Asur.9178

Yup!!! Very good balance patch. Really addressing those issues with Acrobatics and Trickery...and Sword for PvE. Also, amazing changes to dead utilities. Balance team very hard at work! 👍

Deadeye is a meme spec that was intentionally designed to be a meme by ANet, and introduced as a meme in order to satisfy the RP meme lords, who wanted to meme it up RPing as a "sniper" in an MMORPG. It is a meme everywhere, and it also memes on bad players pretty hard. It's so much of a meme in PvE that ANet had to specifically design very specific mechanics in certain encounters in order to allow the meme spec to perform its meme role and help meme lords feel like they were playing a relevant class and not a meme class, so it could find some kind of place in the game, without being a complete meme...even though, at the end of the day, that's all it ever was and ever will be under the current implementation and limitations.

When? When it's communicated to them to do so in the private discord. Until then, or until they stop listening to the biased opinions of a select few, nothing will change.

Oh, X & X classes are overperforming? Better nerf Y class to fix that! Dedicated balance team post EoD launch at work btw. Imagine working on balance when you don't understand, nor play, the very classes you're balancing.

Play a better spec, like Willbender or Herald. Your class will get more attention and love in balance patches. They (Guardian/Revenant) also have VERY strong presence in PvE - more relevant than Thief. Furthermore, after you use a skill, you won't be stuck auto attacking and desperately running away as those specs, since they don't have a global c/d on their skills (initiative)...unless you enjoy using 1 skill and then standing around waiting for initiative regen to use another/same skill again. You also won't find yourself in a position where you are HARDLOCKED into a traitline (Trickery) for over 9 years (and further locked thanks to reduction in initiative and increased initiative costs) with those specs...and sitting around with a completely irrelevant traitline (Acrobatics) for years. Once upon a time, thief used to be kings of mobility...that is no longer the case (especially after EoD). Thief is currently a neutered class thanks to constant nerfs over the years. They also used to have solid burst...that is also no longer the case. Specs like Willbender and Herald has MUCH higher bursts while having much better sustain. Also, in regards to your comment about the video. Realize the following: montages are pick and choose fights/clips. You're not going to see a montage include fights where they got trolled and rolled, unless they are specifically making one to show that.

What part of the overbuffed wb is lacking sustain exactly? Wb literally does an obscene amount of damage, while having an obscene amount of mobility and sustain. It's basically thief and herald on steroids. Broken? Yea...one could easily and effortlessly make that claim...and they'd be correct.

If they aren't even reading the new elite spec's feedback and bug threads, and are only listening to the biased opinions of those on their private discord, then frankly, it doesn't matter, because ANet is not reading these threads - you're only going to be getting your hopes up for no reason.

They said:

Since you want to hop straight into attempting to insult my intellect, let me question yours now. When was the mAT that you are referring to? When were the balance changes that resulted in the current state of the game? Do you think the ranked gameplay is the same as AT gameplay? What do you think the bolded/underlined word means?

People still talking about rank/rating as if it's actually that relevant in 2022. Remove duo-queue, fix the atrocious matchmaking, and then perhaps we can start having an actual conversation about rank and rating past gold 3/plat 1...until then, it's just huff puff, duo-queue during offhours/pay off people to dc games to climb rank/rating and pretend like it means something - as it's been for years. Having said that, willbender (among a couple of others) was literally overbuffed (purposely by the balance team) in the recent balance patches, which has left it to become extremely overpowered since then. Anyone that's not actually blind can see it clearly.

That's because initiative increase changes are literally the WORST and LAZIEST balance changes. Especially on a spec that is already limited on its initiative than normal. Thief has been shoehorned into Trickery for over 9 (almost 10) years now and ANet has done NOTHING to change or address that problem. In fact, they've only made it WORSE with their balance patches and their bright idea of constantly increasing initiative costs. No other class is locked out from using their other skills after using 1/2 weapon skill (LOL AT THE 6-8 INITIAITVE COST SKILLS). It is the only class in the game that is hard locked from all weapon skills based on a single resource, even when weapon swapping. This issue will never truly be addressed because initiative is actually a HORRIBLE system and will FOREVER limit the potential of the class. One would expect them to address these problems with the supposed "major profession update" later this year, but judging by the history of the balance team over the last (almost) 10 years, and the fact that not a single balance dev actually plays/mains thief at a relevant level, I'm not expecting any real relevant changes to the class at all.

