Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

> @"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:

> If you happen to use P/P and D/D, Deadeye is very clunky. DE Marks works well with P/P but D/D needs Steal.

>

> However, I agree that Rifle is starting to grow on me. Kneeling is still annoying, but not as annoying as before.

Infiltrator s signet and shadow step

Its basically the more recent living world with the priestest.

Zerks, signet of the assassin haste, leading shots, sigil of the infiltrator on the rifle, and M7, deadly arts with executioner.

10% more damage when enemy is below 50 from sigil.

20% more when enemy is below 50 from executioner.

Bonus famage for conditions.

15% more damage from leading blows for vurning initiative.

10% more damage from mark

I used a similar build to protect a camp with the assistance of thiefs traps to keep them off of me.

Its not really a broken build as the DE is going to be squishy as all hell. You need to find cover immediately and figure out where he is.

If they are like me and bunkered up on high ground just run if you dont have projectule hate. If you can get to him easily, force his attention to split by flanking. It will take him longer to swap targets after a kill.

Hit him once and he will burn like tissue paper soaked in kerosine.

> @"oOStaticOo.9467" said:

> I still say that Thieves should have 2 modes. Stealth/Mobility mode where they can run around without being seen and scout but not attack. Attack mode where they can attack and have some mobility but no Stealth.

No. Stealth is a major part of thiefs defenses, along with their mobility. Remove it, and you'll have to compensate them. Which you probably wont like.

The stealth protects them by giving them a needed buff to damage resistance to protect them from AoE spam, and to break targeting of moves that will kill them. Also remember that a thief that is perma stealth has several major vulnerabilities. Condi, cc, and limited escape options.

I can't seem to turn in the materials to the huntsman, even though I've all 7 barrels and the required quantities of said barrels.

EDIT: Never mind, I built Oiled Oriculacum barrels... not normal ones.

Eh... Id rather see something like bard for theif. Which would be giving thief access to meamer shit and support functionality.

I mean the idea of elite specs is to add different play styles. This kinda just looks like another bruiser for thief without much in the way of interesting additions.

> @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > @"Turk.5460" said:

> > > @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > > > @"Turk.5460" said:

> > > > > @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > > > > > @"Turk.5460" said:

> > > > > > > @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > > > > > > > @"Turk.5460" said:

> > > > > > > > > @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > > > > > > > > > @"Turk.5460" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > @"Turk.5460" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Jugglemonkey.8741" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > If anything needs changing it's stealth on dodge. Deal with that and everything else just sorts itself out.

> > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > I agree, and I think the trait should be changed to **stealth on weapon swap** - with a 8s cooldown to give incentive to use Runes of the Warrior perhaps? With things like Energy Sigil and Energy Regen Food coupled with SA meld with shadows, stealth on dodge creates extremely non-interactive gameplay. (though I'm all for removing energy sigil and endurance regen food anyway).

> > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > putting it on a cooldown system.. we had that already can be done but why would you put it on weapon swap? i mean with the ini system the weapon swap for thief is devalued, putting the stealth here will just kick it out of use for most parts because people wont swap just for the stealth, that would be super clunky.

> > > > > > > > > > > tho hey weapon swap at least works while CCed :3

> > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > I don't think it should be as accessible as it is right now as *uninterruptible* stealth access. At least with smoke fields and leaps there are windows of opportunity to:

> > > > > > > > > > A.) Interrupt the smoke field

> > > > > > > > > > B.) Interrupt the leap

> > > > > > > > > > C.) Stand in the smoke field and either deny further stacks (or at least deny 1 or 2 depending on how fast the DE can re position) or get the DE to reveal himself.

> > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > The current ease of stealth access is far overtuned and can stand to be shaved, perma stealth backstab was fun to play for a while, now it's just boring and non-engaging - this was especially true after I made a build with all Valkyrie and Hidden Killer. I only swap to it now when I encounter those super insecure condi or hybrid Mirages who also trait reflect on dodge, or when there are no 1v1's to be found anywhere on any BL.

> > > > > > > > > but weaponswap is like one of the least denyable things in the game so its even stronger than on dodge. and i think it costing endurance is good, but the way endurance is spent for stealth doesnt have to be a dodge that is uninterruptable. thats why i made the above suggestion :3

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > Weaponswap can't be spammed

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > spamming is only usefull for stacking. but the only importan uninterruptable stealth is the one on entering stealth. after that it doesnt matter and we got enough sources then.

> > > > > > > with weapon swap basically however you engage the deadeye he can stealth anyway. and i personally dont need to restealth more than 1 against most in a 1 vs 1 if at all.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > We shouldn't base balance on the play style of one player. Limiting the ability to *stack* stealth outside of initiative use would alleviate a large portion of frustrations that people have when playing against us. If you wouldn't notice this change much on your play style, then why try to dissuade the suggestion? :3

> > > > >

> > > > > pretty simple as then people will complain even more.

