Guild Wars 2

So many poor traits and utilities.. I wont adress the increased number of additional issues upcoming December 10th.

If I’d pop Haste, I’m highly vulnerable to high damage and CC since I can’t dodge, and it’s a stunbreak? idk, but times when I pop a stunbreak I do it to avoid the follow ups. If I pop Haste, I can easily be CC’d for the whole duration because no dodge and no really good way to avoid it except S/P #3 and #2 or stealth(lulz). For this utility to work at all I’m forced to use Signet of Agility, which takes up an additional utility slot, 2 utilities to get a bit better reward than using 1, when I trigger 2 utilities, I want the 2 utilities be worth 2 utilities. -50% stun duration on haste maybe?

Assassins Signet: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Taking-a-closer-look-at-Assassin-s-signet
The active is carried by traits, traits should buff viable utilities not make poor utilities viable, at least that’s the impression this game has given me when I’ve played other classes, I felt I had a lot more options when playing other classes.

Traps, they trigger once and that’s it, I want to see traps made worthwhile. 3 seconds of immobilize, more often doesn’t turn a fight or affect it much. I wish Needle trap would stay up after being triggered to cripple who ever walks over it without dodging, making it a more useful tool. Tripwire, meh, I like the idea of it, and it’s indeed subtle and assassinish, but it’s not worth an utility slot in its current state. The added vulnerability from traits makes them pretty ok, oh carried by traits again ! oohooohhh.
Cast time on the stun break from Shadow Trap? Gotta be the only stunbreak in the game which is tied to a cast time, and getting interrupted destroys the trap, sure high distance, whatabout mesmers who can put portals on top of the end of the world, and teleport over any rock and mountain escaping any situation (fought a mesmer like this the other day and was truly annoying).

Venoms, they can be overpowered when used with venomshare and a necromancer or with thieves guild solo. But whatabout the thieves defence ? ouch. No condition removal, no stunbreaks, no teleport, no stealth, nothing if I’d wish to use more than 2 venoms, which I think I should be able to after dedicating 2 whole traitlines for them. If I make a build fully dedicated to venoms, once the venoms are shared to the group I feel useless.

Steal, I still feel the class mechanism should be improved, not buffed, not nerfed, but changed and improved and made more versatile.

Pistol Auto-Attack meh.. I think P/D should be split from P/P.

Engineer Stolen Ability, engineers usually roflstomp us with high burst and CC, and they do so without even trying hard, I’d find it really handy if we stole a shield instead, like the one from their toolkit or their Big Ol’ Bomb.

Deadly Arts, I think this traitline should have more options dedicated to control.
Would be really fun, for me at least, to win by maintaining control of my enemy, weakening him in several ways to make it harder for him to strike back, exposing his armor making him take more damage, while making brutal sustained dmg. I can see that idea behind the traitline, but it just feels lackluster currently.

Now I’ll list some traits I find poor, just from the DA line since my time is quite limited for now.

• DA – I – Backfighting (50% increased damage when downed) Are you joking?
• DA – II – Corrosive Traps (adds 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8s when traps are triggered) Traps are just not worthwhile.
• DA – IV – Venomous Strength (2 might 20s on venom trigger) It’s ok, but not really much unless you run with venoms in 4 slots.
• DA – V – Potent poisons (33% increased poison duration) Too high access or too low access for it to be useful
• DA – VI – Sundering Strikes (Critical Hits have 33% chance to add 10s of vulnerability) Unsure about this one, haven’t tested it enough, but I do find it quite costly to pick.
• DA – VIII – Quick Venoms (-20% venom cooldown), for now I feel venom builds rely so much on the venoms that they have too long cd and 20% is not enough.
• DA – IX – Dagger Training (5% increased dagger dmg) I just find this one quite boring, but yet it’s one of the best to pick for a dagger build, it doesn’t make much difference though unless you stack up lots of dmg modifiers.
• DA – X – Combined Training (5% increased dmg on dual skills) Just as boring as DT, but only affects #3, this one for S/x and P/P.
• DA – XI – Panic Strike (Immobilize for 4s when a target falls beneath 50%) My grandmaster trait is countered by 1 mere condition cleanse?! Blasphemy.
• DA – XII – Residual Venoms (1 extra stack of each venom) surely is strong if used right with a venom share build, but I don’t really feel as punished for not picking it as I do for instance with Hidden Killer or Sleight of Hand in different builds, in fact I feel more punished for picking it since I don’t get 3 more ini, feline grace, or opportunist.

Almost every trait yeah, but not any of the minor ones, Lotus Poison is quite poor though, effective for well.. 4 seconds if you Gas field a group.

