Guild Wars 2

Guardian projectile nullification is pretty useful in most dungeons.

If I had to choose one, I’d say Arah. On demand stability and aegis at many points in any of the paths is very useful.

TJL

I think more than anything, the problem with CoF right now is that it’s pretty much printing money. This is a big problem because it causes severe inflation. More than anything else, I think more item rewards (material, equipment, etc) should be introduced instead of more currency.

Additionally, as far as the current level of reward for CoF, I have no problem with it as long it’s indicative of the amount of effort overall. CoF can retain its level of reward if harder dungeons give better rewards (for instance, right now arah doesn’t drop any cores/lodestones afaik, but worthless essences instead). It’s all relative in the end for effort/reward payoff.

For PvE anything is fine. That being said

-25 into acrobatics isn’t all that great. You don’t have many abilities that provide boons outside of lyssa (which is only every 90 seconds). You can easily compensate for 100 vitality if you desired. I would suggest going no more than 15 into acrobatics. That will provide all the evades you need.

Move 10 points into first line. 10% dmg from having conditon on target is much better, namely because making sure your endurance isn’t full is both hurting your dps and forcing you to waste defense to maximize offense even when not necessary. There is no reason for you to take vigorous recovery either since you hardly ever want to activate signet of malice. The only situation to take vigorous recovery is when you take withdraw. Also, you can get 5% from dual skill instead.

-PvE all builds work. For WvW, you lacks enough burst to be scary. The extra rolls you get are also not that great since you are not going to be dodging everything since attack density is usually too thick.

Roll for initiative is useful in PvE since you can use it both as burst and as stun breaker. WvW, however, detarget is always the best (not to mention added culling. Since you are not going caltrop tank thief (which you wouldnt in WvW anyways), I would highly suggest against both signet of malice and roll for initiative, and instead opt for more stealth. If that’s too cookie cutter for you, take withdraw to go with blinding powder and you can play with some flash when synergizing with infiltrator strike.

Signet of shadow is fine, but honestly, have a skill in mind to swap in. I generally only have signet of shadow on when going from place to place, but immediately switch to a combat utility when I feel like I’m approaching a location where a fight may occur.

What do you consider necessary in terms of utility and traits in your build? Obviously you want to deviate from the norm, but a certain level of synergy would still be necessary, especially since you are a thief and there are certain things that you can’t live without.

Just disregard stealth entirely. Lupi is actually really easy for a thief, primarily because all his attacks are extremely telegraphed and even 10 points in acrobatics with withdraw allows for enough endurance to dodge everything (go 5 more for feline grace and mainhand dagger for the overkill). The only thing that is even remotely a threat is dome of doom. If that is a concern just sacrifice dps and go with a sword.

25/30/0/15/0 is what I run

Dagger main hand (2nd chain grants endurance)
withdraw
shadowstep
assassin’s signet
roll for initiative
Elite doesn’t matter. As a sylvari I take take root.

Just go full dps spec in first 2 lines.

Get vigor on heal in acrobatics.

You now have dagger endurance gain, vigor on heal, dodge endurance gain to ensure you always have dodge available. You also have withdraw, shadowstep, and roll for initiative in case of emergencies. As sylvari I took take root as a last resort, very useful when I end up having to solo a boss or something.

It’s not as bursty as 10 in shadow arts, but you are not sacrificing too much for a lot more survivability.

Your gear is obviously 90% zerker (I personally feel legs, helm, and rings are not worth taking zerker. That said, ascended accessories have much better stat/crit dmg ratio, so that won’t hold true once you get those items.). I also go 6 scholar instead of 5 scholar 1 divinity as I am assuming I will always be above 90% health.

TJL

D/D Thief’s role in PvP is to be so that whenever anyone on the other team goes below 75% health, they have to be on the watch out for thief since thief can insta-gib that player. It changes the dynamic of a fight completely.

For Hot Join, full-burst thief isn’t as good for tagging and scoring points. Since most fights are zerg-fests, having that high of a dmg output doesn’t do much since you have more than enough other sources of damage with you. Reduce damage, increase utility, mobility and sustainability if all you want to play is hot join. However, if you want to play correctly, it’s better to just do 1v1 tourny queues, even if the map is ele/guardian haven.

