Guild Wars 2

Acrobatics: Assassin’s Equilibrium – Gain 1s of stability when you are revealed. This is a high skill cap trait as you need to use it when you see a stun/daze coming and attack first to reveal yourself and gain the stability.

you know anet instead of make this a the new GM trait why not just add stability to the Hard to Catch trait?

Is it so wrong to try and make the traits you already have a little better before you add more things, and create more problems for yourself?

supa suop.8026:

Acrobatics: Assassin’s Equilibrium – Gain 1s of stability when you are revealed. This is a high skill cap trait as you need to use it when you see a stun/daze coming and attack first to reveal yourself and gain the stability.

you know anet instead of make this a the new GM trait why not just add stability to the Hard to Catch trait?

Is it so wrong to try and make the traits you already have a little better before you add more things, and create more problems for yourself?

Hard to Catch needs to be deleted. There is no salvaging it without overhauling it.

Bewildering ambush will help my fat norn hybrid condi/power d/d acrobatics build. Rejoice my fat brothers.

Tao.5096:

so as summary,

Age of Condition ’hoes shall begin soon.

Enjoy being kited and DoT’ed to death.

^this.
with stuff like crit immunity for earth ele and general decrease of crit damage, we will see the end of power builds soon.

crit immunity – it’s funny if it’s against thief.

Question is, which trait has higher priority.
Thief 100% crit chance while in stealth, or elementalist’s u can’t crit me.

Shadow Arts: Resilience of Shadows – Stealth you apply reduces 50% incoming attack damage.

This will work well with Instinctual Response and Last Refuge (if it works correctly for a change), especially from say, a 100-blades that manages to get one in on you. Merciful Ambush would benefit as well (even though no one takes this trait)

I don’t get it what’s all the hate about that crit’s 5% is given back as health. It’s just the sustain I wanted for PvE, so I can invest those points I needed previously for the 3rd dodge, to something else. I understand that when it comes to PvE builds everyone blindly throws “25/30/0/0/15 + full berserk” at me, but that’s just soooo kittening bs (yeah I typed in kitten). Many, MANY PvE enviroments apply burning / poison to you like in every 2 seconds, something you can’t do much about, especially not with 13.5k health. Yeah, you remove it via Hide in Shadows. A second later you get it again. Gets removed by trait if you stay in stealth. Then gets applied again. You are propably revealed by now (if not, staying idle in stealth to prevent more conditions, wasting time you could use to dps). After that, there goes your precision signet, and if you are not using a sword (yes, I said it, not using a s/p setup for PvE, because I play with the set I like, not the one “follow the meta or don’t even speak” people suggest), that’s it, you have a burn / posion on you that will take 1/3 or more of your health down, slowly. The reason I’m not mentioning stealth via weapon skills is that you’ll spend valuable time to apply stealth and stay in it, compared to instant removes that doesn’t interrupt your damage dealing (smoke bomb, precision trait). Now if you deal damage good enough, something you can achieve by using those trait points somewhere else, you can heal at least as much as those conditions hurt you, or even more. You don’t even sacrifice crit chance for it. Then we have those zerg mobs you can’t stay in the middle of, because 2-3 AoEs catch you and you are instantly dead, or 2 hits catch you and you are instantly dead. 5% of crit damage given back as health solves just… everything. Especially paired up with the heal / hit signet. Sure it comes with a prize of dropping Executioner for it, but what I get in comparsion is just as good because it boosts the thief in every situation. And don’t tell me it matters that much to kill a boss ~10 seconds faster in 3-4 minute long battles. If you are good enough as a player, maybe you can even drop those 30 points you invested for defense in WvW, and do something else with it. Add more utility or offense. We’d invest 30 to precision anyway, don’t we?

It’s just really good, from my point of view at least.

The rest I must agree, is crap. Especially compred to other classes’ new stuff.

^ 30 30 0 0 10 new pve kitten. And regarding PvE enviroment being deadly, it’s a skill issue, you can get used to tells, then it becomes cakewalk.

Tao.5096:

crit immunity – it’s funny if it’s against thief.

Question is, which trait has higher priority.
Thief 100% crit chance while in stealth, or elementalist’s u can’t crit me.

Garanteed crit doesn’t work on invulerable targets either, so it’s pretty garanteed it won’t work on Eles.

SaltyDave.7346:

Tao.5096:

crit immunity – it’s funny if it’s against thief.

Question is, which trait has higher priority.
Thief 100% crit chance while in stealth, or elementalist’s u can’t crit me.

Garanteed crit doesn’t work on invulerable targets either, so it’s pretty garanteed it won’t work on Eles.

Well actually if you mean invulnerable by taking 0 dmg ala endure pain, you actually still crit, you just crit for 0 damage. Regardless Im upset to say I too think the ele will nullify it.

