Exitus.3297

I more or less agree with the OP on this. To add context for what I'm about to say, I quit the game shortly after they dropped the patch increasing the Shortbow cost from 6 to 8 in PvP and WvW. Straight up uninstalled the game and went to other games. I came back to the forums today because I was curious to see if maybe the balancing has gotten any better. Clearly it hasn't To be clear, I didn't leave the game because they nerfed Thieves, specifically Shortbow 5. I left because that particular change along with several other changes in prior patches pretty much showed me the balance team has no idea what they are doing, in my opinion. I don't mean that to insult them, I literally mean they don't know what they are doing. Thieves need to have their skill expression maximized while having their crutches removed, but for some reason ANet keeps making changes that minimize a Thief's skill expression while inadvertently making their crutches mandatory, with rare exception. One example that everyone brings up is Shadow Arts. At the time before I left, nearly *everyone* knew that Shadow Arts was a massive crutch, specifically Shadow's Rejuvenation. Shadow Arts already did things to extend stealth duration, but Shadow's Rejuvenation in particular took the cake because it refunded enough Initiative that perma-stealth was achievable without that much sacrifice. Without Shadow Arts, Perma-stealth was sorta achievable, but it would drain the Thief's resources so it ended up being a give-take. Shadow's Rejuvenation took that concept and threw it out the window. Combine that with the healing in stealth and it pretty much meant a Thief could reset any fight by just waiting and *no one* enjoys fighting against this. It also broke sPvP because a Thief could perma-stealth across the battlefield and appear wherever they wanted and still have enough resources to fight. They could have neutered this one trait and I would have been okay with it. Happy with it even. How did ANet fix this? They nerfed Shortbow 5. So not only did they not address the crutch, they solidified pigeon-holing Thieves into Trickery even more than before. I also checked Acrobatics and they *still* haven't touched the auto-proc traits. Remember when a bunch of players said "Don't worry those traits are just placeholders for them to rework them." I said from the beginning if ANet intended to that they would have done it. So ANet borderline made half of the Acrobatics traitline unusable and then proceeded to leave them there. Trickery is still mandatory after this many years AND is even more mandatory now due to the Initiative cost increases on skills. They made Trickery the "Initiative" traitline instead of the "Steal" traitline. Wanna know something? I remember back before they overhauled the traitlines before you could have 3 full traitlines. Back then, *every* traitline had a way for the Thief to manage their initiative significantly, not just Trickery. This included both Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes. Despite natural Ini regen actually being slower back then (0.75 per second instead of 1 per second), no one felt forced to grab Trickery because there were ways to gain Initaitive in every tree. They just had different ways of restoring Initiative that reflected their playstyle (E.G. getting crits restored Initiative every couple of seconds in Critical Strikes). While I get other class mains have felt the same way about their class at one point or another (Mesmers and Warriors come to mind in previous updates), I play every class and Thieves have always seemed to get this weird treatment. Not in the sense they are/were undertuned, but that the class itself is constantly pigeon-holed into one thing or another back to back Players will cry that a particular thing about the Thief is OP, then ANet seems to approach the issue in the most haphazard way possible. Thieves move on to the next thing in line, then Players do the same thing again. Repeat this process ad nauseam and here we are. I think this was the only game I have ever played where I loathed seeing the game update notes, because I knew once I read them there would be maybe 1 or 2 things that made sense and a plethora of things that made no sense because they "fixed" a problem in a weird way or threw in a completely irrelevant thing out of left-field. After awhile I decided that I'm not coming back for more. So yes, OP, Thieves should basically "riot." In my case, I just left the game altogether because I'm tired of dealing with it. I'm tired of adjusting my build, finding something that feels good that I genuinely enjoy, then having to switch to something else because ANet decided to "Balance it". Good luck to anyone who still plays and I hope things improve.

I mean I like the idea of interrupts being rewarding in some additional way, but I do think you are underestimating 3 initiative. Where would this be? A passive on Headshot or Tactical Strike or a trait in one of the other trees? Personally, when it comes to initiative, I Would like to see some initiative-return mechanics implemented into the other trees like they used to. Back in Vanilla I didn't even run Trickery because I didn't need to; Shadow Arts had a trait that refunded 2 initiative upon entering stealth (not camping it) and Critical Strikes had a passive where critting every now and again would give 1 initiative. These traits no longer exist so Trickery is basically mandatory...

Honestly I would rather they stop with shortsighted nerfs and actually address the roots of the problem. I personally would ask they revert/lessen the IA nerf and take a look at the Perma-stealth traits of Shadow Arts, namely Shadow's Rejuvenation and Shadow's Embrace, that have become such a crutch. P.S. I also personally disagreed with the Mirage treatment; I was however less vocal about it because I'm not as experienced with Mesmers as I am Thieves.

