Guild Wars 2

Deadly Arts 300power 30% expertise(condition duration) next line would be Critical Strike 300precision 300ferocity(okay acceptable combination) 3rd one Shadow Arts(every beginners favourite) 300toughness, 300healing power also another acceptable trait line that makes sense. Forth one would be the rarely used acrobatic trait line containing one of the most useless grand master trait that would be assassin’s equilibrium (no offends to Anet but I really find this trait unworthy) 30%boon duration & 300 points for vitality. Last but not least the Trickery Line, 300 condition damage together with 30% recharge steal rate( meta’s favourite ). I might be stating this with prejudice since I’m not an employee in Anet but I would really appreciate if they shed some light into why the trait lines are placed in such an awkward position. For instance, why not pair 30% condition duration & 300 condition damage (malice) together? Placing the other 300 raw power into trickery line would be great as well and I think many thief players out there would greatly appreciate this. Think about it all power builds need more initiative to be truly effective. Okay death blossom might take up a load of initiative but you need to spam that same skill for it to be fully effective. Then again if you guys did what I just told you it would be vastly unfair for other classes. I think most veteran thieves out there understand what I’m trying to let out. Arenanet I would really be thankful if you guys would just give us an insight to way the trait lines are build this way as I do love the game and have spent countless hours on it during my free time. Hope you guys would take this into consideration.

A thing called balance is the reason why condi duration and dmg are not in the same line. Also, I’d say acro is one of the most used trait lines in the game right now….. sooooo yeah, I assume you must be talkin about pve

I hardly doubt that acro is most used traitline…. more like power/crit in pve and trickery in pvp. Wvw is probably SA.

I think stats allocation across trait lines is ok but some traits are indeed quite misplaced imo and/or useless/crappy.

Acro is only for s/d and some obscure d/d builds…

Trickery/sa/crit are most used trait lines for pvp/wvw/pve.

Anet doesn’t care about thief. Not sure why we are trying to beat dead horse here…

Run 6/6/2 in spvp hot joins and troll people with 5k-8k hs.

Amonatory.2453:

A thing called balance is the reason why condi duration and dmg are not in the same line. Also, I’d say acro is one of the most used trait lines in the game right now….. sooooo yeah, I assume you must be talkin about pve

Don’t assume. I wouldn’t take pve so seriously in terms of combat wise because you can run anything and not die as long as you have a functional brain. How is acrobatic the most used trait line? Which gameplay wise are you assuming? Pve? Isn’t obvious enough that I’m stating about pvp?

Nephrite.6954:

Don’t assume. I wouldn’t take pve so seriously in terms of combat wise because you can run anything and not die as long as you have a functional brain.

What youre saying is; you can survive running any build, even with no build, so who cares about pve?

How is acrobatic the most used trait line? Which gameplay wise are you assuming? Pve? Isn’t obvious enough that I’m stating about pvp?

Again, youre only looking at pvp. If you want to make suggestions, please take both pve/pvp in mind. Otherwise you could break one or another.

In my opinion the traitlines are OK and balanced, its just the traits itself that could take some tweaking. You take DA/CS if you want pure glass damage, and sacrafice that damage if you want survivability with SA/Acro. Trickery is a bit of a utility in my opinion. If you think the survivability of these traitlines are not what they should be, don’t change the traitlines but the traits themselves.

Having Condi/cond.duration and power/crit paired in traitlines, would kinda be overpowered. Lets say you max out both, then youre the ultimate hybrid, damage-wise. Right now you have to choose, condi, damage, survival or a mix of them.

Again, youre only looking at pvp. If you want to make suggestions, please take both pve/pvp in mind. Otherwise you could break one or another.

How is PvE not broken right now? In every Dungeon you go hide behind a corner and stack and keep spamming 1. Do people really care about PvE anyway? Every person that attends to events and dungeons are there for the loot and gold. And I don’t think those NPC’s are gonna complain on forums if its unbalanced for them.

So condi duration in the power line is really useful for utility condis such as immobilize, weakness, and poison. I usually go 5 into it which boosts the total immobilize duration of DV by 1 second. That’s an extra heartseeker into the target, potentially finishing them off.

Maugetarr.6823:

So condi duration in the power line is really useful for utility condis such as immobilize, weakness, and poison. I usually go 5 into it which boosts the total immobilize duration of DV by 1 second. That’s an extra heartseeker into the target, potentially finishing them off.

Agreed!

I’m just glad we don’t have Malice+Precision in our second trait line (war, guard, nec, engi i think). That combo has always seemed very niche to me.

As to the one question asked (since you labeled this a QA)

Nephrite.6954:

why not pare 30% condition duration & 300 condition damage (malice) together?

That trait stat combo does not exist for any class. All classes top trait line is Power+Expertise. It’s the same reason many complementary traits are separated. As Amon said: Balance.