1 torment per malicious sneak attack?!

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

what the kitten are you thinking? p/d was making a comeback and now you just killed it!

[Lucinellia.9247]

It is horrible. About a 3k DPS nerf. Repeater moving to 3 initiative was terrible and made condi Deadeye barely equivalent in DPS to other professions that can bring utility, cleave, support and target switching without an incredibly punishing rotation. Now it is pointless.

 

The balance has been a joke and it is clear from the beginning that Anet had no idea cDE even existed before the 11th May patch. To claim to want build diversity for a profession and then make one of its few builds worse than it was before the large balance patch is terrible.

I'm really struggling to understand Anet's balancing around Thief. Why are other professions able to do more damage, with easier rotations, while bringing utility, support and cleave?

Edited June 8, 2021 by Lucinellia.9247

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

because they are idiots that dont play thief.

6 minutes ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

It is horrible. About a 3k DPS nerf. Repeater moving to 3 initiative was terrible and made condi Deadeye barely equivalent in DPS to other professions that can bring utility, cleave, support and target switching without an incredibly punishing rotation. Now it is pointless.

 

The balance has been a joke and it is clear from the beginning that Anet had no idea cDE even existed before the 11th May patch. To claim to want build diversity for a profession and then make one of its few builds worse than it was before the large balance patch is terrible.

I'm really struggling to understand Anet's balancing around Thief. Why are other professions able to do more damage, with easier rotations, while bringing utility, support and cleave?

 

[Lucinellia.9247]

I loved being a cDE main in PvE. Was one for like a year and a half. Finally sorting cDD though, a playstyle I loathe. cDE isn't worth it anymore.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

4 minutes ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

I loved being a cDE main in PvE. Was one for like a year and a half. Finally sorting cDD though, a playstyle I loathe. cDE isn't worth it anymore.

they dont listen to anyone in the thief community and barely listen to the rest of the players at that. i think its time to put guild wars back in the closet.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

All part of anets plan to increase build diversity,im honestly starting to think anets purposefully killing their own game for reasons we'll learn down the rd, that or these devs are seriously.......... and are in the wrong business.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Yeah, this is just all kinds of awful really. 

[Virgarth.6354]

In the first place i would like to say thanks to a friend of mine fot letting me know about this last "amazing" update.... 

In second place i would like to make you notice that as i said in my previous thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/96179-basically-thinking-we-are-a-bunch-of-idiots/?tab=comments#comment-1373994

i guess the answer would be probably yes, they are thinking so...

 

What now?? i would like to hear the usual comment "shadow strike is not the main source of torment" or the most rated "those are just minor nerfs, you don't know what are you talking about"... Please, cmon, i wanna laugh a little bit more considering the fact that it was me in the first place to say that griefing is a different thing from balancing....

 

Waiting for the usual comments and keep laughing in the meantime.... XD'' 

 

Best regards, the reroller/quitter/knows-nothing about MINOR nerfs.... Enjoy

[Lucinellia.9247]

I saw those comments in your previous thread. The people claiming that the nerfs in the last update were minor clearly don't understand PvE thief or play condi Deadeye in any sort of challenging PvE content. Condi Deadeye was in a bad spot following the initiative change and is now in a terrible place as of the 08/06 patch. About 35k DPS, with allies, without CC, support, utility, cleave or target swapping. Rotation is still far too punishing, opening burst has gone and positioning requirements are insane for a spec that brings so little.

 

Absolutely appalling balance decisions by Anet and clearly not thought through. Or, if it has been thought through, someone on the balance team really doesn't like Deadeye.

[TwiceDead.1963]

Don't see where this came from. Thought they corrected thiefs "overperformance" when they altered the initiative cost. To be promoting build diversity they sure are quick to correct those changes.

Edited June 8, 2021 by TwiceDead.1963

[Lucinellia.9247]

With the initiative change cost and the removal of some Bleeding and Torment we were comparable to condition DPS specs that had lovely bonuses that condi Deadeye didn't have:

1. Cleave!
2. CC!
3. Support!
4. Utility!
5. Target switching!
6. A rotation that isn't insanely punishing and teleported you backwards!

