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Some constructive feedback about Unhindered Combatant change.


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@"Karl McLain.5604" and Anet devs: I apologize for pinging you so much, but I felt my most recent post was rude. Thieves everywhere are very upset about the change to Unhindered Combatant. This outrage is at the same level as when Steal was changed to only work when the thief had a target. That change was made years ago, and the outrage was such that a patch the following day or earlier, reversed the change, saying it was a "bug." It's quite possible you guys may have to revert the change or tweak it.

However, I have some things I'd like to know first. Communication is VERY important, so don't be afraid. I will not rip you apart. looks at other thief players And no one else will. I cannot speak for all thieves for my questions, feedback, and suggestions, however.

First, I'd like to thank you that Exhaustion does NOT stack upon removing multiple conditions listed on Unhindered Combatant. I greatly appreciate that.

Second, here's my questions:

1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?

Third, I have some feedback to give about how the change has affected me in PvE. I will say it hasn't made a huge impact on my playstyle. However, during intense battles with plenty of chill/immobilize/cripple mobs, this can be deadly. I have died due to this change and it's making the game less enjoyable. I don't play PvP or WvW unless I need dailies (though, I'm going to need to do lots of PvP/WvW dailies now since I'm making a Legendary), so I don't know the effects there.

Another thing to note, there is also a bug with Daredevil and/or Trickery thieves when dismounting. Three initiative and the third endurance bar is emptied upon dismounting in any way shape or form. I recommend getting someone to fix this bug ASAP as it cripples PvE daredevils and trickery thieves.

Fourth, I have some suggestions for re-tweaking the nerf if it must remain. Remember, Anet's policy is "play the way you want to." I've always interpreted that with "and be successful at it." All builds should be viable, and I know that's probably difficult for the dev team considering all the traitlines, the two elite specs per class of 9 classes. So, here are my suggestions:1) (Required) Remove Exhaustion from PvE. It's not needed there because PvE has no competitive nature (that is, if Exhaustion was the reason for being added).2) (Option 1) Exhaustion gives -50% endurance regen instead of -100%. This still debuffs the ability to 'spam' Dash in the competitive areas, and does not punish the Daredevil as much.3) (Option 2) Add a 4 second Internal Cooldown for the removal of Chilled, Crippled, and Immobilized when using Dash.4) (Option 3) Unhindered Combatant has a 4 second cooldown entirely, but Dash still happens when dodging.

NOTE: Options 1, 2, and 3 can't all be added/changed together. Please pick one.

I'm no master of balancing, but I implore you to talk to us, communicate with us, and listen to us. Silence creates fear in the players that the devs aren't listening. Fear is a primary emotion, which leads to a secondary emotion: anger. I know you can't make promises and you must word your posts carefully, but at least talk to us.

As for everyone else, pitch in your feedback, too, but keep it civilized, do not flame the devs, and stay calm. Rage is what keeps the devs from talking to us, if we want that communication, we need to calm down.

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This is now the only class in the game that can be punished by use of a basic mechanic when affected by a handful of common conditions by nature of design, whether or not it was used properly, and it is both one of the most fragile classes and intended to be the most mobile.

If the escape potential for thieves is too high, maybe it would behoove the devs to focus on allowing them options to be capable brawlers instead of making their only viable option fragile, but speedy, then nerfing their speed from the ground up.I'm not going to stay near a fight if I am outnumbered and do not have the vitality or defense options to survive, regardless of what class I am on.There's several other ways this could have been handled, if it was a problem at all.

Bandit's defense nerf was also unnecessary, both of them in tandem seems maliciously destructive.

And I'm not playing deadeye. I don't want to. It's not filling the niche that the thieves needed. (Brawler). I will play something else.

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  • ArenaNet Staff

1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?"One important balance change in this update is the change to Unhindered Combatant. While thieves, and by extension daredevils, are intended to be slippery combatants, the escape potential for this trait was a little too high."Unhindered Combatant has long been dominant in multiple game-types. It represents a longer distance movement option, condition-break, and swiftness generator. We like these things.The issue, however, is that there is almost no 'counter' play to the functionality... in that neither players nor designers have a way to whittle down the thief's defensive capabilities short of one-shotting them in a time where there are no evade frames occurring. We want the thief to remain incredibly mobile, but need to introduce some soft-counters so that there are methods to hinder the super-defensive nature of UC builds. We'll keep watch of Exhaustion's interactions with Unhindered Combatant and will adjust as necessary.

