Why did we nerf Core Thief?

So the last Patch nerfed our D/D - we all know what this was for: It was to tune down the dps of Deadeye D/D.What did the change do? It nerfed Core Thief pretty hard and did actually nothing on Deadeye itself - The thing is you can achieve almost the same amount of dps with Rifle too and not just D/D. Rifle is slightly behind.The big part of this change is that it litterly destroyed any fun or non-meta Core build if you are using D/D. Was that really necessary?

At this point I think Anet tries to put you to the position that you have to buy the expansions to even be viable in PvE. We all know that core Thief dmg was not good compared to the Elite Daredevil and Deadeye but people would still play Core Thief D/D because it made fun and playing non-meta dps Builds lets you also see the real variety of the Builds you can actually make. Now dps wise this is a very hard hit, it is just how Thief is designed and that means it's big part of his dps comes from AutoAttacks - we all know that.

I still don't understand the idea about this change - Anet says they don't want meta dps builds and give people more variety yet they nerf the Core Thief.

I just wanted to share my thoughts here. What do you Thief players think about this change?

Anet are atleast consistent in nerfing core classes rather than the actual problem

@Daccura.4769 said:I still don't understand the idea about this change - Anet says they don't want meta dps builds and give people more variety yet they nerf the Core Thief.

I just wanted to share my thoughts here. What do you Thief players think about this change?

The nerf to Swindler's Equilibrium is justified from my point of view. It was kind of cheesy to just evade an attack and you instantly have a second steal. Thanks to this nerf, core thieves will have to think twice before mindlessly using Steal just so they can deal damage. Steal should for the most part be used for interrupting healing skills.

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Daccura.4769 said:I still don't understand the idea about this change - Anet says they don't want meta dps builds and give people more variety yet they nerf the Core Thief.

I just wanted to share my thoughts here. What do you Thief players think about this change?

The latest nerf to d/d affects PvE only, not WvW or sPvP. I'm sorry I should have make my point of view clearer in my post: I've meant PvE.

+70% damage buff exclusive to an elite spec that's on part of the primary damage rotation for the entire thief causing the thief to get numbers that are a bit too high?OHKO mechanics caused by this acting as a basis for people to complain?A trait changed for no reason to give stupid PvE-only scaling starts massively over-performing?

Better nerf the core/unrelated issues and invalidate everything but the busted elite/trait!

This is why I have no faith in this company anymore lol. "Play your way" is utter bull. Malicious Backstab and Exposed Weakness are the problems. The entire Malicious Attack system is absolutely stupid and I've said it since they added it and EW didn't need to be changed at all.

@Hoodie.1045 OP isn't talking about SwEq which only had value in the PvP formats. They just nerfed MH dagger's damage because DE's hitting too hard while Daredevil and core already suck.

I think they wanted to nerf both DE and DD this patch. DE to probably push rifle build instead of daggers (high risk = high reward instead of autoattack spam = top dps) and DD because it can cleave, so you had to choose if you want high single target dps or good cleave but less dps. Nerfing DE damage modifiers would also nerf rifle, which is very unpopular from what I've heard.

@steki.1478 said:I think they wanted to nerf both DE and DD this patch. DE to probably push rifle build instead of daggers (high risk = high reward instead of autoattack spam = top dps) and DD because it can cleave, so you had to choose if you want high single target dps or good cleave but less dps. Nerfing DE damage modifiers would also nerf rifle, which is very unpopular from what I've heard.

Rifle DE's rotation isn't high-risk at all. It's basically just spam 3/malice to DJ and with kneel's changes the risk isn't even really there. It's generally harder to play D/D since it's melee and will pull aggro more with the higher damage at closer proximity (melee range = more aggro). Rifle already took a DPS loss because of the Malice system changes.

Daredevil is also pretty safe thanks to the dodges and daggers already cleave so all that changes is Vault spam which is already worse than the 2 -> 1 or 5 ->1 (same rotation) combo as D/D.

Literally all this change did was nerf core and didn't nerf the problem of reworked EW and the asinine Malicious Attack system which makes the entirety of thief impossible to balance.

What's next, a nerf to core backstab because we're going to base the profession on Malicious Attacks? Unbelievable. There's clearly zero demonstrable understanding of the class by ANet here.

