Guild Wars 2

They most certainly can and should punish leaving, even in hot join. You’re hurting the experience of other players by quitting and it puts a bad taste in new players having to hop out of their spawn only to be melted.

I wouldn’t say make the punishment severe since hot join isn’t all that serious, but there should be something like 3 minutes of no queue the first time, leave again now its 5 minutes, leave again now its 15 minutes , and so on and so fourth.

Now there are instances with people having RL events and either have to leave or afk, that’s fine but again that’s their choice and put them on a scaling punishment for that. After all it is a game so if they have to leave to use the restroom or tend to a kid or grab a drink they can spare some time outside of the lobby letting their team get out numbered. If they think its cruel, well you shouldn’t of entered the match then. The only way to lessen this punishment would be completing a match but the ratio would most certainly not be 1:1, more like if you leave a match you have to play 3 full matches to remove the debuff.

As for auto balance, I couldn’t agree more. They should not let someone join until another player is going to join the other team to balance it out. A common problem however is people get forced to swap teams and will enter spectator to let auto balance cycle through again and get back on their team which was winning (can’t lie, when I am at a 150 point lead and I get swapped best believe I try to get back). Simple fix I think would make entering spectator mode disable you from joining a team for a short duration (2 minutes?) and remove this forced auto balance. It’s a little unfair to force an auto balance especially if people are with friends. If someone wants to volunteer which I see often, great but don’t make the flaws of hotjoin affect how people want to play by making them swap sides. Its a terrible design to let other players punish you when they leave.

Lastly, spawn camping needs to be addressed. Ever enter a match when the score is 300+ to 0 and the other team is full capped sitting outside your base? How is that enjoyable for anyone? In a case like that the losing team (for hot join only) should get a portal to one of the objectives at their base to bypass the feeding frenzy so players will be less inclinded to sit at a stand still until the match ends.

StickerHappy.8052:

Slininstien.7546:

To me this is more of a “how do I kill a DD ele” post than anything. Simply put, have a thief and a mesmer, or a necro. A thief/mesmer can combo to break an ele in under 10s if the thief can steal the stability off the ele and the mesmer will stack daze and burst. A necro is the best 1v1 counter to this ele build at the moment anyway.

Tbh a thief CAN 1v1 a DD ele, but it needs to be VERY smart when it bursts if it is SA and if it’s Crit strikes it needs to be very mindful of its dodges and what it’s dodging.

Otherwise I’m not entirely sure what guardian builds if any can beat an ele and such like that. So just coordinate with your ele/necro/thief/mesmer on the team or any combo of those and you’ll be fine.

So you need 2 or 3 classes to kill the ele? Wow. Seems Legit.

Gw2 balance wrapped up.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Well if they become crittable, HP of those would also have to be doubled to compensate. If HP is doubled, you’d have to allow them to also be affected by conditions so that condi players aren’t screwed over completely.

And its that logic that plagues anet dev’s. You don’t just double 1 value to double the other, even if critical hits were 100% you would still screw over conditions even more. Even allowing conditions to affect those objects would only put them on par with what power builds could do if they didn’t crit, because condtions don’t have any multiplier like critical damage on their side.

They should remove any stat requirement on obstacle damage and normalize it for all players and AI to do whatever flat value or % and make “crits” depend on positioning or type of attack (projectile, blast finisher, whirl, heavy hit, etc).

I’m seeing a lot of topics relating to Mesmer, our closest relative profession, that thief should adapt their damage or defenses. I know that Mesmer has taken the throne for hidden bursts for the time being but I really hope people realize what they are asking.

There is no reason to give us invulnerabilities or buff our damage. This insta-gib movement should of been toned down the last patch and it only made things worse, especially for a class forced into the glass cannon role. Thief needs sustain outside of stealth and less heavy damage focused builds. Support via boon stripping/stealing, in combat healing that works (looking at you assassin’s reward and signet of malice…), better options for condition removal, QoL fixes to weapon sets and utilities.

Our damage is plenty as is, especially when I can get a 1,800 aa on shortbow and it bounces and I have 0 might and using only marauders or 11k on pw. Can’t say thief will be fixed anytime soon although I hope it gets some attention, but I rather not see this profession turn to some 1 trick pony any further than it already is. I’m really sick of using the same traits even after this patch but after trying other things, they just don’t really compare.

The problem was the boon stealing was on that 2nd hit, and if you see someone back their butt into you, you knew what was gana happen and could just eat the first hit and avoid the harder, boon stealing hit.

I think the 2 part is fine, but having the skill nerfed, and nerfed, and #2 sword nerfed, and nerfed, they should give it something back like 2 boon stealing. I like that they aimed to make LS-Fs more skill based with a required 1st hit but sword just allow it to once again steal boons.

It is by the way, 1 of 2 ways a thief can “steal” a boon and should give into the profession that focuses on turning your enemies defenses against you.

mistsim.2748:

there is too much wrong with WD, there’s no point in discussing it until its channel time is halved and until it’s castable while moving. or completely reworked.

It would be a neat skill if it hit harder and had less hits (that retaliation :O).

I think it is a great skill idea it just functions poorly since a lot of ranged attacks in this game aren’t projectiles, same way swirling winds on ele is pretty easy to ignore although it doesn’t require you to stand still and channel it.

