Please disassociate Repeater from P/D Thief

As I suspect that using P/D for PVP I must be in an extreme minority, this post is probably not going to get any attention.

Nevertheless, as they say, you don't ask, you don't get.

I love the balance team for innovating and finding new ways to use skills. However, this specific change feels intended for pve, and has some significant downsides in pvp.

In PVE Pistol / Dagger has very little requirement for counterplay, and putting distance ONCE between you and your foe will often buy you enough flexibility to plan your next moves. I get that. It's a great change, especially for starter areas where new players may be looking for more oomph those first few levels before they get dual weapons.

But when you're fighting against other players, you NEED to be able to disengage, quickly and frequently.

The 3 skill on P/D is a perfect evade for pursuers in PVP, and I've chained evades with stacking torment for years. It depends on precision timing and a keen eye for detail to ensure you don't miss, but it allows a canny thief to evade and keep distance from players. Warriors and their GS5 skill, engineers and their hammer attacks, weavers and their closers, etc,etc.

With repeater, the second you've evaded once, you're a duck in water. You lose a key survival skill , which you have to compensate for by replacing with other utilities, losing an extra skill slot too.

With P/D already being a weak class overall, especially in the eyes of general PVP players, this extra burden really impacts it.

The upcoming patch build is making very welcome initiative cost changes to this skill, but i hope the balance team will at least consider a revert on this skill for the future. it was a more versatile option.

Please consider either hybridising the damage, keeping the initiative cost and having the bleed and torment stack, or increase the torment and leave it as it was.

Any of these would help an enthusiastic thief to survive without further compromise.

Thank you.

@EL Oscuro.5086 said:As I suspect that using P/D for PVP I must be in an extreme minority, this post is probably not going to get any attention.

Nevertheless, as they say, you don't ask, you don't get.

I love the balance team for innovating and finding new ways to use skills. However, this specific change feels intended for pve, and has some significant downsides in pvp.

In PVE Pistol / Dagger has very little requirement for counterplay, and putting distance ONCE between you and your foe will often buy you enough flexibility to plan your next moves. I get that. It's a great change, especially for starter areas where new players may be looking for more oomph those first few levels before they get dual weapons.

But when you're fighting against other players, you NEED to be able to disengage, quickly and frequently.

The 3 skill on P/D is a perfect evade for pursuers in PVP, and I've chained evades with stacking torment for years. It depends on precision timing and a keen eye for detail to ensure you don't miss, but it allows a canny thief to evade and keep distance from players. Warriors and their GS5 skill, engineers and their hammer attacks, weavers and their closers, etc,etc.

With repeater, the second you've evaded once, you're a duck in water. You lose a key survival skill , which you have to compensate for by replacing with other utilities, losing an extra skill slot too.

With P/D already being a weak class overall, especially in the eyes of general PVP players, this extra burden really impacts it.

The upcoming patch build is making very welcome initiative cost changes to this skill, but i hope the balance team will at least consider a revert on this skill for the future. it was a more versatile option.

Please consider either hybridising the damage, keeping the initiative cost and having the bleed and torment stack, or increase the torment and leave it as it was.

Any of these would help an enthusiastic thief to survive without further compromise.

Thank you.

I exclusively play P/D Deadeye in PvP and this was pointed out to Anet several times before. They increased the lethality of the set but cut into its sustain by locking Shadowstrike out for a set period.

The decrease in cost is welcome because it makes it more possible to build malice and use the stolen skill to enter stealth. Not as good as chaining Shadowstrike but better defensively than it was.

Not sure what you mean by hybridize given that the skill hits a nice balance between direct damage and torment application.

I could see the case being made that because the lockout period is pretty long, more torment should be applied, maybe 6 stacks. But I don’t think they will be inclined to boost the torment application given their general inclination to be careful boosting thief recently.

Thank you Saerni. I did do a search before posting, but searched for the wrong term.

