P/P is too powerful

[ilmi.5369]

@"babazhook.6805" said:

They already went the course of putting more damage into the AA attacks and now reverse course there. It became a "why should I use an INI based attack when I can use the AA to do just as much damage".

Keeping the hard hitting attacks under the inititave system is how you balance them. P/P unload is one dimensional as far as the weaponset goes but it hardly OP or overtuned. The nature of INI and the thief is that it makes little to NO sense to distribute damage across all 4 of the weapon skills outside the AA because INI is lost no matter which skill used. When damage is wanted there generally an "always best to use skill" when trying to focus on damage. This leads to what is called "spam".

And most weapon sets for thief serve a purpose so that no good thief on d/p would spam, since all 5 skills are needed. If you want maximize your damage in relation to initiative costs on d/p you cannot just spam AA, HS or Shadowshot but you would use a combination of 5,2,3,1,F1,2 for example. S/D is a bit easier and lets you abuse 2 and 3 but not mainly to insta gib people but to engage/disengage. On p/p it's different, though. All weapon skills except of unload are not that beneficial but that's also because unload is such a no brainer with high damage, relative low ini costs and easy to use. I actually agree with you that that thief is not OP - but I do not agree with your statement thief is designed to perma spam only one skill in pvp and that is why it's OK to have such a hard hitter that can insta down people from range. Skill spam has happened a lot in the past (SS, HS, DB to mention just a few) and has been being nerfed since. p/p 3 should not be an exception.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:It's also a problem with the general scope of PvP design right now.

Most classes today have very small windows of opportunity of actually being killed. While burst is generally how PvP is won (punishing gaps in defenses and attempting to nullify and opponent's punishment), the sheer uptime of strong defenses in rotations is negating a lot of that punishment potential, especially in cases like mirage, scourge, spellbreaker, and firebrand (though not as bad now) demands for even bigger, more potent burst damage. Very few professions are capable of being killed by AA's alone (with thief now toned down).

We can agree on that. Damage generally is over the top but no one would insta kill with AA. The damage nullifiers, that exist to mitigate this ridiculous high damage, do not help only against p/p thieves but against any other burst, as well. Thief is just so squishy, that he might suffer most, as a reflect of his unload can kill him.

And even if unload is gutted, what then? Spam 5 to negate damage with pulsing fields in melee? Spam 4 on Daredevil with PI interrupts between AA's?

Yes, exactly. You would start using different skills and the the play style would change. Without a change to other weapon skill p/p would probably be crap (and is already not meta right now) but that's no excuse to just leave that one skill as it is.

The problem with Unload is that like HS and Shadow Shot of the past, they made its damage very cheap for its efficacy. Get rid of the might stacking and get rid of the initiative refunding as to not be broken on DE and it's fine. Maybe buff the AA by like 20% again to account for a bit of lost sustained damage, but it's really just not a PvE set so what does it matter?

That's exactly my point. These skills got nerfed and suddenly a thief had to work for results.

Such is also problem with only having dual skills on skill 3 and not 2 through 4; changes to other abilities outside of the AA will affect other kits as well which is a balance nightmare. That's why P/P is garbage outside of unload and has all its strength there; D/P is strong because of OH pistol, and P/D is a kit that is in a good spot and if not only weak due to the failures and weaknesses of OH dagger, so buffing MH pistol will make offhand dagger impossible to buff or else overload P/D.

You actually have a point here. But even without redesigning the current system there are still ways to balance skills. You made some good suggestions yourself. Others were made in this or other threads. A focus on the individual 3 skills could be a start.

[snh.7091]

I agree that this skill is kind of silly. I mean, all people do is press one button. It renders all other skills useless. Just remove it, it's really dull and boring.

[babazhook.6805]

And most weapon sets for thief serve a purpose so that no good thief on d/p would spam, since all 5 skills are needed. If you want maximize your damage in relation to initiative costs on d/p you cannot just spam AA, HS or Shadowshot but you would use a combination of 5,2,3,1,F1,2 for example. S/D is a bit easier and lets you abuse 2 and 3 but not mainly to insta gib people but to engage/disengage. On p/p it's different, though. All weapon skills except of unload are not that beneficial but that's also because unload is such a no brainer with high damage, relative low ini costs and easy to use. I actually agree with you that that thief is not OP - but I do not agree with your statement thief is designed to perma spam only one skill in pvp and that is why it's OK to have such a hard hitter that can insta down people from range. Skill spam has happened a lot in the past (SS, HS, DB to mention just a few) and has been being nerfed since. p/p 3 should not be an exception.

No good thief on d/p will spam? Of course they spam. The set built around spamming heartseeker into a smoke field and then using the AA. Headshot is used JUST as freqently as in a p/p build where the Daredevil line taken for PI. The Blind field of p/p is not used as much as in d/p because P/p a ranged set where it of less use and p/p has no leap. Again none of this has anything to do with Unload being overtuned.

P/P , outside unload , has the same skills off hand as d/p. You can not tweak UP what off hand x/p does because it directly uptweaks what off hand d/p does.

P/P main has the same skills as p/d main. The reason p AA not used as much in a power build is no stealth access and little benefit from the bleed. Again nothing to do with Unload being overtuned. If one was playing p/p condition, as example , you would be using the AA much more frequently. The exact same is true of P/x #2 in that it benefits a Condition build moreson then a power build. Again in a p/p condition set you would use this skill much more.

The underlying issue is not that p/p unload overtuned. It that the thief has little variety in the use of one handed weapons and that they serve dual purposes in that there has to be some means of making them work in a condition or a power build. When you do this under an INI system what EACH individual weapon skill does will tend to favor either a condition build or a power build meaning in either of those builds individual skills are not favored.

D/p breaks that mold as it generally not used in condition builds and it generally not used in condition builds because at every slot Power is favored. If you look to a p/d condition build, you will use a greater variety of skills because all of the skills aid a condition build.

[Legatus.3608]

@ilmi.5369 said:If you are aware of the p/p thief and you pressure him, he is easy to beat - so I would not complain about p/p being overpowered. But if he gets you unaware while already fighting for a capture point, it is more than just annoying. I also play thief and if I'm attacked by p/p from behind there is nothing I can do against. Even if my shadowstep has not been wasted before while fighting for the node and I stun break after his initial attack, I have no time on my d/p thief to prepare a counter except of perma dodging out of LOS assuming that I have not wasted my endurance before. Laying a smoke field and escape in stealth? Even if initiative was not wasted before the cast time of both can make the difference while he happily roots me in my smoke field and pew pews the crap out of me. The only fast counter is either insta invis or to steal on him and hope you make more damage before you eat his second volley. Sure, there are classes with higher health pool, invulns or reflects and if you have those tools available you can do something against. But still, I believe that the damage of this one skill is a bit overtuned and should be toned down slightly. A rapid fire from a glas cannon ranger usually ist not that fatal.

ever heard of head shot?

EDIT: also, if the ranger was full glass cannon he'd fuck you up pretty bad with a rapid fire

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Vagrant.7206 said:Dueling P/P thieves is easy. I win those handily on my holo. Getting +1'ed by one? Complete kitten.

Did you just complain about thief being kitten when it +1s a fight with P/P?What 1v2 are you supposed to win?