2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?First off: As a rule we don't split skill and trait functionality changes ("functionality" being the keyword here). There are some things that we are okay with splitting such as damage, condition duration/stacks, resource cost, etc. However we don't want to make skills which apply different buffs or have different cast times or number of hits based on game mode. This rule is in place to preserve skill cohesion and prevent confusion when switching game modes. It's not a rule that we plan on changing.

Secondarily: Its condition-removal is built-in and is inseparable from the dodge-mechanic so long as you have the trait equipped. It's feasibly possible to 'remove' the trait and return you to a 'normal' dodge, but consistency is also important in that your dodge button should pretty much always do the same thing.

-SnB

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Thanks for the post, that means a lot to us, regardless of our viewpoint on the change.

I see that you mentioned introducing a soft-counter, which is indeed healthy, but I don't think a self-counter is healthy for any type of gameplay. Especially when any build that is not using an offhand pistol relies on dodging for almost all damage mitigation. I wish I could provide input on an alternative, but I don't have anything at the moment that fits what was outlined in your text.

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@"Karl McLain.5604" said:1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?"One important balance change in this update is the change to Unhindered Combatant. While thieves, and by extension daredevils, are intended to be slippery combatants, the escape potential for this trait was a little too high."Unhindered Combatant has long been dominant in multiple game-types. It represents a longer distance movement option, condition-break, and swiftness generator. We like these things.The issue, however, is that there is almost no 'counter' play to the functionality... in that neither players nor designers have a way to whittle down the thief's defensive capabilities short of one-shotting them in a time where there are no evade frames occurring. We want the thief to remain incredibly mobile, but need to introduce some soft-counters so that there are methods to hinder the super-defensive nature of UC builds. We'll keep watch of Exhaustion's interactions with Unhindered Combatant and will adjust as necessary.

2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?First off: As a rule we don't split skill and trait functionality changes ("functionality" being the keyword here). There are some things that we are okay with splitting such as damage, condition duration/stacks, resource cost, etc. However we don't want to make skills which apply different buffs or have different cast times or number of hits based on game mode. This rule is in place to preserve skill cohesion and prevent confusion when switching game modes. It's not a rule that we plan on changing.

Secondarily: Its condition-removal is built-in and is inseparable from the dodge-mechanic so long as you have the trait equipped. It's feasibly possible to 'remove' the trait and return you to a 'normal' dodge, but consistency is also important in that your dodge button should pretty much always do the same thing.

-SnB

How are endurance regeneration foods affected by this change? Are they nulled until the 4 seconds are up and start working again?

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You can still use the trait "Don't stop"

While you have swiftness, movement-impairing conditions have reduced duration. When you gain swiftness, lose a movement-impairing condition.

Chilled Condition RemovedCrippled Condition RemovedImmobile Condition RemovedMiscellaneous effect Conditions Removed: 1Radius. Duration Decreased: 80%

85% of the time this bipasses the exhaustion debuff. So it is still possible to use, for all you acro staff, and sword Drd user's out there, However the Swiftness change: Gain swiftness upon a full dodge roll is beyond me. Which directly nerfs the "Don't Stop" trait, but by a minuscule amount.

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@"Karl McLain.5604" said:1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?"One important balance change in this update is the change to Unhindered Combatant. While thieves, and by extension daredevils, are intended to be slippery combatants, the escape potential for this trait was a little too high."Unhindered Combatant has long been dominant in multiple game-types. It represents a longer distance movement option, condition-break, and swiftness generator. We like these things.The issue, however, is that there is almost no 'counter' play to the functionality... in that neither players nor designers have a way to whittle down the thief's defensive capabilities short of one-shotting them in a time where there are no evade frames occurring. We want the thief to remain incredibly mobile, but need to introduce some soft-counters so that there are methods to hinder the super-defensive nature of UC builds. We'll keep watch of Exhaustion's interactions with Unhindered Combatant and will adjust as necessary.

