Guild Wars 2

Daredevil has thematically usurped acrobatics. Where once acrobatics was the core thief trait line thematically tied to endurance gain and movement speed, Daredevil is now that trait line.

Now, we can all sit around bemoaning the nerfs to acro, complaining that we got a straight upgrade, etc. but I think we can all agree that what daredevil does, it does well, and for reasons likely related to further elite spec balance that power was deemed reserved for an elite spec.

This does however leave the base thief, who is supposed to remain both competitive with elite specced thieves and have interesting options while leveling in a uniquely bad place.

This got me thinking. What mechanics typify the thief, and which of those mechanics would make sense both thematically and mechanically as a replacement defensive trait line.

Thieves are unique for their stealth, initiative, steal skill, and shadowstepping.

Stealth has its own trait line. Initiative is a base system that wouldn’t be appropriate to base a line around. Steal has a trait line in the form of trickery as well as being a base system appropriate for all lines to interact with it, which left me with the only logical option.

Acrobatics, a trait line about dodging, should be replaced with mobility arts, a trait line about shadowstepping.

This leaves the two lines with no high concept overlap, maintains the concept of a defensive trait line with unique mechanics to the class, and gives thieves a competitive and fun option for playing non-elite builds, and a viable specialization option while leveling.

The current thief abilities that utilize the shadowstep mechanic are:

• Infiltrator’s Arrow
• Infiltrator’s Signet
• Infiltrator’s Strike
• Shadow Shot
• Shadow Strike
• Shadow Trap
• Shadowstep
• Steal

(and ink Shot, but underwater balance is a whole other thread)

As you can see, virtually all thieves have at least one, and often two or more shadowsteps on their bar. This makes it prime real estate for a core defensive line.

So, here’s my crack at replacing Acrobatics with a Shadowstep focused trait line. This is high concept, without exact numbers, just to communicate the concept. Some of these would need and ICD, some would not, durations and stack amounts are not listed, again, for the purpose of remaining high concept

The terminaology “before” and “after” refer to the starting and ending location of a shadowstep. So a “before” effect would fire at your original location as you shadowstepped, and an “after” effect would fire once you arrived at your destination.

Minor Adept

• Assassin’s Remedy – Remove a condition when you shadowstep

Major Adepts

• Momentum – Gain superspeed after you shadowstep
• Determination – Gain protection after you shadowstep
• Cold and Clinical – Shortbow attacks have increased damage, increased speed, and have a chance to chill foes.

Minor Master

• Dark Escape – Blind nearby foes before you shadowstep

Major Masters

• Death’s Charge – Gain health after you shadowstep
• Hard to Catch – Same as acro version. Solid trait that is still thematic.
• Shroud of Distress – Gain protection, aegis, and stability when your health drops lower than 30%

Minor Grandmaster

• Way of the Fox – Your base movement speed is increased.

Major Grandmasters

• Path of Least Resistance – Steal Becomes ground targeted, stealing from a random neaby enemy. If nothing is stolen, the cooldown of steal is reduced.

• Path of Deception – Leave a Clone before you shadowstep. The clone detonates after a short delay, dealing damage, burning, and crippling nearby foes.

• Path of Scars – After you shadowstep, gain initiative. Gain additional initiative proportional to the amount of health you are missing.

People who helped with this
Sagat, for the great idea of a shortbow trait and some tweaks

Not sure if it’s enough to create a line around it but good effort not great because you are turning it into steal (bunch of effects same move), some traits could stay don’t completely rework it merge and/or solidify it. Also it’s weird but a wrongly relief that no utilities are attached to Acro anymore.

Sagat.3285:

Not sure if it’s enough to create a line around it but good effort not great because you are turning it into steal (bunch of effects same move), some traits could stay don’t completely rework it merge and/or solidify it. Also it’s weird but a wrongly relief that no utilities are attached to Acro anymore.

