Guild Wars 2

Ohh the change pf daggerstorm animation is a great suggestion.. It really looks silly.. Why not just make it shurikens and make your char throw them wildly around or something.

Before I head to bed, I only had a few suggestion and comments regarding p/p.

Keeping in mind p/p is supposed to be our ranged DPS:

1a: Vital Shot: Increase the fire rate of this ever so slightly, OR boost the raw physical damage by a bit…OR if neither of those, add a second tick to the bleed (instead of 1 per shot, 2).

1b: Sneak Attack: My only suggestion for this would be to slightly increase the physical damage it deals.

2: Body Shot: This skill is just way too slow. In theory it’s good, but the animation is RIDICULOUSLY slow. My suggestion for this would be to either increase the fire rate, OR increase the duration of the vulnerability, as well as add a crippling effect to it (as others have already suggested). The skill can also use a slight boost in damage.

3: Unload: This is essentially the ONLY skill I find myself using anytime I resort to my p/p. Usually during the boss fights in dungeons where I am forced to stay at range. The only thing I can think of that may benefit this skill would be a slight increase in the fire rate. So, instead of 1.75s (ends up being about 2s with full animation), reduce it to 1.5s (roughly the same fire rate as sneak attack, regarding delays per shots). A minor boost in damage, OR a reduction in initiative cost wouldn’t hurt either as it’s very easily dodged. Once you see someone using unload, you can dodge, and you will only take 1~2 of the hits.

4: Head Shot: I believe this skill is perfectly fine as is. However, an increase to the daze duration from 0.25s to 0.5s wouldn’t hurt.

5: Black Powder: For 6 initiative cost, the skill just doesn’t offer too much, and does next to nil damage. This skill can use a serious buff on damage for its initiative cost, or the cost should be lowered. I also really like the idea another individual posted here regarding the skill offering stealth on use, as p/p weapon set offers no stealth at all, even though it has Sneak Attack in its skill list. This would also benefit players wanting to play s/p tactically (not being a pistol whip hero) with their executions of Tactical Strike. It also wouldn’t hurt increasing the damage, and radius of the field ever so slightly, to allow for better field combo-ing for its initiative cost.

As far as traits go, Ricochet seems to be a trait that is completely avoided like the plague. In PvE, it can potentially lead to excess aggro-ing without intention (which can end very bad), and in PvP, you’re better off using a short bow. I personally feel that the ranged AoE damage aspect should be left to short bow strictly. Therefore, my personal suggestion would be to completely scrap this trait, and add a new trait that increases your pistol range by 300 (so 1200 in total) in its place. Leaving it in the Trickery trait line (favours steal, which puts you at melee range…which is not ideal for someone trying to stay at range) would also force players to invest at least 20 points into it if they wish to benefit from the boost.

Agree with all points that you said. P/P build really need some minor buffs because now its really weak if i compare it with D/D build. Only useful skill is Unload which is weak and everybody can easily dodge it. Black powder shot is very expensive and almost nothing from it.

And now really think about Vital shot. Rangers shoot from short bow with cadence like machine gun and thief with pistols shoot so slow shots? Vital shot really need some speed buff at least same speed like rangers basic attacks with short bow.

Everybody who cry here for balancing daggers must accept balacing of pistols and bow as well. You cannot want only nerfing someting and not buff something else like compensation. You want balance so then balance of all weapons which mean buff pistols and bow which are underpowered in compare with other weapons.

We need an S/S and a Rifle. It’s rather unfair that a ranger can use a sword, and a mesmer can use a greatsword, but we can’t use a Rifle? c’mon..

Pistol #1 needs a buff. That damage is stupidly low, really needs a buff.

Talking about in another thread where a game developer said that “a thief is meant to be slippery and escape”, you should buff our stealth by a second or two.

You should also change the design mechanics of Heartseeker. Many people use heartseeker not only as an attack skill, but a skill to “jump” further or to escape, and sometimes heartseeker jumps at a random enemy behind or to the side of us. Very inconvenient.

You need to give our attacking skills more rooting/immobilise. A thief is meant to be sneaky and “steal”, playing tricks on enemies. The only rooting we have is 2 skills, and Sword #2. We need more.

We need more condition damage/focused skills. Our only good Condition Stacker is Death Blossom, and Shortbow #2 which is very weak.

Yes nice post. Why thief cannot use Rifle? Mesmers like illusionists can use greatsword, elementarists like mages can use daggers and thief which is stealth class cannot use Rifle? Sniper is something like thief, must be invisible and attack with surprise so Rifle is ideal weapon for thief. And pistols need really buff because now deal really funny weak damage.

Excellent thread with many good insights from people who have obviously played thief for a while and know what they are talking about.

I’d like to chime in with wanting the development team to take a good long look at pistol/pistol. An ability to go into stealth naturally whilst wielding two pistols would be interresting. Tweaking the damage as well.

Dual pistols is one of the main reason I chose thief in the first place, I really liked the concept of a “gunslinger” approach. This isn’t really the engineer’s forte either, so it would work well with the thief.

Underwater skills would need to be looked at as well, particularly the synergy between on-land range builds and harpoon gun/on land melee builds and spear. Having to re-trait if you even put a toe in water isn’t really good gameplay.

New things I’d love to see added is of course a rifle option. I really like the idea of a sniper weapon for my charr. It would be completely different from what is available to a warrior or an engineer.

Dual swords is also interresting, for a swashbuckling melee-type build.

Take for example dungeons. On dungeons you cannot use often daggers because enemies there are so strong that you as thief with small HP pool are dead in 1-2 sec so must use P/P and bow but problem is that these weapons are so weak that you play more supportive role on team. All time I was on dung i was forced to support more and using shadow refuge and revive allies because I was dealing almost no damage to enemies with pistols or bow even I invested all traits to damage and precision and build my gear for power, precison, critical damage and condition damage. Even i did all this (traits + gear) my damage with pistols and bow is ridiculous.

If we recapitulate it. On dungeons are thieves like paper so if they are weak on HP they must be strong on damage but with P/P or bow we have no HP nor damage and its main problem. On all other games like GW2 is for thieves normal that they have less HP but they have decent damage as well and deal some bonus damage if attack surprisingly from stealth but on GW2 is main problem that thief is completely ruined with other weapons than daggers and some ppl still cry for nerf of only effective weapon, dagger. I can agree with really small nerf of dagger but I call for buff of the other weapons mainly P/P which is really useless for most of situations.

