saerni.2584

As mobility has increased across professions the "ranged has an unfair advantage to attack me while I can't hit them" has become less and less relevant. There is also the fact that projectiles can generally be obstructed by terrain or objects while melee effects can go through walls, which is to say that projectiles are relatively more subject to counter play via environment. But that doesn't mean all projectile immunity needs to go away either because it does add complexity and choices (we should be wary of removing things that counter our specific niche just because we refuse to play differently). Projectile immunity fields are generally fine because they have limited area, duration, etc. Visibility is an issue for some of these fields though so it wouldn't be a bad idea to advocate for some changes in that area. Auras are where it becomes more difficult because there is no direct counter play (strips should remove auras even if not giving the stripping player a boon) and visibility is a struggle (I'm color blind and have some difficulty distinguishing certain auras without looking at the boon bar, which is not fun). Auras move with the player so there is nothing to do positionally (unlike fields). Aura share means there may not be an option to switch targets because everyone is personally immune until the aura drops. I'd say that ranged should never have a clear advantage over melee. Projectile blocking helps with that. But, with certain combinations (like auras) on top of everything else, melee doesn't just *not* have a disadvantage it has an advantage over ranged builds that is significantly one sided. I'd acknowledge that there *is* counter play in swapping to melee when projectile immunity is active. However, I'd also point out that "just don't use ranged" feels very limiting for a number of professions/specializations (not just Deadeye) when melee never has to think about swapping to even be inherently capable of doing damage (can still do damage even if standing on an AoE is going to hurt). Not that I'd expect much attention to this (larger issues to address with profession balance) but that's my 2c on the subject for what it's worth.

With how much cleanse is in the game you'd think the complaint is nonsense. But then you realize that cleanse made people expect condi to do zero damage normally, and any request to nerf condi damage is perfectly in line with expectations. Necromancy is only appropriate for this dead horse (how else can we beat it to death again?).

The frustration came from a few heavy handed removals of all stealth access outside reviving an ally, which was an essential function of the trait line (if stacked to an unhealthy degree after adding stealth on heal as baseline). The changes otherwise were healthy and promote active gameplay over passive stealth stacking and permastealth. That aspect mirrored years of advocacy by experienced thieves in how to improve the trait line for competitive balance.

It just means leaving stealth. So even if you just let stealth drop, get revealed because of stealth attack, or get revealed by outside factors.

Not sure why it makes sense to argue about whether thief "deserved" to get the elite it did in the previous expansion. You want to complain? Write a letter to Anet. They are the ones who make the game.

I'd alternatively suggest that the Marked debuff be modified to only apply revealed after 5 seconds. Two seconds, with the SA rework, are exceptionally punishing (especially when there are positional aspects to setting up certain stealth attacks). Another option would be to remove the Marked effect, and add an active tactic for towers which shows all Player movement (including ally) on the nearby map territory for 5 minutes on a 15 minute cooldown. The new active effect wouldn't reveal but would show a mark on the map every 3 seconds for stealthed players. The sentries would also simply show the position on the map and not act as a reveal.

My first thought is that with DD elite you have a finisher built in. So in PvP you could (with quickness preferable for the whole chain) activate it and gain evasion while executing the stomp. But that is niche and doing Acro-DD would probably be a bit of a meme. Deadeye could also use the extra evasion on Shadow Meld to help avoid damage. Even in stealth you don't get a pass on large AoE or channeled skills. That said, highest value would also likely be in the form of covering a stomp like with DD.

Good to see ya Aikijinx Well the low effort rework to 300 second traits may be simply "now with 120 second cooldown." I'd also expect more of a real rework to be coming in November rather than early October. If the next patch is competitive focused then true reworks to the 300 second traits will need PvE side changes as well and they seemed inclined to push that further off. I hope we get a reboot of Acro, an adjustment to Shadow Arts (small fixes from June's patch), and continued buffs to our PvE damage. And there are the numerous tweaks to Deadeye that would make the specialization more diverse build options wise.... But not getting any hopes/speculation up unless CMC himself posts about where he thinks Thief is at and what he thinks is still an issue. @Cal Cohen.2358 ^.^

Not that long ago I saw a spawn camp situation. So I snuck out and made it to SMC. Perma tapped it. Suddenly their ability to spawn camp was no longer sustainable. Be the change. Even if you are the only one you can make a difference.

