Asur.9178

I see the GW2 balance team's trend continues with the increases in initiative costs - impressive.

Wishful thinking to expect it to be changed any time soon considering it's in the Trickery traitline. Most long-time thief veterans know that the balance team is pretty clueless when it comes to thief; you don't need to look far. Just look at the balance patch this week - they once again increased initiative costs.

Pass. The game needs less stealth abuse...not more.

The only QoL that needs to happen with this is that the skills costs half the initiative if you accidentally queue it with no axes present. However, this poses another problem as you can easily spam evade frames if they did that. So, it's best for the skill to do something by itself (other than evade) than just doing everything with axes present. Ie. The skill should do something (other than evade) in addition to pulling the axes. All in all, it's just a matter of learning not to spam your buttons as thief as of right now since the skill doesn't do much of anything without axes on field. There are other significant issues with axe which needs to be addressed first though before even touching this matter. This should be close to the bottom of that list.

Just balance team doing their balance team's job. It took them years (literally) of myself (and possibly others) reporting bugs with Assassin's Reward to finally get them fixed (not sure if all of them are fixed - can't be bothered to test anymore) when I quit the game over a year ago.

I do like how this thread is specifically in the thief subforum and how most people associate stealth with thief only, when there are infinitely more obnoxious and stronger builds like condi druid.

It was decent as a typical niche bound build you see on power D/P or celestial P/P in WvW; but, it was just that...decent. After the bug fix yesterday with the unlimited cast range on A/P 3, it just became significantly worse. In PvE, A/D is a better power option than A/P. One can argue that A/P gives a slightly higher opening burst in something like power DD, but that's all and it assumes auto attack pre-casting (more on this later). Axe (by design) is one of those weapon sets that sounds cool in your head and theoretically, until you implement it and start playing with it (that is assuming it's implemented correctly without any bugs). There are multiple reasons why it's just bad: You can't cast your autos in any direction to pre-set axes without making sure you always de-target first. So, that means you can't attack behind you, nor can you cast anything until you turn around or de-target first (this is normal projectile cast behaviour). Ie. you can't set-up a burst as you kite unless you are wasting a ton of time targeting and de-targeting, as you attempt to lure the enemy into your set axes' range. If an enemy blocks while you have them as target or they simply body block your axe, your axe is not set; it just disappears. The set axes must be in range of the enemy you intend to cast A/X 3 on. So, the smart enemy can just kite around all the time to significantly reduce the on coming burst from A/X 3 as that would limit the number of axes that are always in range at any given time. Due to axes projectile speed, it is also possible to miss hitting with all the axes if the target is simply moving around a lot, especially with something like superspeed. It take forever to build up the "ammunition" for a burst due to the slow auto attacks. Axe 2, with the 3 axes thrown at a time, is not a damage increase on your A/P burst...it's actually a damage loss. If you accidentally cast Axe 2, you override your auto attacks and they will always take priority over your auto attack axes, which has a better power scaling than your Axe 2. This makes the other point about enemies needing to be in range worse because as long as Axe 2 axes exist on the field, you cannot place any auto attack axes. So, a smart enemy, who understands how this works, will simply put large distance between where an Axe 2 is placed as that locks up 3-6/6 axe placements for you immediately. Since the axes track the ground, often times they won't even reach the full distance on highly uneven ground (or on ground where there are usually random obstacles) - especially if it's cast without a target. For those that was around during the first iteration of rifle, this is a similar issue to Cursed Bullet. The power scaling on stealth attack on DE doesn't exist. DE malice scales only condi damage. So, it's bad even in PvE, where you would potentially want to use A/P. Here's a giga meme: A/D (from my testing) performs better as a power build than A/P. If I include a bug here too, then here's another one: the stealth attack (both versions) still doesn't blast finish - not like that'd matter a whole lot cause the blast finisher will be on the target. Other bugs include things like Shadow Savior not even working with A/D...but, I digress. All in all, it's just a very bad design, which is made worse by the plethora of issues and bugs that it currently has. P/P will be a better version of its meme-self after March balance patch; but, it'll always be a meme and RP build because of its design. S/P on the other hand is doomed. The only way to salvage S/P is to actually completely change the dual skill. I don't mean tweak numbers or effect, but a complete redesign. As it is currently, it's completely garbage in PvE, WvW, and sPvP...and that's not just a number or effect problem - that's a fundamental design issue. It's not an issue of just "learning and adapting". Thief has had only 2 offhands for over a decade. Nobody truly enjoys playing with the exact same thing for over a decade; people want changes in the way they play something. It's the whole reason why people play alts, unless they are fully satisfied with the changes that are implemented to their favourite class; or on a much bigger scale, a completely different game - like myself; I quit this game for over a year...came back only because I saw one out of the three changes I've wanted to see for years coming in March balance patch. So, if I'm not satisfied with March balance patch after its release and axe fails to impress me after the plethora of issues are fixed (if they are fixed), I will quit again until those other two major issues are addressed; and If I happen to completely move on from the game by then because the balance team takes another year/two years to address them, I'm not coming back. For example, when I quit, I still remember them giving lip service about how Specter trade-off will be removed after they toned down Specter in sPvP...well, it's over 1 year and I came back and still see it hasn't been removed and power specter is still bad and S/D is still dead in sPvP after they decided to nerf it at multiple levels (effectiveness and initiative cost increase). I'm too old and I'm too impatient to continue giving ANet money for working at a sloth's pace. They are not an indie company and they don't have an excuse to leave long standing issues sitting at the back for so long (I'm talking about Trickery and Sword in PvE - the one that they are addressing is Acrobatics). I've supported the game since GW1 beta, and I'm all out of patience with the GW2 balance team when it comes to thief. So, no, learning and adapting is not a good enough excuse to neglect a class so much.

