Guild Wars 2

https://i.imgur.com/gyg3Hi5.png

Bounding Dodger’s tooltip if you want to make it cleaner.

You’re not paying for anything. If the Elite Specialisation has been balanced specifically around making this choice within the line, then there is no trade-off.

That plus being able to choose which dodge you use on F skills would probably be super imba.

People need to get out of the notion that Grandmaster traits are just that, Grandmaster traits. They aren’t. Traits are just choices within a Specialisation now.

That, plus: this is FAR more interesting than the other Elites. We’re not stuck with a crummy replaced Dodge that we don’t like, we can pick from THREE, and they all benefit us in different ways. The extra base 50 endurance benefits pretty much any build ever, as well.

Honestly, I’d say we got far more benefits than, say, Tempest. Overloads are TERRIBLE.

I think it’s very strong and competes pretty well with the other choices in that slot. You can gain a big source of endurance sustain + damage, a big source of condition removal or essentially Halting Strike. It’s a tough choice and honestly it should be.

The mysterious 12th trait has been found – and I was right. It’s a 3rd type of dodge skill with power damage. Potential DPS increase for PvE use and just monstrous in general for anything else. This hits about as hard as a frontstab!

It’s almost as if Elite specialisations are capable of enhancing existing aspects of the profession, like every single other one that was announced.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA.

Auto-attack reflects AND CCs and SLOW?!? Spammable stunbreaks on initiative skills? Cheap launches? Channelled blocks with Stability, Protection and Resistance?

This is why you are not responsible for balance. No wonder you thought DD was bad, if THAT is your expectation.

Kallist.5917:

Was checking out the traits again, and noticed we’re only seeing 11 of them. What’s the 12th? http://imgur.com/a/Ee6t8#7

My gut feeling is that it’s going to be a 3rd type of dodge like Impaling Lotus or Dash. Maybe there will be one to choose from in each tier, or one tier just has all 3 types. One is helping against impairing conditions and enhances mobility, one is more offensive with conditions, so maybe one that’s more power damage-related?

No idea what you’re talking about, I love it.

There isn’t much overlap between Acrobatics and DD. DD has no Vigor, only raw endurance gains with a bunch of other benefits. Acro is all about gaining and using enhanced Vigor (with some other nice stuff like stunbreaks and initiative sustenance). They complement each other, but do not replace each other.

From the way Staff skills, Physical skills and the traits work, I can already envision a few different ways to play, which is what Elite specialisations are all about. Heck, I might actually take off Shortbow in PvP due to that tasty leap and AoE Weakness + Blinds plus easy escapes from Mesmer Sword Shatter bursts.

What makes you think that having specialisation lines that are somewhat underwhelming compared to others is a particularly bad situation for Thieves over others? I can only imagine the horror for you if you mained Necromancer.

I can’t believe the thought processes of some people on these forums. We got a ton of stuff we’ve always asked for relating to reliable non-Stealth condition removal, decent utility CCs and stunbreaks to get out of using Deceptions constantly, a good Elite to replace just having to use Basi since it’s all we’ve got…and people still complain as if the profession is dead.

I pity whoever has to read feedback, across the board for most Elites in general, but for Thief in particular. Some people can just NEVER be happy.

Slowmelt.8547:

Alex.9268:

The auto attack is pretty underwhelming though.

Look again—it has a lot of potential.
The first two strikes are relatively quick, and the third is 4 Vulnerability stacks and a Whirl finisher.
With Shadow Refuge, you can do a lot with the staff and many of these abilities.

It’s not really quick at all, they hit as fast as Sword and the 3rd takes twice as long. What will close the gaps is what the aftercasts are like. Sword 1-3 has a pretty substantial aftercast.

WindGodGirl.6405:

I get the feeling staff is intentionally weak so that it can be bumped up instead of down.

This is what I’m hoping, too. The other skills have good damage and utility, I would guess that they didn’t want the Staff breaking faces with its auto right from the get-go, just to see how it fares.

babazhook.6805:

Does anyone know what "Palm strike " is?

This.

