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Thief worries me. It will dominate hard.

BeLZedaR.4790

By BeLZedaR.4790
in Player vs. Player

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JonnyForgotten.4276

JonnyForgotten.4276

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@Turk.5460 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:I keep saying that thieves need some recharges in their weapon skills so they can't be spammed as much. But giving them recharges would completely break the pace of their attacks and make their initiative mechanic pointless. So it couln't be done.

It would become just like Rev's energy mechanic then.

That would be if they merely got recharges. Revenants can't use the same skill twice. But thieves are meant to be able to use the same skill twice. But then you have traits and skills that let them recover initiative, and that means being able to use a skill not just 2,3 4 for times in rapid succession, but sometimes over 10. And that's a bit too much.

That's why just recharges would not do, but skill ammo does the trick perfectly.

What skill can be used 10 times?

With traits and skills that recover initiative, many skills can. One of the worse offenders is Unload, which can be used over 20 times in succession under the right circumstances.

20 times? Even if every unload hits for the entire channel that is 60 initiative. A Thief can have at most 15. They can get 6 from RFI and 2 from a steal. Thats still a long ways from 60. Can you define the "right circumstances"?.

A thief can perform at most three unloads before he needs another source of INI and while he waits on that INI his other 7 weapon skills can not be used.

Well, 6, as unload refunds 2 if all of them hit. The 6th from the 7 or so initiative you are gaining just from the regen over the 1.5s cast time of each unload.

Predicated of course on all of the unloads hitting with the target not evading or dodging one. If they dodged a single one then they have diminished thief INI pool for no effect. If any thief is abl to hit with 6 consecutive unloads on a single target it a L2p issue on the part of that target. I daresay any class able to get off 6 seperate attacks even if they NOT the same against a single target wherein said target does not dodge evade or mitigate any is going to prevail in the matchup as well.

Quite frankly I think unload is one of the most elegantly balanced of skills when it comes to INI , avoidance and its capabilities. Avoid the shot and the thief suffers what is in essence a double whammy. No damage for the ini burned and more ini burned due to the miss. It is a built in penalty for skill spam WHICH the target is in control of. That 1.5 second channel, while recharging a bit of INI through its duration means in GAME terms there generally a net loss of INI given 2 ini lost if any portion of the unload msses. Ie dodge at the .5 second mark and the full 6 cost paid. Dodge at the 1 second mark and the full 6 ini is paid. Dodging one impacts the availability of the next. It akin to dodging a COR and having all of the other revenants weapon skills gain a higher cooldown.

That would be true if the damage was in line with other similar skills and initiative recovered much slower. You can be a staff/hammer herald with energy sigils, evade a lot, endure with infuse light, block with staff 3 and hammer 4, pop Jalis and use the hammers and the ritual to get more defense, and they can still spam unloads even if none of the previous attacks hit. Guardian with bubbles? Elementalist with focus? Engineer with turrets and shield? All will experience the same thing.

Revenant energy and initiative recharge faster than what people realize. It's just that when you run out of a profession's resource it's something negative, and people notice negative things more often and more intensely than positive things.

Unless the thief is horribly bat and get themselves killed hitting someone reflecting or with Retaliation, or can't properly recover their own initiative, they will still have more than enough initiative to kill anyone when the enemy runs out of defenses after continuous unload spam. At which point you are limited to use the environment for defense, move behind pillars and such. But GW2's maps are horribly lacking in cover, and it's rather unreliable. That leaves only leaving and hoping an ally will come. But if you leave they take the point, and if an ally comes that means they are not somewhere else, and the thief can just run faster than you to that other point and keep on doing its thing.

This must be the reason why every Thief running is using P/P!

Oh wait, barely any of them are. I wonder why that is?

Oh, i know, is it because using p/p means you have almost no weapon defense and even less mobility?

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MithranArkanere.8957

MithranArkanere.8957

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@Turk.5460 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:I keep saying that thieves need some recharges in their weapon skills so they can't be spammed as much. But giving them recharges would completely break the pace of their attacks and make their initiative mechanic pointless. So it couln't be done.

It would become just like Rev's energy mechanic then.

That would be if they merely got recharges. Revenants can't use the same skill twice. But thieves are meant to be able to use the same skill twice. But then you have traits and skills that let them recover initiative, and that means being able to use a skill not just 2,3 4 for times in rapid succession, but sometimes over 10. And that's a bit too much.

That's why just recharges would not do, but skill ammo does the trick perfectly.

What skill can be used 10 times?

With traits and skills that recover initiative, many skills can. One of the worse offenders is Unload, which can be used over 20 times in succession under the right circumstances.

20 times? Even if every unload hits for the entire channel that is 60 initiative. A Thief can have at most 15. They can get 6 from RFI and 2 from a steal. Thats still a long ways from 60. Can you define the "right circumstances"?.

A thief can perform at most three unloads before he needs another source of INI and while he waits on that INI his other 7 weapon skills can not be used.

Well, 6, as unload refunds 2 if all of them hit. The 6th from the 7 or so initiative you are gaining just from the regen over the 1.5s cast time of each unload.

Predicated of course on all of the unloads hitting with the target not evading or dodging one. If they dodged a single one then they have diminished thief INI pool for no effect. If any thief is abl to hit with 6 consecutive unloads on a single target it a L2p issue on the part of that target. I daresay any class able to get off 6 seperate attacks even if they NOT the same against a single target wherein said target does not dodge evade or mitigate any is going to prevail in the matchup as well.

Quite frankly I think unload is one of the most elegantly balanced of skills when it comes to INI , avoidance and its capabilities. Avoid the shot and the thief suffers what is in essence a double whammy. No damage for the ini burned and more ini burned due to the miss. It is a built in penalty for skill spam WHICH the target is in control of. That 1.5 second channel, while recharging a bit of INI through its duration means in GAME terms there generally a net loss of INI given 2 ini lost if any portion of the unload msses. Ie dodge at the .5 second mark and the full 6 cost paid. Dodge at the 1 second mark and the full 6 ini is paid. Dodging one impacts the availability of the next. It akin to dodging a COR and having all of the other revenants weapon skills gain a higher cooldown.

That would be true if the damage was in line with other similar skills and initiative recovered much slower. You can be a staff/hammer herald with energy sigils, evade a lot, endure with infuse light, block with staff 3 and hammer 4, pop Jalis and use the hammers and the ritual to get more defense, and they can still spam unloads even if none of the previous attacks hit. Guardian with bubbles? Elementalist with focus? Engineer with turrets and shield? All will experience the same thing.

Revenant energy and initiative recharge faster than what people realize. It's just that when you run out of a profession's resource it's something negative, and people notice negative things more often and more intensely than positive things.

