Guild Wars 2

When was the last time you saw a viable thief build for PvP, both sPvP and WvW, that did not have Trickery? Exactly! Never!

What makes it this way? The reason for this is very simple. Without taking the traitline, thief is literally screwed in regards to its weapon usage and partially steal usage. Furthermore, the initiative costs for weapons are balanced around the idea that you will take this traitline…which makes matters even worse. Even thinking back to the old system, people literally never considered not taking at least 15 into Trickery.

Why is it this way? Again, simple; there are 3 core benefits that makes Trickery a necessity: Kleptomaniac (+2 initiative on steal), Preparedness (maximum initiative +3), and the 20% reduction from Sleight of Hand.

If you take the time to sit down and compare the actual ability to use skills, you’d realize that every other classes can rotate their weapon skills endlessly, while thieves will struggle to keep up. Even revenant has it better in this sense because they essentially get a full reset when swapping legends…thieves don’t.

A class having one traitline always locked out only limits its ability to diversify its build capabilities. Also, being forced to take a traitline just to ensure you can use a weapon without massively initiative starving to death is just plain bad design. It is not fun to play handicapped, which is what playing without Trickery feels like in any sort of PvP setting.

So, how do you solve the problem? The solution may seem a little simple (because it kind of is) and can be executed in 2 ways. First, re-balancing initiative costs on weapons to ensure they aren’t so handicapped without taking the traitline. However, I do not think that is wise, as taking the traitline for the massive benefits will not change. So, the second, more simpler and direct option is what I would recommend ANet to heavily consider. Remove the traits Kleptomaniac (+2 initiative on steal) and Preparedness (maximum initiative +3) and make their benefits baseline for thief, followed by replacing those removed traits with other more interesting choices.

As for the 20% on SoH, that could potentially be made baseline by reducing steal’s base cd to 24 – this will leave the overall cd unaffected when traited with Trickery. In addition to that, to ensure that SoH can still compete for Major Grandmaster slot, adding something else to SoH would benefit the trait. I would suggest an effect as: daze for 1s (as it currently does) and if your target foe is not using a skill, kd for 1s instead…similar to Wastrel’s Collapse.

PS: If you think Deadeye is going to change this core problem with thief and its Trickery traitline, I can assure you that it will not. In fact, the rifle skills’ initiative costs are all balanced with Trickery’s bonuses in mind.

I was just thinking about this the other day, and was going to make a thread about it, but you beat me to it.

I’m also all in for making some (most) of the traitlines in trickery baseline, to provide more build diversity/more utilities if they add other options in trickery instead of those who will be baseline.

This is a change i dream of often and was refreshed last night while trying some sword builds. Id love to see the max initiative be base line and the traits slots be used for something else.

I don’t really care about kleptomanic, however Bountiful Theft is also a very very big reason TR is picked.

Besides let’s pretend for a moment they would make all these baseline, thief not having to trait TR would make them beyond broken

Be careful what you ask for. Look at the necromancer forum. ANet could remove all the fancy stuff that makes the traitline a must have and give you 50% back as baseline resulting in becoming the traitline full trash but giving the class slightly more diversity.

This means remove most of the steal upgrades (30 seconds and no daze for everyone!) but make 15 initiative baseline. Would you like that?

I agree with KrHome’s comment "
Be careful what you ask for. Look at the necromancer forum. ANet could remove all the fancy stuff that makes the traitline a must have and give you 50% back as baseline resulting in becoming the traitline full trash but giving the class slightly more diversity.
This means remove most of the steal upgrades (30 seconds and no daze for everyone!) but make 15 initiative baseline." I would be really happy and I could try way more builds if just maximum initiative was baseline and replaced with something else instead. I just don’t like being locked in one traitline with every build. The problem is that Trickery’s grandmaster that gives confusion on steal (+ the initiatiave ofc) makes it a must for even condi builds.

mompen.7952:

I was just thinking about this the other day, and was going to make a thread about it, but you beat me to it.

I’m also all in for making some (most) of the traitlines in trickery baseline, to provide more build diversity/more utilities if they add other options in trickery instead of those who will be baseline.

Please make a thread anyway voicing your concern. I’ve learned that Anet generally notices these things when there are a buttload of threads all talking about the same thing. E.G. Turret Engineer, Epidemic, sPvP tank meta, etc.

Class standard should be the +3 total initiative and the daze on steal. Since trickery gives two traits that reduce the CD, the base line could be moved to like 25 seconds and one passive CD is removed (and replaced with an unblockable CnD passive ). The other 20% reduction, +2 initiative on hit and boonsteal should remain as traits to trickery I think. The last passive could even be changed to something like rending shade, to turn trickery into a boonsteal traitline. Probably broken but ideas nonetheless.

