Guild Wars 2

The criticism of the new trait in this thread is just a liiiitle bit breathless.

If you’re a Thief who likes large-scale combat in WvW, this sounds like a pretty decent pick, because you have tons of targets to crit on, and long-term sustain is a real issue in these battles. I’d combine it with Sundering Strikes, Lotus Poison, Critical Haste, and perhaps Furious Retaliation. Add some post-patch on-crit Sigils, and you’ve got yourself a solid on-crit build that has 25 points left over for survival or some other utility (maybe 15 Acro and 10 Trickery).

You also have a lot of impact on the outcome of a fight. Perfectly defensible as a spec.

Interceptor.2653:

If you’re a Thief who likes large-scale combat in WvW, this sounds like a pretty decent pick, because you have tons of targets to crit on, and long-term sustain is a real issue in these battles.

So for zerg fights. I guess that’s no so bad for that situation. I still wouldn’t use it in a roaming spec, however; but for a 30 v 30+ encounter I can see this being useful.

That’s annoying. They ended the Runes blog with some more updates on profession changes….and for thieves they just repeated the same thing we learned from the Trait blog.

Anyone else starting to get the same old sinking sensation in their stomach when a balance pass comes round?

Fade.7658:

Anyone else starting to get the same old sinking sensation in their stomach when a balance pass comes round?

haha true that >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

guys WE WILL GET OUR 1200 range ;P or a little bit more than 900. read the new blog. there is a short bow GM trait mentioned =)

So uhh…these new traits.

Wow. WOW.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

Deadly Arts: 200 power when Revealed

Critical Strikes: 5% of critical damage heals you

Shadow Arts: Stealth reduces damage by 50% (which stacks with Protection)

Acrobatics: 1s of Stability when you get Revealed

Trickery: 5 stacks of Confusion on Steal for 5s

Forgive me, I don’t have the names. But…kitten .

Auesis.7301:

Deadly Arts: 200 power when Revealed

Critical Strikes: 5% of critical damage heals you

Shadow Arts: Stealth reduces damage by 50% (which stacks with Protection)

Acrobatics: 1s of Stability when you get Revealed

Trickery: 5 stacks of Confusion on Steal for 5s

Forgive me, I don’t have the names. But…kitten .

What is this kitten?

Ready Up Episode 8, just finished. Those were for Thief.

I…I just can’t.

Some good ones there, especially DA’s. Kinda laughing at how silly the Acrobatics GM trait is, though.

Hahahahahahaha, I don’t know what they have smoked while thinking to make these traits, but I’d like one of these.

Here we go – No1 – Well ok, it’s good, no complaints here.
– No2 – Even if it’s 5% on any attack, it will still be subpar compared to Executioner. If it’s crits only…. just lol.
– No3 – Ok, depends how it works.
– No4???? – 1s stability when you get revealed? Oh boy. Also… 30 points in Acro… which thief uses stealth WITH 30 in Acro?
– No5 – sounds great on theory for perplex condi thieves(and condi thieves overall)… then you realise you have to drop sleight of hand for it.

^ I feel like the Acrobatics GM trait is a nod to the S/D players.

It’s an insulting nod, but a nod nonetheless.

Thief changes won’t change anything for thief outside of making it harder for thiefs to kill stuff with crit damage change and the buffs in substain/mitigate options most other classes gotten.

now compare this traits with the new WARRIOR traits

The trait line usually reserved for stealthless builds gets a GM trait that requires stealth.

Anet is straight-up trolling at this point.

so where were our great changes that they said back in january

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

The trait line usually reserved for stealthless builds gets a GM trait that requires stealth.

Anet is straight-up trolling at this point.

Sorry this i beleive was more of a buff to s/d then to your p/p, i do agree your P/P needs some love though

Liking the Shadow Arts and Trickery GM traits (I run a 10/0/30/0/30 build). I can at last, drop Perplexity runes (I’ve been wanting to for some time, but sadly most other runes don’t compare) and the extra 5.5 second CD is marginal.

Auesis.7301:

Deadly Arts: 200 power when Revealed

Critical Strikes: 5% of critical damage heals you

Shadow Arts: Stealth reduces damage by 50% (which stacks with Protection)

Acrobatics: 1s of Stability when you get Revealed

Trickery: 5 stacks of Confusion on Steal for 5s

Forgive me, I don’t have the names. But…kitten .