A/P has more significant problems than just the terrible A/P 3 design (duplicate of A/D, minus the shadowstep). That's ignoring all the problems with axe's functionality in general that is currently plaguing the weapon. Pistol offhand on its own is terrible without a great finisher on the MH/3 or a ridiculously strong 3. It's why D/P is godly in design and Sc/P is good, while the rest are just awful: S/P is dead, P/P is a meme, A/P is terrible. It's also why any decent/good thief (myself inclusive) wanted either both a MH and OH or just an OH as a new weapon...not another MH or 2H.

You understood me fine; they did not - it's okay. Misunderstandings are inevitable in the internet and some people just need something to argue about. Don't continue going back and forth with them and de-railing the thread further as you both seem to be a bit argumentative. I see they responded above - just be the bigger person and ignore it.

Below are my thoughts on the changes. A bit flabbergasted that Specter got no changes - in particular Consume Shadows and Amplified Siphoning. As mentioned earlier, can't win them all. I also see that they still did not remove the Specter tradeoff yet, even though they said it will be removed in the future over a year ago in stream. Been a long time; I might just come back to this game with the proposed changes to Sword and Acrobatics - though I'm still HIGHLY disappointed to see that Preparedness and Sleight of Hand (Trickery in general) is still a problem. NB. Format is messed up, but maybe I will fix it later.

I've seen more than enough from the stream. I don't need to stick around for the 29th to know there will be nothing relevant being addressed. The team STILL does not have a thief player among them, guiding them in the right direction...for over 10 years. DE nerfed with no actual relevant adjustment. Moving with 25% movement speed while kneeling is worse than cancelling kneel and moving and re-kneeling. The ability to move at a snail's pace is not justified by the range nerf and the initiative cost increase. Trickery is still a shoehorn traitline for over 10 years in PvP; Acrobatics is still an insignificant traitline for over 2 years (almost 3 years now) in all gamemodes; and Sword is still garbage in PvE. None of them were addressed at any level. Said this for months, and....I'm done. I will occasionally keep an eye on future balance updates and may return if the said issues are finally addressed (highly doubtful at this point), until I lose any and all interest in the game...but, I am done with the game for now. For those who intend to still stick around supporting these serious lack of attention to the class for years, I wish you all good luck with your hopium and future endeavors.

