Thoughts on the Balance Preview Stream?

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

So... the stream showed some elements of the balance patch. What we got for thief is...
 

Quote

 

Specter: Reduced shadow shroud health scaling from 1.5 to 0.69. This is the same scaling as Necromancer.
Meld with Shadows: Reduced superspeed duration from 2 to 1.5s (PvP)

Instant Reflexes: Triggers after using an Elite Skill. For Daggerstorm, this effect takes place after Dagger Storm ends due to it already giving you dodge.

Hard to Catch Reworked: Gain (small amount reportedly by ANET) endurance after Shadowstepping. Explanation was that thief has a lot of shadowsteps especially Specter.

Well of Bounty: Consistent boon pulses, including stability on pulse 1. By consistent, they gurantee that it's going to give you boons in a specific order.

 

My personal opinion? I'm extremely disappointed. I was hoping for more. Hoping that longstanding complaints would be addressed. But I guess I was a fool for hoping? It seemed like things were going to be good. Warrior got a lot of changes that would help them out. They even got Fury back for berserker. Vendicator's dodge mandrop got a massive buff - it happens a lot faster now (2.5s). The Vindicator's tradeoff was removed, so they have two dodges. Druid also got some helpful changes.

But thief? Thief got some pretty rough nerfs, and just more changes for better synchronization with a singular spec at the punishment of the other specs.

 

The one little crumb of a cookie we were given is that they are looking into removing Specter's trade off. But there's no promise on when that's gonna happen. But honestly I don't care about it because specters still got some other issues that's keeping me from playing it long term. Heck the whole class still got a lot of issues that Anet created, and I can clearly see now... don't want to fix.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

[Voraxen.2035]

The lack of attention to thief is absolutely crazy. Couldn't be more disappointed, couldn't be less surprised.

[UNOwen.7132]

Thief got out of it pretty fine tbh. Sure Spectre was nerfed hard, but it was broken. Minor nerf to SA, sure it was too strong. No buffs to some of the things that should be buffed sucks, and in particular PI is still useless, but at least thief will still be good and doesnt lose what makes it fun. Bladesworn and Scrappers got out much worse. Oh and CC skills still do no damage, which isnt super relevant for thief, but sucks for the game as a whole. So yeah, disappointed, but the thief part was fine, for once.

[kash.9213]

10 minutes ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

So... the stream showed some elements of the balance patch. What we got for thief is...
 

My personal opinion? I'm extremely disappointed. I was hoping for more. Hoping that longstanding complaints would be addressed. But I guess I was a fool for hoping? It seemed like things were going to be good. Warrior got a lot of changes that would help them out. They even got Fury back for berserker. Vendicator's dodge mandrop got a massive buff - it happens a lot faster now (2.5s). The Vindicator's tradeoff was removed, so they have two buffs. Druid also got some helpful changes.

But thief? Thief got some pretty rough nerfs, and just more changes for better synchronization with a singular spec at the punishment of the other specs. 

 

The one little crumb of a cookie we were given is that they are looking into removing Specter's trade off. But there's no promise on when that's gonna happen. But honestly I don't care about it because specters still got some other issues that's keeping me from playing it long term. Heck the whole class still got a lot of issues that Anet created, and I can clearly see now... don't want to fix.

At least that would be a couple of traits that were discarded under 300s cooldown, in the Acro line at that, becoming mostly deliberate and actually a factor in a fight. A more consistent Stability and on the first pules of Well of Bounty seems to hit up one of the more frequent complaints I've seen about Specter.

[AikijinX.6258]

Pretty disappointed with the small changes to Thief, because there's a ton of stuff still needing fixing and QoLs.

So... Hard to Catch's stunbreak was removed, and now it's just endurance on shadowstep? (That should be pretty interesting on DrD double staff build or double sword,) and definitely interesting on Specter S/X gameplay. That will be pretty strong as strong as S/X Specter ALREADY is lol with alacrity reducing CD for elite skill (daggerstorm) so we almost always have daggerstorm evasion up and Instant reflexes invuln. Just made S/X Specter more of a monster.

Well of bounty prioritizing stability first is pretty strong too, so while we are in the midst of battle shadow stepping everywhere, and getting endurance, alac, heals, we also get stability. Specter will be pretty interesting to look at after this.

I just hope Specter's Shallow Grave trait isn't just a 120 CD, one can hope but 60sec would be nice, if not 90.

