Guild Wars 2

I’m going to keep this as short and sweet as possible.

ANet decided thieves had too many evades, and cut the access roughly in half.

The Problem: Damage went way up across the board, access to S/D’s only defensive mechanic was cut roughly in half, and absolutely nothing was introduced to replace this new gap in defenses.

The solution: Anet is not going to restore the pre-patch dodge access, so instead they need to introduce other ways to mitigate damage in between dodges.

Traits: (only tackling those that need to change)

Vigorous Recovery: When you heal, gain X second of vigor (X = 33% the base CD of the heal used, so now VR is useful for all heals and not just Withdraw).

Pain Response: After successfully evading an attack, gain 5 seconds of Regeneration and cleanse one damaging condition. 2s ICD.

Swindlers Equilibrium: After successfully evading an attack, gain the “Counter Attack” buff for 10s, 2s ICD. (This buff does not stack, expended like a venom charge)
Counter Attack: Your next attack is unblockable and inflicts 3s of weakness and 4s of posion.

Guarded Initiation: When striking an enemy from behind, gain chaos armor for 3s. 8s ICD (I admit, this one is kind of strange, but trying to keep it in the vein that Anet chose for it is tough)

Dont Stop: After successfully evading an attack, gain Protection, Resistance, and Stability for 3s. 2s ICD.

Assassin’s Reward: Base heal per init spent raised to 140, Contribution from healing power reduced by 75% – (Just a hint to Anet, there has never been a good thief spec that had room for healing power)

Upper hand: After evading an attack, gain the “Snatch” buff for 10s, 2s ICD (This buff does not stack, expended like a venom charge).
Snatch: Your next attack steals 1 boon, transfers 1 condition, and returns 1 init.

And there you have it.

Yes, alot of these effects look strong (especially considering the low ICD’s), but keep in mind a few things:
1) None of these effects trigger passively, they’re all predicated on successful active defense
2) S/D (the only spec that can honestly take advantage of Acro designed this way) is still a sustain set, not a burst set, so it needs this survivability
3) These effects are all tied to limited resources (Init, endurance)
4) Best of all, these traits actively discourage dodge spamming. If you just spam dodges until you’re out of resources, you can no longer take advantage of most of the traits offered in Acro.

So there you have it – maybe some of the numbers have to be playtested, but that’s what a useful acro tree looks like, for the most part.

I’d settle for just your proposed change to pain response tbh. That alone would make non-stealth builds so much more viable it’s not even funny. Been playing S/P a lot recently, I don’t expect to beat meta builds when played at an equal level but it would be nice to not pretty much auto lose to a condi bomb.

The main problem I can see is: how are you going to make it so these changes don’t just buff D/P too, and lead to more nerfs?

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I’d settle for just your proposed change to pain response tbh. That alone would make non-stealth builds so much more viable it’s not even funny. Been playing S/P a lot recently, I don’t expect to beat meta builds when played at an equal level but it would be nice to not pretty much auto lose to a condi bomb.

The main problem I can see is: how are you going to make it so these changes don’t just buff D/P too, and lead to more nerfs?

Because without the Evades from S/D, these traits are too infrequently available to be worth taking over CS or even SA. Everything is low duration/low ICD to support a spec that evades regularly, but not constantly – only S/D (and maaaaaaaybe S/P) fits the bill.

Also, lets note that D/P is viable, but not some powerhouse build – thief is in the same kittenty place it was pre-patch (+1 and decapper), maybe a little bit more self sufficient, but nowhere near OP.

I think added to any changes to the acro line is that the evades we get from the weaponsets have to be looked at. 1/4 on a DB is just not enough to be a reliable evade just as example which in turn leads to the user just hoping it would kick in.

A ranger gets a full 1 sec evade on one of their AA chains (greatsword) and this not seen as OP. All weaponset evades on the Thief side cost Ini so are not just going to be spammed.

