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mortrialus.3062

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:I love seeing mesmers complain about any class lol I was in arena couple nights ago playing spellbreaker and a mirage walked up and bursted more than 3/4 of my 19+k/3000 toughness hp in literally a sec lol and had he wanted to could have done it from stealth and they complain about other classes burst? Cmon get outa here.

I've
been a
of Power Mesmer's burst.

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:
not the biggest stab I got boomed by, not the lowest.This is from today, take whatever you will from the screen, I was slow so I died

I mean, that seems about right. A decent amount of burst, but even on a squishy target far from a one-shot. Given that its done by a glass build that pretty much is only good for burst, about the damage Id want it to do. Its lower than other burst builds (by quite a lot), but thief does still have their signature skill, shortbow 5, to give them inherent value that other burst builds (like shatter Mes) lack.

It's a 14k burst, only 7.5k is coming from the Backstab and the rest is coming from multicasting Mug plus the Life Siphon traits. You guys don't seem to be getting the fact that Mug+Shadow Arts is almost doubling your burst capacity.

First of all, the hell is "multicasting mug" supposed to mean. You get it once, and it hits for 1k. You
never
get a 14k burst except on the squishiest target with the glassiest build. The typical burst is 7-9k, depending on how much toughness the enemy has. Which is fine.

Multicasting=casting multiple skills at once= casting a different skill (backstab) and then casting steal+the life siphons to land multiple attacks at the same time.

Ah, thats what you mean. Just ... overlapping skills. Usually you just call it that, we also call it that when Mesmers get like 3 skills at the same time. But I digress, the damage is still much lower than you claim it is. Something you can see when watching any videos of people playing the build.

This "bUt tHe bAcKsTaB Is oNlY SeVeN ThOuSaNd dAmAgE" game you two are playing when you can plainly see from that screenshot another 5.5k damage on top of the back stab which all lands at the same time due to the instant cast nature of Mug and the bonus damage nature of the Shadow Arts life siphon trait is tiresome and deliberately disingenuous.

Especially since Life Steal like Shadow Siphoning+Leeching Venoms ignore armor.

Except thats not 5.5k. Not even close. Lets go over them. If Backstab does 7k damage, then mug will do, roughly, 1.7k. Also if the Life Steal traits ignore armour (which I suspected), then I can safely say 2 instances of Leeching Venom do 414 each, and Shadow Siphoning does 600. So, in reality it does 3.1k. For a total of just over 10k, and thats the higher end. And thats against a glassy build, usually.

"Don't believe you lying eyes showing a 7.5k backstab and a 2860 damage steal"

I mean as I said, thats not possible. Well let me elaborate. Mug does 60% of Backstabs damage when Backstab doesnt crit. With a crit backstab, that would reduce to 30%, which is itself already lower than 2860 for 7.5k. However, the distance between the 2 gets bigger, because Steal applies a number of things alongside its damage. Specifically, 3 conditions, one of which is 5 stacks of vulnerability, and 3 might. Mugs damage does not benefit from these. Backstab does. In total these are, lets see, 1.03*1.06*1.05 and whatever the might is, which is so little Im not going to calculate it. This increases backstabs damage by another 15% relative to mug. Meaning Mug instead does about 50% of backstabs damage without a crit, decreasing to 25% with a crit. 25% of 7500 is 1875. Not 2860.

Just for clarification, not sure how they would impact calculations- but if you are getting 5 vuln from steal then you are also getting 5 might for backstab and +3 might from steal, also I’m pretty sure the game average per stack of might is something like 1-2% more damage from base line or at least I hear that commonly on streams, which with 8 stacks is 8-16% more which is potentially big.

Yeah you are getting 3 might from steal, but it doesnt affect steal damage, only backstab damage. And for D/P Thief, one stack of might is less than 1%? Tbqh I was just too lazy to do the exact math with it, especially given that even without might, my point of Mug doing 25% damage of backstab stands. But yes, Backstab does cause 5 might, but backstab itself doesnt benefit from it, and steal in the normal combo hits prior to backstab and also doesnt. But as I realised above, the screenshot being taken had a backstab -> steal combo, which is unusual to say the least and throws the calculations apart (though for the record, its not a good combo. Its less damage than the other way around).

Yeah it’s possibly less than I mentioned- I heard grimjack say on stream it’s 2% damage on average, but this could take into account the fact that crit and/or condition damage, which mug isn’t benefited by so it might not help with these calculations

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:I love seeing mesmers complain about any class lol I was in arena couple nights ago playing spellbreaker and a mirage walked up and bursted more than 3/4 of my 19+k/3000 toughness hp in literally a sec lol and had he wanted to could have done it from stealth and they complain about other classes burst? Cmon get outa here.

I've
been a
of Power Mesmer's burst.

not the biggest stab I got boomed by, not the lowest.This is from today, take whatever you will from the screen, I was slow so I died

I mean, that seems about right. A decent amount of burst, but even on a squishy target far from a one-shot. Given that its done by a glass build that pretty much is only good for burst, about the damage Id want it to do. Its lower than other burst builds (by quite a lot), but thief does still have their signature skill, shortbow 5, to give them inherent value that other burst builds (like shatter Mes) lack.

