Guild Wars 2

babazhook.6805:

Manage your INI as if you blow it too quickly it will not be there when needed. AA attacks and utilities that can do damage without INI are your friend and should be used to supplement your other attacks.

This pretty much will solve all your problems.

Nefarius.9702:

thanks, but I was just curious about underwater fighting

Now that D/D is somewhat compareable (hopefully a-net keeps d/d equal to staff) thief became more interesting for me again.

When in a group, stick to the harpoon gun using Deluge whenever you have at least 10 init (you’ll want to save 5 init for Spear #3). When you get aggro, swap to spear and use Nine-tail Strikes (Spear #3) to counter with multiple strikes or use Shadow Assault (Spear #5) to trigger “on evade” abilities.

Jana.6831:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Jana.6831:

And how do you abbreviate Dancing Dagger?

X/D #4 .

Not bad – if doing all of this like listed, we’ll soon become Thief intellectuals.
We could also call it OHD4 though.

x/D4 is much better IMO because it follows the universal accepted weapon set standard format of D/D and S/D, for example.

Straegen.2938:

Also, I believe Venoms are applied to minions, pets, etc and don’t proc reveal so Ambush and Thieves Guild can actually douse a player with a good bit of condition without ever revealing their real attacker.

That would probably be true only if the summoned Thieves just don’t stand around UNTIL you personally hit someone with an attack. In other words, in order for your summoned Thieves to attack your target and apply conditions from venom is to reveal yourself.

It’s hard to believe that a necro with 30k will die from any trapper Thief (of Thieves) since it’s very easy to thwart such build by simply using the Staff. If you did everything within your power to fight back, then the only possibility is that it’s a hack.

Like I said, it’s not even in a realm of possibility for a trapper Thief to destroy a necro with 30k hp and a staff.

EDIT: Just to throw some numbers. With 10 stacks of bleed, that will deal about 1200 dmg per tick (dpt). With 10 stacks of poison, that will deal about 2000 dpt. Assuming this is the case which also assuming that the Thief has 1650 condition damage, it will take about 10 seconds to down a 30k HP Necro assuming that the Necro is just standing there doing nothing. Since it’s not possible to get 10 stacks of poison from a Trapper build, it will take more than 10s to down a 30k HP Necro — which is plenty of time to fight back and probably even live.

Wow, this build is actually brilliant.

Infiltrator Strike (or Steal) →Lotus dodge is a good combo to waste anti-CC or cleanse while keeping your target withing striking range.

The combination of Lotus Poison (trait) and Weakening Strikes (trait) will consistently keep the target weakened, hindering endurance regen.

Infiltrator’s Signet and Shadowstep are not just stun breaks but also skills that can put a target within range of Lotus dodge for continuous pressure in a team fight.

The constant application of conditions ensures that each sword hit gets the 10% damage boost from Exposed Weakness.

The overall damage output is on a low side without CS, however, looking at it in a team fight, this build only gets better with boon stacks.

Bottom line, S/D still sucks. You can use this build with S/P and it would still work and probably more effective in a team fight.

The complaints about the stealth attack’s ICD is exaggerated. I’ve chained back stabs and hook strikes last night and the ICD is negligible — if it’s even noticeable, it’s not as bad as Death Blossom’s after cast delay or Shadow Shot’s pre-cast delay (those delays are horrible). Heck, the Debilitating Arc after-cast delay is horrendous.

If you’re going to complain about ICD complain about the pre-cast and after-cast delays (aka ICD) instead.

The changes that D/D (and P/P) needs has nothing to do with D/P or any other weapon set. The technology is there in terms of environmental weapon and the mechanic is there in terms of dual-wielding.

I don’t understand anyone who would oppose to the idea that D/D (and P/P) needs its own separate 5-skills weapon set. It’s been obvious for quite a while now that this is the only solution instead of going through this roller coaster ride of nerfing and buffing skills and trait at the cost of D/D (and P/P).

Straegen.2938:

The confusion comes in when a skill says 100% or 50% endurance recovery. For a Dare Devil that means 66% or 33% respectively. The percentage gains are fixed numbers behind the scenes and the descriptions are misleading.

So a 50% endurance recovery is really one dodge, 100% two dodges. Makes sense on a non standard thief, somewhat confusing on a Dare Devil.

Simply drop the % sign…problem solved. I’m sure this will be addressed in the next “Tooltip fixes” they’ve been running lately.

Now look at it this way. You’re fighting a Thief and he flashbanged you from stealth, preventing you from stealthing and blinding you so that he can backstab you with no risk of counter.

To be honest, I’m tired of seeing suggestions around the Revealed mechanic.

Why can’t they just allow Thief have the innate ability to see, as a silhouette, anyone who is in stealth?

This way, we can do away with Revealed and it makes the Thief a good counter to stealth enemies and an important member of a team.

Kageseigi.2150:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The boons are stripped prior to hit, thus it’s not blocked, which is very different from a crit-base boon strip. If you can’t crit, you can’t boon strip, and before you can crit, you have to hit, and in order to hit, your attack should not be blocked. The stealth attack boons strip doesn’t have to jump all those hoops.

You can see the problem with that logic, correct?
Rending Shade is based on Stealth Attacks. If a target has Aegis, how can the Stealth Attack land? If it doesn’t land, why should it steal a boon? Why should the boons be stolen before the attack successfully hits?

