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Thief Traits Wishlist

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

@BladeNinja
I agree that Anet should fix the broken traits before introducing new ones. That’s why if you see a lot of these changes, they are either number adjustments (easy change), moving said trait to a different trait line( a slightly bigger change), or combining two traits/streamlining them/giving them additional functionality on top of current mechangics (a bit more intensive work but still manageable at the current patch schedule). Only 3 traits are actually new and those are placed to keep the current number of traits.

Thief Traits Wishlist

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

@Doggie
Although a new weaponset would be cool, I wish Anet would fix a lot of our current issues first before introducing new things that could potentially bring more problems.
@Black Cat
I don’t think it would make P/P OP at all. The listed changes would definitely make it more viable, but with the current meta of mass Retal and P/P still lacks methods to stealth and evade outside of utils and dodges.
@DanH
You are wrong in saying that all other classes only get +5% damage since there are many traits from other professions that also grant + 10% such as (Slashing Power (warrior), Scepter Power (guardian),…etc…)
Also since the way the traits are arranged, only way for someone to potentially stack the 10% bonuses in the way you described, one would have to dedicate 2 Master traits to achieve this and sacrifice other utilities from traits for pure damage.

Thanks for the responses!

Thief Traits Wishlist

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

In my opinion I think there are some thief traits need a little work or moved to different trees. I know in general we may have less useless traits than other professions, but at the same time, I think there is still room for improvement. Here’s a list of thief trait changes (numbers not exact or present (some numbers may be possibly OP i know, but its a wishlist)) I think would improve build diversity and show some love to the more neglected traits. What do you guys think? Any changes you guys would love to see trait wise? Discuss!

DA M: Dagger Training (Dagger damage increased 5%, Critical hits have a 33% chance to causes bleeding)
DA M: Move Master Trapper CS to DA (Traps recharge 20% faster and are ground targetable)
DA M: Combined Training (Dual skills deal 10% more damage)
DA M: Quick Venoms (Reduce CD by 20% also when a venom is activated it releases an AOE effect as well as applying it on the hit )
DA GM: Move Venemous Aura to DA from CS and combine with Residual Venoms
DA GM: Panic Strike (When Target is below 50% health 20% chance to cause burning on crit 10 sec cooldown)

CS A: Ankle Shots (Crit hits with pistol have 40% chance to cripple for 3 sec)
CS M: Pistol Mastery (+10% Damage with pistol and combine with Ricochet)

SA a: Last Refuge (change so stealth from trait is non stackable with other stealth and does not apply revealed)
SA M: Power shots (Shortbow and harpoon gun damage is increased by 10% increase range of skills by 150)
SA GM: NEW Strike in Darkness (Stealth attack is unblockable 20 sec cooldown)

AC A: Assassin’s Retreat (Increase evade/dodge distance by 10%)
AC A: Fleet of Foot (move to adept)
AC A: Pain Response (Remove bleeding, poison, burning, or torment on dodge 10s cooldown)
AC M: Fleet Shadow (Dagger mainhand gives 10% speed boost, Dagger offhand gives 15% speedboost for combined 25%s speedboost if dual wield)
AC M: NEW Sword Mastery (increase sword/spear damage +10% shadow return on infiltrator strike is a stunbreak/Tow line also Dazes for 1/2 Sec)
AC M: Assassin’s Reward (Slightly increase healing factor )
AC GM: Hard to Catch (Dodging removes Immobilized or Fear uses 100 endurance 10 sec CD)
AC GM: Quick Pockets (Also reduce weapon swap time by 3 seconds)

TR A: Instinctual Response (When you take more than 10% of your health in a single strike use release an aura that causes weakness to all enemies in the area)
TR M: Bountiful Theft (When you steal you and all nearby allies gain vigor for 15 seconds. Up to two boons are stolen from your target (stack and duration) and all boons on you are shared
TR M: Move Improvisation from DA to TR (Stealing reduces cooldown of a single skill on your utility bar (including elite) by 50%, you also deal 5% more damage while wielding a stolen skill

Sorry for long post.

