Guild Wars 2

kdaddy.5431:

Does anyone know the gossip on why caed isnt on the team?

Narcarsis.5739:

I stepped off my team after disagreements about team composition and the best comp to run in our match this previous Monday. I wasn’t on the same page as the rest of my team and I felt like I didn’t belong. They had a sub prior to my leaving and I wish them luck in the upcoming matches.

When asked if it was because they wanted him to play rev:

Narcarsis.5739:

Not quite. I don’t mind playing other classes – I didn’t agree with counter-comping ourselves. I learned Revenant regardless, and I play more than just Thief. That’s part of the competitive game (being able to adapt). But shifting into a comp that the other team already has an advantage over wasn’t something I was willing to do. In the end they ended up mirror comping a team who already played the comp and had experience with it. PZ only changed one person, whereas Spookie changed 3. Not enough time to get used to a comp change that drastic against a team that’s been running the comp for a month.

Looks like he called it too, seeing how the team tanked.

At least Toker’s still great to watch. That shadow trap, lol! Would be used more often too if it didn’t bug out all the time.

Caed’s thief was one of the only interesting things going on too, imo.

Sick game vs final form. Some really nice ult stomps – good work!

Jump into an empty Hotjoin map to orient yourself without the other players. Hotjoin servers are on the left side of the pvp window a few tabs down.

Kolly.9872:

And the thief was Sizer playing his preferred weapon set. But people are already saying that even Sizer is a bad player, it’s not that Devs totally destroyed S/D thieves due to continuos nerfs and ppl complaints.

Sizer, the thief in the 500-0 game is a great player. Watch his uncut streams for S/D duels with all classes and 5v5’s. Most duels he wins and in 5v5’s he decaps like a boss – that’s all there is for thief in 5v5 remember Vs a coordinated team with ripe AoE and eyes on him the whole match however, he didn’t stand a chance.

Agreed. The class has been neutered so in organised play it even fails in decap and +1 now unless other players carry.

If you came back for the PvP you don’t need to unlock anything with hero points. When you enter the mists all traits and skills are available. The unlocking business is just for PvE / WvW.

Wow. That’s disgusting.

Pimsley.3681:

You can argue that it’s better than nothing but sometimes, getting nothing is less offensive because you can still hope that something more significant is on the way.

Well said!

NiloyBardhan.9170:

God tier – Dragonhunter, Scrapper and Chrono
Good tier – Reaper, Tempest (those auras), Herald
.
.
.
.
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kitten tier – Berserker

I played PvP about a week since HoT release and is currently full of DH trappers running zerks, reapers and to a lower extent Chrono and Scrappers. Other than the first couple of days, I didn’t find a single warrior in either my team or my opponents (let alone a berserker) – not talking about hotjoins btw. Warriors aren’t even a shadow of what it once was…

Daredevils must be well below Berserker then since you didn’t even seem to think they were worth mentioning :\

I read “heartseeker spam” then immediately checked the date on the thread. You’re a few years too late on that one I’m afraid bud..

Thief is one of the few classes that can’t win button-mashing lol.

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.

On topic – from a pvp perspective acro is weak right now, especially compared to DD. I rate Hard to Catch and that’s literally it. Critical Strikes is another weak line IMO. No Quarter is nice to have, but not worth it over DD, Trickery, DA or Shadow Arts. It’s also best for sustained damage, which thief doesn’t excel at due to survivability issues. I might take the signet cd reduction trait if I was running inf signet and signet of agility, but again, it’s outclassed.

Burtnik.5218:

I see many frustrated bad thieves in this thread. Throw us a vid and show how you play.

To prove what exactly?

Cogbyrn.7283:

watching someone succeed in various scenarios should be uplifting and maybe cause them to go back and work on their skill instead of default to asking for buffs.

Don’t get me wrong, it is uplifting to a point, but that feeling is then negated by the fact that this vid is basically saying “don’t listen to the 99%, just look how great I am.” This is magnified by the dual postings in both the thief and pvp forums and his choice of words in the OP. Was he trying to uplift thieves? No, he’s saying I’m going great, what’s wrong with you? He then backs this up with handpicked edited footage. Maybe this didn’t come across to you because you don’t thief but I stand by my comments.