I don’t think it follows that logic. Just like Bountiful Theft, it doesn’t need to have a successful hit or an attack to land. Unlike Larcenous Strike, where the boon strip is bound to the skill itself, Rending Shade is a trait, not a skill, thus LS needs to connect thus it was made unblockable. Rending Shade functions the same as Bountiful Theft.

I used to clear a node of turret spam from Engineers in PvP with my P/P…then the QQ started and Ricochet is gone. It was not about blocking with pets or clones, it was the Engineers to blame. They were also the reason why Dancing Dager and Shorbow auto-attack sucks. When Shortbow used to have a 1200 range, I can snipe all the turrets and clear the node in seconds. I also used to use Dancing Dagger to clear a node of turrets. They QQ because it’s very very effective. One skill that can shutdown the whole build, and in case of Ricochet, one trait.

So should it come back? Heck yeah. I’d love to indirectly remove those pesky drones.

bearshaman.3421:

Natwinter.9234:

And another thing to consider with regards to venomous aura: “venoms shared by this trait will use the thief’s attributes (condition damage, healing power, etc.) instead of the player’s to whom it was applied.”

Where is this quoted from?

Wiki, under Notes for Basilisk Venom.
Link: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Venomous_Aura

Natwinter.9234:

For one person sure, but when your whole team is now getting them? That 2 sec immob coming from 5 people. Stacking duration, that 10 sec. better than 4.

And another thing to consider with regards to venomous aura: “venoms shared by this trait will use the thief’s attributes (condition damage, healing power, etc.) instead of the player’s to whom it was applied.”

So if my thief is geared with 2200 condition damage, and shares Spider Venoms and Skale Venoms; they’ll have plenty of bite, especially when they stack so quickly when others are involved.

There’s a caveat that if another Thief (for example a hybrid) with 800 condition damage shared their venom, you would rather have it use your stats.

Zsymon.8457:

A normal character has 100 endurance and 5% base endurance recovery, which means it needs 10 seconds to fill one bar.

So if a daredevil has 150 endurance and 5% base endurance recovery, it would theoretically mean he needs 7.5 seconds to fill one bar.

Yet even with 150 endurance, a Daredevil still needs 10 seconds to fill one bar. Which means that he only has a 3.35% base endurance recovery, one third less than all other classes.

It means that over the course of say 5 minutes, the Daredevil can’t dodge any more often than other classes, save that one single extra dodge at the start.

I guess one extra dodge per fight is still a small advantage, but I think it is very meager compared to the unique elite mechanics of other classes.

5% and 5 endurance used to be interchangeable because everyone has 100 endurance. After DD, the tooltip writers need to pay attention to this detail because it gives out false information that leads to a silly argument.

Another way of looking at this is that the regen rate is based on the base endurance of 100 regardless of how much something extends the maximum, thus even if you have 1000 endurance, the rate is base on 5% of 100. That’s why even if you have 150 due to spec’ing DD, a bar will fill at the same rate as any other bar regardless of the maximum.

Kageseigi.2150:

After some more testing of stowing Backstab, can someone please tell me what practical use it has?

You have to stow IMMEDIATELY after you press the Backstab button. And if you can pull that off, you should have never hit the attack button in the first place. Besides, it adds a half second cooldown by itself. I’m not seeing use in it at all.

It’s a bad advice trying to hide the cooldown by doing something unnecessary as a diversion.

The cooldown is there whether you stow your weapon or not. In practicality, it’s only a 1/2s CD after the casting time and after-cast delay (aka “global CD”).

The only solution to the D/D (and by extension P/P) is to give the weapon set its unique 5 skills without sharing any skills with other weapon set. Basically a 5 skill dual-wield similar to what happen to skill #3, instead affecting all 5 skills.

I have this idea in my signature for so long and all these salt will turn to sugar if ArenaNet realizes that their efforts to keep this current setup is nothing but a waste of resources.

Why CnD sucks? Because of S/D and P/D
Why main dagger skill sucks? Because of D/P

You can’t solve this problem as long as those remain true.

yiksing.9432:

The radius is plain silly. If the cast was instant it might be ok but as you cast the venom, you have no control over people surrounding. By the time you finish casting, they are out of range.

If it’s really that difficult, you can turn on the AoE circles to help you position yourself.

Zsymon.8457:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You get in, backstab, get out. When exactly does the 1s CD makes it even harder? HS to Smoke has at least 1s of animation, which means your stealth attack is out of CD. Revealed is 3s (4s in PvP) which also mean that your stealth attack is out of CD. And if this 1-2-3 counting theory is to be believed, that’s 3s wait before a stealth attack, meaning the stealth attack is out of CD. Which clearly have been the case for me.

Because when your backstab misses, you could try again right away, now you need to wait a second, it makes a big difference.

Perhaps the difference in my play style is that I don’t Backstab if I know I will miss. Even if I missed somehow, it’s must be due to a counter play and that counter should be rewarded. If that reward means that my Backstab goes to 1s cooldown, then I don’t see it as a bad thing. I should only have one chance to Backstab, so I have to make sure it counts. Stealth attack should have a higher skill cap to filter out the baddies.