You don't know what "op" means if you think the current specter is "op". It's actually more balanced than DD is...and I wouldn't even call it well balanced. You wanna know what "op" is? Look at the current willbender, mechanist...and especially bladesworn...and even the untouched weaver. You wanna know what an "op" skill is? Look at Earth Shield. People and certain streamers/people of influence with obvious biases/preferences throw around terms like "op" way too much without actual justifications or backing, just like the term "toxic" and "troll". People who fail to understand any given spec/build and die to it/fail to kill it immediately calls it "op", because it hurts their precious ego that their preferred spec/build can't steamroll another given spec/build. I can go around naming some streamers who do this 24/7, but I'll avoid name-dropping for the sake of avoiding derailment.

Everything that looks logical and good on paper is not as it is. IP doesn't do anything in shroud, unless you drop shroud in the middle of a damage cast - ie: not in shroud.

I love how the balance team is so quick to nerf thief; but, when it comes to bug fixes, they take YEARS...even when it's reported MULTIPLE times. Let's revisit an old bug (one that hasn't been addressed in YEARS), since it's now affecting ANOTHER skill (because they clearly never fixed the programming in the backend)...on top of ALL THE OTHER ones that it was already affecting. Oh, and I also reported this one during their little Specter beta tests as well. To their credit, over the years, they tried to manually fix some of them here and there, but never the overarching problem...the values are simply not linked. This issue will keep happening EVERY SINGLE TIME they decide to change the initiative cost of skills. Anyways, this thread is specifically about the Assassin's Reward trait. A trait that's in Acrobatics...a meme traitline, made even worse thanks to bugged traits. In PvP, the trait is supposed to heal for 102 PER initiative spent with 0 Healing Power. Except it's not consistent...it's not actually 102, but a fraction. Now, let's look at what it actually does for all the weapon skills: Dagger/X: Heartseeker (3 initiative) - heals for 306 Death Blossom (5 initiative) - heals for 407 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 510 (HEALS FOR 1 LESS INITIATIVE) Shadow Shot (5 initiative) - heals for 407 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 510 (HEALS FOR 1 LESS INITIATIVE) Dancing Dagger (3 initiative) - heals for 306 Cloak and Dagger (5 initiative) - heals for 509 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 510 Pistol/X: Bola Shot (4 initiative) - heals for 407 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 408 Shadow Strike (4 initiative) - heals for 407 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 408 Repeater (3 initiative) - heals for 204 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 306 (HEALS FOR 1 LESS INITIATIVE) Unload (6 initiative) - heals for 509 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 612 (HEALS FOR 1 LESS INITIATIVE) Head Shot (4 initiative) - heals for 407 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 408 Black Powder (6 initiative) - heals for 611 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 612 Sword/X: Infiltrator's Strike Infiltrator's Return (2 initiative) - heals for 204 Flanking Strike (4 initiative) - heals for 407 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 408 Larcenous Strike (2 initiative) - heals for 102 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 204 (HEALS FOR 1 LESS INITIATIVE) Pistol Whip (6 initiative) - heals for 509 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 612 (HEALS FOR 1 LESS INITIATIVE) Scepter/X: Shadow Sap (3 initiative) - heals for 306 Twilight Combo (5 initiative) - heals for 407 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 510 (HEALS FOR 1 LESS INITIATIVE) Measured Shot (3 initiative) - heals for 306 Endless Night (3 initiative) - heals for 306 Shortbow: Cluster Bomb (3 initiative) - heals for 306 Detonate Cluster (1 initiative) - heals for 0 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 102 (HEALS FOR 1 LESS INITIATIVE) Disabling Shot (5 initiative) - heals for 509 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 510 Choking Gas (7 initiative) - heals for 713 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 714 Infiltrator's Arrow (8 initiative) - heals for 815 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 816 Staff: Weakening Charge (3 initiative) - heals for 306 Debilitating Arc (5 initiative) - heals for 509 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 510 Dust Strike (4 initiative) - heals for 407 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 408 Vault (6 initiative) - heals for 611 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 612 Rifle: Skirmisher's Shot (3 initiative) - heals for 306 Double Tap (6 initiative) - heals for 611 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 612 Death's Retreat (6 initiative) - heals for 611 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 612 Kneel (1 initiative) - heals for 102 Spotter's Shot (3 initiative) - heals for 306 Three Round Burst (6 initiative) - heals for 611 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 612 Sniper's Cover (4 initiative) - heals for 407 -- SHOULD HEAL FOR 408 Free Action (0 initiative) - heals for 0