As far as the GM trait goes, I kind of dislike how it is critical based and yet it is in the BM traitline, same with GS. It used to be in skirmishing and I enjoyed using power axes but I guess it was supposed to be that kind of kite set for pet users. I believe this trait and many other 1h weapon specific traits should be more of a “per weapon” type of bonus and effect the whole set more than just 1 skill such as:

Honed Axes: Gain ferocity for each axe you have equipped. Axe skills recharge 20% faster and winter’s bite is now an AoE skill (ground targeted). Ferocity 200. (I know warrior has 150 on theirs, but axe also hits extremely kitten warrior)

-Ricochet: Increase might gain to 4 seconds to benefit a power attack more, vs only really helping conditions.

-Splitblade: decrease pre cast, has a tendency to cancel extremely easy if target gets slightly to the side.

-Path of scars: Relocate a large sum of damage to the first part, allow return as soon as it hits an obstacle since it rarely ever returns.

-Whirling Defenses: Reduce number of hits to 8, increase base damage and power scale by 33%(33% less hits, so buff damage). Increase projectile reflection radius to 240, increase vulnerability stacks to 2 per hit.

As much fun as a new weapon set may or may not be, I still rather they fix the pre-existing weapon sets to be on par with d/p.

Almost feel like I saw this coming since I played gw1… bunch of useless junk covered up by the new.

S/p is strong in pvp and pve, not so much wvw. Pvp it makes for great sniping especially with flanking strikes and the removal of haste endurance degen, for pve its simply very easy to use and has little downsides.

Wvw however after the 1st use you’re basically laying your game plan down for your enemy the rest of the fight which if you’re doing what a thief does in wvw, roaming, you will probably get killed since you don’t have high stealth access.

Cynz.9437:

Thieves may need tiny buffs in survival department but imo they don’t need invuls. Mesmers are just too strong right now however it doesn’t mean that every other class should be buffed up. If anything, problematic traits from mes need to be toned down.

Pvp is already being hurt by insane power creep, we don’t need more of that.

Couldn’t agree more. We aren’t Mesmer’s, we’re thieves. As much as I’m disgusted by the capabilities of a Mesmer post patch, we should not turn to their strong points as a solution for our problems. We have many QoL issues with this patch and our defense took a severe dive, can only hope they improve them but stick to what thief is known for and not turn it into some boon heavy profession mimic just to “fix” us.

They could add an additional trait effect somewhere like “Pet F2 abilities remove conditions from allies” and rework spirits, primarily the elite spirit to be a beacon of condition removal every now and then in addition to its hps. Oh and fix the healing spring to its former glory.

Einlanzer.1627:

NinjaEd.3946:

I just wish “petrify” would be its own type of stun that cannot be removed similar to the elementalist frost bow #5.

That way BV would be a guaranteed moment of burst even if it only lasts 1.5 seconds (petrify does not stack, I don’t know why they had to make residual venom baseline for BV and DV. Poor thinking from probably the same individuals who doubled world boss health to allow crits.)

The only thing I can think of is that it gives you an extra chance to petrify (in case the first one is avoided).

But, I doubt that’s even intended. They probably just didn’t even think about when making RV baseline.

After the whole world boss double hp disaster, I sincerely doubt that anet wanted to make BV more forgiving. They just threw in a baseline trait and decided it would be great!~ but lets cut the duration and actually nerf DV by a second.

I smell ninja nerf.

How about less traditional combat related traits then? I kinda see how combat stats push people into these roles based on race even though the values would hardly be something to calculate.

Norn (Spirit Infusion): Transformations last longer. 3%/6%/9%/12%/15%

Charr(Ammo pack): Environmental weapons have additional charges (this includes charrzooka). 1/2/3/4/5

Human(Speed of a Centuar): Increased out of combat movement speed. 2/4/6/8/10%

Asuran(Experimental Soles): Take reduced falling damage. 2/4/6/8/10%

Sylvari(Ebb and Flow): Faster movement speed underwater when out of combat. 2/4/6/8/10%

Fits more into the exploration of pve than the combat.

I just wish “petrify” would be its own type of stun that cannot be removed similar to the elementalist frost bow #5.

That way BV would be a guaranteed moment of burst even if it only lasts 1.5 seconds (petrify does not stack, I don’t know why they had to make residual venom baseline for BV and DV. Poor thinking from probably the same individuals who doubled world boss health to allow crits.)

Sir or madam, there are viable thief builds. Sure they don’t stack up against other professions right now but in the right hands they are still lethal.

Our viable build diversity on the other hand….

I know about those, but they are exclusive (atleast from what is said about them) to the new zone and the fractals. Not one of them seem to relate to the old zones even though it talks about current pve content. I know all the info hasn’t been mentioned but I’m really annoyed by all this push for new content without keeping the old content relevant in some way.

It is where I got the idea from but this would be for removing the dmg vs X enemy type sigils and for racial progression, not something for 1 new region only.

These are two pve specific things that seem largely ignored both from players and dev’s. Racial skills were never meant to surpass profession skills however they are so far away from being comparable that its more for lore purposes than a slot on the skill bar. Damage vs X sigils are incredibly irrelevant when you can get universal sigils that benefit you against all targets all the time, and currently waste time in the mystic forge and AH.

One thing that puts me to sleep for pve content outside of the mindless zerg content and stacking is how there is no real progression. I’m not talking about gear progression, I hate that concept, I’m talking about feeling like you’ve done all you can to shine in the pve world just like you can shine in pvp with titles and finishers (although they aren’t as hard to get anymore).

I don’t suggest this as an easy plan, but achievements seem like a perfect stage to set this on to give pve some further progression that helps in current and future content without making you the dominate choice for groups, similar to how ascended armor/weapons didn’t give the biggest advantage but they do help.

