SoulSin.5682

> @"DrDivine.5378" said:

> My schedule changed a lot too as I didn't have time for games as much anymore,

GW2 is still one of the best MMos under that requisite.

That or you are free to play catch up to level cap and gear progression on every other MMo ad eternal .

Frankly speaking I won't even bother voting. I will just let some steam off my chest:

- I am getting tired of all those initiative increases on key skills. -

More than just numbers, Thief is becoming more and more of a shore to play.

> # Thief

>

Dear thief community,

> With this update, we're looking to improve condition builds in PvE while reducing more egregious condition builds in PvP and WvW.

>

With this update, we decided to buff condition builds for PvE and nerf some problematic pvP condi builds, and for that...

> * Thousand Needles: Increased bleeding duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds for both the impact and pulse attacks.

> * Death Blossom: The number of targets this skill can strike has been increased from 3 to 5.

We buffed one skill no one uses and raised the target cap on a weapon set that had no need for it.

> * Shadow Strike: Repeater availability duration has been reduced from 4 to 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.

> * Pistol Whip: Increased flurry hit power coefficient from 0.53 to 0.6 in PvP and WvW.

To say we are not buffing anything, we've buffed two builds that we killed a few patches ago. No one uses then, so it's safe for us to buff something that won't cause impact.

More importantly: Last few patches we nerfed Deadly Arts so much, that the community has moved to...

> * Leeching Venoms: Reduced life-stealing base damage from 320 to 160 in PvP and WvW. Reduced life-stealing power coefficient from 0.0333 to 0.0165 in PvP and WvW.

> * Shadow Siphoning: Reduced life-stealing base damage from 312 to 218 in PvP and WvW. Reduced life-stealing power coefficient from 0.1 to 0.07 in PvP and WvW.

Shadow Arts, which proved to be a fatal mistake since it raised the number of stealth complaints on the forums. Since thieves are now harder to kill. So we decided to nerf the only reason thieves were picking the traitline. Since we predict that thieves are still to hard to kill, we expect people to move to...

> * Keen Observer: Increased bonus critical chance from 5% to 10%.

> * Practiced Tolerance: Increased precision-to-ferocity conversion from 10% to 15% in PvP and WvW.

> * No Quarter: Increased ferocity from 250 to 300 in PvP and WvW.

Critical strikes, which builds are known for dying faster. So we buffed 3 traits that make Thief builds extremally squishy as bait. We expect that this way thieves will die faster.

The damage was raised of course, and we buffed the cancerous rifle DeadEye by accident, but we can always move back and nerf it again later, like always.

We also forgot to nerf said egregious condition builds.

Sincerely,

From the Buff-yet-Nerf secret balance team.

Working against the thief community since 2011.

I wish dodges and stow weapon could cancel kneeling.

To kneel after a dodge is strange. Since if I needed to dodge it means that I need to move.

Stowing weapons does cancel kneel, but it is at the end of the stow animation, not at the start. And that's weird.

> @"SlitheSlivier.1908" said:

> I haven't played in 1-2 years but since im stuck at home for a while, i just reinstalled the game. In general, how has the thief changed? What are the (more) viable builds for pvp and wvw? What weapons/skills/traits have been buffed nerfed?

>

> Ive been going through patch notes but it's hard to put it all together in my head. I stopped playing before mounts were a thing.

>

> When i stopped, d/d was viable, staff was crazy good but then had been nerfed to just "good", s/d was barely viable, and the meta was d/p. Rifle was alright.

1. We are still slaves to trickery, more now than ever since the amount of initiative for key skills have raised, again.

2. Some skills have changed:

- Blinding Powder is no longer instant for example, but now works like a stunbreak.

- All traps were revised and remade. Shadow Portal, especially, becomes usable on some builds depending on your personal preferences.

- Some skills like Scorpion Wire got charges.

- Smoke Screen is no longer a line, but a circle.

3. Dagger builds are in a bad situation for years:

- The build was already off-meta when Sword/Dagger was the meta build.

