Increase swipe to 900 range (and you're awesome).

[UNOwen.7132]

@Shao.7236 said:@UNOwen.7132 It still goes against the purpose of what it's meant to be, it's extremely bad design as the skill already being instant cast is a big but necessary feature, it doesn't need to be that strong.

@Shao.7236 said:@UNOwen.7132 It still goes against the purpose of what it's meant to be, it's extremely bad design as the skill already being instant cast is a big but necessary feature, it doesn't need to be that strong.

Im not sure I understand what you mean. The purpose of what its meant to be is a drawback to the traitline (which is honestly misguided as the traitline itself, and its dodges were the drawback already, but I digress). And it is a drawback. Its a worse steal in pretty much all situations. The unblockable at most makes it a bit less brutal of a drawback (though honestly fails that either way). Steal is always instant cast as well.

[Shao.7236]

@UNOwen.7132

No, what I'm saying is that Boontiful Theft shouldn't go through Aegis, Steal is an attack and being an attack, it should be blocked. No where does it say it's unblockable and it's only by finding the anomaly in real time that it makes sense, or the wiki. Be the latter is that people wrote it on the wiki after finding it out. In fact this makes Steal extremely overpowered and should be addressed to force people dealing an attack before stealing because it breaks the rules of the boon description. No wonder why people think Swipe is useless, they were granted too much from the start. That's what oversights do, meanwhile I was the one breaking Aegis before stealing, people had it way easier than I thought, it's disgusting.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Shao.7236 said:@UNOwen.7132

No, what I'm saying is that Boontiful Theft shouldn't go through Aegis, Steal is an attack and being an attack, it should be blocked. No where does it say it's unblockable and it's only by finding the anomaly in real time that it makes sense, or the wiki. Be the latter is that people wrote it on the wiki after finding it out. In fact this makes Steal extremely overpowered and should be addressed to force people dealing an attack before stealing because it breaks the rules of the boon description. No wonder why people think Swipe is useless, they were granted too much from the start. That's what oversights do, meanwhile I was the one breaking Aegis before stealing, people had it way easier than I thought, it's disgusting.

Steal was corrected to do that because Aegis used to block thieves from getting stolen skills/reliable ripping of defensive boons was needed for counterplay to bunkers.

and should be addressed to force people dealing an attack before stealing because it breaks the rules of the boon description.

No. Aegis can come up randomly without telegraph. Not every situation allows you to see an aegis before stealing.All boon removal(and probably also boon corruption) should ideally prioritize Aegis and protective boons first. We just haven't gotten around to whining about all the other boonrip yet.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:You really cant. Ignoring for a second that there is only one Daredevil build that can even use the trait youre referring to (which came to be half a year later after Swipe was created)-

Don't assume I play meta builds. I don't.

Right, I was talking more generally. Since yknow, balance is usually aimed at meta builds, rather than weaker builds.

-it only reduces the cooldown by 25%. You're still not going to have it ready. And the problem with using headshot for interrupts is that it means a

major

damage loss, especially if you dont run Pulmonary Impact-

75% of 25 is 18.75. That's faster than most blocks recharge. it also gets another reduction in 10 seconds. I'll have it ready.

I said important cooldowns. Not ready for the next block. You shouldnt be using it on blocks anyway. Lets say youre facing a Warrior. You waste your Swipe on their Shield Stance. Or Full Counter (although if Im not mistaken, without Mug you can just steal on their Full Counter either way, so it doesnt really matter). The Warrior is attentive, and realises that now, there is a big window of opportunity where you are shields down, and goes for, lets say, an Arcing Slice. Normally, this is where you would hit the steal button, and interrupt it. Instead, you have to use valuable defenses to avoid it, if you even have them available. It gets worse if they also notice youre low on initiative, and can even safely go for Rampage, in which case you are really screwed.

And even if you do, since Pulmonary Impact was overnerfed, its still a major damage loss. In fact, you lose more damage from that than you gain from the 2 seconds of block you remove, especially since you have to keep up initiative to even have the option.

Pulm. impact was overnerfed, yes. Headshot Thieves were a problem before, so I understand why. Interrupts are for setups, not for doing damage on their own.

Headshot Thieves really werent an issue, they were merely viable, and the only way headshot itself is worth the initiative it costs (if they didnt want interrupts to also be damage, then headshots initiative cost shouldve been reduced drastically alongside the pulm nerf. Lets say, 2 initiative). Besides, Mesmer is still allowed to do major damage while interrupting, so the logic really doesnt hold.

It's also not "two seconds of block" that I'm removing. Not only is that skill going on full recharge, it's also forcing them to pick another option since I'm in their face that isn't "wait for cooldowns or wait to use the skill I get for blocking". Panic selections are really good to force.

