Guild Wars 2

Acrobatics should grant us some ways to bypass passive defenses since it likely the weakest trait line across the board in the entire game now.
It should be done because many of acrobatics traits are down right not worth slotting currently. Passive defense bypassing traits could either be fused with existing acrobatics traits or even replace some lesser used Acro traits. This idea would still fit the theme of the name “acrobatics” as well because it would imply your character is so nimble he can maneuver around his foes striking their weak points with ease.

let me know what you guys think, I just find this a good way to put acro back into a viable place without replicating the whole dodge concept of the DD.

Or change out the entire acro trait line since it will be useless when daredevil comes with some passives when you are ‘revealed’, like regen, aegis or superspeed. And maybe some damage modifiers, like ‘your next five attacks while revealed cannot be blocked’, or ‘gain quickness for 5s while revealed’.
I don’t know, alot of classes gain almost a direct counter to stealth, while we gain nothing in return.

acro must be reworked

acro should be a defensive line. thief has enough offensive trait lines as it is. copypasting my thoughts on acro from the sticky:

here are some changes i’d like to see on acrobatics:

• make pain response a more reliable skill. once every 20 seconds on hit is pretty meh, though the trigger effect isn’t half bad (the regen is redundant though).

• redo guarded initiation. this is the most useless skill in any thief line by a long margin. no thief will find themselves in a situation where they’re at 90% health, but have conditions on them. even then, i doubt this hypothetical thief would be “jeez, i wish i didn’t have weakness and slow on me right now”. they’d probably wait it out before engaging, instead of bringing a trait. this would be a great spot to give thieves a whole new trait

• i know you want swords to have a trait, but swindler’s equilibrium would actually be a really good pick if it didn’t go “once per second, and only with swords!”. either take a look at the ICD, or make it recharge more than a second. someone taking both acro and trickery would already be giving up a lot, if your concern is that it would be too strong when paired with sleight of hand.

• haven’t gotten to test it, but make sure hard to catch actually refills 100% endurance, not 100 endurance. it makes a difference for daredevil. alternatively, give signet of agility a stunbreak and make the trait proc its active effect. would you look at that, it would give thief some condi clear, even if extremely situational.

• assassin’s reward used to be one of my favorite traits before it became a GM trait (which means it was looooooooooong before the june patch). it’s just too weak to justify being picked though. i’d like to see it get a slight buff to the base heal (like 20-30 health per ini), and give it a high healing power scaling, because some thieves think running cleric’s, shaman’s or zealot’s is really fun.

• upper hand has the same problem as swindler’s equilibrium. either reduce the ICD, or make the trigger effect stronger.

Blatant Repost of my Acrobatics Ideas

Basically, my idea is to offer 3 different types of enhancement that could be taken together as a single row or mixed. These are mobility enhancement(ME), brawling enhancement (BE), and effect mitigation(EM).

Adept

Expeditious Dodger: 3 seconds of swiftness on dodge.
ME: Fleet Shadow->Explosive Speed: Gain 3 seconds of super speed when you gain swiftness (8 sec ICD)
EM: Pain Response: Fine as is
BE: Vigorous Recovery: Gain 5 seconds of vigor on heal. When you gain vigor, lose a condition (5 sec ICD)

Master

Feline Grace: Fine as is
ME: Guarded Initiation -> Captive Transversal: When you shadowstep to a target, immobilize that target for 1.5 seconds (8 sec ICD)
EM: Hard to Catch: Fine as is
BE: Swindler’s Equilibrium: Reduce steal cooldown by 3 seconds on successful evasion. No weapon restriction (5 sec ICD)

Grandmaster

Endless Stamina: Fine as is
ME: Assassin’s Reward -> Swindler’s Transversal: When you shadowstep to your target, transfer 1 condition and steal 1 boon (8 sec ICD)
EM: Don’t Stop: Fine as is
BE: Upper Hand: Gain 3-5 endurance on hitting the opponent (1 sec ICD) (would need to be play tested to determine strength)

Ok. This supposed to be heavy on different mechanisms for condi removal since it’s a defensive line. I think with these changes, it could favor S/X, but not be limited to it (much like SA favors but isn’t limited to D/P). Some of the changes to my original suggestions were because of Raiden’s input along with the the previewed traits. My hope is that these changes could supplement Trickery or DD well while also allowing the line to stand on its own.