Im waiting for the people that are goign to be like “Thief is OP, this change shouldn’t be implemented, l2p…blah blah”

I for one hate being pigeonholed and the fix is simple (I understand some other classes are also pigeonholed as well so don’t get your lady panties in a knot)

thaniretouni.4762:

The problem is that Trickery’s grandmaster that gives confusion on steal (+ the initiatiave ofc) makes it a must for even condi builds.

It’s not like the line also give +15% power and condition damage or something

I’ve been running without Trickery and it can be done. The main issue is losing initiative on steal because that really improves the flexibility of the followup opportunities post-steal. That is what I feel like I miss most from not taking Trickery. It just feels awkward because steal places you in harms way but initiative is key to thief survival (blinds, interrupts, evades, etc). If you steal with low initiative you are vulnerable for using a core mechanic. Most don’t notice though because the steal restores a small but crucial chunk of initiative.

If anything should be made baseline/moved to another specialization it’s the initiative gain on steal. The base increase and cooldown reductions on steal should remain in Trickery. This keeps the line attractive but spreads out the initiative regen aspect (lower steal with Trickery is effectively high initiative regen).

This also doesn’t require buffing thief by inventing new traits.

There have been a few viable PvP builds without trickery in the past. Back in the early days of GW2 when you had the ’carry’ role, which was a glass burster that defended your bunker from being spawn camped or ganked between points. Obviously, it was usually a thief, and that build had two variants: 25/30/0/0/15, and 25/30/15/0/0. A year or two later there was also a viable S/D build which ran 10/30/0/30/0. There were also other non-trickery builds (which were actually more common than 30 trickery) which were just not competitive.

That said, today, you are right that the skills are balanced for an extra 3 initiative and 2 initiative returned on a successful steal. I don’t think the devs did so with that in mind, though, because it wasn’t always necessary. The design of thief is such that it has skills to use as and when they are needed, but it cannot do so forever. It needs to manage use, thereof. With the changes to traits and skills, introduction of new conditions and now new weapon bars and trait lines, various circumstances force you to blow initiative just to get past a defense or stay alive before you’ve even really engaged. This is good, of course, it makes for fun and interactive gameplay, but it does force you into trickery.

The proposed solution is the obvious one, and it was requested a lot during the major overhaul before heart of thorns was released, when a lot of classes were having numerous traits made baseline - in some cases even the more powerful traits.

I disagree about Dead Eye requiring Trickery, though. It looks designed to replace Trickery for a ranged-focused build, and there is a very strong looking utility skill which can return up to 5 (or 7 if traited) initiative, along with recharging mark and breaking stun on a 30 (I think) second cool down. Most of thief’s damage comes from auto attack - at least, in power builds. The skills using initiative were always used primarily for defense, gap closing or finishing. If you’re ranging, you’re going to have less need of those abilities, and if you look at them on the wiki (bearing in mind they are of course subject to change), at the moment, most of them have the same damage as auto attack; it’s just the effect that is different. Melee builds, however, that wish to take Dead Eye will still need to take Trickery to be competitive.

saerni.2584:

I’ve been running without Trickery and it can be done.

Yes, of course it can be done. But it will always be an uphill battle. Whatever build you’re using that can be done without Trickery, would most likely perform better with Trickery.

Ive run 3 builds without trickery…..literally….I just started GW2 earlier this year and its rare for me to switch builds soooooo……

Lord Velar.1509:

Ive run 3 builds without trickery…..literally….I just started GW2 earlier this year and its rare for me to switch builds soooooo……

Please share those builds. I’ve tried running a few builds without the extra init and it was a painful experience every time. Especially in WvW.

Black Frog.9274:

Lord Velar.1509:

Ive run 3 builds without trickery…..literally….I just started GW2 earlier this year and its rare for me to switch builds soooooo……

Please share those builds. I’ve tried running a few builds without the extra init and it was a painful experience every time. Especially in WvW.

I tried myself and the damage was insane (replacing Tr with CS), however without the extra init and heal on steal, it was def not as easy.

With the changes to S/x I have found EVERY other traitline can be dropped and result in a very tobust and more than viable spec. TR is the trickiest.

That said there two manin reasons to trait TR. One to lower steal time and one for the INI. With the changes to s/x you can now reset steal time via an evade > You can even make up for much of the lost damage in Lead attacks via Swindlers as well.

The INI is the hard part and presents a sort of dilemma. You can certainly try and regain INI via upper hand to make up fr TR loss but if you can instantly reset steal with Swindlers you can also steal more boons and get more INI via klepto.