Once again, great skills, just rankles is all.

dDuff.3860:

I’m going to “stroke my peen” even more and say, that this (mine) build have such an upper hand in thief fights, that I have 75%+ winning chance against Sizer, primarily with help of Channeled vigor and Block knockback, which can be proven not only by my videos, but also with Sizer’s saved streams

Nice, I’ll rewatch and look for you.

I suspected the new heal would be better for a dodge build and wondered why Sizer kept withdraw. I figured it was due to withdraw’s instant cast.

Nice clips with some seriously sick plays – grats!

I will add however that this collection of picked and edited clips doesn’t tell the whole story of thief as I’m sure you well know! For example someone with the right ping could put together a similar warrior vid, a vid winning 1v1s with no weapon swaps (seen one of these!) or even a vid of a DH losing every on-point 1v1. Doesn’t mean it paints the whole picture of a class.

I’ve been watching some of Sizer’s vids on twitch where he streams whole matches. Sizer’s a top tier S/D thief in my eyes and literally runs rings around players, turning them inside out with ports and dodges – but even Sizer, who spends hundreds of hours dueling and learning every single tell gets 100 > 0’d sometimes when he mistimes a dodge or steal, bails on half his 1v1’s and is almost solely relegated to +1ing and decapping.

It also rankles me how you’re basically using this time where thief clearly DOES need some love as an opportunity to stroke your peen.

Great, skillful vid man, but seriously uncool.

Vapour.7348:

I was happier when thieves were at the bottom of the barrel.

Why are you speaking in past tense?

How do you feel about how people start qq threads to qq the qqers?

Just finished playing a DH trap zerker guardian in pvp for the first time. It’s getting there, but anet really needs to make true shot corrupt boons on target for it to really be 100% viable. Y’know, for the sake of balance.

Yeah yeah, I know. Venoms are kitten. But it’s more than just the venoms. It’s also about where they are embedded in the trait trees and the viable weapon sets. I’m mucking about with venoms for the first time since the trait changes and I just can’t see how anet intends them to be used effectively.

For example, venom traits are in shadow arts, but to spec into them you have to give up the two best GM stealth traits – shadow’s rejuv and cloaked in shadow. The lack of shadow’s rejuv hurts a stealthy D/P venom-share support build that otherwise might be good for interrupts, stealth res and sharing, while the lack of cloaked in shadow really hurts a P/D venom-share build.

Also, since you give up so much to spec venoms in shadow arts, you’re pretty much encouraged to fill your utility bar with them. This means you can’t bring any anti-cc or mobility. So when picking a weapon, you have to choose a set with innate mobility. That cuts P/P out. D/P and P/D are out for the reasons above. That leaves, S/D, S/P and SB, none of which make the cut as MH sword cleaves and SB bounces, wasting charges.

So in my mind there are three key issues preventing decent venom share support builds:
1: Trait misplacement – making stealth oriented builds unviable
2: Utility bar clutter – eliminating crucial anti-cc and mobility utility skills
3: No conducive weapon sets – resulting in wasted venom charges

If venom share traits were placed in acro, it would solve problem 1 while giving venom traits an out of the way place to die quietly for those uninterested in taking them.

If sword #2 was still a stunbreak or if SB had better damage, it would solve problem 2, despite the wasted charges.

If… I dunno. Just frickin annoyed with how things are deployed in this game. No wonder there’s only one boring metabuild. It’s almost like the devs don’t really understand their own game.

/signed. Holding animation is kitten

To fix thief:

Revealed should = 3 seconds in all game modes

Add 2000 hp to base

Cloak and Dagger – reduce ini to 5 and add 1-2 sec blind

Dancing Dagger – add 1 stack torment to each target hit. Increase cripple duration to 5 secs

Backstab – increase damage 10-15%

Shadow Shot – reduce damage 10-15%

Black Powder – reduce ini to 5

Pistol Whip – increase animation speed 10%

Infiltrator’s Return – Break stun once every 20 sec

Larcenous Strike – revert to steal 2 boons

vespers.1759:

Oh you just wait until trapper runes come to PVP. Y’all are gonna love ghost thieves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_jlkY5KR00

Although Anet clearly has a kitten for PVP so maybe this will actually be fixed when it arrives.

