Guild Wars 2

With a big feature update coming our way I thought it might be appropriate to formulate a post covering current Thief issues so that ANet may actually addresses real issues instead of making up their own (because Initiative was a problem, right?).

Most issues come down to our trait design and that’s where I’m going to focus most of my attention on. My assessment of various traits is largely based on WvW and PvE, as sPvP obeys slightly different rules.

General issues:

Over-reliance on stealth: Thieves are reliant on stealth for everything ranging from Condition removal, over passive healing to burst damage. Stealth does so much for a Thief and going into stealth is almost always the best option that Thieves cannot be blamed for “stealth spamming” when it’s clearly the optimal way to play. This has made the class inherently frustrating to play against and this won’t change until this fundamental design flaw is fixed. Giving Thieves more options for reliable condition removal and healing outside of stealth may help alleviate the issue but ultimately making stealth either a defensive maneuver OR an offensive maneuver is the only way forward. As long as it’s both, it will always be the best move for Thieves and will continue to be exploited as much as possible.

Lack of group support: Thieves are almost always played as damage dealers, simply because the class doesn’t cater to any other play-style. The options to support your group are very limited and a Thief is pigeonholed into DPS for the lack of other options. Venom-share builds might be worth mentioning here but they too are held back by the general lackluster nature of venoms.

Lackluster traps and venoms: Every class seems to have a category of utility spells that just don’t seem to work well. But Thieves have two, in both traps and venoms, that are very rarely worth-while. The issue with traps is pretty straight-forward. Thieves are a highly mobile profession. In fact it’s one of their defining feats. The concept of traps just doesn’t mesh well with this feat. Traps lend themselves to stationary game-play and I’m doubtful we’ll ever see much of that on Thieves. Traps are conceptually flawed on Thieves and I’m doubtful they’ll ever be a popular choice regardless of how much they’re buffed.

Venoms on the other hand suffer from the abundance of conditions. There are so many ways to apply conditions, from Sigils, traits and various attacks, dedicating a rare utility slot to them is rarely worth-while. They have their niche appeal at times but generally aren’t worth-while. Consolidating them might help somewhat but won’t change the abundance of Conditions in general.

Old traits: When comparing the Thief traits to something like Warriors, it’s obvious that Thieves traits have never received a proper design review. Many traits are completely lackluster or are simple damage modifiers with little/no changes to game-play. This is something I hoped would be weeded out over the year, but progress has been slow.

Deadly Arts

Minor – Serpent’s Touch: Quite decent for a minor trait thanks to healing debuff and longish duration.
I – Back Fighting: Downed abilities have never been popular with any class because most would rather avoid being downed rather than improve their chances while downed. It’s not an unpowered trait, just completely undesirable.
II – Corrosive Traps: Lackluster due to the appeal of traps and lackluster in the the effect. 8 seconds of Vulnerability are okish, but most traps have longer cooldowns.
III – Mug: One of the best and most popular Deadly Arts traits. Adds burst to an already bursty class though not nearly as much as it used to.
IV – Venomous Strenght: 2 Stacks of Might for 20 seconds is nice but not impressive. Is generally unappealing because of the Venom issue.
V – Potent Poison: 33% added Poison duration is largely useless given how many ways we can apply it.
VI – Sundering Strikes – One of the few utilities we bring to a group that adds quite a nice amount of Vulnerability stacks.
Minor – Lotus Poison: Used to be really good giving us a high uptime of Weakness on our targets. But the internal cooldown nerfed it hard. More useful with Choking Gas now than anything else.
VII – Improvisation: Nobody likes RNG and that’s why this trait will remain unpopular. It’s also uncommon for Thieves to stack multiple skills of one type further reducing the appeal. And the bundle damage bonus seems to want to promote a play-style that doesn’t exist.
VIII – Quick Venoms: If Venoms were more appealing, this skill would be quite good. A 20% reduction isn’t exciting game-play wise, but potentially powerful.
IX – Dagger training: A passive damage increase to a single weapon type that is lackluster by any standard (seriously, Pistol Mastery is twice as effective and an Adept Trait) yet still taken occasionally for the lack of better options. This really needs a replacement.
X – Combined Training: Even weaker than Dagger Training as it only applies to a single skill on your bar. This too needs a replacement asap as it offers not interesting game-play.
Minor – Exposed Weakness: A 10% damage increase seems to be standard for the 25 Minor traits. This one is no exception and has an almost 100% guaranteed uptime.
XI – Panic Strike: Few builds venture this deep into Deadly Arts and even fewer opt for this trait although it is interesting. The 30 second cooldown seems a little harsh though and it’s unlikely to change anything about its popularity.
XII – Residual Venom: Another interesting trait with some interesting implications, just far too niche to be appealing to a wider audience. Disappointing for a Master trait.

Conclusion: A lot of the Deadly Arts traits are held back due to their connotations with traps or venoms, two skill-sets that don’t have much to offer. The tree is especially disappointing the further you progress with some downright awful traits as you reach the end.