I refer to my previous quote, with some modifiction:

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:Any thief that does significant damage is too powerful, and their playstyle is cheesy and annoying regardless of how fragile/easily countered it is.

~~Because shortbow and stealth. ~~ Because Pistol Pistol.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

@NuhDah.9812 said:

@"MithranArkanere.8957" said:While anyone with some reflect, or retaliation can easily deal with a bad Unload spammer, the actual problem is that there's Unload spammers at all. Spamming Unload creates boring gameplay. It works too well, too often for little effort against less experienced players, and also makes less experinced palyers think it's a good an effective build, when it's just a boring gimmick.

Balance should not be just about keeping skills from being to strong or too weak. It should also be about keeping gameplay fun and engaging.

Because of that, changes like reducing the damage of Unload, or increasing its initiative cost would no do. Decrease damage, people just complains it's useless now. Increase the cost, people stop using the other skills and sticks even more with Unload, making the build even more boring for both the user and the enemies.

The solution to this problem is skill ammo. What Unload needs is charges.

With charges, it's possible to control how much a skill like Unload can be used consecutively. This keeps Unload as a viable burst skill, without letting it be spammable over and over. The initiative cost could even be reduced depending on how many charges the skill can accumulate, allowing more varied skill combinations of the weapon, without letting anyone sit on a single skill.

I'd Start with 5 charges, 20s cooldown each charge. After that, if people keep falling into bad gameplay and sticking with Unload spam, it can be adjusted reducing the charges or increasing the charge cooldown.

And this does not apply only to Unload, but to other thief weapon skills that people tend to use over and over, creating boring gameplay.

You do not take into consideration there is more than one way to mitigate unload dmg besides reflects. There are all sort of projectile hate walls, blocks, invulnerability, kiting out of range, stealth and, most importantly, interrupts in the game (yeap thief has virtually no way to access stability so interrupts are a thing). I'm confused why is unload such a big deal when there are other skills that do probably even more burst than this from further away and with less vulnerabilities and counter play.

And you totally missed the point. I start saying there's counters. Add more counters to the list, doesn't matter. The problem is still there, and it's a core problem with thief weapons. The balance problem here isn't skill power. It's skill use.

The way the skill works encourages people to use it in a way that is just bad for gameplay, bad for the user, and bad for their enemies. There's people who spend entire matches holding freaking 3 and hoping that'll work, and the worst part is that it does work, and way more often than it should.

Because thief weapons are meant to have no cooldowns and to be used seamlessly one after another, they couldn't be properly balanced until skill ammo was introduced.You can't give them recharges without breaking the pace of the profession. You can't increase the costs or the thief will not be able to use many skills at all as they'll spend too much initiative. You can't decrease the damage to much or they will feel ineffective. And of course you can't leave it as it is, or we'll keep getting newbies stuck with the 3 at both ends of the gun, and people will keep coming to the forums to complain, only to be dismissed with the extremely silly and utterly pointless "L2P" messages.People complaining about a thief weapon skill every so often is a sign there's something wrong with them. The hard part is figuring out that that is. Because people saying "It does too much damage" doesn't mean it does, and people dismissing them with a mere "not it doesn't" won't help anyone either, as both sides basically waste time repeating the same thing over and over.

Now, thanks to skill ammo, Unload can stay as an skill that can be used several times in a row, without having some people just using that one skill over and over, which is bad for everyone.

Yes, giving skill ammo to skills like Unload or Death Blossom that tend to give newbies more trouble than they deserve and encourage boring behaviors when overspammed would dumb them down bit by forcing people not to use them in some of the dumb ways they can be used, but it won't be too much as long as each gets enough charges to still be used in the right ways.

Sometimes you just have to save people from their own mistakes. Why do you think Soldiers in TF2 get reduce damage from their own rockets while they are in the air? People were dumb and they were killing themselves when attempting rocket jumps! So the rocket had to be dumbed down like that, as other alternatives like giving them more HP were no good.

But something will have to be done eventually, and as I see it, skill ammo will be the only thing that will work in this particular case. People will complain a bit, they'll get used to it, and there will still be the occasional complain about some spammed thief weapon skill by someone who was harassed by some one trick pony thief a few matches, but they'll be less common and less frequent.

[babazhook.6805]

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

@NuhDah.9812 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:While anyone with some reflect, or retaliation can easily deal with a bad Unload spammer, the actual problem is that there's Unload spammers at all. Spamming Unload creates boring gameplay. It works too well, too often for little effort against less experienced players, and also makes less experinced palyers think it's a good an effective build, when it's just a boring gimmick.

Balance should not be just about keeping skills from being to strong or too weak. It should also be about keeping gameplay fun and engaging.

Because of that, changes like reducing the damage of Unload, or increasing its initiative cost would no do. Decrease damage, people just complains it's useless now. Increase the cost, people stop using the other skills and sticks even more with Unload, making the build even more boring for both the user and the enemies.

The solution to this problem is skill ammo. What Unload needs is charges.

With charges, it's possible to control how much a skill like Unload can be used consecutively. This keeps Unload as a viable burst skill, without letting it be spammable over and over. The initiative cost could even be reduced depending on how many charges the skill can accumulate, allowing more varied skill combinations of the weapon, without letting anyone sit on a single skill.

I'd Start with 5 charges, 20s cooldown each charge. After that, if people keep falling into bad gameplay and sticking with Unload spam, it can be adjusted reducing the charges or increasing the charge cooldown.

And this does not apply only to Unload, but to other thief weapon skills that people tend to use over and over, creating boring gameplay.

You do not take into consideration there is more than one way to mitigate unload dmg besides reflects. There are all sort of projectile hate walls, blocks, invulnerability, kiting out of range, stealth and, most importantly, interrupts in the game (yeap thief has virtually no way to access stability so interrupts are a thing). I'm confused why is unload such a big deal when there are other skills that do probably even more burst than this from further away and with less vulnerabilities and counter play.

And you totally missed the point. I start saying there's counters. Add more counters to the list, doesn't matter. The problem is still there, and it's a core problem with thief weapons. The balance problem here isn't skill power. It's skill use.

The way the skill works encourages people to use it in a way that is just bad for gameplay, bad for the user, and bad for their enemies. There's people who spend entire matches holding freaking 3 and hoping that'll work, and the worst part is that it does work, and way more often than it should.

Because thief weapons are meant to have no cooldowns and to be used seamlessly one after another, they couldn't be properly balanced until skill ammo was introduced.You can't give them recharges without breaking the pace of the profession. You can't increase the costs or the thief will not be able to use many skills at all as they'll spend too much initiative. You can't decrease the damage to much or they will feel ineffective. And of course you can't leave it as it is, or we'll keep getting newbies stuck with the 3 at both ends of the gun, and people will keep coming to the forums to complain, only to be dismissed with the extremely silly and utterly pointless "L2P" messages.People complaining about a thief weapon skill every so often is a sign there's something wrong with them. The hard part is figuring out that that is. Because people saying "It does too much damage" doesn't mean it does, and people dismissing them with a mere "not it doesn't" won't help anyone either, as both sides basically waste time repeating the same thing over and over.

