Is it just me or does does Shadow arts feel way better than other trait lines?

[jpsssss.7530]

I know some people say SA is busted and it carries bad thieves (although it does carry my ape brain), on paper it feels like it out does every other traitline save trickery and the elite soecs. Does anyone else feel this way and should some power on SA be dispersed to other specializations? (PvP/WvW environment for context)

[Infusion.7149]

It's more that Instant Reflexes and Hard to Catch were both hit to 300s in Acro.The other way to sustain would be Invigorating Precision but that requires hitting (ideally under Fury). It's easier done in WvW than in PVP which is why you don't see staff run as often there compared to say sword or dagger (not counting condi gimmicks).

[ASP.8093]

All thief trait lines are good except Acro.

[RedCobra.7693]

Pve? no its not

Pvp? Its only used since you can't survive against the current damage in this meta otherwise i'd still take deadly arts

WvW? perma stealth ftw :D although it doesnt help near a sentry

[UNOwen.7132]

I mean, its moreso that CS always sucked, Acrobatics now sucks because it was nerfed into oblivion, and DA is just nerfed to be slightly worse than SA. Buff those 3 traitlines, and you might see thief swapping off of SA.

[saerni.2584]

It’s not overpowered. It’s just different play styles.

The source of thief permastealth is often through the use of combos off smoke fields. SA doesn’t increase those (although it can help with initiative gain in stealth so that is one advantage).

DA is a huge bonus to damage. I don’t think Executioner or Potent Poison or Deadly Ambition need to be buffed and those are the reasons people take the traitline.

Acro is mainly bad because It has a direct parallel to Daredevil. Daredevil has all the good bonuses: an extra endurance bar, extra endurance on steal, making your dodge into a combo finisher (great for stealth play) or a removal of hindering conditions. You even get a better cleanse than the two choices in Acro that scales better with more enemies attacking you. If Anet really wanted to make Acro better they would swap traits with Acro so Acro had some comparative advantages.

CS is great but overshadowed by Trickery. CS provides a lot of the support traits that a thief might want (lots of Fury and either bonus damage or healing, extra effects with signets). It’s just that Trickery can provide Fury and Vigor (more dodges means less to heal) and also has more initiative and initiative generation.

A lot of what defensive lines you choose is very play style dependent.

• Daredevil is ultimate for people playing evade. Acro is either redundant or is used as a third support traitline for ultimate evades with Trickery. Most people run DD, Tr, X with the X either being a damage line or SA if they want more stealth play.
• SA is primarily used for Stealth heavier play styles that can’t rely as much on combo fields for stealth. As I said, this can also be used with Daredevil for a Hybrid stealth-evade style. Or you can use this with Core and DE to play more pure stealth focused builds.
• If you want to play with yolo higher damage you can drop your additional support lines (SA, Trickery, or Acro). This lets you do a lot of damage (it’s actually quite a lot) but unless you manage to pull off the kills you need you will be very vulnerable to counter pressure. Core gets to take a support line where the elite specs are limited to whatever support the elite spec offers (more evades in DD, more stealth in DE). These builds are also gimmicky in that if you don’t build Trickery into your build (still possible in Core) you lose the benefit of the lower cooldown Swipe/Mark which boosts your initiative gain rate from Trickery.

[kash.9213]

I don't think it's better but Shadow Arts traits give a boost to my deliberate actions from stealth, to blinds, to stealth attacks without having to spend much time in stealth. It's nice that it all seems to roll out at appropriate times if I'm careful with pacing and when I allow sigils or whatever go off, or staggered out instead of one big burst.

[Doug.4930]

Every line has its advantages/weakness. You don't want to take SA when fighting dragon hunters/bursty LB rangers/Holosmiths running tools etc. It all depends on the matchup. Alternatively you do want SA when fighting other SA thieves/condi bunkers etc.

The problem with shadow arts is that It can be abused to make for annoying game play. It can allow players to sit in stealth for 10 or more seconds at a time. What would be a healthy change in my view would be to disable the sneak attack after being stealthed for a certain amount of time.

D/P in my opinion is the biggest abuser of SA. Unlike dagger dagger SA, you can infinitely stack stealth without engaging the enemy whilst running D/P. Unlike Rifle DE SA, D/P backstab has absolutely no tell. You don't get revealed or have time to react like you do with deaths judgement, you don't need to land a CnD like you do with D/D etc. You the player just need to predict when the skill is coming through luck and intuition. You can burn through blocks/evades/teleports/invulns etc and the D/P thief can just stack stealth and wait. Once your CD's are down from guessing when an attack with no warning was coming the thief pops out and backstabs you.