If this happens the proc on evades from the line become more reliable.

babazhook.6805:

I think added to any changes to the acro line is that the evades we get from the weaponsets have to be looked at. 1/4 on a DB is just not enough to be a reliable evade just as example which in turn leads to the user just hoping it would kick in.

A ranger gets a full 1 sec evade on one of their AA chains (greatsword) and this not seen as OP. All weaponset evades on the Thief side cost Ini so are not just going to be spammed.

If this happens the proc on evades from the line become more reliable.

I agree, but that’s a separate topic. We should design a functioning Acro first, then tackle weaponset evades (primarily duration, and animation canceling aspects)

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

I think added to any changes to the acro line is that the evades we get from the weaponsets have to be looked at. 1/4 on a DB is just not enough to be a reliable evade just as example which in turn leads to the user just hoping it would kick in.

A ranger gets a full 1 sec evade on one of their AA chains (greatsword) and this not seen as OP. All weaponset evades on the Thief side cost Ini so are not just going to be spammed.

If this happens the proc on evades from the line become more reliable.

I agree, but that’s a separate topic. We should design a functioning Acro first, then tackle weaponset evades (primarily duration, and animation canceling aspects)

Actually I am of the mind that the weaponset fixes have to come first. Then we can see how they work with existing traits and adjust said traits. The reason for this is I see weaponset changes as more permanent.

That all said I have my own ideas on fixes to acro some very close to your own and while all traitlines in some need of work Acro is the one needing the most attention.
Acro does have some base traits that are really quite good. The issue is those second and third choices just do not stack up. This means of course if any of your proposed changes adopted one has to look at the existing traits and see if they would still be used. (Ie I sort of think the change to pain response woould make it a must have and Fleet shadow and vigorous recovery would fall to the wayside)

I think I can live with the vigor nerf and I really do prefer the idea of more active proc type traits especially those that synergize with existing weapon skills or other traits.

i very much like this list. doubt a dev would even see this tho.

babazhook.6805:

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

I think added to any changes to the acro line is that the evades we get from the weaponsets have to be looked at. 1/4 on a DB is just not enough to be a reliable evade just as example which in turn leads to the user just hoping it would kick in.

A ranger gets a full 1 sec evade on one of their AA chains (greatsword) and this not seen as OP. All weaponset evades on the Thief side cost Ini so are not just going to be spammed.

If this happens the proc on evades from the line become more reliable.

I agree, but that’s a separate topic. We should design a functioning Acro first, then tackle weaponset evades (primarily duration, and animation canceling aspects)

Actually I am of the mind that the weaponset fixes have to come first. Then we can see how they work with existing traits and adjust said traits. The reason for this is I see weaponset changes as more permanent.

Acro’s current design gains very little from actually evading attacks in comparison to my proposed changes. Having functioning weapon evades was assumed in my changes, because if weapon evades are unchanged even my changes don’t make acro much better. However without my changes, functioning weapon evades just don’t bring much to the table, which is why I wanted to focus on Acro changes, though I suppose they’re equally important (IE, thief needs both for either to be truly effective).

That all said I have my own ideas on fixes to acro some very close to your own and while all traitlines in some need of work Acro is the one needing the most attention.
Acro does have some base traits that are really quite good. The issue is those second and third choices just do not stack up. This means of course if any of your proposed changes adopted one has to look at the existing traits and see if they would still be used. (Ie I sort of think the change to pain response woould make it a must have and Fleet shadow and vigorous recovery would fall to the wayside)

I agree that PR is probably the obvious choice for adept tier, but that’s a minor issue tbh. ALOT of thief traits have “obvious winners” in their tier, and this was just a first pass. Other traits can always be tweaked further once we have a functioning acrobatics line.

I think I can live with the vigor nerf and I really do prefer the idea of more active proc type traits especially those that synergize with existing weapon skills or other traits.

Exactly. I’m fine if Anets stance is “Constant evading is not fun to play against”, they just need to introduce other options. IMO, rewarding a player with defensive buffs/effects when they skillfully apply active defense is the best way to do so.

