Guild Wars 2

Shoulders are Medium ForgemanShoulders https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forgeman_armor_

Gloves are Fused Gauntlets :https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Medium_Fused_Gauntlets

Back Piece is Rox’s Quiver https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rox's_Quiver

I know exactly what u mean. I would run a s/p evasion build and just be annoying, maybe kill some1 if they made a couple mistakes. I would also run D/D valkarie thief too. At least that spec was hard to use correctly ( i.e. landing c&d). D/P is really easy compared to either of those.
No requirements for stealthing.
Permablind.
Interrupt for those pesky heals.
Its a lot easier to use and roam with.

Cynz.9437:

have fun until you face someone with brain who knows how to punish d/p

Punish how? Interrupt the HS so that they can’t stealth? Good luck with that through the blind. Even if you do get 1 interrupt I hope it last at least 3 seconds so I don’t just HS through the BP smoke field which lasts 4 seconds.

Dee Jay.2460:

I think you’ll see a standard 0/30/30/10/0 build covers all of that with…

• Shadow Rejuvenation (alternatively Shadow Protector)
• Cloaked in Shadows
• Fleet Shadow
• Backstab or Sneak Attack
• Shadow’s Embrace

…and that’s a fairly common build with D/D. D/P obviously doesn’t need Cloaked in Shadows and commonly replaces it with something else.

But let me reiterate. The best way to go about this isn’t to straight-up nerf Shadow Arts. It’s to make stealth a purely defensive move with little/no offensive capabilities.

This means no more Backstabs and Sneak Attack, at last not in their current form.

Instead Backstab could be a skill that chains requires some setup or chains from a different ability. The same could be done to Sneak Attack. These abilities don’t need to be nerfed or removed, they just shouldn’t performed from stealth.

Currently:
You want to pressure your enemy —-> go stealth for Backstab / Sneak Attack
You want to relieve yourself of pressure —-> go stealth for condition removal/healing/blinds etc.

Ergo —-> stealth is always the best option

Future:
You want to pressure the enemy —-> stay and fight him
You want to relieve yourself of pressure —-> use stealth to avoid damage/heal/cleanse etc.

Ergo —-> when to pressure and when to retreat are tactical decisions.

Ill reply to this soon, had a reply. Then phone died.

Dee Jay.2460:

The ability to stealth is fine.

But that fact that stealth also:

• Heals
• Blinds
• increases movement speed
• sets up powerful stealth attacks
• removes conditions

…is what makes it OP.

If stealth was exclusively a defensive maneuver and didn’t provide offensive capabilities it would be spammed far less.

That requires 70/70 traits points for the thief just fyi and uses 6/7 equip able traits. I’m perfectly fine with it. The only stealth that needs looking at is BP —→ HS.
9 Initiative isn’t much after the 12/10 changes and has little to no healthy counter play. There is a reason Blinding Powder has a 40sec cd: instant cast stealth.

Can you suggest a change that won’t entirely cripple a whole trait line of the thief or make 1/2 of their weapon sets unviable?

7/10 – You seem to like purple. She really is simple other than the hair color :P

My thief Jolhon Attano.
With and without the face paint.

Impact.2780:

I only read the first post, so I apologise if this has already been said.

Terrible idea. This would remove the ability to to enter stealth without a target, thereby nerfing thief’s deceptive capabilities. Using black powder and heart seeker to make it look like you’re going in a particular direction. This is a very good tactic in PvP, stopping opponents for a few seconds of indecisiveness, manipulating where they go, pinning them on nodes etc. It’s also something the thief can do while healing instead of just sitting in stealth being completely useless.

This change would also force thieves to burn a stealth granting utility skill – which have 50-60 secs cool down – in order to sneak up on an target. That being said, I think blinding powder has a way too long cool down anyway.

Steath is the deceptive ability. Enemy already loss target and have ZERO idea where we are for 3-4 sec. We also have plenty of shadow steps to jump a target as well as well as steal which you can trait to steath as well. Free stealth whenever is bad. Though we are spending 8 of out 12(15) initiative, Even after the initiative changes the cost is still trivial.

