[Game Update Notes: March 19, 2024]

Inflation around the world going up, gas prices going up, and now even initiative costs in game (once again)

One thing that seldom goes up in tandem? 

Quality of life and in Gw2's case Quality of Thief.

Unfortunate.

[How to counter perma-stealth 4-shot-kill rifle deadeye?]

Just throw revealed debuff on them. Watch em squirm without Shadow Meld.

[Unofficial 2/3/2023 Balance Patch Preview For Thief Discussion!]

Game still sxhit? 

Oh yeah. those patch notes..

Looks like my hiatus from game extends.

 

[Deadeye Rework Feedback - From a PvP perspective]

 

41 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

 

Irrelevant though. These people not only exist but come to the forums asking for nerfs after eating the entire skill arrangement despite having multiple opportunities to not do so. Often, they also get what they want. 

 

 

DJ used to pierce before, and it was removed because targets of this caliber were plentiful.

 

It used to be Unblockable. But they removed that. Unfortunately.

[Deadeye Rework Feedback - From a PvP perspective]

3 hours ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

Your target must be lacking a heart beat if thry can't figure out how to avoid a DJ without a body block, especially given it has a huge tell, a warning sound, a laser beam, and no tracking.

The piercing DJ is one of the best changes I’ve seems thus far. It’s really good too, because in WvW those pesky veteran guards LOVE to get in the way and body block as well as Rangers and Mechanists LoS’ing around their pet to get a little dmg mitigation. I welcome the piercing on DJ. DE would immediately be best in slot if they added it to double tap, or triple tap, let alone AA.

[Deadeye Rework Feedback - From a PvP perspective]

Good, now rangers and mechanists will stop getting carried by their pets and LoS’ing behind them. I don’t play DE as much, I kind of wish this piercing was also a QoL change for twilight combo on Specter, but maybe in the future who knows. 
 

(This comment had WvW in mind, not PvP. More specifically Roaming/Duels)

[1 Week to Go and still no word]

I wrote this in my other message on the 1st page, but I would like to add it as a separate comment and entity.

EDIT 11/28- Look I understand Anet historically has difficulty with balance, especially when it comes to Thief. But at some point, the communities voices have to be heard, and transparency given or atleast some kind of validation.
 

I won’t spew the nonsense about them not knowing the class and that they need a Thief main on their balance team. But I will say that I feel as though it’s imperative that their philosophy of balance should not be so limiting, because if a balance change as you guys stated doesn’t fit within their philosophy at the time or agenda that’s being pushed, well then that’s how substantial levels of class nerfs occur. It’s time to change how they look at balance, and balance for (fun gameplay) opposed to a dead in the water ‘esports’ level of balance.

[1 Week to Go and still no word]

The silence is deafening. The amount of pushback and resolution that ele typically gets and this most recent change with scrapper and their gyro’s. The pushback from those classes got a response almost near immediately, if not, just assuring the classes community that they are aware of the disappointment towards the change and are looking into potential solutions. The transparency with the other classes is quite apparent. When Thief is the class on the chopping block with their very loud responses of disapproval, dismay and disappointment towards upcoming changes, it’s like ANETs car windows roll up and they try very hard to ignore the what’s being said in the Thief community. 

(Atleast this is my perspective and how I am seeing this as well as taking it.) However I do understand it’s thanksgiving week, but the transparency should have come 1-2 days after the preview and backlash, now there’s less than a week, and I fear that they will just let this change play out and see how players like it. If they are still receiving backlash and disapproval, then Thieves will just have to wait until ANOTHER balance patch, because I doubt they’d care to hot fix it.

EDIT 11/28- Look I understand Anet historically has difficulty with balance, especially when it comes to Thief. But at some point, the communities voices have to be heard, and transparency given or atleast some kind of validation.
 

I won’t spew the nonsense about them not knowing the class and that they need a Thief main on their balance team. But I will say that I feel as though it’s imperative that their philosophy of balance should not be so limiting, because if a balance change as you guys stated doesn’t fit within their philosophy at the time or agenda that’s being pushed, well then that’s how substantial levels of class nerfs occur. It’s time to change how they look at balance, and balance for (fun gameplay) opposed to a dead in the water ‘esports’ level of balance.

[Utility Skill Suggestion - Change haste to 5 man in PvE thoughts?]

 

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I don't think it's a great idea to have shared quickness/alacrity on core professions. Limiting the ability to share those boons to elite specs is the "better" way to balance out their output.

On another hand, I'm fully aware that this mindset of mine is kind of unfair toward core professions.

