Guild Wars 2

WORK IN PROGRESS

Please discuss about the state of the thief and give feedback to improve the thief.
This topic is to discuss the state of the thief. What is underpowered and what is overpowered. You can also make suggestions on how you think it should be changed.
I will add your input into my list and finalize it when i have played enough after the upcoming balance patch.
(it will change from “WORK IN PROGRESS” into “WORK DONE”).

If you have a trait, skill or something other regarding the state of the thief you want to discuss about, please post in this topic or send me a PM and i will open a new topic for it and put a link in here that leads to the topic.

.

• General
• Traits – weak
• Traits – strong
• Skills – weak
• Skills – strong
• Wild Ideas

.
—————————————————————————————————————-
General:
—————————————————————————————————————-
.

Shadow Return (mechanic):
Change it into the same mechanic that is used for the mesmer portal.
It’s ok that you can’t use ground targeted blink abilities to get to otherwise unreachable positions. But the return point for a shadow return can only be placed at a position you can get to anyways.
.

• General
• Traits – weak
• Traits – strong
• Skills – weak
• Skills – strong
• Wild Ideas

.
—————————————————————————————————————-
Traits (weak):
—————————————————————————————————————-
Traits that are rarely or never used and could need a change / buff to make them more interesting for players.
———————————————
Deadly Arts:
———————————————
II Corrosive Traps
Traps apply 5 stacks of vulnerability (8s) when triggered.

V Potent Poison
Increases poison duration by 33%.

VII Improvisation
Stealing recharges all skills of one type (venoms, signets, traps, tricks, or deceptions). Deal 10% more damage while wielding a bundle.
.
———————————————
Critical Strikes:
———————————————
VII Ankle Shots
Critical hits with a pistol have a 60% chance to cripple foes for 3s. (Cooldown of 10 seconds).
.
———————————————
Shadow Arts:
———————————————
X Patience
Regain initiative faster while in stealth. (1 after 3 seconds)
.
———————————————
Acrobatics:
———————————————
IV Assassin’s Retreat
Gain swiftness when you kill an foe. This effect cannot occur more than once every 5 seconds.

VI Fleet of Foot
Dodging removes cripple and weakness from you. (10s cooldown)

XI Hard to Catch
Shadowstep away and give swiftness (12s) when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knock down, launch, knock back, sink, or fear). This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
.
———————————————
Trickery:
———————————————
II Instinctual Response
Use feathers to blind and stealth when you take more than 10% of your health in a single strike. This effect can only trigger once every 60 seconds.

• General
• Traits – weak
• Traits – strong
• Skills – weak
• Skills – strong
• Wild Ideas

—————————————————————————————————————-
Traits (strong):
—————————————————————————————————————-
Mainly a list of the most used traits. They are rarely to strong and therefore don’t need a nerf
———————————————
Deadly Arts:
———————————————
III Mug
Deal damage and gain life when stealing. This attack cannot critically hit enemies.

IX Dagger Training
Dagger damage is increased by 5%.

X Combined Training
Dual skills deal 5% more damage.
.
———————————————
Critical Strikes:
———————————————
I Furious Retaliation
Gain fury for 10 seconds when your target reaches 50% health. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 30 seconds.

V Pistol Mastery
+10% damage with pistols.

IX Combo Critical Chance
Dual skills have a +5% chance to critical hit.

X Critical Haste
10% chance to get quickness (2s) on a critical hit (30-second cooldown).

XI Executioner
Deal 20% extra damage when target is below 50% health.

XII Hidden Killer
100% critical hit chance while in stealth.
.
———————————————
Shadow Arts:
———————————————
III Shadow Protector
When you stealth an ally, they gain regeneration for 10 seconds. This effect does not trigger if your ally already has regeneration.

IV Shadow’s Embrace
Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth.

V Infusion of Shadow
Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths you.

XI Shadow’s Rejuvenation
Regenerate health while in stealth.
.
———————————————
Acrobatics:
———————————————
I Descent of Shadows
Release blinding powder when you take falling damage. Take 50% less damage from falling.

II Power of Inertia
Gain might whenever you dodge. (1 might for 15 seconds).

III Vigorous Recovery
Gain vigor when using a healing skill.

IX Quick Recovery
Gain 2 initiative every 10 seconds.
.
———————————————
Trickery:
———————————————
III Uncatchable
Leave behind caltrops when you dodge.

V Thrill of the Crime
When you steal, you and all nearby allies gain fury, might and swiftness for 10 seconds.

VII Bountiful Theft
Stealing grants you and all nearby allies vigor for 15 seconds. Up to two boons are also ripped from your target and granted to nearby allies.

XI Hastened Replenishment
You receive 4 initiative when using a heal skill.

XII Sleight of Hand
Stealing also dazes your target for 1 second. Reduces the recharge of Steal by an additional 20%

• General
• Traits – weak
• Traits – strong
• Skills – weak
• Skills – strong
• Wild Ideas

—————————————————————————————————————-
Skills (weak)
—————————————————————————————————————-
.

———————————————
Pistol
———————————————
2 Body Shot
Make your foe vulnerable with a body shot.
.
———————————————
Trap
———————————————
.
———————————————
Trick
———————————————
.
———————————————
Venom
———————————————
.
———————————————
Elite
———————————————

• General
• Traits – weak
• Traits – strong
• Skills – weak
• Skills – strong
• Wild Ideas

—————————————————————————————————————-
Skills (strong)
—————————————————————————————————————-
.
———————————————
Dagger
———————————————
Stealth Backstab
Attack your foe from the shadows, striking for double damage if you hit from behind.