Is PVP to you just WvW? I play this with a vanilla thief, so malice doesn't really come into it for me. I'm looking for more aggressive engage / disengage, in line with needs in Spvp.

by hybridise, i was thinking to include bleeds in shadow strike if it's about increasing damage, or increasing torment, both while keeping the initiative at moderate levels, for two to three applications.

Adding repeater seems to have increased damage, albeit moderately given the cost of repeater, but at the cost of survivalism, which is more material in my estimation.

The link, for anyone else:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/853121#Comment_853121

I play both sPvP and WvW, but less WvW these days.

I use P//D Deadeye with hybrid stats so I get both decent condi output (when it isn’t cleansed) and solid direct damage output.

I have recently swapped a few traits to increase my survival to compensate for the loss of Shadowstrike uptime. I agree it is less than it was before looking purely at using skills to kite melee opponents.

I have played p/d condition for a long time in WvW. Through most of that time #3 was rather sub par as it only added two torment stacks and was really not worth ini spent from a damage perspective . As such I tended to use it as last minute safety valve and or as a spike add in a preload trap>steal(with hidden thief)>sneak attack then number 3 away to fight at range.

I relied on backpedals and dodges coupled with Withdraw and RFI to maintain that distance rather then relying on #3. This was all using CORE thief in a DA/SA/TR build.

As such I do not see repeater as a bad thing at all and in fact find it preferable from a damage out perspective. The lowering to two INI will make this even better in Core or in a DE iteration IMO. With there being an added source of 5 bleeds per use via repeater wherein one can generally get two uses after a shadowstrike away , there much less need to load a venom as a utility wherein one can use Needle trap instead , which I find very effective from a defensive and offensive point of view. Tag on trappers respite and after a Withdraw to heal and open gap and you drop another trap between yourself and the enemy.

I agree with OP on this. As someone how plays p/d condi, being locked to repeater for 4 seconds really does hamper your survivability, alot, and it doesn't add much to gamestyle of that weapon set (feels more like playing downgraded p/p). Ideally, they could remove repeater and buff autoattack (add another stack of bleeding or similar) or add something to #3 (maybe slow or short stealth duration which opens seank attack, basically what repeater is, but this could be overstacking a skill and would need to be carefully done). More realistically, they could just chain repeater so when you use it once, you get back to #3. It isn't perfect but it's easily doable. Oh and for the love of god, buff projectile speed on #2 pistol, people on mounts can outrun it at almost point blank range

I’d note that one survival boost could be to add cripple to the first shot on Repeater. The defensive goal with Shadowstrike is to kite and cripple would help that while also synergizing with Ankle Shots. This is the same suggestion I made in an earlier thread on the topic.

The addition of more condi on Shadowstrike is maybe too much. I’d rather see Repeater get access to more damage/condi given the Shadowstrike lockout. That said, the new initiative cost limits the potential damage buff. At most, for two initiative, I think either a 2 second cripple or slightly more bleed duration would be appropriate.

@babazhook.6805 I appreciate your perspective, can you comment on what duration is required for your preference to chain multiple Repeaters? I’ve suggested 3 seconds, you’ve indicated you’re happy with 4. The skill runs at 1.25 second channel but a chain can be started before the first channel runs out and for some time after the skill expires in my experience. Is 3 too short? For those not using withdraw the lockout time is not insignificant, survival wise, at the current duration.

I’d add that Repeater should probably just have a 1 second channel. I’d then also adjust Sneak Attack to channel in 0.75 seconds to differentiate the two.

@saerni.2584 said:I’d note that one survival boost could be to add cripple to the first shot on Repeater. The defensive goal with Shadowstrike is to kite and cripple would help that while also synergizing with Ankle Shots. This is the same suggestion I made in an earlier thread on the topic.

The addition of more condi on Shadowstrike is maybe too much. I’d rather see Repeater get access to more damage/condi given the Shadowstrike lockout. That said, the new initiative cost limits the potential damage buff. At most, for two initiative, I think either a 2 second cripple or slightly more bleed duration would be appropriate.

