Guild Wars 2

Ok, in this thread I’m asking you to rate every Thief utility skill (slots 6-9) on a scale of 1 to 10 according to general usefulness. Some skills are obviously more useful to certain builds or in PvE/WvW/sPvP so remember to specify that by referring to.

(Crit/Cond. build) or (WvW/PvP/PVE)

Assassin’s Singet – 6/10 (Good, but not outstanding in any situation)
Infiltrator’s Singet – 4/10 (Just another Shadowstep and low Initiative Regen)
Singet of Agility – 5/10 (Good for extra Condition removal, otherwise meh)
Singet of Shadows – 7/10 (Addictive, although minimal impact on actual fights)

Spider Venom – 5/10 (Often Redundant, ok for Condition builds)
Skale Venom – 2/10 (Often Redundant and Vulnurability is generally useless)
Ice Drake Venom 3/10 (Near useless in PvE, doesn’t last long in PvP)
Devourer Venom 4/10 (Very frickle ability, only useful for very niche builds)

Tripwire – 2/10 (A trap…with a 3 second knock-down….just not good enough)
Needle Trap – 2/10 (Very similar to Tripwire, Poison often redundant)
Shadow Trap – */10 (Extreme niche ability but awesome when it does work)
Ambush – 5/10 (Decent enough trap)

Roll for Initiative – 7/10 (Good stun-breaker, especially for ranged builds)
Blinding Powder – 6/10 (Decent “oh kitten” button, but fairly limited)
Shadowstep – 8/10 (Double Stun Breaker, Shadowstep and Condition Remover, awesome!)
Scorpion Wire – 6/10 (Unreliable but good when it works in WvW and PvE.)

Shadow Refuge – 10/10 (best Thief utility skill in game, never leave home without)
Caltrops – 6/10 (Good for Condition builds in sPvP and PvE. Just “ok” otherwise)
Haste – 7/10 (Good for burst builds and doing anything fast)
Smoke Screen – 8/10 (Blocks projectiles, Smoke combo field…pretty good ability)

This is just my assessment from someone who enjoys all aspects of the game on a regular basis.

Regardless of whether you share my individual assessments however you can tell that almost all of our Traps and Poisons are very lackluster. Poisons are often redundant in anything but 1v1 fights and Traps are just too weak.

Yeah, venoms and traps are pretty underwhelming except for in very niche builds.
I agree with most of what you said. I would have rated IS a little higher. It’s real beauty is the instant teleport (useful for landing CnD and stomping Thieves, etc).

While i agree with your rating relation for the most part, i would reduce every single one by at least one point.

Except Shadowstep and Shadow Refuge there isn’t really anything “great” (or even “awesome”), which really has a impact.

Thats why i pretty much run Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge and the rather boring but comfortable (and pretty much necessary to keep up with other professions) Signet of Shadows.

On a related note: Is it normal that other professions have such a huge range of “junk” abilities?

I mean we can literally dismiss about half of our utility skills because they suck and dismiss more because they don’t suit our build.

Dee Jay.2460:

On a related note: Is it normal that other professions have such a huge range of “junk” abilities?

I mean we can literally dismiss about half of our utility skills because they suck and dismiss more because they don’t suit our build.

Yeah. Most of the professions I’ve played (with the exception of the Engineer) has had many utilites/traits that are just completely worthless. There are somewhere between 5-8 good utility skills and that’s about it for most professions.

I will rate like this: Max possible efficiency is one or more situations that utility is viable for
Assassin’s Singet – 6/10 (D/D spikes) – 3/10 (just for power boost in pve)
Infiltrator’s Singet – 8/10 (Stun Break + teleport on 30 sec cd)
Singet of Agility – 9/10 (Ultimate offensive passive/defensive active combo) –
Singet of Shadows – 6/10 (Addictive, but only worth it if switching to outside combat)

Spider Venom – 5/10 (Max ticks for Leeching Venoms)
Skale Venom – 3/10 (Vuln stacking in pve with venom sharing, otherwise useless)
Ice Drake Venom 2/10 (Worthless outside of buffs traits provide on venom use)
Devourer Venom 9/10 (Strongest pvp offensive utility, would be 10 if we nad more control on appliance)

