Guild Wars 2

General Changes

• Self applied Revealed duration in PvP is normalized with the rest of the game to now last 3 seconds instead of 4.

• The current skills that apply Revealed like Sic ’Em and Analyze now apply a new debuff called Exposed instead. The Exposed debuff allows everyone to be able to see and target a stealthed player temporarily as if they weren’t in stealth. This new debuff will still allow for counter play to stealth without completely shutting down the Stealth Attack Thief mechanic or stealth related traits.

• Stealth Attacks that are nullified(blocked, evaded, invulnerability) remove your current stealth(does NOT reveal you). Some changes are made below to compensate for this, like the changes to Cloak and Dagger and the changes to Meld with Shadows. Successfully landing an attack from stealth will still reveal you like normal.

• Improve the line of sight/path finding systems for Shadowsteps. Currently, Shadowsteps get caught on small rocks on the terrain and things like that, resulting in a failed Shadowstep or a Shadowstep that doesn’t teleport you as far as the Shadowstep’s range should allow for.

Heal/Utility/Elite Skill Changes

Tricks:

-Withdraw still needs its base healing increased by 10% like what was said since its cool down got increased to from 15 to 18 seconds.

• Even if the base healing was increased by 20% (making Withdraw heal as much as it did before since its cool down was increased by 20%), it would still be weaker than its previous version because you don’t get the evade or condition cleanses as often as before. The 10% heal increase needs happen at a minimum like what was said when it was announced to be getting an increased cool down.

-Haste should have its cool down reduced to 50 seconds like Engineer’s Elixir U.

-Roll for Initiative should have its cool down reduced to 40-45 seconds to make it more on par with Ranger’s Lightning Reflexes. Alternatively, its cool down could be reduced to 30 seconds and the initiative gained could be reduced to 3 or 4.

-Scorpion Wire in general is very buggy/unreliable. Its velocity may need to be increased or whatever else it needs to make it much more reliable. A damage increase would also be nice, as well as crippling the pulled target. Its cool down could maybe be reduced to 15 seconds depending on how it feels after the above changes.

-Caltrops should have its cool down reduced to 15 seconds, its duration reduced to 5 seconds, and its cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds. The cripple applied should be reduced to 8 seconds since there is a shorter cool down now.

• With these changes Caltrops will have the same overall up time as it has now, but it would be more useful/accessible. Currently the long duration is wasted since opponents can just quickly walk out of the aoe circle, and then you can’t use it again for another 24-30 seconds.

-Dagger Storm should have its cool down reduced to 75 seconds and become a stun breaker. It should also just grant 5 stacks of stability for 8 seconds at the start instead of pulsing stability every 3 seconds.

• Currently, if you manage to get interrupted while using Dagger Storm(or even decide to simply dodge), the whole skill is cancelled unlike other profession’s pulsing stability elite skills, and you then don’t get the second or third stability pulses either.

Signets:

-Signet of Malice should have its activation time reduced to 0.75 seconds, and it should apply 2 seconds of slow and taunt to nearby foes when you activate it. In compensation, the active heal amount should be reduced a bit (maybe to a 2500 base heal?).

-Signet of Shadows needs something more for its active ability. In addition to blinding, it could either stealth you, stun break, or just decrease its cool down to 15 seconds.

-Assassin’s Signet should have its cool down reduced to 30 seconds.

-Infiltrator’s Signet should either additionally grant 1-2 initiative on use, or just have its cool down reduced to 25 seconds.

-Signet of Agility is fine as is.

Deceptions:

-Hide in Shadows should have its cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds. It should also be changed to cure any 3 damaging conditions, adding torment and confusion to the list of conditions it can possibly cleanse.

-Shadowstep should have its cool down reduced to 40-45 seconds.

• The current 50 second cool down is quite long. Also, Shadowstep is a deception skill, even though it seems to fit the trick skill category better. This makes it harder to fit in the trait/trait line that reduces deception skill recharges in builds that revolve around the trick play style.

-Smoke Screen should have an instant cast time and have its duration increased from 7 to 8 seconds to make it more on par with Guardian’s Wall of Reflection.

-Blinding Powder should have its cool down reduced to 30-35 seconds.

• This would help because it feels especially weak when not using it as a combo finisher with an offhand pistol’s Black Powder to gain a longer stealth duration.

-Shadow Refuge should no longer reveal you when you leave/get knocked out of its area prematurely. It should either just remove your current stealth, or apply the new Exposed debuff explained in the previous post for 3 seconds instead.

• Revealing you not only negates the entire skill, it also makes you worse off than if you didn’t use SR at all because you can’t even use a second utility or weapon skill to stealth yourself again in response (since you are revealed). Removing your current stealth instead would be fine because it would still counter Shadow Refuge without bleeding over to also counter other stealth-granting skills. Also, knocking someone out of a Scrapper’s Sneak Gyro doesn’t reveal them or anything else like what’s being suggested here.

-Thieves Guild should have its cool down reduced to 120 seconds, have its cast time reduced to 1 second, and it should stealth you for 5 seconds on activation. It could probably grant you something like 5 stacks of might and fury for 10-15 seconds as well depending on how it feels with the previous changes.

• With its current 180 second cool down, it seems much, much weaker than some other 180 second cool down elite skills like Rampage, Lich Form, Plague, Time Warp, and Supply Crate. Also, the AI thieves don’t deal a lot of damage, and they die very quickly.

Traps:

-Ambush should switch to a roll over skill when the trap is triggered similar to Shadow Trap. The roll over skill should summon the thief NPC and additionally stealth you for 3 seconds. It should probably have its cool down reduced to 30 seconds as well.

• Similar to Thieves Guild, the AI thief summoned from this skill dies quickly and doesn’t deal a lot of damage, so these changes would help make this trap more useful. The roll over portion should help prevent the stealth from triggering at a bad moment, causing you to be revealed.

-Needle Trap should apply 3 stacks of poison for 10 seconds instead of only 1 stack. It should also apply some direct damage so you can’t stay in stealth indefinitely while enemies die to your conditions.

-Tripwire should additionally apply 10 stacks of vulnerability for 5-10 seconds. It should also apply some direct damage for similar reasons to Needle Trap. The direct damage could be fairly strong for this trap.

-Shadow Trap has some line of sight issues that should be fixed, but that isn’t exclusive to this skill. If the shadow step line of sight issues get fixed, the range could probably be reduced to 5000 like mesmer Portals.

Venoms:

Venoms have always had the problem of being quite weak when used without the Venomous Aura trait. Due to this, Venomous Aura should only apply half of the venom stacks to allies. To compensate for this, venoms will all have their cool downs reduced to 25 seconds from 40. With these changes, venoms will still be just about as strong as they currently are with Venomous Aura, but using venoms without Venomous Aura will be more viable than they currently are, which is needed. All venoms should also be instantly cast (currently only Basilisk Venom and Skelk Venom aren’t) and apply 1 stack each time you activate the skill. Venom cool downs won’t start until all stacks have been applied to yourself. This should make venoms a lot more versatile and allows for more tactics in deciding on when to activate each venom stack.

-Skelk Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Number of stacks reduced to 4. Each trigger now heals 750 health and cures 1 condition. Since venoms will now activate one at a time instead of all at once, each activation heals yourself for 500 health instead (this part only heals you, this is not the venom sharing portion).

-Devourer Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Number of stacks reduced to 2. Each trigger now applies 1.5 seconds of immobilize.

-Ice Drake Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Still applies 4 stacks. Each trigger now applies 2 seconds of chill.

-Skale Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Still applies 4 stacks. Each trigger now applies 2 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds, and still only 1 stack of torment for 5 seconds per trigger.

-Spider Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Number of stacks reduced to 4. Each trigger now applies 2 stacks of poison for 5 seconds.

-Basilisk Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Number of stacks reduced to 1. Stone duration increased to 1.5 seconds.

Weapon Skill Changes

Short Bow:

-(1) Trick Shot is fine as is.

-Stealth Attack is fine as it is.

-(2.1) Cluster Bomb should have its velocity increased by about 50%.

• Currently it takes about 3 seconds to reach its max range(900). After this change it will take about 2 seconds.

-(2.2) Detonate Cluster is fine as is.

-(3) Disabling Shot needs its backwards leap smoothed out. The cripple duration could also be increased to 3 seconds, and the damage could be increased by about 10% to do about as much as a short bow auto attack, especially since this skill doesn’t bounce to multiple targets like the auto attack does.

• Currently at the end of the animation, your character choppily moves forward a little bit. It sort of looks like you are experiencing a slight lag. The evade also feels a bit unreliable, as it doesn’t seem to last for the whole backwards leap animation, so maybe speed up the backwards leap or something.

-(4) Choking Gas should either apply 2 stacks of poison for 3 seconds per pulse, or 1 stack of poison for 4 seconds per pulse.

• This skill feels very weak currently since it only applies 1 stack of poison for 2 seconds per pulse.

-(5) Infiltrator’s Arrow is fine as is, other than Shadowstep line of sight issues.

Pistol:

-(1) Vital Shot is fine as is.

-Stealth Attack is fine as is.

-(2) Body Shot will now apply weakness for 2-3 seconds instead of the vulnerability, and still applies immobilize as well.

• This will give main hand pistol users a better defensive option to use.

