Deadly Ambition nerf of Pointlessness

In the patch notes: "We released a hotfix for Deadly Ambition for PvP in November, but in this update we're addressing the issue with a more comprehensive and functional change to refocus the trait on control over its usage rather than being a very passive damage increase.-Deadly Ambition: This trait now applies 1 stack of poison for 3 seconds when striking with a dual-wield attack. This effect has no cooldown but can only occur once per dual-wield attack use. This trait is no longer split between game modes."And what you did was making it a purely PASSIVE damage increase for 4 of 5 builds that would take the trait and use the active "when striking with a dual-wield attack"-portion of the trait.-Dagger+Dagger: as condi-version, the trait gets activated with Death Blossom.-Pistol+Dagger: the trait activates with Shadow Strike but not with Repeater and due to Shadow Strike-portion shadowstepping the thief backwards, you can't really use that Dual Wield skill actively in ANY endgame PVE. To make matters worse, Shadow Strike can only be used every 4 seconds at minimum due to it flipping into Repeater for 4 seconds after a successful hit.-Sword+Dagger: Flanking/Larcenous Strike does purely power damage and you'd rather use Infiltrator's Strike to apply condis with Panic Strike-trait on that build.-Dagger+Pistol: Shadow Shot is only useful for power builds so you wouldn't even take Deadly Ambition, at least in PVE.-Pistol+Pistol: Unload is a pure power skill and you most likely wouldn't take Deadly Ambition with this weapon combo.-Sword+Pistol: Same as Sword+Dagger. No use in PVE.-Dagger-only and Pistol-only: Deadly Ambition would've been a FANTASTIC trait for these weapon sets but the trait DOESN'T trigger with Repeater or Twisting Fangs. Thus Deadly Ambition is purely +120 Condition Damage for these builds now (despite being classified as Dual Wield on everywhere in the wiki but main hand-only skill 3's aren't classified as dual-wield in-game).-Sword-only: Stab is a pure power skill and you wouldn't use Deadly Ambition anyway on this weapon combo.

• 2-handed weapons: No dual wield skills here so trait doesn't activate on any skills. Thanks for passive +120 Condition Damage.

So either make it work with main hand-only weapon skill 3's too or make it activate with some other condition than dual wield skill. As of now, the trait works totally against what you meant to do with it. (Unless you intended on passively nerfing condi thief.)

Repeater not triggering Deadly Ambition sounds like a bug.

Does the flip skill on Sword trigger Deadly Ambition?

@Cal Cohen.3527

Is Deadly Ambition intended to only trigger on Shadowstrike and not on Repeater?

My understanding was that the original update to Deadly Ambition was meant to move away from being a “dagger only” bonus.

If this functionality is intended it runs contrary to that understanding, because only Dagger/Dagger will be able to apply significant poison.

I was messing around today talking about condi with death blossom was able to get 8 poison and around 10-15 bleed.

I still need to practice as i bet i could get a bit more out of it. At one moment i somehow got 20 bleeds fairly easy. I think the caltrops or whatever when i dodge plus putting actual caltrops down helps quite a lot with bleeds.

I spam 3 mostly plus using caltrops i haven't figured out a actual rotation yet for PVE.

@saerni.2584 said:Repeater not triggering Deadly Ambition sounds like a bug.

Does the flip skill on Sword trigger Deadly Ambition?

Nope. Shadow Strike triggers but flip-Repeater doesn't. And from what Kitty's now tested various weapon combos on condi DE, this has been about 7-15% nerf on almost everything (including condi dagger+dagger deadeye) but condi pistol+pistol deadeye(which by itself is super-counterintuitive considering that Unload does pure power damage by itself) which got a 0,5% boost.

I’m leaning towards bug/not intended.

Repeater is a “Dual Wield” skill.

“This effect has no cooldown but can only occur once per dual-wield attack use.” This says to me they are thinking about Unload and Repeater which strike with multiple bullets and Death Blossom for multiple dagger strikes.

I just hope this gets fixed in the first round of hot fixes....

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 @Cal Cohen.3527

This feels like a pretty poorly implemented change to me. Letting it proc off ANY 3 skill rather than only dual wield would have been better.

How long will it take before they start complaining about P/P DE Condition/Hybrid Build spamming Unload?

I've been using this build in my PvE alt. The stacking might is great with Deadly Ambition and Unload plus the Initiatives refund. It's not a PvP build, but what's stopping the complainers?

Another "this is why we cannot have nice things" nerf. Only scrubs think a thief is OP particularly with builds running this trait. They basically junked up the DA line for condi. Can we at least have the original poison stacks back on Dagger Training since this trait just got put into the "why bother" bin.

If the trait operated as described it would be fine, that being on ANY dual wield attack. This includes the second or thrid in a chain like p/d with shadowstrike/repeater and repeater and on no off hand where a P build uses repeater.

@babazhook.6805 said:If the trait operated as described it would be fine, that being on ANY dual wield attack. This includes the second or thrid in a chain like p/d with shadowstrike/repeater and repeater and on no off hand where a P build uses repeater.

Completely agree. I’ve already made a bug post about it. I think they forgot that they added Repeater to P/D but didn’t make it a dual-wield skill.

What they need to do to fix it is make the P/D version of Repeater flagged as Dual-Wield. That should fix the code that Deadly Ambition uses to add poison.

Just... Just put back the stack that was removed from the PvE version, please. I mean I haven't heard a single mob complain about its power this entire time! For the moment, I've shelved at least one of my thieves. The other one that's also a condi build might be able to manage for now.

