Exitus.3297

I'm curious to see where everyone's thoughts are on this besides a "Is the patch good? Yes or No" question. I'm also hoping ANet will see this and take it into consideration. I'm personally at 3 (I will go into more detail on why in a bit). EDIT: Everything Below (late to the party but it took awhile to type... I ended up copying/pasting from another one of my posts with some edits because it gets the point across) I main a Thief, but I still took time to read the patch notes for most of the classes. I main a Thief (and have mained a Thief for 7+ years) so I basically understand the class in and out. With that said, here are my concerns (from the perspective of a Thief, although some aspects apply to other classes as well). 1) Backstab is getting it's Power Coefficient reduced from 2.4 to 1.8. Heartseeker is unchanged. Keep in mind that Heartseeker on targets below 25% health has a coefficient of 2.0, and a coefficient of 1.5 on targets below 50% health. That means that Heartseeker will do comparable and then more damage than Backstab, when this was originally never the case. This is going to put Thieves in a position where Heartseeker spam on targets below 50% may be optimal for damage. Why bother wasting the initiative to Stealth for a hard-hitting melee ability with a position requirement when you can just keep spamming a now even harder-hitting ability with a Leap on it? Do you really want to see Dagger Thieves spamming Heartseeker? Because I don't think anyone does. 2) Sneak Attack (the Pistol Stealth attack) has 5 shots on it that each had a coefficient of .36, (totaling 1.8) down to .30 (totaling 1.5). Based on my previous point, you can already tell where I am going with this. Keep in mind that it also stacks 5 bleeds and has no position requirement. 3) Larcenous Strike is also untouched (although flanking strike did get the 1/3rd treatment). In PvP, it has a Power Coefficient of ~1.36 due to a 15% damage nerf from a prior patch. Upon hitting a Boonless target, that damage is increased by 20%, effectively giving it a ~1.63 Power Coefficient. This means it is almost as strong as Backstab when it isn't stealing 2 boons. Because Backstab only got nerfed by 25%, people think it is a relative buff because it isn't getting the 1/3rd treatment other abilities are getting. However, they aren't taking into consideration other abilities in the same kit which will be rendered either redundant or a no-brainer. But I'm not even done... 4) Withdraw vs Channeled Vigor (for Daredevils, obviously). These two skills were, mathematically speaking, on par with eachother. Channeled Vigor had the advantage of very slightly increased healing per second (~15 healing per second more than Withdraw) while also giving the Daredevil an actual evade, allowing them to benefit from Weakening Strikes and their Grandmaster Dodge trait 1 more time. Withdraw, on the other hand, removed movement-impairing conditions (which even synergized with Unhindered Combatant in situations where you would get Exhausted) as well as removing Torment, in addition to being a very reliable dodge animation (people in higher skill levels use it often for mind-games). Basically, the two skills were competitive. After the patch, Channeled Vigor is getting a 50% increased cooldown with nothing in return. Withdraw is getting it's cooldown increased by ~39% (I'm rounding up), but is also getting its heal increased from 4778 to 5243 (~10% increase). Why would any Daredevil even look at Channeled Vigor after this patch? Especially when Hide in Shadows wasn't even touched. 5) The Shadow Arts Trait line wasn't even touched besides Shadow's Rejuvenation (the heal-over-time in stealth), which only got a ~26% hit, below the 33% benchmark. Meanwhile, traits like the Daredevil's Escapist's Fortitude got cut from 456 to 150, which is more than a 67% decrease. You may argue that because the trait deserves an extra nerf because it removes a condition, but then it would be just as easy to fire back that it is tied to dodging things proactively so it simply procs much less often. Meanwhile, Shadow's Rejuvenation heals every second in stealth. This means you are going to see more Thieves camp stealth for healing. 