Guild Wars 2

If you think the thief could be much more, lacks special mechanics, or are just bored and want to write some crazy stuff, this is your thread. You’re free to go wild, no limits.

So, just for fun, how would you redesign the thief?

Few personal ideas to start the thread:

Idea 1 – Master of knives

Personally, I don’t like steal too much. It’s just a quick teleport that gives you some random skill (most of the time pretty forgettable). It’s just boring, design-wise, for the profession mechanic. It could be much more.

A thief should have many dirty tricks, and the mechanic bar is kinda wasted with no additional skills. So, what about some throwing knives?

The skills could be something like this:

• F1: Throw a knife. They don’t do a lot of damage. Consumes 1 initiative.
• F2: Shadowstep knife. Similar to steal. If the knife impacts, you shadowstep to the target. Consumes 3 initiative, but gives 6 in return if you successfully hit a target.
• F3: Fan of knives. Throws 5 knives in a cone. Consumes 5 initiative.

So yeah, but what is special about this? First of all, this system has a deep synergy with venoms, which now depend on weapon and slot skills. By being able to throw small knives easily, you can apply venom to any target, no matter your current weapon. Venoms could get multiple charges as well, to make them more engaging.

Traits would let you customize the knives easily, just like steal now. Also, some of the skills could be chains, changing the skill once you hit, so when you throw a few knives in a round, the skill effects change to reward you for successful hits.

The concept behind these knife skills could be too similar to some of the daredevil physical slot skills, which could need replacements. A good opportunity to focus more on martial arts for the daredevil, a theme that doesn’t reach its full potential now.

If you want to go further, the three slots, F1, F2, and F3, could be customized with a wide collection of different knives with different effects and aesthetics, or even different throwing objects, including shurikens, small smoke bombs, and such. Small tricks with more utility than damage, that wouldn’t really fit in the slot skill bar. The key would be to combine this not-so-powerful skills with the normal skills to make them even more deadlier.

Think of the engineer tool belt, but customizable, with weak but quick skills.

Idea 2 – Venom rework

Moved below to make space for links

Idea 3 – Dual wield revamp

Moved below to make space for links

Just some random ideas to begin the thread. Waiting for yours!

…

Full list of redesign threads:

Elementalist – Mesmer – Necromancer

Engineer – Ranger – Thief

Guardian – Revenant – Warrior

I’d just first merge the Daredevil into the Thief, that thing is not worth it to be called an Elite Specialization.

• I’d make Staff and Offhand Sword part of the Core Thief Weapons.
• Merge old DD Traits with Acrobatics or baseline them into the core gameplay of the Thief where it fits, like giving Thieves baseline 3 Endurance Bars and baseline with F3 Dodge Styles
• Rebalance and merge all Thief Skills and Traits where neccessary to remove obsolete Skills/Traits to make space for new ones that help giving the class more Build Diversity.
  —-

- Physical Supremacy = Baselined into Core Thief
- Brawlers Tenacy = Merged with Signets of Power, renamed to “Signets of Fury”.
On activation of Signets you gain Might and the next used Physicals let you regain Endurance and recharge 20% faster as long the Skill is on recharge.
- Havoc Mastery = Baselined as Bonus to Staff, if you hit more than 1 enemy at the same time with the staff
- Weakening Strikes = Merged with Sundering Strikes, renamed to “Fatiguing Strikes”, Critical Hits on enemies cause Weakness & Vulnerability on 50/50 chance.
- Driven Fortitude = Merged with Feline Grace, Name stays as Feline Grace
- Escapists Absolution = Merged with Guarded Initiation
- Impacting Disruption = Merged with Sleight of Hand
- Staff Master = Merged with Dagger Training, renamed to “Melee Training”
- Endurance Thief = Merged with Endless Stamina
- The Three Grandmaster Traits reworked into F3 Skills you can choose out when out of combat, which Dodge Style you want to use.
you can choose then between the 6 Styles “Dash, Bound, Lotus, Shadow, Warp & Smoke”

