Guild Wars 2

This post is focused on the THIEF class.
Here are some of my personal problems I’d like to see fixed. (Remember, these are my opinions)

Dancing Dagger (#4 dagger skill): This skill is terrible for a moving target when using dagger/dagger, when I try to use it on a fleeing enemy, they strafe right out of it’s path, waste of initiative(which will be more precious in the upcoming patch).

Cloak & Dagger (#5 dagger skill): The amount of initiative this uses is insane, missing it can basically ruin your chance of surviving or winning(This is very easily nullify with blind, evade and block. Again, initiative is going to be precious.)

Death Blossom (#3 dagger/dagger skill): all the other dagger/dagger skills are used for burst (apart from Dancing Dagger which is meant for chasing), death blossom’s bleed doesn’t belong there.

Patience (Trait #9 in Shadow Arts): No one uses this, everyone uses Infusion of Shadow (Trait #5 in Shadow Arts) for much immediate and better initiative gain, something else needs to be done with this.

Signet of Shadows (Utility Skill): The activation effect is rubbish, the only thing this is used for is the passive, sacrificing it is not worth it.

Signet of Agility (Utility Skill): This being a stun breaker would make sense (or so the name would suggest.)

Horrible Weapon combinations: Pistol/Pistol, Sword/Pistol, Dagger/Pistol(is going to be), Both underwater weapons.

That’s all I can think of for now, feel free to support, debate, and/or state your own personal problems with thief’s skills, traits and utilities.

The only thing I can agree with is Signet of Agility being a stun break. Personally I believe everything else is fine as is. Although Patience should just be fused with the move faster while in stealth trait, with an extra slight boost to initiative regen while stealthed. And no, Signet of Shadows isn’t rubbish, it’s perfect for stomping everybody but Thieves and Mesmers. “Sacrificing” it is worth it.

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

Signet of Shadows isn’t rubbish, it’s perfect for stomping everybody but Thieves and Mesmers. “Sacrificing” it is worth it.

I dunno about that, I use Cloaked in Shadows trait when using offhand dagger, or just the black powder skill on offhand pistol when I stomp, If mesmer or thief try to teleport away I use my steal or infiltrators signet.

SheerBlood.5687:

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

Signet of Shadows isn’t rubbish, it’s perfect for stomping everybody but Thieves and Mesmers. “Sacrificing” it is worth it.

I dunno about that, I use Cloaked in Shadows trait when using offhand dagger, or just the black powder skill on offhand pistol when I stomp, If mesmer or thief try to teleport away I use my steal or infiltrators signet.

What if you have Shortbow equipped while stomping? Or you want to blind someone who is out of Pistol offhand range? What about being able to use it to LOS mobs around corners? The Signet Passive is already more than enough to not feel like it’s a waste of a utility slot. Combine the Signet activation with the trait that gives 5 might on activation and then it will be worth it.

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

The Signet Passive is already more than enough to not feel like it’s a waste of a utility slot. Combine the Signet activation with the trait that gives 5 might on activation and then it will be worth it.

I would agree with you if they didn’t add a 25% speed bonus to the 6th effect of Traveler runes.

SheerBlood.5687:

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

The Signet Passive is already more than enough to not feel like it’s a waste of a utility slot. Combine the Signet activation with the trait that gives 5 might on activation and then it will be worth it.

I would agree with you if they didn’t add a 25% speed bonus to the 6th effect of Traveler runes.

That’s an entire rune set though. It’s a very useful utility which is why there are threads on threads about why Mesmer and Guardians should have their own 25% Signet speed boost. If it wasn’t an important utility nobody would be asking for it on their class

Dancing Dagger (#4 dagger skill): You cant expect to hit someone running away all the time, then this skill would be TOO good.

Cloak & Dagger (#5 dagger skill): Don’t Miss!!

Death Blossom (#3 dagger/dagger skill): Very useful in D/D for evasion and getting behind your target for the important damage from behind or flanking trait.

Dommmmmmmmmm has covered the rest.

Sickle.6502:

Dancing Dagger (#4 dagger skill): You cant expect to hit someone running away all the time, then this skill would be TOO good.

Cloak & Dagger (#5 dagger skill): Don’t Miss!!

Death Blossom (#3 dagger/dagger skill): Very useful in D/D for evasion and getting behind your target for the important damage from behind or flanking trait.

Dommmmmmmmmm has covered the rest.

This isn’t even a valid argument.

