Guild Wars 2

Right to it;

DA
-Dagger Training: Having a dagger you already have a very quick AA which applies poison, why would anyone think a 2 second application will be worth picking? This trait would of been a perfect opportunity to give d/d something over d/p like OH dagger skills costing 1 less initiative or increased attack speed per dagger equipped.

-Trapper’s Respite: Good trait for power or condition using HiS to set up a backstab or condition overload, although I suspect a nerf eventually given how powerful a 3 second immobilize is.

-Improvisation: There was a long ago post against this idea and sure enough it came to the same conclusion anet did, nerf stolen skills because of this trait. I’m sure more stolen skills will be nerfed before this trait is finally discovered to be the culprit but hopefully not.

-Potent Poison: 10% is simply not enough. Whether they increase the damage portion or instead modify the -healing effectiveness for applying poison, this trait being a GM for only 10% is pathetic. Poison is now a stacking condition so it already was nerfed, this 10% is hardly noticeable.

CS

-Ankle Shots: As if a nerf to pistol was thought impossible, they decide to limit the only damage bonus that p/p had to only apply to crippled foes. Not sure who at the office had it out against p/p but the removal of ricochet was bad enough, now the 10% indefinite bonus is gone as well. Really should bring back ricochet and fix this trait to give a flat 10% damage bonus or at least implement ricochet into unload since that is where the trait was needed most.

-Practiced Tolerance: It used to be a great trait to pick for some added survivability and for some reason it was flipped to go full dps. There were far to many nerfs to thief defense in this patch, we did not need more critical damage/chance modifiers.

-No quarter: Neat idea, but seems like it came out of nowhere to fit the CS theme of full zerker. Not sure if infinite fury was a wise decision but not my call.

SA

-Concealed Defeat: Awesome to see a deception recharge reduction but it is right along side Shadow’s embrace which is the best condition removal thief has. Seems odd to not let people pick 2 adept/master traits anymore.

-Shadow’s Embrace: No reason to of nerfed this trait, please revert.

-Last Refuge: Now that it is a major trait, we should take a poll on how many people bother to use this and realize it is still poorly designed. Auto stealth by any means is a poor design given the reveal mechanic.

-Shadow Protector: Not sure why the regeneration duration was severely cut just to have the pre-regeneration effect removed, why couldn’t the trait just have an ICD of 10 seconds? 3 seconds is extremely short especially for a master trait.

-Hidden thief: Maybe I’m just greedy but blinding powder on steal was pretty neat to have and actually gave a nice little counter for enemies when they see a thief disappear and suddenly they are blinded from a distance (obviously they are on you now). Would be nice to of kept it the way it was given it’s defensive qualities and counter response.

Acro

-Fleet shadow: Still see no reason to pick this trait. If I’m really going into acrobatics I don’t utilize stealth and even so the other options are far more valuable.

-Feline Grace: I wouldn’t say I’m entirely against or in favor of the change, but it definitely crippled a lot of builds relying on Acro for their defense. Maybe a little longer vigor duration (3 seconds) would help along the vigor modifier.

-Guarded Initiation: Not sure what logic there is to removing conditions at the beginning of a fight, especially ones that aren’t that threatening at the start. Couldn’t they bring back the trait that was originally suggested to remove 1 condition on evasion with a 10 sec ICD?

-Assassin’s Reward: Still needs a bump in healing power scaling, since spamming weapon skills on a thief is generally a bad idea you either sort of see this trait helping or you’re wiser than it wants you to be and use your weapon skills as a defense as much as an offense.

-Pressure Striking: The only interrupts thief has are tied to power builds (headshot, PW, sleight of hand Vs Bewildering ambush….etc). Not sure who this trait was meant for.

-Trickster: In a tie with bountiful theft, a great trait but just in a very difficult position. I guess its good though to have solid options in the same trait line rather than 1 obvious choice.

-Quick Pockets: Still one of those traits that I have yet to see as valuable in comparison to its alternatives. Perhaps they could bring something new to the table or add to this trait?

That is all, wanted to get this off my mind.

NinjaEd.3946:

Right to it;

-Practiced Tolerance: It used to be a great trait to pick for some added survivability and for some reason it was flipped to go full dps. There were far to many nerfs to thief defense in this patch, we did not need more critical damage/chance modifiers.

Practiced tolerance is perfect the way it is now.

Anet made it a point to remove damage modifiers from defensive lines, and defensive stats from offensive lines. This change was in line with that.

Since a zerker ammy is certain death in PvP (11k HP lol), the extra ferocity helps when taking a marauders ammy. It also helps differentiate thieves using CS from other thieves – if you’re focusing on crit strikes, your critical strikes should hit harder. It’s not like 150-175 extra vitality is worth much to a thief currently – I’ll take 13% more crit damage over possibly surviving 1 additional hit or condi tick.

NinjaEd.3946:

Right to it;

-Feline Grace: I wouldn’t say I’m entirely against or in favor of the change, but it definitely crippled a lot of builds relying on Acro for their defense. Maybe a little longer vigor duration (3 seconds) would help along the vigor modifier.

The issue with acrobatics now isn’t vigor duration, its potency. Even after deleting fluid strikes from our line to buff feline grace with endless stamina we only get a measly 75% potency, compared to 80% uptime with 100% potency post patch — not to mention the 15 endurance returned per dodge.
Basically Acrobatics got gutted and will take some serious buffs to restore it to its former usefulness. There are lots of other good suggestions on how to fix the line if you look around on some other posts for some inspiration.

Pressure striking is FINE as is and is in a good spot. It adds great utility to a Condition based build using trickery.

It a good trait in a P/P set. Yes Unload is a power trait but the AA using sneak attack is a Condition trait.

The following interrupts are independent of weapons.

SOH. On a 20 second cooldown. Interrupts .
Tripwire. Hard to pull off but works as an interrupt.
Scorpion wire . Works as an interrupt.
Basi venom With 2 charges adds two interrupts.
Tow line (underwater) but works as interrupt.

The following Independent of weapons and predicated on enemy fought but are interrupts available to a thief.

Fear From Skull fear. 2 uses if traited for Improv
Mace head crack. 2 uses if traited for Improv.
Time these right and in conjunction with a steal you can easily generate a chain of interrupts up to 5 in a row.

One can also get an interrupt generated off a small amount of gear such as.

Rune of the Nightmare 60 second cooldown but the fear will now add torment.
Superior Rune of the Sunless trait 6 would now inflict fear poison and torment.

Now in theory I can use LOAD basi venom and not use it trigger an interrupt with sunless and then follow up with two more from the venom itself.

Both of these are condition based runes.

Now obviously Interrupts take timing but there LOTS of sources a thief an design around if they want to use this trait, Now we go to weapons.

P/P , S/p and D/p all have interrupts. Of the Three P/P works quite well if used in conjunction with sneak attack off the AA although a source of stealth needed.

P/p with this set can be an effective condition damage set and I am using it now.

P/d is THE traditional Condition set but traiting for Basi Venom and using Runes of nightmare or sunless above will both allow interrupts allowing more torment to be added. The torment added would be indepent of INI. I supsect that some will try and integrate more sources into the utilities and there remains the steals off guardians and Necroes.

In P/P alone I have laid on 10 stacks against a single target very hard to accomplish with the p/d torment source. It is nasty against people trying to stomp in WvW.

Now to the other sets with x/p using head shots and whether they can be used as a Condition set no one has been there yet. I suspect lack of bleeds would hurt here but somone might go there with poison in the d/p set if dagger training improved.

Someone, I don’t remember who-but credit goes to them, mentioned cutting Roll For Initiative stats in half, giving Quick Pockets a weapon swap reduction, and Scorpion Wire act as a shadowstep. Those were pretty elegant yet simple solutions to some major problems.

Acro needs to be totally rebuilt from the ground up.

Ricochet needs to be merged or added back in somewhere. Their reasoning for removing it is complete BS and everyone can smell it.

Odyssey.2613:

Someone, I don’t remember who-but credit goes to them, mentioned cutting Roll For Initiative stats in half, giving Quick Pockets a weapon swap reduction, and Scorpion Wire act as a shadowstep. Those were pretty elegant yet simple solutions to some major problems

Acro needs to be totally rebuilt from the ground up.

Ricochet needs to be merged or added back in somewhere. Their reasoning for removing it is complete BS and everyone can smell it.

I like the suggest change to quick pockets.. I am not too keen on the suggested scorpion wire.

The reason for a pull is so I can pull people down off walls or out of their group and into mine. I do not want a port where I step into a group of enemies.

We have other skills that can do this such as the signet and I am not sure why we need to duplicate this ability. For varieties sake we need a pull.

Pulling someone off an arrowcart that sits on a stack of marks or enemy AOE is very useful.

babazhook.6805:

Odyssey.2613:

Someone, I don’t remember who-but credit goes to them, mentioned cutting Roll For Initiative stats in half, giving Quick Pockets a weapon swap reduction, and Scorpion Wire act as a shadowstep. Those were pretty elegant yet simple solutions to some major problems

Acro needs to be totally rebuilt from the ground up.

