Guild Wars 2

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

i actually believed that devs gonna be smart enough to entierely remove the trait Shadow rejuvrection with the new patch(not giving it passive init regen). this trait enforces passive boring gmepay for both sides and is incredebly strong for a low hp pool class with on demand invis. its not only for this trait the entire traitline is built around stealth’s mechanic that cant be easily accessed with all the builds.
now lets take a look on what thief builds got on demand invis: d/p, ( ok. s/p+[sb || d/any] too but this requires weapon swap and some other circumstances ie: sacraficing SB or no enemy in 300 rad).

And here comes the point: while d/p’s mechanics allow the player to abuse the shadow arts bonusses nearly limitless the other builds do not. (basicly d/p gonna be able to mentain invis if he wants so! haha. forum gonna expode soon! :’/ )

d/p was/is more popular in terms of thief builds becouse it has got decent burst damage and insane reposition posibilitys(on demand stealth). yep it does better in terms of these things than the rest of the builds, even if you think of s/any #2’s positioning posibilitys couse of rooted return points and no auto detargeting. This potential isnt weakened(+ free executioner cough cough).

Even the stat removal from trait lines is in d/p[6-0-2-0-6]‘s favor. the condi damage from trickery, condi duration from DA, some toughness+heal from sa gonna return in zerker stats, while other former builds like s/d’s boon duration,health from acro where essential anyways.

The lack of(haha lack… 15sec withdraw..) self sustain is solved by the ability to fully trait SA so basicly now this build lacks NOTHING!! :’D. big damage, mobility, flood of boons, vamp rune…, party stealth, and now self sustain?!? wtf its like giving DD ele eviscerate or something.

ok. lets talk a bit about other ‘big’ builds.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

s/d: <~900++ games on this also my favorite thing to play />

dont know about you but i havnt met an s/d since ages. Even i moved back to d/p in the last months or so…
this build is awesome (y i’m a fanboy). its fun to play, i believe the best build on thief to perform outplays and clutches. However it lacks a big chunk of burst damage compared to dagger builds which is a huge disadvantage in the current cele-party support meta. This, the lack of (party side) stealth and the diasadv vs. d/p made this build only viable in solo or casual gmeplay.

With the update this build gonna change towards a 2-6-0-0-6 s/d build. I have been experimenting some with stuff like this lately couse i wanted to “prepare” for the patch. here is the build i used: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwpdPxyJ8PNBNBt9w7QE8OMfpMaFAA-TpBFwACOCAPOBALOEA62foaZAAPAAA. I did not really think this is bad…. BUT this stuff turned out extremely glassy. even in a 2v2/3v3 i was forced to stay too passive and still do less burst than d/p. the lack of hp/evades/utilitys made disengageing or avoiding focus much harder. after a bunch of games with this i had to make the decision to dropp the build and go back to d/p… which turned out effective but boring as allways.

Why i compare (2-6-0-0-6) instead of the (2-0-0-6-6) version to the after patch build? simply becouse its more similar. You gonna be forced to take acro becouse of the vigor nerf(still losing 25% effectiveness) to mentain endurance but it gonna lift you up to the current prepatch no acro level. feline grace rework, vigorous recovery+pain response in same tier… none of the GM traits are even decent*. The only extra it gonna give is Swindler’s(dunno how this trait gonna turn out). the no hp, boon dura from acro stays and the damage part from crit strikes(all zerker stats) also. So imo s/d gonna be on the edge of unviableness.
+d/p’s gonna laugh at you even louder couse of the reset potential of shadow rejuv.

*i see ‘dont stop’ being the only viable choice besides that it isnt even decent. you could flanking strike/SB#3 in immob to negate damage or infiltrator return/strike from it, but this at least gonna get rid of some mid air immobs for you that couldnt be countered. (flanking strike gonna negate all movement stuff anyways and even with reduced effectiveness you gonna be outrunned).

