Nov 28 Thief Balance

[Laosduude.1690]

The improvements to staff are focused on Debilitating Arc and Dust Strike to give these skills a more unique identity and application. Pistol is also being tuned up to make it a more viable option for condition-focused builds in PvE.

• Vital Shot: Increased the bleeding duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvE only. 
• Shadow Strike: Increased the torment stacks from 2 to 4 in PvE only. Increased the Repeater effect duration from 4 seconds to 10 seconds in PvE, and from 4 seconds to 5 seconds in PvP and WvW. Increased the Repeater effect stacks from 1 to 3 in PvE and from 1 to 2 in PvP and WvW. The effect now causes the Repeater skill to cost one less initiative, and one stack of the effect is consumed when using Repeater. 
• Unload: Reduced the initiative cost from 5 to 3 PvE only.
• Bountiful Theft: This trait now grants additional might to allies when stealing from a target with no boons.
• Haste: Reduced the cooldown from 24 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE and from 35 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Blinding Powder: Reduced the cooldown from 40 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only.

Daredevil

• Punishing Strikes: This skill no longer reflects projectiles.
• Debilitating Arc: This skill now grants access to Helmet Breaker for a duration of time.
• Helmet Breaker: Leap at your foe, dealing damage and inflicting the dazed effect.
• Dust Strike: This skill now reflects projectiles and strikes foes in a circular area instead of in a frontal cone.
• Impact Strike: This skill now evades attacks. Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP and WvW.

Specter

• Well of Gloom: Increased the base pulse healing from 336 to 520 in PvP and WvW.
• Well of Silence: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 PvP and WvW.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Laosduude.1690

[Stx.4857]

No Sword buffs lol.  I guess they really are okay with Sword being a completely dead weapon in PvE.  

[Asra.8746]

They need to play thief at somewhat of a relevant level and give a kitten about the class to even recognize its problem areas, let alone addressing them - and they don't. Nobody in the balance team does that for over a decade.

Also, don't waste your time giving them feedback. They never actually read, at least most definitely not for thief feedbacks. So, don't waste your time and energy. They claim that they do for a public show. For instance, Specter issues that are still plaguing Specter were reported back in the Specter betas before EoD release...they don't read and they don't care. Deadeye can't even utilize any of the benefits of the spec because it can't even mark certain things for years. It also still fails marks and just puts mark in cd for no good reason. It's been years...they don't read and they don't care.

[BobbyT.7192]

They really are doubling down on the pew pew spam, they don't think that maybe they should look pistol 2 instead? I mean I guess since 3 is basically free, now you have more flexibility to use head shot more often, but what's the point of body shot?

 

Edit: I am getting Link from windwaker vibes with helmet beaker....

Edited October 28, 2023 by BobbyT.7192

[FrancisN.9276]

Daredevil staff changes look interesting, considering that Dust Strike finally has some use and DD can reflect projectile from a far-distant foe. However, Dust Strike animation is so short that its reflect hardly matters, while they remove projectile reflection from Punishing Strike which has 3x longer reflect effect. What worries me more is how smooth the animation transition for Debilitating Arc to Helmet Breaker will be. DD staff skills are currently all animation-locked with no animation cancelling (which is not the case for some other classes *cough* Guardian *cough*), meaning once you starts a weapon skill, you cannot react to anything else. Worse, Debilitating Arc has already had a long and clunky animation that makes you vulnerable to any attack that starts at the same time or 1 second after your trigger. And they made no mention whether the "leap" part of Helmet Breaker has evade iframe or not. This class is so squishy and high-risk that even a 0.5s evade on that skill cannot do much.

Edited October 28, 2023 by FrancisN.9276

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, FrancisN.9276 said:

Daredevil staff changes look interesting, considering that Dust Strike finally has some use and DD can reflect projectile from a far-distant foe. However, Dust Strike animation is so short that its reflect hardly matters, while they remove projectile reflection from Punishing Strike which has 3x longer reflect effect. What worries me more is how smooth the animation transition for Debilitating Arc to Helmet Breaker will be. DD staff skills are currently all animation-locked with no animation cancelling (which is not the case for some other classes *cough* Guardian *cough*), meaning once you starts a weapon skill, you cannot react to anything else. Worse, Debilitating Arc has already had a long and clunky animation that makes you vulnerable to any attack that starts at the same time or 1 second after your trigger. And they made no mention whether the "leap" part of Helmet Breaker has evade iframe or not. This class is so squishy and high-risk that even a 0.5s evade on that skill cannot do much.

