Guild Wars 2

I wanted to discuss usefulness and reason behind some of thief traits and them in general.

So out of 60 major and 15 minor traits we got:

• 6 major and 2 minor traits that modify effect of stealing
• 8 major and 2 minor traits giving bonuses upon entering stealth and being in it
• 4 major and 1 minor traits applying stealth
• 6 major and 3 minor traits focusing on initative control

Now let’s take a look at traits modyfing utility skills.
We have:

• 5 venom traits
• 2 signet traits
• 2 traps traits
• 1 deception trait (only cooldon reduction)
• 1 trick trait (only cooldon reduction)
• and improvisation trait that refreshes one category of skills upon steal use.

When it comes to weapons

• 3 pistol traits
• 2 dual skills traits
• 1 dagger trait
• 1 shortbow and harpoon gun trait
• 0 sword trait
• 0 spear trait
• 2 major and 4 minor traits that increase our damage when certain conditions are met, but work with every weapon.

Now let me talk about some trait changes i would love to see.

Deadly Arts

• I – Back Fighting – Does anyone use that trait? When i play i try to stay alive as long as possible, not to fight in downed mode.
• II – Corrosive trait – Is that trait really that powerful that it can’t be a single trait with Master Trapper?
• V – Potent Poison – There are so many conditions out there. Do we seriosly need 50% more duration on poison? It’s easy enough to have 100% uptime by using steal and d/x
  autoattacks on target. From pvp point of view, i would prefer it to be changed to bleeding, torment or even blindness.
• VII – Improvisation – It doesnt happen too often that i have skill from every category as i just like to trait into skills i have (like most of players probbably). Second part is useful for Fiery Greatsword though.
• VIII – Quick Venoms – is it another trait that overpowered that it needs to be alone there? Every other class has some bonus to skill category for taking cd reduction trait for it, we don’t.
• IX – Dagger Training – 5% damage increse… People take it only because this trait lane lacks any other usefuls skills – also only trait that improves dagger use
• X – Dual Training – ok, dual skills are good, i like the idea of changing skills depending on weapon combination we have, but trait that increases damage by amazing 5% of single skill? As previous one taken only because of lack of useful traits.
  Critical Strikes
• V – Pistol Mastery – 10% is better than that 5% we have up there, but still, have to take more traits to have some additional effect.
• VIII – Signet Use – it was good when our initative regen was 7,5 per 10 and it gave us 2 initative. Which meant that if we used all 4 signets avaible to our class we would get more initative than we normally got in 10 seconds. Now It gives us 4 initative out of 10 we regen during 10 seconds. From over 100% to 40% that’s really a huge nerf. Best idea would be deleting that initative regen thingy and merging it with Signets of Power, even if it meant lowering might stacks gained.
• IX – Combo Critical Chance – check dual training. Only difference is that here we have more useful traits to take.
  Shadow Arts
• I – Master of Deception – 20% cooldown reduction without any bonus effect…
• II – Slowed Pulse – works only on bleeding
• VII – Power Shots – another amazing 5% damage increase, you so witty
• X – Patience- "No initiative is gained upon entering stealth. The user must maintain stealth for 3 seconds before they will see benefits from this trait. " Quote, from wiki.
  Soo, i understand that real patience is needed to benefit of this trait that gives us amazing one point of initative.
  Acrobatics
• V – Master Trapper – again, 20% cooldown reduction, wrote about it in deadly arts II
• IX – Quick Recover – 1 initative per 10 seconds. Thank you i’ll pass.
• X – Hard to Catch – Too unreliable and can put us in even worse situation.
• XI – Assasin’s reward – The fact it relies on initative doesnt mean it has anything to do with initiative management. Grandmaster traits should be more connected with topic of trait lane. Place it in shadow arts to make thieves benefit more of it.
  Trickery
• V – Thrill of the Crime – We get swiftness, fury and one stack of might? Deleting that one stack of might and extending fury and swiftness duartion would be nice.
• VIII – Trickster – and again, 20% cd with no bonus effect
• XI – Hastened Replenishment – move it to acrobatics instead of Assasin’s Reward

