Jugglemonkey.8741

It's harder to build something than it is to criticize something, so I really appreciate the work you've done here. I'll try to give some more constructive feedback xD Not having swiftness on minor is going to hamstring me a bit as that's actually one of the reasons I take acro, if my build means I can't take daredevil or fireworks runes for whatever reason. If it were me I'd probably swap the position of Metabolic Techniques and Sprint training for that reason, so that way there is a choice between the heal and the cleanse but the move speed is guaranteed. I'm really gonna miss Swindler's Equilibrium also. I can see why it's not there as if S/D gets a block & stun on cloak and dagger the spec suddenly becomes way more of a brawler spec from that change alone, but I'd really consider putting the steal cooldown reduction on evade in there somewhere simply because it fuels so much for core S/D it's gonna be hard to replace. Dropping the power boost and making the trait affect all weapons could also be interesting. I'll have a think about other stuff haha

Overall thoughts are that it's gonna be difficult to make this work with elite specs and not be broken, but that's more a reflection on daredevil being lazily made by the original dev team so there's a huge amount of overlap design wise. There's some good stuff in here and overall I like the ideas, I'm largely going to be pointing out the issues though so don't think I don't like it based on just that. So with 639 heal power (the amount you get from celestial), the minor trait would give 346 (rounding up) heal per second while you have vigor. Add that to the 208 heal per second from regen and you have 554 healing per second on celestial. I get that you're putting that against swiftness access which would limit interaction with speed runes and other traits requiring swiftness, but that could be a bit much for a passive heal that with the right build you'd have up basically 100% of the time (M7 alone would do that). Majors: How would Sprint Training interact with daredevil dodges? I can see Unhindered Combatant being slightly ridiculous if it works with that, probably better to make this not affect those dodges at all and leave it a core only trait? I like the idea of duellist's momentum but the numbers are likely to be waaay too high. We're talking about a minor trait that offers the same damage % increase as Executioner, plus bonus crit chance to boot. Also see how it would affect daredevil bound with D/P, you'd be supercharging it. Combat Medic is going to add faaaar too much condi cleanse. Think of an acro/SA/deadeye build with rifle, M7, new Don't Stop and antitoxin runes, you'd get 4-5 condis cleansed per malice rotation plus 3 cleanses per evade every 10s and 4 cleanses per stealth application with rifle from Shadow's Embrace. 1 condi removed with vigour application at the max I think. The minor is going to be problematic. Mirage had something similar and it was nerfed pretty handily, I'd rather not have something that I know is going to get nerfed within 6 months. Edit: Something else to consider is that the dodge animation currently takes a fraction longer than the evade, providing a brief window where the thief is animation locked and cannot evade or react to a well timed attack. Using Withdraw or Roll for Initiative to cut that animation lock and throw off the timing of people trying to time skills for the end of dodge rolls is high level play for this reason. Extending the evade without also extending the dodge animation would destroy this, making acro thieves essentially untouchable. Majors: Flow of Combat is basically old Feline Grace with a severely nerfed effect. Might be fine as is but might not be, would have to play around with Sprint Training and the Instant Reaction on a daredevil build to say how strong it is. Edit: I just realised you said no internal cooldown. This would be obnoxiously strong and would get nerfed veeeeery fast, but it would be fun dancing through zergs before it does. I guess Tactical Evasion is intended to give more flexibility in movement when using Withdraw by removing the need to drop target? I can see this being an annoying trait when using Flanking Strike if I have to stand still to evade towards the enemy, so would have to play it and see. Blackguard's Protection is going to be 100% busted on that same acro/SA/deadeye build with M7 I mentioned earlier unless the boon copy is also on a 15s cooldown. The minor trait is unchanged, so not much to comment on there. Majors: Going to have to break down Parrying Offhand a bit, there's a lot packed in here. I love the idea of parrying with an offhand but this trait is overloaded. The 15% damage reduction would be enough on it's own, or the block on Cloak and Dagger, but both is probably too much. I'd personally stick with the active effects when a skill is used and remove the 15% as that leaves it as a skill & timing based thing which is better in general for the class. The stun is also too much: for x/P it's going to lead to an easy stunlock spam which is never good for competitive (esp on a M7 DE SA type build that can spam initiative), and for x/D I'm already wondering if the block is too much given the skill also stealths you, so having a stun on block is definitely over the top. Cool idea, but too much. Smokescreen cloak would be good for specter support, so I like that. It would remove all counterplay from interrupting a D/P thief as he leaps out of stealth though, so that is not so good. If the boons are only applied to allies and not to the thief placing the smoke field, that would be fine. I actually prefer the old version of Don't Stop, simply because the condi cleanse is already a thing (sword 2 with antitoxin runes and current Don't Stop would grant swiftness, cleansing immob/cripple/chill and then another condi, and the return would clenase 2 condis) and the duration to immob is primarily why I take the trait at all (looking at you, immob ranger). Like I said earlier, the cleanse is overshadowed by Combat Medic, so I would find it difficult to justify taking this new version against the other GM traits.