A lot will ride on how long the reflection from Dust Strike lasts. The Punishing Strikes reflect is nice as a general "reflect some projectiles while autoattacking" thing, but is difficult to time appropriately. Conversely, there are skills where the reflect effect lasts longer than the activation time, and there is at least an argument for the new Dust Strike to be one of those (theme it around kicking up a whirlwind around you that reflects projectiles, said whirlwind might remain for a fraction of a second after the skill animation completes). Ultimately, it seems to be a trade for active defence over passive defence that happens during an autoattack (similar to how ranger greatsword lost the free evade on the autoattack in exchange for endurance gain), at the cost of requiring initiative to use.

[Doggie.3184]

If they want to buff condi pistol they should fix the black powder combo issue unless they only want us to AA.

[Puck.3697]

2 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

If they want to buff condi pistol they should fix the black powder combo issue unless they only want us to AA.

Doesn't matter while repeater still ports you away continously. Its abit too much of a meme to be realistic in content. 

 

 

[Lucinellia.9247]

My suggested changes for Heal Alacrity Specter are here.

Regarding these changes, the reduction in cooldown on Blinding Powder is quite nice for Heal Alacrity Specter as it allows for this ability to provide 50% Protection uptime when used on cooldown. This does ease the situation of ally Shadow Sap having both low Protection output and a radius that is too small, but it is very much a band-aid fix.

[Eugenides.1274]

I wasn't really expecting anything going into this and my immediate reaction was "That's it...?".
Some thoughts...

> Pistol changes

Seems good for condi DE in PvE. Still don't see it being used at all in competitive. Unload change is weird. Suppose it's mainly a quality of life change for those times when mobs die before all bullets even have a chance to hit them?

Please just make lDeadly Aim (pierce trait) default and replace it with Ricochet. Those are the best QoL changes you could make for pistol on thief.

> Staff changes

Sound interesting. As mentioned above Debilitating Arc feels horrible to use because you're pretty much guaranteed to be hit even though the skill is an evade due to the poor animation/aftercast. Maybe adding a short duration Protection onto Debilitating Arc would make it feel better? The Dust Strike change looks like it could be useful in WvW and PvP but needs testing before a final verdict.

>  Impact Strike change

Doesn't address the real pain points of this skill.

• The tracking on Impact Strike is bad. Similar to Heartseeker it doesn't connect at times when the range indicator shows you're in range and you end up wiffing right in front of the enemy.
• Blind/aegis/block/invuln render the skill useless (somewhat addressed with the evade, but with the amount of blind/aegis/block/invuln spam in competitive this issue still stands).
• After connecting with Impact Strike and the skill flips over any skills with a cast time put the elite on cooldown.

> Bountiful Theft change

This sounds like a meaningless buff. You're going to be might capped by other things in PvE. In WvW/PvP good luck finding a target that has no boons to benefit from this after boon rip has been repeatedly gutted.

> Specter changes

Straight buffs so that's nice but they don't really seem to matter?

---

Other thoughts in general about the balance patch...

> No sword changes in PvE or competitive

This is confusing.

> No changes to Acrobatics

This is also confusing. The reworked Acrobatics feels even more like an inferior Daredevil than it previously did.

> No changes to Daredevil Dash

Can we finally take a look at Exhaustion applied when we remove cripple/chill/immobilized with this trait? Even just changing it to -75% to start to see if that breaks things. Hell I'd even take 99% at this point considering the amount of times I've been 1 pixel away from having a dodge available.

> No changes to D/D Death Blossom

Please for the love of god do something about the animation and startup/aftercast frames for this skill. It felt like garbage in 2012 and it still feels like garbage today. Some possible solutions...

• If you want to keep the current skill behavior then get rid of the jump/forced movement. Make it a skill we can cast while moving.
• Just scrap the skill entirely and go all in on D/D as a power damage weapon set. Make the incoming axe the main melee condition set. Replace Death Blossom with Horns of the Ox that flips into Falling Lotus Strike or Falling Spider to give it some utility.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Eugenides.1274

[nopoet.2960]

Been loving scepter DE.  I'm looking forward to going back to pistol/dagger with these changes.

[FrancisN.9276]

8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

A lot will ride on how long the reflection from Dust Strike lasts. The Punishing Strikes reflect is nice as a general "reflect some projectiles while autoattacking" thing, but is difficult to time appropriately. Conversely, there are skills where the reflect effect lasts longer than the activation time, and there is at least an argument for the new Dust Strike to be one of those (theme it around kicking up a whirlwind around you that reflects projectiles, said whirlwind might remain for a fraction of a second after the skill animation completes). Ultimately, it seems to be a trade for active defence over passive defence that happens during an autoattack (similar to how ranger greatsword lost the free evade on the autoattack in exchange for endurance gain), at the cost of requiring initiative to use.