It is when a rev can port 600 range and do 6k dmg by the side, which can go through walls.And it's also a difference how a skill is used. Deathstrike is often used aggressively and applies pressure. Whereas Infiltrator Strike is our means to get away. Which means we decided that the fight is lost for us and we use up all our initiative to do so. Why did it get nerfed? Because pepegas cry that "the thief got away" and they didn't "feel good". Then pls nerf all other mobility skills as well. Most of the classes outrun or outstealth thievs. I agree that the higher cost might be okay for sPvP, because if one team has a thief (that doesn't suck) and the other team doesn't, they can outrotate them and have easier and faster decaps, which makes it "unfair". But even that is a stretch... but I might give it to you... For WvW the change is just dumb. And as other said. Thieves will find another way to replace that or play some other builds or weapon sets. I'm already curious when the crying for another skill will start.Maybe Sword 2? Shadowstep OP? Dash? Too much dmg? My suggestion to all thief hater. Make one yourself and play. I bet you 1000g your view will change from "nerf OP thief plxxx" to "thief need a buff".Balance is not about how good or bad you feel for winning or losing an encounter. hey hey hey, who can " Most of the classes outrun or outstealth thievs. " ?please im really curious. goes back to lurkingIn longer, drawn out "races" I can't think of many classes who can keep up with the Thief. In shorter bursts, there are some classes that keep up with the Thief at least for a little while. Even if a class can't keep up with the Thief in terms of mobility 100% and instead just barely trail behind, that doesn't mean the Thief is safe. Rangers immediately come to mind due to their mobility with the Sword or Greatsword combined with the range on their Longbow. Guardians have a number of blinks that are good for chasing, and if they went DH they also can use Longbow or their Spear class skill to pull the Thief back. Warriors can be deceptively mobile with the Greatsword and Dagger, and they can keep the Thief in a bad spot if they run Magebane Tether. I can list a few more examples, but the point is that in short bursts other classes can keep up with the Thief for a time, at least long enough for it to matter. This is important in sPvP as well because it means these classes can rotate almost as well as the Thief in terms of going from node to node. Keep in mind I'm not saying any of these classes outrun the Thief or even match them as a general rule; I'm saying they can keep up for long enough in some circumstances for it to matter. It is also important to note that these classes, while not being able to keep up in terms of raw mobility, will still have cooldowns to expend after using them because they don't have to manage resources the same way a Thief does.

It's one use, then waiting for initiative, then using it a second time. Your pool is 15, so you need to wait a second for the initiative and then you can cast it a second time. You might also use a combo with IA + SA/Signet but that might not be 100% reliable. You misunderstand with the idea that this is an 8 second cool down. That is a shared resource pool with all other weapon skills. So when you reduce that pool by 8 points you can more accurately say you add a cooldown equal to every skills individual point value equal to or below its point value. Of course, that's an oversimplification too because initiative is not a traditional cooldown. But, let's get into the weeds as it were. A player has 15 initiative traited. Every time you use a skill you should think about this calculation: (15 - Initiative Currently Expended + Available Raw Initiative) - Cost of Weapon Skill If the above number is negative you need to wait for initiative. This means, effectively, your weapon skill is on cooldown. Now, because all your skills have different costs some skills will be on cooldown, while others won't. The disadvantage is that, while you can use other less optimal weapon skills, using those skills will serve to increase the cooldown of more optimal skills also. The larger the "Cost of Weapon Skill" is the more likely you will be to find subsequent uses of higher cost skills locked out. Thief doesn't have cool downs so much as thief sometimes has cool downs when initiative is lower than skills require. So when you add 2 initiative to a 6 point skill it isn't the same as adding 2 to a 4 point skill. That's because the higher the cost the greater chance of it locking out a greater number of skills. Not all use cases involve full initiative with lots of available initiative regeneration. If you have 10 initiative and use an 8 initiative skill you are now limited to a 2 initiative skill (meaning practically all skills are on cooldown). Which brings me to the "Effective Universal Cooldown" balancing test. That is: (Cost of Desired Skill - (Available Initiative + Initiative Boosts) < or > (Opportunity Cost of Waiting) In plain language, the time to regenerate initiative to use the skill that is optimal for the situation NOW is weighed against the choice between waiting and spending initiative on another skill. However, that choice is difficult because it means the skill you can't cast NOW also won't be available for both the original time period AND the time period of whatever substitute skill. So the choice is really the question of "how badly do I need to use this skill in the immediate future?" The more you need to use a skill (which for a teleport may be critical because you need to decap or +1 ASAP) the more you effectively can't use other skills because you can't afford to cut into your pool. So "wait for initiative" unlike waiting for cool downs on other professions means auto attacking while you wait. Which is all to say that you can't speak of this as an 8 second cool down unless you ignore the unique initiative system on a fundamental level. This is probably the best way I have ever seen someone explain Initiative in detail.

