Guild Wars 2

General Changes

• Self applied Revealed duration in PvP is normalized with the rest of the game to now last 3 seconds instead of 4.

• The current skills that apply Revealed like Sic ’Em and Analyze now apply a new debuff called Exposed instead. The Exposed debuff allows everyone to be able to see and target a stealthed player temporarily as if they weren’t in stealth. This new debuff will still allow for counter play to stealth without completely shutting down the Stealth Attack Thief mechanic or stealth related traits.

• Stealth Attacks that are nullified(blocked, evaded, invulnerability) remove your current stealth(does NOT reveal you). Some changes are made below to compensate for this, like the changes to Cloak and Dagger and the changes to Meld with Shadows. Successfully landing an attack from stealth will still reveal you like normal.

• Improve the line of sight/path finding systems for Shadowsteps. Currently, Shadowsteps get caught on small rocks on the terrain and things like that, resulting in a failed Shadowstep or a Shadowstep that doesn’t teleport you as far as the Shadowstep’s range should allow for.

Heal/Utility/Elite Skill Changes

Tricks:

-Withdraw still needs its base healing increased by 10% like what was said since its cool down got increased to from 15 to 18 seconds.

• Even if the base healing was increased by 20% (making Withdraw heal as much as it did before since its cool down was increased by 20%), it would still be weaker than its previous version because you don’t get the evade or condition cleanses as often as before. The 10% heal increase needs happen at a minimum like what was said when it was announced to be getting an increased cool down.

-Haste should have its cool down reduced to 50 seconds like Engineer’s Elixir U.

-Roll for Initiative should have its cool down reduced to 40-45 seconds to make it more on par with Ranger’s Lightning Reflexes. Alternatively, its cool down could be reduced to 30 seconds and the initiative gained could be reduced to 3 or 4.

-Scorpion Wire in general is very buggy/unreliable. Its velocity may need to be increased or whatever else it needs to make it much more reliable. A damage increase would also be nice, as well as crippling the pulled target. Its cool down could maybe be reduced to 15 seconds depending on how it feels after the above changes.

-Caltrops should have its cool down reduced to 15 seconds, its duration reduced to 5 seconds, and its cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds. The cripple applied should be reduced to 8 seconds since there is a shorter cool down now.

• With these changes Caltrops will have the same overall up time as it has now, but it would be more useful/accessible. Currently the long duration is wasted since opponents can just quickly walk out of the aoe circle, and then you can’t use it again for another 24-30 seconds.

-Dagger Storm should have its cool down reduced to 75 seconds and become a stun breaker. It should also just grant 5 stacks of stability for 8 seconds at the start instead of pulsing stability every 3 seconds.

• Currently, if you manage to get interrupted while using Dagger Storm(or even decide to simply dodge), the whole skill is cancelled unlike other profession’s pulsing stability elite skills, and you then don’t get the second or third stability pulses either.

Tricks

Withdraw still needs its base healing increased by 10% like what was said since its cool down got increased to 18s.

Haste should have its cool down reduced to 50 seconds like engineer’s Elixir U.

Roll for Initiative should have its cool down reduced to 40 or 45 seconds to make it more on par with ranger’s Lightning Reflexes.

Scorpion Wire in general is very buggy/unreliable. Its velocity should be increased or whatever else it needs to make it much more reliable. A damage increase would also be nice, as well as crippling the pulled target. Its cool down could maybe be reduced to 15 seconds depending on how it feels after the above changes.

Caltrops should have its cool down reduced to 15 seconds, its duration reduced to 5 seconds, and its cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds. This would make Caltrops have the same up time overall as it has now, but it would be much more useful/accessible. Currently the long duration is wasted since opponents can just immediately walk out of the aoe circle, and then you can’t use it again for another 24-30 seconds. The Uncatchable trait in the Trickery line could also have an added effect of immobilizing an opponent for 1s when you cripple them to help. (10s ICD)

Signets

Signet of Malice should have its active heal reworked similarly to warrior’s Healing Signet. It wouldn’t have to give resistance, but something interesting that would make you want to activate it more in certain situations would be nice.

Signet of Shadows needs something more for its active ability. In addition to blinding, it could either stealth you, stun break, or just decrease its cool down to 20 seconds.

Assassin’s Signet should have its cool down reduced to 30 seconds.

Weapon Skills

[Short bow] Choking Gas should have the poison duration per pulse increased to 3 seconds. It should also apply 2 stacks of poison per pulse. Currently the 2 seconds of poison that this applies is very short, and the damage from the poison that this skill applies is lackluster, especially after poison stacking was introduced in the June 23 update.

This thread also has some nice suggestions overall for thief weapon skills.

Signets:

-Signet of Malice should have its activation time reduced to 0.75 seconds, and it should apply 2 seconds of slow and taunt to nearby foes when you activate it. In compensation, the active heal amount should be reduced a bit (maybe to a 2500 base heal?).

-Signet of Shadows needs something more for its active ability. In addition to blinding, it could either stealth you, stun break, or just decrease its cool down to 15 seconds.

-Assassin’s Signet should have its cool down reduced to 30 seconds.

-Infiltrator’s Signet should either additionally grant 1-2 initiative on use, or just have its cool down reduced to 25 seconds.

-Signet of Agility is fine as is.

Deceptions:

-Hide in Shadows should have its cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds. It should also be changed to cure any 3 damaging conditions, adding torment and confusion to the list of conditions it can possibly cleanse.

-Shadowstep should have its cool down reduced to 40-45 seconds.

• The current 50 second cool down is quite long. Also, Shadowstep is a deception skill, even though it seems to fit the trick skill category better. This makes it harder to fit in the trait/trait line that reduces deception skill recharges in builds that revolve around the trick play style.

-Smoke Screen should have an instant cast time and have its duration increased from 7 to 8 seconds to make it more on par with Guardian’s Wall of Reflection.

-Blinding Powder should have its cool down reduced to 30-35 seconds.

• This would help because it feels especially weak when not using it as a combo finisher with an offhand pistol’s Black Powder to gain a longer stealth duration.

-Shadow Refuge should no longer reveal you when you leave/get knocked out of its area prematurely. It should either just remove your current stealth, or apply the new Exposed debuff explained in the previous post for 3 seconds instead.

