Guild Wars 2

Daecollo.9578:

Dasorine.1964:

problem is for those situations there already heals, your basically taking one skill you don’t find that useful and making it like the ones that already exist.

As said I use it as my main heal skill in pve, this is from basic mob farming to fractals, with evasion and high burst hits I can keep myself up against all but instant death attacks for the most part.

The only times I swap it out is when I need the utility the others give (such as stealth and burn removal on HiS or the evasion and cc break of withdraw)

Just like anything it has its uses for some builds and less for others, but changing it to fit a build it probably wasnt designed for will only ruin it not improve it.

If you find its not working for you, stop trying to use it on a slow hitting build (only ones I could think of for thieves would be a backstab style one in which case why wouldn’t you use HiS that heals and sets up your next hit) you don’t use venoms on a non condition build do you? or do you want them changed so they do a big hit as well but conditions get half duration so that non condition builds can use em?

So why would you want it for this skill?

Honestly, the change would bring higher HPS in real fights.

Against single or highly evasive multiple targets. Where superior heals already exist. Which are already less useful than SoM in large target count situations. The vast, vast majority of fights I’m in in PvE or PvP don’t ever fit this mold. I’m not asking for Withdraw or HiS to be adjusted so they’re better in this situation. SoM isn’t used much because the specs that get the best use out of it are lackluster in damage, and the vast majority of thieves roll specifically for the damage output. Compounded upon that is the fact that the class, due to its reputation and marketing, draws a largely disproportionate number of solo roamers.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

This is a bad change to SoM. Period. It turns a skill that’s fun and unique in to a skill that’s boring and passive. With increased heal with a throttled cooldown, you don’t have the OPTION of setting up a burst heal with SoM any more, and in stead you’re pushing the button for the burst, and you’re getting a burst heal that does… nothing but a heal.

This destroys the entire playstyle of the skill. For what? More faceroll uptime on every thief build? Churning out a thief-base equivalent of the signet warrior? Why?

Could SoM be made more attractive and have greater utility in its non-optimal situations? Yeah. It could. Removing entirely the ability to use it where it’s most optimal is the wrong way to do it.

Using high hit volumes for burst of healing while maintaining a low level of passive healing IS the core mechanic of SoM. Just as much as stealth is the core mechanic of HiS and the long evade is the core mechanic of withdraw. That’s why the active heal is pathetic. Not to just give you the finger, but because the burst heal on SoM is, literally high hit volume attacks.

That mechanic is exactly what makes the skill worth putting on a bar at all. Regardless of the amount healed. That interaction is precisely what makes it an interesting skill. Removing that ability from SoM completely destroys SoM. Heck, you might as well change to effect to “grants X health every Y seconds while in combat” because that’s the general effect with a 1s cooldown.

The problem is that the instances where it’s good as of now require tradeoffs to make it that good. For instance, running mad king runes on a condition build, taking caltrops on a crit build, shotgunning cluster bomb in stead of using it for the blast finisher, spamming dancing dagger and losing a pool of initiative, giving up HiS stealth on a P/D build, risking a pistol whip when you’re already beat up, etc.

Normalizing it with cooldowns makes it marginally better for all builds while removing the one thing that it actually does well, and simultaneously removing what’s fun and unique about the skill. It’d be like removing the stealth from HiS or the evade from withdraw.

Doing this just makes high hit volume attacks even less attractive and useful, nerfs the survivability of D/D and P/D condition builds (who already pay dearly in terms of damage) and further pigeonholes thieves in to a 100% burst and escape class with no solid stand and fight options.

if you want to make it more attractive for “general use” I’d in stead reccommend making the active effect a 3-4 second buff that doubles or even triples the heal amount, and possibly increasing the cooldown if it feels to out of line. This would make it a bit more attractive to bursty specs.

You’d have the option of escape actives with HiS and Withdraw, or a “last stand” aggressive active with SoM. This preserves the mechanics of SoM while expanding its potential applications rather than expanding its potential applications while gutting the mechanic completely.

Nope.

Signet of Malice is specifically designed to reward high hit volumes. Normalizing it as such simply makes it an overall worse heal than the other two rather than a situationally better or worse heal.

Thieves already have the best variety of unique heal skills, and all three of them are already very good at their intended purpose whilst simultaneously sucking when that purpose is not met.

• HiS: Awesome when you’re not revealed, kinda crappy when you are. Worse against CC if you haven’t traited for condition removal in stealth.
• Withdraw: Awesome when you’re not bleeding/burning/poisoned/conditioned to death, kinda crappy when you are.
• Signet of Malice: Awesome in target rich/high hit volume scenarios, kinda crappy against single targets/low hit volumes.

This makes heal selection actually important as a skill selection on a moment-to-moment basis, and Anet has repeatedly said that they want and intend for us to be swapping skills between fights based on the situation (similar to how all of GW1 was designed specifically for you to need to swap skills between areas or for PvP group composition.)

Asking for SoM to be good at something that is counter to its design just plain weakens SoM and actively removes rather than adds build options and combat maneuvers that are the sole reason it’s worth putting on your bar. You’re expecting SoM to “just work” rather than having to “make it work for you” and this isn’t how HiS or Withdraw work either.

I’m not down with dancing dagger becoming a flip skill. Being able to spam it through darkness fields (like shadow refuge) at packs of enemies is one of the best clutch heals we have available. It’s an extremely powerful projectile finisher for its 100% chance and the fact that it triggers the finish every hit, and thus it’s also useful for stacking burning, confusion, and other useful combo effects on top of its cripple.

It’s already a good situational tool when combined with combo fields, or alone for its cripple. If anything the only fix it needs is a cheaper initiative cost or longer cripple. The post-nerf damage is actually pretty fair when you factor in its a four hit 100% spammable projectile finisher already.

Condition builds tend to be much better group fighters due to naturally higher survivability, the zoning utility of caltrops, and the high pressure bleed spread from daggerstorm’s bleeds.

I’ve been running a P/D condition build in WvW since basically launch and while it’s somewhat fun as a solo roamer, it’s infinitely more fun when used to zerg-dive with my guild’s usual WvW group where skills other than 1 and 5 are actually useful and helpful.

While P/D relies on cloak&dagger, the upcoming nerf doesn’t affect it much as it’s already cycling revealed, and if parts of weapon skills change it may be actively improved in terms of fun factor and increasing its already impressive survivability.

Bunker guardians. Flippin’ bunker guardians man. I swear I fought one for a non-exaggerated fifteen minutes once. When I run in to one I instantly look at the clock now before I decide if I want to commit to the fight.

Oh last refuge. You always know what I’m planning. You never like those plans. Why do you hate me last refuge?

You were a necromancer guarding a Yak.
I was a thief.
Why didn’t you fight back?

Haiku format:

You were a Necro
Your Dolyak was my target
You did not fight back

Back up.

Build more ballistas.

Profit.

See, the enemy is just as lagged up as you, and they’re clustered like madmen in there. This is the perfect opportunity for you to just pierce through four million people with the ballista shot they never saw coming, at a range where you can still fire it without lagging too much.

“Simulated Culling Mishap”
You know, when it’s gone maybe we’ll miss it.

