foste.3098

> @"Axl.8924" said:

> Question then do you remember how druid was when it was first released?

I remember that the cele avatar skills had absurd base healing values with low healing power scaling, that staff was a dumb aa spaming weapon with a mobility skill- ancestral grace which was an evade a heal and a blast, that lunar impact was a 2 sec daze, that cele avatar had 10 sec cd.

I also remember that the biggest issue about druid itself was the druidic clarity & celestial shadow traits which together gave a easy way to kite during a fight by entering avatar -> dropping lunar impact -> exiting avatar which took less than a second and ensured the druid could leisurely rest himself before reengaging or just running away.

I also remember that the dumbest part of it all were the pets which were either overtuned - smokescale which hit like a truck with every skill, or just badly designed and overtuned - bristilback which had a command skill that was a oneshot at close range but missed every single shot against targets that were not hugging the pet, same with its rain of spikes skill which missed every spike and did nothing unless a enemy was standing on top of the pet in which case it was an instagb.

I also recall how most other ranger pets were total shit by comparison and how they are unable to even hit a moving target, which is still true today hence why you almost always see Hot or Pof pets being used in pvp/wvw with the exception of birds and cats which are the only 2 core pet families that can reliably hit moving enemies.

So what's your point on druid? did you just raise it because of my icon?

One thing i will never understand about the feb mega patch is why did they nerf everything across the board? Why were skills/traits that had never been an issue since the games launch gotten nerfed?

For example eviscerate has always had a scaling of 2.0/2.5/3.0 depending on adrenaline, so why change it? There are huge number of skills like that that got changed in pvp/wvw seemingly for the sake of slowing down the game, or reducing power creep. But in reality the reason for the powercreep and the fast time to kill was not that skills had to much scaling (although there were outliers) but that skills had become overbloated.

For a good example look at bull's charge: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull%27s_Charge

Note the path of fire pre-patch of August 08, 2017, the skill got a triple damage buff and became an evade. Before hand the skill was a long knockdown, a long gap closer/gap creator, and a leap finisher that dealt slightly higher damage than 1st skill in the greatsword auto attack chain; all in all a an al-round useful and good skill, so why the fuck make it an evade and a 2nd stage eviscerate burst in addition to all the utility it had before?

This is just the most clear example of skill bloating that lead to the powercreep but there are countless cases like that. So if the issue is idiotic bloating of skills why then blanket nerf damage across the board, leave the bloated skill design, and never follow through on further balance when it is clear that there are massive issues still?

The dumbest part is if they wait to release the new expansion before deciding to actually do some balance, because that way the new elite spec are doomed to ether be broken op or broken useless since they are being set up upon broken foundation.

Whirling axe, it is by far the most versatile stolen skill but you need to be smart on how to use it otherwise it will do next to nothing.

However when you use it at an opportune moment the skill just does allot of things for you: it can negate all targeted ranged damage thrown at you, it can make you untouchable in melee if you spin in a smokefield, it can do massive damage if you spin in a lightning field, and it is amazing at raw damage & cleaving when you are not under focus.

The 2nd best skill from my experience is mace head crack, it just turns off a player for 3 seconds and deals decent damage; simple and effective.

- spvp changed so that when you enter a map your class is replaced with a stick figurine that only has 1 skill that deals 1 damage upon use.

There, perfectly balanced, now every one is on a level playing field and no one can bitch about losing to poor balance.

> @"Math.5123" said:

> Its almost as if trapper runes were added with DH. Meaning dh was very much designed around that rune in mind.

> But hey, what do i know.

Actually rune of the dragon hunter was designed to work with dh traps, seeing how dh traps are purely power and as the runeset gives power and ferocity and lots of might.

Rune of the trapper was designed to work primarily with (the now deleted) thief traps as they were based on condition damage and cc, and due to the major fact that thief traps dealt no power damage upon triggering meaning the stealth from the rune would not have gotten removed by someone triggering said traps. Rangers were the 3rd class with traps, and theirs were a mix between power and condi.

Now to run through some memories: thief traps got nerfed to do damage upon triggering in order to prevent stealth camping (this was done only when a thief managed to solo a literal raid boss with a trapper build), and later thief traps got removed altogether for preparations. Meanwhile rangers had a trap gm trait, one which allowed them to throw traps as if they were grenades, that enabled them to stack stealth by yeeting traps aside so they wouldn't get triggered and reveal the ranger. This trait got removed and reworked in to the skirmishing trap trait we have today.

All of this paints a picture that this rune set breaks the trap utility type, and will be a HUGE issue if another elite spec gets traps as a utility skill.

