Guild Wars 2

80% of random matches are entirely predictable just by looking at the comp.

Personal skill doesn’t matter in this game, it’s just all about group dynamics.

That’s why sPvP is so little fun and by far the worst aspect of this game.

If it wasn’t for the Achievement Points I doubt even the 11% that play on a regular basis would participate.

Interceptor.2653:

Dee Jay.2460:

PS: For clarification I’m currently assuming Crit-Damage will be roughly 20% lower than it currently is (10% overall damage nerf on a class with 50% crit-chance = 20% nerf to crit-damage).

I don’t know that this is a good assumption. The 10% figure given by ANet is for the “most extreme power DPS focused builds”, and 50% crit chance doesn’t qualify for one of those.

So what line of reasoning makes most sense to you? How will you go about your gear choices in the future, particularly in WvW?

Can’t make any decisions until I see what happens with Sigils and Runes in the same patch. The things I am watching for, though:

1. what happens to the stat budget on Celestial-style gear
2. if they are going to add gear with Ferocity as the “primary” stat (potentially a windfall for Hidden Killer)

Well they spoke of an overall DPS nerf of 10% for the most DPS-focused builds.

Now Berserker gear + Critical Strikes tree will normally put you at around 55% Crit-chance without buffs or traits. The effective crit-chance is actually closer to 70% if you account for various traits and the occasional Fury.

So yes, a 20% reduction of Crit-damage may be slightly excessive but not too unreasonable. Maybe a 15% reduction is closer to reality.

The problem with any other stat-combination aside from Berserkers is that Power is so much better than everything else, by a long shot. So even gear with primary Ferocity won’t be more attractive.

I find 15.000 to be the sweet-spot in PvE.

In WvW it’s harder to say but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with less.

So with the upcoming change to Crit-Damage/Ferocity I’m left a little awash about what implications it has for the future, in especially in regards to crafting Ascended gear.

In particular I’m unsure about what gear and stats it will promote/demote as multiple lines of reasoning make sense.

PS: For clarification I’m currently assuming Crit-Damage will be roughly 20% lower than it currently is (10% overall damage nerf on a class with 50% crit-chance = 20% nerf to crit-damage).

You could argue:

• Burst damage will be lower, hence fights will last longer, hence survivability will become more important. —-> Stack Valkyrie/Soldier’s gear.

• Burst damage is lower, hence there is less threat to us getting bursted, hence we can stack more offensive gear. —-> Stack more Zerker gear.

• Valkyrie gear + Hidden Killer is getting its primary damage dealer nerfed. Valkyrie is getting nerfed hardest, relatively speaking.

• Berserker gear is harder hit because it crits more often.

• Ferocity will be a bad stat. —-> Soldier’s is where it’s at.

• Or give up on Power damage all together and join the Condition overlords. But try not to fall asleep while doing so.

So what line of reasoning makes most sense to you? How will you go about your gear choices in the future, particularly in WvW?

Maybe he’s confusing it with a P/D Thief using Sneak Attack ?

The animations of Sneak Attack and Unload do look very similar.

According to this survey…

…roughly 11% of the player base partake in sPvP on a regular basis.
…and roughly 20% every once in a while.

However it’s consistently regarded as the weakest aspect of the game.

Relax, you still have a month to accumulate glory. You can even still spend after March 18. The vendor isn’t in a hurry to go anywhere.

I don’t really think classes in GW2 have enough depth (i.e. abilities) to make this format compelling to play.

I recently made the mistake of doing SoloQ again after the TeamQ didn’t pop.

I ended up in Skyhammer and rage-quit the map after about 30 seconds.

A harsh reminder of why I avoid SoloQ and an even harsher reminder just how bad sPvP is in this game.

I’ve made this argument before and I still stand by it. Having this huge discrepancy in base-HP is bad for the game and makes balance much harder than it needs to be.

Of course these changes can’t just happen without context.

But even a 2200 HP bump would be sufficient, bringing the base HP up from 10.800 to 13.000.

• Elementalists might need a nerf to their Vigor and/or Protection uptime, but not much since they’re not that strong currently.

• Thieves could take a nerf to Feline Grace or a replacement for Vigorous Recovery.

• Guardians could take a nerf to both their Protection and Vigor uptime.

All in return for 2200 more base HP. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

I would think it’s simpler to scale the rate of the ticks with current player activity rather than resort to some complex equation.

• If a total of 1500 people are in WvW you “tick” every 10 minutes.
• If a total of 500 people are in WvW you “tick” every 20 minutes.
• If a total of 100 people are in WvW you “tick” every 40 minutes.

I’d say only total numbers of players matters because if you show up with a 100 man raid at 4AM, that should make a difference. Just less than it does currently.

I currently feel that combo-fields are too limited in their effect, despite being a defining aspect of GW2’s combat.