It's almost like someone reported these bugs, with videos showcasing them too, since the first beta...and again on the second one. When they don't care to fix issues with the spec, including bugs, after so much feedback, it only goes to show 1 thing: they don't care enough...and only prioritize those feedbacks that they get from the discord. These 2 threads have been for show.

Some of the bugs which I reported since Beta 3, and even Beta 4, are STILL there. I am not going to be putting in any further effort to report these bugs again. This thread, along with the feedback thread, seems to have been only for show and waste people's time in an attempt to make dedicated players think their feedbacks and bug reports matter.

How VERY disappointing. All those feedbacks and basically nothing was addressed and changed. Why even start a feedback thread and pretend to read and consider any feedback, when they don't care about thief and people's feedback, and ONLY ever consider those feedbacks given in private discord. This thread has been nothing but a show.

Do you know what class one (actually might be two) of the balance devs main? I'll give you one guess. On the same note, do you know which class none of the balance devs main? Again, I'll give you one guess.

Balance team has NO CLUE why thieves use SA. These changes to thief in and of themselves are a joke. Hard nerfing core skills and not buffing other areas is a joke at best. Acrobatics as a traitline IS A JOKE...HAS BEEN A JOKE FOR YEARS...and is still UNTOUCHED. You thought decap bots (thieves) was a meme before; just wait and see how much worse thief will be now. People didn't choose to play SA just because it was strong...they chose to play it because the meta shoehorned them into it. PS: Did you know that Acrobatics has traits that don't even do what they are supposed to do for years now? Even though they've been reported as bugged and broken MULTIPLE TIMES - I know because I, myself, reported them MULTIPLE TIMES...WITH VIDEOS AS WELL! EDIT: To clarify, when I say "how much worse thief will be now", I am speaking in general...referring specifically to non SA D/P or Rifle thieves...and anything X/P actually. Specter WILL replace SA thieves. It was going to replace SA thieves based on previous beta tests ANYWAY, and this just seals the deal, WHILE also making literally everything else bad, without addressing core issues - nerfs/buffs where it's actually needed; eg: Hidden Thief, literally ALL other traitlines, Sword, Staff, unused and dead utilities, etc.

