Guild Wars 2

Hello and welcome to my long list of changes to thief. The inspiration comes from being a thief since launch and having put a lot of effort into learning the class not just on what I believe it should be, but watching how others play it or against it and what makes them unique and enjoyable. I’ve been very active up until the launch of Heart of Thorns but even afterwards I kept a close eye on patches and reviews of thief and its gameplay.

The short version of what I believe thief to be, is out of date. They simply do not get any real attention unless something was completely broken which hasn’t been for years. They don’t excel at anything at this point, which is a real bother and as much as the idea of letting any profession fit into any role sounded, 3.5 years ago, it isn’t practical.

Bottom line, they don’t have anything going for them. However, that does NOT mean flat buffs to anything is going to solve anything. They need to be updated, simply increasing a value or reducing a cooldown isn’t going to help. That is the goal of this list. I do not own heart of thorns so I will not provide any suggestions towards the daredevil specialization however I kept them in mind so I wouldn’t (or at least avoid doing so) making any overpowering combinations. With that in mind, onto the list.

Deadly Arts (Deals with condition applications and pure power)
(Minor)
[Serpent’s Touch] Change Same poison on steal application, remove poison application while downed and increase poison duration by 10%. (No purpose to buff the downed state as it doesn’t produce anything healthy for any class. Part of this change comes from a rework of the GM trait potent poison.)
[Lotus Poison] Fine as is. Kinda simple but it gives a good condition.
[Exposed Weakness] Change to gain might for 5 seconds for every unique condition you apply to a foe (if you apply bleeding you gain 1 might, if you apply bleeding again before the 1st wears off or if they have bleeding from another source, it does not apply might. Goal here is to work with a hybrid build’s initial burst, but is held back by not reapplying to crazy numbers without putting yourself in harms way. )

(Adept)
[Dagger Training] Change Increase power and condition duration by 5% for each dagger you equip. Dagger off-hand skills refund 1 initiative if they land. (Helps x/d and defines d/d a little better given that its a hybrid set.)
[Mug] Fine as is, no change.
[Trapper’s Respite] Imo fine as is, trap at the end of the heal just means you have to think a little more about placement but for HiS it works great.

(Master)
[Deadly Trapper] Fine as is, trap augment.
[Panic Strike] Fine as is, great utility for power or condition
[Revealed Training] Change Add 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds upon reveal in addition to 200 power. (Return of an old trait and helps secure a burst a little better not being knocked around. Big helper for D/x sturdiness. )

(Grandmaster)
[Potent Poison] Change Remove poison duration and instead increase condition duration by 20%. (Brings condition thief a little more in line especially having lost the 30% from the trait line and not having access to burn.)
[Executioner] Fine as is. Powerful trait for power thief.
[Improvisation] Change Stealing reduces the cooldown of currently recharging skills by 15 seconds. This amount is spread across all recharging skills. (if you have 3 skills on cooldown, those 3 are reduced by 5 seconds, if it is 2 skills it will be 7 and 8 seconds from left to right on the skill bar. This does not apply to steal itself). The rng element is not acceptable for a class so hell bent on precision and agility and the double items made for a dull attempt to spice the trait up while unfortunatly overpowering (and in a few cases nerfing) some stolen skills. This new trait acts as a momentum rather than a 1/5 chance to give you extreme power or extreme disapointment.)

Critical Strikes (Primarily on critical strikes and initial engaugments).
(Minor)
[Keen Observer] Change 50% chance to gain 1 initiative on critical hit while under the effects of fury. ICD 3 seconds. (Fury augment which fits the theme of this trait line and also gives better initiative management. The old trait was based on a rather difficult threshold not to mention wasn’t that great to begin with.)
[Unrelenting Strikes] Fine as is. Great synergy with NQ
[Ferocious Strikes] Fine as is, great for initial burst.

(Adept)
[Flawless Strike] Fine as is. Simple yet effective trait for initial bursts.
[Side Strike] Removed [Dual Wounds] Apply vulnerability by double stacks. (if you would normall apply 1 stack for 6 seconds, you now apply 2 stacks for 6 seconds. Makes thief burst much more violent but overall thief still does not have a long vulnerability duration.
[Signets of Power] Change add effect to apply the active of assassin’s signet after defeating a foe, ICD 15 seconds. (This makes the yolo thief build much stronger in team fights when they transition from 1 enemy to the next so if they risk sticking around, at least they get some force behind it.)

(Master)
[Ankle Shots] Removed [Fast Draw] When you weapon swap to a pistol fire a headshot at your target. Increase range with pistol skills by 150 units. (This gives slotting a pistol (off-hand or main hand) a bit more utility while also increasing the range which thieves do not have much of.)
[Practiced Tolerance] Fine as is.
[Sundering Strikes] Change No longer requires critical hits to proc, now 50% chance to apply vulnerability for 8 seconds. (Thief doesn’t have a whole lot of AoE and they can’t stick in melee combat for too long without backing out to recover or reposition, so the old duration simply wasn’t anything you could maintain + it was already restricted on crits only.)

(Grandmaster)
[No Quarter] Change When you apply a critical hit under the effects of fury, you apply fury to nearby allies as well. Fury you apply increases ferocity by 200. Fury duration 2 seconds. Radius of effect 240 units. Max number of allies 5. (Give thief some supportive offense and a reason to be considered frontline with the ability to pump out endless fury for allies.)
[Invigorating Precision] Change Gain health whenever you criticaly hit a foe. Gain healing power based on your precision. Health gain 120(.04*). Healing power based on precision 15%. (A new twist on a trait that simply could not be good enough without being too good. This works alongside healing power rather than critical damage which was and never could be paired together. Between zealots and magi or even just having healing power and fury you could now get some serious healing from this trait against multiple targets with aoe skills.)
[Hidden Killer] Change Gain 100% critical hit chance while in stealth. Stealth skills are now unblockable but cost 1 initiative. (Turns stealth skills into a higher reward but higher risk while also pushing for well timed use rather than spamming. Small tweak to stealth skills also)

Shadow Arts (stealth enhancements and support)
(Minor)
[Merciful Ambush] Removed [Shadow’s Embrace] Remove 1 condition upon entering stealth and 1 condition every 3 seconds you maintain stealth. (Has been and basically always will be the primary trait of choice in shadow arts, can’t really change it without making it no longer an option. Also return it to its former power)
[Meld With shadows] Change Stealth you apply lasts 1 second longer. Gain 1 initiative upon entering stealth. (Lesser return of an old trait, and gives a little more flare to better seperate thief stealth and general stealth..)
[Resiliance of Shadows] Fine as is, great sturdiness for SA.

(Adept)
[Last Refuge] Changed When you drop below 25% health, remove revealed effects. Shadow Refuge now revives allies. Revival percent 17% per pulse. (Strong support option for support thieves)
[Concealed Defeat] No Change, fine as is.
[Shadow’s Embrace] Moved to adept minor

(Master)
[Leeching Venoms] Change Moved to adept tier. Adjust leeching to apply per venom charge, not only once per attack.(No reason to have this restriction in place. Moved to adept tier to distinguish builds using SA (venomshare or stealth))
[Hidden Thief] Fine as is, insta cast stealth ain’t bad even at 3 seconds. Added movement buff helps even more.
[Shadow Armor] New Master trait Drop a black powder shot upon disable. Smoke fields you generate reduce incoming condition duration by 10% while standing in them. BPS ICD 30 seconds. (Yet another support option for thieves and a little retaliation towards disabling effects.)
[Shadow Protector] Change Applying stealth grants regeneration for 10 seconds. ICD 15 seconds. When you start reviving an ally you both gain 3 seconds of stealth. (3 seconds of regen is pathetic and only works on the cheesy d/p stealth cycle. Just add an ICD on applying regeneration and it’ll be fine, perma regen is already possible on a ton of professions.)

(Grandmaster)
[Cloaked In shadows] Change [Shadow Walk] Ignore movement impairing conditions while in stealth (does not remove them, only lets you ignore their effects while in stealth). Evasion while in stealth applies stability (2 stacks for 2 seconds). (Turns stealth into a fast predator effect to reposition and attack. Ofcourse it comes at the price of giving up SR, but now you get the choice of offense or defensive stealth GM).
[Shadow’s Rejuvenation] Change Gain health upon entering stealth and regenerate health while in stealth. Healing upon stealth ~900(0.22). Healing per second in stealth ~180(0.1). (With meld with shadows granting better initiative control, and now rewarding entering stealth vs sitting in it, I think this trait would get a lot less hate and it actually would bring more healing for those who quickly enter and exit stealth.)
[Venomous Aura] Change Whenever you apply a venom skill, grant nearby allies 3 charges of skelk venom (does not stack beyond 15). Venom skills recharge 20% faster. (This removes the overpowering effect that DV, spider or skale venom has being applied by a multiple of 5 and still gives very strong group support option for thief as it still deals damage while also healing allies. Venom related traits still apply through this. )

Acrobatics (Focuses on mobility and fluid actions).
(Minor)
[Expeditious Dodger] Fine as is, no change.
[Feline Grace] Change When you successfully evade an attack gain 10 endurance back. ICD 1 second. (The change to FG sorta turned vigor into a skill-less boon having such a high uptime. The duration was never a problem, it could last 100 seconds and still suffer the same problem. A flat endurance return was far stronger and should of just been adjusted to not reward spamming. This would work on endurance and weapon skill evasion but be limited with an ICD so chain evasion wouldn’t be rewarded especially with the DD traits. With less return and an ICD I think this trait would be fairly balanced).
[Endless Stamina] Change Vigor effects you apply are enhanced by 50% and remove 1 condition. (Gives BT a boost, gives VR a boost, and gives acrobatics some skilled condition removal.)

