ArenaNet have broken my Thief/Deadeye

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

On 8/12/2022 at 4:01 AM, Fipmip.7219 said:

Imagine making a game and any attempt at balancing it spawns a five page thread about how you cant permastealth while doing nothing but harvest resource nodes, from an 18 month player that still doesnt know what combos are. You're asked if you're regarded as a lower class of player? like, yes dude. you are.  your playstyle should not be regarded when it comes to balance changes. at all.

Well aren't you Mister Happy combined with Mister Missed The Point Entirely‽  Congratulations on being such a considerate person.  Your perspective and attitude makes it look like you are not just not content with being unable to get those elusive WvW kills, and thus a supporter of the Anti-Permastealth Brigade, if not a founding member, but also the sort of person who actively picks on anyone they consider beneath them.

 

GW2 is supposed to be welcoming, and all play styles are supposed to be respected. 

It should not be necessary to point this out, but the changes brought in didn't rebalance things, they tipped the balance massively away from Deadeye, favouring the Anti-Permastealth Brigade.  Further the changes were entirely unnecessary in PvE, so not balancing there. At all.

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

On 8/9/2022 at 7:33 PM, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

If you really just want to run between nodes in WvW and not engage in any combat, try running this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAQRlNwEZbMLmJecT9vKA-zRJYjR1/ZkpqqXpqkPEB5fjqAA-e

It's a variation on my scouting/roaming build. I usually don't run minstrel anymore since the last patch made DE stupidly hard to catch by default, but if you don't play PvP modes much the minstrel gear will keep you alive. If someone chases you, target them as you run and alternate between dodging and rifle 4. Between antitoxin runes, Embrace of Shadows and Don't Stop you will cleanse up to 6 conditions per dodge and 2 conditions per rifle 4, so escaping from condition roamers isn't going to be a problem. Dodging gives you stealth and SA gives you gives you 3 initiative per stealth, which fuels your rifle 4 to build distance along with 3s superspeed per dodge to maintain that distance. Mount as soon as you can do so. Weapon swap if you need more endurance to dodge or if you get stuck with a long immob and can't dodge to cleanse. Portal is a last resort: If they keep chasing, place portal, run to the max port distance then portal back and run in the opposite direction again. Even the most infuriated roamers tend to give up chasing after one or two rounds of that. If someone really will not give up then run to your commander and use kneeling rifle 2 to spam immob while your zerg runs them over, then /dance on their corpse. 

Thank you for taking the time to make that suggestion and to explain how to use it, it's appreciated.  It's certainly something I think I could try.  Afterall, ArenaNet's incompetence has already forced me to change my skill selection anyway (exacerbating the problem due to the learning curve), so what's another change?

 

I think I'll likely stop short of 'the /dance-ing on their corpse' step, as it is unlikely that I will ever engage with anyone long enough to down them. 

The Website did something funny between looking at it, changing the skills depicted, so I'm now unsure which setup is the one needed. I'd have posted screenshots but they are apparently not permitted, so here's a list of what I think I should was supposed to be seeing (after loading the page a second time):

 

Skills:

6: Withdraw

7: Blinding Powder

8: Shadow Step/Shadow Return

9: Prepare Shadow Portal/Shadow Portal

0: Shadow Meld

Specializations:

Shadow Arts: Shadow's Embrace-Cloaked in Shadow-Shadow's Rejuvenation

Acrobatics: Instant Reflexes-Hard to Catch-Don't Stop

Deadeye: Malicious Intent-Silent Scope-Maleficent Seven

Thanks, again, for being helpful.

[ASP.8093]

 

19 hours ago, OrangeHedgehog.6310 said:

It should not be necessary to point this out, but the changes brought in didn't rebalance things, they tipped the balance massively away from Deadeye, favouring the Anti-Permastealth Brigade.  Further the changes were entirely unnecessary in PvE, so not balancing there. At all.

Lol. We keep telling you, over and over: Shadow Arts Deadeye is better than ever. Consistently easy access to 3 initiative on dodge really helps DE win actual fights against actual decent players. We are seeing an unprecedented Deadeye renaissance in SPvP and people are consistently naming it one of the top specs for roaming as well.

