Guild Wars 2

Are you within range so that you’re getting the might stacks (360 radius). I assumed using it just grants fury to allies within the same radius as the might stacks.

Jana.6831:

Maugetarr.6823:

Jana.6831:

godmoney.6025:

Jana.6831:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

If you go DA/CS/Trix, backstabs are pretty insane10k -15k+ on average and no, I am not talking about stabbing upscaled naked ele running around wvw. With buffs from allies it’s even more, I hit tower lord for 24k lol. The dmg is there, just spec for it.

Do you do 17k damage on heavies in wvw ?
With one hit that is.
(I’m playing this game too =))

Why the disbelief? I have personally backstabbed heavy armor zerkers for over 15k. I’m sure with seaweed salad, more signet might stacks, etc. that I could go even higher.

The disbelief is because I know Deceiver.
And my highest backstab on a guard was 10k so far – I don’t think 17 would’ve been possible without any help from someone else.

guard = guardian

I’ve reached 16k in spvp. With food buffs 17k seems more than possible.

Alone or while being buffed by your allies?
You guys realize what you’re doing with this, right?

Alone. It’s a super glassy build though. When I get home I can give you the screen shot of the build against the practice golems for reference. Against the light golem it’s ~15k.

Jana.6831:

godmoney.6025:

Jana.6831:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

If you go DA/CS/Trix, backstabs are pretty insane10k -15k+ on average and no, I am not talking about stabbing upscaled naked ele running around wvw. With buffs from allies it’s even more, I hit tower lord for 24k lol. The dmg is there, just spec for it.

Do you do 17k damage on heavies in wvw ?
With one hit that is.
(I’m playing this game too =))

Why the disbelief? I have personally backstabbed heavy armor zerkers for over 15k. I’m sure with seaweed salad, more signet might stacks, etc. that I could go even higher.

The disbelief is because I know Deceiver.
And my highest backstab on a guard was 10k so far – I don’t think 17 would’ve been possible without any help from someone else.

guard = guardian

I’ve reached 16k in spvp. With food buffs 17k seems more than possible.

Kicker.8203:

Maugetarr.6823:

I’ve been having fun with S/D. Traiting acro with it isn’t really worth it now, but taking signet of agility with signets of power is pretty good.

FG+ES need some help. The decent traits in acro now are really just there to mitigate some of the effects of getting hit. This is a real contrast to before the patch where the traits helped you avoid getting hit.

Hit with a stun? -> HtC
Condi Bombed? -> Pain Response
Immobilize, crippled, chilled? -> Don’t stop

I don’t enjoy auto procs making up for my inability to dodge a hit.

Well I main an S/D thief but it isn’t viable anymore . I agree with the rest tho: They totally missed the point with acro, these passive traits are pretty useless since they all incentivize taking the stuns/immobs/condis and have totally random effects like when u get stunned u gain 100% endurance when u might have it on full already and pain response can activate when u have no condis and just grant a weak regen….
you didnt have too much problem with immob anyway becaue u can still use sword2 to return or flanking strike/disabling shot in place to evade attacks or simply withdraw,shadowstep of cleanse with signet of agility.(or counter-steal)

So the result is CS being way better than Acro but you are too glassy that way

Well, tbh, the thief in general has been a little lackluster since the patch. I was not maining S/D before the patch, but I switched back to it after the patch to get some of the evasiveness back. You can get off some great bursts in general as a thief, but I feel like there’s a lot of utility lacking outside of that. I’m not quitting my thief, but I’ve been playing a lot more of my staff ele because it just contributes way more to a fight. Been taking my mesmers out for a spin also. Comparable spike damage, better utility.

So while I said S/D was fun, I usually end up switching after a few games to help support the team more. I think I mentioned it in a different thread too, my ele ended up having way more dodges than my thief after the patch because of Renewing Stamina combined with Sigil of Energy and the fact that ele promotes constant weapon swapping, proccing the sigil. I haven’t tried it myself, but I’ve also been hit by a 5k lightning flash + 9k burning speed combo (while on my mesmer), so if you want it the burst damage is available there also. I’m not saying to quit your thief, but if you enjoyed how the old acro line played, you might try an ele out.

I’ve been having fun with S/D. Traiting acro with it isn’t really worth it now, but taking signet of agility with signets of power is pretty good.

FG+ES need some help. The decent traits in acro now are really just there to mitigate some of the effects of getting hit. This is a real contrast to before the patch where the traits helped you avoid getting hit.

Hit with a stun? → HtC
Condi Bombed? → Pain Response
Immobilize, crippled, chilled? → Don’t stop

I don’t enjoy auto procs making up for my inability to dodge a hit.

Kolly.9872:

Arkitech.9158:

Kolly.9872:

3 seconds in pvp – 4 seconds in pve/wvw
This option is missing

Edit: I had a response but seriously, just go.

Do you mind tell me why do you think having 4s revealed in wvw is bad? Real PvPers have been using this formula for a very long time now, and they don’t cry as much as those pve thieves. Actually I don’t give a kitten about it realy. I was just pointing out that that option was even missing from the poll

It was 4 seconds, then they reverted it back to 3. They never gave the exact reason, but I’d like to think that it’s because damage is so much higher and fight so much bigger that it just wrecked survivability. Also, WvW uses PvE numbers and there were lots of complaints about losing damage output in dungeons and open world content.

If you were depending on dodges for swiftness in acro, that has been nerfed as well (indirectly).