Testing the tooltips in-game (they definitely scale with your stats), the Staff autoattack is crazy weak. Not even half as strong as Sword autos and the final 4-hit skill doesn’t even total past a single Lotus Strike or Wild Strike. I expect that will be buffed after a BWE, at least to a Sword standard, or maybe the cast times can be increased plus a smaller damage boost. Speed can be somewhere between Dagger and Sword while damage (auto-only in both cases) can be somewhere between as well.

Everything else is INCREDIBLE though.

EDIT: Attached auto chain comparisons with my stats scaled.

“Nuh-uh, that datamined stuff is meaningless, Rifle is totes happening”

I don’t want to say “in your face”, but I kinda am.

The hype is real!

EremiteAngel.9765:

ranger is getting staff…so no thief wont be getting it.

Both Elementalist and Necromancer got Shouts. Exclusivity isn’t an argument. I’ve actually never read or heard anything from Arenanet saying that 2 Elite Specialisations can’t get the same weapon.

Unless Shiro’s traitline has a lot of damage modifiers and the Sword skills have very high co-efficients, Revenant is still going to hit like a wet noodle. I hope it does live up to its role as a DPS setup, at least.

Revenant also has TERRIBLE out-of-combat mobility. The shadowsteps in combat are going to be all it has. All this plus a seemingly extreme lack of stunbreaks (Jalis needs to prepare its Stability and the Elite costs 50 Energy, Mallyx has none, Ventari has none, leaving only a Legend swap that’s reliable, and even that forces you in to a different utility set).

Thief will easily outshine Revenant for its role.

Shadow.1345:

KatanaPunk.1286:

I am normally pretty quiet on my opinion…

BUT

you guys forget that no spec will get the same weapon as other specs. So forget the staff thing when rangers are getting one.

Where did any of the developers ever say this?

Literally nowhere. This has been a pure assumption on the part of the players.

Range: 130-1200

1a) Shadow Whip

Swing your Staff, creating a shadow-infused gust of wind that strikes near a distant target. Foes within melee range are also hit by the staff’s physical form (struck twice).

Number of Targets: 3
Vulnerability (1 stack)

1b) Shadow Coil

Spin and swing your Staff again with more momentum, striking twice in melee range again.

Number of Targets: 3
Vulnerability (2 stacks)

1c) Shadow Helix

Swing with yet more momentum, briefly evading attacks. Strengthen yourself for each attack you avoid.

Number of Targets: 3
Evade: 3/4s
Might (1 stack) for each successful evasion.
Combo Finisher: Whirl

2) Malicious Vault (4 initiative)

Strike the ground to damage foes and jump backwards, leaving a shadow mist that saps enemy strength and blocks projectiles.

Number of Targets: 5
Weakness: 3s
Mist duration: 3s
Combo Field: Dark
Radius: 300
Range: 900

-> Malicious Return (2 initiative)

Vault forward to the mist’s location, bringing the staff crashing down on nearby foes.

Number of Targets: 5
Combo Finisher: Blast
Range: 900

3) Shadow’s Path (3 initiative)

Infuse and hurl your Staff to spin through foes in front of you, transferring a condition each way.

Combo Finisher: Projectile
Range: 1200

-> Shadow’s Displacement (2 initiative)

Shadowstep to your Staff’s current location in flight, blinding adjacent foes.

Blind: 5s
Radius: 240
Range: 1200

4) Shadow Riposte (4 initiative)

Block the next attack, parrying and causing them to stumble.

Block duration: 1 second
Knockback: 0 (not a typo)
Range: 130

5) Dark Descent (6 initiative)

Leap directly upwards and dive down with a forceful swing, sending forward a heavily damaging wave of mist that reflects projectiles as it moves. Vulnerable foes that are hit by the wave take massively increased damage.

Damage Increase vs. Vulnerable foes: 50%
Range: 1200

Stealth Attack) Shadow Cord

Strike your foe with a black tether that continuously blinds as you attack with your Staff. The next time they attempt to dodge, the tether will trip them and break.

Tether Duration: 10s
Blind: 1s
Knockdown: 2s
Range: 1200

Utilities (Stances);

Heal) Dark Escape

Heal yourself and gain Super Speed for a time. Heal yourself proportionately to how far you moved from your original position.

