. Oh another one of these.Though I do have to agree about the flame and frost update. My empathy towards the refugees is non-existent.

It’s hard to feel empathy for NPCs that fled the destruction of their homes when they are already tired and weary of all that walk they had to do. All the 2 minutes long walk from the north of the map.

Then those refugees continue pouring from some hole in the ground for two months. And now suddenly some NPCs come after all that time and they say it’s kind of urgent to save those people ?

It feels fake, incredibly fake.

B Rad.5416:

Phantom.2371:

um you can however do it with the right shatter build, mesmer my friend is one of the most over powered pvp class.

He only has to press 2 buttons to kill someone? Please inform me what two buttons he presses to kill someone in under a second with no prior skills/buttons being pressed!

This is getting offtopic but the standard BS thief does :
- Basilisk Venom (button 0)
- Assassin’s signet (button 7)
- Precast C&D (button 5)
- Mug (button F1)
- Move into the back of the target if needed (from nothing to press to moving around with the keyboard)
- Backstab (button 1)

So I count around 5 buttons to do the standard combo. That’s a lot more than the 2 buttons thing you mention. Let’s say he doesn’t need the signet and Basilisk Venom somehow kitten you must be really squishy then). That’s still 3 buttons at the strict minimum.

A 0.5s stun that happens after a big delay and so isn’t even worthy enough to be an interrupt skill isn’t that much to talk about compared to a skill that does twice as much damage.

darkace.8925:

Reading posts like this makes me wonder how the other seven professions manage to survive without stealth.

A savant combination of one of those two things :
- insane defensive boon presence, heavy low cooldown healing and lots of CC (ele, guardian)
- between 40 and 80% more base HP

But the skill was NOT used. Did you read what I wrote? When you fire “cone restricted” autoattacks at a target that isn’t in the cone, the skill doesn’t start, the skill doesn’t go into CD, the confusion procs and there’s no CD at all for it to proc again the next time you press the #1 key again. Essentially, confusion procs on doing nothing at all with no CD in this situation.

jportell.2197:

stof.9341:

You know what is the worse that procs Confusion? Attacking with a ranged #1 skill a target that isn’t in front of you. Each time you press that #1 skill you get hit by confusion, no attacks fire cause the target isn’t in front and no cooldown happens. Essentially, you can use that to self proc confusion stacks on yourself as fast as you can press your #1 skill.

So confusion works as intended? It is designed to punish skill spammers… which in this case it seems to do. Move along.

You know, sometimes I wonder …

Confusion is supposed to proc each time you press a key on your keyboard even if nothing happens? Well if that’s intended, it explains a lot about the general GW2 desig.

You know what is the worse that procs Confusion? Attacking with a ranged #1 skill a target that isn’t in front of you. Each time you press that #1 skill you get hit by confusion, no attacks fire cause the target isn’t in front and no cooldown happens. Essentially, you can use that to self proc confusion stacks on yourself as fast as you can press your #1 skill.

Gamblit.5041:

They probably changed it to something like +20% crit from Stealth but forgot to add it to the patch notes.

Having your crit chance going over 100% was kinder out of balance, imho.

Which wouldn’t be even worthy of a Minor Trait.

The damage output is practically the same at barely no difference. Really worth using initiative for …

As for Tactical Strike, the goal is to daze lock targets and 1s more means a lot more damage coming your way.

Spending initiative for anything else than C&D is wasting DPS.

Daeqar.8965:

Auesis.7301:

Instead, Thief got nerfed completely and utterly in to the ground. All PvE stealth rotations are dead.

When you add in the extra #1 spam and using the extra initiative spent on 2nd best attack, the dps on the PvE rotations don’t actually go down very much. Increased vulnerability is the main thing, but in a dungeon setting periodic stealth wasn’t much protection anyway with how mobs want to keep chasing stealthed players.

There is no 2nd best attack that is better than autoattack. In fact, the autoattack is the best DPS for sword main hand.