Thief is worth playing if you like thief. That Mesmer is a lot more vulnerable if they are running some kind of oneshot build. And, sure those clones soak up damage (not much), but they are a weakness (bouncing projectiles bounce off clones, can use a clone for CnD) as much as a strength. I can't sit here and say all the design choices (or slow balancing) aren't an issue for thief. But a lot of professions are in a similar boat.

I'd like to make a response to the release of the Design Philosophy for the June 28 patch. There is nothing surprising in the Design Philosophy statement for Thief. They indicated they wanted to move away from traits that involved camping in Stealth. But that was obvious already from the patch itself. They also indicated they wanted to move away from high stealth uptime gameplay and indicated that was the reason they eliminated several traits that granted stealth. However, they basically got rid of ALL of the traits when they stated that the problem was when all the traits were "compounded" together. So they admitted they didn't try to find a balance with those traits and instead got rid of everything. My response is that they should realize their patch was 1) good as far as the changes to traits promoting enter/exit stealth, 2) neutral as far as adding effective support traits (one of their proposed reasons for changing the SA specialization, but less strong than necessary to make it a good choice), 3) bad insofar as they already made many changes to stealth bonuses that would encourage weaving in/out of stealth, but also removed stealth access to use those bonuses (basically, this was bad because they overnerfed and didn't give themselves the chance to evaluate the enter/exit stealth changes in isolation).

I disagree that Stealth on Steal doesn't make sense for various kits. It naturally doesn't make sense to play them the same way as before. But that won't mean you can't use your other weapon skills and then deliver a finishing blow with steal into a Backstab in an effective manner. The benefit of D/D over D/P is having Dancing Daggers and an evade built into the kit. D/P needs the gap closer whereas D/D has options to close in and cripple the target before vanishing into Stealth for a quick backstab. Would your preference then be to have the current Hidden Thief (weakness on stealth attack and a blind on steal) moved to the Minor trait, and have Stealth on Steal restored to where it was? I'm not opposed to that alternative, but my question is whether that is weak enough for a Minor, and also whether what I just described actually reflects your thinking on what makes sense for the actual trait implementation.

I'd say that it takes a lot of timing to avoid getting a random dodge (which is why it is harder to pull off) . That said, you are probably already in stealth before you steal, so the whole point is to close in before your stealth expires, regain initiative (assuming Trickery) and set up your CnD. Baiting a dodge wouldn't be a bad outcome here. And if they double dodge you can really punish them after that. Or you can focus on taking down their initial defenses before stealthing yourself up for the combo above. I guess my point here is that it is an adjustment to one play style and not the death of it to have a stealth on steal Minor trait. And that, more so than stealth on heal (or even stealth duration bonus) is what makes the most sense to allow people with SA to consistently take advantage of the "entering/exiting stealth" traits on engage (with Steal).

I'd like to respond to a point that was sent to me via in-game mail, by someone who also blocked me so I couldn't respond. The gist of the mail I received was that stealth on steal as a minor trait is problematic for people who like to Cloak and Dagger into a Backstab with Core Steal. My response: With the loss of the deception cooldown there is really no need to take SA for the above combination. However, should you want to use SA, the set up is to silently steal to target and then at the expiration of stealth time a CnD into a backstab. The combination does take more effort and I acknowledge this isn't ideal. My reasoning, bluntly, is that Anet has decided to dedicate enough of SA to "support" that it isn't viable to restore Stealth on Steal without making it a Minor. I can't, frankly, convince Anet to change that so, even if it isn't perfect and requires pressing buttons a little differently this is what is feasible in my mind. And, I'm very happy for people to disagree and post their own ideas. I'm only one person and I don't have all the answers. I'll even post an idea for someone else if they aren't (for reasons) able to post on the forums themselves.