Now we are worse than other condition options and don't have any of the above. Wonderful balance. 

[Infusion.7149]

3 minutes ago, TwiceDead.1963 said:

Don't see where this came from. Thought they corrected thiefs "overperformance" when they altered the initiative cost. To be promoting build diversity they sure are quick to correct those changes.

I thought the same, but since Malicious Sneak Attack is exclusive to pistol mainhand I suspect the attempt is to make dagger the predominant condi weapon for thieves.

I.e.

 

[Lucinellia.9247]

That doesn't help build diversity for Thief though, especially when cDD was already performing better than cDE due to whirl finishers and better stolen skills yet it just received a buff to Lotus Training. Ideally both cDE and cDD should be reasonable choices.

[Infusion.7149]

Just now, Lucinellia.9247 said:

That doesn't help build diversity for Thief though, especially when cDD was already performing better than cDE due to whirl finishers and better stolen skills yet it just received a buff to Lotus Training. Ideally both cDE and cDD should be reasonable choices.

You have to look at context though, condi deadeye would be far more effective in Sunqua Peak for example (meaning your gripe about cleave is more or less meaningless there). In addition, across the board they have tried to keep melee range damage higher than ranged damage.

[Lucinellia.9247]

4 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You have to look at context though, condi deadeye would be far more effective in Sunqua Peak for example (meaning your gripe about cleave is more or less meaningless there). In addition, across the board they have tried to keep melee range damage higher than ranged damage.

It was effective in one fractal and that was entirely due to venom prestacking due to Mistlock - something that remains in effect and will also apply to condi Daredevil. The composition in which it was effective was also entirely stacked to favour cDE and the manner in which venoms interact with the Mistlock by pushing for a very short fight time which moves the DPS end point closer to the initial spike of venom stacks from Mistlock Singularity.

Scourge and Renegade can both DPS at range, yet have remained untouched.

What about my other points regarding the weaknesses of cDE? Cleave is indeed an issue but lack of target switching, support, utility and CC against DPS that does higher is arguably much more of a concern.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Lucinellia.9247

[Infusion.7149]

6 minutes ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

It was effective in one fractal and that was entirely due to venom prestacking due to Mistlock - something that remains in effect and will also apply to condi Daredevil. The composition in which it was effective was also entirely stacked to favour cDE and the manner in which venoms interact with the Mistlock by pushing for a very short fight time which moves the DPS end point closer to the initial spike of venom stacks from Mistlock Singularity.

Scourge and Renegade can both DPS at range, yet have remained untouched.

What about my other points regarding the weaknesses of cDE? Cleave is indeed an issue but lack of target switching, support, utility and CC against DPS that does higher is arguably much more of a concern.

I actually thought scourge would have been hit again this patch to be honest. Renegade on the other hand while it can do DPS at range, has quite a bit of the condition coming in melee range and it was hit in this patch slightly as well although arguably not enough. If you only range then you're relegated to shortbow +  Razorclaw + Citadel Bombardment.

• Invoke Torment = 240 radius
• Embrace the Darkness = 240 radius
   

[Lucinellia.9247]

I think that is the biggest issue against a 35k DPS cDE. Ren, Scourge and cFB all do much more DPS while still offering CC, utility and support. All of them also have less punishing rotations. Remember that if you are pushed to range on cDE, you are also relegated to a limited tool set very quickly as you only have sustained range for the duration of Repeater which is only 4 seconds!

No comment on the CC, utility and support?

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

Just noticed that the torment is base damage and not scaling with condi gear... tooltip showing 90 damage while NOT moving and it looks like they slapped on BASE damage and forgot to scale it with condi gear /facepalm

[Infusion.7149]

7 minutes ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

I think that is the biggest issue against a 35k DPS cDE. Ren, Scourge and cFB all do much more DPS while still offering CC, utility and support. All of them also have less punishing rotations. Remember that if you are pushed to range on cDE, you are also relegated to a limited tool set very quickly as you only have sustained range for the duration of Repeater which is only 4 seconds!

