UNOwen.7132

@Tayga.3192 said: The reason Distracting Daggers isnt used is because the only build that cares for interrupts already has headshot, and you dont need any more interrupts. Its a good skill, just unfortunately completely redundant. Anyway, the point is that since MoD is a long daze you can use multiple times, that can also function as a full lockdown, it badly needs a cast and travel time, even if a short one. So that at the bare minimum, you cant use it while using another skill, and so its at least theoretically possible to avoid.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else? All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down). How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill. Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too. Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already). @op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless. So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate very obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth. Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be the thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that isnt instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum. First of all Headshot is instant it just has a little animation doesn't rly make it easier to avoid it is just there so the thief cannot combine other skills with it, Mesmer and Eles have way more instant skills because both classes are designed way more than thief to combo skills for bigger effects, thief has other strengths, that is why i say comparing skills over different classes is not always fitting and you have to put a completely different class mechanic and completely different class strengths in account. Headshot is also not aoe like Mesmers interupt tool, that is because Thief is for several reasons (at least on dp) way more orientated on single dmg burst. As said some basic balance from Anet still makes sense and that Thief never got an aoe interupt build comparable with Mesmer has class specific reasons because combined with other strengths Thief has it would be totally op. For Death Judgement you are right i switched it with something else in my mind but i can't check and don#t remember with what atm. Still this is a pure dmg skill it hits very high and yes for that ofc should have a cast time and should be able to dodge because as i already mentioned high instant dmg skills like Mantra of Pain or the Fresh Air ele mechanic should not exist either. Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own and even with Powerblock the dmg is laughable what is good. Also the most important Part of Powerblock doesn't work on simple autoattacks what is one of the biggest resons it is a trait/ skill combination with high skill ceiling, compared with Mantra+Lost Time what has no skillneed at all. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense. The only problem with Death Judgement would be that the Thief can just restealth more often than you can dodge until he hits you out of defense. I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits. None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else? All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down). How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill. Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too. Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already). @op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless. "None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet" - Yeah yeah yeah, that's why every CC in the game interrupts skills right? Because they weren't designed to interrupt skills. Very logical assessment you have there. When you get down to what CCs are in Guild Wars 2, they are all the same thing, in slightly different forms. These are effects that stop an opponent's actions. Some of them are slower than others or create a knockdown for 2s as opposed to a 1s daze. But one thing is kitten certain, they all interrupt skills & actions. Ultimately you could rate every CC in the game from 1 to 10 where 1 was an underpowered CC that wasn't convenient to use that also had small results, vs. 10 being a very convenient to use CC that had strong results. Clearly MOD would be amongst the two or three 10 rated CCs in the game. What I had pointed out about MOD is that it is the only instant cast CC in the game and an ammo skill at that, which can be used simultaneously during other big burst skills and chained into whatever other animations the Mesmer chooses. It can even be used defensively while knocked down on the %^&*ing ground. I don't know where you're trying to go with your defense? I think it is, but it's horsepucky. I interrupt key targeted skills just fine with Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Path of Scars, Gazelle F2 Charge, and Taunts from Protect Me. I'm sure other experienced players of other classes would tell you the same thing. We all use our CCs to interrupt key skills. That's what CCs do. MOD is clearly the most versatile & often most powerful CC skill in the game. It is actually so good that is makes skills like Signet of Humility, Basilisk Venom, Dragon's Maw, Headbutt, Tornado, Chilled To The Bone, Entangle, look bad. And those are supposed to be elite CC skills. What MOD is, is a skill that allows the Mesmer to essentially upgrade any of its other attacks or actions, into a CC effect. The tactful wealth in this, is outstanding. Could you imagine if Berserker Rifle Warriors had some kind of 2 ammo instant cast instant strike no animation daze to use with Killshot or Eviscerate? Everyone would throw a kitten fit over it. And don't tell me that's any different than shattering on someone for a 1HKO because it isn't. I would just like to point out that I didn't claim MOD was OP, but I did want to stress how powerful that skill is, and that Mesmer mains need to stop acting like this skill is completely innocent within the formulae that often creates completely busted Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage builds, because it isn't. I didn't say MOD needs any nerfing! In fact I strictly pointed out that I believe it is ok on all power builds and that it is specifically IH and clone spam damage being too high, that makes MOD feel busted.You seem to have a misunderstanding between "your idea of what a lock-down is" and what other people mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down." I notice that you have formed your own definition of quite exactly what a lock-down is and what skills are or aren't lock-downs. I notice that your definition of what lock-downs are, conveniently suits your Mirage defense, because apparently Condi Mirage CI was somehow not locking anyone down by your definitions, lol. So what other mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down" is simply that there is so much hard & soft CC effects being thrown at them, that it transcends the counter play offered by their build structure's amount of cleanse/stunbreak and CD times provided. When they say they are being "locked-down" it means exactly what it sounds like, they are locked down and there is no way out of the situation. Real simple, easy to understand."How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay?" - Even unblockable Death's Judgement has a big red line that goes to you, a big loud noise that happens, and it is a single animation, so no other surprises are happening simultaneously during the strike. There is no possibility that the DE is going to chain a lock-down at the same time or possibly dodge while attacking you at the same time. Even the time in between reveals and DJ was telegraphed as all hell and easy to perceive. The DE also had to play it safe and stay away from the target or risk