Guild Wars 2

I know a lot of people think that the acro line is garbage now, but I’ve been using it in its new state for a while, and I really like it.

It does suck that feline grace is gone, but we do have some traits that I think make up for it, namely Hard to Catch and Don’t stop.

Hard to Catch is very unique. Not only is it a stunbreak, but it’s also instant. You will still be interrupted, but you will not actually be stunned for any noticeable amount of time. Don’t Stop essentially makes you immune to immobilize. These two traits have saved my life so many times. No, you can’t dodge quite as much as you used to be able to, but those CCs that you would have dodged are nullified automatically. I honestly do not think that the line is any worse than it was before.

The problem is, so many people run withdraw and shadowstep, why do you even need those traits? Even the reduced effectivenes of chill and cripple doesn’t matter much since you can chase with d/p 3 or escape with heartseeker or inf arrow. DD should synergize, but if you run staff you have another immob break with no cooldown, and bandit’s defense makes htc even less of a big deal. Not to mention vigor is barely noticeable compared to evade assistance you get with DD.

Personally, I love those two traits, but they aren’t even close to making acro worth taking over any other trait line.

kaikalii.4198:

I know a lot of people think that the acro line is garbage now, but I’ve been using it in its new state for a while, and I really like it.

It does suck that feline grace is gone, but we do have some traits that I think make up for it, namely Hard to Catch and Don’t stop.

Hard to Catch is very unique. Not only is it a stunbreak, but it’s also instant. You will still be interrupted, but you will not actually be stunned for any noticeable amount of time. Don’t Stop essentially makes you immune to immobilize. These two traits have saved my life so many times. No, you can’t dodge quite as much as you used to be able to, but those CCs that you would have dodged are nullified automatically. I honestly do not think that the line is any worse than it was before.

The problem is that those traits are crutches. It’s fine that these traits exist to lower the skill floor, but what about the skill ceiling? The problem with acro thief before was that they could spam dodge their way through a fight (allegedly) and come out on top. In my experience, unintelligent spam dodging really only delayed your demise, but that’s only personal experience. My issue is that there is not enough reward for intelligent play in acro. The only viable options are ones that help you if you mess up. There are not enough tools present to prevent you from messing up. It’s like the difference between preventative measures and damage control. Damage control is ok…but we would be happier if those things never happened in the first place, especially since, as thieves, we don’t have a lot of time to spare for damage control.

Edit: oh and also…some recent developments were made with Daredevil that basically nullify the usefulness of Don’t Stop haha

No, you can’t dodge quite as much as you used to be able to, but those CCs that you would have dodged are nullified automatically. I honestly do not think that the line is any worse than it was before.

I don’t care about the anti-CC. The Theif, and especially the DD, already have a TON of anti-CC. I care about not being able to dodge as much. They NEED to fix the “not being able to dodge as much.”

Personally I find that daredevil makes acrobatics even less attractive. I’ve already written at length about how that line is the worst line ever, but now that DD takes up its many niches, there’s no reason to run it at all.

First, it is bad at endurance regeneration. You get more vigor and weapon dodges from Trickery, and maybe even critical strikes if you’re running Signet of Agility with the recharge reduction trait. The difference being that trickery provides useful utility and critical strikes provides a lot of raw damage, whereas acrobatics provides barely anything.

Expeditious Dodger is a vastly inferior version of Unhindered Combatant, so inferior it is nigh useless. Basically combine Don’t Stop and Expeditious Dodger, and you’ll have half of what Unhindered Combatant can do.

Assassin’s Reward is only about as strong as Driven Fortitude, assuming no further additional dodges other than those innate to the Daredevil Specialization. Throw in a single skill based dodge and Assassin’s Reward, a grandmaster, is now inferior to the worst trait in the Daredevil line.

The rest of the acro line is filled with traits that are nearly useless. The worst part is, these traits don’t even compound with daredevil. The _ on evade traits are crap, and the line barely helps you to evade. It doesn’t provide as much as any other trait line in any capacity with which you could possibly evaluate a trait line.

People always tend to view only at the things you get and not the things you give up for it.
Like another poster mentioned, don’t stop and hard to catch are not bad, but for sure they are no reason to pick up a traitline.
And you need a reason to pick a traitline, like feline grace was or Shadow’s Embrace is.

apocom.3172:

People always tend to view only at the things you get and not the things you give up for it.
Like another poster mentioned, don’t stop and hard to catch are not bad, but for sure they are no reason to pick up a traitline.

Unfortunately, opportunity cost is a concept lost on the vast majority of people.

