Guild Wars 2

As the title has said, there is still no reason to run Shadow Arts.

I have no idea why the boon rip would be a new GM SA trait that will 100% be outperformed by Shadow Rejuvenation if you were to trait into SA.

Unless you run an older variant of condi thief, nobody plays SA, and the vast majority of condi thieves still dont. Why would I sacrifice anything in DA/Trickery/DD to steal two boons? I can just run S/D coupled with steal and rip all of the boons I want without some backstab penalty or where I have to sacrifice traits to do so.

Dash/Bound > SA
Deadly Arts > SA
Trickery can never be sacrificed therefore > SA.

Nothing has changed other than the ability to spam stealth attacks.

“This update has given a bit more baseline group utility to the thief, without requiring heavy investment via traits.” Except for that part where you have to fully trait into a sub-par traitline to get something that should have been baseline given the new penalty.

See you next nerf and/or bad patch.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4upqgg/rant_the_venomthief_change_was_counterintuitive/

I share your pain here and to be honest I saw a lot of bad changes in the game

But this one takes the cake. It shows that they dont play the game. More then ever.
Im so mad I got a headache

It’s almost like they only thought about D/P and didn’t even consider how this further punished the already lackluster and underused weapon sets.

Shadow Arts is highly effective for one simple reason. Most thieves run one or two long cooldown deception utilities. A 20% reduction on Shadowstep matters. A 20% reduction on Hide in Shadows matters. A 20% reduction on Shadow Refuge matters.

That single trait alone is a reason to run Shadow Arts. Blind on stealth is an exceptional trait. Damage reduction in stealth helps mitigate after you jump in for an attack and then go into stealth as part of your partial disengage. Stealth on steal is an exceptional utility to have.

Given the complaints that have, rightfully, been raised about boons making it hard to manage fighting certain classes…you would think more people would be enthusiastic about making more builds able to steal boons.

saerni.2584:

Shadow Arts is highly effective for one simple reason. Most thieves run one or two long cooldown deception utilities. A 20% reduction on Shadowstep matters. A 20% reduction on Hide in Shadows matters. A 20% reduction on Shadow Refuge matters.

That single trait alone is a reason to run Shadow Arts. Blind on stealth is an exceptional trait. Damage reduction in stealth helps mitigate after you jump in for an attack and then go into stealth as part of your partial disengage. Stealth on steal is an exceptional utility to have.

Given the complaints that have, rightfully, been raised about boons making it hard to manage fighting certain classes…you would think more people would be enthusiastic about making more builds able to steal boons.

My friend I think you didn’t read all the patch notes:
“Stealth Attacks: All stealth attack skills will now have a 1-second recharge between uses.”

This negated that new trait in SA. Never forget to read the fine print or you will regret it.

saerni.2584:

Shadow Arts is highly effective for one simple reason. Most thieves run one or two long cooldown deception utilities. A 20% reduction on Shadowstep matters. A 20% reduction on Hide in Shadows matters. A 20% reduction on Shadow Refuge matters.

That single trait alone is a reason to run Shadow Arts. Blind on stealth is an exceptional trait. Damage reduction in stealth helps mitigate after you jump in for an attack and then go into stealth as part of your partial disengage. Stealth on steal is an exceptional utility to have.

Given the complaints that have, rightfully, been raised about boons making it hard to manage fighting certain classes…you would think more people would be enthusiastic about making more builds able to steal boons.

There tremendous boon theft potential if one takes bountiful theft and traits hidden thief and Rending. I am going to muck around a bit with the trait as I am curious as to which boons get priority.

The 10 percent damage reduction from boonless opponents also interesting. How often this comes into play will require testing but if one has weakening strikes, damage reduction food and uses unhindered there considerable reduction going on.

Testing needed of course to see if it at all practical.

>>My friend I think you didn’t read all the patch notes:
“Stealth Attacks: All stealth attack skills will now have a 1-second recharge between uses.”

How does this negate the new trait?

If i make an attack from stealth I steal 2 boons. I am revealed in any case so the 1 second cooldown does nothing in that instance. The reveal last longer than that cooldown.

The 1 second cooldown only affects me IF i am in stealth and make an attack and am blocked. Previously I would remain stealthed and just make another attack. Now you have to wait a second.

Yeah, the “nerf” to stealth attacks is slight really. Especially with basi-venom making attacks unblockable. I agree it came out of nowhere…but I’m tempted by the extra boon strip on power builds. I’m tempted by the combo reason to now take shadow arts and reduce the cost of venoms.

People often lose fights because they take a lot of damage after being stunned, or stopped in place. Lots of new opportunities to slow down, impair, and otherwise stop opponents in the new SA line. Maybe some more people will start running it?

saerni.2584:

Yeah, the “nerf” to stealth attacks is slight really. Especially with basi-venom making attacks unblockable. I agree it came out of nowhere…but I’m tempted by the extra boon strip on power builds. I’m tempted by the combo reason to now take shadow arts and reduce the cost of venoms.

