Guild Wars 2

Not to read too much into the artwork, but where’s the mainhand weapon?

Empty mainhand? Warhorn a two handed weapon?

Kidel.2057:

if you want 2s basilisk venom then give up to some damage, because thief + 2-3s stun + stealth + initiative burst would be insane in pvp.
Anything but bunkers would die in 2s, and even bunkers would have problems.

Don’t destroy pvp please.

I don’t think it needs to be extended because most players break it anyway, it just needs to be instant cast like all the other venoms are so you can use it to interrupt. A 1 second cast time and then a visible buff on your bar makes it mediocre compared to many utility/weapon skills.

Kidel.2057:

Rin.1046:

Kidel.2057:

Chilled to the bone! (Reaper) – stun 2 seconds, chill for 12 seconds, resistance 2 seconds
Jade Winds – stun 3 seconds

Jade Winds – Radius: 600, blockable, easy to evade
Basilisk Venom – The venom is still used if an attack is blocked, evaded, obstructed, negated by Blind, or if the target has Invulnerability or Defiance.

Jade Winds – 50 energy cost
Basilisk Venom – 0 initiative cost

Plus Thief can use Basilisk Venom while in stealth and unload all its initiative on the enemy.

You forgot to mention that CttB has a 120 second cooldown. However, without the snide comments, you do have a point. BV does not cost initiative, and that alone IMO is the only advantage BV has over JW. Is that a big enough advantage? That I am not sure about. Would you want to have a more powerful BV at the cost of some initiative?

Also initiative burst with 2s of stun = insta kill on every class in the game. Nice job balancing.
Thief with stealth, initiative and a 2s stun is really OP. I think that even tank builds would have problems surviving.

You get a lesser stun because you already have too many toys.

You know that the duration doesn’t stack if you attack too fast, right? You don’t actually get 2 seconds most of the time.

And you think wrong about tank builds. They have no problem surviving.

Jana.6831:

Vornollo.5182:

Skill cap wise? S/D > D/P > D/D.

Thanks for clarifying this as I was wondering why I’m always dying lately- thought it had something to do with the heavy nerfs my weaponset took while the answer is that I have no skill, I’m carried by my D/D weaponset.

I think he meant that no matter how good you are, there’s a limit to what that weaponset can do for you. D/D just doesn’t have the utility of the other 2 listed.

Necros and guards really feel like an uphill battle now. Eles and mesmers are a real toss up depending on the relative skill levels. I’m having decent success with S/D DA/CS/T right now. I wouldn’t recommend either defensive trait line right now as the marginal defensive gains don’t compare with the DPS lost. The longer a fight draws out, the more at a disadvantage you’ll be.

I don’t think we need any more health or damage, just an un-nerfing to our defensive lines.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

bloodymarx.9052:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Been using [Scorpion Wire] for a few weeks and I’m getting much better in making it work besides condi clearing. Just don’t expect it to pull him to you. Use it as a condi clear first, a low cooldown interrupt second, and if it pulls, lucky you.

That’s a good idea.

Let me put it another way though: a skill is useful for an effect that was originally not intended (the condi clearing), and useful for what was originally intended as a side effect (the interrupt), but not at all useful for its original purpose.

Yeah, I think that’s another tell-tale sign of the class needing some dev attention.

Or to be sarcastic: scorpion wire is too RNG, time to remove it!

I’m not saying it’s a good skill on it’s own, it’s terrible. But as a cheap condi clear when running withdraw/trickery, well it works for me during stronghold/conquest. It seems most people don’t know it’s telegraphed animation as well (obv because no one ever uses it) when using in cqb so they don’t even bother dodging it.

Or if they do recognize it they expect it to be obstructed or just miss by sidestepping. :P

StickerHappy.8052:

Maugetarr.6823:

StickerHappy.8052:

Maugetarr.6823:

The blind is unblockable because it’s attached to the shot itself which also includes the teleport. When it wasn’t unblockable, if you fired it into a reflect it shadowstepped your target to you (if you didn’t dodge your reflected shot). It is still dodgeable though and there are skills on professions that make you immune to blinds or conditions in general. If a blind prevents you from landing an attack or attacking so you don’t waste an attack it’s working as intended. The only blind that seems like it’s not is the mesmer one that goes through dodges.

I wanna ask, how do you dodge something that is instant (referring to mesmers shatter)

People pushing the dodges changes do not know anything. The dodge bug is the least of the problems when it comes of the issue of blinds.

If you’re in the face of the mesmer you can only predict it (much like dodging a thief steal or ele S/X lightning strike/blinding flash). If you’re not within range, the clones have to run at you first after seeing the mesmer shatter animation, so you should be able to dodge (or correct me if I’m wrong on where the blind comes from). It probably should be blockable as well since as far as I can tell it’s just an extra effect tacked on to shatters (like confusion or vuln).

Blind is only around the mesmer, so I think people pushing for the make BD dodgeable are…fixing it won’t change anything.

It appears you are correct. I thought that it was attached in the same way. Perhaps making it blockable/dodgeable would be enough as it would be the same as any other shatter effect.

StickerHappy.8052:

Maugetarr.6823:

The blind is unblockable because it’s attached to the shot itself which also includes the teleport. When it wasn’t unblockable, if you fired it into a reflect it shadowstepped your target to you (if you didn’t dodge your reflected shot). It is still dodgeable though and there are skills on professions that make you immune to blinds or conditions in general. If a blind prevents you from landing an attack or attacking so you don’t waste an attack it’s working as intended. The only blind that seems like it’s not is the mesmer one that goes through dodges.

I wanna ask, how do you dodge something that is instant (referring to mesmers shatter)

People pushing the dodges changes do not know anything. The dodge bug is the least of the problems when it comes of the issue of blinds.

