Guild Wars 2

I have been playing with trapper runes for the past year on thief using a p/d dire build in wvw and even some pve, because it’s fun. When the runes came out I wasn’t sure because the normal stealth skills (blinding powder and shadow refuge) are very good especially stealthing allies, but trying them out I could experience the build in a different way and enjoy the stealth on demand.

I understand that there are reasons for nerfing trapper runes now that;
a) they are in pvp and;
b) dragonhunters.
I also understand that splitting them between pvp and pve isn’t really what arenanet wants to be doing these days. Also that the nerf is probably fine, or warranted, for rangers and guardians who get great benefit from traps to begin with (flame trap is strong in a condi build) and the stealth acts as only a bonus for repositioning and survival.

However, for thieves I believe this nerf is a little too much. Every access to stealth which thieves have provides 3s of stealth (CnD, HiS, BP, SR) and for a good reason; there are traits with effects which trigger every 3 seconds in stealth (Shadow’s Embrace and Shadow’s Rejuvenation) allowing those effects to trigger twice in a full stealth duration.

Additionally, traits which grant stealth to the thief (Merciful ambush and Hidden Thief) grant 2s, under the expectation that they are extended to 3s by the shadow arts trait “Meld in Shadows”. For the skills I listed above, they actually give 4s of stealth with this trait, which is really just a bonus. This can allow you to wait 3 seconds for the periodic effects to trigger twice and then still land a stealth attack.

All of this leads me to the nerfed state of trapper runes. At 3s they were still inferior to the 4s potential stealth you could get from other skills, but were still entirely usable. I don’t think that is the case any longer at only 2s. This (likely to be warranted and necessary) nerf to ranger and guard stealth access has had a disastrous affect on a thief build, which is not really particularly popular or strong (to my knowledge), but which I really enjoy.

Hence, I am writing this to make a case for a small but reasonable change. Simply allow the trait “Meld in Shadows” to affect trapper rune stealth duration.
In this way, only thieves, and only those with shadow arts, will get 3s stealth from these runes, and even the super-speed is still nerfed.
What are other people’s opinions? or maybe there’s something I missed? Thank you.

i think its a bug . posted in the bug section so lets see

Oh, and here I thought it was intentional and was trying to make a case for it.
If it’s a bug that’s even more reason to fix it. Thanks for posting it.

From today’s patch notes.

Bug Fixes:

General:

Runes of the Trapper: The stealth and superspeed effects of this rune have been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

The “bug” is that it was 3 seconds. It is now 2 seconds. Enjoy.

Don’t really care much on the stealth part but Super speed for 3 seconds was nice. :c

skogkatt.7586:

Please read the post to which you are replying. They are referring to the trait that extends stealth by one second not affecting the stealth afforded by the rune.

I really hope you weren’t thinking to seize upon a potential opportunity to troll and posting thoughtlessly. Thieves have a very high skill floor and are very hard to play and derided by most players, especially disheartening when it’s other thieves who either play well or think they do (fair enough—I’m terrible—I have no interest in judging people’s skill, how they act is another matter.) It would be nice as one of the harder classes we actually helped each other like how I get enthusiastic advice from others when I attempt playing with my crumby uplevel engi. We have some gross macho fighting-game-like culture amongst thieves and I hate it.

So? Your question was whether this was a bug or intended which was answered – how do you see that as a personal attack? Your trait in SA doesn’t extend the stealth given by the runes – you already answered that yourself, actually.

skogkatt.7586:

No. It wasn’t an answer, it assumed we all didn’t read the same notes they did, which was incorrect. I don’t understand the “Enjoy + smiley face” at the end. Maybe I overreacted, in which case I apologise, but we’re trolled enough. I went simplest-answer/Ockham’s Razor on what the cute little cue meant.

This was about the trait and why it did not affect the stealth duration of the rune. It was specific. THE TRAIT. I provided a better explanation for why it may not extend the duration of stealth of the rune in my reply on the bug forum. The wording of the trait implies it extends the duration of stealth skills, and perhaps not stealth in general. A better nerf to control trap troll thieves (who don’t really benefit from their behaviour anyway except to be malicious—the strategy is tedious) would be if it did activate a skill like Blinding Powder for all classes and had a cooldown. If you wanted to stealth again quickly, you use another skill like everyone else.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meld_with_Shadows
skills
A rune doesn’t seem to count as a skill.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Trapper

And yes, you overreacted – I get how Azure meant it – but I’m honestly tired of drama right now

i get what you saying

trap is the skill which proc stealth from the rune

probably you are correct but still think it should be fixed

messiah.1908:

i get what you saying

trap is the skill which proc stealth from the rune

probably you are correct but still think it should be fixed

It was just fixed – it was either the rune or the thief – one of the two was going to be nerfed after a major outcry because of ghost thieves. I have never played that build myself. I came across a halfway ghost thief today who rather ran away than to fight, so I don’t really know if he was able to extend his stealth with D/P alone like people said he would.

skogkatt.7586:

Jana.6831:

And yes, you overreacted – I get how Azure meant it – but I’m honestly tired of drama right now

What a coincidence. Implying the bug was that thieves hadn’t yet been nerfed and expecting people trying to find viable build not to “overreact”. Go on mapchat and ask about the nerf and see how many people are just saying “good”. I’m sick of that. If you’re sick of drama, I mean, whatever—you blamed me for asking the question which I didn’t so I can’t help this here. You also thought I thought it was a “personal attack” at me—before I had even posted. You didn’t read what I posted, so please just skim past them in future. I’m glad you’re happy with your thief build, a lot of people are still stuck finding one that might even be viable for them. I feel sorry for any F2P player wasting a slot on it.

