Mixchimmer.7230

Basically title. Definitely doesn’t seem to be working as intended.

In-case everyone isn't aware, the only venom that stacks from thief is Basilisk venom. If you bring more than one Specter to a squad composition, you can unintentionally punish the overall squad DPS if the Specter's aren't intentionally staggering their damage venoms. If two thieves activate for example spider venom at the same time, you don't get 12 stacks of spider venom - there's just 6, so someone's venoms are being overwritten. This doesn't seem intentional, and is frustrating because venoms are a large portion of Specter's burst.

Okay actually just saw someone say that you can buy an uncommon kryptis motivation from the TP. Might be a temporary work around until anet fixes the bug.

This is good to know. Thanks for the heads up.

I’m having a very similar issue. In fact I made another forum post about it. cant progress the story without a fix.

I've also submitted a ticket for this (9041087) but I wanted to post here for visibility. Here is what is blocking progress. I am on chapter 8 of SotO, and it instructed me to use a "Motivation" to start hunting tier 2 rifts. I consumed the motivation, and defeated a tier two rift, and then disconnected from the game. When I logged back on, the story step was rewound to "Complete a tier 2 rift" but the motivation in my inventory was gone. I can't get another one when talking to second Hunter Kamilla. I tried starting this chapter of the story over again, but when I reached the point where I'm supposed to be given the Motivation - the game just told me that I collected this item already and can't get another one. Now my story step is stuck on "Use a motivation to hunt higher tier rifts" but I can't be given another motivation so I can't progress the story step. I tried completing a tier 2 rift that someone else had started, but this did not count and the step still just says, "Use a motivation to hunt higher tier rifts". I'm unable to progress in the story - please help.

I actually can get on board for this. It feels pretty bad to feel like you had a really smooth rotation only to notice you didn't have a very condi-heavy group comp, so your damage suffered for it.

Copying & Pasting this write-up I posted to reddit for potential visibility to anet teams: The recent balance patch has left a lot of people frustrated, myself included. Between the heavy-handed nerfs to DPS Deadeye, the new Fractal CM being pretty much designed around everyone being ranged, and Condi Virtuoso getting yet another (albeit small) buff, it's really highlighted a problem with the way Anet is currently balancing. Back when CMC and the balance team did their stream around the philosophy of their balance approach, they mentioned that they want to consider total "Power Budget" when tweaking the values of skills, traits, etc. Meaning, the total gameplay value provided by any given skill or trait. Aspects that could be considered part of a 'Power Budget' include but are not limited to: Damage Ranged/Melee Casting Time After Cast Animation Lock Boons Provided Boon Durations Built-in Mobility Cleave/Single Target Boon Application Radius Cooldown / Initiative / Energy Cost Survivability Note - I'm not saying that all of these ARE and/or SHOULD be part of the power budget. I'm saying they could be. Balancing around all of these different factors is no easy task. It would be difficult to come up with an objective or quantitative way to evaluate each of these factors. It can never be an exact science. The problem, however; is that it seems like the only consideration being given to balancing skills, is exclusively around the Damage aspect of the game, and not any of the other factors listed above. Let's go through some examples. DISCLAIMER: I am not here to say that 'X factor of Y skill should worth Z DPS' when discussing power budget - I'd leave the fine tuning to the balance team. My point here is to only illustrate that other factors besides DPS must be considered. With that out of the way, let's list some qualities of a few specs and see if we can identify any 'Power Budget' disparities. It's important for this analysis to take some builds that are more or less within a short range of each other. After the Deadeye nerfs, Dagger/Dagger DPS deadeye is going to bench around the 41k range - so pretty much around a power reaper, and the Condi Virt, so: Condi Virtuoso * Almost Full Ranged (DPS Gain if in melee for Bladeturn) * All Skills Pierce/cleave * Has access to Distortion * Medium Health Pool * Has some sustain without an opportunity cost * Has a relatively easy rotation * Has access to all of the core Mesmer Utility for minimal DPS loss. Dagger/Dagger DPS Deadeye * Requires full melee * Little to no cleave * Lowest Health Pool * Small Passive sustain if bringing signet of malice * Requires precise management of initiative * Requires consistent on-demand access to stealth * Rotation can be ruined by encounter applied revealed * Access to Great Break Bar Damage Power Reaper * Requires full melee * Very good cleave * Largest Health Pool * Second Health Bar * Self-Quickness * Requires management of shroud cooldowns * Access to core necro utility There are probably more factors I could list, but I think this list at least allows me to get to the point. Why can a ranged build (Condi Virt) do the same amount of damage as these other builds? When we think through the power budget, I suppose you could make an argument that the second health bar on Reaper compensates for the fact that they're melee - but with encounter design like Silent surf it's CLEAR that the power budget assigned to being ranged is currently being VASTLY under considered. Why is DPS Deadeye in the same range as these other builds? It has no cleave and has a very limiting rotation. Does the access to good breakbar damage make up the difference in power budget? I'm not going to make any specific prescriptions on where DPS of a certain build should end up - but I think the fact that all 3 of these builds are going to pretty much be in the same range is telling that only DPS is really being considered as part of the power budget. There are probably other countless comparisons you can do like this to show that the way they're balancing around other builds is way off. Like others have mentioned. There needs to be a ranged tax - but further, there needs to be consideration for other additional non-damage related factors or limitations placed on some builds but not on others. Currently it seems like this isn't being considered whatsoever. TL;DR: Nerf Condi Virt, lul.