Ichishi.9613:

I fail to see the problem in d/p or stealth at all.
Stealth does only two things: enables the use of stealth skill and makes user invisible for short time.
I have no idea how any of those are imbalanced in any way at considerable level of play.

Heartseeker is plain leap without any immunities. Even when I play D/something I use heartseeker solely when I can be sure it cannot be countered – it does not matter if you gain stealth at the end of it – everyone who actually saw you do it will know exactly where you are regardless of whether they see you or not.
I also fail to see how thief mass stealth capabilities should be limited to utilities. As a matter of fact, using blinding powder without utilizing its blast finisher (on the said smoke field from black powder) is just stupid.

Don’t forget, thief can use only 60 seconds worth of cooldowns per minute with two weapon sets. For most classes it is by far greater even on single weapon set – and other
classes get team support skills on their weapon skills.

Stealth does much more than 2 things. Depending on traits, it can heal 300ish/s, remove conditions, gain extra initiative, or give a 50% speed increase. Those aren’t necessarily a given though. It also allows for great burst, ability to reposition, ability to disorient oppenents, and the ability to disengage from a fight at will. Stealth is our most powerful aspect, do not try downplaying it.

D/p has NO counter play besides trying to interrupt the thief though a blind which is difficult in itself. It doesn’t require ANY skill at all to gain stealth; you don’t even need a target. The only other steath on a weapon set is x/d and that in clock and dagger. Which requires a target and can be blocked, dodged, blinded, immobilized, or cc’d.

This change would at least give d/p more counter play while giving some decent surviablility to p/p and a good, but unneeded buff to s/p. Yes it’s a ranged c&d, but you see the field right before the shot to gain steath. It has a nice visual cue and gives it the same counter ability that c&d has. Having such free access to steath is a bad thing for this game’s health whether you realize it or not. I would much rather have it changed this way, than what others have suggested. ( i.e removing the leap from heart seeker)

Yeah we would be losing the smoke field to stealth allies, but we still have utilities for that, and most still work better than Mesmer steath. I’m not including veil bots for zergs in this post.

Not sure if this belongs here, but yeah. After you complete the cyphers and get Scarlet’s journal, her console displays these images as well.

????

ANet should have added a rolling animation to this. ROLL TO YOUR DEATH! I find it annoying at times ( i.e the east stairs from the south side ruins). You fall a reasonable amount and take 1000 damage, then touch the floor again and take 1000 repeatedly till death. That why you should play thief and just ignore the z-axis.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I have said for a while – Just remove the Leap from Heatseeker.

That would remove any stealth access besides utilities from d/p and render the set pretty moot.

It would solve the HS+BP stealth stacking, give it counterplay similar to C&D, and be a needed buff to P/P as that is the weakest weapon set thieves have as it has no access to either evades, or steath. I do fear s/p might be nerfed if the BP doesn’t apply blind, but access to tactial strike should make up for it.

I would actually be ok with this change. D/P is a crutch for bad thieves, the only current counterplay is trying to interrupt the HS thru the BP which means you first usually have to get ride of the blind first. The blind should probably happen at the initial cast and not pulse. You can now dodge, block, reflect, even blind the stealth which gives it so much more room to play against than what it was before.

Aza.2105:

Perhaps a solution to backstab would be to tie the damage into how much initative is available for to the thief. The lower the initiative the lower the damage, the higher the initiative the higher the damage.

You do that and you’ll see nothing but thieves staying stealthed for as long as possible; or even worse, more thieves would just run p/d and destroy everything (besides roaming necros :P) in their path through attrition. BS is nothing more than a noob tube, easy to use and easy to fight against.

Kontrolle.3514:

Thats because thiefs have no access to evades, powerful blind skills, shadowsteps, teleports and stunbreakers on weapon-skills right?

Were not talking about the bad thiefs that get killed by your necro (lol @ that).
We are talking about the gamefun killing broken mechanic that complete ruins small-scall fighting in wvw.

The most annoying thing ist thiss stealth rez-madness which makes it almost impossible to win outnumbered situations no matter how bad the bunch of mesmers+thiefs play….