No, youre really not forcing them to pick another option at all. The only builds that use channeled blocks (builds? I guess I should just say, Warrior, though there is Engineer who Ill get to in a bit) are builds that want to be in your face. And Warriors dont use channeled blocks as an "oh shit" option, but simply as a way to wait for important cooldowns. So you waste your Swipe to stop their block, and put yourself in Warriors "kill range". Now the Warrior doesnt use another option, but simply turns on you and starts attacking you, and shortly hits you with one of the big skills he was waiting for. While, once again, you curse your error. Now I said Id go over Engineers, so lets do that real quick. There is an Engineer build that does use Shield, which has a channeled block, Static Shield. But you dont use Swipe against that one even more, because you get stunned on the interrupt, and then the Engineer just kills you, or you waste a stunbreak.

No, it really doesnt. A smart opponent will realise that you just wasted your most powerful tool in the arsenal, and that youre basically shields down. They will go on the counter-offensive, abusing the fact that you wont be able to stop their most powerful cooldowns without putting yourself at a further disadvantage. Swipe is

extremely

poorly suited for turning off blocks, because its got too long of a cooldown to be able to use it for that and have it up in time for the cooldowns you need to stop. Optimally, steal is used for engaging, or interrupting important cooldowns. Swipe is incapable of doing the former, so its use cases is relegated to the latter. Its a worse steal. Or was, then its cooldown got reduced.

Like I said, I run

sword/pistol

. I'm hardly shields down after Swipe.I'm not going to ramble too much about builds though. You saw what Sindrener did. You're free to make your own conclusion about that.You'd be surprised how much you can lean into brawler.

Against Warrior? You absolutely are. Granted I guess you wouldnt want to face a Warrior as PW thief anyway, but still.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Shao.7236 said:@UNOwen.7132

No, what I'm saying is that Boontiful Theft shouldn't go through Aegis, Steal is an attack and being an attack, it should be blocked. No where does it say it's unblockable and it's only by finding the anomaly in real time that it makes sense, or the wiki. Be the latter is that people wrote it on the wiki after finding it out. In fact this makes Steal extremely overpowered and should be addressed to force people dealing an attack before stealing because it breaks the rules of the boon description. No wonder why people think Swipe is useless, they were granted too much from the start. That's what oversights do, meanwhile I was the one breaking Aegis before stealing, people had it way easier than I thought, it's disgusting.

Actually steal isnt an attack unless combined with Mug. But, even without that, no, it shouldnt be, because thats the point of boonrips. Boonrips remove the biggest problem boons first, and for each attack, thats different. Steal, like all other power attacks that remove boons that arent unblockable, removes Aegis first. Condi-based attacks that remove boons remove Resistance first. CC ones remove Stability first. And so on. Its an implicit aspect of how boonripping works. And again, unless you suggest nerfing every single boon rip skill, then your idea is a nonstarter. All skills should work the same way with the same text, after all.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@Shao.7236 said:@UNOwen.7132

No, what I'm saying is that Boontiful Theft shouldn't go through Aegis, Steal is an attack and being an attack, it should be blocked. No where does it say it's unblockable and it's only by finding the anomaly in real time that it makes sense, or the wiki. Be the latter is that people wrote it on the wiki after finding it out. In fact this makes Steal extremely overpowered and should be addressed to force people dealing an attack before stealing because it breaks the rules of the boon description. No wonder why people think Swipe is useless, they were granted too much from the start. That's what oversights do, meanwhile I was the one breaking Aegis before stealing, people had it way easier than I thought, it's disgusting.

Steal was corrected to do that because Aegis used to block thieves from getting stolen skills/reliable ripping of defensive boons was needed for counterplay to bunkers.

and should be addressed to force people dealing an attack before stealing because it breaks the rules of the boon description.

No. Aegis can come up randomly without telegraph. Not every situation allows you to see an aegis before stealing.All boon removal(and probably also boon corruption) should ideally prioritize Aegis and protective boons first. We just haven't gotten around to whining about all the other boonrip yet.

All boon removal actually do already do that. Theyve done that for a long time. The only power-based ones that dont get rid of Aegis are the ones that are unblockable anyway. Condi ones remove Resistance.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@"UNOwen.7132" said:I said important cooldowns. Not ready for the next block. You shouldnt be using it on blocks anyway. Lets say youre facing a Warrior. You waste your Swipe on their Shield Stance. Or Full Counter (although if Im not mistaken, without Mug you can just steal on their Full Counter either way, so it doesnt really matter). The Warrior is attentive, and realises that now, there is a big window of opportunity where you are shields down, and goes for, lets say, an Arcing Slice. Normally, this is where you would hit the steal button, and interrupt it. Instead, you have to use valuable defenses to avoid it, if you even have them available. It gets worse if they also notice youre low on initiative, and can even safely go for Rampage, in which case you are really screwed.

There's other ways to counter rampage.

Headshot Thieves really werent an issue, they were merely viable, and the only way headshot itself is worth the initiative it costs (if they didnt want interrupts to also be damage, then headshots initiative cost shouldve been reduced drastically alongside the pulm nerf. Lets say, 2 initiative). Besides, Mesmer is still allowed to do major damage while interrupting, so the logic really doesnt hold.