Crazy that they didn't remove the tradeoff from Specter, but hopefully that goes away in time.

 

[Nomad.4301]

They never specified whether the specter shroud change was for PvP only, or also for WvW/PvE because while specter is over-represented in PvP you almost never see them in WvW and nerfing shroud in PvE only really hurts support specter which is already pretty trash.

The 300-second changes are pretty bad IMO:

• Hard to Catch: This trait has been reworked. It now grants endurance when shadowstepping. - This will basically only work well with sword because of the spammability of Sword 2  (maybe rifle, but DE would rather use SA, not acro) and the problem with that is this trait is in the same tier as Swindler's Equilibrium which is the sword specific trait in acro and probably one of the better traits in acro period. It would have to restore at least 33 endurance per shadowstep to be worth using with only our 50s CD utility skills. Bad 4/10
• Instant Reflexes: This trait no longer grants evasion when dropping below 50% health. Instead, it grants evasion after using an elite skill.  The problem with this one is that most thief elites are preemptive, not something you would pop in the middle of being attacked, like Basilisk Venom or Thieves Guild, this may work with the DD elite or the Specter elite and Deadeye would likely not be using Acrobatics, opting instead for Shadow Arts (at least with rifle) which really only leaves Dagger Storm, which is already a 3 second evade so taking this would really just extend that out by 2 seconds, not really worth it imo.  Meh 6.5/10

As for the Well of Bounty changes that's like a solid 2/10 fail, they added stability sure that's great but they also removed quickness, aegis, protection and alacrity from it and mandated 3 boons that thief can ALREADY provide passively from just using Siphon. Literally the only 3 boons even base thief can give and they locked them into place on Bounty - one of our only sources of additional boons for allies, like I said fail.

Edit* - Also, they forgot to rework Pain Response. It may not be a 300 second CD skill but it was nerfed to 60 seconds in the same patch and was just as passive, the reason I imagine they stopped at 1 minute was because all the skill does is remove a couple conditions, something that other classes can do much more frequently and easily, hell even specter can passively remove condis once per second in shroud these days.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Nomad.4301

[Valisha.8650]

That shroud nerf is a joke, truly.

[Meridian.9103]

I really hope they Anet looks again at well of bounty, that change is a sleeper general nerf to that skill. Yes, stab is good, but the CD increase in pvp/wvw is wayyy worse, reducing mobility, alac generation and shadow force generation, which was the main reason for taking this skill.

Also with the already heavy nerfs to shadow force generation in place in pvp, I'm really afraid that the health scaling change will now outright delete Specter from pvp. Especially any variant that is not condi specter seems to suffer.

 

[Tails.9372]

So many disappointed people here but disappointment requires expectations which begs the question: haven't you learned anything from the last decade? What exactly were you expecting and more importantly why?

[BobbyT.7192]

Totally not what I was expecting, (Actually, what am I saying, this is totally what I expected 😞) the low quantity of updates has been a staple for thieves since the dawn of time. Except for nerfs of course, and the quality historically has always been hit and miss. Most miss.

 

I really was hoping they would keep the stun break on Hard to Catch, and just add it to steal. Something like;

Stealing now breaks stun, gain endurance when you break stun.

The way they have it here just promotes spamming, and thieves need less reason to spam, not more. Its one of those things where if spamming becomes too good then it will get nerfed to a point where its not worth it unless you spam. That's not what we want is it?

 

Instant reflexes would be interesting with the daredevil elite to have a safe stomp potential. If this becomes a thing, I can see the cries for nerfs on top of this working with dagger storm, people can't stand not being able to hit thieves. 

 

The stab on Well of Bounty is nice but I have one problem with it. Alacrity should be one of the primary boons for this well along with stab.

Due to how spectres provide Alacrity, you always need to spam a minimum of 3 wells to have good uptime alacrity with either condi alac or harrier varient. Well of bounty is generally pick for either build, and you can always throw this out without a lot of thought.

Now that it will give you aoe stab, your not going to use this off cooldown but instead save it for when you need it. That's not a bad thing (again thieves to spam less, not more) but now spectres need another well to maintain their alac uptime. That's a bar full of wells now, and you lose a flex slot.

What I'm really asking is just a rework on how spectres provide Alacrity. It shouldn't need to take half your skill bar to provide a boon for the whole party.