Let's face it: thief utilities are mostly garbage; but so are most classes' utilities. The number of unused utilities and traits are a joke. You'd imagine that a balance team does their job properly and tries to bring unused and bad skills/traits up to par with the heavily used ones, instead of only ever touching meta builds to nerf/adjust them, but nope...that requires knowledge and understanding of a class' issues (good and bad) to do that. I expect nothing relevant from today's Balance Philosophy stream and the November patch...but I do envy those with a tank full of hopium.

Do you know why most Thieves don't speak up?...because instead of fighting against an immovable force, it's easier to just reroll to a different class and be done with it; and once you're done with it, there's no reason for you to concern yourself with posting about it and fighting a losing battle. Having said that, my 'hopium' tank has been empty for quite some time now (years actually). As I mentioned numerous times since a few months ago, I'm merely waiting for the November patch. That will determine my decision about whether I, personally, quit the game or not. Having been around for over 17 years with the franchise and over 10 years with GW2 alone, and spending countless hours and money in the games, I'm sure they don't mind losing people like me who've invested so much into their growth. Granted a large portion of this is from afking, I think it still gets the point across of just how long I've been around...and how long I've tolerated the nonsense. When the team is so full of ignorant people who fail to recognize the issues with Trickery (Preparedness and Sleight of Hand specifically), Acrobatics, and Sword (in PvE specifically) for over 10 years, there's some serious problems.

I am utterly shocked *insert Pikachu face*:

You'll have better luck getting struck by lightning by walking outside during a thunderstorm with a metal rod in hand, hoping to get struck by lightning, than you will getting seen and heard by relevant people in charge of balancing the game, let alone thief.

The first step to making good balance change decisions is understanding the class in question, the mechanics of the class, the limitations of the class, and the problems of the class (both good and bad) - essentially understanding the very class you intend to balance. The team is stuck on this first step when it comes to thief for over 10 years; they are clueless. Having said that, a core competency which is required for balancing involves...well...a balance in decision. Hard nerfing something, while also hard buffing something only causes a bigger gap. When you balance one to bring it up to the current level of another, yet at the same time nerf that other thing down, all you did was create a reverse disparity- it's rocket science to some. Ie: one step forward, but two steps back.

Save your sanity, time, and efforts. Play something else. Your future you will thank you.

No, you're not tripping. It's even in their stream VOD. They claimed it was supposed to be strong single target support, yet has continued to neuter it over and over again, without making any decent changes. From quickness to healing to personal sustainability, it's been one thing after another (not to mention the damage variants) . They fail to comprehend the fact that a dead support is a useless support. It's absolute illogical changes, because they realized people are not playing Thief as a support; but, I think it' s still 10 years too early before they realize why that is, and that it's that way because core Thief's kit simply cannot offer the class the ability to be a good support. They can't even comprehend the fact that the Thief itself gains ZERO benefit from using the skills on allies...unlike literally ANY other support, which supports ITSELF AND others.

I could make an entire list of things (would easily be over 8 pages long)...but, I've already basically checked out at this point after 10 years of supporting the game and dealing with the balance team's illogical changes over the years when it comes to Thief. Supported this franchise for over 17 years (since GW1 betas), and frankly, though I was never truly happy about the complete 180 direction with Thief compared to Assassin (which was a significantly better class, with less whining from the average players because of no stealth), I did have some fun, but not enough to continue supporting these balance changes after over 10 years. When an entire traitline is a problem for over 10 years and another for over 2.5 years and they don't do anything to address them, it's enough to make any sane person quit...which is what I claimed I would do months ago, and I intend to do it post the November profession update unless certain things change (which I don't see happening at the rate they are going): They obviously do not want thief to be able to hold its own in a fair fight; so, uses its mobility to disengage (aka running away cause you lost) as an excuse to keep it neutered. They obviously want thief to just be a decap bot. They would have been better off removing stealth from ALL classes' skills and traits and ONLY making it something accessible through combo finishing, instead of punishing the class as hard as they have over the years. In the year 2022, Thief's mobility isn't even a thing that should be considered for neutering it, considering EVERY SINGLE class has ridiculous mobility compared to 2012.