> > > > > i want deadeyes to use endurance over ini for stealth because endurance is a defensive resource while ini is mostly offensive. if we are less a threat offensive that might slow the fights down but that wont make it less frustrating. we are frustrating because we can simply enter stealth under pressure, how long we stay there or how is not as important for the opponent as just a little stealth is enough to get out of their reach or even ooc.

> > > > > if we use our endurance however for stealth (not with a dodge, but a skill to convert energy into stealth) then we are easier to pin down when we attack and we still have our ini up wich means we are more likely to attack. if i am in stealth and have stacked some, i obviously wont come out ini starved i will wait the full duration as at the end i will have my ini back. yet i might attack without a dodge ready now, betting on that i dont need one till it is up. i think deadeye is supposed to be an offensive, aggressive spec so energy for stealth over ini for stealth any day.

> > > > > with stealth on weapon swap, what is your opponent going to do, to get his hands on ya? i mean you open from stealth on them, wich usually already fills your malice up. then when they counter pressure just weapon swap wich as said works pretty much under any condition -> execute. dodge can at least be prevented with CC and while standing with immob.

> > > > > and why do you think my suggestion is not good? i mean you could intterupt then any stealth access of a deadeye , aside from maybe blinding powder that is difficult. or is it just that you want ontop of stealth your dodges to evade attacks ? :3

> > > >

> > > > Being tied to endurance is not a strong argument right now, at least not in WvW where we have +90% endurance regen. This means that one dodge, 4seconds of stealth, is available just about every 5 seconds. Not much of a defensive trade-off, is it? :3

> > >

> > > yes you can permastealth with just endurance, if you really use all of it just for stealth wich means you will have pretty much none to actually evade attacks. i think thats fine. better than perma stealth + 1 dodge every 5 seconds to cover your reveal time that ends with an nearly uncounterable stealth access

> > >

> >

> > It already *is* nearly uncounterable stealth access, though. That is why I suggested a change to how stealth is gained. Immobilize isn't much of a counter since we have withdraw, which is uninterruptible on its own. I know my suggestion isn't the best, but our frequent access to stealth without needing to use any offensive resource is a huge problem.

> >

> > IMO an ideal balance patch would change the %damage increase on Malicious Backstab (maybe bleeding and cripple?) and rework Silent Scope to move the stealth elsewhere. Perhaps Death's Retreat?

>

> i know it IS already nearly uncounterable tho more than your suggestion and with my suggestion you could even interrupt it!

> without the damage on malicious backstab i dont think i would use it unless i need it for stealth. but as said earlier in other threads i would like malicious backstab to have a tell tied to it preferably visual + audio so you can react to it like to DJ but to then give a reason to use it over DJ, maybe making malicious backstab easier to use like a little inbuild gap closer, because as DE we lack steal and like 99% of the cases i see core/DD use backstab thats with steal, sometimes with another teleport but rarely walking up.

Or... They could just buff the skills that reveals stealthed people, and give a few more professions access to that mechanic.

In my experience when people do have access to it and complain about it. Its often because they dont take the skill or trait. And why would they? Either they follow thr meta so hard they don't adjust to the situation. Or the skills and associated traits aren't worth a pitchure of urine.

This is a much better alternative than frustrating thief mains by changing the stealth mechanics under their noses. Hell even a miniscule and worthless number adjustment will be enough to remind players that they do have those utilities and traits. And they should probably use them.

Sure one argument is shadow meld. But its an elite and is designed to be pretty powerful. Right now, most DEs still have very little reason to take it when they can grab basilisk or Dagger Storm. So a buff to those skills will see a trend with shadow meld being taken, which indirectly raises survivability just by a shift in load out

I guess a guerrilla giving them access to long bow.

Arcane trickster.

Or bard, giving them access to horn and some of mesmers stuff ( or guardian) Before you say bard would be better as a mesmer. Not quite true.

Thief has been a large canidate for dnd references. And bard has always been a mix mash of Rogue, Sorcerror, and fighter.

The problem with dagger storm was that the skill was ALWAYS a death sentence to thief. Even more so now when other specs can deal bonkers damage with high survivability.

Im perfectly fine with it gaining evasion as it is still a very situational skill. The damage of dagger storm scales with proximity and nearby enemies. It can only throw up to 8 daggers that actually deal damage, and that number decreases the further away the enemies are. So the damage is also not immediate. Not the most offensive elite skill in GW2 still. Using it against one person won't deal a lot of damage but it grants a moment of respite. Which is kinda important when most thief builds require them to be glassy.

