Guild Wars 2

With the addition of the 1-second cooldown for Stealth Attacks, I believe there may be new life for a proposed change to Shadow Refuge.

Accepting that Warriors can have 8 seconds of immunity to direct damage while still fighting and contesting a point, and that Rangers can have 6 seconds of immunity to direct damage while still fighting and contesting a point, I would offer the following…

While inside of Shadow Refuge’s boundary, the Thief may contest a point as well as be immune to being Revealed.

In essence, this allows the Thief specifically to fight on point and receive all of the benefits of being in Stealth (hiding, condition removal, healing, damage mitigation, etc.) for up to 4 seconds. It will also allow the Thief to engage any enemy who comes within range (be it melee or at range).

The Thief will still be self-Revealed if it leaves the boundaries of Shadow Refuge before the skill completes, so opponents could still knock the Thief out of the area.

Again, it is only 4 seconds compared with 8 for the Warrior and 6 for the Ranger. The Thief would still be vulnerable to direct damage, condition damage, and CC, as well as being Revealed by knockbacks. Along with the new cooldown, that will allow a maximum of 3 Backstabs.

Thoughts?

Only flaw in that is that SR is one of the biggest targets you can possibly put on your back. That’s a skill slot that could be used to better keep you alive, because all a warrior has to do while you’re in that ring is do that swing spin thing and you’re both dead and revealed.

This post looks so sad. Basically asking if thieves can get the crumbs that have fallen under table.
“warriors have op 8 inv and that is fine, but can we get just a fraction of that? Just something that makes us at least able to survive that fraction of second longer. Please dont get mad because i’m asking.”

martin.1653:

This post looks so sad. Basically asking if thieves can get the crumbs that have fallen under table.
“warriors have op 8 inv and that is fine, but can we get just a fraction of that? Just something that makes us at least able to survive that fraction of second longer. Please dont get mad because i’m asking.”

Sadly it’s true, that’s what we’ve been reduced to.

I think we should ask for the opposite of what warriors and rangers get. We get immunity to conditions while in stealth by a trait or skill?

Direct damage can be avoided by skill. But what can we do against a stacked condi burst? Go into stealth to die?

Hanza.6872:

We get immunity to conditions while in stealth by a trait or skill?

Direct damage can be avoided by skill. But what can we do against a stacked condi burst? Go into stealth to die?

We do have Shadow’s Embrace and Shadow’s Rejuvenation. However, we can’t use them without giving up control of a point, which is what this whole idea is about… to allow a Thief to take advantage of the sustain that Stealth provides while still being able to contest a point.

The difficulty in gaining that ability is finding a a method that is not “considered” overpowered, imbalanced, or annoying. People don’t like fighting a something they can’t see, and whether or not it is an actual problem, it is perceived to be.

For what you want for conditions, I would think that there are two ways to go about that. Shadow Refuge could pulse Resistance. Or it could cleanse conditions per pulse similar to Healing Seed.

The only issue I can think of is that players have already learned how to counter Shadow Refuge, and AoE’s are one of the main options to do so. Taking away one of their counters may cause an uproar, whether it is justified or not.

What the real obstacle is, however, is to give the devs something that they will receive as acceptable. And considering how difficult that is with even small changes, I fear that almost anything may be overreaching.