Full acrobatic trait line suggestion (Don't Stop, 300s, and more)

[BobbyT.7192]

So the forum is slowing down now, most things that needed to be said about spectre has been said, and people are bored talking about the latest updates. Thought I would put out some ideas on here that I've been thinking about with the acrobatic line.

So the goal here is to try and make it stand out against Daredevil, fix up the 300s, and to put in some Qol improvements for this line to make it more attractive. I figure turning Acrobatics into a line that supports boons a lot more would help with that.

Adept, Minor

Spoiler

- Parkour Training: Dodging grants swiftness (6s), gaining swiftness restores 5 endurance.

Major

Spoiler

- Instant Reflexes: Gain super speed(3s) on weapon swap during combat.

- Steady Handling: Off hand attacks causes weakness (2s), and gives you protection (2s) when they strike a target.

- Evasive Retribution: When you evade an attack, throw a dagger (0.75 and a projectile) at the source of that attack (max 5 targets), gaining 1 might (5s) for every dagger that hits.

 

Master Minor:

Spoiler

- Feline grace: Increase evasion duration on weapon skills by 1/4s, Gain vigor(5s) when you evade an attack (1s Icd)

Major:

Spoiler

- Guarded Initiative: Remove 1 condition when striking a foe while your health is below the threshold (75%).  Gain resolution (3s) when struck below the health threshold. (75%). 10s ICD

- Swindler's Equilibrium: While wielding a sword, evading will recharge the CD of steal. Increase the damage of sword and spear skills. (No change)

- Hard to catch: Stealing is now a stun break, gain 2 initiative when you break stun, (10s CD on initiative gain)

 

Grandmaster Minor:

Spoiler

- Endless Stamina: Improve the effect of vigor by 50% and gain extra 240 concentration. (No change)

Major:

Spoiler

- Assassin’s Reward: Gain 128 (0.1) health per initiative spent. Increase outgoing damage by 10% when your health is above the threshold (75%)

- Don't Stop: Grant 2s resistance and 2s regen when you grant swiftness. Your acrobatic minor traits now affect nearby allies (5 allies, 400 radius) while in combat.

- Upper hand: Gain initiative (3) and quickness (4s) while evading.  (10s icd)

 

Don't stop and minor traits, On paper these traits aren't bad, but Unhindered Combatant makes Don't Stop and Expeditious Dodger irrelevant. Imo endless stamina is probably the best trait of the bunch, but I don't think acro has a lot of boons to support this. My idea for Don't Stop is to turn the whole acro line into an ally support line. Improving boon duration and vigor strength would be very attractive for a party. Resistance could be strong though.

Parkour training ( renamed Expeditious Dodger because I think this sounds better) pretty much makes your dodges slightly cheaper, but not just limited to swiftness from dodge, and will combo with Don't Stop (only swiftness that you apply will count tho).

I like pain response, but I think some trait compression here is not a bad thing. I always felt that it and guarded initiative were close enough in concept that they could combine somehow. Guarded initiative can cure any condition while resolution can help soften up the damaging ones in the meantime. I took out Vigorous Recovery because i figure vigor from feline grace was enough access. This left room for 2 need adept traits, something defensive and offensive.  Evasive Retribution is pretty much power base Lotus Training (DrD condition dodge),

I've mention Hard to Catch here before, a stun break on steal in a defensive trait line just makes sense to me,  initiative gain is just a bonus. 

Tired of typing, there's more I could explain, but I'm just going to throw this idea out there, go easy on them. 😬

Edit: these numbers are for pve. Probably not going to come up with pvp number for them. Just imagine CDs increasing or damage/duration deceasing when pvp is concerned. 🤔

Edited January 3, 2022 by BobbyT.7192

[Zacchary.6183]

Some good ideas, especially the hard to catch change. Was coming up with something for acro that kept the mobility but worked around venoms called Sabotage, thanks to @AikijinX.6258 and others for bringing the concept up, but you beat me to the punch with the traitline. :P

[Dagger.2035]

To be honest I don’t like some of these changes as a core S/D thief.  I run Acrobatics without Daredevil so I need the Don’t Stop trait to remain as is.  Pain Response is also needed as a Adept trait.  Without it I would be forced to give up Swindler’s Equilibrium.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Dagger.2035

[Infusion.7149]

I'm just curious about " Evasive Retribution"
Wouldn't that be something you don't want on s/d or d/p? You need stealth attack so if you dodge by accident you drop stealth.