Trap builds work in PvP because you need to take points, so the ranger can just pre-emptively drop traps, wait for someone to show up, then drop a second set of traps after the first set activates. Additionally, since you want to cap points, they beats you by either forcing you off points due to too much condi dmg, or you get off point to avoid condi dmg (and they are taking shots at you with their shortbow during the meantime). This particular strategy won’t work in WvW, so it’s much easier to fight rangers in that game mode. Not to mention pets are completely useless in WvW as they melt to AoE.

Warrior vs thief match-up doesn’t really change between WvW and PvP. Warrior is just trying to bait out stun breaker, then go for immob/disable > swags (or whatever weapon they are using). Of course, warrior is just as limited in traits in WvW. Instead of needing mobile strike and leg specialist, you almost have to commit a large amount to defense line to ensure you survive long enough to do anything in the front line, so they probably are less dangerous and hurt less than PvP warriors.

TJL

Currently Transmuting a legendary will result in the status of legendary being retained I believe.

The thing is, the transition is still not 100% smooth. The item description shows the weapon as a legendary, but the link text in chat is still showing exotic color.

I forgot to check the actual rarity associated with the weapon so I will do that later today.

I actually went forward with the transmute because a friend told me dev confirmed that they fixed that particular issue.

TJL

Thief condition build is usually centered around blossom and caltrops. Just one or the other isn’t really going to work. 2800 damage is also not high enough. You need to be above 3k for direct damage burst to work. Condition damage I’m not too sure what value, but again it’s more utility/trait dependent.

You don’t have enough utility slots for all the skills needed for both on thief. From the fact you are not taking mug, you are probably not PvP or WvW (primary, that is). I would say then that you should just go full conditi-tank build.

0-0-30-20-20 as you seem to be most interested in shadow line

Remove condition every 3 seconds, gain initiative faster in stealth, heal in stealth
Gain vigor on heal, heal when use initiative
Drop caltrops on roll, Tricks recharge 20% faster

Additionally, if you are willing to go just 20 into shadow line, get 10 more in trickery for bountiful theft, which also gives you vigor. This way, you can get close to perma vigor for a lot of dodges, which means more caltrops.

Hide in shadows
Choose 3- Caltrop (Mandatory), scorpion wire (use as an interrupt), roll for initiative (more spam and a stun breaker), blinding powder, shadow refuge, shadow trap (just place it right on target for immediate access to stealth).
Elite doesn’t matter

Get gear for survivability and condi dmg. Check stat combination and figure something out.

TJL

In your situation I think Order shoulder or CoE shoulder would suffice.

TJL

-If you are going that far into trait line 2, I think you must go all the way to 30 for 20% more dmg under 50% health. The third minor trait is not all that great, and going 20 for 2 majors in tier 1 is also not ideal in my opinion.

-What is the attack with 1800 power? can’t remember.

-What’s the actual value of the condi dmg parameter?

For PvE, any build would work, so it’s fine.

For PvP, you generally want to specialize with traits, and maybe add an edge with utility or something. Either condi tank or a variation of burst thief.

For WvW, I think some form of direct AoE is mandatory, unless you just run around to gank people.

In all 3 situations though, I think 2 sets of daggers is not a good idea. Even D/D, P/D is better for the idea you are trying to run with.

TJL

Sigil of strength only works if you have setups with a lot of boon duration+. You pretty much need the trait line with boon duratio nand runes that increase might duration for it to be worth it.

I think it’s been proven somewhere that in both sustained dmg and burst, sigil of air is better for single target and sigil of fire is better for multi-target. Sigil of force is not good for thief because thief glass cannon usually comes with precision more so than power. Other profession can make use of force if they don’t heavily invest into precision, but thief pretty much always invest into trait line 2, so proc on crit is the norm.

TJL

If you are going full glass, then you probably have the better quickness proc on precision line 2nd major already. Additionally, depending on how your glass is built, just go for more damage or more crit chance, whichever one you need. For instance, I have +91% crit dmg, but my crit chance is only 50%, so I would go for sigil of precision or sigil of accuracy. I have sigil of air for the other slot as it’s higher single target dps than fire.

TJL

D/D or D/P & SB 25/30/0/15/0

Mug (if your party doesn’t have a reliable source of vul, take the vul on crit), dagger dmg+5%
7% crit chance flanking, 10% chance quickness, 20% dmg on 50% enemies
vigor on healing skill

Withdraw
Shadowstep
assassin signet
roll for initiative
Elite doesn’t matter, but i use take root as a sylvari.