Kurow.6973:

4: Head Shot: I believe this skill is perfectly fine as is. However, an increase to the daze duration from 0.25s to 0.5s wouldn’t hurt.

This is definitely one of those things where what looks like an insignificant change could have massive consequences. Headshot as it stands isn’t really a way to lock out skill use like other dazes, merely an interrupt on demand. Giving Headshot enough of a duration to actually stop the target from using skills for any length of time would be pretty significant. The skill is currently powerful, but rather situational. 100 % crit chance would give it some synergy with more builds without drastically increasing the power.

Most people are focusing on single weaponsets or skills that are their favorites, im gonna be more vague but speak in a broader perspective regarding roles.

First it would be interesting to see the thief with a good condition dmg build, were all damaging conditions are used. An idea for this would be changing the trickery line to add 5x confusion with long duration on steal from top tier traits. Allow one offhand, preferably dagger, have a similar stealthing skill like the mesmer one from a offhand torch applying burning (could be used by adding a napalm venom to enlight offhand). Together with a pistol mainhand this would be a really cool condition based damage build.

It would also be nice to have a pure supportrole for the thief either through adding better synergy at current weaponsets or making it possible through traits to swap weapons faster (could be while sacrificing damage). This would be to make better use of the different combofields, the idea to blast on demand while on the move with my group through a smokefield i put up at a chosen location rather than my feet would go a long way. (sneaky stealth ganking squad). Ideas on supportskills would again be to utilize traps/venoms which are currently overlaping.

Bunker build, like all other melee proffs it would be nice if the thief could bunker up. By bunkering up i dont specifically mean to stand still and eat dmg. You could bunker by being mobile but at a limited area, maintaining good control of your character. Ideas to this would be taking advantage of already exsisting mechanics of smoke field, but to combine this with utility skills or high traitlines in acrobat to give necissary stuff like stability, aegis and maybe even short duration and long cd retaliation.

English not primary language etc.

These are all excellent suggestions, but I believe if something needs a buff, it would definitely be the dual attacks.

More specifically would be the dual attacks that have no offhand. The problem, other than simply being underpowered, is that you sacrifice quite a lot for something that you can get WITH an offhand (and then some).

Let us take Twisting Fangs as an example. I did try it out last night, and it does work rather nicely, but it is just lacking pizazz. Since you cannot have an offhand to get this ability, you sacrifice your final two stills, and even some attack power and whatever stats would have been on your offhand. To make matters worse, if you want to use a non-two-handed weapon (i.e. anything that is not a short bow) in your secondary weapons, then it ALSO has to have no offhand. That’s a ridiculously huge tradeoff for something that really is not worth having in the first place. Granted, Twisting Fangs is kinda cool since it hits everyone around you twice and gives them 12 or so seconds of bleeding (twice), but if it were one or two more spins, then perhaps we can actually accept the tradeoff.

If that is a bit too positive, then let us talk about Stab, which is the Swords dual attack without an offhand. I also had the opportunity to try it out, and it is just abysmal. With damage weaker than the swords first auto attack skill along with the fact that it does absolutely nothing else could have it be considered the weakest skill in the game. It costs four initiative, and it is not all that fast even though it says 1/2 as its activation time. Perhaps you could use the trait that heals you when you use a skill that costs initiative, but seriously, you may as well use Unload for that. At least it has more use than Stab.

I liked a previous posters suggestion about how we should keep these offhand dual skills (buffing them too) as the normal third slot and just put the other dual skills as an F2 ability or something. It would definitely be a decent change to the thief’s mechanics to make it more fun to use without simply going all attack. I am sure someone will think of something.

drake.2135:

These are all excellent suggestions, but I believe if something needs a buff, it would definitely be the dual attacks.

More specifically would be the dual attacks that have no offhand. The problem, other than simply being underpowered, is that you sacrifice quite a lot for something that you can get WITH an offhand (and then some).

Let us take Twisting Fangs as an example. I did try it out last night, and it does work rather nicely, but it is just lacking pizazz. Since you cannot have an offhand to get this ability, you sacrifice your final two stills, and even some attack power and whatever stats would have been on your offhand. To make matters worse, if you want to use a non-two-handed weapon (i.e. anything that is not a short bow) in your secondary weapons, then it ALSO has to have no offhand. That’s a ridiculously huge tradeoff for something that really is not worth having in the first place. Granted, Twisting Fangs is kinda cool since it hits everyone around you twice and gives them 12 or so seconds of bleeding (twice), but if it were one or two more spins, then perhaps we can actually accept the tradeoff.

If that is a bit too positive, then let us talk about Stab, which is the Swords dual attack without an offhand. I also had the opportunity to try it out, and it is just abysmal. With damage weaker than the swords first auto attack skill along with the fact that it does absolutely nothing else could have it be considered the weakest skill in the game. It costs four initiative, and it is not all that fast even though it says 1/2 as its activation time. Perhaps you could use the trait that heals you when you use a skill that costs initiative, but seriously, you may as well use Unload for that. At least it has more use than Stab.

I liked a previous posters suggestion about how we should keep these offhand dual skills (buffing them too) as the normal third slot and just put the other dual skills as an F2 ability or something. It would definitely be a decent change to the thief’s mechanics to make it more fun to use without simply going all attack. I am sure someone will think of something.

^^^^ THIS!!! ^^^^

Why aren’t there any traits for condition damage applied on critical? The possible builds using condition damage are slim due to the skills required to apply it.

2nd item is related and deals with trait design itself. I feel that linked trait to stat boosts is a detraction to the game’s overall style of buildcrafting empowerment (player choice of their role and utility).

Trait points should have two interfaces, one for base stat boosts, and one for minor/major choices. The points shouldn’t do both at once, reducing your choices. That was better before the 3 tier system was added during one of the beta weekends, I’m told. But, the tier system is necessary and so is trait based stat gain. So keep both but let us choose the stats that support the role we’re choosing.