• Revealing you not only negates the entire skill, it also makes you worse off than if you didn’t use SR at all because you can’t even use a second utility or weapon skill to stealth yourself again in response (since you are revealed). Removing your current stealth instead would be fine because it would still counter Shadow Refuge without bleeding over to also counter other stealth-granting skills. Also, knocking someone out of a Scrapper’s Sneak Gyro doesn’t reveal them or anything else like what’s being suggested here.

-Thieves Guild should have its cool down reduced to 120 seconds, have its cast time reduced to 1 second, and it should stealth you for 5 seconds on activation. It could probably grant you something like 5 stacks of might and fury for 10-15 seconds as well depending on how it feels with the previous changes.

• With its current 180 second cool down, it seems much, much weaker than some other 180 second cool down elite skills like Rampage, Lich Form, Plague, Time Warp, and Supply Crate. Also, the AI thieves don’t deal a lot of damage, and they die very quickly.

The recent stability stack removal rate change seems to have worked out pretty well, so I think retaliation could use a similar treatment. The suggestion is to make retaliation have a 0.5-0.75 second cool down per enemy that attacks you. In addition, the 33% damage reduction for retaliation in WvW and PvP would be removed.

The reasoning for this suggestion is because retaliation seems a bit too punishing against fast hitting attacks like Rapid Fire, Unload, Vengeful Hammers, Grenades, etc, but too weak against slower attacks. This change should still punish fast attacks more than slow attacks, but it wouldn’t be as extreme of a difference.

What are your guys thoughts/suggestions about this?

Traps:

-Ambush should switch to a roll over skill when the trap is triggered similar to Shadow Trap. The roll over skill should summon the thief NPC and additionally stealth you for 3 seconds. It should probably have its cool down reduced to 30 seconds as well.

• Similar to Thieves Guild, the AI thief summoned from this skill dies quickly and doesn’t deal a lot of damage, so these changes would help make this trap more useful. The roll over portion should help prevent the stealth from triggering at a bad moment, causing you to be revealed.

-Needle Trap should apply 3 stacks of poison for 10 seconds instead of only 1 stack. It should also apply some direct damage so you can’t stay in stealth indefinitely while enemies die to your conditions.

-Tripwire should additionally apply 10 stacks of vulnerability for 5-10 seconds. It should also apply some direct damage for similar reasons to Needle Trap. The direct damage could be fairly strong for this trap.

-Shadow Trap has some line of sight issues that should be fixed, but that isn’t exclusive to this skill. If the shadow step line of sight issues get fixed, the range could probably be reduced to 5000 like mesmer Portals.

Venoms:

Venoms have always had the problem of being quite weak when used without the Venomous Aura trait. Due to this, Venomous Aura should only apply half of the venom stacks to allies. To compensate for this, venoms will all have their cool downs reduced to 25 seconds from 40. With these changes, venoms will still be just about as strong as they currently are with Venomous Aura, but using venoms without Venomous Aura will be more viable than they currently are, which is needed. All venoms should also be instantly cast (currently only Basilisk Venom and Skelk Venom aren’t) and apply 1 stack each time you activate the skill. Venom cool downs won’t start until all stacks have been applied to yourself. This should make venoms a lot more versatile and allows for more tactics in deciding on when to activate each venom stack.

-Skelk Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Number of stacks reduced to 4. Each trigger now heals 750 health and cures 1 condition. Since venoms will now activate one at a time instead of all at once, each activation heals yourself for 500 health instead (this part only heals you, this is not the venom sharing portion).

-Devourer Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Number of stacks reduced to 2. Each trigger now applies 1.5 seconds of immobilize.

-Ice Drake Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Still applies 4 stacks. Each trigger now applies 2 seconds of chill.

-Skale Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Still applies 4 stacks. Each trigger now applies 2 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds, and still only 1 stack of torment for 5 seconds per trigger.

-Spider Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Number of stacks reduced to 4. Each trigger now applies 2 stacks of poison for 5 seconds.

-Basilisk Venom cool down reduced to 25 seconds. Number of stacks reduced to 1. Stone duration increased to 1.5 seconds.

Weapon Skill Changes

Short Bow:

-(1) Trick Shot is fine as is.

-Stealth Attack is fine as it is.

-(2.1) Cluster Bomb should have its velocity increased by about 50%.

• Currently it takes about 3 seconds to reach its max range(900). After this change it will take about 2 seconds.

-(2.2) Detonate Cluster is fine as is.

-(3) Disabling Shot needs its backwards leap smoothed out. The cripple duration could also be increased to 3 seconds, and the damage could be increased by about 10% to do about as much as a short bow auto attack, especially since this skill doesn’t bounce to multiple targets like the auto attack does.

• Currently at the end of the animation, your character choppily moves forward a little bit. It sort of looks like you are experiencing a slight lag. The evade also feels a bit unreliable, as it doesn’t seem to last for the whole backwards leap animation, so maybe speed up the backwards leap or something.

-(4) Choking Gas should either apply 2 stacks of poison for 3 seconds per pulse, or 1 stack of poison for 4 seconds per pulse.

• This skill feels very weak currently since it only applies 1 stack of poison for 2 seconds per pulse.

-(5) Infiltrator’s Arrow is fine as is, other than Shadowstep line of sight issues.

Pistol:

-(1) Vital Shot is fine as is.

-Stealth Attack is fine as is.

-(2) Body Shot will now apply weakness for 2-3 seconds instead of the vulnerability, and still applies immobilize as well.

• This will give main hand pistol users a better defensive option to use.

-(P/P 3) Unload now has a roll over skill. After you use Unload, it switches to a roll over skill called Reload, which you will have 5 seconds to activate if you want to. Reload costs 1 initiative to use and releases a small aoe blind that is also a blast finisher.

• This will give P/P a nice defensive option without changing the theme of Unload much. The blast finisher has many uses, such as in combination with Black Powder or any other combo field.

-(P/D 3) Shadow Strike is fine as is.

-(4) Headshot is fine as is.

-(5) Black Powder smoke field duration decreased to 2 seconds. Still pulses 3 times, once on the initial impact, another pulse after 1 second, and the final pulse at the end of its lifespan.

• This will allow for a more reliable short term defense instead of a longer more spread out small area of denial. Meld with Shadows will also now effect stealth granting combo finishers, so this change is necessary to prevent stealth from stacking up too easily.

Currently, the Acrobatics trait line feels too underwhelming. I think these changes would make it a solid line to trait into compared to the others, without being too powerful either. Let me know what you guys think about these changes.

[Minor/Adept] Expeditious Dodger: Gain 3s of swiftness upon dodging.