Aberrant.6749:

For thief it’s more about preventing them from stealthing in the first place or punishing them when they come in for a mele hit. You can stop a thief from stealthing other than blinding powder.

Shhhhh. Repeat after me: there is no counterplay

I didn’t explicitly say it in my post before, but I think the biggest problem with acro now is that a lot of it revolves around getting hit instead of avoiding getting hit now. For example: Pain Response, HtC, and Don’t Stop all revolve around mitigating the effects of getting hit. While this is helpful, it’s just not that fun to play really (imo). If I wanted to soak a bunch of hits, I would play a class that is built around that. The attraction of the thief has been weaving through the big hits for the most part, and that’s what they changed about how acrobatics functions. I understand that they thought we were just spamming dodges, but without access to blocks, protection, and numerous heals, dodges and blinds were our source of survival. There’s a happy middle ground somewhere between where we were and where we are now.

1) Yep. Tried out the burst. It hits hard, but after the first few times laughing at the ridiculous numbers, I prefer something that can sustain better.
2)Mesmers can keep up damage while in stealth. I’m not claiming that the AI does the work, but overall they can keep up very sustained pressure even while being pushed off of their target or hiding.
3) Yep . This feels really apparent when playing on mesmer and ele (my favorite alts). First, in terms of dodging, my ele has more dodges than my acro thief. In terms of endurance regen the acro line tops out at 8.75(Edit: this doesn’t include endurance from other sources, just FG+ES), but can’t even keep up permanent vigor by itself. Eles can keep up permanent vigor with a single trait (7.5 endurance regen ), but the kicker is that the playstyle promotes constant attunment (weapon) swapping. With a sigil of energy, this means they top out at ~13 endurance regen a second, putting ours to shame. I don’t think this needs to be nerfed with all the damage flying around, our endurance regen when traited for it needs to be brought back up. It’s like they nerfed it based on the old vigor, then decided to nerf vigor but didn’t revisit the thief acro balance changes after.

Mesmers feel great to play right now even with the nerfs (corrections) to their damage. They don’t have quite as high of a burst and it requires a little more of a set up, but done properly it feels like it lands more reliably because it can be set up using stuns (lots of them). The damage feels more sustained while setting it up as well and overall I feel like I have more utility in combat and more tricks up my sleeve. I don’t have quite the mobility, but it feels like a minor trade off.

Conclusion: I agree with you that we have great damage now and I can’t complain about it. I want acrobatics to be revisited though because the line is relatively weak for the damage lost while taking it. Basically it has some auto procs that allow you to make mistakes or shrug off an instant cast burst, but the line doesn’t do enough to help with sustained combat.

evilapprentice.6379:

NinjaEd.3946:

Normally I’d agree to fix a bug no matter how enjoyable it may be, but considering the damage this patch did to our defensive trait lines, just let us have it.

Nope.

“But my class is so weak without it” is never an acceptable excuse for a Bug/exploit. If the incorrect timer reduction is accurate, it should be fixed.

Or haste (the utility) can have its CD reduced to 40 seconds instead to make it consistent.

Zerker with scholar runes is the way to go. You die from a gust of wind, but it can be fun.

My issue with the thief now is that our defensive lines are pretty meh now. Our burst is great. I’m just dissapointed in the changes to acrobatics in particular.

^^^
Helly’s right. Trickery is usually the first line you spec now. So it’s usually DA/T/(Optional) now.

Jana.6831:

Maugetarr.6823:

The suggestion still reflects projectiles. It evades close combat attacts.

DS is perfect for its purpose, it doesn’t need a change – you just need to learn how to use it or use another elite – basilisk venom is really good as well and even got buffed with the patch as far as I have seen it – I rarely use it.

In any situation I could use it, i can use smoke screen instead. This allows me to keep attacking, gain stealth, and blind opponents in close combat. It’s on a 30 second CD as well. I used to use daggerstorm a lot, but we have utilities that are just as useful that can be used more often. The objective is to make the elite more flexible.

Jana.6831:

Maugetarr.6823:

It would still be long enough to absorb a full rapid fire and a few auto attacks. Additionally, it would allow you to attack regularly from it meaning it would be the opponent’s damage plus your own damage going out. It would be more useful against groups as well since they often are not all ranged, you would be protected from that as well. You would evade non-projectile attacks as well such as mesmer great sword. It would be quite a bit more useful and be able to be used more often as well.

Edit: Also, with this change you wouldn’t be the prime target for people to steal against. Whenever I see a Thief in DS, I steal and backstab because the likelihood of them dodging is greatly reduced. This strips the stability, stopping the DS anyway. The proposed change would make DS more useful against a wider variety of opponents.

I don’t want to absorb, I want to refelct all of projectiles which are thrown at me – if it does me more harm than good I can already interrupt that skill.

I don’t use my DS against power thieves. There are sacrifices to each elite.

What is it with you guys always wanting our class to be nerfed?

The suggestion still reflects projectiles. It evades close combat attacts.

Jana.6831:

Maugetarr.6823:

@babazhook & @Jana

It would keep it’s reflect though and be traitable down to 60 seconds. It would still give out bleeds, and it would evade stuff in close combat. This would be especially helpful if the opponent was AoE centric (staff ele, staff necro, engi) that often still hit with the splash damage. In addition, it could no longer be corrupted. In terms of trade off for the flying daggers, whenever you evade or reflect an attack, you cause a bleed. Additionally, you can keep attacking with your equipped weapon. The whirl finisher would remain. Functionally speaking, it would be like mesmer’s traited distortion shatter in terms of power, but it would also punish people who keep attacking you.