Hard to catch: Stealing is now a stun break could work.

I have a few other things to note, such as "steady handling" providing protection. It doesn't seem thematic, as the traitline is abased around evasiveness and dodging. The change from expeditious dodger to "parkour training" also seems like pure powercreep, don't forget you can use it on all thief elite specs. The same goes for your change for Upper hand , one initiative going to three is a huge difference even if you have a 10s ICD instead of 2s and if you have 10s ICD,  4s quickness is rather high for something so easy to trigger.

Your idea for Don't Stop should probably be 300 radius which is the range of one dodge. However, I don't feel Don't Stop is horrible even if Unhindered Combatant exists.

Keep in mind Endless stamina is 60 concentration in WVW /PVP.

Feels like there should be a payoff for preparations , there isn't a trait for that skill type.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Sindrener.1592]

You would make staff sidenoder broken again with this beyond belief. No thank you

[BobbyT.7192]

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I'm just curious about " Evasive Retribution"
Wouldn't that be something you don't want on s/d or d/p? You need stealth attack so if you dodge by accident you drop stealth.

Hard to catch: Stealing is now a stun break could work.

I have a few other things to note, such as "steady handling" providing protection. It doesn't seem thematic, as the traitline is abased around evasiveness and dodging. The change from expeditious dodger to "parkour training" also seems like pure powercreep, don't forget you can use it on all thief elite specs. The same goes for your change for Upper hand , one initiative going to three is a huge difference even if you have a 10s ICD instead of 2s and if you have 10s ICD,  4s quickness is rather high for something so easy to trigger.

Your idea for Don't Stop should probably be 300 radius which is the range of one dodge. However, I don't feel Don't Stop is horrible even if Unhindered Combatant exists.

Keep in mind Endless stamina is 60 concentration in WVW /PVP.

Feels like there should be a payoff for preparations , there isn't a trait for that skill type.

I did consider stealth with Evasive Retribution, but I'm not worried as its something DrD with lotus training had to deal with too. If your going to have it in your build, then you more likely going to compensate for it alittle for it and adjust your playstyle.

Powercreep only really applies if you believe something is at a standard lvl compared to everything else. Many look at Acrobatics and definitely see room for improvement, its okay to add a few things in to bring it in line with whats out there.

Upper hand is currently 1 initiative and 6s regen on evade, with a 2 CD (5cd in pvp). All I've done was up the CD to 10s because of the quickness, then I increase the initiative you gain to compensate. For the pvp option (I'm counting wvw when i say pvp) you can drop the quickness to 2s and initiative to 2. Honesty I could have put in pvp numbers, but after a wall of text, I got lazy. Plus I went with 400 radius with Don't Stop, because alot of stat base support traits are set to 600. Like spotter on Ranger. Which was the idea for that trait to begin with.

With steady handling thematically, I viewed it as some one that is ambidextrous enough to weld the offhand in a defensive way ( shield your self with a pistol Gun-fu style 😎 ). Okay the reason is somewhat weak, but the main idea was to provide a defensive option in adept line. Since my focus was to make acrobatic a more boon focus line, I knew I wanted a boon there.

Preparation feels like it should go into deadly arts or trickery more than acrobatic. But they don't have a lot of room to play with. One of the problems with thief traits is that they have a alot of little mechanics to play around with (initiative, steal, stealth, stealth attacks, dual attack, etc) trying to squeeze all that in is alittle daunting. Would makes sense a few aspect get left behind, like shortbow even.

7 hours ago, Dagger.2035 said:

To be honest I don’t like some of these changes as a core S/D thief.  I run Acrobatics without Daredevil so I need the Don’t Stop trait to remain as is.  Pain Response is also needed as a Adept trait.  Without it I would be forced to give up Swindler’s Equilibrium.

