Where do we go after DeadEye ?

[Havock.1648]

With the recent changes to SA, the most encountered build in PvP seems to be DeadEye, even our beloved Sindrener has made the switch. Having this high volume of players on this build will eventually get it nerfed after some forum posts about how op thief is. This nerf has happened for most if not all viable builds since 2015, Pulmonary Impact drd, Acrobatics and SA drd... just to name a few i've liked.
Once DeadEye is nerfed where do we go?  Do we all switch to Harbingers and WillBenders?

[Jumpel.3972]

#NerfSindrener

 

More seriously, they will probably nerf it for PVP but they only tweak number so even the minimum 1sec superspeed and 1 int enter/exit stealth will still be good (and the condi clean trait is already at 1 too)

[Doggie.3184]

I already switched to Harbinger for Spvp long time ago, lol. Hell, I even made a 2nd Harbinger.

[kash.9213]

12 hours ago, Kaybosh.5183 said:

With the recent changes to SA, the most encountered build in PvP seems to be DeadEye, even our beloved Sindrener has made the switch. Having this high volume of players on this build will eventually get it nerfed after some forum posts about how op thief is. This nerf has happened for most if not all viable builds since 2015, Pulmonary Impact drd, Acrobatics and SA drd... just to name a few i've liked.
Once DeadEye is nerfed where do we go?  Do we all switch to Harbingers and WillBenders?

I don't play spvp. Are the advantages now where the super speed is placed and getting the Stealth modifiers mostly while being able to fight instead of mostly while camping in stealth? Seems like DE is still mostly the same so I'm wondering what pushed it over whatever the threshold was, at least pertinent to maps in that mode. Sindrener and others were all about sword/pistol for a hot minute at one point also and then just lost interest and there weren't huge changes there. 

Just curious if the new changes mostly sparked interest in some players who just weren't into DE before or if the build is legit tuned into that game mode structure now. 

[Sindrener.1592]

8 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

I don't play spvp. Are the advantages now where the super speed is placed and getting the Stealth modifiers mostly while being able to fight instead of mostly while camping in stealth? Seems like DE is still mostly the same so I'm wondering what pushed it over whatever the threshold was, at least pertinent to maps in that mode. Sindrener and others were all about sword/pistol for a hot minute at one point also and then just lost interest and there weren't huge changes there. 

Just curious if the new changes mostly sparked interest in some players who just weren't into DE before or if the build is legit tuned into that game mode structure now. 

The cleanse, the superspeed and new shadow rejuv makes DE extremely good in the current meta where you can pretty much farm harbingers/condi specters.

Sword/Pistol acro DRD got absolutely murdered feb 2020 so idk what you are talking about regarding "huge changes"

• Competitive split:
• Reduced initial hit power coefficient from 0.37 to 0.01.
• Reduced stun duration from 0.75 seconds to 0.5 seconds.
• Reduced flurry hit power coefficients from 0.79 to 0.53.
• Increased initiative cost from 5 to 6. <---- this alone already makes PW dead in PvP
  
  Not to mention they killed off Pulmonary Impact at the same time

  (Competitive split) Reduced power coefficient from 2.0 to 0.75.

[kash.9213]

57 minutes ago, sentient.2081 said:

The cleanse, the superspeed and new shadow rejuv makes DE extremely good in the current meta where you can pretty much farm harbingers/condi specters.

Sword/Pistol acro DRD got absolutely murdered feb 2020 so idk what you are talking about regarding "huge changes"

• Competitive split:
• Reduced initial hit power coefficient from 0.37 to 0.01.
• Reduced stun duration from 0.75 seconds to 0.5 seconds.
• Reduced flurry hit power coefficients from 0.79 to 0.53.
• Increased initiative cost from 5 to 6. <---- this alone already makes PW dead in PvP
  
  Not to mention they killed off Pulmonary Impact at the same time

  (Competitive split) Reduced power coefficient from 2.0 to 0.75.

The Initiative cost would probably get me. Thanks.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

15 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

The Initiative cost would probably get me. Thanks.

They could really do with changing the initiative cost of pistol whip back to 5 across PvP and WvW. The damage reduction, fine, leave that as is if needed, but the increased cost really hurts the flow of the weapon. 

[kash.9213]

13 minutes ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

They could really do with changing the initiative cost of pistol whip back to 5 across PvP and WvW. The damage reduction, fine, leave that as is if needed, but the increased cost really hurts the flow of the weapon. 

I kind of tune out and forget about stuff once the devs price it out with resource costs or slap a 5+ minute cooldown on it. I might be a little worried about DE since they're promoting Specter more now, especially with new SA synergy so they wont change that again for awhile. DE is soo finely tuned to the players resource management though. What would they go after? 