2 Heartseeker
Leap and strike your foe. The less health your target has, the more damage you cause.
.
———————————————
Sword
———————————————
3 (dagger offhand)Larcenous Strike chain
first: Evade and stab your foe. (3 initiative)
second: Stab your foe and steal up to two boons from them. (2 initiative)
Reduced boon steal to 1.
.
———————————————
Deception
———————————————
Shadowstep
Shadowstep to target area. Becomes Shadow Return, which returns you to your starting area and cures three conditions.

Shadow Refuge
Create a pulsing refuge at the target area that heals allies and cloaks them in stealth.

• General
• Traits – weak
• Traits – strong
• Skills – weak
• Skills – strong
• Discussions

—————————————————————————————————————-
Discussion
—————————————————————————————————————-
Collection of the most discussed topics.
———————————————
XI Hard to Catch
———————————————

evilapprentice.6379:

Replace with “When disabled, cure’s all conditions,breaks stuns,grants 1s of evasion” with a reasonable CD (probably 60s).

Stooperdale.3560:

Ranger gets knocked down – pet takes the knockdown
Warrior gets knocked down – ignore the knockdown with 5 seconds of stability
Thief gets knocked down – gain swiftness (you’re kidding me, right?)

Maugetarr.6823:

move hard to catch down to master with no changes made to it
(quick recovery merged fleet of foot as new grandmaster trait. initiative + condition remove on dodge without internal cooldown)

Idea by me:
Shadowstep away and give swiftness (12s) Evade and knock down the enemy when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knock down, launch, knock back, sink, or fear). This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 90 seconds.

.
———————————————
VII Improvisation
———————————————

evilapprentice.6379:

Stolen items are 20% more effective, deal 10% more damage when holding a stolen item", but the first part of that is tough to implement.

PopeUrban.2578:

I disagree with removing the RNG from improvisation.
…
Changing it to “one of your utility skills” keep the power of the trait, and keeps the random factor.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Change steal into being a bundle, I’d take improvisation.

Incurafy.6329:

the general consensus has always been that reliability is preferable to RNG.

My oppinion:
Getting back one random skill is fun and you need to “improvise” your next move with it. You could add 6 initiative for the random roll as well. But RNG is hard to balance

Reserved for expansion

ok, ill take a break. Feel free start writing your opinions and discuss

I’ll read the feedback and continue tomorrow.

And i will definately write about the stuff that is to strong as well.
I only have the smoke field + leap finisher so far.
But I started with the easiest stuff

crouze.3078:

V Potent Poison
Increases poison duration by 33%.

I’d move this to a new category, “Useless” – I can’t imagine any spec where this would be worth it over every other trait option in the line at the same level.

VII Improvisation
Stealing recharges all skills of one type (venoms, signets, traps, tricks, or deceptions). Deal 10% more damage while wielding a bundle.
Idea: Stealing recharges all skills of one type one of your utility skills. Deal 10% 15% more damage while wielding a bundle.

The RNG kills this trait – you can’t bank on randomly getting a utility back IMO, so that isn’t a good fix. Ideally, I’d like something along the lines of “Stolen items are 20% more effective, deal 10% more damage when holding a stolen item”, but the first part of that is tough to implement – some stolen items do damage, some grant boons, some place an AoE field… if they could find a standardized way to implement that, I think improvisation would become a much more useful trait.

VII Ankle Shots
Critical hits with a pistol have a 60% chance to cripple foes for 3s. (Cooldown of 10 seconds).
Idea: Critical hits with a pistol have a 60% chance to cripple foes for 3s. 6s (Cooldown of 10 seconds).

Can’t judge this trait fairly IMO, as P/P is a broken set, and P/D doesn’t have much use for crit. Hard to tell how useful it really is until thieves have a functioning Pistol MH set that values crit.

X Patience
Regain initiative faster while in stealth. (1 after 3 seconds)
Idea: Regain initiative faster while in stealth. (1 3 after 3 seconds)

Another trait for the “Useless” bin – a long time ago, someone did the math, and patience is provably worse than infusion of shadow in 99% of situations. Your suggestion isn’t bad, but promotes sitting in stealth even more than SA does now, and I can’t say I’m a fan of that. I don’t have a good suggestion for it however.

IV Assassin’s Retreat
Gain swiftness when you kill an foe. This effect cannot occur more than once every 5 seconds.

Another useless trait. Needs to be completely redesigned.

VI Fleet of Foot
Dodging removes cripple and weakness from you. (10s cooldown)

Merge Fleet of foot and Quick recovery into a T2 trait – Lose 1 condition and gain 1 Init whenever you dodge, 5s ICD.

XI Hard to Catch
Shadowstep away and give swiftness (12s) when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knock down, launch, knock back, sink, or fear). This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.

That useless bin keeps growing. Replace with “When disabled, cure’s all conditions,breaks stuns,grants 1s of evasion” with a reasonable CD (probably 60s). It is a T3 trait after all.

II Instinctual Response
Use feathers to blind and stealth when you take more than 10% of your health in a single strike. This effect can only trigger once every 60 seconds.

Reduce CD to 30s, or have it also cure cripple/immob/chill.

I disagree with removing the RNG from improvisation.

I’ve been using this trait for some time, and on a trickery build with a 20s steal cooldown this one already pulls its weight. It’s meant to be random, but powerful, and it is, but only if you build for it. I think the proposed fix is a good one. Currently you have to limit yourself quite a bit to get good proc chances for the trait, but it lets you double up on a huge number of things that would be extremely overpowered if you could reliably do so.

