Hypothetical D/P Change & Buffs

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

So looking at the thief changes coming up, it's pretty clear that ANet want to tackle stealth in a big way. Historically speaking when someone has complained about stealth, it's almost always been about a build using D/P and SA. D/P has probably been the single most dominant factor in how thief has been balanced from day one. Now that SA has had a much needed rework and is in a healthier place let's have a look at D/P, because I'm convinced that the relative strength of D/P as it is is stopping any real buffs or development for thief as a whole. 

 

So the basic question is, if 1) black powder was changed to a dark field, or 2) heartseeker lost the ability to combo for stealth (either route resulting in no/limited stealth for D/P), what would need to be buffed on thief to put it in a good place competitively?

 

At present if either of those changes go through along with the Feb 14th patch, there is once again no real reason to run acro over daredevil (swipe nerf) so all evade builds will be daredevil builds again. Shadow meld is also losing the reveal cleanse aspect of the skill, so deadeye is now going to need some aspect of evasion/blind/mobility to survive reveal spam. If black powder becomes a dark field, we will end up in a situation where x/P builds lose their stealth access which screws over S/P mostly (although might be a good thing regarding cele P/P), evasion traitlines are either entirely ineffective or practically considered baseline, deadeye can't reliably generate stealth outside of rifle and most of the self boon generation outside of specter is still on deadeye, a line that requires cycling stealth to operate. Frankly, we have lived so long with a crippling impairment and a really, really good crutch that we have learned to walk with a limp instead of correcting the fault, and the whole of thief's specialisations are a mess as a result. 

Historically we've tried high evasion builds and people hated it, we've tried high damage builds and people hated it, and since the specter shroud nerfs the only other way to get buffs like protection to be tankier involves cycling malice & sneak attacks on deadeye, so sustain outside of stealth is very, very limited. 

 

So if D/P getting crazy OP with any buff wasn't an issue, what/how would you buff, and why?

[Zacchary.6183]

At minimum, I would like to see all sword attacks get a 20% attack speed buff and increases to damage on some sword skills.

[Doggie.3184]

If you want an answer to that then play Assassin in GW1. They were brawlers with lots of  speed, evasion, block spam, invulnerability, life steal, etc and no stealth... and Death Blossom was an actually good high damage AoE that didn't make you fly off cliffs. I'd love more focus on mobility more than anything and I don't mean through adding more things but by improving the mechanics we already have with freedom of movement. 

If we could WASD in any direction we want to during attack skills like Pistol Whip, Leaping Death Blossom, Weakening Charge, and Disabling Shot (forward and sideways evades being possible), as well as control teleport direction through WASD on skills like Shadow Strike and Measured Shot by it going in the direction we're moving upon cast, or not move us at all if used while standing still, and use WASD to choose roll direction on Withdrawl, Death's Retreat and Roll for Initiative, it'd be a massive improvement to our survival and overall trickyness in combat without requiring Stealth. No more locking us in place for animations and more choice on how we move around to confuse people. I'd love that far more than anything Stealth related. PSO2 has mechanics like that for a lot of skills including the new Waker class that lets you either stand still while attacking or teleport in a direction you're holding during the attack.

They also nerfed Stealth Attacks over and over to avoid single high damage attacks insta-killing people, which carried the restriction of making us single target focused to balance it. But since 1hit kills and 'highest single target damage' is a long dead concept for Thief they need to give us more cleave and AoE on our skills. So DP would need something for that as well. I kinda miss when Shadow Shot was like "Flicker Strike" in Path of Exile when we had Ricochet and we'd bounce around multiple targets, stabbing them. It could be a real thing, as long as it returned to main target at end. And I do really like Life Siphon on Blind, it's too bad you need to be a Stealth build for it. If Black Powder did a stronger version of that by default then we may not need Stealth for survival as much and could do AoE damage. Dark Aura is kinda meh for Strike builds though since Torment will do no damage~ our skills already have enough of a big mess of conflicting condi and strike damage mechanics. Now if the Aura Life Siphoned instead somehow though then who knowz o3o. But Sword still has no combo finisher so idk what's up with that.

They also mine as well just make Shadow Meld an alternative to Silent Scope and give it just enough Stealth to quickly execute a Stealth Attack and give it more ammo/lower cooldown and we'd get to save our dodges for... dodging attacks. Otherwise I don't find it useful for anything other than that~ mine as well Death Advance/Retreat away to escape. And make Burst of Shadows AoE Life Siphon on crit or something, it's such an empty trait slot.

Yes, I like Life Siphon damage. 🙂

Edited February 10, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[kash.9213]

33 minutes ago, Doggie.3184 said:

If you want an answer to that then play Assassin in GW1. They were brawlers with lots of  speed, evasion, block spam, invulnerability, life steal, etc and no stealth... and Death Blossom was an actually good high damage AoE that didn't make you fly off cliffs. I'd love more focus on mobility more than anything and I don't mean through adding more things but by improving the mechanics we already have with freedom of movement. 

If we could WASD in any direction we want to during attack skills like Pistol Whip, Leaping Death Blossom, Weakening Charge, and Disabling Shot (forward and sideways evades being possible), as well as control teleport direction through WASD on skills like Shadow Strike and Measured Shot by it going in the direction we're moving upon cast, or not move us at all if used while standing still, and use WASD to choose roll direction on Withdrawl, Death's Retreat and Roll for Initiative, it'd be a massive improvement to our survival and overall trickyness in combat without requiring Stealth. No more locking us in place for animations and more choice on how we move around to confuse people. I'd love that far more than anything Stealth related. PSO2 has mechanics like that for a lot of skills including the new Waker class that lets you either stand still while attacking or teleport in a direction you're holding during the attack.