(Adept)
[Fleet Shadow/Instant Reflexes] Removed [Swift Observation] When you succesfully evade an attack, gain a stacking buff that increase critical hit chance by 3% for 5 seconds. This effect stacks 5 times. (Stealth isn’t an effect acrobatics should focus on. The objective of this new trait is to give a more sturdy thief the option to maintain critical effects slightly better but must rely on a very active cycle that wears off quickly. I suggest removing instant reflexes only because thief isn’t a passive profession, and shouldn’t be moved in that direction what so ever.)
[Vigorous Recovery] Change Increase vigor duration to 7 seconds. (Change to Feline grace and endless stamina makes this trait relevant once again but change in feline grace also makes vigor uptime much less so a small bump in duration to VR)
[Pain Response] Change [Shadow Leap] Increase shadow step distance by 300 units. When you shadowstep, gain superspeed for 2 seconds. (With vigor removing 1 condition baseline for acrobatics, VR already covers the condition removal in the adept tier, plus this trait is imo too simple and can proc at any time you meet the threshold with 1 of the conditions which would better be served for a condition burst. Simply put, its not controllable. This new trait gives a little extra mobility to put thief up towards the top of mobility.)

(Master)
[Swindler’s equilibrium] Fine as is imo, I think the ICD is balanced on the fact that it only works with spear and sword, plus the added damage bonus is nice of them to add.
[Hard to Catch] Change Apply an AoE blind at your location after you are teleported away. Blind duration 1.5 seconds. Blind radius 240 units. Number of targets 5. (Good trait otherwise, but the potential to teleport into enemy AoE is very real, so a little defense to adjust yourself after being warped into the unknown.)
[Guarded Initiation] Removed No use for such a trait. Far to weak and honestly makes little to no sense for thief since we barely maintain full health.

(Grandmaster)
[Assassin’s Reward] Change Moved to master tier, but recent update gives quite a nice healing. without being too much.)
[Distracting Theft] New Trait Whenever you steal a boon, apply vulnerability to your foe and increase your boon duration by 5% for 10 seconds. This effect stacks 3 times. Vulnerability duration 3 stacks for 8 seconds. (Primarily meant for S/d and brings back boon duration to the trait line in the form of an acrobatic themed build.)
[Don’t Stop] Fine as is, great momentum trait although pretty similar to [Unhindered combatant]…. Should probably change 1 of them.
[Upper hand] Change Reduce ICD to 2 seconds. (small buff to keep it comparable to the support option and the momentum that [Don’t Stop] offers. Not sure the perma regeneration was necessary or what it was meant to do.

Trickery Steal enhancements, utility and condition applications.
(Minor)
[Kleptomaniac] Change Steal 1 boon on (Successful) steal. (little bonus to your theft, goal is to make the trickery trait line more on overall steal enhancements rather than placing all the necessary effects into major traits).
[Preparedness] Removed Made basline, new effect, When disabled you can toss your stolen item to break stun. Doing so adds 10 seconds of recharge to steal (For those times when you have a stolen item you really don’t care for, but think it will eventually serve a purpose, here you go.)
[Lead attacks] Fine as is.

(Adept)
[Uncatchable] Change Increase bleeding duration to 5 seconds, disable while out of combat. (since condi thief got left in the dust and there is no reason to force combat stance from this trait (really annoying when roaming), just a small tweak to bring it up a little)
[Flanking Strikes] Fine as is, great trait for initial bursts.
[Thrill of the Crime] Fine as is, another great trait for support and boon uptime although the 1 might seems negligable.

(Master)
[Trickster] Fine as is, honestly most people underappreciate this trait, mostly because of tricks being pretty weak but rfi and withdraw work great with this.
[Bountiful Theft] Change Change functionality to strip all stacks of a boon. Additionally whenever you steal a boon you share it with nearby allies. Lower boon stealing to 1 boon on steal. (This change enhances the stealing capability of boons versus giving it the functionality on using steal. )
[Pressure Striking] Change Immobilizing a foe inflicts torment (2 stacks, 5 seconds). (Immobilize is far more available than interrupts via p/x, s/x, and DV and even [Panic Strike], it just fits thief better than interruption which ties to no condition weapon set. Slight nerf due to heavier access).

(Grandmaster)
[Bewildering Ambush] Change Increase confusion duratin to 7 seconds. (Although confusion isn’t a very accessible condition for thieves it atleast adds to a condition burst. Given its poor accessibility a small bump to duration).
[Sleight of Hand] Fine as is, great trait for almost any build.
[Quick Pockets] Change Gain initiative when you swap weapons in combat. Weapon swapping happens faster. (-5 seconds on weapon swap, 2 initiative gain on swap). (Having to compete against sleight of hand, this trait needs some attention and letting a thief act quicker with weapon skills is a good step for that.)

Weapon Skills
(Dagger)
-Auto Attack: Change added effect “while dual wielding daggers utilize your off-hand dagger for the 3rd hit to apply an additional stack of poison” (Added effects for dual wielding to work deeper into the “dual skill” feeling that thief is known for.)

-Stealth: Change Increase power scale to 1.5 (3.0 from behind). (a slight damage adjustment given the difficulty landing this skill and stealth nerf, aimed for power dagger).

-Heartseeker: Fine as is.

-Deathblossom: Change Now a skill shot, increase distance traveled by 100 units, increase evasion duration to .5 seconds. (QoL changes to give d/d a build in defense)

-Shadow Shot: Fine as is.

-Dancing Dagger: Change Increase projectile speed (25%?), Remove cripple effect, add condition spread on enemy bounces (1 condition caried from foe to foe on a bounce) (no reason for cripple since HS is a much better gap closer and it was far to short to even bother having, this would give d/d a stronger presense against groups especially with p/d.)

-Cloak And Dagger: Change Add AoE blind on successful hit, Increase vulnerability stacks to 5. (Helps d/d power set up a little stronger vs d/p’s HS->bps and gives a better reward to a rather difficult skill.

(Pistol)
-Auto Attack: Change Increase power scale to .55, added effect “While dual wielding pistols alternate shots for 10% faster auto attack speed.”

-Stealth: Change piercing shots, increase bleeding duration to 7 seconds (with no ricochet, give it some “heat seeking” advantage since it is really easy to soak up with minions. Bleed increase due to auto attack change and stealth nerf).

-Body Shot: Change If you hit an enemy facing you, inflict vulnerability (5 stacks for 6 seconds), while flanking you instead immobilize them (1.5 seconds). (Gives the skill some threat level to weaken attackers and punish those who flee).

-Unload: Change Add effect that while enemies are inflicted with vulnerability each shot from unload will ricochet to nearby foes up to 2 times. (this adds a small amount of skill to make use of but is far more in control to be indefinite vs randomly like the old ricochet.)

-Shadow Stike: No change, fine as is, great gap opener.

-Headshot: No change, great interupt skill and very responsive.

-Black Powder Shot: Change Now a skill shot to fire an AoE blind at a desginated location. Increase field duration to 5 seconds. Increase pulse cycle to once per 1 second. AoE size increased to 180 units. All damage relocated into the field shot on impact. (The goal here is to make bps-> hs cycle less attractive as it lead to a lot of hate for thieves and to give this skill a sort of denial effect instead. WIth a larger field, faster blind cycle and longer lasting field it can take out some heavy fire from ranged enemies and with a few changes to stealth stacking it can maintain the stealth combo without becoming excessive).
(Sword)
-Stealth: Change daze your foe (2.5 seconds) if you hit them from the front, remove 2 boons if you hit them from a flanking position. (Blind isn’t necessary on a sword/x build, you either have bps which is far stronger and reliable to use since s/p has no stelath access in it, or you evade as sword/dagger. With boon stripping sword/x, primarily s/d, becomes an anti-boon weapon for thieves which can give them a little role in team fights for gutting any build dependant on them.)

-Infiltrator’s Strike/Return: No change, fine as is.

-Pistol Whip: Change Increase power scale to 4.0 in pve and 3.8 in pvp. Increase initiative cost to 6 in pve and 7 in pvp. Increase stun duration to .75 seconds. (given the difficulty landing this skill it should act as a large damage dealer with a set up. For pve it pushes for a rotation rather than stacking and spamming, and for pvp it pushes for a rotation as well with a large pay off.)

