I’ve been testing this horrible trait and it has ported me out of shadow refuge no less than 3 times in a short window of playing. Link it to steal and make steal a stunbreak or something. Think about how slight of hand is so integral to some builds, HtC should augment steal in a similar way. Hell add in another 20% cooldown reduction on steal in the trait while you’re at it. What other classes have traits like HtC and last refuge that screw the player over so much?
Tualek & F I Monk / Thief —-- Tk E / Engineer
Highest Solo Queue Rank Achieved: 40
Highest solo-join Team Queue Rank Achieved: 198
I like the idea of HTC being something useful, rather than a handicap in trait form, but steal already has so many traits tied to it. While being a stunbreaker is nice, that might interfere with it applying poison at the right time, regnerating init at the right time, dazing at the right time, healing at the right time…and so on.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
While I understand what you’re saying, most builds going deep into acro aren’t going deep into trickery. So you’d really only have poison, mug, and stunbreak. Not that different than managing shadow step as a gap closer, gap creator, stunbreak, condition clear. We’re already used to managing a skill with several uses already.
Tualek & F I Monk / Thief —-- Tk E / Engineer
Highest Solo Queue Rank Achieved: 40
Highest solo-join Team Queue Rank Achieved: 198
There’s a ton of things they can do with HtC without linking it to a skill. They just need to remove the shadow step from it.
Break Stun > Stun is broken… nothing else happens.
Break Stun > Blind AoE
Break Stun > Blind Target
Break Stun > Gain a Boon
Break Stun > Remove Conditions
Reflect incoming disable back at enemy.
Break Stun > Summon a horde of angry vengeful chickens.
Ignore Stun Effect as a Thief NPC appeared and took the attack for you.
Do anything you want, just remove shadowstep from it and it’ll automatically be better. Being moved in a random direction sucks. Also make it not proc when stability is going. .-.
| Fort Aspenwood (NA): Sylvari Daredevil Thief Main: All Classes 80. | Please Remove/Fix Thief Trait: “Last Refuge.” “Hard to Catch” is a Horrible and Useless Trait. Fixed 6/23/15. Praise Dwayna.
I prefer less RNG. With traits like slight of hand you get more power in your build but you control how it’s used. Adds skill instead of hoping you didn’t waste your RNG trait on some weak stun/daze a few seconds before skullcrack.
Tualek & F I Monk / Thief —-- Tk E / Engineer
Highest Solo Queue Rank Achieved: 40
Highest solo-join Team Queue Rank Achieved: 198
There’s a ton of things they can do with HtC without linking it to a skill. They just need to remove the shadow step from it.
Break Stun > Stun is broken… nothing else happens.
Break Stun > Blind AoE
Break Stun > Blind Target
Break Stun > Gain a Boon
Break Stun > Remove Conditions
Reflect incoming disable back at enemy.
Break Stun > Summon a horde of angry vengeful chickens.
Ignore Stun Effect as a Thief NPC appeared and took the attack for you.
Do anything you want, just remove shadowstep from it and it’ll automatically be better. Being moved in a random direction sucks. Also make it not proc when stability is going. .-.
THIS! Especially not procing when we have stability and not even breaking the stun.. The trait NEEDS to break the stun when triggered, it NEEDS to not proc when we have stability and it NEEDS to not teleport. I’d also like to see 5s of stabilty/vigor added to it as well, but maybe my hopes are too high.
There’s a ton of things they can do with HtC without linking it to a skill. They just need to remove the shadow step from it.
Break Stun > Stun is broken… nothing else happens.
Break Stun > Blind AoE
Break Stun > Blind Target
Break Stun > Gain a Boon
Break Stun > Remove Conditions
Reflect incoming disable back at enemy.
Break Stun > Summon a horde of angry vengeful chickens.
Ignore Stun Effect as a Thief NPC appeared and took the attack for you.
Do anything you want, just remove shadowstep from it and it’ll automatically be better. Being moved in a random direction sucks. Also make it not proc when stability is going. .-.
THIS! Especially not procing when we have stability and not even breaking the stun.. The trait NEEDS to break the stun when triggered, it NEEDS to not proc when we have stability and it NEEDS to not teleport. I’d also like to see 5s of stabilty/vigor added to it as well, but maybe my hopes are too high.
Honestly I think the Stability and Vigor is the way to go.
Personally, I’d like to see it work like this:
1) Incoming stun
2) Check for existing Stability
3) Do nothing if Stability exists
4) If not, the Thief ignores the stun and gains evade frames for a fraction of a second.
5) After the frames are up, the Thief gets 5s of Stability and Vigor
6) During cooldown of the skill, a debuff appears on the status bar, named “Exhausted”. When it expires, the Thief knows that he/she can afford to take another stun.
