Guild Wars 2

• Increase the number of conditions/boons transferred.

anet probably will not do anything about it. The skill use to swap all the boons and conditions. Anet nerfed it……

I am thinking of a more radical change.

Steal 3 boons from each foe. Affects up to 5 foes.

radius 700

Cooldown must be reduced in its current form.

40s base is a joke – should be at most 30s base.

I think it’s fair that it was nerfed from swapping all boons/conditions to only 3, but the cooldown should now be low enough to allow more frequent use – especially given the amount of conditions flying around.

AoE would be nice, but tbh I’d like to see a branching skill option for cooldown, number of conditions and AoE – so you have to choose how you want to customise the skill (single target many condis/boons, high cooldown or multi target, few condi/boons and lower cooldown, for example). But this is a general thing I want to see in the game anyway, although not likely to occur for several years if it indeed does happen…

Jackums.3496:

Curunen.8729:

Cooldown must be reduced in its current form.

40s base is a joke – should be at most 30s base.

40s base is more likely if the number of boons and conditions transferred is increased, because Master of Manipulation would decrease that to 32 seconds.

30s base cooldown would never happen, because that would allow a 24s CD with Master of Manipulation, which would make it incredibly powerful (slightly less cleanse than Mantra of Resolve, with the added offense/utility of boon stealing).

Though assuming the number of boons/conditions isn’t altered, then the base cooldown definitely needs at least 10 seconds shaved off.

As for more drastic changes that alter the mechanics (ie. AoE transfer); I find the chances of that happening less likely, with ANet’s whole “small, incremental buffs” philosophy.

Facepalm – my mistake, for some reason I thought AT was 40s base cooldown instead of 45! xD

In that case 35s would be suitable (down to 28s traited).

One thing to note is that anyone speccing for master of manipulation will likely not have shattered concentration – so there would be limited boon strip in addition with 28s AT compared to base cooldown.

Jackums.3496:

Curunen.8729:

Facepalm – my mistake, for some reason I thought AT was 40s base cooldown instead of 45! xD

In that case 35s would be suitable (down to 28s traited).

I think this alone would be a good start, if ANet don’t want to make any significant changes to the skill. Reducing the base cooldown by 10 seconds would be great.

Yeah the reduced recharge is the first thing to do with this one. Doing as suggested here makes it the exact same as chaos storm, which is a much stronger skill if you think about it.

The other issue with arcane thievery is the sometimes buggy nature of it working properly when activated. The skill is supposed to be unblockable and I’m sure that plays a little into the higher recharge. With spotty reliability though it definitely taints the overall usefulness. I think most work around this, but with increased reliability and lower recharge it’d be in good shape.

I use arcane thievery in PvP as i run a build that is countered by stability and its nice to have the ability to strip it on demand, unlike disenchanter. Im talking here mostly about warriors, it is also nice if you get immobilized and you can swap it out. The skill is good, its the most aggressive clear we have, especially stealing 25 stacks of might, and its very good in duels. I do agree it needs some work.

Any1 who has used it knows its not easy to pull off, and this is what I would change.

- I agree that the cooldown should be at 30-35s.

- Instant cast, dont have to be facing target and cant be obstructed.

Those are the main problems I have with the skill and what makes it hard to pull off, atm you have to be in a clearcut line, facing the target with nothing in the way, and can be evaded. Instant cast would be great, and imo how it should have worked in the first place. It would make this skill more viable.

Not that I wouldn’t mind a buff to any of our skills, but really AT is pretty solid. Taken with master of manipulation I don’t find myself really needing a lower cd. A few seconds off the cd won’t really be that huge a buff, and neither would instant cast really.

As it is right now AT is a solid skill, just don’t rely on it for condi cleanse :-). By that I mean even using it solely as an offensive utility I find it very solid.

Like I said, want to buff a skill I use sure I’ll take it, but on the list of things they need to spend time on for our class, this is pretty low down.

Zzero.4316:

- Instant cast, dont have to be facing target and cant be obstructed.

