Guild Wars 2

Hi don’t you guys think ice drake is bit lackluster? Does anybody even bother to use 1s chill for 3 strikes on a 32 sec cd(traited)? How about changing it with condi cleanse/transfer?

I currently run conditions with a venomshare build, and this is one of the two venoms I never use.

Spider’s a must – sweet sweet poison.
Skale’s not bad – torment and vuln is nice.
Basalisk I mostly use in PvP, no real use elsewhere.
Skelk is an option when I want a slightly less selfish heal.

but I find that as a damaging-condition dealer, Devourer and Ice Drake venoms just don’t do anything for me. it’d be nice to get a bleed venom, or a condi cleanse/transfer as you suggested.

It’s really good when shared, provided the recipient doesn’t cleanse it. That doesn’t happen often though, and using it solo doesn’t really do a whole lot. I say give it weakness as well, so it still works with both condi and non condi cc venom builds and boosts survivability. Also, on the topic of venoms, BV and Skelk should really be instant cast.

Venoms in general are a gameplay, which needs to get changed.
They should be imo Utility Skills, every Thief should have litterally under F3 and F4 two venom Skilsl ready at use, which should change their weapon skill effects, or even completely change out their Weapon Skills as a matter of more tactical gameplay for the thief instead of this silly, 3 changes every 30 secondas gameplay just to be able to have every half minute some condition bursts.

Venoms should be a much more integrated gameplay aspect for all thieves in general. Thieves are the true Masters of Poisons, they kill foes with venoms like Assassins.
It would make it also possible to replace all the venom skills that are a heal and some utility skills with better and more useful skills of a complete new Skill Type unique to the Thief – Stigmas, which would be Counter Signets which do counter effects, when somebody in your near activates a Signet and punishes the foe for using the active portion of a signet, or gives you buffs, when an enemy activates a signet to counter that effect and add on top of that a “Seal” effect that disables based on which Stigma was used a different Disabling Effect on your enemy for that time that your Stigma is active, like an effect, that disables enemy to use Dodge Roles, an Effect, that disables enemy to use the Class Specific Skills, an Effect, that disables to use Elite Skills, an Effect that disables to use the Heal Skill, an Effect that Disables CC Effects from Enemy Skills and an Effect,disables the gain of new boons from nearby foes and converts Boons over to you.

Selectable Venoms for F3 and F4 could be then:

Krait Venom: Couses Poison and Cripple.
Skale Venom: Causes Confusion and Vulnerability
Hylek Venom: Causes Slow and Blindness
Devourer Venom: Causes Torment and Weakness
Skelk Venom: Causes Life Leech and Boon Steal

instead of having charges, activating a venom works for as many attacks you can doe while its duration isn’t running out and activating the Venom should change the Auto Attack Skill for all Weapons.

Once this is done, then add said Stigmas as new utility/Heal Skill…

Heal:
Stigma of Blood
Passive: Counter Seal the Enemy if he tries to activate a Signet by disabling the Enemy’s Option to use a Heal Skill for the next 5 seconds whenever the Enemy uses a Signet or their Signets recharge.
Heal your self and convert your Conditions over to your target enemy. Get Extra heals and Boons for every converted Condition.

Stigma of Cunning
Passive: Counter Seal the Enemy if he tries to activate a Signet by diabling for 3 seconds the Option to perform Dodge Rolls whenever the Enemy uses a Signet or their Signets recharge.
Stigma of Cunning causes your Steal to instantly recharge on activation and causes a AoE Stealth of the Size of Shadow Refuge, that works also as Stun Breaker for your and nerarby allies.

Stigma of Sins
Passive: Counter Seal the Enemy if he tries to activate a Signet by disabling for 3 seconds the gain of new Boons and whenever the Enemy would get in that time new Boons, you steal them automatically whenever the Enemy uses Signet or their Signets recharge.
When you use Stigma of Sins, it creates an aoe damage over time attack, that deals periodically more damage to foes over the next 3 seconds, so more conditions they suffer on, while standing inside its area of effect

Stigma of Punishment
Passive: Counter Seal the Enemy if he tries to activate Signets by disabling for 3 seconds the Enemy to use their Class Specific Skills whenever the Enemy uses a Signet or their Signets recharge.
When you use Stigma of Punishment, it deals increasing damage for every Boon on the enemy, removes Stability and stuns the foe per Boon the target had for 0,25 seconds ignoring this way Stability.

Stigma of Reflexion
Passive: Counter Seal the Enemy if he tries to activate a Signet by disabling for the next 3 seconds that you can get CC’ed whenever the Enemy uses a Signet or a Signet recharges
When you use Stigma of Reflexion, you gain preiodically Retaliation, Protection and Regeneration and whenever you get hit by enemies, while Stigma of Reflexion is active on you, your enemies receive Confusion on top of that when they hit you.

Stigma of Pride
Passive: Counter Seal the Enemy if he uses a Signet disabling for 3 seconds that he can use his Elite Skill or increases for 3 seconds its Recharge Time if already used and recharging, whenever the Enemy uses a Signet or their Signets recharge.
When using Stigma of Pride, you gain Alacrity, Resistance and Vigor and when you successfully dodge roll while this skill is active, you will convert a Condition over to nearby foes.
—-

If this doesn#t get ever then, then at least id love to see these kind of Stigma Skills finding their way or in a similar way into the game maybe as part of a next Thief Elite Spec, like the Swindler <3

I agree, OP. Currently, in my power burst build, I prefer devourer over Drakes venom since the immob is plenty more powerful. The chill CAN be of use vs skill spam classes like ele and engi, but that’s about it.

