Guild Wars 2

So, in the next balance patch, ANet is going to try to make Assassin’s Equilibrium worthwhile by increasing the duration…but here’s my suggestion:

Grant stability when gaining stealth instead of when attacking from stealth. Also increase the duration to 3 seconds and give it something like a 10 second internal cooldown.

Why would this be worth taking? It would give thieves a solid stomp and would protect them from getting knocked out of SR.

Well that’d just be overpowered. The whole point of the trait is to make their revealed timer vulnerability less vulnerable so that a thief doesn’t just do a backstab and insta-die from quickly and heavily-focused CC lock. Thief already has one of the most reliable stomps in the game through using blinding utilities. Good use of smoke screen can pretty much guarantee a successful stomp. Conversely, you can also just use this new trait combined with mug and beginning the stomp from stealth such that for the first part of the stomp you’re invis and may simply not be hit, and then using mug will reveal you for the stability for the rest. A combination of the two will actually guarantee you a stomp on anyone, since the steal/mug teleport can let you move to a downed thief/mesmer during the stomp animation and let you pin them after they move.

i suggested giving stability when shadowstepping, with a 10 second cooldown. that way, it’s useful on all builds, not only stealth ones, and it’s not like stealth builds are going to put so many points into acro to begin with.

BrunoBRS.5178:

i suggested giving stability when shadowstepping, with a 10 second cooldown. that way, it’s useful on all builds, not only stealth ones, and it’s not like stealth builds are going to put so many points into acro to begin with.

Stability on teleport is what I would do as well, but 10s is too low. At least 15s.

The buff it received is fine, the problem is that other traits in this tree are still better.

Its the same with other traits in other trees, they buff them but just not enough so anyone would take them.

Auesis.7301:

BrunoBRS.5178:

i suggested giving stability when shadowstepping, with a 10 second cooldown. that way, it’s useful on all builds, not only stealth ones, and it’s not like stealth builds are going to put so many points into acro to begin with.

Stability on teleport is what I would do as well, but 10s is too low. At least 15s.

it’s not too low if it’s just 1.5 seconds for an acrobatics GM trait. that’s a 15% stability uptime for sword thieves, which is still pretty low.

but i don’t care about the numbers, because i can’t test it and see what would be better. what i don’t need testing for is knowing that the trait would be a very tantalizing option for any thief build (especially builds that already go 30 acro) if the trait was more general purpose. it would also allow thieves to use stability as a reaction to an incoming hit, rather than have it popping every time we get out of stealth and still not having access to on-demand stability.

Make it give protection for 3 seconds when attacking from stealth with an X (my suggestion is around 7) second ICD.

alchemyst.2165:

Make it give protection for 3 seconds when attacking from stealth with an X (my suggestion is around 7) second ICD.

i don’t know, i don’t really miss protection when playing thief, but not having a source of stability is really a weakness of the profession.

Make it like a mix between Pain Response and Last Stand: "Gain 8s stability and swiftness when struck while your health is below the threshold (stunbreak, 75% hp threshold, 60s CD). Then it will be worthy of being Grandmaster.
And let’s be honest here – even if they up the stability to 2s while revealed, the whole idea of having a stealth related thing in the Acrobatics traitline(and GM nonetheless) is flawed.

!. Don’t forget that we have Dagger Storm as stability skill.
2. The problem with this one is that it’s low compared to Shadow Rejuvenation in Shadow Arts. If I have to choose between a trait that heals 300hp each second while in stealth and this one I obviously choose the first as everyone here.
3. It should give stability when you’re in stealth for 2seconds and it will be fine? Why? You’re going to sacrifice another trait line where you have such things like Hidden Kille r, Sleight Of Hand or Shadow’s Rejuvenation to use this GRANDMASTER trait.

I don’t see problem with the trait being in acro line, not everything stealth related needs to be in one trait line, which to be honest is already very strong.

The issue for me with AE is that most of the time I don’t get bashed into head when I gain revealed. It’s either when I stealth that people start cc around like crazy or there is no stealth involved at all and I simply can’t/fail to dodge the hammer.

I believe this trait is meant to be high skill trait to use, ie, you anticipate cc incoming so you get yourself revealed. First, the skill cap on this to achieve good results is in somewhere on the same lines like telepathy. Second, many cc skills have rather low cd and getting myself revealed to counter cc, I simply reduce my dmg output as not all situations allow for a backstab as the mean to get revealed. To time backstab AND incoming cc counter at the same time, well, maybe the devs can do it consistenly and we all have to L2P.

Personally, I’d find protection on revealed a lot more useful than stability. Why? No need for some ultra high skill timing like with AE and it’d be actually helpful in a lot more situations. Stability won’t do anything if someone uses sic em and then delivers ranged dmg that can be just as high as backstab, except this one is channeled so teleports are useless unless you are already near ranger’s max range and the number of dodges in average build is not enough to avoid all the hits. Would protection help me in this situation? Most certainly yes.

Anet devs’ expectations in skill thieves should use to counter other classes resulted in a trait that gives too little for too much investment.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

I believe this trait is meant to be high skill trait to use, ie, you anticipate cc incoming so you get yourself revealed. First, the skill cap on this to achieve good results is in somewhere on the same lines like telepathy. Second, many cc skills have rather low cd and getting myself revealed to counter cc, I simply reduce my dmg output as not all situations allow for a backstab as the mean to get revealed. To time backstab AND incoming cc counter at the same time, well, maybe the devs can do it consistenly and we all have to L2P.