Dash = You gain for a brief moment Super Speed and reflect in that time projectiles back to the origin while removing moment impairing Conditions (Cripple, Chill), works also as Stun Breaker when you got your Break Bar broken and got knocked down due to that.
Bound = Deal AoE Damage at your Target location of the Dodge. Your Dodges become Ground Targeted.
Lotus = AoE Conditions (Cripple, Slow & Poison)
Shadow = Gain Stealth on Dodge for 4s & create a Shadow Clone that attacks foes with Distracting Daggers. The Attacks of the Shadow Clonme won’t reveal, the Clone disappears automatically when you get out of Stealth. Killed Shadow Clones will slightly heal you, while you are still in Stealth.
Warp = Shadow Step to the last location you were just 5 seconds ago and take up to 2 enemies with you to that location if they were at that moment in your adjacent near.
Smoke = Throw a Smokebomb to create blinding smoke walls that also can block projectiles for a longer time and can be used as blind fields for AoE Combos

Thats the first step I’d do with the Thief and add then as Elite Specializations the Rogue, Saboteur, Infiltrator, Assassin & Gambler

Rogue = Longbow > Focus on Boon Support, Range Combat, Trap Control, Debuffing
Saboteur = Torches > Focus on Burning/Confusion, Manipulations, Boon Corruption, AoE Damage
Infiltrator = Whip > Focus on Stealth, Mobility, Movement Control, Midrange Combat
Assassin = Claws > Martial Arts, Venoms, Shadow Walks, Counterattacks & Combos
Gambler = Focus > Shadow Spells, Luck & Tarot Cards, Critical Effects, Dices with Random Effects

Absolute honesty?

Reset the profession to pre-Specializations. We thus get back everything we had before when we were actually good and not just a stand-in for other classes that weren’t in the party.

fluffdragon.1523:

Absolute honesty?

Reset the profession to pre-Specializations. We thus get back everything we had before when we were actually good and not just a stand-in for other classes that weren’t in the party.

Hate to break it to you, but the thief was way worse pre-HoT. Daredevil carries the profession so hard it’s ridiculous, even with the power creep on others.

Though I’d rather see no-elites than they are as currently. The game’s just not fun to play really.

one buff i really like to see to thief just simple trip wire buff make it a 4 second ward that knock down up to 10 people.

1. Stealth button on demand like we have Steal – really sad thieves don’t have reliable stealth button and stealth is supposed to be their thing.
2. Make P/P less boring. So much room there to make it really awesome and they failed so hard on this weaponset.
3. Add 4th and 5th skill to every weapon when one-wielding so we can use only one dagger for example.
4. Switch and tune some skills in specialisation trees. I mean, when 100% of thieves run Trickery and 0.1% runs Acro you know something is wrong. Basic stuff!
5. 15k HP baseline. Thieves are supposed to be fit and fast. I think they are much more qualified than silly mesmers for bigger HP pool. Necros I shouldn’t even mention…
6. Delete warriors.

DeceiverX.8361:

Hate to break it to you, but the thief was way worse pre-HoT. Daredevil carries the profession so hard it’s ridiculous, even with the power creep on others.

The thief’s big nerf came with the trait rework when they removed stats from trait lines and forced builds into taking entire trait lines rather than partial ones. Prior to that (first couple years) thieves were a serious force particularly in duels and a lot more fun to play. The Dare Devil line brought back some of that feel but added a ton of strong builds in other classes to contend with.

Straegen.2938:

DeceiverX.8361:

Hate to break it to you, but the thief was way worse pre-HoT. Daredevil carries the profession so hard it’s ridiculous, even with the power creep on others.

The thief’s big nerf came with the trait rework when they removed stats from trait lines and forced builds into taking entire trait lines rather than partial ones. Prior to that (first couple years) thieves were a serious force particularly in duels and a lot more fun to play. The Dare Devil line brought back some of that feel but added a ton of strong builds in other classes to contend with.

+1, because kittening THIS.

I’ve been upset about it for a good year now and have been fighting to recover a build that can no longer be done because it was both removed from the game and made less viable because of stat splitting.

I lost 300 Vitality, 7% Precision to Vitality, endurance-on-dodge, and boatloads of swiftness that helped me kite around foes and deal with 1v3 fights against tougher mobs with relative ease. And that’s just from the old Acrobatics line. And then there was Shadow Arts which gave me even more defenses for a dual-dagger build with blind-on-stealth and longer stealth duration (and some 50 Toughness and Healing Power, I believe) which made breaking combat for more viable. Now it’s either re-gear my thief and hope to make ends meet by undercutting my primary force of healing (Invigorating Precision), or grind the disaster zone that is HoT and try to find the ebony orbs needed to make a full Marauder set.