If anything can push out INI it would seem to be the S/x set taking Acro but it still a hard thing to do. Dropping DA, CS, SA and even DrD is easier.

If Anet keeps persisting on balancing all Thief skills around 15 ini as has been the case then they need to make Preparedness baseline, that is the only change actually required, all of Trickery’s other traits can stay exclusive to Triclery.

But having everything standard based on 15 initiative when the only way to achieve that is with a single trait is the worst class design ever.

do not forget the 15% dmg to power an con <- is better then deadly art grandmaster lol.

This has been the BIGGEST problem for so, so long. For the past 4 years every single competitive build has had the trickery trait-line. The 3 extra initiative should just be baseline — problem solved. I’d love to see more build diversity; acro and shadow arts are amazingly fun trait-lines, but are often omitted because of trickery and it’s such a shame :/.

Please Anet, address this.

Taobella.6597:

do not forget the 15% dmg to power an con <- is better then deadly art grandmaster lol.

We do not forget, but Acro, DA or CS give some dmg modifiers one way or another and I would gladly use those over Trickery if the extra init was baseline (and even better if the steal recharge was maybe 25 secs).

Impact.2780:

There have been a few viable PvP builds without trickery in the past. Back in the early days of GW2 when you had the ‘carry’ role, which was a glass burster that defended your bunker from being spawn camped or ganked between points. Obviously, it was usually a thief, and that build had two variants: 25/30/0/0/15, and 25/30/15/0/0. A year or two later there was also a viable S/D build which ran 10/30/0/30/0. There were also other non-trickery builds (which were actually more common than 30 trickery) which were just not competitive.

That said, today, you are right that the skills are balanced for an extra 3 initiative and 2 initiative returned on a successful steal. I don’t think the devs did so with that in mind, though, because it wasn’t always necessary. The design of thief is such that it has skills to use as and when they are needed, but it cannot do so forever. It needs to manage use, thereof. With the changes to traits and skills, introduction of new conditions and now new weapon bars and trait lines, various circumstances force you to blow initiative just to get past a defense or stay alive before you’ve even really engaged. This is good, of course, it makes for fun and interactive gameplay, but it does force you into trickery.

The proposed solution is the obvious one, and it was requested a lot during the major overhaul before heart of thorns was released, when a lot of classes were having numerous traits made baseline – in some cases even the more powerful traits.

I disagree about Dead Eye requiring Trickery, though. It looks designed to replace Trickery for a ranged-focused build, and there is a very strong looking utility skill which can return up to 5 (or 7 if traited) initiative, along with recharging mark and breaking stun on a 30 (I think) second cool down. Most of thief’s damage comes from auto attack – at least, in power builds. The skills using initiative were always used primarily for defense, gap closing or finishing. If you’re ranging, you’re going to have less need of those abilities, and if you look at them on the wiki (bearing in mind they are of course subject to change), at the moment, most of them have the same damage as auto attack; it’s just the effect that is different. Melee builds, however, that wish to take Dead Eye will still need to take Trickery to be competitive.

One of the things you need to remember is that back then is that there were a number of traits that provided a lot of initiative recovery. CS had one, SA’s was straight overpowered for a long time, and Acro’s was pretty good, too. Really, the only builds these days not running Trickery use Acro since the initiative gain can be good enough with Daredevil’s extra evasion.

The thing is that Trickery is so good because every trait option is strong and often provides things that other lines just simply can’t do. Thrill of the Crime for example is just strictly better at applying Fury than Unrelenting Strikes in CS. Uncatchable is huge for condition builds. BT is some of the only boon removal we had until recently, and the steal cooldown reduction is basically essential to power builds while confusion on steal is fantastic for conditions. Then there’s the persistent 15% damage modifier which not even CS offers, and obviously the initiative source traits which for the most part, the whole profession is balanced on.

Rather than just making a whole ton of stuff baseline, I’d rather see other traits changed to reflect what makes Trickery so good in the lines which make sense. There’s no better example than Unrelenting Strikes. Have it apply on steal instead of being a passive proc. It gains the utility from ToTC for a primary hit, and now a build running CS/Acro can effectively replace the trait.

I think the only thing that really must be made baseline is SoH’s steal cooldown reduction. I’d love to avoid eating some kind of big passive CC-reflection from its tiny daze such as rev taunt. Otherwise I think these gaps can be opened elsewhere.

I think the reason why Trickery appears to be a must have is because of the sheer weakness of the other supportive line, namely the Acro traitline. Unfortunatly, too much of the evasion reward system is part of the Daredevil, making Acro lackluster as it is by now. Some people say that the Daredevil traitline actually is what the Acro traitline should be. Well, I think they are right in some way. In my opinion, Escapists absolution and Driven fortitude should be Acro traits.

