ArenaNet have broken my Thief/Deadeye

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

Something happened this week (around 28/29 June 2022).

 

My primary use of GW2 is solo roaming, harvesting to make gold.  Yes, shock, I mostly play solo.  But should that make me a lower class of player?  ArenaNet seems to think so.

 

I used to be able to reach nodes and harvest them, intermittently dodging (Rifle Proficiency\Silent Scope) to refresh the Stealth duration, enabling me to work my way through the (PvE) map without being overly hampered by enemies.  Enemies which if they attack, slow my progress and make the game considerably less enjoyable.  It means taking longer, and I can't afford to allocate more time to playing.  What that means is I'm going to get less done, which ultimately means I will play GW2 less, not more!  All because some {insert your own choice of adjective} at ArenaNet either failed to understand the impact their decision would have on players in my position or, worse, they simply do not care!

 

Yes, get this, I would rather avoid combat all together, and just harvest things.  Should that make me a player and similar players deserving of having their enjoyment degraded?  

So, ArenaNet, when will you restore my enjoyment of the game, please?  (That's if you're even listening... or do you simply not care that your decision could see someone spending less time using your product?)

Oh, and if you (ArenaNet) want players to have a different experience, give them the option of new build choices, rather than breaking what they're familiar with! 

 

Finally, don't make changes to PvE because you wanted to change something in PvP/WvW and were too lazy to keep those changes confined to the environment(s) where they're needed.  There are plenty of circumstances where characters abilities vary depending on whether the player is in PvE, PvP or WvW; you've already set that precedent.

 

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

I have the exact same issue. My deadeye was my farmer, she is now useless. There is zero reason to play DE in PvE anymore. Which is extremely dissapointing.

I deeply dislike the killing of an already challenging spec for PvE. It is entirely killed off.

As for farming, I did the exact same, used my Deadeye and Stealth to farm. Now to do the exact same thing, I need triple the time to kill off, or wait on cooldowns, etc etc. I completely and utterly abbandoned the Bjora puzzles for example. Not worth my time anymore to do those. I used deadeye there as well, due to the insane agro/respawn rate. 

Not gonna bother anymore. Apparantly ArenaNet is totally fine with killing off a complete class spec for PvE and that only due to complaints in Competittive.

The Deadeye relied heavily on survival by using stealth. 

As for farming, ArenaNet, a question for you... Since you killed this active way of farming... Am I better off Deleting my Deadeye and make a Necro or Engineer to AFK farm? Is that what you prefer? Because your actions sure point that way. Farming on DE is no longer viable, yet the minion classes are farming their little hearts out.

Thanks for Destroying what I enjoy. 

Extremely and utterly dissapointed. 

Not everyone uses stealth to troll in WvW... There was ZERO reason to kill it off in PvE yet you did. Deadeye is litterly Dead.

Give me back my Perma Stealth in PvE, I honestly don't care if it's no longer possible in PvP or WvW.

[Jumpel.3972]

Ehm Shadow Refuge ? Blinding Powder ? Dagger/Pistol ? I'm mean can still perma Stealth without going in combat 

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

I tried  with following skills:

Shadow Refuge
Blinding Powder
Shadow Meld
Stealth on Dodge
Dagger/pistol.
Hide in Shadows.

When I sequence that starting with Shadow Refuge (the biggest stealth time, but reduced to 10 seconds max now) I run 20 seconds short to use it again. 

Maybe my sequence is wrong, but 20 seconds is quite a gap to bridge. Plus the actions you need to do to remain stealth now gives less time to actually move around.

When using your DE to farm, you try to stack stealth so you are not dropping out of stealth while opening a chest, so you need 4 seconds left roughly. 

[Stx.4857]

As a Thief main, I love being able to stealth passed anything while questing or soloing...

 

But I'm not going to get upset that I can't maintain 100% uptime on stealth.  I don't think that's required to make Thief fun or balanced. 

I think the good of these changes far outweighs the bad.  Now whenever I dodge as rifle with silent scope I shed two conditions, gain 6 stacks of venom which all leech health, and gain 3 initiative.  I also have the option of dropping m7 and getting perma protection from SA now.  It's pretty crazy.  