The Problem with Initiative and how to fix it

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

Thanks for the response. Just to clarify
@swinsk – I do agree that thieves should be able to spam a skill repeatedly, its what separates us from other professions. However, that ability along with the possibility for us to stack a lot of initiative regen will prevent some skills from receiving necessary buffs such as bodyshot, dancing dagger, pistol whip(though it has gotten better recently), and (one could argue) Unload at the moment.
Also I agree natural ini regen is fine atm. The problem is how much we can stack ini regen beyond the native amount, even if we’re speccing into pure damage, example putting points into trickery (CND damage) and even critical Strikes have a minor trait that regen initiative. I do not want to change the thief, I would love to see it buff, but I believe the amount of ini regen stacking atm is preventing devs from really being able to buff us in many ways. (especially considering how many nerfs we’ve taken since the beta compared to the number of buffs/fixes)

@Pheonix Yes I understand we don’t get “a new set of CD” normally with weaponswap, (closest we get is a GM Trait in Acro), and natural ini regen I agree is fine atm. The problem is how much we can stack ini regen beyond the native amount. I am simply trying to come up with ways that wouldn’t normally nerf a thief unless its played badly i.e. mindless HS spam and a way to lessen the viability of “Perma-stealth D/P Troll builds” (not OP but annoying) while breaking as few builds as possible. I agree, also that other professions can be buffed too and would love that (except buffs to guardians, since they’re pretty balanced everywhere). However, I’m also afraid of Anet’s tendency of also horribly overbuffing professions (Necro Dhuumfire + Terror, though thankfully that got adjusted quickly)

@Smo I disagree that simply increasing initiative cost is going to fix things since that fundementally changes the thiefs ability to be able to spam skills for burst. One of the issues with S/D or S/P currently is that every single ability other than dancing dagger/headshot and AA cost 5 or more initiative and as a result (along with a waaay to slow AA imo) no real burst potential (in comparison to other weaponsets in regards to Direct Damage or Condi Loading) of skills at all

@Cyhann Interesting suggestion, but I think that may encourage some thieves to spam skills like HS even more since they’ll in a way be rewarded for it….

Stealth Should be the Reward

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

the fact that thiefs has a good amount of stunebreakers and stealth clears there conditions, i would say that they need to have a longer time where they cant enter stealth and then they get reveald each time they exit stealth.

Contrary to popular belief, thieves do not have “a lot of stunbreakers” since the MH Sword nerf. We have the same number of stunbreaks as any other profession, 5, but unlike other professions we do not get easy access to stability, invulnerability, block, aegis, or protection…and currently without stealth (i.e. at least 10 in Shadow Arts) we have a max of 3 (4 if mainhand sword) damage condition clears, forcing many to invest into Shadow Arts(stealth trait line) if they want a chance at the closest thieves get to a sustained fight.

So, basically, you’re saying your in the same boat as everyone except guardians. I don’t know about you, but my ranger would kill a baby quaggan to have access to as much stealth as a thief.

And I still think stealth is a broken mechanic that needs to be reworked into something that offers more counterplay. “Spam AoE in random directions” is not a counter to stealth.

First of all my post said nothing about how much access to stealth a thief can get, it’s obvious thieves can get a lot of stealth. All I did was emphasize why most people especially in PvP where survivability is King decide to trait into stealth, simply its currently the only effective PASSIVE defense (such as aegis, protection, stability, invul) that a thief has access to while at the same time the only reliable way of removing Damaging conditions without having to use a Sword or a 30+ sec cooldown utility/heal skill.

