Guild Wars 2

Yes it would be great if they did that.

According to a person with DPS meter he did 6k dps with dagger 4.6k on sword and 4.7k on staff.
Why has it been buffed this much?
If dagger was kept as it was it would’ve been the same dps as sword and staff auto but would have been still the best because it is the quickest which makes it very resilient against blinds, blocks and gives a greater chance to proc sigils/traits and ofc easier to land between dodges, blocks, etc.. It also has useful bonuses like endurance and poison.

What about letting people play with sword for once? S/D is the most fun weaponset after all.(statistically)
Proof: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Strawpoll-most-fun-pvp-weaponset/first#post5945827

Wow this looks like it’s made sword even worse compared to d/p and staff

OK I’m gonna stop reading this thread because it has become highly repetitive.
I’ve made my point.

Kicker.8203:

prevent

Can you not read seriously?

Keadron.9570:

Secondly it’s not all at one time. There are instant I’ll give you that but you put 7 spells at a time… how is it all at once if you’re switching attunement to get to the others?

OH NO, then u have to add a 0.001s delay… stop nitpicking,

Also one of those listed is a heal skill and who would burn their heal like that? Even if you pulled off every one of those instants spells with their damage it wouldn’t do much good and all skills would be on cd

And can you please tell me which one of those is a healing skill?

It feels like only biased eles are on this forum who want to want to have their cakes and eat them too. This wouldn’t be bad for eles overall it would just prevent the birth of a new aids build. To give you an idea: Lightning Strike: still instant cast, but it first conjures a cloud over your foe and the lightning strikes with a 0.5 or 1s delay. Old damage is increased by 50%.

Kicker.8203:

The only reason it is not broken right now is that marauder ele sustain is bad and damage is not as good as on some elite specs.
Ele does need buffs. However, then it also needs some rework…

Keadron.9570:

So you’re gonna start bashing the s/f before seeing the changes? Also listing arcane skills isn’t really realistic as who is gonna have all of them much less burn all their utilities at once when they don’t do great damage to begin with? Most dont use arcane skills as there isn’t enough Def without cantrips or shouts

I’m talking about buffs overall with less instant skills.

Ok, if you exclude arcane skills tats still 7 spells. is that ok for u?

“ele scepter is considered one of the worst weapons in the game” Yes but they have a balance patch today and who knows how much buff it gets? I already stated in my post that it needs a buff but it is not a simple up the dmg kind of buff.

Yes, Hurl IS an instant check it again.
You can precast Rock Barrier outside combat.(30s duration)

Well with sigil of energy getting a nerf these sigils will be the best choice.

Also if phoenix had balanced damage numbers it would one-shot anyone. This skill is supposed to hit a foe up to 3 times. instead it normally hits 5-6 times. And if you teleport to the other side of your target at the right moment the phoenix turns around and lands extra hits. The most hits I could get were either 8 or 9(can’t remember). This skill used to work fine until it has been tampered with and it hasn’t been fixed since(for a long time).

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want eles to be bad. Eles can make dodging useless with their absurd amount of instant damage skills. In exchange for buffs, a number of skills should be made to either have a cast time or have a delay before hitting your foe.
Let’s see how many spells can an S/F ele cast at the same time(starting in earth):

Hurl
Lightning Flash
Arcane Blast
Magnetic Wave
Arcane Wave
Air attunement(deals damage because of Electric discharge)
Lightning Strike
Fire sigil proc
Air sigil proc
These are all instant so one can also cast 1 more spell when casting these.

The only reason it is not broken right now is that marauder ele sustain is bad and damage is not as good as on some elite specs.
Ele does need buffs. However, then it also needs some rework… most of all Lightning strike which has a 3.25-4s CD.

It was deliberate.
Shortbow could be a baseline weapon…

coax.2951:

Please consider that the smokescale has horrible damage outside of the UA burst.

The bristleback does have an animation windup for its F2, if you dont see it coming that is entirely your fault.

Smokescale deals good dmg, has cc, blindfield.

Bristleback has the same wind-up animation for F2 as their aoe bleed attack.

Yep I think thieves and eles should get a buffed to medium health. Always having to take vitality amulets limits your choices a LOT. Maybe decrease damage a bit to make up for it.

This would be really weird and would be unfair to classes who can’t teleport back and have to walk around.
Mechanic – You swap places with you target when stealing rather than teleporting to it

These are really good skill fundaments imo:
2. Delayed Shot – You shoot into the darkness and the bullet emerges 1.5 seconds later. You shoot and move but bullet comes from where you were and not where you are
3. Double Shot – You shoot a piercing shot that travels an additional 300 units after its strikes its primary target then it enters the darkness returning the point where it started and travels the same path again. Shoot and move the bullets keep coming

In these cluttered fights it’s already too hard to spot anyone. So I wouldn’t like this. If there are 2 thieves like this, there is no way to find out which one is shooting you.:
1. Distraction Shot – You shoot into the darkness and bullets advance toward your target from random locations. Has a chance to cause confusion. You shoot at the target standing in front of you but the bullet comes from behind or the side of your target.

4. is OK.