Oh my, you are exhausting. Have some nice tea or coffee and calm down, seriously.
Yes, I mistook you for the Op as you became very personal in your very first post to which I apperantly replied before you even posted it..

Have a nice day.

The OP asked for the runes to become a skill or for Meld with shadows to affect non skill stealth.
Someone else suggested it was a bug
Someone else replied it was a bugfix
You were outraged because of that reply

Maybe it is you.

Ghost thief gets stealth off the d/p BP HS combo for the most part. This change will not help a lot in that regard. In essence it shaves off 1 second stealth per trap laid and there a finite number of traps that can be used. (Traited for lower cooldown this amounts to 4 seconds less stealth in a 24 second cooldown if traited all traps which means d/p just needs to use one more hs/bp combo)

It an overreaction on Anets part and all it will mean is a theif using traps and these runes to get condition cleanses has less access to the same.

I agree that meld with shadow should effect those runes, bringing them up to 3s when traited.

The reasoning is pretty simple. A thief who has that trait is running SA, and thus relies on stealth for much of his survivability, and thief traps don’t really do burst damage. Not only that, he’s giving up a lot of potential spike damage by not taking some of the more bursty runes which are uniquely valuable to thieves with the CS line in ways they aren’t to other classes, and not gaining much in terms of sustain or killing power by doing so.

This in turn makes taking traps (even a single trap) worthwhile for thieves if they run the runes as those traps when enhanced in this manner add excatly the kind of survivability that thieves rely on in the absence of the passive defenses rangers and guardians have access to.

How about lowering condi removal to 2 seconds instead?

As far as whether it was a bug or not, I don’t think meld with shadows ever affected trapper runes before so it might be as intended, but no one minded because they still gave a reasonable amount of stealth.

I also don’t think this was done as a nerf to thieves at all, just that thieves were in the collateral. Guardian has never had stealth before and wasn’t really designed around it. Dragonhunter getting stealth has probably broken some things and the nerf to trapper runes is probably perfectly necessary.

The thing is, thieves getting access to 3s of stealth is not remotely game-changing/gamebreaking. Thieves have many skills which actually give 4s of stealth if using shadow arts. Since, as far as I understand, it wouldn’t be overpowered in any way for trapper runes to give thieves 3s of stealth I thought one of the best ways to implement it would be to use the trait thieves already have. After all, it makes sense that if a thief, ranger and dragonhunter use the same rune for stealth, the thief would get slightly more that the others (with shadow arts), right?

@Jana I worry that buffing Shadow’s Embrace may have bad effects on thieves who stay in stealth for long periods, like d/p. It also doesn’t address how inferior trap stealth is compared to other stealths when they are 2 and 4 seconds respectively.
There are also other reasons to want a slightly longer stealth duration, such as Shadow’s Rejuvenation healing for more, or setting up basilisk venom (1s cast) and still having time to position yourself and line the shot or whatever.

Yukatana.8901:

@Jana I worry that buffing Shadow’s Embrace may have bad effects on thieves who stay in stealth for long periods, like d/p. It also doesn’t address how inferior trap stealth is compared to other stealths when they are 2 and 4 seconds respectively.
There are also other reasons to want a slightly longer stealth duration, such as Shadow’s Rejuvenation healing for more, or setting up basilisk venom (1s cast) and still having time to position yourself and line the shot or whatever.

It would benefit me actually as I’m rarely stealhed for longer than 1-2 seconds (D/D thief).
And it would be a nice buff, no matter the build. I don’t think it would make D/P “OP” as they aren’t really melee fighters anyway = can avoid a lot of the conditions.

This makes me sad. I haven’t had a chance to get HoT and I was so looking forward to playing my trapper condi thief with the DD traits.

Guess I’ll go back to playing perplexity cancer…

Jana.6831:

How about lowering condi removal to 2 seconds instead?

Give me back CiS in master tier and revert SE to all conditions and it can stay at three seconds. This bug does need to be fixed.

Talking about SE and CiS is fine and all but I think it’s getting a bit off-topic.
This thread is only about the trapper rune stealth duration nerf and it’s effect on thieves. If you want to discuss changes to SE or CiS it should probably be in its own thread.

If it was Arenanet’s intention that I stop using traps and go back to other stealth utilities for my p/d condi build then someone could make it clear and I guess I could do that. It’s not like p/d builds are unplayable now, only the trapper version of it (which I really enjoyed).

However the reason I made this thread is because I don’t believe that was Arenanet’s intention at all. From what I understand they were nerfing guardian stealth access and thieves got caught in the blast. Therefore I thought of a way for thief to retain the old amount of stealth (which is not OP for a thief) without having any adverse effects on guardians.

SE should be a minor trait. why else would anyone pick SA if it was not for the single most reliable defense against condis in your kitten nal.