If Acro rewarded evasions in a actually fair and meaningful way, we would have a real contender to Trickery and maybe we wouldn’t need to role it. So fixing Acro might resolve the problem. For example: If Upper hand gave two initiative instead of 1, I would consider to have a real contender to Prepardness and Kleptomaniac.

That’s just my two cents. I think you could perfectly play competitively with 10 initiative; IF we have viable initiative regen system that replaces the benefits from Trickery.

the extra 3 inative is nice, but its the traits them self’s is why i take trickery, even if preparedness was in shadow arts, i would still pick trickery over that.

I’d rather have them reduce initiative cost across the board and remove Preparedness (or just make it baseline).

I would love to see a build that didn’t have trickery, but even in PvE it is basically mandatory…

bluri.2653:

I don’t really care about kleptomanic, however Bountiful Theft is also a very very big reason TR is picked.

Besides let’s pretend for a moment they would make all these baseline, thief not having to trait TR would make them beyond broken

…and that’s why BT should not be touched. None of the traits that is not a necessity should be touched, because that would make the line invalid and unable to compete with the other lines.

Even ignoring Kleptomaniac and the lower Steal cd from SoH, Preparedness is a 100% necessity because all weapon costs are balanced around it.

Acro is hardly weak. it a VERY powerful traitline and especially for sword users.

PR is one of the better Condition cleanse sin the game. Swindlers can set up some huge advantages for a S/x thief such as 4 itemss on an improv, back to back mugs or another BA , SOH , BT or Klepto for all that on steal stuff.

Don’t stop is a great replacement for UC. Talke -20 percent condtion food and it better.

Going to have to agree. Acro may be somewhat passive relative to most of the thief (IR/PR/HtC/DS are all solid traits and features of the line), but to say it’s weak is pretty far off. If not for the nearly necessary utility in DA, I’d have run CS/Acro/Tr long ago when they made the first revisions to it in 2015.

I’ve not been able to play recently due to Internet issues, but if initiative is the issue, what’s to stop you taking acro over Trickery for the steal recharge and ini on evade, and taking roll for initiative with the shiny lower cd with improv from DA? Surely that would be more flexible initiative wise than the bonuses from Trickery?

If that’s not enough then it’s the utility of Trickery that’s necessary (or the extra condi sources for condi builds). In which case, I’d say it’s more an argument for critical strikes and Shadow Arts being either poorly implemented or simply not fitting the current meta than anything else.

Speaking from a WvW perspective…

Rifle — compared to any other weapon set — is extremely initiative hungry. The skills for the rifle aren’t too bad, but considering that every competitive build over the past 4 years has required trickery for the extra initiative, it’s definitely as this title states: the-elephant-in-the-room. God it would be nice to move away from it..

Moreover, trickery has the traitline “trickster” reducing the cooldown of ‘tricks’ and applying a condition removal. Considering that withdraw (which is a trick) seems to be the default heal for deadeye rifle (because of the synergy with kneel) and because INITIATIVE is such a problem, it makes sense to run roll for initiative (which is also a trick) because of its synergy with kneel again.. and the break stun is nice since we are losing bandit’s defence. So as many will appreciate, no matter how you look at it, you’re funneled into using trickery.

A lot of the little quality of life changes ‘thief mains’ have been asking for via feedback would be ameliorated if we could move away from the trickery line. If the traitline preparedness (three extra initiative) was made baseline, then people would feel more comfortable not having to run trickery.

UndefinedLime.2063:

A lot of the little quality of life changes ‘thief mains’ have been asking for via feedback would be ameliorated if we could move away from the trickery line. If the traitline preparedness (three extra initiative) was made baseline, then people would feel more comfortable not having to run trickery.

Still might as well take the daze and Bountiful Theft.

I dropped trickery in two builds using DE spec. Given both went SA BT was not really missed as I used RS.

RS is more available then is BT and steals stacks. I found a lot of times no Boons on the enemy to steal.

The INI was missed to a degree but if this an issue there is a bit of give and take. You can take Shadows rejuv over RS and gain some nice Ini with all the stealth. You could also use MERCY or trait up into acro for upper hand.

What makes trickery work so well is in fact not so much the ini gain, the daze , or the boon theft. It just you can take them all at once the way the line laid out and , even if onew does not take these three traits , there very good reason to take the alternatives such as Trickster , BA, QP , Lesser haste, Uncatchable and pressure strike as they work well in any build.