Third: why are the weapon skill choices so limited? Can any system be implemented that starts from the concept of steal and provides more choices what ability occupy 1-5 with the different weapons we have? Engineers and elementalists have tons of cool choices around their concept. I think thieves could be just as creative with weapon usage and skills to choose from!

I’m digging way back in this thread, but there was someone who mentioned putting a 1200 range on Scorpion Wire… and I have to say I love it! One of my least favorite things to do as a thief in WvW is attack people on a tower…. the Eles are bombarding long range AoE, and we don’t have much ability to get after them.

In general, I think there have been several comments about 1200 range, and I really feel that many of us want Rifle because it feels like a logical way to get there. SB is a short ranged weapon… a pistol is also a short ranged weapon. That’s what they are by nature, but boy, would we love to sniper, and it feels in keeping with the theme of a thief.

I’m just curious, would anyone see scepter or focus coming in as a thief off hand? I’m reminded of some old school D&D where thieves could ‘use magic device’, never as well as real magic users, but sort of a ‘pick up and play with it.’ I think putting a stealth on a scepter or focus off hand, maybe a confusion field out there as well would be pretty well reasonable from a Lore perspective: “Hey look what I stole from that mesmer! Let me see if I can make it work….”

One other thing on the topic of pistols….is there any reason, other than flavor, as to why most of the attacks are limited to 900 range? I mean, historically it makes sense for these types of pistols to have short range, but unless there is an actual balance reason for why they are limited to 900….why not make them 1200 like the other ranged weapons?

A. )More conditions. We def need a weapon ability that applies burning (unload, body shot, dagger #1 chain are possible options here). Poison across the board as a condition could see a slight buff. Maybe a weapon ability that applies a moderate duration chill. You dont have to reduce Direct damage on abilities to apply more conditions, however if there was one Id say burst builds would be okay with is removing most of the direct damage of Death Blossom and increasing the bleed stacks to 5 per target hit OR lowering the init cost to 3.

B.) Trait increasing Pistol range to 1200. Changing Ricochet trait to cause pistol shots to have a 100% chance to bounce twice. Now that you can bounce shots and have increased range it makes Pistol/Pistol very viable, and the trade off is having to take the traits

C.) S/P. Move the focus of S/P to be the tanking set and not S/D. Have the second hit in Sword #1 (slash) grant 5s of Vigor. Remove the damage element of Pistol Whip completely. Increase the stun to be 1s. Remove the Self root. Have it just be 1 hit with an evade frame. Have it also grant 5s of regeneration and place 5s of Fumble on the target. Since the initiative cost will not change, this is very balanced.

D.) S/D. Lets move the focus of this to be the pseudo damage and control set.
Have Flanking strike now shadowstep you to your target, hit them with the first hit, then shadowstep you right behind them and hit them with the second. Increase range to 200 to remove any geometry errors. Have the same boon removal have the first hit be unblockable, however increase the damage of the second hit by 20%. This will be a quick animation and the evade will be removed. This is balanced because the init cost is staying the same, the evade is being lost, also you can always block or dodge the heavy hitting second hit.

E.) Shortbow projectile speed needs to be increased, even if its only 10%

F.) Stability on Dagger Storm ELITE needs to be replaced with the effect you see on bosses so it cannot be stripped or corrupted by say a simple 10s cooldown weapon ability… The downsides are already that we move slower and can be meleed as well as immobilized..as well as AOEd…..etc

G.) Venom abilities
Venom share talent needs to have its radius to whom it will be shared with tripled. Yes I said it, triple the share radius.
Utility Venoms need to be either buffed OR removed from the utility slots and each placed in certain weapon abilities. This way you can change venom share to just have every ally in the radius apply the last condition the thief applied on their next attack (instead of just venoms).
Basilisk Venom needs to be instant cast. You already nerfed it.

Thats it for now..

Actually someone suggested something I am ashamed to not think of before.
If non-elite venoms could be reworked from utilities to class ability on par with steal (f2-f3-f4) and couple with a few reworks in traits will make an incredible improvement to thief’s viability in team play.
This will raise the effectiveness of utility builds such as venom share, while removing the need to address current problems with venom usage (like ticks into thin air/abilities that use them up but don’t apply) and will allow space for actual utility skills

Sword/Dagger – The combo-skill has gotten several buffs already, like removing boons etc, but I think it what it actually needs work on is that you still hardly can hit moving targets with it.
Also, the second attack in the skill feels like it synergizes with the rest of the skill since it isn’t part of the evade, making D/D’s Death Blossom a better evade-spam skill. I do however think that the stealth skill on sword could be tuned down a little (It can keep 2/3 uptime daze when timed right).

Traps – Tripwire works quite good and Shadow Trap is an awesome escape/ambush skill, but personally i feel that Needle Trap and Tripwire are a bit too similar. With my current basilisk-steal-backstab-free-kill-build I don’t really feel that the traps have any role, although i found them more useful for condition builds.

Pistol – The bleeding auto-attack on pistol doesn’t synergize very well with Body Shot or Unload which are both power based. Also I don’t think that Body Shot is worth using since i rather use unload than add 5% damage to the next unload.

Flanking strike should have a slightly longer evade animation, the longest of thief abilities, and it needs to be more accurate.

Traps and tricks need more love, scorpion wire and shadow trap are pretty bad.

Replace on of the traps effects with “When triggered, spreads caltrops in the area”
This kind of trap will provide enough viability to be taken in many specs even with a solid cooldown

It’s my understanding that P/P was gutted right before release, and it shows.

I don’t have a problem with the auto-attack; it’s weak, sure, but in the context of the entire weapon that isn’t necessarily a problem if there are other strong damage options there instead. The ranger’s short bow is a prefectly reasonable comparison – their auto-attack is much stronger, but the other skills are not particularly good from a damage perspective at all.

Unload lost a lot of oomph when you took a steamy dump on proc effects. The skill was really sexy when it could trigger a Sigil of Earth 5-6 times in a single usage; it’s still ok, but uninspiring now that you get 1 proc, on occasion 2 if you get lucky. This needs to be a marquee skill for P/P and it simply isn’t ATM.