The main build to suffer from the Shadow Arts changes was Shadow Arts D/P because they lost the Hide in Shadows stealth extension and stealth-on-Steal. Neither of these things were high-value for Deadeye; or even taken by most Deadeyes at all.

 

Furthermore, we've all had the experience of easily chaining "permastealth" with 2 sec stealth on dodge pre-patch, and you're still het up about 4 sec stealth on dodge being reduced to 3 sec stealth on dodge in PvE. For your "gathering build." Which apparently doesn't use combo fields or whatever. Come on now. Come onnn!

[flyingplanet.6912]

On 8/19/2022 at 10:06 PM, ASP.8093 said:

Lol. We keep telling you, over and over: Shadow Arts Deadeye is better than ever. Consistently easy access to 3 initiative on dodge really helps DE win actual fights against actual decent players. We are seeing an unprecedented Deadeye renaissance in SPvP and people are consistently naming it one of the top specs for roaming as well.

 

Not really. its pretty bad now because stealth was pretty much the only defense thieves had. If you ask players to choose between 1 sec of stealth vs 3 initiative on dodge, 99.9% thief players will choose the stealth. If anet wanted the stealth thieves to be gone they should've buffed acrobatics.

 

Not sure about pvp but I have only seen 2 pvp deadeye videos while majority of them were either guards or necros. For WvW, you see more deadeye because daredevil and core thief builds has become pretty much useless after the stealth nerf. 

 

But even before the patch, I haven't seen a single perma-stealth deadeyes who actually knew how to fight (except newbies who were trying out this spec). I was quite surprised when people here said how wvw is infested with deadeyes causing problems but in fact it was not. It was really had to see thieves in general because they do minimal impact in wvw scores. Perma-stealth was sort of like a meme build in which you have to put in all initiative + stealth skills to maintain it. 

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

On 8/19/2022 at 2:06 PM, ASP.8093 said:

Lol. We keep telling you, over and over: Shadow Arts Deadeye is better than ever. Consistently easy access to 3 initiative on dodge really helps DE win actual fights against actual decent players. We are seeing an unprecedented Deadeye renaissance in SPvP and people are consistently naming it one of the top specs for roaming as well.

And therein lies part of the problem; people reading what they want to see, and not accepting the evidence, to consistently focus on the PvP/WvW element (presumably supporting their own agenda).  In the process 'conveniently' ignoring the original observation, which was about how the PvE build has been unnecessarily broken, or in other words, unprofessionally/incompetently modified; there was zero need to modify the PvE build.  I'm confident I have not yet seen any valid argument for breaking the PvE build, the arguments coming back are all about how it fixes a claimed problem in PvP/WvW. 

As for the observations about combo fields, they were simply unnecessary to achieve the desired outcome until ArenaNet's incompetence forced the issue, and they're not the ultimate solution.  Their use requires players to have to change their build and complicates the harvesting process. Needing to stay in one place to harvest doesn't work with abilities which require the character to move to achieve the stealth, and taking aggressive actions which will likely trigger aggro, thus preventing mounting on completion of harvesting a node.  Harvesting nodes takes longer and when you're prevented from mounting getting between nodes takes longer.   There may well be some uber-players who find such actions really easy to perform.  Not everyone has the same abilities and GW2, and players, taking a stance which is inherently negative speaks volumes about their attitude towards acceptance of people of differing abilities, and none of it is positive.
Clearly the best defence is simply not becoming a target in the first place.  This is especially true for a class without significant health or armour, so that means being stealthy is the best defence.  I'd like to say what is really bizarre is how so many people seem to think that crippling the key defence for a class is actually acceptable, but that's not 100% the case, it's more a case of being a sad reflection of the state of the attitude of some people towards others.

