Thoughts on the Balance Preview Stream?

[Neurion.4086]

6 hours ago, Bern.9613 said:

Some of the "thoughts" and comments in this thread are absolutely hilarious. When I started playing GW2 10 yrs ago, thief was advertised as the "scourge of the battlefield". Now we're just a joke, an easy kill. Why does thief have to give up stealth, mobility, power? Because anet said, 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 now this is their idea of "reworking skills with 300 sec cd";

              Hard to Catch: This trait has been reworked. It now grants endurance when shadowstepping.

               Instant Reflexes: This trait no longer grants evasion when dropping below 50% health. Instead, it                                                                               grants evasion after using an elite skill.

               Meld with Shadows: Reduced superspeed duration from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvP only.

 

When GW2 was released, every MMO had a thief/assassin/rogue/stealth class so they jumped on that band wagon. It's painfully obvious to us now that anet has no intention of allowing thief to be a useful stealth class, hell, a useful class, full stop. I, like so many other old school thief mains, have stopped playing and stopped recommending GW2. One thing the player base has to realize is once they're done gutting and salting the wounds of their so called "balances" of thief, they're going to turn to another class and start Michael Myers'ing it. Every game has it's sycophants that revel in every misstep made by the devs and, believe me, this game has it's fair share, which is why this game is going to be circling the drain for years to come and not die. Question is, how much longer are you going to endure the abuse?

 

Sidebar: Did you know that there is a point system for the forums? Like a driver's license, once you've maxed out, you'll be perma banned from forums. I doubt there's a way to regen the points. I doubt I care.

I can't thank you enough for your post! 

The only people still playing Thief are those who make money from streaming, or they are sponsored by ANet. I don't think there will remain a lot of Thieves after the next UNbalanced patch.  Not rerolling for me; I am not a masochist to endure abuse after abuse either.

[Kydar Schattendolch.6879]

The reduction of shrouh hp is hard and will affect heal specter quite hard so I hope  there may be a compensation in pve in terms of increasing shadow consume percentage (at least to 15%) or increasing stacks (or both).

While I like the consistency of boons for well of bounty, I also wish other boons granted. Something like:

1. Stability (1s)

2. Might (10s)

3. Quickness or resistance (3s)

4. Alacrity or resolution (3s)

5. Protection (4s)

 

Actually all boons are possible, so it should'nt  be OP with quickness and additional alacrity. Alternative boons are listed as well. 

 

Also well of sorrow should be updated and pulse at least 1 stack poison, tourment and bleeding each pulse. If not, at least 2 stacks of torment, "when other conditions are on the target" should be baseline instead of 1 stack. And pls reduce cast time to 1/2s. This well feels so slow compared to the other ones. 

 

[Carnifex.3275]

I think goin from 1.5 to 0.69 is way too much in PvE.  I just hope it's only in PvP/WvW but its probably copium. I can't really see any reason why they nerfed it even in PvE. It's not like we're dominating or anything. What's thief population? like 5%? Idk.. i might go back to playin some other class again. Seems like thief is being treated just as it was in the past years.. I got hyped when we got Specter as a spec, dusted off my good old thief ex-main and now... same stuff all over again. Nerfs after nerfs. No wonder there arent that many thieves around.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Carnifex.3275

[ixon.2496]

It could always be worse, we could have been warrior mains. 

 

But thief has always had some of the worse balance in the game, they never seem to know what they want it to be able to do. Resigned to a +1 in PvP, till every other class could do it just as well if not better.  Used to be top tier mobility next to mesmer with portals. Now everyone and their Granny can be hyper mobile. Or being the king of power burst with backstab, but nope they don't want that.  They seem to want thief to be mediocre in anything you build for. 

[AikijinX.6258]

 

16 minutes ago, ixon.2496 said:

It could always be worse, we could have been warrior mains. 

 

But thief has always had some of the worse balance in the game, they never seem to know what they want it to be able to do. Resigned to a +1 in PvP, till every other class could do it just as well if not better.  Used to be top tier mobility next to mesmer with portals. Now everyone and their Granny can be hyper mobile. Or being the king of power burst with backstab, but nope they don't want that.  They seem to want thief to be mediocre in anything you build for. 

Thieves are able to do anything, while simultaneously being mediocre at everything.

[Dylan.7648]

I just wish that they would work on the preparation skills, add some traits for it to benefit. I feel like they could be beneficial in WvW, especially if it didn't have the 3 sec casting time before laying down. 

