Constructiv discussion about Core Thief and Daredevil in the wake of the Deadeye rework

[ShadowAgent.6053]

> @"norbes.3620" said:

>

> i dont disagree with u but this thread was opened to mainly Focus on the PvE functionality of thief gameplay in high end Content

>

> so u should indeed not mix it with pvp or wvw because thats not what this discussion is focused on.

>

>

>

>

 

True that the discussion is mainly centered around PvE, but any changes to the core functionality of the class (initiative, weapon procs, adding ammo charges etc.) would impact every game mode and feedback from players of that mode should not be ignored.

Number tweakin is one thing, but I am personally strongly agains changes that would fundamentally alter the way the class plays between modes. This comes from a person that spends his time almost exclusively in PvE.

[babazhook.6805]

> @"ShadowAgent.6053" said:

> > @"norbes.3620" said:

> >

> > i dont disagree with u but this thread was opened to mainly Focus on the PvE functionality of thief gameplay in high end Content

> >

> > so u should indeed not mix it with pvp or wvw because thats not what this discussion is focused on.

> >

> >

> >

> >

>

> True that the discussion is mainly centered around PvE, but any changes to the core functionality of the class (initiative, weapon procs, adding ammo charges etc.) would impact every game mode and feedback from players of that mode should not be ignored.

> Number tweakin is one thing, but I am personally strongly agains changes that would fundamentally alter the way the class plays between modes. This comes from a person that spends his time almost exclusively in PvE.

 

Correct. The call is continually made for more DPS and transforming skills so as to provide the same without understanding the impact this has on PvP and in WvW. It understood why DPS so important when fighting bosses in raids and fractals and that because those bosses have hundreds of thousands of hitpoints. What happens though is that when "more damage" becomes the only fix ALL of the other skills are diminished in PvP and in WvW and that mode becomes ever less skillful and more about damage. If one or two hits can take down anyone given other players have around 20000 hp as opposed to boss fights where there hundreds and thousands and more Hitpoints then tactical play and skill usage vanishes completely in favor of kill them quick.

 

One poster suggesting things like weakening strikes or Dust strike allow more damage on vault. We already have plenty of damage on vault so why? That blind and that dust strike may not be useful fighting a boss, but they very useful against other players.

 

Now were there a complet e firewall between the modes this would not be an issue but CHANGING skills so they can all be used to enhance damage is exactly what WvW and Pvp does not need.As the system currently exists it impossible not to mix up the modes. Changes do not happen in isolation from one another. This likely a mistake on the part of ANET but it is the reality.

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"ShadowAgent.6053" said:

> > @"norbes.3620" said:

> >

> > i dont disagree with u but this thread was opened to mainly Focus on the PvE functionality of thief gameplay in high end Content

> >

> > so u should indeed not mix it with pvp or wvw because thats not what this discussion is focused on.

> >

> >

> >

> >

>

> True that the discussion is mainly centered around PvE, but any changes to the core functionality of the class (initiative, weapon procs, adding ammo charges etc.) would impact every game mode and feedback from players of that mode should not be ignored.

> Number tweakin is one thing, but I am personally strongly agains changes that would fundamentally alter the way the class plays between modes. This comes from a person that spends his time almost exclusively in PvE.

 

I'm glad at least someone understands this concept.

 

Class design should be catered to the PvP modes to prevent issues like what we had before - stealth OHKO from defensive/safe builds - and what we have with Scourge which is literally doing all roles the best. Because you're interacting by both playing as and against a given build, it should be tolerable to both play as and against with clear lines drawn for weaknesses and strengths. Concept is so much more important in PvP and WvW than it is in PvE; D/D is a godawful kit in competitive because it effectively only has two skills that are useful while it dominates PvE because it offers strictly higher damage than everything else.

 

Numbers should be tweaked in PvE to keep things viable if they're struggling to complete content. But really not much further than that. It also makes sense to do both shaving off the top and bumping up the bottom rather than hitting just over/under-performers with one nerf/buff to close the gap. And even then, I'd suggest this only really need to be done for raids because balance means nothing in open world content.