They also nerfed Stealth Attacks over and over to avoid single high damage attacks insta-killing people, which carried the restriction of making us single target focused to balance it. But since 1hit kills and 'highest single target damage' is a long dead concept for Thief they need to give us more cleave and AoE on our skills. So DP would need something for that as well. I kinda miss when Shadow Shot was like "Flicker Strike" in Path of Exile when we had Ricochet and we'd bounce around multiple targets, stabbing them. It could be a real thing, as long as it returned to main target at end. And I do really like Life Siphon on Blind, it's too bad you need to be a Stealth build for it. If Black Powder did a stronger version of that by default then we may not need Stealth for survival as much and could do AoE damage. Dark Aura is kinda meh for Strike builds though since Torment will do no damage~ our skills already have enough of a big mess of conflicting condi and strike damage mechanics. Now if the Aura Life Siphoned instead somehow though then who knowz o3o. But Sword still has no combo finisher so idk what's up with that.

They also mine as well just make Shadow Meld an alternative to Silent Scope and give it just enough Stealth to quickly execute a Stealth Attack and give it more ammo/lower cooldown and we'd get to save our dodges for... dodging attacks. Otherwise I don't find it useful for anything other than that~ mine as well Death Advance/Retreat away to escape. And make Burst of Shadows AoE Life Siphon on crit or something, it's such an empty trait slot.

Yes, I like Life Siphon damage. 🙂

That kind of movement is why I toggle in and out of Action Camera almost constantly. I probably play in Action Cam most of the time now and quick toggle to Default cam to grab a target over a wall or when Action cam won't allow a movement skill to enough arch or something. Skills like Death's Retreat can land you anywhere and facing any direction you want when you land if untargeted or in Action cam after getting used to Camera panning correctly. 

I think if Anet wanted to move away from Stealth and were to bake in that kind of fluidity in movement and placement skills, then I'd like to see the skill effects and modifiers take advantage of the skills trajectory using space and distance for lack of being able to stealth and get dropped as a target. Stealth mitigates damage for us by obfuscation and keeping the target turning and not entirely ready. Since none of us want to turn into passive modifier bots, the transit part of those moving skills would need some new flare, but it would make some interesting fights if we had to consider our direction and orientation more and possible skill beam bending or curvature, sort of like how we used to plan out our Cursed Bullets. 

 

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

On 2/10/2023 at 9:27 AM, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

So looking at the thief changes coming up, it's pretty clear that ANet want to tackle stealth in a big way. Historically speaking when someone has complained about stealth, it's almost always been about a build using D/P and SA. D/P has probably been the single most dominant factor in how thief has been balanced from day one. Now that SA has had a much needed rework and is in a healthier place let's have a look at D/P, because I'm convinced that the relative strength of D/P as it is is stopping any real buffs or development for thief as a whole. 

 

So the basic question is, if 1) black powder was changed to a dark field, or 2) heartseeker lost the ability to combo for stealth (either route resulting in no/limited stealth for D/P), what would need to be buffed on thief to put it in a good place competitively?

 

At present if either of those changes go through along with the Feb 14th patch, there is once again no real reason to run acro over daredevil (swipe nerf) so all evade builds will be daredevil builds again. Shadow meld is also losing the reveal cleanse aspect of the skill, so deadeye is now going to need some aspect of evasion/blind/mobility to survive reveal spam. If black powder becomes a dark field, we will end up in a situation where x/P builds lose their stealth access which screws over S/P mostly (although might be a good thing regarding cele P/P), evasion traitlines are either entirely ineffective or practically considered baseline, deadeye can't reliably generate stealth outside of rifle and most of the self boon generation outside of specter is still on deadeye, a line that requires cycling stealth to operate. Frankly, we have lived so long with a crippling impairment and a really, really good crutch that we have learned to walk with a limp instead of correcting the fault, and the whole of thief's specialisations are a mess as a result. 

Historically we've tried high evasion builds and people hated it, we've tried high damage builds and people hated it, and since the specter shroud nerfs the only other way to get buffs like protection to be tankier involves cycling malice & sneak attacks on deadeye, so sustain outside of stealth is very, very limited. 

 

So if D/P getting crazy OP with any buff wasn't an issue, what/how would you buff, and why?

Hmmm would this push thief even more into a corner to use SA as a crutch?

Quote

So the basic question is, if 1) black powder was changed to a dark field, or 2) heartseeker lost the ability to combo for stealth (either route resulting in no/limited stealth for D/P), what would need to be buffed on thief to put it in a good place competitively?

1. Creative idea, but this would hurt non SA builds? I really do not like SA d/p DD builds and it is my opinion that they flow less smoothly compared to a non SA d/p DD build. I do not like the idea of thief being pushed into less builds rather than more. Additional changes would need to be made rather than just changing these two things.

2. Same point as #1, except rather than look at thief narrowly I think that game systems should be looked it. I think that perhaps if some of the parts of stealth / reveal that annoy people were dealt with in a better way, perhaps stealth use could even be boosted. What do you think?

Quote

Shadow meld is also losing the reveal cleanse aspect of the skill, so deadeye is now going to need some aspect of evasion/blind/mobility to survive reveal spam

I 100% agree with this statement. That's why I have updated my signature to talk about shadow meld and reveal. I think that reveal should be balanced for the whole game rather than remove a skill that was designed/balanced with 'reveal' in mind. I think that the shadow meld change should be pushed to a later patch. On the other hand I suppose this change could also be inline with some other stealth changes in previous patches (engineer comes to mind). It is quite possible rather than doing a big update that would upset a ton of people they are doing small snips here and there first to prepare for it. What do you think?

[Chips.7968]

On 2/10/2023 at 6:04 PM, Zacchary.6183 said:

At minimum, I would like to see all sword attacks get a 20% attack speed buff and increases to damage on some sword skills.