The stability is just one stack. Which was a major issue to the skill. This doesn't feel good when skills designed to flip the tables prove to be a bigger hindrance.

If it seriously proves to be a problem than an efdect similar to sand lions that prevents damage for so many attacka would be good.

Im a frequent user of scorpion wire. The changes made it evil, and I love it. If I swap to DD or Short bow, I can drag people away from their team to kill them now.

> @"jihm.2315" said:

> i dont care if they arte not the best boost them in other parts and reduce their damage make them more balanced cause this is insane

It's a glass Cannon build. And an incredibly fragile one at that. Judging by your icon I'd say you are a ranger... Which begs the question... How the actual hell are you dieing to it.

You can outrange the build by a mile. You have interrupts that can punish the thief. Revenants seven sided strikes. Druids natural tankyness. Your traps easily discourages the Deadeye from shadow stepping. You have a pet to soak the damage for you. And so on.

> @"jihm.2315" said:

> > @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> > > @"Offair.2563" said:

> > > Just wait now for the l2p and dodge advices.

> >

> > You rang?

> >

> > Dodge. They spend extra init to unload now and if all the bullets hit you, they get it back. If one misses, they lose the extra init they use for the skill.

> > The execution is boring but beating it is not difficult by any means.

> wish they remove that dodge thing so things become clearer

>

I don't follow

> @"AegisFLCL.7623" said:

> * Direct buff to Holosmith and Spellbreaker thanks to invuls.

> * Elusive Mind still exists, and no reduction to confusion/torment stacks from mirage

> * Adding an F# based stealth to only Deadeye when it should exist as a classwide skill for Thief

> * Making power Rev even stronger

>

> ....*slow claps*....

>

> Along with the terrible LS patch (imo), the balance team once again did nothing to address the real problems (I guess the healing reduction from FB is the one positive thing that came from this patch).

Thief already has a. Stealth on function class wide. You need to spec for it, which is fair given how many ways thief can enter stealth.

My problem is how they severely hurt their 1v1 potential instead of restoring it or give them some means of tearing through specs passive defenses. As they nerfed our tools that were the response to that is in the past...

Leave it at 900. The shortbows behaves a little differently across classes, but they generally hit more than one person on an auto attack.

Thief's bounces up to three times. Only the next target needs to be different.

Revenant fires shattering arrows that bleed you.

Don't know what ranger does.

What's wrong with their posture?

I'd rather get the shoulder pads adjusted so they don't float off my fucking body or look massively oversized.

> @"Scud.5067" said:

> If the Charr motorcycle is basically a wheel, that rolled up like the beetle then.. I can see it working.

>

> However, as we've seen with.. practically every other skin ever made (all of them?), a skin follows the boning in the original mount.

>

> In other words, its skeleton must correspond to the original mount.

>

> Heck, I could be wrong - are there any skins that deviate from the original mount's skeletal setup?

A charr cycle would have simpler animations. But probably blown up on particles

If this was 2012, you'd have a lot of options. As of now, thief just isn't able to compete very well in one on one unless there's a massive skill difference.

> @"SoulSin.5682" said:

> > @"Tails.9372" said:

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

> > > > @"godmoney.6025" said:

> > > > Exposed Weakness: The damage this trait causes has been changed from 10% damage if the target has a condition to 2% damage per unique condition on a target.

> > > > - A nerf to most power builds running DA especially in 1v1, considering you almost always won't have 5 condis on the enemy player.

> > > > From a D/P Daredevil (which I still play) perspective, from Lotus Poison and Serpent's touch you will guarantee weakness and poison, giving you 4% during burst, 6% if you land a blind during. Most of the times this will be a 4%-8% damage loss during a 1v1 fight.

> > >

> > > Ever thought maybe it is to discourage 1v1?

> > On a class that's particularly designed for 1v1 combat? Do you really think the responsible dev hates thief this much? I mean the evidence speaks for itself so I won't deny it.

>

> Sorry but.... since when is Thief designed for 1x1 combat?

They stated before launch that thief excelled at one on one combat. That it was designed to be very powerful in PvP.

Not to mention a lot of early PvP videos said you need to watch out for thieves. Running was rarely a good option as they could Chase and destroy you. Typically having a buddy around means you'd have a much easier time.

Queue a bunch of complaints later, cheese builds, and a thousand nerfs later... We get the most uninteresting PvP role of +1 and Going Far. Granted, back then players got really good and could win some badly out numbered fights. But it wasn't like the thief was getting hammered by everyone at the same time. Nor was he hitting everyone at the same time. He just focused on one target at a time and moved in ways that allowed him to split them up.

Now the tiniest amount of passive defenses from thief's foe meant they were in for a rough time.

