Guild Wars 2

Think he means that in combat you get slowed down so it won’t effectively grant 50% movement speed while in combat. Although it’s been debated a hundred times about equalizing combat and non-combat movement speed, don’t think it will change.

Justine.6351:

Would reducing the stealth from 3 to 2 on leaps and increasing it from 3 to 5 on blasts be better or worse?

I think better, the biggest culprit I’ve seen from suggesting thief buffs is taking d/p into consideration and reducing it’s effective stealth uptime between bound/HS would tone that down but still give s/p and p/p a moment to reposition.

Could in turn allow meld with shadows to increase combo finisher: leap – smoke field duration as well so SA has a little more of a purpose to be chosen.

Same way crossfire only bleeds when flanking, I’d rather see more things with rewarding use than just make the same results achievable by any use at all.

Backstab should remain backstab, not stab. I don’t want backstab damage in the front I want more skills to be like backstab (and crossfire) and require a lick of thought if it is to be rewarding.

Cynz.9437:

I honestly think the source of the issue (the amount of condi flying around and how easy it is applied now) should be fixed and not tools to deal with it. I dare to say that this game was more fun and made more sense in the past when stun breaks, condi cleanse but as well condi applications and CCs were scarce and came at rather high (opportunity) costs.

+1

Everything is too “spammy” now. Chain cc, condition overloads, and on the reverse side near-endless stability. Thing’s used to require timed use and thought, now its just keep shooting down the death star’s reactor core until it blows up. I miss the days of luke ; ;

TheBravery.9615:

If you want, I could make a spreadsheet and give you editing rights (see my signature for example). I think it would be easier to follow what’s changed. Would you be interested?

Sure thing, I do have multiple classes and thoughts on their builds, thief is just the one I’m most passionate about.

I wouldn’t nerf d/p as much as I’d look into the major culprit, BPS providing a smoke field and the now 2 methods of leap finishing within the same build. Sure there are losses for taking bound instead of unhindered but it makes any build able to utilize x/p very well which wouldn’t be a bad thing if d/p wasn’t already such a strong build.

D/p is imo keeping other sets from being properly buffed.

Want mobility? Try d/p.
Want defense like blind and extra endurance (via dagger auto attack)? Try d/p.
Want dps? Try d/p.
Want a on-demand cc? Try d/p.

It is a great set, however trying to compete against it on any other set is going to take a complete overhaul which is likely never going to happen before they nerf d/p and lightly buff other sets. Other sets are fairly outdated and underperform while d/p has somehow managed to stay on the top from the beginning with little to no changes.

@ Orpheal

TG is already a deception skill, and as far as a stealth elite goes that would probably be the best place to put it (at the end of the channel) so you can lay down some distracting thieves and either slip away or turn back on the fool who chased you.

An elite signet would be a nice addition, not reworking an already existing skill category into it.

Orpheal.8263:

Thief is in need also in regard of elite skilsl of an Elite Signet Skill

Nearly all classes that have Singet Skills also have Elite Signet Skills, the Thief is one of the Classes among the Ranger, that has none, where it would make sense that they should also get Signet Elite Skills

I think Thieves Guild woud make sense to get reworked into a Singet Elite, that summons on activation its Thieves, while providing a defensive effect as passive, like for example having significantly increased Toughness, while not being in Stealth and gaining Resistance/Stability when gaining stealth.

When you think Daggerstorm with Protection is too good, dont forget that protection can get easily stripped from you or get even corrupted by a Necromancer and get turned into Vulnerability, while Resistance can also get stripped and or turned by boon corruption in this case into chill.
That alone, that you can steal or even corrupt it is in my opinino far more balanced, than giving thieves just straight while using Daggerstorm an unremoveable 25% increased defense agaisnt all sources of damage.

Think while making suggestions to changes that its not also you that profitates from these change,s but also your enemies agaisnt you have to battle too, so enemy thieves and as a Main Thief, thinking of fightign other Thieves that use DS and gain unremoveable 25% increased defense against all sources of damage doesn’t sound as fair to me, as like when they gain two boons more than before, where I have at least the chance to steal them and profitate this way from my enemy more, while weakening them in combat, without that Daggerstorm becomes directly garbage, because i was able to make int instantly stop, like Necromancers can do this since Anet nerfed Stability by just corrupting Stability from us due to Daggerstporm providing not enough boons to cover Stability from simply gettign directly corrupted away, what leads in the moment to Daggerstorm instanlty stopping to work, becsause we get feared away, from what the Stability should usually PROTECT US, because its the freaking single only skill with that thieves can get Stability right now…

Its freaking ridiculous just to think about that the single skill that gives us stability and with that we can have somethign against perma fears doesn’t protect us at all from this, because just 1 single boon corrupt currently is enough to turn our elite skill into total garbage and into a full waste on 90s recharge!!
That is the point that I’m trying to make here clear and what is something that Anet needs to fix, if they ever want Daggerstorm to become again a viable Elite Skill worth it to be called an Elite Skill like it halfway was before they nerfed Stability, where the skill actually back then WAS ABLE to protect us from fear spams.

The 25% damage reduction is because it is a channel skill, on a squishy profession. Like any 25% increase effect like from rampage (warrior), signet of the wild (ranger), etc its meant to give the skill a key role and be very good at it. There are many skills that can be ranged and not projectile based and being bound to an animation is pretty dangerous. Pulsing protection and resistance is actually much stronger than a flat 25% because it would pulse, so even if you removed or corrupt it they would just get it back soon after.

25% damage reduction along with projectile reflection and condition xfer labels it as a defensive elite and gives thieves a reason to want to enter the channel whether it be inevitable incoming damage they want to null or to counter a projectile/condition frenzy. I wouldn’t want my elite to give any profit to my enemies, it makes any semi-long cooldown very distasteful and that’s the reason why many elites have been changed from a single boon application to pulsing and adding % reductions/additions so they can’t be countered so easily. Corruption does hurt a lot towards DS but that’s why the cooldown isn’t crazy long (even suggested lowering it with a lower channel time) and why I think it should cover a larger array of counters so the short time it lasts it actually gets something done.

Right now DS is too long in cooldown and channel time and hits very unreliably while dealing next to no damage both physical and condition. I’d like to see it dumbed down like entangle was to be a little quicker of a cycle as a defensive elite and like entangle, it should see a lot more use afterwards.

lighter.2708:

tbh, warrior is the most boring pve class

axe/axe is hella fun, get away from GS snooze fest and enjoy some good ol’ madness.

I’d say anything meta is boring. Why do people like being like everyone else? Because its easy? Pshh

Orpheal.8263:

The most simplest way to fix Daggerstorm is done by the following steps:

1) Add at least 2 more Boons to it which it pulses together with Stability to protect Stability from beign simply corrupted and turning the skill into a waste immediately.
No elite skill should be so easily hard counjtered by just removing a boon from you due to the corruption turning the stability into fear, which instantly destroys your elite and makes it a complete garbage skill when it can be so easily hard countered.
Dagger Storm needs to be a more defensive Skill, so the best thing that DS should pulse together with Stability to protect Stability from being too easily stripped off/getting corrupted, is by letting DS pulse also Resistance and Protection.
2 Boons, which the Thief hardly is able to get tiogether with Stability.

Through Resistance and Protection would become DS more protective, and not too OP by just getting a non removable Damage Reduction and Condition Spreading would be also too op, just Resistance on you is the right way so that you get for a while protected from condition bursts on you, makign DS a good counter skill for when you just are awaiting the next condition burst on you to happen, you trigger DS and outplay your enemy then…

2) Fix the Damage Field … the skill throws out so many random Daggers all around you, that HIT NOTHING… if anet would fix this skill that every thrown dagger hits also a nearby target 100% for sure, then this skill wouldnt also lack in kind of DPS.
Its so senseless for this skill to throw a dagger at a direction, where absolutely no enemy is standing at all.
This skill needs to get fixed to the point, that only daggers get thrown into the directions where enemies are actually standing.

3) Change the conditions that it deals…and add some conditions to make Daggerstorm more dangerous.
Daggerstorm’s Daggers should cause bouncing Torment together with either Slow or Poison with the the latter two having both a chance of 50% to trigger, lettign it work more like the daredevils dodge effect to give Daggerstorm with that build a bit more synergy to keep up constantly those conditions.

With these 3 changes would become this Elite Skill alot more useful and viable, because it would be then alot more dangerous, especially for small groups that stand near together, due to the bouncing effect, making DS a strong crowd control skill that it needs to be, especially for WvW to bust the zergs with it and all the stacking thats there, it would be more defensive, so that it actually enables you to survive also its full duration without getting too easily pinned down to death with resistance without beign too op by spreadign all conditions on you to enemies, what is not the job ob the thief, thats what necros do… and the 40% damage reduction from protection that is strippable, but therefore better than unstrippable 25% reduction.
Together with the change of the dealt conditions would become also Daggerstorm alot more useful for Condition Build Thiefs and also especially Hybrid Build Thiefs, because lets face it, just only Bleeds from this is garbage…that do I get also by just spamming Death Blossoms and just bleeds alone isnt worth it to call Daggerstorm an Elite Skill.

But Torment paired together with a split trigger Slow/Poison, that would be effective and worth it to call DS an Elite Skill and would help also the skill again to be a better crowd buster skill.