This isn't a matter of adaption. In fact, I don't even know what you're trying to accomplish with this conversation. What you're arguing is basically leaving an oversight as an oversight and trying to justify it by calling it a "tradeoff" - that's not what it is, and it's silly to try justify it as such. It's like saying Decoy and Mirror Images should have been left as they were because "tradeoff"...in fact, in the case of those 2 traits, it would have made more sense to leave them as they were because now they are blatant power creeped traits, unlike in the case of Improvisation, where a part of the trait DOESN'T EVEN WORK. You talk about not "relying completely on core mechanics", yet fail to recall that the core mechanics were hard nerfed (initiative), removed (stolen skills), and altered (steal)...meaning you can't do what you claim anyway, even if you wanted. Trying to dismiss others and their argument(s) by claiming/insinuating they do not know how to play something, without knowing anything about them is just silly as well - especially in this particular case when it has nothing to do with a broken (quite literally) trait. If you like dead traits, then more power to you...you can continue enjoying a dead trait post launch, while telling yourself it's fine. Would explain why you use Acrobatics as an argument in the first place tbh. However, we clearly fundamentally disagree on this topic about Improvisation, which I don't see changing. So, I'll leave it at that since I don't think any class/spec should have a dead trait...not just thief, but clearly we disagree. N.B. Thief will never play like necro. You (or someone else) can want that all you want, but that will never happen. If things continue as they have been with no logical changes and more nerfs on the horizon, then I'll see you in a few months as you enjoy your decap bot in sPvP and your DE 2.0 in PvE...and yes, it's DE 2.0 in PvE as of Beta 4. It's bad as a support and it's decent (at best) as a dps, because in an actual encounter, cDD outperforms it with less effort, while brining more (see Improvisation).

The point is that you can already do this, and to a much more beneficial level than you seem to think. People don't generally take Improvisation for the RNG reset (that's the cherry on the top). People take it for the double steal, which is the key point for the trait...even in PvE. Losing that makes Improvisation significantly worse. A trait becoming nearly a nonfactor because of a spec change is not how things should be. In fact, ANet has shown us through their own actions that they like to rework traits that are impacted by new espec mechanics time and time again (including with EoD especs)...this is no different. Nobody in their right mind would consider playing specter without Trickery, unless they want to self-troll themselves. The spec is literally designed to shoehorn you into that traitline...IN CASE you didn't already felt shoehorned into it for over 9 years. Acrobatics is a dead traitline. Nobody in their right mind would play with that traitline for just 1 trait, unless the traitline sees significant changes, because the other traitlines are just much more beneficial and interesting. What you're talking about is paper theory...reality is quite different. The tradeoff for specter is the loss of initiative, stolen skills, and instant steal ports...which is actually quite massive. There doesn't need to be 100 different "tradeoffs"...unless you want the spec to FEEL bad while playing it.

Improvisation has its own cd; stealing/swiping/marking/siphoning earlier than it is available does not recharge anything. You can run Swindler's Equilibrium to test this yourself. What you're talking about is already doable and been doable for years, except at a more beneficial level because of double stolen skills on all the previous especs and core thief. RNG reset is also still RNG reset.