Currently only Firefields (for Might stacking) and Waterfields (for Healing) are used commonly. All others fields are rarely used for group-synergy.

The problem is that the effects often don’t last long enough or are tied to already abundant conditions. So your Poison Field applies Weakness with a blast-finisher? Well never-mind, everyone already has Weakness thanks to Necro AoE. And his lasts 3 times longer.

Retaliation gained from a combo-field barely lasts for 5 seconds and is expired before you even reach the enemy.

Imo any Boon gained from a combo-field needs to last at least 10 seconds. Same applies to Conditions. And if they’re made slightly less abundant then we might actually see more combo-fields being used.

Yes, but not until the Points-per-tick system is revised.

Personally I find the cooldown on Earthshaker to be a little low when running Hambow. I mean 8 seconds cooldown for a (potential) 3 second AoE stun is quite generous.

While I agree that there are issues, Infiltrator’s Arrow is probably the single most useful Thief weapon-skill in the game.

The mobility it adds, especially if you have a good sense for shortcuts, is amazing.

The projectile never really struck me as slow, but then again I use instant casts and don’t rely on recticle targeting.

I agree that it would be nice if teleports worked a little more consistently. It’s frustrating (and sometimes deadly) when minor obstacles or even slopes like bridges etc. stop teleports from working properly.

The only useless part of Infiltrator’s Arrow is the Blind component, which strikes me as completely superfluous. I’d gladly sacrifice it if the cost of Infiltrator’s Arrow was reduced by 1 Initiative in return.

Stacking for some reason also suppresses some boss abilities in PvE, making them a lot easier.

Conditions melting targets faster than any D/D Berserker build ever could.

Just shows you how broken Conditions are.

The video is ok for showing of the gimmicky build but the actual game-play is terrible. I mean most of the clips are vs. one, maybe two unsuspecting players with the help of Thieves guild.

1. Thief ( more of a redesign than a straight nerfs/buffs)
2. Ranger ( they need to be about more than spam)
3. Elementalist (I don’t think they are fundamentally flawed, they’re just a little weak in the current meta).

I’m using Runes of Strength as well as they have great synergy with 25 points in Shadow Arts.

The bonus to Power + the 5% static damage increase results in higher damage output than Divinity Runes or any of the Orbs.

Yes, I even tested it. My average Backstab on Karka went from 5000 with Beryl Orbs to roughly 5250 with Runes of Strength. I must admit though that I do miss the extra HP a little.

That’s because, in my opinion, sPvP is the least fun or original aspect of GW2.

Even less people would play it if it wasn’t for the achievement points.

The appeal of zergs comes down to much more than the AoE caps. AoE caps simply reward stacking and moving in a blob.

Removing these caps wouldn’t dissolve zergs, they’d merely change their tactics.

There are quite a few MMOs that had large scale PvP without AoE caps and that just meant everyone spread out more and you didn’t really have charges or attempts to push. Instead you had hour-long Mexican stand-offs with people taking potshots at each other.

Given these two alternatives, I take stacking and actual movement over spreading out and taking potshots any day.

The appeal of zergs is more complex than a simple mechanic. the small map sizes are a big part of it as well since most maps only have 1 point of conflict at a time and this point is rarely more than a minute of travel-time away.

Basically it’s easy for a single zerg to cover and entire map which is why it’s the most prominent form of WvW combat.

Frankly, I never notice much of a difference between the two Initiative systems.

Yes, it’s nice to play D/D without Infusion of Shadows and D/P can no longer chain-stealth thanks to it but that’s about the extent of the impact I noticed.

Thieves are in need of more weapon-options and this chain-thingy certainly looks cool. But it would probably require extensive animations unlikely to be found in an update. Maybe if they do ever get around to making an expansion….

alvinjason.3109:

I think it’s ok. what they need to fix is that shadow step & Shadow return* stomp.

Why not take away their ability to stomp at all?

Seriously, I can understand where most Thief complaints come from, but complaining about stomps is just ridiculous.

If stomping/downed-state wasn’t such a contrived mechanic to begin with Thieves wouldn’t need so many tricks to counter it.

I would actually like to see Stealth removed from abilities like Cloak and Dagger or Black Powder and instead moved to become a general class skill like Steal.

This would give every Thief build access to some form of Stealth.

However, unlike the current implementation using F2 Stealth would consume Initiative so that you can’t stealth indefinitely and stealth comes at the expense of your offensive abilities. You might need to reduce the cost of our weapon-skills slightly to accommodate this change but overall I think it would work better than what we currently have.

TL,DR:

• Make stealth a class skill like Steal and remove stealth components from Cloak and Dagger and Black Powder.
• Stealth now consumes 1 Initiative per second.
• Reduce cost of most weapon-skills.
• Utility stealth skills like Shadow Refuge can remain unaffected by this change.

