Guild Wars 2

Mostly for large WvW fights. Thief still excels at opening bursts if you go glass cannon. Its especially effective against enemy ranged casters who are rarely speccing builds to cope with a forced 1v1 in a zerg.

If we’re going to talk about professions being entirely reliant on a particular trait line to be viable….. when was the last time you saw a workable thief build without trickery?

If the definition of a useful class is a stealth rez / decap bot, then it is time to play another class.

Rezzing is not a role. Any class can do this this. Some arguably better (banners, invuln). If the rez channel is broken by the vamp rune change, thief will be complete garbage at this.

+1 is not a role. Any class can do that.

Decap is not a role, any class can do that. Yes thief can sometimes do it marginally faster if they take short bow.

Can I add scorpion wire to the list?

The engineer magnetic pull skill is getting fixed so it actually connects at range.

I agree that daredevil was not the worst specialization. But it was among the worst alongside warrior / ele / guardian elites. The thief issue is compounded by how the core thief spec is currently very weak, much more so than warrior / ele / guardian core. It is in desperate need of well thought out changes to even begin to be competitive with other profession elites.

The point is that if this 20% damage buff is indicative of the rest of (if any) of the buffs, then the devs have the missed the point.

P/P is not a viable weaponset in any shape or form for PvP or WvW because it is effectively a 1 skill weaponset. You spam #3 for okish damage. There is zero survivability. If you want to do ranged damage in PvE, you may as well reroll ranger or ele – both are much better at it than thief.

Hahahahahaha.

No.

You have a point shimekiri. However, if head shot / body shot / autoattack on pistol are to be competitive DPS wise they will need far more than a 20% damage buff. Personally I would prefer a change in functionality in #2, #5 and #4, since p/p already has a good source of damage.

Piogre.2164:

In This Thread: People overreacting.

I love the new thief elite spec, and I think it’s great that it draws focus away from stealth and towards the other aspects of thief. Daredevil is the only elite spec I can confidently say I’m definitely going to pursue on any of my characters.

I dunno. Did you know a thief’s effective healthpool (armor rating * base vitality) is only about 10% higher than an eles? In reality its much worse due to eles far superior healing capability. How come eles get so many more skills and workable traits? Check out www.metabattle.com PvP ranked builds. There are only 2 thief builds listed out of a total of 27, exuding testing / troll builds. Including expermimental builds, 2/35. (Should be about 4+/35 thief builds).

People are annoyed because thieves have been repeatedly nerfed, whilst all other professions have been buffed. The 4 buffs revealed on the stream are mostly inconsequential as far as PvP is concerned.

Acrobatics is in this weird state where it is currently useless on its own, then sort of buffs daredevil. Daredevil straight up copies old acro traits (increased damage after dodging). Then the daredevil dodge mechanic has to be chosen via traits, when most professions are getting an f5. The mechanic itself is just an added passive effect to dodge.

There is no denying that daredevil will make a strong evasion spec. But isn’t this almost exactly what we had pre – acrobatics nerf with S/D?

Shadow arts was nerfed. D/P is still the only weapon set that can properly utilize the shadow arts trait line.

Crit strikes design is lazy and ill thought out. +5% crit chance while over 90% health? There is a sigil that gives +7% crit chance all the time. 50% vulnerability for 5 secs chance on crit? There is a sigil that gives 10 seconds of vulnerability with 60% chance on crit. Arguably useless pistol +10% damage trait.

[edit]

When was the last time you played a build without trickery? Baseline thief mechanics are so bad everyone takes trickery to make them viable.

S/D is nowhere near as competitive as it used to be. I know as I used to play it very successfully. It lost a huge amount of damage and evasive potential.

My point still stands. If you beat someone repeatedly on S/D, you are not in the same skill category.

[edit]

If you watch a top PvP player like sizer on S/D, he rarely engages in a direct 1v1. This is because even if he plays flawlessly, the damage output is so low it is not worth the time it would take to kill his opponent.