My companions don’t die at all, in fact, the mobs simply ignore them as if they were never there — they don’t move or do anything either. :/

I basically soloed all the fights all the way to the end.

Huskyboy.1053:

Not quite sure what you mean. Could you reword that?

Improvisation doesn’t have the capacity to reset the CD of "physical " type utility skills.

It should really just reset one of the equipped utility skill regardless of their type. This way, it will always reset one of them instead of a total bust.

Mordecai.6318:

I understand that text has no tone, but what I said was an exaggerated version of what really happens. However, the 1, 2, 3 thing works (generally) and has worked forever. There’s context to it, which is where I brought up awful thieves. Most of them leap 2-3 times, run up on you, and spam 1. By the time the visual indicator of their field goes away, I can generally speaking, wait 1-2 seconds and dodge. Amonatory and I were counting out loud last night and laughing at the thieves we encountered.

I would agree with the context of “awful thieves” only because leaping 2-3 times extends stealth for more than 3 seconds, thus backstabbing after 3 seconds only happened when playing against “awful thieves”.

But since you want to be dense:
The point is that given positioning, your health, their health, their boons, the amount of stealth, dodges (which could be a ton cause thief), cooldowns, traps, how many people they have, what they had for breakfast, etc. are all variables that can ruin that entire trait. Backstabbing is now clunky and your opportunities to make that trait viable aren’t good. Amon and I duo roam on 2 thieves and 90% of the time are fighting 4-7 people. Sorry, but thats a ton of cleave, reveal, and burst I can take at any second. I need to get in and get out, but the timer makes that even harder. A kitten trait in a kitten line doesn’t change that.

You get in, backstab, get out. When exactly does the 1s CD makes it even harder? HS to Smoke has at least 1s of animation, which means your stealth attack is out of CD. Revealed is 3s (4s in PvP) which also mean that your stealth attack is out of CD. And if this 1-2-3 counting theory is to be believed, that’s 3s wait before a stealth attack, meaning the stealth attack is out of CD. Which clearly have been the case for me.

And I remove aegis/protection all the time running the meta trait setup What are you talking about?

The trait was not for you thus the incentive is not for you. Saying, “there’s zero incentives to run SA” — that question is for you to answer; What are you talking about?

EDIT: typos

DeceiverX.8361:

Of course, if they redacted the 1s ICD on stealth skills and put RT in SA, the Deadeye would make even more sense and be even more conceptually sound.

So all these are just setups to make Deadeye a thing. lol

I really hate Revealed and all things built around it. So I guess, we’ll be forever in disagreement.

EDIT: Even the mobs with stealth are not a big fan of Revealed. Those White Mantle Thiefs glitches when revealed. lol

Kageseigi.2150:

I have nothing against removing Venomous Aura. However, if that is what the patch was about, they could have left out nerfs like reducing damage on Staff and adding a cooldown to Stealth Attacks.

The cooldown on stealth attack is negligible. I played for hours last night and never notice any “clunkiness” that a lot of people are having. As for the Staff damage nerf, it’s a necessary tweak to tone down the over-tweaked skills. The January patch gave these skills 15% – 36% damage increase — which are stupidly high.

As for venoms themselves, they only buffed their team-support by making venom share baseline. It was a partial-nerf to roaming Thieves that do not enter team fights.

Not really. If you’re already taking Leeching and VA for the CDR, this patch just opened up the GM slot. You don’t have to take RS if you don’t want to, you are no longer pigeon holed to take a GM trait that you don’t want. You can take SR if that works for your build, or take CiS for AoE blind.

For example, I could hold an opponent off point for 2 seconds with Basilisk Venom, just long enough for me to decap a point. Or for 1 second if I missed with one shot. Now, I have only one chance to hit, and that half a second can be the difference between winning and losing… it has happened before. Do I care much about the change? No, it’s acceptable. The only venom I run is Basilisk because it’s the only elite worth running for a core Thief in PvP. But roaming venom Thieves may suffer more than I do. Not to mention that Might is Might… and very useful no matter the build.

BV used to be only one charge and it was viable. For a lot of people, going back to one charge is not a big deal. In fact, if you’re running Leeching but not running VA before, if you opt in for SR instead, this change is an actual buff to your build because your build suddenly gets a lot better with the reduced cooldown and venom share without changing anything to your build. Yes, it’s suck when ran solo, but PvP is a team-based game and for ArenaNet making updates to encourage that is not a bad thing.

I have nothing against Rending Shade. Though how much use it will get compared to Shadow’s Rejuvenation is yet to be seen. Especially with the added cooldown to Stealth Attacks.

That really depends on how the meta will react to these changes. If the meta is still centered around stacking multiple boons, then RS will be the cause of their nightmare.

Or not so obvious reasons. How can you steal boons with Rending Shade if your attack is blocked by Aegis? I suppose since there is a cooldown now, Stealth Attacks could become unblockable.

The boons are stripped prior to hit, thus it’s not blocked, which is very different from a crit-base boon strip. If you can’t crit, you can’t boon strip, and before you can crit, you have to hit, and in order to hit, your attack should not be blocked. The stealth attack boons strip doesn’t have to jump all those hoops.

