Guild Wars 2

(updated and edited)

important
Acrobatics baseline traits: (To compete with DA line in the tpvp meta)
-feline grace gives vigor to all nearby allies, not just yourself. (Team support)
-10% damage modifier when you have vigor boon.
-Might on dodge (power of inertia) replaces vigorous recovery (redundant trait) so we can have more variety of rune choices like Strength, hoelbrak, etc.
-Pain Response only triggers when you have bleed ,burning, poison, or torment.
-Hard to Catch cool down increased from 30 to 45 seconds.

important
-Boonstrip when landing stealth attacks (will give thieves more value and presence in pvp by being able to strip key boons like stability and protection)

-change preparedness trait and make 15 initiative baseline. (will give more build variety. Atm thieves are most likely to take trickery+daredevil, leaving only one line for build variety)

-Bountiful theft should be baseline for steal, it makes sense thematically and is also needed.

-increase base health to match the other medium professions.

-combine escapist’s absolution with the second daredevil minor trait. Add another master tier trait that will synergize with dagger offhand to give sword dagger and dagger dagger thieves some support. (Currently we have great traits that are in master tier but are rarely taken because of condition pressure in the current meta and the lack of thief sustainability… combining EA with the baseline minor trait will give daredevils an option to define their choice of weaponset: staff for staff master/pistol offhand for pulmonary impact/ dagger offhand for the newly added trait.)

Possible idea for the trait:
-“when holding a dagger offhand, gain a charge for every successful critical hit. After accumulating 4 charges, the next hit will steal a boon.”

Weapon set balance

-Revert SD nerfs in the past. (sd 3 always toggling regardless of hit, larcenous strike stealing 2 boons, etc)

-Cloak and dagger applies blind on hit

-Bouncing dagger applies poison

-death blossom begins its evade instantaneously like the other weapon evade skills, increase the power damage coefficient.

-Staff 4 applies revealed on hit. (Skill shot reveals, counterplay and utility against sneak gyro reviving in tpvp scene.)

Other
-Scorpion wire working like DH F1 mechanics. (decapping potential in tpvp by pulling bunker out of node, lolz.)

-Revealed training on Deadly Arts line also removing one condition upon getting revealed. (To compete w/ panic strike trait)

Atm,, we seem to be pigeon-holed into decapping and +1 ganking. I stated the above ideas in hopes that thieves can bring more utility to an organized team by being the “bunker buster” through more reliable and consistent boonstrips.
Support the thread by adding creative ideas for the next thief balance patch. Try to keep it reasonable and defining for thieves’ role in the meta.

After 4549 hours of my time dedicated to thief, even through the dark times from June 2015 to Jan 2016, these are my current thoughts and suggestions.

I disagree with making vault unblockable, but I like the rest of the ideas except:

For the new trait, I would rather it not be tied to criticals, but I also think getting a charge from every hit would be overboard… Maybe get a charge when you apply a condition?

- I strongly agree with the bandit’s defense kick evade frames. Correctly timing a block should be rewarding, not just a ticket to another risk.

- But I also disagree with making Vault unblockable. One of the reasons is the backlash leading to other random nerfs in the class.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Upcoming-Balance-Changes-Week-of-December-14-2015/first

tomwjd.8172:

-adding evade frame to bandit’s defense kick part or simply making it a 2 part ability like chronomancer’s shield 4 (this utility can actually screw you over if you don’t stow weapon immediately after you use it, especially in team fights when mutiple sources of attacks are focused on you.)

Tabootrinket.2631:

- I strongly agree with the bandit’s defense kick evade frames. Correctly timing a block should be rewarding, not just a ticket to another risk.

This. This is really all I want.

Making the dagger offhand trait getting a charge from applying conditions will make d/d condi evade spam thieves even more cancer than it already is. It also does not benefit s/d thieves which needs some help at the moment. At least if you make it tied to critical hits, the condi thieves have an option to use condi/precision gear.

If not unblockable vault, then we need a way to out play scrappers. Our current hardest match up are DH, tempest, and scrappers. There are options to outplay DH and tempest through evades/interrupts/long ccs but not for scrappers. They have more reliable stealth, sustain, tankiness, retaliation, blocks, and passives. Ideally, their sustain/block uptime/stealth capabilities should be nerfed but that will weaken them against other non thief builds in the meta. Perhaps thieves should be able to reveal stealthed opponents on hit, which would give teams another reason to bring a thief in a match.