It’s used against enemy groups mostly – by nerfing it you would take that away. Also the duration usually is long enough that a ranger kills himself with it – I really want it to stay like it is.

Edit: And since it’s a combo finisher you already can apply conditions to it.
Edit²: So all who attack you with projectiles are already punished – by reducing the duration that would be nerfed significantly.

It would still be long enough to absorb a full rapid fire and a few auto attacks. Additionally, it would allow you to attack regularly from it meaning it would be the opponent’s damage plus your own damage going out. It would be more useful against groups as well since they often are not all ranged, you would be protected from that as well. You would evade non-projectile attacks as well such as mesmer great sword. It would be quite a bit more useful and be able to be used more often as well.

Edit: Also, with this change you wouldn’t be the prime target for people to steal against. Whenever I see a Thief in DS, I steal and backstab because the likelihood of them dodging is greatly reduced. This strips the stability, stopping the DS anyway. The proposed change would make DS more useful against a wider variety of opponents.

Helly.2597:

swinsk.6410:

I destroy in hotjoins too. In fact I think we got a boost against noobs who don’t run immunity passives or react slowly. Try playing against competent players in tpvp tho… We got a big nerf against those guys because their builds will most likely include those passives along with a good reaction time when they are down.

Just saying, thief got nerfed hard…

Probably the biggest changes for fights have to do with the ability to take passives where there used to not be passives. Elementalists and their stunning aura on cc usage + lightning rod are something new along with the ability for warriors to take defy pain without losing any grandmasters because of it.

Now part of the difficulties is how strong these passives are against thieves in general (sleight of hand working against you with the elementalists and defy pain making any burst irrelevant during its proc), but also the fact that the changes were so massive otherwise. Previously most good players could immediately find out the traits being used by just glancing at the player, but with all the changes this isn’t easy to do at a glance anymore since we haven’t been exposed to each of the builds for as long.

Due to this I’m reserving judgement about thief until I have more experience against the other builds out there, since much of my thief play requires active defense and that requires knowledge of the opponents that is still developing with the new traitlines/patch changes.

This drives me nuts now while on my thief. The auto-proc of endure pain, plus taking the actual skill just provides such a long resistance to physical damage. Other abilities like reapers defense, tempest defense, and mesmer’s mirroring one (the name escapes me) just shut down an initial burst. The number of blocks that burn coming from guards is also really tough.

@babazhook & @Jana

It would keep it’s reflect though and be traitable down to 60 seconds. It would still give out bleeds, and it would evade stuff in close combat. This would be especially helpful if the opponent was AoE centric (staff ele, staff necro, engi) that often still hit with the splash damage. In addition, it could no longer be corrupted. In terms of trade off for the flying daggers, whenever you evade or reflect an attack, you cause a bleed. Additionally, you can keep attacking with your equipped weapon. The whirl finisher would remain. Functionally speaking, it would be like mesmer’s traited distortion shatter in terms of power, but it would also punish people who keep attacking you.

I just wanted to add something here. A lot of people seem to be saying that the other elites simply aren’t worth taking, and I have to agree for the most part. I don’t think simply lowering CDs would really change their frequency of use either. I wanted to propose some functionality changes, especially since the devs finally got around to changing mortar on engi. Thematically they should still fit as a Trick and Deception.

Daggerstorm: This is an alright skill right now, but really is only useful against ranged foes. It gives stability which is nice, but it’s already reflecting projectiles, and using it in close combat is dubious. I think the CD should be lowered to 75 seconds and the duration shortened to 4 seconds. As a trade off, you no longer just spin around throwing daggers wildly, but you reflect all projectiles and evade all close combat attacks. Each evaded attack deals minor damage back to the attacker and 1 bleed and each reflected projectile also gives 1 bleed. You should still be able to attack during this as normal.

Thieves Guild: A meh skill. I think it should be a transformation instead (only 10 seconds). The transformation should still use initiative and be called Shadow Form. There is no boost to any stats. The idea is to be something that is comparable to Moa in that it disables a person in a fight (as long as you are aggressive in your transform). 120 second CD. 0.25 cast

Gain 12 initiative upon transform.

Auto Attack (Blinding Assault) : Cleaves 3 targets, blinds, range 130. 1.0 multipler

Stealth Attack(Shattering Assault): Steal up to 5 boons from your target (including their full durations), 1.0 multiplier, range 130

2 (Meld with Shadows, 3 Initiative): Evade Attacks (0.75 seconds). Cleaves 3 targets. Range 130 (1.5 multiplier if an attack is evaded)

3 (Shadow Prison, 4 initiative): Shadowstep to your target chill them for 4 seconds. White Damage. Range 900. Instant cast

4 (Shroud of Silence, 5 Initiative): Daze your target for 4 seconds. Range 130, 0.5 second cast

5 (Fade, 7 initiative): Gain Stealth (6 seconds), 0.5 seconds cast

Anyway, daggerstorm and TG are just underwhelming. I’d like them to be viable choices.

