Would you trade...

[Zacchary.6183]

You lose:

• Black Powder turns into a dark field.
• Cloak and Dagger loses stealth.
• Lose +3 Initiative on Preparedness.

To gain:

• Black Powder lasts 6s and has a radius of 240.
• Cloak and Dagger is replaced with Parrying Dagger.
  • 5 Initiative Cost
  • 1.5s cast
  • 1s Block
  • 1s stun if blocked an attack
• Initiative increase in Preparedness is replaced with initiative regeneration rate +20% while you have quickness. An additional +150 Concentration.
• Stealth's baseline duration is increased to 6 seconds and stacks to 15 seconds.
• Shadow Arts stealth-based buffs are twice as effective.
• Stealth Attacks become Death Blows:
  • Death Blows are activated with F1 and they are dependent on the weapon used.
  • They have generic, moderate cooldowns with damage/utility bonuses if used in stealth. Bonuses depend on the attack.
  • Steal will be F2 and stolen items will be F3.
• All sword skills are 20% faster.
• All Shortbow skills' projectile velocity increased by 33%:
  • Except for Infiltrator's Arrow.
  • Cluster Bomb and Detonate Cluster also inflict burning. Cluster Bomb automatically detonates at target but still a blast finisher.
  • Disabling Shot fires multiple crippling arrows in a narrow cone.
• Dagger skills, except for its Death Blow, deal 10-15% more strike damage.
• Equipped venoms passively give you one venom every few seconds and conditions applied by venoms have +50% duration.
• Scorpion Wire projectile velocity increased by 100% and it arcs higher.
• Heal scaling outside of heal skills is increased by 100% across core.
• Daredevil: Pulmonary Impact critically hits in all game modes. (the pvp/wvw version deals too little damage for it not to crit)
• Daredevil: Lotus Training and Bounding Dodger buff durations increased to 10s. Exhaustion durations halved.
• Deadeye: Kneeling gives passive malice generation at 1 per 3 seconds. Cantrips used while kneeling use malice, but become more powerful.
• Deadeye: Fire for Effect also provides the boons of stolen skills to allies and conditions on enemies within the AoE.
• Specter: All baseline condition and boon durations in traitline and scepter skills are increased by 75%.
• Specter: Second Opinion also grants barrier to allies equal to 20% of heals they receive. Downed allies are instead revived by the same amount. Scepter's allied attacks are 50% more effective and grant extra rot wallow venom instead of the flat healing power bonuses.
• Specter: Consume Shadows stacks to a maximum of 10. Allies gain .75s of Protection and Resolution per stack when healed.
• Specter: Traversing Dusk makes wells grant 3s seconds of Quickness if they already have alacrity. Allies affected by Traversing Dusk heal have their boon durations increased by 1s. 
• Specter: Wells are placed at your location while underwater.
• Specter: Larcenous Torment's torment damage bonus increased to 20%.

Would you trade a large chunk of stealth access for all of these buffs?

Edited February 16, 2023 by Zacchary.6183
Forgot a few things. It's late.

[Chips.7968]

Many questions, but the two main ones for me are:

1) Can you state what problem you're trying to solve.

2) Are all these changes JUST to support solving that problem, or are you rolling in buffs/changes unrelated to that problem but that you think need buffs anyway.

Other questions of more specific are legion, but for example:

1) Does this mean a dodge on deadeye gives 6s stealth alone. 

2) Do any other blocks in game have a 1.5s cast time weapon skill?

Said in another thread I wouldn't bother commenting to propositions because its pointless, but there we go 😄

Edited February 16, 2023 by Chips.7968

[Markri.9475]

This I assume is for PvP/WvW? I do not PvE but I can assume these changes aren't considering that game mode.

Cloak and Dagger is not "just stealth", It deals alot of damage and enables a stealth attack right after, its very good dmg per initiative. Cloak and dagger I don't see the frustration with it's stealth. It's melee and used to make a fast stealth attack mostly. WvW using it on critters or guards still has to be done in melee.

It's replacement I assume is meant as a 1,5s channel that only blocks after the first ,5? But for something to be reactive with that cast time..or is it a ,5s aftercast? Pretty brutal.

