Guild Wars 2

While trying to think of ways to counter the current condi-spam meta with my build (I run no-stealth by choice, so I accept the fact that I’m extremely weak to condi-builds), I started messing around with ideas for our stolen skills. Some skills, like Consume Plasma from a mesmer, are extremely good while others are downright terrible. Throw Gunk from an engi misses half the time and is pretty useless except to use as an ethereal field, and Ice Shard Stab is so extremely situational that I pretty much don’t bother stealing from eles in the first place.

I think the stolen skills should represent a thief’s ability to mimic or counter his opponent directly. The current stolen skills are a nice foundation for that concept, but as the other classes have evolved, I feel there’s plenty of room for the thief to adapt as well. Here’s some ideas on what I think would be pretty cool. I’m not going to bother putting specific durations or whatever, but I think the stolen abilities should be scaled to roughly half the duration/intensity of the profession being stolen from for the sake of fairness. After all, the other professions are the masters of those skills… we’re just trying to turn it against them.

Elementalist
Current: Ice Shard Stab – attack and chill a foe
New: Gain Might, Protection, Swiftness, Regeneration (shorter versions of the attunement bonuses, basically)

Engineer
Current: Throw Gunk – inflict a random condition
New: Remove all conditions and gain immunity to conditions for a couple of seconds (sort of like an Endure Pain for condis)

Guardian
Current: Daze foe with a mace crack
New: Grant Aegis, Stability, and Regeneration

Mesmer
Current: Consume Plasma – gain all boons
This one is good as is, or can even be nerfed slightly. It’s THAT good, in my opinion.

Necromancer
Current: Skull Fear – aoe fear
New: Keep the aoe fear, also transfer conditions from you to nearby opponents (short duration… like a weaker version of Plague Signet+Epidemic). If that’s too powerful, then scratch that and perhaps create a Well of Power at your location instead when you use the aoe fear.

Ranger
Current: Healing Seed – water field, regen, and pulse condi removal
Good as is. Extremely powerful in group situations.

Thief
Current: Blinding Tuft – stealth + blind nearby foes
This one is also good as is. Even though I don’t use it. >:T

Warrior
Current: Whirling Axe – spin attack
New: I’m kinda torn on this one. I like the idea of whirling axe, but I think it should have stability on it as well. But I’d also kind of dig the idea of Endure Pain instead. Screw it, give us all three!

The likelihood of any of these ideas getting implemented is absurdly low, but it’s fun to dream. Anybody else got any ideas on how to improve some of our shoddier stolen skills?

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

- snip -

I like some of your ideas, but here are my thoughts on them:

Elementalist
I like it, but maybe we should get boons based on the attunement of the ele? Also, a skill that removes boons or inflicts many conditions at once is a good counter to eles(this should be done carefully as we already have effective counters towards eles).

Engineer
I agree with this, as alot of the engineers damage comes from conditions. But I would have it steal the elixir C instead, which converts conditions into boons. It would be a weaker version of the engineer skill of course, but it will be a mimic and counter at the same time.

Guardian
I think stealing from a guardian should either give retaliation, aegis or some skill that converts boons into conditions on the target. This would either mimic or counter the profession.

Mesmer
Yup it’s fine

Necromancer
Considering the necro already has few stunbreaks and stability, I think the aoe fear is good as it is. This skill mimics the necro.

Ranger
I agree, its fine. Also the visuals you get from it is really cool, you can plant a tree wherever you want!

Thief
It’s good, additional access to stealth is great.

Warrior
Never really liked this one. Even though the damage output is good, it puts you in a vurnerable position. It’s like you scream to everyone around you: “CC me please!”. It doesn’t counter the warrior at all. Also it doesn’t mimic either, as nobody runs with offhand axe xD. I’m not really sure what to put here, maybe a mace stun/daze?

my only complain some of stolen skill’s casting time are slow. stolen skill from engineers “throw gunk” slight damage can reveal u which is not good for stealth build and this skill is useless if you’re running a Non Condition Build. and not accurate when i throw it to a foe to atleast @ 500 or 600 distance above that distance it goes to random direction. and i cannot cancel the channeling cast of “whirling axe” there are some situation when i ran out of endurance and i really need to evade enemy burst using S/D flanking strike and when im running a condition build i don’t need this whirling axe really. so i wish by pressing escape i can cancel this whirling axe channeling animation

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Guardian
Current: Daze foe with a mace crack
New: Grant Aegis, Stability, and Regeneration

I disagree on this one, a 4 second daze is very powerfull and a perfect counter against
Guardians since they need to use various skills to stay alive, but when they can’t they
are just a heap of metall with low base hp. Also the mesmer skill would be superior
to this one then.

Coloxeus.3480:

“whirling axe” there are some situation when i ran out of endurance and i really need to evade enemy burst using S/D flanking strike and when im running a condition build i don’t need this whirling axe really. so i wish by pressing escape i can cancel this whirling axe channeling animation

I don’t even know why they chaged the skill to that, but well at least if you use any other
skill, whirling axe gets canceled. So it’s not that much of a problem.