I played a lot of sPvP last night. In the end I felt the most effective going D/D glass (in ranked even). Trying to sustain in close combat is extremely difficult right now with all the AoE flying around and the burn procs. Just going glass and sitting on the sidelines, you can get 2.5k autos and 5k cluster bombs. When you finally push someone in a favorable position for yourself, you just weaponswap and burst. Yeah, that makes it sound simple, but it’s edge of your seat gameplay, and if your timing or position is poor, you die. Right now with our offensive lines buffed and our defensive lines nerfed, you should just take advantage of our strengths.

Highlie.7641:

Reducing Quick pocket’s to 5 seconds base would be extreme when paired with (runes of warrior?)

3 second weapon swap, then add some on swap sigils

Warrior runes reduce the swap by 20% iirc (so 4 seconds) and swap sigils have their own icd so i think that it wouldnt be too extreme. I do think it could create a really fluid playstyle and a unique way to build in thief.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Forum-Specialist-Specialization-Update/first#post5216761

I think endless stamina should just be rolled into Feline Grace and fluid strikes can return as "gain 5 endurance on crit, 1 second icd. Upper Hand should have a condi removal on it too and just retain the same icd.

The rest of it pretty much sum up my feelings for it. Other than acro (and a couple instances in shadow arts) I also like the general direction this patch moved in.

Don’t forget to give your feedback to the survey person.

Shinobi.3240:

Did you try to combine:

Rune of the Adventurer
Rune of Energy
Signet of Agility
Hard to Catch
Withdraw
Roll for initiative
Trickster

Can still dodge like crazy while dishing out dmg.
The rhythm is just different than before.

Best regards!

The only thing you need acro for in that list though is HtC. Trickery and CS (for signets of power) are doing a better job of keeping the thief evasive than the line that’s supposed to keep them evasive. That’s a problem.

I have to say, tricks have the potential to be fun, but I think the tricks themselves need to be tweaked to really flesh out a solid build with them.

Anonymouse.4760:

Maugetarr.6823:

Anonymouse.4760:

Maugetarr.6823:

This is interesting, but it runs against how i always thought thief fights should go. I liked the old FG because it allowed you to front load an extra dodge and had good return in protracted fights even without vigor (1 dodge every 7 seconds without it). This let it be useful for both bursty and brawler style combat (as much as thief can be a brawler at least). Your change still eliminates the initial extra dodge and with how short fights seem to be going with all the damage flying around, we need that front end back. I would leave ES where it is and replace FG entirely with something that gave you back 5 endurance on a crit with 1 second icd. This would mean you could push your endurance regen up to 13.75, but only if you stay aggressive. This allows for blocks, blinds, range, and evades to successfully counter play the thief. It also limits dodge spamming without really attacking. While this doesn’t quite give back the upfront dodges we had either, I think it’s a decent balance.

I really like this concept, but after the vigor nerf we’d need a better endurance return to bring Acrobatics closer to where it was post patch. I also think having a higher endurance return on a higher ICD would be more reliable then 5 on a 1 second icd.

edit: higher, not lower ICD (lol)

Yeah, more on a higher CD would be reliable, but I feel an aggressive thief should be rewarded more. As far as (5) more endurance per second (theoretical max), when you combine that with ES+FG, you could get a high enough regen for a dodge every 3.63 seconds, so the value seemed fair in my mind. In practice, it would probably be an average of the max and the min (a little over 4.5 seconds) and fluctuate depending on player dodging skill and aggressiveness. SA has always promoted a bit more of a sit back and watch defense while acro has been a forward moving defense. I’d like to keep that going.

Agreed, actively dodging attacks will always be a more active play style than sitting in stealth watching shadow rejuvenation bring your HP back to up to full. However S/D acro was already an extremely active weapon set in PvP since there is less damage, and more celestial classes. Here there would be less of a need for a trait that motivates thieves to maintain pressure — and they would miss the benefits of being able to keep endurance up while on the run. In WvW however it’s a completely different story, because of the insanely high damage with food and min maxed gear ascended gear — thieves could just hit and run with S/D acro. Burst and retreat, dodging about until they are ready to burst again which was not acro’s intended usage. This is where an endurance return on hit would root out passive play styles.
I think we’d need to find a balance between the two, enough survivability for those in PvP being trained down, and a system that rewards active and consistent gameplay for WvW.
How could this be accomplished? Thoughts?

I think it would balance out though because it would cause the thief to switch to shortbow to maintain the benefits of keeping pressure up. I also think though that Quick Pockets needs to reduce weapon swapping to 5 seconds (returning only 1 initiative ). This would allow for better pressure and the ability to flip back and forth between ranged and close combat. I mean, I want some survivability back in the acro line, but I also want the thief to be able to dive into the fray once an opportunity presents itself. The thief should benefit from keeping pressure up even while backing off and be given the tools to do so.

I think S/D would gain back it’s survivability assuming the player is good while shedding the stigma of dodge spamming because they actually have to land something to really see a benefit. If they get behind the 8 ball, they are going to have to IR back out, but hopefully people would recognize that when they lost it was because they failed to counterplay the thief, not because there was just endless evade frames.

(PS this “endless evade frames” statement is not a slight against the pre-nerf S/D thief, it just required a lot of very careful timing to counterplay against them, especially the good ones. This often devolved into “mash 3 moar teef.” If the thief still had a lot of endurance after this change, it would be because they are landing their attacks, not just innately having it)

Edit: Remember also that I think upper hand should have a condi removal on it, so the more pressure you put on someone, the more defense you also start to build up. The condi removal would allow them to go toe to toe with some of the celestial builds if they can keep up their aggression.