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

3 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

I kind of tune out and forget about stuff once the devs price it out with resource costs or slap a 5+ minute cooldown on it. I might be a little worried about DE since they're promoting Specter more now, especially with new SA synergy so they wont change that again for awhile. DE is soo finely tuned to the players resource management though. What would they go after? 

Probably silent scope. I don't think that they need to change anything personally, but if they were going to nerf deadeye to promote specter with the new SA, silent scope is the obvious target. 

 

And that's fair about S/P. It's been a favourite build of mine since vanilla, so maybe I remember more about it than one otherwise would haha. 

[Sindrener.1592]

4 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

Probably silent scope. I don't think that they need to change anything personally, but if they were going to nerf deadeye to promote specter with the new SA, silent scope is the obvious target. 

 

And that's fair about S/P. It's been a favourite build of mine since vanilla, so maybe I remember more about it than one otherwise would haha. 

Silent scope is already at 1sec they wont touch that. The split nerf that most likely will come is the superspeed/shadow rejuv ini cost nerf

[Meridian.9103]

Stealth on dodge finally has to go, it's one of the most unfun things in the game. And it just became more op with the new SA traits.

Even if you kept only 0.01 seconds stealth on Silent Scope, it can still give the player a target break, superspeed, condi cleanse, initiative and venom stacks very safely by simply dodging.

I'd be very sad if Anet nerfs SA just because DE has way too easy stealth access.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Meridian.9103

[Graeaw.6329]

23 minutes ago, Meridian.9103 said:

Stealth on dodge finally has to go, it's one of the most unfun things in the game. And it just became more op with the new SA traits.

Even if you kept only 0.01 seconds stealth on Silent Scope, it can still give the player a target break, superspeed, condi cleanse, initiative and venom stacks very safely by simply dodging.

I'd be very sad if Anet nerfs SA just because DE has way too easy stealth access.

This leads to the following design/fantasy question tho: is there any one Thief spec that is allowed to have "way too easy stealth access"? Cuz for me it's like saying: - Bruh this mesmer spec has way too easy access to clones/phantasms.

Because if the answer is no, we might just have to rename the Profession.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Graeaw.6329

[Sindrener.1592]

26 minutes ago, Meridian.9103 said:

Stealth on dodge finally has to go, it's one of the most unfun things in the game. And it just became more op with the new SA traits.

Even if you kept only 0.01 seconds stealth on Silent Scope, it can still give the player a target break, superspeed, condi cleanse, initiative and venom stacks very safely by simply dodging.

I'd be very sad if Anet nerfs SA just because DE has way too easy stealth access.

Trapper rune still exists just a reminder.  Remove stealth on dodge and DE dead

[Meridian.9103]

3 minutes ago, Graeaw.6329 said:

This leads to the following design/fantasy question tho: is there any one Thief spec that is allowed to have "way too easy stealth access"? Cuz for me it's like saying: - Bruh this mesmer spec has way too easy access to clones/phantasms.

Because if the answer is no, we might just have to rename the Profession.

There is always a sweet spot. To stay with your example, Memser can actually have too easy access to clones as well, that's why traits ans skills got nerfed in the past. (E.g. Condi Chrono during HoT times was conceptually too good with it's recuring clone generation fueling shatters until it got destroyed via many trait changes).

In this case, DE has more and even easier stealth access than other thief specs, which is the root cause of why new SA can get oppressive. If you nerg SA instead, you nerf DE a little bit but ensure that SA is unusable by other Specs (ignoring the support aspect for now).

[Jumpel.3972]

21 minutes ago, Meridian.9103 said:

Stealth on dodge finally has to go, it's one of the most unfun things in the game. And it just became more op with the new SA traits.

They would need to rework stealth access on DE at the same time to remove the stealth dodge. This wont happen soon because there is more other things that need a rework on Thief (Acro, Specter support, Drd giving nothing for the group in pve ...)

[Graeaw.6329]

1 minute ago, Meridian.9103 said:

There is always a sweet spot. To stay with your example, Memser can actually have too easy access to clones as well, that's why traits ans skills got nerfed in the past. (E.g. Condi Chrono during HoT times was conceptually too good with it's recuring clone generation fueling shatters until it got destroyed via many trait changes).

In this case, DE has more and even easier stealth access than other thief specs, which is the root cause of why new SA can get oppressive. If you nerg SA instead, you nerf DE a little bit but ensure that SA is unusable by other Specs (ignoring the support aspect for now).

