Guild Wars 2

First post here! Just some thoughts I had to improve Thieves non stealth abilities, specifically traps. Keep in mind mostly speaking in context of pvp and wvw.

Let’s face it, currently our trap skills are just lackluster compared to the mobility and stealth options we have for utilities. Why waste a utility on a trap when you can go with the tried and true SR, SS, and SoS.

Traps triggering are bugged currently and their size pales in comparison to rangers 120 radius traps. If their size were increased or changed to a radius like ranger’s (and they actually trigger correctly) would alone increase the viability of traps.

On top of that our traits for traps, well there’s only 3 of them and:

Corrosive Traps: pretty bad even for 5 stacks of vulnerability they only last 5 seconds.

Merciful Ambush: an ambush trap when your downed will basically do nothing for you besides prolong your death against a skilled player.

Master Trapper: your basic 20% cooldown reduction

Personally i need more incentive than that to get rid of my life saving shadow refuge or shadow step. One of these could be a Grand master trait.

My suggestions:
Explosive Traps: Traps deal additional damage (slightly weaker than mug damage)

Trap Artist: Gain 2 initiative when you use a trap skill.

Call for Duty: Place an ambush trap when you use a heal skill. (this thief would only last 10-15 seconds)

Thoughts?

I like the trap on heal. 5Vuln isnt terrible with the shadowstep trap, past that i agree.

I use them for kittens and giggles. Nothing like enemy zergs commander rtl’ing over kd trap. Rest of following zerg is curious why the charge paused. WHO USES TRAPS? Lol! indeed. Another fun one is to use ambush trap well ahead of time, wait for trigger, use again, and then TG. Fun when you get get 3 melees.

But i totally agree, very niche and virtually anything is better in comparison.

The ambush is fine for newbie solo PvE so that’s not useless. The needle trap and tripwire are occasional skills and that’s fine, I think, since we can’t use all the skills all the time. The shadow trap seems strange to me, certainly for PvE, so perhaps it could be removed and its ability made into a trait that applied to all traps.

Made these suggestions a while ago.

All Traps:

Instead of being triggered upon hit and then dissipating, Thief traps are now static objects placed on the ground and unseen by hostile targets. Each one will have its own set of charges.

Needle Trap:

- One charge, affects a 300 radius when triggered and becomes an invisible AoE circle for 3 seconds. Foes that step in this circle receive the trap effect, and the target that triggered the trap is the centre of the circle.

Tripwire:

-Three charges, same effect radius/length as it is now. Cripple effect removed. A foe that walks across the trap a second time has an internal cooldown of 5 seconds before they can trigger it again (3 second knockdown with no stunbreak, 2 seconds to spare)
-The third foe breaks the wire and becomes “Snagged”. After moving 300 units away from the trap, they are pulled back to the trap and adjacent foes are crippled by the lashing wire for 5 seconds.
- The pull/lash can be activated prematurely on the last affected target, as the first knockdown will chain the skill to “Snap Wire”.

sPvP Version:
- One charge
- Knockdown, snag, pull and cripple all operate on that one charge and affect only the target.
- Cooldown increased to 60 seconds.

Shadow Trap:

- One charge (obviously)
- Upon triggering, a loud smoke bomb explodes, blinding and weakening adjacent foes for 5 seconds.
- Shadow Pursuit is instant cast.
- Shadow Pursuit breaks stun.

Ambush:

- Cooldown increased to 45 seconds
- One charge (obviously)
- The spawned Thief now behaves identical to Veteran Scouts in WvW, but with the same HP, armor and damage output as before (I believe the dual dagger version did more damage so we’ll use that as a template).
- Upon triggering the thief, Ambush chains to “Tag Team”, an instant cast stun-break skill.
- Tag Team swaps your position and the spawned Thief’s position via shadowstep. Breaks stun.

Deadly Arts:

Corrosive Traps: Vulnerability duration increased to 10s.

Improvisation: Changed to “Well-Prepared”. Increases damage dealt by 5% for every unique active trap effect (lingering poisons, immobilisation, cripples, knockdowns, Shadow Pursuit marks, blinds, weakening and active Ambush Thieves), including damage dealt by summoned Thieves. Reduces Trap skill cooldowns by 20%.

Acrobatics:

Master Trapper: Endurance regeneration increased by 50% while traps are active, untriggered or triggered.

Trickery:

Merciful Ambush: Becomes “Merciful Trapper”. Create a large Needle trap (600 radius) when reviving an ally.

The major problem with the traps is that they almost always trigger on 1 enemy since it’s the first person to step over the line that sets them off. You can hit multiple enemies in the middle of a group though, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a TRAP.

The only major use I found for traps was running around with my ranger friend. Using the spike or KD trap in the center of his traps was quite amusing, especially on thieves. “Oh you’re going to backstab me? Now you’re on the ground dying”. They are also decent at stopping mesmer bombs through bottlenecks. I prefer caltrops over the traps though, tons more damage, hits multiple enemies for the duration, and a longer cripple. I’d probably use them more if they triggered multiple times(small cooldown between triggers and only 1 of each trap down at a time), but that would take ArenaNet a year to implement.

Distaste.4801:

The major problem with the traps is that they almost always trigger on 1 enemy since it’s the first person to step over the line that sets them off. You can hit multiple enemies in the middle of a group though, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a TRAP.

The only major use I found for traps was running around with my ranger friend. Using the spike or KD trap in the center of his traps was quite amusing, especially on thieves. “Oh you’re going to backstab me? Now you’re on the ground dying”. They are also decent at stopping mesmer bombs through bottlenecks. I prefer caltrops over the traps though, tons more damage, hits multiple enemies for the duration, and a longer cripple. I’d probably use them more if they triggered multiple times(small cooldown between triggers and only 1 of each trap down at a time), but that would take ArenaNet a year to implement.

When I first saw traps, I really thought that they would last for the time in the tooltip. I couldn’t imagine that it would set off when the first enemy triggered it.

They should increase the number of triggers it supports. Maybe cap to 5, as another skills out there.

I really wish Ambush Trap would function as it should and summon the Thief AT the trap, chasing down whoever triggered it.
It’s useless as a trap right now because you can’t leave it alone. It only works as an ordinary summon, but more tedious because you have to drop it on top of someone.