2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?First off: As a rule we don't split skill and trait functionality changes ("functionality" being the keyword here). There are some things that we are okay with splitting such as damage, condition duration/stacks, resource cost, etc. However we don't want to make skills which apply different buffs or have different cast times or number of hits based on game mode. This rule is in place to preserve skill cohesion and prevent confusion when switching game modes. It's not a rule that we plan on changing.

Secondarily: Its condition-removal is built-in and is inseparable from the dodge-mechanic so long as you have the trait equipped. It's feasibly possible to 'remove' the trait and return you to a 'normal' dodge, but consistency is also important in that your dodge button should pretty much always do the same thing.

-SnB

This makes no sense though. You say that it has no counter play, but thieves themselves needed it to have counter play against condition spam that exists in PvP. Like others have mentioned if we could be better at brawling than it would be okay but we aren't. Dash was part of thief survivability which is already poor at best.

Thieves are very feast or famine. If we do not spike our target down our next best solution is to disengage and the reengage.

You essentially killed this trait and made it probably the weakest out of grandmaster traits. Thieves now have two traits that one was best for condi builds and the other was always almost good enough and now is great as a 10% damage buff and potential combos.

An easy fix would be to reduce the duration of exhaustion and enduracne regen penalization by a certain amount per condition removed. That way using it to clear only 1 still hits but using it to its fullest potential is not punishing.

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@omgdracula.6345 said:An easy fix would be to reduce the duration of exhaustion and enduracne regen penalization by a certain amount per condition removed. That way using it to clear only 1 still hits but using it to its fullest potential is not punishing.

That is a good idea, alot better than the current state for sure. Another idea could be simply giving it a fair ICD on the condi removal part. Anything but the current 4 second exhaustion, it may work for d/p thieves in PVP but it hits really, really hard in WvW scenarios.

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@omgdracula.6345 said:

@"Karl McLain.5604" said:
1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?
"One important balance change in this update is the change to Unhindered Combatant. While thieves, and by extension daredevils, are intended to be slippery combatants, the escape potential for this trait was a little too high."
Unhindered Combatant has long been dominant in multiple game-types. It represents a longer distance movement option, condition-break, and swiftness generator. We like these things.The issue, however, is that there is almost no 'counter' play to the functionality... in that neither players nor designers have a way to whittle down the thief's defensive capabilities short of one-shotting them in a time where there are no evade frames occurring. We want the thief to remain incredibly mobile, but need to introduce some soft-counters so that there are methods to hinder the super-defensive nature of UC builds. We'll keep watch of Exhaustion's interactions with Unhindered Combatant and will adjust as necessary.

2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?
First off: As a rule we don't split skill and trait functionality changes ("functionality" being the keyword here). There are some things that we are okay with splitting such as damage, condition duration/stacks, resource cost, etc. However we don't want to make skills which apply different buffs or have different cast times or number of hits based on game mode. This rule is in place to preserve skill cohesion and prevent confusion when switching game modes. It's not a rule that we plan on changing.

Secondarily: Its condition-removal is built-in and is inseparable from the dodge-mechanic so long as you have the trait equipped. It's feasibly possible to 'remove' the trait and return you to a 'normal' dodge, but consistency is also important in that your dodge button should pretty much always do the same thing.

-SnB

This makes no sense though. You say that it has no counter play, but thieves themselves needed it to have counter play against condition spam that exists in PvP. Like others have mentioned if we could be better at brawling than it would be okay but we aren't. Dash was part of thief survivability which is already poor at best.

Thieves are very feast or famine. If we do not spike our target down our next best solution is to disengage and the reengage.

You essentially killed this trait and made it probably the weakest out of grandmaster traits. Thieves now have two traits that one was best for condi builds and the other was always almost good enough and now is great as a 10% damage buff and potential combos.