Mesmers have marginally less interrupt on demand.

No, youre really not forcing them to pick another option at all. The only builds that use channeled blocks (builds? I guess I should just say, Warrior, though there is Engineer who Ill get to in a bit) are builds that want to be in your face. And Warriors dont use channeled blocks as an "oh kitten" option, but simply as a way to wait for important cooldowns. So you waste your Swipe to stop their block, and put yourself in Warriors "kill range". Now the Warrior doesnt use another option, but simply turns on you and starts attacking you, and shortly hits you with one of the big skills he was waiting for. While, once again, you curse your error. Now I said Id go over Engineers, so lets do that real quick. There is an Engineer build that does use Shield, which has a channeled block, Static Shield. But you dont use Swipe against that one even more, because you get stunned on the interrupt, and then the Engineer just kills you, or you waste a stunbreak.

I also want to be in the warriors face. A warrior with no block is looking for arcing slice, evisc, and full counter (and bulls charge). I'm constantly putting weakness on the warrior by remaining within striking distance as long as I dodge his major skills.

No, it really doesnt. A smart opponent will realise that you just wasted your most powerful tool in the arsenal, and that youre basically shields down. They will go on the counter-offensive, abusing the fact that you wont be able to stop their most powerful cooldowns without putting yourself at a further disadvantage. Swipe is

extremely

poorly suited for turning off blocks, because its got too long of a cooldown to be able to use it for that and have it up in time for the cooldowns you need to stop. Optimally, steal is used for engaging, or interrupting important cooldowns. Swipe is incapable of doing the former, so its use cases is relegated to the latter. Its a worse steal. Or was, then its cooldown got reduced.

I mean... you're free to think that. Steal is good for engaging and interrupting important cooldowns. We will have to agree to disagree that swipe can't be used aggressively.

Like I said, I run

sword/pistol

. I'm hardly shields down after Swipe.I'm not going to ramble too much about builds though. You saw what Sindrener did. You're free to make your own conclusion about that.You'd be surprised how much you can lean into brawler.

Against Warrior? You absolutely are. Granted I guess you wouldnt want to face a Warrior as PW thief anyway, but still.

I'll fight any warrior on PW thief.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@UNOwen.7132 said:All boon removal actually do already do that. Theyve done that for a long time. The only power-based ones that dont get rid of Aegis are the ones that are unblockable anyway. Condi ones remove Resistance.

Are...you sure?

I stand corrected apparently? I'll check on that.

[Shao.7236]

@"UNOwen.7132" That's because they all do and they all say "unblockable", simple as that. Steal doesn't and if Swipe has that factor now, it shouldn't be losing it's value because of hidden exceptions like this. Again, terrible design.

@Azure The Heartless.3261 I think that people are too lazy to deal with it and that it's one of the biggest problems with the game regardless, it's not hard to initiate an attack then proceed to the steal, I've done it all this time and have yet to feel like it's underpowered to do so, especially with S/D. In fact it's up to wonder why it's even a thing now with S/D existence, it didn't take long for it to become what it is either. Considering that knowing this, it means any skills that sustain with Aegis just took the middle finger to it all these years, brilliant waste of effort for Guardian F3 which is supposed to mean anything but not for this one skill with hidden exceptions.

[ZDragon.3046]

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:All boon removal actually do already do that. Theyve done that for a long time. The only power-based ones that dont get rid of Aegis are the ones that are unblockable anyway. Condi ones remove Resistance.

Are...you sure?

I stand corrected apparently? I'll check on that.

I have serious doubts about that.It is true the ones that dont prioritize aegis are usually unblockable but only because early on there was likely some inconsistency with them ripping aegis or the effect just blocking a skill entirely which warranted the need for the skills to be unblockable. For other on hit effects (which might remove boons) its unclear if the boon removal is applied before the hit which would remove the aegis or if the hit is applied first which would result in you seeing the text "Blocked" text appear instead of a damage number.

Boon removal priority is a very touchy subject because most sources of info based the different applications of it are usually inconsistent.You might say one thing, another player says other wise, a third player disagrees with both of the first two. Until devs make it clear cut how the interactions work its not safe to say that every type of boon removal works the same way I'm a firm believer in the idea that they dont. Especially boon removal that running on core game code vs boon removal that was added after HoT / PoF

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Shao.7236 said:

@"Azure The Heartless.3261" I think that people are too lazy to deal with it and that it's one of the biggest problems with the game regardless, it's not hard to initiate an attack then proceed to the steal, I've done it all this time and have yet to feel like it's underpowered to do so, especially with S/D. In fact it's up to wonder why it's even a thing now with S/D existence, it didn't take long for it to become what it is either.

This is like this for good reason.