Maugetarr.6823:

Expeditious Dodger: 3 seconds of swiftness on dodge.
ME: Fleet Shadow->Explosive Speed: Gain 3 seconds of super speed when you gain swiftness (8 sec ICD)

completely forgot to mention this trait on my own list. agree that it needs to change, really like the idea of giving thief access to superspeed. the mobility profession doesn’t have the ultimate mobility boon. it’s weird.

EM: Pain Response: Fine as is
BE: Vigorous Recovery: Gain 5 seconds of vigor on heal. When you gain vigor, lose a condition (5 sec ICD)

with pain response’s cooldown, acro’s large access to vigor, wouldn’t both skills being about condi cleansing be a bit redundant? i know if i had condi clear on vigor, i’d never see a reason to take pain response. that said, i think condi clear on vigor is an interesting idea.

ME: Guarded Initiation -> Captive Transversal: When you shadowstep to a target, immobilize that target for 1.5 seconds (8 sec ICD)

how would that work with all the untargeted shadowsteps, or the ones that don’t reach? or the returns? or shadow trap? i agree that guarded initiation needs to be scrapped for another trait, but i’m not sure if that’s the best option.

BE: Swindler’s Equilibrium: Reduce steal cooldown by 3 seconds on successful evasion. No weapon restriction (5 sec ICD)

i like it.

ME: Assassin’s Reward -> Swindler’s Transversal: When you shadowstep to your target, transfer 1 condition and steal 1 boon (8 sec ICD)

same as the other, it’s basically a trait for steal and infiltrator strike, most shadowsteps on thief would have weird/unintended behavior with it. plus, i like assassin’s reward, it just needs a buff.

BE: Upper Hand: Gain 3-5 endurance on hitting the opponent (1 sec ICD) (would need to be play tested to determine strength)

i preferred the initiative gain, TBH. daredevil is more focused on raw endurance gain, acro already gains endurance through high vigor uptime. allowing for good initiative regen through a trait would give acro an offensive edge on an otherwise defensive line.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Expeditious Dodger: 3 seconds of swiftness on dodge.
ME: Fleet Shadow->Explosive Speed: Gain 3 seconds of super speed when you gain swiftness (8 sec ICD)

completely forgot to mention this trait on my own list. agree that it needs to change, really like the idea of giving thief access to superspeed. the mobility profession doesn’t have the ultimate mobility boon. it’s weird.

EM: Pain Response: Fine as is
BE: Vigorous Recovery: Gain 5 seconds of vigor on heal. When you gain vigor, lose a condition (5 sec ICD)

with pain response’s cooldown, acro’s large access to vigor, wouldn’t both skills being about condi cleansing be a bit redundant? i know if i had condi clear on vigor, i’d never see a reason to take pain response. that said, i think condi clear on vigor is an interesting idea.

The idea is to have options. This would tack an additional condi cleanse onto our heals as well as giving decent synergy with FG. Pain Response is more burst removal. This would be sustained removal.

ME: Guarded Initiation -> Captive Transversal: When you shadowstep to a target, immobilize that target for 1.5 seconds (8 sec ICD)

how would that work with all the untargeted shadowsteps, or the ones that don’t reach? or the returns? or shadow trap? i agree that guarded initiation needs to be scrapped for another trait, but i’m not sure if that’s the best option.

It would have to be something like checking for your target at the end of a shadowstep. If your target isn’t there or you dont have a target selected it would immobilize (1-3 targets) in a radius 180 (melee).