Been calling out for sword base damage buff (auto attack chain) for years - but in the tiny sense, nothing radical. Speed of attack increase would be nice (after all, dagger does double hit to a single on sword, so sword is seriously slow, and gl getting the 3rd hit weakness off without quickness, as you can't hang around that long in mele range).

However, they did buff sword damage once. They reverted it very quickly. 

As for the OP wrt Deadeye.

Deadeye can't shake revealed anymore? Nor could other thief builds. Rather than pre-empt isn't it better to find out whether it's as big an issue as people thought? I remember short bow 5 getting huge init cost increase. The rage and crying was unparalleled. People saying they'd quit, people going crazy, unplayable, death of the class.

Turns out in the end it didn't kill the class. It's barely noticeable. 

Same with introduction of exhaustion, reduction on the amount of endurance with the signet... "this'll kill thief" doom mongering. Not that big of a deal in the end.

What I mean is I'm fairly sure people can adapt and will soon find it's not a big issue. See how it goes, re-evaluate after a month.

As for the pistol and stealth access, yeah... it's been the go-to for the duration of thief. They reduced the blind pulse to once every 2s instead of every second, maybe if comboing the smoke to once every 2s (but I doubt that'd change much). I think changing to dark field would result in too much outrage. Not that I'd mind 🙂However, the dark field would be great for pistol pistol i think? Lifesteal combo. If no cooldown then p/p 3 would be... smashing AND sucking the life out the target🙂 Given p/p 3 also grants might, it may supersize the dmg while providing great heal? However, not hugely familiar with that particular combo so don't know if there's cooldowns or not etc. 

[quote]So if D/P getting crazy OP with any buff wasn't an issue, what/how would you buff, and why?[/quote]

Oh, one buff I'd love. Short bow 2 - it used to lob gates and so on. So it has this ponderous "arc", meaning it's super slow projectile; if you have swiftness, you can outrun your projectile... as in the person firing it can outrun it. Meanwhile, engineer nades, a thrown not fired object, have greater range, speed and damage 🙂

Just buff projectile speed. Not talking ranger long bow levels, but... faster than it is. This would, negatively, effect a few niche scenarios but the benefit of increased projectile speed would far outweigh the niche. But i'm off topic as this isn't about stealth related dp.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Chips.7968

[Sobx.1758]

Remove ability to stack stealth in-combat and apply reveal any time the user comes out of stealth, even if they didn't deal dmg to the opponent. Stealth abuse fixed?

[Yasai.3549]

My issue with D/P isn't really le Stealth Spam anymore, it's the fact I'm getting hit for back to back 4k damage bursts on Shadow Shot which not only is a Burst damage but a Shadow Step and Unblockable Blind.

 

So even if a D/P thief isn't a Stealth Spammer, if they're running DD they just literally hit and run by weaving Shadowshot and Dash away over and over while you need to contend with either chasing or backing off. Either option isn't viable because a good Thief is more than capable of keeping up with you and simultaneously keep out of your reach. And also little known fact: Shadow Shot actually evaded or blinded the Power coefficient nerf, so it's actually D/P Thieves strongest dueling skill, all packaged into one button press to hit confirm and the skill does the rest of the job, then you just dodge away and handle the aftermath.

 

It's not like I can't beat it, but if you're talking about what part of D/P really grinds my gears, it's Shadow Shot.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

8 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

My issue with D/P isn't really le Stealth Spam anymore, it's the fact I'm getting hit for back to back 4k damage bursts on Shadow Shot which not only is a Burst damage but a Shadow Step and Unblockable Blind.

 

So even if a D/P thief isn't a Stealth Spammer, if they're running DD they just literally hit and run by weaving Shadowshot and Dash away over and over while you need to contend with either chasing or backing off. Either option isn't viable because a good Thief is more than capable of keeping up with you and simultaneously keep out of your reach. And also little known fact: Shadow Shot actually evaded or blinded the Power coefficient nerf, so it's actually D/P Thieves strongest dueling skill, all packaged into one button press to hit confirm and the skill does the rest of the job, then you just dodge away and handle the aftermath.

 

It's not like I can't beat it, but if you're talking about what part of D/P really grinds my gears, it's Shadow Shot.

It's quite possible that the non stealth spammers are running a higher dps build as well (non SA builds using critical strikes). There's a build that generates a very small amount of self might with crits, fury and steals etc (I run it, I know Kiza in EcK runs it too. I am quite far from his level though. I think he is ending the most recent season at around 100-250). It takes more skill to not run SA, but it feels a lot more fun.

The skill in PvP shows 1k damage with standard popular rune setup (and a critical strikes build). If you are getting hit for 4k then you are getting crit my friend AND the thief has might, or you already have a ton of condis on yourself (sigil of compounding gives 1% extra damage per condition on your foe) or, that thief is full glass, or lastly maybe you are running a glass cannon build. If you want to combat a critical strikes build you need different strategies, but I will let you figure that out yourself.

Edited February 13, 2023 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Yasai.3549]

15 minutes ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

It takes more skill to not run SA, but it feels a lot more fun.

Ever since 2 key properties of SA were removed, running SA is pretty much damage suicide. The ones I'm talking about are Stealth on Heal and Stealth on Steal, and good riddance they're gone though, it was extremely cheap in all accounts that I'm pretty sure while it existed the average Thief skill floor dropped down a cliff. 

 

18 minutes ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

If you are getting hit for 4k then you are getting crit my friend AND the thief has might

A whole load of factors. For one, Bountiful Theft is absolutely nasty when fighting someone who has self Might, which just gives the Thief a whole load of damage to unload back on you. Like I said it's not unbeatable, but it's hella annoying to fight a Thief who can accomplish so much in one button press. (5 Ini for Shadowstep + Unblockable Blind + Damage) 

Anyway back on topic of D/P in relation to Shadow Shot:

Shadow Shot is no doubt the true reason why D/P is vastly more popular than other options, even if Stealth Combo was removed. Shadow Shot is the most reliable 900 unit gap close which is 100% safe due to its blind and also has unnerfed coefficients from before. The reason why D/D absolutely sucks is because it does not have this safe gap closing feature. Annoys me because I do enjoy D/D a little more than D/P but not using D/P just means you lose a reliable spammable skill. 