@babazhook.6805 I appreciate your perspective, can you comment on what duration is required for your preference to chain multiple Repeaters? I’ve suggested 3 seconds, you’ve indicated you’re happy with 4. The skill runs at 1.25 second channel but a chain can be started before the first channel runs out and for some time after the skill expires in my experience. Is 3 too short? For those not using withdraw the lockout time is not insignificant, survival wise, at the current duration.

I’d add that Repeater should probably just have a 1 second channel. I’d then also adjust Sneak Attack to channel in 0.75 seconds to differentiate the two.

I like 4 so as to get around some of the immediate blocks/dodges and the like that occur after a Shadowstrike. Anything higher is too much. I could live with three. If it lower than three wherein you can only get one off than you are not garnering any advantages damage wise as you are immediatley back to the higher INI costs of your skills. The way I look at it is INI a resource that has to be used as efficiently as possible. If there a way to accomplish a given task without INI use it and save INI to get that damage in.

In a pure condition build p/d shadowstrike with 2 repeaters at lower cost is 8 INI expended for 4 torment and 10 bleed. You then get significant raw damage which on its own adds up to the equivalent of multiple conditions running another second.

Without repeater for that same 8 ini you get 8 torment ( plus the raw)and need to allow a gap close to get that second Shadowstrike off which im MY opinion is less condusive to survival especially when one considers all of those mobile AOE fields other classes can stack up. When I am facing warrior/scourge/ele on P/d I am trying to stay OUT of those fields and not put myself into them just to get more torment on.

As to not using withdraw, I have also used HIS. To make this work properly you should trait trappers respite as that trap invaluable as a defensive and offensive tool. That said HIS is a long cast time and can be interrupted. Given this the case I would be loathe to use it up close to an enemy . The way you seem to handle this is when they close Shadowstrike away and get that torment on. The way I apporach it is to prevent a close with the other tools I have and only rely on the shadowstrike away when these measures fail , punishing them with the 4 torment and 10 bleeds.

As to cripple you have this with number 4. Again with a total 8 ini spent for 4 torment and 10 bleed , you should have INI to use for #4 or for that matter #2. If you are using up all your ini just to chain #3 by allowing a close just to #3 again then It harder to use those other tools. Dancing dagger is a reasonable 3 INI. Shadowstrike/repeater/repeater dancing dagger is 11 sum total

This leads to another reason I prefer 4 seconds. You can change up rotations as needed and still get two repeaters in. As example. Shadowstrike/dancing dagger/repeater/repeater or shadowstrike/repeater/body shot/repeater. I tend to change my rotations on the fly dependent on the opponent I face. Some are more prone to cripples than body shot and so on.

My issue with Dancing Dagger goes to its reliability. I think we wouldn’t need cripple on Repeater if the Dagger tracked its target better.

@saerni.2584 said:I’d note that one survival boost could be to add cripple to the first shot on Repeater. The defensive goal with Shadowstrike is to kite and cripple would help that while also synergizing with Ankle Shots. This is the same suggestion I made in an earlier thread on the topic.

The addition of more condi on Shadowstrike is maybe too much. I’d rather see Repeater get access to more damage/condi given the Shadowstrike lockout. That said, the new initiative cost limits the potential damage buff. At most, for two initiative, I think either a 2 second cripple or slightly more bleed duration would be appropriate.

@babazhook.6805 I appreciate your perspective, can you comment on what duration is required for your preference to chain multiple Repeaters? I’ve suggested 3 seconds, you’ve indicated you’re happy with 4. The skill runs at 1.25 second channel but a chain can be started before the first channel runs out and for some time after the skill expires in my experience. Is 3 too short? For those not using withdraw the lockout time is not insignificant, survival wise, at the current duration.

I’d add that Repeater should probably just have a 1 second channel. I’d then also adjust Sneak Attack to channel in 0.75 seconds to differentiate the two.