Unless the thief is horribly bat and get themselves killed hitting someone reflecting or with Retaliation, or can't properly recover their own initiative, they will still have more than enough initiative to kill anyone when the enemy runs out of defenses after continuous unload spam. At which point you are limited to use the environment for defense, move behind pillars and such. But GW2's maps are horribly lacking in cover, and it's rather unreliable. That leaves only leaving and hoping an ally will come. But if you leave they take the point, and if an ally comes that means they are not somewhere else, and the thief can just run faster than you to that other point and keep on doing its thing.

This must be the reason why every Thief running is using P/P!

Oh wait, barely any of them are. I wonder why that is?

Because you are not paying attention. Most thieves these days carry sword+dagger to spam larcenous trike, then pistol/pistol or shortbow depending on the layout of the map and how useful teleporting around will be. Thieves with any semblance of intelligence using pistol/pistol will stop using it if you carry reflects or retaliation, or not bring them at all if they suspect there will be a lot of that in the enemy team. But that's pretty much all real counters for it. Using any other defensive measure or going on full attack will only save you time, they will still move freely, wait out anything you can do, then spam some more unload or flanking strike. Basically, the thief has to be utterly incompetent not to be effective with these cheap gimmicks. They work too well too often compared to how easy to use they are. If you do not think so, congratulations, you are either better than average, or facing very bad thieves. Either way, it works for you. But balance isn't done for a few. It's for all. The game has to be as fun as possible for the thief as for the ones facing the thief. Just being balanced isn't enough. It has to be fun. And some tactics are just not fun. It doesn't matter if something is very predictable, if it's repetitive, it won't be fun.

Well, there's the third possibility of you being among the players who are abusing these things and deluding themselves into thinking it's perfectly fine, or that it's 'skill' what's giving them wins. But in the end ANet can check their metrics and see what's really going on, what's in winning teams more often and what people who defeat more players carries more often. So far their changes have been more in line with the issues people bring up on forums and community sites, and less in line with what adamant deniers say in those common posts.

Only time will tell.

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Turk.5460

Turk.5460

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@JonnyForgotten.4276 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:I keep saying that thieves need some recharges in their weapon skills so they can't be spammed as much. But giving them recharges would completely break the pace of their attacks and make their initiative mechanic pointless. So it couln't be done.

It would become just like Rev's energy mechanic then.

That would be if they merely got recharges. Revenants can't use the same skill twice. But thieves are meant to be able to use the same skill twice. But then you have traits and skills that let them recover initiative, and that means being able to use a skill not just 2,3 4 for times in rapid succession, but sometimes over 10. And that's a bit too much.

That's why just recharges would not do, but skill ammo does the trick perfectly.

What skill can be used 10 times?

With traits and skills that recover initiative, many skills can. One of the worse offenders is Unload, which can be used over 20 times in succession under the right circumstances.

20 times? Even if every unload hits for the entire channel that is 60 initiative. A Thief can have at most 15. They can get 6 from RFI and 2 from a steal. Thats still a long ways from 60. Can you define the "right circumstances"?.

A thief can perform at most three unloads before he needs another source of INI and while he waits on that INI his other 7 weapon skills can not be used.

Well, 6, as unload refunds 2 if all of them hit. The 6th from the 7 or so initiative you are gaining just from the regen over the 1.5s cast time of each unload.

Predicated of course on all of the unloads hitting with the target not evading or dodging one. If they dodged a single one then they have diminished thief INI pool for no effect. If any thief is abl to hit with 6 consecutive unloads on a single target it a L2p issue on the part of that target. I daresay any class able to get off 6 seperate attacks even if they NOT the same against a single target wherein said target does not dodge evade or mitigate any is going to prevail in the matchup as well.

Quite frankly I think unload is one of the most elegantly balanced of skills when it comes to INI , avoidance and its capabilities. Avoid the shot and the thief suffers what is in essence a double whammy. No damage for the ini burned and more ini burned due to the miss. It is a built in penalty for skill spam WHICH the target is in control of. That 1.5 second channel, while recharging a bit of INI through its duration means in GAME terms there generally a net loss of INI given 2 ini lost if any portion of the unload msses. Ie dodge at the .5 second mark and the full 6 cost paid. Dodge at the 1 second mark and the full 6 ini is paid. Dodging one impacts the availability of the next. It akin to dodging a COR and having all of the other revenants weapon skills gain a higher cooldown.

That would be true if the damage was in line with other similar skills and initiative recovered much slower. You can be a staff/hammer herald with energy sigils, evade a lot, endure with infuse light, block with staff 3 and hammer 4, pop Jalis and use the hammers and the ritual to get more defense, and they can still spam unloads even if none of the previous attacks hit. Guardian with bubbles? Elementalist with focus? Engineer with turrets and shield? All will experience the same thing.

Revenant energy and initiative recharge faster than what people realize. It's just that when you run out of a profession's resource it's something negative, and people notice negative things more often and more intensely than positive things.

Unless the thief is horribly bat and get themselves killed hitting someone reflecting or with Retaliation, or can't properly recover their own initiative, they will still have more than enough initiative to kill anyone when the enemy runs out of defenses after continuous unload spam. At which point you are limited to use the environment for defense, move behind pillars and such. But GW2's maps are horribly lacking in cover, and it's rather unreliable. That leaves only leaving and hoping an ally will come. But if you leave they take the point, and if an ally comes that means they are not somewhere else, and the thief can just run faster than you to that other point and keep on doing its thing.

This must be the reason why every Thief running is using P/P!

Oh wait, barely any of them are. I wonder why that is?

Oh, i know, is it because using p/p means you have almost no weapon defense and even less mobility?

Hmm, it very well could be! Or perhaps that coupled with it's mere 900 max range and the fact that if anyone breaks wind in a P/P Thief's direction he goes into downstate...

The only Thieves that take P/P over shortbow as a secondary weapon to S/D are going to be in bronze Tier.

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MithranArkanere.8957

MithranArkanere.8957

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@Turk.5460 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:I keep saying that thieves need some recharges in their weapon skills so they can't be spammed as much. But giving them recharges would completely break the pace of their attacks and make their initiative mechanic pointless. So it couln't be done.

It would become just like Rev's energy mechanic then.

That would be if they merely got recharges. Revenants can't use the same skill twice. But thieves are meant to be able to use the same skill twice. But then you have traits and skills that let them recover initiative, and that means being able to use a skill not just 2,3 4 for times in rapid succession, but sometimes over 10. And that's a bit too much.

That's why just recharges would not do, but skill ammo does the trick perfectly.

What skill can be used 10 times?

With traits and skills that recover initiative, many skills can. One of the worse offenders is Unload, which can be used over 20 times in succession under the right circumstances.

20 times? Even if every unload hits for the entire channel that is 60 initiative. A Thief can have at most 15. They can get 6 from RFI and 2 from a steal. Thats still a long ways from 60. Can you define the "right circumstances"?.

A thief can perform at most three unloads before he needs another source of INI and while he waits on that INI his other 7 weapon skills can not be used.