Then may I ask why you rarely see an effective thief outside of a d/p spec in PvP?

1. Play a game of ranked PvP

2. Choose a random non thief player from your match up. Ask them for a dual in an empty arena.

3. You are not allowed to use d/p.

Can guarantee that you will lose 70%+ matches without fail against a player of similar skill.

Thief has major issues.

/rant

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAoY8al0MhSnYvTwyJw/EH0ElPLSjyY/AD3eqDgJMCA-TpRBwAeOIAX3fYzRAgcZAAnAgHPAAA

Embrace the burst!. Seriously, its the only thing thief currently excels at.

Even mobility is kinda meh with mesmers spamming portal left right and centre.

Currently debating whether I should get a HoT refund rather than reroll another class. Thief main since launch. Power creep among other classes and near constant nerfs to thief defensive and offensive abilities have left the class wanting.

Can understand why people are annoyed and want a refund. Daredevil might make evasion specs semi viable again, but much of it simply adding back what was stripped from the old acro trait line.

The core thief spec is a gutted mess. I feel sorry for people who haven’t bought HoT and are stuck on vanilla thief. As it stands there is no way a vanilla thief will be competitive come HoT.

Any bets on the majority of the unmentioned buffs being to traps and / or venoms? I will start the bet at 250 thick leather sections…..

[edit]

Will also be annoyed if scoprion wire goes unfixed. Engineer’s magnetic pull is getting one.

Better hope there are a lot more buffs, especially to the weapon sets outside d/p.

p/p 20% damage buff? – Damage was never the issue. The issue is that #3 is the only skill this weapon set uses.

Vigorous recovery 5 to 7 – Will die just as quickly as before, you still cannot chain dodges.

expeditious dodger – still pretty laughable since swiftness no longer affects leaps. The extra range swiftness gave to s/d #3 was very important to the playstyle – it meant you could land #3 from just outside melee range.

Potent poison 10 -> 33% – condi trapper thief and condi daredevil thief in WvW will be even nastier. Won’t affect PvP at all.

Sigmoid.7082:

Sigh how many elites can be completely negated by blind?

Can I just point out that thief blind access is almost complete crap unless you happen to run d/p? Outside of d/p we have offhand pistol on s/p and p/p, where the #5 skill is a complete waste of initiative. Blinding powder is the only utility which can blind on demand. No sane person will take the blind on stealth trait as it is a grandmaster in shadow arts.

The issues highlighted are only in regards to thief weapon set imbalances . i.e. how everyone plays d/p sb. A slight nerf to d/p is actually a sensible solution – it would then make it possible to buff thief as a whole via traits whilst preveniting people from crying about OP d/p builds.

Fixing thief’s power relative to other classes is another matter. Personally I think an outright buff to thief sustain is needed. Condi removal and possibly even thief health tier might be a good place to start.

The only time I can think of when s/p would use black powder on #5 is when switching to another weapon :/.

4 second reveal is annoying for anyone who regularly plays WvW and PvP, it throws your timing. 3 second reveal also makes the revealed training trait nigh on redundant. I would also mention that certain builds (PU mesmer, cough) are abusing perma stealth in WvW at the moment.

The projectile speed argument is mostly moot since you will usually see 1/3 or more of an unload dodged due to it being channelled. Another counterpoint is how shortbow #2 is multi target, p/p is designed to be single. Should not cleave skills generally do less damage?

Its also worth noting that I suggested increasing shortbow #2 projectile speed drastically to compensate for the damage loss. I just find it laughable that as a ranged weapon its has to be in melee range to deal good damage.

As with many others I’m of the opinion that thief is in a bad spot in competitive PvP/ WvW. PvP is particularly bad, build diversity is non existent and you will see only d/p sb. At least S/D was viable before acro was gutted. Gutting an existing trait line and adding it back under the guise of daredevil was not a smart balance move.