Really good point about the active defense and the possibility that reflect effect can be longer than the animation. But when I think about it, active defense for a class with all animation-locked skills is not exactly helpful. For example, you see your opponent begin that shooting animation so you press Dust Strike, but your character is currently locked in another weapon skill animation so the game cue Dust Strike to activate after the animation, which is already too late. The only way to fix Daredevil is to let it have certain weapon skills animation-cancel other weapon skills. Look at Specter Scepter/Pistol, weapon skill 3 has 2 stages and if you press skill 3 while in the middle of doing 2nd stage skill, it will cut 2nd stage short and transition back to 1st stage skill (which results in a loss of healing for that skill). Or they can be generous with us the same way they did for Guardian Greatsword 4 - the original animation takes 2s, but you can cancel right after the first 0.5s while retaining all the skill effects.

[Khlori.6209]

Just now, Eugenides.1274 said:

 

• Just scrap the skill entirely and go all in on D/D as a power damage weapon set. Make the incoming axe the main melee condition set. Replace Death Blossom with Horns of the Ox that flips into Falling Lotus Strike or Falling Spider to give it some utility.

That's the dumbest *kitten* I seen today, leave my condi DD alone.

[Virgarth.6354]

6 hours ago, Eugenides.1274 said:

Please just make lDeadly Aim (pierce trait) default and replace it with Ricochet. Those are the best QoL changes you could make for pistol on thief.
 

Tbh, Deadly Aim should be something like: -5% damage, piercing + unblockable.... Cuz the number of deflecting barriers in the game are something impossible to handle both in pve and pvp... You also renounce to something like a 15-20% crt. damage in order to get that trait (cuz you are not going practiced tolerance), and getting only pierce capabilities in exchange of a -20% crt. damage and a -5% on regular hits for a total of -25% on crt. damage is something really cringe.

[Felices Bladewing.3914]

On 10/28/2023 at 3:14 PM, Eugenides.1274 said:

I wasn't really expecting anything going into this and my immediate reaction was "That's it...?".

13 bulletpoints
7 of them only have some minor number changing
2 of them basically just swapping an effect
1 of them is just the second part of Debilitating Arc so I don't count it separatly

• Bountiful Theft: This trait now grants additional might to allies when stealing from a target with no boons.

That is the only change that affects every thief player, and let's be honest that is nice but nothing to be excited about, which i would also say about the pistol changes.

If thats everything we get after half a year each time, I have lost any kind of hope and copium.

So here is a sneakpeak of the next upcoming balance changes:

• Impact Strike: This skills evades has been decreased by 0.25 seconds. Decreased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 27 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Scorpion Wire: Has now a count recharge of 19,5 seconds from 20 seconds. Power-coefficient has been increased from 0.01 to 0.1 in PvP and WvW only 
• Surprise Shot: Increased the immobilize from 2 seconds to 2,25 seconds in PvE only
• Pressure Striking: Decreased the duration of torment from 8 seconds to 5 seconds, now applies 3 stacks of torment instead of 2

And that's it see you in Fall 2024 for more minor and useless changes

Edited November 21, 2023 by Felices Bladewing.3914

[cyberzombie.7348]

So far nearly eveything sounds good. My only real gripe is how they're swapping the reflects. The aa chain is one of my go-to for securing downs in WvW group fights since 80% of zergs are ranged. Making it a limited resource turns it to a liability in my situation.

Plus, dust strike is already one of (if not) the srongest 4 skill in thieves weapon set.

Edited October 30, 2023 by cyberzombie.7348

[Doggie.3184]

On 10/28/2023 at 3:48 PM, Virgarth.6354 said:

Tbh, Deadly Aim should be something like: -5% damage, piercing + unblockable.... Cuz the number of deflecting barriers in the game are something impossible to handle both in pve and pvp... You also renounce to something like a 15-20% crt. damage in order to get that trait (cuz you are not going practiced tolerance), and getting only pierce capabilities in exchange of a -20% crt. damage and a -5% on regular hits for a total of -25% on crt. damage is something really cringe.

I'm 99% positive Deadly Aim is supposed to do full damage on 1st target struck and reduce it on additional targets it pierces into, cuz by all logic it should work like that, but someone likely f***ed up the coding and it reduces all damage by 5% (even bigger reduction on Headshot). That person probably isn't even at Anet anymore so it just went forgotten forever. I've never seen Anet comment, acknowledge or use the trait.

With how low Pistol DPS is it should be +% damage. But Pierce also sucks on bullets and bounce or explosion would be more beneficial. The Pierce is so useless that it shoulda been baseline if anything cuz it's not worth the huge DPS loss from the -5% and loss of Practiced Tolerance. The trait would have to provide far more benefits than just Pierce to ever be worth taking. Better off returning Ricochet and it should probably go into Deadly Arts or Trickery so Condi can use it too... 

They're also okay with giving Revenant Bow baseline Pierce instead of it requiring trait but leave us stuck with Deadly Aim trait. 😭

Edited November 7, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

2 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I'm 99% positive Deadly Aim is supposed to do full damage on 1st target struck and reduce it on additional targets it pierces into, cuz by all logic it should work like that, but someone likely f***ed up the coding and it reduces all damage by 5% (even bigger reduction on Headshot). That person probably isn't even at Anet anymore so it just went forgotten forever. I've never seen Anet comment, acknowledge or use the trait.