Condi thief:

this is going to be a thing! people gonna feel the aids of the devourer+basilisk venom sharing shadow arts deadly arts trickery thieves.

i see a p/d || d/p build played in the future with on interrupt torment(headshot), dagger training, potent poison, caltrops, geomancy, carrion stats.
cant really tell how this going to turn out, but the d/p invis gonna lead to a more frequent pistol invis attacks, while mentaining strong condis on its site(poison + blind + torment)

if not this there going to be a condi thief build which is going to be kitten boring to fight against. still if they gonna be decent in 1v1 situations they wont be able to even prevent point decap becouse of the need of invis.

rest of the builds are more likely ‘fun tier’, so i wont write novells about s/p, p/p etc…
they gonna have ridiculous damage with DA+CS though ^^ panic strike + executioner unload hmmm nom-nom-nom. but we all know how vulnerable these builds are therefore unvaiable in teamplay.

In the end i only see d/p [DA/SA/Trick] being used by every thief player WHO WANTS TO WIN. this is really unhealthy for the thief community, can we have changes pls?

MadVisions.4529:

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

For someone who says they have so much thief experience, you sure don’t know what you are talking about. D/P didn’t force the rest of the builds out of the meta. The nerf to precasting flanking strike hurt S/D. The initiative increase on pistol whip hurt S/P.

Wise words. I agree that the patch is gonna favor D/P the most despite the fact that it is already stronger than the other builds so this definitely won’t help build diversity.
IMO heal in stealth and initiative regain shouldn’t be in one trait just because they fit well together: it is too powerful this way.
I see the changes in acrobatics for S/D thieves try to revolve around evading which is a good thing but i think they look at it from a wrong angle: the evasion should be the tool for evading important skills rather than activating traits for evading a crappy auto-attack. If the thief fails to elude a burst he dies anyway – no need for traits to incentivise evading. If anyone cele eles should be forced to evading something to trigger their Evasive Arcana because they use their dodge solely as a skill and they get away with it perfectly fine. Not to mention preemptive dodging is the only way to avoid incoming stealth bursts and instant or fast casting skills.

style.6173:

MadVisions.4529:

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

For someone who says they have so much thief experience, you sure don’t know what you are talking about. D/P didn’t force the rest of the builds out of the meta. The nerf to precasting flanking strike hurt S/D. The initiative increase on pistol whip hurt S/P.

therfore d/p got better so it forced them out of the meta.

Kicker.8203:

Wise words…
I see the changes in acrobatics for S/D thieves try to revolve around evading which is a good thing but i think they look at it from a wrong angle: the evasion should be the tool for evading important skills rather than activating traits for evading a crappy auto-attack. If the thief fails to elude a burst he dies anyway – no need for traits to incentivise evading. If anyone cele eles should be forced to evading something to trigger their Evasive Arcana because they use their dodge solely as a skill and they get away with it perfectly fine. Not to mention preemptive dodging is the only way to avoid incoming stealth bursts and instant or fast casting skills.

also wise, agreed.

style.6173:

MadVisions.4529:

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

For someone who says they have so much thief experience, you sure don’t know what you are talking about. D/P didn’t force the rest of the builds out of the meta. The nerf to precasting flanking strike hurt S/D. The initiative increase on pistol whip hurt S/P.

He’s not wrong, though imo. The nerf to sd did change a bit, on the other hand dp brings more utility to the group. I think if dp thief didn’t exist, sd would still be in play due to the mobility + sr.

style.6173:

MadVisions.4529:

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

For someone who says they have so much thief experience, you sure don’t know what you are talking about. D/P didn’t force the rest of the builds out of the meta. The nerf to precasting flanking strike hurt S/D. The initiative increase on pistol whip hurt S/P.

D/P was always better. The only reason S/D was meta after LS nerf is because of Sizer winning the ToL with it.

style.6173:

MadVisions.4529:

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

For someone who says they have so much thief experience, you sure don’t know what you are talking about. D/P didn’t force the rest of the builds out of the meta. The nerf to precasting flanking strike hurt S/D. The initiative increase on pistol whip hurt S/P.

I’d say its mostly because of the more teamfight oriented playstyle nowadays.
The high burst potential and party stealth makes D/P better for teamfights while the other specs have more(?) sustain damage but they die to cleave.
Also D/P will benefit the most from the stronghold gametype since you don’t have to stand on points(→stealthspam) and u need as much damage as possible(NPCs are easily backstabbed).