I’m just going to assume this is all accurate. From a pvp perspective,

DA: Clarification needed – 200 power when you have the revealed effect on you, or 200 power when not in stealth? The former is laughable garbage, the latter is potentially pretty good.

CS: Laughable Garbage.

SA: Has to be tested. Doesn’t do much to change the fact that you can’t sit in stealth in PvP for any length of time. Will likely result in insane levels of WvW QQ.

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

Trickery: Not exactly laughable garbage, but it’s hard to see why you’d take this over SoH – 5 stacks of confusion for 5s on a 28s CD feels weak for 30 points. even if SoH wasn’t a better choice in most scenarios. thieves don’t really have the power to generate cover conditions to make this worth it.

evilapprentice.6379:

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

Exactly. Acro 30 should be some type of condi-removal on dodge (REAL conditions, not like that crappy Fleet of Foot trait).

I have no idea why a PvP player would approach the analysis of every new feature as if it were intended for him or her. PvP is already the real game, but with less stuff. You figure you’d be used to not finding everything useful.

If Runes of Perplexity don’t undergo any changes, 30 Trickery will cause some cries when coupled with them. Scorpion Wire for the interrupt, then Steal for another 5 stacks, for 10 stacks + a possible 3 extra for the 4 set ability.

Interceptor.2653:

I have no idea why a PvP player would approach the analysis of every new feature as if it were intended for him or her. PvP is already the real game, but with less stuff. You figure you’d be used to not finding everything useful.

Dueling: Triumphant Distortion – Gain 3s of distortion upon killing an enemy. No cooldown.
Beast Mastery: Invigorating Bond- Your pet heals in an area when executing command abilities (i.e. your F2 skill now heals in an area)
Tactics: Phalanx Strength – When you grant yourself might, grant it to nearby allies as well. 6s of might is granted each time this trait triggers. (It works with blast finishers)

Those are the only skills useful in PvE, The first one is only really useful in WvW where it will probably be overpowered, 2nd has no information on amount so who knows if it useful for anything, 3rd is overpoweringly good with a greatsword zerker in PvE and its good anywhere.

Interceptor.2653:

I have no idea why a PvP player would approach the analysis of every new feature as if it were intended for him or her. PvP is already the real game, but with less stuff. You figure you’d be used to not finding everything useful.

I have no idea why the developers would spend 6 months developing traits that are only really useful for PvE instead of ones that are useful for BOTH PvE and PvP, especially when PvPers were told to look forward to great balance changes with this patch.

Also, my above assessment holds true for both PvE AND PvP.

Let’s also note you’re just a particularly contentious poster on the thief forums – if 90% of thieves feel a particular way, you’re nigh guaranteed to appear and holler a dissenting opinion, usually condescendingly and with faulty logic.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

evilapprentice.6379:

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

Exactly. Acro 30 should be some type of condi-removal on dodge (REAL conditions, not like that crappy Fleet of Foot trait).

That would have probably been a great GM trait – cleanse 1 condition on dodge, no CD – for 30 points, that sounds great. Powerful without being OP, offering thieves something they desperately need. But no, Dodgy thieves will instead get 1.25 WHOLE seconds of stability when they come out of stealth. It’d be funny if it weren’t so very sad.

evilapprentice.6379:

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

So that with 30-x-x-30-x, you can burst with Pistol Whip from stealth unhindered.

I’m telling you now, that new DA trait will get nerf fast, if not changed before release.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

So that with 30-x-x-30-x, you can burst with Pistol Whip from stealth unhindered.

I’m telling you now, that new DA trait will get nerf fast, if not changed before release.

How exactly did this change? The fraction of a second player had to interrupt you between the Stun portion of PW hitting your target (which is when you’ll be revealed) and the evade from PW’s swings starts, since they shortened the gap to practically nonexistent? Let’s also point out S/P doesn’t have any access to stealth that isn’t based in a utility (since running Shbow in SPvP is a requirment). On top of all that, a max of 10 points in CS makes for low crit damage and lower crit chance even with a zerkers ammy, and of course no executioner. The acro GM is laughably bad.