Now, thanks to skill ammo, Unload can stay as an skill that can be used several times in a row, without having some people just using that one skill over and over, which is bad for everyone.

Yes, giving skill ammo to skills like Unload or Death Blossom that tend to give newbies more trouble than they deserve and encourage boring behaviors when overspammed would dumb them down bit by forcing people not to use them in some of the dumb ways they can be used, but it won't be too much as long as each gets enough charges to still be used in the right ways.

Sometimes you just have to save people from their own mistakes. Why do you think Soldiers in TF2 get reduce damage from their own rockets while they are in the air? People were dumb and they were killing themselves when attempting rocket jumps! So the rocket had to be dumbed down like that, as other alternatives like giving them more HP were no good.

But something will have to be done eventually, and as I see it, skill ammo will be the only thing that will work in this particular case. People will complain a bit, they'll get used to it, and there will still be the occasional complain about some spammed thief weapon skill by someone who was harassed by some one trick pony thief a few matches, but they'll be less common and less frequent.

Ammo is a bad idea all round. INI is Ammo and there no need to put in a double whammy.

The skill Unload is used over and over because NO OTHER SKILL in the set is useful to an at range power build OUTSIDE Headshot which sees marginal use when daredevil dropped. End of story. BP is of little use because p/p rarely at melee and the stealth aspect of using a leap in smoke field does not happen in p/p power as it does in d/p.

2 and the AA lean towards condition builds.

ALL of thes skills indvidually work with other builds and work very well. They just do not work as well with p/p power.

[NuhDah.9812]

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

@NuhDah.9812 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:While anyone with some reflect, or retaliation can easily deal with a bad Unload spammer, the actual problem is that there's Unload spammers at all. Spamming Unload creates boring gameplay. It works too well, too often for little effort against less experienced players, and also makes less experinced palyers think it's a good an effective build, when it's just a boring gimmick.

Balance should not be just about keeping skills from being to strong or too weak. It should also be about keeping gameplay fun and engaging.

Because of that, changes like reducing the damage of Unload, or increasing its initiative cost would no do. Decrease damage, people just complains it's useless now. Increase the cost, people stop using the other skills and sticks even more with Unload, making the build even more boring for both the user and the enemies.

The solution to this problem is skill ammo. What Unload needs is charges.

With charges, it's possible to control how much a skill like Unload can be used consecutively. This keeps Unload as a viable burst skill, without letting it be spammable over and over. The initiative cost could even be reduced depending on how many charges the skill can accumulate, allowing more varied skill combinations of the weapon, without letting anyone sit on a single skill.

I'd Start with 5 charges, 20s cooldown each charge. After that, if people keep falling into bad gameplay and sticking with Unload spam, it can be adjusted reducing the charges or increasing the charge cooldown.

And this does not apply only to Unload, but to other thief weapon skills that people tend to use over and over, creating boring gameplay.

You do not take into consideration there is more than one way to mitigate unload dmg besides reflects. There are all sort of projectile hate walls, blocks, invulnerability, kiting out of range, stealth and, most importantly, interrupts in the game (yeap thief has virtually no way to access stability so interrupts are a thing). I'm confused why is unload such a big deal when there are other skills that do probably even more burst than this from further away and with less vulnerabilities and counter play.

And you totally missed the point. I start saying there's counters. Add more counters to the list, doesn't matter. The problem is still there, and it's a core problem with thief weapons. The balance problem here isn't skill power. It's skill use.

The way the skill works encourages people to use it in a way that is just bad for gameplay, bad for the user, and bad for their enemies. There's people who spend entire matches holding freaking 3 and hoping that'll work, and the worst part is that it does work, and way more often than it should.

Because thief weapons are meant to have no cooldowns and to be used seamlessly one after another, they couldn't be properly balanced until skill ammo was introduced.You can't give them recharges without breaking the pace of the profession. You can't increase the costs or the thief will not be able to use many skills at all as they'll spend too much initiative. You can't decrease the damage to much or they will feel ineffective. And of course you can't leave it as it is, or we'll keep getting newbies stuck with the 3 at both ends of the gun, and people will keep coming to the forums to complain, only to be dismissed with the extremely silly and utterly pointless "L2P" messages.People complaining about a thief weapon skill every so often is a sign there's something wrong with them. The hard part is figuring out that that is. Because people saying "It does too much damage" doesn't mean it does, and people dismissing them with a mere "not it doesn't" won't help anyone either, as both sides basically waste time repeating the same thing over and over.

Now, thanks to skill ammo, Unload can stay as an skill that can be used several times in a row, without having some people just using that one skill over and over, which is bad for everyone.

Yes, giving skill ammo to skills like Unload or Death Blossom that tend to give newbies more trouble than they deserve and encourage boring behaviors when overspammed would dumb them down bit by forcing people not to use them in some of the dumb ways they can be used, but it won't be too much as long as each gets enough charges to still be used in the right ways.

Sometimes you just have to save people from their own mistakes. Why do you think Soldiers in TF2 get reduce damage from their own rockets while they are in the air? People were dumb and they were killing themselves when attempting rocket jumps! So the rocket had to be dumbed down like that, as other alternatives like giving them more HP were no good.

But something will have to be done eventually, and as I see it, skill ammo will be the only thing that will work in this particular case. People will complain a bit, they'll get used to it, and there will still be the occasional complain about some spammed thief weapon skill by someone who was harassed by some one trick pony thief a few matches, but they'll be less common and less frequent.

As from my point of view I wasn't one of the people dismissing them with a mere "not it doesn't", I was actually offering solutions for people who can read, solutions against unload spam that are already in game. Selfish behavior you'll always see on forums from people who don't know better, you can tweak and change whatever you want, there will still be complains on forum about any professions unless that profession under performs at the degree it's unused and forgotten, 'cause, you got it, players want to always win and are usually inherently selfish when it comes to their prestige. So let's just say that feeding their selfishness by implementing wrong fixes isn't getting balance anywhere, but curing selfishness with some amount of awareness and knowledge it's still worth a try, so why not create constructive threads where players share combat knowledge between themselves... I'm laughing and being a bit sad at the same time for I'm doubting what I just wrote with bitter "It'll probably never happen."

That being said let's get to "The balance problem here isn't skill power. It's skill use". This phrase it's false and you know it yourself, since you used the true words later in your post where you said it is or it promotes "boring gameplay", which in all honesty is not a balance issue, and not a skill use issue, it's more like your issue while you believe in your own perception of boredom. Fine, let's say it's "boring" for you who know all about how thief and the other professions work, but let's see, there are tones of people who don't know what's happening when all the map is filled with cancer circles and one man clone army spam, if you get in melee range of most professions and not paying attention for a split second and you're doomed. What do you expect of these people to do? The only thing they can do if they want to stay is to find alternative ways of playing at the level of their capacity.

I feel like I said this before, but I'll say it again, this happened mostly because of how changes were implemented and that lead to this option for people willing to take it. You can't just redesign a skill for a profession while keeping all the other "boring" or broken stuff out there and believe you fixed something. The short run solution is adapting to what the game offers you. The long run solution is learning what options you have in dealing with it. But just stating this right here, if the skill is not broken and only a gimmick skill that has it's strengths but at least the same weaknesses, I feel like there are other bigger problems concerning the real balance issues out there that should be addressed first.