Beta 4 feedback: Been quite busy; so, I haven’t really gotten the chance to get this posted until now, MUCH later than I was hoping for, but let’s get started! I’d be very surprised to see any of the below mentioned things addressed/altered, considering how late this is…but, I can hope. After Beta 3, I posted my feedback here, detailing some of the areas of improvement and things I felt should be addressed in order for the spec to truly shine. However, most of it seems to have fallen in deaf ears or been implemented and adjusted to an unsatisfactory level. Also, after the changes to the spec for Beta 4 was announced, I voiced my opinion here …and frankly, after thoroughly testing the spec in Beta 4, I will stand by my comments I made there. Having said that, in this feedback, post Beta 4, I am going to go through the entire spec as a whole and also repeat some of the things I’ve already discussed previously that I still feel needs to be addressed. I will try avoid extremely balance specific number tweaks for the most part as those are just numbers and can be adjusted for balance purposes. I’m sure it will mostly fall on deaf ears at this point based on what I’ve seen in Beta 4, but I will do my part so it doesn’t sit poorly with my conscience. To preface it all, I want to be very clear with the following: Spectre, as has been presented in Beta 3 and Beta 4 is OVERLY altruistic, which contributes heavily in making it bad as a pure support and VERY hard to justify taking it over other (more beneficial and powerful) supports currently available in the game. Some of the adjustments I will be proposing takes this major issue into account and attempts to address it. My main focus with the feedback is to try see some (all) the changes in order for the spec to truly feel unique and offer a fresh face to thief (which it needs badly after over 9 years) – balance issues can be addressed with mere number tweaks, but the feel is what matters the most. Profession mechanic: Siphon: Split the barrier effect and tether swap effect into 2 separate skills. Meaning, keep Siphon as F1 and add a new skill as F3, which will only be used for swapping the tether target (with maybe 1s cd). This would allow Siphon to keep the same cd for both enemy and ally usage (18s). However, that would also mean the following adjustments need to be made in order to justify the change: either double the barrier provided by Siphon or (ideally) make it so Siphon not only provides the ally barrier (using current values), but the thief itself as well. When Siphon is used on allies, Siphon should trigger ALL steal specific traits, along with a tweaked benefit from traits that would normally negatively impact enemies. For example, Serpent’s Touch would apply regeneration on the ally while it normally poisons the enemy; Mug would heal the ally while it normally damages enemy; Even the Odds would apply protection while it normally applies vulnerability on the enemy; etc. Shadow Shroud: It’s actually baffling to me that the devs correctly identified the players’ disinterest in utilizing Shadow Shroud skills by sitting in Shroud, yet failed to grasp why that is, instead of simply blindly putting the entire blame on Consume Shadows…which is just so wrong. Consume Shadows is not the reason why players are actually disinterested in sitting in Shadow Shroud. It’s the fact that Shroud skills are not interesting/strong enough and simply does not benefit a group (sitting in Shroud only benefits the tethered ally…and minimally so), while Consume Shadows benefits a whole group, including the thief – as it turns out, being OVERLY altruistic is NOT FUN NOR EFFECTIVE for a support – a dead support is a nonfactor support. Furthermore, the reason Shadow Shroud is so much less interesting and intriguing to play with (compared to other transforms like Photon Forge, Necro Shrouds, Celestial Avatar, and even Gunsaber) is because none of the traits has any kind of interesting interaction with it at all, at any level, except Hungering Darkness. Shadow Shroud: Haunt Shot: From a balance perspective, it does pathetic amounts of power damage in PvP. 😒 Also, I personally believe that to make shroud a bit more interesting by itself, and considering it is a thief at core, Shroud 1 (Haunt Shot) should have a stealth alternate skill. The skill could be something as simple as stealing boons from the enemy and applying it to the tethered ally and yourself. Grasping Shadows: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 Dawn's Repose: Okay, I want to start of by saying: thank you for at least looking into adjusting the skill’s function to make it more user friendly. However, while the skill’s function was adjusted, it was also HEAVILY nerfed…WHY ARE YOU SO AFRAID?! The skill was nerfed at 2 levels (one can argue 3 levels): the range and the radius were both heavily nerf. What it needed was more control...that's it. It does 0 damage in PvP anyway because it's considered a cc skill. The worst part about it? The animation has an aftercast of ~1.5s…which feels atrocious (3 tiered nerf). Fix the range/radius nerfs and the aftercast. Eternal Night: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 Mind Shock: The skill should heal you in addition to your tethered ally. Also, the cost vs payoff is not balanced. Consider adding something like: a stunbreak or 1 stack of stability on initial cast. Alternatively, reduce the charge-up time significantly. Sceptre skills: Auto chain: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 Shadowsquall: WEAK! PATHETIC! WASTE OF SKILL! Seriously, I expected better from ANet’s creativity. This skill is a waste of space. I am genuinely disappointed. 😑 Shadow Sap: The skill should apply the boons being applied to allies on yourself as well, as long as you apply them to an ally. There's no reality where I would ever consider buffing someone else over damaging the enemy with this skill as it currently stands - this applies to Endless Night and Twilight Combo as well. Measured Shot: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 Endless Night: As with Shadow Sap, the skill should apply the boons being applied to allies on yourself as well, as long as you apply them to an ally. Also, its benefits (as was presented in Beta 4) cannot be justified by its cost in PvP – VERY poorly balanced. 😑 Twilight Combo: BUGS GALORE! FIX THEM! As with Shadow Sap and Endless Night, the skill should apply the boons being applied to allies on yourself as well, as long as you apply them to an ally. Also, in addition to its current effects, it should apply a short duration resistance as well when used on an ally. It’s extremely hard to justify using this skill on an ally compared to an enemy as is currently implemented. Skills: Wells as a skill type is fine. However, most of the wells have inherent issues like animations being too awkward or having severe cast/aftercast issues and the fact that some wells literally punish you for meeting all the requirements, instead of rewarding you (more on this to follow). Well of Gloom: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 Well of Tears: WEAK! PATHETIC! DOESN’T BELONG IN SPECTRE’S KIT! Let’s use a simple comparison…even for power purposes. Let’s compare this skill to Sword of Justice (SoJ) for example. Not only does SoJ utilize charges with the same base cooldown, but it also casts faster, does significantly more damage, and applies cripple and vulnerability as well. This utility is a joke and a WASTE OF SKILL SLOT – the only purpose it will fulfill is being a well shadowstep just for the sake of having one in shorter cooldown. Stop adding obviously bad and dead on arrival skills to the game please – the game has been out for over 9 years now (for example, when was the last time you saw someone using Distracting Daggers?) Well of Bounty: If the ally has all the boons, then each trigger should add 1.5s duration to each boon. Well of Sorrow: If the enemy has all the conditions, then each trigger should add 1 stack of each condition (Poison, Bleeding, Torment) with half the duration. Well of Silence: If the enemy has all the conditions, then each trigger while the enemy is activating a skill should fear them for 1s. Shadowfall: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 Traits: Revisiting what I mentioned earlier in the post, the reason Shadow Shroud is so much less interesting and intriguing to play with (compared to other transforms like Photon Forge, Necro Shrouds, Celestial Avatar, and even Gunsaber) is because none of the traits has any kind of interesting interaction with it at all, at any level, except Hungering Darkness. Furthermore, traits like Improvisation are significantly less impactful of a choice when it comes to Siphon. I highly believe ANet should adjust Siphon to be something like what I discussed above, especially if they want to make Spectre primarily be this “single target support spec” that they keep talking about. Having said that, I would like to see the Specter trait lines be more focused on a theme. For example, the TOP (🔺) line can be condition focused, MID (🔴) line can be shroud augmentation, and BOT (🔻) line can be support. Improvisation: This trait loses half it’s value because there are no more stolen skills. The trait should be updated to include a different effect for Siphon. Such as, for example, corrupt 1 boon on your foes when you siphon. 🔺TOP: Second Opinion: It is just plain bad and in no situation is it actually worth taking, unless you’re simply wanting to avoid the other 2 in the adept tier due to negative returns – this is not how a trait should be designed. A better option would be to swap Healing Power bonus with Condition Damage bonus, and swap the stat conversation as well. This would allow the top line to remain condition focused. 🔴MID: Shallow Grave: REMOVE THIS TRAIT! REMOVE IT! GET RID OF IT! THIS IS A PLACEHOLDER NONSENSE TRAIT! WE DON’T NEED THIS IN GW2! SELECT THE CODE REFERRING TO THIS TRAIT AND HIT THE DELETE BUTTON! It’s baffling that ANet hates really strong passives (understandable) and sticks on 5 minute cooldowns to skills in order to disincentivize players from using them (understandable), yet added Shallow Grave. What a ridiculous idea; please…REMOVE THIS TRAIT – GW2 does NOT need another Unholy Sanctuary. My proposal here is to simply remove this trait and replace it with something that allows players to augment their shroud since shroud is such a core part of the spec. For example, maybe a trait that gives you 25% movement speed, which is doubled (50%) while in shroud. 🔻BOT: Consume Shadows: Don’t touch it anymore. You already did enough. This trait is not what’s holding back people from wanting to utilize shadow shroud for longer periods of time. Dark Sentry: The Rot Wallow Venom should apply to yourself as well, not just allies. Making this trait restricted to allies only means it’s completely useless and a dead trait when there are no allies in the vicinity, or you’re playing by yourself, or you're not utilizing scepter skills on allies, or you're not making a build specifically for supporting. 🔺TOP: Larcenous Torment: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 🔴MID: Amplified Siphoning: It’s too unintuitive and uninteresting to ever be competing with the rest of the Master traits. Keeping in theme with the middle line augmenting shroud, I would recommend this trait be replaced by something more interesting. For example, maybe a trait that breaks stun when entering shroud and gains 15 Shadow Force upon entering Shadow Shroud. 🔻BOT: Traversing Dusk: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 Panaku's Ambition: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 🔺TOP: Strength of Shadows: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 🔴MID: Hungering Darkness: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍 🔻BOT: Shadestep: Revert the change in regards to how the barrier share works. Minimal barrier split across multiple people is basically negligible amount of barrier - the trait is a joke. Also, consider adjusting the trait to allow Siphon to apply Revealed on enemy targets as well.

