Guild Wars 2

As extended traits and acquiring them is a large part of the game going foward, I got to thinking about what sort of traits thieves could benefit from in order to open up more types of builds and provide more build options.

Master Plan
Deadly Arts – Grandmaster
Ambush, Needle, and Tripwire traps may be used twice, and these charges refresh whether or not traps are currently deployed.
Shadow trap applies 4 seconds of revealed in addition to marking the enemy it triggers.

Essentially, this works like the steal cooldown. The second trap remains on the button, but its cooldown starts as soon as it it used. This means thieves can use traps twice to burst, or use them twice as often as the situation dictates, a very opportunistic and thief-like mechanic, and I believe this would make trap-heavier builds much more viable for all gametypes. The shadow trap change is to allow thieves the thematically remain at the top of the stealth food chain as the stealth mechanic is being proliferated to other classes.

Pursuit of Excellence
Critical Strikes – Grandmaster

Your critical strikes with melee weapons have a 20% chance to inflict 10s of crippled. If the target is already crippled, remove 5 seconds from the cooldown of steal.(10 second internal cooldown)

This trait is intended to allow thieves to trade some burst DPS for superior chasing ability, and add interesting synergies to allow for more steal-heavy builds.

Deadeye
Deadly Arts – Grandmaster
Your pistol skills now have a range of 1200.

I don’t think I need to explain why this is needed, or why it should be deep in DA.

Deadly Paradox
Grandmaster – Shadow Arts
All stealth you apply lasts twice as long. Revealed caused by your stealth skills lasts twice as long.

This trait creates a powerful reason for non-dagger builds to use the SA line, by significantly increasing the impact of individual stealth skills, but making it effectively impossible to spam them. This build changer allows builds that feel trapped in to shadow refuge to opt for another, more utilitarian stealth, increases the viability of “ninja medic” style builds, and overall creates a lot of build-changing interactions.

Show Off
Acrobatics – Grandmaster
Daze nearby enemies for 1 second when you successfully evade. (10 second internal cooldown)

This trait adds some much needed core survivability to the end of the acrobatics line, and creates a skill-based incentive and interesting counterplay opportunities for acrobatics-based thieves.

Abduct
Trickery – Grandmaster
You no longer steal items when using steal. In stead, you mark your target with the “abducted” debuff, and steal becomes “Abduct” for 20 seconds. When using the “abduct” skill, both you and your target are transported to your original location.

This allows thieves to more easily single out targets at the cost of other steal utility and a 30 point investment in to trickery. This unblockable pull has powerful utility in all modes of play, allowing thieves to isolate weak targets or remove powerful support and bunkers from allies or entrenched positions, giving the thief an alternate utility role.

I like your ideas and I would definitely use them if they were real.
One of the things thieves has always lacked is solid condi removal.

Grandmaster trickery line trait: steal now transfers all conditions from yourself to target. Or just 3-5 conditions, if that’s too op.

Grandmaster acrobatics trait: every successful evade removes 1-2 conditions.

Grandmaster in the power trait line: venoms remove a condition, or maybe transfer a condition. (Both could be a little op though if you drag out your venom usage)

Nice ideas I guess, but a lot of these are beyond ridiculously overpowered.

Especially “Abduct.”

Personally I’d like to see more traits that work with Revealed like “Revealed Training (DA XIII)” that we currently have.

Abduct sounds like a really awesome GM trait. I would love having that on my thief. There should also be a Mesmer type version as well

Reikou.7068:

Nice ideas I guess, but a lot of these are beyond ridiculously overpowered.

Especially “Abduct.”

Personally I’d like to see more traits that work with Revealed like “Revealed Training (DA XIII)” that we currently have.

I don’t think they’re that out of line, as they’re balanced primarily against what you’d have to give up (other GM traits, or shifting your build 30 in to something you wouldn’t otherwise prioritize) to use them, and most are utility focused with clear counterplay.

Abduct, specifically, is a better version of scorpion wire that requires a full 30 in trickery, prevents you from using stolen skills, and prevents you from taking the other excellent steal-boosters at the GM. It’s no more overpowered than Sleight of Hand.

