terrible change for lead attack

As a thief you use initiative to quickly move around while out side of combat and because of this when entering combat you usually do not have full initiative; often times less than half. The change which made lead attacks not stack while out of combat combined with the 5 sec reduced duration of the buff itself makes it so you have 15 stacks for a very short time when actually fighting, often times you will never be able to maintain more than 10 stacks for any meaningful amount of time.Core thief and daredevil did not need yet another damage nerf because of dead eye and its poor design. Just making the trait not work ooc will reduce the opening burst which was the whole point of the change, revert the duration back to 15 seconds so that we have time to utilize the fully stacked buff.

With Death's Retreat (rifle 4) you can still stack up to 15 for 15s out of combat :trollface:

@syszery.1592 said:With Death's Retreat (rifle 4) you can still stack up to 15 for 15s out of combat :trollface:

You are missing the point. Not all Thieves run DE and not all of us love the spec. OP made it clear that Core and DD are the ones suffering from the crimes the Deadeye has committed.

Yea, I never really was a fan of DE play style and I am not a fan of this lead attacks change.

Nobody is a fan of this change literally nobody.Well except non-Thief people raging at DE but I guess why not punch a D/P Thief in the face cuz some other guys dmg on some other spec with Rifle has great burst.

Core, and later Daredevil, has almost always received nerfs based on whining about something else.Like my favourite, let's nerf a core weapon because some Elite spec has a trait that gives it too much dmg.Or in this case, let's nerf D/P because rifle had burst dmg with LA.Of course it nerfs DE a little but why the hell take others with it.

@Alatar.7364 said:Nobody is a fan of this change literally nobody.Well except non-Thief people raging at DE but I guess why not punch a D/P Thief in the face cuz some other guys dmg on some other spec with Rifle has great burst.

Core, and later Daredevil, has almost always received nerfs based on whining about something else.Like my favourite, let's nerf a core weapon because some Elite spec has a trait that gives it too much dmg.Or in this case, let's nerf D/P because rifle had burst dmg with LA.Of course it nerfs DE a little but why the hell take others with it.

Yep, they introduced a devil incarnate in the form of the Deadeye, yet they plan to nerf it by taking everything else with it. I pity the Core players especially those who plays Thief but doesn't have PoF.

Wait, maybe they are forcing people to buy PoF? Anyway, I'm excited to test the new SE, let's see if it can compensate the loss in LA.

I agree with the OP. This change hurts all Thief specs despite that it was DE being overbearing.

Any Thief that actively utilized Lead Attacks by spending Initiative before a gank, such as for a BP > HS for stealth, are getting their damage nerfed. Period. Maybe that was ANet's intention, but as the OP pointed out, it was Deadeyes that were overbearing due to flawed design. Not Thieves in general.

I'm not even mad about the change. I just don't understand what the justification is here.

EDIT: I should have probably mentioned that I would be happier with the change if it gave something baseline in return. They gave us a power boost to Sword, but that is only the Sword. They put a power boost on Dagger Training but it isn't that big of a deal. If they wanted to go for a "We want this to be more In-Combat-oriented" they could have taken a similar approach as they did with that Revenant sword trait. Perhaps, just spitballing here, doing what they just did, but also making it easier to stack. (E.G. limiting the stacks to 10, but making each stack increase damage by 1.5%).

I appreciate Anet's intention to move the game away from engagements that are being determined by fast and overstacked attacks. Maybe it'll even bring some classes away from relying on passive invulns/evades to survive these.

@Warkind.6745 said:I appreciate Anet's intention to move the game away from engagements that are being determined by fast and overstacked attacks. Maybe it'll even bring some classes away from relying on passive invulns/evades to survive these.

That would be fine if it were applied across the board, however rangers, mesmers, revenants, engineers all have allot more instant/quick burst than non deadeye thieves and none of them were changed in this regard. Herald is especially ridiculous having over 35% damage modification on a fairly consistent basis, and soulbeast has the most bursty modifiers out of all the classes, and none of these classes are as squishy as thief.