-(P/P 3) Unload now has a roll over skill. After you use Unload, it switches to a roll over skill called Reload, which you will have 5 seconds to activate if you want to. Reload costs 1 initiative to use and releases a small aoe blind that is also a blast finisher.

• This will give P/P a nice defensive option without changing the theme of Unload much. The blast finisher has many uses, such as in combination with Black Powder or any other combo field.

-(P/D 3) Shadow Strike is fine as is.

-(4) Headshot is fine as is.

-(5) Black Powder smoke field duration decreased to 2 seconds. Still pulses 3 times, once on the initial impact, another pulse after 1 second, and the final pulse at the end of its lifespan.

• This will allow for a more reliable short term defense instead of a longer more spread out small area of denial. Meld with Shadows will also now effect stealth granting combo finishers, so this change is necessary to prevent stealth from stacking up too easily.

Dagger:

-(1.1-1.3) Auto Attack Chain is fine as is.

-Stealth Attack could have its damage increased by about 5%.

• Since it will a bit harder to land stealth attacks, and everyone seems to have a lot more sustain/damage mitigation now, this should be fine.

-(2) Heartseeker is fine as is.

-(D/D 3) Death Blossom is fine as is.

-(D/P 3) Shadow Shot could have its damage reduced by about 5%.

• Currently Shadow Shot feels slightly too strong having an unblockable blind and 900 range shadowstep while also dealing good damage for 4 initiative.

-(4) Dancing Dagger should have its damage increased by 20-30%. Alternatively, if this skill is supposed to be more condition orientated, it could apply some torment in addition to the cripple instead of the damage increase.

• Currently this does about 10% less damage than the short bow auto attack but costs 3 initiative to use. It does apply cripple and is a 100% chance projectile combo finisher, but off hand dagger users don’t have many combo fields available to pull off combos.

-(5) Cloak and Dagger will now apply 3 seconds of blind instead of vulnerability. In addition, one of the following changes should be applied to the skill to make it more on par with D/P:

• (Option 1) Reduce the cast time to 1/4 of a second.
• (Option 2) Include a short range targeted shadow step in the skill. A 450 range shadow step should be good.
• (Option 3) Only the blind and damage portion of this skill can be nullified(blinded, blocked, evaded etc). As long as you are in range of your target and not currently revealed, you will gain the stealth. This should be fine because the stealth portion isn’t a direct attack on the target (similar to applying a boon to yourself).

Sword:

-(1.1-1.3) Auto Attack Chain seems to have an aftercast/delay problem which should be looked into. More info can be found here.

-Stealth Attack should have its damage increased by about 5-10%.

• Currently this does a little less damage than either of the first 2 weaker sword auto attacks and only hits one target.

-(2.1) Infiltrator’s Strike should have its damage increased by about 5-10%. It also has the Shadowstep line of sight issues.

• Currently this does a little less damage than either of the first 2 weaker sword auto attacks.

-(2.2) Infiltrator’s Return should be an instant cast, but you still can’t use it while stunned similar to Infiltrator’s Strike and Withdraw. It also has the Shadowstep line of sight issues.

-(S/D 3.1) Flanking Strike should have its damage increased by about 5-10%. It should also roll over to Larcenous Strike even if it’s blocked etc, basically as long as you are in range.

• Currently this does a little less damage than either of the first 2 weaker sword auto attacks.

-(S/D 3.2) Larcenous Strike should have its damage increased by about 5-10%.

• This skill can only hit one target unlike most of the other sword skills and requires you to land a Flanking Strike before gaining access to it. It doesn’t currently deal the best damage given those circumstances.

-(S/P 3) Pistol Whip should be split into a two part skill similar to Flanking Strike and Larcenous Strike. The first part is the 0.5 second stunning strike from the current Pistol Whip and costs 3 initiative to use. The second follow up skill is the rooted evading 8 strikes from the current Pistol Whip which will cost 2 initiative to use. You will have 5 seconds to use the second portion of the skill after the first stun attack portion, similar to S/D #3. The initial 0.5 second stun strike should also have a bit shorter of a cast time.

Trait Changes

Trickery:

Preparedness is rolled into base initiative for thieves. Base Steal cool down is reduced to 25 seconds. Sleight of Hand no longer further reduces the recharge of steal. If you trait into the Trickery line after these changes, Steal should be on the same cool down as it is currently when you take Trickery and Sleight of Hand(21 seconds), but Steal will have a 25 second CD if you don’t take Trickery. This should help prevent Trickery from being as mandatory to take as it is now.

-(Minor|Adept) Kleptomaniac: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Uncatchable: In addition to its current effect, you also immobilize a foe for 1 second when you cripple them on a 10s ICD.

-(Major|Adept) (New Trait) Thief’s Presence: You and nearby allies periodically steal boons from foes.

• When you enter combat you and nearby allies gain a Larcenous Aura buff which causes you to steal 1 boon when you strike an enemy (10s ICD). Works similar to traits like Vampiric Presence. This should be a good team support option for thieves.

-(Major|Adept) Thrill of the Crime: Fine as is.

-(Minor|Master) Assassin’s Reward: Moved from Acrobatics to here.

• This trait was never Grandmaster worthy, as it only heals for about as much as having a 50% up time of Regeneration, and only if you are constantly using initiative in combat. This should be a good replacement for the old Preparedness trait, since both revolve around initiative. This also shouldn’t be too powerful either, avoiding a power creep. The base healing per initiative spent should probably be increased from 69 to 75 too.

-(Major|Master) Bountiful Theft: Rip one boon from the target you Steal from and grant it to yourself and nearby allies. Steal an extra boon whenever you steal a boon from a foe. No longer grants vigor baseline.

• This will still make Steal steal 2 boons total from your foe, but since only 1 of the stolen boons is shared with allies, it should grant you and allies the full duration/stacks of the boon you steal like other boon steals. It will also effect Larcenous Strike and the new Thief’s Presence trait (only effects your own boon steal, not allies) so they will also steal an extra boon if you take this trait.

-(Major|Master) Trickster: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Pressure Striking: Fine as is.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Lead Attacks: Fine as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Sleight of Hand: Daze the foe you Steal from for 1 second. Bewildering Ambush is also combined into this trait since Sleight of Hand no longer further reduces the recharge on Steal.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Improvisation: Moved from Deadly Arts to Trickery since it seems to fit here better. Still allows you to use stolen items twice. In addition, Stealing will now grant you an Improvisation buff for 10 seconds that reduces the cool down of the next utility skill you use by 50% instead of randomly recharging an entire skill category.

• This works similar to Engineer’s Kinetic Battery trait, and allows for more skillful play instead of being so random.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Quick Pockets: Reduces weapon swapping to a 5 second cool down and restores 1 initiative when you weapon swap while in combat.

• This should be good competition for Improvisation and also seems like it should be a possible feature for thieves. Thieves don’t benefit as much as other classes from swapping weapons in combat because both weapon sets we use share the same initiative pool, but the initiative gain on weapon swap should help with that a little, and having more flexibility on when you can swap weapons is nice to have.

Deadly Arts:

-(Minor|Adept) Serpent’s Touch: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Dagger Training: Dagger attacks have a 50% chance to poison enemies for 3 seconds.

-(Major|Adept) Mug: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Trappers Respite: Fine as is. Withdraw should be changed to drop the trap at the beginning of the backwards dodge roll though.

-(Minor|Master) Lotus Poison: Applies 5 seconds of weakness instead of 4.

-(Major|Master) Deadly Trapper: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Panic Strike: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Revealed Training: Gain 5 stacks of might for 5 seconds when you land an attack from stealth.

• This trait will help both power and condition builds now, and since revealed is normalized to last 3 seconds in PvP like the rest of the game, this change is needed.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Exposed Weakness: Fine as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Potent Poison: Fins as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) (New Trait) Debilitating Weakness: When you apply Weakness to a foe you also apply 3 seconds of Slow to them (15s ICD).

-(Major|Grandmaster) Executioner: Fine as is.

Critical Strikes:

-(Minor|Adept) Opportunist: An old thief trait brought back and moved to this tier instead. 50% chance to restore 1 initiative on a critical hit (10s ICD).

-(Major|Adept) Flanking Strikes: Moved from Trickery to here. Now has a 50 second cool down just like the reworked Haste skill.

-(Major|Adept) Signets of Power: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Side Strike: Fine as is.

-(Minor|Master) Unrelenting Strikes: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Sundering Strikes: Critical hits have a 50% chance to apply vulnerability for 8 seconds.

-(Major|Master) Practiced Tolerance: Fine as is, but should be renamed to something else since it doesn’t match its new functionality.

-(Major|Master) Pistol Mastery: This is the old Ankle Shots trait but renamed. Pistol shots now pierce. Pistol shots have a 25% chance to inflict 3 seconds of blind on foes you critically hit (5s ICD).

• The piercing bullets from this trait should help pistols in group fights a bit more, replacing the old chance for bullets to bounce from ricochet. It could also just help pierce through ranger pets/mesmer clones/necromancer minions etc, which can currently body block pistols quite well. The small chance to inflict blind on foes you critically hit will mostly help power P/P builds have a bit more defense when using Unload because they have a higher critical chance and Unload fires a lot of bullets quickly.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Ferocious Strikes: Deal 20% extra damage to foes whose health is above 50%.

• Currently only deals 10% extra damage to foes whose health is above 50%. This trait is sort the opposite of Executioner, focusing on doing more damage to foes above 50% health instead of below. Ferocious Strikes would still be weaker than Executioner after this change because FS only applies to critical hits, unlike Executioner.