Sure, I may be wrong about something, but this is what I feel about all these after trying out a lot of build combinations, in the end I usually end up with the same builds as I always use and nearly the whole rest of the thief community use as well.

This is a pretty decent list, I thought I would add onto it:
CS Line: Most complete imo. If someone has some issues they’d like to point out that would be great.

SA Line: Good but has a few issues. The master tier traits really aren’t very good compared to the adept traits.
SA I, IV, V, VI, XI: All good. SA I is pretty good, but for PvP it gets pushed out for one of the others, but can seriously help a PuG out when needed in a dungeon
SA II: Why would I take this over SA IV? It’s not removing conditions, it won’t nullify more than a couple stacks of bleed, and it only triggers on one condition.
SA III: Situationally ok I guess? Other classes can give regen much more easily that can stack with other regen. Not too much of a reason to take it.

SA VII: I use SB mainly for it’s utility in a non glass build. If I’m traiting 20 into SA I’m most likely going to pick up 2 of the adept traits to increase survivability. 5% more damage on SB isn’t worth it.

SA VIII: Again, situationally useful, but the times I’ve had it equipped it hurt more than it helped because it messes with normal combos.

SA IX: Great if I’m venom share.

SA X : Why would I take this over SA V? If I have such bad initiative management that I need both it’s probably not going to help me survive.

SA XII: Venomshare. It is what it is.

SA 5: Gets me killed more than it saves me. Turn it into SA V, put SA V in the SA 15 position (so it’s comparable to opportunist) and move the current SA 15 to SA 5.

SA 15: Not bad, but not particularly worth a 15 point slot. The first thing you’d think they would teach a thief when training them in Shadow Arts is how to stealth longer.

SA 25: Pretty good.

No dont move SA 5. Replace it with something useful like removes condi on stealh trait. So d/d can have 2ini + blind traits. D/d needs love. Even after next patch d/d will Not be as good as d/p but harder to play.

Acrobatics Line (including proposed changes):

A I: Situationally very good

A II: Not bad. Other traits are better imo, but if A III gets nerfed too hard I might pick it up.

A III: Pretty good. Doesn’t need to be nerfed when you compare it with Mesmer D5, Guardian H5, and Elementalist A VI. To gain any sort of uptime on it you need to take withdraw and constantly use it. Even with 30% boon duration you’re only getting up to 10.4 seconds of vigor uptime (~66% if you use withdraw whenever possible, more if you trait SoM but then you lose the benefit of SoM).

A IV: Buffing this is not going to make me want to take it. Make it a flat 25% run speed boost so we can choose between good traits at the adept level. Or make it 25% runspeed for 1 dagger and an additional % runspeed for a second dagger. That would help the survivability of D/D and really help out in a game where permaswiftness and runes of the traveler exist.

AV: Traps need to be improved. Maybe they should work like walls/wards and affect everyone trying to cross them. That would instantly boost our group utility in WvW.

AVI: Situationally good. Could be merged with IV or be given the same suggestions as I gave IV.

AVII: Drastically underpowered when compared to it’s SA adept counterpart. Extend it to all conditions and remove the ICD. At best that would allow burst removal of 3 conditions and then leave us without any endurance (on a class that requires it to survive).

AVIII: Not bad I guess? Not great in this condi-spam meta.

AIX: This was the only reason I was 20 into Acrobatics instead of only 15. Nerfing it will just make me not want to go 20 into this line in it’s current state.

AX: If you buff it to healing me 150 per initiative spent, I still won’t take it. That will be 1500 health per 10 initiative which will take 10 seconds to regenerate. Comparatively, I can get better healing from the SA line and pick up excellent condi removal, initiative traits, or blind on stealth. I’d have to split my defensive trait lines to get that if I wanted to pick up this trait.

AXI: Making a bad trait easier to access doesn’t make me want to take it more. Make it vigor (or gain X endurance) on crit or something else that improves my active survivability and we’ll talk.

AXII: Alright in niche builds.

A5: Meh. I’m blowing my dodge for runspeed. Sets up bad habits.

A15: If I was held hostage by any 15 point trait (how they described opportunist) it’s this one. The other squishy classes get better endurance management on their adept tier. Really only is superior to permavigor when combined with vigor.

A25:Pretty good.

Domey.9804:

No dont move SA 5. Replace it with something useful like removes condi on stealh trait. So d/d can have 2ini + blind traits. D/d needs love. Even after next patch d/d will Not be as good as d/p but harder to play.

I mentioned putting 15 in its place then moving the intiative trait to 15, allowing D/D and D/P to both benefit.

yea soz, did not see that. guess i should stop posting from my phone