It’s a trait that requires a shift in playstyle to use effectively, as it rewards picking multiple skill types, blowing your cooldown, and using steal in a rotation in order to proc recharges. When you use it properly, it is an amazing trait, it gives you power, but it requires you to think on your feet to utilize that power. In short, it rewards the ability to improvise, and is a great companion to steal itself, which also gives you very powerful (okay, some could be made more powerful) but very random effects.

Changing it to “one of your utility skills” keep the power of the trait, and keeps the random factor. The damage boost to bundles is a good one, and I do like the trait’s usefulness with ele conjures and environmental weapons, but I wouldn’t be sad to have that moved over to “steals are more effective” in stead.

Still, the proc recharge is THE reason to use the trait, not the damage boost. Don’t gut what makes the trait good to fix what makes it mediocre. I’d even take an 80% chance to recharge one utility, as that’s effectively what it does if you pick 3 schools, and I’d lose the ability to proc recharge basilisk venom while doing so. I’d be happy to give up basilisk venom procs if it meant I could have anything I wanted in the utility slots for exactly the same effect as now. The number of times I’ve double-caltroped, double-refuged, or double- smokescreened my way out of a jam is too large to even count.

Removing the recharge would simply destroy the primary function of this trait, though I do agree that it needs to retain some sort of secondary buff to compensate for the fact it might not proc favorably.

It’s just like any other proc trait… only with way wilder RNG for a way more powerful effect, and as it’s easily replaced with a number of other traits I’d rather it keep that functionality.

@Popeurban

I disagree – I want my spec to be consistent and reproducible- I don’t want to win or lose a fight thanks to a lucky/unlucky Improv trigger. It’s not about how potentially powerful the trait is (to me, at least) its about how consistently powerful it is – I’d prefer something I can always bank on as opposed to something that ranges from fight-changing to utterly useless every time I use it.

“Steal is not a bundle; the damage bonus from this trait affects found items that replace the weapon skill bar such as Conjures and Banners.”

Change steal into being a bundle, I’d take improvisation.

evilapprentice.6379:

crouze.3078:

V Potent Poison
Increases poison duration by 33%.

I’d move this to a new category, “Useless” – I can’t imagine any spec where this would be worth it over every other trait option in the line at the same level.

VII Improvisation
Stealing recharges all skills of one type (venoms, signets, traps, tricks, or deceptions). Deal 10% more damage while wielding a bundle.
Idea: Stealing recharges all skills of one type one of your utility skills. Deal 10% 15% more damage while wielding a bundle.

The RNG kills this trait – you can’t bank on randomly getting a utility back IMO, so that isn’t a good fix. Ideally, I’d like something along the lines of “Stolen items are 20% more effective, deal 10% more damage when holding a stolen item”, but the first part of that is tough to implement – some stolen items do damage, some grant boons, some place an AoE field… if they could find a standardized way to implement that, I think improvisation would become a much more useful trait.

VII Ankle Shots
Critical hits with a pistol have a 60% chance to cripple foes for 3s. (Cooldown of 10 seconds).
Idea: Critical hits with a pistol have a 60% chance to cripple foes for 3s. 6s (Cooldown of 10 seconds).

Can’t judge this trait fairly IMO, as P/P is a broken set, and P/D doesn’t have much use for crit. Hard to tell how useful it really is until thieves have a functioning Pistol MH set that values crit.

X Patience
Regain initiative faster while in stealth. (1 after 3 seconds)
Idea: Regain initiative faster while in stealth. (1 3 after 3 seconds)

Another trait for the “Useless” bin – a long time ago, someone did the math, and patience is provably worse than infusion of shadow in 99% of situations. Your suggestion isn’t bad, but promotes sitting in stealth even more than SA does now, and I can’t say I’m a fan of that. I don’t have a good suggestion for it however.

IV Assassin’s Retreat
Gain swiftness when you kill an foe. This effect cannot occur more than once every 5 seconds.

Another useless trait. Needs to be completely redesigned.

VI Fleet of Foot
Dodging removes cripple and weakness from you. (10s cooldown)

Merge Fleet of foot and Quick recovery into a T2 trait – Lose 1 condition and gain 1 Init whenever you dodge, 5s ICD.

XI Hard to Catch
Shadowstep away and give swiftness (12s) when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knock down, launch, knock back, sink, or fear). This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.

That useless bin keeps growing. Replace with “When disabled, cure’s all conditions,breaks stuns,grants 1s of evasion” with a reasonable CD (probably 60s). It is a T3 trait after all.

II Instinctual Response
Use feathers to blind and stealth when you take more than 10% of your health in a single strike. This effect can only trigger once every 60 seconds.

Reduce CD to 30s, or have it also cure cripple/immob/chill.

I like the idea of merging quick recovery and fleet of foot, however this condition removal would be sub-par with an ICD of 5 seconds, especially in the current condi spam. Without an ICD, you could only chain 3 dodges together without also using some sort of utility (signet of agility). So, at best with no ICD you’d remove 3 conditions and gain 3 initiative for a full bar of endurance. What if fleet just removed a condition on dodge, quick pockets granted 1 initiative on dodge and reduced weapon swap time to 5 seconds. Or perhaps we just move your combined one (no ICD still) to grandmaster tier and move hard to catch down to master with no changes made to it, putting it almost on par with some of the other classes “on cc” auto proc.

evilapprentice.6379:

@Popeurban

I disagree – I want my spec to be consistent and reproducible- I don’t want to win or lose a fight thanks to a lucky/unlucky Improv trigger. It’s not about how potentially powerful the trait is (to me, at least) its about how consistently powerful it is – I’d prefer something I can always bank on as opposed to something that ranges from fight-changing to utterly useless every time I use it.