Well, 6, as unload refunds 2 if all of them hit. The 6th from the 7 or so initiative you are gaining just from the regen over the 1.5s cast time of each unload.

Predicated of course on all of the unloads hitting with the target not evading or dodging one. If they dodged a single one then they have diminished thief INI pool for no effect. If any thief is abl to hit with 6 consecutive unloads on a single target it a L2p issue on the part of that target. I daresay any class able to get off 6 seperate attacks even if they NOT the same against a single target wherein said target does not dodge evade or mitigate any is going to prevail in the matchup as well.

Quite frankly I think unload is one of the most elegantly balanced of skills when it comes to INI , avoidance and its capabilities. Avoid the shot and the thief suffers what is in essence a double whammy. No damage for the ini burned and more ini burned due to the miss. It is a built in penalty for skill spam WHICH the target is in control of. That 1.5 second channel, while recharging a bit of INI through its duration means in GAME terms there generally a net loss of INI given 2 ini lost if any portion of the unload msses. Ie dodge at the .5 second mark and the full 6 cost paid. Dodge at the 1 second mark and the full 6 ini is paid. Dodging one impacts the availability of the next. It akin to dodging a COR and having all of the other revenants weapon skills gain a higher cooldown.

That would be true if the damage was in line with other similar skills and initiative recovered much slower. You can be a staff/hammer herald with energy sigils, evade a lot, endure with infuse light, block with staff 3 and hammer 4, pop Jalis and use the hammers and the ritual to get more defense, and they can still spam unloads even if none of the previous attacks hit. Guardian with bubbles? Elementalist with focus? Engineer with turrets and shield? All will experience the same thing.

Revenant energy and initiative recharge faster than what people realize. It's just that when you run out of a profession's resource it's something negative, and people notice negative things more often and more intensely than positive things.

Unless the thief is horribly bat and get themselves killed hitting someone reflecting or with Retaliation, or can't properly recover their own initiative, they will still have more than enough initiative to kill anyone when the enemy runs out of defenses after continuous unload spam. At which point you are limited to use the environment for defense, move behind pillars and such. But GW2's maps are horribly lacking in cover, and it's rather unreliable. That leaves only leaving and hoping an ally will come. But if you leave they take the point, and if an ally comes that means they are not somewhere else, and the thief can just run faster than you to that other point and keep on doing its thing.

This must be the reason why every Thief running is using P/P!

Oh wait, barely any of them are. I wonder why that is?

Oh, i know, is it because using p/p means you have almost no weapon defense and even less mobility?

Hmm, it very well could be! Or perhaps that coupled with it's mere 900 max range and the fact that if anyone breaks wind in a P/P Thief's direction he goes into downstate...

The only Thieves that take P/P over shortbow as a secondary weapon to S/D are going to be in bronze Tier.

If you are trying to make the point that entry level PvP should be of least concern, you just shot yourself in the foot with a charrzooka.

Gimmicks work less often and with less effect on higher tier PvP, and they also make the game less fun for players who deserve to be at higher tiers, since dealing with a gimmick and winning against it it's usually fun for them. Only what's truly horribly broken to the point it can ruin your day is of utmost urgency there, and the rest comes down to tweaks and adjustments and the occasional rework.But the lower the tier, the more you have to worry about gimmicks that work too well against inexperienced players, or tactics that are harder to counter without some teamwork and knowledge of the builds enemies may likely bring, and changing the builds of your teams in preparation. Every player who leaves PvP at entry level is one more shovelful off PvP's grave. It's at bronze and silver where you need to grab the attention of new players and worry about making the game fun for newcomers.

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babazhook.6805

babazhook.6805

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@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:I keep saying that thieves need some recharges in their weapon skills so they can't be spammed as much. But giving them recharges would completely break the pace of their attacks and make their initiative mechanic pointless. So it couln't be done.

It would become just like Rev's energy mechanic then.

That would be if they merely got recharges. Revenants can't use the same skill twice. But thieves are meant to be able to use the same skill twice. But then you have traits and skills that let them recover initiative, and that means being able to use a skill not just 2,3 4 for times in rapid succession, but sometimes over 10. And that's a bit too much.

That's why just recharges would not do, but skill ammo does the trick perfectly.

What skill can be used 10 times?

With traits and skills that recover initiative, many skills can. One of the worse offenders is Unload, which can be used over 20 times in succession under the right circumstances.

20 times? Even if every unload hits for the entire channel that is 60 initiative. A Thief can have at most 15. They can get 6 from RFI and 2 from a steal. Thats still a long ways from 60. Can you define the "right circumstances"?.

A thief can perform at most three unloads before he needs another source of INI and while he waits on that INI his other 7 weapon skills can not be used.

Well, 6, as unload refunds 2 if all of them hit. The 6th from the 7 or so initiative you are gaining just from the regen over the 1.5s cast time of each unload.

Predicated of course on all of the unloads hitting with the target not evading or dodging one. If they dodged a single one then they have diminished thief INI pool for no effect. If any thief is abl to hit with 6 consecutive unloads on a single target it a L2p issue on the part of that target. I daresay any class able to get off 6 seperate attacks even if they NOT the same against a single target wherein said target does not dodge evade or mitigate any is going to prevail in the matchup as well.

Quite frankly I think unload is one of the most elegantly balanced of skills when it comes to INI , avoidance and its capabilities. Avoid the shot and the thief suffers what is in essence a double whammy. No damage for the ini burned and more ini burned due to the miss. It is a built in penalty for skill spam WHICH the target is in control of. That 1.5 second channel, while recharging a bit of INI through its duration means in GAME terms there generally a net loss of INI given 2 ini lost if any portion of the unload msses. Ie dodge at the .5 second mark and the full 6 cost paid. Dodge at the 1 second mark and the full 6 ini is paid. Dodging one impacts the availability of the next. It akin to dodging a COR and having all of the other revenants weapon skills gain a higher cooldown.

That would be true if the damage was in line with other similar skills and initiative recovered much slower. You can be a staff/hammer herald with energy sigils, evade a lot, endure with infuse light, block with staff 3 and hammer 4, pop Jalis and use the hammers and the ritual to get more defense, and they can still spam unloads even if none of the previous attacks hit. Guardian with bubbles? Elementalist with focus? Engineer with turrets and shield? All will experience the same thing.

Revenant energy and initiative recharge faster than what people realize. It's just that when you run out of a profession's resource it's something negative, and people notice negative things more often and more intensely than positive things.

Unless the thief is horribly bat and get themselves killed hitting someone reflecting or with Retaliation, or can't properly recover their own initiative, they will still have more than enough initiative to kill anyone when the enemy runs out of defenses after continuous unload spam. At which point you are limited to use the environment for defense, move behind pillars and such. But GW2's maps are horribly lacking in cover, and it's rather unreliable. That leaves only leaving and hoping an ally will come. But if you leave they take the point, and if an ally comes that means they are not somewhere else, and the thief can just run faster than you to that other point and keep on doing its thing.