6) This is more of a pet peeve of mine, but take a look at Mug and Impactful Disruption. The patch notes say that Mug is going down from 1.5 to 0.75, and that Impactful Disruption is going from 2.0 to .75. Here is the problem: That makes no sense because Mug currently does roughly the same damage as Pulmonary Impact. Seriously, if you have a Daredevil, go read the tooltips then compare the damage. Use the skills if you still don't believe me. Both of the tooltips will be ~1180, with Mug being very slightly higher than PI. First use Fist Flurry into Palm Strike (it will apply PI twice, but that's okay, it's still the same skill). Now use Mug right after. Mug's damage will be slightly higher, mostly due to the added conditions and the Expose Armor trait, but still very close. So obviously, either Mug's Power Coefficient is wrong or PI's is wrong. Keep in mind, 1.5 value for Mug and 2.0 Value for PI are the values are listed on the Wiki, but here is my point... This means that the balance team is getting their information from the Wiki and not from playing and understanding the game. I have made it a habit of not trusting the Wiki at face value because on more than one occasion I provided information to correct it. The tooltip being off is also present with Dagger Storm. It says its coefficient is getting reduced from 1.0 to 0.4. 1.0 is it's PvE Coefficient. It's PvP Coefficient is closer to 0.6. This raises the question, is Mug getting reduced by 50%, PI by ~67%, and Dagger Storm by 60%? Or are their coefficients wrong so they aren't getting nerfed as bad as we think? We don't know because we weren't given that information to work with. I know all of the above examples only really include the Thief class, but I know the class in and out so it just made the most sense to me. Other mains have similar examples to talk about with their own classes as well. But moving on... 7) I've made this point before, but I will make it again: Phasing traits out by diminishing their value then increasing their cooldown to the point where they happen once or twice per match as opposed to once per fight is not balancing them. If their plan was to change that trait to something else (which I am completely in favor of depending on the change) then they should have had a plan to do that before, not after. In the meantime, those are traits that may as well be completely off of the table for the remainder of the season (this does not just apply to Thieves). I didn't like it when they did that to Mesmers with Chaotic Interruption and I really don't like it when they do it to multiple classes at once. At least with Chaotic Interruption they had to courtesy to say flat out they didn't know what to do with it at the time. 8) I will finish with this final point: Reducing all hard-CC abilities to 0 literally breaks the game and flat out makes no sense in some cases. Take, for example, Executioner's Scythe. I said it before, and I will say it again: what is the point of having scaling Power Coefficients based on the Target's Health if every single scale does no damage (0.01/0.015/0.02)? Look at the name of the ability Executioner's Scythe and think about what it is supposed to do... Once you thought of it, think about how that would impact your next decision: Would you rather this ability be high damage ability (maybe replace the stun with a soft-CC like Immobilize or something) and nerf the damage a little bit to fall in line with the other damage nerfs? Or have the damage removed entirely and make it a pure hard CC skill? I guarantee you every Reaper would say it would feel better for it to be an Execute to go with the name of Executioner's Scythe. I may main a Thief, but I have played Reaper, and nothing feels better on that class than the terror emanating from a low-health opponent when the bell begins tolling for them as the Reaper raises their massive Scythe, knowing that once it makes contact, they're done. It doesn't make sense for an ability like this to be an opener instead of an Execute. Sorry for the wall of text. I likely have more points I can add from different classes, but I have spent too much time on this post as it is. My ultimate point is that all of the above reasons (and more) tell me that the balance team literally doesn't realize what they are doing because they don't have the same level of experience playing the game, at least not enough to justify changing it to such an extent all at once. Given all of the reasons above, how am I supposed to be confident with this patch? I cannot stress this next thing enough: I am not trying to antagonize the balance team. I really like the concept of scaling everything down in PvP because I think it will make the game cater to more well-rounded builds and less so towards cheese builds (at least most of them). I want the balance team to succeed, but the upcoming patch has serious issues in it that need to be addressed before it goes live.