The utilites don’t really fit. They feel like ele utilities and the elite like a mesmer one.(aura is not good on a thief, u dont want to facetank damage.)The idea of blowing up auras is great, however arenanet already started doing that on warrior. Hope they do it some more.

The next thief weapon should be dedicated to inflict condis unless they rework current weapons.

This traitline is supposed to benefit sword thus I moved the traits to enforce taking at least 1 evade trait. Updated Original Post. Here is the old one:

—Acrobatics rework
Current traits here.
The staple of this traitline used to be might gain on dodge and boon duration. I’d recommend reimplementing these in some way as well as movement and evade traits.

Adept

• Instant Reflex(from stream) (gain evasion for 2s when struck below the health threshold –50%, 40s CD). I think it is too passive. Please remove.
• Fleet Shadow: move to shadow arts and merge with Cloaked in Shadows.

• Empowering Shadows(new): Shadowstepping grants 1.5-2s of superspeed. Whenever you hit someone under the effect of superspeed gain a stack of might for 8s(0.5s ICD)
• Practiced Tolerance #2(“new”): convert 7-10% precision(/power) into vitality. There used to be a trait like this in crit strikes but that grants ferocity based on precision now. Acro needs you to be a bit tougher so it fits well.
• Pain response: activate only when you have at least 1 condi. Add new dots to the table: torment and confusion. (still removes only 3 condis but from a wider variety of condis)

Master

• Guarded Initiation: remove.

• Vigorous Recovery: gain 5s of regen after heal. Whenever you give yourself regen, also get 1.5-2s superspeed. Reveal stealthed attackers for 3-4s if you evade their attack while having superspeed. (there is enough vigor)
• Power of Inertia(“new” master): successfully evading an attack gives you 1 stack of might for 4 seconds.(no ICD hence the short duration or limit it to proccing 6 times a second) Reasoning: evading a lot of cleave in teamfight going to boost up your fight damage while trait staying weak/mediocre in 1v1 situations.) Moreover, non-stealth based thief melts without endurance so you have to hit harder too. 2nd version:
  —Deal retaliation damage whenever you evade a foe’s attack. (as if you had the boon)(damage increased by boon duration?)(needs an effect icon)(this trait might as well replace a different trait)
• Hard to Catch: keep but add an icon to effects bar when it is back from cooldown.
  Reason: it is passive, yes but thief needs something like this. There is also the counterplay of triggering it with 1/4s dazes or using your weak CC first for wasting both the endurance regain and the stunbreak.

• Endless Stamina(minor): too weak. It is effectively an extra dodge every 40s with
  perma vigor. Rework: increases boon duration on you by 20% as long as you have vigor. (no Vigor effectiveness anymore)

Grandmaster

• Adrenaline Rush: Superspeed heals for (engis heal for:)470 per sec, and you gain 1 initiative upon gaining superspeed (3s ICD). Or:
  —Upper Hand: merged with Swindler’s Equilibrium and modified:
  On successful non-dodgeroll evades.(aka weapon skill/utility): recharge steal CD by 1s (1s ICD)(on all weapons) and gain 1 initiative (1-2s ICD).
• Assassin’s reward: rework ideas:
  —On a successful evade that is not a dodge roll(weapon skill/utility) gain 5 seconds of regen(only you) and refill 10 endurance to you and allies within a range of 600.(1s ICD) Or:
  (—Heal for ~150 per successful evade with a 1s ICD per 6 evades which would mean u can heal 150*6=900 every sec but only if you evade 6 attacks. )
• Don’t stop: Currently it is pretty passive and is a worse version of Dash. Possible variant:
  —Don’t Stop: deal an extra 15% dmg while moving faster than normal. This can be countered by applying movement slowing conditions or ripping off swiftness.(You literally have to move, not just have swiftness on you)
  I suppose it’s better to have the boon duration on the minor to free up choices, so I like the second variant less:
  —Don’t Stop: boons expire 30% slower while moving faster than normal.
  In case of implementing this, change Endless Stamina to +100% vigor effectiveness. This is the equivalent of a dodge roll every 20s if you have vigor all along.
  -If left as it is: display the immobilize immunity as an effect on effects bar when trait is ready.(for counterplay)

/discuss

[Here] is my complete Thief rework thread BTW.

—Vigorous Recovery would be broken combined with Shadow Protector and Adrenaline Rush. I suggest changing the Regeneration in Shadow Protector to function like current Shadow’s Rejuvenation healing so it would no longer be a boon hence it wouldn’t grant superspeed.

babazhook.6805:

Still do not like your suggestions.(I don’t like yours either) Death blossom is fine as is. (thats why noone uses it) Condition builds need a weapon set for melee that is used for conditions.(good point but 1 condi skill doesnt make the whole set condi unless you only use that skill. maybe anet should add a condi wep next time) Power sets have many options already.(many=2 staff and d/p) DB is the best source of AOE condition damage a thief has and far too many people want to break that build because they do not like condition builds.(not condi builds just faceroll builds) Arguing against the spam a non issue as this gets you killed.(spam doesn’t necessarily mean that skill 3 is on autoattack. this kind of build can spam a variety of dodges in combination while also dealing damage. They dodge key skills by luck just because they just so happen to evade while using their highest damage skills(DB & Impaling Lotus. With correct traits/gear they can be spammed endlessly. As there is no Dire amulet in PvP this is fortunately not viable at higher levels.)

