Guild Wars 2

Right now, in PvE, with the exception of Ambush, they feel completely worthless. A single-target knockdown, immobilize, or cripple has little to no value within a dungeon or open-world environment, where these same effects can be applied with far more ease via other skills. Shadow trap does not feel particularly useful either in these situations – there are far better choices.

Traps for thief are a total newb trap.

Shadow trap is useful in WvW. I use it to over-extende while defending a gate.

All you have to do is have an enemy trigger it close to the side entrance, then over extended as far as possible. When things gets rough, you can activate it to instant teleport out of harm’s way.

Another trap that I like is Ambush and pulling my target into it using Scorpion Wire.

You really just have to be creative with the traps.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Shadow trap is useful in WvW. I use it to over-extende while defending a gate.

All you have to do is have an enemy trigger it close to the side entrance, then over extended as far as possible. When things gets rough, you can activate it to instant teleport out of harm’s way.

Another trap that I like is Ambush and pulling my target into it using Scorpion Wire.

You really just have to be creative with the traps.

Yes but creative doesn’t mean effective.

And needing scorp wire to make traps effective says a lot. Traps can work, it’s just that other things work better. Much, much better.

The first problem with traps would be caltrops. Caltrops just do it better. Wider area. Persistent. Multiple targets. Big damage. Long cripple. Repeatedly triggers signet of malice. Traps need some ideas that make them a good alternative to caltrops.

I’d say Ambush and Shadow traps are fine, but the rest are too situational to be worth slotting. There are some nice synergies, true, but for two utility skill slots, you can get much more versatile skills.

A few ideas for traps then:
- Mini-Caltrops trap. It’d have to be less effective than the skill though, seeing that it’s a trap, and the thief needn’t be next to the opponents to trigger it.
- Smoke trap, like the smoke screen skill, except without projectile blocking, and in a circular shape.
- A sort of Anti-Shadow Refuge: the trap provides a pulsing dark field that damages enemies. Stealth for allies might probably be too much.
- Flashbang: a short area stun when it gets triggered.

However, given that there haven’t been any new skills since launch (IIRC), I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’m not sure if traps could be made more viable just by tweaking existing skills and traits. So, we’ll probably have to wait for an expansion, or a major classes update, till they’ll be more than a curiosity.

For the existing traps, I made these suggestions a while ago.

All Traps:

Instead of being triggered upon hit and then dissipating, Thief traps are now static objects placed on the ground and unseen by hostile targets, and will linger upon triggering depending on which trap is used.

Needle Trap:
- One charge, affects a 300 radius when triggered and becomes an AoE circle for 10 seconds. Foes that step in this circle receive the trap effect, and the target that triggered the trap is the centre of the circle. 5 second ICD per foe that steps in the trap before they can be affected by it again.

Tripwire:
-Three charges, same effect radius/length as it is now. Initial cripple effect removed. A foe that walks across the trap a second time has an ICD of 5 seconds before they can trigger it again (3 second knockdown with no stunbreak, 2 seconds to spare)
-The third foe breaks the wire and becomes “Snagged”. After moving 300 units away from the trap, they are pulled back to the trap and adjacent foes are crippled by the lashing wire for 5 seconds.
- The pull/lash can be activated prematurely on the last affected target, as the first knockdown will chain the skill to “Snap Wire”.
sPvP Version:
- One charge
- Knockdown, snag, pull and cripple all operate on that one charge and affect only the target.
- Cooldown increased to 60 seconds.

Shadow Trap:
- One charge (obviously)
- Upon triggering, a loud smoke bomb explodes, blinding and weakening adjacent foes for 5 seconds.
- Shadow Pursuit is instant cast.
- Shadow Pursuit breaks stun.

Ambush:
- Cooldown increased to 45 seconds
- One charge (obviously)
- The spawned Thief now behaves identical to Veteran Scouts in WvW, but with the same HP, armor and damage output as before (I believe the dual dagger version did more damage so we’ll use that as a template).
- Upon triggering the thief, Ambush chains to “Tag Team”.
- Tag Team swaps your position and the spawned Thief’s position via shadowstep. Breaks stun.

Deadly Arts:
Corrosive Traps: Vulnerability duration increased to 10s.

Improvisation: Changed to “Well-Prepared”. Increases damage dealt by 3% for every unique active trap effect (lingering poisons, immobilisation, cripples, knockdowns, Shadow Pursuit marks, blinds, weakening and active Ambush Thieves), including damage dealt by summoned Thieves. Reduces Trap skill cooldowns by 20%.

Acrobatics:
Master Trapper: Endurance regeneration increased by 50% while traps are active, untriggered or triggered.

Trickery:
Merciful Ambush: Becomes “Merciful Trapper”. Create a large Needle trap (600 radius) when reviving an ally.

I think shadow trap should have a much longer timer. At least one minute. As far as the immo and knockdown goes, I like using those. They serve the purpose of which I believe they were made to do: Getting away. Of course, I would rather have caltrops than any of those, but it’s besides the point. Shadow trap is awesome though, but the timer once activated is too short.