Even speccing as a meta d/p sb build, you will have: poor 1v1 potential, poor sustain and be unable to hold conquest points. Other classes are doing this whilst having comparable dps. Thief might win out marginally in in manoeuvrability, but what is the point of moving to a point if you cannot defend or attack it? Also worth noting that thief manoeuvrability is very situational. We have 2 weapon sets (d/d, p/p) which have no manoeuvrability skills whatsoever.

Some questions (restricting to weapon sets to keep text down):
- why are skills #2, #4 and #5 near useless on p/p?
- why is p/p #3’s damage comparable to shortbow #2, despite the same range and p/p #3 costing an extra 2 initiative?
- why can you outrun the shortbow #2 projectile? -_-
- why is skill #5 useless on s/p?
- why is skill #3 useless on d/d?
- why does d/p #3 do more damage than d/d #5, gives blind, costs less initiative and acts as a gap closer? It encourages spam.
- why is sword auto attack so slow? You will rarely pull off a full chain, hence auto attack DPS is laughable compared to dagger.

possible fixes for the above bullet points:

- Decrease shadow shot damage by 40%, increase thief dagger auto attack stage 1 by 20% for compensation.
- Up backstab damage by 5%-10%.
- Add a blind to dagger offhand #5 for when it connects. Keep the vulnerability too, its 6 initiative for a telegraphed skill. As it currently stands Dagger main #2 spam does similar damage – skilled play should be rewarded.
- Split #5 skill on pistol offhand across PvP + WvW vs PvE. Leave as is for PvE. Increase radius to 240 for WvW / PvP.
- Increase immobilize on pistol main #2 to 1 1/2 seconds so that it can be used defensively, or offensively for a full unload.
- Make p/p #3 a two part skill. Add the skill, hidden pistol (charr racial), being made available for up to 4 seconds after pressing #3. Add a 3 second cripple to hidden pistol.
- Increase pistol auto attack direct damage by 30% to remove total dependency on p/p #3 for damage.
- decrease sword auto attack chain by 0.5 seconds
- make infiltrators strike a blast skill, so s/p can actually leverage black powder on #5. Ensure the stealth applies in a similar way to heartseeker, so a hit does not cause reveal.
- decrease shortbow #2 damage by 15%, increase projectile speed by 50%.
- remove the pre cast from death blossom on d/d #3. Make the evasion 1/2 second. Leave the after cast as is.
- revert s/d #3 to strip 2 boons

Side note, can we please normalize reveal to 4 seconds in WvW?

Non d/p viable

Going full glass D/D is not only fun, but actually kinda viable now.

Will always advocate taking assassins armor and weapons, mixed with zerker trinkets, if you are full glass.

- Precision from food and sigil stacks do not affect the invigorating precision traits in crit strikes. The most logical thing is to build precision into your base stats.
- If you are full glass, missing a single crit is a huge loss of damage. Failing to crit a backstab can mean a lost fight.
- Scholar runes and the no quarter trait really boost ferocity – meaning you need to crit for the damage increase. (On a side note, I think crit strikes has made pack runes obsolete on particular builds)

Thought I would start a thread to discuss new builds people have tried. Post your builds and any constructive feedback.

1. traits + link
2. utilities
3. weapons + sigils
4. stats + runes
5. 2/3 sentences explaining general play style.

1.
Deadly Arts, Critical Strikes, Trickery
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgcBrAKkBag~

2.
Withdraw, Shadowstep, Assassin’s signet, Infiltrator’s signet, basilisk venom

3.
D/D, air / force or air / night
SB, blood / energy or bloodlust / energy

4.
WvW:
assassins armor, zerker trinkets, Scholar runes

PvP:
Marauder

5.
A DPS build to rapidly down targets. Features perma fury, 14 1/2 second withdraw, quickness on a low cd and some C/C to help with landing a burst.

Observed crit damage of 251% when using ascended armor and under fury in WvW. D/D is in a much better place after patch due to easy access to shorter port cooldowns and a longer steal range.