 

 

 

[Zacchary.6183]

11 hours ago, kai.5149 said:

Mean time thieves crying about other classes having defenses while thieves got overloaded skills and traits to the brim ....

Yes. Because there is a stark difference between active and passive defenses. You can't just slap on an active defense and expect it to keep you alive.

[Zacchary.6183]

15 minutes ago, kai.5149 said:

Yes .. as if it's very hard to chain spam evades xDD

It isn't very hard to hit between those evades either.

[Doggie.3184]

48 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

It isn't very hard to hit between those evades either.

Mmm, getting yanked mid-Vault cuz the evade frame is smaller than the Animation.

[Markri.9475]

@yasai.3549 If you are fighting a d/p thief 1v1, I assume your build has cleanses? Are you saving them for something other than blinds? Usually cleanses come with stunbreaks I guess, anything worth stunbreaking vs d/p thief? Two more things, Shadow shot is only unblockable blind & shadowstep. The dmg is blockable, you might already know this but so many do not. Second; if you evade/invuln the shadow shot, it does not shadowstep. if you are kiting a d/p, would you not use a dodge to prevent the gap closer? I'm not trying to be rude or condescending, as there are probably things I have not considered here.

 

On topic; I'm not aware of a single build for thief that does not utilise stealth. Probably because it's a huge part of its sustained offense and defense. If d/p did not have black powder -> hearthseeker, how do you backstab? Blow a utility every time? Thief spends initiative for offense and defense, abilities that don't use initiative (like stealth attacks) saves us initiative. So how many stealthattacks will we do? Do you replace the lost attacks with heartseekers? Those costs initiative. Thief would have less sustained damage. Stealth also works in a way that thief's can stall for time, even if by 2 seconds. Time = initiative.

 

Weird part is, imo, that specter gave thief what it needed. A second resource. To me, specter played much more like a double/weapon Cd using class. It had the possibility to sidenode and stay on node as its pressure and defense wasn't tide to the same resource. However it still had the mobility, and that made it OP. Too bad they nerfed the sustain/pressure instead of the mobility (imo).

Also "(1)smoke-filled to dark field" means no blinds.

If thief was to be redesigned without what makes people frustrated about it, It would just become a warrior. That's not to say I don't have thoughts on how to lessen the frustrating parts. But that's another topic.

 

Ps Stealth as a roamer has the advantage that Thief is always ahead on rotations. If I go towards enemy far node, halfway there an enemy side noder appears ontop of me, I go stealth: now he has to guess does the thief go mid +1? Or does he go decapp my home? The correct play (imo) would be to stand at the halfway point and wait; and use mobility to reach home before decap. Or to reach mid, albeit late. But making a guess, just means the thief can go the other way, and capitalise. And that, imo, is why thief is picked in pvp.

[Zacchary.6183]

1 hour ago, kai.5149 said:

Unlike thieves, most other classes don't have instant skills, but I guess you can't consider that if only thing you play is thief

I play other professions and there are plenty of things you can do to combat them. Cripple/immobilize/chill to dent their mobility, aoe when they stealth, "back-strafing" + camera turning to make a backstab harder to hit, timing attacks/CC to hit between evades, pelt them with conditions, not being glassy. Use your brain when you're fighting one. Don't just hit keys in order.

[UNOwen.7132]

18 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

My issue with D/P isn't really le Stealth Spam anymore, it's the fact I'm getting hit for back to back 4k damage bursts on Shadow Shot which not only is a Burst damage but a Shadow Step and Unblockable Blind.

 

So even if a D/P thief isn't a Stealth Spammer, if they're running DD they just literally hit and run by weaving Shadowshot and Dash away over and over while you need to contend with either chasing or backing off. Either option isn't viable because a good Thief is more than capable of keeping up with you and simultaneously keep out of your reach. And also little known fact: Shadow Shot actually evaded or blinded the Power coefficient nerf, so it's actually D/P Thieves strongest dueling skill, all packaged into one button press to hit confirm and the skill does the rest of the job, then you just dodge away and handle the aftermath.

 

It's not like I can't beat it, but if you're talking about what part of D/P really grinds my gears, it's Shadow Shot.

How are you getting hit for 4k from Shadow Shots? 4k is what backstab can usually do (up to 4.5k), and that does about 50% more damage. Are they pre-stacking might up to 20 or something? 

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Some really good feedback here, and all of it is relevant. I'll just quote a few people and try to give some reasoning etc. 

Edit: If you see kitten, I wrote the initials for deadly arts. No idea why that triggers the forum censor, but I am too lazy to edit every time it happened lol. 

On 2/10/2023 at 6:04 PM, Zacchary.6183 said:

At minimum, I would like to see all sword attacks get a 20% attack speed buff and increases to damage on some sword skills.

I hear you on this, being mainly a sword thief myself. Although I would settle for just the attack speed increase so trying to land sword auto 3 wasn't a waste of time, since that will bring DPS up naturally without changing anything else. 

On 2/10/2023 at 8:31 PM, Doggie.3184 said:

If you want an answer to that then play Assassin in GW1. They were brawlers with lots of  speed, evasion, block spam, invulnerability, life steal, etc and no stealth... and Death Blossom was an actually good high damage AoE that didn't make you fly off cliffs. I'd love more focus on mobility more than anything and I don't mean through adding more things but by improving the mechanics we already have with freedom of movement. 