The main thing I get enjoyment from in this game is making my own off meta builds for roaming (some of which were obnoxiously strong). Many of them have been rendered obsolete or outright removed by balance changes. I figure that just gives me chance to find something new and move on to the next build, so in that way I retain the "fun" in my experience. Change is a constant in this kind of game. The longer you're here, the more things will change and the only real question is if you like the changes and if you still have fun playing the game. If you are unwilling to change with the times and adapt to the new systems then the answer is probably not, but that's a very subjective thing that really cannot be answered by looking at a forum. Something else to bear in mind is that plenty of people (myself included) will complain about the 5% they see as negative while enjoying the other 95% of the game, and the fact that we KEEP complaining is evidence that we are still invested in it. Evidently you are too, otherwise you'd not have bothered to post this thread.

So it's for 'special' players by which you presumably mean players that aren't good enough to play other classes, and it's basically unplayed despite the fact that it's broken. Yep, makes total sense.

Yep, like i said I'm not saying it's a good trait. Just wanted to make sure it was understood properly 🙂

In theory, support specter with the new shadow arts line would be good with the protection, healing, cleanse etc from SA traits all being applied to allies. The line was clearly reworked with this in mind as an end goal. The problem is that now there is no stealth from traits, you are pretty much forced to take blinding powder and shadow refuge to apply that support to your party. Support specter is expected to provide alacrity, it does that through wells, and taking enough wells to provide sufficient alacrity uptime means you have no room on the bar for stealth utilities. Sure, you can blast stealth using shroud skills which is great while solo/duo roaming but put that in a team fight situation where your smoke field is going to be overwritten by water/light./fire fields and it's often not good enough. Support specter will basically never be a thing unless this issue is fixed because most other alacrity supports in the game can provide alacrity alongside heals and other important boons (think mechanist, renegade), and a heal/stealth oriented specter (ie, one who takes SA over deadly arts and doesn't bring alacrity) simply doesn't provide enough heals or DPS to be viable on it's own (especially after the shroud nerf). In order to fix this either alacrity needs to be decoupled from wells so you can take stealth utilities or group stealth needs to be accessible without utilities. It's probably healthier for the game for stealth to be linked to skills and utilities only, so that leaves decoupling alacrity from wells. Anyone see another way for specter to work with the new shadow arts? Or is someone making use of it now in a way I haven't thought of?

It's probably just me thinking this, but on top of losing the group protection it really bugs me that well of bounty no longer gives swiftness. Specter was originally balanced to be a slow but tanky version of thief, that objectively failed since wells are shadowsteps but in order to fix that the tankiness is removed as well as the swiftness access. So you want us to be slow and squishy? Pick a direction and stick to it xD

When it says shadowstep, the trait isn't referring to the skill, it's referring to the mechanic. That means shadowsteps from sword 2, D/P 3, P/D 3, Sc/P 3, standing rifle 4 as well as utilities such as infiltrator's signet and shadowstep will all give you back endurance when used. It's still not amazing and I also preferred the 300s version, but it is better than you thought at least.

GW2Skills has 6s base duration for the weakness from weakening shroud. So yeah, looks like they did effectively stealth nerf it while fixing it. https://imgur.com/a/2GNUYRV

Kash is right. Think of death's retreat like heartseeker: it is a melee attack that moves you, is a leap so you can stealth, but if you're in stealth when you hit something with it the damage component will knock you out of stealth. The only difference really is that it's a backwards leap that looks and functions like a shadowstep when it comes to terrain. Edit: if you use predator, the projectile part of the skill is a lot easier to see too.