-Flanking Strike: Change If you evade an attack with this skill, LS becomes unblockable. (Simply making it unblockable for pvp purposes makes the effort to skilled use go away. At least this way it rewards good use all the while making some sort of sense (you evade something, exposing their weak spot with a swift strike)).

-Larcenous Strike: Change Increase boon stealing to 2. (Simple push for s/d thief to be the anti-boon build for a good team role.)

(Shortbow)
-Stealth: Change AoE around your target now on hit (80 unit AoE). Same immobilize duration. (Basically a rounding up skill plus sb is an AoE ranged weapon for thief.)

-Cluster Bomb: Change Increase bomb velocity (50%?), increase range back to 1200 (Very slow moving and difficult to land, currently the only good use is for blasting a field at your feet. Revert old nerf as it served no purpose other than removing thief from anti-seige duty in wvw.)

-Disabling Shot: Change Increase cripple duration to 4 seconds. (Better gap opener, simple change given its clunky use)

-Choking Gas: Change Increase poison duration to 3 seconds. (even with very high poison duration increase this skill fits nothing other than a poison field atm. The duration is not enough to do anything significant noticable and should be buffed.)

-Infiltrator’s Arrow: Change Reduce initaitive cost to 5. (Bump to thief mobility to keep them on the top of the list)

(Traps)
-[Ambush] Change Increase ally health to ~7000 and summoned duration to 30 seconds. Add heartseeker attack to melee thief if its target gets 450 units away. When melee thief is threatened (drops below 75% and 25% health) it will execute a death blossom. When pistol thief is threatened it will plant a smoke screen after it evades. Both thieves will now use a stealth skill when possible.(numerous buffs to make the only summon thief has a tad bit more valuable and sturdy).

-[Needle Trap] Change After trap is triggered, it will remain for 6 seconds applying cripple to enemies that pass over it (8 seconds). Increase poison stacks to 2. (an attempt to make the utility version worth slotting and act as an area denial skill).

-[Trip wire] Change Merge Shadow Trap into this trap. Current effects still in place (foe triggers trap, gets knocked down and crippled and activating shadow pursuit. Can end early destroying the wire and teleporting to its location.) Cooldown increased to 45 seconds. (By itself its not a very effective skill especially being single target. Thief traps in general need to be less single target based because they will never see use in any game mode that way, gw2 isn’t about 1v1 and the effects aren’t that powerful even in that instance. The exception would be with this skill having a serious offensive potential for an unsuspecting foe.)

-[Shadow Trap] Replaced “Flash screen” On trigger, place a bomb on your foe that constantly applies confusion and blind every second to nearby foes. Blind duration 1 second. Confusion duration 5 seconds, 2 stacks. Field duration 4 seconds. FIeld radius 180 units. Cooldown 30 seconds. (Another form of confusion for thief which can hinder tight stacked groups as well. Trap trigger remains a rectangle but turns into an aoe centered around the triggered foe.)

(Tricks)
-[Scorpion Wire] Change Add piercing effect to pull up to 2 additional foes. Increase missile width slightly. This skill now marks foes when hit and will pull them to your location you cast it from once the projectile effect reaches its end, rather than trying to mimic the projectile path(A fairly strong pull to give this skill a role for thief to grab foes for your party to focus fire).

-[Roll For initiative] Fine as is, great retreat skill.

-[Haste] Fine as is, fury addition was a great touch up.

-[Caltrops] Change Increase bleeding duration to 4 seconds. (Small buff to help out condition thief and give them a reason to slot this skill over a defensive skill.)

-[Dagger storm] Change Removed cripple effect, each dagger will transfer 1 condition from you to a foe (not on bounce). (Aside from being a projectile reflector this skill needs to be stronger to be considered an elite. Since many ranged attacks are not projectiles and while in this effect you cannot dodge anything, it should provide a better form of defense that fits the theme of thief).
-[Withdraw] Fine as is, powerful heal for almost any thief build.

(Deception)
-[Shadowstep] Fine as is, great double stun breaker with good distance.

-[Shadow Refuge] Change Increase healing power scale to .3 per pulse. Increase base healing to ~400. (a buff to the healing amount since it forces allies to stay inside a location that can easily be bombarded by AoE).

-[Smoke Screen] Change Increase field duration to 10 seconds. Additional effect to remove revealed effects from allies who cross it (only applies once per player). (A much stronger support skill which can also serve as a powerful defensive skill for d/x thieves who struggle with revealed applications or just want a more successful form of stealth to escape with.

-[Blinding Powder] Fine as is, as a blast finisher and stealth skill it does great.

-[Thieves Guild] Changed Increase allies base health to ~12000. Reduce cooldown to 150 seconds. Both thieves will use a stealth attack skill when possible. When you finish channeling you gain stealth for 5 seconds. (See ambush for additional details.) (A buff to a otherwise weak elite which could also hurt anyone who chases you if used well or simply provide an excellent distraction for you to escape with).

-[Hide In shadows] Change Increase healing base to ~5,800. Increase Healing power scale to 1.2. (Better buff to a thief utilizing healing power.)

(Venoms)
-[Spider Venom] Change Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. (Not all venoms are equal, and with nerf to VA it could use a buff to compensate its lost potential.)

-[Skale Venom] Change Increase torment stacks to 2. Increase Vulnerability stacks to 3. (Again, with lost potoential this venom could use a bump to be worth slotting.)

-[Ice Drake Venom] Replaced “Karka Venom” Transfer 1 condition on your next 3 attacks. 1 second cast time. (Chill doesn’t fit thief and the role of mobility reduction is better served on Devourer Venom).

-[Devourer Venom] Change Reduce number of attacks to 2. Increase Immobilize duration to 2 seconds. (Revert an unneccesary change when they made residual venom baseline but nerfed this skill to keep it from being overpowered… again not all venoms are equal.)

-[Basilisk Venom] Change Revert change to allow stunbreakers to work on this skill. Reduce number of attacks to 1. Increase petrified duration to 2 seconds. Increase cooldown to 60 seconds. (Give this form of disable its own unique flavor rather than making it a visually altered stun. With a few buffs to its effect, a cooldown increase is in order to keep it a little balanced.)

-[Skelk Venom] Change Increase number of charges to 10. Replace initial heal with 10 seconds of regeneration. Increase on-hit healing base to ~700 and healing power scale to 0.45. (The old version was too much healing in a very short window and with the cooldown it didn’t help thief stay alive very well. Spreading the healing out over a longer window, this will slightly increase the overall healing amount while also keeping it around a little longer than before.

(Signets)
-[Assassin’s Signet] Change (Active) Remove number of attacks and make it last 5 seconds. (Pretty much the same treatment warrior got on their unblockable signet, number of hits is too unreliable.)

-[Infiltrator’s Signet] No change, fine as is.

-[Signet of Agility] Change (Active) Remove 1 condtion on use and 1 additional condition for each bar of endurance filled up (if they were at 45% endurance, it would count as filling 2 bars so a total of 3 conditions removed. Buff to thief support and rewards well timed use.)

-[Signet of Shadows] Change (Active)Ground targeted AoE field that blinds on creation to foes and reduces the duration of revealed by 2 seconds per pulse. Field duration 5 seconds. Combo field: Dark. Field radius 180 units. (Since thief has very little survivability in standing still the goal to this skill is to give them their own little playground of serious damage potential whether you are using it for restealth and backstabs or utilizing it’s combo field effect with leeching it would provide a very useful active.)

-Signet of Malice: Change (Passive) Gain Health when you gain initiative, half effect at full initiative (not including passive initiative regen) Healing per intiative 1150(.2^) (Active) Gain health and initiative. Gain additional health for each point of initiative gained 3,275(.3) base recovery, 375(.1) per initiative.) Increased cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase cast time to 1.5 seconds. (The old malice focused to much on rapid AoE’s however in the case you had only 1 enemy or a low enemy count the healing was quick to drop off and hte active served no purpose outside of an accidential click. This new version focuses on the same playstyle but can work without the need to hit multiple enemies multiple times and pushes for skilled use versus mindless healing.)

(Mechanic Changes)
-Preparedness made baseline, helps thieves with decision making since we use a universal cooldown which is quickly spent in most builds.
-Smoke field + Leap = 2 seconds of stealth, reason is to push for no perma-stealth use as it is quite silly and should be removed from all professions except in the case of multiple allies benefiting one another with such effects. For the sake of thief, this is mainly for bps -> hs but you would still be able to use its combo for damage purposes.
-Smoke field + Blast change, blast finisher’s that damage will apply their damage before stealth is applied. Purpose of this change is to make support stealth a little more reliable. Just like how some builds can pump out various boons real quick you can better reposition your group with this.
-Attacking from stealth and being blocked/evaded or missing (blind) will visually apply a small dark shroud around your character that foes can see, similar to necromancer’s shroud but more faded. This does not remove stealth effects from you, it only punishes constant attempts to attack while stealthed, and as such thief stealth skills were buffed to be more rewarding.