Our traps should be renamed to something like “Wires”.

Guardian and Warriors shouts are similar.

Ranger traps are circular areas that once activated leave a pulsing field (some times a combo field) ticking for X seconds. Thief traps are linear and they have just 1 effect on the first enemy that triggers them (which makes them only useful in 1 vs 1 except for Ambush as the summon will stay until killed).

The only part that works like Ranger traps is the need of an opponent triggering them, but after that they’re completly different skills. So calling them the same way is misleading imo.

And yep, they could use some buff as currently they’re a bit lackluster and you have to invest a lot to put your opponents on them just to get a god 1 vs 1 fight and runaway until everything is recharged. That strategy doesn’t works in most facets of the game.

Anytime I see a thief using traps I’m like high five brah! I personally have yet to incorporate them effectively, I’ve tried, but replacing either shadow step, blinding powder or last refuge is a tough task. Ambush is kinda cool although the thief seems pretty weak but the good thing is that is has a relatively short cool down. I tried using it recently but it was mucking up my flow as I was thinking too much about where to place the trap mid combat. Good thoughts Auesis while traps may require more creative thinking they’re not stellar in any way considering the limit to ability choices available.

I’m not a big fan of ambush because in some situations it works against you – for example, it gives thieves something to c/d off, giving them a huge edge. It also reveals your location when you stealth.

I would not want to see any change that made the cooldowns any longer. I like things being around 30s.

My (humble) opinion:
Ambush Trap – Absolutely love it, no change needed. If anything, change the cooldown back to 30s.

Shadow Trap – To be honest, I don’t use this trap. But others seem pleased with it’s current state.

Trip Wire – Change name to Barbed Wire. When first triggered it knocks down players within X range. Adds a line field of caltrops that persist for Y seconds and cause crippled for 5s.

Needle Trap – When first triggered it immobilizes players within X range. Adds a line combo field of poison for Y seconds that poisons for 6s.

In the end, I feel Trip Wire and Needle Trap don’t add much to a 1v1 fight. I’d rather them offer more group offensive utility as AoE.

-Cowboy

Bluff trap:

Create a perfect clone of yourselft that stand in a position, put you in hide and when clone is defeated u shadowstep at your foe.

Kerishan.8460:

Bluff trap:

Create a perfect clone of yourselft that stand in a position, put you in hide and when clone is defeated u shadowstep at your foe.

play mesmer

WereDragon.6083:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Shadow trap is useful in WvW. I use it to over-extende while defending a gate.

All you have to do is have an enemy trigger it close to the side entrance, then over extended as far as possible. When things gets rough, you can activate it to instant teleport out of harm’s way.

Another trap that I like is Ambush and pulling my target into it using Scorpion Wire.

You really just have to be creative with the traps.

Yes but creative doesn’t mean effective.

Effectiveness is subjective to what you’re trying to accomplish.

Traps are of no value other than doing fun and silly things, and IMO, it’s very effective.

Not every skills has to be viable. I don’t see any changes that will make players pick any of the traps over Caltrops without making them over-powered.

Ambush Trap is good, but the main problem with both traps and venoms is that Caltrops are just plain better.

This is why I wasn’t too unhappy with the Caltrops nerf that happened recently. In fact, they should probably be nerfed more to only do 1 bleed stack per tick instead of 2 to bring it more in line with other utility skills.

However, what really rubs me the wrong way is how Caltrops are covering the weakness of a lot of other things in the Thief’s arsenal. They really just need to make some changes to the class all the way around.

Einlanzer.1627:

Ambush Trap is good, but the main problem with both traps and venoms is that Caltrops are just plain better.

This is why I wasn’t too unhappy with the Caltrops nerf that happened recently. In fact, they should probably be nerfed more to only do 1 bleed stack per tick instead of 2 to bring it more in line with other utility skills.

However, what really rubs me the wrong way is how Caltrops are covering the weakness of a lot of other things in the Thief’s arsenal. They really just need to make some changes to the class all the way around.

If they nerfed Caltrops that much, nobody on earth would play condi theives anymore. Might as well just remove all utilities but Shadow Refuge/Shadowstep/Signet of Shadows then.

Aleth.9630:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ambush Trap is good, but the main problem with both traps and venoms is that Caltrops are just plain better.

This is why I wasn’t too unhappy with the Caltrops nerf that happened recently. In fact, they should probably be nerfed more to only do 1 bleed stack per tick instead of 2 to bring it more in line with other utility skills.

However, what really rubs me the wrong way is how Caltrops are covering the weakness of a lot of other things in the Thief’s arsenal. They really just need to make some changes to the class all the way around.

If they nerfed Caltrops that much, nobody on earth would play condi theives anymore. Might as well just remove all utilities but Shadow Refuge/Shadowstep/Signet of Shadows then.

My point, which I thought was clear, was that they should nerf Caltrops while simultaneously buffing other utilities in addition to some of the condition skills such as Vital Shot. The purpose of this would be to actually your skill setup a choice rather than having mandatory skills.