Critical Strikes

Minor – Keen Observer: Not bad despite the harsh conditional.
I – Furious Retaliation: One of our few sources of Fury and quite an effective trait at that as it has good synergy with Heartseeker and Executioner.
II – Signets of Power: Another decent trait despite lending itself slightly to an instant-gib type game-play.
III – Side Strike: Difficult to quantify as it seems weaker than Furious Retaliation is most cases. But the passive nature of it can still make it a viable choice. Still, a slight buff may be in order.
IV – Concealed Defeat: Another downed ability that will never be popular because people would rather avoid being downed in the first place.
V – Pistol Mastery: Good for Pistols in terms of DPS, but not exciting or engaging in any way. I really hope we can weed out these passive damage increases all together at some point.
VI – Practiced Tolerance: A popular way of adding a little survivability to an otherwise very glassy play-style. Still, somehow Warriors get 10% of their Toughness added as Power. This makes me jelly.
Minor – Opportunist: Not much to say, does what it does.
VII – Ankle Shots: An attempt to get Pistols more viability in PvP, held back by the long internal cooldown.
VIII – Signet Use: A decent trait although it’s rare for Thieves to stack multiple Signets.
IX – Combo Critical Chance: Another one of these terrible passive damage increases that are grossly underpowered. Even Sided Strikes adds vastly more DPS than this and applies to all skills.
X – Critical Haste: Popular among some builds with longer cast-times (Pistol Whip/Unload). But it’s often held back by Initiative (since it’s limited) or it’s simply eaten by lag, often resulting in a very poor, if any, DPS increase.
Minor – First Strikes: A great trait that rewards active Initiative management and isn’t a simple, brainless damage increase.
XI – Executioner: The trait most power builds pick that don’t rely on Stealth. Good synergy with some traits although not all that interesting or engaging. I mean it’s largely just a passive damage increase with little to no game-play implications. I think we can do better.
XII – Hidden Killer: Part of the reason why Thieves like to stealth so often. A good trait as it has some interesting game-play implications like negative scaling with Precision.

Conclusion: This tree is popular for a reason as it adds a significant amount of DPS. Unfortunately most traits only have a very minor effect on game-play which is a little disappointing.

Shadow Arts

Minor – Last Refuge: Ah yes, the Thief Killer no 1. Much has been said about this trait and fixing it should be a top priority for ANet. It’s ability to downright guarantee a Thief’s demise makes it the most frustrating trait of our class.
I – Master of Deception: A cooldown reduction for Deception skills is decent considering how popular those skills are. It’s just that other traits are often even better.
II – Slowed Pulse: The lengthy cooldown and the limitation to Bleeds really limit the appeal, especially considering the other options.
III – Shadow Protector: Regeneration when stealthed adds a large amount of healing, especially when combined with Shadow Rejuvenation. A good trait, albeit it contributes to the OPness of stealth as noted above.
IV – Shadow’s Embrace: Arguably one of the best Thief traits in the game and the only source of reliable condition removal for all conditions. Adds an immense amount of survivability to stealth and is one of the many reasons why Thieves stealth as much as possible.
V – Infusion of Shadow: A good trait for a variety of builds, but far from mandatory since the change. Makes initiative management a little more forgiving at the expense of other, possibly more useful traits.
VI – Cloaked in Shadow: A tricky trait and not overpowered per-se. But given the frequent use of stealth on most Thief builds it can make them very hard to hit. The synergy between this trait and cloaking every 3 seconds is arguably too good.
Minor – Meld with Shadows: A good trait that defines the Shadow Arts tree.
VII – Power shots: A 5% damage increase to underwater weapons makes it a serious contestant for the worst Thief trait. Still better than Last Refuge though. Btw. what is it with 5% damage increases?
VIII – Hidden Thief: An interesting trait. Not popular, due to our ability to pre-cast Cloak and Dagger, but it does have some interesting potential and synergy with certain more niche builds.
IX – Leaching Venoms: Oddly placed within the Shadow Arts tree but still decent for certain Venom-focused builds. Still, rarely picked due to better choices and venoms being lackluster.
X – Patience: Lackluster and outperformed by Infusion of Shadows in almost every scenario outside of perma-stealth.
XI – Shadow’s Rejuvenation: The trait that so drastically increases Thief longevity. Without this trait Thieves would be doomed to hit and run.
XII – Venomous Aura: A niche trait for people who specialize in venoms and group support. Works, but is held back due to aforementioned issues with venoms and Shadow’s Rejuvenation being so powerful.

Conclusion: Shadow Arts has some of the best Thief traits in the game and many of them are in the lower tiers. This tree adds an immense amount of survivability to what would otherwise be a very glassy class. However it also contributes a lot to the “stealth is OP” since it adds so much utility to stealth, further rewarding its frequent use. This is a serious design conflict at the heart of many Thief complaints.
It also odd to have some Venom traits in here that would obviously fit far better into the Deadly Arts tree than here.

Acrobatics

Minor – Expeditious Dodger: Nice but 2 seconds Swiftness is rather short.
I – Descent into Shadows: Pretty cool trait that allows some creative uses. Very limited in PvE however.
II – Power of Inertia: A decent choice for PvE or if you don’t need the other traits.
III – Vigorous Recovery: Another good trait and has a noticeable impact on the amount of dodges available to the Thief. Was nerfed because of its contribution towards Thief’s “permad-dodging” but I believe that is more due to abilities, rather than this trait.
IV – Assassin’s Retreat: Can get us close to perma-Swiftness in PvE at times, but is otherwise a little problematic due to the need to stack. I think it’s undervalued but the need to kill does limit it.
V – Master Trapper: No one takes this, again, because traps don’t suit the Thief play-style.
VI – Fleet Shadow: A good and popular trait although it competes with a lot of other speed
increases.
Minor – Feline Grace: One of the best reasons to spec into Acrobatics, this trait vastly increases the amount you can dodge. Combined with other traits and abilities this can result in “perma-dodging”.
VII – Fleet of Foot: Cripple and Weakness may hurt a Thief, but a trait dedicated to only removing those two conditions is questionable. Without other access to reliable condition cleanse outside of Shadow Arts this trait is really begging to include ALL types of conditions.
VIII – Pain Response: This trait is okish, even if the high cooldown really seems unjustified. It adds some much needed condition removal and grants Regeneration, which is a nice bonus. Should probably include Torment too.
IX – Quick Recovery: Less attractive after the change to Initiative regeneration but still taken occasionally due to the lackluster option this deep in the tree. Could probably be made more interesting.
X – Hard to Catch: The notoriously bad trait that really needs a redesign. Random Shadowsteps are never going to be a popular choice. This trait is practically begging to grant 2 seconds of Stability after being hit by a control-effect.
Minor – Fluid Strikes: Our obligatory 10% damage increase that meshes well with the theme of the tree.
XI – Assassin’s Reward: What was supposed to be Acrobatics response to Shadow Rejuvenation proved to be a real letdown. Assassin’s Reward doesn’t provide nearly the longevity Thieves would need at this level.
XII – Quick pockets: A popular choice in sPvP to maintain the dodge-spam, but otherwise less popular as Thieves tend to specialize on a single weapon set.