I don’t understand what the problem is. Every other traitline has utility. Critical Strikes has virtually none. Yes, Weakness already counters Critical Strikes, but that doesn’t mean that critical hits shouldn’t grant utility. In my suggested changes to traitlines, I made Critical Strikes affect all damage, not just critical hits. But as it stands now, those of us who do run Critical Strikes are already lacking utility and also damage when we are weakened. That doesn’t mean that we should just delete the traitline. Besides, non-crit Thieves should not be running Critical Strikes. They are better off with something like Shadow Arts. But crit-Thieves do have a used for Critical Strikes, though it is extremely lacking.

I agree that the trait line needs more utility, however boon strip will not work as you like it to be for the reasons I’ve pointed out above. I would like to see this traitline to have more CC and debuff conditions than buffs. It’s an offensive traitline after all, thus a trait like Invigorating Precision seems to be out of place.

Again, I’m not anti-Rending Shade. It’s great if people can find use for it. But that doesn’t mean there should not also be the ability to destroy/steal boons inside Critical Strikes. Why? Because even though I run Trickery, I am forced to use Trickster instead of Bountiful Theft just in order to survive against conditions. It’s the only condition-removal that DA/CS/T offers.

Condition removal/transfer on crit will work better for CS than boon strip and I’ll go behind that idea 100% — a Sigil of Generosity in CS line.

DA/SA/DD is a good hybrid build using P/P and D/D. I care very little about sharing venom so the changes to venoms worked very well for me.

I’ve tested this last night with all the main-hand weapons and the stealth attack CD is negligible. I don’t even notice it at all.

The problem with CnD→BS is CnD not BS.

Mordecai.6318:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Mordecai.6318:

As the title has said, there is still no reason to run Shadow Arts.

I have no idea why the boon rip would be a new GM SA trait that will 100% be outperformed by Shadow Rejuvenation if you were to trait into SA.

That’s a common misconception. SR is not a staple trait since it encourages inactive game play. For players who plays actively, meaning less time staying in stealth, most of the time they ran Venom builds. VA was a bad GM trait but we have no choice not to pick it because they tied the venom CDR to it. With this patch deleting a long hated trait (VA), RS is a good GM trait replacement for Venom builds since the other GM does nothing for these builds. So, contrary to your belief, there are many incentives to spec for SA.

Unless you run an older variant of condi thief, nobody plays SA, and the vast majority of condi thieves still dont. Why would I sacrifice anything in DA/Trickery/DD to steal two boons? I can just run S/D coupled with steal and rip all of the boons I want without some backstab penalty or where I have to sacrifice traits to do so.

That’s a very narrow perspective on what RS is all about. Why should I run S/D to steal boons if I can keep my D/P (which is superior to S/D) and still able to steal boons? In addition, S/D has nothing to offer to my condition damage build, which has no way of stripping Resistance if RS do not exist. RS is good trait for my P/P Trapper Hybrid also since it gives this build a way to deal with boons without needing to equip S/D since I use P/P + D/D in this build.

Trickery can never be sacrificed therefore > SA.

Trickery has nothing to offer in many builds. Why do you think DA/CS/DD (power builds) even exist? And DA/SA/DD (venom build)?

Except for that part where you have to fully trait into a sub-par traitline to get something that should have been baseline given the new penalty.

If you’re talking about Trickery, I 100% agree with you. Preparedness should be base line and Steal should be 21s CD untraited. With boon strip capability in SA, there’s really no reason to spec for Trick other than for those two.

All of your points are negated by how effortlessly it is to avoid the 1, sometimes 2 backstab attempts you get. It was easy before the patch, but now its incredibly easy with both active/passive blocks and just general knowledge of the game. Most thieves are predictable in their openings and more often than not you can count to 3 and dodge and most thieves will miss. Tack on that extra second now and you have just wasted your initiative and stealth.

Count 3 and dodge? Really?

Based on the “general knowledge of the game”, a Thief can strike from 0 to 2 seconds given the fact that Backstab has a 0.25 casting time. If a Thief Backstab at the 3rd second, they will definitely miss and that’s a noob mistake.

If the Thief waits 3 seconds to execute a Backstab, the added extra second means nothing because either they hit with the BS, meaning they get Revealed, or they missed and ran out of stealth and it takes longer than 1s to get back to stealth, which again the added second is meaningless.

So to me, your knowledge of the Thief is lacking which seems to be the reason why you’re saying what you’re saying — statements from an ill-informed perspective.

And if you think insta boon rip/daze are inferior to a non-insta, situational attack that doesn’t CC your enemy then I feel like you’re missing out. The boon rip should be baseline with the new cool-down, even if it was only 1 boon. The fact is, you’re losing too much by running anything other than DA/DD/Trick. That’s just reality. The rest are gimmick builds.

Losing too much what? Even if you build DA/DD/Trick, if you cannot remove that pesky Aegis and Protection, you’re damage output is effectively at least 33% less against that target. Your Backstab is but a wet noodle against a brick wall. Making boon-strip baseline would mean that ArenaNet would have to nerf all our damage output just to balance it — in my opinion, that’s a bad direction to take.

Chrury.4627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Revealed is the opposite of Stealth…so it doesn’t belong in Shadow Arts.

I’m going to disagree with you there. Revealed isn’t the opposite of Stealth, it is an effect of stealth. The more times you break stealth, the more use Revealed Training gets. Shadow Arts helps this by giving a base duration buff on stealth, giving you more time to break stealth without it just expiring (preventing Revealed).