- Arena Net decided a new approach to specializations, so that they would have at least a disavantage compared to core builds. For thieves, that means that Daredevils lost "Steal" and got "Swipe". That is pretty much "steal" with half the range. This change pretty much killed Dagger builds that relied on daredevil traits to work.

- Thanks to some high skilled players (Sindrener, specially), dagger found new uses running Core build again with DA, TR and SA. The clutch of the build was to switch the Signet of Agility for Assassin's Signet and to bring the new Smoke Screen. The build got popular for some time but got nerfed to oblivion again.

- After many nerfs to Deadly Arts, people just started using Shado Arts, killing the damage of dagger even more.

- Current build of Dagger hits like wet noodles and run SA / TR / DD. But ultimately works.

4. Sword got plenty of "new builds":

- TL;DR: Sindrener got tired of Sword/Dagger and started running Sword/Pistol. The build popularity exploded.

- Despite being just a weaker build roamer wise, the scrubs cried so much that the build got nerfed either way. The current state of the build is unusable. Still works somewhat tough.

- Players found out that messing with some Deadly Arts traits and Spider Venons could create a Condi Build. Also know as Condi S/D.

- Build became a total cancer.

- Build got nerfed to oblivion. Deadly Arts trait line sank with it. The build is still usable tough, especially that lacks fast condi cleaners. Not as lethal. Scrubs still cry about it tough.

- Ultimately, everyone went back to Sword/Dagger.... again.

5. Many stealth related nerfs due to abuse of stealth builds on DeadEyes. Vigor uptime and stamina also took a hit because of the nature of DeadEyes to convert stamina to stealth.

6. Countless hours of arguing and discussions over stealth, DeadEyes and DJ's and Malicious Backstabs. Everything got nerfed at some point, some way.

7. Just like everyone else, damage of all skills were capped at modifier 2.4 (?). Pretty much every skill in the game got nerfed by around 33%.

- Worth mentioning that this was the second time Thieves auto attack got nerfed past 2 years.

- Due the new policy over soft-CC's and Hard CC's, some skills got nerfed harder. hard CC's no longer deal proper damage and other skills like Pulmonary Impact are nearly useless right now.

TL:DR:

- Dagger is suffering from damage insufficiency.

- People are tired of Sword/Dagger.

- New builds appeared but got nerfed due to complaints.

Thief is already a counter to other thieves. Adding reveal would be just a solution for lazy thieves.

Btw, people need to stop making complaints regarding stealth coming for WvW.

This is just stupid. What is the player on stealth doing that contributes for the game mode? Is he killing players? Scouting? Taking down gates?

"Oh but the thief running away on stealth is annoying". No one cares if player X or Y is annoying. Unless the player on stealth can take down a tower by himself no one should care about what you are doing. And if thieve are really killing lords by themselves using stealth, the one that needs a revealed skill are the NPCs, not other thieves.

What gives, someone is already asking for nerfs for thief.

Mind me. This game can't really be placed in an excel table for balance changes.

Guess thieves holidays are over then. Back to normal.

> @"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

> **Additional changes**

> * Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds

This seens unnecessary. You are just forcing thieves to go back to blinding powder at this point.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> Im fine with thief being as strong as other classes during 1v1 or 2v2 or blob fights, but if they are faster then anyone else, they will produce more value then anyone else.

Except the community is clearly not fine on having a stealth-based class being good at 1v1.

I mean.... this thread.

Thief is already the most complained class of the game when they have close to nil duelist capability and overall damage.

Plus... think about Mirages. What happened the last time we had a fast class that was also good at 1x1? Hint: Mirages had portal nerfed first.

By design, we can't have a class that can roam and 1x1 at the same time. The problem that meanwhile classes like Mirage and Herald had their movement nerfed first to keep their damage, the thief always has their damage nerfed and keep their movement. This is a design decision at this point.

> @"Oompa Loompa.3072" said:

> What can I do to get a better feeling for what I do matters in Dungeon/fractals? Is there a profession that has a more clear cut role? Or a more support type role so I could help newer players through dungeons? Or do I just need to read up more on game mechanics, to better understand my contribution?

Healing is definitely not something that people bother outside strike missions and raids.

But keep in mind that you **can** play support builds on GW2.