It's one use, then waiting for initiative, then using it a second time. Your pool is 15, so you need to wait a second for the initiative and then you can cast it a second time. You might also use a combo with IA + SA/Signet but that might not be 100% reliable. You misunderstand with the idea that this is an 8 second cool down. That is a shared resource pool with all other weapon skills. So when you reduce that pool by 8 points you can more accurately say you add a cooldown equal to every skills individual point value equal to or below its point value. Of course, that's an oversimplification too because initiative is not a traditional cooldown. But, let's get into the weeds as it were. A player has 15 initiative traited. Every time you use a skill you should think about this calculation: (15 - Initiative Currently Expended + Available Raw Initiative) - Cost of Weapon Skill If the above number is negative you need to wait for initiative. This means, effectively, your weapon skill is on cooldown. Now, because all your skills have different costs some skills will be on cooldown, while others won't. The disadvantage is that, while you can use other less optimal weapon skills, using those skills will serve to increase the cooldown of more optimal skills also. The larger the "Cost of Weapon Skill" is the more likely you will be to find subsequent uses of higher cost skills locked out. Thief doesn't have cool downs so much as thief sometimes has cool downs when initiative is lower than skills require. So when you add 2 initiative to a 6 point skill it isn't the same as adding 2 to a 4 point skill. That's because the higher the cost the greater chance of it locking out a greater number of skills. Not all use cases involve full initiative with lots of available initiative regeneration. If you have 10 initiative and use an 8 initiative skill you are now limited to a 2 initiative skill (meaning practically all skills are on cooldown). Which brings me to the "Effective Universal Cooldown" balancing test. That is: (Cost of Desired Skill - (Available Initiative + Initiative Boosts) < or > (Opportunity Cost of Waiting) In plain language, the time to regenerate initiative to use the skill that is optimal for the situation NOW is weighed against the choice between waiting and spending initiative on another skill. However, that choice is difficult because it means the skill you can't cast NOW also won't be available for both the original time period AND the time period of whatever substitute skill. So the choice is really the question of "how badly do I need to use this skill in the immediate future?" The more you need to use a skill (which for a teleport may be critical because you need to decap or +1 ASAP) the more you effectively can't use other skills because you can't afford to cut into your pool. So "wait for initiative" unlike waiting for cool downs on other professions means auto attacking while you wait. Which is all to say that you can't speak of this as an 8 second cool down unless you ignore the unique initiative system on a fundamental level. My point still is that IA was overperforming and the nerf on it was deserved. Thieves can still stealth on the fly(to disengage, engage or regen initiave safely), they still have the best mobility, they still have the most evades of any class so yeah they shouldn't spam IA 3 times in 4 secs like before patch traveling 2700 range without any utilities, only weapon. After the patch thieves still have sb and shadowstep to travel around the map, the only difference now is that you have to use utilities too like other classes instead of weapon only to travel that fast and that's how it should be. As long as people can't understand how broken this was, they will never be satisfied when something gets nerfed. IA was never overperforming. I would like you to find me some evidence of anyone anywhere arguing this seriously. I even did some legwork for you and found literally a single forum post from a year ago where the OP was arguing for a significant nerf to IA: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/88551/its-time-to-address-infiltrators-arrow The OP got ratio'd by nearly everyone in the responses because his arguments were faulty, including that Thieves have the best Mobility and therefor must be nerfed. With all due respect, you seem to be falling into the same trap. It isn't a question of whether or not the Thief has the best mobility; it's a question of whether they have too much mobility, and how it should be solved if they do. Just like it isn't a question of whether a class has the most damage, most team utility or most survivability. It's just a question of it being too much. Things are allowed to be strong as long as they aren't too strong, or at least brought in line by some kind of weakness. Yes, IA was strong, but so far no one has brought forth any decent arguments as to why it was too strong. Reiterating what others before me have said, using IA costs resources in a pool other weapon skills share, and none of it is returned just by swapping weapons. Any resources they spend on going from Point A to Point B or C is going to be resources they have to wait for before doing damage. Other classes that can keep up with the Thief to a decent degree do not have to make such compromises, but at the same time their kits don't allow them to. That's what makes the Thief unique. Even if anyone did bring forth valid arguments, I don't see how upping the initiative cost to 3 quarters of the Thief's base initiative bar is a valid solution. Now that problem of initiative management when using shortbow is going to be a lot more of a problem, pigeon-holing them into Trickery even harder. You are right about one thing: Thieves are still going to be the most mobile class in the game. Like I said in my OP, Thieves are going to find ways around the nerfs. Whether they swap to perma-stealthing with Shadow's Rejuvenation to balance out the Initiative cost or mashing Heartseeker across the landscape (450 range Leap for 3 initiative), they are going to figure it out, and nobody, not even the Thief players themselves, are going to like it. EDIT: Grammar.

In my personal opinion, they need to revert the nerfs (at least to Infiltrator's Arrow, but maybe also Signet) and actually address the problems that Thieves create. One big example I hear, including from other Thieves, is camping stealth (not spamming, camping). This likely means addressing the traits in Shadow Arts that cater to stealth camping (with Shadow's Rejuvenation being the big one).

I know, I know. Another thread on this topic. Just hear me out. Let me first start by saying that the nerf to Consume Plasma is fine because Mesmers have an incredibly difficult time vs Thieves, so this should help them out a bit. I'm still indifferent on Essence Sap due to how big the nerf was but it was pretty strong so I don't see a big problem. With that out of the way, I want to get into why the change to Infiltrator's Arrow and Signet of Agility is shortsighted. Players have already pointed out the issue of the 8 initiative cost being clunky due to the Thief only having up to 15 initiative to begin with, and that is with the Trickery traitline which they were already pigeonholed into to begin with. To add to that, Mobility isn't just a staple of the Thief; it is what is keeping them relevant. Taking it away or severely hampering without giving them something elsewhere to make up for it at least a little bit puts Thief players in position where they don't know what direction you want them to go in. The fact that the Signet of Agility got nerfed along with it just compounds that confusion because it just tells Thieves you want them to be less mobile, but you don't want them to fight as well either. But there is even more at play here. Either Thieves are going to toss Shortbow, or find a way around the cost. I'm going to specifically address the latter. What do you guys think Thieves will do to make up the cost in Initiative to keep Shortbow relevant? They are going to find a way to make up the cost, and that cost happens to be made up for by Shadow's Rejuvenation. Thieves that avoided this trait are now going to feel obligated to take it, whereas before it was just a really strong (and imho a crutch) trait. This is because Shortbow 5, without the use of other Initiative regen sources, took 6 seconds to regen the initiative they need to fire off a single Infiltrator's Arrow. Now it takes 8 seconds. Shadow's Rejuvenation gives 1 Initiative every 3 seconds (or 2 per 6, totaling 8 initiative over 6 seconds), meaning it perfectly makes up the increased cost as long as a Thief camps stealth when they are running around. That means you are going to see Thieves camp stealth more, not less. This is further compounded by the Signet of Agility nerf because they won't be able to sustain fights now. This trait also happens to be the reason why Thieves were able to do so much while still stacking stealth. It mitigated the decision of choosing stealth over mobility/damage because a Thief could stack stealth with Black Powder, Blinding Powder and Heartseekers and get a bunch of their initiative back. This trait by itself is why Thieves can Perma-stealth with very few to no cooldowns. Now it's going to be nigh-mandatory along with Trickery. Part of the reason I write this is because I am seeing a lot of people in the forums saying that the nerfs are good because the Thief needed nerfs for the sake of needing nerfs. I see alot of those same people complaining about stealth uptime on the Thief. I am telling everyone right now that this change is going to make that problem worse.