20 D/P thieves running:
Ambush trap
Shadow trap
Caltrops
Thieve’s Guild

Now, hide the group around a corner, litter the area, each member stacking his own traps. As soon as the enemy trips ambush (and spawns an NPC thief) they’ll also trip shadow trap. Hit shadow pursuit to warp to enemy, hit thieve’s guild, and lay down caltrops all over the place.

INSTANT ROLLING PHANTOM ZERG.

Thieves work in units of five, focus firing while the enemy is busy going WTF and having trouble ressing due to the caltrops everywhere and those annoying 3 NPC thieves per player.

Utter hilarious chaos.

Would it be the most effective 20 man? Nah. But it’d be one heck of a laugh.

Waitwaitwait…

You’re saying that people shouldn’t be able to place weapons expressedly designed to be fired from a fortified position in a fortified position?

What other tactical purpose do towers have?

The entire idea is that you’re supposed to deploy siege from towers. That’s the bloody point of towers, to serve as a foothold because the siege weaponry in this game falls apart if ten or more players so much as fart in its general direction. The entire idea is that you’re supposed to want to take out the tower or counter-treb in order to give you a non-scoreboard reason to fight over the objective.

For everyone suggesting stealth “as an opener and that’s it”

That is simply not how the thief class is designed, at all.

There’s a reason we don’t have a stealth mode toggle, and that our only spammable stealth options requires us to hit someone with a melee attack, or waste two skills worth of initiative (the fuel that actually lets us use attack skills, a mechanic unique to the thief) All of the utility stealth is just that, utility stealth that must be taken at the expense of something else. It lasts no longer than our weapon based options and comes with a big fat cooldown. Shadow refuge is an exception to the rule, but also requires the thief to build a very noticable floating house, and sit in it until it finishes… and even then they’re left with ten seconds of stealth and a long cooldown.

Thieves don’t have a monoply on leaving fights whenever they feel like it. Pretty much every class has a solid “get out of jail free” build avaliable. The only difference is that thieves are better at it, which is rather well balanced by how extremely squishy they are requiring them to die 100% of the time if they fail to pull it off.

Honestly, stealth only needs to work on every client as well as it does for the user. In other words, culling needs to be handled.

It’s not a question of the number of people on the map. There should be large battles between large forces.

The “zerging” issue is that the game actively encourages and better rewards getting every avaliable player on your server in one giant ball, and simply rolling from objective to objective.

Travel time and lack of interim obstacles have a lot to do with it, but also there’s little to no utility in defense unless the enemy zerg is actively breaking down your doors.

The scoreboard is half the problem, as the scoreboard doesn’t really care how upgraded your point was, or how long you’ve held it, only who owns what at every timer interval.

This encourages flipping objectives you have no ability or intent to defend just to tick the timer, and the fact that upgrades are 100% risk free as long as you can move the yak to the point makes defending the point itself a waste of time until the rolling ball of hate is breaking down your door.

Yaks are important, and people have learned to treat them as important, but there’s no need to defend a keep or tower itself during the upgrade process, and no benefit score-wise for holding a long-held point in stead of rolling out the entire map to go quick-cap two more.

In addition, walls and siege simply don’t have enough HP to create any semblance of a protracted fight, and the placement of built-in defenses makes them largely useless for their intended purpose of helping to held off a large attacking force that would otherwise overwhelm the defenders.

What I’d do:

• Disallow players to pick up supply from camps., this makes supply caravans much more important.
• 100% chance to loot avaliable supply from enemy Yaks. Again, Yaks = fulcrum. Flipping a supply camp just to loot it becomes less useful than actively intercepting enemy supplies, and defending camps becomes much more important. In addition, due to the limited amount of supply each Yak can carry, it becomes a much more efficient strategy to commission smaller yak hunting groups at multiple locations than to ball everyone on the map in to the main force.
• Players drop supply when killed. Any ally or enemy can loot this supply if they have room. This makes stopping siege deployments actually plausible, and creates a much more interesting supply metagame.
• Empty supply camps when they flip. Again, discourages flipping and encourages defending.
• Move the upgrade NPCs to the outside of the walls. Creates opportunities for small operators to more effectively cripple enemy fortifications, and encourages players to defend fortificstions during upgrades. Overall I believe this would help spread out player population a bit without affecting the ability to field a single strong mainforce.
• Double the HP of walls, gates, and siege equipment. Double their damage to players. Halve the damage players deal with weapons to siege. Quarter the damage players deal with weapons to gates. All of the above encourages using siege to counter siege and makes siege more viable as a force multiplier while discouraging simply overrunning it with a small group of players.
• Remove all siege AoE caps. Again, see above.
• Add a damage reducing and pulsing condition cleansing buff to any player operating siege. This makes fort and tower defenses much more viable and encourages players to man siege rather than abandon it at the sight of the first enemy.
• Increase the point value of objectives based on their upgrade status. A fully upgraded point should be worth twice as much as a fresh one. This greatly encourages defending assets.
• Increase the point value of objectives by one for each hour they are held. Again, this encourages defense, and discourages quick-flips.

Seriously though.

Our night crews will all be issued flashlights, a free Carnished Toaster, and the everlasting undying gratitude of the hardest workin’ server in WvW!

evilapprentice.6379:

What do you think of Body shot being an AoE, blast finisher, and granting x seconds of swiftness per target hit? Per target hit would be an advantage to using it in big fights, it would be the limiting factor in one on ones, would be unique from Dancing Dagger for P/D, swiftness is still advantageous to P/D as well as P/P, and the blast finisher would still give P/P Stealth.

I still like the idea of boon stripping (again, sorely needed, and thief seems thematically and mechanically inclined to do so), but I think my suggestion fixes some big issues across both P/P and P/D.

I just can’t see body shot as an AoE attack. It’s thematically defined as a single target attack with a high degree of accuracy used for increasing your own damage or that of allies. It’s one to the chest that knocks a bit of wind out of your foe so to speak.

It’s important to be mindful of current abilities, as Anet’s entire balance history has shown that while they may make core changes to skill functionality, they always attempt to keep the same role on the skill in question.

Take for example the update to Shadow Trap, the core function of the skill remained intact (a way to shadowstep to a foe that triggered a trap) or the GW1 change to Hundred blades (it went from an attack that hit foes near your target to a buff that made sword attacks do AoE damage.)

Also, it’d be redundant and stepping on the toes of shortbow, which has the already well defined role as the thief AoE ranged weapon, and already has an amazingly good spammable blast finisher on 2 where as pistols are expressedly single target with a trait to occasionally bounce.

Lokheit.7943:

PopeUrban.2578:

I said nothing about the specific stolen items from ele or engineer.

The thread title is VERY misleading if you have no problem in particular with those 2 and is something more general like your posts turned out to be. I see your intention was to make the mechanic work like their mechanic, but the way it’s written, and given how the Ele item is something that most people dislike most will think you want them changed before starting to read you sugestions.

Fair point. I kind of shortened it from the original title which was too long without thinking much about it.

Changed the thread title to be a bit more accurate.

Fiddler.5174:

8.5/10. Like the mix and colors. Is that the BoH coat?

Yep. 100% pack dolyak fur trim XD.Thanks

If you’re super-stacking apothecary gear, consider using Sigent of Malice for you heal. I find signet of malice is a great companion to P/D if you’ve got a lottle extra healing power, and you’re comfortable enough to go without the stealth from Hide in Shadows.

I will personally attest to having played scorpion wire pingpong (with a necro pull thrown in the mix for variety, and because there wasn’t a fourth thief) and it is, in fact hilarious.