Conclusion: Acrobatics offers some nice base-line survivability, especially up to Feline Grace. After that the tree becomes significantly less attractive and the lack of reliable condition removal really holds it back.

Trickery

Minor – Kleptomaniac: Nothing exciting but a little added Initiative never hurt anyone.
I – Merciful Ambush: Similar to downed-traits, revive traits are rarely taken because people prefer generally useful traits over highly situational ones.
II – Instinctual Response: Conceptually not bad, but it shares the same issues as Last Refuge. Automated stealth proccs on Thieves will never work well with the “Revealed” mechanic.
III – Uncatchable: One of the most popular traits due to its synergy with condition builds who can both dodge a lot and apply reasonable condition damage.
IV – Flanking Strike: Another underpowered DPS trait. Not as kittenome others but not very engaging either. Is only really selected for PvE when Thrill of the Crime is redundant.
V – Thrill of the Crime: One of the few ways Thieves can provide boons to their group. A good and popular trait for various builds in lot of different situations.
VI – Long Reach: 1500 range opens up some interesting options for Steal but it remains highly situational and often loses out to Thrill of the Crime or Uncatchable.
Minor – Preparedness: Another key trait at 15 points and for many the reason to spec into Trickery as the 3 additional Initiative make Initiative management much more forgiving.
VII – Bountiful Theft: Another good trait in Trickery and adds some much appreciated utility/support to the class.
VIII – Trickster: A 20% cooldown reduction on mediocre abilities isn’t generally all that great.
IX – Initial Strike: Not really reliable enough to provide sufficient Initiative regeneration. Seems a bit outdated after the change to Initiative.
X – Ricochet: One of the coolest and most desirable traits for Pistol wielders as it provides the set with much needed AoE. It also has some interesting interactions with other abilities.
Minor – Lead Attacks: Again, another passive damage increase that comes around roughly 10%.
XI – Hastened Replenishment: Very situational trait even when used with Withdraw. Might have its niche but is generally pretty bad when compared to…
XII – Sleight of Hand: Daze on Steal and the cooldown reduction make this a very attractive trait for PvP.

Conclusion: The Trickery tree has some of the most interesting and situational traits of the Thief class. Again however the most interesting choices are to be found in the lower tier, while the Master and Grandmaster tier have clear favorites.

Verdict

Many traits are outdated, often being little more than passive damage increases with little to no impact on game-play. Often the best traits of a tree are located at the lower end, rather than the high end.

What needs to happen?

The first priority should be fixing obviously broken traits like Last Refuge as they are a constant source of frustration.
Second would be replacing some of the obviously underpowered traits I pointed out and consolidating the Venoms traits into the Deadly Arts tree. Giving Thieves more condition removal outside of stealth should also be a priority here.

More long-term it would be nice to.make Thieves less dependent on stealth. As mentioned above, Stealth does too much for Thieves and yet without it they are screwed in WvW. Making Thieves less dependent on it would do a great deal for build diversity and addressing the stealth-spamming issues.

Traps also strike me as a mechanic that will never work well with Thieves. Maybe an alternative mechanic should be explored and traps left to Rangers, a class far more suited for this type of ability.

That is all. I hope this feedback can help direct potential Thief changes in the right direction.

Well said!

/15

Let me paste my other post in:

I wanted to discuss usefulness and reason behind some of thief traits and them in general.

So out of 60 major and 15 minor traits we got:

• 6 major and 2 minor traits that modify effect of stealing
• 8 major and 2 minor traits giving bonuses upon entering stealth and being in it
• 4 major and 1 minor traits applying stealth
• 6 major and 3 minor traits focusing on initative control

Now let’s take a look at traits modyfing utility skills.
We have:

• 5 venom traits
• 2 signet traits
• 2 traps traits
• 1 deception trait (only cooldon reduction)
• 1 trick trait (only cooldon reduction)
• and improvisation trait that refreshes one category of skills upon steal use.

When it comes to weapons

• 3 pistol traits
• 2 dual skills traits
• 1 dagger trait
• 1 shortbow and harpoon gun trait
• 0 sword trait
• 0 spear trait
• 2 major and 4 minor traits that increase our damage when certain conditions are met, but work with every weapon.

Now let me talk about some trait changes i would love to see.