Tripwire – 2/10 (Unusable, but 3 second knockdown)
Needle Trap – 1/10 (Unusable)
Shadow Trap – 9/10 (If we omit the difficulty of getting full benefit of this utility)
Ambush – 7/10 (Goes well with venom share and overall)

Roll for Initiative – 6/10 (Epic pre-nerf, now largely unusable outside specific situations. If it could break immobile at start of skill at least would be much better)
Blinding Powder – 3/10 (Not worth utility slot unless you want to stealth stack or abuse stealth)
Shadowstep – 9/10 (Best self-defense utility of thief, the only reliable stun break)
Scorpion Wire – 6/10 (Picking people of the wall is awesome. If it works. Good chunk of mobs immune to this)
Shadow Refuge – 10/10 (after fix, best utility overall for thief and the only thief ability that can affect more than 5 allies)
Caltrops – 8/10 (Purely for pve (i consider typical opponents in wvw pve too) condition build. If you are to lazy to do direct damage)
Haste – 4/10 (Drawback is too big. I’d trade this drawback for warrior and ranger ones together)
Smoke Screen – 8/10 (The one and the only ability that thief has that fully exploits the aoe limit and a long lasting smoke field, but too situational in use)

Ichishi.9613:

Shadow Refuge – 10/10 (after fix, best utility overall for thief and the only thief ability that can affect more than 5 allies)

Nope.

No AoE skill affects more than 5 people.

Asum.4960:

Ichishi.9613:

Shadow Refuge – 10/10 (after fix, best utility overall for thief and the only thief ability that can affect more than 5 allies)

Nope.

No AoE skill affects more than 5 people.

Dagger storm does

John Lucier.5486:

Asum.4960:

Ichishi.9613:

Shadow Refuge – 10/10 (after fix, best utility overall for thief and the only thief ability that can affect more than 5 allies)

Nope.

No AoE skill affects more than 5 people.

Dagger storm does

Dagger Strom is not an AoE by definition, but a sequenze of multiple projectiles being fired at enemies, threrefore multiple attacks.

If you want to test that, use Assassin Signet and tell me if it used one stack (for one skill aka. attack), or all of them and more (for multiple attacks).

Just like piercing shots, Dancing Daggers etc. aren’t AoE’s either, which should be pretty easy to understand once you write “Area of Effect” actually out.

These skills don’t affect a specific area (which is limited to 5 players in that area in GW2) but simply have effects affecting multiple enemies in a different fashion.

Shadow Refuge applies stealth randomly to 5 people within it on every pulse, effectively stealthing more than 5 people. That is what i meant

Dee Jay.2460:

On a related note: Is it normal that other professions have such a huge range of “junk” abilities?

I mean we can literally dismiss about half of our utility skills because they suck and dismiss more because they don’t suit our build.

My opinion would be that Thieves are above average in terms of useful/interesting skills. Currently, my Thief is only level 25, but I love Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder, Caltrops, Smokescreen, and Shadowstep. I really look forward to both Dagger Storm and Thieves Guild which are both, well, elite.

On my (level 54) Elementalist, only one of two 10-point Elites is worth it, and the 30-point Elite actually makes you worse off when you use it. The only Elementalists that used it were taking advantage of a loophole where you could fire it off, then immediately cancel it, and retain stability. (AN closed that loophole in the last patch.)

Granted, some utilities depend on what attunement the Elementalist is in, so there’s a lot of flexibility to each, but I have a ton of skill points on my Elementalist and nothing left to spend them on, while my Thief will continue to get better as I add new skills.