People often lose fights because they take a lot of damage after being stunned, or stopped in place. Lots of new opportunities to slow down, impair, and otherwise stop opponents in the new SA line. Maybe some more people will start running it?

An SA build does pretty good in PvP. It’s basically SA/TR/DD, using rending shade, and then in daredevil running pulm and bound. I use Havoc mastery (The point of those traits is to try and regain damage loss from SA). It pretty much shuts down druids and eles. At the start of the game I was able to 1v1 a druid, taking far, head to mid and then pretty much shut down the ele, allowing my team to burst them. It’s definitely an interesting build to run. (Although I still think I prefer DA over SA) I think it could very well make some build diversity.

I’m not stressing too much about the 1-second cooldown. You just need decent timing. Overall, I’m not too worried about the state of thief.

Yeah high stability uptime on many builds and or resistance can seriously affect P/P hybrid as can resistance on warrior.

Bounding dodger with my p/p set might work nicely here. I was using pressure strike in the build which of course made it hard to get past stability. Now Sigil of Absorption priortizes resistance but if the warrior has stability up I can not get past that. This might give me a means of doing that. Get the stabilty off with RA then use interrupt and steal resistance as torment applied.

babazhook.6805:

Yeah high stability uptime on many builds and or resistance can seriously affect P/P hybrid as can resistance on warrior.

Bounding dodger with my p/p set might work nicely here. I was using pressure strike in the build which of course made it hard to get past stability. Now Sigil of Absorption priortizes resistance but if the warrior has stability up I can not get past that. This might give me a means of doing that. Get the stabilty off with RA then use interrupt and steal resistance as torment applied.

Someone looking at the positives and the possibilities with what we now have. <applauds>

I hope more people try this terrible traitline so I can continue to 1 burst bad thieves.

Mordecai.6318:

As the title has said, there is still no reason to run Shadow Arts.

I have no idea why the boon rip would be a new GM SA trait that will 100% be outperformed by Shadow Rejuvenation if you were to trait into SA.

That’s a common misconception. SR is not a staple trait since it encourages inactive game play. For players who plays actively, meaning less time staying in stealth, most of the time they ran Venom builds. VA was a bad GM trait but we have no choice not to pick it because they tied the venom CDR to it. With this patch deleting a long hated trait (VA), RS is a good GM trait replacement for Venom builds since the other GM does nothing for these builds. So, contrary to your belief, there are many incentives to spec for SA.

Unless you run an older variant of condi thief, nobody plays SA, and the vast majority of condi thieves still dont. Why would I sacrifice anything in DA/Trickery/DD to steal two boons? I can just run S/D coupled with steal and rip all of the boons I want without some backstab penalty or where I have to sacrifice traits to do so.

That’s a very narrow perspective on what RS is all about. Why should I run S/D to steal boons if I can keep my D/P (which is superior to S/D) and still able to steal boons? In addition, S/D has nothing to offer to my condition damage build, which has no way of stripping Resistance if RS do not exist. RS is good trait for my P/P Trapper Hybrid also since it gives this build a way to deal with boons without needing to equip S/D since I use P/P + D/D in this build.

Trickery can never be sacrificed therefore > SA.

Trickery has nothing to offer in many builds. Why do you think DA/CS/DD (power builds) even exist? And DA/SA/DD (venom build)?

Except for that part where you have to fully trait into a sub-par traitline to get something that should have been baseline given the new penalty.

If you’re talking about Trickery, I 100% agree with you. Preparedness should be base line and Steal should be 21s CD untraited. With boon strip capability in SA, there’s really no reason to spec for Trick other than for those two.

I’m pretty much using SA for only one trait now, which is Leeching Venoms. I don’t even like stealth. Wish they would move it to Deadly Arts where it belongs. I should probably just forget about my support venom share build at this point till that happens. Pretty disappointing at the moment.

Ripping 2 boons means jack kitten in the current boon-spam meta, it’s worth a minor or adept trait at best. Now if it had a special effect that prevented the 2 stolen boons from being reapplied by your opponent for X seconds, it might be worth another look.

zedapoc.1493:

Ripping 2 boons means jack kitten in the current boon-spam meta, it’s worth a minor or adept trait at best. Now if it had a special effect that prevented the 2 stolen boons from being reapplied by your opponent for X seconds, it might be worth another look.

