Guild Wars 2

i’m of the opinion that it’s easier to start a new map from scratch than fix skyhammer, and it’ll probably be understandable once i list my problems with it:

• no more jump pads. they’re wonky for players with any amount of ping.

• no more one-shot-kill spots, or any gameplay that requires drastic build/comp alterations from standard conquest maps. this means no glass panels that lead to your death and no death pits. the problem with that is that it’s so different from conquest it might as well be another game mode, and it has its own balance and meta, making it completely unviable for competitive conquest. if you want to support a CC fest game mode, go ahead, but keep it separated.

• side points need a serious redesign. they’re too closed off, and too bare. this causes a few problems: first, you as a defender have no LoS of the rest of the map, or hell, anywhere in your immediate vincinity; second, despite that defensive flaw, it’s awfully predictable where your opponent will come from. there are too few avenues to come from, meaning your opening gambit is very boring and predictable (compare it to the keep on forest, or altar on temple); third, there is very little gameplay around the point itself. very little LoSing, and the area is extremely cramped.

• the skyhammer itself is, surprisingly, fine. maybe reduce the affected area though, so players down below can actually manage it more easily like they do with treb. some form of shutting it down would also be interesting, as a mechanic that demands constant attention throughout the match causes a lot of problems. it could instead be something you fight to channel every once in a while (like temple buffs or stronghold heroes) and whoever finishes the channel fires one shot from the skyhammer instantly (no build up, or at least drastically reduced) on all 3 points, once, and then it’s another few minutes without it. this would create a situation not unlike tranquility on temple, but with a different enough effect to stand out as its own thing.

• the mechanic might be fine, but the arena around it isn’t. assuming the second directive of “no killzones” is followed, you’re left with an arena hardly larger than two lava fonts across, with no LoS other than the tiny console and no room for movement.

• i have no problems with mid. i actually think it’s a pretty interesting place to fight on, though maybe make the “scaffolding” around it a bit further from the point, (again, things are too cramped).

cut the autoattacks’ cast times. it’s DPS increase by proxy and it helps make the weapon not feel clunky as hell.

then start wondering why half the skills on the kit are so bad.

Josh Davis.6015:

AegisFLCL.7623:

Snip.

I’ve thought through the implications of removing cele from PvP and what would happen to elementalist quite a bit, actually. It’s pretty risky. I think elementalist would need a new 4 stat combo to be viable at roughly the same level (maybe something like 1050pow/1050condi/560vit/560healing).

shouldn’t you then balance elementalist around not requiring every single stat in the game to work?

because celestial really is a big problem. it allows you to be too good at everything instead of picking a role. keeping an amulet that hurts build diversity and encourages sustain + DoT + support + DPS all in one package just because one profession, right now, isn’t balanced to survive without it is kinda ridiculous. it’s been the go-to amulet of choice for at least half the builds in every meta ever since it got reintroduced.

i’m aware that it’s probably a hell of a lot of work to “fix” ele so it can work well without celestial amulet, but isn’t it in the long term the healthier choice for the game, and less work than constantly juggling the 6-7 professions that can abuse the amulet under the right meta?

Evan Lesh.3295:

Decrypter.1785:

Pretty sure Everyone,s MMR will reset for when leaderboards open soon , well i hope so anyways . Q for Evan , is MMR bound to both unranked/ranked or separate ? , I do hope its separate so new players n vets get separated from unranked/ranked players

It is separate. Also since noone will have played ranked in a while, everyone’s ratings will be more volatile than normal. This will help shake things up a bit.

evan, can you try to convince whoever decided turning ranked off was a good idea to never turn it off again? being limited to unranked has completely killed my interest in PvP. the quality of the matches tanked, and there’s a not-insignificant chance of ending up on spirit watch or skyhammer, two maps i loathe.

and the worst part is that i don’t even get why ranked should be turned off just because the leagues are off.

i don’t want a smoke field on it. hell, i don’t want any field on it >.>

i want to land it more reliably (read: better effect area, like a circle), not have it be a different shape of black powder.

you are aware that jump dodging provides no advantage in combat, and isn’t even intended behavior, right?

hell, jump dodging is a liability. if you’re jump dodging during a fight, you’re risking yourself more than regular dodging.

much as i loathe it and curse ANet’s existence when it costs me my life, it’s a really complicated issue that’s only resolved on a map by map basis. the only real alternative to it is what we used to have, initiative spent and the shadowstep bugs out and doesn’t move.

that said, i do think PvP maps need extra scrutiny and deserve to be looked into for pathing issues.

am i the only one that feels the skill is really weird when used to evade? just something about its animation. i always mess it up.

as for buffing it, give it daze and leap range

now for my personal list. this is usually where i ramble about death blossom, but they finally fixed its evade frames. i’d also complain about unload, but daredevil can really help the set’s issues (even though you can’t have both dash and a leap finisher at the same time, so you have to pick between high mobility P/P or stealth P/P). i already threw in my signet of agility buff suggestion in the previous post, so i’ll go to the thing that’s annoying me the most right now:

staff. nearly all its skills need some tuning.

• weakening charge needs to lose that rooting precast, it’s literally impossible to hit someone running from you with it, which is ironic, given the skill’s name. it would be a really good DPS skill on PvP if it didn’t require people to stand still.

• debilitating arc. take the cripple off, or don’t, but give it something more. my personal suggestion is a daze. i’d also like to seee it take you further away from combat. you barely get out of melee range with it right now.

• dust strike. daredevil is an elite spec that is constantly going through the target, which means any directional skills clash with it. fist flurry needs a setup anyway, so it’s not a problem, but dust strike is meant to be defensive, and yet it’s really bad at it. make it a circular AoE, or at least a semi-circle. semi-circle would still not be ideal, but it would be better than a line.