- Dust strike seems to be a good candidate for the reveal tool thematically.

- Another thematically accurate buff I’d like to see is applying dagger training trait to every dagger themed skills aside from the weapon (impairing dagger, impaling lotus, distracting dagger)

I actually really like the idea of dust strike revealing enemies from stealth. It fits thematically as well as gives more utility to a 4 ini skill w/ mediocre range. Using it as a “skill shot” skill to reveal an enemy seems fun too.

so?
do you guys feel balanced?

Edited my original post to include some new ideas for possible implementation on the next balance patch.

I hope that they
—by saying a bit of rework to Acrobatics means a lot of rework
—split bandit’s defense into 2
—buff sword dmg and reduce aftercast (a LOT)
—reduce Dagger Storm(elite) duration and CD by half
—improve unused utilites like traps/scorpion wire

Hey guys, April patch is coming up. Thieves are still struggling in the meta so lets show some dedication to our profession. Previous idea about bandit’s defense was a success and was removed from the original post. I also updated some of my ideas.

except for

-10% damage modifier when you have vigor boon.
-Pain Response only triggers when you have bleed ,burning, poison, or torment.
-Hard to Catch cool down increased from 30 to 45 seconds.
-increase base health to match the other medium professions.
-Add another master tier trait that will synergize with dagger offhand to give sword dagger and dagger dagger thieves some support. (Currently we have great traits that are in master tier but are rarely taken because of condition pressure in the current meta and the lack of thief sustainability…

Possible idea for the trait:
-“when holding a dagger offhand, gain a charge for every successful critical hit. After accumulating 4 charges, the next hit will steal a boon.”

-Revealed training on Deadly Arts line also removing one condition upon getting revealed. (To compete w/ panic strike trait)

your suggestions are unexpectedly good. some teamsupport and functionality will add him to a great meta choice again. wary about teamsupport? How about this:
remove endless stamania and repace it with a passive support trait like Assassin’s Presence, Empower Allies and Spotter. Example:

Nearby allies gain up to 25% endurance regeneration based on your effective level.
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
Combat Only

Combined with your great idea of feline grace buffing allies, thief becomes supportive in its very own way.

MadVisions.4529:

Thief

1. Impacting disruption: gives 5 stack of might for 10 seconds on interrupt (1sec icd) [atm the bare damage this trait offers carrys less skilled players -> bad design]
2. Tactical Strike: 20% dmg increase. Steals a boon. [hidden buff to c&d too. at this state this skill isnt even worth to use in a high number of situations]
3. Assassin’s Reward: steal 600 life each time you steal a boon. [synergy with s/d. mby allows more build diversity]
4. Thorw Gunk(stolen skill): unblockable. Ground targeted from now on[too many reflects, blocks, mitigations to use this skill effectively. especially vs engi… ground target helps it’s positioning considering it’s slow projectile speed. atm ppl just outrun it if used]
5. Mace Head Crack(stolen skill): unblockable. [this allows some moves vs gua. our biggest hardcounter]

just copyed out of my patch ideas from PvP forum. Keep in mind that the patch contains nerf to reve, scrapper, etc.. that itself makes thief better.

I also read your balance thread Madvisions. Those are excellent and well thoughtout ideas.

I especially like making those two stolen skills unblockable, we definitely need that against our biggest hard counters.

I also agree that pulmonary impact damage is too strong atm, sometimes it even rewards mindless usage of initiative on interrupts.

+1, mainly for the extra boon handling especially if we had a method to share them with allies. We should be better at dealing with bunker’s given our single target focus, let us be efficient at those group fights against that pesky bunker.

I honestly would rather see a toning down of classes that are over performing (Necro, Rev, Engi, Ele, etc.) than see another power creep that thieves do not even need.

Literally y’all be fine if those classes were nerfed into normalcy.

Being able to boon strip more frequently will make us better contenders in the tpvp meta (bunker busting) while not overtuning our favorable match up against warriors, mesmers, and reapers. This will only help against hard counters such as scrappers and dragon hunters by giving us an option to take away their boons responsible for outsustaining and hard countering us(retal mainly).