It is not so much it REQUIRED. It more it just got something for anyone in all manner of iterations. There more reasons to tkae it than there is not to and it nost just about the INI.

Can i ask you guys something? WHERE DID STEAL GO?

I was with thief on beta testing out renegade and i didn’t see steal anywhere.

Also:Personally i went shadow skill for stealth as thief without stealth and getaway and a rifle is dead.I had shadow trap(Stealth one) the tripwire and that renegade one.

Every single class can make this argument except for potentially eng as tool is somewhat sucky. Nothing new

There’s a difference between a choice and a necessity. Some people responding here have not realized that yet.

Asur.9178:

There’s a difference between a choice and a necessity. Some people responding here have not realized that yet.

If you play a deadeye build with renegade sniper you won’t have much survivability.

CreedOfGod.9764:

Class standard should be the +3 total initiative and the daze on steal. Since trickery gives two traits that reduce the CD, the base line could be moved to like 25 seconds and one passive CD is removed (and replaced with an unblockable CnD passive ). The other 20% reduction, +2 initiative on hit and boonsteal should remain as traits to trickery I think. The last passive could even be changed to something like rending shade, to turn trickery into a boonsteal traitline. Probably broken but ideas nonetheless.

Agree with initiative. Disagree fully with daze. In fact if the recharge reduction from SoH was baseline but literally everything else on thief stayed the same I’m sure most players would swap to getting ini on wep swap as there’s too much random counter cc in the game and soh procs it every time

Like you said +3 initiative has to be baseline.

But I think steal CD reduction and initiative on steal should definitely stay in trickery, otherwise that traitline would be underpowered.

Now for the replacement for that +3 initiative trait. It should be connected with initiative or steal.

I’ve been running DE on weekend test with Acrobatic trait line and Shadow Art. Surprisingly went well on DE and I didn’t have much issue on initiative costs or have to worries much about Steal (mostly on 1 v 1) but however I found that it was kinda hard to maintenance your initiative points during Z v Z, feel like A-net’s trying to replace Trickery with DE stealth and that must be the reason why they buffed Shadow Art trait line on PoF’s pre-patch, seems like IMO

But.. ye with the other weapon sets it’s just feel bad to run without Trickery ( WvW and PvP ), It’s sucks when they place most of the class’s mechanic on one trait line and is a must for both power and condition builds

(WvW/Dueling perspective).
I agree with you ‘knyy’, ‘Dioxin’ I also agree that shadow arts is flows really nicely into DE. I think given enough time though, should people want to run DE and Shadow arts, they’ll end up having to run trickery for their third trait line. In fact, most decent DE’s that were roaming were running DE/SA/TR.

It would be nice to move away from it.

In competitive dueling or in WvW scenarios, the initiative is so important, it is the difference between using an ability — and therefore being able to deal damage and use the utility attached to a skill — or not. One kneel followed by a three round burst will have you completely initiative starved..now say that three round burst was dodged… you don’t have much left but to retreat or needlessly burn utility skill. You need to have a bit more in your pocket to do fight toe to toe.

Having the extra 3 initiative makes all the difference for flow; it needs to be baseline.

Furthermore, having the daze on steal isn’t very important anymore given the way DE’s steal/mark functions. For often than not, you’ll mark your target straight away before going into attack — it doesn’t mean anything that you daze them when you mark them. Who cares if we lose it? It’s not used as a clutch interrupt anymore, and without pulmonary impact you won’t be getting rewarded for interrupting anyway. And if you’re running shadow arts, and you’re stealth and you mark them, it just lets them know you’re about to open on them haha.. it’s so stupid.

Most thieves are running trickery for the extra 3 initiative.

It’s like saying: Hey, thief is in a good spot, so that’s make the good things from trickery to be baseline so thief will become more survivable and disgusting because now they free up a traitline and can grab something defensive while picking all the offensive procs and Daredevil.

I wish everything in BM from ranger should be baseline so ranger’s pet would be less worthless without BM.

Except BM on ranger isn’t nearly mandatory. There are plenty of builds on ranger that don’t use it and plenty that will continue to not use it. Trickery however is just about as mandatory for a pvp thief spec as mandatory can be. Look at ranger without BM: Their pet still functions, hits enemies with skills, activates it’s own skills, the ranger doesn’t lose access to anything, their cd’s stay the same (Except for shouts) etc.
Take trickery off of thief and you lose 3 initiative and initiative regen on steal, add 10 seconds onto the cd of your class mechanic, lose all ability to boonstrip (Outside of s/d 3 and rev sigs), lose a hard cc, and lose access to boons.

TLDR: BM buffs a mechanic, Trickery makes a mechanic work.