An easy fix would be to reduce the duration of exhaustion and enduracne regen penalization by a certain amount per condition removed. That way using it to clear only 1 still hits but using it to its fullest potential is not punishing.

stop with the overreact act, jesus.Every good thief i know has said me that the nerf while it's annoying it doesn't change anything, at least in PvP you should not be affected by this at all unless you're bad which I think a lot of thieves started to realize.

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@Skada.1362 said:

@omgdracula.6345 said:An easy fix would be to reduce the duration of exhaustion and enduracne regen penalization by a certain amount per condition removed. That way using it to clear only 1 still hits but using it to its fullest potential is not punishing.

That is a good idea, alot better than the current state for sure. Another idea could be simply giving it a fair ICD on the condi removal part. Anything but the current 4 second exhaustion, it may work for d/p thieves in PVP but it hits really, really hard in WvW scenarios.

Thanks. I think it needs to keep the condi removal and at least it doesn't stack exhaustion but it is very penalizing on initial use.

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@Elxdark.9702 said:

stop with the overreact act, jesus.Every good thief i know has said me that the nerf while it's annoying it doesn't change anything, at least in PvP you should not be affected by this at all unless you're bad which I think a lot of thieves started to realize.

That isn't really overreacting I am pretty much pointing out that Karl didn't really give any form of good reasoning. You can't sit there and deny that condi spam is not an issue. Dash was the thief counterplay to condi spam which Anet effectively nerfed for no real tangible reason. I am sure that in PvP it isn't a huge difference but like many have said it does affect PvE as well. No reason for the nerf should have crossed lines into pve.

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@omgdracula.6345 said:

@Elxdark.9702 said:

stop with the overreact act, jesus.Every good thief i know has said me that the nerf while it's annoying it doesn't change anything, at least in PvP you should not be affected by this at all unless you're bad which I think a lot of thieves started to realize.

That isn't really overreacting I am pretty much pointing out that Karl didn't really give any form of good reasoning. You can't sit there and deny that condi spam is not an issue. Dash was the thief counterplay to condi spam which Anet effectively nerfed for no real tangible reason. I am sure that in PvP it isn't a huge difference but like many have said it does affect PvE as well. No reason for the nerf should have crossed lines into pve.

He did, at least in pvp you need to check your conditions and not spam your dodge button.They want to keep thief mobility so they will nerf the way thief gets it and not the mobility itself, I disagree because it would have been much easier to just reduce the distance a bit and that's it but Anet loves to complicate things.Maybe in PvE/WvW is worse but I think they made this nerf for pvp and the funny thing is that the other game modes were more affected in the end lol.

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@Elxdark.9702 said:

@omgdracula.6345 said:

@Elxdark.9702 said:

stop with the overreact act, jesus.Every good thief i know has said me that the nerf while it's annoying it doesn't change anything, at least in PvP you should not be affected by this at all unless you're bad which I think a lot of thieves started to realize.

That isn't really overreacting I am pretty much pointing out that Karl didn't really give any form of good reasoning. You can't sit there and deny that condi spam is not an issue. Dash was the thief counterplay to condi spam which Anet effectively nerfed for no real tangible reason. I am sure that in PvP it isn't a huge difference but like many have said it does affect PvE as well. No reason for the nerf should have crossed lines into pve.

He did, at least in pvp you need to check your conditions and not spam your dodge button.They want to keep thief mobility so they will nerf the way thief gets it and not the mobility itself, I disagree because it would have been much easier to just reduce the distance a bit and that's it but Anet loves to complicate things.Maybe in PvE/WvW is worse but I think they made this nerf for pvp and the funny thing is that the other game modes were more affected in the end lol.

You somewhat have to check since UC only removes the 3. So you do and you don't. But I agree on your last point. Also the swiftness being applied at the end is odd because it doesn't really do anything IMHO. Except if you are out of combat I guess.

