I don't understand why we get these changes

[Alatar.7364]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Kageseigi.2150 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Isn't it designed for +1 on node? In other word, 2+ v X

To my knowledge, it was never designed for that, but has simply evolved into it.It's an assassin class... that has lost its relative lethality. A sad, sad thing.

As Leo said above, a Thief was meant to be the apex predator. The best defense was to not get isolated... as it should be today.The sight of an enemy Thief should strike fear into the heart of any lone player... and the knowledge that an unseen Thief could strike at any moment should leave one in a persistent cold sweat.

The thief don't need high damage modifyer to kill a target in 1v1, it only need to properly engage it and control it.

That is quite incorrect, while Thief needs (and can) to control a fight, it definitely needs dmg (and it's modifier) to actually win 1v1s since almost every other profession has not only a lot higher dmg but also a lot higher survivability.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Alatar.7364 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Kageseigi.2150 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Isn't it designed for +1 on node? In other word, 2+ v X

To my knowledge, it was never designed for that, but has simply evolved into it.It's an assassin class... that has lost its relative lethality. A sad, sad thing.

As Leo said above, a Thief was meant to be the apex predator. The best defense was to not get isolated... as it should be today.The sight of an enemy Thief should strike fear into the heart of any lone player... and the knowledge that an unseen Thief could strike at any moment should leave one in a persistent cold sweat.

The thief don't need high damage modifyer to kill a target in 1v1, it only need to properly engage it and control it.

That is quite incorrect, while Thief needs (and can) to control a fight, it definitely needs dmg (and it's modifier) to actually win 1v1s since almost every other profession has not only a lot higher dmg but also a lot higher survivability.

You make me remember this guy that was wrecking it's foe 1v1 with only dagger off-hand equiped. He would probably have a good laugh reading you.

[Alatar.7364]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Kageseigi.2150 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Isn't it designed for +1 on node? In other word, 2+ v X

To my knowledge, it was never designed for that, but has simply evolved into it.It's an assassin class... that has lost its relative lethality. A sad, sad thing.

As Leo said above, a Thief was meant to be the apex predator. The best defense was to not get isolated... as it should be today.The sight of an enemy Thief should strike fear into the heart of any lone player... and the knowledge that an unseen Thief could strike at any moment should leave one in a persistent cold sweat.

The thief don't need high damage modifyer to kill a target in 1v1, it only need to properly engage it and control it.

That is quite incorrect, while Thief needs (and can) to control a fight, it definitely needs dmg (and it's modifier) to actually win 1v1s since almost every other profession has not only a lot higher dmg but also a lot higher survivability.

You make me remember this guy that was wrecking it's foe 1v1 with only dagger off-hand equiped. He would probably have a good laugh reading you.

Since when does killing complete and utter thrash pvpers with anything counts as argument for... anything?

By the way I was killing people with dagger off hand, ... they were complete newbies. Not an argument.

[SoulSin.5682]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Kageseigi.2150 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Isn't it designed for +1 on node? In other word, 2+ v X

To my knowledge, it was never designed for that, but has simply evolved into it.It's an assassin class... that has lost its relative lethality. A sad, sad thing.

As Leo said above, a Thief was meant to be the apex predator. The best defense was to not get isolated... as it should be today.The sight of an enemy Thief should strike fear into the heart of any lone player... and the knowledge that an unseen Thief could strike at any moment should leave one in a persistent cold sweat.

The thief don't need high damage modifyer to kill a target in 1v1, it only need to properly engage it and control it.

That is quite incorrect, while Thief needs (and can) to control a fight, it definitely needs dmg (and it's modifier) to actually win 1v1s since almost every other profession has not only a lot higher dmg but also a lot higher survivability.

You make me remember this guy that was wrecking it's foe 1v1 with only dagger off-hand equiped. He would probably have a good laugh reading you.

If we are to bring an argument like that, we could as well mention the

I mean, Look at this Engineer

in the same month as (read: same meta) the video above. I mean this MUST be a illusion of a Mesmer, since there is NO WAY an ABSOLUTELY Broken class that can beat players unarmed would lose 3... wait ,gasp, not 3, 4x1 against an Engi.

Good players wreck bad players. Arguments like that makes any balance discussion completely pointless.

.

Either way, returning to the topic:I believe that the idea of changing EW is indeed to focus ANET intentions on Thief +1 capabilitys. Basically the way EW works no is that we deal less damage in 1x1 or 2x1 situations, but at the same time we deal extra damage when +1 team fights since an focused opponent will probably have more than 5 conditions on it. It also work as extra damage for Thieves on PvE content as the bosses are pretty much granted to have every possible condition on it, raising the thief damage by around 20%+. (works like old Malice system, except that it now works for core thieves as well).

About blinding powder, I am 100% sure I saw a topic in the Thief section a long time ago asking to make BP a stunbreaker. I can make a guess that the 0,25 sec of the skill is to counterbalance this change, as of now the skill became an almost perfect escape utility (Stun breaker, stability, stealth, and can still be traited to gain Regen, initiative and cure conditions).

I mean... losing the instant factor of the skill is indeed a bummer for you and if the blind is more important than stealth and stunbreak, you can still use the Signet of Shadows for pretty much the same effect and some extras, half the cooldown and an extra passive effect.

[Kageseigi.2150]

@"SoulSin.5682" said:I mean, Look at this Engineer

in the same month as (read: same meta) the video above. I mean this MUST be a illusion of a Mesmer, since there is NO WAY an ABSOLUTELY Broken class that can beat players unarmed would lose 3... wait ,gasp, not 3, 4x1 against an Engi.