If we could WASD in any direction we want to during attack skills like Pistol Whip, Leaping Death Blossom, Weakening Charge, and Disabling Shot (forward and sideways evades being possible), as well as control teleport direction through WASD on skills like Shadow Strike and Measured Shot by it going in the direction we're moving upon cast, or not move us at all if used while standing still, and use WASD to choose roll direction on Withdrawl, Death's Retreat and Roll for Initiative, it'd be a massive improvement to our survival and overall trickyness in combat without requiring Stealth. No more locking us in place for animations and more choice on how we move around to confuse people. I'd love that far more than anything Stealth related. PSO2 has mechanics like that for a lot of skills including the new Waker class that lets you either stand still while attacking or teleport in a direction you're holding during the attack.

They also nerfed Stealth Attacks over and over to avoid single high damage attacks insta-killing people, which carried the restriction of making us single target focused to balance it. But since 1hit kills and 'highest single target damage' is a long dead concept for Thief they need to give us more cleave and AoE on our skills. So DP would need something for that as well. I kinda miss when Shadow Shot was like "Flicker Strike" in Path of Exile when we had Ricochet and we'd bounce around multiple targets, stabbing them. It could be a real thing, as long as it returned to main target at end. And I do really like Life Siphon on Blind, it's too bad you need to be a Stealth build for it. If Black Powder did a stronger version of that by default then we may not need Stealth for survival as much and could do AoE damage. Dark Aura is kinda meh for Strike builds though since Torment will do no damage~ our skills already have enough of a big mess of conflicting condi and strike damage mechanics. Now if the Aura Life Siphoned instead somehow though then who knowz o3o. But Sword still has no combo finisher so idk what's up with that.

They also mine as well just make Shadow Meld an alternative to Silent Scope and give it just enough Stealth to quickly execute a Stealth Attack and give it more ammo/lower cooldown and we'd get to save our dodges for... dodging attacks. Otherwise I don't find it useful for anything other than that~ mine as well Death Advance/Retreat away to escape. And make Burst of Shadows AoE Life Siphon on crit or something, it's such an empty trait slot.

Yes, I like Life Siphon damage. 🙂

Freedom of movement is the main reason I gravitated towards thief, and it sounds like I would have liked assassin. More of that and more choice within what we already have is always gonna be good. I really like the way death's advance has been done on rifle in contrast to death's retreat, although that could be a bit more fluid too. 

Yes, there is no reason to keep a single target focus when instagib one shots from stealth aren't a thing anymore. More cleave/AoE would be appreciated in general. And I loved ricochet for that kind of silliness too ^^

Life leech is awesome, my main gripe with it is that the vast majority of it and indeed most of the sustain in the class is in SA. I am fine with SA having the most sustain, something has to after all, but having next to nothing in acro/kitten/crit strikes while also making kitten/crit strikes builds not have enough damage to quickly finish opponents makes SA a no brainer of a spec choice. Either spreading the love with more sustain in other lines or upping the damage on builds geared for it would be good, particularly to acro since the grandmaster traits are painfully lacking due to low healing coefficients and it needs to compete in some way to SA as a defensive choice. 

On 2/10/2023 at 9:18 PM, kash.9213 said:

That kind of movement is why I toggle in and out of Action Camera almost constantly. I probably play in Action Cam most of the time now and quick toggle to Default cam to grab a target over a wall or when Action cam won't allow a movement skill to enough arch or something. Skills like Death's Retreat can land you anywhere and facing any direction you want when you land if untargeted or in Action cam after getting used to Camera panning correctly. 

I think if Anet wanted to move away from Stealth and were to bake in that kind of fluidity in movement and placement skills, then I'd like to see the skill effects and modifiers take advantage of the skills trajectory using space and distance for lack of being able to stealth and get dropped as a target. Stealth mitigates damage for us by obfuscation and keeping the target turning and not entirely ready. Since none of us want to turn into passive modifier bots, the transit part of those moving skills would need some new flare, but it would make some interesting fights if we had to consider our direction and orientation more and possible skill beam bending or curvature, sort of like how we used to plan out our Cursed Bullets. 

 

Again, I like the focus on mobility, using skills in creative ways and having skills designed in a way that encourages that. I'd dig that.

On 2/12/2023 at 12:28 AM, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

Hmmm would this push thief even more into a corner to use SA as a crutch?

1. Creative idea, but this would hurt non SA builds? I really do not like SA d/p DD builds and it is my opinion that they flow less smoothly compared to a non SA d/p DD build. I do not like the idea of thief being pushed into less builds rather than more. Additional changes would need to be made rather than just changing these two things.

2. Same point as #1, except rather than look at thief narrowly I think that game systems should be looked it. I think that perhaps if some of the parts of stealth / reveal that annoy people were dealt with in a better way, perhaps stealth use could even be boosted. What do you think?

I 100% agree with this statement. That's why I have updated my signature to talk about shadow meld and reveal. I think that reveal should be balanced for the whole game rather than remove a skill that was designed/balanced with 'reveal' in mind. I think that the shadow meld change should be pushed to a later patch. On the other hand I suppose this change could also be inline with some other stealth changes in previous patches (engineer comes to mind). It is quite possible rather than doing a big update that would upset a ton of people they are doing small snips here and there first to prepare for it. What do you think?

Maybe in the short term, but that's exactly why I'm asking for thoughts for how kitten/CS/acro could be brought up to the level of SA to allow other weapon sets to compete with D/P. Right now SA trickery "insert elite spec" is too good across the board while D/P is flexible enough as a duelling set that it doesn't even need the stealth, and that strength is keeping everything else back from being "okay" because the devs don't want to make it overpowered by accident. I want to see each weapon set have strengths (which means D/P needs to be brought down a little so it's not the best choice by default), but for each set to have it's own niches so that when you see it played your first thought isn't just that the other guy doesn't know how to play his class. 

