Felices Bladewing.3914

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although this was introduced as hybrid weapon I can only see synergy with condi damage, power damage is mediocre at best, besides a/p 3 dual skill with pistol doesn't even have the shadowstep/teleport which ironically feels better. as mentioned already super clunky, projectiles are missing a lot, respond time/fly back speed of the axes from skill 3 is a joke no intrinsic leap/blast finisher to get good combo with black powder, so the "power" option relying on DD spec. stealth attack doesnt feel "worth it" in both setups skill 2 needs to be in melee range to deal any significant amount of damage to single target which still falls short to dagger, AoE damage is worse than shortbow. Long term short, currently I dont see any real reason besides "flavor" to play axe at all thief needed another off-hand or cleave like new revenant scepter. Can someone at Anet please get in touch with this profession?

and mostly is infinite, as long as it doesnt break by mechanic or by attacking. The tradeoff in GW2 for having real invisibility instead of common stealth is the duration. You are free to argue if that is fair, but ita not like there is no tradeoff in comparison to other games

13 bulletpoints 7 of them only have some minor number changing 2 of them basically just swapping an effect 1 of them is just the second part of Debilitating Arc so I don't count it separatly Bountiful Theft: This trait now grants additional might to allies when stealing from a target with no boons. That is the only change that affects every thief player, and let's be honest that is nice but nothing to be excited about, which i would also say about the pistol changes. If thats everything we get after half a year each time, I have lost any kind of hope and copium. So here is a sneakpeak of the next upcoming balance changes: Impact Strike: This skills evades has been decreased by 0.25 seconds. Decreased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 27 seconds in PvP and WvW. Scorpion Wire: Has now a count recharge of 19,5 seconds from 20 seconds. Power-coefficient has been increased from 0.01 to 0.1 in PvP and WvW only Surprise Shot: Increased the immobilize from 2 seconds to 2,25 seconds in PvE only Pressure Striking: Decreased the duration of torment from 8 seconds to 5 seconds, now applies 3 stacks of torment instead of 2 And that's it see you in Fall 2024 for more minor and useless changes

you forgot to mention psionic thief! Or what most people on the forum would like to see the stealthless thief

its not taking a valuable utility slot, thats the only positive, which is a sad statement to make nevertheless

power dmg traits being separated within two trait lines is one of the deeper issues with thief in my opinion. to some degree this is also against their communicated philosophy to have clear purposes of weapons and traitlines - maybe it will be reviewed later but as long as the balancing focus is centered around alac and quickness those points will never be adressed

Just because of stealth thief isn’t allowed to one-shot. It is considered unfun by anet to get critted out of stealth, being arrow barraged at 1500 range by soulbeast is fine, because you see the projectiles flying in your face before hitting the ground as a fresh comp player. while this sounds like a sarcastic rant, i genuinely think some of those lines aren’t far-fetched.

I could imagine that those traits a la get + power when using weapon x and also those percentage increases will be vanishing sooner or later and replaced with more interactive stuff, like they already did to some degree with acro and shadow arts (yes i know swindlers is still there) they just don’t have the time to do it all in one go. But yeah could also be not the case, who knows.

in pve most of the times stealth isn’t even a benefit for others than thief. in pvp/wvw it is troublesome and a symptom of hatred ever since. I think making a new smoke field combo (smoke aura) is something anet could consider which than is the buff you provide as a thief for others with the likes of shadow refuge, blinding power etc. An effect of that aura could be projectile block and blind on attack - which would be a nice support option regardless of the mode you are playing, but you may discuss other possible effects.

oh sorry, I wasnt even aware that this bug was actually in the game. I thought you meant the „way to easy smoke combo“ as a point of criticism.

marking a target with steal (workout the bonus effects) and lets say 3 malice points could actually be implemented as a basic mechanism for thief and it would make any build more interesting, mercy as f3 is a really nice idea, i like that 👍🏻 maybe bow and staff can have certain changes to their skills so that malice points are not just triggered by the stealth attack but f.e. also by vault and by cluster bomb.

I think it is not just black power plus bounding dodge but every combo that grants stealth due to black powder having no cd. But else i agree, as long as this combo is available thief cant be buffed otherwise in pvp or wvw which is holding it back in a stupid way.

I do like your approach, i was just thinking that if a "rework" will be on the table at Anet, i assume it will be something else entirely. if it is currently not on their radar I only meant that there are "core" issues that should be resolved first before looking into Daredevil (or Deadeye) if it is more than just their current change-design, if you know what I mean. I do think that those two topics are somewhat related and holding all the specs back. A condi Daredevil and a power Deadeye are using the same weapon set, while technically this is a good thing it comes down you spamming either death blossom, or clock n dagger plus backstab (51111 meme). this might not be bad numberswise but it is certainly a boring playstyle to "spam" only certain abilities of your set. This is what i mean that it would be better to have dedicated weapon sets for these purposes. Imagine to actually use initiative not only for one skill but being able to adjust depending on the situation, not only with the offhand weapons. Maybe their main-hand axe will kinda solve this. If it is a condi weapon maybe dagger will be pushed even more into power. if it is a power weapon maybe dagger gets pushed into more condi - both ways would be good it just depends on personal preference which way you would like more. this is also something that the traitlines suffer from - which to be fair doesnt really is an issue for the elite specs - those have clear structure - its more about core traitlines. fully agree here. good comment. this is why many want another offhand because you are mostly "locked" into certain sets, where you might only use one ability regulary while ignoring the other one(s) because they do not fit the build - again i think this can be also viewed as an issue due to a lack of clearity of purpose for those weapon sets (which i meant be the hybrid comment) not only hybrid on condi or power but also on pve and pvp oriented. Yes indeed those two need help - shortbow has its place but it boils down to an escape weapon and spreading posion on downed targets Again fully agree, Daredevil isnt really promoting an other sytle of gameplay. As @Doggie.3184 said you can argue that the change of gameplay is to use dodges aggressive , but this is really it and it isn't a good design as well. But if for example dagger would be committed to be a full condi melee weapon maybe condi daredevil would also play nicer as a result, as long you are bound to press "3" all over, i dont think in the end we'll be happy even if steal is done better for that spec. maybe i didnt express myself here good enough, sorry for that.