Watch them bringing D/D down to where P/P is right now.

This is why you guys should NEVER called for nerfs to D/D in the first place. Shouldve waited the 3 months out for changes to other weapons before mentioning it could be overtuned.

@eldrjth.7384 said:This is why you guys should NEVER called for nerfs to D/D in the first place. Shouldve waited the 3 months out for changes to other weapons before mentioning it could be overtuned.

It doesn't really matter.

@eldrjth.7384 said:This is why you guys should NEVER called for nerfs to D/D in the first place. Shouldve waited the 3 months out for changes to other weapons before mentioning it could be overtuned.

After years of nerfing you should know that forum discussions almost never impact balance changes.

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Daccura.4769 said:I still don't understand the idea about this change - Anet says they don't want meta dps builds and give people more variety yet they nerf the Core Thief.

I just wanted to share my thoughts here. What do you Thief players think about this change?

Thief already had to think five times before doing just about anything and double Steal was ONLY useful when used properly, any player is literally happy when they see them use two Steals just like for dmg, so actually useful use of second Steal occurred only once per fight, practically no fight could last long enough to get 3rd one, for a good thief would either already disengage or win, and bad one would be long dead before that.

I vote we nerf theif sword (pve) next. I saw a player using one last month, and we can't have that.

In all seriousness, it seems a little random for Anet to cut PvE dps on a class not known for its PvE dps or utility.

@Westenev.5289 said:I vote we nerf theif sword (pve) next. I saw a player using one last month, and we can't have that.

In all seriousness, it seems a little random for Anet to cut PvE dps on a class not known for its PvE dps or utility.

The tears of all the Ele’s and other utility Dpsers spurred the Nerf, and couldn’t stand a class that only Dpses to do more Dps than them.

I've played D/D Deadeye somewhat extensively. It was doing too much damage. Granted they shouldn't have nerfed core Dagger but rather one of the Dead Eye traits. However, I'd say that it should have been doing around 35-36k rather than the 38-39k that it was doing. It was easy to use on most encounters despite adds.

The rifle on the other hand, even with 39k dps, is extremely difficult to use on most encounters for 2 big reasons.

1. Things get in your way and this completely destroys your rotation and thus your dps. Rifle has it worse than Dagger Dagger since rifle can actually only hit 1 mob, and if its not the mob you marked, you don't get malice, which doesn't refresh your initiative, which interrupts your rotation considerably. Honestly I wouldn't mind them dropping rifle's DPS to even 34k if they gave it piercing.
2. For just about every encounter, it's almost impossible to keep kneeling for even one whole loop of the rotation. Standing rifle DPS on the other hand is crap.

The one issue both specs have is they are bad at dealing with trash. That's less of an issue for the most part than I thought it was though.

@Westenev.5289 said:In all seriousness, it seems a little random for Anet to cut PvE dps on a class not known for its PvE dps or utility.Oh it's random but not for A-Net.

I don’t agree with dagger auto nerf either but I must say I am surprised by arguments that some non meta experimental open world builds will be impacted. Those builds rarely make to raids or high level fotm and if they do they performed sub par even before nerf. Against Amala in zerg with random boons the difference is hardly noticeable.

As someone who likes to play Dagger/Dagger Daredevil, which was already a bit behind in damage, this nerf hurts me. I hate it when the devs nerf something that ends up gimping other specs/builds instead of just focusing on the actual elite spec they're trying to tone down.

I don't even like Deadeye, but I must be punished for it being overtuned? Meh...

Huh?July 10th Patch Notes regarding Daggers:

Backstab: The aftercast of this skill has been reduced by a little less than 0.5 seconds.(Core) Buff for all Thieves using a Dagger main-hand.

Dagger Training: In addition to causing dagger attacks to poison enemies, this trait now grants 5% bonus damage to dagger attacks.(Core) Buff for all Thieves using (a) Daggers.

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And then on July 24th, we got this:Double Strike: Reduced the damage dealt by this skill by 19% in PvE only.(Core) Nerf for all Thieves using a Dagger main-hand.

Wild Strike: Reduced the damage dealt by this skill by 18% in PvE only.(Core) Nerf for all Thieves using a Dagger main-hand.