At every patch notes Core thieves and DD classic D/P die a bit.Daredevil D/P have a lack of damage, Deadeye is OP and what they do? They nerf traits that have low impact on DE damage, but that are primary in not-DE Thieves mechanics.

This night I was running my Daredevil D/P, I start fighting agaist a good weaver: 15 minutes and no way to kill him.. then run away, logout, characters select, DE Thief and I oneshoted him.

Pulmonary Impact, Exposed Weakness, Lead Attacks, Swindler's Equilibrium ALL this traits get nerfed in the last months (with no sense) when the problem is always the same: Assassin's Signet, Hidden Killer and the no sense Malice bonus damage to DJ and Malicious Backstab.

@SehferViega.8725 said:At every patch notes Core thieves and DD classic D/P die a bit.Daredevil D/P have a lack of damage, Deadeye is OP and what they do? They nerf traits that have low impact on DE damage, but that are primary in not-DE Thieves mechanics.

This night I was running my Daredevil D/P, I start fighting agaist a good weaver: 15 minutes and no way to kill him.. then run away, logout, characters select, DE Thief and I oneshoted him.

Pulmonary Impact, Exposed Weakness, Lead Attacks, Swindler's Equilibrium ALL this traits get nerfed in the last months (with no sense) when the problem is always the same: Assassin's Signet, Hidden Killer and the no sense Malice bonus damage to DJ and Malicious Backstab.

Oh you meant rifle DE specifically, not deadeye itself.

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

Oh you meant rifle DE specifically, not deadeye itself.

I'm talking about PvP and WvW because LA changes affect only competitive modes.And in competitive modes DE always have at least Rifle or Dagger in main hand. Usually deadeye runs with rifle and D/P.

@SehferViega.8725 said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

Oh you meant rifle DE specifically, not deadeye itself.

I suppose I'm the outlier - I like to use a variety of builds and weaponsets. Currently doing stuff with sd/sbow on de. WvW only player here.

@"DemonSeed.3528" said:

I suppose I'm the outlier - I like to use a variety of builds and weaponsets. Currently doing stuff with sd/sbow on de. WvW only player here.

People are free to play with all the builds they want, the question is an other: if the problem (players complain about this) are the oneshot cannon builds (DE backstab, DD cannon vault) why AN doesn't work on the traits that "generate" this problem? Why mitigate it (nerfing other traits) creating big problems to builds that are "just fine"?

@Isle of Stars.3049 said:

@syszery.1592 said:With Death's Retreat (rifle 4) you can still stack up to 15 for 15s out of combat :trollface:

I am not missing the point. It was irony and it is probably a bug anyway...

arenet listened to the community and added the DE spec, community should have known useing arenet poor ability to balance thier own game as well as being able to differentiate good constructive feedback and feedback that clearly biased,based off un justified emotions reactions ie cries of salt that now core and DD will be slowly dragged down by arenet attempts to balance deadeye even though DE is a very different playstyle for most. DE is the worst thing to happen to the thief profession not because it was a bad idea more so that because it would obviously be a tough spec to balance by nature I don’t think arenet a team were the best group to attempt it.thief was initially soposed to be a lethal 1v1 class with little access to aoe’s but has speed and mobility to compensate for its low sustain and lack of good aoe,problem is most of its speed and mobility has been shared even with more sustainable professions over the yrs thru balance patches,new e-specs etc, ontop of this other more sustainable specs got fed blocks and access to invulnerability to help balance the damage creep so thief is in the fight with good damage low sustain and all of its back of tricks have new improved iterations within the other professions especially mesmer. It’s already getting overshadowed badly,I can’t speek for other players but the times I do pick up thief it’s for its playstyle and theme,not for effectiveness.unfortunately because aren’t has a difficult time balancing each specific problem within ONE of the professions specs they lack the ability to tone down that aspect without bleeding it’s effects into the brother specs or builds that are in no need of change and in fact may need improvements to be relevant. Maybe it’s lack of knowledge and or experience playing the game.arenet almost needs a panel of passionate gamers to employ that play their creation daily and are knowledgeable of all of its classes and how they are performing in all game modes modes and have them discuss the balance issues to the balance team before each balance patch

@foste.3098 said:As a thief you use initiative to quickly move around while out side of combat and because of this when entering combat you usually do not have full initiative; often times less than half. The change which made lead attacks not stack while out of combat combined with the 5 sec reduced duration of the buff itself makes it so you have 15 stacks for a very short time when actually fighting, often times you will never be able to maintain more than 10 stacks for any meaningful amount of time.Core thief and daredevil did not need yet another damage nerf because of dead eye and its poor design. Just making the trait not work ooc will reduce the opening burst which was the whole point of the change, revert the duration back to 15 seconds so that we have time to utilize the fully stacked buff.