-(Major|Grandmaster) No Quarter: Fine as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Hidden Killer: Additionally increases critical hit damage by 10% while in stealth.

• This will help it compete with No Quarter better since NQ allows you to potentially burst higher with a stealth attack even though it won’t always be a guaranteed chance to critically hit from stealth. No Quarter seems like it’s more of a sustained out of stealth dps trait, so Hidden Killer should get a small boost to continue to be the best single big burst stealth attack trait(Backstab).

-(Major|Grandmaster) Invigorating Precision: Fine as is.

Shadow Arts:

Shadow Arts in general is reworked to discourage camping in stealth for all of its survivability. It now encourages entering and exiting stealth more rapidly instead. There are also some traits that get moved around etc.

-(Minor|Adept) Merciful Ambush: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Last Refuge: No changes but the fall damage reduction portion from Cloaked in Shadow is now merged into this trait.

-(Major|Adept) Shadow Protector: Moved down from Master tier. Grants 4-5 seconds of regeneration to yourself and allies that you stealth.

• The current 3 seconds of regeneration that this applies is a bit too short.

-(Major|Adept) Shadow’s Embrace: Remove a condition from yourself when you enter and exit stealth.

-(Minor|Master) Meld with Shadows: Increases the duration of stealth you apply by 1 second. Fleet Shadow from Acrobatics is also merged into this trait, so you will move 50% faster in stealth if you take Shadow Arts.

• The maximum movement speed is still capped at +33%, but this can effectively ignore crippled etc while you are stealthed to allow for easier positioning.
• The extra second of stealth now also effects combo finishers that grant stealth(Black Powder->Heartseeker/Cluster Bomb, etc).

-(Major|Master) Master of Deception: The old Concealed Defeat is renamed and moved up from Adept tier. It now reduces the recharge time of Deception skills by 20% and creates a Smoke Screen when your health reaches the 25% threshold. (24s ICD always since this trait itself reduces the recharge of Deception skills)

-(Major|Master) Hidden Thief: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Leeching Venoms: Grants you 1 stack of might for 15 seconds each time you activate a venom skill and apply a venom stack to yourself. Still siphons life when you trigger a venom like normal as well.

• With the changes to venoms this will give you more might stacks over all than it currently does, which is good because it’s currently a little weak.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Resilience of Shadows: Fine as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Cloaked in Shadow: Blind nearby foes when you enter stealth and when you land an attack from stealth.

• The fall damage reduction portion of this trait is merged into Last Refuge instead.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Recover 1 initiative and 500-600 health when you enter stealth and when you land an attack from stealth.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Venomous Aura: Reduce the recharge of venoms by 20%. Share half of your venom skill applications with allies.

• For example, each time you activate a venom skill to apply a venom stack to yourself, it will check if that venom type has already shared half of its stacks with allies yet. If not, it will share that venom stack with nearby allies as well. Alternatively, activating a venom could just have a 50% chance to share it with nearby allies if that’s easier/better.

Acrobatics:

Currently Acrobatics is quite a weak trait line as a whole. These changes here are to help it be on par with other trait lines and to stand out a bit more compared to the new Daredevil elite specialization.

-(Minor|Adept) Expeditious Dodger: Gain 2.5 seconds of Superspeed when you dodge roll.

-(Major|Adept) Practiced Tolerance: 7% of precision is converted into vitality.

• The current Practiced Tolerance: should be renamed to something more fitting, opening this name back up for this trait. This trait can be quite useful to thieves since we have the lowest base health pool.

-(Major|Adept) (New Trait) Instinctive Retaliation: Evading an attack causes the attacker to be hit with Retaliation.

• This is basically a passive Retaliation boon, but it only triggers when you evade attacks.

-(Major|Adept) Vigorous Recovery: When you gain vigor you cleanse a condition from yourself (5s ICD).

• Thieves already have a good amount of vigor, and we are lacking some pure condition cleansing options.

-(Minor|Master) Feline Grace: Gain 5-6 seconds of vigor upon successfully evading an attack (3s ICD).

• These changes should prevent vigor from possibly stacking up too long.

-(Major|Master) Upper Hand: Gain 1 initiative and 2 stacks of might for 15 seconds when you successfully evade an attack (5s ICD).

-(Major|Master) Swindler’s Equilibrium: Successfully evading an attack while wielding a sword or spear recharges steal by 3 seconds (5s ICD).

• Currently reducing steal’s recharge by 1s with a 1s ICD, it is about impossible to achieve the best results as you cannot dodge nearly once per second consistently, nor would that be optimal as you would be dealing no damage. This should help achieve good results more realistically without promoting dodge spamming to get the most use out of this.

-(Major|Master) Guarded Initiation: Gain 3 seconds of stability(1 stack) and resistance when you Steal from a foe.

• The current Guarded Initiation feels too situational/restricted to be very useful.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Endless Stamina: Vigor is 100% more effective on you.

• Currently, this trait only gives you an extra dodge every 40 seconds if you have permanent vigor, which is very weak. With this change it will give you an extra dodge every 20 seconds with permanent vigor, which still isn’t too strong so it could definitely use this buff.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Hard to Catch: When you Steal from an enemy you gain 5 stacks of a Hard to Catch buff for 10 seconds. A successful evade uses up 1 stack of the buff, and restores 20-25 endurance. (1s ICD so all the procs couldn’t be used up from one dodge, possibly wasting some of the endurance gained like the current version of this trait)

• Currently this trait instantly restores 100 endurance when you get stunned and stun breaks. You still get interrupted however, and if you already have some endurance when you get stunned then you gain less than 100 endurance, possibly gaining 0 endurance if you are already full. That could make this trait purely a stun break on a 30s ICD. The stun break also isn’t controllable so it could end up being wasted on a very minor daze like Headshot. These changes will fix those problems, while also having a more active play style that rewards successful dodges.

-(Major|Grandmaster) (New Trait) Superior Agility: Stolen Skills now break stun when used. Gain 2 seconds of quickness when you break out of a stun.

• Stolen skills still have their same cast times, they will just stun break when you initially activate them now. If you do stun break you will also gain quickness, making it a bit easier to cast the stolen abilities or a different skill of choice.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Don’t Stop: Cripple and chill applied to you have 50% reduced effectiveness. Periodically ignore incoming immobilize effects.

• Incoming immobilizes should just be cleared immediately with a 10s ICD instead of converting it to cripple.

Daredevil

Traitline:
-Seems to be good overall.

Staff:

-(1.1-1.3) Auto Attack Chain is fine as is.

-Stealth Attack is fine as it is.

-(2) Weakening Charge should be cancellable through weapon stowing, dodging, etc. Its pre-cast and after-cast times needs to be reduced too because they make this skill feel clunky, and it leaves you vulnerable for too long. Also, quickness doesn’t seem to speed up the animation for some reason.

-(3) Debilitating Arc should stun for 1/4 of a second and only cripple for 2-3 seconds.

• This should help staff get better use out of Pulmonary Impact and make the skill more useful overall.

-(4) Dust Strike should effect up to 5 targets instead of 3, and it should have a slightly larger cone/radius.

-(5) Vault could use a short vertical component to it (equivalent to the jump height) to make it feel a bit better. It also doesn’t always travel the full distance for some reason which needs to be fixed.

• As of now Vault can get caught on a small rock that you could just jump over otherwise. This would fit the theme and name of the skill too.

Physical Skills:

-Channeled Vigor is fine as it is.

-Impairing Daggers is fine as it is.

-Fist Flurry should have its order reversed. It should start out with Palm Strike, and roll over to Fist Flurry. The last strike of Fist Flurry should inflict the Pulmonary Impact now instead.

• Currently a single random blind/aegis/etc can prevent you from gaining access to Palm Strike too easily. This change should fix that while still rewarding you for landing the Fist Flurry.

-Distracting Daggers should be instantly castable even while you are currently performing another skill etc, instead of interrupting whatever you are doing to throw them. Basically, it should work similar to Mesmer’s Power Lock.

-Bandit’s Defense should be changed to have a roll over skill when you block an attack which you have 5 seconds to activate if you choose. The roll over skill is the current knock down portion of the skill. The block duration could maybe be increased to 1.5 seconds as well.

• Currently this skill can get you killed pretty easily when it automatically locks you into a knockdown attack animation after blocking an attack.

-Impact Strike: The downed state finisher portion of this skill should bypass blinds, blocks, etc like a normal finisher does. Also, you should be able to use other skills between each of the chained skills without putting the skill on cool down.

I really like the idea behind the proposed venom changes. You could maybe treat them like mantras, cast them once then activate them when needed on instant cast. Heck they could even create a new skill type and roll mantras and the venoms into one type for some potential rune sets. Not sure what to call them though… Preparation?

Welcome, to the Change Wish List.

(Adding soon as my flood control is down…)

Signet of malice
Signet of malice

Increase the on hit from .05 healing attribute to .10 healing attribute

Active Restore 10 INI plus heal. This will make the skill one where a person can sacrifice his incoming heal for more attacks.

I do not agree with the decreased of stacks on the venoms. This would negatively impact Leeching venoms a very good skill for those who want healing through venoms. we should not be removing yet more heal sources.