For what it's worth; I've never seen an Anet dev play thief. N-E-V-E-R. I knew about the upcoming Consume Plasma nerf, but I had no idea they'd also be nerfing Sap Essence (one of the few remaining actually hard-hitting thief skills). I'm confused as to why, if Signet of Agility was such an issue , they couldn't just up the cooldown by 5-10 seconds? Then again, considering how limited its use is with its current cooldown as things stand... And people are actually out there talking about it as this 'superb condi cleanse', when it literally only does that while granting an added (now half a ) dodge. It's not like it's a stun break. I really am not much of a fan of deadeye's gameplay pattern. But that's the road Anet's pigeonholing me onto. Pretty much. The most frustrating to me personally isn't even the nerfs in and of themselves. That's dumbfounding, but what's frustrating to me personally are the non-thief players that just seem to think this change is warranted on sole basis that Thieves needed a nerf. They don't realize what the consequence of this change is going to be. Either Thieves are going to keep using Shortbow and find a way around the cost, or they won't use Shortbow and find another means of Mobility. I know some Deadeyes that got really good with Death's Retreat that are probably going to be fine. As for the Thieves that will keep using Shortbow, I can almost guarantee they are all going to do the same thing. It now takes 8 seconds instead of 6 seconds to regen the initiative to cast Shortbow (assuming there are no other sources of Ini regen). Guess which trait happens to restore 1 Initiative every 3 seconds? Shadow's Rejuvenation. When before it was an optional trait that was just really strong (and imho was a crutch, but that's just me) will now be borderline mandatory to make up the difference. That means Thieves are going to spending a lot more time in stealth to get that bonus. What's super ironic is that the same players that are saying the nerf is justified are the same ones that are complaining about the stealth uptime, not realizing what they've just done.

When my friend told me about the nerfs, I seriously thought he was trolling. Then I looked at them and not only did they nerf Infiltrator's Arrow, gutting its mobility, they did it in the most uncreative way possible. On top of that, instead of giving Thieves something to work with in terms of defense to compensate for said nerf in mobility, they nerfed their defense. These nerfs were completely out of the blue. If I had to guess where they were gunna nerf the Thief next, I would said it would have been Shadow Arts due to how much some of the traits that contribute to perma-stealthing are used as a crutch. It isn't even just about these nerfs (or how out of the blue they are). Remember back on the February Patch when they basically annihilated the Acrobatics traitline, giving the only decent traits 300 seconds? Remember back when everyone was saying that they are just going to be "placeholders" until they can find something better to do with them? They're still there, untouched, virtually unusable in any PvP scenario. Meanwhile, in the land of Deadeye, their PvP rotation literally consists of spamming Skirmisher's Shot over and over until they hit 7 Malice with Maleficent 7, get off a stealth attack, and rinse and repeat ad nauseam. It has been this way since February and it has yet to be touched. The sad part is that the only reason Deadeyes do this is because it is the only realistic way they can do significant damage. I could go on Then the OP mentioned that there are no Devs that play Thief. I have no idea how true this is, but at this point I don't doubt it. No Dev in their right mind who even plays Thief would even let this slide. I thought for awhile about what other alternatives I could take, and to be quite honest. I'm a Thief main, and I primarily play this game for the PvP. I want the game to work. I want Thieves to be in a good spot, but not overpowered. I was willing to give this balance team a chance, but I think I'm just done with this game now. It's obvious based on the balance team's trend that ongoing balance issues are going to get ignored, while pumping out changes that don't make any sense. (P.S, to the OP, Most of the people I know who swapped out of Thief went to Power Rev or Holosmith, mostly the former)

Thanks for the responses everyone! And yeah, it is for WvW.

Silly question:I am thinking of changing servers to join up with some friends. Would changing servers have any affect on my latency/ping due to different server locations? Or are they all located at the same location? Thanks!

Fine. Whatever makes Deadeye less braindead and less frustrating to fight. I only suggested those changes because people constantly complain about pointing issues but providing no solutions. I personally don't care what happens so long as 2 spam stops.