Edited September 17, 2022 by BobbyT.7192
formatting, changes to opinion, grammer

[Asur.9178]

Garbage patch for thief, as I expected, cause they still don't have an actual thief player working on the balance team. I would break down the changes and show just how ridiculously bad and illogical it is (as I normally have done in the past), but I think some people in the thief community already understands most of it.

While nearly everything else is getting some insane buffs (literally insane because it'll be absolutely broken), thief didn't even get the ONE (Trickery & Preparedness) thing plague-ing it since day one in sPvP addressed in any way, shape, or form. Yet, they keep talking about how this is a "competitive focused balance patch". It's been over 10 years that Trickery has been a MANDATORY pick and probably will remain as such for another 10 years based on these balance changes the team comes up with.

At the rate they keep nerfing thief (especially while heavily buffing others), it's going to go back to its old state very soon (a decap bot). If you were expecting to fulfill a different role as thief, try playing a different class, because only disappointments await you. Either learn to enjoy the life of a decap bot, or start playing something else before it gets back to that state...because at this rate, that end result is inevitable.

Having said that, personally, I know what my future holds, because I can already see nothing changing:

 

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If I do not see Acrobatics and Trickery in all gamemodes, and Sword in PvE being addressed for Thief in the mid-fall major professions update, I would not be surprised to find myself quitting the game. In particular, Acrobatics has been a dead traitline for over 2 years, while Trickery has been a problem for almost 10 years (will be 10 years by the time the next patch arrives). It's absolutely ridiculous that these long standing issues and problem areas are still not addressed.

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Asur.9178

[BobbyT.7192]

4 hours ago, Valisha.8650 said:

That shroud nerf is a joke, truly.

1.5 to 0.69 (nice) ... they knew what they were doing

[Vidit.7108]

We knew that a consume shadows nerf was coming, I wasn't expecting it to come out of shroud health. Now you have to be really careful that the tethered ally doesn't kill your shadow force in that 5 second window. Also it seems like they forget your shroud doesn't get the same defensive bonus as necro shroud and you are forced to share that hp with another player.

How good the well of bounty changes are depends on the duration, if stability keeps it's 5 second duration (which would be really high uptime especially at max BD) then this was a great change for Alac Specter. I'm not sure for heal Specter it's all that good just because of the Shroud HP change. Well of Bounty doesn't need fury, the loss of aegis and resolution is pretty bad, but those are again more of the healer build problems. If it retains that one stack of might the original it's pretty useless I think.
 

Quote

We do see specter's reduced initiative pool as one of the tradeoffs we want to revisit eventually, but given its current power level we didn't want to do so in this update. We'll be keeping an eye on the strength of specter going forward and will be looking for an opportunity to restore the lost initiative once it's less dominant.

Maybe I am missing something here about how initiative works, but if two Specters are in a race to see who can use twilight combo 50 times first, the 9 ini specter always loses to the 12 ini Specter by three seconds. It might even be less than that given cast times versus ini regen and with or without quickness. Maybe there is some rotational differences that can be done in shroud for significantly more dps but I doubt it.

I hope Daredevil gets 900 range steal back.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Vidit.7108

[SamuelW.2685]

Seems pretty insubstantial to me, and the shroud nerf is pointless, why the kitten are they reducing it in PvE too???????

Cause they think it makes Thief too survivable? Despite the classes low HP it's very survivable in PvE on any elite spec, DD has stupid good evade uptime, even better on condi DD, Deadeye has good stealth uptime and rifle 4 is a backwards no CD shadowstep, and specter has it's 2nd HP bar, it feels as if they're gutting the survival accept of Specter in PvE cause of how dominant it is in PvE.

Also, Deadeye is still the meme class the end all meme classes in PvE and WvW, rifle can work for tagging mobs with the Be Quick or Be Dead trait, but falls apart the more mobs there are, it's workable in places like Verdant Brink, Bjora, Dragonfall, but falls apart in places like the Aetherblade Assault meta and Drizzlewood. And I said it's just WORKABLE, it is still no match for the other Thief DPS spec DD due to DD's stupid good tagging abiity in open world and having one of the highest DPS specs in the game with condi DD, hell, condi specter even does good DPS, what what does Anet do? Nothing! Enjoy having a meme spec for another god knows how long.

The well of bounty changes seem a bit iffy to me too, Siphon already gives your party Might and Fury  if you spec too it, Vigor might help DD's and Vindicators,  but sooooo many classes can access Might and Fury, and Vindi has built in vigor and DD has no issue with dodge uptime. If you need a Specter to be the sole Fury and Might provider your group is doing something VERY wrong, it helps but it seems like it's too much, essepc when you already give Might and Fury. The other boons are also very mediocre, no extra  alac plus a little swift is gonna hurt. 

