Guild Wars 2

Just a suggestion for consideration by the devs and forumites, in line with the “rewarding thieves that stay in combat” philosophy.

We have access to a couple of decent on-dodge traits. Would it be possible or plausible to have them affect skills that evade as well?

I’m thinking specifically of the Evasive Strike on Sword. With the recent changes to Infiltrator’s Strike, we’ve had to look at alternatives. While Larcenous Strike is quite nice (was nicer with two boon-steal), I would love to get a little boost to Evasive Strike, which’d give us a nice alternative on which to spend our Initiative.

It’d also give a little more utility to things like Pistol Whip, which are still difficult to pull off effectively in WvW, where losing stealth options leaves a thief rather open. Likewise, things like the (single) Might stack on-dodge would give a nice little boost to Shortbow.

Regards,

- Coryphaeus

Things similar to other classes’ On-Block traits? Would be nice.
Really would like some friendly traits towards builds that don’t use stealth. Most of the time I feel punished for not using it. This could actually be a nice way to fix that. :o Trading off ini normally used for Cloak and Dagger to heal and lose conditions to something that did it on evade instead would be fun. :P

Yeah, took the idea from the on-block business that guards and warriors have.

I think it’s appropriate for thieves, both mechanically and thematically. And again, it keeps with the rewarding of thieves staying in combat. We shouldn’t be stand-and-deliver types, otherwise we’re just lighter-armoured warriors without significantly higher damage potential.

I’d love to put a little more utility into Acro-style combat.

Regards,

- Coryphaeus

Dropping caltrops on flanking strike, disabling shot, pistol whip and death blossom would be awesome.

Finally a real reason to promote a trait up a tier or two.

Otherwise, Tricks 3 could just be an exception.

Honestly, I’m mostly just referring to Acrobatics 2, Power of Inertia.

Regards,

- Coryphaeus

On-dodge and on-crit should be the bread and butter for non-Stealth Thieves.

There’s still room for stealth in a dodge-y thief, but speccing for dodge-iness usually means sacrificing stealth options, unless you want to give up the higher-end damage options.

Again, if the aim is to encourage thieves to stay engaged, this’d be a nice boost and incentive.

Regards,

- Coryphaeus

The problem is that they don’t consider dodging thieves as engaged combatants. I’m paraphrasing slightly but the statement for nerfing the vigor traits and “buffing” AR was to encourage active engagements rather than just dodging over and over. By the same definition of active fighting they made HtC easier to get.

With thinking like that the odds of our dodges getting buffed is slim.

I would like to see some trait like this:

Evasive Boons (5s cooldown)

Gain a boon on every dodge. Dodging also triggers Revealed for 3s.

Dodge forward: Swiftness (8s)
Dodge backward: Protection (4s)
Dodge left: Vigor (5s)
Dodge right: Regeneration (8s)

Well, let it be said explicitly, for devs to read, and, if you agree, we can transmogrify this thread into a proto-petition:

We don’t really want to be lighter-armoured warriors. We’re thieves. Staying engaged by just standing and delivering is the province of the tanks, and glad we are to have them and to leave them in that role.

Let us be the evasive, mobile melee combatants. We don’t need to dodge all of the time, but when we do, let it count. It’s our best option for damage mitigation, and adding boosts to the combat skill dodges (Evasive Strike, Pistol Whip, etc.) would go a long way toward getting thieves to stay engaged.

Regards,

- Coryphaeus