This is one of the largest problems, and why Heal Specter will never ACTUALLY compete with any of the other healers. The utility on offer for core thief is just terrible, and tying some of the support to shadow arts and stealth is entirely too clunky.

I'm just coming here to give this a boost. I really need to know what's going to happen to my runes.

Agreed. I also really dislike how it makes you less reactive. I feel like I have to spam CA abilities off cooldown to upkeep alacrity so they might be on cooldown when I ACTUALLY need them. HFB and HAM don't have this problem, so why does Druid? They get to provide their boon with little opportunity cost.

I understand that thief is generally in a good spot and that you plan on adding quickness to deadeye and helping Specter support. I think those are both great changes that we've been asking for for a while now. However, I find it very concerning that Acrobatics still isn't being mentioned. This has been one of the worst traitlines in the entire game for literal years. It completely lacks an identity, and is just bad. This traitline almost needs to be completely rebuilt from the ground up. It has very limited use in PvP, and WvW, and has literally 0 use in PvE. Additionally, the baseline damage buffs to core weapons a few patches ago were great, but it's leaving the Sword feeling very underwhelming. Especially when you look at the dual skills. The auto attack and infiltrators strike was buffed, but none of the dual skills were touched for PvE. Finally, infiltrators strike is really good damage, but you can never really use it as part of a rotation because of the clunky teleport back mechanic. I think this skill needs to be looked at as well. Those are just some brief thoughts on thief.

Other Thoughts Regarding Thief I posted earlier with concerns regarding the Thief acrobatics line but I was just thinking of something else. Keep in mind, this is from a purely PvE perspective. I really like the direction that Thief is going for Daggers - the backstabbing Mega heavy single target build is definitely fun, even if it falls short on utility. However; even though Thief Sword has had some buffs recently, I just don't think it's enough - at least from a PvE perspective. In-Fact, I think some clarity would be nice on what purpose you guys want sword to even have in PvE because at this point it really doesn't serve one. Tactical strike is basically useless when the off-hand pistol with Sigil of Paralyzation exists, and malicious tactical strike is also pretty much useless when you have permanent vigor either from the trickery line solo, or from your teammates in group play. Additionally, the buff to infiltrators strike damage was nice, and made it one of the best damaging abilities on the sword's kit, but it's not really a viable part of your DPS rotation because every other cast has to be wasted on a teleport. Finally, the dual attacks leave A LOT to be desired. The functionality and utility is good, but the damage just isn't there. Auto attacking is higher DPS than Flanking Strike (Even against a target with no boons) and pistol whip does less damage than blurred frenzy, despite having a longer cast time. I think it would be important for thief sword to be looked at if we want it to have more build diversity. If the answer is that the weapon is purely designed to be a competitive weapon - I suppose I can understand and that, but I would still be very disappointed. At any rate, just some thoughts. I generally feel like Thief has overall poor build diversity, and this could go quite a ways in increasing it a bit.

Regarding Thief Balance - I have some thoughts: There were some great changes here, but I continue to worry about the Acrobatics traitline. It's been one of the worst traitlines in the entire game for years, but it doesn't really seem to be much of a priority. Now I totally understand that there are certain things that will take priority over others, but is there any kind of indication that Acrobatics is going to be looked at any time soon?