Nothing that makes me jump with joy.
Revealed Training put a smile on my face until I remembered the crit nerf.

I’ve also seen several posts of “calculations” – legit or not – with results of around -40% less critical damage. I really hope it’s not that bad.

RedSpectrum.1975:

SaltyDave.7346:

Tao.5096:

crit immunity – it’s funny if it’s against thief.

Question is, which trait has higher priority.
Thief 100% crit chance while in stealth, or elementalist’s u can’t crit me.

Garanteed crit doesn’t work on invulerable targets either, so it’s pretty garanteed it won’t work on Eles.

Well actually if you mean invulnerable by taking 0 dmg ala endure pain, you actually still crit, you just crit for 0 damage. Regardless Im upset to say I too think the ele will nullify it.

It’s important to know that this crit immunity will work only as long as the ele stays in Earth attunement, and has to use 30 points of traits in that line too, plus Earth weapon skills are not made for damage as a primary role. We are really far from the extreme people seem to think this will work, like we won’t be able to crit eles anymore.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

^ 30 30 0 0 10 new pve kitten. And regarding PvE enviroment being deadly, it’s a skill issue, you can get used to tells, then it becomes cakewalk.

Trust me when I say, that my over 1000h of playtime since day one, is 99% spent in PvE. I know when and how to dodge in which situation. I also trust that you know these very well too – you can’t deny there are situations where it’s stay ranged and deal minimal damage, or go in and possibly die from 1 hit you often can’t see coming because it’s starting animation instantly deals damage, before the actual “hit” happens. Spinning, channeling stuffs mostly work this way. I hope this issue is resolved and my dps effectiveness increases by increasing my sustain, this way.

FINALLY I CAN SPEAK.. Banned from forums .. again. 0_0.. Anet didn’t like me speaking about their Nike sponsored Warriors D; .. Anywho..
I think people are underestimating the power of theory crafting. I for one am excited about these new traits. I for one already have builds and sets to accommodate the new traits. They just need to be tested. I will post when and after i deem it suitable for WvW.

AikijinX.6258:

FINALLY I CAN SPEAK.. Banned from forums .. again. 0_0.. Anet didn’t like me speaking about their Nike sponsored Warriors D; .. Anywho..
I think people are underestimating the power of theory crafting. I for one am excited about these new traits. I for one already have builds and sets to accommodate the new traits. They just need to be tested. I will post when and after i deem it suitable for WvW.

Me too. Already have a WvW build that incorporates 2 of the new traits that I’m excited to test.

I think people are also forgetting that YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR SPEC FOR FREE, ANYWHERE, ANY TIME when we get these traits. That is a far more powerful thing than you might think. You can tailor yourself to every single encounter. I’ll be swapping like crazy.

The +200 power is also going to throw us to the top comparative DPS in PvE easily (after considering group buffs etc). If you’re not backstabbing a boss (when you’ll have Revealed all day) you can take S/D at trash fights, forget about the daze and just keep up Revealed and cleave everything to death with crits that go way beyond anyone else.

The heal on crit would be a total monster in some areas like at FotM 50 against the Grawl Shaman and his adds. Signet of Malice is almost enough to wipe out all the adds yourself without going down, but I usually take Withdraw instead because the immobilises can ruin you. That trait would send it over the edge and make you completely invincible in those periods. And the best part about that? You don’t have to sacrifice Executioner for any other circumstance in your run.

The Shadow Arts trait, I’ll talk about that when I try the build I have in mind (that also incorporates the healing trait).

Acrobatics, can’t see much of a use for it unless you REALLY want to hunt Shocking Aura Eles or Hammer Warriors with a 10/30/0/30/0 S/D build.

Trickery, good complement for a condi build that doesn’t use Perplexity (debatable whether you would swap out SoH with Perplexity).

Zacchary.6183:

Holy kitten…..

They actually made took my idea and gave bonuses to reveal.

LMAO! Resilience of Shadows is a big middle finger to the people who keep complaining about the thief profession. Now every thief and their guild is going to be running it, even the part of the thief community that refuses to use stealth.

giddy all over the place

I 10% forgive you anet. Keep it up!

buuuuuuuuuut its useless :/ who would take that over shadow rejuvenation. 450hp per sec stealthed 100% guaranteed vs 50% less dmg if u may or may not get hit.

RedSpectrum.1975:

SaltyDave.7346:

Tao.5096:

crit immunity – it’s funny if it’s against thief.

Question is, which trait has higher priority.
Thief 100% crit chance while in stealth, or elementalist’s u can’t crit me.

Garanteed crit doesn’t work on invulerable targets either, so it’s pretty garanteed it won’t work on Eles.