Updated many of the traits to reflect the recent changes to thief. Overall I think the new changes were good however they didn’t really solve anything. They helped our damage output to be a little quicker but for the millionth time, our dps isn’t as much of a problem as our utility and defenses are. Thieves can dish out damage, but many sets are outdated and our defenses are incredibly fragile no matter what way we build.

I know there are other projects and professions to work on but common now, we have so many outdated traits and skills it’s pretty much left people to no other choice than to move to another profession.

As usual, lots of good stuff in there, but to only mention the things I disagree with (primarily solo PvE, vanilla P/P)….

Compared to some classes, our downed skills are rubbish, and (when playing solo anyway) usually downed = dead. The slightly added punch of the poison from Serpent’s Touch (DA), is the only thing I found that gives me an at least fighting chance of getting back up. Please leave it in.

Atm, the only noteable thing that I bring to the table is the spike power of my Unload (and occasional Dagger Storm). Only my trait synergies give it this spike power.

Ankle Shots as is applies a condition, which gives an instant damage buff from Exposed Weakness as is, and a further 10% against that target since I’m using a pistol (or a harpoon gun underwater). This makes it more likely that the target will be <50% HP, so my opening Unload benefits from Executioner.

I kind of need all that as is for my build to work: your suggestions would gut that but not give me anything better in exchange (except for the improved AA which sounds like a nifty possibility, but not compensation enough…).

And if Unload gets further improved at all, it WILL be nerfed… I suspect it’s on thin ice already. If we really need a pistol bounce, I’d rather it was on #2 or #4.

I always feel a bit a bit shady when replying like this to such a piece of effort like yours, but I feel like I need to passionately fight for that tiny little sliver of something good that Anet’s allowed me to have – against all odds, and probably through luck rather than good design.

I would rather see HK take a condition cleanse on Reveal. This is one of those cases where for raw damage NQ is pretty much still always better, and you can just wait out a block or keep attacking through an Aegis, otherwise by sitting in stealth. D/P already has Shadow Shot as unblockable, and the new BV is already a huge buff, so giving more unblockable skill potential to D/P doesn’t seem like the best idea. CS needs to walk a line between engage assistance and getting hits in after engaging, and one of the big weaknesses an attack-focused trait setup currently has, as does the core thief in general, is on-demand condition cleansing. A build featuring CS and SA would get some solid in-out stealth potency here by neither needing to camp stealth or constantly be revealed in order to remove conditions.

SoP change looks awesome and would definitely be welcomed. As it is, Signets offers no real potency except for ganks against a single target, even if staying alive post-burst isn’t the issue.

Dual wounds might be excessive. The gains from buffed CnD for more vuln to 10 stacks would be pretty scary. Plus, Flawless Strike already does the whole “moar damage” thing. I’d argue Side Strike just needs a bit more lovin’ to get the thief better crit chance; this is the Critical Strikes trait line, yet our options, aside from HK, don’t really boost our crit chance that much beyond just giving ourselves fury, which most classes have access to. I’d suggest giving Keen Observer the 5% crit chance back it currently has as to not reduce build diversity (it’s 105 precision), but modifying Side Strike to give 15% crit chance from behind or from the side. This gives CS-builds some options to either spec into crit chance via berserker/valkyrie specs or crit damage from sheer modifiers if already on a high crit chance from marauder/assassin, while making the trait options competitive, and still ultimately based around critting.

Sundering Strikes should remain crit-based as it is. It is in the CS line, after all, and unload just applying 4 stacks of vuln on 3spam regardless of build would be a bit out of place for the trait line.

Unrelenting Strikes being made to an on-steal effect would make the trait line more useful on engage by letting D/D have the option of not needing ToTC for the crit on CnD, upheld by NQ or any other build. This also gives CS an “on steal” effect which it lacks unlike most of the other traitlines.

You’re nerfing NQ and I’m not sure if that’s intended. It currently gives 250 ferocity instead of 200.

Too early to call for changes to FG, especially with Daredevil and now reworked (stacking) Vigor in the mix. Stacking endurance regen on top of getting more endurance regen on evade on top of many other effects on evade might be over the top. Acro’s an under-performer right now because Daredevil is just pretty much straight-up better and the play-styles overwrite each other too much except in the case of D/D condi, which is proving a bit troubling to balance.

Preparedness changes are huge. They might be too much. More logical I think is making current Kleptomaniac baseline to give the thief some better potential sustained presence, and putting the stunbreak where Kleptomaniac is. I’d also move the steal cooldown reduction from Sleight of Hand to this new stunbreak trait. It’s hard enough as it is to not take SoH for the daze, so giving the reduction on steal to more builds wouldn’t really power creep the thief so much as open up other doors.

Backstab really doesn’t need more damage. Really. We have so many damage modifiers, and a buffed CS line would put the thief in what I think is a really fair spot. 25% more damage would just be unnecessary, especially now that the bunker builds are fading fast in PvP. While other class’s damage is high, it doesn’t justify ours going into absurdity.

I’d bump DB’s evade distance to somewhere near the 900 mark to keep pressure and allow disengages. This way it can’t be spammed for stickiness as you’ll pass a target too close, can’t be spammed for point defense in sPvP as it’ll send you too far, but allow for D/D to get some mobility superiority to D/P over stealth superiority, kind of like an in-between to D/P and S/D. Even Dagger Training could be buffed to apply poison at a 100% rate with a minor ICD of like half a second. HS is nice, but it’s extremely poor when dealing with the CC and escape potential other classes and specializations are being equipped with.

The idea of spreading conditions is quite interesting on the dagger, but the big issue D/D sees no use of this skill is more or less from low damage and the fact it still doesn’t offer much stickiness. No bounces to the same target and a 50% power coefficient increase paired with the condition spread from target on impact + cripple on impact would keep the AOE cripple utility there, buff the damage appropriately for power while reducing the disparity of “it does 3k to one target or 6k to two targets” and keeping the skill and its condition spreading useful for condition builds.

Don’t think I agree CiS needs to be made baseline on CnD. D/D is an aggressive and risky set. Why take away the risk for the sake of power creep and remove counterplay opportunities? I’d rather see it unblockable, which rounds the skill out more to bump stealth reliability but doesn’t make the thief harder to stop once it lands its already-potent skill. The vuln stacks are whatever; 2 more vuln won’t really mean that much.

Shadow Shot needs its skill damage coefficient turned down by around 20%. For how cheap it is, how much damage it deals, its casting cost, and the blind, it’s just too good and preventing D/P and the thief overall from seeing some love elsewhere.

Pistol Whip’s damage might be too good. Seeing the initiative cost normalized to 7 but the pre-cast animation dropped a small portion would make the skill better overall while not just making it the “oh you’re dead now” button. Again, especially if we’re seeing a lot more use of Sundering Strikes pushing for multi-hit attacks stacking lots of vuln.

Black Powder needs its radius small if it’s applying blind every second like it used to. Counterplay to counterplay involves moving inside the smoke field. You shouldn’t be allowed to just stand in it and be safe from most melee attacks. I stacked two of these on my old P/P tank build and was pretty much unkillable in melee. We don’t need that on top of a larger radius preventing skilled players from getting larger-hitbox hits inside while an unskilled thief could just stand there immune in the center.

Front-facing daze and two-boon strip on MH sword would be too much. Boon builds got nerfed from the removal of celestial amulet/bunker stats, and the necromancer is absolutely the most devastating corrupter now, which makes sense. You’re already buffing Lacenous to 2, and making one boon stolen as baseline on steal. Sometimes the blind is preferential by allowing your enemy to force a cooldown as well (especially for stomping guardians), since daze just prevents skill casts.

I don’t think surprise shot needs buffs. Since the AA damage is buffed on the thief, surprise shotting -> swapping and just getting in for AA damage is enough to make this skill worthwhile.

IA also doesn’t really need cost reductions. We’re already basically forced into the shortbow as it is, and retain superior mobility from it. Emphasizing more use of this skill shouldn’t be where we put our priorities.

Dagger Storm is probably better to just see a cooldown reduction more than anything. It has a niche use, but that doesn’t pop up frequently enough. Mass condition transfers are again something the necro is meant to specialize in, and we shouldn’t be stepping on their toes in both boon removal and condition transferring. Just letting Dagger Storm, even if on a shorter duration, be used more often to reflect things like Bristleback F2 would be immensely useful.

Venom changes look good, except for BV. BV needs to retain a stun. Part of critical counterplay to the thief is to break that stun fast and either fight them down right then and there or break that stun and head for the hills as fast as you can. With the damage buffs mentioned above, I think this change would just make fights too easy and deterministic early-on.

Assassin’s Signet change not really needed with the SoP change. As a signet thief, I do kind of prefer the attack-based nature of the ability as it rewards enemies for playing very well and the saved charges can be really important for more prolonged fights.

SoS change is pretty busted, no lie. Revealed duration cut by so much is just too good on such a utility. Frankly I don’t know what I’d replace it with, but I think your suggestion would just make it overtuned.