• vault. it’s not particularly good as a movement skill because of its range-to-initiative, because of its bugged max range (seriously, fix that. 99% of the time vault will only leap 500 range when you aim at max range, even on flat terrain), because it kinda sorta roots you at the end, making you lose momentum (like, you get to the end point of the skill, but you still have to fall down, deal damage, and get up before you can move). the problem is that the skill compensates for all those flaws by having absurd damage values. it’s another mass damage skill on the set, only this time with an evade and more movement at the cost of a lot more initiative.

i’d much, much rather have vault’s damage toned down (provided weakening charge can be reliably used to hit moving objects, like players), and its range toned up. keep it a good damage skill, just don’t make it the damage skill. i want to use vault to chase enemies, or to cross a teamfight safely, or to run away without burning all my dodges. what i don’t want is to spam vault on a CC’d player because it does more damage than anything else on the kit. it’s like if cloak and dagger spamming was more reliable than a backstab rotation, or heartseeker below 33% health.

eh, might as well throw my two cents.

Coolguy.8702:

1.)Have prepardness be baseline, it just feels too mandatory
2.)Increase dps of backstab, it just feels too low, even ranger lb autoattack does more dps…

agree with first, don’t disagree with second. wouldn’t beg for a backstab buff, but wouldn’t think it’s uncalled for if it gets a slight buff.

3.) have parcenous strike steal 2 boons.

with how hard it is to actually get to this skill in S/D, i don’t mind.

4.)Make infiltator strike (but not return) be instant

it… already is? i mean, the hit component isn’t, but the teleport, which is the important part, is.

5.)Make it so if you miss cloak and dagger you wont lose the 6 initative

nope. that would be broken. i’d like to see it apply a small radius AoE (like seriously small, like they have to be able to count your nose hair close) blind before landing though.

6.)Make shadow refuge give protection, as of now there is just so many ways to counter this ability and it feels more high risk low reward

of all the thief skills in the game, SR is not the one that needs to be buffed. its healing pulses on downed allies are really strong, and it can be cast from a fairly long range.

7.)Revealed training should have toughness instead of power..

i like this. though for something that lasts 4-6 seconds every god knows how long, it would have to be a significant amount of toughness.

8.)The traps really need some work done,

i haven’t played with it myself, but apparently all thief traps are actually pretty solid when combined with trapper runes (or DH runes for the power people, i imagine)

9.)Have sig of sgility refil 150 endurance if you take daredevil

i’d much rather have it stay 100 endurance but break stun, and then have hard to catch (that acro master trait that refills endurance) proc this signet instead of having its own effect, because then you can pair it up with signets of power for cooldown + might.

came across the same thing. thought it was a funny, quirky thing, since my character yelled it just as he got knocked down by a random mob, so it sounded like he was cursing it.

for the record, i did test this on flat terrain only, to be as 100% sure as possible. perfectly flat terrain still yielded shorter range jumps. i’m well aware of the issues that verticality can cause on leaps (especially ground targeted ones), which is why i made sure to test in flat terrain, and why i’m so sure that it’s a bug, not a perceived issue caused by inclines.

easy test: find a perfectly flat terrain (say, somewhere in lion’s arch, HotM, or the guild halls), lay a banner, and try to do a max range vault so that the reticle is perfectly centered on that banner. your thief will never land on top of the banner, always in front of it, and by a good margin.

you can also go to the flatter areas in HotM and try to hit practice golems with the edge of your ground target reticle from max range. you never hit them.

here’s a reddit thread where i’m hoping to catalogue which people got what from which elite specs. so far, it seems daredevils are the main ones with this issue, though it’s not exclusive to them.

it’s annoying enough that the staff vault leaps mere 600 range when the game has similar skills that go as far as 800, but what’s especially annoying is that it won’t go even that far.

i’ve consistently tested using banners in PvE and test golems in PvP to measure range and effect, and the skill stops a good 100 range short of the target every single time.

please fix this ASAP, staff has enough viability problems as is.

bumping thread for visibility. finished daredevil, got the headpiece, didn’t get any recipes.

i just got the master daredevil achievement for finishing daredevil (thanks to the new patch). however, i did not get any runes or recipes for completing it, which i’m pretty sure is unintended behavior, seeing as a lot of people have received rune recipes.

i don’t believe my issue is tied to the most recent patch though, as this thread already displayed two misbehaviors in the system: daredevils unlocking runes of the dragonhunter (?!) and daredevils unlocking nothing at all.

Sagat.3285:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Sagat.3285:

All it needs is either CiS back at master tier or baseline blind. It’s beem said and ignored since trait patch because they are actively listening to us.

i think it would be cool, actually. like it blinds the target instantly (or 130 range AoE, which is almost the same), and then hits them. for stealth.

CiS is strong, but it needs something more than just the AoE blind and fall damage. the problem with making it a master trait is that nothing on master can be buffed to GM level. maybe merge hidden thief and CiS, and make a new master trait that has the fall damage thing + some decent second effect.

Put the fall damage trait by itself at adept level, bring CiS to master, merge Shadow Protector with Concealed Defeat at GM level making the regen proc on deception use. If CnD gets baseline blind a new trait will have to come because CiS will have to go only OH dagger use it putting it next to SRej was one of the most stupid and unexplained nerfs I have seen on thief nerfing inferior sets just brilliant, I just don’t trust “he who knows his name” so CiS back at master is simple and safe.