 

As I recently learned from a friend, FF14 "tolerates" the use of DPS meters for personal record-keeping, but it's a bannable (and regularly enforced, apparently) offense to use it as leverage to get someone to change their build or kick them from a party. It'd be cool to see that direction taken to reduce toxicity in raids, if needing to buff the tolerances on enrage timers a bit on some of the raid bosses.

[Lucinellia.9247]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> Class design should be catered to the PvP modes to prevent issues like what we had before - stealth OHKO from defensive/safe builds - and what we have with Scourge which is literally doing all roles the best. Because you're interacting by both playing as and against a given build, it should be tolerable to both play as and against with clear lines drawn for weaknesses and strengths. Concept is so much more important in PvP and WvW than it is in PvE; D/D is a godawful kit in competitive because it effectively only has two skills that are useful while it dominates PvE because it offers strictly higher damage than everything else.

 

No it absolutely should not. The majority of the player base is not PvP focused and we've seen the outcome of a rework which ignores PvE outcomes in the situation of Deadeye - Anet ends up gutting weapon sets, making mechanics more clunky for the majority of players and run the risk of going through with changes which are ignored by the majority of the player base.

 

> Numbers should be tweaked in PvE to keep things viable if they're struggling to complete content. But really not much further than that.

 

So why can't mechanics be changed for PvE and then numbers tweaked in PvP? You've given no reason why that shouldn't be the case. The less popular game mode should not dominate and come before what engages the most players.

 

> As I recently learned from a friend, FF14 "tolerates" the use of DPS meters for personal record-keeping, but it's a bannable (and regularly enforced, apparently) offense to use it as leverage to get someone to change their build or kick them from a party. It'd be cool to see that direction taken to reduce toxicity in raids, if needing to buff the tolerances on enrage timers a bit on some of the raid bosses.

 

That would have no impact - people are still aware of the potential of a profession through utility and you'd need to remove the Special Forces Training Area too. You don't fix issues with something like Thief by attempting to obscure the problem.

[Lucinellia.9247]

>@"babazhook.6805" said:

>There then a common suggestion that skill tied to the number of different buttons pressed. Again a fallacy. When one is only fighting an AI script one responds with the optimal rotation which does not take a lot to learn. Pressing 1 then 2 and three over and over again because 1d and 2 boost the damage done by 3 is NOT more skilled. It is just as repetitive as pressing 3 and 3 and 3. If the only goal is increasing DPS against an AN AI script then all skills will seem useless unless they add to DPS. This is not a function of "skilled gameplay". Again when fighting a champion in a keep I use less of SKILLED gameplay and focus more on my DPS skills.

 

Goodness. **Read** what I write and try and understand it before posting, All rogue like classes in MMOs have suffered from simplicity of rotation which is why you introduce chance on hit modifiers ([procs](http:// "procs") - an explanation of which I already linked). A proc might be something along the lines of Weakening Charge having a "20% Chance on Hit to increase the Damage of Vault by 50% for 3 seconds". This means the standard PvE rotation is no longer limited to a rotation that can be learned and the player must adapt to the situation changing and also plays into the "risk and reward" supposed design of thief - the risk would be having a lower damage output unless we use the chance on hit proc correctly, in which case we are "rewarded" with a higher damage skill that we wouldn't normally used. This could be integrated in all sorts of interesting ways for PvE - "50% Chance on Headshot dealing Break Bar Damage to increase Unload damage by 100% for 2 seconds". With an accompanying UI element to the right hand side of the player to signify that the proc is active, the "risk" becomes failing a break bar while the reward would be massively increased damage. Chance on hit works well for Thief-like classes which is why it is used in a range of different MMOs, both in PvE and PvP. Of course, procs could also be made PvP-centric.

 

It is not "Pressing 1 then 2 and three over and over again because 1d and 2 boost the damage done by 3 is NOT more skilled.". You have fundamentally misunderstood my post and my points just so you can look down your nose at PvE players and continue to argue from a PvP-centric point of view _which this thread is not focused on._

 

But if you want to talk about an actual fallacy...

 

> You continue to focus on Damage and DPS as being the only reason why one would want to use a given skill. This tells me your singular focus is PVE and raids or fractals where people treat DPS like a religion.