Edited June 30, 2022 by Stx.4857

[Jumpel.3972]

48 minutes ago, Tuna Bandit.3786 said:

Maybe my sequence is wrong, but 20 seconds is quite a gap to bridge. Plus the actions you need to do to remain stealth now gives less time to actually move around.

I just try it and i'm perma stealth even without using Shadow Refuge

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

At this point I see one person has reacted "Ha-Ha" and another "Confused."

I don't know what's confusing; ArenaNet made changes which broke the Profession from doing the one thing it was actually really useful for.  As for the "Ha-Ha", I presume the person who reacted that way was one of the WvW/PvP players who complained that they couldn't squish the poor little Thief/Deadeye (which is simply embarrassing, because Thief is about the squishiest of characters).

 

@Styx.4857: I guess you missed the observation about giving players a choice of how they want to play their character, rather than forcing them onto a specific path.  By forcibly breaking a Profession, instead of giving players the option to do different things, ArenaNet are being lazy and ignorant, and demonstrating that ultimately they will pander to a few loud complainers about a very specific scenario and take the easy way out.  It's demonstrable wokeness/cancellation which is very saddening to see in a supposedly professional environment.

[Sootser.9541]

If anything, the June 28th balance patch should have made Deadeye open world farming even better?

You now gain: 3 initiative when you enter and leave stealth, superspeed for 2 seconds when entering and leaving stealth. You basically have infinite access to initiative to spam d/p stealth, insane mobility with super speed and more access to stealth.

What changed for you that made this worse to move around and farm?

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

44 minutes ago, Geiir.7603 said:

If anything, the June 28th balance patch should have made Deadeye open world farming even better?

You now gain: 3 initiative when you enter and leave stealth, superspeed for 2 seconds when entering and leaving stealth. You basically have infinite access to initiative to spam d/p stealth, insane mobility with super speed and more access to stealth.

What changed for you that made this worse to move around and farm?

The character comes out of stealth considerably more quickly.  That means enemies spot and attack the thief whilst I'm trying to farm/open chests, interrupting the action, and that means having to spend more time moving around and less time actually doing anything useful.  It used to be the case that I could mine a rich ore node, and if placed correctly, dodge roll between the mining actions to extend the stealth duration, to be able to get safely to the next farming point or simply to just get away without being interfered with.

What's the point of revealing yourself to gain 3 initiative?  All that does is attract aggro, which interferes with the farming.

I honestly don't understand what the WvW players objected to; a Stealthed character isn't in the act of attacking, and doesn't count towards claiming objectives.  They're so useless everyone I've ever heard talk about doing PvP or WvW has said Thieves are the worst choice for those.  It's not like Thieves have astonishingly huge damage capability, either.   ArenaNet even got the process wrong for Death's Judgment; when you shoot the shot should go off, which then causes the character to become revealed - you don't reveal then fire, you fire and that act of firing causes the reveal.  

Thieves are, I think if I've understood all the observations from various sources, the weakest PvP profession, and now ArenaNet have made them even weaker.

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

19 hours ago, Tuna Bandit.3786 said:

I tried  with following skills:

[...]
Dagger/pistol.
[...]

I found the rest but what does Dagger/Pistol refer to, please?

 

Did you mean Black Powder, the ability which goes in slot 5 when you have a dagger+pistol equipped, (or Cloak and Dagger,  in the same slot when you have a pistol+dagger equipped)?

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

Just an update, I've just tried using both Black Powder, and Cloak & Dagger, whilst the aggressive action was displayed in both cases, the character did not go into Stealth for either of them (by which I mean the character's image did not become translucent and the Stealth indicator did not display.  Dodge roll (Silent Scope) did still work.

[I Insanity I.3278]

Black Powder + Heartseeker = Stealth

Cloak & Dagger  on a Mob = Stealth

Black Powder + Blinding Powder + Heartseeker = even longer Stealth.

 

Every stealthcampers wet dream...

 

 

 

[Chrysaliss.8720]

Yeah I am pretty sure they dont give a crap about someone just running around gathering all the time. Why would they?

And those changes are made specificaly for PvE to make thief viable as a group support. If you wanna play solo and gather stuff all day, you should try Skyrim.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Chrysaliss.8720

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

6 minutes ago, Chrysaliss.8720 said:

Yeah I am pretty sure they dont give a crap about someone just running around gathering all the time. Why would they?