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@"Karl McLain.5604" said:1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?"One important balance change in this update is the change to Unhindered Combatant. While thieves, and by extension daredevils, are intended to be slippery combatants, the escape potential for this trait was a little too high."Unhindered Combatant has long been dominant in multiple game-types. It represents a longer distance movement option, condition-break, and swiftness generator. We like these things.The issue, however, is that there is almost no 'counter' play to the functionality... in that neither players nor designers have a way to whittle down the thief's defensive capabilities short of one-shotting them in a time where there are no evade frames occurring. We want the thief to remain incredibly mobile, but need to introduce some soft-counters so that there are methods to hinder the super-defensive nature of UC builds. We'll keep watch of Exhaustion's interactions with Unhindered Combatant and will adjust as necessary.

2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?First off: As a rule we don't split skill and trait functionality changes ("functionality" being the keyword here). There are some things that we are okay with splitting such as damage, condition duration/stacks, resource cost, etc. However we don't want to make skills which apply different buffs or have different cast times or number of hits based on game mode. This rule is in place to preserve skill cohesion and prevent confusion when switching game modes. It's not a rule that we plan on changing.

Secondarily: Its condition-removal is built-in and is inseparable from the dodge-mechanic so long as you have the trait equipped. It's feasibly possible to 'remove' the trait and return you to a 'normal' dodge, but consistency is also important in that your dodge button should pretty much always do the same thing.

-SnB

Thanks for popping in for the explanation. Agree or disagree, it's nice to hear from you and read through the reasoning and thought processes.

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@AikijinX.6258 said:You can still use the trait "Don't stop"

While you have swiftness, movement-impairing conditions have reduced duration. When you gain swiftness, lose a movement-impairing condition.

Chilled Condition RemovedCrippled Condition RemovedImmobile Condition RemovedMiscellaneous effect Conditions Removed: 1Radius. Duration Decreased: 80%

85% of the time this bipasses the exhaustion debuff. So it is still possible to use, for all you acro staff, and sword Drd user's out there, However the Swiftness change: Gain swiftness upon a full dodge roll is beyond me. Which directly nerfs the "Don't Stop" trait, but by a minuscule amount.

this is already broken...we can't get swiftness for immobile.. after this patch'Expeditious Dodger: Swiftness granted by this trait will now occur at the end of the dodge.'core NerfedDD NerfedDE Nerfed

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@Elxdark.9702 said:

@omgdracula.6345 said:

@"Karl McLain.5604" said:
1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?
"One important balance change in this update is the change to Unhindered Combatant. While thieves, and by extension daredevils, are intended to be slippery combatants, the escape potential for this trait was a little too high."
Unhindered Combatant has long been dominant in multiple game-types. It represents a longer distance movement option, condition-break, and swiftness generator. We like these things.The issue, however, is that there is almost no 'counter' play to the functionality... in that neither players nor designers have a way to whittle down the thief's defensive capabilities short of one-shotting them in a time where there are no evade frames occurring. We want the thief to remain incredibly mobile, but need to introduce some soft-counters so that there are methods to hinder the super-defensive nature of UC builds. We'll keep watch of Exhaustion's interactions with Unhindered Combatant and will adjust as necessary.

2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?
First off: As a rule we don't split skill and trait functionality changes ("functionality" being the keyword here). There are some things that we are okay with splitting such as damage, condition duration/stacks, resource cost, etc. However we don't want to make skills which apply different buffs or have different cast times or number of hits based on game mode. This rule is in place to preserve skill cohesion and prevent confusion when switching game modes. It's not a rule that we plan on changing.

Secondarily: Its condition-removal is built-in and is inseparable from the dodge-mechanic so long as you have the trait equipped. It's feasibly possible to 'remove' the trait and return you to a 'normal' dodge, but consistency is also important in that your dodge button should pretty much always do the same thing.

-SnB

This makes no sense though. You say that it has no counter play, but thieves themselves needed it to have counter play against condition spam that exists in PvP. Like others have mentioned if we could be better at brawling than it would be okay but we aren't. Dash was part of thief survivability which is already poor at best.

Thieves are very feast or famine. If we do not spike our target down our next best solution is to disengage and the reengage.

You essentially killed this trait and made it probably the weakest out of grandmaster traits. Thieves now have two traits that one was best for condi builds and the other was always almost good enough and now is great as a 10% damage buff and potential combos.