Rework the 6th runeset effect to something else; end of story.

> @"Terrorhuz.4695" said:

> > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > Shadowshot is not a heavy hitter and it doesnt hit anywhere *close* to 4.5k (4.5k is what *backstab* hits for.)

>

> Whatever thief

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>

I play thief and ranger as my mains and i can tell you that in spvp shadow shot can only hit those numbers in 2 ways:

situations where the target has lots of vulnerability or the theif has lots of might, both of which have to come from external sources since the class cannot stack them with d/p.

Or by runing executioner & rune of eagle/inifltration/scholar stacked with some other scalable damage modifiers (lead attacks, no quarter, ect) and probably zerker amulet in which case we are dealing with a total glass canon.

The reality of the matter is that on ranger i have a build which plays as bruiser with demolisher amulet and runes of speed, on which i can make my pet do 4-5k attacks every 4-10 seconds while playing defensively if i want. Or i can go role a melee decap build (s/d gs traited with quick draw) and chase theives across the map while actually being able to win duels on far nodes against mostly anything.

When compared to other classes thief does not deal that much damage outside thier burst window, but to get that the thief has to heavily trait in to steal and damage leaving them glassy, literally the only thing thief can do well is disengage and run away.

Also i like how the issue ppl have with thief is exclusively about d/p but the majority of the thread addresses the class as a whole when talking about how op it is; when in fact most of it is a total joke and will be unplayable if d/p gets nerfed.

Thief as a whole is not even close to being op or broken, it is specifically d/p daredevil that is carrying the class. Seriously try to play literally any other build (bonus if you play on 2v2 offseason event) not involving d/p and you will see just how disjointed the class is:

-d/d is a burst set that has low utility so it get chewed up in pvp.

-S/d has good utility but lacks burst and has a slow auto attack and low damage in general.

-s/p is a joke after the February patch, it was a 1 button set that is now dysfunctional; nothing short of a rework of pistol whip will make this set see any play in pvp/wvw

-p/p suffers from having mainhand pistol be a condition weapon and the off hand a 'utility' weapon while the dual skill is a power skill; the set has the same issue as s/p in that it is a 1 button set but at leas s/p was not trying to be some abominable hybrid.

-p/d is a condi 'burst set' but most of its damage comes from traits and utility skills not the weapon itself (which is why s/d was in a condition build some time ago until panic strike got nerfed). This is the only other weapon set that core thief has which is not total trash.

-short bow is a utility weapon that has a initiative sum cost of 23, now i understand that it has some of the most powerfull skills of any thief weapon but the approach they used to balanced them is just stupid.

-staff is clunky to use mostly due to how skill 2 behaves (craps out when you use it against anything that is not stationary), otherwise it is a mediocre set that is predictable and overall worst than d/p so no one plays it (also it has the most synergy with acrobatics and that traitline got balanced out of existence).

-rifle also got the anet balance treatment and now the most effective way to play it is to spam skirmishers shot and ignore the kneel mechanic, in other words a 1 button set but with a twist that sometimes you use the stealth attack.

So not counting shortbow out of 8 total weapon sets (possible play styles) only 1 is good and functional without any broken skills or otherwise disabled due to anet balance, then another set that is ok at best. So in conclusion when ppl bitch about thief what they actually mean is d/p daredevil, and as soon as that gets nerfed thief ceases to exist in pvp and to an extent in wvw.

Also think about this: what happened if the new expansion gives another class a mobility elite spec; doesn't have to be as mobile as daredevil let's say 80% of daredevil's mobility, but it can survive within a fight/teamfight and actually win 1 vs 1 encounters against players that are not already half dead? In this case thief as a whole ceases to exist.

> **Borezerker:** | **Gain:** Primal bursts, +300 to power/condi **Loss:** Normal bursts, -300 toughness

> **Daredevil:** | **Gain:** Lower CD steal, endurance on steal, unblockable steal, and 3 dodges. **Loss:** 600 less range on steal than core.(4-1)

> **Holosmith:** | ~~You can overheat~~ Just kidding, no tradeoff. (1-0)

> **Renegod:** | No tradeoff. (1-0)

Your view on what is and isn't a tradeoff is skewed somewhat, which is best exhibited by the specs above.

