Guild Wars 2

Great, then it becomes a Minor and gets a hugely increased ICD to compensate, and we have more whining posts about how we’re back to needing SA to reliably remove conditions.

You are all so smart.

Auesis.7301:

Great, then it becomes a Minor and gets a hugely increased ICD to compensate, and we have more whining posts about how we’re back to needing SA to reliably remove conditions.

You are all so smart.

why do people keep mentioning an ICD… It doesn’t need any compensation whatsoever.

Come on man. People will revert back to SA because that’s true. If thieves can’t keep the status quo with DD, then the only logical step is to revert back to that Trait line that offered that condition soap.

It’s going to be as effective as a typical D/P pulling to combo, to gain stealth and clean himself. It’ won’t be OP, even with 3 dodges.

1 sec CD on a trait that clean condi on evade. what’s outrageous about turning this into a minor?

How long is Withdraw? 3/4 sec of a sec. you’ ll be cleaning +1 condition
RFI? 3/4 of a sec. same thing for this skill.

We need this to be a minor. It’s not even an advantage tbh and it’s FAR from OP.
It just a reliable condi clean trait that is erroneously placed. I vote either Adept or Minor.

@mrbig

I see your point, but I don’t agree with you on the whole mandatory nature of escapists absolution when you take them.

SR is indeed powerful, but your estimation of its ability to create stealth openers is I feel a little overblown.

People aren’t as dense as they used to be, and even wvw roaming where there are a lot more places to hide it it can often be a bad pick. It’s a massive aoe magnet in about half the places you’d want to use it, and for that reason many groups in stead rely on mesmer veil and mass invis.

The only place you can reliably stealth res with it is in PvE, and I agree its still probably an auto-pick in PvE, but in pvp It’s much more situational and often used much more to distract than actually grant stealth.

Shadowstep on the other hand, for sure, very powerful, but it’s an inferior stun break to the new one even with its condition removal. The new one not only breaks the stun, it blocks the follow up and knocks the attacker flat on his butt to allow you to follow up with your own big hit, and has a traited 8s cooldown while granting end.

That doesn’t mean the core of SR, shadowstep, and withdraw aren’t good. They are and will remain VERY good picks for condi removal on stealth builds, however that combination along with SR and some sigil action is already good enough for the situations those builds are designed for, small 1v1 fights. I’d happily take a chunk of damage on interrupt and a reactive stunbreak/interrupt and finish the fight sooner than a 1 cleanse per evade, as you’re getting way less evades in 1v1 than you are in blob fights.

However, on a s/d or staff built evasion DD, I’d be far more inclined to leave one or more of those condi removals off the bar, and that’s the situation where I’d consider absolution much more viable, since less condi applications are landing on me anyway.

I guess it’s just going to take some testing to see how it pans out, and I wouldn’t be at all sad if it were moved to minor, but my fear is that moving it to minor would load it with enough ICD that it wouldn’t matter anyway.

Thief has always had an issue with condi cleanse, but it seems to me on my recent return that we have more than ever. More importantly, they are spread out over a wide variety of skills, traits, and approaches to the class. Not counting future changes we have:

Trickster
Shadow’s Embrace
Pain Response
Guarded Initiation
Don’t Stop (not a cleanse)
Withdraw
Roll for Initiative
Hide in Shadows
Shadowstep
Signet of Agility

Add in options like sigils of generosity, cleansing, and purity and we’re in a pretty good spot these days. Certainly a lot better than the old days. In fact, I never use SA and I seem to do okay when it comes to condi. Overall, we’re still delicate flowers, but I don’t think the old arguments about “having” to choose one trait line for condi is still true.

Kocoff.7582:

Auesis.7301:

Great, then it becomes a Minor and gets a hugely increased ICD to compensate, and we have more whining posts about how we’re back to needing SA to reliably remove conditions.

You are all so smart.

why do people keep mentioning an ICD… It doesn’t need any compensation whatsoever.

Come on man. People will revert back to SA because that’s true. If thieves can’t keep the status quo with DD, then the only logical step is to revert back to that Trait line that offered that condition soap.

It’s going to be as effective as a typical D/P pulling to combo, to gain stealth and clean himself. It’ won’t be OP, even with 3 dodges.

1 sec CD on a trait that clean condi on evade. what’s outrageous about turning this into a minor?

How long is Withdraw? 3/4 sec of a sec. you’ ll be cleaning +1 condition
RFI? 3/4 of a sec. same thing for this skill.