Laraley.7695:

He’s not wrong, though imo. The nerf to sd did change a bit, on the other hand dp brings more utility to the group. I think if dp thief didn’t exist, sd would still be in play due to the mobility + sr.

ofc he is not wrong, but those changes where ages ago.

as for you: ure right s/d would be definately there! actually it even was played by Sizer for long time after nerf i believe(competitive side).
with the patch acro’s bonuses gonna be weakened compared to the current state, not sure if s/d gonna return in teamplay if we head to this direction.

Laraley.7695:

style.6173:

MadVisions.4529:

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

For someone who says they have so much thief experience, you sure don’t know what you are talking about. D/P didn’t force the rest of the builds out of the meta. The nerf to precasting flanking strike hurt S/D. The initiative increase on pistol whip hurt S/P.

He’s not wrong, though imo. The nerf to sd did change a bit, on the other hand dp brings more utility to the group. I think if dp thief didn’t exist, sd would still be in play due to the mobility + sr.

exactly.

Kicker.8203:

. If the thief fails to elude a burst he dies anyway – no need for traits to incentivise evading.

Maybe evading damage for a certain % of your base health should grant protection (to help survive in cleave) or might stacks to retaliate. (The amount of might stacks could be determined based on damage evaded.)
Edit: Although i’m guessing it would be hard to code and balance because of other factors(stuns,slows etc). The point is evading key things should be the focus, if Anet can’t come up with something better then it’s still better to just reverse the changes

glock.6590:

style.6173:

MadVisions.4529:

<i got easy 1k++hrs on thief and 1400+ matches on the new system />

lets face it: D/P did force the rest of the builds out of the meta already. And now its gonna be more silly than ever.

For someone who says they have so much thief experience, you sure don’t know what you are talking about. D/P didn’t force the rest of the builds out of the meta. The nerf to precasting flanking strike hurt S/D. The initiative increase on pistol whip hurt S/P.

D/P was always better. The only reason S/D was meta after LS nerf is because of Sizer winning the ToL with it.

S/D would still have more overall damage in a teamfight if it had better sustain vs cele condi spam.

S/D was better than D/P cuz it had more sustain aka more overall damage pressure in a teamfight without going into sbow.

Problem is currently D/P has even better sustain both vs power ( stealth, blind, leech) AND condi ( condi remove in stealth), adding even Impro and Panic strike to the mix.

It’s a joke build which made thief totally forgiving and brainded and it’s becoming even more of a joke in a week thx to aNet " LOLOLOLOL I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING" patch.

Yup. I stopped playing 2/0/0/6/6 S/D back in January or so, before they even announced these changes. Went 2/6/0/0/6 because my team needed more damage and D/P is boring. Great fun, managed to make it effective. Panic strike becomes more and more popular, and is quite annoying when it triggers on you in a team fight because you can’t avoid it since it’s a bloody on-hit trigger. The team wants this advantage too, now. They have it, so we need it. So I go 6/0/0/2/6 S/D. Still more enjoyable than D/P, annoying to be using a trait of the type I hate, but there you go.

The changes are announced and yay, good thing I changed. I’ll be ahead having already gotten used to S/D without Feline Grace and only 50% vigor uptime. Now I find I’m going to be forced into acrobatics despite because of the stupid vigor change.

What’s the issue with vigor? Energy sigil. They stack. Warrior gets perma vigor and energy sigil every 10 seconds due to their design. Too strong. But no we don’t nerf warrior specifically; we love warrior. Why do people have perma vigor? Ele because they needed it apparently (they don’t because they could use energy sigil). Everyone else has it because of... Warrior! Warrior gives everyone vigor, which stacks in duration with their own 50% up-time on vigor. So why nerf vigor? Warrior is the problem, so nerf warrior. Oh, right, you won’t. Better to nerf vigor so it nerfs everyone, including those squishier classes that need the dodges more than the tanky class that already has more dodges than anyone except a thief with feline grace, on top of blocks and immunity skills.