My take in hard CCs is to set up burst and land hits. It's why stun breaks are becoming more scarce as well. That's fine. I'm okay with that concept. Now please go ask Reapers how they feel about an execute becoming a Hard-CC ability and nothing else. It's very ill thought out and tells me that the balance team is blindly following the rule of "If it has hard cc, take away it's damage" instead of maybe thinking that it is the Hard-CC that needs to be removed from the ability, not the damage.

I'm in agreement with the general idea of scaling back damage and sustain, but I'm not confident with these changes at all. It seems to me that they made several changes completely haphazardly without understanding the ins and outs of the classes. Some abilities that have no business doing more damage than other abilities are all of a sudden leaning in that direction because some abilities got nerfed by that 33% benchmark while others were completely ignored. E.G. Backstab will be doing less damage than Heartseeker. Do you want to see Thieves camping stealth and spamming Heartseeker because the new Balance team didn't have the good sense to go after SA in a significant way and for some reason didn't touch Heartseeker (or overnerfed Backstab)? Because I don't think anyone does. Don't even get me started on the 0-damage Hard-CC change. Ask Reapers how they feel about the scaling 0.01/0.015/0.02 damage scaling on their Executioner's Scythe. If they rethink what abilities get scaled down and how they get scaled down, I'd be all for it.