And by that I mean Boon support.

Want to contribute crazily to any team? Get a build that share as much as boons as you can, specially Might, fury, alacrity, and quickness.\

Some common examples:

- Boon Herald

- Alacrity Renegade

- Heal Renegade

- Boon Support Chronomancer

- Heal Druid

- Quickness FireBrand

When outside T3, T4 Fractals, Raids and harder Strike Missions you will find out that healing is mostly optional, just change your gear for something more offensive and focus on sharing boons.

I guess Shadow Art's managed to hide from ArenaNet this time.

LoL at headshot 2 seconds stun at PvE.

I am a little sad that PI got nerfed again tough. This skill already cannot crit, going from 2 to 0.75 is just sad.

At least keep it at 1.2 or 1.0

The funniest fact is that stealth has such a heavy utility tax in Mesmer and Thief classes that if they remove the mechanic they would make both classes insanely broken due to balance compensation.

But alas, people that don't even PvP prefer to complain about what they can't see instead of what actually kills then.

Though I do find the idea of thief receiving a buff being funny, I do agree that they should reduce the cooldown of Improvisation as QoL change.

Frankly speaking, it doesn't even make sense for this skill to have an internal cooldown anymore. Sword no longer reset cooldown of steal.

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> Steal does literally 2 things. Why do you believe that is "too much in one"?

Sadly, steal is a CC, ranged, instant, teleport, remove boons, grant boons, a bundle skill, condi damage and power damage (albeit no critical) and heals.

Plus swipe is everything above unblockable, despite half the range.

I don't really believe they were talking about steal there, but it's undeniable that the hat fits.

I blame Sindrener.


It just works

The whole trickery or no trickery heavily depends on weapon set.

Some weapon sets are initiative hungry and it's near impossible to play properly without trickery.

D/P for example, can't be used for stealth stacking without the extra initiative.

Rifle, on the other hand, is not that initiative heavy. It's totally viable to play non-trickery-DE builds.

Coming from a Thief, headshot tends to fail a lot, especially when kitting is possible.

At PvP you can literally hide behind something and overload. WvW is trickier because there is more open space, but you can always trick the thief to fight near trees or walls. As any ranged skill, HS don't cross walls and objects.

The second choice is merely holding up overload for when the thief changes to Shortbow. You can also try to use them while they are on stealth if you are comfortable hitting invisible targets since most thieves won't break an opportunity to use a stealth skill to headshot you.

Lastly, HS doesn't deal actual damage, if they start HS spamming you, just auto attack the thief. Not only you win the exchange but the thief will waste his initiative for nothing.

The catch about playing gold2 and 3 is to make decisions that make the difference.

Basically, try to aim for moves that can create momentum for your team.

Thief can technically drag a game for as long they want by just decapping everything and spreading the enemy team. Bid for time and seek opportunities.

All that said, yes. Thief is an annoying class to climb to gold. Strategy means nothing when your teammates die in 5 seconds on every team fight.

> @"foste.3098" said:

> > @"SoulSin.5682" said:

> > Seems good.

> > You could also remove the dodge frames from Vault. Its already a very strong leap with damage and AoE, it never needed the dodge frames.

> Absolutely not! Vault was never an issue at all for the last 4+ years and it was not the issue in the staff/staff setup that won the last at.

> This suggestion is akin to saying warrior gs 3 could stand to have its evade frames removed because it is a fine skill that moves you a distance and is a whirl finisher; or ele dagger 3 in fire could stand to lose evasion frames because it is a fine skill without it.

>

>

The problem is indeed, not with a vault.

The problem is how a staff thief connects one dodge to another and never stop.

I am fine with thieves spamming Dodge + Debilitating Arc if they need to get more defensive, plus they still have blind with Dust Strike. There is no need for Vault to be a dodge as well.

The thief must decide between playing more offensive or more defensive. Vault is an offensive skill, there is no need to have dodge frames.

> @"reikken.4961" said:

> How about making this trait only apply when swapping to a **different** weapon set?