[ixon.2496]

1 hour ago, Dylan.7648 said:

I just wish that they would work on the preparation skills, add some traits for it to benefit. I feel like they could be beneficial in WvW, especially if it didn't have the 3 sec casting time before laying down. 

 

KEKW, they reworked traps into preperations because trapper rune was too powerful on thief. Imagine reworking (destroying) a whole playstyle on thief due to a rune.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

I liked the fact in the stream it was discussed that they want to bring the initiative costs down and also discussed possibly removing the trade off from going into shroud or looking at those skills in themselves. This is mostly a PvP/WvW focused patch. I am looking forward to see if they reduce initiative costs somehow in the future. I have linked the stream to where they talk about thief.

Note: I am still not a fan of the reduced shroud in PvE, but I guess we will need to see where things go.

 

Edited September 21, 2022 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

21 hours ago, Kydar Schattendolch.6879 said:

The reduction of shrouh hp is hard and will affect heal specter quite hard so I hope  there may be a compensation in pve in terms of increasing shadow consume percentage (at least to 15%) or increasing stacks (or both).

While I like the consistency of boons for well of bounty, I also wish other boons granted. Something like:

1. Stability (1s)

2. Might (10s)

3. Quickness or resistance (3s)

4. Alacrity or resolution (3s)

5. Protection (4s)

 

Actually all boons are possible, so it should'nt  be OP with quickness and additional alacrity. Alternative boons are listed as well. 

 

Also well of sorrow should be updated and pulse at least 1 stack poison, tourment and bleeding each pulse. If not, at least 2 stacks of torment, "when other conditions are on the target" should be baseline instead of 1 stack. And pls reduce cast time to 1/2s. This well feels so slow compared to the other ones. 

 

Alacrity is already provided if traited for it via the trait when using wells. What i like in your syggestion is, however, a pseudo Chaos Storm vibe with some of the boons with a hint if the original WoB. Syability being 100% application possibility followed up by the 50/50% chance of tge other boons that are going to apply coupled by chance with the related boon.

 

For example it would go like this:

-Stability for 1st pulse

-Might OR Fury for 2nd Pulse

-Resistance OR Resiliance 3rd pulse

-Protection OR Regeneration 4th pulse

- Swiftness OR Vigor for 5th and final pulse

 

While i highly 110% doubt they will give specter more access to quickness as well as via the WoB change, the above sugfeation in my post gives the ability ti very much helo the team/squad with Rng. The more specters  you have the better. 

Also consider my most recent post regarding the potentiap pitch to allow EACH elite spec to provide ay least 1 Special ability to provide the most sought out End Game boons to create a balanced game.

Daredevil woukd be avke to provide group quickness via a trait, deadeye might and fury, specter alacrity.

Berserker might and fury, Bladesworn Quickness, Spellbreaker Alacrity

 

Keep The list going or adjust as seen fit

 

"WHO CAN TO WHO CANT?!?!?"

(LIVE UP TO YOUR WORDS ANET) why force someone to play a class that has the most efficiency based on 1/2 boins when people shoukd be able to fill SOME desired role that can probide necessary boons without rolling to a different class they either dont like, know, or want to play. (I bought this game for thief and thief alone, why be punished to rerole to mesmer for 1 kitten boon?!)

 

 

 

[Stx.4857]

The well of bounty change is horrible.

 

Basically all it does now is apply stability...  as you will already have might, fury, and vigor if you are running trickery which a lot of builds do.  I love well of bounty because it often procs protection, Quickness, and even aegis which are all useful.  The randomness isn't an issue because you already have most boons covered, so the well is giving you the rare and good boons...

 

Now it's just stab, a little extra might, and I guess the resistance is good too.

[Stx.4857]

The well of bounty change is horrible.

 

Basically all it does now is apply stability...  as you will already have might, fury, and vigor if you are running trickery which a lot of builds do.  I love well of bounty because it often procs protection, Quickness, and even aegis which are all useful.  The randomness isn't an issue because you already have most boons covered, so the well is giving you the rare and good boons...

 

Now it's just stab, a little extra might, and I guess the resistance is good too.

[itspomf.9523]

On 9/19/2022 at 4:14 PM, UNOwen.7132 said:

In WvW you dont really need any of them, but I'd cut some of the mobility. Thief already has very poor defenses, thats its biggest weakness. Its good at running away, but its bad at staying alive in a fight. 

Basically this.  Thief used to be shockingly good at survival thanks to stealth uptime, Invigorating Precision, and loads of little ways to heal yourself ... so long as you could maintain your boons, press the attack, and not burn down all of your Initiative.