Deadly Arts

• I – Back Fighting – Does anyone use that trait? When i play i try to stay alive as long as possible, not to fight in downed mode.
• II – Corrosive trait – Is that trait really that powerful that it can’t be a single trait with Master Trapper?
• V – Potent Poison – There are so many conditions out there. Do we seriosly need 50% more duration on poison? It’s easy enough to have 100% uptime by using steal and d/x
  autoattacks on target. From pvp point of view, i would prefer it to be changed to bleeding, torment or even blindness.
• VII – Improvisation – It doesnt happen too often that i have skill from every category as i just like to trait into skills i have (like most of players probbably). Second part is useful for Fiery Greatsword though.
• VIII – Quick Venoms – is it another trait that overpowered that it needs to be alone there? Every other class has some bonus to skill category for taking cd reduction trait for it, we don’t.
• IX – Dagger Training – 5% damage increse… People take it only because this trait lane lacks any other usefuls skills – also only trait that improves dagger use
• X – Dual Training – ok, dual skills are good, i like the idea of changing skills depending on weapon combination we have, but trait that increases damage by amazing 5% of single skill? As previous one taken only because of lack of useful traits.
  Critical Strikes
• V – Pistol Mastery – 10% is better than that 5% we have up there, but still, have to take more traits to have some additional effect.
• VIII – Signet Use – it was good when our initative regen was 7,5 per 10 and it gave us 2 initative. Which meant that if we used all 4 signets avaible to our class we would get more initative than we normally got in 10 seconds. Now It gives us 4 initative out of 10 we regen during 10 seconds. From over 100% to 40% that’s really a huge nerf. Best idea would be deleting that initative regen thingy and merging it with Signets of Power, even if it meant lowering might stacks gained.
• IX – Combo Critical Chance – check dual training. Only difference is that here we have more useful traits to take.
  Shadow Arts
• I – Master of Deception – 20% cooldown reduction without any bonus effect…
• II – Slowed Pulse – works only on bleeding
• VII – Power Shots – another amazing 5% damage increase, you so witty
• X – Patience- "No initiative is gained upon entering stealth. The user must maintain stealth for 3 seconds before they will see benefits from this trait. " Quote, from wiki.
  Soo, i understand that real patience is needed to benefit of this trait that gives us amazing one point of initative.
  Acrobatics
• V – Master Trapper – again, 20% cooldown reduction, wrote about it in deadly arts II
• IX – Quick Recover – 1 initative per 10 seconds. Thank you i’ll pass.
• X – Hard to Catch – Too unreliable and can put us in even worse situation.
• XI – Assasin’s reward – The fact it relies on initative doesnt mean it has anything to do with initiative management. Grandmaster traits should be more connected with topic of trait lane. Place it in shadow arts to make thieves benefit more of it.
  Trickery
• V – Thrill of the Crime – We get swiftness, fury and one stack of might? Deleting that one stack of might and extending fury and swiftness duartion would be nice.
• VIII – Trickster – and again, 20% cd with no bonus effect
• XI – Hastened Replenishment – move it to acrobatics instead of Assasin’s Reward

About some of the acrobatics traits:

Fleet of foot needs to include all conditions, no ICD. This would allow for a decision to be made whether the cleanse is important enough to burn the endurance or should it be kept for the potential to dodge later damage. It should synergize well with SoA, but still not be quite as powerful as warrior condi removal or engi condi immunity.

Hard to catch needs to be replaced with something that synergizes with dodging better. I think it would be an opportune place to exchange it with flashing blades as a trait (bringing back a cool GW1 skill). It could be something as simple as whenever you successfully evade an attack, you blind and damage the attacker within 180 range. Unique, fitting of an evasive playstyle, but not even as strong as retal as the range is limited and the blind halves the damage procs since they would “miss” rather than be “evaded.”

With those 2 changes, I think the Acro line could be on par with the SA line with reliable, active defenses.

This thread makes me feel bad for ArenaNet. They have to balance the game for everyone, including the people who don’t understand that they are not the target audience for things like Merciful Ambush.

I think that the problems with Acrobatics are overblown, and the people who say we are reliant on stealth have never tried to play without it (spoilers: it’s possible), but the #1 and #2 things I’d like to see done to this line are:

1. Confusion added to Pain Response.
2. Torment, Chilled added to Fleet of Foot, with a reduced ICD (5-7 seconds instead of 10).

That way, you give Acrobatics some better condition removal, and an interesting choice for Master tier.

EDIT: I think I’d also give Fleet of Foot a passive reduction to Immobilize duration. It’s probably silly/impossible to allow you to remove it with a dodge, since Immob prevents dodge to begin with.

Weapon sets

One of the biggest problems with Thief weapons currently is that the Initiative system encourage the player to disregard inefficient skills and reduce the skill-set to those skills that are worthy.

This means that in practice a weapon-set can often ignore 1-2 of its main weapon-skills completely because they are either bad or do not mesh with the play-style.

Point and case, Dagger/Dagger, the Thief’s most signature weapon-set.

In practice it consists of Cloak and Dagger, Heartseeker and auto-attack because the other skills aren’t worth-while. This make Initiative management rather easy as there are only two ways to spend it. All weapon-sets suffer from this problem to an extent and D/P is the only weapon set that will frequently use all the available weapon-skills.

This can partially be attributed to the unclear distinction between condition and power weapons with many weapon-sets trying to be both at the same time. Without initiative this wouldn’t be a problem but with it just means they’re ignored completely.

Shortbow
One of the most popular and versatile Thief weapons it’s used with both Condition and Power builds. it’s a good example of how a weapon-set can be appealing to both play-styles without sacrificing the usefulness of skills.

