Guild Wars 2

Good evening!

I just saw a topic about somebody asking for a new dodge roll mechanism, and I wanted to write an answer to that topic, explaining why there is no need for that. I don’t really feel a need for more dodge rolls. We already have 3 in a row with trait regen, plus Withdraw heal which an extreme long dodge that heals with a 15 sec cooldown, and you can add Roll for Initative if you want another. Plus you have dodge on s/p skill 3, d/d skill 3. Opening Post (in that topic) owner must learn when to dodge, that’s all. No wonder there is no detailed reasoning in that post.

So this got me thinking. He has problems with dodges and belives there is something wrong with the class, while clearly he needs to explore it more. I have problems with condition removal, and even after getting really close to 1000 hours spent with my thief, I question myself: do I know enough? So before I suggest any class changes or anything like that, I’d like to hear your opinions, ways, methods, whatever, about condition removal.

Condition removal is really a problem that IMO is really serious and thieves surprisingly lack compared to other classes. Rangers? Pet active, signet, heal spring. Guardians? Necros? Don’t need to say anything. Warriors have simply too high base health to really feel how painful (PvE) conditions can be. Mesmers feel balanced from this point of view aswell. I don’t know about elementalists and engineers, so I can’t say.

I’m going to list all condition removal ways I know that is aviable for a thief as a class (please note that items like sigils are not included).

1. Signet of Precision:
:passive: precision increase
:active: remove a SINGLE condition, cooldown 30s
I prefer to use this because it’s a very useful passive.

2. Sword Shadowstep (skill 2):
:active: shadowstep to your foe, activate again to get back to the starting position and remove 2 conditions. Good one, but I don’t want to use a sword and modify my entire playstyle because I don’t have any other viable options.

3. Shadowstep (Utility)
: Same as sword skill 2, except it’s a manual teleport like sb. skill 5. Cures 3 conditions, 50 second cooldown. I started to build this one into my PvE playstlye because I don’t want to use a sword or give up might building from dodges and endurance regen. Those, especially undurance regen is really needed for survival with a full berserk thief that gets downed by a single sit in many situations (that werewolf arena boss in Arah can make me mad. Really).

4. Traits.
:Shadow’s Embrace Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth. Problem is, your stealth doesn’t really last 3 seconds while most of them should. Blinding Powder (40s cd) is a 3 seconds stealth for example, correct me if I’m wrong but that means 2 conditions removed. 7 out of 10 times it doesn’t lasts for more than a second even out of combat and I find no reasonable answer this. I’d even go for this if the stealth would work as it should work. Still, either I give up backstab trait, or power trait line which is a massive damage boost with that 10% more damage on conditioned targets and raw 5% dagger damage bonus. Not worth to give it up, for anything. Or, give up the endurance regen which requires 15 points.

(follow in 2nd post)

That’s all I can think of. Now here are some suggestions about how to help thiefs with condition removal without hurting condition users. I’m not saying we need all this or even two of them. Just multiple alternatives.

• Swap Acrobatics 5 and 15. So we’ll need only 5. To not make it too good, endurance is only returned on evade now, instead of dodge. It’s really really late so I’m sure if I’m right about this, tomorrow when I wake up maybe it’s gonna be a facepalm, but as I know endurance is returned simply after the doding animation ends. My suggestion is to return it only if you actually evade an incoming strike. Maybe it’s the way it is now, my brain really not working. If this happens, it gives us 10 more points to spend elsewhere, increasing build diversity and giving enough points to go for Shadow Embrace. I know that people in general scream “burn the heretic” when they see “buff” and “thief” words in the same sentence, but this would be a really nice buff in a way that has no huge impact on WvW or PvP gameplay, thus not giving a reason for those who has no idea about thief problems, to complain and ask for nerfs. Again. And again.

• Buff Shadow Embrace to remove a condition every 1.5 seconds, making 3 seconds stealth (blinding powder, cloak and dagger) remove 2 conditions. That’s something I’m definitly ready to give up something for (3rd dodge or damage boost from power trait line). Until this happens, it’s not worth it. Personally I’d love this and I belive ANet should really consider making it this way. Why? A nice help that is NEEDED in my opinion. Balanced because you give up evasion or damage for it.

Works well with all weapon sets, you are not bound to a sword to remove 2 conditions, now you can remove 2 with cloak and dagger and still have blinding powder ready, just in case if you lose half of your heath with a single strike taken and you get 2-5 stacks of bleeding on you, often together with poison or burning. I’m simply lost in these situations. Not to mention confused as a condition. Sure, I can remove conditions. Once every 30 seconds (signet), and only 1, with a signet. Or give away raw damage boost that’s definitly not worth it. Or the ability to stack up 25 stacks of might and have another dodge roll. The bonus dodge is needed, the might stack isn’t, but if I want the 3rd dodge I can take the might stacking aswell, even if I don’t feel the need of it. That’s where something could change. Or making Shadow Embrace better to make it worth giving up something much stronger for it. Dagger offhand players would like it. Dagger / Pistol players would like it. No effect on sword players. Makes a 3s (in reality ~1s) stealth smoke bomb a tiny bit more useful.

Your opinions? I even started to experiment with pistols and condition remove on crit sigils. I really don’t like it but I feel like I’m out of options here.