Well actually if you mean invulnerable by taking 0 dmg ala endure pain, you actually still crit, you just crit for 0 damage. Regardless Im upset to say I too think the ele will nullify it.

imnot very good at math but whats 5% life gain of 0 dmg crit? lol. (justmaking fun of our new GM trait)

SaltyDave.7346:

RedSpectrum.1975:

SaltyDave.7346:

Tao.5096:

crit immunity – it’s funny if it’s against thief.

Question is, which trait has higher priority.
Thief 100% crit chance while in stealth, or elementalist’s u can’t crit me.

Garanteed crit doesn’t work on invulerable targets either, so it’s pretty garanteed it won’t work on Eles.

Well actually if you mean invulnerable by taking 0 dmg ala endure pain, you actually still crit, you just crit for 0 damage. Regardless Im upset to say I too think the ele will nullify it.

It’s important to know that this crit immunity will work only as long as the ele stays in Earth attunement, and has to use 30 points of traits in that line too, plus Earth weapon skills are not made for damage as a primary role. We are really far from the extreme people seem to think this will work, like we won’t be able to crit eles anymore.

Dust Devil: Blind your foes with a blast of sand.

Rock Barrier: Envelop yourself in a stony barrier that improves armor.

Magnetic Wave: Damage foes, cure three of your conditions, and reflect projectiles with a magnetic surge.

Obsidian Flesh: Envelop yourself in stony armor, making yourself invulnerable.

Magnetic Aura: Reflect projectiles with magnetic energy.

+ protection + attunement trait + regen + aegis etc etc etc

ele just became alot more sustainable. run dire gear maybe? idklots of choices but they will use earth attunement only if they hit like 33% and wait tilhealing skills pop back.

Travlane.5948:

Zacchary.6183:

Holy kitten…..

They actually made took my idea and gave bonuses to reveal.

LMAO! Resilience of Shadows is a big middle finger to the people who keep complaining about the thief profession. Now every thief and their guild is going to be running it, even the part of the thief community that refuses to use stealth.

giddy all over the place

I 10% forgive you anet. Keep it up!

buuuuuuuuuut its useless :/ who would take that over shadow rejuvenation. 450hp per sec stealthed 100% guaranteed vs 50% less dmg if u may or may not get hit.

Err, me. It’s actually 323 with 300 Healing Power from the tree. You can get perma-normal Regen instead (though it is weaker) so you don’t have to be in Stealth to benefit from it but then you will be able to use things like Blinding Powder to MASSIVELY reduce an incoming Backstab/Eviscerate/Fire Grab and so on, or just to turtle lots of smaller attacks coming your way, or to res allies in Refuge much easier (they take 50% less damage too). S. Rejuv heals you for more to replenish damage. Resi. of S. is for reducing that damage in the first place with the possibility of some weaker Regen to go alongside and includes support for allies (you could also give them Regen if you wanted to). If you use Hidden Killer but still have a sizeable crit chance, the new CS trait basically goes hand in hand with this.

People are heavily underestimating how much of a reduction 50% is. We had Protection in beta and it almost broke our class completely.

I was excited about the trait in SA where we could take 50% less damage while in stealth…but then I realized…
First off you would have to give up the heal while in stealth. Plus, this trait wont really be useful unless ur immobilized and multiple people are on u and u save yourself with a CnD or blinding powder. That’s one of the FEW scenarios this would be useful in. People wont really attack you while you’re in stealth, they would be more worried about preventing a backstab. Even if they could hit you its most likely a low hitter.
Imo they should have made this into the Last Refuge trait. Blinding powder and take 50% less damage for 3 (4) seconds…that sounds nice.

Travlane.5948:

Zacchary.6183:

Holy kitten…..

They actually made took my idea and gave bonuses to reveal.

LMAO! Resilience of Shadows is a big middle finger to the people who keep complaining about the thief profession. Now every thief and their guild is going to be running it, even the part of the thief community that refuses to use stealth.

giddy all over the place

I 10% forgive you anet. Keep it up!

buuuuuuuuuut its useless :/ who would take that over shadow rejuvenation. 450hp per sec stealthed 100% guaranteed vs 50% less dmg if u may or may not get hit.

I would. Because that 450hp garanteed / sec also strictly lowers your damage done exactly to 0. Except for condition builds ofc, but the crit-heal trait isn’t for them anyway.

alchemyst.2165:

I was excited about the trait in SA where we could take 50% less damage while in stealth…but then I realized…
First off you would have to give up the heal while in stealth. Plus, this trait wont really be useful unless ur immobilized and multiple people are on u and u save yourself with a CnD or blinding powder. That’s one of the FEW scenarios this would be useful in. People wont really attack you while you’re in stealth, they would be more worried about preventing a backstab. Even if they could hit you its most likely a low hitter.
Imo they should have made this into the Last Refuge trait. Blinding powder and take 50% less damage for 3 (4) seconds…that sounds nice.