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So..."Why did we nerf Core Thief?"Simple. Because Core Thief got Buffed prior to that.

Does that make sense? In a certain way, yes it does.Does that mean I like it? No. Not in the slightest.

Personally, I agree that they should've made the changes to DE. Hitting DE as a whole (because Rifle is also a tad ridiculous from what I've seen).But really, the best thing would be to revert the changes to Exposed Weakness from the July 10th patch:

Exposed Weakness: The damage this trait causes has been changed from 10% damage if the target has a condition to 2% damage per unique condition on a target.That Trait has greatly overtuned Thief in general for PvE Group content, while bringing overall unnecessary nerfs to sPvP and WvW content.As for nerfing DE... Small shaving done to any of 'Premeditation', 'Iron Sight' and 'Be Quick or be Killed' would get the proper results. Could even shave a bit off of all of them, but they'd probably overdo it.

When all is said and done, I don't believe the July 24th nerfs hit PvE too hard. Isn't it like a 2.5k reduction in DPS? Would still keep us somewhere high up in the chain with our CC and such. Not sure as I've never done "proper" PvE anyway.

Unless your build entirely depends on auto-attacking and nothing else, its not that big of a nerf.

Personally think it was the best way they could go about it.

@Griever.8150 said:Unless your build entirely depends on auto-attacking and nothing else, its not that big of a nerf.

Personally think it was the best way they could go about it.

^This

I think I understand what they are trying to do here and in THEORY it a good thing.

They want the Thief to use more of the INI type skills or in the case of the #1 more attacks out of stealth so as to increase the complexity of thief rotations when trying to maximize damage. DE IS in fact affected by this as it only their stealth attack that benefits from the Malice. By increasing seperation between Malice attacks from stealth and the attack chain of #1 , they force DE into more Malicious attacks and reliance on malice build.

In core set it very much the same as the seperation between backstab core and the #1 chain was not seen as enough. Make that gap wider and other dagger utilities would theoretically be used more often.

Now my own issue with this is at some point in the past they increased the amount of this damage because the thief was shutdown from damage going out when INI lost. Again on its own that fine but you can not be doing the YO YO here. If the #1 attacks to be less reliable DE can well make up the difference via integrating the advantages Malicious offers but Core suffers. One could boost the INI using skills to help Core out but the DE would garner these benefits as well further magnified by that higher pool of INI the DE line offers.

I mean, Core is never going to be competitive (in PvE) with Elite specs anyway because we only have 2 Core traits line focused on damage anyway. But yeah its exactly what they try to do, make us less reliant on autos and more on Ini moves which i thing is a very good thing.

@Griever.8150 D/D in PVP Backstab went down a little more by itself i play core thief and it went down a good 4k in SPVP WVW it wasn't hurt as bad but it had a 3k nerf to it. SPVP core thief Backstab running an actual build that can survive fights and is meant to be a fighter only gets you 4k backstabs. Most of the damage is coming from backstab and heartseeker.

They nerfed the auto-attacks because they just reduced Backstab's aftercast by 0.5 seconds. It amazes me that everyone glossed over it because my jaw dropped when I read it. Backstab's aftercast was always awful.

With the aftercast being that much lower, the Thief can score another Double Strike in a rotation that would normally only allow them to reach Lotus Strike (1 full combo). For example:

Old combo: Cloak and Dagger > Backstab > Double-Strike > Wild Strike > Lotus Strike > Rinse and RepeatNew Combo: Cloak and Dagger > Backstab > Double Strike > Wild Strike > Lotus Strike > Double Strike > Rinse and Repeat

Depending on Quickness or conservation of Initiative, you may do the combo twice instead of once before you do another Cloak and Dagger > Backstab. I did the math and D/D got a net DPS buff even with the nerfs to Double-Strike and Lotus Strike. The only time it becomes a DPS loss is if you do the combo 3+ times, which rarely happens. With Dagger Training adding another 5%, it ends up more than making up for it.

Like someone already mentioned, it was specifically D/D Deadeyes that were overperforming. They could either nerf Deadeye, therefore affecting every build that uses Deadeye (Rifle, S/P, etc), or nerf the Dagger and every build that uses it, including core builds or Daredevil. They went with the latter because of how big of a DPS buff the change to Backstab was.

It's really not a big deal.