Guild Wars 2

-Potent poison: remove and add [Potent Venoms]- Venoms increase your damage by 15% while active (15% more power and condi dmg, removed when you have no more venom charges).
-Spider venom: Change to [Karka Venom]- Transfer 1 condition to your foe on each successful strike. Change the # of strikes to 3.
-Ice drake venom: Increase chill duration to 2 seconds. 1 second is seriously nothing.

-Needle trap: Change to [Slime Trap] set a trap that immobilizes foes when triggered. This trap remains for 3 seconds and immobilizes anyone who crosses it for 1.5 seconds.(gives thieves a real good skill for wvw and zerg busting by splitting a backline up.)
-Corrosive Traps: Bump duration. Whether it be 12 or 15, it needs a buff being a stand alone major trait, especially if it is to compete with mug or sundering strikes.
-Master trapper: Add an effect to heal nearby allies when triggered. Heal is along the lines of 80% of shout heals on a warrior, scaling off healing power (healing power X .5?)
-Trip wire: Add an aoe cripple and weaken effect on it, as the wire snaps it flings around slashing enemies. A single target kd on a 30 second cooldown is just too weak. Ranger traps are all aoe and last a couple seconds, while only 2 of the thief’s traps last a little while.

-Slowed Pulse: Easily out done by Shadow Protector (half the cooldown and it’s an aoe effect). Change to [Potent Deception]- Smoke fields you create last 50% and grant vigor to those who cross it (Vigor for 5s. Can only apply once every 10 seconds).This affects 2 skills only, Bps and Smoke screen, but it would be a great team skill while also making the only wall skill thief has, on par in duration with guardian (who has multiple walls).
-Fleet shadow: Change to [Catch me if you can]- tricks grant stability (3 seconds). Swap places with pain response.
-Pain response: bump regeneration duration to 15 seconds. Again, this skill can be outdone by many other traits in the shadow arts adept traits. Not only that but the other traits in acrobatics offer much more in return.
-Long reach: Merge into Thrill of the crime. Add new trait [Surprise]-steal breaks stun.
-Trickster: Swap places with new trait [Surprise].

Another buff to acrobatics survivability could be improving the healing or ratios on assassin’s reward. We could also look at giving acrobatics some kind of protection access, passive blind, or extra stability access.

How about adding extra activations to traps in a replacement corrosive traps, as well as making theif traps 3-5 second field effects when triggered, much like ranger traps. This would allow them to serve as mini deinal zones as well as effect multiple targets.

I don’t really have the time to go over most of the traits.

But I will say that venoms in general need to be better, and traps need to be MUCH better. They should function similar to ranger traps. Need a circular trigger, and hit every target that is in range when they go off, not just 1 target.

Venoms simply need a cooldown reduction, and some of them need to be changed. Spider venom needs something else added to it, I can’t think of any other utility that just straight up adds 1 condition. Devourer would be okay if it had a shorter cooldown. Scale venom(thats the one with torment right?) would be okay if it had a shorter cooldown. The one that adds chill is pretty useless.

Also, I really don’t think any thief utility needs to be nerfed. The two most powerful are Shadow Refuge and Shadowstep. SR has an obvious counter(the thief is inside so AE him or knock him out), and shadowstep has a long cooldown. The only reason these two are used so often is because so many of the others just suck.

I will also say that I feel thieves being one of the mobile classes need more access to swiftness. In Spvp I can make do with dodge spam and boon duration from Acro. But on wvw/pve, I pretty much always have shadow signet slotted for passive move speed increase because dodging won’t even come close to perma swiftness, and the only other way is to trait 30 into trickery and use steal just for swiftness.

I don’t think its fair that the ‘mobile’ class needs to sacrifice a utility for movement speed when other classes like necro, warrior, ranger, engineer can obtain perma swiftness fairly easily.

Stx.4857:

I don’t really have the time to go over most of the traits.

But I will say that venoms in general need to be better, and traps need to be MUCH better. They should function similar to ranger traps. Need a circular trigger, and hit every target that is in range when they go off, not just 1 target.

Venoms simply need a cooldown reduction, and some of them need to be changed. Spider venom needs something else added to it, I can’t think of any other utility that just straight up adds 1 condition. Devourer would be okay if it had a shorter cooldown. Scale venom(thats the one with torment right?) would be okay if it had a shorter cooldown. The one that adds chill is pretty useless.

Also, I really don’t think any thief utility needs to be nerfed. The two most powerful are Shadow Refuge and Shadowstep. SR has an obvious counter(the thief is inside so AE him or knock him out), and shadowstep has a long cooldown. The only reason these two are used so often is because so many of the others just suck.

I will also say that I feel thieves being one of the mobile classes need more access to swiftness. In Spvp I can make do with dodge spam and boon duration from Acro. But on wvw/pve, I pretty much always have shadow signet slotted for passive move speed increase because dodging won’t even come close to perma swiftness, and the only other way is to trait 30 into trickery and use steal just for swiftness.

I don’t think its fair that the ‘mobile’ class needs to sacrifice a utility for movement speed when other classes like necro, warrior, ranger, engineer can obtain perma swiftness fairly easily.