My thinking was that, since all thieves have Steal at the very least, it would have potential use for all builds, but unlike trickery affect all shadowsteps to make it a line you could actually build around with weapon sets and utilities. I approached the concept by thinking “okay, if i were looking at this as an alternative to SA with two offensive lines” as well as “could this be a compelling alternative for sword builds to DD if it lost swindler’s equilibrium”

I also thought about it in terms of future elite specs. Would this be viable in an elite spec that replaced steal with a non-shadowstep mechanic? I came to the conclusion that since d/p, p/d, sword/X, and shortbow all have weapon shadowsteps, and there are enough core utilities that shadowstep that it was in a pretty good place for the future.

Any suggestions for changes?

PopeUrban.2578:

Sagat.3285:

Not sure if it’s enough to create a line around it but good effort not great because you are turning it into steal (bunch of effects same move), some traits could stay don’t completely rework it merge and/or solidify it. Also it’s weird but a wrongly relief that no utilities are attached to Acro anymore.

My thinking was that, since all thieves have Steal at the very least, it would have potential use for all builds, but unlike trickery affect all shadowsteps to make it a line you could actually build around with weapon sets and utilities. I approached the concept by thinking “okay, if i were looking at this as an alternative to SA with two offensive lines” as well as “could this be a compelling alternative for sword builds to DD if it lost swindler’s equilibrium”

I also thought about it in terms of future elite specs. Would this be viable in an elite spec that replaced steal with a non-shadowstep mechanic? I came to the conclusion that since d/p, p/d, sword/X, and shortbow all have weapon shadowsteps, and there are enough core utilities that shadowstep that it was in a pretty good place for the future.

Any suggestions for changes?

I would mind if it was an elite spec but since Acro and DD overlap too much so it seems appropriate but it can’t be purely shadowstep oriented. Assuming Acro’s evade/dodge based traits go to DD or gets deleted maybe this:

(In advance you are aware that some skills/utilities would have to change/nerf for this too as well as restrictions right? The concept itself is lacking or slim)
Minors:
-Shadowstepping gives you 1 initiative 2sec ICD
-The range of your shadowstep are increased by 150 range
-Shadowstepping removes a condition 1 sec ICD

Adept
-Gain superspeed after shadowstepping 3 sec
-SB skills have increased damage and have a chance to chill foes 5% more damage 50% to chill 2 sec duration
-

Master
-When you steal shadowstep your foe to your previous location and immobilizing and damaging them 2 1/2 sec immobilize
-When you steal shadowstep allies around your foe away from him healing and reviving them 3 allies,900 range,30% revive,2000 healing
-

GM
-Assasin’s Reward(buffed)
-Your next attack after you shadowstep burns and blinds foes 360 radius 2 stacks of burn 4 sec duration 2 sec ICD
-Reduce recharge on traps 20% when activated traps gives you Dark Aura 3 sec duration(block attack and siphon health when hit 1 sec ICD) and grant might 5 stacks 15 sec duration(I know that is fantasy)

Missing two but those are rough ideas.

I think it can be totally shadowstep based. Thieves actually have more access to shadowstep than they have access to stealth! Realizing that was what gave me the idea for the line in the first place. Basically, in stead of just rehashing acro, what if you didn’t actually need the endurance stuff in acro and could still be viable without SA? At that point your could combine it with DD or SA for much better overall sustain, or just run it with two non-sustain lines and have a good build.

As for nerfs/reworks, a lot of these traits would need ICDs, obviously, but the intent was that they could be largely extremely short ICD traits to allow builds like P/D and D/P access to a stealthless playstyle if they picked it up, as they have the ability to spam shadowsteps pretty efficiently. Again, I purposely didn’t list the ICDs as the initial concept here was much more about flavor and utility.

Now, on to your traits!

Init on shadowstep – I considered a similar baseline but quickly came to the conclusion that ICD traits with minimal effects just don’t feel all that impactful or fun. I moved the init to a GM choice so you still have this option, but added the missing HP mechanic. The general idea here is that you see the same basic init gain as you would with an ICD minor, but on top of that you have this great ability to load up on init as your HP drops, which is noticable, fight altering, and IMO a lot more fun.