I do wonder what will they do for thief in those more frequent balance changes since he’s struggling right now anyway.

slapping two bad traits together won’t suddenly make it a better trait. shoving it on GM level just to put it somewhere " ‘cause i’ll run shadow rejuvenation anyway" is a bad idea as well.

we should be vouching for good traits on all tiers, not “just put the bad ones in a slot no one will care about and let us get all the good traits without worrying about making bad choices”.

it’s funny, i thought power rangers were one of the few builds that a typical thief should always have an easy time with, because they’re so succeptible to pressure and squishy. i always go for the ranger first in a team fight, ‘cause i know i can take him out fast, even if he’s after me.

bliss.4305:

BrunoBRS.5178:

bliss.4305:

Too lazy to quote who’ve disagreed…

And someone actually argues Vault should remain unchainable with Steal and that’s what Bound is for… I would seriously like to see you hit anyone with basic understanding of PvP without chaining Vault to a teleport/teleport+daze combo. Well, maybe afk, lagging or upleveled players then. Good enough, right?

anyone “with basic understanding” of the game would understand why a ground targeted leap can’t be chained with a teleport. it has nothing to do with them not wanting it. try using cluster bomb on your feet then using shadowstep before you fire the projectile.

and with a 3/4 cast time, vault is pretty reliable to hit now. just count the dodges. i’d still rather have it be a mobility skill, because vertical movement is only really critical in specific situations.

How nice of you to lecture someone on how skills technically work. Ironically it backs up my argument more than it does yours.

What happens when you cluster bomb and teleport right after is it instantly hits where you aim. If you’ve aimed at your target and hit cluster bomb, and then right away teleport, it hits your own feet – which is also your target (since you’ve teleported). There are of course limitations to this. If the range of your teleport is longer than the range of the skill you execute (cluster bomb – in this case), the projectile is thrown “backwards”.

So in fact, on a technical point of view, Vault CAN work in exact same fashion. Its not a technicality, its just not done yet and I think it should, to increase value in a very slow and telegraphed skill.

umm… no. you kinda proved you’re not understanding the problem here.

see, ‘cause with vault, you’re the “cluster bomb”. so if you started a vault, you can’t just teleport yourself further from the range, ’cause the vault skill is trying to position you somewhere else.

it’s a conflict of scripts, and that’s why you can’t teleport halfway through vault. one skill says “you’re in point A and you’re moving to point B (which is a peculiarity of ground targeted leaps)”, rather than “you’re moving X amount forward”, so it doesn’t allow the character to be affected by anything else movement-related, including teleports. if you know something about programming, it’s like the vault had a write-lock on the player position, and will only free it up again once it’s over, to avoid a myriad of bugs.

IchigoHatake.5098:

Thieves have the lowest hp pool and lowest armor in game, there is literally no point in sacrificing all the dmg thieves can put out by increasing hp or armor. Unless you are planning to play wvw, stick to zerk.

technically, we have higher armor rating than eles, but eles have a bunch of heals and prot.

as for the original question, unless you want a condi build, thief is, like the guy i quoted said, just too squishy, which means even on tanky stats you’ll remain squishy, so you might as well go full on glass cannon.

Terra.8571:

BrunoBRS.5178:

i love the bifrost, but it just doesn’t fit the thief theme (unless you’re going for a bifrost/dreamer double rainbow combo). as for nevermore… it’s a really cool staff, just not for melee. i mean, it’s a freaking twig.

so… i’d say bifrost, if only because it looks like something you could beat people up with, rather than something that would at most scratch their eyes and mildly annoy cattle.

If you watch the legendary video where Lindsey uses the nevermore as a melee weapon the thief, the weapon trail looks a little like Twilight/Sunrise trails. She doesn’t get to use it much because mobs are dying so quick (look at around 16min 16), but that blue/black trail looks pretty cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5hvZkKlISA

it looks like normal thief trails with a bit of blue, which is exactly what it is :P

plus, you’re still hitting people with a giant twig.

Doggie.3184:

BrunoBRS.5178:

i love the bifrost, but it just doesn’t fit the thief theme (unless you’re going for a bifrost/dreamer double rainbow combo). as for nevermore… it’s a really cool staff, just not for melee. i mean, it’s a freaking twig.

so… i’d say bifrost, if only because it looks like something you could beat people up with, rather than something that would at most scratch their eyes and mildly annoy cattle.

But it has high Elemental, Impact, Slash and Puncture damage all in one weapon with all those sturdy branches and shinies. Getting slapped around with it would be painful.

Plus you can sneak up on people and shove a giant stick up their…

completely unrelated to the subject, but i’ve always hated games that split physical damage like that :P

Sagat.3285:

All it needs is either CiS back at master tier or baseline blind. It’s beem said and ignored since trait patch because they are actively listening to us.

i think it would be cool, actually. like it blinds the target instantly (or 130 range AoE, which is almost the same), and then hits them. for stealth.

