Guild Wars 2

Miellyn.6847:

There is also no good reason to make this particular set available for everyone. Instead they should ask for another set in another game mode. New sets should take much shorter with the engine groundwork done.

Yeah I mentioned that I would support such a thing in that very quote, and I would think/hope you are right about it being easier to add new legendary armor sets in the future. The only potential problem with that suggestion is, will additional legendary armor sets for other game modes actually be something that gets implemented? Only Anet could answer that, and I don’t think they have said anything on the subject yet. If it’s not something they want to do, then that makes for a great reason to make this particular set more available to players.

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.

Nikkinella.8254:

That, I could accept. I could just pay some pve guild to do it for me while i afk through all the wings once. Then I could earn the armor playing my preferred mode and not have to suffer continuously through mind numbingly boring pve that i have zero interest in, just to get something that would be beneficial for me in WvW. But doing something like that would make sense and would benefit everyone, so of course Anet will never do it.

That would be better than having to pay them 12 times right? Lol, even if selling runs was banned or something, I would still be much more willing to give raids a try knowing that I only had to complete them once worst case scenario, and I’m sure lots of others would too. Who knows, some people might even end up enjoying them, and stick around to do some more… Which is what Anet seems to be pushing for with this.

Nikkinella.8254:

That would be a compromise I would be willing to make. But I would PREFER that WvW gets its own separate unique legendary armor different from the PvE version that requires zero interaction with anything PvE related that WvW players could get only from doing WvW

Yeah, me too ideally. As long as that’s not another 2 years away from being implemented before we can even start working towards making it.

Chinchilla.1785:

As for attraction. Idk. The main detractor of WvW (and every aspect of this game tbh) is actually balance. It’s probably the one thing the WvW community can agree on. I can say that implementing a legendary progression for WvWers wouldn’t hurt. Assuming it’s toward the Raid armor. I just don’t think it’s plausible for a new set exclusive to WvW.

I would agree that the balance can be improved on for sure, which would also help. As you said though, the balance doesn’t only effect WvW, so that can’t be the only thing keeping players from participating in it more. If it’s not plausible to have an entire exclusive new set of legendary armor for WvW or PvP too, then that’s even more of a reason to make this current set that’s about to be released more accessible to people who don’t do PvE raids.

Here’s a suggestion I made in the main Legendary Armor feedback thread which I think would go a long way in helping with that:

Also, I don’t think this would require too much work to implement, so there’s another pro. Of course, there are other approaches that could be taken as well, but what would you guys think of something like that?

Chinchilla.1785:

Probably bad wording. Bluntly. I don’t believe Legendary Armor is a high priority for WvW based on the amount of players active in it (as you said) and there by the game mode contributes less gem funding because of the lack of population. I am not saying I know the actual value each player on average contributes. I mean what you exactly pointed out. Less players, less money. So, not necessarily good for business.

It’s unfortunate. WvW makes more use of stats switching than any other game mode by far in my opinion.

As for why the population is low is too many things to go into potentially. I can say that map caps did not help in that regard at launch (you couldn’t even see queue numbers back then!).

Ah okay fair enough, well that clears up what you mean about the profitabilty. However, it still doesn’t explain this:

Raiden.1375:

In any case, there may be less players that actively participate in WvW than in PvE, but I wouldn’t say that WvW is so vacant that it should be abandoned. I think there are probably even fewer active PvE raiders, which is what the Legendary Armor that this topic is about was just released for.

By that logic, shouldn’t the Legendary Armor just be acquired by playing only open world PvE (not raids), since that is what the majority of the player base participates in? Also, if they did make Legendary Armor a reward for WvW, I think that would attract a lot of players into participating in WvW more, thus making it more profitable proportionally.

Chinchilla.1785:

Why should ANET invest anything into WvW? Even if all the WvW players put in 5USD each once a year it’d still be negligible. Probably still not enough to put in the effort for Legendary Armor.

The normal game mode’s max capacity at a single time is only ~28,000. Split that up into the 5 significant time zones then maybe you have 120,000 WvW players…but I doubt it. At least Eotm is effectively uncapped.

WvW has no system in place to make it profitable, so I can see why changes are sparse. It probably manages to only pay for 3 people a year.

Why do you think WvW players are inherently less profitable for Anet? If anything, WvW probably has the worst rewards out of all 3 game modes right now, so they have the least capability to buy gear, convert in game gold to gems, etc.

It could then potentially be argued that WvWers are more willing to spend real cash for gems etc because they can’t afford as much as other players can by just playing their preferred game mode. Or you could also argue WvWers are quitting (at least the WvW game mode) due to that very lack of rewards.

In any case, there may be less players that actively participate in WvW than in PvE, but I wouldn’t say that WvW is so vacant that it should be abandoned. I think there are probably even fewer active PvE raiders, which is what the Legendary Armor that this topic is about was just released for.

Just out of curiosity, would you guys still be upset if Legendary Armor only required clearing all the current raid wings once (just for the Legendary Armor collection achievements)? And then after that, the Legendary Insights could be obtained through weekly reward tracks in WvW or PvP, similar to how raid boss kills only drop the Legendary Insights once per week?

Basically, it would then theoretically be possible to only spend a week or so clearing all of the PvE Raid wings, and then you could go back to WvW or PvP to earn the rest of the Legendary Insights that are needed to craft the armor. Where as right now, you would have to clear the all of the currrent raid wings every week for 3 months straight to acquire enough Legendary Insights for the armor.

