Guild Wars 2

I know SA thieves aren’t really a thing in PvP, but HOT will now let panic strike thieves max out SA for free (every class gets 3 GM traits now). This means panic strike builds can now pick up shadow rejuv for free, rather than just taking shadow’s embrace, and also take one of the new master traits.

From today’s Ready Up, Shadow Rejuv now restores initiative in addition to health while stealthed. (They merged Patience into Shadow Rejuv). Furthermore, the one of the SA minor traits now gives you 50% damage reduction while stealthed. So stealthed thieves now have 50% dmg resist, increased initiative regen, AND a healing signet.

But wait, there’s more! One of the new SA master traits combines the “Blind on stealth” with “stealth on steal” traits, so now everytime you steal, you gain stealth and do an AOE blind.

This means that, even you interrupt a thief’s BP+HS combo and catch the thief without any stunbreaks, the thief can just use steal to immediately blind you + go into stealth (for hp + regen upgrade) + gain 50% damage reduction + [all the usual trickery tree bonuses: mug dmg+heal, daze, boon steal, thrill of crime buffs].

Does this seem a little over the top to anyone? Forcing a thief to burn his CCs and then interrupting his stealth was one of the few ways for mesmers to take out thieves. And phoenix-bombing thieves while they were in stealth was pretty key for fresh air eles.

Even with the buffs to other classes, the proposed overall changes to shadow arts seem like they’ll put panic strike thieves even more over the top when fighting other zerker specs.

The only reason Shadow Arts was not “viable” in PvP was because thieves needed either Deadly Arts or Crit Strikes for damage, and because Sleight of Hand was too good. So there wasn’t any room for Shadow Arts in the competitive builds. But with HOT’s new trait system, this will no longer be the case.

Edit: Just to clarify, A.net said in the Ready Up that they’re sharing their proposed buffs/nerfs/changes ahead of time so that we can discuss them. So I don’t think it’s out of line to start discussing how some of these changes might play out, even though they haven’t actually been implemented yet.

“I haven’t seen more than half the classes changes, but this will be super OP” ResJudicator

couldnt even wait to finish watch all the other classes?

yes thief changes are incredible thx anet love u bigkiss

“Even with the buffs to other classes”.

You wrote that after seeing 3 classes. You have no idea how it all balances out. Wait until you have the full picture and then discuss.

God I love the sick burns JP got on LordHelsth (or whatever his name is). don’t be like him. Wait and see, jumping the gun won’t change the outcome.

It looks somewhat bad now, which is why they are showing it NOW, so they can get comments and complaints or concerns.

My earth/water ele is ready to collect thieves tears in the near future

http://image.ec21.com/image/hdvehicle/oimg_GC00164509/HD_LPG_TANK_LORRY.jpg

These changes haven’t even been in game yet and you’re complaining.

Sit down.

Shadow Arts will continue to be terrible in Conquest, but in WvW and Stronghold it will certainly be strong.

The other four choices, however, all look like legitimate alternatives to one another.

style.6173:

“Even with the buffs to other classes”.

You wrote that after seeing 3 classes. You have no idea how it all balances out. Wait until you have the full picture and then discuss.

We’ve already seen the ele changes, so we can at least compare against fresh air ele. Once they go over the changes to the other classes, feel free to chime in.

Note that I never claimed that thieves would for sure be OP, I made it pretty clear in my post that I was speculating.

ResJudicator.7916:

style.6173:

“Even with the buffs to other classes”.

You wrote that after seeing 3 classes. You have no idea how it all balances out. Wait until you have the full picture and then discuss.

We’ve already seen the ele changes, so we can at least compare against fresh air ele. Once they go over the changes to the other classes, feel free to chime in.

Note that I never claimed that thieves would for sure be OP, I made it pretty clear in my post that I was speculating.

I don’t think you did the comparison in the correct way:

-New Fresh Air ele : tempest defense, elemental shielding, geomancer defense, stone heart ..and from there either fire ( perma? fire aura/burning on crit) for blinding ashes or water for bountiful power/soothing/stop drop and roll, thief stealthed or not..will be dead the second he gest close and even if get close, he won’t be able to do as much dmg as now…..what concerns have you got still?

Supreme.3164:

ResJudicator.7916:

style.6173:

“Even with the buffs to other classes”.

You wrote that after seeing 3 classes. You have no idea how it all balances out. Wait until you have the full picture and then discuss.

We’ve already seen the ele changes, so we can at least compare against fresh air ele. Once they go over the changes to the other classes, feel free to chime in.

Note that I never claimed that thieves would for sure be OP, I made it pretty clear in my post that I was speculating.

I don’t think you did the comparison in the correct way:

-New Fresh Air ele : tempest defense, elemental shielding, geomancer defense, stone heart ..and from there either fire ( perma? fire aura/burning on crit) for blinding ashes or water for bountiful power/soothing/stop drop and roll, thief stealthed or not..will be dead the second he gest close and even if get close, he won’t be able to do as much dmg as now…..what concerns have you got still?

lol they took out all the damage modifiers and somehow you think ele spike will be the same.