1) Unseen Fury

Pulse blind around yourself. Blinded foes cannot block your attacks.

2) Deadly Paradox

Regenerate Initiative at a massively increased rate. You cannot use auto-attacks.

3) Way of the Shadow

Break stun. If a foe disables you during the stance, you evade that foe’s attacks for X seconds.

4) Malicious Abrasion

Gain Fury. Critical hits remove boons

Elite) Flashing Blades

Pulse Aegis for the duration. Foes that break an Aegis receive damage.

Came up with this stuff at the top of my head just now. Went for a Stealthless AoE set with range versatility. Stances were just a choice inspired by GW1, if we do get Kits that’s awesome too, but I can’t even think of that many kits.

Damage numbers not included for anything because that takes a lot of tuning.

yolo swaggins.2570:

That still could be a spear, terrestrial or aquatic as far as anyone knows.

It IS a Staff.

[&C6EXAAA=]
[&AgFgEQEAAA==]

Preview these codes in-game. Are you seriously trying to tell me that this is not the displayed weapon?

As for the rest of it, how can you say THAT is anything other than speculation or wishful thinking? What does a fan-made set of skills have to do with anything or anyone at Arenanet?

“I like these Rifle skills that some random person on the internet came up with in their spare time.” This is not evidence.

Have you also considered that maybe Arenanet are deliberately NOT giving us a 1200 range weapon because we have the most gap closers/openers and mobility options above any other profession in the game? You want to kill something at 1200 range? Appear directly in front of them in the blink of an eye then go back to where you were after you’ve stabbed his face to ribbons.

We don’t need a long range weapon. We never have.

You can pick up their rifles as environment objects and do the exact same skills as those NPCs. They have zero connection to Thieves. In fact, some of them don’t even wear medium armor in the open world. There are NPCs out in the world right now that use weird combinations like Pistol/Warhorn while wearing Light armor as well.

Nobody knows if Staff would actually be melee, either. It could be a hybrid of melee and long range for all we know. The Elite Specialisation is speculated to have kits, maybe one of those covers 1200+ range rather than a Staff or any other weapon needing to cover it.

yolo swaggins.2570:

At least with rifle, it has anet’s track record as it’s evidence, something that stays true today.

I’m sorry, but where? People here seem to insist Rifle Thief is a thing, but in 3 years I have not seen a single hint of concrete evidence anywhere about Thieves getting Rifles. Ever. Seems like just a bunch of hearsay from someone’s initial wishful thinking, to me.

A Specialisation artwork showing somebody wearing Sneakthief armor, drawn in identical style to all the other Thief lines, wielding a Staff that can be previewed in-game as both a regular and Ascended version (exactly like the other Elite weapons), seems like more concrete evidence to me than anything else I’ve ever seen.

What people want or don’t want =/= what is more or less likely.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Petoox.6570:

http://i.imgur.com/xA8qvVk.png staff it seems

Don’t forget, that could also be the Rev’s elite specialization involving a melee spear. I believe anet planned to give all professions an elite spec. It would seem unfair if every profession had an elite spec except for rev.

Spears don’t exist, there are no new weapons – and Revenant’s melee Staff is not an Elite Specialisation. That, and the Staff in the picture is datamined in the game, PLUS the person in the picture is wearing Sneakthief armor ie. Medium.

babazhook.6805:

4>Add to the AA (Number 1) some form of on Crit effect . This to favor power loadout and ensure it more favorable to pistol main hand (d/p is already fine p/d is fine . P/d generally has low crit rate)

Suggestions

On crit gain 3 seconds swiftness (I sec cd)
On crit gain 1 stack might for 3 seconds (1 sec cd)
On crit Inflict slow for 2 seconds (I sec CD)
On crit gain 1 ini (2 sec cd)
On crit gain 2 seconds to all applied boons (5 second CD)

I think on-crit doesn’t even need to be a thing. You could have it set up in a way that benefits both power or condition (P/P or P/D).