But with rising skill costs, degraded healing, and drastic reworks to stealth to focus instead on spamming it (rather than as a "reset" to a fight), the actual heart of thief got cut out like a newbie spamming Heartseeker.

And that's just it:  the thing that upset the fanboys the most was "where scrub go" because apparently no one figured out how to fight something they can't see (skelks, anyone?).  Add to that the asinine (wonder if that'll go through the filter) decision to cauterize off most classes' sustain (excepting necromancer, of all things) because of the new Jade Bots and incoming Specter with EoD, and I'll admit that thief remains in the most dubious place it's been in a very long time.

Quite frankly, we shouldn't be getting excited over having Backstab brought back to proper damage, or the nerfs to Staff being partially reversed, but that's where the bar sits:  at approximately tripping height (which is probably a vestige of the old Tripwire trap before it, like old venom-share builds, met their untimely demise because of those same people).

Edited September 21, 2022 by itspomf.9523

[eazzyduzzit.7350]

 I do not know who is crying to ANET saying thief's are too hard to kill and need to be nerfed but if you listen to them I can only hope u listen to us ANET. If specter becomes easier to kill the only way to balance this is Specter needs to kill easier. Which means more DPS traits in the trait lines. If specter is our defensive spec (and healing/support spec which im disappointed and confused an assassin like class even has) with more survivability, why would you make us easier to kill without giving a balance? Doesn't make sense to me. Whoever is crying about specter being too hard to kill oh well. Every class has a reason to fear them so why take away ours.. Just make it make sense.

[mantis zero.3075]

I Play this Game since day one as Main Thief but now i think top quit the Game.

 

Thief is one Claas that geht really hard nervs and No one Cares about it.

But they Love the mechs......😂

 

Here a Post (  in German sry )

 

https://mein-mmo.de/gw2-mechanist-dominiert/

[Jumpel.3972]

9 hours ago, eazzyduzzit.7350 said:

If specter is our defensive spec (and healing/support spec which im disappointed and confused an assassin like class even has) with more survivability, why would you make us easier to kill without giving a balance? Doesn't make sense to me.

 They state to start by nerfing hard first and then buffing to balance.

Is this feel fair ? Hell no and it's look like they doesn't know with what they deal.

BUT it's a far better way than constant nerfing of shroud generation and int cost imo because it's end up making the spec slower and not fun to play 

[AikijinX.6258]

Wasn’t it their intention to over inflate specter’s ability to heal or provide support to (1 person) since we weren’t able to provide a whole group of 5 the support from our shroud and specter abilities? Am I tripping? Wasn’t that stated by CMC? Because since we don’t have very good group support abilities, our single target ally abilities would have made up for it by being strong and inflated? Or something along those lines. I can’t remember verbatim but I thought that was along the lines of what was stated.
 

Can anyone correct me or confirm?

Edited September 25, 2022 by AikijinX.6258

[Asur.9178]

7 hours ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

Wasn’t it their intention to over inflate specter’s ability to heal or provide support to (1 person) since we weren’t able to provide a whole group of 5 the support from our shroud? Am I tripping? Wasn’t that stated by CMC? Because since we dont have group support ability, our single target ally abilities will make up for it by being strong and inflated? Or something along those lines. I can’t remember verbatim but I thought that was along the lines of what was stated.
 

Can anyone correct me or confirm?

No, you're not tripping. It's even in their stream VOD.

They claimed it was supposed to be strong single target support, yet has continued to neuter it over and over again, without making any decent changes.

From quickness to healing to personal sustainability, it's been one thing after another (not to mention the damage variants) . They fail to comprehend the fact that a dead support is a useless support. It's absolute illogical changes, because they realized people are not playing Thief as a support; but, I think it' s still 10 years too early before they realize why that is, and that it's that way because core Thief's kit simply cannot offer the class the ability to be a good support. They can't even comprehend the fact that the Thief itself gains ZERO benefit from using the skills on allies...unlike literally ANY other support, which supports ITSELF AND others.

Quote

They gutted (let's increase initiative costs some more...yup) power Specter (which was infinitely more fun to play) to force condi Specter into meta and then became utterly shocked about the survivability Carrion amulet provides *insert Pikachu face*. Now they plan to gut condi Specter, which makes power Specter even worse because the health to shroud ratio affects both. They used the argument that it's the same ratio as Necromancer...except they forgot that base necro health is 7567 MORE than Thief - absolute cluelessness.