The elite spec tradeoff is only what the 1st minor trait in the elite line does, and nothing else, which means the tradeoffs are the following:

Burstzerker - gain berzerk & primal bursts but loses normal burst skills

Dogedevil - gain 3rd dodge but gets steal replaced with swipe

Yolosmith - gain photonforge but lose the toolbelt 5 skill (same for scraper, he gains function gyro and lose toolbelt 5)

Rangerwanabe - gains new f skills but lose the core revenant f ability

To me it seems that this is how anet views tradeoffs, a button on your ui that replaces another button. Because of this not all tradeoffs are equal across the board, for example dragon hunter and firebrand elite replacements of f skills are way better than core; same could be said for holo, and both revenant elites, and daredevil with steal -> swipe, but let's be honest daredevil is carried almost exclusively by unhindered combatant.

> @"KrHome.1920" said:

> Infiltrator's Arrow spam got a 2 second nerf. Super "significant"!

>

> The skill was never meant to be a fast travel utility, but a reposition utility for the shortbow or what do you think why there is a blind on it?

>

> Since no thief actually cared for that purpose and everyone is just using the skill exclusively for traveling (that's an euphemism for resetting btw.) for 8 years now, it was time to reduce its impact a bit.

All of this is true but there is one big issue, the entire class and all of its elite specs were balanced around the mobility of IA. I am fine with them nerfing it but i am not fine with just leaving the rest of the class as is, if their intent is to move thief away from a pure decap bot then they have to buff/rework the rest of the class to be able to actually fight and not just +1 players who are half dead.

Now we just need to wait 8 more months for them to actually balance the class around not having as much mobility and we will get to what the thief was advertised as to begin with: a glassy and slippery duelist.

With the sanctuary rune and cloaked in shadow traited using [sigil of Mischief](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Mischief) is something you want to look in to, perhaps on the dagger set.

It would be 960 armor ignoring dmg if all 4 projectiles hit (you would have to be facing the opponent and be in melee range) and heal you for 776 + barrier for 156.

Is writ of masterfull strength really better than a sharpening stone, during a fight how long are you above 90% hp and more so if you get ganked upon.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAgqVlNw2YXsFGJOMXntUA-zVhYBRHpyKI8hQVED6oUaKEarA6NC6OBM5QIkGqHsEBzA-w

You can never go wrong with the good old d/p setup for roaming; this is my variant that i min/maxed for maximum damage to hp ratio, utility skill 3 can be swapped to anything you like (roll for initiative or blinding powder are the 2 other good options).

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> Given thiefs ini system damage should be spread throughout the skills and maybe used a system where skills do more if done after a certain skill or in certain combos as well as certain skills having a stronger effect on players who are inflicted with certain conditions. This way u promote varied inputs during combat instead of the current "this is ur damage skill".

This is hilarious since guild wars 1 assassin, the thief progenitor, had this exact concept for its dagger chain combos where to use a dual attack skill you've had to previously hit with an offhand skill, and to use that you had to have landed a hit with a lead attack skill (there were some exceptions to this where a offhand skill can be used without a prerequisite).

As you said they could have carried over this system and made it so that certain weapon skills (skill 3 and 5 for example) have extra effects if before using them you landed a hit with, lets say the final skill in the auto attack chain, or skill 2, or any number of other requirements. This way you would not be able to repeatedly use the same skill for maximum effect (hello pistol whip, vault, or any other time spamming 1 button was the best way to push out damage), but instead would have to weave said skill with its prerequisite skill for maximum effect.

delete shortbow (figuratively) and rebalance the thief around aspects other than how fast it can run to an empty point.

Pw by design will always be polarizing in that it is oppressive but playable or mediocre but unplayable. This is due to it being the only damaging skill on the entire sword/pistol set, and so the only thing you can use to deal damage.

The best thing that could happen is a total rework of the dual wield skill of s/p to something that can be playable and not oppressive; aka not a skill with hard cc. But even this will not solve the s/p issue as you will still play by just spamming 3 unless the new skill comes with some sort of combo potential with black powder so that you can weave skill 3 in to tactical strike and auto attacks now that you are covered by a daze/blind.

The thing about crit strikes is that it is a pure dmg line lacking any other aspect, and lines like that are always subpar in pvp. Why would you pick cs when you can slot in da, trait for executioner and have access poison/weakness application and some other utility?

If they really wanted to give thieves some build diversity they should have worked on acrobatics and the lackluster weapons, i mean buffing pistol whip coefficient by 0.07 is a meme when the sword auto attack deals fuck all damage, and all other s/p skills are more of 'utility weapon skills' than actual offensive damage skills meaning that in current form the only way to play with that set is to spamm pw which is not fun to play against or play as; the only reasonable course is to rework s/p skill 3 and buff sword auto attack damage to make it not a 1 button set.