Making their boon re-appliance have a delay would be nice because you’re right, ripping a couple of boons currently seems to go unnoticed by most of my targets and just as consequence of my usual build I have Bountiful Theft, Larcenous Strike, and sometimes Sigil of Absorption at the same time. The only times that boon jacking really feels like an advantage to me is when I’m basically getting a one-two shot kill before they know what’s up which is how we get people asking for nerfs on the forums.

i wonder how does that boon reaping work with sneak attack, 10 boons stolen? xD

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Mordecai.6318:

As the title has said, there is still no reason to run Shadow Arts.

I have no idea why the boon rip would be a new GM SA trait that will 100% be outperformed by Shadow Rejuvenation if you were to trait into SA.

That’s a common misconception. SR is not a staple trait since it encourages inactive game play. For players who plays actively, meaning less time staying in stealth, most of the time they ran Venom builds. VA was a bad GM trait but we have no choice not to pick it because they tied the venom CDR to it. With this patch deleting a long hated trait (VA), RS is a good GM trait replacement for Venom builds since the other GM does nothing for these builds. So, contrary to your belief, there are many incentives to spec for SA.

Unless you run an older variant of condi thief, nobody plays SA, and the vast majority of condi thieves still dont. Why would I sacrifice anything in DA/Trickery/DD to steal two boons? I can just run S/D coupled with steal and rip all of the boons I want without some backstab penalty or where I have to sacrifice traits to do so.

That’s a very narrow perspective on what RS is all about. Why should I run S/D to steal boons if I can keep my D/P (which is superior to S/D) and still able to steal boons? In addition, S/D has nothing to offer to my condition damage build, which has no way of stripping Resistance if RS do not exist. RS is good trait for my P/P Trapper Hybrid also since it gives this build a way to deal with boons without needing to equip S/D since I use P/P + D/D in this build.

Trickery can never be sacrificed therefore > SA.

Trickery has nothing to offer in many builds. Why do you think DA/CS/DD (power builds) even exist? And DA/SA/DD (venom build)?

Except for that part where you have to fully trait into a sub-par traitline to get something that should have been baseline given the new penalty.

If you’re talking about Trickery, I 100% agree with you. Preparedness should be base line and Steal should be 21s CD untraited. With boon strip capability in SA, there’s really no reason to spec for Trick other than for those two.

All of your points are negated by how effortlessly it is to avoid the 1, sometimes 2 backstab attempts you get. It was easy before the patch, but now its incredibly easy with both active/passive blocks and just general knowledge of the game. Most thieves are predictable in their openings and more often than not you can count to 3 and dodge and most thieves will miss. Tack on that extra second now and you have just wasted your initiative and stealth.

And if you think insta boon rip/daze are inferior to a non-insta, situational attack that doesn’t CC your enemy then I feel like you’re missing out. The boon rip should be baseline with the new cool-down, even if it was only 1 boon. The fact is, you’re losing too much by running anything other than DA/DD/Trick. That’s just reality. The rest are gimmick builds.

Mordecai.6318:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Mordecai.6318:

As the title has said, there is still no reason to run Shadow Arts.

I have no idea why the boon rip would be a new GM SA trait that will 100% be outperformed by Shadow Rejuvenation if you were to trait into SA.

That’s a common misconception. SR is not a staple trait since it encourages inactive game play. For players who plays actively, meaning less time staying in stealth, most of the time they ran Venom builds. VA was a bad GM trait but we have no choice not to pick it because they tied the venom CDR to it. With this patch deleting a long hated trait (VA), RS is a good GM trait replacement for Venom builds since the other GM does nothing for these builds. So, contrary to your belief, there are many incentives to spec for SA.

Unless you run an older variant of condi thief, nobody plays SA, and the vast majority of condi thieves still dont. Why would I sacrifice anything in DA/Trickery/DD to steal two boons? I can just run S/D coupled with steal and rip all of the boons I want without some backstab penalty or where I have to sacrifice traits to do so.

That’s a very narrow perspective on what RS is all about. Why should I run S/D to steal boons if I can keep my D/P (which is superior to S/D) and still able to steal boons? In addition, S/D has nothing to offer to my condition damage build, which has no way of stripping Resistance if RS do not exist. RS is good trait for my P/P Trapper Hybrid also since it gives this build a way to deal with boons without needing to equip S/D since I use P/P + D/D in this build.

Trickery can never be sacrificed therefore > SA.

Trickery has nothing to offer in many builds. Why do you think DA/CS/DD (power builds) even exist? And DA/SA/DD (venom build)?

Except for that part where you have to fully trait into a sub-par traitline to get something that should have been baseline given the new penalty.

If you’re talking about Trickery, I 100% agree with you. Preparedness should be base line and Steal should be 21s CD untraited. With boon strip capability in SA, there’s really no reason to spec for Trick other than for those two.

All of your points are negated by how effortlessly it is to avoid the 1, sometimes 2 backstab attempts you get. It was easy before the patch, but now its incredibly easy with both active/passive blocks and just general knowledge of the game. Most thieves are predictable in their openings and more often than not you can count to 3 and dodge and most thieves will miss. Tack on that extra second now and you have just wasted your initiative and stealth.