• 1. Guardian doesnt have aegis
• 2. You steal to grab (X).
• 3. The guardian got aegis when you stole because he has skills that proc aegis instantly.
• 4. Your steal is punished

---

• 1. Guardian doesnt have aegis
• 2. You steal-backstab
• 3. The guardian got aegis when you stole-backstabbed because he has skills that proc aegis instantly
• 4. Blocked.

@Shao.7236 said:Considering that knowing this, it means any skills that sustain with Aegis just took the middle finger to it all these years, brilliant waste of effort for Guardian F3 which is supposed to mean anything but not for this one skill with hidden exceptions.

Even you didn't think about this being overpowered until just now.The skill only has those exceptions when bountiful theft is taken.It inconveniences one skill on your hotbar.Dragonhunters still hard counter thieves .

[UNOwen.7132]

@Shao.7236 said:@"UNOwen.7132" That's because they all do and they all say "unblockable", simple as that. Steal doesn't and if Swipe has that factor now, it shouldn't be losing it's value because of hidden exceptions like this. Again, terrible design.

@"Azure The Heartless.3261" I think that people are too lazy to deal with it and that it's one of the biggest problems with the game regardless, it's not hard to initiate an attack then proceed to the steal, I've done it all this time and have yet to feel like it's underpowered to do so, especially with S/D. In fact it's up to wonder why it's even a thing now with S/D existence, it didn't take long for it to become what it is either. Considering that knowing this, it means any skills that sustain with Aegis just took the middle finger to it all these years, brilliant waste of effort for Guardian F3 which is supposed to mean anything but not for this one skill with hidden exceptions.

No, they dont. Dune cloak rips Aegis as top priority. Its not unblockable. Phantasmal Disenchanter does it, and while it is unblockable now (for some reason), it had already been prioritising Aegis as a boon rip while it hadnt gotten that buff yet. And so on. Likewise, CC ones rip Stab first, condi ones rip Resistance first. Its not a "hidden exception. Its literally the rule.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:I said

important

cooldowns. Not ready for the next block. You shouldnt be using it on blocks anyway. Lets say youre facing a Warrior. You waste your Swipe on their Shield Stance. Or Full Counter (although if Im not mistaken, without Mug you can just steal on their Full Counter either way, so it doesnt really matter). The Warrior is attentive, and realises that now, there is a big window of opportunity where you are shields down, and goes for, lets say, an Arcing Slice. Normally, this is where you would hit the steal button, and interrupt it. Instead, you have to use valuable defenses to avoid it, if you even have them available. It gets worse if they also notice youre low on initiative, and can even safely go for Rampage, in which case you are

really

screwed.

There's other ways to counter rampage.

Not without gimping yourself by holding back enough initiative to always use a headshot (which still lowers your damage by a lot). Given how little you gained from it, you just lose more than you gain.

Headshot Thieves really werent an issue, they were merely viable, and the only way headshot itself is worth the initiative it costs (if they didnt want interrupts to also be damage, then headshots initiative cost shouldve been reduced drastically alongside the pulm nerf. Lets say, 2 initiative). Besides, Mesmer is still allowed to do major damage while interrupting, so the logic really doesnt hold.

Mesmers have marginally less interrupt on demand.

Surprisingly (or not, depending on how much youve played both classes), they actually have more. Thief has one interrupt on steal on a 30 second cooldown, and then headshot, which costs 4 initiative. And thats it. So, they have 1 every 30 seconds, and after an initial unload of 4, one every 7 seconds. Mesmers have 1 as a shatter on a 38 second cooldown, 2 on Mantra of Distraction (which also reduces cooldown of the shatter) on a 12 second cooldown, and then 1 on Chaos Storm (35 cd), 1 on magic bullet (25 second cd), 1 on Signet of Domination (45 second cd), and I think thats it. Not sure about power, probably has to have a lot.

No, youre really not forcing them to pick another option at all. The only builds that use channeled blocks (builds? I guess I should just say, Warrior, though there is Engineer who Ill get to in a bit) are builds that

want

to be in your face. And Warriors dont use channeled blocks as an "oh kitten" option, but simply as a way to wait for important cooldowns. So you waste your Swipe to stop their block, and put yourself in Warriors "kill range". Now the Warrior doesnt use another option, but simply turns on you and starts attacking you, and shortly hits you with one of the big skills he was waiting for. While, once again, you curse your error. Now I said Id go over Engineers, so lets do that real quick. There is an Engineer build that does use Shield, which has a channeled block, Static Shield. But you dont use Swipe against that one even more, because you get stunned on the interrupt, and then the Engineer just kills you, or you waste a stunbreak.

I also want to be in the warriors face. A warrior with no block is looking for arcing slice, evisc, and full counter (and bulls charge). I'm constantly putting weakness on the warrior by remaining within striking distance as long as I dodge his major skills.

I dont think they use Eviscerate, its Dagger/GS most of the time. And a Warrior with no block is looking to hit those, yes, as is a Warrior with block. You throwing away one of the big ways to stop that favourable plays into their hands.