What if Vital Shot granted you an extra point of Initiative against Vulnerable targets, the same way that Warrior’s Fierce Shot grants Adrenaline for the same thing? ICD or no ICD, the balance of that can come later, but I think that would be more interesting.

WindGodGirl.6405:

Strikes me as unlikely. Why would they double-down on giving out Staffs as a new weapon? On two of the three medium classes, no less?

Rifle seems like the more obvious choice. I’ll be heavily disappointed if they double-dip with staffs.

It has never been said that the same weapon can’t be given to multiple Elite specialisations. In a situation where we eventually have multiple Elites, there wouldn’t even be enough of a selection to allow such a thing.

Invigorating Precision OP.

babazhook.6805:

I am not sure this qualifies as a bug but is worth considering. It a bit of legalese.

First the question. Is Needle trap off trappers respite considered a trap? If so does it fall under the category of traps when reading the skill Improvisation?

Description : You can use stolen items twice. One random skill category is immediately recharged when you steal.

Note that deadly trapper DOES apply its benefit to trappers respite so my read is Improv should in fact recharge Trappers respite.

It currently does not. If traps all recharged Via IMPROV the needle trap off the heal is not reset and I read this as a bug.

If you have the trait that reduces Trap cooldowns, notice the discrepancy if you hover over Trapper’s Respite. The trap itself has a 24s cooldown, but the cooldown of Trapper’s Respite remains at 30s. I think the trap is definitely recharging, but the CD of the trait itself is preventing it from triggering.

They do and it makes a trapper build 10x stronger than before along with the removal of revealing damage. Will probably update my trapper build video soon too.

1) That’s fine, pretty much everyone got those kind of merges so it’s natural to keep up. Problem here is that stuff that was already somewhat competitive got buffed to keep up and stuff struggling to keep up in the meta (S/D) got worse. Much worse. Anything not already in the meta (P/P) will never hope to compete. No change.

2) It’s fine, what’s not fine is the removal of Ricochet. If it was going to be removed, some work could have been done to fix the Pistol weaponsets. Instead, it’s just left in the dust. Completely unacceptable.

Apart from that atrocity, Critical Strikes is fine as an addition to burst. Has some very strong damage-enhancing traits and the amount of Fury you can grab from it removes the need for Thrill of the Crime in a good few situations.

3) S/D isn’t too bad, Flanking Strikes is its saving grace. Acrobatics is still terrible – Guarded Initiation suddenly got changed to be utterly useless, Assassin’s Reward still exists, the total endurance that can be regained with the new Vigor is nowhere near enough to compete with a Stealth-heavy setup. To try and get any decent condition removal FORCES you to abandon Acrobatics in favor of SA.

4) Potent Poison is way too weak. Dagger Training is way too weak. Traps are fun for WvW. P/D has always been monstrous with abrasive condition play and doesn’t need help from any of the new traits, which is fine because they suck. D/D hybrid is too weak in both condition and power to be viable – just forget about trying to keep hybridisation and give the weapons a focus.

5) Improvisation is great and I take it in PvP sometimes, but now it’s suffering from the Venomous Aura problem. The base skills have to be less effective in order to accommodate a higher possible maximum. At least it’s not as bad as Venoms, where one or two are SOMETIMES used outside of a full Venom build and the rest are garbage. My use of Improvisation and Executioner is 50/50.

6) Not in PvP. TG get wiped out by a single glance of AoE and DS makes you a sitting duck.

Now for some rambling outside of the questions, since it was welcomed:

I understand the mentality of Acrobatics – being rewarded for active gameplay instead of spam. The problem is that the reward is FAR less than the payoff of old. Now that Vigor is so much weaker and the minor traits can’t bring it back up even to the old standard, there HAS to be more added to it to be slightly competitive. On top of that, Acrobatics needs effective, reliable condition removal to be preferred in ANY circumstance over Shadow Arts. Guarded Initiation should have stayed as Resistance above a health threshold, and there possibly could have been a way to get condition removal on dodge rolls with an ICD. Something, ANYTHING to even come close to matching Shadow’s Embrace. As it stands, everyone is essentially pigeonholed in to DA/SA/Trickery or DA/CS/Trickery if they want to play seriously, which is basically how everyone is already used to playing Thief with a few more extra points.

