Thief changes upcoming announced

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

48 minutes ago, RyuDragnier.9476 said:

That has been the reality in PvE for years.

I had a S/D & rifle deadly arts trick DE build for a while, guess I'll be going back to that again. 

Edited June 24, 2022 by Jugglemonkey.8741
Forum filter for the win

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

Vloak and dagger is aoe stealth now ? Wut? Where is this?

[Vidit.7108]

2 minutes ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

Vloak and dagger is aoe stealth now ? Wut? Where is this?

I misread.

[senftube.6081]

That we loose so much of stealth is a bit wack. I mean wouldn't we then be freebags against all ranged classes? Hidden Thief looks kittening bad now, i mean blind and weakness whats that? I want my stealth on steal back at least. 

[Downstate.4697]

Stealth support spectre will be good in pvp

[Burial.1958]

Not everyone likes the new Espec. The Powercreep is a bit to much for me. And that Acro didn't got updated/reworked and that trickery is still mandatory is very lame. For Steam RLS where alot will start only with Core this will be a big problem.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Grebcol.5984

[Doggie.3184]

So is anyone in whole game gonna use Hidden Thief anymeowre?

[Nomad.4301]

Cloaked in Shadow seems pretty redundant now that they removed heal/steal stealthing, I guess that's why it was downgraded from a GM trait. Considering that "Gaining stealth blinds nearby foes." seems unnecessary when now that we have lost Stealth on steal/heal all our remaining sources of stealth apart from dagger 5 already apply blind when stealthing (with the exception of the mostly irrelevant Shadow Refuge and neutered Deadeye) this includes Blinding Tuft/Feathers, blinding powder, leaping through Black Powder's blinding smoke, leaping through smoke screen's blind field. Yeah only three sources of stealth outside of DE will actually potentially still benefit from this trait (Cloak 'n Dagger, Shadow Refuge and Portal lol). I'm guessing this trait will be unused now since it competes with the more useful Leeching Venoms in the same tier.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

1 hour ago, Nomad.4301 said:

Cloaked in Shadow seems pretty redundant now that they removed heal/steal stealthing, I guess that's why it was downgraded from a GM trait. Considering that "Gaining stealth blinds nearby foes." seems unnecessary when now that we have lost Stealth on steal/heal all our remaining sources of stealth apart from dagger 5 already apply blind when stealthing (with the exception of the mostly irrelevant Shadow Refuge and neutered Deadeye) this includes Blinding Tuft/Feathers, blinding powder, leaping through Black Powder's blinding smoke, leaping through smoke screen's blind field. Yeah only three sources of stealth outside of DE will actually potentially still benefit from this trait (Cloak 'n Dagger, Shadow Refuge and Portal lol). I'm guessing this trait will be unused now since it competes with the more useful Leeching Venoms in the same tier.

im concerned with HT, CiS as well. consider that they ADD these announced effects instead of removing what already is, if its in ADDITION to whats already there, its welcomed greatly but that steal life when blinding is very useful if they KEEP it and ADD the changes to it. 

[Nomad.4301]

7 minutes ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

that steal life when blinding is very useful if they KEEP it and ADD the changes to it.

Problem I see is that it now competes with Leeching Venoms in the same tier, whereas you used to be able to run both at the same time for a blind focused Life-steal build. LV is the superior trait in terms of damage/healing output while the value in CiS was mostly the extra blinds. Now that they compete for the same slot and most stealth skills already apply blind upon use, CiS stands to be another redundant trait nobody uses.

I suppose it could still see use with D/P 3 spammers and smoke field stackers though.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Nomad.4301

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

anyone else confused by the wording of some of these kitten posts for skills/traits... maybe, just maybe we get SOME of them as ADDITIONS to the traits/skills and not an entire rework of each. "now applies blind" can be taken as "in addition to" but not as "instead"

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

There's a big drawback to putting so many benefits to giving allies stealth: it stops auto attacking.  Go to any world boss and drop Shadow Refuge on people, and watch them seize up instantly.  Anyone playing a low intensity build will feel the pain of this greatly.