These are all from an SPvP perspective

Assassin’s Singet – 5/10 (Doesn’t bring anything we don’t already have, unless you’re running D/D glass cannon, in which case helps with big crits)
Infiltrator’s Singet – 8/10 (My favorite stunbreaker for nearly any spec. Can be used as a gap closer or stunbreak, and regen’s init when not in use)
Singet of Agility – 8/10 (For a Power/Crit spec that doesn’t want to go complete glass cannon (Soldiers over berserker’s), this helps bump your crit 4-5%. Full endurance refill with a heavy acrobatics build and a Shbow will let you dodge across an entire map if need be. Great for dropping 10+ stacks of bleed)
Singet of Shadows – 4/10 (OOC movement speed is amazing, otherwise meh. It is nice to blind downed players mid-stomp so they miss their interrupt though)

Spider Venom – 2/10 (You’re almost definitely using a Shbow or have 5 points in DA, mostly worthless outside leeching, and even then, requires too many traits to be effective)
Skale Venom – 2/10 (Mostly worthless)
Ice Drake Venom 2/10 (Mostly worthless)
Devourer Venom 5/10 (Can mean death for your opponent if using glass cannon. For other specs, its helpful, but hardly intimidating)

Tripwire – 2/10 (Watch your opponent Block/immune/dodge roll through it and laugh)
Needle Trap – 2/10 (See Tripwire)
Shadow Trap – N/A (Haven’t had enough time with the new version to judge)
Ambush – 6/10 (Can’t be dodge rolled through to ignore, so that’s a plus. 1/2 of a theives guild for 20s on a 35s CD isn’t so bad, but I’ve had a hard time not taking better utilities )

Roll for Initiative – 8/10 (If only it broke Immob/chill/cripple/stun BEFORE the dodge roll, like it probably is intended to, it would be perfect. Nice to get you out of a jam, and give you 6 init for jumping back into the fight or playing defensively til something you need comes off CD)
Blinding Powder – 4/10 (Lower CD makes it more useful, but unless you’re looking to run a very stealth heavy build with little other tricks, SR blows it out of the water)
Shadowstep – 6/10 (Great for making an escape, but otherwise meh IMO. The condition removal happens on return, so if you’re trying to escape a clusterkitten of AoE, you wont be dropping any conditions. Potentially drop 2 stuns, but won’t happen often as the “Return” mechanic only lasts 12s.)
Scorpion Wire – 5/10 (If it worked flawlessly (no unexplained obstructed, always pulled your target to you) it would be a 8/10. Until then, nothing is more infuriating than counting on an ability only to watch it fail)

Shadow Refuge – 9/10 (Amazing, but opponents are learning how to counter it, and without stability, getting knocked out of the effect is too easy)
Caltrops – 7/10 (Powerful cap denial and signet of malice healing source for a conditions/stealth heavy build, otherwise mediocre)
Haste – 6/10 (Doubling attack speed for a burst build is hard to argue with, but any CC applied to you, or your target using an immunity/block skill ruins your day)
Smoke Screen – 7/10 (Solid ability all around, but hard to find a slot for it in any build I’d like to run)

Only skills I use sPVP or PVE/WvW are:

Shadow Refuge
Shadowstep
Signet of Malice
Hide in Shadows
Dagger Storm for Elite

Shadowstep and Shadowrefuge are probably the best of the setup.

evilapprentice.6379:

Shadow Refuge – 9/10 (Amazing, but opponents are learning how to counter it, and without stability, getting knocked out of the effect is too easy)

That’s why I always pop it near objects/walls, then they cannot knock you out.
The more dangerous thing is mass AOE on Refuge, you’re so fragile that another thief can kill you with 2-3 Cluster Bombs inside Refuge.

I can only agree on the last 4 and shadowstep. Eventhough you mention it in your first sentence, I think you are giving too little credit to some utility spells. They can work rather well with the right builds while the spells you DO rate high can be situational aswell. So rating them is nigh impossible.

I feel there is no such thing as a staple set of utility skills. Probably shadow refuge is the only one there. Some utility skills are basically a worse version of another one though. You could call some skills redundant or worse than the other one available though.

And I have actually found the opposite to be true of what people are saying here about many utility skills being redundant on some classes. I feel like a lot of other classes have more versatility when it comes to utility skills while a thief has rather basic and sometimes very comparable utility skills.