I like everything except 4. Losing control of your character is never good. Its the same problem that Hard to catch has. It should simply just pop “Immune” when hit just like every other skill of the type.
Momentarily, yes (and I mean that, like 0.25s or 0.5s). Since Arenanet are so fond of visual cues for everything (hence effects clutter), I thought it would be both useful and a helpful way to show that HtC has kicked in and you’re about to get some Stability.
I like the idea of HtC. Its like “got you” and your all like “no you dont” but it doesnt work anything like that in actuality.
I think a good change to this change would be
Stun break
Mist form for 3seconds(same mechanics cept can be broken by atking)
Swiftness 3 seconds
edit;
nvm mist form has movement increase.
You could also make it the same as mistform where they are taken out of combat until it wears off depending on how long the ICD is as a counter balance.
been trying to use hard to catch since the patch since its our new ‘survivablity’ trait… the tool tip should be changed to reflect reality i think. something like;
’Turns your character into a suicidal bunny. Shadowstep to the nearest edge of a cliff and gain fear when you are disabled. If a cliff is not in range or high enough to kill you, Shadowsteps you into a wall.
Fear: 12s
Radius: 600 if there is a appropriate cliff. Otherwise 10’
The trait name should also be changed into ‘Bunny with suicidal tendencies’
Yak’s Bend – Hello Kitty and Friends (aFK)
Lv 80 Thief – Emi Smacks / Lv 80 Ele – Emi Casts / Lv 80 Necro – Emi Nox
Htc is supposed to give thieves more survivability according to anet.
After reading that statement I seriously wondered if they have ever played a thief.
They haven’t~ they don’t even know that we primarily use the Shadowstep Utility in SPvP to Teleport Stomp people rather than Sword. They don’t have enough experience with the very class they created to understand the little tricks we do, like all the combos people do with Shadow Return, or the fluidity of all our Stealth Weapon Combos back when they did the 4s reveal.
| Fort Aspenwood (NA): Sylvari Daredevil Thief Main: All Classes 80. | Please Remove/Fix Thief Trait: “Last Refuge.” “Hard to Catch” is a Horrible and Useless Trait. Fixed 6/23/15. Praise Dwayna.
Htc is supposed to give thieves more survivability according to anet.
After reading that statement I seriously wondered if they have ever played a thief.
They haven’t~ they don’t even know that we primarily use the Shadowstep Utility in SPvP to Teleport Stomp people rather than Sword. They don’t have enough experience with the very class they created to understand the little tricks we do, like all the combos people do with Shadow Return, or the fluidity of all our Stealth Weapon Combos back when they did the 4s reveal.
Don’t tell them that…. They nerfed IR partly because of the “tele stomp.” Next thing you know, Shadow Step is gonna get a cast time as well and the stun break will be moved to like, Trip Wire or something to make traps a more viable build option….
Htc is supposed to give thieves more survivability according to anet.
After reading that statement I seriously wondered if they have ever played a thief.
They haven’t~ they don’t even know that we primarily use the Shadowstep Utility in SPvP to Teleport Stomp people rather than Sword. They don’t have enough experience with the very class they created to understand the little tricks we do, like all the combos people do with Shadow Return, or the fluidity of all our Stealth Weapon Combos back when they did the 4s reveal.
Don’t tell them that…. They nerfed IR partly because of the “tele stomp.” Next thing you know, Shadow Step is gonna get a cast time as well and the stun break will be moved to like, Trip Wire or something to make traps a more viable build option….
I already expect it to happen anyways so doesn’t matter.
| Fort Aspenwood (NA): Sylvari Daredevil Thief Main: All Classes 80. | Please Remove/Fix Thief Trait: “Last Refuge.” “Hard to Catch” is a Horrible and Useless Trait. Fixed 6/23/15. Praise Dwayna.
they should make HtC where all CC and stuns duration is reduced my 33% and blind nearby enemies when hit with cripple, stun, daze and fear.
thats what i would like to see instead of the instant Random teleporting.
One thing about thief is control and the ability to control positioning. If we cant control where we go we make it harder for selves and orientating. I want to confuse my enemy, not myself of where i am.
- Hard to Catch – reduces all control skills duration (stun/daze/launch/etc) by 50%. Moved to Grandmaster.
- Assassin’s reward – moved to master.
Wouldn’t that be nice.
I like the idea to combine it with steal.
Anet once said they consider making steal a ground targeted skill when there is no target ,to increase Mobility. Well…HTC should turn steal into ground targeted stunbreak. Grandmaster ofc.
The basic concept of hard to catch is bad. It should have a genuinely useful trait replace it instead of the useless concept being reworked. The warrior version of this trait, gain balanced stance, is a country mile ahead of what hard to catch could ever be.
Should just change it to a passive 20/25% reduction to Stun, daze, Fear. With the next CC giving you swiftness on a 30s ICD.