Hidden Killer from CS is more appropriate to be in SA than Revealed Training.

It is my strong opinion that the Revealed mechanic should also be abolished so we don’t have to deal with a nonsensical and gimmicky trait like Revealed Training.

I am not against Leeching going to DA because it makes sense, but if DA don’t want Revealed Training, they can just delete it (or make it baseline) and give SA a more appropriate trait.

Jana.6831:

Dahkeus.8243:

You have the question wrong: Before the nerf, why wouldn’t you just spam backstab without thinking? There was absolutely no reason not to since in best scenario it lands and in worst scenario it doesn’t and you try again immediately afterward while also likely removing an aegis or blind.

A failed BS didn’t remove blind or aegis as far as I know – you only could remove these boons/conditions unstealthed.

He was talking about when your BS was blocked by Aegis. It removes Aegis due to the block, but you don’t get Revealed because you didn’t do damage. If you miss with BS, meaning your target moved or evades, it removes blind, and since you didn’t do damage, no Revealed.

Mordecai.6318:

As the title has said, there is still no reason to run Shadow Arts.

I have no idea why the boon rip would be a new GM SA trait that will 100% be outperformed by Shadow Rejuvenation if you were to trait into SA.

That’s a common misconception. SR is not a staple trait since it encourages inactive game play. For players who plays actively, meaning less time staying in stealth, most of the time they ran Venom builds. VA was a bad GM trait but we have no choice not to pick it because they tied the venom CDR to it. With this patch deleting a long hated trait (VA), RS is a good GM trait replacement for Venom builds since the other GM does nothing for these builds. So, contrary to your belief, there are many incentives to spec for SA.

Unless you run an older variant of condi thief, nobody plays SA, and the vast majority of condi thieves still dont. Why would I sacrifice anything in DA/Trickery/DD to steal two boons? I can just run S/D coupled with steal and rip all of the boons I want without some backstab penalty or where I have to sacrifice traits to do so.

That’s a very narrow perspective on what RS is all about. Why should I run S/D to steal boons if I can keep my D/P (which is superior to S/D) and still able to steal boons? In addition, S/D has nothing to offer to my condition damage build, which has no way of stripping Resistance if RS do not exist. RS is good trait for my P/P Trapper Hybrid also since it gives this build a way to deal with boons without needing to equip S/D since I use P/P + D/D in this build.

Trickery can never be sacrificed therefore > SA.

Trickery has nothing to offer in many builds. Why do you think DA/CS/DD (power builds) even exist? And DA/SA/DD (venom build)?

Except for that part where you have to fully trait into a sub-par traitline to get something that should have been baseline given the new penalty.

If you’re talking about Trickery, I 100% agree with you. Preparedness should be base line and Steal should be 21s CD untraited. With boon strip capability in SA, there’s really no reason to spec for Trick other than for those two.

Revealed is the opposite of Stealth…so it doesn’t belong in Shadow Arts. If it is “Shadow Training” where it gives evasion frames to all shadowstep skills, then sure why not.

Stealth Attack is the #1 skill when you are in stealth, not attacks from stealth.

If you look at the tool tip for Backstab, this is what it says;

“Stealth Attack. Attack your foe from the shadows…”

Kageseigi.2150:

The problem is that it did nothing to balance the power Thief relative to the other professions. It was and is inferior in PvP combat.~snip~

I don’t understand the purpose of this patch for Thieves. ~snip~

It even nerfed Venom Thieves by removing Might, reducing range, and reducing applications. ~snip~

Boon stealing would have been better accomplished with buffing Bountiful Theft or adding boon-theft to Steal as baseline.~snip~

This patch is obviously about obliterating VA. It’s not about nerfing power builds nor about nerfing Venom Thief, it’s about getting rid of VA so that we can have meaningful tweaks from upcoming patches. The might from venom is horrible anyway so losing it is not a deal breaker especially when I’m not being forced to spec for VA anymore. Also the reduced application is not a nerf only because the venoms are now auto-share which is a big buff to the venom Thief build. Rending Shade is a welcome addition rather than buffing BT because it gives a Thief an option not to take Trick for boon strip. In my hybrid build for example, I have no use for Trickery and this change to SA is a boon to my build.

Adding utility to Critical Strikes would have been welcome as well. ~snip~

That will not happen for obvious reasons. How can you strip a boon if your attack is blocked by Aegis? Having the Weakness debuff will make this an unwelcome change. A passive boon strip on stealth attack is the best solution because it grants boon strip even to non-crit builds like condition damage builds.

There are so many things that could actually improve the Thief fairly. But this patch is a nerf to the Thief as a whole.

This patch did very little to other builds as a whole. There maybe some required adjustments in PvP and WvW, but to other parts of the game, these changes are non-issue rather it is a big buff to condition damage builds.

NuhDah.9812:

I see what you’re getting at, thanks for explaining. But yeah as you said thief usually relies on bountiful theft for the same purpose, but I guess with boon strip on backstab you could do it more efficiently. ~snip~

Think of it this way. S/D now have 2 ways to strip boons; through FS/LS and through stealth attack. In addition, you don’t have to be using S/D to steal boons.