EDIT: I went into storytelling and haven't commented anything about your proposed solution but I guess in the meanwhile @babazhook.6805 did it in my stead and probably better than I could have. The point is people use what they are given if they find it useful, and practically don't care if you find it boring. As long as the real balance issues are not addressed. As for me, if I had to choose between P/P and perma evade condi spam thief, I'd say the later is way more boring.

EDIT2: If you find P/P boring, it's fine. There are tones of other builds and professions you can play and I'm sure you'll find some that are suited for your taste. And don't get me wrong, I don't play P/P in pvp scenarios with the exception of very few niche situations, so don't take what I wrote as me defending it in any way or me telling you if it should change or not. What Im saying is that your issue with the weapon set is a nonissue.

[Vagrant.7206]

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:Dueling P/P thieves is easy. I win those handily on my holo. Getting +1'ed by one? Complete kitten.

Did you just complain about thief being kitten when it +1s a fight with P/P?

What 1v2 are you supposed to win?

I refer to my previous quote, with some modifiction:

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:Any thief that does significant damage is too powerful, and their playstyle is cheesy and annoying regardless of how fragile/easily countered it is.

~~Because shortbow and stealth. ~~ Because Pistol Pistol.

Any curse on this forum gets turned into kitten.

Tank builds are generally supposed to be able to handle 1v2s (if not necessarily win them), but the current design of deadeye P/P thieves allows them to dump all over bunkers if they're not getting focused. There's a lot of interrupt spam that comes out of them on top of the deadeye mark.

[Legatus.3608]

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:Dueling P/P thieves is easy. I win those handily on my holo. Getting +1'ed by one? Complete kitten.

Did you just complain about thief being kitten when it +1s a fight with P/P?

What 1v2 are you supposed to win?

I refer to my previous quote, with some modifiction:

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:Any thief that does significant damage is too powerful, and their playstyle is cheesy and annoying regardless of how fragile/easily countered it is.

~~Because shortbow and stealth. ~~ Because Pistol Pistol.

Uh, why is a thief doing significant damage too powerful? Is thief supposed to be the no-damage class? We can't bunker, we can't support, we can't contest nodes by ourselves, now we can't do damage either when we +1 by your logic, so we just don't play PVP anymore I guess in your ideal world? We run around avoiding all combat altogether and just camp empty nodes until every node is populated by at least 1 enemy and then we /ragequit?

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Vagrant.7206 said:Any curse on this forum gets turned into kitten.

Tank builds are generally supposed to be able to handle 1v2s (if not necessarily win them), but the current design of deadeye P/P thieves allows them to dump all over bunkers if they're not getting focused. There's a lot of interrupt spam that comes out of them on top of the deadeye mark.

I know about the curse filter. I was mocking it.

1v2s where your add is a deadeye should cause you to lose or vacate the point How fast or slowly that turnover happens is incredibly relevant in conquest. Why are we arguing that a thief is overstepping his role when his(or her) +1 damage is too high?

It's still an outnumbered fight.He already can't 1v1.

That aggressive +1 is what he's supposed to be doing, and if you catch him 1v1 his only options are to flee or fight a losing pokefest against the point because of how squishy thieves are by nature.

@"Legatus.3608" said:Uh, why is a thief doing significant damage too powerful? Is thief supposed to be the no-damage class? We can't bunker, we can't support, we can't contest nodes by ourselves, now we can't do damage either when we +1 by your logic, so we just don't play PVP anymore I guess in your ideal world? We run around avoiding all combat altogether and just camp empty nodes until every node is populated by at least 1 enemy and then we /ragequit?

That post was sarcasm and the above is exactly the point I'm trying to make. I play a D/P Thief. People seem to genuinely think that any build a thief plays is too strong for some reason.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted that people are trying to use "The 1v2 isn't balanced fairly in my favor" as a foundation to have thief nerfed again. Take a step back and realize how silly that sounds objectively.

As Legatus said, the moment you start thinking "boy, this thief sure is good at winning outnumbered fights, we need to nerf him" there's probably something wrong with your concept of balance. Not saying that's a certainty, but evidence strongly lends itself to that assumption.

And don't get me wrong. I absolutely agree that unload is boring and any rework to make the damage output more complex or engaging would be welcomed for discussion. I'm not feeling the "let's kick the thief out of its role altogether" angle though.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

@Legatus.3608 said:

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:Dueling P/P thieves is easy. I win those handily on my holo. Getting +1'ed by one? Complete kitten.

Did you just complain about thief being kitten when it +1s a fight with P/P?

What 1v2 are you supposed to win?

I refer to my previous quote, with some modifiction:

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:Any thief that does significant damage is too powerful, and their playstyle is cheesy and annoying regardless of how fragile/easily countered it is.

~~Because shortbow and stealth. ~~ Because Pistol Pistol.

Uh, why is a thief doing significant damage too powerful? Is thief supposed to be the no-damage class? We can't bunker, we can't support, we can't contest nodes by ourselves, now we can't do damage either when we +1 by your logic, so we just don't play PVP anymore I guess in your ideal world? We run around avoiding all combat altogether and just camp empty nodes until every node is populated by at least 1 enemy and then we /ragequit?

I see your point, but being able to do so much damage by doing 1 button and with quickness its easily over the top. Its a great starter or finisher, like if they had a mechanic that if it chained two or 3 skills togeather and the seccessfully hit there 3rd or 4th attack will be incredibly strong. But as it is right now it just spammed and it lowers the quality of the fight in a bad way. Once focused they drop easy but that takes some team cordination and the lack of quality team q like a 5v5 q would have, or a mic system a quality pvp 5v5 game has would solve alot of issues.

[NuhDah.9812]

"it lowers the quality of the fight in a bad way." - this again. If it lowers the quality of the fight why don't you come to them with quality fights on your end and shut them down? The quality of the fight comes from both sides not only one side. If you're not pleased with the "quality" of the fight you are free to bring some on the table on your side. I say this in the context of everyone agreeing P/P is not an overperforming weapon set, which you can't deny.

[ilmi.5369]

@Legatus.3608 said:

@ilmi.5369 said:If you are aware of the p/p thief and you pressure him, he is easy to beat - so I would not complain about p/p being overpowered. But if he gets you unaware while already fighting for a capture point, it is more than just annoying. I also play thief and if I'm attacked by p/p from behind there is nothing I can do against. Even if my shadowstep has not been wasted before while fighting for the node and I stun break after his initial attack, I have no time on my d/p thief to prepare a counter except of perma dodging out of LOS assuming that I have not wasted my endurance before. Laying a smoke field and escape in stealth? Even if initiative was not wasted before the cast time of both can make the difference while he happily roots me in my smoke field and pew pews the crap out of me. The only fast counter is either insta invis or to steal on him and hope you make more damage before you eat his second volley. Sure, there are classes with higher health pool, invulns or reflects and if you have those tools available you can do something against. But still, I believe that the damage of this one skill is a bit overtuned and should be toned down slightly. A rapid fire from a glas cannon ranger usually ist not that fatal.

ever heard of head shot?