Mmm. With all the reveal being handed out left right and centre I can definately see how stealth will be a problem..

Oh, and use monkey king animations for staff. Makes so much sense it’s not funny.

The main point I’d like to make is just to highlight what others have said about Daredevil completely overshadowing acrobatics to the point where many acro traits are literally redundant. What one would expect is for acro and DD, two dodge/endurance focussed traitlines, to have fantastic synergy, but often that’s just not the case.

First I want to mention something that everyone already knows: the nerf of Feline Grace paved the way for the DD traitline. In other words right from the start, DD was born on the corpse of acrobatics.

Beyond that:

- Dash makes acro’s Expeditious Dodger completely redundant as you can stack swiftness through dodging just fine without it. If you take both acro and DD you basically lose a minor adept trait
- Dash makes acro’s Don’t Stop redundant. Why trait to reduce cripple, chill and immob once every 10 secs when you can dash?
- The many vigor effects in acro simply don’t scale with the +50 max endurance in DD resulting in a loss of potential synergy
- There is a glut of the same condi clears: immob, cripple and chill from two tricks (RFI + Withdraw) and two grandmaster traits (Don’t Stop and now Dash) Clearing these condi’s IS great and all but a little differentiation wouldn’t hurt either.

Acrobatics needs a lot of love and differentiation from DD with more thought given to the synergy of both lines, as they both do the same job but DD is currently better in every way.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Go with a 10 scale. 1-3 are horrendous, 4-6 are average, 7-9 are good, 10 is pivotal and build defining. The reason why this independently rated system is better is because it doesn’t create a sense of false inferiority. In any tier there are going to be traits you’ll take 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are bad. Also this doesn’t provide a means of cross scaling: one tier of traits might be really good and another tier meh, but without an absolute system to go by you wouldn’t be able to make this very important distinction.

I didn’t wish to use this thread to argue off topic, but with your suggested method there is hardly any difference between 9 “good” and 10 “pivotal and build defining”. A 1-3 scale won’t show much differentiation at first, agreed, the differentiation will show through once multiple people’s opinions on traits begin to align. In other words you’re correct in saying ‘3rd’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘bad’ – ‘bad’ will be defined by patterns emerging in the numbers.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Likewise, how “certain” a trait is depends on the mode. For example, in sPVP and WvW Improvisation is the best. In PVE, Executioner is the best. So responses should indicate what mode they are talking about, because otherwise you’ll get confounding responses that are more of a measure of how many players play which type of game mode, rather than any statement on the quality of thief traits.

Even within each individual game mode certain traits are more/less valuable in certain situations and with certain builds. If people score traits objectively as I suggested in the OP, the mode won’t matter as much. It’s imperfect, sure, but a popular trait is a popular trait.

Jana.6831:

No offense, but we did that before June patch, we did it multiple times after the patch – I don’t think anyone at anet is interested in our opinion.

None intended, I was afk then :/

Core thief is hurting and I’m just having trouble sitting idly by. I’ve got my whinge off my chest, as I’m sure many of us have, but feel we’ve got to strike now while the iron is hot.

PURPOSE
To give player feedback on the functionality of thief traits, leading to the balancing of underperforming thief traits and greater differentiation of builds.

REASONING
Trait choices in each traitline can be disappointingly clear cut as there are often traits that are either extremely niche or underpowered that contrast with those traits thieves feel that they simply must take to survive. With the recent consolidation and merging of traits to create (arguably) fewer choices than ever, bogus traits have never been in more dire need of a tune-up.

HOW YOU CAN HELP
1. Copy/paste my list of traits into a reply
2. Replace my rankings with your own, 1 being the trait you would take first and 3 being the trait you would take last. Obviously some traits are tailored towards certain builds and game modes so please try to do this objectively regardless of your specific build
3. Asterisk (*) any trait that you wouldn’t consider taking in ANY build.