D/D: #3 evade, traited blind on #5
D/P : #3 shadowstep + 3 sec blind, #5 blind field
P/P: #5 blind field
S/D: #2 shadowstep + 1 condition clean, #3 evade, traited blind on #5
S/P:#2 shadowstep + 1 condition clean, #3 evade, #5 blind field
SB: #2 evade, #5 blind + shadowstep

There are NO stunbreakers on thief weapon skills. These skills all cost 5+ initiative other than death blossom and disabling shot. That 5 of our 12 initiative which refills at a decent 1 per 1 second. Out of initiative, well we can’t use ANY of our weapons skills, not even if we weapons swap.

Blinding power, the x/p #5 skill, has such a small AoE, you can be melee d even if you stand in the center, its that small, and if you’re fighting in that, then you kinda deserve to lose. Its like standing in a d/d ele’s ring of fire and complaining you got hit with a 8k firegrab.

Plenty of things ruin small skirmishes in WvW: Condition spam necros with DS, HS warriors, tanky guardians, engineers in general. If you’re complaining about downing a character, and them being rezzed again, that is 100% on your head. They shadow refuge, then AoE the kitten out of that thing, most roaming classes aren’t prepared so such steady damage. Fighting outnumbered is asking for trouble unless you’re prepared, and if you can’t manage your targets well enough that some sneak in rezzes, then bring in some guild mates and roam with them. 100% l2p issue.

For #2, have the clone do the leap that the stormbringers in pve in Ascalon areas do. That way, there still is a chance to at least dodge the cripple/ immobilize, otherwise, if it was just an instant cripple skill at 600 range, it would need a nerf in either CD or range which would just suck and make the change kinda invalid.

The only reason venoms are so weak is because of Venomous Aura. ANet deems that venom thieves are great team utility, and while they are, they need 60 trait points to do so. Venoms are tut, trash unless traited.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I do have a lot of problems with thieves as an ele. Backstabs will crit you for over half your health regardless of pretty much any build you run, and there’s very little counterplay, because any thief worth any attention will wait until he can open in stealth while you are either distracted or don’t know he’s there, and thus have no chance of an sort of retaliation.
Sure, there’s plenty you can do once you know he’s there (not that it will matter too much unless you’re D/D and can zoom off to save yourself from the spam), but the fact of the matter is that he’d have to be stupid to attack while you can focus on him.

Whether this is because Anet wants hard counters, or because they didn’t realize that being able to hit for 9k damage in stealth effectively hard counters any squishy, is up for debate.

Define squishy? Berserker staff ele? If you’re roaming with that build, then its a l2p issue. If you’re dieing in a zerg with that build, its still a l2p issue. D/D eles, before most of ANets nerfs, was the king of roaming. Extreme tankiness and mobility, plenty of condition clear, healing, as well as situational burst. Even after the nerfs, the D/D ele is still decently usable, especially against thieves. AoE damage is usually the killer of bad thieves as most kinda ignore the giant red circles.

Unless a thief runs condition damage, all their damage is in burst packets. Get past that and you’re golden. Roll a BS thief in wvw. Learn to play what you have trouble against. My mesmer had trouble against engies, so I made one and learned most of the ins and outs so that I was prepared to face one again. Every class and every spec can be fought against, some have the advantage yes, but they can be fought.

Muchacho.2390:

Well in WvW stealth is to strong and should be nerfed in some way, but in spvp i dont think its an big issue.

And stx i dont think thieves are a high risk high reward profession, as stealth allows a safe way to disengage unfavorable situations. It is more like most thieves are overestimating the abilities and then simple die.

Thieves have almost no use in zerg play. They can try and spike down people on the sides, but thats usually met with chain cc and said thief’s death.

Besides the necromancer and maybe the guardian, what roamer isn’t prepared to disengage from a fight? Rangers and warriors will bring the greatsword which is fantastic mobility on both class. Mesmer too can steath and run from a fight, or portal if they are really desperate. Engineers have plenty of CC and immobilize or chill plus rocketboots. Even guardians can spec meditations and fly away from fights.

The thief is all about HR/HR. Thieves have steath and evades to defend themselves, unless they have Lyssa runes, but those need to be nerfed in general. Start nerfing stealth, and the thief is pretty much a free bag in wvw. Yes it can be annoying, but so is the zone control that engie has, or the clone spam of mesmers, or the ridiculous tankiness of guardian and warriors. There are plenty of annoying aspect in ever class that EVERYBODY uses.

