Guild Wars 2

Deadly Arts – Going to be used in almost every single build, that might be a problem. LOVE the focus on traps. Improvisation still feels a bit underwhelming with the “random skill recharged” when compared to it’s other grandmaster traits.

Critical Strikes – It’s too PvE focused, the only trait worth getting in PvP is Hidden Killer and most builds won’t waste the time. I would merge pistol range increase into Ankle Shots and move the 10% damage up to Ricochet so there are more options for pistolplay. Combo Critical Chance is very underwhelming; kick it up to 10%.

Shadow Arts – Desperately needs some kind of damage bonus or might generation. I would suggest merging Shadow Protector and Hidden Assassin so stealthing yourself and allies gives 10 seconds of regain and 15 seconds of mightx2. Also it’s hard to tell but Shadow’s Rejuvenation should let a thief run CnD -> BS -> Autochain -> Repeat without running out of initiative.

Acrobatics – Looks great, lot’s of endurance play. Assassin’s Reward is pretty bad still, would reccomend buffing it or replacing it all together. I’d like to see something in this traitline that increases condition damage in some way, maybe replace assassin’s reward with a trait that increases the evade on deathblossom up to .75 seconds?

Trickery – Thrill of the Crime needs to be kicked up to 2 or 3 might stacks, or have the duration of the buffs increased. Flanking Strikes will get a lot of people killed but otherwise is pretty strong.

Other then that there’s not much to comment on. With the changes to poison (stacking intensity instead of duration) you can almost bet there will be a re-work to Spider Venom. Some initiative regaining traits have been removed so we might also see a buff in the base recharge.

tl;dr
-Merge Shadow Protector and Hidden Assassin so stealthing yourself and allies gives 10 seconds of regain and 15 seconds of mightx2.
-I’m worried Deadly Arts tree has too many required traits and will be in almost every thief build which will limit diversity.
-Spider Venom + Venomshare is the new Icebow

Pretty good suggestions.

I’d rather have a set % amount of cooldown cut from equipped utilities on Improvisation than fully recharging a random one. Also, considering the rework they said they’ll do on the bundles, using them twice might turn to be a good/bad idea.

The merging of SP and HD sounds good for a GM.
And of course, the ToC buff on might stacks is something we’ve all been waiting for some time.

On another note, I also liked the Shadowstep on Hard to Catch, but seems like some people didn’t. I’m ok with that either way.

MakubeC.3026:

Pretty good suggestions.

I’d rather have a set % amount of cooldown cut from equipped utilities on Improvisation than fully recharging a random one. Also, considering the rework they said they’ll do on the bundles, using them twice might turn to be a good/bad idea.

The merging of SP and HD sounds good for a GM.
And of course, the ToC buff on might stacks is something we’ve all been waiting for some time.

On another note, I also liked the Shadowstep on Hard to Catch, but seems like some people didn’t. I’m ok with that either way.

For Hard to Catch, if they added 1 or 2 seconds of stealth it would give the thief time to reorient or fire off a shortbow attack. That might be too OP for PvP though :P

Scootabuser.4915:

For Hard to Catch, if they added 1 or 2 seconds of stealth it would give the thief time to reorient or fire off a shortbow attack. That might be too OP for PvP though :P

Its an automatic stunbreak with somewhat low cooldown.
This trait went from zero to hero with this change alone.

Scootabuser.4915:

Deadly Arts – Going to be used in almost every single build, that might be a problem. LOVE the focus on traps. Improvisation still feels a bit underwhelming with the “random skill recharged” when compared to it’s other grandmaster traits.

Improvisation hinges on the changes they will make on the stolen items. As far as those items are concern, all they’ve mention is that those items will lose the ability to deal damage. So far, the only plus is having to use 2 Mesmer stolen items — if it stays as is.

Critical Strikes – It’s too PvE focused, the only trait worth getting in PvP is Hidden Killer and most builds won’t waste the time. I would merge pistol range increase into Ankle Shots and move the 10% damage up to Ricochet so there are more options for pistolplay. Combo Critical Chance is very underwhelming; kick it up to 10%.

I disagree with you on this. Ricochet is good as is and I like the damage boost on Ankle Shot —- which can also be spec’ed with IP to keep your HP high for Keen Observer.

Obviously, this favors the high Crit chance build that aims to trigger “on crit” effects from Sigils (or food) for a lot of burst damage.

But I do agree that this is PvE focused, but can still be useful in WvW and not so much in sPvP.

Shadow Arts – Desperately needs some kind of damage bonus or might generation. I would suggest merging Shadow Protector and Hidden Assassin so stealthing yourself and allies gives 10 seconds of regain and 15 seconds of mightx2. Also it’s hard to tell but Shadow’s Rejuvenation should let a thief run CnD -> BS -> Autochain -> Repeat without running out of initiative.

What SR do is that you gain 2init per second in stealth. 1 from natural init regen + 1 from SR. So in theory, after CnD, you would have replenished the initiative cost of CnD if you stay in stealth for the full duration.

Acrobatics – Looks great, lot’s of endurance play. Assassin’s Reward is pretty bad still, would reccomend buffing it or replacing it all together. I’d like to see something in this traitline that increases condition damage in some way, maybe replace assassin’s reward with a trait that increases the evade on deathblossom up to .75 seconds?

The loss of healing power from the traitline affects AR greatly, so it’s viability will depend on what stats we get from our gears. As of now, it’s too early to write off anything.