A lot of thieves hate SA for the above reasons, and also because D/P SA pretty much counters every sword/evade thief build there is. And most sword thieves have pretty big egos and don't like to lose (#notallswordthieves). By disabling stealth attacks after sitting in stealth for too long it would ensure that non stealth classes don't need to burn through all their CD's waiting for an attack that has no warning. They would be aware that the thief has been in stealth for 5-6 (TBA) seconds and they can now just stand still and wait knowing that backstab is locked without the risk of getting hit for 10k.

Then again you've got marked in WvW which pretty much invalidates the whole trait line so quid pro quo.

[kash.9213]

@Doug.4930 said:Every line has its advantages/weakness. You don't want to take SA when fighting dragon hunters/bursty LB rangers/Holosmiths running tools etc. It all depends on the matchup. Alternatively you do want SA when fighting other SA thieves/condi bunkers etc.

The problem with shadow arts is that It can be abused to make for annoying game play. It can allow players to sit in stealth for 10 or more seconds at a time. What would be a healthy change in my view would be to disable the sneak attack after being stealthed for a certain amount of time.

D/P in my opinion is the biggest abuser of SA. Unlike dagger dagger SA, you can infinitely stack stealth without engaging the enemy whilst running D/P. Unlike Rifle DE SA, D/P backstab has absolutely no tell. You don't get revealed or have time to react like you do with deaths judgement, you don't need to land a CnD like you do with D/D etc. You the player just need to predict when the skill is coming through luck and intuition. You can burn through blocks/evades/teleports/invulns etc and the D/P thief can just stack stealth and wait. Once your CD's are down from guessing when an attack with no warning was coming the thief pops out and backstabs you.

A lot of thieves hate SA for the above reasons, and also because D/P SA pretty much counters every sword/evade thief build there is. And most sword thieves have pretty big egos and don't like to lose (#notallswordthieves). By disabling stealth attacks after sitting in stealth for too long it would ensure that non stealth classes don't need to burn through all their CD's waiting for an attack that has no warning. They would be aware that the thief has been in stealth for 5-6 (TBA) seconds and they can now just stand still and wait knowing that backstab is locked without the risk of getting hit for 10k.

Then again you've got marked in WvW which pretty much invalidates the whole trait line so quid pro quo.

I've been suggesting that for like two years or something and aside from one or two other thieves in the WvW forum no one seems to be interested in that. It seems like it would be one the lesser intrusive solutions to both players builds and traitlines.

[DeceiverX.8361]

DA is only good for condi or ImprovCS is kinda bad and has been since Valk HK stopped being valuable with marauder phasing it out, and with its relative damage increases sucking.Acro was carried by a few OP traits and passives which were wildly nerfed.Tr is mandatory on most builds.

SA now provides boon denial, damage reduction, initiative regeneration, extended stealth, in-stealth massive mobility, and a plethora of other options to sub in and out depending on the build which can outweigh the benefits of most of the other traitlines.

It's always been on the cusp of being strong in past metas even without the rework it endured, but the other lines are just so underwhelming and it works so well with thief's primary play kits that it's mostly an obvious choice.

[Yasai.3549]

SA just too strong because yu get free stealth on Heal skill which turns that cute 20s Withdraw into the most busted Defensive panic skill.

Shiro's RS has nothing on a SA Withdraw.

Fought so many bad thieves being carried by that single Heal skill because it Evades, Heals, Removes Condi, Stealths and gives even more benefits from being in Stealth if they traited the meta traits.

[Turk.5460]

SA is there to hold your hand, unfortunately. I only have one build with it and that's the current flavor of the month SA D/P build. Its so ridiculously OP in a 1v1 setting, that if I don't even engage enemy thieves I see running it. I only have it as a template to swap to it as to combat the other thieves using it. But a SA D/P thief vs a SA D/P thief is probably the most boring fight you'll find; the outcome is absolutely not determined by skill, that's for sure.

Fixing SA to change it from less of a crutch should start by replacing stealth on heal, stealth on steal, and shadow siphoning.

[kash.9213]

@Yasai.3549 said:SA just too strong because yu get free stealth on Heal skill which turns that cute 20s Withdraw into the most busted Defensive panic skill.

Shiro's RS has nothing on a SA Withdraw.

Fought so many bad thieves being carried by that single Heal skill because it Evades, Heals, Removes Condi, Stealths and gives even more benefits from being in Stealth if they traited the meta traits.

That stealth on heal is the one problem for me in WvW but I really like the synergy and options from the rest of SA. I've gone back to mostly DA-Tr-DE again in WvW and have been trying to control my reveal with Silent Scope because I like that precision but that's getting kind of annoying also. If someone is super serious about stealth though it's a little much for all of the heals but Withdraw especially, although, I'd rather it just not stealth at all before they decide to mess with something else like it's cooldown.

[Shiyo.3578]

Shadow arts, like every other defensive trait line, has no purpose or use in PvE and is zero fun to fight in WvW and PvP.

All of them need to be redesigned and repurposed.