“Entering stealth grants you 5 second Protection”

SaltyDave.7346:

alchemyst.2165:

I was excited about the trait in SA where we could take 50% less damage while in stealth…but then I realized…
First off you would have to give up the heal while in stealth. Plus, this trait wont really be useful unless ur immobilized and multiple people are on u and u save yourself with a CnD or blinding powder. That’s one of the FEW scenarios this would be useful in. People wont really attack you while you’re in stealth, they would be more worried about preventing a backstab. Even if they could hit you its most likely a low hitter.
Imo they should have made this into the Last Refuge trait. Blinding powder and take 50% less damage for 3 (4) seconds…that sounds nice.

“Entering stealth grants you 5 second Super-Protection”

fixed

SaltyDave.7346:

I don’t get it what’s all the hate about that crit’s 5% is given back as health.

Abridging to save space. One of the biggest issues with this trait is that thieves already have this ability via Signet of Malice. SoM heals for 133 per hit, even on hits that do little to no damage, so they’ll heal on caltrop proc and choking gas. Also, this will proc on every hit instead of just crits, so in standard zerker gear (55% chance), this matches hitting 4.8k crits regularly.

In high end PVE, where you have high fury time and Signet of Agility, hitting 80%+ crit rate, the new trait will regularly outpace Signet of Malice. But… this is where we get another issue: in high end PVE, the other healing skills of the thief don’t do much. Withdraw can act as an additional evade, but in all my dungeon running it is rare for me to ever opt out of SoM. And the heals from SoM are massive.

I guess if you are in extraneous circumstances and you need a whole lot of healing that SoM doesn’t provide, you can trait into this. Barring that… I’m not sure I’ll be getting out of executioner that often.

Tao.5096:

crit immunity – it’s funny if it’s against thief.

Question is, which trait has higher priority.
Thief 100% crit chance while in stealth, or elementalist’s u can’t crit me.

Pretty sure the moment you land that guaranteed crit on an uncritable Ele the servers will crash and you may possibly even undo existence.

Trav… dude… its better than protection. And I know at least all of the theorycrafters will TRY it AT MINIMUM. I already have a s/d build planned for it.

Auesis.7301:

Travlane.5948:

Zacchary.6183:

Holy kitten…..

They actually made took my idea and gave bonuses to reveal.

LMAO! Resilience of Shadows is a big middle finger to the people who keep complaining about the thief profession. Now every thief and their guild is going to be running it, even the part of the thief community that refuses to use stealth.

giddy all over the place

I 10% forgive you anet. Keep it up!

buuuuuuuuuut its useless :/ who would take that over shadow rejuvenation. 450hp per sec stealthed 100% guaranteed vs 50% less dmg if u may or may not get hit.

Err, me. It’s actually 323 with 300 Healing Power from the tree. You can get perma-normal Regen instead (though it is weaker) so you don’t have to be in Stealth to benefit from it but then you will be able to use things like Blinding Powder to MASSIVELY reduce an incoming Backstab/Eviscerate/Fire Grab and so on, or just to turtle lots of smaller attacks coming your way, or to res allies in Refuge much easier (they take 50% less damage too). S. Rejuv heals you for more to replenish damage. Resi. of S. is for reducing that damage in the first place with the possibility of some weaker Regen to go alongside and includes support for allies (you could also give them Regen if you wanted to). If you use Hidden Killer but still have a sizeable crit chance, the new CS trait basically goes hand in hand with this.

People are heavily underestimating how much of a reduction 50% is. We had Protection in beta and it almost broke our class completely.

i like it. i think its ONLY application will be in wvw when zerg v zerg pops and a th ief can go invis to get thru AOE fields. i think its the best use. still tho in spvp/tpvp PVE and half the time in wvw…u wont be getting hit in stealth…atleast not alot.

and ya i meant 350 (usually every build has a lil extra heal power from word stats or w.e.)

anyway what im saying is most of the time you dont get hit in stealth more than once because you dodge or port out or withdraw or w.e. and other things like blinds. lets look at comparisons of 350 per tick vs 50% less dmg per hit.

you get about 19 secs from shadow refuge. thats 6550 hp from heals per tick plus like over 1600 from regen. thats 8200 almost hp guaranteed.

if you use blinding powder you get 4 secs. thats 1400 HP guaranteed if using rejuv. you would have to get hit for 2800 …which isnt unrealistic but also most thieves dodge after they stealth to maximize thatheal and avoid extra blindly swinging damage.

i do think ithas its applications…however i still think the heal is better bc its guaranteed. the way i look at it is…you CAN come out with more HP thanyou entered stealth with while using shadow rejuvenation …but you CANT with resilience. its all about gambles. do u like to gamble? if so resilience may pay off. if it doesnt….well there goes MANY thousands of HP you could have gained. plus you dont wanna stay stealthed long with resilience but you DO with rejuvenation.

