Guild Wars 2

The Lost Witch.7601:

We could have an animation that shows stealth is coming.

Perhaps a cloud of blinding smoke that shows an AoE ring, and ‘blasts’ into AoE stealth a second (and a half?) later. This should give you the time to disengage?

Still not a great option – the trait should aim to be beneficial, but at worst be neutral. If your options are “Cancel my action so I can gain stealth, or follow through and get revealed for no reason”, that trait is actively hindering you in some scenarios.

evilapprentice.6379:

So a thought occurred to me.

When you use heartseeker through a blackpowder, even if you hit your target, you gain stealth – it appears as though mechanically, the stealth isn’t applied until the very end of the skill, so the fact that HS did damage does not effect you gaining stealth (IIRC, Haven’t played D/P in about a year).

Why not make last refuge operate the same way mechanically? If the thief isn’t using any skills, they are immediately stealthed – if they are in the middle of a skill, they gain stealth at the completion of the skill, as if they had leapt through a smoke field. Would that be too difficult to program that kind of split? It would solve 90% of LR’s problems.

I was thinking about that too, but more like a Cloak and Dagger type of thing mixed with Venom/Justice/Leech mechanic(affects your next hit type of mechanic).

Last Refuge: You gain Last Refuge(buff) when your health reaches 25%.
Last Refuge(buff): Your next attack grants you Stealth.

Stealth occurs after the attack(just like Cloak and Dagger). However the issue remains with this type of buff with multi-hit attacks like Unload. Only the first hit is affected, the second hit will cause you to be Revealed. If Last Refuge triggers in the middle of your Unload, we are practically back to square one.

Improved stealth (like the one CoE npc gives)?
It ignores revealed and does not grant any stealth-related bonuses

Clearly it should give aegis/prot/regen cause that seems pretty balanced kappa

I won’t say this skill hasn’t saved me, but I have sunk a lot of hours into thief and can see how it can screw over some1 new to the profession that aren’t prepared for it and treat it like a “shouldn’t need to think about it bc it’s passive” trait. (Such irony)

You could change the skill, removing the blind and changing it to a 3/4 sec evade that stops everything but reviving, should give ample time to react to its activation. Keep the stealth of course.

Also Improved stealth doesn’t seem like a bad idea either

ens.9854:

I won’t say this skill hasn’t saved me, but I have sunk a lot of hours into thief and can see how it can screw over some1 new to the profession that aren’t prepared for it and treat it like a “shouldn’t need to think about it bc it’s passive” trait. (Such irony)

This is incorrect – a positive passive trait should not penalize you, it should at worst just have no positive effect.

If you weren’t paying attention and LR went off, the absolute worst that should happen is you don’t get stealth. Penalizing the player (inadvertently of course) with revealed is not an acceptable outcome – you shouldn’t have to change your playstyle just to avoid being penalized by a supposedly helpful trait.

You speak as if the only way LR would ever penalize you is if you weren’t paying attention – there’s plenty of situations where your best course of action is to do something immediately rather than wait for LR to trigger – you should not be penalized for making the best choice because of LR.

evilapprentice.6379:

ens.9854:

I won’t say this skill hasn’t saved me, but I have sunk a lot of hours into thief and can see how it can screw over some1 new to the profession that aren’t prepared for it and treat it like a “shouldn’t need to think about it bc it’s passive” trait. (Such irony)

This is incorrect – a positive passive trait should not penalize you, it should at worst just have no positive effect.

If you weren’t paying attention and LR went off, the absolute worst that should happen is you don’t get stealth. Penalizing the player (inadvertently of course) with revealed is not an acceptable outcome – you shouldn’t have to change your playstyle just to avoid being penalized by a supposedly helpful trait.

You speak as if the only way LR would ever penalize you is if you weren’t paying attention – there’s plenty of situations where your best course of action is to do something immediately rather than wait for LR to trigger – you should not be penalized for making the best choice because of LR.