I totally agree about nerfing the current power creeps but i just doubt that anet will take action in that regards.

They are removing thieves next patch

I’d like some polish given to the Thief since it’s meant to be an active profession.

Make all evasion skills happen instantly. Make their animations override non-evasive skills. I can’t count how many times I’ve needed to evade or stun-break something, and my poor Thief was already locked into an animation timer or something of the like. I find myself spamming the skill button just to get one off.

Even something as simple as our downed Smoke Bomb skill overriding queued Trail of Knives would be nice.

Going back to an age-old problem, fixing shadowstepping issues would be a plus… especially for Infiltrator’s Arrow. Sometimes, I still lose initiative, but don’t go anywhere. Targeting some walls/cliffs shadowstep me to their base instead of on top of them. And is the Line of Sight really necessary in many cases? The Sword’s Infiltrator’s Strike and Return seem to be pretty dependable, and I can hide behind a wall or column and still reach my target. Why can’t I do the same with Shadowstep or my downed Shadow Escape skill? And I don’t even have to mention how unreliable Shadow Trap is.

Basically, just being able to use the Thief’s current abilities to their fullest would be a positive change, I believe.

EDIT: And let me add to have Withdraw override a Stomp. Stupid necro’s down skill… I stealthed to get the stomp, but he had already started draining. I was spamming my Withdraw key, but it didn’t work. My poor Thief… RIP :-(

Not to disregard any of the other changes mentioned, but I think we need an overhaul of P/P. Both the weapon set itself and traits to complement it. I written about it before: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Can-we-get-a-new-Pistol-auto-attack/first#post6017717

We need a lot of changes. But tbh, most are in other classes becoming less easy mode autoplay style.. The amount of invulns, blocks and automatic stun/fear once you hit them is making this just plain bad.

One QoL change I would ask for is to have Signet of Agility remove (the most) damaging condition, instead of clearing something I’m not worried about. I’ve had about 5 downed states last night just because the signet didn’t remove the 18 stacks of bleeds over the 1 stack of poison..

I agree with Hanza, the amount of passive play with classes now is out of control. All of the ‘cause X effect when hit by cc’ need to go along with the toning down of cc in general. Passive invuln like auto endure pain are just lazy and stupid, and shouldn’t even be considered for a passive procing trait, the skill itself is fine because you have to actually use it at the proper time instead of it activating when you get your goose cooked as a get out of jail free card. Things like this are just lazy for any competitive aspect of a game.

CutesySylveon.8290:

I agree with Hanza, the amount of passive play with classes now is out of control. All of the ‘cause X effect when hit by cc’ need to go along with the toning down of cc in general. Passive invuln like auto endure pain are just lazy and stupid, and shouldn’t even be considered for a passive procing trait, the skill itself is fine because you have to actually use it at the proper time instead of it activating when you get your goose cooked as a get out of jail free card. Things like this are just lazy for any competitive aspect of a game.

Agreed, though I think Defy Pain is a fair trait on the basis that the warrior kit is very simple and pretty easy to read except for predator-skinned Gun Flame. The CC-reflection and plethora of other passive procs need to go, though. Even the new one in Acrobatics should be replaced with ones which promote active play.

One or two passive procs is not all that bad. It when it gets to 5 , 6 and more that proc one after the other where it becomes an issue.

It also important to define what an active proc is and what a passive proc is. Some suggest that a dodge that removes a condition is “passive”. It my own opinion that “passive” is a proc that happens without any user intervention as In I can be AFK, get attacked and one of these abilities kicks in.

So is Hard to catch “active” or “passive”?
Is Expeditious dodger “active” or “passive”.

If I use deathblossom and am traited for condition removal on evade and have DA line traited along with dagger mastery and the Acro and DD lines traited….

When I do a DB and get health back , inflict poison, inflict weakness, inflict bleeds, clear a condition, gain swiftness because an evade kicks in , is that active or passive or is it a simply an issue of the number of things that happen based upon a single active Action?

When we trait up steal so the maximum amount of benefits accrue from that steal are we talking active procs or passive?