Tbh knowing Anet, they'd just ask what's wrong with speaking American.

It would probably help for people to note what class they're playing when they comment on this. I get what @Sahne.6950 is saying about being fine with overloads for stunbreaks but bringing 2-3 stunbreaks is often a lot more than most people run because of build constraints. I main thief so I'm usually running three stunbreaks minimum but that's what my class is designed for, your mileage may vary.

Hmm. I definitely didn't feel like I was getting 4s of superspeed on deadeye rifle when I tried it, felt like 3s, so maybe I'm wrong there. Thanks for the heads up about superspeed tho haha

Could the removal of initiative make the Thief more interesting and easier to balance? No.

It doesn't even really affect deadeye rifle. Superspeed doesn't stack, so dodging on rifle used to give 2s of superspeed that got refreshed to 2s one second later, giving 3s total. Now it gives 1.5s then 1.5s one second later for 2.5s total superspeed. I'm not even sure the devs thought that through at all.

The thing that makes me laugh is that they didn't fix the tooltip. It shows the old amount, just to taunt us xD

I'll give up my oooooops buttons when you give up your blocks, stability, healing, invulnerability, etc.

I'm not upset because thief isn't OP in PvP. I'm tired of people asking for nerfs to thief despite acknowledging that it is not OP simply because it irritates them. That is a stupid reason to nerf something. To put it another way, your posts irritate me, but calling for you to be banned from the forums simply because your opinion exists would be an overreaction, no?

You missed my point I think. You dont have to like thief, just like I dont have to like necro, but you wanting to nerf thief mobility simply because you don't like them disengaging is like me saying core necro shroud should be removed so I can hit the necro better. I focussed on necro shroud because I know Svarty is a necro main, personally don't care about necro shroud and it's fine as is. I just wanted to point out that disliking how something works because of its core design is a bad reason to call for nerfs, regardless of the subject at hand. I responded sarcastically because after 10 years this topic is painfully tired, especially when it comes from someone like Svarty who has been playing the game for a long time and really should know better by now. Thief has always lacked a lot of the defensive abilities that other classes exactly because have because they have mobility and stealth, to the point that every Thief build that doesnt play decap in PvP has always been nerfed into the floor a few months later. Picking people off when they are weak and then leaving the fight is precisely how ANet have balanced thief gameplay for the last 10 years, nerfing anything that performs well enough to duel or hold point. The issue with specializations like specter, willbender and harbinger is that they are too tanky and do too high damage in PvP settings for the mobility they have which let them cover multiple roles simultaneously. Specter is having it's sustain drastically cut next patch, so it will probably go back to playing the decap and +1 role. Removing that role by removing the mobility would require massive buffs to its sustain to make it viable, at which point you find yourself in the same dilemma warrior currently finds itself in. That's why thief players are taking a dim view of this topic: we have have had precisely one role in competitive modes for the entire duration of the game, and people saying that thief ought to be nerfed because it is the best at it's single role without realising that the rest of the class is otherwise very underpowered gets very tiring. If it wasn't thief being the fastest class in PvP, you'd be complaining about the next fastest. That's how it's always going to be when you have classes with different mobility levels and defensive levels that corresponds to that mobility. I'd advise you to get used to it, because after 10 years it's not going to change.

Also, remove core necro shroud. I don't find that fun to fight against either, and since that's the balance metric we're apparently going for here....

Thief has less actions per minute on it's weapons skills than other cool down based classes due to how initiative works and the fact you have a shared resource pool across both weapon sets (seriously, go do the maths). If you really want to buff thief by giving us more teleports, stealth and evades, or by giving us meaningful sustain on top of that, be my guest.

The other thing is that most shroud generating skills are % based. This means a >50% nerf to shroud total also means a >50% nerf to shroud generation in terms of actual numbers. It won't be any easier to generate shroud, you'll just get less bang for your buck all round.

If any series deserves a reboot in this age, it's timesplitters. Those games were immensely fun.

Do you really want multiboxing deadeyes hitting you with 5 death's judgements simultaneously? Because that's what your change would allow, and despite how hilarious it would be, I can't see how that's good for the game mode.

Also thieves don't have burn. That's just salt.