People also aren't considering the internal balance aspects of each class. When I said that the new balance team is applying arbitrary changes that don't make sense, I meant that they are treating some abilities differently with no apparent criteria. They say that they are specifically going after abilities and traits that do more than one thing, but it is some of these skills that get ignored. I main a Thief, but I still took time to read the patch notes for most of the classes. I main a Thief (and have mained a Thief for 7+ years) so I basically understand the class in and out. With that said, here are my concerns (from the perspective of a Thief, although some aspects apply to other classes as well). 1) Backstab is getting it's Power Coefficient reduced from 2.4 to 1.8. Heartseeker is unchanged. Keep in mind that Heartseeker on targets below 25% health has a coefficient of 2.0, and a coefficient of 1.5 on targets below 50% health. That means that Heartseeker will do comparable and then more damage than Backstab, when this was originally never the case. This is going to put Thieves in a position where Heartseeker spam on targets below 50% may be optimal for damage. Why bother wasting the initiative to Stealth for a hard-hitting melee ability with a position requirement when you can just keep spamming a now even harder-hitting ability with a Leap on it? Do you really want to see Dagger Thieves spamming Heartseeker? Because I don't think anyone does. 2) Sneak Attack (the Pistol Stealth attack) has 5 shots on it that each had a coefficient of .36, (totaling 1.8) down to .30 (totaling 1.5). Based on my previous point, you can already tell where I am going with this. Keep in mind that it also stacks 5 bleeds and has no position requirement. 3) Larcenous Strike is also untouched (although flanking strike did get the 1/3rd treatment). In PvP, it has a Power Coefficient of ~1.36 due to a 15% damage nerf from a prior patch. Upon hitting a Boonless target, that damage is increased by 20%, effectively giving it a ~1.63 Power Coefficient. This means it is almost as strong as Backstab when it isn't stealing 2 boons. Because Backstab only got nerfed by 25%, people think it is a relative buff because it isn't getting the 1/3rd treatment other abilities are getting. However, they aren't taking into consideration other abilities in the same kit which will be rendered either redundant or a no-brainer. But I'm not even done... 4) Withdraw vs Channeled Vigor (for Daredevils, obviously). These two skills were, mathematically speaking, on par with eachother. Channeled Vigor had the advantage of very slightly increased healing per second (~15 healing per second more than Withdraw) while also giving the Daredevil an actual evade, allowing them to benefit from Weakening Strikes and their Grandmaster Dodge trait 1 more time. Withdraw, on the other hand, removed movement-impairing conditions (which even synergized with Unhindered Combatant in situations where you would get Exhausted) as well as removing Torment, in addition to being a very reliable dodge animation (people in higher skill levels use it often for mind-games). Basically, the two skills were competitive. After the patch, Channeled Vigor is getting a 50% increased cooldown with nothing in return. Withdraw is getting it's cooldown increased by ~39% (I'm rounding up), but is also getting its heal increased from 4778 to 5243 (~10% increase). Why would any Daredevil even look at Channeled Vigor after this patch? Especially when Hide in Shadows wasn't even touched. 5) The Shadow Arts Trait line wasn't even touched besides Shadow's Rejuvenation (the heal-over-time in stealth), which only got a ~26% hit, below the 33% benchmark. Meanwhile, traits like the Daredevil's Escapist's Fortitude got cut from 456 to 150, which is more than a 67% decrease. You may argue that because the trait also removes a condition, but then it would be just as easy to fire back that it is tied to dodging things proactively. Meanwhile, Shadow's Rejuvenation heals every second in stealth. This means you are going to see more Thieves camp stealth for healing. 6) This is more of a pet peeve of mine, but take a look at Mug and Impactful Disruption. The patch notes say that Mug is going down from 1.5 to 0.75, and that Impactful Disruption is going from 2.0 to .75. Here is the problem: That makes no sense because Mug currently does roughly the same damage as Pulmonary Impact. Seriously, if you have a Daredevil, go read the tooltips then compare the damage. Use the skills if you still don't believe me. Both of the tooltips will be ~1180, with Mug being very slightly higher than PI. First use Fist Flurry into Palm Strike (it will apply PI twice, but that's okay, it's still the same skill). Now use Mug right after. Mug's damage will be slightly higher, mostly due to the added conditions and the Expose Armor trait, but still very close. So obviously, either Mug's Power Coefficient is wrong or PI's is wrong. Keep in mind, 1.5 value for Mug and 2.0 Value for PI are the values are listed on the Wiki, but here is my point... This means that the balance team is getting their information from the Wiki and not from playing and understanding the game. I have made it a habit of not trusting the Wiki at face value because on more than one occasion I provided information to correct it. The tooltip being off is also present with Dagger Storm. It says its coefficient is getting reduced from 1.0 to 0.4. 1.0 is it's PvE Coefficient. It's PvP Coefficient is closer to 0.6. This raises the question, is Mug getting reduced by 50%, PI by ~67%, and Dagger Storm by 60%? Or are their coefficients wrong so they aren't getting nerfed as bad as we think? We don't know, because the balance team probably doesn't know. 7) I've made this point before, but I will make it again: Phasing traits out by diminishing their value then increasing their cooldown to the point where they happen once or twice per match as opposed to once per fight is not balancing them. If their plan was to change that trait to something else (which I am completely in favor of depending on the change) then they should have had a plan to do that before, not after. In the meantime, those are traits that may as well be completely off of the table for the remainder of the season (this does not just apply to Thieves). I didn't like it when they did that to Mesmers with Chaotic Interruption and I really don't like it when they do it to multiple classes at once. At least with Chaotic Interruption they had to courtesy to say flat out they didn't know what to do with it at the time. 8) I will finish with this final point: Reducing all hard-CC abilities to 0 literally breaks the game and flat out makes no sense in some cases. Take, for example, Executioner's Scythe. I said it before, and I will say it again: what is the point of having scaling Power Coefficients based on the Target's Health if every single scale does no damage (0.01/0.015/0.02)? Look at the name of the ability Executioner's Scythe and think about what it is supposed to do... Once you thought of it, think about how that would impact your next decision: Would you rather this ability be high damage ability (maybe replace the stun with a soft-CC like Immobilize or something) and nerf the damage a little bit to fall in line with the other damage nerfs? Or have the damage removed entirely and make it a pure hard CC skill? I guarantee you every Reaper would say it would feel better for it to be an Execute to go with the name of Executioner's Scythe. I may main a Thief, but I have played Reaper, and nothing feels better on that class than the terror emanating from a low-health opponent when the bell begins tolling for them as the Reaper raises their massive Scythe, knowing that once it makes contact, they're done. Hey I know, let's turn that ability into nothing but a 0-damage stun! Sorry for the wall of text. I likely have more points I can add, but I have spent too much time on this post as it is. My ultimate point is that all of the above reasons (and more) tell me that the balance team literally doesn't know what they are doing and have not played the game, at least not enough to justify changing it to such an extent all at once. Given all of the reasons above, how am I supposed to be confident with this patch? People are looking at everything being scaled down and assuming it is a good thing. The reality is that once you start looking at the details, it will start giving you the impression that something is off. I have my own prediction of what traits Thieves will roll after the patch drops, but I will save that for the Thief forums. EDITED because grammar is hard on a wall of text.