There no need to lower the blind on d/p.(Yes there is. 5s is long enough for it to be worth cleansing instead of waiting out. its already a bit of a spam skill and most people would have suggested more impactful nerfs.)

Power boost to dancing dagger does little to add utility or flavor.(yes it would make you think who to target while not being too strong on a single target)All you are doing is making every option more power. Making 1 , 2 ,4 and 5 all hit harder as a solution is not reasonable given the nature of ini. 1 , 2 and 5 already hit hard for high damage. There simply no reason to add this to 4.(Dancing daggers is supposed to be a cleave skill therefore it should deal more than 350/hit)

Not every set should have a port.(This is thief we are talking about. No mobility as melee=uselessness.) Weapon sets should be different and just not cut and paste the same utilityy from another set, rename it and claim it a fix.(it’s a unique suggestion compared to other teleport skills and would result in an entirely different gamestyle.) I am fine knowing d/d has lower mobility than other sets if it gives me something else that an advantage.(what advantage?)

Again I do not think blind on 5 is enough to differntiate the set from d/p.(with that blind they are still completely different; blind fits thief.) Further to that a blind after a successful stealth is inferior to one prior.(I see you’re an experienced one and you never had to dodge after using cloak and dagger on someone.) The blind from #5 should come via SA line so it an option.(because it is worth going SA with a dagger offhand…right?; black powder+HS already blinds, blinding powder blinds, last refuge blinds, this trait might as well become baseline at this point) Increase Vuln stacks on 5 to 5 make them last longer(that would be gamechanging.) and add a boon on successful stealth like resistance, stability or the like.(stability? thieves are not supposed to facetank damage, not even from CC skills. maybe as a warrior.) or make it leech part of that damage back in the way of life(thats necro) or gain protection(that would be guardian; if your goal is to blind/evade everything protection is the perfect fit indeed.) or some such. Make it different.

Corrected a few oversights in your post in ()s.

What is the most fun weaponset in PvP?
Not necessarily the strongest one. (imagine they are all equally viable)

http://strawpoll.me/6616513

Every second day someone opens a post about this topic. ^^
Suggestions from my [thread:]

Kicker.8203:

—Dagger

• AA: be careful not to overbuff its damage. It’s already the best AA on the class just thief is not in the meta ATM.
• Death Blossom: evade is now 1/2 and it’s a spamm skill for condi builds. It has to scale more with power. To prevent spamming it and add more play, it should switch -if any of the attacks hit- into a second skill(I don’t insist on a certain skill but to give you an idea:)
  Marked for Death: Death Blossom marks the foe first hit similarly to how Shadow Trap does.
  —Marked for Death(3 initiative): You can teleport to and knockdown your foe as soon as he is at least 900 range away from you. (if you can’t catch up you can just run in the other direction, fun counterplay)
  If the teleport is not used in the following 6 seconds or so, the skill would reset back to Death Blossom.
  The point is adding a flipping skill to prevent evade spamming without adding CD.
  Possible variants:
  Same, but you teleport automatically upon reaching 900 range.
  —Why teleport? D/D has no mobility.
• Shadow Shot: reduce blind duration from 5s to 3s.
• Dancing Dagger: To add more play: double (or highly increase)the damage of the 2nd and 4th hit from this skill. (it would reward choosing the right target for your first dagger. If there are 2 foes near each other you deal more dmg to the one you didn’t target.)
• Cloak and Dagger: this skill is very difficult to hit opposed to the smoke field+heartseeker combo. Using it puts you at risk as a thief so it should either reward a successful hit with a bit longer stealth duration or blind application.
  bug: Steal with Mug+ CnD often causes self-reveal.(teleport+CnD happens before mug damage)

Dagins.5163:

How about just take away those cheap reveals from engineer and revenant? They are absolutely unnecessary, only creating power creep.

I’d keep them but the require some tuning. Detection Pulse needs to start the animation earlier. The engineer only raises his hand at the end of the cast. So it can only be random-dodged. It has a low CD and high range.
Revenant reveal is fine even though it is instant because it has a short range. However, this not only reveals stealthed foes but also puts reveal preamptively(which i dont agree with), removing any stealth counterplay against their Unrelenting Assault.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Acro-superspeed-might-regen-shadowstep/first#post5936596

• “Vigorous Recovery: gain 5s of regen after heal. Whenever you give yourself regen, also get 1.5-2s superspeed. Reveal stealthed attackers for 3-4s if you evade their attack while having superspeed. (there is enough vigor)”

Yeah steal matters too much, u can’t win if you miss it.
Pulmonary impact + headshot spam is too RNG.

Divided by zero.9370:

+1 I had the same thought since the game release. You might want to reconsider the title of the post tho, there’s nothing to “fix” about the stow, more like “add cancel action” keybind.

Didnt want to add that title as ppl wouldve thought i dont know about stow weapon

Shirlias.8104:

Wouldn’t be like have Celestial Back?
Aren’t you happy that finally it’s gone?

Cele amulet is the reason ele is bad on other amulets. If you have an extra 700+ stats that you can utilize well, and you balance around that, that means the traits/skills can’t be good on amulets with way less stats.