• Slightly increased swiftness duration gained when dodging since the Acrobatics line no longer gives increased boon duration, and a few of the old traits that gave swiftness in the Acrobatics line got removed as well.

[Major/Adept] Long Strides: Increases the range of shadow steps by 150.

• Shadow steps fit in with the Acrobatics trait line nicely, and this should be a good supplement for the old Long Reach trait in the Trickery line that is no longer available.

• ~Alternative Trait to Long Strides~ [Major/Adept] Practiced Tolerance: 7% of precision(or power) is converted into vitality.
• The old Practiced Tolerance trait in the Critical Strikes line has been changed to grant ferocity based on precision instead. It should be renamed as it doesn’t fit the new version.
• This trait can be quite useful to thieves since we have the lowest base health pool, and it fits in with the Acrobatics line better.

[Major/Adept] Vigorous Recovery: Remove a condition while under the effects of vigor. (6-7s ICD)

• It’s possible to have a good amount to vigor without the current version of this trait(gain vigor upon using a heal skill), and the Acrobatics trait line could use a little more condition removal optionally. This should synergize well with the new Feline’s Grace.

[Major/Adept] Assassin’s Reward: Heal yourself for each point of initiative spent when using a skill. Heals for 75 + (0.05 * Healing Power) per initiative.

• Moved down from grand master to adept tier.
• Increased the base healing received from this trait from 69 to 75 per initiative spent because it feels way too weak currently for a grand master trait. With these current numbers it’s still only about as strong as the regeneration boon you get from Pain Response(50% up time), but this trait doesn’t remove any conditions like Pain Response does.

[Minor/Master] Feline Grace: Gain 5s of vigor upon successfully evading an attack. (3s ICD)

• Increased the duration of vigor gained from 4s to 5s. Increased the ICD from 1s to 3s. This should prevent vigor from possibly stacking up too long with some of the other changes in this thread.

[Major/Master] Pain Response: Gain 10s of regeneration and remove 3 damaging conditions(bleed, burn, poison, torment, or confusion) when struck while your health is below 75%. (20s ICD) Condition damage now counts towards being “struck” while below 75% hp.

• Moved up from adept to master tier.
• Condition damage itself can now trigger this trait instead of only from being hit. This is important because this line specializes in evades which can possibly prolong the condition clear from this trait since you aren’t being hit. Someone could also condition bomb you while above 75% health then not attack you any more. The conditions would still tick over time well past the 75% threshold, but you wouldn’t get the cleanse from this trait.
• Still only removes 3 damaging conditions, but torment and confusion are added to the list of conditions that can possibly be removed by this trait.

[Major/Master] Swindler’s Equilibrium: Successfully evading an attack while wielding a sword or spear recharges steal by 3 seconds. (5s ICD)

• Currently reducing steal’s recharge by 1s with a 1s ICD, it is about impossible to achieve the best results as you cannot dodge nearly once per second consistently, nor would that be optimal as you would be dealing no damage. This should help achieve good results more realistically without promoting dodge spamming to get the most use out of this.

[Major/Master] Upper Hand: Regain 2 initiative when you successfully evade an attack. (5s ICD)

• Moved down from grand master to master tier.
• Increased initiative gained per successful evade from 1 to 2. ICD increased from 3s to 5s. This is a slight buff since it feels a bit weak currently(especially for being a gm trait), and it helps with the ICD problem similar to Swindler’s Equilibrium.

Duftpukie.3215:

Solution: There is no need to spawn a NPC at all. It would awesome if they just open a new window (like Karmic Converter, Ley-Energy Matter Converter, Permanent Bank Access Express, Permanent Portable Provisioner, etc.)

+1 The tech should basically already be there, so just take how those other items work and apply the current, already-made, Merchant/BLTC windows to them instead. Here is a list of some of the main resulting benefits of this implementation:

• Other players would no longer have to render something that they can’t even use.
• Other players would no longer be able to be “tricked” into trying to access the NPCs when they can’t.
• The NPCs would no longer be “trollable”, such as when someone places them on top of a resource node, chest, etc, making it difficult to gather from what the NPC is on top of. This is especially bad considering those other players can’t even access the NPC to begin with like the single use versions.

Unfortunately I wouldn’t hold my breath for these changes though, as I and several others have posted about this topic over the past 2+ years, and nothing has changed yet. Who knows though, maybe this issue was just on a low priority, and it’s time has finally come to be fixed.

JVJD.4912:

No i don’t find the 600 ores excessive that’s about 15-18 DS map clears, in return you get the runes to use in any part of the game so…..

Yeah, you can use the runes on one armor set for one character in PvE and WvW. If you want the runes on another armor set with different stats or on another character, you will have to complete another 15-18 DS maps each. If you could buy the recipe for the runes for 600 ores, it wouldn’t be quite as bad.

SuinegTsol.1729:

after dragon down there are one new area per lane opened, which contains like 30/40 pods at all, so considured you’re that lucky gou you could find like 500 ore’s within a map^^ but random….

The largest amount of pods I’ve been able to open per map completion is about 30-40. I would guess that there is about 50-60 pods on the entire map, so I’m not sure how anyone could get 500 ores per map, even if each pod luckily gave 3 ores (each pod gives around 1 crystalline ore on average though).

Even if you could get 600 crystalline ores for 6 Runes of Leadership in one map run through, the opportunity cost is huge. As stated in my previous post, you could buy 27 of the other new runes in total (7.5 Runes of Thorns, 7.5 Runes of Surging, AND 12 Runes of Durability) instead of all of the machetes that you need to gather 600 crystalline ores for just 6 Runes of Leadership. You don’t have to spend any time completing DS or opening noxious pods for the 27 other new runes either, you just have to gather the map currencies.

Miellyn.6847:

The actual point is, would we ever have seen legendary armor without raids? If the answer is ‘no’, there is no reason to cry it is raid only.

People are just arguing for their own personal interest, including those who are advocating that the armor should stay raid exclusive. I have yet to see a good agrument as to why it should stay raid exclusive, other than that it would be in the interest of people who are active PvE raiders. They want a unique/special reward for completing the challenging content that they enjoy, even if other game modes don’t have anything as rewarding to work towards as well.

Anyone advocating keeping it raid exclusive, without having anything similar as a reward in other game modes that can be just as challenging, is just being selfish. Fortunately, I don’t think many are advocating that exactly, but some are advocating keeping it raid exclusive and for Anet to just add additional unique sets of Legendary Armor for WvW and PvP too. That would be a reasonable suggestion that I’d support, but there is no indication of anything like that being in the works, or even being planned. As far as we know, that could be years away from taking place, if at all.