And while I may run Daredevil for the damage and durability boosts, it feels like I’m just taking “the rest of Acrobatics.” Not a new trait line, but one that I had before they turned it into a half-baked husk of itself. I might not PvP (I am seriously bad at it regardless of game), but it’s a shame that the “build diversity” we were promised turned into “Daredevil or bust.”

I’d start by removing the initiative system. As long as thief skills use the initiative system, thief can and will NEVER be balanced properly.

fluffdragon.1523:

Straegen.2938:

DeceiverX.8361:

Hate to break it to you, but the thief was way worse pre-HoT. Daredevil carries the profession so hard it’s ridiculous, even with the power creep on others.

The thief’s big nerf came with the trait rework when they removed stats from trait lines and forced builds into taking entire trait lines rather than partial ones. Prior to that (first couple years) thieves were a serious force particularly in duels and a lot more fun to play. The Dare Devil line brought back some of that feel but added a ton of strong builds in other classes to contend with.

+1, because kittening THIS.

I’ve been upset about it for a good year now and have been fighting to recover a build that can no longer be done because it was both removed from the game and made less viable because of stat splitting.

I lost 300 Vitality, 7% Precision to Vitality, endurance-on-dodge, and boatloads of swiftness that helped me kite around foes and deal with 1v3 fights against tougher mobs with relative ease. And that’s just from the old Acrobatics line. And then there was Shadow Arts which gave me even more defenses for a dual-dagger build with blind-on-stealth and longer stealth duration (and some 50 Toughness and Healing Power, I believe) which made breaking combat for more viable. Now it’s either re-gear my thief and hope to make ends meet by undercutting my primary force of healing (Invigorating Precision), or grind the disaster zone that is HoT and try to find the ebony orbs needed to make a full Marauder set.

And while I may run Daredevil for the damage and durability boosts, it feels like I’m just taking “the rest of Acrobatics.” Not a new trait line, but one that I had before they turned it into a half-baked husk of itself. I might not PvP (I am seriously bad at it regardless of game), but it’s a shame that the “build diversity” we were promised turned into “Daredevil or bust.”

The stats are all recoverable; change a few pieces of armor to compensate, and this even includes non-HoT content; you were at strictly lower stats elsewhere beforehand since they increased the stats on weapons and armor proportionately to the loss of stats from traits. Based on your post it sounds like you played D/D CS/SA/Tr before in which case you’d be up 300 power in DPS-oriented gear and are probably with more ferocity and precision/crit chance. My stat spread is actually strictly better with the stat decoupling from traits; I have more of everything than before. Odds are other professions with trait lines that didn’t provide much in terms of stats (like 300 healing power) are just functioning relatively better with more obscure builds than before since they’re no longer taking a huge stat loss for good trait investment.

PT I’ll give you, and I do think the change was rather aimless, probably to offset the nerf to critical damage output with the ferocity change. That said, it’s avoidable via Valkyrie/Marauder gear in a few spots, and will leave you off better than before in 90% of cases.

Old Acro with old S/D was overpowered prior to HoT in the state the game was at the time. Sad truth. Daredevil just amplifies it and is bad design, something I’ll also not deny. That said, the thief/daredevil is still plenty viable in 1v1’s in all formats, and Daredevil makes fighting a wider breadth of professions much easier overall and is much harder to shut down than the old Acro build.

Thieves are less durable in SA because the healing got nerfed on Rejuv and the line is missing its secondary +300 healing power (something you’re coincidentally not complaining about) which you could have specced into. However, in the old state of the game, SA did way too much and covered terrible players, similarly to how Daredevil does in most cases these days.

D/D – and OH dagger in general – just sucks because of the state of the game. I’m a D/D power main (or was before I rerolled with the stealth attack ICD) so I feel you, but the decoupling of stats from traits is not to blame for this; the powercreep from HoT and the stealth attack ICD are.

You could easily rebuild your old build, exactly as it was before. It doesn’t mean it’ll be any good because the rest of the game is powercreeped and D/D generally is a worthless piece-of-trash weapon combo for power now thanks to terrible profession design and the stealth attack ICD.

Moved content from the main post to make space for links to the other redesign threads:

…

Idea 2 – Venom rework

Venoms are a pretty cool theme, but they aren’t very engaging or exciting. They kinda fall flat. Other professions do similar things, better and easier.