Dude, i read that statement many times now, but tell me HOW you want to predict incoming CC, if you cannot react instantly to it .
The problem is not the reveal, but the amount of time it takes unless you get there.

Either CnD or BP→HS combo require time to execute, you cannot time that , because on the high level of play your opponent is well aware of your abilities as well and would not waste / use any CC at that moment.

This trait might be nice to “stay” in a groupfight where you cannot spot every users ability, but the problem is, you dont want to be in there normally as a thief.

Perhaps as D/D condi build, but then again, you want to dodge everything.
This trait is really strange, would be nice to understand what the devs thought when introducing this.

Maybe to allow you to get your 1-2 heartseekers through after initial backstab, but most ppl dodge / block / invuln / blind whatever after the fist big hit.
How many professions have an instant CC they could use after you open on them ?

Easy fix to Assassin’s Equilibrium.

Completely scrap Last Refuge. Make Assassin’s Equilibrium the Shadow Arts 1-point minor. Make a completely new Acro GM trait that’s worth using.

Screw it, when the patch comes in I’m making a troll P/D build with perma stability. Let’s see how they like them apples.

Dakota.4591:

Easy fix to Assassin’s Equilibrium.

Completely scrap Last Refuge. Make Assassin’s Equilibrium the Shadow Arts 1-point minor. Make a completely new Acro GM trait that’s worth using.

I like that idea, but it might be a bit too strong for an adept minor trait. Maybe give it a small ICD

alchemyst.2165:

Dakota.4591:

Easy fix to Assassin’s Equilibrium.

Completely scrap Last Refuge. Make Assassin’s Equilibrium the Shadow Arts 1-point minor. Make a completely new Acro GM trait that’s worth using.

I like that idea, but it might be a bit too strong for an adept minor trait. Maybe give it a small ICD

make it the master minor on SA, move stealth duration to minor?

myeh, still like my shadowstep idea.

I did have a build that worked quite well using p/d and Aristocrat runes.

It was 2/0/6/6/0 condi build.

It was hybrid that had good power/condi damage with the might stacks it was able to keep up. In such a build there a lot of stealth and reveal so I can see it working there.

Perhaps it possible to get a boon duration build of 100 percent and get this up to 3 seconds ? Use all platinum doubloons and no runeset at all?

Go with 4/0/4/6/0 . You would give up damage potential to be sure but it close to permanent stability.

Well, I think I’ll be using assassin’s equilibrium on my p/d condi build (wvw). The trait isn’t great, but I think I’ll find it useful, especially for stomping. Right now I run 4/0/0/4/6, because the first 4 traits in acro are already great (especially combined with uncatchable), so Ill just move 2 from the power line into acro. 90% of my deaths seem to start with heavy CC. Now, most of the CC will probably still hit me as stability uptime won’t be high, but I think it’ll do me better than 9 seconds lower cooldown on basilik venom, and I also prefer to the other GM acro traits. I think its fine that a stealth trait is in the acro line, if it was a dodge-related GM trait it would be OP combined with feline grace + vigor access (+ dagger auto attack if using dagger).

Also is it getting buffed to 1.5s or 2s? Everybody is saying 2s, but does that include the 30% boon dration from 6 in acro line?

Why not just have it give a 2 second stability at the end of a dodge roll? I don’t know about you guys, but dodging giving me stability? I’d take that in a heartbeat.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Why not just have it give a 2 second stability at the end of a dodge roll? I don’t know about you guys, but dodging giving me stability? I’d take that in a heartbeat.

because thieves don’t have enough dodges, let’s make the dodges give stability!

you can’t be serious…

BrunoBRS.5178:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Why not just have it give a 2 second stability at the end of a dodge roll? I don’t know about you guys, but dodging giving me stability? I’d take that in a heartbeat.

because thieves don’t have enough dodges, let’s make the dodges give stability!

you can’t be serious…

I am, but that’s because it’s STILL a better idea than getting stability when you exit stealth. That’s making stealth reliance worse than usual. At least with the stability on dodge it would encourage active dodging.

alchemyst.2165:

Dakota.4591:

Easy fix to Assassin’s Equilibrium.

Completely scrap Last Refuge. Make Assassin’s Equilibrium the Shadow Arts 1-point minor. Make a completely new Acro GM trait that’s worth using.

I like that idea, but it might be a bit too strong for an adept minor trait. Maybe give it a small ICD

Remember, this is a stability that A) is significantly more difficult to pull off with timing than a skill that just applies it, like Balanced Stance or Mantra of Stability, and has such a short duration, even with the boost to it.

It would require pretty much a zero-latency connection and godly reaction times to be able to effectively use Assassin’s Equilibrium as a stability source to keep from getting stunned or interrupted by whatever. So no, I don’t think it’s the least bit overpowered for an adept minor trait. Add an ICD if it makes you happy, just remember that we’re talking about a stability that first you have to stealth, then land a hit, in order to activate, who’s duration is shorter than the amount of time it takes to activate the stealth then land the hit.