That is why major traits are optional. I may like the random power and thinking on my feet playstyle, you may want to choose something less potentially powerful but with a more consistent and predictable rotation. Since you and I have the option of choosing different traits for our different builds, that should be a valid and meaningful choice both ways. Creating sets of traits that are really only good in one configuration is like not having selectable traits at all. Traits should be an option, should have powerful effects appropriate to their theme, and should be varied to increase build diversity.

It’s like saying crit chance and damage should be removed from the game, or that you’d never use a proc sigil. Random is a build choice, and should be a viable one. You could easily take dagger training in that slot for what you want out of your build, and I can take Improv for what I want out of mine.

I’d rather lose that predictable damage number for a shot at doubling up on a utility because it’s frantic, fun, and useful. I have more fun playing it that way, and that power is worth the tradeoff that it might not go so hot for me. I like playing thief because of the class’ ability to “live in the moment” rather than “sneakily assassinate with precision.” Two sides of the same thief, and two faces of the same class really. Both should be supported build options.

Thx for joining PopeUrban,
the build variety is exactly why i want this discussion.
At the moment you could simply remove half of the traits and nobody would miss them.

But it is hard to find “overpowered traits”.
So we can’t tone the traits down to give more variety but we have to buff up the useless ones.

One of the few very strong traits i can think of are

• 2 initiative on stealth
• 1 cond remove every 3s in stealth

The first one could be nerfed with an internal cooldown.
The second one would be hard to decide. Increasing it to 4s would mean that you only remove 1 cond with most skills (unless you have +1 sec stealth).
But with the cond remove on dodge idea it wouldnt hurt that much.

For the record I don’t think those stealth traits need a nerf when compared to what’s avaliable to other classes in their “good traits”

As for buffs, off the top of my head I’m thinking about increased radius for thrill of the crime, and slightly increased duration for uncatchable’s mini-caltrops.

Swapping shadow protector and last refuge would also be great. Shadow protector wouldn’t even shaft the thief by applying revealed at exactly the wrong time, and moving it to a minor would let us buff it up a little (reduce the ICD to 30 secs or so) so people with evasion builds might want to put 10 points in shadow and use it for its intent, as a reactive emergency stealth at low HP, wheras people with stealth focused builds (that it screws over) could skip it. It would be a good first step oward “combination defense builds” that don’t require massive reliance on either evasion or stealth, but can actually use a little of both and still survive.

Corrosive traps: Change vuln to weakness (since we lost the lotus poison weakness uptime), reduce trap recharge by 20%, and make traps instacast. And that STILL might not be enough to make traps attractive. Probably aslo wanna change the name to “trap happy” or something.

Residual/quick venoms: Merge these in to a single GM trait.

We want to “nerf” our good traits a little bit and buff our bad traits to have new “good” traits. We have to take everything into account.

I like your ideas. but merging traits means we need new traits as well.
the ideas are good though!

My favourite idea so far is the poison on crit trait.

When merging residual/quick venoms, how about a master trait that increases condition duration by 20% -30%?

I would just like to quickly comment that the “bundle” portion of Improvisation is actually a left-over from Alpha/Beta where stealing would actually give your character a bundle with a new set of 5 skills, similar to the Elementalist summoned weapons. It is no longer applicable and hasn’t been since launch, and should be removed all together in favour of something else.

Also, I’d just like to add that I agree with Evilapprentice on the RNG aspect of Improvisation. Steal originally acted as an RNG mechanic with multiple different bundles available on stealing from another profession or enemy in PvE, but this was changed for launch to the current system to allow us to know what we would get and use that strategically. Some players may like RNG, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the general consensus has always been that reliability is preferable to RNG.

A question for you, PopeUrban: wouldn’t you prefer if you were still able to use Improvisation for the double-utilities that you use with your build, but do so in a completely reliable way?

Good discussion so far guys, I really do hope that this thread continues to be a productive place for discussion.

crouze.3078:

We want to “nerf” our good traits a little bit and buff our bad traits to have new “good” traits. We have to take everything into account.

I like your ideas. but merging traits means we need new traits as well.
the ideas are good though!

My favourite idea so far is the poison on crit trait.

When merging residual/quick venoms, how about a master trait that increases condition duration by 20% -30%?

Our good traits dont really need a nerf – Nothing on the “good” side is so powerful as to make the class broken. We need to bring bad traits up to the same level, IMO.

Incurafy.6329:

A question for you, PopeUrban: wouldn’t you prefer if you were still able to use Improvisation for the double-utilities that you use with your build, but do so in a completely reliable way?

Assuming there was a way to get that functionality as semi regularly as I do now I wouldn’t complain too hard, but really, I feel like half the fun is not knowing which one is gonna recharge. That’s the fun part for me personally, like stealing from a mob and getting a few different chances, knowing what the thing I just stole does, and having to act on that in the moment. I find steal is a lot more fun in PvE than PvP for this reason (ever since they made PvP steals predictable) but I do completely understand the flip side of the argument.

Not that I’d hardline RANDOM IS FUN and force it down everyone’s throat mind you. I think there has to be a middle ground of reliability and random for certain things, like what we see happening over and over in engineer updates. Where you make the action of using it reliable in a sense that you might not know exactly what will happen, but that all your your random chances have a certain equality, so that in stead of awesome1, awesome2, awesome3, and screwed, you end up with a random chance of just awesome 1, 2, 3, and 4.