On the topic of stealth itself, if the devs had implemented any of the changes suggested on these forums due to the way thieves interact with other professions, stealth would be fairly useless.
Most common Examples.
1. Make thieves become revealed by damage – This would make stealth extremely useless because of the sheer number of AOE’s flying around in wvwvw or capture points in spvp/tpvp
2. Make revealed last longer – This would only work if the devs decided to give thieves a way to get more vit/toughness since thieves have nearly no access to any other form of passive defense
3. Make thieves be revealed on block, evade, invuln etc – This is probably the most sensible of the bunch, but even this is tricky due to classes such as guardians that can have very high uptime on aegis/blocks, also contrary to what most people think unless they are ambushed landing backstabs in the rear during combat is harder than it seems when the one being attacked knows how thieves work.
4. Implement utility/trait/weapon skill to all professions other than thief that removes stealth/add revealed – Also probably not going to happen since let’s be honest here, you’re asking Anet to add entire skills and traits to every profession that are only going to be useful against 1(Thief), maybe 2(Mesmer) Professions and unnecessarily penalizes those two Professions. Also how would said skills/traits work without ruining the Professions they’re targeting (i.e. WAAAAYYY too much work for a “problem” that can be resolved through much simpler means)

Since the devs had decided to make so much of the thief tied to stealth, it would hit a lot of thief builds extremely hard in the survivability department and would require the devs to give lots of buffs to thieves in other areas like vital and toughness if they were going to add a straight nerf to stealth.

Truthfully only way of “balancing” stealth IMO without completely reworking the thief and its mechanics (not going to happen since redesigning an established profession is too risky and too much work on Anet’s part) or making the Thief useless would be to slightly weaken traits such as Shadow’s Embrace, but add similar traits to Acrobatics and other traitlines in order to encourage thieves to branch away from relying on SA for survivability, and adjust the natural initiative regen to have a cooldown before initiative regen starts again when initiative hits 0 to encourage smarter thief play, discourage excessive spamming of skills, and add more counterplay rewarding successful interrupts, evades, and stuns against a thief a little more.

Sorry for long post
TL;DR – Unfortunately many thieves are pigeonholed into taking stealth because of the way Anet designed the thief, and any attempts to balance the mechanic currently would require a lot more work than people realize.

D/P The Evasive Blinder build (pvp)

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

I’m looking at your traits, and I have to ask, why are you putting 5 points into Shadow arts instead of say, putting that 5 into trickery and unlock another Master major trait such as Bountiful Theft to grant vigor and boon steal while reducing Steal (another gap closer) CD?

Stealth Should be the Reward

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

the fact that thiefs has a good amount of stunebreakers and stealth clears there conditions, i would say that they need to have a longer time where they cant enter stealth and then they get reveald each time they exit stealth.

Contrary to popular belief, thieves do not have “a lot of stunbreakers” since the MH Sword nerf. We have the same number of stunbreaks as any other profession, 5, but unlike other professions we do not get easy access to stability, invulnerability, block, aegis, or protection…and currently without stealth (i.e. at least 10 in Shadow Arts) we have a max of 3 (4 if mainhand sword) damage condition clears, forcing many to invest into Shadow Arts(stealth trait line) if they want a chance at the closest thieves get to a sustained fight.

Dual Swords ideas

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

I think the 4th skill feels a little too much like a warrior skill and not really a thief skill.
Also the 5th skill would be massively OP and the amount of QQ it would generate would be massive as almost every thief in wvwvw would jump into the middle of a zerg fight and hit 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 especially with one of the longest blocks in the game (not counting guardian aegis)!

The Problem with Initiative and how to fix it

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

I love the initiative system for thief, but I think the number of ways we can generate initiative puts us in a tricky spot for devs to balance around. They can’t feasibly buff a lot of our mediocre skills because of fear of mass spamming of one skill (i.e. Heartseeker on release/Unload in beta). For example Body Shot must be one of the most useless skills in thief gameplay currently, and the most requested changes for it has to be for it to either give burning/torment, cause weakness/chill or increase the duration of vulnerability, but none of these are currently possible without a massive increase in initiative cost for the skill. The possibility of being able to spam that skill almost 4-6 times before losing all initiative (akittens current initiative cost) would make it extremely powerful with very little downsides since current initiative regen rate when paired with utilities, and traits is extremely high.

