Guild Wars 2

give Anet your opinions on useless/bad design utilities for solo or group play

i will start with Traps
has anyone use before needle trap or tripe wire?
fix – area of activation to be circle instead of rectangle, lower the cd and/or increase the impact duration.
thieves life shorter than 30 seconds if been offensive playable

Wrote about this 2 days ago and haven’t felt creative enough lately to think through the other traits and utilities yet.

But I brought up needle trap and tripwire, haste, venoms, assassins signet.

If I’d pop Haste, I’m highly vulnerable to high damage and CC since I can’t dodge, and it’s a stunbreak? idk, but times when I pop a stunbreak I do it to avoid the follow ups. If I pop Haste, I can easily be CC’d for the whole duration because no dodge and no really good way to avoid it except S/P #3 and #2 or stealth(lulz). For this utility to work at all I’m forced to use Signet of Agility, which takes up an additional utility slot, 2 utilities to get a bit better reward than using 1, when I trigger 2 utilities, I want the 2 utilities be worth 2 utilities. -50% stun duration on haste maybe?

Assassins Signet: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Taking-a-closer-look-at-Assassin-s-signet
The active is carried by traits, traits should buff viable utilities not make poor utilities viable, at least that’s the impression this game has given me when I’ve played other classes, I felt I had a lot more options when playing other classes.

Traps, they trigger once and that’s it, I want to see traps made worthwhile. 3 seconds of immobilize, more often doesn’t turn a fight or affect it much. I wish Needle trap would stay up after being triggered to cripple who ever walks over it without dodging, making it a more useful tool. Tripwire, meh, I like the idea of it, and it’s indeed subtle and assassinish, but it’s not worth an utility slot in its current state. The added vulnerability from traits makes them pretty ok, oh carried by traits again ! oohooohhh.
Cast time on the stun break from Shadow Trap? Gotta be the only stunbreak in the game which is tied to a cast time, and getting interrupted destroys the trap, sure high distance, whatabout mesmers who can put portals on top of the end of the world, and teleport over any rock and mountain escaping any situation (fought a mesmer like this the other day and was truly annoying).

Venoms, they can be overpowered when used with venomshare and a necromancer or with thieves guild solo. But whatabout the thieves defence ? ouch. No condition removal, no stunbreaks, no teleport, no stealth, nothing if I’d wish to use more than 2 venoms, which I think I should be able to after dedicating 2 whole traitlines for them. If I make a build fully dedicated to venoms, once the venoms are shared to the group I feel useless.

The thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-Issues/first#post3257783

The needle trap can be used on the dredge suit boss of the final fractal.

One higher level problem with traps is that thieves don’t need 4 traps and caltrops that all are static and in one trait line. There can be no viable traps based build. Those skills need some variety.

Stooperdale.3560:

The needle trap can be used on the dredge suit boss of the final fractal.

True, but you can also do this by just using Body Shot (since it’s a fight best suited for ranged anyways).

I do agree that the trap line could use some love, but I understand why this hasn’t happened yet. I mean, thieves still have plenty of good, viable utility skills and there are definitely bigger fish to fry when it comes to issues worth of dev attention.

However, I don’t think a 10 second reduction to all traps would really break anything.

if traps would be 15 seconds base cd and when traited 12 seconds so every 12 seconds you could kd 3 sec and immobilize your enemy which can have your enemy to think twice before he charge you . and give you more control on your area against melee classes
also with group play with couple of warriors with hammer stun you can shut down an area for up to 10 seconds

traps can be very handy like in wvw supplies traps when your group on the gate and suddenly thief who stealth and put on your group feets 2 traps

so pls anet give us some loving – christmas is coming

I used the tripwire once in pvp skyhammer (placed over breakable floor). Managed to get one guy early on, had a laugh, then it was useless for the remainder of the match.

I could see some uses if it tripwire/needle had 1-2 second active time: In pvp, it could encourage cap-defending; in wvw, it could help break up groups running straight to you/your group (like ele’s unsteady ground).

Tripwire is actually pretty useful when point bunkering in sPvP. Outside of that, pretty useless.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Tripwire is actually pretty useful when point bunkering in sPvP. Outside of that, pretty useless.

Point bunkering…on a thief?

I would argue that point bunkering on a thief isn’t useful. =P

Dahkeus.8243:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Tripwire is actually pretty useful when point bunkering in sPvP. Outside of that, pretty useless.

Point bunkering…on a thief?

I would argue that point bunkering on a thief isn’t useful. =P

Try it.