Count 3 and dodge? Really?

Based on the “general knowledge of the game”, a Thief can strike from 0 to 2 seconds given the fact that Backstab has a 0.25 casting time. If a Thief Backstab at the 3rd second, they will definitely miss and that’s a noob mistake.

If the Thief waits 3 seconds to execute a Backstab, the added extra second means nothing because either they hit with the BS, meaning they get Revealed, or they missed and ran out of stealth and it takes longer than 1s to get back to stealth, which again the added second is meaningless.

So to me, your knowledge of the Thief is lacking which seems to be the reason why you’re saying what you’re saying — statements from an ill-informed perspective.

And if you think insta boon rip/daze are inferior to a non-insta, situational attack that doesn’t CC your enemy then I feel like you’re missing out. The boon rip should be baseline with the new cool-down, even if it was only 1 boon. The fact is, you’re losing too much by running anything other than DA/DD/Trick. That’s just reality. The rest are gimmick builds.

Losing too much what? Even if you build DA/DD/Trick, if you cannot remove that pesky Aegis and Protection, you’re damage output is effectively at least 33% less against that target. Your Backstab is but a wet noodle against a brick wall. Making boon-strip baseline would mean that ArenaNet would have to nerf all our damage output just to balance it — in my opinion, that’s a bad direction to take.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Mordecai.6318:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Mordecai.6318:

As the title has said, there is still no reason to run Shadow Arts.

I have no idea why the boon rip would be a new GM SA trait that will 100% be outperformed by Shadow Rejuvenation if you were to trait into SA.

That’s a common misconception. SR is not a staple trait since it encourages inactive game play. For players who plays actively, meaning less time staying in stealth, most of the time they ran Venom builds. VA was a bad GM trait but we have no choice not to pick it because they tied the venom CDR to it. With this patch deleting a long hated trait (VA), RS is a good GM trait replacement for Venom builds since the other GM does nothing for these builds. So, contrary to your belief, there are many incentives to spec for SA.

Unless you run an older variant of condi thief, nobody plays SA, and the vast majority of condi thieves still dont. Why would I sacrifice anything in DA/Trickery/DD to steal two boons? I can just run S/D coupled with steal and rip all of the boons I want without some backstab penalty or where I have to sacrifice traits to do so.

That’s a very narrow perspective on what RS is all about. Why should I run S/D to steal boons if I can keep my D/P (which is superior to S/D) and still able to steal boons? In addition, S/D has nothing to offer to my condition damage build, which has no way of stripping Resistance if RS do not exist. RS is good trait for my P/P Trapper Hybrid also since it gives this build a way to deal with boons without needing to equip S/D since I use P/P + D/D in this build.

Trickery can never be sacrificed therefore > SA.

Trickery has nothing to offer in many builds. Why do you think DA/CS/DD (power builds) even exist? And DA/SA/DD (venom build)?

Except for that part where you have to fully trait into a sub-par traitline to get something that should have been baseline given the new penalty.

If you’re talking about Trickery, I 100% agree with you. Preparedness should be base line and Steal should be 21s CD untraited. With boon strip capability in SA, there’s really no reason to spec for Trick other than for those two.

All of your points are negated by how effortlessly it is to avoid the 1, sometimes 2 backstab attempts you get. It was easy before the patch, but now its incredibly easy with both active/passive blocks and just general knowledge of the game. Most thieves are predictable in their openings and more often than not you can count to 3 and dodge and most thieves will miss. Tack on that extra second now and you have just wasted your initiative and stealth.

Count 3 and dodge? Really?

Based on the “general knowledge of the game”, a Thief can strike from 0 to 2 seconds given the fact that Backstab has a 0.25 casting time. If a Thief Backstab at the 3rd second, they will definitely miss and that’s a noob mistake.

If the Thief waits 3 seconds to execute a Backstab, the added extra second means nothing because either they hit with the BS, meaning they get Revealed, or they missed and ran out of stealth and it takes longer than 1s to get back to stealth, which again the added second is meaningless.

So to me, your knowledge of the Thief is lacking which seems to be the reason why you’re saying what you’re saying — statements from an ill-informed perspective.

And if you think insta boon rip/daze are inferior to a non-insta, situational attack that doesn’t CC your enemy then I feel like you’re missing out. The boon rip should be baseline with the new cool-down, even if it was only 1 boon. The fact is, you’re losing too much by running anything other than DA/DD/Trick. That’s just reality. The rest are gimmick builds.

Losing too much what? Even if you build DA/DD/Trick, if you cannot remove that pesky Aegis and Protection, you’re damage output is effectively at least 33% less against that target. Your Backstab is but a wet noodle against a brick wall. Making boon-strip baseline would mean that ArenaNet would have to nerf all our damage output just to balance it — in my opinion, that’s a bad direction to take.