Other big balancing concerns that are made difficult to balance due to the high initiative regen rate is the infamous and most QQ’d about D/P Blackpowder + Heartseeker combo(Permastealth). With the way things are with initiative at the moment, the only way to “nerf” this combo would be to raise the initiative cost on Blackpowder/Heartseeker, but that would be A HUGE nerf to almost ALL D/X and X/P builds.

The most common suggestion thrown out to fix this problem that I have seen was to simply nerf the natural initiative regen rate. However, I think that fix can potentially cause way more work than most would realize to implement since with a massive change like that, all skills will have to be looked at and re-evaluated in terms of initiative cost and if Anet doesn’t look at all the skills when implementing a change like that then, ALL Thief builds will effectively be nerfed.

I think the best way to fix initiative without affecting too many builds, and being easy to implement would be to keep the current initative regeneration rate/traits/utilities, but introduce an internal cooldown of say 3-4 seconds to natural initiative regen when a thief hits 0 initiative. Traits/Utilities such as Quick Pockets and Roll for Initiative would still grant their 4 or 6 initiative when 0 initiative is reached, but the natural ini regen will not restart until the ICD has finished.

This change should introduce some more counterplay against thieves, while encouraging much more skillful thief play (since most very good thief players are excellent at managing initiative anyway) and allow devs to have an easier time balancing some of the weaker skills (dancing dagger/bodyshot) since there is now a punishment to overspamming moves.

What do you guys think? Any suggestions, comments, questions? Please keep it civil!

Making traps viable.

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

I think changing all the traps to work in a similar fashion to shadow trap would fix a lot of issues with them. Currently shadow trap marks the target when they trigger it and then the thief can activate it to shadowstep and stealth to the marked target. What if traps like tripwire would work the same way? A thief will place it on the ground when a target triggers the trap they become marked, up to 5 players can be marked and then the thief can activate the trap to cause the knockdown. This I think would add so much more utility to the traps while making them unique and different then the ranger traps.

Shadow Arts vs. Acrobatics

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

I really, really like the Assassin’s Retreat and Quick Pockets suggestions.
We do need a Sword dmg increase trait and something to reduce weapon cooldown (9 seconds is an eternity when you’re in a tough fight and need to swap to SB to disengage). Ini boost on weapon swap needs to be toned down though, 3 ini every 5 seconds is simply way too much.

I would like to add my own suggestion:

Expeditious Dodger: Gain 10s of Swiftness on evade. 10s internal cooldown.

The current implementation of Expeditious Dodger builds a habit of bad play in encouraging dodging multiple times to move long distance quickly, and dodging to close gaps. Essentially wasting dodges.

It doesn’t even provide full swiftness uptime, which is something that many other classes already have, so it does not make sense that the Thief, who is supposedly the most mobile class, should be denied access to it.

This change would resolve both issues.

I think Expeditious Dodger is fine the way it is. Considering it is quite easy to have very high vigor and dodge uptime, making swiftness last 10 seconds for perma swiftness would be very overpowered, especially for a 5 pt minor trait. A better way to encourage combat mobility without overusing the dodge button for the sake of swiftness, would be to make all our dual skills with a built in evade that last 1/4 second like DeathBlossom last the entire animation or 1/2 second like flanking strike.

Random ideas for some thief skills.

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

Pistol
The concept of p/p is very clunky, and i feel most skills need a change or added effect to improve the set. Needs to be more to it then sec then spam unload, Headshot at the odd time, and auto when you got 0 initiative.

