Guild Wars 2

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?

Well, the main reason almost EVERY thief is complaining about Last Refuge is because every thief who chooses to spec into Shadow Arts is going to have this trait, since it is a Minor trait, hence mandatory.
Desperate Decoy, while it might give the same problems as Last Refuge, is optional.
I am 100% sure that if Last Refuge was not a Minor trait, no one would be complaining about it because no one would simply take it at all.

Needed bump, this trait really needs some attention.

ensoriki.5789:

Shouldn’t Stealth on steal be the 5 point trait? Since it can reliably proc 15 SA and 25 SA.
Granted it changes playstyles like BP – Headshot steal, and CnD steal but there’s no question of reliability.

From what I understand, the stealth on steal comes after things like mug so you still retain the stealth.

Why not change it to a Roll For Initiative BUT remove the breaking stun aspect?

So it would be a 3/4 evade and 6 initiative when you hit 25% which would give you options on what to do with that initiative to get your hinny out of there.

A simple yet seemingly outlandish solution would be to …. Blind the thief!

What the ehhh? You say?

Think about it. When you are stealthed and blind no matter how much you swing nothing happens, blind stays, attacks miss, you don’t lose stealth nor the blind condition… But most importantly, you aren’t revealed.

So keep the trait the same but have it also trigger a 1-3 second blind condition on stealth application only ( so if already revealed only enemies are blinded ). This guarantees you cannot accidentally reveal yourself. You get your oh kitten moment to evaluate your situation and get out of danger. Just a thought.

Vilkata.9078:

A simple yet seemingly outlandish solution would be to …. Blind the thief!

What the ehhh? You say?

Think about it. When you are stealthed and blind no matter how much you swing nothing happens, blind stays, attacks miss, you don’t lose stealth nor the blind condition… But most importantly, you aren’t revealed.

So keep the trait the same but have it also trigger a 1-3 second blind condition on stealth application only ( so if already revealed only enemies are blinded ). This guarantees you cannot accidentally reveal yourself. You get your oh kitten moment to evaluate your situation and get out of danger. Just a thought.

Wow. That would work pretty well actually. A 1 second blind would probably do the trick.

Maugetarr.6823:

Wow. That would work pretty well actually. A 1 second blind would probably do the trick.

Only if you do not use Shadows Embrace or got at least 2 conditions. Or am I wrong?

Xaylin.1860:

Maugetarr.6823:

Wow. That would work pretty well actually. A 1 second blind would probably do the trick.

Only if you do not use Shadows Embrace or got at least 2 conditions. Or am I wrong?

Ideally it would work in a way that had a prioritization schedule of events that all happened virtually instantly.

1.The Blinding Powder would fire off and check for reveal

2. No Reveal = Activate Stealth

3. On stealth with Shadow’s Embrace trait = remove an existing condition

4. Apply 1 second of Blindness AFTER condition wipe

The next Embrace wipe wouldn’t trigger for another 3 seconds after the Self Blind would have already expired.

The programming would have to set up prioritization in this way so that it would work in conjunction of Shadow’s Embrace removing any unwanted conditions before applying the protective blind in a immeasurable period of time when the trait activates.

Aveneo.2068:

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)

Humor and grains of truth my friend, grains of truth.

Might I suggest since Annet thinks this is an awesome trait they simply move it up into the adept tier and move slowed pulse (anything but master of deception) down into the minor 5 pt slot.

If it’s as good and useful as Anet thinks surely lots of thieves (i.e zero, without any possible doubt) will take it. This will be a slight buff to thieves, swapping out something actually worse than useless (gets you killed a lot) for a minor one condition buff.

Seems like a pretty easy switch to make and we know it’s been done to move things around the tiers so can’t be hard to implement?

ANet can save face and Thieves never have to deal with it again?

How about Last Refuge procs an aoe fear ( like 1.5 sec) then stealths you. So there most likely wont be anyone around to accidentally hit. I mean if an enemy has stability, sure it might be a problem. But I think 9/10 it would work. Give it a fair CD and call it a day.

Also, ahem, lets go ahead and give our Steal skill a passive 1 condition removal…possibly an automatic 1 boon steal as well =) Just cuz some builds don’t want to rely on stealth and are afraid to give up the dps or little survivability to go 20 points into trickery. Group Synergy baby!!! hahaha

I’m UPping this thread as I believe it’s the most complete of all the threads about this 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.

I was hoping you came up with something with yesterday’s stream.
Is this really a lost cause?

I have a feeling that one programmer could potentially fix this problem under 1 hour.

It’s funny that 6 months ago a dev commented on this and then Anet just completely forgot about it for the upcoming balance changes lol. The idea to make it a smoke field/blind (like pistol skill 5) is the best. Very easy to implement too, just remove the blinding powder and replace it with black powder skill. Boom done. I just did your job for you devs based on feedback your players gave you months ago.

I’ve run into a similar problem with my guardian. The first minor trait in zeal drops a symbol when hit while below the health threshold. The problem is that this will trigger even if my thief buddy uses stealth on me, so I get revealed and subsequently zergrolled.

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!

stop talking like you care! it’s been there since BETA, ppl have complaint about it since beta, ppl have given numerous suggestions sine beta and you guys never gave a kitten about it to date.

And if you are talking about it internally it is surely to nerf it so just leave it alone pls!

Just going to throw my voice into this thread. A fix would be greatly appreciated.

A smoke field (Black Powder) would make the most sense right now, of all things. It’s low-hanging fruit to change it from a utility skill to one half of a weapon skill, otherwise known as an easy fix.

Because of the change that is planned for Black Powder (blinds half as much), it makes the most sense balance-wise, since it wouldn’t throw things off very much. If it works better balance-wise, swap it with Meld With Shadows so that you need to go up three points in order to get this highly useful new trait.

As far as the Shadow Arts traits go thematically, it ties in to a certain extent because your smoke field can be used to combo stealth. I can’t think of any real good trait to replace it with, unless it’s to swap with Shadow Protector or Shadow’s Embrace, given the defensive and controlled nature of each of those traits.

At the heart of the problem, ANY trait that “gives you” stealth, by it’s very nature, gives you Revealed out of sequence (and while I highly believe that a good thief needs to be able to adjust and react on the fly, and I believe that “sequence” and “rotation” are things you shouldn’t encourage… the problem is much more compounded by the low-health requirement).

The only other thing I could suggest is that below 25% health, your stealth be augmented by the trait. Last refuge could proc at 25% to make:
1) Stealth last longer, or grant one Aegis
2) Cause blind or a short weakness as you stealth
3) Regenerate a small amount of health while in stealth, or decrease incoming condi durations
….all of which depend on the player to actually DO something to enter stealth first to be able to benefit from the trait. Granted these are simply mirrors of existing trait functions, so the others would have to be considered briefly. If I were a dev I would lean toward the Black Powder solution.

I’d second a Black Powder field, too.
After all, there are many traits that trigger weapon skills if certain things are met – Lava Tomb, Symbol of Retaliation, Chaos Storm…

With this kind of field, all that’s required is a main hand dagger or a Shortbow to get stealthed reliably.
Win win situation for every one.