In general I feel the trait changes are good, we’re getting a lot more viable build diversity.

However, we are getting some nerfs which feel completely unjustified. D/P, arguably our strongest weapon set, is least affected. I just can’t help but feel thieves are going to be left pigeon holed in D/P as an optimal build choice.

General:
- Basilisk venom stun duration reduced from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. A knee jerk reaction to venom share being too strong in parties. This elite skill is almost complete garbage now, especially when you consider how easily dodged / blinded / blocked it is. Buff non traited venoms, nerf venom share, the community has been saying this for a long time.

S/D:
- Acro losing around 450 power (assuming you are using power of inertia).
- Acro dodge regeneration (50% endurance) increased to 5 seconds, previously being 3.5 seconds.
- Boon rips will be random, removes skillful removal of enemy boons. Good chance of ripping boons of low duration e.g. enemy’s swiftness which has only 1 second left. This combined with the stability change is essentially a huge nerf to boon removal.
- Chill and cripple being nerfed into oblivion, dagger offhand #4 almost completely useless now.
- Swiftness does not affect leap skill. This is a massive nerf for flanking strike. Anyone who plays at a high level will be using swiftness to connect S/D #3 when just out of melee range.

D/D:
- Cloaked in Shadows moved to grandmaster. The already weak D/D set is now forced to choose between blinds and heals.
- Chill and cripple being nerfed into oblivion, dagger offhand #4 almost completely useless now.
Also, if you WvW:
- Cloak and Dagger damage decreased by ~17% in PvE.

P/P
- Ricochet removed. Means thieves are back to 900 range only.
- Pistol mastery removed. Loss of 10% damage.

A slight tangent, but I thought I would also mention acro is getting a huge dps nerf.

Assuming you have a power of 2400, getting 5 might and the 10% damage buff equates to (2400+30*5)*1.1 = 2805. That equates to a loss of 405 power under the new acro system. What has always made acro desirable for me was that it was a defensive trait line, but it allowed you to dish out more damage than a shadow arts build.

Seafarer’s rest, Gandara and Kodash having a party in citadel on Kodash border, come join!

Although ranged pressure using p/p or shortbow can be useful, it shouldn’t be your main role as thief in a zerg fight. If you want ranged damage, roll a ranger or necro. What you should be doing is killing enemy players who are low on health and out of position (i.e. on the edge on the enemy’s zerg). This will mostly involve picking off eles, rangers and necros.

In terms of builds, you are looking for something that can quickly apply burst damage but also get out if the enemy zerg comes for you.

d/p sb – 1 hit wonder from stealth, restealth and heal
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMp0pdPxyJ8PNBNBt9DGeE4uGlYGaFAA-TlCEAB6pHIONBXq+DBPAgtUCykyPDOBA5s/AAHCgHOCABAQAuZb2m3MwRP6RP6RPa38m38m38mlCYghWA-w

p/p s/d – ranged pressure to heal and s/d to get in and out quickly
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAsY6al0Mp0pFOx7J8PNBNRtdGMcVo3hxXsFaFAA-TVSBABFqHQU1fe4BAYmSwr2fU+FxJAAPNDLcQAA4IAEAABwRP6RP6RPa38m38m38mlCYghWA-w

How are you finding the damage? I tried something similar, but found it a little meh after dropping one of the %damage increase traits from grand master minor.

What I use in WvW:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwpVOx7J8PNBNBt9EGeE8OMfZLaFAA-TJBFwACOFAI3foaZAAPBAA

Not sure how well it translates to pvp though, I often just play the 20066 meta. I suspect the meta build is slightly better to CS varients in pvp as you can’t stack ferocity/ precision as high.

I will let the picture do the talking – 2v7. The thief in the picture didn’t last much longer. Also, this was after duo capping hills while fighting 2v2 in the lords room.