Gray.9041:

I currently run conditions with a venomshare build, and this is one of the two venoms I never use.

Spider’s a must – sweet sweet poison.
Skale’s not bad – torment and vuln is nice.
Basalisk I mostly use in PvP, no real use elsewhere.
Skelk is an option when I want a slightly less selfish heal.

but I find that as a damaging-condition dealer, Devourer and Ice Drake venoms just don’t do anything for me. it’d be nice to get a bleed venom, or a condi cleanse/transfer as you suggested.

devourer is awesome, it’s meta in WvW because it gets enemies stuck inside zerg bombs, since immob goes through stability.

but ice drake… yeah. IMO, skale should drop the vuln and add another charge or two (to put it on par with spider), and ice drake should get vuln (make it apply 2 stacks per hit as well), one more charge, and longer chill (like, at least 3s).

Honestly I think adding a condition transfer to Ice Drake venom would be brilliant, and a good way to add the condition removal a lot of thieves have been wanting. I’d definitely use it. XD

Starlightmagus.8654:

Honestly I think adding a condition transfer to Ice Drake venom would be brilliant, and a good way to add the condition removal a lot of thieves have been wanting. I’d definitely use it. XD

It would also make thieves highly wanted in raids or stuff like that. Condition transfer ability shared with an entire group ? Everyone will welcome that

Tabootrinket.2631:

Starlightmagus.8654:

Honestly I think adding a condition transfer to Ice Drake venom would be brilliant, and a good way to add the condition removal a lot of thieves have been wanting. I’d definitely use it. XD

It would also make thieves highly wanted in raids or stuff like that. Condition transfer ability shared with an entire group ? Everyone will welcome that

I’m rather liking this concept.

I’m really liking that condi-transfer venom idea actually.

I hope some devs would respond on this

this might actually be one of those ridiculously simple-yet-genius ideas. I seriously hope something comes of this.

As long as venom can be shared, there will be no good suggestion will ever be implemented for the venom — we’ve been waiting for it for a very long time now.

Venom Aura is the reason why venoms have such a long CD — without that trait, venoms would be balanced at 10s-15s CD and probably with increased condition duration. As of right now, any buffs on the venoms would be OP when shared.

Per the OP, Ice Drake Venom looks good when shared and worthless when not. Just to give you an example, two Thieves sharing venom one after the other can extend the chill upto 8s. Since it can be shared upto 5 party members, you can chill a target upto 30s (or when the venom wears off).

Sir Vincent III.1286:

As long as venom can be shared, there will be no good suggestion will ever be implemented for the venom — we’ve been waiting for it for a very long time now.

Venom Aura is the reason why venoms have such a long CD — without that trait, venoms would be balanced at 10s-15s CD and probably with increased condition duration. As of right now, any buffs on the venoms would be OP when shared.

I suggested something similar to this in the Thief Rebalance thread in my signature. Basically it would lower all the venoms to a 25 second cool down, they would all be instant cast, and you activate each venom charge one at a time. To compensate, Venomous Aura would only share half of the venom charges, probably through a 50% chance per activation. That would make venoms viable without Venomous Aura, and VA should still be just as good as it is now overall since the cool downs are lower.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Per the OP, Ice Drake Venom looks good when shared and worthless when not. Just to give you an example, two Thieves sharing venom one after the other can extend the chill upto 8s. Since it can be shared upto 5 party members, you can chill a target upto 30s (or when the venom wears off).

True, except allies will have to wait for the first 5 chill stacks to wear off before applying theirs, since chill was limited to a max of 5 stacks in the July 7th patch. The chill duration should just be increased to 2 seconds per application or reworked to something else like what was suggested in this thread.

Raiden.1375:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Per the OP, Ice Drake Venom looks good when shared and worthless when not. Just to give you an example, two Thieves sharing venom one after the other can extend the chill upto 8s. Since it can be shared upto 5 party members, you can chill a target upto 30s (or when the venom wears off).

True, except allies will have to wait for the first 5 chill stacks to wear off before applying theirs, since chill was limited to a max of 5 stacks in the July 7th patch. The chill duration should just be increased to 2 seconds per application or reworked to something else like what was suggested in this thread.

That’s why it’s UPTO 30s because by that time, either your team is applying chill every second maintaining 5 stacks, or the venom wears off naturally after that time.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s why it’s UPTO 30s because by that time, either your team is applying chill every second maintaining 5 stacks, or the venom wears off naturally after that time.

Yeah. Though if your allies are waiting for chill stacks to go away, that means they aren’t attacking the enemy player, which probably isn’t the most efficient way to down someone. Another thing is if 5 people are focusing one enemy applying that much chill, the chill probably isn’t the biggest thing the enemy will be worrying about.

Raiden.1375:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s why it’s UPTO 30s because by that time, either your team is applying chill every second maintaining 5 stacks, or the venom wears off naturally after that time.

Yeah. Though if your allies are waiting for chill stacks to go away, that means they aren’t attacking the enemy player, which probably isn’t the most efficient way to down someone. Another thing is if 5 people are focusing one enemy applying that much chill, the chill probably isn’t the biggest thing the enemy will be worrying about.

Worst case is that they have a bunker Herald, with Facet of Light and Chaos active, being healed by 4 Druids that requires all 5 of your team to attempt to down and your only hope is to chill the Herald for upto 30s to somehow create a window of opportunity. I don’t know, kitten like that can happen.