BE: Swindler’s Equilibrium: Reduce steal cooldown by 3 seconds on successful evasion. No weapon restriction (5 sec ICD)

i like it.

ME: Assassin’s Reward -> Swindler’s Transversal: When you shadowstep to your target, transfer 1 condition and steal 1 boon (8 sec ICD)

same as the other, it’s basically a trait for steal and infiltrator strike, most shadowsteps on thief would have weird/unintended behavior with it. plus, i like assassin’s reward, it just needs a buff.

It would function thes same way as I described the other trait. Assassin’s Reward isn’t that bad but it’s weaker than IP and the new trait in DrD. I would rather see more boon-hate introduced so that we gain a benefit in sustained combat.

BE: Upper Hand: Gain 3-5 endurance on hitting the opponent (1 sec ICD) (would need to be play tested to determine strength)

i preferred the initiative gain, TBH. daredevil is more focused on raw endurance gain, acro already gains endurance through high vigor uptime. allowing for good initiative regen through a trait would give acro an offensive edge on an otherwise defensive line.

Mathematically the endurance gain from acro right now is weak since it doesn’t stack with vigor. Upper hand is sort of “meh.” I felt a strong, agressive endurance regen trait would pair well as a GM trait, and would compliment the DrD GMs without stepping on their toes. 5 endurance a second was based off dagger autos, so I thought it would pair well with sword or just a nice tack on to daggers.

Overall, I had a lot of ideas for aome of the core changes needed to thief. The non-acro ones are in my signature.

They just need to put the original Feline Grace back. It’s a very simple change but so far they just refuse to make it.

“Acrobatics is the performance of extraordinary feats of balance, agility, and motor coordination.”

Therefore, I firmly believe that this trait line should focus on endurance AND initiative regeneration. This is something that thieves have ALWAYS struggled with and encompasses what Karl’s vision of what the thief should be. So the only question left is…whats taking so long?

Maugetarr.6823:

The idea is to have options. This would tack an additional condi cleanse onto our heals as well as giving decent synergy with FG. Pain Response is more burst removal. This would be sustained removal.

but pain response is completely off of your control. you need to be hit while under 75% health (something a thief shouldn’t be encouraged to do just to remove their condis), and it can trigger when you wouldn’t want it to (oh noes, one stack of bleeding got cleansed, now it’s 20 more seconds unable to get any cleanses from this trait).

pain response is a bad, unreliable trait, and even if it wasn’t, having two traits centered around the same function (condi cleanse, in this case) on the same tier is unheard of in the game, because it’s redundant. it’s best to have a trait that gives you one function, and another that gives you an actual choice, than two different flavors of the same thing.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

The idea is to have options. This would tack an additional condi cleanse onto our heals as well as giving decent synergy with FG. Pain Response is more burst removal. This would be sustained removal.

but pain response is completely off of your control. you need to be hit while under 75% health (something a thief shouldn’t be encouraged to do just to remove their condis), and it can trigger when you wouldn’t want it to (oh noes, one stack of bleeding got cleansed, now it’s 20 more seconds unable to get any cleanses from this trait).

pain response is a bad, unreliable trait, and even if it wasn’t, having two traits centered around the same function (condi cleanse, in this case) on the same tier is unheard of in the game, because it’s redundant. it’s best to have a trait that gives you one function, and another that gives you an actual choice, than two different flavors of the same thing.

While I agree that pain response is a mediocre trait at best, I didn’t want to remove it because it is widely liked (at least when I’ve suggested changing it before). I left the 3 autoprocs in the line that are useful alone because people prefer different playstyles.