I disagree with an ICD on dagger training. This lessens overall poison we can apply even with a longer duration. It means the most stacks I can ever apply of poison with a dagger/dagger build (using this trait) is 4 stacks. this accomplishes little in a condition build. It adds far more to power builds in relative terms. Condition build thief is in worse shape overall then Power.

Currently as weak as it is i can get 6 stacks and more with daggers with just this trait. The key to a condition d/d build is deathblossom and not the AA . DB and dagger training in current form allows AOE poison . ICD ruins that.

No ICD 50 percent application rate for 3 seconds. This is plenty of extra oomp to a p/d or one hand dagger build interesting in keeping poison on for heal inhibits.

Meld with shadows. Given the amount of stealth and reveal being handed out this trait should increase all thief stealth by 2 seconds rather then one.

Raiden.1375:

-Signet of Malice should have its active heal reworked similarly to Warrior’s Healing Signet. It wouldn’t have to give resistance, but something interesting that would make you want to activate it more in certain situations would be nice. I’m not exactly sure what this skill needs, but I am open to suggestions.

Maybe have this regain 1 initiative per hit for some seconds after activation?

Raiden.1375:

-(5) Cloak and Dagger will now apply 3 seconds of blind instead of vulnerability. Only the blind and damage portion of this skill can be nullified(blinded, blocked, evaded etc).
As long as you are in range of your target and not currently revealed, you will gain the stealth. This makes sense because the stealth portion isn’t a direct attack on the target (similar to applying a boon to yourself), and it will help make D/D more on par with D/P.

I’m not sure this is really reasonable, partly because I think there may be some implementation issues, but also because automatically gaining stealth would be very powerful for builds that don’t need it…for example S/D. I think just giving it the blind is probably good enough…maybe make it small aoe around you…kind of like waving a cloak around?

Raiden.1375:

-(Major|Master) Bountiful Theft: Rip one boon from the target you Steal from and grant it to yourself and nearby allies. Steal an extra boon whenever you steal a boon from a foe. This will still make Steal steal 2 boons total from your foe. This will also effect Larcenous Strike so it will also steal 2 boons if you take this trait instead of 1. No longer grants vigor baseline.

I really really like this one. This would definitely enhance sword gameplay, but I think a big issue might be it’s competition not being good enough.

Raiden.1375:

-(Major|Grandmaster) Sleight of Hand: Daze the foe you Steal from for 1 second. Bewildering Ambush is also combined into this trait since Sleight of Hand no longer further reduces the recharge on Steal.
-(Major|Grandmaster) Improvisation: Moved from Deadly Arts to Trickery since it seems to fit here better. Still allows you to use stolen items twice. In addition, Stealing will now grant you an Improvisation buff for 10 seconds that reduces the cool down of the next utility skill you use by 50% instead of randomly recharging an entire skill category. This works similar to Engineer’s Kinetic Battery trait.
This new functionality will allow for more skillful play instead of being so random.
-(Major|Grandmaster) Quick Pockets: Reduces weapon swapping to a 5 second cool down and restores 1 initiative when you weapon swap while in combat.
This should be good competition for Improvisation and also seems like it should be a possible feature for thieves. Thieves don’t benefit as much as other classes from swapping weapons in combat because both weapon sets we use share the same initiative pool, but the initiative gain on weapon swap should help with that a little, and having more flexibility on when you can swap weapons is nice to have.

Wow, this tier is pretty crazy…so much good stuff to be had…I think this would be an excellent example of what the GM tier should look like.

Raiden.1375:

-(Major|Adept) Dagger Training: 100% chance for dagger attacks to poison enemies for 3 seconds (5s ICD). Number of stacks applied is based on the number of daggers you have equipped. D/D will apply 2 stacks of poison, P/D and D/P will only apply 1 stack of poison.

Personally, I don’t find just having poison in this trait to be strong enough to see any usage. My suggestion is to take your idea of having benefits based on the number of daggers equipped, and to make it reduce initiative cost of dagger skills by 1 per dagger. This may be a bit strong for this tier though, so I think it could be switched with Revealed Training, which I think is just generally uninteresting.

Raiden.1375:

-(Major|Grandmaster) (New Trait) Debilitating Weakness: When you apply Weakness to a foe you also apply 3 seconds of Slow to them (20s ICD).

Compared to the other two Grandmaster traits, I feel that this just absolutely destroys the competition. I do really like this though…it is quite powerful.

Raiden.1375:

-(Minor|Adept) Opportunist: An old thief trait brought back and moved to this tier instead. 50% chance to restore 1 initiative on a critical hit (10s ICD).

I think that since it has such a long ICD, it should be ok to have it have 100% chance to restore initiative.

Raiden.1375:

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Ferocious Strikes: Deal 20% extra damage to foes whose health is above 50%.
Currently only deals 10% extra damage to foes whose health is above 50%. This trait is sort the opposite of Executioner, focusing on doing more damage to foes above 50% health instead of below. I don’t see why Executioner should deal more damage over the same size health threshold and also not be limited to only critical hits.

Keep in mind that this is a minor trait…taking Executioner is a conscious choice of the player, while Ferocious Strikes is granted simply by speccing into CS. I’m not disagreeing with your proposed change…I just want to make sure you are aware that this is granted as baseline for CS.

Raiden.1375:

-(Major|Adept) Shadow’s Embrace: Remove a condition from yourself when you enter stealth and when you land an attack from stealth.

I actually think this might be too weak as it is since it hinges on you being able to land that attack to gain full benefit. It also becomes progressively weaker as you stay in stealth longer, though I think this your intention. So anyway…I think this would be better if it just removed a condition when leaving stealth. That way, you can clear conditions faster if you attack quickly (more rewarding), but are still granted the condition clear by staying safe, though you have to suffer through them for a bit longer (less rewarding). Since it also does not reward camping stealth, I think that would be a balanced change.

On a side note, I think it is an excellent idea to start culling passive playstyles from our repertoire. This should extend to the other professions as well, in my opinion

Raiden.1375:

-(Major|Grandmaster) Cloaked in Shadow: Blind nearby foes when you enter stealth and when you are land an attack from stealth.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Recover 1 initiative and 450 health when you enter stealth and when you are land an attack from stealth.

I think since you’ve already added blind to CnD, this would be redundant. D/p has plenty of blind already and will definitely opt for Shadow’s Rejuvenation instead. Same will happen with D/d now that CnD has the blind portion of the skill. I think this could be a good time to bring back Hidden Assassin. It can use the same mechanic of gaining effects on enter and exit stealth, and I think it offers a nice offensive counterpart to Shadow’s Rejuvenation.

As for Shadow’s Rejuvenation itself, I think it would be better (and still balanced) as a enter/exit mechanic, compared to the enter/attack mechanic that you have going, since you’re trading the reward for more time in stealth.

Raiden.1375:

-(Major|Grandmaster) Don’t Stop: Fine as is, but the converted immobilize to cripple should be the same duration as the immobilize was instead of always applying 4 seconds of cripple.

I think maybe moving the stunbreak component of Hard to Catch here would make it more viable.

Whew…that was a lot to read, and these were all excellent ideas.

babazhook.6805:

Signet of malice

Active Restore 10 INI plus heal. This will make the skill one where a person can sacrifice his incoming heal for more attacks.

10 initiative seems like too much, but I like the general idea. If it did give that much initiative, the active heal would need to be severely reduced if not completely removed.

babazhook.6805:

I do not agree with the decreased of stacks on the venoms. This would negatively impact Leeching venoms a very good skill for those who want healing through venoms. we should not be removing yet more heal sources.

If you take the reduced cool downs on venoms into account, you can actually get up to 30% more use from Leeching Venoms overall. Also, any venoms with reduced stacks had their effects buffed correspondingly to be just about as effective overall.

babazhook.6805:

I disagree with an ICD on dagger training. This lessens overall poison we can apply even with a longer duration. It means the most stacks I can ever apply of poison with a dagger/dagger build (using this trait) is 4 stacks. this accomplishes little in a condition build. It adds far more to power builds in relative terms. Condition build thief is in worse shape overall then Power.

Currently as weak as it is i can get 6 stacks and more with daggers with just this trait. The key to a condition d/d build is deathblossom and not the AA . DB and dagger training in current form allows AOE poison . ICD ruins that.

No ICD 50 percent application rate for 3 seconds. This is plenty of extra oomp to a p/d or one hand dagger build interesting in keeping poison on for heal inhibits.

Fair point about dagger training. I’ll take it into consideration and probably update it later.

babazhook.6805:

Meld with shadows. Given the amount of stealth and reveal being handed out this trait should increase all thief stealth by 2 seconds rather then one.

Raiden.1375:

• The current skills that apply Revealed like Sic ’Em and Analyze now apply a new debuff called Exposed instead. The Exposed debuff allows everyone to be able to see and target a stealthed player temporarily as if they weren’t in stealth. This new debuff will still allow for counter play to stealth without completely shutting down the Stealth Attack Thief mechanic.

Revealed is no longer handed out by enemies and is replaced by Exposed instead. I don’t think it needs to be increased to 2 extra seconds, especially now that it will effect combo finishers and Fleet Shadow is now merged into it.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Raiden.1375:

-(5) Cloak and Dagger will now apply 3 seconds of blind instead of vulnerability. Only the blind and damage portion of this skill can be nullified(blinded, blocked, evaded etc).
As long as you are in range of your target and not currently revealed, you will gain the stealth. This makes sense because the stealth portion isn’t a direct attack on the target (similar to applying a boon to yourself), and it will help make D/D more on par with D/P.