The deathblow idea I do find interesting. Dunno how "generic or moderate" you are making them though. Or if they are "Free" like stealth attacks. Their bonuses would be hard to use though, deadeye has its ways, others have to bring utilities. Or a smokefield-friend. Rather than " with damage/utility bonuses if used in stealth", maybe "resets its CD if you gain stealth". 

 

You have to remember, even if thief were to not use stealth for more than 1s, that stealth attack is a big part of its damage per initiative.

I voted No.

[Tails.9372]

6 hours ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

• Lose +3 Initiative on Preparedness.
• Initiative increase in Preparedness is replaced with initiative regeneration rate +20% while you have quickness.

Even without the additional condition of having to have quickness 1 Initiative every 5 seconds is way to inconsequential for it to be even remotely a considerable trade-off.

[Doggie.3184]

Scepter and Guns need AoE auto attacks.

[SoftPup.3048]

2 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

Scepter and Guns need AoE auto attacks.

Yeah they could make a trait that gives pistol attacks a chance to bounce. Call it something like... Ricochet.

 

*cries*

[Zacchary.6183]

6 hours ago, Chips.7968 said:

1) Can you state what problem you're trying to solve.

Ultimately complaints against thieves, considering a majority of the playerbase doesn't like to try things outside their comfort zone.

6 hours ago, Chips.7968 said:

2) Are all these changes JUST to support solving that problem, or are you rolling in buffs/changes unrelated to that problem but that you think need buffs anyway.

Its all related to the problem. The problem is a majority of the playerbase does not want to leave its comfort zone and this is causing a perpetual problem with the thief profession.

6 hours ago, Chips.7968 said:

1) Does this mean a dodge on deadeye gives 6s stealth alone. 

It could. Though IF it did, I am sure the entire community would expect the stealth on dodge to get removed anyway considering these changes are meant to push thief away from stealth spam and more towards less selfish gameplay. So I didn't even bother putting it in.

6 hours ago, Chips.7968 said:

2) Do any other blocks in game have a 1.5s cast time weapon skill?

Most blocks channel and last longer than that. This is meant to be a more reactive block (parrying) with a half second wind up.

6 hours ago, Chips.7968 said:

Said in another thread I wouldn't bother commenting to propositions because its pointless, but there we go 😄

Understandable. But I still try because anet is really in the dark with thief. So if there is an avenue for improvement, I will try to make them see it.

5 hours ago, Markri.9475 said:

This I assume is for PvP/WvW? I do not PvE but I can assume these changes aren't considering that game mode.

This is for all game modes. Thief has an issue with being locked into very niche roles in every game mode which only attracts a niche crowd. Meaning less usage, less data and a reduced capacity to fix its problems. This gets worse when good thieves kill bad players and the bad players decide to complain about the profession. Anet then nerfs the profession further and makes it that much less playable to newer players, again reducing available data.

5 hours ago, Markri.9475 said:

It's replacement I assume is meant as a 1,5s channel that only blocks after the first ,5?

Yes, exactly.

5 hours ago, Markri.9475 said:

I voted No.

Are there buffs you'd want that would make you more likely to trade?

 

4 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Even without the additional condition of having to have quickness 1 Initiative every 5 seconds is way to inconsequential for it to be even remotely a considerable trade-off.

That isn't the only buff you're getting. And the purpose for that is to make trickery less enticing since anet is never going to make that +3 initiative baseline. Like ever.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Zacchary.6183

[Tails.9372]

1 hour ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

That isn't the only buff you're getting.

Except it is, the other things you've listed don't really do anything for the build I'm playing.

1 hour ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

And the purpose for that is to make trickery less enticing since anet is never going to make that +3 initiative baseline. Like ever.

I don't care about A-Net not making "+3 initiative baseline" but if the goal is to make "trickery less enticing" then I'd rather see them adding some alternatives to the other specialisations but that ofc. only works if these alternatives are not as comically bad as what they've turned Signets of Power into.

[Zacchary.6183]

1 minute ago, Tails.9372 said:

Except it is, the other things you've listed don't really do anything for the build I'm playing.

But it isn't, because there are many other builds you could use. That is the only alternative that arenanet will give.