[Dagger.2035]

The changes to Shadow’s Rejuvenation and Hidden Thief make them very similar to these original core traits:

• Infusion of Shadow - Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths you

• Cloaked in Shadow - Going steath blinds nearby foes

Back in the day you could use SA with S/D and just spam Cloak and Dagger and Tactical Strike continuously to spam blinds and daze.  The +2 initiative made this possible.  I’m not saying this will be effective in today’s meta.  I just find it interesting that the traits came full circle.

[Arolandis.8360]

12 hours ago, Vidit.7108 said:

Losing stealth on steal, stealth on heal, and the extra second of stealth. That's the end of an era.

 

Oof... My roaming build depended on those...

[Arolandis.8360]

12 hours ago, Nomad.4301 said:

The condi cleanse is nice for sure, but given we're talking about SA, everything i was referring to was from a PvP/WvW perspective, since no one runs SA in PvE. Also any direct healing output by thief is kneecapped by the fact that thief has almost no healing modifier traits, meaning that it will be heavily dependent on the base amount to be of any use(which historically has been laughably low).

As for DE, I'm well aware it's been dead in PvE, but the handful of DE's i still see in PvP/WvW are heavily reliant on the stealth from SA to stay alive, which this directly impacts. Some see it as a good thing as "perma-stealth" is very annoying but without other sources of sustain (acro *cough*) DE will join Unplayed  Untamed it seems. I'm not fond of heaving a "dead" elite spec on a class that's already super limited on build variety.

Amen.

[kshaeko.5647]

In Pvp and Wvw, rifle deadeye kind of needed the 4 sec stealth provided by dodging to reposition and replenish initiative through Shadow's Rejuvenation. Going all-in with 2 rifles with sigils of energy allows 3 dodges, but is shut-down by any class with reflects. Since that spec isn't tanky and has clunky mobility that depends on careful initiative usage, I don't see the SA rework serve it well at all, unless the variables provide actual buffs instead of a rework with comparable values.

If thief has reduced stealth and has to take a risk when engaging knowing it has less chances of successfully disengaging, then the reward should be potentially higher. With all the invulns, reflects and prot in the game, windows of opportunity could be reduced just enough so that thief is a diluted class that has no purpose and often ends up being a sitting duck.

Edited June 25, 2022 by kshaeko.5647

[Burial.1958]

Hmm do we also loose the deception recharge on hidden thief? That would be also a pretty nasty nerf then.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Grebcol.5984

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

1 hour ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

Hmm do we also loose the deception recharge on hidden thief? That would be also a pretty nasty nerf then.

look at the wording on the notes. some say "now" instead of "reworked" theres potential that some of the changes are ADDITIONAL

[Bern.9613]

So not only do we lose stealth on steal and healing but we lose the ability to use our abysmal healing in stealth. So now everyone is forced to play bunker necro/thief and heal everyone else. If anet are so against the thief/assassin class, just remove it and stop torturing the remaining players. It's painfully clear they like stealth because everyone else gets stealth except thief. I have to change my email address associated with GW2, not sure it's worth the effort.

 

Thief
Able to flicker in and out of stealth, no ability to regenerate nor heal itself. No longer the scourge of the battlefield but a mere shadow of what once was. A laughable class who's main function is to elevate the WVW kills of other players.

[DeceiverX.8361]

Honestly, this would be a decent list of changes if they fixed Acro, made Preparedness baseline, and buffed CS.  A LOT of the stupid and abusive stuff SA allowed is basically gone if my understanding of these notes is correct.  Good direction - finally a decade later - for the design and play pattern of SA.

That said, I'm not sure on Cover of Shadow being a good thing compared to Flickering.  The reason behind why the previous trait was useful was because it couldn't get stripped and actually let non-spectre builds have some stat durability when making an offensive play.  Given the extreme boon play - and subsequent denial - in competitive modes, I think this greatly affects things like the Necro matchup since there's such a risk of performing the follow-through strikes.

The main issue I foresee here for the competitive modes is that there weren't really any compensations to thief's defenses elsewhere (or even fight time reductions by buffing damage a tad) on any of its builds.  And a lot of weapon skills are still just bad.  I'm all for the profession being difficult to play and rewarding, which is why I agree with the general direction of these changes, but this doesn't really address the root problem of why people ran SA for every single build; that "raw stat" value is just simply necessary for core thief when you take the sheer power of the rest of the game's professions into account.