If it’s not being planned to add additional Legendary Armor sets for WvW/PvP, then that is why people are expressing their concerns about keeping this armor set so exclusive to PvE raids. If this set was currently exclusive to WvWers for instance, I wouldn’t really have a problem with people suggesting adding other methods to obtain it through PvP or raids, unless maybe Anet was already planning on adding new Legendary Armor sets for those game modes too.

These are just a few ideas I had that I thought would make for a good discussion. Some of these changes would effect other classes too, but they will mainly effect thieves so thieves are the main topic for discussion. Hopefully some interesting and helpful new ideas emerge from this.

Here are the changes for discussion:

1) Blindness now stacks in intensity, with a maximum of 5 stacks. One blind stack is removed for each attack you land, and cleansing blindness removes all stacks.

2) Black Powder now only lasts for 2 seconds, pulsing once at the start and once at the end of its lifetime. Each pulse now applies 2 stacks of blindness for 2 seconds to compensate for its shorter lifespan.

3) Combo finishers that grant stealth are now effected by Meld with Shadows.

4) Only the damage/vulnerability portion of Cloak and Dagger can be nullified(blinded, blocked, evaded etc). As long as you are in range of your target and would have landed CnD if not for the nullification, you will still gain stealth.

5) Attacks from stealth that are nullified(blinded, blocked, evaded, etc) will now cause you to lose your current stealth buff. (You do not get revealed, you just lose your current stealth) Successfully landing an attack from stealth will still reveal you like normal.

Related Trait Changes:

• Shadow’s Embrace : Remove a condition when you enter stealth and when you get revealed.

• Shadow’s Rejuvenation : Recover 1 initiative and 450 health when you enter stealth and when you get revealed.

• Cloaked in Shadow : Apply 2 stacks of blindness to nearby foes for 3 seconds when you are revealed.
  -The fall damage portion from the current version of this trait would be merged into a different trait, like Hidden Thief.

Obviously some more traits, skills, etc. could be modified to reflect these changes, but these seem like the main ones for now.

With these changes it will be a little easier to enter stealth, but landing stealth attacks will be a bit more difficult, allowing for more counter play. Since it would be easier to gain stealth, some measures are taken to discourage staying in stealth while rewarding successfully exiting stealth. This should help thieves have a bit better sustain without having to be in stealth as long, not contributing much to fights.

Some of these changes could have pretty big impacts on thief play styles, so I am curious to see what everyone would think about changes like these if they were implemented.

Just a few counter points to help with the discussion:

Gray.9041:

Meld with shadows needs improved. it’s seriously lackluster right now, espescially compared with Mesmer’s PU.

magi.4687:

Meld With Shadow needs imporved.

Mesmer’s stealth safty, easy, powerful more than thief.

Well this thread wasn’t necessarily about completely fixing the Shadow Arts line, but if it would help the discussion maybe I could include more changes to it. I agree even though mesmer PU is a gm trait, Meld with Shadows feels way weaker. It may also be that PU is just too strong.

Ilias.8647:

Blinding that stack intensity, each stack removed by each attack. Some professions will be simply shut down by this for several seconds.

Its almost the same as someone asking Stun to stack duration.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Blind fields already pulse and even though it’s on 2 seconds people still say that it is ‘perma blind’ . Adding blind stacks is a very dangerous thing try to balance. Blind is good as it is.

Currently Black Powder does a total of 4 blind applications including the projectile, and after these changes it would be 5 but over a smaller period of time. Maybe these changes would be slightly too much to Black Powder, but it would probably need to be tested to know for sure. If so Black Powder can just be further tweaked, that wouldn’t immediately discard the blind stack idea or anything.
Edit: Another thing about Black Powder is since the duration for the smoke field is shorter, it would be easier to avoid stepping in it, and thus might actually not be as strong in some cases.

The overall idea for blindness stacking was to make it slightly more threatening possibly, as it is very easy to remove the current one stack of blindness. Also whenever blindness is removed by a condition cleanse it usually feels like a bit of a waste since a single auto attack could have just removed it. Keep in mind that just because blindness can stack in intensity doesn’t mean that all current blind attacks would get buffed to immediately apply 5 stacks of blindness, or even 2. The only related skills changed so far are Black Powder possibly, which only applies 1 extra blind stack over its lifespan, and Cloaked in Shadow, which could use a buff compared to its current form. Blind in general has quite short durations so getting 5 stacks wouldn’t be too common, and blind stacking probably wouldn’t be noticed much at all except in group fights possibly. Even if you did get bombed by blinds you could use a condition cleanse to remove it just like with other conditions if you wanted. Currently when you apply blind from 2 different sources, its usually wasted as adding to the duration doesn’t add much value.

He was probably using a build that included Superior Runes of the Trapper, which grants you stealth when you use a trap.

The delay is still there for me. Try using the Sword #1 on nothing and after about 0.5 seconds (right when you would see a damage number on a target normally), use Flanking Strike or any other weapon skill with a cast time. Your character will stand still doing nothing for around 0.5 seconds before you use the second skill.

If you use a skill before the damage goes off, it cancels the auto attack (thus doing no damage) and uses the other skill instead. This might be what was happening to you.

I agree that players should be able to summon one of each type of contract NPC (Black Lion Merchant, Trading Post, and Banker) at a time. Alternatively, you could allow the owner to dismiss the current NPC they have out and allow them to summon a new NPC afterwards, or just automatically dismiss the previous NPC they have out and replace it with the new one they are trying to summon. This would help the player by not requiring them to remember where the current NPC they have out is and having to travel back to it to use it, and the player would not have to wait 5 minutes between each different type of NPC service they want to use. One of these changes, or a different one that addresses these problems, would be appreciated.

The rune’s 4th bonus should only effect up to 5 allies. That means even with 5 people using the runes, each with +100% boon duration, the longest amount of resistance they could grant each of the 5 players is 10 seconds, or 50% up time. These runes seem to be the defensive equivalent of Pack Runes, which are also strong. For instance, it would only take 2 players using Pack Runes, with no extra boon duration needed, to grant a group of 5 permanent fury, swiftness, and 2 stacks of might.

“Thief—Steal: Removed this ability’s target requirement. This skill will no longer attempt to fire (and go on cooldown) on enemies outside of its maximum distance.”

The target requirement got reverted in the patch. Line of Sight and Out of Range errors still don’t put Steal on a 5 second CD either, nice.