CiS is strong, but it needs something more than just the AoE blind and fall damage. the problem with making it a master trait is that nothing on master can be buffed to GM level. maybe merge hidden thief and CiS, and make a new master trait that has the fall damage thing + some decent second effect.

i don’t think it’s a problem, because you’d be gimping yourself playing a half-complete trait line anyway. no intelligent player would go for their elite spec before having at least up to the GM they want.

bliss.4305:

Too lazy to quote who’ve disagreed…

And someone actually argues Vault should remain unchainable with Steal and that’s what Bound is for… I would seriously like to see you hit anyone with basic understanding of PvP without chaining Vault to a teleport/teleport+daze combo. Well, maybe afk, lagging or upleveled players then. Good enough, right?

anyone “with basic understanding” of the game would understand why a ground targeted leap can’t be chained with a teleport. it has nothing to do with them not wanting it. try using cluster bomb on your feet then using shadowstep before you fire the projectile.

and with a 3/4 cast time, vault is pretty reliable to hit now. just count the dodges. i’d still rather have it be a mobility skill, because vertical movement is only really critical in specific situations.

i’d wait for daredevil, honestly.

also, ankle shots is so not worth it, even on a P/P build.

and trapper’s respite… meh. i mean, 3s immob on heal, cool, but… idunno. i’d rather get mug, to get some extra health when the guy is already at melee range.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

mompen.7952:

So I’ve tinkered a bit with this one:

The Exuberance Thief:

(WvW roaming)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhSnYvTw7Jw/EHwEkPNxpN7Ls8UoTQAyAA-T1CFABVfEAWTLQw7P02DAAgTAwVKBRSJSSKvSTXwCHCAVU/hUAUszC-w

It has high HP (20k with foods) and runes/food that utilize a high HP-pool.

Rest of the setup is pretty standard, but you may notice no shadowarts, whuut?
All my tricks remove conditions and have reduced CD’s and my sigils remove conditions. Sigil of generosity is (?) the most expensive sigil in the game atm, but very worth it. Always funny to transfer burn stacks back to guards/engi’s.

It has good power, very high ferocity meaning your crits hit pretty hard (Hidden Killer for guaranteed crit backstabs) and a high HP-pool. After guard stacks getting removed this is crucial.

You might survive against condition damage but just watch out for other ‘zerker because with that base toughness and without stealth, you’re an easy kill.

roll for ini (or withdraw, if there were no stuns) and mug+sleight of hand should be enough to buy him time to stealth and GTFO if he gets surprise bursted.

That’s the thing, he has no stealth. :/

he has D/P and SR, unless i clicked the wrong build.

honestly, if the plan is to disengage, just shadowstep as soon as you’re done teleporting everywhere and use D/P from the safety of the ~1500 range you put between you and your target, then swap to shortbow and move away even more.

IchigoHatake.5098:

Shadow Form: Activates only when you are revealed.
Passive: Apply blinds in a small aoe

Abilities:

Turn into a shadow (kinda like mist form): become a shadow on the ground, cannot be targeted by players, immune to attacks, cannot attack, remove all condition currently on player

Shadowstep: switch places with an enemy and blind them

Shadowbind: bind the shadows of all enemies in an aoe, immobolizing them

Shadowburst: charge an attack to do massive aoe dmg, takes you out of shadow form.

can we, like, have a discussion on the future of thief that doesn’t eventually have a post with suggestions so preposterously OP they make me question the validity of the discussion in the first place?

keep it level headed, people. look at what is considered ok in-game already before suggesting something that’s basically ultra-mode mist form.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

mompen.7952:

So I’ve tinkered a bit with this one:

The Exuberance Thief:

(WvW roaming)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhSnYvTw7Jw/EHwEkPNxpN7Ls8UoTQAyAA-T1CFABVfEAWTLQw7P02DAAgTAwVKBRSJSSKvSTXwCHCAVU/hUAUszC-w

It has high HP (20k with foods) and runes/food that utilize a high HP-pool.

Rest of the setup is pretty standard, but you may notice no shadowarts, whuut?
All my tricks remove conditions and have reduced CD’s and my sigils remove conditions. Sigil of generosity is (?) the most expensive sigil in the game atm, but very worth it. Always funny to transfer burn stacks back to guards/engi’s.

It has good power, very high ferocity meaning your crits hit pretty hard (Hidden Killer for guaranteed crit backstabs) and a high HP-pool. After guard stacks getting removed this is crucial.

You might survive against condition damage but just watch out for other ‘zerker because with that base toughness and without stealth, you’re an easy kill.

roll for ini (or withdraw, if there were no stuns) and mug+sleight of hand should be enough to buy him time to stealth and GTFO if he gets surprise bursted.

Gray.9041:

I currently run conditions with a venomshare build, and this is one of the two venoms I never use.

Spider’s a must – sweet sweet poison.
Skale’s not bad – torment and vuln is nice.
Basalisk I mostly use in PvP, no real use elsewhere.
Skelk is an option when I want a slightly less selfish heal.

but I find that as a damaging-condition dealer, Devourer and Ice Drake venoms just don’t do anything for me. it’d be nice to get a bleed venom, or a condi cleanse/transfer as you suggested.

devourer is awesome, it’s meta in WvW because it gets enemies stuck inside zerg bombs, since immob goes through stability.

but ice drake… yeah. IMO, skale should drop the vuln and add another charge or two (to put it on par with spider), and ice drake should get vuln (make it apply 2 stacks per hit as well), one more charge, and longer chill (like, at least 3s).

i appreciate your outside the box thinking, but SB + dash is still better at covering ground. shortbow covers more distance in less time, and the combo is more than enough to get from A to B in a PvP match.

if staff had 800 range and EA wasn’t so mandatory, i could see it working though. i know i’d go for it.

i love the bifrost, but it just doesn’t fit the thief theme (unless you’re going for a bifrost/dreamer double rainbow combo). as for nevermore… it’s a really cool staff, just not for melee. i mean, it’s a freaking twig.

so… i’d say bifrost, if only because it looks like something you could beat people up with, rather than something that would at most scratch their eyes and mildly annoy cattle.

Gabriell.4856:

Please oh please tell us that Rune of Evasion will be added to Spvp…that would really compliment the DrD spec.

completely forgot that rune existed.

checks what it does

it… kinda sucks. like a lot.