PvP Wise:

Assassin’s Singet – 3/10 (wasted slot after nerf, cause autoattacks count in)
Infiltrator’s Singet – 7/10 (another teleport , quite good for P/D or S/P imho, precast #5 oder #3 and step)
Singet of Agility – 8/10 (very good vs heavy codition or burst teams !)
Singet of Shadows – 7/10 (blind is nice for stomping, runspeed also good, but i normally switch before engagin)

Spider Venom – 5/10 (only in V/share builds, other utils are just better)
Skale Venom – 2/10 (worst util ever imho)
Ice Drake Venom 4/10 (6 sec chill is nice, but recast much too long, besides VBuilds)
Devourer Venom 7/10 (Quite nice in many builds, even without VenomTraits)

Tripwire – 8/10 (i love it, 3 sec knowdown is very very good, also good when someone is chasing you, or you want to neutralitze a point)
Needle Trap – 2/10 ( nowhere as good as tripwire ! )
Shadow Trap – 6/10 ( only usefull in certain setups )
Ambush – 7/10 ( nice DPS boost + confusion , even better in Vshare builds)

Roll for Initiative – 5/10 ( only good in ranged builds, ini regen is nice, so is immobilze / snare removal, but it might roll you into a bad spot !)
Blinding Powder – 4/10 ( better if you run P/D where you need that stealth opener, otherwise i dont like it much)
Shadowstep – 10/10 ( mandatory in nearly every build, not only the stunbreaker &/ condition removal but also how you can fool nmy with this skill !!)
Scorpion Wire – 5/10 ( 1200range change was / is good but i only use it to grab ppl from points, which is rarely )

Shadow Refuge – 10/10 ( i think its needed in tPVP in many situations, offensive as defensive )
Haste – 8/10 ( depending on you builds this will make the difference between kill or no kill | also quite nice with VII Trait from DA, when it triggers double haste ftw )
Smoke Screen – 3/10 ( i only use this for mass stealth before a game starts, if ever. )

Eh, it would be hard for me to give a hard number rating for a lot of abilities. The usefulness of any ability is going to depend very much on how you use them with other abilities. Infiltrator’s Signet, for example, is very useful when combined with Acrobatics for regaining a lot of initiative naturally which is really nice for a power build utilizing pistol/pistol to maximize the damage output of unloaded while captalizing on mitigating damage by being at range. Infiltrator’s Signet is also nice on S/D when you use Infiltrator’s Strike, Signet, and then Mug to literally FLY across the kitten battlefield and then have an escape set up so far away that there is very little chance you’re going to get chased down.

ultimately too situation-based for me. It’s neat to hear your guys opinions though.

I will rate only those 3 UI skills that i use:

1.Shadow Refuge – 9/10 .Yes it can be countered,but most of the time when i use it,i would be dead anyway if i don’t use it. Also i saved thousands allies from stomping with it.
2.Roll For Initiative – 8/10 . It is priceless against rangers Entangle,warriors 100blades and flurry ,also various knock down+slow but devastating attacks (engi and ele have such) e.t.c.What i don’t like is that 90% when i use it i am at full initiative(Bull Rushed or attacked by BS thief suddenly e.t.c), thus +6 bonus is wasted.Also i don’t really get why Shadowstep have 10 sec lower CD than Roll For Initiative.Shadowstep is the better ability overall.
3.Caltrops – 9/10.It goes with the build(i am condition).For this gameplay is priceless,for any other is worthless.

Shadowstep and Shadow Refuge are two of the best abilities in the game.
If you’re specced int Shadow Arts, Shadow Refuge becomes borderline OP, imo, with additional healing, condition removal and an AoE blind.

They’re both extremely great defensive and offensive abilities, being able to keep up the pressure by breaking Stuns Fears n’ Knockbacks, and Shadow Refuge removing Blinds and Immobilize/cripples > leading into BS is amazing!

For dueling I give them an insta 10/10.

I haven’t really used any of the othe utilities, much. They seem to be too situational or either buggy

Chakuna.6325:

Shadowstep and Shadow Refuge are two of the best abilities in the game.
…
For dueling I give them an insta 10/10.

I’d agree. I don’t know why people are so hesitant to give out 10/10. They’re as good as it possibly gets for utility skills without being utterly broken.

If you pick up Infusion of Shadow, Shadow Refuge also returns 2 initiative per pulse, for a grand total of 8 initiative in 4 seconds.