If your health is that low, it is extremely rare that you would not want the stealth, and if you can’t stop attacking for a quarter second when the hit is incoming then I’m not sure the revealed is going to matter.

The irony is that there have been countless threads in the spvp forum for many weeks about how awful and brainless “passive play” is, and some of the same people are here looking to create more

Something for a smile
“Last Refuge”
When your health reaches a threshold by 25% you get instant downstate, because your enemies arent up for chasing you.

I could also imagine “hard to catch” as you new 5 traitadept trait, so we could get a more useful trait in acrobatic grandmaster Tier.

ens.9854:

evilapprentice.6379:

ens.9854:

I won’t say this skill hasn’t saved me, but I have sunk a lot of hours into thief and can see how it can screw over some1 new to the profession that aren’t prepared for it and treat it like a “shouldn’t need to think about it bc it’s passive” trait. (Such irony)

This is incorrect – a positive passive trait should not penalize you, it should at worst just have no positive effect.

If you weren’t paying attention and LR went off, the absolute worst that should happen is you don’t get stealth. Penalizing the player (inadvertently of course) with revealed is not an acceptable outcome – you shouldn’t have to change your playstyle just to avoid being penalized by a supposedly helpful trait.

You speak as if the only way LR would ever penalize you is if you weren’t paying attention – there’s plenty of situations where your best course of action is to do something immediately rather than wait for LR to trigger – you should not be penalized for making the best choice because of LR.

If your health is that low, it is extremely rare that you would not want the stealth, and if you can’t stop attacking for a quarter second when the hit is incoming then I’m not sure the revealed is going to matter.

The irony is that there have been countless threads in the spvp forum for many weeks about how awful and brainless “passive play” is, and some of the same people are here looking to create more

Your health can go under 25% within less than 1/4 second in the middle of you using Leaping Death Blossom or Unload where multi-hit attacks instantly cause Revealed on you, in which case you are dead.

Before you can say you are predicting the hit, no you are not. A Stealthed Thief just Backstabbed you to under 25% health while you were attacking and you never saw it coming.

ens.9854:

evilapprentice.6379:

ens.9854:

I won’t say this skill hasn’t saved me, but I have sunk a lot of hours into thief and can see how it can screw over some1 new to the profession that aren’t prepared for it and treat it like a “shouldn’t need to think about it bc it’s passive” trait. (Such irony)

This is incorrect – a positive passive trait should not penalize you, it should at worst just have no positive effect.

If you weren’t paying attention and LR went off, the absolute worst that should happen is you don’t get stealth. Penalizing the player (inadvertently of course) with revealed is not an acceptable outcome – you shouldn’t have to change your playstyle just to avoid being penalized by a supposedly helpful trait.

You speak as if the only way LR would ever penalize you is if you weren’t paying attention – there’s plenty of situations where your best course of action is to do something immediately rather than wait for LR to trigger – you should not be penalized for making the best choice because of LR.

If your health is that low, it is extremely rare that you would not want the stealth, and if you can’t stop attacking for a quarter second when the hit is incoming then I’m not sure the revealed is going to matter.

This literally has no bearing on the fact that LR should never penalize you. Regardless how often the situation comes up, it should not work this way. It should be the players choice whether or not they want to stop what they’re doing, and the worst possible outcome should be LR was useless, not LR actively hinders you. Since this is a team based capture point game, there are times when it’s smarter to keep going and let LR fizzle – interrupting a stomp/res/map interaction, just for example.

First off, most people over rank 20 react to a backstab in under half a second (even though it is extremely unlikely a thief opens with backstab and not heartseeker or cnd). Second, even if you a not running last refuge, if that thief backstabs you under 25% you are going to die if you attempt to do anything other than teleport away, including stealth. In this case the blind from the effect is still beneficial.

A lot of people are quick to blame things after the fact without really considering if they would have actually survived otherwise.