immediate death. This means the DE couldn't be aggressive and chase a target into heavy anti-LOS areas because (A) DJ is a projectile so this is no good, and (B) all it takes is 1 counter CC followed up with a good single strike and the DE is down. Mirage on the other hand, can get aggressive and stay on a target. In fact, targets are more vulnerable to the CI Mirage's gimmick when they are retreating like that instead of being aggressive. That's what made CI Condi Mirage so strong, is that it forced people into this time limit so to say, to have to be very aggressive with it for any kill potential, because trying to play defensively and roll around vs. 100% uptime of heavy clone attrition damage, just results in death or node lose each and every time. Point being: even old unblockable DJ DEs saw little to no representation 1600+ in NA outside of Acani and Clown. Why? Because at higher tiers, it was too easy to counter play DJ and DEs in general. <- That is actually true. And even the ONE gimmick they had that sort of replicated MOD+CI, wasn't quite strong enough. A single Withdraw or Lightning Reflex or a Judge's Intervention, ect ect, would get you out of the short KD and Immob and the DE wouldn't have any other CC effects to follow up. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to use the lower damage effects. They had to lay on that damage output hard or opponents would get all over them and in that case they died immediately."Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too." - I see what you mean here, but you've got to understand that this is a matter of opinion. In every conversation you show up to about MOD, you seem to immediately assume that every player outside of yourself, is completely ignorant and doesn't understand the difference between MOD and CI and how they work together. The thing is, is that some people are voicing their opinions on that they don't care about CI effects, they find the instant casting Dazing to be wat annoys them the most, and these people are completely aware of how it all works. Maybe this is because they run a Guardian and have plenty of cleanse but not as much stability or stunbreaks. Then you have others who claim CI is the problem and they don't care so much about the daze as much as they do the Immob. Maybe this is because they run a build with plenty of stab/stunbreaks, that lacks a bit of cleanse which often results in their deaths happening due to a 3s Immob. It's all just opinions. None of them are necessary right or wrong, but some of them may be more informed than others. This doesn't mean that everyone posting is a completely ignorant fool. My own opinion is that the problem is neither. MOD is fine on all power based builds. MOD+CI is fine even on Mesmer/Chrono Condi. MOD+CI on Mirage Condi however, is busted AF. What's the difference? Mirage Cloak mechanics and Infinite Horizon allowing high ambush damage clone spam 100% of the time. But MOD is the strongest and most convenient & easy to use CC in the game, which is fine in my opinion, Mesmers need it. But Mesmers should Acknowledge how powerful MOD is, and stop acting like it somehow exists outside of the formulae that keeps providing us Saiyan like Mirage builds. I don't believe that MOD needs any nerfing or alteration. But Mesmer mains need to understand why other players are creating debates about MOD."To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case." - I can agree with that. But you should try relaxing man. You don't have to go for the throat each and every time you create a response. Sry when you feel offended from me just arguing, without disrespect without flame or insult, but when you get offended by me just using gameknowledge and logic and telling you why it is wrong what you say, then i don't know how to talk to you. Already your first point is completely unlogic and i didn't even read the others anymore.There are clearly different kind of cc in this game with clearly different goals/ purposes. And that is also the reason why their cast times are differently designed. Ofc every cc can interrupt skills but most cc skills are not designed for that purpose. A lock down is 95% offensive with the main goal to give the player time to hit follow up dmg skills, they have a cast time because they have very strong cc effects completely locking down the target and their main purpose is not to interrupt a 0,75 sec cast because they have the same or even higher casttime themself, so its very logic that you only can precast on assuptions or just lucky interrupt somethign with a casttime around 1 sec and less but sure not skillful interrupt a short cast skill on purpose. They can interrupt very long cast skills on purpose like a Mantra charge or an ele dagger earth skill 5. Yes that is intended but that doesn't turn it into an interrupt tool. Its a lock down and not an interrupt tool. Then there is cc with barely any effect, the effect itself is purely defensive, only to avoid someone to make dmg on you by avoiding skilluse for a short time or by interrupting skills. That is daze and that can be instant because it is not a killer by itself as long as not combined with op interrupt traits like CI. It is so insanely annoying to talk to you because you are so far away from gameknowledge and logic with your arguments that i am more or less shocked. It makes no sense to write and read wall of text with you, it rly doesn't. It almost feels like you just don't want to admit, no matter what and i just remember why i already was at the point to not talk to you anymore. Becasue you even deny the basic mechanics of the game and basic logic you can't rly disagree to. I don#t know where to start with you so i once again stop trying. Its like i say rain is wet and you say no rain cannot be wet when i stay dry when i have an umbrella... i get brain lags from your "logic", i rly do sry :( That is not a flame i will just explain why i stop talking to you at this point.Headshot isnt instant. It has a cast time, it has a travel time. Is it easy to avoid? Not exactly, no. But unlike MoD, its totally possible. Human reaction is about .2 seconds on average, Headshot gives you .3 seconds before you get hit. MoD gives you 0. Oh and no, Mesmer and Ele dont have more instant skills because theyre supposed to be more about combos than thief, who has an instant skill as their bloody profession mechanic. No, they dont even have more. The thing is, MoD was made instant because all mantras are instant. Its kind of the mantra gimmick. The problem is that in the case of MoD, it shouldnt be. It should have a cast and travel time like nearly every relatively spammable interrupt. Doubly so given that it dazes for a second longer than those other skills. Also, thief isnt "more oriented on single damage burst", Mesmer outbursts thief by a mile. Thief is oriented around standing on points and +1ing. Its bad at fighting, so it doesnt get good fighting tools like Mesmer. But I digress Yeah, no. If anything, Deaths Judgement shows that you shouldnt make a weaponset have all of its damage in one highly telegraphed skill. Rifle Deadeye is currently useless because unless youre afk or lagging hard, or youre fighting outnumbered, you wont ever get hit by Deaths Judgment. Its just bad. Comically bad even. Those ... arent counters. Those are conditions in which the Mesmer cant use MoD in the first place, but theyre also situations where the Mesmer has no reason to use it in the first place. They also all apply to Deaths Judgment, and every single skill in the game, so it still has less counterplay than everything else. Your point was ... not there, I guess? And sure, you need to avoid the interrupt. Which you cant. So it will immobilize you. So it will in fact kill you because you cant move.

