Hey there. My post/s will only concern Thief PVE issues.
Firstly, venom sharing (with leeching venoms) has potential to be a very good PVE support choice, the recent buff to leeching venoms is much apperciated. However i feel that the range of Venomous Aura is far too short for it to be viable in the vast majority of PVE situations. If everyone in your group is not recieving the venoms, then the spec is basically pointless. Also, I feel like the spec needs abit of a damage buff to be viable in PVE, perhaps you could add a trait in Deadly Arts which makes you damage a target whenever a venom is applied to it, this should ofcourse spread to party members whom you have venoms shared with, it should also scale with power or something. Some of the durations on the Venoms could also use a buff. I also find Basilisk Venom to be a very poor excuse for an elite skill, its only really useful in TPVP matches on venomsharing Thieves, for PVE its useless and needs to be reworked. The fact that Basilisk Venom is also our only underwater elite skill needs to be changed also.
Secondly, dual pistols could use a PVE damage buff, or perhaps some kindof buff to Ricochet in the Trickery traitline so the bullets bounce much more often. The recent change to the Body Shot cast timer was nice, but in PVE at the moment P/P is only really usable on ranged single target fights, which does not apply to many situations.
Thirdly, I feel that the 15% nerf to Pistol Whip was unjustified in PVE terms. As far as I can tell, its damage was only nerfed due to burst issues in pvp when stacked with Quickness/Haste against glass cannon players who do not take stunbreaks and do not learn to dodge perhaps the most predictable skill ingame (Pistol Whip). The damage should be refunded in PVE because at the moment you can do almost as much DPS autoattacking with the S/P combo. Pistol Whip is a dual skill that should out DPS autoattack by a decent margin. Black Powder on the pistol offhand is a great dungeon tool and should not be nerfed in any way.
Fourthly, I feel that Traps are very lacklustre at the moment. I have used each Trap maybe five times in PVE and overall I find that the Traps are not worth the utility slots.
Next, I think that Thief should be given an elite skill that when equipped provides a passive magic find and money drop boost to all party members, this obviously would not stack if other Thieves were in the party using the same elite skill because that would be overpowered. After all, arent Thieves supposed to be the ones that get the job done then bring back the loot?
Next, I would say that the Sword/Dagger combo is very poor for PVE, I only use it on the Mesmer boss in TA to remove her buffs.
I am glad you only implemented the Backstab nerfs in PVP, if they had been implemented in PVE also it would have destroyed crit daggers. However, I do not see why Dancing Dagger had its damage nerfed in both PVE and PVP, it was only an issue in PVP. The damage should be refunded in PVE.
I also feel that Sword should be available for use in the Offhand slot giving us another few weapon combos. Dual swords would be nice if designed well.
This guy has it spot on, i have thought about same suggestions while playing my thief. At least once a week i wonder to myself why we cant use dual swords….. i think that would me amazing.