The only change that could be made that wont create an outcry of “thief OP free passive immortality” is changing it to a stealth that doesn’t give reveal or bonuses but can still be broken immediately as suggested by Ichishi a few posts ago.

ens.9854:

First off, most people over rank 20 react to a backstab in under half a second (even though it is extremely unlikely a thief opens with backstab and not heartseeker or cnd). Second, even if you a not running last refuge, if that thief backstabs you under 25% you are going to die if you attempt to do anything other than teleport away, including stealth. In this case the blind from the effect is still beneficial.

A lot of people are quick to blame things after the fact without really considering if they would have actually survived otherwise.

The only change that could be made that wont create an outcry of “thief OP free passive immortality” is changing it to a stealth that doesn’t give reveal or bonuses but can still be broken immediately as suggested by Ichishi a few posts ago.

Your anecdotes do not change the fact that a trait which is intended to be beneficial should never penalize you. Regardless how often it will occur, how helpful it will be, and so on, it is bad design to have the trait penalize you – the worst it should do is nothing.

It want my anecdote. Corner cases can be found anywhere. What if a warriors defy pain activates just before he clicks defiant stance, that’s 10x worse. If you want to talk about a feature that gets thieves killed, make a thread about failed teleports.

Never said they shouldn’t change it, but people are not being objective about it.

ens.9854:

It want my anecdote. Corner cases can be found anywhere. What if a warriors defy pain activates just before he clicks defiant stance, that’s 10x worse. If you want to talk about a feature that gets thieves killed, make a thread about failed teleports.

Never said they shouldn’t change it, but people are not being objective about it.

I am being perfectly objective about it – my entire argument is about objectivity. A trait intended to be positive should, at worst, have a neutral effect.

In your example, endure pain did not penalize the player – it just did nothing, which is my entire argument. The worst that should happen is no effect, not a penalty.

ens, you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.

You claim that experienced thieves know when to expect last refuge to proc. Bullkitten. At what point are you “expecting” this? 30% HP? 50%? 75%? Oh I see, it depends on many factors because you’re so experienced. So what do you do while “expecting it?” You just don’t attack and tank damage until it procs? That is a terrible tactic that will kill you just as often as LR’s troll reveal problem.

The issue is a lot of times you can’t avoid it. Yes, you might guess that it will proc in the next 3-5 seconds, but most of the time the best course of action is to bet on a cloak and dagger rather than do nothing.

When below 25% health, check is player is under stealth

• Yes : extend stealth duration by 3s and AoE 3s blind
• No : for 3 second create a black powder field at current location of player + AoE 3 sec blind (to negate attacks before first tick of black powder)

Advantages :
It won’t apply revealed to prior non stealthed thief.
It will give non stealthed thief a way to quickly gain stealth (combo leap or blast).
It player do not want stealth for X reasons he still have a smoke field to play with in order to mitigate damage.
If chained cc by a melee, the smoke field will save the thief

Worst case scenario :
The smoke field is poping on a field the thief is actually benefiting from (like blasting ranger stolen skill).

→ Alternative : create a 1 sec timer (with a buff) to give the player choices to take stealth option or not. Allow thief to move in order to have the smoke field apart the field he wants

How about an aura effect that pulses blinds around the thief for ~3s; as in, a literal “cloak of shadows”?
This would have no problems with revealed, yet provide a brief period of safety for the thief.

edit:
The current issue I have with LR is that, when I am low on health and trying to stealth, LR procs as I CnD, revealing me and putting me in a far worse situation than I would have been.

Requiem.8769:

How about an aura effect that pulses blinds around the thief for ~3s; as in, a literal “cloak of shadows”?
This would have no problems with revealed, yet provide a brief period of safety for the thief.

But this does not keep Stealth as a mechanic. The dev already explained they want to keep the Stealth as part of this trait. The compromise would be dropping Black Powder at 25% health, the Thief can Leap/Blast through at will to initiate the Stealth. With a cooldown of course.