The only gripe with this weapon-set is the awfully limited range. Especially the targeted skills like Cluster Bomb and Choking Gas really suffer from this as the practicalities of these skills further reduce their effective range. For example it’s barely possible to hit targets while standing on top of a keep wall due to the way range is calculated. Reverting these skills back to 1000 or more range would be justified. Also, the blind provided by Infiltrator’s Arrow is superfluous in all but the rarest circumstances as it’s far more often used as a gap opener rather than a gap closer.

Sword
Great in both PvE and sPvP with the greatly appreciated ability to cleave multiple targets. I still feel the “lag” added to Infiltrator’s Return was a poor solution to a nonexistent problem. I won’t wale on this too much as Thieves are still in a good position in sPvP but I hope this isn’t a long-term thing, since it’s hard to imagine a less elegant fix.

Dagger
Mainhand
Both Auto-Attack and Backstab are solid skills although I touched on the issue of offensive capabilities being stacked into Stealth further above. As long as this remains the case Thieves will be trying to stealth as much as possible, all of the time, which doesn’t make for compelling game-play. I also feel that Heartseeker can be awfully effective for such a cheap skill. Especially the synergy with Furious Retaliation and Executioner can lead to some incredibly high and easy-to apply damage.

Dual Skills:
Shadow Shot is a good skill with few flaws.
Death Blossom however is the prime example of the Thief weapon-set issue. It’s virtually worthless to Power builds and it’s the only viable skill for condition builds. This means that both play-styles find themselves with a “dumbed-down” weapon-set because key skills are made redundant due to their inefficiency. This needs to be fixed if Thieves should ever hope to become more engaging.

Off-Hand:
Dancing Dagger is probably one of the weakest and most underused Thief weapon-skills. It performs very poorly in almost all scenarios and suffers from various projectile pathing issues, often leading to “obstructed” targets. A cripple also isn’t all that useful on a class that has plenty of gap-closers. This ability could do with a buff of some kind.
Cloak and Dagger is probably one of the key Thief abilities. Many builds rely on chaining this skill over and over again for maximum effect, due to the excessive benefits of stealth (damage, blinds, healing, condition removal, etc). This ability is key to making Thieves more fun to play against but due to their reliance on stealth any change to this skill has to be carefully considered.

Pistol
Vital Shot seems kind of bland when compared to other auto-attack. It deal poor direct damage and is weak, even with condition builds. Only Sneak Attack really provides some punch, which is why the key to P/D is to use this skill as often as possible. Vital Shot is going to play a key role in making the Pistol/Pistol play-style more appealing as it is currently lackluster in all forms.
Body Shot is in a similar position where the initiative is mostly wasted, regardless of build. The immobilize can occasionally come in useful on a condition build, but only because they have Initiative to waste.
Shadow Strike is an interesting skill as it is a gap opener on a weapon-set that generally tries to stay within range for Cloak and Dagger. The added Torment make for a nice amount of extra damage and it creates some interesting game-play opportunities like backwards kiting.
Unload is the signature skill for dual pistols. It’s not exciting and doesn’t have any interesting elements to it, except that it deals respectable damage. Having this be its only defining property is a little lame, but changing it is a low priority when buffing Vital Shot and Body Shot could do much more for the dual-pistol play-style.
Headshot a situational but effective interrupt. Rather expensive considering its low damage but understandable so as to prevent it from being spammed. Might not be used very often but still a highly useful skill.
Black Powder is another key skill, like Cloak and Dagger and arguably a more problematic one. Being able to chain Smoke Fields that apply Blinds faster than most auto-attacks makes it an extremely difficult ability to balance. In PvE this allows Thieves to kill most melee mobs with no threat of taking damage while in WvW and sPvP it’s also a source of stealth and damage mitigation. It’s a highly versatile skill but also somewhat overpowered for an ability that can be used so liberally. But just like with Cloak and Dagger any change to this ability can severely affect an entire WvW play-style.

Aquatic
Neither underwater weapon has any worth-while synergy with condition builds, making underwater combat an even greater pain for them than it already is.

Harpoon Gun: Deluge does respectable damage, but most other skills do not and also have very little else to offer in practice. Ink Shot is also incredibly slow and ineffective.

Spear: It’s actually quite decent for Power builds, but again has nothing for Condition builds. It seems to have an awful lot of damage-avoidance skills with either blocks or evades built in. For a while this meant that Thieves were virtually untouchable underwater but this issue has been addressed. It might be nice to see some more interesting skills but that’s a low priority issue.

What does this mean?

Having a clear distinction between condition and power weapon-sets will be essential if Thieves should hope to become more engaging to play instead of relying on the same old 2-3 skills. For weapon-sets where a clear distinction isn’t possible both play-styles should be made attractive. This means buffing Death Blossom for power builds and Dancing Dagger for condition builds for example. Aquatic combat also needs a serious buff for condition builds and could generally be made a lot more interesting.

Infiltrators return could be reverted I think if they reduced the return distance to 600 and limited tbe availability of it to around 7-10 seconds.

Before Anet start finagling with the Thief traits and skills again, they first need to define what role they want Thief to be in.

If they choose DPS, then we should see a lot more damage improvements like Might and Fury that can be shared to the group. Then all other skills and traits that doesn’t fall under this role must be purged from our profession.

As we’ve seen in the past, Anet doesn’t know what role they want the Thief to fill and they try hopelessly to make Thief more like a group-friendly profession doing all the wrong things.

If Anet really wants Thief to be group-friendly, then they can start by improving stolen items because to be honest, that’s one aspect that the Thief can bring in a group. All stole items should be a group-wide effect. This way, the Thief can focus on doing what they do best, DPS, and still help out the group by stealing items.