We need this to be a minor. It’s not even an advantage tbh and it’s FAR from OP.
It just a reliable condi clean trait that is erroneously placed. I vote either Adept or Minor.

It not about what we want, it’s about what Anet will do, I’ve known this company and the way they balance for 8 years, I know they will up the ICD if it becomes a minor.
That’s just a given,
Rangers have something similar with early beta, and it had a 10sec ICD, before they deciding to have it only remove stuff like blind and cripple, and that’s a major.
Eles have it too, removes only burning and chill, Major adept, 10 ICD
I’m surprise this doesn’t have a 10icd already.

Driven Fortitude and Escapist’s Absolution both mitigate damage. One by recovering a small amount of health and one by removing the source of damage. They both trigger on evade and both have a 1 sec ICD.

My question: If by making Escapist’s Absolution a minor would increase the ICD, then shouldn’t Driven Fortitude have a longer ICD?

Pukc.6328:

Driven Fortitude and Escapist’s Absolution both mitigate damage. One by recovering a small amount of health and one by removing the source of damage. They both trigger on evade and both have a 1 sec ICD.

My question: If by making Escapist’s Absolution a minor would increase the ICD, then shouldn’t Driven Fortitude have a longer ICD?

I would argue that cleansing a high stack of burn or torment is a bit more valuable than a 450 heal :/

BobbyT.7192:

Pukc.6328:

Driven Fortitude and Escapist’s Absolution both mitigate damage. One by recovering a small amount of health and one by removing the source of damage. They both trigger on evade and both have a 1 sec ICD.

My question: If by making Escapist’s Absolution a minor would increase the ICD, then shouldn’t Driven Fortitude have a longer ICD?

I would argue that cleansing a high stack of burn or torment is a bit more valuable than a 450 heal :/

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ like i keep saying, there is no competition here.

Kocoff.7582:

BobbyT.7192:

Pukc.6328:

Driven Fortitude and Escapist’s Absolution both mitigate damage. One by recovering a small amount of health and one by removing the source of damage. They both trigger on evade and both have a 1 sec ICD.

My question: If by making Escapist’s Absolution a minor would increase the ICD, then shouldn’t Driven Fortitude have a longer ICD?

I would argue that cleansing a high stack of burn or torment is a bit more valuable than a 450 heal :/

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ like i keep saying, there is no competition here.

and i would also argue that dodging that burn in the first is a bit more valuable than a cleanse

Given the fact that condi is fairly strong right now, we are more than likely to pick Escapist’s Absolution over the other two. We would also have Driven Fortitude which is very strong combo and then people are going to be asking for both to nerfed. However if Escapist’s Absolution is a minor we’re given a much more meaningful choice and not everyone would be running both. Making so there would less complaining about it(yes this is thief and people like to complain about thief).

Side note: No they shouldn’t be combined, are you crazy?

This will be the best condi removal for thief, hands down, and absolutely mandatory.

Like many others, I’m not really sure if master trait is a good position for it.

Bump

Tired of the best condi clear I can get coming from stealth. But if this trait isn’t minor the choices are between dying to condi, taking this trait, or taking sa. Trickery isn’t enough unless you have sa or use lyssa runes.

Escapist Absolution is actually strong (when used a certain way) and is a good trait choice.

Condition cleanses clean the last conditions applied to you ( I think ). There can be a lot of filler conditions on you such as cripple and stuff. If you use the dash dodge, that means you will always cure cripple and chill and if you evade something in that dodge, no matter what you will not waste a condition cleanse on a cripple or chill. If you run acrobatics its kind of the same deal but add in immobilize (if you run that trait). If you have the trait where you remove vul/weak/slow while over 90%, add that to the list. This basically leaves only damaging conditions to be removed: the ones that can kill you easily in a dodge based build.

In a dodge heavy build, you are looking at an average of 1 cleanse every 3 seconds with a peak of 1 every second. That’s crazy good when you consider the above: you might as well be invulnerable to conditions.

The tradeoff? Interrupt damage, which is also amazing.

Decisions, decisions…

Now, if you swapped the heal on evade with this trait, it becomes an easier trade because the heal doesn’t do that much for people who do damage and can be ignored.