Now you might have a point for a 30-30-x-x-x builds (would require testing), though you’re still looking at the fact that S/P has no innate access to stealth.

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

So that with 30-x-x-30-x, you can burst with Pistol Whip from stealth unhindered.

I’m telling you now, that new DA trait will get nerf fast, if not changed before release.

How exactly did this change? The fraction of a second player had to interrupt you between the Stun portion of PW hitting your target (which is when you’ll be revealed) and the evade from PW’s swings starts, since they shortened the gap to practically nonexistent? Let’s also point out S/P doesn’t have any access to stealth that isn’t based in a utility (since running Shbow in SPvP is a requirment). On top of all that, a max of 10 points in CS makes for low crit damage and lower crit chance even with a zerkers ammy, and of course no executioner. The acro GM is laughably bad.

Now you might have a point for a 30-30-x-x-x builds (would require testing), though you’re still looking at the fact that S/P has no innate access to stealth.

If you really want to PW from stealth, I’m sure you know how to make stealth happen. As for me, I’ve been using S/P + S/D lately with 25-x-x-15-30, so stealth is not a problem.

Also I’m only speculating on the possibility of a 30-x-x-30-x with this new trait. Often times, my PW gets interrupted due to our lack of stability. So if we can PW from stealth with this trait, that is still a plus because stability provides a wide range of protection.

However, as I mentioned in the other thread, 1s is too short.

Acrobatics: 1s of Stability when you get Revealed

to bad there is no reliable condition removal for the acrobatic trait line

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Acro : Laughable Garbage – as someone already said, who in their right mind decided to tie the effect to revealed? Acro is the defensive tree you go into when you want survivability outside of stealth. Why isn’t it an effect (not necessarily the same effect mind you) tied to DODGING?

So that with 30-x-x-30-x, you can burst with Pistol Whip from stealth unhindered.

I’m telling you now, that new DA trait will get nerf fast, if not changed before release.

How exactly did this change? The fraction of a second player had to interrupt you between the Stun portion of PW hitting your target (which is when you’ll be revealed) and the evade from PW’s swings starts, since they shortened the gap to practically nonexistent? Let’s also point out S/P doesn’t have any access to stealth that isn’t based in a utility (since running Shbow in SPvP is a requirment). On top of all that, a max of 10 points in CS makes for low crit damage and lower crit chance even with a zerkers ammy, and of course no executioner. The acro GM is laughably bad.

Now you might have a point for a 30-30-x-x-x builds (would require testing), though you’re still looking at the fact that S/P has no innate access to stealth.

If you really want to PW from stealth, I’m sure you know how to make stealth happen. As for me, I’ve been using S/P + S/D lately with 25-x-x-15-30, so stealth is not a problem.

No shortbow = inferior roaming. S/P + S/D sounds fun for hotjoin and screwing around in solo q, but since the only role thief fills is roamer, taking away your roaming capabilities isn’t realistic. You can make stealth happen with ShBow S/P, but lets not pretend S/P is going to be accessing this new 30 point DA trait like crazy – it won’t be like fighting a D/p thief.

Also I’m only speculating on the possibility of a 30-x-x-30-x with this new trait. Often times, my PW gets interrupted due to our lack of stability. So if we can PW from stealth with this trait, that is still a plus because stability provides a wide range of protection.

However, as I mentioned in the other thread, 1s is too short.

You’re telling me you consistently get interrupted in the period after your pistol swing stun goes off, and before your sword swings start (Yes, you could use steal with mug to trigger the revealed and have 1s of stability while winding up the stun, but seeing as you can do that once ever 32-35 seconds in this setup, it hardly seems worth a GM trait)? I know Necro’s can do it consistently via a trait, and occasionally you’ll probably eat a stun from a warrior with stability up, but I just don’t see it happening so often that you have to slot a GM trait to avoid those situations, though I admit it probably warrants some testing.

And again, even if you do run 30-x-x-30-x, you’ve got a maximum of 10 points to put into CS – that 200 power is nice and all, but 20-30% less crit damage, ~10% less crit, and no executioner is going to be noticeable. I’m more excited at seeing what kind of damage S/P puts out with a min/max 30-30-0-0-10 PW from stealth with AS and fury from TotC than occasionally avoiding a niche interrupt for 30 points in acro.

