Guild Wars 2

First off I play a thief, and a Ranger. I know people always complain about thiefs being “OP” which is just people crying for attention. Do not post anything suggesting thiefs are too strong as is, as this post is not aimed at buffing them. Now onto the suggestion.

Thief Utility skills are excellent for the most part. They offer anything a thief build would want and don’t constrict you to any one skill. However some skills are simply not attractive enough to make any thief want to equipt them regardless of them being in a dungeon, pvp, WvW, or simply roaming Tyria. I see these 2 utility and healing skills almost always on thiefs (Hide in Shadows, Shadow Refuge, and Haste). Some skills just don’t get enough love for thiefs (Signet of Malice, Tripwire, Needle Trap, Shadow trap, Havnt seen much of Infiltrator’s Signet either suprisingly anywhere). How about that love?

Signet of Malice: Increase life per hit slightly. Also double health gain per hit on criticals. Critical builds would love this healing skill if they knew their precision was healing them significantly.

Tripwire: Knock down for the 3 seconds, then marking the foe. Activate to shadowstep to foe.

Shadow Trap: Same as before however you leave a smoke field at the location while retaining stealth when you shadow step to the foe activating the trap. Similar to summoned thiefs.

Needle Trap: Change to Poison and cripple foes in it while it pulses every second for X seconds. As it stands, it is a one time trap that activates only against 1 enemy really. It should last a bit longer and continue damaging/crippleing foes that stand in it as a means of escape or for condition builds.

Infiltrator’s Signet: Grant fury for X seconds to allies after shadowstepping to a foe. More for direct damage builds. The passive is great, but the active is very risky since they can’t retreat with it. This doesn’t allow a retreat, but does allow a more aggressive inititation.

I’m sure many professions have their list of un-used utility skills but these are the few I found on thief. The suggestions are just part of the post, but the idea of buffing unpopular utility skills is the main idea.

I’ve tried to work traps into my rotation without much success. You really need to spec for traps for them to be worthwhile it seems. I have started using tripwire in WvW a little bit but not in dire circumstanses. Needle trap I’ve found no use for except to setup next to tripwire. Have not tried the new shadow trap.

The ambush trap (call in a thief) the thief is underpowered and despawns quickly. It has skills (blinding powder, not sure what else) to supplement the sucky power. Lenthening duration from 20 to 30 secs looks like the best fix to start with.

If trap mechanics are not changed, they should at least have the casting times lowered from 1/2 to 1/4.

Infiltrator’s signet with my build seems underpowered. However there are traits which make it useful (+5 stacks of might on signet use, or -20% signet recharge and gain 2 init on signet use). It’s also good with backstab types but this signet seems trumped by shadowstep. It has it’s uses with certain builds so I wouldn’t change it atm.

Signet of malice I’ve successfully used with a vamp type condition build designed around attrition instead of burst damage. The shortbow’s aoe will heal for every hit you make (up to 5? not sure), dagger jump spin move, sword’s huge aoe etc.
Great combo with acro’s 10 (heal for every init used). Also, signet of malice and dagger spin in the middle of a mob is awesome.

NinjaEd.3946:

“as this post is not aimed at buffing them.”

Making skills better is not buffing, C/D?