The main thing about Stealth on Steal is that benefits more-so X/D builds than D/P builds because the latter could always combo into stealth. Not sure how the D/P types feel about losing pulsing initiative in stealth but they still have a good on demand stealth access. Which is why stealth on steal is so important to bring back to encourage non-D/P playstyles. It's true D/P still has more stealth with that, but it provides some way to even the playing field. Sure, we could talk about CND or other skills being buffed to always apply stealth (or a lesser duration if it whiffs), but that discussion might be a little beyond our current discussion about patch triage.

There are a couple of threads but I'm making a separate one because I have a few specific suggestions for feedback on the recent patch notes. Keeping in mind that a Balance Philosophy has been promised to us in the coming weeks as they work to address the unintended consequences of their balancing pass on June 28th, I have a few intuitions about the scope and direction that the balance patch took. With that in mind, I have several suggestions for adjustments to the patch that was released today. Initially, we should look at the way in which the new Shadow Arts traitline now (almost) follows a TOP (Support) MIDDLE (Self-Buff) BOTTOM (Offensive) pattern. Clearly, the developers have taken a liking to designing traitlines in a manner which promotes easy understanding of "these traits are similar or otherwise go together." This should generally guide our own suggestions for how to address deficiencies in the traitline, while recognizing Leeching Venoms is still somewhat in an awkward spot where it landed. With that said, let's dive into the glaring issues: Merciful Ambush. Issue: The biggest issue with Merciful Ambush is that it feels like it was moved to make way for a stronger Support type trait (Shielding Restoration). Originally, the "choice" was whether to take this trait versus strong self-cleanse or a Deception Cooldown/Stealth on Steal. The choice to move this down to a minor pushes out other traitline defining Minor's (i.e. baseline) in favor of keeping a niche trait that had limited support value originally. Rephrased, this feels like you removed something vital from the traitline (see other trait's feedback) in order to not get rid of a relatively lackluster support trait. Hidden Thief. Issue: The choice to get rid of the Deception cooldown trait was long in the making and I doubt it makes sense to relitigate that decision here (other than to say that specific Deception skills should have their cooldowns looked at carefully). More importantly, was that what was removed included the iconic and playstyle specific ability to Stealth on Steal. This ability didn't actually overly contribute to permastealth. Rather, it enabled any thief to have a way to engage using their F1 and attack with their stealth based attack. Losing this ability is a significant loss to build diversity (especially given the strong alternative traits in this tier). Meld With Shadows. Issue: The trait lost the bonus stealth duration. This isn't the worst change in isolation. However, the issue is that multiple sources of stealth, stealth duration, and the source of unfair initiative regeneration in stealth (enabling excessive permastealth gameplay) were all removed. The result is a "stealth" based traitline that does precious little besides the oddly placed/preserved Merciful Ambush to actually provide stealth to enable any of its traits to function. Cover of Shadow: Issue: As a support trait in the Grandmaster slot this needs to sing. And...it is a baseline of 4 seconds of Protection for entering and exiting stealth. In comparison, Shadow's Rejuvenation is now stronger than ever, and Rending Shade can steal the Protection off someone while taking an additional boon along with it. Cover of Shadow isn't a bad idea for a trait but it needs to do more, much more, to compete with the other options. Consider that Maleficent Seven provides Protection for longer than this trait while also providing five other boons and seven initiative regeneration. --- Suggestions: I believe there is a relatively simple and elegant solution that addresses the above issues. 1) Combine Merciful Ambush and Cover of Shadow. Cover of Shadow needs to be better. Merciful Ambush needs to be an option for support based builds. Combine the two and buff the healing / Protection (probably both) to make it worth taking as a Grandmaster trait. 2) Make the Minor trait "Hidden Thief" with Stealth on Steal replace where Merciful Ambush now sits. Change the name on Hidden Thief (current trait) to "Flickering Shadow." Because right now, Hidden Thief thematically name wise doesn't hide a thief at all. 3) Options - Give "Hidden Thief" the 1 second boost to stealth duration that was removed from Meld with Shadows OR give Meld with Shadows the 1 second duration in addition to the Superspeed duration.