New SoM doesn’t really jive well with Signets of Power or the concept of a signet build. Maybe we can work on this one. Signets revolve around getting sustained benefits from not using them or a big benefit on cast. The big thing with SoM is it neither gives a big benefit on cast (even with SoP), nor does it offer the instant-cast heal that the signet style really depends on (getting damage when necessary). Its poor healing justifies its short cooldown, but I think withdraw is simply a much better heal for this purpose. Perhaps it can retain its small damage per hit as the skill has now, but upon use, after a period of a few seconds, it can burst-heal the thief for an amount of damage based on how much outgoing damage they dealt during the duration, getting no healing effect post-cast until the effect expires. This works for the hit-and-run style of play and can use an increased cooldown and instant cast.

Didn’t get through everything, but these are just initial comments after skimming through my first round. I’ll look again later.

The latest buffs simply weren’t enough. The increase in DPS from AA isn’t just detrimental enough to make a big difference, as thief still lacks in alot other points that need to get improved to make the class more viable and fun again and especially useful in all game modes equally as like Chronomancers or Heralds or Tempests.

Thieves need to become sigificantly better Boon Stealers that share their stolen stuff with the Group. the Group must benefit alot better from it whenever the Thief steals so that Stealing gives the Class alot better Group Support and that offensively as like defensively, because everyone in your group shold automatically profitate from it when you weaken a foe by stealing somethign from it, be it a Boon, be it a Skill, be it Stats, be it a Gameplay Mechanic Deny like stealing the enemies Endurance/Adrenaline, Life Force, Energy ect. and convertign it over to somethign that benefits the thief from and its allies around them at the moment of the steal happening.

anet needs to begin finally to design the skill mechanics of the thief class more after its appropriate ROLE and not just only after numbers and metrics, giving them more skill effects and trait,s that do fit to their role as a thief and whats essential to a thief and the behavior of a thief what you would expect from a thief to do and how the actings of a thief should automatically affect at the same time negatively their enemies and positively at the same time them and their allies.
When a thief steals, they need always to profitate from the steal significantly, especially by receiving things that have normally no access to, like Stability, like Protection, like Resistance, like Aegis, like Alacrity or dealing conditions they normally have no to nearly no access too, like Burning, like Fear, like Chill, like Confusion, like Launches.

Their Stealth needs to become superior over that of all others.
Their Teleportations need to become unique, no other class should have teleportation like skills that move you instantly from A to B, that should be a Shadow Step kind of unique thing because as a shadow you move fast as light. No other class should be able to have such movement performance!!
Their mobility needs to become better, no thief should be able to get outrunned by warriros in heavy armors!!

Thieves have still some of the poorest condition removal and health sustain mechanics which need to get improved, as the whole class is still way too dependent from stealth and especially initiative also too.
if you ever run out of initiative, and you have no stealth for that time to bridge, until your initiative has recovered, you are basically a dead character able for some time to do nothign else but AA spam. initiative needs to get rebalaneced for thieve,s this includes making preparedness baseline and this is somethign that should have happenred already a long tiem ago to improve also the build diversity of the thief as preparedness is as it is right now just too mandatory due to anets nerfs to the initiative regen traits and mechanics

And worse also is that thief is still the only class, that has no 1200 range option, this gets way too easily outmaneuved from far away by rapidfire spamming rangers (if you have not for the perfect time a reflect ready) or CoR revenants spamming us to death from far away with that skill that you cant reflect even at all as it doesnt count as projectile, its a cascade…
—-

Flew over the suggestions, most of the proposed stuff here I can’t agree with, as I think alot of the suggested things here would ruin the thief more, than they would be good for the class and dont need complete changes, but rather just direly needed more or less minor tweaks and merges to create space for more useful new utility skilsl and traits that give the thief more universally useful options that increase the build diversity of the thief and make the thief in general more useful for groups in all play modes, be it PvE, be it PvP, be it WvW or be it especially the latest new content of Raids, which are currently so extreme poor designed and balanced, that Anet totally screw over all Thieves and Warriors, due to the game having so much powercreep in the other classes, that there simply were no place for thieves and warriros, due to them bringign nothign to the table for why you want to take them eventually with you over say for example a Chronomancer a Herald or a Tempest.
Groupd Size of Raids should in my opining get increased and rebalanced around having 15 people and not only 10. This way would provide Raids enough space to bring along from every class somepone with you to profitate as much as possible from the mixed synergies from all classes when fighting together, because every class should provide something class specific that is unique for why you want them to brign with you into raids, like for exampel Thieves improving for everyone in the Raid Groupd the chances to get better loot at the end, finding randomly also hidden treasure chests for everyone and so on that aren’t directly helping for your dps, but just make in general the run more fun (and in case of thieves, more rewarding) for everyone..
This way could provide all professions some useful gimmick features that are class specificly fitting to give players reasons for why you want to bring off all classes someone with you over min-maxing maybe only DPS, unless your a guild that strifes just only for a speed run or so and setups themself for best DPS performance instead of taking other helpful effects with you that maybe are more of defensive/supportive nature or provide useful gimmick features like said loot improvements as class specific gimmick feature for thieves in raids as thieves are the classicial superior treasure hunters typically that leave behind no chest where they can get their hands on.

I think, this is something that can get improved also only first, once Anet finalyl splits up skill and trait balancing by 100% between PvP and PvE/WvW, because only then it is possible for Anet to improve classes alot more significantly after their flavor, after their roles, after their behaviours and make them more epic, heroically and fun for PvE/WvW – without that these changes make automatically out of PvP a total nightmare and vice versa.

AsurasRCute.4136:

As usual, lots of good stuff in there, but to only mention the things I disagree with (primarily solo PvE, vanilla P/P)….

Compared to some classes, our downed skills are rubbish, and (when playing solo anyway) usually downed = dead. The slightly added punch of the poison from Serpent’s Touch (DA), is the only thing I found that gives me an at least fighting chance of getting back up. Please leave it in.

Atm, the only noteable thing that I bring to the table is the spike power of my Unload (and occasional Dagger Storm). Only my trait synergies give it this spike power.

Ankle Shots as is applies a condition, which gives an instant damage buff from Exposed Weakness as is, and a further 10% against that target since I’m using a pistol (or a harpoon gun underwater). This makes it more likely that the target will be <50% HP, so my opening Unload benefits from Executioner.

I kind of need all that as is for my build to work: your suggestions would gut that but not give me anything better in exchange (except for the improved AA which sounds like a nifty possibility, but not compensation enough…).

And if Unload gets further improved at all, it WILL be nerfed… I suspect it’s on thin ice already. If we really need a pistol bounce, I’d rather it was on #2 or #4.

I always feel a bit a bit shady when replying like this to such a piece of effort like yours, but I feel like I need to passionately fight for that tiny little sliver of something good that Anet’s allowed me to have – against all odds, and probably through luck rather than good design.

I appreciate the feedback, and don’t worry about hurt feelings, if I didn’t want criticism I would’ve kept it to myself ^^

That being said, the main focus behind my changes is to give thief a little more of a unique play in the game that is valuable while staying in tune with the high risk high reward playstyle. As of lately its more risk than reward and simple dps increases aren’t going to align us with the rest of the professions. As with every profession, thief needs to stand out and become less depenedant on major traits to gain simple functionality that other profession’s get without as much focus on things like recovery or sustain to stay in the fight.

This is for the overall responses to this thread, but here are a few reasonings behind some of the changes.

-Changes to downed daggers is simply to not give too much for an adept minor trait. It could be left in as it hardly adds anything strong to begin with.

-I understand the focus of CS is critical based, as the name implies, but for the sake of side strike, we already have the minor trait [Keen Observer] adding a critical chance effect, so when I see another critical chance based trait it seems redundant. As for the replacement, the only vulnerability thief can apply is single target based excluding sundering strikes, and the durations aren’t that high either with traps being the only real duration. Double of anything generally sounds OP but given the very small output of it, the only thing the trait really contributes is making your /t a good one to focus. It’s hardly any different from necromancer being able to apply massive amounts of AoE vulnerability and people already know how much that hurts.

-For pistol’s, I wanted to shift the weapon set so condition builds can utilize it a little better by placing a better bleed duration on the stealth skill which CnD would lead up to, and buffing the power portion so p/p is less dependant on spamming 3 to kill. The dps of unload is fine, its the rest of the set that needs to work a little better but trying to buff p/p without buffing d/p (an already very strong set) is near impossible. Pistol needs some “piercing” effect so minions and Ai don’t completely deny the set. Every other profession with projectile based weapon sets has some AoE effect either baseline or from a trait except thief. The trait change was to promote pistol as a secondary set but it could just be replaced by the old ricochet trait if need be although it was a tad bit unreliable. BPS as a field would be changed to be less rewarding for leap finishers but would get stronger for projectile finishers being longer lasting. Adjustments could always be made such as changing bps to shoot the smoke field at the enemy versus planting it at your feet.