Head Shot should deal some damage. I know you’re afraid of it becoming an execute, but interrupts simply aren’t that powerful in this game and it’s really costly to use given the forsaken damage. I’d never put a ratio higher than 1 on it, but a 1 ratio would help cover the opportunity cost of the initiative and time investment, and yes, it would give the skill some more use by letting you pop someone at very low health.

For Black Powder Shot, the skill would benefit immensely from putting the field on your target instead of on you. For a melee character it doesn’t matter, since the target is in melee anyway, but for a P/P user it would massively increase the utility of the skill.

As mentioned previously in many other threads, #2 needs a total rework; it adds nothing to either of the pistol sets, which need a low investment damage dealer. If I had free reign over the skill it’d be something like:

3 Initative
1.2:1 Power Ratio on hit
Applies 2 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds
120 AoE
Blast Finisher

—

Changing direction, I do think you should be able to trait at least one weapon’s basic attack to 1200 range. I would nominate the Short Bow, since it’s already used that way with Cluster Bomb, and it’s not nearly as dangerous as moving the range on pistols up.

There’s a trait, Potent Poison, that says “Increases poison duration by 33%.”, while 33% isn’t bad, it only effects the poison condition, so all other venoms are unaffected, this, to me, seems very lackluster, mostly because poison itself isn’t all that great, the -healing is nice, but it’s damage is very poor.

I would love to see another ‘poison’ (both a poison and a venom), that doesn’t reduce the target’s healing amount, but has another niche, perhaps is deals more damage or it cannot easily be removed… this would make both condition builds a little more viable and would make Potent Poison a decent trait…

Replacing body shot for a backwards leap would be much more useful to P/P then anything else.
Would be really good if it had leap combo to work with black powder giving P/P a way to stealth.

I don’t know why everyone wants rifle. It would be a very stationary weapon and doesn’t fit the thief at all. I’d prefer the Long Bow if we’re asking for another range option.

As for just overall, I think we need more weapon variety. Thief is pretty boring in versatility. We have 3 main hand weapons, 2 offhand weapons and 1 2h weapon. I’d love to have axes, and I think it could give us a better AoE option in melee. Our only current one is Sword mainhand, which is pretty awful for AoE.

As a whole, P/P needs looked at. It’s terrible right now.

Short bow could also use 1200 range, since it’s only used now for Cluster Bomb spam and utility (Infiltrator’s Arrow, Disabling Shot).

Flanking Strike needs looked at. It should probably be removed/reworked rather than just buffed.

Traps need buffed, for sure. The only good one is the stealth trap, and it’s extremely situational. The others are just bad.

Venoms, other than Devourer and Basilisk, could use a buff. Chill venom is way too short for a utility slot, Weakness/Vulnerability is awful for a utility slot, and the Poison one is only good in P/D condition damage builds.

Condition damage builds could also use a slight buff, although it’s not really necessary, since they’re already decent enough.

One thing I’d also love would be for our mainhand weapons to act as two-handed weapons whenever they’re wielded by themselves (as in, you get offhand skills). It’s more the idea than conventional use that attracts me. A thief using a single one-handed weapon seems more suited to a thief to me.

S/P needs Pistol Whip to be restored to prenerf, and the stun should be changed. The problem with it isn’t that it’s too strong – it’s just too ridiculous when used in unison with Haste.

This is just what’s off the top of my head. Considering that only three builds are really the only ones used – Dagger/Dagger burst, Unicorn, and P/D condition damage builds – kinda shows something for how lacking the other weapon sets are. And yes, I understand that some people use other builds, like S/D, but the fact is they’re outclassed. Short bow should also not be basically a required offhand if you don’t want to die.

Traps. The only thing useful is ambush. It’s powerful even without VA.

Condition removal, as has been said. There needs to be more practical methods than just going shadow arts and having to stealth. I personally run a support BS build and often have the trait but I really feel for those other thieves.

Moar support, please. More ways to spread regen to my party members than just SR. Maybe make shadow’s embrace effect party members as well if you stealth them.

Moar boons? I feel we have great offense but let’s see some more support coming from thieves other than damage.

Okay here is my little part of thoughts that address some of the issues:
Do note that this is proposed as one whole change, and is only a part of a bigger rework I am still figuring out:

Hidden Killer moved to Shadow Arts last tier
This will either remove guaranteed critical from backstab of glass cannon thieves or will force them to spec out of power / crit power line to obtain. Also will give buff to Shadow arts tree that will make much more sense.

Shadow’s Rejunevation moved to Shadow arts tier 2
This will tone down stealth sitting a tiny bit by forcing those that try to sit in stealth to either go for the third tier or choose only one Heal/Initiative regen in stealth.

Power Shots moved to Deadly arts tier 1
As shortbow being a straight utility with only one damaging attack, moving this trait to power tree start will make this one more viable and much more synergized with the trait trees.

Mug moved to Deadly arts tier 2
Again, moving this to tier 2 will make it mutually exclusive with dagger damage increase, further toning down glass cannon backstab burst

Impovisation redesigned and moved to Deadly arts tier 3
This ability provides at best 60% chance to do something good once every 45 seconds.
The randomness at this level will not be tolerated, and this is a good first candidate for a redesign and filling a tier 3 deadly arts slot. I have ideas of what could go here but none of them are formidable yet.

Panic Strikes moved to Critical strikes tier 2
The power of this trait does not match its standing in tier 3 and has zero synergy with that trait tree. Given deadly arts focus on venoms, devourer venom will be much more of use than this trait for the purposes of that trait line. Moving this to Critical strikes makes this easier to obtain for those who rely on crit more and provides outstanding synergy with trait line tier 1 Fury on 50% and tier 3 20% damage on enemies below 50% health.

Critical Haste cooldown decreased and moved to critical strikes tier 3
The power of quickness demands this to be taken higher and to be mutually exclusive with the damage-boosting abilities. As a trade-off, up time is increased to be more reliable for a tier 3 talent.

I will address more issues later, hope this much will at least be partially considered
Edit: few typos and feel free to provide feedback and/or suggestion, will be much appreciated

I would suggest the following buffs:
1. fix flanking strike pathing to make it reliable
2. body shot needs to do more
3. PP in general needs to be better
4. shortbow i think could actually take a nerf on area damage. at the same time i would suggest one power being buffed against single targets or introduce a bit of burst to the weaponset.
5. i actually think a lot of QQ would be avoided by giving steal a 1/2 sec cast time (prevent CnD-steal precast insta whoop).