SB trait This I like. I like it way better than my confuse trait. I like it so much that I’m replacing mine

Shadowstep swap trait The basic idea of a swap mechanic is, IMO, extremely problematic for GW2 combat. It allows a lot of WvW trolling applications and the nature of shadowstepping itself as a potentially instant effect would make it too powerful, as there would be no way to counterplay that swap like you can counter most pulls and launches.

AoE ally Shadowstep This seems too powerful for a master, and is a support trait in a non-support line. I think base thief already has a support build in the form of venomshare, and further support builds should probably be handled like the druid, on an elite spec built around support mechanics. Also, the ability to shadowstep allies is even more problematic than shadowstepping enemies as you could easily use this to troll the crap out of people even in PvE zones.

Assassin’s reward This trait is functionally the same trait as invigorating precision from critical strikes. IMO a better way to handle it would be to merge it in to invigorating precision. Having two traits on two separate lines that do almost the exact same thing isn’t impactful or even particularly fun. I know Assassin’s reward was around first, but a health-on-attack trait really seems more suited to a highly offensive like like CS, and Invigorating precision needs a buff anyway.

Burn after shadowstep This is another case where it just didn’t seem like a gm level choice to have another “aoe on shadowstep” trait, since much of the line is built around adding small effects to shadowstep. Burn would be a good add though, so in stead I think I’m going to attach burn to the Way of Deception clones, as they explode and it’s a bit thematic.

Traps There’s already a traps trait, and generally traits that specifically modify one type of utilities only have one trait specifically related to them. Other modifications to traps would IMO be better handled by changing/adding to deadly trapper.

Shadowstep range increase This doesn’t seem worthy of a trait pick, as it’s highly situational. In cases where you want to use shadowsteps offensively, you’ll barely ever get use out of it. In cases where you want to use it defensively, it’s a bit overpowered. A big point of the spec was increasining sustain to a point a base thief wouldn’t need SA or Acro, and this trait doesn’t meaningfully add sustain.

Just rough and random ideas but the main to remember is that to remake a core line will take a while especially with needed adjustments to the class. I don’t see it happening the relation between Acro and DD was obviously intended it’s a cheap way of making it easier to balance or else Acro would have gotten better traits and DD would be something else.

I doubt they would consider the rework of an entire line but in my opinion this line should have some traits that help with a shadowstep.

I am still not opposed to having FG and endless stamina and HTC as alternate sources of endurance for the thief anymore then I am opposed to some other profession having sources of might/blind/swiftness in multiple traitlines. Access to endurance boosts should be ample to the thief.

I do think many of the other traits need a revisit.

Not really a fan of the GM’s but I love this.

Nope, just fix Acrobatics as it was before The Great Nerf.

Ohoni.6057:

Nope, just fix Acrobatics as it was before The Great Nerf.

and then have two lines that do virtually the same thing?

Runewolf.8456:

Ohoni.6057:

Nope, just fix Acrobatics as it was before The Great Nerf.

and then have two lines that do virtually the same thing?

This is where you get a bold overview of their balance. Why is DD dodge based and why nerf Acro for it? Why introduce more reveal if you are adding stealth to other classes? Why make the combat theme elite spec better at running away then the core class?

I can’t believe most thieves just get along with it but meh thief is not GW2 to them. Their logic is foreign to me at many occasions.

and then have two lines that do virtually the same thing?

If necessary, sure. It’s better than the alternative of leaving things as they are.

The way I see it is this, Acrobatics should be about mobility and dodging in the vanilla style. It should be everything it used to be, and should provide a solid compliment to a dodge-heavy DD build.

Daredevil itself should involve the dodge enhancements, making dodge more functional, but also should be solidly about stand-up fights, giving Thieves more face-tanky options, more capability to wade into battle and stay there rather than having to cut and run constantly. That seems to have been the attempt with the staff and Physical skills, but they don’t really cut it just yet.

