The community asks for nerfs to shadowarts, thief mains agree, and you just boost reliance on shadowarts even more, hello?

[Puck.3697]

2 minutes ago, Crab Fear.1624 said:

You are probably right, they want to sell spectre

Well i wouldnt really say this.

I'd say they have to now balance core thief around it, to prevent it becoming Overpowered due to core. Having a high mobility support, is pretty bad. to have a Support that can Litterally vanish and go invisible is Even worse.

Alot of us. myself included early onto speculation Said. a Pure Support alike the role Spectres susposed to fit would be the worst thing to come for Thief.

Because thief now has a Support specc.. it simply cannot stealth as much as it does in SPVP. it has to be nerfed realistically and thats the issue. its the cost alot predicted would happen the moment thief started running into Supportive areas, the only other method around this would be to hard nerf Spectre out of PvP Potiental.. Which would be a Ridiculously dumb move to make on a Expansion launch.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

On 2/20/2022 at 1:34 AM, Zacchary.6183 said:

Maybe the thief community could, perhaps, ask anet to buff the performance of other non-stealth builds instead of using stealth until anet deletes it from the game. Just an idea.

On 2/20/2022 at 1:37 AM, Crab Fear.1624 said:

If I want to play non stealth thief, I'll play revenant.

Exactly. And if you play non-stealth condi, well, we know what happens: people will cry, Anet will certainly nerf it (again). And how often do I actually want to play condi thief in competitive, lol.

Every time a non-stealth thief build enables the class to 1v1, it gets nerfed. Which leads to stealth triumphing in mirrors, as well, every time.

Anet is reinforcing the issue.

[Obtena.7952]

33 minutes ago, Crab Fear.1624 said:

Could they not just nerf shadow arts?

 

They could do lots of things. What they could do is irrelevant because at some point, they have to choose ONE of those things and do it. They have done that. It's inevitable that some people won't like that choice. It's just something any reasonable person will expect. 

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Zacchary.6183]

2 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

it simply cannot stealth as much as it does in SPVP

Why would anyone want to spam stealth with specter aside from stealth attacks? Its built in healing capabilities turn all other sustain and defense a thief might take into garnish and its shroud skills hit hard.

[Puck.3697]

2 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

Why would anyone want to spam stealth with specter aside from stealth attacks? Its built in healing capabilities turn all other sustain and defense a thief might take into garnish and its shroud skills hit hard.

Well isnt it Obvious?

Supports are generally Focused among a SPVP Teamfight. Stealth Mitigates you being focused Entirely as its a very uncounterable method of escape. Unless ofcourse u start blowing aCD during Reveal which i'd suspect most Thief mains to be weary of.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Zacchary.6183]

Just now, Daddy.8125 said:

Well isnt it Obvious?

Supports are generally Focused among a SPVP Teamfight. Stealth Mitigates you being focused Entirely as its a very uncounterable method of escape.

Sure. But shroud is ultimately another HP bar and a half. Why run when you can take advantage of a deep HP pool and self healing capabilities and stay on point longer? Its even better if you have a team mate with you.

[Puck.3697]

4 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

Sure. But shroud is ultimately another HP bar and a half. Why run when you can take advantage of a deep HP pool and self healing capabilities and stay on point longer? Its even better if you have a team mate with you.

Does having the stealth access Generally make ur ability in shroud worse?.

Stealth being layered ontop. with the mobility are bonuses to the spectres kit already, if ur in a teamfight staying on point isnt required as u only need One of u visible on the map. it also Ensures the spectre isnt seen Going into the fight. which means the +1 is Completely unexpected.

Unlike a Support guard that u'll see run into the Spectre isnt seen which adds a advantage as u give less timne for the enemy to react.

the Support in SPVPs job is Not to sit on mid all day, they're susposed ro rotate quite heavily among fights and more. its Undeniable that Spectre will do this Much better then both Supports currently avaliable.

Also. Drazzah wasnt using Spectre as a Support.. he ironically played like like normal thief and it was Vastly overpowered.. so do retain this in mind.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Zacchary.6183]

5 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Does having the stealth access Generally make ur ability in shroud worse?.

It doesn't necessarily make it better either. Not saying not to use stealth, but with the amount of staying power specter brings using stealth on it is more of a waste of utility than other specs.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Zacchary.6183

[Puck.3697]

10 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

It doesn't necessarily make it better either. Not saying not to use stealth, but with the amount of staying power specter brings using stealth on it is more of a waste of utility than other specs.

 

but if thiefs strong enough intself with spectre to fill the Teamfighter role on the sheer strengths it brings at proffession level. it opens up its Utility to allow it to play multiple roles.