My suggested buffs pretty much fall on two items: Pistol Pistol and Basilisk Venom/Underwater Elites

I absolutely do not feel that PP should offer an on demand stealth built in. This would only make it fill a role very similar to Pistol Dagger. However, it does need an escape mechanism, and Body Shot is where it should be. Make it the old Leg Shot, where it applied a short term cripple on demand.

Unload damage should probably buffed by about 5% as well, but no buff to the attack speed of it. It makes sense you don’t hit -as hard- at range than up close, given you’re at lower risk of damage. Less risk should equal less reward.

I would also personally love the stun duration on 4 to be increased from 1/4 second to 1/2 second, but I could personally take it or leave it.

Skill 1’s attack could use a slight adjustment in damage as well, either in raw numbers, or in applying two stacks of bleed instead of one. Personally, I’d favor the double bleed option myself, even though I’m not a condition thief.

Finally, a range boost from 900 to 1000 would be rather nice. It’s a small increase, but right now every option we have is practically point blank.

Now, basilisk venom? It’s a skill that doesn’t always work under water, yet it’s our only underwater elite. A lower cooldown and a shorter apply buff duration might make up for some of it, however. And on the subject of underwater elites, why isn’t Dagger Storm viable for that?

Rifle for thief sounds like the coolest weapon in the universe.

imo the problem people are having with stealth is basically just the backstab. Not many people complain about how thieves keep stealthing, only that they kill you after they leave stealth. What I’m saying here is I’d like more stealth based gameplay.

Here’s an idea: Rifle has a stealth ability that breaks once you move but lasts much longer than regular stealth skills with a stealth breaking ability that does more damage the longer you stayed stealthed up to a cap (no stealth stacking ranged backstab level damage hopefully?). Since its a sniper weapon right…? Seems a little bit too much to add in a patch though.

Ricochet being an on crit skill is an amazing idea I would endorse it if I knew what endorse meant.

Aside from stealth I also like how awesome death blossom looks, and we have an entire trait line called ‘Acrobatics’. I kind of wish we had more actual acrobatic moves that did stuff aside from rolling backwards.

I dont really like shortbow. Cluster bomb…. well its just an aesthetic/thematic thing, if thieves had access to more bombs then I dont mind how much of an anti stealth weapon the shortbow is. I’d like a root or cripple skill for shortbow though.

Thieves have a billion and a half ministuns and the only one that lasts longer than 1 second is an elite skill… so they’re basically all interrupts, but for some reason its the rangers that get ‘Attack of Opportunity’. Im just saying.

I mostly agree with changing p/p 2,4,5. I think unload is fine as long as pistol traits RICOCHET COUGH COUGH get tweaked.

Give p/p a small buff (anet you have excelent ideas here)

Give us a rifle with 1200 range, WvW feels really vulnerable with our 900 range while every other class have 1200-1500 range.

Giving 1200 range on Bow Autoattack is not viable since it would make the weapon extremly OP.

Was told to bring this idea to this thread, would add some more depth to thief gameplay. I hope you enjoy

Teerwik.1650

F2-F6 should just be our non elite venom abilities. They aren’t worth the utility slot, and steal really isn’t all that on par with class based abilities like Shatter/DS, thats just my personal opinion

Silent Killer Ruven.1986

I definitely love Teerwik’s idea, maybe give them a global cooldown similar to elementalist attunements when you use one, reduced by points in the Trickery Trait line maybe. I love some of venom utilities, but as they are right now I don’t love them enough to spend a utility on them.

Edit: Going beyond f4 would seem a tad cumbersome tho, so maybe combine/refine the venoms. Say make Spider only apply to 3 hits and also apply a single stack of bleed per hit, making it the DoT venom. Combine Ice Drake and Skale into a the “debilitating” Venom. Change Devourer to a 2 second immobilize on 1 hit, and a short duration cripple on the 2nd hit, to make it a movement impairing one. Give each one something like a 30 second CD, and activate a 15 second shared CD when one is used and drop their duration to about 10 seconds so they can’t be stacked. The Venom traits could use a look at too, but this could open up new strategies.

(edited about 20 hours ago by Silent Killer Ruven.1986)

I’d really like to see thieves get somekind of aoe dmg mitigation. Decent players know to aoe even after a thief stealths and, as a glass cannon, I can sometimes die to that aoe alone. If our burst is reduced, I’d like to gain some survivability in return.

Massive changes to the inherant functionality of weapons skills are a bad idea IMO.

For instance, when you talk about changing the functionality of C&D or body shot to a completely different effect based on P/P or S/D or whatever, you’re also changing that effect for other weapon combos.

Losing the vuln from body shot or the stealth from C&D would completely destroy the utility and playstyle on a P/D for instance.

If you’re looking at adjusting a specific kit, the skill to think about overhauling is always going to be the dual skill. Mainhand and offhand skills across the board are well mixed in terms of utility, and where its useful to adjust those is in terms of cast times, condition amounts/durations, damage, etc.

C&D is IMO perfect the way it is. Its a solid damage attack with a stealth component. Its expensive enough that if you want to spam it you have to trait for spamming it, and you’re still taking a pretty big hit to your initiative.

Body shot on the other hand could definately use a look. Honestly i think the skill would be fine with a whorter cast/animation time, or an increased vuln duration to make up for its long cast, but its got good synergy with offhands and teamplay. The way it is, it just takes too long to fire, and thus doesn’t give you the opportunity timing wise to get real use out of other attacks between body shots which forces you to only use it once (which is bad for theif skills and counter to the initiative mechanic) at the start of a chain, or to go “all in” with it to stack enough vuln that it sufficiently amps the damage of the one attack you have initiative left to use afterward.

I agree with people saying that venoms and traps could use a hard look. Venoms, even traited for cooldown reduction simply don’t have enough charges or a strong enough effect to be worth using in most cases. Lowering the base cooldown, or increasing the effectivness of everything but basilisk and immobilize venoms (which are quite good) is something that should be considered. I understand a lot of venom’s balancing is probably worked around venom sharing, but lets be honest here, venoms should be an attractive option in a non-share build as well considering that’s a slot you could have used for blinding powder, shadow refuge, haste, signets, or a number of vastly superior utility skills that are effective and useful with or without traits.