If that would be then too strong, then raise the Recharge Time from 90s to 120s, so that you can use this tide turner just every 2 minutes, because thats what Elite Skilsl are for, they should be powerful enough to turn the battles to your favor…

In its current state you can’t say this from Daggerstorm, that it is good enough to ever turn a battle to your favor … unless you meet on an enemy, thats so dumb enough to constantly attack you with ranged attacks, while you use DS to literally let him/her kill themself …

I think that’s adding way to much to any one skill. Granted its an “elite” skill, it shouldn’t have defensive and offensive properties amped up so much. It definitely could use a toggle option though to cancel the effect. We have BV and IS for offensive, it’d be nice to have a dedicated defensive elite that didn’t just toss boons onto you. Boon’s don’t tend to last on thieves for very long, so adding more won’t do any good especially if someone decides to corrupt them. If DS could be set as the counter/defensive elite TG being the hybrid of damage utility and defense, I think we would have a pretty good selection of elite skills without having to add more to the list.

I’ve suggested malice be reworked to gain health on (unnautural) initiative gain, since it is a lot easier to balance than trying to make the skill not become blatantly OP against multiple targets, where it currently is at its highest. Of course if you are at 100% initiative you get nothing, but that’s where the resource management comes into play to require a little thought rather than, “use something and heal yourself” or “sit there and heal”.

You got upper hand, rfi, kleptomaniac, quick pockets (which could use love, like -5 sec on weapon swap to compete with SoH), infiltrator’s signet and shadow’s rejuvenation. They are fairly spread and tied to cooldowns versus being dependant on the number of targets nearby.

DeceiverX.8361:

NinjaEd.3946:

(I’ve suggested giving us the active of assassin’s signet on killing a foe with an ICD, so yolo thief can transition to the next target with a punch.)

I’d love the idea of a remove revealed effect given the amount of it that’s being tossed onto professions. +1

Again, I dislike the removal of Reveal due to what I think right now is an excess of stealth game-wide, including the thief), and it lacks synergy with signet builds.

That said, this could have amazing potential. How about it refunds two initiative on activation and it gives a short buff effect on activation which when the thief kills a player, the cooldown resets? This could make SoP a viable trait choice for racking up lots of might after repeated kills in a short period at the cost of BV and DS, but would remove the need for stacking a full bar of utils to blow for the sake of might stacking for signet builds. This also lets signets push into sustained-fight viability or build around it with the remaining utilities instead of just being solely a burst-or-burst trait choice.

This way, cooldown could also be reduced to 45 seconds or less since its gains aren’t huge but offer a lot of niche use for a new build.

The passive is still tough to think about what would be useful and balanced.

I just think the masters of stealth should have a little more control over the mechanic, and a reveal removal is only a direct response to revaled applications. I don’t recall ever seeing posts about revealed removals until skills like the sneak gyro and DH trap came about, and even a little mention when sic’em was updated.

As for the signet I don’t think it should be dependent on a “signet” build. Elite skills should be able to stand alone given their generally long cooldowns. A cooldown reset tied with SoP would make any thief wanting this signet basically require SoP because a potential heavy might stack would be too great to pass up, the signet would hardly be worth it without SoP.

It could definitely tie to initiative that way its good on any thief build. The initiative on activation could be increased to something like 6 in addition to maybe stun breaking, passive could be something like critical hits remove a boon with 3 second ICD or reduce incoming condition duration.

Serious Thought.5394:

Dagger Storm is the longest (or second, ele fire-staff 5 is close to same) cast in the game with the largest telegraph. Its unpredictable, unreliable, easily interrupted these days, and produces pathetic damage (condi or otherwise). When I tried to use it, people just walked out of it OR killed me while I tried to use it. My personal proposal is to make it like a 10-15 second cast time ability that does one rotation. So one stack stability, one spin reflect/damage/condi. Damage could be adjusted, but that’d help.

I’d like Hidden Killer to CHANGE the stealth abilities, finally adding a flavor to CS that isn’t pointless. DA has improv, SA has venoms, Acro has init regen/evade wall, Trick has unstoppable stun, and DD is DD. Like Backstab gets more damage, tactical now strips all stab and dazes, hookstrike gets an effect, sneak attack applies burn, and shortbow stealth 1 does something like a mini-range-nuke.

I agree on Basi. I just need it to not get overriden. The two charges make sure that even if I land PW, I still get my stun on the second charge. On one charge, its just highly unreliable.

I always thought of dagger storm as a counter elite skill, but at the moment it only does this well against projectiles and a majority of people have enough reaction time to stop shooting projectiles during this skill.

Could rework it to be a little closer to a counter skill with some built in defenses, and bring it down like they did with ranger’s “Entangle” to be a little more worthwhile.

Something like,

[Dagger Storm] Spin around, taking reduced damage and reflecting projectiles and throwing crippeling daggers which transfer conditions to enemies. You can move while spinning.
-Damage 246 (1.0^)
-Stability 3 stacks for 3 seconds.
-Dagger storm duration 6 seconds
-Boon gain interval 3 seconds.
-Condition transfer per dagger thrown 1.
-Cripple duration 2 seconds.
-Damage reduction 25%.
-Combo Finisher: Whirl
-Trick
-Cooldown 60 seconds
-Range 600 units (dagger range)

Few other changes
-Increase dagger projectile speed by ~50%
-Removed endless cap, will now attempt to target up to 5 targets at a time every 1 second it is active for a possible 35 hits (5 on activation and 30 over 6 seconds).
-Removed bouncing effect.
-Removed bleeding effect.

Goal of the change is to make dagger storm a full on defensive elite. The bleed was negligible and the daggers were very unreliable unless you hovered over an enemy which is not a good idea as a thief for a channeling skill you’re stuck in. Basically the elite would counter projectiles and condition overloads and spread it across the enemy team but as far as damage goes you’re better off using dancing dagger. The endless cap removal sort of hurts but with 5 reliable throws every second it should be a lot more dependable to shake the conditions off. Cripple remains to keep melee enemies away and the damage reduction is purely there because its a channel skill on a very squishy profession (like ele tornado, it too needs some defenses attached).

As for hidden killer, there is a thread on it circulating now but I whole heartedly agree, making a GM trait only benefit 1 skill seems silly and HK should augment all stealth skills individually. This isn’t even a new concept for gw2, its been done on multiple skill sets already like Nature’s Vengence on ranger or Experimental turrets on engineer. Let backstab be the 100% critical chance and give something unique and fitting for the other stealth skills, I mean it is a GM trait after all.

P/p damage is only half the problem. The lack of built in defenses like stealth or mobility is a pretty big thing too, and bps in no way makes up for this loss. Body shot needs a rework and honestly BPS needs a serious make over so that it can be used with projectiles a little better and not be the go-to for stealth access (via bound or heartseeker).

meepeY.2867:

I like the passive, but it’s a bit… Lacking

How about:

Passive: Your critical attacks apply 2 stacks of vulnerability.

This way, the passive is strong enough to make you consider not using it instead of reveal reset in some circumstances.

And removing the reveal is strong but 60s sounds quite harsh. Maybe 45ish. This way you’d get to use it twice in a drawn out fight, but a quick burst-off you wouldn’t.

But I’d have to say, I’d prefer a nice fully defensive skill like Invulnerability for 3 seconds and making yourself a mobile dark-field for the active.

60 seconds untraited it would be. We do have a signet related trait, although it also could use a buff (I’ve suggested giving us the active of assassin’s signet on killing a foe with an ICD, so yolo thief can transition to the next target with a punch.)

I’d love the idea of a remove revealed effect given the amount of it that’s being tossed onto professions. +1

I use hidden killer only because I hate having a backstab not crit, but it is a very weak GM trait at this point in time.

A) still only applies to 1 skill.

B) Seems a lot more friendly towards other sets

C) could be good for all sets, just to add a rotation into your play style to leave them very open.

D) rather they not make revealed such an easy thing to apply for some professions. cough scrapper….

E) Again only really applies to 1 skill, although has a little thought behind it.

I’ve seen someone suggest it before on a thread I made, hidden killer should augment all stealth skills individually like making backstab 100% critical hit, and different effects for the other skills. Could be something like,

[Sneak Attack] Pierces
[Tactical Strike] Increase effects by 100% (10 seconds of blind or 4(3 in pvp) seconds daze.
[Trick Shot] Bounces up to 2 additional enemies.
[Hook Strike] Gain quickness for 2 seconds

Liewec.2896:

sure it sucks that we lost ricochet, but now we deal a ton more damage to single targets with our 3 3 3 spam
i still play my P/P thief every time i log in for a night of pvp dropping 20k damage on people in several seconds simply by clicking 3 twice is nothing to complain about!

I’d rather see mayhem with bouncing bullets than have an extremely hard hitting spammable skill. The dps boost to p/p was a Band-Aid fix while they attempt to actually address the issues p/p suffers. Some people still seem to think that was the fix but its only good for goofing off.

Galandil.9641:

Removing leap from Bound would lower the build diversity: with D/P we’d be pidgeon-holed in using Dash.

Bound gives us more ini/dmg/stealth uptime by giving away a lot of mobility given by Dash. If you remove the leap finisher from it, we would lose the higher ini/stealth, remaining with just a bit more damage: we then you’d ever want to go with it when using D/P instead of Dash?

TL;DR:

• Bound: more ini/stealth/dmg, slow as kitten.
• Dash: less ini/stealth/dmg, great mobility.

They’re ok as they are. As opposed to the utter useless SA/Acro traitlines. :P

tl;dr buy HoT and forget there are other trait lines.