What I don’t want to see is some attempt to re-imagine Acro as something different.

One thing to always keep in mind, you can only have one elite spec at a time. That is irrelevant right now, because we only have one anyways, but as soon as we have two or three other specs, remember that if you play as one of those then you can never take advantage of what Daredevil brings to the table.

Unless we want every future spec to include make-ups for what Acro lost, it’s just much simpler to put Acro itself back into working order and let all future specs make use of that when they need a little mobility. If they want to add a Shadowstepping based line, which would not be a terrible idea, they should make it as a new elite, like “Shadow Runner” or something.

Ohoni.6057:

and then have two lines that do virtually the same thing?

If necessary, sure. It’s better than the alternative of leaving things as they are.

The way I see it is this, Acrobatics should be about mobility and dodging in the vanilla style. It should be everything it used to be, and should provide a solid compliment to a dodge-heavy DD build.

Daredevil itself should involve the dodge enhancements, making dodge more functional, but also should be solidly about stand-up fights, giving Thieves more face-tanky options, more capability to wade into battle and stay there rather than having to cut and run constantly. That seems to have been the attempt with the staff and Physical skills, but they don’t really cut it just yet.

What I don’t want to see is some attempt to re-imagine Acro as something different.

One thing to always keep in mind, you can only have one elite spec at a time. That is irrelevant right now, because we only have one anyways, but as soon as we have two or three other specs, remember that if you play as one of those then you can never take advantage of what Daredevil brings to the table.

Unless we want every future spec to include make-ups for what Acro lost, it’s just much simpler to put Acro itself back into working order and let all future specs make use of that when they need a little mobility. If they want to add a Shadowstepping based line, which would not be a terrible idea, they should make it as a new elite, like “Shadow Runner” or something.

I was unaware we would only ever be allowed one elite spec at a time, apologies. But otherwise I agree with you and the first step is definitely boosting acro back to it’s former glory, however I do not think that should be the ONLY step taken. After acro is back DD should be adjusted even if only slightly to emphasize that difference your describe.

I was unaware we would only ever be allowed one elite spec at a time, apologies.

Yeah, if you look at the traits now, the bottom row has a yellow border, you can put anything in there you like, but Elites can only go in there. It makes sense, because later elites will likely impact similar areas, so overlapping them would likely cause conflicts (like if the second Mesmer spec has a completely different use for the f5 button). They didn’t make this super clear though.

After acro is back DD should be adjusted even if only slightly to emphasize that difference your describe.

Sure, I definitely think there’s room to improve the DD.

The thing is, DD ate acro’s cake.

having a main line that does exactly the same thing, only worse, is just as stupid as making an elite spec that adds a bunch of features to stealth.

It’s redundant.

If you want to play full on dodge monkey, they’ve decided that that stuff is now in DD. no other elite spec has that kind of overlap. They’re not enhancements to existing lines. They’re new lines.

DD is, currently, an enhancement to acro. Acro is useless without it. If Acro was reverted back to its olf power… DD would be overpowered WITH it.

Again, this is the entire reason they nerfed acro, and made the elite spec “Acro, but better because you can’t combine it with other elite specs now.”

Base thief needs a line that doesn’t suck. By way of DD existing that line can’t be acro. If it is, it’s going to continue to suck because of its potential combination with DD. They’re far less likely to redesign DD than they are acro at this point because DD has a clear identity as well as a lot of unique art assets, while acro has no unique art assets. It’s much easier to replace acro than DD, and those considerations are actually important real life things when you’re sitting down and altering a live MMO with budget constraints.

We were told that taking an elite spec should be a sidegrade, not an upgrade.

Leaving acro as a “dodge line” makes DD a straight upgrade no matter how you slice it. If they were going to buff acro, it would come with a nerf to DD. If Acro is replaced with something that’s competitive with SA, on the base thief, without being just a worse version of an elite spec, then taking the elite becomes an actual option.

alchemyst.2165:

Not really a fan of the GM’s but I love this.