EDIT: also, if the ranger was full glass cannon he'd kitten you up pretty bad with a rapid fire

I take your post as a good advise although it sounds a lot like a LTP comment which is never a good answer in an argument. You have to be so fast and so lucky to stay alive that you have nearly no time to react if you are pressured. Usually being shot at from behind or from the side you have lost 3/4 of health before realizing what's going on. Then you must fire up your defense (if ready) and create an opportunity to attack and pressure him. If you are lucky, you can head shot him but what's that good for? You would win a second and then je just spams the next unload, leaving you with even less initiative points to disappear. A ranger has exactly one rapid fire and when you rupt that or dodge it, it's on cooldown and you can pressure back or at least escape.

I'm not arguing that you cannot fight a p/p thief. In fact he is pretty easy to beat if you catch him on the wrong foot. But in this game you can fight and beat any class if you press the right buttons in the right order and the opponent does not. It's a matter of effort. But that does not help to defend the p/p design in its current shape. Useless for the meta and a bit too powerful for the low effort it takes.

[Legatus.3608]

@ilmi.5369 said:

@Legatus.3608 said:

@ilmi.5369 said:If you are aware of the p/p thief and you pressure him, he is easy to beat - so I would not complain about p/p being overpowered. But if he gets you unaware while already fighting for a capture point, it is more than just annoying. I also play thief and if I'm attacked by p/p from behind there is nothing I can do against. Even if my shadowstep has not been wasted before while fighting for the node and I stun break after his initial attack, I have no time on my d/p thief to prepare a counter except of perma dodging out of LOS assuming that I have not wasted my endurance before. Laying a smoke field and escape in stealth? Even if initiative was not wasted before the cast time of both can make the difference while he happily roots me in my smoke field and pew pews the crap out of me. The only fast counter is either insta invis or to steal on him and hope you make more damage before you eat his second volley. Sure, there are classes with higher health pool, invulns or reflects and if you have those tools available you can do something against. But still, I believe that the damage of this one skill is a bit overtuned and should be toned down slightly. A rapid fire from a glas cannon ranger usually ist not that fatal.

ever heard of head shot?

EDIT: also, if the ranger was full glass cannon he'd kitten you up pretty bad with a rapid fire

I take your post as a good advise although it sounds a lot like a LTP comment which is never a good answer in an argument. You have to be so fast and so lucky to stay alive that you have nearly no time to react if you are pressured. Usually being shot at from behind or from the side you have lost 3/4 of health before realizing what's going on. Then you must fire up your defense (if ready) and create an opportunity to attack and pressure him. If you are lucky, you can head shot him but what's that good for? You would win a second and then je just spams the next unload. A ranger has exactly one rapid fire and when you rupt that or dodge it, it's on cooldown and you can pressure back or at least escape.

I'm not arguing that you cannot fight a p/p thief. In fact he is pretty easy to beat if you catch him on the wrong foot. But in this game you can fight and beat any class if you press the right buttons in the right order and the opponent does not. It's a matter of effort. But that does not help to defend the p/p design in its current shape. Useless for the meta and a bit too powerful for the low effort it takes.

No, headshot will completely ruin his fucking day. It doesn't refund the INI and he doesn't do any damage with it, which means if you headshot him twice his entire build is completely sunk. Assuming you allowed him to hit you once like you're suggesting, headshotting two times will leave him with no attack and completely defenseless.

If you're saying that "its hard to DEFEND against said build when he catches you off guard" well yeah, he's a berserker thief. Any zerker thief plays like CoD modern warfare running around either dying instantly or killing people instantly, it's not supposed to be EASY to stop him from downing you fast, it's just that it is possible ESPECIALLY if you know he's coming (but even without if you're fast with shadowstep -> headshot). If you're actively monitoring enemies on the minimap you should know when he's about to show up. This isn't specific to thief btw, any zerker class plays like this.

Also if you're traited for the 2s evade on low HP he will miss his first series as well which means you only need to score 1 headshot to disable his build.

The thing people aren't thinking about is that he has to connect with all the hits to keep firing. Even if you have to resort to dodge spam, dodging even one bullet on each of the first two unloads will disable his build. You can do this passively every 90s (fucking nerf) with the trait or you can use dodges shadowstep and headshot.

[NuhDah.9812]

Actually there are unwinnable matchups in this game where pressing buttons in the right order doesnt get you a win. Better timing, awareness and prediction are pretty much the only way to have a fighting chance. That being said there are those fights in which the only thing you can do is disengage.

[ilmi.5369]

@"NuhDah.9812" said:"it lowers the quality of the fight in a bad way." - this again. If it lowers the quality of the fight why don't you come to them with quality fights on your end and shut them down? The quality of the fight comes from both sides not only one side. If you're not pleased with the "quality" of the fight you are free to bring some on the table on your side. I say this in the context of everyone agreeing P/P is not an overperforming weapon set, which you can't deny.

Your comment basically says, "just be a better player, L2P" if I understand right? Why is it not legit to criticize one dimensional game play? You are right with your upper post that there are more and even worse classes that "lower the game play in a bad way". e.g. Scourges preventing you from a cap by just spamming the point with moving AOE or mesmers that pump out like 10 illusions, so that just tab targeting or clicking the right mesmer is already a task by itself. Yes, these two are far stronger than p/p thief but still it's the same kind of misconception that negatively impacts the joy of play. Them all need some better balance and just the fact that there are more urgent does not mean to leave the less urgent ones as they are.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

@babazhook.6805 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

@NuhDah.9812 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:While anyone with some reflect, or retaliation can easily deal with a bad Unload spammer, the actual problem is that there's Unload spammers at all. Spamming Unload creates boring gameplay. It works too well, too often for little effort against less experienced players, and also makes less experinced palyers think it's a good an effective build, when it's just a boring gimmick.

Balance should not be just about keeping skills from being to strong or too weak. It should also be about keeping gameplay fun and engaging.

Because of that, changes like reducing the damage of Unload, or increasing its initiative cost would no do. Decrease damage, people just complains it's useless now. Increase the cost, people stop using the other skills and sticks even more with Unload, making the build even more boring for both the user and the enemies.

The solution to this problem is skill ammo. What Unload needs is charges.

With charges, it's possible to control how much a skill like Unload can be used consecutively. This keeps Unload as a viable burst skill, without letting it be spammable over and over. The initiative cost could even be reduced depending on how many charges the skill can accumulate, allowing more varied skill combinations of the weapon, without letting anyone sit on a single skill.

I'd Start with 5 charges, 20s cooldown each charge. After that, if people keep falling into bad gameplay and sticking with Unload spam, it can be adjusted reducing the charges or increasing the charge cooldown.

And this does not apply only to Unload, but to other thief weapon skills that people tend to use over and over, creating boring gameplay.

You do not take into consideration there is more than one way to mitigate unload dmg besides reflects. There are all sort of projectile hate walls, blocks, invulnerability, kiting out of range, stealth and, most importantly, interrupts in the game (yeap thief has virtually no way to access stability so interrupts are a thing). I'm confused why is unload such a big deal when there are other skills that do probably even more burst than this from further away and with less vulnerabilities and counter play.

And you totally missed the point. I start saying there's counters. Add more counters to the list, doesn't matter. The problem is still there, and it's a core problem with thief weapons. The balance problem here isn't skill power. It's skill use.