For extra lulz do it with four or five */d thieves and activate CnD when you hook them, then stealth attack once you’re all stealthed.

evilapprentice.6379:

PopeUrban.2578:

evilapprentice.6379:

- Body shot needs to be completely redesigned – how about a 3 init ground target AoE with lowish damage that applies a low length cripple and is a blast finisher – boom, just fixed P/P. Blast finisher and cripple fix both problems P/P has – access to stealth and the ability to prevent melee from always being on top of you, and also prevent players with superior range (Ie, almost all of them) from constantly keeping you out of range.

While I agree body shot needs something other than vulnerability (because the vuln’s utility to any spec does not outweigh its initiative cost) Giving it a cripple is a bad move. This would make it useful in P/P, but still wasted space in P/D

Honestly, how about making it conditional so it’s analagous to the conditional #2 on the dagger mainhand?

Body Shot:
If target has at least one boon, remove a random boon from your target.
If target has no boons, you gain X might for Y seconds.

With a rip and might stack, it becomes worth the initiative use on pistol sets, makes sure that the offhand provides unique functionality, and sits well in a condition P/D or crit P/P setup while having the same basic intended functionality of body shot, as a heavy debuff that focuses on increasing your damage to your target (but now works with conditions!) and helping teammates more effectively kill them (by ripping their boons)

However, there’s an interesting tradeoff, as to completely strip a target you’ll have to dump all of your initiative on the strips, and won’t have any left for damage or defense. However, it DOES allow you increased support options on the fly, and choosing what abilities to use on the fly and where to dump initiative is the point of the initiative system.

Not only that, depending on the balance numbers for the might it may just made boon duration a worthwhile thing to stack on a thief build.

I agree, I wasn’t really thinking about P/D – though a blast finisher is something unique, and making the shot an AoE ground target has some advantages over dancing dagger. It also solves all of P/P’s problems (no escaping melee, no stealth) without feeling too OP.

I do like your suggestion better however, the game needs more ways to strip boons – on demand boon stripping without a CD at range seems pretty powerful though – you could claim FS does something similar but its more expensive, has to be used in melee, and will take much longer (especially if you wait for the second swing). Though this gives P/P an awesome tool, it still leaves it without access to a snare (while ankle shots is nice, its on crit rather than on demand, weakening its tactical use) or stealth.

I feel like pistol offhand isn’t going to ever get a snare simply for the fact that it has black powder and headshot. Not that kiting isn’t an issue with it, but that I feel like Anet is fairly set in the flavor of the abilities. if anything what P/P needs is some kind of initiative discount or mobility tool added directly to unload. TBH I think simply granting swiftness and increased backpedal while channeling would do the trick, nopt be too overpowered, and give the ability a very unique and thief-flavored mechanic.

The bodyshot strip might be too powerful at its current initiative cost, but honestly I’d be completely willing to see the cost or cast time raised to allow a dump of initiative to boon strip. I think the initiative mechanic makes thieves the perfect candidate for a semi-spammable strip as such as they can’t choose to strip and then deal a bunch of damage, their strips directly limit their immediate damage potential.

You can also use scorpion wire (utility skill) for precision long range pulls. It has a nice ability to actually pull apart linked chains of mobs and to royally ruin the day of people not paying attention in WvW wallfights.

Although the wire has a cooldown, it doesn’t aggro anything if it doesn’t hit (say the target moved too much) and can usually pick one mob out of a pack for you if you max range it. I put it on my bar any time our group needs a tactical pull as such.

evilapprentice.6379:

- Body shot needs to be completely redesigned – how about a 3 init ground target AoE with lowish damage that applies a low length cripple and is a blast finisher – boom, just fixed P/P. Blast finisher and cripple fix both problems P/P has – access to stealth and the ability to prevent melee from always being on top of you, and also prevent players with superior range (Ie, almost all of them) from constantly keeping you out of range.

While I agree body shot needs something other than vulnerability (because the vuln’s utility to any spec does not outweigh its initiative cost) Giving it a cripple is a bad move. This would make it useful in P/P, but still wasted space in P/D

Honestly, how about making it conditional so it’s analagous to the conditional #2 on the dagger mainhand?

Body Shot:
If target has at least one boon, remove a random boon from your target.
If target has no boons, you gain X might for Y seconds.

With a rip and might stack, it becomes worth the initiative use on pistol sets, makes sure that the offhand provides unique functionality, and sits well in a condition P/D or crit P/P setup while having the same basic intended functionality of body shot, as a heavy debuff that focuses on increasing your damage to your target (but now works with conditions!) and helping teammates more effectively kill them (by ripping their boons)

However, there’s an interesting tradeoff, as to completely strip a target you’ll have to dump all of your initiative on the strips, and won’t have any left for damage or defense. However, it DOES allow you increased support options on the fly, and choosing what abilities to use on the fly and where to dump initiative is the point of the initiative system.

Not only that, depending on the balance numbers for the might it may just make boon duration a worthwhile thing to stack on a thief build and usher in a new breed of pistol support thieves with venoms+stripping.

8/10

I like that it’s not mostly black, and I’ve always liked that norn cultural piece, but I get tired of seeing the hood.

codiac.5642:

This sounds like a balance issue. If thieves used half as much energy to dodge they’d have twice as many dodges up their sleeve and they’d recover a dodge in half the time, and it would even fit the meta for the class.

Six dodges in a row is a balance issue in and of itself. There’s a reason vigor is sparsely awarded and only grants a 50% regen to endurance. It still doesn’t solve the problem of being REQUIRED to dodge any time you take damage in stealth to remain so. It doesn’t solve the problem of completely disallowing the option to tank through aoes to preserve cooldowns and initiative.

Let’s not forget that you don’t have to be a thief to stealth. You’re also screwing up mesmer self-stealth and all ally/combo granted stealth in the process. For other classes, stealth is even more useful when they can get it and you’re removing a large part of WvW tactical play.

The system works extremely well as is for people that know how to use it. The existing system of non-locational feedback only needs to be made more obvious and awarded to every class/spec. Chains flipping on a stealth hit was unintended, but serves as a really good and fair balance for both the stealther and the attacker as much as channels not breaking on stealth is an unfair and unbalanced counter for the stealther while rewarding the attacker too greatly.

If you don’t ever want to use the lesser abilities, or pull it out in kit form you don’t have to, just hit the f3 button, use all five charges instantly, get the most powerful ability, and never bother with the 1-4 skills. This is exactly the same way it works now, albiet with a second button to use, but honestly, that’s really not much when you consider the three or four f keys other classes require to operate their abilities. heck, if it’s really that much trouble to hit a second button in return for always being able to see the steal cooldown (and having the extra potential ways to use the items), just stick a “quick thief mode” in options like the quick AoE mode.

I hope that explains it a little better.

IMO the problem with the pockets suggestion is that it’s going to take a long time to fill those pockets, and it doesn’t do much to address to spotty value of the stolen items to various specs and combat situations. Sure, it gives you more of them, and that’s giving you a better average chance of having something you can use, but I feel like even with pockets you still run in to the problem of stolen items being rather hit-and-miss for specific specs.