I suppose in this case simply saying “If you have used at least two utilities, this will recharge a utility, but you don’t know which one” serves that purpose. You’re always getting something of value, so you’re not ever just screwed, but you still have to adapt to that random recharge and play around it. In effect, you’re always getting a boost you wouldn’t have otherwise had, but you still get the fun of that seat of your patns randomness, like sweating to see if you crit that backstab when you’re at 10% HP and are out of init to disengage or something.

Skills – weak
traps are useless. they are triggered by everything and affects only 1 foe.
Traps should be triggered only by players or (better) have a radius. Also they should be ground target.

Steal should grant a forward blink if there is no target selected or target is out of range

Added the stong / most used traits.
Please let me know if i missed some or added anything wrong.

Also added 2 ideas to tone down 2 of those traits. Unfortunately i dont have any good way to highlight those. I wish this forum had different font colors at least :/

I think a lot of the “weak” traits in the Deadly Arts tree stem more from the fact that venoms are very unpopular rather than being “weak” per se.

The problem with Venoms is that they only apply Conditions, and Conditions are already so abundant in the game. Why bother having a Venom that adds Burning/Poison/Weakness/Agony etc. when your auto-attack or something else will do the same without consuming an ability slot?

Traps too are unpopular because they don’t suit the very mobile Thief play-style…..and are also just weak. Thief benefit from the enemy not knowing where they are, and kiting them into a trap just doesn’t make sense.

The fact that many players opt for a 5% damage increase for a single ability over actual utility just shows how bad some of the traits really are. Passive damage increases should be last-resort options, ideally.

The only overpowered traits in my book are

Shadows Embrace – cleaning a Condition every 3 seconds while in stealth is kitten powerful, arguably overpowered. It makes Thieves virtually impervious to Condition builds unless they can spam them at an excessive rate. This largely stems from the fact though that Thieves want to stealth as much as possible.

Infusion of Shadows is really the trait that enables all the “perma stealth builds”. Without it Initiative regeneration just couldn’t keep up. I’d rather see the trait reduced to 1 point of Initiative and real stealth abilities like Cloak and Dagger reduced by 1 point as well.

I think Cloaked in Shadows is arguably overpowered as well since it makes Cloak and Dagger spam nearly untouchable in certain situations. Given the power of Condition spam though this trait has been somewhat neglected by most. But trying to kill a Thief with this trait using a melee weapon is very tough.

I don’t think 1 condition removed every 3 seconds of stealth is OP, especially if compared to other professions, like guardians with:
-1condition every 10s
2conditions converted to boons AoE (5 players) with shout (potentially 3 with rune of soldier)
or warhorn/shout warriors (soldier rune) that makes conditions completely a joke for an entire group.

I think self skills must be stronger than AoE ones.
This can make thieves very good in a solo environment but balance their lack of support in a group (since the game should be balanced around groups and not singles)

Idea for Shadowstep:

Remove stun breaker.
Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
Increase duration for shadow return(stun breaker) to 20 seconds.

Hard to Catch is the trait that needs fixing the most. I’ve no idea what a good solution would be. The thief doesn’t need yet more stealth and blind defense. There are similar response traits across all the classes, they are nowhere near balanced, and a number of them need a major upgrade to reach a par with the others classes.

Ranger gets knocked down – pet takes the knockdown
Warrior gets knocked down – ignore the knockdown with 5 seconds of stability
Thief gets knocked down – gain swiftness (you’re kidding me, right?)

Dee Jay.2460:

Shadows Embrace – cleaning a Condition every 3 seconds while in stealth is kitten powerful, arguably overpowered. It makes Thieves virtually impervious to Condition builds unless they can spam them at an excessive rate. This largely stems from the fact though that Thieves want to stealth as much as possible.

Which literally every condition build in the current meta can do. Prior to the current meta, there might have been a discussion about this (realize that there are high costs associated with sitting in stealth), but currently shadows embrace is more of a band-aid then the condition immunity you’re calling it.

Infusion of Shadows is really the trait that enables all the “perma stealth builds”. Without it Initiative regeneration just couldn’t keep up. I’d rather see the trait reduced to 1 point of Initiative and real stealth abilities like Cloak and Dagger reduced by 1 point as well.

BP->HS is the “problem”, not infusion. Don’t mess up every single stealth builds initiative management to address the specific interaction of 1 skill and a smoke field. If you really feel this is OP, then suggest a small ICD (2s?) to Leaps through a smoke field or something.

I think Cloaked in Shadows is arguably overpowered as well since it makes Cloak and Dagger spam nearly untouchable in certain situations. Given the power of Condition spam though this trait has been somewhat neglected by most. But trying to kill a Thief with this trait using a melee weapon is very tough.

Now you’re just messing with us…right? Cloaked in shadows has it’s uses, but “arguably overpowered”? That’s a stretch any way you look at it, IMO.

crouze.3078:

Idea for Shadowstep:

Remove stun breaker.
Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
Increase duration for shadow return(stun breaker) to 20 seconds.

I feel like this would be a bad change on 2 fronts.

1) it removes a source of stun break which in most builds are not abundant
2) we gain increased chances for shadow return but we are still limited by a distance constraint

crouze.3078:

V Potent Poison
Increases poison duration by 33%.
Idea: 33% chance to inflict poison for 5 seconds on critical hits. This effect can only trigger once every 10 seconds.

Idea: 33% Chance to inflict poison and vulnerability (5Stacks) for 5 seconds. Can only Trigger once every 10seconds.

