Guild Wars 2

I always felt this skill was a bit… problematic.
AoE pulsing stealth field + healing is a pretty powerful tool.
On the other hand, it puts up a giant sign saying “enemy AoE here plz!”

Plopping down fields and then dancing around inside them is generally not what the thief excels at IMO. Thieves need room to work, they need to dodge or avoid as many spikes as possible beacuse they have low health and medium armor. You can’t afford to get pinned down, but that’s exactly what SR does.

So… I thought maybe SR would be better as an elite (maybe 90s CD) with an instant effect (or a non-visible field), making it more of a pop&run skill like BP, or at least less obvious.

Shadow Refuge is actually one of the few excellently designed skills on the Thief class.

• It’s generally useful and one of our most popular utilities.
• It offers unique group utility no other class can offer.
• It has a useful combo-field effect.
• It’s fairly well telegraphed.
• It offers ample counter-play opportunities in the form of AoE or CC.

These are all signs of a well-designed skill.

And regarding the healing…..it’s only really good when you’re specced into Shadow Rejuvenation. Without it it barely heals at all.

calavel.6249:

I always felt this skill was a bit… problematic.
AoE pulsing stealth field + healing is a pretty powerful tool.
On the other hand, it puts up a giant sign saying “enemy AoE here plz!”

Plopping down fields and then dancing around inside them is generally not what the thief excels at IMO. Thieves need room to work, they need to dodge or avoid as many spikes as possible beacuse they have low health and medium armor. You can’t afford to get pinned down, but that’s exactly what SR does.

So… I thought maybe SR would be better as an elite (maybe 90s CD) with an instant effect (or a non-visible field), making it more of a pop&run skill like BP, or at least less obvious.

No.

Dee Jay.2460:

Shadow Refuge is actually one of the few excellently designed skills on the Thief class.

• It’s generally useful and one of our most popular utilities.
• It offers unique group utility no other class can offer.
• It has a useful combo-field effect.
• It’s fairly well telegraphed.
• It offers ample counter-play opportunities in the form of AoE or CC.

These are all signs of a well-designed skill.

And regarding the healing…..it’s only really good when you’re specced into Shadow Rejuvenation. Without it it barely heals at all.

By well telegraphed, I assume you mean the actual field and not the skill cast, because interupting a 1/4s cast skill is not really something most humans can pull off reliably.

Anyway, the point of making it elite was also to make it more powerful (i.e. more healing, maybe condi removal) and give it more general appeal as a last resort tool for thieves not traiting deep stealth. As it stands now, it is primarily a way to obtain very long stealth as well as ofc a combo field with all the advantages that offers.

Just as suggestion.

calavel.6249:

Dee Jay.2460:

Shadow Refuge is actually one of the few excellently designed skills on the Thief class.

• It’s generally useful and one of our most popular utilities.
• It offers unique group utility no other class can offer.
• It has a useful combo-field effect.
• It’s fairly well telegraphed.
• It offers ample counter-play opportunities in the form of AoE or CC.

These are all signs of a well-designed skill.

And regarding the healing…..it’s only really good when you’re specced into Shadow Rejuvenation. Without it it barely heals at all.

By well telegraphed, I assume you mean the actual field and not the skill cast, because interupting a 1/4s cast skill is not really something most humans can pull off reliably.

Anyway, the point of making it elite was also to make it more powerful (i.e. more healing, maybe condi removal) and give it more general appeal as a last resort tool for thieves not traiting deep stealth. As it stands now, it is primarily a way to obtain very long stealth as well as ofc a combo field with all the advantages that offers.

Just as suggestion.

It already provides healing through Shadow Rejuvenation, Shadow Protector (regen to allies who get stealthed), Shadow’s Embrace, and its normal healing. The main problems I see with changing it to Elite is that it breaks our stealth options so we’re forced to use the cheesy OP D/P setup just to get into stealth when we need a heal, and it would never see use, especially when Thieves Guild and Dagger Storm are way better Elites.

Considering I’ve stopped using SR a long time ago (except in pve), I’d gladly take this as an elite. It’s such an annoying skill to use. You either try to stealth rez someone and they continue to attack in it, or you try to stealth in it and they aoe/cc you basically multiplying the time it’ll take you to re-enter the fight. Hard to dodge for 4 seconds without exiting the circle or hitting someone, bound to take a hit or 10.

calavel.6249:

I always felt this skill was a bit… problematic.
AoE pulsing stealth field + healing is a pretty powerful tool.
On the other hand, it puts up a giant sign saying “enemy AoE here plz!”

Plopping down fields and then dancing around inside them is generally not what the thief excels at IMO. Thieves need room to work, they need to dodge or avoid as many spikes as possible beacuse they have low health and medium armor. You can’t afford to get pinned down, but that’s exactly what SR does.

So… I thought maybe SR would be better as an elite (maybe 90s CD) with an instant effect (or a non-visible field), making it more of a pop&run skill like BP, or at least less obvious.

http://youtu.be/H07zYvkNYL8

To change SR into a eliteskill dont make it better or is a buff, its a nerf of one of the few good skills, which thieves have.

Black Teagan.9215:

calavel.6249:

I always felt this skill was a bit… problematic.
AoE pulsing stealth field + healing is a pretty powerful tool.
On the other hand, it puts up a giant sign saying “enemy AoE here plz!”

Plopping down fields and then dancing around inside them is generally not what the thief excels at IMO. Thieves need room to work, they need to dodge or avoid as many spikes as possible beacuse they have low health and medium armor. You can’t afford to get pinned down, but that’s exactly what SR does.

So… I thought maybe SR would be better as an elite (maybe 90s CD) with an instant effect (or a non-visible field), making it more of a pop&run skill like BP, or at least less obvious.

http://youtu.be/H07zYvkNYL8

To change SR into a eliteskill dont make it better or is a buff, its a nerf of one of the few good skills, which thieves have.

I will only accept this if we get to move the following to elite.

Mesmer: Portal
Necromancer: Signet of Spite
Warrior: All Burst Skills
Ranger: Healing Spring
Elementalist: Meteor Shower
Engineer: Grenades
Guardian: Empower

Because it’s only fair to move an easily countered skill to Elite, right?

Dee Jay.2460:

And regarding the healing…..it’s only really good when you’re specced into Shadow Rejuvenation. Without it it barely heals at all.

Think hes referring to the dark field. its a great heal when paired with Som and Ds.

Okay, let’s look at it from another angle: If SR was an elite, and balanced to elite status (more powerful, more utility, invisible field whatever you think would improve it), would you consider taking it over another elite and would the free utility slot offer anything interesting.

This is not about nerfing or buffing, it is about build diversity. A lot of thieves use SR because it offers a lot of things at once: Some healing, potentially long stealth, stealthing downed allies etc, but as mentioned it’s a bit low on the healing overall and needs a lot of trait points invested to make it really powerful. Making it elite would remove its dependency on the trait system and free up traits for more diversity, as well as put a bit less trait pressure on thieves not traiting heavy stealth.

BTW I think Portal should be an Elite, is has elite CD already anyway. It would also make mesmers think harder about elites because TW is amazing for everything but solo roaming.