Gonna agree here. So many positive changes that could be made. But unfortunately we do not fall into the category of Anets pet class. The warrior. Great post it I would nt hold my breath.

great trait, we dont Need that much average traits with stealing, venom, trickery stealth, anet should Combine useless traits to make space for new traits

I will also mention something that I proposed already many, many times in addition to this – separate trait lines and stats they give. Let player choose 2 stats for every trait line he picks, and increase those stats according to the amount of points player has invested into that line.
And, I know it won’t be easy at this point, but consider changing trait lines into trait trees (as it was long proven to be superior), even if without adding new traits.

Just a few comments

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

• VIII – Signet Use – it was good when our initative regen was 7,5 per 10 and it gave us 2 initative. Which meant that if we used all 4 signets avaible to our class we would get more initative than we normally got in 10 seconds. Now It gives us 4 initative out of 10 we regen during 10 seconds. From over 100% to 40% that’s really a huge nerf. Best idea would be deleting that initative regen thingy and merging it with Signets of Power, even if it meant lowering might stacks gained.

You’re judging the power lost on the trait without acknowledging the overall buff Init regen got (in fact, you’re using it as a tool to make the trait look worse) – this trait is fine as it is.

• I – Master of Deception – 20% cooldown reduction without any bonus effect…

It’s a 10 point trait and covers 3 powerful utilities (Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, Blinding powder), it’s fine.

• V – Master Trapper – again, 20% cooldown reduction, wrote about it in deadly arts II

Impossible to really judge how useful this is until traps are fixed – traps are currently garbage, this trait could cut CD by 50% and it’d still be hard to take.

• V – Thrill of the Crime – We get swiftness, fury and one stack of might? Deleting that one stack of might and extending fury and swiftness duartion would be nice.

10s of Fury/might/swiftness to everyone in 360 radius is good for an adept level trait – yes the single stack of might is meh, but who cares, it’s still a solid trait.

• VIII – Trickster – and again, 20% cd with no bonus effect

Here I agree – a master level trait that covers meh utilities, this is kind of crap.

• XI – Hastened Replenishment – move it to acrobatics instead of Assasin’s Reward

I like this suggestion, but instead of quick pockets – AR is where it needs to be, it just needs to be rebalanced.

evilapprentice.6379:

Just a few comments

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

• VIII – Signet Use – it was good when our initative regen was 7,5 per 10 and it gave us 2 initative. Which meant that if we used all 4 signets avaible to our class we would get more initative than we normally got in 10 seconds. Now It gives us 4 initative out of 10 we regen during 10 seconds. From over 100% to 40% that’s really a huge nerf. Best idea would be deleting that initative regen thingy and merging it with Signets of Power, even if it meant lowering might stacks gained.

You’re judging the power lost on the trait without acknowledging the overall buff Init regen got (in fact, you’re using it as a tool to make the trait look worse) – this trait is fine as it is.

• I – Master of Deception – 20% cooldown reduction without any bonus effect…

It’s a 10 point trait and covers 3 powerful utilities (Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, Blinding powder), it’s fine.

Let’s assume we run a full signet build – 4 signets – malice, agility, assasin’s and shadows
Now during one minute im able to use assasin’s signet once, agility twice (but i would probbably keep it till it’s active effect is needed), and shadow twice, lets say i also use malice twice for emergency heal. Now before patch from using all those signets and basic initative regen i would get 6*7,5 + 7*2 = 59. After last patch from my initiative regen alone during that time i get 60 initative, and 7 additional. So before the patch, this trait gave me 30% of initative i regained during that time. Now it would give me 12%. Is that extra initative really that needed if we can now work without it on bigger pool that we had with it prepatch?

