Thief - Upcoming Balance Notes - 10/1/2019

[draxynnic.3719]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:It almost certainly will reset a random slotted utility whether on CD or not as most would consider it OP if the player had that much control over which utility was reset. Especially since its thief in question

It'd be an interesting build consideration if it did care always care about which skill is on cooldown. Improvisation is still powered by Steal/Swipe/Mark and therefore dependent on cooldown, after all, so it's not unlimited, and in a real PvP situation it's probably not practical to ensure that you always have exactly one utility skill on cooldown every time you Steal.

If they're looking to avoid the RNG aspect, it probably should always recharge a skill on cooldown if there is one.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:It almost certainly will reset a random slotted utility whether on CD or not as most would consider it OP if the player had that much control over which utility was reset. Especially since its thief in question

It'd be an interesting build consideration if it did care always care about which skill is on cooldown. Improvisation is still powered by Steal/Swipe/Mark and therefore dependent on cooldown, after all, so it's not unlimited, and in a real PvP situation it's probably not practical to ensure that you always have exactly

one

utility skill on cooldown every time you Steal.

If they're looking to avoid the RNG aspect, it probably

should

always recharge a skill on cooldown if there is one.

Yea be cool but itl be rng on the three still guaranteed. Anet is to conservative when it comes to thief, except for when it comes to poison aplication aperantly lol

[SehferViega.8725]

@"Alatar.7364" said:Most of what I had in mind to say about that was already mentioned here in one way or other.However, I have to express my disappointment (yet definitely not surprised) how Condi S/D was not touched/adjusted at all except getting buffed through the Swipe change.Overall I am just happy it was not filled with the usual "we nerfed this and this, this, this too oh and that as well"

Deadly Ambition (theorized) change: reduce poison stacks from 3 to 2 (with Potent Poison) with an increased duration (from 3 seconds to 5 seconds, so it measn that poison can last for a max duration of 10 seconds).

These changes do not affect Condi S/D Daredevil very much, but they hit hard other builds.IMHO, it would be better remove the "poison the enemy that you immobilize" from the Panic Strike trait.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:It almost certainly will reset a random slotted utility whether on CD or not as most would consider it OP if the player had that much control over which utility was reset. Especially since its thief in question

It'd be an interesting build consideration if it did care always care about which skill is on cooldown. Improvisation is still powered by Steal/Swipe/Mark and therefore dependent on cooldown, after all, so it's not unlimited, and in a real PvP situation it's probably not practical to ensure that you always have exactly

one

utility skill on cooldown every time you Steal.

If they're looking to avoid the RNG aspect, it probably

should

always recharge a skill on cooldown if there is one.

They won't do that due to Swindlers, Lead attacks, and Sleight of Hand. Imagine this, I use Assassin's signet, then Steal. Since it is the only skill on CD, it resets. Then I use it again. That's a total of 1080 power boost. Yeah, no.

[Elxdark.9702]

@SehferViega.8725 said:

@"Alatar.7364" said:Most of what I had in mind to say about that was already mentioned here in one way or other.However, I have to express my disappointment

(yet definitely not surprised)

how Condi S/D was not touched/adjusted at all except getting buffed through the Swipe change.Overall I am just happy it was not filled with the usual

"we nerfed this and this, this, this too oh and that as well"

Deadly Ambition (theorized) change: reduce poison stacks from 3 to 2 (with Potent Poison) with an increased duration (from 3 seconds to 5 seconds, so it measn that poison can last for a max duration of 10 seconds).

These changes do not affect Condi S/D Daredevil very much, but they hit hard other builds.IMHO, it would be better remove the "poison the enemy that you immobilize" from the Panic Strike trait.

WHAT? that's a really easy change you see, here in ANET we don't do that but we can keep nerfing deadly ambition until is so bad that nobody uses it!

[Joshewwah.2956]

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:It almost certainly will reset a random slotted utility whether on CD or not as most would consider it OP if the player had that much control over which utility was reset. Especially since its thief in question

It'd be an interesting build consideration if it did care always care about which skill is on cooldown. Improvisation is still powered by Steal/Swipe/Mark and therefore dependent on cooldown, after all, so it's not unlimited, and in a real PvP situation it's probably not practical to ensure that you always have exactly

one

utility skill on cooldown every time you Steal.

If they're looking to avoid the RNG aspect, it probably

should

always recharge a skill on cooldown if there is one.

They won't do that due to Swindlers, Lead attacks, and Sleight of Hand. Imagine this, I use Assassin's signet, then Steal. Since it is the only skill on CD, it resets. Then I use it again. That's a total of 1080 power boost. Yeah, no.

Doesn't work like that. You'll only get 1 assassin's signet still, since its a buff. You won't be able to have 2 of the same buffs at the same time.