Puck.9612:

Dhemize.8649:

It’s about risk/reward. If all you count on is to burst an unsuspecting player down in 5 seconds then retaliation should indeed pose a major counter. Slower hitting players have the risk of a drawn out fight that includes many other factors.

Except that’s not how it works anymore.
You have attacks hitting for 10k+ every few seconds that retal barely has any effect on, and then you have weapons that are rendered nearly useless like flamethrower or ranger shortbow.
You aren’t bursting anyone down with ranger shortbow, your kitten near hurting yourself more than your opponent because it’s direct damage is crap but it hits so fast.

Anyway I don’t think that’s why the op is suggesting the internal cooldown. This isn’t about 1v1’s, this is about whole builds being completely useless in large scale fights because retal is almost always passively up and shooting into a zerg will kill you without even slowing the enemy zerg.

Yep, you can burst someone down within 5 seconds from slower hitting attacks too, taking minimal retaliation damage. All of the listed fast hitting skills and several more are punished too much even just in 1v1 scenarios. In zergs the problem is much worse, to the point where using some of these skills will kill yourself in a few seconds, even if you don’t get hit by anything else besides the retaliation.

Here are a few changes that I think will help make some Revanant legends/traits better for more build diversity. Feel free to post any ideas you have as well.

Legend Changes

Centaur Stance:

-Project Tranquility should have an effect radius of 360. The current radius on most of the tablet skills is too small making them difficult to use. It would also help to make the effect radius on these skills a bit more visible. The healing pulse from this skill should also scale better with Healing Power, at about a 0.15 coefficient.

-Ventari’s Will should have its cool down decreased to 3 seconds. The last increase from 2 to 4 seconds was a bit too much. It should also heal a bit more (staying at about half as much as Natural Harmony), and it should cripple enemies that it passes through.

-Protective Solace has a bug where the upkeep energy drain from Protective Solace stays on after Ventari’s Tablet despawns when you move outside of its tether distance. You can still deactivate it manually, but it should automatically since the tablet is no longer in world and thus no longer blocking projectiles.

-Natural Harmony should have an effect radius of 360, and it could heal for a bit more than it does currently (maybe about 25% more).

-Purifying Essence should have an effect radius of 360, and it should additionally be a stun break.

-Energy Expulsion should have a decreased delay time so it can be used as an interrupt more easily. It should also blind/cripple nearby foes.

Dwarf Stance:

-Inspiring Reinforcement is a bit underwhelming due to the high energy cost while also not being a stun breaker. The energy cost could maybe be reduced to 25, and it should be an instant cast stun break skill. Also, the duration of the pulsing stability should be increased to 2 seconds to give you a bit more flexibility in your positioning.

-Forced Engagement has too high of an energy cost since it’s a single target skill. An energy cost of 25 seems more fitting.

-Vengeful Hammers has a bug where it deactivates when standing next to a wall or on uneven surfaces. Other than that it seems pretty solid.

-Rite of the Great Dwarf should have a 0.25s cast time and no longer be a stun break. The 50% condition damage reduction from Versed in Stone should be included by default. Currently, if you get interrupted before it finishes casting you still lose all 50 energy for (maybe) a stun break, which is too punishing especially given its long cast time. Since this skill is no longer stun break it should only use the 50 energy if it successfully finishes casting.

Demon Stance:

-Empowering Misery should also grant 1-3 seconds of resistance, even if only to ensure that the heal is unaffected by poison. This will help make Demonic Defiance not feel quite as necessary to take.

-Banish Enchantment should have its range increased to 900. It should only apply 2 stacks of confusion by default, with an additional stack for each boon removed. Reduce the duration of the applied confusion to 5 seconds.

Trait Changes

Corruption:

-Replenishing Despair should scale better with Healing Power, at about a 0.1 coefficient.

-Venom Enhancement should have its cool down reduced to 10 seconds. Reduce the poison duration increase to +33%.

-Frigid Precision should also cause you to inflict 3 stacks of vulnerability for 6 seconds when you chill someone.

-Spontaneous Destruction should have its cool down reduced to 20 seconds. It’s even less likely to pierce multiple foes than the actual skill since you can’t really control when this one activates.

-Pulsating Pestilence is currently bugged and only applies torment from Embrace the Darkness.

Retribution:

-Improved Aggression should be changed to: Incoming movement-impeding conditions have their durations reduced by 33%. Gain 3s of retaliation when you are affected by one of these conditions (10s ICD).

-Unwavering Avoidance should have the Stability duration increased to 3 seconds.

-Retaliatory Evasion should have the Retaliation duration increased to 3 seconds.

-Empowering Vengeance should additionally make your Retaliation deal 50% more damage.

-Versed in Stone should have the condition damage reduction portion included in Rite of the Great Dwarf by default.

-Steadfast Rejuvenation should prevent poison from hindering your heals and should grant you 5 seconds of regeneration on an incoming poison (5s ICD).

Salvation:

-Disarming Riposte should have its cool down reduced to 15 seconds.

-Eluding Nullification should have its cool down decreased to 5 seconds.

-Momentary Pacification should be change to: Enemy skills that you interrupt have their cool down increased by 10 seconds. Immobilize enemies that you interrupt for 2 seconds (10s ICD).

-Natural Abundance should additionally cause energy fragments to grant 2 seconds of vigor.

Invocation:

-Fierce Infusion should grant you 150 Ferocity while under the effects of Fury instead. There are already enough Fury sources from this trait line and else where.

-Invigorating Flow should have its healing increased to about 500 with a 0.2 Healing Power coefficient. It should also switch places with Cleansing Channel in the adept tier.

-Cleansing Channel should switch places with Invigorating Flow in the Master tier. It should now remove one condition from you periodically while you have an upkeep skill on (5s ICD).

-Equilibrium should have its healing portion increased to about 500 with a 0.4 Healing Power coefficient.

Devastation:

-Ferocious Strikes should be changed so you gain 7% of your power as ferocity. Currently this trait is sort of a duplicate (and lesser) version of Vicious Lacerations because the only one handed weapons that Revenants can dual wield besides a sword is a main-hand mace and an off-hand axe, both of which are condition orientated which ferocity doesn’t benefit much. This will help staff and hammer users have an option to increase their damage as well.

-Jade Echo should have its cool down reduced to 45 seconds.

Dagger:

-(1.1-1.3) Auto Attack Chain is fine as is.

-Stealth Attack could have its damage increased by about 5%.

