Guild Wars 2

Don’t matter if you have 1k or 24k AP, if someone kicking you only for that reason then laugh at their ignorance and move on. Some people are just kittens, can’t avoid them all.

Some nice ideas flowing here. I’d like to add that trait relocations can be just as important as trait changes. For example, I kind of dislike how the adept and master tiers of many specilizations have very obvious choices, a result of either alternatives sucking or being overshadowed by a very strong choice that you can’t build without.

There are a lot of traits that don’t see the light of day because their effects don’t stack up to their neighbor(s). Makes it annoying when trying to build something new and different.

Nephrite.6954:

Oh yeah! Another idea is place the old Feline Grace in GM or master trait to choose from. Maybe change the current Feline Grace to Power Of Inertia :p. They still didn’t give us the 10-20% extra promised heal for Withdraw. Get your cat straight A-Net. Potent Poison still makes me giggle once in a while.

I’ve been messing with potent poison. Only reason I see it working atm (hot join, little unranked) is because I know thief, not because the build offers a whole lot but the perma-poison uptime on groups is pretty helpful.

I agree with most of those except the s/p #3 and pistol 1 skill.

Vulnerability helps only if you’re able to apply it in some noticeable amount and follow it with consistent attacks. For power it would be great, but conditions would no longer have that extra damage which becomes very noticeable when you go from relying some extra bleeding to none at all unless you stealth. Sneak attack is very predictable since p/d or p/p doesn’t have any reliable way of staying in stealth for more than 4 seconds, and the bullets are visible from the start so its very easy to just dodge and get hit by 1 or 2 bullets vs all 5.

I think they need to just relocate the bleeding duration to the stealth skill but keep some on the AA and slightly buff its power coefficient. The only build utilizing sneak attack is condition which uses stealth so it makes sense to make it more noticeable and turn the auto attack to a sustained flow of dps for both build types rather than somewhat helping 1 build and really helping another.

As for s/p, this skill is potentially spammable and can deal some serious damage. The windup is there for to require some effort to land it, best way to secure a landing is start with IS.

I just wish we could have something other than dps that works. Thief feels like the downed state, just fight till you die and the few thieves (not just thieves do this) that hit and run as soon as the fight gets ugly, it really contributes nothing towards inviting new players to thief or people to keep it for anything other than a relic.

They really should push thief into a sort of relocation profession, dirty fighter if you will. By this I mean having options similar to necro in turning good things bad, similar to Mesmer in sharing your bounty of boons, similar to engineer in the sense of having a wide range of tools to adapt to the situation rather than being 1 specialty. I don’t want to be a medium armor guardian with a fraction of the sustain and cower in stealth to re-enter the fight. Old acrobatics had this feeling but the air/fire sigil combo kind of ruined its skill level when you can IS in, dish out a few thousand damage and port out over and over with a surplus of brain dead evasion. Nevertheless, it was our 1 alternative to sitting in stealth and that’s essentially gone.

Kicker.8203:

Reece.7341:

Black Powder – Smoke Field to a Dark Field

this is maybe a bit too harsh but HSing through smoke field is way too cheesy indeed
(if you move stealth to d/p 3 they wont have any way to party stealth without refuge, would feel like justice as S/D tho)

They really should find a way to remove repetitive stealth (in the case of d/p) so they can’t hang that over our heads as being the best stealth class. The only thing that CnD has over BPS→HS is that meld with shadows effects it, but the reliability of constantly adding 3 seconds vs potentially missing 4 seconds is clear as day.

I just wish there was better methods of skillful stealth and repositioning as well as entering/exiting stealth bonuses rather than having to sit in it. It’s boring to play, and boring to play against.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

To make all pets viable and actually work; Increase melee attack range to 300. Increase base run speed by +20%. Decrease all non-attack cast times to 1/4s. Halve all attack cast times. Give pets the Playing Favorites mechanic as baseline. Done.

Playing Favorites would be a nice solution for pets dying in zergs and boss encounters. Completely forgot they had that in game O.o

We have plenty of ways to stay on target, nty. What we don’t have are strong ways to stay alive while chasing said target. cough condition removal cough viable non-stealth sustain cough

I’d rather not bring d/d up to par with d/p and promote some healthy decision making, d/p is way to easy to use. Like its been suggested, swap vulnerability with blind on CnD would be an incredible improvement all the while they can remove Cloaked in shadows and think of something new that can actually compete with SR and VA.

The only skill that ever needed blind-on-stealth was cnd anyways.