I’ve thought it should work like corrupt boon. Unblockable, instant cast, can be used any direction. I don’t like the obstructed part though, at least let it have some ability to miss besides evade. If Anet did this the skill might see greater use and it’d allow greater counter play to boon/condi spamming classes since mesmers would punish them reliably.

I’ve been using this skill a lot lately. It’s one of those really fun skills that so satisfying when you use it right. So I hope any change doesn’t nerf it.

I’m using it as my primary condi-clear mechanism, so the biggest issue is when it fails. The two failure cases for me are primarily when it goes out of range and when the target is lost. There may be some other failure case – something happens where the outline of the skill icon sort of pulses, but the condi transfer doesn’t happen. This typically happens in really chaotic fights, so I don’t know if it’s just another case of lost target or out of range. I’ve definitely tested successfully facing away from a target, and it worked reliably in controlled PVE tests.

I think I would prioritize changes like this:
- Auto-target if no target selected (the thief stealths, but I could still dump that poison on something in range)
- Instant cast (helps with both range and target loss cases)
- Slightly shorter cooldown

It’s so satisfying when it works and so frustrating when it doesn’t

In current form, I would be perfectly fine with a cooldown reduction. 30-35s sounds like a decent sweet spot, though I’d prefer it closer to 20s (but I feel like most slot skills should be around there).

If we kept the cooldown, I would like an AoE effect for at LEAST the boons – I never feel like it’s worth taking this without Signet of Inspiration. At an extreme, gained boons AoE + lost conditions AoE(in other words, you still only get one target’s boons, and lose your own conditions, but there’s still an AoE component).

Alternatively, vast change: Make it a mantra, stay single target. Less likely to happen, but I feel like it would be a really interesting offensive choice to take this over the other cleanse mantra(which would still be a party-wide effect).

I only use Arcane Thievery in 1v1s or in S/TPvP. It simply does not do enough in WvW to warrant taking up a utility slot.

Look at it this way: Is this skill broken, or just not perfect? I’d say it’s not broken, so let’s not ask Anet to start kittening around with it ok? We all know what the likely outcome of that is, a much more broken skill than the basically decent one we have now.

MSFone.3026:

Look at it this way: Is this skill broken, or just not perfect? I’d say it’s not broken, so let’s not ask Anet to start kittening around with it ok? We all know what the likely outcome of that is, a much more broken skill than the basically decent one we have now.

They will take silence as a sign that everything is okay. No.

Silence is one thing they aren’t getting regarding mesmers, so that’s not a problem. Do you want them to fix existing bugs and major problems, or screwing up a skill that works decently? I suppose if you want more things of ours broken and messed with, by all means keep complaining about AT. Just saying, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Address real problems first.

So this is what its come to? Don’t touch a skill that “kinda” works, for fear ANet will just make it worse.

MSFone.3026:

Silence is one thing they aren’t getting regarding mesmers, so that’s not a problem. Do you want them to fix existing bugs and major problems, or screwing up a skill that works decently? I suppose if you want more things of ours broken and messed with, by all means keep complaining about AT. Just saying, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Address real problems first.

No, we raise hell until they sit down and fix EVERYTHING and make this FUN again. It’s our turn.

MSFone.3026:

Silence is one thing they aren’t getting regarding mesmers, so that’s not a problem. Do you want them to fix existing bugs and major problems, or screwing up a skill that works decently? I suppose if you want more things of ours broken and messed with, by all means keep complaining about AT. Just saying, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Address real problems first.

Yeah it’s not broken but it sees no play as well. The skill is just inferior to other options in the game, changing it a little shouldn’t break it(it’s a condi/boon transfer) but give mesmers direct counterplay to boon/condi spam. It’s not that the skill doesn’t do this already but with all the evades/blinds/teleports/invulnerabilities/stuns it makes it less reliable than other condition removal.

Kadj.6725:

No, we raise hell until they sit down and fix EVERYTHING and make this FUN again. It’s our turn.

Ah you’ve said it now…“our turn”. This is sort of what the game has boiled down to, Anet gets a ton of complaints and starts fixing things. Then they go overboard and start making classes OP, like when necros/warriors got buffed. Anet will fix certain bugs rather quickly like confounding suggestions, they claimed it was causing too many stuns and now no one uses it. On the other hand, worthless things don’t get proper care to become viable(see the mesmer bug thread).