VII Improvisation
Stealing recharges all skills of one type (venoms, signets, traps, tricks, or deceptions). Deal 10% more damage while wielding a bundle.
Idea: Stealing recharges all skills of one type one of your utility skills. Deal 10% 20% more damage while wielding a bundle.
Reason: recharging skills of one type can cause it to be completely useless when you dont have that skill type equiped. The damage modifier is only usable in very special situations. So 20% is reasonable.

Idea: Deal 5% more damage while wielding a stolen item.

crouze.3078:

Idea for Shadowstep:

Remove stun breaker.
Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
Increase duration for shadow return(stun breaker) to 20 seconds.

1: Not realy neccessary but…for me it would be ok. Maybe an idea instead of this: Reduce removed conditions with shadow return from 3 to2
2. Not Neccessary, cause the CD starts when you activate this skill. So the effective CD is only 35 seconds at the mMoment (and with 20s Duration only 25s).
3: Yes^2! The most important and neccessary yChange for this skill.

Asudementio.8526:

crouze.3078:

Idea for Shadowstep:

Remove stun breaker.
Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
Increase duration for shadow return(stun breaker) to 20 seconds.

I feel like this would be a bad change on 2 fronts.

1) it removes a source of stun break which in most builds are not abundant
2) we gain increased chances for shadow return but we are still limited by a distance constraint

I thought 2 stun breakers in 1 skill is really strong.
Removing it from Shadowstep but keeping it for shadow return would change the skill into something that you use to engage a fight.
With the reduced cooldown you can still use it to break a stun more then once in a fight.
It also would increase the capability to remove conditions. (maybe that should be reduced to removing 2 conditions then)

They could change then Steal into an stunbreaker.

Kydar Schattendolch.6879:

crouze.3078:

Idea for Shadowstep:

Remove stun breaker.
Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
Increase duration for shadow return(stun breaker) to 20 seconds.

1: Not realy neccessary but…for me it would be ok. Maybe an idea instead of this: Reduce removed conditions with shadow return from 3 to2
2. Not Neccessary, cause the CD starts when you activate this skill. So the effective CD is only 35 seconds at the mMoment (and with 20s Duration only 25s).
3: Yes^2! The most important and neccessary yChange for this skill.

At the moment it is:

• 2 stun breakers in 50 sec
• 3 cond remove in 50 sec

My changes would make it into:

• 1 stun breaker in 30 sec ( 1.66 in 50 sec)
• 3 cond remove in 30 sec ( 5 in 50 sec)

So the condition remove should be reduced to 2 for sure (resulting in 3.33 con remove / 50 sec. Closer to the original) Maybe change the cooldown to 35s as well.

crouze.3078:

XI Hard to Catch
Shadowstep away and give swiftness (12s) when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knock down, launch, knock back, sink, or fear). This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
Idea: Shadowstep away Break stuns and give swiftness stability(5s) when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knock down, launch, knock back, sink, or fear). This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.

The shadow step away is much better than changing it to a stun break. This trait is one of the most effective ways to survive FOTM warrior knock down + hundred blades. But the change from swiftness to stability would be amazing!

I agree with other posters that it should NOT be a grandmaster skill though.

DANGRYdan.8392:

crouze.3078:

XI Hard to Catch
Shadowstep away and give swiftness (12s) when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knock down, launch, knock back, sink, or fear). This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
Idea: Shadowstep away Break stuns and give swiftness stability(5s) when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knock down, launch, knock back, sink, or fear). This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.

The shadow step away is much better than changing it to a stun break. This trait is one of the most effective ways to survive FOTM warrior knock down + hundred blades. But the change from swiftness to stability would be amazing!

I agree with other posters that it should NOT be a grandmaster skill though.

I added another idea in the “discussion section”: evading the next stun and knock down the enemy instead with 90s cd. we could even make it stronger and give a short stability duration.

crouze.3078:

Kydar Schattendolch.6879:

crouze.3078:

Idea for Shadowstep:

Remove stun breaker.
Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
Increase duration for shadow return(stun breaker) to 20 seconds.

1: Not realy neccessary but…for me it would be ok. Maybe an idea instead of this: Reduce removed conditions with shadow return from 3 to2
2. Not Neccessary, cause the CD starts when you activate this skill. So the effective CD is only 35 seconds at the mMoment (and with 20s Duration only 25s).
3: Yes^2! The most important and neccessary yChange for this skill.

At the moment it is:

• 2 stun breakers in 50 sec
• 3 cond remove in 50 sec

My changes would make it into:

• 1 stun breaker in 30 sec ( 1.66 in 50 sec)
• 3 cond remove in 30 sec ( 5 in 50 sec)

So the condition remove should be reduced to 2 for sure (resulting in 3.33 con remove / 50 sec. Closer to the original) Maybe change the cooldown to 35s as well.

Ah ok, u are right, its 50s CD, not 45^^
Ok, but I dont think, a CD reduce is needed. Maybe to 45 seconds…so after 20s when shadow return ends u have an effective CD of 25s…think this is ok. 30s CD and 20s of shadow return is really strong. So u have 10s for a new try (Stunbreak/Condi remove) left after return ends.

with the stun breaker remove, reduction to 2 cond remove for shadow return and cooldown reduction to 30s you would have less stun breaker, slighty more condition remove and more mobility.

I would call that balanced.
Not reducing the cooldown would make it way weaker.

And your calculation is not usefull. You dont wait until the last second before using shadow return. You might use shadow return 1 seconds after you used shadowstep. then the “effective cooldown” as you call it, would be 49 seconds.

Dropping thoughts.

Shadow refuge~ Reduce the pulses to 2s of stealth from 3. Let it give 400 toughness to all allies who are in the field.
= Can still do stealth plays, can still hide away in it, but not as absurdly long.

