Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

> @"Sublimatio.6981" said:

> That doesn't make sense at all, those corrupted charr we fight are Icebrood minions of Jormag, not a Frost Legion as in a societal structure of the charr race. And on top of that, as usual comes the problem of: are the icebrood slaying potions/sigils working against "Frost Legion"?

"Icebrood" is a classification of the metamorphosis. Unlike Kralkatoric, Mordremoth, and Zaithan's minions - the Icebrood does in fact display signs of intelligence and individuality. They have to willingly give themselves up as far as I know from lore and the game. If a dragons voice is that sexy and warm, who wouldn't surrender to it?

So... The sons of Svannir are a group of Norns that willingly followed Svannir's lead. You can actively find them trying to recruit in the beginning areas in fact.

So it makes sense that Charr, would name themselves something they are familiar with and can rally to. Frost Legion.

For the most part, I had nothing but praise for the achievement lineup for this episode. There's a lot of good Charr skins, which they were sorely lacking. A lot of cool weapon designs, where only one is time gated to a minimum of six days. Which... fine. It'll probably take me longer to grind through the Four legions achievements. Those achievements reward tracks are also worth quite a large amount, so i don't mind the length.

But Breaking Morale? Holy shit, what was going on in your heads with this one. It's not a hard strike. But it's not fun after the first three times. If your luck is bad, this strike is incredibly unprofitable outside of a daily. And i'm not about to pop in once a day for fifty days. I figured, fine I'll just do ten a day... and that will line up with the tengu achievement. Except by round six I'm already demoralized and my fingers took on the shape of a pretzel!

> @"Kageseigi.2150" said:

> (which I may write up a suggestion post if I can convince myself it's worth the time to do so)...

This hurts when you remember that Anet doesn't pay attention to thief players

Honestly the two things I can think of to fix Daggger Dagger is...

Change the offhand Cloak and Dagger Skill a bit. As it stands, its an expensive skill for no reason. Its slow and easily dodged. Adjust it so the skill features a straight dashing slash. The skill should be near instant in activation but requires the thief to travel a small distance before the slash is triggered. Can cleave through three targets. Gain's boons depending on condi present. Bleed for might, Slow grants Super Speed, Weakness grants Agis, etc.vSame combo finisher as Warriors Great Sword's whirl ability. Activation behaves like Heart Seeker, where it can be used without requiring a target, but homes onto the selected target.

Since the D/D has very little safety and utility, it will probably be rewarded for condi, and using Venoms.

For Death Blossom, i'm not sure. My thought is apply confusion if all hits land. Because if a player is stupid enough to get hit by all hits, then GG.

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > > Thieves complaining about Initiative costs...

> > > At least you have more resource freedom than Revenants, less costs **and** you get to start with 100%.

> >

> > Less freedom actually. More costs, and no way of just swapping legends to fully refill. Like hell, most of Revenants weapon skills have cost of 12-15. The thief equivalent of that would be 2 initiative. Thief has *no* skill that costs less than 3 initiative that isnt kneel or a follow-up skill. Which is to say nothing of the speed of regeneration.

>

> You have no CDs on weapon skills and no Initiative costs on Utility skills.

> And then you have multiple skills to regain Initiative, like Roll for Initiative or Mercy.

> That's more freedom than Revenants, as they have both CDs and Energy costs on Weapon skills, utility skills and their F2-4 mechanics.

Adding to the two above this post. Roll for initiative completely takes you away from your target, and to gap close on the same opening you completely use up the init you gain so there is no follow up assuming steal is on cool down.

Mercy is primarily to retarget, not restore init. And it is only available to the Deadeye. The effect Mercy does completely removes damage bo uses you've stacked up, as well as remove your damage reduction to that target. When focusing a single target its a bad move thats immediately punished to drop Malice to regain init.

The sigil restores init at a useless rate and is mostly used for an all in shadow step.

Trickery trait line is complained about because its necessary for thief in PvP due to it being the strongest source of init, because our lowest move removes a third of our base bar. And a shit load of moves completely erases your resources. And consequently all nerfs are made with the assumption we use trickery. And so a Catch 22.

The problems rev has are unique but isn't hindering you. Your energy costs are nothing.

The same init pool is shared with both weapons. If you have only two init left then swap weapons, you still only have two. And with the rates where you can onky use two skills in quick succession before being locked out of your weapon skills... Its pretty bad.

What would be nice... is if there's a way that we can earn access to the Old Lion's arch permanently. Back when it had charm and was more visually interesting.

I am actually pretty impressed with the balance changes in this previous patch.