The fact that there's (as of right now) 25 people confused about what that comment means says volumes about the understanding the general public has about thief...and when ANet's balance team only "balances" around FOTM and the average player's uproar or certain streamers' opinions/comments, the actual problems are never addressed; unless, those sources bring to light the issues plague-ing certain classes (in this case thief - too bad most don't play thief as a main). I've been waiting for over 10 years for Trickery (specifically Preparedness' base initiative increase and Sleight of Hand's recharge reduction) to get addressed. OVER 10 YEARS! Instead, we've only ever seen garbage balance changes where they INCREASE initiative costs, making Trickery even more of a shoehorn traitline than it already has been since day one. Here's the biggest meme: even if they made Preparedness' initiative increase and Sleight of Hand's recharge reduction baseline, Trickery will still be mandatory because it's simply the best core traitline that offers the most diverse amount of choices across all the core traitlines; but, at least it would give the option to play some off meta diverse builds without feeling like you're heavily handicapped. I've been waiting for over 2.5 years for Acrobatics to get addressed. OVER 2.5 YEARS! All we seem to be getting is some absurdly meager tweaks. Oh, since people seem to have missed it, the endurance gain on Hard to Catch is "a very small number" from the shadowsteps (Roy's words)...so, don't even think to get your hopes up. Not like it'd be able to replace Swindler's Equilibrium in the first place. Pain Response and Vigorous Recovery didn't even get touched...so, hurray for that - just goes to show how little understanding and attention they put towards Thief changes. I am willing to bet the Assassin's Reward bug will not be addressed either, considering how many times I've reported it for years now and it still hasn't been addressed. I'm not going to even touch Sword for PvE...that has been a joke since the dawn of time. The Well of Bounty change is an utter joke. They literally made it worse than it was...so, good job, I guess!? In terms of PvE, no reason to take an Alacrity Specter now over some other (better) options. Might, Fury, Vigor are surely some of the boons Thief heavily struggles to provide...yup! They gutted (let's increase initiative costs some more...yup) power Specter (which was infinitely more fun to play) to force condi Specter into meta and then became utterly shocked about the survivability Carrion amulet provides *insert Pikachu face*. Now they plan to gut condi Specter, which makes power Specter even worse because the health to shroud ratio affects both. They used the argument that it's the same ratio as Necromancer...except they forgot that base necro health is 7567 MORE than Thief - absolute cluelessness. They removed a bunch of trade-off, some absolutely absurd (distortion back on everything...yea, have fun with that), but they didn't even think to remove the trade-off on Daredevil. They added INSANE and OBVIOUSLY busted mechanics (pet swap on Soulbeast), but they didn't even think to fix the traits on their newest Thief spec (Specter) - 2 traits that are never touched and 1 only ever used because the other 2 are awful choices in PvP. It didn't even occur to them to bring back Impacting Disruption to its former state (or even close to it), even though there are BETTER comparable traits like Lightning Rod, which doesn't require interrupts, can crit, AND applies weakness...but nope, Impacting Disruption is clearly too strong. They obviously want thief to JUST be a decap bot; so, I'm not sure why they even bother adding new especs to the class - let's give PvE players some flavour so they buy our expansion...after all, that's how Deadeye came to be in the first place (a spec admittedly added to please all the players in forums asking for a sniper spec). PS: You have no actual reason to play Deadeye post these changes because boonbeast will be back...and stronger than ever. Enjoy catching Sonic as it rotates infinitely through its skills (because it's not limited by a global cd...aka initiative), while you struggle with initiative and get farmed. If Warriors want to meme, they can also play Gun Flame and do better than Deadeye...enjoy that. Enjoy fighting infinite block/evade/invulnerable spamming mesmers and more. Have fun with all those changes. I am already prepared to make my exit post the November changes (because I do not see Trickery and Acrobatics in all gamemodes, and Sword in PvE being addressed at the rate they are going), after supporting the game for over 10 years and the franchise over 17 years.