[babazhook.6805]

To the CIS changes and some preliminary tests. I was using a d/p build with rifle in a DE spec. Prior to this my GM choice had been shadows rejuv as SA was integral to the rifle build. It was not a boon ripper so rendering was not used in this particular build.

Given rifle has no blinds I stuck with d/p for most of the fights. I used a mix of smoke screen, the #5 skill and shadowmeld.

Incoming heals per second were just under 200. This is right around what shadows rejuv heals for per second were I to park in stealth. the siphons hit at 250 per , not all that bad so the skill comparable to Rejuv. Where Rejuv also adds some INI , CIS does damage. All of this was bare minimum with no might stacks or added power via bloodlust sigil.

I am not sold on it yet but will continue to try in a number of scenarios and variants of utilities chosen/sigils etc. (I sort of wish that rifle 4 left a blind now on the port way rather then a poison ;)

[Warscythes.9307]

So bit of an interesting found by SC's left. Because stolen skills are now on an ammo system, you no longer lose the skill if you stow or interrupt it. This is potentially pretty good for some skills like consume plasma where it takes 1 second to cast and sometimes you want to stow it to do something else.

[UNOwen.7132]

@babazhook.6805 said:To the CIS changes and some preliminary tests. I was using a d/p build with rifle in a DE spec. Prior to this my GM choice had been shadows rejuv as SA was integral to the rifle build. It was not a boon ripper so rendering was not used in this particular build.

Given rifle has no blinds I stuck with d/p for most of the fights. I used a mix of smoke screen, the #5 skill and shadowmeld.

Incoming heals per second were just under 200. This is right around what shadows rejuv heals for per second were I to park in stealth. the siphons hit at 250 per , not all that bad so the skill comparable to Rejuv. Where Rejuv also adds some INI , CIS does damage. All of this was bare minimum with no might stacks or added power via bloodlust sigil.

I am not sold on it yet but will continue to try in a number of scenarios and variants of utilities chosen/sigils etc. (I sort of wish that rifle 4 left a blind now on the port way rather then a poison ;)

If you get 200 heals per second, you mustve really been spamming blinds left and right. And its still less than Shadow Rejuvs heal (Which is 300 per second). And yeah, its pretty bad, 250 damage is practically nothing, you get almost that much on everyone around you, on every hit, with vampiric aura. So all you had to do to be outperformed by vampiric aura is sacrifice all damage and utility while trying to melee all the time and hope the enemy doesnt have resistance.

But yes, your results line up with what Ive seen. Showing the trait to still be completely worthless and unpickable.

[foste.3098]

From my pov improv change was a buff since now you have a 33%/66%/100% reset chance on a skill rather than 16.6% or 20% if using 2 of the same type of utility or if you are playing core. In my mind reliability of something recharging trumps having a lower chance at it, even if it means you cannot get a elite or healing skill recharge.

But the true winner of the balance lottery has got to be power sword/x daredevil; take the usual steal traits and go for acrobatics and swindler's equilibrium, and you have a über-swipe that can be used every ~13 seconds.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@foste.3098 said:From my pov improv change was a buff since now you have a 33%/66%/100% reset chance on a skill rather than 16.6% or 20% if using 2 of the same type of utility or if you are playing core. In my mind reliability of something recharging trumps having a lower chance at it, even if it means you cannot get a elite or healing skill recharge.

But the true winner of the balance lottery has got to be power sword/x daredevil; take the usual steal traits and go for acrobatics and swindler's equilibrium, and you have a über-swipe that can be used every ~13 seconds.

Power s/d daredevil with acro? So u are using 4 trait lines or dropping DA?

[Xenji.4907]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@foste.3098 said:From my pov improv change was a buff since now you have a 33%/66%/100% reset chance on a skill rather than 16.6% or 20% if using 2 of the same type of utility or if you are playing core. In my mind reliability of something recharging trumps having a lower chance at it, even if it means you cannot get a elite or healing skill recharge.

But the true winner of the balance lottery has got to be power sword/x daredevil; take the usual steal traits and go for acrobatics and swindler's equilibrium, and you have a über-swipe that can be used every ~13 seconds.

Power s/d daredevil with acro? So u are using 4 trait lines or dropping DA?

They are dropping DA. AC/TR/DD - It's mostly S/P so they can chain combo bound with black powder. I mostly seen this in wvw and they survive a lot longer and better at brawling other profs while roaming.

[omgdracula.6345]

So did this nerf Dagger Storm reset?

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@omgdracula.6345 said:So did this nerf Dagger Storm reset?

No more reset for DS

[DemonSeed.3528]

Yeah it's a pity it don't reset heal or elite, I actually had a fun build to use in both pve/wvw with thieves guild/ds lol. It was a quickness deadeye frenzy build. I will have to rethink that one now to see what I can do with it, but of course there is no way around it now, I will just come up with something new.