The sad thing is, the amount of re-vamping/re-design needed will take them years considering how often “balance” patches come out… :‘(
Till then, sit back, and enjoy the QQ-ing tears… they’re delicious…

Bountiful Theft isn’t so good, how you wrote it.
Especially not, if you compare it with S/D #3 and with the Skills Shattered Concentration and Arcane Thievery from the Mesmer.

This trait is too weak to be useful and a shame for the thief class.

By the way, the traits in SA are ok. (Except the venomtraits)
The bigger problem is the high frequenzy, with the stealth can be used.

Black Teagan.9215:

Bountiful Theft isn’t so good, how you wrote it.
Especially not, if you compare it with S/D #3 and with the Skills Shattered Concentration and Arcane Thievery from the Mesmer.

This trait is too weak to be useful and a shame for the thief.

“Does not steal “stacks” of the boons; e.g. the enemy has 15 stacks of Might, your character is only going to receive 1 stack of might (unknown which individual might application/duration takes priority); if the enemy is using a boon that stacks duration, such as Protection, and has both a 3s and a 4s application of it (showing as 7 seconds total), your character will only steal the 3s or the 4s application of the boon (unknown which application/duration takes priority), not the full 7s. "( wiki).

So yes, it doesnt even remove one full stack of whatever enemy has.

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Black Teagan.9215:

Bountiful Theft isn’t so good, how you wrote it.
Especially not, if you compare it with S/D #3 and with the Skills Shattered Concentration and Arcane Thievery from the Mesmer.

This trait is too weak to be useful and a shame for the thief.

“Does not steal “stacks” of the boons; e.g. the enemy has 15 stacks of Might, your character is only going to receive 1 stack of might (unknown which individual might application/duration takes priority); if the enemy is using a boon that stacks duration, such as Protection, and has both a 3s and a 4s application of it (showing as 7 seconds total), your character will only steal the 3s or the 4s application of the boon (unknown which application/duration takes priority), not the full 7s. "( wiki).

So yes, it doesnt even remove one full stack of whatever enemy has.

Thats right, but use one time Arcane Thievery and everyone will see that Mesmers steal up to 3 Boons with the full duration, while the enemy get up to 3 conditions.

To sad, that a Non-Thief have better skills to steal than a thief.
What comes next? A guardian, who do more dmg with daggers, althought they can’t use it? :/

I wish the thief were more like a thief.

Maugetarr.6823:

Infiltrators return could be reverted I think if they reduced the return distance to 600 and limited tbe availability of it to around 7-10 seconds.

what in the actual kitten?

no.

Mordecai.6318:

Maugetarr.6823:

Infiltrators return could be reverted I think if they reduced the return distance to 600 and limited tbe availability of it to around 7-10 seconds.

what in the actual kitten?

no.

no because?

Very well said, thoughtfully presented and about 100% correct.

Black Teagan.9215:

Bountiful Theft isn’t so good, how you wrote it. […] This trait is too weak to be useful and a shame for the thief class.

I am always conflicted when I see someone ragging on Bountiful Theft.

I want to correct them, because BT has a really fast recharge, gives the stolen boons to nearby allies (nobody EVER seems to realize this), also gives Vigor (again, to allies as well), and makes Sleight of Hand a nearly-unstoppable interrupt. But I also want to keep it quiet, because BT with 30 Trickery is borderline overpowered, and the longer ANet fails to notice it, the better it is for the class.

Very well written and a good read OP.

Thief could, better yet, should get a trait rework like warrior or ranger has had. We have a lot of traits that provide 1 thing instead of a mix like most get. Like a cooldown reduction + some bonus for utilities since our weapons don’t have cooldowns but they could have a reduction in intiaitive costs? Say dagger training gets 1 less iniative for off-hand dagger skills along with the 5% dmg (no need to promote more HS spam kittens) or dual skills restore endurance with 5% crit change (combo crit chance). We also have a lot of traits that either have no place, get easily outshined by neighbor traits, or are terrible.

No place:

Back fighting- why trait to be downed?
Improvisation- RNG and we can’t make our own bundles. If this was some bonus to stolen skills effects maybe but… no.
assassin’s retreat- swiftness is rather easy to come by on a thief, and it only applies on death making this useless. I don’t need to run faster after I killed another player, if anything I should restore some initiative or endurance something that will actually keep me going.

Outshined:

Potent poison- mug or sundering strikes, heck even venomous strength for venom share builds.

slowed pulse- Shadow’s protector (you’re in a stealth tree, and it’s on your queue instead of waiting to be bled). Same investment, better result.

Master trapper- traps aren’t all the good. Just about any other adept trait but assassin’s retreat could replace this.

Merciful ambush/long reach/instinctual response- neither one really can outdo the other 3. Condi builds or those using SoM would love uncatchable, thrill of the crime for fury/swiftness access either for self or group its great, and flanking strikes if you want harder BS’s. Thief can put on Blinding power or SR to outdo merciful ambush, instinctual respose shares the same frustration that Last refuge provides, and long reach seems too alone to be worth the major trait slot. Unless your chasing someone, is 600 further gap closer necessary? Most people don’t range battle and if they do it sure isn’t going to be kiting you 1500 units away, 900 covers more than enough distance and if not it takes less than a second to close up that 600 units among other methods like landing an infiltrator’s strike by using 2 then quickly pressing steal creating a 1500 gap closer right there (just 1 example). Overall, stealing further isn’t going to make a difference when fighting.