For sigils, I’d suggest making certain types of collection quests, heart quests, dungeon encounters (including the side objectives people tend to run past) and maybe even event completion (again, can tie to a specific collectible drop from that event) to increase your account damage towards each enemy type. If need be, this amount can be toned down from 10% to 5% or some respectable number so the common zerker set up isn’t seeing large number differences between someone who has done these quests and who hasn’t. Ultimately you will do content relevant to that enemy type to rank up towards these account bonuses and remove the sigils from the game.

As for racial skills, I see no reason at this point in making racial skills a little more relevant on the pve side of things. If their argument is they don’t want people picking a class based on race how is it any different from people asking for heavy zerkers in dungeons because everything hits for ridiculous amounts and raw dps works best in 99% of encounters?

They don’t have to flat out make them comparable to profession skills but how they work and their capabilities should be changed so they are more than a lore stapled onto your skill bar selection. They can even go a step further and remove racial skills from wvw so the “pvp” style balance isn’t messed with but balancing pve content seems a lot more plausible with these skills.

Also wish they had some sort of racial passives that would rank up from doing major storyline steps such as the personal and Living story line as well as some additional tasks from achievements and heart/collectible quests. Again, something for pve to progress without adding an obvious advantage over those who haven’t done these quests. Passives such as:

Norn: Reduced incoming damage when disabled. 2%/4%/6%/8%/etc
Human: Increased boon duration. 1%/2%/3%/4%/etc
Asuran: Increased condition duration. 1%/2%/3%/4%/etc
Sylvari: Increased outgoing healing. 1%/2%/3%/4%/etc
Charr: Increased attack speed. 1%/2%/3%/4%/etc

Something that isn’t hugely noticeable but still at max rank you can feel fully progressed for current and future pve content.

Long post short, I want to see some minor pve progression that is small but gets you out and about to do some untraditional things. Collectibles helped but they are more for gear and consumables which is really no different from farming for them by other means and either crafting or buying them.

Sounds like fun, will they work on the old content to be “challenging” or are they giving up them?

I would hope for how much effort they put into those encounters they would try to keep them relevant and not shove us into the new world with a blind eye of the past.

I used to think 2 power thieves on a team was scary, but 2 power mesmers with that obnoxious insta cast 1,200 range stun is unnecessary.

Ever feel like your thief is being controlled by someone else and sitting there in a 12k burst?

I rather not have my AI absorbing damage as a baseline effect, it would almost feel mandatory for us to take multiple wisps just so they don’t melt in seconds. I still don’t like how spirits give different boons/conditions on an ICD rather than being indefinite and more importantly, unique.

I feel like ranger isn’t the type to dish out boons for allies like a guardian or ele will, and trying to push them into that isn’t going to happen without some ridiculous buff.

In any rate, there are numerous topics on spirits lately and it would help to merge them. Plenty of good ideas circulating, especially for how hard spirits were hit with the latest balance patch.

Holland.9351:

They should just add the old Bark Skin to it, now what it’s a grandmaster trait:
Take 20% less damage below 50% health and gain 1 stack of might every second.

Fits it quite nicely actually, except I’d move it to old bark skin and move Honed axes to the skirmishing slot since beastmastery should be more about the pet than the ranger especially since the trait is critical based (gain ferocity) which is what skirmishing is about.

Still, thief is not and never was about surviving hits due to boons like protection or aegis. We avoid hits altogether via stealth, mobility, evasion and the few that slip in we either stealth or try to stay on our toes for our small heals to come off cd.

I like the feeling of staying on my toes, what I don’t like is how much effort we have to pump into that rythme when there are professions like Mesmer and warrior that get so many free passes to screw up and still dish out astonishing damage and control. I do agree out survivability needs a bump but that doesn’t come from changing our natural defenses to match that of a boon heavy profession, excluding vigor since that ties to our evasion.

starlinvf.1358:

Heres some food for thought that can eventually be worked into Druid. Why not make the spirits toggled, and modify the summoning mechanic so they become better as field effects.

Right now they fail because their passive benefits are generally weak, and they can be neutralized with even minor collateral damage.

Instead, why not have them Summon with initial major buff (in a visual burst of primal energy) and then emits its passive buff (most of which needs retuning anyway). As a base line feature, each spirit triggers a major effect on dismissal (or death if still kept), which gives support to allies and hinders enemies on death. Intentional dismissal reduces the cool down timers.

Without knowing much about the Druid, I can’t say how well exactly it will mesh. But this ability to call in a major initial group buff, a minor, but desirable passive buff, and a 3rd effect (boons if anything) with significant enemy risk, encourages you to drop and recover them as you move around at the beginning or near the end of fights.

This moves their entire strategy around when to use and dismiss them for maximum effect (which is a staple concept on every other class), with the passive benefits aimed at increasing pressure in the area.

Some examples.

Edge of Extinction:
Initial effect: Enemies with less then 90% health take Damage (1000u)
Passive: (Debuff 3s) Enemies in range (1000u) take damage if below 50% health every 3 seconds. Enemies lose health faster when downed.
Dismissal: Deal large damage to all enemies below 50% health (600u) (functions as AOE attack)

Favorable Winds:
Initial: Summons Swirling Winds (3 seconds)
Passive: All friendly projectiles deal 2% more damage, and have +40% to projectile finisher chance. (900u)
Dismissal: Grants 12 seconds of swiftness to all allies (900u), knocks back enemies (300u?), and leaves a swirling winds effects (3 sec) that reflects projectiles.