I agree with you and Doggie on the reveal/shadow meld thing, frankly the skill was a band aid to allow stealth builds to function in a meta that at the time was veeeeery oppressive to stealth builds. In one sense tomorrow's change makes no sense, in another sense it's removing another crutch for thief and as long as that strength is replaced with something non gimmicky that's good for the class as a whole I'm okay with it. 

On 2/12/2023 at 11:09 AM, Chips.7968 said:

Been calling out for sword base damage buff (auto attack chain) for years - but in the tiny sense, nothing radical. Speed of attack increase would be nice (after all, dagger does double hit to a single on sword, so sword is seriously slow, and gl getting the 3rd hit weakness off without quickness, as you can't hang around that long in mele range).

However, they did buff sword damage once. They reverted it very quickly. 

As for the OP wrt Deadeye.

Deadeye can't shake revealed anymore? Nor could other thief builds. Rather than pre-empt isn't it better to find out whether it's as big an issue as people thought? I remember short bow 5 getting huge init cost increase. The rage and crying was unparalleled. People saying they'd quit, people going crazy, unplayable, death of the class.

Turns out in the end it didn't kill the class. It's barely noticeable. 

Same with introduction of exhaustion, reduction on the amount of endurance with the signet... "this'll kill thief" doom mongering. Not that big of a deal in the end.

What I mean is I'm fairly sure people can adapt and will soon find it's not a big issue. See how it goes, re-evaluate after a month.

As for the pistol and stealth access, yeah... it's been the go-to for the duration of thief. They reduced the blind pulse to once every 2s instead of every second, maybe if comboing the smoke to once every 2s (but I doubt that'd change much). I think changing to dark field would result in too much outrage. Not that I'd mind 🙂However, the dark field would be great for pistol pistol i think? Lifesteal combo. If no cooldown then p/p 3 would be... smashing AND sucking the life out the target🙂 Given p/p 3 also grants might, it may supersize the dmg while providing great heal? However, not hugely familiar with that particular combo so don't know if there's cooldowns or not etc. 

[quote]So if D/P getting crazy OP with any buff wasn't an issue, what/how would you buff, and why?[/quote]

Oh, one buff I'd love. Short bow 2 - it used to lob gates and so on. So it has this ponderous "arc", meaning it's super slow projectile; if you have swiftness, you can outrun your projectile... as in the person firing it can outrun it. Meanwhile, engineer nades, a thrown not fired object, have greater range, speed and damage 🙂

Just buff projectile speed. Not talking ranger long bow levels, but... faster than it is. This would, negatively, effect a few niche scenarios but the benefit of increased projectile speed would far outweigh the niche. But i'm off topic as this isn't about stealth related dp.

Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with the shadow meld change. All I'm saying is that the change will force players to not rely on easy stealth as much, and that it would be good if the non stealth options were as competitive as the stealth options. 

Honestly, changing the field to dark hurts me too since my fav duelling build is S/P bound. It would also hurt P/P cele bound (but most people who have played or fought that think it's probably better off dead, so maybe combo'ing dark fields would be healthier). But changing the smoke field to dark seems like a healthier option since D/P is a strong choice even without the 5>2 combo (there was one meta in HoT where you just didn't bother stealthing for instance) and the only other thing you could logically change is shadow shot, nerfing that will just force the set even more into stealth heavy builds and that's exactly what I want to avoid. 

Yes, projectile speed on shortbow 2, it being usable as more than a melee range AoE would be very nice 🙂

On 2/12/2023 at 6:06 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

Remove ability to stack stealth in-combat and apply reveal any time the user comes out of stealth, even if they didn't deal dmg to the opponent. Stealth abuse fixed?

The point of the thread isn't stealth abuse, but how stealth can be there but thief can also be in a healthier spot with or without it. Thanks tho o/

21 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

My issue with D/P isn't really le Stealth Spam anymore, it's the fact I'm getting hit for back to back 4k damage bursts on Shadow Shot which not only is a Burst damage but a Shadow Step and Unblockable Blind.

 

So even if a D/P thief isn't a Stealth Spammer, if they're running DD they just literally hit and run by weaving Shadowshot and Dash away over and over while you need to contend with either chasing or backing off. Either option isn't viable because a good Thief is more than capable of keeping up with you and simultaneously keep out of your reach. And also little known fact: Shadow Shot actually evaded or blinded the Power coefficient nerf, so it's actually D/P Thieves strongest dueling skill, all packaged into one button press to hit confirm and the skill does the rest of the job, then you just dodge away and handle the aftermath.

 

It's not like I can't beat it, but if you're talking about what part of D/P really grinds my gears, it's Shadow Shot.

Yes, shadow shot is a very strong skill. That's why I think that D/P doesn't need the stealth, between shadow shot and interrupts you have a very solid set for controlling the opponent without needing to do anything else as you have described. I'm fine with D/P doing this, what is a problem is that buffing either stealth or non stealth capability anywhere on thief is effectively a double buff to D/P since it is the best set in both scenarios, and frankly removing the stealth leaves the set in a better place going forwards than breaking shadow shot will.

If I remember rightly, shadow shot was made unblockable as reflecting the skill would teleport the opponent to the thief which, while hilarious, it's probably more disruptive to an opponent than the thief getting a safe port. The blind could also be changed but given changing black powder to a dark field would also reduce the blind spam, you'd have to see how that one goes. I agree with your later post that D/D needs a better gap closer though, death blossom is the obvious thing to change and I'd be totally okay with that. 

3 hours ago, Markri.9475 said:

@yasai.3549 If you are fighting a d/p thief 1v1, I assume your build has cleanses? Are you saving them for something other than blinds? Usually cleanses come with stunbreaks I guess, anything worth stunbreaking vs d/p thief? Two more things, Shadow shot is only unblockable blind & shadowstep. The dmg is blockable, you might already know this but so many do not. Second; if you evade/invuln the shadow shot, it does not shadowstep. if you are kiting a d/p, would you not use a dodge to prevent the gap closer? I'm not trying to be rude or condescending, as there are probably things I have not considered here.