The Lost Witch.7601:

We could have an animation that shows stealth is coming.

Perhaps a cloud of blinding smoke that shows an AoE ring, and ‘blasts’ into AoE stealth a second (and a half?) later. This should give you the time to disengage?

Unfortunately, if you are in a situation where Lr procs, stealth one second later usually will not help you.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Requiem.8769:

How about an aura effect that pulses blinds around the thief for ~3s; as in, a literal “cloak of shadows”?
This would have no problems with revealed, yet provide a brief period of safety for the thief.

But this does not keep Stealth as a mechanic. The dev already explained they want to keep the Stealth as part of this trait. The compromise would be dropping Black Powder at 25% health, the Thief can Leap/Blast through at will to initiate the Stealth. With a cooldown of course.

That works, I just would like to be able to run away when I’m at 25%, and still experience the benefits. But sure, that would still be a nice improvement to the current LR.

evilapprentice.6379:

ens.9854:

It want my anecdote. Corner cases can be found anywhere. What if a warriors defy pain activates just before he clicks defiant stance, that’s 10x worse. If you want to talk about a feature that gets thieves killed, make a thread about failed teleports.

Never said they shouldn’t change it, but people are not being objective about it.

I am being perfectly objective about it – my entire argument is about objectivity. A trait intended to be positive should, at worst, have a neutral effect.

In your example, endure pain did not penalize the player – it just did nothing, which is my entire argument. The worst that should happen is no effect, not a penalty.

You misread. Defiant stance is the heal skill that only heals you when you take damage. Defy pain is a trait that activates, just like last refuge, based on a warriors hp pool. This situation penalizes the warrior if he doesn’t have the superhuman reaction time to stop himself from activating his heal when defy pain incidentally triggers.

I speak from experience that last refuge is extremely rarely negative if you are aware of it and being purely objective. If you want to mash buttons and need something to whine about it is a perfect scapegoat.

I wasn’t referring to you specifically; but people are being stupidly over dramatic about how bad last refuge actually is… I have survived countless times where I would have died without this trait, and won many duels because of it. There are also plenty of times that it triggers and I am able to cancel out of my attack to take full advantage of it. The number of times that it triggers and I break it AND I need to stealth in the next 3-4 seconds are nearly nonexistent; but I recognize that some players may have trouble with it in certain playstyles (x/d WvW troll builds in near death oh kitten mode). Unload is emphatically not one of those situations… how were you going to panic stealth yourself anyway?

ens.9854:

evilapprentice.6379:

ens.9854:

It want my anecdote. Corner cases can be found anywhere. What if a warriors defy pain activates just before he clicks defiant stance, that’s 10x worse. If you want to talk about a feature that gets thieves killed, make a thread about failed teleports.

Never said they shouldn’t change it, but people are not being objective about it.

I am being perfectly objective about it – my entire argument is about objectivity. A trait intended to be positive should, at worst, have a neutral effect.

In your example, endure pain did not penalize the player – it just did nothing, which is my entire argument. The worst that should happen is no effect, not a penalty.

You misread. Defiant stance is the heal skill that only heals you when you take damage. Defy pain is a trait that activates, just like last refuge, based on a warriors hp pool. This situation penalizes the warrior if he doesn’t have the superhuman reaction time to stop himself from activating his heal when defy pain incidentally triggers.

My bad – something sounded off in my head, but i ignored it. Though the comparison still doesn’t really hold up for 2 reasons – you can choose not to slot Defy pain while running defiant stance (many thieves would kill for just the option to just turn off last refuge) and your talking about the interaction between 1 skill and the trait, rather than an entire mechanic broken by anything that does damage.

I speak from experience that last refuge is extremely rarely negative if you are aware of it and being purely objective. If you want to mash buttons and need something to whine about it is a perfect scapegoat.