If you’re in the face of the mesmer you can only predict it (much like dodging a thief steal or ele S/X lightning strike/blinding flash). If you’re not within range, the clones have to run at you first after seeing the mesmer shatter animation, so you should be able to dodge (or correct me if I’m wrong on where the blind comes from). It probably should be blockable as well since as far as I can tell it’s just an extra effect tacked on to shatters (like confusion or vuln).

Why do you think it needs a nerf? Maybe if you walked us through your thought process you might be taken more seriously.

The blind is unblockable because it’s attached to the shot itself which also includes the teleport. When it wasn’t unblockable, if you fired it into a reflect it shadowstepped your target to you (if you didn’t dodge your reflected shot). It is still dodgeable though and there are skills on professions that make you immune to blinds or conditions in general. If a blind prevents you from landing an attack or attacking so you don’t waste an attack it’s working as intended. The only blind that seems like it’s not is the mesmer one that goes through dodges.

Edit: I guess I just repeated what Burr said

Shockwave.1230:

I do wish Scorpion Wire was more reliable, it’d be awesome to have an isolation tool that could be used competitively

Waiting for them to make it a reverse shadowshot with a 0.25 second stun at the end.

D/D certainly could use that stunbreak/evade on demand…..

Don’t know how long they can have an energy-based stun break considering our initiative based one got nerfed, then had a cast time added so it wasn’t even a non-stunbreak instant cast.

There was a lot of cool stuff on that and I hope they go as crazy and assassin-y feel for us on the elite spec.

Edit: As a small point of jealousy too, the dark prison assassin skill artwork (gw1) was used as the rollover for one of the skills.

Just so people can see the cool stuff for themselves.

I hope the thief specialization is as cool as this seems.

I used Devourer Venom before the patch. They nerfed the duration so now I just take panic strike instead since it procs on hit so charges won’t be wasted. Basilisk is still used since the other elites are pretty mediocre.

Valvador.4291:

What do you guys do for Condition clearing without SA?

Usually I use Shadowstep and Signet of Agility for clears, but really only worry about it if I have poison on me. Also, as stated, usually I use S/D now so it comes with a single condi clear on it. I will admit condi necros are a nightmare sometimes because of the condition dump, but as long as there’s not too many different types, I just treat condis as regular damage.

Valvador.4291:

Wait, all of those damage multipliers are multiplicative on top of each other? What about the signet that gives you an extra 15%, is that also multiplicative?

Also, what are those 2.14 and 2.18 values you are multiplying by? One of them is Crit Damage, right?

Yes, they’re multiplicative. 2.14 should actually be 2.4, I’ll fix it (that’s what I get for doing it from my phone). That’s the weapon skill coefficient. Backstab has a 2.4. Heartseeker has 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 at the different levels.

From mainly an sPvP perspective since the patch, backstabs can hit for anywhere from 5-10k depending on your exact build if you are not using full offensive zerker but instead maurader. Going all in on a zerker build, you can get up to around 16k. This is with DA/CS/T.

2490×1030×2.4×2.18×1.15(LA)×1.1(FS)×1.1(EW) ÷ (2500)=7500ish damage with your particular DA/CS/T setup. More or less depending on the opponent’s armor calue (I used 2500 as the armor value).

Well, you can swap smokescreen for Blinding Powder, then if pwople start to run, you can swap to SB and keep pinging them for sustained damage, then blinding powder + SB stealth attack for the immobilize, then engage again with daggers. Devourer venom is also still good, so you can engage with that on SB, infiltrator’s shot to them, swap to daggers, CnD/BS, and re-engage with steal/CnD if they start moving away for another BS. You can keep smokescreen also and blast it as well. You don’t need to swap in DA, but admittedly, it would be better. Keep in mind that while you don’t have the run speed teait, you do have 10 seconds of swiftness that you didn’t before. Also, if you build a little more tanky you can just go DA, CS, and Trick and use use inf sig, shadowstep, and SR with Daggers so you have more engages.

Edit:Saw your edit, right now I use DA CS T (but with S/D). It’s fun, I’d recommend at least giving it a try.

Reinn.7436:

Update:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Two-thieves-at-once-death/first#post5289852

There is this guy complaining about thieves because he was alone and two thieves ganked him 2v1.

The hate is real, guys.

Well, at least it’s moved from “thief can kill me, please nerf!” to “Thieves run away too well, please nerf!” to finally “Two thieves bursting me can kill me, please nerf!”
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Trade acrobatics for trickery. The last minor trait will increase your damage, and if you pick up Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, and Sleight of Hand, your steal becomes both an offensive and defensive tool to interrupt and gain vigor. The fury, might and swiftness will help too.

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

Dagger.2035:

I’m thinking it could reward 2-3 endurance per hit with a one second cool down. The cool down is necessary to prevent it from being overpowered when you hit multiple enemies (Cluster Bomb) or equip Air/Fire sigils.

5 endurance per crit 1 sec icd is what I wish they’d do.

I think they want to stay away from ON crit effects on the acro line.

Just curious, buy why do you think that? They did make a clear delineation between offensive and defensive lines (no more might on dodge/stealth or fluid strikes) but it seems like they could leave some utility attached to crit to make sure we don’t end up in defensive gear with decent endurance regeneration. Remember when double shortbow quick pockets was so powerful it warranted nerfing SB? I doubt that we’d get more defense without somehow tying it to offense.

Just looking at our traitlines, the description of the same and where all of our on Crit effects are.

::Critical Strikes is a core specialization for the thief that focuses on use of and benefits from critical hits and signets.

Every one of our on crit effects is in that line. Sundering strikes was moved there from another. I think the intent is to keep them all in that line rather than force the thief to take other traitlines to enhance a Core spec which is Critical hits.

Many of those other classes you list do not have a core spec described as revolving around Critical hits. The on crit effects tend to fall under lines that are more generic in their description.