But the 1s more revealed causes a big loss in condition cleansing and might stacks and healing on stealth. And for P/D it’s actually a big DPS loss cause the normal attack is pitiful. And for S/D you lose a lot of uptime on daze.

Bah, we have no skills underwater already. So I just put up all signets and autoattack with harpoon gun. The elite wasn’t even in the equation at this point for any fight I can think of.

WyldKat.4712:

You can still stealth as often as possible…

Not if you intend to actually do something damaging and not just stand around stealthed forever.

Straegen.2938:

If the exta 1 second reveal causes player to be unable to effectively play this class or stop using one of the better trait lines, they shouldn’t be playing a thief and completely avoid just about every other class.

It does completely destroy the chain daze ability of S/D in PvE. Before the patch, with a sigil in your weapons you could just barely chain daze some mobs to prevent them from acting. Some, not all. Now it’ll be impossible to do it.

Try BV on a Risen Abomination. It used to work on them and be useful as a way to reset their Frenzy stacks.

Joey.3928:

Good changes. I have a thief as well. However you could b in stealth 90% of the time with cloak and dagger. This new change to stealth is a GOOD one. Especially for WvW.

Actually, they didn’t change that part …

Jack of Tears.9458:

Ya know, I’d seeing a lot of “oh know, you’ll have to rely on X build instead of Stealth, or Burst now, won’t that be a shame?”.

Well, ask them then : what X build are you talking about ? The Immortal Unicorn one ? …

Or maybe the future is a pure Shortbow thief.

Xillllix.3485:

Fact is, you hear a few chop sounds, you see the numbers flying, and 1 second later your dead. How is this supposed to be fun? I don’t care if you have to buff any other aspect of the thief but for kitten’s sake this kittening kitten is kittening unbalanced, 75% of the time I get killed it’s by an invisible thief, perhaps 15% by a mesmer, and 10% the other classes.

And absolutely nothing changed here because a BS thief isn’t affected by Revealed if he downs his target with his rotation.

Well, culling was supposed to be fixed so maybe it’ll be slightly easier for you to react.

We’ll just have to admit we lost one Elite skill today then.

Oni.5429:

People said the same for phantasms.

It’s a broken mechanic to be able to noskill spam it despite what the enemy is doing. Take it like a man and start using draw weapon like we do whenever we get blinded.

There is a big difference between Epidemics and other skills. Epidemics is useless alone and needs you to land other skills first on the target to have any effect at all. Those other skills require LoS already and don’t work through block etc… so it wasn’t the same.

And his reward for being a glass canon?

Considering he did like, twice my HP bar in damage, playing in a full toughness build or full vitality build wouldn’t have save me. And I’m traited heavily in defensive stats, just using offensive armor/trinkets.

Macovan.3650:

Devourer Venom >> Basilisk Venom, enough said.

Last time I immobilized a warrior, he used Whirling Attack and downed me instantly XD I still prefer Basilisk Venom

Each time they increase Revealed, they should increase in proportion the effect of all the Stealth attack skills that aren’t “Backstab”. Those skills are all only worth it when you can spam them back to back.

So, 33% more Revealed duration? Sure, give us 33% more damage and bleeding on the Pistol sneak attack. Give us a 3s Daze instead of a 2s Daze on Tactical Strike etc…

Although Basilisk stun can be removed with stun breakers, it’s still is a stun that ignores Defiant and Stability.

Basilisk venom used to stun AND immobilize. Now it only stuns. It does NOT daze the target.

It is just 33% longer than before.

But hey, if the thief weapon skills outside of autoattacks and the stealth attacks didn’t all suck to deal damage, maybe we wouldn’t be complaining too much about this.

wookie.8934:

Well I was referring more to a 1v1 PvP scenario. I can see where it’s a problem in PvE. :\

Daze doesn’t prevent movement and dodges in PvP so chain dazing someone isn’t exactly “easy”. Also in sPvP the daze duration from Tactical Strike is reduced by a LOT and it can hardly be called chainable.

