Guild Wars 2

Just a few thoughts on the utility skills after this past update, some to things left alone and others in response to the changes. This comes from on-off playing this game, but main thief from launch, just haven’t the time to play games as much these days.

This includes traits specific to these skill categories.

=Traps (Now Marks, a throw-back to GW1 assassin themed skills)
Full rework, thief is not the type of profession to need an entire set of skills based on the enemy walking over a skill they planted awhile back (or being a hooligan and trap bombing).
-Shadow Trap: Now “Shadow Mark” Place a void Wall on the ground that marks the first foe that passes through it. -> Break the void early and shadowstep back breaking stun (no cast time); (if a foe triggers)-> Shadowstep to foe breaking stun, granting 5 seconds of stealth, 10 might for 10 seconds and fury for 10 seconds. Void duration 120 seconds. Cooldown 45 seconds. Void width same as shadow trap was. Shadowstep distance 10,000 units) Shadow pursuit still remains for only 10 seconds before reverting. New effect, void is visually invisible however when a foe triggers it and becomes marked, they no longer produce a shadow, effect expires once shadow pursuit either wears off or is used Essentially same skill but it gives a visual queue to the enemy that requires an attentive eye. I feel like with such a nice reward, it should have a small counter to it.
-Needle Trap: Now “Mark of Debility” Channel a mark on your foe reducing their outgoing condition duration by 33% and increasing their incoming condition duration by 33%. range 900 units, Cast time 1.5 seconds. Cooldown 35 seconds. Mark duration 8 seconds. Poison application 3 stacks for 10 seconds, 2 stacks of confusion for 10 seconds. Immobilize duration 2 seconds. Condition application applied before mark effect, therefore are unaffected by 33% increase from skill itself. Keeps the focus of the original skill but in a risky channel form. Given greater risk to using this skill, now greater reward.
-Trip wire: Now “Mark of Empowerment” Leap towards a location to apply an AoE mark which disable boons on foes. In addition, stealing boons from marked foes now grants might to allies around the foe. Mark duration 6 seconds. Damage 620(1.2) Cast range 600 units, cast time 1 second. ICD 1 second on might application per foe. Radius 120 units (mark effect only applied on initial hit, does not leave mark on terrain). Might duration 2 stacks for 10 seconds. Might application radius 240 units. Max number of targets (for might application and mark application) 5. Cooldown 45 seconds. Marked foe can still receive boons but boons will not effect them while marked. HUGE utility for boon theft builds which could imho help s/d tremendously in pvp and wvw, pve on certain encounters.

-Ambush: Now “Mark for Death” Channel the shadow realm to call upon a thief ally to attack your foe and apply vulnerability to foe. Cooldown 50 seconds. Cast time 1 second. Thief ally duration 30 seconds. Vulnerability applied 5 stacks for 10 seconds.Thief ally attacks and type updated, see below Cast range 900 units (if cast out of range, thief ally will spawn on you instead of near target. Spawn on target location similar to Mesmer’s Illusionary Leap.) New Effect If cast while in stealth, thief ally will also spawn with stealth and will attempt to use stealth auto attack skill. Now you can’t have multiple of these going off, but their presence will be much stronger and provide a serious distraction towards foes if they don’t handle them quickly. With added buffs a nerf to cooldown was necessary.

-Trapper’s Respite: Now “Deep Marks” Applying a mark now dazes your foe. Daze duration 1 second. (careful using this trait on Shadow Mark), huge AoE effect for Mark of Empowerment.

-Deadly Trapper: Now “Empowering Marks” Applying a mark now applies vulnerability to the foe and might to you. Vulnerability 5 stacks for 10 seconds. Might 5 stacks for 10 seconds. (Careful using this trait on Shadow Mark)
-Improvisation: Same as before.

===Venoms
-Skelk Venom: reduce healing amount and adjust scaling based on 1h or 2h weapon combos. New Formulas; 1h weapons = 320(0.18* per hit, 2h weapons = 650(.35*) per hit, no longer charge based but effect lasts 6 seconds after cast. Reduce cast time to .50 seconds. Reason for change is to give a moment of active defense, and split based on weapon size to prevent overhealing on 1h weapons fast attack speed.

-Ice drake Venom: Removed, now Karka venom. Next 3 attacks transfer a condition from you to your foe, same cooldown. Reason for change is devourer venom does the cc better than ice drake, chill isn’t a thief themed condition or one that is very accessible making any sort of incorporation of this venom next to useless. At least with condition transfer it plays into the dirty thief theme and provides a defensive utility worth looking into against certain encounters.

-Skale Venom: Increase number of attacks to 6, lower allies effected to max 3. Very short lasting utility that doesn’t do enough even in a burst, make it better suited for low group count so it can still pump numbers just not requiring allies.

-Spider Venom: Increase number of attacks to 8, increase poison duration to 8 seconds.

-Leeching venoms: fix to work on venom charge rather than once per strike.

===Deception
-Hide in shadows: Change regeneration effect to instead grant resistance for 2 seconds baseline and +2 seconds for each condition removed (total 10 seconds). The skills is meant to handle damaging conditions despite its long cooldown so thief has more time to focus offensively.

-Smoke Screen: Added effect to remove revealed effects when passing through or while in stealth increase the duration of stealth by 2 seconds. This can only occur once per target every 30 seconds. This skill is now a cast skill, 600 range. Increased wall width ~33%. Reason for change is to add a little more group utility to this skill as it doesn’t serve any other purpose. Can be used for group stealth or projectile blocking now.