Seems ok ability to me.You probally didnt understood that it transfers condies,not cleanses and it transfers boons to you,not strips.Can be really strong.Its far from useless.

Thou making it work in all angles “360 degree” cant hurt :-)

I’d like to the see the CD reduced to at least 40 seconds and also just have the skill more reliable to use.

Troll buff: Arcane Thievery now also steals 50% of the enemy’s endurance

The big issues with this skill is
1) blind stops this skill dead in its tracks……
2) the cd

My suggestion would be to remove the unblock-able functionality and instead make it un-blind able.
Additionally to make it worth its current cd make it instant cast and usable when stunned. Just imagine the plays against fear necros. Justified by the long cd

frankly i’m fine with the 3 condis/3 boons transfer, i would like a smaller cd.
thats really the only update id like one it, i recently took mirror images out of my utilities to get a little condi clear for my shatter build in tpvp; have yet to look back i love the skill that much.

The only thing wrong with this skill is the long CD. Other than that, I think it works perfectly fine. I use it in my lockdown builds.

I actually really like the skill, I just don’t use it because of how often is fails. It really is the #1 annoyance with my mesmer.. that skills like iLeap and AT can simply do nothing for no apparently reason. I can be standing right infront of a warrior facing him and still it does nothing.

They need to update it to work the ranger skill “Sic ’em”. That skill applies the Reveal debuff, but the nice thing is it works 100% of the time. You dont need line of sight, you dont need to be facing them, you dont need anything. If they are in range, it works. If AT worked so reliably I would use it without question, because it’s so good on paper.

Yes, I too think the functionality is fine. 3 boons and 3 condis is a nice number. Any more and it could potentially be much too potent, and any less would make it much weaker.

One thing I wish it would do is transfer blind so that it would “miss”. Kind of ironic that a condition transferring ability is foiled by a condition.

Other than that, the only feasible buff I can see is that the cooldown gets reduced a bit. Well, and making the cast time underwater the same as the on land cast time, but no one cares about underwater stuff anymore, so… yeah.

It would be phenomenal if this worked when you were blind (actually transferred the blind condition). It’s definitely something that can make the skill fail and make it frustrating. I think I would still rank the desired tweaks as:
- Auto-target on cast
- Instant cast
- Shorter cooldown
- Transfers blind (instead of failing)

Proposed change:
In the event that this skill misses, removes 3 conditions from the mesmer.

Just that would be enough imo. Maybe reduce the base CD to 40/35 seconds as well. The big problem is that if you’re depending on this skill for your condi cleanse, then it really can’t be something that can “miss” and just not remove conditions. It needs to, at the very least, remove three conditions on use no matter what. Whether that be in the form of transferring the condi to an enemy, or as just plain condi removal in the event that you miss.

I enjoy reading most of these suggestions. It’s like people here are so tired of being under powered that they are pushing to become overpowered. I suppose I’ll follow suit.

Here’s my suggestion for a rework of every skill available to Mesmer, even the useful ones:
Take the basic concept of the skill and blow it up until it’s stupidly overpowered. Done.

I think I did an excellent job fitting in with the other posters here :] glad to see we all use our brains before posting.

Chaos.3579:

The big issues with this skill is
1) blind stops this skill dead in its tracks……

Blind stops ALL offensive skills dead in their track, unless you whiff out an attack to remove it first. So yeah.. that there is more of a, don’t use it if you’re currently blinded.

Changes to the skill? A bit wider cone at least, if not 360°, since it is a bit annoying to need to let go of your keys to make sure your character turns and face your opponent directly. In such a active game, freezing yourself in place like that is just annoying. Maybe a slightly reduced cooldown period. Other than that, I think the skill is relatively functional and decent.

I am back on mesmer and used it every build. I like it. The cool down is long, and the range short considering most mesmer skills target at 1200 units range. I would love to see it get a slight decrease in cool down and extension of range. However in PvE, I would never use it.