It's more than just this patch note. It's basically all the past ones on top of this. Along with how long it took for usability changes to finally hit Deadeye, and some revision on an unnessary nerf to sneak attacks. But there's still a great big cornucopia of issues in core thief that thief players complained about, but never got fixed or a response from a Dev to give their thoughts on the matter. And I really just don't care to argue about this.

I don't know. Most likely I'll suck it up and just have another bad taste permanently in my mouth like a Dipper's hairy tongue.

> @"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:

> Both changes to Backstab and Dagger Training are buffs. Exposed Weakness has a potential of going over the original 10% damage boost.

>

> I'm not sure what you're complaining about. The nerfs are negligible.

I'm just genuinely tired of reading the patch notes for Thief to see some of the things that can actually let you do more than +1ing or going far getting cut back.

I'm happy they cut back the backstab cool down. I'm happy they finally made that needed adjustment to Deadyes kneel and free action to make it snappier. But it's just every time you get your spirits up, you see something that pushes you further into being subpar at PvP. Or not much more being done to make you desirable in PvE content outside of a static.

It just doesn't feel good when you play a class in PvP that you never play, and it takes less effort to get more done than your main.

At least they fixed one of the major complaints about Deadeye, which was the kneeling. And daggers getting back the damage bonus that makes dent on the auto nerfs.

But the nerfs are just taking away more of theifs identity to the point of irrelevance. Without much in the way of compensation, or opening up options for the thief to counteract those nerfs. Or toning down the others so this can actually compete in all game modes.

I think I'm gonna retire my thief after five ( or six... however old gw2 is) years and just make a damn mesmer.

Honestly. I don't see the need to follow meta if the build and playstyle works for you.

This is normal, and a build I usually run. Shadow Arts and Acrobatics or Deadly arts. Shadow arts is the main suspect for this.

Shadow arts makes the thief very tanky when stralthing on top of being hard to hit. With healing power, the thief can use the regen produced by cloaking to heal very quickly.

When combined with acrobatics, you can. Dodge every five seconds. Deal more damage with sword. And get swiftness. With acrobatics you can heal for a small amount or each initiative spent. It's not a very good trait and it never makes a difference in the fight. But it's worth noting.

Deadly arts gives this build a massive damage boost for being revealed and you being low health. Not to mention a small damage boost for immobilizing you.

> @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > @"Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497" said:

> > > @"NoNameNoob.9758" said:

> > > but it feels way to weak now idk maybe it was a bit to much

> >

> > Well.. they were going to buff heart seekers. But for some reason people said it wasn't needed.

> >

> > Honestly, if they just buffed the situational side of the move it'd be fine.

>

> heartseeker needs to leave the thief vulnerable as it is a commonly used way to enter stealth using it in combo with a smoke field. but this vulnerability here makes the skill pretty useless in most situation for actually dealing damage. if my opponents run tanky builds whos damage i dont need to fear and when they are low i sometimes still just spamm heartseeker cause then it does its job as a finisher. but against most opponents you simply cant use the skill within their reach.

> if they now made the smoke + leap/blast combos just extend stealth but not grant stealth to a visible player, then we could change heartseeker to be safer for the thief than it currently is and it would balance out a little the d/d and d/p builds so that d/d is the only stealth weaving one while d/p is an ambush set and not d/p superior in both.

I'd agree with these changes. However, it introduces a new problem of taking away power from one of thief's most usable kits. If it's too much, or will be fine will remain unknown.

The other problem is it introduces inconsistency. The heart seekers would become the only leap skill unable to cloak normally.

> @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > @"Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497" said:

> > > @"NoNameNoob.9758" said:

> > > but it feels way to weak now idk maybe it was a bit to much

> >

> > Well.. they were going to buff heart seekers. But for some reason people said it wasn't needed.

> >

> > Honestly, if they just buffed the situational side of the move it'd be fine.

>

> heartseeker needs to leave the thief vulnerable as it is a commonly used way to enter stealth using it in combo with a smoke field. but this vulnerability here makes the skill pretty useless in most situation for actually dealing damage. if my opponents run tanky builds whos damage i dont need to fear and when they are low i sometimes still just spamm heartseeker cause then it does its job as a finisher. but against most opponents you simply cant use the skill within their reach.

> if they now made the smoke + leap/blast combos just extend stealth but not grant stealth to a visible player, then we could change heartseeker to be safer for the thief than it currently is and it would balance out a little the d/d and d/p builds so that d/d is the only stealth weaving one while d/p is an ambush set and not d/p superior in both.

I'd agree with these changes.

> @"NoNameNoob.9758" said:

> but it feels way to weak now idk maybe it was a bit to much

Well.. they were going to buff heart seekers. But for some reason people said it wasn't needed.

Honestly, if they just buffed the situational side of the move it'd be fine.