I think the second chain dw attacks are just bugged. S/d 3 and follow up chain put on the proper stacks.

Change to DA is right in par with anet style changes-usless.Wow poison stack on dual wield skills only is ridiculous and basically makes the traitline join the majority of other traits anet made useless among the other useless traits anet never attempted to make useful lolNo matter how u try and convince urself poison stacks from any skill every few sec vs this garbage of stacks only on duel wield skill cut its effective by lije 90%.This balance team sure is making more faster changes but their just as poorly thought out. Games not going in any better direction as it's just gonna be a bumpier ride till it ends.

They may as well change Deadly Ambition to a utility/universally helpful trait instead of Condition-based...

Deadly Ambition: Poison applied by the Thief no longer causes condition damage. Instead, Poison reduces enemy healing by 50% (instead of the normal 33%). Poison duration is increased by 50%.

Potent Poison can further increase the healing reduction to a total of 66%.

No, I think Anet buys that poison should do damage.

Anet also agrees with the broader GW2 community that condi needs to be tied to skills so people can understand where the damage they take comes from. In that sense, tying a major condi application trait to Dual-Wield abilities makes the most sense. They could also have tied the application to the stealth attacks but quite a few other traits modify stealth attacks and stealth attacks don’t use initiative.

That doesn’t mean Anet won’t (1) fix issues with certain abilities not being labeled as dual-wield skills (P/D Repeater) or (2) adjust the amount or duration of poison upwards if the trait underperforms their expectations.

Given that they also nerfed other poison application traits and Spider Venom duration they clearly wanted to decrease overall application across the board. However, they also wanted to move application to active weapon use. This says to me Anet may increase the poison/duration on Deadly Ambition in the future after seeing the impact of their changes.

I will note that +120 condition damage and poison on dual wield still makes sense as a choice for condi builds, it’s not a bad trait just less powerful than before. I’d suggest the following as iterative changes (besides fixing the Repeater classification):

• Increase duration of poison applied from 3 to 4 seconds

@Kageseigi.2150 said:They may as well change Deadly Ambition to a utility/universally helpful trait instead of Condition-based...

Deadly Ambition: Poison applied by the Thief no longer causes condition damage. Instead, Poison reduces enemy healing by 50% (instead of the normal 33%). Poison duration is increased by 50%.

Potent Poison can further increase the healing reduction to a total of 66%.

Why even bother applying poison? Might as well introduce a new condition that do exactly that.

Deep Wound from GW1 can easily take that effect. Just remove the max health reduction, but increase the healing reduction to 50%. Deadly Ambition applying Deep Wound.

@Cal Cohen.3527

A few additional questions and my original asks if you are willing to answer them:

1. Is the big balance patch in the works coming 2019 or 2020?
2. Is Repeater intended to stay a non-Dual Wield skill or will this be addressed?
3. If Repeater is reclassified to Dual-Wield will it be done as part of a bug fix patch or will it wait until the big balance patch?

The thing with changes like this that piss me off is that they spend an inordinate amount of time tweaking this skill yet condi mirage, boon beast pew pew, etc run around with nary a nerf in sight. Even when they do get a nerf it is so mild to hardly be noticeable. Meanwhile, they continually crap all over entire weaponsets on the thief.

I love the feel of the thief class but they keep obliterating my builds competitiveness. Might as well roll a f'n Soulbeast and join the wall warrior club at this point because that is clearly where anet sees the roaming meta.

@saerni.2584 said:@Cal Cohen.3527

A few additional questions and my original asks if you are willing to answer them:

1. Is the big balance patch in the works coming 2019 or 2020?
2. Is Repeater intended to stay a non-Dual Wield skill or will this be addressed?
3. If Repeater is reclassified to Dual-Wield will it be done as part of a bug fix patch or will it wait until the big balance patch?

See that's the problem when they changed Shadow Strike to include Repeater instead of just making a new skill. Obviously, they cannot make it a dual-wield skill otherwise the a single main hand pistol will have access to Deadly Ambition.

If they take the easy path, they will leave it as is. If they take the right path, they will create a new skill for Shadow Strike.

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@saerni.2584 said:@Cal Cohen.3527

A few additional questions and my original asks if you are willing to answer them:

1. Is the big balance patch in the works coming 2019 or 2020?
2. Is Repeater intended to stay a non-Dual Wield skill or will this be addressed?
3. If Repeater is reclassified to Dual-Wield will it be done as part of a bug fix patch or will it wait until the big balance patch?

Yeah to be consistent with say, the S/D dual skill which also flips (and the flipped skills count as dual too), the P/D one should at least be unique in some way when compared to the single-hand repeater and count as a dual skill too. Honestly the repeater flip for Shadow Strike has been more of a hindrance than a buff imo, I wouldn't even mind if they just reverted it to the way it was.

Why does this apply to WvW? This literally ruined my rifle condi build.

@Anput.4620 said:Why does this apply to WvW? This literally ruined my rifle condi build.

This is gw2 and their balance team were talking about so the answers easy.It's what they do :)

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Anput.4620 said:Why does this apply to WvW? This literally ruined my rifle condi build.

Yep. Three of my thieves have been rendered useless. Only the power ones have survived.

The Hybrid version I used was p/d with rifle. I Have switched up to d/d with p/p. It flimsier then was rifle with its added stealth/range.

I think repeater should read as a dual wield in a p/d build but that said the set still works fine. At this time d/d and p/p just get more bang for the buck out of DA.