In regards to the 300 ICD passive traits, I am of the opinion that they did that completely intentionally to remove them from general and wide use so that when this update hits and they get more information on how they can actually move forward in reworking them it can be according to however this new paradigm plays out. So in the short term, yes, these traits are basically useless. However over the long term they will more than likely get reworked to fit better into whatever dynamic gets established. That isn't even remotely reassuring. Rendering several traits completely useless so they can "get more information" makes no sense. How are they going to get information from traits that are being avoided at all costs? If you're point is that those traits would upset the balance they are trying to achieve too much without nerfing them into actual uselessness, then that is something they should do after the fact, not before, because in the meantime that is one less trait in an entire row that the class has to work with. Completely reducing all hard-cc abilities to 0 as a general principle without shifting the damage elsewhere for said hard-cc is a massive oversight and ends up rendering some skills and weapons completely useless. What is even the point of having scaling health levels on Executioner's Scythe (.01/0.015/.02) if the coefficients are so low that it doesn't matter to begin with? They may as well make it 0.01 and leave it at that. Nevermind it seems they never took into account that the reason such a good CC was packed into such a hard-hitting ability was because the telegraph was so long that if someone got hit by it, they deserved to get hit by it. It just screams to me that the new balance team read all of the abilities on paper without actually playing the game. The PvP balance was already going in a good direction without needing to shake things up this much. They just needed to address a few cheese builds and mechanics and it would have been fine. Or they could have taken the "let's just reduce damage and healing numbers and go from there" approach. I would have had a lot more confidence if they did that. Of course no matter what changes they make, they can and likely will balancing things out eventually. How soon that is... Well, normally it takes them an entire expansion to figure it out.

My general opinion on this patch is that the balance team (who I'm hearing is new) broke out their hammers and started swinging, hoping they hit a few nails. I am in complete agreement that everything needs to be toned back somewhat, and this does that and then some. The problem is they are also making arbitrary changes that make no sense and will dramatically shift the balance of the game in ways I don't think they understand (the CC skill power-coefficient changes being one example). For example, what is going to be the point of an anti-nuke trait like the Lightning Reflexes trait (proc evasion trait for Acro thieves) if the cooldown is 300 seconds and everyone is hitting eachother with pool noodles anyway? The cooldown becomes absurd for how little damage the Thief is actually avoiding. It doesn't balance the trait. It just phases it out of existence and makes 1 less trait in that line for players to choose from. Some skills that seem overloaded are often not as powerful as they seem on paper, because the mechanics of the game justify how strong it is (such as a long telegraph time). And that is where I am ultimately going with this: the balance team is going by what seems good to them on paper, as if they don't play the game. I would imagine this is the case if they are indeed a new team. There is also one other problem which is entirely my opinion. I generally don't like massive skill splits between PvE and PvP. Some mild ones for the sake of balancing are okay for me, as long as the general expectation for how a skill works remains the same. Or, rather, as long as the "feel" of the skill remains the same between game modes. For example, it's fine if some damage numbers on any given class are tweaked if their PvE numbers are overbearing, as long as the skill still functions the same way. This patch makes a ton of skills across the board function very differently between game modes all at once. This does not make me very confident for what the balance is going to look like afterward.

Hey all, I'm not sure if I am the only one experiencing this, but every now and again, other players will have some of their clothing textures missing. Not all of their textures missing, but some articles will be, such as skirts/sashes, collars, shirts, pants, etc. There is no clear pattern that I can detect. This seems to happen quite frequently and I'm not sure what the cause is. I primarily see it at the end of sPvP matches. I tried turning on High-Res character textures, thinking that it being turned off might be the cause, but it didn't seem to help. I have a couple of screenshots now but I'm still gathering more that will make it more obvious to see what I'm talking about.

That's what I've been doing and it feels reallllllllly janky.

You're getting it :grin: I guess the theme I was going for wasn't so much all fire all of the time... I was more going for was a Thief spec meant to destabilize groups rather than single targets, but maintaining their element of subterfuge. I just figured fire should be involved. After all, the core Thief mechanics don't completely disappear with the selection of an Elite spec. I even thought of the idea of adding an AoE effect to Steal for the spec (not making every effect on Steal AoE, just adding another effect that is an AoE). EDIT:P.S. I love your quote: "I play a stupid build. I deserve to die. If I beat people on a stupid build, I deserve to get away with it."It made me chuckle.