Pretty much... That is also why I don't want the class nerfed outright; just the damage shifted elsewhere. I could imagine shifting the damage of Double Tap to something like 1100 to 1200-ish tooltip damage in sPvP (assuming Berserker + Scholar) and Three Round burst going up to just around 1400-ish tooltip damage, and perhaps lowering their initiative cost by 1 because raising it from 4 to 6 seemed like overkill to me. That would justify lowering the damage on Skirmisher's Shot so it isn't a life-raft as you describe. I don't really care that Deadeye's do the damage that they do, I just want it to come from a place that makes sense. You say you "don't want the class nerfed outright; just the damage shifted elsewhere" along with "I don't really care that Deadeye's do the damage that they do".You realize that increasing reveal for 1s completely goes against your statement right? Reveal is what determines the damage output for the whole spec.You can't dps the same when you touch the malice pump and dump system that is the very design of the spec. When you increase reveal by 1s from 3s to 4s, that's a whole second where you will either just auto attack to save ini (laughable dmg on auto attack #1 ->dps crashes down) or lose out ini by #2 again because you couldn't DJ on 3rd second. This can lead you to being not able to M7 on time again after initial refund -> dps crashes down. You do realize I was specifically referring to just those abilities right? You do realize I said nothing about overall dps and specifically referred to the raw damage dealt by abilities right?If you are going to come to a forum to sound smart, at least address the issue I put forward instead of taking what I said and twisting it to prove a point. My point is literally just this: Spamming 2 alongside M7 to both build Malice and deal reliable, solid damage without the need to kneel or properly manage initiative is braindead to play as. Please tell me how it is healthy design for Skirmisher's Shot to be the DEs go-to button for literally everything including damage (which also happens to pierce), Cripple AND Malice build up. When mixed with the fact that no class can even properly punish the Deadeye for making a mistake (due to the combination the 3s Reveal on Rifle skills and Stealth on dodge) makes them just plain obnoxious to play against even if it isn't necessarily good in a competitive scene, because it takes a second or so to even get close enough to do anything to them. However, I also recognized (as @ASP.8093 pointed out) that Deadeyes are reliant on Skirmisher's Shot in its current state because of how poor of state both of the 3 skills are in (which are supposed to be their non-stealth damaging skills). So I suggested shifting the damage from Skirmisher's Shot to Double Tap and Three Round Burst whilst also reducing their initiative cost so nerfing the damage of Skirmisher's Shot can be justified. The general idea is to make Skirmisher's Shot the smarter choice to use in some circumstances while making the 3 skills (kneeling or standing) the smarter choice in other circumstances. If they're overall DPS come out roughly the same, even with some other adjustments, then that's fine. Don't rage at people for trying to sound smart if you're dropping nonsense like that. People mostly ignore DE's unless maybe it's d/p + shortbow and try to stay ready for Daredevils and Core. Take some control skills.I didn't rage... I returned their tone back at them. I tend to do that and maybe I shouldn't, but it gets frustrating when people take only a portion of what I'm saying while my primary point gets blatantly ignored. But tis the interwebs. I have been playing Deadeye with Flickering Shadow. Daredevils don't do much to me unless I get needlessly aggressive and that seems to be the trend when I happen across a Deadeye on any character I play. You boldfaced the part where I said "no class can properly punish the deadeye for making a mistake" as my nonsense. I may seem like I am going overboard with the tone, but there is a reason I inserted the word "properly." Perhaps I should have been more specific in that particular post that classes can punish the Deadeye for making a mistake, but with the Deadeye's current kit it is easy to not make mistakes, and any mistakes they do make does not typically result in their death as long as they disengage. As I mentioned in my first post, they CAN be dealt with. It's just needlessly frustrating. I don't get how it is so difficult to understand that all I'm saying is that it is frustrating to fight and too easy to play due to Skirmisher Shot spam, Stealth on dodge and reduced Revealed duration.

Pretty much... That is also why I don't want the class nerfed outright; just the damage shifted elsewhere. I could imagine shifting the damage of Double Tap to something like 1100 to 1200-ish tooltip damage in sPvP (assuming Berserker + Scholar) and Three Round burst going up to just around 1400-ish tooltip damage, and perhaps lowering their initiative cost by 1 because raising it from 4 to 6 seemed like overkill to me. That would justify lowering the damage on Skirmisher's Shot so it isn't a life-raft as you describe. I don't really care that Deadeye's do the damage that they do, I just want it to come from a place that makes sense. You say you "don't want the class nerfed outright; just the damage shifted elsewhere" along with "I don't really care that Deadeye's do the damage that they do".You realize that increasing reveal for 1s completely goes against your statement right? Reveal is what determines the damage output for the whole spec.You can't dps the same when you touch the malice pump and dump system that is the very design of the spec. When you increase reveal by 1s from 3s to 4s, that's a whole second where you will either just auto attack to save ini (laughable dmg on auto attack #1 ->dps crashes down) or lose out ini by #2 again because you couldn't DJ on 3rd second. This can lead you to being not able to M7 on time again after initial refund -> dps crashes down.You do realize I was specifically referring to just those abilities right? You do realize I said nothing about overall dps and specifically referred to the raw damage dealt by abilities right?If you are going to come to a forum to sound smart, at least address the issue I put forward instead of taking what I said and twisting it to prove a point. My point is literally just this: Spamming 2 alongside M7 to both build Malice and deal reliable, solid damage without the need to kneel or properly manage initiative is braindead to play as. Please tell me how it is healthy design for Skirmisher's Shot to be the DEs go-to button for literally everything including damage (which also happens to pierce), Cripple AND Malice build up. When mixed with the fact that no class can even properly punish the Deadeye for making a mistake (due to the combination the 3s Reveal on Rifle skills and Stealth on dodge) makes them just plain obnoxious to play against even if it isn't necessarily good in a competitive scene, because it takes a second or so to even get close enough to do anything to them. However, I also recognized (as @ASP.8093 pointed out) that Deadeyes are reliant on Skirmisher's Shot in its current state because of how poor of state both of the 3 skills are in (which are supposed to be their non-stealth damaging skills). So I suggested shifting the damage from Skirmisher's Shot to Double Tap and Three Round Burst whilst also reducing their initiative cost so nerfing the damage of Skirmisher's Shot can be justified. The general idea is to make Skirmisher's Shot the smarter choice to use in some circumstances while making the 3 skills (kneeling or standing) the smarter choice in other circumstances. If they're overall DPS come out roughly the same, even with some other adjustments, then that's fine.