Well, a successful dodge gives you vigor now for 2 seconds which brings your endurance regen back up to 8.75 including endless stamina. Considering that base regen is 5, that gives us a difference of 3.75 per second over base, so 2 seconds of it is a total endurance benefit of 7.5. Literally half the benefit it was before in top of the fact that it doesn’t stack with vigor anymore.

I think the real problem is that they nerfed vigor and FG in a vacuum, so the nerf compounded. If we had the old vigor rate and endless stamina, 2 seconds of vigor at a rate of 12.5 endurance per second qould be a benefit of 7.5 per second over base regen, equaling a total of 15 back. (What a familiar number!!!) So I think they were trying to eliminate how FG stacked with vigor and then had the vigor nerf sprung on them and the result compounded the nerf.

caveman.5840:

so sense when does withdraw have a 18 sec cool down …..

correct me if I am wrong but did it not use to be 15 sec cool down ?

You are correct. It became a trick this patch so it can be traited back down to 14.5 seconds.

Anonymouse.4760:

Maugetarr.6823:

This is interesting, but it runs against how i always thought thief fights should go. I liked the old FG because it allowed you to front load an extra dodge and had good return in protracted fights even without vigor (1 dodge every 7 seconds without it). This let it be useful for both bursty and brawler style combat (as much as thief can be a brawler at least). Your change still eliminates the initial extra dodge and with how short fights seem to be going with all the damage flying around, we need that front end back. I would leave ES where it is and replace FG entirely with something that gave you back 5 endurance on a crit with 1 second icd. This would mean you could push your endurance regen up to 13.75, but only if you stay aggressive. This allows for blocks, blinds, range, and evades to successfully counter play the thief. It also limits dodge spamming without really attacking. While this doesn’t quite give back the upfront dodges we had either, I think it’s a decent balance.

I really like this concept, but after the vigor nerf we’d need a better endurance return to bring Acrobatics closer to where it was post patch. I also think having a higher endurance return on a higher ICD would be more reliable then 5 on a 1 second icd.

edit: higher, not lower ICD (lol)

Yeah, more on a higher CD would be reliable, but I feel an aggressive thief should be rewarded more. As far as (5) more endurance per second (theoretical max), when you combine that with ES+FG, you could get a high enough regen for a dodge every 3.63 seconds, so the value seemed fair in my mind. In practice, it would probably be an average of the max and the min (a little over 4.5 seconds) and fluctuate depending on player dodging skill and aggressiveness. SA has always promoted a bit more of a sit back and watch defense while acro has been a forward moving defense. I’d like to keep that going.

Zero Day.2594:

@Maug

The numbers are really interesting… Might give it another try. Perhaps we’re just not used to the new version of it.

I just personally loved how it would instantly restore 33% back, allowing you to essentially get 3 dodges in.

I mean, you can if you want to, but the trickery line is doing most of the work for acrobatics. If you aren’t proccing FG with weapon evades, FG + ES is only netting you a total of 7.5 endurance per evasion over standard endurance regen and 2.5 endurance over standard vigor. The benefits of FG were cut in half and it doesn’t stack anymore. Trickery is really doing all the heavy lifting now. That’s why DA/CS/T is so close to DA/A/T.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. A lot of thief builds got rolled into one (Panic Strike + Exe + Shadow Arts + Venom + Trickery Thief is possible!). How do you like the fact that thieves can do this?

This is fine. The builds that got improved slightly by this didn’t really need it, but it’s nifty.

1. I’ve heard some people say they don’t like the critical strike line. Do you agree and why?

I actually like the crit strikes line now. Some of it is a little boring as it’s just a flat precision buff, but some of the interactions and how they promote aggressive play is cool (i.e. no quarter and unrelenting strikes starting and maintaining each other)

1. I’ve also heard some people say that S/D is dead and that acrobatics sucks. I tried out a build with Don’t Stop and Hard To Catch and had trouble dying but still got some kills! How do you feel about S/D and Acrobatics? Have you tried the line?

Yes Ihave tried it. Acrobatics suffers from the general vigor nerf and the FG nerf on top of it. Before, the front loaded dodges and sustained dodges allowed for more stealthless survivability, but now, there is less defense while playing better, and the overall damage from everyone is higher, meaning if anything we need more dodges than previously since we lack access to defensive boons other than regen. I’ve posted some math in other threads that I’m not going to repost here, but traiting Signets of Power in CS while taking Signet of Agility offers nearly the same survival as taking acro (in terms of endurance regen) while maintaining a much higher effective power. The defense gained should be a good trade off for the power lost. I would suggest rolling Endless Stamina into Feline Grace and bringing back Fluid Strikes as a trait that returns 5 endurance on crit (1 sec icd). This would allow for better survivability but only if the thief player stays aggressive . Once the opponent starts blocking, blinding, evading, or opens a gap, the thief will run out of endurance allowing him to be pinned down. IMO, that would be a nice change with plenty of opportunity for counterplay. Upper Hand needs a condi removal on successful evasion (still 3 sec icd) too.

1. Thief got some new condi traits. Have you tried making a condi build and how did it go?

No. I have been attacked by a couple and they were alright. I can’t say that they were using any of the new traits, but it wasn’t anything to write home about.

1. Improvisation vs Executioner. Which wins for you?

Executioner. A dependable damage increase is better than an RNG chance to recharge skills and use a skill that may or may not be helpful (throw gunk comes to mind ).