Pretty much modified version of cookie cutter PvP dagger burst thief. Sacrifice some survivability by taking crit chance instead of vit from pres, use withdraw and roll as survival ability (and some more initiative) instead of stealth abilities. Using 15 acrobatics instead of 15 trickery for easy to access vigor (much safer for fighting against lupi, for instance). With dagger endurance regen, you pretty much have infinite dodges in PvE as long you semi-manage your endurance.

Generally, use utility and 1 trait for survivability. Choose dps option for all weapon, armor, accessories, and other traits.

You should be running scholar runes. Dodge everything, keep HP above 90% for 10% dmg, 10% dmg for having condition (guaranteed), 10% dmg for above 6 initiative (only empty tank when assassin signet is activated). 90% zerker gear (where you are not trading 16 stat points for 1% of crit dmg, ie, ie. head, legs, and rings), get to about 50% crit chance and 90% crit dmg +, power should be 3100-3200.

TJL

Edit: Sigils are air (higher single target dmg than fire) and precision (if you are not comfortable with stack sigil, get acc).

I regularly run zerker thief in all dungeons. Thief has more than enough evasive options to survive anything the current dungeons can throw out. If you are uncomfortable with pure dps, move some points off line 1 or 5 into 4 for more evasion.

@Ryoko – Bolt’s animations have not changed one bit pre- and post patch. The only thing that changed is the sound was fixed. Yggdra (my friend) who had the world first (I was there when he made it) has EXACTLY the same animations my Bolt and my Bolt hasn’t changed over the last 2 weeks other than sound. I do agree though, Bolt is on par with the legendary Greatswords. I still like Twilight’s blade skin but I don;t use greatswords.

What I read is that they cleaned up the aura/lightning trails, especially at night. It’s not so much a change, but rather some polish. I didn’t have it pre-fix so I could just be misinformed.

Additionally, torch legendary does provide fire steps as well, just like incinerator. Just as an fyi if that’s what you are interested in.

I wonder what main-hand frostfang + off hand torch would look like actually. Both have elemental footsteps and elemental arm covers.

Thank you.

tralalalala

Hello,

I apologize in advance as I’m not sure which forum to post for this particular question.

Do the sigil and rune might proc act separately? I understand the condition for might proc is different (hit and being hit), but some confirmation would be preferable.

Thank you.

Thank you for the info.

Hello,

I was wondering how notable is the effects of increased healing power on the following

-healing abilities, specifically consume condition and well

-Siphon life abilities, such as siphon on crit, siphon on kill, and dagger #2

-life transfer and its peripheral effects, such as ally heal

If I missed anything that is relevant, please also add in.

Thank you very much in advance.

I don’t know when TA was changed as it was not in any of the patch notes. Hopefully it is stil relevent.

I feel that TA has been made far too easy. Here are the changes that I noticed

-Blossom are much larger. This is a good change; It allows more professions to hit them with ease.

-Blossom Spawn rate was decreased significantly. Now blossoms do not operate as a unique mechanic specific to TA. It’s a clear once and forgot about it thing. Fights where blossoms are present no longer require much attention.

-Blossom damage was decreased significantly. Now instead of continuous damage, the damage comes in pulses, and they do not hurt at all. It took a blossum 9-10 second sto kill a player standing next to it. This makes them extremely non-threatening even if accidentally triggered. Additionally, with how the blossoms are now, it’s even easier to speed clear/bypass most content as being careless with blossom sweeping is no longer fatal.

-Nightmare Vine spit damage was decreased. I found 5-6 overlapping circles, and was able to stand in them for 4-5 seconds before I reached 10% HP. The damage before could kill me in 2 seconds easily. This makes paying attention to positioning in the nightmare vine fight no longer important.

Overall, I was extremely disappointed with the choices made with TA. Now it feels like a very bland dungeon.

Thank you,
TJL

Yes

tralalala

melchiz.7182:

300 hours @ $8/hour = $2400. Assuming that this is your only source of income, you would get most of your gross income back via rebate.

Why didn’t you get a job and buy the precursor? $200 or so for the precursor, and you’re still up over $2000. My point? A Legendary doesn’t mean much when the major component of it can be purchased with cash (precursor + all other TP materials), at a yield far greater than in-game time investments.

If this is your argument, then you are completely missing the point of playing a game. This is the thought process of gold buyers, not legitimate gamers. We earn it, even if time spent is less efficient in comparison because we are playing the game instead of wasting money on it. We’ve already paid for the content. There is no reason to spend a penny more.

Yes I know they are lacking, and I acknowledge as such immediately regarding those complaints. For what it’s worth, Bolt owners that had the sword pre- and post change a couple of days ago said the sword has vastly improved, so it’s very possible for them to update legendaries as time goes on.