I understand that text has no tone, but what I said was an exaggerated version of what really happens. However, the 1, 2, 3 thing works (generally) and has worked forever. There’s context to it, which is where I brought up awful thieves. Most of them leap 2-3 times, run up on you, and spam 1. By the time the visual indicator of their field goes away, I can generally speaking, wait 1-2 seconds and dodge. Amonatory and I were counting out loud last night and laughing at the thieves we encountered.

But since you want to be dense:
The point is that given positioning, your health, their health, their boons, the amount of stealth, dodges (which could be a ton cause thief), cooldowns, traps, how many people they have, what they had for breakfast, etc. are all variables that can ruin that entire trait. Backstabbing is now clunky and your opportunities to make that trait viable aren’t good. Amon and I duo roam on 2 thieves and 90% of the time are fighting 4-7 people. Sorry, but thats a ton of cleave, reveal, and burst I can take at any second. I need to get in and get out, but the timer makes that even harder. A kitten trait in a kitten line doesn’t change that.

And I remove aegis/protection all the time running the meta trait setup What are you talking about?

Real talk, most thieves didn’t go for the immediate backstab (most actually don’t even backstab since it’s a burst loss for D/P) and the ones who did often waited between 2 and 3 seconds to hit it. With SA out of the meta due to DrD, dodging on 2.25 made backstab very easy to avoid.

It didn’t need an ICD. Shadow Shot needed a nerf.

DeceiverX.8361:

Real talk, most thieves didn’t go for the immediate backstab (most actually don’t even backstab since it’s a burst loss for D/P) and the ones who did often waited between 2 and 3 seconds to hit it. With SA out of the meta due to DrD, dodging on 2.25 made backstab very easy to avoid.

It didn’t need an ICD. Shadow Shot needed a nerf.

Thank you. You get it.

Mordecai.6318:

I understand that text has no tone, but what I said was an exaggerated version of what really happens. However, the 1, 2, 3 thing works (generally) and has worked forever. There’s context to it, which is where I brought up awful thieves. Most of them leap 2-3 times, run up on you, and spam 1. By the time the visual indicator of their field goes away, I can generally speaking, wait 1-2 seconds and dodge. Amonatory and I were counting out loud last night and laughing at the thieves we encountered.

I would agree with the context of “awful thieves” only because leaping 2-3 times extends stealth for more than 3 seconds, thus backstabbing after 3 seconds only happened when playing against “awful thieves”.

But since you want to be dense:
The point is that given positioning, your health, their health, their boons, the amount of stealth, dodges (which could be a ton cause thief), cooldowns, traps, how many people they have, what they had for breakfast, etc. are all variables that can ruin that entire trait. Backstabbing is now clunky and your opportunities to make that trait viable aren’t good. Amon and I duo roam on 2 thieves and 90% of the time are fighting 4-7 people. Sorry, but thats a ton of cleave, reveal, and burst I can take at any second. I need to get in and get out, but the timer makes that even harder. A kitten trait in a kitten line doesn’t change that.

You get in, backstab, get out. When exactly does the 1s CD makes it even harder? HS to Smoke has at least 1s of animation, which means your stealth attack is out of CD. Revealed is 3s (4s in PvP) which also mean that your stealth attack is out of CD. And if this 1-2-3 counting theory is to be believed, that’s 3s wait before a stealth attack, meaning the stealth attack is out of CD. Which clearly have been the case for me.

And I remove aegis/protection all the time running the meta trait setup What are you talking about?

The trait was not for you thus the incentive is not for you. Saying, “there’s zero incentives to run SA” — that question is for you to answer; What are you talking about?

EDIT: typos

I haven’t run SA in a long time as I found it lacking particularly since the Acro trait rework. With the new ICD on stealth attack, it is really taking a beating.

I am thankful more thieves haven’t abandoned the line in WvW though. The non-stealth variants are far more dangerous.

Straegen.2938:

I haven’t run SA in a long time as I found it lacking particularly since the Acro trait rework. With the new ICD on stealth attack, it is really taking a beating.

I am thankful more thieves haven’t abandoned the line in WvW though. The non-stealth variants are far more dangerous.

They are more dangerous, but they are more rewarding too after you get used to playing them. That was the reason I left SA behind when I realized that traitline would keep me in the comfort zone, but at the end of the day it lacked what it needed to get the job done. Maybe it’ll get better with these new changes, I have yet to try it myself though.