Fatalyz.7168:

These collections and LI are the only thing raid related that you need for Legendary armor, everything else comes from somewhere else in the game, which is quite a lot. There is nothing wrong with this model.

I don’t think people would mind as much if you only needed to complete all of the current raid wings once for the collection achievements. The problem is you have to then stick to completing raids over and over again for months, just to get enough of a single ingredient that is needed for each weight of legendary armor that you want.

At that point, raids aren’t just one of the many challenges you need to overcome for Legendary Armor, they are a huge required time sink/grind. And there are a lot of players who don’t enjoy the raiding, and would rather invest their time in other areas of the game that they enjoy instead (which can still be challenging content as well, ie PvP/WvW).

Also, you need 25 Legendary Insights per piece of armor (at least the current recipe shows that you need that many), where as you only need say 5 Chak Eggs and 5 Auric Ingots etc from other areas of the game. I would argue that the Auric Ingots and Chak Eggs are much easier to obtain than the Legendary Insights, but for some reason you need even more of the Insights.

The number of Insights needed per piece of armor could be reduced I suppose, but I think a better idea would be to just increase the number of ways to obtain Legendary Insights, such as in my previous suggestion.

Of course, if there are already plans to make more Legendary Armors skins for those other gamemodes (PvP and WvW), then none of this matters too much. It would be nice to know if that is something being planned though, and hopefully not something that is still years away before we can even start working towards unlocking it, which will take even more time.

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.

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.

fishball.7204:

Proof of heroics were added so that WvW players who wanted to complete their ELITE SPECS didn’t have to do to filthy PVE to do so.

Basically this, and they didn’t want to use badges or honor for the currency because veteran WvW players likely already had a bunch saved up, and that might have given them an edge over players that didn’t WvW much by allowing them to unlock Elite Specs as soon as HoT launched.

Edit: Also, apparently HoT recipes, sigils, and runes are going to be added to the heroics notary vendor in the next patch. Source here.

It’s a bit tricky comparing Dire to Soldier DPS (condition vs physical damage) because conditions ignore toughness. A good test would be to have a full Dire build fight a full glass player(maybe with some vitality) with an average amount of condition cleanses, and then compare that to a full Soldier build fighting that same full glass player. It would be a bit hard to set up a perfect test considering player skill and some classes have stronger condition builds and vice versa, but I would guess that Dire builds would do better overall.

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.

Dhemize.8649:

Is it really bursting if they’re slow attacks? At least you can dodge them as opposed to wasting all stamina to avoid one rapid attack. I can’t even begin to describe the amount of pew pew rangers or thieves that shadow step to crit several times then pop back. Retaliation gives them pause (or at least should to the skilled/observant user). I still believe it’s a good counter measure for the rapid crit happy people out there. Don’t like facing retaliation? Wait it out, use a less punishing skill, boon strip, etc.

Unfortunately retaliation isn’t too difficult to have permanent up time on some classes/builds, so should these fast attacking builds just completely avoid someone with permanent retaliation? Since it’s a bit harder to avoid an entire fast hitting channeled attack than a single high damage burst attack, the fast hitting attacks should take about 10 times the damage from retaliation?

If you at least dodge through part of a Rapid Fire for instance, then the part that hits you wouldn’t be much stronger than the Ranger just auto attacking you anyway. It’s not like you have to avoid every hit from it or else you take it’s full damage. Vengeful Hammers on Revenants is rendered useless, if not a net negative, even against just a single enemy with retaliation. In bigger fights against possibly 5 enemies with retaliation, it can kill you in just a few seconds all by itself from retaliation damage. All of that for a skill that does minimal damage to the enemy in the first place.

With this proposed change, these fast hitting attacks would still largely take more damage than slow hitting attacks, but instead of it being about 10x as much damage for a Rapid Fire, it would be about 4 times as much, which seems much more fair. Also since retaliation would deal more damage overall(the 33% damage reduction in WvW/PvP being removed), an Unload or Rapid Fire would still take about half as much damage as they do now in retaliation with the 0.75s cool down, which is still a sizable amount.

Spartacus.3192:

I always felt that retaliation could have been done where it was based on a percentage of damage recieved (affected by power). That way small fast attacks would still be punishing but not as much as now. Slow hard hitting attacks would be higher retaliation damage. You could set it that it only affected a maximum 5 enemies.

If you really want you could put in ICD on it as mentioned by the poster above, you could but i wouldnt want it too large.

I guess that depends if Anet feels that glass cannon builds need more of a check from classes with retaliation access, or if they think retaliation should be stronger against glass cannons than against tanks since it currently ignores toughness.

Another thing that I think could be interesting is having retaliation stack in intensity rather than duration. Then each time you are struck it removes a stack and deals a fairly large amount of damage to the attacker(maybe like 1k damage per stack). It would probably still need an ICD for how fast each stack could be used up so someone couldn’t burst their self down too fast in retaliation when attacking someone else with multiple retaliation stacks. This would make retaliation more of a temporary deterrence I think like what Dhemize was suggesting. Obviously that would require quite a bit more work rebalancing all of the skills/traits that currently grant retaliation though.

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.

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?

Varezenem.2813:

On Ventari I specifically disagree with you on the healing output of NH.
NH can and has to have its healing increased, VW can probably get the same increase considering that right now both have the same cost/healing.
The reason NH can have the output increased is that it only has big numbers if you compare the total healing output to a druid or a tempests you’ll see that Ventari is UP.
If you throw into the equation the ease of landing those heals druids and tempests win by a large margin.