Garbage patch for thief, as I expected, cause they still don't have an actual thief player working on the balance team. I would break down the changes and show just how ridiculously bad and illogical it is (as I normally have done in the past), but I think some people in the thief community already understands most of it. While nearly everything else is getting some insane buffs (literally insane because it'll be absolutely broken), thief didn't even get the ONE (Trickery & Preparedness) thing plague-ing it since day one in sPvP addressed in any way, shape, or form. Yet, they keep talking about how this is a "competitive focused balance patch". It's been over 10 years that Trickery has been a MANDATORY pick and probably will remain as such for another 10 years based on these balance changes the team comes up with. At the rate they keep nerfing thief (especially while heavily buffing others), it's going to go back to its old state very soon (a decap bot). If you were expecting to fulfill a different role as thief, try playing a different class, because only disappointments await you. Either learn to enjoy the life of a decap bot, or start playing something else before it gets back to that state...because at this rate, that end result is inevitable. Having said that, personally, I know what my future holds, because I can already see nothing changing:

"Competitive focused balance patch", yet they didn't even touch Trickery for Thief, nor did they make the 3 initiative from Preparedness baseline. How many years is that now? Oh, right...over 10 years. Perhaps it's time to consider getting someone who actually plays Thief to be part of the balance team.

Going to migrate this over from the other sub since this is the 'official thread'. Thief Summary: Pistol and sword changes are irrelevant. Sword will continue not being used because those changes are simply not enough to make the weaponset relevant. Those changes are negligible in terms of making them any more useful than they are. Staff power Daredevil (pDD) will continue being better than D/D power Deadeye (pDE). Obviously they both get stronger, which is nice after the last patch. Staff pDD does about the same DPS as D/D pDE currently. The only '?' is how much impact will the Backstab (BS) change have, and if it applies to Malicious Backstab (MBS) in the first place since the notes only mention BS. Staff pDD bring more to the table than D/D pDE, especially after the patch with higher cc capability. Staff pDD doesn't care about positioning and has better AoE, unlike D/D pDE, which is a single target pure DPS build. Even the full staff auto attack chain does more damage after the patch. Staff pDD is less cumbersome to play than D/D pDE. Playing a good D/D pDE requires weaving in Shadow Flare in between 2 MBS without failing and getting revealed...which is not an easy task for vast majority of the players. Condi Specter (cSpc) is getting gutted. Yes, believe it or not, those venom changes does more damage to the spec than those buffs do to help it. Losing 1-2s on venoms is equivalent to losing 30-40s (base with no duration increase), because that's each application from each player. The trait increase has very little impact with just 60 points. It's an almost negligible amount of buff for how much you are losing on venoms with the proposed changes. cSpc does not rely on auto attacks for damage, and thus those buffs to auto attacks are pretty much