I’m not sure this is really reasonable, partly because I think there may be some implementation issues, but also because automatically gaining stealth would be very powerful for builds that don’t need it…for example S/D. I think just giving it the blind is probably good enough…maybe make it small aoe around you…kind of like waving a cloak around?

Since attacks from stealth that are blocked or evaded will now remove your stealth(not reveal), I think this is justified. Also, it’s still more restrictive than D/P for how easy you can access stealth because D/P doesn’t even require you to be near anyone to stealth, and can also apply more blinds while doing so.

Also, there shouldn’t be any implementation issues. Shield of Judgment works very similarly. The damage portion can be evaded, blocked, etc, but it always applies the Protection to yourself regardless.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Raiden.1375:

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Ferocious Strikes: Deal 20% extra damage to foes whose health is above 50%.

Keep in mind that this is a minor trait…taking Executioner is a conscious choice of the player, while Ferocious Strikes is granted simply by speccing into CS. I’m not disagreeing with your proposed change…I just want to make sure you are aware that this is granted as baseline for CS.

Exposed Weakness in the same trait spot in the Deadly Arts line makes you deal 10% extra damage to enemies who have a condition on them, regardless of their health threshold. Since enemies just about always have a condition on them, and this only applies half of the time, I think they are about equal. Also, Executioner doesn’t only apply to critical hits like Ferocious Strikes does, and I don’t think Minor traits are necessarily supposed to be weaker than the same tier Major traits.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Raiden.1375:

-(Major|Grandmaster) Cloaked in Shadow: Blind nearby foes when you enter stealth and when you are land an attack from stealth.

I think since you’ve already added blind to CnD, this would be redundant. D/p has plenty of blind already and will definitely opt for Shadow’s Rejuvenation instead. Same will happen with D/d now that CnD has the blind portion of the skill.

Cloak and Dagger only has a single target blind, so this would upgrade it to an aoe blind. This trait also synergizes well with Hidden Thief and Hide in Shadows. It blinds nearby foes when you land an attack from stealth as well now, which is arguably even more useful than the blind on stealth.

Raiden.1375:

Cloak and Dagger only has a single target blind, so this would upgrade it to an aoe blind. This trait also synergizes well with Hidden Thief and Hide in Shadows. It blinds nearby foes when you land an attack from stealth as well now, which is arguably even more useful than the blind on stealth.

The reason I don’t like Cloaked in Shadow is because I don’t think that thief should really need an AoE blind…if a thief is finding himself in a large group fight and he is using D/x, I think he is really in the wrong place.
I do agree that applying blind when attacking from stealth will be helpful where thief is strongest though…so I’m really wondering if it would be balanced to just make this entire trait baseline for CnD itself, since the trait is essentially an upgrade as you said yourself.

Nice suggestions, but timing is off. With HoT so close to launch, Karl barely has the time to fix DD much less make changes to the core Thief.

You should re-post this after launch, you’d have a better chance of attracting some attention and your ideas are solid.

I like the venom stuff.

Stealth should never trigger due to outside random occurances specifically because of reveal mechanics. One could argue “well don’t set the trap” but the primary purpose of ambush is to summon an NPC, and there are multiple ways to use the skill for its intended function that don’t kitten up your stealth flow.

I’d even be okay with making the trap/thieve’s guild pets invincible and decreasing their durations/upping their damage, or just making them more durable, or whatever, but a pet trap does not need to grant stealth.

Thieves guild, being pretty much just a bigger version of the trap, should also lose the stealth in this manner, as what it summons should remain pretty much a carbon copy of the trap thieves.

These are extremely niche skills that go “hey, the thief summoned a pet temporarily” and should play to that strength, summoning your own +1 or +2, and thus any buffs that aren’t centered around the cooldown or cast timing should really be focused on the generated pets and not the thief.

Bllade.1029:

Nice suggestions, but timing is off. With HoT so close to launch, Karl barely has the time to fix DD much less make changes to the core Thief.

You should re-post this after launch, you’d have a better chance of attracting some attention and your ideas are solid.

no, we wouldn’t have a better time of attracting attention. We’ve been trying for years. DD feedback is the first time any developer that we know of has read this forum in over a year.

PopeUrban.2578:

Bllade.1029:

Nice suggestions, but timing is off. With HoT so close to launch, Karl barely has the time to fix DD much less make changes to the core Thief.

You should re-post this after launch, you’d have a better chance of attracting some attention and your ideas are solid.

no, we wouldn’t have a better time of attracting attention. We’ve been trying for years. DD feedback is the first time any developer that we know of has read this forum in over a year.

And you think that because he’s responding in the DD feedback topic that hes just going to mosey on over here and open up a whole new can of worms one month from launch?

Post this after launch once things have calmed down, too much focus is on DD/Tempest/Dragon hunter right now and if enough people get behind your post could usher in some good changes for the core Thief.

Unless of course, Karl has intentions to make some changes to the core Thief while at the same time working on the DD. I Guess we’ll see.

Bllade.1029:

PopeUrban.2578:

Bllade.1029:

Nice suggestions, but timing is off. With HoT so close to launch, Karl barely has the time to fix DD much less make changes to the core Thief.

You should re-post this after launch, you’d have a better chance of attracting some attention and your ideas are solid.

no, we wouldn’t have a better time of attracting attention. We’ve been trying for years. DD feedback is the first time any developer that we know of has read this forum in over a year.

And you think that because he’s responding in the DD feedback topic that hes just going to mosey on over here and open up a whole new can of worms one month from launch?

Post this after launch once things have calmed down, too much focus is on DD/Tempest/Dragon hunter right now and if enough people get behind your post could usher in some good changes for the core Thief.

Unless of course, Karl has intentions to make some changes to the core Thief while at the same time working on the DD. I Guess we’ll see.

Once he started coming here for DD feedback he actually read and posted in a thread about ricochet, despite people having been complaining about richoechet removal since the trait update.

So yeah, I think now is literally the only time anyone at Anet is going to bother surfing the thief forums before they can say “okay guys, we did the thief chore, now you can all go back to reading forums for classes you care about”

In my opinion signets passives should be weaker than their active effects by a large margin. At the moment the only 2 signets that are realy worth it to activate for their active effect are Signet of Agility and Infiltrator Signet.
1) Signet of Malice —> passive should work like Healing signet —> then increase the active heal and make thieves invulnerable and immune to conditions during the casting time and for 5 secs —> increase the cd to 40 seconds
2) Signet of Shadows —> increase passive speed to 33% —> Active should give 3 seconds of stealth and became a stun break —> 40 sec cd
3) Assassin Signet: Increase passive physical and condition damage by a little margin —> the active should give life steal and 100% condition transfer for the next 5 attacks

No. Signet of malice’s passive should keep its current functionality, buff the healing ratio if you like but don’t make it a boring, flat heal over time that doesn’t scale or allow cool skill interactions. I use SoM and can honestly say that I would get less healing when I actually need it, and more useless overheal if it worked that way. Making SoM’s active a condition purge with the same pretty crappy active heal and better healing power ratios would be enough to give it a compelling active effect without breaking literally every pve and wvw build that uses it, and indirectly nerfing 2/3 of the daredevil dodges that actually make it a lot more attractive (Lotus dodge is 9 attacks, which is 9 heals from SoM even on a single target, bound is up to 5 heals direcly following a heal on evade proc)

You’re basically asking for a nerf to signet of malice.

The other two, maybe, though I doubt Anet would be willing to give us full-on swiftness speed as a passive signet, or add life steal to a signet whos primary role is damage and not sustain.

3 things, Lancerous strike – 2 boons stolen since we cant precast it
You want almost 0 punishment for using SR badly

you realise that -Shadow’s Rejuvenation is only reason thiefs dont sit in invis for 20 sec? Pulsing hp regen from this trait is just soo good, change it so i can get pulsing regen(buff not boon) + protection after invis and im all happy

PopeUrban.2578:

No. Signet of malice’s passive should keep its current functionality, buff the healing ratio if you like but don’t make it a boring, flat heal over time that doesn’t scale or allow cool skill interactions. I use SoM and can honestly say that I would get less healing when I actually need it, and more useless overheal if it worked that way. Making SoM’s active a condition purge with the same pretty crappy active heal and better healing power ratios would be enough to give it a compelling active effect without breaking literally every pve and wvw build that uses it, and indirectly nerfing 2/3 of the daredevil dodges that actually make it a lot more attractive (Lotus dodge is 9 attacks, which is 9 heals from SoM even on a single target, bound is up to 5 heals direcly following a heal on evade proc)

You’re basically asking for a nerf to signet of malice.

The other two, maybe, though I doubt Anet would be willing to give us full-on swiftness speed as a passive signet, or add life steal to a signet whos primary role is damage and not sustain.

After reading your good explanation about signet of malice I must say that you made some interesting points.
My point tho was that actives on signets should be worth it to use over passives at the cost of losing the passive effect for the cd duration, that I would suggest to increase a bit if the active effects would be realy that good. At the moment it’s not always the case.

Mefiq.7039:

3 things, Lancerous strike – 2 boons stolen since we cant precast it

Larcenous Strike will steal 2 boons if you take the reworked Bountiful Theft trait in Trickery.