 

Incorrect with a bit of a straw man fallacy thrown in. Doing this adds no value to a discussion - stop making incorrect assumptions about players and game modes. If you don't have sufficient experience _don't talk about it_. I don't try and make points about PvP after all...

 

DPS is not treated like a "religion". The singular focus is not "Damage and DPS". If it was, condi Daredevil would have seen more play in raids than condi Renegade during the last balance patch because it was able to obtain higher damage in the majority of situations where condition damage is desirable. It didn't. There were around 4,000 instances of condi Daredevil recorded and about 10,000 for condi Renegade because the latter provides _useful utility_ such as boon strip, emergency might and alacrity, AoE heal and condi suppression and leech healing through Soulcleave's Summit. Which points to the other problem with Thief which I'll quote myself on;

 

>@"Miatela.5047" said:

> In those situations, vulnerability is already stacked, blinds are not helpful unless you are struggling to the extent of wiping on trash and you are going to run into the problem of wanting to use only the one ability that deals the most damage since that is your primary role as a DPS player.

 

Many professions get chosen over others because of the utility they bring. Thief currently offers no worthwhile utility in PvE and pointing to the functionality of Dust Strike in PvP isn't going to change that.

 

>@babazhook.6805 said:

> One poster suggesting things like weakening strikes or Dust strike allow more damage on vault. We already have plenty of damage on vault so why? That blind and that dust strike may not be useful fighting a boss, but they very useful against other players.

 

Again, a complete misunderstanding of my points regarding procs and chance on hit modifiers. I'd strongly suggest that you go back and read what I've posted. Follow the links I've included too so you can have a basic understanding of the use of procs to increase complexity and modify PvE rotations.

 

You've been trying to tell me that we just press our highest DPS button - you should know that in a PvE context (_which this thread is about despite attempts to make it otherwise_) that is Weakening Charge. A changing rotation weaving in a DPS buffed Vault (which isn't a favourable choice in PvE unless you have enough targets to cleave) which is not always going to activate, due to inclusion of a chance on hit modifier, adds a further skill ceiling which Thief badly needs. With more damage coming from interactions like this, numbers can be better tuned (for both PvP and PvE).

 

Another example specific to dagger/dagger might be "20% Chance on Backstab hit to cause the next Heartseeker to deal 300% increased damage. Effect lasts for 2 seconds and is consumed by using Heartseeker". A change like this vastly increases the complexity of the dagger/dagger rotation which is basically auto attack, Cloak and Dagger, Backstab with Assassin's Signet used before Backstab or Shadow Flare hits. With the proc built in and a suitable UI element to signify that it is active, there is the chance for the rotation to become auto, Cloak and Dagger, Backstab, Heartseeker and then due to the new Malice interaction, a player wanting to maximise damage is then faced with the decision of whether or not to immediately consume a higher Malice Backstab or wait for Assassin's Signet, depending on cooldown, to further modify the damage of the increased damage Malicious Backstab, a decision which may also impact when Shadow Flare and any Venoms are used. This makes the rotation non-linear and less something that can be learned, and something that changes depending on chance, player decisions and situations in a fight.

 

Finally, can you please stop spinning this PvE-orientated thread with points about PvP and WvW? If you'd like to discuss those areas, where Thief is generally doing better than PvE, create your own discussion please.

[babazhook.6805]

>Goodness. Read what I write and try and understand it before posting, All rogue like classes in MMOs have suffered from simplicity of rotation which is why you introduce chance on hit modifiers (procs - an explanation of which I already linked). A proc might be something along the lines of Weakening Charge having a "20% Chance on Hit to increase the Damage of Vault by 50% for 3 seconds". This means the standard PvE rotation is no longer limited to a rotation that can be learned and the player must adapt to the situation changing and also plays into the "risk and reward" supposed design of thief - the risk would be having a lower damage output unless we use the chance on hit proc correctly, in which case we are "rewarded" with a higher damage skill that we wouldn't normally used

 

I READ what you wrote and when I said you were focused just on the DPS you were doing exactly that. You want to add more damage to Vault. You want to add more damage to HS all predicated on using another skill while saying it about higher skill. Your suggestion, as example of increasing HS damage by 300 percent would make a mockery of virtually every enemy you face out there , be it in WvW Pvp OR open world PVE. The only place it would not have that affect is in your Boss fights in Raids.