  • Make Vital shot into a 3 chain combo, first 2 shots are bleeds, then the 3rd shot deals decent direct damage, and/or extra damage based on;
    a) if target has a condition (either flat rate or per condition), or
    b) based on target’s health.
  • Body shot is pretty much accepted as a horrible skill, opportunity cost just doesn’t work with that effect it gives by itself.

    a) Give Body shot second condition, like weakness, or torment would be nice, or

    b) Make it a fire aoe around you( gun powder explodes out of you gun like black powder, but then ignites falling to the ground), last for a few seconds and stacks vulnerability to those while in it (falling burning powder weakening the armour when it lands on it, sort of makes sense right :/ ?), in addition to the stacks of vulnerability that fires out.
    Can be used put burn on targets at range. and give pistol a unique niche with having 2 combo field and the projectile finishers. Cast time of this could have a bit lengthy as not to be too strong.
  • For Unload, some one on these forum once suggested being able to dodge while doing it, for the cost of extra endurance, be kinda op, but cool at the same time, and would help with the survivability of p/p a bit.

Vital shot doesn’t really need a massive change, just a slight increase in its base damage and a reduction in its after cast would solve a lot of issues with it currently.

Body Shot i agree is a horrible skill but i don’t think AOE fire ring is a good change. It’s as if you’re trying to make the pistol more like the shortbow when the pistol should be more of a ranged single person option. I think simply adding torment and increasing the duration of the vulnerability stacks as well as making it a full physical projectile finisher is all it would need to be fixed.

Unload, though i would love for it to have a dodge like short bow’s evade shot attached to it or a condition, currently with the right traits to ini regen and ankle shots, this would make unload go out of control. If it did get an evade it would have to be a small evade that only lasted 1/4 second like DeathBlossom (which btw DeathBlossom should have 1/2 second evade since you are in melee and the skill lasts 1/2 second) .

Random ideas for some thief skills.

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

IMO Scorpion Wire currently isn’t bad when it works. The main problem with it is getting it to work since it gets obstructed by everything including air. If they could fix that one issue, Scorpion Wire would be usable as a weak knockdown and interrupt.

Personally (assuming the pathing issue is fixed for SW), for me I wish Scorpion Wire would would pull more people at once (ala Kohler in AC) or increase the CD to say 60 seconds but allow you to use it 3 times (instant cast) before going on CD.

A suggestion that might help venoms

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

What if the poisons lasted the duration of the skill but applied their effects on the first move out of Stealth?

Right now one of the biggest issues with thieves as a whole (in regards to build variety) is that Thieves are almost overly dependent on stealth for everything, i.e. burst, condi clear, healing, escape….making an entire utility set like venoms rely on stealth as well would do little more than further restrict build variety while nerfing venoms even more of their usability.

Shadow Arts vs. Acrobatics

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

I’m finding the same thing. With the new patch I really wanted to play with the Trickery and Acro lines, but I’m really missing the condition removal. Any solutions?

Sadly no there is no reliable condition removal (trait wise) on a thief. This is the reason why Thieves are sorely lacking in build diversity since a thief has to trait in SA in order to use non sword builds while not traiting in SA forces the thief to carry S/X at all times as one of their weapons in order to have a reliable condi clear.

A suggestion that might help venoms

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

Also I wouldn’t mind if they reverted Skale Venom back to Weakness from Torment and place Torment on Pistol #2.

A suggestion that might help venoms

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

Hmm interesting, but I also am not a fan of RNG.
How about having venoms similar to a Mesmer’s Mantra, but with a small AOE?
This way there just needs to be a mechanic change but the strength/duration of the conditions, and the number of charges wouldn’t have to be changed.

For example :
Spider Venom, when you apply it, it has a small cast time, then it flips to a new icon and indicates it has 5 charges on it. Whenever you activate the venom (each charge is instant cast), all enemies (up to the cap) around the thief get hit with the poison condition. The cooldown for venom resets once all the charges are used up.

This allows you to have more direct control over your venom applications and preserves your normal weapon dps, while at the same time minimizing changes to the traitlines.