Edit: But I’ll play along.

Dancing Dagger (#4 dagger skill): No, this is what the dodge was meant for avoiding these attacks.

Cloak & Dagger (#5 dagger skill): Don’t make stupid arguments.

Death Blossom (#3 dagger/dagger skill): People will turn around the moment you use it on them, unless they’re running away, this skill moves very slowly.

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

That’s an entire rune set though. It’s a very useful utility which is why there are threads on threads about why Mesmer and Guardians should have their own 25% Signet speed boost. If it wasn’t an important utility nobody would be asking for it on their class

But that would be a spare utility slot could have roll for initiative or blinding powder in it (that’s going to need using in the upcoming patch)

Oh really? why, because it doesn’t fit in line with what you want to happen?

You want to always hit someone with your skill 4, think skill 5 isn’t player skill based, and you believe that skill 3 doesn’t belong.

If anything, your reasons aren’t valid to even consider changing anything.

Sickle.6502:

Oh really? why, because it doesn’t fit in line with what you want to happen?

You want to always hit someone with your skill 4, think skill 5 isn’t player skill based, and you believe that skill 3 doesn’t belong.

If anything, your reasons aren’t valid to even consider changing anything.

Please name one request I’ve made.
I’ve only pointed out things, never requested anything, I hate how people like you comment on something and have no idea what you’re talking about.

I said, it’s possible to actually dodge the dancing dagger, not “always hit someone”
saying “don’t miss” is not what I meant when I said you can “debate”
And making up a poor excuse for death blossom(to try and make me look bad or something) just shows that you don’t know how to use a thief.

Thiefs have a row of completely different problems, than what the OP is writign here about.
On certain things he has written about, I absolutely can’t agree

Your suggestion about Dancing Dagger would make this skill simply overpowered.
A Dagger Skill, that will never miss, when its a throwing attack, that can be simply dodged, like a movign target can dodge also simply flying arrows by changing the direction of movement. Same goes for the flying dagger.. once its thrown ,it can’t change anymore its direction, so if the enemy change its direction of moment, the enemy should be able to simply dodge that attack without having really to waste a dodge roll for that attack just to avoid the damage.

If you spam just too much Dancing Daggers on a very mobile enemy player, that plays his class well and knows of what you can do with your played class well too to outplay you, then this simply shows only or personal lack of skill with playing the thief, if you just spam they attacks..

Then its absolutely no miracle, that you will miss often and waste alot of initiatve, if you spam too much your attacks at the wrong moment.
Thiefs aren’t a Shoot/Spam and forget-Class.
You have to play with them very cautiously, beign always aware of your surroundings, using your precious initiative at the right moments to play them as effective as possible. Especially as a D/D when using Cloak and Dagger to go into stealth, you want to go 100% sure, that you don’t miss your target, so you wait for the right moment, when you get your enemy into a moment, where the attack simply can’t miss, unless the foe starts a second before you some blocking skills to negate your attack before your attack could land.

Yes, CnD costs much Initiative, but thats exactly the reason why.. if we could spam that skill nonstop, thiefs would be masisvely overpowered.
CnD is besides Heartseekers on weakened enemies their most powerful attack that has for them the most powerful base attack power with 1 hit. only the critical backstab is alot more powerful, if hit from behind and of a D/D build the only most deathly attack of the whole skill build that enemies have to fear and which smart enemies can easily counter, especialyl as elementalists, mesmers, or necromancers if those classes get really well played…

I absolutely disaggree with your senseless suggestion of nerfign Death Blossom by removing Bleedings… Death Blossom is a Skill, that needs a Buff!!
Death Blossom should provide a longer dodge duration, 0,25 seconds or what it is is absolutely ridiculous. Performign this skilsl should give the thief at least a full second of auto dodge incoming damage.
The Bleed Condition should get exchanged through a combination of Vulnerability and Torment, so that the condition damage can’t get so easily instantly removed and punishes more very mobile enemies so that the control aspect of the thief gets improved while still providing a good skill for condition damage thief builds that play D/D

Bleeding should be added to the Auto Attack and get exchange with Poison.
Auto Attack should add Poison to the effects, if a Thief player used one of the then 3 new Venom Weapon Modifyings, that ANet should move from the Utility Skilsl over to F2- F4 as new class specific thief feature so that thiefs would gain 3 special equipable Venoms that change their Auto Attacks completely and add new effects to them in regard of which Venom has been used with Venomes, that last not only for a few hits, but instead have Venoms, that last all like 30-60 seconds or so regardless of the amount of hits.