Any suggestions for different style GMs?

I was going for sort of really high concept craziness since shadowstep is a mechanic thieves CAN use often, but generally don’t HAVE to, the idea was adding big effects to shadowstep, since unlike dodge or stealth the thief has a lot more control of shadowstep as an optional mechanic.

Like, it’s difficult to “hold off” on a dodge, and for any sneak attack style build it’s similarly difficult to “hold off” on a stealth since you often need to for damage.

However, you can always “hold off” of a shadowstep without getting murdered for it in most cases (unless you’re SB5 disengaging, in which case you don’t care what your traits do anyway)

The other thing I did was with path of least resistance, specifically an option for ranged builds. The idea is that it’s often better when using it to use steal as a ranged mobility tool, as you don’t get the stlen item, but you seriously reduce steal’s cooldown. I don’t want to go in to exact numbers just yet, but aline it should result in a similar cooldown as taking trickery, and it should stack with trickery to lower the CD even further, so if you were going for something like a non-stealth P/P build, or a shortbow DPS build with the new shortbow trait in the line, you’d have a solid combat mobility tool in stead of being stuck with a melee range shadowstep.

If you want to play full on dodge monkey, they’ve decided that that stuff is now in DD. no other elite spec has that kind of overlap. They’re not enhancements to existing lines. They’re new lines.

DD is, currently, an enhancement to acro. Acro is useless without it. If Acro was reverted back to its olf power… DD would be overpowered WITH it.

If so, then that’s still how it should be. If the current DD stuff would be OP with old Acro in place, then what they would need to do is revert old Acro, and then scale back some of the stuff DD does (although you’d have to tell me what because I’m not seeing how it would be over powered in any way), and then if DD is no longer cool enough, then they’d have to add other stuff in.

That sounds like a lot of work, but that’s their problem because they were the ones who decided to have the DD eat Acro’s cake in the first place. They didn’t have to do that, the other class leads didn’t do that. Thieve were already bad enough, there are no call for further nerfing them only to give some of it back instead of a full elite spec.

They have no other viable option. They can’t leave Acro in its current state because it would literally hobble any future Thief Elite specs.

They’re far less likely to redesign DD than they are acro at this point because DD has a clear identity as well as a lot of unique art assets, while acro has no unique art assets.

It’s not like they have to start from scratch with DD. It can still use the staff and the Physicals, and all that goes with. It can still use the special dodges and the third dodge bar, none of that would be a problem even with the old Acro. Whatever traits they would need to tweak, they could tweak, no problems.

We were told that taking an elite spec should be a sidegrade, not an upgrade.

And clearly that’s what Karl set out to do, the problem is that every other employee at ANet set out to make really cool upgrades, and a few glitches aside, they accomplished just that. Every other Elite spec is a considerable improvement on the base class, to the point that I plan on upgrading almost all of my characters (except my Guard), even if I only want to use one or two of the spec features. With the Thief, the DD is an upgrade to what we’ve got right now, but a downgrade from what we had six months ago, so it’s a Pyrrhic victory at best.

A clear difference of opinion here, obviously, it just seems, to me, that bundling all of the dodge related stuff in to a single build defining trait line with supporting utilities and weapon seems much better in terms of the longevity of balance.

Either way you slice it, if acro was re-buffed and DD has its endurance stuff nerfed, the capstone ability of DD is the dodges and larger END bar, meaning if you’re making an evasion focused sustain build, you end up without the option of picking one or the other line. You have to take both.

That’s a critical flaw in the system, as you end up with either DD or acro being sub-par lines. DD would simply be bad without the END stuff, and acro is bad without the level of END that DD adds to it. No matter where you shift that focus the fact reamins that, if you’re doing a dodge-as-sustain build you’re forced to take both or you’re shooting youself in the foot.