This idea is simple in concept: Make venoms apply directly to initiative.

Then, once you spend that initiative, with whatever skill you spend it with, the venom effect is applied, multiplied by the initiative spent. So, for example, Spider Venom. You apply it, and now you have a venom effect of 15 stacks. Autoattack skills consume 1, and the rest consume their initiative cost, multiplying the effect (previously adjusted for balance purposes).

An alternative is to make venoms apply an effect for a few seconds, and keep it up no matter how many times you hit enemies while it is active.

Idea 3 – Dual wield revamp

The current dual wield model gives an unique #3 skill depending on the main-hand and the off-hand weapon. However, this can be problematic in the long term, for you need to create new skills for every combination, and each new weapon you add will grow that number, exponentially. Also, it’s kinda boring to wield two pistols and only fire one at a time, except the 3rd skill.

So, this dual wield rework would be something like this:

• Special #3 dual wield skill removed. Now the dual wield skill is always dependent on the main-hand weapon, like with every other profession.
• If you equip the same type of main-hand and off-hand weapon, you get 5 new skills.

It’s more work in the short term, but less in the long term, and lets you wield two pistols and use both at the same time, with a new autoattack where you fire both of them, and a #5 skill where you spin while firing or something. Cool stuff, and an actual real dual wield.

Some skills could be similar to when you wield different types, there’s no need for the 5 of them to be 100% unique. As for the removed #3 skills that are not recycled, most of their variations are pretty similar, so nothing of value would be lost.

This model is interesting, and could be theoretically applied to other professions as well, though the nature of the thief makes him the priority.

…

Moved content ends here.

Asur.9178:

I’d start by removing the initiative system. As long as thief skills use the initiative system, thief can and will NEVER be balanced properly.

I’ve thought about that. It’s nice to be able to spam skills with thief… But the truth is that it kinda kills variety, and people tend to spam the same stuff ignoring the rest of the skills.

A new system where you can remove cooldowns by playing right could be a good replacement for it, if not removed altogether, but I think the real way to go is more chain skills, were hitting your target temporarily unlocks a new skill, rewarding you for playing well.

Chain steps could be a global variable as well, so when you hit with the first step of a skill, you unlock the second step for all skills, letting you do some sick combos and stuff.

Alternatively, instead of multiple skills with chains, we could get two auto-attacks.

martin.1653:

1. Stealth button on demand like we have Steal – really sad thieves don’t have reliable stealth button and stealth is supposed to be their thing.
2. Make P/P less boring. So much room there to make it really awesome and they failed so hard on this weaponset.
3. Add 4th and 5th skill to every weapon when one-wielding so we can use only one dagger for example.
4. Switch and tune some skills in specialisation trees. I mean, when 100% of thieves run Trickery and 0.1% runs Acro you know something is wrong. Basic stuff!
5. 15k HP baseline. Thieves are supposed to be fit and fast. I think they are much more qualified than silly mesmers for bigger HP pool. Necros I shouldn’t even mention…
6. Delete warriors.

I’ve thought about making stealth its own mechanic skill, but then you’d have problems with the skills that grant stealth on their own, as well as the combos that give stealth.

Said skills would need to be reworked, maybe into glyphs, so they have a different effect depending if you’re stealthed or not. Stealth itself would have an energy bar, and let you enter and exit it at whim, like necromancer’s Death Shroud. It would regenerate automatically, but maybe it could be boosted by staying in shadow fields or blinding enemies.

The problem now is what to do with non-thief stealth. Maybe make it a boon? And thief stealth mode wouldn’t be stealth itself, but a shadow mode, which pulses stealth to himself. This could kinda work, I guess?

The problem isn’t transforming stealth into a its own mechanics, it’s what to do with stealth as it currently works.

Lonami.2987:

martin.1653:

1. Stealth button on demand like we have Steal – really sad thieves don’t have reliable stealth button and stealth is supposed to be their thing.
2. Make P/P less boring. So much room there to make it really awesome and they failed so hard on this weaponset.
3. Add 4th and 5th skill to every weapon when one-wielding so we can use only one dagger for example.
4. Switch and tune some skills in specialisation trees. I mean, when 100% of thieves run Trickery and 0.1% runs Acro you know something is wrong. Basic stuff!
5. 15k HP baseline. Thieves are supposed to be fit and fast. I think they are much more qualified than silly mesmers for bigger HP pool. Necros I shouldn’t even mention…
6. Delete warriors.