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

The idea is to have options. This would tack an additional condi cleanse onto our heals as well as giving decent synergy with FG. Pain Response is more burst removal. This would be sustained removal.

but pain response is completely off of your control. you need to be hit while under 75% health (something a thief shouldn’t be encouraged to do just to remove their condis), and it can trigger when you wouldn’t want it to (oh noes, one stack of bleeding got cleansed, now it’s 20 more seconds unable to get any cleanses from this trait).

pain response is a bad, unreliable trait, and even if it wasn’t, having two traits centered around the same function (condi cleanse, in this case) on the same tier is unheard of in the game, because it’s redundant. it’s best to have a trait that gives you one function, and another that gives you an actual choice, than two different flavors of the same thing.

While I agree that pain response is a mediocre trait at best, I didn’t want to remove it because it is widely liked (at least when I’ve suggested changing it before). I left the 3 autoprocs in the line that are useful alone because people prefer different playstyles.

i’d like to see pain response’s trigger to be something different than on hit. also give it a lower cooldown than 20s. maybe every 10s if you have more than 3 conditions on you and you’re below the threshold. or if you’re going to keep the CD on 20s, make it clear torment and confusion as well.

I only pick Hard to Catch, I usually just randomly click things otherwise. Acrobatics op? If the stunbreaker went to SA and granted stealth/evasion it’d mean Acro has 0 purpose. What a thought. (well, in my world)

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

The idea is to have options. This would tack an additional condi cleanse onto our heals as well as giving decent synergy with FG. Pain Response is more burst removal. This would be sustained removal.

but pain response is completely off of your control. you need to be hit while under 75% health (something a thief shouldn’t be encouraged to do just to remove their condis), and it can trigger when you wouldn’t want it to (oh noes, one stack of bleeding got cleansed, now it’s 20 more seconds unable to get any cleanses from this trait).

pain response is a bad, unreliable trait, and even if it wasn’t, having two traits centered around the same function (condi cleanse, in this case) on the same tier is unheard of in the game, because it’s redundant. it’s best to have a trait that gives you one function, and another that gives you an actual choice, than two different flavors of the same thing.

While I agree that pain response is a mediocre trait at best, I didn’t want to remove it because it is widely liked (at least when I’ve suggested changing it before). I left the 3 autoprocs in the line that are useful alone because people prefer different playstyles.

i’d like to see pain response’s trigger to be something different than on hit. also give it a lower cooldown than 20s. maybe every 10s if you have more than 3 conditions on you and you’re below the threshold. or if you’re going to keep the CD on 20s, make it clear torment and confusion as well.

Haha, well, where were you when I threw together my original list before DrD came out?!

Pain Response should trigger on number of conditions (3) only, the same way Burning Fire does. Instead of gaining might on [type of] skill usage though, just have it remove all damaging conditions.

Above was my original change to it. I only got push back on the idea so I didn’t suggest it again after DrD came out.

Here’s the original thread with the back and forth somewhere in it

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

The idea is to have options. This would tack an additional condi cleanse onto our heals as well as giving decent synergy with FG. Pain Response is more burst removal. This would be sustained removal.

but pain response is completely off of your control. you need to be hit while under 75% health (something a thief shouldn’t be encouraged to do just to remove their condis), and it can trigger when you wouldn’t want it to (oh noes, one stack of bleeding got cleansed, now it’s 20 more seconds unable to get any cleanses from this trait).

pain response is a bad, unreliable trait, and even if it wasn’t, having two traits centered around the same function (condi cleanse, in this case) on the same tier is unheard of in the game, because it’s redundant. it’s best to have a trait that gives you one function, and another that gives you an actual choice, than two different flavors of the same thing.

While I agree that pain response is a mediocre trait at best, I didn’t want to remove it because it is widely liked (at least when I’ve suggested changing it before). I left the 3 autoprocs in the line that are useful alone because people prefer different playstyles.

i’d like to see pain response’s trigger to be something different than on hit. also give it a lower cooldown than 20s. maybe every 10s if you have more than 3 conditions on you and you’re below the threshold. or if you’re going to keep the CD on 20s, make it clear torment and confusion as well.