No thank you, HoT is a disgusting addition to gw2 and should go.

Serious Thought.5394:

Thoughts:
Do not change pistol-whips initiative cost, you will kill the set. The buffs would be good, but its hard to play s/p when all your abilities are cost inefficient- if you kill the star player, the set will go into obscurity.
Dagger Storm needs to reduce damage to Thief. The reason it isn’t played often is the ability is an enormous telegraph saying “hey, I’m charging my laser. come kill me. im vulnerable”.
Do not touch Basilisk venom. Do. Not. Touch. My. Venom.

In my opinion Hidden Killer should just be rolled into Backstab. No one takes the trait anyway, and its only good for a single ability. Its just a slot waster at the moment. Daredevil runes, wep swap, etc. Why take this when I can get one of those?

Damage reduction would be a start but thief during dagger storm you can’t dodge out of condition fields either so its still a self destruct button. Maybe a bit of both but that’d be asking for a lot.

I think hidden killer could be buffed so it doesn’t only help backstab, but the trait should stay for those who want a good hit. Non-crit backstabs are sad, but any skill other than backstab and hidden killer is pretty much pointless. Making stealth grant you the unblockable buff is just an idea, but I’m sure there could be a better substitute to keep hidden killer’s 100% critical strike chance because making it baseline just removes the investment that keeps the CS trait line a little balanced.

As for basilisk venom, I never liked the residual venom baseline they did, BV did not need to be touched by that and it was. Granted overall it still somewhat stays for 1.5 seconds depending on how you hit them, the fact that you get 2 chances and its now unblockable just feels like they’re trying to hard to make this an easy to apply stun. I guess with the proposed VA change it’s not a terrible thing but if considering the current VA with the current BV maybe its just me but I don’t like the ease this skill now has. It used to be a great opener and now its just a stun in the mix with little payoff. I’d rather have a larger payoff with a semi-longer cooldown than a short near-guaranteed stun.

AsurasRCute.4136:

As usual, lots of good stuff in there, but to only mention the things I disagree with (primarily solo PvE, vanilla P/P)….

Compared to some classes, our downed skills are rubbish, and (when playing solo anyway) usually downed = dead. The slightly added punch of the poison from Serpent’s Touch (DA), is the only thing I found that gives me an at least fighting chance of getting back up. Please leave it in.

Atm, the only noteable thing that I bring to the table is the spike power of my Unload (and occasional Dagger Storm). Only my trait synergies give it this spike power.

Ankle Shots as is applies a condition, which gives an instant damage buff from Exposed Weakness as is, and a further 10% against that target since I’m using a pistol (or a harpoon gun underwater). This makes it more likely that the target will be <50% HP, so my opening Unload benefits from Executioner.

I kind of need all that as is for my build to work: your suggestions would gut that but not give me anything better in exchange (except for the improved AA which sounds like a nifty possibility, but not compensation enough…).

And if Unload gets further improved at all, it WILL be nerfed… I suspect it’s on thin ice already. If we really need a pistol bounce, I’d rather it was on #2 or #4.

I always feel a bit a bit shady when replying like this to such a piece of effort like yours, but I feel like I need to passionately fight for that tiny little sliver of something good that Anet’s allowed me to have – against all odds, and probably through luck rather than good design.

I appreciate the feedback, and don’t worry about hurt feelings, if I didn’t want criticism I would’ve kept it to myself ^^

That being said, the main focus behind my changes is to give thief a little more of a unique play in the game that is valuable while staying in tune with the high risk high reward playstyle. As of lately its more risk than reward and simple dps increases aren’t going to align us with the rest of the professions. As with every profession, thief needs to stand out and become less depenedant on major traits to gain simple functionality that other profession’s get without as much focus on things like recovery or sustain to stay in the fight.

This is for the overall responses to this thread, but here are a few reasonings behind some of the changes.

-Changes to downed daggers is simply to not give too much for an adept minor trait. It could be left in as it hardly adds anything strong to begin with.

-I understand the focus of CS is critical based, as the name implies, but for the sake of side strike, we already have the minor trait [Keen Observer] adding a critical chance effect, so when I see another critical chance based trait it seems redundant. As for the replacement, the only vulnerability thief can apply is single target based excluding sundering strikes, and the durations aren’t that high either with traps being the only real duration. Double of anything generally sounds OP but given the very small output of it, the only thing the trait really contributes is making your /t a good one to focus. It’s hardly any different from necromancer being able to apply massive amounts of AoE vulnerability and people already know how much that hurts.

-For pistol’s, I wanted to shift the weapon set so condition builds can utilize it a little better by placing a better bleed duration on the stealth skill which CnD would lead up to, and buffing the power portion so p/p is less dependant on spamming 3 to kill. The dps of unload is fine, its the rest of the set that needs to work a little better but trying to buff p/p without buffing d/p (an already very strong set) is near impossible. Pistol needs some “piercing” effect so minions and Ai don’t completely deny the set. Every other profession with projectile based weapon sets has some AoE effect either baseline or from a trait except thief. The trait change was to promote pistol as a secondary set but it could just be replaced by the old ricochet trait if need be although it was a tad bit unreliable. BPS as a field would be changed to be less rewarding for leap finishers but would get stronger for projectile finishers being longer lasting. Adjustments could always be made such as changing bps to shoot the smoke field at the enemy versus planting it at your feet.

-As for signet of malice, I think the aggressive approach is nice for thief but this trait does not pan out well. For starter’s its one of those multiplier skills that when in AoE groups it gets to be strong but in smaller numbers it really falls behind. Trying to simply increase the numbers won’t help because of the multiplier aspect so changing it to a different mechanic that is both easier to balance and still ties to an aggressive strategy is where I thought of initiative management. Ofcourse natural initiative regen would not proc this trait but things like upper hand, kleptomaniac, meld with shadows (changed), quick pockets (changed), rfi, infiltrator’s signet would and those are tied to cooldowns and also spread out fairly far apart so taking use of all of them means sacrifices elsewhere so you’re not getting an easy heal.

The healing amount could have a smaller base value but to take full advantage of this healing skill requires a ton of sacrafice in other areas. The potential healing under ideal circumstances is fairly high but not practical.

-didn’t mean to nerf NQ, sorry. Wrong value entered.

-Buff to backstab isn’t meant to deal with the bunker meta which is slowly dying off, its meant to better reward “back” stabs given the difficulty landing this skill since many people know how to play against it now. Not to mention there are skills that are far easier to fire off and deal as much damage as backstab, so the dps increase is a result of other skills dealing similar or more damage and having less risk tied to them (true shot, gravedigger, eviscerate on a good build, etc.)

-Hidden killer is basically a dagger only related trait. I’ve often wanted to take something else but a non-crit backstab is really disappointing and when using d/d I like to focus my damage into backstab and keeping the enemy guessing, so fury was not really something I went for since I rarely attacked. The change was meant to again, buff backstab given its difficulty to use. With smoke field leap finishers being less effective they won’t have a whole lot of time to play in stealth to utilize the backstab, so the general concept of countering a backstab thief would still very much be available.

-I still don’t see where blind fits into the sword playstyle but maybe 2 boon removal is a bit over the top. I always saw sword as a utility weapon for thief with moments of damage (ls, pw) while using the mobility it offers to keep a safe distance. Maybe instead of 2 boon removal or a daze it could be a daze and condition transfer from behind? Playing dirty is the thief’s way and nothing like leaving your enemy a nasty surprise for trying to pull you out of the shadows. At any rate, I think the blind should be changed as it feels funky for sword/x.

-Maybe instead of a pulsing reveal reduction on signet of shadows it could remove reveal on creation? I can see how fighting in that field could seem a bit ridiculous being able to reenter stealth every other second basically. The main goal of the change was to introduce a dark field for thief which thief could utilize fairly well with their projectile and whirl finishers.

Aidal.4901:

Thief doesn’t belong in group support and buffs. We’re straight up assassins, name an mmo where the assassin dolled out buffs like he’s a paladin/priest type.

It’s like people don’t know how to place a character archetype.

Would be nice if we filled those assassin shoes too, pretty sure our dps is still lower than most, not to mention we die incredibly easy so a dead thief = no dps.

Updated many of the traits to reflect the recent changes to thief. Overall I think the new changes were good however they didn’t really solve anything. They helped our damage output to be a little quicker but for the millionth time, our dps isn’t as much of a problem as our utility and defenses are. Thieves can dish out damage, but many sets are outdated and our defenses are incredibly fragile no matter what way we build.

I know there are other projects and professions to work on but common now, we have so many outdated traits and skills it’s pretty much left people to no other choice than to move to another profession.

I don’t want more reveal, I’m already butt naked and covered in mud from taking so many dirt naps….

You can coat manure in powdered sugar it don’t make it a jelly doughnut.

Same way you can’t put heavy armor on a thief and call it a tank.

buff to thief support? Add it to the wish list!

This has been a problem before durability runes, before HoT, before even the june major patch. It wasn’t as bad as it is now with all those things but still, heavy boon uptime has been a thing for sometime now but from when I first started playing wvw (my best example of what I think proper boon application was and should be) you would stack up to blast a fire field and get a bunch of might or a smoke field to stack a bunch of stealth to surprise your foe, or a light field, or properly placing professions like guardian in each party to ensure everyone had stability, etc.

