Guild Wars 2

Deadly arts trait line to be revamped. Unfortunately the majority of traits in here are either rubbish or situational.

Mug is arguably not worth it anymore, and honestly the only one i’d have ever used to have gone for anyway. Debate this all you want.
Steal recharges all skills of a type is nice but sadly unreliable. For having to invest 20 points into this tree for it, i’d expect a reliable trait.
Immobilise enemies on low hp is nice, but the CD is too long for something I have to spend 30 points for.
Extra strike on venoms, situational.

The rest is barely worth talking about. This trait line simply doesn’t add up to the stengths of say…. well any other line. Critical strikes has amazing things like hidden killer, executional, fury at 50% hp enemy and so on. SA is probably the best line ever… Deadly arts just lacks something you can really base a build upon I think is its main issue. Hidden killer and regen health in stealth are both build defining grand master traits whereas deadly arts offers nothing of the sort.

Then comes weaponsets.
PP is too confused. Its auto attack is super weak and only works for condition setups really. 2 skill is frankly just trash. Unload is nice, and requires 2 pistols and is only worth it for direct damage. 4 and 5 are both nice utilities of course, but they’re nice utilities with no other skills on the set to really make use of them. D/P has the leap finisher to use 5 for example.

What PP needs is either mobility spells, or a combo finisher (blast or leap) to make use of skill 5. It also needs an auto attack buff to make it actually viable if you don’t want to blow all your initiative on some unloads. In its current state, its a risky situational direct damage secondary set.

SB. A lovely weapon sadly ruined by an unsuspected random nerf. Please revert this, nobody has ever complained about SB auto attack and with good reason. It was our lovely little mobility weapon and it was reliable. Now it just hits nothing. A golem can just about walk out of its arrows now.

DD. Really not a bad set, but lacking compared to SD or DP. To be honest my main gripe on this weapon is death blossom and dancing daggers. Death blossom is an unreliable to land, initiative heavy, bleed stacking dodge move. If I use all initiative, I put 9 stacks of bleed on the enemy ankittenhen left with an auto attack with a short duration poison at the end of a chain for condition damage. Kind of worthless to be honest. It seems a random skill put on the set just because frankly. P/D is infinitely better for stacking bleeds and you don’t lose all your ini doing it, and its ranged. Then dancing daggers…. oh how i’ve missed it. It was a hard to hit move anyway because of projectile speed and obvious animation, but it got a 50% dmg nerf. I suggest reverting part of this, or at the least making it lower ini cost and faster projectile speed so crippling my enemy is worth it.

And finally.

An F2 ability would be nice. I don’t mind what form it comes in. Some have suggested storing stolen abilities on the F bar which sounds lovely, as then I don’t have to waste them to use steal again. Alternatively one of the venoms could be added to the F bar, or multiple ones. Have longer CD’s than their utility counterparts (should this be implemented). Would be nice to say, have skale and drake venom on F2 and F3 on even 60 second cooldowns. Just something up there would really strengthen the thief.

This is just my opinion of course, feel free to argue against just put forth a good argument. I love this class but so often feel pushed towards certain weapon sets and traits, because alternatives are poorly thought out.

Katsumoto.9452:

Deadly arts trait line to be revamped. Unfortunately the majority of traits in here are either rubbish or situational.

Mug is arguably not worth it anymore, and honestly the only one i’d have ever used to have gone for anyway. Debate this all you want.
Steal recharges all skills of a type is nice but sadly unreliable. For having to invest 20 points into this tree for it, i’d expect a reliable trait.
Immobilise enemies on low hp is nice, but the CD is too long for something I have to spend 30 points for.
Extra strike on venoms, situational.

The rest is barely worth talking about. This trait line simply doesn’t add up to the stengths of say…. well any other line. Critical strikes has amazing things like hidden killer, executional, fury at 50% hp enemy and so on. SA is probably the best line ever… Deadly arts just lacks something you can really base a build upon I think is its main issue. Hidden killer and regen health in stealth are both build defining grand master traits whereas deadly arts offers nothing of the sort.

The minor traits in DA are fine, but the major traits need some direction. CS traits are more deadly than that in DA. :/

What Anet needs to do is draw several lines for each trait line. If someone will go for venom line, this, this and this are their major traits. If they will go for condition in general, this, this, and this are their major traits. Right now, it doesn’t matter what line you choose, there’s only one logical choice — Mug. And nerfing Mug doesn’t make the other major traits look good, they just made Mug less better and the rest are still bad.

IMO, mug should deal no damage and instead causes a knockdown — but that’s just me.

Dancing dagger has a lot of utility since it allows a thief to keep 3 targets permanently crippled. This is obviously most useful for the pistol/dagger weapon pairing and if you have the patience to kill PvE mobs that way it can be totally effective. I don’t see any need to increase the damage element since you don’t use it for damage anyway.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Katsumoto.9452:

Deadly arts trait line to be revamped. Unfortunately the majority of traits in here are either rubbish or situational.