1. Dagger Storm and Thieves Guild got turned into a trick and a deception. Are you taking them now that they can be traited?

Not using either. It’s cool that they can be traited now, but their CDs rarely warrant their use. For example, in place of daggerstorm I can use smoke screen in close combat and against ranged opponents, I can gain stealth from it, and it’s on a 30 second CD. If I wanted AI to fight with me, I would bring ambush so I could venom share basilisk venom with the spawned thief before he dies in a stiff wind. 2 AI are just not worth that CD.

As an afterthought, I’m just going to repost my thoughts on tricks:

I really want tricks to be a thing. The new condi removal on tricks makes it almost work, but the tricks need rebalancing themselves.
RFI: 30 second CD, 3 Initiative gained. It really can’t compete with Shadow step at a traited 48 second CD while only removing 1 damaging condition.
Haste: Add swiftness for 5 seconds and put it on a 40 second CD and I’ll bite. While not emptying your endurance anymore, it seems like it still shortens evade frames (and possibly heartseekers, but more testing is needed).
Scorpion Wire: the skill I want to love, but it always lets me down. Have it shadowstep your opponent to you instead. Have the projectile actually be the same as the shadow shot projectile so it doesn’t get so easily sidestepped or obstructed. That’s in the theme of a tricky skill. No more pull stun though to balance out the fact that it would actually function as intended.
Caltrops: perfectly fine.
Withdraw: perfectly fine.
Quick Pockets: while not actually a trick, I feel it could be made into a strong contender for the other 2 GM traits if it would only give 1 initiative on swap, but reduce swap cooldown to 5 seconds. ->Optional Addition: Next attack removes 1 boon after swap (this would allow trickster to actually be taken over bountiful theft)

http://intothemists.com/calc/ has been updated properly for the most part.

Anonymouse.4760:

1. Feline Grace and Endless Stamina are buffed and combined into one trait, it would now grant vigor on dodge and improve vigor potency to 150% but no more endurance restored on dodge.. If these changes are made I would also recommend increasing the amount of vigor received on successful dodge to 5 seconds but also increase the internal cooldown to 6 seconds. This would allow for two things: The first being that the way the trait functions right now with such a small amount of vigor and low internal cooldown it promotes using your dodges up rapidly in order to maintain vigor uptime ( which if the current potency stays the same ) an acrobatics thief cannot afford to do. Secondly it would allow for more rewarding boonstrip counter play, since you are stripping a bigger amount and the thief would theoretically have to go longer without vigor. Mesmers, I’m thinking of you here.

This is interesting, but it runs against how i always thought thief fights should go. I liked the old FG because it allowed you to front load an extra dodge and had good return in protracted fights even without vigor (1 dodge every 7 seconds without it). This let it be useful for both bursty and brawler style combat (as much as thief can be a brawler at least). Your change still eliminates the initial extra dodge and with how short fights seem to be going with all the damage flying around, we need that front end back. I would leave ES where it is and replace FG entirely with something that gave you back 5 endurance on a crit with 1 second icd. This would mean you could push your endurance regen up to 13.75, but only if you stay aggressive. This allows for blocks, blinds, range, and evades to successfully counter play the thief. It also limits dodge spamming without really attacking. While this doesn’t quite give back the upfront dodges we had either, I think it’s a decent balance.

2. This combination of minor traits would allow fluid strikes to be restored or another new minor trait ⁵ that was on par with shadows resilience to be introduced. My suggestion would be Pain Response as the new minor ⁵ and replace its spot in the adept tree with Power Of Inertia ( which would also keep might stacking builds around. ) since the new acrobatics survivability is so dependent on vigor this would allow thieves to take vigorous recovery and still have adequate condition cleanse.

Interesting, but I dislike skills that operate on getting hit (pain response and HtC), and i wanted to leave the others split anyway. I’ll address more condi removal later.

3. Swindler’s Equilibrium is made a Grandmaster in place of “Don’t Stop” or “Assassin’s Reward” so that a thief could take for example, Swindler’s Equilibrium and Hard to Catch.

I like this. I can’t remember what tier other professions’ movement impairing traits were put in, but changing SE for DS seems fine to me.

4. Guarded Initiation: This trait needs to be completely reworked. It should function by granting resistance when struck while your health is below 75% Guarded Initiation would be synergistic with a different trait called Pain Response so that when you were hit at or below 75% you’d be cleansed of damaging conditions and receive 5 seconds of resistance. If these changes were made Guarded Initiation could be used over Hard To Catch. The only issue with this is that it would only be effective if you had pain response. Therefore I don’t recommend this change unless also following suggestions #2 and #3 of making Pain Response the ⁵ minor trait AND making Swindler’s Equilibrium grandmaster because as I said before Guarded Initiation and Hard To Catch should never be picked over Swindler’s as a sword thief.

This is an alright change. As I said, I don’t like traits that trigger on getting hit because it takes control away from the player. If i were going to put condi removal in the acro line, I would make upper hand remove a condi on successful dodge while still having the initiative regen and the same icd. This would actually make it a hard decision between where SE should be moved and a solid condi removal in the line.

If all these changes were made we would have an adequate amount of dodges, decent condition cleanse, and still be able to play with swindler’s equilibrium — It adds up to be a trait line that can compete with shadow arts or critical strikes for viability, and brings back that old s/d play style we’ve grown to love with skill based dodges and more counterplay.