Zacchary.6183:

Trav… dude… its better than protection. And I know at least all of the theorycrafters will TRY it AT MINIMUM. I already have a s/d build planned for it.

yeah ima try it in wvw. dont see any other application for it. zerging….. is when i find that i really try avoid that aoe….maybe now we can get thru it. but still situational uses at best.

would liked to see 2 secs of protection on revealed. that would actually ahve made EVERY build more playable.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

SaltyDave.7346:

I don’t get it what’s all the hate about that crit’s 5% is given back as health.

Abridging to save space. One of the biggest issues with this trait is that thieves already have this ability via Signet of Malice. SoM heals for 133 per hit, even on hits that do little to no damage, so they’ll heal on caltrop proc and choking gas. Also, this will proc on every hit instead of just crits, so in standard zerker gear (55% chance), this matches hitting 4.8k crits regularly.

In high end PVE, where you have high fury time and Signet of Agility, hitting 80%+ crit rate, the new trait will regularly outpace Signet of Malice. But… this is where we get another issue: in high end PVE, the other healing skills of the thief don’t do much. Withdraw can act as an additional evade, but in all my dungeon running it is rare for me to ever opt out of SoM. And the heals from SoM are massive.

I guess if you are in extraneous circumstances and you need a whole lot of healing that SoM doesn’t provide, you can trait into this. Barring that… I’m not sure I’ll be getting out of executioner that often.

i could kinda see this in a zerg build….. running this:

p/p + shortbow (key uses are SB skills 1+2 and PP skills 3+4+sneak attack)

Shadows embrace(drops conditions 2 per 3 secs)
Invigorating precision (hp gain on crits…5% of dmg)
Ricochet (50% chance of every bullet hitting up to 3 more targets and can crit)
leeching venoms (lots of lifesteal) —-———-(or assassins reward…not sure tho)
omnomberry pies (more lifesteal)
Sigil of leeching (more lifesteal)
Sigil of intelligence (yup…more hp! x 3)
Sigil of Fire (more aoe crit = more hp)
Thrill of the Crime (more crit chance = more HP)
Pistol Mastery(10% more dmg)
Combo Crit chance (+5% more crit chance on unload = more hp)

Signet of Malice
Roll for initiative (sometimes caltrops or another skill)
Devourer venom (3x life steal)
spider venom (5x lifesteal)
Daggerstorm (huge HP gains with SoM and invigorating prec and omnomberry pies)

Daggerstorm could potentialy be a fully refill.

Full zerk gear with scavenger runes (or HP steal runes liek vampires)

this might be a viable build

Travlane.5948:

Auesis.7301:

Travlane.5948:

Zacchary.6183:

Holy kitten…..

They actually made took my idea and gave bonuses to reveal.

LMAO! Resilience of Shadows is a big middle finger to the people who keep complaining about the thief profession. Now every thief and their guild is going to be running it, even the part of the thief community that refuses to use stealth.

giddy all over the place

I 10% forgive you anet. Keep it up!

buuuuuuuuuut its useless :/ who would take that over shadow rejuvenation. 450hp per sec stealthed 100% guaranteed vs 50% less dmg if u may or may not get hit.

Err, me. It’s actually 323 with 300 Healing Power from the tree. You can get perma-normal Regen instead (though it is weaker) so you don’t have to be in Stealth to benefit from it but then you will be able to use things like Blinding Powder to MASSIVELY reduce an incoming Backstab/Eviscerate/Fire Grab and so on, or just to turtle lots of smaller attacks coming your way, or to res allies in Refuge much easier (they take 50% less damage too). S. Rejuv heals you for more to replenish damage. Resi. of S. is for reducing that damage in the first place with the possibility of some weaker Regen to go alongside and includes support for allies (you could also give them Regen if you wanted to). If you use Hidden Killer but still have a sizeable crit chance, the new CS trait basically goes hand in hand with this.

People are heavily underestimating how much of a reduction 50% is. We had Protection in beta and it almost broke our class completely.

i like it. i think its ONLY application will be in wvw when zerg v zerg pops and a th ief can go invis to get thru AOE fields. i think its the best use. still tho in spvp/tpvp PVE and half the time in wvw…u wont be getting hit in stealth…atleast not alot.

and ya i meant 350 (usually every build has a lil extra heal power from word stats or w.e.)

anyway what im saying is most of the time you dont get hit in stealth more than once because you dodge or port out or withdraw or w.e. and other things like blinds. lets look at comparisons of 350 per tick vs 50% less dmg per hit.

you get about 19 secs from shadow refuge. thats 6550 hp from heals per tick plus like over 1600 from regen. thats 8200 almost hp guaranteed.

if you use blinding powder you get 4 secs. thats 1400 HP guaranteed if using rejuv. you would have to get hit for 2800 …which isnt unrealistic but also most thieves dodge after they stealth to maximize thatheal and avoid extra blindly swinging damage.

i do think ithas its applications…however i still think the heal is better bc its guaranteed. the way i look at it is…you CAN come out with more HP thanyou entered stealth with while using shadow rejuvenation …but you CANT with resilience. its all about gambles. do u like to gamble? if so resilience may pay off. if it doesnt….well there goes MANY thousands of HP you could have gained. plus you dont wanna stay stealthed long with resilience but you DO with rejuvenation.