Stealthing may not be a required feature in teamfights, However as a +1 and Playing the general role to thief it defintly does.

Lets also account for, Stealth Spectre was extremely strong and promoted alot in WvWvW (Something linked to PvP balancing) And could also be seen from that point of view needing to be nerfed.

Also alot of the builds Surrounding spectre which were performing strongest did use both Blinding Powder and Hide in the shadows which are both Stealth abilities and also in the list of nerfs within SPVP.

im not gonna say these nerfs were Best in Slot, in my opinon i'd of preferred to see a more hands on approach directly to Shadow Arts.. and Likely some trade off buffs to Other areas of the proffession to promote new builds as i feel this just makes SA Even more mandatory.

but lets not say in WvWvW / SPVP stealth wasnt being used among spectre builds.. because they defintly were, the ability to escape anything and hyper mobility +1ing fights unexpectently were always high strengths to thief.

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Crab Fear.1624]

14 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Well i wouldnt really say this.

I'd say they have to now balance core thief around it, to prevent it becoming Overpowered due to core. Having a high mobility support, is pretty bad. to have a Support that can Litterally vanish and go invisible is Even worse.

Alot of us. myself included early onto speculation Said. a Pure Support alike the role Spectres susposed to fit would be the worst thing to come for Thief.

Because thief now has a Support specc.. it simply cannot stealth as much as it does in SPVP. it has to be nerfed realistically and thats the issue. its the cost alot predicted would happen the moment thief started running into Supportive areas, the only other method around this would be to hard nerf Spectre out of PvP Potiental.. Which would be a Ridiculously dumb move to make on a Expansion launch.

Dude, they knew what they were doing when they made spectre.

They knew it would be high mobility and have stealth, it has to have something to help it sustain because it doesn't have all the extras that a tempest, druid, or the omega core guardian has. Remember when FB was viable, omegalul.

All those options were not only better at offering support, cleansing condis, providing boons, they were also better at surviving against direct focus.

Thief doesn't have things in their kit to stand up to the wombo combos and focus, other than mobility and stealth.

You say take away mobility and stealth, it's obvious that mindset just wants a free kill.

Unfortunatly, some unknown using these two skills on a WvW Spectre build isn't justification to nerf the PVP skills, that literally makes ZERO sense.

If stealth is a problem, but thieves need stealth, then why leave the cooldown reduction in shadowarts and the stealth extension, and the stealth on steal?

Thieves that use shadowarts will be inconvenienced, but it's ok.

Thieves that have relied on thee skills without using shadowarts, are omega-screwed.

Defending their decision is odd, because it was made probably the night before, and they are just going to cooldown the top used skills, that's it.

There is no major philosophy or insight.

The insight comes from at best, from a cheetoh stained lot, snickering on discord.

This 100% makes shadowarts mandatory, so if stealth was the problem, they would have went after it.

But, they are TRYING to sell spectre, and weaken other builds.

They did it for the last two expacs.

Nerfed acro for daredevil.

Nerfed daredevil for DE, which is still garbage.

 

[Zacchary.6183]

13 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

he ironically played like like normal thief and it was Vastly overpowered..

What do you expect when you have a second HP bar? Staying power has been one of thief's biggest problems since it first got nerfed into the ground because thief as a whole barely has any. Of course its going to boost roaming. But thief now also has more of an ability to fight on point and support teammates. Example, I don't think Azza ever stealths in this vid. He rarely dies either.

 

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Zacchary.6183

[Puck.3697]

27 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

What do you expect when you have a second HP bar? Staying power has been one of thief's biggest problems since it first got nerfed into the ground because thief as a whole barely has any. Of course its going to boost roaming. But thief now also has more of an ability to fight on point and support teammates. Example, I don't think Azza ever stealths in this vid. He rarely dies either.

im not disagreeing here.

Im saying thief is capable of mixing a Stealth / Stay on point build. to simultaniously fulfill 2 Roles which would make it even stronger comparitively to what thief is currently achieving.

[Zacchary.6183]

Just now, Daddy.8125 said:

im not disagreeing here.

Im saying thief is capable of mixing a Stealth / Stay on point build. to simultaniously fulfill 2 Roles which would make it even stronger comparitively to what thief is currently achieving.

Fair enough.

[ixon.2496]

Honestly i think it would have been more interesting if stealth skills were converted to life force generation as the spectre feature. It could justify thief being tankier support, thief could still apply stealth to allies but unable to stealth themselves, instead building up their life force so they could tank the focus turned on them.