Idk how you can fill up enough consumables to make it a problem but in a way you already have a consumable bar. Heck, its better than that its a permanent bank access consumable just costs a ridiculous amount.

Helps to have a somewhat high sensitivity mouse to turn camera in a split second and direct it. I’ve tried the about face key (turns your camera 180 degrees) but I feel a slight pause and sometimes trying to combine the 2 I actually withdraw back and then turn around (could just be skill lag). Either way, turning my mouse around hasn’t failed me yet but you have to get used to a somewhat quick turning camera.

Confusion change was so stupid. All they had to do is make potential stacking amounts higher and remove the on-skill use damage effect for basic weapon skills and it would of been fine, confusion was made to punish the affected player from using their skill bar, now its just another list of DoT for Mesmer to kite you with and honestly the DoT is more potent than the damage on skill use sinice you spend so much time running towards them after they port.

apocom.3172:

Zero Day.2594:

And underwater skills.

What?

That list of skills you get when you go under the surface of water? I think they’ll nerf stealth underwater, we have too much of it.

As far as fleet shadow being merged to cloaked in shadows, I still think that trait is in a poor position being tied with SR and VA. They should consider bringing something different to the table and get CiS out of there. Here is how I envision SA for the 2 purposes its best known for.

-[Adept Minor] Merficul Ambush: Same as is, very nice trait placement gives thieves an incentive to be in the fight vs on the edges.

-[Adept Major] Last Refuge: Changed to “Remove revealed effects and gain [Throw Feathers] as your stolen item”. This way the stealth can be used at your timing and not in the middle of an attack and more importantly, it can guarantee safety having removed Revealed.

-[Adept Major] Shadow’s Embrace: Revert to old form, remove 1 condition on stealth and 1 every 3 seconds. There was no reason to change this trait.

-[Adept Major] Concealed Defeat: Move to Master selection, with LR being the “get out of jail” card and SE being the primary defensive trait in this selection, it is easily overshadowed.

-[Master Minor] Meld with Shadows: Same 1 second duration on stealths, add effect "Move faster while stealthed. 66%. (This is where SA starts to turn thieves into a hunter by allowing quicker engaugments)

-[Master Major] Shadow Protector: Bump duration back to 10 seconds. Add 10 second ICD on regeneration application (regardless of who you applied it to). Simple, 3 seconds is not noticeable.

-[Master Major] Hidden Thief: Return blinding powder on steal use (+ blinding powder on falling damage trait), this made steal much stronger on initiation but was easily countered by the fact that you would see a thief disappear from a distance and you were blinded instantly. It was just nice to have a little AoE defense on engagement even if it was for a short second.

-[Master Major] Leeching Venoms: Lowered to adept trait line to differentiate stealth support and venom support a little more. Given the current idea of venoms, condition builds are better off not using them so losing the option of SE or LR turns venom builds more into a out-of-stealth support(it’d be nice to see some support venoms vs only dps support; like karka venom!).

-[Grandmaster Minor] Resiliance of Shadows: Same as is.

-[Grandmaster Major] Cloaked In Shadows: Removed, Blind on stealth placed onto Cloak And Dagger (the only skill that every needed this effect) and falling damage portion repositioned to hidden thief. New trait [Shadow Form] Gain stability when you are revealed and your initiative is above the threshold. Threshold 6 initiative. Stability duration 3 seconds. ICD 5 seconds. Gives x/d some sturdiness while making d/p less likely to receive these effects given the initiative spent to enter stealth.

-[Grandmaster Major] Shadow Rejuvenation: Add 1 initiative upon entering stealth and 1 every 4 seconds. Reason being you are better rewarded for entering/leaving stealth vs sitting in it.

-[Grandmaster Major] Venomous Aura: Same as is, venoms need fixing but this trait cannot help that.

Didn’t meant to steal thread, but just want to give an idea of how to give a line of options for SA and find a place for fleet shadow other than trying to pin it to a trait that never sees the day of light. Same way I think the flow of traits in acrobatics should support more than 1 build type so non-stealth defenses can become a little more popular than they were before in respect to s/p and p/p.

You can make as many traits baseline across all professions be the same and I highly doubt it would fix any sort of balance. The issue isn’t traits being made baseline, although I agree some (Mesmer) had far to many making the opportunity costs of build x y and z almost become xyz at once. The issue is some traits/skills/weapons just flat out suck and in most cases people are left with very few options that work outside of your opponent being a kitten.