I wasn’t referring to you specifically; but people are being stupidly over dramatic about how bad last refuge actually is… I have survived countless times where I would have died without this trait, and won many duels because of it. There are also plenty of times that it triggers and I am able to cancel out of my attack to take full advantage of it. The number of times that it triggers and I break it AND I need to stealth in the next 3-4 seconds are nearly nonexistent; but I recognize that some players may have trouble with it in certain playstyles (x/d WvW troll builds in near death oh kitten mode). Unload is emphatically not one of those situations… how were you going to panic stealth yourself anyway?

Again, it does not matter how often LR screws you. You should not have to play around it. The consequences for not specifically altering your playstyle because LR might trigger soon should be LR was of no use to you, not LR penalized you with revealed. That is the crux of the objective argument – it should never penalize you for not specifically playing around it, that is bad design.

Yeah, you’re right, my idea wasn’t a good one. I’ll now mention some other, perhaps not very good ideas:

Maybe we should look for something other than the 25% proc-idea?

Some ideas could be (ICD’s have not been added, I’m not that good with balance):

• Trigger last refuge upon dropping to 1 or lower initiative.
• Trigger last refuge upon dropping to 0 endurance.

These are both more easy to control. Yes… in a way it makes you play different than we do at the moment. On the other hand, it gives us reliable opportunities? Or maybe they’re just bad ideas.

Alternatively we could drop the stealth-gain from the trait and make it something else stealth related, like an addition (courtesy of ich):

• If you go into stealth below 25% health, add 3 seconds to the duration and blind nearby foes.
• If you go into stealth below 25% health, evade attacks for 2 seconds.

Some Idea’s, change the trait to any of the following :

Stealth related
1) Create a black powder smoke field.
2) Reset cooldowns on all deception skills.

Escape related
3) Area Immobilize, 3 targets for 2 seconds
4) Gain swiftness for 15 seconds
5) Remove control effects (fear, polymorph, stun etc)

How about this.

Last Refuge, when under 25% health it sends out an AoE blinding up to 5 targets. After 0.5-1 seconds you gain stealth. The 0.5-1 second should give the player should enough time to react to the upcoming stealth. If the player manages to stealth(CnD or other utility skills) before the 2nd part of last refuge triggers then it should not activate.

You know, I’d settle for just a clear indication that it was going to happen. I really wish you could see the cooldown and activation thresholds of these passive traits when you slot them so you can more effectively plan around them. This doesn’t only apply to LR, but also to Panic Strikes, Slowed Pulse, Pain Response, etc. Any trait with an internal cooldown should have a way of displaying it’s cooldown.

Icons for when traits are on CD would indeed be welcomed. Some of them are quite lengthy and expecting a player to know exactly when they come off of cd is a bit : /

IMO a short smoke screen would be a better replacement than just a smoke field. If you change last refuge to a smoke field you kill the interaction with Infusion of Shadow, it doesn’t immediately help vs ranged, and the thief has to expend more ini to hearseeker through the field to gain stealth. A little love in the form of a short screen > field would be nice.

Also Devs please consider eng’s reserved mines for a similar adjustment -

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reserve_Mines

In some ways it’s worse… as the mines stick around and give the opponent the option of triggering one at any point to cause a reveal : /

Bump, even if the devs stated they are looking into this, let us remember them that something has to be done

ens.9854:

The irony is that there have been countless threads in the spvp forum for many weeks about how awful and brainless “passive play” is, and some of the same people are here looking to create more

Good point, Add F2 then have Last Refuge fill it up with Throw Feathers.

How about a short ranged random port followed by stealth?
You still get the stealth to get away, and the random port would some what prevent you from accidentally dealing damage while in stealth and revealing yourself.
As well as the shift in position disorientate an enemy coming after you.

It also won’t adversely effect your allies.

How about mixing in a ‘venom’ that makes you immune to revealed for the next outgoing attack? Or a venom that makes you next outgoing attack do no damage (not even 0). Or make it blind yourself so that you next attack misses and doesn’t do any damage.