I think having a “Remove a Condition on Dodge” would be good enough.

Whirling Axe can be canceled by using any weapon skill at you disposal.
I am completely fine with every stolen skill with the exception of Throw Gunk and Ice Shard. All others are perfectly balanced and are really important during fights.

Whirling Axe is like a melee Daggerstorm (did you know that it reflects projectiles?).
The 4s Daze from Guardians is invaluable when you are caught inside their Hammer #5 skill or when you have to finish them down – actually, I usually kill Guardians with that skill.
Necro fear and Thief Stealth, do I even have to explain them?
Ranger Healing Spring and Mesmer Consume Plasma are situational, but good to have (I do find Consume Plasma a little slow to activate though, but I’m fine).

And of course I am happy when I steal a nice skill from mobs, such as:
-Bone Crack (3s STUN)
-Eat Egg (2k healing AND 6 initiative)
-Throw Scale (10s Weakness, Poison and Bleed)
The 1m bleed is very situational and good only to condition builds.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Elementalist
Current: Ice Shard Stab – attack and chill a foe
New: Gain Might, Protection, Swiftness, Regeneration (shorter versions of the attunement bonuses, basically)

Plasma already gives a bunch of boons, this is just a kittentier version of that.

Engineer
Current: Throw Gunk – inflict a random condition
New: Remove all conditions and gain immunity to conditions for a couple of seconds (sort of like an Endure Pain for condis)

Guardian
Current: Daze foe with a mace crack
New: Grant Aegis, Stability, and Regeneration

Again, why would I want a cruddier version of Plasma? Head crack is also a strong skill – thieves don’t get long duration anything due to the init system, so 4s of daze can be very, very nice – it would be nice thematically if it ignored block (since you get it from a guardian), but I don’t know how balanced that would be.

Mesmer
Current: Consume Plasma – gain all boons
This one is good as is, or can even be nerfed slightly. It’s THAT good, in my opinion.

Necromancer
Current: Skull Fear – aoe fear
New: Keep the aoe fear, also transfer conditions from you to nearby opponents (short duration… like a weaker version of Plague Signet+Epidemic). If that’s too powerful, then scratch that and perhaps create a Well of Power at your location instead when you use the aoe fear.

Or just scrap the fear idea entirely, and turn this into a condition mitigation option for thieves, who are currently lacking those options.

Ranger
Current: Healing Seed – water field, regen, and pulse condi removal
Good as is. Extremely powerful in group situations.

Thief
Current: Blinding Tuft – stealth + blind nearby foes
This one is also good as is. Even though I don’t use it. >:T

Nothing mechanically wrong with this really, but boring. Tiny benefit for thieves who don’t use stealth. Could use an update to make it more useful for the thief class in general, rather than just some specific specs.

Warrior
Current: Whirling Axe – spin attack
New: I’m kinda torn on this one. I like the idea of whirling axe, but I think it should have stability on it as well. But I’d also kind of dig the idea of Endure Pain instead. Screw it, give us all three!

The whirl finisher along with projectile reflection can come in handy – I use it to stack poison on healing signet warriors…who cleansing ire it away in 7 seconds anyway, but at least I got those 7 seconds.

Zacchary.6183:

I think having a “Remove a Condition on Dodge” would be good enough.

^ this. So much this. Acrobatics needs to be more effective. Id like to see assassins reward made useful and some anti-cond

Shemsu.8721:

Zacchary.6183:

I think having a “Remove a Condition on Dodge” would be good enough.

^ this. So much this. Acrobatics needs to be more effective. Id like to see assassins reward made useful and some anti-cond

I would love both of those ideas. Thief condi-cleanse options are downright abysmal without using stealth. Using a sword helps somewhat, but it’s way too easy to spam conditions in the current meta. I kinda wish they’d tweak Vitality to give condi duration reduction. Seems like Vitality should help protect against Condition Damage in the same regard that Toughness helps against Power.

Hm, I can somewhat agree with these. I find it funny how the bundles are actually exact counters to the classes you steal from i.e. stealth thief vs. stealth thief, whoever stealths the longest has the upper hand, mace head crack is a monster on guardians when used at the right time, necro fear is actually something I use when they go into death shroud so while they are running I can quickly hit them out of it. I personally don’t like the throw gunk, any competent person will simply walk out of it, and chaos armor cannot be stacked so it will wear off very quickly. Ice shard stab I tend to double tap steal for since I have a hard time hitting foes with it when they are moving, but if it connects it is very useful. Consume plasma is good as is, and I also wish whirling axe would give stability but then it -may- be op, not too sure. I think what needs the most tweaking is throw gunk since it doesn’t benefit most situations Spider man knows what I mean

Along with others, I find Ice Shard and Throw Gunk the least useful. The others seem fairly powerful (albeit situational), and any re-work (as OP suggested) would instead make them unbalanced.