Headshot is more spammable than MoD, w/o preparing time, w/o wasting an utility slot. PS: I used to play d/p dd better than s/d core before swipe If you were to spam Headshot, it has dedicated animation frames. This means that although you were laying down a chain of CCs, you wouldn't be dealing any damage while doing it. IF a Thief could somehow use Headshot as an instant cast like MOD, anytime it wanted to, while going in for offense with high damage skills, we'd have a problem on our hands. The Thief could rely on its boon removal vs stability, and fear no counterstrikes going in with chainable daze effects that happen simultaneously as it is attacking an opponent, because it would just routinely interrupt w/e the opponent was trying to do. No CC in the game is comparable to MOD, in terms of sheer versatility and what it is enabling Mesmers to do. I would say that all power Mesmer builds need it. Without it, they're too weak. Mes/Chrono are fine with even with condi. But Condi Mirage makes it look busted due to clone ambush spam. I don't think it needs nerfing or altering. But people need to stop trying to downplay the raw sheer strength behind MOD. The skill is strong as all hell and it's something Arenanet needs to be paying attention to while forming new skill patches and/or new specializations around it.Steal is a 1200 range instant interrupt (that also strips stab before daze)"I would say that all power builds need mantra" is just plainly false, the power mes with the by far best tournament results, zeromis, gets by fine with SoM and SoI for example. Power block literally does 800-1000 dmg on marauder, mantra is not at all mandatory.Like somebody said above, the design purpose of mantra of distraction is disruption, interrupting the enemy action. It harkens back to gw1 mesmer in my mind. That's why an appropriate nerf (if one is needed) might be to lower daze duration to 0.25-1 second. This cannot be compared to skills that are designed with the purpose of setting up followup attacks, like warrior hammer burst etc. That's how game design works, you have a purpose in mind and then balance to achive that purpose. To OP, I think CI is pretty stupid, has been since the start, but you are however correct that it is possible to play around it. In duels vs mesmers with mantra, you can fake cast a skill and quickly stow weapon to bait it out. To aid counterplay vs mantra, I have two thoughts:Disallow all interrupt traits (on all classes) to trigger on interrupting autoattacks.Add an indication of the mantra charges on the status bar (like we had before). I would personally move the "boons" row to a separate row below the "effects and skill indications" row.Steal is also (rightfully) considered one of the by far best tools the class has, to the point where halving the range of it was enough to send D/P thief to unviability. And even then, the daze is lower, you can only use it once every 20 seconds (2 every 30 if youre on Acrobatics), and you have to port to the enemy so you cant just daze someone from afar while fighting someone else. Oh and no, you cant counterplay it, because its instant. You basically either have to be able to time it so that you stow cancel your skill on the very second the mesmer is pressing MoD (which isnt humanly possible), or the mesmer has to have a bad reaction time to use the mantra when you already cancelled your skill (which a good mesmer simply wont). I also disagree on making interrupt traits not work on autoattacks. D/P thief is bad enough as it is, you dont need to eviscerate it further just because Mesmer is stupid.

