Guild Wars 2

Recently I have begun taking stealth utilities with my shortbow in an effort to make a generally more mobile and survivable build. Since doing so I have come to the conclusion that Trick Shot is really more frustrating than useful and feels a bit awkward on the thief.

For a “high mobility class” it seems to be very counter-intuitive to bind a bounce mechanic to the basic auto attack of one of our weapons. The same weapon that grants two movement skills causes problems in PvE where during my dodging and shadow stepping my enemy will more often than not be dragged into proximity of another that I have no intention of aggroing but end up doing so anyway because the shortbow’s auto attack actually puts me at a disadvantage. Unlike a rifle engineer who can control what aggro his piercing shots generate by repositioning himself the shortbow thief is reliant on his enemies movements more than his own to make the most of his weapons potential and has less control of it overall.

What makes this issue even worse for me is how slow the arrow actually is. It takes an unnaturally long time for it to finish bouncing between whatever targets it pleases meaning that If I need to pop stealth suddenly with blinding powder I will suddenly be slapped in the face by revealed even though I stopped attacking a little while ago. As anyone who has been scorned by the sudden stealthing and subsequent revealed debuff inflicted by last refuge can attest, this just flat out sucks.

How possible is it that we could see a reworking of Trick Shot into something useful? If not that then what about a projectile speed increase? (Not that I really expect anything to happen before Venoms are reworked, they desperately need it.)

I’ve experienced that problem a lot as well. The issue is how revealed works, not necessarily the short bow. “Fixing” trick shot would only be a temporary plaster, because other skills (pistols, anyone? dancing dagger?) can also pop you out of stealth if you cloak mid-flight.

The solution is simple; the game just needs to check whether or not you are stealthed when you attack.

In other words…

Revealed Triggering

-Trigger: An attack is made from stealth // typical revealed trigger
-Trigger 2: Leaving the shadow refuge aoe // its counter, less known trigger but still one!
-Trigger 3: Revealed by anti stealth // the wvw trap

-Condition: Succesfully hits target (hostile or neutral)
-Condition 2: Attack was initially made from stealth // this is our key point here, this means that unless the attack was made from stealth, revealed will NOT proc from the action section

-Action: Apply revealed debuff to thief
-Action 2: Remove stealth effects
-Action 3: Revert 1-attack to non-stealth version

etc.

That would be nice. But I would like to point out that this is especially an issue with trick shot as thieves are more dependent on it as a basic attack rather than a skill such as dancing dagger which we can decide to use at our convenience.

I still wish that our positioning with the shortbow mattered a bit more though. Bounce feels kind of like a cheap mechanic to me but despite that I don’t see anything inherently wrong with it on something like dancing dagger.

The problem is with revealed, it should be removed.