Pretty much... That is also why I don't want the class nerfed outright; just the damage shifted elsewhere. I could imagine shifting the damage of Double Tap to something like 1100 to 1200-ish tooltip damage in sPvP (assuming Berserker + Scholar) and Three Round burst going up to just around 1400-ish tooltip damage, and perhaps lowering their initiative cost by 1 because raising it from 4 to 6 seemed like overkill to me. That would justify lowering the damage on Skirmisher's Shot so it isn't a life-raft as you describe. I don't really care that Deadeye's do the damage that they do, I just want it to come from a place that makes sense.

I'm not really sure how to begin the thread so I'm just going to go straight into the numbers.In sPvP, assuming you are running Berserker + Scholar Ammy, Skirmisher's Shot (non-kneeling 2 skill) has a tooltip of 745, Pierces, causes Cripple, and costs 3 initiative.Double Tap (non-kneeling 3) has a tooltip of 930 assuming both shots hit. It applies 2 stacks of might for 6 seconds, but does not Pierce and costs 6 initiative.Three Round Burst (the kneeling 3 skill), the skill that is supposed to do the most damage out of these skills, does 1395 damage, applies 3 stacks of might for 6 seconds, also does not pierce, and costs 6 initiative. It also gains benefit of 1500 range at the cost not being able to move... For people that aren't the best at math, let me phrase it this way: Would you rather spend 6 initiative on a skill that does a total of 1395 damage, doesn't pierce, doesn't allow you to move and grants up to 2 Malice? Or would you rather cast the same amount of Initiative but deal a total of 1540 damage with attacks that pierce (meaning people can't body-block you), cause cripple, and can grant up to 4 Malice? The answer is pretty obvious to me. If they are running Maleficent Seven (which I can guarantee you they are), they get most of that initiative refunded after a few shots. Missing a few shots is not that punishing due to the low cost of the skill. Moreover, why does the Deadeye rifle skills only cause 3 seconds of Reveal as opposed to every other skill causing 4 seconds? What these two things together create a class that isn't necessarily overpowered, but absolutely obnoxious to fight and braindead to play as. All the Deadeye has to do after marking a target is spam 2 l until they reach max initiative without even needing to kneel in place. Because of the low cost of the skill, there is virtually no punishment for them missing what is technically their most damaging skill, a skill that also so conveniently, cripples, pierces, and allows them to move. At the same time, because the Revealed timer on Death's Judgement is 3 seconds instead of 4, it creates a smaller window in which someone has to punish them for screwing up... And because it is a ranged attack, it will take a second or two (at least) for someone to even get to them. That effectively means that by the time you get to them, they just dodge into stealth and reposition to do the whole thing all over again. Because of the Boons granted from Maleficent Seven (Protection and Vigor being the two big ones, the former reducing the damage they take and the latter allowing for more dodges) combined potentially with Flickering Shadow, there is no realistic way to kill them. Even nailing them with a Reveal skill such as Sic 'Em or Facet, they can just use Shadow Meld to break it. They aren't impossible to kill, but have to spend a lot of time and energy to outplay them and you will maybe kill them. Yes, you can projectile reflect. Yes, you can LoS them. There are ways to deal with them, but most of the time you are just going to feel like you are banging your head against a brick wall. The solution to me seems simple: Move the damage from Skirmisher's Shot back to Double Tap and Three Round Burst. Perhaps Reduce the Initiative cost of those skills by 1. Don't make Skirmisher's Shot useless; rather, give it the identity of being the ability the Deadeye casts when they need to kite and slow down enemies. Also make the Revealed Timer on Death's Judgement 4 seconds. I feel like these would be very basic changes that wouldn't break them but would at least make them less annoying to fight. It's possible they may need buffs in other areas to make them more viable in general, but that isn't what I'm here to address.