Mefiq.7039:

You want almost 0 punishment for using SR badly

Currently if you get knocked out of Shadow Refuge you get revealed. This makes you worse off than if you didn’t use SR at all because you can’t even use a second utility or weapon skill to stealth yourself again in response, since you are revealed. The suggestion here is to make leaving/getting knocked out of Shadow Refuge only remove your current stealth, not reveal you. Knocking someone out of SR will still be a good counter to it, but not so much so that it would even temporarily counter some of your other utilities/weapon skills as well that could stealth you.

Mefiq.7039:

you realise that -Shadow’s Rejuvenation is only reason thiefs dont sit in invis for 20 sec? Pulsing hp regen from this trait is just soo good, change it so i can get pulsing regen(buff not boon) + protection after invis and im all happy

I’m not exactly sure what you are suggesting here, but with the changes listed above Shadow’s Rejuvenation will heal you when enter stealth and when you land an attack from stealth instead of only pulsing while you are in stealth. This is to help you to stay in fights a bit easier without having to stay in stealth as long which doesn’t contribute much to fights.

Kolly.9872:

In my opinion signets passives should be weaker than their active effects by a large margin. At the moment the only 2 signets that are realy worth it to activate for their active effect are Signet of Agility and Infiltrator Signet.

I agree, Agility and Infiltrator’s Signet have the best active abilities out of our utility signets currently, though Infiltrator’s Signet could still use a small buff. The suggestions here should help with that and hopefully make them all on par with each other.

PopeUrban.2578:

Making SoM’s active a condition purge with the same pretty crappy active heal and better healing power ratios would be enough to give it a compelling active effect

You may be right about that. Signet of Malice does feel very weak when it comes to conditions, especially since Thieves don’t have a lot of condition clearing options in general.

Thanks for the feedback so far everyone!

PopeUrban.2578:

Stealth should never trigger due to outside random occurances specifically because of reveal mechanics. One could argue “well don’t set the trap” but the primary purpose of ambush is to summon an NPC, and there are multiple ways to use the skill for its intended function that don’t kitten up your stealth flow.

I’d even be okay with making the trap/thieve’s guild pets invincible and decreasing their durations/upping their damage, or just making them more durable, or whatever, but a pet trap does not need to grant stealth.

Thieves guild, being pretty much just a bigger version of the trap, should also lose the stealth in this manner, as what it summons should remain pretty much a carbon copy of the trap thieves.

These are extremely niche skills that go “hey, the thief summoned a pet temporarily” and should play to that strength, summoning your own +1 or +2, and thus any buffs that aren’t centered around the cooldown or cast timing should really be focused on the generated pets and not the thief.

While I do agree that the NPCs could be buffed, I still think these skills stealthing you would be a nice addition. Adding stealth to Thieves Guild(being a Deception skill) would be especially nice, allowing you to temporarily not be focused on and land a stealth attack a bit easier etc. As for Ambush, it shouldn’t really be a random occurrence, but maybe it should just activate a roll over skill when it’s triggered instead, similar to how Shadow Trap works. You would then have 10 seconds to activate the roll over skill which stealths you and summons the NPC to help you fight.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

The reason I don’t like Cloaked in Shadow is because I don’t think that thief should really need an AoE blind…if a thief is finding himself in a large group fight and he is using D/x, I think he is really in the wrong place.

Well D/P thieves have access to an AoE blind, or are you saying D/D thieves specifically are in the wrong place if they are in a large group fight?

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

I do agree that applying blind when attacking from stealth will be helpful where thief is strongest though…so I’m really wondering if it would be balanced to just make this entire trait baseline for CnD itself, since the trait is essentially an upgrade as you said yourself.

The blind application when landing an attack from stealth is to help cover the revealed duration which is when thieves are the most vulnerable. The AoE blind on stealth portion of Cloaked in Shadow would essentially be an upgrade to the single target blind from Cloak and Dagger, but it doesn’t only help Cloak and Dagger either.

About the stealth portion of Cloak and Dagger not being blockable/evadable (the damage and blind portion is still avoidable): Do you guys think that would be too strong even though attacks from stealth that are blocked or evaded would now remove your current stealth(not reveal), traits like Shadow’s Rejuvenation no longer just passively heal you while stealthed(camping in stealth isn’t as rewarding), and considering that D/P thieves (and X/P with the new Daredevil Bounding Dodger trait) can access stealth just as easily?

Raiden.1375:

Well D/P thieves have access to an AoE blind, or are you saying D/D thieves specifically are in the wrong place if they are in a large group fight?

I’m just saying that group fights aren’t the dagger thief’s forte. At least in my mind, D/x thieves are assassins. D/p thief does have access to AoE blind, but it comes at a pretty steep price, and it costs even more if they want to use it to enter stealth. I guess the issue I am stuck on is trying to have D/d be successfully differentiated from D/p, because for the longest time, it was my impression that D/d was just a worse version. The way I see it, giving CnD the AoE blind is just trying to make it similar to D/p, which I don’t think should be the focus.

The blind application when landing an attack from stealth is to help cover the revealed duration which is when thieves are the most vulnerable. The AoE blind on stealth portion of Cloaked in Shadow would essentially be an upgrade to the single target blind from Cloak and Dagger, but it doesn’t only help Cloak and Dagger either.

I just don’t really see anyone else taking this trait, I guess. That might be due to my own ignorance though.

About the stealth portion of Cloak and Dagger not being blockable/evadable (the damage and blind portion is still avoidable): Do you guys think that would be too strong even though attacks from stealth that are blocked or evaded would now remove your current stealth(not reveal), and considering that D/P thieves (and X/P with the new Daredevil Bounding Dodger trait) can access stealth just as easily.

I just find this mechanic to be a bit strange. Still required to be in melee range, but not required to land a hit. It might just be simpler to have CnD grant stealth and AoE blind regardless of whether or not anyone is in melee range and remove the damage portion. Flavor-wise I think this is OK because this would be like pulling a cloak over yourself, and having the dagger (backstab) ready, rather than stabbing first and then pulling the cloak. Balance wise, this might also be ok because D/d is not as good at chasing as D/p, and it is trading the ability to fight out of stealth for more power using stealth. The problem I see with my idea is that it may end up being too strong for S/d which will be able to access stealth easily AND maintain good presence outside of stealth.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Cloak and Dagger Changes

I just find this mechanic to be a bit strange. Still required to be in melee range, but not required to land a hit. It might just be simpler to have CnD grant stealth and AoE blind regardless of whether or not anyone is in melee range and remove the damage portion. Flavor-wise I think this is OK because this would be like pulling a cloak over yourself, and having the dagger (backstab) ready, rather than stabbing first and then pulling the cloak. Balance wise, this might also be ok because D/d is not as good at chasing as D/p, and it is trading the ability to fight out of stealth for more power using stealth. The problem I see with my idea is that it may end up being too strong for S/d which will be able to access stealth easily AND maintain good presence outside of stealth.

The requirement of being in range of a target to gain the stealth is mostly there to prevent Cloak and Dagger from being too strong. As for that being a weird mechanic, that is how it works right now, but it also currently requires you to land the hit to gain the stealth.

On another topic, it looks like we will be getting a few of the buffs mentioned in this thread with the next balance patch. I’ll wait until Tuesday to see the official patch notes before I update the main post, but the changes for Thief announced so far are:

• Thief Pistol getting damage buffs 20%+ (Seems pretty good, no specifics yet)
• Potent Poison – Poison damage increase going from 10% to 33%. (Seems good)
• Expeditious Dodger – Getting a 100% duration buff from 2s of swiftness to 4s (Seems good)
• Vigorous Recovery – Vigor duration going from 5s to 7s. (Pretty much pointless, we already have enough sources of vigor without this trait)

While these changes seem good so far (excluding Vigorous Recovery), there aren’t nearly enough of them, and they aren’t the most important changes that are needed either (The pistol changes could potentially be one good needed change, but no specifics are known yet). Hopefully we get a lot more buffs than this when the full list of changes is posted on Tuesday.

Acro line needs far far more but 4 secs swiftness on dodge a good start. This can work nicely with runes of evasion but that alone not near enough.

4 seconds swiftness is one change I had called for. It something at least.

Vigorous recovery needs what we used to get out of hastened replenishment coupled with the vigor.

It should be gain 6 seconds vigor and three INI on heal.

TL;DR

What balance OP and all the others suggested, I approve the message.

Raiden.1375:

…
On another topic, it looks like we will be getting a few of the buffs mentioned in this thread with the next balance patch. I’ll wait until Tuesday to see the official patch notes before I update the main post, but the changes for Thief announced so far are:

• Thief Pistol getting damage buffs 20%+ (Seems pretty good, no specifics yet)
• Potent Poison – Poison damage increase going from 10% to 33%. (Seems good)
• Expeditious Dodger – Getting a 100% duration buff from 2s of swiftness to 4s (Seems good)
• Vigorous Recovery – Vigor duration going from 5s to 7s. (Pretty much pointless, we already have enough sources of vigor without this trait)

While these changes seem good so far (excluding Vigorous Recovery), there aren’t nearly enough of them, and they aren’t the most important changes that are needed either (The pistol changes could potentially be one good needed change, but no specifics are known yet). Hopefully we get a lot more buffs than this when the full list of changes is posted on Tuesday.

Don’t leave out the possibility of possible nerfs as well.