There should be an option to choose which classes can u play before queuing.
If you say only 1 class the game states that you will probably get longer queue times.
If you say 2-3 classes that you are willing to log onto then that would help the team spread out in terms of classes/roles.

Very disappointed to see from datamining that these don’t get adressed but instead less important things get added.

1303051_0815 Show usable object names as overhead text.
1303053_0896 Show All Usable Object Names
1313462_0799 Hold to temporarily disable autotargeting.
1313462_0821 Toggle the autotargeting option.
1323114_0310 Toggle Autotargeting
1313462_0826 Disable Autotargeting
1323114_0113 Hold to temporarily disable action-camera mode.
1323114_0419 Disable Action Camera
1323114_0129 Toggle the snap ground target to current target option.
1323114_0206 Toggle Snap Ground Target

Can’t complain too much coz it’s new features but they could’ve spent the time better.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Mysticjedi.6053:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Before there was a ready check there wasn’t a problem because you’d just hop into the match once you finished loading. Of course this meant more AFK players.

The servers were completely rewritten at the end of 2014, and now there more sophisticated requirements to getting the PvP servers in sync with the game servers wanting to pause/destroy your roster when you hit load screens. The more people queuing outside the mists without fixing this, the more likely people will start seeing problems like ‘random’ dishonor.

That makes more sense to me.

So what about what another said just adding more to HotM. It would be nice to have a mystic forge back, maybe some crafting stations, or what about putting in some HoT type challenges.

I’m just a programmer :P I can’t speak to that unfortunately. But I would totally enjoy a jumping puzzle in HotM

Someone already pointed out that the lobby should be a pvp version of Obsidian Sanctum. The beginning of the area could be a safe zone along with the arena, but where the jumping puzzle part start it would be free for all. In the great arena players are friendly/neutral to each other but they can request a duel.
At the very beginning: just toss a few golems/NPCs in the safe zone and done.

@Xeyon, thx for clarifying.

Another note: superspeed should stack duration.
Superspeed and swiftness don’t apply their bonuses while backpedaling or strafing.
Supderspeed is as good as swiftness while out of combat.(speed capped at 133%)
There is no vigor or retaliation themed rune.

Additional Trait ideas:
This traitline could’ve also had a minor trait that changes Retaliation to damage foes when you evade something rather than taking a hit. And then multiple traits which interact with Retaliation.
—A trait that does something when u jump if they fix mid-air immob. Isn’t worth thinking more about it until it’s been fixed. This mechanic at Tequatl is great tho.

advice: comment on my threads approvingly and pray that arenanet reads it.

—Acrobatics rework
Current traits here.
The staple of this traitline used to be might gain on dodge and boon duration. I’d recommend reimplementing these in some way as well as movement and evade traits.

Adept

• Instant Reflex(from stream) (gain evasion for 2s when struck below the health threshold –50%, 40s CD). I think it is too passive. Please remove.
• Fleet Shadow: move to shadow arts and merge with Cloaked in Shadows.

• Empowering Shadows: Shadowstepping grants 1.5s of superspeed. Whenever you hit someone -while being under the effect of superspeed- gain a stack of might for 8s(0.5s ICD)
• Don’t Stop/Adrenaline Rush: deal an extra 10% dmg while moving faster than normal. This can be countered by applying movement slowing conditions or ripping off swiftness.(You literally have to move, not just have swiftness on you) Or:
  —Practiced Tolerance #2: convert 7-10% precision(/power) into vitality. There used to be a trait like this in crit strikes but that grants ferocity based on precision now. Acro needs you to be a bit tougher so it fits well.
• Pain response: activate only when you have at least 1 condi. Add new dots to the table: torment and confusion. (still removes only 3 condis but from a wider variety of condis)

Master

• Vigorous Recovery: gain 2s of superspeed after using your heal. Superspeed heals for ~470 hp (engi heals for 470) per sec. Reveal stealthed attackers for 3-4s if you evade their attack while having superspeed.(reveal part could be added to a minor)
• Power of Inertia: successfully evading an attack gives you 1 stack of might for 4 seconds.(short duration because it’s limit it to proccing 6 times a second) Reasoning: evading a lot of cleave in teamfight going to boost up your fight damage while trait staying weak/mediocre in 1v1 situations.) Moreover, non-stealth based thief melts without endurance so you have to hit harder too.
• Hard to Catch: keep but add an icon to effects bar when it is back from cooldown.
  Reason: it is passive, yes but thief needs something like this. There is also the counterplay of triggering it with 1/4s dazes or using your weak CC first for wasting both the endurance regain and the stunbreak.