Personally I like pain response, I just didn't feel like acrobatic needed 2 targeted condition removal traits. Kinda felt weird to me. While not a 300 trait, 16s CD to 60s in pvp is pretty steep for what it does (my opinion on alot of pvp versions tbh).  I could swap guarded initiative with steady handling, but GI would be pretty stong there, and I didn’t want master line to have 2 weapon based traited.

Don't stop is a good trait don't get me wrong. Its just a poor man version (technically thats true 😞 ) with what you get in DrD.

2 hours ago, bluri.2653 said:

You would make staff sidenoder broken again with this beyond belief. No thank you

Numbers can be played around with for pvp, I'm not worried about that. I know I'm disrupting the "purity of purpose" for the thief though, its a shame really.

Edited December 15, 2021 by BobbyT.7192

[AikijinX.6258]

Feline grace Minor, and Upper hand GM is all you'd need

and icing on the cake would be to add your iteration of instant reflexes (Double Staff Meta)

Would have no need for swiftness with instant reflexes (Assuming you're always in combat) (In PvP mode this would be power crept up the kahoot)

 

EDIT:  I would pretty much keep the condition removal traits that the acro line already has, as well as the stun break traits but reorganize them a bit. And Add 1 extra trait to each tier.

- Move (instant reflexes) to a minor Adept trait (leaving a trait slot available for adept tier)

- Get rid of feline’s grace minor Master trait, making (Hard to catch) the new minor Master trait (leaving a trait slot available for the bottom 3rd Master tier slot) 

- Get rid of endless stamina minor Grandmaster, making (Don’t stop) the new minor GM trait and removing entirely (assassins reward), since it’s absolutely useless because the heal coefficient/value sucks and is still bugged. (This will open up and make available a new grandmaster trait: For instance a potential one could be like: Gain Superspeed every time you successfully evade an attack(for 2s with a 3s ICD)

Edited December 15, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[Infusion.7149]

@BobbyT.7192
Okay, at least now we know you didn't include competitive splits

Re: preparations:
Shadow Arts has the venoms trait (Leeching Venoms)
Critical Strikes has the signet trait (Signets of Power)
Trickery has the trick trait (Trickster) obviously
So any preparation trait would need to be in Deadly Arts if not in Acro.

[BobbyT.7192]

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

@BobbyT.7192
Okay, at least now we know you didn't include competitive splits

Re: preparations:
Shadow Arts has the venoms trait (Leeching Venoms)
Critical Strikes has the signet trait (Signets of Power)
Trickery has the trick trait (Trickster) obviously
So any preparation trait would need to be in Deadly Arts if not in Acro.

Shadow arts also covers Deception skills, so doubling up is not off the table.

[Stx.4857]

I'm looking at the spec lines from an open world pve perspective.

 

I want to use acrobatics so bad.  I main sword/Pistol just because I always have and Pistol whip is still my favorite ability.  

 

My issue with acrobatics is, why would I ever use it over daredevil, trickery, or critical strikes?   I want to use it really bad.  But outside access to regeneration, what does it give you that trickery doesn't give you more of?   

 

I was messing around with an acro/trickery/daredevil build, which was super fun because acrobatics does have some synergy with those trees by healing you from initiative spent, increasing your endurance regen for more bounds, reducing swipes cooldown by half for more endurance regen and all the other good stuff from trickery.  But even with all that good stuff, it's simply worse than the huge damage critical strikes gives you plus the amazing healing from grandmaster crit trait.

[Infusion.7149]

Well for openworld staff is more or less exclusively better for power DPS unless you need heavy CC.
Acro used to be primarily taken for the traits (Instant Reflexes, Hard to Catch) that gave you reassurance that you will live through single hit high damage without running Invigorating Precision for health gain for non-lethal high damage.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

4 hours ago, Stx.4857 said:

I'm looking at the spec lines from an open world pve perspective.

 

I want to use acrobatics so bad.  I main sword/Pistol just because I always have and Pistol whip is still my favorite ability.  

 

My issue with acrobatics is, why would I ever use it over daredevil, trickery, or critical strikes?   I want to use it really bad.  But outside access to regeneration, what does it give you that trickery doesn't give you more of?   

