Guild Wars 2

I was having some nice PvP matches with the standard DP meta build when eventually I just decided to drop mug and go with shadows embrace, why? I’ll tell you why, after I got hit with a lotus strike and got away with triple digit health and no utilities I saw the poison…just ticking my health away, and nothing I could do about it, sure that’s a bit of DPS gone but wouldn’t it make sense in the current meta to have at least shadows embrace for a DP build?

EDIT: Red typically doesn’t use DP so I’m asking for the opinions of those that call this build home

I use dp, don’t use any SA anymore. Reason being last refuge screws me up so many times I go from “alright Ima get this guy” to “time to dip”. D/p doesn’t necessarily have to use much stealth, I use it for the utility and focus on wiggeling them down. Mug helps greatly in that. In the event I’m low health and have steal off cd, I will make sure blind is removed and that my target isn’t going to block or evade me because the 2k heal is pretty nice. Generally I don’t fight on a point so I don’t see as many conditions, and if I do I got lyssa and sword on my side with generosity. In other words, poison doesn’t bother me much atleast not enough to give mug up.

Still using lyssa, call me old but I still enjoy it and up to 5X condi removal ain’t bad. Wish I had my stability back though… skyhammer is a pita as is.

With 30 trickery mug is great. But i wouldnt say “necessary”

It’s just a bit of health, damage and poison on your target every 30 (20) seconds, not necessary by a long shot. These days you can change trait distribution whenever you are out of combat, you can retrait whenever you expect to need Shadow’s Embrace.

Mug is the shadow of its former self.

If it critted, it used to fill the gap needed to spike down builds with medium tier defence, while it could be overkill towards low defence, which is why it got nerfed.
But hey, look at engineer, they hardly scratch warriors, but while landing Incendiary power, poison darts and static shock they decimate thieves.

Nowadays after all thousand pages of thief QQ, thieves are more about wearing down your opponents with high pressure and dazelocking, some AoE will strip away a high portion of your health which even makes this feel cranky.

I got tired of all bullkitten, and went with condi P/D which I have way higher burst with (unless my opponents are able to cleanse quickly) and can 1v3 all day with.

While not necessary, the occasion 4k turnaround (+2 to you, -2 to them) is useful sometimes at least on a 2/6/0/0/6 build where its up every 21 seconds. If not traited into sleight of hand, I probably wouldn’t take it, but killing a heal and adding more pressure via poison and 1-3k more damage can help turn a fight sometimes.

Tldr: Alone, no. With other steal traits, icing on the cake.

Mug is perfect with 30 trickery, the heal/damage/poison it provides is more than necessary in my opinion, for both survivability and applying pressure.

Just consider the trade-offs.
Stats aside is 1k damage + poison + 2k heal on a 20s cd more important than 1 condi removed every 3 seconds while stealthed?

Obviously the more condi-focused the enemy is the more useful SE becomes.

Personally I’ve tried dropping mug for things that make sense for my build, but even though in theory it’s more practical to drop mug I just keep going back to it because that 2k heal on a 20s cd and the damage+poison is actually really strong IMO.

Maybe I am too used to having mug—but I can attest to REALLY trying to drop it for something else but when it’s gone I -really- notice its not there, and when its there I don’t care so much for the other things I dropped to bring it.

Besides offering poison, healing and spike damage, Mug makes sure a lot of my combos land. Steal-stab, for example, fails a lot on moving targets when I don’t have Mug. Even for Heartseeker into Steal, you’ll need to make sure your targets are that much lower before you can use that. The 10 points in DA line also increase your power by quite a decent amount.
On the other hand, without investing 30 points into Shadow Arts, Shadow’s Embrace won’t help you against condition classes since Engineers and Necromancers will be spamming marks, nades and bombs right where you stealthed.
However, if you really wish to drop Mug for 10 points in Shadow Arts, I would highly recommend taking Master of Deception. The reduced cooldown on Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder etc. is really strong.