And those changes are made specificaly for PvE to make thief viable as a group support. If you wanna play solo and gather stuff all day, you should try Skyrim.

I agree, their reactions are clearly of them not giving one care at all.

I spent the better part of an hour doing a screen video grab, then running it through an editor to get the file size down to something the bug report feature would accept (apparently it was taking too long; I can't change my Internet connection, so had to reduce the resolution to get the file size down).  Their response after that, we're not going to watch (open) it, for 'security reasons'.  Okay, you don't have malware scanners installed?  What level of incompetence is that?

As for using Skyrim, firstly, I do like doing the other stuff in GW2, and I've invested money real money and hundreds of hours playing to get to where I am.  I'm not going to give that up and go to a rival to start all over again.  Life is too short for that.  What it will mean is I likely end up playing GW2 less, which will mean in the long run I'll give up on it entirely.  Perhaps that is simply the better thing for life anyway?  Afterall, if ArenaNet couldn't give a fig about the enjoyment all players get, then perhaps people shouldn't give a fig about using their products...?

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

1 hour ago, I Insanity I.3278 said:

Black Powder + Heartseeker = Stealth

Cloak & Dagger  on a Mob = Stealth

Black Powder + Blinding Powder + Heartseeker = even longer Stealth.

I've looked at the Wiki entry for Heartseeker, there's no mention of it either granting Stealth or boosting the duration of Stealth so I have no idea why is has been mentioned.

[Edited to compact and emphasise.]

Edited July 1, 2022 by OrangeHedgehog.6310

[Chrysaliss.8720]

7 minutes ago, OrangeHedgehog.6310 said:

I've looked at the Wiki entry for Heartseeker, there's no mention of it either granting Stealth or boosting the duration of Stealth so I have no idea why is has been mentioned.

[Edited to compact and emphasise.]

Ok, roght now I am pretty sure this is a troll thread. 

But just to give a benefit of a doubt. .. How long have you been playing the game?

[I Insanity I.3278]

 

 

No idea if trolling or deliberately ignorant....

Maybe you should have looked at something called: Combo Finisher...  

 

I even mentioned some ways how to get stealth via black powder + heartseeker including a permastealth meme build.

 

 

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

Sorry folks, not trolling, just massively 91553D-off at how ArenaNet could introduce a change with such negative impacts on the enjoyment of the game for people playing Thieves.

 

I've been playing GW2 for around 18 or so months, possibly averaging about 3-4 hours a day.  I am not, however, a power gamer, so yes, despite the negative connotations associated with the phrasing, I am likely ignorant of a few things power gamers know.  I sometimes, but rarely get involved in PvP, just to get the participation reward towards the Daily 2 gold.  I do WvW to harvest the nodes and, again, progress towards the Daily reward.  Typcially that's spending and claiming Land/Monuments, but yes, that also sometimes means I take Camps, and I'd been able to do so solo, when not being interfered with by any PCs.   Rarely do get involved on full battles.  Sometimes taking advantage of an existing fight for a larger objective, and even more rarely actively getting involved in WvW, and then I switch to a support character.  I'm simply not fast enough with my fingers (and I don't have a massively low latency/high speed Internet connection) for anything much more useful to the others.  None of this should mean I (and others in my situation) should be treated like second class players.

 

Whilst I don't know how Heartseeker in a combo will give my pacifistic character more stealth, my understanding of combo finishers is that they're combat effects.  As my normal MO is to not get into combat in the first instance, I don't see how a combat effect is going to help the character.

It's necessary point out, however, that despite not being a power gamer, until ArenaNet did what they did this week, I had a build I knew how to use, and was enjoying GW2.

 

I previously could approach an ore node, dodge in to get stealth and complete the mining before the stealth runs out.  That is no longer the case.  If an enemy is close enough, they react and interfere with the action, making it take longer.

[Chrysaliss.8720]

Ok, let me enlighten you. There are some skills that have a combo field effect and others have combo finisher effect. (Read the tooltips). Using a combo finisher over a combo field results in a combo efffect.

For example:

Pistol 5 skill on thief puts down a smoke field AoE. In this case that is a combo field type: Smoke.

Now if you use your dagger 2 skill (heartseeker). Then that is a combo finisher type: Leap.