Ricochet needs to be merged or added back in somewhere. Their reasoning for removing it is complete BS and everyone can smell it.

I like the suggest change to quick pockets.. I am not too keen on the suggested scorpion wire.

The reason for a pull is so I can pull people down off walls or out of their group and into mine. I do not want a port where I step into a group of enemies.

We have other skills that can do this such as the signet and I am not sure why we need to duplicate this ability. For varieties sake we need a pull.

Pulling someone off an arrowcart that sits on a stack of marks or enemy AOE is very useful.

The original guy who had that Idea ( Maugetarr.6823 ) said it would work basically like an inverse shadowshot, the scorpion wire projectile would be changed to a shadow shot-esque projectile, and instead of dragging your opponent to you, it will teleport them to you.
Essentially the point of this is to prevent all the obstructions, mini pulls, and other issues of the current scorpion wire.

Anonymouse.4760:

babazhook.6805:

Odyssey.2613:

Someone, I don’t remember who-but credit goes to them, mentioned cutting Roll For Initiative stats in half, giving Quick Pockets a weapon swap reduction, and Scorpion Wire act as a shadowstep. Those were pretty elegant yet simple solutions to some major problems

Acro needs to be totally rebuilt from the ground up.

Ricochet needs to be merged or added back in somewhere. Their reasoning for removing it is complete BS and everyone can smell it.

I like the suggest change to quick pockets.. I am not too keen on the suggested scorpion wire.

The reason for a pull is so I can pull people down off walls or out of their group and into mine. I do not want a port where I step into a group of enemies.

We have other skills that can do this such as the signet and I am not sure why we need to duplicate this ability. For varieties sake we need a pull.

Pulling someone off an arrowcart that sits on a stack of marks or enemy AOE is very useful.

The original guy who had that Idea ( Maugetarr.6823 ) said it would work basically like an inverse shadowshot, the scorpion wire projectile would be changed to a shadow shot-esque projectile, and instead of dragging your opponent to you, it will teleport them to you.
Essentially the point of this is to prevent all the obstructions, mini pulls, and other issues of the current scorpion wire.

Thanks for the clarification.

Honestly, Dagger Training could have have some potential if it had a 1 second duration increase with some other changes made to Potent Poisons on the same trait line, which IMO Potent Poisons is absolutely weak and in no case whatsoever worth taking in comparison to Improvisation and Executioner as it’s current values stand.

I guess Anet was worried about Thieves being able to do stupid amounts of poison damage, meanwhile burning has easy application and ticks for thousands of damage which by itself overshadows us stacking bleeds, poison and even torment combined – so they gave us pathetic durations on something like Dagger Training. Bravo Anet, bravo.

Two changes that would make Dagger Training much more appealing, let alone actually worth taking, is give Dagger Training a baseline of 3 seconds poison per application. Now, if that sounds worthless, hear me out, I’m all for opening up some build viability / diversity without doing Anet’s level of idiotic crap that creates extremely imbalanced trash.

The following change for this is Potent Poisons, considering they were looking at a +50% damage modifier which would’ve made it possibly worth taking, though with my experience with this patch so far, I don’t think that would’ve been enough. However they then nerfed that to 10% bonus damage … and left the bonus duration the exact same.

So to go from adept tier (that no one EVER took … EVER) they moved it to GM tier by adding +10% poison damage the trait, which is still effectively even more worthless than it just being a 33% duration increase on adept tier and in fact, standing next to executioner or the usefulness of improvisation is a laughable joke (consider taking spider venom with potent poisons vs improvisation and oh look, steal reset your venoms! Combine with leeching venoms and this makes Potent Poisons even more of a joke).

If the duration increase for Potent Poisons were at 50%, this would make things like the suggested change to Dagger Training look more appealing as it would have a duration of 4.5 seconds, which before you scream omg OP, please just think of burning, enough said about that.

This would open up something like a venom sigil becoming worth taking as it would push that base up to 5.1 seconds, and if you really wanted to go all out on a poison duration build, you could in combination with sigil, throw on a rune set supporting poison duration, netting a 100% duration increase with suggested changes. This turns 3 seconds Dagger Training into 6 seconds. Or you could just use the rune set and keep 5 seconds while opening up a sigil slot.

The point of that is, this suddenly gives you options to work with that actually feel like viable increases to consider, rather than a GM Trait that doesn’t even add 1 second to a trait that would replace Mug which on top of it’s current worthlessness, makes it even more of a hideous thing to even think about.

And while on the talk of poison. Shortbow #4 needs that nerf reverted, hands down. Considering how literally out of control everything else is, there was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to nerf SB #4. In fact, due to poison stacking and how high damage is, even with the previous suggested changes, SB #4 could stand to sit at 4 seconds per pulse.

Why do I say that? Because if you stacked Potent Poisons at suggested 50% increase, a venom sigil, and a runeset supporting poison duration, SB#4 sits at 8 seconds per pulse. Which with how stacking works, all four pulses of poison from SB #4 would be (on paper) the exact same poison duration uptime as previous patch when SB #4 was at 3 seconds.

Think about that for a little bit, the fact that poison uptime with a base of 4 seconds with 100% increase duration equates to the same poison uptime as previous SB #4 at 3 seconds for all four pulses. The only difference is with suggested changes like this, it would do more damage which is GRAVELY needed. As it currently stands, SB #4 isn’t worth using, it is a complete damage loss, nothing more than a utility to activate weakness from lotus poison and drop cluster bombs inside of for aoe weakness which is about it. I guess you could also put it on a down state target, so you can have a whole 6 seconds of poison on them (which you can get simply from Dagger auto attack that also adds more immediate damage / pressure anyway).

And I’m pretty positive that even with this suggested change, it would still do about the same (if not less) damage than a detonated cluster bomb due to it’s immediate damage that also stacks bleeds, which also happens to cost less initiative. So please, please do not tell me this is somehow overpowered. -.-

Babazhook, there is no placement for pressure striking that makes it more valuable than the old options. I wouldn’t bother using SoH on a condition build with BA as an option, 5 stacks of confusion alone is a threat not to mention it can be added to our condi burst. I’d much rather use p/d with a gap opener/torment application than use p/p which has almost no defenses and spamming headshot to apply torment, the logic isn’t there. As far as BV, you get 1 application because I sincerely doubt you will shoot once and wait a second to shoot again, you can’t interrupt someone who is already stunned.

I can’t even suggest increasing the duration or stack amount because the idea alone is terrible on thief, the effort to make use of this trait is pointless when there are far more solid options that can be just as effective without this trait.

Dagger Training: I would like to see it as applied poison training and working with all weapons. The 2s are okay, but it would become really a formidable choice with 3s.

Potent Poison: Well… yea it is kinda weak. Though we can really get poison running like mad, just spam SB4 for example, the fields stack together.

evilapprentice.6379:

NinjaEd.3946:

Right to it;

-Practiced Tolerance: It used to be a great trait to pick for some added survivability and for some reason it was flipped to go full dps. There were far to many nerfs to thief defense in this patch, we did not need more critical damage/chance modifiers.

Practiced tolerance is perfect the way it is now.

Anet made it a point to remove damage modifiers from defensive lines, and defensive stats from offensive lines. This change was in line with that.

Since a zerker ammy is certain death in PvP (11k HP lol), the extra ferocity helps when taking a marauders ammy. It also helps differentiate thieves using CS from other thieves – if you’re focusing on crit strikes, your critical strikes should hit harder. It’s not like 150-175 extra vitality is worth much to a thief currently – I’ll take 13% more crit damage over possibly surviving 1 additional hit or condi tick.

That was the point of the old PT, that extra defense which thieves lack, not to mention it was a major trait so it was a build choice not a staple on CS. I’d much rather have that extra bit of health to survive an attack and react than to worry about extra damage when thief already has tons of it and was given more this last patch. Our survivability went down this last patch and it was already weak enough, this push towards full glass was a bad idea for the sake of all game modes.

Improvisation u can use stolen skill twice i think this one is too OP
Feline grace and guarded initiation = useless trait
Withdraw’s cooldown was increased but the promised 10% base heal is missing

NinjaEd.3946:

evilapprentice.6379:

NinjaEd.3946:

Right to it;

-Practiced Tolerance: It used to be a great trait to pick for some added survivability and for some reason it was flipped to go full dps. There were far to many nerfs to thief defense in this patch, we did not need more critical damage/chance modifiers.

Practiced tolerance is perfect the way it is now.

Anet made it a point to remove damage modifiers from defensive lines, and defensive stats from offensive lines. This change was in line with that.

Since a zerker ammy is certain death in PvP (11k HP lol), the extra ferocity helps when taking a marauders ammy. It also helps differentiate thieves using CS from other thieves – if you’re focusing on crit strikes, your critical strikes should hit harder. It’s not like 150-175 extra vitality is worth much to a thief currently – I’ll take 13% more crit damage over possibly surviving 1 additional hit or condi tick.