Trickery – Thrill of the Crime needs to be kicked up to 2 or 3 might stacks, or have the duration of the buffs increased. Flanking Strikes will get a lot of people killed but otherwise is pretty strong.

Thrill is good as is given that this traitline also reduces the Steal cooldown. The might stack is just a bonus, but the real boon from this trait is Fury and Swiftness. The might stack we can from other sources, the one from this is just a bonus. Also keep in mind that this buff is shared with allies.

Flanking Strike is perfect as is. It’s not for Thieves who relies on dodges.

-Spider Venom + Venomshare is the new Icebow

I like how they fused Venom Aura and Quick Venom together, but it’s still not good enough to pick over SR.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Scootabuser.4915:

Deadly Arts – Going to be used in almost every single build, that might be a problem. LOVE the focus on traps. Improvisation still feels a bit underwhelming with the “random skill recharged” when compared to it’s other grandmaster traits.

Improvisation hinges on the changes they will make on the stolen items. As far as those items are concern, all they’ve mention is that those items will lose the ability to deal damage. So far, the only plus is having to use 2 Mesmer stolen items — if it stays as is.

It also hinges on how heal and elite skills will now all belong to existing skill categories. So that means that no matter what your build, each usage of steal now has a 20% chance of recharging your heal or elite. Previously you could only do that with venoms or Signet of Malice, and I think SoM was taken more for its passive than its active.

Softspoken.2410:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Scootabuser.4915:

Deadly Arts – Going to be used in almost every single build, that might be a problem. LOVE the focus on traps. Improvisation still feels a bit underwhelming with the “random skill recharged” when compared to it’s other grandmaster traits.

Improvisation hinges on the changes they will make on the stolen items. As far as those items are concern, all they’ve mention is that those items will lose the ability to deal damage. So far, the only plus is having to use 2 Mesmer stolen items — if it stays as is.

It also hinges on how heal and elite skills will now all belong to existing skill categories. So that means that no matter what your build, each usage of steal now has a 20% chance of recharging your heal or elite. Previously you could only do that with venoms or Signet of Malice, and I think SoM was taken more for its passive than its active.

1D5 roll of a dice is not really that exciting because you can’t really build around RNG. It’s nice when it resets your Elite but that doesn’t make this trait more appealing because it already balances itself in this regard.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Softspoken.2410:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Scootabuser.4915:

Deadly Arts – Going to be used in almost every single build, that might be a problem. LOVE the focus on traps. Improvisation still feels a bit underwhelming with the “random skill recharged” when compared to it’s other grandmaster traits.

Improvisation hinges on the changes they will make on the stolen items. As far as those items are concern, all they’ve mention is that those items will lose the ability to deal damage. So far, the only plus is having to use 2 Mesmer stolen items — if it stays as is.

It also hinges on how heal and elite skills will now all belong to existing skill categories. So that means that no matter what your build, each usage of steal now has a 20% chance of recharging your heal or elite. Previously you could only do that with venoms or Signet of Malice, and I think SoM was taken more for its passive than its active.

1D5 roll of a dice is not really that exciting because you can’t really build around RNG. It’s nice when it resets your Elite but that doesn’t make this trait more appealing because it already balances itself in this regard.

As it currently stands, improv is still worthless BUT Anet is rebalancing all the stolen items SO there’s not much point arguing about it until the stolen items are rebalanced.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Softspoken.2410:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Scootabuser.4915:

Deadly Arts – Going to be used in almost every single build, that might be a problem. LOVE the focus on traps. Improvisation still feels a bit underwhelming with the “random skill recharged” when compared to it’s other grandmaster traits.

Improvisation hinges on the changes they will make on the stolen items. As far as those items are concern, all they’ve mention is that those items will lose the ability to deal damage. So far, the only plus is having to use 2 Mesmer stolen items — if it stays as is.

It also hinges on how heal and elite skills will now all belong to existing skill categories. So that means that no matter what your build, each usage of steal now has a 20% chance of recharging your heal or elite. Previously you could only do that with venoms or Signet of Malice, and I think SoM was taken more for its passive than its active.

1D5 roll of a dice is not really that exciting because you can’t really build around RNG. It’s nice when it resets your Elite but that doesn’t make this trait more appealing because it already balances itself in this regard.

As it currently stands, improv is still worthless BUT Anet is rebalancing all the stolen items SO there’s not much point arguing about it until the stolen items are rebalanced.

Scootabuser.4915:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Softspoken.2410:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Scootabuser.4915:

Deadly Arts – Going to be used in almost every single build, that might be a problem. LOVE the focus on traps. Improvisation still feels a bit underwhelming with the “random skill recharged” when compared to it’s other grandmaster traits.

Improvisation hinges on the changes they will make on the stolen items. As far as those items are concern, all they’ve mention is that those items will lose the ability to deal damage. So far, the only plus is having to use 2 Mesmer stolen items — if it stays as is.

It also hinges on how heal and elite skills will now all belong to existing skill categories. So that means that no matter what your build, each usage of steal now has a 20% chance of recharging your heal or elite. Previously you could only do that with venoms or Signet of Malice, and I think SoM was taken more for its passive than its active.

1D5 roll of a dice is not really that exciting because you can’t really build around RNG. It’s nice when it resets your Elite but that doesn’t make this trait more appealing because it already balances itself in this regard.

As it currently stands, improv is still worthless BUT Anet is rebalancing all the stolen items SO there’s not much point arguing about it until the stolen items are rebalanced.

You just parrotted what I’ve already said.