[babazhook.6805]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@babazhook.6805 said:To the CIS changes and some preliminary tests. I was using a d/p build with rifle in a DE spec. Prior to this my GM choice had been shadows rejuv as SA was integral to the rifle build. It was not a boon ripper so rendering was not used in this particular build.

Given rifle has no blinds I stuck with d/p for most of the fights. I used a mix of smoke screen, the #5 skill and shadowmeld.

Incoming heals per second were just under 200. This is right around what shadows rejuv heals for per second were I to park in stealth. the siphons hit at 250 per , not all that bad so the skill comparable to Rejuv. Where Rejuv also adds some INI , CIS does damage. All of this was bare minimum with no might stacks or added power via bloodlust sigil.

I am not sold on it yet but will continue to try in a number of scenarios and variants of utilities chosen/sigils etc. (I sort of wish that rifle 4 left a blind now on the port way rather then a poison ;)

If you get 200 heals per second, you mustve really been spamming blinds left and right. And its still less than Shadow Rejuvs heal (Which is

300

per second). And yeah, its pretty bad, 250 damage is practically nothing, you get almost that much on everyone around you, on every hit, with vampiric aura. So all you had to do to be outperformed by vampiric aura is sacrifice all damage and utility while trying to melee all the time and hope the enemy doesnt have resistance.

But yes, your results line up with what Ive seen. Showing the trait to still be completely worthless and unpickable.

Heals were coming from the fields (#5 skill and smoke screen) and the persons who decided to stand in them. Smokescreen was on as low a cooldown as I could manage with SA traited. The rest were melds and the cloak and dagger stealth. You can chain quite a few together in this manner.

I have been also testing the new heals allowed the Warrior out of tactics as an add to support builds and sustain. In comparative terms they were much more generous with the warrior heals in Tactics then all of the adds to Thief in SA. While I do not concur that CIS needs 1000 times the heal , i do believe there room to increase the heal allowed using CIS along with a boost to the heal on port.

[omgdracula.6345]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@omgdracula.6345 said:So did this nerf Dagger Storm reset?

No more reset for DS

Thanks! Well at least you can chain utlities then possibly.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:It almost certainly will reset a random slotted utility whether on CD or not as most would consider it OP if the player had that much control over which utility was reset. Especially since its thief in question

It'd be an interesting build consideration if it did care always care about which skill is on cooldown. Improvisation is still powered by Steal/Swipe/Mark and therefore dependent on cooldown, after all, so it's not unlimited, and in a real PvP situation it's probably not practical to ensure that you always have exactly

one

utility skill on cooldown every time you Steal.

If they're looking to avoid the RNG aspect, it probably

should

always recharge a skill on cooldown if there is one.

They won't do that due to Swindlers, Lead attacks, and Sleight of Hand. Imagine this, I use Assassin's signet, then Steal. Since it is the only skill on CD, it resets. Then I use it again. That's a total of 1080 power boost. Yeah, no.

Doesn't work like that. You'll only get 1 assassin's signet still, since its a buff. You won't be able to have 2 of the same buffs at the same time.

It doesn't stack like Might? If that is the case, I stand corrected.

[Cougre.6543]

@Joshewwah.2956 @Sir Vincent III.1286

Doesn't work like that. You'll only get 1 assassin's signet still, since its a buff. You won't be able to have 2 of the same buffs at the same time.While you cannot stack active Assassin's Signets, you can stack the passive and the active for a total of 720 power.

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

Anyone notice that shadow shot seems to be hard to land now, I get a lot "missed" even though I am not blinded or terrain is in the way more then ever before (even jumping)

Still trying to push my luck with d/p in wvw but pi does like 1.2k at the most and the AA is still garbage, most builds can just regen it, the only thing it has left is back stab but if I wanted to do that I would run de or something very gimmicky on them lines.

Swipe is 16 1/2 seconds cool down which isn't too bad (kinda like swindles time)

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@"Fat Disgrace.4275" said:Anyone notice that shadow shot seems to be hard to land now, I get a lot "missed" even though I am not blinded or terrain is in the way more then ever before (even jumping)

Still trying to push my luck with d/p in wvw but pi does like 1.2k at the most and the AA is still garbage, most builds can just regen it, the only thing it has left is back stab but if I wanted to do that I would run de or something very gimmicky on them lines.

Swipe is 16 1/2 seconds cool down which isn't too bad (kinda like swindles time)

Haha yeah d/p damage definitely needs buffed. Many times I've been on someone's tail continually attacking them and they just keep running until I say F it and move on. Weapon sets fun but it's a joke dps wise d/d is as well unless full condi.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@"Fat Disgrace.4275" said:Anyone notice that shadow shot seems to be hard to land now, I get a lot "missed" even though I am not blinded or terrain is in the way more then ever before (even jumping)

I'm getting this a lot on rifle as well, kind of daft that the shots miss for no real reason.