Even if the stability was longer, why is the survivability-via-evades tree granting these bonuses on exiting stealth when there’s an entire tree dedicated to stealth? It’s especially silly considering a cleanse-on-dodge would have fit into a GM slot very nicely – thieves desperately need some way to mitigate conditions that isn’t based on runes, sitting for an extended period in stealth, or blowing their best stunbreaker just to cleanse. Dodge-to-cleanse 1 condition would have probably fit exceedingly well – it’s not so spammable that thieves will be able to completely mitigate condition specs, and it consumes a valuable resource that thieves need to survive – it would have probably made a great addition to acrobatics.

glaphen.5230:

Those are the only skills useful in PvE

What does this have to do with what I said? I was just pointing out that surely PvP players must be cognizant of the fact that every new trait/skill isn’t designed specifically for their little sandbox, unless they just joined today. It’s pretty clear that ANet designs things that can be used by different kinds of people.

They should just rework the acrobatics GM trait, it isn’t fitting in that trait line and it isn’t even effective especially as a GM trait. Like reduce damage while stunned with reduced stun duration would be fitting, something stealthless thieves need since they can just stealth and reposition as freely. 1s stability on an effect that acrobatic thieves don’t generally use, I just don’t get it. Thieves have asked for reliable stability in the past, but this doesn’t even come close to answering that request.

DA trait is kinda meh, unless you’re running full glass no thief is going 30 into DA, CS gives soo much more damage. SA has potential but it’s hard to compete with Shadow’s Rejuvenation. Trickery GM trait is neat tbh, looking forward to swapping sleight of hand despite how much I love it. CS conversion rate is awful and will likely not be used if it remains at 5%.

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.

evilapprentice.6379:

No shortbow = inferior roaming. S/P + S/D sounds fun for hotjoin and screwing around in solo q, but since the only role thief fills is roamer, taking away your roaming capabilities isn’t realistic. You can make stealth happen with ShBow S/P, but lets not pretend S/P is going to be accessing this new 30 point DA trait like crazy – it won’t be like fighting a D/p thief.

No need to over-exaggerate the trait’s usefulness, but the bottom line is, it’s there and it will help S/P greatly to achieve the same level of damage output it used to have.

You’re telling me you consistently get interrupted in the period after your pistol swing stun goes off, and before your sword swings start (Yes, you could use steal with mug to trigger the revealed and have 1s of stability while winding up the stun, but seeing as you can do that once ever 32-35 seconds in this setup, it hardly seems worth a GM trait)?

The evasion only starts somewhere after the pistol hits, before you swing your sword. The 3/4 casting time of pistol whip is a huge window for interrupt, in practice, it’s more like 1s casting time. That windows can be protected with the stability, is all I’m saying.

I know Necro’s can do it consistently via a trait, and occasionally you’ll probably eat a stun from a warrior with stability up, but I just don’t see it happening so often that you have to slot a GM trait to avoid those situations, though I admit it probably warrants some testing.

The new GM traits will be optional and after the update, traits can be changed on the fly while out of combat…having an option to change spec to this new trait is a plus.

And again, even if you do run 30-x-x-30-x, you’ve got a maximum of 10 points to put into CS – that 200 power is nice and all, but 20-30% less crit damage, ~10% less crit, and no executioner is going to be noticeable. I’m more excited at seeing what kind of damage S/P puts out with a min/max 30-30-0-0-10 PW from stealth with AS and fury from TotC than occasionally avoiding a niche interrupt for 30 points in acro.

IMO, this trait will be able to persuade me to put 30 into Acro since at it currently stands, there’s no reason to go beyond 15.

Even if the stability was longer, why is the survivability-via-evades tree granting these bonuses on exiting stealth when there’s an entire tree dedicated to stealth?

Stability simply doesn’t make sense on SA. However I agree on the fact that it shouldn’t have to be tied to stealth at all.

It’s especially silly considering a cleanse-on-dodge would have fit into a GM slot very nicely – thieves desperately need some way to mitigate conditions that isn’t based on runes, sitting for an extended period in stealth, or blowing their best stunbreaker just to cleanse. Dodge-to-cleanse 1 condition would have probably fit exceedingly well – it’s not so spammable that thieves will be able to completely mitigate condition specs, and it consumes a valuable resource that thieves need to survive – it would have probably made a great addition to acrobatics.

