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Vicariuz.1605

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  • ArenaNet Staff

We have two changes prepared for staff thief that we're attempting to get into a hotfix. Those changes being fixing the jump bug with staff 3, and increasing the initiative cost of staff 3 from 4 to 6. Due to the time constraint and general risk of pushing changes like this we're keeping it small and simple, but we're going to evaluate the results and consider additional changes for the next regular balance update.

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I get removing the bug but feels like a dumb down of the skill now but I get why needed to be done. Increasing ini of any skills is a little off as preparedness trait is basically a must have in almost every thief build severely lowering build deversity. Preparedness needs to be baseline or ini on skills need to be lowered not raised so thief builds have a chance to be viable without running the trickery traitline. Yeah I kno builds can be done without the traitline but they are literally handicapped by not choosing trickery which should not be the case.

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:We have two changes prepared for staff thief that we're attempting to get into a hotfix. Those changes being fixing the jump bug with staff 3, and increasing the initiative cost of staff 3 from 4 to 6. Due to the time constraint and general risk of pushing changes like this we're keeping it small and simple, but we're going to evaluate the results and consider additional changes for the next regular balance update.

i don't see why you'd have to nerf staff 3 after fixing the bug. the skill isn't even that good.

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:We have two changes prepared for staff thief that we're attempting to get into a hotfix. Those changes being fixing the jump bug with staff 3, and increasing the initiative cost of staff 3 from 4 to 6. Due to the time constraint and general risk of pushing changes like this we're keeping it small and simple, but we're going to evaluate the results and consider additional changes for the next regular balance update.

what about fix to Scourge in PVE? the last update destroyed Scourge and Neco Pve.. and it really need a fix

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:We have two changes prepared for staff thief that we're attempting to get into a hotfix. Those changes being fixing the jump bug with staff 3, and increasing the initiative cost of staff 3 from 4 to 6. Due to the time constraint and general risk of pushing changes like this we're keeping it small and simple, but we're going to evaluate the results and consider additional changes for the next regular balance update.

Thank you for addressing this.

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:We have two changes prepared for staff thief that we're attempting to get into a hotfix. Those changes being fixing the jump bug with staff 3, and increasing the initiative cost of staff 3 from 4 to 6. Due to the time constraint and general risk of pushing changes like this we're keeping it small and simple, but we're going to evaluate the results and consider additional changes for the next regular balance update.

Is this going to happen before the Monthly?

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:We have two changes prepared for staff thief that we're attempting to get into a hotfix. Those changes being fixing the jump bug with staff 3, and increasing the initiative cost of staff 3 from 4 to 6. Due to the time constraint and general risk of pushing changes like this we're keeping it small and simple, but we're going to evaluate the results and consider additional changes for the next regular balance update.

6 init is too much, just putting that out there. The jump bug fix alone is good, but consider 5 for staff 3 if you absolutely must bump it up, otherwise nobody is going to bother even using it over vault. If it costs as much as vault in PVP, people will always use Staff 5 instead because cripple < raw damage. Removing immob is covered by several other skills.

If you want to make it cost the same as vault, consider making the evade a bit longer in duration..

Also thanks for the transparency. That's a significant portion of what we need.

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  • ArenaNet Staff

The feedback and concerns to the incoming changes are all valid, and I wanted to expand a bit more on why we ended up on the change that we did. Here's the situation that we were looking at:

1) There's a clear problem with staff thief based on past tournament games and results2) There's another 'monthly' this weekend. We can expect more of the same comps if nothing changes3) We have a chance to get something into a hotfix.

We absolutely want to fix the problem for the monthly, but working in a hotfix timeline limits the scope of what we we should do. The correct change in a perfect world is a combination of smaller adjustments to (not necessarily all of these at once) Escapist's Fortitude, Roll for Initiative, Quick Pockets, Staff Master, and Debilitating Arc. But because we're doing this as part of a hotfix, the most important consideration is doing something safe. More changes introduce more risk, so we want to limit ourselves to a single change, in addition to the bug fix. The straight initiative increase to Debilitating Arc looks like the highest impact option so that's what we went with. As for making it 6 vs 5 (or solely doing the bug fix), we have one shot at this change before the monthly and we wanted to err on the side of nerfing too hard instead of risking not actually fixing the problem.

So yes the change may be too heavy-handed, and yes there are better changes in the grand scheme of things than the one that was made. We will definitely be revisiting this for the next update, but in the immediate time-frame we had to work with we felt this was the best option available.