Yeah I’ve started looking into how much Druids/Tempests heal for and Ventari heals seem to fall quite a bit short, especially since Revenants have to use all of their energy to try to heal as much, and then they can’t really do anything else for a while until it regenerates. It’s even a bit worse considering Ventari has no water fields which scale exceptionally well with larger groups blasting them. I’m not exactly sure how much more NH/VW would have to heal for to be on par though.

Also, I added a bug I found with Protective Solace in the OP:

Raiden.1375:

-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.

Yannir.4132:

I suggest that you don’t try to buff Unwavering Avoidance, that trait is alrdy too powerful. Revs can just dodge out of guardian wards, and that shouldn’t happen ever. Rev needs another source of stability that isn’t passive crap like the current Unwavering Avoidance.

Revenants can’t just dodge out of Guardian wards or other skills like that unless they already have stability, in which case they could just walk out of it too. Sometimes you can dodge and get the stability to proc while inside, but only after you bump into the ward and knocks you back inside for about a second, and only then could they walk out.

Van Bergen.5084:

-Project Tranquility
360-450 radis is way too much.
240ér AOE is huge enough, 450 would go over the whole screen.
Maxium increase to 300, not more.
0,15 coefficient is +200% more.
Way too much, start with 25%-50% more.
Better decrease the intervall to 1 ore 2 sec and decrease the healing, so you have more and more frequent heal in the end.

Yeah, a 450 radius would most likely be too much on these skills, but the current 240 radius is just about as silly in my opinion since it limits your positioning/movement too much. I think 360 would be the ideal radius. As for the healing scaling (you used this argument against the suggested change to Replenishing Despair as well), I just compared how well this skill scales with other tablet skills etc, and currently this skill in particular scales pretty horribly in comparison. The suggested 0.15 coefficient would bring the healing power scale to base heal ratio almost exactly in line with Natural Harmony for instance.

Van Bergen.5084:

-Purifying Essence
Too much radius, and please no AOE stunbreak.
Stunbreak when, then only for yourself.

I don’t really think an aoe stun break would be too powerful given the cool down and energy cost of the skill. But yeah either this skill or possibly Energy Expulsion should stun break, at least for yourself.

Van Bergen.5084:

-Energy Expulsion
The thing on this skill, what bug me on this skill the most is the Heal coming from the shards, players have to pick up.
Make this a Field, a ring, a barrier, or an simple AOE-Heal, but these bundles are nothing, we can play and with.

But, bring in Cripple or other CC to ventari is a good idea!
Wy not Cripple on Ventaris will?
Then the skill would have a offensive/cc use too!

Well hopefully the fragments will be more worth picking up when they grant vigor from the suggested change to Natural Abundance. Also, having Ventari’s Will cripple enemies that it passes through would be cool. I added that in instead of the condition cleanse.

Van Bergen.5084:

-Inspiring Reinforcement
Lesser enery cost OR instant AOE-Stunbreak.
Both is just too much.
I would prefer lesser costs, instant aoe Stunbreak is just too much anyway.
And with your ventari-ideas, rev. would have 2x Aoe Stunbreak.

I’m not suggesting that this skill be an aoe stun break. I think it should only stun break yourself. Also, the stone road would still take a little bit of time to create like it does now, so it would be fully built only 1/4 of a second quicker (the current cast time).

Van Bergen.5084:

-Forced Engagement
Lesser cost, sure.
But problem is the missing PvE/Pve-Split.
Lesser costs would be really usefull for PvE, but too good for PvP.

Maybe you are right about this skill needing a split for PVE/PVP, but I still think the skill probably costs a bit too much energy even for PVP. Maybe a 30 energy cost would be better for PVP.

Van Bergen.5084:

-Rite of the Great Dwarf
Is this elite this broken, so we have to change the funktion this harsh?
Build in a strong trait an make it instant is just too much.
The stunbreak is really usefull in PvE, so you dont have to swap the Legends for stunbreak.

This skill just feels incomplete without the condition damage reduction, and it basically locks you in to taking Versed in Stone when you take Retribution and Jalis. Besides, Versed in Stone is still really strong compared to the other GM trait options, even if the condition damage reduction portion is just made baseline in RotGD.

Van Bergen.5084:

-Empowering Misery
The skill already profits from conditions, so heal with immunity to poison is a bit too much.

I think Mallyx is a bit too weak to conditions currently without taking Demonic Defiance. This change should help not pigeon hole you into taking Demonic Defiance by default, allowing the other adept traits to be used more often as well. Also, the profit from conditions is likely negated by poison currently anyway since it doesn’t actually clear any conditions.

Van Bergen.5084:

-Banish Enchantment
Make the skill stronger OR increase range.
Both is way too much.
And dont forget the “unblockable”, or that its an AOE.

The suggested change, other than the range increase, isn’t necessarily stronger. It would have diminishing returns/be weaker if you spam it or if the target just doesn’t have 2+ boons, and with the decreased duration on confusion it shouldn’t really be much stronger even when it successfully removes boons. I guess the confusion change wouldn’t really be needed, but I think it would be a bit more interesting.

Varezenem.2813:

The only condi cleanse increase that I agree on is eluding nullification.
While I do believe that you also agree that Ventaris sustain is subpar increasing his condi cleanse isn’t the best way to do it.
Protective Solace’s radius is fine right now at best you can give it some minor pulsing boon like Vigor.
Ventaris will should indeed get a cooldown decrease to 3 by doing so it would be on the same cooldown as before (and synergizes better with bolster fortifications) , radius increase is far too much.
Natural Harmony’s radius increase is too big while the healing is still subpar, delay isn’t a problem right now.
PE again radius is too big stunbreak is fine and was frequently suggested.
Energy expulsion does need to keep the delay as a tell.
On the radius you can increase them to 300 at best beyond that the tablet mechanic starts getting redundand.