This was probably the first time in a long time I actually felt like I stood a chance against another profession. And their insane access to the standard bullshit (Insane healing, absurd access to buffs, rediculous damage for little effort, heaps of cheap passives) felt more like brief hindrances, rather than me being thrown bodily into a spikey pit. And that my own damage was substantial enough to be able to fight threats confidently.

My only gripe is that the initiative costs have gotten far more ridiculous now. Which only adds into the frustration when we've constantly been harking on ANET about the init costs being way too high, and that almost every build requires Trickery in order to compete. Thus permanently locking off a skill tree that could have gone into some more interesting builds.

> @"pninak.1069" said:

> I think you see this the wrong way. I actually think thief is overperforming in pve esspecially raids. not even a warrior can dish out as much dmg as a thief while just using skill 1. I believe too that most classes in gw2 use power builds. you got a small number of dominating condi builds only. like scourge and fb. but they actually got nerfed quite hard. What needs to be done is give more condi to classes that are mostly power based like thief and warrior. So classes should be given more possibilities to use different builds effectily compared to one build just dominating most of the class. The core necro/scourge/reaper is actually a good example of this.

Warrior supplies more to the group than what the thief currently can. Thief only brings in damage in a pretty nasty bar break skill, and that's pretty much it. There's only one mechanic in all of the raids where having a thief is good. And that's simply a shortcut by unlocking a door.

Thieves are able to deal so much damage with a simple rotation, because their weapon skills essnetially behave as utilities, as their utilities are designed to be very situational, where very few are good in general use. That, and because of their initiative system - they can't actually blow an entire hotbar of abilities, and then swap weapons. The total cost of all weapon skills on thief far exceedes both their base and their extended init pools. And most weapon skills aren't designed for damage, but for something else.

That being said... I don't think thief should be buffed. I agree that the rest of the classes should be knocked down in PvE.

Like garbage, that's how it feels.

> @"Monkey See.1498" said:

> 1. Has a thief's collective use of Infiltrator's Arrow not won more games of conquest than any other weapon skill by a massive margin? If this is true it MUST be nerfed.

> 2. Does thief with Infiltrator's Arrow not have completely unsurpassed mobility? Is there anything that truly competes with thief mobility? If not this MUST be nerfed.

> 3. Isn't the HEALTH and FUN of the entire game mode not more important than this _one_ weapon set? If yes then it MUST be nerfed.

So... this is the sort of post someone makes when they are looking through the window from the outside and can only see one thing about something that seems so good or powerful.

1. No. Thief's primary use of the Infiltrator's Arrow is to go far, and decap. The keyword here is specifically to decap. In the previous meta's, he was unable to 1v1 without extreme difficulty, and if he did win fights he'd waste too much time, and likely get killed for it when his enemy's team decides to circle around and come deal with him. If all the thief did was zip around the map and decap with infiltrator's arrow - you still won't gurantee a win for your team. You're just being annoying, and you're turning the fight into a 4v5. Because you are off doing bone fuck nothing for your team. Even as powerful as the ability seems on paper. There is still a potent COST to it for thief. It burns his initiative. The same resource thief needs in order to be able to fight effectively. if the thief mass spammed his infiltrator's arrow to zip around and enter the fight. He's now entering the fight a dead man.

2. Yes... there are other abilities that do in fact compete with the mobility. The portal which allows you to say fuck the navmesh, and teleport through walls, five stories up, and across chasms. The multiple jump abilities that also do not suffer navigation and line of sight checks. The fields that lays down super speed with nearly no cost. Revenant's Seven strike ninjitsu bullshit that can be used on some random objects and life lying around. Similar to Soul Beast. Infiltrator's Arrow is best in class. But not overbearing.

3. This is called a loaded question. So the question is invalidated from the get-go. By the same logic it can be turned on it's head by saying "Is the health and fun of the game more important than one whiny soul?" The health and fun of the game is important. But it's also important that all aspects of the game is fun. Including classes and their playstyles that players hate. There's always going to be some element of a game that is seen as unfair, and has been left that way for a very good reason. The player is not always right, nor is a player's opinion the authority on matters. When the player does not concider the designs that went into what made the class what it is.

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

> Not exactly.

>

> It all comes down to how well the class can manage their resources and how frequent they can play them.

>

> Take Thief for example.

> Their skill frequency is off the charts.

> They have the cost to pay : they can do the things.

>

> This is why Thief is so powerful, because as long as the player can manage their resources, they always have a card to play.

>

> Now compare this to something like mesmer.

>

> I would like to use Condi mesmer for this because it is currently the more troublesome of the Mesmer builds.

>

> Mesmer may have normal cooldowns, normal weapon skills, some nice profession mechanics.

