Guild Wars 2

There have been plenty and many posts about last refuge and people wanting to take it out or change but it seems as if Devs ignore it or don’t admit it’s a bad designed trait.

I’ve played many Moba’s, watched tournaments and the like which are games based on PVP. And seeing how this trait works is perhaps the most baffling thing to see.

The trait is designed to let you survive a little longer by giving you a 2 second stealth once you drop under a certain hp. This is meant so that you get to survive and run away. Problem is that in PVP you don’t really want to run away. Why? In pvp usually your life is not as valuable as it is in pve, it’s just a resource. If you can give your life to prevent the enemy from capping a point for a good time or distract enemies from a point then it’s worth it. It’s all about the total worth and what your resource can achieve.
First off, while in stealth you can’t cap (it doesn’t even have a grace period so that stealth thieves don’t automatically lose a point vs another person). So procing this will mean more stealth uptime which you have to break in order to cap again.
Secondly, it’s very common in pro scene that even if the person has very low health that they stay in the battlefield juking around and baiting the opponent into a trap or whatever have you.
Third, the threshold is very, very low and due to the thief’s low stats it’s morelikely they die rather stay alive.
Fourth, it’s automatic and it doesn’t interrupt your current action, thus making the skill more like: “causes reveal under certain hp” which is the opposite of what you want and need.
This skill has no place in PVP and arguably in WvW or PVE. Here are some ideas to change it:
Proc when downed
Click to trigger
Interrupt current action
Release blinding powder or smokescreen instead

I hope that for once it’s heard. In PVP or WvW, even with 20k health it’s annoying to deal with and makes me want to take out those 10 points away from SA if it weren’t for the sucky condi cleanse thief has.

Let’s see from PvE and WvW points…(oh btw I agree – this trait is pretty bad, unless you are already running away)

Proc when downed: PvE – useless, since mobs don’t lose aggro, WvW – kinda useless unless in very specific cases? But still better than what LR does atm(except when you are already running away :P).
Click to trigger: I think it won’t work that well.
Interrupt current action – I can see it working, but sometimes you don’t want your action interrupted (like for example if you are DS-ing with SoM, or you are about to finish someone) and what will happen if you are using shortbow and it procs while an arrow is traveling? Answer – revealed.
Smoke screen instead of blinding powder(at the moment LR is actually “blinding powder”) – I like this idea a lot, if the smoke screen is instant cast(otherwise it’s like a kittentier version of the No3 suggestion).

But you know they won’t do anything. Thieves have been complaining about this trait for year+ and all we got was shorter CD, saying like “we know you don’t like it, so have 33% lower CD on it, trololol”.

Solution without moving or replacing traits:
Make it also grant you a charge buff: "You are immune to reveal (2s). Exiting stealth consumes this charge."

That way, it will still work as intended, and if you were to choose to enter stealth with cloak and dagger at the same time it triggers, you would attack, exiting stealth, but lose a charge instead of gaining reveal, allowing your cloak and dagger to grant you stealth.

As for the other negatives of the skill, if you’re attacking then as soon as it triggers you’ll be out of stealth (without reveal) thereby not suffering any stealth-time, and still gaining the AoE blind. You should be aware of the traits you take in your build, so be ready for the effect at 25% health. Of course, if the blow that triggers it also disables you, you’re stitched.

Solution without replacing traits:
Swap Last Refuge with Infusion of Shadow or Shadow Protector, so people that want Last Refuge can still have it, and it doesn’t require creating a new trait or getting rid of an existing one - less work.

Solution by replacing the trait:
I’m sure there are plenty of suggestions for replacement floating around, but they rarely get used when ArenaNet does introduce new traits.

Maybe smoke screen could work…and add a higher health threshold. This would be not really an escape trait but more versatile, so you could stealth from it with HS if you wanted, or you could escape from ranged attacks.

At 40% health, set down a smoke screen. ???

Or maybe it could reset the cooldown of blinding powder/shadow refuge. It IS called last refuge, maybe it could do a “mini-shadow refuge” With less stealth time.

yup always end up dying from trying to cad and it pops i like the smoke screen idea

I love last refuge the way it is. Do not change it!!!

I like the smoke screen idea a lot, particularly if it were instant cast. It would have the added benefit of helping to protect nearby allies, giving Thief a bit of support in group situations. Resetting or reducing the cooldown of Deception skills is also an interesting idea.

Thieves don’t use shadow arts in spvp , I don’t see how it can be a problem for capping. Both S/D and D/P meta builds have nothing in SA.

a t s e.9614:

Thieves don’t use shadow arts in spvp , I don’t see how it can be a problem for capping. Both S/D and D/P meta builds have nothing in SA.

So the trait needs to suck kitten because of the meta? What about condi p/d? They’re not full meta, but def viable.

a t s e.9614:

Thieves don’t use shadow arts in spvp , I don’t see how it can be a problem for capping. Both S/D and D/P meta builds have nothing in SA.

Some do. Everyone has to start somewhere, and, in my opinion, shadow arts is a nice line to start out in when you’re new to thief. Not that it’s effective with dagger or sword main hand builds against PvP-experienced players, but at a lower rank or in hot join it gives you easy survivability so you can last long enough to get the feel of the class in PvP. That being said, it’s not unheard of for experienced players to put 10-15 points into that line to get shadow’s embrace, which of course picks up last refuge. As for the reference to meta builds… well, they change, and those come about as a result of updates, sometimes to lesser-used aspects of a class.

Following on from that: not using something that presents problems doesn’t mean it should be ignored. By that logic, the only thing that would ever be worked on would be what’s in use at present, thereby removing the possibility of buffs to other aspects, preventing build diversity. Of course, in my opinion, changing it wouldn’t shift the majority of builds out of acrobatics or trickery, but 1: once they start looking at the line it could be a start to other improvements for it, and 2: my point is in the principle.

Perhaps slightly off topic in saying this, but addressing this issue would also be beneficial to some players who enjoy other areas of the game. I disagree with “don’t fix this because I don’t use it; forget about those that do”.

I have, hell, we all have complained passionately about this trait since launch.

It has been blatantly ignored, just like pretty much all other Thief-specific feedback. ANet does as they like, when they like based on nothing but their own feelings.

I bet they’d remove Skyhammer from SoloQ before fixing Last Refuge,

I would literally rather have no 5 point SA minor trait than have Last Refuge. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.