[State of the Thief] 2022 Balance Edition

[Carnifex.3275]

Told u guys. No reason to do these long summaries, they wont read it. Changes were minimal and didnt really make sense at all.

Power increased on dagger in PvE? Why? Daredevil uses it? pDE D/D was already alright (on golem), so why give it more attention to daggers? I dont remember when i've seen a pDE D/D in game at all. So yeah, daredevil in this case was forgotten. I guess cDD will now do more strike damage 😄 

Specter is not bad though, atleast they rebuffed the shroud abit. Was also expecting some initiative buff but oh well. 

And that's it. The whole thing took like 1 minute to review on the stream. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Carnifex.3275

[LyraOrpheo.8450]

The buffs are amazing news for Dagger/Dagger Deadeye. We are now the undisputed kings of Golem Wars.

[saerni.2584]

First impressions on the patch preview:

 

Deadeye pierce on DJ should be extended to Malicious Sneak Attack (pistol). Deadeye has more issues than just whether the stealth attack on Rifle pierces. 
 

The range decrease on rifle kneel isn't needed even in the context of minimal movement. Range is offset by projectile speed (longer range means more time to dodge the projectile), so giving some movement back isn't really a good automatic reason/opportunity to cut range. 

 

Boosts to dagger are positive even if limited to PvE.
 

Specter Shroud mitigation boost helps address issue with Shroud HP but does nothing for helping alacrity Specter or Heal Specter be better to play game-play wise.
 

There are several issues at the traitline level that are being left unaddressed due to other professions traits/mechanics receiving more attention in this proposed patch. Many more changes are needed than the ones being offered here. 

Edited November 12, 2022 by saerni.2584
Typo

[ZhurZhur.4856]

As someone who plays a lot of Daredevil it does not feel like it is in a good place. In order to perform at the same level as other classes you not only have to position yourself at the back (often away from your team), drain all your stamina, and spam an attack that animation locks you. If Daredevil is meant to be a mobile bruiser the current gameplay is of an awkward child desperately trying to stay in a small area. You provide no team benefits such as boons but are heavily reliant on quickness uptime (which suffers if you have to be at the back). Also the steal range nerf just feels bad and pointless, un-blockable steal is not worth 600 range loss.

 

I personally feel like Daredevil should if played ‘correctly’ be able to pump out quickness for the team. Currently people do not want to deal with a ‘selfish’ dps unless that dps is reliably significantly better than the ‘non-selfish’ options. Daredevil is not this ultra-performer.

 

If the new philosophy is to not have negative downsides to elite specializations Daredevil needs something changed with its 0 stamina debuff, inability to stand still (which will get you killed on some fights), and steal range reduction (which I cannot stress how awful it feels).

 

Regarding core utilities, for power builds Assassin’s Signet has been mandatory for too long it provides the single largest increase to Thief’s damage. If you are playing a power build you will always take this and not taking it is not an option. I personally don’t have any good fixes for it because the power of Assassin’s Signet is a consequence of Thief’s core mechanic of initiative.

[SlayerXX.7138]

17 hours ago, Carnifex.3275 said:

Told u guys. No reason to do these long summaries, they wont read it. Changes were minimal and didnt really make sense at all.

Mhh. I'm pretty sure giving shroud a damage reduction was requested in the forums. Also im 80% sure a Power buff to dagger is something people wanted. Especially the heartseeker buff.

Kneel change could be fine. Need to test if it is enough to dodge easy mechanics with swiftness. Initiative cost increase was uncalled for. Range could be understandable for PvP/WvW. With our easy access to Superspeed they probably got afraid. Immobile spawm while moving sounds pretty oppressive.

[kash.9213]

24 minutes ago, Albi.7250 said:

Mhh. I'm pretty sure giving shroud a damage reduction was requested in the forums. Also im 80% sure a Power buff to dagger is something people wanted. Especially the heartseeker buff.

Kneel change could be fine. Need to test if it is enough to dodge easy mechanics with swiftness. Initiative cost increase was uncalled for. Range could be understandable for PvP/WvW. With our easy access to Superspeed they probably got afraid. Immobile spawm while moving sounds pretty oppressive.