[Chips.7968]

If this is to solve complaints against thieves, it's too much effort. Delete thief. Easy. Happy days.

[Zacchary.6183]

5 minutes ago, Chips.7968 said:

If this is to solve complaints against thieves, it's too much effort. Delete thief. Easy. Happy days.

But then the complaints will only shift to the next op thing. Best to neutralize them.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

I feel like the suggested changes lack a solid scope and the more you look at things the more you realize, more and more things need to be changed for proper balance. I feel if there is a unfocused scope it leads to scope creep which is the bane of project management, especially in the area of software development.

Most of the purposed changes also have competitive modes in mind, but seem to skip PvE. Was PvE taken into account?

Quote

---------------- You lose these to gain the things below ----------------
Cloak and Dagger loses stealth.
Black Powder turns into a dark field.
Preparedness Lose +3 Initiative.

Cloak and Dagger: First off. If Cloak and Dagger is removed it kills PvE deadeye builds and build diversity due to deadeye profession mechanics. For instance there is a really fun dagger/dagger deadeye build. This change would make PvE deadeye rifle builds only. Here is a video of one of the dagger/dagger deadeye builds. It requires precise timing with precise positioning. In actual fights so it takes skill to pull off. Personally I've wanted to play it in higher end content, but lately I get pulled into other roles since I can multiclass or do multiple roles. It's a ton of fun though! Your first suggestion completely removes this so I voted no right off the bat. 

Deadeye would probably need to be reworked as a whole to be able to use other weapons effectively in PvE and even in other competitive game modes (*scope creep*)

Black Powder: It was talked about in another thread and I feel like this is another skill that kills trait line build diversity by forcing thieves into shadow arts even more. Do you want Shadow Arts + Trickery chosen for every single build for competitive modes without exception?

Preparedness: Honestly I think preparedness +3 initiative gain should baseline. Trickery is taken in every build and preparedness is one of the many reasons.

This is post 1. Post 2 is incoming.

Edit: I had something typed up. It wasn't complete, but I lost it accidentally. So That will need to wait.

Edited February 17, 2023 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

22 hours ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

 

No. Here's why.

Remember that thief has the lowest health pool class of the professions at 10-11k. To protect that 10-11k, there are very few options that provide reliable damage mitigation outside of outright evasion, stealth and blinding. Here are the major mitigation skills we have outside of stealth and dodging.

Bandits Defense

Smokescreen

Dagger Storm

Pistol Whip

Vault

Disabling Strike (? Staff 3)

Infiltrator's arrow

Death blossom

Roll for initiative.

 

Consider that most of those are fractions of a second worth of evasion. Now, let's consider what your changes do.

Quote

• Black Powder turns into a dark field.
• Cloak and Dagger loses stealth.
• Lose +3 Initiative on Preparedness

 

Firstly, this change removes 90% of access to stealth for thief, sparing only deadeye specific interactions.  This removes Bounds utility, cluster bombs stealth utility, and destroys the leap for dagger pistol. It restricts stealth access to hide in Shadows, blinding powder, shadow refuge and smokescreen. Those all have 30 to 40 second cooldowns, which means they'll probably only get used once in an interaction. 

With that in mind, you now have an 10 to 11k medium armor class that has very fractional evasions to protect itself, and a handful of stealth enabling fields that have high cooldown and don't outright prevent damage. 

Also consider that with that change, stealth becomes more predictable as thieves lose target drop  that can be used to position their next stealth skill someplace it would be harder to disrupt by instant skills like detection pulse, gaze of darkness, what have you. 

Lets see what they get. 

 

Quote

Black Powder lasts 6s and has a radius of 240.

• Cloak and Dagger is replaced with Parrying Dagger.
  • 5 Initiative Cost
  • 1.5s cast
  • 1s Block
  • 1s stun if blocked an attack
• Initiative increase in Preparedness is replaced with initiative regeneration rate +20% while you have quickness.

Black Powder being a dark field means its combo finisher is life leech on projectile and dark aura on leap. Neither of these returns adequate mitigation, as without stealth you lose access to sneak attack and other projectiles that have 100% finisher chance. Leech will only rarely be procced. Thieves at base melt conditions and don't need dark aura.