In addition, When people are sking for support, its pretty clear that trickery is already the theif’s intended support line. I’m one of only a handful if people that trait for 30 in trickery (because I love steal) And handing out a big stack of buffs with every steal, as well as ripping boons all at once is a great feeling. However, it can also only happen once every 30 seconds, with a full 30 points in the line, and the effects are often not up to par with support abilities available to every other class. 10 secs of a single stack of three buffs every 30 seconds isn’t all that supportive.

Trickery needs buffs that make is a lot more attractive in terms of support or target debuffing, as that’s where the trickery line is really going to shine. IMO Trickery specced thieves should be the undisputed masters of ripping boons. It just makes sense. Thief support play is all about debuffing the enemy. You should be seeing traits like “When you steal, or use a stolen skill, it also rips X boons” or “when you steal, or use a stolen skill, that skill also does X”

If trickery is the stealing line, and stealing is all about a quick fulcrum shift of battle, bump that up a notch so people are rewarded a bit better for choosing to spec in to it.

A lot of these “changes” seem to be coming from people who want their own specific favorite build improved, with no regard to other builds. A lot of these changes would completely destroy thief build diversity, such as removing stealth from CnD would be a complete disaster for several major thief builds, basically ruining the whole profession.

Thief doesn’t need any changes like that at all, it’s one of the only properly working professions in the game other than mesmer, so I hope they don’t get ruined like some suggestions on this thread would accomplish.

A few simple changes to spike damage is all that’s needed, a good start for example would be to remove the huge damage hit on the mug trait, there’s no reason for mug to do more than 1K or so. I would suggest to slightly reduce the effect of power on CnD, plus lowering mug damage, and then see how it goes, instead of totally trashing the profession with wild changes.

In return, some skills should get upgrades, such as pistol’s vital shot and body shot.

Before any assumptions are made (because I already see people making them), I don’t have any favourite build(s). I just want more diversity. GW2 severely lacks diversity compared to GW1…especially on the thief class. This is why you see limited builds and it feels like everyone (especially thieves) is playing the same build, because it’s just that limited. Sure there’s other builds you can TRY, but they’re all obsolete because they’re far too ineffective.

Anyways, I’ve read through some suggestions, and some made sense, while others I completely disagreed with. Three of the main ones that caught my attention are; making black powder field being on top of enemies instead of yourself, reducing mug damage significantly, and adding a cast time to steal. I highly disagree with all of these. For one, you DO NOT want a field to be on top of where the enemy was where you shot them, as this will make field combo-ing just plain silly, and the enemy can simply move out of it. Secondly, you take a look at mug damage (comes from a trait mind you) and compare it to other class specific skills that deal damage (especially warrior adrenalin based skills) and you’ll notice this is nothing (not to mention the fact that steal has a 45s c/d)…and finally, you DO NOT want a cast time on steal. The class specific skill for thief is already significantly weak (especially when un-traited) compared to other classes, and it does NOT need to be even more limited and weaker.

Moving on from that, this time, I’d like to bring into light some issues with traits and possible replacements and buffs to a few traits that will make them more appealing, and possibly open up new idea for builds for players, thus creating a bigger diversity in play style.

I’d like to begin with “Last Refuge” from the “Shadow Arts” trait line. Though this inherent trait is excellent in theory, in practice it can be quite devastating when playing with an offhand dagger, or using steal with “Mug” and “Hidden Thief”. If you happen to use “C&D” or “Steal”, and your HP drops to/below 25% in the middle of it, you not only lose your stealth, but you are granted the “Revealed” effect which is contra-beneficial. I’d like to suggest that this be fixed by one of two methods. First option would be to allow the stealth to stack, and not reveal the player if damage occurs from “C&D” or “Steal”. The second option would be to allow the second stealth effect to simply override the “Last Refuge” stealth effect.

Continuing on, next up, we have the traits that people are free to choose from. Bear with me, this will be long. I apologize ahead of time.

1: Corrosive Traps (Deadly Arts): As is right now, I honestly do not wish to comment on this until traps are fixed. As others have mentioned, traps need a serious reworking/buff.

2: Sundering Strike (Deadly Arts): This trait is almost identical to the “Superior Sigil of Frailty”. The only difference is that the trait gives a 40% chance with 5s duration and 1s internal c/d, where as the sigil gives a 30% chance for 10s duration and no internal c/d. My suggestion would be to simply remove the internal c/d of the trait, or increase the duration to 8~10s instead of 5s.

3: Improvisation (Deadly Arts): I’ve tried this trait and given it countless number of chances to impress me in any shape or form. However, the sheer reliance on RNG has lead to only disappointments. I have yet to find anyone using this trait at all. This trait MUST be either scrapped for something better, or reworked. How about something like 40% chance on critical hits to bleed and cripple your enemies for 4s with a 10s internal c/d while wielding a melee weapon (change of name required of course, maybe something like Devastating Cut)?

4: Dagger Training (Deadly Arts): I’ve noticed that there’s absolutely no trait that gives any kind of boost to swords or spear. My recommendation for this would be to change this trait into something like “Melee Training”, where it increases the damage dealt by daggers, swords, and spears by 5%.

5: Practiced Tolerance (Critical Strikes): I like the idea that the trait gives gives a little bit more survivability. However, it just doesn’t feel like it’s enough at all…and it’s extremely rare to find anyone using it over the other, much more appealing traits under the Critical Strikes trait line. I’d like to suggest that an added bonus of 5~10% Precision be added to Toughness, or 5% Toughness be added as Vitality. This will surely make the trait a lot more appealing, especially to PvE players doing things like dungeons or world boss fights.

6: Ankle Shot (Critical Strikes): The only suggestion I’d like to add here is to reduce the c/d to 5s instead of 10s. However, to compensate for this, decrease the chance to trigger this from 60% to 40%.