It's a 14k burst, only 7.5k is coming from the Backstab and the rest is coming from multicasting Mug plus the Life Siphon traits. You guys don't seem to be getting the fact that Mug+Shadow Arts is almost doubling your burst capacity.

First of all, the hell is "multicasting mug" supposed to mean. You get it once, and it hits for 1k. You
never
get a 14k burst except on the squishiest target with the glassiest build. The typical burst is 7-9k, depending on how much toughness the enemy has. Which is fine.

Multicasting=casting multiple skills at once= casting a different skill (backstab) and then casting steal+the life siphons to land multiple attacks at the same time.

Ah, thats what you mean. Just ... overlapping skills. Usually you just call it that, we also call it that when Mesmers get like 3 skills at the same time. But I digress, the damage is still much lower than you claim it is. Something you can see when watching any videos of people playing the build.

This "bUt tHe bAcKsTaB Is oNlY SeVeN ThOuSaNd dAmAgE" game you two are playing when you can plainly see from that screenshot another 5.5k damage on top of the back stab which all lands at the same time due to the instant cast nature of Mug and the bonus damage nature of the Shadow Arts life siphon trait is tiresome and deliberately disingenuous.

Especially since Life Steal like Shadow Siphoning+Leeching Venoms ignore armor.

Except thats not 5.5k. Not even close. Lets go over them. If Backstab does 7k damage, then mug will do, roughly, 1.7k. Also if the Life Steal traits ignore armour (which I suspected), then I can safely say 2 instances of Leeching Venom do 414 each, and Shadow Siphoning does 600. So, in reality it does 3.1k. For a total of just over 10k, and thats the higher end. And thats against a glassy build, usually.

"Don't believe you lying eyes showing a 7.5k backstab and a 2860 damage steal"

I mean as I said, thats not possible. Well let me elaborate. Mug does 60% of Backstabs damage when Backstab doesnt crit. With a crit backstab, that would reduce to 30%, which is itself already lower than 2860 for 7.5k. However, the distance between the 2 gets bigger, because Steal applies a number of things alongside its damage. Specifically, 3 conditions, one of which is 5 stacks of vulnerability, and 3 might. Mugs damage does not benefit from these. Backstab does. In total these are, lets see, 1.03*1.06*1.05 and whatever the might is, which is so little Im not going to calculate it. This increases backstabs damage by another 15% relative to mug. Meaning Mug instead does about 50% of backstabs damage without a crit, decreasing to 25% with a crit. 25% of 7500 is 1875. Not 2860.

so what you are saying is that I went out of my way to fabricate screenshot of me getting bursted so that mug deals 400 damage then its supposed to?I have a better idea.Watch the screenshot again, THINK. Take 2 secs, Watch it again, FOCUS on it.when you finally find it, come here and apologise for calling me a liar. And better yet, apologise to that O something guy you were accusing of lying too.

Oh not neccessarily, there are a couple of ways it can happen. In your case ... uh, ok I might be wrong here, but in your case backstab hit
before
steal, right? Which changes a lot, as it both causes the previously mentioned damage multipliers to not apply to backstab, and lets Even the Odds boost up Steal. Possibly also throws a fear on you, thanks to Rending Shade, or potentially steals Might from you. In that scenario, yes, backstab can do more damage. However, thats not the normal burst combo. Because that combo requires the thief to be close enough to backstab without steal, and to then use steal. I was under the impression we were talking about the standard steal -> backstab combo. The other way around is actually possibly reactable.

I accused him of being dishonest, not neccessarily lying. But no, I wont apologise for a correct assumption. I think at this point I have clearly and extensively shown that he, one way or another, fabricated a situation to push up the numbers. Both through math, and through an example thanks to a helpful Ele. Even if a Revenant turned it into a bit of a mess.

nice, you have spoted it!and as you have deduced, IF he would do the combo differently MORE damage would be done ( the combo he did boomed me for 16k ).to add to that he could do even MORE if he did hearthseeker combo.

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.Additional changes

  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

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@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:I love seeing mesmers complain about any class lol I was in arena couple nights ago playing spellbreaker and a mirage walked up and bursted more than 3/4 of my 19+k/3000 toughness hp in literally a sec lol and had he wanted to could have done it from stealth and they complain about other classes burst? Cmon get outa here.

I've
been a
of Power Mesmer's burst.

not the biggest stab I got boomed by, not the lowest.This is from today, take whatever you will from the screen, I was slow so I died

I mean, that seems about right. A decent amount of burst, but even on a squishy target far from a one-shot. Given that its done by a glass build that pretty much is only good for burst, about the damage Id want it to do. Its lower than other burst builds (by quite a lot), but thief does still have their signature skill, shortbow 5, to give them inherent value that other burst builds (like shatter Mes) lack.

It's a 14k burst, only 7.5k is coming from the Backstab and the rest is coming from multicasting Mug plus the Life Siphon traits. You guys don't seem to be getting the fact that Mug+Shadow Arts is almost doubling your burst capacity.