Truth be told, I think the DD was very well planned. The trait with weakness on crit, IMO, needs a look at and should be weakness when interrupting (same CD, durations, etc). This favors builds with low crit (such as condi, support) and is still good for power based builds. As a DD you get access to a lot of interrupts (staff 1 stealth, utilities for sure) and even if you don’t use those you still have plenty of other ways (on steal, other utilities, sword, pistol, etc).

BobbyT.7192:

Kocoff.7582:

Auesis.7301:

Great, then it becomes a Minor and gets a hugely increased ICD to compensate, and we have more whining posts about how we’re back to needing SA to reliably remove conditions.

You are all so smart.

why do people keep mentioning an ICD… It doesn’t need any compensation whatsoever.

Come on man. People will revert back to SA because that’s true. If thieves can’t keep the status quo with DD, then the only logical step is to revert back to that Trait line that offered that condition soap.

It’s going to be as effective as a typical D/P pulling to combo, to gain stealth and clean himself. It’ won’t be OP, even with 3 dodges.

1 sec CD on a trait that clean condi on evade. what’s outrageous about turning this into a minor?

How long is Withdraw? 3/4 sec of a sec. you’ ll be cleaning +1 condition
RFI? 3/4 of a sec. same thing for this skill.

We need this to be a minor. It’s not even an advantage tbh and it’s FAR from OP.
It just a reliable condi clean trait that is erroneously placed. I vote either Adept or Minor.

It not about what we want, it’s about what Anet will do, I’ve known this company and the way they balance for 8 years, I know they will up the ICD if it becomes a minor.
That’s just a given,
Rangers have something similar with early beta, and it had a 10sec ICD, before they deciding to have it only remove stuff like blind and cripple, and that’s a major.
Eles have it too, removes only burning and chill, Major adept, 10 ICD
I’m surprise this doesn’t have a 10icd already.

I´m not.
Stop, Drop and Roll is on >dodge-rolling<, Escapist´s Absolution is on >evade<. What if the enemy stops attacking and just looking at you dodging all day without clearing condis? Thats what my concern is. Bad players will just brainless continue to attack, but good players (where it actually matters) will instantly know what to do. You never know how something turns out. Maybe its ok or maybe its to strong, lets see when it comes.

Coronit.9432:

Stop, Drop and Roll is on >dodge-rolling<, Escapist´s Absolution is on >evade<…Maybe its ok or maybe its to strong, lets see when it comes.

You’re a lot closer to the reality of EA than the crowd thinking it removes a condition every second is.

Timing is very important on condition removal. You need condition removal to remove big stacks of DoTs before they inflict major damage, or to cleanse immobilize or fear before you get wrecked. This is what other condition removal skills do; it is not what Escapist’s Absolution does. In the current meta, if you can caught with a big stack of burning, you back out of the fight to cleanse it and recoup before re-engaging. If you are counting on EA for your condition clear, that is not an option – it will not remove conditions while disengaged. If you get a big stack of burning on you with EA as your primary remove, you have to double down on the fight, pressing the attack despite the burning stack in hopes of timing a dodge that will trigger an evade (which, mind you, is non-trivial – lots of dodges that make attacks miss do not count as evades, as the roll moves you out of the hitbox of the attack) to purge the condition. If that doesn’t work, and fast, well, expect a date with the ground.

EA, for the most part, is going to be effective at removing low to medium value conditions – vulnerability, small bleed stacks, cripples, and sometimes poison and weakness. Removing these is valuable, mind you, but these were not conditions that forced you to cleanse before and are not ones that drive you out of a fight – they’re incremental crap that you pick up in a fight, and EA should do a good job of chipping away at that. It will be more effective on tanky, soldier amulet thieves that have a better ability to stay in fights without having to disengage (though I am skeptical that this is actually a thing given the thief’s lack of boons or sustain).

It also has some cases where I imagine it will perform very well, for example while spamming Flanking Strike when immobilized. Against the most dangerous conditions, however, I expect Escapist’s Absolution to be infuriatingly inconsistent, as for every time it removes a critical burning right after it is applied, there will be 2 (or more) where burning is ticking away on you as you’re unable to get an evade trigger.

I’d wager that Escapist’s Absolution is closer to Strength of the Fallen than a lot of people realize – that while it has upside, most of the time it’s simply going to occasionally remove some random condition you didn’t even know was there.

This trait must be moved because the competition they tried to create between Disruption Impact, Staff Master and Escapist Absolution is inexistant.

I really hope they change the placement. I hope people understand now that Escapist’s Absolution is not OP as it a condition cleanse On Evade. Which still requires you to master your timing to the fullest.