• Since it will a bit harder to land stealth attacks, and everyone seems to have a lot more sustain/damage mitigation now, this should be fine.

-(2) Heartseeker is fine as is.

-(D/D 3) Death Blossom is fine as is.

-(D/P 3) Shadow Shot could have its damage reduced by about 5%.

• Currently Shadow Shot feels slightly too strong having an unblockable blind and 900 range shadowstep while also dealing good damage for 4 initiative.

-(4) Dancing Dagger should have its damage increased by 20-30%. Alternatively, if this skill is supposed to be more condition orientated, it could apply some torment in addition to the cripple instead of the damage increase.

• Currently this does about 10% less damage than the short bow auto attack but costs 3 initiative to use. It does apply cripple and is a 100% chance projectile combo finisher, but off hand dagger users don’t have many combo fields available to pull off combos.

-(5) Cloak and Dagger will now apply 3 seconds of blind instead of vulnerability. In addition, one of the following changes should be applied to the skill to make it more on par with D/P:

• (Option 1) Reduce the cast time to 1/4 of a second.
• (Option 2) Include a short range targeted shadow step in the skill. A 450 range shadow step should be good.
• (Option 3) Only the blind and damage portion of this skill can be nullified(blinded, blocked, evaded etc). As long as you are in range of your target and not currently revealed, you will gain the stealth. This should be fine because the stealth portion isn’t a direct attack on the target (similar to applying a boon to yourself).

Sword:

-(1.1-1.3) Auto Attack Chain seems to have an aftercast/delay problem which should be looked into. More info can be found here.

-Stealth Attack should have its damage increased by about 5-10%.

• Currently this does a little less damage than either of the first 2 weaker sword auto attacks and only hits one target.

-(2.1) Infiltrator’s Strike should have its damage increased by about 5-10%. It also has the Shadowstep line of sight issues.

• Currently this does a little less damage than either of the first 2 weaker sword auto attacks.

-(2.2) Infiltrator’s Return should be an instant cast, but you still can’t use it while stunned similar to Infiltrator’s Strike and Withdraw. It also has the Shadowstep line of sight issues.

-(S/D 3.1) Flanking Strike should have its damage increased by about 5-10%. It should also roll over to Larcenous Strike even if it’s blocked etc, basically as long as you are in range.

• Currently this does a little less damage than either of the first 2 weaker sword auto attacks.

-(S/D 3.2) Larcenous Strike should have its damage increased by about 5-10%.

• This skill can only hit one target unlike most of the other sword skills and requires you to land a Flanking Strike before gaining access to it. It doesn’t currently deal the best damage given those circumstances.

-(S/P 3) Pistol Whip should be split into a two part skill similar to Flanking Strike and Larcenous Strike. The first part is the 0.5 second stunning strike from the current Pistol Whip and costs 3 initiative to use. The second follow up skill is the rooted evading 8 strikes from the current Pistol Whip which will cost 2 initiative to use. You will have 5 seconds to use the second portion of the skill after the first stun attack portion, similar to S/D #3. The initial 0.5 second stun strike should also have a bit shorter of a cast time.

Trait Changes

Trickery:

Preparedness is rolled into base initiative for thieves. Base Steal cool down is reduced to 25 seconds. Sleight of Hand no longer further reduces the recharge of steal. If you trait into the Trickery line after these changes, Steal should be on the same cool down as it is currently when you take Trickery and Sleight of Hand(21 seconds), but Steal will have a 25 second CD if you don’t take Trickery. This should help prevent Trickery from being as mandatory to take as it is now.

-(Minor|Adept) Kleptomaniac: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Uncatchable: In addition to its current effect, you also immobilize a foe for 1 second when you cripple them on a 10s ICD.

-(Major|Adept) (New Trait) Thief’s Presence: You and nearby allies periodically steal boons from foes.

• When you enter combat you and nearby allies gain a Larcenous Aura buff which causes you to steal 1 boon when you strike an enemy (10s ICD). Works similar to traits like Vampiric Presence. This should be a good team support option for thieves.

-(Major|Adept) Thrill of the Crime: Fine as is.

-(Minor|Master) Assassin’s Reward: Moved from Acrobatics to here.

• This trait was never Grandmaster worthy, as it only heals for about as much as having a 50% up time of Regeneration, and only if you are constantly using initiative in combat. This should be a good replacement for the old Preparedness trait, since both revolve around initiative. This also shouldn’t be too powerful either, avoiding a power creep. The base healing per initiative spent should probably be increased from 69 to 75 too.

-(Major|Master) Bountiful Theft: Rip one boon from the target you Steal from and grant it to yourself and nearby allies. Steal an extra boon whenever you steal a boon from a foe. No longer grants vigor baseline.

• This will still make Steal steal 2 boons total from your foe, but since only 1 of the stolen boons is shared with allies, it should grant you and allies the full duration/stacks of the boon you steal like other boon steals. It will also effect Larcenous Strike and the new Thief’s Presence trait (only effects your own boon steal, not allies) so they will also steal an extra boon if you take this trait.

-(Major|Master) Trickster: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Pressure Striking: Fine as is.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Lead Attacks: Fine as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Sleight of Hand: Daze the foe you Steal from for 1 second. Bewildering Ambush is also combined into this trait since Sleight of Hand no longer further reduces the recharge on Steal.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Improvisation: Moved from Deadly Arts to Trickery since it seems to fit here better. Still allows you to use stolen items twice. In addition, Stealing will now grant you an Improvisation buff for 10 seconds that reduces the cool down of the next utility skill you use by 50% instead of randomly recharging an entire skill category.

• This works similar to Engineer’s Kinetic Battery trait, and allows for more skillful play instead of being so random.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Quick Pockets: Reduces weapon swapping to a 5 second cool down and restores 1 initiative when you weapon swap while in combat.

• This should be good competition for Improvisation and also seems like it should be a possible feature for thieves. Thieves don’t benefit as much as other classes from swapping weapons in combat because both weapon sets we use share the same initiative pool, but the initiative gain on weapon swap should help with that a little, and having more flexibility on when you can swap weapons is nice to have.

Deadly Arts:

-(Minor|Adept) Serpent’s Touch: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Dagger Training: Dagger attacks have a 50% chance to poison enemies for 3 seconds.

-(Major|Adept) Mug: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Trappers Respite: Fine as is. Withdraw should be changed to drop the trap at the beginning of the backwards dodge roll though.