First of all, the hell is "multicasting mug" supposed to mean. You get it once, and it hits for 1k. You
never
get a 14k burst except on the squishiest target with the glassiest build. The typical burst is 7-9k, depending on how much toughness the enemy has. Which is fine.

Multicasting=casting multiple skills at once= casting a different skill (backstab) and then casting steal+the life siphons to land multiple attacks at the same time.

Ah, thats what you mean. Just ... overlapping skills. Usually you just call it that, we also call it that when Mesmers get like 3 skills at the same time. But I digress, the damage is still much lower than you claim it is. Something you can see when watching any videos of people playing the build.

This "bUt tHe bAcKsTaB Is oNlY SeVeN ThOuSaNd dAmAgE" game you two are playing when you can plainly see from that screenshot another 5.5k damage on top of the back stab which all lands at the same time due to the instant cast nature of Mug and the bonus damage nature of the Shadow Arts life siphon trait is tiresome and deliberately disingenuous.

Especially since Life Steal like Shadow Siphoning+Leeching Venoms ignore armor.

Except thats not 5.5k. Not even close. Lets go over them. If Backstab does 7k damage, then mug will do, roughly, 1.7k. Also if the Life Steal traits ignore armour (which I suspected), then I can safely say 2 instances of Leeching Venom do 414 each, and Shadow Siphoning does 600. So, in reality it does 3.1k. For a total of just over 10k, and thats the higher end. And thats against a glassy build, usually.

"Don't believe you lying eyes showing a 7.5k backstab and a 2860 damage steal"

I mean as I said, thats not possible. Well let me elaborate. Mug does 60% of Backstabs damage when Backstab doesnt crit. With a crit backstab, that would reduce to 30%, which is itself already lower than 2860 for 7.5k. However, the distance between the 2 gets bigger, because Steal applies a number of things alongside its damage. Specifically, 3 conditions, one of which is 5 stacks of vulnerability, and 3 might. Mugs damage does not benefit from these. Backstab does. In total these are, lets see, 1.03*1.06*1.05 and whatever the might is, which is so little Im not going to calculate it. This increases backstabs damage by another 15% relative to mug. Meaning Mug instead does about 50% of backstabs damage without a crit, decreasing to 25% with a crit. 25% of 7500 is 1875. Not 2860.

so what you are saying is that I went out of my way to fabricate screenshot of me getting bursted so that mug deals 400 damage then its supposed to?I have a better idea.Watch the screenshot again, THINK. Take 2 secs, Watch it again, FOCUS on it.when you finally find it, come here and apologise for calling me a liar. And better yet, apologise to that O something guy you were accusing of lying too.

Oh not neccessarily, there are a couple of ways it can happen. In your case ... uh, ok I might be wrong here, but in your case backstab hit
before
steal, right? Which changes a lot, as it both causes the previously mentioned damage multipliers to not apply to backstab, and lets Even the Odds boost up Steal. Possibly also throws a fear on you, thanks to Rending Shade, or potentially steals Might from you. In that scenario, yes, backstab can do more damage. However, thats not the normal burst combo. Because that combo requires the thief to be close enough to backstab without steal, and to then use steal. I was under the impression we were talking about the standard steal -> backstab combo. The other way around is actually possibly reactable.

I accused him of being dishonest, not neccessarily lying. But no, I wont apologise for a correct assumption. I think at this point I have clearly and extensively shown that he, one way or another, fabricated a situation to push up the numbers. Both through math, and through an example thanks to a helpful Ele. Even if a Revenant turned it into a bit of a mess.

nice, you have spoted it!and as you have deduced, IF he would do the combo differently MORE damage would be done ( the combo he did boomed me for 16k ).to add to that he could do even MORE if he did hearthseeker combo.

Im not entirely sure how you got 16k from 7.5k and 2.9k damage, thats like 10.4, and even the double strike (which I would already not count as part of the combo) added to it is far from enough. And yeah, he wouldve. But given the damage he hit you for, youre playing a glass mesmer and he is either playing Scholar burst, or you already were fighting someone else and had more than average condis on you.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.
Additional changes
  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Wait Malicious Backstab wasnt also nerfed alongside Backstab? Thats hilarious. The other nerfs are fine, Leeching Venoms is weird anyway, and Rending Shade losing some boonrip is fair. Definitely no need to hit Escapist Fortitude at all (then again I just realised youre likely a condi mes player so you have a certain bias against it).

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.
Additional changes
  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Thank god I even had to make a post about how op stealth is- great job fixing it as stealth is a little overtuned and tbh these builds atm would be perfectly playable with less of it, they could even still be meta it I’m fine with a slightly different one tbh

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.
Additional changes
  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Wait Malicious Backstab wasnt also nerfed alongside Backstab? Thats hilarious. The other nerfs are fine, Leeching Venoms is weird anyway, and Rending Shade losing some boonrip is fair. Definitely no need to hit Escapist Fortitude at all (then again I just realised youre likely a condi mes player so you have a certain bias against it).