Man, I miss watching Yishis' videos! To be fair, he could 1v4 with his Thief also in those days. Sadly, the Thief has been heavily nerfed since then, so no more videos :-(

[Arlowslol.1974]

just give back the old EW trait, we dont need this new one

[godmoney.6025]

@babazhook.6805 said:Really there no reason one should not be able to keep up 3 conditions on an enemy in any mode even if it a 1v1 including WvW. I really do not think a 4 percent hit to damage out will suddenly break a build.

Outside d/p power there more ready access to Conditions such as weakness/cripple torment.

Yeah Babaz, I agree 4% does not a broken build make. But it's a slippery slope. Patch after patch a 4% here on a trait, a 12% there to a certain skill, another 20% there to another skill or trait and suddenly after a year of nerfs you find yourself having to almost run full berzerker gear in WVW to match the damage that some other classes get in running almost full marauders (whilst having 6k more life), etc.

[Kulvar.1239]

@Specialka.7290 said:Usually rogue are the 1v1 king, and at gw2 release, the thief was no exception. But patch after patch, thief is now a +1 and a decap class. Basically, it is not a duelist, some other class do that role far better (Mesmer, Warrior for instance).

I always considered that rogues (no matter which game) are not meant to go solo, but use their stealth/mobility to turn XvX into X+1vX and their utility/control skills to turn XvX into XvX-1 so their team get the upper hand more often if played well.

[Xyonon.3987]

I couldn't agree more, they can't possibly leave this like that for a whole 3 months til the next patch. Reverting Exposed Weakness seems to be a good idea, since this helps Thief in pvp and also gives a 10% nerf in PvE for Deadeye he desperately needs.

[babazhook.6805]

@godmoney.6025 said:

@"babazhook.6805" said:Really there no reason one should not be able to keep up 3 conditions on an enemy in any mode even if it a 1v1 including WvW. I really do not think a 4 percent hit to damage out will suddenly break a build.

Outside d/p power there more ready access to Conditions such as weakness/cripple torment.

Yeah Babaz, I agree 4% does not a broken build make. But it's a slippery slope. Patch after patch a 4% here on a trait, a 12% there to a certain skill, another 20% there to another skill or trait and suddenly after a year of nerfs you find yourself having to almost run full berzerker gear in WVW to match the damage that some other classes get in running almost full marauders (whilst having 6k more life), etc.

Well to be blunt , I do not think it as all bad as is being made out. I have posted the postives on the DE changes and am having a lot of fun with those. If you look a the posts on the PVE side, Thief damage went up overall.

That said back to this change in particular. When looking at the larger picture, I tend to favor Traits that see a person having to work a bit harder with more active gampelay so as to garner these bonuses. This not to say there should not be these flat bonuses BUT the fact remains that in its old form EW was about as close to a "Passive" as you could get and forcing a thief to work just a little bit to get this bonus ramped up is not necessarily a bad thing. Obviously I am speaking to WvW here and the type of gameplay I favor as EVERYTHING changes when you in a massive group where the amount of boons and conditions thrown around go way up.

Now to the notion of "The slippery slope" and thief being nerfed in every patch. There a whole lot of hyperbole here and the clearest case I can make for that is Swindlers Equilibrium which was also "nerfed". There was a long period of time where an evade merely lowered the Steal cooldown by a second on an evade. It also only had a 5 percent bonus to sword. That bonus to sword was increased to 7 and then to ten. That steal cooldown saw a FULL reset of the steal. I do not think anyone can claim these as NERFS and I think looking at it objectively that FULL steal reset might have been a bit of an overtune. I rely on this skill heavily and still find it much better then it was on first release and find it more than just a little useable.

I will state that as far as the nerfs go overall I think ANET might have pushed the enevelope a bit too much when it came to those changes to Impaling Lotus, Uncatacable and Potent Poison. I am not particularly opposed to any one of these but think hitting THREE traits at once rather then 1 or 2 of them might have went too far . I am not having issues with my own Condition build and as far as i can see it works better, but Core and Daredevil Condition builds were not THAT over the top. I think they could have hit two of the three with changes made and left the other alone.

(Bewildering ambush was also changed but that was not necessarily a nerf as contrary to patch notes total stacks went up on use from 5 to 6)

[Vornollo.5182]

Well, looking at consistent DPS, we've actually gone up. Only applies to PvE, because I don't think anyone will seriously run with Dagger Training in any form of PvP, queue the gimmick builds...But yeah, our man-for-man damage got lowered, but most defenses on other classes (and a fair bit of offense) also got lowered.So overall, our hits look lower, but the impact really stays the same across the board if we're being honest.So the Exposed Weakness nerf does suck for us on a personal level, but it's fair across the board for the bigger picture.Can't advocate balance if you're not willing to take equal hits.

Blinding Powder changes... Requires a lot of getting used to, keep on stowing its cast... Only reason I dislike it right now is because it actually feels like a dumbing down of the class. We had many very clutch options available to it with its instant cast and I'll really miss those. So for that reason I would also like to see this changed.However, since it got/gets generally used on D/P setups, having an extra stunbreak is great, because D/P builds really struggle with the stuns ect. that are currently in the meta.It's very double sided... But personally I prefer Thief and its skills in a spot where you got to think about how you play. Nice change for casuals though. But yeah, dumbing down isn't always good. There's a huge group of gamers that enjoy getting punished for bad/unintelligent play, just take a look at the popularity of the Dark Souls series ect.BP will be a real Hate-Love relationship, but like all other Thief Changes, I'll make it work one way or another... Just got to keep on adapting.