That skill is amazing.

And then the next troll patch will nerf Shadow Refuge!!! :O

I hope not, that skill is not broken and it make us decent supporters in all enviroments. The border triggering revealed is enough to make it counterable IMO.

I hope instead of that thing I said we will see some more focus on the not so interesting skills we have so we don’t eliminate 90% of them before even deciding our build.

Some Venoms really need either a buff or change the common 45 second cooldown to 20 seconds. Skale Venom really feels like a joke when with just some trait points in DA you can get as much weakness with Spider Venom. Giving the same cooldown to all of them doesn’t makes sense when you compare their effects.

Assassin’s Singet – 7/10
Infiltrator’s Singet – 4/10
Singet of Agility – 3/10
Singet of Shadows – 8/10
Spider Venom – 3/10
Skale Venom – 6/10 (only w/ venom share and in pve group content, else 3/10)
Ice Drake Venom 3/10
Devourer Venom 6/10 (only w/ venom share and in pve group content, else 3/10)
Tripwire – 3/10
Needle Trap – 3/10
Shadow Trap – 4/10
Ambush – 5/10
Roll for Initiative – 8/10
Blinding Powder – 8/10
Shadowstep – 9/10
Scorpion Wire – 7/10
Shadow Refuge – 10/10
Caltrops – 6/10
Haste – 7/10
Smoke Screen – 9/10

My build hasnt changed since…. like level 30…. lol
D/D [Bleeding Stacks from LDB]
Signet of Malice [Passive Healing, Takes advantage of Quick Hits and AoE]
Roll for Initiative [Regain Initiative, Leaping DB spam]
Assassin’s Signet Power, nuff said]
Infiltrator’s Signet [Regain Initiative, Leaping DB spam]
Dagger Storm [Stacking Bleeding, Massive Heal from SoM, StabilityBlocking Ranged]

Red Falcon.8257:

Singet of Agility – 3/10
Singet of Shadows – 8/10

Definitely very build dependent. SoA is one of the more powerful thief utilities when synergized, whereas SoS has almost nothing going for it except long-distance convenience, and actually works worse with traits/gear instead of better.

Red Falcon.8257:

Singet of Agility – 3/10

Signet of Agility seems kinda mandatory for any PvE (dungeon) build, except condition dmg builds based on caltrops dodge/evade skills such as D/D death blossom spam (that has insane amount of evades by itself)

Ambush – 4/10
Assassin’s Signet – 5/10
Blinding Powder – 2/10
Caltrops – 4/10
Devourer Venom – 5/10
Haste – 5/10
Ice Drake Venom – 1/10
Infiltrator’s Signet – 2/10
Needle Trap – 1/10
Roll for Initiative – 7/10
Scorpion Wire – 5/10
Shadow Refuge – 9/10
Shadow Trap – 3/10
Shadowstep – 8/10
Signet of Agility – 2/10
Signet of Shadows – 8/10
Skale Venom – 0/10
Smoke Screen – 4/10
Spider Venom – 4/10
Tripwire – 1/10

Based on my personal experience of usage, not theory.

Ambush – 3/10
Assassin’s Signet – 5/10
Blinding Powder – 5/10
Caltrops – 5/10
Devourer Venom – 3/10
Haste – 5/10
Ice Drake Venom – 1/10
Infiltrator’s Signet – 3/10
Needle Trap – 1/10
Roll for Initiative – 4/10
Scorpion Wire – 7/10 , if you hit
Shadow Refuge – 10/10
Shadow Trap – 3/10
Shadowstep – 9/10
Signet of Agility – 3/10
Signet of Shadows – 7/10
Skale Venom – 1/10
Smoke Screen – 5/10 very situational can vary from 5-9 depending on sit.
Tripwire – 1/10

Tulisin.6945:

Definitely very build dependent. SoA is one of the more powerful thief utilities when synergized, whereas SoS has almost nothing going for it except long-distance convenience, and actually works worse with traits/gear instead of better.

Matter of opinion and playstyle.

