Guild Wars 2

I have been using Arcane Thievery because I like the extended range trait and reduced cooldown for Manipulation skills mainly because of blink.

However unless you are fighting a specific type of class. Like warriors that usually use the signet of rage. Its not worth it because of the immense cooldown even fully traited. And for removing conditions is horrible because there are many ways it can miss. Although I have tried to avoid this problem its useless against builds that put constant condition pressure like necros or engies.

As a condition removal and boon removal the better choice would be disenchanter.

I really wanted to love this skill as its fun to steal enemie’s boons. But as of right now its not worth it even fully traited.

hmmi like using arcane thievery in spvp, but it fails often.its not so reliable, but can beuseful if u use it properly. i agree though that it could use a little buff though as itfails too often and is easy to dodge.

I’ve seen it fail several times for no apparent reason. That, combined with the CD makes it rather unattractive to me.
Can it fail if you have no conditions?

Dat rage signet steal though…

calavel.6249:

Can it fail if you have no conditions?

No, but it will fail if the enemy evades or is invulnerable

Whether its underpowered really depends on how you view this skill. Personally I think of arcane thievery as an offensive utility, a method in hurting the enemy by stealing their boons and return their conditions. Thus I feel that evasion and invulnerable misses are justified. But if you view this as a defensive utility it really falls below mantra of resolve and only really shines when you have high stacks of conditions on yourself.

I don’t think it’s too weak standalone, but it’s too narrow in its use to compete over 3 utility slots very often. It’s more like a weapon skill in style. That isn’t on a weapon.

But it’s a cool skill when you make a point of using it, you just… usually miss whatever you had in that slot before.

Arcane theivery isnt underpowered, its just plain unpredictable. It can be evaded by pretty much anything and it has a silly delayed cast time. This combo mean you cant effectivly use it. I prefer null field when glamour is traited. Arcane I would only use if there are no other options. It only truly shine against perplexity builds (assuming you dont miss).

IMO they should do one of two things:

- Make it insta-cast

- Make it unblockable.

Dawdler.8521:

Arcane theivery isnt underpowered, its just plain unpredictable. It can be evaded by pretty much anything and it has a silly delayed cast time. This combo mean you cant effectivly use it. I prefer null field when glamour is traited. Arcane I would only use if there are no other options. It only truly shine against perplexity builds (assuming you dont miss).

IMO they should do one of two things:

- Make it insta-cast

- Make it unblockable.

It is unblockable right now. The problem is that you can still miss using it with evades and blinds. Even if it was unevadable and unmissable. I don’t think it would be worth it as it can’t deal with constant conditions on you and there is hardly ever a time when the enemy has enough boon durations on themselves to use it.

I always thought that this skill would be better of as a signet (passive: removes 1 condition every x second, active: steal 3 boons from your target).

The skill has just to many downsides in comparison to other utilities.

- Random boon removal without piorities (most of the time your opponent will have more than 3 boons). Sucks when you want to get rid of stability or protection and you get vigor or swiftness. Same reason why Nullfields boon removal is kinda bad)
- High cooldown
- Needs a target to do ANYTHING (which really sucks for condi removal)
- It fails to often for no apparent reason. ( I think thats because it acts like a projectile)

You almost never need both functions at the same time. So you will be either left without any condition removal when you need it or no boon removal. That sounds good in theory for balance reasons and that it takes some skill to use it properly. But thats really only theory, because boons and conditions are way to common and frequent to get proper use out of AT.

Its almost like Mimic. When stars align right it can be a great skill. But if not you found yourself with a dead utility slot.

It’s great, love it, has gotten me out of the poo many’a’time. Sure a buff would be nice, and some quality of life tweaks would be great, but all in all a solid utility. Great for solo play, and chasing too.

I think a nice tweak, would be to remove the need for target.

You use it and it removes the conditions, if your target don’t dodge/Inv/etc.. you can also pass your conditions to him and remove his boons.

This would make the skill more reliable.

Arcane thievery is super buggy. It not only has a too low range, it also fails on evade, fails on blind and it has a way too big cooldown.
I like the idea of it, but the problem is that it’s mostly used as condition removal rather than boon removal/stealer. This makes it a strong skill in certain situations where you have 3 really strong conditions on you (let’s say burning, torment and immobilize), whereas te enemy got 9 stacks of might, 10 seconds vigor and 20 seconds swiftness. 1 skill like that could turn the fight.
But yeah, Imo a 35 sec cooldown would still better fit than the current 45.

Arcane Thievery needs to be insta-cast.

Arcane Thievery is a powerful 1vs 1 skill, but that is the problem the skill only useful when there are low number of mobs or 1 vs 1 situations.

The only use I can find in this skill is pve. Some mobs or bosses have ridiculous buff uptime . I would usually steal them

I used to think it was underpowered, and stuck with feedback and null field instead, but after a while, with my build anyways, I noticed I lost to warriors and guardians with lots of boons or other mesmers and necro slapping conditions on me, to I decided it would be better to have a move that helps me vs what I am weak against, Tanky WARRIOR AND GUARDIANS and NECRO (or any condition builds). I like the result of it a lot. Does it miss? sure it can be evaded but I just count on my own timing to make it work I guess.

what makes this skill very hard to use on specific targets is aegis and blind
would be cool if aegis and blind did not affect this skill.(transfers blind/ steals ageis)

would make the only counter invulnerability or evasion. which is justified.

Chaos.3579:

what makes this skill very hard to use on specific targets is aegis and blind
would be cool if aegis and blind did not affect this skill.(transfers blind/ steals ageis)

would make the only counter invulnerability or evasion. which is justified.

It is meant to be unblockable, as per tooltip. But like so many other things, needs to be fixed.

Lankybird.8149:

I used to think it was underpowered, and stuck with feedback and null field instead, but after a while, with my build anyways, I noticed I lost to warriors and guardians with lots of boons or other mesmers and necro slapping conditions on me, to I decided it would be better to have a move that helps me vs what I am weak against, Tanky WARRIOR AND GUARDIANS and NECRO (or any condition builds). I like the result of it a lot. Does it miss? sure it can be evaded but I just count on my own timing to make it work I guess.

This. I often find im quick to throw away a skill because its not working for me immediately. I know its not the skill, rather to make it most effective I’d have to practice with it. Problem is i need results now, so its shelved until a time im more able to master it. Arcane Thievery is something I’ve spent a lot of time using, and so the problems people generally run in to I’ve long since learned to overcome.

If notes i have seen are reliable then AT is being buffed with insta cast. That will make skill awesome and must have. As of right now it is waste of space. Between rate of failure and long cool down after few weeks of trying to use it i newer put it in my skill bar anymore.