NorthernRedStar.3054

How nice burst damage is still a thing in this game - oh wait. Wonder why it's steadily become better and better.

Thief is playable, but far from tier 1 now. You're far better off w/ a Revenant and side trappers. The main issue is how clunky every build feels now. They've gutted every non-DE build's damage, mobility and utility in one shape or form. Essentially the "soulbeast treatment", but worse. People who still complain about thief need to git gut.

With the exact same mechanics? You actively trying to kill the game?

TL;DR, simplified: game's been too low risk / low reward since Feb. One can argue it was too high reward before that, but it certainly went overboard the other way after.

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. Here you have, in great detail, a post explaining why Anet should be careful about nerfing (and lowering) thief's initiative costs. Heavy-handed nerfs are essentially shaving off the current skill cap (and, alas, flexibility) of the class - exactly what happened to soulbeast. Wonder how many ranger players those changes made quit.

Friendly reminder: They balance the game around people who actually know how to play it. Not around people who are misusing their characters and mad because they don't get to just be plat+. Balancing around bad players is never a good thing. For all the good its done for the game, and the several stages of pvp when it was essentially dead, may be they should balance around the average player instead.If anything there is too little sustain in pvp. The explosive meta was the brainchild of a few streamers that no longer play the game and it nearly killed pvp. This is not DOTA or League of Legends, you should simply not be able to down someone with a few keystrokes. I don't see myself ever getting behind the idea of balancing a competitive pvp system around non-competitive players. Why not, balancing around the standard instead of the over performer is the norm in most aspects of life. Retirement age is set around the average age expectancy.The army zeroes its sight around the average infantry engagement distance, not extreme long shooting.Your minim passing grade is based on the minimum acceptable knowledge requirements to perform.Speed limits are set around average response times for the environment.Most sports court sizes are completely arbitrary and not based on physical performance.Most combat sports have arbitrary weight classes instead being all put into heavy weight. then we will have kitten like akali from league of legends where good player can beat any other player on the planet with 100% success rate, where if you see akali and know she is good you can not ever hope to win, but hey. average akali stumbles and dies so its balanced. who cares that good joe has 90% winrate in 1500 games, when average jonny has 50% winrate. its balanced that way So, your gripe is those good players end up with a much higher win rate than the players they're better than? Nah. Pass. Next? no, my gripe is that the character balanced around " average " end up with absolutely no counterplay. to the point where 2 best players in the world facing eachother will know for sure that the one piloting akali will always win since she is so overtuned for people that know how to use it. This is why she was sitting at 48% winrate for plebeians where at pro play actually competent players could 1v2/1v3 other competent players. THIS is my gripe, im fine with good player smacking bad players, its as it should be.but when a good player grabs OP class/build/prof and other good player doesnt stand a chance there is a problemSeems like a misunderstanding to me. You both agree on the very same thing. I do, too. Balancing around the average joes is the best way to anger your veteran players, and make them consider leaving the game for good. As a side note, that's why I think challenge motes are an effective approach to PvE - it doesn't underline either party. PvP's a different beast, though.

This isn't Open World -forum section, though.

To keep fighting instead of retreating/dying obviously ^^ That is the whole point! You shouldn't be able to sustain a fight indefinitely that's what has killed the game from the start of season one in sPVPWhen I was playing LoL we had 1:20 games (where 1 is a hour, not a minute as you likely thought) until the Surrender at 20 infestation hit. If you cannot fight for a hour without break then pardon me, you are a weakling.1:20 games are always the result on complete player incompetence. Games at high(er) level never lasted anywhere near that long.

As for the actual question, yes, sword main is passable for open world content (albeit clearly inferior to dd staff). HoT isn't as much about your build as it is knowing general mechanics of the game. Break breakbars, dodge indicated attacks, and you're dandy most of the expansion.

Let's be honest here, Teapot missed the mark here as to 1) why thief would still get picked in ATs, 2) why people are angry at these nerfs.

I have always liked pets (for the flavor of variety and the idea of dual-tag-team) and sniper gameplay. Ranger was the natural extension after my like for the grew in GW1. Thief is an evolution of assassin, also one of my favorite professions from GW1. I knew I wanted something different, and thief's gameplay is - particularly in pvp - unlike any other class. It looks and feels badass.

And thief as a class was balanced around having that skill since launch. That means many nerfs to make sure thief is not roaming the map with too much firepower in exchange for that mobility. What do you plan on giving back to thief since they took away the primary reason for many balance changes? Let me guess, nothing? Umm give nothing back? It's a well deserved nerf with no gain like how things with other classes are nerfed with no gain. They could have cut the range in half but but instead they went the the route of making it a elite weapon skill with the cost. Good second idea. Or you could ignore what I wrote. Just another thief QQer mindlessly celebrating lol but what could I expect from a guy with a reaper avatar. Players escaping you are basically breaking the game, they're supposed to stand in my melee/AoE kitten!! /s Here it is so you can read it again (and by again, I mean the first time): Awe poor raging thief main who uses the most broken speedy character in a pvp mode where speed means more then skill. Lmao. Least with my homemade (like all my builds since guild wars 1) reaper mm build got me to top 100 in both 2v2 seasons. I'm not a copy paste joke like some.. lol2v2, the game mode which, on NA, has like 300 ppl playing it? Must be a proud achievement. Homebrew build bragging rights are, as every person who's ever researched the term 'meta', about as empty as it gets. You're making a good case of how Anet listens to nonsense outcries, though.