If ANet gives hard counters to thief’s stealth, then they better make some for other class mechanics as well: A skill called that keeps mesmers from spawning illusions, or one that keeps engineers from using kits or turrets, or keeps warriors from building adrenaline (soothing images:D:D:D:D).

I’m tired of having to fight through DS on necros. Its annoying and toxic and shouldn’t be in the game. They already have plenty of conditions plus annoying minions that keep getting in the way, they can even disengage from a fight with flesh wurm or spectral walk. ANet should nerf DS by 50% so its at least manageable and not a crutch when they already have the highest HP pool in the game. (Sarcasm)

I’m ok with the slow speeds TBH; I really enjoy the extreme in combat mobility that perma-vigor, sword 3, and staff 2 gives. Couple those with blink, decoy, distortion, chaos armor, and blurred frenzy and the mesmer is one of the most illusive classes to fight against. Of course they still aren’t as Z-axis mobile as the thief, but that’s to be expected.

Not to mention the fact that most stealthing mesmers will use PU, so protection, regeneration, and a block are pretty common and not the easiest thing to fight down. Coupled that with a free stun break on staff 2, you have one tanky, bursty, and annoying POS.

The easiest way to beat these builds though, is running away. Simple, but people hate it. There are so many threads about mobility and peoples ability to disengage at will. So fight a PU mesmer, or split and cause more rage :P

Double edged swords are pretty common in this game it seems.

sorudo.9054:

oh, i see no spirits or weapon spells or overall ritualist-ish anywhere, no mechanic turret is going to replace a spirit, ever.
also, where are the other 3 then, the thief doesn’t even get close to the speed and independence of an assassin, no profession has a scythe in it’s kitten nal or speer and i have yet to play a profession that truly is what ppl wanted to see in it’s GW2 counterpart.

See, ANet merged rit with the Guardian, Mesmer, and Engineer. Spirit weapons for Guardian, Phantasm for the Mesmer, and general play style with the Engineer. The thing that is missing though, is the aesthetic, which some might argue was kinda adopted by the Necromancer. I do miss those teal spells and sounds effect. The bells with that ghostly blue. I would bet anything that if the Ritualist was reintroduced, it would come into play as like a future subclass for either the Guardian or the Necromancer.

Chuck Zitto.2367:

I think a lot of you thieves are missing the point of this thread. This is a thieves stealthing in wvw thread. We all know there are good thieves and bad thieves. Good thieves in wvw never die period. Maybe in a setup up 1v1 where its agreed in advance the thief is not allowed to run away and has to stay in a confined space you can beat a good thief in a duel I know I have. When it comes to encounters with them in wvw though if you are winning they just stealth and are gone every single time.

This thread is about the fact that fights with good thieves have only 2 outcomes the thief winning or the thief stealthing and running away with no counter to it. A Mesmer for example has short stealths and slow run speed and one short range teleport they can be chased down and killed so I find them balanced. A thief will just pop shadow refuge or shadow step away and pop shadow refuge and gets up to 15 seconds of stealth with pretty much no counter. I mean seriously how often do you get a lucky knockback skill off perfectly that knocks the thief out of shadow refuge its like a 1 in a 100 shot. If they use shadow step first to gain distance the chance is 0 in 100.

When I’m fighting against thieves and they use shadow refuge, that’s the easiest thing to fight against. Magnetic shield usually has a large enough area to push them out and cause a reveal. If that’s on cd, then Big ol’ Bomb, bomb spam is just as effective. If the shadow step away and shadow refuge, then who cares? If I chase, I am asking for trouble if I’m not prepared to take a backstab. Why would I try and chase around a single thief instead of leaving and try to solo a camp or yakslap?

Creating additional counter play skills to stealth would make 1/2 our build obsolete. These kind of suggestions would be akin to asking for specfic counters to illusion, shouts, signets, traps, ect. (i.e. "warriors regen is rediculous, we need a skill to stop signet passives for 10s) Its nothing but players refusing to learn a portion of the game. They refuse to better themselves because the lost in a rock paper scissors.

