Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

Thief:
…
Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait.
…

Unfortunately, it appears to me that these efforts did not have their intended effect.
Some observations and a question to the Devs.

Hard to catch
This trait is basically a handicap in trait form. Being moved in a random direction, for a random distance when hit with a CC, Even if you have stability, and most importantly at the whim of another player, does not increase survivability. It’s disorienting, can force you off points, and doesn’t even clear the control effect. The range as well is much too short to be useful – being moved a maximum of 600 away from the target that CC’d you does almost nothing . Any melee class can close that gap in a second, and every non-thief has access to 1200 range (or better) weapons. Generally in most MMO’s, being moved by an effect you don’t initiate or control would be considered a CC effect, not anything positive.
How did Anet envision this increasing thief survivability?

Assassin’s Reward
This change has 2 problems.

• It’s a change in healing power scaling.
  What thief has room in their build for healing power? Perhaps a Venom share build dedicated to healing their teammates and doing almost no damage themselves might find use in stacking high healing power, but Venom share doesn’t have 30 points for the acro line anyway, so it’s a moot point.

• 35% more healing power scaling equates to 1 additional point of health healed per init spent for every 100 healing power you have, when compared to pre Dec 10th AR.
  How did this math justify a bump from Master to Grand master? The trait wasn’t a “good trait” when it was in the Master tier, and the buff is essentially non existent. How could someone crunch the numbers, see what an extremely minor effect that this change was going to have, and still push it through as a buff?

Could someone from Anet come and have a discussion with us, concerning how we are supposed to use these acrobatics changes to increase our survivability? Failing that (I honestly can’t think of an argument that would sway me into beleiving these changes increased survivability), could we discuss how to change/improve them in the next patch so that thief has some options for survivability via the Acrobatics traitline, as you intended?

Hard to catch won’t ever be a reasonable pick with its implementation.
When you take these anti-CC traits its to aid you when CC’d. Most of them do this. Mes mirroring the CC, ranger transfering it, Necros fear blasting, Warriors get stability. Engineers if I recall get a smoke field which is mediocre though.

I’d take 20% CC reduction and gain swiftness when stunned over current implementation. Simplistic and effective. Throw a rune of Melandru on myself and see how things work out.

traits should have the right to be standalone without putting melandru to push effect to work

You wouldn’t need Melandru for it to be effective.
20% cc reduction is considerably beneficial on a base level, significantly more and consistently more than some cheesey warp. I’m just consciously considering the benefits of stacking. Though I suppose a trait should blatantly slap someone in the face for it to be considered effective.

Hard to Catch should be completely reworked.

SaltyDave.7346:

Hard to Catch should be completely reworked.

How about removed and replaced with something useful like small duration of stability when hit by cc.

I am impressed you didn’t listed Last Refuge.

Not sure what build they are balancing assassins reward around. Cleric s/d boon stripping? Shaman d/d deathblossom signet of malice(explains move to g.master at least)? I mean come on lol

SoulSin.5682:

I am impressed you didn’t listed Last Refuge.

I can’t imagine they’re unaware of the issues with Last Refuge at this point – it’s been brought up 1,000 times at least. These Acro changes are fresh, and nigh-worthless. They need to be addressed, especially considering Anets stated intention was to increase survivability in Acrobatics.

ens.9854:

Not sure what build they are balancing assassins reward around. Cleric s/d boon stripping? Shaman d/d deathblossom signet of malice(explains move to g.master at least)? I mean come on lol

Even if they were, 1 additional HP per 100 healing power is a mathematically insignificant change (much less a “buff”). Consider – a thief’s absolute minimum health with 30 points in acro is ~13800. if you took 1200 healing power (not exactly realistic, but I’m specifically choosing an unrealistically high number for emphasis), that would equate to 144 additional healing over 12 spent initiative – that’s worthless to a thief running the minimum health they can with 30 points in Acro (also not realistic).

How this got pushed through as a buff is beyond reason.

Very much agreed. It’s not like I ever really enjoyed perma-stealthing or perma-dodging, but we don’t have much of a choice when it comes to survival. We’re squishy as heck. Now those original methods were nerfed (perma-stealthing, I admit, needed to be addressed) but the supposed compensations don’t live up to their promises.

No offense to ArenaNet, but balancing the Thief class seems to be unreasonably challenging for them. I personally think that in general, they focus too much on feedback from whiners and players who can’t be bothered to adjust to fights of a different pace which is the case when engaging a Thief.

Hopefully this sub-forum can change that. But then again, it’s my opinion.

Hard to Catch is an awful trait that can actually increase the effectiveness of enemy CC. A knockdown with Hard to Catch essentially becomes a Launch as not only will you be on the ground but you’ll also be moved back from the enemy. It can and does kill you by moving you out of Shadow Refuge when you are stunned or dazed, which normally wouldn’t matter. It can also result in failed stomps that would have otherwise succeeded as you will be teleported out of stomp range (“to safety”) even if you have stability. I’m just glad it’s a Major trait so I can ignore it completely until they decide to actually make it useful. If it was a Minor trait like Last Refuge I’d avoid speccing into Acrobatics just to avoid it.

Assassin’s Reward is just not good enough to be a Grandmaster tier trait. Even in it’s “buffed” state it will heal you for less than Shadow Rejuvenation, the Grandmaster in Shadow Arts. If we’re going to have two grandmaster traits that both deal with healing, they need to be either on par with each other or Assassin’s Reward needs a secondary effect to distinguish itself. What that secondary effect should be is debatable, but personally I would make it group-support oriented. Thieves currently lack many support options other than Venomshare, which is another grandmaster trait, so a redesign here could potentially do wonders for Thief build diversity.

Assassin Reward should not be scaling with Healing Power and get an increased baseheal to 100 hp by spending 1 Initiative /or if unchanged like now, there should be a condiremoval by spending an amount of Initiative.
The Regeneration by this trait is more important for Long fights , because THAT heal cannot be interuppted/canceled by other classes like a Regeneration boon.

Enenion.8127:

Assassin’s Reward is just not good enough to be a Grandmaster tier trait. Even in it’s “buffed” state it will heal you for less than Shadow Rejuvenation, the Grandmaster in Shadow Arts. If we’re going to have two grandmaster traits that both deal with healing, they need to be either on par with each other or Assassin’s Reward needs a secondary effect to distinguish itself. What that secondary effect should be is debatable, but personally I would make it group-support oriented. Thieves currently lack many support options other than Venomshare, which is another grandmaster trait, so a redesign here could potentially do wonders for Thief build diversity.

The comparison to Shadow Rejuv isn’t exactly fair – Shadow rejuv has alot of drawbacks (Can’t cap in stealth, can’t attack, less access to in-stealth time when compared to “spending initiative”)

Group support would be nice, but that wasn’t the goal of Anet’s changes – they wanted to improve thief survivability. They need to up the base heal to at least 100 per init spent (which would still put Assassin’s reward below Regeneration in per second healing), and then we can see where we go from there.

or something like (mean something else like this)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Thief-Power-of-Inertia-non-stealth-supp/first#post3482088

the healing of Assassin Reward should simply not stacking while in stealthed with the Shadow Rejuvenation healing, that would separate healing pools and prevent thiefs from traiting x/x/30/30/x healing troll