Unofficial 2/3/2023 Balance Patch Preview For Thief Discussion!

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

16 hours ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

No, I am not mixing anything up. The question that I have underlined above is precisely why I first brought up the point in the first place on page 2. Please do not insert words into my mouth or make bland assumptions. The repetition is on purpose as well.

I restated my feedback in the feedback thread as well. Maybe that will clarify your opinion of what was stated.

It makes a whole lot more sense to approach systems thematically and systematically. Take this patch for instance. One of it's main goals was to remove cooldown based traits in order to make build diversity higher. It changed other things, however from what I have observed the main 'scope' or 'focus' of these changes were exactly that. The change to shadow meld feels tacked on based off of the reason that was given in the stream. It is possible it's something that is a let's try and see what happens type of thing too. One of the thieves in my all thief guild thinks a patch that will balance revealed might be coming up next actually.

Did I state that it would break DE? No to the contrary. I also have stated that shadow meld is strong which you have reiterated. I am talking about high level ideas. Revealed should be balanced as a 'whole', the whole being  'the complete game in its entirety'.

This is another reason changing shadow meld might be bad without more thought.

Note: I only really run DE in WvW and PvE. For PvP I stick to daredevil non shadow art builds. WvW has much more space to maneuver. Moreover in WvW I mostly use shadow meld as a reactive skill to counter revealed from an opponent since opponent's reveals usually last much longer (6s) than coming out of deaths judgement (3s). Three seconds is peanuts when compared to the length that opponents dole out.

they need to revert it to the prior patch September 09, 2014 where it went from 4s to 6... this is pointless to keep it like this now and it is broken. SA has had several stealth changes and reductions so this long isnt needed to stay at 6s.

 

[Bern.9613]

The first sentence "Rifle saw some improvements in the last balance update, but it's still outshined by dagger in most power deadeye builds" is perturbing. Considering the last "balance update" "improvements" to rifle were all pve based, were they smacking away at a stand alone golem not defending itself or one of the pve/raid/strike mission/fractal boss that all have the same boring rotation of invuln, lash out/attack stage, vulnerable/cc stage, take damage stage, rinse, repeat; allowing the boons and condis to stack uninterrupted  as the benchmark? Or maybe they used Vallun's youtube vid as the benchmark because, you know, nothing says deadeye (sniper) like a dagger/dagger build.

I've said this once and I'll say it again. People downloaded GW2, joined ANet knowing full well there was thief, a stealth class, in the game. ANet should be aware that thief uses initiative for weapon attacks. So why are they increasing initiative costs and not increasing cool downs on other classes' weapon skills? ANet should be aware that the "power" strike for thief comes from being stealthed. So why is there a concerted effort to destroy thief stealth? Why is ANet slowly dismantling the class? Why are ANet leaders, like Josh Davis saying, a source of frustration in competitive game play?

[Einlanzer.1627]

On 2/3/2023 at 3:05 PM, Doggie.3184 said:

It's just not and still wont be after the patch. These changes are just to buff us for Strike Missions rather than letting us have fun in other areas. And WvW has sooooooo much revealed spam to the point of shutting us completely out of entire zones cuz of Radar and how easy groups can spam it nonstop~ Shadow Meld removing revealed was it's main purpose and basically the only reason to even use Deadeye most of the time, the spec is awful. I can't build a Radar on a tower that prevents people from spamming block and invulnerability back to back. 

And I'll say it for the 100th time: Why is Pistol/Pistol and Rifle the same weapon set? Gimme back Ricochet.

 

It's pretty amazing that they've never caved on bringing Ricohcet back to Pistol. That was one of the worst small changes in the history of the game and has spent years needing to be reversed. 

[cyberzombie.7348]

36 minutes ago, Einlanzer.1627 said:

It's pretty amazing that they've never caved on bringing Ricohcet back to Pistol.

They did, though it got "acquired" by harbinger.

[Doggie.3184]

5 hours ago, cyberzombie.7348 said:

They did, though it got "acquired" by harbinger.

Literally felt like getting stabbed in the heart when I first saw that. So depressing. I was really close to rerolling to Necro cuz of it but MCH Rifle buff pulled me back and I made Medium legendary armor instead of Light and stuck with switching between Thief and Engi for things. Why are Thief guns so unfun and the only ones who can't AoE? Please just stop torturing Teef gunnerz already.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Doggie.3184