Maybe Mesmers should get a “Revealed” debuff too after any shatter that prevents them from making any new clones for the duration … More time for us to target and damage them.

No, Basilisk is a stun not a daze. It’d be stupid to turn someone into stone, into a stone statue that can still move.

The problem was that if you stun breaked out of Basilisk, you still were unable to move or dodge for the full duration because of a hidden immobilize effect that wasn’t removed.

Maybe they’ll buff back Pistol Whip to reasonable damage for the initiative cost. One day XD Like the mobility buffs they’ll be giving us along (more or less, kind of) the Stealth nerfs right ?

Laika.8795:

stof.9341:

And -33% damage/healing from Caltrops too. I guess thief isn’t meant for PvE at all.

…wut?

Caltrops duration was reduced by 33% so that’s 33% less damage and less time to proc Signet of Malice heals.

All nerfs and no buffs makes thief a dull class :/

Jesse.4631:

Why did they nerf Basalisk. Who wants an elite that only dazes now

I think the point was that stun breaks would remove the “stun” effect from Basilisk, but it would still leave the user under effect from a “immobilized” effect preventing them from moving or dodging. I never knew the poison had that hidden effect too and I think it makes sense to purge that part too when a stun breaker is used.

As a thief, I never got affected by that problem because all our stun breakers (except Haste but who uses it for that?) remove Immobilize at the same time more or less. Other classes must have been more annoyed by that.

That new revealed duration just nerfs rather heavily my S/D PvE build :/

And -33% damage/healing from Caltrops too. I guess thief isn’t meant for PvE at all.

On the topic of Haste, someone mentioned it didn’t reduce Endurance to 0 but removed 100 endurance and could go into negatives. Well :

“- Endurance can no longer be negative.”

Wait, what? Haste got “buffed”? XD

Neural.1824:

There’s no difference between GW2 and a F2P beyond the initial fee, and if everyone in the game was using gold to buy gems, Arenanets financial model would fail. As has been said before, they will nerf anything that becomes a significant gold income source for players. In the end, it’s no different from a subscription game, because on the financial back end, they are trying to push people to pay a given amount of real money per month (probably about $15 I would guess).
I consider it a realistic attitude. Arenanet released the game before it was ready, which is very likely due to executives promising profits far sooner than coders/artists could physically deliver. The result is a partially finished F2P game that has an upfront cost.

Actually, that’s wrong. The gold=>gem price is decided by the players themselves. If suddenly the gold income of players increases a lot, they’d buy a lot of gems, then the gem price will skyrocket to the point that buying gems to sell them for gold would be worth it again.

The reason ANet nerfs gold making methods is because they want a tight grip in the ingame gold inflation and also to “nerf” the gold making methods that are obviously “OP” compared to the rest.

Step 1: ANet does nothing
Step 2: thousand of players open a couple unidentified dyes in the world
Step 3: laws of the big numbers assure us a significant portion of those thousand of players will roll many rares before ANet did nothing, and no rares after
Step 4: most of those players are completely ignorant of the gambler’s fallacy

End result : every week that Anet did nothing (so, every week in fact), on average you get one post saying they nerfed the dyes.

You can replace “dyes” with “dragon chests” and “salvage ectos” and “mystic forge” freely, it works too.

I would make it 100% myself. I like big damage numbers.

You basically do twice more damage during the duration of quickness.

Such hostility :/ And Ranger is one of the strongest sPvP class currently …

Thieves also lose all endurance instantly the moment the use Haste.

Well, Gold buys you crafting mats, crafting mats buy you gear and level ups, level ups buy you traits and skills.

So, gold = skills already

OGDeadHead.8326:

QFT.

I’d say the extreme burst of thieves gave birth to most of the bunker builds. People getting tired of going down in one second tried to counter.

Or the extreme burst of thieves is here to give them a chance to one day burst the bunkiest of the bunker classes and causes problems because it ends every other fight against balanced builds in 3s.

So the root of the problem isn’t the thief burst, it’s the bunker itself.