I like the changes but infiltrator strike seems fine- it’s good but trim it would make the play style awkward like swipe for dp thief, exactly like that tbh. Escapist fortitude is great tier for sure but trim too much and it’ll be average, nerfing the heal seems fineEdit: like just imagine a 5 second icd on it like it would be the definition of average and we are already looking at a new meta for thief, just wait on increasing icd or at most increase to 2 secs, unless we want thief to fall out of meta

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.
Additional changes
  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Wait Malicious Backstab wasnt also nerfed alongside Backstab? Thats hilarious. The other nerfs are fine, Leeching Venoms is weird anyway, and Rending Shade losing some boonrip is fair. Definitely no need to hit Escapist Fortitude at all (then again I just realised youre likely a condi mes player so you have a certain bias against it).

any condi player has bias against it, becouse its broken as fuck trait lol.and worst of all its not even condi that it counters, it counters every single build in the game.everyone has cripple or weakness or blind or slow.even if you dont have heavy condi its insane value for such a low tier trait, and when you do go against condi it can almost singlehandedly make some builds deal no damage. stupid trait, nerf it properly

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@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.
Additional changes
  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Wait Malicious Backstab wasnt also nerfed alongside Backstab? Thats hilarious. The other nerfs are fine, Leeching Venoms is weird anyway, and Rending Shade losing some boonrip is fair. Definitely no need to hit Escapist Fortitude at all (then again I just realised youre likely a condi mes player so you have a certain bias against it).

any condi player has bias against it, becouse its broken as kitten trait lol.and worst of all its not even condi that it counters, it counters every single build in the game.everyone has cripple or weakness or blind or slow.even if you dont have heavy condi its insane value for such a low tier trait, and when you do go against condi it can almost singlehandedly make some builds deal no damage. stupid trait, nerf it properly

Yeah, so broken it had to be combined with another one and moved to a lower trait tier because noone was using it. Wait what? It doesnt even really counter condis (burst just stows weapon, sustained applies more than 1 condi per second). It definitely doesnt counter other builds. And no, if you dont have heavy condis its pretty low value. The heal slightly makes up for it, but that heal is about to be nerfed into oblivion. And it definitely cant make a single build deal no damage. Well no, maybe there is a condi build that relies on only one condi and cant burst with it, but that build also gets countered by Infiltrators Strike, so.

Edit: the part that in particular confuses me is that condi Mesmer complain about this trait, when its not the trait that makes that matchup favoured for the thief. Its Consume Plasma and the Resistance it gives. Youd think Consume Plasma would be the target of ire (especially given that its far and away the best stolen skill and a big part of why people still use Improvisation).

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.
Additional changes
  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Wait Malicious Backstab wasnt also nerfed alongside Backstab? Thats hilarious. The other nerfs are fine, Leeching Venoms is weird anyway, and Rending Shade losing some boonrip is fair. Definitely no need to hit Escapist Fortitude at all (then again I just realised youre likely a condi mes player so you have a certain bias against it).

any condi player has bias against it, becouse its broken as kitten trait lol.and worst of all its not even condi that it counters, it counters every single build in the game.everyone has cripple or weakness or blind or slow.even if you dont have heavy condi its insane value for such a low tier trait, and when you do go against condi it can almost singlehandedly make some builds deal no damage. stupid trait, nerf it properly

Yeah, so broken it had to be combined with another one
and
moved to a lower trait tier because
noone
was using it. Wait what? It doesnt even really counter condis (burst just stows weapon, sustained applies more than 1 condi per second).

Literally every good build in the game has some sort of trait based answer to conditions and a utility skill to answer against conditions. Maybe a weapon skill too. Spellbreakers run both Brawler's Recovery AND Shake It Off. Condition Mesmers run Renewing Oasis, Jaunt and Arcane Thievery. Holosmiths run Healing Turret and Conversion.

The idea that "Oh this trait cleanse isn't over tuned even though it's more than doubling the value of other trait based cleanses because it doesn't make you literally 100% immune to condition damage and you might still have to use a cleanse skill is nonsense." Right now the good Daredevil builds can get out of a condition bomb using Withdraw to heal and remove cover conditions and Signet of Agility to cleanse damaging conditions and give them further dodge rolls. There is literally no build that can do to you where they can just stow weapons, let you do run through that, and you'll still die. Literally none.

And in between you get both the most evade frames outside of probably just Fire Weaver at this point so by design you can dodge the most attacks, and when you do any incidental hits like scepter and staff autos that might land go from potentially doing 700 damage after 10 seconds to being retroactively negated and heals for 400.