NOTE
I wanted to score traits in this 1st-3rd fashion because imo it gives more context, after all we’re comparing traits with the existing options. However if you feel that a certain tier has three extremely underwhelming traits, feel free to give them all 3’s. Similarly if there is more than one trait in the same tier that you wouldn’t ever consider taking, just give both traits a 3*

Please remember that no one should be flamed for what is merely their opinion. Let’s keep the focus on the traits. I’ll try to update.

Deadly Arts Adept
Dagger Training – 2
Mug – 1
Trappers Respite – 3*

Deadly Arts Master
Deadly Trapper – 3*
Panic Strike – 1
Revealed Training – 2

Deadly Arts Grandmaster
Executioner – 2
Improvisation – 1
Potent Poison – 3
_____________________

Critical Strikes Adept
Flawless Strike – 3*
Side Strike – 1
Signets of Power – 2

Critical Strikes Master
Ankle Shots – 2
Practiced Tolerance – 1
Sundering Strikes – 3*

Critical Strikes Grandmaster
Hidden Killer - 2
Invigorating Precision – 3*
No Quarter – 1
_____________________

Shadow Arts Adept
Concealed Defeat – 3*
Last Refuge – 3*
Shadow’s Embrace – 1

Shadow Arts Master
Hidden Thief – 1
Leeching Venoms – 2
Shadow Protector – 3

Shadow Arts Grandmaster
Cloaked in Shadow – 2
Shadow’s Rejuvenation – 3
Venomous Aura – 1
_____________________

Acrobatics Adept
Fleet Shadow – 3
Pain Response – 1
Vigorous Recovery – 2

Acrobatics Master
Guarded Initiation – 3*
Hard to Catch – 1
Swindler’s Equilibrium – 2

Acrobatics Grandmaster
Assassin’s Reward – 3*
Don’t Stop – 1
Upper Hand – 2
_____________________

Trickery Adept
Flanking Strikes – 2
Thrill of the Crime – 1
Uncatchable – 3

Trickery Master
Bountiful Theft – 1
Pressure Striking – 3
Trickster – 2

Trickery Grandmaster
Bewildering Ambush – 3
Quick Pockets – 2
Sleight of Hand – 1
_____________________

Daredevil Adept
Brawler’s Tenacity – 2
Evasive Empowerment – 3
Weakening Strikes – 1

Daredevil Master
Escapist’s Absolution – 1
Impacting Disruption – 2
Staff Master – 3

Daredevil Grandmaster (Hopefully these will become core DD, but as things stand…)
Bounding Dodger – 2
Lotus Training – 3
Unhindered Combatant – 1

Wow. Just….wow.

Check the thief boards. We don’t want this buff. It isn’t the change P/P needs and most arent happy about it. We want a fix to our broken and lacking core traitlines and MUCH needed development on daredevil.

Getting upset about P/P damage is so way off the mark it’s not funny.

I like the thought but I personally dont think it would give us any good gameplay. It would be a crutch and a passive crutch at that.

More boon steal options would be a more interesting way to achieve that same effect imo.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Dash – The extra distance has been removed for now as well. Dash now breaks immobilize in addition to its other effects. For now, the animation is just going to run you in the direction

Hate to say it but like many others I preferred the distance on dash. It’s what made it unique. Distance can be applied in many different ways both aggressively and defensively, plus it could have been something that actually allowed P/P builds to work.

I guess not

TWEET LOUD FELLOW THEIVES – FLY MY PRETTIES!!

https://twitter.com/Dakeyrus/status/646281124776308736

ronpierce.2760:

Shadow Arts: I saved this for last, because I’d prefer the most change to it. Overall, I feel like every bit of this tree pushes for passive play, and in general isn’t very fun to play against, and doesn’t do the thief justice for their actual goal, staying in combat, but instead, just turns them into big successful chickens.

- Last Refuge, rather than Blinding Powder, I feel like it should just self-stealth when hit under 25% with a 60 second cooldown, automatically removing revealed effects, with a 3 second stealth. This would reduce the reveal issues with allies, makes it more self-reliable, but at an increased cooldown.

