Question about why thief was built the way it was

How come thieves have acrobatics with sustain and shadow arts?

Also for ranked whats better acrobatics or shadow arts? i mean pain response says i gain regen when hit below health and all condis removed on first trait.Hard to catch would be useful if stunned dazed or knocked back such as vs rangers who have knockbacks and several other classes and assasins reward heals me for using initiative.

You will need to specify what Weapon set and which, if any, Elite would you like to talk about when regarding Acro or SA.

Well here is the thing:I know some take acrobatics, but i take SA because i don'tlike the idea of being hit in spvp c onstantly to regain health and get rid of the condis.it has some nice stuff but i always go for SA because i can leave go into stealth get health back.

I am sword/dagger because someone advised it for escaping, and they are 100% right abou it.Being able to escape with S/D is important, because sometimes things go bad in rated where you have a ton of casters and need to down them.

Shadow arts can be (ab)used offensively and defensively. You can use it to escape but also to sneak onto your opponent and stealth attack them. Stealth us hard countered by any source of reveal though and is only good with the element of surprise or good mobility to flee.Acrobatics is mainly about active defenses, chaining evades and getting benefits out of that. It also has pure condi hate on it as passive bonusses because you cannot evade condis away. If you would get a condi load before you can react this line will help you out with that. And mind you that evasion has no counter except weakness which is cleansable.

Thats basically the differences between the two. One is versatile and hard counterable and the other is mainly defensive and not hard counterable.

But shouldn't the stealth area offer better options for stealth? i was talking to someone and they agreed there are stuff that could be improved there, like more duration than lets say 2 sec, even if its from 1 ability.I know people hate stealth but its kinda needed.It wouldn't be a problem if there were more classes with reveal in it.

@Axl.8924 said:But shouldn't the stealth area offer better options for stealth? i was talking to someone and they agreed there are stuff that could be improved there, like more duration than lets say 2 sec, even if its from 1 ability.I know people hate stealth but its kinda needed.It wouldn't be a problem if there were more classes with reveal in it.

You can already permastealth, so why even more duration? Makes no sense. Also more of everything (stealth&reveals) seems like total powercreep. We have enough powercreep already, we don't need more.

SA line has plenty of reasons to take over Acro , albeit it better suited to specific weapon sets and which you choose to take will affect playstyle.

As example if in Staff , I see little reason for SA as there little opportunity to use it. If I want a sustan line Acro much better suited. If in P/d it the opposite. What I find with thief vs some other classes is that where those classes sustain line generally suits all weapons , the two that thief has favor one weapon set over another.

In essence there three major sources of defense for the thief before traitlines taken. They are teleports, dodges and stealth. SA tends to favor stealth , Acro tends to favor dodges and I think it good design. (you can certainly be one class or another and select one line or the other , I speak in general terms)

Shadow Arts is, more then often, not recommended on SPvP due to the way the game mode interacts with stealthed players.Plus there is always the factor that someone can Reveal you and you are unable to make use of the whole SA line.

In general, Thieves bring or the Acrobatics or the Daredevil line for survival. As both of then offers good choices in the survival kit departament.Deadeyes being a DPS class, more than often do not bring much on the survival side because they need to stack as many offensive multipliers they can. So they use stealth as "emergency" measure.

Btw, if you wonder why stealth is bad on SPvP, you can add up:

• There are less space to run and players have less movement speed on SPvP. This combination make stealth more predicable and reduce its value as defensive tool.
• You can't cap objectives on stealth, but different from Invulnerability you still get damaged. In the strategic side of SPvP that means that it's extremely easy to decap or even full cap a point that's protected by a Thief. As every time he enters stealth you are capping the point for your team. The fact that you get damage also means that you usually have to combine stealth with dodges and teleport's so its more wasted cool-downs for the same effect.
• It's not as easy to disengage and reset on SPvP as it is on WvW. You would need to run all the way to another point and still would take around 10 seconds for the reset to kick. In conquest which is a game about time you simple don't have that luxury. A Thief that used stealth to disengage and reset is a player that abandoned his team for 10~15 seconds. (albeit, they can win that time decapping something somewhere else, but that doesn't make stealth good)

Once upon a time, shadow arts was the toughness tree and acrobatics the vitality tree. Thieves had to make a choice - do I want damage or do I want those juicy traits? Maxing a tree like acrobatics made you loose a huge amount of power, crit or crit dmg. You couldnt have it all.

Now its kitten that kitten get all the damage and we're still seeing strong traits.