-(Minor|Master) Lotus Poison: Applies 5 seconds of weakness instead of 4.

-(Major|Master) Deadly Trapper: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Panic Strike: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Revealed Training: Gain 5 stacks of might for 5 seconds when you land an attack from stealth.

• This trait will help both power and condition builds now, and since revealed is normalized to last 3 seconds in PvP like the rest of the game, this change is needed.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Exposed Weakness: Fine as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Potent Poison: Fins as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) (New Trait) Debilitating Weakness: When you apply Weakness to a foe you also apply 3 seconds of Slow to them (15s ICD).

-(Major|Grandmaster) Executioner: Fine as is.

Kocoff.7582:

I would at least expect the stealth to stack in duration if you traited Hidden Thief instead of causing reveal.

Yeah, it would be nice if that combo would stack in duration.

kitten widget.9301:

That is because when your heartseeker lands, you already won stealth from hidden thief then you do damage with heartseeker that try to stealth you as part of the leap combo but you are already revealed.

You have two solutions:

1) Don’t trait hidden thief
2) Precast Black Powder, then steal then backstab

For solution number 2 you don’t need to precast Black Powder if you have Hidden Thief, unless you want to blind them first or something. Just Steal->Backstab works.

Critical Strikes:

-(Minor|Adept) Opportunist: An old thief trait brought back and moved to this tier instead. 50% chance to restore 1 initiative on a critical hit (10s ICD).

-(Major|Adept) Flanking Strikes: Moved from Trickery to here. Now has a 50 second cool down just like the reworked Haste skill.

-(Major|Adept) Signets of Power: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Side Strike: Fine as is.

-(Minor|Master) Unrelenting Strikes: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Sundering Strikes: Critical hits have a 50% chance to apply vulnerability for 8 seconds.

-(Major|Master) Practiced Tolerance: Fine as is, but should be renamed to something else since it doesn’t match its new functionality.

-(Major|Master) Pistol Mastery: This is the old Ankle Shots trait but renamed. Pistol shots now pierce. Pistol shots have a 25% chance to inflict 3 seconds of blind on foes you critically hit (5s ICD).

• The piercing bullets from this trait should help pistols in group fights a bit more, replacing the old chance for bullets to bounce from ricochet. It could also just help pierce through ranger pets/mesmer clones/necromancer minions etc, which can currently body block pistols quite well. The small chance to inflict blind on foes you critically hit will mostly help power P/P builds have a bit more defense when using Unload because they have a higher critical chance and Unload fires a lot of bullets quickly.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Ferocious Strikes: Deal 20% extra damage to foes whose health is above 50%.

• Currently only deals 10% extra damage to foes whose health is above 50%. This trait is sort the opposite of Executioner, focusing on doing more damage to foes above 50% health instead of below. Ferocious Strikes would still be weaker than Executioner after this change because FS only applies to critical hits, unlike Executioner.

-(Major|Grandmaster) No Quarter: Fine as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Hidden Killer: Additionally increases critical hit damage by 10% while in stealth.

• This will help it compete with No Quarter better since NQ allows you to potentially burst higher with a stealth attack even though it won’t always be a guaranteed chance to critically hit from stealth. No Quarter seems like it’s more of a sustained out of stealth dps trait, so Hidden Killer should get a small boost to continue to be the best single big burst stealth attack trait(Backstab).

-(Major|Grandmaster) Invigorating Precision: Fine as is.

Shadow Arts:

Shadow Arts in general is reworked to discourage camping in stealth for all of its survivability. It now encourages entering and exiting stealth more rapidly instead. There are also some traits that get moved around etc.

-(Minor|Adept) Merciful Ambush: Fine as is.

-(Major|Adept) Last Refuge: No changes but the fall damage reduction portion from Cloaked in Shadow is now merged into this trait.

-(Major|Adept) Shadow Protector: Moved down from Master tier. Grants 4-5 seconds of regeneration to yourself and allies that you stealth.

• The current 3 seconds of regeneration that this applies is a bit too short.

-(Major|Adept) Shadow’s Embrace: Remove a condition from yourself when you enter and exit stealth.

-(Minor|Master) Meld with Shadows: Increases the duration of stealth you apply by 1 second. Fleet Shadow from Acrobatics is also merged into this trait, so you will move 50% faster in stealth if you take Shadow Arts.

• The maximum movement speed is still capped at +33%, but this can effectively ignore crippled etc while you are stealthed to allow for easier positioning.
• The extra second of stealth now also effects combo finishers that grant stealth(Black Powder->Heartseeker/Cluster Bomb, etc).

-(Major|Master) Master of Deception: The old Concealed Defeat is renamed and moved up from Adept tier. It now reduces the recharge time of Deception skills by 20% and creates a Smoke Screen when your health reaches the 25% threshold. (24s ICD always since this trait itself reduces the recharge of Deception skills)

-(Major|Master) Hidden Thief: Fine as is.

-(Major|Master) Leeching Venoms: Grants you 1 stack of might for 15 seconds each time you activate a venom skill and apply a venom stack to yourself. Still siphons life when you trigger a venom like normal as well.

• With the changes to venoms this will give you more might stacks over all than it currently does, which is good because it’s currently a little weak.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Resilience of Shadows: Fine as is.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Cloaked in Shadow: Blind nearby foes when you enter stealth and when you land an attack from stealth.

• The fall damage reduction portion of this trait is merged into Last Refuge instead.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Recover 1 initiative and 500-600 health when you enter stealth and when you land an attack from stealth.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Venomous Aura: Reduce the recharge of venoms by 20%. Share half of your venom skill applications with allies.

• For example, each time you activate a venom skill to apply a venom stack to yourself, it will check if that venom type has already shared half of its stacks with allies yet. If not, it will share that venom stack with nearby allies as well. Alternatively, activating a venom could just have a 50% chance to share it with nearby allies if that’s easier/better.

Acrobatics:

Currently Acrobatics is quite a weak trait line as a whole. These changes here are to help it be on par with other trait lines and to stand out a bit more compared to the new Daredevil elite specialization.

-(Minor|Adept) Expeditious Dodger: Gain 2.5 seconds of Superspeed when you dodge roll.

-(Major|Adept) Practiced Tolerance: 7% of precision is converted into vitality.

• The current Practiced Tolerance: should be renamed to something more fitting, opening this name back up for this trait. This trait can be quite useful to thieves since we have the lowest base health pool.

-(Major|Adept) (New Trait) Instinctive Retaliation: Evading an attack causes the attacker to be hit with Retaliation.