I’ve had this idea for a mechanic:

If you hit an enemy from the back or the side while your endurance is not full, enemy fields can not apply damage or conditions to you for 2s (ICD 2s).

I guess you could also attach it to Flanking Strike to make it more Acro/SD flavored, but maybe it would be too specific then…

Yes they have to keep in mind that taking healing power as a thief wont ever be worth it when it comes to designig heal-scaling traits.
I think chaos armor wouldnt make any sense nor perma resistance and stability but the main principle u have that there should be a lot better on evade procs i can very much relate to.

Kicker.8203:

Yes they have to keep in mind that taking healing power as a thief wont ever be worth it when it comes to designig heal-scaling traits.
I think chaos armor wouldnt make any sense nor perma resistance and stability but the main principle u have that there should be a lot better on evade procs i can very much relate to.

I agree on chaos armor not making a whole ton of sense. Unfortunately, with the way they designed Guarded initiation, I couldn’t think of much else. Functionally, it works – it slightly penalizes opponents for hitting you, while slightly benefiting you – it’s a defensive mechanic that’s not just more of “Dodge, blind or stealth”.

I disagree about “perma” resistance/stability. Yeah, looking at the numbers you can say permanent stability/resistance/protection is possible, but not really. Best case scenario, you’re generating a dodge worth of endurance every 6 seconds, and you’re spending init on things other than flanking strike/disabling shot. If you’re dodging an attack every 2 seconds, you’re going to be out of tricks in 10-15 seconds, leaving you without a way to take advantage of the acro line. Instead, you’ll probably dodge a big attack, then let your buffs tank a few shots before dodging again.

IMO, you have to take into account how S/D thief works – it’s damage is slow and steady, without much in the way of burst, and even with Mug and Pain Response you don’t have much in the way of healing sustain. The numbers might need some slight tweaking, but you should be able to keep up defensive buffs most of the time in between your dodges. Maybe reduce the duration to 2s?

First I am diametrically opposed to removing the heal attribute trait compnent from ANY on heal effect including assassins reward. That it does not scale well is not a reason to remove it.

There a topic in the general section dealing with how underwhelming the attribute healing is for a number of classes and suggesting ways to make it better. I think this should apply to all classes for the pruposes of diversity. I do not think it does the Thief any good to simply ignore all the gear and runes out there that have healing as one of the attributes as this limits choice.

YES most thieves will choose to go for more damge over healing which is how it should be but that does not mean healing should be ignored or mean nothing for those that choose to add this to their build.

Stop whining about swindler’s equilibrium.
It’s awesome.

edit -

Dont Stop: After successfully evading an attack, gain Protection, Resistance, and Stability for 3s. 2s ICD.

What the hell man, god mode much ?
Come on, vigorous recovery is useless because of feline grace, guarded initiation has a too stupid high hp cap to mean anything, that i agree. Rest of the acro line is pretty decent.

These are my own suggestions to fixing the Acrobatics line. I will start with GM traits.

Assassins reward. Boost the base heal by 20 percent. Boost the portion coming from Healing by 60 percent. Thus base heal per ini will go to 84. Healing for a person with 300 healing will add another 24 for a 108 heal per ini from the current 84 per ini.

Don’t Stop. The effectiveness of Chiiled and Crippled is decreased by 66 percent rather then 50 percent. This means that swiftness and the 25 percent movement boost from the Signet and or runes will both give mobility slightly higher than base even when chilled or crippled.

Upper hand. Lower cooldown to 2 seconds. Add to the trait On successful evade gain one stack of Vitality, One stack of vitality will be equal to 20 Vitality. It will cap at 15 stacks and be lost when downed.

This in essence is applied fortitude albeit harder to get and can add a potential of 3000 health to the thief at maximum stacks which is what was lost by removing Vitality from the traitline. I would also add a slow degeneration to these stacks wherein one stack lost every 30 seconds when out of combat. (I think building these stacks in combat will be fun)

We then have a choice of being more “robust” via evades while in Combat via upper hand, one of having more sustain via the tuned up assassins reward which will better reward the healing attribute and one where higher uptime on battlefield mobility taken instead.