Now for Master of Deception, as in wvw i run with 3 deception skills, it would be fitting for my build to take that trait. But it just loses in comparison to other traits this lane has to offer. IV, V and VI are completely overshadowing it and are also 10 point traits

It’s quite obvious that most Thief traits haven’t received a design-review since release. Just look at the Warrior with all the revised traits.They are overall far more attractive, make more sense and are more impactful than anything Thieves have.

The reason so many Thieves play the same way is because only 20% of our traits actually have a tangible impact on how the class plays.

Dee Jay.2460:

…
The reason so many Thieves play the same way is because only 20% of our traits actually have a tangible impact on how the class plays.

So much this…
Please either un-kitten or remove Hard to Catch for starters.

Now, for changes i would suggest:

Remake traps – it’s impossible to make traps’ traits viable until traps are viable

Deadly Arts V – Potent poison – Your condition duration is increased by 15% against poisoned targets. (encourages wise use of poison before spamming other condition skills)
Deadly Arts VII – no more refreshes cooldowns,cant find any useful thing that will work with bundles (and make Dagger Storm a trick)
Deadly Arts VIII – Quick Venoms – merge it with some other venom trait ( all but Venomous Aura are fine here)
Deadly Arts IX – Dagger Training – if you can’t make anything creative out of it at least make it 10%
Deadly Arts X – Dual Training —> Sword Training – sword damage is increased by 10% ( i know you like dual wield and all, but trait that buffs single weapon skill isn’t nice)
Critical Strikes VII – Signet use – merge with signets of power – 20% cd reduction and 3 aoe might stacks for 15 sec.
Shadow Arts – I Master of Deception – Move to master tier – 20% cd reduction, 5 second aegis/protection on use.
Shadow Arts II – Slowed Pulse – cleanse conditon, gives that 5 sec of regeneration and works on bigger spectrum of conditions
Shadow Arts VII – move to acrobatics – increase shortbow damage by 10%, increase range of all shortbow skills by 150
Shadow Arts X – Patience – damage of next attack during stealth will be increased by 5% for every second spent in stealth, stacks up to 3 times for additional 15% damage after 3 seconds.
Acrobatics IX – Quick Recover – You regain one initative if your attack is blocked or evaded ( like only when “evaded” shows up) – 5 second cooldown
Acrobatics X – Hard to catch – this trait needs a complete rework, but there is whole thread about it already
Acrobatics XI – Assasin’s reward – move to shadow arts, it will synergize better there and make that lane more viable in pve
Tickery VII – Bountiful Theft – make it steal whole stack of boon, not like now that it will get me 3 seconds of switness when enemy has acumlated 10 minutes of it, give vigor when no target, and make it steal boon before it applies or other effects like mug.
Trickery VIII – Trickster – 20% cooldown reduction, give vigor or fury upon using trick.
And as i already said
XI – Hastened Replenishment – move it to acrobatics instead of Assasin’s Reward

Some traps either need to be made semi permanent (i.e. needle trap and trip wire need to work like wards which would be a nice boost to group utility) or turned into hexes/marks (not like the necro kind)/promises which are black border effects that either trigger on rollover skill use or when a condition is met (like target becomes knocked down on dodge roll in the case of tripwire). It would be an interesting change to traps in their current condition.

As for traits, dagger training might be outclassed by sundering strikes at this point, and power shots needs to increase range of both pistols and bow before it becomes a hard decision between that and IV, V, and VI.

Utility skills need a rework as well before more of them become as useful as deception utilities.

You missed the most broken part. There needs to be new grandmaster traits in deadly arts. Do you know anyone who runs 30 points in DA except for maybe the 3 people who think the extra venom strike is actually worth it?

If traited with leeching venoms and venomous aura, it results in 25 more leeching life hits – more damage and more healing.

style.6173:

You missed the most broken part. There needs to be new grandmaster traits in deadly arts. Do you know anyone who runs 30 points in DA except for maybe the 3 people who think the extra venom strike is actually worth it?

Roll residual venoms into venomshare so we don’t have to dump 60 points into 2 traitlines for effective support build.