That's a good point. I've wanted limited movement on Kneel for a long time and that changes sounds like a lot of fun. Will have to play to see but sounds like an alright exchange for the Initiative increase if there's less need to reset Kneel so often. I hope the Shroud change makes it to WvW. Similar to the Kneel change it could allow a little more of a controlled pace when shifting around as a sort of shield wall to shoot from and when peeling around. 

I'm happy to avoid those range changes, but I don't think it's needed in pve either considering the difficulty already in lining up a shot that needs perfect terrain negotiation and within our effective velocity. But then they're giving off the vibe that maybe things might be moving that way anyway with more moving as a unit with a solid base and trying to reduce the funneled outlier builds a little. Still feels like a weird change at the moment though.

[Jianyu.7065]

State of thief - hated by dev team. 

 

Period.

[Tails.9372]

8 hours ago, Albi.7250 said:

Range could be understandable for PvP/WvW.

Except if that was their issue with it then they should have made it "Reduced range from 1,500 to 1,200 in PvP and WvW.".

If their goal is to "improve the usability of deadeye in PvE" like they claim to then they should just increase the range of the Kneel skills 1-3 by 300-500 in "PvE only" (or in general and revert it back for sPvP / WvW if necessary) and change Silent Scope so that it flips over Brutal Aim / Deadly Aim to Death's Judgment while at max malice.

[saerni.2584]

Just saying if they want to "improve Deadeye" there's some suggestions they could take that don't involve cutting range. 

[Venport.3925]

now that absorption is getting nerfed into the ground though this bugfix, I think thief in general needs better options for mass boon rip to make up for the loss of shortbow 4 being a spammable 5 target boon steal, it was one of the few things that made thief have a chance of shining in the boon heavy zerg meta (though it did suffer if stability wasn't being dealt with first)

(Like really though the Thief not being able to steal boons except Maybe on their f1 if they trait it is weird)

a few more changes I'd personally like to see: 
1. Prepare Thousand Needles and Prepare Pitfall should both be traps rather than activated skills
    - While it may take away from some dps due to no more pre-casting but if that is a major problem they could just be buffed to account for it and it would make them more consistent in modes like wvw and pvp

2. acro rework (see the acrobatics thread)
3.  0.5 second cooldown on shadowstep post swap to stop accidental back porting for scrubs like me
- it can be shorter if that's too long just something to make accidental buttonspam a bit less punishing
4. also making trickery init baseline so thief builds can have more variety other than trickery and x 
5. remove the reveal application on shadow refuge
 
also slightly less high priority but I think it would be nice to make impact strike an AOE finisher, its incredibly slow for only finishing one target

as well as I'd like to see ricochet come back too cause it does seem pretty cool

new edit:
To add onto what I said, I think Prepare Shadow Portal should be a Deception (since deceptions seem to center around granting stealth/shadowstepping) rather than a preparation, as well as Caltrops being a Trap along with thousand needles, and pitfall. And maybe moving Smoke screen into Trick to make up for the lost space though I don't have as much of a solid argument for that im just making space for shadow portal

Edited November 13, 2022 by Venport.3925
tried to add spacing but it didn't look good

[Carnifex.3275]

On 11/12/2022 at 12:29 AM, LyraOrpheo.8450 said:

The buffs are amazing news for Dagger/Dagger Deadeye. We are now the undisputed kings of Golem Wars.

So funny that something that sees so little play and already does highest deeps got buffed. And ofcz it sees little play not because of low dps. But how gimmicky it is to play CnD-Backstab on a Sniper ranged class. Golem class indeed, now we can bench golem for 40k+ and dont ever go into real fights again. 

What would make me play DE is getting rid of CnD->Backstab altogether. Only then i would consider playing a melee DE. But then again... it would fit that playstyle alot more on pDD since its melee. OR. Make rifle pump atleast close numbers of Pmech, then maybe ppl will play it. But i dont see how current changes will make DE Rifle pump those numbers in real fights. Plus pmech isnt even OP anymore and yet DE rifle has to catch up 🤣

Edited November 13, 2022 by Carnifex.3275

[Zacchary.6183]

On 11/11/2022 at 4:40 PM, Carnifex.3275 said:

they wont read it.

You'd be surprised.