 

You then point to "linear gameplay" suggesting that it be made better if more added to a rotation. The reason you experience "linear gameplay" is because of the mode you are talking about and that fighting a scripted AI. ANY game out there ends up in the same place when one fighting an AI , that being an optimal rotation found after some experimentation and then that optimal rotation insisted upon by the group or the player who does not follow it is griefed. Adding more choices does not change this , it only means some fewer participants in the fight will be able to follow it on demand and those that do not will receive that same grief.

 

I have stated several times that if there wre a firewall between the various game modes wherein changes to a profession fighting a boss in a raid had NO effect on what happens elsewhere < i would have no problems with whatever it is you want to suggest. That is NOT how this works and pretending otherwise while suggesting other people not bring these factors into a conversation is litte more then sophistry . You are asking for fundamental changes as to how a skill works and not just differences in the "numbers".

 

Now to your "this about PVE and nothing else" Ok to PVE.

 

Assuming I can get 50 percent more damage to vault via a proc as you suggested, or 300 percent to a HS. 99 percent of open world PVE is NOT raids on raid bosses. Do you know how absolutely trivial that would make eny engagement? Do you know how much easier it would make those boss fights outside of the raids such as Karka queen or those timed events in the Heart of maguuma? There a reason fw show up at those boss fights anymore and that because those fights are routine. In a RAID you are limited to 10 players pumping out that DPS. In Open world you can have 40 or more on a single boss. 40 or more with a chunk pumping out 300 percent higher Heartseekers or 50 percent higher Vaults means a complete redesign of those bosses needed. ANET can not break all modes of Gameplay just to address the concerns of one small group of players that favor one game mode type.

[Dralor.3701]

Just my opinion as a long time MMO player and as someone who has done game design/development.

 

Balancing for PvE is really easy, most of it can just be addressed by tweaking numbers and making sure whatever roles you want to address are covered. The rest is just working out fight mechanics and the range/melee issues.

 

Pvp is always going to be more complicated and require a finer touch. If you do not design and balance with PvP in mind you are not only destined to fail; you are also going to repeat your work because you will overlook a game breaking balance issue and have to push out a nerf.

 

I get that PvE and PvP players don’t get along but we all play the same game like it or not.

 

Anyway, stealth classes often have issue in PvE because stealth is a hard mechanic to quantify in that game mode. I get that thief needs more damage in PvE but then they run around one-shotting people in the other modes.(skill split I guess but lazy?)

 

Personally I think thief mainly needs more utility as it’s glaring #1 issue, survivability without having to rely on stealth would also be nice.

[Lucinellia.9247]

> @"babazhook.6805" said:

> I READ what you wrote and when I said you were focused just on the DPS you were doing exactly that. You want to add more damage to Vault. You want to add more damage to HS all predicated on using another skill while saying it about higher skill. Your suggestion, as example of increasing HS damage by 300 percent would make a mockery of virtually every enemy you face out there , be it in WvW Pvp OR open world PVE. The only place it would not have that affect is in your Boss fights in Raids.

 

You clearly didn't and you've just done it again! You totally missed my points regarding renegade (and utility) by accusing me of being focused on DPS and yet again misunderstood procs while ignoring that I suggest this come with balance to PvP and PvE numbers. . **I** also don't want to do anything - that's Anet's job. I'm trying to make constructive suggestions so you can quit it with trying to make things about _me_ rather than what is proposed. These are just rough ideas, not serious suggestions. Maybe I need to seriously preface what I say with a large content warning that "This is just a suggestion for how mechanics work, not numbers for absolutely serious balancing which I have clearly not been able to test because I am not actually a developer."...

 

> You then point to "linear gameplay" suggesting that it be made better if more added to a rotation. The reason you experience "linear gameplay" is because of the mode you are talking about and that fighting a scripted AI. ANY game out there ends up in the same place when one fighting an AI , that being an optimal rotation found after some experimentation and then that optimal rotation insisted upon by the group or the player who does not follow it is griefed.