• Endless Stamina(minor): too weak. It is effectively an extra dodge every 40s with
  perma vigor. Rework: increases boon duration on you by 20% as long as you have vigor. (no Vigor effectiveness anymore)

Grandmaster

• Vengeful Assassin: Deal retaliation damage whenever you evade a foe’s attack. (as if you had the boon)(damage increased by boon duration)(needs an effect icon)
• Inspiring Agility: On a successful evade that is not a dodge roll(weapon skill/utility which is much harder to accomplish) gain 2 seconds of superspeed (only you) and refill 10 endurance to you and allies within a range of 600.(0.75s ICD)
• Assassin’s reward:
  Heal for ~100 and gain 1s of Regeneration per successful evade with a 1s ICD per 6 evades. (Which would mean u have the potential to heal 100*6=600 and gain 6 s Regeneration every sec but only if you evade 6 attacks.) In addition, gain 1 initiative on a successful evade (3s ICD). (Regeneration is too slow in itself thus it also gives direct healing)
  (or buff the numbers but make them affect only non dodgeroll-evades.)

Make superspeed stack in duration please.
Non dodgeroll-evades can be coded as the evades that happen any time except 0 to 0.75s after starting a dodge roll.
All evade traits with 1sec CD should be made 0.75s because all evades last for 0.5 or 0.75s with the exception of P. Whip which is 1.25s(which is more than 1s anyway).
The numbers might need some testing & balancing.

Summary: this traitline is favoring Sword by nature through rewarding evades and shadowstepping while still being acceptable with other weapons. Inspiring Assassin is also offering team support which thief is lacking. Didn’t add much extra endurance because thief has plenty already through daredevil and utilities. Superspeed fits here better than anywhere else in the game. Superspeed is technically Swiftness outside combat hence it doesn’t make roaming trivial. Made the traits less passive and affect your gameplay more.

[Here] is my complete Thief rework thread BTW.

Ario.8964:

Suggestion for acro:
Instead of making it provide boons duration as that’s already a problem(…)

Suggestion for sword 3/stealth interactions with effects:
Have flanking strike cycle on blocks but not on evades or blinds.

Boon duration? how is that a problem? most other classes have ~20% boon duration as a minor trat.
Acrobatics used to give 30% boon duration but when trait stats were removed acro was never compensated despite other classes were.
Thieves aren’t like guardians who push out a flood of boons to both allies and themselves anyway.

Flanking Strike: now that you say it it feels pretty obligated to flip on blocked attacks at the very least as Larcenous is unblockable.

From my thread

Kicker.8203:

• Death Blossom: evade is now 1/2 and it’s a spamm skill for condi builds. It has to scale more with power. To prevent spamming it and add more play, it should switch -if any of the attacks hit- into a second skill(I don’t insist on a certain skill but to give you an idea:)
  Marked for Death: Death Blossom marks the foe first hit similarly to how Shadow Trap does.
  —Marked for Death(3 initiative): You can teleport to and knockdown your foe as soon as he is at least 900 range away from you. (if you can’t catch up you can just run in the other direction, fun counterplay)
  If the teleport is not used in the following 6 seconds or so, the skill would reset back to Death Blossom.
  The point is adding a flipping skill to prevent evade spamming without adding CD.
  —Why teleport? D/D has no mobility.
• Cloak and Dagger: this skill is very difficult to hit opposed to the smoke field+heartseeker combo. Using it puts you at risk as a thief so it should either reward a successful hit with a bit longer stealth duration or blind application.
  bug: Steal with Mug+ CnD often causes self-reveal.(teleport+CnD happens before mug damage)

Sword and Pistol do need buffs too as I mentioned in my post.

Corrected:
“Thieves are adept at the art of stealth. They utilize surprise and shadow to get close to their enemies, and they’re deadly in one-on-one combat. They have an affinity for setting traps and going where they were never meant to go.”
- they’re deadly in one-on-one combat: If they were deadly in 1v1 with this mobility, thief would be best at pvp. (maybe they meant trash mob vs thief :P)
- They have an affinity for setting traps: Traps of the thief class are useless.
- going where they were never meant to go: If only teleports would work that way… Teleport only allow you to teleport to places where people are meant to and can go by walking.

From my thread

Kicker.8203:

• Death Blossom: evade is now 1/2 and it’s a spamm skill for condi builds. It has to scale more with power. To prevent spamming it and add more play, it should switch -if any of the attacks hit- into a second skill(I don’t insist on a certain skill but to give you an idea:)
  Marked for Death: Death Blossom marks the foe first hit similarly to how Shadow Trap does.
  —Marked for Death(3 initiative): You can teleport to and knockdown your foe as soon as he is at least 900 range away from you. (if you can’t catch up you can just run in the other direction, fun counterplay)
  If the teleport is not used in the following 6 seconds or so, the skill would reset back to Death Blossom.
  The point is adding a flipping skill to prevent evade spamming without adding CD.
  Possible variants:
  Same, but you teleport automatically upon reaching 900 range.
  Activating it stealths you, teleports behind/to your foe also inflicting vulnerability. (counterplay: vulnerability lets them know that you are coming)
  Alternatively it could just teleport to your foe and hit them similarly to Shadow Shot’s damage part. (maybe not both stealth and teleport because then all weapon sets have everything if staff gets it too)
  —Why teleport? D/D has no mobility.
• Cloak and Dagger: this skill is very difficult to hit opposed to the smoke field+heartseeker combo. Using it puts you at risk as a thief so it should either reward a successful hit with a bit longer stealth duration or blind application.
  bug: Steal with Mug+ CnD often causes self-reveal.(teleport+CnD happens before mug damage)

From my thread.