An easy fix would be to reduce the duration of exhaustion and enduracne regen penalization by a certain amount per condition removed. That way using it to clear only 1 still hits but using it to its fullest potential is not punishing.

stop with the overreact act, jesus.Every good thief i know has said me that the nerf while it's annoying it doesn't change anything, at least in PvP you should not be affected by this at all unless you're bad which I think a lot of thieves started to realize.

^This. Reading the majority of the post here give me the same feeling. Its like no thief here played the class before 23th june 2015.. Spam condi is there no doubt, but that doesn't mean UC wasn't OP.@Karl McLain.5604 hope your balance team will also start to tone down the condi spamfest too. Cheers for you reply on the forum tho.

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@Karl McLain.5604 said:1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?"One important balance change in this update is the change to Unhindered Combatant. While thieves, and by extension daredevils, are intended to be slippery combatants, the escape potential for this trait was a little too high."Unhindered Combatant has long been dominant in multiple game-types. It represents a longer distance movement option, condition-break, and swiftness generator. We like these things.The issue, however, is that there is almost no 'counter' play to the functionality... in that neither players nor designers have a way to whittle down the thief's defensive capabilities short of one-shotting them in a time where there are no evade frames occurring. We want the thief to remain incredibly mobile, but need to introduce some soft-counters so that there are methods to hinder the super-defensive nature of UC builds. We'll keep watch of Exhaustion's interactions with Unhindered Combatant and will adjust as necessary.

2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?First off: As a rule we don't split skill and trait functionality changes ("functionality" being the keyword here). There are some things that we are okay with splitting such as damage, condition duration/stacks, resource cost, etc. However we don't want to make skills which apply different buffs or have different cast times or number of hits based on game mode. This rule is in place to preserve skill cohesion and prevent confusion when switching game modes. It's not a rule that we plan on changing.

Secondarily: Its condition-removal is built-in and is inseparable from the dodge-mechanic so long as you have the trait equipped. It's feasibly possible to 'remove' the trait and return you to a 'normal' dodge, but consistency is also important in that your dodge button should pretty much always do the same thing.

-SnB

Thank you for replying @Karl McLain.5604

First I enjoy and support the idea of counterplay in games. Bravo!

Problem is you have added counterplay to thief yet have not given thief counterplay to the rest of the game. This last patch was nerfs across the board for thieves and more power creep for the rest of the game. At this time no class is more hard countered than thief, and you've just nerfed them without compensation (to either their own skills/traits or in nerfs to other classes).

This is the problem with the patch. Your team decided that UC is too strong after being fine for 2 years, but Scourge, Firebrand, etc are perfectly healthy for the game?!!? I'm sorry but you see those other classes being stacked in games and having seriously imbalanced impact on games.

Again I thank you for the reply, I just feel this nerf wasn't done out of necessity......

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@"Karl McLain.5604" said:1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?"One important balance change in this update is the change to Unhindered Combatant. While thieves, and by extension daredevils, are intended to be slippery combatants, the escape potential for this trait was a little too high."Unhindered Combatant has long been dominant in multiple game-types. It represents a longer distance movement option, condition-break, and swiftness generator. We like these things.The issue, however, is that there is almost no 'counter' play to the functionality... in that neither players nor designers have a way to whittle down the thief's defensive capabilities short of one-shotting them in a time where there are no evade frames occurring. We want the thief to remain incredibly mobile, but need to introduce some soft-counters so that there are methods to hinder the super-defensive nature of UC builds. We'll keep watch of Exhaustion's interactions with Unhindered Combatant and will adjust as necessary.

2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?First off: As a rule we don't split skill and trait functionality changes ("functionality" being the keyword here). There are some things that we are okay with splitting such as damage, condition duration/stacks, resource cost, etc. However we don't want to make skills which apply different buffs or have different cast times or number of hits based on game mode. This rule is in place to preserve skill cohesion and prevent confusion when switching game modes. It's not a rule that we plan on changing.

Secondarily: Its condition-removal is built-in and is inseparable from the dodge-mechanic so long as you have the trait equipped. It's feasibly possible to 'remove' the trait and return you to a 'normal' dodge, but consistency is also important in that your dodge button should pretty much always do the same thing.