This must be the reason why every Thief running is using P/P!

Oh wait, barely any of them are. I wonder why that is?

Oh, i know, is it because using p/p means you have almost no weapon defense and even less mobility?

Hmm, it very well could be! Or perhaps that coupled with it's mere 900 max range and the fact that if anyone breaks wind in a P/P Thief's direction he goes into downstate...

The only Thieves that take P/P over shortbow as a secondary weapon to S/D are going to be in bronze Tier.

If you are trying to make the point that entry level PvP should be of least concern, you just shot yourself in the foot with a charrzooka.

Gimmicks work less often and with less effect on higher tier PvP, and they also make the game less fun for players who deserve to be at higher tiers, since dealing with a gimmick and winning against it it's usually fun for them. Only what's truly horribly broken to the point it can ruin your day is of utmost urgency there, and the rest comes down to tweaks and adjustments and the occasional rework.But the lower the tier, the more you have to worry about gimmicks that work too well against inexperienced players, or tactics that are harder to counter without some teamwork and knowledge of the builds enemies may likely bring, and changing the builds of your teams in preparation. Every player who leaves PvP at entry level is one more shovelful off PvP's grave. It's at bronze and silver where you need to grab the attention of new players and worry about making the game fun for newcomers.

All builds have "Gimmicks" that work better against the inexperienced. All players with experience using virtually any build will dominate the inexperienced. You can not "design out" a given weapon simply because a player that has little experience with it loses to the same.

When I first tried WvW I was wrecked by any number of builds this long before p/p unload ever a thing. Had i decided to just quit at that time because I was dying so fast and using your reasoning ANY build that existed would have to of been toned down to accommodate. This then leads to there no reason in trying to get better.

P/P users using unload spam are relatively easy to adjust for. It does not take a whole lot of time and experience to learn how to dodge or block wherein just by DODGING twice in a row the spammer burned 10 ini for no effect. When facing a p/p user baiting an unload is more effective then being a p/p unload spammer baiting a dodge simply because it not all that imperative the person facing a p/p power build dodge anything other then an Unload and in baiting those unloads the thief loses access to other weapon skills.

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Legatus.3608

Legatus.3608

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@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:I keep saying that thieves need some recharges in their weapon skills so they can't be spammed as much. But giving them recharges would completely break the pace of their attacks and make their initiative mechanic pointless. So it couln't be done.

It would become just like Rev's energy mechanic then.

That would be if they merely got recharges. Revenants can't use the same skill twice. But thieves are meant to be able to use the same skill twice. But then you have traits and skills that let them recover initiative, and that means being able to use a skill not just 2,3 4 for times in rapid succession, but sometimes over 10. And that's a bit too much.

That's why just recharges would not do, but skill ammo does the trick perfectly.

What skill can be used 10 times?

With traits and skills that recover initiative, many skills can. One of the worse offenders is Unload, which can be used over 20 times in succession under the right circumstances.

20 times? Even if every unload hits for the entire channel that is 60 initiative. A Thief can have at most 15. They can get 6 from RFI and 2 from a steal. Thats still a long ways from 60. Can you define the "right circumstances"?.

A thief can perform at most three unloads before he needs another source of INI and while he waits on that INI his other 7 weapon skills can not be used.

Well, 6, as unload refunds 2 if all of them hit. The 6th from the 7 or so initiative you are gaining just from the regen over the 1.5s cast time of each unload.

Predicated of course on all of the unloads hitting with the target not evading or dodging one. If they dodged a single one then they have diminished thief INI pool for no effect. If any thief is abl to hit with 6 consecutive unloads on a single target it a L2p issue on the part of that target. I daresay any class able to get off 6 seperate attacks even if they NOT the same against a single target wherein said target does not dodge evade or mitigate any is going to prevail in the matchup as well.

Quite frankly I think unload is one of the most elegantly balanced of skills when it comes to INI , avoidance and its capabilities. Avoid the shot and the thief suffers what is in essence a double whammy. No damage for the ini burned and more ini burned due to the miss. It is a built in penalty for skill spam WHICH the target is in control of. That 1.5 second channel, while recharging a bit of INI through its duration means in GAME terms there generally a net loss of INI given 2 ini lost if any portion of the unload msses. Ie dodge at the .5 second mark and the full 6 cost paid. Dodge at the 1 second mark and the full 6 ini is paid. Dodging one impacts the availability of the next. It akin to dodging a COR and having all of the other revenants weapon skills gain a higher cooldown.

That would be true if the damage was in line with other similar skills and initiative recovered much slower. You can be a staff/hammer herald with energy sigils, evade a lot, endure with infuse light, block with staff 3 and hammer 4, pop Jalis and use the hammers and the ritual to get more defense, and they can still spam unloads even if none of the previous attacks hit. Guardian with bubbles? Elementalist with focus? Engineer with turrets and shield? All will experience the same thing.

Revenant energy and initiative recharge faster than what people realize. It's just that when you run out of a profession's resource it's something negative, and people notice negative things more often and more intensely than positive things.

Unless the thief is horribly bat and get themselves killed hitting someone reflecting or with Retaliation, or can't properly recover their own initiative, they will still have more than enough initiative to kill anyone when the enemy runs out of defenses after continuous unload spam. At which point you are limited to use the environment for defense, move behind pillars and such. But GW2's maps are horribly lacking in cover, and it's rather unreliable. That leaves only leaving and hoping an ally will come. But if you leave they take the point, and if an ally comes that means they are not somewhere else, and the thief can just run faster than you to that other point and keep on doing its thing.

This must be the reason why every Thief running is using P/P!

Oh wait, barely any of them are. I wonder why that is?

Because you are not paying attention. Most thieves these days carry sword+dagger to spam larcenous trike, then pistol/pistol or shortbow depending on the layout of the map and how useful teleporting around will be. Thieves with any semblance of intelligence using pistol/pistol will stop using it if you carry reflects or retaliation, or not bring them at all if they suspect there will be a lot of that in the enemy team. But that's pretty much all real counters for it. Using any other defensive measure or going on full attack will only save you time, they will still move freely, wait out anything you can do, then spam some more unload or flanking strike. Basically, the thief has to be utterly incompetent not to be effective with these cheap gimmicks. They work too well too often compared to how easy to use they are. If you do not think so, congratulations, you are either better than average, or facing very bad thieves. Either way, it works for you. But balance isn't done for a few. It's for all. The game has to be as fun as possible for the thief as for the ones facing the thief. Just being balanced isn't enough. It has to be fun. And some tactics are just not fun. It doesn't matter if something is very predictable, if it's repetitive, it won't be fun.