Volrath.1473:

Smokin Dice.9103:

“Bounding Dodger” should softlock on your target and try to jump right on top of it, instead of jumping over it when standing right in front of the target

sooo… what about when you NEED to dodge AWAY from you target?!

or dodge through them, which happens a lot during PvP.

i’d love to see an elite spec focused on making the thief tanky, bringing shadow form back (if only as a name). could be kinda like celestial form, only we fill it by mitigating damage (every time someone misses an attack because of blind or evade, or you interrupt an attack, it fills up). can’t say i’m sure what the form itself would do, but i wouldn’t want to step on necro’s toes and have it basically be a proxy health bar, unless we kept our weapon skills while in it, but then it would be kind of boring.

umm… i’m worried about the quality of your playstyle if you’re dying to a random vet. no offense, it just… puts the whole criticism into question. i’m not even sure what could’ve changed so much with the trait patch, short of not getting the vit/tough from traits and felyne grace not being a glorified extra dodge. if anything, thief was one of the professions with the least changes during the trait patch. most of it was acro stuff (mostly negative).

sneak gyro pulses every 3 seconds and only has 30s duration. so at best it’s 66% uptime, and even then, it’s 4s of stealth every 3 seconds, so unlike SR, you can’t get a super long stealth without putting the red flag over your head. meanwhile SR asks for 4 seconds of your time to get you 12s of untampered stealth, all while pulsing about 2k health per second (which also heals downed allies).

i don’t think cleave/collateral damage is the problem with thieves in PvP.

been using the kodan staff in the betas, ’cause it kinda looks like a spear.

Tabootrinket.2631:

Among the propositions that would make it a unique weapon there’s :
the dark field on #4 -> It will provide blindness without the stealth bonus. Instead, it will synergize with the whirl as a combo to provide sustain while being visible.

what’s with people’s obsession with giving dust strike a dark field? it won’t make its primary function of blinding the opponents any better, and weakening charge is too short of a whirl to create enough bolts to make it a useful combo. seriously, has no one used whirl finishers before? their benefits are minimal, the bolts are inaccurate, and short whirls (hi death blossom) don’t produce nearly enough bolts to make up for the previous two shortcomings.

DeceiverX.8361:

bliss.4305:

I keep suggesting it and I will suggest it again… Traps have to “reveal” once triggered. Done. It might be an all-around nerf to trap builds, but I don’t believe Trapper Rune was thought out to chain trap into remaining in stealth forever while hurting your opponent to begin with.

---

A more thief-specific fix would be to straight off introduce a damage component to thief traps. Either a small damage just to trigger reveal or a higher damage (with reduced condi to remain balance) which would potentially make Trapper Power builds or Celestial builds even viable.

All trappers would be happy -> Condi trapper thieves would be nerfed -- eventhough its blatantly broken and should’ve been long ago.

+1
Any trap that hurts an enemy should apply damage and force reveal. It doesn’t matter if the thief’s defenses are in stealth; I play without SA on a reveal-heavy build and have few problems. Strictly speaking, the stealth only really matters in sPvP when you need it to get across the map unopposed for decapping. Not to mention that the thief’s traps are actually really potent in regards to effects. Just bolstering damage from them a bit would be enough to make them usable but not spammable with trapper runes. I’m sick of the attitude from a lot of the people in this community that thieves need to be superior in their tricky nature and stealth but should be superior at no risk or difficulty. Not saying they should be less powerful, but if thieves want to be tricky, they better utilize mind games or simply being better than their opponent instead of just cheesing stealth and facerolling the keyboard.

Even P/D dire condi is so easy that I have literally gone into WvW playing the game with my face entirely and beaten people. People have won without weapons, and so forth. Trap application for more stealth isn’t a good answer to the class’s problems.

both of you seem to be ignoring the fact that thief traps not doing damage was a deliberate dev decision that took place less than 6 months ago, long after trapper runes became a thing.

it speaks volumes to how useless traps are to thieves with a damage component that most people don’t seem to realize they used to do damage, which is precisely why you never, ever saw any thief running traps.

holy crap this thread is still going. and here i thought there was nothing left on thief to nerf. maybe make infiltrator’s arrow only 400 range, and don’t let infiltrator’s strike or signet be used from out of range. then you lock the profession from character creation and wait for the thief community to die out.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The funny part about all that is, I’ve ran the numbers a few times, and the staff is the highest damaging weapon thieves will have. It has the highest base auto attack, the highest DPS attack, the highest per-initiative damage, the highest AoE damage, and the highest modifiers attached to traits. All at the same time.

So when players say that the staff is low damaging or underpowered and it clearly isn’t… then I have to throw out their feedback as not being objective.

yeah, damage is not the problem with daredevil. if anything, there’s too much damage and too little of everything else. it’s getting there, though. the evade on vault really helps, though i’d really like it to have more range (if not 900 like SB5, then 800 like engi rifle 5), even if that meant losing some damage on that skill.

now it’s mostly about skills 3 and 4 being tweaked/redone. i wouldn’t mind debilitating arc throwing you further away now that vault’s range is allegedly working right, and i’d like its offensive portion to be more interesting than a cripple (*cough*daze*cough*). as for dust strike, well 90% of the daredevil’s playstyle involves jumping around and doing circular AoEs to make up for the fact that half the time you have your back against the enemy for one reason or another (bound, vault, weakening charge, etc), so it would be only natural if dust strike was also a circular AoE.

vespers.1759:

BrunoBRS.5178:

i’m assuming that your other set is either a shortbow or sword/torch. so at worst you have two evade skills (enough to wait it out on the immob), at best you have three, including one that has really high mobility, and if you had used it before the second trap, you’d have outrun him, because chances are he has zero mobility. you do know skills with built-in evasion still work when immobilized, right?

on your condi clears, you were way too fast to pop your heal. your health wasn’t low enough to justify it, and there weren’t exactly a ton of worrysome conditions on you. you burned it on 3 stacks of poison and a bit of weakness. also, entangle is also a survival skill. could’ve popped that for more condi clearing.

and last but not least, no shared anguish? that trait is kinda vital in competitive situations. ambidexterity is not worth losing an extra stunbreak.

i say that as someone that has ranger as his second most played profession and has been enjoying a condi/survival build lately. basic difference is that i go for shortbow instead of axe/dagger, and sharpening stones instead of signet of stone.