 

Please, please stop talking like fighting "scripted AI" is lesser than what you do. I'm not suggesting that you are a poorer player for enjoying ganking people in WvW or fighting over a point (see how easy it is to build straw arguments that benefit no one?). If you take anything from this conversation, please avoid using these little jabs about what people enjoying doing in-game. It doesn't help and will just deter new voices from trying to be heard in this echo chamber.

 

Regardless, your points make little sense. A rotation that inherently has RNG is never fully optimal because of when an ability procs and how a player responds to it. That is why they are used so successfully in a number of games which moved past the concept of a rotation and towards skill priorities years and years ago.

 

> Adding more choices does not change this , it only means some fewer participants in the fight will be able to follow it on demand and those that do not will receive that same grief.

 

What? This is nonsense and founded on no evidence. If people couldn't follow procs and Chance on Hit abilities then they wouldn't be used in many other MMOs. If people can follow the rotation of a condition engineer or a weaver (which clearly they can do), I'm sure they'd manage with pressing 2 when a UI element pops up. It definitely adds complexity and a degree of chance and variation (which is direly needed for Thief and is lacking in general for an action combat game) but it is far from insurmountable.

 

But again, your arguments are confused and you've tried to argue two totally different points - that there is an optimal rotation somewhere regardless but there will also not be one which will mean that it will be too difficult for people to follow. That doesn't make sense.

 

> I have stated several times that if there wre a firewall between the various game modes wherein changes to a profession fighting a boss in a raid had NO effect on what happens elsewhere < i would have no problems with whatever it is you want to suggest. That is NOT how this works and pretending otherwise while suggesting other people not bring these factors into a conversation is litte more then sophistry . You are asking for fundamental changes as to how a skill works and not just differences in the "numbers".

 

Yes, I am asking for fundamental changes because Thief is in a _terrible place_. Something more than numerical changes are needed and I didn't realise this discussion was limited to only numerical proposals - I must have missed that part in the original post asking for discussion. Listen to the complaints of others - many of us posting here are doing for the first time since the rework because the lack of changes, lack of balance and lack of direction with Thief is actively killing the profession in the most popular game modes which includes raids, fractals _and_ open world.

 

And for someone that makes accusations of sophistry, you are doing a lot of insisting that PvE can only receive numerical balancing and not mechanical changes due to PvP . Numerical changes can occur in PvP too believe it or not - and in response to large PvE changes! This is, shockingly, how class development and changes _should_ occur - in tandem over all modes. After all, there were considerable mechanical reworks with the Deadeye change which were not tested in PvE and it hasn't exactly been grand which is why myself and many first time posters are here, polluting the PvP-centricity, with PvE concerns. Sorry about that.

 

> Assuming I can get 50 percent more damage to vault via a proc as you suggested, or 300 percent to a HS. 99 percent of open world PVE is NOT raids on raid bosses. Do you know how absolutely trivial that would make eny engagement?... ANET can not break all modes of Gameplay just to address the concerns of one small group of players that favor one game mode type.

 

So even with this thread (and many people in it) asking for the discussion to be focused on high end PvE balance...

 

Numbers could be readjusted for baseline DPS in all game modes (easy to do) and encounters in open world are already trivial and are broken by years of power creep. And the reason people don't turn up is probably because they are sick of 5+ years of doing them. Open world encounters do not have the boon uptime or distribution that players do in raids and many mechanics force people out from stacking easily. Anet would also likely want to keep DPS benchmarks roughly, or below, where they are now. The situations aren't comparable and your concerns can easily be resolved by Thief doing less auto attack damage and relying more on actually using abilities - one of the biggest issues in this thread! Or, you know, with balancing.

 

Anyway, I'll soon be making people sick of me in every thread so I'll leave this one here. Thanks for the discussions!

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"Miatela.5047" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > Class design should be catered to the PvP modes to prevent issues like what we had before - stealth OHKO from defensive/safe builds - and what we have with Scourge which is literally doing all roles the best. Because you're interacting by both playing as and against a given build, it should be tolerable to both play as and against with clear lines drawn for weaknesses and strengths. Concept is so much more important in PvP and WvW than it is in PvE; D/D is a godawful kit in competitive because it effectively only has two skills that are useful while it dominates PvE because it offers strictly higher damage than everything else.