Personally I’m really liking the buff. It gives me enough sustain to 1v1 bunker builds without sacrificing a load of damage. Executioner is nice, but a tough fight will usually involve a drawn out battle. You can only insta burst down bad players, in which case executioner will make little difference either way. This is coming from WvW, not sure it would be so great in PvP due to being unable to safely stack crit chance as high.

Crazy suggestion:

Redesign pistol #2 . Who the heck uses body shot on p/p anyway? Pistol #2 is very weak compared to dagger #2 and sword #2 and is what causes the imbalance in p/p under thief dual wield system. Following the design philosophy, we have dagger sets with a gap closer, sword with closer / opener, surely pistol #2 should be an opener?

My suggestion: Have pistol #2 as: remove immobilize and evade 600 distance sideways, perpendicular to a target. Why sideways? It encourages circle kiting, a common tactic with any ranged weapon. This also prevents p/p players from escaping combat with #2 and ensuring usefulness alongside p/d #3. Why 600 range? Because 600 is a common gap close distance, so soft counters exist.

The idea of the above redesign is to allow p/p to temporarily move out of melee burst range. Spamming #2 won’t save you in the long run, but it might give you the time needed for another unload or a weapon swap.

Would definitely suggest runes of strength if you can afford them. Build some might stacking into your build if you can, its a very effective dps boost. Between eating Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew and using the power of inertia trait, I’m usually self stacking a constant 6-10 might. Chuck in a sigil of strength and its more like 10-15 stacks of might.

The issue I had with rage / pack was that you had to get hit to proc the bonuses, something you generally want to avoid. Its also worth noting that 175 power (strength /scholar/pack) will usually give you a lot more dps than 175 ferocity from rage.

Maybe scholar for PvE….. The problem is the last bonus will rarely proc – keeping health above 90% is not easy.

Rune of the ogre isn’t bad if you are looking for something cheap.

Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew for endurance and might
Toxic sharpening stone for power and extra bleed / immob duration

2/6/0/6/0, s/d p/p, runes of strength, a 0 vigor evasion thief

Not uncommon to reach between 14-18 stacks of might from dodging and sigil of battle on p/p..

Apologies, I thought the ticketing system operated through the forum. I’ve just submitted a ticket, thanks for the info.

Username: Gallant Pigeon.5807
Char name: Syrinde

Accidentally selected a heavy armor from an ascended assassin armor box (Saphir’s breastplate). I’m fairly sure I will never use it, I only play thief. Would it be possible to change it to a medium class armor breastplate? The chest dropped some time around 18:00 UTC on the 08/11/2014, opened around 18:15 the same day.

I’m still convinced mixing in some extra precision from assassins with zerker is important for at least for pvp / wvw. I suspect this is because for a low number of hits the crit deviation will be large and can particularly hurt some builds for damage reliability.

Lets say it takes you eight hits to kill someone, then every single crit is vital. A pair of missed crits might lose you 4k damage. Making up for those 2 lost crits via power would require a huge number of stats to make up for (assume 2k average damage / hit, 8 hits, that’s a 25% power increase to make up for damage lost ~500 power). I agree HK somewhat negates this argument, but not all builds use HK.

If anyone’s interested, I made an excel sheet to calculate average DPS between two builds with precision / power as avariable. Straight power pretty much always comes out on top, but bear in mind damage output will be less reliable for dps spikes (see the binomial for crits at the bottom of the sheet).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uwlu2vfuhtrcgpn/docs.xlsx?dl=0

I would say zerker or zerker / valk has higher theoretical damage, but on average will be out damaged by a build based on assassins / zerk mix. Hidden killer can help balance a lack of precision if your build is based mostly off backstab damage i.e. d/p, but as a d/d s/d thief you will also want you’re c&d to proc. This becomes more pronounced with a might stacking build, since an assassins build would see a 18% or so power boost as opposed to a zerker’s 15% boost.