Yes I know there’s a lot of things I could have done… However I had no idea the thief was there. Thought the first trap was just leftover one which is why I used the heal. Also evading would do nothing when the condis are already applied, the shortbow is a terrible, terrible weapon. I could have used entangle sure, but I wanted to see what would happen.

well you’re kinda admitting you let your guard down then.

and the evades wouldn’t do much after the condis were applied, true, but they would’ve kept the condis from all those caltrops on your feet (and, i’d wager, the second needle trap) from being applied. and as i said in my post, it’s even better if your second set is sword/torch, ‘cause sword has two, more reliable evades, one with built-in mobility that could’ve thrown you away from the range of the thief.

babazhook.6805:

Now given the Acro line inherently grants vigor on a successful evade and given escapists absolution clears a condition on a successful evade, what is the different between a proc on vigor condition cleanse over escapists resolution?

that’s why i said give escapist’s absolution to acro, as “cleanse condi when vigor is applied to you”. as a trait, EA makes a lot more sense on acro than it does on daredevil anyway, and in the situation it is on DD, it’s overshadowing two other really good traits because it’s downright mandatory.

meanwhile, if acro was designed to be the evade thief’s equivalent of SA, you’d be able to mold it a lot better to do what you want, with more than a single option for a given function.

PopeUrban.2578:

BrunoBRS.5178:

babazhook.6805:

BrunoBRS.5178:

babazhook.6805:

BIRDPUNCHER.8263:

Nike.2631:

Woaden.9425:

The issue now is that Acro needs a lot of love on it’s own, it can’t stand as its own line: Pain Response is a terrible condi clear (at the very least it needs to add torment and confusion), Guarded Initiation is useless, and the GM’s are outshined by minor-adept/minor-master traits in other lines, making the entire Acro line redundant on so many levels!

((looks at Assassin’s Reward))

((looks at raids being built around continuous unavoidable damage))

I can’t say I agree.

If you need continuous healing in PvE (I say PvE because you mention raids) Invigorating Precision is a better choice, in a better traitline, than Assassin’s Reward. The only time that Acro “stands as its own line” is gimmick situations like laser disarming in Aether fractal, and even then it will be made obsolete when Daredevil is live.

If you are going power certainly. If you are going condition in a unicorn build IP is a poor choice. IP needs high crits and high damage per crit. Assassins reward the damage is immaterial.

That all said without changes assassins reward does not warrant a GM trait. It needs a significant increase in its healing per INI and with its scaling to healing attribute.

It currently 69*INI +.05 healing and should be closer to 90 healing base and .15 healing. This would put its heal more in line with IP.

not that condi builds have a good reason to run acro in the first place. they probably want DA and trickery, and SA if they go for venoms. that leaves a choice between acro and daredevil. daredevil might not have a lot to offer in volume of traits, but the few traits condi users can benefit from are great, plus it gives access to impairing daggers. meanwhile acro… meh?

Actually there is(and more was) good reason to take Acro in a condition build .

dd/acro/da works well as does dd/acro/trickery. I used acro prior to the big patch because it gave health and a lot of dodges for the D/d set. In beta I ran tests with acro and the difference between traiting trickery and acro was not a lot.

Now it true many of the additions to DD make what is acro less desired from before patch but this is also true of power builds. If ACRO fixed i can forsee condition builds using it. Just as example HTC will refill endurance when triggered which can mean three more impaling lotus. This more condition damage loaded than one can get from BA or that extra 3 ini.

With the changes to Potent Poison the DA line is a little harder to give up in a condition build but i can certainly forsee someone going for maximum endurance for those dodges and that impaling lotus so as to increase condition damage and specifically in a d/d build and especially if the line is fixed.

it’s not just bewildering ambush, it’s caltrops on dodge as well, and bountiful theft gives you solid vigor uptime on top of stealing boons (to get rid of that resistance). then you have the reduced steal cooldown, which means endurance thief can be used more often as well.

not bringing DA is just out of question unless you’re running P/D condi, because dagger training + potent poison is a huge DPS increase.

which leaves acro competing with daredevil, which just isn’t happening.

IMO, acro should be a better defensive line, themed around vigor (and making your vigor do more cool stuff, like how other professions have “gain X benefit when you gain Y boon”), keeping the thief mobile, and defensive/utility benefits through dodging (whereas daredevil is all about using dodges offensively). the line in itself is already pointing towards that, it’s just grossly undertuned (swindler’s equilibrium being restricted to sword and only recharging one second, when trickery just outright takes those seconds off the max cooldown, for example) and clunky (pain response only removes 3 of the current 5 damaging conditions, only triggers if you let yourself get hit, and can be triggered when you don’t want it to, putting it on a long 20s CD)

to note: i’d still love a thief trait that cleanses one condition on shadowstep, which would be a perfect fit for an acro trait. i know it’s ridiculously strong, so make it a GM, and put assassin’s reward back on master tier where it belongs.