Would be far more reliable.
Break Stun > Summon a horde of angry vengeful chickens.
I LoL’d so hard at this! I love it! <— (remembers playing old legend of zelda games where if you killed a chicken, a horde of chickens came and kitten d your character)
“Should just change it to a passive 20/25% reduction to Stun, daze, Fear. With the next CC giving you swiftness on a 30s ICD.
Would be far more reliable.”
Would be reliably 75% worse than the equivalent warrior trait since the warrior trait not only gives stability but prevents any interrupt from the CC as well.
Problem:
There are major issues with this trait that most of the thieves are already aware of, I believe one of the larger problems is that Anet is not looking at this trait the same way we are.
What anet wants:
They want it to simply move the thief out of harms way once stunned/dazed.
What thieves want from it:
Break the stun! while being less disorienting
as it stands, the issues are globally bad:
DAZED: bad in spvp, a thief headshot sends you flying away
FEARED: you shadow step away, gain swiftness, and run even FASTER away.
LAUNCHED/KNOCKED DOWN/KNOCKED BACK: 50% chance are you do an instant shadow step in place that is not even noticeable. 50% chance you shadow step away BEFORE the launch, and land even further away bouncing.
SINK/FLOAT: still does not break the SINK/FLOAT, and usually shadow steps toward the target.
solution:
Remove swiftness, shadow step away, BREAK THE STUN, and grant 5 seconds of stability.
or
Remove swiftness, shadow step away while giving stealth for the thief for 3 seconds.
Personally, I’d like if it stun broke and shadow stepped you directly behind the attacker. Maybe make it stealth too and adjust the cooldown accordingly.
Problem:
There are major issues with this trait that most of the thieves are already aware of, I believe one of the larger problems is that Anet is not looking at this trait the same way we are.
What anet wants:
They want it to simply move the thief out of harms way once stunned/dazed.
What thieves want from it:
Break the stun! while being less disorienting
as it stands, the issues are globally bad:
DAZED: bad in spvp, a thief headshot sends you flying away
FEARED: you shadow step away, gain swiftness, and run even FASTER away.
LAUNCHED/KNOCKED DOWN/KNOCKED BACK: 50% chance are you do an instant shadow step in place that is not even noticeable. 50% chance you shadow step away BEFORE the launch, and land even further away bouncing.
SINK/FLOAT: still does not break the SINK/FLOAT, and usually shadow steps toward the target.
solution:
Remove swiftness, shadow step away, BREAK THE STUN, and grant 5 seconds of stability.
or
Remove swiftness, shadow step away while giving stealth for the thief for 3 seconds.
Still teleports you which is the worst part about the trait. This is bad. It needs to just pop immune, give stabilility/vigor.
Hard to catch
cooldown: 30 seconds
triggers: any cc type
effection: teleport thief in a random direction 600 range away, followed by a roll/cartwheel to backflip or w.e ninja like skill (like withdraw) that lasts 2.25 seconds (gives you enough time during roll to re-acclimate yourself to your surroundings and where your enemy(ies) is(are).
bonus: removes 1 random CC and gives swiftness for 8 seconds.
does this sound more like a skill you would name “hard to catch”
btw anet ill send you my resume
Problem:
There are major issues with this trait that most of the thieves are already aware of, I believe one of the larger problems is that Anet is not looking at this trait the same way we are.
What anet wants:
They want it to simply move the thief out of harms way once stunned/dazed.
What thieves want from it:
Break the stun! while being less disorienting
as it stands, the issues are globally bad:
DAZED: bad in spvp, a thief headshot sends you flying away
FEARED: you shadow step away, gain swiftness, and run even FASTER away.
LAUNCHED/KNOCKED DOWN/KNOCKED BACK: 50% chance are you do an instant shadow step in place that is not even noticeable. 50% chance you shadow step away BEFORE the launch, and land even further away bouncing.
SINK/FLOAT: still does not break the SINK/FLOAT, and usually shadow steps toward the target.
solution:
Remove swiftness, shadow step away, BREAK THE STUN, and grant 5 seconds of stability.
or
Remove swiftness, shadow step away while giving stealth for the thief for 3 seconds.
Still teleports you which is the worst part about the trait. This is bad. It needs to just pop immune, give stabilility/vigor.
if that was in SA or trickery…. eh maybe. but this is ACRO-batics. ACRO ACRO. has to be a physical spectical thing check out what i wrote above. just an idea.
Quick Recovery isn’t a “physical spectical thing”. Neither is Master Trapper.
Sorry, but a forced displacement has no place for this trait. At all. I don’t care how cool you think it will look. If I lose control of my character for any reason at all, I will NEVER use that trait. Ever.
check out what i wrote above. just an idea.