OrangeHedgehog.6310

So, the weapons being used are Pistol+Dagger and Bow. The stealth obtained from dodge roll comes from when you're using a Rifle, or did I miss something?

Okay, sounds like that could be useful for PvP and WvW, but it kinda misses the point that the changes aren't as useful in PvE farming because ArenaNet broke the build there, when nothing needed to be done to the PvE build. I'd like to hear more from you regarding the 'bunker busting'. How is that achieved, please? If I could be useful to others in WvW that would be something.

Yeah, I got the 'dip out of stealth' bit, and that's the thing which, given the the reduction from 3s to 1s of stealth granted by the dodge roll (plus the loss of the additional stealth duration) is the thing which really, really, hurts the WvW player simply trying to get out of combat and go somewhere else. What I'm still trying to fathom out it is why some PvP/WvW players have so much hate for players being able to avoid being killed by simply not being able to be hit as easily. At the same time they are simply ignoring that a stealthed character does not contribute to claiming objectives, and that if the Thief attacks they reveal themselves, which was the other player's desire in the first place. The oldest rule of survival is simply don't get hit in the first place. The whole concept of any thief-based profession/class is about stealth. It's reasonable to expect a Thief type to be able to do considerable, and severely debilitating damage from a single well-placed hit from an ambush (stealthed) position. Yet the damage a Thief can do is so far removed from that of the more tanky characters as to make them ineffective, not even a serious threat. An annoyance maybe (because apparently if you can't acheive that kill it is very, very annoying for the players who simply must kill other characters), but not really a viable threat. The ability to setup an ambush scenario has been severely degraded in the first place, and in the second place the damage available to Thief characters simply does not compete with that from harder hitting Professions, even if the Thief has had time to setup what should be a good attack. The Thief will have to land many, many, more hits to start to become anything more than a minor disturbance. That is time Thieve cannot afford to be in combat as their ability to survive damage is so much lower than that of the harder hitting opponents. Umm, 15 seconds isn't permanent, it's 15 seconds. 😆 But yes, I am using Shadow Refuge more frequently now. The recharge time means that can delay me doing the next bit of harvesting, and yes, I resent that ArenaNet have made it take longer for me to accomplish the harvesting. It's not just the recharge time for Shadow Refuge, of course, it's also the presence of aggro meaning the character can't mount and get to the next node as quickly. If Thief PvE farmers are not a minority, why do you think ArenaNet chose to attack their playstyle so aggressively (was it laziness, incompetence, not caring, a combination, or something else)?

Okay, so what you're saying is ... despite ArenaNet's best attempts to break the build and kowtow to the people who got their underwear in a twist about permastealth in PvE and WvW that, in combat scenarios*, it's still possible to be virtually in permastealth. Thus ArenaNet ruined the build in PvE but didn't actually address the PvP and WvW problem the Anti-Stealth Brigade got their underwear messed up about. That actually sounds even worse than ArenaNet simply breaking the build, because they didn't actually achieve the apparent aim. 🤷‍♂️ It means the only people who really suffer are the PvE players farming. No doubt we're in a minority and thus our enjoyment is at the bottom of ArenaNet's Players We Care About list. That is if it even makes it onto the list at all. Oh, and thank you for going into the detail. Whilst I'm unlikely to be able to employ the moves myself (both through lack of ability and lack of use of PvE) others reading this thread may be able to, so I am sure the time you spent replying will be appreciated by more than just me. Seriously, thanks. *Clearly the plays you detailed are not going to work whilst the character is standing still harvesting. You'll either not be able to do them, or doing them will interrupt the harvesting action, which amounts to the same thing; harvesting will take longer.

So, why is getting to run way and not be killed such an abomination to you? Because the player who ran away denied you the ability to kill their character? Why is surviving not a win? It would appear your narrow viewpoint is that the only way to win is to kill other's characters.

So, what you're saying is that a) ArenaNet will be deliberately unprofessionally and 2) despite offering nine Professions, there are really only three playable ones?

I have no idea how you're going to use the smoke combo which are pistol-based, with Silent Scope, which is rifle-based. At least not in an effective way. Still, as PvE is not my main mode of play, I guess that doesn't matter too much, to me at least. I already use the Raptor, and other mounts, to move the larger distances. The challenge exists when you're amongst aggro-producers and can't mount. The reduced stealth duration in WvW means this more likely to happen, and that means the whole farming process is slower. All because someone got their underwear in a twist about Thieves/Deadeyes being able to avoid being killed in PvE and WvW.