How’s that different from people using Stability to stomp you? At least stealthed Thieves can still be interrupted by your mates.

We’re talking about a Direct X 9.0 game here with relatively poor multi-core support and still written for 32-bit software.

I really doubt Linux support is anywhere on a to-do-list in terms of technical support.

MrAmputatoes.6031:

Dee Jay.2460:

The ability to stealth is fine.

But that fact that stealth also:

• Heals
• Blinds
• increases movement speed
• sets up powerful stealth attacks
• removes conditions

…is what makes it OP.

If stealth was exclusively a defensive maneuver and didn’t provide offensive capabilities it would be spammed far less.

That requires 70/70 traits points for the thief just fyi and uses 6/7 equip able traits. I’m perfectly fine with it. The only stealth that needs looking at is BP —-> HS.
9 Initiative isn’t much after the 12/10 changes and has little to no healthy counter play. There is a reason Blinding Powder has a 40sec cd: instant cast stealth.

I think you’ll see a standard 0/30/30/10/0 build covers all of that with…

• Shadow Rejuvenation (alternatively Shadow Protector)
• Cloaked in Shadows
• Fleet Shadow
• Backstab or Sneak Attack
• Shadow’s Embrace

…and that’s a fairly common build with D/D. D/P obviously doesn’t need Cloaked in Shadows and commonly replaces it with something else.

But let me reiterate. The best way to go about this isn’t to straight-up nerf Shadow Arts. It’s to make stealth a purely defensive move with little/no offensive capabilities.

This means no more Backstabs and Sneak Attack, at last not in their current form.

Instead Backstab could be a skill that chains requires some setup or chains from a different ability. The same could be done to Sneak Attack. These abilities don’t need to be nerfed or removed, they just shouldn’t performed from stealth.

Currently:
You want to pressure your enemy —-> go stealth for Backstab / Sneak Attack
You want to relieve yourself of pressure —-> go stealth for condition removal/healing/blinds etc.

Ergo —→ stealth is always the best option

Future:
You want to pressure the enemy —-> stay and fight him
You want to relieve yourself of pressure —-> use stealth to avoid damage/heal/cleanse etc.

Ergo —→ when to pressure and when to retreat are tactical decisions.

People don’t stand still to counter Torment because immobilizing yourself on top of it is rarely a wise choice.

Torment in itself may not be OP but the way it helps cover existing conditions makes the addition of Torment the point where conditions slowly spiraled out of control.

Downed-State.

The feature I despise most in GW2.

Pistol
Vital Shot seems kind of bland when compared to other auto-attack. It deal poor direct damage and is weak, even with condition builds. Only Sneak Attack really provides some punch, which is why the key to P/D is to use this skill as often as possible. Vital Shot is going to play a key role in making the Pistol/Pistol play-style more appealing as it is currently lackluster in all forms.
Body Shot is in a similar position where the initiative is mostly wasted, regardless of build. The immobilize can occasionally come in useful on a condition build, but only because they have Initiative to waste.
Shadow Strike is an interesting skill as it is a gap opener on a weapon-set that generally tries to stay within range for Cloak and Dagger. The added Torment make for a nice amount of extra damage and it creates some interesting game-play opportunities like backwards kiting.
Unload is the signature skill for dual pistols. It’s not exciting and doesn’t have any interesting elements to it, except that it deals respectable damage. Having this be its only defining property is a little lame, but changing it is a low priority when buffing Vital Shot and Body Shot could do much more for the dual-pistol play-style.
Headshot a situational but effective interrupt. Rather expensive considering its low damage but understandable so as to prevent it from being spammed. Might not be used very often but still a highly useful skill.
Black Powder is another key skill, like Cloak and Dagger and arguably a more problematic one. Being able to chain Smoke Fields that apply Blinds faster than most auto-attacks makes it an extremely difficult ability to balance. In PvE this allows Thieves to kill most melee mobs with no threat of taking damage while in WvW and sPvP it’s also a source of stealth and damage mitigation. It’s a highly versatile skill but also somewhat overpowered for an ability that can be used so liberally. But just like with Cloak and Dagger any change to this ability can severely affect an entire WvW play-style.

Aquatic
Neither underwater weapon has any worth-while synergy with condition builds, making underwater combat an even greater pain for them than it already is.

Harpoon Gun: Deluge does respectable damage, but most other skills do not and also have very little else to offer in practice. Ink Shot is also incredibly slow and ineffective.

Spear: It’s actually quite decent for Power builds, but again has nothing for Condition builds. It seems to have an awful lot of damage-avoidance skills with either blocks or evades built in. For a while this meant that Thieves were virtually untouchable underwater but this issue has been addressed. It might be nice to see some more interesting skills but that’s a low priority issue.

What does this mean?