its not ruined it, people just are mad that they cant abuse the mobility of thief as hard now... escaping iwth triple shortbow 5 to 2.7k range away was a bit dumb so thankfully its only 1.8k now :) I think people are missing something in your calculations. Before, you could use (full initiative w/ Trickery) IA x2, then wait a moment for regen to let you use it a third time. Now, you use IA once, for 900 range. Then you need to wait for several seconds to use it again. Then you can use it a second time for 1800 total distance. But, because the "wait for more initiative" comes at 900 range and not 1800 range, the thief is a lot more vulnerable than before. Plenty of opponents can gap close that 900 distance or use the wait time to burst them from range (900 is not very far range wise and the skill comes with likely technical failures so the 900 is not always the full 900). Now, I still think SB could be somewhat useful for mobility due to 1) verticality of teleports, 2) bonus travel distance over time (with no enemies lol), 3) other utility through CG and CB. Those are valuable in their own right. But, I do think it's important for people to acknowledge that increasing the skill from 6-8 initiative is a 33% cost increase on a skill that already is more than half of base initiative (which is shared by all weapon skills as a resource). That cost increase is actually significant (because 2 initiative lost is adding an effective 2 second cool down to all skills) and cuts into what kind of defensive kiting potential the weapon had (as well as offensive potential) if the thief uses IA even once. The costs of other skills on the weapon should be adjusted downward (otherwise it becomes a utility weapon that can only do one thing at a time) or the costs of IA should scale (by flip skill or some other design). As a few people have noted, the gameplay this pushes thief towards may not be appreciated by the community. People fail to realize this, coupled with SoA. isn't a mere travel distance / time nerf. It's also a massive repositioning/in-fight flexibility nerf. You'll have a much harder time outmaneuvering classes with similar blinks: mesmers, revenants and even guardians. On a fundamental level, this is similar to soulbeast no-swap nerf: it limits the plays and skill cap of the class.

its not ruined it, people just are mad that they cant abuse the mobility of thief as hard now... escaping iwth triple shortbow 5 to 2.7k range away was a bit dumb so thankfully its only 1.8k now :) Insert nerf dated XX/YY --> "People are just mad they can't abuse mechanic / skill / trait T right now!" That is such a convincing argument.

funny joke buddy, dagger / pistol is only playable thief build . And imagine talk about class balance when you just watch video of random clown who play random game @Styros.8931 said: funny joke buddy, dagger / pistol is only playable thief build . And imagine talk about class balance when you just watch video of random clown who play random game Everyone repeat after me, "4K BACKSTABS. WOW....!!!"

Yeah, 'cept now when the guy other guy blinks after you (assuming they have a port / blink), you're dead 9 out of 10 times. No initiative left. They are literally hurting thief's gameplay patterns and identity as a swift move-around unit. Some of those cool maneuvers you could perform before? Too bad, now you can't. Besides that, #5 can obviously be spammed in certain situations. I'd argue ranger's longbow is starting to look better as far as utility goes.

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.

Dude all you do is complain about Thief on the forums while using the Thief icon. What Thief hurt you? Jfc. Steal: take all the opposing player's dignity and toss it right into the wind.

There are pugs that do it once a week, usually. Weekend's your best bet if you don't want to solo it.

A lot of people are of the mindset that thief should stick in place and take a punch like a heavy armor class tank. Doesn't really do good for their image, though.

It would be nice if they could move that blind then to something less expensive. Or they could decrees the cost of other skills to let us do more in between trying to not get exploded in seconds. I got told thief should 'stick and die, or win'. I feel like these changes are close to being made with that 'idea' in mind. The devs clearly took to heart when people complained about the essence of thief's playstyle: active evasion tools. Because let's be honest; pretty much every defensive skill and trait in thief's arsenal is proactive and not a passive. And the sad thing is that will only force someone like me to start playing the way they don't like. No way I'm going broke from Initiative cost and having my resources tampered with while trying to hang around and take a hit, I'd put everything into a nasty stealth bomb them bug out for the most egregious resetsPrecisely what I'm worried for. This'll end up having the effect opposite of intended. Mark my words, though, more nerfs are coming. At this rate, Infiltrator's Strike and Return are next on the line. Then Withdraw and Roll for Initiative. Assassin's Signet, for sure - that one I'm almost 100% positive on.

Consider our current balance head is an elementalist main, it doesn't particularly surprise me anymore to see thief get the shaft patch after patch.

It would be nice if they could move that blind then to something less expensive. Or they could decrees the cost of other skills to let us do more in between trying to not get exploded in seconds. I got told thief should 'stick and die, or win'. I feel like these changes are close to being made with that 'idea' in mind. The devs clearly took to heart when people complained about the essence of thief's playstyle: active evasion tools. Because let's be honest; pretty much every defensive skill and trait in thief's arsenal is proactive and not a passive.

This is at the essence of my worries: being pigeonholed into some sub-par cheese burst build where I always have to run both Trickery and Shadow Arts to remain somewhat relevant.