I like the discussion about how we could get somewhere between where we were and where we are now.

Edit: Thought about it for a little after and wanted to change one small thing: endless stamina should be rolled into the current feline grace, and fluid strikes can return as the trait I suggested with endurance on crit.

Anonymouse.4760:

Maugetarr.6823:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Also found that feline grace is now dead. I decided to experiment with shadow arts line and I didn’t notice any less dodges compared to acro line

Yeah, it wouldn’t really feel different if you’re already in trickery. With bountiful theft and SoH, you already have 50% uptime on vigor. Assuming you start from 0 endurance, you’ll recharge about 3 dodges in the CD of steal or 130 endurance total. With endless stamina alone, you get 142 endurance. Since you start with 0 endurance in this example, the most you could activate FG is 3 times, keeping vigor up for 16 seconds receiving a total of 165 endurance in the 21 second period. Assuming you do everything perfectly, feline grace and endless stamina result in only 35 more endurance every 21 seconds.

The old feline grace front loaded your dodges allowing it to be useful in short fights. The new FG+ES is a mediocre improvement that’s only seen with excellent play over protracted fights.

P.S. throwing in dagger autoattack’s endurance gain further detracts from the feeling of usefulness

Thanks for doing the math on this, Maugetarr!

You’re welcome. There’s something I wanted to add that I thought about since then. Keep in mind I’ve only taken a cursory look at this so I might have missed something.

If you take crit strikes over acro, you can also trait signets of power while taking signet of agility. While this only reduces the recharge by 6 seconds, that could mean the difference between a signet being recharged at the beginning of the next fight or not. Also, reduced recharge takes it from essentially 3.33 endurance a second to 4.16. That’s a 21ish% improvement in that signet. So let’s revisit the original hypothetical and just normalize everything per second. If the CS thief slots SoA and traits SoP, he could achieve an average of 10.31 endurance a second. The acro thief (without SoA) can have an average endurance regeneration of 7.76. With SoA (at 30 second recharge) he has an average of 11.09 endurance per second. That means traiting in acro and taking SoA, you only end up with a 7.5% better endurance regen than simply taking a traited SoA in CS. This assumes that you always trigger FG also. The numbers would skew more favorably towards acro if HtC gets triggered also, but you have to get stunned while at 0 endurance to gain the entire benefit from it (and you don’t have control over the auto-proc). Both of these thieves were running standard trickery line.

Anyway, like I’ve said before, the marginal defensive gains from acro are nothing compared to the damage you lose by traiting out of CS (which was 16.5% more effective power for my particular setup).

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Also found that feline grace is now dead. I decided to experiment with shadow arts line and I didn’t notice any less dodges compared to acro line

Yeah, it wouldn’t really feel different if you’re already in trickery. With bountiful theft and SoH, you already have 50% uptime on vigor. Assuming you start from 0 endurance, you’ll recharge about 3 dodges in the CD of steal or 130 endurance total. With endless stamina alone, you get 142 endurance. Since you start with 0 endurance in this example, the most you could activate FG is 3 times, keeping vigor up for 16 seconds receiving a total of 165 endurance in the 21 second period. Assuming you do everything perfectly, feline grace and endless stamina result in only 35 more endurance every 21 seconds.

The old feline grace front loaded your dodges allowing it to be useful in short fights. The new FG+ES is a mediocre improvement that’s only seen with excellent play over protracted fights.

P.S. throwing in dagger autoattack’s endurance gain further detracts from the feeling of usefulness

Dirkman.9367:

nopoet.2960:

Ripkord.8567:

Thief IS going to become Monk melee specialisation. ….

Hope you’re right. It actually makes sense. One thing that thieves are lacking is aoe skills. If we get melee aoes then that will definitely fill in a gap for us.

I just….fail to see connection between thief and monk

Left behind the life of crime to repent. New name: The Absolved….. or forgiven….. whatever, they can shoehorn some back story in there.

Maris.3164:

I went from a full zerk DA/CS/Trickery (pre-patch) to DA/SA/Trickery with Marauder amulet and I’ve never felt so squishy in my life. Time to indeed try out S/D as suggested by some of you here. I hope it will increase my chances of survival.

I was doing DA/CS/T also. I think we’ve got to get back to treating SB as our main weapon since damage is pretty high on everything now and just wait for openings to burst.

Runes of the wurm might be decent also. I tried a couple of games switching between Pack and Wurm, but I can’t tell if the extra vitality is a good trade off yet.

ades.1386:

penelopehannibal.8947:

ades.1386:

Unless I missed something somewhere withdraw doesnt remove damaging condis like burn and poision?

and Im not seeing any condi removal in the trickery traitline according to dulfy :/
http://dulfy.net/2015/05/02/gw2-specialization-calculator-that_shaman/

Did I miss some patch notes??

Withdraw removes Crippled, Chill & Immobilise as default, and a trait can remove an additional condition.

Aww cool thanks!! Ill have to start some testing later thanks for the info!!

I adressed this a little in a different thread. Building around tricks is actually sort of fun, but the tricks themselves need to be buffed slightly.

Haste: Add 5 seconds of swiftness & 40 second CD
RFI: 3 Initiative, 30 second CD
Scorpion Wire: Shadowstep your opponents to you (the pull fails way too often)

In spite of having to give up bountiful theft for the trickster trait, I think that would go a long way towards making tricks an actual thing.