That was the point of the old PT, that extra defense which thieves lack, not to mention it was a major trait so it was a build choice not a staple on CS. I’d much rather have that extra bit of health to survive an attack and react than to worry about extra damage when thief already has tons of it and was given more this last patch. Our survivability went down this last patch and it was already weak enough, this push towards full glass was a bad idea for the sake of all game modes.

You now have a slightly higher base HP (due to 1000 base vitality), and marauders gives more HP than old zerkers did.

With marauders, you have slightly more HP than berserkers and PT combined, and the freedom to not take PT if you don’t want. The new practiced tolerance is perfect the way it is – in fact, the only real issue is just how bad sundering strikes and ankle shots are in comparison.

You only go full glass if you insist upon the extra 150 power from berserkers.

ankle shots is fine. It is intended as a pistol trait for power. If one is not using pistols there no point to it just as there no point to dagger training if not using daggers. It does in fact add range to the pistol and overall damage in a pistol set is higher and is especially noticeable when you gear up with ferocity in Runes.

Sundering strikes is not something I would take if using slow attacks such as the traditional backstab thief. Again it works very well with pistols , shortbows or other attack styles where one maintains constant pressure. I would not take it for 1v1 as the other choices better. In group fights however, the vulnerability stacks add greatly to the damge of the party ticking all applied conditions higher along with having your own and yourr teamates attacks hit higher.

10 stacks means 10 percent more damage from everyone not just yourself.

These are all very good and usable traits. The type of battle one is in along with weapon loadout will determine which one to pick moreso than one of the three just being that much better.

babazhook.6805:

ankle shots is fine. It is intended as a pistol trait for power. If one is not using pistols there no point to it just as there no point to dagger training if not using daggers. It does in fact add range to the pistol and overall damage in a pistol set is higher and is especially noticeable when you gear up with ferocity in Runes.

This makes ankle shots definitively not fine. P/D is pretty obviously a condi set (please don’t waste both of our time by explaining how you or someone you know uses it for power), and P/P is a horribly designed and utterly disjointed set. Pistol weapons don’t need a kittenty trait, they need a complete overhaul.

Sundering strikes is not something I would take if using slow attacks such as the traditional backstab thief. Again it works very well with pistols , shortbows or other attack styles where one maintains constant pressure. I would not take it for 1v1 as the other choices better. In group fights however, the vulnerability stacks add greatly to the damge of the party ticking all applied conditions higher along with having your own and yourr teamates attacks hit higher.

10 stacks means 10 percent more damage from everyone not just yourself.

Good luck getting 10 stacks. With a 102% crit rate and the haste from flanking strikes, against unmoving test golems, I once got up to 7 stacks. The norm was more like 4-5. Sundering strikes is crap because it has to take into account the possibility of Unload and Pistol whip stacking tons of vulnerability – only P/P is crap, and S/P is a meh PvE set at the moment. Other classes stack vulnerability much more efficiently than thief, so why sacrifice your own crit damage to perform a poor emulation of what another class can bring?

These are all very good and usable traits. The type of battle one is in along with weapon loadout will determine which one to pick moreso than one of the three just being that much better.

I’m sorry, but I still disagree. Sundering strikes and Ankle shots are crap.

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

ankle shots is fine. It is intended as a pistol trait for power. If one is not using pistols there no point to it just as there no point to dagger training if not using daggers. It does in fact add range to the pistol and overall damage in a pistol set is higher and is especially noticeable when you gear up with ferocity in Runes.

This makes ankle shots definitively not fine. P/D is pretty obviously a condi set (please don’t waste both of our time by explaining how you or someone you know uses it for power), and P/P is a horribly designed and utterly disjointed set. Pistol weapons don’t need a kittenty trait, they need a complete overhaul.

Sundering strikes is not something I would take if using slow attacks such as the traditional backstab thief. Again it works very well with pistols , shortbows or other attack styles where one maintains constant pressure. I would not take it for 1v1 as the other choices better. In group fights however, the vulnerability stacks add greatly to the damge of the party ticking all applied conditions higher along with having your own and yourr teamates attacks hit higher.

10 stacks means 10 percent more damage from everyone not just yourself.

Good luck getting 10 stacks. With a 102% crit rate and the haste from flanking strikes, against unmoving test golems, I once got up to 7 stacks. The norm was more like 4-5. Sundering strikes is crap because it has to take into account the possibility of Unload and Pistol whip stacking tons of vulnerability – only P/P is crap, and S/P is a meh PvE set at the moment. Other classes stack vulnerability much more efficiently than thief, so why sacrifice your own crit damage to perform a poor emulation of what another class can bring?

These are all very good and usable traits. The type of battle one is in along with weapon loadout will determine which one to pick moreso than one of the three just being that much better.

I’m sorry, but I still disagree. Sundering strikes and Ankle shots are crap.

So you predicate your rebuttal based upon the fact that you do not like to use the weapons that best take advantage of a given trait?

If you do not want to use P/P then do not dismisss something like Ankle shots as useless when there are people what want to use it.

If you do not want to use PW than do not claim sundering strikes useless if that the weapon that best takes advantage of it.

If I do not use dagger . I am not going to complain that dagger training trait is usless because I use a s/p build. You have practiced tolerance which suits your build and gamestyle. Use it. Do not presume everyone else must play your way. There are more weaponsets then d/p.

Oh as to stacking Vuln. I can without much trouble stack 10 and more if I wanted to and yes in a group environment that does in fact help the group. That others can do it too or easier does not make the skill useless. In a large zerg fight those others can be focusing a target completely different than your own. I see someone ticking conditions off and load on Vulnerability he goes down fast and my direct damage is only marginally lower as those conditions tick higher.

In WvW I have been in plenty of smaller groups where no one traited to load Vuln stacks. You adapt to the situation at hand . You just do not use the same build in very circumstance.

I think Ankle Shots would be nice like 5% more DMG and additional 5-10% to crippled foes

I think you two should go head-to-head with your PPs and see who comes out on top!

Rai.9625:

Dagger Training: I would like to see it as applied poison training and working with all weapons. The 2s are okay, but it would become really a formidable choice with 3s.

Potent Poison: Well… yea it is kinda weak. Though we can really get poison running like mad, just spam SB4 for example, the fields stack together.

Spamming SB #4 even with Potent Poisons, Venom Sigil and a Poison Focused runeset is considerably less damage than simply spamming cluster bombs. And yes I am talking about while running carrion stats with runeset of orr. Not only does cluster bomb deal immediate damage in a much much larger number, it also applies up to 3 stacks of bleeding. I tested with Carrion + Runeset of Orr, venom sigil & bursting. (No duration buff to bleeding)

You literally lose damage spamming SB #4 vs detonating cluster bombs unless it is going up against 5 targets vs 3, and even then, undetonated it far outweighs the poison aoe damage. Not only does it immediately deal it’s damage, in a pvp situation where the poison field has to be stood within for the full duration to get the effect it is even less effective, but even if they stood still in the field the damage is totally weak compared to cluster bombs.

SB #4 did not need a nerf and considering these changes, it honestly would not be even remotely close to OP with a 4 second duration per pulse. You do realize that through poison stacking, the duration nerf and poison formula damage changes, that nerf to 2 seconds per pulse made it’s damage completely inferior for condi thieves, right?

We got nerfed in poison damage formula and duration, basically a double nerf. SB #4 would have been nerfed simply because of the poison damage formula changing so now it is utter trash in a condi thief world. Works great for burst though, since weakness is your friend for survival while trying to burst someone down and it allows for that reliably. Other than that, it has no purpose.

Spamming #4 over #2 is a huge damage loss. Go test it on golems! Take Potent Poisons, Venom Sigil, and Runeset of Orr. Spam #4, look at damage, then spam #2 and look at damage. Even without bonuses to bleed duration, cluster bomb wins not only in the ability to stack bleed & deal immediate damage, it also costs 1 less initiative per cast, so it is superior to SB #4 damage in every way, even without bonuses to bleeding while SB #4 is stacking three bonuses to duration, one of which boosts poison damage by a measly 10%.

The only way that SB #4 could even come close to contending with cluster bomb damage is with at least 3 seconds baseline (and realistically I don’t think 4 would be OP and IMO should be considered) with the potential for 100% increased poison duration by changing Potent Poisons to 50% increased duration, this would turn a 4 initiative skill into something that then contends with cluster bomb’s damage, which considering it costs more initiative than cluster bomb, makes sense that the damage would be about the same at that point given the whole healing reduction argument – and again that’s only if you stand in the field.

This would also give room for Dagger Training to be worth something as well at 3 seconds baseline, and like I said before, would open up build options through sigil / rune set for thief, without still being OP like burn or current bugged trash like grenade barrage that 100%-0%’s people with no telegraph instant cast. Thanks Anet!

Edit: I guess realistically it would be wise to switch SB #4 to 3 seconds base first instead of 4, that’s more of a knee jerk buff rather than fine tuning, unlike some of the changes in this patch. ~.~

I really do not feel enough pressure trying to stack poisons even stacking leeching venoms with spider venom / basi venom, and all of the poison duration buffing things you can take.

babazhook.6805:

If you do not want to use P/P then do not dismisss something like Ankle shots as useless when there are people what want to use it.