This was time dedicated to playing like a group and you got a serious payoff for doing so. I don’t know if that still exists in the current wvw, as I do not play it, but I do know from watching “pro” pvp matches and playing pvp for so long that I do not see that kind of effort. Its not that it isn’t good, but that it isn’t necessary when you can just naturally play however and apply the same effects or run a build that grants itself these effects without any thought behind it. The kind of effort that lead up to what I would call “buffs” has become so passive minded that it really doesn’t feel like a team effort anymore than just a bunch of skills being shot off in a general area and people rez’ing/stomping their allies/enemies respectively.

That is why I bring up skills like empower or power break where they take a little planning and definitely help your team rather than some AoE passive boon application that you never have to think about other than placing it in your rotation of button smashing. Siphoned power for example is just incredibly strong even with that 1 sec ICD, I can and also watch necro’s getting 10+ stacks just from that trait and you can’t exactly strip it because it is so easy to reapply in a group fight. That’s 300 power and condition damage from a single trait, add that to a already high power build and they hurt like a mother kitten.

This is something that has bother me from day 1 having played countless MMO’s prior and transitioning from gw1 to here (I know they aren’t the same nor should they be, but still).

Boons in this game are fairly powerful, and maintaining many of them for either long periods of time or even in some cases, permanently brings out some overpowering builds. I’m not saying this is something new, its actually been going on from the beginning and just gotten worse since then. Things like extensive uptimes on stability or protection and especially heavy might stacks on for a long period of time either put certain aspects of a build over the top or they give them something they were missing from investing into another stat basically giving them the best of both worlds. For the professions who can’t combo such things it feels very imbalanced having to keep up with a tanky cannon and you’re playing a glass cannon or just a tank. So to break this into 2 parts: (tl;dr below)

Part 1

Ofcourse this is for all professions but not so much against traits that alter boons like vigor, regeneration as they make those builds a little more unique. They should make boon uptime for more group orientated skills like empower, blasting a field, protecting screech, power break, etc be more potent and reduce smaller less thoughtful effects like siphoned power, juggernaut, nefarious momentum, HGH, chaotic dampening, etc to some formidable restriction so they aren’t so easy to maintain on your own.

What this solves is boons being dished out without thought and pushes for more coordinated applications. Sure for some builds like thief or Mesmer or engineer can have permanent vigor or numerous professions having permanent regen and honestly should be addressed, but these boons don’t play a big role in keeping people alive as much, except with vigor in the case of thief.

Part 2

With boon’s being a little more challenging to maintain, their presence should still be felt especially when some skills already come with a long cooldown. So a buff to just about all boons with a few changes to some functionality

-Might now grants 50 power and condition damage. Leads to higher spike but much shorter durations to where no build can maintain self might stacks to high numbers without heavily investing and even then, it wouldn’t go that high without the help of ally might application. So in turn, this boon becomes a group spike effort and not a replacement for loss dps on tank builds.

-Regeneration is fairly harmless on its own. As a boon, it isn’t overpowering to maintained permanently however some applications should be adjusted so for those who try to boon strip it can feel a little more satisfied than just having it reapplied with no effort. In most cases however, this isn’t a threatening boon.

-Stability stacks need to be addressed however, in the case of groups using multiple CC effects its very challenging to treat only 1 aspect of crowd control and stun breaking and consider it balanced. People have suggested it before so I won’t go on about it but I think cc needs to have diminishing returns where some builds are just too potent at controlling a group which makes even low dps builds very strong when all they have to do is keep you stun locked until you die. Between stun breakers, stability and cc effects there is a lot of room for adjustment to make these effects a little more rewarding to use and to retaliate against and not be dependent on heavy stability stacks or fast stability applications as a solution for a select few professions and leaving the others stuck with a very painful experience.

-Aegis imo has very little applications and could use an alteration. For the very few uses, I believe aegis should become a true block for the simple reason that it can be so easily removed from miscellaneous skills leaving you with nothing. Guardian has many traits tied to aegis but I rarely see anyone run them because it is such an unreliable boon. To give it a little more light both an increase to its overall duration and no skill can pierce it’s effect given that it only stacks 1 time and only blocks 1 attack. This would make its application in a group a lot more potent from heavy hits like that of a pve boss or from enemy siege in pvp or wvw. It does belittle unblockable effects a little but given its very limiting access, I don’t think it would be a serious problem when you consider how easy it is to remove it and how few methods there are to apply it.

-Vigor is fine, the past nerf pretty much solved the 100% uptime some professions had on it to where it isn’t crazy strong.

-Retaliation needs to be toned down in duration for self applications. For groups, its a great boon too coordinate and I think its very healthy in that sense but to self apply it to near permanent uptime pretty much hard counters fast attacking builds and there is next to nothing you can do about it except try to remove it, which very few builds can do, or walk away. The damage it applies is fine its just the application for some is far to high both in sources and duration.

-Fury I’d say is fine in its current state, alone as a boon it isn’t breaking any builds as much as 20+ might or high protection is.

-Protection needs its application sources toned down, but I think the durations are fine since many are tied to long cooldowns or are difficult to maintain. Primarily I think Mesmer is the culprit being able to get protection incredibly easy from their chaos trait line and even sharing that. 33% dmg reduction is pretty significant to have a high upkeep on and should be addressed for traits that grant it too easily.

- Quickness as a boon I think it is very strong and the traits that grant it sure do help out but in the case of utility skills granting it, they really should give a better duration given their long cooldowns. For those utility skills, simply increase their durations but the traits, sigil and elite skills granting it are in a good spot imo.

-Swiftness is easily countered from cripple which comes in many forms so I think its balanced just fine. Honestly w/o swiftness combat feels far too slow.

-Resistance seems like a funky addition to the list but I don’t see it being abusive on any build given its very short duration and limiting applications. I feel like they could of improved on condition removal rather than making a boon say “nice try” but in any case, its fine in its current state.

tl;dr

Make self boon applications less dominant and improve on group boon applications and the boons themselves so strong boons can’t be maintained without a group effort but when applied you get a moment of power rather than a staple on your build that cannot be removed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Teef-Update-to-thief/first#post5909499

I suggest we give up on trying to balance venoms around VA by making it work in 1 method only. The thing about thief support via venomshare is it is for offense and with the proper traits, a little healing as well. However you have culprits like DV making mass immobilize or BV destroying defiance bars and even spider venom stacking insane numbers of poison to eat up smaller groups in seconds and you can’t balance skills like that when they have traits the multiply its effects. They should get rid of sharing all venoms and make it to apply 1 venom type at any time, and also allow it to stack so that it doesn’t have diminishing returns when venoms already have soo many drawbacks.

To narrow the reading down on the thread, I proposed these changes to venom share and associated venoms:

(Venoms)
-[Spider Venom] Change Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. (Not all venoms are equal, and with nerf to VA it could use a buff to compensate its lost potential.)

-[Skale Venom] Change Increase torment stacks to 2. Increase Vulnerability stacks to 3. (Again, with lost potoential this venom could use a bump to be worth slotting.)

-[Ice Drake Venom] Replaced “Karka Venom” Transfer 1 condition on your next 3 attacks. 1 second cast time. (Chill doesn’t fit thief and the role of mobility reduction is better served on Devourer Venom).

-[Devourer Venom] Change Reduce number of attacks to 2. Increase Immobilize duration to 2 seconds. (Revert an unneccesary change when they made residual venom baseline but nerfed this skill to keep it from being overpowered… again not all venoms are equal.)

-[Basilisk Venom] Change Revert change to allow stunbreakers to work on this skill. Reduce number of attacks to 1. Increase petrified duration to 2 seconds. Increase cooldown to 60 seconds. (Give this form of disable its own unique flavor rather than making it a visually altered stun. With a few buffs to its effect, a cooldown increase is in order to keep it a little balanced.)(With upcoming patch giving this venom unblockable, may be fine as is. Will have to test out)

-[Skelk Venom] Change Increase number of charges to 10. Replace initial heal with 10 seconds of regeneration. Increase on-hit healing base to ~700 and healing power scale to 0.45. (The old version was too much healing in a very short window and with the cooldown it didn’t help thief stay alive very well. Spreading the healing out over a longer window, this will slightly increase the overall healing amount while also keeping it around a little longer than before.

[Venomous Aura] Change Whenever you apply a venom skill, grant nearby allies 3 charges of skelk venom (does not stack beyond 15). Venom skills recharge 20% faster. (This removes the overpowering effect that DV, spider or skale venom has being applied by a multiple of 5 and still gives very strong group support option for thief as it still deals damage while also healing allies. Venom related traits still apply through this. )

[Leeching Venoms] Change Moved to adept tier. Adjust leeching to apply per venom charge, not only once per attack.(No reason to have this restriction in place. Moved to adept tier to distinguish builds using SA (venomshare or stealth))

///////

This maintain’s VA’s support power and defense without singling out any venom from too strong from being multiplied. Additionally it gives room to buff the other venoms to be worth slotting since they won’t be potentially overpowering anymore which means you won’t HAVE to slot VA to make venoms feel useful.

The thing that hurt was the nerfs to our defense and utility that kept us back from ever excelling at anything but bursts, and then over time others got buffs to those 2 things while we got little to nothing. Naturally the buff to others’ sustain and mitigation traits meant an even deeper hit on our offense which is why things like backstab hardly gets the praise it deserves these days, even though I think it is a very good skill.