Imo they should nerf infiltrator's arrow to 8 or 9 initiative and then rebalance thief to actually be a duelist rather than a decap bot that can only run around and +1 effectively, because balancing an entire class and every aspect of it exclusively around how rapidly it can escape fights in a game where combat is the core gameplay loop is insane and stupid.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAYVlNw2YXsO2IOUXnNbA-z5IeKZKE6VEEvCogJgGGA

You have to be good at aiming vaults on moving targets, and know how to kite, but other than that works for the most part if you really want to play a thief.

Swap escapist's fortitude for marauder's resilience depending on matchups, and DO NOT engage with swipe; you want to save swipe for after you at least use roll for initiative in order to have a chance at a recharge with improvisation (it is best to save it after you use both roll and signet, which will be sooner than you think due to the ammount of condi revenants around).

I also recommended to have a teammate who can give you swiftness since you have a 63% uptime on your own and you will feel the lack of movement speed (this is if you queue with someone, otherwise it is random on whether or not you get someone who can spalsh swiftness).

Just revert the skill to something akin to what it was in 2012: 4 ini, damage and poison on impact, pulses poison every seconds for 4 seconds. That't it, that is all it needs to be; a reliable aoe poison combo field and nothing more, no bloating the skill to the point where you have to make it cost 7 initiative to be balanced.

Ever since the big patch the acro line has been deleted from the game due to the fact it was being carried by 2 passive traits, instant reflexes & hard to catch for non-sword builds, both of which now have a 300 sec cd. Now we all speculated that anet plans to eventually rework traits like these 2 across all classes, which is perfectly fine, however meanwhile something else about the acrobatics line surfaced; that most of the traits in it are total garbage unless you par it with sword. So then here is my view on what can be changed to make acrobatic better and less tied to sword:

-move vigorous recovery to master tier, replacing guarded initiation, reduce the vigor it gives from 10 to ~4 seconds BUT make vigor grant thief 100 power. This would solve the sword issue by having a good all around trait that can fit any build that has lots of dodges.

-move guarded initiation to adept tier, replacing vigorous recovery, and change it to remove combat inhibiting condition (blindness, weakness, slow, chill and cripple) when the thief has 100 endurance spent (this would mean when you have 0 dodges as a thief/deadeye and when you have 1 dodge left as daredevil) with a icd of ~50 sec, combat only. This is meant to be a mirror of pain response, giving you a choice between being resilient against damaging or inhibiting conditions.

-Change assassin's reward to grant ~3k hp, vigor for ~5 sec & regeneration for ~10 sec when the player drops below 4 initiative while in combat, with an icd of ~35 seconds. This is meant to change the trait from prolonged sustain to burst sustain which fits acrobatics thief better since you are dodging damage and therefore are at mostly full hp, and when you do take damage it is usually in the form of bursts in between evades, so making the trait burst-sustain you makes more sense.

And now for the 300 cd traits, they need to remain defensive since that is main the purpose of acrobatics, they have to not be passive bs that auto saves you, and they can be tied to boons since that is one of the themes of acrobatics. With that in mind:

-Move hard to catch to grand master tier, swapping place with don't stop (which is now master tier). Change it to grants 50 endurance and 2 initiative when you get disabled by hard cc, ~50 sec icd. This way you gain the means to escape when you get locked down BUT you have to have a stun break off cooldown since it no longer auto stun breaks you.

-Instant reflexes gets changed to grant regeneration ~3 sec when ever you grant yourself swiftness and it also grants you swiftness for ~4 sec whenever you use a skill that costs 5 or more initiative. Basically makes you have high regeneration uptime while maintaining swiftness uptime on yourself.

This is what i came up with, if you have any ideas of your own pin them in below.

They can make 2v2 be under the unranked matchmaker during the season, much like how 5v5 was under it during off-season.

you can facerole while passively healing yourself, is countered by kiting; beware the staircase.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAEd3lJw8YJMN2JOuXbNLA-z5IWIZGB9WA5nCyOA

you have to be good at kiting and creating distance, but if you are then you passively have 20 might and so does your pet who then hits for 3k on each auto attack (bird). Is countered by getting the pet killed or if you get locked down.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwEcEWosAmHTj1xQxTaqdpWy06C-z5IeKZKBKVEkvCoghgKGA

is not an ez build but as a theif main i feel obligated to pin it. You have to be good at kiting, retreating, timing bursts, and most importantly be with a teammate who is on a build that can solo survive a 1 vs 2 situation. If all of the above conditions are met then you have a build that offers the highest weakness uptime in the game, can cleave hard and get big bursts out quickly and often. (you do not spam vault like an idiot, your 2 core skills are dust strike and weakening charge, vault should only be used on targets below 50% hp or if you can hit both enemies at the same time).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAYVlNw2YXsF2IOUXntSA-z5IeKZKE6VEkvEogFgJGA

-go in as a bunker scrapper duo

-both slot in thumper turret, blast gyro, and elixir x.