 

On topic; I'm not aware of a single build for thief that does not utilise stealth. Probably because it's a huge part of its sustained offense and defense. If d/p did not have black powder -> hearthseeker, how do you backstab? Blow a utility every time? Thief spends initiative for offense and defense, abilities that don't use initiative (like stealth attacks) saves us initiative. So how many stealthattacks will we do? Do you replace the lost attacks with heartseekers? Those costs initiative. Thief would have less sustained damage. Stealth also works in a way that thief's can stall for time, even if by 2 seconds. Time = initiative.

 

Weird part is, imo, that specter gave thief what it needed. A second resource. To me, specter played much more like a double/weapon Cd using class. It had the possibility to sidenode and stay on node as its pressure and defense wasn't tide to the same resource. However it still had the mobility, and that made it OP. Too bad they nerfed the sustain/pressure instead of the mobility (imo).

Also "(1)smoke-filled to dark field" means no blinds.

If thief was to be redesigned without what makes people frustrated about it, It would just become a warrior. That's not to say I don't have thoughts on how to lessen the frustrating parts. But that's another topic.

 

Ps Stealth as a roamer has the advantage that Thief is always ahead on rotations. If I go towards enemy far node, halfway there an enemy side noder appears ontop of me, I go stealth: now he has to guess does the thief go mid +1? Or does he go decapp my home? The correct play (imo) would be to stand at the halfway point and wait; and use mobility to reach home before decap. Or to reach mid, albeit late. But making a guess, just means the thief can go the other way, and capitalise. And that, imo, is why thief is picked in pvp.

I definitely agree with you on most builds using stealth: my goal is not to eliminate stealth from thief, but make it so it can be be changed and buffed even without overpowering D/P in the process. To do that, D/P needs to either be a good stealth set or a good non stealth set, it can't be both as it currently is. Removing the stealth combo capability of x/P builds and leaving D/P good at fighting without stealth seems more healthy for D/P than the reverse. If you can see a way of doing it, feel free to share, no sarcasm intended 🙂

Like I said, I'm not saying thief should not stealth, we have plenty of ways to stealth that don't include D/P and that's good. I'm actually fine with thief getting more stealth, provided it is done right. If you removed the stealth from D/P you'd still have deadeye with rifle for stealth in PvP to fill the roamer/sidenoder role and go for decaps & +1's, but with D/P not having stealth on it's own you'd be able to make daredevil into the bruiser/teamfighter it wants to be without making it busted for the decap role at the same time. The goal is not to nerf thief out of the meta by removing stealth, but to give thief more roles within the meta while giving D/P an actual niche so it is not automatically the best choice for every build.

The way you answered the question implies that in your head, meta PvP thief = D/P on some level, and that is the perception I want to change. Hence my question: if buffing D/P to absurd levels wasn't an issue, what buffs would you want on thief to give it more diversity in more areas?

Edited February 13, 2023 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[Yasai.3549]

4 hours ago, UNOwen.7132 said:

How are you getting hit for 4k from Shadow Shots? 4k is what backstab can usually do (up to 4.5k), and that does about 50% more damage. Are they pre-stacking might up to 20 or something? 

Yes, I'm an unapologetic Fire Field blaster.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

4 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Yes, I'm an unapologetic Fire Field blaster.

I was going to respond to your earlier post, but others eloquently responded.

Also I can't keep noticing your signature. It's a little ironic. If you don't like a class or build, adapt. I know when I was learning WvW a long long time ago I had to adapt my builds to live vs different cheese pub stomping builds. Now I hunt those cheese build users down for fun (longbow rangers). If you expect to have your boons stolen, then play around that (I'm sure that you don't like other classes stealing your boons either). If you don't want to be backstabbed then move differently. Use terrain to your advantage. Use blocks, use invulns, use blinds.

Quote

If I run a dumb build, I deserve to die.

If I run a dumb build and win, I deserve to get away with it. 

[Yasai.3549]

13 minutes ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

I was going to respond to your earlier post, but others eloquently responded.

Also I can't keep noticing your signature. It's a little ironic. If you don't like a class or build, adapt. I know when I was learning WvW a long long time ago I had to adapt my builds to live vs different cheese pub stomping builds. Now I hunt those cheese build users down for fun (longbow rangers). If you expect to have your boons stolen, then play around that (I'm sure that you don't like other classes stealing your boons either). If you don't want to be backstabbed then move differently. Use terrain to your advantage. Use blocks, use invulns, use blinds.

I mean duh, the reason I even have this as my signature is to display my stance on stupid build oriented debates and balance.

 

I've had it up since Boonbeast meta.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

27 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

I mean duh, the reason I even have this as my signature is to display my stance on stupid build oriented debates and balance.

 

I've had it up since Boonbeast meta.

Ah, haha, I see. In any case I do like your signature.

Anyhow we should switch modes to be back on topic. I was going to respond to the OP, but I think I will later XD.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

9 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

Maybe in the short term, but that's exactly why I'm asking for thoughts for how kitten/CS/acro could be brought up to the level of SA to allow other weapon sets to compete with D/P. Right now SA trickery "insert elite spec" is too good across the board while D/P is flexible enough as a duelling set that it doesn't even need the stealth, and that strength is keeping everything else back from being "okay" because the devs don't want to make it overpowered by accident. I want to see each weapon set have strengths (which means D/P needs to be brought down a little so it's not the best choice by default), but for each set to have it's own niches so that when you see it played your first thought isn't just that the other guy doesn't know how to play his class. 

I agree with you and Doggie on the reveal/shadow meld thing, frankly the skill was a band aid to allow stealth builds to function in a meta that at the time was veeeeery oppressive to stealth builds. In one sense tomorrow's change makes no sense, in another sense it's removing another crutch for thief and as long as that strength is replaced with something non gimmicky that's good for the class as a whole I'm okay with it. 