Before it was a hard choice between the trait and Impacting Disruption. Because both traits were good. Generally when DP was better it took Impacting. When Condition Daredevil was good it traditionally took the cleanse trait. After the rework they've basically made it so a Daredevil can pick up every single truly good trait with little choice.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.
Additional changes
  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Wait Malicious Backstab wasnt also nerfed alongside Backstab? Thats hilarious. The other nerfs are fine, Leeching Venoms is weird anyway, and Rending Shade losing some boonrip is fair. Definitely no need to hit Escapist Fortitude at all (then again I just realised youre likely a condi mes player so you have a certain bias against it).

any condi player has bias against it, becouse its broken as kitten trait lol.and worst of all its not even condi that it counters, it counters every single build in the game.everyone has cripple or weakness or blind or slow.even if you dont have heavy condi its insane value for such a low tier trait, and when you do go against condi it can almost singlehandedly make some builds deal no damage. stupid trait, nerf it properly

Yeah, so broken it had to be combined with another one
and
moved to a lower trait tier because
noone
was using it. Wait what? It doesnt even really counter condis (burst just stows weapon, sustained applies more than 1 condi per second).

Literally every good build in the game has some sort of trait based answer to conditions and a utility skill to answer against conditions. Maybe a weapon skill too. Spellbreakers run both Brawler's Recovery AND Shake It Off. Condition Mesmers run Renewing Oasis, Jaunt and Arcane Thievery. Holosmiths run Healing Turret and Conversion.

I mean every build has a good answer to conditions, yes. Doesnt have to be traitbased though. In fact, it often isnt. The best condi cleanses are usually utility skills, since you need to cleanse Condis quickly and often multiple at once, and Traits dont do that. Traits are often more for immob I find, in particular stuff like Bralwers Recovery. Still, the important thing to note is that the best condi removal are either burst removal of multiple, or better yet, Resistance.

The idea that "Oh this trait cleanse isn't over tuned even though it's more than doubling the value of other trait based cleanses because it doesn't make you literally 100% immune to condition damage" and you might still have to use a cleanse skill is nonsense. Right now the good Daredevil builds can get out of a condition bomb using Withdraw to heal and remove cover conditions and Signet of Agility to cleanse damaging conditions and give them further dodge rolls. There is literally no build that can do to you where they can just stow weapons, let you do run through that, and you'll still die. Literally none.

The other trait cleanses that are run either remove multiple condis at once, can be more easily controlled, or straight up can outperform Escapists Fortitude (Weaver water traitline cleanses for example). And yes, Thief can get out of a condi bomb twice. Once Through Signet, once through Shadow Step. Unfortunately, that also means losing stunbreaks, and the thing with burst builds is that they definitely dont stop after 2 condi bombs. Rather, they keep going. I mean they have to be able to to survive in a Firebrand meta, given that Firebrand can cleanse dozens of conditions for everyone at the same time (which makes the focus on thief even more perplexing). Point is, Escapists Fortitude isnt going to let you survive a condi bomb. And as for more sustained type of condi builds, as I said. They apply more than 1 condition a second. You will still fall behind. Which is why condi 1v1 builds that arent Mesmer (consume Plasma being the reason here) remain Thieves hardest matchups.

And in between you get both the most evade frames outside of probably just Fire Weaver at this point so by design you can dodge the most attacks, and when you do any incidental hits like scepter and staff autos that might land go from potentially doing 700 damage after 10 seconds to being retroactively negated and heals for 400.

S/P gets a lot of evade frames, but that build is about to be obliterated, what with the fact that pistol whip is technically a CC skill and as a result is gonna eat the 0.01 coefficient. Outside of that? S/D would, but S/D doesnt and never will use Daredevil, so thats a moot point. The only other weaponset that uses Daredevil (sometimes) is D/P, and they have fewer evade frames than even Warrior (or Mesmer). So tell me, what build are you trying to nerf Escapists Fortitude for? The only build that is going to use Daredevil post-patch, if any of them do, is D/P. Or Staff, but Staff sucks.

Before it was a hard choice between the trait and Impacting Disruption. Because both traits were good. Generally when DP was better it took Impacting. When Condition Daredevil was good it traditionally took the cleanse trait. After the rework they've basically made it so a Daredevil can pick up every single truly good trait with little choice.

Actually, thats not entirely true. Impacting Disruption was overnerfed in the patch of march 27th, 2018, a full year prior to the Escapists Fortitude rework. After that point, Impacting Disruption already was a bad trait, and D/P basically fell off completely. And despite Impacting Disruption being as bad as it is even now ... people still ran it over Escapists Fortitude. Youre right that condi thieves (when they existed) took Escapists Fortitude, but they literally had no choice. Impacting Disruption wasnt something they could use, and Staff Master, well, theyre not using Staff, are they? Thats how badly the trait underperformed, people only picked it when they had no choice. When they had a choice, they even picked "practically no damage" Pulmonary Impact over it. Funny thing is the only reason they ever ended up swapping off Pulmonary Impact was because they put another Trait you could actually pick over it into the Major traitline, Havoc Mastery. While Escapists Fortitude finally was picked by D/P after being put into Adept, where there were no good traits it had to compete with.