as we drifted into this already in another post, i agree that steal and stolen skills a in a need of a redesign but that is certainly not a „low effort“ change. And if Anet ever decides to do something about it I really hope it won’t be a „quick and dirty fix“. Don’t get me wrong here but while your idea might be good, I thing it does to little of a change to justify putting focus on it at the moment. In my opinion all thief specs suffer from the same root, our core weapons and traitlines are all some kind of a „hybrid“ compared to other professions where those are more lets say designated. this is also the reason why we won’t get much out of the new access to the espec weapons (as they are to reliant on the corresponding traits and the provided gameplay mechanics besides maybe staff) at least thats how i feel about it currently. So while my first statement still stands i think the latter is of more importance and requires sooner attention than steal.

even if shadestep would also give alac in competitive you would most likely get bursted out of shroud before acutally given mich of alac to beginn with. I think protection is somewhat better for the sustainability but i got the feeling that shroud combined with thief low health pool isn‘t really gonna make it worth in wvw. For small scale pvp on the other hand I can imagine it is really good, but thats only a guess

i would like the idea that steal actually „steals“ something so maybe boons (baseline without trickery) or even some stats for a specific time. maybe create something new like disarm so you are stealing the weapons of course it needs to be adjusted, right now it is an overloaded shadowstep but nothing you can’t really call a class mechanic compared to others. changing the interaction with the equiped weapons is something i really like I also think the spamm of the most efficient skill is getting really boring in PvE and even in PvP or WvW there are not many situations where you alter between all 5 weapon skills.

every class needs someone in the balance team who is actually familiar with that profession to a specific depth, in the best case also within multiple game modes. And those guys needs to be visible at the forums and communicate openly, or at least their ideas needs to be openly discussed by someone from the balance team like roy cmc or even grouch so that we know our concerns are taken in by someone who can rely on our issues

Anet in 2010: „i swing a sword, i swung it again“ - is uncool, every player should be in control of his/her own healing and utility. So every player is responsible on their own and we don’t want a holy trinity so players aren’t pigeon holed into roles so individual skill matters Anet in 2023: „i click button x for a boon, and i do it again“ that is my only purpose for the group to increase overall dps oh and there is now dedicated healers because we need roles and pigeon hole people to do specific things. so we have a holy trinity now (we just got rid of tanks and filled it with other essentials)

oh please no. specter is already the least „thief-ish“ elite spec. i really hope the is no focus around that besides fixing and tuning whats already there. If a new weapon get introduced i rather have a „new“ playstyle instead of a better version of x or y

in my opinion the issue with making every espec weapon baseline is not the loss of identity but a big issue of balance. while some professions will get god-like combinations that might break the game again other gain basically nothing or only mediocre choices. i genuinely think the corner they drove themselves into with elite specializations is something they can’t fix on a short notice.

yeah tomahawk style would be cool, i like that idea

I don’t think thief is either overpowered or underpowered at the moment, sure there is more potential in roaming than in zerking, but what i don’t like personally is that it is actually „rewarding“ and also at the moment feels like the only valid way is spamming black power leaps or, if using sword, spamming Infiltrators Strike. thats also why i felt the statement „thief is in a good spot“ as such a false one. Just because its in the middle of the pack doesn’t mean there isn't anything wrong about it. And certainly thief is in the need of some changes, not numberswise but design- and gameplay wise. People will always complain about being killed while not being able to comprehend what exactly killed them and to some degree that’s understandable but also that is the exact essence of a thief and why it isn’t a rev or a warrior.

this guy is asking the kitten right question Anet, listen to him 😂 black power stealth spamming is the reason why all stealth abilities of thief got nerfed time and time again, while the real issue (smoke combo) wasn’t actually addressed because it would also effect other professions, we don’t know when somebody at the balance team is finally able to see through that and suggest to adjust this but until that we have to „abuse“ our smoke fields to get some kind of mediocre invis uptime. ps: i still miss my 7sec Hide in Shadow

I might step on many toes but i don’t see the idea of sword offhand besides from the looks, what should it actually providing? in the thief arsenal sword is kinda the cc and utility weapon, both our offhands provide this already. A block could fit into sword offhand but a block has no synergy as thief’s defense is more focused around dodge movement and stealth. so in order to have a place, it would have to be a pure damage offhand to fit also thematically and i doubt this will be an interesting addition to be honest, but thats just my take on that.