negligible. In fact, auto attack is the lowest source of damage on the spec because that's simply not how the spec is played. Further to that, the buff to Shadow Bolt is literally the first attack of the auto attack chain - not the whole chain. Condi Daredevil (cDD) is getting a nice buff. It's not losing as much as cSpc, and in fact, the boon cDD version (a niche variant) is benefitting the most from the change. _____________________________ Suggestions for further adjustments: Weapon skills: Sword: Auto-attacks: Increase the sword auto attack coefficients a bit more than what's already proposed. 6.25 - 7.69% is far too miniscule to make the weaponset relevant in endgame PvE content. Scepter: Twilight Combo: Increase the duration of poison and torment applied by 1s. Shadow Shroud: Eternal Night: Increase the duration of poison by 2s. Utilities: Deadeye: Shadow Flare: Slightly increase the damage coefficient. Eg: 0.6 to 0.7. Traits: Deadly Arts: Dagger Training: Increase the additional power when having dagger equipped from 80 to 120. This is similar to Revealed Training. This change not only benefits the power main-hand (MH) dagger builds, which are lacking compared to the staff pDD, but it also benefits builds that use off-hand (OH) dagger, including S/D. Critical Strikes: Deadly Aim: Remove the damage penalty from this trait. Currently, you are better off simply using shortbow with the Practiced Tolerance trait than using this trait. The damage penalty in this trait is completely unnecessary and thus makes it an easy pass if someone is looking for AoE presence. Trickery: Lead Attacks: Increase the damage gain per initiative spent from 1% to 1.5%. This benefits both power and condi builds which utilize the Trickery traitline. In particular, it benefits condi builds the most, putting some of the lost venom damage back into the thief. Furthermore, it allows open world builds that utilizes this traitline for self-reliance (eg: self-boons) to perform better, allowing vast majority of open world players to do better by default. Daredevil: Impacting Disruption: Thanks to numerous nerfs over the years, this trait has become nothing short of dead in both PvE and PvP. So, it's time for some necromancy. Re-vamp this trait to trigger Pulmonary Impact on cc usage, without requiring interruptions. This will allow builds like power S/P to have some form of competitive presence compared to the other 2 options (D/D or staff). In terms of PvP balance, minor number tweaks achieves that effortlessly if required. This trait is already worse than other similar traits like Lightning Rod, which applies weakness and allows for crits on any cc usage without any delay (Pulmonary Impact cannot crit and only does damage with a delay - no other effects). Specter: Dark Sentry: Allow this trait to apply Rot Wallow Venom to the thief itself. This will put back a lot of the lost damage from the venom changes to the thief, without requiring allies. _____________________________ Additional notes: I'm hoping all potential oversights with the coming changes on the 23rd will be addressed before going live. For example, I'm hoping the following will be addressed appropriately. Backstab: Ensure that the coefficient changes apply to Malicious Backstab as well. Traversing Dusk: Ensure there's some way to identify the effective range of the Alacrity with the new proposed 360 radius, even if it means increasing the wells themselves to 360 radius.

