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Shadow Arts changes are huge nerfs.


UNOwen.7132

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So, now that we can actually see the numbers of the SA changes, I gotta say its disappointing how bad they are. Cloaked in Shadows, instead of making you totally immune to critical hits, gives you 66 healing per blind. Thats right. 66. You have to blind 30 times, just to heal as much damage as you wouldve prevented when not getting crit by a 2000 damage hit. The trait is so bad that even if you buffed its healing potency by 10 times, it would still be bad. And instead of getting 33% reduced damage when stealthed, we get 300 health per stealth attack. Likewise, terrible. And even the stacking spider venom in stealth thing sucks, you get 1 stack of spidervenom every 3 seconds. You have to stay in stealth forever just to hope to get an at all relevant amount of stacks.

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  • Cloacked in shadow is disappointing indeed (siphon on blind), had huge potential, but it just creates a small "side bonus effect that works quietly for you in the background"... you can't relay on it to heal you/really push for extra damages. Taking into account that blind can affect often 3-5 targets at a time, the healing figure could double to 150-240-ish and I think it would be "okay" given the multitargets capacity, and the fact that we have some blind "pulse" skills. Healing scale nicely, but not dmg... so I guess it's optimal for condi/heal build rather than power ones as it adds too little dmg per power point.

  • Shadow siphoning (siphon on stealth attack) is "meh" compared to what we had, but can provide 1.1k heal on mender amulet in PvP for our allies (haha)

  • Leeching venom isn't too bad if you just consider it has getting 1 poison stack whenever you stealth and sometimes 2 if you stay tiny bit longer... but why not create a trait "stealth attack now poison foes?" Maybe so that it can apply on non-stealth attack too if you miss it or go for something else? Decent synergy with the shortbow if you use the DA traits for poison too... 4 stacks, insta daze but in fact, you don't need it given DA should give you 3 stacks with its potent venom traited... so all in all? It's not that great, it just adds a tiny bit of poison here/there.

  • Love the stealth on heal tho, and the new preparation skills - much better than expected!

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i just tried the shadow savior trait with shortbow 5 and with full healing gear i would heal anywhere between 1200 to 1500. do that 3 times with trickery for 18 initiative and you heal for 4500 and gotta wait for your initiative to build back up. i struggled to heal 3 people. so its not worth taking better off taking leaching venoms.

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I'm still curious to see how SA works in an actual game though.

Considering D/P with DA/Tr/SA:

  • Only traits to consider would be Shadow's Embrace (Adept), Flickering Shadows (Master), and Shadow's Rejuv or Rending Shade (Grandmaster)
  • Stealth on heal + additional speed while stealthed does give you some good mobility since you can withdraw and rotate while stealthed for decaps. I don't know that it makes up for the loss of Dash from DrD though.
  • Portal is likely to become a staple for a utility slot on meta builds and the stealth it grants would combo well with movement speed
  • Flickering Shadows is decent for defense since you take more damage while revealed than stealthed and is basically an unstrippable protection, but you're still better avoiding damage than trying to tank it.
  • Randing Shade might be ok against some classes, but there's just not much boon strip with bountiful theft alone. Also, does it have an internal cooldown?

The biggest problem is likely that you just don't gain any damage from SA aside from some life siphon and without lead attacks, D/P probably wouldn't work. Kinda sad. I'm guessing the biggest impact of this patch (for PvP) might just be that S/D builds will take portal and that dagger storm will be rightfully nerfed.

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The good:The baseline changes to the minor traitlines are all good.

The bad:Leeching Venoms: May be a bug, but for me it pulses the venom after a few seconds, losing synergy you could have had with weakening strikes on DD if you want to attack immediately. The 20% CD was almost as good or even better IMO.Shadow Siphoning sucks, it's now a PVE/Zerg trait, only useful when blinding multiple targets.Rending Shade: Appears to have a longish internal CD per target for the new fear, or a range limitation (sneak attack doesnt appear to work?). If its gonna have this then it should at least inflict the fear if they have boons on a strike which leaves them with none (i.e. use a stealth attack on someone with 2 boons). Old trait was better IMO.

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As expected, Venom traits, and Venoms in general are just garbage.

Also, it directly competes with Shadow Savior as well, which tbh, is ridiculously strong, especially for WvW and PvP.

Each Shadow Step heals around 300 hp, when combined with Assassin's Reward from Acrobatics, make S/D Thieves extremely durable with roughly 700 heal per cast of Sword 2.

Go ahead and try SA DA Acro, it's off the top dueling potential.

