Guild Wars 2

If they removed any skill from the thief at the moment for a new one are you currently tied to any skill on the thief at the moment to let it go?

Am curious.

Depends on what skill. I don’t know anyone who uses skale venom, for instance.

How more i play thief how more i start to hate our melee set up. Short bow seems to be best.

It would depend on whether they took one of our actual useful skills away to replace it with something or one of our many completely useless skills … oh say, venoms, for instance, or most of our traps. I’d be pretty kitten upset if they took away some of the few skills the thief can really rely on in the game right now. Love it if they got rid of our useless Elites and gave us a couple that had some application in the game. (Basilisk Venom was never that useful for pve anyway, now it sounds like it sucks all around. How about an elite worth using underwater because we want to, not because it’s our only option?) But “Dagger Storm” and “Thieve’s Guild” I like.

Venoms have problems but they’re certainly not worthless. Skale venom is the weakest since most venom using thieves can inflict weakness with poison. The traps seem too situational and I’d certainly get rid of shadow trap and turn that into a trait ability.

All the other skills and pretty handy and a thief wouldn’t really be a thief without them.

Stooperdale.3560:

The traps seem too situational and I’d certainly get rid of shadow trap and turn that into a trait ability.

Been thinking this for awhile. They could divide Ambush trap into two, so theres no RNG in it. Take a melee or take a range.

If they removed pistol number #2 skill I wouldn’t even care. It sucks.

Shadow trap is underrated though IMO. It’s great dealing with multiple enemies and is even better if you run S/D. The whole infiltrators strike/shadowstep/shadowtrap/steal will really confuse them.

“There he is!”
“No wait, he’s behind us!”
“Oh crap, now he’s in the distance!”
Gets randomly backstabbed

It depends what skills are removed and also what’s replacing them.

For example:

Pistol #2, most Venoms and some traps I just can’t seem to get good use from (Though Venoms would be good with a few tweaks, such as Cooldown and traited effects and issues with stacking their conditions)

But other things, that are less popular, I still get good use out of such as Tripwire (3 second unblockable knockdown is amazing, especially since stunbreakers won’t work on it)

Then there’s the third group of things, stuff that I occasionally use but aren’t to fussed about whether they stay or go such as Signets (Though I’d like to at least keep the 25% move speed passive on Signet of Shadows)

That said, if skills where replaced with things that fit their use but are better/more efficient (For example if Infiltrator’s Shot was replaced with a better mobility skill at the cost of the AoE Blind) then I wouldn’t be against it.

Doomdesire.9365:

If they removed pistol number #2 skill I wouldn’t even care. It sucks.

Shadow trap is underrated though IMO. It’s great dealing with multiple enemies and is even better if you run S/D. The whole infiltrators strike/shadowstep/shadowtrap/steal will really confuse them.

“There he is!”
“No wait, he’s behind us!”
“Oh crap, now he’s in the distance!”
Gets randomly backstabbed

You can’t Backstab people with a sword mainhand. xD

But more to the point of your post, I also love teleporting around with S/D to confuse people, and it’s great for psuedo-kiting. However, I think it can be managed just fine without Shadow Trap. The skill feels clunky to me, especially in comparison to using Infiltrator’s Strike, Shadowstep, or Infiltrator’s Signet.

if our gets replaced with a LOL useless skill, then yes, i would mind
if, at least is useful as the one being replaced, then it is ok
i am open for changes, but not crippling/breaking class ones

I’d much rather they alter the existing skills but keep the same “feel” like what they did with Shadow Trap.

In Theory, if you toss out the numbers and just look at what our skills are intended to do, they’re a good crowd of skills. The problem is the number or what that “idea” behind the skill is implemented poorly in a lot of cases.

For instance, venoms are a good “idea” in that they’re abilities that stack extra effects on to attacks, and each one has a different theme based on the “mob” it came from. In practice they suck because the effects aren’t very powerful and have a very limited number of charges. However, you could replace the core mechanics of the skills and keep that theme. For instance, say with venoms, make them a duration based buff that effects all of your attacks for X seconds while the venom is active. Or hey, how about un-nerfing basilisk venom back to it’s release version of “Best single target CC in the game” and simply increasing the cooldown to balance it in stead of gutting it.

I think there’s a core good idea at the heart of every thief skill, it’s just that the mechanics or in some cases just the numbers need to be adjusted so that mechanic is actually useful in real gameplay.

well most likely they’d be doing weapon skills, there’s not much point replacing current utility skills unless they are doing so with something that does the same thing but better as they could just add new skills in to be bought with the thousands of skill points we have laying around (in fact many people are asking for more skills)

Since they can’t do the same with weapon skills without introducing new weapons (or shock horror customization weapon skills) thats most likely where any changes would hit most.

And for me, like many others, it comes down to what they remove and what they replace it with, for example my 2 main weapon sets (d/d and shortbow) I use most the skills and would be sorely upset if they changes THOSE ones but stuff like dancing dagger and disabling shot which are my two least used skills in the set, well I wouldn’t be ecstatic but if they where replaced with more useful skills I’d not complain.