Well, there's the third possibility of you being among the players who are abusing these things and deluding themselves into thinking it's perfectly fine, or that it's 'skill' what's giving them wins. But in the end ANet can check their metrics and see what's really going on, what's in winning teams more often and what people who defeat more players carries more often. So far their changes have been more in line with the issues people bring up on forums and community sites, and less in line with what adamant deniers say in those common posts.

Only time will tell.

Or it could be that players who are actually good, like sindrener, will tell you p/p is not the ideal weapon set and that losing to p/p probably means you screwed up.

Look man, we get that you don't like unload. Losing to a gimmick because you haven't learned to counter it doesn't make it op though.

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MithranArkanere.8957

MithranArkanere.8957

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@Legatus.3608 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:I keep saying that thieves need some recharges in their weapon skills so they can't be spammed as much. But giving them recharges would completely break the pace of their attacks and make their initiative mechanic pointless. So it couln't be done.

It would become just like Rev's energy mechanic then.

That would be if they merely got recharges. Revenants can't use the same skill twice. But thieves are meant to be able to use the same skill twice. But then you have traits and skills that let them recover initiative, and that means being able to use a skill not just 2,3 4 for times in rapid succession, but sometimes over 10. And that's a bit too much.

That's why just recharges would not do, but skill ammo does the trick perfectly.

What skill can be used 10 times?

With traits and skills that recover initiative, many skills can. One of the worse offenders is Unload, which can be used over 20 times in succession under the right circumstances.

20 times? Even if every unload hits for the entire channel that is 60 initiative. A Thief can have at most 15. They can get 6 from RFI and 2 from a steal. Thats still a long ways from 60. Can you define the "right circumstances"?.

A thief can perform at most three unloads before he needs another source of INI and while he waits on that INI his other 7 weapon skills can not be used.

Well, 6, as unload refunds 2 if all of them hit. The 6th from the 7 or so initiative you are gaining just from the regen over the 1.5s cast time of each unload.

Predicated of course on all of the unloads hitting with the target not evading or dodging one. If they dodged a single one then they have diminished thief INI pool for no effect. If any thief is abl to hit with 6 consecutive unloads on a single target it a L2p issue on the part of that target. I daresay any class able to get off 6 seperate attacks even if they NOT the same against a single target wherein said target does not dodge evade or mitigate any is going to prevail in the matchup as well.

Quite frankly I think unload is one of the most elegantly balanced of skills when it comes to INI , avoidance and its capabilities. Avoid the shot and the thief suffers what is in essence a double whammy. No damage for the ini burned and more ini burned due to the miss. It is a built in penalty for skill spam WHICH the target is in control of. That 1.5 second channel, while recharging a bit of INI through its duration means in GAME terms there generally a net loss of INI given 2 ini lost if any portion of the unload msses. Ie dodge at the .5 second mark and the full 6 cost paid. Dodge at the 1 second mark and the full 6 ini is paid. Dodging one impacts the availability of the next. It akin to dodging a COR and having all of the other revenants weapon skills gain a higher cooldown.

That would be true if the damage was in line with other similar skills and initiative recovered much slower. You can be a staff/hammer herald with energy sigils, evade a lot, endure with infuse light, block with staff 3 and hammer 4, pop Jalis and use the hammers and the ritual to get more defense, and they can still spam unloads even if none of the previous attacks hit. Guardian with bubbles? Elementalist with focus? Engineer with turrets and shield? All will experience the same thing.

Revenant energy and initiative recharge faster than what people realize. It's just that when you run out of a profession's resource it's something negative, and people notice negative things more often and more intensely than positive things.

Unless the thief is horribly bat and get themselves killed hitting someone reflecting or with Retaliation, or can't properly recover their own initiative, they will still have more than enough initiative to kill anyone when the enemy runs out of defenses after continuous unload spam. At which point you are limited to use the environment for defense, move behind pillars and such. But GW2's maps are horribly lacking in cover, and it's rather unreliable. That leaves only leaving and hoping an ally will come. But if you leave they take the point, and if an ally comes that means they are not somewhere else, and the thief can just run faster than you to that other point and keep on doing its thing.

This must be the reason why every Thief running is using P/P!

Oh wait, barely any of them are. I wonder why that is?

Because you are not paying attention. Most thieves these days carry sword+dagger to spam larcenous trike, then pistol/pistol or shortbow depending on the layout of the map and how useful teleporting around will be. Thieves with any semblance of intelligence using pistol/pistol will stop using it if you carry reflects or retaliation, or not bring them at all if they suspect there will be a lot of that in the enemy team. But that's pretty much all real counters for it. Using any other defensive measure or going on full attack will only save you time, they will still move freely, wait out anything you can do, then spam some more unload or flanking strike. Basically, the thief has to be utterly incompetent not to be effective with these cheap gimmicks. They work too well too often compared to how easy to use they are. If you do not think so, congratulations, you are either better than average, or facing very bad thieves. Either way, it works for you. But balance isn't done for a few. It's for all. The game has to be as fun as possible for the thief as for the ones facing the thief. Just being balanced isn't enough. It has to be fun. And some tactics are just not fun. It doesn't matter if something is very predictable, if it's repetitive, it won't be fun.

Well, there's the third possibility of you being among the players who are abusing these things and deluding themselves into thinking it's perfectly fine, or that it's 'skill' what's giving them wins. But in the end ANet can check their metrics and see what's really going on, what's in winning teams more often and what people who defeat more players carries more often. So far their changes have been more in line with the issues people bring up on forums and community sites, and less in line with what adamant deniers say in those common posts.

Only time will tell.

Or it could be that players who are actually good, like sindrener, will tell you p/p is not the ideal weapon set and that losing to p/p probably means you screwed up.

Look man, we get that you don't like unload. Losing to a gimmick because you haven't learned to counter it doesn't make it op though.

Another charzooka to the foot. You assume people nag because they can't deal with some gimmicky build, even when they do not say anything of the sort. That's the first thing someone who wants to keep wrong things going says: "It only affects you, you have to learn to deal with it, it's perfectly fine". We we all know it's not the case at all. It doesn't matter if I can easily deal with an unload thief, if it'll just run away from me and go to the other 2 points and easily take out my teammates.

Gimmicky and spammy builds work too well against too many players, requiring less skill than other builds. They do not make the game particularly fun for those who use it, they make it less fun for the rest, and push away newbies and more casual players.

The most difficult part of dealing with them is how boring they are, if anyone has ever played Severance, Blade of Darkness, there was skeletons that attacked basically with the very same move over and over. This move was very easy to avoid, you just had to step to the left and hit them from the side. But the timing of their swings and their reach left no other alternatives if you wanted to conserve the health of your shield, or didn't have a shield at all. Yet this attack was tremendously effective, and being that boring is what made them so effective. As players get bored they end up tired of doing the same thing, try to fight the move some other way and end up being hit by the attack.