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Kitty now got to testing the new Shadow Arts and it looks...nice. The Dark Saviour-trait actually provides the teef with huge amount of outgoing heals if you decide to spam Infiltrator's Strike and Return. And if you combine that spam with Deadeye's Fire For Effect and Trickery's boons...nyahahahaha...8NDmBiV.jpg

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Preparations, long setup times, they are essentially nerfed traps (portal is OK)Hidden Thief/Shadows Embrace, nerf (have to pick between it and condi removal now)Cloaked in Shadow, nerf (blinding players while stealthed procs reveal... mmmmkkkk)Dagger Training, nerfLeeching Venoms, nerf (I didn't believe that was possible)Dagger Storm, nerfDeadly Ambition, nerf (the trap was actually better)bugs, yep there are plenty... nerfffffffffff!

@roamzero.9486 said:The baseline changes to the minor traitlines are all good.Except for losing the 33% damage reduction while stealthed. Ouch.

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@Dahkeus.8243 said:

@Straegen.2938 said:Except for losing the 33% damage reduction while stealthed. Ouch.

I have a feeling that the preference for 33% damage reduction in stealth vs revealed has a lot to do with preference for WvW vs sPvP.

i really wish it was split in game modes to have a 33% damage reduction while in stealth for wvw but a 33% damage reduction while revealed in pvp. their refusal to split balance between game modes is really fucking things over for everyone because something over performs elsewhere so it gets nerfed as a whole.

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So I tried out a "support thief" build, the results were ehh...

With full harriers gear running the new SA traits (top row) + trickery and Deadeye boons build, the max i was able to heal for (on allies + food/utility) was between 1400-1660 using Shadow shot/infiltrators + blinding fields and while this build had great uptime for (25) Might, Fury, Swiftness and Vigor (all possible before today) the healing and healing radius were extremely lacking in any scenario where dedicated heals would actually be needed (In PvE at least, though I imagine it not working at all in PvP/WvW) and the damage was about the same as my harriers Rev auto-attacking.

While it MAY be possible to keep a GOOD fractal group alive in NON-CM fractals using this.. meme build, thief still lacks the core parts of a support spec that make it desirable in any group over current meta classes like Rev / Firebrand. Thief lacks ANY form of group condi cleanse, protection/regen access, quickness or alacrity, any sort of unique class specific buffs and either good DPS (for support) OR good healing output.

It also lacks any sort of on-demand burst healing outside of skelk venom for people who aren't tightly stacked and a lot of healing (including ressing downed allies) relies on them staying in stealth and dealing no damage which literally NEVER happens.

Oh and thief also has no traits that give +OutgoingHealing% which means that all you get comes from food/utilities and Runes/Sigils which amounts to 50% at most, with such low base values on Dark Savior this barely amounts to 500 additional outgoing healing (raising it from 1050 > ~1500).

All-in-all it's fairly disappointing to see traits like this dropped in the game seemingly teasing the possibility of an actual support play style for a thief but in actuality fail to deliver even when running FULL support gear, without that these traits are such a joke they might as well not even exist.

Perhaps this is some sort of set-up for a future elite spec that will attempt to realize the dream of a true "support thief".

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I'm fairly non-plussed with it myself. I didn't use SA much before this, and I won't be using it after. Well, aside from the fact that none of these traits have any PVE use.

Concealed Restoration: Probably the best addition here when combined with withdraw.
Meld with Shadows: It's meh. This is one of those traits that makes you wonder why it isn't baked in standard to all of the skills and traits it is trying to enhance.
Shadow Siphoning: This is bad. Neither the siphon damage nor healing will be enough to matter. To compare, revenants have a similar trait that does this much on every flanked strike.

Merciful Ambush: Most players are smart enough to know you're still there and will clobber you.
Shadow's Embrace: How little this trait does is quite saddening. It removes damaging condies... very slowly.Hidden Thief: Though this messes with a lot of people's rotations, this is still a pretty necessary skill to have. It's not bad, but people will take Shadow's Embrace so they won't have to alter their playstyle.

Shadow Savior: I have no idea what they're trying to accomplish with this trait. I'm assuming they're trying to make some kind of janky healing where you spam sword 2 to heal a group, but that sounds pretty bad overall. For anything other than a gimmicky build, this trait is outclassed by the next one.Leeching Venom: Instead of moving the venom traits to the DA tier like we wanted, they doubled down and made a silly trait instead. The amount of damage this skill applies is really low. The only use this trait will get is the healing nerf and the self healing from the occasional spat of poison. The worst part about this trait is that Anet will think it is good, because their metrics will show that everyone who takes Shadow Arts specs into Leeching Venoms. The reality is that the other traits here are just bad.Flickering Shadows: Maybe I'm still hung up on all the burst builds, but I assume the point of it all is to kill or CC your opponent from stealth. Detection Pulse was just unceremoniously deleted, and with a lack of any good reveal skills I see little reason to take this trait. Effectively it says "reduce incomming damage in the midsts of molly-whopping a disabled foe." Also, revealed lasts for a VERY short time.