JonnyForgotten.4276:

What this did was completely close the option of stealth to a DD/SB DA/SA/A hybrid thief. . . to have effective venom recharge, I have to give up a sure stealth from steal. . . meaning I have to carry SA for faster recharge and don’t even get the one other benefit the trait line offered. Not to mention the smaller share distance. If the devs were trying to help condi group roamers, they didn’t.

Guess I have to get used to using a DP for any sort of defense. . . yay

That’s some exaggerations. If you’re already using venom, Leeching is an automatic pick over Hidden and in my opinion, Hidden can be so much better. Adding stealth to steal means that you can only have a sure stealth every 30s. In order to stealth more often, you’ll have to spec fo Trick…that’s 2 trait line that does nothing to improve your damage. 30s CD for sure stealth is horrible. Leeching Venoms for condition build and Shadow Protector for power build…Hidden Thief is mainly used by Troll builds.

Kageseigi.2150:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The CD on stealth attack is a good balance tweak against DA/CS/(Tr or DD) builds.

A balance against what?
DA/CS/T is naturally balanced by the plethora of passive defenses in the game.

In PvP, at least, power Thieves don’t need any nerfs.
They’ve already given up sustain for lethality, and not even that is enough to stand a good chance against other professions.

Where’s the Thief’s 8 seconds of immunity to power opponents? Warriors have it.

A Thief can’t even use a long-cooldown-based elite to remain in Stealth and do damaging attacks for 3 seconds while still remaining completely mortal.

Thieves can’t even enter Stealth for merely a second without giving up point-control to the enemy… even to clear a condition or minimally heal… without even attacking. That’s completely disabling an entire traitline while trying to hold/contest a point.

And this patch didn’t even touch the “perma-evade” condi- or “perma-Stealth” trapper Thieves… which is what most complaints are about.

Personally, this barely affects my build. I run Dagger/Pistol DA/CS/T. The ICD on Backstab won’t cause me much trouble, and I got a shared stun with a longer duration on Basilisk Venom (which never stacked anyway).

What angers me is that Anet has absolutely no idea what is happening with the Thief, and that is apparently clear with this patch. Nerfing things that are already ineffective. Leaving things untouched that need changes.

In PvP, the Thief has no identity. It doesn’t have the tools needed to be effective independently, nor does it have what is needed to be effective in a group. Even at its extremes, it is mediocre in every role. It is literally a vulture.

If this barely affect your build while increasing the effectiveness of hybrid/condition builds, then it is a balanced patch. There’s no grounds for concern.

I’m not saying that this patch will suddenly make Thief more viable everywhere in the game, but the removal of VA and adding the venom CDR to leeching is a big step towards the right direction.

Sure they could have given condition damage to venoms without one while they are already balancing the venoms, but by simply not requiring to spec for VA is, I believe, good enough for now even if I have to use the same two venoms in order to deal damage. Surely they have a lot of work to do.

NuhDah.9812:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Jana.6831:

What is rendering shade?

ETA: You mean Rending shades – I don’t see a use for that actually – but I’d probably have to try it. In the end it only works against aegis, all other blocks aren’t boons and there’s a lot of them around. And well a lot of people have got more than 1,2 or 3 boons.

Yes that one, mind-hand-incoordination.

The way I see it is this;
- SR is for those who stays in shadows mainly using SA as a defensive trait line. (i.e. D/P users)
- RS is for those who go in stealth just to have access to the stealth attacks. These Thieves are using SA as an offensive trait line. (i.e. D/D users)

RS works on a lot of boons other than Aegis. You can steal might, regen, stab, etc. Aegis is the main reason why stealth attack doesn’t have any CD. The boon strip justifies the CD and at the same time nerfs D/P DA/CS/x builds.

The removal of VA is a big plus (too little too late but it’s still welcome) and adding the Venom CDR to Leeching trait is another plus. Bottom line, overall it’s a good update for hybrid builds.

I’m not saying you can’t use SA as an offensive trait line, but the dmg loss from losing another trait line like DA or CS or DrD for using this will not make you hard enough to beat the above average players of any profession.

The biggest problem against backstab are protection and aegis boons. Because of these two boons, it becomes necessary to abandon a defensive traitline to maximize our damage output. This patch gave us a way to spec for defensive traitline and deal with those pesky boons. A target with protection reduces our backstab damage by 33%…there’s not enough DA+CS trait you can take to offset that damage loss. The only real solution is to strip them of that boon, thus in my opinion, it is a damage increase.

On the opposite side of this is backstab is a useless skill for condition damage builds. With RS in SA, D/D and P/D has access to boon strip without relying on Bountiful Theft. Even a Trapper P/P (power and condition builds) will appreciate RS.

It’s an overall power build nerf in exchange for a hybrid/condition build buffs. Not requiring to trait for VA in order to share venom and venom CDR is what this balance patch is all about.

DeceiverX.8361:

Dahkeus.8243:

Eh, it’s no big deal. I guess now you may have to pay attention when stealthing instead of just spamming backstab.

It is if you play D/D, where the only functional skill in stealth is backstab.

This is why the change is so stupid; it nerfs our weakest set even more than it was already underpowered.

I’ve given up.

In a hybrid D/D or condition D/D builds, backstab used to be useless, now we can spec for RS and use backstab as boon strip.