I really think acro is the line that should give the most mobility , evasion and dodges and on trigger effects should be based on the same. IF one wants to maximize the benefits of an acrobatics build , I think it counterproductive to predicate it on a high crit rate .

Now IF it was an on crit when receiving a crit than it a different matter.

That’s a pretty good view on the line. I just dislike traits triggered by outside sources. If we accept that the on crit traits should be limited to CS, I’d really like to see a baseline endurance regen buff in acro with more traits proccing on successful evasion then. The real problem I see is that trickery is doing a better job of vigor uptime with BT than Acro, and ES doesn’t enhance vigor enough to trait into. Acro traits are mainly focused around ameliorating the hits you take now rather than dodging those hits.

xXBurningEmberXx.6085:

Are the sylvari and human animations the same? Sylvari thieves can look pretty kitten with their nightmare court stuff.

Well, the males have really stiff movement in both their attacks and running. The females are a little more fluid. If the accent doesn’t bother you, that might be the way to go. The color combos you can get with them are pretty cool, especially if you have some of the high contrast dyes to go along with them. Mine has destroyer weapons on it with black/grey skin, orange hair, yellow glow so it all goes together pretty well, especially if you add cultural armor to it.

Tldr: Sylvari look cool, play “meh”

Human is a little bland, but not bad.

I still dislike my sylvari thief (compared to my others) but they can look pretty cool with the color options for skin/glow; I dislike the dialogue and animations.

Charr are a lot of fun. The armor is hard to make look decent cause trenchcoats/tails/clipping (but doable). Dialogue and animations are great.

Female norn can look pretty awesome with the tattoos if you can find an armor to show them off. Dialogue and animations are good.

NinjaEd.3946:

Maugetarr.6823:

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

Dagger.2035:

I’m thinking it could reward 2-3 endurance per hit with a one second cool down. The cool down is necessary to prevent it from being overpowered when you hit multiple enemies (Cluster Bomb) or equip Air/Fire sigils.

5 endurance per crit 1 sec icd is what I wish they’d do.

I think they want to stay away from ON crit effects on the acro line.

Just curious, buy why do you think that? They did make a clear delineation between offensive and defensive lines (no more might on dodge/stealth or fluid strikes) but it seems like they could leave some utility attached to crit to make sure we don’t end up in defensive gear with decent endurance regeneration. Remember when double shortbow quick pockets was so powerful it warranted nerfing SB? I doubt that we’d get more defense without somehow tying it to offense.

I think the issue is on crit effects on thief just don’t set us apart in any way. By this I mean we are always the heavy bursting guys with many critical hits and trying to build away from that is very limiting already.

Our defensive trait lines need help, and restricting any part of that to an offensive set up isn’t going to help us get any better build diversity.

I think that’s a valid point, but so far they seem resistant to give thief flat out defense without attacking. While “on crit” effects aren’t unique, I think it’s really the only way they could implement it in a way they consider balanced. On crit gives them the assurance that you aren’t going to go cleric thief and just tank on a point indefinitely with high endurance regen.

Flat out endurance regen on crit though would at least be partially unique as it would stack with vigor as opposed to the high or perma vigor (or equivalent) of other classes. I don’t get how they think that FG is competitive when you have

Renewing Stamina
Critical Infusion
Adrenal Implant
Signet of Stamina
and Vigorous Precision exist.

Most of those are 50-100% vigor (or effective vigor) uptime with no “skillful evasion” required. Maybe if Endless Stamina increased the base endurance regen and then stacked with vigor (so 5×1.5(ES)=7.5 or 5×1.5(ES)×1.5(V)=11.25 instead of 5+5×0.5(V)×1.5(ES)=8.75), we’d have something with a unique edge that fits us. I’d even take that if they made it a major trait.

Edit: If they did that I’d like to see more “successful dodge” traits too.

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

Dagger.2035:

I’m thinking it could reward 2-3 endurance per hit with a one second cool down. The cool down is necessary to prevent it from being overpowered when you hit multiple enemies (Cluster Bomb) or equip Air/Fire sigils.

5 endurance per crit 1 sec icd is what I wish they’d do.

I think they want to stay away from ON crit effects on the acro line.

Just curious, buy why do you think that? They did make a clear delineation between offensive and defensive lines (no more might on dodge/stealth or fluid strikes) but it seems like they could leave some utility attached to crit to make sure we don’t end up in defensive gear with decent endurance regeneration. Remember when double shortbow quick pockets was so powerful it warranted nerfing SB? I doubt that we’d get more defense without somehow tying it to offense.

Dagger.2035:

I’m thinking it could reward 2-3 endurance per hit with a one second cool down. The cool down is necessary to prevent it from being overpowered when you hit multiple enemies (Cluster Bomb) or equip Air/Fire sigils.

5 endurance per crit 1 sec icd is what I wish they’d do.

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Random thought for Hidden Killer. What if it also granted a +50% crit chance while revealed (in addition to 100% crit chance from stealth). This would be on par with some of the other classes’ traits like Death Perception and Unsuspecting Foe.

No I’d rather not have an easy button for critical hits because someone didn’t want to put Perception into their build.

I guess we should remove executioner, panic strike, and revealed training because people didn’t bring damage, devourer venom, or power to their builds then too.

Weak.

+200 Power while revealed doesn’t even come close to competing with +1050 Precision while revealed.

Panic Strike compared to Devourer Venom can be compared to any trait that procs at a set condition. Same with Executioner being compared to any damage increasing trait.

Again. Weak.
Try harder next time.

Considering I gave you 2 examples to begin with that give +50% crit chance, I figured I would just give you the auto procs we already have. +50% is the same as unsuspecting foe and death perception, so I guess I could call this the same as any precision increasing trait. If you’re going to ignore the skills that already exist in game that I listed, I guess I really don’t have anything else for you.