Having a clear distinction between condition and power weapon-sets will be essential if Thieves should hope to become more engaging to play instead of relying on the same old 2-3 skills. For weapon-sets where a clear distinction isn’t possible both play-styles should be made attractive. This means buffing Death Blossom for power builds and Dancing Dagger for condition builds for example. Aquatic combat also needs a serious buff for condition builds and could generally be made a lot more interesting.

Weapon sets

One of the biggest problems with Thief weapons currently is that the Initiative system encourage the player to disregard inefficient skills and reduce the skill-set to those skills that are worthy.

This means that in practice a weapon-set can often ignore 1-2 of its main weapon-skills completely because they are either bad or do not mesh with the play-style.

Point and case, Dagger/Dagger, the Thief’s most signature weapon-set.

In practice it consists of Cloak and Dagger, Heartseeker and auto-attack because the other skills aren’t worth-while. This make Initiative management rather easy as there are only two ways to spend it. All weapon-sets suffer from this problem to an extent and D/P is the only weapon set that will frequently use all the available weapon-skills.

This can partially be attributed to the unclear distinction between condition and power weapons with many weapon-sets trying to be both at the same time. Without initiative this wouldn’t be a problem but with it just means they’re ignored completely.

Shortbow
One of the most popular and versatile Thief weapons it’s used with both Condition and Power builds. it’s a good example of how a weapon-set can be appealing to both play-styles without sacrificing the usefulness of skills.

The only gripe with this weapon-set is the awfully limited range. Especially the targeted skills like Cluster Bomb and Choking Gas really suffer from this as the practicalities of these skills further reduce their effective range. For example it’s barely possible to hit targets while standing on top of a keep wall due to the way range is calculated. Reverting these skills back to 1000 or more range would be justified. Also, the blind provided by Infiltrator’s Arrow is superfluous in all but the rarest circumstances as it’s far more often used as a gap opener rather than a gap closer.

Sword
Great in both PvE and sPvP with the greatly appreciated ability to cleave multiple targets. I still feel the “lag” added to Infiltrator’s Return was a poor solution to a nonexistent problem. I won’t wale on this too much as Thieves are still in a good position in sPvP but I hope this isn’t a long-term thing, since it’s hard to imagine a less elegant fix.

Dagger
Mainhand
Both Auto-Attack and Backstab are solid skills although I touched on the issue of offensive capabilities being stacked into Stealth further above. As long as this remains the case Thieves will be trying to stealth as much as possible, all of the time, which doesn’t make for compelling game-play. I also feel that Heartseeker can be awfully effective for such a cheap skill. Especially the synergy with Furious Retaliation and Executioner can lead to some incredibly high and easy-to apply damage.

Dual Skills:
Shadow Shot is a good skill with few flaws.
Death Blossom however is the prime example of the Thief weapon-set issue. It’s virtually worthless to Power builds and it’s the only viable skill for condition builds. This means that both play-styles find themselves with a “dumbed-down” weapon-set because key skills are made redundant due to their inefficiency. This needs to be fixed if Thieves should ever hope to become more engaging.

Off-Hand:
Dancing Dagger is probably one of the weakest and most underused Thief weapon-skills. It performs very poorly in almost all scenarios and suffers from various projectile pathing issues, often leading to “obstructed” targets. A cripple also isn’t all that useful on a class that has plenty of gap-closers. This ability could do with a buff of some kind.
Cloak and Dagger is probably one of the key Thief abilities. Many builds rely on chaining this skill over and over again for maximum effect, due to the excessive benefits of stealth (damage, blinds, healing, condition removal, etc). This ability is key to making Thieves more fun to play against but due to their reliance on stealth any change to this skill has to be carefully considered.

Verdict

Many traits are outdated, often being little more than passive damage increases with little to no impact on game-play. Often the best traits of a tree are located at the lower end, rather than the high end.

What needs to happen?

The first priority should be fixing obviously broken traits like Last Refuge as they are a constant source of frustration.
Second would be replacing some of the obviously underpowered traits I pointed out and consolidating the Venoms traits into the Deadly Arts tree. Giving Thieves more condition removal outside of stealth should also be a priority here.

More long-term it would be nice to.make Thieves less dependent on stealth. As mentioned above, Stealth does too much for Thieves and yet without it they are screwed in WvW. Making Thieves less dependent on it would do a great deal for build diversity and addressing the stealth-spamming issues.

Traps also strike me as a mechanic that will never work well with Thieves. Maybe an alternative mechanic should be explored and traps left to Rangers, a class far more suited for this type of ability.

That is all. I hope this feedback can help direct potential Thief changes in the right direction.