Haha, well, where were you when I threw together my original list before DrD came out?!

Pain Response should trigger on number of conditions (3) only, the same way Burning Fire does. Instead of gaining might on [type of] skill usage though, just have it remove all damaging conditions.

Above was my original change to it. I only got push back on the idea so I didn’t suggest it again after DrD came out.

Here’s the original thread with the back and forth somewhere in it

probably jaded of the thief forums, as usual. only reason i’m sticking around for so long right now is because of all the dev communication regarding daredevil, or else i’d have left again by now.

the thief forum has a tendency to be incredibly whiny about the wrong things, and a lot of people here ask for buffs so preposterous is’s a waste of a potentially interesting conversation (looking at you, people that think revealed shouldn’t exist or that shortbow should get its own, third weapon slot)

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

The idea is to have options. This would tack an additional condi cleanse onto our heals as well as giving decent synergy with FG. Pain Response is more burst removal. This would be sustained removal.

but pain response is completely off of your control. you need to be hit while under 75% health (something a thief shouldn’t be encouraged to do just to remove their condis), and it can trigger when you wouldn’t want it to (oh noes, one stack of bleeding got cleansed, now it’s 20 more seconds unable to get any cleanses from this trait).

pain response is a bad, unreliable trait, and even if it wasn’t, having two traits centered around the same function (condi cleanse, in this case) on the same tier is unheard of in the game, because it’s redundant. it’s best to have a trait that gives you one function, and another that gives you an actual choice, than two different flavors of the same thing.

While I agree that pain response is a mediocre trait at best, I didn’t want to remove it because it is widely liked (at least when I’ve suggested changing it before). I left the 3 autoprocs in the line that are useful alone because people prefer different playstyles.

i’d like to see pain response’s trigger to be something different than on hit. also give it a lower cooldown than 20s. maybe every 10s if you have more than 3 conditions on you and you’re below the threshold. or if you’re going to keep the CD on 20s, make it clear torment and confusion as well.

Haha, well, where were you when I threw together my original list before DrD came out?!

Pain Response should trigger on number of conditions (3) only, the same way Burning Fire does. Instead of gaining might on [type of] skill usage though, just have it remove all damaging conditions.

Above was my original change to it. I only got push back on the idea so I didn’t suggest it again after DrD came out.

Here’s the original thread with the back and forth somewhere in it

probably jaded of the thief forums, as usual. only reason i’m sticking around for so long right now is because of all the dev communication regarding daredevil, or else i’d have left again by now.

the thief forum has a tendency to be incredibly whiny about the wrong things, and a lot of people here ask for buffs so preposterous is’s a waste of a potentially interesting conversation (looking at you, people that think revealed shouldn’t exist or that shortbow should get its own, third weapon slot)

Makes sense. I think you’ve been around here for as long as I have, just more off and on. Sure there are some ridiculous suggestions, but that’s what the back and forth is for. I understand the frustration though.

Hopefully one day soon ish we’ll get a response on the threads to fix some of the defensive lines. SA needs some tweaks. Acro needs an overhaul and retheming.

I really wanna pick Acrobatics but it’s so hard to warrant it with all the conditionals to everything.

Anet can’t deny, it’s the worst line in gw2. Nerfed it to make room for DD when it wasn’t even op before nerf. If anet is afraid of people talking about them redoing a base trait line because of lazy copy and paste then just buff all the bad traits and call it a balance update (most of the traits).

Guarded Initiation becomes

On shadowstep to target transfer weakness, vulnerability and slow to target. Gain XXX health for each stack transferred. (thus if you transfer 23 stacks vuln 1 slow one weakness you gain 25*xxx health)

babazhook.6805:

Guarded Initiation becomes

On shadowstep to target transfer weakness, vulnerability and slow to target. Gain XXX health for each stack transferred. (thus if you transfer 23 stacks vuln 1 slow one weakness you gain 25*xxx health)

I really would like to see some shadowstep modifiers.