Idk how many posts are made on fixing profession X, or whoever but there are some really well thought out suggestions that could at least tested out to see how it works with the players. Sitting on their hands till they go numb trying to figure out how long until they take action on balance issues hasn’t been working for the last 3 years, try something. ANYTHING!

Iavra.8510:

I think having ranger pets, thief thieves and engi turrets breaking stealth is only fair, then.

Find me a thief using AI and I’ll bet you they would have no problem with that. Most likely because they are already not caring for slotting those skills over the reliable skills.

tobascodagama.2961:

NinjaEd.3946:

You realize that mantra of distraction has 2 casts right(3 if traited)? Add CS and it is a huge reason why people hate mesmers.

Ok, so then why is this thread about stealth?

That coupled with the fact that:

OMFG, Elementalists have TWENTY weapon skills on their bar at all times! So OP!

I didn’t make the thread, was responding to the person who think that clones running towards someone is as simple as avoiding them by walking away when there is CS and mantra of distraction.

Not sure what your second part is referring to. I listed a bunch of strengths that can be found on 1 single build, a build many people run (or some very close variation) and are ******** at for it. If you wana talk about twenty weapon skills being the reason ele is op you clearly aren’t here for a rational discussion.

serenke.4806:

Cynz.9437:

bhagwad.4281:

Can you imagine the outcry if thief got invulnerable frames? . I’m sure thieves would love it though…

and aoe backstab from range… and mutiple ranged stuns dealing 3k dmg that cost 0 initiative… and unavoidable blinds

no, we wouldn’t love it… it would just make pvp totally broken and unenjoyable~

If you see a bunch of illusions running towards you, you can expect to be blown up so dodge or evade it? Oh you get stunned before it lands? Use a stunbreak. You have none? Why not?

You realize that mantra of distraction has 2 casts right(3 if traited)? Add CS and it is a huge reason why people hate mesmers. That coupled with the fact that:

-Illusionary persona was made baseline, so they have probably the safest stomping available with their F4

-They have weapon skills that break stun and on short cooldowns.

-Can rely on phantasms to deal heavy damage while they hide in stealth

-The new torch trait allows Mesmer to restealth very rapidly, essentially rewarding them like crazy for sitting in it.

-Can get bookoo amount of protection with the chaos trait line, protection is a very strong boon.

-already mentioned but, CS is easily abused having a very very short ICD.

I’m sure there is more, but the worst part is all I listed above (minus the extra mantra charge) can be on 1 build. It’s ignorant to list a profession’s strengths all at once but all of that can be done on 1 build.

The problem is their applications, not so much the stack amount. Burn is the absolute strongest damaging condition, so when they decided to add more sources on the existing professions and in some cases even increase the durations it turned out to be a horrible decision. Nerf the durations and in a few cases the stack amounts and burn would be a whole lot more manageable.

I don’t know why they needed to increase burn durations and applicators, should of been 1 or the other not both.

Nephrite.6954:

Show us Thief! ASAP!!! Other veteran Thieves as well I can’t wait anymore. Look at Ninjaed and Swaggins for instance. Rifle/Staff argument is overflowing in the Thief thread.

Ha, I have yet to even open those threads. I’m more concerned about our pre-existing builds that adding some jester scout or monk to the mix. Anet can’t blind me with new toys, I still have the old ones!

Better than where we’re at. Some work but man oh man are they clunky and avoidable.

I like the changes, my only concern is the master major selection having too many very strong traits competing with one another while also being very similar in how they are used. I understand acrobatics is about dodging but imho, with how thief is I would always take vigorous recovery but constantly be rubbing my head thinking what would make me choose the other 2.

Competing traits are good, but competing and similar traits makes you feel like that trait line is only for 1 purpose with no room to change it up a little. Honestly I’d move fleet shadow to SA to add to one of the minor traits while keeping the 50% and bring back the trait to gain initiative on using a healing skill so p/p and s/p can get a little love in addition to acrobatics helping the defense that both lack (reduce amount gain to like 2 so s/d doesn’t become endless with initiative). To keep UH from stacking to much with this, they can add an ICD of 20 seconds so it isn’t so perfectly lined with withdraw.

Zodryn.4216:

D/D works and can spike slightly better than D/P but there are some things to keep in mind:

1: You need to learn to cancel cloak and dagger or you will waste all of your initiative and never gain stealth and consequently, backstab.