Ahh reminds me when they made warriors not able to keep Adrenaline out of combat. I feel for you guys. Well not for Deadeyes (F them) only for thieves.

@SehferViega.8725 said:

@"DemonSeed.3528" said:

I suppose I'm the outlier - I like to use a variety of builds and weaponsets. Currently doing stuff with sd/sbow on de. WvW only player here.

I think in general this balance patch may have done a lot of nerfs that either can/cannot be justified/ explained but a lot of classes/builds got affected and I think overall because of this everyone pretty much is in same position, maybe they are trying to reign everything closer to a middle ground. I do see what you are saying and I understand the pain of having unrelated things being affected when they could've taken a more direct approach at what was the root of the problem, but this is as much a mystery to me why a cannon was used instead of a precision tool to fix problems. In the past I used to be more vocal about these changes, but right now I'm taking a more passive approach because I don't know if they will ever explain their reasonings. I just hope they are reading/listening to player dissatisfaction and consider changing things with a more sane approach (leaving some fun in builds). I do know that fun in builds for some people could be the opposite for the person on receiving end though.

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 can you expand on this at all? It seems like it would have been easier to just chance the trait to do something else with rifle vs more or less taking away stuff from other builds.

For example if stacking stealth doesn't benefit me anymore I may as well not even waste initiative doing it as it puts me at a steep disadvantage.

This is a super horrid change IMHO and it seems others as well.

@Alatar.7364 said:Nobody is a fan of this change literally nobody.Well except non-Thief people raging at DE but I guess why not punch a D/P Thief in the face cuz some other guys dmg on some other spec with Rifle has great burst.

Core, and later Daredevil, has almost always received nerfs based on whining about something else.Like my favourite, let's nerf a core weapon because some Elite spec has a trait that gives it too much dmg.Or in this case, let's nerf D/P because rifle had burst dmg with LA.Of course it nerfs DE a little but why the hell take others with it.

Well this latest change has boosted back d/p a bit so i would say they have recognized this at least at the very least but the lead attack nerf is rly not good especially if you dont run power

Everyone blaming DE for this nerf really should have been having a look at the oneshot staff build people have been using recently, which also got nerfed in this patch. You can't lay the blame solely on DE and it's damage when daredevils were running around slapping people for 20k+ vaults abusing the shadowstep trick to play it like a backstab.

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:Everyone blaming DE for this nerf really should have been having a look at the oneshot staff build people have been using recently, which also got nerfed in this patch. You can't lay the blame solely on DE and it's damage when daredevils were running around slapping people for 20k+ vaults abusing the shadowstep trick to play it like a backstab.

Yea but they fixed that shadowstep trick so there was really no point of the lead attacks nerf based on that. Staff already did a ton of damage even without it. Vault slamming isn't new.

Okay so I'm not sure if it's due to the change with Lead Attack or what but am I the only one that hits like a wet noodle now?

I haven’t notice much of a different, and is just happy that they removed Elixir S from engiis.Lead Attack is still a powerfull “Minor” compared to orher stuff.Love that I boost my dmg and decrease Steals CD:)

They should've left LA because it was never a problem until DE entered the picture, kept the blockability on DJ change, and removed stealth on dodge. Sick of seeing core and DD suffer because of DE's poor design. The vault with shadowstep change was fine I guess, I only ever saw like 2 or 3 people use that build and they died if you breathed on them but removing one shot gimmicks is good for the game so I'm cool with that.

Anet, thank you for removing counter cc passives, and other passive carries. Great change, now show us you can do more of that and do right by the thief community.