Anet just got out of hand with trying to improve build diversity by giving people the defensive tools to survive on any build, which ended up giving high dps builds high sustain and we’re left with kittens like tempest and chronomancer being able to tank and kill incredibly efficiently once mastered. Thief on the other hand (not the only culprit, but definitely on the top of the list) got left behind with outdated mechanics, traits, weapon sets that never adapted to this new trend.

Can you count the amount of times you:

-Found a thief amidst a group fight and picked it off due to ease
-played a thief and were hesitant to enter a group fight at risk of being focus fired or simply dying from enemy AoE
-ran away from a simple 1v1 as a thief because the enemy was too tanky and the ally of an enemy was approaching in a build that would eat you for breakfast lunch and dinner
-made the slightest mistake playing thief and spent the next 30 seconds or more trying to get back on your feet
-watched your enemy recover to full health after your thief’s burst

I enjoy d/d power for the theme and the challenge and in many cases I can still pick my fights quickly and take out high risk fights like reaper or DH or even scrapper. However there is almost no room for error when those builds can just spam random buttons and finish me off. A buff to our auto attack damage will do almost nothing, even with the proposed ~30% dps increase on sword (from attack speed). We need updates to our kit, not flat dps buffs. We already have the potential damage to kill many builds, just a mild adjustment to damage could help but the bigger buff would come from giving us unique effects to tackle these tanky builds and help our sustain to not be so unforgiving.

As mentioned before, add blind on successful CnD hit would fix it, one thing OH dagger lacks greatly is reward given its harder to use skills and set ups.

As for dancing dagger, I’d say transfer 1 condition to the first foe hit, remove cripple and up projectile speed a little. There should be no reason to dump all your initiative into this skill but the built in condition removal would greatly help d/d and even add to p/d’s condition capacity which at this point in time, is a very outdated set. Remove cripple because heart seeker is a far better gap closer and the cripple is next to negligible to begin with.

Reem.3578:

Why not just buff/rework d/d?

^

I’d be nice to bring the really strong sets down to match the sets that feel most balanced but there are just too many factors in that. You have to kinda do both really, bring the strong sets down a little and bring the weaker/underperforming sets up a little that way things don’t change too suddenly and mess with people’s minds (like the nerfs to thief sword or dagger buffs to ele, way to drastic for one patch).

Can’t really judge anything about this patch based on a short paragraph but at the same time, you can judge it based on the history of thief updates.

I don’t like the sound of upping our auto attack damage as a form of buffing our damage. Initiative is meant for utility and timing bursts and they do fall into that line, however it takes much more effort to pull it off compared to other professions. Not to mention being sub-par in everything and superior at nothing. We don’t do anything really unique that other professions can do and that is a big problem.

-We don’t really offer any unique stealth other than granting resilience of shadows, but our group stealth is awful anyways
-Our bursts take much more effort which can be done faster or more reliably with another profession
-Our only unique support is with venoms, which are not very good even with VA and are next to useless without it
-Our mobility can be tested or even matched by builds that perform far better in a team setting begging the question, why are we here?
-We die incredibly quick in melee range and are puny at ranged
-For having a build centered against boon heavy enemies, it doesn’t seem all that unique. At least necro corrupts boons and Mesmer can remove or steal them from groups, we just take 1 at a time from a very obvious rotation.

I feel like we’re just given the basics of good ideas and the other professions get to expand on the real ideas that, strangely enough, see a ton of gameplay. At least we look cool using them, sometimes…

(Traps)
-[Ambush] Change Increase ally health to ~7000 and summoned duration to 30 seconds. Add heartseeker attack to melee thief if its target gets 450 units away. When melee thief is threatened (drops below 75% and 25% health) it will execute a death blossom. When pistol thief is threatened it will plant a smoke screen after it evades. Both thieves will now use a stealth skill when possible.(numerous buffs to make the only summon thief has a tad bit more valuable and sturdy).

-[Needle Trap] Change After trap is triggered, it will remain for 6 seconds applying cripple to enemies that pass over it (8 seconds). Increase poison stacks to 2. (an attempt to make the utility version worth slotting and act as an area denial skill).

-[Trip wire] Change Merge Shadow Trap into this trap. Current effects still in place (foe triggers trap, gets knocked down and crippled and activating shadow pursuit. Can end early destroying the wire and teleporting to its location.) Cooldown increased to 45 seconds. (By itself its not a very effective skill especially being single target. Thief traps in general need to be less single target based because they will never see use in any game mode that way, gw2 isn’t about 1v1 and the effects aren’t that powerful even in that instance. The exception would be with this skill having a serious offensive potential for an unsuspecting foe.)

-[Shadow Trap] Replaced “Flash screen” On trigger, place a bomb on your foe that constantly applies confusion and blind every second to nearby foes. Blind duration 1 second. Confusion duration 5 seconds, 2 stacks. Field duration 4 seconds. FIeld radius 180 units. Cooldown 30 seconds. (Another form of confusion for thief which can hinder tight stacked groups as well. Trap trigger remains a rectangle but turns into an aoe centered around the triggered foe.)

(Tricks)
-[Scorpion Wire] Change Add piercing effect to pull up to 2 additional foes. Increase missile width slightly. This skill now marks foes when hit and will pull them to your location you cast it from once the projectile effect reaches its end, rather than trying to mimic the projectile path(A fairly strong pull to give this skill a role for thief to grab foes for your party to focus fire).

-[Roll For initiative] Fine as is, great retreat skill.

-[Haste] Fine as is, fury addition was a great touch up.

-[Caltrops] Change Increase bleeding duration to 4 seconds. (Small buff to help out condition thief and give them a reason to slot this skill over a defensive skill.)

-[Dagger storm] Change Removed cripple effect, each dagger will transfer 1 condition from you to a foe (not on bounce). (Aside from being a projectile reflector this skill needs to be stronger to be considered an elite. Since many ranged attacks are not projectiles and while in this effect you cannot dodge anything, it should provide a better form of defense that fits the theme of thief).
-[Withdraw] Fine as is, powerful heal for almost any thief build.

(Deception)
-[Shadowstep] Fine as is, great double stun breaker with good distance.

-[Shadow Refuge] Change Increase healing power scale to .3 per pulse. Increase base healing to ~400. (a buff to the healing amount since it forces allies to stay inside a location that can easily be bombarded by AoE).

-[Smoke Screen] Change Increase field duration to 10 seconds. Additional effect to remove revealed effects from allies who cross it (only applies once per player). (A much stronger support skill which can also serve as a powerful defensive skill for d/x thieves who struggle with revealed applications or just want a more successful form of stealth to escape with.

-[Blinding Powder] Fine as is, as a blast finisher and stealth skill it does great.

-[Thieves Guild] Changed Increase allies base health to ~12000. Reduce cooldown to 150 seconds. Both thieves will use a stealth attack skill when possible. When you finish channeling you gain stealth for 5 seconds. (See ambush for additional details.) (A buff to a otherwise weak elite which could also hurt anyone who chases you if used well or simply provide an excellent distraction for you to escape with).

-[Hide In shadows] Change Increase healing base to ~5,800. Increase Healing power scale to 1.2. (Better buff to a thief utilizing healing power.)

(Venoms)
-[Spider Venom] Change Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. (Not all venoms are equal, and with nerf to VA it could use a buff to compensate its lost potential.)

-[Skale Venom] Change Increase torment stacks to 2. Increase Vulnerability stacks to 3. (Again, with lost potoential this venom could use a bump to be worth slotting.)

-[Ice Drake Venom] Replaced “Karka Venom” Transfer 1 condition on your next 3 attacks. 1 second cast time. (Chill doesn’t fit thief and the role of mobility reduction is better served on Devourer Venom).

-[Devourer Venom] Change Reduce number of attacks to 2. Increase Immobilize duration to 2 seconds. (Revert an unneccesary change when they made residual venom baseline but nerfed this skill to keep it from being overpowered… again not all venoms are equal.)

-[Basilisk Venom] Change Revert change to allow stunbreakers to work on this skill. Reduce number of attacks to 1. Increase petrified duration to 2 seconds. Increase cooldown to 60 seconds. (Give this form of disable its own unique flavor rather than making it a visually altered stun. With a few buffs to its effect, a cooldown increase is in order to keep it a little balanced.)

-[Skelk Venom] Change Increase number of charges to 10. Replace initial heal with 10 seconds of regeneration. Increase on-hit healing base to ~700 and healing power scale to 0.45. (The old version was too much healing in a very short window and with the cooldown it didn’t help thief stay alive very well. Spreading the healing out over a longer window, this will slightly increase the overall healing amount while also keeping it around a little longer than before.

(Signets)
-[Assassin’s Signet] Change (Active) Remove number of attacks and make it last 5 seconds. (Pretty much the same treatment warrior got on their unblockable signet, number of hits is too unreliable.)

-[Infiltrator’s Signet] No change, fine as is.

-[Signet of Agility] Change (Active) Remove 1 condtion on use and 1 additional condition for each bar of endurance filled up (if they were at 45% endurance, it would count as filling 2 bars so a total of 3 conditions removed. Buff to thief support and rewards well timed use.)

-[Signet of Shadows] Change (Active)Ground targeted AoE field that blinds on creation to foes and reduces the duration of revealed by 2 seconds per pulse. Field duration 5 seconds. Combo field: Dark. Field radius 180 units. (Since thief has very little survivability in standing still the goal to this skill is to give them their own little playground of serious damage potential whether you are using it for restealth and backstabs or utilizing it’s combo field effect with leeching it would provide a very useful active.)