Those two that give +50% critical chance under specific conditions vs. Hidden Killer that gives 100% critical chance under certain conditions and you think Hidden Killer is the one that got jipped? Seems to me like Hidden Killer is the better one considering it gets double the bonus and you want an an extra bonus added on to make it comparable when it is already better than those two? Seems more like a way to get extra Precision because someone didn’t put it in their build than making it fair.

….but +50% while revealed is under a specific condion. The difference is all attacks if the condition is met versus a single attack (i.e. all warrior attacks while stunned/knocked down, all shroud attacks)

Edit: I think I should explain my thinking a little more. Adding this bonus for 3 (4) seconds would move this trait away from being a dagger mainhand only trait to a trait that could benefit sword and shortbow combos as well.

Right, I just personally think guaranteed critical on a backstab is powerful enough. And face it, almost anyone taking Hidden Killer in their build is doing it to make up for a lack of Precision in their build to still get a good backstab. And yes, it is a dagger main-hand trait pretty much. Just like Ankle Shots is a pistol main-hand only ability because why would anyone take it for pistol off-hand?

I do think the +50% critical chance while revealed however would make for an excellent Revealed Training instead of +200 power and then swap it with Potent Poisons into the GM slot. That would make a very powerful ability that would compete with the other two DA GM traits. Plus Potent Poisons is really pretty weak for a GM trait with the 10% damage increase and 33% duration increase on only one condition making it better for a Master trait than GM one.

Hey, at least we’re getting somewhere on discussing it. I sort of like revealed training as is because it fits the deadly arts theme. I dislike it when traits with interesting goals end up benefitting one weapon only (see swindler’s equilibrium). While 100/50 might be a little over the top, some intermediate compromise might give it some more wide spread utility. Perhaps a 50/50 (in stealth/revealed) would make it more universal in terms of weapon sets. D/X could still get a guaranteed crit on BS with as little as 30% crit chance as long as they have fury, and S/X could have the chance to put a little more pressure on opponents when coming out of stealth. Alternatively, putting it somewhere else in the CS line might also be an option. I’d like to see the +50% replace sundering strikes, but i do think that’s a bit strong for a master trait; While warrior’s is a master’s trait and necros is a GM, I think introducing this effect would sut somewhere in between those two in terms of power and uptime, hence my idea to tack it on to HK instead of giving it it’s own trait.

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Random thought for Hidden Killer. What if it also granted a +50% crit chance while revealed (in addition to 100% crit chance from stealth). This would be on par with some of the other classes’ traits like Death Perception and Unsuspecting Foe.

No I’d rather not have an easy button for critical hits because someone didn’t want to put Perception into their build.

I guess we should remove executioner, panic strike, and revealed training because people didn’t bring damage, devourer venom, or power to their builds then too.

Weak.

+200 Power while revealed doesn’t even come close to competing with +1050 Precision while revealed.

Panic Strike compared to Devourer Venom can be compared to any trait that procs at a set condition. Same with Executioner being compared to any damage increasing trait.

Again. Weak.
Try harder next time.

Considering I gave you 2 examples to begin with that give +50% crit chance, I figured I would just give you the auto procs we already have. +50% is the same as unsuspecting foe and death perception, so I guess I could call this the same as any precision increasing trait. If you’re going to ignore the skills that already exist in game that I listed, I guess I really don’t have anything else for you.

Those two that give +50% critical chance under specific conditions vs. Hidden Killer that gives 100% critical chance under certain conditions and you think Hidden Killer is the one that got jipped? Seems to me like Hidden Killer is the better one considering it gets double the bonus and you want an an extra bonus added on to make it comparable when it is already better than those two? Seems more like a way to get extra Precision because someone didn’t put it in their build than making it fair.

….but +50% while revealed is under a specific condion. The difference is all attacks if the condition is met versus a single attack (i.e. all warrior attacks while stunned/knocked down, all shroud attacks)

Edit: I think I should explain my thinking a little more. Adding this bonus for 3 (4) seconds would move this trait away from being a dagger mainhand only trait to a trait that could benefit sword and shortbow combos as well.

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Random thought for Hidden Killer. What if it also granted a +50% crit chance while revealed (in addition to 100% crit chance from stealth). This would be on par with some of the other classes’ traits like Death Perception and Unsuspecting Foe.

No I’d rather not have an easy button for critical hits because someone didn’t want to put Perception into their build.

I guess we should remove executioner, panic strike, and revealed training because people didn’t bring damage, devourer venom, or power to their builds then too.

Weak.

+200 Power while revealed doesn’t even come close to competing with +1050 Precision while revealed.

Panic Strike compared to Devourer Venom can be compared to any trait that procs at a set condition. Same with Executioner being compared to any damage increasing trait.

Again. Weak.
Try harder next time.

Considering I gave you 2 examples to begin with that give +50% crit chance, I figured I would just give you the auto procs we already have. +50% is the same as unsuspecting foe and death perception, so I guess I could call this the same as any precision increasing trait. If you’re going to ignore the skills that already exist in game that I listed, I guess I really don’t have anything else for you.

Shadow.1345:

Maugetarr.6823:

Random thought for Hidden Killer. What if it also granted a +50% crit chance while revealed (in addition to 100% crit chance from stealth). This would be on par with some of the other classes’ traits like Death Perception and Unsuspecting Foe.

No I’d rather not have an easy button for critical hits because someone didn’t want to put Perception into their build.

I guess we should remove executioner, panic strike, and revealed training because people didn’t bring damage, devourer venom, or power to their builds then too.

Galandil.9641:

Maugetarr.6823:

Random thought for Hidden Killer. What if it also granted a +50% crit chance while revealed (in addition to 100% crit chance from stealth). This would be on par with some of the other classes’ traits like Death Perception and Unsuspecting Foe.

It’d be OP as hell, just with Marauder amulet we have 54% base chance, that’d mean 100% uptime of every hit critting.