I notice that every class is getting buffs to be better at their current roles. Bunkers are getting tankier. Supports are getting more healing support options. Mesmers are getting great new build options by making important traits baseline. Rangers ranged damage is getting improved. Thieves got what they already have reworked a little to be less effective but introduce skillful play, and a couple of nice traits which would synergise quite well but nothing that really improves what they already do, because they mainly rely on stealth, positioning, and evades. And now vigor gets nerfed. Compensation? Of course not.

Edit: Oh and we lose Fluid Strikes too. A damage nerf, naturally. This was noticed, and not liked, but not really complained about. It was mostly accepted. So survival nerfed, build options reduced, damage nerfed, traits to reveal when struck while stealthed for other classes.

What’s the bet people will still come here crying "thief OP?"

60606 thief will be broken as hell for sure. Arenanet should already start changing shadow rejuv before releasing the patch that way. Because then people will cry so much that they will nerf thief in a complete stupid way.

Shadow arts thief is already overpowered but not used in sPvP because it doesn’t contribute. But now that it can have both utility+ DPS traits with the sustain from SA it will indeed be a bad joke.

Impact.2780:

Yup. I stopped playing 2/0/0/6/6 S/D back in January or so, before they even announced these changes. Went 2/6/0/0/6 because my team needed more damage and D/P is boring. Great fun, managed to make it effective. Panic strike becomes more and more popular, and is quite annoying when it triggers on you in a team fight because you can’t avoid it since it’s a bloody on-hit trigger. The team wants this advantage too, now. They have it, so we need it. So I go 6/0/0/2/6 S/D. Still more enjoyable than D/P, annoying to be using a trait of the type I hate, but there you go.

The changes are announced and yay, good thing I changed. I’ll be ahead having already gotten used to S/D without Feline Grace and only 50% vigor uptime. Now I find I’m going to be forced into acrobatics despite because of the stupid vigor change.

What’s the issue with vigor? Energy sigil. They stack. Warrior gets perma vigor and energy sigil every 10 seconds due to their design. Too strong. But no we don’t nerf warrior specifically; we love warrior. Why do people have perma vigor? Ele because they needed it apparently (they don’t because they could use energy sigil). Everyone else has it because of… Warrior! Warrior gives everyone vigor, which stacks in duration with their own 50% up-time on vigor. So why nerf vigor? Warrior is the problem, so nerf warrior. Oh, right, you won’t. Better to nerf vigor so it nerfs everyone, including those squishier classes that need the dodges more than the tanky class that already has more dodges than anyone except a thief with feline grace, on top of blocks and immunity skills.

I notice that every class is getting buffs to be better at their current roles. Bunkers are getting tankier. Supports are getting more healing support options. Mesmers are getting great new build options by making important traits baseline. Rangers ranged damage is getting improved. Thieves got what they already have reworked a little to be less effective but introduce skillful play, and a couple of nice traits which would synergise quite well but nothing that really improves what they already do, because they mainly rely on stealth, positioning, and evades. And now vigor gets nerfed. Compensation? Of course not.

appearently we are in the same boat.

shouters…. HAHAHA at least they lose the 30% boon duration too…
i remember myself arguing about the same suff many months ago with guildies. Providing 60% vigor uptime on the whole team only with a single ability (that also applyes one of the strongest condis and is a blast finisher…) is kitten stupid… 10 sec of vigor means a whole dodge roll….

actually the tone down of vigor was needed. it is one of the strongest buffs (in not ‘the strongest’) and most classes got easy access to it. unfortunately anet has chosen the easy way to handle the situation…

edit: missed your edit

Edit: Oh and we lose Fluid Strikes too. A damage nerf, naturally. This was noticed, and not liked, but not really complained about. It was mostly accepted. So survival nerfed, build options reduced, damage nerfed, traits to reveal when struck while stealthed for other classes.