 

I was messing around with an acro/trickery/daredevil build, which was super fun because acrobatics does have some synergy with those trees by healing you from initiative spent, increasing your endurance regen for more bounds, reducing swipes cooldown by half for more endurance regen and all the other good stuff from trickery.  But even with all that good stuff, it's simply worse than the huge damage critical strikes gives you plus the amazing healing from grandmaster crit trait.

It used to be much better for S/P when Pulmonary Impact was OP, as then you didn't take acro for the damage but for the defensive options. Swindler's equilibrium also used to flat out recharge your steal instead of reducing the CD by 25%, allowing you to get much more boonrip and control in a short space of time. But PI hitting like a wet noodle combined with a fair nerf to Swindler's Equilibrium plus heavy nerfs to the cooldowns of Instant Reflexes (40s->300s) and Pain Response (16/18s-> 60s) made critical strikes so much better by comparison. 

[kash.9213]

5 hours ago, Stx.4857 said:

I'm looking at the spec lines from an open world pve perspective.

 

I want to use acrobatics so bad.  I main sword/Pistol just because I always have and Pistol whip is still my favorite ability.  

 

My issue with acrobatics is, why would I ever use it over daredevil, trickery, or critical strikes?   I want to use it really bad.  But outside access to regeneration, what does it give you that trickery doesn't give you more of?   

 

I was messing around with an acro/trickery/daredevil build, which was super fun because acrobatics does have some synergy with those trees by healing you from initiative spent, increasing your endurance regen for more bounds, reducing swipes cooldown by half for more endurance regen and all the other good stuff from trickery.  But even with all that good stuff, it's simply worse than the huge damage critical strikes gives you plus the amazing healing from grandmaster crit trait.

I take acro on my main template since I'm already taking sword/dagger even if the generic Power on Swindlers trait isn't horrible on it's own, and it feels like a good passive trait line to roll up another trait line with like D A or Crit with. I mostly take it for Instant Reflexes, Endless Stamina, and Don't stop. 

It's hard to explain, Daredevil is obviously better, but movement and attacks feel more like a long thud than a sharp crack compared to Acro+sword/Trick/Whatever. You can just ignore that because I have no good explanation for it, except maybe that Drd promotes a sweeping power forward style where I'm pushing through or dragging other players more than Acro which I would likely have already bounced out with to immediately counter hard.

I like the suggestions in OP for Instant Reflexes, Hard to Catch, Don't Stop, and Upper Hand. Apart from currently being a passive waste basket of long cooldown traits, much of it's strength just isn't deliberate enough.

Edited December 30, 2021 by kash.9213

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 12/15/2021 at 3:41 AM, bluri.2653 said:

You would make staff sidenoder broken again with this beyond belief. No thank you

My thoughts exactly, and a lot of this is just from FG alone by removing staff punish frames.  There's WAY too much negation and overbearing amounts of evasion and boon support on this kit when combined with Daredevil.

[BobbyT.7192]

Please keep in mind these numbers are based on pve, just imagine CDs increasing or damage/duration deceasing when pvp is concerned.

[nopoet.2960]

I like these and the the arco line does need to be looked at.  I've always wanted them to do something like warrior Brave Stride for thieves but instead of stability on movement skills we get like Dark Aura on movement and shadowstep skills.  Would be in line with condition reduction and just about all our weapons have at least on movement or shadowstep.  Something like that would be really cool as a minor grandmaster trait but I wouldn't necessarily want to loose endless stamina

[ShadowInTheVoid.9183]

I love Acrobatics for the Swiftness, enhancement of Vigor and general survivability but it's hurt by not having anything built in to give decent reliable Vigor and lack of any damage increase.

 

Feline Grace change to Vigor on roll 6 seconds (to match Expeditious Dodger) would be a great change.

 

As for damage, maybe swap out something like Upper Hand for +5% strike damage when under the effects of swiftness, +5% condition damage while under the affects of Vigor.
Or both on Condi as there is plenty of strike damage boosts already.

 

You could even throw in a +5% while Revealed .

This which would match up really well with changing up stealth to offer longer stealth at the cost upping Revealed to 6-9seconds. This would help make stealth attacks more of a commitment and get rid of the more annoying aspects of stealth overuse.