Hastened replenishment- sleight of hand does much more. It reduces the cooldown of steal effectively buffing kleptomaniac which grants initiative on steal, and gives you an interrupt. I’ve tried fitting HR into a build and sleight of hand just always came in 1st. Maybe if this trait was a master instead of grandmaster and swapped places with something that could use a sizable buff, perhaps (also reduce initiative gained, to likely

Horrible:

Power shots- unless fighting a thief in their SR, we don’t use sb for any sort of primary damage. Not worth the investment, and it’s in the SA trait line XD.

Fleet of foot- maybe horrible is a bit harsh but this removes 2 selected conditions with a 10 second cooldown. It could not be anymore limiting.

Hard to catch- no control, does nothing at all to deal with the cc effect. I mean you can change the random port to rfi and it would be more useful even if you watch thieves just roll off cliffs when you stun them.

Thief isn’t horrible, but they don’t shine anywhere but wvw roaming and that’s ONLY because of their ability to ambush other roamers. Pvp they’re vastly overrated (not last place but definitely not near top) and pve they are seldom wanted due to their selfish nature and squishy defenses.

Interceptor.2653:

Black Teagan.9215:

Bountiful Theft isn’t so good, how you wrote it. […] This trait is too weak to be useful and a shame for the thief class.

I am always conflicted when I see someone ragging on Bountiful Theft.

I want to correct them, because BT has a really fast recharge, gives the stolen boons to nearby allies (nobody EVER seems to realize this), also gives Vigor (again, to allies as well), and makes Sleight of Hand a nearly-unstoppable interrupt. But I also want to keep it quiet, because BT with 30 Trickery is borderline overpowered, and the longer ANet fails to notice it, the better it is for the class.

The whole Trickery line is OP (except Instinctual Response) but I’m not complaining. IMO, all trait line should make the Thief profession OP in some ways because we’re specialist, and so far, in dealing as much damage as possible.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The whole Trickery line is OP (except Instinctual Response) but I’m not complaining. IMO, all trait line should make the Thief profession OP in some ways because we’re specialist, and so far, in dealing as much damage as possible.

I dont think so.
In my eyes is Trickery one of the best balanced traitlines.
When you search an OP traitline, than look on SA (in combination with stealth), for an UP traitline Acrobatic.

Interceptor.2653:

I am always conflicted when I see someone ragging on Bountiful Theft.

I want to correct them, because BT has a really fast recharge, gives the stolen boons to nearby allies (nobody EVER seems to realize this), also gives Vigor (again, to allies as well), and makes Sleight of Hand a nearly-unstoppable interrupt. But I also want to keep it quiet, because BT with 30 Trickery is borderline overpowered, and the longer ANet fails to notice it, the better it is for the class.

1. Vigor is a good reason for BT, but the only one.
   In fact no reason, as long as the most class can get more/perma Vigor with only 5 traitpoints.
2. Two stealing boons are less. A mesmer can steal more and the boons run much longer.
3. BT have a areaeffect, that’s right, but it dont make it better, as long as the range keep so short.

When you want to do more dodges and steal more boons, take S/D and put the 20 traits points into a better traitline.
When you want to do more dmg while you steal the boons and support your team, take a mesmer, put 20 points in Domination and 5 in Dueling and you do more dmg and take more boons from your enemy, while you support your team better, than thieves can do it.

BT is nice but if the idea was to play dirty and steal boons from enemies and share with allies, why is it so limited? S/d can steal boons for ourselves, I wish we had a way to share their full duration. For example, when you steal without a target it goes on cooldown but traits like Thrill of the crime still proc. I wish BT did the same but if no target is selected, you share 2 of your boons as well as increasing the radius of effect. Just like venomshare, the radius is hard to manage because it’s at the target’s location which is either frontline (which is scary for thieves) or it’s off to the side (where no one is).

As good as the trickery trait line is, I still think it could use some quality of life improvements and adjustments.

You forgot to mention the heal from mug. Running a trickery sword build, this gives me a 2.5k heal every 20+3/4 seconds, adding 120 HPS to my 110 from assassin’s reward. The 4.6k heal from Withdraw every 15 seconds also adds 300 HPS to my sustain. Adding it all up, I heal for an average of 530 health per second, matching that of a warrior running Adrenal Health and Healing Signet. The healing portion of Mug, I find, is greatly under appreciated.

NinjaEd.3946:

BT is nice but if the idea was to play dirty and steal boons from enemies and share with allies, why is it so limited? […]

Thank you, that’s what I (partly) mean.
When I play my thief, I want to be a thief, a class with high mobility, who demoralized the enemy and use their strength against them, and not an alternative version of a warrior, who need nothing except pure dmg.

That’s what I miss here.

Black Teagan.9215:

1. Vigor is a good reason for BT, but the only one.
   In fact no reason, as long as the most class can get more/perma Vigor with only 5 traitpoints.
2. Two stealing boons are less. A mesmer can steal more and the boons run much longer.
3. BT have a areaeffect, that’s right, but it dont make it better, as long as the range keep so short.

Perma-Vigor is being nerfed next balance patch for those remaining three professions that still have it cheaply. Thieves will have perma-Vigor via this trait and Vigorous Recovery. BT is only getting better relative to the other Vigor options, not worse.

Mesmers can steal more boons, sure, but they have to:

• give up a utility slot for it,
• have a cast time on the move,
• put up with a recharge that’s twice as long,
• only use the boons for themselves, since they aren’t shared.

You’re comparing apples to oranges here. BT doesn’t function as Thief condition removal, and AC doesn’t provide party support.