However, as long as core professions don't have a traitline that only belong to them, I do believe that it's a necessary thing to do. If you look at it, core warrior suffer from it's ability to share quickness and core mesmer had it's ability nerfed so hard that one can wonder if he still can share quickness while revenant simply lost the ability to share alacrity... Only core guardian and ranger still retain a good a decent way to share quickness, but it's guardian and, well... Ranger's spirits are what they are.

 

Thematically Thief taking quickness and sharing it among his group makes sense. A Thief is a Thief. Robin Hood was objectively a Thief but shared his bounties with the less fortunate.
 

But anyway, I suggest that Haste become an “Equip”. And when you press haste it doesn’t automatically pop off and activate until you actually hit something. The equip duration can be for 30s and a little ui icon can appear showing the user that your haste is equipped and ready to go on encounter. This way it gives you the power and control over haste. 

[Thief megathread: Oct 4th patch discussion]

5 hours ago, nopoet.2960 said:

So one thing that gets me is that none of the theif specs are easy to play well.  We don't have a "mechanist" spec.  Yeah specter was durable but that doesn't help with positioning, initiative management, using combo fields.  It just feels like we are being punished for playing a class that Anet designed and had the poor luck to like.

Oh how i missed the days of Ambush trap (Where we can summon Thieves to be our allies) The glory days... 

Don't JUDGE ME-  THIS WAS A LONG TIME AGO!! DON'T JUDGE ME, hence the reason it’s unlisted

 

[Design goals for Shadow Shroud]

Specter was Anet’s ‘experiment’ to introduce single target ally healing into the mix. They said they would be paying close attention to it since it’s a newly introduced mechanic as well as closely keeping an eye on shroud. I’m not so sure how much they are actually paying attention though. 
 

Can we all agree that this ‘Thief Experiment’ failed. And although I would love for them to go back to the drawing board and redesign this entire Spec from the ground up to how it should be. I understand they just don’t have the resources. But Specter deserves some kind of Justice, whatever it may be. And definitely a deeper in-depth justice opposed to just changing the coefficient to .85 or 1.0 with shroud and giving us multi ally shroud healing/tether

[Design goals for Shadow Shroud]

Imagine making a class such as a Thief, and not understanding or having any forethought into how high the skill ceiling ( is, was, and would be) for this kind of class arch-type.

Our greatest sin and detriment was that we were too good and had excelled with this class exponentially throughout the years, even with all the countless adaptations. We excelled with this class and played the class to its fullest capability and throughout 10 years were constantly penalized for it. 

I understand the inherent nature of the class and it’s issue’s and how it’s a balancing nightmare. But there was no forward thinking, projection, or future sight when making this class? 
 

Thank You OP for creating this in detail read-along; it was insightful and enjoyable, as well as deceiverX for your always insightful perspectives and opinions. 

[Thoughts on the Balance Preview Stream?]

On 9/18/2022 at 9:50 PM, AikijinX.6258 said:

This is very true. WvW thief pays for the sins of PvP thief. It’s not really the fault of actual PvP players. It’s just that Anet doesn’t take into account WvW and PvP are vastly different. And although it’s good that there’s someone they atleast listen to for high tier perspective and opinion, and opinion that I myself respect as well, sinderer’s word is not bond and it seems like his opinion is pretty much a majority of what they and mightyteapot listen to. (This isn’t to bash them AT ALL. I just think they need to have more perspective than just PvP Thief), which eventually poses a detriment and bleeds into WvW and PvE universal ‘balances’.

Everything that being said, I’ve said 2.5 weeks ago above in the quoted message. I’m really glad that the Thief sub forum is getting so much activity. It’s actually a wonderful thing to see 🥹!! Whether or not Anet speaks out and acknowledges what they’ve done to the game modes is another story as well as who they listen to which influences their balancing ideas. 

[What Build is This? (WvW)]

4 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Came across a thief that had mad stealth, but build is unlike any I've seen.  Like, I've seen stealth but not while jumping in the air (usually see dagger combo with black powder)--and they had a ton of cleanse as well:

I get some of it was stealing off the Gryphon's, but how do you build steal to go that low? Improvisation + something in Trickery to reduce steal CD?

In the camp: Shadow Refuge first > He then waited until reveal debuff was off and then used Blinding Power utility which also gave him 1s stability

Out of the camp near the griffons: He (super speed SA minor trait)ran and shortbow 5 to the griffons and used CnD

near eagle raptors: He shadow steps to eagle raptor> Uses Cloak and Dagger to gain stealth, (while in stealth he probably stole from the eagle raptor and gained blinding tufts.. luckily) and shadow returns as he was getting rapid fired by you and uses the 1st stack of blinding tufts

While near your ally: He uses the 2nd stack of blinding tufts (because of improvisation in D.A line)> and then everything after is just a combination of CnD and Blinding Powder. Keep in mind he still had a shadow refuge to use as well.