Following the completion of Beta 3, I submitted this bug feedback hoping they would all be addressed before Beta 4. However, while ANet managed to address quite a few of the bugs, not all of them were addressed, nor acknowledged. So, I'll repeat some of them again so they can actually go ahead and address them before EoD goes live. Bugged Skills: Endless Night still does not allow skill retargeting. You can see the targeting change and the character’s model shift, but the skill does not retarget. Twilight Combo still has multiple unresolved issues with how it currently functions; all of which can severely impact gameplay and effectiveness of the class. If the skill is used at max range or closer to it, the second projectile will not increase the speed of the first projectile. This means that regardless of how the skill is cast, it ALWAYS fails to work properly. For example, here's 2 different ways of casting the skill: jump during the first projectile and jump during the second projectile. IT ALWAYS FAILS!!! If you trigger a full cast of the skill at any point in time before the impact of any of the previous casts, the skill will completely negate the effects/damage from the previous projectiles which has not connected with the target yet by treating it as they were never casted. If you happen to be moving (strafing) while casting the skill, the second projectile will not enhance the first projectile and trigger completely separately. Just to clarify, this does NOT do extra damage and in fact makes it extremely easy to avoid the main source of the damage (the first projectile). This happens regardless of the direction of strafing: clockwise or anticlockwise does not make a difference. Bugged Traits: I appreciate ANet fixing Assassin's Reward to make it function with Sceptre skills, but it still does NOT heal for as much as it should...for any of the skills, not just Sceptre – base heal is supposed to be 102/initiative).