Those supporting the removal of the ability to permastealth focus on PvP/WvW, claiming it is broken (again, 'conveniently' ignoring that the original problem highlighted relates to PvE).  Yet none that I have noted have accepted that whilst a character is stealthed it cannot count towards claiming an objective, which is pretty much key to success in both PvP and WvW.  The only conclusion is that what such people want is simply to kill other characters, whatever the means.  Being able to pick on a soft target is so much easier than a target which can actually fight back effectively.  It would be nice to think having a more even-matched fight would actually be more satisfying to the players because you can some out of it, win or lose, and say it was a good fight (i.e. which challenged you, tested your ability), rather than being an horrendously one-sided event.  It appears to not be the case, which supports the theory that the kill is more important to those players than the way they achieved it.

[ASP.8093]

1 hour ago, OrangeHedgehog.6310 said:

ArenaNet's incompetence

Everything you post is just about your incompetence, tho.

[hatozeni.5721]

My super frank opinion (as a PvP player):

This DeadEye we have today is not bad and "super speed" is sometimes very good. But DeadEye before the patch was MUCH better. I don't know about PVE but in PVP the 1 second extra stealth bonus made a big difference in performance.
A.Net should give us  a skill where we lose a percentage of regen or something... in exchange for the 1 second extra stealth.
I already have the name for this skill: "shadow bargain".

[Alcatraznc.3869]

I totally agree, Deadeye now is broken.

 

Before I could perma stealth and one shot people without them knowing I was there. 

Now I no longer get perma stealth but instead I get buffed when entering into stealth and leaving stealth allowing me to keep some pressure while being under perma speed almost all the time so I can reposition or just leave faster.

 

Truly we came from one shot to perma harassement until dead. 

[EEB.7082]

its been a long time since my las post, i left GW2 because of this nerf, i just came back to finish a legendary weapond, but they didnt change back the mess they did, so maybe ill just stay in pve sometime, this is what arenanet did to me and a lot of players that loved the thief stealth build, i mean thats the only reason many of us play thief, thats the core skill they have always in any game, they removed it because of some cry babys whit no skills, there is a lot of people that pointed this out very well, stealth was not even OP to beging with, there is no argument that balidates this nerf, a stealth thief is not making the team win or doing damage, its just stleathed, it is fun to do it in WvW because you can actualy ambush some one, wich is what an assasin do, again there was many ways to do this, like lowering the healing in stealth mode or something, but definetly not making a 1 second stealth that was BS im still angry at this, they just wanted us to play the way salt and devs want, RIP Stealth thiefs.....

[Bern.9613]

On 8/19/2022 at 9:06 AM, ASP.8093 said:

 

The main build to suffer from the Shadow Arts changes was Shadow Arts D/P because they lost the Hide in Shadows stealth extension and stealth-on-Steal. Neither of these things were high-value for Deadeye; or even taken by most Deadeyes at all.

WHAT?! Stealth on steal, stealth on heal, that second  or 2 of extended stealth, heal while stealthed, initiative regen while stealthed, 50% movement speed while stealthed, all contributed to making the deadeye hard to predict (very "frustrating" for Josh Davis) and allowing the deadeye to reposition. The loss of SA was a terrible blow to the deadeye, even killed it IMO. A boost to the bound p/p daredevil. Which is why I stopped playing and recommending GW2, over the betrayal of ANet to the deadeye because it "has long been a source of frustration".

 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Bern.9613
endless circles

[ASP.8093]

9 hours ago, Bern.9613 said:

WHAT?! Stealth on steal, stealth on heal, that second  or 2 of extended stealth, heal while stealthed, initiative regen while stealthed, 50% movement speed while stealthed, all contributed to making the deadeye hard to predict (very "frustrating" for Josh Davis) and allowing the deadeye to reposition. The loss of SA was a terrible blow to the deadeye, even killed it IMO. A boost to the bound p/p daredevil. Which is why I stopped playing and recommending GW2, over the betrayal of ANet to the deadeye because it "has long been a source of frustration".

• Stealth on steal was rubbish for Deadeye, that's why all the builds were taking Shadow's Embrace instead. Shadow's Embrace is stronger now because you get rapid-fire cleansing when you need it.

• Of all the thief builds, stealth on heal matters the least for Rifle Deadeye, since you have other sources of on-demand stealth.

• You get 4 sec Superspeed every time you dodge with Rifle now.