No. The problem isn't one person. It's how things combine in general. Too many skills stacking too much and being spammed too much. Unload alone isn't a problem. It's just an example to illustrate the problem. But you can't address the problem without addressing its parts.

When it comes to thief weapon skills, what can you do to ease the issues that come from their spam?

  • Reduce their damage? Nope. They'd become useless like a glass cannon with no cannoballs to shoot.
  • Increase the initiative costs? Nope. Useless again, they'd be stuck autoattacking most of the time.
  • Give them recharges? Some would think that. But that would make initiative more like revenant energy, and lose their uniqueness. Thief weapon attacks are meant to be used in succession, you can't remove that.
  • Leave them as they are? Haha. Good try. No way.

Until now, there was no solution to reduce the repetitive boredom when fighting thieves. But now we have skill ammo.

Now you can give Vault 3 ammo, 10s ammo recharge, so it can't be used more than 3 consecutive times. You can give unload 5 ammo, 8s ammo recharge, so it can't be continuously unloaded to 'farm' unsuspecting newbies. You can give Flanking Strike 3 ammo, 5s ammo recharge so it can't be spammed too much for repeated evade+damage+boon steal (and can even remove the cost from larcenous strike as the skill ammo will keep it in check already). You can give Infiltrator's Arrow 2-3 ammo, 10s recharge, to limit how much a thief can zip around compared to other professions with teleports like blink and flash.

Skill ammo is a wonderful tool that can polish thieves to spam less without losing too much power.

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Crab Fear.1624

Crab Fear.1624

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First in this thread it was just sword 3, and then some minor complaints about the new upcoming shadowshot. Next was suggestions to give thieves cool downs and rework initiative. Seems like P/P thief is "under fire" now.I saw in a Dev post that they are "reviewing thief changes", that sounds like surprise nerfs...gulp.

Here's a list to make thief haters happy:

  • All short bow skills have half range, max 450

  • Shortbow five no longer shadow-steps, you gain swiftness and so does your foe, cost is now 7.5

  • All of your auto attacks cost 2 initiative.

  • All of your utilities cost initiative

  • If you heal above 50% to get a rune proc, your healing cost double initiative

  • Your elite skills uses all your initiative

  • Thieves can no longer wield swords.

  • Vault damages the thief as well

  • If you use pistol 3 more than 3 times in a span of 10 seconds you shoot yourself critically in the head, base damage is 2100

  • After using steal you are stunned for 5 seconds, after the stun clears you are knocked down by divine intervention and finished by thor

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Dreams.3128

Dreams.3128

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@Turk.5460 said:

@Kondor.2904 said:Remove ecto from the game. Thank you.

I agree that it's rather funny
I win
button, but on the other hand only certain aspects about it could be nerfed. For example 2,5 sec Resistance when chained with Improvisation for 5secs is on the edge of OK, while the doubling up on Quickness, Resistance (for 2x5sec) and Protection (2x10) can be really too much. Especially in S/D build due to Endless Stamina trait.

Ehhhh, people still think Consume Plasma is op? Meanwhile professions like Elementalist and Engineer fart out protection whenever they take a step....

Too bad FA core ele can't do that and auramancer had been promptly football kicked out of the meta.

Nice b8 m8.

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Crab Fear.1624

Crab Fear.1624

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@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@"Kondor.2904" said:Remove ecto from the game. Thank you.

I agree that it's rather funny
I win
button, but on the other hand only certain aspects about it could be nerfed. For example 2,5 sec Resistance when chained with Improvisation for 5secs is on the edge of OK, while the doubling up on Quickness, Resistance (for 2x5sec) and Protection (2x10) can be really too much. Especially in S/D build due to Endless Stamina trait.

Ehhhh, people still think Consume Plasma is op? Meanwhile professions like Elementalist and Engineer fart out protection whenever they take a step....

Too bad FA core ele can't do that and auramancer had been promptly football kicked out of the meta.

Nice b8 m8.

Consume plasma, do people horde it for another time? I usually get this from mesmers, as elementalists give me some nearly useless ice dagger thingy (imo). Now since I am usually fighting the mesmer, I find this "consume plasnuts" to be useful.

Did a mesmer lose to thief because consume plasnuts? Or, did the mesmer lose because they can't dodge steal?

My list for things a mesmer cant complain about when fighting a thief:

  • Stealth
  • Evades
  • Hits hard as frozen potatoes thrown by professional pitcher
  • Can run away if in trouble
  • Resets fast
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Math.5123

Math.5123

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Posted

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@"Kondor.2904" said:Remove ecto from the game. Thank you.

I agree that it's rather funny
I win
button, but on the other hand only certain aspects about it could be nerfed. For example 2,5 sec Resistance when chained with Improvisation for 5secs is on the edge of OK, while the doubling up on Quickness, Resistance (for 2x5sec) and Protection (2x10) can be really too much. Especially in S/D build due to Endless Stamina trait.

Ehhhh, people still think Consume Plasma is op? Meanwhile professions like Elementalist and Engineer fart out protection whenever they take a step....

Too bad FA core ele can't do that and auramancer had been promptly football kicked out of the meta.

Nice b8 m8.

Consume plasma, do people horde it for another time? I usually get this from mesmers, as elementalists give me some nearly useless ice dagger thingy (imo). Now since I am usually fighting the mesmer, I find this "consume plasnuts" to be useful.

Did a mesmer lose to thief because consume plasnuts? Or, did the mesmer lose because they can't dodge steal?

My list for things a mesmer cant complain about when fighting a thief:
  • Stealth
  • Evades
  • Hits hard as frozen potatoes thrown by professional pitcher
  • Can run away if in trouble
  • Resets fast

"Cause they can't Dodge steal" steal is literally instacast with no tell. Dodging a steal is all about baiting it out and wish that you are luckier than the thief. There is very little counterplay to it.

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Crab Fear.1624

Crab Fear.1624

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Posted

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@"Kondor.2904" said:Remove ecto from the game. Thank you.

I agree that it's rather funny
I win
button, but on the other hand only certain aspects about it could be nerfed. For example 2,5 sec Resistance when chained with Improvisation for 5secs is on the edge of OK, while the doubling up on Quickness, Resistance (for 2x5sec) and Protection (2x10) can be really too much. Especially in S/D build due to Endless Stamina trait.

Ehhhh, people still think Consume Plasma is op? Meanwhile professions like Elementalist and Engineer fart out protection whenever they take a step....

Too bad FA core ele can't do that and auramancer had been promptly football kicked out of the meta.

Nice b8 m8.

Consume plasma, do people horde it for another time? I usually get this from mesmers, as elementalists give me some nearly useless ice dagger thingy (imo). Now since I am usually fighting the mesmer, I find this "consume plasnuts" to be useful.

Did a mesmer lose to thief because consume plasnuts? Or, did the mesmer lose because they can't dodge steal?