Only while you’re revealed, and you’re honestly most of the way there if you ever pick up no quarter since you basically always have 20% more crit chance from fury. You’re already riding at a 94% crit chance with Marauder’s, pack runes, signet of agility, and fury. For high crit builds you’d be adding 6-14% crit chance at the cost of 250 ferocity from NQ. For low crit builds you’d actually have access to a way to crit (for build diversity).

Edit: For comparison

Random thought for Hidden Killer. What if it also granted a +50% crit chance while revealed (in addition to 100% crit chance from stealth). This would be on par with some of the other classes’ traits like Death Perception and Unsuspecting Foe.

Sandrox.9524:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Nephrite.6954:

Majority of the people I’ve met who actually played thief long enough understands this thread. I’m just baffled by the fact that you guys still don’t get the point. I never requested them to increase our health pool to the highest level like necros or warriors, never once I’ve stated that if you read the posts obove. I really don’t want to make my statements rude cause things can get real toxic if you’ve read my previous post and other people on gw2 forum. Guardians are well known for having exceptionally high sustain without much effort, they’ve got a good deal of damage output as well as proper damage mitigation. Fresh air eles getting faced rolled? You seriously don’t expect anyone to trait into full damage output and expect to live long enough right? Is your logic seriously that limited(sorry I just had to). I mean you seriously think that thieves have enough sustain in the current state and that the dev is gonna stop the endless irrationally unjustified nerfs? Giving us medium health pool will provide some breathing room as well as opening the opportunity to not die like flies, exactly like what that’s been stated above. Btw Jayden I’ve seen your post before about thieves, I don’t wish to seem personal but it seems like you seriously seem like a person who would state things with absolute prejudice. It seems as if prejudice should be your middle name.

It doesn’t matter if the HP increase would be to medium or the highest health pools. Without improved active defence, the extra padding with more vitality melts really fast.

You seriously don’t expect anyone to trait into full damage output and expect to live long enough right?

I compared equivalent stat choices for same HP pool classes, ele can die even faster than a thief if hit by the same attack. And it is due to current overbuffed dmg everyone has that the lowest HP classes can die in 1 hit. Why should a thief class be an exception and get more HP to cope with the dmg currently in the game. The solution to that is to nerf dmg output across all classes, not give 1 class more HP.

Because this thread is meant for legitimate points.

What makes a point not legitimate? The fact that someone doens’t agree with you?

ok,give thief the ele active defense,almost perma protection,and self sustain. i will be happy to stay with this on low hp pool.

So pretty much give back feline grace (or single trait perma vigor) and some dodge roll activated defensive traits in the acro line. I wouldn’t mind a thief themed version of the arcana line. I’d like that a lot more than a vitality boost.

I watched more of the video….. pretty much every encounter goes “I was fighting and getting killed so I stealthed up and ran.” While back capping is useful, if you’re not fighting anyone, why invest in defensive gear/traits? Instead, you could build like this and either burst or run. For the most part, he didn’t have enough condi clear to keep up with condi classes, so it seems to me you shouldn’t try to have an extended fight with them. Burst, and if that doesn’t work, run. (With the linked build you could swap for wurm runes too to lose power but gain health and 10% more crit damage).

My problem is that our defensive lines are mediocre at best now in an extended fight.

Cynz.9437:

Vieux P.1238:

Stop complaining & playing squishy builds. No wonder you die all the time. All classes including thieves will down you if it hits you. kitten it, why thieve players cant be innovative? Here.. New thieve guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEnar62Impo

tl/dr: terrible build for team pvp, get actually good yourself before trying to tell others what to do and pretend to be innovative.

- ogre is terrible as it gives you out and any smart player would spam where dog is standing
- sigil of force is not so great because to maximize it’s effect you actually need to be constantly attacking, i don’t see it happening in pvp where thief job is to down someone quickly and not to dps dummy
- sigil of fire is only good if you cleave, you want single burst for pvp so air is actually better on dagger/x
- runs crit sigils but doesn’t use any crit from amy = waste of sigils; also ferocity is worthless if you can’t crit
- not sure how valk amy makes thief bulky when maradeur amy brings thief to 17k and has way better dmg stats; extra 3k is laughable difference for huge dmg los
- you say in your guide that your job is to ounumber and kill someone; except the typical dp build with marauder amy +crits does that job better/faster, gets faster to points, actually probably lives longer due to extra mobility/stun break (see shs, withdraw). Why bring “bruiser” thief that gets insta gibbed anyway, when you can as well bring bruiser ele that does that job way better?
- also running HiS with SE is kind of silly, you already have condi cleanse from SE and possibly from signet; HiS is long CD and is easy to interrupt; withdraw would be way better given that youz already invested in 2 defensive traits
- you talk a lot about backcapping, +1 on points etc. but compared to common dp teamq build (trickery, pack runes) you are actually extremely slow
- those might stacks are negletable as common dp teamq build probably gets just as many via bountiful/pack runes etc.
- your build has close to no team support (besides SR for teammates); i don’t see how you are useful to anyone on team
- no point in trickery means less ini, which means less stealth (less use of SE) and less dazes when you actually need them to interrupt heals/stomps etc.; once again useless for team
- no stab interrupt either = once again no team support
- you showcase how much dmg you take in team fight and the joke is the common team build can take as much really while being more useful

I can sum up the build (compraed to common team pvp build) as:
- no team support
- still low surivival
- low dmg
- low CC
- low moblity

The only reason to use it if you are keyboard turner, clicker, can’t avoid red circles to save your life, don’t know what to do and expect your team to carry you hard.

This build absolutely doesn’t give any answer to thief woes in pvp, it is terrible in team pvp enviroment and any half decent opponent would nuke you before you can even blink.