 

Edited September 22, 2022 by Asur.9178

[nopoet.2960]

For Specter, I wonder if the devs would consider adding 1 sec. of stealth Well of Bounty.   I know, I know, pvp hates stealth but it's only 1 sec and it's on a support spec.  Anyway it would give a lower skill level way to trigger Panaku's Ambition and give us more of an opportunity to make use of the changes in Shadow Arts line.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

On 9/22/2022 at 11:16 AM, Asur.9178 said:

No, you're not tripping. It's even in their stream VOD.

They claimed it was supposed to be strong single target support, yet has continued to neuter it over and over again, without making any decent changes.

From quickness to healing to personal sustainability, it's been one thing after another (not to mention the damage variants) . They fail to comprehend the fact that a dead support is a useless support. It's absolute illogical changes, because they realized people are not playing Thief as a support; but, I think it' s still 10 years too early before they realize why that is, and that it's that way because core Thief's kit simply cannot offer the class the ability to be a good support. They can't even comprehend the fact that the Thief itself gains ZERO benefit from using the skills on allies...unlike literally ANY other support, which supports ITSELF AND others.

 

I hope they read this thread...

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

The other thing is that most shroud generating skills are % based. This means a >50% nerf to shroud total also means a >50% nerf to shroud generation in terms of actual numbers. It won't be any easier to generate shroud, you'll just get less bang for your buck all round. 

[AikijinX.6258]

On 9/17/2022 at 10:34 PM, AikijinX.6258 said:

It’s kind of unfortunate that out of all the classes, when it comes to gw2 Reddit, and balance updates/nerfs, the reason Thief doesn’t seem to get much attention is because of the lack of attention and representation generated by the Thief community. When it comes to ranger, engineer, warrior, and ESPECIALLY Elementalist nerfs there’s always a sea of threads essentially shining the spot light on their class making Anet aware that they need to do something. It seems as though people are much more eager to start up Reddit threads concerning those classes in comparison to Thief even if Thief had received the worst treatment of them all. Thief is among the lowest played class in the game, so it makes sense why not a lot of threads are made or why not much attention gets drawn to the class, (which would then draw the attention to Anet). But it just sucks because I do really enjoy and love the class, but we need more representation and eyes on us, because every balance we get overshadowed by mass amounts of people starting threads for their class and the Reddit gets over saturated with it, meanwhile Thief is there trying to clot the hemorrhage that consistently follows the balance patches (nerfs) silently and without uproar. Thieves could have the worst balance of them all and there will still be more representation and call outs on Reddit for a different class that received maybe a nerf to their vigor or might gain and there Anet will go completely disregarding and having a complete misperception of the true losers of their balance. 
 

sorry it was a bit of a rant. just something I noticed across multiple balance patches.

Yet another post that gets tons up upvotes on Reddit about (another) class, which further perpetuates the notion that Thief is okay. (However I do recognize that reaper does in fact need to be looked at as well)

EDIT: I don't know if you guys can see the reddit link.

Edited September 27, 2022 by AikijinX.6258

[AikijinX.6258]

Imagine that. They reverted the change for scrapper, due to public outcry. And still no change or recognition from the devs about looking into reverting changes or changing (buffing) the changes they made previously.
 

I will say though, it’s funny that Engi’s stealth gyro has been nerfed just as hard as they nerfed the Shadow arts line. (Surprised pikachu face) And now engi’s are upset because they lost their stealth duration, element of surprise and skill uniqueness. Imagine that.. lol. Long stealth durations are only okay when it’s (not) on Thief. (Noted. Got it) Especially on a class that can AoE and single target dmg numbers that rival our backstab all while in stealth with their 25stacks might + dmg modifiers, vulnerability, etc.

But don’t worry, public outcry will probably prevail again, and the stealth nerf will probably get overturned, since there’s more engi’s representing their class than Thief on the Reddit/forums.

/mini rant over

Edited September 27, 2022 by AikijinX.6258

[Valisha.8650]

let's just make a fuss on reddit

[JaxLeo.7912]

1 hour ago, Valisha.8650 said:

let's just make a fuss on reddit

what's even the point? even the slightest mention of a buff to thief pops up a mass number of threads asking for more thief nerfs because of PvP, in fact, here's a recent one:

so at this point for as much as i love thief, i kind of would prefer Anet just deleted the class altogether and refunded the game for the main thief players, because we aren't allowed to have fun in 90% of the content of the game because of the remaining 10% that some of us don't even care about.

Edited September 28, 2022 by JaxLeo.7912

[Burial.1958]

Yep the thief hate is really strong. Mostly also the same peoples who cry for even more nerfs.