You do know you can change proc whenever you want when you’re out of combat right? In a roaming situation ofc that extra healing will help you alot.
But in a zerg fight which you should not be hiding 24/7, -50% damage SR and Blind Power has ALOT of potenti strategic usage.

All you need to do is get into a zerg and change your proc, simple as that.
So why against -50% damage in stealth then? They’re not meant to replace each other, but to provide alternative to each other.

Auesis.7301:

People are heavily underestimating how much of a reduction 50% is. We had Protection in beta and it almost broke our class completely.

Except that Shadow Protector’s protection was a lot more powerful, because you retained a 33% damage reduction for as long as the boon lasted, while Resilience of Shadows will be gone the second you drop out of stealth. On top of that it was not a GM trait, so it worked really well with Shadow Rejuvenation.

Resilience of Shadows will only be useful to revive team mates and in order to do so you will need be able to stealth your team mates through utilities.

They’ve taken away Our shadow protector Protection boon, Our Merciful Ambush extra Thief ally, I want those back pweez<3

I just hope Anet doesn’t put ICD afterwards in the future.. -_- trololol

We weren’t going to get a 30% more damage to people under 50% trait, we weren’t going to get a 100% crit and 20% more crit damage coming out of stealth trait. Hidden killer and executioner were not getting replaced on their respective builds, instead we got a GM trait that is useful in a completely different situation than those other two traits. That is PERFECT, it is EXACTLY what the new traits should be like. Sorry you don’t get to replace hidden killer on your backstab build, and you don’t get to replace executioner in your dps build, but both of them were mostly useless in a zerg situation.

Revealed Training – Depends on how quickly the 200 power is applied. If it’s applied to the hit that breaks the stealth (backstab or whatnot), very nice. If it’s applied after the stealth is fully broken and not to the initial hit… much more meh. Still, will be useful in wvw if it applies to the revealed caused by antistealth traps.

Invigorating Precision – Nice idea, but nobody will ever use this over Executioner.

Resilience of Shadows – Good for wvw permastealth thieves when people are trying to AE them down, I suppose. Not worth a 30-point trait for.

Assassin’s Equilibrium – Whoever came up with this one needs to be shot in their god kitten face. Thieves already have the least amount of stability of any class in the game, and when we finally get some more, we still can’t control when it goes off. See that stun or knockdown attack incoming? Awesome, all you have to do is fire off stealth, get close enough to hit them (assuming that you already didn’t have to get close enough to CnD), and hope that you timed it right that the attack doesn’t land after a paltry one second. Assuming that it didn’t already land when you were trying to get it to fire.
I suppose that this trait has one saving grace, in that there’s still no reason to dump the full 30 in Acrobatics since all the GM traits suck.

Seriously. In his god kitten face.

Bewildering Ambush – Not bad, but is it worth dropping Slight of Hand for? Probably not.

tl;dr version – None of the traits are really worth using. Either they’re good, but not as good as the old GM traits, or they’re abysmally bad in a line with other abysmally bad GM traits. Also, in his god kitten face.

Tremain.4623:

We weren’t going to get a 30% more damage to people under 50% trait, we weren’t going to get a 100% crit and 20% more crit damage coming out of stealth trait. Hidden killer and executioner were not getting replaced on their respective builds, instead we got a GM trait that is useful in a completely different situation than those other two traits. That is PERFECT, it is EXACTLY what the new traits should be like. Sorry you don’t get to replace hidden killer on your backstab build, and you don’t get to replace executioner in your dps build, but both of them were mostly useless in a zerg situation.

they shoudl be different. not crap. these are crap.

for instance….

for somebody to want to take a trait that heals over executioner….. (which is an amazing trait) youwould haveto up the heal percentage from 5% to 10%…..outside of that it has no real comparison of effectiveness. executioner turns a 5k heartseeker into 6k. thats 1k damage for that 1 hit. thats an extra 500 damage on auto attacks …..each hit. so to take invigoration precision for 125 hp heals every 2nd auto attack hit on average? to heal 250 on a 5k hit (which would be 6k normally with executioner)……. NO THANKS.

its not about replacing…u have atleast that part correct. but it has to be comparable in effectiveness on what it does.