This balance pass did nothing to help build diversity – it just made the stronger builds strong enough to keep up and the weaker builds were left in the dust.

P/P is still the biggest issue here – it suffers from the Warrior rifle problem that got fixed ages ago. It’s too confused between direct damage and condition damage (its autoattack applies conditions while the costly skills are direct damage), and trying to accommodate both doesn’t work because both are too weak. Either the Pistol autoattack finds a way to work with power and condition damage (to accommodate P/D) or P/P becomes a full condition setup as well. P/P also needs to stop being an initiative hog and needs a way to defend itself reliably, whether that’s an addition of mobility or a change to Unload to give it 100% Projectile Finishers (to reliably blind foes through Black Powder) or something else. The worst part here is that all these issues have been present since the launch of the game, and Ricochet was the only thing that kept it marginally useful. Now, it’s gone. There is no use for P/P anywhere unless it gets a major overhaul.

No combination can make AR practical – it has always been completely worthless.

Zero Day.2594:

Auesis.7301:

herzeleid.3719:

Unrelenting strikes doesn’t grant rage when target is below 90% health as stated in the trait describtion.

Works fine for me

Did you try in sPvP?

I think there’s still that bug that you need to step out of pvp into LA or something, then come back in to have the traits take effect…

Unless they fixed that or I was trolled.

Hmm, I was bouncing in and out of the Mists a lot so that might have fixed it without me noticing.

herzeleid.3719:

Unrelenting strikes doesn’t grant rage when target is below 90% health as stated in the trait describtion.

Works fine for me

- At 0 Might, Dagger Training would need to be able to maintain at least 2 stacks of Poison to outdps Mug. That’s certainly POSSIBLE, but unreliable. I can’t find the co-efficient for Mug so I can’t say what happens when they scale up to 25 Might, but I imagine Mug only gets better, so I’d agree there.

- Yup, pretty much. The difference is fairly small between the two.

- I’m surprised that the description doesn’t mention this. Increasing everybody’s damage > increasing your own. However, I have seen the Vuln cap being hit a lot more often in dungeons as of late, so you could get away with Practiced Tolerance in a reasonable group.

I would also say that most PvE content doesn’t require group Vigor (much preferred for high Fractals, though), so you could just take Trickster and reduce the cooldown of Flanking Strikes instead.

Just tried it, it’s much nicer now. Probably going to prioritise it over Shadow Protector most of the time.

Trapper’s Respite has a 30s cooldown, so a low CD heal makes no difference to how often you can use it.

Zylvian.3468:

Tabootrinket.2631:

Zylvian.3468:

Auesis.7301:

^^^ Yup!

The advantage here is that you don’t have to throw away your stolen skill to Steal, making it more flexible. Really enjoying it so far.

Ah I see. Will you eventually have to use it, or can you i.e stack multiple ones?

Everytime you steal the new one replaces the old one

May I then ask what the point is, besides seeing the cooldown?

Quality of life.

^^^ Yup!

The advantage here is that you don’t have to throw away your stolen skill to Steal, making it more flexible. Really enjoying it so far.

The update preview showed that it was actually supposed to proc Blinding Powder instead of just Stealth, and then it got changed. Maybe it…actually didn’t?

Just tried it, not getting Stability. What traits did you have active? It might be a hidden bonus on one of them.

EDIT: Got it, confirmed. Stability is proccing on Reveal when Don’t Stop is active.

Check your Deadly Arts line, it’s changed back <3

Also Resourceful Trapper has been changed to that old Vulnerability/Might + 20% CD.

Here’s your dev answer.

I hope it’s fun for them trying to plow through double Plasmas.

You are literally insane if you think 50% damage reduction, stackable with Protection, as a Minor trait was EVER going to make it to the live game.

The stream for the initial version of the system showed that it was literally the trick Haste, so it has Haste’s CD that can be reduced by Trickster. I’ll be sticking with TotC, though in PvE chances are a Warrior will be handing out FGJ and that alone can pretty much be kept up forever with No Quarter.

