nopoet.2960

By the way, which one of you told the devs there wasn't enough access to endurance in the acro line? Also I can't figure out what elite the new hard to catch is supposed to enhance. Spinny knives already has evade. Stony poison actually stops attacks so most likely don't need evades when you use it. Hep Frenz! gets used in a safe space during the combat flow (this is actually hard to describe, does anyone know what I'm talking about?) I think this is a result of the casting time. DD elite, hard cc again. DE elite you're in stealth. Specter elite, again your targets are being controlled. Am I missing something?

What if they increased the healing for consume shadows to 25% and it stacked it to 4 instead of 5? That should help healing and maybe give some of the sustain back.

You know what would be neat in the acro line, some way to convert endurance to initiative. Basically trade defense for offense. Been playing for a while now. More often than not "Patch notes" just mean "Thief nerfs."

No you don't

When I was playing deadeye, I wished that Kneel itself was an attack. Kneel should drop a mine. Standing up should do the same.

I don't know, the damage numbers would have to be scary big if they got rid of the initiative system. I think the devs have worked in that we can spam abilities multiple times. Op be careful what you ask for.

I guess I'm thinking of them more as perks than abilities. The issue is that elite specs are just flat out more powerful than core classes. Since raw power is hard to balance maybe we just don't do that. The idea here is to give core classes something that would make people consider using them even after they have unlocked all the elite specs. Even if it's for some really specific use case.

A while back I suggested that instead of trade offs when using elite specs what if Core specs get some kind of core only ability. That way the elite trade offs wouldn't have to be so harsh because you are loosing something by going with an elite spec. The whole Oct 4 patch got me thinking about it again. Core only abilities would be like: Guardian - Healing a guardian at full health causes allies to be healed some percent of the overheal Revenant - Passive see invis/stealth & can see the value of targeted enemy's highest stat Warrior - Can benefit from two food buffs at the same time Engineer - Bonus damage to structures & bonus damage with environmental weapons to include trebuchets, cannons, etc. Ranger - All non veteran/elite/champ mob types that can be tamed are yellow unless you get too close Thief - 50% to 100% reduction to falling damage & drinking alcohol temporarily grants extra vitality Elementalist - Can levitate over water and hazardous terrain for a short time Mesmer - Can revive, gather, open chest etc. at range using a clone Necro - Has a significant chance (like 66% to 75%) to immediately recover from down state or immediately revive an ally (on an equally significant cool down)

For Specter, I wonder if the devs would consider adding 1 sec. of stealth Well of Bounty. I know, I know, pvp hates stealth but it's only 1 sec and it's on a support spec. Anyway it would give a lower skill level way to trigger Panaku's Ambition and give us more of an opportunity to make use of the changes in Shadow Arts line.

I think the shroud nerf was coming no matter what. I only take issue with how inelegant their solution was. One thing that makes the shadow shroud so powerful is that is doesn't naturally deteriorate quickly. I would have played with that number before simply taking an axe to size of the health pool. Such a drastic change make me wonder how they came up with those numbers in the first place.

If you are on DD then take a look at your utility skills. They all are CC. The elite is particularly strong if you can land it.

It does kind of make you wonder where they draw the line between crushing unique class abilities and letting them be but I guess no one builds squads around the thief's ability to provide venom.

You have to be more aggressive than other classes. Strike First/Strike Hard/No mercy Oh and like @Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said blind is your friend.

I'm confused by the change to venoms too. Seems like they could have scaled the duration based on the number of players it affects. Basically leave it alone if it is applied to 5 players but give it bonus duration the fewer players it is applied to.

With the changes to SA, one change that could really help support Specter is putting a 1 sec. stealth on Well of Bounty.

This has been my experience after messing around with it a little bit. None of the builds I tried really need traited signet of shadows. In the end, since I pulled my marauder gear out the bank, I've been reminded how beastly deadeye rifle and daredevil staff are.

Oh just a matter of getting a random inspiration but not enough play time to really give it a proper test. I'll grab some Nika's this weekend to see how it plays when I'm not wearing condition gear. Totally trying this out too.

So you stealth every time you get a kill which could net you a small heal, condition cleanse, super speed, blind (or spider venom), and initiative. I played around with this a little bit in PVE but I wasn't geared right for it. Repositioning after a kill was dreamy even if I didn't have enough time to land a stealth attack. I think it wants to be a core power dagger build with deadly art, crit strikes, and shadow arts. Has anyone else tried this yet?

I like this; quickness on combo finishers but then also include more ways to combo. Maybe turn shadowsteps to leaps with blast at the end?

See what we need is City of Heroes: New Kaineng edition. I don't know how many people played CoH but New Kaineng is perfect for that kind of game play. Everything is in place different gangs, min sec, lots of doors leading to unspecified spaces. Devs it could be glorious!

I wouldn't mind it if you had to be in a group to use it and only squad leaders could speak in multiple groups.

For sure! I'd expect my teammates to break stealth immediately. It's just something to trigger the on stealth traits. If you need something longer I'd bring refuge or get a mesmer or engi to do it.

Is this really a SA problem OP? Can't they just change the duration of stealth on Silent Scope for PVP/WvW? It make sense that that should look at it now that the SA changes have gone though.

I think they want people to slot blinding powder and shadow refuge to trigger Panakau's Ambition and the changes in SA but if you are running a support specter you really want to bring your wells. I was thinking that well of bounty should stealth the thief but now I think it really it should also just provide stealth to everyone. That would take it from being kind of bad to tying specter and SA in a real way. Also not sure if Shadstep siphon triggers merciful ambush but if not it really should. Never mind they changed merciful ambush.

Loss of stealth on steal is really the only problem I have with this patch but I'm starting to wonder if it was ever appropriate as an adept trait. Maybe it should have been a grandmaster this whole time. I would do a few things to give thieves more stealth options. 1. Hidden Thief - Get rid of weakness on stealth attack and instead on stealth attack cooldowns for all of your charging deception skills are reduced by 30% 2. Distracting Daggers (daredevil) - Should stealth on interrupt 3. Well of Bounty (Specter) - Should additionally stealth the user The goal here is to give range builds back a few new options since stealth on steal is gone (I don't think it's coming back). Bonus suggestion is to modify reveled so that it doesn't prevent stealth but uses its duration to reduce the duration of stealth. So if you have 2 seconds of reveled and pop blinding powder (3 sec stealth) stealth would be reduced to 1 second.