-As for signet of malice, I think the aggressive approach is nice for thief but this trait does not pan out well. For starter’s its one of those multiplier skills that when in AoE groups it gets to be strong but in smaller numbers it really falls behind. Trying to simply increase the numbers won’t help because of the multiplier aspect so changing it to a different mechanic that is both easier to balance and still ties to an aggressive strategy is where I thought of initiative management. Ofcourse natural initiative regen would not proc this trait but things like upper hand, kleptomaniac, meld with shadows (changed), quick pockets (changed), rfi, infiltrator’s signet would and those are tied to cooldowns and also spread out fairly far apart so taking use of all of them means sacrifices elsewhere so you’re not getting an easy heal.

The healing amount could have a smaller base value but to take full advantage of this healing skill requires a ton of sacrafice in other areas. The potential healing under ideal circumstances is fairly high but not practical.

-didn’t mean to nerf NQ, sorry. Wrong value entered.

-Buff to backstab isn’t meant to deal with the bunker meta which is slowly dying off, its meant to better reward “back” stabs given the difficulty landing this skill since many people know how to play against it now. Not to mention there are skills that are far easier to fire off and deal as much damage as backstab, so the dps increase is a result of other skills dealing similar or more damage and having less risk tied to them (true shot, gravedigger, eviscerate on a good build, etc.)

-Hidden killer is basically a dagger only related trait. I’ve often wanted to take something else but a non-crit backstab is really disappointing and when using d/d I like to focus my damage into backstab and keeping the enemy guessing, so fury was not really something I went for since I rarely attacked. The change was meant to again, buff backstab given its difficulty to use. With smoke field leap finishers being less effective they won’t have a whole lot of time to play in stealth to utilize the backstab, so the general concept of countering a backstab thief would still very much be available.

-I still don’t see where blind fits into the sword playstyle but maybe 2 boon removal is a bit over the top. I always saw sword as a utility weapon for thief with moments of damage (ls, pw) while using the mobility it offers to keep a safe distance. Maybe instead of 2 boon removal or a daze it could be a daze and condition transfer from behind? Playing dirty is the thief’s way and nothing like leaving your enemy a nasty surprise for trying to pull you out of the shadows. At any rate, I think the blind should be changed as it feels funky for sword/x.

-Maybe instead of a pulsing reveal reduction on signet of shadows it could remove reveal on creation? I can see how fighting in that field could seem a bit ridiculous being able to reenter stealth every other second basically. The main goal of the change was to introduce a dark field for thief which thief could utilize fairly well with their projectile and whirl finishers.

Thoughts:
Do not change pistol-whips initiative cost, you will kill the set. The buffs would be good, but its hard to play s/p when all your abilities are cost inefficient- if you kill the star player, the set will go into obscurity.
Dagger Storm needs to reduce damage to Thief. The reason it isn’t played often is the ability is an enormous telegraph saying “hey, I’m charging my laser. come kill me. im vulnerable”.
Do not touch Basilisk venom. Do. Not. Touch. My. Venom.

In my opinion Hidden Killer should just be rolled into Backstab. No one takes the trait anyway, and its only good for a single ability. Its just a slot waster at the moment. Daredevil runes, wep swap, etc. Why take this when I can get one of those?

Sorry Ninja i completly skipped your wall of text, while it is probably an intresting read, i’m still on break, and can’t be bothered putting in the effort towards this game.

So your probably wondering why i’m posting.
Increasing initiative is not a good idea. They did the same thing with s/d. while at launch you where effectively using all 5 weapon skills, the increase in initiative + damaging nerf’s made the majority of s/d thiefs’ just spam 3 (the last s/d meta is a good example, though i personally though that meta build was trash)

For S/p i would give it a modifier (Haste is 50% more efficent) this would put the IAS on haste back to 100% for pistol whip, which was the most fluid animation, plus it still gave your opponent time to react.

Dagger storm was great, until they nerfed it because it was “to strong vs pve” for 5 targets + DS was always your go to trait. for 1 player BV. i prefer IS (impact strike) now though.

CS is really good for swords (No quarter? the fury trait) synergies good with swords, now if i was running dagger i would be taken DA, but i find swords work better with CS. (If you didn’t buy hot yet pick Rage and CS it’s pretty efficient though your squishy If of course you know how to migrate damage though positioning)

Vigor isn’t OP enough to justify changing feline grace. We need more potential for chaining (especially offensive combos and S/D 5, swap to staff or start in staff and simply steal to target for stealth, knockdown, then fist flurry is a seamless fluid chain for example) in the game overall since it feels good doing so. A stat like might would need an ICD like that.

Dagger storm was great

I don’t agree. It was okay for tagging but the problem with it is you’d suddenly gain aggro and get focused before getting the full skill off. This was in Orr before the nerfs and dodging the pullbacks felt very rewarding. All it takes is a split second seeing the pick and you dodge so the stage back then rewarded reaction time nicely too.

Everytime I see daggerstorm in PvP I wanna cry. If you want to stack burn via projectiles with a combo field why not just use P/P for unload when that ele has a chill or burning field? D/D has a blast finisher too (I think?) but shouldn’t justify the long CD time especially with vault to fill a blast finisher role.

Serious Thought.5394:

Thoughts:
Do not change pistol-whips initiative cost, you will kill the set. The buffs would be good, but its hard to play s/p when all your abilities are cost inefficient- if you kill the star player, the set will go into obscurity.
Dagger Storm needs to reduce damage to Thief. The reason it isn’t played often is the ability is an enormous telegraph saying “hey, I’m charging my laser. come kill me. im vulnerable”.
Do not touch Basilisk venom. Do. Not. Touch. My. Venom.

In my opinion Hidden Killer should just be rolled into Backstab. No one takes the trait anyway, and its only good for a single ability. Its just a slot waster at the moment. Daredevil runes, wep swap, etc. Why take this when I can get one of those?

Damage reduction would be a start but thief during dagger storm you can’t dodge out of condition fields either so its still a self destruct button. Maybe a bit of both but that’d be asking for a lot.

I think hidden killer could be buffed so it doesn’t only help backstab, but the trait should stay for those who want a good hit. Non-crit backstabs are sad, but any skill other than backstab and hidden killer is pretty much pointless. Making stealth grant you the unblockable buff is just an idea, but I’m sure there could be a better substitute to keep hidden killer’s 100% critical strike chance because making it baseline just removes the investment that keeps the CS trait line a little balanced.

As for basilisk venom, I never liked the residual venom baseline they did, BV did not need to be touched by that and it was. Granted overall it still somewhat stays for 1.5 seconds depending on how you hit them, the fact that you get 2 chances and its now unblockable just feels like they’re trying to hard to make this an easy to apply stun. I guess with the proposed VA change it’s not a terrible thing but if considering the current VA with the current BV maybe its just me but I don’t like the ease this skill now has. It used to be a great opener and now its just a stun in the mix with little payoff. I’d rather have a larger payoff with a semi-longer cooldown than a short near-guaranteed stun.

Dagger Storm is the longest (or second, ele fire-staff 5 is close to same) cast in the game with the largest telegraph. Its unpredictable, unreliable, easily interrupted these days, and produces pathetic damage (condi or otherwise). When I tried to use it, people just walked out of it OR killed me while I tried to use it. My personal proposal is to make it like a 10-15 second cast time ability that does one rotation. So one stack stability, one spin reflect/damage/condi. Damage could be adjusted, but that’d help.

I’d like Hidden Killer to CHANGE the stealth abilities, finally adding a flavor to CS that isn’t pointless. DA has improv, SA has venoms, Acro has init regen/evade wall, Trick has unstoppable stun, and DD is DD. Like Backstab gets more damage, tactical now strips all stab and dazes, hookstrike gets an effect, sneak attack applies burn, and shortbow stealth 1 does something like a mini-range-nuke.

I agree on Basi. I just need it to not get overriden. The two charges make sure that even if I land PW, I still get my stun on the second charge. On one charge, its just highly unreliable.

Serious Thought.5394:

Dagger Storm is the longest (or second, ele fire-staff 5 is close to same) cast in the game with the largest telegraph. Its unpredictable, unreliable, easily interrupted these days, and produces pathetic damage (condi or otherwise). When I tried to use it, people just walked out of it OR killed me while I tried to use it. My personal proposal is to make it like a 10-15 second cast time ability that does one rotation. So one stack stability, one spin reflect/damage/condi. Damage could be adjusted, but that’d help.

I’d like Hidden Killer to CHANGE the stealth abilities, finally adding a flavor to CS that isn’t pointless. DA has improv, SA has venoms, Acro has init regen/evade wall, Trick has unstoppable stun, and DD is DD. Like Backstab gets more damage, tactical now strips all stab and dazes, hookstrike gets an effect, sneak attack applies burn, and shortbow stealth 1 does something like a mini-range-nuke.

I agree on Basi. I just need it to not get overriden. The two charges make sure that even if I land PW, I still get my stun on the second charge. On one charge, its just highly unreliable.

I always thought of dagger storm as a counter elite skill, but at the moment it only does this well against projectiles and a majority of people have enough reaction time to stop shooting projectiles during this skill.

Could rework it to be a little closer to a counter skill with some built in defenses, and bring it down like they did with ranger’s “Entangle” to be a little more worthwhile.