Parrying dagger blocks a move if it lands within a second.  I'll assume when you say 1.5 cast you mean the move is out for 1.5, not channeled for 1.5 before the block starts.

Edit: in reference to above explanation:

[It's replacement I assume is meant as a 1,5s channel that only blocks after the first ,5]

Oh. It has a startup?  No then. parries are for frame perfect or near frame perfect blocks. What parries do you know of in fast paced game that require you to press the button half a second before the attack lands? How will that affect people with 'not living in the gw2 server room' ping?

Even if we assume the skill is... yknow, functional, that neglects two major situations that cloak and Dagger would be used for:

> Damage

> Escaping ranged  and melee pressure

I assume the stun will not apply unless attacked in melee, which makes it markedly less useful than disappearing by hitting something nearby.

What quickness access does thief have to justify preparedness interacting with it as you mentored? Haste? QobK? The former nobody takes and the latter nerfs deadeyes a little and everything else a lot. Thieves can barely function on 15 init right now, much less 12. Gating init regen behind an obscure boon they can't get without specific interactions and reducing their pool on top is silly. 

Quote

• Stealth's baseline duration is increased to 6 seconds and stacks to 15 seconds.
• Shadow Arts stealth-based buffs are twice as effective.

This would just exacerbate the disengage problem that everyone has had problems with up until now. You are rewarding builds that will just offload damage and leave immediately after, and nobody wants to fight that.

 

Quote

• Death Blows are activated with F1 and they are dependent on the weapon used.
• They have generic, moderate cooldowns with damage/utility bonuses if used in stealth. Bonuses depend on the attack.

 

I need more information. 

 

Quote

• All sword skills are 20% faster.
• All Shortbow skills' projectile velocity increased by 33%:

The top one should be baseline and the bottom one doesn't really matter.  The situations where someone would get hit by choking gas or cluster bomb (or the thief choosing to use these) would limit the distance they travel anyway. 

Also now that I think about it, the top one is a nerf. Autos get faster sure, but the only other sword skills thief has are either instant or evades, which means their evasion windows get smaller. No thanks.  Make the auto faster baseline.

Quote

• Dagger skills, except for its Death Blow, deal 10-15% more strike damage.
•  

Since backstab is now replaced by this death blow and unaffected, what does that leave? Wild strike? Dagger 3 and 4? These do minor damage anyway. The heavy hitter was cnd, but that's changed.  No dice .

Quote

Equipped venoms passively give you one venom every few seconds and conditions applied by venoms have +50% duration.

Now you're talking. Define a few seconds though.

On its own, not enough to replace stealth access. You're still not addressing the mitigation issues so far.

Quote

Daredevil: Pulmonary Impact critically hits in all game modes. (the pvp/wvw version deals too little damage for it not to crit)

Again, should be baseline.  The traits that rely on the thief being unstealthed to work should not be nerfed due to the presence of  stealth, nor should they be a bargaining chip to axe the builds that work.

Quote

Scorpion Wire projectile velocity increased by 100% and it arcs higher

Not mitigation. Nobody wants a single target pull in a protracted fight if its easier to see coming. This will be used specifically to set up gimmick oneshots and isn't valuable otherwise.

Quote

Heal scaling outside of heal skills is increased by 100% across core.

Okay. This and the venom rework is a step in the right direction.  You'll need more, though. 200 hp instead of 100 or so is not enough to supplant the stealth benefit. 

Quote

Daredevil: Lotus Training and Bounding Dodger buff durations increased to 10s. Exhaustion durations halved.

Since you havent given any more active mitigation, this buff is pointless. No thief will go without dodging for 10 seconds. They'll be too busy protecting their HP to see any benefit from the extension.

 

If you want less stealth, you'll need to give them more blocks, healing AND prot access. Look at how Anet treats guardian and Ele. If you're unwilling to accept that a thief without stealth will die very quickly and wont be as extreme with mitigation or damage as you are about gutting stealth access, your changes will just cripple every thief player except for the ones that are willing to run cheesy oneshot builds with their escape buttons precast whether or not they kill, which is precisely what the people angry about thieves hate the most.