• Faster Leeching Venoms application makes up for no free healing in stealth.

• You get more initiative by entering and exiting stealth now than you did by camping it.

• You can still get a lot of stealth from combo fields if you know what you're doing. Stop playing Rifle/Rifle.

New SA is overall better for any Deadeye build that's invested in actually playing the dang game. I am begging you all to just watch some Monthly AT clips and adapt a bit.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

20 hours ago, Bern.9613 said:

The loss of SA was a terrible blow to the deadeye,

 

If you are one of those Deadeye who keep playing while staying invisible and one shotting people then yes that what you will think.

 

Anet shifted the playstyle from perma invisible to short burst of stealth granting boost. And guess which spec can easily have access to short duration stealth ? Yes Deadeye. Anet has been kind enough to even give some bonus when you leave stealth, whether by attacking or stealth running out.

 

It barely took me about 15 min to adapt my playstyle around short burst of stealth and I could pressure people much more than I could before. And I aint even a pro thief player.

[Bern.9613]

11 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

• Stealth on steal was rubbish for Deadeye, that's why all the builds were taking Shadow's Embrace instead. Shadow's Embrace is stronger now because you get rapid-fire cleansing when you need it.

• Of all the thief builds, stealth on heal matters the least for Rifle Deadeye, since you have other sources of on-demand stealth.

• You get 4 sec Superspeed every time you dodge with Rifle now.

• Faster Leeching Venoms application makes up for no free healing in stealth.

• You get more initiative by entering and exiting stealth now than you did by camping it.

• You can still get a lot of stealth from combo fields if you know what you're doing. Stop playing Rifle/Rifle.

New SA is overall better for any Deadeye build that's invested in actually playing the dang game. I am begging you all to just watch some Monthly AT clips and adapt a bit.

Had all these. Stop urinating on my leg and trying to convince me it's raining.

[Bern.9613]

37 minutes ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

 

If you are one of those Deadeye who keep playing while staying invisible and one shotting people then yes that what you will think.

So every other class is allowed to have 1 shot builds? Engi and mesmers can stealth up on an unsuspecting target. A ranger can blast away dismounting and killing a target who can't respond. Eles can lightning strike 1 shot. Willbenders can JI 1 shot. Warrior can cc lock a target. I'm sure you get the point. Deadeye is suppose to stand there and die? Interesting.

[flyingplanet.6912]

Just now, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

If you are one of those Deadeye who keep playing while staying invisible and one shotting people then yes that what you will think.

 

I think this was pre-2020 patch. DE can never oneshot someone with perma invis unless the opponent is standing still.

 

Just now, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

It barely took me about 15 min to adapt my playstyle around short burst of stealth and I could pressure people much more than I could before. And I aint even a pro thief player.

 

Ofcourse you can adapt fast because current DE has become "just like" other specs. Anet's recent balance patches made all classes almost identical in skills and traits, probably in a way that dev's inner circle pvpers enjoy. Few aoe circles that hit 3 people or few projectiles that do about ~2k damage for ranged classes etc etc ....and remnants of skills that were so unique to each class's identity which used to provide diverse playstyle putting gw2 on a whole different level compared to other mmos. 

 

But I get it. I know that this is how old mmos fade away usually. They run out of funds, ideas or motivation, but they have to patch something. So they eliminate stuff that vocal groups hate but distinguished them apart from other games becoming more generalized and unfun. 

 

 

[kash.9213]

2 hours ago, flyingplanet.6912 said:

 

I think this was pre-2020 patch. DE can never oneshot someone with perma invis unless the opponent is standing still.

 

 

Ofcourse you can adapt fast because current DE has become "just like" other specs. Anet's recent balance patches made all classes almost identical in skills and traits, probably in a way that dev's inner circle pvpers enjoy. Few aoe circles that hit 3 people or few projectiles that do about ~2k damage for ranged classes etc etc ....and remnants of skills that were so unique to each class's identity which used to provide diverse playstyle putting gw2 on a whole different level compared to other mmos. 