Of course a utility skill is stronger than a weapon skill. It wastes a slot so it better be good or it would be unusable. A weapon skill can be bad/mediocre but it can be carried by other skills in the same weapon (renegade shortbow, warrior gs etc). By the way I always said that nefing portal will make mesmer stronger because they will actually use 3 utilities now. Except thats precisely the problem. The way thief works, headshot cannot be carried by other skills in the same weapon, because it locks them out. MoD still is better. Or hell, if we want utility skills, look no further than Distracting Daggers, Daredevils very own equivalent. Why its got shorter range, much lower daze, and still has a travel time? Would you look at that.

Headshot is more spammable than MoD, w/o preparing time, w/o wasting an utility slot. PS: I used to play d/p dd better than s/d core before swipe "Wasting" a utility slot, yeah right. Lets of course also ignore that MoD doesnt take up your entire profession-specific resource, meaning you can only use it, and nothing else, while MoD just lets you use the entirety of the rest of your kit for damage. Because otherwise wed have to concede that MoD is in fact faaaar better than Headshot is.

Honestly, why not? Course, the question becomes whether or not thief gets the stats of 2 weapons even when he is holding one, and whether or not the thief gets 4 and 5 skills or just the non-dual-weild 3d skill. Maybe it could be a trait somewhere?