And I mention offhand mainly for people that believe legendaries to be a requirement because of an achievement (I don’t care about achievements so I don’t hold the same thought). If you don’t care about the skin and only want achievement, there are easily obtainable legendaries. If you care about a patricular skin, then you have to put more time and effort into it.

There will be people that are lucky and land precursors from the forge, and there will be those that will never get one through a forge. I immediately placed myself in the second category and aimed to buy one. It’s a risk/reward thing you have to evaluate for yourself.

You will always have a choice between making one and and buying one. The supply of precursors will never dry out because there will always be someone hitting the jackpot. It may be a price that you end up unwilling to pay, but in that case the forge is always available. If you don’t think you can make 1 for “600g” worth of material, then you’d just save up and buy one.

Alternatively, don’t go for one of those at all. Finally, if your concern is the achievement, offhand precursors are 25g each.

I think while certain complaints about legendaries’ effects are legitimate, it will still mostly come down to personal preference. While the two GS are the most noticeable (purely by size), I don’t believe everyone think they are the best for their characters. Likewise, while I think the Bolt is a very good legendary with multitude of effects, others will not agree. In the end, I think the best approach is to get legendary only if you are satisfied with the model, and not only to have one.

For bow users that do not like either, there are plenty of set forge recipes that return very nice bows (aether, winter’s, and possibly azure) for much less work. If the concern is the achievement (I personally do not care about achievements at all), you can always make a offhand legendary that cost 200-300g total.

Oh I don’t need them. I finished bolt last night. I had 100 before the second price spike.

I just want to reiterate that in my opinion, this would only work in benefit of the game if the lodestones obtained this way is account bound on aquire. This addition is to alleviate some stress on players going for particular items, but should not be made available for sell to prevent causing chaos on the market (the effect, if account bound, may still cause a price drop, but it wouldn’t cause a crash).

Actually as of right now the gift of bolt is over 400g. I know because I’m working on it.

Edit: Apparently I can’t read. I apologize.

Gift of “Legendary name” often cost the same or more than prescursor at the moment due to increasing lodestone prices. My gift of bolt (250 ingot, 250 gossamer, 100 charged, gift of metal, 100 runestones) has a worth of 400g right now.

Honestly, precursor pricing (with many in the lower 200gs right now) is hardly a problem in legendary weapon crafting. Sunrise and Twilight will always be in high demand and remain more expensive than most legendaries, and the high cost of the legend is a non-issue with how dirt cheap the gift of bifrost is. Every other precursor is easily within striking range if you are smart with your resources.

Apraxas.3685:

ryokoalways.3450:

My approach for clover was to do 10X recipe in sets of 3s. If I do not land on clover once every 3, I would immediately stop and go do all 1S recipe to minimize loss. What ended up happening for me was:

First set of 3: 1
Second set of 3: 1
Third set of 3: 1
Fourth set of 3: 1
Fifth set of 3: 3

From that point, I did 14-15 1X, and got the remaining 7.

Generally, 30% seems to be the norm. As you can see, mine was about 46-47%, so I obviously got fairly lucky. There are others even luckier though. I know of one person that hit 8 out of 12 on 10X (66%).

With the reduced price on ecto and mystic coin (due to everyone being able to complete monthly) recently, this should not hurt your wallet as much.

I wonder who is that lucky kitten. LOL im scared since ill try to get my second set of 77 clovers really soon.

>.>

<.<

My approach for clover was to do 10X recipe in sets of 3s. If I do not land on clover once every 3, I would immediately stop and go do all 1S recipe to minimize loss. What ended up happening for me was:

First set of 3: 1
Second set of 3: 1
Third set of 3: 1
Fourth set of 3: 1
Fifth set of 3: 3

From that point, I did 14-15 1X, and got the remaining 7.

Generally, 30% seems to be the norm. As you can see, mine was about 46-47%, so I obviously got fairly lucky. There are others even luckier though. I know of one person that hit 8 out of 12 on 10X (66%).

With the reduced price on ecto and mystic coin (due to everyone being able to complete monthly) recently, this should not hurt your wallet as much.

I’m unable to load into Queen’s Throne Room.