Cloaked in Shadow: The life siphon is, again, utterly useless. It neither deals enough damage to matter, nor does it heal enough to matter. At this point, I'm wondering if Anet is just trying to see how much they can tax their own servers.Shadow's Rejuvenation: Well, it completely dusts Cloaked in Shadow in the healing department. I imagine most people take this one because there isn't any better options. At least... there wasn't for awhile.Rending Shade: The only other trait in this line that I actually like. I've said a few times in the past that thieves need better ways to steal boons, because having locked to sword/dagger and Bountiful Theft meant that the Thief was actually pretty bad at it. They couldn't steal boons at a distance, or in mass, or without bellying up, or without running very specific traits/weapons.. This trait... doesn't really solve that problem. The best thing to do would've been to give boon stealing to some of the utilities, like scorpion wire or the new preparation skills. That way it could be done universally and safely. BUT, this trait does allow you to take boons without having to give up trickster, and there are ranged stealth attacks to make use of this. So overall, it is a step in the right direction.

With nothing bombastic or particularly notable about any of these traits, Shadow Arts just feels like the line that Deadeye's are forced in, in order to function properly.

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@"LadyKitty.6120" said:Kitty now got to testing the new Shadow Arts and it looks...nice. The Dark Saviour-trait actually provides the teef with huge amount of outgoing heals if you decide to spam Infiltrator's Strike and Return. And if you combine that spam with Deadeye's Fire For Effect and Trickery's boons...nyahahahaha...8NDmBiV.jpg

Hey kitty, do you know if that outgoing heal applies to ALL shadow steps? It seems like people are only looking at it in combo with shortbow. And not taking into account that a massive chunk of the thiefs kit has some form of shadowstep.

Infiltrators arrow. Shadow Shot. The S/D. Infiltrators signet. Shadow portal. Shadow step. Steal. Deaths Retreat. The shadowstep from downed state.

If there was a good way to mix power and healing for thief, I can see it being used for WVW, as thieves do a lot of shadow stepping in combat. It would certainly offset the low HP Pool and may save DD if ANET does something about initiative cost and trickery

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@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:Has anyone tested Concealing Restoration with Hide in Shadows heal yet? When I tried it awhile ago, it didn’t seem to stack the stealth you gained from that trait and Meld with Shadows. I should be counting 6s, but am only seeing 4s.

If you're running SA, Hide in Shadows should give you 7s of stealth 3s from base heal skill + 1 from Meld + 3s from concealing restoration = 7s total. It works for me, you can test it yourself by looking at HiS's Cooldown it should be at 22-23 seconds when the stealth wears off depending on latency.

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@Nomad.4301 said:

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:Has anyone tested Concealing Restoration with Hide in Shadows heal yet? When I tried it awhile ago, it didn’t seem to stack the stealth you gained from that trait and Meld with Shadows. I should be counting 6s, but am only seeing 4s.

If you're running SA, Hide in Shadows should give you 7s of stealth 3s from base heal skill + 1 from Meld + 3s from concealing restoration = 7s total. It works for me, you can test it yourself by looking at HiS's Cooldown it should be at 22-23 seconds when the stealth wears off depending on latency.

I tested, and it works for me, hide in shadows last super long and I love it

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@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@"LadyKitty.6120" said:Kitty now got to testing the new Shadow Arts and it looks...nice. The Dark Saviour-trait actually provides the teef with huge amount of outgoing heals if you decide to spam Infiltrator's Strike and Return. And if you combine that spam with Deadeye's Fire For Effect and Trickery's boons...nyahahahaha...
8NDmBiV.jpg

Hey kitty, do you know if that outgoing heal applies to ALL shadow steps? It seems like people are only looking at it in combo with shortbow. And not taking into account that a massive chunk of the thiefs kit has some form of shadowstep.

Infiltrators arrow. Shadow Shot. The S/D. Infiltrators signet. Shadow portal. Shadow step. Steal. Deaths Retreat. The shadowstep from downed state.

If there was a good way to mix power and healing for thief, I can see it being used for WVW, as thieves do a lot of shadow stepping in combat. It would certainly offset the low HP Pool and may save DD if ANET does something about initiative cost and trickery

Yes it does work for ALL shadowsteps, but it's still not usable without investing heavily into healing gear/sigils/runes/food etc... If you try to use it in combat for personal sustain without healing power you're going to be healed for a whopping 300 per shadowstep, at which point you might as well take Invigorating Precision in CS as that gives more damage then SA and more sustain.

Edit* Actually even WITH around 1300 Healing Power the self-heal is still only around 500 which is NOT worth the stat investment IMO.

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@bluri.2653 said:SA as a whole has absolute zero use. You cant create a support traitline when theres no weaponset/design to help where it needs help. Essentially they are wasting time on changes that will end up being useless ?

I mean originally it wasnt one, and it still primarily isnt, its supposed to be a stealth-focused traitline, but it suffers from the fact that stealth isnt good in-combat, and that the traits arent.

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