Take attunements, or the necro’s life force, or adrenaline. These are uniformly useful to every conceivable way those classes are built. Ele attunements can be made more useful, but even untraited attunements have spells in them that the ele is going to derive a great deal of value from. Warrior adrenaline is, by default, spec-appropriate all of the time because its effect is related to the specific kind of weapon equipped. Control heavy weapons have a control heavy burst, dps has dps, etc. Life force is uniformly useful to every necro because… well… its a second HP bar.

On top of all that, these mechanics are predictable. I don’t WANT stolen items to be completely predictable, but I think it’s only logical that if we’re intended to be opportunists maybe we should have a few more… opportunities.

That said, “steal modes” is an alternate way to do it with a similar problem. You’re still forced in to “one and done”

What I like about adrenaline is that while being a simple mechanic it has two modes, and varying levels of power. What stolen items lack is those varying levels of power. I’d like to see them work more like bizarro-adrenaline than like the toolbelt or shatters. The toolbelt works because it’s highly customizable. The shatters work because they’re nearly always avaliable. Stolen items are neither customizable nor nearly always avaliable. This means stolen items, mechanically, have more in common with burst skills than they do with anything else. Burst skills have two modes of operation and multiple (simple) levels of power starting at low. I’m proposing five levels of power, starting at maximum and potentially dropping off if you choose not to use the maximum in return for our one randomly selected mode of operation.

randomfightfan.4091:

A post I had to snip out so my reply wouldn’t be more of a book than it is, Sorry about that.

It isn’t a post about steal. Steal itself is just fine the way it is. I said quite as much. It’s a post about normalizing, and more importantly adding some options to the items you get from it so that the mechanic isn’t as one dimensional, and more importantly afford the thief some actual choices outside of “when do I use this thing?”

It’s about adding “how much of it do I want to use?”

I said nothing about the specific stolen items from ele or engineer. I don’t know where you got that idea. Generally, since the update to PvP steals the items are pretty good. it’s about looking at the ele conjure and engineer kit mechanics, and seeing how we can make stolen items a bit less one dimensional.

The suggestion makes perfect sense, but in case the original post was unlear I’ll clarify it.

Again, as much as you may enjoy axe and goop (and they’re great!) they have varying effectiveness based on build. I run a P/D condition spec for instance, so naturally, goop is pretty much the best thing ever. Axe on the other hand, is less damage than simply using my weapons, and is useful only for the whirl finisher to my build. Its not about these two skills specifically, but the intent of the suggestion is that every stolen item should have potentially optimal uses for different specs. Axe is godly on power/crit builds, mediocre on condition specs. Goop is godly on condition specs and marginally okay extra damage for power/crit specs.

The idea is that all stolen items, if they had varying levels of power and abilities, would have optimal uses for all sorts of specs. More importantly, under the proposed suggestion, your stolen items have the potential to do more than just one thing, making their use much more strategic and allowing for much more opportunistic use of the randomly granted items.

Stolen items rest in f2. Hitting f2 brings up the item’s 1-5 bar, replacing initiative display with charges (five circles, diamonds, quaggans, whatever). You can’t use weapon skills while you have it out, so there’s no reason to display initiative (all it’s doing is recharging)

Weapon swap puts away the item, but you can pull it again as long as you still have charges. Stealing and then using the item can be done exactly as it is now. Steal, then hit f3. You still have the option of that single powerful use. F1 steals (and more importantly, f1 is always steal so you can see the steal cooldown while holding a stolen item.)

F3 uses the remaining charges on the item instantly without pulling it out, and displays the icon for whatever item skill corresponds to the remaining charges. When you steal the item has five charges, so it’d be the #5, in the instance of goop this would be… well… the current goop. If you decide you’d like to use the lesser skills so you can get a little more mileage out of your stolen item, let’s say you swapped (f2) and used goop skill 2 (lets say it’s a single target poison and damage), which costs 2 charges. 5-2=3, So now you have 3 charges left on goop. This means you can still use any skill from 1-3 for its cost, and that f3 will now display #3. You can still use #3 from your pocket mid-fight without pulling the bundle by hitting f3 (use all remaining charges) or you can keep the bundle out and use 2 again, then 1. Or you can use 2 again and drop it (weapon swap) and the f3 will be #1 because you have 1 charge left. Basically, F3 is a shortcut it use the most powerful ability from your stolen item that you still have ammo for. On steal that’s 5 (the most powerful) but if you’ve used its lesser skills, then you have less charges, and thus it’s going to be a less powerful ability.

What’s different from the way it was early on in development (the implementation people hated) is that steal isn’t a bundle. When steal was a bundle you HAD to hold it in your hands, and dropping it meant you lost it. It was annoying because once you stole, you were effectively either cut off from your weapon skills, or forced in to using your steal to get them back in stead of saving it for a time you might want to use it.

Under this suggestion steal is more like an extremely temporary engineer kit if you want to use it that way. You can pull it out by hitting its button, and put it away again by pressing weapon swap or that same button again. If you’ve played an engineer you’ll be extremely familiar with how easy kits are to use.

So, stealing is fun, and stealing itself is greatly customizable via traits. The stolen items, however powerful they are, lack situational versatility and re-usability that really plays up the opportunist mechanic of this core thief ability.

Currently, you steal, and you get a random thing, usable once, and you’re done. You wait until steal recharges, or if you’ve held on to it for a while you steal something else, then use that once.

Stuff I like about stolen items:

• Pseudorandom but generally predictable in effect. It encourages learning the mechanic and what the stolen items do.
• Allows the thief a diverse amount of opportunistic attacks which change relative to what he’s fighting.

Stuff i dislike about stolen items:

• Oneshot abilities with inconsistant utility to various specs or combat situations. Some steals are amazing for some specs but not others (axe whirl, goop, etc.) and some just don’t feel worth the cooldown (Coral shard, ice shard, etc.)
• Low usability. We don’t get the option to use them much due to the cooldown on steal. While some of the effects are certainly worthy of that cooldown (mace stun, fear, etc.) many are not, which leads to an inconsistant usability of a mechanic with a uniform cooldown. It’s like saying all warrior weapon skills have 20 second cooldowns despite some being clearly more powerful than others. it wouldn’t work in that context, and it especially doesn’t work when the selection is not in the control of the user.

So here’s an idea: What if stolen items worked more like ele conjures or Engineer kits?

For instance, you steal a rifle. Currently, that rifle is good for a single high-power shot with knockback.

What if, in stead, that rifle rested in your f2 button, and you could swap to it cooldown free like an engineer kit, and swap back to your weapons with weapon swap? In addition, simply make F3 an “instantly use all avaliable charges” button that is analagous to the way the skill works now. Now, mind you this is a limited use ability, and nothing nearly as powerful as a kit or conjure, but keep in mind the “ammunition” counter on ele conjures. This use-limiting mechanic allows the conjures to be pretty powerful but still fairly strategic.

Obviously, we don’t want to time limit stolen items. We stole them, they’re ours until we use them up. At the same time we don’t want them being a disproportionally large amount of the thief’s combat abilities. They’re opportunistic items we keep for a while until we find a good use for them.

Now, imagine every stolen item had five charges, which replace initiative when you’re holding it. The 1-5 skills cost a corresponding amount of charges, with the current powerful stolen item option as #5. So, in the rifle example, 5 is the knockback shot. using it costs five charges, and thus consumes the rifle. Now imagine you had a less powerful shot with no knockback availiable on #1, a short cripple on #2, a decent bleed on #3, and a self-knockback with light initiative gain on number 4.