Thief traps work in a line, it’s things like trip wire and needle trap that support it. What it doesn’t support is going away after 1 foe triggers it, in that sense I agree (by staying around I’m assuming you meant these 2, shadow trap and ambush do stay around technically). Needle trap applying it’s effects to those who cross it would be a great zerg buster, even if it lasted a mere 3 seconds.

I’m not sure a cooldown reduction is necessary for venoms, they just need stronger traits that aren’t so spread out. Only 3/5 venoms are useful atm, spider and ice drake venom both need reworks or buffs.

I think the reason we lack a perma swiftness weapon is because we have sb. And necro definitely does not have perma swiftness outside of a signet, wh has a long cooldown and they have 0 leap skills or forward teleports/dashes. Also its 10 in trickery not 30 but I get what you were saying.

Warhorn5+spectral walk = very easy perma swiftness.

45 second cooldown on a utility skill that merely adds a few conditions is pretty useless. Venoms need 30 imo,

One thing that I think the devs overlooked is tying more traits directly to the amount of initiative you have.

And maybe making initiative a more valuable resource on it’s own.

For example, Critical Haste’s bonus could be based on the amount of initiative you have in your pool, instead of a static bonus.

Initiative could give a chance to dodge (independent of any traits) – giving all Thieves a natural defense built right in, as they are so squishy.

ipan.4356:

One thing that I think the devs overlooked is tying more traits directly to the amount of initiative you have.

And maybe making initiative a more valuable resource on it’s own.

For example, Critical Haste’s bonus could be based on the amount of initiative you have in your pool, instead of a static bonus.

Initiative could give a chance to dodge (independent of any traits) – giving all Thieves a natural defense built right in, as they are so squishy.

Due to the trait that boosts damage when above 6 initiative, I already feel like I can’t use my pool… I wouldn’t want more traits(or whatever) that penalized me for using it.

crouze.3078:

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

What’s wrong with it exactly?

In a large zerg fight with an aoe weapon to tag lots of targets, this will give you perma swiftness. Extremely useful trait imo.

Claretta.1742:

crouze.3078:

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

What’s wrong with it exactly?

In a large zerg fight with an aoe weapon to tag lots of targets, this will give you perma swiftness. Extremely useful trait imo.

But will it still work that way after the upcoming patch?

all the big zergs i know have alot of aoe swiftness. So i dont know any use for this trait.

But your experiences might be different

Well, in light of experiences like these…

Stx.4857:

I will also say that I feel thieves being one of the mobile classes need more access to swiftness. In Spvp I can make do with dodge spam and boon duration from Acro. But on wvw/pve, I pretty much always have shadow signet slotted for passive move speed increase because dodging won’t even come close to perma swiftness, and the only other way is to trait 30 into trickery and use steal just for swiftness.

I don’t think its fair that the ‘mobile’ class needs to sacrifice a utility for movement speed when other classes like necro, warrior, ranger, engineer can obtain perma swiftness fairly easily.

So it does seem that some people at least do not experience perma swiftness from zergs.

I do not feel that just because some zergs have AoE swiftness it makes a trait pointless. If it were changed on that basis alone, then if we weren’t in an AoE swiftness group that option would be gone.

we have SO many useless utilities and traits that it’s difficult to put them all

DanH.5879:

we have SO many useless utilities and traits that it’s difficult to put them all

Sure it will take some time, but as long as we point them out, give reason why they are bad and make balanced suggestions, we can help alot to improve the thief.

The main problem is that most players just take the nerfs.
Maybe they complain for like a weel but then its silence.

It is because of the missing feedback of thieves that there is not happening much.

On the other hand there are thousands of players that complain about the thief because they dont get it how stealth works.

And the few thieves that asked for buffs are more like “make us invulnerable in stealth” or “buff backstab damage by +50%”

Anet can’t take suggestions serious of they are way overpowered.

One thing that I’m missing is an acceptable condition remove underwater and outside of stealth.

Oh and Venoms that are strong enough to work alone.

The thing I dislike most about the thief right now is that many skills and traits are designed to work together too much.

So you can’t use venoms without all the venom traits, you can’t really use signets without the signet traits. You need shadow arts to even think about using stealth, and so on.

It feels as though there are a few pre-designed builds, instead of player discovery.

Claretta.1742:

The thing I dislike most about the thief right now is that many skills and traits are designed to work together too much.

So you can’t use venoms without all the venom traits, you can’t really use signets without the signet traits. You need shadow arts to even think about using stealth, and so on.

It feels as though there are a few pre-designed builds, instead of player discovery.

I agree.
And the combination of those traits don’t make them very strong.
It only makes them as strong as stuff from other classes that work without having to combine it with other traits/skills.

And the upcoming range increase for venom sharing shows that they have no intention of removing that.

You have Body Shot listed as a weak skill, but it really should be Vital Shot, which is both hybridized and therefore unoptimizable AND has too slow of a fire rate for its damage and forces an overreliance on Unload for sustained DPS and that is what causes most of P/P’s problems.