Raiden.1375:

The requirement of being in range of a target to gain the stealth is mostly there to prevent Cloak and Dagger from being too strong. As for that being a weird mechanic, that is how it works right now, but it also currently requires you to land the hit to gain the stealth.

I guess just granting an effect without it being avoidable just seems like it’s usually a bug (mesmer shatter blind, ranger pet taunt)…I doubt people would be happy at us having that as an actual mechanic.

On a different topic, I was discussing a few things with some friends. I brought up the idea of making the boon steal portion of Bountiful Theft be baseline. They didn’t think it would be overpowered. So combining that with Raiden’s idea of having Bountiful Theft steal an additional boon, we can have Steal steal one boon, which would be augmented by Bountiful Theft to steal two if we so choose. The goal of this is also in the spirit of making Trickery less of a requirement while keeping to the theme of Thief. After all, with a skill called Steal, stealing a boon makes sense right?

babazhook.6805:

Vigorous recovery needs what we used to get out of hastened replenishment coupled with the vigor.

It should be gain 6 seconds vigor and three INI on heal.

So basically just 3 initiative on heal, especially since it’s in the Acrobatics line. That would be nice and much better than what it currently does. I think removing weakness when you gain vigor like what I suggested would also be good because weakness lowers your endurance regeneration which counters this line/vigor, and it can severely lower your dps as well.

Kocoff.7582:

TL;DR

What balance OP and all the others suggested, I approve the message.

Yay for blind support, lol.

Zero Day.2594:

Don’t leave out the possibility of possible nerfs as well.

Of course, there is always a chance of that too. If there are any, they better be reasonable, and there should be even more buffs in needed areas to compensate for it.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

I guess just granting an effect without it being avoidable just seems like it’s usually a bug (mesmer shatter blind, ranger pet taunt)…I doubt people would be happy at us having that as an actual mechanic.

The thing is, the effect is more like a self applied boon, not an unavoidable damage or condition application like those that you suggested. There are plenty of skills in game that apply boons to yourself, and they can’t be blocked or evaded to negate them which makes sense.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

On a different topic, I was discussing a few things with some friends. I brought up the idea of making the boon steal portion of Bountiful Theft be baseline. They didn’t think it would be overpowered. So combining that with Raiden’s idea of having Bountiful Theft steal an additional boon, we can have Steal steal one boon, which would be augmented by Bountiful Theft to steal two if we so choose. The goal of this is also in the spirit of making Trickery less of a requirement while keeping to the theme of Thief. After all, with a skill called Steal, stealing a boon makes sense right?

That sounds good to me.

GI should be the trait that removes weakness . The threshold should be changed up so that it happens at over 80 percent rather then 90. We then add “gain endurance when condition removed”

10 for each removed condition would seem about right. Otherwise it stays as is. 1 second cooldown , high health needed and one condition removed per proc. Hardly OP yet very usable while ackowledging the amount of endurance gained may need a tweak.

These changes to the thief looks nice, but it’s simply waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too balanced. Like seriously, some classes’ traits and abilities are way better compared to the changes you are proposing, you removed improvisation (one of the really good traits, you then changed Shadow’s Embrace so it no longer removes as many conditions, you also nerfed Shadow Rejuvination so that it’s no longer heals per second. These traits are kitten compared to what other classes have. So I propose this:

Steal: Take everything your opponent has: gold, gear, account password and username, credit card number, etc.

New deadly art trait: APPLY All condition * 50 stacks to them when you hit an enemy
New acrobatics trait : Infinite Endurance, 100% speed increase, infinite intiative
New Shadow Arts Trait: increase all stealth time by 100 seconds, you can no longer be revealed EVER!
New Critical Strikes Trait: Increase all dmg dealt by 1000%
New Trickery trait : dodging summon 100 shadow clones of your self and they will constantly spam heartseeker and unload. They all pulse 1200 range aoe taunt every second
New Daredevil trait: Become the devil, insta kill all enemies within a 500000000000 range.

Now we nerf all other classes so that they do 1 dmg, have 1hp, and all their skills have 1 week cool down. Now this should be balanced

babazhook.6805:

GI should be the trait that removes weakness . The threshold should be changed up so that it happens at over 80 percent rather then 90. We then add “gain endurance when condition removed”

10 for each removed condition would seem about right. Otherwise it stays as is. 1 second cooldown , high health needed and one condition removed per proc. Hardly OP yet very usable while ackowledging the amount of endurance gained may need a tweak.

The current Guarded Initiation is kind of a bad trait design, especially for a class like the thief. We don’t have a ton of sustain to help us stay above the 90 percent health threshold long enough to be able to get much use from it. In addition, Guarded Initiation falls too short compared to a trait like Diamond Skin for Elementalists, even considering that Diamond Skin is a grandmaster trait, and Guarded Initiation is a master tier trait. Diamond Skin makes you immune to all condition applications when above 90% health, including damaging conditions that could otherwise quickly bring you below the health threshold. Guarded Initiation doesn’t remove any damaging conditions, it just removes one of three conditions: vulnerability, weakness, or slow when you hit someone while above 90% health (1s ICD). Whether you have 25 stacks of vulnerability or no vulnerability on you, just about any single attack will bring you below 90% health, immediately negating this trait’s effects. Clearing weakness could potentially help since you would be able to dodge a bit more, but you still wouldn’t be able to dodge for a long enough time to restore enough endurance for even 1 additional dodge most likely. Also, even though dodging attacks would prolong the duration that this trait would stay active, you have to stop dodging and attack someone to get any use out of this trait. During that time you can be hit and will quickly fall below the 90% health threshold. Lowering the threshold to 80% and making it restore endurance as well doesn’t help much. It would just prolong the inevitable time that you do get hit and fall below the threshold. Meanwhile, you will probably have to be dodging to maintain its effects, in which case you won’t be dealing any damage or doing anything else really.

IchigoHatake.5098:

These changes to the thief looks nice, but it’s simply waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too balanced. Like seriously, some classes’ traits and abilities are way better compared to the changes you are proposing, you removed improvisation (one of the really good traits, you then changed Shadow’s Embrace so it no longer removes as many conditions, you also nerfed Shadow Rejuvination so that it’s no longer heals per second. These traits are kitten compared to what other classes have. So I propose this:

Steal: Take everything your opponent has: gold, gear, account password and username, credit card number, etc.

New deadly art trait: APPLY All condition * 50 stacks to them when you hit an enemy
New acrobatics trait : Infinite Endurance, 100% speed increase, infinite intiative
New Shadow Arts Trait: increase all stealth time by 100 seconds, you can no longer be revealed EVER!
New Critical Strikes Trait: Increase all dmg dealt by 1000%
New Trickery trait : dodging summon 100 shadow clones of your self and they will constantly spam heartseeker and unload. They all pulse 1200 range aoe taunt every second
New Daredevil trait: Become the devil, insta kill all enemies within a 500000000000 range.

Now we nerf all other classes so that they do 1 dmg, have 1hp, and all their skills have 1 week cool down. Now this should be balanced

Improvisation is not removed, it is just moved to the Trickery line instead. The reworked Shadow’s Rejuvenation here has the potential to heal you just about as much as it currently does, without having to stay in stealth the whole time. The same goes for Shadow’s Embrace and condition clearing. This is in the best case scenario though and most likely will heal for a bit less compared to camping in stealth for the full duration currently. However, camping in stealth for the full duration means you aren’t dealing damage or landing any stealth attacks, so there a pros and cons to both versions. As for them being too weak, this version of Shadow’s Rejuvenation should heal you about as much as the new Daredevil Driven Fortitude trait and also restore some initiative. This version of Shadow’s Embrace will clear conditions about as often as the Daredevil trait Escapist’s Absolution. The numbers could always be tweaked if it’s needed.

As for the rest of your post…

Raiden.1375:

babazhook.6805:

GI should be the trait that removes weakness . The threshold should be changed up so that it happens at over 80 percent rather then 90. We then add “gain endurance when condition removed”

10 for each removed condition would seem about right. Otherwise it stays as is. 1 second cooldown , high health needed and one condition removed per proc. Hardly OP yet very usable while ackowledging the amount of endurance gained may need a tweak.

The current Guarded Initiation is kind of a bad trait design, especially for a class like the thief. We don’t have a ton of sustain to help us stay above the 90 percent health threshold long enough to be able to get much use from it. In addition, Guarded Initiation falls too short compared to a trait like Diamond Skin for Elementalists, even considering that Diamond Skin is a grandmaster trait, and Guarded Initiation is a master tier trait. Diamond Skin makes you immune to all condition applications when above 90% health, including damaging conditions that could otherwise quickly bring you below the health threshold. Guarded Initiation doesn’t remove any damaging conditions, it just removes one of three conditions: vulnerability, weakness, or slow when you hit someone while above 90% health (1s ICD). Whether you have 25 stacks of vulnerability or no vulnerability on you, just about any single attack will bring you below 90% health, immediately negating this trait’s effects. Clearing weakness could potentially help since you would be able to dodge a bit more, but you still wouldn’t be able to dodge for a long enough time to restore enough endurance for even 1 additional dodge most likely. Also, even though dodging attacks would prolong the duration that this trait would stay active, you have to stop dodging and attack someone to get any use out of this trait. During that time you can be hit and will quickly fall below the 90% health threshold. Lowering the threshold to 80% and making it restore endurance as well doesn’t help much. It would just prolong the inevitable time that you do get hit and fall below the threshold. Meanwhile, you will probably have to be dodging to maintain its effects, in which case you won’t be dealing any damage or doing anything else really.