I absolutely agree with you about not touching SA further.
I'm just, let's say, having vietnam flashbacks about nerfing stealth for Thief and everything that comes along with it (again...)

[Meridian.9103]

12 minutes ago, sentient.2081 said:

Trapper rune still exists just a reminder.  Remove stealth on dodge and DE dead

There could be worse things than killing a spec that is simply unhealthy in competitive modes. DE should stay a roleplay spec in PvE if you asked me.

Moreover, thief should not get it's base strength nerfed because of DE which is inherently problematic by design (1500 range nukes + plethora of stealth access? cmon...)

And trapper runes in their current form should obviously be long gone by now as well, this shouldn't be an excuse.

[Bazsi.2734]

Deadeye is a mix of many many useless and a few OP things(which keep it together). If a-net decides to touch Silent Scope, the spec is dead. If they raise initiative costs on basic weapon skills, anything BUT deadeye will be unviable... have fun balancing this guys. You dug a really deep one with this last patch.

[Meridian.9103]

16 hours ago, Bazsi.2734 said:

Deadeye is a mix of many many useless and a few OP things(which keep it together). If a-net decides to touch Silent Scope, the spec is dead. If they raise initiative costs on basic weapon skills, anything BUT deadeye will be unviable... have fun balancing this guys. You dug a really deep one with this last patch.

I'd argue that the few OP things are what holds both DE and thief in general back, because that's exactly what's causing such Forum threads to appear.

[Bazsi.2734]

1 hour ago, Meridian.9103 said:

I'd argue that the few OP things are what holds both DE and thief in general back, because that's exactly what's causing such Forum threads to appear.

If those few OP things get <REDACTED>, you'd need a general rework/rebalance of almost everything on the different kits thieves have. What is more likely, that a-net invests competent personel and sufficient work-hours into said rework, or that they'll just destroy a few key traits and push the class into irrelevancy to make the whinging go away?

I'm quite confident it will be the second option. Don't get emotionally attached to your thieves guys! This might be the last patch where thief is viable for quite a while. Which is of course bad... but what would be worse if they did nothing. Which is the easiest choice actually. Anyway I can't tell why the game will suck 2 months from now on, I just know it will be bad. Now I'm off to play some tetris.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Bazsi.2734

[itspomf.9523]

Hopefully back to viable power builds and a total overhaul of the base weapons to bring them back to workable standards (initiative costs included, because shortbow doesn't even mentally register anymore, it's so bad).

 

Other than that?  I'm now in camp "off-hand sword" and hoping for something that blends the mobility of Daredevil with a less narrowly-focused (but no less brutal) take on Deadeye, built around manipulating multiple targets and a more "martial" approach to the weaving of shadow arts into combat.

 

Because if I can't have Thief/Mesmer, then give me Thief/Revenant (Shiro legend) vibes.

[Bern.9613]

On 7/14/2022 at 2:03 AM, Kaybosh.5183 said:

With the recent changes to SA, the most encountered build in PvP seems to be DeadEye, even our beloved Sindrener has made the switch. Having this high volume of players on this build will eventually get it nerfed after some forum posts about how op thief is. This nerf has happened for most if not all viable builds since 2015, Pulmonary Impact drd, Acrobatics and SA drd... just to name a few i've liked.
Once DeadEye is nerfed where do we go?  Do we all switch to Harbingers and WillBenders?

It was all laid out in the first paragraph of their design notes:

 

Shadow Arts has long been a source of frustrating gameplay, particularly in competitive PvP and WvW. This is partially due to the stealth generated by Concealing Restoration, Meld with Shadows, and Hidden Thief, which compounded with other Thief stealth sources to push stealth access to exceptional levels.

 

And there it is. The thief player has taken what he was given, used it to the best of his ability and got crapped on by the "balance" team. The "balance" team seemed to have forgotten that deadeye was made to use stealth to it's fullest. "Balance" in this game is all dependent on which side of the pendulum's swing your on and thief has been on the cutting side for a very, very, very long time. As for me, I'm out, had enough of this chipping away at a class they designed for stealth and when they "rework" stealth, it's only on thief. They took away power, boon generation, lessen initiative generation, increased initiative cost, out right took initiative away with specter which is more healing necro then thief, lessen effectiveness/change/removal of stolen items, 2 sec cd if you miss with stealth attack, the ability to stack stealth past 12 secs and the list goes on forever. Anet is not worth my time nor effort and every time I see a new "I discovered this great game, GW2" I comment to save their time and money and play Sniper Elite 5 or any other steam game (don't worry, anet will never be on steam, been threatening us with that almost as long as alliances) while waiting for Ashes of Creation.