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:We have two changes prepared for staff thief that we're attempting to get into a hotfix. Those changes being fixing the jump bug with staff 3, and increasing the initiative cost of staff 3 from 4 to 6. Due to the time constraint and general risk of pushing changes like this we're keeping it small and simple, but we're going to evaluate the results and consider additional changes for the next regular balance update.

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:The feedback and concerns to the incoming changes are all valid, and I wanted to expand a bit more on why we ended up on the change that we did. Here's the situation that we were looking at:

1) There's a clear problem with staff thief based on past tournament games and results2) There's another 'monthly' this weekend. We can expect more of the same comps if nothing changes3) We have a chance to get something into a hotfix.

We absolutely want to fix the problem for the monthly, but working in a hotfix timeline limits the scope of what we we should do. The correct change in a perfect world is a combination of smaller adjustments to (not necessarily all of these at once) Escapist's Fortitude, Roll for Initiative, Quick Pockets, Staff Master, and Debilitating Arc. But because we're doing this as part of a hotfix, the most important consideration is doing something safe. More changes introduce more risk, so we want to limit ourselves to a single change, in addition to the bug fix. The straight initiative increase to Debilitating Arc looks like the highest impact option so that's what we went with. As for making it 6 vs 5 (or solely doing the bug fix), we have one shot at this change before the monthly and we wanted to err on the side of nerfing too hard instead of risking not actually fixing the problem.

So yes the change may be too heavy-handed, and yes there are better changes in the grand scheme of things than the one that was made. We will definitely be revisiting this for the next update, but in the immediate time-frame we had to work with we felt this was the best option available.

While I am glad that this build is getting changed, the reasons presented are extremely questionable to me. Especially because staff 3 has existed in this iteration for an extensive period of time, only now that it has won a monthly is this problem addressed (in urgency). I'm confused on some terminology here, it seems in one sentence you are "keeping it small and simple" and then in another sentence it's, "we have one shot at this change before the monthly and we wanted to err on the side of nerfing too hard."

Needless to say there is a LOT of questions I have, and I'm sure others, as to the intentions behind changes made regarding balance.One question I have is: what is the clear problem with staff thief "based on past tournament games and 'results?'" The wording of that statement is very odd to me.

Regardless of all of that, I very much appreciate the desperately needed communication from you and your team and I hope that it continues.

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@Vicariuz.1605 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:We have two changes prepared for staff thief that we're attempting to get into a hotfix. Those changes being fixing the jump bug with staff 3, and increasing the initiative cost of staff 3 from 4 to 6. Due to the time constraint and general risk of pushing changes like this we're keeping it small and simple, but we're going to evaluate the results and consider additional changes for the next regular balance update.

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:The feedback and concerns to the incoming changes are all valid, and I wanted to expand a bit more on why we ended up on the change that we did. Here's the situation that we were looking at:

1) There's a clear problem with staff thief based on past tournament games and results2) There's another 'monthly' this weekend. We can expect more of the same comps if nothing changes3) We have a chance to get something into a hotfix.

We absolutely want to fix the problem for the monthly, but working in a hotfix timeline limits the scope of what we we should do. The correct change in a perfect world is a combination of smaller adjustments to (not necessarily all of these at once) Escapist's Fortitude, Roll for Initiative, Quick Pockets, Staff Master, and Debilitating Arc. But because we're doing this as part of a hotfix, the most important consideration is doing something safe. More changes introduce more risk, so we want to limit ourselves to a single change, in addition to the bug fix. The straight initiative increase to Debilitating Arc looks like the highest impact option so that's what we went with. As for making it 6 vs 5 (or solely doing the bug fix), we have one shot at this change before the monthly and we wanted to err on the side of nerfing too hard instead of risking not actually fixing the problem.

So yes the change may be too heavy-handed, and yes there are better changes in the grand scheme of things than the one that was made. We will definitely be revisiting this for the next update, but in the immediate time-frame we had to work with we felt this was the best option available.

While I am glad that this build is getting changed, the reasons presented are extremely questionable to me. Especially because staff 3 has existed in this iteration for an extensive period of time, only now that it has won a monthly is this problem addressed (in urgency). I'm confused on some terminology here, it seems in one sentence you are "keeping it small and simple" and then in another sentence it's, "we have one shot at this change before the monthly and we wanted to err on the side of nerfing too hard."

Needless to say there is a LOT of questions I have, and I'm sure others, as to the intentions behind changes made regarding balance.One question I have is: what is the clear problem with staff thief "based on past tournament games and 'results?'" The wording of that statement is very odd to me.