---------------------------------------------------- [...]------------------------------------------------------------

> If the goal is making it more grindy rather than bursty, I'd think reducing the maximum number of spider venom stacks would be better. Also gives people more time to counter by throwing out their cleanses. After 4-5 seconds (3 seconds + extra poison duration) you've usually already cleansed it anyway, if you haven't already died to a few seconds of 18 stacks of poison or whatever. Plus it would nerf the burst without impacting builds that use the shadow arts trait to repeatedly stack spider venom and apply it to wear people down over time.

>

I can get behind those two suggestions. Tough I would reduce the cooldown of venons if they get less stacks.

Or perhaps adding charges with long cooldowns?

Also + 1 for the quickpocket idea.

> @"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

> **Condi Thief**

> The main issue we’re looking to address with condi thief is the initial burst potential. Long term there are definitely questions about how this build is applying conditions, but for now we want to push it more toward a grindy build than a bursty one.

>

> * Spider Venom: Reduced poison duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only

> * Serpent's Touch: Reduced poison stacks from 2 to 1 in PvP only

I still believe you guys should stop "dodging" the issue and just nerf the condi application on doge spam once and for all.

Nerfing those skill not only nerf condi S/D, but also every other Condi build, like P/D, for example.

> @"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

> **Holosmith**

> Holosmith quickness has been a big point of feedback and we’re planning to make some adjustments there. Removing Sigil of Agility was part of this, and we’re also looking at a minor nerf to Kinetic Battery.

>

> This leaves Elixir U. We’re considering a quickness reduction here as well, but are currently leaning toward an interesting change that’s worth discussing. That change being a heavy reduction of the stability granted. The goal of this change is to leave U as the big quickness skill, but also open the door for more counterplay. This would give opportunity to avoid Corona Burst and then CC the holosmith instead of just getting run over by quickness.

>

> * Kinetic Battery: Reduced quickness duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only

> * Elixir U: Reduced stability duration from 6 seconds to 1 second in PvP only

>

IMO. Keep the stability and nerf the quickness.

You guys had already nerfed other sources of stability before, didn't solve the problem, why nerf more?

> **Rampage**

> Rampage has been overperforming since the initial change that brought its cooldown to 90 seconds, and continues to with the cooldown at 120 seconds. Rather than just bumping up the cooldown again, we’re looking to address an underlying issue: hard CC skills also doing large amounts of damage. This is something that we’re looking to do across the board for the future update, and we see Rampage as a good opportunity to see the idea in action.

>

> * Rampage skills have been adjusted as follows

> + Kick: Power coefficient reduced from 1.2 to 0.01 in PvP only

> + Throw Boulder: Power coefficient reduced from 2.0 to 0.01 in PvP only

> + Seismic Leap: Power coefficient reduced from 1.6 to 0.01 in PvP only

Isn't that too big of a nerf hammer?

Mind me but those are the only usefull skills that Rampage even has. Nerf those 3 and we might as well just use banner or signet.

Imo, nerf boulder and kick only. Keep Seismic as it is for at very LEAST some burst damage. As AA on rampager is just terrible.

> **Warrior’s Cunning**

> We’re making an adjustment to bring Warrior’s Cunning more in-line with other damage traits.

>

> * Warrior's Cunning: Reduced damage bonus against targets above 90% health from 25% to 7% in PvP only. Reduced damage bonus against targets with barrier from 50% to 10% in PvP only.

That's also a heavy hand. Nerf a little now and a bit more later if needed.

> **Staff Thief**

> As mentioned the other day, we want to revisit the recent change to Debilitating Arc for the next balance update. There are still concerns about putting it back to 4 initiative, but it doesn’t really make sense for it to coexist with Vault at 6. We’re reducing the cost to 5 while making some minor adjustments to Quick Pockets and Staff Master.

>

> * Quick Pockets: Reduced initiative gained on weapon swap from 3 to 2 in PvP only

> * Staff Master: Reduced endurance gain per initiative spent from 2 to 1 in PvP only

> * Debilitating Arc: Reduced initiative cost from 6 to 5 in PvP only

Seems good.

You could also remove the dodge frames from Vault. Its already a very strong leap with damage and AoE, it never needed the dodge frames.