I’m not a fan of thief’s fury access. The only reliable ferocity is from dumping a load of points into trickery. I say a load because thrill of the crime’s fury will only see a 1/3 up-time, often less, unless you take sleight of hand. Putting 6 into trickery gives you some nice initiative / boon steal capability, but don’t forget you’ve just put a mostly useless 300 points into condition damage. Also, ferocity can be removed and severely cut your burst damage.

Long story short, assassins equals:
-Better sustain damage due to more reliable crits outside of fury up time (don’t forget sigil prcos for air / fire)
-Negligible damage loss, probably a gain, if you build for might (trickery can’t do this)
-More health (practiced tolerance)
-Less pressure to burst after a steal.

What you lose compared to zerker:
-1 hit wonder opening burst might be a little lower due to the time needed to ramp up might stacks.

Target nearest previously only targeted on screen enemies, but now targets all enemies including those off screen. I’m pretty sure this was an unintentional change made when the targeting system was revamped to better hold targets on off screen enemies (can’t remember what patch this was). This is a request that target nearest be reverted to its prior state. If this was an intended change (not sure why it would be, off-screen enemies generally make for poor targets), can we have an additional key bind for target nearest on screen only?

Sort of. Thieves excel at single target burst damage. However, as engagement time increases the DPS of other classes approaches that of a thief, since a thief will have expended their initiative.

All of the classes have high damage builds, but each tend to specialize. Keep in mind if you are interested in World vs World or PvP defense is often as important as offense – a thief built for maximum damage would struggle against a more rounded build in a straight 1vs1 fight.

Thief – Highest burst damage with good maneuverability that allows them to exploit openings. Initiative lets them react quickly to the combat situation. Hit and run play style.

Ele – Also high burst, but with more sustain. Susceptible to being burst itself due to low health / armor. More focus on multi-target AOE damage and skill combo rotations. Harder to play than thief.

Warrior – Damage burst a little slower to ramp up than thief due to how adrenaline works. In practice a warrior can output more damage than a thief after a couple of seconds of combat, as they have more health and armor, allowing them to continue applying pressure whilst sustaining damage that would force a thief to dodge or retreat. Easier to play than thief.

If you want a damage class for roaming in World vs World, thief is a good choice. Good for PvE too, but requires a lot more skill than warrior to make it shine. You might want to consider another class than thief for PvP as thieves struggle to hold capture points. It could be argued that recent changes have hit thieves pretty hard in the PvP area.

Shortbow #2 – The speed of the projectile is laughable. You can outrun it with swiftness.

What the heck, here is my ninja charr.

trapper coat
seeker gloves
seeker pants
wrangler boots
mistforged hero daggers

Image 3 head piece:
snkeakthief

image 4 head piece:
visage of kodan

Dyes:
Nightshade
Black
Celestial

This is coming from an experienced WvW thief (never played necro, so can’t comment from your perspective). You haven’t mentioned what type of gear / build you use, but I can say that condition necro builds generally fare a lot better against thieves.

The key to beating a thief is usually control, if you can stop them from dodging or stealthing for a couple of seconds its possible to lay a lot of damage into them. Most thieves will have shadowstep as their only stunbreak, which gives them 2 stunbreaks within 10 seconds. This means hitting them with two fears 10 seconds apart can be very nasty. The flesh golem elite is a great way to reduce their mobility. Sitting in a well can be a good defensive strategy, since most thieves will try to get in melee range to deal damage.

Necromancers will always have a hard time on their own in WvW against thieves because 99% of thieves will be able to outrun necros / chase necros. In regards to this… never run from a thief as a necro, it just makes you easier to kill. Offense is the best defense; try to fear them during their burst and then counter burst.

Holy moly… that is one impressive guide.

“It is also a Whirl combo finisher, but it’s rarely used for that reason.?”
Whirl combo from dagger dagger death blossom can be nice if fighting engineers. Steal, throw gunk then a death blossom or two will get a handful of confusion stacks on them.