In practice, I only Steal/Swipe every 25-30s regardless of cooldown. Only because the heals from Mug is more important than the stolen skills I get or the pathetic random chance of one of my utility skill will reset. To be honest, it's not worth taking. The power level of Improv is no longer at the GM level. It used to have a potential of resetting the heal, 3 utilities and elite skills (5 skills) if they are all of the same kind every 20s. Now, we only get one out of 3 utility skills. It's sucks so bad. It has lower highs and higher lows now. I actually see it going off more often now than I did before. They traded that potential to set off more than 1 skill (but probably not) with the guarantee that something on your utility bar is getting reset, but it may not always be something that is on cooldown at the time. I use my utility skills much more aggressively now with the expectation that something is coming back, not the hope that something is. But that's just me. You do you. So you're saying that you'll pick this garbage of a GM trait over Potent poison and Executioner. Yeah, you do you.Thanks for your pleasant input. I'll be sure to keep it in mind.

In practice, I only Steal/Swipe every 25-30s regardless of cooldown. Only because the heals from Mug is more important than the stolen skills I get or the pathetic random chance of one of my utility skill will reset. To be honest, it's not worth taking. The power level of Improv is no longer at the GM level. It used to have a potential of resetting the heal, 3 utilities and elite skills (5 skills) if they are all of the same kind every 20s. Now, we only get one out of 3 utility skills. It's sucks so bad. It has lower highs and higher lows now. I actually see it going off more often now than I did before. They traded that potential to set off more than 1 skill (but probably not) with the guarantee that something on your utility bar is getting reset, but it may not always be something that is on cooldown at the time. I use my utility skills much more aggressively now with the expectation that something is coming back, not the hope that something is. But that's just me. You do you.

Direct damage from AoEs would reveal the Thief. I don't really see that as a problem.

You're not wrong, but I do sometimes find myself waiting for it to come off cooldown if I'm in sPvP and I just rotated from somewhere where I used it recently and I'm ready to gank again. Maybe there are other niche situations like duels in custom matches where it could have been handy. But it's as you say: that's rarely the case. I guess a good way to put it is Daredevils probably shouldn't be using Swipe every time its off cooldown so it shouldn't be that much of a problem, but it would be nice to know that Improvisation works in the rare situations where they might have to. Not really a big deal. Just thought it seemed janky.

Hey guys, Bear with me because in all honesty, I'm never any good at this sort of thing. I just had this idea and I just wanted to share it. Right now, the Thief has both Daredevil and Deadeye, specializations that are at their best at melee or ranged respectively, with Deadeye intended to literally be a solution to the fact that the Thief had no long range weapons. As it stands, the Thief class is missing some aspects that I still think can be fulfilled with the next Elite spec. For example, the Thief has no instance of Burn damage anywhere in its kit. At the same time, while other Thief specializations have access to some area control, none of them really prioritize it as their core identity. I wanted to come up with a specialization that fulfilled both of these things while still retaining the Thief's overall theme and aesthetic... So ultimately I came up with this as the next possible Elite spec: The Saboteur. As the idea implies, going into this spec would allow the use of the offhand Torch. This would grant a total of 5 new weapon skills similar to a 2-handed weapon (Dual skills for the Pistol, Sword and Dagger, plus the 4 and 5 skills). The Torch's default skills would have moderate to high Initiative costs while offering a duration-based AoE, and potentially a Blast finisher. As for the Dual-skills, it would depend on the weapon pairing of course. Going into more detail, the theme to the Saboteur would be heavily focused around Burn damage, Explosions (Blast Finishers), and area control through strong AoEs . It could be either a condition or power-based specialization, where Power-based builds would be based around skills where Burning stacks amplify their own damage output in some way, and Condition-based builds would be focused on the Burn damage itself. It would have a variety of traits ranging from offensive, defensive or generally utilitarian. One example trait perhaps being the application of Burn damage when enemies are in range of a Blast finisher in any Fire combo field. Another example trait could also be where applying Burn damage would result in an enemy losing a Boon (as if it were literally setting it on fire). Seeing as how our next big enemy is the Ice Dragon, a Burn-based Thief spec seemed fitting. I obviously haven't come up with any specific skills or traits (at least not yet, we will see how this goes). This post was really to just get the idea out there. I have no doubt in my mind the next Elite spec is likely already in development, but I wanted to throw this out there anyway. The point is I want to set Jormy on fire.

Oh, I tested it in the PvP Lobby area.The only reason I mentioned it is because on the Wiki about the trait it actually said they brought down the cooldown from 15 seconds to 10 (July 23rd, 2015). They haven't touched it since. It's like they brought down the tooltip without actually touching the trait, which is just bizarre to me.