What’s the bet people will still come here crying “thief OP?”

in the past i made a QQ thread about acro changes. fluid strikes and power of inertia gave us the damage that was missed by not triting into dps oriented lines. both of them gone. kkthx

the odds are high!
‘thief’ means D/P[6-0-2-0-6] later [6-0-6-0-6] nowdays. people tend to forget to specify what they are talking about…. and D/P gonna be strong
(if you meant under “here” that “in this topic” not “on the forum” then i think not. there is no kitten baised stuff here that could be trolled and people posted useful stuff before so this might be a sign YAYY )

Thief is going to be boring as hell in HoT, it’ll be the same thing it is now and I highly doubt the elite specialization will actually be any good or fun. I will probably truly resign after playing around with these garbage trait changes.

There is nothing new or exciting for thieves. Anet has no ability to innovate and go any direction other than cheesy passive game play completely lacking an actual engaging experience.

Oh and yes, even though there will be even more forced reveal pushed onto thieves, it’s a guarantee that terrible players will still come to the forums crying about how horribly overpowered thieves are and how there’s no counter play to them at all, and q.q Anet please hold my hand and give me more passive gameplay that plays for me because I honestly do not know how to push buttons in an intelligent sequence.

They unfortunately exist in mass compared to good players, make the most noise, and Anet is best at catering to casual brainless crap. Honestly, I’m happy knowing Anet’s incompetence will forever keep them out of the esports scene because all they ever do, patch after patch, is disappoint me whenever I get to the thief changes.

I just don’t see why people would choose shadow rejuvenation over venom share, which is way more busted even for D/P builds.
Quickly deciding a 2v1 is way more important and has way more impact on the game state than being able to escape from a fight, where all your allies died.

Is the trait too strong? Yes, probably.
Will the trait see play in PvP? Some, probably.
Does the trait help you push objectives and burst down people? Well… No.
Does the trait allow you to contest points? No.
Does the trait allow you to troll endlessly? Yes, certainly.

Pretty sure, the team mates of that thief will be more agitated by his actions than his opponents.

Certainly, the trait does powerful stuff, but it just isn’t all that relevant to the game. When was the last time, you’ve seen a prismatic understanding mesmer?

Especially when all the specs get up to 4 traits melted into one (cough mesmer cough) and get lots of them baseline. Meanwhile S/D thieves? feline grace nerfed from 15 endurance to 6.67(that no longer stacks with vigor because it is vigor), -10%damage, -25% vigor effectiveness. Yes, arenanet, S/D thieves were already pushed out of the meta but nerf them more, great idea. Yup, all the other classes get vigor nerf too but that wasn’t their unique way of survival.
S/D is real fun and requires skill so I hope they made the vigor changes without thieves and in mind and they gonna reevaluate the situation

naphack.9346:

I just don’t see why people would choose shadow rejuvenation over venom share, which is way more busted even for D/P builds.
Quickly deciding a 2v1 is way more important and has way more impact on the game state than being able to escape from a fight, where all your allies died.

i highlighted that trait becouse:

this trait enforces passive boring gmepay for both sides and is incredebly strong for a low hp pool class with on demand invis. its not only for this trait the entire traitline is built around stealth’s mechanic that cant be easily accessed with all the builds.

and yess venomshare with devourer venom replacing infiltrator’s signet going to be chosen by some players. SR is stupid strong though to endure aoe pressure from cele meta.

naphack.9346:

I just don’t see why people would choose shadow rejuvenation over venom share, which is way more busted even for D/P builds.
Quickly deciding a 2v1 is way more important and has way more impact on the game state than being able to escape from a fight, where all your allies died.

Is the trait too strong? Yes, probably.
Will the trait see play in PvP? Some, probably.
Does the trait help you push objectives and burst down people? Well… No.
Does the trait allow you to contest points? No.
Does the trait allow you to troll endlessly? Yes, certainly.

Pretty sure, the team mates of that thief will be more agitated by his actions than his opponents.

Certainly, the trait does powerful stuff, but it just isn’t all that relevant to the game. When was the last time, you’ve seen a prismatic understanding mesmer?

I don’t know what your level of spvp experience is and I also want to say I’m a novice at spvp but you realize that thieves are already doing that right? Stacking stealth to reset fights, reposition, etc. The d/p playstyle will not change comes June 23rd. They will play the same with the added benefit of SA.