-Shadow Refuge: Added effect, on cast remove revealed and increase healing effect to 650(0.25*) per pulse. This healing amount is doubled to allies effected with reveal. Reason for change is with such a massive cooldown and providing a very negative reaction for standing in a small circle (perfect for AoE skills) it can at least better provide the defense that its there for. Unfortunately removing the revealed effect upon early exit is kind of an intended counter since this skill can provide a fairly long stealth uptime but at least the AoE effect can help a bit more.

-Thieves Guild: Increase ally damage slightly, reduce cooldown to 150 seconds. Both thief allies now will cast signet of shadows at 50% health (new effect). Added condi based thief and shortbow thief (see effects below). Ally will no longer use main utility skill right after spawning. Will now use their unique utility at either 75% health or after 10 seconds whichever comes first. Reason for change is to get their 30 seconds in the fight and do something during that time. With new shadow signet effect they should be much sturdier and with threshold based actives they should be able to serve as a major utility bar. Simply raising their stats or reducing % of incoming damage would be a typical fix, but lets not be so simple minded here..
*Condi thief (D/D)- Normal auto attack like power thief, uses death blossom combined with lotus training after every 4th successful attack chain after being hit as a utility. *
*Shortbow thief – Uses choking bomb followed by cluster bomb every 5 seconds as an attack. Uses Infiltrator’s Arrow if near an enemy for more than 5 seconds (180 unit radius, resets after arrow).
*Power thief (D/D existing)- Scorpion wire drastically reduced cooldown, if thief ally spends more than 8 seconds without hitting a target, it will use this skill.
*Pistol thief- Smoke bomb shot off by this thief now lasts 6 seconds and grants the thief ally (only) 100% combo finisher chance while in the field.

====Signets
-Assassin’s Signet: (Passive) Entering stealth grants 2 might for 10 seconds; (Active) Increase your critical strike chance to 100% for the next 5 seconds. Increased cooldown to 50 seconds. Reason for change is the active and passive were redundant with one giving just a stronger version for 5 attacks (which can miss and be lost). The purpose of this is for stealth builds of course but the active can be used for any build.

-Signet of Shadows: (Passive) Same, increased movement speed. (Active) Blind nearby foes(240 unit radius) and apply shadow armor breaking stun, and granting 2 stacks of stability for 6 seconds. Cooldown increased to 35 seconds. Reason for change is the current active is just far too weak, providing almost no situation where you would want to take the passive off, even though the passive is pretty weak too but it helps on some builds to push you over the top in mobility. The active now relates to the passive where you move faster passively, and if caught you can break free and continue moving for a brief moment.

-Signet of Agility: (Passive) same, increased precision; (Active) update to remove 1 condition baseline and additional 1 condition for each bar of endurance recovered. This will work on obtaining 1 dodge roll so if at 35% endurance you would recover 2 dodge rolls (you were at 0) meaning a total of 3 conditions removed (1 base +2 from dodge rolls recovered). Reason for change is better reward for timed use currently it doesn’t feel like a very rewarding skill as it does not break stun or move you.

-Infiltrator’s Signet: Same, initiative regen per 10 seconds. Active however now grants superspeed for 4 seconds when used. Small buff to the stun break , nothing that grants too much in one short cooldown.

====Tricks
-Caltrops: Bleed duration increased 7 seconds. New Effect foes knocked down pulled or launched in this field are applied with 6 stacks at once upon knockdown. Little bonus if you can combine heavy cc in this field.
-Roll for initiative: Only change is turn skill into directional rather than a retreat. It should be a roll, the name says so. Doesn’t say retreat for initiative. This skill would be much better with this quality of life change.
-Haste: Reduce cooldown to 40 seconds. Otherwise strong as is, just 6 seconds isn’t really 6 seconds, theif shouldn’t stay in one spot for that long, because they usually die if they do.
-Scorpion Wire: Increase missle speed by 33%, now unblockable (including cannot be reflected) and increase range 1,500 units. Missile now takes a mediuim sized arc which increases the further away your foe is. New Effect if pulling a foe, that foe will knock down their allies during the duration of the pull, 120 unit radius. Knockdown duration 1 second. No cap to knockdown amount. Cooldown increased to 30 seconds. Reason for change is to give it a serious focused cc and so knocking foes down on the way back could give you that extra moment to have a 1 on 1 with them. The no cap part is because the skill doesn’t pierce so trying to use this as an AoE cc would be extremely unreliable since the wire pulls to where it was used not necessarily to the thief. With arc it is potentially there just unlikely.

=Physical
-Bandit’s Defense: Fine as is, really strong defensive choice.
-Fist Flurry: Increase attack speed by 15%, increase vulnerability stacks to 2 per hit. Little stronger effect incase you don’t get all hits in.
-Distracting Daggers: Change active to throw 1 dagger on use rather than “equip” also daggers should remove a boon on hit, little QoL change to be quicker use.
-Impairing Daggers: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds, increased slow duration to 6 seconds. Replaced immobilize to vulnerability 2 stacks for 8 seconds. Each dagger now has its own application, dealing 2 seconds of slow for 6 seconds and 3 stacks of poison for 8 seconds each Makes your target a lot more open to mayhem being filled with conditions and almost immobile.
-Brawler’s Tenacity: changed to now reduce the cooldown of physical skills by 1 second when you dodge roll, 1 second ICD rather than 20% reduction. Physical skills still grant endurance on use. Flat % reductions are too simple, make it engaging.