There is only 1 game type and that is CTP, its very static and bunkers are predominant in hotjoin making it extremely stale.

As much as I miss my main Ritualist, the fact that NcSoft had ANet remove the Canthan district from Divinity’s Reach because it was to “Asian inspired” is a tad bit disheartening when you think about it. Hopefully if there is an expansion there will be the addition of the Rit, but it seems unlikey from my pov.

Cush.4063:

The game isn’t purely about wvw. Downed state can change a battle in PvP completely if people aren’t making their stomps and the people losing rally off of someone else.

And the fact that it acts as a soft counter to heavy burst is still really useful.

Forzani.2584:

Some good ideas posted. I don’t think in general people are that opposed to stealth. What does drive them nuts is the amount of times a Thief can use stealth during a fight. What might be an idea is to make it either more costly or not last as long for each time you stealth or try to stealth. Diminishing returns. Just like some games have a 5 second root the first time. Then when you get rooted again it is only for 3 seconds etc etc

Then we need that for cc too as well since i find chain stunning just as annoying :P

ANet nerfed Infusion of Shadows so that long stealth times couldn’t be achieved with just bp+hs. They are fine with spending multiple skills to do so. I really don’t see the problem here.

Sanduskel.1850:

I think that the best solution for stealth would be to prevent stealthing while in combat. It would actually make playing my thief more challenging since I’d have to think about attacking.

If that happens, give us back IR and the 2 boon removal on larcenous strike. Might as well keep mesmers, engineers, rangers, and smoke finishers from stealthing as well. Have them apply blind instead. Oh yeah, and if stealth is working like other games, let me permastealth gank people so they have zero chance of seeing me.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Esplen.3940:

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Mesmers have the easiest access to the best stunbreakers of any class. Stability is not even close to necessary.

And that being said, there’s a mantra that provides 4 seconds of stability on a 25 second cooldown.

^this. Staff blink

Stop spreading misinformation.

Staff blink (Phase Retreat) is NOT. A. STUNBREAKER. (anymore).

Let me clarify myself then. Use it to position yourself and avoid stuns. PREEMPTIVELY
.

Hey! Its like Infiltrator Stike on thieves sword! Oh wait, that got nerfed….

Shadow Step, the actually utility skill, is on a 50 sec CD untraited and 40 traited. It has a 1200range, breaks a stun on both casts (you can only cast the second part in a 10 second window), and removes 3 conditions on the 2nd cast. Besides Infiltrator’s Signet, this is usually the only stun break. A thief would only use this for the stun break or avoid getting zerged down. We are a melee centric class, meaning most of our damage is within 130 range unless you run p/p. Having a thief jump 1200 units means me can’t hit you AT ALL, considering he has a max range of 900. Every other class has 1200 range, so you should have an advantage.

Yes you can use it to run away, but a good thief would save SS for when he needed it (IE warrior stunlock?). The thief is about mobility, remove that and we have nothing besides stealth, which ANet nerfs every month because of fairweathers who don’t know how to pvp.

Doggie.3184:

swinsk.6410:

Htc is supposed to give thieves more survivability according to anet.

After reading that statement I seriously wondered if they have ever played a thief.

They haven’t~ they don’t even know that we primarily use the Shadowstep Utility in SPvP to Teleport Stomp people rather than Sword. They don’t have enough experience with the very class they created to understand the little tricks we do, like all the combos people do with Shadow Return, or the fluidity of all our Stealth Weapon Combos back when they did the 4s reveal.

Don’t tell them that…. They nerfed IR partly because of the “tele stomp.” Next thing you know, Shadow Step is gonna get a cast time as well and the stun break will be moved to like, Trip Wire or something to make traps a more viable build option….

muscarine.5136:

This is so wrong.

Look, IR got badly nerfed it’s true, but sword is still very efficient.

Wait a bit and you’ll see how this is turning to a “new” S/P trend.

March 11th skill preview.

Thieves seem to be in a decent spot overall since our last balance changes, however, like warrior, the thieves ability to both hard CC an enemy and deal respectable amount of damage is giving the thief too much power. So we have changes for Pistol Whip, Headshot, and Basilisk Venom. On the upside, we have some changes that will hopefully diversify thief build options.