No, it really doesnt. A smart opponent will realise that you just wasted your most powerful tool in the arsenal, and that youre basically shields down. They will go on the counter-offensive, abusing the fact that you wont be able to stop their most powerful cooldowns without putting yourself at a further disadvantage. Swipe is

extremely

poorly suited for turning off blocks, because its got too long of a cooldown to be able to use it for that and have it up in time for the cooldowns you need to stop. Optimally, steal is used for engaging, or interrupting important cooldowns. Swipe is incapable of doing the former, so its use cases is relegated to the latter. Its a worse steal. Or was, then its cooldown got reduced.

I mean... you're free to think that. Steal is good for engaging and interrupting important cooldowns. We will have to agree to disagree that swipe can't be used aggressively.

Using it to engage, or using it to interrupt important cooldowns to allow you to use your resources for damage is using it aggressively. I simply disagree that using it inefficiently to interrupt an unimportant cooldown so that you gimp yourself when dealing with important cooldowns is ever correct.

Like I said, I run

sword/pistol

. I'm hardly shields down after Swipe.I'm not going to ramble too much about builds though. You saw what Sindrener did. You're free to make your own conclusion about that.You'd be surprised how much you can lean into brawler.

Against Warrior? You absolutely are. Granted I guess you wouldnt want to face a Warrior as PW thief anyway, but still.

I'll fight any warrior on PW thief.

Hey Ill welcome that when Im playing Warrior (though I kinda wish they would make Full Counter Daze less and hit more, it was more fun when it did damage).

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@UNOwen.7132 said:Hey Ill welcome that when Im playing Warrior (though I kinda wish they would make Full Counter Daze less and hit more, it was more fun when it did damage).

Fight me and we will come to an understanding one way or another. If you come across a charr in orange in the arena named Cheshire Mistcloak, feel free to start swinging.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@"UNOwen.7132"ah, yes. the meta signet of domination + mantra of distraction mesmer we see everywhere.even if you ran all of these, pistol thief would be able to interrupt more often.Oh and btw, steal doesnt have 30s cd.there is ALOT of traits that reduce its cooldownhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lead_Attackshttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sleight_of_Hand

[mortrialus.3062]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Shao.7236 said:Calling Swipe underpowered is like ignoring the fact that all Daredevils can:

• Steal 3 Boons
• Interrupt
• Unblockable
• Instant castWhich easily makes it one of bigger and most advantageous skill to win any fights because the moment you see someone use a heal skill, you can deny it right away.

That Swipe is supposed to be a drawback for getting a third dodge roll, but they also gave swipe unblockable so it's massively and consistently more useful than steal in 90% of situations due to being an instant cast way to cancel block stances just goes to show just how faulty this idea of Drawbacks for elite specializations has been handled.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Shao.7236 said:Calling Swipe underpowered is like ignoring the fact that all Daredevils can:

• Steal 3 Boons
• Interrupt
• Unblockable
• Instant castWhich easily makes it one of bigger and most advantageous skill to win any fights because the moment you see someone use a heal skill, you can deny it right away.

That Swipe is supposed to be a drawback for getting a third dodge roll, but they also gave swipe unblockable so it's massively and consistently more useful than steal in 90% of situations due to being an instant cast way to cancel block stances just goes to show just how faulty this idea of Drawbacks for elite specializations has been handled.

Nah, Steal was better than Swipe in 90% situations because 1200 range matters a lot more than the ability to interrupt channeled blocks (mainly due to the fact that wasting your interrupt on channeled blocks means you dont have interrupts for heal skills, or literally any powerful skill you really want to interrupt, which meant you ideally almost

never

interrupted channeled blocks). In fact, thats why Swipe was so bad and Daredevil straight up vanished from viability until they had to buff its Cooldown just to make people pick DD again (which is the only reason Swipe is on par with steal now).

I'm shocked you don't understand how good being able to consistently, instantly, with no wind up or animation, interrupt block stances is.

For starters a lot of builds do not run traditional heals. Take Spellbreaker. Healing Signet unless you're a condition build is not a make or break skill to interrupt. Now let's say you're a thief you're plussing your spellbreaker (Or a mirage, or a weaver) fighting an enemy spellbreaker spellbreaker. Normally if you engaged the attack he'd run through a few skills, maybe a full counter, some dodges, and then try to enter the Block stance as soon as it was up. With Daredevil and Slight of Hand, the second he enters that block stance you and your warrior throttle his entire defensive rotation and he just dies.

Similar with Glint Shiro. One of the things that makes Glint Shiro so strong is that it currently has team fight carry damage while being able to delay being focused far greater than something like a Holosmith, or a Core Guardian, due to Glint Shiro's amazing defensive rotation that prevents it from taking damage for potentially up to 20 seconds straight if they're good on cooldown and energy when they start the evasion. You and your teamfight try to focus the Rev, he goes into his defensive rotation. He'll pop a few riposting shadows, and then swap to staff and go into Warding Rift. The second you see warding rift you can interrupt it, throttle his entire defensive rotation and gets focused down by you and your team and he dies.