Kicker.8203:

—Shadow Arts

• Shadow’s Embrace: Switches places with Merciful Ambush(has a wrong, 20% revive speed according to wiki).
  Reasoning: leaving this as a choice going to lower build diversity because of its
  usefulness.
• Concealed defeat: trait removed. Smoke Screen doesn’t help in downed state. It only draws more attention to you and you cannot combo with it.
• Starving Spider(new Adept): apply Spider Venom when you hit a foe with under 75% health(I believe venom take up too many utility spots thus leaving no room for defensive utilities that’s why they are unused)
• Last Refuge: Blinding powder proc can kill you almost half the time by revealing you just before you want to go into stealth by yourself, so I didn’t add deception recharge reduction here. Some people might like it so I left it as an option.
• Shadow Protector: Now gets 20% deception recharge rate coming from Concealed Defeat. (3 deception skills are stealth related anyway and this trait needed it)
• Cloaked in Shadows: Gaining stealth blinds nearby foes for 5 seconds. you move 50% faster while in stealth.(merged with an acrobatics trait)
• Shadow Rejuvenation: This trait is incentivizing very unhealthy gameplay(stealth camping). Rework: Revealing yourself from stealth by attacking heals you for ~2k base and grants 2 initiative.
  (If no rework: currently bugged, heals an extra tick every 3 ticks when stealth is reapplied before it ends.)

Then you should probably reorder the minor traits in Dagger.2035’s order, which is: Meld With Shadows, Resilience of Shadows, Shadow’s Embrace.

Alekt.5803:

Staff

Lava Font : First instance of the damage occurs immediately after the cast. (Instant First tick).

Lighning Surge : Reduce cooldown to 5 seconds from 10 to better match cooldown with Fresh Air.

Gust : Add minor damage on impact.

Magnetic Aura : Apply cripple for 5 seconds in a 300 radius around the player on cast. Reduce cooldown to 25 from 30.

Shockwave : Improve power ratio to 1.0 from 0.5. Increase bleeding stacks to 3 from 1, reduce duration to 8 from 20. Reduce cooldown to 20 from 30.

Healing Rain: Reduce cast time to 1 seconds from 1 1/2 seconds.

Traits

Inscription: Increase the might gained from casting glyphs while attuned to fire to 3 stacks from 1 stack. Additionnaly, it now reduces the cooldown of the summoned elemental special ability cooldown by 20%.

Weak Spot: Increase the Vulnerability Stacks on critical strike to 2 from 1.

Earthen Blast : Add 3 stacks of bleeding for 3 seconds in the 240 radius when swapping to Earth.

Serrated Stones: Applying Cripple also applies 5 seconds of Bleeding (3 seconds ICD); Applying Bleeding also applies 2 seconds of Cripple (10 seconds ICD). Improve damage dealt against bleeding foes by 5%; improve critical chance against Crippled foes by 5%. Increase Bleeding and Cripple duration by 20%.

Lightning Strike : Increase range to 1200 from 900.

Renewing Stamina : Reduce recharge to 4 seconds from 10. Reduce duration to 3 seconds from 5.

Elemental Attunement : Increase the radius to 360 from 240.

Conjurer : Combine One with Fire and Conjurer together as a single trait.

New trait to replace One with Fire: Element of Purification : Applying Fire Aura cleanse 1 damaging condition and increases damage dealt by condition by 5% and damage by 5 % for the duration of the Aura.

Pyromancer’s Puissance : Bonus (Minor and Major traits) from Fire Attunement now lingers for 5 seconds after swapping from Fire Attunement.

UTILITIES

Arcane Shield Reduce cooldown to 50 seconds, down from 75 seconds.

Arcane Power Reduce cooldown to 40 seconds, down from 45 seconds. Additionnally, improves Ferocity by 250 for the duration of the spell.

Arcane Blast Reduce cooldown to 15 seconds from 20 seconds. Additionnally, the spell now launches 3 projectiles in a barrage to the target with a 100% projectile finisher. Damage is improved by 10%, but splitted in 3 instances of damage.

Arcane Wave Reduce cooldown to 20 seconds from 30.

Arcane Brillance Reduce cooldown to 15, down from 25 seconds. Short cooldown healing skill.

Signet of Restoration Clears one condition when casted.

Signet of Water Now also removes chill every 10 seconds in addition to the regular condition clear. When activated, gain Frost Aura on successful hit in addition to the chill on the target.

Signet of Fire Now grants Fire Aura on successful hit in addition to the burn on the target.

Glyph of Elemental Harmony Increase healing value to 6,490 (1.0), up from 4894 (0.75).

Glyph of Elemental Power Reduce cooldown to 40 seconds, down from 45 seconds.

Eye of the Storm Now grants a static charge to allies for 10 seconds in addition to the old effect, similar to the effects upon completing air overload.

Tornado: Changed to Signet of the Wind which passively improve vitality, thoughness and healing power by 80. Tornado now applies the first instance of damage instantly after a succesful cast and the last tick applies at the very end of the transformation. Raise the pulsing stability stack to 5 up from 1 every three seconds. Additionnaly, clears 3 conditions every 3 seconds. And finally, enemy combo fields are inneffective while under Tornado (it does not affect the regular effects of the ability causing the combo field).