Indeed, not. I saw the word Kneel in Deadly Aim, and when I've done Death's Judgement, the character, if not already, Kneels whilst taking the shot, so that's where the confusion came in. To get good enough to achieve what you've suggested is likely to unrealistic for some players, myself included, however. Even taking the 0.5s away from not needing to dodge, that only gives you 0.5s more time, changing the chances of using the ability from impossible to very, very, difficult. Easier, yes, does it make Thief\Deadeye equally as dangerous as the hard hitters? Not even close. Thief is, quite rightly, squishy. A thief's defence lies in not being hit in the first place. There are enough AoE attacks and the such like which can nullify a Thief's movement abilities to make them vulnerable enough to see them dropped within a second or two. Making it more likely that Thief will be hit doesn't balance things out one jot. Sure, hard hitters may not necessarily kill a Thief in a one to one every time. If they don't it's likely significantly more probable that it's because the Thief has left the combat (aka retreated), rather than because the Thief actually won the combat. Whether the hard hitter killed the Thief, or forced the Thief to flee, that's a win for the hard hitter. Forcing a Thief to flee is, apparently, not enough for players who hate permastealth though. The chances of a Thief forcing a hard hitter to flee? Yeah, an absurd idea. So, ArenaNet made it more likely a hard hitter will be able to take out a Thief and making it more likely Thieves are less able to escape. The rationale being, to kowtow to players of hard hitters wanting to get their adrenaline fix from beating up a squishy character, because they don't get the same joy from simply forcing the Thief to flee?

Oh, I certainly understand WvW has a different ruleset, and I knew that before. What is apparent from ArenaNet's sledgehammer approach to fixing permastealth is that they either didn't fully understand the impacts, or simply did not care to do the minimum, instead opting for something so radical it broke the build. If the first, they've demonstrated professional incompetence, if the second, well, not caring about your customers isn't really a good outlook in the long run. The whole, "Oh, but you now get superspeed" argument demonstrates a failure to consider that superspeed is pointless when it comes to standing still, as is the case when the character is harvesting.

Why is harvesting nodes in WvW considered to be so inappropriate? ArenaNet didn't put nodes into WvW simply for the fun of it, they're there to be harvested. I have not seen any arguments about needing to curtail a Thief's ability to harvest in WvW, but lots of hate towards permastealth in both WvW and PvP. Why is permastealthing actually such a bad thing anyway? The argument has been given that it means a Thief can camp in an objective to then take it easily (abeit with the help of at least one more Thief or by portalling in allies from outside). The argument ignores that firstly the Thief has to get inside said objective (I know of no way this can be achieved without first having subjected the objective to sufficient siege as to breach the boundary), and then has to stay for ten minutes^, doing nothing productive other than staying out of the way of the occupiers when it's in the hand of an enemy faction. ^This presumes the initial breach resulted in a change of ownership (let's face it, if you've been able to breach you're probably going to take the objective), and the two five-minute periods needed for it to be taken by another faction, and then be able to be retaken. That also relies on a challenger faction actually coming over immediately to take the objective as soon as it's possible. The Thief could be waiting ages for the objective to be taken from their faction. The probability of them having to wait longer than ten minutes is a non-zero value, i.e. more often than not, someone would be waiting longer than ten minutes. During this phase, they've first got to avoid being killed by the invaders, stay stealthed long enough for the objective to be turned, and then avoid the default occupiers and any others who come to harvest the nodes. Are the rewards really that high for this course of action? Whilst stealthed a character doesn't contribute to claiming objectives, and can't attack and stay stealthed; they will reveal themselves at various points. A character intent on being 'permanently' stealthed removes themselves from being a threat; they literally pose zero threat to anyone else whilst they're stealthing. No serious, logical and rational argument has been put forward as to why there is so much hate towards the ability.

Indeed. The argument being given as to why the changes came about was to prevent permastealth in WvW/PvP. Although those arguments are weak and ignore the fundamental principles of a Thief character, which is to be stealthy! ArenaNet demonstrating a lack of wisdom or fit of incompetence, elected to massively break the ability, rather than simply curtail it slightly. All that was needed to prevent permastealthing was to eliminate the additional boost to stealth from Meld With Shadows in WvW/PvP. That would have been sufficient to make it sufficiently more dangerous for Thief players to use the tactics which were apparently hated so much that it created so much noise ArenaNet felt it necessary to kowtow and cancel the capability.