1000 extra dmg on a 5k backstab
———————-or————————————
250 hp heal on that 5k backstab

As it is…. a thieves surivability relies mostly on downing an enemy (away from others) the extra dmg will help achieve that.

Can also look at SP or SR same way.
350 hp per sec GUARANTEED or 50% less dmg while you cant attack in stealth…IF you get hit. average stealth is 4 secs so basically you get 1400 hp per stealth if u stick itout…. most of use dodge roll once in stealth or aoe blind.

95% of the time people will choose the same one.

Lets look at a combo CND BS AA AA HS HS (cloak/dagger backstab auto auto HS HS) lets call the combos 4500 dmg 5500 dmg 2500 2500 4000 4000.

now lets add in both traits to see which one gives more benefit. lets say the last 4 hits are the 50% mark and every 2nd hit is a crit ….just keep the numbers the same so its even.

executioner would give + 2600 damage
invig prec would give + 600 hp

so 2600 extra dmg in 5 secs or 600hp heal in same 5 secs? obvious right?

Deadly Arts: Revealed Training – Gain up to 200 extra power when you are revealed, based on your level

I can see this being useful for weapon-sets that focus on going into stealth a lot like x/dagger or dagger/pistol, although I would need to use it for awhile to get a feel for whether or not it is generally better than Executioner. Generally by the time that Heartseeker is doing ideal damage, Executioner is already ready to go.

I suppose you could go 30/30/x/x/x for the ultimate glass cannon, but you’d be kind of obvious and pretty susceptible to getting spiked down yourself with literally no mitigation to save you. 30/x/25-30/x/x is also a safer option to take advantage of might stacks from Hidden Assassin as well as superior damage mitigation from Shadow Arts. You could stealth up, stack might, lead with a powerful burst rotation from revealed, then get back into stealth before you become too easy of a target. It seems really well suited to more ambush-oriented tactics such as those offered by D/D or D/P.

Critical Strikes : Invigorating Precision – You are healed for a % of the strike damage dealt. The current rate is 5%. Does not work on ambient creatures.

The Main flaw in this ability, to me, is that it competes with the extremely useful Executioner and Hidden Killer. It’s placement in Critical Strikes makes sense as you obviously need a lot of precision to make this worthwhile, but I think that it’s generally a better idea to get your damage-mitigation from Shadow/Acrobatics and some damage from Critical Strikes. I can see it being nice to switch to in a harder situation where the healing may be more valuable than the damage, or if you were attempting to make some kind of thief tank.

Shadow Arts: Resilience of Shadows – Stealth you apply reduces 50% incoming attack damage. Does not work against condition damage.

I can see this being useful against a class that likes to use a lot of channel abilities or things that keep targeting you even after you go into stealth, but I also think such things can be overcome by knowing your opponent and using your stealth/evades/blinds to mitigate such things earlier. This does give us more options and different methods of approaching things though.

The big question is whether or not it is better than Shadow Rejuvenation. SR restores something like 1,300 HP after 4 seconds of stealth but is coupled with the expectation that going into stealth ‘evades’ some damage in that you become much more difficult to hit. Resilience of Shadows requires that you take at least 2,600 damage while in stealth to compete with the damage mitigation of SR, and would become superior to SR provided that you take greater than 2,600 damage. This isn’t exactly unheard of in a PVP environment. On the other hand, if you don’t take any damage then SR is better mitigation as you wind up with a net positive of HP.

I feel like SR works better with the mitigation already offered by Shadow Arts as well; Cloaked in Shadow helps Cloak and Dagger get you into stealth safer as it effectively negates the next incoming hit you normally take when moving into a target to get stealth. Shadow Protector restores around 1,700 HP which stacks nicely with Shadow Rejuvenation for 3,000 HP restored if you fully take advantage of stealth.

Shadow Retaliation can obviously still work with these traits, but the blind sort of negates the need to get hit to mitigate damage so there is less synergy; You’d likely be better off swapping it for Shadow Embrace to help remove conditions. Shadow Protector works well with it and would probably allow you to keep up in an enemies face while you set up a back-stab or tactical strike.

Ultimately I think it comes down to a plastyle/tactical difference. Shadow Rejuvenation lets’ you back off and recover, and Shadow Retaliation lets’ you stay in the thick of it and deliver hits an enemy is not really expecting, so it may work better towards more aggressive playstyles.

Acrobatics: Assassin’s Equilibrium – Gain 1s of stability when you are revealed. This is a high skill cap trait as you need to use it when you see a stun/daze coming and attack first to reveal yourself and gain the stability.

Unless this ability works differently than is currently being described I cannot see this one having a ton of use. It requires such a high level of precognition that I don’t imagine it being very effective at its’ apparent intended goal.