IchigoHatake.5098:

These changes to the thief looks nice, but it’s simply waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too balanced. Like seriously, some classes’ traits and abilities are way better compared to the changes you are proposing, you removed improvisation (one of the really good traits, you then changed Shadow’s Embrace so it no longer removes as many conditions, you also nerfed Shadow Rejuvination so that it’s no longer heals per second. These traits are kitten compared to what other classes have. So I propose this:

Steal: Take everything your opponent has: gold, gear, account password and username, credit card number, etc.

New deadly art trait: APPLY All condition * 50 stacks to them when you hit an enemy
New acrobatics trait : Infinite Endurance, 100% speed increase, infinite intiative
New Shadow Arts Trait: increase all stealth time by 100 seconds, you can no longer be revealed EVER!
New Critical Strikes Trait: Increase all dmg dealt by 1000%
New Trickery trait : dodging summon 100 shadow clones of your self and they will constantly spam heartseeker and unload. They all pulse 1200 range aoe taunt every second
New Daredevil trait: Become the devil, insta kill all enemies within a 500000000000 range.

Now we nerf all other classes so that they do 1 dmg, have 1hp, and all their skills have 1 week cool down. Now this should be balanced

Improvisation is not removed, it is just moved to the Trickery line instead. The reworked Shadow’s Rejuvenation here has the potential to heal you just about as much as it currently does, without having to stay in stealth the whole time. The same goes for Shadow’s Embrace and condition clearing. This is in the best case scenario though and most likely will heal for a bit less compared to camping in stealth for the full duration currently. However, camping in stealth for the full duration means you aren’t dealing damage or landing any stealth attacks, so there a pros and cons to both versions. As for them being too weak, this version of Shadow’s Rejuvenation should heal you about as much as the new Daredevil Driven Fortitude trait and also restore some initiative. This version of Shadow’s Embrace will clear conditions about as often as the Daredevil trait Escapist’s Absolution. The numbers could always be tweaked if it’s needed.

As for the rest of your post…

I think that given the popularity of Scholars runes you overstate the amount of time spent under 80 percent health by the thief. I know in any given battle my health bounces up and down meaning GI will kick in.

That said 90 percent too high. Added to that I have reconsidered and rather then adding endurance for each condition cleared would change it to adding health.

So it would become GI 1 second cooldown. At over 80 percent health remove weakness, slow or vulnerablity . I condition cleared with “on clearing condition gain 1000 health (modified by healing)”

Two traits that I want to see return, Hidden Assassin and Power of Inertia. Just having these two traits opens up so much for thieves. if you trait for Shadow Arts or Acrobatics you lose dps, but these two could be a game changer. This is probably why we feel so weak.

babazhook.6805:

I think that given the popularity of Scholars runes you overstate the amount of time spent under 80 percent health by the thief. I know in any given battle my health bounces up and down meaning GI will kick in.

I don’t think Scholar runes are used very much, especially by thieves, in any gamemode other than PVE maybe. And yes, your health can bounce above the health threshold occasionally in a battle, but mostly only after you use a heal skill, if even then. We just don’t have a lot of sustain like Elementalists and some other classes have.

babazhook.6805:

That said 90 percent too high. Added to that I have reconsidered and rather then adding endurance for each condition cleared would change it to adding health.

So it would become GI 1 second cooldown. At over 80 percent health remove weakness, slow or vulnerablity . I condition cleared with “on clearing condition gain 1000 health (modified by healing)”

That sounds better than a small amount of endurance gained, but I still just don’t really like the whole design of the trait. Don’t get me wrong, your suggestions would definately help the current GI which it needs, but I prefer my suggested rework for Guarded Initiation still, even without considering which one would be stronger or weaker.

Moises.2196:

Two traits that I want to see return, Hidden Assassin and Power of Inertia. Just having these two traits opens up so much for thieves. if you trait for Shadow Arts or Acrobatics you loose dps, but these two could be a game changer. This is probably why we feel so weak.

I already sort of merged Power of Inertia into Upper Hand in my suggestions above. As for Hidden Assassin, maybe it could be worked into one of the traits somehow, but the new Leeching Venoms has the possibility of giving you a lot of might stacks with the venom changes too. I don’t really think these 2 traits are why we feel weak necessarily though, it’s just that these 2 trait lines (especially Acrobatics) currently don’t offer enough defense, and they also don’t offer enough offense or anything else in compensation either.

On a different topic, what do you guys think about making Steal work similarly to the Sword #2 Infiltrator’s Strike and Return? The initial steal would work just like it does now, and you would then have about a 5 second time frame to activate its roll over skill, which returns you to your previous position if you choose to activate it. This would help make stealing more viable for our ranged weapons in general, since you usually want to stay farther away when using ranged weapons. It also wouldn’t conflict with anything because using stolen items is now on F2 instead.

Well, the patch today didn’t include anything other than what was mentioned before for Thieves unfortunately. I edited the OP to reflect the changes made in today’s patch, along with a few of the things discussed in this thread so far. I also moved Flanking Strikes from Trickery to Critical Strikes, replacing Flawless Strike there. I got the idea for the new trait in Trickery from another thread, which should synergize well with the reworked Bountiful Theft. The new Trickery trait is:

• -(Major|Adept) Bountiful Interruption: Steal a boon from foes that you interrupt.

Honestly I’d say the only thing you went a little silly with was the cooldown reductions. There’s a lot of 25s’ in there for relatively powerful abilities.

I got giddy when I saw Bountiful Interruption though, THAT is a trait I’d love to see.

Aside from the unrealistic cooldowns, I’d say that a lot of this is not only VERY good but also rather realistic in terms of expectations. I’d love to see this happen.

Cyrus.4105:

Honestly I’d say the only thing you went a little silly with was the cooldown reductions. There’s a lot of 25s’ in there for relatively powerful abilities.

I got giddy when I saw Bountiful Interruption though, THAT is a trait I’d love to see.

Aside from the unrealistic cooldowns, I’d say that a lot of this is not only VERY good but also rather realistic in terms of expectations. I’d love to see this happen.

Thanks. Out of curiosity, are you talking about the Venom cool down reductions now all being 25 seconds? Would like to know which skills you are talking about, and the reasons for why you think they would be too strong.

Raiden.1375:

Cyrus.4105:

Honestly I’d say the only thing you went a little silly with was the cooldown reductions. There’s a lot of 25s’ in there for relatively powerful abilities.

I got giddy when I saw Bountiful Interruption though, THAT is a trait I’d love to see.

Aside from the unrealistic cooldowns, I’d say that a lot of this is not only VERY good but also rather realistic in terms of expectations. I’d love to see this happen.

Thanks. Out of curiosity, are you talking about the Venom cool down reductions now all being 25 seconds? Would like to know which skills you are talking about, and the reasons for why you think they would be too strong.

Maybe only when shared with a coordinated group.

Raiden.1375:

Cyrus.4105:

Honestly I’d say the only thing you went a little silly with was the cooldown reductions. There’s a lot of 25s’ in there for relatively powerful abilities.

I got giddy when I saw Bountiful Interruption though, THAT is a trait I’d love to see.

Aside from the unrealistic cooldowns, I’d say that a lot of this is not only VERY good but also rather realistic in terms of expectations. I’d love to see this happen.

Thanks. Out of curiosity, are you talking about the Venom cool down reductions now all being 25 seconds? Would like to know which skills you are talking about, and the reasons for why you think they would be too strong.

Just gave it all a re-read and actually yeah I’d say it’s just the venoms that sit that way, the rest is fair upon reconsideration.

I understand that it’s essentially a massive overhaul to how venoms function, but with them all being 25 it does away with the distinction of being ‘elite’ and a heal, rather than just being stuff folk can mash on cooldown alongside their utility bars.

Well venoms are mostly all quite weak currently, aside from when using them with Venomous Aura. Basilisk Venom is the exception, which is why I suggested that it should only apply 1 stack now since its cool down got decreased. Skelk Venom was also rebalanced to match the new lower cool down. It heals for a bit less now, but when you take the lower cool down into account it’s about the same overall. Venomous Aura also only applies half of the venom stacks to allies so that the trait wouldn’t be even stronger with these changes. These changes are mostly to help make venoms more useful when they are taken without Venomous Aura, without having to remove or rework Venomous Aura too much.

Does that clear the venom changes up, or do any of them seem too strong still for some reason?

I just don’t understand why venomous aura can’t just be balanced with an ICD so they can buff venoms to a point they’re worthwhile choices individually. Just give it a UI icon when it’s ready if it feels like it would be too difficult to balance.

Just have it last 5s when triggered so you could still pile all the venoms on, and use a UI icon so you know when it’s up, then rebalance vendoms around lower cooldowns/stacks so they’re good without VA.

I mean, ICD is like the go-to anet trait balancing tactic.

Raiden.1375:

• Self applied Revealed duration in PvP is normalized with the rest of the game to now last 3 seconds instead of 4.

I still don’t understand why this is a thing. This whole nerf was intruduced as a counter measure to culling in wvw, which means it shouldn’t have been in pvp anyway, and after culling was fixed they only fixed the trait in pve and wvw. Why?