If you do not want to use PW than do not claim sundering strikes useless if that the weapon that best takes advantage of it.

Oh as to stacking Vuln. I can without much trouble stack 10 and more if I wanted to and yes in a group environment that does in fact help the group. That others can do it too or easier does not make the skill useless. In a large zerg fight those others can be focusing a target completely different than your own. I see someone ticking conditions off and load on Vulnerability he goes down fast and my direct damage is only marginally lower as those conditions tick higher.

In WvW I have been in plenty of smaller groups where no one traited to load Vuln stacks. You adapt to the situation at hand . You just do not use the same build in very circumstance.

Not only was this trait nerfed to only apply extra damage to crippled foes rather than indefinitely, they removed ricochet. If someone wants to play with a mediocre weapon set and underperform that’s their call but you have to acknowledge how this trait doesn’t do a whole lot to assist the set like some other weapon orientated traits do, let alone compete with much stronger alternatives.

As for sundering strikes, even if the situation has no one applying vulnerability anyone can look at someone like a necromancer or Mesmer or even warrior and know that applying lots of vulnerability isn’t anything thief can maintain really well. The duration simply isn’t enough to work with.

It’s all about performance and a lot of thief traits after this patch either lost that performance, (SE, FG, VR, kitten, etc) or the new ones do not help enough. Whether its poor functionality or low values, there are just a lot of nerfs across the board and things were not brought up to par as many of us wanted.

If I had to make a suggestion, increase the vulnerability duration to 8 seconds since condition duration isn’t available via traits anymore and change the damage bonus on AS to be always and not just on crippled targets. It won’t fix p/p but atleast it will revert the fact that they took a few steps back from putting p/p in a good spot.

About trapper’s respite i think it would be more convenient if you set the trap at the start of the casting and not the end, thus exerting more control on the location you place the trap when fighting. Also I would like a reduction in base cd to get 15 cd when traited with traps so as to match the cd on withdraw .

NinjaEd.3946:

babazhook.6805:

If you do not want to use P/P then do not dismisss something like Ankle shots as useless when there are people what want to use it.

If you do not want to use PW than do not claim sundering strikes useless if that the weapon that best takes advantage of it.

Oh as to stacking Vuln. I can without much trouble stack 10 and more if I wanted to and yes in a group environment that does in fact help the group. That others can do it too or easier does not make the skill useless. In a large zerg fight those others can be focusing a target completely different than your own. I see someone ticking conditions off and load on Vulnerability he goes down fast and my direct damage is only marginally lower as those conditions tick higher.

In WvW I have been in plenty of smaller groups where no one traited to load Vuln stacks. You adapt to the situation at hand . You just do not use the same build in very circumstance.

Not only was this trait nerfed to only apply extra damage to crippled foes rather than indefinitely, they removed ricochet. If someone wants to play with a mediocre weapon set and underperform that’s their call but you have to acknowledge how this trait doesn’t do a whole lot to assist the set like some other weapon orientated traits do, let alone compete with much stronger alternatives.

As for sundering strikes, even if the situation has no one applying vulnerability anyone can look at someone like a necromancer or Mesmer or even warrior and know that applying lots of vulnerability isn’t anything thief can maintain really well. The duration simply isn’t enough to work with.

It’s all about performance and a lot of thief traits after this patch either lost that performance, (SE, FG, VR, kitten, etc) or the new ones do not help enough. Whether its poor functionality or low values, there are just a lot of nerfs across the board and things were not brought up to par as many of us wanted.

If I had to make a suggestion, increase the vulnerability duration to 8 seconds since condition duration isn’t available via traits anymore and change the damage bonus on AS to be always and not just on crippled targets. It won’t fix p/p but atleast it will revert the fact that they took a few steps back from putting p/p in a good spot.

No i do not have to agree that P/P did not gain as much as other sets. S/d and daggers fared worse. Under the old system in order to get 10 percent bonus to pistols I had to trait CS and in order to get range I had to trait richocet in trickery. Ankle shots was a totally seperate skill that no one really used. If I was taking IP I had to drop Executioner.

With the new system extra range , damage and Ankle shots was all rolled into one and while it true that 10 percent extra damage predicated on having an enemy crippled the damage output of P/P is still higher using that trait over PT. The overall damage of the set versus single target went up due to being able to trait both Executioner and my choice of IP/NQ. Added to this I get the full bonus off lead attacks and exposed weakness. The loss of Ricochet is another matter entirely which directly impacts the excellent AOE potential of the set.

With the amount of AOE flyimg around in Wvw and people parking themselves in umpteen hundred red circles as they dish out damage I welcome a set that can hit fro high damage at range and while the SB can do this its attacks are easier to block and dodge.

To Sundering strikes. I can agree with the premise of a duration increase to the vulnerability given the loss in condition duration, but this applies to a number of traits and weapon skills. As example the Number two trait Body Shot warrants a boost in durations even more so than does Sundering strikes.

For very much the same reasons swiftness in Acro warrants a boost in duration due to the loss of boon duration. The thief only saw one condition duration trait increase and that was in poisons in a using a rather weak GM trait. All other condition durations saw a net drop.

This does not translate to Sundering strikes a garbage trait. Overall the CS line is well designed.

In the DA/CS lines these are changes I would make to help boost dagger and pistols.

Dagger training. Increase Chance to apply poison to 50 percent. Increase duration to 3 seconds.

Poison Mastery. Keep duration 33 percent. Increase damage inflicted by poisons to 20 percent.

CS line.

Ankle shots. Rename trait to overpowering pistols. Add Ricochet back in as a fact. Remove Ankle shots. Change description to “do 5 percent more damage per equipped pistol” With Ricochet increased range is kept.

Sundering Strikes. Change Chance to Inflict Vulnerability to 50 percent Remove the on Crit. Increase duration of Vulnerability to 8 seconds.

babazhook.6805:

So you predicate your rebuttal based upon the fact that you do not like to use the weapons that best take advantage of a given trait?

If you do not want to use P/P then do not dismisss something like Ankle shots as useless when there are people what want to use it.

I predicate my argument on common sense. If you’ve somehow missed the glaring, set breaking issues with P/P by this point, I can’t help you. Also, “people wanting to use the trait” does not affect its usefulness – Steve jobs wanted to use juice and carrots to treat his cancer, didn’t make it useful.

If you do not want to use PW than do not claim sundering strikes useless if that the weapon that best takes advantage of it.

You misunderstand – I want S/P to be useful…it just isn’t. It’s not that I don’t want to use it, It’s just that I want to be successful in PvP, and S/P precludes that.

If I do not use dagger . I am not going to complain that dagger training trait is usless because I use a s/p build. You have practiced tolerance which suits your build and gamestyle. Use it. Do not presume everyone else must play your way. There are more weaponsets then d/p.

Oh as to stacking Vuln. I can without much trouble stack 10 and more if I wanted to and yes in a group environment that does in fact help the group. That others can do it too or easier does not make the skill useless. In a large zerg fight those others can be focusing a target completely different than your own. I see someone ticking conditions off and load on Vulnerability he goes down fast and my direct damage is only marginally lower as those conditions tick higher.

In WvW I have been in plenty of smaller groups where no one traited to load Vuln stacks. You adapt to the situation at hand . You just do not use the same build in very circumstance.

The more I read, the more I’m convinced you’re just a contrarian – you just have to disagree with what’s obvious for some reason. You can argue niche cases all you want, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference. For the vast majority of people running functional weaponsets, Ankle shots and Sundering strikes are crap compared to Practiced tolerance.

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

So you predicate your rebuttal based upon the fact that you do not like to use the weapons that best take advantage of a given trait?

If you do not want to use P/P then do not dismisss something like Ankle shots as useless when there are people what want to use it.

I predicate my argument on common sense. If you’ve somehow missed the glaring, set breaking issues with P/P by this point, I can’t help you. Also, “people wanting to use the trait” does not affect its usefulness – Steve jobs wanted to use juice and carrots to treat his cancer, didn’t make it useful.

If you do not want to use PW than do not claim sundering strikes useless if that the weapon that best takes advantage of it.

You misunderstand – I want S/P to be useful…it just isn’t. It’s not that I don’t want to use it, It’s just that I want to be successful in PvP, and S/P precludes that.

If I do not use dagger . I am not going to complain that dagger training trait is usless because I use a s/p build. You have practiced tolerance which suits your build and gamestyle. Use it. Do not presume everyone else must play your way. There are more weaponsets then d/p.

Oh as to stacking Vuln. I can without much trouble stack 10 and more if I wanted to and yes in a group environment that does in fact help the group. That others can do it too or easier does not make the skill useless. In a large zerg fight those others can be focusing a target completely different than your own. I see someone ticking conditions off and load on Vulnerability he goes down fast and my direct damage is only marginally lower as those conditions tick higher.