Doesn’t look like he was in any real danger when he got out of the camp, because of his stealth which gave him SuperSpeed from the Shadow arts line, and probably took cleansing conditions swap sigil on both weapons and shadow embrace SA trait too, probably energy sigil too. You guys didn’t put much pressure on him and you didn’t, as a ranger, use your Sic’em reveal debuff 

Both of you guys were (never) in control of that fight when he left camp. There was no real pressure on him and it seems as though you and him were just zerglings that don’t roam much. (Which is totally fine by the way) But there was no point in that fight out of the camp you were in control.

[Thief megathread: Oct 4th patch discussion]

42 minutes ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

1 good thing we could do is make rotwallow applied to allies trigger leeching venoms to give them sustain, this would make for some nice team comps, make an f3 for an aoe heal/barrier based on remaining or current shadow shroud for an instant heal and or barrier whilst inside shroud on a 3s cooldown at cost of a % of shroud per use 

 

Scenario would be in non shroud team fight u can spam f3 for 1 initiative gain per foe struck on 3s cooldown (effected by alac) but also gain a chunk of shroud generation back while NOT in shroud...itll have some sort of aoe buff for 5 teammates like shadow armor or something or protections, switch to shroud, spamming it 3s dishes out barrier and heals based on vitality per use based on % of shroud and also gives 1 initiative per use and foe struck...another idea is allow a benefit per ally struck up to 5 but the caps would be 5 allies and 5 enemies, not just 5 TOTAL targets.

 

Throw in leeching venoms allowance of rotwallow and you are a true support. With both the mentioned changes. A shadow sunspot if u will

1. Sustain through leeching venoms + rotwallow

2. Aoe support and offense for all  build types (power, condi, support, healing, tank)

3. Different effects but both offensive and defensive buffs/utility from the new f3 in AND out if shroud

4. Excelling in single target ally support via rotwallow application  but having more group support than usual through barrier application and boons

@Double Tap

That admittedly sounds broken asf. Good concept, but with it being effected by alac, you’ll pretty much have like a 80% up time if not more (I’m ball parking the math) by using this in a Zerg v Zerg setting or PvE Zerg. As well as getting initiative back per for struck. You’d pretty much always get refunded in ZvZ settings and there really would be no need for shroud, that would just be a bonus. 

The support would be off the charts. Without needing  to spec into healing power, since you said the healing and barrier and such scales off vitality. Good concept. But admittedly would just be another thing that people outcry over.

[Backstab should teleport you behind target in pve if within melee range or remove damage penalty.]

8 hours ago, Bern.9613 said:

Yea, been there, done that. Had all traps removed

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Trap

My beloved shadow trap.. absolutely free backstab dmg, and a counter to people that wanted to follow you in stealth and backstab you or stealth attack in general, and then you uno reverse them. 
 

I still think that Dagger/Dagger should have it’s throwing dagger be a flying backstab type of move/area teleport. 
 

> When dagger is thrown and hits an enemy gain access to shadow stalk, immediately shadowstep to enemy backside while in stealth for 2s, but if no enemy is hit teleport to area where dagger was thrown (kinda like the flying raijin yellow flash minato in Naruto) (Range: 1200)

That would be the number 4 skill, and the number 5 can be a block or projectile deflect similar to warriors projectile reflect shield trait. Or #5 can simply be a dash forward (distance: 600 which is still pretty bad in the grand scheme) (You’d have a ton of movement with D/D) this would help D/D tremendously and honestly wouldn’t be any more OP than what we already have out today, since our backstab number co-efficient’s have been nerfed.

 

[Lost my desire to keep playing GW2 after this nerf]

I think you guys should keep on keeping on. Just look at the activity this profession’s sub forum has gotten. It’s actually really nice to see. It’ll catch wind. I’m sure at this point Anet has taken notice and will try to dmg control. This is just me huffing on some hopium, but don’t leave or abandon this class just yet. We need all the representation we can get to keep our voices heard.
 

But in contrast, have you seen the guardian profession sub forum? Literally NO thread was made in regard to post patch. Guardians are chilling, watching everyone else burn lol. It’s actually funny to see that stark contrast. Zero posts have been made. They must have it good lol. 
 

The only other profession sub forum that is speaking out as much as we are and have multiple threads up is the warrior sub forum, next ranger. 
 

You can really see who the favorite child is to Anet just by these reactions.