And the thing is Jade Daggers isn't really worth interrupting for the low amount of healing it provides and the Glint Heal is also with average latency functionally impossible to interrupt. Like even with instant cast interrupts if you can consistently interrupt the Facet of Light precast for the glint heal at 0.25 second cast speed with the average latency of 50-75 ms on really good internet connections you're a reaction time god, even with an instant cast. Like I can barely cancel cast my own Facet of Light with my own stow weapon and I'm the one casting it.

The Mirage heal is also largely uninterruptible due to being able to be 100% covered by mirage cloak. So again, the scepter block is the clear choice as that's literally scepter's only real source of damage and defense and if they're blocking they aren't going to evade so it basically guarantees plasma. Before as a Mirage if you see a daredevil charging your way while you're in a fight a lot of times the only way to stop a steal is the scepter block while you jump onto a no port.

So with all these meta builds, the block stance is the clear choice on where to steal to maximize you and your teammate's capacity to kill these targets.

Not to mention, Daredevils right now are running Pistol Offhand. If I can consistently catch healing skills with Magic Bullet at 0.5 second cast time and travel distance, you can certainly interrupt any heal skill with the far more spammable Head Shot which only has travel time (And maybe an unlisted 0.25 second cast time? It definitely comes out faster than Magic Bullet does, but even inside a target's hit box is definitely slower than the literally instant Mantra of Distraction). Headshot's travel speed is also significantly faster than Magic Bullet as well.

Like who both has a lot of stability and a traditional interruptable healing skill they might try to cover with stability? Fire weaver doesn't have a traditional healing skill but they don't have a block stance so it's a moot point. Firebrand have the healing mantra which you can interrupt the channel but not the mantras so that like half counts. Like maybe just rangers at this point, maybe Core Necro and Reaper. Holosmith (Who don't have anywhere near as much stab as they used to). So right now it really is largely just rangers who you might have a choice on whether to interrupt the block stance or the healing skill depending on whether you've seen them recently use the healing skill or not.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@mortrialus.3062 said:So with all these meta builds, the block stance is the clear choice on where to steal to maximize you and your teammate's capacity to kill these targets.

I understand @UNOwen.7132 's thinking but...ye. If you're waiting for cds to come back up and you want to block something and absolutely can't while I'm nearby you're about to eat a lot of damage you aren't ready for. you might even burn some utilities in desperation.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:@"UNOwen.7132"ah, yes. the meta signet of domination + mantra of distraction mesmer we see everywhere.even if you ran all of these, pistol thief would be able to interrupt more often.Oh and btw, steal doesnt have 30s cd.there is ALOT of traits that reduce its cooldownhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lead_Attackshttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sleight_of_Hand

Huh, I did forget about Lead Attacks doing that. Not sure how I did, so that was an error. I did however mention Sleight of Hand.

Im not saying there is a build for that, there isnt, both of the on-interrupt traits Mesmer has arent nearly good enough. But thats the funny thing. Impacting Distraction, which is already pathetic, isnt getting nerfed, while Power Block which is better for the most part (has an interval that Impacting Distraction doesnt, but you shouldnt be spamming headshot), doesnt. And thats while Mesmer has more interrupts. Its not about which is better, because both builds have sucked for years.

[UNOwen.7132]

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Shao.7236 said:Calling Swipe underpowered is like ignoring the fact that all Daredevils can:

• Steal 3 Boons
• Interrupt
• Unblockable
• Instant castWhich easily makes it one of bigger and most advantageous skill to win any fights because the moment you see someone use a heal skill, you can deny it right away.

That Swipe is supposed to be a drawback for getting a third dodge roll, but they also gave swipe unblockable so it's massively and consistently more useful than steal in 90% of situations due to being an instant cast way to cancel block stances just goes to show just how faulty this idea of Drawbacks for elite specializations has been handled.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Shao.7236 said:Calling Swipe underpowered is like ignoring the fact that all Daredevils can:

• Steal 3 Boons
• Interrupt
• Unblockable
• Instant castWhich easily makes it one of bigger and most advantageous skill to win any fights because the moment you see someone use a heal skill, you can deny it right away.

That Swipe is supposed to be a drawback for getting a third dodge roll, but they also gave swipe unblockable so it's massively and consistently more useful than steal in 90% of situations due to being an instant cast way to cancel block stances just goes to show just how faulty this idea of Drawbacks for elite specializations has been handled.

Nah, Steal was better than Swipe in 90% situations because 1200 range matters a lot more than the ability to interrupt channeled blocks (mainly due to the fact that wasting your interrupt on channeled blocks means you dont have interrupts for heal skills, or literally any powerful skill you really want to interrupt, which meant you ideally almost

never

interrupted channeled blocks). In fact, thats why Swipe was so bad and Daredevil straight up vanished from viability until they had to buff its Cooldown just to make people pick DD again (which is the only reason Swipe is on par with steal now).