Suggestions for major traits .

Hard to Catch. Remains as is.

Guarded Initiation. Add torment to the conditions cleansed. Lower the threshold to 75 percent health from 90.

Swindlers equilibrium. Add to the “when using sword” gain 5 endurance when successfully evading an attack.

Since Anet gutted Thief’s ability to might stack, a good Acro fix IMO would be to reintroduce some might stacking ability. Prepatch SA/Acro together could maintain 10+ might stacks. So something like Upper Hand could be buffed to give 3 might stacks on evade or something in addition to the ini.

Another change I would like to see is some way to get vitality. Just make Assassin’s Reward add 300 vit and keep the healing as-is.

Suggestions for Adept traits.

Pain response; Remains as is..

Fleet shadow. Becomes superspeed while in stealth.

Vigorous recovery. If workable I like the suggestion it add Vigor based on the CD of the heal used.

Change to Minor traits.

Expeditious dodger ; Increase swiftness to 4 seconds on dodge.

Feline grace . Remains as is with latest fix.

Endless Stamina. Remains as is .

muscarine.5136:

Stop whining about swindler’s equilibrium.
It’s awesome.

No, empirically, it isn’t. It’s a middling trait at best, and severely limited.

edit -

Dont Stop: After successfully evading an attack, gain Protection, Resistance, and Stability for 3s. 2s ICD.

What the hell man, god mode much ?

Think about it before you dismiss it. Thief isn’t Ele or Guardian – our lowest-in-the-game HP pool isn’t mitigated by amazing access to heals, great condi cleanse or plentiful blocks AND S/D doesn’t do the kind of burst damage a class missing all those things needs to actually drop targets. All my suggested does is lessen the damage in between dodges, which Thief needs because it can’t block,isn’t going to regenerate a whole ton of healing mid fight, can’t cleanse a condi bomb, and does slow and steady damage. Dont just look at the boons and go “OMG OP” without putting any thought into it.

babazhook.6805:

These are my own suggestions to fixing the Acrobatics line. I will start with GM traits.

Assassins reward. Boost the base heal by 20 percent. Boost the portion coming from Healing by 60 percent. Thus base heal per ini will go to 84. Healing for a person with 300 healing will add another 24 for a 108 heal per ini from the current 84 per ini.

This leaves us with a GM trait that’s worse than base regeneration – not much for a GM trait. In 3 years, there has never been a thief spec that could fit healing power into it, it’s time to give up that dream.

Don’t Stop. The effectiveness of Chiiled and Crippled is decreased by 66 percent rather then 50 percent. This means that swiftness and the 25 percent movement boost from the Signet and or runes will both give mobility slightly higher than base even when chilled or crippled.

How much does S/D thief gain from this? Between IR and withdraw, this trait is massively undervalued – again, not at all fitting a GM trait.

Upper hand. Lower cooldown to 2 seconds. Add to the trait On successful evade gain one stack of Vitality, One stack of vitality will be equal to 20 Vitality. It will cap at 15 stacks and be lost when downed.

This in essence is applied fortitude albeit harder to get and can add a potential of 3000 health to the thief at maximum stacks which is what was lost by removing Vitality from the traitline. I would also add a slow degeneration to these stacks wherein one stack lost every 30 seconds when out of combat. (I think building these stacks in combat will be fun)

Lacking the healing capacity of other classes, the extra vitality means little, and 1 init every 2 seconds does nothing to alleviate S/D thief’s problems, which are a lack of survivability due to reduced dodge capacity on a set that does sustain damage rather than burst damage.

roamzero.9486:

Since Anet gutted Thief’s ability to might stack, a good Acro fix IMO would be to reintroduce some might stacking ability. Prepatch SA/Acro together could maintain 10+ might stacks. So something like Upper Hand could be buffed to give 3 might stacks on evade or something in addition to the ini.