>

> No it absolutely should not. The majority of the player base is not PvP focused and we've seen the outcome of a rework which ignores PvE outcomes in the situation of Deadeye - Anet ends up gutting weapon sets, making mechanics more clunky for the majority of players and run the risk of going through with changes which are ignored by the majority of the player base.

>

 

Raids are actually done by the fewest number of players in the game and DE works fine otherwise from a performance standpoint. There is some clunkiness, sure. But that's mostly from SScope and is being addressed. If anything, ANet failed its PvP goals even more with the changes with unblockable DJ and Malicious backstab. But that's because they designed themselves into a corner with a concept that doesn't work in this game. Which is what I said initially when I proposed the Deadeye and why my design went the way it did, which I explained in the documentation.

 

A while ago, ANet published stats about game mode popularity; even sPvP which is definitively less populous than WvW ranked above raids and there are probably only a few thousand players actually doing sPvP. Raid benchmarking and screaming for balance over DPS numbers is literally the definition of a vocal minority.

 

All of the core game was designed with PvP in mind. Did anyone really complain about the concepts of the professions in PvE back then? Not really save maybe ranger with its pet constantly dying in group play. So ANet fixed that with numbers for PvE-only and then made Soulbeast. Do you see my point?

 

The only reason people are complaining about the DE changes are because it lost DPS on rifle. An overwhelming majority of the suggestions to fix rifle in PvE are just asking for more damage. Stealth on dodge roll means nothing in this context. Kneel doesn't need to be utilized anymore which should be a PvE buff. Immobilizing/crippling a boss and gaining swiftness also mean nothing. A non-evade short-range reposition has no place. Literally everything about the rifle except three skills and two traits was completely useless in PvE. The DE was never actually designed for PvE and the initial implementation of slow accumulation of malice should be a testament to that fact. If ANet wanted a support/damage elite spec concept for the thief, they'd have taken the original version of the Deadeye I proposed just after HoT launched, which I know made it to developers. The link with is available in my signature. I never edited it so it still has the formatting tags for the old forums.

 

> > Numbers should be tweaked in PvE to keep things viable if they're struggling to complete content. But really not much further than that.

>

> So why can't mechanics be changed for PvE and then numbers tweaked in PvP? You've given no reason why that shouldn't be the case. The less popular game mode should not dominate and come before what engages the most players.

 

Because the mechanics matter more in PvP, and the game's PvP participation has declined over the years specifically because it gets no attention in the concept of what is released. Pro players were vocal about this for years before they just gave up competing because it stopped being fun with how poorly the professions started to be designed. It is really, really abysmal. You just put down the example of the DE. People using it in PvE barely even used the skills like I said above. How many D/D thieves in PvE do you see using Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger? As long as there exists some rotation in there for maximized DPS, PvE is happy. Meanwhile, D/D is one of the worst loadouts possible of all professions in the entire game in the PvP formats, because skills 2-4 are complete garbage by their design and most professions will kill you before you can successfully land a CnD and punish you when you do. D/D worked in the old iteration of the game, and even then, its viability came mostly prior to when they added Revealed to the game, where D/D SA thieves would just spam CnD while never breaking stealth and stacking might.

 

It's the same reasoning for why so many disparities have existed between formats for so long. Hammer was terrible in PvE while it dominated PvP. Earth ele was seen as pointless because it dealt no damage but was stacked by pro teams who didn't even play elementalist because it was so strong. Same with scourge and every iteration of necromancer, chronomancer/mesmer, disparities with pre-rework core ranger, and on and on and on.

 

Hell, Blurred Frenzy got buffed an asinine amount to help mesmer's DPS because sword wasn't really usable in PvE despite being the single strongest weapon on the class for all PvP purposes.

 

The entire point is you **need** to have cohesive kit design for the PvP formats. Numbers changes make things FoTM cheese but little else. Unhealthy patterns are so much more significant.

 

The only justification for not designing things around PvP and to do so exclusively for PvE is because people want some kind of crazy power fantasy. I say to those people: Go play single player hack and slash games. MMO's are about teaming up and working together to do things you knowingly can't do alone. They're about community. And any community consisting of people insisting they're the best is doomed to fail or be disjoint at best.