• Buff Signet of Precision to remove 3 conditions (I’d even go as far to remove all, since many classes can do it with other benefits, ie. ranger healing pool). Fair enough for giving up precision passive. Not to mention it often removes conditions I don’t really need removed. I got 5 stacks of confusion or bleeding, plus a much weaker poison. Too often it happend that this signet removed the weaker condition instead of which one I wanted to be removed, and then I died.

Thief condition remove is pretty solid.

You have a guaranteed removal of damage conditions via Hide in Shadows

You have a guaranteed removal of CC conditions with Withdraw and Roll for initiative.

You can remove three conditions with Shadow Step > Shadow Return.

I have never really needed more condition removal that those slot skills.

Shockwave.1230:

Thief condition remove is pretty solid.

You have a guaranteed removal of damage conditions via Hide in Shadows

You have a guaranteed removal of CC conditions with Withdraw and Roll for initiative.

You can remove three conditions with Shadow Step > Shadow Return.

I have never really needed more condition removal that those slot skills.

wait untill you do spvp and face team with 3 necros and 2 bunker/condi engis… i promise you you will want to unistall or reroll

as for topic: in wvw i use SA trait + HIS + shs
in pvp: HiS, signet of agility + shs + lyssa runes

overall i think thief condi removal is actually decent, the problem is just the game is all about spamming aoe/condi on point atm (in pvp at least) so no condi clean in the world would help there… if anything they should remove toughness/condi gear and nerf bunker/condi builds… you shouldn’t be able to go bunker and still do silly dmg (via condi)

Cynz.9437:

overall i think thief condi removal is actually decent, the problem is just the game is all about spamming aoe/condi on point atm (in pvp at least) so no condi clean in the world would help there… if anything they should remove toughness/condi gear and nerf bunker/condi builds… you shouldn’t be able to go bunker and still do silly dmg (via condi)

Facing two different kinds of threats, condition and physical damage forces people to make compromises to be able to survive, or they specialize and are limited in which fights they can engage in.

Remove condition damage from the game and people would be able to focus their efforts on countering physical damage alone. Additionally remove toughness and only builds with counters like aegis and protection will remain.

Having both threats actually gives both a fighting chance. When you remove one you nerf the other.

I’m maining a Mesmer, and all I can say is that Thieves have some really awesome condition removal.

Cynz.9437:

Shockwave.1230:

Thief condition remove is pretty solid.

You have a guaranteed removal of damage conditions via Hide in Shadows

You have a guaranteed removal of CC conditions with Withdraw and Roll for initiative.

You can remove three conditions with Shadow Step > Shadow Return.

I have never really needed more condition removal that those slot skills.

wait untill you do spvp and face team with 3 necros and 2 bunker/condi engis… i promise you you will want to unistall or reroll

as for topic: in wvw i use SA trait + HIS + shs
in pvp: HiS, signet of agility + shs + lyssa runes

overall i think thief condi removal is actually decent, the problem is just the game is all about spamming aoe/condi on point atm (in pvp at least) so no condi clean in the world would help there… if anything they should remove toughness/condi gear and nerf bunker/condi builds… you shouldn’t be able to go bunker and still do silly dmg (via condi)

I have been pretty much exclusively PvPing recently and was referring to PvP with my point. I play hit and run though so thief condition removal as is works fine for me. For sustain builds, which the their can’t do well anyways is definitely lacking

I usually die. It removes all the conditions instantly. A universal skill accessible by all the classes.

On a serious note, Hide in Shadows in sPvP gives enough coverage in my build.
WvW… yeah I just get melted… (in zergs)
o.O never noticed/had problems with PvE conditions.

SaltyDave.7346:

• Buff Shadow Embrace to remove a condition every 1.5 seconds, making 3 seconds stealth (blinding powder, cloak and dagger) remove 2 conditions.

Shadows embrace removes a condition instantly and another after three seconds.

Hindu.4602:

I don’t think that the problem is we have too little condition removal, I actually think Thieves’ condi removal is quite balanced considering their evasive and mobile nature. If anything is the problem, it’s the ease of getting someone to a “condi overload” in a very small timeframe with very few tells, and condition duration stats severely punish builds without low cooldown constant condition removal (Poison Grenades giving over a minute of poison, or Pin Down’s long duration bleeds bringing you to 50% health alone ringing any bells? Not even going to mention Signet of Spite…)

All of that being said, I think if the 1200 range AoE condition abilities were given more obvious animations or more capacity for counterplay I think a lot of the punishment would be warranted.

This. If the casting animations were slightly longer and more obvious for condi attacks (on par with things like HS and eviscerate) there would be far fewer calls I think for increased condi removal.

In the meantime more condi removal would be nice.

Sigil of purity (removes Condi on crit, Cool down 10 seconds), sword, and withdraw.

I almost always use withdraw unless in pve on some high platforms. Its cool down is short and its utility fits thief perfectly, removing pesky movement impairing conditions. I don’t even need sword unless said pve event is condition heavy. In spvp/tpvp and wvw withdraw and shadow’s embrace is more than enough. It does its work and without heavy investments into anything. Outside of that, conditions hurt thieves hard, its something we lack without special effects.

Atm, thief has a ton of completely useless traits and it makes real build diversity hard without working off of the SA trait line. It’s possible, just not fair nor as effective.

Me personally, I don’t.

I either dodge Signet of Spite, or I get it put on me and I stealth and run and hope that SR is off cooldown and maybe I’ll survive, but maybe not.

Once I dodge that Signet of Spite however, that necro is dead meat.