In WvW I have been in plenty of smaller groups where no one traited to load Vuln stacks. You adapt to the situation at hand . You just do not use the same build in very circumstance.

The more I read, the more I’m convinced you’re just a contrarian – you just have to disagree with what’s obvious for some reason. You can argue niche cases all you want, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference. For the vast majority of people running functional weaponsets, Ankle shots and Sundering strikes are crap compared to Practiced tolerance.

Lots of people use P/P and used P/P even with those glaring failings in the set. (there was no change in those “glaring failures” in the patch). if you can not make it work it is your problem.

Ankle shots does more damage on a P/P set than does practice tolerance. This is a fact. Ankle shots is not useful to any weapon set BUT the P/P set. By definition it is niche so I will argue a NICHE build all I want just as a s/d user IF Acro ever fixed might find swindlers equilibrium functional in HIS niche build.

The more I read of your posts the more I am convinced you never played p/p.

If anything there are 2 traits that were lost from the SA line: Infusion of Shadow – gain 2 initiative when entering stealth and Hidden Assassin – gain Might x2 15s per pulse in stealth. These two combined made a stealth thief feel like a true assassin while running SR, or even when using C&D. I miss them.

Can we talk about Guarded Initiation and how it should go back to Resistance but now with a 80% hp threshold and a 10secs cooldown? Please. I’ll be monitoring this thread.

MakubeC.3026:

Can we talk about Guarded Initiation and how it should go back to Resistance but now with a 80% hp threshold and a 10secs cooldown? Please. I’ll be monitoring this thread.

Yes Please I would love to see that. What they have now is simply of no real use. Unless you go s/d and want a lower steal time it hard to catch or nothing.

NinjaEd.3946:

Right to it;
-Assassin’s Reward: Still needs a bump in healing power scaling, since spamming weapon skills on a thief is generally a bad idea you either sort of see this trait helping or you’re wiser than it wants you to be and use your weapon skills as a defense as much as an offense.

-Quick Pockets: Still one of those traits that I have yet to see as valuable in comparison to its alternatives. Perhaps they could bring something new to the table or add to this trait?.

a simple fix for these GM traits would be to just combine them into one GM trait, and move it into the Trickery line. Then at least they would complement each other nicely, and could possibly make people consider taking it over SoH or BA.

If not, assassin’s rewards functionality could be changed to: Gain X amount of health when you successfully evade an attack with a ICD. then at least it would fit better in to the acrobat trait line because as it stands now it feels a bit out of place.

And for quick pockets, Anet could add -25% CD on weapon swap or some jazz like that to make it more viable.

supa suop.8026:

NinjaEd.3946:

Right to it;
-Assassin’s Reward: Still needs a bump in healing power scaling, since spamming weapon skills on a thief is generally a bad idea you either sort of see this trait helping or you’re wiser than it wants you to be and use your weapon skills as a defense as much as an offense.

-Quick Pockets: Still one of those traits that I have yet to see as valuable in comparison to its alternatives. Perhaps they could bring something new to the table or add to this trait?.

a simple fix for these GM traits would be to just combine them into one GM trait, and move it into the Trickery line. Then at least they would complement each other nicely, and could possibly make people consider taking it over SoH or BA.

If not, assassin’s rewards functionality could be changed to: Gain X amount of health when you successfully evade an attack with a ICD. then at least it would fit better in to the acrobat trait line because as it stands now it feels a bit out of place.

And for quick pockets, Anet could add -25% CD on weapon swap or some jazz like that to make it more viable.

What makes assassins reward even worse is one can no longer get healing out of the SA line. It all has to come from the gear and it unlikely many will suit up in Clerics just to get a little more healing from Asassins reward. (this and the removal of Ricochet also makes the heal SOM much less desirable)

I really like the suggestion by Maugettar for quickpockets. one INI and a 5 second weapon swap when traited. This will allow a much better ability to swap weapons in combat and would be somethinG i could see many using.

babazhook.6805:

supa suop.8026:

NinjaEd.3946:

Right to it;
-Assassin’s Reward: Still needs a bump in healing power scaling, since spamming weapon skills on a thief is generally a bad idea you either sort of see this trait helping or you’re wiser than it wants you to be and use your weapon skills as a defense as much as an offense

-Quick Pockets: Still one of those traits that I have yet to see as valuable in comparison to its alternatives. Perhaps they could bring something new to the table or add to this trait?.

a simple fix for these GM traits would be to just combine them into one GM trait, and move it into the Trickery line. Then at least they would complement each other nicely, and could possibly make people consider taking it over SoH or BA.

If not, assassin’s rewards functionality could be changed to: Gain X amount of health when you successfully evade an attack with a ICD. then at least it would fit better in to the acrobat trait line because as it stands now it feels a bit out of place.

And for quick pockets, Anet could add -25% CD on weapon swap or some jazz like that to make it more viable.

What makes assassins reward even worse is one can no longer get healing out of the SA line. It all has to come from the gear and it unlikely many will suit up in Clerics just to get a little more healing from Asassins reward. (this and the removal of Ricochet also makes the heal SOM much less desirable)

I really like the suggestion by Maugettar for quickpockets. one INI and a 5 second weapon swap when traited. This will allow a much better ability to swap weapons in combat and would be somethinG i could see many using.

I understand that, the only way for assassin’s reward to become more viable would be to do the option than you mentioned, or for Anet to increase the base heal for the trait, niether will happen any time soon.

Sorry if my post was unclear, but I was focusing on how the trait implaments the health. As Mentioned the way that assassin’sreward implements health is by spending initiative, which for a acrobatic trait it just feels out of place.

Which is why placeing it in the trickery line( or even the CS line) would make a bit more sense since that like revolves around the use of initiative more. However, most of the GM in the trickery line are fine as is save quick pockets as mentioned before. So if we combine the two traits at least it would be a start to make both traits more viable.

Another suggested that On a successful evade Assassins reward instead cast Blind AOE with a cooldown.

I like “successful evade” type stuff as it promotes active gameplay and i sort of like a heal over a blind in that line somewhere but either would be good.

Another more complicated but different one might be “On successful evade gain 30 vitality” Cap this at 10 stacks and it erodes when out of combat.

I also have an issue with SA master trait. Stealth on steal seems the best choice unless you spec for venoms but at the same time mug cancels it out.

Our defensive lines definitely took the biggest hit here.
-shadow protector, rather than getting a 10 second ICD (better than that stupid restriction for allies that already have regen) they decide to lower the duration to 3 seconds and remove that restriction rendering the trait almost useless in it’s master slot.
-Shadow’s embrace only works on damaging conditions, well immobilize can be far more deadly if used by a competent enemy.
-Cloaked in shadow was a major defense for x/d and did not need to be bumped all the way to GM. They should bring it to master, move concealed defeat to master, move leeching venoms to adept along with shadow protector, and delete last refuge and make some new GM trait like bringing back hidden assassin but upgraded for those stealth users interested in a spike from SA (like 3 might for 20 seconds every 3 seconds in stealth).
-with the removal of trait line stats, all healing traits in SA (SP, LV, SR) took a hit with 0 compensation.
-Fleet of foot was removed in favor of an even weaker trait.
-assassin’s reward isn’t noticeable.
-with the removal of stats, all boons in this trait line took a hit with 0 compensation, all of which (excluding inertia because it is no longer present) have extremely low durations to begin with.

“Don’t fear the reaper”

A few suggested changes to our defensive lines, since our offense is capable of being very high already.

Shadow Arts
-Merciful Ambush: Increase to 3 seconds, the minor trait should not be the reason this trait can’t exceed the normal stealth duration thief has access to.

-Last Refuge: Delete. Glad its a major trait, but it still doesn’t work 100% of the time and cannot compete in any tier.

-Shadow’s Embrace: Simple, revert to the old version.

-Concealed Defeat: Move to Master slot.

-Leeching Venoms: Move to adept slot.

-Hidden Thief: Increase to grant 3 seconds on steal, fix it to not apply stealth until other effects (like mug) proc first.

-Shadow’ Protector: Increase regeneration duration to 10 seconds, add 10 second ICD on application (aoe skills count as 1 application for all). Lower to adept slot.

-Cloaked In shadows: Move to master slot.

-Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Change initiative application to apply once upon entering stealth and then 1 every 3 seconds.

-Hidden Assassin(NEW GM in replace of deleting LR): Gain might while stealthed. 3 might for 15 seconds upon entering stealth, and reapply every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.

////Revision Goal////

Venoms don’t really change here but whether you use Shadow arts for defense or want it more for the damage portion, the traits line up a little better to distinguish how you utilize stealth. The adept and grandmaster traits play the largest part in this while the master traits gives you options that can be used in any way without 1 being vastly stronger than the other. (for example, an offensive build may have other means to clear conditions and would rather pick shadow protector because it will last during the fight even while they are revealed).

Acrobatics

-Expeditious Dodger: Increase to 3 seconds, boon duration is non-existent in acrobatics and isn’t up as often anymore since the dodge count went down.