Something like,

[Dagger Storm] Spin around, taking reduced damage and reflecting projectiles and throwing crippeling daggers which transfer conditions to enemies. You can move while spinning.
-Damage 246 (1.0^)
-Stability 3 stacks for 3 seconds.
-Dagger storm duration 6 seconds
-Boon gain interval 3 seconds.
-Condition transfer per dagger thrown 1.
-Cripple duration 2 seconds.
-Damage reduction 25%.
-Combo Finisher: Whirl
-Trick
-Cooldown 60 seconds
-Range 600 units (dagger range)

Few other changes
-Increase dagger projectile speed by ~50%
-Removed endless cap, will now attempt to target up to 5 targets at a time every 1 second it is active for a possible 35 hits (5 on activation and 30 over 6 seconds).
-Removed bouncing effect.
-Removed bleeding effect.

Goal of the change is to make dagger storm a full on defensive elite. The bleed was negligible and the daggers were very unreliable unless you hovered over an enemy which is not a good idea as a thief for a channeling skill you’re stuck in. Basically the elite would counter projectiles and condition overloads and spread it across the enemy team but as far as damage goes you’re better off using dancing dagger. The endless cap removal sort of hurts but with 5 reliable throws every second it should be a lot more dependable to shake the conditions off. Cripple remains to keep melee enemies away and the damage reduction is purely there because its a channel skill on a very squishy profession (like ele tornado, it too needs some defenses attached).

As for hidden killer, there is a thread on it circulating now but I whole heartedly agree, making a GM trait only benefit 1 skill seems silly and HK should augment all stealth skills individually. This isn’t even a new concept for gw2, its been done on multiple skill sets already like Nature’s Vengence on ranger or Experimental turrets on engineer. Let backstab be the 100% critical chance and give something unique and fitting for the other stealth skills, I mean it is a GM trait after all.

What about stealth? On dagger storm i mean. It would significantly improve the chance to survive your own skill, it would benefit from stealth traits and therefore prove a useful utility for stealth-focussed builds but it wouldnt be insanely powerful. I have always wanted second shadow, but that would potentially be op, so why not a non-removeable stealth, but bound to rather weak radiating attacks.

About some older stuff that i didnt bother to comment on previously: As many I disagree on the basilisk venom.
The main point of a good balance is, that theres no such thing as a non-breakable stun. Tho its tempting, it would also make every thief vs thief fight decided by the first hit.
However it would be awesome if basilisk venom ignored stability and defiance. (might be a little op for raids?)
Oh and the invigorating precision change: just dont touch that skill. Its perfect, not quite too much but a great tool for every tough pve fight.

Dagger storm is a noob trap and should be ignored as a skill. I say let them focus on new elites when they come out and fine tune the current ones keeping a holistic balancing approach in mind (thief isn’t the only class in the game) and anyone of equal skill and build should have a chance against us (applies to all classes).

Agemnon.4608:

Dagger storm is a noob trap and should be ignored as a skill.

Couldn’t agree more.

IMO, a better implementation of Dagger Storm is to make it an instant without duration. Then deals 2100 damage (8 daggers dealing 263 dmg each) divided upto 5 target within range. Plus cripple and bleed stacks. Gain 1 stack of stability for each target hit by Dagger Storm.

Basically an Elite Skill version of Lotus Training.

Saying ‘The skill is just bad, deal with it’ isnt a solution. If theres a problem, one has to work on it. Also we may not be the only class in the game, but thats just the reason why balancing should be considered carefully. Appearently its really hard to make thieves worthwhile without beeing overpowered, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt try. Things have gotten better, but i rly dont want to spend another season with people crying if i enter a game.(that happens right now, even in unranked)
And its also obvious that the AA dmg buff, mostly for dagger didnt solve any problems, only made us viable enough to be considered ‘meta’ again, and im thankful for that. Still…theres gotta be more. (not like: stronger, more like: better)
But back to the subject of dagger storm. I like the idea of instant cast. If combined with Ed’s idea of being a ‘counter skill’ we could make it a ‘hold and release’ mechanic.
Basically you have an uptime of 2-6 seconds (depending on wether youre allowed to act normally meanwhile or not) where you gain stability, destroy projectiles (maybe in a 250 radius for some teamplay) and at any time you may reactivate the skill, unleashing a couple of daggers as well as all collected projectiles on your enemies.

The stability nerf really hurt Dagger Storm. A simple fix would be to continue to pulse stability after the animation is cancelled. It would also be a nice if you could press the skill a second time to cancel the animation instead of relying on weapon swap or dodge.

This skill isn’t great for PVP, but it has some uses in WvW.

Damage and CC feels out of control right now which also hurts this skill. I preferred playing this game before the switch from Trait Lines to Specializations.

Guys I figured out how to improve Dagger storm and make it worth using! Give it Resistance!

The most simplest way to fix Daggerstorm is done by the following steps:

1) Add at least 2 more Boons to it which it pulses together with Stability to protect Stability from beign simply corrupted and turning the skill into a waste immediately.
No elite skill should be so easily hard counjtered by just removing a boon from you due to the corruption turning the stability into fear, which instantly destroys your elite and makes it a complete garbage skill when it can be so easily hard countered.
Dagger Storm needs to be a more defensive Skill, so the best thing that DS should pulse together with Stability to protect Stability from being too easily stripped off/getting corrupted, is by letting DS pulse also Resistance and Protection.
2 Boons, which the Thief hardly is able to get tiogether with Stability.

Through Resistance and Protection would become DS more protective, and not too OP by just getting a non removable Damage Reduction and Condition Spreading would be also too op, just Resistance on you is the right way so that you get for a while protected from condition bursts on you, makign DS a good counter skill for when you just are awaiting the next condition burst on you to happen, you trigger DS and outplay your enemy then…

2) Fix the Damage Field … the skill throws out so many random Daggers all around you, that HIT NOTHING… if anet would fix this skill that every thrown dagger hits also a nearby target 100% for sure, then this skill wouldnt also lack in kind of DPS.
Its so senseless for this skill to throw a dagger at a direction, where absolutely no enemy is standing at all.
This skill needs to get fixed to the point, that only daggers get thrown into the directions where enemies are actually standing.

3) Change the conditions that it deals…and add some conditions to make Daggerstorm more dangerous.
Daggerstorm’s Daggers should cause bouncing Torment together with either Slow or Poison with the the latter two having both a chance of 50% to trigger, lettign it work more like the daredevils dodge effect to give Daggerstorm with that build a bit more synergy to keep up constantly those conditions.

With these 3 changes would become this Elite Skill alot more useful and viable, because it would be then alot more dangerous, especially for small groups that stand near together, due to the bouncing effect, making DS a strong crowd control skill that it needs to be, especially for WvW to bust the zergs with it and all the stacking thats there, it would be more defensive, so that it actually enables you to survive also its full duration without getting too easily pinned down to death with resistance without beign too op by spreadign all conditions on you to enemies, what is not the job ob the thief, thats what necros do… and the 40% damage reduction from protection that is strippable, but therefore better than unstrippable 25% reduction.
Together with the change of the dealt conditions would become also Daggerstorm alot more useful for Condition Build Thiefs and also especially Hybrid Build Thiefs, because lets face it, just only Bleeds from this is garbage…that do I get also by just spamming Death Blossoms and just bleeds alone isnt worth it to call Daggerstorm an Elite Skill.

But Torment paired together with a split trigger Slow/Poison, that would be effective and worth it to call DS an Elite Skill and would help also the skill again to be a better crowd buster skill.

If that would be then too strong, then raise the Recharge Time from 90s to 120s, so that you can use this tide turner just every 2 minutes, because thats what Elite Skilsl are for, they should be powerful enough to turn the battles to your favor…

In its current state you can’t say this from Daggerstorm, that it is good enough to ever turn a battle to your favor … unless you meet on an enemy, thats so dumb enough to constantly attack you with ranged attacks, while you use DS to literally let him/her kill themself …

Orpheal.8263:

The most simplest way to fix Daggerstorm is done by the following steps:

1) Add at least 2 more Boons to it which it pulses together with Stability to protect Stability from beign simply corrupted and turning the skill into a waste immediately.
No elite skill should be so easily hard counjtered by just removing a boon from you due to the corruption turning the stability into fear, which instantly destroys your elite and makes it a complete garbage skill when it can be so easily hard countered.
Dagger Storm needs to be a more defensive Skill, so the best thing that DS should pulse together with Stability to protect Stability from being too easily stripped off/getting corrupted, is by letting DS pulse also Resistance and Protection.
2 Boons, which the Thief hardly is able to get tiogether with Stability.

Through Resistance and Protection would become DS more protective, and not too OP by just getting a non removable Damage Reduction and Condition Spreading would be also too op, just Resistance on you is the right way so that you get for a while protected from condition bursts on you, makign DS a good counter skill for when you just are awaiting the next condition burst on you to happen, you trigger DS and outplay your enemy then…

2) Fix the Damage Field … the skill throws out so many random Daggers all around you, that HIT NOTHING… if anet would fix this skill that every thrown dagger hits also a nearby target 100% for sure, then this skill wouldnt also lack in kind of DPS.
Its so senseless for this skill to throw a dagger at a direction, where absolutely no enemy is standing at all.
This skill needs to get fixed to the point, that only daggers get thrown into the directions where enemies are actually standing.