- Shadow’s Embrace, remove 1 harmful condition when entering stealth. Landing an attack from stealth removes 2 harmful conditions. This is one part of my goal to increasing the play to Shadow Arts. The overall goal is to move Shadow Arts from the stealth-camping chicken (so much), to more of a shadow-boxer who benefits from stealth-dancing and actively assaulting from stealth. This would provide a higher amount of removal overall when utilized, but benefit hiding and fleeing far less.

- Resilience of Shadows, the next step from the above would be to change RoS. My suggested change would be to rename Resilience of Shadows to “Shadow Cloak”, and have it grant the thief 3 seconds of protection when exiting stealth, which would include reveals, 4 sec ICD (to prevent exploiting). The purpose of this is, again, to reduce the potency of just fleeing, but increase the thief’s “stay power’ when fighting, rewarding them for using their stealth timely and efficiently keeping up their protective ‘shadow cloak’.

- Shadow’s Rejuvenation, similarly to the above, I’d like to make this a bit more active. To make the trait make more sense, it would also need to be renamed to something like “Shadow Gambit” (trading the shadow for a further advantage). Functionality would change to: “Landing an attack from stealth grants ‘Shadow Gambit’, Regenerating Health and Initiative every 3 seconds for 6 seconds.” This would tick as you gain it and every 3 seconds, similar to now. Refreshing it before it runs off would just reset it to 6 seconds and trigger the initial tick again. Again, the ideal is less camping, but a significant boost to sustain as a shadow boxer who uses stealth less as a constant fleeing tool (which it could still be used for fleeing, obviously), it’s much more rewarded for a continuous assault and timing stealth attacks for sustaining benefits.

Absolutely this. A shadow arts build rewards sitting in stealth passively whereas what most love about thief is the action and the reaction. I 100% agree with you that stealth effects should trigger on revealed instead of when stealth hits. Thematically, sure, I can understand that when a thief enters stealth it’s like he enters a safe plane of existence where he can heal, shed condis and what not, but in terms of gameplay it’s a huge, passive fail.

Your suggested changes would encourage Shadowdancer-style gameplay, darting in and out of stealth. Therefore the only buff that perhaps should remain during stealth is a movespeed buff to aid this kind of combat agility.

This would also fix:
- reveal issues (while you get booted from stealth, your buffs still trigger)
- reduce player drama (the teef leik perma stelthed, got 100% healz and backstabbd me for 20k damages)
- improve staying power

Remember thief could still choose to stay in stealth if he wanted to obfuscate the enemy, it’s just that it wouldn’t be rewarded with buffs and condi cleanse.

PopeUrban.2578:

I remember when we were masters of stealth.

Then engineers got a mobile super-refuge.

And they still don’t rely on stealth to defend themselves.

Look, Karl, I realize this is the DD feedback thread, but acro was eviscerated, and with all the reveal being tossed around to every single other class in the game SA is being eviscerated as well.

You want our role in PvP to be back capping and +1? Well that’s awful, but if you’re going that direction go all the way. Give us more run speed, shadow steps, and mobility so we can at least reliably run from fights since it’s obvious that we’re not supposed to be able to win them unless we select the mandatory new evade playstyle.

I don’t even play a stealth build any more and I’m just plain upset about the constant inattention to thief stealth reliance as more and more revealed creeps its way in to the game.

how does it even make sense that the class The developers stated is “the master of stealth” actually worse at providing and maintaining stealth for both allies and self than not one but both pet spam classes?

How is thief burst even a problem when compared to mesmer burst, or the upcoming engineer stunlock?

Isn’t it more problematic to have a class that can continually hand out lethal damage while remaining completely invisible? Didn’t you nerf cloak & dagger because of that exact issue?

Isn’t it more problematic for a class that can literally stunlock someone for upwards of ten seconds to also hand out obscene amounts of stealth to his allies?

I get that daredevil is all about the evasion. I’m a fan of that. But core thief is not in a good place and it is the only class that has all of its passive defenses turned off when revealed by an outside source

Since you’re in charge of thief balance at the moment, can you enlighten us as to why you feel this is an acceptable limitation for thieves, but not for classes with far better innate passive survivability tools?