I'm shocked you don't understand how good being able to consistently, instantly, with no wind up or animation, interrupt block stances is.

For starters a lot of builds do not run traditional heals. Take Spellbreaker. Healing Signet unless you're a condition build is not a make or break skill to interrupt. Now let's say you're a thief you're plussing your spellbreaker (Or a mirage, or a weaver) fighting an enemy spellbreaker spellbreaker. Normally if you engaged the attack he'd run through a few skills, maybe a full counter, some dodges, and then try to enter the Block stance as soon as it was up. With Daredevil and Slight of Hand, the second he enters that block stance you and your warrior throttle his entire defensive rotation and he just dies.

Similar with Glint Shiro. One of the things that makes Glint Shiro so strong is that it currently has team fight carry damage while being able to delay being focused far greater than something like a Holosmith, or a Core Guardian, due to Glint Shiro's amazing defensive rotation that prevents it from taking damage for potentially up to 20 seconds straight if they're good on cooldown and energy when they start the evasion. You and your teamfight try to focus the Rev, he goes into his defensive rotation. He'll pop a few riposting shadows, and then swap to staff and go into Warding Rift. The second you see warding rift you can interrupt it, throttle his entire defensive rotation and gets focused down by you and your team and he dies.

And the thing is Jade Daggers isn't really worth interrupting for the low amount of healing it provides and the Glint Heal is also with average latency functionally impossible to interrupt. Like even with instant cast interrupts if you can consistently interrupt the Facet of Light precast for the glint heal at 0.25 second cast speed with the average latency of 50-75 ms on really good internet connections you're a reaction time god, even with an instant cast. Like I can barely cancel cast my own Facet of Light with my own stow weapon and I'm the one casting it.

The Mirage heal is also largely uninterruptible due to being able to be 100% covered by mirage cloak. So again, the scepter block is the clear choice as that's literally scepter's only real source of damage and defense and if they're blocking they aren't going to evade so it basically guarantees plasma. Before as a Mirage if you see a daredevil charging your way while you're in a fight a lot of times the only way to stop a steal is the scepter block while you jump onto a no port.

So with all these meta builds, the block stance is the clear choice on where to steal to maximize you and your teammate's capacity to kill these targets.

Not to mention, Daredevils right now are running Pistol Offhand. If I can consistently catch healing skills with Magic Bullet at 0.5 second cast time and travel distance, you can certainly interrupt any heal skill with the far more spammable Head Shot which only has travel time (And maybe an unlisted 0.25 second cast time? It definitely comes out faster than Magic Bullet does, but even inside a target's hit box is definitely slower than the literally instant Mantra of Distraction). Headshot's travel speed is also significantly faster than Magic Bullet as well.

Like who both has a lot of stability and a traditional interruptable healing skill they might try to cover with stability? Fire weaver doesn't have a traditional healing skill but they don't have a block stance so it's a moot point. Firebrand have the healing mantra which you can interrupt the channel but not the mantras so that like half counts. Like maybe just rangers at this point, maybe Core Necro and Reaper. Holosmith (Who don't have anywhere near as much stab as they used to). So right now it really is largely just rangers who you might have a choice on whether to interrupt the block stance or the healing skill depending on whether you've seen them recently use the healing skill or not.

Balance is done around the meta. What people traditionally run, i.e. the meta, is what balance should be focused on. And its also what gameplay suggestions should be focused on. So sure, if you happen to run into the Unicorn Guardian running Shelter, then its a buff. Its however a nerf in the 99% of other situations.

Normally if you try to plus on a spellbreaker, he is going to run away. After all, on flat ground even the thief cannot catch up to a Spellbreaker. But now, lets assume your situation happens. You get to the block stance. In your version, you cancel his block, and kill him. Alternative: You wait out his block .... and still kill him. While leaving your valuable cooldown so you can rotate and +1 someone else, or burst someone down in a teamfight. In this version, you lost 2 or so seconds, but gained a lot of power. Now of course, in the situation that cancelling the block does lead to a kill and you have nowhere to rotate to where the steal would be useful afterwards, then yes, Swipe is a buff. But even then, its a very minor buff, and the situation is too narrow.

Actually, no, Shiro Glint is good for its ability to burst targets down, its considerably less effective in teamfights due to the fact that it currently really cant survive well enough. Warding Rift is a last resort, and by that point you shouldve used your Steal to interrupt Unrelenting Assault, Shackling Wave (in a 1v1 or 2v1 situation) or most importantly, Chaotic Release. If you have it available for Warding Rift, something went very wrong somewhere. Youre right that in the case of Rev you dont cancel the heals, but I never said interrupt the heals, but the important cooldowns.