Conjured Weapons

-Reduce initial cooldown to 45 seconds from 60.

-Reduce Fiery Greatsword cooldown to 120 from 180 seconds.

-Improve visibility between allies’ and enemies’ conjured weapon.

-Drastically reduce the delay to pick up Conjured Weapon (or Bundles) when already on the floor.

Conjure Earth Shield

Passive stats : -Remove vitality from the passive stat gains since it is immediately lost when the Conjured Weapon is discarded.

-Add Concentration (20% boon duration) to the passive stat pool.

Stone Sheath : Increase radius to 360. Each enemy hit grants two seconds of Retaliation. Reduce cooldown to 5 seconds from 8.

Magnetic Surge : Add a Leap Finisher to the skill.

Crippling Shield : Add a Projectile Finisher to the skill.

Lightning Hammer

Static Field : Allow the wielder to move while casting. Allow to target the field in the area instead of a Point Blank Area, 600 range.

Wind Blast : Improve damage to match Guardian Hammer’s Banish.

Auto Attack : Reduce auto attack windup to match the indicated cast time.

Conjure Flame Axe

Ring of Fire : Update this Ring of Fire to match the current iteration of Ring of Fire on Dagger.

Auto-Attack : Rework the auto attack to include a chain in melee, which could include some evade frames.

Conjure Ice Bow

Auto Attack : Completely rework the auto-attack. Fire a shard of ice that shatters on impact, Bleeding and dealing extra damage to enemies behind the impact. 1 stack of bleed for 3 seconds, 320 (0,6) damage ; 2 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds, 384 (0.72) damage to target behind. 900 range.

Frost Fan : Increase chill duration to 2 seconds from 1 seconds (to compensate the chill stack limit). Struck enemies and allies now leave a regenerative mist on impact that pulse heal every seconds for 204 (0,2) over 3 seconds.

Ice Storm : Do an evasive leap away from target area while shooting a volatile shard of ice. Detonate midair for multiple explosions of ice. Detonates into 5 shards that cripple and bleeds.

BUG FIXES

Elemental Enchantment Fix the issue causing the overload cooldown to reset back to 20 seconds when swapping out of the element causing the overload.

Written in Stones Fix the issue causing signets buff duration not matching the signet cooldown due to the aftercast. Aftercast duration now adds to the buff duration.

Tempest Defense Fix the issue that prevents Lightning Rod from receiving the damage increase portion to disabled target. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3x9941/lightning_rod_is_not_working_properly_video_proof/)

Lightning Rod Fix the issue that causes the lightning strike to be blocked or dodged upon sucessfully interrupting a dodging or blocking target. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3x9941/lightning_rod_is_not_working_properly_video_proof/)

+1

This is a massive overkill. Giving warriors 2 healing skills and 5 utilities through stances… What? And then they have extra stances from traits too? facepalm

From my thread

Kicker.8203:

• Death Blossom: evade is now 1/2 and it’s a spamm skill for condi builds. It has to scale more with power. To prevent spamming it and add more play, it should switch -if any of the attacks hit- into a second skill(I don’t insist on a certain skill but to give you an idea:)
  Marked for Death: Death Blossom marks the foe first hit similarly to how Shadow Trap does.
  —Marked for Death(3 initiative): You can teleport to and knockdown your foe as soon as he is at least 900 range away from you. (if you can’t catch up you can just run in the other direction, fun counterplay)
  If the teleport is not used in the following 6 seconds or so, the skill would reset back to Death Blossom.
  The point is adding a flipping skill to prevent evade spamming without adding CD.
  Possible variants:
  Same, but you teleport automatically upon reaching 900 range.
  Activating it stealths you, teleports behind/to your foe also inflicting vulnerability. (counterplay: vulnerability lets them know that you are coming)
  Alternatively it could just teleport to your foe and hit them similarly to Shadow Shot’s damage part. (maybe not both stealth and teleport because then all weapon sets have everything if staff gets it too)
  —Why teleport? D/D has no mobility.
• Cloak and Dagger: this skill is very difficult to hit opposed to the smoke field+heartseeker combo. Using it puts you at risk as a thief so it should either reward a successful hit with a bit longer stealth duration or blind application.
  bug: Steal with Mug+ CnD often causes self-reveal.(teleport+CnD happens before mug damage)

Updated the post all around. Most notably Death Blossom and Acrobatics tratline.

+1

They also should implement a sPvP version of the highly customizable Guild Arena!

Abimes.9726:

Soldier could become something like :

1050 Power
1050 Ferocity
560 Toughness
560 Vitality

Whatever you name this amulet but there should be one like this or just
1050 Power
1050 Ferocity
560 Precision
560 Vitality

The best thing would be if you could choose your own stats within a set of rules. Otherwise there will always be some nonaids builds left out.

Quoting myself from here.