In all the suggestions about buffing acro I hadn’t really considered “extra vigor benefits” (heck, I myself invented a whole line around shadowsteps just to replace acro)

However, yeah, why not? What about “vigor also grants swiftness” or “reflect ranged attacks in a 1s ICD while you have vigor” or “When you gain vigor, reduce revealed by 1 second” or “lose 2 conditions every X second while you have vigor” or “gaining vigor also breaks stuns, and skills that grant vigor can be used while stunned”

So, like, you’d have this cadence, as you’d have a line that couldn’t give 100% uptime by itself, but similar to shadow arts, was built around “attack” and “defend” phases, only in stead of being invisible you’d just be rather hard to pin down even when you weren’t dodging?

If done right it could be a massive sustain line rivaling SA, and make taking two or three sustain lines actually pay off while nosediving your damage, or just give you real build options without DD for evasive specs.

Like, DD can empower builds to be basically immune to all slows, SA makes you immune to being seen… acro would make you highly resistant to stuns?

fun fact about your reflect suggestion, it almost was a real trait, only it procced on swiftness instead of vigor. the devs scrapped it though, because it was obviously broken as hell :P

but yeah, i was thinking of “clear one condition when you gain vigor” (merge “gain vigor on dodge” with daredevil’s escapist’s absolution and give DD a new trait :P), or reduced damage while you have vigor (ranger has reduced damage on regen, and ranger has regen coming out of their kitten, so i’m sure it’s not broken), or other similar buffs so that your vigor is more important.

the idea is that it’s a defensive line with a thief flavor. you’re not actively gaining health back or mitigating a lot of direct damage, but you can break out of most CC, clear condis, and avoid bursts, all through your dodges and innate stunbreaks.

on hard to catch: i think it bears repeating the suggestion i gave a couple posts ago: make signet of agility a stunbreak, and make hard to catch proc it. it’s a buff in that it nows clears one condi when it procs on top of the previous benefits, and can have its cooldown reduced with signets of power. free synergy through buffs!

mompen.7952:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

@OP: 2k toughness and 12k HP made me cringed. You’ll take so much damage that there’s no amount of healing power will keep you alive.

With a Berserker, you can afford to have those stats only because there’s a possibility that you can down your opponent — however with your build, that’s not a possibility — you’re basically just prolonging the inevitable.

If you can’t kill them, they’ll just keep pressing you until you run out of options and run away.

That’s so true.

I get like 16k with guard stacks tho.
Tried with S/P, SoM, IP, Assassins Reward (AR sucks btw) It heals up pretty fast, one pistol whip and 100% hp from under half.
But, I’m so squishy :-/

AR does indeed suck :P if you stick to acro, don’t stop is a better choice.

babazhook.6805:

BrunoBRS.5178:

babazhook.6805:

BrunoBRS.5178:

babazhook.6805:

BIRDPUNCHER.8263:

Nike.2631:

Woaden.9425:

The issue now is that Acro needs a lot of love on it’s own, it can’t stand as its own line: Pain Response is a terrible condi clear (at the very least it needs to add torment and confusion), Guarded Initiation is useless, and the GM’s are outshined by minor-adept/minor-master traits in other lines, making the entire Acro line redundant on so many levels!

((looks at Assassin’s Reward))

((looks at raids being built around continuous unavoidable damage))

I can’t say I agree.

If you need continuous healing in PvE (I say PvE because you mention raids) Invigorating Precision is a better choice, in a better traitline, than Assassin’s Reward. The only time that Acro “stands as its own line” is gimmick situations like laser disarming in Aether fractal, and even then it will be made obsolete when Daredevil is live.

If you are going power certainly. If you are going condition in a unicorn build IP is a poor choice. IP needs high crits and high damage per crit. Assassins reward the damage is immaterial.

That all said without changes assassins reward does not warrant a GM trait. It needs a significant increase in its healing per INI and with its scaling to healing attribute.

It currently 69*INI +.05 healing and should be closer to 90 healing base and .15 healing. This would put its heal more in line with IP.

not that condi builds have a good reason to run acro in the first place. they probably want DA and trickery, and SA if they go for venoms. that leaves a choice between acro and daredevil. daredevil might not have a lot to offer in volume of traits, but the few traits condi users can benefit from are great, plus it gives access to impairing daggers. meanwhile acro… meh?

Actually there is(and more was) good reason to take Acro in a condition build .

dd/acro/da works well as does dd/acro/trickery. I used acro prior to the big patch because it gave health and a lot of dodges for the D/d set. In beta I ran tests with acro and the difference between traiting trickery and acro was not a lot.

Now it true many of the additions to DD make what is acro less desired from before patch but this is also true of power builds. If ACRO fixed i can forsee condition builds using it. Just as example HTC will refill endurance when triggered which can mean three more impaling lotus. This more condition damage loaded than one can get from BA or that extra 3 ini.

With the changes to Potent Poison the DA line is a little harder to give up in a condition build but i can certainly forsee someone going for maximum endurance for those dodges and that impaling lotus so as to increase condition damage and specifically in a d/d build and especially if the line is fixed.

it’s not just bewildering ambush, it’s caltrops on dodge as well, and bountiful theft gives you solid vigor uptime on top of stealing boons (to get rid of that resistance). then you have the reduced steal cooldown, which means endurance thief can be used more often as well.

not bringing DA is just out of question unless you’re running P/D condi, because dagger training + potent poison is a huge DPS increase.

which leaves acro competing with daredevil, which just isn’t happening.

Yes but speaking to DA , potent poison was not there yet. Again you predicate your argument on the current State of acro and I can make the same argument for power builds not wanting that line.

I dropped both trickery and DA in variants of the builds I was testing.