Rome.3192:

Besides offering poison, healing and spike damage, Mug makes sure a lot of my combos land. Steal-stab, for example, fails a lot on moving targets when I don’t have Mug. Even for Heartseeker into Steal, you’ll need to make sure your targets are that much lower before you can use that. The 10 points in DA line also increase your power by quite a decent amount.
On the other hand, without investing 30 points into Shadow Arts, Shadow’s Embrace won’t help you against condition classes since Engineers and Necromancers will be spamming marks hades and bombs right where you stealthed.
However, if you really wish to drop Mug for 10 points in Shadow Arts, I would highly recommend taking Master of Deception. The reduced cooldown on Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder etc. is really strong.

Yeah, I’ve tried going with that trait too. I really want to make it work because in theory it’s so good. Regardless, I still keep going back to mug. Maybe one day I’ll convince myself to stick with MoD.

Lux.7169:

Yeah, I’ve tried going with that trait too. I really want to make it work because in theory it’s so good. Regardless, I still keep going back to mug. Maybe one day I’ll convince myself to stick with MoD.

Using it on my P/D condition thief atm along with Hidden Killer. Since I don’t need to steal-stab anymore, Hidden Killer helps me utilise Krait runes by making sure I can precast BV into Steal, gain stealth, use sneak attack and pistol 3 for a huuuuge condition speak. MoD combined with Improvisation makes your opponents rage so hard. So hard.

I’m using 2/4/2/0/6 s/d sb for spvp. I’m digging it for the condi cleanse and good dps along with having mug too. Sadly it probably wouldn’t be too good for d/p.

If you’re running deep trickery, then mug is great.
It’s an extra bit of burst during your daze that can help edge out a kill. It’s a bit of hp to keep you up while you jump into the fray to prevent a stomp.

If you’re not, then it’s meh.

Yea i run 2/0/6/0/6 i get 2k hp and poison every 19 secs plus a daze plus a gap closer worth it for my build

I don’t know about you guys, but I LOVE mug.

Mug is one of the main reasons I choose 2/6/6/0/0 over 0/6/6/2/0. 2k heal every ~30ish seconds + damage? Combined with a CnD combo if im close to dead I can get back in the fight much quicker. And actually, I like mug better than when it just dealt damage. I think it is good that we have the option to have an extra quick heal. Not sure why people don’t like it.

alchemyst.2165:

I don’t know about you guys, but I LOVE mug.

Mug is one of the main reasons I choose 2/6/6/0/0 over 0/6/6/2/0. 2k heal every ~30ish seconds + damage? Combined with a CnD combo if im close to dead I can get back in the fight much quicker. And actually, I like mug better than when it just dealt damage. I think it is good that we have the option to have an extra quick heal. Not sure why people don’t like it.

Thanks for the replies guys as usual. Mug has been and always will be helpful but I was experimenting to make up for what I didn’t have, I’ll put it back on though since that 2k hp is starting to be noticed, which brings me to YOU the person I am responding to. I may have not caught on but no one here hates mug, it’s just that we were seeing if it was viable to drop it for shadows embrace for condi clearing

I think people dont like the abilties they steal a lot of thieves want it for the shadow step and not the ability gained. personally i dont mind them, anything can help in a fight, i do how ever wish we could discard the ability i we choose not to use it.

Mystogan.4157:

Yea i run 2/0/6/0/6 i get 2k hp and poison every 19 secs plus a daze plus a gap closer worth it for my build

I don’t think the OP was asking if steal spec’s are needed, but if putting 10 into DA for mug was better than 10 into SA for SE.

On a steal spec, having a 2k heal every 21 seconds is good, on a 35 second cooldown I’d still say its good. Better to give some extra utility to the most underwhelming F skill than to use it for nothing more than a gap closer and potentially useless skill.

Excuse me but how do you reach 20s Mug?

I have maxed trickery but my Steal is 27s?

Trickery grand master trait Sleight Of Hand reduces steal cooldown by 20%. Take it.

I find mug’s heal+damage+poison being a difference between win/lose in clutch situations (which occur fairly often in tpvp) given that of course, you have 6 points in trickery (daze interrupt is just awesome).

I find SE a lot more useful than mug in some situations. Yes, mug is great overall but sometimes removing 1 condi saves a lot more HP than what you get from mug.

I just recently changed my build due to ferocity and just started using Mug. Depending on the target I’ve had mug hit for 1800-2500. I main D/D though with an offhand pistol on swap for the daze/blind/gapcloser but I am also running Shadow’s Embrace. I like it a lot.

I did have to drop Shadow’s Rejuvination though..