Another change I would like to see is some way to get vitality. Just make Assassin’s Reward add 300 vit and keep the healing as-is.

They removed the might stacking for a reason – the same reason they changed the GM minor trait for both Acro and SA – they don’t want defensive traitlines contributing meaningfully to damage.

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

These are my own suggestions to fixing the Acrobatics line. I will start with GM traits.

Assassins reward. Boost the base heal by 20 percent. Boost the portion coming from Healing by 60 percent. Thus base heal per ini will go to 84. Healing for a person with 300 healing will add another 24 for a 108 heal per ini from the current 84 per ini.

This leaves us with a GM trait that’s worse than base regeneration – not much for a GM trait. In 3 years, there has never been a thief spec that could fit healing power into it, it’s time to give up that dream.

Don’t Stop. The effectiveness of Chiiled and Crippled is decreased by 66 percent rather then 50 percent. This means that swiftness and the 25 percent movement boost from the Signet and or runes will both give mobility slightly higher than base even when chilled or crippled.

How much does S/D thief gain from this? Between IR and withdraw, this trait is massively undervalued – again, not at all fitting a GM trait.

Upper hand. Lower cooldown to 2 seconds. Add to the trait On successful evade gain one stack of Vitality, One stack of vitality will be equal to 20 Vitality. It will cap at 15 stacks and be lost when downed.

This in essence is applied fortitude albeit harder to get and can add a potential of 3000 health to the thief at maximum stacks which is what was lost by removing Vitality from the traitline. I would also add a slow degeneration to these stacks wherein one stack lost every 30 seconds when out of combat. (I think building these stacks in combat will be fun)

Lacking the healing capacity of other classes, the extra vitality means little, and 1 init every 2 seconds does nothing to alleviate S/D thief’s problems, which are a lack of survivability due to reduced dodge capacity on a set that does sustain damage rather than burst damage.

The extra vitality means little? You obviously do not play in WvW where the thief goes out of his way to get those stacks for that extra health because of how much they add to survival.

Our healing did not go up since the major patch and people wqere taking Practiced tolerance and traiting into Acro just to get extra health.

Virtually every build out there now has Vlakyrie added as e means of getting extra vitality this with the thives lower healing.

babazhook.6805:

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

These are my own suggestions to fixing the Acrobatics line. I will start with GM traits.

Assassins reward. Boost the base heal by 20 percent. Boost the portion coming from Healing by 60 percent. Thus base heal per ini will go to 84. Healing for a person with 300 healing will add another 24 for a 108 heal per ini from the current 84 per ini.

This leaves us with a GM trait that’s worse than base regeneration – not much for a GM trait. In 3 years, there has never been a thief spec that could fit healing power into it, it’s time to give up that dream.

Don’t Stop. The effectiveness of Chiiled and Crippled is decreased by 66 percent rather then 50 percent. This means that swiftness and the 25 percent movement boost from the Signet and or runes will both give mobility slightly higher than base even when chilled or crippled.

How much does S/D thief gain from this? Between IR and withdraw, this trait is massively undervalued – again, not at all fitting a GM trait.

Upper hand. Lower cooldown to 2 seconds. Add to the trait On successful evade gain one stack of Vitality, One stack of vitality will be equal to 20 Vitality. It will cap at 15 stacks and be lost when downed.

This in essence is applied fortitude albeit harder to get and can add a potential of 3000 health to the thief at maximum stacks which is what was lost by removing Vitality from the traitline. I would also add a slow degeneration to these stacks wherein one stack lost every 30 seconds when out of combat. (I think building these stacks in combat will be fun)

Lacking the healing capacity of other classes, the extra vitality means little, and 1 init every 2 seconds does nothing to alleviate S/D thief’s problems, which are a lack of survivability due to reduced dodge capacity on a set that does sustain damage rather than burst damage.

The extra vitality means little? You obviously do not play in WvW where the thief goes out of his way to get those stacks for that extra health because of how much they add to survival.