I wouldn't even really call it a buff... I guess in a way it would be a tiny one, but I don't think it would be that big. I see it more of a quality of life change since the problem with it (at least imho) is that it just feels really weird, but not necessarily really weak.

Hey Everyone, I noticed that the cooldown for Improvisation at the end of the Deadly Arts tree is 20 seconds. Obviously, this wasn't an issue before, but now that the cooldown on Swipe is 17 seconds when paired up with Sleight of Hand in Trickery, Improvisation just feels a bit janky. Assuming the Thief is using Swipe every time it is off cooldown, they are only benefitting from the trait every other Swipe instead of every Swipe... Unless they decide to wait another 3 seconds. The only reason I can imagine the Cooldown was put in place to begin with was that it happened to line up with Steal's lowest cooldown, and that it might have kept Deadeyes in line since their Deadeye's Mark can reset. I don't know what else to really say about it. It just feels really weird.

I'm gonna explain to you why Dash > Bound with one word when it comes to high level PvP ROTATIONS Bound makes you slow to rotate and it is one of the biggest reasons why its bad in pvp. Bringing a tempest into ranked or at just for a pistolwhip thief means your team will get farmed, a short shocking aura isnt gonna break a pw thief lol. Also dash makes you take -10% damage, without dash you also have swiftness issues and have to swap rune, using #2 from sword or dodging isnt gonna give enough swiftness for you to rotate. You mention people will know they have a windup, stationary etc etc. I have been streaming and i fight the same people in 1v1, the node isnt big enough to kite pistol whips constantly, then you mention stability. Why would you pistolwhip them with stab? You have swipe which is unblockable and traited its like 16-18sec CD not to mention you run Swindlers so you can essentially have "swipe" every what like 10 seconds? No stab in the world will be enough to hold a pw thief, eventually you run out and u cant do anything to the thief. I urge you to check the footage i linked and this is people who is considered top players both in ranked/tournaments. Not to mention you say "predictable" since it has a wind-up. You do know you can STOW the stun part and bait out CDs/dodges? But my guess is that it will get nerfed yes I highlighted things that stood out to me... I'm not sure how you are going to have Swiftness issues even with Bounding Dodger. Acrobatics gives 7 seconds of Swiftness after a dodge as a Minor Trait. Combine with Infiltrators Strike and a low cooldown Swipe (which 12 seconds if you trait for Swindler's, which of course people will do) alongside Thrill of the Crime, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't have Swiftness up 24/7 even without UC. But it's a moot point because as I said, it's a preference. If you prefer UC over BD, go for it. It just felt odd to me because I felt like I was gaining only a tiny amount of mobility and a little bit of durability at the cost of more damage, a leap finisher and more evasion from just never having Exhaustion. I'm also not sure what you keep making it out to be that this build is unstoppable. Just because top players run it doesn't make it unstoppable. No, Shocking Aura does not guarantee a win against a PW Thief, but it does force the Thief to either wait it out, swap weapons (meaning no PW for at least 9 seconds) or move on. Smart Auramancers can also easily get 8 seconds of Shocking Aura in a row which is a sizeable reprieve for any Healer or Damage Dealer. Yes, Thieves can steal Stability, but that player can also be smart and not use Stability until after they see the Swipe. No Stability lasts long enough for the short CD on Swipe to a factor anyways, and it that is 12 seconds of that Thief not being able to damage to that player if they know how to kite. Or you can bait the Swipe. Again, I cannot stress enough that these are not automatic wins against a PW Thief, but it does grant sizeable reprieves from the Thief being able to deal any kind of burst damage. That all being said, there is one big thing that needs to be addressed is how frequently a player can spam PW. Not necessarily because of the damage, but because of the evade uptime. That reduced cooldown Swipe means more instances of the Initiative gain from Trickery (2 Initiative every ~12 seconds). If you do run Upper Hand in Acro, that is another 2 Initiative every 10 seconds. PW costs 5 Initiative and the whole animation lasts ~1.5 seconds (the evade is ~1 second). They have gained 1 or 2 Initiative back before the animation has even ended. Combine that with the other previously stated sources of Initiative and it just feels like the Thief can spam PW willy-nilly just for the evade rather than using it for their burst. It is so efficient for what it does that it isn't just its burst skill; it's their everything skill. One thing I thought that ANet could do is just increase the cost of the skill from 5 to 6 Initiative and see where it goes from there. EDIT: Just removing some redundancies in what I said.