Trickery

Minor – Kleptomaniac: Nothing exciting but a little added Initiative never hurt anyone.
I – Merciful Ambush: Similar to downed-traits, revive traits are rarely taken because people prefer generally useful traits over highly situational ones.
II – Instinctual Response: Conceptually not bad, but it shares the same issues as Last Refuge. Automated stealth proccs on Thieves will never work well with the “Revealed” mechanic.
III – Uncatchable: One of the most popular traits due to its synergy with condition builds who can both dodge a lot and apply reasonable condition damage.
IV – Flanking Strike: Another underpowered DPS trait. Not as kittenome others but not very engaging either. Is only really selected for PvE when Thrill of the Crime is redundant.
V – Thrill of the Crime: One of the few ways Thieves can provide boons to their group. A good and popular trait for various builds in lot of different situations.
VI – Long Reach: 1500 range opens up some interesting options for Steal but it remains highly situational and often loses out to Thrill of the Crime or Uncatchable.
Minor – Preparedness: Another key trait at 15 points and for many the reason to spec into Trickery as the 3 additional Initiative make Initiative management much more forgiving.
VII – Bountiful Theft: Another good trait in Trickery and adds some much appreciated utility/support to the class.
VIII – Trickster: A 20% cooldown reduction on mediocre abilities isn’t generally all that great.
IX – Initial Strike: Not really reliable enough to provide sufficient Initiative regeneration. Seems a bit outdated after the change to Initiative.
X – Ricochet: One of the coolest and most desirable traits for Pistol wielders as it provides the set with much needed AoE. It also has some interesting interactions with other abilities.
Minor – Lead Attacks: Again, another passive damage increase that comes around roughly 10%.
XI – Hastened Replenishment: Very situational trait even when used with Withdraw. Might have its niche but is generally pretty bad when compared to…
XII – Sleight of Hand: Daze on Steal and the cooldown reduction make this a very attractive trait for PvP.

Conclusion: The Trickery tree has some of the most interesting and situational traits of the Thief class. Again however the most interesting choices are to be found in the lower tier, while the Master and Grandmaster tier have clear favorites.

Acrobatics

Minor – Expeditious Dodger: Nice but 2 seconds Swiftness is rather short.
I – Descent into Shadows: Pretty cool trait that allows some creative uses. Very limited in PvE however.
II – Power of Inertia: A decent choice for PvE or if you don’t need the other traits.
III – Vigorous Recovery: Another good trait and has a noticeable impact on the amount of dodges available to the Thief. Was nerfed because of its contribution towards Thief’s “permad-dodging” but I believe that is more due to abilities, rather than this trait.
IV – Assassin’s Retreat: Can get us close to perma-Swiftness in PvE at times, but is otherwise a little problematic due to the need to stack. I think it’s undervalued but the need to kill does limit it.
V – Master Trapper: No one takes this, again, because traps don’t suit the Thief play-style.
VI – Fleet Shadow: A good and popular trait although it competes with a lot of other speed
increases.
Minor – Feline Grace: One of the best reasons to spec into Acrobatics, this trait vastly increases the amount you can dodge. Combined with other traits and abilities this can result in “perma-dodging”.
VII – Fleet of Foot: Cripple and Weakness may hurt a Thief, but a trait dedicated to only removing those two conditions is questionable. Without other access to reliable condition cleanse outside of Shadow Arts this trait is really begging to include ALL types of conditions.
VIII – Pain Response: This trait is okish, even if the high cooldown really seems unjustified. It adds some much needed condition removal and grants Regeneration, which is a nice bonus. Should probably include Torment too.
IX – Quick Recovery: Less attractive after the change to Initiative regeneration but still taken occasionally due to the lackluster option this deep in the tree. Could probably be made more interesting.
X – Hard to Catch: The notoriously bad trait that really needs a redesign. Random Shadowsteps are never going to be a popular choice. This trait is practically begging to grant 2 seconds of Stability after being hit by a control-effect.
Minor – Fluid Strikes: Our obligatory 10% damage increase that meshes well with the theme of the tree.
XI – Assassin’s Reward: What was supposed to be Acrobatics response to Shadow Rejuvenation proved to be a real letdown. Assassin’s Reward doesn’t provide nearly the longevity Thieves would need at this level.
XII – Quick pockets: A popular choice in sPvP to maintain the dodge-spam, but otherwise less popular as Thieves tend to specialize on a single weapon set.

Conclusion: Acrobatics offers some nice base-line survivability, especially up to Feline Grace. After that the tree becomes significantly less attractive and the lack of reliable condition removal really holds it back.