Does anyone have a half decent build that’s good against things other than other thieves anymore? Everytime I find a build that gives me like a 50/50 chance of making it through a 1v1, anet nukes it.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You get in, backstab, get out. When exactly does the 1s CD makes it even harder? HS to Smoke has at least 1s of animation, which means your stealth attack is out of CD. Revealed is 3s (4s in PvP) which also mean that your stealth attack is out of CD. And if this 1-2-3 counting theory is to be believed, that’s 3s wait before a stealth attack, meaning the stealth attack is out of CD. Which clearly have been the case for me.

Because when your backstab misses, you could try again right away, now you need to wait a second, it makes a big difference.

Zsymon.8457:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You get in, backstab, get out. When exactly does the 1s CD makes it even harder? HS to Smoke has at least 1s of animation, which means your stealth attack is out of CD. Revealed is 3s (4s in PvP) which also mean that your stealth attack is out of CD. And if this 1-2-3 counting theory is to be believed, that’s 3s wait before a stealth attack, meaning the stealth attack is out of CD. Which clearly have been the case for me.

Because when your backstab misses, you could try again right away, now you need to wait a second, it makes a big difference.

Perhaps the difference in my play style is that I don’t Backstab if I know I will miss. Even if I missed somehow, it’s must be due to a counter play and that counter should be rewarded. If that reward means that my Backstab goes to 1s cooldown, then I don’t see it as a bad thing. I should only have one chance to Backstab, so I have to make sure it counts. Stealth attack should have a higher skill cap to filter out the baddies.

Doggie.3184:

I’m pretty much using SA for only one trait now, which is Leeching Venoms. I don’t even like stealth. Wish they would move it to Deadly Arts where it belongs. I should probably just forget about my support venom share build at this point till that happens. Pretty disappointing at the moment.

Soz to rez the thread but I’ve just come back from a 3-4 month break, been reading the Thief section catching up for the last hour or so, and have to agree with this. It’s so disheartening after time away from the game to come back and find my main build in PvE gutted. I just don’t get why Anet keep doing such sweeping changes and completely destroying builds people have been using for years JUST like you always seem to do with these updates.

Not everything revolves around kittening PvP and you have already split skill recharge between PvE/PvP on certain skills, why can’t this happen with skill functionality and/or traits now? I play almost entirely open world PvE with a small group of friends. I don’t want/need to stealth. I don’t want/need to rip boons. I want to run around with my buds and have fun while supporting them with VS and some great venom’s.

You act like making the share baseline is this awesome change we should be grateful for….then you kittening rip 33% off the AoE so I have to act like a friggin Empathy Healer in CoH and call “Venoms are up guyz!!!” just so I don’t waste the kittening things, you nerf the stacks, the might share…and then to top it off I have to spec in SA just for one trait to get the recharge to the point where they are worth taking in the first place.

KITTEN!!!!

Apologies to the forum and section for the ranty nature of this, and again the thread rez, but kitten me. So disheartening to come back looking forward to the LS and just playing again to have the carpet ripped out from under me.

“log out” “character selection” “any class other than my main”

i think the whole SA traitline needs to be rework, everything is scatter all over the place. some traits are pretty weak on theyre own, which makes the whole traitline not worth at all. so, why not join some traits together and bring back some of the old ones.
give me a reason to pick shadow arts, its suppose to be our defensive traitline.

for example, join this traits together:

Last Refuge and Concealed Defeat. just take away, Create a smoke screen when downed.
Shadow’s Embrace and Shadow’s Rejuvenation.
Meld with Shadows and Resilience of Shadows.
Merciful Ambush and Shadow Protector.

Bring back some of the old traits and/or add them to the current existing ones.

Long Reach
Combined Training
Combo Critical Chance
Hidden Assassin
Infusion of the Shadow

etc… lost my thought because of a phone call XD

I love when people say “this trait line doesn’t work for any build I run now, so it’s completely useless.”

Take for example Cloaked in Shadow. I’ve heard so many thieves asking for this to be made baseline by integrating it with Cloak and Dagger. This is a mixed defense-offense trait that improves survivability and helps guarantee stomps because the blind is AoE.

Rending Shade is good. If you don’t feel you need the extra defense then take this instead because it turns stealth attacks into a force for increasing your damage. Do you know how many perma protection, perma swiftness, perma regeneration builds there are right now? You do soooo much more damage with this trait. Any boon reliant build is going to really feel this trait.

A free stealth on steal is nothing to laugh at. Many thieves run with the reduced cooldowns for steal so this is a free stealth every 20 seconds. Again, when thieves ask for new baseline abilities they want an on demand low cooldown stealth. To me this fits the bill quite well. But lets continue to pretend that SA is a useless specialization line.

Concealed Defeat isn’t terrible either. People just don’t know how to use it because no one knows how it works. First, the cooldown reduction is gold hands down. Shadowstep needs the cooldown reduction of 10 seconds it gets from this trait. The smoke screen can be comboed with blast finishers to stealth everyone around and help get a res off. It also blocks projectiles so it limits the kind of damage that a downed and ally will be taking while resing.