Predatory Season:
Initial: Enemies are hexed with “The Hunted” (1200u) and Allies gain Hunter’s Instict (1200u) for 8 seconds. Hunter’s Instinct has a 10% chance on hit to steal life from foes marked with “The Hunted”.
Passive: Enemies in range of spirit when “The Hunted” expires is crippled for 2 seconds. Allies in range of spirit when Hunter’s Instinct expires gain swiftness when it expires.
Dismissal: (Automatic after 8.5 seconds) Hunter’s Reward: Heals for (0.7)

Toxicity:
Initial: Toxicity- Allies gain 150 Condition damage (6 seconds)
Passive: Enemies take damage (xx) damage when conditions expire (does not affect conditions that were removed by skills or effects)
Dismissal: Pestilence- 1200u Enemies under the effects of poison or bleed spread them to nearby enemies. (Bleed 5 sec, Poison 6 sec)

Tranquility (elite):
Initial: Removes 1 boon from enemies (?u), Allies gain Resilience (2sec)
Passive: When boons expire on allies while in range of spirit they are healed for ()
Dismissal: Nature’s Renewal. Removes 2 conditions from all allies, removes 2 boons from enemies.

Elite: Conflagration
Initial effect: Generates Fire field for 6 seconds (320). Allies in 600u gain burning (3 sec) on their next attack.
Passive: Burning damage increased 5% within 1500u
Dismissal: Deals Damage (600u), leaves fire field for 3 seconds (320u) and applies 2 stack of might for 10 seconds to allies.

There is an example of making spirits unique. I don’t think making them simply unkillable and further range is going to really help spirit be better in a group setting. The GM trait is near useless and the interval boon/condition application just makes it irrelevant in a group that runs different builds. Increasing the durations or removing/reducing the ICD would only upset balance if you could give a group near perma protection or burning on hit, spirits need to become something unique like in GW1.

DeceiverX.8361:

Waiting is one thing, resetting the fight altogether is another. That’s why I completely disagree with the notion of giving SA builds extra damage.

DA/CS/SA would allow for 25 stacks of might with the highest damage modifier in the game at the end with passive damage reduction, healing, and cleansing, plus the obvious benefits of stealth. Or DA/SA/Trick netting the same damage as DA/CS/Trickery signets… without needing signets.

If you want more damage, you should have to work for it or invest into it.

Well you still can’t have the healing and the damage from SA, its one or the other. In any case, maybe a revision like 4 stacks of might on entering stealth and 1 every 3 seconds (10 seconds duration?) That way it promotes entering exiting stealth vs sitting in it?

Either way you can’t really benefit from sitting in stealth anymore than your enemy waits on their cooldowns letting you figure out your next move. I just wish there was a way to buff anything at all without it buffing d/p. That weapon set is a disease for thief.

Kaz.5430:

I honestly think that spirits would be better if the `active` click was removed altogether, allowing the spirit to start recharging straight away.

The current `active` would cast immediatley when you’ve place the spirit, triggering the recharge to begin. Then, after what was originally the `active` has completed, the `passive` effects would occur for the remainder of the spirits lifetime. I.E. one click per spirit rather than two.

This would keep the on-demand nature of the `active` skill (just moving it to the first click), and more importantly, would allow us to have multiple copies of the same spirit up at the same time (3 or 4 depending on trait). This would essentially allow us to reposition spirits if we move away from them, no more waiting 20s between spirits, or to stack the benefits.

It would probably require the passive effects to be reduced to a 25% chance, but with three spirits up that would mean 3 rolls of a 1 in 4, rather than 1 roll of a 3 in 4. Mathematically that works out to be slightly reduced odds over all, but with the chance of getting multiple procs of the passive on a single hit, which I think makes up for it.

e.g.

Sun Spirit is currently this

click (summon sun spirit 1)
gain passive effects of sun spirit
wait up to 60s
click
cast solar flare
sun spirit 1 dies
20s cooldown
click (summon sun spirit 2)
gain passive effects of sun spirit
wait up to 60s
click
cast solar flare
sun spirit 2 dies
20s cooldown

instead it would be more like this

click (summon sun spirit 1)
cast solar flare
gain passive effects of sun spirit
20s cooldown
click (summon sun spirit 2)
cast solar flare
gain passive effects of sun spirit
20s cooldown
click (summon sun spirit 3)
cast solar flare
gain passive effects of sun spirit
20s cooldown
sun spirit 1 dies

So essentially the cooldown would begin immediately on use and the active would no longer destroy the spirit?

That’d be awesome given that they cannot move anymore. As far as life span, I think that’s probably the best move because simply increasing their life isn’t going to help it survive a zerg.

Still they need a overhaul as far as passive effects go. Not only the range should be heavily increased (2,000 at the least) they should get away from boons/conditions with an ICD. Not only do they last a very short time but you can’t expect everyone to benefit from them the same way. IMO the spirit passives should be changed to a consistent buff like banners but give htem their unique flavors to stand out like;

-Earth: Reduce incoming disable durations by 35%
-Ice: Same.
-Air: Increase projectile speed by 50%
-Sun: Reduce incoming condition duration by 35%.
-Water: Increase healing effects by 25% + current heal on hit. Reduce ICD to 5 seconds.
-Nature: Same passive, reduce cooldown to 120 seconds.

Of course the values aren’t tested nor do I consider them balanced but at least their effects would be unique and consistent rather than occasional and hardly noticeable.