On salvation momentary pacification problem is that it’s a refund and trait and interacts badly with almost all elites, see burtniks rework for my suggestion on it.

Natural abundance with Vigor seems fine +1 for that.

Won’t comment about other traits and legends but there are similar mistakes.

Awesome suggestion for Momentary Pacification, I added it in. On Ventari’s Will and Protective Solace, I agree that their current radius is good, and I didn’t suggest that those 2 should be increased. As for the radius on the rest of the tablet skills, I think they are too small and confined right now. A radius increase to 300 would help, but I think 360 is probably the sweet spot.

Varezenem.2813:

Yep he is going overboard on condi cleanse.
Also you are buffing quite a few skills that don’t require buffs.

Do you mean the suggested Ventari/Salvation trait line buffs would be too much condi cleanse? The only other improved condi cleanse suggestion was to Cleansing Channel which would be Master tier now. Taking it would require Revenants to give up some of their insta-burst potential from Equilibrium. Also which skills do you think are already strong enough that got buffed?

Van Bergen.5084:

So you want to make the class nearly everyone cry about “op!!!11” even stronger?

Well, some ideas go in the right direction, but others are just op.
I’ll check the details tomorrow.

Well the changes here don’t touch Glint/Shiro or their trait lines really, which is the current meta. So that meta that people might be complaining about shouldn’t really get stronger from this. But there could be something I’m over looking, so some more details could be helpful.

The main change I wasn’t too sure about was with Embrace the Darkness. It just seems like Revenant already has a lot of different skills to apply torment and doesn’t currently make much use of Venom Enhancement. Maybe the change to Venom Enhancement would be enough, or maybe the poison application could be moved somewhere else.

Edit: Yeah I went ahead and removed the suggestion for Embrace the Darkness. I think the change to Venom Enhancement should be enough.

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.

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.

I agree. If it was 600 Crystalline Ores for the recipe to make the runes, it would be more understandable, even though that still seems a bit pricey. Having to gather and spend 600 crystalline ore per character/armor set that you want the runes on is even worse. The new legendary weapons only require 250 crystalline ores, which is less than half as much as a single rune set costs.

I usually need to buy around 25 machetes per Dragons Stand run (I would need more but you get some from doing the events too). Each run through nets around 40 crystalline ores. That means you need to complete around 15 runs to get the rune set, which means you need to buy 375 machetes. 375 machetes costs 1875 of each of the new map currencies. That means you could either buy 7.5 Runes of Surging, 7.5 Runes of Thorns, and 12 Runes of Durbility (I don’t know why the other new rune sets cost more than this one does, but they seem a little expensive too). Or you could just buy 6 Runes of Leadership. You also have to spend a lot of extra time gathering the crystalline ores with the machetes you buy if you choose the 6 Runes of Leadership.

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.

“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.

I kind of like the changes so far. Steal never goes on a 5 second cool down anymore when you use it while out of range or when there’s no line of sight. Also, it no longer goes on a full cool down if you use it right when an opponent stealths because you are required to have a target to use it. Some of those scenarios happen more often than you might think, and you don’t have control over when they happen usually either. As someone suggested earlier, maybe there could be an option you can toggle on or off for if you want to require a target to be able to use these types of skills. Regardless of whether the target requirement gets reverted or not, the part with steal not going on a 5 second cool down when you use it from out of range or with no line of sight needs to stay.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

meepeY.2867:

If you’re outside of the range, it’ll still put it on a 4s cooldown for a failed cast. Same with a stealthing target.

i dunno, i have not had it on a 4 second cd due to being out of range, it just wont trigger for me.

It didn’t put Steal on a 5 second cool down when I tried using it while out of range either, so that’s good. I’m not sure about using it against a stealthing target, but I imagine it will just give you a no target error which doesn’t put Steal on a 5 second cool down either.

Why does quickness and slow keep getting brought up in relation to initiative regeneration? Those only effect the speed of attacks/animations, not cool downs. Chilled is the counter part to alacrity. Chilled increases cool down times while alacrity decreases cool down times. If alacrity is changed to speed up initiative regen, then chilled will most likely also be changed to slow down initiative regen. Since only Mesmers have access to alacrity, and a lot of classes have access to chill, I think this would hurt us more than help us, except maybe in PVE if you have a Mesmer granting you alacrity. With that said, I think Unhindered Combatant and maybe Don’t Stop (if Acrobatics was a bit better) would see a bit more use if this change did happen.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Edit: Also looking over your ideas at the start of the thread, I think Blinding Powder needs to be a stunbreak in addition to having reduced cooldown.

Depending on how low the cool down would be decreased to, I might agree.

What do you guys think about this for a team support based trait:

-Thief’s Presence: You and nearby allies periodically steal boons when you attack.

• When you enter combat you and nearby allies gain a buff called Larcenous Aura which steals 1 boon when you strike an enemy (10s ICD). Works similar to traits like Vampiric Presence.

We don’t have a lot of team support options other than stealth, which isn’t always useful in the middle of fights. I think this would make for a good group support trait, but I’m not sure where it should fit in exactly. I’m thinking maybe having this trait instead of the Bountiful Interruption trait in Trickery, since the new Sigil of Absorbtion does the same thing as it.