You can either take a defensive trait line or none at all. Your choices are Acrobatics or SA. Just because Acro (combo with daredevil) is overtuned does not justify power creeping SA.

Daredevil should be the “endurance regen and extra dodges line.” Acro should be the “gain benefits from dodging and evading line.” This is the only way to balance 100% uptime vigor with 75% effectiveness increase. Anet buffed Acro because it was useless and then gave us another Acro style line. The lines got blurred and now we have two strong and synergetic trait lines. Rebalance those trait lines, as part of a game wide rebalance of elites, and SA will be back to being “desirable.”

SA is still useable in a lot of builds I was using it a lot recently then I wanted more of a challenge, now with the Nerf to Stealth attacks SA helps land Backstabs more effectively and allows for more pressure on players especially against Condi Users. It is still most effective with D/P like every other build.

They do need to change the trait lines, and finally clarify what they want the Thief to be, as it sits with Stealth being its arguably biggest class mechanic but has the biggest nerfs through out the games histories and other classes getting better access to stealth/better stealth skills with little to no investment.

2 words….permanent stealth

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

2 words….permanent stealth

A lot of players don’t like that cheese build, and it doesn’t kill anyone that has half a brain. It’s fun to dink around with especially with a few friends but isn’t a good build and is easily counter able.

Jumping in and out of stealth is more terrifying. It also lets you attack from multiple directions, giving them less sense of where you are.

Sure perma stealth is possible. But it is hardly terror inducing.

And besides, GW2 fashion wouldn’t be important if they can’t see you ever.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

2 words….permanent stealth

A lot of players don’t like that cheese build, and it doesn’t kill anyone that has half a brain. It’s fun to dink around with especially with a few friends but isn’t a good build and is easily counter able.

Oh shush, you know how much of an advantage SA gave you when we dueled :P

It’s a strong dueling trait line if played with camping stealth, which is thus dependent on abusing OH pistol, particularly through D/P. Otherwise, it has next to no overall purpose.

Daredevil took away its redeeming facets and Acro is now a tough competitor as a generic defensive line and has much more to synergy with Daredevil since it potentially enables double-dipping and stacking evasion into ridiculousness.

Without Daredevil, it’d still be a very usable trait line and one taken in most builds. Nothing’s really nerfed SA – if anything, the ICD buffed it relative to other lines since that extra 1s is huge – it’s just that the daredevil is so massively powercreeped and builds so easily into spamming evasion that the gains from SA are negligible.

DeceiverX.8361:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

2 words….permanent stealth

A lot of players don’t like that cheese build, and it doesn’t kill anyone that has half a brain. It’s fun to dink around with especially with a few friends but isn’t a good build and is easily counter able.

Oh shush, you know how much of an advantage SA gave you when we dueled :P

It’s a strong dueling trait line if played with camping stealth, which is thus dependent on abusing OH pistol, particularly through D/P. Otherwise, it has next to no overall purpose.

Daredevil took away its redeeming facets and Acro is now a tough competitor as a generic defensive line and has much more to synergy with Daredevil since it potentially enables double-dipping and stacking evasion into ridiculousness.

Without Daredevil, it’d still be a very usable trait line and one taken in most builds. Nothing’s really nerfed SA – if anything, the ICD buffed it relative to other lines since that extra 1s is huge – it’s just that the daredevil is so massively powercreeped and builds so easily into spamming evasion that the gains from SA are negligible.

Yes it gave me an Advantage because I used it for tactical reasons, he was referring to the Gjost Thief build he plays in WvW, he literally made a post about it yesterday bahahah that’s the cheese I was talking about. I still use SA if I find my Yolo style is ad a loss, in WvW and PvP I have been running Da/CS/Tri with Zerker stats in PvP and Assassins in WvW, and I still abuse stealth as in our duels hahaha.

Yes the extra second is amazing now since the ICD on stealth attacks, plus it has great defensive purposes still and allows for more tactical gameplay at the loss of some burst and survivability, it just vies for the same slot as DD, if we didn’t have to rely on Trick Da/SA/DD would be a great build, or CS/SA/DD would be good as well it’s just we can’t give up Trickery so it limits what builds are effective in today’s power creep.

saerni.2584:

I love when people say “this trait line doesn’t work for any build I run now, so it’s completely useless.”

In the context of PvE, more so those using VS before the change, they are right though which must be taken into consideration with many of the responses I have read. ALL those GM’s are trash…..unless people like to run perma-stealth gank builds in PvE?

“Dude….you just totally rekt that mob, what a duel.”

As such it’s more than justified for a lot of players to say it’s complete trash outside the context of sPvP or WvW. Within those game types I’d totally agree with you. I burnt out on PvP a couple of years ago but even so I can more than see the potential of the spec for PvP, more so with your well written points.