All we got is more endurance uptime on a traitline that will still never be used outside of niche meme builds and a nerf to Specters survivability in PvE where the changes should, at most, have been PvP only.

The ONLY truly impactful thing we got out of this upcoming patch isn't even included in the bloody patch! It's Anet saying that sometime in the future Specter will have it's reduced imitative removed, and it's like kitten Anet! Really? "Hey bros heres this feature that everyone dislikes, we know everyone hates it but naaaaaaaaaaaaaah we aint gonna remove it now lmao xd" it's like crap dude Specter is good but it is not the be all end all spec, DD and even Deadeye do more DPS then it, despite Deadeye being a meme.

Overall the patch may be good, Ranger, Rev, and War got some good changes, and Mesmer players seem happy too, but Thief got left in the dust with the most minuscule, unimpactful and backwards changes out of possibly the whole patch. 
 

Edited September 17, 2022 by SamuelW.2685

[Buzzbugs.1236]

Please don't remove Minor Seeds of Life from the Verdant Etching trait. Especially since Druidic Clarity is having it's Condi Removal reduced from 13 condi's to 3. As well as Glyph of the Stars no longer cancelling out all Condi's.. this is overall a huge nerf to Druid's ability to cleanse itself and counter heavy condi in PvP, forcing dedicated Druids to take core skills instead for condi cleansing (for example, survival skills and signets)

Also with the removal of Minor seed of Life from the traitline, where is a Druid supposed to have access to light combo fields? You've gutted this trait and in it's place put 3 Seconds of Protection. Which is a good buff but I wouldn't choose it over having access to cleanses and light fields.

[AikijinX.6258]

44 minutes ago, Buzzbugs.1236 said:

Please don't remove Minor Seeds of Life from the Verdant Etching trait. Especially since Druidic Clarity is having it's Condi Removal reduced from 13 condi's to 3. As well as Glyph of the Stars no longer cancelling out all Condi's.. this is overall a huge nerf to Druid's ability to cleanse itself and counter heavy condi in PvP, forcing dedicated Druids to take core skills instead for condi cleansing (for example, survival skills and signets)

Also with the removal of Minor seed of Life from the traitline, where is a Druid supposed to have access to light combo fields? You've gutted this trait and in it's place put 3 Seconds of Protection. Which is a good buff but I wouldn't choose it over having access to cleanses and light fields.

Wrong Profession Forum My Friend.

[Doggie.3184]

Pretty hope-crushing overall and locking us even more to 'roaming only' WvW playstyle/anti-social behavior. Still no Specter bug fixes, no healing support reworks~ they only focus on the positive Specter Spvp aspects and none of the unused stuff? There is no bright light at the end of this tunnel. I'm sure the PvE patch will be just as empty as it now: I'll never have Ricochet back or any good AoE, sword will never be viable, P/D and it's little brother SC/P will always be the worst weapon skill mechanics in the game, etc etc. I guess this class will just always be lame till they finally delete stealth and redesign the whole thing to be more in-line with others and GW1 Assassin. It was a mistake from the very start of beta.

[Burial.1958]

The Specter Nerf is quite hard. Think that we will throw this class out the meta.

 

The acrobatics changes are solala but I think there should be more traits improved. Trickery, on the other hand, was not touched, and this traitline is still the biggest problem, since you can't play the thief apart from the specter without selecting it (aka Ini Costs).

 

Furthermore, some weapon sets are still completely unusable or a meme (D/D, P/P, ....).

 

I hope that ArenaNet will focus more on the thief in the near future. The updates that the class gets are often simply nerfs. There are even after 10 years bugs especially in WvW (Shadowstep and F1 often do not work on stairs as example) but also balance things like the violent Reveal at guards & watchtowers (a kitten no other class has).

Daredevil needs also a DMG improvement (more and more classes got Barrier or passiv defense where the DD dmg got constantly nerfed). Also a revert to 900 Steal range would be nice after that mobility creep EoD  brought in.

I'm Happy for the Warriors but Next on the list is definitly Thief & Mesmer who should get some love and QoL.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Grebcol.5984

[mantis zero.3075]

Specter: Reduced shadow shroud health scaling from 1.5 to 0.69. This is the same scaling as Necromancer. 