I think it important there an understanding of what the terms should mean otherwise we can not really have a debate on it.

DeceiverX.8361:

Agreed, though I think Defy Pain is a fair trait on the basis that the warrior kit is very simple and pretty easy to read

As much as I dislike passives like that, I wonder if it would be acceptable for the Thief to have a similar trait since it is very squishy. Something along the lines of…

Cheat Death
While your health is above the 50% threshold, if an incoming strike would reduce your health to 0, your health is reduced to 1 instead.

That way, it would really only protect glass builds from being 1-shot. It probably wouldn’t save them, but at least it would give them a chance.

babazhook.6805:

So is Hard to catch “active” or “passive”?
Is Expeditious dodger “active” or “passive”.

Yeah, it can get confusing. In those cases, I would say it this way…

“Hard to Catch” is completely passive. It happens only when a condition is met that you have no control over.

“Expeditious Dodger” passively “enhances” an action (active) that you initiate.

In that sense, they are both passive. But I would classify them a different way…

“Hard to Catch” actually “activates.” It happens one time when a condition is met.

“Expeditious Dodger” is an “enhancement.” It enhances something else. And it does so continuously. It does not actually activate. It merely enhances an action.

So yes, perhaps “actives” and “passives” are not the best terms to use. For signets, yes. For traits, no.

And speaking of signets, to stay on topic, adding a trait like Written in Stone would be very welcome for the Thief! Meaning I can actually justify activating Assassin’s Signet or Signet of Shadows! :-D

u get the right drift guys: no passive playstyle! thats exactly the reason i deleted every profession and play thief only. thief no need no new traits or anything, his setup is perfect. all he need is some fixes (LOS, cant move bug, death blossom fly, …) and improvements on his existing options like @tomwjd.8172 listed precisely.

More of a whole class thing here, but I would like a cancel “action” button like in gw1 would be nice, I find stole weapon to very unreliable… especially with short bow. Seeing enemy pop a reflect so I use my stole weapon key bind and I am still aaing away. I have to spam stole weapon for it work which is annoying. Getting the hang of no aa on melee weapons but that should be the answer for this

Kageseigi.2150:

DeceiverX.8361:

Agreed, though I think Defy Pain is a fair trait on the basis that the warrior kit is very simple and pretty easy to read

As much as I dislike passives like that, I wonder if it would be acceptable for the Thief to have a similar trait since it is very squishy. Something along the lines of…

Cheat Death
While your health is above the 50% threshold, if an incoming strike would reduce your health to 0, your health is reduced to 1 instead.

That way, it would really only protect glass builds from being 1-shot. It probably wouldn’t save them, but at least it would give them a chance.

We already do in Acrobatics. I don’t like the line that much anymore for this reason.

We have enough active tricks up our sleeves to not need one so long as a lot of the other passives get removed or changed. The war’s kit is really just so simple it justifies it, however other classes weren’t designed initially to work like this.

You know…a “Written in Stone” change could be pretty awesome for thieves. It would be a great buff for PvE, but I don’t think it would be that broken in PvP since there’s so many good utility skills that would still compete with signets. I could see this as a good trait for the CS line.

That being said, I don’t see it as much of a PvP fix.

The #1 area that I think thieves need help in with PvE is just allowing us to contribute to team fights more and potentially to allow us to 1 v 1 better. This is probably the biggest reason why revs tend to be taken over thieves, even though they can’t port as well as we can.

Perhaps a GM trait should give access to stability, like 3 stacks for 4 seconds on something like a 10s CD. Traits like Don’t stop are completely overshadowed by Dash, in the DD line, at least that would make Acro useful against hard CC.

But that’s more a problem, due to how Elite specs were made to be that much more better than vanilla specs.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Perhaps a GM trait should give access to stability, like 3 stacks for 4 seconds on something like a 10s CD. Traits like Don’t stop are completely overshadowed by Dash, in the DD line, at least that would make Acro useful against hard CC.

But that’s more a problem, due to how Elite specs were made to be that much more better than vanilla specs.

no thiefs no need stabilty and i really doubt they will ever get it. especially with bandits defense. either u dodge or break the stun but stability is not necessary.

Toning down CC in general would help relieve thief and its lack of stab.