The parry idea is fine, but no parries with a precast please. That's not how parries work. Geeze. Aftercast is fine if not hit, but before???

The venom passive is also fine as a concept, if the interval isnt high.

Both of those are the only interesting things to me, but even together its not a good trade since I'll have to spend exponentially more resources just surviving without enough to even stay in a fight for long. Even the parry takes almost half of your init to use just to block. How many attacks are you going to get on a 1 second stun on 7 init? 2 if you're really frugal, and want to spend all your bar?

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Doggie.3184]

2 hours ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

Let's format things a little differently for clarities sake. Also I feel like the changes lack a proper scope and the more you look at things the more you realize, more and more things need to be changed for proper balance. I feel if there is no scope it leads to scope creep which is the bane of project management, especially in the area of software development.

Most of the purposed changes also have competitive modes in mind, but seem to skip PvE. Was PvE taken into account?

Cloak and Dagger: First off. If Cloak and Dagger is removed it kills PvE deadeye builds and build diversity due to deadeye profession mechanics. For instance there is a really fun dagger/dagger deadeye build. This change would make PvE deadeye rifle builds only. Here is a video of one of the dagger/dagger deadeye builds. It requires precise timing with precise positioning. In actual fights so it takes skill to pull off. Personally I've wanted to play it in higher end content, but lately I get pulled into other roles since I can multiclass or do multiple roles. It's a ton of fun though! Your first suggestion completely removes this so I voted no right off the bat. 

Deadeye would probably need to be reworked as a whole to be able to use other weapons effectively in PvE and even in other competitive game modes (*scope creep*)

Black Powder: It was talked about in another thread and I feel like this is another skill that kills trait line build diversity by forcing thieves into shadow arts even more. Do you want Shadow Arts + Trickery chosen for every single build for competitive modes without exception?

Preparedness: Honestly I think preparedness +3 initiative gain should baseline. Trickery is taken in every build and preparedness is one of the many reasons.

This is post 1. Post 2 is incoming.

Edit: I had something typed up. It wasn't complete, but I lost it accidentally. So That will need to wait.

I tried that Deadeye build in fractals a few times after it was posted and thought I'd really enjoy it but god it feels awful the moment you get Quickness on you. Way too much rapid button spam and counting hits while also trying to stay behind them (when the game has no good mob-facing indicators like FFXIV has) and having to hit cloak between Flare Pulses makes me wonder why that utility even exists on Deadeye at all. ;u Just doesn't feel pleasant.

My favorite playstyle currently in all modes is still Staff Daredevil with no stealth. I've always liked mobile/evasion builds landslides more cuz I was a GW1 Assassin. I just wish Bounding Dodge worked like Vindicator's and Vault iframes were returned to default. They also never fixed the bug with Staff 2 that makes it noclip and not hit anything when they're moving which is why I wish it'd allow WASD movement while using it and remove animation lock. We used to have good Stealthless choices but everyone's way too fast and dishing out insane damage while seemingly receiving no damage now.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

47 minutes ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I tried that Deadeye build in fractals a few times after it was posted and thought I'd really enjoy it but god it feels awful the moment you get Quickness on you. Way too much rapid button spam and counting hits while also trying to stay behind them (when the game has no good mob-facing indicators like FFXIV has) and having to hit cloak between Flare Pulses makes me wonder why that utility even exists on Deadeye at all. ;u Just doesn't feel pleasant.

My favorite playstyle currently in all modes is still Staff Daredevil with no stealth. I've always liked mobile/evasion builds landslides more cuz I was a GW1 Assassin. I just wish Bounding Dodge worked like Vindicator's and Vault iframes were returned to default. They also never fixed the bug with Staff 2 that makes it noclip and not hit anything when they're moving which is why I wish it'd allow WASD movement while using it and remove animation lock. We used to have good Stealthless choices but everyone's way too fast and dishing out insane damage while seemingly receiving no damage now.

Hopefully I don't get too off topic. That build is a little hard to pull off, but it feels nice to use. I still need a bunch of practice on it. I wouldn't recommend it for fractals where there are tons of mobs (sometimes in fractals I will switch between DE and DD).  If there's a single enemy  or just a few it feels better.