I am actually using Acrobatics as we speak and it comes in handy. It still goes well with S/D. It does not change the fact that line is still low class.

Pain Response, Swindler’s Eq, Guarded Initiation, Assassin’s Reward, Expeditious Dodges all those traits should be either buffed or completely revamped.

The core traits should be about competition, therefore we expect quality traits all over the place , but Acrobatics can’t even hold the line with SA.

I bet the only thing that will make us consider going back to Acro is the sheer number of anti-stealth that will send SA back to the bench, exactly next to where Acro has been sitting all along.

In addition to that endless stamina + feline grace is near to be useless. As already mentioned by others the amount of endurance you get with these traits is fairly bad. Endless stamina should be at 80-100% to be worth. A-Net removed 10% dmg, boon duration and might on dodge as well. We got nothing in exchange….
Personally I think acrobatic needs to be reworked: DD is like acrobatic 2.0, so maybe consider to change acrobatic to be a bruiser-spec with access to boons which thief are lacking now.

Thematically, most of acro’s good traits are “damage control” traits. Since DD is now the “master of all things evasion” perhaps its time to rething acro as “the trait line that gives your character reflexes” and theme the whole darn thing around that idea. hell, rename the trait line “Reflexes” while we’re at it.

For example, a trait that gives you init when interrupted. A trait that retaliates with a immob dagger when launched, a trait that gives you reflect for a few seconds upon taking a ranged attack, a trait that makes a lethal hit in stead drop you to 10% and launch you back, etc.

Thematically it’s more about superior reaction time than actually having more dodge, the assumption that your character, as a wily thief, has a lot of cool ICD ways to counter common thief-killing incoming attacks, and due to the trait mechanism they’re all good options but you can’t take all of them, but you can build around actually taking certain hits or effects on purpose as part of a combat strategy.

In light of the passive defenses we see on other classes it seems an appropriate change, and I think there’s a lot of room to build unique traits that feel appropriately thiefy and slippery in there.

This won’t make it good at preventing bad things, and that’s okay since that’s apperantly DDs job now. What it will do is give theives a usable not-stealth defensive line to bring up the survivability to a level that it’s worth taking in stead of SA or DD, or in addition to them if you want to go nots and sacrifice your damage lines for taking multiples.

New Acrobatics Minor: +25% Movespeed

Forgot to mention,

after I’ve played DA/Tr/DD and Acro/Tr/DD at the BWE2, I have the feeling that Improvisation alone is better than the whole Acro line.

apocom.3172:

Forgot to mention,

after I’ve played DA/Tr/DD and Acro/Tr/DD at the BWE2, I have the feeling that Improvisation alone is better than the whole Acro line.

I would not go that far but IMPROV is a lovely skill. How about something close in Acro.
On being stunned instantly recharge any one skill. (10 second icd)

Amante.8109:

New Acrobatics Minor: +25% Movespeed

Unfortunately, signet of shadows is probably getting nerfed to compensate for it. We can never have “too much” of a good thing

As many people have pointed out already, the new Acrobatics line covers mistakes instead of helps prevent them.

Feline Grace was well received because it gave us the option to prevent what we desired to prevent from happening to us instead of giving us passives that only help in certain situations.

I must agree with the majority of posts here that say Acrobatics is severely lacking. This is a subject I am uncharacteristically critical of.

In a ‘core specialization’ thief build Acro may have a place when paired with trickery, simply because of it’s synergy with steal/ini/vigor. The issue is, it can’t stand on it’s own in core specs anymore.

You truly do have a high opportunity cost vs any other ‘third spec line’ choice. It’s far from a first or second traitline choice. It can only be tagged on as a ‘synergy’ with something else. This is a bad sign.

*Condi clear is uncontrollable and largely ineffective (compared to every other condi clear option)
*Swift on dodge may as well not even exist in it’s current form
*GM heal is still far behind almost every other heal trait option, including some adept and master heal traits!
*It’s benefits to raw damage have completely disappeared.

Throw DD in to the picture and Acro becomes almost completely redundant. I absolutely love what they are doing with DD. This is my style of play and I welcome it’s return, but it is hard to disagree with the argument that Acro was changed for the worst in order to make way for DD.

I’ve been on acro thief for a lil bit and it was very hard to say goodbye.

Even now I’ll go back to it and have the same thought as OP, ‘hmm, this is actually not bad! (DA/Ac/Tr)’ then I’ll go DA/CS/Tr and suddenly I’m completely beast mode.

Acro needs some love, badly.