Now, you’ve got options!

Maybe you’d like to use the big positioning shot and eat the whole thing to create distance… or maybe you’d like a mildly inconvenient knockback to gain a little initiative, and to have one charge left for a 1200 range shot for pulling or finishing later.

Maybe you’d like to combine 2 and 3 for some cripple and bleed support.

Maybe you’d like to just use 1 five times because you don’t have 1200 range weapons and it’s extra dps while closing on or fleeing from a target.

Maybe you have other combinations that you’d choose based on the opportunities stealing and your current combat situation afforded you.

Axe whirl not good in your condition spec? What if in stead you could chose twice for two bleeds?

Don’t need the extra stealth? What if you could use feathers five times for a single target blind in stead… or just use one and save the other four?

What if in stead of eating all the boons from that ectoplasm at once, you could in stead eat a little… then a little more later for less duration and number of boons?

The possibilities are exciting and I think it would add a lot of depth and utility to steal, perhaps even so much you’re not really annoyed by the cooldown of stealing because your stolen items can have a longer shelf life if you want to use them that way.

One could also title this post “How not to treat shadow refuge in PvP. A visual guide for offense and defense.”

That was pretty good video XD

codiac.5642:

PopeUrban.2578:

Whip out a flamethrower of grenade kit and stealth is completely useless. Heck, swing a great sword and hit once and you’ll never stop hitting, even if the hit was at the very edge of your strike.

Surely even with the damage ticker a half decent thief could simply dodge out of the way. Dodge + stealth is powerful.

Maybe allow the thief to use initiative for dodging once their stamina is empty.

Actually that would be awesome, ninja jump, ninja dodge, ninja dodge again, scamper, pew, pew, pew, ninja dodge.

That’s a neat idea, but really, imagine a situation where you’ve got damage numbers or some other locational hit indicator.

You lay down a series of necro wells, ping> thief location pinpointed for a hit. Ping> next hit.

After the first hit you have the option to dodge, sure, but you’ve only got two dodges, three with some investment in the acrobatics line.

Your other mobility skills are all mutually exclusive with dealing damage. No mobility utility does damage, and mobility based weapon skills cost initiative.

I believe everyone should know they hit something. However, I don’t believe it should be functionally impossible for a thief to walk through someone spamming 1 with a flamethrower. We commonly save those dodges specifically for dodging big attacks or to create distance, stealthed or not, and we don’t magically get more dodges when we stealth. We need them to fight, and a large part of stealth is having the ability to reposition without using them, or having a quick break from a fight to recharge the endurance we rely on a bit more than other classes to mitigate damage, as we have no real defensive boons and bottom tier HP.

Knowing you hit is the state of the game now, and as a thief I can tell the difference between, say, a warrior that knows how to stealth detect wih his chains and one that does not. The smart warrior will get that chain hit with his auto and immediately hit the area with a nice heavy attack or some CC. He’ll then immediately start sweeping the area in all directions to get another ping to see if his CC landed and stuck. He’s rewarded for ferreting out my general location, but he actually has to work to pinpoint my exact location. This makes stealth viable in that I can juke the guy a bit without wasting a dodge that I’ll need when stealth wears off to survive and actually fight the guy. At the same time, he can counter that juke by using wide AoE and cone swing mechanics, and force me to use it anyway.

A precise locational indicator would mean that literally every time you’re hit in stealth you MUST use a dodge. This means even the lowest damage AoE is completely off limits, which too greatly limits one of the primary uses of stealth as a positioning tool, and more importantly, makes stealth completely useless as a mid-fight positioning tool against all melee and heavy AoE sets.

You shouldn’t have to stare at your #1 skill to detect if you hit a stealther, and every class and spec should have the same ability as chain melee users do to reliably know “hey, I hit an invisible guy” so they can attempt the big hit or have a general idea where to drop AoE.

However, countering stealth shouldn’t be as easy as hitting once and then lasering the spot, and stealthers should have the option to risk running through low damage AoEs and taking that damage in stead of wasting endurance and abilities while under effects of stealth.

While is sounds like a cool idea, the problem with it is that tattoos in GW2 are by every indication a specifically norn feature.

This was done primarily to make norn stand apart as something other than just “big humans” and as cool as it would be to get a few tattoos on other races I doubt it’s going to happen.

None. For expansion content I’d like to see the available traits and skills for existing professions expanded to create greater diversity. As in, doubled. As well as new weapon types for existing professions.

This means that all of your expansion content is useful for both existing and new characters rather than releasing an expansion where a large chunk of it requires rerolling. I’ve always hated that in MMOs. Having to choose to play the “new thing” or playing my “slightly upgraded old thing”

I want an mmo expansion which is actually “Play your greatly expanded existing thing, or, optionally, roll a new thing because the additions we made to it make it interesting for you now.”

The way zone scaling works in this game is great, as any added areas are viable gameplay destinations for existing characters. We need to expand that to adding new toys to characters.

Would you rather have a new race, or double the appearance options, animations, and emotes on an existing one. These take similar amounts of development time and skillsets, but one option is actually useful to everyone that plays the game while the other is only useful to people willing to reroll.

Displaying the MOTD in the chatbox upon logging in or change of the message. Unless you’re a leader or officer many guild members rarely use the guild panel. They just log in and say hello in guild chat because it’s an easier way to tell who’s online and actively playing (and not AFK)

Similarly, togglable guild member logon notifications for the chat box.

zellurs.8601:

PopeUrban.2578:

Question:

What exactly did you expect to get? A new interface button for your bank?

Something like that – or even multiple versions of the item received in the mail for my characters.

PopeUrban.2578:

You can still use it on all of your alts. They just need to visit a bank or crafting station one time at the beginning of play. To store just open the bank with it, then bank it right?

It permits a single character to never visit the bank again. That’s not powerful enough for you?

No. It’s not what I wanted, and not what the item is called. I bought it specifically so I could coordinate loot and gold through all my characters.

I understand that, but I find it difficult to believe that you assumed you would get such a thing. Not a single item in the entire game is functional for multiple characters at the same time. What made you think the item would be usable by more than one character at a time?

I’m not disagreeing with you. They should just put a description in the tooltip to avoid people being confused and disappointed. However I have trouble figuring out how anyone would get the impression that those permanent contract items would do anything more than what they already do.

If it were completely impossible to detect hits on stealthers i’d be against this idea. However, you can already detect stealth hits on classes whi have a chain attack auto. When it chains, you’ve hit.

The problem with this is that not every class and weapon set has chain attack autos, and it requires looking at the interface to pull off.

I’m behind some kind of visual cue, but only if it’s non-locational. Hitting a thief with an AoE shouldn’t pinpoint the stealther down to the nanometer (and all melee weapons are AoEs of a sort) as that makes it actively too difficult to effectively stealth. Put down necro wells and suddenly the thief can’t choose to approach or travel through the area. Whip out a flamethrower of grenade kit and stealth is completely useless. Heck, swing a greatsword and hit once and you’ll never stop hitting, even if the hit was at the very edge of your strike.

Just a little sparkle or something above your character’s head, or maybe a screen-edge flash similar to conditions would do the trick. This gives equal access to stealth hit feedback to everyone while not completely removing the thief’s ability to choose to soak a little damage while stealthed.