DD isn’t going to change at a focal level, nor should it. The major draw for DD is the dodge replacements, and those dodge replacements can’t be utilized properly without additional sources of END. Trickery has a little vigor, but in the end trickery works like the base mechanic line from every other class. It primarily buffs the core mechanic of the class, by adding stuff that is all-around useful to any given build on top of it.

Acro is in the position it’s in specifically because of DD, and DD is in the position it’s in specifically because of acro. It’s just a bad design to have those two lines so closely associated. At best, one is simply an upgrade to the other. At worst they’re required picks together, leaving the thief with only one line to use to define the rest of their build.

Either way you slice it, I feel that situation is bad for build diversity, and bad for the thief as a class.

That’s a critical flaw in the system, as you end up with either DD or acro being sub-par lines. DD would simply be bad without the END stuff, and acro is bad without the level of END that DD adds to it. No matter where you shift that focus the fact reamins that, if you’re doing a dodge-as-sustain build you’re forced to take both or you’re shooting youself in the foot.

I think with proper trait support, you shouldn’t have to go all-in on dodging with the DD, just as you don’t have to Overload with Tempest, or be all about Gyros for the Scrapper. I made a GS-wielding Druid this weekend that only went into Celestial mode once when I was overwhelmed, survived, and overall had a ton of fun with it.

Even without Acro, a DD would still be able to do fancy dodges, just not as much more often than other classes can dodge (although even without Acro they’d have plenty of options for Vigor). In exchange, he would get bonuses to Stealth, or direct damage that would make him a better all-arounder. The other DD traits should support this playstyle, by making the DD potentially more tough, like maybe have a “+dodges” trait, but then opposite that in the same tier have a “while your endurance is over 100. . .” buffing trait, that would both encourage and support a “chill out on the dodging” play style.

I think they can restore Acro fully to what it was, the spec for vanilla and post-HoT elite specs that want to dodge a lot, and then also have DD, the spec that includes some core dodging benefits, but is also focused on melee combat, and face-to-face brawling, rather than hit and run tactics. It can benefit from Acro, but it can also benefit from Deadly Arts, Trickery, Critical Strikes, and even Shadows a bit.

I fully expect that they will make a Shadowstep elite spec eventually, I do not expect them to first decimate all the existing shadowstep options when they do so.

Path of deception made me lol. Make it drop a translucent wooden training dummy/log for extra keks. Aside from that, I like this suggestion. Only issue is, I’m not sure whether or not this is the right direction, but it makes a little more sense than what we have currently.

This definitely sounds interesting. I’m willing to try anything other than current acro at this point.

Though I would like boon stealing to be in there somewhere. Thieves need more of it IMO.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This definitely sounds interesting. I’m willing to try anything other than current acro at this point.

Though I would like boon stealing to be in there somewhere. Thieves need more of it IMO.

I also think the thief needs more boon stealing, but I’m of the opinion that it should be associated with trickery, or just made baseline to the thief in general, leaning way closer to the “make it baseline” approach.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Path of deception made me lol. Make it drop a translucent wooden training dummy/log for extra keks. Aside from that, I like this suggestion. Only issue is, I’m not sure whether or not this is the right direction, but it makes a little more sense than what we have currently.

That’s a little too copyright infring-ey but as soon as I had the idea for a shadowstep line I knew this had to be in there as the tech already exists, it’s thematic to the thief specifically without going too far in to mesmer clone territory, and it would synergise really well with any of the weapon shadowsteps.

Imagine spamming p/d or d/p 3 with these, or diving across a zerg with sb5, right? Rather than being like a mesmer and having to fiddle with the clones, they just sort of go as a passive effect so you can focus on personal mobility, but they still might distract someone for a few seconds and punish them for being fooled. It seemed logical to have an all encompassing aoe style GM to go with the solo fight scars and the ranged-specific least resistance so that all three were compelling choices based on the build you wanted to run with it.

Sagat’s idea to have burning in the line was a great one, as the damage pie on these could be set such that they deal good but not totally OP damage on condition or white specs, so they’d be generally usable on more builds.