Examples:
Venemous Aura (Venom Share): can keep the current mechanic of allies having the number of charges for conditions on weapon strike, but increase the area range of venom share to at least hearseeker distance (about 450) while the thief has more control of his venoms.
Residual Venom: Add an extra charge to the venoms etc…

Shadow Arts vs. Acrobatics

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

Very true! I also agree with the proposed quick pockets becoming OP if you traited it with trickery, quick recovery, and infiltrator’s signet. I guess realistically if they did add a reduced cooldown to weapon swap it would be at most a 20% reduction.

Shadow Arts vs. Acrobatics

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

Something I have noticed for a while is that between the 2 defensive trait lines thieves have, Shadow Arts seems to be much stronger than Acrobatics. Main reason is because Shadow Arts provides so much utility, from condition clears, increased healing, and stealth utility to boost survivablilty, while Acrobatics provides little more trait wise than a few more dodges with some short duration boons attached in exchange. I was hoping that this last patch would have addressed this issue by really strengthening the Acrobatics trait line (with promised mobility buffs) to encourage build diversity and by extension make stealth less of a crutch to thieves in general (hopefully reducing the number of stealth QQ), but alas I was disappointed. Note this is also not a QQ post regarding stealth or SA. I love the SA trait line and would hate to see anything removed(other than Last Refuge) or nerfed. Instead I would like to see Acrobatics be buffed or changed in ways to really compete with SA and open up non stealth build options.
examples:

Fleet Shadow (Adept) – Change to Movement Speed increased by 25%
Fleet of Foot (Master) – Change so it also removes chill and instead of internal CD of 10s removes when you dodge with 75% or more endurance
Pain Response (Master) – Change so it also removes Torment
Assassin’s Retreat (Master) – Change to Shadow Return on sword skill breaks stun and 5% more damage on sword skills
Hard to Catch (GrandMaster) – (Not a fan of internal CDs and random auto repositioning) Removes 2 Conditions when you dodge with over 75% endurance.
Allows dodge on Immobilized
Quick Pockets (GrandMaster) – Gain 3 initiative on weapon swap while in combat, weapon swap cooldown reduced 50%

My question for you guys is how would you like to see the
Acrobatics trait line improved? Does it need to be improved? Discuss!

The buffs I want to see thread.

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

@ LoneWolfie

I understand that just becoming another boon user may be “boring” or “cookie-cutter”, however most of this is also going under the assumption that stealth may be nerfed judging by how much people still demand thief nerfs even to this day. If Anet decides to cave in and nerf the hell out of stealth what would be left? We saw how much damage such a seemingly small change such as +1 sec to reveal had on thieves.

In regards to your view of venoms I don’t believe simply adding more attrition (i.e. duration) to the venom’s current functions would make them any more attractive compared to deception skills unless they become incredibly overpowered. The reason I listed as venoms possibly applying boons is so other builds such as venom share would become a lot more viable since now venomshare condi thieves could add more support to a party other than sb#2 blast finish and shadow refuge. Also this can allow non stealth thieves to be more viable.

In regards to Signet of Shadow’s i left it at 25% because any higher would make swiftness and parts of the acrobatics trait line a bit useless. And the amount of QQ people would have with a super permaswiftness thief may become as intense as the rage over permastealth.

In regards to trap skills (imho the area where anet really messed up on) the Cooldowns were set at pretty conservative estimates I will admit, however, they function a lot differently than ranger traps since the changes to traps would allow thieves to have control over when and where the traps would trigger not necessarily where the trap was placed allowing more people to potentially get hit by it overall.

Also i fail to see how a 60 second cooldown evade/stun breaker/selective condi cleanser being reduced to a 40 sec/32 sec (if traited) evade/stunbreaker/selective condi cleanser in exchange for some initiative regen as a huge nerf.

I agree that buffs should focus on making a variety of thief builds viable however, only adding more damage (direct, burst, or condition), which a lot of buffs seem to be centered around, would do is further pigeonhole us even more into squishy dps machines who must always take a shortbow and/or make DD burst and DP thieves stronger.