Shadow Arts

Minor – Last Refuge: Ah yes, the Thief Killer no 1. Much has been said about this trait and fixing it should be a top priority for ANet. It’s ability to downright guarantee a Thief’s demise makes it the most frustrating trait of our class.
I – Master of Deception: A cooldown reduction for Deception skills is decent considering how popular those skills are. It’s just that other traits are often even better.
II – Slowed Pulse: The lengthy cooldown and the limitation to Bleeds really limit the appeal, especially considering the other options.
III – Shadow Protector: Regeneration when stealthed adds a large amount of healing, especially when combined with Shadow Rejuvenation. A good trait, albeit it contributes to the OPness of stealth as noted above.
IV – Shadow’s Embrace: Arguably one of the best Thief traits in the game and the only source of reliable condition removal for all conditions. Adds an immense amount of survivability to stealth and is one of the many reasons why Thieves stealth as much as possible.
V – Infusion of Shadow: A good trait for a variety of builds, but far from mandatory since the change. Makes initiative management a little more forgiving at the expense of other, possibly more useful traits.
VI – Cloaked in Shadow: A tricky trait and not overpowered per-se. But given the frequent use of stealth on most Thief builds it can make them very hard to hit. The synergy between this trait and cloaking every 3 seconds is arguably too good.
Minor – Meld with Shadows: A good trait that defines the Shadow Arts tree.
VII – Power shots: A 5% damage increase to underwater weapons makes it a serious contestant for the worst Thief trait. Still better than Last Refuge though. Btw. what is it with 5% damage increases?
VIII – Hidden Thief: An interesting trait. Not popular, due to our ability to pre-cast Cloak and Dagger, but it does have some interesting potential and synergy with certain more niche builds.
IX – Leaching Venoms: Oddly placed within the Shadow Arts tree but still decent for certain Venom-focused builds. Still, rarely picked due to better choices and venoms being lackluster.
X – Patience: Lackluster and outperformed by Infusion of Shadows in almost every scenario outside of perma-stealth.
XI – Shadow’s Rejuvenation: The trait that so drastically increases Thief longevity. Without this trait Thieves would be doomed to hit and run.
XII – Venomous Aura: A niche trait for people who specialize in venoms and group support. Works, but is held back due to aforementioned issues with venoms and Shadow’s Rejuvenation being so powerful.

Conclusion: Shadow Arts has some of the best Thief traits in the game and many of them are in the lower tiers. This tree adds an immense amount of survivability to what would otherwise be a very glassy class. However it also contributes a lot to the “stealth is OP” since it adds so much utility to stealth, further rewarding its frequent use. This is a serious design conflict at the heart of many Thief complaints.
It also odd to have some Venom traits in here that would obviously fit far better into the Deadly Arts tree than here.

Critical Strikes

Minor – Keen Observer: Not bad despite the harsh conditional.
I – Furious Retaliation: One of our few sources of Fury and quite an effective trait at that as it has good synergy with Heartseeker and Executioner.
II – Signets of Power: Another decent trait despite lending itself slightly to an instant-gib type game-play.
III – Side Strike: Difficult to quantify as it seems weaker than Furious Retaliation is most cases. But the passive nature of it can still make it a viable choice. Still, a slight buff may be in order.
IV – Concealed Defeat: Another downed ability that will never be popular because people would rather avoid being downed in the first place.
V – Pistol Mastery: Good for Pistols in terms of DPS, but not exciting or engaging in any way. I really hope we can weed out these passive damage increases all together at some point.
VI – Practiced Tolerance: A popular way of adding a little survivability to an otherwise very glassy play-style. Still, somehow Warriors get 10% of their Toughness added as Power. This makes me jelly.
Minor – Opportunist: Not much to say, does what it does.
VII – Ankle Shots: An attempt to get Pistols more viability in PvP, held back by the long internal cooldown.
VIII – Signet Use: A decent trait although it’s rare for Thieves to stack multiple Signets.
IX – Combo Critical Chance: Another one of these terrible passive damage increases that are grossly underpowered. Even Sided Strikes adds vastly more DPS than this and applies to all skills.
X – Critical Haste: Popular among some builds with longer cast-times (Pistol Whip/Unload). But it’s often held back by Initiative (since it’s limited) or it’s simply eaten by lag, often resulting in a very poor, if any, DPS increase.
Minor – First Strikes: A great trait that rewards active Initiative management and isn’t a simple, brainless damage increase.
XI – Executioner: The trait most power builds pick that don’t rely on Stealth. Good synergy with some traits although not all that interesting or engaging. I mean it’s largely just a passive damage increase with little to no game-play implications. I think we can do better.
XII – Hidden Killer: Part of the reason why Thieves like to stealth so often. A good trait as it has some interesting game-play implications like negative scaling with Precision.

Conclusion: This tree is popular for a reason as it adds a significant amount of DPS. Unfortunately most traits only have a very minor effect on game-play which is a little disappointing.