For me, SoA is one of the most useless skills.
Not worth the slot for me when I can have much, much better, tide-turning skills such as Shadow Refuge, Smoke Screen and Blinding Powder.
Those can prevent thousands of damage, reset aggro, safe rez and lead to great combo finishers all in one.
These are unique things only Thieves can do, while condition removal can and will overlap with others’.
I expect any decent player to be able to take care of own’s conditions, and where it isn’t enough a lot of other classes can remove better without sacrificing an utility slot.
2 dodges + vigor are well enough for any player who carefully manages endurance correctly.
Even SoS is better because AoE blinding can prevent thousands of damage.

I’ve done all dungeons several times in all modes, got to lvl 12 in Fract, never ever needed or felt the need of SoA.

Sure, to each his own playstyle, of course.

Red Falcon.8257:

Those can prevent thousands of damage, reset aggro, safe rez and lead to great combo finishers all in one.
These are unique things only Thieves can do, while condition removal can and will overlap with others’.

Fair enough, but thieves are also the only ones that can lay down damage/conditions and self heal with dodges, which SoA facilitates better than any other skill, the group utility condition removal is just icing.

I can see the value in the other listed utilities in a group environment, especially as a utility-heavy thief, but SoS’ active is just too mediocre to hang with the rest of the list, given that the the mobs most likely to be using single attacks that are painful enough to be prevented are the same mobs blind is unlikely to be effective against.

I’ve never needed SoA either, but I’ve always felt that there are few other utilities that bring more to the field, simply because of how many things SoA does and facilitates with trait synergy.

Assassin’s Signet – 9/10 Fantastic damage increase and passive power increase.

Infiltrator’s Signet – 8/10 Increased initiative regen is good for long fights, but nothing else.

Signet of Agility – 4/10 Not necesarily all that important to have even more crit. you either spec for crit or you don’t, and normally your gear already provides you so much crit you dont know what to do with it.

Signet of Shadows – 9/10 The speed bonus has helped me escape less-than-preferable situations/catch slipper foes on numerous occasions and helped the leveling process so much. Not recommended for dungeons, however.

Spider Venom – 5/10 Good for builds that are based around venoms, but otherwise it’s not really that impressive. Way too long of a cooldown to make it worthwhile.

Skale Venom – 1/10 Not worthwhile.

Ice Drake Venom 1/10 Would be worthwhile if the duration wasn’t so short.

Devourer Venom 8/10 Great for builds that are based around venom. It really can help with locking down an opponent.

Tripwire – 3/10 Can be useful, but I hardly use it. There are better abilities.

Needle Trap – 3/10 Don’t normally find traps all too exciting and or good.

Shadow Trap – 4/10 Same as last.

Ambush – 5/10 Pet AI in this game sucks. Sometimes they’re useful, but most the time they’re as dumb as a bag of potatoes.

Roll for Initiative – 7/10 Would be higher if the cooldown wasn’t so ridiculously long.

Blinding Powder – 6/10 It’s alright. Nothing my pistol offhand can’t do already, however.

Shadowstep – 9/10 Double whammy; two stun breaks in one ability. I love it.

Scorpion Wire – 5/10 Meh. Good for pulling mobs in PvE. Won’t see much use elsewhere however.

Shadow Refuge – 10/10 Dark combo field, ridiculously long stealth, healing. Need I say more?

Caltrops – 5/10 Only has specific uses.

Haste – 7/10 Would be higher if it didn’t drain all endurance.

Smoke Screen – 9/10 Fantastic to help mitigate ranged opponents. Cooldown is a little long though.

Amiron.1067:

Signet of Agility – 4/10 Not necesarily all that important to have even more crit. you either spec for crit or you don’t, and normally your gear already provides you so much crit you dont know what to do with it.

You don’t take SoA for the precision bonus. It doesn’t hurt, but you don’t take it for that.

Tulisin.6945:

Amiron.1067:

Signet of Agility – 4/10 Not necesarily all that important to have even more crit. you either spec for crit or you don’t, and normally your gear already provides you so much crit you dont know what to do with it.

You don’t take SoA for the precision bonus. It doesn’t hurt, but you don’t take it for that.

Regardless, even its activation effect isn’t that great. Nothing my Hide in Shadows can’t already do, give or take a little.