I, too, am still using my Deadeye for this, but it's taking long as I get interrupted more frequently. It's a shame we can't send an invoice to ArenaNet for the additional time. Charge them say, £50/hour or part thereof? They'd probably ignore the invoices and someone might say that's daylight robbery, but what do expect from Thief!? 🤣

It's a sad state of affairs when the game developers force such things on players. All the Professions are supposed to ultimately be equally playable, in all environments. Sure, I've got five level 80 characters, but the Thief was my first, and consequently I am somewhat attached to it.

You're trying to say I said something which I didn't say. Some people were vocal about hating permastealth, the adjective therefore fits that case. The use-case is very much limited to PvP/WvW-heavy players hating that a Thief utilising the very fundamental principles of being a thief (i.e. being stealthy) could achieve stealth for extended durations (whilst ignoring the downsides of being stealthy for extended durations). Sorry, but if someone dislikes a character being played to its strengths that's on them. Either join them or shut up. Don't change the rules to degrade the character's ability. Permastealth does not negatively affect any other player in PvE, but it does bring significant usability to the player, the hate therefore comes from players heavily invested in PvP and WvW, and who also disliked the ability to inflict damage on said Thieves\Deadeyes. Simply negating the effectiveness of the character's presence by being stronger and a harder hitter wasn't enough for those people. It wasn't cries from the Thief players of 'this profession isn't strong enough, take away one of our key strengths and give us something different', it was cries from the others of 'get rid of permastealth', which cause ArenaNet to break the build. Okay, so some people like the changes, that will be in the PvP and WvW environments. There are no tremendous benefits for the changes in PvE, but there are significant downsides, all because ArenaNet were incompetent in designing and deploying the change in response to the permastealth haters continued efforts to see its demise. Regardless of any benefits, reducing dodge stealth to 1s in WvW and PvP makes Death's Judgement (the single most powerful non-initiative spending attack) either unusable or too risky to attempt. For a character that doesn't hit as hard as others. How does effectively removing that ability make any sense whatsoever? (And that's to not even consider that ArenaNet got the mechanics of that the wrong way around anyway: if you're sniping you don't reveal your position first, then fire; you fire which reveals your position.) The changes may well bring some other aspects to the Profession, but they also put unnecessary and poorly thought through limitations in place, across all three environments. I could just about stomach it if they'd simply eliminated/nerfed the stealth duration bonus from Meld With Shadows in WvW and PvP, but this? Nope, it's so broken as to be demonstrable design incompetence. That I, without anywhere near the experience the GW2 designers should have, can come up with a reasonable solution says more about ArenaNet's attitude than it does about my dislike of demonstrable incompetence. There would not have been anything wrong with giving players a choice of how to build their character. Players could experiment with the different builds and choose the one they like most. Importantly, this places the choice in the hands of the player, rather than forcing something which is okay for some, and broken for others, onto everyone. Some folks, happy with the new abilities would love it, good for them. Others might not like it, and they'd be able to choose to remain with what they are familiar with. Others might switch between the two options, depending on the environment, whether they were taking part in a PvE story, or simply roaming the PvE world (all of which should be equally respected play choices). Flexibility and choice is what should have happened.

Fine, everyone is allowed their opinion. None of that excuses ArenaNet's blanket 'solution'. There may well have been a lot of vocal haters, but that doesn't necessarily meant that a) the haters were right, or b) that ArenaNet's blanket change is right, either. There's nothing wrong with giving people choices. Instead of the blanket change they could have made it possible for players who like the changes to use a build, in PvP/WvW which empowers them that way, whilst leaving PvE alone. They failed. ArenaNet could have done this better.

You already knew that to be impractical and sarcastic when you wrote it, so that comes across as if you're trying to troll. Perhaps ArenaNet didn't receive sufficient 'feedback' on previous changes to realise the changes they implemented were disliked? Or maybe ArenaNet simply don't care. Either way, that's no justification for not speaking up. If folks don't speak up, ArenaNet will go about their business with their heads in the sand, or held high thinking they're the ultimate game designers as they haven't broken the enjoyment for any of their players . At least if folks speak up, they can't say "No-one complained when we ...".

With the stealth from dodge reduced to just one second in PvP and WvW, that's only technically usable. Practically it doesn't work. Having just checked, Kneel take 0.5s, and Death's Judgement takes another 0.5s. To be able to dodge, Kneel and use Death's Judgement within the 1s duration of stealth you gain is impossible (and that's assuming you already have the desired target selected). If you're already kneeling you are a sitting duck for all the tanks. Death's Judgement has the single highest damage effect of the Thief's\Deadeye's attacks. By reducing the stealth duration in WvW and PvP to just one second ArenaNet haven't just broken the build for PvE, they've eliminated the core attack (which doesn't need Initiative to use).