Deadly Arts

Minor – Serpent’s Touch: Quite decent for a minor trait thanks to healing debuff and longish duration.
I – Back Fighting: Downed abilities have never been popular with any class because most would rather avoid being downed rather than improve their chances while downed. It’s not an unpowered trait, just completely undesirable.
II – Corrosive Traps: Lackluster due to the appeal of traps and lackluster in the the effect. 8 seconds of Vulnerability are okish, but most traps have longer cooldowns.
III – Mug: One of the best and most popular Deadly Arts traits. Adds burst to an already bursty class though not nearly as much as it used to.
IV – Venomous Strenght: 2 Stacks of Might for 20 seconds is nice but not impressive. Is generally unappealing because of the Venom issue.
V – Potent Poison: 33% added Poison duration is largely useless given how many ways we can apply it.
VI – Sundering Strikes – One of the few utilities we bring to a group that adds quite a nice amount of Vulnerability stacks.
Minor – Lotus Poison: Used to be really good giving us a high uptime of Weakness on our targets. But the internal cooldown nerfed it hard. More useful with Choking Gas now than anything else.
VII – Improvisation: Nobody likes RNG and that’s why this trait will remain unpopular. It’s also uncommon for Thieves to stack multiple skills of one type further reducing the appeal. And the bundle damage bonus seems to want to promote a play-style that doesn’t exist.
VIII – Quick Venoms: If Venoms were more appealing, this skill would be quite good. A 20% reduction isn’t exciting game-play wise, but potentially powerful.
IX – Dagger training: A passive damage increase to a single weapon type that is lackluster by any standard (seriously, Pistol Mastery is twice as effective and an Adept Trait) yet still taken occasionally for the lack of better options. This really needs a replacement.
X – Combined Training: Even weaker than Dagger Training as it only applies to a single skill on your bar. This too needs a replacement asap as it offers not interesting game-play.
Minor – Exposed Weakness: A 10% damage increase seems to be standard for the 25 Minor traits. This one is no exception and has an almost 100% guaranteed uptime.
XI – Panic Strike: Few builds venture this deep into Deadly Arts and even fewer opt for this trait although it is interesting. The 30 second cooldown seems a little harsh though and it’s unlikely to change anything about its popularity.
XII – Residual Venom: Another interesting trait with some interesting implications, just far too niche to be appealing to a wider audience. Disappointing for a Master trait.

Conclusion: A lot of the Deadly Arts traits are held back due to their connotations with traps or venoms, two skill-sets that don’t have much to offer. The tree is especially disappointing the further you progress with some downright awful traits as you reach the end.

With a big feature update coming our way I thought it might be appropriate to formulate a post covering current Thief issues so that ANet may actually addresses real issues instead of making up their own (because Initiative was a problem, right?).

Most issues come down to our trait design and that’s where I’m going to focus most of my attention on. My assessment of various traits is largely based on WvW and PvE, as sPvP obeys slightly different rules.

General issues:

Over-reliance on stealth: Thieves are reliant on stealth for everything ranging from Condition removal, over passive healing to burst damage. Stealth does so much for a Thief and going into stealth is almost always the best option that Thieves cannot be blamed for “stealth spamming” when it’s clearly the optimal way to play. This has made the class inherently frustrating to play against and this won’t change until this fundamental design flaw is fixed. Giving Thieves more options for reliable condition removal and healing outside of stealth may help alleviate the issue but ultimately making stealth either a defensive maneuver OR an offensive maneuver is the only way forward. As long as it’s both, it will always be the best move for Thieves and will continue to be exploited as much as possible.

Lack of group support: Thieves are almost always played as damage dealers, simply because the class doesn’t cater to any other play-style. The options to support your group are very limited and a Thief is pigeonholed into DPS for the lack of other options. Venom-share builds might be worth mentioning here but they too are held back by the general lackluster nature of venoms.

Lackluster traps and venoms: Every class seems to have a category of utility spells that just don’t seem to work well. But Thieves have two, in both traps and venoms, that are very rarely worth-while. The issue with traps is pretty straight-forward. Thieves are a highly mobile profession. In fact it’s one of their defining feats. The concept of traps just doesn’t mesh well with this feat. Traps lend themselves to stationary game-play and I’m doubtful we’ll ever see much of that on Thieves. Traps are conceptually flawed on Thieves and I’m doubtful they’ll ever be a popular choice regardless of how much they’re buffed.

Venoms on the other hand suffer from the abundance of conditions. There are so many ways to apply conditions, from Sigils, traits and various attacks, dedicating a rare utility slot to them is rarely worth-while. They have their niche appeal at times but generally aren’t worth-while. Consolidating them might help somewhat but won’t change the abundance of Conditions in general.

Old traits: When comparing the Thief traits to something like Warriors, it’s obvious that Thieves traits have never received a proper design review. Many traits are completely lackluster or are simple damage modifiers with little/no changes to game-play. This is something I hoped would be weeded out over the year, but progress has been slow.

Sounds lame enough to be true.

Although I did laugh out loudly when reading it at first, picturing us laying the trap near a cliffside and launching enemy players off it.