Aye, well said.

As a returning player who also mained thief since launch, I have decided, like many others, that I won’t be purchasing the expansion.

Because I won’t pay for something I don’t want. Why on Earth would anyone pay for an inferior setup?

So please, take the daredevil traitline back. Take back the staff and it’s silly copy/pasted animations. Take back the awkward new dodges. Fix the core thief, restore acrobatics to what it was and actually come up with something original for DD that doesn’t step all over existing traitlines, harming the core thief in the process. Over the last few weeks I’ve read a number of effective ideas on these forums that are better than acro 2.0.

I’m absolutely disgusted with the decisions made with the thief specialisation changes and I reject them completely.

Prolly a bit rusty tbh. The skill curve will have turned against you.

OMGimAnoobLOLOL.4730:

While not an SPvP thing, I do toy with is: If you run WvW SA builds, you can switch to Resilience of Shadows with a zerg.

I have seen the occasional tactics warriors in SPvP and the res speed is pretty surprising.

Good to see someone finding some use for RoS! Venomous Aura and Shadow’s Rejuvenation are also nicely interchangeable on a venom thief when a group gets split up in WvW.

I can imagine the warrior’s res with -50% cleave damage on top of the res speed. Gimicky, sure but these traits kinda are…

Evalia.7103:

I’ll criticise it, honestly.

And you bring up a very good point, which is partly why the thief is so pigeon holed in spvp. (Anet, take note)

The build is just a piece of fun however; an attempt to utilise ‘new’ traits. The goal wasn’t to make a support build as such – it’s just how it panned out. If anyone was around right back when Lowell and The Super Squad were playing, they will know that while most venoms are largely ignored currently, venomshare builds aren’t exactly new.

I’ve played thief since launch. I enjoy mucking about with underused traits, especially when builds starts feeling stale. Below is a fun to play, if not wholly successful thief support build!

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cF3V;1Vwk0-I5FOFd0;9;49-T-T2;302C;106Bw

Basically you deny stomps and revive allies through Merciful Ambush+Shadow Protector+Resilience of Shadows (stealth ally when you revive them while applying regen and reducing 50% attack damage while in stealth – 3secs) or you can use SR or Blinding Powder…

You strip boons like usual S/D thieves (bountiful theft+Larc Strike).

You have more staying power through soldiers armor and can therefore negate damage nicely through boonstrip+weakness, which you apply through your sword autos. You also have the regen boon whenever you stealth.

If you need to bail you still have the usual slipperiness.

It’s best played as team support, as good players on mobile classes can be hard to finish 1v1, though the sword cripple is useful here. It’s not bad for holding points as well, especially when you swap blinding powder for caltrops – (which could also be fun in a cele build with daggers). ‘The trops’ provide a fair whack of on-point pressure even with low condi damage. Might on stealth helps a bit here also. Best not to linger in stealth though as you don’t gain much from it unless you’re trying to res an ally. I use Lyssa runes for clearing loads of condis, but you could also swap in Shadow’s Embrace to replace Master of Deception if condis became a problem.

Again, it’s nothing to take seriously, but there’s synergy there and it’s fun to play if you need a change.

Anyone else managed to make some use of some underused traits?

Like Menzies says, Lyssa’s and basi go together perfectly and are great for the big condi bombs that shadow return can’t keep up with.

Other than that, shadowstep and agility signet also work well with the build if you want to keep focus on damage through traits.

While the above is more the ‘role’ of the thief in wvw. There’s nothing stopping a switched on thief from zerging – in fact they add a great deal if they can survive on the fringes of the melee with shortbow.
- Constant blast finishers
- AoE weakness
- AoE stealth for flanks (black powder > blast)
- Snipes with scorp wire (when it doesn’t bug)
- shadowstep > daggerstorm > shadowreturn for deeps

You can even take out key squishy damage dealers like staff eles with a bursty d/p stealth build.

Definitely can’t stay in the middle of the zerg train though and expect to meaningfully contribute.