^^^
QFT

@Vieux P

Yep, Cynz is pretty much correct. 3k hp over mauraders amulet is 1.5 auto attacks or about an extra 1.5 seconds of condi pressure. I will keep complaining about it because I’ve tried stuff like this and soldiers amulet since the patch, and for the most part they don’t have enough pressure to put people on the defensive in PvP. You end up initiative starved and evade starved without the continuous blocks, CC, protection, and heals available to those classes typically thought of as bruisers. Also the long term condi removal is still pretty pathetic outside of stealth and building into stealth means you slowly lose ground on the point cap. It’s not like thieves haven’t been trying new things, everything is just mediocre right now, except for damage, but even that is not anything special and pretty risky to deliver when compared to other professions.

I’ve been personally playing my staff ele a lot more recently, and there’s been so many team fights lately where thieves appear in downstate when no one knew they were there initially because of all the incidental AoE damage flying around now.

punahou.3986:

Evilek.5690:

Main problem is this new burst meta(40% more DPS), Thief is really squishy class without defensive abilities like protection,endurance pain etc. built on evade mechanism.ArenaNet on last big patch make big mistake -> nerf vigor and remove Feline’s Grace = destroyed Thief core mechanism

Look on other classes.

Mesmer -> Invurnerability,Evade,Blind,Blink,Portal,Stunlock,Invis,cleanse and massive burst DPS . Thats all in one build.

Warrior -> Hight HP pool,2x endurance pain,cleanse 3 conditions every 6sec,mobility, 2x endurance pain,berserker stance,massive HP regen. Thats all in one build

Elementalist -> no coment.

etc.

All single class has more than Thief.

what memer build is that? id like to know what is ti— ‘cuz everytime I get on my Mesmer I don’t see the burst and cc at all

Here you go. You can get the cleanse with torch and “The Pledge” trait, but I prefer pistol.

Are thieves going to get trained in the methods of Shiro also?

Vieux P.1238:

yiksing.9432:

I don’t mind them being able to stealth better than thief, the issue i have is its now almost impossible to sweep a keep or SMC especially when there are 2 mesmers cross chaining their stealth..

That is so funny.. the irony! Cuz ppl says the same thing about thieves when there 2 or more in the opposite team. Right before a match starts. Rolf..

Wait, people complain when there are 2 thieves on the other team? I’ve only seen complaints from the team who has 2+ thieves on their team.

DHawk.2687:

Maugetarr.6823:

DHawk.2687:

babazhook.6805:

I actually wanted to see how well a condi build would work with d/d as i tend to scoff at those that suggest a given build MUST be power or condition. I do have a few thieves so like to play around.

It suprisingly effective and I was 1v4ing people , dropping them and not using stealth.

Now whether one plays power or condition , I think one of the keys is getting that vitality up. It not just the one shots of power that will get you with too low a health pool , it those new condition stacks that can tick so high and take you down before you have time to react. As such in SOME ways the change to SE helps here as you can not afford to cleanse a weakness or a cripple on stealth over a tick of burning thats hitting you at 3k per tick hoping that gets cleansed at the 4 second mark.

i agree with that, so many thieves still go full zerk and maybe oneshot something if they are lucky and the enemy doesnt random dodge, blind, stun, cc, blink etc

I’ve pushed my health over 20k and still manage to oneshot or burst ppl down very fast
there is no need for zerk, not with the thief

Question: does this 20k include guard stacks?

If I run full guard stacks I’m at 21.86k health
But no I’m not full ascended

So it’s pretty much Valkyrie’s Armor + Weapons, wurm runes and zerk trinkets?

DHawk.2687:

babazhook.6805:

I actually wanted to see how well a condi build would work with d/d as i tend to scoff at those that suggest a given build MUST be power or condition. I do have a few thieves so like to play around.

It suprisingly effective and I was 1v4ing people , dropping them and not using stealth.

Now whether one plays power or condition , I think one of the keys is getting that vitality up. It not just the one shots of power that will get you with too low a health pool , it those new condition stacks that can tick so high and take you down before you have time to react. As such in SOME ways the change to SE helps here as you can not afford to cleanse a weakness or a cripple on stealth over a tick of burning thats hitting you at 3k per tick hoping that gets cleansed at the 4 second mark.

i agree with that, so many thieves still go full zerk and maybe oneshot something if they are lucky and the enemy doesnt random dodge, blind, stun, cc, blink etc

I’ve pushed my health over 20k and still manage to oneshot or burst ppl down very fast
there is no need for zerk, not with the thief

Question: does this 20k include guard stacks?

NinjaEd.3946:

“Don’t fear the reaper”

A few suggested changes to our defensive lines, since our offense is capable of being very high already.

Shadow Arts
-Merciful Ambush: Increase to 3 seconds, the minor trait should not be the reason this trait can’t exceed the normal stealth duration thief has access to.

-Last Refuge: Delete. Glad its a major trait, but it still doesn’t work 100% of the time and cannot compete in any tier.

-Shadow’s Embrace: Simple, revert to the old version.

-Concealed Defeat: Move to Master slot.

-Leeching Venoms: Move to adept slot.

-Hidden Thief: Increase to grant 3 seconds on steal, fix it to not apply stealth until other effects (like mug) proc first.

-Shadow’ Protector: Increase regeneration duration to 10 seconds, add 10 second ICD on application (aoe skills count as 1 application for all). Lower to adept slot.

-Cloaked In shadows: Move to master slot.

-Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Change initiative application to apply once upon entering stealth and then 1 every 3 seconds.

-Hidden Assassin(NEW GM in replace of deleting LR): Gain might while stealthed. 3 might for 15 seconds upon entering stealth, and reapply every 3 seconds you remain in stealth.

////Revision Goal////

Venoms don’t really change here but whether you use Shadow arts for defense or want it more for the damage portion, the traits line up a little better to distinguish how you utilize stealth. The adept and grandmaster traits play the largest part in this while the master traits gives you options that can be used in any way without 1 being vastly stronger than the other. (for example, an offensive build may have other means to clear conditions and would rather pick shadow protector because it will last during the fight even while they are revealed).