Just have it work like desperate decoy – you should gain “cloak” instead of stealth. “Cloak” would not activate any of SA’s traits or allow the thief to use any stealth attacks (Since it is “Cloak” and not “Stealth”). There would be no “revealed” tied to attacking from cloak (Since the point of revealed is to mitigate stealth’s benefits, and you’re not gaining any of those benefits while in cloak).

Problem Solved – Mid CnD while LR triggers? No problem, go straight into stealth. Mid-attack while LR triggers? No problem, no revealed since you didn’t gain any of stealth’s benefits (except for being invisible) from LR.

2 ideas which came to my mind:

• Last Refuge moved to 10 points and a weaker 10 point trait moved to 5 points.
  Players are still able to use Last Refuge if they want to while having a decent 5 point trait.

• Remove Last Refuge completely and add a new trait. Something like “Heal for X the next time you enter stealth when your health reaches Y threshold (ICD)” would fit the trait line.
  The new trait improves the sustain without being overpowered. Keep in mind it’s only a 5 point trait.

Blackhat.4016:

2 ideas which came to my mind:

• Last Refuge moved to 10 points and a weaker 10 point trait moved to 5 points.
  Players are still able to use Last Refuge if they want to while having a decent 5 point trait.

• Remove Last Refuge completely and add a new trait. Something like “Heal for X the next time you enter stealth when your health reaches Y threshold (ICD)” would fit the trait line.
  The new trait improves the sustain without being overpowered. Keep in mind it’s only a 5 point trait.

Option 1 sounds fine, but has been suggested 1,000 times – something tells me Anet won’t be making that change.

Option 2 isn’t in the spirit of the skill. Just have LR trigger “Cloak”, a separate effect from Stealth, which does not activate SA’s traits, stealth attacks, or revealed.

They want this trait to be stealth-related, so just swap it with an adept trait from Sa. I Do Not even care which One…if i could choose to slot Last refuge i would ofc Not.
Swap it, Problem solved, ty

Domey.9804:

They want this trait to be stealth-related, so just swap it with an adept trait from Sa. I Do Not even care which One…if i could choose to slot Last refuge i would ofc Not.
Swap it, Problem solved, ty

As I said in the post directly above this one, that’s not the intent of the trait. It’s supposed to be an automatic “Oh kitten” skill that fires without player input to save those not quick enough to react to burst – Like defy pain or desperate decoy.

Switching “Stealth” for “Cloak” literally fixes all the issues players have with LR – since Cloak is not stealth, it prevents LR from screwing over a player with revealed or forcing them to play around the trait while at the same time preventing thieves from getting some form of “Double Stealth” and all the other bonuses stealth offers via the SA line.

Not trying to be rude, but your suggestion sticks a dysfunctional trait in a slot where it will never be used – my proposed situation turns LR into exactly what the dev’s intend it to be, without screwing over the thief or his opponents in any scenario.

evilapprentice.6379:

Just have it work like desperate decoy – you should gain “cloak” instead of stealth. “Cloak” would not activate any of SA’s traits or allow the thief to use any stealth attacks (Since it is “Cloak” and not “Stealth”). There would be no “revealed” tied to attacking from cloak (Since the point of revealed is to mitigate stealth’s benefits, and you’re not gaining any of those benefits while in cloak).

Problem Solved – Mid CnD while LR triggers? No problem, go straight into stealth. Mid-attack while LR triggers? No problem, no revealed since you didn’t gain any of stealth’s benefits (except for being invisible) from LR.

This is the best idea I’ve heard (assuming it still AoE blinds). Never getting troll revealed again is massively better than the benefits I get from the “free” stealth (i.e. a possible opener + SA traits).

How about we make it trigger Black Powder (Thief Pistol #5) or a shorter version of Smoke Screen?

Would give the Thief survival through blinds and access to stealth through finishers. Plus, revealed or not, running or in close quarters…It’ll always be a good effect for the Thief.