I would even say that it makes your endurance an even more precious resource as it will be directly correlated between victory of death.

Unskilled players will die. Skill players will manage. No surprises there.

EA on DD = Sustain. It’s either this your will start seeing inefficient builds with DD (Revealed Combat) / SA (Stealth Combat) everywhere.

Kocoff.7582:

This trait must be moved because the competition they tried to create between Disruption Impact, Staff Master and Escapist Absolution is inexistant.

I really hope they change the placement. I hope people understand now that Escapist’s Absolution is not OP as it a condition cleanse On Evade. Which still requires you to master your timing to the fullest.

I would even say that it makes your endurance an even more precious resource as it will be directly correlated between victory of death.

Unskilled players will die. Skill players will manage. No surprises there.

EA on DD = Sustain. It’s either this your will start seeing inefficient builds with DD (Revealed Combat) / SA (Stealth Combat) everywhere.

I do not consider dd/sa inefficient at all. I will be using it in a staff build with stealth on steal so as to have access to multiple knockdowns. I will have access to knockdown from a trap , multiple hooks , and bandits defense all without using INI. This is very efficient.

Even the adept trait merciful ambush will allow the use of HOOK on the staff If I am quick enough. I expect the combo of SA/DD will also come in very handy after a fall wherein I will be stealthed and can immediately hook and knockdown a nearby opponent who might have followed.

If the guy manages to stand up after a hook he will still be blinded .

In this build any one of the three traits available at master will be very useful. Staff mastery for that 10 percent added damage and all that Endurance coming in, PI to take advantage of all those interrupts in the build and build some spike damge, or EA for further Condition cleanse if needed.

(WvW build )

babazhook.6805:

Kocoff.7582:

This trait must be moved because the competition they tried to create between Disruption Impact, Staff Master and Escapist Absolution is inexistant.

I really hope they change the placement. I hope people understand now that Escapist’s Absolution is not OP as it a condition cleanse On Evade. Which still requires you to master your timing to the fullest.

I would even say that it makes your endurance an even more precious resource as it will be directly correlated between victory of death.

Unskilled players will die. Skill players will manage. No surprises there.

EA on DD = Sustain. It’s either this your will start seeing inefficient builds with DD (Revealed Combat) / SA (Stealth Combat) everywhere.

I do not consider dd/sa inefficient at all. I will be using it in a staff build with stealth on steal so as to have access to multiple knockdowns. I will have access to knockdown from a trap , multiple hooks , and bandits defense all without using INI. This is very efficient.

Even the adept trait merciful ambush will allow the use of HOOK on the staff If I am quick enough. I expect the combo of SA/DD will also come in very handy after a fall wherein I will be stealthed and can immediately hook and knockdown a nearby opponent who might have followed.

If the guy manages to stand up after a hook he will still be blinded.

In this build any one of the three traits available at master will be very useful. Staff mastery for that 10 percent added damage and all that Endurance coming in, PI to take advantage of all those interrupts in the build and build some spike damge, or EA for further Condition cleanse if needed.

(WvW build )

That is exactly my point sir. A whole core trait just for Stealth on Steal and naturally,, condi cleanse.

Daredevil easily offers the same amount of sustain, without the use an extra line, with Escapist’s Absolution.

Then again you chose Shadow’s Embrace, cleaning a condition on every steal right? That’s a cleanse every 20 seconds if you add Trickery and that’s quite inneficient ( you only mentioned Stafff as a weapon).

Not only your sustain will be average at best, but then what about your damage?

DD/trickery/ SA? a 1000 Hook Strike won’t be enough to down your target with that level of damage.

That is I why I think it is necessary to move Escapist Absolution to a Minor or an adept, even switch it with Driven Fortitude, to have a more reasonable competition among the master trait tier.

Kocoff.7582:

babazhook.6805:

Kocoff.7582:

This trait must be moved because the competition they tried to create between Disruption Impact, Staff Master and Escapist Absolution is inexistant.

I really hope they change the placement. I hope people understand now that Escapist’s Absolution is not OP as it a condition cleanse On Evade. Which still requires you to master your timing to the fullest.

I would even say that it makes your endurance an even more precious resource as it will be directly correlated between victory of death.

Unskilled players will die. Skill players will manage. No surprises there.

EA on DD = Sustain. It’s either this your will start seeing inefficient builds with DD (Revealed Combat) / SA (Stealth Combat) everywhere.