@"SoulSin.5682" said:Shadow Arts is, more then often, not recommended on SPvP due to the way the game mode interacts with stealthed players.Plus there is always the factor that someone can Reveal you and you are unable to make use of the whole SA line.

In general, Thieves bring or the Acrobatics or the Daredevil line for survival. As both of then offers good choices in the survival kit departament.Deadeyes being a DPS class, more than often do not bring much on the survival side because they need to stack as many offensive multipliers they can. So they use stealth as "emergency" measure.

Btw, if you wonder why stealth is bad on SPvP, you can add up:

• There are less space to run and players have less movement speed on SPvP. This combination make stealth more predicable and reduce its value as defensive tool.
• You can't cap objectives on stealth, but different from Invulnerability you still get damaged. In the strategic side of SPvP that means that it's extremely easy to decap or even full cap a point that's protected by a Thief. As every time he enters stealth you are capping the point for your team. The fact that you get damage also means that you usually have to combine stealth with dodges and teleport's so its more wasted cool-downs for the same effect.
• It's not as easy to disengage and reset on SPvP as it is on WvW. You would need to run all the way to another point and still would take around 10 seconds for the reset to kick. In conquest which is a game about time you simple don't have that luxury. A Thief that used stealth to disengage and reset is a player that abandoned his team for 10~15 seconds. (albeit, they can win that time decapping something somewhere else, but that doesn't make stealth good)

SA grants extra movement speed in stealth which is great for repositioning.

You don’t use the stealth duration increase for perma stealth as much as increases in short duration stealth to make your burst less predictable.

Stealth on steal or mark is a good opener for a fight without burning an additional utility.

SA has solid boon strip and regen/cleanse options. Or you can be immune to crits in stealth which effectively turns stealth into super protection.

It’s not a bad choice if you aren’t trying to defend a point with a thief. Which would be a bad idea as a long term strategy.

@Axl.8924 said:But shouldn't the stealth area offer better options for stealth? i was talking to someone and they agreed there are stuff that could be improved there, like more duration than lets say 2 sec, even if its from 1 ability.I know people hate stealth but its kinda needed.It wouldn't be a problem if there were more classes with reveal in it.

As other already said SA can already provide permastealth. Sure you need certain combinations of skills and combos but you can get very long stealth uptimes.For roaming its fairly good , because if no one knows that you are there they cannot act against you.For PvP its not as good because they can tell if someone is near/the space is to small to make your stealth unpredictable.One shot or get shot is the slogan for SA in PvP.

@Axl.8924 said:Also for ranked whats better acrobatics or shadow arts?

In PvP, Acrobatics is preferred due to a single trait, Endless Stamina. All the party buff from Trickery, for example, is enhanced by Endless Stamina's Concentration boost. SA simply do not have the ability to enhance the party.

However, I believe the usefulness of Acrobatics vs Shadow Arts in PvP is overblown. Yes, it enhances buffs, but almost every other profession can do the same or even better (see Herald). In addition, the way the Thief is played in PvP where it roams solo most of the time defeats the party-buff reasoning.

So removing Endless Stamina from the equation we are left with a very sad state of the Acrobatics trait line. Which has been the case ever since it was cannibalized in favor of the Daredevil. The third dodge was Acrobatics' main appeal (see historic Feline Grace).

Shadow Art has a lot of untapped potentials. I do admit that Shadow Arts is not the trait I would take in PvP at the game's launch, but the recent changes to the trait line (e.g. Hidden Thief +50% movement) and the addition of the new Elite Spec Deadeye makes SA a very strong candidate.

By itself, Deadeye is made for Shadow Arts and they work well together. However we also need to consider the fact that other professions also have Elite Specs that simply overshadows the Thief. Even MetaBattle had de-ranked D/P Daredevil out of meta builds. This shows that the +1 and decap role of the Thief is no longer necessary. Now, it's all about high spike damage and tankiness (Hi, Holosmith). Deadeye can surely deal a lot of damage, but it's lacking in tankiness.

In conclusion, whether you choose Shadow Arts or Acrobatics, it doesn't really matter if there are other professions can do whatever job the Thief can do better. This is not the problem of the Thief profession, this is the problem on how they designed the PvP match and how they set up the rules (e.g. no Stealth capping). The whole game mode is stacked against the Thief.

Shadow arts give you nothing besides sustain. As a result it is useless in spvp because sustain of yourself is useless if you are not contesting the point. Besides deadeye can make use of it because it can provide more stealth for stealth attacks and more surprised shots.Acro is better for S/D because it can recharge steal and has a great synergy with it. However in other weapon set, Daredevil really outshines acro.