Maugetarr.6823:

babazhook.6805:

Guarded Initiation becomes

On shadowstep to target transfer weakness, vulnerability and slow to target. Gain XXX health for each stack transferred. (thus if you transfer 23 stacks vuln 1 slow one weakness you gain 25*xxx health)

I really would like to see some shadowstep modifiers.

Yes. A Thief has about 8 shadowsteps in the kitten nal. These are begging to be modified and would create a very unique flavor of theif and different style of play.

Honed Reflexes
Acrobatics Grandmaster
Gain 1 initiative when you take damage. This trait has not internal cooldown because you are squishy.

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

babazhook.6805:

Guarded Initiation becomes

On shadowstep to target transfer weakness, vulnerability and slow to target. Gain XXX health for each stack transferred. (thus if you transfer 23 stacks vuln 1 slow one weakness you gain 25*xxx health)

I really would like to see some shadowstep modifiers.

Yes. A Thief has about 8 shadowsteps in the kitten nal. These are begging to be modified and would create a very unique flavor of theif and different style of play.

I actually wrote up a whole trait line about this!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Mobility-Arts-A-replacement-for-Acrobatics/first#post5569628

PopeUrban.2578:

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

babazhook.6805:

Guarded Initiation becomes

On shadowstep to target transfer weakness, vulnerability and slow to target. Gain XXX health for each stack transferred. (thus if you transfer 23 stacks vuln 1 slow one weakness you gain 25*xxx health)

I really would like to see some shadowstep modifiers.

Yes. A Thief has about 8 shadowsteps in the kitten nal. These are begging to be modified and would create a very unique flavor of theif and different style of play.

I actually wrote up a whole trait line about this!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Mobility-Arts-A-replacement-for-Acrobatics/first#post5569628

I’m not sure I’d want almost every trait to focus on shadowsteps, but 1 major trait per tier and 1 minor would be a great start. I would have liked to see some in combat traits also, but now that I really think about it, they might as well roll FG into enforcer training to round out that line and then replace acrobatics with a different theme entirely.

Edit: Crap….. now that I think about it more, as much as I dislike the premise, DrD has better versions of every trait that could be considered “acrobatic” in the acro line. FG would round out DrD, making it a strong specialization, and the rest of acro could be made into a coherent line based around thief mobility. Arg….

….Karl….. please consider it.

(Acrobatics Grandmaster) Superior Agility: Stealing grants you 2 seconds of quickness. Evade projectiles while under the effects of quickness.

Would this be too strong? If so maybe it could have a 1s ICD or just a 66% chance to evade projectiles or something.

mompen.7952:

…or ‘gain quickness for 5s while revealed’.
I don’t know, alot of classes gain almost a direct counter to stealth, while we gain nothing in return.

If this buff came to… I’d never leave acro, period.

All these ‘Gain ? on evade’ traits need to go. I was in sPvP last few days and half the time when I’m evading with proper anticipation, and the enemy’s attack doesn’t reach my evade frames, then I don’t get any vigor. That’s just downright handicapping me. This has been covered so many times – giving vigor on dodge instead of evade does not give the Thief player any advantage if they dodged too prematurely or just out of spite. Because when they actually need a dodge, they’ll have wasted it beforehand. So it really evens the balance out. I felt like I had to actually play to dodge within the enemy’s attack frame, in the correct time, just to get vigor. I was completely focused into timing my dodge too perfectly to the point I was playing to ‘dodge’ more than to actually duel with the opponent. That’s not right.

Seriously, just put Feline Grace and Descent into Shadows back in, problems solved, home by lunch.

Ohoni.6057:

Seriously, just put Feline Grace and Descent into Shadows back in, problems solved, home by lunch.

Have you ever seen them revert ANY of their balance changes besides the porting behavior? They’re completly oblivious to criticism and reverting a change would actually mean that they admit to having made a mistake.