Guild Wars 2

Well I know that thief traps if I’m being very generous are pretty rubbish in general.
I know Ambush and shadow trap can be useful but I want to know what you guys think of all of them and if you want to change them how?
The skill itself?
Traits?
Remove entirely?
I want to know what fellow thieves think of them since they’re rarely talked about even less than venoms!

Oh yeah…. traps exist.

Shadow trap had its day in the sun and was pretty good for about 2 months. If the shadow pursuit rollover lasted longer I might use it again, but the window is too small for me to use it offensively.

Ambush is alright I guess.

The others need to affect everyone trying to cross them like wards/walls do before they’ll be effective.

Shadow trap is situationally fun. I use it as a 10k range shadowstep for Claw of Jormag fights or random pvp trolling.

The biggest downfall is that you need line of sight for it to work. Imagine my sadness when I dropped one by the bank, ran to the Trading Post, and went to teleport back like some sort of sorcerer, only to be stopped by the chairs

Traps are great, though situational.

In my opinion, the biggest drawback is that they can be dodge over to clear. It means you really need to hide that you plant them, by dodging as you place them to hide the animation.

Trip Wire is very reliable, but requires an opponent that wants to come towards you (so in PvP/WvW, it does less well against mesmer, necro, or engi).

Shadow Trap is great, but the cast time to kill the trap is an issue.

In the right venom share build, you can make good use of ambush trap.

Needle Trap doesn’t remove stealth, great paired with caltrops to do damage while within stealth.

All very situational, but not bad.

They’d be more fun if they hit in an aoe (summon 1 thief per target? kd multiple targets? etc.) like rangers, had better traits associated to them in a non-kittenty traitline and actually dealt some damage.

They are totally unnecessary in this game. Ambush trap should just turn into a trick called Ambush and simply summon the thief instead of being a trap and Shadowtrap could also become a trick. Traps need to replaced by something else entirely.

Traps literally have nothing working for them in traits aside for one trait that reduces the CD by 20%.

They are way to situational for their use. All can be dodged over, too make them useless except shadow trap, and ambush trap, and shadow trap requires a reaction from the thief.

I think 3 of the traps wouldn’t do too terribly as class skills, because in their current state they are hardly used for anything, outside of immobing someone in caltrops or, making 4 thieves, or just trolling around and having fun with tripwire in jumping puzzles.

If they are removed they should definitely be replaced with something equally as useful as half of our deception skills at the moment. Most thieves run with SR, ShS, and Signet.

Removing an entire skill set, with some equally as bad as the last would be pointless, I would rather see them improve them to make at least one trap viable for specific builds, revamp the traps to something different like a class skill. Or remove them and change it to anything else but not something worse or just as bad.

makiface.3286:

The biggest downfall is that you need line of sight for it to work. Imagine my sadness when I dropped one by the bank, ran to the Trading Post, and went to teleport back like some sort of sorcerer, only to be stopped by the chairs

Actually the reason why you ported to the chairs, instead of the bank, is because there is a max range to it. I can’t tell you offhand what that range actually is (Ive heard 1200 to 10,000), but there is one. I sometimes use it to move from trading post to crafting stations. LoS is clearly broken there and Im able to port fine.

They need to add a trait
“transfer 1 damaging conidtion from player to Placed trap”. so say your effected by psn, and you place tripwire , it would read: knock down and psns enemy.

master trapper: cd 20% , traps pulse for 1-3 seconds on activation.

i know anet doesn’t want other utilities to have clears/breakers but it really is limiting thieves diversity. like bon said we pretty much have to run certain utilities.

I use Shadow Trap when I am crafting in Lions arch

1. Use it at the crafting station
2. Run to BLTC to get purchased items
3. Run to the side and make sure the chairs inside are not in your path back to the merchant.
4. Activate skill again to return
5. back to your crafting station and crafting.

Shadow Trap is okay.

Literally every other trap that the thief has is absolute garbage.