Acrobatics

-Expeditious Dodger: Increase to 3 seconds, boon duration is non-existent in acrobatics and isn’t up as often anymore since the dodge count went down.

-Fleet Shadow: Additional effect “Gain super speed upon defeating an enemy.” 5 seconds.

- Vigorous Recovery: Increase vigor duration to 6 seconds, since boon duration is no longer in trait lines.

-Feline Grace: add effect to remove 1 condition when you apply vigor, ICD 10 seconds. (This applies to allies from BT as well).

-Guarded Initiation: Changed to the old inertia, gain might when you dodge(endurance dodge), 1 stack for 15 seconds. 1 defensive option, 1 utility option, 1 offensive option for acro master slot.

-Assassin’s Reward: Increase healing power scale to 0.2 and Increase base healing to 86 (~25% more).

/////Revision Goal//////

With more diversity in each tier you get a stronger sense in what you’re using this trait line for but it all ties into evasion. Tying condition removal into the minor trait allows you to pick this trait line with some active defenses against the strongest enemy of thieves. Additionally the adept and master slots becomes a dps, defensive, or utility based selection with the mobility acrobatics is known for and the GM slot sets the stage for what kind of build your using that mobility on, (aggressive recovery, unhindered mobility, or a middle ground to use your resource more freely).

Assassin’s reward would be great for holding a point at this point allowing a 326 heal per initiative spent with 1,200 healing power which is actually quite good if you have the right defenses like toughness and condition removal. Might make bunker thief a “thing”

I like a lot of these, I just want to make a few alterations to your suggestions:

Shadow Arts:

Concealed Defeat X Last Refuge: Make Last Refuge drop smokescreen when hit under 25% health. Reduce Deception cooldowns by 20%. (still move to Master Tier).

(All other suggested changes are great)

Acrobatics:

Fleet Shadow: Change the effect to “gain 4s of super speed upon gaining stealth.” Even if you backstab/dazing strike immediately, the duration isn’t going to be game breaking. Keep your effect of defeating enemy also.

Feline Grace X Endless Stamina: Just combine these two

Fluid Strikes: Bring this back as “Gain 5 endurance on crit (1 sec ICD).” (GM minor placement)

Upper Hand: “Gain 1 initiative, cure 1 condition on successful evasion (5 sec ICD)”

(All other suggested changes are great)

NinjaEd.3946:

There is no need to change death blossom’s idea, it fits either side just not very well with its current values.

For power, the evade frame is too short, and doesn’t even go far now that movement based skills were normalized to not be affected by movement bonuses/conditions (good and bad).

For condition, again the skill doesn’t go very far to reach your target unless they are stunned or immobilized so landing those bleeds is already a challenge against a moderately competent player.

Turn this skill into a skill shot like warrior’s GS #3 and increase the distance slightly. Lastly increase the evade frame to 1/2 second. That way it becomes an evasive and positional skill for power or condi, and a more reliable bleed applicator for condi.

No need to add more conditions to it or turn it to some blind field, we have d/p for that.

Yep. This should be done. 1/2 second evade at the beginning, total cast of 3/4 second. Have it slide you 300 range in a selected direction like whirlwind attack. Leave condi and power damage the same on it.

Edit: they finally made last refuge an optional trait, maybe they’ll eventually fix this.

EragamerLG.2390:

Reinn.7436:

BFMV.3198:

1. Someone who has vast knowledge or mains thief needs to take responsibility for their balancing, as the person who currently works on them says he does not care about thief and touches it very rarely. He even forgot some of thieves traits when working on the latest patch. To me this is disgusting and shows that he is just a member of anet listening to cries from people who do not play thief

Really? When and where did he say that?

If this is the case, then it’s an outrage that they paid for some guy with our money in full who is not even doing his work properly.

During the 4hour live-stream showing off the upcoming Trait System and Thief changes back last month or so. I think a tear came to my eye when he said that.

Well, I don’t remember him saying that he rarely plays thief, but he did forget some of the trait names. To be fair, i forget trait names occasionally too. However, I don’t get the feeling when he talks about thief that he particularly enjoys it. Look back through the mesmer forum and you’ll see the Robert Gee appreciation thread. That guy has been working on mesmers since GW1. He’s passionate about the class and that’s a good thing. Part of what I think problem is is that it doesn’t seem like there’s a thief main dev. I just think there basically needs to be a dev per class who is the advocate for that class. Someone who says “look, this change would be awesome/awful because [reasons].” Karl might play thief a lot, but if you watch that preview, it seems like it’s not often because of his stated trait/weapon choices during testing. IIRC he talked about playing S/D power/condi with bewildering ambush during some of the play testing. I understand that they need to test a lot of things to see how traits interact, and some might not be optimal, the problem is I feel like we received some nerfs based on how strong a trait was against some scattered builds (like the one mentioned). Karl seems like he’s more passionate about ele (again, that’s good) because they received some essential stuff baseline and had some proposed nerfs not make it into the release which would obviously have been very detrimental to the ele in general. I think there needs to be a specialist dev per class so when they bring them on PoI or RU you identify them as the guy/girl who loves the class as much as you do.

More specific to this topic: I don’t see why they needed to nerf feline grace while simultaneously nerfing vigor. I don’t get why acro doesn’t have way more access to endurance regeneration traits. After taking away FG, the access to straight vigor for thief is actually pretty pitiful. It takes a combination of 4 traits to maintain 100% uptime when it honestly should be 1 major (adept) trait in the acro line. Look at the ele again (sorry, favorite alt) and how well the arcana line promotes evasion and how well it synergizes with itself. Renewing Stamina + Evasive Arcana has been a staple since launch that adds nicely to their survivability. Our version of that just got a serious nerf. I’d like to see acro made into a strong evasion line that is a contender for slotting again.

