Thief happens to be in a bit of a precarious spot at the moment in all aspects of the GW2 game. I have been brainstorming ideas on how to make thief more competitive and the ideas I’ve seen in the forums or come up with are:
Disincentivizing the Trickery Line.
Increasing build diversity.
Increasing survivability while adhering to the core thief playstyles and themes.
Increasing support while adhering to the core thief playstyles and themes.
Increasing the effectiveness of underused utility skills.
Remaking pointless traits that have no chance of finding use and
Creating meaningful combinations between weapons skills, utilities and trait lines.
I saw the news post this morning and thought “Crap I should have posted this sooner!” Even though changes like these might not have any chance of finding their way into the game, I still had a lot of fun creating this and just wanted to put it out there for the community to see.
I do agree that trickery line is the go to in the current meta due to the bonus init and steal cd reduction.
with the current state of thief they only have dodges as a means to mitigate damage and only dodge, stealth only have a 25% reduction when traited in shadow arts which dont see much uses in the current meta
Some really nice ideas there, when I saw Debilitating Arc chaining with Dust Srike, it made me realize how much I would like that Just one question, why replace all the reflect with projectile destroy? Any particular reason for that?
Thanks for the replies! The reason I replaced the projectile reflect with destroy is that I felt it didn’t promote active or skilful play, which is what being a thief is all about. You just auto attack and hope that you reflect something. It also sort of removes the uniqueness of the staff skill 4 I created, which would allow you to profit from controlled reflects at any range, rather than just random ones in melee.
The image has been updated to include some recent changes and will probably be updated again after the patch hits. I’ve really tried to streamline traits, skills and abilities in order to cater for any build conceived for thief, while also making them relatively balanced and competitive in most game modes. I’m still looking forward to receiving any further constructive criticisms, feedback or suggestions about the changes I’ve collected and adapted.
Just one question, why replace all the reflect with projectile destroy? Any particular reason for that?