Jana.6831:

What is rendering shade?

ETA: You mean Rending shades – I don’t see a use for that actually – but I’d probably have to try it. In the end it only works against aegis, all other blocks aren’t boons and there’s a lot of them around. And well a lot of people have got more than 1,2 or 3 boons.

Yes that one, mind-hand-incoordination.

The way I see it is this;
- SR is for those who stays in shadows mainly using SA as a defensive trait line. (i.e. D/P users)
- RS is for those who go in stealth just to have access to the stealth attacks. These Thieves are using SA as an offensive trait line. (i.e. D/D users)

RS works on a lot of boons other than Aegis. You can steal might, regen, stab, etc. Aegis is the main reason why stealth attack doesn’t have any CD. The boon strip justifies the CD and at the same time nerfs D/P DA/CS/x builds.

The removal of VA is a big plus (too little too late but it’s still welcome) and adding the Venom CDR to Leeching trait is another plus. Bottom line, overall it’s a good update for hybrid builds.

I’m sorry but I don’t agree with you only because without the CD, Rendering Shade will be OP.

Rendering Shade removes Aegis so no more blocking Backstabs (and other boons that hinder a stealth-attack from connecting).

I like the fact that it now requires the Thief to spec SA if they will be using stealth a lot. The CD on stealth attack is a good balance tweak against DA/CS/(Tr or DD) builds.

I like this tweak to the profession (death to VA — finally). I’m only disappointed that it’s such a short list. They could have also added damage to all venoms when they’re at it.

Kageseigi.2150:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The bottom line is, the Thief profession is all about hybrid, adapting to the situation they are in. They are not about power focus or condition damage focus, they are both that can be tweak whenever towards one type of damage to another. If the Thief needs extra physical damage boost, they pop the assassin signet; if they need extra condition damage boost, they pop spider venom. Both situations need to be effective because, in my opinion, Thief is a balance tipper or tie breaker and they need to stay that way.

Since swapping weapons doesn’t affect a Thief as much as it does other professions, I wish the Thief could have the ability to use a separate amulet (PvP) for each weapon set just like sigils, or something along those lines, giving the Thief even more ability to adapt.

That would be a sight. However, the restrictions they have placed in PvP is very anti-Thief, that’s why they are busting their brains trying to make the Thief fit when instead, they should probably re-think the PvP system. They need to stop trying to shave off a square block’s corner to fit a circular hole.

Set.7461:

This isn’t anything game-breaking but how about we let Dagger Training affect all the utilities that uses dagger? Impairing Daggers, Distracting Daggers, and Dagger Storm all say they throw daggers but the trait only affects the attacks done by the dagger weaponsets. This wouldn’t technically be considered a buff since the tooltip says

Dagger Training: “Dagger attacks have a chance to poison enemies.”

Impairing Daggers: “Fling multiple daggers at a single enemy, inflicting conditions.”

Distracting Daggers: “Equip daggers that can be thrown to interrupt enemies and increase the cooldown of abilities interrupted.”

Dagger Storm: “Spin around, reflecting projectiles and throwing daggers that cripple and bleed nearby foes. You can move while spinning.”

Thoughts?

Utility skills are classified using different categories. Distracting Daggers in under Physical category while Dagger Storm is under Trick category. Unfortunately, this is how ArenaNet separates the skills.

I agree with you and by extension, Dagger Storm is also a Physical skill thus it needs to have its cooldown reduced and give endurance when I spec for Brawler Tenacity.

Wargameur.6950:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Wargameur.6950:

• Dagger / Pistol : damage – utility flavour

Without changing the traits at the same time, changes like that will not work out since trait like Dagger Training will add condition damage to this set, for example, the it will be an unintended imbalance.

Isn’t it what the traits are for ? Of course committing a trait or a trait line toward a different gameplay should have this effect.

What I wanted to highlight is that we should have solid weapon sets first, and above all something coherent. To me the damages weapon sets are coherent both in flavouring and in balance. The problem, is that every main hand pistol sets aren’t coherent.

because pistol main hand is a mix of every thing. It makes p/d a hybrid set that is not competitive in every aspect of the game. And p/p is a power set only because of unload.

I feel like, it would be nice to have a broader choice of condi sets, that can be considered as such as a stand alone. Then you can tweak them into something else with traits.

My point is; changing the flavor of the set to focus on something specific won’t necessarily keep that flavor of the set due to effects from the traits, which makes the whole exercise useless.

If the weapon set’s flavor will be focused, then it is also necessary for the traits to also changed at the same time to keep and maintain that focus on a weapon set…meaning, if you don’t intend for daggers to deal condition damage, traits like Dagger Training needs to go away. Giving condition damage to a physical damage set will undermine the flavor and focus of other weapon set designed for condition damage. D/P is such a good weapon set that I even use it for condition damage build even though it is mainly a power build.

In addition, utility skills that add condition damage to a non-condition damage set, or power to a condition damage set needs to be redesigned to only function as non-damage skills — which means, spider venom and assassin signet need to be redesigned so that they won;t undermine the flavor of the weapon sets.

The bottom line is, the Thief profession is all about hybrid, adapting to the situation they are in. They are not about power focus or condition damage focus, they are both that can be tweak whenever towards one type of damage to another. If the Thief needs extra physical damage boost, they pop the assassin signet; if they need extra condition damage boost, they pop spider venom. Both situations need to be effective because, in my opinion, Thief is a balance tipper or tie breaker and they need to stay that way.