It is my opinion that balance shouldn't be done with a short term vision. For best results it should be done with a long term vision and should have a scope for each iteration. If it doesn't have any of those things it may lose focus and then I believe balance becomes a whack o mole job, which makes no one happy.

Besides that I totally get what you are trying to do. You also want more build diversity, just like I do.

Personally as a player, I am not keen that this would mean doubling down on locking competitive P/D thief to [shadow arts and trickery] + [specter or daredevil or deadeye]. That's so mundane (I only run SA on my deadeye build). If anything it would be nice to see some improvements to staff 'brawler' thief. I think 1200 range steal might help with that actually IMO.

Edited February 14, 2023 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Markri.9475]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 I'm getting the feeling the discussion is about wvw aswell. Personally wvw is a different beast compared to sPvP. Their problems about thief are different. More builds work in WvW that simply do not for Spvp.

Meta dictates what works, and thief has been and is the goat roamer (Imo), and still is. But I'm not sure that is because thief is too strong at that role or that other alternatives can't fit the role. When I think of thief it's the same way I do about the support role. But the support role can be filled by guard or elementals. Thief's role can't seem to be filled by anyone else.

 

If we are changing d/p, what role we want it to fill? (Not talking wvw at all)

For it to be viable in that role it needs to have a fair chance against the meta of that role.

Sidenoder? It would need both sustained pressure and defense to contest the node. With initiative the way it is, thief very quickly needs to leave the node to regain resource. I'm not aware of any competitive thief sidenoders. Ironically, I also find thief weak to the +1.

Teamfighter?  Needs the cleave damage, and health pool.

And with any of these new roles you'd need to shave of thief mobility.

Again; Specter fit these criteria, (imo), and would been able to fit into either role. With tweaking to prevent it filling both at the same time.

 

I don't see d/p being a roamer as a problem though. I think stealth brings a lot of frustration though. I would change some of the frustrations.

One thing I loved about gw2 was it's take on stealth, that it uses resources instead of a permanent-once per combat thing. In wvw the thief's don't stealth from their homebase and reach you. Most I have a chance to see coming and when they are close they go stealth. That tells me a fight is on, and I'm aware of the threat. I also remember the good old days I'd fight a thief, he'd blackpowder and shortbow blast it. And this is where its good! The blast is a projectile and it does not have stealth, so I can "see" him blasting the field. I'm aware he is still there and is blasting, if he stops blasting I can assume he has moved away. A new smoke field appears 60 yards away ; good I "know" where he is. Issue being the window between stealth is very short, and has been nonexistent before.

And projectiles like shadow shot, infiltrators, shortbow stealth attack. I can "see" them coming. Same for DH spear. My assumption on why stealth is frustrating is because it hides too well what the thief does. As an example ; a Ranger goes stealth and uses Maul. That entire massive bear animation is hidden. In my opinion; animations like that should still show, not necessarily reveal though. And for thief; I'd like heartseeker to have a black trail like effect on the thief that is visible even if he is in stealth. That way I can "know" if the thief is still combing in his field ; or in what direction his last HS was. Knowing if the thief combo three HS or just one means I can make better guesses on his next move. Also blindingpowder should have a puffcloud, that your opponent can see.(puffcloud being some smoke lasting 0,5s or so, at the location it was used). Extending your stealth should be "shown", much like dropping a new smokefield does.

Other attacks I'd consider having be shown even if in stealth would be (top of my head); Vaults blueish glow, Pistol whip.

Ranged attacks we already see coming, and are way less frustrating in that regard. I would like shadowmeld to have a puffcloud when used though. To know the deadye did dodge into shadowmeld. To explain why he got so much stealth of one dodge.

I think a change to stealth in this way would lessen is frustration of not knowing how much resource the thief is spending, or if he plans to fight or rotate. 

 

Sorry for the wall of text, without much concrete changes to d/p kit structure, but imo d/p is the best part of thief. But I do sympathise with the frustrations of stealth, blind and teleports. 

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 2/13/2023 at 2:18 PM, UNOwen.7132 said:

How are you getting hit for 4k from Shadow Shots? 4k is what backstab can usually do (up to 4.5k), and that does about 50% more damage. Are they pre-stacking might up to 20 or something? 

Depends on the mode.

WvW easily hits 6k.  I hit a few for 8k tonight on some squishier builds I ripped boons from.  It always has been a wildly overtuned skill to be honest, and a big part in what made D/P so dominant (plus SA).  It has very high damage for how much utility the skill has.

This is why all of my suggestions over the years to improve D/D have been to add tangible mobility to DB to help bring the kits up to parity.

In sPvP, yeah, I can see 4k in most cases since stats and damage are just lower, plus most sidenoders try and run as much prot as they can.

[UNOwen.7132]

On 2/17/2023 at 7:11 AM, DeceiverX.8361 said:

Depends on the mode.

WvW easily hits 6k.  I hit a few for 8k tonight on some squishier builds I ripped boons from.  It always has been a wildly overtuned skill to be honest, and a big part in what made D/P so dominant (plus SA).  It has very high damage for how much utility the skill has.

Yeaah if youre hitting 6k in WvW, let alone 8k, youre facing enemies in yellow gear. Its scaling isnt high enough to get even 6k on anyone. 

On 2/17/2023 at 7:11 AM, DeceiverX.8361 said:

This is why all of my suggestions over the years to improve D/D have been to add tangible mobility to DB to help bring the kits up to parity.

In sPvP, yeah, I can see 4k in most cases since stats and damage are just lower, plus most sidenoders try and run as much prot as they can.

Youre also not getting 4k in sPvP on Shadowshot. Youre getting that much on Backstab. Shadowshot is gonna hit 2.5k or so, max.