Yeah., ArenaNet's decision to break the build was indeed very short-sighted. The time it takes is only irrelevant to those who aren't reliant on doing it. It comes across as people who are utilising something having more ownership of the thing than those who are affected. There was zero need to break the build in PvE, and the only fix, if indeed it was actually needed, to support the haters of permastealth, was to eliminate the extended duration of stealthing from Meld With Shadows when in PvP and WvW. That would have been sufficient to kowtow to the haters, whilst minimising the impacts of the key ability of a class whose fundamental strength lies in being able to stealth. The change implemented is like saying to a blacksmith, "Oh, yeah, you can still be a blacksmith, you aren't allowed to use a furnace, but you will be able to hit things with your hammer faster." Sounds ridiculous? Yes, that's what the change is.

You're going to need to be specific about what you think is actually factually inaccurate.

The build may have enabled certain play styles previously, but was not materially broken, and the fix did not need to be so drastic. The identified issue was in PvP and WvW where a player could, if they wished, avoid combat by continually stealthing. As has been pointed out, and not addressed, whilst a player is in stealth they're not contributing towards claiming objectives and as soon as they do they come out of stealth (and get squished, quickly). The only thing which was needed was the removal of the additional stealth during in PvP and WvW, to achieve the aim of appeasing the players who apparently hated that other players could enjoy playing to the strength of the Thief class. Anyone who thinks they had a right to see that ability and choice removed from players is part of the problem; claiming a right to have other player's enjoyment degraded.

Thank you for taking the time to put that perspective across. My counter debunking: So, two experienced players with suitably built characters can take out the guards and lord by hanging around inside an objective? How did they do that without first the walls first being breached through siege? Then we have to consider that they've got to wait at least five minutes for the objective to be reclaimed/claimed by another opponent, then another five minutes before they can claim it. Seriously, that's ten minutes of hanging around, and they shouldn't be rewarded for their patience? Patience which is seeing their participation counter going down all the time they're not doing something active. Sure, but whilst they're stealthed they can't attack or contribute towards claiming an objective. No active threat. Sure, there's a passive threat, but again, it's not without it's own cost. So, they have an ability similar to Mesmers. In PvE I've used it numerous times to help players get to the end point of a daily jumping puzzle. In WvW it is akin to having an insider who has opened the door in the secret passage to their their colleagues in. Oh, yeah, that's the sort of thing spies and thieves could be expected to do! The argument against that is, what? The objection here seems to be that it takes a lot of people to find a Thief. So? Comparing to a real life scenario of an infiltrator in a castle, that's what it would take, a lot of manpower (in the gender-neutral sense), if you want to invest in tracking them down. Instead of actively tracking them down, a few people remain and the Thief's ability is nullified because as soon as they reveal themselves all hell breaks loose and they get squished pronto. Because remarkably squishy. Or they run away/hide. Which again nullifies them as a threat. Those on Thief-watch could be rotated, if enough people think it warrants the effort. Somehow, from observed experience, that is unlikely to happen because not enough people actually have that much animosity, or are simply more interested in gaining active benefits from taking objectives. The argument about the presence of a Thief occupying a dozen or more defenders seems to be routed in 'we think it's unfair that this could happen'. I'm sorry, did I hear crying from the corner about how that means some people are tied up by a single infiltrator? Yeah, well, that's what happens. One of the duties of captured soldiers for example, is to escape. It is not so much the getting back to your own lines that matters, but the use of resources in tracking and recapturing the escapee. One individual could tie up hundreds, if not thousands, of people. In a more offensive similarity, a single defender, suitably prepared, could cause massive disruption to a group of attackers. It's a very common principle that if you're attacking something, the attacking forces need to outnumber the defenders by three to four to one, and yes, a single effective defender can defend against a considerably larger force. You're not going to see a Thief succeeding in that in GW2 though. Personally, as a player, I would get very bored of hanging around like that, all the while my activity in WvW is dropping, and I'm not earning anything out of doing so. It's more productive to be out with a larger group actually achieving an objective. No worthwhile argument in favour of the breaking of the build across all three play environments has yet been presented. There was no need to break it at all in PvE, and simply eliminating the duration bonus from Meld With Shadows in WvW and PvP only would have sufficed. (Not nerfing it all the way down to one second of stealth from a dodge. That's so utterly, utterly broken it's ridiculous.) If ArenaNet wanted to provide players with a different build it should have been an option, not forced and not across all three environments to such an extent that it makes the build unenjoyable to play.