Well, we’ll have to have some weakness somehow. It’s a tradeoff between SA and Acro, otherwise one trait will overshadow the other.

Is that 200 power even worth mentioning really ? A non power based sPvP thief with 30 in DA has 2231 power already. On the other hand, a Zerk (or any other power main stat) based thief has 3029 power. Not counting rune sets here.

So that 200 power bonus while revealed is at best a 9% damage increase when you are 30 DA with 0 power in your gear and no might stacks at all and a 6-7% increase with the 3000 power thief.

6% damage increase with such a highly situational requirement as Revealed isn’t fit for a grandmaster trait I say.

stof.9341:

Is that 200 power even worth mentioning really ? A non power based sPvP thief with 30 in DA has 2231 power already. On the other hand, a Zerk (or any other power main stat) based thief has 3029 power. Not counting rune sets here.

So that 200 power bonus while revealed is at best a 9% damage increase when you are 30 DA with 0 power in your gear and no might stacks at all and a 6-7% increase with the 3000 power thief.

6% damage increase with such a highly situational requirement as Revealed isn’t fit for a grandmaster trait I say.

If your calculations are correct and the damage increase would be around 6% , its still worthwile taking in pve as I dont see any better options. For bossfights: Dagger trainig + revealed training + Sundering strikes (assume you can keep up 5 stacks) + exposed weakness will translate into +26% damage

For pure damage d/d builds the trait choices would be

• Mug
• Sundering Strikes
• Dagger training
• Revealed training
  In my opinion Dagger training and Sundering strikes should be taking anyway here, so it will be between Revealed Training and Mug

Revealed training vs Mug:
Mug damage (3285 attack, no revealed training) will result in ~1750 damage on a 35s recharge (50 damage/sec)
For revealed training to do 50 damage/sec you will have to deal 833 damage/sec which is easily obtainable with the same amount of attack power as mug.

Not sure how these numbers will scale with power/crit/critdamage/conditions, but since mug cant crit, i assume high crit+crit damage will only result in boosting revealed training.
So if you do not care about the healing Mug will give you, and you play d/d pure damage, this trait will still be the best choice for pve

Bonus will be weaker in PvE since you can get more Power. If you go the extreme with full ascended, 25 might stacks, 25 Bloodlust stacks, Butternut food and the like, you are looking at a 4758 power Thief that would gain 200 power which is a 4% damage increase.

Please note that the % bonus I talk about are multiplicative with all the other factors considered (except getting more power) so your +26% damage value is wrong. It’s actually slightly more.

Still, do you know that in a typical PvE rotation, you probably get more DPS out of a 25/30/0/0/15 build because the 3 bonus Initiative help you activate the effect of the “First Strike” trait more reliably which gives you 10% bonus damage?

stof.9341:

Bonus will be weaker in PvE since you can get more Power. If you go the extreme with full ascended, 25 might stacks, 25 Bloodlust stacks, Butternut food and the like, you are looking at a 4758 power Thief that would gain 200 power which is a 4% damage increase.

This would probably be still a better choice than Mug
EDIT
I can’t find the skill coefficient of mug, so this is just an assumption

stof.9341:

Please note that the % bonus I talk about are multiplicative with all the other factors considered (except getting more power) so your +26% damage value is wrong. It’s actually slightly more.

Oh thanks for pointing this out

stof.9341:

Still, do you know that in a typical PvE rotation, you probably get more DPS out of a 25/30/0/0/15 build because the 3 bonus Initiative help you activate the effect of the “First Strike” trait more reliably which gives you 10% bonus damage?

But will the more reliably 10% bonus be better than +250 power?
Would take me some time to calculate the breaking point for this one.
edit:
when looking at your 4758 power the 25/30/0/0/15 would definately be a better choice

Actually, see the Power stat as the “damage” stat. If a 1000 power thief does 1000 damage with one attack, he’d do 1200 with 1200 power, 2000 with 2000 power etc… The skill coefficient and other bonuses do not matter at all.