Defend event is very buggy. Has been for years. Sometimes you get it for kills. Sometimes if you die while defending it can trigger. I've lost objectives and received credit for defending after the objective was lost (event failed but that still counted for the daily). One of the more frustrating categories to complete. Or the most fun, since you know, you just have to keep defending and eventually some combination of killing, dying, or even losing the objective will count.

I fought a Mechanist probably running something celestial or diviner yesterday. It was a pain to kill because the sustain was solid but the Damage overall wasn't above B grade. (For context: C grade is unable to kill all but the newest players, B grade can kill average players but isn't too threatening without additional allied players focusing, A grade is moderately threatening and can down even veteran players solo, S grade is anything that can effectively oneshot targets solo. The mechanist then swapped to Holosmith to try to kill me an additional 2 times. Obviously, from his perspective Holo was a better choice than Mechanist for roaming. (He lost both times as a holo). Not saying Mechanist isn't decent but I'd stick to it in a group roaming context rather than solo roaming where the pet is easy to play around and no matter how much sustain you bring, you will still go down after trying to both sustain and apply damage.

I'd only note that Invigorating Precision has been nerfed so the build you linked is somewhat less survivable than it was. Running with Zerker stats is glassy so you will have to learn your personal survival first. Your survival is mostly active so the Sw/Pistol set for damage will be pretty solid in that regard at the cost of some damage. As for suggestions, run multiple different weapons to see how they play and their relative advantages/disadvantages. Thief doesn't have that many weapon choices so it's worth figuring out which ones you like to play.

The only one you can "see" from afar is the target painter. But that relies on you seeing the red dot pop up and knowing that your trap was responsible. Supply traps are more useful in covering common approaches to key objectives and you have to pay more attention to whether or not a random roamer set yours off or not. It only really makes sense to set one of you are actively draining a group's supply.

In practice it is actually quite effective. Most heals have some limited AoE range and the teleport based mechanic works to put the Specter where the people needing heals are. It does rely on people sticking to a target like a tag effectively. And that is always a problem in wvw when people die off tag (or the tag isn't communicating and people get left behind because the tag is going in 5 different directions at once and people can't keep up). The only major issues with the teleport healing mechanic are animation delays in casting Wells and bugs on some weapon skills not triggering both traits.

There are a range of nerfs to Firebrand and Scrapper in WvW. I'd have liked to see some efforts to boost Specter's issues with boon application (given we don't bring AoE cleanse or super speed to the table) but at least this puts Specter more in the running for larger scale wvw support play. It also looks like they spent a lot more effort overall on Elementalist (for good reason) so I'd imagine the larger scale balance changes are waiting for the bigger patch later in Spring.

What it does help with though is tagging for support based heals. You get much better loot and participation just by spreading your barrier around because you get some minimal damage applied. Still a power and cc heavy meta though.

Well of Bounty suffers from a couple of issues. 1) The boons initially applied are almost expired by the time the last boon is applied. 2) The boons are applied only if you don't have a boon, so any boon longer than 5 seconds left will disappear shortly after the Well of Bounty, because the Well can't apply it while it's active. Suggestion: Make WoB also extend the duration of all active boons on the recipient by 1 second per pulse. This means your old boons won't fall off shortly after the well expires. It also makes the Well more useful for building up a bounty of boons.

And Shadow Savior in Shadow Arts. Just your teleports are 2-2.5k heals x5 (up to 12.5k heal per teleport).