Well your suggestion Sounds sure better, i just hope i get the Condi cleanse , health and blind from the slotted traits, and ofc i give up my stealth atk for this solution to make it balanced.
I just hope this is Not too much work for the devs. Thats the reason Why i said swap it, but id prefer your suggestion

Seth.4927:

How about we make it trigger Black Powder (Thief Pistol #5) or a shorter version of Smoke Screen?

Would give the Thief survival through blinds and access to stealth through finishers. Plus, revealed or not, running or in close quarters…It’ll always be a good effect for the Thief.

This doesn’t meet the criteria of the skill remaining “Stealth based”, as one of the dev’s stated in this thread.

Yes, you can access stealth if you’re using dagger MH or Shbow (kind of, you’ve got to be able to launch a cluster bomb that wont hit anything), but it’s not really stealth-based.

I’m not trying to belittle everyone else’s suggestions, but IMO cloak is the clear winner – It’s exactly how the skill was initially designed, only it will never screw over the thief – yes, it’s a little less powerful then gaining stealth, but it’s a 5 point minor, and well worth it to never be in the situations where LR gifts you 3-4s of revealed for no reason ever again.

I honestly prefer your suggestion, but seeing as the Dev’s specifically want the skill to remain stealth-based, I think switching LR to “Cloak” is the answer, and frankly I’m a bit surprised the Dev’s didn’t come to this conclusion months ago.

Josh Davis.6015:

Last Refuge is something we’ve been talking about quite a bit internally, and we certainly don’t like the way it can occasionally unintentionally punish players.

We’d like to keep the minor traits in Shadow Arts thematically the same (stealth based) rather than simply providing boons or something similar. Keep that in mind when you’re suggestions changes for Last Refuge.

Thanks for the feedback!

I didn’t read through all of the posts so someone might have already suggested this, but you could have it drop a smoke field which wouldn’t get the thief revealed when it procs mid CnD. In this way, if he is mid CnD, it just blinds the opponent and he gains stealth from his attack, or if he is not attacking, he could then heartseeker through the field to gain stealth, thus increasing active play and the skill cap.

Alternatively, could you guys make the trigger interrupt the current thief action(maybe just attacks if possible so it doesn’t interrupt a heal and put that on a cooldown longer than the last refuge duration)? This might not help with ranged weapons when you include the flight time, but it would help with close combat which is where the danger is.

Thanks for your time. So happy to see a red post on this skill finally.

Maugetarr.6823:

Josh Davis.6015:

Last Refuge is something we’ve been talking about quite a bit internally, and we certainly don’t like the way it can occasionally unintentionally punish players.

We’d like to keep the minor traits in Shadow Arts thematically the same (stealth based) rather than simply providing boons or something similar. Keep that in mind when you’re suggestions changes for Last Refuge.

Thanks for the feedback!

Alternatively, could you guys make the trigger interrupt the current thief action(maybe just attacks if possible so it doesn’t interrupt a heal and put that on a cooldown longer than the last refuge duration)? This might not help with ranged weapons when you include the flight time, but it would help with close combat which is where the danger is.

Not a big fan of the idea of the game making a decision that LR triggering properly is more important than my attack going through. True, it will save you from using CnD when LR is triggering, but what if I was using an attack that was going to drop my opponent? The automatic trait shouldn’t be overriding player input. Look above for my suggestion regarding “Cloak” instead of “Stealth” (Like mesmer’s Desperate Decoy)

evilapprentice.6379:

Maugetarr.6823:

Josh Davis.6015:

Last Refuge is something we’ve been talking about quite a bit internally, and we certainly don’t like the way it can occasionally unintentionally punish players.

We’d like to keep the minor traits in Shadow Arts thematically the same (stealth based) rather than simply providing boons or something similar. Keep that in mind when you’re suggestions changes for Last Refuge.

Thanks for the feedback!