With how low Pistol DPS is it should be +% damage. But Pierce also sucks on bullets and bounce or explosion would be more beneficial. The Pierce is so useless that it shoulda been baseline if anything cuz it's not worth the huge DPS loss from the -5% and loss of Practiced Tolerance. The trait would have to provide far more benefits than just Pierce to ever be worth taking. Better off returning Ricochet and it should probably go into Deadly Arts or Trickery so Condi can use it too... 

Exactly... if deaths judgement works this way vs targets hit NOT marked why would this not? 

 

Really want ricochet back

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, cyberzombie.7348 said:

So far nearly eveything sounds good. My only real gripe is how they're swapping the reflects. The aa chain is one of my go-to for securing downs in WvW group fights since 80% of zergs are ranged. Making it a limited resource turns it to a liability in my situation.

Plus, dust strike is already one of (if not) the srongest 4 skill in thieves weapon set.

I do admit to having some concern myself about losing the 600 range Dust Strike, although I am cautiously optimistic about the new version.

[Doggie.3184]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I do admit to having some concern myself about losing the 600 range Dust Strike, although I am cautiously optimistic about the new version.

I'd hope its a large off-centered circle in front of you and not centered around you but likely not. The 0.02 Thieves out there who still try to play Staff DD in WvW zergs will continue to have a hard time not dying when their commander instinctually places them in a group by themselves just cuz of the Thief icon and offers them no stability to survive close quarters without any of their old survival functions returned/unnerfed. Dust Strike offered some kind of range when having to stick to the edge of the fight. Though if someone does hold our little baby hands and keep us from falling over with stability it could be a decent spam attack in middle of enemy group if it's not some crappy Bound radius.

It's a shame the Spec still isn't allowed to literally stand on it's own with it's own boons though.

[Virgarth.6354]

On 10/31/2023 at 12:06 AM, Doggie.3184 said:

I'm 99% positive Deadly Aim is supposed to do full damage on 1st target struck and reduce it on additional targets it pierces into, cuz by all logic it should work like that, but someone likely f***ed up the coding and it reduces all damage by 5% (even bigger reduction on Headshot). That person probably isn't even at Anet anymore so it just went forgotten forever. I've never seen Anet comment, acknowledge or use the trait.

With how low Pistol DPS is it should be +% damage. But Pierce also sucks on bullets and bounce or explosion would be more beneficial. The Pierce is so useless that it shoulda been baseline if anything cuz it's not worth the huge DPS loss from the -5% and loss of Practiced Tolerance. The trait would have to provide far more benefits than just Pierce to ever be worth taking. Better off returning Ricochet and it should probably go into Deadly Arts or Trickery so Condi can use it too... 

Totally agree on the lacking of proper bonuses on Deadly Aim... I would be more than glad to have just pierce+unblockable, even by keeping the -5% penalty to damage.

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I'd hope its a large off-centered circle in front of you and not centered around you but likely not. The 0.02 Thieves out there who still try to play Staff DD in WvW zergs will continue to have a hard time not dying when their commander instinctually places them in a group by themselves just cuz of the Thief icon and offers them no stability to survive close quarters without any of their old survival functions returned/unnerfed. Dust Strike offered some kind of range when having to stick to the edge of the fight. Though if someone does hold our little baby hands and keep us from falling over with stability it could be a decent spam attack in middle of enemy group if it's not some crappy Bound radius.

It's a shame the Spec still isn't allowed to literally stand on it's own with it's own boons though.

That does make my wonder how one would go about reworking Stability into Daredevil. 🤔

[Xoranium.6481]

5 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

That does make my wonder how one would go about reworking Stability into Daredevil. 🤔

Easy, just add 3 sec stab after each dodge 😆

[Psycoprophet.8107]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

That does make my wonder how one would go about reworking Stability into Daredevil. 🤔

Rework Signet of agility to Signet of stability, grants condi removal and 3 secs or 6max of stability on use. DD/thief has enough ways to recover endurance.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Psycoprophet.8107

[Doggie.3184]

6 hours ago, Psycoprophet.8107 said:

Rework Signet of agility to Signet of stability, grants condi removal and 3 secs or 6max of stability on use. DD/thief has enough ways to recover endurance.

Do it to Signet of Shadows as it's one of the most boring Signet actives in game. We have a billion other ways to blind, weaken and vuln.

But it's Daredevil and supposed to be GW1 style brawler Assassin with no need for Stealth, just defensive offensiveness and speed. Give it actual good traits for that and get rid of dodge choice traits and put all the dodge mechanics onto the F bar to make room for better traits.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Doggie.3184