I also edited Bountiful Theft so it should grant you the full duration/stacks of the boon you steal to yourself and allies like the other boon steals in the game. Right now it only gives you a short duration/single stack of the boon you steal.

I’m not sure about having a whole trait line revolving purely around team support, but thieves could use some more team support options overall. One thing we are missing is a nearby ally buffing trait like Empower Allies and Vampiric Presence. We could maybe have a trait called Larcenous Aura which makes yourself and effected allies steal a boon from targets that they strike, with a 10s ICD.

arenta.2953:

Snip

I guess it’s a matter of opinion, with there being pros and cons to both versions. Most of the things you say you like about stealth are still achievable due to the nature of stealth, not because of stealth regen. You’re right that reviving an ally with the current version of the trait would probably be slightly easier, and that it could help when you Shadow Refuge then get downed and try to revive yourself while stealthed (pretty rare that you come out of this alive even with the current version of the trait though). You can still do both of those things with these changes, it would just be slightly harder. On the other hand, having a larger heal when you enter/exit stealth allows you to take the trait if you want to play more aggressive (by more aggressive I basically mean actually participating in fights instead of hiding in stealth for long durations not doing much) and still get great use out of it, unlike the current version. If you stay stealthed for 4 or less seconds on average currently, the suggested change to Shadow’s Rejuvenation will either not really effect you or be even stronger. I think this reworked version would be more beneficial on average. I’m not sure why you would want to have to stealth for 5+ seconds just to be able to stay in a fight a bit easier. Even though you might be able to stay in fights a little longer while stealthed, you aren’t able to do much.

With that said, I guess I wouldn’t be completely against leaving Shadow’s Rejuvenation how it is at the moment (though it’s not very fun to play against someone else using it either) if Cloaked in Shadow was changed to what’s suggested here, since it would accomplish something similar to the suggested reworked SR.

Does anyone else have any thoughts about this?

Phoenix the One.4071:

Don’t see why daggers should have more poison.. rather bleed tbh.
I like the pistol change, though adding range would be nice, or a unblockable component like revenant.
Maybe an acrobatic trait that add 1200 range.

By daggers having more poison, are you talking about the Dagger Training trait? If so, it already applies extra poison, it’s just a bit weak at the moment. As for increasing the range of pistols, I think I saw Anet post that they don’t want more than 1 trait effecting a weapon type for each class, so it would have to be the trait in Critical Strikes or just made baseline.

babazhook.6805:

Great suggestions. I too feel that debilitating arc needs a stun. I still think something more ( dark field) would be warranted for number 4.

A dark field could be pretty cool. It doesn’t seem like that would be too strong either.

Vermil.8172:

I believe that this spell’s knockdown should not have a “leap” animation towards the attacker, first because of the almost uncontrollable animation locks, and second because a sudden change of direction can be disruptive in the middle of the battle.

I believe that a point blank AoE knockdown could work well with the spell. Once you block an attack at melee range, you stop for a 1/2 second in order to place a swift spin kick across the floor, knocking down everyone at range.

By doing the point blank AoE, we would shorten the animation time, prevent any sudden change in movement from the thief, as well as forcing other players/ennemis to not gang-up at melee range on the thief.

Yeah that would probably be better than what it does currently, but I think having a roll over skill for the knockdown portion would be even better since you have more control over it.

Doggie.3184:

Expose could be a lot like the Stealth Detection mastery~ the enemies are still in stealth but you see a red silhouette of them.

I actually haven’t unlocked that one yet, but that could maybe work. Are you able to target the stealthed NPCs with the Stealth Detection mastery or can you only see their silhouette?

arenta.2953:

leave my shadow’s embrace and Shadow’s Rejuvenation alone <.<

you might be ok entering and exiting stealth non stop. but i prefer to pick when i come out stealth. staying stealthed until i’m healed. (if i wanted to heal from stealth attack, i’d use the 15% crit heals from invigorating precision. if i stay in stealth, its cause i want to stay there longer to heal. not be forced to attack to heal. ditto for conditions)

i like thief for its long stealth.
otherwise i’d use mesmer.

Staying in stealth healing up means you aren’t contributing to fights. Your enemy can heal up while you’re stealthed too, and they can also freely attempt to damage you while you’re stealthed (you can’t damage them back unless you want to get revealed and stop healing). You should be able to participate in fights more easily with this change because you won’t have to camp in stealth for long durations to benefit from it anymore. The suggested change to Shadow’s Rejuvenation has the potential to heal you for more than it does currently if you play more aggressive. None of these suggestions take away any stealth potential for thieves, and you would still have -25% damage taken for yourself and allies that you stealth from Resilience of Shadows.

I updated the OP a bit based on my experiences so far since the launch of HoT. I also included some suggestions for Daredevil:

Feel free to post your thoughts and suggestions as well.

Signet of Agility never refilled more than 85 endurance with the old Feline Grace anyway because after a dodge you would immediately gain 15 endurance back. I wouldn’t necessarily be against this change to SoA as things currently stand, but I think a lot of our other utility skills need to be buffed instead because SoA is already one of our stronger utilities.

Critical Strikes isn’t that bad of a trait line. It’s just that we are able to maintain permanent fury without it through Thrill of the Crime and Pack Runes etc, making it not the most optimized depending on your build. It’s probably slightly weaker than Deadly Arts even without considering fury, which needs to be looked at (ex: DA Grandmaster Minor is better than CS Grandmaster Minor trait). Ferocious Strikes should be changed to make critical hits deal 20% more damage to foes above the 50% health threshold to make it on par with Executioner and the DA GM minor trait. Executioner would still be a bit stronger even after this change because Ferocious Strikes only applies to critical hits. A few more tweaks to CS after that would make it pretty viable (see thread in my sig for more suggestions).