Sparda.9750:

untill we ‘ll have trickery right this, i believe acro and SA won t have space
i’d like to see acro boosts survability with dodges and evading frames
and SA boosts our stealth, gaining might (like before), protection ( maybe 2 secs with 5 od ICD) and maybe aegis.. our damage reduction in stealth is 25%.. why can t we have protection ele and guardians have perma protection..
we have to invest one whole specialitazion for 25%.. doesn t have much sense

Protection and aegis aren’t fitting for a thief, plus that seems far to similar to Mesmer PU.

SA wouldn’t be so bad if the traits lined up a little better and had a distinguished selection on how to use it rather than having all these traits basically hover on the same spec. As for acro, its mostly underperforming traits partly from the fact that we don’t get boon duration anymore.

stof.9341:

Numbers :o 8s might be too long for sure :p

Or maybe that elite stealth shouldn’t unlock the sneak attacks.

There is no way in kitten to balance caithe’s elite for thief without stripping away all the elements that make it so attractive.

It’s a dream skill, maybe for april fools next year.

Maugetarr.6823:

babazhook.6805:

Maugetarr.6823:

Dagger.2035:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Damage is ok on thief, its our defensive options that are shrinking. you have to give up basically all defenses just to be a threat on the field.

DeceiverX.8361:

I feel a lot of these suggestions are kind of OP.

This one in particular:

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

SA needs a downside. The current lack of damage is exactly that. The line offers ridiculously strong defensive bonuses that only encourage passive play as it stands. Thieves wanting to sit back/wait and then play aggressively with burst shouldn’t be rewarded for camping invisibility so much. I would argue that damage on defense would be most logical from the acrobatics line from both a balance perspective and a flavor one, as it emphasizes evasive, slippery play to avoid being hit and wear your enemy down while using the momentum gained from dancing around the battlefield into more and more powerful strikes.

The thing you have to keep in mind is that GM trait would mean you don’t have SR.

Its all about opportunity costs with the new trait lines, you can’t pick 2 adept or 2 master traits anymore so each tier sets you up in a different way. The values are only suggestions, but I think 3 is a solid number of stacks given its a GM trait, the duration could maybe be lowered to 10 seconds so the base limit # of stacks would be 12 vs 18 from a single trait.

bumb, Now onto the under dog weapons, traits, and utility/healing/elite skills!

Weapons

Dagger #1(Lotus Poison)- increase poison duration to 8 seconds; reason being poison took a nerf being it stacks intensity and because of my suggested change to poison for thief in general.

Dagger #3 (Death Blossom)- Increase animation distance to 450 units, change to a skill shot, increase evade frame to 1/2 second.

Dagger #4 (Dancing Dagger)- Add effect to transfer 1 condition on use and from the previous foe on bounce (on use and then each bounce it carries with it a condition). Remove cripple effect, increase initiative amount to 4. (already have a gap closer/opener on d/d and a good projectile finisher on p/d).

Dagger #5 (Cloak And Dagger)- not my suggestion, replace vulnerability with blind, have blind apply indefinitely. (3 stacks of vulnerability doesn’t impact x/d as much as a blind does especially with CiS nerf).

Pistol #1 (Vital Shot/Sneak attack)- Reduce bleed duration on vital shot to 3 seconds, increase power scale to 0.5. Increase bleed duration on sneak attack to 5 seconds. (sneak attack is for condi which makes better sense to give it a condition buff since the auto attack will better suit power now yet still give pressure for condition builds.).

Pistol #2 (Body Shot)- Remove immobilize, increase vulnerability duration to 6 seconds. Reduce initiative cost to 3.

Pistol #3 (Unload)- if there are no plans to add ricochet as a trait effect, atleast add it to this skill.

Shortbow #2 (Cluster bomb)- revert to former 1,200 range, increase bleed duration of un-detonated bomb to 6 seconds.

Shortbow #4 (Choking Gas)- Increase poison duration to 3 seconds. (it’s more threatening to spam this skill on someone than what they will feel for how short it lasts).

Traits

[Dagger Training] Changed to gain 5% damage and 5% condition duration for each dagger equipped. (Pretty weak trait and thief should be the last class dependent on chance effects other than crit. Can’t really buff this trait either or it will start to be too much really quick)

[Potent Poison] Increase poison damage bonus to 20%, change duration bonus to apply to all conditions, lower condition duration to 20%. (used to be our condition duration trait line, this would help bring that back for all build choices. Not to mention it has 2 very strong competitors for a GM trait).

[Sundering Strikes] Increase vulnerability duration to 8 seconds.

[Ankle Shots] Change damage bonus to be 5% per pistol equipped.

[Bountiful Theft] (Not underdog, I know but) Allow boon stripping to take all stacks with it. Shocked it still doesn’t.

[Trickster] Increase condition removal to 2.

[Quick Pockets] Added effect to reduce the recharge of weapon swap by 4 seconds, reduce initiative gain to 2. (it is competing against 2 very strong GM traits)

Skills

[Signet of Malice] Add effect “refill all initiative, gaining increased healing per initiative gained. Healing per initiative 140”. (perfect synergy with the passive and rewards good use).

[Signet of agility] Change condition removal to “remove 1 condition for every bar of endurance gained” (in the case you are below 50% but being at 0 endurance isn’t possible, you would of removed 2 conditions).

[Signet of power] Change active to “Gain might for each nearby enemy and grant that to your allies” 2 stacks of might for 6 seconds per foe, max # of targets 5, max # of allies 5. (passive and active are too similar and active dissipated far to quickly to make use for more than 1 hit)

[Signet of Shadows] Reduce cooldown to 25 seconds. (little help for a trait I see very few run anymore).