The way the skill works encourages people to use it in a way that is just bad for gameplay, bad for the user, and bad for their enemies. There's people who spend entire matches holding freaking 3 and hoping that'll work, and the worst part is that it does work, and way more often than it should.

Because thief weapons are meant to have no cooldowns and to be used seamlessly one after another, they couldn't be properly balanced until skill ammo was introduced.You can't give them recharges without breaking the pace of the profession. You can't increase the costs or the thief will not be able to use many skills at all as they'll spend too much initiative. You can't decrease the damage to much or they will feel ineffective. And of course you can't leave it as it is, or we'll keep getting newbies stuck with the 3 at both ends of the gun, and people will keep coming to the forums to complain, only to be dismissed with the extremely silly and utterly pointless "L2P" messages.People complaining about a thief weapon skill every so often is a sign there's something wrong with them. The hard part is figuring out that that is. Because people saying "It does too much damage" doesn't mean it does, and people dismissing them with a mere "not it doesn't" won't help anyone either, as both sides basically waste time repeating the same thing over and over.

Now, thanks to skill ammo, Unload can stay as an skill that can be used several times in a row, without having some people just using that one skill over and over, which is bad for everyone.

Yes, giving skill ammo to skills like Unload or Death Blossom that tend to give newbies more trouble than they deserve and encourage boring behaviors when overspammed would dumb them down bit by forcing people not to use them in some of the dumb ways they can be used, but it won't be too much as long as each gets enough charges to still be used in the right ways.

Sometimes you just have to save people from their own mistakes. Why do you think Soldiers in TF2 get reduce damage from their own rockets while they are in the air? People were dumb and they were killing themselves when attempting rocket jumps! So the rocket had to be dumbed down like that, as other alternatives like giving them more HP were no good.

But something will have to be done eventually, and as I see it, skill ammo will be the only thing that will work in this particular case. People will complain a bit, they'll get used to it, and there will still be the occasional complain about some spammed thief weapon skill by someone who was harassed by some one trick pony thief a few matches, but they'll be less common and less frequent.

Ammo is a bad idea all round. INI is Ammo and there no need to put in a double whammy.

The skill Unload is used over and over because NO OTHER SKILL in the set is useful to an at range power build OUTSIDE Headshot which sees marginal use when daredevil dropped. End of story. BP is of little use because p/p rarely at melee and the stealth aspect of using a leap in smoke field does not happen in p/p power as it does in d/p.

2 and the AA lean towards condition builds.

ALL of thes skills indvidually work with other builds and work very well. They just do not work as well with p/p power.

Initiative is a shared resource that allows the thief to be more bursty. But on its own it's not enough. It prevents the thief from using too many skills, but on its own, initiative doesn't prevent players from sitting too much on a single skill.

There's people who keep saying that revenant weapon skills need to lose either the energy cost or their recharges, and they are utterly wrong. Some weapon skills could use a bit less recharge or less cost, and overall revenant could use a skilled way to recover small amounts of energy as they fight if they are playing skillfully. Something not quite as strong as Charged Mists, like gaining part of the energy cost back when interrupting an enemy with a CC weapon skill. But in no way they should lose either. Remove the recharges, people start doing things like spamming Unrelenting Assault over and over. Remove the costs, and the recharges would have to be increased to compensate, making it feel more sluggish.

Going back to thief, we can't have their weapons work like revenant weapons, with both recharge and resource cost. They have medium armor and a small hp pool, so they need to move in, do things fast, and move out. So recharges won't do. But skill ammo is a completely different thing. It allows moving in, doing things fast, and moving out, but it prevents what needs to be prevented: doing it again too soon, sometimes even ignoring the "move out" part. There's tons of things a thief will still be able to do while waiting for Unload charges to come back, go decap a point, snare someone with immobilize, interrupt with headshot, rush in and blind people, swap to the other weapon set, /point @ and /laugh at enemies... Anything other than repeating the same move again.

And of course Unload is used over and over because the other skills are not as useful. There will be always overlap and skills that have less priority than others except on certain situations. That is also seen on all the other professions, and will never change.

It all still falls down to "People stick to 1 skill because they can". While you may think that making the other skills better will make people use them more over unload, that will never be the case, because there needs to be situational skills that are used less. Of course it'd be better if the pace of the game allowed skills like headshot felt less like a waste of initiative because an interrupted skill can be used again in a few seconds, and because a ranged interrupt isn't as reliable as melee one that won't be affected by projectile hate. But nothing will change that people will stick to what feels that's giving more results, even if it actually dosen't.

The best way to prevent people from doing something that is considered detrimental in a game is making it impossible. Nodes are shared, we can't steal nodes, no node ninjas. Exps and drops are given individually to each player, we can't steal kills, no kill steals. WvW chat between teams is not possible except with whispers, no map chat bickering between teams. Give unload n charges, they can't use it n+1 times in a row.

Also, there's many things that could be tweaked with the skill ammo system. It's not like it has to be right as it is now. Firebrand mantras are an example of a tweaked skill ammo behavior, with the last charge flipping the skill to a stronger version.

A version of skill ammo that would work well with Unload is making it recover all charges at the same time, whether they are used or not. Unload works best when you create a situation where you can use it several times in a row, so having the charges come back one by one would not work as well with it.

But if all charges come at the same time, that would still prevent excessive spam when it's accompanied with lots of initiative recovery, while not affecting it at all in any other case.

[Legatus.3608]

@ilmi.5369 said:

@"NuhDah.9812" said:"it lowers the quality of the fight in a bad way." - this again. If it lowers the quality of the fight why don't you come to them with quality fights on your end and shut them down? The quality of the fight comes from both sides not only one side. If you're not pleased with the "quality" of the fight you are free to bring some on the table on your side. I say this in the context of everyone agreeing P/P is not an overperforming weapon set, which you can't deny.

Your comment basically says, "just be a better player, L2P" if I understand right? Why is it not legit to criticize one dimensional game play? You are right with your upper post that there are more and even worse classes that "lower the game play in a bad way". e.g. Scourges preventing you from a cap by just spamming the point with moving AOE or mesmers that pump out like 10 illusions, so that just tab targeting or clicking the right mesmer is already a task by itself. Yes, these two are far stronger than p/p thief but still it's the same kind of misconception that negatively impacts the joy of play. Them all need some better balance and just the fact that there are more urgent does not mean to leave the less urgent ones as they are.

Why is five buttons inherently better gameplay than one button? The build in question is trash to be sure, but thieves have always been a button spam class and they pretty much always will be. A rework on the ini system could help the spamming, but why?

I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not BROKEN enough to need fixing. People are whining about not because its really op or because it NEEDS change, rather because it forces them to do specific things to survive (which any damage build SHOULD force SOME action), and they don't think there should have to press their buttons in order to survive.

[NuhDah.9812]

@ilmi.5369 said:

@"NuhDah.9812" said:"it lowers the quality of the fight in a bad way." - this again. If it lowers the quality of the fight why don't you come to them with quality fights on your end and shut them down? The quality of the fight comes from both sides not only one side. If you're not pleased with the "quality" of the fight you are free to bring some on the table on your side. I say this in the context of everyone agreeing P/P is not an overperforming weapon set, which you can't deny.