I've literally been using it occasionally in unranked as a joke ever since the most recent change to Swindler's Equilibrium (reduced the cooldown of the effect to 10 seconds and reduced the Steal recharge to 5 seconds), which was months ago. The only difference is that I used Bounding Dodger instead of Unhindered Combatant and grabbed Don't Stop in Acrobatics to compensate. Pairing UC with Acrobatics when Acrobatics already passively gives you Swiftness on Dodges and also has Don't Stop available just seemed like a waste to me. I felt like all I really got out of it was a slightly longer dodge at the cost of occasional Exhaustion. Also the Leap Finisher on Bounding Dodger felt like it synergized better with Black Powder as the build inherently lacked a Leap Finisher otherwise. Just my preference though. Anyway, I figure 1 of 2 things is going to happen if Thieves jump on this bandwagon: 1) People are either going to learn how to counter it or specifically play builds meant to counter it. Take, for example (and this is just 1 example), Auramancer Tempest. Try as a Thief using Pistol Whip against anyone on a team who has Shocking Aura and see how far you get. People will also eventually figure out that the Pistol Whip is their only really source of burst damage, which despite its obnoxious evade during the attack, has a wind-up time and is easily predictable and locks them in place for the duration (basically anyone with Stability can just walk away from it casually). 2) People will complain and cry out for nerfs just because of how many Thieves jumped to the build at once and because of how frustrating it is to fight it. I can't tell you how many players I've come across who have complained about the build being braindead because of "Pistol Whip spam". Knowing ANet, the likely outcome will eventually be 2. With ANet's track record, if/when it does get nerfed, they will likely overnerf it. I sincerely recommend to people that they start thinking of reasonable ways to make the build less spammy without going too overboard. Just my 2 cents.

Well it worked for a few days but now it is happening again. Same exact issue. I figured I would bump this thread rather than make a new one.

I like that they are giving Swipe a little love... Given, I would rather if they just buffed the range. I'm glad they are giving non-acro S/D builds some love. None of the changes are huge but I'm okay with that, I would rather they take it slow than overshoot it. Good stuff ANet. EDIT: It just occurred to me that will the 20 second cooldown on Improvisation also be looked at? Because that means if a Daredevil who got Sleight of Hand uses Swipe off of cooldown, it will only recharge an ability every other Swipe.

I queued up for a match and once a map was selected, it did not port me into the match. It's been over 30 minutes and so far I'm still staring at a screen that says that the Coliseum was selected. Logging in and out either on the original character or a different character makes no difference. I asked map chat and a bunch of people are unable to queue for sPvP at all.

Less poison burst but with a lower cooldown? I don't really dislike the change. I get what they are going for and it isn't like it is a massive change. I prefer it when ANet takes baby steps instead of overshooting. When ANet overshoots, everything gets shaken up in weird ways. That's how we get changes like Swipe.

Holosmiths need to be tuned, but they sure heck haven't been left alone. The issue most people see that I tend to concur with is that their kit is overloaded. I don't much care that they do a ton of damage, the problem I see is that they are not punished as harshley for getting outplayed as other classes. They quite a number of get out of jail free cards. Their Healing Turret is easily one of the best if not the best healing skill in the game, being a ~5k heal when casted/overloaded, then you have the water field which can be combo'd with the turret itself, nevermind the number of other combo finishers in their kit, and it is on a low 20 second cooldown. Then when they aren't in Photon Forge they get Heat Therapy for even more healing. Combine this with an an invuln, a ton of dodges from permanent Vigor, super-speed and a Stealth and it just gets obnoxious. I can't stress enough that I don't care if they can CC someone into the ground or their resistance to incoming CC. They need these things or their style doesn't work. My issue is with how easy it is for them to bounce back after getting outplayed. It's just frustrating to fight.

Honestly I would agree with if it weren't for the fact that several other classes are significantly more broken than either of those builds, Holo being an egregious example.