—Dagger

• Death Blossom: evade is now 1/2 and it’s a spamm skill for condi builds. It has to scale more with power. To prevent spamming it and add more play, it should switch -if any of the attacks hit- into a second skill(I don’t insist on a certain skill but to give you an idea:)Marked for Death: lets you shadowstep to the foe first hit by Death Blossom for additional initiative (3?) like Shadow Trap. This would have the range limitation of 900 or 1200 and if the teleport is not used in the following 6 seconds or so, the skill would reset back to Death Blossom.
  The point is adding a flipping skill to prevent evade spamming without adding CD.
  A possible example:
  Marked for Death: activating it stealths you, teleports behind/to your foe also inflicting vulnerability. (counterplay: vulnerability lets them know that you are coming)
  Alternatively it could just teleport to your foe and hit them similarly to Shadow Shot’s damage part. (maybe not both stealth and teleport because then all weapon sets have everything if staff gets it too)

Silverwing.8750:

The nuke meta may be fun to watch in tournaments, but it is not fun to be on the end of it. Especially as there is no solo queue. It is horrible facing premades, being focused down in seconds. This only leads to casual or new players giving up on PVP.

Surely we want to encourage more players, not put people off PVP altogether……..

Nuke meta or not you lose if you don’t focus your damage.
There is team chat and call target button you know.
It wouldn’t be all nuke though, people would still find tough builds with new amulets, just not indestructible builds.

MadVisions.4529:

CaptainShrimps.9143:

It’s not the stats (like celestial) that carry bad players and create a boring meta, it’s the impactful defensive passive procs that activate when an opponent successfully does something to you.
These traits are bad design and need to be removed or redesigned to make builds in PvP more skill based instead of playing themselves.
Here I will list all of these traits in the game.
Although many of them are currently weak and/or not used, they are just as bad design-wise as the ridiculously overpowered ones (like Soothing Bastion).

Elementalist: Burning Fire, Tempest Defense, Earth’s Embrace, Soothing Ice, Elemental Contingency, Final Shielding, Gale Song, Imbued Melodies, Elemental Bastion

Warrior: Defy Pain, Last Stand, Shrug It Off

Ranger: Enlargement, Shared Anguish, Protective Ward

Necromancer: Reaper’s Protection, Last Grasp

Guardian: Valorous Defense, Hunter’s Determination

Thief: Last Refuge, Pain Response, Hard to Catch, Don’t Stop, (and the passive evade on reaching 50% health that Anet wants to add next patch)

Engineer: Automated Medical Response, Autodefense Bomb Dispenser, Protection Injection, Transmute, Self-Regulating Defenses, Reactive Lenses

Mesmer: Desperate Decoy, Mirror of Anguish

Revenant: Pulsating Pestilence, Eye for an Eye, Versed in Stone, Soothing Bastion

Anet, for the sake of healthy and active PvP, please remove or rework all of these traits and refrain from making more of them in the future.

+1 for this.

+1

Some passive offensive traits have no counterplay either:
Engineer: Incendiary Powder
Thief: Panic Strike
Necro: Chill of Death
These proc traits can’t be dodged because they trigger instantly on a hit.
Instead they should grant a buff to make your next attack cause these effects. If your next attack misses it’s gone.

I would remove most of the passives.
And the problem is you don’t even know if your foe has them(if they have them in their build or if they do, if it’s off-CD). They all should appear on the effects bar.
Protective ward is not just passive but op too.
Warrior: Last Stand: doesn’t even let you interrupt the warrior because stability is applied before cc(unlike any other trait)

either add 15k hp baseline or let us mix up pvp stats a bit more. ANY amulet without vitality is unplayable to thief and ele. (even healing power+toughness doesn’t save you from getting 1 shotted)

Simonoly.4352:

- Basilisk venom – an unblockable one second stun that can be applied with any skill?

Oh because one can activate basilisk venom and then hit you before you finish blocking.

BV needed a little something it didn’t really feel like an elite.

Coulter.2315:

aelfwe.4239:

During streaming karl said that:

1) one mesmer makes raid to do 66% more dmg

I am shocked he said that, very silly thing to say. Will need to wait and see how the changes play out but I think it may cause Raid groups who were just killing Gorseval struggle and need to re-evaluate what people are doing (no bad thing to strive for better play but the consequences might be dropping that Guard or Thief player because the rest of the Raid cannot compensate for them as much).

Will need to see it live but I think a lot of people may be surprised how much Alacrity carried groups, hopefully it won’t cause too much mess.

yeah noone does 66% more dmg, its just 40% CD reduction but good point anyway: its super strong

Most important is to grant the 3 extra initiative as baseline.
I’d make the 15% steal recharge on minor trait baseline too probably.
+1 Boon stealing? maybe move 1 from bountiful from to minor. But then that would be a bit weak…
Although when i steal 10 might stacks I shouldn’t just get 1 that’s a very good point.
Duration isn’t too bad if its normalised tho. U dont want to get 1s of might or infinite amount of protection from bosses.

Here’s a bit more of my opinion.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Balance-everything-that-needs-change/first#post5923198

And btw Grouch said 5s of vigor, 7s is maybe with boon duration.
It should be made 10 s tho.

Frenk.5917:

The problem of the new Energy sigil is that it can be granted by someone else (effectively rendering useless the new application of vigor).
“.

They should let vigor stack in intensity to 2 stacks. ATM vigor is so insignificant that u can barely see the difference because of its slow nature.
so maximum endurance regen bonus would be +100% but it would require double application.