Now in beta I tested a trickery build with uncatchable and a build no trickery just going for more heals and endurance . There was no noticeable difference in the damage. I got more dodges off the acro line thus more damage avoided and a greater abilty to get damage off Impaling lotus. If I can get two or three more implaings off in a given time period due to more endurance , I am further ahead then a person with fewer overall dodges that has uncatchable tacked to his existing.

Further to that I am pretty use to uncatcable on a p/d build. When an enemy uses it I rarely get caught by it. You can adapt to that skill. That said uncatcable is harder to avoid against a d/d build using db.

As to vigor. trust me using the acro line in a d/d build even with the poor evade on DB , vigor is up all the time. Added to this we will not get 4 seconds swiftness per dodge which can not be ignored.

of course i predicate my argument on the current state of acro, because that’s the only state there is right now. talking about what it once was or what it could be won’t change that right now, there’s little reason to go into acro when trickery offers you a really solid dps boost while at the same time providing utility through extra initiative, vigor, boon stealing and reduced steal cooldown.

side note, i added a bunch to my post describing what i’d like to see acro to be and what holds it back right now, you probably missed that ’cause i took my time editing that in.

forum page bug

babazhook.6805:

BrunoBRS.5178:

babazhook.6805:

BIRDPUNCHER.8263:

Nike.2631:

Woaden.9425:

The issue now is that Acro needs a lot of love on it’s own, it can’t stand as its own line: Pain Response is a terrible condi clear (at the very least it needs to add torment and confusion), Guarded Initiation is useless, and the GM’s are outshined by minor-adept/minor-master traits in other lines, making the entire Acro line redundant on so many levels!

((looks at Assassin’s Reward))

((looks at raids being built around continuous unavoidable damage))

I can’t say I agree.

If you need continuous healing in PvE (I say PvE because you mention raids) Invigorating Precision is a better choice, in a better traitline, than Assassin’s Reward. The only time that Acro “stands as its own line” is gimmick situations like laser disarming in Aether fractal, and even then it will be made obsolete when Daredevil is live.

If you are going power certainly. If you are going condition in a unicorn build IP is a poor choice. IP needs high crits and high damage per crit. Assassins reward the damage is immaterial.

That all said without changes assassins reward does not warrant a GM trait. It needs a significant increase in its healing per INI and with its scaling to healing attribute.

It currently 69*INI +.05 healing and should be closer to 90 healing base and .15 healing. This would put its heal more in line with IP.

not that condi builds have a good reason to run acro in the first place. they probably want DA and trickery, and SA if they go for venoms. that leaves a choice between acro and daredevil. daredevil might not have a lot to offer in volume of traits, but the few traits condi users can benefit from are great, plus it gives access to impairing daggers. meanwhile acro… meh?

Actually there is(and more was) good reason to take Acro in a condition build .

dd/acro/da works well as does dd/acro/trickery. I used acro prior to the big patch because it gave health and a lot of dodges for the D/d set. In beta I ran tests with acro and the difference between traiting trickery and acro was not a lot.

Now it true many of the additions to DD make what is acro less desired from before patch but this is also true of power builds. If ACRO fixed i can forsee condition builds using it. Just as example HTC will refill endurance when triggered which can mean three more impaling lotus. This more condition damage loaded than one can get from BA or that extra 3 ini.

With the changes to Potent Poison the DA line is a little harder to give up in a condition build but i can certainly forsee someone going for maximum endurance for those dodges and that impaling lotus so as to increase condition damage and specifically in a d/d build and especially if the line is fixed.

it’s not just bewildering ambush, it’s caltrops on dodge as well, and bountiful theft gives you solid vigor uptime on top of stealing boons (to get rid of that resistance). then you have the reduced steal cooldown, which means endurance thief can be used more often as well.

not bringing DA is just out of question unless you’re running P/D condi, because dagger training + potent poison is a huge DPS increase.

which leaves acro competing with daredevil, which just isn’t happening.

IMO, acro should be a better defensive line, themed around vigor (and making your vigor do more cool stuff, like how other professions have “gain X benefit when you gain Y boon”), keeping the thief mobile, and defensive/utility benefits through dodging (whereas daredevil is all about using dodges offensively). the line in itself is already pointing towards that, it’s just grossly undertuned (swindler’s equilibrium being restricted to sword and only recharging one second, when trickery just outright takes those seconds off the max cooldown, for example) and clunky (pain response only removes 3 of the current 5 damaging conditions, only triggers if you let yourself get hit, and can be triggered when you don’t want it to, putting it on a long 20s CD)

to note: i’d still love a thief trait that cleanses one condition on shadowstep, which would be a perfect fit for an acro trait. i know it’s ridiculously strong, so make it a GM, and put assassin’s reward back on master tier where it belongs.

i’m assuming that your other set is either a shortbow or sword/torch. so at worst you have two evade skills (enough to wait it out on the immob), at best you have three, including one that has really high mobility, and if you had used it before the second trap, you’d have outrun him, because chances are he has zero mobility. you do know skills with built-in evasion still work when immobilized, right?

on your condi clears, you were way too fast to pop your heal. your health wasn’t low enough to justify it, and there weren’t exactly a ton of worrysome conditions on you. you burned it on 3 stacks of poison and a bit of weakness. also, entangle is also a survival skill. could’ve popped that for more condi clearing.

and last but not least, no shared anguish? that trait is kinda vital in competitive situations. ambidexterity is not worth losing an extra stunbreak.

i say that as someone that has ranger as his second most played profession and has been enjoying a condi/survival build lately. basic difference is that i go for shortbow instead of axe/dagger, and sharpening stones instead of signet of stone.