Now if you use a finisher type Leap over a combo field type Smoke. It will result in stealth for your character.

If you use your Short bow 2. Then that is a combo finisher type: Blast.

Generaly blast finisher is the same as leap finisher except the result has AoE effect. So using blast on a smoke field results in stealth for everyone around you.

[Nyel.1843]

1 hour ago, OrangeHedgehog.6310 said:

Whilst I don't know how Heartseeker in a combo will give my pacifistic character more stealth, my understanding of combo finishers is that they're combat effects.  As my normal MO is to not get into combat in the first instance, I don't see how a combat effect is going to help the character.

 

You don't need to engage in combat for combat effects aka fields. Honestly, no idea how anyone after playing for such a long amount of time could have missed that. It's one of the most basic concepts in Guild Wars 2 "combat". Luckily they work everywhere, never witnessed players using them in cities?

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

4 hours ago, Nyel.1843 said:

 

You don't need to engage in combat for combat effects aka fields. Honestly, no idea how anyone after playing for such a long amount of time could have missed that. It's one of the most basic concepts in Guild Wars 2 "combat". Luckily they work everywhere, never witnessed players using them in cities?

Okay, thanks.  The reason I haven't come across that is because when I'm in a city I'm typically moving between points or selling/buying stuff.  I don't people watch, and even if I did there's no reason for me to understand what they're doing just by watching them.  So many characters and combinations...  

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

5 hours ago, Chrysaliss.8720 said:

Ok, let me enlighten you. There are some skills that have a combo field effect and others have combo finisher effect. (Read the tooltips). Using a combo finisher over a combo field results in a combo efffect.

For example:

Pistol 5 skill on thief puts down a smoke field AoE. In this case that is a combo field type: Smoke.

Now if you use your dagger 2 skill (heartseeker). Then that is a combo finisher type: Leap.

Now if you use a finisher type Leap over a combo field type Smoke. It will result in stealth for your character.

If you use your Short bow 2. Then that is a combo finisher type: Blast.

Generaly blast finisher is the same as leap finisher except the result has AoE effect. So using blast on a smoke field results in stealth for everyone around you.

Thank you, that's helpful and appreciated.  What's troublesome is that it will mean needing to switch frequently between the Rifle and the Dagger+Pistol combination; to be able to access both the stealth from dodging and the stealth from the combo.  That takes a finite amount of time, time which ArenaNet have made considerably more precious since they broke the build.

Then there's the time which will be needed to perfect the skills.  Perhaps I'll eventually be able to get used to using the combo, but it will take time learning how to.  Time which I could have been spending doing something more productive.  Do I resent the need to spend time learning a skill I didn't previously need?  You betcha!  Partly because it should have been unnecessary to do so, and partly because I doubt I'll get good enough to use it smoothly anyway.  If I was any good at mastering those skills I would be in PvP regularly.

Then, of course, because ArenaNet broke the build, the stealth duration is shorter than it previously was.  So whilst knowing the technique might be helpful in a PvP/WvW environment, where the characters are highly mobile and actively engaging in combat, when you're farming (PvE and WvW) you're static, and have to remain so throughout the farming action.  If you move/attack the farming action is interrupted and you have to start again.  Sure, the tree/node will have been part-farmed and won't take as long the second time, but it will still take two attempts, which means more time repeating actions, dodging agro, &etc.  Time which until ArenaNet broke the build, didn't need to be wasted.

 

All because, if the rumours I'm hearing are true, someone wet their underwear over Thieves being too difficult to hit in PvP/WvW?  Seriously?  Thieves are the squishiest Profession and don't have a great deal of hitting power.  Having been on the receiving end of more than one attack, I know how quickly players can take out a Thief, even when the Thief isn't being aggressive, and is obviously trying to get away.  That said attacker, seeing that the Thief is retreating, presses the attack relentlessly until they finish the Thief off demonstrates a level of bullying which would not be tolerated in any decent society.  Okay, so GW2 is a fantasy environment, and people can do things in it which don't have to comply with decency.  That still does not make for a valid argument for breaking the build. 

