Guild Wars 2

Talking about Stealing, not stealth, btw.

Actually I just love the condition damage build that Trickery offers.
I tried tons of different builds, and came to conclusion that the most versatile one, which offers most gameplay possibilities, is : 30 Critical + 30 Trickery (+10 whatever).

With this build, you have :
- great initiative regen
- great burst
- lower power, but I’m the gameplay oriented type of gamer, who prefers to be able to do tons of things rather than limited actions with high power. Superior Initiative regen offers that.
- possibility of playing stealth dagger/dagger (burst from Critical)
- possibility of playing melee massive bleeding damage (dagger/dagger -> Death Blossom, that you can even trigger once more than other builds thanks to higher max initiative)
- possibility of playing pistols, because of skill#1 bleeding (Trickery branch condition boost) and higher pistol damage (Critical branch)
- possibility of playing short bow for AOE fights (poison cloud superior damage with Trickery + higher initiative regen with skill#1 when its rebounds are critical)

In a word, highest synergy between weapons, of all builds I tried.
You can do anything, in any situation, with high efficiency (well except sword, but we can’t have it all after all).

But … what bothers me from that build, is that it’s supposed to be played around Stealing … and stealing only goes from 45s CD to 32s CD, when Trickery is maxed up.
Stealing is great by itself, and can trigger powerful tools, but I don’t feel these tools are powerful enough to justify a 32s CD in a build that is based around it.
32s is hella long time in 5-8 seconds fights …

So that’s it, this build is great, but the simple fact that I can’t use Steal more than once every 32 freaking seconds makes the sacrifice from maxing Trickery a bit worthless, imho. I mean … maxing Deadly Arts makes me powerful on every single strike… Shadow Arts makes me uncatchable and unkillable, Acrobatics let me avoid non stop and run faster 70% of the time … etc …
Trickery ? it lets me be as powerful as other branches … but only every 32 seconds.

It feels wrong. 20 seconds CD (when Trcikery is maxed btw) would feel far more fair.

What do you think, fellow Thieves ? (and fellow devs :p)

Mug has too much damage.
And therefore does not reduce the cooldown from 45 to 35.

35 perfect cd to steal.
Other professions have far less cd on their ability.

stealth for 2 seconds after steal
gain swiftness, fury and might for 10 seconds
steal boons from enemy and give vigor to yourself

some of the steal traits, not to mention mug lol.

20 second cd is a little bit op, a lot of traits would make it OP

imo go 25/30/0/0/15 id take +3 initiative and steal cd over a immobilise on a cooldown from deadly arts

Mug is super powerful I admit. Whirlwind too. But the others .. ?
Anyway I understand those abilities forbid any further CD lowering, but why should a specialization be penalized like that ?
Don’t you feel that 13 seconds CD lowering is a bit weak, for a full 30 pts invested ?
They could nerf the Steal abilities and traits a bit, and lower the base CD, for ex.

savage.3469:

imo go 25/30/0/0/15 id take +3 initiative and steal cd over a immobilise on a cooldown from deadly arts

15 Trickery completely loses the insane initiative regen advantage that all the build relies on :/ (loses Initial Strike -7% init regen, and loses 4 init regen every 15s with Hastened Replenishment + Withdraw Heal skill)
Plus it loses all the condition damage superiority (= bleeding with LDB, with pistols, poison with bow, etc)
+3 max initiative is only useful with high init regen, imo (as openers are rare).

I understand those are sufficient advantages to invest 30 pts in Trickery, but I don’t know, 12s CD lowering on Stealing feels kinda frustrating. Like it’s here “just to say we gave you an advantage”, compared to other passive boosts from other branches.
(+300 on every heal.. +15% crit, +300 power on every single attack, +3000 health, +10% damage reduction with toughness, +30% crit damage, etc ….)

oops that wasnt the build actually

it was 10/30/0/5/25

havnt used it in a while, but it was my very versatile build that did great damage, and had enough initiation to spam #3 shortbow if you had to.

this is my shortbow build, it does the same damage as the 30/30/?/?/? build, or within 5% damage of it i believe, assuming you are mainly auto attacking.

also rips boons and grants boons so i prefer it to 30/30

i still think 25/30/0/0/15 is the best build at the moment however, using dd/sbow

The lowered cooldown on stealing doesn’t compare to any of the other stats that a thief gets from traits (power/prec/condition duration, etc)

It compares to the Warrior +0-3% burst damage, the ranger pet-swap cooldown reduction, the elementalist attunement switching cooldown reduction, etc.

All classes have a trait line that enhances their class’s special ability. Some are more useful than others.

It would be neat if there was a 30 trickery trait that decreased steal’s cooldown, but to balance it, it also limits what you’re able to steal (perhaps a random ability from a pool of 5 skills), extra points if the skills are unique to that trait (you know, more thiefy skills)

@jjiinx

i dont think people are very fond of random skills on thief, takes skill out of it.

example being the trait in deadly arts that resets cd of a random type of utility.

savage.3469:

@jjiinx

i dont think people are very fond of random skills on thief, takes skill out of it.

example being the trait in deadly arts that resets cd of a random type of utility.

steal is already based on gaining random/semi random skills, I don’t see how this is any different

@jjiinx

no its not, atleast not in spvp, things you get when stealing;

thief: stealth
mesmer: boons
warrior: whirling blades
guardian: daze
elemental: chill
necro: fear
ranger: healing tree thing

Jjiinx.8795:

It would be neat if there was a 30 trickery trait that decreased steal’s cooldown, but to balance it, it also limits what you’re able to steal (perhaps a random ability from a pool of 5 skills), extra points if the skills are unique to that trait (you know, more thiefy skills)

That could solve the problem of whole specialization relying on Steal

Something like a X/XI Trickery trait :

“Critical strikes have a 5% chance to reset Steal cooldown.”

That’d be awesome, and easy to tweak/nerf with the % number if it’s becoming too OP.

edit : or maybe put this % chance directly into the passive bonus, replacing % cooldown reduction.

kineticdamage.6279:

I don’t feel these tools are powerful enough to justify a 32s CD in a build that is based around it.
32s is hella long time in 5-8 seconds fights …

So don’t base your build around it? Trickery has a lot going for it aside from Steal. I take Trickery mostly for Uncatchable and more initiative.

If you want to argue that Steal CD reduction is not as powerful as +10 to a stat I think you may have a better point, but starting with the false assumption that everything must revolve around steal and then claiming that steal is underpowered (via long CD) doesn’t make any sense.

Trait lines are not builds, builds are a combination of a play style and a trait/gear/skill setup. Simply putting 30 points into a tree and picking some traits doesn’t mean it meshes with a play style.

Why so serious ? xD

I mentionned the word “relying” because Steal is the most redundant mechanic in the Trickery tree traits. But that’s not the only one, sure.
Anyway, I really think the branch wouldn’t feel so frustrating on Steal with such a trait (or passive trait line replacement) :

kineticdamage.6279:

Something like a X/XI Trickery trait (or trait line replacement) :
“Critical strikes have a 5% chance to reset Steal cooldown.”