7: Critical Haste (Critical Strikes): Again, this trait is identical to the “Superior Sigil of Rage”, with the difference being that the sigil offers a longer duration with a longer c/d. There’s not much appeal to it. However, as we all know, quickness needs to be adjusted anyway. So, I will leave this for later when/if quickness is changed. If not, I’d like to suggest that the duration be increased to 3s instead of 2s to make it appealing enough to use over the sigil.

8: Assassin’s Retreat (Acrobatics): Again? This skill is identical to the “Superior Sigil of Speed”. The only difference is that the trait has a 1s c/d, while the sigil does NOT. C’mon Anet, let’s get creative here. This trait needs either a serious rework, or just needs to be scrapped all together for something better. How about a chance to trigger swiftness on critical hits…or on damage taken. Perhaps something like 30% chance on critical hit, or 40% chance when hit for a 3s swiftness buff with a 5s internal cooldown?

9: Fleet of Foot (Acrobatics): My only suggestion for this would to be to add “Chill” amongst the conditions removed. However, this may be overdoing it, so I’d suggest testing this first in monitored sPvP.

10: Pain Response (Acrobatics): In theory, this trait can be excellent for survivability. However, in practice, the amount of conditions that are constantly applied, with the addition of boon removals, makes this quite useless when playing against good players. My only suggestion for this would be either to increase the duration of the regeneration boon to 15s, or reduce the internal c/d to 40s.

11: Hard to Catch (Acrobatics): My suggestion for this would be to simply reduce the internal c/d to 45s. However, just like “Fleet of Foot”, this may be overdoing it, and must be tested in sPvP to weigh its viability.

12: Quick Pockets (Acrobatics): Though this may seem like a decent trait, for being a final trait in the acrobatics trait line, it’s severely lacking. I haven’t come across anyone using this trait at all. This is no surprise considering it is completely out of place, and as aforementioned, severely lacking. This trait needs to be completely reworked, or in my personal opinion be completely replaced by something more appropriate and viable. How about something like you block the next attack against you when you enter stealth (again, name needs to be changed of course…maybe something like Shadowy Defense)?

13: Flanking Strike (Trickery): With recent talks about “Backstab” nerf being on the horizon, and its raw damage capabilities, this trait needs a serious buff. I would recommend the damage boost provided by this trait be increased to 15%, instead of 5%, while reducing the damage that “Backstab” deals by 10%. Also, I would suggest swapping the trait from being number 4(IV) with 6 (VI: “Long Reach”). This way, the raw damage capability will take a hard hit for players relying on the cookie cutter build, but at the same time force those willing to continue playing the build to invest 20 points into the “Trickery” trait line to achieve similar damage. This will also in turn reduce the number of available trait points they have left to invest into the “Deadly Arts” and “Critical Strikes” trait line, resulting in an overall limited damage capability. So, even though the damage of “Backstab” reliant builds will be nerfed, the overall DPS will not take such a hard hit as long as players are skilled enough to constantly remain behind enemies. In fact, this will provide a significant boost for players in PvE if they choose to trait this and remain behind enemies majority of the time.

14: Initial Strike (Trickery): Once again, this may seem like a decent trait in theory, but it just doesn’t give enough benefit to slot the trait. My only suggestion for this would be to increase the chance for it to trigger from 7% to 10%.

15: Ricochet (Trickery): I mentioned this in my previous post. This trait is not only a potential danger in PvE and useless in PvP, but I believe the ranged AoE aspect should be left strictly to shortbow. As I previously mentioned, I feel this trait should be replaced with a new trait that adds 300 (1200 total) range to pistol skills.

That is all for now. I shall be back later on with more input on other aspects that could potentially make this a more fun class with a lot more diversity.

Kurow

Again, this trait is identical to the “Superior Sigil of Rage”, with the difference being that the sigil offers a longer duration with a longer c/d. There’s not much appeal to it. However, as we all know, quickness needs to be adjusted anyway. So, I will leave this for later when/if quickness is changed. If not, I’d like to suggest that the duration be increased to 3s instead of 2s to make it appealing enough to use over the sigil.

Barring the fact that the sigil is pretty bad unless you’ve got a really low crit rate, they stack perfectly and don’t synergize at all. I’ll never understand why people seem to think there’s some kind of synergy (or stacking issue) in having two quickness procs.

The Superior Sigil of Rage and Critical Haste are, respectively, one of the best sigils in the game and one of the strongest traits available to a thief – why would you buff either ever?

Ensign.2189:

The Superior Sigil of Rage and Critical Haste are, respectively, one of the best sigils in the game and one of the strongest traits available to a thief – why would you buff either ever?

If you have a trait identical to a sigil, make it so they don’t stack. That is what I was getting at. This creates more issues than solves, and prevents diversity rather than creating it.

Not to mention the fact that quickness needs a serious nerf anyway.

Honestly, I don’t think any kind of sigil/rune should be duplicated into a trait at all. That to me says laziness.

The shortbow needs either longer range or a faster fire rate. It’s the only real ranged weapon thieves have but it’s one of their weakest.

The bleeding on all the thief’s attacks which cause it is pitiful compared to the necromancer’s. It’s weaker and wears off faster. Applying poison for 2 seconds with lotus strike is worthless. Poison has to last longer than that to have any kind of effect.

Thieves have medium armor, but they still are about as frail as light armored class. Escapes are limited to roll for initiative and shadow step. Both have long cool downs which make escape harder than it should be. Shadow step is also useless underwater.

Ichishi.9613:

Okay here is my little part of thoughts that address some of the issues:
Do note that this is proposed as one whole change, and is only a part of a bigger rework I am still figuring out:

Hidden Killer moved to Shadow Arts last tier
This will either remove guaranteed critical from backstab of glass cannon thieves or will force them to spec out of power / crit power line to obtain. Also will give buff to Shadow arts tree that will make much more sense.

Shadow’s Rejunevation moved to Shadow arts tier 2
This will tone down stealth sitting a tiny bit by forcing those that try to sit in stealth to either go for the third tier or choose only one Heal/Initiative regen in stealth.

Power Shots moved to Deadly arts tier 1
As shortbow being a straight utility with only one damaging attack, moving this trait to power tree start will make this one more viable and much more synergized with the trait trees.