I do not consider dd/sa inefficient at all. I will be using it in a staff build with stealth on steal so as to have access to multiple knockdowns. I will have access to knockdown from a trap , multiple hooks , and bandits defense all without using INI. This is very efficient.

Even the adept trait merciful ambush will allow the use of HOOK on the staff If I am quick enough. I expect the combo of SA/DD will also come in very handy after a fall wherein I will be stealthed and can immediately hook and knockdown a nearby opponent who might have followed.

If the guy manages to stand up after a hook he will still be blinded.

In this build any one of the three traits available at master will be very useful. Staff mastery for that 10 percent added damage and all that Endurance coming in, PI to take advantage of all those interrupts in the build and build some spike damge, or EA for further Condition cleanse if needed.

(WvW build )

That is exactly my point sir. A whole core trait just for Stealth on Steal and naturally,, condi cleanse.

Daredevil easily offers the same amount of sustain, without the use an extra line, with Escapist’s Absolution.

Then again you chose Shadow’s Embrace, cleaning a condition on every steal right? That’s a cleanse every 20 seconds if you add Trickery and that’s quite inneficient ( you only mentioned Stafff as a weapon).

Not only your sustain will be average at best, but then what about your damage?

DD/trickery/ SA? a 1000 Hook Strike won’t be enough to down your target with that level of damage.

That is I why I think it is necessary to move Escapist Absolution to a Minor or an adept, even switch it with Driven Fortitude, to have a more reasonable competition among the master trait tier.

My damage will be fine. 2400 base power before stacks 210+ percent on crits. I already get enough condi cleanse using SA. SA will remain condi cleanse. More dodges and stealth IS sustain. There will be no fury and crit chance will be around 40 percent base but this is fine damage wise as the staff has quite rapid attacks and with the INI saved due to not having to use vault/field to stealth I will get more such attacks off.

I will use trappers runes which offer cleanses everytime I use them. Respite is in there for a stealth on heal another cleanse. I do not need trickery albeit the line usable.

I think you fail to understand that the SA line is not just sustain. It offers an avenue to offense as well. I will access to around 6 knockdowns every 30 seconds if not more and thats 10 seconds of the guy on his back unable to use skills. This can not be done with vault and a combo field which burns ini.

Hook is not doing the damage. Hook is dropping the guy on his back for the interrupt if PI traited and setting up for full combo chains such as a fists of flurry followed by the elite.

The Build will be DA/SA/DD. Too many people remain fixated on trickery.

Bump

Not giving up

Bump

Disagree with you karl

Yeah we lost the EA fight guys. People don’t agree, he doesn’t agree. I don’t think his argument held at all either. Saying EA is situational in combat while DF was all purpose?

Absolutely not true….

anyways… I am just gonna let go of that one and watch 90% of Daredevils roll EA because again there is barely any competition between the master traits.

Next BWE, we’ll make a last push.

"Conditional.." hehe funny guy bumping this thread for accuracy. The same had always been the case for SE I guess he plays way less thief than I thought I wouldn’t be surprised if that gets nerfed to specific conditions as well with no justification. "He who knows his name" you may not be doing good right now but you do have a sense of humor. Just put trash in the other two slots.

Kocoff.7582:

Yeah we lost the EA fight guys. People don’t agree, he doesn’t agree. I don’t think his argument held at all either. Saying EA is situational in combat while DF was all purpose?

Absolutely not true….

anyways… I am just gonna let go of that one and watch 90% of Daredevils roll EA because again there is barely any competition between the master traits.

Next BWE, we’ll make a last push.

I refuse to surrender on this

Pukc.6328:

Kocoff.7582:

Yeah we lost the EA fight guys. People don’t agree, he doesn’t agree. I don’t think his argument held at all either. Saying EA is situational in combat while DF was all purpose?

Absolutely not true….

anyways… I am just gonna let go of that one and watch 90% of Daredevils roll EA because again there is barely any competition between the master traits.

Next BWE, we’ll make a last push.

I refuse to surrender on this

3 more years to go.

I know but the fight must go on T.T

Well I DO think the cooldown can be removed

The expansion isn’t out for another five weeks, and Karl is slowly showing signs of being receptive to widespread feedback. Don’t give up on EA, as it should definitely be a minor for many reasons listed above (although you might want to move your major feedback on it to the BWE3 thread for more visibility).