Maybe upper hand could be the old feline grace. Just a flat “return 15 endurance on dodge.” Maybe with 2 minor traits and a major trait all devoted to dodging it’ll be recognised as fine.

Math for FG+ES+(proposed)UH:
(50-15)/(5*1.75)=35/8.75=4 seconds per dodge.

That’s still longer than the old FG+Vigor by 0.5 seconds.
Right now the marginal gains to survivability don’t come close to offsetting the damage lost from traiting out of CS. I can just just end the fight sooner by putting the other guy down faster and not worry about the lost dodges.

It interrupted before. If you were at the the outer range doing BPS+HS, sometimes your HS would get interrupted if they moved out of range.

Mordecai.6318:

YuiRS.8129:

This is a straight buff, it gives thieves more options. Just learn to use it.

What option did we gain? The ability to visually see a 20s timer? WOAH! Did people really have a hard time knowing when their steal was off CD?

1) Not having to use an item so we have access to steal.
2) Being able to use steal as a daze while holding an item if you were ambushed.

Being able to see the CD is just a nice bonus.

I think they’re trying to change it to a single target hybrid setup. With pressure striking, confusion on steal, uncatchable, trappers respite, and ankle shots, i think you might have a decent build. I have not tried this, it’s just pure speculation, but there might be other builds out there now.

Hey Jon.
Just wanted to say that overall I really like the changes you guys made. I even like where both condi and power damage are (even though I’ve had a few WTKitten moments already). If you guys look into reverting anything, may I just suggest the nerf to vigor? It seems like there’s more opportunities to burst harder than before, and the previous level of dodging would be great for the current pace of combat.

I agree with virtually all your assessments.

Edit: as an afterthought, I don’t understand the nerf to vigor while increasing damage across the board. This goes beyond acro thief to all classes. It seems like there’s bigger bursts more often now. The previous amount of dodges would have been perfect for this amount of damage.

Galandil.9641:

Maugetarr.6823:

Acro thieves took an arrow to the knee on this one.

And one at the jugular as well, I might add. :\

Well arrows to the knee make dodging the pewpew that much harder.

Acro thieves took an arrow to the knee on this one.

Ohoni.6057:

They need to put the fall damage trait back into Acro adept where it belongs, and give Acro back its energy.

That would not give acro back its energy. Acro feels lackluster in most builds now due to the nerf to vigor and the functionality change of feline grace. In fact, if they just reverted feline grace and left everything else alone, it would be 1 dodge every 4 seconds which seems about right for the lack of other defensive boons. In fact, without heavily traiting for it, our vigor uptime isn’t great. Meanwhile ’engis can pick up a +50% endurance trait which is permanent, baseline vigor which requires no skillful use.

Unless you are using S/X, I don’t see the reason to trait into acro. Might as well trait into shadow arts and pick it up there.

Dahkeus.8243:

Maugetarr.6823:

I really want tricks to be a thing. The new condi removal on tricks makes it almost work, but the tricks need rebalancing themselves.

Even if it reduced cooldowns by 50% and removed multiple condis, bountiful theft would still be better since it, with sleight of hand, allows us to instantly kick stomps/rez/etc. even through stab.

I’d like the trick trait to be worthwhile, but it doesn’t stand a chance in it’s current position.

I agree that it’s poorly placed. I can’t really think of a place it might get more use (acro in the guarded initiation spot?) because the trickery line has some other great things. Maybe if there were things to buff trick traits too instead of everything on steal. How about changing flanking strikes to the next attack stealing a boon after trick use. If Scorpion Wire were changed as per my suggestion, it would stop stability stomps also.

Dunno. Like I said, I want it to be a thing, but the tricks need adjusting and the traits need adjusting since they’re going up against some powerful synergy with steal. They’re aware some stuff needs adjusting, so maybe Karl will stop by again to see how we’re liking (or disliking) the changes.

I really want tricks to be a thing. The new condi removal on tricks makes it almost work, but the tricks need rebalancing themselves.

RFI:30 second CD, 3 Initiative gained. It really can’t compete with Shadow step at a traited 48 second CD while only removing 1 damaging condition.

Haste: Add swiftness for 5 seconds and put it on a 40 second CD and I’ll bite. While not emptying your endurance anymore, it seems like it still shortens evade frames (and possibly heartseekers, but more testing is needed).

Scorpion Wire: the skill I want to love, but it always lets me down. Have it shadowstep your opponent to you instead. That’s in the theme of a tricky skill. Shadowstep an engi away from their turrets or a pewpew ranger into the melee brawl? Such trick. Much lols. No more pull stun though to balance out the fact that it would actually function as intended.

Caltrops: perfectly fine.

Withdraw: perfectly fine.

Quick Pockets: while not actually a trick, I feel it could be made into a strong contender for the other 2 GM traits if it would only give 1 initiative on swap, but reduce swap cooldown to 5 seconds.

Other thoughts: Acro is mediocre for D/X builds. For now, CS just seems like the better choice. Combat is faster overall now cause moar deeps from everyone. It’s closer to how the game shipped. Overall, I’m happy. A few tweaks here and there to numbers and everything should be good.

Howl.2498:

After a few fights fumbling for the wrong key, I found it relatively easy to get used to in the end, and I do like it better this way. I’d be disappointed if it reverted.

Still have a few “whoopsie” moments and throw a couple of things away before engaging out of habit, but once I break the habit it should be fine.