The ability to stealth is fine.

But that fact that stealth also:

• Heals
• Blinds
• increases movement speed
• sets up powerful stealth attacks
• removes conditions

…is what makes it OP.

If stealth was exclusively a defensive maneuver and didn’t provide offensive capabilities it would be spammed far less.

In before “learn to dodge” is used to justify any gross imbalance.

Edit: Too late.

If you’re gonna give something to everyone you might as well remove it.

It just creates an illusion of choice.

Runspeed is always problematic in MMOs since it something everyone always wants. And when everyone has it those who do not often can’t keep up.

It creates an armsrace and leaves other interesting traits behind.

Imo ANet would be better off getting rid of all the passive run-speed increases and removing any ability to stack Swiftness permanently. Swiftness should remain a temporary boost, something you use to get away, not something you have permanently.

I play sPvP on a daily basis. I am actually quite good at it.

I mostly soloQ in teamQ so as to avoid Skyhammer and get better rewards, occasionally mixing in a few skrimishes to get the daily caps.

But I have to admit to myself that I do all this solely for the achievement points.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy PvP. I do actually, and have done in all MMOs I’ve ever played.

But sPvP in GW2 is just so generic, boring, and at times, frustrating that I cannot associate any memorable qualities with it. Any e-sports ambitions this game seems to have are absolutely misguided in my book because sPvP is the least attractive aspect of GW2 by a long shot.

5 years from now when people look back at the game, no one will remember it for the sPvP. Instead the dynamic events, the large scale PvE and the occasionally pretty epic WvW will dominate our impressions of the game.

sPvP on the other hand, the best thing about that is probably the lobby.

So what prompted me to write this? Well frankly I think much more attention should be given to balancing classes and gear in WvW than there currently is. ANet seems to be much more sensitive and conservative about changes in sPvP when this is the least attractive part of the game. It also has the smallest player-base and the least amount of content.

Why not apply the same amount of rigor to balancing WvW, i.e. content that a large number of players actually enjoy for hours each day, content that is unique to GW2 and probably the most memorable part of the game?

Why pursue some sort of misguided e-sports ambitions in a game who’s combat isn’t deep enough and who’s mechanics don’t have the properties to make the game enjoyable for an audience to watch.

GW2 mechanic’s simply don’t make it attractive for sPvP. Accept that and focus your attention on stuff that GW2 does reasonably well. And for the vast majoritythat is WvW.

[Nerf Thieves]
[Stealth is OP]

I kind of agree. Using a stun-breaker only to get hit by another instantly is really frustrating.

I’m not sure this is the most elegant solution but it would help mitigate the problem.

1. Thieves – They have been the most complained against class in this game from day one. The combination of frequent in-combat stealth and high burst make them inherently frustrating to play against in WvW. Unless the class gets a fundamental redesign this will not change.

2. Rangers – Rangers just strike me as a dull class through and through with no defining abilities and no outstanding abilities. All they seem to do is pew, pew, pew like a turret while being assisted by various brainless AI pets.

People have figured out how to counter most downed-state abilities with Blinds, Stealth or Stability. Warriors especially are easy to counter. That’s probably why it never works.

Sword/Dagger is a decent weapon set but the content dictates both the play-style and the build.

In sPvP it’s all about maximizing your ability to spam dodges so you generally go 10/30/0/30/0. In PvE however that’s not nearly as relevant and you’re better off with Sword/Pistol and spaming Black Powder.

In general you should drop the idea of playing a particular weapon set. In PvE especially you should always carry all weapons with you, just so you can adapt, even if your build sin’t optimized for it.

I main a Thief and I think their design is so terrible that players have no choice but to make them frustrating to play against.

Every Thief build requires some cheesy element to succeed and exploit to the max. In WvW this involves stealth more often than not. But who can blame Thieves for spaming stealth when:

• It sets up their highest damage moves.
• Heals them.
• Is there only source for reliable condition removal.
• Increases their speed.
• Blinds enemies.
• There’s no downsides.

This is exasperated by the fact that many Thief builds in WvW only use 2-3 skills so Initiative becomes a moot point. D/P is the only weapon set that uses all its weapon-skills and thus the only one where Initiative is a real concern.

With stealth devalued in sPvP Thieves resorted to other stuff, like Evade spam. But again this is only a reaction to the otherwise abysmal base-line survivability in this game.

There is no such thing as a durable Thief so you either go glass-cannon burst or find some sort of mechanic (like Evade) to exploit and cover the weakness.

Revealed too is probably one of the worst and poorly conceived “anti-stealth” mechanics I have ever witnessed and all it does is promote repeated usage of the same skills over and over again.

Imo the Thief class is the epiphany of failed class design and shows a complete lack of understanding in regards to how game-play mechanics interact to form a game-play experience.