Not to sound rude, but I read this and it makes me think you don't play Thief (E.G. the Confusion stacking comes from Steal, not Pistol). If you are talking about 7k Backstabs, you have to be referring to WvW. I play Berserker Stats with Scholar in sPvP (where the Meta is Runes of Divinity) and I could never imagine pumping out such numbers even on cloth-wearing classes with SA. The highest I can get is just shy of 6k under the right circumstances and my average is around 4k depending on who I hit. Right now there is virtually no circumstance in sPvP where a Thief can actually one-shot someone running SA. It may have some life-leech procs helping it's damage but the damage is not that substantial compared to that of Critical Strikes or even Deadly Arts. A Thief running Marauder Amulet with Scholar runes and Deadly Arts can put out just as much damage as a SA Thief running Berserker Amulet and Divinity Runes, if not more. But obviously, you aren't complaining about the damage, you're attention is on the stealth. In sPvP SA isn't as strong as you think it is. As stated above, it is a damage loss compared to other Specs since they nerfed the Life Leech damage. The stealth in and of itself isn't as valuable as you think because in order to win games you need to cap nodes, and you can't cap nodes in stealth. Thieves primarily take it so they can roam the map undisturbed because otherwise they would just get chased and/or murdered. Even then, halfway decent players can more or less predict where the Thief is going to be. In WvW it's obviously a different animal. Stats are much more inflated . This makes Thieves much more threatening even with SA, but it also makes everyone else more threatening. I can tell you right now a single Sic 'Em combo from Soulbeasts is enough to kill a Thief by itself if they are hit by it in full (and they don't even have to be glass). Revenants can do something similar. Thieves have to compensate for this by simply not being an option to pick off. In order to solve this problem that you are describing with the amount of stealth they have, you need to also solve why they are so reliant on it to begin with. I main a Thief but I can still sympathize with this problem because of how annoying it can be to fight. But that's mostly what it is... Annoying. I imagine a partial fix to this would be to put the Revealed duration to be 4 seconds in WvW like in sPvP instead of 3. Scouts revealing Thieves from far away partially solved this problem as well. Deadeyes themselves, however, are legitimately busted and need to be addressed (note how I said 'busted' and not 'overpowered'). For some reason, the Reveal duration on their rifle skills is 3 seconds instead of 4, including in sPvP. Considering it takes a decent chunk of time (a second or 2) to close the gap on them after they reveal themselves, it essentially sets them up to disappear by the time you get to them. I think it is very odd that every other Thief build has to deal with a 4 second Revealed timer and take the risk of being in Melee while the Deadeye gets a reduced duration Reveal while still having the benefit of being ranged (and being able to stealth by dodging). Combine that with the fact that Skirmisher's Shot for some reason does more damage than Double-tap, pierces and slows targets, it puts Deadeyes in a position where all they have to do is spam 2 without kneeling (having the benefit of being mobile) with the Malificent Seven trait, gaining permanent Vigor with it, and doing tons of damage because they never run out of initiative and simply dodging into Stealth the very second someone starts doing damage to them. It's the most obnoxious thing to fight and the most braindead thing to play. Well, the fix here is easy.... Increase the Revealed duration and shift some of the damage in Skirmisher's Shot back to Double-Tap. Reducing the Immob duration on Spotter's shot would also make it less obnoxious.

More specifically, the trait interaction with the Signet of Vampirism where it "Steals Health from an additional foe in combat" does not work. I tested this thoroughly, and it definitely isn't working. I misread how the trait interacts with Shroud, my mistake.

More specifically, the "Damage against Poisoned Targets" listed on the tooltip is much higher than the damage that actually occurs on poisoned targets.This means that either the Tooltip is wrong and the damage listed is too high, or the Damage that is actually occurring is too low. This issue is only present in PvP and WvW game modes. This issue does not appear to be present in PvE.