3) Change the conditions that it deals…and add some conditions to make Daggerstorm more dangerous.
Daggerstorm’s Daggers should cause bouncing Torment together with either Slow or Poison with the the latter two having both a chance of 50% to trigger, lettign it work more like the daredevils dodge effect to give Daggerstorm with that build a bit more synergy to keep up constantly those conditions.

With these 3 changes would become this Elite Skill alot more useful and viable, because it would be then alot more dangerous, especially for small groups that stand near together, due to the bouncing effect, making DS a strong crowd control skill that it needs to be, especially for WvW to bust the zergs with it and all the stacking thats there, it would be more defensive, so that it actually enables you to survive also its full duration without getting too easily pinned down to death with resistance without beign too op by spreadign all conditions on you to enemies, what is not the job ob the thief, thats what necros do… and the 40% damage reduction from protection that is strippable, but therefore better than unstrippable 25% reduction.
Together with the change of the dealt conditions would become also Daggerstorm alot more useful for Condition Build Thiefs and also especially Hybrid Build Thiefs, because lets face it, just only Bleeds from this is garbage…that do I get also by just spamming Death Blossoms and just bleeds alone isnt worth it to call Daggerstorm an Elite Skill.

But Torment paired together with a split trigger Slow/Poison, that would be effective and worth it to call DS an Elite Skill and would help also the skill again to be a better crowd buster skill.

If that would be then too strong, then raise the Recharge Time from 90s to 120s, so that you can use this tide turner just every 2 minutes, because thats what Elite Skilsl are for, they should be powerful enough to turn the battles to your favor…

In its current state you can’t say this from Daggerstorm, that it is good enough to ever turn a battle to your favor … unless you meet on an enemy, thats so dumb enough to constantly attack you with ranged attacks, while you use DS to literally let him/her kill themself …

I think that’s adding way to much to any one skill. Granted its an “elite” skill, it shouldn’t have defensive and offensive properties amped up so much. It definitely could use a toggle option though to cancel the effect. We have BV and IS for offensive, it’d be nice to have a dedicated defensive elite that didn’t just toss boons onto you. Boon’s don’t tend to last on thieves for very long, so adding more won’t do any good especially if someone decides to corrupt them. If DS could be set as the counter/defensive elite TG being the hybrid of damage utility and defense, I think we would have a pretty good selection of elite skills without having to add more to the list.

Thief is in need also in regard of elite skilsl of an Elite Signet Skill

Nearly all classes that have Singet Skills also have Elite Signet Skills, the Thief is one of the Classes among the Ranger, that has none, where it would make sense that they should also get Signet Elite Skills

I think Thieves Guild woud make sense to get reworked into a Singet Elite, that summons on activation its Thieves, while providing a defensive effect as passive, like for example having significantly increased Toughness, while not being in Stealth and gaining Resistance/Stability when gaining stealth.

When you think Daggerstorm with Protection is too good, dont forget that protection can get easily stripped from you or get even corrupted by a Necromancer and get turned into Vulnerability, while Resistance can also get stripped and or turned by boon corruption in this case into chill.
That alone, that you can steal or even corrupt it is in my opinino far more balanced, than giving thieves just straight while using Daggerstorm an unremoveable 25% increased defense agaisnt all sources of damage.

Think while making suggestions to changes that its not also you that profitates from these change,s but also your enemies agaisnt you have to battle too, so enemy thieves and as a Main Thief, thinking of fightign other Thieves that use DS and gain unremoveable 25% increased defense against all sources of damage doesn’t sound as fair to me, as like when they gain two boons more than before, where I have at least the chance to steal them and profitate this way from my enemy more, while weakening them in combat, without that Daggerstorm becomes directly garbage, because i was able to make int instantly stop, like Necromancers can do this since Anet nerfed Stability by just corrupting Stability from us due to Daggerstporm providing not enough boons to cover Stability from simply gettign directly corrupted away, what leads in the moment to Daggerstorm instanlty stopping to work, becsause we get feared away, from what the Stability should usually PROTECT US, because its the freaking single only skill with that thieves can get Stability right now…

Its freaking ridiculous just to think about that the single skill that gives us stability and with that we can have somethign against perma fears doesn’t protect us at all from this, because just 1 single boon corrupt currently is enough to turn our elite skill into total garbage and into a full waste on 90s recharge!!
That is the point that I’m trying to make here clear and what is something that Anet needs to fix, if they ever want Daggerstorm to become again a viable Elite Skill worth it to be called an Elite Skill like it halfway was before they nerfed Stability, where the skill actually back then WAS ABLE to protect us from fear spams.

I think dagger storm should be reworked very subtly over time (all skills should unless something very clearly needs a drastic rework) but basically tracked into a fractal or raid role for handling big groups of trash mobs while still being bad for PvP (impact strike and BV are still good there.)

Orpheal.8263:

Thief is in need also in regard of elite skilsl of an Elite Signet Skill

Nearly all classes that have Singet Skills also have Elite Signet Skills, the Thief is one of the Classes among the Ranger, that has none, where it would make sense that they should also get Signet Elite Skills

I think Thieves Guild woud make sense to get reworked into a Singet Elite, that summons on activation its Thieves, while providing a defensive effect as passive, like for example having significantly increased Toughness, while not being in Stealth and gaining Resistance/Stability when gaining stealth.

When you think Daggerstorm with Protection is too good, dont forget that protection can get easily stripped from you or get even corrupted by a Necromancer and get turned into Vulnerability, while Resistance can also get stripped and or turned by boon corruption in this case into chill.
That alone, that you can steal or even corrupt it is in my opinino far more balanced, than giving thieves just straight while using Daggerstorm an unremoveable 25% increased defense agaisnt all sources of damage.

Think while making suggestions to changes that its not also you that profitates from these change,s but also your enemies agaisnt you have to battle too, so enemy thieves and as a Main Thief, thinking of fightign other Thieves that use DS and gain unremoveable 25% increased defense against all sources of damage doesn’t sound as fair to me, as like when they gain two boons more than before, where I have at least the chance to steal them and profitate this way from my enemy more, while weakening them in combat, without that Daggerstorm becomes directly garbage, because i was able to make int instantly stop, like Necromancers can do this since Anet nerfed Stability by just corrupting Stability from us due to Daggerstporm providing not enough boons to cover Stability from simply gettign directly corrupted away, what leads in the moment to Daggerstorm instanlty stopping to work, becsause we get feared away, from what the Stability should usually PROTECT US, because its the freaking single only skill with that thieves can get Stability right now…

Its freaking ridiculous just to think about that the single skill that gives us stability and with that we can have somethign against perma fears doesn’t protect us at all from this, because just 1 single boon corrupt currently is enough to turn our elite skill into total garbage and into a full waste on 90s recharge!!
That is the point that I’m trying to make here clear and what is something that Anet needs to fix, if they ever want Daggerstorm to become again a viable Elite Skill worth it to be called an Elite Skill like it halfway was before they nerfed Stability, where the skill actually back then WAS ABLE to protect us from fear spams.

The 25% damage reduction is because it is a channel skill, on a squishy profession. Like any 25% increase effect like from rampage (warrior), signet of the wild (ranger), etc its meant to give the skill a key role and be very good at it. There are many skills that can be ranged and not projectile based and being bound to an animation is pretty dangerous. Pulsing protection and resistance is actually much stronger than a flat 25% because it would pulse, so even if you removed or corrupt it they would just get it back soon after.

25% damage reduction along with projectile reflection and condition xfer labels it as a defensive elite and gives thieves a reason to want to enter the channel whether it be inevitable incoming damage they want to null or to counter a projectile/condition frenzy. I wouldn’t want my elite to give any profit to my enemies, it makes any semi-long cooldown very distasteful and that’s the reason why many elites have been changed from a single boon application to pulsing and adding % reductions/additions so they can’t be countered so easily. Corruption does hurt a lot towards DS but that’s why the cooldown isn’t crazy long (even suggested lowering it with a lower channel time) and why I think it should cover a larger array of counters so the short time it lasts it actually gets something done.

Right now DS is too long in cooldown and channel time and hits very unreliably while dealing next to no damage both physical and condition. I’d like to see it dumbed down like entangle was to be a little quicker of a cycle as a defensive elite and like entangle, it should see a lot more use afterwards.

If you want, I could make a spreadsheet and give you editing rights (see my signature for example). I think it would be easier to follow what’s changed. Would you be interested?

TheBravery.9615:

If you want, I could make a spreadsheet and give you editing rights (see my signature for example). I think it would be easier to follow what’s changed. Would you be interested?

Sure thing, I do have multiple classes and thoughts on their builds, thief is just the one I’m most passionate about.