[Ambush] Increase the health of the summoned thief by 100%, added effect taunt for 2 seconds, taunt radius 300, # of targets 3.

[Shadow Trap] Cahnge to not require LoS. Reduce “destroy shadow trap” activation time to 3/4 second.

[Smoke screen] Increase duration to 10 seconds.

[Devourer Venom] Reduce venom charges back to 2, increase immobilize duration back to 2.

[Skale Venom] Reduce recharge to 35 seconds.

[Spider Venom] Reduce recharge to 30 seconds.

[Ice drake venom] (I will keep suggesting it) replaced with [Karka Venom] transfer conditions with your next few attacks (3). (conflicts with DV as a cc venom, and chill is very awkward on thief anyways).

[Skelk Venom] Increase number of attacks to 8, slightly lower healing power base (560?) (too much healing in too few hits, it needs to be spread out a little more).

[Basilisk Venom] Added effect “cannot break stun”. (only skill on a profession to apply “petrify” and its an elite skill, it should feel special).

[Thieves Guild] Double health of thieves, lower cooldown to 150 seconds. Add smoke screen to pistol thief and caltrops + death blossom to dagger dagger thief.

I may or may not make it sadly, (slap me for making the event), friend birthday Wednesday and I want to enjoy the bar like a behaved norn.

If I do make it, prepare for very sloppy game play on my behalf

Solori.6025:

DHawk.2687:

no that’s how i kill mesmers, i go stealth on their clones, but doing that on a condi mesmer will kill you if you take to long to kill him/trying to find him in stealth ^^

But..dont you remove condies in stealth and regen health?

I’m confused, if you can kill condi mesmer’s is the issue then that they have similair stealth uptime to thieves so that makes them a little more difficult or?

Remove 1 condition, and the regen basically requires we keep stealth for an extensive duration all the while the Mesmer can be in stealth and have us loaded with conditions or cycle through their insane condition burst that has a very short cooldown.

Waiting around to recover just to fight a condi Mesmer isn’t going to happen, remember while you are recovering so are they.

I’d be ok with another elite but not to that extreme though (I played the S2 as well, I know it was fun with auto backstabs).

Maybe a type of stealth that also removes revealed effects and enhances our next stealth attack? (teleport + extra damage backstab, increased condition duration for pistol and shortbow, stability on sword).

Even from the beginning I never liked how spirits were incorporated in this game. In gw1 they were utility, here they are boon/condition applicators. Nothing really spectacular not to mention they had much larger AoE before and in here they don’t really reach the necessary areas being they cannot move anymore. I’d rather take a flat stat increase than an occasional bonus that can die really easily anyways.

Spirits just aren’t interesting or powerful enough.

T raw.4658:

NinjaEd.3946:

T raw.4658:

Honestly thieves need a signet elite.

<insert cool Thief signet name here>
Passive: -25% damage
Active: Grants 6 seconds of stab/invuln

Ha, HAHAHA 6 seconds invuln? Good luck.

Really though, I don’t know if suggestions like these are serious or a joke. I know thief balance right now is a joke but come’on.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Stone
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endure_Pain

Endure pain can be traited to 5 seconds.

Invulnerable is stronger than “take no direct damage”. Invulnerable is stability, endure pain, and berkserker stance all in one.

Regardless thief is the least likely candidate to ever get something like invulnerability without some major sacrifice.

Currently, I’d suggest maruder’s amulet since thief defenses are at an all time low atm. I’d avoid condition builds unless you really know thief because they took a big hit as well, basically you’re limited to heavy power burst such as d/p or s/p and when you start to get more comfortable with how squishy you are you are free to venture to more difficult weapons like d/d, p/p, s/d, etc.

Runes and sigils are really up to you, but if you are unsure on what the sigil or rune actually does, look it up on wiki. I’d avoid any sigil that deals with condition duration as they tend to have little impact on a build (except for agony) but here are a few suggestions for how you may want to choose.

For added damage: Air, Fire, Rage, blood, leeching, force, accuracy

For added survivability: Energy, generosity, blood, leeching

As far as runes go, you can experiment but look into what your build has and doesn’t have and that usually helps pick. For example, if you have a lot of might gain and want extra damage you can pick strength or hoelbrak. If you are slow and have trouble keeping distance or catching up you can pick speed or pack.

Best of Luck!

Toxsa.2701:

runeblade.7514:

I hear every ranger whines that shortbow sucks. IMO, my opinion is 180. It is a great condi weapon for rangers.

Crossfire- Great condi weapon.
Poison Volley- Great condi burst.
Quick Shot- On-demand evade and swiftness.
Cripple shot- Soft CC to chase down enemies.
Concussion shot- Hard CC or interrupt.

Crossfire is the only condition weapon that requires you to flank to get the condition.
The duration is short, and there’s not much trait to increase it’s condition duration. Also bleeding is a very weak condition compare to burning and confusion

That’s how all condition weapons should be in some shape or form, the auto attack should not so easily apply a condition because it makes over half the condition removal skills in the game irrelevant when you can just reapply that pressure in seconds.