 

But I get it. I know that this is how old mmos fade away usually. They run out of funds, ideas or motivation, but they have to patch something. So they eliminate stuff that vocal groups hate but distinguished them apart from other games becoming more generalized and unfun. 

 

 

DE became like other specs after it's first big balance patch soon after it's launch. After this latest one, you can still operate in a fight or with a team while sequencing in and out of stealth and you can still stack it to mask or travel. I don't feel like DE became like other specs so much as it became easier to walk in and out of stuff with those other specs. 

[Jumpel.3972]

You can still perma stealth ....

[Bern.9613]

On 9/8/2022 at 6:05 PM, Jumpel.3972 said:

You can still perma stealth ....

ANet saw to the destruction of any kind of valuable stealth for thief. No healing, no initiative regen, no speed boost while stealthed. Perma stealth on DE hard to achieve and maintain. Perma stealth is easiest on bound DD. Engineer now has the longest and best stealth and with the ability to 1 shot a target/s from stealth but that gameplay isn't a source frustration. Mesmer has second longest, also with the ability to 1 shot from stealth and, you guessed it, not a source of frustrating gameplay. If this wasn't a game, I'm sure TLM (Thief's Lives Matter) would have stepped in..

Edited September 10, 2022 by Bern.9613
endless circles

[Jumpel.3972]

1 hour ago, Bern.9613 said:

ANet saw to the destruction of any kind of valuable stealth for thief. No healing, no initiative regen, no speed boost while stealthed.

Oh yes now you have to actively go in and out of stealth to get bonus.... far better bonus than before btw.

 

1 hour ago, Bern.9613 said:

Perma stealth on DE hard to achieve and maintain.

Harder than before yes but it's still easy to maintain 

 

1 hour ago, Bern.9613 said:

Engineer now has the longest and best stealth and with the ability to 1 shot a target/s from stealth but that gameplay isn't a source frustration. Mesmer has second longest, also with the ability to 1 shot from stealth and, you guessed it, not a source of frustrating gameplay.

This is not a new thing. And maybe in WvW oneshot can happen but not in PVP.

 

The OP complain to not be able to easily permastealth in PVE like before (but it's still easy in my opinion) to do some non-interactive pve roaming (weird way to play too in my opinion but whatever) 

[Bern.9613]

I....

Edited September 10, 2022 by Bern.9613
endless circles

[Jumpel.3972]

4 hours ago, Bern.9613 said:

And how do you figure that? Is it based on stealth is down to 1 sec with dodge? I prefer the old SA where I dictated the when and where I popped out of stealth.

D/P is still at 3s for one combo and you can time it to get in/out bonus without little downtime of stealth.

And yes a dodge giving 1s of stealth + superspeed + condi damage clean + aoe blind + 3 int + little heal is far better than before. The one extra second wasn't that much good compare to what we have now

[Bern.9613]

I....

Edited September 10, 2022 by Bern.9613
goes endlessly in circles

[Jumpel.3972]

28 minutes ago, Bern.9613 said:

thief had 50% speed bonus, initiative regen, heal, condi cleanse while in stealth with the freedom to reposition and attack, with rifle, without being predictable.

Superspeed is 100% speed, 3 int for in/out vs 1 int every 3s by staying ? the 3 int are far better and more active, same for condi,  the heal was/is garbage in any case tbh. In my opion 4sec of superspeed is better for reposition than 2s of stealth predictable.

 

33 minutes ago, Bern.9613 said:

AOE blind is cloaked in shadows, why would you take that? It has a small radius.

It's great with shadow gust, #5 on S/D, D/P combo and rifle dodge if you dodge when they charge you in melee

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

On 9/9/2022 at 9:17 PM, Jumpel.3972 said:

And yes a dodge giving 1s of stealth + superspeed + condi damage clean + aoe blind + 3 int + little heal is far better than before. The one extra second wasn't that much good compare to what we have now

 

On 9/9/2022 at 12:41 PM, Jumpel.3972 said:

Oh yes now you have to actively go in and out of stealth to get bonus.... far better bonus than before btw.

 

Note: these benefits relate to PvP/PvP play in WvW.  The the original point raised was about harvesting in PvE.