“Is the trait too strong? Yes, probably.”
Agree

“Will the trait see play in PvP? Some, probably.”
Most definitely unless you want to get murder by condi

“Does the trait help you push objectives and burst down people? Well… No.”
Absolutely. Are you going to burst people down if you only have 25% health and no initiative? SR allows the thief to regen health and init thus decrease the amount of time the thief has to reset the fight before going back in. Also in a fight, the init regen and health regen (even if it is for a few secs) allows the thief to stay in the fight longer and use skills more often.

“Does the trait allow you to contest points? No.”
How is this different than the current meta?

“Does the trait allow you to troll endlessly? Yes, certainly.”
Agree. This trait line is the reason why there are over a thousand QQ post in the thief and wvw forums.

I’d pick venom share over shadow’s rejuvenation even without changing my utilities, just to be able to share basilisk venom.

Everyone is attacking SA when all they did was make it a viable choice. That you don’t like that choice doesn’t make the change bad. They just need to bring the other weapon sets up to par with D/P for viability.

Making sword main hand skills return a bit of endurance on hit may be a way of bringing it back up to par?

Kadin.2356:

Making sword main hand skills return a bit of endurance on hit may be a way of bringing it back up to par?

Yeah that effect happens to be lost and is on dagger auto attack for some reason.
because what is the theme of dagger mainhand? OP-ness. So it totally fits. Could also be a nice fit for sword tho

Dagger mainhand is not op in itself, just with pistol offhand. I dont think that the 25% dmg inscrease for cloak and dagger is gonna matter too much for D/D or S/D. Cloak and Dagger Should have a 1 sec blind on it so u dont get rekt as soon as u finish casting it. It has slow cast time, high cost anyway, can be dodged, missed, blocked, invuln’d, kited. Meanwhile at D/P these problems aren’t there at all. they can just combo it at any time. All I’m saying if C&D is this risky make it rewarding at least.

Kicker.8203:

All I’m saying if C&D is this risky make it rewarding at least.

PS: moving this topic here gonna lead into less ppl reading it—> less feedback so GJ dear mod! creating it in PvP main forums wasnt an accident.

3500+ games on thief here (since apprently those matter all of sudden lol): sd and dp are different; pvp dp is more team oriented where sd is more selfish…. since pvp in this game is more about teamwork it is not surprising dp gets picked more…

why bring thief to pvp?
- for spike dmg
- for stealth
- for moblity to decap
- some CCs

things that dp has and sd doesn’t (till 23rd at least):
sd doesn’t have as much spike dmg but more sustain
sd can’t stealth team w/o refuge
HS hands down best horizontal moblity for thieves (we have sb for vertical) which sd doesn’t have~
sd doesn’t have spammable interrupts~

i don’t think sd is weak however, in fact i think it is pretty good for solo fights and can jump in team fights more than dp, it carried a lot of bad players but it just doesn’t bring as much to teamplay~

Impact.2780:

I’d pick venom share over shadow’s rejuvenation even without changing my utilities, just to be able to share basilisk venom.

And comments like this make me think that there is some hope for diversity because some people might look past the usual choice for something innovative and might mix things up some.

Myself I chose to run with Shadow Trap and will even use it to drop in the middle of a team fight for those boons + stealth + shadowstep so I will likely be taking Trapper’s Respite over Mug. It’s a hard choice but it might pay off. Only trying it will tell.

But yeah we will still have those that just go straight for the 6/0/6/0/6 PS build.

I’d just like to see fire & air sigils to take one way ticket to oblivion, because they’re 0 skill, insta damage.

It’s really gonna depend on how the meta changes and how much damage is flying around, but as it is now, I’m definitely going Venom Share > Shadow Rejuvenation. Sharing basilisk could potentially be HUGE, especially the more coordinated your team is.

I could also see Shadow Rejuvenation having a lot of use because of Stronghold though, , where holding points and staying out of stealth is less important. Time will certainly tell, but generally speaking I would prefer team utility over self sustain.

Gabriell.4856:

naphack.9346:

I just don’t see why people would choose shadow rejuvenation over venom share, which is way more busted even for D/P builds.
Quickly deciding a 2v1 is way more important and has way more impact on the game state than being able to escape from a fight, where all your allies died.