2. You can’t chase nearly as well as with D/P.

3. You can’t stealth at will unless you find some terrain that’s whackable.

4. You have poor defense since dodging was gutted and blind on stealth is in a poor spot.

4.1 No immediate blind access in general

5. Only 2/4 skills on d/d are efficient and used regularly.

Where this coming from?

PVP: Viable? Yes. Mostly decapping and stealing objectives or +1’ing a fight.Good? If you’re good on your toes.
WVW: Viable? Yes, for roaming mostly. Good? If you like roaming.
PVE: Viable? Absolutely, if you’re good on your toes. Good? Meh, others can contribute more but you’re not a crutch if you know thief well.

Overall: Thief is most certainly viable, but in comparison (at this point in time) to other professions and the roles they can fill, they aren’t really good unless you go that extra mile to really master them.

Wouldn’t be surprised if thief is left for last, which honestly I wouldn’t mind as long as the old saying “good work takes time” stays true. I’d hope the group designing our specialization is watching the uproar the last balance patch did to thief and taking notes.

Feel our pain!

Klazmaunt.2591:

Can we not have half our current pets be useless first before we talk about new pets?

^

Executioner gives you that added boost that makes thief noticeable on the team. Executioner alone doesn’t make thief but without it a lot of your damage can be neglected against moderately tanky builds that will just recover.

I always chose executioner to put me ahead of builds like that. The quicker the fight the quicker I can gtfo before someone comes and turns that 2v1 to a 2v2 and focus fire me.

I will be working at that time :/

I’d love to contribute though.

MidoriMarch.8067:

Rain.9213:

Mesmers have aoe, Necros have aoe, Warriors have aoe, Rangers have aoe, Guardians have aoe, Engineers have aoe, Eles have aoe, and even Ranger pets have some nasty aoe taunt now…. seriously. Howl with Wolf and get taunted for 2 seconds THEN feared for another 2 seconds… that seriously needs a fix.

Just voicing my frustrations at how kittened up the kitten hole us thieves are getting right now. I cant jump onto a single target without getting destroyed by aoe from every other class in the game.

I really, REALLY hope Staff helps aleviate this, if that is our elite spec weapon. Maybe give us some nasty aoe of our own cuz… cluster bomb and caltrops? Ha… yeah. Totally…

Thief got some good aoe. SB #2 and #4

and Thief doesnt mean to be aoe type of class.

Nah, but it does need some stronger ranged AoE since they can’t even approach those other AoE’s without melting. Poking with sb shouldn’t be our only answer.

Still have quickness on a 15 second cooldown and probably the highest amount of cc available to any class. If people can’t live without turning to a brute every 2 minutes just to fight there is no reason to keep their warrior.

Acrobatics was always supposed to fit one of 3 key defenses on thief, evasion. Sadly they made this depenedent heavily on Feline Grace which was nerfed to no longer grant a unique endurance regen and bring us back to normal evasion. That is a big problem, because normal evasion is what many other professions have while also having proper healing without having to cower in stealth, higher health pools, strong defensive weapon skills or utilities, or any combination of these.

If thief had some viable methods of in-combat recovery so the loss of evasion was made up or they could help restore our evasion in a skillfull manner acrobatics would resume attention. Lately I see s/d users having SA over acrobatics simply because if offers more. It seems silly but that’s the reality even though SA has tons of flaws itself it serves as a better defense over a trait line dedicated to s/d.

Are they seriously comparing warrior condition removal to thief?

Here is how condition builds deal with thief: Fire and forget and dance for the next 5 seconds. Then use either auto attack or some form of spammable AoE to locate that downed thief and finish them off or take note of the multiple numbers that are ticking across the map because said thief ran for their dear life.

Orpheal.8263:

Changes that I’d make #5

What Acrobatics Traits
Type Traits
Why Because the last Patch totally destroyed this whole Traitline!!*
How

Minor Adept
Feline Grace Moved from Minor master. Gain Swiftness upon dodging an Attack and regain 33% of your used up Endurance back instantly.
Gain Vigor on Dodge,if that Dodge empties your Endurance.
Movement Skills like Heartseeker, Infiltrators Strike or Disabling Shot work now as Stun Breakers

---

Fleet Shadow Removed, or practically merged with Elusive Thief

Pain Response Rework the Effect to give for 5s Resistance and Protection and if those Boons end, they remove then Conditions, if some are there still

Expedious Dodger Increases the Duration of your Dodge Durations from Skills and Dodge Rolls by 1 second. Gain Retaliation after a successful Dodge.