I really like this idea. If we can't undo the repeater change, this would provide a brief respite. Although perhaps better to apply the cripple on Shadow Strike itself? It's still not as robust a replacement to SS, but it's something - even a 1 second duration would make a difference out of those 4.

Others have suggested swapping out venoms for more survival. This build (as pure condi) already struggles with some of the encounters due to the HEAVY condi cleanse and conversion out there - (looking at eles and scrappers right now). Losing anything is painful when it comes to application.

It's really important to get those venom shares and sustain pressures, and to work with enemy ICDs to maintain pressure.

Or maybe i just play too aggressively, rather than dancing around. I know i'm generally impatient for my kills, and it works against me from time to time.

@EL Oscuro.5086

I was pure condi. I swapped to hybrid because Condi Cleanse is pretty excessive in the current meta. You can’t afford to potentially be unable to do any damage. That is sadly much more common these days.

I use primarily Grieving trinkets to get a mix of power and condi with the crit rate I need on Deadeye.

Alright , after a night of testing in WvW preliminary findings are this is much better. Again mix up the rotations based on the foe you face and how that person fights. You can still load on significant torment with the shadowstrike and get way more in the way of bleeds. I specced my DE for Mali 7 for the ini fuel over might add and this works very well as Mali 7 fills fast. I am considering getting added might off the trapper trait in the DA line which was lost when I dropped Fire for effect. The Combo of needle traps +shadowstrike/repeater use combined with payback for lower cooldowns on the utilities is very effective.

Now this a puire condition build. I have yet to try in hybrid but have found in WvW there more power builds over all and there less people with super high cleanse. Obviously if you meet one of those builds it much harder.

@babazhook.6805 said:Alright , after a night of testing in WvW preliminary findings are this is much better. Again mix up the rotations based on the foe you face and how that person fights. You can still load on significant torment with the shadowstrike and get way more in the way of bleeds. I specced my DE for Mali 7 for the ini fuel over might add and this works very well as Mali 7 fills fast. I am considering getting added might off the trapper trait in the DA line which was lost when I dropped Fire for effect. The Combo of needle traps +shadowstrike/repeater use combined with payback for lower cooldowns on the utilities is very effective.

Now this a puire condition build. I have yet to try in hybrid but have found in WvW there more power builds over all and there less people with super high cleanse. Obviously if you meet one of those builds it much harder.

I’ll have to check out M7 again with the change. The extra boons would be pretty good to build up my sustain. I’ve just had initiative problems in the past given how inconsistent Dancing Dagger can be in some contexts.

I’ll report back on hybrid. Arena in HotM yesterday wasn’t good for testing given the large number of people testing out big damage AoE builds post patch. I’d try to kite and end up getting smacked by someone else’s fight. :-p

its killed on of my favorite builds for thief idk what anet is thinking but it feels like thief build diversity is being shit on in favor of spamming skills and im not sure if i want to stick around for it.

@ArcanistSeven.8720 said:its killed on of my favorite builds for thief idk what anet is thinking but it feels like thief build diversity is being kitten on in favor of spamming skills and im not sure if i want to stick around for it.

I do not see how the add of repeater suddenly leads to you spamming skills. If you were just chaining shadowstrikes together you were spamming skills. If you do not want to use repeater you can shadowstrike away and use other skills as used to happen before the repeater add.

So some thoughts.

M7 is still hard to rely on for P/D. There are several reasons for this.

1. Projectiles tend to get blocked/reflected a fair bit. Malice generation rates aren’t too great in practice for this reason.
2. Repeater is slow. This means it takes a while to get in the minimum 4 attacks to reach 7 malice. Unless you have quickness you are looking at enough time for an enemy to counterattack and pressure you. Extended trading of shots with another ranged profession doesn’t work, they usually hit harder and many have damage reduction while you are still trying to charge up M7.

I’d add that Repeater still feels weak for what it is supposed to be. In my mind, Repeater is supposed to offer the option of significantly increased lethality. It doesn’t, however, because of a design issue in GW2 with melee vs ranged skills.