Sarrow.2785:

As an aside – does anyone have any info on Endless Stamina? It’s supposed to “enhance vigor effects by 50%” but in my testing I haven’t seen any difference in endurance regen with this trait on or off.

Yeah, you probably won’t notice any difference ever. It only increases the endurance regeneration rate from 7.5 to 8.75 per second while under the effects of vigor. That’s only one extra dodge every 40 seconds, if you’re able to maintain permanent vigor.

I think staff 2 needs its pre-cast delay removed and maybe its after cast delay as well. They make it feel clunky, and since it’s pretty hard to land all 3 hits it’s not really necessary. As for staff 4, I also think it needs something more. Increasing the range to 900 should help, but I’m not sure if that would be enough.

I don’t know about other classes, but as a sylvari it looks like I hold the staff as if it was a hammer when running/idle. I think it would be cool to hold the staff like the monkey king tonic does when running/standing idle instead (one hand holding it up on a shoulder).

Superior Sigil of Absorption: Updated the text to reflect the correct functionality of stealing one boon when interrupting an enemy.

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

Your suggested (Major|Grandmaster) Hard to Catch sounds like a weaker version of daredevil’s endurance thief. What about an alternative stun break. e.g. stolen skills break stun and give 2 seconds super speed.

I don’t really think it would be weaker than Endurance Thief, since it has the possibility to restore 100-125 endurance instead of only 50. I guess in some rare situations it could be weaker if you don’t end up dodging much.

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

-(Major|Grandmaster) Don’t Stop is weaker version of Unhindered Combatant. I would be in favour of a grandmaster to mitigate ranged damage, e.g:
10% damage reduction from projectiles. 25% chance to reflect projectiles above 600 range. 50% chance to reflect dodged projectiles under 600 range. 100% chance to reflect dodged projectiles under 200 range.

Good point. Don’t Stop would still be good to take if you choose a different dodge besides Unhindered Combatant though. I also like that alternative suggestion. I suggested something similar before on a different thread where you would gain 2 seconds of quickness when you steal and you evade projectiles while under the effects of quickness. It could possibly either have a 1s ICD or just a 66% chance to evade all projectiles if it would be too strong.

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

-(Major|Adept) Vigorous Recovery: When you gain vigor you cleanse a condition from yourself. Effectively the same as Daredevil’s Escapist’s Absolution, far too strong. Why not keep the original, but change it to: remove poison, burning and bleeding when at 75% health or below, gain 8s regeneration, gain 2 seconds of resistance. The resistance would prevent AOE condition fields ruining the passive effect.

Do you mean keep Pain Response instead of this version of Vigorous Recovery? If so that’s a possibility, especially if resistance or something was added to help make it better. Also, this would still be a bit weaker than Escapist’s Absolution because EA only has a 1s ICD. Thieves are a bit lacking in pure condition removal options (Pain Response and Shadow’s Embrace currently only remove damaging conditions) which is why I suggested this.

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

Also, not entirely sure I agree with the 5 vigor duration on feline grace given how unreliable the “evade” notification can be. Maybe 7 seconds vigor with a 4 second ICD to prevent spam? As you said, even with 100% vigor effectiveness perma vigor isn’t exactly that strong.

Sounds good to me. Traits that trigger on a successful evasion have the problem of sometimes not triggering if you dodge too early preventing the “evaded” message from popping up, even if that dodge moved you out of the range of the incoming attack. Lower ICDs (like what it is currently) only exaggerate that problem, so your suggestion should be good.

Laosduude.1690:

This is a great thread, the kind of CONSTRUCTIVE criticism I was hoping to see someone post since I’m not very good at it

Loki.4139:

This is post is like a dream waiting to happen, a patch, an Idea… That we all want,
and will never get </3
All that looks so good, I rather reread this than play my thief lol

Thanks guys.

It looks like we got a few more things implemented from this thread, that being 1 buff and 2 bug fixes. Death Blossom had 200 milliseconds added to the evasion, movement skill distances should no longer be effected by quickness/slow, and the Flanking Strikes trait is no longer doubly effected by Trickster. Hopefully more changes keep getting implemented, especially now that HoT is released and not as big of a focus.

I reworked the suggested Acrobatics trait line a bit in the OP:

I also added a few alternate suggestions to Cloak and Dagger:

Feel free to post your favorite option or suggest your own (that goes for all of the suggestions here as well).

With Heart of Thorns right around the corner (about 8 hours from now), hopefully this topic stays active and the suggestions start getting implemented. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the discussion so far.

Also, shout out to MakubeC for making a post on reddit about this topic. I’m a bit late in finding it, but any attention brought to these suggestions should help in getting some good changes, so thanks. A few people over there seem to be against the suggestions here (they didn’t state anything specific to possibly help though, so maybe they are just against any thief buffs at all). So I’ll say this just as a clarification for anyone reading this thread (mainly for non-thief mains):

Though it might seem like there are just a bunch of buffs being suggested here, they are mainly in areas that are currently under powered or general quality of life changes for thieves, not just buffing the the already powerful skills/traits. For example, some utility skills like Scorpion Wire are hardly ever used by any thief. This is partially because it’s so buggy/unreliable, but even if it was reliable, it would still be a bit weak probably. The suggestions here are to try and change things like that, so more(hopefully all) utility skills, weapon sets, and traits are viable. I’m sure every class could use some re-balancing changes like these to open up more variety in builds, though I think thief probably needs these changes the most right now.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s why it’s UPTO 30s because by that time, either your team is applying chill every second maintaining 5 stacks, or the venom wears off naturally after that time.