Vigous Recovery Gain Vigor on Heal Skill usage.
Increases your Healing Power based on 10% of your Power and gain Regeneration.
The Shadow Step of the Downed Skills turns into Shadow Walk, letting you move freely for some seconds, while receiving no damage

---

Minor Master
Hard to Catch Moved from Major Master, Merged with Endless Stamina

---

Guarded Initiation Gain Protection and Resistance, if you use a Weapon Skill, that costs more than 5 Initiative. While you have Protection, cost all your Skills that cost 3-4 Initiative 1 Initiative lesser

Swindler’s Equilibrium Added Daggers also to the Effect with the Effect beign more Effective, if you wield two Daggers. Merged with Bewildering Ambush from Trickery

Don’t Stop Move from Major Grandmaster

---

Minor Grandmaster
Assassin’s Reward Moved from Major Grandmaster. Merged with Upper HandEffect changed. You gain now Health, whenever you regain an Initiative.
You gain now for every 3 used Initiative Poits Might. So a 6 Ini Skill will give you directly 2 Might Stacks for 20s. Every Heartseeker would be 1 Might Stack.

---

Flourish Death Blossom deals now 100% more Damage and removes now Boons, while Heartseeker can be used now with a Line of Sight Function and deals now Damage to all foes in that Line of Sight

Tormenting Bullets Unload receives now the Effect also of Death Blossom, letting you perform a spiraling Dodge Move (Devil May Cry lets greet), while you unload at the same time your Pistols, dealing with Unload now also some Extra Bleedings or Torment, while the Distance of Shadow Strike will get increased to 900 and deals now increased Torment and Stealths you now also, if you hit a Target, that has already Torment.

Swift Blades Increases Damage of Sword Skills by 5%, Flanking Strike refills now your Endurance, while Pistol Whip will have no increased Hits from 9 to 12, lets you Gain Quickness after it for 2s and Stuns now for a full second.

Side Notes: Acrobatics should be alot more about changing, how certain Thief Skills functionize, thats why I made the 3 Major Grandmasters to Traits, that greatly affect the Gameplay of the Thief by changing, how certain Skills work. Especially to do somethign against P/P’s weakness of havign no other way to mitigate damage, other than through Blindness, giving Unload more Style through the Combo with Death Blossom, while making with that also a nice reference to DMC.
You know, this kind of Move:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmSVXsr_-bM – 7:41 Rainstorm

Wayyy out of line for thief and no need to make our movement skills break stun. Also retaliation is a terrible boon for thief, we should not want to be hit.

I like the idea of merging some traits to give us better alternatives, but there is no need to send us to god send mode based on 1 trait line. Just because anet like’s to wac-a-mole doesn’t mean we should.

babazhook.6805:

TheSwede.9512:

babazhook.6805:

Proposed potent posion would not do a lot. Poison used as a damage condition now and not just a heal inhibit meaning most will have ready access to the condition that go the poison route. 1 stack of poison is all it really amounds to.

I would suggest keep duration. Keep potentcy. Add to the trait "when posioning an enemy transfer one condition (10 second ICD on transfer)

Transferring Conditions isn’t something that’s very “Thief”-y, I’d say. It’s not something I believe that Thieves should have ready access to.

Poison is certainly a Damaging Condition, but its real strength lies just in the heal Debuff. This will make Poison coming from Thieves requiring more than 1 Cleanse to get rid of, which can be extremely Potent vs Classes who rely strongly on Healing to survive (D/D Eles, Bunker Guards).

The problem is in the current system poison is so very easy to apply. I keep it on my opponents all the time. If they cleanse it just put it back on. Virtually all my builds can do this.

Just as example my poison stacks do as much damage as bleeds.

Now another fix is increasing the potency to 20 percent but there a concern there of what that does to Venomous Aura. As example when venom share my poison with 5 others I can get 8k poison stacks. This without potentcy. I am thinking the reason they did not want to put that higher is that another 20 percent on top of that after a share would be huge.

Potent Poison should be helping people that make poison builds and not people who have little or no access to poison. With low CD on steal, dagger training, that extra strike on spider venom , we can use runes and gear to make true poison based builds and a potent poison as you outline does nothing for such a build.

It is directed towards people who do not train poison which makes little sense.

As to transferring a condition being “unthiefly” i tend to disagree. This basically a sigil of generosity as a trait. We can steal a lot of skills that would seem “unthiefly” and i do not think it a great stretch to imagine giving stuff we do not want back.

It isn’t all that different from other builds having a vast selection of conditions to apply and reapply making removing them next to impossible, or certain professions have dangerous stacking potential with burn which is far stronger than poison.