[The Penalties of Being A Good Thief]

Welp, at-least now it looks like the Thief community is finally speaking out here on the forums as well as Reddit. I say good job to that 😊 keep it up. We need better representation and voices, being we are among the lowest played class in the game.

[Lost my desire to keep playing GW2 after this nerf]

As long as we stay under the radar and don’t actually learn our class, and just play like dog water we’ll be fine apparently. If we excel too much that’s a problem.

[Thief Players Revolt!]

The thing is as long as we have access to stealth, any nerf we get is justified. *laughs in scrapper sneak gyro*

[Thief megathread: Oct 4th patch discussion]

The next ‘balance’ I predict will be them just completely getting rid of SuperSpeed on stealth. They’ll notice that the nerf from 2s down to 1.5 wasn’t enough.

[Thief megathread: Oct 4th patch discussion]

On 10/4/2022 at 2:00 PM, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

We'll be keeping an eye on the strength of specter going forward and will be looking for an opportunity to restore the lost initiative once it's less dominant.

I have my reservations of this patch and have expressed it. But this vague-kitten comment makes me foam at the mouth. “Once it’s less dominant?” lol. So what is the time window for this? A week from now or a year from now, this is very vague and very irritating. Because as thieves, we know how to adapt and be successful with our class regardless of a ‘balance’.  But it seems like that is unfortunately to our detriment, because they only listen to the top 1-2 percentile of top Thieves. So theoretically we’ll never get this initiative restored or it won’t be until a very long time in the future.

[Thoughts on the Balance Preview Stream?]

Imagine that. They reverted the change for scrapper, due to public outcry. And still no change or recognition from the devs about looking into reverting changes or changing (buffing) the changes they made previously.
 

I will say though, it’s funny that Engi’s stealth gyro has been nerfed just as hard as they nerfed the Shadow arts line. (Surprised pikachu face) And now engi’s are upset because they lost their stealth duration, element of surprise and skill uniqueness. Imagine that.. lol. Long stealth durations are only okay when it’s (not) on Thief. (Noted. Got it) Especially on a class that can AoE and single target dmg numbers that rival our backstab all while in stealth with their 25stacks might + dmg modifiers, vulnerability, etc.

But don’t worry, public outcry will probably prevail again, and the stealth nerf will probably get overturned, since there’s more engi’s representing their class than Thief on the Reddit/forums.

/mini rant over

[Thoughts on the Balance Preview Stream?]

On 9/17/2022 at 10:34 PM, AikijinX.6258 said:

It’s kind of unfortunate that out of all the classes, when it comes to gw2 Reddit, and balance updates/nerfs, the reason Thief doesn’t seem to get much attention is because of the lack of attention and representation generated by the Thief community. When it comes to ranger, engineer, warrior, and ESPECIALLY Elementalist nerfs there’s always a sea of threads essentially shining the spot light on their class making Anet aware that they need to do something. It seems as though people are much more eager to start up Reddit threads concerning those classes in comparison to Thief even if Thief had received the worst treatment of them all. Thief is among the lowest played class in the game, so it makes sense why not a lot of threads are made or why not much attention gets drawn to the class, (which would then draw the attention to Anet). But it just sucks because I do really enjoy and love the class, but we need more representation and eyes on us, because every balance we get overshadowed by mass amounts of people starting threads for their class and the Reddit gets over saturated with it, meanwhile Thief is there trying to clot the hemorrhage that consistently follows the balance patches (nerfs) silently and without uproar. Thieves could have the worst balance of them all and there will still be more representation and call outs on Reddit for a different class that received maybe a nerf to their vigor or might gain and there Anet will go completely disregarding and having a complete misperception of the true losers of their balance. 
 

sorry it was a bit of a rant. just something I noticed across multiple balance patches.

Yet another post that gets tons up upvotes on Reddit about (another) class, which further perpetuates the notion that Thief is okay. (However I do recognize that reaper does in fact need to be looked at as well)

EDIT: I don't know if you guys can see the reddit link.

[Thief CORE Mechanics are TOO GOOD in Competitive Modes]

I’m not sure if this posts intention was to try to sway, derail, or mislead the public perception. 

But my friend, this is disingenuous to new players wanting to dip their feet into this class and try it out. You are correct in the sense when saying the good players you see on YouTube are typically above average Thieves, however despite the new player experience, these higher scaled thieves have had thousands of hours worth of experience. 

We do not have access to everything, and the things we do have access to are mediocre at best. Everyone else does an aspect of our class better. And our “no CDs” just isn’t a thing. We have global CDs on our skills due to the initiative system, and with the incredibly high increases to initiative costs on weapon skill, this also is a misrepresentation of our class and it’s abilities.