Aphix.9846:

Precursor for last simply because they will only go down in price tbh, like I’ve seen with many precursor I’ve been looking for at least…Also got a really strong feeling Anet will do something about it. I’d feel incredibly stupid if I buy it for 400g and the next week Anet: ‘there you got a fixed recipe for a precursor 100g gl hf’
Making all my gifts 1st then leaving precursor for last since it’s just ONE item left. I can sell all my rares and whatever to get all the gold needed…

And untill Anet hasn’t made an official reply on it then I’ll just keep collecting gold untill they change it(if they change it, good, if not, then I’ll just keep going) or I have ~400g. ATM this is smarter imo.

If you are assuming ANet will put forth another method to obtain a precursor, then yes it’s better to wait. I’m not making that assumption. From going through the entire legendary making process and nearing the end, 300g for a precursor is about right. For most of the legendaries, the gift of “legendary name” cost more than the precursor itself. Also keep in mind it’s not just 1 item. It’s about the % of total cost, and the precursor is usually 35-50%% of the total cost, legendary pending. So it’s not just “one” item.

Additionally, going for precursor also allows you to do what you want at the moment: stock up on resources. This allows you to look for deals/look for trends to make a profit off. It is not necessary to spent money on listed pricings. You can easily put in an order that you feel is fair and go from there. If you think a certain precursor is only worth 250g, then you will get one at the price if the market agrees with you. You can even put an order at 100g if you feel that’s all it’s worth. Maybe one day the market will agree with you at the price line.

It may feel like you are making progress as you slowly build the other pieces, but from personal experience, my road to legendary only started to become clear after I obtained my precursor. You could have all 3 components and no precursor, or you could be where i’m at right now, everything except 100 runestones, which has a set price, and I have a very good estimate when I will finish.

Hopefully this is useful in someway.

TJL

Just to offer some other pointers, you absolutely should go after precursor before anything else. Going after t6 (stabilized to cost dirt cheap), ecto (will never vary past 12s-18s), coins (super cheap whenever monthly is available for completion), icy runestones (price is constant), ores/wood/etc (stable with sufficient supply), etc is just not smart. Those should all be saved till much later. Having discussed about legendary making process with another individual that’s half way through a second legendary, the points agreed on in terms of monetary necessities are

-Always save for precursor first, whether it’s to gamble via forge or to buy outright.

-Work on Lodestones second. This is something I did not do, and I’m now paying for it with spiked charge lodestone prices

-Work on everything else.

You always want to get rid of the components that’s the most unstable. That is the correct way to go about building a legendary. I’ve seen so many that finished gift of fortune and “legendary name” first. Note that the amount of money you spent on those 2 gifts would equate to a precursor. With the price of charged lodestones, my gift of bolt would cost more than a precursor at the moment.

I understand where you are coming from, and as you can see, I think the idea isn’t too radical. As long controls are implemented to prevent an influx of wealth that would destablize the economy, I think it’s a positive change. Again, my only disagreement is the number of tokens. I merely mentioned lodestone purchase being legitimate because I know of many people that are after them for various weapons, and that you really can’t flip them for profit with the current established price range (1.55G-1.8G).

You can buy the weapon components off TP. You do not need crafting for mystic weapons.

I do not think they are being flipped. The demand for Charged Lodestones is high because of

-foefire weapons
-mjolnir
-sunrise
-bolt

Recent recipe discovery is the primary reason for the spikes, especially since 350 lodestones are needed for some of those weapons. As someone working on bolt, I’ve purchased 96 lodestones over the past 1.5 weeks. The demand you see with buy order is legitimate as there are many like me that need these for weapons.

Regarding tokens for lodestones, I think it would be a good addition as it would guarantee lodestones. I’m, however, in disagreement with the 60 tokens per. That equates to 1 lodestone per run, which is far too high of a rating. You are not even guaranteed a core per run. I would say 180 tokens (3 runs) per lodestone would be a reasonable value. The final issue would be where to put crystal lodestones. That one is not particularly assigned to any dungeon.

Edit: Another issue would be whether these particular lodestones should be account bound. This is primarily because adding lodestone as a tradable would cause a lot of instability with the market. While cost may level out at certain point, the change could still have adverse effects well before it levels out.

Hippocampus.8470:

ryokoalways.3450:

Account bound on equipment is one method in which to limit artificial inflation. It would make the player buying to use the item, not to flip it. To have this implemented though, preview through TP would first need to be necessary in my opinion.

If it’s account bound, it can’t be sold on the TP. Period. So no, it wouldn’t have this effect.