Dahkeus.8243:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Tripwire is actually pretty useful when point bunkering in sPvP. Outside of that, pretty useless.

Point bunkering…on a thief?

I would argue that point bunkering on a thief isn’t useful. =P

Evasion. Not Stealth. It works.

PopeUrban.2578:

Dahkeus.8243:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Tripwire is actually pretty useful when point bunkering in sPvP. Outside of that, pretty useless.

Point bunkering…on a thief?

I would argue that point bunkering on a thief isn’t useful. =P

Evasion. Not Stealth. It works.

Even if it meets your standard of what you consider to “work”, it’s just not as good as the main bunker classes.

Take a Guardian, for instance:
– Cleanses conditions better
– Buffs allies
– Can rez allies better (without losing point capturing through stealth)

And here’s the main one: They can knock people off points. Surviving while standing on a point is great, but a Guardian will win games for you while bunkering because they can run to a point, then knock them off and immobilize to decap the point.

so back to main subject

how you suggest traps should be fix if at all?

messiah.1908:

so back to main subject

how you suggest traps should be fix if at all?

remove them and give us more group utility

Cynz.9437:

remove them and give us rifles

fixed*

Maybe, change some of them to be placed on the caster,
ex trip wire: Next time a foe hits you, they are knockdown instead.
trait ideas would be to make it apply to allies,

Might not work with all the traps but be really cool/op with ambush lol

you know what issue with traps is?
- too long to set up: hi guys please don’t kill me while i bend over and set up a trap here
- too little effect, other utility spells are more usefull
- locational, long CD

They should just get rid of two of the traps and put something better in. Shadow trap has its fans but shadowstep is too similar and works better as a skill. One out of tripwire and needle trap can go and whatever remains should have a better catchment.

I used to like Shadow Trap just for messing around in WvW. Traveler runes opened up actual possibilities with it. But I assume I accidentally escaped an incognito anet dev in exactly 1 situation, causing him enough fury to nerf it. I don’t use it anymore because of the casting time.

Ambush is decent as far as pet survivability goes. Main Issue I always had with it though is having to target your enemy to get the Thief NPC to attack them instead of it automatically attacking the person who triggered it.

Needle trap is probably the most worthless utility I ever seen. I’ve tried to make use of it in many different situations and it’s just a stupid skill. I like the idea of having it, and tripwire, stay up and hit multiple people. I personally would rather they did power/crit dmg like a weapon skill, or DMG like Mug’s when triggered. I miss having actual damaging traps like Rangers in GW1, but you’re forced to spec condition on Ranger for that in GW2. Would be a good Thief opportunity to take that role. ;s

PopeUrban.2578:

Dahkeus.8243:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Tripwire is actually pretty useful when point bunkering in sPvP. Outside of that, pretty useless.

Point bunkering…on a thief?

I would argue that point bunkering on a thief isn’t useful. =P

Evasion. Not Stealth. It works.

What’s the point? Roll Warrior; Solo Tank 6 people all day.

Zacchary.6183:

Cynz.9437:

remove them and give us rifles

fixed*

Hmm, Sniper Rifle Kit?

Traps need to last for a set amount of time to be useful, as one shot deals they are horrid.

Doggie.3184:

Zacchary.6183:

Cynz.9437:

remove them and give us rifles

fixed*

Hmm, Sniper Rifle Kit?

You just gave me an awesome idea.

wonder what does anet do with the data of the little used utilities for thieves in pve?
that said this is from a pve player’s point of view

as said often before, with traps and venoms and some of the rarely seen utilities ;
the combinations of their

-long cooldown,
-short / weak effect,
-duplicated purpose from a better alternative,
-lack of group play utility (like we realistically have just SR & smokescreen for that)

being in different dungeons and fractals almost daily,
and everyone knows that traps and venoms aren’t used that much.

i sincerely hope that anet will understand that their refusal to continue
with the pve/ pvp skill split is (even if indirectly) a source of this problem
and will continue to do so until they change this policy

anet had to do it in gw1 since there were obvious differences in scaling
and skills with mobs and bosses several lvls above you
than the more tightly-controlled pvp. until they create bosses or mobs
with the same limits as regular players, and are just ‘harder’ because of AI,
(no cheap mechanics like defiance and hp/regen zerk walls)
this will stay the same.

as it stands now, thieves are shoehorned into the few utilities that could work
in pve, while the rest are kept in check for pvp, becoming useless in pve.
which is against their policy of enticing build diversity.

and if i may be respectfully, but brutally honest;
watching developers’ live streams of them playing pve thieves
ineffectively and dying a lot makes regular players think that
they really are out of touch with the class

and that’s really just ok. with exceptions of course, the
best players of a game aren’t necessarily the ones that made them.
just hope that they take cues from games that are difficult to balance
like fighting games, rts games, MOBAs. they tap their best players
for feedback on how to balance the game. they involve the community.

its just that during the last time they have shown planned balanced changes
back in june, they still did some very questionable balance changes
and still to this day continue to ignore the calls for the pve/pvp split

.