A lot of the others, if they’re over the top could be better brought in line with an increased ICD, but honestly when compared to some other classes abilities to perma-stack all sorts of offensive or defensive buffs, thief utility is quite lacking, and our build options don’t lend themselves toward creative trait use like what warriors, engis, or eles enjoy to define specialized builds beyond “damage” These are primarily defensive or utility buffs and largely conditional and easily counterplayed.

GM traits, IMO, should be about value choices. There’s a lot of value judgement if you have to give up the excellent damage from Executioner or Hidden Killer for instance, so the alternative should feel equally as rewarding. You can give up 10-15% of your damage, but in return you gain leading-edge chasing ability, a think that thieves are supposed to be excellent at and are currently sub-par.

Similar considerations go in to all of the proposed designs. Look at what you have to give up to acquire them, and think “what would it take for my to trade in my current GM traits?”

PopeUrban.2578:

I don’t think they’re that out of line, as they’re balanced primarily against what you’d have to give up (other GM traits, or shifting your build 30 in to something you wouldn’t otherwise prioritize) to use them, and most are utility focused with clear counterplay.

Abduct, specifically, is a better version of scorpion wire that requires a full 30 in trickery, prevents you from using stolen skills, and prevents you from taking the other excellent steal-boosters at the GM. It’s no more overpowered than Sleight of Hand.

A lot of the others, if they’re over the top could be better brought in line with an increased ICD, but honestly when compared to some other classes abilities to perma-stack all sorts of offensive or defensive buffs, thief utility is quite lacking, and our build options don’t lend themselves toward creative trait use like what warriors, engis, or eles enjoy to define specialized builds beyond “damage” These are primarily defensive or utility buffs and largely conditional and easily counterplayed.

GM traits, IMO, should be about value choices. There’s a lot of value judgement if you have to give up the excellent damage from Executioner or Hidden Killer for instance, so the alternative should feel equally as rewarding. You can give up 10-15% of your damage, but in return you gain leading-edge chasing ability, a think that thieves are supposed to be excellent at and are currently sub-par.

Similar considerations go in to all of the proposed designs. Look at what you have to give up to acquire them, and think “what would it take for my to trade in my current GM traits?”

With the way Abduct is in your description, it will singlehandedly be able to win any teamfight for the team with Abduct. Being on a 30 second cooldown is even more ridiculous. Being able to pull any target opponent completely out of position, is really broken. Maybe just maybe if it were 180s CD like Moa Morph, but I’d argue even then its still a bit OP.

Master Plan is an interesting concept, but it will be pretty broken in use. Shadow Trap already allows a thief to be (almost) anywhere they want to be on the map. Having two? each on a (practically) 20s CD? Nope.

Pursuit of Excellence would be somewhat alright if the cripple inflicted was maybe 3-4 seconds, and the the steal CD reduction stipulation was removed.

Deadeye is alright.

Deadly Paradox is also quite interesting. Not sure how I feel about this.

Showoff is also interesting. I’d say increase the ICD to about 15s.

tbh, Im a thief and a lot of these seem ridiculously op. However, I do like the trickery GM trait “Abduct” That would be really cool to see. Also making thieves more thief-like.

I wish these were closer to the new GMs we got on the 15th imho. Abduct and Deadly Paradox is pretty insane also. A refuge stealth that could last for 26 or so seconds? that seems like a lot but you would also need to give up a lot for that. Abduct being able to grapple someone out of position so easily does not seem like it would be a “fun” mechanic to play against, especially every 30s

I do like Deadeye and Show off. Pursuit of Excellence seems like it could be better possibly maybe like Reikou said removing the ICD on it. Personally I think 5s on steal is way to much, just 1 second could be enough considering the majority (in pvp) run sleight of hand and only has a 21.5s cooldown on steal.

How is his idea for Abduct more OP than Engineer’s Magnet Pull?

godmoney.6025:

How is his idea for Abduct more OP than Engineer’s Magnet Pull?

Pull skills have casting time and animations. Steal is instant. If the target would be teleported instantly, he has no way of countering Abduct. He can’t constantly dodge for 20s.

I like Deadeye a lot.

Deadly Paradox would make any skill that provides long stealth a lot stronger in comparison to short stealth sources. I like the idea, it’s an interesting one but I’d add extra 1s of reveal on gaining (not only entereing) stealth too, up to maybe 10-12s max. It would make longer stealth a lot riskier.