Trickster ~ Also reduces retaliation damage by 33%.
= Creeps a bit into Bountiful thefts territory to pose it more as an alternative.

Panic strike ~ Also gives 20% condition duration
= Might be really strong but this should stabilize it against Executioner.

Venoms in general
Spider venom ~ Reduce recharge to 25s and reduce charges to 4.
Ice drake Venom reduce recharge to 30s.
Skale venom reduce charge to 40s.
Residual Venom ~ Changed to applied venoms have twice the strikes.
Venemous Aura ~ Changed to share half the strikes of your venoms with allies (rounded up). If Residual is equipped all Venoms have a minimum of 2 strikes (For Basilisk).
In a typical 30/x/30 Venom share build you wont see any difference on Basilisk and Devourer Venom when sharing. Ice drake will give 1 less when shared, Spider will give 2 less, and Skale will give 1 less. However as an individual in that same build, you’ll have more strikes of Dev venom, spider, ice drake and skale. Drake, spider and skale will be more frequent and proc more venemous might.You will do more damage with Leeching venoms. So this makes the venom thief stronger individually both with and without venom traits.

Potent Poison ~ changed to +10% critical chance against poisoned foes.
Sundering strikes ~ Critical hit requirement removed, just 40% chance on hit.

Smoke Screen ~ Instead of a line this becomes a circle.

Corrosive traps ~ 8 stacks of vulnerability.

Why change shadow refuge? It’s currently a good balance between risk and payoff. It’s one of the few unique things thieves have to offer a team (the other being venomshare :P)

If anything I’d argue for buffing shadow refuge to pulse stealth on up to 20 targets rather than the limit of five, to watch the use limit on mesmer portals. This way you could get reliable stealth numbers on forces bigger than a single group.

Smokescreen as a circle would be a nice buff, but I’m not sure it’s needed. Smokescreen is already excellent as a line reflect which functions as a blind field, allowing allies to self-stealth through it or blind targets on the other side. Maybe tweak the recharge, but honestly I feel like smokescreen is pretty good.

evilapprentice.6379:

Dee Jay.2460:

Shadows Embrace – cleaning a Condition every 3 seconds while in stealth is kitten powerful, arguably overpowered. It makes Thieves virtually impervious to Condition builds unless they can spam them at an excessive rate. This largely stems from the fact though that Thieves want to stealth as much as possible.

Which literally every condition build in the current meta can do. Prior to the current meta, there might have been a discussion about this (realize that there are high costs associated with sitting in stealth), but currently shadows embrace is more of a band-aid then the condition immunity you’re calling it.

Infusion of Shadows is really the trait that enables all the “perma stealth builds”. Without it Initiative regeneration just couldn’t keep up. I’d rather see the trait reduced to 1 point of Initiative and real stealth abilities like Cloak and Dagger reduced by 1 point as well.

BP->HS is the “problem”, not infusion. Don’t mess up every single stealth builds initiative management to address the specific interaction of 1 skill and a smoke field. If you really feel this is OP, then suggest a small ICD (2s?) to Leaps through a smoke field or something.

I think Cloaked in Shadows is arguably overpowered as well since it makes Cloak and Dagger spam nearly untouchable in certain situations. Given the power of Condition spam though this trait has been somewhat neglected by most. But trying to kill a Thief with this trait using a melee weapon is very tough.

Now you’re just messing with us…right? Cloaked in shadows has it’s uses, but “arguably overpowered”? That’s a stretch any way you look at it, IMO.

Do I need to spell out the difference between cleansing a Condition every 3 seconds vs. every 10 seconds? That’s a world of a difference.

Now I could almost see your point if Thief builds didn’t stealth as much as possible (i.e. every 3 seconds). But almost every popular Thief build in WvW that utilizes stealth needs to use it as much as possible because it has so many beneficial side-effects (passive healing, condition removal, blind).

I’ve fought many Condition Thieves with this trait, P/D, D/D……and I have never died to a single one. I don’t think I even drop below 60% health because the trait (+_Black Powder_) counters them so hard. The only time Conditions are truly dangerous with this trait is if they are bombed on you as only Necros and Engineers can do.

Traits should give you and edge, a strength…but not be a total hard-counter to a whole array of builds.

And that’s why I consider Infusion of Shadows to be overpowered as well. Playing without it means that any borked Cloak and Dagger can put you in serious peril. Initiative becomes a serious issue, even when playing Pistol/Dagger.

But once you pick Infusion of Shadows Initiative Management becomes extremely easy and forgiving. You go from being above 8 Initiative 10% of the time (when playing D/D in PvE DPS situations) to being above 8 Initiative 50% of the time. It just makes such a huge difference regardless of the fact that it enables perma-stealth builds.

Cloaked in Shadows isn’t quite in the same league but its design is problematic. Our most common stealth-move Cloak and Dagger also Blinds people with this trait. This means that anyone fighting a P/D build for example (or even a D/D build) will have 3 seconds to hit the Thief…..while being blinded. This creates absurd situations especially if you consider that Thieves can still Dodge and Evade plenty.

If Cloaked in Shadows was combined with something else, like Shadowsteps or stuns it would be different. It is also different in sPvP where “Revealed” lasts 4 seconds. But in WvW…..I still think it’s problematic.

The only reason why we hear fairly little about it at the moment is because it is redundant in the Dagger/Pistol weaponset and the other competing traits are more valuable.

Zacchary.6183:

There is nothing to discuss.