But then I know some people use both those skills who would be as upset as I would be if they removed deathblossom for instance.

Dasorine.1964:

well most likely they’d be doing weapon skills, there’s not much point replacing current utility skills unless they are doing so with something that does the same thing but better as they could just add new skills in to be bought with the thousands of skill points we have laying around (in fact many people are asking for more skills)

Since they can’t do the same with weapon skills without introducing new weapons (or shock horror customization weapon skills) thats most likely where any changes would hit most.

And for me, like many others, it comes down to what they remove and what they replace it with, for example my 2 main weapon sets (d/d and shortbow) I use most the skills and would be sorely upset if they changes THOSE ones but stuff like dancing dagger and disabling shot which are my two least used skills in the set, well I wouldn’t be ecstatic but if they where replaced with more useful skills I’d not complain.

But then I know some people use both those skills who would be as upset as I would be if they removed deathblossom for instance.

Yeah, I’d be upset if dancing dagger was changed radically. I run a Signet of Malice build, and Dancing dagger through a shadow field (like a necro well or SR) does a nice chunk of healing with 4 hits of lifesteal stacked on top of 4 hits of SoM stacked on top of HP from assassin’s reward. In most cases Dancing daggers is my active heal on the builds I run.

precisely, I dare say there isn’t THAT many skills that absolutely no one uses to the point where complete removal/replace wouldn’t royally hurt them.

The only one I can really think of that, in its current version, has almost no use is body shot (this of course not counting underwater weapon skills) and thats only really that bad because the vulnerability doesn’t really last long enough/stack enough per shot for real use compared to other vulnerability stackers.

Dasorine.1964:

precisely, I dare say there isn’t THAT many skills that absolutely no one uses to the point where complete removal/replace wouldn’t royally hurt them.

The only one I can really think of that, in its current version, has almost no use is body shot (this of course not counting underwater weapon skills) and thats only really that bad because the vulnerability doesn’t really last long enough for real use compared to other vulnerability stackers.

IMO they could just add swiftness to body shot and it would be a useful skill on any pistol setup without altering its cast time or cost. P/D would have a potential swiftness+cripple with dancing dagger for closing in to use CnD, and P/P would have a real kiting tool that also increased their unload damage a bit at the same time.

PopeUrban.2578:

Dasorine.1964:

precisely, I dare say there isn’t THAT many skills that absolutely no one uses to the point where complete removal/replace wouldn’t royally hurt them.

The only one I can really think of that, in its current version, has almost no use is body shot (this of course not counting underwater weapon skills) and thats only really that bad because the vulnerability doesn’t really last long enough for real use compared to other vulnerability stackers.

IMO they could just add swiftness to body shot and it would be a useful skill on any pistol setup without altering its cast time or cost. P/D would have a potential swiftness+cripple with dancing dagger for closing in to use CnD, and P/P would have a real kiting tool that also increased their unload damage a bit at the same time.

I’d be happy for a 10 second duration or a 10 stacks per shot myself.

Of course the biggest problem with changing weapon skills is if they change completely then people that have been utilizing them have to get new stuff from simply a new weapon to potentially an entirely new gear load out because of a change (depending on the weapon skills and severity of change)

Now ideally they want players to be playing lots anyway but they should want them to be playing lots because they enjoy it not because they are now forced to farm up a new set of gear/cash to buy gear because they changed something integral to the build they where using. Unhappy gamers are gamers unlikely to spend money on account expansions or “happy fun time fluff”

Honestly, most of the skills a thief has are great. Mind you that there does need to be some adjustments made so the thieves skills boasts the original threat behind the thought.

Like for instance. The traps. I loved the idea of the traps, but when using them, I realized how under powered most of them were. Really, the best one so far, and still kinda worthless was the spike trap. It would be nice if the trap caught more than just one player. Then it would be real useful for a thief who is trying to run, or setting up an ambush.
The trip trap was awesome, helpful if you are running. The Shadow Ambush is helpful as well kept for certain things (later mentioned).

ShadowStep I couldn’t part with. Yes I wish it was a little stronger (I don’t know, like having the ability to actually CROSS GAPS, or climb with it.) The range of it is perfect to me, but again… you lack the ability to cross a gap, which is like one of the many thieves banes.

I liked Heart Seeker, Death Blossom, and Cloak and Dagger.

Really, the only thing I wouldn’t mind them replacing is the Basilisk Venom. So far… it’s useless. 1 sec of petrification is basically saying you need to have a macro on and a decent connection to make it count. On top of that, you miss and it’s gone.

The only reason I would ever use it is when you are underwater… another bane of the thief. Your only usable Elite Skill. And saved for shadow step. Your only usable skills are signets. (Some I wouldn’t mind missing, or at least having them adjusted as they so far haven’t been to promising when I used them.)