[jpsssss.7530]

@Shiyo.3578 said:Shadow arts, like every other defensive trait line, has no purpose or use in PvE and is zero fun to fight in WvW and PvP.

All of them need to be redesigned and repurposed.

I actually disagree. The healing trait line for herald is pretty bad and warrior's defense line is not overloaded...

[Shiyo.3578]

@jpsssss.7530 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:Shadow arts, like every other defensive trait line, has no purpose or use in PvE and is zero fun to fight in WvW and PvP.

All of them need to be redesigned and repurposed.

I actually disagree. The healing trait line for herald is pretty bad and warrior's defense line is not overloaded...

If they're bad it's just because that's how bad all defense trait lines should be. They need to redesign them all because they either are absurdly overpowered(shadow arts) or utterly useless. They cannot be balanced or fun. Tanks do not exist in PvE, we do NOT need tank trait lines.

[saerni.2584]

Sustain is fine: thief can’t do damage or thief can’t sustain. The complaints always add up to thief must be terrible or it’s OP.

SA is fine and, really, do you want SA to be another damage bonus traitline? Sure? We can live with bonuses to stealth attacks instead.

How about 20% bonus to stealth attack damage? That sounds thematically appropriate.

[Shiyo.3578]

SA should be about supporting and buffing teammates, not making you a perma stealth god that spams AOE blinds for 5 1/4s when you steal onto someone(sick joke btw).

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I've never really liked any of the traitlines. After many years of play I feel like Thief has the weakest traitlines of all classes, and just because one is decent doesn't save the others; that's why they're often played as a one-trick pony, because one trick is all the pony has.

When it comes to shiny toys, it feels like Thief doesn't even get a present for Wintersday.

[pureskullz.7536]

I've played the game for quite a few years and Shadow Arts has always been on top for thief vs thief combat. So don't let anyone tell you that it's because so and so trait line got nerfed. The other thing is there is no best trait line it depends on the purpose you intend to carry out. And your weapons along if you plan on doing Deadeye, daredevil, or even core. It also varies based on play style but that being said shadow arts thief has a huge flaw in it vs other classes and that's the reveal mechanics from other classes and if you do WvW the marked condi puts you on a 3 sec stealth max limiting your ability to fight as well. And it also reduces the usable terrain if you're trying to avoid sentries and watch towers. SPvP the map is small enough most reveals will hit you so that's another issue. If you like using it tho, feel free to keep on rocking it there's nothing wrong with a good bit of stealth. But in the future if you ever get curious every trait line is still viable if you synchronize it with the right weapons and traits. Oh, I almost forgot in PvE it's not as used but some builds will use it for Solo sustain or abusing boss mechanics occasionally.

[pureskullz.7536]

@saerni.2584 said:Sustain is fine: thief can’t do damage or thief can’t sustain. The complaints always add up to thief must be terrible or it’s OP.

SA is fine and, really, do you want SA to be another damage bonus traitline? Sure? We can live with bonuses to stealth attacks instead.

How about 20% bonus to stealth attack damage? That sounds thematically appropriate.

Even the odds, and Sundering shade you're welcome, also executioner if you're feeling spicy.

[pureskullz.7536]

@doug.4930

Every line has its advantages/weakness. You don't want to take SA when fighting dragon hunters/bursty LB rangers/Holosmiths running tools etc. It all depends on the matchup. Alternatively you do want SA when fighting other SA thieves/condi bunkers etc.

The problem with shadow arts is that It can be abused to make for annoying game play. It can allow players to sit in stealth for 10 or more seconds at a time. What would be a healthy change in my view would be to disable the sneak attack after being stealthed for a certain amount of time.

D/P in my opinion is the biggest abuser of SA. Unlike dagger dagger SA, you can infinitely stack stealth without engaging the enemy whilst running D/P. Unlike Rifle DE SA, D/P backstab has absolutely no tell. You don't get revealed or have time to react like you do with deaths judgement, you don't need to land a CnD like you do with D/D etc. You the player just need to predict when the skill is coming through luck and intuition. You can burn through blocks/evades/teleports/invulns etc and the D/P thief can just stack stealth and wait. Once your CD's are down from guessing when an attack with no warning was coming the thief pops out and backstabs you.

A lot of thieves hate SA for the above reasons, and also because D/P SA pretty much counters every sword/evade thief build there is. And most sword thieves have pretty big egos and don't like to lose (#notallswordthieves). By disabling stealth attacks after sitting in stealth for too long it would ensure that non stealth classes don't need to burn through all their CD's waiting for an attack that has no warning. They would be aware that the thief has been in stealth for 5-6 (TBA) seconds and they can now just stand still and wait knowing that backstab is locked without the risk of getting hit for 10k.

Then again you've got marked in WvW which pretty much invalidates the whole trait line so quid pro quo.

Gotta agree with this all I will say that condi does pose a big threat to SA thieves as well.