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else? All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down). How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill. Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too. Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already). @op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless. So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate very obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth. Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be the thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that isnt instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

I mean even the unblockable deaths judgment had a ton of counterplay on account of being the most telegraphed skill in the game (Bright Orange line and a loud and obnoxious sound with enough time to just dodge). A better comparision would be backstab.

Condi has the same thing. There are key skills you need to avoid. Thing is people don't know what they are for, what I would say, are three key reasons. 1) the meta is mostly power builds. You encounter something more you know what to avoid. 2) power builds give instant feedback. "I got hit by Eviscerate I went from full to half. I should avoid this skill next time" comprised to "I've been eating attacks for a while now an nothing is....wait...no...nonono NOOOOO WHAT?!" And for me the most important 3) the death breakdown only shows the condition that did the damage not the skill that applied it. You know you died to burning but not from what skill. Could be 60% if the burning that killed you came from one skill or even two players. You will never know. Eh, most of them really dont. In the case of condi thief, their key hits are every single one, since most of their damage comes from traits and venoms, and well, those work on all traits and dodging an attack with those active doesnt do anything. In the case of Condi Mirage, its the clones ambush attacks which there are countless of and which the Mirage will keep spamming out. Necro has a bunch of instant boon corruption which you cant dodge either, and that puts a ton of condis on you as well. Even fringe builds like condi soulbeast have a similiar problem. Oh and Burn Guard, whose burn applications are instant, unblockable, or both.

I dont think Condi damage is broken, but I think its design is suboptimal. Either you have enough condi removal and they dont do a whole lot, or you dont and they kill you. The problem is that because of condi removal the damage is overtuned compared to power builds, while also often being a lot harder to actually avoid. With power builds, you know what their big hits are that you need to stop (stuff like Arc Divider on Warrior or Deaths Judgement on Deadeye). With Condi, often all of their hits are big hits, and if you dodge it the next one just applies the condis instead.

Eh, thats legitimately the least important part of D/P, because you basically dont ever stealth in-combat, and backstab is not used at all unless youre playing Deadeye (mainly because its bad if youre not playing Deadeye).

If other games can do it I don’t see why we can’t do it in GW2, in WOW rouge and Druid and go invis but that doesn’t stop blizzard from having arena PvP or changing it into capture points kitten. So your argument is invalid.Plus with PvP specific stats it’s not like they can be full bunker anyways so not sure what you’re worry about. If that’s your major concern they can easily remove bunker stats and that will solve the issue lol. But seriously if anyone here has ever played PvP in GW1 would know how bad GW2 PvP is in comparison. Because we tried it. Courtyard, a team deathmatch map you can still get in unranked I believe. Guess what happened? Bunker builds, permastealth thieves, and so on. As for WoW, it has precisely the bunker build nonsense I talk about. 3v3 in that game is a drag. And no, just removing bunker stats isnt wise. While that build is a problem in 3v3, it isnt in capture points. In fact, its quite neccessary in capture points.

There are a ton of reasons why that would be a problem. Among the fact that you cant balance both gamemodes, Deathmatch has this tendency to incentivize staying alive moreso than killing an enemy. You will see a ton of bunker builds, permastealth thieves and other such builds that try to kill one guy, then just run out the timer, because unfortunately thats the most effective strategy.