Edit: it might be better with the most recent balance patch though to keen observer. It was moved from viable to recommended on snowcrows.

Haha also if you want an even more chaotic PvE build try the condi DD build... so much dodging. XD I might try out staff DD in competitive modes again now that steal has 1200 range for DD. There was a Vallun staff DD build I was looking into a while back.

Edited February 17, 2023 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Zacchary.6183]

1 hour ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

 

 

Thank you for this post. While you do have some good points, there are a few things I want to point out with your main concerns. Thief does not have any substantial passive mitigation whatsoever unless you consider things like Signet of Malice passive, which is sort of a gray area. Stealth is one, but so are evades and interrupts. Both of these require some timing and a sense of battle rhythm, but they are very doable and easy to master. Anet just need to buff thief's ability to heal or apply prot/reso. Stealth is still an active defense, but it is "safe" because there are plenty of players who cannot handle it and it requires nothing from the thief except for simply applying it. 

While it does contribute a fair amount at keeping thieves alive, it is too potent for the rest of the gw2 community as I have said. It becomes too strong when paired with anything else and because of it, it is the reason most of the things thieves want to be made baseline will never happen. Anet's track record has shown they are not going to budge on their stances and nothing the thief community suggests will be done. Or if it is, it is handed off to another profession. Sometimes you have to break a bone to heal the body.

Quote

I need more information. 

A Death Blow is a "stealth attack" you can use with/out stealth. It does not cost any initiative but will have a generic cooldown so you can use it without so much set up. They should typically hit hard by themselves, but using them while stealthed will buff them. The details of this concept would be better with its own thread, but the jist of it is: it is your MH weapon's 4th skill you can use outside of initiative and stealth but benefits both in one way or another.

2 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Also now that I think about it, the top one is a nerf. Autos get faster sure, but the only other sword skills thief has are either instant or evades, which means their evasion windows get smaller. No thanks.

The worst thing that would happen is the flurry on pistol whip would be 1s instead of 1.25s. Correct me if I am wrong, but if the system rounds to the nearest quarter second, the animation length would have to be .75-1s minimum for it to take away anything. Pistol whip's evade frame might get reduced by .25s but the pistol whip itself may drop to .5 and deal out quicker stuns.

2 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

This would just exacerbate the disengage problem that everyone has had problems with up until now. You are rewarding builds that will just offload damage and leave immediately after, and nobody wants to fight that.

Nothing, besides the complete removal of stealth, is going to help that problem. Ultimately its a skill issue with all involved parties, but at least with low access/high duration stealth you have a choice between blowing your stealth skills to lurk or using it tactically between attacks. That said, thief has evasion builds and interrupt builds that could use some love from the community and anet.

 

2 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

If you want less stealth, you'll need to give them more blocks, healing AND prot access. Look at how Anet treats guardian and Ele. If you're unwilling to accept that a thief without stealth will die very quickly and wont be as extreme with mitigation or damage as you are about gutting stealth access, your changes will just cripple every thief player except for the ones that are willing to run cheesy oneshot builds with their escape buttons precast whether or not they kill, which is precisely what the people angry about thieves hate the most.

What I want is this profession to stop being very niche, be something other than le invisible duel guy, so that I can enjoy it's exciting playstyle and mechanics without all of its social restrictions. If it takes breaking it, so be it. It isn't like the thief community itself is innocent in its usual dilemmas either. And here's why.

It is a fact that Anet is not going to play this profession in any capacity or do what needs to be done to properly balance it and make it useable outside niche groups and uses. I am almost certain they are aware of it and understand exactly why it is this way. But I also believe they won't do anything about it because of the reasons you've stated. It's problems are too interwoven into its core, and if it is ripped out it is going to hit the thief community hard. But unfortunately, what's been done for the past decade has accomplished nothing but make thief more mundane.

In spite of all this, you are very welcome to provide ideas or improvements to what I have already posted.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

33 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

What I want is this profession to stop being very niche, be something other than le invisible duel guy,

I will respond to the rest of your post later, but let me say this. The above is fine, but:

Quote

so that I can enjoy it's exciting playstyle and mechanics without all of its social restrictions. If it takes breaking it, so be it.