Regardless of all of that, I very much appreciate the desperately needed communication from you and your team and I hope that it continues.

Staff thief has been used on both regions by winning teams for last 2 mats(the only 2 to happen since buffs to the build). It has been meta since the buffs happened awhile prior to mats but was never an issue because no one in ranked plays it(since the condi counterpart is more popular there and fits the ranked playstyle more) or really knew about it except for top players abusing it in mat matches when mats finally came back after they were broken. If you are asking what cmc is referring to you can look at sinds pov of the monthly he did where flandre(non thief player) trolls 3 good players on node, without taking any pressure until they leave. Or watch the last 2 na mats where kat does the same thing or observe how unkillable half decent players are on the build in any daily at on na(reckless/grim/anya/etre).

The entire premise of this build is to slot the same weapon on both slots to proc sigils nonstop(degenerate), spec solely for evades(degenerate), abuse a bug to avoid having in between dodge frames(degenerate), along with daggerstorm which buys you enough time to fill the gap in your evades. Also, escapist fortitude gives way too much sustain healing and condi cleanse, though not degenerate but very powerful with the amount of 'evades' happening. We have been doing daily ats and reckless can easily push in to an entire team(against good players) and just sit at their home node, they are smart enough to leave him in a stale because wasting time on it is pointless even in a 1v3 situation. The build is so tanky the meta has evolved to node wars with optimal comps being running 2x staff thieves having them afk on both sides of the map. The issue with people telling you to "just ignore 4head" is they will cap those nodes, and never leave. Most roamers currently cannot simply force them off even after wiping the team with those thieves thus buying enough time for a comfortable regroup with the map. People are resorting to utils such as seal area, line of warding, fear ring because those will cc despite the evades and force stunbreaks very quickly in which case a good staff thief shadow steps away, and comes right back when theyre gone. Those who think ignoring them is the play probably only play ranked or have simply not caught up to structured meta yet. This is the conclusion I have come to after playing this comp with and against staff thieves. Doing scrims and ats daily with my team.

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@"NotoriousNaru.1705" said:Staff thief has been used on both regions by winning teams for last 2 mats(the only 2 to happen since buffs to the build). It has been meta since the buffs happened awhile prior to mats but was never an issue because no one in ranked plays it(since the condi counterpart is more popular there and fits the ranked playstyle more) or really knew about it except for top players abusing it in mat matches when mats finally came back after they were broken. If you are asking what cmc is referring to you can look at sinds pov of the monthly he did where flandre(non thief player) trolls 3 good players on node, without taking any pressure until they leave. Or watch the last 2 na mats where kat does the same thing or observe how unkillable half decent players are on the build in any daily at on na(reckless/grim/anya/etre).

The entire premise of this build is to slot the same weapon on both slots to proc sigils nonstop(degenerate), spec solely for evades(degenerate), abuse a bug to avoid having in between dodge frames(degenerate), along with daggerstorm which buys you enough time to fill the gap in your evades. Also, escapist fortitude gives way too much sustain healing and condi cleanse, though not degenerate but very powerful with the amount of 'evades' happening. We have been doing daily ats and reckless can easily push in to an entire team(against good players) and just sit at their home node, they are smart enough to leave him in a stale because wasting time on it is pointless even in a 1v3 situation. The build is so tanky the meta has evolved to node wars with optimal comps being running 2x staff thieves having them afk on both sides of the map. The issue with people telling you to "just ignore 4head" is they will cap those nodes, and never leave. Most roamers currently cannot simply force them off even after wiping the team with those thieves thus buying enough time for a comfortable regroup with the map. People are resorting to utils such as seal area, line of warding, fear ring because those will cc despite the evades and force stunbreaks very quickly in which case a good staff thief shadow steps away, and comes right back when theyre gone. Those who think ignoring them is the play probably only play ranked or have simply not caught up to structured meta yet. This is the conclusion I have come to after playing this comp with and against staff thieves. Doing scrims and ats daily with my team.

I appreciate the run down on the build however I am already fully aware of it as well as how to play it (since I regularly play against you and all of the people you mentioned), as well as on EU; the first thread I brought it up in was made in July. Equally, I'm aware of what 1v1s it and wins the match up, but I think what you've said will definitely help those who aren't playing against this build as much as us have some good insight on it.