Stealth is not a class mechanic, it is an EFFECT. And it is a poorly balanced one at that. It should never have a place in any type of competitive game mode. Also in regards to your second point, some invuln/damage reduction skills still leave you vulnerable to cc's and conditions and there are plenty of unblockable skills. Stealth is a class mechanic as when im playing warr im unable to gain stealth myself,when i play thief i can where when im on warr the mark doesnt hurt me in the slighest bit and when im on thief it does and it can be a factor of me dying,or simply needing to bail way off for 30 seconds and stay out of that mark range. I dont even understand how you can say its not a class mechanic,a class mechanic meaning not every classs having acces to that particular mechanic like a thief doesnt have acces to a warri's endure pain. Many things are badly implemented. Doesnt take away the fact that it does shut down one aspect of a spec which is unfair since it can already be countered in normal ways,not knowing how to doesnt mean this should still be a factor. You keep incorrectly equating Stealth as a class mechanic with the Thief Profession. Any class can enter stealth which again is an EFFECT, and that distinction is important to keep in mind. Marked and other counters to stealth are not anti-thief measures. Except, of course, they are. Lets be real here, thief is the only class that (somewhat) regularly enters stealth. Its also one of the only 2 classes that can reliably stealth long enough for marked to even work, and Scrapper, the other one, does not use that gyro in question much). Mesmer can spam stealth too, but that is irrelevant. It is inaccurate to equate the two. Initiative is the class mechanic for Thieves, it is exclusive to them. Stealth is not exclusive to any class, and therefore there must be counters. If Anet added counters to initiative, that would obviously be a direct nerf to Thieves. The real issue here is the imbalance of stealth and how it is shared and spammed, I think most would at least agree on that. Eh, hardly. There is more to class mechanics than just whats exclusive. In fact, I would put class mechanics as primary, and secondary. Primary are the ones only they have access to. Like Initiative, like shatters, so on and so forth. Secondary is something other classes have, but only one class specializes in and as a result is the primary and dominant user of them. Blocks for warrior, Stealth for Thieves, so on and so forth. Stealth isnt distributed evenly because tis not supposed to. And a nerf to stealth is primarily a thief nerf. If strange builds from other classes that rely on long stealth get hit ,thats just collateral. And eh, there are only 2 problems with stealth. Its too good outside of fighting (permastealth for oneshots before an enemy can react), but utterly awful when fighting (there is a reason rifle Deadeye is the only build that uses stealth attacks at all, and even that one only does because Deaths Judgement is literally the only skill that does any amount of damage).

Stealth is not a class mechanic, it is an EFFECT. And it is a poorly balanced one at that. It should never have a place in any type of competitive game mode. Also in regards to your second point, some invuln/damage reduction skills still leave you vulnerable to cc's and conditions and there are plenty of unblockable skills. Stealth is a class mechanic as when im playing warr im unable to gain stealth myself,when i play thief i can where when im on warr the mark doesnt hurt me in the slighest bit and when im on thief it does and it can be a factor of me dying,or simply needing to bail way off for 30 seconds and stay out of that mark range. I dont even understand how you can say its not a class mechanic,a class mechanic meaning not every classs having acces to that particular mechanic like a thief doesnt have acces to a warri's endure pain. Many things are badly implemented. Doesnt take away the fact that it does shut down one aspect of a spec which is unfair since it can already be countered in normal ways,not knowing how to doesnt mean this should still be a factor. You keep incorrectly equating Stealth as a class mechanic with the Thief Profession. Any class can enter stealth which again is an EFFECT, and that distinction is important to keep in mind. Marked and other counters to stealth are not anti-thief measures. Except, of course, they are. Lets be real here, thief is the only class that (somewhat) regularly enters stealth. Its also one of the only 2 classes that can reliably stealth long enough for marked to even work, and Scrapper, the other one, does not use that gyro in question much).