-SnB

Appreciate the reply, but ugh.

I hate it but fine, I understand classes can't just be -immune- to three condis because of a trait. Guess I'll have to adapt to endurance being turned off by cripple. I still feel like there are several ways to approach this better from giving unhindered an ICD on removing condis to halving endurance regen, but I'll deal with it.

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SO after testing this change 2 Days now in wvwvw i can really say it sucks. So much condi spamm and infight in bigger battles you are locked everytime in 100% - Endurance reggen and die when ur shadowstep isn't up. Looks like i will drop Daredevil too and go back to core. In 1vs1 it hasn't that big impact but yea this change is a bit unfair because thief has outside dodge and stealth not really much defense option. And in comparison to other classes like mirage or holo or scourge it is a bit odd.

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And that is the Problem because now thief is even worser now in bigger battles and it was one of the worst class even before patch, so that it was "normal" that they get kicked from squad.Yes in 1vs1 it isn't that big impact and also in Spvp it's okay. But in WvWvW where u have big battles and a clusterfuck of condi spam this trait has become a RNG Shutdown for you.

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@"Karl McLain.5604" said:1) What was the reasoning behind the change to Unhindered Combatant?"One important balance change in this update is the change to Unhindered Combatant. While thieves, and by extension daredevils, are intended to be slippery combatants, the escape potential for this trait was a little too high."Unhindered Combatant has long been dominant in multiple game-types. It represents a longer distance movement option, condition-break, and swiftness generator. We like these things.The issue, however, is that there is almost no 'counter' play to the functionality... in that neither players nor designers have a way to whittle down the thief's defensive capabilities short of one-shotting them in a time where there are no evade frames occurring. We want the thief to remain incredibly mobile, but need to introduce some soft-counters so that there are methods to hinder the super-defensive nature of UC builds. We'll keep watch of Exhaustion's interactions with Unhindered Combatant and will adjust as necessary.

2) If it was meant for competitive changes, why do PvE Daredevils have to take the blow, too?First off: As a rule we don't split skill and trait functionality changes ("functionality" being the keyword here). There are some things that we are okay with splitting such as damage, condition duration/stacks, resource cost, etc. However we don't want to make skills which apply different buffs or have different cast times or number of hits based on game mode. This rule is in place to preserve skill cohesion and prevent confusion when switching game modes. It's not a rule that we plan on changing.

Secondarily: Its condition-removal is built-in and is inseparable from the dodge-mechanic so long as you have the trait equipped. It's feasibly possible to 'remove' the trait and return you to a 'normal' dodge, but consistency is also important in that your dodge button should pretty much always do the same thing.

-SnB

Why does no other class gets this kind of treatment then? I mean chop off the head kind of treatment for headache.There are plenty of skills that do too much/have no/barely any counterplay and didn't see any meaningful changes. Please justify that.

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@Jinks.2057 said:

Thank you for replying @Karl McLain.5604

First I enjoy and support the idea of counterplay in games. Bravo!

Problem is you have added counterplay to thief yet have not given thief counterplay to the rest of the game. This last patch was nerfs across the board for thieves and more power creep for the rest of the game. At this time no class is more hard countered than thief, and you've just nerfed them without compensation (to either their own skills/traits or in nerfs to other classes).

This is the problem with the patch. Your team decided that UC is too strong after being fine for 2 years, but Scourge, Firebrand, etc are perfectly healthy for the game?!!? I'm sorry but you see those other classes being stacked in games and having seriously imbalanced impact on games.

Again I thank you for the reply, I just feel this nerf wasn't done out of necessity......

My god two years? Has it really been that long? It's like looking in a mirror. Tell me Johnny do you play baseball?

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@AikijinX.6258 said:However the Swiftness change: Gain swiftness upon a full dodge roll is beyond me. Which directly nerfs the "Don't Stop" trait, but by a minuscule amount.

They did this to ensure that the Exhaustion will happen if you dodge out of a soft-cc. Since the Swiftness previously activated before the condition clear, keeping it in it's previous state while having Don't Stop traited would have avoided Exhaustion if only one soft-cc was affecting you.

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