[Curennos.9307]

1 hour ago, ixon.2496 said:

Honestly i think it would have been more interesting if stealth skills were converted to life force generation as the spectre feature. It could justify thief being tankier support, thief could still apply stealth to allies but unable to stealth themselves, instead building up their life force so they could tank the focus turned on them.

Up to a certain point a thief-necro hybrid is fine, but if I wanted to play necromancer I would go play necromancer. Also, no access to stealth would require some reworks to shift the power in thief's stealth attacks, which often have traits and chunks of damage, mitigation, or healing (scepter stealth attack is a GREAT heal, for now at least because it'll probably be nerfed) into other places if there's no way to access them.

 

Personally, I enjoy thief being a squishier support - we already have supports who are really durable and benefit a lot from their own support skills, whereas specter is different in that it's a lot of single target and can't target itself.

[ixon.2496]

6 minutes ago, Curennos.9307 said:

Up to a certain point a thief-necro hybrid is fine, but if I wanted to play necromancer I would go play necromancer. Also, no access to stealth would require some reworks to shift the power in thief's stealth attacks, which often have traits and chunks of damage, mitigation, or healing (scepter stealth attack is a GREAT heal, for now at least because it'll probably be nerfed) into other places if there's no way to access them.

 

Personally, I enjoy thief being a squishier support - we already have supports who are really durable and benefit a lot from their own support skills, whereas specter is different in that it's a lot of single target and can't target itself.

 

Well there could be a boon applied with the lifeforce generation, basically stealth without the invisibility, similar to carapice, but it switches on weapon skills and traits as though you were stealthed. That fixes the trait conflict.

 

I'm purely theorizing since people are going to complain so much about a stealth healer nomatter what happens. People just hate it that much

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2022 by ixon.2496

[Curennos.9307]

7 minutes ago, ixon.2496 said:

 

Well there could be a boon applied with the lifeforce generation, basically stealth without the invisibility, similar to carapice, but it switches on weapon skills and traits as though you were stealthed. That fixes the trait conflict.

 

I'm purely theorizing since people are going to complain so much about a stealth healer nomatter what happens. People just hate it that much

 

 

 

Yeah. It'll be absolute madness and I plan to bask in it. To be fair, the current state of thief's stealth is bonkers, but I think ppl will have no valid grounds to complain if SA has its stealth duration removed and traits that are active in stealth are all changed to activate only when coming out of stealth.

[Jumpel.3972]

On 2/21/2022 at 3:37 AM, Zacchary.6183 said:

Why would anyone want to spam stealth with specter aside from stealth attacks? Its built in healing capabilities turn all other sustain and defense a thief might take into garnish and its shroud skills hit hard.

 

From last beta, you can heal from stealth without been reveal. (I hope they fix it)

[Caedmon.6798]

On 2/20/2022 at 3:10 PM, Crab Fear.1624 said:

No, you have it wrong dude.

Many play thief because it has stealth and that play style.

Literally, making it anything else, and there are better options for non stealth play, which one should play.

Such as revenant.

They need to stop listening to a vocal minority that hates thief because they refuse to learn how it functions.

Necro mains should try to ressurect their ability to adapt.

If they remove stealth from thief....

I'll adapt my kitten to another game. 

One person that actually makes sense in this thread.

[Tails.9372]

On 2/23/2022 at 3:44 PM, Curennos.9307 said:

I think ppl will have no valid grounds to complain if SA has its stealth duration removed

Actually they do as it would make stealth based playstyles even more unaccessible for the average player than it already is and while "pro players" generally don't care much about "class fantasy" it is still something A-Net wants to preserve for "the wider audience" which is a facet that usually gets ignored when this topic is being discussed.

Now does that mean that there is nothing that can be done to actually solve the issue? No, ofc. not but the problem is that some of the options with the least amount of collateral damage would require them to tell people to "L2P" which historically is something they want to avoid like the plague.

[Puck.3697]

On 2/21/2022 at 3:11 PM, Crab Fear.1624 said:

Dude, they knew what they were doing when they made spectre.

They knew it would be high mobility and have stealth, it has to have something to help it sustain because it doesn't have all the extras that a tempest, druid, or the omega core guardian has. Remember when FB was viable, omegalul

Support thief was something being continously asked for. If your saying "they knew what they were doing" as they knew to give thief a support specc due to feedback. Yes they did. 

That doesn't mean it was a great idea, they just did what the community was demanding. 

On 2/21/2022 at 3:11 PM, Crab Fear.1624 said:

Thief doesn't have things in their kit to stand up to the wombo combos and focus, other than mobility and stealth.