Generally, melee is supposed to be “riskier” and harder to hit often and so hit harder. Ranged is supposed to be easier to hit often but be weaker in exchange. Obviously, there are exceptions but not on P/D.

The best ranged builds ignore that conception by reaching parity with melee options. They do this with unblockable. They do this with high Alpha damage. They do this with bounce (AoE from a single target).

Which brings me to my updated suggestions:

• Sneak Attack needs to hit direct damage of 7k on a crit. Call it a 25% base damage bonus.
• Repeater needs to hit at least 4K direct damage. Call it a 30% damage bonus.
• Repeater needs to be unblockable.

@saerni.2584 said:So some thoughts.

M7 is still hard to rely on for P/D. There are several reasons for this.

1. Projectiles tend to get blocked/reflected a fair bit. Malice generation rates aren’t too great in practice for this reason.
2. Repeater is slow. This means it takes a while to get in the minimum 4 attacks to reach 7 malice. Unless you have quickness you are looking at enough time for an enemy to counterattack and pressure you. Extended trading of shots with another ranged profession doesn’t work, they usually hit harder and many have damage reduction while you are still trying to charge up M7.

I’d add that Repeater still feels weak for what it is supposed to be. In my mind, Repeater is supposed to offer the option of significantly increased lethality. It doesn’t, however, because of a design issue in GW2 with melee vs ranged skills.

Generally, melee is supposed to be “riskier” and harder to hit often and so hit harder. Ranged is supposed to be easier to hit often but be weaker in exchange. Obviously, there are exceptions but not on P/D.

The best ranged builds ignore that conception by reaching parity with melee options. They do this with unblockable. They do this with high Alpha damage. They do this with bounce (AoE from a single target).

Which brings me to my updated suggestions:

• Sneak Attack needs to hit direct damage of 7k on a crit. Call it a 25% base damage bonus.
• Repeater needs to hit at least 4K direct damage. Call it a 30% damage bonus.
• Repeater needs to be unblockable.

I am not seeing near the reflects and blocks that you seem to be.

Pistol #2 is awful. Replace it with Repeater and keep #3 as Shadow Strike.

@Valar Dotalis.6409 said:Pistol #2 is awful. Replace it with Repeater and keep #3 as Shadow Strike.

The main issue with pistol #2 is the projectile speed way to slow. I can certainly get behing that shot being an unblockable. It a bad idea to make it repeater as p/p shares the slot and #2 and #3 become too much alike within the same set. It also breaks the idea of the dual wield skills. Making projectile speed faster and adding an unblockable might help the p/p users if there any left.

@saerni.2584 said:So some thoughts.

M7 is still hard to rely on for P/D. There are several reasons for this.

1. Projectiles tend to get blocked/reflected a fair bit. Malice generation rates aren’t too great in practice for this reason.
2. Repeater is slow. This means it takes a while to get in the minimum 4 attacks to reach 7 malice. Unless you have quickness you are looking at enough time for an enemy to counterattack and pressure you. Extended trading of shots with another ranged profession doesn’t work, they usually hit harder and many have damage reduction while you are still trying to charge up M7.

I’d add that Repeater still feels weak for what it is supposed to be. In my mind, Repeater is supposed to offer the option of significantly increased lethality. It doesn’t, however, because of a design issue in GW2 with melee vs ranged skills.

Generally, melee is supposed to be “riskier” and harder to hit often and so hit harder. Ranged is supposed to be easier to hit often but be weaker in exchange. Obviously, there are exceptions but not on P/D.

The best ranged builds ignore that conception by reaching parity with melee options. They do this with unblockable. They do this with high Alpha damage. They do this with bounce (AoE from a single target).

Which brings me to my updated suggestions:

• Sneak Attack needs to hit direct damage of 7k on a crit. Call it a 25% base damage bonus.
• Repeater needs to hit at least 4K direct damage. Call it a 30% damage bonus.
• Repeater needs to be unblockable.