Venomshare should have no say in how to balance thief, that trait was put there long ago and trying to balance thief skills/traits based on it is ridiculous. If they are that concerned, give lesser venoms to allies rather than the full potency but to justify the grandmaster trait from an entirely different trait line based on this is silly but believable to an extent.

I’d love for condition transferring, skillful based but still. Suggested a million times to give us a venom for that (cough Karka Venom) so we have support options, not just dps support.

A potential 30% uptime on immobilize is pretty strong. Now if they were to create a lesser version of this skill for that 10 second cooldown, (we know they can do this, they did it with signet of vamp on necro) then sure.

Change: Health
What: bring lowest health tier from 11k to 13k
Why: More so for all low health tier professions, but thief being the main target since they don’t have very strong healing or access to heavy condition removal or protection making any hits very threatening.

Change: Support options
What: Improve healing power coeficients and add more methods of boon sharing/stealing
Why: Zerker or die is getting old, and condition builds are far behind on thief. I want to be rewarded for playing dirty.

Change: Venoms
What: Revert change to DV and BV when residual venom was made baseline.
Why: DV got a nerf and BV didn’t need an additional charge, it was meant for initiation and petrify is a glorified term for stun which does not stack anyways.

Change: Ice drake Venom
What: Make it “Karka Venom”, transfer a condition with your next 3 strikes.
Why: Gives a nice support option for venom share and also helps with a strong thief weakness. Also fits the thief’s dirty playstyle. Chill is very uncommon for a thief and not to mention DV is a much more solid option than ice drake as a condition.

Change: Venoms
What: Adjust cooldowns/charge amounts for venoms. (Spider 25 seconds/6 charges; Skale 35 seconds/5 charges; Skelk 40 seconds/10 charges (slightly lower healing values); Devourer 50 seconds/3 charges (1.5 seconds per hit); Basilisk 40 seconds/1 charge (petrify can no longer be removed by stun breakers, still non-stacking, lasts 1.5 seconds); Karka 40 seconds/3 charges)
Why: Not all venoms are equal, and to make better use of their corresponding traits and give venoms a little more unique effect.

Change: Meld With Shadows
What: Additional effect reduce revealed duration by 1 second as well
Why: Compared to PU although a traited effect, this trait does very little and thief should be the master of stealth outside of having “stealth” skills.

Change: AI (Thieves Guild and Ambush)
What: Double health pools, add effect to ambush “Taunt” on trigger for 2 seconds. Add effect to thieves guild Gain stealth when cast to you and your thief allies for 3 seconds.
Why: Gives them a little more of a fighting chance, ambush for that deceptive trickery, and stealth since they enter the fight doing nothing for a few seconds and cycle through an extremely predictable fighting pattern which can be avoided and in many cases, ignored entirely.

Change: Concealed Defeat
What: Swap places with shadow protector as a master trait
Why: Since shadow protector was made into a useless shamble, the difficulty of choosing between concealed defeat and shadow’s embrace is frustrating now that we can’t pick 2 adept/master traits anymore. Its good to have strong competing traits but to have an obvious tier, then a bad tier, and then an obvious tier to pick traits from isn’t sparking any diversity for SA users. Thieves using SA need SE so as nice as CD looks, I still can’t see it being used in its current place.

I wouldn’t either, I’d “perma-stealth” and strike from the shadows when they think we’ve been exterminated. Probably will get insta killed for showing my face but at least I would feel special ; ;

Best solution? Disable thief character creation and save new players the heartache of never excelling as a master of the shadows.

Then give the remaining thief players 50 gold if they delete their thief character(s) and only then will the thief haters leave us alone

Kicker.8203:

Id be more happy if they reworked the current weapon skills than releasing a new weapon type. d/p+sb is all they can buff each patch

+1 through the roof.

I’m sick of anet trying to blind us with new toys while leaving the old ones still broken. Fix what we got, then work on new things. After 3 years I feel like that should of been done but I guess keeping old content/mechanics relevant was never on their priority list.

Robert Gee is the person responsible for this putrid plague of a Mesmer balance? I will stoop down to this level to express my dissatisfaction.

-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

I don’t like to get snotty but please find a new department, or at least have the courage to admit you people made numerous mistakes with that profession and address them before 2016.

BurrTheKing.8571:

That synergy with the Arms line was why I suggested vuln on the AA, you could be procing a ton of vuln to make Volly even stronger.