A lot of hate for this idea, but honestly, I like it. Badges of honor should be redeemable for all WvW expenses. They’re already redeemable for siege and gear (with more gear coming… some day… some time) I don’t see the harm in making them usable as currency for repairs and heck, why not allow them to be used for upgrades in stead of gold as well?

This still keeps the utility of the gold sinks bu actively rewards players who are doing well by mitigating their WvW gold costs by allowing them to use badges.

Also, add badge awards to WvW events.

Question:

What exactly did you expect to get? A new interface button for your bank? If the qualm is that it’s an item that has to reside in the inventory of the character currently using it then I fail to understand how you thought it was going to work. I assumed it was a clickable permanent version of the express bank access. Turns out its’ a consumable that gives you exactly that.

You can still use it on all of your alts. They just need to visit a bank or crafting station one time at the beginning of play. To store just open the bank with it, then bank it right?

It permits a single character to never visit the bank again. That’s not powerful enough for you?

Things I like about this suggestion:

• Well thought out mechanics with a twist not seen on other professions.
• Fun and interesting active abilities

Things I dislike about this suggestion:

• Feels like a kitten hybrid of the Thief and Engineer
• Includes many features and skills that would be much better suited as simple additions to either the thief or engineer

Counter suggestion:

• Cannibalize this idea in to subsets of skills for the thief and engineer.

Observation:

• The skritt will probably never be seen as a playable race due to their involvement in personal story and the basic mechanics of their race which prevent individuals from being exceptional in a manner that defines player characters.

evilapprentice.6379:

Daecollo.9578:

Confuse your enemy if you evade an attack?

Now this sounds like a game changer. An Acro trait that causes confuse on evade, and a crit strikes trait that gives prot and revealed on crit.

There you go, now S/D has 2 distinct, different playstyles. Your dodgy pirate S/D relies on protection to soak up lesser swings, evades to counter the harder hitting stuff, and the better you place (IE, evading attacks), the more you hurt your opponent via confusions.

Players wont be able to just unload on you towards the end of a flanking strike, knowing that even if a few of their attacks hit the thief is in trouble (thanks to protection taking the edge off their attacks combined with them taking damage via confusion thanks to sloppy play). It also changes the “DPS race” problem I pointed out earlier in the thread – you’re being actively rewarded for good play (evading attacks) outside the evade itself – your level of skillful play is the most important part of how well this hypothetical setup works, and that’s a hallmark of good design.

I agree, though i’m still not 100% convinced in terms of protection on a thief trait (and I still feel like some sort of greater ability to blind would serve a similar mitigation role while not over-stacking with existing capabilities) Maybe not on crit, but perhaps “every fourth attack” or something.

Still, Confusion on evade as a minor is an extremely thematic and mechanically sound trait idea that’s actually worthy of being apart from the sword trait because of its utility on all sorts of builds. Confusion at its core is already well understood and well balanced so I think it’d be a fun alternative minor trait. You can cleanse it, wait it off, or power through, and putting it on evades rather than crits means you’re not going to have the opportunity to mega-stack it. In addition it synergizes with teammates much better than direct damage, and that’s always a good thing.

Though I think renaming it from riposte to “Insufferable” would be more appropriate with that functionality. Fits better with confuse and it makes me lol.

Also, I’d like to note that this has been possible the most constructive and engaging threads on the thief forum in a while. No offense Daecollo, but you’re much better company when you’re being more thinky and less caustic.

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

rjinx.1378:

Daecollo.9578:

Critical Strikes
En Garde
- Increases your critical-hit chance with a sword and spear by 10%.
- Gain 3s of Vigor and revealed on critical hit with a sword or spear.

/fixed

You know, vigor ain’t a bad idea. I feel vigor alone isn’t enough to justify the almost complete loss of in-combat stealth though.

What about vigor+ something… extra confusion seems better than anything else we’ve spitballed here, and it might be a fair tradeoff for losing tactical strike.

Vigor +

Acrobatics
Riposte – Minor Trait.
Deal damage each time you evade your foe.

Lol, that’s evil. I would take it on nearly every thief build imaginable. How about a little counterplay.

Acrobatics
Riposte – Minor Trait.
Gain 2 seconds of retaliation each time you evade an attack. Internal cooldown 2 seconds.

This way they’re not just plain taking the damage.

Well, it actually makes a lot of sense, but Retaliation would go much better with the first idea of protection, since you have to get hit, and actually make thieves who evade worse, the counter play to the riposte thing is simple. Don’t attack the thief unless you know his evades are down, or CC him.

It wouldn’t really be good, because you gained retaliation (on evade.) when you evaded his attack, and so you didn’t do anything to him?

" Retaliation is a boon that damages anyone who hits them. Damage will not be dealt if the attack is prevented or avoided. Duration can be stacked up to 5 times."

That’s true, but at the same time you’ve got a nearly impossible to track number of evades on a acro/sword thief. Take similar traits, like the warrior blocking = projectile reflection one. It’s very obvious when the warrior has the capacity to block. He’s either got aegis from another source, or he’s holding up a shield or mace.

Evasion isn’t something you can really quantify that way because there are so many unknown factors. You’ve got X number of possible heal/utility evades, endurance based dodges, and this is a sword trait, so you’ve got sword evades which are relative to initiative, and there’s no way for an outside observer to have a really good handle on your initiative.

All that together plus the fact that evades usually happen after you’re already started an attack make a straight damage return just a little too good to be true.

I’ll admit, though, that retaliation might not be appropriate, and I’m guessing this kind of theme is where the dodge>might trait came from as a similar discussion probably happenned during development.

Still think it’s best to roll the appropriate compensation for the “loss of stealth” trait in to that trait itself.

Also, I think the game needs a whole lot more sidegrade style traits with powerful buffs paid for in powerful drawbacks.

It would be fun to see a Bull’s Rush 100b Warrior kill himself due to your evades though. Even a P/D thief trying to quickshot you repeatedly, killing himself when you evade his shots.

Oh it for sure sounds awesome, just a little too awesome, especially for a minor.

It does have a hard counter, CC (knock down, knock back.)/Immobilize.

And its not like “Mug” damage, it probably does very little damage.

The problem is, basically, that all of those are in turn countered by the all-class-avaliable god of hard counters: evade itself.

Sure, once you’re locked down you’re locked down (well, Roll for initiative says hi) but getting you there and making it reliable becomes actively harder and more punishing for the guy trying to do it.

It’s hard enough to try and lock down a good thief. Doubly so for a sword thief, actively punishing your opponent for trying in a way he can’t mitigate or reliably predict seems a little over the top to me. The reward for landing a CC is already there, it shouldn’t be the only way to mitigate otherwise unmitigated damage.

Basically, I’m saying that instant non-dodgable damage is a bad thing balance wise, which is why there’s so very little of it in the game. If evades has a leadup it would be fair, but then again it would also completely break the core function of evades as reactionary invulnerability.

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

rjinx.1378:

Daecollo.9578:

Critical Strikes
En Garde
- Increases your critical-hit chance with a sword and spear by 10%.
- Gain 3s of Vigor and revealed on critical hit with a sword or spear.

/fixed

You know, vigor ain’t a bad idea. I feel vigor alone isn’t enough to justify the almost complete loss of in-combat stealth though.

What about vigor+ something… extra confusion seems better than anything else we’ve spitballed here, and it might be a fair tradeoff for losing tactical strike.