-Signet of Malice: Change (Passive) Gain Health when you gain initiative, half effect at full initiative (not including passive initiative regen) Healing per intiative 1150(.2^) (Active) Gain health and initiative. Gain additional health for each point of initiative gained 3,275(.3) base recovery, 375(.1) per initiative.) Increased cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase cast time to 1.5 seconds. (The old malice focused to much on rapid AoE’s however in the case you had only 1 enemy or a low enemy count the healing was quick to drop off and hte active served no purpose outside of an accidential click. This new version focuses on the same playstyle but can work without the need to hit multiple enemies multiple times and pushes for skilled use versus mindless healing.)

(Mechanic Changes)
-Preparedness made baseline, helps thieves with decision making since we use a universal cooldown which is quickly spent in most builds.
-Smoke field + Leap = 2 seconds of stealth, reason is to push for no perma-stealth use as it is quite silly and should be removed from all professions except in the case of multiple allies benefiting one another with such effects. For the sake of thief, this is mainly for bps -> hs but you would still be able to use its combo for damage purposes.
-Smoke field + Blast change, blast finisher’s that damage will apply their damage before stealth is applied. Purpose of this change is to make support stealth a little more reliable. Just like how some builds can pump out various boons real quick you can better reposition your group with this.
-Attacking from stealth and being blocked/evaded or missing (blind) will visually apply a small dark shroud around your character that foes can see, similar to necromancer’s shroud but more faded. This does not remove stealth effects from you, it only punishes constant attempts to attack while stealthed, and as such thief stealth skills were buffed to be more rewarding.

Trickery Steal enhancements, utility and condition applications.
(Minor)
[Kleptomaniac] Change Steal 1 boon on (Successful) steal. (little bonus to your theft, goal is to make the trickery trait line more on overall steal enhancements rather than placing all the necessary effects into major traits).
[Preparedness] Removed Made basline, new effect, When disabled you can toss your stolen item to break stun. Doing so adds 10 seconds of recharge to steal (For those times when you have a stolen item you really don’t care for, but think it will eventually serve a purpose, here you go.)
[Lead attacks] Fine as is.

(Adept)
[Uncatchable] Change Increase bleeding duration to 5 seconds, disable while out of combat. (since condi thief got left in the dust and there is no reason to force combat stance from this trait (really annoying when roaming), just a small tweak to bring it up a little)
[Flanking Strikes] Fine as is, great trait for initial bursts.
[Thrill of the Crime] Fine as is, another great trait for support and boon uptime although the 1 might seems negligable.

(Master)
[Trickster] Fine as is, honestly most people underappreciate this trait, mostly because of tricks being pretty weak but rfi and withdraw work great with this.
[Bountiful Theft] Change Change functionality to strip all stacks of a boon. Additionally whenever you steal a boon you share it with nearby allies. Lower boon stealing to 1 boon on steal. (This change enhances the stealing capability of boons versus giving it the functionality on using steal. )
[Pressure Striking] Change Immobilizing a foe inflicts torment (2 stacks, 5 seconds). (Immobilize is far more available than interrupts via p/x, s/x, and DV and even [Panic Strike], it just fits thief better than interruption which ties to no condition weapon set. Slight nerf due to heavier access).

(Grandmaster)
[Bewildering Ambush] Change Increase confusion duratin to 7 seconds. (Although confusion isn’t a very accessible condition for thieves it atleast adds to a condition burst. Given its poor accessibility a small bump to duration).
[Sleight of Hand] Fine as is, great trait for almost any build.
[Quick Pockets] Change Gain initiative when you swap weapons in combat. Weapon swapping happens faster. (-5 seconds on weapon swap, 2 initiative gain on swap). (Having to compete against sleight of hand, this trait needs some attention and letting a thief act quicker with weapon skills is a good step for that.)

Weapon Skills
(Dagger)
-Auto Attack: Change added effect “while dual wielding daggers utilize your off-hand dagger for the 3rd hit to apply an additional stack of poison” (Added effects for dual wielding to work deeper into the “dual skill” feeling that thief is known for.)

-Stealth: Change Increase power scale to 1.5 (3.0 from behind). (a slight damage adjustment given the difficulty landing this skill and stealth nerf, aimed for power dagger).

-Heartseeker: Fine as is.

-Deathblossom: Change Now a skill shot, increase distance traveled by 100 units, increase evasion duration to .5 seconds. (QoL changes to give d/d a build in defense)

-Shadow Shot: Fine as is.

-Dancing Dagger: Change Increase projectile speed (25%?), Remove cripple effect, add condition spread on enemy bounces (1 condition caried from foe to foe on a bounce) (no reason for cripple since HS is a much better gap closer and it was far to short to even bother having, this would give d/d a stronger presense against groups especially with p/d.)

-Cloak And Dagger: Change Add AoE blind on successful hit, Increase vulnerability stacks to 5. (Helps d/d power set up a little stronger vs d/p’s HS->bps and gives a better reward to a rather difficult skill.

(Pistol)
-Auto Attack: Change Increase power scale to .55, added effect “While dual wielding pistols alternate shots for 10% faster auto attack speed.”

-Stealth: Change piercing shots, increase bleeding duration to 7 seconds (with no ricochet, give it some “heat seeking” advantage since it is really easy to soak up with minions. Bleed increase due to auto attack change and stealth nerf).

-Body Shot: Change If you hit an enemy facing you, inflict vulnerability (5 stacks for 6 seconds), while flanking you instead immobilize them (1.5 seconds). (Gives the skill some threat level to weaken attackers and punish those who flee).

-Unload: Change Add effect that while enemies are inflicted with vulnerability each shot from unload will ricochet to nearby foes up to 2 times. (this adds a small amount of skill to make use of but is far more in control to be indefinite vs randomly like the old ricochet.)

-Shadow Stike: No change, fine as is, great gap opener.

-Headshot: No change, great interupt skill and very responsive.

-Black Powder Shot: Change Now a skill shot to fire an AoE blind at a desginated location. Increase field duration to 5 seconds. Increase pulse cycle to once per 1 second. AoE size increased to 180 units. All damage relocated into the field shot on impact. (The goal here is to make bps-> hs cycle less attractive as it lead to a lot of hate for thieves and to give this skill a sort of denial effect instead. WIth a larger field, faster blind cycle and longer lasting field it can take out some heavy fire from ranged enemies and with a few changes to stealth stacking it can maintain the stealth combo without becoming excessive).
(Sword)
-Stealth: Change daze your foe (2.5 seconds) if you hit them from the front, remove 2 boons if you hit them from a flanking position. (Blind isn’t necessary on a sword/x build, you either have bps which is far stronger and reliable to use since s/p has no stelath access in it, or you evade as sword/dagger. With boon stripping sword/x, primarily s/d, becomes an anti-boon weapon for thieves which can give them a little role in team fights for gutting any build dependant on them.)

-Infiltrator’s Strike/Return: No change, fine as is.

-Pistol Whip: Change Increase power scale to 4.0 in pve and 3.8 in pvp. Increase initiative cost to 6 in pve and 7 in pvp. Increase stun duration to .75 seconds. (given the difficulty landing this skill it should act as a large damage dealer with a set up. For pve it pushes for a rotation rather than stacking and spamming, and for pvp it pushes for a rotation as well with a large pay off.)

-Flanking Strike: Change If you evade an attack with this skill, LS becomes unblockable. (Simply making it unblockable for pvp purposes makes the effort to skilled use go away. At least this way it rewards good use all the while making some sort of sense (you evade something, exposing their weak spot with a swift strike)).

-Larcenous Strike: Change Increase boon stealing to 2. (Simple push for s/d thief to be the anti-boon build for a good team role.)

(Shortbow)
-Stealth: Change AoE around your target now on hit (80 unit AoE). Same immobilize duration. (Basically a rounding up skill plus sb is an AoE ranged weapon for thief.)

-Cluster Bomb: Change Increase bomb velocity (50%?), increase range back to 1200 (Very slow moving and difficult to land, currently the only good use is for blasting a field at your feet. Revert old nerf as it served no purpose other than removing thief from anti-seige duty in wvw.)

-Disabling Shot: Change Increase cripple duration to 4 seconds. (Better gap opener, simple change given its clunky use)

-Choking Gas: Change Increase poison duration to 3 seconds. (even with very high poison duration increase this skill fits nothing other than a poison field atm. The duration is not enough to do anything significant noticable and should be buffed.)

-Infiltrator’s Arrow: Change Reduce initaitive cost to 5. (Bump to thief mobility to keep them on the top of the list)

Shadow Arts (stealth enhancements and support)
(Minor)
[Merciful Ambush] Removed [Shadow’s Embrace] Remove 1 condition upon entering stealth and 1 condition every 3 seconds you maintain stealth. (Has been and basically always will be the primary trait of choice in shadow arts, can’t really change it without making it no longer an option. Also return it to its former power)
[Meld With shadows] Change Stealth you apply lasts 1 second longer. Gain 1 initiative upon entering stealth. (Lesser return of an old trait, and gives a little more flare to better seperate thief stealth and general stealth..)
[Resiliance of Shadows] Fine as is, great sturdiness for SA.