-troll around until the death field closes in and then push your opponents in it

This is a daredevil build i settled on after much testing and lots of gut churning losses, so i thought it'd be a good idea to pin it here to see if anyone has any idea for possible improvements.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAgqVlNw2YXsFGJOMXntUA-zZIPlMFC9KCyXCUwCQUDA

The name of the game is dps, as in consistent damage output while still having excellent burst capability and decent vitality. To achieve this the build uses berzerker amulet for its sheer stats, as you need crazy amounts of power/ferocity to be able to effectively drop the raid bosses, er i mean necros/guardians. In order to supplement the lack of any defensive stats from the amulet, the build picks marauder's resilience and rune of the warrior.

Although the weapon swap reduction might seem like a joke and the entire rune might seem like a stupid pick, and especially since you are giving up a 10% modifier from eagle/infiltration, it gives the most vitality out of any rune while still giving you some offensive stats. The end result is that when paired with zerker amulet and marauder's resilience you have 390hp less than you would with marauder amulet + a power rune (this is if you don't trait for m. resilience with marauder amulet obviously), but you have much more power and ferocity; so much so that the 10% you loose from eagle/infiltration is more than made up by sheer stats of zerker amulet and the fact that the stats are always active and not only when you are attacking someone below 50%hp.

The utilities are for 2v2 and they work well, but for conquest i run basilisk venom and blinding powder and in cases where i can see that there is next to no condi damage on the other side assassin signet in place of signet of agility (this won't happen often).

> @"SehferViega.8725" said:

> 1. Backstab: Backstab now deals less damage then Heartseeker to players that are below 25% life. Heartseeker is spammable and should not make more damage then Backstab. IMHO **Backstab should have 2.0 power coefficient** (only Backstab not Maliciuos Backstab that is fine thanks to malice mechanic), while **Heartseeker could have power coefficient 1.2 / 1.5 / 1.8** (instead of 1.0 / 1.5 / 2.0).

>

^this is how dagger should be balanced, with heartseeker having a scaling of 1.0/1.4/1.8. And if malicious backstab becomes an issue then balance it by changing the damage bonus it gets per malice stack.

My feedback is centered around wvw and 2v2-which we can view as dueling.

-Deadly arts is reduced to a pve only line in the state it is now, it gives marginal damage increase (unless traited for executioner) while now giving mediocre utility.

Change mug to deal more damage but heal for less, this way the hp gap that trait makes remains the same but now it will be more offensive.

Change improvisation to have a 15 sec ecd, this way you get to role a utility reset on every swipe/mark and not every other and it makes the trait work better with swindler's equilibrium.

-Shadow arts is mostly ok now as the main reason for its overperformance was the stealth uptime & access and the damage leaching venoms game.

Rending shade should be un-nerfed to steal 2 boons because this trait was never an issue and having it remove 1 boon is just not impactfull against any class that builds around boons.

-Daredevil is mostly fine except staff is now a meme again, and would probably require a redesign of skill 3 to not be.

Pulmonary impact is a dead trait, it deals less dmg than both mug and leaching venoms BUT those 2 traits also heal you/poison the enemy where as pi just deals dmg.

Anyone who takes a second to think about it should see the issue; a pure dmg trait that requires specific timing to work should do more dmg than the 2 similar traits that work regardless of what your enemy is doing (except hard mitigation) AND they have utility in them. If pi does not get a dmg buff then it should get a secondary effect, for example weakness or vulnerability on interrupt as well as low damage.

Impact strike does not deal nearly enough dmg to be effective for the time it takes to cast the 3 chain skills, you will never get the stomp skip in the current state of that elite. Ether make the chain faster or buff the damage it deals to make it worth using.

> @"Anput.4620" said:

> No, it has been gutted damage-wise and a whole build singlehandedly relies on it atm.

What build relies on a passive 30sec icd garbage trait? it can't any good power build since most of them migrated to even the odds, and it can't be any good condi builds since the poison duration in deadly arts had been reduced to a joke.

Infact the entire deadly arts line has been so heavily nerfed that it is consigned to be a pure pve traitline, i mean shadow arts is better for damage and sustain than deadly arts unless you pick executioner.