Vigor +

Acrobatics
Riposte – Minor Trait.
Deal damage each time you evade your foe.

Lol, that’s evil. I would take it on nearly every thief build imaginable. How about a little counterplay.

Acrobatics
Riposte – Minor Trait.
Gain 2 seconds of retaliation each time you evade an attack. Internal cooldown 2 seconds.

This way they’re not just plain taking the damage.

Well, it actually makes a lot of sense, but Retaliation would go much better with the first idea of protection, since you have to get hit, and actually make thieves who evade worse, the counter play to the riposte thing is simple. Don’t attack the thief unless you know his evades are down, or CC him.

It wouldn’t really be good, because you gained retaliation (on evade.) when you evaded his attack, and so you didn’t do anything to him?

" Retaliation is a boon that damages anyone who hits them. Damage will not be dealt if the attack is prevented or avoided. Duration can be stacked up to 5 times."

That’s true, but at the same time you’ve got a nearly impossible to track number of evades on a acro/sword thief. Take similar traits, like the warrior blocking = projectile reflection one. It’s very obvious when the warrior has the capacity to block. He’s either got aegis from another source, or he’s holding up a shield or mace.

Evasion isn’t something you can really quantify that way because there are so many unknown factors. You’ve got X number of possible heal/utility evades, endurance based dodges, and this is a sword trait, so you’ve got sword evades which are relative to initiative, and there’s no way for an outside observer to have a really good handle on your initiative.

All that together plus the fact that evades usually happen after you’re already started an attack make a straight damage return just a little too good to be true.

I’ll admit, though, that retaliation might not be appropriate, and I’m guessing this kind of theme is where the dodge>might trait came from as a similar discussion probably happenned during development.

Still think it’s best to roll the appropriate compensation for the “loss of stealth” trait in to that trait itself.

Also, I think the game needs a whole lot more sidegrade style traits with powerful buffs paid for in powerful drawbacks.

It would be fun to see a Bull’s Rush 100b Warrior kill himself due to your evades though. Even a P/D thief trying to quickshot you repeatedly, killing himself when you evade his shots.

Oh it for sure sounds awesome, just a little too awesome, especially for a minor.

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

rjinx.1378:

Daecollo.9578:

Critical Strikes
En Garde
- Increases your critical-hit chance with a sword and spear by 10%.
- Gain 3s of Vigor and revealed on critical hit with a sword or spear.

/fixed

You know, vigor ain’t a bad idea. I feel vigor alone isn’t enough to justify the almost complete loss of in-combat stealth though.

What about vigor+ something… extra confusion seems better than anything else we’ve spitballed here, and it might be a fair tradeoff for losing tactical strike.

Vigor +

Acrobatics
Riposte – Minor Trait.
Deal damage each time you evade your foe.

Lol, that’s evil. I would take it on nearly every thief build imaginable. How about a little counterplay.

Acrobatics
Riposte – Minor Trait.
Gain 2 seconds of retaliation each time you evade an attack. Internal cooldown 2 seconds.

This way they’re not just plain taking the damage.

Well, it actually makes a lot of sense, but Retaliation would go much better with the first idea of protection, since you have to get hit, and actually make thieves who evade worse, the counter play to the riposte thing is simple. Don’t attack the thief unless you know his evades are down, or CC him.

It wouldn’t really be good, because you gained retaliation (on evade.) when you evaded his attack, and so you didn’t do anything to him?

" Retaliation is a boon that damages anyone who hits them. Damage will not be dealt if the attack is prevented or avoided. Duration can be stacked up to 5 times."

That’s true, but at the same time you’ve got a nearly impossible to track number of evades on a acro/sword thief. Take similar traits, like the warrior blocking = projectile reflection one. It’s very obvious when the warrior has the capacity to block. He’s either got aegis from another source, or he’s holding up a shield or mace.

Evasion isn’t something you can really quantify that way because there are so many unknown factors. You’ve got X number of possible heal/utility evades, endurance based dodges, and this is a sword trait, so you’ve got sword evades which are relative to initiative, and there’s no way for an outside observer to have a really good handle on your initiative.

All that together plus the fact that evades usually happen after you’re already started an attack make a straight damage return just a little too good to be true.

I’ll admit, though, that retaliation might not be appropriate, and I’m guessing this kind of theme is where the dodge>might trait came from as a similar discussion probably happenned during development.

Still think it’s best to roll the appropriate compensation for the “loss of stealth” trait in to that trait itself.

Also, I think the game needs a whole lot more sidegrade style traits with powerful buffs paid for in powerful drawbacks.

Eduardo.4675:

The OP started with 1s of prot and revealed per crit hit. It then moved on to 5s, with the non reaplly clause. My 1st answer was to 1st OP. Now, its 3s of revealed. A lot has changed.
And my tactical strike, which is the reason for a S/D spec, was being hindered by the no stealth clause. And having to wait to use HIS too. I want to use tactical strike after the 3rd sword auto as much as possible, and the initial build was denying that intirely. Even this version with 6s max revealed is poor. The 10% crit chance increase wouldnt make up for it, far from that. It only serves a PW spec, a spec that is initiative intense, making usage of return to wipe conditions very difficult coz youre conditioned on your usage of HIS. And in a spec that is protection based, conditions are the counter.

I think the idea is to create a trait that largely removes the ability to use tactical strike, while compensating the thief for that loss.

Basically, if you’re using tactical strike then this trait wouldn’t be build appropriate.

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

rjinx.1378:

Daecollo.9578:

Critical Strikes
En Garde
- Increases your critical-hit chance with a sword and spear by 10%.
- Gain 3s of Vigor and revealed on critical hit with a sword or spear.

/fixed

You know, vigor ain’t a bad idea. I feel vigor alone isn’t enough to justify the almost complete loss of in-combat stealth though.

What about vigor+ something… extra confusion seems better than anything else we’ve spitballed here, and it might be a fair tradeoff for losing tactical strike.

Vigor +

Acrobatics
Riposte – Minor Trait.
Deal damage each time you evade your foe.

Lol, that’s evil. I would take it on nearly every thief build imaginable. How about a little counterplay.

Acrobatics
Riposte – Minor Trait.
Gain 2 seconds of retaliation each time you evade an attack. Internal cooldown 2 seconds.

This way they’re not just plain taking the damage. Also, OMG boon duration might be worth something… in the boon duration line.

rjinx.1378:

Daecollo.9578:

Critical Strikes
En Garde
- Increases your critical-hit chance with a sword and spear by 10%.
- Gain 3s of Vigor and revealed on critical hit with a sword or spear.

/fixed

You know, vigor ain’t a bad idea. I feel vigor alone isn’t enough to justify the almost complete loss of in-combat stealth though.

What about vigor+ something… extra confusion seems better than anything else we’ve spitballed here, and it might be a fair tradeoff for losing tactical strike.

Edit: 3s of confusion might be a bit much unless it’s a proc chance on crit. Remember you’re talking about a critical strikes trait on a weapon with some very good multi-hit ability,

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

Tell me what you think of my idea above.

Its definately interesting (the confusion on crit) in that it creates a much more offensive rather than defensive setup for a theoretical “non-stealth” trait, but do you think that, combined with sword’s other shutdown abilities and the increased damage output of this trait might be slightly much?