No comment on the CC, utility and support?

The utility + support aspect is something that is a problem on pretty much on all thief DPS. The CC aspect can be mitigated with weaponswap.

[Lucinellia.9247]

2 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The utility + support aspect is something that is a problem on pretty much on all thief DPS. The CC aspect can be mitigated with weaponswap.

I am well aware of the weapon swap. It is in fact needed on fights like Dark Ai if you don't have double Scourge or a lot of CC from other players. Unfortunately, that massively drops our already low DPS while other specs can bring some CC without this being as much of an issue.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

1 hour ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

I saw those comments in your previous thread. The people claiming that the nerfs in the last update were minor clearly don't understand PvE thief or play condi Deadeye in any sort of challenging PvE content. Condi Deadeye was in a bad spot following the initiative change and is now in a terrible place as of the 08/06 patch. About 35k DPS, with allies, without CC, support, utility, cleave or target swapping. Rotation is still far too punishing, opening burst has gone and positioning requirements are insane for a spec that brings so little.

 

Absolutely appalling balance decisions by Anet and clearly not thought through. Or, if it has been thought through, someone on the balance team really doesn't like Deadeye.

 

I saw your breakdown in that thread, a lot of the comments there were just rants but yours was very well reasoned and thought out, and it did change my opinion about the initiative nerf after playing around with it a bit. I still think the other changes were relatively minor and made sense, but after this change to sneak attack now I am absolutely of the opinion they need to revert the repeater cost back to 2 ini. If the spec is gonna have sub par damage and utility, it ought to at least be fun to play. 

[Lucinellia.9247]

3 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

 

I saw your breakdown in that thread, a lot of the comments there were just rants but yours was very well reasoned and thought out, and it did change my opinion about the initiative nerf after playing around with it a bit. I still think the other changes were relatively minor and made sense, but after this change to sneak attack now I am absolutely of the opinion they need to revert the repeater cost back to 2 ini. If the spec is gonna have sub par damage and utility, it ought to at least be fun to play. 

Thank you, that is very appreciated and it is lovely to hear that.

I think cDE has been very harmfully hit by a lot of misunderstanding in the community (and Arenanet!) around the 45k "benchmark" and also how the Dark Ai 68k DPS was engineered. Prior to this patch, cDE on Dark Ai was lower DPS than many other power DPS options such as Slb and DH on power suitable fights yet that wasn't an issue. Those options also bring cleave, CC, utility and support - something that cDE lacks. I am very glad that I have been able to change at least one opinion to see that a big number under very, very specific conditions isn't an indication that something is fine!

With respect to the most recent nerf, I don't think it would be too much of a problem to keep this so long as Repeater was reverted to 2 initiative in PvE. The ramp up would still be much worse, but we could at least then take Caltrops over Mercy and Basilisk Venom over Shadow Meld, alleviating some of the issues with cDE in its current state. The rotation would also be a lot less punishing. It would still be in a bad spot and worse than pre-11th May, but at least it would be a good bit better than now. It is currently worse than before the efforts to improve Thief build diversity.

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Lucinellia.9247

[Sobx.1758]

3 hours ago, Virgarth.6354 said:

In the first place i would like to say thanks to a friend of mine fot letting me know about this last "amazing" update.... 

In second place i would like to make you notice that as i said in my previous thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/96179-basically-thinking-we-are-a-bunch-of-idiots/?tab=comments#comment-1373994

i guess the answer would be probably yes, they are thinking so...

 

What now?? i would like to hear the usual comment "shadow strike is not the main source of torment" or the most rated "those are just minor nerfs, you don't know what are you talking about"... Please, cmon, i wanna laugh a little bit more considering the fact that it was me in the first place to say that griefing is a different thing from balancing....

