Guild Wars 2

Is there any reason to use those traits anymore after Anet added 1s to ‘revealed’?

All the benefits from that line – might stacking, initiative regen, health regen, condition removal, etc. – came from stealthing as often as possible. It seems Anet forgot to factor this into their decision.

PVE thieves have greatly reduced survivability as a melee class with this nerf. And we already had the worst. Meanwhile, warriors sit on top of mobs with heavy armors and hit up to 3 targets, doing more damage to them individually than a thief does to 1 target with daggers.

Arena Net, Thief PVE stealth did not need a nerf. The issue was with PVP and WvW!

Maybe it’s time to look to caltrops with signet and malice for extra healing instead? Or maybe not.

Anet didn’t forget to factor this in their decision, they just don’t care. This update didn’t even bring in that much content to begin with. Things go very slowly….

The important thing here in terms of Shadow Arts value as a trait line is that you can still chain stealth periods as long as you don’t attack from stealth, which preserves the value of many of the best traits in those situations.

A player getting focused can still chain two stealth periods together and purge 4 conditions and get the same amount of healing as before. So, someone still has full opportunity to play defensively – which is the primary intent of that trait line which also happens to provide toughness and healing bonuses.

If a player is playing purely offensively, yes, it is a significant nerf.

Assuming most people are using some form of balanced playstyle and using both behaviors, I would still tend to view Shadow Arts as arguably the best trait line Thieves have available.

Thief goes bai bai, already contemplating my switch to d/d ele.

Straegen.2938:

If the exta 1 second reveal causes player to be unable to effectively play this class or stop using one of the better trait lines, they shouldn’t be playing a thief and completely avoid just about every other class.

It does completely destroy the chain daze ability of S/D in PvE. Before the patch, with a sigil in your weapons you could just barely chain daze some mobs to prevent them from acting. Some, not all. Now it’ll be impossible to do it.

Shadow arts is still totally viable imo, but is now completely stifled by Acro. I now find I can run out of fights much easier than I can stealth out of them, and that just didn’t used to be the case. The healing and mitigation options you get in Acro are so much more consistent thanks to our SA friend revealed…now 33% stronger!!1

Suck it up thieves.
Look how kittenty the rangers came out.

twoscoops.6913:

All the benefits from that line – might stacking, initiative regen, health regen, condition removal, etc. – came from stealthing as often as possible.

You can still stealth as often as possible…

WyldKat.4712:

You can still stealth as often as possible…

Not if you intend to actually do something damaging and not just stand around stealthed forever.

Straegen.2938:

If the exta 1 second reveal causes player to be unable to effectively play this class or stop using one of the better trait lines, they shouldn’t be playing a thief and completely avoid just about every other class.

So if they reduced it 1 second instead, no one would think it matters right? It’s only one second.

Fletch.3572:

So if they reduced it 1 second instead…

That would have been interesting to see. ZOMG moar stealth! Wouldn’t that mess up their attack chains too? More attack or more stealth, decisions decisions. ;p

Arekai.5698:

Suck it up thieves.
Look how kittenty the rangers came out.

True, true…
still i don’t see a reason to take other professions down that painful road… and in 6 month time bring them back up as they did with rangers, during those 6 month many ppl will quit or join the Ele ranks to be able to kill and not be killed in tournaments…