Mug moved to Deadly arts tier 2
Again, moving this to tier 2 will make it mutually exclusive with dagger damage increase, further toning down glass cannon backstab burst

Impovisation redesigned and moved to Deadly arts tier 3
This ability provides at best 60% chance to do something good once every 45 seconds.
The randomness at this level will not be tolerated, and this is a good first candidate for a redesign and filling a tier 3 deadly arts slot. I have ideas of what could go here but none of them are formidable yet.

Panic Strikes moved to Critical strikes tier 2
The power of this trait does not match its standing in tier 3 and has zero synergy with that trait tree. Given deadly arts focus on venoms, devourer venom will be much more of use than this trait for the purposes of that trait line. Moving this to Critical strikes makes this easier to obtain for those who rely on crit more and provides outstanding synergy with trait line tier 1 Fury on 50% and tier 3 20% damage on enemies below 50% health.

Critical Haste cooldown decreased and moved to critical strikes tier 3
The power of quickness demands this to be taken higher and to be mutually exclusive with the damage-boosting abilities. As a trade-off, up time is increased to be more reliable for a tier 3 talent.

I will address more issues later, hope this much will at least be partially considered
Edit: few typos and feel free to provide feedback and/or suggestion, will be much appreciated

Finally got around to commenting on this
I support the idea of moving hidden killer to shadow arts, i have no idea wot its doing in critical strikes.
As for Mug, i don’t think it being moved will do much because if some goes full glass cannon i.e. 30/30/x, they would have access to it anyway. On the other hand, people like me who only build more survivability won’t have access to it without investing more into Deadly Arts which will take away from other traits.
And while i agree that quickness is broken and should be addressed, the chance for it to proc is low enough and the cool down long enough for it to be a tier 2 trait. Once again it scales to the crit chance that the player has but even if u have a 100% chance to crit, u only gain quickness 10% of the time, and consistent 100% crit chance is near impossible anyway or is it?…..

I only moved mug so it will be mutually exclusive with dagger damage trait. I haven’t though of possibility of build that goes 10 into deadly just for mug.
For haste on crit: problem is with the fact that effect is very too strong to remain in tier 2, but the trait itself is too unreliable. Making it more reliable and moving up is more reasonable than letting immobile with 60sec cooldown to remain in tier3. I had to do this because I moved Hidden Killer and needed to balance trait amounts.
Do note that this was meant only as a concept, I am generally working on whole trait picture and what I posted was just most, like, demanded one that addresses most actual issues of this moment.
It may be a bit unfair for a thief currently, but she shadow arts part actually addresses practically the only thief bunker build, while not addressing much more powerful bunkers of other classes. Sadly, I am not competent enough to deal with those
The purpose of this small thing is to deal with 1) backstab glass cannons 2) those stealth-tanking thieves that should not really exist

Minor detail, but why can’t I use blinding powder underwater?

because it is washed away by water :P

Here’s some idea’s from me:

We need more trait options for condition builds for starters.

I’d like a trait for unload to stack bleeds for pistol/pistol.

I’d like backstab to be traited to stack conditions. As it is a D/D condition Thief is stuck to deathblossom and the occasional dancing dagger.

I’d like some serious thought given to single wield sets. You’ve implemented abilities that can only be used with one weapon (eg just a pistol, just a sword, just a dagger) and yet there is no reason to play like that. You lose 2 skills and the skill 3 for most of these single wield sets is not worth giving up those slots. Give these weapons ability 4 and 5 please.

two-handed wield of the single gun! that would be epic
wielding a single sword = riposte!
two handed wielding of a dagger = 3rd skill switches the hand you are holding dagger with and skill bar

Ichishi, with the dagger skill you speak of. Switching hands could be some form of trick skill, giving you distortion for 1 second or something.

@Katsumoto
i think we should leave the distortion to the mesmers and make it give 2 stacks of 5 second confusion instead

nono it gets small sideway shadowstep to the left when switching from right hand to left and small sideway shadowstep to the right when switching from left hand to right one
That would be cool but not usable sadly
Its more about getting barrel roll, point blank, and switch magazine skills for two-handed gun

Dagger / Light
3rd skill: [Switch] your dagger to offhand and confuse enemy with this move (10 sec duration, 5 ini cost) <> [Switch back]. Enemy eyes bleed from blinding speed of this move
4th skill (only during switch): [I have more] Coat the dagger in poison, throw it away in chosen direction, poisoning first enemy it hits. Pull a new dagger out of your sleeve and put it in your main hand. Switch ends
5th skill (only during switch): It was a [Bad Move]. Leave your dagger on the ground, bleeding anyone who steps over and gain 2 sec of swiftness to run away and find a new one in your long and uncomfortable coat. Switch ends
Gun / Light:
3rd skill: Fire a bullet into an enemy’s foot during [Barrel Roll]. Your opponent is crippled for 5 sec. 5 initiative
4th skill: [Reload] your gun, throwing empty magazine under enemy foot, making him trip over (1 sec). Nearby foes are stunned briefly (1/4 sec) by the coolness of the move. Nearby allies are invigorated by this outstanding performance (2 sec). 7 initiative cost
5th skill: Block an attack and counter with a shot that deals more damage to the closer your target is to you. Target at [Point Blank] range will be knocked back. 6 initiative cost

Idea on Venom, have them act like signets giving some direct damage or utility depending on which one you have on. Activate the venom for a larger effect. This may not fit the flavor of a venom but it could work mechanically to make Venom better for PvE. -or- Make poisons personal so the slot on our bar isn’t just adding to another’s poison duration.

Reduce bleeds to 18 stacks but make the stacks personal. Three bleeders in a dungeon is counterproductive. Condition builds are terrible for world events and dragons… If I see 25 stacks on something I just switch to SB and autoattack…

Taking the direct damage component away from Deathblossom was suggested, I’ll disagree with that simply for the fact that when bleeds are maxed you would get nothing out of this ability without the direct damage.

I love the Initiative system of the thief, I play a thief so I don’t have to deal with cooldowns.

I love the depth of the class and the build options we have, that being said there are traits that could be greatly improved or reworked to make them competitive with other traits.

P/P, I like that this feels like the direct damage ‘shoot um in the face’ loadout but it could use a damage buff or a way to stay at ranged or a bit better utility.

*I have made some of these points already, just adding some new ideas.

TY
Blood~