Guild Wars 2

Traps, Tricks and Venoms all have a problem with condition removal.
Traps and Venoms have no access to it, and Tricks only remove movement based conditions. In terms of stun breakers, Tricks have two and the others have none.
While I don’t think an all trap/trick/venom build will (or should) have as much utility as a mixed build, players shouldn’t be punished for the poor design of the skills.

Every skill type should have access to condi-removal and stun breakers regardless of which type would have the best, that way players are not forced to pick up certain utility types to get them. And it would be more viable if they were tied to skills rather than traits since you wouldn’t have to specialize to make them useful.

[Traps]
Shadow Trap [Shadow Pursuit]: Make this part of the skill a stun breaker. (It will require more preparation than Roll for Ini or Shadowstep, justifying the lower CD) Lower the range of the skill so you can’t shadow step across valleys
[Destroy Shadow Trap]: Blast Finisher

Needle Trap: Ground targetable

Tripwire: Make it transfer 3 conditions to affected foes

Ambush: allows you to shadowstep to marked target, 1200 range

[Tricks]
Scorpion Wire: Transfers 2 conditions to target(justifies the cooldown, deals w/ condi problem, makes it more of a skill to watch out for) still removes condi if the wire misses.

Caltrops: Removes swiftness and vigor from enemies, removes cripple from allies

Haste: Gain vision of invisible enemies and traps (only affects you and your summons)

[Venoms]
Devourer Venom: Breaks stun, 40sec cooldown (isn’t as strong as roll or shadowstep)

Spider Venom: Also transfers 1 condition on each enemy hit (solves condi problem, useful for all weapon sets) Reduce Cooldown to 35 sec

Basilisk Venom: Breaks stun (just so its not completely outclassed by Devourer)

Ice Drake Venom: Heals on successful hit (more ways to benefit from building cleric)
Reduce Cooldown to 25 sec

Skale Venom: Removes regeneration and protection from enemies hit, Reduce Cooldown to 25 sec

[Signets]
Signet of Malice: [Active] Convert 2 conditions to boons (im pretty sure no one uses it right now) Vuln=Protection, Bleed/Burning/Poison=Regen, Blind=Fury, Weakness=Vigor, Immobilize/Chill/Cripple=Swiftness, Confusion=Might

Signet of Agility: [Active] # of conditions removed is based on missing health not nearby allies, 1 per 20% missing

Signet of Shadows: [Active] Also cripples and burns enemies (active effect is weak right now, thief does not have many ways of applying burning, benefits condi duration and dmg users)

Assassin’s Signet: [Active] Gain immunity to blind and confusion for 7 sec (current active effect is not strong enough to go 45 sec w/ out speed boost, confusion is not removed just does no dmg)

I don’t think it will address all of the problems w/ these skills but it will keep thieves from being pigeon-holed into using certain utilities. But I wan’t to know what you guys think, do these skill types need stun breaks and condi removal? If so are these the right skills to do them?

It’s an interesting idea for sure, adding utility to things like traps and venoms rather than directly buffing them would make them more practical to use and attach some interesting opportunity cost decisions to them like your more-used shadow refuge, RFI, shadowstep, etc.

Perhaps not the exact effects listed here, but definately adding stunbreaks, condition transfer, boon removal, condition removal, and other such things to skills like these would definately make them more desirable and usable from a practical standpoint. Heck, just integrating something in to traits (as we’ve been told we’re going to get some trait combinations like Warriors are seeing, paving the way for new traits) would pop up the utility of traps or venoms focused builds. I’d like to see something like:

Grandmaster (Some trait line… Deadly Arts? Trickery?)
The Master Plan
Your traps steal one boon and transfer one condition from yourself to your target

Plan B
Traps and venoms may be used as stun breakers.This effect can only trigger once every 30 seconds.

Crooked Chemistry (replaces Residual Venom)
Venoms you apply last one extra strike, remove one condition, and add the removed condition to the venom’s effect at one quarter duration

Ice Drake Venom: Heals on successful hit

Caltrops: Removes swiftness and vigor from enemies, removes cripple from allies

Signet of Agility: # of conditions removed is based on missing health not nearby allies
1 per 20% missing

Ambush: allows you to shadowstep to marked target, 1200 range, doesn’t stunbreak

[Destroy Shadow Trap] Blast Finisher

Super Riceman.8702:

Every skill type should have access to condi-removal and stun breakers regardless of which type would have the best, that way players are not forced to pick up certain utility types to get them. And it would be more viable if they were tied to skills rather than traits since you wouldn’t have to specialize to make them useful.

The whole point is to force players to make a choice between surviving (condition removal and stun breakers), more damage (Assassin’s signet.etc), and more utility (venoms, traps)

By adding condi-removal and stun breakers to venoms and traps, it means there is no need to make this decision.

Poisons do need a buff but adding these kinds of effects to them isn’t the right way to implement a buff.

Sunflowers.1729:

Super Riceman.8702:

Every skill type should have access to condi-removal and stun breakers regardless of which type would have the best, that way players are not forced to pick up certain utility types to get them. And it would be more viable if they were tied to skills rather than traits since you wouldn’t have to specialize to make them useful.

The whole point is to force players to make a choice between surviving (condition removal and stun breakers), more damage (Assassin’s signet.etc), and more utility (venoms, traps)

By adding condi-removal and stun breakers to venoms and traps, it means there is no need to make this decision.

Poisons do need a buff but adding these kinds of effects to them isn’t the right way to implement a buff.

Well that’s just it, these skills aren’t underused because they’re bad but rather because they are far too situational to be used realistically in the limited slots we have for them

The idea that’s presented here, giving them more situational utility, actually solves the primary problems with venoms and traps in a really interesting way. Choosing between, say, caltrops or tripwire should be a much more viable choice, however tripwire’s has only one use while caltrops has multiple uses The same can be said of other thief utilites that get a lot of use like Shadow Refuge. They’re not picked because they’re more powerful, but because they’re useful in more situations and thus create interesting and fun tactical decisions

This was something Anet recently addressed with Signets. They felt that many signets had either an active or passive that was really bad, and they wanted the skills to have some more solid decisions. Take a look around the utilities of most other classes and you’ll notice a similar pattern. The skills people use a lot do at least two things, which makes them more worth the utility slot, and much more fun to have on the bar.

I think it would make venomous aura worthy of being grandmaster since it could help allies cleanse conditions and disables. It would also be more of a reason to bring thieves into WvW, PvP and dungeons since they have utility beyond their damage. It would stop them from being put into dmg roles by default.

As it stands now, there isn’t a lot to gain from adding a thief to your dungeon group