No, I’m only interested in PvP, the mode in which the game is balanced on. I’m not concerned how “balanced” something is in a fundamentally unbalanced game mode.

Our healing did not go up since the major patch and people wqere taking Practiced tolerance and traiting into Acro just to get extra health.

This was before marauders gave you ~17k health. Also, nobody in PvP was going acro “Just for the extra health”, and practiced tolerance was taken due to the kittenpoor competition in the slot that it was in.

Virtually every build out there now has Vlakyrie added as e means of getting extra vitality this with the thives lower healing.

Which no thief would ever be caught dead with in PvP.

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

evilapprentice.6379:

babazhook.6805:

These are my own suggestions to fixing the Acrobatics line. I will start with GM traits.

Assassins reward. Boost the base heal by 20 percent. Boost the portion coming from Healing by 60 percent. Thus base heal per ini will go to 84. Healing for a person with 300 healing will add another 24 for a 108 heal per ini from the current 84 per ini.

This leaves us with a GM trait that’s worse than base regeneration – not much for a GM trait. In 3 years, there has never been a thief spec that could fit healing power into it, it’s time to give up that dream.

Don’t Stop. The effectiveness of Chiiled and Crippled is decreased by 66 percent rather then 50 percent. This means that swiftness and the 25 percent movement boost from the Signet and or runes will both give mobility slightly higher than base even when chilled or crippled.

How much does S/D thief gain from this? Between IR and withdraw, this trait is massively undervalued – again, not at all fitting a GM trait.

Upper hand. Lower cooldown to 2 seconds. Add to the trait On successful evade gain one stack of Vitality, One stack of vitality will be equal to 20 Vitality. It will cap at 15 stacks and be lost when downed.

This in essence is applied fortitude albeit harder to get and can add a potential of 3000 health to the thief at maximum stacks which is what was lost by removing Vitality from the traitline. I would also add a slow degeneration to these stacks wherein one stack lost every 30 seconds when out of combat. (I think building these stacks in combat will be fun)

Lacking the healing capacity of other classes, the extra vitality means little, and 1 init every 2 seconds does nothing to alleviate S/D thief’s problems, which are a lack of survivability due to reduced dodge capacity on a set that does sustain damage rather than burst damage.

The extra vitality means little? You obviously do not play in WvW where the thief goes out of his way to get those stacks for that extra health because of how much they add to survival.

No, I’m only interested in PvP, the mode in which the game is balanced on.

Our healing did not go up since the major patch and people wqere taking Practiced tolerance and traiting into Acro just to get extra health.

This was before marauders gave you ~17k health. * Also, nobody in PvP was going acro “Just for the extra health”*, and practiced tolerance was taken due to the kittenpoor competition in the slot that it was in.

Virtually every build out there now has Vlakyrie added as e means of getting extra vitality this with the thives lower healing.

Which no thief would ever be caught dead with in PvP.

Can confirm. I was 3 into acro to pick up FG to make up for the weaknesses of D/D. With the health attached to the amulet and the poor active defense provided by the line now, there’s little reason to trait into it. Adding more passive defensive locked behind active defense is sorta boring. In WvW you’d see a bunch of thieves outside spawn dodging wolves to build stacks.

As to assasins reward you are too focused on the meta. Lots of theives have fit healing into their builds. IP has become more widely used just for the healing. While this predicated on getting Crits and healing attribute is not an issue that it chosen shows how important healing is.

Assassins reward boosted as I suggested wherein one gets translates to an extra 864 heal on an unload. It means using SOM one will get a total health of 1176+864 from the trait and heal. Assassins reward is not intended as a standalone heal that will allow one to survive battles. It best used with a build that maximizes other sources.

An Unload using IP , SOM and Assassins reward on a typical crit based power build will see 1176+864+ 800 in healing if not more. A simple death Blossom using leeching Venoms, against two targets and using the proposed AR will see 2310+416+882 in healing if using SOM and Areward with base heal of 300.