Alternatively (and one I would prefer), you can just add a time limit for an item on sell. Currently (as far as I can tell), the item can be listed indefinitely. If a time limit (say, 3 days per listing) is implemented, then artificial inflation can be mitigated since you would just be throwing away money if you are not pricing it at where buyers would be willing to buy. This would put the power back in buyer’s hands.

Power is already in the buyers’ hands. If you haven’t noticed, buyers have to agree to the price either way, and buy orders for precursors aren’t much below sell listings, relatively speaking.

Point 1 is meant to be account bound on purchase. This way, you are buying purely to use an item, and not to resell it. Problem is, this method is not good unless preview is available so buyers know what they are getting. Additionally, this has to be limited to equipment because account bound on purchase would have adverse effect on materials.

Point 2 is more to address an issue that will arise as more money enters the game. This is purely an issue with Precursors though, and really do not affect anything else. Demand for precursor will always be infinite, so price will have to rise, which isn’t a problem. The issue is the balance between increasing wealth vs increasing price. The goal is to purely punish people that would be willing to put up the Legend for 500g just because he can, and not for legitimate sellers that place it between (at the moment) 250-350g.

TJL

To be honest, with the new karma updates (dungeon, daily, monthly), it is no longer an issue at all. Just one month of jugs (20+30) with karma +70% will yield you 380k. Add in dungeon karma as well as your regular grind while farming for gold, hitting 1 million will be a simple matter now.

As someone working on, and getting close to, Bolt, I feel that the prohibitive factor is now purely gold. This is compounded by the fact, at least in my case, by the cost of gift of “legendary name” going upwards due to lodestone price hike. I’m getting killed by the price of charged lodestones right now, and I will probably end up paying 20-30g more for gift of bolt than the precursor itself.

Gift of Fortune and Gift of mastery are basically non-factors at the moment. Gift of legendary and the precursor will cost you roughly 85-90% of total cost. If market stablizes for lodestone around 1-1.5g, to be honest the pricing for precursor around 200-300g seems about right. Again, I believe the issue can be alleviated greatly with a time limit on item listed, which would prevent artificial inflation and put the price determinant of those items back in buyer’s hands.

TJL

Account bound on equipment is one method in which to limit artificial inflation. It would make the player buying to use the item, not to flip it. To have this implemented though, preview through TP would first need to be necessary in my opinion.

Alternatively (and one I would prefer), you can just add a time limit for an item on sell. Currently (as far as I can tell), the item can be listed indefinitely. If a time limit (say, 3 days per listing) is implemented, then artificial inflation can be mitigated since you would just be throwing away money if you are not pricing it at where buyers would be willing to buy. This would put the power back in buyer’s hands. Problem with this implementation is we don’t know if this would cause a good or bad chain reaction to non-precursor equipment/material. Various buy conditions can be added on, but the general idea is the same.

I personally think that it’s more important to make changes to how TP functions than to make any changes to how precursors are obtained.

TJL

SBI opened Temple around 2AM CST last night. As of this morning the temple is closed. I did not check whether it has bugged out.

Regarding karma jugs, monthly gives you 10 of those (50k karma in total).

Don’t miss the monthly.

Thanks for posting that information. Very helpful.

Thank you very much.

I personally like the glimmerfang and moonshank.

Is it ok to transmute a different set of attributes onto a precursor, or add a different sigil to it, without rendering it unusable in legendary creation?

Thank you,
TJL

Kenshi’s or claw of desert is worth checking out based on your description.

Molten (CoF) may be the closest to a large barrel that’s sawed off.

I don’t think p/d is a good primary weapon set. It’s good for switching into, but you really need something else as primary. Auto attack and vuln are both too slow and 3 is more for maneuver (albeit the damage is respectable). Unless you are liberal with CnD and dancing dagger (2-3 targets), your damage output is not that great.

The change has very minimal effects in PvE as it still bypasses defiant.

It however has a major impact in either sPvP or WvW.

I play a venom thief on s/p and p/d. I would be ok with the change to make it breakable but I do not agree with the duration change. I think instead of adding .5 seconds (1.5X2 traited), they would have been better off adding one hit to basilisk. This would make 1X2 untraited (which is fine in my opinion since it’s breakable) and 1X3 traited (same as 1.5X2 in duration). This way, the thief can play mind-games with their target by holding back attacks and waiting on stun breakers, instead of the enemy just stun break the moment they see a stun effect. This is especially important for untraited since now basilisk is not worth an elite slot unless traited. You can do the same thing with devourer in 80% of the situations, and cover for the other 20% with a pistol offhand.

I also hope this would be revisited.

TJL