Taobella.6597:

What would balance thief is allowing blind to be stack able con

-snip-

While this would be awesome, I can already hear the QQ from classes without good access to blind.

DeceiverX.8361:

Maugetarr.6823:

Mattigan.6395:

I guess I’d rather they help us out on survivability rather than a HP increase. I don’t want to tank, but I do want better ways to avoid direct damage and mitigate condi pressure.

Buffing the minor traits in acro would go a long way towards helping. Also SA traits should just be front loaded to “[effect] on gaining stealth.” Note this isn’t on entering stealth, so shadow refuge would cause the effect on each pulse. Some effects would have to be nerfed slightly, but it should balance out and promote attacking faster from stealth.

This used to be the case for multiple effects, such as IoS, but it ended up being wildly overpowered to the point where D/P 5+2 spam was so effective it pretty much couldn’t lose in small-scale fights to pretty much anything.

I’d prefer the active mechanics of SA embracing more benefits for revealing – you need stealth pressure to gain these benefits – to promote more diverse capabilities of the trait line rather than just sitting around invisible or turning invisible passively waiting for effects to happen. Allowing players to spec this way would create some pretty cool situations with SA; consider a counterpart to SE that removes 2 conditions when getting revealed, a lump-sum heal effect on reveal as a GM to counteract Shadow Rejuv, etc. I think it’d help solve SA’s passive play problems while giving a variety of builds more interesting ways to play using SA, and also punishing players who just spam reveal effects, as currently, aside from S/P and P/P (SB I don’t consider as swaps can be baited or if not, 3spam avoidance) every build is punished no matter what for getting the revealed effect as it reduces the number of available options for the thief by a very large margin. Consider a condi ranger or engi unloading high stacks of a condition and then using Sic ’Em/Analyze with Minimize/block/CC effects as part of a rotation as a means to auto-win rather than a situational counter. It would cause the SA reveal build to be potentially the beneficiary by removing said conditions or healed.

I think that’s a great idea also, but as many times as the thief player base has suggested and the only worthwhile skill we’ve gotten back is revealed training, I don’t think they’d go about changing the trigger conditions that much. Honestly I’m sort of hoping the new specialization revolves around getting revealed.

Darksteel.8412:

because the thief was ultra imblanced prepatched with the evades…now as intended you need to time them…. ps. many builds required an energy sigil…I don’t see why the thief should get it’s evade spam again. the whole game has changed I suggest you start adepting….

Except the acro line basically got double nerfed. FG before returned 15 endurance on a dodge. Now it only provides 7.5 endurance over base regen for a successful evade and doesn’t stack with vigor anymore (just adds to the vigor uptime). If you think thieves were just spamming too many dodges before, that’s fine, but reducing those should be accompanied by access to the defensive boons/invulnerabilities/immunities available to other classes.

swinsk.6410:

Honest opinion, I main thief but play more of classes now because it’s too hard to play a thief these days. Thief needs something to counter those passive abilities that block thief burst. All those passive auto immunities or stun reverb stuff killed our class. When I play my other classes in unranked and fight a thief it’s silly how easy they die. I just avoid the initial burst and then 2 shot them with autos…

It’s not fun to play thief anymore… It’s so frustrating playing really well only get destroyed by a passive ability. Maybe if basi venom was u breakable stun again or we had some way of not triggering those passives that might help…

QFT.

I still play my thief for a couple of games a night, but usually end up switching to something that offers more group utility, especially when playing with friends in ranked.

foste.3098:

Here is an idea: revert back feline grace to what it was before patch, done thieves are now more survivable.
But seriously acrobatics and shadow arts are weak defensive lines that need buffs.

Feline grace is okish, but i do not like how most of the traits are tailored to s/d, it is just stupid. Maybe change some of them to grand their effects on avoiding dmg with blind as well as the current on evade trigger -feline grace: gain vigor when you evade an attack or when a foe you blinded misses you-
This way the line would have more synergy with other sets feline g snd upper hand would be perfect candidates for this change.
Also buff endless stamina to make vigor give 100% regen. At this moment you can get more endurance by just auto attacking with dagger.

In shadow arts change the master minor trait to also extend stealth that you get through combos by 1 sec, since this trait dose nothing if you are using d/p. Also make cloaked in shadows a minor trait and give it a icd, reason for this is the same as mesmers getting illusionary persona baseline, it is to mandatory for many builds.

Yeah, the problem is FG was basically nerfed in multiple ways. It no longer stacks with vigor, it returns literally half of what it did before (7.5 endurance total over base regen), it has to actually evade an attack, and the return is an over time return.

They need to roll ES and FG together and have a trait that returns endurance on crits (5 endurance,1 sec icd) so that the more aggressive you play the more endurance you are rewarded with. They said they were trying to eliminate dodge spamming, but if you spammed dodges without attacking, you’d quickly run out of endurance with this change.

Mattigan.6395:

I guess I’d rather they help us out on survivability rather than a HP increase. I don’t want to tank, but I do want better ways to avoid direct damage and mitigate condi pressure.

Buffing the minor traits in acro would go a long way towards helping. Also SA traits should just be front loaded to “[effect] on gaining stealth.” Note this isn’t on entering stealth, so shadow refuge would cause the effect on each pulse. Some effects would have to be nerfed slightly, but it should balance out and promote attacking faster from stealth.

Examples:

Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Gain 600 health and 1 initiative on gaining stealth.

Shadow’s Embrace: Remove a condition on gaining stealth (yeah it doesn’t pulse anymore, but heartseekering through BPS 3 times removes 3 condis, Shadow Refuge removes 5, etc.)

Cloaked in Shadow: Cause blind in an area on gaining stealth (this would pulse with Shadow Refuge).

I think the thief needs buffs. The only thing I saw there was the thief getting downed….
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