I understand the desire to tweal the set but I think #3 in a good place now in relative terms albeit the raw damage component might need a slight boost (i would go 15 percent tops bonus). I fear if you add too much to that skill you risk it being the only skill being used. As such I feel tweaks to #4 or to #2 is what needs to be looked at if anything as this would also help p/p or d/d. I would lean to #2 more.

Making p #2 an unblockable would bring much nicer synergy to the set allowing it to be used as defense and or to set up your next attack.

@babazhook.6805

It’s not just reflects and blocks. It’s the combination of those with the large number of other professions with teleports and gap closers.

I don’t think adding about 30% damage to Sneak Attack and Repeater would make Shadowstrike into the only skill used on the set. I think it would make its damage competitive with other weapon sets.

In addition unblockable would cut back on the blocking and reflecting and justify that the defensive skill for the set (at least without significant changes to Body Shot) no longer provides the same defensive ability it used to.

I’d view these changes as holistic attempts to make the set strong enough to compete. Mind you, I’m not trying to make Sneak Attack hit for 10k+ or Repeater to hit for 8k. That might be OP. As it stands, given the lack of sustain for thief in this meta, P/D needs damage buffs to keep up.

Pistol 2 is beastly on condi P/D. Before the repeater initiative change you were actually better off spamming pistol 2 for damage. It's kept in check by slow projectile speed.

The Repeater window on 3 does feel a bit long. I think there's some value in locking out Shadow Strike for a few seconds, as that window where you can't instantly port away gives you some vulnerability (and thus some power budget for more power).

Really not sure where to put it though. The auto is already stellar and 2 + 3 are very strong skills. Maybe dagger 4; it doesn't seem like any of the /D builds get good value out of it, but no idea what it should do.

@Ensign.2189 said:Pistol 2 is beastly on condi P/D. Before the repeater initiative change you were actually better off spamming pistol 2 for damage. It's kept in check by slow projectile speed.

The Repeater window on 3 does feel a bit long. I think there's some value in locking out Shadow Strike for a few seconds, as that window where you can't instantly port away gives you some vulnerability (and thus some power budget for more power).

Really not sure where to put it though. The auto is already stellar and 2 + 3 are very strong skills. Maybe dagger 4; it doesn't seem like any of the /D builds get good value out of it, but no idea what it should do.

Dagger 4 might be where it gos. The dagger/dagger builds need a redo in any case as the build is hurting without the steal ports. I am finding #3 very effective as is. I has led me to rejig some traits and the utility load as I am not so pressed to use a venom. Again I speak from pure condition and not the hybrid or power side. I just do not want the repeater skill to become too much like unload from a power damage point of view.

Yeah, I think dropping the window for Repeater to 3s would help, you still have time for two volleys but you get Shadow Strike back a little faster. Also makes it clear it's a bonus follow-up and not Unload spam 2.0. Otherwise it is in a good spot.

@babazhook.6805 said:

@Ensign.2189 said:Pistol 2 is beastly on condi P/D. Before the repeater initiative change you were actually better off spamming pistol 2 for damage. It's kept in check by slow projectile speed.

The Repeater window on 3 does feel a bit long. I think there's some value in locking out Shadow Strike for a few seconds, as that window where you can't instantly port away gives you some vulnerability (and thus some power budget for more power).

Really not sure where to put it though. The auto is already stellar and 2 + 3 are very strong skills. Maybe dagger 4; it doesn't seem like any of the /D builds get good value out of it, but no idea what it should do.

It wouldn’t because it is a flip skill. You can’t really spam it and there isn’t any Might generation.

I think Dancing Dagger is fine damage wise with the unique bounce functionality. I can use it against stealthed opponents with a nearby NPC or non-stealthed ally (R.I.P. stealth gyro bouncing). I do think it could track better to a target. Side stepping projectiles that aren’t channeled shouldn’t be a legitimate option imo (given all the obstruction/block/dodge/reflect in the game).