I admit the idea of a sword-based condition build using such a setup sounds hilarious, but I wonder if giving thieves that much confusion would step on mesmers too much.

Then again they stole some of our stealth. Might be fair.

What about blind on crit?

Black Powder? Cloaked in Shadow? We already have that. Lol.

Confusion is the only condition that punishes people from missing and evading you, and its not like the Sword has a Bleed on it or poison like daggers, so it would only be able to apply the confusion condition, Mesmers can do Confusion + Bleeding.

True, but blinding powder is extremely temporary and cloaked in shadow is… well… a stealth trait. Confusion punishes people when they hit you as well, so it might be a little off-theme. Blind on crit might by a little more thematic with the sword and actually prevent you from taking hits. It’s basically bizarro-aegis and is really good at mitigating damage, but takes some finesse and skill to use properly which would seem pretty on-theme with the “skilled fencer” idea of the trait.

S/D has Cloaked in Shadow.
S/P has Black Powder.

They are both very good at blinding the opponent, but blind on critical is and sounds very OP, and just would not be practical in PvE where bosses just completely ignore blinds.

Truth. How about in stead of confusion on crit… something like “Your sword skills now apply confusion.”

This wouldn’t apply to the auto so potentially a little longer confusion duration could be used. Basically you’d be forcing your opponent to trade blows in a sort of rythm with you in stead of just stacking a lot of confusion and using it as a shutdown like mesmers do.

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

Tell me what you think of my idea above.

Its definately interesting (the confusion on crit) in that it creates a much more offensive rather than defensive setup for a theoretical “non-stealth” trait, but do you think that, combined with sword’s other shutdown abilities and the increased damage output of this trait might be slightly much?

I admit the idea of a sword-based condition build using such a setup sounds hilarious, but I wonder if giving thieves that much confusion would step on mesmers too much.

Then again they stole some of our stealth. Might be fair.

What about blind on crit?

Black Powder? Cloaked in Shadow? We already have that. Lol.

Confusion is the only condition that punishes people from missing and evading you, and its not like the Sword has a Bleed on it or poison like daggers, so it would only be able to apply the confusion condition, Mesmers can do Confusion + Bleeding.

True, but blinding powder is extremely temporary and cloaked in shadow is… well… a stealth trait. Confusion punishes people when they hit you as well, so it might be a little off-theme. Blind on crit might by a little more thematic with the sword and actually prevent you from taking hits. It’s basically bizarro-aegis and is really good at mitigating damage, but takes some finesse and skill to use properly which would seem pretty on-theme with the “skilled fencer” idea of the trait.

Daecollo.9578:

Tell me what you think of my idea above.

Its definately interesting (the confusion on crit) in that it creates a much more offensive rather than defensive setup for a theoretical “non-stealth” trait, but do you think that, combined with sword’s other shutdown abilities and the increased damage output of this trait might be slightly much?

I admit the idea of a sword-based condition build using such a setup sounds hilarious, but I wonder if giving thieves that much confusion would step on mesmers too much.

Then again they stole some of our stealth. Might be fair.

What about blind on crit?

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

ensoriki.5789:

inb4 bunker thief.
inb4 needacondtspectokillthisthief.
inb4 hekeepsremovingmyflippingcondis.

Looks at Guardian Board.
Comes back here.

What?

What he said. Perhaps in stead of protection add passive non-boon regen based on initiative like the warrior trait that regenerates HP relative to adrenaline? This makes sure you’re still relying on the thief’s superior mobility, and rewards the mobility and smart tactical strikes while playing mostly visible than just spamming down to zero initiative all the time.

Thieves have Regeneration in stealth already, thats already a play-style thief has, this play-style is non-stealthy, you arn’t in stealth and you cannot gain stealth, its very active because (especially in pvp.) you don’t have stealth anymore, so you can’t rely on culling or anything to win, just your evades and shadowsteps.

You don’t have regen in stealth with this particular trait though. That’s the point I think. It’s the “non stealth” trait.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mck9oMFvlmMFvlm9Mx9Mcmq

That build is already available, and it would be 100x better because they cannot see you, so why even have the trait then if its going to be much much worse then whats already available, protection is needed because you cannot stealth.

Because it wouldn’t be worse if the “You can’t stealth hardly ever” trait had passive regen to actively reward periods of dancing as well as stealthing rewards being unseen. Heck, tack on a little but of endurance gain on crit while you’re at it to really hammer home the non-stealth nature of the trait and make it a viable build enabler.

Stealth users also have access to dodge as well, with Traits that give them a lot of regeneration and condition removal. This would offer protection, but no stealth or condition removal or regeneration.

Right. My thinking is that protection makes soaking hits easier, and a trait like this seems like it should be less about soaking hits and more about not taking them. Protection doesn’t reward not taking hits as well as an initiative scaled passive health gain would.

With protection you just take less damage, but with the init-scaled regen idea you’d actively be healing for more the less you attacked, creating a much more interesting dynamic, and encouraging avoiding damage more than simply soaking it.

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

ensoriki.5789:

inb4 bunker thief.
inb4 needacondtspectokillthisthief.
inb4 hekeepsremovingmyflippingcondis.

Looks at Guardian Board.
Comes back here.

What?

What he said. Perhaps in stead of protection add passive non-boon regen based on initiative like the warrior trait that regenerates HP relative to adrenaline? This makes sure you’re still relying on the thief’s superior mobility, and rewards the mobility and smart tactical strikes while playing mostly visible than just spamming down to zero initiative all the time.

Thieves have Regeneration in stealth already, thats already a play-style thief has, this play-style is non-stealthy, you arn’t in stealth and you cannot gain stealth, its very active because (especially in pvp.) you don’t have stealth anymore, so you can’t rely on culling or anything to win, just your evades and shadowsteps.

You don’t have regen in stealth with this particular trait though. That’s the point I think. It’s the “non stealth” trait.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mck9oMFvlmMFvlm9Mx9Mcmq

That build is already available, and it would be 100x better because they cannot see you, so why even have the trait then if its going to be much much worse then whats already available, protection is needed because you cannot stealth.

Because it wouldn’t be worse if the “You can’t stealth hardly ever” trait had passive regen to actively reward periods of dancing as well as stealthing rewards being unseen. Heck, tack on a little but of endurance gain on crit while you’re at it to really hammer home the non-stealth nature of the trait and make it a viable build enabler.

Daecollo.9578:

PopeUrban.2578:

Daecollo.9578:

ensoriki.5789:

inb4 bunker thief.
inb4 needacondtspectokillthisthief.
inb4 hekeepsremovingmyflippingcondis.

Looks at Guardian Board.
Comes back here.

What?

What he said. Perhaps in stead of protection add passive non-boon regen based on initiative like the warrior trait that regenerates HP relative to adrenaline? This makes sure you’re still relying on the thief’s superior mobility, and rewards the mobility and smart tactical strikes while playing mostly visible than just spamming down to zero initiative all the time.

Thieves have Regeneration in stealth already, thats already a play-style thief has, this play-style is non-stealthy, you arn’t in stealth and you cannot gain stealth, its very active because (especially in pvp.) you don’t have stealth anymore, so you can’t rely on culling or anything to win, just your evades and shadowsteps.

You don’t have regen in stealth with this particular trait though. That’s the point I think. It’s the “non stealth” trait. This buffs that type of build while making it synergize less with its anti-build (the stealth healing tactical striker)