> @"VoidNard.7206" said:

> > @"SoulSin.5682" said:

> > > @"VoidNard.7206" said:

> > > PvP is embarrassingly bad, its difficult to imagine any new player enjoying this game mode. Theres so much dmg going around that a breeze from the wind could take away half your hp. Other than deadeye players, does anyone even enjoy one shooting players? If you dodge a split second too late or too early and youre chained cced and youre dead.

> >

> > Described every new player on any PvP game.

> > Its like getting hooked and OHK.O by Roadhog while playing Tracer on Overwatch. Its pointless to cry, if you wanna improve you need to suck it and learn it.

> >

> > > @"VoidNard.7206" said:

> > > A lot of people will say that "oh thats like, your opinion man! I Dont see anything wrong with pvp, its perfect!",

> > Don't think anyone ever said that.

> >

> > > @"VoidNard.7206" said:

> > > but thats makes you either a troll or clueless and delusional about the state of balance of pvp. By balance i mean power creep, and power is too high right now. Ever since the HoTs patch, pvp has gone down hill, and I know im not the only who thinks that. I hope they fix their game, because to me this game is dead, since I dont enjoy pve. Will anet do anything about power creep?

> > New players rarely care about balance as they simply didn't play the game long enough to make head or tails of the game mechanics.

> >

> > About new players dying faster due to "power creep", keep in mind that things hitting hard have always existed in this game.

> > They do indeed hit harder now, but cheese builds have existed from the whole story of GW2.

> >

> > Also, said new players tend to move and use cheap builds as well. Until they play long enough to notice why they are not Meta.

> >

> > > @"VoidNard.7206" said:

> > > Its hard to tell since they rarely communicate with the community.

> >

> > https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/90773/lets-talk-about-pvp-balance

> >

>

> I dont think you ever put yourself in the shoes of a new player whos playing gw2 pvp in 2019 for the first time.... you obviously dont know what its like

2019 new players also don't need to deal with near immortal Elementalists, stunlock hammer/bow warriors, thieves that could players spamming heartseeker or Turret engies.

Or when you would hit a necro and get 7 seconds of fear and die just like that.

Or that cursed rune that would deal confusion on interrupt?

Remenber everyone and their mother walking around WvW will full set of Dires?

Every generation had its cheeses

> @"VoidNard.7206" said:

> PvP is embarrassingly bad, its difficult to imagine any new player enjoying this game mode. Theres so much dmg going around that a breeze from the wind could take away half your hp. Other than deadeye players, does anyone even enjoy one shooting players? If you dodge a split second too late or too early and youre chained cced and youre dead.

Described every new player on any PvP game.

Its like getting hooked and OHK.O by Roadhog while playing Tracer on Overwatch. Its pointless to cry, if you wanna improve you need to suck it and learn it.

> @"VoidNard.7206" said:

> A lot of people will say that "oh thats like, your opinion man! I Dont see anything wrong with pvp, its perfect!",

Don't think anyone ever said that.

> @"VoidNard.7206" said:

> but thats makes you either a troll or clueless and delusional about the state of balance of pvp. By balance i mean power creep, and power is too high right now. Ever since the HoTs patch, pvp has gone down hill, and I know im not the only who thinks that. I hope they fix their game, because to me this game is dead, since I dont enjoy pve. Will anet do anything about power creep?

New players rarely care about balance as they simply didn't play the game long enough to make head or tails of the game mechanics.

About new players dying faster due to "power creep", keep in mind that things hitting hard have always existed in this game.

They do indeed hit harder now, but cheese builds have existed from the whole story of GW2.

Also, said new players tend to move and use cheap builds as well. Until they play long enough to notice why they are not Meta.

> @"VoidNard.7206" said:

> Its hard to tell since they rarely communicate with the community.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/90773/lets-talk-about-pvp-balance

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> I don’t see you putting up any better ideas. If you’re so good at pointing out what’s bad, then surely you could offer “good” suggestions?

Better ideas for? There is no need to change something that is not broken.

This is like making a post of how to nerf renegades when they are already one of the worst PvP classes of the game.

It's you who want to nerf stealth, please bring the table better arguments.