• This is basically a passive Retaliation boon, but it only triggers when you evade attacks.

-(Major|Adept) Vigorous Recovery: When you gain vigor you cleanse a condition from yourself (5s ICD).

• Thieves already have a good amount of vigor, and we are lacking some pure condition cleansing options.

-(Minor|Master) Feline Grace: Gain 5-6 seconds of vigor upon successfully evading an attack (3s ICD).

• These changes should prevent vigor from possibly stacking up too long.

-(Major|Master) Upper Hand: Gain 1 initiative and 2 stacks of might for 15 seconds when you successfully evade an attack (5s ICD).

-(Major|Master) Swindler’s Equilibrium: Successfully evading an attack while wielding a sword or spear recharges steal by 3 seconds (5s ICD).

• Currently reducing steal’s recharge by 1s with a 1s ICD, it is about impossible to achieve the best results as you cannot dodge nearly once per second consistently, nor would that be optimal as you would be dealing no damage. This should help achieve good results more realistically without promoting dodge spamming to get the most use out of this.

-(Major|Master) Guarded Initiation: Gain 3 seconds of stability(1 stack) and resistance when you Steal from a foe.

• The current Guarded Initiation feels too situational/restricted to be very useful.

-(Minor|Grandmaster) Endless Stamina: Vigor is 100% more effective on you.

• Currently, this trait only gives you an extra dodge every 40 seconds if you have permanent vigor, which is very weak. With this change it will give you an extra dodge every 20 seconds with permanent vigor, which still isn’t too strong so it could definitely use this buff.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Hard to Catch: When you Steal from an enemy you gain 5 stacks of a Hard to Catch buff for 10 seconds. A successful evade uses up 1 stack of the buff, and restores 20-25 endurance. (1s ICD so all the procs couldn’t be used up from one dodge, possibly wasting some of the endurance gained like the current version of this trait)

• Currently this trait instantly restores 100 endurance when you get stunned and stun breaks. You still get interrupted however, and if you already have some endurance when you get stunned then you gain less than 100 endurance, possibly gaining 0 endurance if you are already full. That could make this trait purely a stun break on a 30s ICD. The stun break also isn’t controllable so it could end up being wasted on a very minor daze like Headshot. These changes will fix those problems, while also having a more active play style that rewards successful dodges.

-(Major|Grandmaster) (New Trait) Superior Agility: Stolen Skills now break stun when used. Gain 2 seconds of quickness when you break out of a stun.

• Stolen skills still have their same cast times, they will just stun break when you initially activate them now. If you do stun break you will also gain quickness, making it a bit easier to cast the stolen abilities or a different skill of choice.

-(Major|Grandmaster) Don’t Stop: Cripple and chill applied to you have 50% reduced effectiveness. Periodically ignore incoming immobilize effects.

• Incoming immobilizes should just be cleared immediately with a 10s ICD instead of converting it to cripple.

Daredevil

Traitline:
-Seems to be good overall.

Staff:

-(1.1-1.3) Auto Attack Chain is fine as is.

-Stealth Attack is fine as it is.

-(2) Weakening Charge should be cancellable through weapon stowing, dodging, etc. Its pre-cast and after-cast times needs to be reduced too because they make this skill feel clunky, and it leaves you vulnerable for too long. Also, quickness doesn’t seem to speed up the animation for some reason.

-(3) Debilitating Arc should stun for 1/4 of a second and only cripple for 2-3 seconds.

• This should help staff get better use out of Pulmonary Impact and make the skill more useful overall.

-(4) Dust Strike should effect up to 5 targets instead of 3, and it should have a slightly larger cone/radius.

-(5) Vault could use a short vertical component to it (equivalent to the jump height) to make it feel a bit better. It also doesn’t always travel the full distance for some reason which needs to be fixed.

• As of now Vault can get caught on a small rock that you could just jump over otherwise. This would fit the theme and name of the skill too.

Physical Skills:

-Channeled Vigor is fine as it is.

-Impairing Daggers is fine as it is.

-Fist Flurry should have its order reversed. It should start out with Palm Strike, and roll over to Fist Flurry. The last strike of Fist Flurry should inflict the Pulmonary Impact now instead.

• Currently a single random blind/aegis/etc can prevent you from gaining access to Palm Strike too easily. This change should fix that while still rewarding you for landing the Fist Flurry.

-Distracting Daggers should be instantly castable even while you are currently performing another skill etc, instead of interrupting whatever you are doing to throw them. Basically, it should work similar to Mesmer’s Power Lock.

-Bandit’s Defense should be changed to have a roll over skill when you block an attack which you have 5 seconds to activate if you choose. The roll over skill is the current knock down portion of the skill. The block duration could maybe be increased to 1.5 seconds as well.

• Currently this skill can get you killed pretty easily when it automatically locks you into a knockdown attack animation after blocking an attack.

-Impact Strike: The downed state finisher portion of this skill should bypass blinds, blocks, etc like a normal finisher does. Also, you should be able to use other skills between each of the chained skills without putting the skill on cool down.

I think it would be great if there were more ways to earn Legendary Insights (Especially if different Legendary Armor skins for other game modes isn’t already planned).

For example, upon completing any of the raid wings, it could unlock that wing’s reward track for PvP/WvW (similar to how completing the living world story unlocks the corresponding new map’s reward track currently).

The reward track could award the same amount of Legendary Insights as you can normally get per week for completing that raid wing. Each raid wing’s reward track could also be limited to only being able to be completed once per week.

This additional method of obtaining Legendary Insights would help alleviate a lot of players frustrations about having to “grind” PvE raids for so long to obtain enough LI for Legendary Armor, without removing the skill factor needed to complete the PvE raids in the first place. And don’t forget, Legendary Insights are only just one of the many ingredients needed to craft Legendary Armor.

So to recap, with this additional method of obtaining Legendary Insights, the following will remain to be true for obtaining Legendary Armor:

• It still requires completing each of the current raid wings at least once (to complete the Legendary Armor collection achievements & to unlock the reward tracks).
• The above requirement therefore makes sure that obtaining Legendary Armor still requires a certain level of skill (for those that think WvW/PvP some how inherently requires less skill than the PvE raids).
• Obtaining enough Legendary Insights still requires a significant time investment (Skilled raiding groups should be able to get the LI quicker still)

And the following would No Longer be true to obtain the armor:

• You have to “grind” PvE Raids for weeks edit: months on end, even if that is not your preferred area of game play.