When you want to make a build that focuses on sustain you do not just pick one trait that brings in health and expect kitten be adequate.

Acrobatics is not intended for s/d only. Were I s/d I would choose Pain response, Swindlers equlibrium and upper hand. Were i d/d i would choose other skills entirely.

If your only interest is PvP and you want traits that help only PvP then you should expect to fail as there three game modes. ANET will not design skills around PvP only.

If Vitality of no use to a thief due to poor healing why on earth are you all taking the Maruaders amulet then?

When you state “we have less need for vitality because of the marauders amulet” you have just contradicted the claim that Vitality is of no use in a thief build due to poor healing. With another source of Vitality you just might find less pressure to take marauders amulets.

I would rather we had a game where we saw more diverse builds and not one where just the existing meta builds are enhanced.

babazhook.6805:

As to assasins reward you are too focused on the meta. Lots of theives have fit healing into their builds. IP has become more widely used just for the healing. While this predicated on getting Crits and healing attribute is not an issue that it chosen shows how important healing is.

I’m too focused on what works? I currently use IP – it’s actually functional in the new patch. I never said anything about healing, just healing power, which pointing out IP has nothing to do with.

Assassins reward boosted as I suggested wherein one gets translates to an extra 864 heal on an unload. It means using SOM one will get a total health of 1176+864 from the trait and heal. Assassins reward is not intended as a standalone heal that will allow one to survive battles. It best used with a build that maximizes other sources.

An Unload using IP , SOM and Assassins reward on a typical crit based power build will see 1176+864+ 800 in healing if not more. A simple death Blossom using leeching Venoms, against two targets and using the proposed AR will see 2310+416+882 in healing if using SOM and Areward with base heal of 300.

If AR was strong enough to stand on its own 2 feet, you wouldn’t need to include SoM (which no one uses) and IP into the calculations to make it look good. Nobody in PvP will ever use deathblossom, because D/D is an underpowered set. None of what you’re saying is relevant to a discussion about acro in PvP.

When you want to make a build that focuses on sustain you do not just pick one trait that brings in health and expect kitten be adequate.

Acrobatics is not intended for s/d only. Were I s/d I would choose Pain response, Swindlers equlibrium and upper hand. Were i d/d i would choose other skills entirely.

If your only interest is PvP and you want traits that help only PvP then you should expect to fail as there three game modes. ANET will not design skills around PvP only.

No one is asking anet to design things around PvP only. What I want is for them to be balanced around PvP only, which is exactly what they are already do.
Also, Acrobatics is currently only for S/D, because D/D is a silly underpowered set with a condition damage skill smack dab in the middle of a bunch of power moves.

If you don’t agree with me that’s fine, but please don’t derail the thread with a separate discussion that has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.

>>I’m too focused on what works? I currently use IP – it’s actually functional in the new patch. I never said anything about healing, just healing power, which pointing out IP has nothing to do with.

As i have pointed out there an entire category on the weakness of healing power in the general topic. The solution to this is not to remove any traits that use healing power as part of thier formula, it is to enhance what healing power does for that trait.

Alright than . You want people that just agree with you on the thread. You should let that be known up front and I will not bother posting in such threads.

have a nice day.

babazhook.6805:

As to assasins reward you are too focused on the meta. Lots of theives have fit healing into their builds. IP has become more widely used just for the healing. While this predicated on getting Crits and healing attribute is not an issue that it chosen shows how important healing is.

Assassins reward boosted as I suggested wherein one gets translates to an extra 864 heal on an unload. It means using SOM one will get a total health of 1176+864 from the trait and heal. Assassins reward is not intended as a standalone heal that will allow one to survive battles. It best used with a build that maximizes other sources.

An Unload using IP , SOM and Assassins reward on a typical crit based power build will see 1176+864+ 800 in healing if not more. A simple death Blossom using leeching Venoms, against two targets and using the proposed AR will see 2310+416+882 in healing if using SOM and Areward with base heal of 300.