-Fleet Shadow: Additional effect “Gain super speed upon defeating an enemy.” 5 seconds.

- Vigorous Recovery: Increase vigor duration to 6 seconds, since boon duration is no longer in trait lines.

-Feline Grace: add effect to remove 1 condition when you apply vigor, ICD 10 seconds. (This applies to allies from BT as well).

-Guarded Initiation: Changed to the old inertia, gain might when you dodge(endurance dodge), 1 stack for 15 seconds. 1 defensive option, 1 utility option, 1 offensive option for acro master slot.

-Assassin’s Reward: Increase healing power scale to 0.2 and Increase base healing to 86 (~25% more).

/////Revision Goal//////

With more diversity in each tier you get a stronger sense in what you’re using this trait line for but it all ties into evasion. Tying condition removal into the minor trait allows you to pick this trait line with some active defenses against the strongest enemy of thieves. Additionally the adept and master slots becomes a dps, defensive, or utility based selection with the mobility acrobatics is known for and the GM slot sets the stage for what kind of build your using that mobility on, (aggressive recovery, unhindered mobility, or a middle ground to use your resource more freely).

Assassin’s reward would be great for holding a point at this point allowing a 326 heal per initiative spent with 1,200 healing power which is actually quite good if you have the right defenses like toughness and condition removal. Might make bunker thief a “thing”

Some good suggestions but I have been wondering on the traits swindlers equilibrum and upper hand.

I have only toyed briefly with SE. Do sword users notice any benefit from this skill?

Upper hand I have played with a bit more and I think the cooldown too long. I think it should be lowered to 2 seconds. Most of the evades come out of our weapon skills all costing INI in the first place and all this really does in its current form is give the chance of lowering that INI costs once every three seconds. Again i think if it was 2 seconds it would be a lot easier for such builds to give up the trickery line as a source of more INI.

While it true someone could than take both lines , I do not think this would translate to too much in the way of ini as upper hand still needs a successful evade.

NinjaEd.3946:

“Don’t fear the reaper”

A few suggested changes to our defensive lines, since our offense is capable of being very high already.

Shadow Arts
-Merciful Ambush: Increase to 3 seconds, the minor trait should not be the reason this trait can’t exceed the normal stealth duration thief has access to.

-Last Refuge: Delete. Glad its a major trait, but it still doesn’t work 100% of the time and cannot compete in any tier.

-Shadow’s Embrace: Simple, revert to the old version.

-Concealed Defeat: Move to Master slot.

-Leeching Venoms: Move to adept slot.

-Hidden Thief: Increase to grant 3 seconds on steal, fix it to not apply stealth until other effects (like mug) proc first.

-Shadow’ Protector: Increase regeneration duration to 10 seconds, add 10 second ICD on application (aoe skills count as 1 application for all). Lower to adept slot.

-Cloaked In shadows: Move to master slot.

-Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Change initiative application to apply once upon entering stealth and then 1 every 3 seconds.

-Hidden Assassin(NEW GM in replace of deleting LR): Gain might while stealthed. 3 might for 15 seconds upon entering stealth, and reapply every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.

////Revision Goal////

Venoms don’t really change here but whether you use Shadow arts for defense or want it more for the damage portion, the traits line up a little better to distinguish how you utilize stealth. The adept and grandmaster traits play the largest part in this while the master traits gives you options that can be used in any way without 1 being vastly stronger than the other. (for example, an offensive build may have other means to clear conditions and would rather pick shadow protector because it will last during the fight even while they are revealed).

Acrobatics

-Expeditious Dodger: Increase to 3 seconds, boon duration is non-existent in acrobatics and isn’t up as often anymore since the dodge count went down.

-Fleet Shadow: Additional effect “Gain super speed upon defeating an enemy.” 5 seconds.

- Vigorous Recovery: Increase vigor duration to 6 seconds, since boon duration is no longer in trait lines.

-Feline Grace: add effect to remove 1 condition when you apply vigor, ICD 10 seconds. (This applies to allies from BT as well).

-Guarded Initiation: Changed to the old inertia, gain might when you dodge(endurance dodge), 1 stack for 15 seconds. 1 defensive option, 1 utility option, 1 offensive option for acro master slot.

-Assassin’s Reward: Increase healing power scale to 0.2 and Increase base healing to 86 (~25% more).

/////Revision Goal//////

With more diversity in each tier you get a stronger sense in what you’re using this trait line for but it all ties into evasion. Tying condition removal into the minor trait allows you to pick this trait line with some active defenses against the strongest enemy of thieves. Additionally the adept and master slots becomes a dps, defensive, or utility based selection with the mobility acrobatics is known for and the GM slot sets the stage for what kind of build your using that mobility on, (aggressive recovery, unhindered mobility, or a middle ground to use your resource more freely).

Assassin’s reward would be great for holding a point at this point allowing a 326 heal per initiative spent with 1,200 healing power which is actually quite good if you have the right defenses like toughness and condition removal. Might make bunker thief a “thing”

I like a lot of these, I just want to make a few alterations to your suggestions:

Shadow Arts:

Concealed Defeat X Last Refuge: Make Last Refuge drop smokescreen when hit under 25% health. Reduce Deception cooldowns by 20%. (still move to Master Tier).

(All other suggested changes are great)

Acrobatics:

Fleet Shadow: Change the effect to “gain 4s of super speed upon gaining stealth.” Even if you backstab/dazing strike immediately, the duration isn’t going to be game breaking. Keep your effect of defeating enemy also.

Feline Grace X Endless Stamina: Just combine these two

Fluid Strikes: Bring this back as “Gain 5 endurance on crit (1 sec ICD).” (GM minor placement)

Upper Hand: “Gain 1 initiative, cure 1 condition on successful evasion (5 sec ICD)”

(All other suggested changes are great)

Maugetarr.6823:

NinjaEd.3946:

“Don’t fear the reaper”

A few suggested changes to our defensive lines, since our offense is capable of being very high already.

Shadow Arts
-Merciful Ambush: Increase to 3 seconds, the minor trait should not be the reason this trait can’t exceed the normal stealth duration thief has access to.

-Last Refuge: Delete. Glad its a major trait, but it still doesn’t work 100% of the time and cannot compete in any tier.

-Shadow’s Embrace: Simple, revert to the old version.

-Concealed Defeat: Move to Master slot.

-Leeching Venoms: Move to adept slot.

-Hidden Thief: Increase to grant 3 seconds on steal, fix it to not apply stealth until other effects (like mug) proc first.

-Shadow’ Protector: Increase regeneration duration to 10 seconds, add 10 second ICD on application (aoe skills count as 1 application for all). Lower to adept slot.

-Cloaked In shadows: Move to master slot.

-Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Change initiative application to apply once upon entering stealth and then 1 every 3 seconds.

-Hidden Assassin(NEW GM in replace of deleting LR): Gain might while stealthed. 3 might for 15 seconds upon entering stealth, and reapply every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.

////Revision Goal////

Venoms don’t really change here but whether you use Shadow arts for defense or want it more for the damage portion, the traits line up a little better to distinguish how you utilize stealth. The adept and grandmaster traits play the largest part in this while the master traits gives you options that can be used in any way without 1 being vastly stronger than the other. (for example, an offensive build may have other means to clear conditions and would rather pick shadow protector because it will last during the fight even while they are revealed).

Acrobatics

-Expeditious Dodger: Increase to 3 seconds, boon duration is non-existent in acrobatics and isn’t up as often anymore since the dodge count went down.

-Fleet Shadow: Additional effect “Gain super speed upon defeating an enemy.” 5 seconds.

- Vigorous Recovery: Increase vigor duration to 6 seconds, since boon duration is no longer in trait lines.

-Feline Grace: add effect to remove 1 condition when you apply vigor, ICD 10 seconds. (This applies to allies from BT as well).

-Guarded Initiation: Changed to the old inertia, gain might when you dodge(endurance dodge), 1 stack for 15 seconds. 1 defensive option, 1 utility option, 1 offensive option for acro master slot.

-Assassin’s Reward: Increase healing power scale to 0.2 and Increase base healing to 86 (~25% more).

/////Revision Goal//////

With more diversity in each tier you get a stronger sense in what you’re using this trait line for but it all ties into evasion. Tying condition removal into the minor trait allows you to pick this trait line with some active defenses against the strongest enemy of thieves. Additionally the adept and master slots becomes a dps, defensive, or utility based selection with the mobility acrobatics is known for and the GM slot sets the stage for what kind of build your using that mobility on, (aggressive recovery, unhindered mobility, or a middle ground to use your resource more freely).

Assassin’s reward would be great for holding a point at this point allowing a 326 heal per initiative spent with 1,200 healing power which is actually quite good if you have the right defenses like toughness and condition removal. Might make bunker thief a “thing”

I like a lot of these, I just want to make a few alterations to your suggestions:

Shadow Arts:

Concealed Defeat X Last Refuge: Make Last Refuge drop smokescreen when hit under 25% health. Reduce Deception cooldowns by 20%. (still move to Master Tier).