I was playing around with a build creator a few days ago and took to evaluating and reconstructing all of our rather unused/lackluster utilities.

Venoms
Passive Mechanic: 10% chance to proc active effect at half duration on hit; 5 sec global CD.

• IE: Skale Venom: Torment 2.5 sec / Vulnerability 5sec

Ice Drake Venom: Scrapped, replaced with Fire Ant Venom: Next four attacks apply 5sec of burning.

Traps
Tripwire: Upon being triggered the tripwire appears and cannot be crossed for 5sec; basically a copypasta of Line of Warding.
Needle Trap: After initial effect activates, for the next 10 seconds targets that enter the radius of the trap receive 6sec Cripple & 6sec Posion.
Ambush Trap: Upon triggering, spawned Thief gives nearby allies 10 seconds of Fury.
Shadow Trap: Now functions as a single use one way portal for the user only. Range reduced to 2,500. Cast time on destroy/activate removed. Updated trap visual to the likeness of Smoke Screen so it can be seen easier; can only be seen by user. Utility icon changes to the Locked Skill when you’re out of range; let’s be honest, no one notices the teeny tiny red bar at the bottom in the heat of the moment.

Tricks
Haste: Applies Fury and 5 stacks of Might for 6 seconds. Remove Endurance loss on activation and instead user receives 100% reduced Endurance for 10 seconds.
Roll for Initiative: CD reduced to 45 seconds. (I feel like for in order for it to be able to compete with Shadowstep it needs to have a lower CD.)
Scorpion Wire: Well, obviously for starters make the skill more reliable; increase the speed, rework its pathing, something to make it work how it was intended. Once the core skill is in line, after the target has been pulled they become immobilized for 3 seconds.

Don’t let the numbers make any of my suggestions appear OP should they do so, just take it for its core mechanic and apply whatever numbers you feel are balanced.

@galsia
tripwire you suggested has the same effect – now its kd for 3 sec which cannot move

i love for some burning dmg but also for some defense utility in venom utilities like stunbreak, stealth, blind etc

what i really love for group supporting is to shadow trap be able to shadow step 4 more allies when i trigger it as for now its only rarely used in pvp and not pve and wvw

if anet gives it to us i guarantee that will see more groups calling for thieves

also i would love to see move stolen skills which change my skills bar if used like bundle for ele and engineer

Traps are useless

messiah.1908:

@galsia
tripwire you suggested has the same effect – now its kd for 3 sec which cannot move

Tripwire only works once on a single target. Using any kind of stunbreak will get you out of this.

Line of Warding stops everything from crossing that doesn’t have stability/invuln for 5 seconds. Stunbreaks that don’t teleport/apply stability will not allow you to cross the line.

Galsia.4102:

messiah.1908:

@galsia
tripwire you suggested has the same effect – now its kd for 3 sec which cannot move

Tripwire only works once on a single target. Using any kind of stunbreak will get you out of this.

Line of Warding stops everything from crossing that doesn’t have stability/invuln for 5 seconds. Stunbreaks that don’t teleport/apply stability will not allow you to cross the line.

i tested it in rich enemy environment (zerg) and it kd 4 ppl so it interrupted their skills while line of warding is defending skill tripwie is bit more offensive

Major problem with vennons is that you can’t really dmg without losing all the triggers and they are very short…

It would be nice with some passive effect once you apply the vennon…
Ex.
Apply spider vennon = each 3rd attack you apply poison for 3 seconds until vennon duration finishes…

Same goes with other vennons, while your vennon is up, you should be able to apply constant de buff with the vennon you choose and only 1 vennon should be possible at a time… This would be nice….

Let’s suppose I have 2 vennons , spider for poison and ice drake for chilling…

Than I use spider vennon and it enters cool down, now my dagger is poisoned and I can apply poison attacking each 3rd attack , but I see someone escaping and I use Ice drake vennon, that enters in cool down and replace poison vennon, now my attacks cause chilling instead of poison….

So it’s like a real vennon, your weapon can only have 1 vennon at a time and your attacks cause that chosen vennon.

i make it sound like necro elite skill plague