When you want to make a build that focuses on sustain you do not just pick one trait that brings in health and expect kitten be adequate.

Acrobatics is not intended for s/d only. Were I s/d I would choose Pain response, Swindlers equlibrium and upper hand. Were i d/d i would choose other skills entirely.

If your only interest is PvP and you want traits that help only PvP then you should expect to fail as there three game modes. ANET will not design skills around PvP only.

Do you think the nerf to FG was based on WvW or PvE? The problem with the line now is that they assumed you had S/D when they made the changes. If you watched the stream where they mentioned that they could track evasions now, they mentioned that weapon evades counted towards it. The problem is that over half the weapon combos available have poor or no evades tied to them. Realistically S/P wasn’t being used that often in combination with the acro line in PvE or PvP, so they nerfed the line around S/D in PvP. They do a lot of general balancing around PvP because you can directly compare the strengths and weaknesses of classes versus each other. WvW is not something that can be balanced around because anyone, at any level, in any gear, can go there. Normalized gear with a limited selection of stats and no consumable buffs is really the only thing you can directly balance around.

evilapprentice.6379:

roamzero.9486:

Since Anet gutted Thief’s ability to might stack, a good Acro fix IMO would be to reintroduce some might stacking ability. Prepatch SA/Acro together could maintain 10+ might stacks. So something like Upper Hand could be buffed to give 3 might stacks on evade or something in addition to the ini.

Another change I would like to see is some way to get vitality. Just make Assassin’s Reward add 300 vit and keep the healing as-is.

They removed the might stacking for a reason – the same reason they changed the GM minor trait for both Acro and SA – they don’t want defensive traitlines contributing meaningfully to damage.

Almost all defensive traitlines in the game (minus Thief) have traits that can contribute to damage, unless you are implying that the devs are singling out Thief by design (and hence why almost no one is taking Acro and SA is pales itself in comparison to what it was).

roamzero.9486:

evilapprentice.6379:

roamzero.9486:

Since Anet gutted Thief’s ability to might stack, a good Acro fix IMO would be to reintroduce some might stacking ability. Prepatch SA/Acro together could maintain 10+ might stacks. So something like Upper Hand could be buffed to give 3 might stacks on evade or something in addition to the ini.

Another change I would like to see is some way to get vitality. Just make Assassin’s Reward add 300 vit and keep the healing as-is.

They removed the might stacking for a reason – the same reason they changed the GM minor trait for both Acro and SA – they don’t want defensive traitlines contributing meaningfully to damage.

Almost all defensive traitlines in the game (minus Thief) have traits that can contribute to damage, unless you are implying that the devs are singling out Thief by design (and hence why almost no one is taking Acro and SA is pales itself in comparison to what it was).

Regardless what other classes got, it seems that Anet fully intended for thieves defensive lines to not contribute to damage at all, since they pulled every single trait (minor and major) that might have contributed to damage from both SA and Acro.

This is fine, assuming that they took into account this goal in the other lines (debatable, but in a separate thread). I’m personally fine with both SA and Acro offering no damage as long as they offer realistic and effective sustain, which currently neither line offers.

My design for Acro might not be perfect, but it offers realistic sustain for the thief that isn’t based around “Stealth, evade, blind”, like everything else is, and Anet has made it clear that it doesn’t want thief evading as much as it did prepatch (and as a bonus, they nerfed blind access even before the most recent patch).

I’d like to see meaningful changes to Guarded initiation and Upper hand really, the latter I don’t think is useful with the current 3s cd. Master and GM traits are a bit mediocre really, besides HtC.

evilapprentice.6379:

Dont Stop: After successfully evading an attack, gain Protection, Resistance, and Stability for 3s. 2s ICD.

No, Dont Stop is working as intended leave the way it is. and perhaps you guys still didnt notice there is a upcoming Specialization called The Reaper. i refuse to sink my D/D build when the said specialization comes and i am against all this changes on Acrobatics. thanks.