Is the trait too strong? Yes, probably.
Will the trait see play in PvP? Some, probably.
Does the trait help you push objectives and burst down people? Well… No.
Does the trait allow you to contest points? No.
Does the trait allow you to troll endlessly? Yes, certainly.

Pretty sure, the team mates of that thief will be more agitated by his actions than his opponents.

Certainly, the trait does powerful stuff, but it just isn’t all that relevant to the game. When was the last time, you’ve seen a prismatic understanding mesmer?

I don’t know what your level of spvp experience is and I also want to say I’m a novice at spvp but you realize that thieves are already doing that right? Stacking stealth to reset fights, reposition, etc. The d/p playstyle will not change comes June 23rd. They will play the same with the added benefit of SA.

“Is the trait too strong? Yes, probably.”
Agree

“Will the trait see play in PvP? Some, probably.”
Most definitely unless you want to get murder by condi

“Does the trait help you push objectives and burst down people? Well… No.”
Absolutely. Are you going to burst people down if you only have 25% health and no initiative? SR allows the thief to regen health and init thus decrease the amount of time the thief has to reset the fight before going back in. Also in a fight, the init regen and health regen (even if it is for a few secs) allows the thief to stay in the fight longer and use skills more often.

“Does the trait allow you to contest points? No.”
How is this different than the current meta?

“Does the trait allow you to troll endlessly? Yes, certainly.”
Agree. This trait line is the reason why there are over a thousand QQ post in the thief and wvw forums.

A thief with SR will be very likely to end up as the little thief that could. The thief will try to go into a fight to help an ally, not get the job done quickly enough and get jumped by a rotation. Then going into stealth at low health and walking away in shame, cursing their own existence while their allies get slaughtered behind.
Having venom share alongside a physical dps/burst loadout is huge. Being able to get back to full health while idling in stealth is not, because while you sit in stealth, your allies get hammered down mercilessly and are effectively a player down. As a thief, you need to deliver quick and efficient results. If you drag out fights too long, you may be forced to remove yourself from the fight, abandoning less fortunate players without the escape tools, the thief class is blessed with to their fate.

The most probable loadout for D/P thieves in Conquest:
Mug, Panic Strike, Executioner.
Shadow’s Embrace, Shadow Protector, Venomous Aura.
Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand.

An interesting use for shadow rejuvenation in Stronghold mode:
Caltrops, Uncatchable, Shadow Rejuvenation, camp invis while keeping 25 stacks of bleeding on lord.

It is kinda funny how people have been complaining about thieves are going to camp stealth in Shadow Rejuvenation when so many of the smart thieves are going to be taking Venomous Aura instead. Then the QQing about nerfing thieves will roll in hard.

Shadow.1345:

Impact.2780:

I’d pick venom share over shadow’s rejuvenation even without changing my utilities, just to be able to share basilisk venom.

And comments like this make me think that there is some hope for diversity because some people might look past the usual choice for something innovative and might mix things up some.

Myself I chose to run with Shadow Trap and will even use it to drop in the middle of a team fight for those boons + stealth + shadowstep so I will likely be taking Trapper’s Respite over Mug. It’s a hard choice but it might pay off. Only trying it will tell.

But yeah we will still have those that just go straight for the 6/0/6/0/6 PS build.

The more I use shadow trap the more I like it. I think people too fixated on that long port that might not work. You do not need that long port to make it a great utility.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I’d just like to see fire & air sigils to take one way ticket to oblivion, because they’re 0 skill, insta damage.

This has been one of my biggest issues with any kind of PvP in Gw2.

In fact, aside from HB warrior in PvE, these sigils provide the best DPS boost in the game to all builds with decent precision, both in burst and overall, unless Force/Night is used, and the sheer amount of damage that comes out of them in an unavoidable way is totally absurd. It makes playing a low-tier health class almost a joke because you can lose 1/4 of your max HP at any given time with no way of prevention from randomness within randomness.

predicted or predicted?

Eh, not really predicted. D/P is garbage too!

Vaux.7502:

Eh, not really predicted. D/P is garbage too!

not sure if kidding… D/P works fine atm