Mug is arguably not worth it anymore, and honestly the only one i’d have ever used to have gone for anyway. Debate this all you want.
Steal recharges all skills of a type is nice but sadly unreliable. For having to invest 20 points into this tree for it, i’d expect a reliable trait.
Immobilise enemies on low hp is nice, but the CD is too long for something I have to spend 30 points for.
Extra strike on venoms, situational.

The rest is barely worth talking about. This trait line simply doesn’t add up to the stengths of say…. well any other line. Critical strikes has amazing things like hidden killer, executional, fury at 50% hp enemy and so on. SA is probably the best line ever… Deadly arts just lacks something you can really base a build upon I think is its main issue. Hidden killer and regen health in stealth are both build defining grand master traits whereas deadly arts offers nothing of the sort.

The minor traits in DA are fine, but the major traits need some direction. CS traits are more deadly than that in DA. :/

What Anet needs to do is draw several lines for each trait line. If someone will go for venom line, this, this and this are their major traits. If they will go for condition in general, this, this, and this are their major traits. Right now, it doesn’t matter what line you choose, there’s only one logical choice — Mug. And nerfing Mug doesn’t make the other major traits look good, they just made Mug less better and the rest are still bad.

IMO, mug should deal no damage and instead causes a knockdown — but that’s just me.

i dont know why i never thought about this…but that is a faaaaaaaaaaantastic idea….screw life gaining…and damage…. a 2 second KD would be so much more amazing than the crap we have now. would love that…..not so much so we cna pound them …more so for the interupt plus lack of skill use….would act defensive and offensive without doing direct dmg….im soooo for this!

Stooperdale.3560:

Dancing dagger has a lot of utility since it allows a thief to keep 3 targets permanently crippled. This is obviously most useful for the pistol/dagger weapon pairing and if you have the patience to kill PvE mobs that way it can be totally effective. I don’t see any need to increase the damage element since you don’t use it for damage anyway.

I’ve played the Thief quite a lot Dancing dagger is not worth the initiative cost except in rare situations. Also I should make it clear I talk from a WvW roamer/dueler perspective, not PvE.

leave my deathblossom alone! (unreliable? seriously? your missing with a slightly homing AoE attack?)

I suspect the intentionally put different types of abilities across the weapons so your not stuck with “x/x is a dps weapon! y/y is a condition weapon!” only situation, while I won’t deny that pistol mainhand could use some love the fact that its auto is condition and its dual is direct is not much different to daggers situation (albeit dagger currently much more usable in basically all its use variants)

Heck it would be nice if they where the polar opposites: D/D = single target direct damage and area of effect condition damage at melee range P/P = single target condition damage and area of effect direct damage at long range but probably wouldn’t happen, though would love the activation times to be more an accurate representation of how fast you can get the moves off.

The Fskill system for thieves is another that I can live with but would love to see additional stuff though would rather they keep it based around what it already is compared to what some others are suggesting, my own suggestion was f1: steal f2: stolen item f3: improvise f4: improvised item f5: pouch.

Steal would work how it currently works but the stolen item would go to f2 (so we can see steal cooldown and not have to waste a skill) if already have a stolen item when you steal the old item goes to the pouch new item takes the f2 slot.

F3 takes a random store item from pouch and puts it into f4, f4 uses the item but the item has its own cooldown instead of relying on the fskill cooldown, so stolen items cooldown = steal cooldown, improvised item cooldown = item cooldown (so things like consume plasma can’t be stocked and spammed etc)

F5 opens a window listing stolen items upto say 10 stolen items (each item can stack 3 of them) and maybe allow for some non stolen improvised moves their (possibly even introduce store buyable skills for the pouch such as purchasing the improvised weapons from Skritt)

As for stuff like the deadly arts traits, the main issue really comes down not to the traits being bad but the stuff the traits are for being bad, the improvisation trait would be awesome if there was any reason to run with a trap and venom on the bar and not just tricks/deceptions and signets. I think redoing the traits would have to wait until all the utility types are at a level of usability.

You manage to play vs players that don’t see death blossom coming a mile away? It’s unreliable. So obvious to dodge. It’s a waste frankly, 9 stacks of bleed if everything connects for my entire initiative bar. Playing vs anyone competent you will not beat them with a death blossom spam build. I’m more likely to lose to a berserker thief using off-hand light dagger than DB spam (which raises a point, wtf is the point of off-hand light skills?).