As for the the First Strikes/Ferocious Strikes thing, here’s what it boils down to for PvE (for WvW and PvP it’s just straight up worse for the most part depending how you build, but it’s not that bad).

We lost:

5% damage mod (Flanking Strikes)
10% damage mod (First Strikes)

We now have in their place:

~10% damage mod (Lead Attacks)
105 Ferocity from Flawless Strikes if you can reach 100% crit chance without Side Strikes in some way
250 Ferocity from No Quarter
150 Ferocity above 50% HP from Ferocious Strikes
About 200 Ferocity from Practised Tolerance in full Berserker Ascended gear with food, if Vulnerability is being handled sufficiently by your group so you don’t need Sundering Strikes

So above 50% HP you can be totalling an extra 47% crit damage, or 37% below 50% HP. I’m not much of a maths buff, so the theorycrafters will be the ones to determine the position we’re in compared to before down to the decimal point.

They said on the first stream that it was baseline.

These notes could pass as a novel, they’re bound to miss stuff.

Maugetarr.6823:

Well, at least cele might get slightly nerfed by this. They said the breakover point for condis doing more damage was 700, and even with a base stat increase I wouldn’t expect to see too much more condi damage added in. The meta cEle build has about 540 condi damage for example, so we should expect to see less damage per tick. Not to mention they said burning was going to get a slight nerf in general to make up for the intensity stacking. Lets hope that by making all of these damaging condis intensity stacking that condi builds will have to apply more constant pressure rather than bursting condis and kiting while you melt.

The issue there is that Cele builds get more of their strength from giving themselves Might. A good few stacks will send them soaring well above 700 and supposedly condition damage above 700 will scale to be even stronger than before. Burning will struggle a little bit, maybe, but I can’t see a Cele nerf being that large if at all.

Ragnarox.9601:

Auesis.7301:

Ragnarox.9601:

So remove stealing daze from guardians…in HoT guardians do not have any daze so its not right to steal something that guardians do not have. You can’t steal money from someone who don’t even have it.

The stolen skill is a Mace. Guardians can use Maces. Why can’t I smash you over the head with it to daze you?

Besides, Guardians are already pretty much the hard counter to Thieves and that will only get worse with HoT. They’ll be juuuuuust fine.

We don’t have mace daze…so stealing something that we dont have is plain stupid.

You have a mace, and that’s the point. The Thief isn’t stealing your skills from your brain. That would be stupid. The whole point is to improvise with what you grab. Spin to win with an axe you take, plant a seed you find, consume left-behind essence, bash with a mace you find, shank with a shard of ice left from a spell, whatever. We aren’t diving in to your head, learning how you do things and copying it. We’re grabbing something from you and doing what we can with it, because we’re not you.

Ragnarox.9601:

So remove stealing daze from guardians…in HoT guardians do not have any daze so its not right to steal something that guardians do not have. You can’t steal money from someone who don’t even have it.

The stolen skill is a Mace. Guardians can use Maces. Why can’t I smash you over the head with it to daze you?

Besides, Guardians are already pretty much the hard counter to Thieves and that will only get worse with HoT. They’ll be juuuuuust fine.

You can do exactly as described already by hitting F1 twice very quickly. The fact you think that would break the game, yet it already exists, shows you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Shiro seems like it will be more Power-based to me. Swords have been datamined already and their skills have been changed to be pure power rather than a hybrid. I can see those weapons being a perfect fit for a Shiro legend. They seem to like putting a weaponset to a legend (Jalis – Hammer, Mallyx – M/A, Ventari – Staff).

I would guess Glint is the elite, purely because the elite specs seem to have lore reasons attached to them. Revenants might want to contact Glint for better insight about dragons to help tackle Mordremoth.

As for what Glint actually is, I’m guessing lots of area denial and crowd control with large mobility. Crystal walls and eruptions, large leaps to avoid attacks, things like that. Would go well with a ranged weapon.

Great QoL change – thanks a bunch!

How many times do the developers have to say “numbers are not final”, “experimental”, “still in development”?! I thought they said it too much and that it was obvious, but apparently not…

Jesus, they even said that the Acrobatics line hadn’t even been tested and will most likely be completely different.