I praise SB, always have, as the most balanced condition weapon and only wished other weapons would follow it. It’s ridiculous to have things like warrior sword aa apply 8 second base bleed x2 each chain but things like vital shot (being really slow) and crossfire (requiring flanking) or frag shot (only 4 with traits, and slow) be stuck with 4. Even if they are ranged, melee harassment can make short of that very quickly. I’m not suggesting to buff the lower values, I am against this power creep non-sense, but to tone the insanity down a bit and work on the 2-5 skills if need be to make conditions a little more skill based and not use the weapon skills whenever and melt people with an auto attack. That being said, some weapon skills need to be toned down for condition builds as well, like stacking double digit burns off a 15 second cd.

I only wish sb had a little power love, concussion shot with moment of clarity -> swap to GS for maul is fun but it’d be nice if some skill on sb had a decent power ratio like #4.

Firelysm.4967:

Just no.
Simply rework entire Shortbow.

Longbow is simply fine because we have rapid fire, longbow kit without rapid fire would have no meaning and it would be destroyed and unusable, because the power of rapid fire, covers of other bad skills on longbow.

Agreed.

RF compliments LB more than it would sb. SB already is fast, and there is no reason to add a skill “shoot faster” to a weapon that already behaves like this.

Only thing I’d suggest is up the attack speed of crossfire to what it used to be, up the swiftness of #3, and increase the power ratio for #4 so a power build can utilize [Moment of clarity] a little more since no skill has higher power than the aa (although usually I’ll just swap to gs and maul off that concussion shot). Otherwise ranger SB imho is the best designed weapon out there because it takes effort to kill with it but it does have that good pay off on condi builds. It’s just power builds can’t use it as well as it used to be.

T raw.4658:

Honestly thieves need a signet elite.

<insert cool Thief signet name here>
Passive: -25% damage
Active: Grants 6 seconds of stab/invuln

Ha, HAHAHA 6 seconds invuln? Good luck.

Really though, I don’t know if suggestions like these are serious or a joke. I know thief balance right now is a joke but come’on.

idgi, is this really a question 2 years later?

It’d be nice if petrification actually meant something in terms of pvp. You can freeze someone with frost bow #5 and no matter their stun breaker, they are frozen.

For thief it is an elite because of how dangerous our burst can be but at the same time, many other professions have been brought to be on par if not better. I think they should make petrification work like freeze, it cannot be broken. Also they should revert the baseline residual venom affecting BV and just make it the old 1.5 seconds. It helped a lot more than having a reapplication only to be nerfed in duration because the math-matician in the balance team got scared of what it could lead to rather than actually testing it.

How about,

Basilik Venom: Your next strike petrifies your enemy. Duration 1.5 seconds. and do not allow stun breakers to remove this effect, only stability can prevent it

That there would be, imho, a worthy “elite” skill. With how venoms work and how petrification is just a fancy term for stun, I don’t really think its great but it does help.

Could, atleast it would benefit it us beyond swiftness which is what acrobatics is known for, or atleast used to be known for, and having to compete against VR and PR it should stand out a little more.

“Don’t fear the reaper”

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

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

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

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

-Concealed Defeat: Move to Master slot.

-Leeching Venoms: Move to adept slot.

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

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

-Cloaked In shadows: Move to master slot.

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

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

////Revision Goal////

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

Acrobatics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sagat.3285:

I’ll happily drop the vulnerability for blind.

Aye, +1.

Odyssey.2613:

Introducing kittened-Off-Odyssey’s List of Common Sense Fixes & Approaches For Thieves That Should Be A No-Brainer but Seem To Elude Even Arena Net’s Best & Brightest:
(yeah, I’m fed up with Anet)

1. Assign someone with knowledge to balance Thieves. Send the Thief guy back to the Warrior cubicle & go find someone off the street.
2. Shrink the Health Pool gap by giving Thieves more HP.
3. Fix Disabling Shot’s (SB#3) laggy backwards evade animation. Make it smooth.
4. Give back some of Shortbow’s bite.
5. Give Thieves some form of better range.
6. Reset Acrobatics & start over from scratch. You’ve messed up.
7. Abandon the Vigor obsession. Bring back Feline Grace.
8. Bring back Ricochet. Delete Ankle Shots if you must.
9. Revert Shadow’s Embrace.
10. Fix Shadow’s Rejuvenation.
11. Fix Mug+Hidden Thief combo-interaction. Seriously, you re-introduce it every patch.
12. Lower Cloaked In Shadow. It is no where worthy of a GM spot.
13. Rethink ALL Critical Strikes’ Master traits. They are lack-luster.
14. Increase Death Blossom’s evade time frame.
15. Give Withdrawl’s promised 10% healing increase.
16. Rethink Dagger Training.
17. Rethink Potent Poison.
18. Buff Trickster so Bountiful Theft has competition.
19. Cut Roll For Initiative’s recharge & gain in HALF.
20. Fix Scorpion Wire by giving it the same one the Thieves Guild assassin uses.
21. Make all Thief traps circular like Ranger’s & buff their effects in the process.
22. Quick Pockets needs to include &/or become a weapon swap reduction trait.
23. It may be time to totally rethink the Steal mechanic. Melee range boon stealing or F3-F5 weapon bundle? I would rather be rewarded by defeating my opponent with strategy & wit rather than who can surprise who first in a 5 second battle.
24. Definitely time to rethink Venoms. They are awful outside Venom Share.
25. Change Shadow Protector’s Regeneration to Protection.
26. Buff Vital Shot.
27. Rethink Body Shot.
28. Rethink Unload’s damage & utility. Perhaps drain all initiative & base increasing effectiveness on each initiative lost?

Like most of them, mostly just #1.