[DeceiverX.8361]

8 hours ago, Dagger.2035 said:

The changes to Shadow’s Rejuvenation and Hidden Thief make them very similar to these original core traits:

• Infusion of Shadow - Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths you

• Cloaked in Shadow - Going steath blinds nearby foes

Back in the day you could use SA with S/D and just spam Cloak and Dagger and Tactical Strike continuously to spam blinds and daze.  The +2 initiative made this possible.  I’m not saying this will be effective in today’s meta.  I just find it interesting that the traits came full circle.

Why's that?  The game balance was tighter before the Elite Spec update and HoT implementation.  This play pattern is also way healthier and arguably better than the first.

And it's a direct answer to stacking stealth; you now only get half the benefit for camping but the full power of the trait when weaving in and out, and more initiative per unit of time when playing aggressively (as initiative's namesake and the core concept of the OG thief) was supposed to entail.  It also directly counters spamming HS through BP fields, as the initiative will not be refunded over the course of the stacked duration but simply once at the end, and not be refunded each cast like it used to, which encouraged people to do it in the first place.

This is ANet finally undoing some damage they've dealt over the years.  There's obviously a huge list left over, but this is one of the best changes they could have made to the traitline overall.

If there are more tweaks to entice thieves to play more aggressively by exiting stealth in the future, this is one of the cornerstones into getting thief into a better state in terms of design and implementation on the whole.

Edited June 25, 2022 by DeceiverX.8361

[ixon.2496]

13 minutes ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

 

If there are more tweaks to entice thieves to play more aggressively by exiting stealth in the future, this is one of the cornerstones into getting thief into a better state in terms of design and implementation on the whole.

 

 

I can see what the changes aim to accomplish, and i don't have any issues with that. But it feels like a half fix, and we will have to wait another 3+ months for future improvements.. while in the meantime thief may be in its worse state ever. 

 

For a big quarterly update its majorly lacking. Some seriously bad decisions on other classes, and just lack lustre all round.

Homogenised classes together and pigeonholed others into having only one competitive build. 

[DeceiverX.8361]

24 minutes ago, ixon.2496 said:

 

I can see what the changes aim to accomplish, and i don't have any issues with that. But it feels like a half fix, and we will have to wait another 3+ months for future improvements.. while in the meantime thief may be in its worse state ever. 

 

For a big quarterly update its majorly lacking. Some seriously bad decisions on other classes, and just lack lustre all round.

Homogenised classes together and pigeonholed others into having only one competitive build. 

We only have this mess because ANet didn't pull the trigger on these types of changes for ten years.  Because people were too afraid for the class to "be weak" than actually let the design be improved upon.

If this was fixed in 2012/2013 when people were first acknowledging the design as problematic, would you really care now?

This is the foundation the class needs to be built on, like it or not.  I want more changes too - I quit the thief and GW2 entirely because it's just not where I need it to be after thousands of hours in the class- but this is FINALLY a real, actual step forward in terms of the actual design of the class itself.

If they fail to deliver on compensation and continue to suppress the class, that's another story.  But this is actually a huge pivotal moment in what can be done to actually improve the class on both a design and numbers perspective.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

Fact that barely any, probably not 1, devs play thief enough to understand it and do valuable adjustments. Instead they rely on snowcrows, whom design metas that only 80% of the game try to master rotation wise and still cant achieve to master numbers. Blatant favoritism, lazy work instead of doing their on research and reaching out to a majority of the playerbase. This is why we need a PTS to tweak things. They rely on wiki 

Edited June 26, 2022 by Lithril Ashwalker.6230

[LoreChief.8391]

Hidden Thief losing the ability to Stealth with Steal/Siphon is a huge gamebreaker for me.  I play Specter and the only two ways I have for getting into stealth are via Siphon and Heal.  So now I can only stealth once every 20 seconds because Siphon will be uselessly 'blinding' enemies instead of them just literally not being able to see me in the first place.  Stealth scepter skill is a huge part of my damage since I play a support build, and now I'll barely ever get to use it.