[Lucinellia.9247]

>The only reason people are complaining about the DE changes are because it lost DPS on rifle. An overwhelming majority of the suggestions to fix rifle in PvE are just asking for more damage. Stealth on dodge roll means nothing in this context. Kneel doesn't need to be utilized anymore which should be a PvE buff. Immobilizing/crippling a boss and gaining swiftness also mean nothing. A non-evade short-range reposition has no place. Literally everything about the rifle except three skills and two traits was completely useless in PvE. The DE was never actually designed for PvE and the initial implementation of slow accumulation of malice should be a testament to that fact. If ANet wanted a support/damage elite spec concept for the thief, they'd have taken the original version of the Deadeye I proposed just after HoT launched, which I know made it to developers. The link with is available in my signature. I never edited it so it still has the formatting tags for the old forums.

 

Countless people have been complaining about how clunky the mechanics are for Deadeye now - the suggestion of a quick damage fix is because that is the easiest change and what will get us into a decent position for PvE quickest - which is what this thread is about. That you believe Stealth on dodge roll means nothing in the context of PvE is a worry (positioning and access to abilities is absolutely a concern in PvE) and that shows with some of your further comments especially with "Kneel doesn't need to be utilized anymore which should be a PvE buff. " (nope, nope, nope) and your belief that Deadeye has never been designed for PvE. Spellbreaker was also designed for PvP, the same with Scourge and both of them have been tuned to allow for good utility and DPS in PvE - even Scrapper has healing utility in PvE now! So I don't buy the "Deadeye isn't for PvE argument", especially with PvE centric traits baked in during the rework (hello Perfectionist).

 

I do agree with you and believe that Deadeye needs changes and I'd agree with it as a support spec - but for it to be such _currently_ it also needs to bring decent damage or have a considerable mechanical rework which seems to draw the ire of PvP players who feel the need to jump into threads about high-end PvE and make the thread about them.

 

> The entire point is you need to have cohesive kit design for the PvP formats. Numbers changes make things FoTM cheese but little else. Unhealthy patterns are so much more significant.

 

I agree. Fully. However, I disagree massively with the posters in this forum that are absolutely adamant that PvP balance should come before _anything_ else and that PvE does not deserve mechanical changes and only numerical tweaks. I know that this is something of an unpopular opinion on these forums, but I don't think PvP should be an absolute or even primary focus (balance should be across all modes) and changes made with PvP in mind should not negatively impact PvE and vice versa. Failing to consider that is how you end up with low engagement, low damage and low utility professions in PvE - like Thief.

 

Anyway, all of this discussion about PvP and its relative importance in balancing is just detracting from the focus of this thread which was initially created to discuss high-end PvE issues. I get that some forum members aren't used to having to deal with us PvE Thief players actually having a voice but if we could have this topic at least for PvE Thief focused discourse that would be lovely.

 

And with that, I'm truly out. Sorry!

[Bramymond.7689]

_Edit: deleted_

[Bramymond.7689]

_Edit: deleted_

[SoulSin.5682]

The talk about staff and reveiled training made me think of something.

 

Wouldn't be interesting to suggest a change to [smoke Screen](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Smoke_Screen "Smoke Screen") ?

I always found the concept of "charges" for skills like Distracting daggers interesting and perhaps we could apply that to skills as well.

Either way, as way to have easy call to revealed on PvE would be giving 2~3 casts of Smoke Screen (for reduced time ofc, reduce 7s to 2~3s).

 

For PvE, would sinergy with Bound and grant revelead training for the current Staff rotation while on PvP would give an accessible access to stealth to Staff and D/D users alike. Plus a 2 second projectile barrier on call has many uses as well. Smoke Screen doesn't reflect so it wouldnt be much broken.

Plus, if any future new specialization class for thief grant us a new off hand weapon (Like Focus, shield, torch, etc) we would still have access to stealth without being slave to pistol off hand.

 

Downside would be the fact we already have that effect on DE Rifle and no one ever asked for it.

 

 

Edit: Other skills that could receive this treatment are [scorpion Wire](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Scorpion_Wire "Scorpion Wire") and perhaps [Caltrops](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Caltrops "Caltrops"). Reduced duration/effect for more casts.