Give the job of balancing thief to someone passionate about the profession, it needs special care at this point given the damage this recent patch did and the help we’ve been asking for that never came.

List of lazy “balance” changes to thief:

1. Making residual venom baseline: Cool! Helps out in a few ways; oh wait they nerfed DV by 1 second (went from 4 to 3 total immobilize) and lessened our burst window with BV (1.5 to 1). Did the people who double world boss health to allow critical hits inspire this change? Because both were awful ideas imo.

2. Shadow protector: Used to not apply regeneration if your ally already had it, which was very restricting but I get it, it had 10 seconds. Rather than give it a 10 second ICD and remove that restriction, they lower the regeneration duration to something completely useless. 3 seconds of regeneration? Really? We’re expected to restealth over and over just to see this or is this another change balanced around d/p restealthing over and over?

3. Last Refuge: I will say, THANK YOU for making it optional now. However you still haven’t fixed this trait to be helpful 100% of the time and being neighbors with SE (Which was nerfed for no good reason) I doubt anyone will pick it.

4. Guarded initiation: For a mobility trait line, it seems ridiculous to worry about vulnerability and slow which is a very uncommon condition. The original idea didn’t really make sense either but this trait seems like it was supposed to replace fleet of foot which was the only active condition removal acro had. Acro still wants to see active condition removal :/

5. Improvisation: Again, following the double health for world boss philosophy, they ended up nerfing 2 stolen skills already because of this trait. It’s only a matter of time before consume ecto and whirling axe are nerfed and I’m sure more after that. Glad to see they realized thief doesn’t have bundles but they could of gotten more creative with this trait especially for moving it to GM.

I’m sure this list will grow although I’d hope not.

1. For thief it is an elite only because it sets us up for things like cnd→ backstab or any shadowstep and pw, things like that. As for the recent patch, I honestly hate the change they decided to do to venoms. Simply making 1 trait baseline for all venoms was a poor attempt to help venoms, because they ended up nerfing BV (yes, it lasts less time and its primary goal was to set up burst not tag multiple targets or give us forgiveness for missing. Not a big nerf though, hardly noticable) and DV (before total immobilize was 4 seconds, now its 3 and we don’t have condition duration as a stat from DA anymore so it isn’t going to get better).

2. No, this pvp balance would only go further into turmoil if people could run a 4th utility. They are making attempts to better elite skills so just be patient.

3. Pretty much, BV is the only thing that successfully helps thieves set up burst which is their only strong suit atm. TG dies to easy and is extremely predictable while DD has a nice little surprise for lb rangers it still leaves you extremely vulnerable to melee attacks.

MadVisions.4529:

the problem is not necessaily on our side. Its more the instant meta the new patch encourages. As a thief we can evade, los, dodge major abilitys but not instants becouse guess what, they are instants. Nowdays if you dont get as many instans in your build as you can, you are not building optimally, and this is really sad. introducing feline grace rework meanwhile thorwing more instant snacks to other profs… have fun “skillfully” evading all those kitten out there with endurancebase for 2 dodges.

Even if its not instants, they still have better means to set themselves up for a burst like warrior with cc → strong attacks, or necro with fear → right into a bunch of mayhem, or engi with any cc →condi overload or burst, etc.

Thief doesn’t have the defenses to last through these things without having to full retreat into stealth or port a dozen times to escape and try to ooc. Thief doesn’t recover very well and we don’t have the luxury of passive defenses outside of sitting in stealth which btw, = 0 dps.

They should stop trying to buff everyone’s damage and look at their defenses and see how ridiculously off set thief is. I won’t use d/p until they make some progress on thief build diversity.

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

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

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

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

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

Health tier has a lot to do with how the profession handles damage, and thief handles it by not handling it, e.i stealth, mobility, and evasion. Guardian and elementalist, the 2 that share our health pool, have an extremely good healing potential even without loading up on healing power while thief even with healing power is mediocre at recovering.

So it seems a bit strange to nerf our mobility (increasing cd of withdraw, along with some other nerfs to our defensive options) just to get us further into this dps or die theme that someone at anet made up 3 years ago. They really need to look into the opportunity costs of building thief before they so much as look at the class for the next balance patch. They don’t seem to acknowledge how badly thief is pushed into full dps which makes for an extremely boring experience when trying to break free from this “meta” bull kitten.

Here you are:

1) Smack your foe, smack them again, deliver a crushing blow leaving them vulnerable. 1 stack for 8 seconds; Attack speed: 1.1 seconds; # of targets 3.

2) Swing in a wide arc to destroy projectiles in front of you while dealing damage. 3 initiative; 180 degree arc covering entire front half; moderate damage; # of targets 5.

3) Jab your foe and then evade backwards stealing 1 boon on hit if the foe was vulnerable. 4 initiative; evade 350 units; Evade frame 1/2 second; low damage.

4) Rush towards your foe with a blinding upper swipe. 4 initiative; low damage; rush distance 600 units; combo field: Smoke; blind duration 3 seconds on hit, 2 seconds per pulse; pulse 1 second; field duration 2 seconds.

5) Leap towards your enemy with a lethal jab, dealing extra damage if the attack would of been blocked. 6 initiative; heavy damage; leap distance 450; unblockable; bonus damage against blocking target 50%; combo finisher: Leap.

Stealth Attack) Spin around with your staff causing knockdown the first time a foe is hit and constantly dealing damage. Knockdown duration 1 second; radius 130, duration 2.5 seconds; combo finisher: whirl; this causes a 6 second reveal instead of 3 (4 for pvp).