The trap line has a variety of problems but I’d say they include
- remove needle trap
- shadow trap is similar to shadowstep but a worse mechanic so just remove it
- create a trait to shadowstep to triggered traps (if really needed)
- create a trait to applies poison on trigger (if really needed)
- can’t create builds around traps; who really wants a pure point defense build anyway?
- so create two new non-trap skills and put them into a versatile trait line
- make the replacement skills work underwater
- make one of the replacement skills a viable stun break

traps? what are those…. oh yeah….. those things i never use….

i honestly think the issue with traps is their effectivness and trade off

thief survivability is very low, some spells are pretty much mandatory (refuge, shs etc.) and don’t leave much room for anything else

thieves do lack team utility and lack survival, so why not combine those in traps? then we wouldn’t have to sacrifice all our survival tools for some crappy immob on long CD…. i think engis comes in mind with their aoe utility

o. o
…
Thieves have traps?

The immobilize and knockdown traps are ok… ish with S/x if you lay them down at your opponents feet after sword #2/steal.

I think Tripwire is generally good for point holding (until your team gets there) and on Skyhammer’s glass panels, as well as on the middle of air spaces in the WvW jumping puzzles, which I don’t really condone (It’s funny nonetheless!).

Trip wire: 30 second cooldown for a single target knockdown?…..

Ambush: ok but the thief you spawn is random and also dies really easily.

Shadow trap: Has its uses but ultimately not my favorite stun breaker.

Needle trap: Does anyone even bother with this? SB alone can do what needle trap does and better.

No man, check it out yourself with short distances. Garbage in your way or uneven terrain will block ‘shadow trap.’ Only way ‘shadow trap’ is useful is if there is nothing in the way and you’re on a flat plain.

For a dps player that knockdown trap seems by far the best though they dodge through it.

Nowadays the only time I use traps is in wvw and I lay down knockdown and paralyze traps at tower doors. Also shadow trap is awesome for running from EB Mendon’s to speldon’s to get repair sups. Other than these few instances, though, there is no way I’m exchanging my shadow refuge or blinding powder or movement signet or any stun break or etc for traps as is.

thieves have traps? oh yeah those utilities with the foot/spikes/hooded assassin.

LOL WOAH!

almost forgot about those.

yeah wwe dont use them….not sure what anet was thinking.

perhaps if they had a 400 diameter circle and did aoe pulses ….they would be usefull.

this is a joke tho.

laters

The biggest problem with traps (imo) is that they reveal you if triggered. If you’re out of stealth, people just dodge roll over them.

Chicago Jack.5647:

The biggest problem with traps (imo) is that they reveal you if triggered. If you’re out of stealth, people just dodge roll over them.

even i didnt know that. u sure? or only the poison trap bc that deals dmg right?

Chicago Jack.5647:

The biggest problem with traps (imo) is that they reveal you if triggered. If you’re out of stealth, people just dodge roll over them.

thats nto even the biggest problem. the biggest problem is u trigger on 1 player 1 time for a 30 sec CD that would much bette rbe served with any other util.

not only that…. ive seen people do wierd stuff like roll/jump over them and then wasted. horrible stuff. horrible. ick i could never bring a trap.

if the tripwire was 4secs i might consider it. but its only 3. 1-2 secs of which you are gap closing and youget a free hit or 2 for a 30 sec CD utitlity. and thats ONLY if it works in the first place which i find isnt reliable.

invuln
blocks
evades
dodges
shadowsteps
teleports
jumps
npcs
lvl 0 critters

etc the list goes on that triggers traps and they get wasted

Travlane.5948:

Chicago Jack.5647:

The biggest problem with traps (imo) is that they reveal you if triggered. If you’re out of stealth, people just dodge roll over them.

even i didnt know that. u sure? or only the poison trap bc that deals dmg right?

Tripwire and needle trap both do direct damage. They will reveal you if you’re in stealth. You can kind-of work around this by pre-emptively striking someone before they trigger the trap, but that’s highly circumstantial. Traps are also unblockable, btw, the biggest problem is the dodge rolls when the person sees you lay it down. In most cases, if you try to place it right in front of a point to catch people offguard, usually people dodge roll over it while approaching you.

By far my biggest trouble with traps is that they have a chance of not working at all. You can place the trap sure, but if the enemy doesn’t walk through it or dodges the trap is wasted and you’re stuck with a useless utility skill. If the effect of the trap was powerful enough to warrant the risk of it not working at all maybe I’d use them but, apart from Ambush which has a unique effect only shared by Thieves Guild, none of active effects for the traps are worth the risk.