I’ve thought about making stealth its own mechanic skill, but then you’d have problems with the skills that grant stealth on their own, as well as the combos that give stealth.

Said skills would need to be reworked, maybe into glyphs, so they have a different effect depending if you’re stealthed or not. Stealth itself would have an energy bar, and let you enter and exit it at whim, like necromancer’s Death Shroud. It would regenerate automatically, but maybe it could be boosted by staying in shadow fields or blinding enemies.

The problem now is what to do with non-thief stealth. Maybe make it a boon? And thief stealth mode wouldn’t be stealth itself, but a shadow mode, which pulses stealth to himself. This could kinda work, I guess?

The problem isn’t transforming stealth into a its own mechanics, it’s what to do with stealth as it currently works.

I’ve thought more along the lines of:
press button, enter stealth for 4-5 seconds, button goes on 20-30 seconds cooldown. That’s all, nothing less nothing more. It wouldn’t have any effect on any other skill. Think of it a as something like blinding powder without combo finisher and blind and everyone has it by default.

To rant more:
This would be a great thing for builds (P/P, SB, S/P) that have virtually no access to stealth unless investing precious skill slots, thus crippling then in other areas, and would open up some interesting new builds perhaps. Thief’s signature ability is supposed to be stealth, but you can enter stealth only with certain builds – this is silly IMO. Steal isn’t enough and compared to some other F abilities other classes have it’s really nothing. Elementalists for example have a whole kitten nal at their disposal on F1-F4 buttons. Thiefs get what – one button that needs to be heavily traited to be considered decent.

martin.1653:

I’ve thought more along the lines of:
press button, enter stealth for 4-5 seconds, button goes on 20-30 seconds cooldown. That’s all, nothing less nothing more. It wouldn’t have any effect on any other skill. Think of it a as something like blinding powder without combo finisher and blind and everyone has it by default.

To rant more:
This would be a great thing for builds (P/P, SB, S/P) that have virtually no access to stealth unless investing precious skill slots, thus crippling then in other areas, and would open up some interesting new builds perhaps. Thief’s signature ability is supposed to be stealth, but you can enter stealth only with certain builds – this is silly IMO. Steal isn’t enough and compared to some other F abilities other classes have it’s really nothing. Elementalists for example have a whole kitten nal at their disposal on F1-F4 buttons. Thiefs get what – one button that needs to be heavily traited to be considered decent.

So, kinda like a “stealth boon”, that you can stack? That sounds pretty nice, indeed, and could open the way for a lot of cool mechanics. Stealth thieves would be less dangerous, since you could remove the stealth boon, but then you would be able to stack stealth easily, and use boon duration to stay stealthed longer.

I would combine this stealth redesign with the “Master of knives” idea I described above, where thieves get their own “tool bar” where they can equip whatever they want. Non-stealth builds would be able to equip small smoke bombs there, stacking stealth easily without sacrificing slot skills.

I think that making stealth much more widespread would be the best thing to happen to the thief, and this could manage it, though it isn’t 100% what you suggested.

As for the balance problems of so much stealth… Adding stealth counters could not be enough. Maybe make stealthed characters not be “100% stealthed”, and make them leave a “shadow”. So instead of being invisible, they have like a camouflage shield, like predator from the movies, or StarCraft dark templars. You wouldn’t be able to target them, but you could aim AoE against stealthed enemies easily.

These aren’t so much resign suggestions, but buffs and nerfs based on the current design. Most of these are CD changes. So many skills are actually decent but the CDs are too long. Other skills are too good because the CDs are too short.

Here are trait related changes:

- Nerf Unhindered Combatant (remove ability to remove conditions) and bound damage.
- Buff Critical Strikes and Shadow Arts, and nerf Trickery.
- Scrap Panic Strike and replace it with something less mandatory, passive and OP.
- Nerf healing and damage of Mug.
- Increase ICD of Escapist’s Absolution.

Some utilities need buffs/nerfs too:

- Lower Haste CD.
- Lower Roll for Initiative CD.
- Increase Shadowstep CD (other teleport skills should have increased CDs too)
- Slightly increase Channeled Vigor CD.
- Increase Bandit’s Defence CD.
- Make Scorpion Wire reliable.
- Increase Impact Strike CD.