Can’t wait for the new WvW waepon skins

Just wanted to add my 2 cents as someone who played d/d sb as a hybrid condi roamer for a while. The proof:

The videos a little old… I use d/d p/d when roaming now. I like to think of d/d on condition builds as a portable aoe circle of death for less mobile targets. It’s main weakness is the slow movement during the animation, which can make it susceptible to kiting from range.

A d/d death blossom build allows a much greater condition burst than p/d and a higher sustained damage output than d/d power builds. The problem with d/d power builds is you are inevitably going to be a little glassy if you have decent damage, meaning you can only keep up the damage pressure for a couple of seconds on a good player. The dps will be higher over 1-5 seconds, but over 10-15? Nope. I’m also assuming there are some cover conditions in your build for enemy cleanses, otherwise all those bleeds will be pointless.

On paper power s/p evade builds have better sustained dps. In reality, I find this isn’t true since you will get hit far more often. Spamming pistol whip for the evade and a as a source of sustained direct damage will get you killed since will you quickly run out of initiative and your opponent will have dodged 1/2 of you pistol whip damage. Stunning from stealth can work well, but since s/p has limited stealth access….. you would have to use d/p or d/d as complimentary weapon set.

Another thing to note, as with all condition builds organised groups of 5+ in WvW will just cleanse most of your damage. For PvE d/d condition can be very good in PUG groups. Taking signet of malice with caltops and daggerstorm will ensure almost you never die. Untested in PvP.

“You’re telling me you want the most broken rune set in the game to always be viable?”

No, just making an observation that the set shouldn’t be nerfed to the point where no-one sensible would take this set over other more reliable condition runes. The 6th bonus, the bonus meant to be the best in set, is mostly useless because it won’t activate reliably. 20% proc on 5 stacks of confusion is powerful but unreliable: it can’t be integrated into an attacker’s burst nor can a defender reliable counter, the 5 stacks of confusion will be completely unexpected. All it will encourage is interrupt spamming that will either tip the fight heavily in either the attacker or defender depending on whether it procs.

Nerf it by all means, just make it so that 6th bonus is reliable. Reduce the total damage done by the 6th bonus by decreasing stacks / decreasing duration / increasing ICD, then increase the proc chance. How about 50% chance on interrupt, with 4 stacks of confusion and a 35 second cool down?

[edit]
Yep, read it completely wrong as “20% confusion chance when you interrupt a foe”. Kinda liking the changes, reduces the viability of interrupt spam builds and increases the set’s effectiveness on mesmers with the increased confusion duration.

I don’t think this nerf is particularly well thought out. The set does need nerfing, but the 6th bonus looks unreliable, even for a class with a lot of interrupt access like the mesmer. Interrupt skills can fail to interrupt for a number of reasons : evades / target not using skills / stability etc. Combined with the low proc of 20%, you would be lucky if it proc’s even once – the shortish ICD of 15 secs seems irrelevant.

I thought one of the new patch’s features was to make rune and trait activation more reliable? Would prefer either the ICD be upped and / or the number of stacks be reduced for either a 50% or 100% activation chance on interrupt.

Proposal
Move all stealth sources to a shared timer which stacks in duration up to a maximum value. Currently stealth is exited on the expiration of the shorter timer.

Why?
To prevent a team mates stealth skills being detrimental to a team’s effectiveness. I’ve only noticed this to occur with the mesmer’s mass invisibility elite, but it may apply to other sources of stealth.

Examples
- Thief uses shadow refuge. A mesmer casts mass invisibility. The thief is is only granted 5 seconds of stealth as opposed to 15.
- A mesmer starts the cast for mass invisibility to save an engineer. However the engineer has used toss elixir S for stealth. The mesmer has wasted a 90 second cool down for no gain to the engineer’s survivability.

Discussion
- Not sure if a shared timer is implemented for balance reasons or simply unintended. I believe it is the latter, but can anyone come up with an instance where a shared stealth timer would be affect game balance?