Necro: Assume a spectral form and gain new skills, turning your life force into health. Damage Reduced: 33%

i see the same^^

Instant Reflexes: Triggers after using an Elite Skill. For Daggerstorm, this effect takes place after Dagger Storm ends due to it already giving you dodge.

Hard to Catch Reworked: Gain (small amount reportedly by ANET) endurance after Shadowstepping. Explanation was that thief has a lot of shadowsteps especially Specter.

and all of this to Acrobatics that allmost no one is playing

Well of Bounty: Consistent boon pulses, including stability on pulse 1. By consistent, they gurantee that it's going to give you boons in a specific order.

Edited September 18, 2022 by mantis zero.3075

[kash.9213]

2 hours ago, Ken Yuudachi.9807 said:

Obviously, there aren't any professional players in ArenaNet who play PvP thieves. Even after reworking with Acrobatics, the players will still choose Trickery. Why? Because ArenaNet has increased the cost of initiative points in so many years. Every time when they nerf a weapon skill by increasing initiative points, the requirement of Trickery trait line also increases, which makes people stick to it even more.

 

The main problem is not about the cost of initiative points, it's Trickery trait line. It gives so much potential by adding the initiative points. If you don't want to people spam a single skill, nerf the Trickery trait line, not the skill itself. When you nerf the cost of daggers, people start to play swords. When you nerf  swords, people start to play pistols.

 

The result is, after so many years, ArenaNet has increased all the costs of  weapons to an incredible scale. To make matters worse, these thoughtless changes make the thief core weapons' skills have 0 damage in the most of case. Who much damage you can do with a single pistol, dagger, shortbow and sword? If you don't want people to spam skills, nerf the  initiative gain by Trickery trait line, and decrease the costs of the weapons. This is the only chance to make people choose other trait line instead of sticking to Trickery.

 

The change of 300s traits also makes no sense. If you bind a cooldown to an elite skill, it also implies that some elite skills that cool down for a long time will lose many opportunities to be selected. 180s cd thieves Guild, still remains the same. 300s cd Shallow Grave is still the only one possible trait for the power version in these three useless traits.  

 

Another crazy point is that they decide to nerf two kinds of damage mode specter shroud without any plan. The reason why condi specter can survive so well is that he can teleport and have a lot of shroud while fighting from a distance. But at the same time, as one of the few roamers that can be played now, power specter doesn't have long distance weapons like condi. If you just simply decrease the shroud of specters, what's left to support the melee fights as a power specter?

 

Looking at the entire specter trait line, there is no single trait that effectively helps power playstyle. Second Opinion, Larcenous Torment, Strength of Shadows are all about condition damage. What are you thinking about?

 

I'm a player who reaches platinum in seasons as a thief. From my experience, in the next version, there is no place for the power thief at all, now the daredevil does too little damage, the feature of the deadeye projectile makes it easy to be prevented, and you are going to nerf the power specter and deadeye. Power thieves will no longer be able to have any reliable builds in PvP. 

 

I also play other professions and have some ideas, but the main thing for thieves is here. Thank you to the balance team for bringing me the worst balance ever. Let me know when your balance team disbands, I will come back and take a look then.

 

Is the shroud stuff for pve also? I don't play the pve modes much but it feels like that would hit my groups harder there, where thresholds are pretty surgical. I'm normally working off low shroud in favor of frequency in WvW already but that still feels heavy handed. 

[svnset.8206]

3 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

Is the shroud stuff for pve also? I don't play the pve modes much but it feels like that would hit my groups harder there, where thresholds are pretty surgical. I'm normally working off low shroud in favor of frequency in WvW already but that still feels heavy handed. 

What you are saying with working off low shroud is what I often do as well, that's why I am actually not so worried about the shroud nerfs. 34k shroud was insane. I just wish they nerfed it to 1.0 or something first so we could see how that goes, since the necro shroud is not comparable to spectre shroud (they also have way more health and health generation).

Edited September 17, 2022 by svnset.8206

[Swift.4126]

22 hours ago, Voraxen.2035 said:

The lack of attention to thief is absolutely crazy. Couldn't be more disappointed, couldn't be less surprised.

