Thief / deadeye feedback

Pretty self explanatory. Recommendations for thief and deadeye changes. I am trying to keep changes reserved so as not to mess with potential balancing issues too much. As such it will focus on recent changes, i.e. deadeye. I mostly play WvW, but I would hope the following changes would be popular across all game modes:

• Malice, increase damage to 4% per stack. Slightly reduce base rifle damage so total damage output is roughly the same as before. This encourages deadeye use on weaponsets other than rifle (i.e. malice DPS is actually useful vs daredevil DPS traits). It should discourage rifle spam, instead encouraging play around malice stacking.

• Peripheral Vision - Change boon radius to 360

• Renewing Gaze - Change to a flat instant heal of the same amount to reduce trait redundancy. Mark already gives regen, as do a bunch of other thief traits.

• Stolen skills need to work without having a mark, or at least have a countdown after losing a mark. This opens up more gameplay based around stealing / boonshare, which currently encourages spamming steal skills in fear of marks dying.

• Iron sight - Give 4 seconds swiftness on "Free Action" in addition to 15% dmg reduction. The 15% damage reduction is redundant in a lot of cases as you are getting hit by multiple targets. Deadeye lacks swiftness, and it is a boon which should help with positioning to maximise said 15%.

• Unforgiving - Give stability for 1 second in addition to the target stun on first hit on a marked target. Passive stun counters make this trait redundant as is.

• Shadow Flare - Mediocre as a means of transport. Increase the range to 1500, or allow the damage pulses to continue if you choose to port straight away. As with all AOE, can we please get some actual red circles rather than these weird glowy particle affects. Same issue as with rev hammer #2, no fun to play against when its hard to see and hence counter.

• Mercy - Inferior to roll for initiative in almost every way as currently stands. How about 2 initiative per malice? Seems fair as you are potentially giving up DPS and boons due to malice loss. Hard to abuse as for survival purposes as deadeye typically needs to burn more ini to escape than daredevil.

• Malicious Restoration - Heal is rubbish for the long CD. Interruptable. Especially bad given the condi cleanse is conditional. Suggest changing such that conditions are changed to boons. Alternatively CD is reduced to 20 seconds.

• Make Preparedness from trickery baseline...Core thief badly needs it for build variety. Would suggest replacing with the current Preparedness with swiftness on steal then swapping out the swiftness on Thrill of the Crime with another boon (another might stack maybe?). This is because swiftness access on thief really sucks if you are not on a dardevil running dash, or using acrobatics - kind of a joke for a mobile class. Moreover, this change does not give any notable buff to current meta builds.

Allow party members the ability to take advantage of the damage bonuses from Malice and you've got yourself a raid spot.

@Gallant Pigeon.5807 said:Pretty self explanatory. Recommendations for thief and deadeye changes. I am trying to keep changes reserved so as not to mess with potential balancing issues too much. As such it will focus on recent changes, i.e. deadeye. I mostly play WvW, but I would hope the following changes would be popular across all game modes:

• Malice, increase damage to 4% per stack. Slightly reduce base rifle damage so total damage output is roughly the same as before. This encourages deadeye use on weaponsets other than rifle (i.e. malice DPS is actually useful vs daredevil DPS traits). It should discourage rifle spam, instead encouraging play around malice stacking.

Our damage needs a buff, not to stay the same!

R1: Fine as isR2: Fine as isR3: lower initiatve cost to 3R4: lower initiative cost to 4 (and fix buggy pathing)R5: Make total cast time (precast, cast, aftercast) 0.25 seconds. Leave at 1 initiative. Remove the count from it.

KR1: Fine as isKR2: Fine as isKR3: Lower initiative cost to 3KR4: Fine as isKR5: Remove. Dodge rolling, jumping, stowing weapon, switching weapon, and moving should break kneel (as well as getting cc'd still). Replace with Snipers Cover with a 0.5 second total cast time at 3 initiative. Keep the count.

SR1: Make it stun for 1 second, but keep all other aspects (velocity, cast time other effects) the same.

Deadeyes gaze: fine as isRevealed malice: fine as isIron sight: Reduce incoming damage by 10% while kneelingOne in the chamber: Additionally reduces CD on cantrips by 20%

Renewing gaze: fine as isSilent scope: kneeling give +20% crit chance, kneeling shots pierce up to 2 targets) up to 3 hit total)Unforgiving: Fine as isPeripheral vision: fine as is

Perfectionist: Fine as isMaleficent seven: fine as isBe quick or be killed: Stunning or knocking down a target gives you 4 seconds of quickness, icd 5-10 seconds. Gain 200 power and 150 ferocity while you have quickness.Fire for effect: Hitting your target grants allies around your target 8 seconds of might, icd 1 second. Attacks deal an extra 0.5% damage per stack of vulnerability.

Malicious restoration: reduce cd to 25 secondsBinding shadow: fine as isMercy:reduce cd to 25 secondsShadow flare: have it leave a dark field for the duration.Shadow gust: fine as is

Entirely agree with making preparedness baseline. Replace with something like shadow prison: 2-3 seconds of chill on your steal/mark target.

Steal baseline 25 seconds CD. Remove the CD reduction from sleight of hand, sleight of hand gears 1stack of stability for 1 second as well as dazing the target for 1 second.

Quick pockets: Reduce weapon swap cd to 4 seconds. Gain 1 initiative on weapon swap.

Can we consolidate all these? There is already like 5 on the front page. I think it would be easier for the devs to read if it was all one thread.