Very specifically this "The entire premise of this build is to slot the same weapon on both slots to proc sigils nonstop(degenerate), spec solely for evades(degenerate), abuse a bug to avoid having in between dodge frames(degenerate), along with daggerstorm which buys you enough time to fill the gap in your evades." This is extremely important information that more people should be and should have been aware of and I'm very glad you said it.

I'm much more interested in hearing the Dev PoV because, as we all know, they are the ones that change the game, and I think it is extremely valuable insight to hear it. I think they can speak for themselves.

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@Cal Cohen.3527

Such harsh nerfs make me worry that staff will be left as an unusable weapon set (spvp/wvw) and with it the whole idea of a 'bruiser' thief, especially since anet is not know for rolling back changes to things once they start to underperform due to excessive nerfings across multiple patches.

Increasing the initiative of skill 4 to 6 is too much and along side the jump-cast fix (which is deserved) will confine staff daredevil to oblivion.In my mind the best way to tackle this skills would be to give debilitating arch a clearer window of vulnerability in its animation; people never complain about death blossom evasion even tho it can be spammed just as many times because it is much easier to get a hit in during that skill's aftercast window. Another way to tackle the spamming of d. arch could be to split it in 2 flip-over skills where you first do a strike that cripples and if that hits the skills flips over to the back-role evasion part; this way players would not be able to get evasion by spamming the skill at nothing.Another thing to note is that at this time staff as a weapon is carried by this skill for both survival and non burst damage. This is due to it being the only easy to land fast attack on staff: weakening charge is super awkward to land on a non stationary target as it often leaves you spinning in place missing most of the strikes, dust strike is more a 'utility' weapon skill that has a niche use that does not do much against builds which have rapid & fast skills (mostly everything that is not core necro/some warrior builds), and vault is expensive to cast and is telegraphed.

If the change of increased initiative is to go through at least consider lowering the cost of dust strike from 4 to 3 so that staff does not loose all of it's brawling power in a single hasty nerf.

EDIT: also a clear target to nerf the staff/staff build is the quick pockets traits specifically since no other pvp/wvw builds use it at all.

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I hope builds arnt nerfed soley due to being in monthly winning teams and cuz peeps are playing them cuz a viable build that is fun to play will present the same lol this is so awesome as I can already see how these new devs are gonna work out especially with this community having such a huge chunk that hate thieves out of bias and spam nerf threads on anything and every skill that's effective on thief lol. Be prepared for every viable thief build that see's play to "become a problem that needs fixed" this is gonna be great. U thief players might as well switch classes now lol

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@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:I hope builds arnt nerfed soley due to being in monthly winning teams and cuz peeps are playing them cuz a viable build that is fun to play will present the same lol this is so awesome as I can already see how these new devs are gonna work out especially with this community having such a huge chunk that hate thieves out of bias and spam nerf threads on anything and every skill that's effective on thief lol. Be prepared for every viable thief build that see's play to "become a problem that needs fixed" this is gonna be great. U thief players might as well switch classes now lol

What about ppl like YOU , that said that spec wont be shown in high competive game ... + saying that thief was underpowred with 2500 posts ?Sent me your gold , if you gonna play archage :)

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People like me can see past their own class and dont want builds that challenge me to be nerfed cuz I'm a baby lol. Thief was underpowered for yrs, u new? They were delegated to +1 and decaps cuz most duels except mesmer where in the other class favor, is that not underpowered? To be just used due to being able to move around the map a bit better wow awesome assassin design right there. Yeah staff build can bunker now which is what thief players were asking for for a long time, a bruisser build that can stay in a fight, same for condi s/d yeah unfortunately its low skill but atleast puts thief in a viable 1v1 state. They player base and the devs if they listen to player base will never let thief be anything more than +1 or mobility tool due to being complaining babies which is sad asf lol and no I like to jump into the game here and there for 1 match to experience its greatness so I'll hold onto my gold lol. But yeah I'll def be staying in AAU

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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:People like me can see past their own class and dont want builds that challenge me to be nerfed cuz I'm a baby lol. Thief was underpowered for yrs, u new? They were delegated to +1 and decaps cuz most duels except mesmer where in the other class favor, is that not underpowered? To be just used due to being able to move around the map a bit better wow awesome assassin design right there. Yeah staff build can bunker know which is what thief players were asking for for a long time, a bruisser build that can stay in a fight, same for condi s/d yeah unfortunately its low skill but atleast puts thief in a viable 1v1 state. They player base and the devs if they listen to player base will never let their be anything more than +1 or mobility tool due to being complaining babies which is sad asf lol and no I like to jump into the game here and there for 1 match to experience its greatness lol. But yeah I'll def be staying in AAU

Theres some ppl in the lifespan of 3 years, telling to other 300 to ''be quiet'' > whine about powercreep > leaving .The lifespan must be shortent , for those 300

4 moths ago where was a video about a thief player using stuff and other Streamers in the Coliseum where avoid him , and you simply said that spec wont be shown in tournaments and its a troloollol build.And now you are telling that ppl always wanted a bunker spec ? ....