This. While this update is generally very good and I absolutely love the changes to Warrior and Ranger, the Thief portion of it is very disappointing. Most of the nerfs are perfectly fine and well-deserved, but it feels like the only goal here is to balance Thief, not to make the gameplay fun. Here are some of the things that bother me about this update:

 

While Condi Specter was absolutely devastating, Power Specter, while genuinely fun to play, was already considered mediocre at best. So why not just give Specter a fixed base amount of Shroud instead of binding it to Vitality? Maybe somewhere between 15 and 20k in PvP? That would mean half the shroud for the meta build, while for the niche power variant it's only reduced by ~20%. Honestly I'm totally fine with hitting the overperforming Thief builds (cSpecter and Deadeye) with a hammer in pvp, they're not fun to play or play against. (one button spam)

 

The old Well of Bounty was just a great and always useful skill. Low cooldown, decent mobility and if you pair it with the F1 you can even get quickness from it. Now with a 35 second cooldown in PvP and most boons being borderline useless because you already have them from your F1, I see no reason to play this. If you want to add aoe stab to thief that's great, but rather than removing something that's played in every game mode, why not in the form of overhauling the Daze Well, which isn't currently played in any game mode? And while the description of this change suggests, it's a Well of Bounty buff, it feels more like a major nerf to me. feelsbadman

 

Changes to Acro: It honestly seems like the whole purpose of the changes was just to remove the 300 second cooldown, but not to give Acro anything useful instead. Does anyone really think that the new Instant Reflexes is an amazing and fun trait, worthy of the 2.5 years it took to develop? Hard to catch might be useful on Sword... except if you play Sword you would never drop Swindler's Equilibrium, that trait is the only reason to play Acro right now. Why not create a trait that gives a (random) boon (which you don't already have) after shadow stepping/successfully dodging an attack or something like that. Idk...would have been really nice to see some major changes and actually have a reason to try Acro again. For now, it remains useless in all game modes.

 

Scepter 2 untouched, this is probably the worst weapon skill in the game. I think there were 5 specters in the last mat final and that skill wasn't used once.

 

Pistol Whip has been incredibly bad in all gamemods for years, left completely untouched.

 

No self-only visual effect on Shroud 5 like on Ele Air Dagger 5. Such a small detail, but it shows the lack of attention.

 

Trickery still mandatory in pvp for 10 years. Not fun. I would have really liked it, if each of the core trait lines got a minor/baseline trait to restore initiative. Klaptomaniac in Trickery, Upper Hand in Acro, Shadow's Rejuvenation in Shadow Arts and maybe move Quick Pockets to Deadly Arts and create something for Crit Strikes. This would also be a nice buff for core Thieves since you would have three of these powerful traits and only two if you pick an elite specialization.

 

All in all, it just feels like there hasn't been much thought given to the Thief changes. Shoutout to the guy who made specter you did an amazing job, love the shroud mechanic and the teleport on Wells, it's so fun to play and has so much potential, it's just sad to see that there is no follow-up on that and Thief is back in maintenance mode.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I will not lie, I did think that Specter was a sleeper hit for a DPS spec.  Playing one in PVE meant my allies received massive heal and barrier bombs on a regular basis, essentially for free.  Fighting against the in WVW and sPVP made Specters nigh invulnerable, being both incredibly mobile and having a ridiculous health pool.

I also do like that Well of Bounty will now have consistent boons.  

[SehferViega.8725]

I really don't like the patch changes.

 

Hard to Catch lose its break stun function, the new one could be good, but we can't say it because we don't know the amount of endurance you will gain after shadowstepping.

 

Instant Reflexes will be OP with Daredevil Impact Strike. 5 seconds of evade with Dagger Storm  is simply too much. 
Basilisk Venom and Thieves Guild are usually precasted and the new Instant Reflex will be completely useless. Shadow Meld gives you stealth and you usually don't need evade while stealthed. 

It would have a lot more sense to relate this trait with healing skills, introducing a 50 sec cooldown.

 

Shadow Shroud health should scale 1:1.
0,69 could be fine if you increase the shadow force generation.

 

 

Daredevil damage is really low in PvP and WvW, compared to other spec.

PI is still a joke.

Initiative skill cost is really high, if you don't play Shadow Arts.

[itspomf.9523]

23 hours ago, UNOwen.7132 said:

No buffs to some of the things that should be buffed sucks, and in particular PI is still useless, but at least thief will still be good and doesnt lose what makes it fun.

Fair enough, though from a PvE perspective, I'm still salty about the massive survivability nerf to Invigorating Precision.  It's basically useless now unless you have 3500+ effective Power and some 240% crit rate or more thanks to boons/utilities/food.