>

> What makes them "win" in the resource game is how they use their clones, and clones in general.

>

> Say yu use yur big hitting skill by mistake on a clone.

>

> Yu just played a card, and Mesmer has a cooldown advantage over yu just by being a Mesmer.

>

> People might go "aim the one that is moving weirdly 4head"

>

> Yea but it's not to say even the most skilled player won't accidentally make a mistake and be confused by a clone and hit it instead.

>

> Now Condi Mesmer.

> They are notorious for their ridiculous Confusion application.

> Confusion does damage when yu perform an action.

>

> This basically bleeds the opponent for even reacting to anything, once again putting Mesmer ahead in the game.

>

> Usually this will force a cleanse, but don't worry, lots more where that Confusion came from, so now yur down a cleanse and a heal or another cooldown.

>

> This is why fighting these classes feel oppressive.

>

> They always have a hand advantage over yu if yur playing another sort of class.

Im guessing you're saying thief is fair as the player has to actively manage resources. But mesmer is oppressive because their resource management is passive, and they can kill you by doing little.

Initiative costs are way too high for the little impact that skills push out. As previously mentioned, initiative costs hits the entirety of thieves weapon sets and their play style. Which once again makes the thief far more dependent on the trickery trait line. While it is important that the thief is punished for poor initiative management, it is unreasonable to punish the thief for using two moves in quick succession thanks to the base 12 init and some frequently used skills requires six or four. Which limits the thief to taking two actions and becoming incredibly vulnerable for little reward.

Assuming that no major rebalance patches are to come soon, reducing the initiative costs will probably reduce the problem and increase the reliability of the thiefs combat effectiveness while still being able to punish the thief for poor initiative management.

I personally suggest having typical initiative costs between 2-4 depending on their functions, effects, and what have you.

It lets the thief maintain his quick slippery play style while having access to at least three actions in a single period of burst on his base pool.

Which allows the thief to fall off the dependency for trickery. And makes skills and utilities that reaards initiative a more valuable choice.

Yes, it increases the thiefs ability to flee the scene of a fight. But that should be treated as an element of the game, given that the thiefs playstyle revolves around risk assessment, pressing advantages, and mobility. Opposite to the problem. It also means thieves become more active in SPVP by being able to run down enemies. And with a more reliable combat ability, are more likely to stay and fight.

> @"Antipode.7830" said:

> Play like it's Monster Hunter. Don't trade blows, don't stand in front of them if you can help it, remember to back up after you get your hits in, and respect the monster.

Hunting Horn and Hammer mains say hi.

But this is probably the better advise. To deal with a Warrior, generally you gotta lure them into makeing their attacks, and fuck up their burst chain before you strike.

> @"fluffdragon.1523" said:

> > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > I mean, Thief has to be able to reset over and over, given that it cant actually win any fair 1v1s.

>

> Anyone else remember [when Thief was described as "deadly in 1-on-1 combat"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Thief&oldid=454790)?

>

I do. It was advertised that way before the game launched and delivered at launch. It was a class that heavily punished players for being caught out alone. And was THE BEST at dueling another player simply because of the reliable access of evasions, and interrupts at it's disposal that allowed them to counter and punish, or catch up and kill someone who was fleeing the scene. The only way to survive a thief was to simply stay and fight it and ping for backup. His strongest weapon was generally surprise because you came out of bone fuck no where, and hit like a truck. And one of his best defining traits was his ability to put a constant pressure on his opponent because of his initiative mechanic. His weapon skills did not hit as hard as other classes. But the trade off was it usually did something that let the thief catch someone off balance, evade, close the distance, or get out of the way.

The trade offs the thief had. Was absolutely no forms of blocks. If he ran out of initiative he was fucked (And this was before the days of trickery reliance after frequent changes to init costs) The thief's only real means of handling groups was in one utility, and his bow. If a thief won a group fight, it was because the player's trickled in after him rather than stay near each other. The warrior would die because his fucking leaping attack would put him miles ahead of everyone else. He'd shit for it. Then the elementalist because he hung back while everyone else charged in. Gets his teeth kicked in. Then yanked further away from his group when the thief teleports and scorpion wires him.

You were squishier than an elementalist. And did not have access to boons, but you stole them from players. The thief also had the shittiest ability to remove condi, but could usually shake off movement imparements.

His role in SPVP was far more fun than it is now. You were still roaming and +1ing. But you would also intercept lone players and kill them. Which also made guardians a bit more important, as guardians stalemated thieves hard. The thief also wasn't expected to just decap. He was expected to cap and fight on the point and use his better judgement. Or counter thief the thief. And occasionally enter the dazzling battle of the ages with another thief.