Pistol Whip: Stun removed and instead now applies cripple. Duration 1.5 seconds.
Basilisk Venom: Stun has been reduced to 0.5 seconds and now has a venom duration of 5 seconds.
Head Shot: Stun has been removed and now applies a blind. To compensate for lost power, initiative cost is now 3.
Deadly Arts VII, Improvisation: Bonus damage while holding a bundle has been increases to 12% from 10%.
Critical Strike VII, Ankle Shot: Chance to apply cripple on critical hit has been bumped up to 100%, added an ICD of 15s.
Critical Strike XII, Hidden Killer: Increased critical strike chance from stealth
To 100%, but to compensate, placed an ICD of 15s.
Shadow Art IX, Leeching Venoms: Scaling for both the heal
And the damage has been increased by 25%, moved to grandmaster trait.

Bug Fixes:
Corrected Power of Inertias boon duration. It was giving 15s of might when it should have been giving 5s, this problem has been corrected.
Assassin’s Retreat had the wrong duration and ICD, both have been fixed. swiftness duration is 5s while the ICD is 10s.

Ps… I’m bored…

Sanduskel.1850:

well several of us actually agree with their latest patch. I think they made some good changes.

The only good change was the cheese spec nerfs, everything else was kitten and poorly thought out by ANet. Kinda not surprising considering Anets track record with GW1.

Thief never really had the greatest dps, that’s always gone to the warrior usually. We do however have some decent burst.

And this kinda to be expected.

Dragonas.8470:

What is the current WvW roaming thief meta? Dec 10 changes applied.

Psshh, experiment yourself dude. Figure out what weapon set u like and test traits out. Don’t be a mindless FotM sheep.

This actually really sucks lol.

I was running from a warrior in WvW, so I pulled out shortbow #5 into a dodge to gain swiftness. He caught up to me cause I kinda CC’d myself there lol. I think whoever made this change was the programmer who programmed our underwater spear #4 tow-line (aka self cc)

Eh, 1 stun break and the only condition removal you have costs 8 initiative. You still sacrifice way too much self preservation for shoddy team support IMHO.

This actually just made the thief feel REALLY clunky: Jump in with 2, use 1 chain, as soon as 1 chain ends jump back out with 2. It waits about a second before its actually cast. Wierd right, I thought it only had a .25s cast time. IR sometimes interrupts skills so that it can cast, and other times its enters a que. It isn’t consistent at all and ANet kinda broke it beyond belief.

Now with the cast time, people are either leaving s/x all together, or they are staying out of combat and waiting instead of " actively engaging in the fight." S/x are much more passive with this nerf.

Highlie.7641:

I keep seeing this infiltrators strike had this nerf coming. Do people not realize the the return range is 900, clearly there is no range wpn in the game that will reach that far..

It was a spammable pseduo-stun breaker and that alone made it EXTREMELY powerful. I would have preferred if they could have coded it to not be castable while stunned, knocked up, ect instead of adding a cast time. The skill lost not only its broken aspect, but also its ability to be skill comboed with other skills which makes it much more limiting that what it use to do.

With this being nerfed, idk why ANet didn’t touch Phase Retreat (Mesmer staff #2) or Illusionary Leap (Mesmer sword #3). Phase Retreat acted exactly like IS & IR, though on a 6s CD, and iLeap was an actually stun breaker on a 6s CD.

Lucky Shot.7650:

I do, but I just barely notice it. It doesn’t seem to help at all, I’d rather have initiative on demand with Signet Use when I actually need it. Also, initiative on demand is a lot more useful than passive regen for short fights.

I’m with you on this on. Those clutch moves one could pull off with the extra 4-6 initiative was fantastic and a great reward to pull off. I really notice the initiative in long drawn out fights, but I’m usually dry after those quick skirmishes in WvW

This trait is terrible. Its a pseudo-stunbreak that usually puts the thief in a more dire situation. You stay CC’d and are completely disorientated by the sudden and often unexpected shadowstep in a random direction at a random distance. The trait needs to either steath and shadowstep or actually stunbreak and shadowstep. Right now, its a terrible trait and im gonna stick with Pain Response, at least I know what I’m getting and when I’m getting it.