Cobrakon.3108:

If you didn’t spec for damage at all and purely built for sustain, what abilities, amulets, sigils, and traits would you specialize in?

Yes I know a thief that doesn’t do damage is a bad idea, but I think this thought experiment might be helpful to me. How well can a thief sustain if they put everything into it.

The best sustain to aim for is Vitality and Healing Power which both compliments either Evade or Stealth builds.

Since you’ve mentioned amulet, I presume you’re talking about PvP.

Here’s a build that will be hard to take down and with zero damage (other than the base stats): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAoYn0MBlPhdPBGmC0PhlhCbe/9/OgdflRQKgLAMBqAA-TJxNABAs/AyPAAYLD05JAAA

Wargameur.6950:

• Dagger / Pistol : damage – utility flavour

Without changing the traits at the same time, changes like that will not work out since trait like Dagger Training will add condition damage to this set, for example, the it will be an unintended imbalance.

Here’s my suggestion — build condition damage;
Trait Line
- Deadly Arts – Dagger Training, Deadly Trap, Potent Poison
- Acrobatics – Pain response, Guarded, Upper Hand
- Trickery – Uncatchable, Trickster, Bewildering Ambush

Weapon Set 1: Dagger / Dagger
Weapon Set 2: Shortbow
Weapon Sigils: of Venom / of Agony

Armor stats: Carrion
Armor Runes: Rune of the Afflicted

Heal Skill: Signet of Malice
Utility Skill 1: Ambush
Utility Skill 2: Caltrops
Utility Skill 3: Needle Trap
Elite Skill: Dagger Storm

Your main weapon here is shortbow and the purpose is to gather as many mob you can aggro, spread Choking Cloud and Caltrops…watch the mobs at your level melts like ice under a hot sun. The D/D weapon set is mainly for bosses. Dagger Training will ensure that your Death Blossom will apply poison in addition to the bleed. Upper Hand and Pain Response will make sure that you’re topped off when you evade or when you missed an evade (respectively). Carrion armor is a great starting point, but you would want Dire if you can find/purchase them. Just keep your distance from the mobs and you’ll be just fine. Also, if you’re getting too much pressure, drop the Ambush trap to call a decoy to give yourself a breather.

When I was leveling up my 3rd Thief, I used this setup, pop all the EXP boosts I have and simply gather some mobs and watch them melt, even those who are higher level than me. You’ll be 80 in no time.

Dawanarth.4601:

.snip..we would still take all the original damage.

Not true. Lotus Training will make Thief beyond OP.

Ensign.2189:

Marauder Weapons
Marauder Armor
Marauder Amulet
Valkyrie Rings + Accessories
Berserker Backpack

The problem with Marauder is that it gives way too much precision and mediocre power and ferocity. These gears will give you 50% crit chance, 2280 power, 202% crit damage, and 15800 HP. A 30%-40% crit change would suffice.

Examples;
Simply dropping that crit chance to 40%, you can have 2317 power, 206% crit damage, and 16365 HP.

If you drop the crit chance to 30%, you can have 2351 power, 210% crit damage, and 16985 HP.

You can then take consumables to increase your precision based on your vitality.

Number 1 priority to me is Shadow Art — more shadowstep traits.

Example:
Shadow’s Embrace – in addition to 1 tick per second while in stealth, it should also trigger every time shadowstep is used. The local cooldown on each shadowstep skills (Steal, Infiltrator Arrow, etc.) should be enough to limit this. This simple change will give the Thief the necessary utility it needs. Besides, it’s called Shadow’s Embrace so it makes sense to also trigger on shadowstep while not in stealth.

Resilience of Shadow and Shadow’s Rejuvenation – should trigger on shadowstep. It could linger for 3s after using shadowstep while not in stealth.

All venom traits should go to Deadly Arts to free up space for more shadowstep traits. Venom traits do not belong in Shadow Arts.

Cloaked in Shadow should be baseline to weapon skills that typically spec’ed for it (i.e. Cloak and Dagger) or merge CiS and Hidden Thief together and put it in GM. This will free up more slot for more shadowstep traits.

The next priority is Trickery — a lot of traits needs to be baseline (15 init max without spec’ing Trickery)

1200 Condition damage without Dagger training, Trip Wire instead of Needle Trap, Ice Drake venom instead of Spider…I’m not saying that Needle and Spider are good picks, I’m simply saying that you have 1200 condition damage without any way to deal condition damage.

Also, why Signet of Malice and an amulet with Healing Power? Did you mean to also take Caltrops?

The way it looks like right now; the skill you’ve chosen doesn’t match the traits you’ve allocated nor the amulet you’ve picked. This build is also susceptible to cripple and immobilize. Shadow Step is not an ideal skill to use to remove CC, but if that’s all you’ve got then expect to lose way more than winning because you’ll need a low cooldown anti-CC like Withdraw or Unhindered.

This brings back a memory way back after GW2 launch where someone suggested to make Thief see traps while in stealth and disarm them. It was a reference to the Ghosts of Ascalon’s main protagonist Dougal Keane. The book is a great read by the way.