Am I the only thief who feels that the outcome of a fight doesn’t rely on a traited steal landing?

I win fights all the time when steal misses or is on CD.
I lose fights/have to retreat all the time when steal hits.

I don’t think steal is a big deal really. The only reasons I trait it is because a) the other traits are bugged or underwhelming and b) if you have the option to load traits on to a skill and then reduce that skill’s cooldown, you’re effectively reducing the CD of all the traits as well. Any intelligent player will try to maximise the synergy of their build.

shrug

Achey.3612:

the reason i personally cant stand venoms (specifically basilisk venom) is because you only get a certain amount of hits and they go away but thats not entirely the problem. the problem is if an enemy dodges, blocks, or ANYTHING….. the venom goes away.

i hate that when i use balilisk venom, all an enemy has to do is dodge or just be a guardian or an engi… and it wastes my elite for a whole 45 seconds… the elite should be unblockable at least OR make it so it goes away after a SUCCESSFUL hit. you only get ONE…. one chance and for what? 3 seconds of basically…. a daze? and it only works on ONE target. while rangers get a long kitten immobilize that targets 5 in an AoE radius.

I don’t know if you were around during the early days, but Basilisk used to be an unbreakable stun. This was back when thieves were WAY more bursty – when mug used to crit and eons before the ferocity nerf. Now that thief burst has been kicked in the balls, Basilisk stands out even more as a mediocre elite skill. Trouble is, for 9 builds out of ten it’s still the best we’ve got. That speaks volumes IMO. I’m all for making Shadow Refuge an elite. It deserves the spot at least.

Achey.3612:

i think a decent solution would be a trait that would grant you stealth every time you use a venom. at least then it would lesser the blow from adding venoms to utility. we already have a rune (rune of the trapper) that allows stealth for traps and that was a step in the right direction.

No thanks. As others have said, balancing weak abilities through runes is the worst kind of approach. We want diversity of builds, right? That won’t exist when a player running this or that build MUST HAVE this or that rune set to make it work. Worse still, niche rune sets act like a bandaid preventing the sorts of proper fixes those abilities really deserve. You think traps are going to get reworked now those trapper runes have been released? I doubt it. Every thief running a trap-focussed build must run those runes unless they’re trying to prove something. Yes, at least traps are a viable option now, but it’s an extremely limited option that’s stopping a REAL FIX.

rogerwilko.6895:

Hurtappl.6405:

Before I quit gw2 .
something something DOOOOOOM
games dead neways
kk be bye

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I lol’d

I’d like to see P/P have some sort of dodge mechanic, like most of the other #3 skills.
Death Blossom
Flanking Strike
Pistol Whip
Disabling Shot

I’d like to see Unload give back a small amount of endurance with each successful hit. Something in the realm of 5%. An unload has what, 9 shots? This would refill your endurance by 45% and would rely on the thief’s timing and landing hits to work, giving counterplay.

And yes, there are still problems to do with auto power scaling, auto attack speed, etc, etc

Summed up nicely by the OP.

I’ll add:

Weaponsets: The problem with cleave and bounce
Due to the extreme specialisation that is necessary for a venom build, the venom charges are too valuable to waste. Everything pivots around the thief successfully landing his venom charges as it’s their main source of damage and cc. Compounding on problems such as dodge and block skills already countering venoms, venom charges are also wasted on pets, clones, turrets and all sorts of undesirable and unintended targets. Now that dagger has cleave, the ONLY weapon that allows you to pinpoint where your venom charges are spent is the pistol, and even pistol has a traitable bounce effect now. Unfortunately, pistol limits the thief in the areas of damage and mobility. The auto attack is also very slow. Yes, venoms can be discharged quickly via sneak attack, but this is telegraphed due to stealth and quite easily avoided.

WvW Havoc: Being a slow moving venom-vendor isn’t fun. This role can be distilled down to the following:
Share venoms > watch teammates kill stuff > try to keep up > try to concentrate on the nice happy feelings you get for running a support build as that tic in your eye keeps getting worse.

No stunbreaks, condi cleanse, mobility or on-demand stealth. C&D is the only gtfo skill and is undependable.