Edit: Oh yeah, and it also has the tendency to shadowstep you INTO terrain where you can’t move at all… LOL. TRASH TRAIT!

2nd Edit: A 1.5 second stun turns into a 4 second OMG wtf just happened? Where am I? Crap…. In case you didn’t notice, I hate this trait…

The initiative changes are pretty bad. It hurts certain specs while buffing others that really didn’t need the extra initiative (D/D & P/D). The reduction on initiative gain for signets hurts as well as the quick INI gain could be be used in pretty tight situations.

The vigor nerfs also hurt quite a bit but not as bad as I thought. I still don’t see how ANet think Hard to Catch is a viable substitute as that is just a trash trait and pretty much a death sentence if taken.

Infusion of Shadows is a fantastic nerf. Permasteath trash is gone and thats a good thing for the class. On the other hand IR nerf is the worst thing EVER. I understand the need of the nerf of the pseudo stun break, but why nerf this and leave Mesmer staff #2 alone? The cast time though means the skill loses so much potential in skill comboing.

Skelk venom…. LOL…. that all that needs.

Interceptor.2653:

MrAmputatoes.6031:

Venoms last 30 secs with a 45(36 traited) cd. Why cast it mid fight and wait the cd out instead of precasting it? We could use them strategically if they had a lower cd or better effects…. Tut…. Trash unless traited.

Listen, I can’t play your Thief for you. If you want to just roll your face across the number keys and collect loot bags, I’ve heard that Warriors are good.

Meanwhile, the fact that you have a multitude of venom options, can hold them for 30s, that they are all instant-cast except Basilisk, etc…. gives you a lot of options.

Except for the fact that venoms still are trash unless traited. Why spends 30+ trait points to help lack luster skills instead of training for what can actually help you. Taking venoms over stuns breaks, condition removal, on demand stealth, ect. as well as the need traits to even make the venoms viable is doing nothing but gimping yourself. Instead of traits for might and leeching which does nothing for team utility than increase damage, why not steal/ corrupt boons or transfer a condition? Besides warrior amd guardians stack team might much faster on much shorter CDs and without trait investment.

Venom share is lackluster and extremely kitten for yourself and your sad team utility.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Interceptor.2653:

Looking forward to this on S/P. Pistol Whip will stack a lot of Vuln now.

The 6s duration is “short” in theory but longer in practice; many of us will have condition duration from other sources, including Deadly Arts. I have 40% increased duration, personally.

Other professions got a 5% boost to their damage from this patch without stacking Vulnerability (see Ele’s Fire Magic 25—Burning Rage and Guard’s Radiance X—Powerful Blade).

You’re only fooling yourself if you think that the new Sundering Strike is acceptable.

Those trait changes are trash. Jon Peters even knew they were trash a month ago when they were previewed, he asked for changes suggestions and ignored all of them lol. Still it’s better than what most classes got for changes.

Bunker thieves new meta? Lol!!!!! 30pts into acrobatics for this lackluster healing trait.

Interceptor.2653:

Sounds as though you could use some practice with strategic venom use and/or mixing and matching for situational uses.

Venoms last 30 secs with a 45(36 traited) cd. Why cast it mid fight and wait the cd out instead of precasting it? We could use them strategically if they had a lower cd or better effects…. Tut…. Trash unless traited.

Of course it’s viable, but you lose out on condition removal, stun breakers, a decent self heal all for supporting your team with subpar conditions, might, and life steal.

Do you use the new skelk venom when you’re low and waste it for your teammates? Or w8 for your teammates to get low and hope ur low enough to make us of it as we’ll? Venomous aura is only 360 which means hitting all teammates is extremely difficult unless they are extremely coordinated.

My thief main. I love the gas mask actually.

Head: Gas Mask
Shoulders: Outlaws
Chest: Duelist/Assassins
Arms: WvW/ Invaders
Legs: Karma Orr
Feet: Karma Orr

Oh, this was that childish Mesmer who team invited me just so that he and his buddies could flame me. Funny, I was excited to see him in action, he might fight well, but he is a toxic POS that makes the GW2 community look like a bunch of 4 year olds.