Thief - 07/15/2019 Upcoming Balance Notes!!

[DemonSeed.3528]

If you lay 1knoodle or pantsfall (any preparation actually) and get on a mount before it arms, it will never manifest even though you get the activation icon when you dismount.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

@babazhook.6805 said:

@"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:Oh man, where to begin?

• Traps (Skill Category): This category has been replaced by a new skill category: Preparations.
  • Preparations will function in a similar fashion to trap abilities, but they will not fire unless the thief chooses to trigger them. Each preparation will have a radius of 240 and will produce a variety of results, including the introduction of a portal-type utility that can ferry allies to a location.Prepare Pitfall: This new skill will mark your current area with controlling magic, readying the location to crush enemies when released.

If they are going to add a new category, they should just do so an leave traps as is.

• The problem with "prepare" and "activate" is it's two steps. With all the clumsiness in the Thief skill bar of late, we don't need another one.
• Traps can be recast to a new location especially on the move and Thief is always on the move. Preparation will not replace the tactical use of traps.
• Preparation looks good, but it's slow, methodical, and strategical. Traps is fast, mobile, and tactical.

There are many good suggestions here about traps and I especially like the one that turns a triggered trap in to an AoE effect. Replacing traps with preparation was never one of them.

I sure hope that this is temporary that trap will return, but I'll be honest, I can't work with Preparations. It's too slow and it wouldn't sync well with the Thief rhythm. But hey, at least DE, will love it, eh?

I have reservations myself but will not make observations until i try it. Here is a problem I had with old traps. Clones and minions and NPC guards would trip them when I wanted them tripped by the player. Also in group fights rather then having the first player to enter a trap set it off , I might want to wait until two or more are there such as setting one off IF i managed to plant one where an enemy downed and another 1 or two come to rez. Another advantage is I might see an advatage in setting one off when an enemy is low on health , if in the area I have the prep made and I trigger it along with an attack. As example I have one placed prior , finish a Pistol whip and trigger the trap as I port away. Clunky is worrisome but I inittialy found the old refined traps clunky after the add of the arm time when i wanted to prepare trap prior, steal to the target and see the trap procced on target. It took a little practice but I got this to woork fine after a while.

I'm sure there is a way they can code it so that we can choose whether to set it auto or manual activation (think like ctrl+right click for AA's) - it just all depends whether they would consider this but that kind of toggle would be nice and solve both those issues.

Ok, I tried this and it has its uses and traps has its uses. The main problem I have with this is the 3 seconds arming time that I find to be too long. 1s - 1.5s arming time would suffice given that Prep has long cooldown. As it is now, it requires that you somehow need to keep your target in the area while you wait for the arming time. This is good against non-moving targets. At some point, other players will know that there is a Prep in the area. 3s is just way too long for arming time and as I have predicted it's clunky.

However, I do like the fact that Prep is a large AoE, but its usefulness is diminished by the long cooldown and arming time. Fighting clueless mobs is the only good use for Prep. But fighting smart adapting player make Prep useless.

My suggestion, make the arming time 1.5s and cooldown 20s. This way we don't need traits to lower their cooldown. Of course, I'm only talking about the Pitfall and Needles, the other Prep I don't really care since I won't be using them -- not enough available skill slot for "just in case" skills.

[gemuesiker.8340]

Hey, with this changes you have killed my experimental PVP and WvW Thief build based on Rune of the Trapper.It was ascended and therefore very expensive and is totally worthless now :-(

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@gemuesiker.8340 said:Hey, with this changes you have killed my experimental PVP and WvW Thief build based on Rune of the Trapper.It was ascended and therefore very expensive and is totally worthless now :-(

Nice necro :P As much as I liked and used traps personally, they weren't amazingly good all round, and I'd wager there's more people relieved that traps are gone because they hated them than there are people like us that used and enjoyed them.