Thanks. I'm not 100% sure when you say "generates 0% of the salt". Would it be fair to say, "anger" or "vehemence" instead instead of 'salt? Thank you for acknowledging that the build I've been using for around two years, from my first ever GW2 character (well, since reaching level 80...) is now no longer playable. Now, all I would like is for ArenaNet to also formally acknowledge they've killed the build and then perhaps they can work out how to fix things so that I can actually play the character I've invested thousands of hours in. The build you have with the cleanse/superspeed &etc may be just fine for your purposes, which seem to be offence. But it's not for me or others, who want to run a defensive build which can go farming effectively. Are we lesser players because we want to use the build we're familiar with or because we want to run a defensive character which can farm? It certainly seems like some folks think we shouldn't be treated with any regard, including, very sadly, ArenaNet. A significant part of the problem is ArenaNet's incompetence in designing, approving and deploying the change. A single second of stealth from a dodge (as is now the case in WvW) has no tangible benefit, it might as well not work at all. But then it would be far too obvious that they want to kill off a principle feature of a Profession whose fundamental basis is, and should be, stealth. <sarcasm> Can't have that [their agenda] being obvious), can we? </sarcasm> Instead of breaking the build by using the limitation they've gone for, all they needed to do was remove the duration bonus applied by Meld with Shadows in WvW and PvP only). This would kowtow to those who are aggressively (and IMHO unreasonably) against Thieves being able achieve permastealth whilst having zero negative affect for players wanting to farm in PvE, and minimising the negative aspects on farming in WvW, whilst also making it considerably harder, if not impossible, to achieve permastealth. in WvW, which appears to be the fundamental argument from the Anti-Permastealth Brigade.

Yeah, I do, a bit. Sounds like an epic, if somewhat fantastical and boring, tactic. That tactic relies on someone staying unfound for most of the five minutes it takes for it to become possible to capture the objective. Oh, and to have previously taken the objective to get the Thief inside in the first place. Unless there's a way to get folks inside objectives, without having first completed the siege efforts, that I'm not aware of? From the WvW groups I've taken part in, no-one is prepared to hang around for those five minutes; they're off attacking other objectives. The experienced WvW leaders actively dissuaded playing Thieves, because they bring so little to the party. So much so I made a Support Firebrand specifically to join in with the WvW. I learnt that doing so earnt me more WvW progression than the Thief character. That emphasised that playing a Thief in WvW is definitely not a great idea. Still, that likely very few, people were prepared to engage in that tactic doesn't warrant breaking the Thief build in PvE, as well as WvW, and they broke Thief in WvW even worse than they did in PvE. Even just applying the PvE level of harm to the build would have been sufficient, let alone breaking it as much as they did. It is increasingly looking like ArenaNet are biased against Thief, or that whoever signed-off on the build is incompetent.

Indeed, it's that additional time it now takes which hurts so much. My thanks go to those who have pointed out that you can use a few other skills in combination to be stealthed for a longer duration, but none of those suggestions are actually practical for farming nodes; you need to spend too long stationary to harvest nodes and you become unstealthed. That has the knock-on effect that you likely get targetted/aggro'd, which then means you can't mount and get get to the next node as quickly. And that's if you even managed to finish farming the node. [Edit: Oh, and to assign those different skills it means forgoing Signet of Shadows and the +25% movement speed which, it turns out is, if not essential, very, very, necessary to be able to move between nodes and avoid NPCs. To say ArenaNet didn't think the changes through carefully enough would be a huge understatement.] "But there are Glyphs which mean you can farm instantly". Urm, yeah, sure {tone=100% sarcasm}, but not 100% of the time, and that means you can't use another Glyph (at least, I have not yet come across any harvesting tool which can have two Glyphs - if it's possible I would have Timekeeper and Watchknight on the logging and mining tools.

This. This is why ArenaNet have demonstrated how utterly incompetent the decision-making process was (and thus how incompetent/biased the person who signed it off is, too). I'm very sorry to hear how badly this has affected your enjoyment of GW2, although as I'm merely another similarly-affected player, I can't actually do anything to correct ArenaNet's poor choices, other than to highlight that their decision was misguided at best. They will, apparently, only listen to the more aggressive players.