Yep. I’m running an experimental P/D+P/D venom share team-oriented build. No stun-breakers, movement skills or condi-cleanse apart from Withdraw.

“Scrub condi thief” After I killed a glass S/P thief who opened on me. I decided to leave him to tick in downed state after that remark.
“Stupid healing venom thief” After a pew pew ranger couldn’t kill me.

AyuReady.3952:

I love all of the kittened traits they try to incorporate like healing on critical damage in a damage trait tree.

Exactly! If you’re traiting in the crit line, you’re traiting for damage. That means, you’ll take Executioner. A measly 8% heal on crit? No, 20% more damage, please!

Even the 100% crit out of stealth trait (its name escapes me) would be better off in the power tree.

My favourite is Power Shots… The +5% shortbow damage in the toughness/healing stealth focused tree. Shortbow, one of the three weaponsets with no access to stealth. If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry.

It’s just… silly design, if it can be called ‘design’ at all. Here is a small list off the top of my head, past and present:

Revealed duration 4 secs ended the ‘rhythm’ of stealth. Reverted the changes in wvw where stealth was a problem, kept the changes in pvp where it wasn’t a problem…

Shortbow #2 – Reduced range to 900, just enough so that thieves couldn’t fire off wvw walls anymore, despite still being able to be hit my many damaging enemy abilities

Sword #3 – The sole requirement for an unblockable ability is now blockable

Pistol #5 – Used most often for effectively securing stomps against most classes rather than the ranged blind, now fails due to 2 sec blind pulse

Assassin’s Equilibrium – A GM stealth trait in the Acrobatics line. The fix? Increase the duration…

Post your favourite silly design decisions below.

They would get e-lynched

I made a really fun SB/SB condi build a while ago. It was a crack at a point defence build based around dodges and healing through ini use. Would be interesting to do with a celestial amulet. It was awesome to have the SB’s versatility and movement constantly. Stealing from a ranger > blast > blast > blast…. was awesome.

Fun, yes. Effective, prolly not. Anything is alright in solo q though.

carlobarletta.5638:

Okay, that thief short bow is pitiful piece of junk. AOE damage from poison gas and cluster bomb are nothing and inconvenient to use. Together they took off about 10% of npc health. I’m used to playing ranger and its short bow is about 10x better. I’ve now read others who won’t touch that thief short bow (unless combined with necromancer?).

Thief shortbow is more of a utility weapon. It provides great defensive and mobility options, while it’s damage is better in group situations. It’s hands-down the best weapon in the game imo, despite all the silly nerfs over its lifespan. Not that it’s STRONG, exactly – it’s more useful than strong.

95% of thieves have it as their secondary weaponset. This alone speaks volumes.

Remove Last Refuge minor trait. Change so that each time you apply a venom you remove one condition.

Buff traps – when Needletrap and Tripwire is cast, the thief throws down quarter-sized versions of the same trap (think teemo shrooms). Decrease cooldowns to 10-15secs. Decrease cc durations.

Slightly increase P/P unload animation speed while keeping damage.

Buff Invigorating Precision and Assassin’s Equilibrium.

I don’t agree with you op, but I think I can see why you believe thief players to be either godlike or terrible. A ‘properly built’ thief will have very heavy damage, yet all his defence relies on an all or nothing system. For example evade – you either evade all of the damage or take all of it. Stealth – if you get hit you take full damage, otherwise you take none. Shadowstep – your reflexes are either fast enough to avoid everything or nothing. Blind is the same.

Thieves are a knife’s edge class. One mistake and you are dead. Flawless play and your opponent is dead. This is the result of heavy damage combined with all or nothing defence. Now, even the best player of any class makes mistakes, but thief, imo, has one of if not the highest skill ceiling of any class allowing thieves to pull of simply amazing stuff…

or die in an instant….

I wish that the PvE maps could get crashed for WvW. I’d love to win an alliance with the centaurs and then come crashing down upon Queensdale There are so many interesting buildings and geographical obstacles it would make for great battles. I know it would never happen but I just wish there was some way to bridge the divide between the three game modes to make them feel more alive.