I did not forget that at all... In fact I specifically mentioned it: And in my Hypothetical skirmish, I only included 2 successful interrupts... 1 from Steal at the beginning and 1 from Headshot to interrupt a Heal skill; situations in which any Thief would aim to land an interrupt regardless of whether they had Impacting Disruption. If you see any important skill getting casted and you decided to not use Headshot because it cost initiative, then I don't know what to tell you. I can think of plenty of situations in which I would cast a Headshot even if I didn't have Impacting Disruption. Even then, Headshot is not the only potential interrupt in your kit. In fact you can even get a pair of back-to-back interrupts with Basilisk Venom and Swipe by themselves, and not even touch Headshot. Headshot may have been the primary source of PI, but it wasn't the only source. The problem is that those 2 interruptions are already assuming too much. Not really. I score interrupts all of the time even when I'm not looking for them. Interrupts I do l get on a routine basis are: Ranger: Long Bow Rapid-Fire and Heal Skill of any kind. I'll also Swipe Greatsword #4 or Axe #5. Thief: Heartseeker (after they use Black Powder, effectively wastes 9 of their initiative), Heal Skill (more and more have been using Hide in Shadows). Arguably S/D Thieves I don't get interrupts against too often. Warrior: Heal Skill (Mending), Shield Stance (I use Swipe to interrupt this), Rush (particularly when they are running away/toward me) Necromancer: Pretty much any Reaper Skill (after they popped Stab, I break with steal), Literally any Heal Skill because they all have cast times. I also score accidental interrupts with their stolen skill routinely. Guardian: Any Heal Skill as long as it isn't the one that blocks (I forget its name right now). Dragonhunter F3 skill (the healing leap I also forget the name of), the Signet that Revives downed foes. Their stolen skill is also a CC so I will get accidental interrupts routinely here as well. Elementalist: This one is a little harder, but I actively watch for their Heal Skill and Glyph of Revival. Overloads are easy to get an interrupt as long as Swipe is up. Revenant: This one actually depends. Power builds I admittedly don't get/look for too many interrupts. Condi (Mallyx) builds I routinely look for interrupts because they tend to be less evasive, and the Sigil of Absorption prioritizes Resistance (which is the key Boon that keeps them alive). Mesmer: This one really depends because I don't think anyone has found a common build on this yet, other than maybe Core Power. Engineer: Depends on the Spec; both Holo's and Scrappers seem common. Regardless, I will almost always aim for the Heal Skill, and save Swipe for Stability. Keep in mind, I will look for these interrupts even when I'm not running PI And even then your hypothetical fails because instead of the thief using heartseeker, you have him use headshot and black powder. Realistically while a thief doesnt do a lot of damage, the amount of damage he does is still significantly higher with havoc mastery than PI. Under the right conditions, when several bars of Endurance are missing and you can afford to get aggressive, then yes. In situations where you are conserving Endurance, and would otherwise need to land an interrupt regardless of whether you have PI, then no. The issue is, how often do you want to interrupt on an enemy that you are also trying to kill? The answer is "not very often". When you then expand the question to "how often do you want to interrupt on an enemy that you are also trying to kill where heartseeker isnt better and/or the damage matters, you will find that you suddenly see that these scenarios happen very, very little. I already gave a list of examples as to why this isn't the case. Besides that, I could just as easily flip that question on its head and ask "How often are you willing to get aggressive on a target when you have 0 to 1 bars of Endurance left?" I imagine the answer to this question would also be "Not Very often." This problem is further compounded when you take Exhaustion into account. This is because Havoc Specialist is designed to be a game of chicken. I also want to address a point you made in a different post: Why spend 4 initiative on a skill to only get a little bit of damage and only if you land the interrupt, when I could spend slightly more/less initiative to just do more damage AND have it receive the benefit of Havoc Specialist? The answer is simple: Havoc Specialist gains value in situations where your endurance is low and you dump initiative on skills and combos that have already high numbers, but loses value if you would otherwise have to spend initiative for utility purposes, namely Headshot (+15% on this skill is next to nothing). On the flip side, PI gains value in situations where you are able to or have to land Interrupts. While Initiative (literally Headshot) does impact its value, it doesn't impact its value entirely because Headshot is not your only source of CC. Both Basilisk Venom and Swipe. Look, if theyre going to buff it, then it needs a buff that is actually relevant. If they buff it by 30-40%, then that is as if they didnt buff it. The trait goes from useless troll pick to ... useless troll pick. The goal is to ask for meaningful buffs. That way you have an option that is good. If they dont buff it or rework then so be it, the trait is useless, it will be useless. Asking for an irrelevant buff doesnt change that. The trait needs a 200-300% damage buff, or it remains a useless troll pick. Its up to Anet if they want the trait to be viable but weak (which is what 200-300% buff would accomplish) or utterly useless. Assuming you are Full Berserker in sPvP and running Scholar Runes (225% Ferocity) 40% buff would move it's tooltip from 474 to 664. To give some perspective, that would mean the extra damage from a Backstab plus an entire AA combo at Tier 2 (+10%) would fail to beat even a single proc of PI even if every single attack crit. A 200%-300% boost would bring the tooltip from 474 to 1422-1896. I really want you to think about this for a minute. Between the 211 tooltip on Headshot (475 if a crit with Scholar Runes + Berserker Ammy), that means a single Headshot interrupt would do 1897-2371. You are literally asking for this ability to do the same amount of damage if not more damage than a Shadowshot crit, with the additional benefits being non-crits not mattering too much to its damage and costing 1 less initiative. This trait would be ridiculously good even without Headshot because even a single Swipe interrupt would so much damage that you would have to Backstab + AA combo 3 times and literally every single attack would need to crit to even get the same extra damage from Havoc Mastery, and by that point Swipe would already be off cooldown and miles ahead. It sounds to me that you just want Headshot to be a primary source of damage on interrupts like it was back in HoTs. I'm telling you right now this will never happen. Your point about "meaningful vs non-meaningful buffs" flies right out the window when you are just asking for the skill to be so overtuned that neither ANet nor the general playerbase would even consider it. Even in this very thread people are saying it's good where it is (and I'm not one of them). You want that buff to be more meaningful? Let's try an 80% buff then, just to experiment. It would bring the tooltip value from 474 to 853 (again, assuming Berserker Ammy with Scholar Runes). That would of course mean that the Thief would have to do anywhere from 17,060 to 5687 damage (depending on your endurance level) assuming the target has 2600 armor (this is what the tooltips are based off of) to compete with even a single proc of PI. That means there will commonly be cases where the target will be dead before you can even get the full value out of Havoc Specialist to compete with a single proc of PI. Then it begs the question how much value players get out of Havoc Specialist to begin with. Sometimes smack a target while their endurance is completely full, other times they will want to play that game of chicken and hit them with 0 endurance. Let's say that a player can usually capitalize on a 10% damage boost on average from this trait most of the time (and I am being VERY generous here). That player would have to deal 8530 damage for it to compete with a single proc of PI. To put it in perspective, you would have to hit someone with a Backstab, AA combo and Shadowshot and every single attack would need to crit. THEN you would have to consider that not every attack will crit, and all you can't hope for is that the bigger hits are the ones that do. Does this sound like a more "meaningful buff" to you?

Because they would rather nerf traits that both cancerous and non-cancerous Thief builds use, pretending that they fixed it.

Literally this. As another thing worth pointing out, it is very common for Thieves to get few to no end game awards (Most damage, kills, offense, etc) even if they play very well. They won't (typically) participate in the most kills on the team. They won't (typically) do the most damage. They won't (typically) stand on a node for more than they have to, theirs or an enemy's, in the aid to +1 a defender or attacker. Instead, they will do a little bit of everything, and that typically gets them 0 awards because they aren't doing that one thing particularly well, especially if even a few people on their team are doing their jobs. Halfway decent teams know this, so they won't get too upset and get mad at the Thief (or whomever the roamer is). Yet, I frequently see other players throw flak at the Thief thinking they're crap because they don't actually have the map awareness to see what the Thief or enemy players are doing, and then justify it because they have more awards than the Thief.

Pretty sure other Thief players assumed the same as you did. They're also just confused that ANet said they were aiming at particularly "egregious" condition builds then proceeded to nerf a set of traits that Power Builds also benefitted from. Leeching Venoms was the only real oddball because that "particularly egregious build" used active Venom Skills whereas most Power variants do not (not that they can't; they just don't)

I lol'd at the part where ANet said they were trying to nerf the "more egregious" condition build by nerfing the traits in Shadow Arts that both condition and non-condition builds use. Leeching Venoms I sorta get as that "particularly egregious build" used the actual Venom Skills, not just the passive. Although, that still doesn't really say why they went after Shadow Siphoning as well. I don't mean to be rude to the balance team, but these patch notes are a joke.