This right here, stop it.

The people that voice resentment toward the class:

a.) do not play it

b.) will not be satisfied with any concession you make.

The goal for those individuals is not for you to be a fair fight, because thief is -already- that in the current meta. It's to instant win vs you due to some otherwise unidentifiable notion that has more to do with their emotions and prior experiences with thieves than the actual state of the class. 

When thief was oneshot DP, the group you are referring to went "it's the dagger damage." then "it's the condi damage". Then "it's the mobility/it's the thief having staying power on a point/it's the acrobatics vigor spam/it's the smokescreen." Then "It's the stealth, they should play specter and be more visible (not like that though, actually play deadeye. Not like that though~)".

You will never have a thief class in this game without some subset of players shaming you for playing it. Do not balance for their approval. Balance for the fairness of the class, ensure that its mechanics have counterskills and counterstrategies, and do not chase whatever ethereal socially acceptable thief class you think is possible. 

Because I promise you, if you break the class in an effort to enjoy the exciting playstyle and mechanics, they will ask for the mechanics next. They'll get hit on the head by some sword thief and come here whining about how your initiative system needs to be replaced by cooldowns. I saw the group you're trying to appease do it before to warrior. It took five years for warrior to get out of the hole they put it in.Their approval is not necessary. You know how difficult the class is to play, and you want to play it, so play it. Don't let people make their skill issues your problem. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Chips.7968]

The complaints people come up with tend (imo) to centre around "They have initiative so no weapon cooldown so can spam an attack this is unfair" (intentional lack of comma use in sentence). The second is "it can spam stealth indefinitely". There's predominantly 1 weapon set, and 1 specialisation, that are the main culprits.

Pistol offhand.

Deadeye.

Sometimes those two are together 🙂

Is cloak and dagger, the offhand dagger stealth access, part of the continual stealth problem? Or is it being smashed in as well because... "I want to remove all complaints". C/D has counter players; aegis, blocks, cc (especially via traps, marks, etc), invulns, blinds - and the best "just dodge". It also requires a target and therefore being in combat to achieve. Smoke field combos do not, and can be executed anywhere, therefore minimising those counter play options to a far greater degree.

As said, if you want to remove all complaints... then deadeye stealth dodge needs to go, because otherwise you're funnelling all stealth play into deadeye. Indeed, make any stealth access via utilities only. But in doing so, the same must apply for ALL classes. That includes getting rid of trapper runes etc. 

Why am i concerned about s/d offhand 5? Well, a few things. C/D is a big attack dmg source at times (if it crits), and opens up a daze option on target. The size of dmg potential in wvw without it is going to be significantly limited to chip chip chip way. Meanwhile, a single leap in mele range from guardian (my reactions aren't fast enough to see and dodge, only predict dodge) hits 10k. I've had players throw reveal traps at me, or fought under towers - neither bother me at all. But losing that dmg... Dagger main hand at least has the ability to spam heartseeker. Additionally, a block kind of feels anti sword dagger play style. Kind of. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Chips.7968

[Zacchary.6183]

12 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

 

Before you do, a summary of my sentiments in regards to my wants.

To clarify what I mean about social restrictions, the profession provides nothing to others that other professions can't. Its entirely selfish, making it very niche outside it few uses. That gets bland very quick.

And it's not about catering to the people who don't play it. It's about removing legitimacy from their complaints. You can't directly tell people on here that they are terrible players, even if they blatantly are, because that would eventually result in a ban. But you can "give them enough rope to hang themselves". They eventually will have to face the realization they suck. It would probably help if Anet could just tell the players to play thief or git gud. But Preparedness becoming baseline is more likely.

However, you cannot enlighten through the thief community's wishes in its current state. Nobody, save a portion of the thief community, really cares about its health. So the only other option is to give bad players what they want. They want to complain about stealth being OP, so give them less stealth spam. Then they get to deal with more evade spam and interrupts which require more skillful play, but will kill baddies all the same. Worst case scenario is Dec 10th happens again and the thief community collectively shelves thief. Meanwhile, the same people who complained about thief will simply continue to get killed by those same thieves, except on other professions. What then?

Edited February 17, 2023 by Zacchary.6183