Summary: Pistol and sword changes are irrelevant. Sword will continue not being used because those changes are simply not enough to make the weaponset relevant. Those changes are negligible in terms of making them any more useful than they are. Staff power Daredevil (pDD) will continue being better than D/D power Deadeye (pDE). Obviously they both get stronger, which is nice after the last patch. Staff pDD does about the same DPS as D/D pDE currently. The only '?' is how much impact will the Backstab (BS) change have, and if it applies to Malicious Backstab (MBS) in the first place since the notes only mention BS. Staff pDD bring more to the table than D/D pDE, especially after the patch with higher cc capability. Staff pDD doesn't care about positioning and has better AoE, unlike D/D pDE, which is a single target pure DPS build. Even the full staff auto attack chain does more damage after the patch. Staff pDD is less cumbersome to play than D/D pDE. Playing a good D/D pDE requires weaving in Shadow Flare in between 2 BS without failing and getting revealed...which is not an easy task for vast majority of the players. Condi Specter (cSpc) is getting gutted. Yes, believe it or not, those venom changes does more damage to the spec than those buffs do to help it. Losing 1-2s on venoms is equivalent to losing 30-40s (base with no duration increase), because that's each application from each player. The trait increase has very little impact with just 60 points. It's an almost negligible amount of buff for how much you are losing on venoms with the proposed changes. cSpc does not rely on auto attacks for damage, and thus those buffs to auto attacks are pretty much negligible. In fact, auto attack is the lowest source of damage on the spec because that's simply not how the spec is played. Further to that, the buff to Shadow Bolt is literally the first attack of the auto attack chain - not the whole chain. Condi Daredevil (cDD) is getting a nice buff. It's not losing as much as cSpc, and in fact, the boon cDD version (a niche variant) is benefitting the most from the change. ________________________________________________________ Suggestions for further adjustments: Weapon skills: Sword: Auto-attacks: Increase the sword auto attack coefficients a bit more than what's already proposed. 6.25 - 7.69% is far too miniscule to make the weaponset relevant in endgame PvE content. Scepter: Twilight Combo: Increase the duration of poison and torment applied by 1s. Shadow Shroud: Eternal Night: Increase the duration of poison by 2s. Utilities: Deadeye: Shadow Flare: Slightly increase the damage coefficient. Eg: 0.6 to 0.7. Traits: Deadly Arts: Dagger Training: Increase the additional power when having dagger equipped from 80 to 120. This is similar to Revealed Training. This change not only benefits the power main-hand (MH) dagger builds, which are lacking compared to the staff pDD, but it also benefits builds that use off-hand (OH) dagger, including S/D. Critical Strikes: Deadly Aim: Remove the damage penalty from this trait. Currently, you are better off simply using shortbow with the Practiced Tolerance trait than using this trait. The damage penalty in this trait is completely unnecessary and thus makes it an easy pass if someone is looking for AoE presence. Trickery: Lead Attacks: Increase the damage gain per initiative spent from 1% to 1.5%. This benefits both power and condi builds which utilize the Trickery' traitline. In particular, it benefits condi builds the most, putting some of the lost venom damage back into the thief. Furthermore, it allows open world builds that utilizes this traitline for self-reliance (eg: self-boons) to perform better, allowing vast majority of open world players to do better by default. Daredevil: Impacting Disruption: Thanks to numerous nerfs over the years, this trait has become nothing short of dead in both PvE and PvP. So, it's time for some necromancy. Re-vamp this trait to trigger Pulmonary Impact on cc usage, without requiring interruptions. This will allow builds like power S/P to have some form of competitive presence compared to the other 2 options (D/D or staff). In terms of PvP balance, minor number tweaks achieves that effortlessly if required. This trait is already worse than other similar traits like Lightning Rod, which applies weakness and allows for crits on any cc usage without any delay (Pulmonary Impact cannot crit and only does damage with a delay - no other effects). Specter: Dark Sentry: Allow this trait to apply Rot Wallow Venom to the thief itself. This will put back a lot of the lost damage from the venom changes to the thief, without requiring allies. Additional notes: I'm hoping all potential oversights with the coming changes on the 23rd will be addressed before going live. For example, I'm hoping the following will be addressed appropriately. Backstab: Ensure that the coefficient changes apply to Malicious Backstab as well. Traversing Dusk: Ensure there's some way to identify the effective range of the Alacrity with the new proposed 360 radius, even if it means increasing the wells themselves to 360 radius. I purposely excluded Shadow Arts and Acrobatics from this post because it's akin to beating a dead horse.

I appreciate the communication, however, I can honestly say one thing. I've already started limiting any kind of feedback I personally provide after I noticed how heavily they are ignored a while ago, unless they are in the private discord - this was confirmed over the weekend (very disappointing). Some of my previous feedbacks from just this last year included feedback on Specter: here, here, here, and here ....all of which were completely ignored, unless they were parroted in the private discord, with bugs making it into the game even after being reported multiple times since the first beta. There are long standing bugs still present, for example, this one...which I myself reported NUMEROUS times. This is not being addressed in tomorrow's patch either because there's no visibility on it since it was never mentioned in the private discord. It continues to be ignored because nobody is actually reading the feedback that people like myself has put effort and time into, simply because it's not in the private discord. If I do not see Acrobatics and Trickery in all gamemodes, and Sword in PvE being addressed for Thief in the mid-fall major professions update, I would not be surprised to find myself quitting the game. In particular, Acrobatics has been a dead traitline for over 2 years, while Trickery has been a problem for almost 10 years (will be 10 years by the time the next patch arrives). It's absolutely ridiculous that these long standing issues and problem areas are still not addressed.