Based on the notes, they didn't even address all the bugs I noted here, and they completely ignored some of the core issues with the spec, which includes Improvisation, that god awful 300s trait (Shallow Grave), and a minor trait (Dark Sentry) that does NOTHING for the thief/player itself. Before even thinking about nerfing something, they should try address core issues...which they failed to do. Also, that nonsense about them always wanting specter to be an alacrity source and not quickness is well...nonsense, and is something new they decided on. It's contradictory to what they claimed when they first showed specter. Having said that, it's not really a problem; BUT, the way specter achieves this currently and the tradeoff for achieving it is NOT worth it. There's no reality in which I'd ever consider taking this over what already exists in the game in its current iteration (most of the wells are not actually that good either). Personally, I don't really care about Endless Night being a single target; but, the fact that it does NOTHING for the thief/player and doesn't even apply the benefits to thief itself is a joke. There's no reality where I would ever consider buffing someone else over damaging the enemy with that skill as it currently stands - that applies to Shadow Sap as well. Dawn's Repose did not need a range and radius nerf (that's a 2 tiered nerf). What it needed was more control...that's it. It does 0 damage in PvP anyway because it's considered a cc skill. If I am to take a wild guess, it probably uses the same animation as Call to Anguish (a 600 range skill with a 360 radius pull, which also damages). I'm not even going to comment on the Consume Shadows trait change right now. There's so many problems with this approach to try address a core issue, which isn't actually the trait itself. These notes and changes are a good example of why I stopped posting about bugs and giving constructive criticism in regards to thief for so long, until Specter was announced - it's just very frustrating to see. These kind of changes based on all the feedbacks really makes you question who they are actually listening to, if anyone.