Thieves are scapegoats for the community and developers. There is nothing a thief can do that another class can do better. We are crap support. We have crap sustain. We melt and our survivability relies on the constant spamming of stealth, blinds and dodging. Our cleanse and damage mitigation sucks. This class is losing versatility every patch and the devs won’t do a thing about it because none of them play or know what this class is like. No offense but…

Nonsense. Stop playing the victim. I don’t melt and I contribute to zergs. However, I don’t scrub it up and rely on permastealth. I can burst well, escape better than any other class and penetrate back lines better than any other class. If you believe that you can’t do anything better than any other class you need to L2P

Deleted. I still stand by what I said.

Thx, then please feel free to edit your post and explain what you think is not good and what could be changed.

a “deleted. i still stand by what i said” is very confusing out of context

I disagree that shadow’s embrace must be changed because it can be used to cheese condition builds with limited condition application. Shadow’s embrace is one of the few ways we can fight heavy condition build and stand a chance. Nerfing shadow’s embrace would improve the ability of nerco’s and engis to kill thieves while improving the chances of P thieves to fight stealth builds. how is that a sensible change? Shadow’s embrace could stand to be brought in line but given the current condition meta it makes sense. Conditions in general need to be tweaked to bring them in line with cleansing capacities across classes and then shadow’s embrace needs to be fixed. not the other way around.

D/D is already dead and you want to nerf shadow arts? What’s the problem with 2ini gain and 3s condi remove? Not like it helps any vs the condi meta as it is, necro put a thousand conditions on you in literally 2 seconds.

I just don’t understand those 2 specific changes, not like I’d care since shadow arts isn’t viable anyways compared to 10/30/0/30/0 since you need that HP to even fathom surviving the condis, not to mention the ridiculous Last Refuge that kills you 90% of the time.

I’m just saying, SA already sucks, don’t make it suck more.

keep in mind that we are talking about an adept trait.
And it starts removing 1 condition upon entering stealth.
So a delay for the second condition remove by 1 second shouldnt hurt that much.
It would still be strong.

Those two are some of the strongest traits the thief has.
And in order to increase the value of some Traits, others need to suffer or the combination would be overpowered.

I also have a crazy idea for daggers.

Backstab: instead of double damage from behind applies 5 vulnerability for 10 seconds.
Heartseeker: instead of different damage based on the enemies HP make it based on the vulnerability stacks on the enemy (0-9, 10-19, 20-25)

Asudementio.8526:

I disagree that shadow’s embrace must be changed because it can be used to cheese condition builds with limited condition application. Shadow’s embrace is one of the few ways we can fight heavy condition build and stand a chance. Nerfing shadow’s embrace would improve the ability of nerco’s and engis to kill thieves while improving the chances of P thieves to fight stealth builds. how is that a sensible change? Shadow’s embrace could stand to be brought in line but given the current condition meta it makes sense. Conditions in general need to be tweaked to bring them in line with cleansing capacities across classes and then shadow’s embrace needs to be fixed. not the other way around.

Oh I agree,

given the current state of the game Shadows Embrace is one of the few traits that keeps us in the game.

But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s conceptually overpowered, even if it isn’t in the current meta-game.

Gaining a acrobatics trait with similar condition remove would help alot.
Fleet of foot was mentioned. instead of only removing cripple and weakness, it could clean other conditions as well.

Only question ist how much should be cleaned and what should the internal cooldown be?

Leap + smoke fields aren’t op, it’s thief entering it with no restraints. Nerfing a combo field+finisher is no solution, that just makes what little thief support there is and kicking it further down.

I agree on the shadow return, it’s unfair since Mesmer’s can use it from portal and sword #2 chain where they swap places (if the clone is on a ledge). They had to get there to start with, I see no reason why thief shouldn’t be able to. If sword #2 spam is the issue, shadow step doesn’t work over ledges so…..

The tree line where quick venoms is placed has condition duration already in it, adding a major trait on top of that just seems silly but I do agree that the venom traits are too spread out, we need stronger venom’s as well as venom traits.

Increasing the ini gain from patience would require a lot of changes to thief stealth, because this would make perma stealth far too easy. I think 2 would be better fitting than 3. At 3, you’re talking about double initiative gain in stealth.

Fleet of foot should be general condi clearing, but I’m not sure on 2 per dodge, all we do is dodge ^^ But it would certainly open up some strong replacements for shadow’s embrace.

Hard to catch would be nice if it granted stability, mainly because stun locking a thief is really easy once their stun break is off cd. Atm the only solutions to avoid stun locking is stealth and blind spam, and that’s just getting old.

I do not at all agree with the infusion of shadow change, it’s meant to help maintain initative especially when using d/p or d/d. Imo it’s fine as is.

Some things that bother be with thief since release is how little our sustain options are. The best options to staying alive, are in stealth by far. You get condi clearing, regen, and ofc breaking target. Although we are masters of stealth it seems like all non-thief players do is complain about it, not realizing that we don’t have a choice. There are very few ways to work outside of stealth and I mean few. Somewhere along the development of a build, you will add a portion of stealth into it whether it be small or most of the build.

We need more alternatives to clearing general conditions, not just movement impairing ones (fleet of foot is a good place), more group wide skills like:
-aoe stealth(blinding powder has a small radius and low cap, SR is very easy to counter for groups)
-aoe regen(Shadow protector won’t apply if they already have regen… why not just add an internal cd?)
-Aoe vigor(currently only 1 from bountiful theft IF you hit the target).

While reducing the initiative gain from infusion of shadow, the gain from patience would increase.

And as long as the stealth for smoke+leap would be reduced, its wouldnt make perma invis easy.

I might open up some other topics to discuss specific things.
Then we dont discuss about 10 different ideas for 20 skills or traits in one topic