Your comment basically says, "just be a better player, L2P" if I understand right? Why is it not legit to criticize one dimensional game play? You are right with your upper post that there are more and even worse classes that "lower the game play in a bad way". e.g. Scourges preventing you from a cap by just spamming the point with moving AOE or mesmers that pump out like 10 illusions, so that just tab targeting or clicking the right mesmer is already a task by itself. Yes, these two are far stronger than p/p thief but still it's the same kind of misconception that negatively impacts the joy of play. Them all need some better balance and just the fact that there are more urgent does not mean to leave the less urgent ones as they are.

Well, not exactly what I wanted to say. The point was that subjective phrases like "lower the quality of the game play in a bad way" and "P/P gameplay is boring" have nothing to do with the real game balance issues... which if the game gets cured of, people will probably naturally migrate to some other, less boring and more skillful options. For now P/P is not overperforming and it's a gimmick option that has lots of ways to be countered that is not even a l2p issue and more like understand that you are mortal and can die too if you're not aware of your surroundings and get burst in a +1 situation, next time you might even be prepared if you've learned something from your first experience and left that immortalty mentality somwhere far where it won't distract you anymore. Probably thief was most of the time shit on because people think it's unfair to be defeated when things dont go the usual way you expected it to go.

[ilmi.5369]

@"Legatus.3608" said:No, headshot will completely ruin his kitten day. It doesn't refund the INI and he doesn't do any damage with it, which means if you headshot him twice his entire build is completely sunk. Assuming you allowed him to hit you once like you're suggesting, headshotting two times will leave him with no attack and completely defenseless.

OK, I take your suggestion as a valid tactic for mitigation, although this requires hell of a reaction and at least one cooldown to be ready.

If you're saying that "its hard to DEFEND against said build when he catches you off guard" well yeah, he's a berserker thief. Any zerker thief plays like CoD modern warfare running around either dying instantly or killing people instantly, it's not supposed to be EASY to stop him from downing you fast, it's just that it is possible ESPECIALLY if you know he's coming (but even without if you're fast with shadowstep -> headshot). If you're actively monitoring enemies on the minimap you should know when he's about to show up. This isn't specific to thief btw, any zerker class plays like this.

Here I disagree. True, map awareness always helps in any situation and you can TRY to anticipate where your opponent would show up next but it can hardly be the intended counter measure. Also not every zerker class does the same as p/p thief. The closest thing is a power mesmer bursting you from stealth or a deadeye basically being perma stealthed and showing up everywhere at will. Other thieves at least need to stick to your heels in order to make damage which is not just easier to prevent and gives more time for reaction, but simply is not that high and that easy applied.

Also if you're traited for the 2s evade on low HP he will miss his first series as well which means you only need to score 1 headshot to disable his build.

The thing people aren't thinking about is that he has to connect with all the hits to keep firing. Even if you have to resort to dodge spam, dodging even one bullet on each of the first two unloads will disable his build. You can do this passively every 90s (kitten nerf) with the trait or you can use dodges shadowstep and headshot.

True. If you are in some kind of duel situation you can escape or do some damage.

@"Legatus.3608" said:Why is five buttons inherently better gameplay than one button? The build in question is trash to be sure, but thieves have always been a button spam class and they pretty much always will be. A rework on the ini system could help the spamming, but why?

There is more than one answer since you made various claims. It's undeniable harder to combine 5 buttons to do burst than to press 1. I'm not saying it's better game play (although you cannot seriously argue that it is not). I'm saying that it is less effort but more rewarding in terms of damage and success.

Also thief WAS a button spam class until it got nerfed on various weapon sets either by reducing the damage on some skills or by raising the ini costs or by doing both. You don't have to rework the system but you just need to adjust the skills on 3 and voila no more spam (this also applies to d/d death blossom condi thieves that are also absolutely easy but so damn easy to avoid by just not getting to near to them)

I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not BROKEN enough to need fixing. People are whining about not because its really op or because it NEEDS change, rather because it forces them to do specific things to survive (which any damage build SHOULD force SOME action), and they don't think there should have to press their buttons in order to survive.

Ok, here I agree. P/P thieves are not game breaking.

But the reason that people complaining about p/p were "to stubborn to adapt" is your assumption and cannot be stated as a fact and as excuse for the current state. You always have to press your buttons to survive - that's neither new, nor does it apply to thief encounter only. it's just that nowadays game play is so ridiculous fast and you can die so quickly. You always require condi remove, stun break, invulns, block or reflect on your tool bar and if you don't bring them all you do not just have a little disadvantages, you are pretty close to insta death. This does not need any more encouragement by having a build that does that fast more damage than any other.

[Legatus.3608]

@ilmi.5369 said:

@"Legatus.3608" said:No, headshot will completely ruin his kitten day. It doesn't refund the INI and he doesn't do any damage with it, which means if you headshot him twice his entire build is completely sunk. Assuming you allowed him to hit you once like you're suggesting, headshotting two times will leave him with no attack and completely defenseless.

OK, I take your suggestion as a valid tactic for mitigation, although this requires hell of a reaction and at least one cooldown to be ready.

If you're saying that "its hard to DEFEND against said build when he catches you off guard" well yeah, he's a berserker thief. Any zerker thief plays like CoD modern warfare running around either dying instantly or killing people instantly, it's not supposed to be EASY to stop him from downing you fast, it's just that it is possible ESPECIALLY if you know he's coming (but even without if you're fast with shadowstep -> headshot). If you're actively monitoring enemies on the minimap you should know when he's about to show up. This isn't specific to thief btw, any zerker class plays like this.

Here I disagree. True, map awareness always helps in any situation and you can TRY to anticipate where your opponent would show up next but it can hardly be the intended counter measure. Also not every zerker class does the same as p/p thief. The closest thing is a power mesmer bursting you from stealth or a deadeye basically being perma stealthed and showing up everywhere at will. Other thieves at least need to stick to your heels in order to make damage which is not just easier to prevent and gives more time for reaction, but simply is not that high and that easy applied.

Also if you're traited for the 2s evade on low HP he will miss his first series as well which means you only need to score 1 headshot to disable his build.

The thing people aren't thinking about is that he has to connect with all the hits to keep firing. Even if you have to resort to dodge spam, dodging even one bullet on each of the first two unloads will disable his build. You can do this passively every 90s (kitten nerf) with the trait or you can use dodges shadowstep and headshot.

True. If you are in some kind of duel situation you can escape or do some damage.

@"Legatus.3608" said:Why is five buttons inherently better gameplay than one button? The build in question is trash to be sure, but thieves have always been a button spam class and they pretty much always will be. A rework on the ini system could help the spamming, but why?

There is more than one answer since you made various claims. It's undeniable harder to combine 5 buttons to do burst than to press 1. I'm not saying it's better game play (although you cannot seriously argue that it is not). I'm saying that it is less effort but more rewarding in terms of damage and success.

