07/18/2023—July 18 Balance Changes

[FrancisN.9276]

The fact that they nerfed the underperforming dps DE is the last straw that broke the camel's back for me. I have liquidated most of my high-end mats and decided to take a long break from gw2, spending my $$$ on some other games this summer. By the way, any recommendations regarding which games are worth playing?

[Carnifex.3275]

1 hour ago, FrancisN.9276 said:

The fact that they nerfed the underperforming dps DE is the last straw that broke the camel's back for me. I have liquidated most of my high-end mats and decided to take a long break from gw2, spending my $$$ on some other games this summer. By the way, any recommendations regarding which games are worth playing?

I feel just the same. Plus they couldnt even do the math correctly on qDE. Even qDE was nerfed too much, sitting at 32k bench. Which is funny.. it was supposed to be high dps quickness spec cuz it doesnt rly bring anythin useful to the table as say qHerald or qFB, so now there's literally no reason to play qDE. It's almost as if pDE was actually nerfed to the range that qDE was supposed to be at 🤣 

Its probably time people stop posting benchmark videos on golem. If anet really judges how strong/weak the class is just on golem numbers then we have a huge problem. 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Carnifex.3275

[TwiceDead.1963]

Lmao I went on vacation and didnt even get to play the changes much so I guess I have no reason to return, why am I even here? GO AWAY! *Shoves bottles off the table*

[FrancisN.9276]

On 7/27/2023 at 4:51 PM, TwiceDead.1963 said:

Lmao I went on vacation and didnt even get to play the changes much so I guess I have no reason to return, why am I even here? GO AWAY! *Shoves bottles off the table*

They really did us dirty this time, rolling out this balance patch some weeks after they have us pre-order the expansion. Had I known the content of their lazy changes, I would not have bothered. At least, they cannot trick us again with future expansions.

[TentacleInvoker.2860]

As a Deadeye main, I just can't anymore.

It was a good decision to not pre-purchase the fall expansion. I could understand one, maybe two or three weird balance changes in a row throughout a year across all professions, but as someone said, it's classic Anet by now.

See you guys either in GW3 or when the balance team gets reformed.

[iKeostuKen.2738]

Why do they even nerf the damage on a dps spec.

[LyraOrpheo.8450]

Still waiting for a rollback, Daredevil and Specter are far outperforming it, while the latter brings barrier and utility. DPS Deadeye thing is to bring the highest single target damage in the game, but its barely in the top 10 now. They just needed to nerf One in the Chamber's damage.

[Asra.8746]

Problem is you have people like this guy, and these guys who represents like 0.5% of the playerbase, who ANet looks at and goes: yup, DE is good and balanced. So, as long as they look at only those people, the spec's problems will not be addressed as it should.

Worst part is that with SotO's weapon mastery (unless there's some serious balance changes), nearly all the specs will benefit in a significant way, except thief. Thief has 2 elite specs that give 2h weapons, which are heavily tied to those said especs. Also, thief is still not getting a new offhand over a decade later. Thief has had ONLY 2 offhands for over a decade.

The trickery traitline has been mandatory for all PvP content for over a decade. Worst part regarding this is that they literally "balanced" in such a way over the years that it's now more mandatory than it ever was in the past. Ie: constantly increasing initiative costs AND reducing the effectiveness of a skill - double nerfs (recent eg: Twilight Combo - people were actually using this in PvP...now, nobody even thinks about touching it). That means, you only ever have a choice to make for 2 traitlines - not 3 (as one would expect is the norm).

While other classes can chain skills (damage when damage is needed and defense when defense is needed), thief has to sit there twiddling thumb helplessly waiting for initiative (even when weapon swapping) after using 1-2 skills because every single build is initiative starved. Yet, other people who fail to understand thief problems always wants to cry that thief can disengage and run away easily - okay, but how is that making the thief win? You're literally the winner in that engagement...else the thief wouldn't be forced to run. That argument also ignores the fact that it's 2023 and after the 3 expansions, every single class can do the same...some even has better mobility than thief.

As I said multiple times, it is evident that the balance team is filled with 🤡 when one takes a very close look at all the decisions they make regarding thief for over a decade. This will probably never change because it's been over a decade that problems like Preparedness and Sleight of Hand are still persistent. Oh, and no, Acrobatics is not well and good - it still sucks compared to other traitlines and it doesn't know what it wants to do.

PS: Signet of Power is worse than it ever was. It's yet another joke trait made by the 🤡 team. Swindler's Equilibrium is literally worse than it was - imagine being so good at balancing that you nerf a trait in a dead traitline (cause that'll surely make people want to use that already unused tratiline). Also, dead traits still exist on the class (eg: Deadly Aim - this trait is such a meme).

/endrant - see you all on Tuesday...or maybe not cause I'm having too much fun on 2 OTHER different classes, unlike thief, which only causes annoyance and frustration thinking about all of this.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Asra.8746

[kidbuu.4071]

I agree 100%. I think something that would help if the balance team was open to hearing more from the thief community would have effects upon initiative Depletion for defensive capabilities, damage mitigation capabilities, and or damage components. So basically if you're starved for initiative there would be a cause and effect basically higher risk/ higher reward methodology.  significant work has to be done on other trait lines like shadow arts, deadly arts acrobatics to make them more substantial so that trickery doesn't have to always be taken. And as you stated previously, it's imperative that we get another off hand weapon. I've heard in many different posts. People complaining about these having stealth and access to too much stealth, which confuses me because we are thieves after all and sneakiness is literally a cornerstone of a rogue/ thief/ mercenary.