By using Frost Drake Venom. the Auto Attack Chain would receive additionally to Bleeding Stack Chill and Poison

by using the Basilisk Venom, the Auto Attack Chain would receive Petrification and Poison (Petrification would get a new effect and become finally a new official condition that will be put also to certain Earth Elementalist Skills)

By using the Skale Venom, the Auto Attack would receive Torment and Vulnerability Effects.

That way could add Anet to the thief a few more new skills, make them more versatile and interestign for condition builds too and give to them a few new more useful utility skills, that those silly utility venoms as also a new more useful elite skill.
By putting venoms onto F2-4 , Thiefs would finally become an alot more fun to play class, that resembles on trustworthy thiefs, that are masters of deathly poisons too and not only stealth. Thiefs are cunning fighters, that always try to weaken their foes to get the upperhands in a battle through a vast amount of various deathly poisons and neurotoxins that should help them to kill easily their victims due to the disadvantages caused by those venoms that the victims suffered on, if they don’t cure those conditions quickly

Dancing dagger has its use. Its a 100% projectile finisher, and if you’re running p/d or d/d there are condi spec’s for them. Try using dancing dagger through a friendly combo field and you’ll notice its use. For power builds, it works well if you want something like on crit sigils on the OH dagger. Throw it into a small group, proc the sigil because it bounces and is likely to get atleast something. Its not meant for direct damage, its meant more so for utility.

CnD is very expensive I agree, but its the cheapest method of gaining stealth if you look at it. D/p spends 6 +3 to gain stealth, and using utility skills means a cool down is in play. Ofc there are benefits vs CnD like D/p is guaranteed stealth unless stunned, but everything has to have drawbacks or there is no balance. The only issue is that CnD only counts kitten initiative towards assassins’ reward but tbh, that trait is awful even with their proposed “buffs” to it.

Death blossom needs no change, idk if you even play thief if your gana suggest that. You must play zerker hs spam builds if you havn’t heard of d/d condi builds. Also thief has VERY few weapons to choose from, the order we equip them is our diversity and is a rather neat one. Death blossom needs a rework if anything, because the evade is rather clunky (often I still get hit while “evading”) and is really short moving. Even if I get 2/3 of the bleeds in I’d rather move a little distance than completely miss the target because they took 3 steps to the side and laughed. Even with swiftness this skill is really obvious.

Patience should change, I agree. Maybe along the lines of damage reduction while in stealth, a different way of handling incoming damage. Maybe 10% while in stealth or a value of toughness that scales on your level? As an initiative trait it really gets outdone by almost everything else in the tree.

SoS isn’t something I run often but I do believe it has its uses. The active imo isn’t as good as it probably should be, but people have their uses for it. For instance, I’ve saved a couple player’s in wvw by blinding someone who was chasing them and used something like earthshaker or guardian GS #5. Personally I wish this skill was a blast finisher at the location of the target (you do make a poof cloud at their location). Aside from that its fine as is.

If signet of agility became a stun breaker, I would kiss the feat of anet’s headquarters. The skill has soo much potential and the endurance refill flows perfectly for a thief themed stun break.

I wish we had atleast a 3rd profession skill( I consider stealth attacks as a profession skill in its own way), something along the lines of a defense we generally lack like condi clearing or recovery outside of stealth. Or even allow it to hold a stolen item and keep steal separate so you can hold it for a better time. Often I feel like I’m wasting stolen skills just to get to my steal, which has a lot of benefits. I wish I had the option to hold a stolen skill for a better time.

Thats the reason why i keep on suggesting, that Anet shoukld resdesign the thief mechanics and improve the Stealing mechanic by increasign the amount of stolen skilsl from 1 up to 3, so that thiefs should be able to uhold up to 3 different stolen skills and to select the skill that you want to use by clicking on the stolen skill icon, before you press F1.