My list for things a mesmer cant complain about when fighting a thief:
  • Stealth
  • Evades
  • Hits hard as frozen potatoes thrown by professional pitcher
  • Can run away if in trouble
  • Resets fast

"Cause they can't Dodge steal" steal is literally instacast with no tell. Dodging a steal is all about baiting it out and wish that you are luckier than the thief. There is very little counterplay to it.

If they start a melee attack out of range and have not stolen yet, thats a pretty good tell. Not always 100%, but alot of times it is a good time to dodge. Attack plus steal is a common tactic. Lower level thieves will just use steal to close the gap. If they have a sword maybe they will sword 2, Steal plus sword 3.

The second steal if they have instant recharge from sword dodge, it should not come until after they use their f2, but that's not always true if you are low on health and they are a dd sword thief, perhaps they just want the PI.

I have dodged steal quite alot using these tactics this thinking.

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Math.5123

Math.5123

Posted
Posted

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@"Kondor.2904" said:Remove ecto from the game. Thank you.

I agree that it's rather funny
I win
button, but on the other hand only certain aspects about it could be nerfed. For example 2,5 sec Resistance when chained with Improvisation for 5secs is on the edge of OK, while the doubling up on Quickness, Resistance (for 2x5sec) and Protection (2x10) can be really too much. Especially in S/D build due to Endless Stamina trait.

Ehhhh, people still think Consume Plasma is op? Meanwhile professions like Elementalist and Engineer fart out protection whenever they take a step....

Too bad FA core ele can't do that and auramancer had been promptly football kicked out of the meta.

Nice b8 m8.

Consume plasma, do people horde it for another time? I usually get this from mesmers, as elementalists give me some nearly useless ice dagger thingy (imo). Now since I am usually fighting the mesmer, I find this "consume plasnuts" to be useful.

Did a mesmer lose to thief because consume plasnuts? Or, did the mesmer lose because they can't dodge steal?

My list for things a mesmer cant complain about when fighting a thief:
  • Stealth
  • Evades
  • Hits hard as frozen potatoes thrown by professional pitcher
  • Can run away if in trouble
  • Resets fast

"Cause they can't Dodge steal" steal is literally instacast with no tell. Dodging a steal is all about baiting it out and wish that you are luckier than the thief. There is very little counterplay to it.

If they start a melee attack out of range and have not stolen yet, thats a pretty good tell. Not always 100%, but alot of times it is a good time to dodge. Attack plus steal is a common tactic. Lower level thieves will just use steal to close the gap. If they have a sword maybe they will sword 2, Steal plus sword 3.

The second steal if they have instant recharge from sword dodge, it should not come until after they use their f2, but that's not always true if you are low on health and they are a dd sword thief, perhaps they just want the PI.

I have dodged steal quite alot using
these tactics
this thinking.

Playing core guard you have access to two dodges every 20 seconds. Having to guess is not a great tactic, especially when you have to dodge LS.

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Crab Fear.1624

Crab Fear.1624

Posted
Posted

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@"Kondor.2904" said:Remove ecto from the game. Thank you.

I agree that it's rather funny
I win
button, but on the other hand only certain aspects about it could be nerfed. For example 2,5 sec Resistance when chained with Improvisation for 5secs is on the edge of OK, while the doubling up on Quickness, Resistance (for 2x5sec) and Protection (2x10) can be really too much. Especially in S/D build due to Endless Stamina trait.

Ehhhh, people still think Consume Plasma is op? Meanwhile professions like Elementalist and Engineer fart out protection whenever they take a step....

Too bad FA core ele can't do that and auramancer had been promptly football kicked out of the meta.

Nice b8 m8.

Consume plasma, do people horde it for another time? I usually get this from mesmers, as elementalists give me some nearly useless ice dagger thingy (imo). Now since I am usually fighting the mesmer, I find this "consume plasnuts" to be useful.

Did a mesmer lose to thief because consume plasnuts? Or, did the mesmer lose because they can't dodge steal?

My list for things a mesmer cant complain about when fighting a thief:
  • Stealth
  • Evades
  • Hits hard as frozen potatoes thrown by professional pitcher
  • Can run away if in trouble
  • Resets fast

"Cause they can't Dodge steal" steal is literally instacast with no tell. Dodging a steal is all about baiting it out and wish that you are luckier than the thief. There is very little counterplay to it.

If they start a melee attack out of range and have not stolen yet, thats a pretty good tell. Not always 100%, but alot of times it is a good time to dodge. Attack plus steal is a common tactic. Lower level thieves will just use steal to close the gap. If they have a sword maybe they will sword 2, Steal plus sword 3.

The second steal if they have instant recharge from sword dodge, it should not come until after they use their f2, but that's not always true if you are low on health and they are a dd sword thief, perhaps they just want the PI.

I have dodged steal quite alot using
these tactics
this thinking.

Playing core guard you have access to two dodges every 20 seconds. Having to guess is not a great tactic, especially when you have to dodge LS.

This started off with thief vs mesmer. Core guard is a totally different animal. I won't even bothering a discussion about guard vs thief anymore as I have already done that last week.

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Legatus.3608

Legatus.3608

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@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:I keep saying that thieves need some recharges in their weapon skills so they can't be spammed as much. But giving them recharges would completely break the pace of their attacks and make their initiative mechanic pointless. So it couln't be done.

It would become just like Rev's energy mechanic then.

That would be if they merely got recharges. Revenants can't use the same skill twice. But thieves are meant to be able to use the same skill twice. But then you have traits and skills that let them recover initiative, and that means being able to use a skill not just 2,3 4 for times in rapid succession, but sometimes over 10. And that's a bit too much.

That's why just recharges would not do, but skill ammo does the trick perfectly.

What skill can be used 10 times?

With traits and skills that recover initiative, many skills can. One of the worse offenders is Unload, which can be used over 20 times in succession under the right circumstances.

20 times? Even if every unload hits for the entire channel that is 60 initiative. A Thief can have at most 15. They can get 6 from RFI and 2 from a steal. Thats still a long ways from 60. Can you define the "right circumstances"?.

A thief can perform at most three unloads before he needs another source of INI and while he waits on that INI his other 7 weapon skills can not be used.

Well, 6, as unload refunds 2 if all of them hit. The 6th from the 7 or so initiative you are gaining just from the regen over the 1.5s cast time of each unload.

Predicated of course on all of the unloads hitting with the target not evading or dodging one. If they dodged a single one then they have diminished thief INI pool for no effect. If any thief is abl to hit with 6 consecutive unloads on a single target it a L2p issue on the part of that target. I daresay any class able to get off 6 seperate attacks even if they NOT the same against a single target wherein said target does not dodge evade or mitigate any is going to prevail in the matchup as well.