As it stands, i would much rather have a GS/Hammer Warrior that is on point the whole fight and constantly CCing/cleaving than a Warrior sitting to the side trying to avoid anyone being near them.

You do realize the auto attack grants extra adrenaline gain when attacking a vulnerable foe right? That’s why I think its a wrong step not to mention rifle already has a skill built in that applies vulnerability for 100% uptime if you trait crack shot.

As for the daze, I think rifle warrior is more about blowing a target up than controlling the fight from a distance. Like you said, rifle isn’t like ranger lb its mid-long range so they can back out a little, grab a vantage point or w/e and pick someone out because honestly, who is going to be looking out for that sniper in the midst of a fight?

Most people rarely ever expect kill shot which makes it such an underestimated skill and rifle in general I think is very well made its just weapons like Gs and hammer overshadow it because they’re so kitten easy to use. Even longbow, idk if its the warrior community or just bad luck but all I ever see warrior’s do is 1-5 (in any order) and swap. It works too, for how short some of the cooldowns are and how potent they are like a 5k whirlwind attack, 6k rush, 4k fierce blow, etc.

In that aspect, they should not treat every venom equally and split the cooldowns up. Not all venoms are equal, plain and simple however some venoms are really out of place or were changed for no reason with the latest patch with one of the more laughable balance decisions that thief has been put through (making residual venom baseline but nerfing BV and DV).

Like most of them, but I see no reason to change moment of clarity, rather change the weapon sets that can utilize it. GS is the culprit because it is the only weapon set with a single hitting power skill, so why not change the weapon sets to fit that?

One way I’ve gone around that is GS SB and when I use concussion shot I swap to gs for the maul but a more reasonable approach would make 1 of the sb skills scale well off power (like crippling shot) so it can be utilized on its own. Same with path of scars, the interrupt, which is really hard to land btw, comes at the end and there is no MH to utilize that well, so perhaps give winter’s bite some teeth and have it hit harder? Trying to augment the skill effects just gets too complicated and it wouldn’t fit marksmanships brute strength, the 50% damage bonus is really nice just doesn’t flow with the ranger skills enough.

For empathic bond, I think a simpler fix would be to apply resistance to your pet by some threshold so this trait isn’t killing your pet but is still cleansing you. Condition conversion just feels odd on a ranger but that’s just me. Something like,

“Your pet periodically pulls conditions from you. Your pet receives resistance after a number of conditions are applied to it”
Conditions pulled 3
ICD 10 seconds.
Resistance application threshold 8 conditions (this includes stacking conditions)
Resistance duration 5 seconds.
Resistance ICD 10 seconds.

For Most Dangerous game, I’d almost favor something for the pet offense since there already is 1 player specific damage based trait and 1 utility based trait, the 3rd one should stand apart. Something like “Cast Sic’ Em when your target reaches 25% health” with a 60 sec ICD as a sort of finisher with your pet.

Light on your feet is fine imo, its shortbow that needs help.

Couldn’t agree more on instinctive reaction, no healing power from stats so where is the synergy? Great idea.

Natures Vengence has potential to be nice but it follows the same lousy mechanics that spirits already have, boon/condition applications with an ICD. The fury from frost spirit would be a nice band aid to work with remorseless but there is far more to do to spirits unfortunately.

IB would be a nice alternative for condition clearing, could open up a lot more pet options that have lower cooldowns on their F2.

There have been a lot of suggestions on ranger’s axe, honestly having played with it I think the AoE part should be made baseline and become a ground targeted blast finisher. Reason being it isn’t considered a projectile, and it would give a real good boost to MH axe’s kiting ability while also giving a good support add on which ranger seems to be still be short on compared to other supports.

I actually like how rifle is on warrior. My biggest inspiration was getting killed by them time to time and going to spectate to see how they funded such a build and to my surprise, it is quite good.

The auto attack most certainly is not weak, and it isn’t meant for heavy damage anyways. Put on the arms trait line for the vuln on crit and that alone guarantees extra adrenaline gain. Aimed shot helps keep them away, volley is where your real damage comes in since if you pick rifle, you have crack shot which makes that 5-7k every 8 seconds, brutal shot doesn’t need anything it already applies 8 kitten stacks of vulnerability, and rifle butt is flat out awesome since it is so hard to miss with it and it cleaves. As for landing kill shot, well for being the highest single hitting skill in the game it is fine, there are ways to ensure it lands anyways.