Weapon skills:

- Decrease Dagger AA damage in PvP.
- Increase Headshot cost by 1.
- Decrease Vault damage.
- Increase other Staff skills’ damage.
- Boost Vital Shot firing rate.
- Change Body Shot to cripple if farther than 300 range and immobility if within 300.
- Change Unload: Teleport backward and Unload both pistols while evading attacks. Up to 900 unit teleport. Costs 6 initiative.

- Some Trickery traits should be baseline.
- Add Scorpion Wire as F3
- Headshot should cost 1 more initiative, I have been guilty of that.
- S/P needs some sort of tweaking, it’s off
- Reduce the CD of some teleporting utilities, they are really cool but nobody is using them because they aren’t SS, but their CD are just ridiculous what they offer.
- Decrease CD for Roll of Initiative
- Bring back Ricochet ?
- Withdraw : Its animation should depend on the direction the player is going. (you can withdraw forwards guys)
- There should be an internal CD for Impacting Disruption, but they should increase the damage. Like make it a real heart attack.

Kocoff.7582:

- Some Trickery traits should be baseline.

As much as this is really needed, it would cause salt avalanches. It’s a traitline that never should have been made like it is now.

See the change wish list in my signature.

What about removing initiative?

Kinda crazy out of the blue, but think about it. The nature of thief is spam-ish, and a lack of proper cooldowns forces you to use the same skills over and over again. Then when something is too good, they nerf it, and the backlash is heavier than nerfing a skill in any other profession. Additionally, so much freedom can make thief boring and repetitive.

Still, thief gameplay should be about being agile and quick, so how could we represent that without initiative?

My “Master of Knives” idea in the first post (Remove steal, and replace it with a few knife-themed skills, simple stuff, not a lot of damage, designed for combos and utility) could bring enough variety to make thief a whirlwind of different skills, but with initiative gone, we can take it further.

We could replace initiative by a new combo system where cooldowns are removed when you are performing adequately, for example, so skill is rewarded instead of spamming.

Each successful special action could reduce cooldown by a few seconds instead, too. Things like reflecting an enemy attack, either by normal skills or a knife skill. Or dodging successfully an enemy attack.

I don’t know, I don’t have it clear enough, but I feel like finding a way to make thief reward skill and discourage spamming and smashing skills randomly would make the profession better in the long term.

Maybe removing initiative isn’t the answer, but reworking it to punish wasting it.

Intitiative is core to thief design. It what attracts me to that class more than any other. It is what adds to their “fun factor” which is always active gameplay where the player decides the skill they wil use next rather than the “what off cooldown” model.

In the description of thief it indicates that the thief is dangerous due to the initiative system wherein it can release a sequence of devastating blows in short order so as to inflict damage. This comes at a cost in that those spikes come at the cost of those other skills.

No it should not change. Spamming skills does not mean gameplay skilless. All it means is a skilled thief is worried about what skill is most efficient at a given time for the amount of INI spent.

Take a truly skilled thief against one that is not and the latter will be destroyed in short order even though both can spam skills. Any skilled player on any other profession can and will defeat a thief that just spams skills simply because the spamming of skills comes at a cost .

Skilless gameplay means that the build itself rather then the players actions will carry the build and allow it to win. The thief demands continous ongoing decision making and actions and just because they decide that any given moment using the same skill twice or three times in a row is the best skill to use in that situation , it hardly translates to “skilless gameplay”.

Pressing 2 3 2 3 in reality does not take more skill then pressing 3 3 3 3 .

The REAL issue with using the same skill over and over again is not the initiative system that allows it. It is because the design of a given weaponset means that at any given point in time that ONE skill is always the best to use. d/p is the goto set for most not because it more skilled because people have to press different buttons rather then the same one over and over again, it because all of the skills have a very good reason to be used in a given encounter.

You change this by altering the weapon skills.

@OP:
Idea-1

Tbh i’m happy with the state of steal atm. It fits the theme of thief and is customizable via traitline (stealth with SA, raw damage/heal with DA, plenty of “tricks” with Trickery, dodges with DD [should maybe move to Accro for purity of purpose but that would be a disaster balance wise]) which is imho a good design. The stolen skill is pretty cool in pvp/wvw but rather boring in pve most of the time.