Katsumoto.9452:

You manage to play vs players that don’t see death blossom coming a mile away? It’s unreliable. So obvious to dodge. It’s a waste frankly, 9 stacks of bleed if everything connects for my entire initiative bar. Playing vs anyone competent you will not beat them with a death blossom spam build. I’m more likely to lose to a berserker thief using off-hand light dagger than DB spam (which raises a point, wtf is the point of off-hand light skills?).

well pvp is another kettle of fish, though still death blossoms really not designed for 1v1 encounters, if you can get through a zerg with it (which you should as its designed to patch its vulnerability with the brief evasion as you pass over) yours looking at 15 bleeds per blossom across 5 people. Its just like most other AoE’s, your generally not going to do much with it 1v1 but in a group situation or a situation you’ve set up to take advantage of it then they work fine. Complaining that it doesn’t work that well 1v1 when they have full endurance is like complaining heartseeker doesn’t work against people with full health in the middle of an enemy zerg, its not meant to.

Offhand light skills basically just for that first mission before you get a second weapon (though would love to see offhand light being a viable option just for variety)

Stooperdale.3560:

Dancing dagger has a lot of utility since it allows a thief to keep 3 targets permanently crippled. This is obviously most useful for the pistol/dagger weapon pairing and if you have the patience to kill PvE mobs that way it can be totally effective. I don’t see any need to increase the damage element since you don’t use it for damage anyway.

What? Dancing dagger is horrible.

It’s clear theres a strong divide between pvp/wvw thieves and pve thieves here. I’ll make this clear as I failed to before.

This is a thread coming from the perspective of a WvW roamer/pvp’er, not a PvE’er.

id be happy with 2k more base HP. that would do it…plus more options on F mechanics (aka Steal)

I’d like venoms to be an F mechanic. 60 trait points for them and replacing needed untilites is just wrong. You destroy Your Thief to use them and get little out of them.

Agree, Dancing dagger was majorly nerfed because of quickness and they haven’t done anything to it. The warrior trait line in their Attack gives 10%+ to their spear and greatsword; yet the thief one’s dagger only gives +5%. And they already do more damage than thieves.. There is no logical balancing..

Honesttly, if steal was made into a knockown/interrupt I would be happy with it. Would require a reworking of Mug trait nonetheless. Excellent idea btw, Sir Vincent III.1286.

Thanks guys. Hopeful Anet can include this in their iterations.

Another idea that we’re bouncing back and forth with my friends is a Weapon Set-based Elite skill.

If they can disable non-underwater Elite while underwater, they can disable this skills if you’re not using the required weapon set.

One Elite skill we like to see a come back from GW1 is Assault Enchantments, maybe renamed to Assault Boons. So in GW2, it will require a D/D weapon set and it is a boon hater, as in, it removes all boons — should be worthy of an Elite skill.

And another stuff we’re talking about is like a fullset dual-wielding — basically, instead of just changing slot #3 when using D/D or P/P, it replaces your whole weapon set, giving you new skill from #1-#5 and each skill will use both main- and off-hand weapons when attacking. Slot #1 will auto-shoot with both weapon alternating main- and off-hand weapon in its animation. This way, it’s completely separating it from D/x, x/D, P/x, and x/P builds. This is the only way we think it will be balanced without affecting existing builds — But some of us still love the current D/D so we don’t know if this is such a good idea.

I used to run AE sin in TA all the time

ANet totally threw away the idea of short cooldown or resource based elites though. The shortest CD elite time in the game is probably our basilisk venom and that kitten need either 1/2s cast time or none. First of all it’s an elite and 2nd every other venom is instant.. so where is the logic in a 1 1/2 cast time?

Personally I want Shadow Form, the assassins most popular elite skill from GW1… thieves need a type of invulnerability, doesn’t every other proff in the game have at least one? We’re lacking in many areas.

Katsumoto.9452:

Deadly arts trait line to be revamped. Unfortunately the majority of traits in here are either rubbish or situational.

I was never a fan of Deadly Arts, besides Mug and Back Fighting.

My favorite trait is actually a minor. Lotus Poison.

Yeah deadly arts minors are fine. It’s the major’s that need an overhaul. Why would I invest in getting 1 stack of vuln on crit with a cd of 1 second, when the vuln only lasts 5 seconds making the vuln stacking very low anyway? That’s not worth the trait investment lol. There’s SOOO many better things in other lines.

Mathias.9657:

Personally I want Shadow Form, the assassins most popular elite skill from GW1… thieves need a type of invulnerability, doesn’t every other proff in the game have at least one? We’re lacking in many areas.

Thieves’ “form of invulnerability” is frequently accessible evades, both through extra dodges and evading abilities. I’d also like to see riposte-style blocks/reflects like Spear has though. A trait that gives a passive % chance to evade/block/reflect attacks would be a good way to balance out the thief’s innately lower ability to take a hit. It’d also be neat to see more endurance manipulation, perhaps some sort of endurance leech, or “gain 10 endurance every time you evade an attack” making thieves dodging fiends when focus fired.