 

Waiting for the usual comments and keep laughing in the meantime.... XD'' 

 

Best regards, the reroller/quitter/knows-nothing about MINOR nerfs.... Enjoy

What are you even talking about here? You seem to be a bit angry about getting called out in another thread, but keep in mind that LATEST NERFS do absolutely nothing to your previous cryout about minor nerfs. Trying to claim that the previous nerf wasn't minor because the build got nerfed again later makes no sense whatsoever and it's hilarious that you look for some justification for your previous overreaction in the later patches which were further nerfs 🙄

 

What confirms it was your bad overreaction is that the build was still doing fine after that patch though, so maybe try focusing on that instead. 😄 

[Lucinellia.9247]

Previously, the build was doing "fine" if you neglected the existence of the majority of other condition damage options. Sadly, that isn't how a game works - if it did, there would be no need for balancing.

 

It was also fine but horribly punishing to play and some of the comments were even suggesting that the change to 3 initiative Repeater was okay due to an inaccurate belief about initiative gain. To suggest that 3 initiative Repeater is a minor nerf is quite the misunderstanding of the impact of the change. To mitigate the increased initiative cost a cDE needed to change their rotation, devote a healing skill to stealth access, needed to take Mercy (losing cleave and DPS) and needed to take Shadowmeld (losing CC) all while the overall DPS of the build was reduced to a level comparable to cFB which offers an awful lot more.

Of course, it really should be stressed that cDE is now in an even worse position and is pointless if your group cares about DPS. It will be fine for more casual runs if the player is good, but sitting at 35k with allies is really poor, especially with cDD now approaching 33k without allies and being able to take better advantage of whirl finishers.

The cDE change to Malicious Sneak Attack is senseless, reduces Thief build diversity and punishes an already struggling spec. It is the opposite of good and well considered balance. We really need 2 initiative Repeater back in PvE now.

Edit: Hello confused person! Please let me know what is confusing and I'll happily explain it! 💜

Edited June 8, 2021 by Lucinellia.9247

[Nomad.4301]

I was actually enjoying using cDE in fractals after the May 11th patch. It was actually somewhat refreshing to be able to use a different build for the first time in the last 5(?) years even if it was only really usable on some fights (Sunqua, shattered etc..), I even went so far as to set up a build/gear template for it. But alas I guess Anet wants thieves to do nothing but spam auto-attack on staff daredevil forevermore, because it seems like any time we're able to do anything else it gets the nerf-bat before it can even become "mainstream".

 

cDE did a lot of damage sure, but it also was probably the single most limited, annoying and single-minded build to play in the entire game. It was only good with allies around, required ALL your utilities to be set to venom/stealth (so very little cc), had ZERO cleave, it was based on projectiles so if anything got between you and your target good-bye DPS, and your main attack had the annoying side-effect of teleporting you away from your group every 5 seconds, not to mention you had to juggle initiative, malice and reveal to do the "insane" DPS that some people were posting, in short you had to both sacrifice almost everything to get that DPS and you had to WORK for it by juggling all that bs nearly perfectly throughout the fight.

 

Despite all those short-comings I actually liked playing this build as it was something a little different, a little spicier if you will. Even if in the end you were still just spamming 1-3 buttons. But I guess all Anet seen was some benchmark from a very specific setup of hardcore players and flipped out thinking every thief was running around hitting 68k DPS 24/7?

 

I'm really not sure what the problem with classes that literally can't do ANYTHING but pure DPS (and having to give up everything else for it) having slightly better DPS than classes that are essentially jack-of-all-trades e.g guardian.

 

As for Condi Daredevil, I've yet to try it post May 11 patch but if it's anything like what I remember it being (running back and forth spamming '3' constantly) then regardless of how much damage it does the DPS isn't really worth it to me as that 'rotation' is even more boring than spamming autos and dodge on staff DD. To me D/D is a power weapon set with 1 condi skill shoehorned in on a whim by some misguided dev pre-launch and was never intended to be the main source of condition damage for the entire thief profession. P/D on the other-hand was clearly designed to be a 'pure' condi set, given that every single skill in it has conditions present (even CnD has vuln), this is further reinforced by the fact that they changed it many patches ago to give it a spammable bleed application specifically to cement it as the go-to condi weapon.

 

Oh well 🤷‍♂️ guess it's back to spamming staff autos on every fight, yay.. 😂

Edited June 8, 2021 by Nomad.4301
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