In saying it just seems counter-intuitive to have Leeching Venom’s and venom recharge reduction, outside Basilisk spikes, in a spec so focused on stealth and therefore by association so exclusively relevant to power and/or DPS builds as opposed to conditions and that seems to be the crutch of the argument many have from what I have read here over the last couple of days while playing catch up.

I know as a PvP guy that might mean kitten all to you but to the PvE Thieves that used and enjoyed the build it’s a pretty massive nerf, especially when adding the reduced AoE, stacks, etc to the equation. The build was pretty much killed in exchange for PvPers having boon steal and AoE share on Basilisk for free.

So yeah, for many it’s garbage, but maybe if it’s not relevant to PvP it’s a non-issue?

I think it’s ok to have trait lines that are always more useful for one game mode versus another. Desirable, even, since it makes balance easier.

Newbie Thief: Sa is a must long stealth + healthregen -20% deception skill shorter SR

Advanced thief: Sa is foor noobs I survive without sa and i have more damage with DA. You all stealth spammer SA noobs get gud

Master Thief: SA is a must because only reasonable condi cleanse, teamsupport, Shadow rejuvenation also regens initative…

If u think SA is bad u are right, but its still a must because cleanse, SA thieves can get the fights with cancer builds, full dps cant full dps thief dies against boon cancer druid sa thief can survive can win(rather leace him tho)

Seeing all these YT or twitch guys kitten evryone with trickery daredevil Deadly arts ?
They die to condis in seconds they die in 3vs1 in a second.

U can say ah u are a naab get cleanse on evade u loose pulmonary , pulmonary become an important damage with hot.

Talking about PvP/WvW ( i dont do pve but for solo i would take SA there too)

Menyus.4610:

Newbie Thief: Sa is a must long stealth + healthregen -20% deception skill shorter SR

Advanced thief: Sa is foor noobs I survive without sa and i have more damage with DA. You all stealth spammer SA noobs get gud

Master Thief: SA is a must because only reasonable condi cleanse, teamsupport, Shadow rejuvenation also regens initative…

If u think SA is bad u are right, but its still a must because cleanse, SA thieves can get the fights with cancer builds, full dps cant full dps thief dies against boon cancer druid sa thief can survive can win(rather leace him tho)

Seeing all these YT or twitch guys kitten evryone with trickery daredevil Deadly arts ?
They die to condis in seconds they die in 3vs1 in a second.

U can say ah u are a naab get cleanse on evade u loose pulmonary , pulmonary become an important damage with hot.

Talking about PvP/WvW ( i dont do pve but for solo i would take SA there too)

I’ve found it a bit difficult, in our servers matchups anyway, to drop Pulmonary. I’ve gone back to my Acro,Trick, DD build for Pain Response, S/D #2 condition clear isn’t as handy as it used to be since it puts me right back into the soup. I agree, cleanse on evade is nice and it’s consistent but those interrupts, as detrimental as they can be currently, still keep the pressure on and a nice group interrupt can push your squad forward while giving you full health with draining sigil.

100% stealth uptime is great and you would surprised on the “terror” levels of my targets. It is a slower process I will admit and I mistake that reveals you will cause you possible death. It amazing how bad you can troll a group with it…even inside their own camps. PvP its great to catch someone between points but capping is a bit harder (I tend to just decap and bail). Its great when no one sees you so don’t try to interrupt you or teleport away when they are downed. Also good at keeping 2/3 ppl in one spot as ya bug em to the point they just want you dead.

Hotjoin, as I found out last night…the build effectiveness not the fact that hotjoin exists…it was extremely effective. Set up a condi burst and watch them down and stomped…all without not seeing you. There was a crazy mess in a room where there was no “official” duel but a free for all…couldn’t tell ya how effective and trolly it was there.

WvW its a bit slower, however even if they ran, once I got them immob, more often than not you can stay on them and down them.

You need a lot of patience for this but its very rewarding. It may be cheese but you do need a bit of skill vs good players as you need to stealth at the right locations at the right time.

SA is great and even though not every build needs it, those that have it make great use of it. Extra stealth on everything you do. People cannot kill what they cannot see.

If you build high DPS (meaning boring auto-attacks), then SA is a DPS loss for that build and you’re better off with evade as defense. That’s why SA sucks for them.

If you build burst, then SA is the best in delivering a burst damage which includes a reliable defensive mechanic.

However, in any form of PvP, stealth is very easy to counter and more often the counter is self-inflicted that running SA doesn’t make any sense. That’s where the dilemma comes in. Stealth + burst is a really good combo in PvP, however it comes with a high risk that a single counter can destroy the whole stealth build. So should you take the risk and run SA, or opt-in for a more safer build built around evade? In any case, SA is a good traitline, but rather limiting in build diversity.