That’s why I was excited when they reworked Shadow Trap, because they made it useful no matter what happened. If the enemy didn’t trigger it you could still use it as a return and it wasn’t just dead weight on your bar. The same logic needs to be applied to the other traps as well. Give them a “non-triggered” state so you can use them if they are not triggered and buff the triggered state so you want them to be triggered. Until then, Traps will not have a place in any of my builds. Why should I use a skill that only has a chance of doing what it’s supposed to when Shadowstep or Infiltrator’s Signet work 100% of the time?

They’re a trap!

you can hit multiple targets with tripwire (i figured they all worked like tripwire), the problem is they all have to be in the box when you cast it, making them situational. (for instance: tripwire is good for interrupting multiple rezers, and zergballs, Tripwire + infiltrators signet will give you a knockdown on port)
the mechanics are there. they just need to add some defensive utility with them.

Traps don’t really work out for Thief. They should change them to Concealed Weapons or something. Instead of Needle Trap lets fire them at enemies instead~ a range cone aoe needle shot. Make Tripwire the same way and sweep people off their feet like Scorpion Wire in GW1 did, but cone aoe knockdown. :P

Ambush Trap would do better as a ground target Shadow Clone that attacks people once summoned. Shadow Trap should just be what it’s always used for anyways. A user only portal between 2 points.

They just don’t fit well with how a thief fights, trip wire and spike trap are POWERFUL effects, even better than bolas/bull rush but I don’t have anything like 100b to capitalize on them, and when I do want CC chances are they are running away, not towards me.

In fact I might use tripwire if it was thrown or ninjas/pirates/golems spawned in to “place” it at target location.

Easiest solution to make them better straight away is to change activation range into circular, so we can make reliable combos with shadowsteps; for example steal → tripwire knockdown. It is possible to do it now, but it’s extremly unreliable.

Highlie.7641:

you can hit multiple targets with tripwire (i figured they all worked like tripwire), the problem is they all have to be in the box when you cast it, making them situational. (for instance: tripwire is good for interrupting multiple rezers, and zergballs, Tripwire + infiltrators signet will give you a knockdown on port)
the mechanics are there. they just need to add some defensive utility with them.

if enemy is standing still adn you INFIL sig + tripwire….it wont trigger. they have to actually move a lil or its just right infront of them

not a fan of the traps NEVER USE THEM … i like the shadow trap but u can’t have a bush tree or any thing in the way don’t mind the ambush one i guess .. i guess i don’t like the part how u can dodge over them and they r just a short bar u place down so it is pretty easy to just walk around if u notice it . rangers traps r better …. wish the thief had ground targeting for traps like the ranger at least i think our traps r junk …..

Sometimes I use the thief summoning one in PvP (a barely ever play PvP) when I’m defending or capturing a point.

I like to use the same / similar looking armor like the summoned thief does, and I use it as a misleading target so the other player partially or totally uses his skills on it, mathematically increasing my chances against him.

Except this, I find all traps totally useless garbage in both PvE and WvW. Never, ever used them, first because I felt no need, second because any alternative is a skyhigh better alternative, third, even if I tried to make a trap based build they were so useless in a PvE enviroment that I couldn’t do anything with them that actually helped me or the party.

I think traps need some love. I think they are a cool idea but lets be honest…. there are better utilities to take for…. name a noun…..

WTB reverse shadowtrap. Set a trap that once activated shadowsteps enemy (and maybe you) to your (or each other’s) locations. Range 10000.

Back on topic.
Current traps traps were balanced around two objectives:
1) You should not be able to have fun with them
2) Almighty Warriors should be able to cunningly jump over them
Well, it seems warriors did have trouble jumping over them so traps were instead redesigned to not be able to even scratch warrior’s polished armor. And since knocking down even one (unsuspecting aka without stability) warrior is unsightly, traps were limited to one use on a very lengthy cooldown.
There were also issues with filthy thieves using their own traps on themselves (how underhanded) to escape warrior’s righteous fury. So that was toned down as well.
Actually, it is now debated whether tricks as dirty as thief’s traps fit well enough into Guild Warriors 2 definition of fair and honorable combat (PvP, WvW and PvE included) and as such should be soon considered for removal.

Traps are “almost there” just like venoms

That sounded like Trap Sharing in trickery 30.