Quite frankly I think unload is one of the most elegantly balanced of skills when it comes to INI , avoidance and its capabilities. Avoid the shot and the thief suffers what is in essence a double whammy. No damage for the ini burned and more ini burned due to the miss. It is a built in penalty for skill spam WHICH the target is in control of. That 1.5 second channel, while recharging a bit of INI through its duration means in GAME terms there generally a net loss of INI given 2 ini lost if any portion of the unload msses. Ie dodge at the .5 second mark and the full 6 cost paid. Dodge at the 1 second mark and the full 6 ini is paid. Dodging one impacts the availability of the next. It akin to dodging a COR and having all of the other revenants weapon skills gain a higher cooldown.

That would be true if the damage was in line with other similar skills and initiative recovered much slower. You can be a staff/hammer herald with energy sigils, evade a lot, endure with infuse light, block with staff 3 and hammer 4, pop Jalis and use the hammers and the ritual to get more defense, and they can still spam unloads even if none of the previous attacks hit. Guardian with bubbles? Elementalist with focus? Engineer with turrets and shield? All will experience the same thing.

Revenant energy and initiative recharge faster than what people realize. It's just that when you run out of a profession's resource it's something negative, and people notice negative things more often and more intensely than positive things.

Unless the thief is horribly bat and get themselves killed hitting someone reflecting or with Retaliation, or can't properly recover their own initiative, they will still have more than enough initiative to kill anyone when the enemy runs out of defenses after continuous unload spam. At which point you are limited to use the environment for defense, move behind pillars and such. But GW2's maps are horribly lacking in cover, and it's rather unreliable. That leaves only leaving and hoping an ally will come. But if you leave they take the point, and if an ally comes that means they are not somewhere else, and the thief can just run faster than you to that other point and keep on doing its thing.

This must be the reason why every Thief running is using P/P!

Oh wait, barely any of them are. I wonder why that is?

Because you are not paying attention. Most thieves these days carry sword+dagger to spam larcenous trike, then pistol/pistol or shortbow depending on the layout of the map and how useful teleporting around will be. Thieves with any semblance of intelligence using pistol/pistol will stop using it if you carry reflects or retaliation, or not bring them at all if they suspect there will be a lot of that in the enemy team. But that's pretty much all real counters for it. Using any other defensive measure or going on full attack will only save you time, they will still move freely, wait out anything you can do, then spam some more unload or flanking strike. Basically, the thief has to be utterly incompetent not to be effective with these cheap gimmicks. They work too well too often compared to how easy to use they are. If you do not think so, congratulations, you are either better than average, or facing very bad thieves. Either way, it works for you. But balance isn't done for a few. It's for all. The game has to be as fun as possible for the thief as for the ones facing the thief. Just being balanced isn't enough. It has to be fun. And some tactics are just not fun. It doesn't matter if something is very predictable, if it's repetitive, it won't be fun.

Well, there's the third possibility of you being among the players who are abusing these things and deluding themselves into thinking it's perfectly fine, or that it's 'skill' what's giving them wins. But in the end ANet can check their metrics and see what's really going on, what's in winning teams more often and what people who defeat more players carries more often. So far their changes have been more in line with the issues people bring up on forums and community sites, and less in line with what adamant deniers say in those common posts.

Only time will tell.

Or it could be that players who are actually good, like sindrener, will tell you p/p is not the ideal weapon set and that losing to p/p probably means you screwed up.

Look man, we get that you don't like unload. Losing to a gimmick because you haven't learned to counter it doesn't make it op though.

Another charzooka to the foot. You assume people nag because they can't deal with some gimmicky build, even when they do not say anything of the sort. That's the first thing someone who wants to keep wrong things going says: "It only affects you, you have to learn to deal with it, it's perfectly fine". We we all know it's not the case at all. It doesn't matter if I can easily deal with an unload thief, if it'll just run away from me and go to the other 2 points and easily take out my teammates.

Gimmicky and spammy builds work too well against too many players, requiring less skill than other builds. They do not make the game particularly fun for those who use it, they make it less fun for the rest, and push away newbies and more casual players.

The most difficult part of dealing with them is how boring they are, if anyone has ever played Severance, Blade of Darkness, there was skeletons that attacked basically with the very same move over and over. This move was very easy to avoid, you just had to step to the left and hit them from the side. But the timing of their swings and their reach left no other alternatives if you wanted to conserve the health of your shield, or didn't have a shield at all. Yet this attack was tremendously effective, and being that boring is what made them so effective. As players get bored they end up tired of doing the same thing, try to fight the move some other way and end up being hit by the attack.

No. The problem isn't one person. It's how things combine in general. Too many skills stacking too much and being spammed too much. Unload alone isn't a problem. It's just an example to illustrate the problem. But you can't address the problem without addressing its parts.

When it comes to thief weapon skills, what can you do to ease the issues that come from their spam?
  • Reduce their damage? Nope. They'd become useless like a glass cannon with no cannoballs to shoot.
  • Increase the initiative costs? Nope. Useless again, they'd be stuck autoattacking most of the time.
  • Give them recharges? Some would think that. But that would make initiative more like revenant energy, and lose their uniqueness. Thief weapon attacks are meant to be used in succession, you can't remove that.
  • Leave them as they are? Haha. Good try. No way.

Until now, there was no solution to reduce the repetitive boredom when fighting thieves. But now we have skill ammo.

Now you can give Vault 3 ammo, 10s ammo recharge, so it can't be used more than 3 consecutive times. You can give unload 5 ammo, 8s ammo recharge, so it can't be continuously unloaded to 'farm' unsuspecting newbies. You can give Flanking Strike 3 ammo, 5s ammo recharge so it can't be spammed too much for repeated evade+damage+boon steal (and can even remove the cost from larcenous strike as the skill ammo will keep it in check already). You can give Infiltrator's Arrow 2-3 ammo, 10s recharge, to limit how much a thief can zip around compared to other professions with teleports like blink and flash.

Skill ammo is a wonderful tool that can polish thieves to spam less without losing too much power.

No listen dude, the point you're missing it that the build IS BAD.

I agree with your premise, which is that pistols thief is a build that scales well with your opponents lack of understanding essentially. Its a noob stomper. I also agree that these types of builds are bad for the game.

The problem I have with your proposed change is that it amounts to a straight up nerf to a build that IS ALREADY BAD.

The other problem I have with your proposed change is the fact that mesmer exists. The entire class is essentially an anti noob class. At least a new player can quickly come up with ways to beat pistols because its not complex. You just need to apply some common sense. Mesmer though has always been and always will be an anti noob class almost regardless of how you build it. And unlike pistols thief, mesmer is actually still effective at higher levels of play. So why are you complaining about thief and not mesmer? Hmm.

So no, I cannot agree to what you're suggesting. If you want to change unload, I would be ok with that where it comes with buffs in other areas, but straight up nerfing a build that isn't even good to begin with tells me you're not really seeking balance, you just don't like thieves.

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