If none Skill Icon is marked and you press F1, then you use the Steal Skill and turn one of your empty Stolen Skill Slots into the randomous Stolen Skill.
This together with completely changing the Shadow Step mechanic from a lame boring instant teleport mechanic into a quick movement auto dodge mechanic that lets thiefs aboid damage without havign to use for it a dodge roll, while they can quickly move around for a short while (like 50% increased movement speed while shadow stepping is active together with a cool new animation for shadow stepping that looks like you movearound in a kind of shadow dimension that lies between realitity and the realm of darkness, into which enemy thiefs should follow you too, if they use stealth or shadow step too to counterbalance that feature, that theres still a class, that can attack shadow stepping thiefs.. thiefs themself, because they’d be the only fast enough enemies, that would be actualyl a threatto a shadow stepping fast thief on a competitive level of movement speed, because thats all what a thief is all about – agility/movement and positioning, especially as a D/D)

By redesigning the shadow steppign mechanic, thiefs would finally also become alot lesser dependant from Stealth, if they would have through Shadow Steppign a way of mitigating incoming damage, like a warrior, that can block all incoming damage (even from behind and while running away! thats so ridiculous!!!) and receives that wax no amage at all for like 3 seconds..

So what would be the big deal, if a Thief would receive for like 3 seconds with Shadow Steps a real fast movement speed increase, that lets them Auto Dodge incoming damage, while moving. Would be 3 second,s in which such a kin of thief would have not to use Stealth just to avoid damage or where a thief would have not to waste up a dodge roll just to avoid 1 single attack…

Profession specific mechanics of the Thief should be:

Thieveries (Steal) on F1 (Mark on Slot to activate 1 of max 3 different Stolen items that can be stored up that way. Press F1 without havign a Slot marked, = Steal to fill up a Slot with a Stolen Skill.

Shadow Stepping for very quick damage mitigating Movement, the current SHadow Steps are just only quick movement through instant unimpressive looking boring teleportations, but no damage mitigation.

Venoms to modify their Auto Attack Skill Chains for diversive Attack Combos with various CC control effects to strengthen their Condition gameplay and Group Support/Control Abilities under F2-F4

Stealth is by what Anet made out of this feature absolutely no class specific proffession related mechanic anymore, now where Rangers, mesmers and Engineers all can also use Stealth,… Anet should really rename the description of thiefs from masters of shadows to masters of deathly poisons and give that class the needed redesign that this clas deserves to become more ofthe kind of trustworthy thiefs that they should be and what you should expect from a thief as beign the most mobile class and yet there are this silly phenomenons, called GS Warriiors in HEAVY ARMORS, that can move alot faster, than a thief..

BLAPHEMY!!

I actually like the shadowstep steal has. It’s a gap closer, which thieves utilize best since we are a melee focused profession, and it also can used to negate a burst of AoE’s if you are attentive to your surroundings. If you have the trait that grants stealth on steal, you can actually completely throw off a enemy (unless you have throw gunk pulsing).

For instance, a warrior uses their mace burst skill, and your stun break is on cooldown. You can shadowstep to them or to a nearby foe, the stealth is just long enough to recover from the stun and appear almost unharmed. Considering we only get 1 real profession skill, I kinda wish there were more traits revolving around its use. There are 0 traits involving stealth attacks (directly) also, which is kinda sad. I also wish there were more benefits to spending our initiative rather than just for the weapon’s utility.

Currently we have assassin’s reward, which… is sad. Warrior can burn their adrenaline and restore endurance, or cure conditions per bar. They can also gain various bonuses for holding onto that adrenaline. Thieves get nothing for holding onto steal/stolen skills. Steal isn’t a bar or anything but some builds have absolutely no use for it aside from moving. Would it be too much to ask for a trait adjustment to transfer 1 condition to your foe when you steal? We are low on effective condi clears and it fits the whole trickery that thieves work with.

SheerBlood.5687:

Sickle.6502:

Dancing Dagger (#4 dagger skill): You cant expect to hit someone running away all the time, then this skill would be TOO good.

Cloak & Dagger (#5 dagger skill): Don’t Miss!!

Death Blossom (#3 dagger/dagger skill): Very useful in D/D for evasion and getting behind your target for the important damage from behind or flanking trait.

Dommmmmmmmmm has covered the rest.

This isn’t even a valid argument.

Edit: But I’ll play along.

Dancing Dagger (#4 dagger skill): No, this is what the dodge was meant for avoiding these attacks.

Cloak & Dagger (#5 dagger skill): Don’t make stupid arguments.

Death Blossom (#3 dagger/dagger skill): People will turn around the moment you use it on them, unless they’re running away, this skill moves very slowly.

Doesn’t matter if they turn around. It may not be fast, but it cripples to. Just because it doesn’t suck your builds kitten, doesn’t mean it isn’t useful to others.