[Yasai.3549]

On 12/15/2021 at 9:50 AM, BobbyT.7192 said:

So the forum is slowing down now, most things that needed to be said about spectre has been said, and people are bored talking about the latest updates. Thought I would put out some ideas on here that I've been thinking about with the acrobatic line.

So the goal here is to try and make it stand out against Daredevil, fix up the 300s, and to put in some Qol improvements for this line to make it more attractive. I figure turning Acrobatics into a line that supports boons a lot more would help with that.

Adept, Minor

  Hide contents

- Parkour Training: Dodging grants swiftness (6s), gaining swiftness restores 5 endurance.

Major

  Hide contents

- Instant Reflexes: Gain super speed(3s) on weapon swap during combat.

- Steady Handling: Off hand attacks causes weakness (2s), and gives you protection (2s) when they strike a target.

- Evasive Retribution: When you evade an attack, throw a dagger (0.75 and a projectile) at the source of that attack (max 5 targets), gaining 1 might (5s) for every dagger that hits.

 

Master Minor:

  Hide contents

- Feline grace: Increase evasion duration on weapon skills by 1/4s, Gain vigor(5s) when you evade an attack (1s Icd)

Major:

  Reveal hidden contents

- Guarded Initiative: Remove 1 condition when striking a foe while your health is below the threshold (75%).  Gain resolution (3s) when struck below the health threshold. (75%). 10s ICD

- Swindler's Equilibrium: While wielding a sword, evading will recharge the CD of steal. Increase the damage of sword and spear skills. (No change)

- Hard to catch: Stealing is now a stun break, gain 2 initiative when you break stun, (10s CD on initiative gain)

 

Grandmaster Minor:

  Hide contents

- Endless Stamina: Improve the effect of vigor by 50% and gain extra 240 concentration. (No change)

Major:

  Hide contents

- Assassin’s Reward: Gain 128 (0.1) health per initiative spent. Increase outgoing damage by 10% when your health is above the threshold (75%)

- Don't Stop: Grant 2s resistance and 2s regen when you grant swiftness. Your acrobatic minor traits now affect nearby allies (5 allies, 400 radius) while in combat.

- Upper hand: Gain initiative (3) and quickness (4s) while evading.  (10s icd)

 

Don't stop and minor traits, On paper these traits aren't bad, but Unhindered Combatant makes Don't Stop and Expeditious Dodger irrelevant. Imo endless stamina is probably the best trait of the bunch, but I don't think acro has a lot of boons to support this. My idea for Don't Stop is to turn the whole acro line into an ally support line. Improving boon duration and vigor strength would be very attractive for a party. Resistance could be strong though.

Parkour training ( renamed Expeditious Dodger because I think this sounds better) pretty much makes your dodges slightly cheaper, but not just limited to swiftness from dodge, and will combo with Don't Stop (only swiftness that you apply will count tho).

I like pain response, but I think some trait compression here is not a bad thing. I always felt that it and guarded initiative were close enough in concept that they could combine somehow. Guarded initiative can cure any condition while resolution can help soften up the damaging ones in the meantime. I took out Vigorous Recovery because i figure vigor from feline grace was enough access. This left room for 2 need adept traits, something defensive and offensive.  Evasive Retribution is pretty much power base Lotus Training (DrD condition dodge),

I've mention Hard to Catch here before, a stun break on steal in a defensive trait line just makes sense to me,  initiative gain is just a bonus. 

Tired of typing, there's more I could explain, but I'm just going to throw this idea out there, go easy on them. 😬

Edit: these numbers are for pve. Probably not going to come up with pvp number for them. Just imagine CDs increasing or damage/duration deceasing when pvp is concerned. 🤔

240 Concentration is too much. 120 is just fine. 

That Don't Stop is too broken.
You're telling me you want to give everyone: 
240 Concentration.

Increased Vigor and Vigor on evade

And 5 Endurance on gaining Swiftness?

Now imagine if you have like some Support FB or Herald pulsing Swiftness on everyone. Lmao wtf. 

[BobbyT.7192]

15 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

240 Concentration is too much. 120 is just fine. 

That Don't Stop is too broken.
You're telling me you want to give everyone: 
240 Concentration.

Increased Vigor and Vigor on evade

And 5 Endurance on gaining Swiftness?