You are right that +200 power would result in a 20% extra damage. And I just noticed I used wrong values overall because I looked at the wrong stat on the skill calculator :’(

The sPvP zerk player has 2139 power, not ~3000 so the trait is 9% more damage for him. The sPvP no power at all player has 1216 and the trait would be much more significant for him.

deepwinter.9015:

Interceptor.2653:

If you’re a Thief who likes large-scale combat in WvW, this sounds like a pretty decent pick, because you have tons of targets to crit on, and long-term sustain is a real issue in these battles.

So for zerg fights. I guess that’s no so bad for that situation. I still wouldn’t use it in a roaming spec, however; but for a 30 v 30+ encounter I can see this being useful.

You wouldn’t use it in roaming because you’re not supposed to. The trait is 100% designed for PvE and Zerg combat in WvW, the same thing Signet of Malice was designed for. I may switch back and forth between it in WvW just as I do with Signet~ I change to Signet when I follow around a zerg but when I break off to roam around I swap to Hide in Shadows. The Trait will be treated the same way depending on my current level of lazy at the time.

Could try a 30/30/10 build with it in zergs and hopefully have good survivability+dmg.

stof.9341:

Actually, see the Power stat as the “damage” stat. If a 1000 power thief does 1000 damage with one attack, he’d do 1200 with 1200 power, 2000 with 2000 power etc… The skill coefficient and other bonuses do not matter at all.

You are right that +200 power would result in a 20% extra damage. And I just noticed I used wrong values overall because I looked at the wrong stat on the skill calculator :’(

The sPvP zerk player has 2139 power, not ~3000 so the trait is 9% more damage for him. The sPvP no power at all player has 1216 and the trait would be much more significant for him.

The easiest way to look at the 200 power bonus is having 5-6 stacks of Might (less the condition dmg bonus).

Who wouldn’t want 5-6 stack of Might?

^ And and even more fun way to look at it, is to consider that you still get the bonus when you are maxed-out on Might stacks, so it’s even better for Power than you think.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The easiest way to look at the 200 power bonus is having 5-6 stacks of Might (less the condition dmg bonus).

Who wouldn’t want 5-6 stack of Might?

Well you could use the 5 points to unlock the “3 more total initiative” minor trait in Trickery which gives you enough initiative buffer so that a C&D => Backstab will happen above the 50% initiative requirement for +10% bonus damage from the 25 points Critical Strikes trait :p

It’s not for PvE obviously. But I’d rather get 3 more initiative and +10% damage on both C&D, Mug and Backstab than just on the latest part.

Which is even assuming that the new trait would apply here which isn’t guaranteed at all ! You get Revealed by the backstab damage itself. So it should logically only apply after.

Thinking about it, even for PvE it’s not that good if backstab doesn’t get the benefit.

You can get a whole Sword attack chain off while Revealed. In PvE, S/D could well be the new damage meta if you take full advantage of the 200 Power that the main Dagger DPS (Backstab) cannot. The whole Dagger rotation (including Backstabs) is slightly higher than Sword atm, but the 200 Power might tip the scales. Some theorycrafters should get on that.

stof.9341:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The easiest way to look at the 200 power bonus is having 5-6 stacks of Might (less the condition dmg bonus).

Who wouldn’t want 5-6 stack of Might?

Well you could use the 5 points to unlock the “3 more total initiative” minor trait in Trickery which gives you enough initiative buffer so that a C&D => Backstab will happen above the 50% initiative requirement for +10% bonus damage from the 25 points Critical Strikes trait :p

It’s not for PvE obviously. But I’d rather get 3 more initiative and +10% damage on both C&D, Mug and Backstab than just on the latest part.

The idea here is to maintain the high damage level even after a sneak attack even just using an auto-attack skill. 3 more initiative may increase your damage by some percentage, but it requires you to use that 3 initiative to gain that boost.

With this trait, you get the damage boost on your auto-attack and you can save your initiative for other high damage skills.

What I like about it is, it’s possible to backstab → swap → PW or just PW from stealth.

Which is even assuming that the new trait would apply here which isn’t guaranteed at all ! You get Revealed by the backstab damage itself. So it should logically only apply after.

The way it is worded, yes I agree that it would only apply after.

Thinking about it, even for PvE it’s not that good if backstab doesn’t get the benefit.

You need to think of other possibilities that this trait made available outside backstab. PW in my opinion is the beneficiary of this new trait.