You say take away mobility and stealth, it's obvious that mindset just wants a free kill

No one said delete their mobility and stealth lol. They're trying to nerf thief sustain, they've just nerfed it in the wrong way. The nerfs should have directly hit SA not utility skills stealth ability. 

These are ofcourse terrible changes, 

On 2/21/2022 at 3:11 PM, Crab Fear.1624 said:

This 100% makes shadowarts mandatory, so if stealth was the problem, they would have went after it.

But, they are TRYING to sell spectre, and weaken other builds

I don't beleive they are. 

EoD speccs are worse then PoFs, ontop of this spectre was better then all other thief builds in PvP in both it's betas. They never needed to change anything for spectre. Ironically spectres the only one shaping up well. 

They told you directly why this has happened. 

- they know Shadow arts is a major issue and needs reworking but discussions around it haven't ended now. 

- these are place holder nerfs to push thief down in the meantime. 

We know elites themselves get nerfed via core traits, as core traits make up 75% of elite builds. You can't nerf the 25% and except results without absolutely butchering the specc. 

Support thief was always gonna be a weird ask and was always gonna generate problems. But Anet can either ignore feedback or use it they chose to use it and now trying to force it to work. 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Curennos.9307]

10 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Actually they do as it would make stealth based playstyles even more unaccessible for the average player than it already is and while "pro players" generally don't care much about "class fantasy" it is still something A-Net wants to preserve for "the wider audience" which is a facet that usually gets ignored when this topic is being discussed.

Now does that mean that there is nothing that can be done to actually solve the issue? No, ofc. not but the problem is that some of the options with the least amount of collateral damage would require them to tell people to "L2P" which historically is something they want to avoid like the plague.

This is literally one second of stealth added on top of other stealth sources (albeit with some compounding factors that its removal would also fix). Players will still be able to slot stealth skills and whatever else they want. There's nothing 'inaccessible' about it.

 

[Tails.9372]

6 minutes ago, Curennos.9307 said:

This is literally one second of stealth added on top of other stealth sources

Which for many  sources constitutes a 33-100% increase in duration.

7 minutes ago, Curennos.9307 said:

There's nothing 'inaccessible' about it.

Of course there is, you were just ignoring the context of what I was saying: "for the average player".

Let's face reality for a second: most players can't even use basic things like their active defenses let allone combo fields. Unless they fundamentally rework how stealth works nerfing its application enough to make it balanced for "high level play" would require them to render it completely unusable for "low level play".

[Curennos.9307]

2 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Which for many  sources constitutes a 33-100% increase in duration.

Of course there is, you were just ignoring the context of what I was saying: "for the average player".

Let's face reality for a second: most players can't even use basic things like their active defenses let allone combo fields. Unless they fundamentally rework how stealth works nerfing its application enough to make it balanced for "high level play" would require them to render it completely unusable for "low level play".

Describe:

 

- The class fantasy you're talking about.

- Why it's valid (class fantasies should not impinge on other classes fantasies - for ex, 'I want to play an extra sneaky assassin' is fine, while 'I want to play an extra sneaky assassin that nobody can ever hit' is not)

- Something your example average player can do now and how that fills the fantasy

- Why they wouldn't be able to do it with this change.

- Why they should be able to do it on a conceptual level (for example, 'thief should have the option to invest more resources in sources of stealth within the confines of class design, ie there's a limit to being able to invest in 'more damage' but to some extent players can tweak the amount of damage their build can put out', which is cool, but I genuinely don't care if someone specifically wants 45 total seconds of stealth but this will cut them down to 30.)

 

By all means, maybe I'm wrong here, but if you can't describe what you mean with any sort of specificity then there's no point. And, to address your other comment, I don't care about percentages - they are mostly irrelevant at this point as they misrepresent what is actually happening. 'Damage has been nerfed by 33-100%' can be a huge deal, as is 'damage can increase by 50%' sounds significant - but these all become meaningless when applied to zerker warrior's Headbutt, which does exactly 9 damage. Similarly, Blinding Powder going from 3 -> 4 or 4 -> 3 seconds is, yes, a chunk of percentage - but describing a numerical value in a vacuum doesn't really work (I can say 'x' skill does 'y' damage 'z' healing or 'abcd' effects but it means nothing without a reference point and actual impact.

 

*Obv Concealing Restoration and Hidden Thief are balanced around Meld With Shadows and would need to be bumped to a 1 sec baseline.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Curennos.9307

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 2/19/2022 at 7:47 PM, Zacchary.6183 said:

If it takes completely deleting the thief meta to get the ball rolling, so be it. But that is just my opinion.

Once upon a time a couple of people who couldn't dodge said this about warrior. 

You don't understand Arenanet.