Yeah. Though if your allies are waiting for chill stacks to go away, that means they aren’t attacking the enemy player, which probably isn’t the most efficient way to down someone. Another thing is if 5 people are focusing one enemy applying that much chill, the chill probably isn’t the biggest thing the enemy will be worrying about.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

As long as venom can be shared, there will be no good suggestion will ever be implemented for the venom — we’ve been waiting for it for a very long time now.

Venom Aura is the reason why venoms have such a long CD — without that trait, venoms would be balanced at 10s-15s CD and probably with increased condition duration. As of right now, any buffs on the venoms would be OP when shared.

I suggested something similar to this in the Thief Rebalance thread in my signature. Basically it would lower all the venoms to a 25 second cool down, they would all be instant cast, and you activate each venom charge one at a time. To compensate, Venomous Aura would only share half of the venom charges, probably through a 50% chance per activation. That would make venoms viable without Venomous Aura, and VA should still be just as good as it is now overall since the cool downs are lower.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Per the OP, Ice Drake Venom looks good when shared and worthless when not. Just to give you an example, two Thieves sharing venom one after the other can extend the chill upto 8s. Since it can be shared upto 5 party members, you can chill a target upto 30s (or when the venom wears off).

True, except allies will have to wait for the first 5 chill stacks to wear off before applying theirs, since chill was limited to a max of 5 stacks in the July 7th patch. The chill duration should just be increased to 2 seconds per application or reworked to something else like what was suggested in this thread.

(Acrobatics Grandmaster) Superior Agility: Stealing grants you 2 seconds of quickness. Evade projectiles while under the effects of quickness.

Would this be too strong? If so maybe it could have a 1s ICD or just a 66% chance to evade projectiles or something.

vespers.1759:

bettadenu.5483:

vespers.1759:

No nerfing the rune does not solve the problem because that nerfs 2 other classes that are not the issue.

thief traps deserve the nerf and that’s the end of it.

If it has damage on trigger added to it the entire problem is solved.

Yep, this is what I’ve been saying all along. It’s the solution that makes the most sense no matter how much thieves claim they need stealth for defense and that adding diret damage will make traps useless.

Just making all thief traps apply damage alone would fix the ghost thief problem. However, it would also leave thief traps quite weak without some buffs in compensation, which isn’t good either.

Needle Trap is the main condition applying thief trap currently. It’s also really good for forcing someone to stand in caltrops for even more bleed stacks and cripple. Tripwire is also good for making someone stand in caltrops, but it doesn’t directly apply any damaging conditions itself, except possibly when taken with the Pressure Striking trait. These are the only two thief traps that need some direct damage added to them to prevent thieves from applying lots of conditions without having to exit stealth. But they also need a few buffs to compensate. Here are my suggestions below:

• Needle Trap should have some direct damage added to it when it’s triggered. The number of poison stacks inflicted should be increased from 1 to 3 to compensate.

• Tripwire should have some direct damage added as well (probably a decently strong hit instead of a weak hit like Needle Trap). Tripwire should additionally apply 10 stacks of vulnerability for 5-10 seconds when it’s triggered to help make it a bit stronger, for both power and condition builds.

• Shadow Trap and Ambush are fine having no direct damage. They don’t apply any conditions or hint at any kind of pain being inflicted by the traps themselves. You don’t have to worry about a thief killing you from stealth without ever exiting it with these.

Straegen.2938:

Steal should have always had a return mechanic or at least a cheap trait that activates that ability.

Yeah I suggested something like that here. I’m looking for other people’s opinions on it or alternate suggestions possibly, but there haven’t really been any yet.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Raiden.1375:

On a different topic, what do you guys think about making Steal work similarly to the Sword #2 Infiltrator’s Strike and Return? The initial steal would work just like it does now, and you would then have about a 5 second time frame to activate its roll over skill, which returns you to your previous position if you choose to activate it. This would help make stealing more viable for our ranged weapons in general, since you usually want to stay farther away when using ranged weapons. It also wouldn’t conflict with anything because using stolen items is now on F2 instead.

My concern is that this change could also help our melee sets possibly, which already get better use from Stealing. However, I don’t think it would be too strong and would mostly just help our ranged weapons, but I’d like to hear some other opinions on it. Maybe the time frame you have to activate the roll over skill could be even shorter than 5 seconds so that it’s not really a new escape option available.

I don’t really see the point, I guess. If it isn’t useful for opening gaps then I don’t see why it would be beneficial at all for ranged weapons (pretty much only P/P).

Well for ranged weapons you usually want to and try to keep a distance from your opponent. Steal accomplishes the exact opposite of this currently since it shadow steps you right next to your target, limiting your options for when you want to use steal. Steal is much more useful for our melee weapons since you generally want to be in melee range with them. The optional return shadow step to your previous location would be nice for our ranged weapons because we could then more comfortably steal without it possibly being a negative net result since you close the gap from your opponent for them. This is why I was thinking the time frame you have to activate the return roll over skill should be so short. You would probably already be planning to return to your previous position before you even steal, instead of it being a get in – deal some damage – get out type of thing. Maybe the latter scenario wouldn’t even be too strong or a problem though, which is why I’m looking for some more opinions on it here.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Speaking of P/P, though, I had an idea (though I’m not sure how feasible it is) to help boost its effectiveness. And that is to change Unload so that it is not interrupted by dodging. Again, this is just an idea, and I am fully aware that this may not be possible due to the limitations of the game engine.