The only problems I have with steal are the dependance of Trickery (which is by design the profession mechanic traitline [like BM for ranger pet] so that’s kinda normal but frustrating) and the “obstruction” bug.

Idea 2
The venom stays for X whatever you do is OP (think basi or poison) so an icd is needed but then it’s kinda a nerf to the current system.
I don’t like the initiative cost because of the sharing mechanic (how would you scale the ini factor on shared stacks ? does the thief lose ini when shared ?) and the base concept of the game that an AA should be free of any ressources.

Idea 3
If it can give each set a clear role why not but I doubt very much. I like very much the fact that #3 is a combinaison of both set. The “spam skill problem” on dual wield is that the combinaison of both weapons are often akward.
S/P : the #3 is a raw power offensive skill on the combinaison of an in/out power mainhand (S) and an utility offhand (P)
S/D : the #3 is a utility power skill on the combinaison of an in/out power mainhand (S) and an offensive offhand (D)
P/P : the #3 is a raw power offensive skill on the combinaison of a condi mainhand (P) and an utility offhand (P)
D/D : the #3 is a condi skill on the combinaison of an raw power offensive mainhand (D) and an offensive offhand (D)

So when you dual wield, your #3 is often out-of-sync and you often spam it (P/P, D/D condi) or don’t use it for the original purpose (D/D power). Like babazhook.6805 (I can’t +1 his post enough) said, D/P is strong because “because all of the skills have a very good reason to be used in a given encounter”, the set has synergy with itself, has tools to do stuff and a clear purpose.

@martin.1653
I have mixed feelings about the stealth button. I really like the stealthless play on thief (playing DA/CS/Tr S/P pre-HoT then DA/DD/Tr dash staff) and I think there is already too much stealth in the game (especially engie & druids).

But I see your point about stealth availability and maybe a cooldown + ini cost + cast time f3 can be added OR make a targetless (I don’t know if the tech exists yet and I don’t want to have the rule “on miss” but on “no target” so it’s on purpose, we should never be rewarded for failing) steal apply stealth on self (you blew an important cooldown after all and since many of our traits affects steal it’s a huge commitment for a ~3s stealth [+ buff from SA]).

I can’t help but think it’s a bad idea in the end. Maybe making SR and SA not to be as bad as they are now could be enough.

@Zintrothen.1056
@Kocoff.7582
All I see is a bunch of random buffs/nerfs without purpose. I don’t specially agree or disagree with them, they are just irrevelant to this thread.

More evades moar spamm..moar insta cc gap closers…moar initiative regen
Moar damage
I think it would be fine then ????

DeceiverX.8361:

You could easily rebuild your old build, exactly as it was before. It doesn’t mean it’ll be any good because the rest of the game is powercreeped and D/D generally is a worthless piece-of-trash weapon combo for power now thanks to terrible profession design and the stealth attack ICD.

Partial trait lines allowed players to dip into SA, Trickery, etc without having to go all the way in. The new trait system is very restrictive and while the weapon sets remain their effectiveness has been diminished (P/P, S/P, D/D) or in some cases nearly destroyed (S/D, P/D).

For example, many went 20 into SA for for 1s extra stealth and stealth on steal. This left room to put a few points into Trickery for extra init or to pick up Mug. Even moving some traits around such as Executioner from CS was a nerf.

I never touched SA outside of experimentation and had issues only with Dire condi mes just because of its capacity to flood a diverse set of conditions and PU prior being higher aegis uptime.

Partial trait investment was a good thing, but it wasn’t why OH dagger struggles; the defensive power creep and increased number of passives on top of higher offensive pressure in general from other professions and increased game-wide mobility, particularly brought in with HoT, is why it struggles. The OH dagger kits functioned and were defined heavily through damage avoidance and positioning. Death Blossom, Shadow Strike, and Flanking Strike for example offered ample mechanics to negate incoming damage from melee attackers. In particular, due to the higher number tells in the core game, every X/D build if played perfectly could negate a substantial number of incoming attacks or entire kits while playing against most professions. OH dagger currently is countered mostly by traits and design of new, low-or-no-tell abilities that provide substantial damage or negation with little downtime.

The gains from losing Executioner in CS are disputable depending on the format and environment the thief is in.