(Adept)
[Last Refuge] Changed When you drop below 25% health, remove revealed effects. Shadow Refuge now revives allies. Revival percent 17% per pulse. (Strong support option for support thieves)
[Concealed Defeat] No Change, fine as is.
[Shadow’s Embrace] Moved to adept minor

(Master)
[Leeching Venoms] Change Moved to adept tier. Adjust leeching to apply per venom charge, not only once per attack.(No reason to have this restriction in place. Moved to adept tier to distinguish builds using SA (venomshare or stealth))
[Hidden Thief] Fine as is, insta cast stealth ain’t bad even at 3 seconds. Added movement buff helps even more.
[Shadow Armor] New Master trait Drop a black powder shot upon disable. Smoke fields you generate reduce incoming condition duration by 10% while standing in them. BPS ICD 30 seconds. (Yet another support option for thieves and a little retaliation towards disabling effects.)
[Shadow Protector] Change Applying stealth grants regeneration for 10 seconds. ICD 15 seconds. When you start reviving an ally you both gain 3 seconds of stealth. (3 seconds of regen is pathetic and only works on the cheesy d/p stealth cycle. Just add an ICD on applying regeneration and it’ll be fine, perma regen is already possible on a ton of professions.)

(Grandmaster)
[Cloaked In shadows] Change [Shadow Walk] Ignore movement impairing conditions while in stealth (does not remove them, only lets you ignore their effects while in stealth). Evasion while in stealth applies stability (2 stacks for 2 seconds). (Turns stealth into a fast predator effect to reposition and attack. Ofcourse it comes at the price of giving up SR, but now you get the choice of offense or defensive stealth GM).
[Shadow’s Rejuvenation] Change Gain health upon entering stealth and regenerate health while in stealth. Healing upon stealth ~900(0.22). Healing per second in stealth ~180(0.1). (With meld with shadows granting better initiative control, and now rewarding entering stealth vs sitting in it, I think this trait would get a lot less hate and it actually would bring more healing for those who quickly enter and exit stealth.)
[Venomous Aura] Change Whenever you apply a venom skill, grant nearby allies 3 charges of skelk venom (does not stack beyond 15). Venom skills recharge 20% faster. (This removes the overpowering effect that DV, spider or skale venom has being applied by a multiple of 5 and still gives very strong group support option for thief as it still deals damage while also healing allies. Venom related traits still apply through this. )

Acrobatics (Focuses on mobility and fluid actions).
(Minor)
[Expeditious Dodger] Fine as is, no change.
[Feline Grace] Change When you successfully evade an attack gain 10 endurance back. ICD 1 second. (The change to FG sorta turned vigor into a skill-less boon having such a high uptime. The duration was never a problem, it could last 100 seconds and still suffer the same problem. A flat endurance return was far stronger and should of just been adjusted to not reward spamming. This would work on endurance and weapon skill evasion but be limited with an ICD so chain evasion wouldn’t be rewarded especially with the DD traits. With less return and an ICD I think this trait would be fairly balanced).
[Endless Stamina] Change Vigor effects you apply are enhanced by 50% and remove 1 condition. (Gives BT a boost, gives VR a boost, and gives acrobatics some skilled condition removal.)

(Adept)
[Fleet Shadow/Instant Reflexes] Removed [Swift Observation] When you succesfully evade an attack, gain a stacking buff that increase critical hit chance by 3% for 5 seconds. This effect stacks 5 times. (Stealth isn’t an effect acrobatics should focus on. The objective of this new trait is to give a more sturdy thief the option to maintain critical effects slightly better but must rely on a very active cycle that wears off quickly. I suggest removing instant reflexes only because thief isn’t a passive profession, and shouldn’t be moved in that direction what so ever.)
[Vigorous Recovery] Change Increase vigor duration to 7 seconds. (Change to Feline grace and endless stamina makes this trait relevant once again but change in feline grace also makes vigor uptime much less so a small bump in duration to VR)
[Pain Response] Change [Shadow Leap] Increase shadow step distance by 300 units. When you shadowstep, gain superspeed for 2 seconds. (With vigor removing 1 condition baseline for acrobatics, VR already covers the condition removal in the adept tier, plus this trait is imo too simple and can proc at any time you meet the threshold with 1 of the conditions which would better be served for a condition burst. Simply put, its not controllable. This new trait gives a little extra mobility to put thief up towards the top of mobility.)

(Master)
[Swindler’s equilibrium] Fine as is imo, I think the ICD is balanced on the fact that it only works with spear and sword, plus the added damage bonus is nice of them to add.
[Hard to Catch] Change Apply an AoE blind at your location after you are teleported away. Blind duration 1.5 seconds. Blind radius 240 units. Number of targets 5. (Good trait otherwise, but the potential to teleport into enemy AoE is very real, so a little defense to adjust yourself after being warped into the unknown.)
[Guarded Initiation] Removed No use for such a trait. Far to weak and honestly makes little to no sense for thief since we barely maintain full health.

(Grandmaster)
[Assassin’s Reward] Change Moved to master tier, but recent update gives quite a nice healing. without being too much.)
[Distracting Theft] New Trait Whenever you steal a boon, apply vulnerability to your foe and increase your boon duration by 5% for 10 seconds. This effect stacks 3 times. Vulnerability duration 3 stacks for 8 seconds. (Primarily meant for S/d and brings back boon duration to the trait line in the form of an acrobatic themed build.)
[Don’t Stop] Fine as is, great momentum trait although pretty similar to [Unhindered combatant]…. Should probably change 1 of them.
[Upper hand] Change Reduce ICD to 2 seconds. (small buff to keep it comparable to the support option and the momentum that [Don’t Stop] offers. Not sure the perma regeneration was necessary or what it was meant to do.

Hello and welcome to my long list of changes to thief. The inspiration comes from being a thief since launch and having put a lot of effort into learning the class not just on what I believe it should be, but watching how others play it or against it and what makes them unique and enjoyable. I’ve been very active up until the launch of Heart of Thorns but even afterwards I kept a close eye on patches and reviews of thief and its gameplay.

The short version of what I believe thief to be, is out of date. They simply do not get any real attention unless something was completely broken which hasn’t been for years. They don’t excel at anything at this point, which is a real bother and as much as the idea of letting any profession fit into any role sounded, 3.5 years ago, it isn’t practical.

Bottom line, they don’t have anything going for them. However, that does NOT mean flat buffs to anything is going to solve anything. They need to be updated, simply increasing a value or reducing a cooldown isn’t going to help. That is the goal of this list. I do not own heart of thorns so I will not provide any suggestions towards the daredevil specialization however I kept them in mind so I wouldn’t (or at least avoid doing so) making any overpowering combinations. With that in mind, onto the list.

Deadly Arts (Deals with condition applications and pure power)
(Minor)
[Serpent’s Touch] Change Same poison on steal application, remove poison application while downed and increase poison duration by 10%. (No purpose to buff the downed state as it doesn’t produce anything healthy for any class. Part of this change comes from a rework of the GM trait potent poison.)
[Lotus Poison] Fine as is. Kinda simple but it gives a good condition.
[Exposed Weakness] Change to gain might for 5 seconds for every unique condition you apply to a foe (if you apply bleeding you gain 1 might, if you apply bleeding again before the 1st wears off or if they have bleeding from another source, it does not apply might. Goal here is to work with a hybrid build’s initial burst, but is held back by not reapplying to crazy numbers without putting yourself in harms way. )

(Adept)
[Dagger Training] Change Increase power and condition duration by 5% for each dagger you equip. Dagger off-hand skills refund 1 initiative if they land. (Helps x/d and defines d/d a little better given that its a hybrid set.)
[Mug] Fine as is, no change.
[Trapper’s Respite] Imo fine as is, trap at the end of the heal just means you have to think a little more about placement but for HiS it works great.

(Master)
[Deadly Trapper] Fine as is, trap augment.
[Panic Strike] Fine as is, great utility for power or condition
[Revealed Training] Change Add 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds upon reveal in addition to 200 power. (Return of an old trait and helps secure a burst a little better not being knocked around. Big helper for D/x sturdiness. )

(Grandmaster)
[Potent Poison] Change Remove poison duration and instead increase condition duration by 20%. (Brings condition thief a little more in line especially having lost the 30% from the trait line and not having access to burn.)
[Executioner] Fine as is. Powerful trait for power thief.
[Improvisation] Change Stealing reduces the cooldown of currently recharging skills by 15 seconds. This amount is spread across all recharging skills. (if you have 3 skills on cooldown, those 3 are reduced by 5 seconds, if it is 2 skills it will be 7 and 8 seconds from left to right on the skill bar. This does not apply to steal itself). The rng element is not acceptable for a class so hell bent on precision and agility and the double items made for a dull attempt to spice the trait up while unfortunatly overpowering (and in a few cases nerfing) some stolen skills. This new trait acts as a momentum rather than a 1/5 chance to give you extreme power or extreme disapointment.)

Critical Strikes (Primarily on critical strikes and initial engaugments).
(Minor)
[Keen Observer] Change 50% chance to gain 1 initiative on critical hit while under the effects of fury. ICD 3 seconds. (Fury augment which fits the theme of this trait line and also gives better initiative management. The old trait was based on a rather difficult threshold not to mention wasn’t that great to begin with.)
[Unrelenting Strikes] Fine as is. Great synergy with NQ
[Ferocious Strikes] Fine as is, great for initial burst.