(All other suggested changes are great)

Acrobatics:

Fleet Shadow: Change the effect to “gain 4s of super speed upon gaining stealth.” Even if you backstab/dazing strike immediately, the duration isn’t going to be game breaking. Keep your effect of defeating enemy also.

Feline Grace X Endless Stamina: Just combine these two

Fluid Strikes: Bring this back as “Gain 5 endurance on crit (1 sec ICD).” (GM minor placement)

Upper Hand: “Gain 1 initiative, cure 1 condition on successful evasion (5 sec ICD)”

(All other suggested changes are great)

Oh if fleet shadow was super speed, could it stack with superspeed off trappers. Some fun there.

Could, atleast it would benefit it us beyond swiftness which is what acrobatics is known for, or atleast used to be known for, and having to compete against VR and PR it should stand out a little more.

bumb, Now onto the under dog weapons, traits, and utility/healing/elite skills!

Weapons

Dagger #1(Lotus Poison)- increase poison duration to 8 seconds; reason being poison took a nerf being it stacks intensity and because of my suggested change to poison for thief in general.

Dagger #3 (Death Blossom)- Increase animation distance to 450 units, change to a skill shot, increase evade frame to 1/2 second.

Dagger #4 (Dancing Dagger)- Add effect to transfer 1 condition on use and from the previous foe on bounce (on use and then each bounce it carries with it a condition). Remove cripple effect, increase initiative amount to 4. (already have a gap closer/opener on d/d and a good projectile finisher on p/d).

Dagger #5 (Cloak And Dagger)- not my suggestion, replace vulnerability with blind, have blind apply indefinitely. (3 stacks of vulnerability doesn’t impact x/d as much as a blind does especially with CiS nerf).

Pistol #1 (Vital Shot/Sneak attack)- Reduce bleed duration on vital shot to 3 seconds, increase power scale to 0.5. Increase bleed duration on sneak attack to 5 seconds. (sneak attack is for condi which makes better sense to give it a condition buff since the auto attack will better suit power now yet still give pressure for condition builds.).

Pistol #2 (Body Shot)- Remove immobilize, increase vulnerability duration to 6 seconds. Reduce initiative cost to 3.

Pistol #3 (Unload)- if there are no plans to add ricochet as a trait effect, atleast add it to this skill.

Shortbow #2 (Cluster bomb)- revert to former 1,200 range, increase bleed duration of un-detonated bomb to 6 seconds.

Shortbow #4 (Choking Gas)- Increase poison duration to 3 seconds. (it’s more threatening to spam this skill on someone than what they will feel for how short it lasts).

Traits

[Dagger Training] Changed to gain 5% damage and 5% condition duration for each dagger equipped. (Pretty weak trait and thief should be the last class dependent on chance effects other than crit. Can’t really buff this trait either or it will start to be too much really quick)

[Potent Poison] Increase poison damage bonus to 20%, change duration bonus to apply to all conditions, lower condition duration to 20%. (used to be our condition duration trait line, this would help bring that back for all build choices. Not to mention it has 2 very strong competitors for a GM trait).

[Sundering Strikes] Increase vulnerability duration to 8 seconds.

[Ankle Shots] Change damage bonus to be 5% per pistol equipped.

[Bountiful Theft] (Not underdog, I know but) Allow boon stripping to take all stacks with it. Shocked it still doesn’t.

[Trickster] Increase condition removal to 2.

[Quick Pockets] Added effect to reduce the recharge of weapon swap by 4 seconds, reduce initiative gain to 2. (it is competing against 2 very strong GM traits)

Skills

[Signet of Malice] Add effect “refill all initiative, gaining increased healing per initiative gained. Healing per initiative 140”. (perfect synergy with the passive and rewards good use).

[Signet of agility] Change condition removal to “remove 1 condition for every bar of endurance gained” (in the case you are below 50% but being at 0 endurance isn’t possible, you would of removed 2 conditions).

[Signet of power] Change active to “Gain might for each nearby enemy and grant that to your allies” 2 stacks of might for 6 seconds per foe, max # of targets 5, max # of allies 5. (passive and active are too similar and active dissipated far to quickly to make use for more than 1 hit)

[Signet of Shadows] Reduce cooldown to 25 seconds. (little help for a trait I see very few run anymore).

[Ambush] Increase the health of the summoned thief by 100%, added effect taunt for 2 seconds, taunt radius 300, # of targets 3.

[Shadow Trap] Cahnge to not require LoS. Reduce “destroy shadow trap” activation time to 3/4 second.

[Smoke screen] Increase duration to 10 seconds.

[Devourer Venom] Reduce venom charges back to 2, increase immobilize duration back to 2.

[Skale Venom] Reduce recharge to 35 seconds.

[Spider Venom] Reduce recharge to 30 seconds.

[Ice drake venom] (I will keep suggesting it) replaced with [Karka Venom] transfer conditions with your next few attacks (3). (conflicts with DV as a cc venom, and chill is very awkward on thief anyways).

[Skelk Venom] Increase number of attacks to 8, slightly lower healing power base (560?) (too much healing in too few hits, it needs to be spread out a little more).

[Basilisk Venom] Added effect “cannot break stun”. (only skill on a profession to apply “petrify” and its an elite skill, it should feel special).

[Thieves Guild] Double health of thieves, lower cooldown to 150 seconds. Add smoke screen to pistol thief and caltrops + death blossom to dagger dagger thief.

I feel a lot of these suggestions are kind of OP.

This one in particular:

-Hidden Assassin(NEW GM in replace of deleting LR): Gain might while stealthed. 3 might for 15 seconds upon entering stealth, and reapply every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.

SA needs a downside. The current lack of damage is exactly that. The line offers ridiculously strong defensive bonuses that only encourage passive play as it stands. Thieves wanting to sit back/wait and then play aggressively with burst shouldn’t be rewarded for camping invisibility so much. I would argue that damage on defense would be most logical from the acrobatics line from both a balance perspective and a flavor one, as it emphasizes evasive, slippery play to avoid being hit and wear your enemy down while using the momentum gained from dancing around the battlefield into more and more powerful strikes.

DeceiverX.8361:

I feel a lot of these suggestions are kind of OP.

This one in particular:

-Hidden Assassin(NEW GM in replace of deleting LR): Gain might while stealthed. 3 might for 15 seconds upon entering stealth, and reapply every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.

SA needs a downside. The current lack of damage is exactly that. The line offers ridiculously strong defensive bonuses that only encourage passive play as it stands. Thieves wanting to sit back/wait and then play aggressively with burst shouldn’t be rewarded for camping invisibility so much. I would argue that damage on defense would be most logical from the acrobatics line from both a balance perspective and a flavor one, as it emphasizes evasive, slippery play to avoid being hit and wear your enemy down while using the momentum gained from dancing around the battlefield into more and more powerful strikes.

The thing you have to keep in mind is that GM trait would mean you don’t have SR.

Its all about opportunity costs with the new trait lines, you can’t pick 2 adept or 2 master traits anymore so each tier sets you up in a different way. The values are only suggestions, but I think 3 is a solid number of stacks given its a GM trait, the duration could maybe be lowered to 10 seconds so the base limit # of stacks would be 12 vs 18 from a single trait.

the 50% speed buff works great on my DD build together with hard to catch and don’t stop
i don’t understand why anet made CiS a gm, you just simply cannot take it over SR, at least nor for wvw

if anyone is interested in my dd build, which is able to perform very good in any situation it’s in the forum ( Allround strong DD build)

Deadly Arts: Minor changes

Dagger training changed to “Main Hand Training” – Primary attacks (Skills 1,2 and 3) have a 33% chance to poison your target for 3 seconds – this helps P/D as a conditions set, and has potential use for S/X due to its general lack of poison access – it has the potential to contend with mug in some builds

Potent poison changed to “Potent Afflictions” – Damaging conditions you apply last 33% longer and do 15% more damage. Before anyone says “wow, that’s such a huge buff”, recall that 6 points in DA used to give 30% condition duration, and thief received nothing in the patch to bolster condition builds. “Potent afflictions” is actually a viable GM trait, Potent Poison is a complete joke.

Crit Strikes: Not a perfect line, but nothing so bad that it’s a priority to be fixed.

Shadow Arts: No practical sustain was added to this tree, and damage was buffed tremendously, resulting in SA being almost completely worthless for PvP.

Shadows embrace: Change to 2s of resistance on entering stealth, remove 1 condition when revealed

Shadow Rejuvenation: Change to Heal X when entering stealth and Y health per second while revealed.

Shadow resilience: Stealth you apply reduces damage by 25%. While revealed, apply 1s of protection,1s ICD.

These suggestions don’t really “fix” SA, but they push it closer to being useful.

Acro: Everything past the adept line (except Hard to Catch, hilariously enough) is a joke. I don’t have the time (or the ideas, honestly) to redesign more than half the line, but suffice it to say 2 of the master traits, and all of the grandmaster traits (along with the minors) need to be redesigned. Neither of thieves defensive lines offer much in the way of actual defense or sustain in a realistic PvP scenario. Invigorating Precision honestly does more for thief sustain than anything in SA or Acro.