Nope, with all meta builds the block stance is the clear choice on where not to steal, as it typically minimises the effectiveness of your steal and your teammates capacity to kill these targets. The clear choice is important, powerful cooldowns capable of turning the tide, like Rampage or Chaotic Release, evasive skills in the weapon set they want to stay on for damage (to force them into the suboptimal weaponset faster, rather than letting them have free reign with it, waiting for them to swap to the suboptimal one, and then using it on a skill that likely only delays their death by seconds anyway) like Unrelenting Assault and simply slow cast high damaging abilities like Arc Slicer, Shackling Wave or even Precision Strike. Especially because that also means you use your steal sooner and have it up again sooner, rather than holding it back for often more than its cooldown just to waste it on its worst target. Oh and as for Mirage, Confusing Images is the target. Youll be sorry if you dont have it up by then.

It has a cast time, yes. Mostly so you cant interrupt while using another skill (only Mesmer can do that). But sure, you can. Here is the issue though. Doing that requires you to waste 4 initiative for an interrupt, and maybe pathetic amounts of damage (if you run Pulmonary Impact). Which means that in order to make up for the mistake of wasting your steal on a channeled block, you have to seriously gimp your damage output and potentially hit your survivability as well (if youre PW thief) just interrupt the cooldown you shouldve used steal on in the first place. Idk about you, but that seems bad. Not to mention you have to keep 4 initiative permanently available just in case you need to fix the mistake of wasting the Swipe.

Alternatively, what you can do is realise that channeled blocks are the worst targets for Swipe, not waste it on those, and instead use Swipe on valuable cooldowns, drastically improving your effectiveness.

[Yasai.3549]

The moment someone uses a channelled block they aren't just deterring advances.

They are stalling cooldowns.

If yu interrupt this block yu have a high chance to ruin the target's set up for future actions because their calculated 3seconds or so of stalling is being forcefully skipped plus allowing the DD an attack which can't be retaliated to due to Daze.

If anything Steal/Swipe has gotten so overloaded it can be considered "broken" due to how much just one button press can achieve.

[Crab Fear.1624]

Thread hijacked by mesmer and rev mains.

@"Yasai.3549" said:The moment someone uses a channelled block they aren't just deterring advances.

They are stalling cooldowns.

If yu interrupt this block yu have a high chance to ruin the target's set up for future actions because their calculated 3seconds or so of stalling is being forcefully skipped plus allowing the DD an attack which can't be retaliated to due to Daze.

If anything Steal/Swipe has gotten so overloaded it can be considered "broken" due to how much just one button press can achieve.

Explain how steal is overloaded

[Yasai.3549]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

Explain how steal is overloaded

Steal can be traited to :

Give a bunch of boonsSteal boonsInflict either Daze or ConfusionGive Initiative

^First three are meta pick traits for Trickery alone btw.

Inflict Poison (JUST BY SLOTTING DEADLY ARTS!)Steal HealthRecharge 1 utility

^also meta picks which want to run Deadly Arts

Restore Endurance (AUTOMATICALLY GRANTED BY SLOTTING DD!)

So, if someone is running a Meta DD build for example their Swipe will :

Restore EnduranceRestore IniInflict PoisonInflict DazeSteal 3 BoonsSteal HealthGive BoonsRecharge 1 UtilityUnblockable

Plus it's all on 17sec CD.

If yu think this isn't overloaded, yu should join Anet's balance team and ruin the game faster.

[Crab Fear.1624]

@Yasai.3549 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

Explain how steal is overloaded

Steal can be traited to :

Give a bunch of boonsSteal boonsInflict either Daze or ConfusionGive Initiative

^First three are meta pick traits for Trickery alone btw.

Inflict Poison (JUST BY SLOTTING DEADLY ARTS!)Steal HealthRecharge 1 utility

^also meta picks which want to run Deadly Arts

Restore Endurance (AUTOMATICALLY GRANTED BY SLOTTING DD!)

So, if someone is running a Meta DD build for example their Swipe will :

Restore EnduranceRestore IniInflict PoisonInflict DazeSteal 3 BoonsSteal HealthGive BoonsRecharge 1 UtilityUnblockable

Plus it's all on 17sec CD.

If yu think this isn't overloaded, yu should join Anet's balance team and ruin the game faster.

what is meta dd build?

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@"Yasai.3549" said:If anything Steal/Swipe has gotten so overloaded it can be considered "broken" due to how much just one button press can achieve.

"swipe is bad"explain swipe"steal/swipe is op"

kek. #nerfsteal2020

[Shao.7236]

@"UNOwen.7132"Trashing the unblockable factor like it would never ruin anyone's survival, it's hilarious because 99% of the time someone is able to reset because of blocks regardless. The argument is flawed from the start.

Balance is not done around the meta, it's designed around having as many options as available for the players, the players are the one for having the decision to pick something that is cheesy and requires the least effort, even in that scenario because GW2 by nature is not just an MMO like everyone tends to look at it, someone with enough of a brain can make anything work around the meta, it's just not something anyone cares about because "winning" at all cost, doesn't matter how bad they are at the game in the following.