Now? The thief is just shit. Simply because players don't like the idea that a low defense, low utility class who relied heavily on active evasions to stay alive, was allowed to have mobility, damage, and stealth.

I kinda hope that the universal nerfs was actually an indirect buff for thief, once again placing him back in his spot as a Deadly 1v1 opponent. But... with the way Anet pays more attention to everyone else but thief. I don't know. Thief's current state of poor treatment, frequently falling behind other classes, constant nerfs, and lack of a defining trait is what really made just stop playing PvP in general.

And eventually the game after the story of the episodes. I'm only paying attention now, since it seems like things might be getting better again. The change of thief's useless traps. And the universal damage and sustain nerfs.

I would praise the patch notes.... If you actually addressed thiefs concerns about initiative and trickery

I think you misunderstood the thing about the difficulty of raids. Its more on the lines that the raids themselves don't inspire build diversity or at least a solid understanding of classes. Or any stimulating gameplay.

Look closely at the data that you get from those who do run the raids regularly, and you can see where it went wrong and what improvements can be made.

So far. Most of the raids requires some sort of healer and boon spam followed by clumping together in one big heap. The biggest challenge is just watching out for mechanics and memorizing a dps rotation.. This gameplay is simple enough to passively play and watch netflix.

Theres only a few encounters where I can say there was some difficulty and wbat I felt was fun. The twin assassins in the geninie's dungeon for example. Which forced players to split up and fight the bosses alone while racing against the map

What is with the initiative nerfs. Its bad enough we have a tough time fighting people. You don't need to be raising the costs without first addressing the fact that every thief HAS to take trickery in the first place. Something we complained about for a very long time.

Cuz now all the sudden, half of the moves we use regularly consumes half the standard init pool. How the hell is this even fair?

> @"Doug.4930" said:

> No, thief is in a pretty good spot presently. It doesn't need more buffs. Other overturned classes need nerfs.

>

> Power creep is already bad enough. Its not going to be fixed by buffing classes constantly.

Its not a buff. But a correction, given thief has such a strong dependency on trickery. Baring that, thief would need a full rework on the init system.

Time to invest in some dies, spikey armor skins, and a hair changer. Were gonna party, boys.

I don't know... When you learn how to spot the clones, focusing the Mesmer isn't terribly difficult. It's when they keep running away and you're getting pummeled. Maybe if the power was more evenly split?

There's a plugin for it. But have a nice day.

Gonna have to take a hard pass on this...

I'm an honorless scoundrel, an acrobat, a bastard, and a sneaky jerk. I don't want to be some big sword toting, armor wearing jock.

I want something that actually fits within the realms of Thief.

Bards, Shadow Dancers, Swash Bucklers, Gamblers, Scout. Etc.

I'm not sure what to think about it. It would be good for power builds to take with them. As it means that they can actually reduce any healing of another profession by 33%(sic). And if they keep attacking then they usually are able to keep it up.

That's kinda significant given that a big problem thief suffers right now is just being able to kill someone through their sustain. But that's more like a bandaid than actually addressing a global issue. And the bandaid kinda looses its stickyness when currently thieves can't afford to be in people's faces anymore.

I have little to say about the other specs as its already said. As a thief main I am on the fence about the changes.

On one hand... Our damage output is severely hurt in a meta where almost everyone but me can sustain for long periods of time through protection, aegis, and healing spam. On the other hand, the cool down deduction means I can at least keep their healing output reduced by 33% which kinda feels mandatory (and not fun). Sure, I could run zerks... But why am I being forced into being super glassy?

But other wise... So little is changed for me.

We still have so many problems hurting us that haven't been fixed yet. The preparations are great on paper but in execution, they fall short because they don't do what you expect due to bjgs and oversights.

Fighting another player is extraordinarily difficult than fighting as any other class, and payout is low. The weapons we keep using keep getting nerfed, when the reason why we use them is we have no real options and they counter some of the on going meta trends.

WvW towers still hurts us badly for revealing us.

And our intiative and trickery is still in need of a rework.

> @"Alatar.7364" said:

> > @"Jugglemonkey.8741" said:

> > > @"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:

> > > Please don't. If they choose to make a bard, add it as a standalone profession or make it a Ranger Elite using Mesmer magic, or Mesmer using Ranger skills.

> > >

> > > Leave the Thief alone. The Thief is about not getting attention and the Bard simply crave for it. It's incompatible.

> >

> > It would be funny to turn a corner to be ambushed by a thief lying in wait with his orchestra.

>

> Ye, he robs you of all your gold by making you pay ticket for his sudden ambush performance.

Well... Combine thief with engie and call them surprise mechanics.