Trickery: A pretty solid line, with a few minor quibbles. Pressure striking being reliant on interrupts is offputting, since no thief condi sets has good access to interrupts (and a condi build would want to t ake Bewildering Ambush over SoH), and the fact that SoH is practically mandatory when taking the trickery line since there are so many traits tied to steal, that 20% additional CD reduction is a really big deal.

Dagger Training is one of those traits where it would almost be good… if not for the fact that it is inferior to trapper’s respite in the majority of ways. I did some rough math on the subject:

Dagger AA is 4 attacks every 2.07 seconds. In a 30 second period, this comes to 57.97 attacks. With 33% chance to inflict, 2 ticks of poison per success, this comes to 38.6 ticks of poison in a 30 second period, assuming you were camping dagger.

Needle Trap inflicts 10 seconds of poison and 3 × 10 seconds of bleed, coming to 10 poison and 30 bleed ticks in 30 seconds.

Assuming 2050 malice, this will make Dagger Training inflict 6041 damage, and Trapper’s respite will inflict 5915 damage. Now, you’re probably saying “Oh, they look about equal. I don’t see what the problem is!.” Well, here’s where we get the problems:

#1: Trapper’s respite works regardless of weapon, whereas dagger training requires you to camp dagger. On a condi build camping dagger isn’t worthwhile, and dagger training does not change this fact.
#2: Trapper’s respite also immobilizes and synergizes with other trap traits in the line.
#3: Trapper’s respite gets most of its damage from bleed, which the thief inflicts a lot more of and is also far easier to build around (caltrops, krait runes, death blossom, etc).
#4: Needle trap can hit up to 5 targets, while the dagger auto can only cleave 2.

Meaning that overall, the needle trap is just better.

There are a couple of ways this could’ve been balanced. Now, the immediate way I can think of is to make it like incendiary powder: long duration poison, 100% chance to proc, internal cooldown. To keep it roughly the same strength as trapper’s this would be 11 seconds of poison per dagger attack with an 8 second cooldown. That way, if you’re using P/D and use CnD, it inflicts poison quite regularly.

This does present a problem, though: cleave. This new model would be quite strong against any one player, but against multiple players, or AI builds, or multiple enemies, this would actually be a loss in the potential brute force that dagger training gives now.

There’s also the generic “increase poison duration to 3 seconds”. This would make it 50% more effective. This is where it gets a bit hard, since you have pit utility against raw damage. Dagger training is a DPS boost with absolutely no utility. Trapper’s respite is a DPS boost with a lot of utility, which can be traited to become even more powerful with trap specific traits. I’d say at first glance that it is a fair trade to make Dagger training 50% stronger, but Expertise to do so much more stuff.

On a somewhat separate note is Potent Poison. The thing with thieves is that they don’t actually have a lot of sources of poison, barring a single exception. Lets compare it to their other primary condition, bleed. For this comparison, I’m going to be breaking each skill into two measurements: Ticks per Second of Recharge (TPS), and AoE TPS. For weapon skills, the second of recharge is going to be initiative cost / rate of initiative gain, or roughly 1 second per initiative.

Poison Sources:
Lotus Ste: 2.90 TPS, 5.80 AoE TPS
Dagger Training: 1.29 TPS, 2.58 AoE TPS
Serpent’s Touch: 0.77 TPS, no AoE.
Choking Gas: 2 TPS, 10 AoE TPS (slow to apply)
Needle Trap: 0.42 TPS, 2.08 AoE TPS
Trapper’s Respite: a second needle trap.
Spider Venom: Special case. Assuming no teammates, 1.125 TPS, no AoE. Assuming teammates, 5.625 TPS, no AoE

Total TPS (assuming burst, no choking gas, dagger training): 6.505 TPS with no teammates, 11.01 with teammates.

Total AoE TPS: 12.36, 16.86 with venom share

Bleed Sources:
Death Blossom: 7.5 TPS, 22.5 AoE TPS
Vital Shot: 4.89 TPS, no AoE
Sneak Attack: 3.33 TPS, no AoE
Needle Trap: 1.25 TPS, 6.25 AoE
Trapper’s Respite: a second needle trap
Caltrops: 2.5 TPS, 12.5 AoE
Uncatchable: 1.2 TPS, 6 AoE

Total TPS (assuming trapper’s respite, death blossom and no sneak attack): 11.59
Total AoE TPS: 55.06

The thing with poison is that it doesn’t inflict much more damage than bleed, especially on condi builds (around 10%, give or take). Even with spider venom shared, bleeds are still doing as much damage on a single target, and 3 times as much in an AoE. Most players won’t try to focus exclusively on poison, and instead go for bleeds primarily. This only leaves serpents touch, trapper’s respite, and spider venom as reliable points where someone might inflict poison, meaning that Potent Poisons gives a 46% bonus to an extremely small portion of the actual condi damage done.

There are two ways to balance this: increase the bonus damage, or increase the duration. I would avoid going for a duration increase, since the condi duration is already capped with orrian runes and pizzas. Something along the lines of 33% increased damage, 33% increased duration would be nice.

NinjaEd.3946:

DeceiverX.8361:

I feel a lot of these suggestions are kind of OP.

This one in particular:

-Hidden Assassin(NEW GM in replace of deleting LR): Gain might while stealthed. 3 might for 15 seconds upon entering stealth, and reapply every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.

SA needs a downside. The current lack of damage is exactly that. The line offers ridiculously strong defensive bonuses that only encourage passive play as it stands. Thieves wanting to sit back/wait and then play aggressively with burst shouldn’t be rewarded for camping invisibility so much. I would argue that damage on defense would be most logical from the acrobatics line from both a balance perspective and a flavor one, as it emphasizes evasive, slippery play to avoid being hit and wear your enemy down while using the momentum gained from dancing around the battlefield into more and more powerful strikes.

The thing you have to keep in mind is that GM trait would mean you don’t have SR.

Its all about opportunity costs with the new trait lines, you can’t pick 2 adept or 2 master traits anymore so each tier sets you up in a different way. The values are only suggestions, but I think 3 is a solid number of stacks given its a GM trait, the duration could maybe be lowered to 10 seconds so the base limit # of stacks would be 12 vs 18 from a single trait.

You’re still pulling the best defensive utility and similar damage – if not better – than DA/CS, and passive play is still being rewarded by sitting around and doing nothing.

DA/SA/Trickery would provide better damage than DA/CS/Trickery signet stab, with more defense and utility to boot, as a rune of strength build can just pull up the durations as well.

I tend to try and play every weapon and every TYPE of damage and as such I am in disagreement with those that suggest a certain wepaon shoul dbe specific to one type of damage. As such my take on changes needed is different then many

Deadly Arts

Dagger training; Poison is a great idea here. The number needs a tweak. I suggest 3 seconds base duration and 50 percent chance to apply. Any attempt to load stacks of poison in a D/D set will come at risk if used in a condtion build. Testing with max durations it hard to get more then 4 stacks from this trait which is not a lot when compared to what can come from MUG or Respite.

Potent Poison. Not enough as a GM trait . In essence we are getting back 30 percent of our condition damage durations to poison only which our old DA traitline gave us added to 10 percent potency. 10 percent is the equivalent of maybe 2 extra stacks of poison. A Condition build will get more damage taking executioner here with the bonus to raw damage. If it potent poison lets make it mean something.

Option 1

Keep the 33 percent condition duration to poison. Keep 10 percent more damage. Add “on poisoning opponent transfer one existing condition to Enemy” (10 sec cooldown)
This will work for both Condi and power builds.

Option 2

Poison durations increased by 50 percent. Poison damage increased by 30 percent.

All other traits in DA are fine as is.

Change to dagger set.

Obviously not all my ideas but the concur with others.

Deathblossom Increase the evade to 1/2 second.
CnD Remove Vulnerability and replace with Blind enemies in area.

CnD can be hard to pull off and we no longer have the trait given two ini on stealth .lower INI cost to 5.

dancing dagger increase cripple duration to 4 seconds (bring it back to where 30 percent condition duration would have got us)

I think these changes to the dagger set and to potent poison and dagger training above will help address the main issues with d/d and not be “overpowered”

Acrobatics

Again some items repeats of ones I mentioned before or others suugested

Expeditious dodger Change to 4 seconds swiftness. We lost long term swiftness from two sources and the added swiftness on dodge from the loss of boon duration. Thieves should be fast and mobile.

Feline grace Increase vigor to 3 seconds. (1 second added)

Vigorous recovery Gain 6 seconds vigor on heal. (1 second added)

Swindlers equilibrium. Add to the one second lower steal time “On successful evade of an attack gain 5 endurance”

Guarded initiation . drop threshold to 80 add to skill “gain 2 initiative when removing a condition” Same conditions and CD applies..

Upper hand . Gain one INI on successful evade . Add gain 20 vitality on successful evade this caps at 15 stacks. All damage applied to you comes off this health pool first.

Aassassins reward Increase healing base by 20 percent.