As for the rest of the post, I really wish Heightened Focus never saw the light of day. That trait is a huge cripple for warrior build diversity, pretty much everyone flocks to some sort of cc followed by GS and this trait. They really should up the ICD on it to a reasonable amount like 30 seconds.

I think lunatic inquisition was that maze was it not? I was hopeing for more of that game mode where you had a pop gun of sorts and tried to gather some material for your graveyard to spawn skeletons which would attack the enemy base. THAT game mode had the perfect stealth idea, so a game mode based on survival didn’t come down to some stealth based profession blowing you up in 2 seconds.

Still, I can see how imbalance some builds would be since gw2 doesn’t have any attention towards 1v1 balancing.

Tao.1234:

No.
Because 1v1 doesn’t suit Gw2 eSport development.

Lol, gw2 and esport in the same sentence. You mean that zerg fest at mid I see every season? Even the sponsors are boring to listen to, nothing about it has excited me one bit since launch.

Axe is a very odd weapon set outside of a condition heavy build. The idea of a single tier auto attack applying might means they can never really buff it too much or it becomes easily broken but leaving it where its at does no good either for lasting far too short to make any real use of it.

Some new ideas to bounce around, I think MH axe could become a pet-centric weapon while OH axe would become the aoe ranger’s want.

Change
(1) Ricochet: Increase might duration to 7 seconds, change to only apply might to your pet. Increase base damage by 20%.

(2) Splitblade: Decrease cast time to 1/2 second.

(3) Winter’s bite: Make it a ground targeted aoe skill baseline. Increase power scale to 0.9 and base damage by 20%. This skill is now a blast finisher.

(4) Path of scars: Add cripple effect (2 seconds), relocate all damage to first part, change projectile to automatically return upon hitting an obstacle.

(5) Whirling Defense: Lessen number of hits to 8, increase vulnerability stacks to 2 per hit, increase radius of projectile reflection to 180, remove retaliation and add effect “Break Stun”, increase damage by 33% (33% less hits).

(Trait) Honed Axes: Reduced recharge on axe skills by 20%. Increase ferocity by 150 for each axe equipped. Projectiles reflected by whirling defense deal 30% more damage.

Reason

(1) This skill is now entirely meant for a pet build to get heavy might stacks while you keep ranged.

(2) As far as damage and potency, this skill does its job however it has a common problem of going on cooldown if an enemy gets slightly to far to your side.

(3) This helps with kiting a lot and also provides a little more group utility being a blast finisher which is something ranger tends to lack. Since this skill is not a projectile finisher even without the AoE trait, it should be defined in some means of a finisher.

(4) The cripple effect means it will have an easier time landing on an enemy on the return and the obstacle part means the infinite ways this skill can disappear no longer happens.

(5) This gives enemies something to fear should they get to close to you since you have to stand still and channel it. I think allowing movement with this skill would be like giving 100b movement in the sense that it would look really funky. It’s a neat channel skill, but for 5 seconds you should get some real return from it if you have to stand in a bunch of AoE’s + the added stun breaker quality gives OH axe a nice defensive option no matter your enemy’s weapon of choice. The less but stronger hits helps deal with retaliation and more vulnerability stacks should hurt melee builds a little more.

(Trait) Given oh axe is more of the direct damage based of the 2, the ferocity per axe means you can actually see use of that stat either way you put them on, and the additional projectile reflection damage makes WD a real danger for enemies of that type since you have to stand and channel it when there are so many ranged attacks that do not count as a projectile.

Rather than a lessening proc chance each hit, which puts you into an rng ditch, they could work like guardians virtue of justice to proc after X number of hits, then use the active to proc a stronger potent venom with a cooldown. Thief and rng do not suit well, they are heavily dependent on quick action and getting out and lessening any part of that is no good which is what a diminishing venom would do in the current state of thieves. Maybe if they had the potential to recover a lot without being easy to focus fire it’d be one thing so they can stay in the fight and keep trying to proc the venom.

Sadly after the latest change to making residual venom baseline I honestly don’t think anet has any plan for venoms. Just throwing spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks at this point.

I think a great way to address stealth in such a mode would be remove it from profession skills/combos and add brush like they did with the Halloween corn field game mode. As for camping in the brush, make entering it infest you with mosquitos that slowly drain your health in increasing amounts until you get out of the brush and put a small debuff on you like the hammer from the boss in the colossal fractal that slowly wears off even after exiting.

Make some hunting grounds like that and it could be a lot of fun. Honestly I wish they had more maps the were focused on environmental control conquest is really boring and watching stronghold is no different from conquest, zergs and zergs.