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@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@"Crackmonster.2790" said:Thieves are filthy animals. They have so much over the top kitten.They destroy you fast as hell, they sometimes oneshot you directly in a single attack from stealth, they stealth all around and are thereby annoying as kitten, their mobility is insane i can't even catch them using several teleports and speed runes they still just charge away as they want faster than a lightning. They have a lot of evade kitten and imagine how much they nerfed mirages till now mirages aint got nothing almost but those filthy thieves got so much they must pay the price, enough is enough they are freestyling from extreme safety, extreme mobility and oneshot from stealth potential-
while other classes get any of their powers kept extremely in check.

Lol "Thief wont let me be op."

@noot.8641 said:Funny how everyone is compaining about a skill that has been there since forever, infiltrators arrow had not been changed since a long time, and now u guys qq about it? That skill is the bread and butter for s/d thieves, if you nerf that s/d will be poop.

Why do people keep using this argument? It doesnt work. The devs don't care about the status quo. Did you see the patch?

@UNOwen.7132 said:In that case you must be playing glass, they must be playing glass (so Berserker instead of Marauder and Scholar instead of Eagle, and quite possibly dropping SA for CS. Because otherwise, 9k isnt achievable.

you can hit 9k on mara vs a glass or mara target.
Shadow Arts damage buffs is exactly why they can, now
.There's even a sleeper build that hits for higher than that on Deadeye, but not gonna talk about that because it trades surprise for damage.It's getting nerfed anyway so meh.

Shadow arts dmg buff?

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@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:

@"Crackmonster.2790" said:Thieves are filthy animals. They have so much over the top kitten.They destroy you fast as hell, they sometimes oneshot you directly in a single attack from stealth, they stealth all around and are thereby annoying as kitten, their mobility is insane i can't even catch them using several teleports and speed runes they still just charge away as they want faster than a lightning. They have a lot of evade kitten and imagine how much they nerfed mirages till now mirages aint got nothing almost but those filthy thieves got so much they must pay the price, enough is enough they are freestyling from extreme safety, extreme mobility and oneshot from stealth potential-
while other classes get any of their powers kept extremely in check.

Lol "Thief wont let me be op."

@noot.8641 said:Funny how everyone is compaining about a skill that has been there since forever, infiltrators arrow had not been changed since a long time, and now u guys qq about it? That skill is the bread and butter for s/d thieves, if you nerf that s/d will be poop.

Why do people keep using this argument? It doesnt work. The devs don't care about the status quo. Did you see the patch?

@UNOwen.7132 said:In that case you must be playing glass, they must be playing glass (so Berserker instead of Marauder and Scholar instead of Eagle, and quite possibly dropping SA for CS. Because otherwise, 9k isnt achievable.

you can hit 9k on mara vs a glass or mara target.
Shadow Arts damage buffs is exactly why they can, now
.There's even a sleeper build that hits for higher than that on Deadeye, but not gonna talk about that because it trades surprise for damage.It's getting nerfed anyway so meh.

Shadow arts dmg buff?

They're talking about the life siphon from Leeching Venoms and Shadow Siphoning.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.
Additional changes
  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Expected.

You also can't have the Fortitude nerf now.

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@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:Hi Everyone,

We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.
Additional changes
  • Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
  • Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.
  • Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.
  • Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8
  • Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds
  • Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.-The Systems Team

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Expected.

You also can't have the Fortitude nerf now.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Expected.

You also can't have the Fortitude nerf now.

I love this response XD

I think the unintended consequences of pushing for SI and EF to be less powerful is that you will see more Deadeyes and more Shadow Arts to the point that these things can't be functionally nerfed anymore, and you will only fight stealth thieves. Hitting both of these things, or even just EF, without people thinking there are viable alternatives, will just make stealth that much more attractive. Especially with Withdraw and RFI getting CD hits, either you'll see people still running them with Trickster and having more condi cleanse (and probably still taking SA honestly, if people around here are any indication), or they'll just lean harder into stealth and deadeye.

I understand why fighting a thief is frustrating. Stealth is annoying (and I frankly hate it), and fighting something you never actually hit and ends up running away just feels kind of... hollow? I don't think these ideas specifically will see the changes that will make it fun. It will just see people lean into skills and traits that are even more annoying to play against.

Just my two cents from following here a bit and re-learning my thief. This has been a lot of my own thought process. Core SA-DA-Trickery S/D is looking more fun for patch launch to me. I don't think it will be functionally better for anyone.

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@Antipode.7830 said:

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Expected.

You also can't have the Fortitude nerf now.

I love this response XD

I think the unintended consequences of pushing for SI and EF to be less powerful is that you will see
more Deadeyes
and
more Shadow Arts

The best Deadeye builds have always used Be Quick or Be Killed+Sword, because the zoning capacity of Sword 2 is literally unmatched.

To break it down Sword 2 is: 900 units towards the target+ immobilize for three initiative. And it's 1200 units back to the initial cast+ 1 condition cleansed for 2 initiative. Some people earlier in the thread were talking about how all movement isn't created equal and that is true, but in combat Sword 2 only ever moves you where you want it too. You only ever move 900 units into you opponent where you want to be as a melee build or you move up to 1200 units away so that you can completely avoid incoming damage while they try to retaliate. Combined that's spamming 2100 units of movement speed in combat every 5 seconds based on endurance regeneration.