The buffs I want to see thread.

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

For me the biggest issue I see with the thief is the fact that Deception utility skills are clearly much better for the most part than almost all the other utility skills we have.

Made a forum post about some fixes a while ago if you want to read it

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Suggestions-for-Thief-Utility-Skills/first#post2004740

Also would love to see some love to pistol whip, pistol main hand skills (except sneak attack which is fine), pistol/pistol weaponset as a whole, dancing dagger, shortbow auto, and tweaks to steal (possibly adding f2 and f3 as an additional steal but increasing CD of steal?)

Suggestions for Thief Utility Skills

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Posted by: Virgil.3869

Virgil.3869

Hello Everyone,
I have played as a thief since the Beta and one of the biggest issues surrounding thief balance and build diversity in my opinion is the power level imbalance in the utility skills. Currently I believe that the Deception skills are by far the most versatile and heavily used Utility skills while a few Signets and Tricks see few niche roles and Venoms (without venomshare) and Traps are largely ignored. What are some suggestions you guys have in making all utility skills (not just Deception ones) more useful?
Here are a few of my suggestions

Venoms:
I believe venoms have the potential to provide supplemental condition damage and team support utility for thieves. The general principle is for venoms to not only add conditions to the enemy but add its opposite buffs to the thief and if traited to the thief’s allies
Skale Venom: Increase cooldown to 60 seconds. Causes weakness and vulnerability to the next 3 attacks while granting Protection to the thief on activation.
Ice Drake Venom: Increase cooldown to 60 seconds. Causes Chill on the next 3 attacks while granting thief Swiftness and Vigor on activation.
Devourer Venom: Increase cooldown to 60 seconds. Causes Immobilization on next 2 attacks while granting Stability on activation.
Spider Venom: Increase cooldown to 60 seconds. Causes Poison and burning on next 3 attacks while granting Regeneration
Basilisk Venom: Increase Cooldown to 120 seconds. Causes stone on next attack. Attack is unblockable and grants all boons on activation.

Traps:
Main issue with traps are that they only hit one enemy instead of being AOE. In order to keep Thief traps unique from Ranger traps, this is a suggestion to how Traps should work.
All traps are still placed as a line, and will mark an enemy(s) that moves over it and continue to mark up to X (varies on trap) number of enemies for the next 30 seconds. Within the time frame the thief may activate the trap at anytime hitting all marked enemies regardless of their location. If traps are not activated in the 30 second time frame they are placed back on cooldown. Traps may be “deactivated” placing them on a shortened cooldown.
Shadow Ambush Trap: Combine the Shadow trap and Ambush trap. Marks up to one opponent. Upon activation, thief may shadowstep to marked opponent and summons a thief guild member at the location. Cooldown: 60 sec or 45 sec if deactivated
Tripwire: Marks up to 5 opponents. Upon activation causes knockdown. Removes up to two random boons Cooldown: 60 sec or 45 sec if deactivated
Needletrap: Marks up to 5 opponents. Upon activation causes immobilization and poisons. Cooldown: 60 sec or 45 sec
Blaze Trap: Marks up to 5 opponents. Upon activation causes 1 second daze and Burning. Cooldown: 60 sec or 45 sec

Signets:
For the most part I think signets are fine except for two that need slight tweaks to boost their usefulness.
Assassin’s Signet: Due to its recently buffed passive, only the activated effect needs to change. Active effect: Deal 20% more damage to next 2 attacks. Attacks can not be blocked.
Signet of Shadows: Passive – Increase Movement speed by 25% in and out of combat.
Active – Blind and Protection

Tricks:
Tricks are on par with signets with only a few needing real changes in my opinion.
Scorpion Wire: Needs to hit reliably
Roll for Initiative: Lower initiative regeneration from 6 to 3 and lower cooldown to 40 seconds

Sorry for the long post. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? Post Below!

(edited by Virgil.3869)