Now imagine if you have like some Support FB or Herald pulsing Swiftness on everyone. Lmao wtf. 

It's currently 240 now and 60 in pvp. That's only 16%/4% boon duration. Not crazy number, and with dont stop, a boon duration buff might be welcome in some raids groups.

You can limit the endurance on swiftness to only swiftness thieves can apply if your are so afraid of heralds.

Everything else is not too crazy compared to anything other class can do,  plus you can always adjust numbers to account for pvp.

Edited January 6, 2022 by BobbyT.7192

[Stx.4857]

Acro already has great utility / survival boosts. I feel like it doesn't get taken because it lacks in initiative regen and damage.  There is never a reason to take acro over critical strike or trickery for power, or over trickery or deadly arts for condi.  

 

Trickery might just be a little too good.  It also gives you more Boons than acro.  

[supa suop.8026]

Quote

Upper hand: Gain initiative (3) and quickness (4s) while evading.  (10s icd)

 Personally I don't think we need quickness for this trait. I would just change it to "swiftness has increased effectiveness" and just bump up the effectiveness by 100% (33%-->66%).

 

If I had it my way I would Increase it by 200%(33%-->99%) so it would be on par with superspeed, but  I don't see that happening. It would be a nightmare in PvP/WvW 🤣

[lblazer.5381]

2 hours ago, supa suop.8026 said:

 Personally I don't think we need quickness for this trait. I would just change it to "swiftness has increased effectiveness" and just bump up the effectiveness by 100% (33%-->66%).

 

If I had it my way I would Increase it by 200%(33%-->99%) so it would be on par with superspeed, but  I don't see that happening. It would be a nightmare in PvP/WvW 🤣

and thief users still want to buff a trait line
there are certain build for thiefs that are able to tank in wvw  they run in front of the zerg taking on aoe bombardment for long period of time not getting hit, even if you get to hit it its very sturdy and if its hp does go down it can just stealth and reset

[BobbyT.7192]

On 1/7/2022 at 12:21 AM, Stx.4857 said:

Acro already has great utility / survival boosts. I feel like it doesn't get taken because it lacks in initiative regen and damage.  There is never a reason to take acro over critical strike or trickery for power, or over trickery or deadly arts for condi.  

 

Trickery might just be a little too good.  It also gives you more Boons than acro.  

Lack of good initiative traits is a problem in most trait line.

Trickery does provide alot of good utility, even after prepardness. If pig start to fly and the +3 ini becomes baseline, trickery would still be part of plenty of builds.

Acro does have ini on evade trait, but since its a GM, does it get use that often? I'm starting to think would it be better if ini traits become minor traits in some fashion. Scaled down appropriately, and each line get one.

Edited January 14, 2022 by BobbyT.7192

[Stx.4857]

10 minutes ago, BobbyT.7192 said:

Lack of good initiative traits is a problem in most trait line.

Trickery does provide alot of good utility, even after prepardness. If pig start to fly and the +3 ini becomes baseline, trickery would still be part of plenty of builds.

Acro does have ini on evade trait, but since its a GM, does it get use that often? I'm starting to think would it be better if ini traits become minor traits in some fashion. Scaled down appropriately, and each line get one.

 

I completely missed that GM trait that grants 1 initiative on evades.  I think I automatically assumed that I would be taking the heal per initiative spent trait, but I am currently testing a sword build with crits/acro/DD.  Losing trickery just feels bad, I can't explain it.  75% endurance regen on vigor is nice though.  I'm using pack runes to make up for the loss of fury on steal.

[BobbyT.7192]

37 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

 

I completely missed that GM trait that grants 1 initiative on evades.  I think I automatically assumed that I would be taking the heal per initiative spent trait, but I am currently testing a sword build with crits/acro/DD.  Losing trickery just feels bad, I can't explain it.  75% endurance regen on vigor is nice though.  I'm using pack runes to make up for the loss of fury on steal.

Initiative on evade is definitely harder to achieve than ini on steal, plus loosing the +3 max initiative really slows you down.

The regen is not that great, and in all honesty the trait doesn't feel like  a GM. Considering that deadeye's renewing gaze is a minor trait, grants regen and recharges your steal/mark on kill (harder to do than evading admittedly).