My change gives thieves a bit more flexibility when they engage in combat by lowering the engage cost of the skill, but if they want to retreat requires a bit more attention paid to their initiative to do so, and when they do so the reweighting of the skill would mean their capacity to IMMEDIATELY reengage and begin the hit and run process anew is limited at least a little. It's the kind of change that's going to slide off even platinum PvPer's backs, let alone top PvPers like Sindrener. But it'll still help all the builds who have to stare out ontop a jumping puzzle as they watch said thief literally corner them like a shark blinking back and forth into attack range and outside of your attack range freely. Not even a lot. Not build breakingly so. Just a little.

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So in a nutshell these changes mean nothing and thief will still hardcore punish mesmer so it still needs more reductions until it cant do that anymore then its fine???Thats honestly all im getting at this point.

Thief is getting to the point where its going to be borderline how necro was for a massive portion of the games existence 'not effective' at the mechanics it has to work with that it should be effective with because people or a certain amount of people who play a certain profession that it just so happens to stomp demand nerfs in the wrong ways.

Yes please do something about one shots (from any profession from stealth) but dont go trying to kill stealth then when someone finds a build that can work that does not depend on stealth demand for that to be erased too and say "well you have stealth!" Then when people go back to stealth call for more stealth nerfs im not even a thief main and im starting to see the pattern of this trend recently and honest it does not look good for thief as a whole in the long run.

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@"ZDragon.3046" said:So in a nutshell these changes mean nothing and thief will still hardcore punish mesmer so it still needs more reductions until it cant do that anymore then its fine???Thats honestly all im getting at this point.

Frankly the the changes I've suggested will even out Mesmer vs Thief but it will still be very stacked in thief's favor.

Thief is getting to the point where its going to be borderline how necro was for a massive portion of the games existence 'not effective' at the mechanics it has to work with that it should be effective with because people or a certain amount of people who play a certain profession that it just so happens to stomp demand nerfs in the wrong ways.

Fair enough. To be honest I dunno what you're talking about as necro was top tier both with Condi reaper in HoT and scourge>Core Reaper in PoF.

Yes please do something about one shots (from any profession from stealth) but dont go trying to kill stealth then when someone finds a build that can work that does not depend on stealth demand for that to be erased too and say "well you have stealth!" Then when people go back to stealth call for more stealth nerfs im not even a thief main and im starting to see the pattern of this trend recently and honest it does not look good for thief as a whole in the long run.

Genuinely the only change I think should happen to the baseline stealth mechanic is that when you dodge an attack from a stealthed attacker it reveals the attacker. There have been literally hundreds of times this season where I've had to deal with some sort of stealthed target aggressing me, and I've accurately predicted when they are about to strike and full on dodge rolled it, but they're still stealthed for 4+seconds so they can just try it again.

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@Antipode.7830 said:

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Expected.

You also can't have the Fortitude nerf now.

I love this response XD

I think the unintended consequences of pushing for SI and EF to be less powerful is that you will see
more Deadeyes
and
more Shadow Arts
to the point that these things can't be functionally nerfed anymore, and you will only fight stealth thieves. Hitting both of these things, or even just EF, without people thinking there are viable alternatives, will just make stealth that much more attractive. Especially with Withdraw and RFI getting CD hits, either you'll see people still running them with Trickster and having more condi cleanse (and probably still taking SA honestly, if people around here are any indication), or they'll just lean harder into stealth and deadeye.

I understand why fighting a thief is frustrating. Stealth is annoying (and I frankly hate it), and fighting something you never actually hit and ends up running away just feels kind of... hollow? I don't think these ideas specifically will see the changes that will make it fun. It will just see people lean into skills and traits that are even more annoying to play against.

Just my two cents from following here a bit and re-learning my thief. This has been a lot of my own thought process. Core SA-DA-Trickery S/D is looking more fun for patch launch to me. I don't think it will be functionally better for anyone.

Nah, youll see more Deadeyes (Rifle was basically not nerfed for the best build), but youll see a lot less Shadow Arts. The burst D/P build isnt gonna be a thing and the best Rifle build doesnt use SA (its basically a wasted traitline for it), so noone is left who would want to use it. Stealth will go back to what its usually been. Useless in-combat, broken out of combat. And SA doesnt help with out of combat stealth (well, not a lot anyway).

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@"ZDragon.3046" said:So in a nutshell these changes mean nothing and thief will still hardcore punish mesmer so it still needs more reductions until it cant do that anymore then its fine???Thats honestly all im getting at this point.

Frankly the the changes I've suggested will even out Mesmer vs Thief but it will still be very stacked in thief's favor.

Thief is getting to the point where its going to be borderline how necro was for a massive portion of the games existence 'not effective' at the mechanics it has to work with that it should be effective with because people or a certain amount of people who play a certain profession that it just so happens to stomp demand nerfs in the wrong ways.

Fair enough. To be honest I dunno what you're talking about as necro was top tier both with Condi reaper in HoT and scourge>Core Reaper in PoF.