NinjaEd.3946:

BT is nice but if the idea was to play dirty and steal boons from enemies and share with allies, why is it so limited?

Because it’s already super-powerful. Are you kidding me? How many other abilities in this game strip boons and copy them to four other people? The trait is already powerful enough to be worthy of a GM slot; imagine what would happen if they boosted the radius or the boon duration.

Viking Jorun.5413:

The healing portion of Mug, I find, is greatly under appreciated.

This is largely because people don’t appreciate Healing Power on Thief in general.

Lots of folks will pooh-pooh the ratios, but don’t bother to look at what happens when you add HP to a build that has Mug, AR, SoM/Withdraw, and heavy access to Regeneration. Spoilers: it’s a kitten-load of sustain.

I have 2 Ideas

One : We can add a trait in acrobatic that give you Protection and regen for X time when you succeful a dodge, that mean in combat when you dode the attack of an enemy and its writed “dodged” on your character you gain the bonus
or maybe gain +700 hp when you do a succeful dodge, that would be an alternativ at shadow rejuveneration

second: change the trait hard to catch by gain +25% speed (im a bit bored of that shadow signet) and maybe something else like give stabi when you get a fear, stuck, stun , daze etc…
or add a stun breaker to shadow infiltrator skill with an internal CD like 10sec

Viking Jorun.5413:

You forgot to mention the heal from mug. Running a trickery sword build, this gives me a 2.5k heal every 20+3/4 seconds, adding 120 HPS to my 110 from assassin’s reward. The 4.6k heal from Withdraw every 15 seconds also adds 300 HPS to my sustain. Adding it all up, I heal for an average of 530 health per second, matching that of a warrior running Adrenal Health and Healing Signet. The healing portion of Mug, I find, is greatly under appreciated.

Yes but this is long term sustain, this does nothing to deal with burst. AR is the only thing in that mix that’s continuous, the rest is every so often. If someone hits a warrior hard, their adrenal health and HS kick in immediately and continue to do so for the duration of the fight. If a thief gets hit hard, they have to focus on recovery and direct skill use vs just passively recovering. Not argueing that mug or withdraw is good or bad (I think they’re great), but it doesn’t compete with warrior sustain at all.

Not to mention their HPS also has heavy armor into the mix, vastly improving it while our HPS can get hit harder. Naturally warrior should be able to soak up hits better but I feel anet made stealth a thief mechanic when in reality people CAN spec outside of it. Those that do however live with the fact that they cannot soak up hits and recover like an ele guard warrior or engi no matter what they try. When you get hit hard it hurts, stun breaker or not.

NinjaEd.3946:

Yes but this is long term sustain, this does nothing to deal with burst.

Please. Mug and Withdraw are both burst heals. Neither has any cast time whatsoever.

If a thief gets hit hard, they have to focus on recovery and direct skill use vs just passively recovering.

You mean something like Pain Response, perhaps? If you get “hit hard” as an Acrobatics Thief, PR procs and is ticking for at least 12s of 130 HP/S, and likely more.

Not to mention their HPS also has heavy armor into the mix, vastly improving it while our HPS can get hit harder. Naturally warrior should be able to soak up hits better but I feel anet made stealth a thief mechanic when in reality people CAN spec outside of it. Those that do however live with the fact that they cannot soak up hits and recover like an ele guard warrior or engi no matter what they try. When you get hit hard it hurts, stun breaker or not.

It’s a good thing that Thieves are kings of evasion; as everyone knows, it’s almost always better to evade a hit than to soak it with Armor.

Interceptor is right. I’m also not counting the sustain I get from pain response, which with 45% boon duration can keep my regen uptime pretty high, and even permanent if facing another class with high regen uptime (ele, engie, guardian).

Maugetarr.6823:

Mordecai.6318:

Maugetarr.6823:

Infiltrators return could be reverted I think if they reduced the return distance to 600 and limited tbe availability of it to around 7-10 seconds.

what in the actual kitten?

no.

no because?

Have you ever played a thief?

Mordecai.6318:

Maugetarr.6823:

Mordecai.6318:

Maugetarr.6823:

Infiltrators return could be reverted I think if they reduced the return distance to 600 and limited tbe availability of it to around 7-10 seconds.

what in the actual kitten?

no.

no because?

Have you ever played a thief?

Yes and I don’t see why reducing the time the rollover skill is active to say 7-10 seconds would call that into question, especially when it would give back the instant- cast nature to the ability. So, instead of attacking me, why don’t you try answering this question.

What would be wrong with limiting the return range to the same distance as the jump range and also shortening the time IR is available?

(note: that is not adding a CD if that’s what you thought, and it would indirectly boost S/X’s chasing ability as the forward jump would be available more often)

I forget, they should also add a trait in lethal strike who regen initiative, its the only archetype without ini regen

Very good analysis of everything thief, 2 thumbs up!

Traps and venoms are definitely something to work on, as well as Deadly Arts and Acrobatic tree.

However, I think we do still provide decent party support. AoE blinds is probably one of the best stuff we can throw in PvE. And venom sharing Basilisk venom can have its uses in WvW roaming scenarios. We also have the only spammable blast finisher in the game which has tons of versatility in support usages.

I do think however that buffing traps and venoms more would make us more viable for party support.

You didn’t mention that Shadow Protector doesn’t stack with itself or work with any other form of Regeneration around making it useless to use in groups ruled by Guardians and so on~ :o Maybe it should just be a new buff like Elementalist’s water one or something if they don’t have anything else to think of for it. I’ve complained about that trait since beta so I don’t expect much.