 

Sure, you can gain Superspeed now from entering stealth.  An entirely pointless/worthless benefit when you're using Shadow Refuge to harvest a Rich node without being interrupted; if you use the Superspeed you'll leave the Refuge and become Revealed, entirely negating the Stealth.

Likewise, if you dodge up to a node to harvest it, thus gaining Stealth, the Superspeed has zero value, it's wasted because it is gone by the time you've finished harvesting the node.  Indeed, unless you have a Glyph on a harvesting tool (or other benefit decreasing the action time), when you come out of stealth there will still be some time required to complete the harvesting, thus Superspeed is going to waste then, too, providing little to zero benefit to withdraw from the node.  The additional duration of Stealth was considerably more useful.

 

On 9/10/2022 at 1:45 PM, Jumpel.3972 said:

4sec of superspeed

 

I'm not sure where you're getting four seconds of Superspeed from, I'm sure I have not yet seen it last that long.  It feels like just one second.  Certainly by the time I manage to get the mouse on to the indicator it is in the process of disappearing.

 

The observation that it's a "far better bonus than before" is entirely subjective and the scope must be stated to have value.  For actively dodging around a combat, so in PvP (and PvP play in WvW), that's good, in PvE when harvesting it is not just 'not good', it's worse than worthless because its introduction was at the cost of an actually useful benefit.  A prime example of incompetence on the part of ArenaNet; either they knew the negatives and went ahead regardless or they didn't know, which they should have.

 

It's interesting to hear all the opinions from people who think the change is acceptable. To have good value and to be respected those views must acknowledge the scope within which the benefit can be realised.  The original post was about how ArenaNet's incompetence has broken solo harvesting in PvE.  Arguments claiming the changes are actually good, but which don't acknowledge that those perspectives are not relevant to the original point are weak.  That's not to say the points raised are entirely invalid, they just need to be stated with the right context, i.e. that of PvP play.

[OrangeHedgehog.6310]

On 9/8/2022 at 6:47 PM, flyingplanet.6912 said:

that dev's inner circle pvpers enjoy

This perhaps hits the nail on the head; ArenaNet's devs thinking being self-centred, doing something which benefits them/their clique, whilst not giving one hoot about the PvE players doing harvesting.   Whether it was a deliberate decision, or failure to correctly assess the changes, it was incompetent of ArenaNet to deploy the change as they did.  The devs have great power at their disposal, being able to shape a fantastic world to their liking.  With that power, however, comes the responsibility to be professional and objective.  Things they demonstrably failed at here.

 

On 9/8/2022 at 6:47 PM, flyingplanet.6912 said:

Anet's recent balance patches made all classes almost identical in skills and traits

 

This is certainly something to be worried about.  At least after introducing Fourth Edition (4e) Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) relatively quickly saw the error of their ways and reverted back to the more traditional format when they released 5th Edition.

(For anyone reading who is not familiar with D&D, 4e made all characters extremely similar; they all had a quantity of At Will, Encounter and Daily powers.  The powers varied, of course, and once you had learnt to play one class it wasn't too hard to learn to play another (presumably intentional to make the game easy to learn).  The move was widely seen as WotC tying to entice the World of Warcraft players into D&D.  It was also seen by a significant portion of the D&D community as ultimately being 'not a good thing'.  Most D&D groups these days play either 5th edition or 3rd Edition (or a variant, such as Pathfinder (1 or 2, both of which are considerably closer in play to 3e than 4e)), with 4e being largely ignored.)

If ArenaNet continue down this path it could well be a significant element contributing to the demise of the game.

 

On 9/8/2022 at 6:47 PM, flyingplanet.6912 said:

But I get it. I know that this is how old mmos fade away usually. They run out of funds, ideas or motivation, but they have to patch something. So they eliminate stuff that vocal groups hate but distinguished them apart from other games becoming more generalized and unfun. 

 

In this case, the 'vocal group'  being the self-centred Anti-Stealth Brigade (ASB) whose argument was, and still is, flawed.  Consequently the ASB argument should have been rejected, sadly it wasn't.  It's a sad state of affairs.