(Adept)
[Flawless Strike] Fine as is. Simple yet effective trait for initial bursts.
[Side Strike] Removed [Dual Wounds] Apply vulnerability by double stacks. (if you would normall apply 1 stack for 6 seconds, you now apply 2 stacks for 6 seconds. Makes thief burst much more violent but overall thief still does not have a long vulnerability duration.
[Signets of Power] Change add effect to apply the active of assassin’s signet after defeating a foe, ICD 15 seconds. (This makes the yolo thief build much stronger in team fights when they transition from 1 enemy to the next so if they risk sticking around, at least they get some force behind it.)

(Master)
[Ankle Shots] Removed [Fast Draw] When you weapon swap to a pistol fire a headshot at your target. Increase range with pistol skills by 150 units. (This gives slotting a pistol (off-hand or main hand) a bit more utility while also increasing the range which thieves do not have much of.)
[Practiced Tolerance] Fine as is.
[Sundering Strikes] Change No longer requires critical hits to proc, now 50% chance to apply vulnerability for 8 seconds. (Thief doesn’t have a whole lot of AoE and they can’t stick in melee combat for too long without backing out to recover or reposition, so the old duration simply wasn’t anything you could maintain + it was already restricted on crits only.)

(Grandmaster)
[No Quarter] Change When you apply a critical hit under the effects of fury, you apply fury to nearby allies as well. Fury you apply increases ferocity by 200. Fury duration 2 seconds. Radius of effect 240 units. Max number of allies 5. (Give thief some supportive offense and a reason to be considered frontline with the ability to pump out endless fury for allies.)
[Invigorating Precision] Change Gain health whenever you criticaly hit a foe. Gain healing power based on your precision. Health gain 120(.04*). Healing power based on precision 15%. (A new twist on a trait that simply could not be good enough without being too good. This works alongside healing power rather than critical damage which was and never could be paired together. Between zealots and magi or even just having healing power and fury you could now get some serious healing from this trait against multiple targets with aoe skills.)
[Hidden Killer] Change Gain 100% critical hit chance while in stealth. Stealth skills are now unblockable but cost 1 initiative. (Turns stealth skills into a higher reward but higher risk while also pushing for well timed use rather than spamming. Small tweak to stealth skills also)

Would be nice if they did, pretty much behaves the same way conditions used to where anymore than 1 condition build wasn’t necessary because they would overwrite one another, why should venoms be different?

If you are new to thief, and trying to bring your skills to pvp, I suggest staying far from ranked. Heck even unranked, put some builds together you like or look some up for inspiration and try them in the lobby lists to see what you lack and what you are good with and work your way up from there.

You will die, a lot. You will run, a lot. You will wonder what all that effort is meant for just to get a kill, a lot. But if you enjoy the class you can at the very best just sigh and move on.

I don’t know OP, your suggesting to add a lot of effects to current skills that simply don’t need to be there like projectile reflection on death blossom, torment on hs, or a piercing immobilizing projectile for sword 2. Thief needs buffs, yes, but more so improvements to QoL and bringing outdated skills/mechanics to par with others.

There is a lot to comment on so I will try to summarize it, you say you don’t want a thief that will get nerfed for the next 3 years but such suggestions would do just that. There is a fine distinction between being unique and being overpowered, and with the current profession balance, they should prioritize fixing the over powered (nerfs) and then work on making professions like thief unique. Not giving thief an insane amount of tools to use to add to the power creep, we need less of that not more.

Also don’t forget the resources needed to change thief to this degree, its unnecessary to rework every little detail, especially when not every little detail on thief is bad. For example I don’t think people would say backstab is a weak skill, however the set up behind it only to be outperformed by easier skills makes some people see it that way when what should happen is skills like that should be dialed back.

Balance wasn’t that great prior to HoT and then they added a whole bunch of mechanics to further the damage. All of this could of been avoided if we had regular balance patches and hotfixes to broken builds.

As much as a rework thief needs, I think some of these ideas come off as a bit too strong or out of the norm. Like adding quickness and an unblockable blind and fury to an auto attack chain is…. excessive. I do agree thief needs reworks on some high levels but not this high.

I 100% agree with the philosophies that thief should stand out in its builds since sticking to the basic structures of things like conditions, stealth and evasion simply do not work well with the thief mechanics but at the same time there needs to be some similarities so such mechanics can be balanced across the professions that have access to them. Altering them is based on traits, it shouldn’t naturally be unique otherwise.

In response to title, its been a good time to revert the nerfs for a very long time. Thief hasn’t all the suddent fallen off, its been doing so for a long time and only a handful of people have managed to keep its use around.

Thief hasn’t been an optimal choice in anything for sometime now, mobility hardly meant anything once people opened their eyes and realized, “all (s)he does is run and decap….”

Why is the cost the same for a new player and for those who purchased the original gw2 and been with it since the beginning?

I remember when loyalty meant something in video games other than getting yet another birthday Queen Jennah….

Oh the screaming OP wants to do in those emails… don’t let em in the office without security

I love the “all the above changes” part. Makes me giggle…

Highlie.7641:

your best bet is just to log on and try it yourself honestly. just know you are going to die. alot

I haven’t purchased the expansion because of various reasons, so trying it out isn’t really something I can do. I was already used to “dying a lot” but from the looks of posts and keeping up to date on patches it seems like it has only gotten worse for thieves but that is why I’m asking vs assuming.

I’ve seen many posts basically saying thief and pvp are no longer a combo, does that mean our 1 and only role, if you can call it that, was no longer useful by any means? Also has or dps been gutted to where we cannot snipe squishy targets anymore or are squishy targets non-existent in a typical match up?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Einlanzer.1627:

I’d like to know if it’s because they’re completely inept at their job or if it’s because they are restricted from posting by their management (meaning their management is inept at their jobs).

That’s part of it why it is really strange since they we’re very active in the forum prior to HoT’s release.

Probably trying to get as much feedback as possible so they could give the image of success for their expansion. I mean think about it, people had beta access which meant they could share their experiences through streaming/posting which gives the average consumer (those who did not pre-order) an idea of whether its worth buying or not.

By showing extra attention and addressing even a few issues makes it seem worthwhile except for those who have been with this game since launch know better than to fall victim to wishful thinking. I sat back, let the beta’s roll through and read posts and pretty much on launch day I quit as there was no enjoying the game without the expansion and that alone was IMHO the worst mistake anet has done. Greed obviously had the upper hand here because loyal customers meant nothing anymore, you made an expansion cost $60 even if you had the original GW2 and locked just about everything new and exciting to HoT.

Where was the “thank you for sticking around”? Still remember when daredevil was announced and almost everyone was ecstatic for it not realizing until weeks later it was acrobatics 2.0 and the entire reason why acrobatics got gutted and reworked so poorly.

Email me when HoT goes to <$20, maybe I’ll consider it then.

The day of the expansion release I came to the conclusion that there was little to no enjoyable way to play the game without purchasing the expansion. Not only were the new things relating to OLD content locked behind the expansion but pvp, the only thing I had left to do (15k+ AP’s) became a battle over the new specializations and my favorite class (thief) became dependent on acrobatics 2.0 to keep up.

I managed to suck it up for a very long with this game and still made up random builds for thief just to spice it up but in the end, other builds became far easier to win with and lets face it, winning is fun. I don’t mind the occasional loss but repeated defeats to kittens like Mesmer’s blowing people up from stealth to engineers condition melting people to burn guardians and power necros face tanking while demolishing anyone foolish enough to tackle them, etc etc I’ll get to the point.

Still have the game, and a lot accomplished in it so it was hard to quite hard to quit. Still, I have the occasional urge to re-enter but fear what I left is either still very much at large or grown to an even uglier experience. I’ve tried reading various posts from sub-forums but it’s hard to sift through the reposted topics and mountain of complaints on bugs and balance. So I ask my fellow thief players and anyone else… whats new and enjoyable?

Is the new pve reasonably challenging or is it locked to a certain kind of “speed clear” non-sense that only hardcore zerker’s can enter?

Is pvp still forcing thieves into the 1 role and 1 build or is build diversity even on the horizon of being explored? Of course many things are playable but I’m asking if our optimal build diversity is being opened up?

Are there any cool skins for rouge archetypes or do we still get the constant traveler and gunslinger kitten?

Is guild wars 2 in general worth going back to?

Perfect way to describe why I don’t play anymore. Try to push myself to rejoin given how much I have done but… the nerfs….

Some people are obviously stronger than me for sticking around despite the nerfs but I have simply given up. I tried random “sandwiches” to spice up my gameplay but at the end of it all, thief is a dying class and being my absolute main class, is really demoralizing. I’m glad to see a tid bit more interaction with thief with Karl but it simply is not enough with how well the other profession’s are performing in our fields of expertise and I have no tolerance with a company that forces you to change your way of thinking to enjoy its product.

You brought me in on an exciting and enjoyable thought only to take it away with nothing in return. R.I.P

-agreed
-not sure how that helps d/d…
-something should be added, I agree like drastically reduced condition duration or something to make a sitting duck less road kill.
-I don’t think they should bother with revealed durations, rather they give us out of stealth defenses so we aren’t forced to cower in the shadows just to stay in a fight.
-I think we have plenty of ways to stealth, just not all of them are as simple as d/p which imho is good.
-Don’t need invuln on it, just make the EVADE frame reliable and turn death blossom into a skill shot like warrior Gs #3 so we can use it for positioning and not just dancing towards a moving target.
-Agreed, could make “petrify” remove stability or be considered “unblockable” so its a little more unique than a fancy term for stun.

I salute you karl for stepping in this sub forum!

Still thief is a dying hope for me… but at least you make an effort.