I don’t think my concern has ever been the dmg I do..but rather the dmg I receive, which in this case will be bare minimum ^^

Yeah we’ll see about that when the changes roll out, clearly the reason why d/d cele is favored over glass cannon scepter ele is just a playstyle preference, not the fact ele drops down faster than a prom dress under group focus fire let alone a single thief sneezing at them after an engineer/necro has casually softened up with aoe.

Zenith.7301:

Yeah we’ll see about that when the changes roll out, clearly the reason why d/d cele is favored over glass cannon scepter ele is just a playstyle preference, not the fact ele drops down faster than a prom dress under group focus fire let alone a single thief sneezing at them after an engineer/necro has casually softened up with aoe.

The current fresh air ele cannot use fresh air-stone heart and cleansing water while keeping a 10s CD attunement recharge.

The current fresh air hasn’t got the chance to use tempest defense and combo it with elemental shielding, and he hasn’t got geomancer defense….and definitely hasn’t got stop drop and roll in adept

But above everything, the current ele is forced to go 30 arcana to reduce attunement recharge..and that’s all gone

Supreme.3164:

Zenith.7301:

Yeah we’ll see about that when the changes roll out, clearly the reason why d/d cele is favored over glass cannon scepter ele is just a playstyle preference, not the fact ele drops down faster than a prom dress under group focus fire let alone a single thief sneezing at them after an engineer/necro has casually softened up with aoe.

The current fresh air ele cannot use fresh air-stone heart and cleansing water while keeping a 10s CD attunement recharge.

The current fresh air hasn’t got the chance to use tempest defense and combo it with elemental shielding, and he hasn’t got geomancer defense….and definitely hasn’t got stop drop and roll in adept

But above everything, the current ele is forced to go 30 arcana to reduce attunement recharge..and that’s all gone

Fresh air didn’t need 30 arcana to begin with — 0/6/0/4/4 and 6/6/0/0/2 were both viable. In any event, if you give up the arcana line, you lose out on one of FA’s main sources of fury (on attunement swap), as well as Protection on earth-attunement (from elemental attunement), and vigor (renewing stamina).

You can make up for the loss of fury by going Air/Earth/Water to get synergy going with Zephyr’s Boon, Elemental Shielding, and the new Soothing Ice adept that gives frost aura on being crit (which is way better than your recommendation of stop, drop, and roll), although that synergy conflicts a bit with stone heart (immune to crits while in earth). Your recommendation of tempest defense also gives up the +dmg from air, which doesn’t seem worth it (esp. now that air mastery also reduces recharge on your air skills). You also lose out on bolt to the heart since it competes with fresh air.

So overall, your new build loses 10% – 30% dmg, vigor, elemental attunement, and perma-fury. In return, you possibly get an overall increase to survivability with the new geomancer’s defense, cleansing water, and geomancer’s alacrity (lower obsidian flesh CD and reflect CD).

Obviously it’s too early to debate whether or not the tradeoff is worth it. The point is that there is a clear tradeoff. The Thief’s SA buffs, on the other hand, map perfectly onto the meta panic strike build — no sacrifices necessary. It’s just a straight up buff to the thief’s disengage ability.

They slapped a miserable trait to it that was the least buff it could have got.

Shadow Arts had a pretty decent might stacking mechanic replaced with a defensive mechanic which actually seems to make sense for the one tanky tree to have a tanky setup.

Also, hardly any thieves use Hidden Teef anyway, but I am honestly excited about that change myself, more support for my allies, hell yes! Not to mention I will definitely be appreciating that damage reduction during a shadow refuge to revive someone. And as far as the “OP balance of Shadow Rejuv” clam down, that’s hardly OP. Even with a celestial amulet and the +300 healing from the SA traits, zerker warriors always passively regenerate more health from their signet alone than Shadow Rejuv does while in stealth, so it being combined with patience which no one used anyway honestly makes it worth a little bit more.

As it is, SA is laughable to most people in conquest, or serious / ranked conquest play. Can I blame them? No, because thieves are currently pigeonholed into almost entirely burst or bust, with a few condi exceptions, and even then it’s a similar playstyle, just with condis and more range. So I am very pleased to see that SA might actually have a place in SPvP where it is not simply laughed at, mocked, and otherwise made fun of for whatever reasoning probably leading around to being useless or simply not useful enough.

Realistically, SA took a damage nerf for that damage reduction buff and the tree seems pretty balanced if you take a theoretical look at other things on the horizon as well. And honestly, I’ve got my eye on something else thieves have waiting that I’ve yet to see anyone even mention on here and I am very much looking forward to it. For once it actually feels like there are good trade offs in builds / traits to choose from.

As others are already saying, these changes aren’t even in game and you haven’t even had the chance to test out how it actually plays and feels. If anything, I would recommend discussing your favorite class including it’s changes and be constructive with it rather than working up some salt towards another classes incoming changes that aren’t even released yet, that way perhaps when things are released, you might have had a positive impact on your own class that you enjoy.

Just my thoughts :l

Jesiah.2457:

zerker warriors always passively regenerate more health from their signet alone than Shadow Rejuv does while in stealth

if you don’t mind losing bountiful theft you can make withdraw a 12s cd heal, it will be considered as trick in the future, healing for as much as the healing signet/s.

other than that you will get the 300hp/s + the regeneration which is also pretty huge if you ask me. don’t underestimate shadow arts.