Anything is possible (some things may take more work though), but that sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Another thing I don’t like about Unload is when someone walks through you it sometimes cancels the Unload before it finishes, instead of rotating your character to continue facing and firing at them.

BrunoBRS.5178:

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

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

I don’t think traps should only be useful if you are able to permanently stealth yourself while using them. It’s not a fun encounter for the other player and it’s pretty one sided, being able to kill someone while remaining invisible for the entire encounter. Needle Trap needs some direct damage added back to it and possibly Tripwire as well. They both make sense to deal direct damage, and if they end up not being used after that then maybe they need a buff in other ways (the proposed buffs I suggested earlier could be enough).

Traps have been slowly getting buffed over time (Needle Trap got a poison duration increase in the same update that it had its direct damage removed), so I’m not sure that thieves only use the traps now purely because the direct damage got removed. You can plan around some of the traps dealing direct damage anyway, such as actually using a stealth attack before it gets triggered.

I edited a few things in the OP:

• Needle Trap and Tripwire should now apply some direct damage to prevent permanent stealthing while outputting good condition damage in the process. They are slightly buffed compared to their current versions to help compensate.
• Infiltrator’s Return should be an instant cast, but you still can’t use it while stunned similar to Infiltrator’s Strike and Withdraw.

Also, I never got any replies to this question so I’ll try again:

Raiden.1375:

On a different topic, what do you guys think about making Steal work similarly to the Sword #2 Infiltrator’s Strike and Return? The initial steal would work just like it does now, and you would then have about a 5 second time frame to activate its roll over skill, which returns you to your previous position if you choose to activate it. This would help make stealing more viable for our ranged weapons in general, since you usually want to stay farther away when using ranged weapons. It also wouldn’t conflict with anything because using stolen items is now on F2 instead.

My concern is that this change could also help our melee sets possibly, which already get better use from Stealing. However, I don’t think it would be too strong and would mostly just help our ranged weapons, but I’d like to hear some other opinions on it. Maybe the time frame you have to activate the roll over skill could be even shorter than 5 seconds so that it’s not really a new escape option available.

Zero Day.2594:

Raiden.1375:

Zero Day.2594:

I like how it’s starting to stray into the stealth line that no one (QQ’ing) cares about.

So guys the question is:

Should we nerf trapper rune, for everyone

Or

Ensure that there’s direct damage on all traps across all classes?

Both effectively sending the traps back to chillin with the dust bunnies at the corner of useless street.

There already is direct damage on all of the other class’ traps, excluding Ranger’s Healing Spring. I’m not even suggesting that thieves have all of their traps deal direct damage, only Needle Trap and Tripwire. Ambush and Shadow Trap don’t really make sense to deal direct damage, and they don’t apply conditions by their self either so they should be fine not dealing any damage.

If Trapper Runes got nerfed too much without making traps themselves stronger in compensation, then I agree, traps would probably be left in the dust.

All or nothing. This is half as’ed implementation correct? And you want to make a “half” change?

Not entirely sure what you’re saying, but why do all traps need to deal direct damage or none at all? Do you think Ambush and Shadow Trap make sense dealing direct damage? If so I disagree. They don’t apply any conditions or hint at any kind of pain being inflicted by the traps in their descriptions, unlike just about every other trap in the game. That would also impact Shadow Trap’s roll over skill if you got revealed from the initial trigger.

babazhook.6805:

Raiden.1375:

Also, on a side note, it’s a little hard to see but the thief landed 4 needle traps on the ranger within the first 15 seconds of the video. He also landed a fifth it looks like right before the ranger died around the 20 second mark. That means he must have taken Trappers Respite and Improvisation and got quite lucky, recharging the traps traps at least once from stealing (unless there are 2 ghost thieves in the video? we can’t see them to really know).

trappers respite does not reset on the improv trait.( At least did not when last i tested) In order to get 4 needles in 15 seconds there had to be two thiefs. I do not see any indication a steal occurred. it more then likely there were two thieves both using the Immob in sequence.

Theoretical max on a thief would be respite/ needle trap for two. respite goes on cooldown and is not avilable for another 30 seconds. steal get one more if trap imrpov kicks in.

Oh I didn’t know that. If you’re right about Improvisation not recharging the Needle Trap from Trappers Respite, then there must be 2 thieves in the video attacking the ranger with traps.

Zero Day.2594:

I like how it’s starting to stray into the stealth line that no one (QQ’ing) cares about.

So guys the question is:

Should we nerf trapper rune, for everyone

Or

Ensure that there’s direct damage on all traps across all classes?

Both effectively sending the traps back to chillin with the dust bunnies at the corner of useless street.

There already is direct damage on all of the other class’ traps, excluding Ranger’s Healing Spring. I’m not even suggesting that thieves have all of their traps deal direct damage, only Needle Trap and Tripwire. Ambush and Shadow Trap don’t really make sense to deal direct damage, and they don’t apply conditions by their self either so they should be fine not dealing any damage.

If Trapper Runes got nerfed too much without making traps themselves stronger in compensation, then I agree, traps would probably be left in the dust.

Also, on a side note, it’s a little hard to see but the thief landed 4 needle traps on the ranger within the first 15 seconds of the video. He also landed a fifth it looks like right before the ranger died around the 20 second mark. That means he must have taken Trappers Respite and Improvisation and got quite lucky, recharging the traps traps at least once from stealing (unless there are 2 ghost thieves in the video? we can’t see them to really know).