Also thief WAS a button spam class until it got nerfed on various weapon sets either by reducing the damage on some skills or by raising the ini costs or by doing both. You don't have to rework the system but you just need to adjust the skills on 3 and voila no more spam (this also applies to d/d death blossom condi thieves that are also absolutely easy but so kitten easy to avoid by just not getting to near to them)

I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not BROKEN enough to need fixing. People are whining about not because its really op or because it NEEDS change, rather because it forces them to do specific things to survive (which any damage build SHOULD force SOME action), and they don't think there should have to press their buttons in order to survive.

Ok, here I agree. P/P thieves are not game breaking.

But the reason that people complaining about p/p were "to stubborn to adapt" is your assumption and cannot be stated as a fact and as excuse for the current state. You always have to press your buttons to survive - that's neither new, nor does it apply to thief encounter only. it's just that nowadays game play is so ridiculous fast and you can die so quickly. You always require condi remove, stun break, invulns, block or reflect on your tool bar and if you don't bring them all you do not just have a little disadvantages, you are pretty close to insta death. This does not need any more encouragement by having a build that does that fast more damage than any other.

It's not an assumption though, it is an actual fact. The game has counter play and people are choosing not to use it and instead whinge on the pvp forum.

I also don't know why you think its faster than other builds, lots of builds can damage quickly with zerker and can one shot. Pretty much any class can do it. And you're saying they do it from stealth which is factually untrue, pp thief does not typically have any access to stealth aside from blinding powder in his utility slot. It should be very obvious where he is at almost all times.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Legatus.3608 said:pp thief does not typically have any access to stealth aside from blinding powder in his utility slot. It should be very obvious where he is at almost all times.

only if they run bound daredevilBut at that point they are significantly nerfing their damage because they cannot slot deadeye.Agreed on the rest though. If you know you don't have high mobility and you refuse to bring projectile hate and spec as glassy as possible, P/P is your counter. It's also your counter if you feel you should be able to 1v2 for extended periods of time.

[ilmi.5369]

@babazhook.6805 said:

And most weapon sets for thief serve a purpose so that no good thief on d/p would spam, since all 5 skills are needed. If you want maximize your damage in relation to initiative costs on d/p you cannot just spam AA, HS or Shadowshot but you would use a combination of 5,2,3,1,F1,2 for example. S/D is a bit easier and lets you abuse 2 and 3 but not mainly to insta gib people but to engage/disengage. On p/p it's different, though. All weapon skills except of unload are not that beneficial but that's also because unload is such a no brainer with high damage, relative low ini costs and easy to use. I actually agree with you that that thief is not OP - but I do not agree with your statement thief is designed to perma spam only one skill in pvp and that is why it's OK to have such a hard hitter that can insta down people from range. Skill spam has happened a lot in the past (SS, HS, DB to mention just a few) and has been being nerfed since. p/p 3 should not be an exception.

No good thief on d/p will spam? Of course they spam. The set built around spamming heartseeker into a smoke field and then using the AA. Headshot is used JUST as freqently as in a p/p build where the Daredevil line taken for PI. The Blind field of p/p is not used as much as in d/p because P/p a ranged set where it of less use and p/p has no leap. Again none of this has anything to do with Unload being overtuned.

You named already 4 out of 5 weapon skills in a d/p build. You left out shadow shot that you need to stick to moving foes and to be able to stay close for a few seconds without being hit right away. If you have done that rotation you have no initiative left to use any more skills and either you retreat, swap weapons or do anything else. how is that spamming? This has absolutely nothing in common with the abuse of exactly one skill from p/p thief and I wonder if you actually read my post which is clearly about the PERMA spam of one weapon skill in order to do the most damage you can - as fast as you can.

P/P , outside unload , has the same skills off hand as d/p. You can not tweak UP what off hand x/p does because it directly uptweaks what off hand d/p does.True. that's why Unload as skill to this unique weapon set needs some adjusted.

P/P main has the same skills as p/d main. The reason p AA not used as much in a power build is no stealth access and little benefit from the bleed. Again nothing to do with Unload being overtuned. If one was playing p/p condition, as example , you would be using the AA much more frequently. The exact same is true of P/x #2 in that it benefits a Condition build moreson then a power build. Again in a p/p condition set you would use this skill much more.

Everything you are saying makes sense and I agree with your analysis of the situation. But why would you then design unload, at all. Make it a good condition skill and let it be a condition build.

The underlying issue is not that p/p unload overtuned.You keep on saying that. And I say it is. 10-15K burst out of the box that fast is clearly too much - even for a class that is designed to apply damage as fast as possible. It does not need preparation, it does not need stealth, it does not need blasting fire fields and it does not need any other combination. It just comes like that. Yes, the other skills are not beneficial for p/p power thief. Well, if you could not perma spam this sure shot because e.g. initiative would not be reimburse, you would have to adapt and use the weaker skills. Or give him a compensation in whatever form - I'm sure that we could figure out a proper compensation if we were not busy in justifying the need for that damage of unload.

It that the thief has little variety in the use of one handed weapons and that they serve dual purposes in that there has to be some means of making them work in a condition or a power build. When you do this under an INI system what EACH individual weapon skill does will tend to favor either a condition build or a power build meaning in either of those builds individual skills are not favored.

If you name only one class in the game that can use all its weapons combinations in all game modes as efficiently as the others, we could discuss the need for thief to have all weapons bein able to be combined in pvp. But that is not the case. Thief can already use d/p and s/d pretty efficiently. s/d can even be played on power, as well as on condi. You could even play d/d condi and p/p for fun and it works, although not in the meta. And I have seen some troll builds being centered around pistol whip. According your description even p/d seems to be valid. In that sense it brings it on pair with any other class that are also limited in their weapon choice. Which Mesmer would play OH focus or pistol? What warrior plays sword or horn in any hand. What anger torch or axe OH? You could go on forever. I see where you are coming from but the non existence of balance for all possible weapon combinations is not a valid argument for having a super strong unload skill in that weapon combination. If you think otherwise, that's up to you.

[ilmi.5369]

@Legatus.3608 said:

It's not an assumption though, it is an actual fact. The game has counter play and people are choosing not to use it and instead whinge on the pvp forum.

I also don't know why you think its faster than other builds, lots of builds can damage quickly with zerker and can one shot. Pretty much any class can do it. And you're saying they do it from stealth which is factually untrue, pp thief does not typically have any access to stealth aside from blinding powder in his utility slot. It should be very obvious where he is at almost all times.

Well, yes, people need to learn and to adapt in order to be successful. So should p/p thieves learn to live without the high bust of unload or its initiative refund. Also there is a grey area between people not being willed or able to adapt and some skills doing too much for to little effort. Stating an opinion as a fact doesn't support your point.

Of course a P/P DD has the same access to stealth as any other thief wearing a pistol OH. Smoke field > SB cluster bomb > profit. If you have blinding powder slotted this gives up to 10s of stealth which gives plenty of time to cross half of the map and be battle ready after 5 seconds. And DE is even worse while being able to camp the home node in perma stealth just waiting for you to leave the mid fight and come run for a quick decap. Are you actually saying that you watch the mini map at all times (that does not show enemies if not tracked by a team mate) and while you are in a battle situation or approaching an empty capture point, you would never be caught in surprise by a thief? That you always have saved all stun breaks, blocks or whatever to be able to react accordingly? I have seen this argument pretty frequently in this forum. That's pretty far from reality at best...