Stealth is a class mechanic from teefs which effects on all weapons first skill. All these forum mimi from unskilled people forced anet to implement these stupid mechanics... Stealth and dodges are the only way for teef to stay alive ... we cant stupid facetank like guard, war, ele, holo, scäppA, soulbeast.... What a lame approach from anet to make lazy people happy https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Profession_mechanic Stealth is an effect, whether you like it or not. If stealth WERE an actual "class mechanic" of thief, mesmers-engies-rangers-runes etc wouldnt have it. Thief cant deathshroud. Much like necro cant steal.They can both stealth. Well now that you cleared up that distraction maybe we can hear some input on the thread subject instead?Class mechanics or not it doesn't deter the OPs point. Stealth has no downside. Literally, none. Someone pops it, NO visual tells, no indication of an incoming attack. Yay. Much counterplay. Or is it another l2p issue for me?Stealth needs to be fundamentally changed, and have SOME kind of drawback. Well, no downside besides not being able to continue attacking while in stealth. And the fact that stealth (especially now that SA got removed), doesnt give you any defenses while locking you out of attacks. And the fact that all stealth skills have a pretty noticable tell, and show you where the stealthed guy is when he enters stealth. There are only 3 reasons to use stealth right now as a result. Either when playing rifle to use the stealth attack, in which case you dont stay in it, to run away, in which case its useless without mobility as well (and in fact, mobility and actual defenses are better for running away") or for the cheesy permastealth builds. Marked doesnt deal with any of these. It just makes using stealth in-combat as anything but rifle even more useless than it already is.

Thief:Love- The initiative system. Gives you flexibility and a more smooth gameplay.Hate- Shortbow 5. The entire class in PvP is pretty much focused entirely around this one skill. One skill responsible for thief being a bad class at actually fighting players, relegated to standing on points and +1ing.

Id add to that that the Shadows Restoration Trait should be swapped back for Shadows Resilience, while Cloaked in Shadows either should be swapped back, or given a once per blind clause (so no multiple siphons on an AoE blind) in exchange for buffing the heal value 15-fold. The damage should be upped as well, but maybe not 15-fold.

Personally Id just undo the cloaked in Shadow, and Resilience of Shadow changes since what we got in exchange was so much worse. Alternatively, just revert Resilience of Shadow, and buff Cloaked in Shadow's healing by about 15 times, while making it so it only works once per cast (so no benefit from hitting multiple enemies).

I mean originally it wasnt one, and it still primarily isnt, its supposed to be a stealth-focused traitline, but it suffers from the fact that stealth isnt good in-combat, and that the traits arent.

So, now that we can actually see the numbers of the SA changes, I gotta say its disappointing how bad they are. Cloaked in Shadows, instead of making you totally immune to critical hits, gives you 66 healing per blind. Thats right. 66. You have to blind 30 times, just to heal as much damage as you wouldve prevented when not getting crit by a 2000 damage hit. The trait is so bad that even if you buffed its healing potency by 10 times, it would still be bad. And instead of getting 33% reduced damage when stealthed, we get 300 health per stealth attack. Likewise, terrible. And even the stacking spider venom in stealth thing sucks, you get 1 stack of spidervenom every 3 seconds. You have to stay in stealth forever just to hope to get an at all relevant amount of stacks.

The problem is, that makes no sense. The third dodge isnt a Daredevil mechanic, the unique dodges are. The third dodge is just an additional effect in the traitline that, incidentally, used to be an Acrobatic minor trait. The actual mechanic, the dodges, already have inherent downsides. It wasnt meant to be a worse steal in exchange for a 3rd dodge. It was meant to be a worse steal for no reason other than to be a worse steal. Their own justification has so many holes its like a swiss cheese.

The Shadow Portal is the biggest change here. Its certainly not as good as Mesmer Portal, but it does give Thief extra mobility. I expect it to be used quite a fair bit. Non-mainhand dagger condi thief also got a buff, perhaps P/D might be a fine roamer in WvW now. However, beyond that, most of these changes dont really do much. Traits that work on stealth attacks have the big issue that outside of Rifle (for whom none of these traits matter because if your DJ hits, the enemy is dead) noone ever uses Stealth Attacks. After that update where they get 1 second cd whenever they miss, theyre just not worth it.

The initial iteration was also considerably worse than the current one. It was basically only used in a permastealth build that waited for malice to stack up, then killed you with a deaths judgement. Which yes, is not that different from the current one. What Rifle needs is a lot of the nerfs to be undone, and a change to the stealth mechanic (stealth is fine if its melee, arguably even weak, but at range its ludicrous). The fact that Three Round Burst barely does more damage (or even does a little less, I dont recall) than just autoattacking with Rangers Longbow while costing half your initiative is pathetic.