Why is there a cooldown on Backstab?

[DeceiverX.8361]

Still doesn't change the fact a well-timed block should be rewarded and mindless spam shouldn't be. Which is why I think Creed's suggestion is good. If you whiff without a block or the enemy dodges, you either dodge with them and end up on a slightly lower effective cooldown and get the second attempt while burning resources, or you get hit by them with just an ICD for outplaying you with a clutch aegis. Still workable, just now they have better time to reasonably respond while still giving the benefit of stealth to the thief such that it doesn't end up killed outright.

The the statement that guard counters thief is also completely untrue in the current meta. Thief is currently the best counter in the game to guardian/FB by a very large margin in comparison to other classes and will always be strong into the matchup so long as Larcenous Strike can be reliably cast/remains an unblockable nuking boon steal.

[Menyus.4610]

@"DeceiverX.8361" said:Still doesn't change the fact a well-timed block should be rewarded and mindless spam shouldn't be. Which is why I think Creed's suggestion is good. If you whiff without a block or the enemy dodges, you either dodge with them and end up on a slightly lower effective cooldown and get the second attempt while burning resources, or you get hit by them with just an ICD for outplaying you with a clutch aegis. Still workable, just now they have better time to reasonably respond while still giving the benefit of stealth to the thief such that it doesn't end up killed outright.

The the statement that guard counters thief is also completely untrue in the current meta. Thief is currently the best counter in the game to guardian/FB by a very large margin in comparison to other classes and will always be strong into the matchup so long as Larcenous Strike can be reliably cast/remains an unblockable nuking boon steal.

"Thief is currently the best counter in the game to guardian/FB" ----► not everyone plays s/d, also it aint a counter its just good against itA guardian and a well timed block? 60% of the time it pops automatically -.-Thief has become such a boring class over the years with these little unthinked changes....

[DeceiverX.8361]

I said thief was, not that a certain build was. I play D/D which is countered by everything, but I do not say that the thief as a whole is weak or that everything counters the thief as a whole, because the thief right now can hard-counter a lot of things. My issues lie in those other things being oppressive to most kits, and D/D's weakness as a kit. D/P is just not very strong into the rest of the game right now; this is the situation D/D has been in since 2012. It still doesn't mean the thief as a whole is too weak; otherwise S/D wouldn't be dominant. It's just that the rest of the game is now too strong for MH dagger.

Passive proc aegis is a completely different problem and not really relevant to justifying a thief being able to spam through active defenses if getting out-played. I'm with you there in that it's frustrating and passive, and it's why I'd rather see passive blocks and excessive defenses cut down rather than senseless buffs akin to double unblockable FS/LS to keep the class as a whole relevant by oppressively hard-countering other classes.

[Jana.6831]

@Auturgist.8256 said:If I use Steal and Hidden Thief to stealth behind someone and attempt to Backstab, and they are out of range, why do I lose any chance to do it? I feel like I should be able to spam my first attack and the Backstab should go off as soon as it possibly can -- I shouldn't lose the chance just because someone moved out of melee range when I hit the button. Considering Necros get to drop AoE literally all over the kitten map and I need to blow every dodge and Shadowstep to get out of it, it should be easier for me to land a kitten Backstab.

The why is because that was the only complaint 2 guardians coming to this forum had in a year and because our venoms became group share without having to trait for it because the traitline (shadow arts) was previously destroyed because some pro thieves complained about it and claimed SA thieves would do way too much damage. So when in a PvE raid asked to do group shared venoms you had to give up about a third of your damage thus couldn't fullfill your role as damage dealer, so anet made it group share without traiting and since that was so OP we also got some punishments, also the backstab cooldown. They since undid most of these punishments, but not the backstab cooldown.And yeah, I'm serious about this, that's the why, all of it.

[Lyros.4673]

Because ANet (while improving slightly as of late) was/is afraid of making classes actually excel at what they do. If one class builds a sand castle too tall, instead of giving other classes more sand to play with, they kick down that class' sand castle and says "share!" when there's technically an infinite amount of sand to work with.

Gosh forbid that Thieves actually get to 1-hit shank someone being foolish and playing alone; maybe to counter that, there could be greater anti-stealth mechanics/abilities/utilities stuck onto a few lesser used abilities to counter them? Suddenly we have class dynamic in PVP scenarios.

Or better yet, instead of giving players 0 feedback when striking something stealthed, actually show the damage done like a normal hit to indicate that we struck something. Give the audio cue of regularly striking someone, because if you're invisible, that invisibility isn't also masking the sound of a greatsword cleaving through your arm. Continuing your auto-attack chain is functionally next to 0 feedback.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

@Crinn.7864 said:

@"caveman.5840" said:why not just make hitting ageis from stealth reveal you and remove the cool downWhy not dodges as well? Or should people who manage to predict your backstab not be rewarded for their efforts?

imho casting a stealth attack should always reveal regardless of if it hits or not.

I fail to call moving around like a chicken with your head cut off and spamming AOEs or melees to hit a cloaked thief "prediction". A thief shouldn't be punished this severely for a single god damn interaction.