There has been a lot of time between the HoT bunker fix and PoF and between PoF up till the most recent balance which saw core become relevant after and only after scourge got clunky due to wvw balance. Between Even now reaper is not exactly good at what it was initially designed to do at a base level in terms of doing bigger damage if it can catch its foes. Plenty of other professions deal equally as much if not more damage (some times in a quicker time fame) which pretty much makes the point of it being slow redundant. There is a reason necromancers depend heavily on things like speed runes and even more so on boon corrupts than ever before. Shroud also currently fails to soak damage in line with damage avoidance due to the power creep as it was designed. The gap between soaking and just avoiding damage is just too massive at the moment.

The sustain + damage that other professions have while keeping their hard defenses does not measure up to the passive soak necro was designed to play around when built using an equally glassy ammy or setup.

Basically what im saying is if this keeps up we will end up with a thief that cant fight people out of stealth because players demanded all its non stealth tools be over nerfed and stealth that is not useful in combat situations due to a high demand of nerfs in the wrong direction.

Yes please do something about one shots (from any profession from stealth) but dont go trying to kill stealth then when someone finds a build that can work that does not depend on stealth demand for that to be erased too and say "well you have stealth!" Then when people go back to stealth call for more stealth nerfs im not even a thief main and im starting to see the pattern of this trend recently and honest it does not look good for thief as a whole in the long run.

Genuinely the only change I think should happen to the baseline stealth mechanic is that when you dodge an attack from a stealthed attacker it reveals the attacker. There have been literally hundreds of times this season where I've had to deal with some sort of stealthed target aggressing me, and I've accurately predicted when they are about to strike and full on dodge rolled it, but they're still stealthed for 4+seconds so they can just try it again.

I mean i guess but then people would just go to perma evade style builds because that would be more reliable than getting auto revealed and then you would say those tools need to be nerfed too. Hints the complaints about things like smoke screen which actually allows a thief to fight for a short period without losing all their hp to chip damage or one or two attacks. Smokescreen was good at the 25 to 35s mark now its at 45 which is way over kill due to mass complaints based on how the skill is now in the live build. Infact most other professions actually dont have an issue with smokescreen because there are ways of dealing with a thief that wants to sit in it.

While we are letting elephants out of the room on making things equal though when are they going to lock the skill bars while a mesmer is under distortion? Every single other invuln now does this i dont see why 1 profession should be allowed to be an outlier. :astonished:

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

Expected.

You also can't have the Fortitude nerf now.

I love this response XD

I think the unintended consequences of pushing for SI and EF to be less powerful is that you will see
more Deadeyes
and
more Shadow Arts

The best Deadeye builds have always used Be Quick or Be Killed+Sword, because the zoning capacity of Sword 2 is literally unmatched.

To break it down Sword 2 is: 900 units towards the target+ immobilize for three initiative. And it's 1200 units back to the initial cast+ 1 condition cleansed for 2 initiative. Some people earlier in the thread were talking about how all movement isn't created equal and that is true, but in combat Sword 2 only ever moves you where you want it too. You only ever move 900 units into you opponent where you want to be as a melee build or you move up to 1200 units away so that you can completely avoid incoming damage while they try to retaliate. Combined that's spamming 2100 units of movement speed in combat every 5 seconds based on endurance regeneration.

My change gives thieves a bit more flexibility when they engage in combat by lowering the engage cost of the skill, but if they want to retreat requires a bit more attention paid to their initiative to do so, and when they do so the reweighting of the skill would mean their capacity to IMMEDIATELY reengage and begin the hit and run process anew is limited at least a little. It's the kind of change that's going to slide off even platinum PvPer's backs, let alone top PvPers like Sindrener. But it'll still help all the builds who have to stare out ontop a jumping puzzle as they watch said thief literally corner them like a shark blinking back and forth into attack range and outside of your attack range freely. Not even a lot. Not build breakingly so. Just a little.

I get the impression, from what you're saying, the issue is that thieves not committing to a fight is frustrating for people, especially when they feel they need to stay on-node. I think the reason is that Thief isn't designed to commit. The answer to this complaint was Daredevil, which, along with Deadeye now, has lower engagement capacity because they don't have Steal. Making Thief less able to escape, regardless of spec, doesn't really seem like the right way to bring it in line, unless there's a way to allow it to stay in the fray better while actually contributing. Daredevil has been managing that a lot through Pistol Whip, and before that Staff. Thief has a low health pool, 1 block that I can think of, and everyone hates Dagger Storm (understandably). With Pistol Whip getting a pip bump, I'm curious what you see as the right method of sustain at this point.

I get wanting to make the spam less, but what does this look like overall? How does a thief stay there and participate if we don't want it kiting as much, we don't want it evading as much, and we don't want it to stealth as much, or life siphon as much? I'm bringing up sustain because making leaving after actually fighting more difficult (IR bump) requires the thief to have a reason to stay there at all, otherwise I think you'll just see people abandoning sword because it's suicide.

Does this make sense? I'm still a novice at PvP (mostly WvW perspective), so I'm not the best at this. I'm interested in working through the ideas with everyone though!

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