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I'd like to advocate for changes:

@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:We have two changes prepared for staff thief that we're attempting to get into a hotfix. Those changes being fixing the jump bug with staff 3, and increasing the initiative cost of staff 3 from 4 to 6. Due to the time constraint and general risk of pushing changes like this we're keeping it small and simple, but we're going to evaluate the results and consider additional changes for the next regular balance update.

While I feel like 4 -> 6 might be overkill, but at least there's reasoning, I'd like to thank for bravery for doing this because staff/staff is super unfun to play against, neither takes skill to perform well. Fixing jump, imo wasn't that neccessary, considering there are other things that work like jump+staff 3. And at this point we can open pandora box (fix, please, backstab not hitting jumping target)4->5 would require a bit more in-depth analysis, like adjusting RFI, quick pockets and escapist's absolution. Where last isn't only staff tool, but also a tool for already "not that OP" d/p dash.

By any chance, we're getting these fixes before Saturday's mAT?

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@Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:People like me can see past their own class and dont want builds that challenge me to be nerfed cuz I'm a baby lol. Thief was underpowered for yrs, u new? They were delegated to +1 and decaps cuz most duels except mesmer where in the other class favor, is that not underpowered? To be just used due to being able to move around the map a bit better wow awesome assassin design right there. Yeah staff build can bunker know which is what thief players were asking for for a long time, a bruisser build that can stay in a fight, same for condi s/d yeah unfortunately its low skill but atleast puts thief in a viable 1v1 state. They player base and the devs if they listen to player base will never let their be anything more than +1 or mobility tool due to being complaining babies which is sad asf lol and no I like to jump into the game here and there for 1 match to experience its greatness lol. But yeah I'll def be staying in AAU

Theres some ppl in the lifespan of 3 years, telling to other 300 to ''be quiet'' > whine about powercreep > leaving .The lifespan must be shortent , for those 300

4 moths ago where was a video about a thief player using stuff and other ppl in the Coliseum where avoid him , and you simply said that spec wont be shown in tournaments and its a troloollol build.And now you are telling that ppl always wanted a bunker spec ? ....

Go to thief section and read top post starting pvp with thief. Read thief mains responses to the OP. Than tell me how op thief is. I love non thief players like u telling me how thief is fitting in the current game especially after I played it for 4 yrs strait lol it makes it even more fun cuz I care so little compared to in the past cuz I've moved on for the most part, now just pure entertainment lol

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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:People like me can see past their own class and dont want builds that challenge me to be nerfed cuz I'm a baby lol. Thief was underpowered for yrs, u new? They were delegated to +1 and decaps cuz most duels except mesmer where in the other class favor, is that not underpowered? To be just used due to being able to move around the map a bit better wow awesome assassin design right there. Yeah staff build can bunker know which is what thief players were asking for for a long time, a bruisser build that can stay in a fight, same for condi s/d yeah unfortunately its low skill but atleast puts thief in a viable 1v1 state. They player base and the devs if they listen to player base will never let their be anything more than +1 or mobility tool due to being complaining babies which is sad asf lol and no I like to jump into the game here and there for 1 match to experience its greatness lol. But yeah I'll def be staying in AAU

Theres some ppl in the lifespan of 3 years, telling to other 300 to ''be quiet'' > whine about powercreep > leaving .The lifespan must be shortent , for those 300

4 moths ago where was a video about a thief player using stuff and other ppl in the Coliseum where avoid him , and you simply said that spec wont be shown in tournaments and its a troloollol build.And now you are telling that ppl always wanted a bunker spec ? ....

Go to thief section and read top post starting pvp with thief. Read thief mains responses to the OP. Than tell me how op thief is. I live non thief players like u telling me how thief is fitting in the current game especially after I played I got 4 yrs strait lol it makes it even more fun cuz I care so little compared to in the past cuz I've moved on for the most part, now just pure entertainment lol

Its entertainment for me too , i simply ''recharge'' my batteries :P

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