ArenaNet make a big thing about GW2 being attractive all comers: those who want PvP; those who want to craft; those who want to do WvW; those who want to explore the PvE; those who want to farm.  It's a huge ecosystem.  The people who just want the best gear for PvP/WvW, but aren't interested in doing the crafting or farming rely on the crafters to build and sell the items. The crafters rely on the farmers to make the resources available.  Cogs upon cogs.  Yet it is apparently acceptable to degrade the fun for the farmers.  Are people who do that considered to be lesser players?  The broken design for the patch sure makes it feel that way.
 

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

If you haven't seen it, the June 28th update changed several Shadow Arts traits along with other trait lines and utilities.

One direct nerf to stealth uptime is the new Meld with Shadows which no longer increases the duration of self-applied stealth.  So every time you stealth via Silent Scope, you no longer have that extra duration.

I used to use my DE to farm Winterberry bushes in Bitterfrost Frontier, and it was by far the most expedient farming.  I didn't bother with stacking stealth duration.  Instead, I only relied on Silent Scope to stealth as I approached bushes, losing any aggro from the nearby NPEs, gather the berries, and mount up and zoom off as the stealth wore off.

This was all possible because I used Glyph of Industry which reduces gather time by 50%.  It can be purchased on the TP or it comes with the Firestorm Logging Tool rotationally available through the Gem Store.  If you don't already have the Glyph of Industry, I think you'd find it indispensable for expedient farming.

If you do find that you need longer uninterrupted stealth uptime, your only option is to continue using various stealth utilities and perhaps Hide in Shadows, which is now the only stealth heal since the update eliminated Concealing Restoration, in conjunction with the combo effects others mentioned.  The combos may seem awkward and spammy at first, but you can stack solid stealth duration from them to fill in the gaps between utilities.  And as mentioned, they can be done outside of combat, even when you're already stealthed.  However, In order not to waste existing stealth time by performing the combos in stealth, you should start off with the combos, then use utilities after.  Keep repeating as needed.

Hope this helps.

[Caedmon.6798]

2 hours ago, Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

If you haven't seen it, the June 28th update changed several Shadow Arts traits along with other trait lines and utilities.

One direct nerf to stealth uptime is the new Meld with Shadows which no longer increases the duration of self-applied stealth.  So every time you stealth via Silent Scope, you no longer have that extra duration.

I used to use my DE to farm Winterberry bushes in Bitterfrost Frontier, and it was by far the most expedient farming.  I didn't bother with stacking stealth duration.  Instead, I only relied on Silent Scope to stealth as I approached bushes, losing any aggro from the nearby NPEs, gather the berries, and mount up and zoom off as the stealth wore off.

This was all possible because I used Glyph of Industry which reduces gather time by 50%.  It can be purchased on the TP or it comes with the Firestorm Logging Tool rotationally available through the Gem Store.  If you don't already have the Glyph of Industry, I think you'd find it indispensable for expedient farming.

If you do find that you need longer uninterrupted stealth uptime, your only option is to continue using various stealth utilities and perhaps Hide in Shadows, which is now the only stealth heal since the update eliminated Concealing Restoration, in conjunction with the combo effects others mentioned.  The combos may seem awkward and spammy at first, but you can stack solid stealth duration from them to fill in the gaps between utilities.  And as mentioned, they can be done outside of combat, even when you're already stealthed.  However, In order not to waste existing stealth time by performing the combos in stealth, you should start off with the combos, then use utilities after.  Keep repeating as needed.

Hope this helps.

Youre talking about pve farming mats...like, who the f cares. The issue lies with PVP and WVW. Not gathering mats on a pve map.

[Wusch.6380]

@OrangeHedgehog.6310 

 

I am trying to be constructive, no flaming intended:

 

1. You didn‘t even know combo fields. What makes you think you could assess wether they broke the class or not?

 

2. Your statements are exhaustingly long. I could summarise them in 3 sentences.

 

3. The game changes. Try to cope with that and find new ways (it is fun and you’ll gain a lot more knowledge about your class).  
 

4. Get down from that high horse and stop being a toxic player that thinks everyone else is worse than him. Be one of the chill guys, they are the best.
 

5. You tried to farm gold in a PvP-Area… This is a bit like someone trying to play basketball in a soccer game (this comparison is a bit off since it is just an odd way to play and there is nothing wrong with that). Just don’t complain about them destroying your fun when they just enforced the rules of the game mode and made it better for everyone else.