Alternatively, could you guys make the trigger interrupt the current thief action(maybe just attacks if possible so it doesn’t interrupt a heal and put that on a cooldown longer than the last refuge duration)? This might not help with ranged weapons when you include the flight time, but it would help with close combat which is where the danger is.

Not a big fan of the idea of the game making a decision that LR triggering properly is more important than my attack going through. True, it will save you from using CnD when LR is triggering, but what if I was using an attack that was going to drop my opponent? The automatic trait shouldn’t be overriding player input. Look above for my suggestion regarding “Cloak” instead of “Stealth” (Like mesmer’s Desperate Decoy)

That would also be acceptable. As long as it ends when you deal damage, but doesn’t trigger any stealth traits, rollover attacks, or revealed when dealing damage when it ends, that seems like a good solution. Maybe it could be abused if people pay very close attention, like if they used it to hide heartseeker when it triggered or something similar, but really all it would be doing is giving you some breathing room which was the original intent of the trait.

Josh Davis.6015:

Last Refuge is something we’ve been talking about quite a bit internally, and we certainly don’t like the way it can occasionally unintentionally punish players.

We’d like to keep the minor traits in Shadow Arts thematically the same (stealth based) rather than simply providing boons or something similar. Keep that in mind when you’re suggestions changes for Last Refuge.

Thanks for the feedback!

Any chance you’ll be looking at other crappy minor traits aswell that come with inherent risk of backfiring?

Like, Evasive Powder Keg? Or Reserve Mines?

Maybe simpler, change the skill behind the trait to one that is queued for execution after your current action ends, rather then the instant skill it triggers now? That way C&D would finish before the LR stealth kicks in and you will not get revealed.

Simply make it like the Mesmer skill Decoy. A stealth that ignores the revealed debuff while it still gives you the stealth buffs + breaks on outgoing damage. Problem solved with a skill that already exists in game = Problem solved with the least amount of work

I like the Cloak thing.
Basically, the “stealth” you gain should be something that:
-Does not cause Revealed (because of backfiring)
-Does not change the 1st weapon skill (because it would be too much OP)
-Would still provide the advantages of being in stealth (debatable)

IF these things could be implemented, than it would finally become a balanced, useful trait in the thief array.
I would still be fine with just an AoE blind or just making it a Major Trait, but this is the best thing “stealth-related” that could be made for this trait.

I agree with the suggestion of simply removing the stealth aspect and providing a smoke field + AoE blind instead (similar to Black Powder). This would still keep up with the “stealth” aspect of the tree since you can easily go into stealth once you’re in a smoke field as a thief.

I think it’s the best to switch the BP from LR with Smoke Screen.
Smoke Screen cant trigger Revealed and it helps better against melee and projectile attacks, than BP, also if you must then trigger stealth by yourself .

The only disadvantage is that SS is a line.

• 1. This is totally absurd. ANet, have you never seen a (smoke-)bomb in RL?
• 2. Useless if you getting attack from more than one side.

Josh Davis.6015:

Last Refuge is something we’ve been talking about quite a bit internally, and we certainly don’t like the way it can occasionally unintentionally punish players.

We’d like to keep the minor traits in Shadow Arts thematically the same (stealth based) rather than simply providing boons or something similar. Keep that in mind when you’re suggestions changes for Last Refuge.
RM
Thanks for the feedback!

And you are giving Desperate Decoy the same treatment, right?

Thedenofsin.7340:

Josh Davis.6015:

Last Refuge is something we’ve been talking about quite a bit internally, and we certainly don’t like the way it can occasionally unintentionally punish players.

We’d like to keep the minor traits in Shadow Arts thematically the same (stealth based) rather than simply providing boons or something similar. Keep that in mind when you’re suggestions changes for Last Refuge.
RM
Thanks for the feedback!

And you are giving Desperate Decoy the same treatment, right?

Now that would be silly as ANet devs don’t play a Mesmer. All they do is call them names and swing the nerfbat.

(this was meant as sarcasm)