Trickery: Bewildering Ambush – Stealing applies 5 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds.

Everyone loves confusion right? A Sword/Dagger Perplexity build might prefer Bewildering Ambush to Sleight of Hand to really stack on meaningful confusion and leave your enemy is a very disadvantageous position. It’s not really my style, but I think the applications are worth considering.

Ultimately I am fairly happy with the options being given to Thief, with the exception of Assassin’s Equilibrium. It’s likely that the developers are weary of giving the Acrobatics tree any more good traits as a majority of our more powerful abilities are tied up there. Still, I feel as though we are being given more playstyle options which appears to be the developers intention in implementing these new abilities. I’m interested to see how they develop the thief community and how they work in practical applications.

Warkupo.1025:

Shadow Arts: Resilience of Shadows – Stealth you apply reduces 50% incoming attack damage. Does not work against condition damage.

…

The big question is whether or not it is better than Shadow Rejuvenation. SR restores something like 1,300 HP after 4 seconds of stealth but is coupled with the expectation that going into stealth ‘evades’ some damage in that you become much more difficult to hit. Resilience of Shadows requires that you take at least 2,600 damage while in stealth to compete with the damage mitigation of SR, and would become superior to SR provided that you take greater than 2,600 damage.

Resilience of Shadows is also better in group content as it seems like the 50% damage reduction is applied also to your allies. It is also supposed to stack with protection (and maybe Iron Hide /trollface). This can make it very useful in “ninja medic” type of builds for rezzing people or in organized WvW to break through terrain defended by a lot of siege weapons.

Seeing as my critical damage is being made into a joke, I think I’ll go full troll/"support" spec using Resilience of Shadows - Providing it actually applies the effect to allies as well, otherwise it is useless. Still, I wish conditions were also affected by the damage reduction, seeing as that’s the number one incoming damage these days.

The other traits seems incredibly underwhelming to me.

Edit: Poster above me mention it possibly stacking with Ironhide for 100% direct damage reduction, that might be quite useful.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Shufflepants.9785:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Err, what are you talking about? 30Acro is more favorable than 30SA to a backstab build. Only trolls goes 30SA because with that much points into SA, you’re damage output suffers.

Wait, what? Are telling me that putting 30 in SA hurts my damage output, but putting 30 in Acro doesn’t? What game are you playing?

Please first explain how 30 in Acro hurts your damage output, as oppose to improving it, and I’ll explain how 30 in SA does hurt your damage output.

Fair enough?

Since when was a SA backstab build viable?

At least in WvW, SA is decent for stealthing to escape zergs and makes D/D viable with blind on stealth.

In sPvP, 10/30/0/0/30 is king for any backstab (D/P) build because it’s only second to 25/30/0/0/15 in terms of damage and brings amazing utility (boon strip, vigor, and a stun that goes through stability).

Raap.9065:

Edit: Poster above me mention it possibly stacking with Ironhide for 100% direct damage reduction, that might be quite useful.

Undoubtedly those things are going to stack multiplicatively, i.e. 75% total damage reduction between them both, or 83.25% reduction if you also add Protection.

BlueDragon.7054:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Auesis.7301:

Deadly Arts: Revealed Training – Gain up to 200 extra power when you are revealed, based on your level

This is dumb. Since they’ll lock GM traits until level 80, why is it “based on your level”? O.o?lol.

It ’ s not dumb, it ’ s based on your level because of level scaling. So if your character is level 80 but you are in a lower level area you won t get 200 extra power.

It is dumb, because level scaling occurs after calculating all your stats. You still get +200 power at level 80 but because you are in a low level area, your overall power is scaled down…not just this trait or any individual trait bonus.

Same goes when you are scaled up, your over stats are modified, not your individual trait bonus.

^ We’ve had things behaving like this since Day One: stat bonuses from Signets. Please drop this silly argument, for the sake of everyone’s sanity.

Dahkeus.8243:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Shufflepants.9785:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Err, what are you talking about? 30Acro is more favorable than 30SA to a backstab build. Only trolls goes 30SA because with that much points into SA, you’re damage output suffers.

Wait, what? Are telling me that putting 30 in SA hurts my damage output, but putting 30 in Acro doesn’t? What game are you playing?

Please first explain how 30 in Acro hurts your damage output, as oppose to improving it, and I’ll explain how 30 in SA does hurt your damage output.

Fair enough?

Since when was a SA backstab build viable?

At least in WvW, SA is decent for stealthing to escape zergs and makes D/D viable with blind on stealth.

In sPvP, 10/30/0/0/30 is king for any backstab (D/P) build because it’s only second to 25/30/0/0/15 in terms of damage and brings amazing utility (boon strip, vigor, and a stun that goes through stability).

Shhh, you’re getting ahead of the discussion.